Million Dollar Gift

by Ian Somers

  She heard Shaw stumbling around in the office behind her.

  ‘I’ll kill her!’ he roared. ‘Where’s my gun. Give me my gun.’

  ‘Leave it,’ Golding shouted at him. ‘Your plan has failed.’

  ‘Shut up, Golding. Get me my gun!’

  Marianne hurried along the corridor, but soon came to a halt. The fear she was sensing was getting stronger and she now saw where it was coming from; a man dressed in full body-armour entered the hallway from the stairwell ahead. He pointed a SCAR automatic rifle at her and began to fire. She flung herself through a door as bullets ricocheted around the corridor and landed on the cold marble floor of another office. This one was dark and there were no windows. She tried to break the wall with her psychokinesis, but it refused to collapse. There was only one material that could withstand her power.

  ‘Clever boys,’ she whispered. ‘A building made of Metaliglass.’

  Marianne got to her feet and drew in a deep breath; she would have to do this the hard way. She summoned a residual anger that she kept hidden deep inside. Her body swelled with power. She turned to the doorway and was ready to kill all who stood in her way.

  She ducked back into the hallway; there were a number of armed men making their way towards her. They pointed their weapons, but Marianne raised her hands first. The hallway lights flicked off and when they came back on the men were all lying on the ground, dead. More followed from the stairwell. She spun around and ran toward the other end of the hallway. More armed guards appeared at the opposite stairwell. They had cut her off completely; both stairwells were blocked with armed guards, the back of the building had no windows and was made of Metaliglass, and the front was covered by snipers. She wasn’t giving in to them, though. Not without a monumental fight.

  She slid to a full stop, raised her hands in front of her chest and her body became rigid. She tapped into her third gift, the power of metallisiring. The guards closed in from both sides then opened fire on her. The noise in the tight corridor was thunderous as hundreds of rounds flew at Marianne. None reached her though. The bullets simply evaporated as they neared her. The armed guards stood motionless for a few seconds, stunned by what she’d just done. When she finally made a move they fanned out and took up positions of cover in the many doorways and started firing again.

  Bullets were flying around the corridor, but Marianne was unscathed; every bullet that was fired got incinerated before it reached her.

  ‘You’re firing regular rounds!’ she heard Shaw roaring at his guards. ‘I told you to use rubber bullets. She’s a metallisir, you morons. She can melt any type of metal.’

  She saw Shaw stepping into the hallway and firing at her. The bullets flew straight through the metallisir shield she had created. One bullet missed, another cut off one of her dreads and the last grazed her over the collar bone. Marianne fell to the floor clutching her injured shoulder; blood tricked through her fingers and stained her white fur jacket. He’d outsmarted her. He was using flexible plastic bullets and the metallisir gift had no effect on them.

  Shaw laughed wildly, ‘Not so cocky now are you, Dolloway?’

  A rage took control of Marianne and there was an immense surge of energy around her body. The walls either side of her trembled and shattered. She stood, outstretched her arms and the armed men at both ends were all blasted violently into the air.

  Shaw had avoided the terrible energy wave by stepping back inside Golding’s office. When he leaned back through the doorway he fired another burst of shots at Marianne. She used her psychokinesis to shatter them in mid flight.

  ‘You’ll need more than bullets, Derek.’

  ‘We’ve got more than just bullets,’ he shouted back. ‘Bring up those RPGs!’

  Two guards clambered from the stairwell with shoulder-mounted rocket-propelled grenade launchers. They rushed upward and fell to their knees on entering the corridor. The men at the opposite end of the corridor had disappeared and were replaced by two more men armed with rocket launchers. They aimed directly at Marianne.

  ‘Take her out,’ Shaw screamed as he ran for cover.

  Four rockets shot along the corridor and Marianne focused all her concentration on her psychokinesis; she had to grab hold of the rockets and throw them off course while creating a cocoon of energy to shield herself from the inevitable explosion.

  There was an almighty blast, powerful enough to shake the foundations of the building. She had used the rockets to her own benefit. She had been powerful enough to deflect them and to send them hurtling into the floor of the hallway. That created a gaping hole between the third and fourth floors of the Laberinto. Before the dust had settled she’d slipped through the blast hole into a large office below.

  Within moments the emergency air filtration system kicked in and the clouds of smoke were sucked away.

  She heard Shaw shouting at his men, ‘She’s still alive. All guards converge on the third floor. Shoot at anything that moves!’

  Marianne was always one step ahead though. She was making her way through the vast office area that was partitioned into numerous small work stations. She sneaked from one station to the next, sending any guard she came across into the air with violent bursts of psychokinetic energy.

  It wasn’t long before she had reached one of the stairwells and cleared it of guards.

  Her way out was cut off though; there were more and more armed guards pouring onto the metal steps from the ground floor. She could not continue to fight them all off; sooner or later another bullet would get evade her gifts.

  ‘The only way is up,’ she said as she quickly climbed the stair.

  Moments later she blasted her way through a heavy metal door onto the rooftop. Before trying to flee she melted the hinges and lock so that she couldn’t be followed. Marianne thought for a moment that she’d escaped the trap Shaw had set for her, but as she turned from the door she realised the battle had only just begun.

  Standing in the centre of the roof was someone she knew all too well. She’d worked with him many times before. He was a thin man in a smart, grey suit and she could not read any emotions from him. It was Barega. He was a little older than her, an Australian aborigine with dark, piercing eyes. Marianne knew that he had the gift of warping, one of the fifteen true gifts. He was no faster than any other person, but he could manipulate the fabric of time around his body in short bursts, which meant he appeared to move at impossible speeds. Marianne knew she could not let him get within twenty feet of her. If she did, he would move at her so swiftly that she wouldn’t even see his attack. Barega was the most perfect assassin nature had ever created.

  ‘Hello, Barega.’

  ‘Marianne.’ He smiled and nodded courteously. ‘Been a while.’

  ‘Three years I’d say. So, they included you in this little game of theirs. I thought the world’s only warper would have been far too valuable to fling into a violent conflict like this.’

  ‘They pay me a lot of money.’

  ‘Believe me, it won’t be worth it this time.’

  Barega took off his jacket, folded it carefully and placed it on the rooftop. The door at Marianne’s back was being hammered from inside; Shaw and his guards would break through soon enough. She was running out of time.

  ‘I’m sorry to do this, Marianne.’

  ‘It is I who must apologise, Barega.’

  She sent a shockwave towards him, but he moved away from it at blinding speed. He grinned at her and took an obsidian knife from a scabbard attached to his ankle.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

  ‘Try this on for size!’

  Marianne directed a burst of energy into the air that crashed down on the rooftop so powerfully it would swatted an elephant. Barega appeared a few metres away with his hands on his hips.

  Marianne summoned her rage and sent numerous blasts of energy at him, but Barega darted between them and was unhurt. He was incredibly fast. She sent blast after blast at him, slowly eroding the surface
of the roof, but she could not catch him, and she was finally beginning to tire. Barega on the other hand wasn’t even out of breath.

  It would take every last bit of Marianne’s abilities if she was to survive; she would need to use all three of her gifts together and at their maximum output. She focused her power of emotion on her opponent, sensing for any slight change, for any sign of when he would come at her. She was already using her psychokinesis to weaken the concrete beneath his feet. Most importantly she was draining all her metallisir gift to soften the platinum in the Metaliglass panels of the roof. The door behind her was breaking apart. It was now or never.

  Barega shifted slightly and she sensed it a fraction of a second before he moved. She melted the platinum in the roof then cracked the concrete. The ground caved in under Barega’s feet and not even he was fast enough to escape. A gaping hole appeared under him and he fell a full twenty feet to the floor below. Slabs of the roof came crashing down up on him and he screamed in agony.

  Marianne took a deep breath then walked to the hole and gazed down. Barega was lying on the floor, his spine broken, his legs crushed. She didn’t get time to revel in her victory as the door behind began to come apart and two guards pounded it open. Shaw stood in the shadows of the doorway and pointed a handgun at her.

  ‘Goodnight, sweetheart,’ he laughed before firing a single shot at her.

  Marianne waved her hand and the bullet ricocheted in mid-air and struck Shaw in the forehead. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  ‘I warned you not to call me that.’

  The stairwell was clogged with guards but they posed no threat to her after she had melted the barrels of all their guns. They fell over each other trying to get out of her way as she walked casually down the stairs and back onto the fourth floor.

  Within a few moments she had returned to room 415 to find Golding cowering in a corner. His eyes almost popped out of his head when she entered the room.

  ‘Don’t kill me, Marianne,’ Golding pleaded. ‘It was all Shaw’s idea. It was his plan. I swear it was.’

  ‘He won’t be making any further plans and you just lost the only warper in the world.’

  ‘You killed Barega?’

  ‘No, but he’ll need a very good wheelchair if he’s to continue making money from his gift.’ Marianne dragged her employer off the floor and pushed him into a leather chair. ‘You made a big mistake here today.’

  ‘I’ll offer you whatever money you want. You can even take Shaw’s job if you want it!’

  She raised a leg and pressed one of her sharp stilettos against his chest. ‘I don’t want Shaw’s job, Golding. That would mean I’d have to spend a lot of time with you, which isn’t a very appealing prospect.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Double the pay increase that I asked for.’ A smile grew on her face. ‘Will you agree to that?’

  ‘Of course, Marianne.’

  ‘Good. Now, what about this Bentley character?’

  ‘We can’t touch him. Every news channel in the world is watching him now.’

  ‘We’ll have to get rid of them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I can make him look like a fake.’

  ‘You can?’

  ‘Of course I can,’ Marianne chuckled deviously. ‘Tell your PR people to arrange a press conference, and make an announcement that Bentley will publicly display his powers to the cameras of the world.’

  ‘But that will only heighten the press attention.’

  ‘Trust me, when that press conference is over, no reporter in the world will ever want to hear the name Ross Bentley again. Then after the crowds have disappeared, I’ll take great pleasure in killing him.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN -

  Going Public

  I sat on a chair in the penthouse surrounded by a wall of security guards. There’d been an order given by Victor that I wasn’t to be allowed near any windows for the rest of the day; it was creating hysteria in the streets surrounding the hotel. I promised them I wouldn’t show off again and those in the room allowed me a little space, just enough so I could watch the TV.

  The news channel was repeating my stunts from earlier in the day and experts from around the world were debating how I could have developed such powers and what the repercussions could be for society in general. I thought the whole thing was hilarious, but tried my best to hide my amusement from the guards in the room.

  As the afternoon wore on I grew tired and was nodding off in my chair – suddenly, I was snapped out of it by one of the security guards gasping, ‘Lord Almighty! That’s the boss’ building!’

  I pushed the guards aside and saw the news channel was featuring images from a building called the Laberinto. There was a huge hole in the roof and black smoke was billowing from many of the windows below.

  ‘Authorities have blamed a gas explosion for the damage,’ the reporter said. ‘The Laberinto has suffered serious structural damage and a number of the people who work inside the building have lost their lives.’

  ‘Do you have any confirmed numbers regarding those who have died?’ an anchorwoman asked.

  ‘Nothing definite, but it’s been hinted that over thirty people are dead, more are missing.’

  ‘It truly is a shocking story. But Liz, there’s a strange twist here, isn’t there.’

  ‘There certainly is, Amanda. This building is owned by none other than Paul Golding, the man behind The Million Dollar Gift that has been all over the news for the last few days. The authorities aren’t making too many comments right now, but there are rumours that this could have been a terrorist attack linked to the exposure that Ross Bentley is getting. As you know, his gift has caused a lot of uncertainty and anger among religious organisations, with a number of extremists issuing threats.’

  ‘Paul Golding wasn’t in the building was he?’

  ‘It’s believed he actually was, but escaped unharmed. A number of his closest colleagues were killed in the blast though. There are truly awful scenes here, Amanda, reminiscent of the terror attacks we’ve seen in recent times. I think everyone is just hoping that this is simply a tragic accident.’

  ‘Will the authorities be making any further statements tonight?’

  ‘They’re not expected to. They’ll be conducting a full investigation, starting later this evening, and I’m sure we will be hearing more about what happened here, but we don’t expect any facts to emerge for a few days.’

  I caught Victor staring at me from across the room.

  ‘I didn’t do that, Victor!’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ he grunted. ‘But do you now see why we didn’t want you showing off in public?’

  I hung my head. Was it really because of me? Had my actions caused the massacre? This had to end! I was in the middle of a tornado without so much as an umbrella. I thought I’d lose my mind if I didn’t escape the Golding Plaza soon.

  I stared at the screen, showing bodies wrapped in sheets being removed from the rubble. All the security guards were now watching me. Nobody said a single word, but it was obvious they were blaming me for the disaster at the Laberinto. I held my face in my hands and tried to hold back tears.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ a kind voice said.

  I looked up to see a small woman with a kind face entering the penthouse. She put her hand on my shoulder and smiled down at me. ‘Why are you so upset, honey?’

  I pointed at the TV. ‘They said it was a terror attack and it could’ve been because of me.’

  She looked at the horrific scenes but simply shrugged, as if she was looking at an episode of Desperate Housewives.

  ‘It had nothing to do with you. I’ve just been speaking with Mr Golding on the phone and he assured me it was a gas explosion, and he was in the building at the time so he should know. The media do this, they say terror to get people stirred up.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m Helen Greene and it’s my job to look after you now.’

&nb
sp; ‘Do you work for Golding?’

  ‘Not quite … I’m mostly independent.’ She looked to the guards. ‘Outside! All of you. You included, Victor. I want to speak with my client alone.’

  ‘I’m under orders to keep an eye on him,’ Victor argued. ‘He’s not to get out of my sight under any circumstance.’

  ‘He’s not Golding’s property!’ She pointed at the door. ‘Out!’

  When the room was cleared Greene closed the door and sat next to me. ‘Now, that’s better isn’t it?’

  ‘What did you mean when you said client?’

  ‘I’m one of the world’s leading agents. You need someone like me, Ross. This whole thing has been handled horribly! If I’d been your manager from the start none of this would have happened. You’d be sitting at home watching skateboard videos or on a beach on some tropical island right now.’

  ‘I think the press would even find me on a remote tropical island. What am I supposed to do now? I can’t spend the rest of my life in this goddamn hotel!’

  ‘I’ll get you out of here soon enough. First, we have to straighten all this out, and start planning for your future. Ross, you could be the richest man in the world if we market you in the right way. You say they’ll bug you on a tropical island, I can make you so rich that you’ll be able to buy your own tropical island!’

  ‘Money’s no use to me.’

  ‘You say that now but in a few months all this will have changed. Drastically! You have to make the right decisions now if you’re going to secure a lucrative future for yourself and your family.’

  ‘What do you suggest I do?’

  ‘What I suggest we do is hold a press conference. There are millions of young ladies around the globe who want to know more about you, so let’s give them the opportunity. These are the girls who’ll buy a lot of Ross Bentley merchandise.’

  ‘You make me sound like a poser from a boy band!’