Becoming Super

by Plowden, Richard A.

  Taia pulled the safety on the pistol and took a step back. “I swear I will blow my brains out,” she said.

  Carter stopped and put his hands up. “Listen girl. We don’t want you dead. We just want the coordinates to your sector.”

  Taia froze. “How do you know about my sector?”

  Something resembling a smile broke across the face of Carter’s giant monstrous rock form. “The same way I knew you were coming. The same way I knew Davenport was leading the mission. And the same way I know you know the coordinates to Sector 6.”

  “Shows how much you know,” Taia said nervously, continuing to back away from Carter. “No one knows the coordinates to Sector 6 except people with high clearance. Like Davenport. It’s a liability. And I’m just a cadet.”

  “Ah but you’re not just any cadet,” Carter said moving towards Taia slowly. “You’re the daughter of the General.”

  Taia was speechless. How did he know all this? This was impossible.

  “And the General,” Carter continued. “Would risk the entire Sector’s safety just to make sure his baby girl always knew how to get home.”

  Taia’s back was against the wall now. She had nowhere to go. She had to do it. She had to shoot herself. For the safety of her sector. But she just couldn’t.

  She turned her pistol towards Carter and began shooting at him but the blasts had no effect on him.

  He grabbed her by the top of her head and lifted her off the ground until she was eye level with him. He then ripped her pistol from her hand, ripped the knife from her side, tossed them both to the side. “You stupid little girl,” he snarled as his fellow Core officers laughed. “Now I could just have a psychic invade your little mind until we got the coordinates, but I’m going to enjoy torturing you.”

  Taia struggled against Carter to no avail. She spat in his face.

  Carter groaned in disgust. “Oh you’re going to pay for that. I think I’ll just break your arm. You don’t need that to tell me where your Sector is.”

  As Carter reached for her arm, a loud sound suddenly echoed throughout the plant. Carter and the rest of the Core members turned to look toward the source of the sound.

  The sound was caused by one of the large double doors in the plant being pushed open. Walking through the double doors was one of the strangest sites that Taia had ever seen.

  It was a man, limping inside, using a large stick as a makeshift cane. His entire face was nearly covered because of a scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth along with him wearing sunglasses and the fact that he was wearing a large worn out overcoat. Something that Taia thought was especially odd considering it was unfathomably hot outside.

  The man continued limping inside, his cane tapping against the ground.

  “What in the—“ Carter said before freezing along with the rest of his team. “You,” he snarled.

  But the old man ignored him. He looked around surveying the scene before shaking his head. He then did something that would be in Taia’s memory for the rest of her life. He pulled out a Pre-Outbreak Weapon, a .50 caliber Desert Eagle handgun, and in the blink of an eye, and shot the Poison Gas Supe in the head.

  Carter dropped Taia “No!” he snarled before running at the old man.

  Then all of a sudden, there was a ridiculous amount of pressure in the room, and everyone, including Taia and Carter, dropped to their knees as if being weighed down by an invisible pile of bricks. This man was a Supe!

  It was as if he increased the weight in the room on everyone but himself. Taia was terrified. She could not move at all. It was as if this invisible weight was making her weigh 1000 pounds more than she actually did. She couldn’t lift a finger.

  The old man slowly limped towards the Fire Supe. He was not moving at all. The weight of the world was being crushed on his shoulders. Taia flinched as the old man shot the Core officer in the head without even looking down at him.

  He then walked over to the Force Field Supe and the telekinetic one as they were right near each other. He pulled another identical Desert Eagle gun out of his coat, leaned his cane against himself and pointed the guns at the pair. The force field Supe was trying to move his arms to bring up a force field to protect himself but it was too late. They were soon shot too.

  Taia did not understand what was going on. Who was this man?

  “We’re with the Core!” Carter yelled in disbelief. “What are you doing?! Are you mad?!”

  Then as if resisting the invisible weight crushing him down, Carter slowly began to stand. “You think your gravity powers can stop me?!” he yelled. “I’ll kill you for killing my team! I’ll rip your head off!”

  In an impressive show of strength, Carter was able to resist the old man’s increased gravity. He stood up but did not seem to be able to do more than that. The old man walked right up to Carter and tilted his head to look him in the eye.

  “What are you going to do you lunatic?!” Carter asked looking down at the man. “Have you lost your mind? Are you so washed up you went crazy and wanted some action?! You’re going around killing Core officers?!”

  But the old man ignored Carter and seemed to be searching Carter’s face for something.

  Carter was trying to move but it seemed as if the gravity weighing him down was just too much. Carter was infuriated that the old man wouldn’t respond.

  “I’m going to kill you!” he screamed. “You can’t kill me with those human bullets and you know it! They won’t pierce my skin! And you can’t hold me with this gravity forever! When you get tired I will rip out your throat! I am unstoppable! I have no weakness! I am—“

  Carter’s eyes got wide as the old man stuck one of his guns in Carter’s mouth to shut him up. Then the old man spoke for the first time, “Everyone has a kryptonite.” He then pulled the trigger on the gun.

  Carter seemed to fall in slow motion, reverting from his rock state to his normal human one as he fell dead. As soon as he hit the ground, Taia felt the gravity in the room return to normal. Incredible. His entire exterior was all rock, but his interior must have still been human flesh. What a weakness.

  The old man took his sunglasses off and looked directly at Taia. He held his guns lazily by his side. He looked at Taia with prying eyes. Taia could not see his facial expression but based off of his eyes he seemed to be confused.

  Yet, Taia was sure that she was more confused than he could ever be. She could not understand what was going on with this situation. This man was clearly a Supe. At least she felt that it was obvious. No human possessed technology to cause the gravity in a room to spontaneously increase. At least they did not at Sector 6. And she doubted that this man with his tattered clothes and improvised cane was from another sector and therefore could possess such technology. He was after all carrying a gun that was clearly Pre-Outbreak.

  This man was a Supe. Therefore, Taia did not understand why he would kill other Supes. That was a major offense in the eyes of the Regime. The life of a Supe should not be taken unless authorized. And in that case, the Core would carry out the kill order. And those Supes that this man just killed were officers of the Core and this man clearly was not.

  Maybe this man was a serial killer. In the Academy during their pre-Outbreak History classes, the cadets were educated on the derangement of the human race in an attempt to understand Transcendeds who evolved from humans. Serial killers were among the worst kind of humans. Maybe this person was one of those. Someone who just enjoyed killing just for the sake of it. Because it was no way that this situation was the alternative. That this Supe just saved her life on a whim.

  Because that wasn’t possible. Supes were evil. All of them. It was in their genetic code. She knew enough about Supes to know that. She knew all she needed to know.

  Taia was forced out of her thoughts as the old man made a move. Taia’s heart was pounding violently in her chest. He was going to kill her just like he had killed those Supes.

  But the old man’s actions surprised her. He put both his
guns in the holster inside his overcoat. Then he began limping towards her using his cane.

  As he advanced, Taia swore to herself and the analytical part of her training kicked in. This man was a gravitational manipulator. This meant that he had no offensive power and that his seemingly only weapons were holstered, but she still felt that he was a threat. It did not matter that he had seemingly saved her life, or that he could have killed her already if he wanted to; this man was a Supe and Supes were evil. It was in their genes. Their abilities corrupted all of them, no matter what.

  Taia looked to her left. That’s where her rifle was. But it was a considerable distance away from her. Her other weapons, her handgun and knife, had been thrown even farther. It was no way that she could get to it before the old man reached her.

  She thought of her training. She was the best in her class. She was sure she could disarm the man if he got close enough. He was crippled and it would be difficult for him to reach his guns due to the position they were in and one of his arms was using the cane. That was one of the rules of the Academy. Put your weapons in the places where they are most easily accessible like how Taia put her pistol on her hip holster.

  Taia’s foolish thoughts of disarming the old man were halted once she realized what she was dealing with. This man was a Supe. A team of them had just taken out a team of Academy cadets with three times as many members without breaking a sweat. Her class ranking would not help her in this situation. That fact was enough to freeze her in place.

  The old man stopped in front of Taia. She expected the overbearing fear that she experienced when she was in the grasp of the Supe from the Core to return but it didn’t. She knew that she was supposed to be scared. All Supes were the same. But instead, her confusion from still being alive was making her more anxious than anything else.

  As Taia looked up at the man she took in all of his features for the first time. The scarf that the old man was wearing around his face was the only part of his clothing that looked to be in relatively good condition. His jet black curly hair had flecks of dust in it. The only part of his dark brown skin visible, that which was surrounding his eyes, was worn and tired. He had bags under his eyes as if he hadn’t had a proper sleep in eons. But it was the old man’s eyes that were most startling to Taia.

  His eyes were piercing black. She had never seen eyes such a color. His eyes were so black that she could not distinguish between the pupils in his eyes and the irises surrounding them. But his eyes also seemed so similar to hers. His eyes seemed to have a hint of innocence left in them. As if innocence belonged there and was fighting to stay there, but his innocence had been robbed of him long before it should have. This was not odd to find in Taia’s eyes as she had been forced to experience the most tragic evils of the world in her sixteen years, but what a strange thing to see in the eyes of someone who had lived a seemingly long life.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked.

  Taia was startled. His voice was not at all what she’d been expecting. It was muffled because of the scarf surrounding the majority of his face, but it was also raspy and hoarse, as if he hadn’t talked much in a very long time, and he had a different accent than the people in Taia’s Sector. She believed in was southern. But his voice was also pure and fresh. And kind.

  Taia knew she should run. Or fight. She should do something to get away from this man who had just killed the men who killed her comrades. He was dangerous and violent and a killer. She knew that she needed a way to get out of this and away from this situation. A way to make sure that this man did not kill her like he killed those Supes.

  “You smell awful,” Taia said.

  The man’s eyes widened.

  “Like dude, totally awful,” Taia didn’t know why she continued but she did. It was almost like she couldn’t stop. “When was the last time you showered? Are Supes not showering these days? Oh crap, not Supe, I mean—“

  “I think you’re going into shock,” the man interrupted. His eyes were wide in astonishment. Taia could tell she had confused the man.

  “Oh, I’m not,” Taia said. “I get why you would think that because I’m rambling and talking and calling you a word you people really don’t like to be called. But you really don’t seem to care that I call you Supe. You are a Supe right?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your name?”

  “Taia. Are you a Supe?”

  The man sighed. “Yes, unfortunately I—“

  “Aha!” Taia exclaimed. “I knew it!”

  It really was amazing how many facial expressions you could read from someone when you could only see their eyes.

  The man looked startled. “I didn’t know that I was trying to hide it.”

  Taia stared at the man. She really needed to calm down. Her father always told her that her personality was not suited for that of a soldier. That her blabbering and smart mouth were more liabilities than anything else. Taia could now see that he was right. Her anxiety and excitement was clouding her mind and inhibiting using everything she had been taught.

  Taia took a deep breath. That’s right. She was trained for this. She needed to kill this Supe before he killed her. She knew that she could. If only she could get to her rifle. But did she want to kill him? He hadn’t hurt her or her comrades. In fact, he had killed the people who had. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, if anything, this Supe had saved her life.

  The man suddenly turned around, put on his sunglasses, and began walking away from Taia.

  For reasons Taia did not even know, she ran up to catch up with him.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Taia asked.

  The man kept his head forward and didn’t even look at Taia. “I’m leaving.”

  “Why?” Taia asked. But as soon as she asked she regretted it. This man was leaving her alive. A Supe was leaving her alive. She should be grateful. But her gratitude for being left alive paled in comparison to her confusion about the entire situation.

  “Because I want to,” the man said limping towards the front doors boldly. This was a much better entrance than the route that Taia had taken. But Taia assumed all the reasons not to use the front door were now gone.

  “Well, why did you kill those men?” Taia didn’t know why she was doing it. Why she was being so bold as to even speak to a Supe. But she needed to know.

  “Why does it matter?” the man asked, obviously annoyed.

  “Because they were Supes!” Taia exclaimed. “And you’re a Supe!”

  The man stopped right in front of the doors.

  “Like are you like a mercenary?” Taia asked. “Did someone pay you to kill them? Or are you like apart of some group trying to overthrow the Regime and take over? Or are you like a serial killer?”

  Taia stopped speaking because of the murderous look on of the man’s face.

  “I’m not a serial killer,” he said seriously.

  “Yea, how ironic,” Taia muttered. The man glared at her.

  “I don’t live too far from here alright?” The man said. “I saw your truck roll through past my home. You’re obviously humans. And five minutes later a Core team rode past. It was obvious what was about to happen. I couldn’t let you all die. But by the time I came you were the only one still alive. “

  Taia’s eyes widened at his words.

  “I killed the Supes to save you,” he said, taking his sunglasses off, clearly frustrated. “But now I’m starting to regret it.”

  “You saved me? You killed a bunch of Supes to save me?” Taia asked disbelievingly. She doubted the sincerity of the man. She only had two things to go on and that was not enough to trust a Supe. The first thing was the fact that this Supe used the word ‘Supe’. Supes hated that word. They preferred ‘Transcended’. Supes was a disrespectful term and degraded their self-proclaimed “divineness”. The second thing was obvious; that this man had in fact saved her. This man had killed Supes and left her alive. But there were many reasons why this Supe could have left her alive and she wa
sn’t about to be fooled.

  The man sighed. “Believe it or not, yes. I did.”

  Taia narrowed her eyes, her fear having evaporated in favor of her curiosity.

  “Why?” she asked defiantly.

  The man’s eyes narrowed as well. “You ask a lot of questions for someone who was literally just seconds away from being stoned to death before I came along. You should be saying thank you.”

  “I could’ve handled it,” Taia lied.

  “Oh yea, just like you’re friends,” The man retorted.

  Taia felt tears come to her eyes again at the thought of the death of her fallen comrades.

  The man’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Hey, I’m sorry.” He said. “I didn’t—I—I’m sorry. That was wrong,” The man paused and then opened his mouth to speak again but Taia interrupted.

  “You said sorry,” she said in astonishment. She was amazed. Such a trivial thing as an apology coming from a Supe was unheard of. A sincere apology. Could this day get any weirder?

  “And?” the man’s eyes looked confused.

  “Supes don’t say sorry. You’re all evil.”

  “Really?” the man asked sarcastically. “Most of us, yes. But all? You should’ve told me that before I saved your life.”

  The man was glaring at her. Taia could tell that she had offended the man. But something else was confirmed to her as well. This man was not fond of Supes at all.

  “You might want to grab your gun before you leave kid,” The man said before walking out of the plant.

  Kid? Taia was not a kid. She was sixteen years old! She was about to say this to the old man before what he said registered. Her rifle! He was right, she should get it.

  Taia ran over to grab her rifle and her pistol and took one last look at her friends. Her classmates. Her brothers and sisters. A tear fell from her cheek. She would mourn their losses. But first, she had to get home.

  Chapter 4

  Taia walked out of the plant and the unbearable heat that greeted her in the barren desert had not subsided much from earlier even though sun had now set.