by Aaron Slade
“You think they’re going to break it up?” Adam asked.
A man got out of a black van with a megaphone. “YOU ARE ALL IN BIG TROUBLE,” the man yelled. His familiar voice echoed through the city’s ruins.
I looked closer and saw that it was Colonel Ford. Evee’s dad!
“EVERYONE LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!” he continued.
I looked down to see if Randy and Allen had any intention of stopping the fight. Allen lowered Randy back to the ground.
“EVERYONE LEAVES NOW,” Colonel Ford yelled again. He walked to the middle of the circle between Randy and Allen. “We’ll be burning this city to the ground in about ten seconds. None of you has any business leaving Fallon after dark.”
“Why do you have to burn it down?” Randy asked.
“So you won’t be tempted to come back,” Ford replied. He approached Randy, towering over him with an intimidating glare.
“Coming here to fight is a tradition in Fallon,” Randy said.
“Well I’m the new Colonel in town, and I’m making it illegal.” Colonel Ford began instructing his men.
Randy refused to accept Colonel Ford’s orders. He moved closer towards the colonel, but that was a mistake. In an instant Colonel Ford reacted by blowing Randy across the arena with what looked like an icy wind.
Randy sat up, looking nervous.
“No one is safe here,” Colonel Ford said. “We have reason to believe that an escaped convict is hiding somewhere in the city. He’s a class one extra-human and he’s wanted for murder.”
A girl in the crowd screamed when she heard this. Several people looked confused, but the word murder resonated with everyone. The consequences for murder were horrendous. People immediately started disappearing and speeding off. Everyone who drove to Vegas scattered to their cars as if they couldn’t leave quickly enough. The screeching of tires against asphalt erupted as all the cars turned on the road back to Fallon.
“We should leave,” Adam said. “I’ll take Seth home and I’ll be back for you Casper.”
“Hurry,” I said. “Something doesn’t feel right.” Adam nodded and disappeared
I turned my attention to the ground below. The Military soldiers were entering buildings, then destroying them by whatever means possible. I watched as the fragile structures collapsed around me.
I felt the ground shake, causing me to lose my balance. I approached the edge of the roof to see what was happening. The class ones were destroying the building that I was on. I panicked. Fire hit the front of the building hard. Part of the roof collapsed.
Where was Adam?
The section of roof I was standing on broke away from the building. My feet struggled to find balance as the roof completely caved in, catapulting me over the edge. I felt myself fall, and then hit the hard ground. The sensation of falling had been less frightening than I had anticipated. I tried to move my legs and was relieved to discover I could. I wasn’t hurt– embarrassed and sore, but not hurt. I looked up the wall of broken brick; the roof was fifteen feet higher than where I sat on the ground.
The sound of heavy footsteps grew close.
“Casper?” I heard my name. My head spun, giving me double vision, but I recognized Colonel Ford. He stood over me with a disapproving look. “What are you doing out here, son? Your dad made it seem like you had the sense not to come to a place like this.”
I felt guilty for having disappointed him, but I didn’t know why I cared. “I learned my lesson tonight.” I tried to stretch my body, finding cricks in my neck and back. I winced in discomfort at a sharp pain in my lower back. Everything above my chest was sore; it hurt to move even slightly.
“How are you getting home?” He looked around, noticing that all the cars were gone.
“My friend Adam is supposed to take me but he hasn’t come back yet.” I looked around for Adam. He should have been back by now.
“Stay near me,” Colonel Ford ordered. “Are you hurt? That was a nasty fall.” He made a quick inspection and assessed that I wasn’t harmed.
“I feel fine,” I said. “I don’t think the fall broke anything.” I ignored the soreness in my shoulder blades so that I sounded more convincing.
“Let me know if one of our healers needs to take a look at you.” He turned back to a crowd of his men that approached us. He quit talking when a static voice boomed from the radio in his hand.
“Sir, we found him,” the voice said.
He raised the radio to his mouth urgently to respond. “Get him contained and back to the facility. I want him back under the Knight A-S-A-P.” His attention turned back to me. “You’re coming with us, Casper.” He moved quickly as if it wasn’t safe.
I wasn’t sure how to tell him that I wanted to wait for Adam, so I agreed. My thoughts were more distracted by what he was preparing to do to the prisoner. One word stood out over the rest: Knight.
“Go wait for me in my vehicle,” he told me. “We’ll get you home.” He sprinted off to a group of soldiers.
I turned to go quickly, when he hollered at me from a distance, sounding nervous. “Casper,” he called. “Try to ignore what you see or hear.”
I quickened my pace toward the black van I saw him exit on his arrival. Since Adam still hadn’t come back, I thought I should be pleased that I wasn’t stranded in the middle of the desert. I sat in the van, watching the people in uniform. The city was almost completely dark now. All my classmates had sped off in a hurry, leaving the lot vacant minus the Military jeeps and vans.
I watched the soldiers as they carried a semi-conscious man towards Colonel Ford. It was the escaped convict. The window next to the passenger’s seat was rolled down a little. The conversation outside spilled into the car, and I couldn’t help but listen.
“The kids were lucky. He could have killed them all if he had wanted to,” Colonel Ford said. He stood over the crying prisoner. “Put Grindle in the van and give him the Knight.”
When I heard the prisoner’s name, I froze. He and Seth shared the same name. He had a messy beard and dark eyes that disappeared in the darkness. My concentration was broken by his fit of screaming when a soldier approached him.
“NO! PLEASE DON’T PUT ME UNDER AGAIN!” The convict tried hard to fight what was coming.
The Knight was the punishment for someone who committed a third degree misuse of his ability– murder. I never imagined I would see it. A soldier took a syringe out of a black satchel attached to his belt and injected the drug into the prisoner’s neck. The convict’s body quit fighting and went limp in seconds.
It was a drug. Dr. Sebastian Knight invented it to keep a person in a state where he had no control over his body or his EHT. I didn’t like the thought of it, but it made sense. Keeping people in a prison would be difficult. The only way to prevent escapes would be to keep the prisoners from using their abilities.
Colonel Ford walked toward the van. “We have to take the prisoner to the prison facility. It’s on the other side of Fallon in the desert. So we will drop you off on our way back through Fallon.” It wasn’t a suggestion; he broke down the plan for me as if briefing one of his soldiers.
“Sir?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I felt nervous asking him questions. “You called the convict Grindle. Is he from Fallon?”
Colonel Ford took a deep breath. “Yes. Nikolai Grindle was from Fallon before he became a murderer. I think he still has family there, which is why you’re asking, isn’t it?”
I nodded. I’d always known Seth’s father left Fallon before Seth was born, but I had no idea he was a criminal.
“Try not to mention his name to anyone, Casper. If you know that man’s family, spare them the embarrassment of what he’s become.” His face was like stone, and he avoided eye contact with me.
“Yes, sir.” I sat back in my seat, trying to relax.
I wasn’t thrilled to spend the next several hours in a van when I could have easily teleported back to Fallon with Adam in seconds. I tried not
to be mad at Adam, and hoped he had a decent excuse as to why he never came back. Had he been expecting me to catch a ride with Randy Alcott or Allen Young? I shuddered as to just how long that car ride would have lasted, but I knew Randy and Allen more than likely would have left me in the middle of the desert to die.
All the men gathered in the vehicles and drove away from Vegas. The city disappeared in the darkness as all the lights moved away from the city.
My mind raced as I sat next to Colonel Ford on the way home. I wondered if he preferred to drive in silence. He looked as if he was searching for something to say as well. I wanted to ask him if Evee had decided to attend Fallon High or not, but he was the first to speak.
“So you’re human.” He said it more as a fact than a question. He sounded awkward as if he hadn’t been sure how to address it.
“Yeah– I mean, yes sir,” I corrected myself. I wanted to show respect. He probably already thought less of me for being in Vegas.
“You know, when I read all those years ago that a human had been born, I never imagined that I would meet him.” There was a small trace of fascination in his voice, and his mouth curved into a smile.
“It doesn’t bother you?” I asked him.
“Why would it?” he asked. He sounded like being scared had never occurred to him.
“Most people are nervous around me. I heard one girl in the library yesterday talk about how no one was safe while the human was around.” I tried to sound as if the snide comment hadn’t bothered me, but he could see that it had upset me.
“Not to insult Fallon, but I think that’s just small-town ignorance.” He phrased his words delicately. “It’s unfortunate, Casper, that you are human, but I don’t think it’s unnatural. There’s a chance you may not be the last human the land will ever see.”
I was impressed. He seemed to have thought about this.
“It must be hard being the only one. It’s ignorant that you have to pay for the mistakes of past humans. People should realize that the Blight was as much the fault of extra-humans as it was humans.”
He sounded sincere and apologetic. I wondered how much Dad had told him.
“What do you do, sir?” I asked curiously. “What’s your extra-human trait?” I realized that I never had asked this question before to another person. I usually avoided the question, but I didn’t feel threatened by him. He was less intimidating when Evee wasn’t around.
“My nickname on the base is Frost,” he confessed. He turned his attention off the road towards me. He grinned. “Have you figured it out?”
“Ice?” I asked. “You can create ice and cold?”
“You got it,” he said with a chuckle. “The Military classification for what I do is cryokinesis. When I was a toddler, my parents had to watch their step around the house because I would cover the floor in ice when I crawled. My mother used to remind me that no one took more falls than she did when it came to me.” He chuckled.
I laughed at his story too. The way he talked about his mother made it sound like she had died. “Did she pass away?” I did my best to ask the question gently.
“Yes,” he said. “Both my parents died a long time ago. They were murdered tragically. Poor Evee has never known what it’s like to have grandparents.”
“I can relate to that,” I said. I thought I had spoken too eagerly, trying too hard to find a connection between Evee and me. I calmed down before I continued. “My dad was an orphan, and my mom’s parents both died before I was born.”
“You and Evee may have a lot in common,” he said.
I decided to be brave. “What about your daughter?” I asked. “What can Evee do?”
He hesitated. “Evee is… unique,” he said. It sounded like he had to search hard for the right word to describe her. “She doesn’t like to flaunt her ability. I’ll let her tell you at school on Monday.”
His words answered the question I wanted to ask the most. I was happy enough I would be seeing her in school; I didn’t care that he refused to tell me about her extra-human trait. I made a great effort to hide my excitement from him. I was nervous how he would react if he knew I felt something for his daughter.
For the rest of the trip Colonel Ford talked about San Diego, drawing me to the conclusion that his career forced him to deal with the worst people of society, and I caught him up to speed on the history of Fallon. I told him not many people could stand living in the desert, and that was what kept our numbers low. The small town fascinated him, as he had only lived in much larger populations. He was a curious and intelligent person. I could tell he appreciated knowledge, and he wanted to know everything that he could about his surroundings. I was sure it was all part of being in the Military.
I noticed his salt and pepper hair and tried to place his age. I thought he looked like he was near his fifties. He was in very good shape and stood several inches taller than me.
“Did you tell me that you went to Vegas tonight with Adam Howard?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.” I wondered how he knew Adam.
“You teleported with him?”
I nodded. “How did you know he was a teleporter?”
“I study extra-human traits,” he said. “Adam was recently brought to my attention because he can effectively teleport other people.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I teleport with him all the time. My dad is really impressed with Adam. Dad can only teleport himself.”
“I heard Adam got accepted into a university,” Colonel Ford said. “The Military could really use his ability, but I imagine he’ll do well at college.”
He asked for directions to my house. I pointed him in the right way. I was eager to get home and call Adam. He would want to know that I made it back to Fallon safely.
He pulled in front of my house. The glowing light from the windows illuminated the unpainted deck.
“Do me a favor, Casper,” he said as I stepped out of the van. “Don’t tell anyone about what you saw tonight. Let them read about it in the papers. It would be best if people didn’t know that a teenager witnessed everything tonight.”
“I can do that,” I told him. “Thanks for the ride.”
He was a pleasant man to talk to, and I didn’t know why I had thought he was so intimidating at first. I hoped Evee liked me as much as her father seemed to.
I started walking into my house when I heard footsteps on the deck. “Where have you been?”
I turned around and saw Adam– slightly relieved to see him. He teleported by my side and grabbed my shoulder. The feeling of my surroundings changing made me dizzy. Suddenly, we were in Adam’s room and Seth was there. Adam had never considered forcing me to teleport places rude or inconsiderate, but I was at my limit. Most of the time it didn’t bother me, but I really wanted to be home. Seth sat on the top bunk, and Adam the bottom.
“I really wanted to sleep in my own bed after the night I just had,” I said. I gave him a piercing look to show that I was agitated that he hadn’t come back for me.
“How did you get back?” Adam asked. “I’ve been everywhere looking for you. I went back to Vegas and the building we left you on was on fire.” He went on to explain that when he took Seth home, Mrs. Grindle caught them in our lie, and she lectured them for a good twenty minutes.
I told them how the Military had found the escaped convict hiding in the city. The soldiers had destroyed a lot of the city looking for him. They weren’t interested in my story until I told them I watched the soldiers administer the Knight drug.
“You watched them give him the Knight?” Seth asked, horrorstruck.
Seth’s question made me remember the prisoner’s name, but I couldn’t tell him. “Yeah. It was a drug they injected into his neck.” I tilted my head, showing them the spot on my neck. “But don’t say anything. I told Colonel Ford that I wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Who’s Colonel Ford?” Adam asked.
I explained to them that he had just been transferred here from San Diego. I skipped
the part about Evee. I would let them make the connections for themselves on Monday.
We talked more about the Knight. Most people considered it to be inappropriate and uncivilized conversation. As we chatted, I witnessed Seth and Adam shudder a few times.
The Knight didn’t scare me for the same reasons it scared everyone else. I’d seen it used tonight. The fear in the escaped convict’s voice was what scared me now. It was real. But I reminded myself I had nothing to fear. Since I was human, there was no reason it would ever be used on me.
“Did you get a good look at the convict?” Adam asked.
“It was dark, but I saw him.”
“I wonder who he was,” Seth said.
Though tempted, I couldn’t tell Seth the truth. He had a hard enough life without having to process that his absent father was a murderer. We talked the rest of the night about the fights in Vegas. Adam’s match got the most attention. Seth asked Adam why he decided to fight, and Adam thought hard before he answered.
“I’ll be leaving Fallon soon for college,” Adam said. “It’s a dangerous world out there. I wanted to see how well I would do in a fight. Something tells me I’ll need to know how to defend myself.”
BLUE EYES
Casper:
I couldn’t imagine that I’d ever been more excited about a day of school in my life. I made the drive to school in five minutes, blurring through the grid-like streets of Fallon. My mind didn’t begin to process my environment until I arrived in the empty parking lot. I wondered if Evee would be in any of my classes. I hoped so. The empty seats usually congregated around me, so maybe she would sit near me.
The previous weekend exhausted me. Watching the soldiers administer the Knight disturbed me more each passing night - I hadn’t slept well since. I heard the screams of the prisoner in my dreams. But the most disturbing part had been the prisoner’s name. Grindle. I pushed it all out of my mind for Seth’s sake.
I entered the school and set my destination for Dad’s office. As I walked through the narrow halls of green lockers, I tried hard to listen to people. If Evee had arrived yet, I figured everyone would be talking about it. However, nothing seemed out of the ordinary so far. The few students in the halls acted normal: talking casually, and then when they saw me, glaring harshly. The irritating twins, Kristy and Kelly, sneered at me as I walked by them. They’d spat on me once or twice, so I could tolerate the sneer.
