Storm Forged

by Patrick Dugan

  “Hit the bag.”

  I shrugged and hit the bag. The only damage done was to my hand. “Well, that didn’t do…” I started to say when I was blown across the room by what felt like a freight train full of elephants. I hit the wall, bounced off, and landed flat on my back. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, leaving a trail of blood on my hand in its wake.

  “Sorry about that.” Marcel’s voice was a bit wobbly. He held a silver cylinder in his hand, which he quickly placed back in the bag.

  I stood up slowly. “What the hell did you do?” I asked as I got to my feet.

  “It is part of the test. I didn’t want you to go all Boomshakalaka on me. Could you hit the bag, instead of me?”

  Why bother? The bag hadn’t moved the first time; it wasn’t going to move the second. Marcel moved out of my way quickly as I stalked over. I pulled back and punched the bag as hard as I could. The bag didn’t move. Neither did my arm, in a way.

  “Wow! You punched through the bag,” Marcel said, clapping excitedly. He kind of looked like a cheerleader. A geeky, nerd cheerleader. Still taller than me and his afro bounced.

  “What happened?” I said as I removed my arm, unleashing a torrent of sand from the hole as the bag emptied on to the floor.

  “One more experiment, and then I’ll explain.” He removed an orange industrial extension cord out of the bag. One of the plugs was cut off to expose a couple bare wires. He handed me the stripped end and ran to plug it in. “Hold one wire in each hand, and then I’ll plug it in.”

  “Are you crazy? You’ll electrocute me.”

  “Trust me, Bruh.”

  I sighed. I must be as dumb as Brunner always called me. I held the white wire in my right hand, black in the left.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded. This was going to hurt. Marcel plugged the cord in, and my body convulsed as the jolt of electricity hit me. Flashes of the night by the river flew through my mind. Thoughts of Powell standing over me threatening my mom. The physical pain drifted far away, but the emotions hit home hard.

  The burning sensation ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Marcel ran over to check on me. I could feel the energy inside me, crackling along my arms, across my back, the power coursed through me.

  “Shoot the bottle.” Marcel could barely contain his excitement.

  I knew what would happen. It was the same as when I burned Clint and Ryder to ash. I pointed, releasing the pent-up energy as a solid bolt of lightning. The bottle didn’t even explode, it just ceased to exist in that moment. Nothing reached the floor.

  “Whoa!” Marcel yelled. I hadn’t realized I still pumped lightning into the charred concrete wall. I snapped my hand shut, and the flow snapped off like I had flipped a switch. I could still feel the energy swirling through my body, so I poked Marcel. The quick pop scared him half to death. I laughed.

  “I guess I had that coming,” he said with a smirk, though I did notice he rubbed his side. “I found an encrypted file on a server locked down so tight no one should have ever been able to get into it, but I did. It listed out abilities and the signs for how to detect them. Most were obvious, such as Wendi’s speed, but one looked odd.”

  “Odd how?”

  “Latent Gifted’s powers present under differing circumstances, but most needed a trigger to transubstantiate.” Marcel launched into instructor mode. “According to the archives, many Gifted didn’t present their Gifts until a significant physical or emotional trauma. In your case, Powell touching the electrified jumper cables invoked your manifestation.”

  I thought about it for a minute. Marcel was right; Powell had triggered my Gift with the jumper cables. I didn’t create the energy; instead, I used what was there. “So I act as a lightning rod, passing out the current I absorb?”

  Marcel thought for a minute. “Not quite. Your absorption coefficient is off the charts. The amplification magnification has to be a factor of ten plus.”

  Which made a lot of sense. Jon beat the crap out of me, but when I hit him, it threw him into the air. I couldn’t normally punch very hard. “So it isn’t just electricity and being hit.”

  “Kinetic energy.”

  “Sorry, Professor. So, I can only absorb electricity and kinetic energy?”

  “Well…” Marcel paused, stroking his chin while he thought. He really needed a beard, or better yet, a goatee to pull it off, but wispy chin hairs were all he could manage. “No, it should be any form of energy you’re exposed to.”

  “So I can absorb lasers?” I had pictures of protecting innocents while the lasers bounced harmlessly off my chest. “I’d be the coolest.”

  “Painful is the word I would use.” Marcel grabbed my hands and flipped them over. My palms bore blisters where the wires touched my skin. “Your body still takes damage when you absorb the energy. You can absorb the laser blast, but your clothes can’t, and it will hurt, even though it appears the damage isn’t permanent.”

  He was right. As we watched, the welts shrank. In an hour or so, they probably wouldn’t be there at all. “So it is painful for a while. I can live with that.”

  The look on Marcel’s face worried me. He was a terrible liar and even worse at hiding his feelings.

  “Okay.” I gave my best impression of Mom’s lawyer’s voice. “Out with it. What aren’t you telling me?”

  He hesitated, probably wondering if he should tell me or not. “Bruh, from what I saw in the files, there is a big downside to your Gift.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “If you absorb more than your Gift can handle, it will kill you.” Marcel’s tone held an edge of worry. I could see he struggled with helping me and protecting me from myself. “The problem is no one knows how much is too much.”

  Dying was a definitely a downside, but now I could rescue my dad from The Gauntlet.

  27

  Armed with the knowledge my Gift wasn’t blocked or useless, I did what any normal teenager would do.

  I climbed back into bed.

  Nobody is at their best at five-thirty a.m., especially me. After being bruised and electrocuted, sleep was my best friend.

  I rolled out of bed at the crack of two, jumped in the shower, and got dressed. By the time I finished, my stomach’s protests were loud and clear to anyone nearby. I left my room and headed into the kitchen area for breakfast. I poured Frosted Flakes and milk into a mixing bowl, grabbed what looked like a clean spoon, and flopped on the couch to join the pow-wow already in session.

  Waxenby, his face red with anger, pushed a finger at Jose who stood, arms folded across the table from him. Marcel and Abby sat on the other couch eyes moving back and forth watching the verbal tennis match. Jon perched on the back of the chair, his feet on the cushion. A definite no-no with my mom.

  “What’s up, guys?” I said around a heaping mouthful of cereal. One thing about using your Gifts, it leaves you as hungry as working for three days without eating.

  Wendi slid over to sit with me, an eyebrow raised at the amount of cereal in the huge metal bowl. She nudged me with her elbow as I shrugged at her.

  Waxenby turned to face me. “Tommy, did you suggest rescuing Cyclone Ranger from The Block?” All eyes locked on me. My spoon dripped milk as it stopped dead halfway to my mouth.

  “Um…” I am a sparkling conversationalist to be sure. “Yes?”

  “And why would you suggest such a hare-brained scheme?”

  I paused. I couldn’t come right out and say because he’s my dad. Waxenby would probably be okay, but Jose wasn’t a safe bet. It’s hard to trust someone that murdered twelve guards, and from the information Marcel found, that was the least of his crimes. “They are going to kill him. If we could break him free, Gifted all over the world would have hope.”

  “No one has ever been freed from The Block.” Waxenby pushed his thinning hair back into place from where it had slid to cover part of his forehead. “Believe me, it has been tried many times. Plus, they moved a lot of Gifted to The Blo
ck in response to your breaking out.”

  “Jose broke out,” I said spraying the floor with milk and soggy Frosted Flakes as I pointed to Jose with my spoon. “If he can get out, we can get back in the same way.”

  Jose nodded. “It would be tough, but it is doable.”

  Waxenby’s eyes almost fell out of his head. “You and I have a much different definition of doable! You killed a lot of people breaking out.”

  “They didn’t all die, Ollie.” Jose’s slow drawl floated across the room. “Hombre, they would never expect it. The kids are listed as dead, and with seven of us, we could get in, free the Cyclone Ranger, and maybe a lot more in the process. It would be a blow against the Protectorate they couldn’t cover up.”

  Waxenby shook his head. “You know full well these kids were only listed as dead for the public. A car accident is hardly an original excuse. The Reclaimers have been searching the area for them. Not only would we be fighting through the guards and defenses of The Block, but there is a platoon of soldiers on maneuvers and another of engineers working on the levees.”

  Marcel cleared his throat. “We don’t need to get him from The Block.”

  “And how do you figure that, hombre?”

  “Cyclone Ranger will fight twice more at The Block’s facilities, but then they are moving him to Las Vegas to fight the last three weeks in the Megadrome.”

  “And that helps us how?” Waxenby said, glaring at Marcel. “The Megadrome is just as bad as The Block, and there are always troops on hand for R&R.”

  Marcel, a sly smile on his face, said, “Who mentioned anything about attacking the Megadrome? We ambush the convoy as they move him.”

  Jose nodded as he sat down in the empty recliner. “That could work, but we would need more people.”

  That puzzled me. “Why more people?”

  “We’ll need a power team to take out the leads. Wendi speeds in to blow the hatches, and the rest of us take out the guards and get the Ranger.”

  Jon leaned forward. “Where do we get more Gifted?”

  Jose smiled. “Washington D.C.” The Latino accent had left again, replaced by a slightly nasal tone. “The Underground will want in on this. We can grab four or five high-powered guys who will gladly take down the lead cars and the followers. It will be a huge win for them.”

  “I’m in.” I had to rescue Dad at any cost.

  “You can’t be serious?” Waxenby said. “Tommy, I told your mother I would watch out for you. Getting killed trying to rescue a political prisoner isn’t my idea of protection.”

  I stood up looking him in the eye. “She’ll understand.”

  Honestly, I didn’t know if she would.

  The rest of the day flew by as we packed up the Midville Driving School van for the trip to D.C. According to Waxenby, after the attack on D.C., the Protectorate had erected a barrier around the city rather than deal with the millions of dead bodies inhabiting the city. Rumors of malformed people and mutated rats roaming the city had kept all but the most hardcore looters out. The ones who went in were never heard from again. D.C. belonged to the dead.

  Jose explained most of the destroyed cities around the world held cells of Gifted who had braved the horrendous conditions of the destroyed cities rather than surrender or be killed by the Reclaimers. The cell there consisted of fifty or so people, many of them Gifted. Jose was convinced they would help free Cyclone Ranger.

  The next argument started over who was going. Waxenby wanted Jose to go and come back. Jose wanted everyone because if we ran into trouble, we would have more firepower. In the end, we decided Wendi, Marcel, and Waxenby would head to K’vothe, an Omega Squad safe house. Waxenby kept the location secret in case we were caught. Marcel walked us through how to contact him so he could get us to a rendezvous. Jon, Abby, Jose, and I were making the trip to D.C. to recruit help. We had two and a half weeks to make the trip and launch our attack.

  I was placing the last of my clothes in my backpack when I heard a tap. I turned to find Wendi standing in the doorway, biting her lower lip. It had become a nervous habit with her while we’d been in Dresden.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  She stepped in and closed the door. “I want to talk to you before you go.” She took a seat on the corner of the bed, one leg crossed under her other leg. “Do you think you could go to K’vothe with Marcel and me?”

  I sat down next to her, reached for her hand tentatively, giving her time to pull away, then, when it didn’t move, took her hand in mine. My stomach flipped as I raised my eyes to hers. “You know I have to go with Jose to get more help.”

  She frowned. “This is way more important to you than freeing a prisoner. What is really going on?”

  I made the decision in an instant. “Cyclone Ranger is my dad.”

  She gasped in surprise.

  “He left Mom and me when I was a baby to protect us from the Reclaimers. I can’t sit here safe and let him die without trying to save him.”

  “I knew there had to be more to it.” The grip on my hand tightened like she was worried I would slip away.

  “You can’t tell anyone,” I said, wishing I hadn’t as soon as it left my lips.

  She let go of my hand. Her hurt shifted to anger. “Do you think I’m so stupid that I would betray your trust? Jon would never go along with the plan if he knew. I wish I understood why he was so against us.”

  It made me feel good for her to confirm what I had been concerned about Jon, but I wished I hadn’t insulted her to do it. “I’m sorry, I haven’t told anyone, even Marcel.”

  She grabbed my hand again. “Apology accepted. You should tell Marcel, but now isn’t the time. So, you will be careful while you are gone?”

  “Of course I will.” It was nice to know she cared. I had wondered if Brunner had destroyed the Wendi I had fallen in love with, if she could ever care for me the same way I cared for her. Hearing the worry in her voice, the shifting of her weight back and forth as she spoke, told me things could get to a good place for us.

  I noticed her lip quivered. “Promise me you won’t do anything dangerous. I couldn’t stand if anything happened to you.”

  I pulled her close. I could smell the lavender scent, the touch of her hair caressing my neck as we embraced. She slid back, and I kissed her softly, the warmth of her lips taking my breath away. “I love you,” I said and froze. I felt it, but it wasn’t the right time. It was too soon. I am such an idiot.

  “I love you, too.” She kissed me back.

  The moment shattered as Jon pounded on the door, both of us jumping off the bed, guilty looks on our faces. We both laughed nervously as I grabbed my bag and headed toward the car.

  I guess that worked out after all.

  We parked at a deserted warehouse on the waterfront. Two days of driving, sleeping in run-down motels, and a non-stop diet of fast food had left us all tired and irritable.

  We climbed out of the van, stretching and examining our bleak surroundings. A wharf stuck out into the choppy, dirty water as a cold October wind blew in off the Chesapeake Bay. The defunct naval base sat dormant in the distance.

  Trash swirled around the parking lot as we stood there. Old and faded graffiti covered the walls of the warehouse. Not many people lived this close to D.C. anymore, as the drive through Norfolk had confirmed. The main part of town continued to be active, but since the Protectorate closed all the naval bases, the waterfront stood deserted.

  “Y’all wait here while I signal the Underground fo’ to send us a Squid,” Jose drawled as he strolled toward the warehouse.

  “What’s up with the sudden southern accent?” Jon asked with a head bob toward Jose’s retreating back.

  “I don’t know, but he sounded like he was from Boston the other day,” I said. “It’s almost as if he’s got multiple personalities.”

  Jon scoffed, sneering at me. “Imagine that, something you don’t know. I’ll never get what Wendi sees in a waste case like you.”

  “You n
eed to stow it, Jon.” Abby shoved Jon, driving him out of my face. “We are on the same team. It’s getting old.”

  Jon’s hand settled on the black hilt of the knife now constantly tied to his leg, his black trench pushed back so it was out of the way. If he claimed to be Wyatt Earp and threw on a cowboy hat, it wouldn’t surprise me from the way he held himself.

  “You touch me again, and you’ll get back a stump,” he said softly.

  Abby growled and tensed to move. I grabbed her hand as she pulled at the dampening watch’s clasp.

  “Enough. Everyone is tired and sick of each other. We need to remember why we are here.”

  Jon rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. The great plan to rescue Cyclone Ranger. You have the hots for the guy or what, Tommy?”

  I sighed. Things would never change with Jon. Not for the first time, I wondered why he hadn’t gone with Wendi rather than hound me. My guess is he couldn’t stand to be left with the safe group. The other thought was he just loved to annoy me. Could be both for all I knew.

  “Ignore him, Tommy,” Abby said. She walked to the end of the wharf. Trash floated in the dirty water, adding an enticing smell to the stench of oil and decay.

  A loud hiss erupted from near the dock, spraying the foul water all over us. Wonderful, as if I didn’t smell bad enough after two days in a car. A jet-black hull of steel rose up, supported by thin metal legs. It looked like a walker from War of the Worlds.

  “What the hell is that thing?” I asked.

  “That would be our ride,” Jose said behind us. “Welcome to the Squid.”

  28

  A panel slid to the side, revealing a hatchway. Metal clanged as a ramp shot out to provide an entrance into the ship. Ship stretched the meaning of the word, it appeared more like a cross between a missile silo and an erector set.

  Jose clapped me on the back and swore under his breath before wiping his hand on his jeans. “Oh well. Hombres, welcome to the Squid. This is how the Underground gets in and out of the city. The Reclaimers mined the bay, but the Squid can avoid them, so we can come and go.”