by R J Johnson
“More than I care to admit,” Alex said finally.
She turned away, but not fast enough to hide another tear. Christina reached out and held her friend as Alex watched from the opposite side of the Hypertruck.
Suddenly, the truck veered off the interstate. Scott leaned forward, checking their status and location.
“We’re here,” he announced. He glanced at Alex and then over to Emily.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked Alex.
Emily turned and answered for him, “I go in after him, and I hopefully convince him to come with us to take on Kline.”
“…You want to bring this psycho in on our fight with Kline?” Alex sputtered incredulously. “After what he did?”
Emily whirled back towards him, her fiery eyes flashing. “Don’t you dare judge Max for what he did.”
“He nearly fried you like an egg, Emily!” Alex shouted back at her. “What the hell do you think he’s going to do this time? Welcome us in for milk and cookies?”
“I could go for some chocolate chip cookies,” Scott piped up.
“Can it!” they both yelled at Scott, then turned back to glare at each other. He huffed and waved his hands towards her.
“Fine, do what you want, but you stay in my sightline in case I need to heal you,” Alex said sullenly.
She ignored him. Alex decided to take her silence as assent.
The Hypertruck slowed as they approached the address Emily had given them, and Alex sat up to get a better look at the neighborhood.
They were only a block away from the ocean. The houses showed the wear and tear of living by the beach. As they exited the Hypertruck, Alex withdrew his pistol, checking the chamber for a round.
Emily looked at the gun disapprovingly, then smoothed out the sundress she had bought from the hotel gift shop, stepping out into the waning sunlight. She stood, illuminated by the sunset, looking at her fiancé’s house.
“Give me two minutes,” Emily commanded. “Then I’ll call you in or run out. Either way, you’ll know what you need to do next.”
Alex nodded. He thought of reminding her to stay in his sightline, but decided he didn’t need to. It was unlikely she wanted a repeat of the burns she experienced in downtown San Diego.
Emily approached the house cautiously and knocked on the door, softly at first, then with force.
A shirtless Collier opened the door.
“EMMY!” he screamed with a broad smile. “You’re alive!”
He picked her up and spun her around in front of Alex and company. She patted his chest, chilling his enthusiasm.
“Put me down, Max.”
“They said someone took you,” he said, stepping back and holding her by her arms. Alex spotted a twinge in his arms as he said that, and wondered how far Max would have gone to find her.
“What happened?” he went on. “Are you all right…?” He trailed off as he finally noticed Alex, Scott and Christina standing next to the Hypertruck. His eyes narrowed. “Who are they?”
“Max, we saw what you did downtown,” Emily said, ignoring his question. “What the hell are you doing?”
Collier looked at Alex up and down. Alex withstood the examination, and he watched the man’s face change slowly from suspicion, to confusion, to finally rage once he seemed to realize who was standing in front of him.
“Who is this?” he asked again, staring directly at Alex.
“That’s the wrong question,” Emily said, bringing his attention back to her. “What was that… show you put on earlier?”
He looked at Alex and back inside in his living room.
“I’ll show you.” He grabbed Emily’s hand and dragged her inside. Alex, Scott and Christina followed up the walk – until he slammed the door in their faces.
“I don’t think he likes you,” Scott said.
Alex grumbled and moved to the nearest window. At the very least, he’d need to keep his eyes on Emily to keep her safe.
Collier escorted Emily into the living room and sat her down in front of a huge pile of money. She looked at it, apparently unimpressed.
“This is the third time I’ve asked,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “What have you done?”
Collier looked at his fiancée as if confused why she would even ask.
“I’m building a future for us…” he stammered. “I had to do it this way after the expedition went pear shaped and…”
“And you thought I’d ignore the fact you killed over a dozen police officers?” Emily asked incredulously. “What sort of person do you think I am?”
Collier’s face fell, and he looked morosely over the stack of hundred-dollar bills sitting across from them. “I thought…”
“You thought wrong!” Emily said sharply. “Where did you get the stone?”
Alex saw Collier’s face flinch. “How do you know about the stone?”
Emily turned just enough to look at Alex and signaled him with her eyes. “Trust me, I’ve learned a helluva lot about them over the last twenty-four hours…more than I ever want to, to be honest.”
She turned back to him, her face earnest and pleading. “Max, I’ve seen what these stones can do to someone, and I’m afraid it’s happening to you.”
Collier jerked his hand away from his fiancée, his face twisting into rage.
“What’s happening to me?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve never killed anyone in your life, and suddenly, you’re cold enough to roast half the police force?” she cried out. “This isn’t you, it’s the stone. It’s taken control of you and turned you into a monster!”
“What if I am?” he exploded, standing and pacing back and forth in the room.
Alex got ready.
“My whole life...” Collier began, summoning a pair of flames. Emily flinched back, and Alex perched to leap through the window if he had to, but Collier simply rolled the flames in his palms, then started juggling them as he went on pacing. “…My whole life, I’ve been told to sit back, wait for my turn, work hard. And when I do? What happens?” The fireball erupted within his hands, swelling to the size of a basketball before Collier squeezed it back down.
“They take it all away from me!” he hissed, staring at the flames in his hands.
Emily stood her ground and watched him rant.
“And then, when I find something truly special, they tell me I’m insane!” He shook his head. “Porter, the others, they called me a murderer!”
“You are a murderer!” Emily cried out, grasping his face, stopping his rant. “Killing someone is immoral!”
“Moral, immoral…” he snorted, shoving her away and shaking his head. “Those are lines, imaginary lines they draw to keep people like me and you from achieving greatness!” Collier’s voice boomed in the small room. “Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter what I do now, good, bad, indifferent. It’s all the same. I control my destiny, and I will finally get the respect I deserve!”
Alex tensed up, ready to spring, but Emily waved him off through the window.
“No! I refuse to believe this!” she said. “The Maxwell Collier I know would never kill anyone, and he’d know better than anyone that I’ve never needed or wanted money to get respect in my life.”
“Don’t you see?” Collier asked, whirling back towards his fiancée. He discarded the fireballs, allowing the flames to melt back into his body. Then he rushed forward and grasped her by the shoulders, hoping to help her understand. “I’ve done it all for you.”
There it is, Alex thought.
“You’re the only reason why I’m even alive at this point. I’ve lived, struggled and killed for you and our future together! With this money, with my stone, we can do anything! We can have everything we ever wanted!”
Emily stood and backed away from her fiancé in wide-eyed horror. “No, you can’t, I won’t…”
“You will!” Collier roared, drawing himself up to his full height. He looked down on her like a god about to pass jud
gment. “Unless you’re just like the rest, who don’t understand. Who will do nothing but stand in my way.”
He summoned the pair of fireballs and began to juggle them again. His dead black eyes glared down in contempt.
“No!” she begged. “Max, listen. I know the man I fell in love with is still in there.”
“I’m still that man!” he roared at her. “But I’m better now. Stronger than he was. Stronger than you! Oh, you’re smart, Emily, but this?” He tapped his chest. “This is something more than you know. This is evolution.”
Alex saw something in Collier’s eyes. A change, as if a glint of hope or sympathy had been there for a moment, then burned away the next.
With a wild grin, Collier threw a fireball straight at Emily.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kline looked around at the simple house and shook his head. How one of the best-paid men at his mine could live in such squalor was beyond him. He examined each of the photos, most of which were family portraits.
Amongst the smiling profiles of Ododa’s wife and children were various photos of his worksite and staff. They were all action shots, most of them candid, showing everyone enjoying their work or relaxing at picnics. Kline took one of the photos and glanced at it, making his decision.
He stepped out of the two-bedroom house and joined Geoffrey Tate, who was still standing guard outside in the waning heat of the day.
“Gather all the people from the mining company together,” Kline ordered.
Tate nodded and began to type on Mbasi’s iPad, hoping to find a manifest of workers.
“They all live within the next few blocks,” Tate said. “We can have them summoned and back to work within the hour.”
“Good,” Kline said, nodding.
“What are you planning?” Tate asked.
Kline tapped the photo he had taken from Ododa’s house and handed it to Tate.
“The man cares for people — which is the flaw we shall exploit.”
Tate looked at the photo, imagined what his boss had in mind, and shuddered.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Before the massive fireball had even touched Emily, the window by the door crashed into shards as an enormous rhinoceros bulled its way in, shredding the entrance like cheap tissue paper.
Despite his massive size, the rhino bounded across the living room in time to intercept the fireball, taking the full brunt of the flames and heat on its leathery grey skin. The rhino roared in pain and swerved, its horn impaling the couch.
Collier drew back in shock, but quickly recovered and threw two more fireballs, both aimed at the beast.
The rhino roared again as the fire pelted its hide. Then it turned and stared down Collier, who had clearly started having second thoughts.
Collier stumbled backwards through the living room and into the kitchen, the rhino bounding after him. As the beast closed in, Collier threw another pair of fireballs, both hitting it square in the face. The rhino turned its head and roared in pain, but didn’t stop. Collier hopped up on the counter, avoiding the beast’s charge, then hurled flames at random, setting half the house ablaze.
Just as the rhino came close enough to bite him, Collier tumbled through the house’s narrow back door. The rhino lunged after him, then lurched to a halt, caught in the door’s splintering frame. Allowing himself a chuckle, Collier hopped to his feet and ran off, jumping the nearest fence.
Trapped and surrounded by flames, Alex tried to shift back into human form, but for some reason, he couldn’t. He cursed to himself, wishing that Siobhan had been able to show him how to use the shapeshifting stone before she’d died.
Thinking of Siobhan relaxed his mind for a moment. Despite the flames, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he saw his four rhino limbs shifting back into arms and legs.
Struggling to get up, he saw that the house around him was engulfed in flames and filling up with smoke.
“Emily!” he shouted, coughing as he did so. His healing stone, hanging from his necklace, flashed a brilliant blue as it healed the damage from the smoke inhalation and the scars from his battle with Collier.
He felt himself growing weak, and he didn’t understand why. What wrong with the stone? Only when he began to hyperventilate did he understand.
The stone was healing his body from the heat and smoke, but it didn’t magically create oxygen to breathe. He was suffocating.
Alex collapsed to his knees, coughing violently, the stone flashing constantly around his neck.
He moved towards the bright light of the front room, where he had first crashed through, but with every step, the light of the outside seemed further away. I’m not going to make it, he thought. He attempted to shift into something, but he lacked the strength or the focus. Nothing was working.
As a last resort, he fell on top of his stone, hoping his lungs would hold out until the fire burned the house down. If the stone would go on healing him, if the roof gave way to air, then maybe, maybe…
Suddenly, a pair of strong arms lifted him up, dragging him through the smoke and flames until he found himself in the dirt outside.
Whoever had saved him had inhaled plenty of smoke on their own too. Alex joined his rescuer in coughing up a lung, hoping the fresh air would help his stone heal him back up.
“Asshole…” Emily said, coughing. “You’re entirely too heavy for me to do that again.”
He reached out to her weakly and touched her arm, healing the smoke inhalation damage she had suffered saving him. She pulled her arm back, obviously still angry.
“Sorry…” Alex said, gathering his wits again. “You needed my help.”
Emily looked at Alex angrily. “No I didn’t! I could have talked him into joining us if you hadn’t jumped through the window.”
“Did you not see him throw a fireball at you?” Alex exploded. “He was about to kill you! Scott! Christina! Back me up here…”
Scott darted his eyes away from him and looked to the ground, scratching his neck. “Sorry, Alex, I couldn’t see much from my vantage point.”
“Christina?” Alex questioned. She shook her head.
Emily looked at him accusingly.
“Fine,” he spat at her. “You wanna get yourself killed, you go right ‘head and do it without me.”
He turned and began walking down the road alone. He was better off without them, and they were better off without him. It was a fair trade.
Scott waited for a moment, then lifted his eyes to Emily with an apologetic shake of his head. “Sorry, hun… but I…”
“Go,” she said, nodding towards Alex. “He needs at least one ally right now.”
“Some ally,” Scott muttered. He turned to follow Alex up the road.
Christina watched Scott leave, then she turned to her friend.
“You’ve always had a blind spot where Max was concerned, you know,” Christina reminded Emily. “And he did already try to kill you once today.”
“He didn’t know that was me!” Emily protested. “I mean, you know me, Chris. I’d never be with a guy who would ever want to hurt me… I…”Alex, listening over his shoulder, heard her trail off with a long sigh.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The men and women who worked for Kline’s copper mine didn’t understand why they were being called back into work. Ododa had assured them all that they had at least a week off (with pay). Several families had already left, with plans to visit relatives outside the area.
Now, as they stood in the bottom of the mining pit, they were more than a little peeved at having been called back so quickly. A vacation with pay was unheard of, and now this one had been nothing more than a tease. But at least they were making money and back at work. Better that than no jobs at all.
Kline stood above them on the road overlooking the bottom of the pit. He inhaled the nighttime air, looking down at the gathering of thirty or so miners who had bothered to show up for the meeting. He’d had Tate inform them that their continue
d employment was contingent on their attendance, so that had been good motivation for many. The rest had missed out.
To their benefit, Kline thought, and he allowed a slight smile to touch the corner of his face.
“Gentlemen!” Kline shouted. Tate handed him a megaphone. “Ahh, thank you, Mr. Tate.” He adjusted the bullhorn and turned it on.
“Gentlemen, thank you for joining me here tonight. I realize you were all promised leave with pay, and I intend to follow through on that promise.”
“Then why are we here?” a miner from the crowd called out in heavily accented English.
“An excellent question,” Kline said, nodding. He shot Tate a look, and Tate began to turn on the pumps he had set up. Water began flowing into the pit below them, and the workers looked at one another in alarm.
“Your boss, Otienu Ododa, has taken something very valuable of mine,” Kline began, watching the water spread across the floor of the copper pit. The men began shouting and backing away from the oncoming deluge. They ran for the ramp to the road leading up and out of the mine, but at a wave of Kline’s hands, the barbed wire fencing that lined the copper mine flew out and over them all, trapping them underneath it.
“That amount of water gives your boss about an hour before you all drown,” Kline said maliciously. “The only way you can free yourselves is by telling me where he is.”
The confused screams and shouts grew louder as the water rose higher.
Tate turned to Kline. “Do you really believe this will work?”
Kline smiled at Tate and glanced down at the men and women, all of whom were crying out for help that would never come. “The man we are searching for cares about his family. I’m betting with his stone, he’ll feel safe enough to return home and retrieve whatever he can’t live without.”
He shot a sideways glance at the screaming workers. “Besides, if he doesn’t, we can always go with your plan to chase down Mr. McCray and take his stones that way. Once done, we can take our time finding Mr. Ododa.
