He wrote some notes. “Just so you know there will be a further investigation.”
“OK. And just so you know, bring it the fuck on.”
He smiled back at me and left in a hurry. As he passed, I saw he was sweating.
I looked up. If I were to stand on the table and jump as high as I could, I could probably reach the air shaft.
ENTRY 20
There had been cameras in every corner since I could remember. They were all over the facility. Because of that I could get a sense of the entire layout and plan my escape. But since I was constantly being recorded, I couldn’t just go up to someone and ask where the main security hub was. I had to find a way in, without actually being there.
Before I went to work, I planned it out as best I could. I figured at least most or all of the employees at Facility Three were aware of who I was. If they were supporting the facade, then those people probably had dual professions consisting of a worker or actual supervisor, and actor. I raised my hand, and a supervisor came over.
“What’s the problem?” he said.
“Workstation’s too warm.”
I was making it that way.
“I’ll call maintenance.”
Maintenance? Ha!
When the maintenance guy lifted the chassis cover to my workstation, I swiped his badge that dangled off his trousers. By the time he knew it was missing, he probably would have thought he’d dropped it. Besides, why would anyone steal the maintenance man’s badge?
***
I knew there were cameras everywhere, but I was betting that common decency prevented them from installing them in the bathroom. If I was wrong I was screwed. I opened the laptop I’d swiped from a supervisor a few days before, and its camera scanned the data from the maintenance man’s badge. I found feeds within seconds. There were hardly any security measures in the firewall once the correct login information was entered, a callous mistake by management.
It gave me the facility layout as I’d hoped, but I was surprised by what I found. I always thought that each facility was its own separate location. It wasn’t. It was its own floor, accessible by a hidden elevator located at different locations on that particular floor, and there were seventeen floors in all. I sure as hell couldn’t spend a month in this bathroom. I would have to focus on one floor at a time. The first being mine, the Facility Three floor. I’d get to the elevator, hang on to the computer and badge, and work my way up.
Maybe I should steal a uniform and try and disguise myself among them. It would probably make it easier. Then I remembered that because everyone probably knew who I was, I would need to plan my escape better.
I started looking at the feeds: hallways, grated walkways, empty offices, workstations harnessing the energy I’d created. I clicked on a date from yesterday, and suddenly the room was full of management having a meeting. I saw Rabin talking to the group. There was a woman sitting next to him as he spoke. She was strikingly beautiful and wearing a business suit. I leaned in closer.
It was Sandra.
ENTRY 21
From the way the room was laid out and where everyone was sitting, it looked like Rabin was in charge and that Sandra was of high ranking also. When Rabin spoke, she would elaborate.
I’d yet to turn up the audio because I didn’t want to hear her voice. I thought it would be too painful. Once it sunk in that whoever I thought she was didn’t actually exist, I did anyway.
Rabin was speaking. “—subject hasn’t been terminated is because we need him. It’s possible to maintain this facility. Of course that all hinges on the fact that this guy doesn’t know what he’s capable of.”
This guy? They were talking about me.
“He killed Jerrol fast enough,” one of them said. “I’d say that’s evidence that he knows.”
Sandra stood and leaned on the table. “We need to continue to reinforce the illusion of what he’s capable of so far, nothing more.”
“I still don’t know how that’s possible—”
“You’re welcome to visit the psych department if you want answers. This isn’t it,” she said. “We need to go on normally. If he knew what was actually going on here…”
The group reacted. It was unspoken, but clear.
She went on. “He’s a good man and a fine worker, but under stress and anger, retaliation would be too easy for him.”
“What happens if he flips?”
Silence.
Rabin stood, nodding to Sandra, who sat. “Then we use the defense teams. They’re mobilized and ready.”
Whatever that meant. I’d heard enough. I entered the same date, only an hour ahead, and the room was empty. I went back twenty minutes, and Rabin and Sandra were holding each other. They were kissing.
I paused the footage, staring at it…
I remembered what it was like to kiss Sandra, or whatever her real name was. It felt like I belonged to her and she belonged to me.
A burning started at my core; an unstoppable flow of anger grew from my very being, rising to the surface. It was impossible to stop. However they were using me was terrible, but what I will do to them will be much worse.
I’ve decided to keep writing for my own sanity, when really all I want to do is fight. My memories are for myself, I hope, so I can reexperience them, or for others so that they understand that this is no longer a journal. It’s a proclamation. An explanation. A reason for what I’m about to do.
ENTRY 22
It was the middle of the night. I was actually close to falling asleep right before I decided my first attack would come from my room. I could no longer wait. I would sleep after. If there was an after.
I didn’t want to go out of my way to hurt anyone, just as I imagined I would never want to hurt an animal or a bug if I didn’t have to, but the knowledge that those who worked at the facility were a threat to me made my decision simple.
I’d memorized the layout, and after closing my eyes, I aimed the energy—already created at the workstations—at key points along the floor, and when I did, Facility Three was instantly in flames. Then the sprinklers turned on.
I was surprised by the reaction time of the defense team, the one Rabin had mentioned. I could see their body heat in my mind. They were blobs of orange along the dark, cool outline of the facility.
Those who survived the first phase of my attack had gathered at the other side of the floor away from me. They knew what side of the facility I was on, and most likely they would be sending more defenders toward me, moments away from identifying my position. I needed to get out, away from where they thought I was and into the air ducts. If there were any cameras in there I’d fry them.
***
I headed to where the employees of the facility had gathered. They weren’t innocent in all this. It wasn’t like they didn’t know what was going on and were hoping that the heroes would take down the bad guy. No, they were in on it and encouraging the defenders to kill me. Because they wanted me dead, attacking them was easy.
Management had set up a barrier, a room with reinforced steel that would have held back most enemies. Not me though. My attack wasn’t limited to the defenders. I quickly learned that the rest of the Facility Three employees had qualified training as well, and they fired weapons at me that were more powerful than the ones the defenders carried. It was still only a small percentage of my power and a juvenile mimicry of what I had been capable of as a boy, an insignificant percentage of what I was able to create in only a second, a revolver compared to a nuclear warhead, but they could still hurt me with a direct hit.
The power flowing through me made me feel as if it had never been awake, and dormant for when needed. I knew it was powerful but not anything close to this. It seemed to flow around me, giving the area a strong electric field that I could bend to my will.
I had to take care of the defenders before I attempted to make my way up to the next floor, and I suspected that each floor—each facility—had its own defender team in preparation for a day like today, s
o I would have to kill as many as possible before making my way up from floor to floor.
The first few shots nearly hit me, but I was able to create a barrier just by thinking about it. The volley ricocheted off my shield and destroyed parts of the facility around it. Then I started redirecting their shots back at them. I wanted them to stop, to get them to think I was close to destroying the facility. That way I could finish off the defender personnel. I aimed the shots back at the barrier until there was a hole large enough for me to walk through.
My favorite way to kill the members of the team, the ones who had trained their whole lives for this very day only to be killed by me, was redirecting the energy fired from their weapons to explode in their faces. The fact that they were wearing body armor was irrelevant. Those who watched screamed.
ENTRY 23
The impact from my power did more damage than I intended and blew the room apart. It didn’t kill everyone, but I felt whatever remained of Sandra, the Sandra that I knew, vanish. I’d reacted too quickly, too angrily, and I knew she was gone before I even entered the room. I’d felt her. She’d been a part of me but was no longer. She wasn’t who she said she was anyway. I didn’t want to know the truth. Nothing she could have said could have made the pain go away, so it was better that she was dead.
But not for Rabin. He was getting his bearings with the others and was looking stunned. He was bleeding out of both ears. I grabbed him. When I did, the others ran.
Rabin sobbed. “You killed her!”
“Don’t tell me who she was to you.”
“She was my wife!”
“I just told you not to do that!”
Sandra must have been among the broken debris. I didn’t bother looking for her to make sure. I didn’t want to see her body.
“I want answers,” I said.
“Fuck you!”
Rabin wasn’t going to talk voluntarily, so I decided to raise his temperature.
He grimaced. “Are you doing that?”
“You know I am. It’ll get worse if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
“What do you want to know?”
“My coworkers, did they have power?”
“No,” he said, eyes closed.
What I was doing to him must have been extremely painful.
“They were using what you’d already created.”
“They were pretending?”
“Yes. Do you know how long it took to train those people that you killed? Jerrol? The others? They were professionals.”
“Please. Jerrol was hardly a professional. Sending him was a mistake. He lost it at the end. Before I killed him.”
Even after spending all that time with him, I knew he hadn’t learned much. He was a moron. Expecting him to understand what I was capable of was equivalent to sending a toddler to understand the complexity and inner workings of the couplings that produced the energy up top.
“Yes,” Rabin said. “We sent the wrong man.”
“Was he sent to just learn about me and what I do?”
“Yes.”
“And he reported what he learned back to you guys?”
“Yes.”
“Why was I tasked to do menial work?”
“Menial? What you do is incredible.”
His flattery only pissed me off. I raised his temperature more.
“Please stop.”
“You wanted me to do those mundane tasks so you could analyze how much power I exuded to accomplish them.”
“OK, Trent…O…K.”
“Who were those kids I was with when I was young?”
“Children of those tasked to work the facility.”
“What happened to them?”
“Their parents got nervous. They didn’t want you to harm them.”
“Why am I still here? Why the deception?”
“Edgar Fodero.”
“Fodero? Who is he to me? My father?”
“That’s right.”
“What does he have to do with this facility?”
“The more accurate question would be ‘what did he do?’”
“Go on.”
Rabin swallowed. “You have the same…abilities he did. During his time, he was described…”
“Go on!”
“As a weapon.”
“He was a terrorist?”
“Worse.”
“What’s worse than a terrorist?”
Rabin shook with pain as I tortured him, forcing him to answer.
“What happened to him?”
“They killed him.”
“Why?”
“For what he did. We were left with that monster’s child…you. What do we do with such a creature? Keeping you under control and in production kept the power on for those that lived through your father’s attack. Pretty fair, considering most who lived wanted you dead. We tried to power the surface on our own, after the attack…but nothing came close to what you could do.”
“What would have happened to me if you would have succeeded in duplicating my power? Is that the real reason I wasn’t killed?”
Rabin didn’t answer, so I heated his blood some more. He shook with pain.
“Is that why there are so many facilities? Are you all trying to mimic what I can do? What he could do?”
Even though I was concentrating and didn’t allow as much to course through Rabin as I did Jerrol, I still thought I’d taken it too far and fried him. It hardly took any effort from me, but the pain must have been excruciating, judging by his screams, yet he still had more to say.
“Penance, fucker! You owe us!”
“For how long?”
“Until your death!” he said, sucking air. “You’re smart, Trent. Just answer your own questions.”
I released my hold over him, and he collapsed to the ground. He looked up. “Are you going to kill me?”
“If you can make it to the surface before I do, no.”
Rabin stared at me as if he didn’t know if I were telling the truth, then he started running.
ENTRY 24
I never considered myself violent, but as I made my way up, I was too angry to stop myself. I was losing control, letting it get away from me. Like jumping off a cliff, only I could control the speed at which I fell.
It felt like when I was deep underwater in the pool and holding my breath. Everything is silent and muddled. The pain in my lungs burns as if they’re about to burst, but they don’t, and I allow myself to rise to the surface. As I break through, I take a deep breath, allowing my lungs to fill with clean, crisp air. I imagine what the sun would feel like; I’ve wanted to my whole life, and it alleviates that pain, and then I have trouble remembering how bad it had actually been.
I felt my veins widen and my blood pressure increase substantially. My entire body throbbed but not in a painful way. It was pleasure. Every part of me had a pulse that seemed to have power emanating, only it couldn’t be seen, just felt by me.
It somehow allowed me to sense the others. I could feel all their parts and weaknesses and bend them to my will. There was a link between all of them and me. It was because we were all human.
The screaming started before it got messy. They were my enemy. They took the job for money. Whatever they needed that money for was irrelevant to me. They were against me, so when I concentrated on them and their bloodstream and every molecule in their body heated up like boiling water in an instant and they started bursting open and spraying their blood on the walls, I felt nothing for them.
SUBSEQUENT ENTRY WRITTEN BY SUBJECT HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY OMITTED AND IS UNDER FURTHER INVESTIGATION.
ENTRY 25
THE FOLLOWING EXCERPTS ARE FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS FROM SURVIVORS.
NAMES AND CLASSIFIED DETAILS OMITTED.
TESTIMONY FROM A DECKHAND SERVING ABOARD THE USS (OMITTED):
I was at my post when the first jet crashed. It wasn’t like our own aircrafts were being forced to attack us; they were being forced to crash into us. They were b
eing aimed, like how I heard those Kamikaze pilots did it in WWII.
TESTIMONY FROM HIGH-RANKING OFFICER SERVING ABOARD USS (OMITTED):
By this time, the aggressor had made it to the surface, having decimated all floors of the facilities on his way up. I hate to think of what happened to the personnel he killed. They were people. Our people.
I was leading the attack, and he had fortified himself on one of our boats and was deflecting munitions with that field he had created. We couldn’t see it, but we could see the impacts. We’d sent a team to assassinate him. My thoughts were that, yes, he could create the field by only using his mind, but that probably wasn’t likely if he was injured or dead. We hadn’t heard from the team. I informed them that if a shot wasn’t possible, then to gas him. Anything to get his defense down so we could get in there.
It was a direct battle and had gone on for about three days, since the moment he emerged. In hindsight, I would have spaced out our boats better. We’d heard of what he was capable of, but we really had no idea. Our show of force didn’t slow him down a bit. In fact, it gave him more to destroy. We were nervous. The knowledge of how many of us were left was constantly on our minds.
Our militaries had converged on his location, but he was able to stay hidden by mimicking his own unique heat signature and distributing it to various locations, including what was left of the United States! It seemed his power increased on the surface. We weren’t prepared for that. We’d tried to send a team to each of the locations he could be at, but there were just too many. We were forced to be patient and wasted a lot of time attacking dummy targets.
The most serious problem we encountered was that most of our weapons were powered by his energy and he could manipulate it and turn it against us. That included our own aircraft. His power was the backbone of the military, and I was told we hadn’t yet been able to duplicate what he could do, only harness it.
Pending Page 4
