by Jakob Farrar
“You’re welcome,” mumbled Gabe.
Ashley slid a lever down, which made the box descend. Kaytlen jumped up as the box went down. Sirens began to blare. Gabe kicked one of the guards in the mask as he tried to get up, keeping him down. Phoebe pulled her helmet off and threw it to the ground. She pressed a button that slid a panel in the glass box open. Kaytlen took a cautious step out.
“Are you-” she began to say.
“We’ll explain later,” Ashley said, “But we have to leave, now! There’ll be guards at the door any second now!”
Kaytlen nodded and ran towards them. Ashley heard a hissing sound and looked behind her. An airlock was closing on the only door that led to the room. She ran for it, but knew she wouldn’t be able to make it in time. The airlock closed just before she got there. She heard a shout behind her, and knew what was happening. Ashley wisely moved out of the way, allowing Gabe to barrel through, crashing straight into the airlock, bringing it down. However, there were still a few soldiers in the hallway, but Gabe didn’t stop. He hit the soldiers like a bowling ball, throwing them aside as they tried in vain to pierce his thick, metal hide with bullets. He barely felt the ammunition hitting his skin. “Come on!” he yelled behind him to Ashley, “We have to go!” Just as she said this, a panel slid open in the roof, a turret lowering out of it. It opened fire on Gabe. The rapidity of the blasts hit Gabe with such a force that he fell to the ground, unable to move. Phoebe ran forward, extending her will to the turret. It ripped itself out of it socket and twisted its barrel so that it jammed, exploding. Gabe stood, several dents in his arm that he had used to protect his face. “That hurt,” he said. They ran up the long stairway. Along the way they encountered soldiers, but easily threw them over the railing. Whenever turrets slid out of the roof, Phoebe brought them down.
“Is this all the governor has?” Ashley wondered aloud. She thought that a governor, especially with so important a prisoner, would have a far more advanced security system than this.
They were reaching the top when Ashley got her answer. She had noticed the shower heads in the roof on their way in, but had just thought that they were in case of a fire. Instead, once Gabe entered a room, he was showered in acid from the shower heads. He bellowed in pain and backed out, metal skin smoking with burns. “I can help,” said Kaytlen quietly. She extended her hands, and, suddenly, the acid started going up instead of down.
“What was that?” Ashley said as they ran through the room.
It’s Hydrokinesis she heard the voice of Byron in her head. She can control any exposed body of water and, with the correct amount of focus, she might even be able to control water in the air.
And so they traveled, up, up, and further up, until they came crashing out of the doors they had entered several hours earlier. The room was empty, several items smoking and burning from the exposure to acid.
“This way,” Ashley said, leading them to the back door that they had entered. However, when they turned the corner, they jumped back, hearing a gunshot. Ashlet peered around the corner, seeing an older man, with touches of grey around his hair, holding a glass pistol. He stood just outside the door, aiming his pistol at them. It was Sector Six’s governor, Willard Poore.
“Come out with your hands up!” Willard said.
Ashley did as he said slowly, motioning for the others to do the same.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” the governor said once he could see all of them. “You’ve killed me!” he said, “You’ve killed my family, my reputation, my career.”
“We didn’t have to!” Ashley said to him, “You could’ve let us go freely! But instead you had to try to kill us or to lock us up!”
“I could get it all back, though. I could shoot all four of you, and I’ll be a hero. A god! I would be known as the one to take down the Unnatural,” he said the last word with a snarl.
“We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to hurt anybody. We just want to leave.”
“Leave?” said Willard, lowering his pistol, just a little, “What do you mean?”
“We want to leave this country,” Ashley said, “We want to get together in a group and leave.”
“You…don’t want to take over the Nation?”
“On the contrary. If you would let us, we would be out of your hair in a matter of days. But no. You had to go and hunt us, making us look like the bad guys.”
Willard laughed. “But you don’t see why we’re keeping you here, do you?” he said, bringing his pistol back up, “There are many more pieces at play here than you could ever imagine. If you really cared, you wouldn’t leave.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have to keep you here. You’re integral to our safety. And that’s why we’re not trying to kill you-”
“Enough of this,” said Phoebe. She ran forward at the governor, who pulled the trigger. “No!” Ashley could hear the voice of Byron shouting. A dart went forth from the barrel and struck Phoebe’s shin, bringing her to the ground. Her face contorted in pain, but, after a minute, she lay still. Willard’s body shook as something hit him from behind and he fell to the ground unconscious. Byron ran from behind Willard to Phoebe’s side.
“Is she okay?” said Ashley, kneeling next to Byron. Byron pressed his fingers against her throat. There was a pulse, however faint. “She’s fine,” Byron said, “For now.” He moved down to her shin, pulling the dart from it. “The good news is that it’s not a bullet,” Byron said, examining the dart, “It’s a paralyzing drug of some sort. She’ll live, but I doubt she’ll be able to move.”
“At all?”
Byron nodded sadly. “Unless…” he said thoughtfully.
“What is it?”
“I may know somebody who can help us,” he said. Byron reached down and picked her up. “Mark’s not going to be happy about this,” he mumbled as they walked out of the house.
Chapter Twelve
Traitor
Mark and Stephen had made it around the Sector by the time the others exited it. It was nearing dark. Mark stood when he saw them coming. However, his spirits fell as they approached. He ran at them, leaving Stephen behind. “Put her down!” he yelled at Gabe, who was carrying the unmoving body of Phoebe.
“Mark-” Byron started to say.
“Put her down!” Mark repeated, louder. Gabe did so, and Mark kneeled by her body. He could see that she was breathing, but just barely. Her face contorted, seemingly in pain.”
“What did you do?” Mark shouted at Byron, looking up.
“I did nothing,” Byron said, “It was-”
“Stop!” Mark stood, “You’re killing her!”
“No, I’m not, Mark.”
“What did you do?!”
“I swear, I did nothing, Mark. I tried to-”
“You’re lying!” Mark’s lighter was in his hand in an instant, a spark struck, the flame dancing angrily across his palm.
“Kaytlen,” said Byron calmly. A girl stepped forward. Mark let the fire race towards Byron. However, before it could reach him, a stream of water hit it, allowing it to go no further. Mark looked over and saw the new girl, Kaytlen, shooting a river from her hands.
“I did nothing, Mark,” Byron repeated, “She was shot. Sector Zero has come up with some sort of technology that is able to overpower our abilities and paralyze us.”
“I don’t believe you,” Mark said, keeping the fire blasting towards him.
“Why not? I don’t have any reason to hurt her.”
“You want to hurt me.”
“No, Mark, I don’t. Believe me, I don’t.”
Mark brought the flames back, but still kept a blaze in his hand. “How do we wake her up?”
“Under normal circumstances, I’m not sure it would be possible,” Byron said. “But I think I know a person who can help. Thankfully, they’re rather close. Right next door in Sector Seven, in fact, land of the intellectuals.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
Maybe he was being too judgmental. He wasn’t able to sleep because he was worried about Phoebe. The others didn’t care for her as much as he did, and their day had been physically tasking.
But he hadn’t been able to tell her that he loved her. Did he intend to ever do so? Or was he just too cowardly to?
Byron had said that his mother might be able to help Phoebe.
For Byron’s sake, Mark hoped he was right.
Willard Poore was sitting on his couch. The back of his head itched like crazy, but he knew he couldn’t scratch it. A bandage was taped there, underneath which his stitched up head was healing from the attack. As annoying as his injuries were, he was glad that he had made it out alive.
A knock on the door made Willard stand and walk over to the front of his house. He opened the door, not bothering to check who was there. There were guards posted outside his home; they would stop someone if they didn’t want them in. But this proved to be a very terrible assumption.
Without saying a word, five men, all dressed in black, burst through his door, grabbing him, and roughly sitting him down in the couch. “What?” he said in surprise, “What is the meaning of this?” Into the room walked the last person he wanted to see. Peyton Burton.
“Hello, Poore,” Burton said as the men surrounded the couch with Peyton in front of him.
“This is private property,” Willard said with as much courage as he could muster. “Get out.” Peyton only smiled.
“Earlier today the Unnatural attacked this very house. And yet you live,” he said menacingly.
“Yes,” Willard responded, “They spared me. I suppose they didn’t want us to go after them harder for killing me.”
“What a foolish assumption,” Peyton said, “It is one that I would like to address.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were correct, you know. If they killed you Thomas and I would be able to convince them to press them harder.”
Willard had a horrible feeling he knew what was about to happen. “No,” he said under his breath.
“Also, a few days ago, right after Mark showed up, my team at the Service noticed an anomaly,” Peyton continued, turning away from Willard.
“Please,” Willard said, sweat forming on his brow, “I have a family.”
“They told me someone had hacked into our system. That someone had momentarily had access to all of our files. Everything. And yet all they looked at was the Unnatural in Sector Six.”
Willard was on the verge of tears.
“Who could have given that order, Willard?” Peyton turned back around. Willard could see a small pistol in his hand.
“Xandar will find out about this,” he said, “He will have you killed.”
“Oh, poor Poore,” Peyton said, stepping forward, aiming the gun at Willard’s forehead. Willard took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “No one cares about you.”
“It was the Unnatural,” Peyton said to the Council. “I arrived on the scene of the attack last night and I found Willard dead, a hole between his eyes.”
“Obviously they’re willing to use lethal force,” Timothy Ormiston said, “So why can’t we?”
“Because we need them alive,” Thomas Garek objected, “We can’t kill them. What we need to do is intensify our attempts to capture them. They’re heading to Sector Seven soon. We need to search the entire Sector.”
“We need a backup plan,” Charles Hammok said.
“I have just the idea,” Peyton said, “But it will need the approval of this Council.”
“What is that idea, Peyton?” Sarah Spyre asked.
Peyton smiled a little and stood up. “We are going to revisit Project Leon.” A collective gasp arose from the others.
“You do realize that it was Project Leon that got us into this mess in the first place, correct?” Genie Scott asked.
“I understand, but the best way to fight fire is with fire. We could take different people from the Unnatural’s lives and use them to lure the Unnatural into Sector Nine.”
“And what of Project Zero?”
“Project Zero will ultimately fail, but only to give the Unnatural a sense of accomplishment. An illusion of victory. But they will have simply fallen farther into our trap. And once that happens, we’ll finally be safe.”
The others nodded. Peyton knew it would take more than that to fully convince them, but for now, he had their attention. Killing Willard Poore had made this possible, and, because of that, he could now save the Nation.
“We must be careful,” Byron said the next day as they reached Sector Seven. It was around one or two in the afternoon, “There are more of us now; we’ll attract attention.”
“Can’t you just do that mind-concealment thing?” Mark asked.
“With us carrying a body? No, we’ll need to find some sort of vehicle to take.”
Suddenly, something exploded ahead of them. Smoke billowed into the air.
“What was that?” said Kaytlen.
“I don’t know,” said Byron, who burst forth, running. The others took off after him. Soon they were in the middle of a suburban area, but the place was barren. Nobody was out, and the homes looked desolate and unkept, like nobody had lived there for a while. Byron ignored this, though, and kept running forward. He had a bad feeling of what had happened. He ran and ran, the others following behind him, until he suddenly stopped before turning around a corner.
“Go up,” he whispered. Mark looked at him, puzzled. Byron ran back and started climbing stairs that led to the roof of a nearby apartment. The others understood and started following him. When they had reached the top, Byron cautiously looked over the edge. What he saw horrified him. Below were hundreds of soldiers surrounding a crowd of people who stood in straight lines, as if organized in such a fashion.
“They’ve taken control of the Sector,” Byron gasped, “But why? Who ordered this?”
“I did!” came a high voice from behind them. Byron jumped and looked behind him. There, in a long, black trench coat stood the strange man that they had encountered in Sector Four. Byron stood, ready to fight. This man had unnerved him heavily the last time they had met, and Byron knew there was a reason. Again, when Byron tried to look into the man’s head, he found nothing. It was as if this man didn’t have a memory at all, no identity to speak, or even think, of.
“What are you doing here?” said Byron.
“Watching my plan unfold,” he said, “Which it is doing gloriously.”
“You caused this?”
“Absolutely.”
“You ordered soldiers to take over my home?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say,” the man said, smirking, “I have my reasons.”
Byron screamed and leapt for the man, but he suddenly wasn’t there. When Byron stood, he saw the man kneeling over Phoebe’s body.
“My, my,” he said, “You’re in quite a predicament, aren’t you?”
“What makes you say that?” said Byron. Mark leapt at the man, but in vain, for he wasn’t there. He was standing behind Byron now.
“I could help you, you know,” the man said.
“This is helping us?” said Byron, turning to face the man, “making the military take control of us? Who are you?”
“I’ve been called by many names in the past,” the man said, beginning to pace across the roof. By now the Unnatural were as tense as possible, ready to leap into action against this man.
“Evan was my birth name,” he continued, “But after that I became several people. I’ve been called a monster, unnatural, mutant. But your people know me by a different name. You all know who I am, but you’ve never seen me. I work in the dark, pulling the strings you puppets lean on for supp
ort.”
“Who?”
“In this Nation,” the man continued, “I prefer to keep my identity a secret. However,” he said, bowing, “it is a pleasure to meet you, Former Secret Service Agent Byron Peters,” he looked up, smirking, “Level Three.”
Byron pushed that statement aside.
“You said you could help us,” Byron said, “You must know where my mother is.”
“Absolutely,” the man said, standing back to full height, “And, yes, your mother is safe, for now. She will be willing to help you when you find her.”
“I assume she’s at our home?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Then we’ll head there now.”
“But, my friend, you’re already there!” the man said, laughing.
Byron looked over the roof again, seeing that there was no army, no captives, beneath them, but, instead, a familiar street. The street that led to his house.
“How did you-”
“No time for explaining, Byron, the army will make their way here soon enough.”
Byron looked at the man, a questioning look in his eye.
“You’ll know all soon enough, Byron. But, for now, know that I want you to win. I want you to leave, and I want you to survive.”
Byron nodded and began heading for the stairs that led down the roof.
“One last thing, Byron,” the man shouted at him, “You will not succeed in your current quest. Your mother will not be able to resurrect your friend. However, you will succeed eventually. And, in the process, you will find and loose the one you once loved again.”
Byron looked back at the man. He looked into his eyes for the first time, those yellow, sickly, bloodshot eyes, and said one sentence.
“I’ve never loved anybody.”
The man laughed his giddy laugh, walking backwards towards the edge of the roof.
