Becoming Super

by Plowden, Richard A.

  Usually Jesse, Eli, Kate and Taia all spent time together after the Academy until Eli’s curfew. But it was clear since Jesse was Eli’s assigned guard, he was no longer allowing that luxury.

  After several hours of Eli being in his cell, Taia came and got him for their training sessions.

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to do this tonight?” Eli asked.

  Taia wasn’t sure if it was but she needed to train. She needed to be prepared to help her people. “We’re going to be fine,” she said.

  But as soon as the pair lifted the trap door in the woods, they saw Jesse leaning on a tree waiting for them examining his pistol. He was still wearing his cadet uniform but he had his jacket on because it was a cool summer night.

  “Took you long enough,” he said in a bored tone.

  Taia and Eli slowly climbed out of the trap door. “Jesse,” Taia began. “You’re looking real murder-y right now. Please put the gun down.”

  Jesse looked at the gun and then looked at Taia in confusion. “Don’t be silly Taia,” he said. “I’ve just been here waiting for you two since I dropped Eli off at the Stockade. I didn’t know when you got here for your training.”

  “Why were you waiting for us?” Eli asked.

  Jesse grimed Eli. “Because if you’re going to be out here using your powers on my friend, then I’m going to be here to keep an eye on you.”

  The group then walked to the area where Eli and Taia usually trained. Eli and Taia faced off while Jesse leaned against a tree.

  They began their training by reviewing how Taia should fight a Transcended that had Super Strength.

  Eli threw a punch at Taia that she dodged and which shattered a boulder that she had been standing in front of.

  “Hey!” Jesse said protectively shoving Eli against a tree and pointing his gun in his face. “You could’ve killed her!”

  Eli rolled his eyes. Suddenly, the pistol became too heavy for Jesse to hold and fell to the ground with a hard thud.

  “Jesse!” Taia exclaimed. “Eli knows what he’s doing. He would never hurt me.”

  “How do you know?” Jesse asked. “For God’s sake Taia, he’s the enemy! He’s a Supe! How can you trust them? One of them killed your mother!”

  “One of them killed my mother too” Eli said. “And my father.”

  Jesse turned and looked at Eli. “What?”

  “Supes killed my parents,” Eli explained. “And then they took me, made me part of the Core, and turned me into a killing machine. Then the only guy who ever showed that he gave a damn about me, yea, they killed him too. And kind of forced me to help. So if I can train Taia so that no Transcended ever kills her or her family or anyone else she cares about, I’m going to do it. Because I know what that feels like better than anyone.”

  Jesse stared at Eli for a moment. “Stop saying that,” he told him.

  Eli looked at Jesse confused. “Saying what?”

  “Transcended,” Jesse answered, before taking off his camo jacket. “Nobody here says it. Someone else might pick up on it like I did.” He then threw his pistol to the side of the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Taia asked him.

  “If he can train you, he can train me too,” Jesse said. “Now show me what you can do big guy.”

  Chapter 19

  From that day on, Jesse began training with Eli and Taia on their nightly sessions. Eli would switch the training sessions from super strength training, to flight, to Eli shooting gravity blasts at the two. Taia initially felt bad for leaving Kate out of their training and not telling her that Eli was a Supe, but it was better for her not to know. She was not a soldier like them, she was a civilian.

  Jesse and Eli began getting along a lot better after Jesse found out Eli was Transcended. Jesse trusted Eli and now knew what Taia had been hiding from him so he was no longer giving Eli the cold shoulder.

  As grateful as Taia was that Eli’s gravity powers allowed him to be so versatile in training her and Jesse, she couldn’t help but realize if he used another aspects of his powers, they could be even more prepared to fight Supes.

  “Eli?” Taia asked, one day before they started their training.

  “Yes?” he responded.

  “Why don’t you ever train?”

  “I’m training by training you two,” Eli said.

  “That’s a little confusing,” Jesse said lazily.

  “No that’s not what I mean,” Taia said. “You already know how to control gravity perfectly. I mean your other powers.”

  “You have other powers?” Jesse asked. “I thought that was impossible.”

  Eli ignored him. “Taia, you know I can’t use those.”

  “Not yet,” Taia said hurriedly. “But if you practice, maybe you can.”

  “Taia,” Eli said patiently. “I’ve tried practice. It didn’t work out well. It’s too dangerous.”

  “You tried when you were a kid Eli,” Taia said. “You’re older now, you’re more mature. And back then you didn’t have me,” she finished with a smile.

  She didn’t know why, but something told Taia that Eli needed to try this.

  “Taia,” Eli began.

  “Hey,” Taia said. “I’m not asking you to summon the entire sun, but, just, I don’t know, make a small little flame.”

  “Summon the sun?” Jesse asked incredulously. “Is that why you can control gravity? Because you can summon the sun?”

  Jesse was just too smart for his own good.

  “Something like that,” Eli responded.

  Jesse looked at Eli for a second before shrugging. “Whatever.”

  “Come on Eli,” Taia said excitedly. “You can do this.”

  Eli took a deep breath before making a fist and sticking out his arm. He looked at his arm and concentrated before stopping.

  “I can’t Taia,” he said. “It’s too much heat whenever I do it. I don’t know what will happen.”

  “Then don’t summon that much heat,” Taia said. “Just a little bit.”

  Eli put out his arm again. His eyes began glowing the bright yellow that Taia had only seen happen once before. At night and against his dark skinned, Eli’s eyes looked an angel was looking through them. His fist then caught on fire.

  “Woah,” Jesse said, obviously impressed.

  “There we go Eli!” Taia exclaimed.

  The flame then started getting larger and growing a brighter color. Eli’s eyes widened in surprise. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t control it. It’s too hot.”

  “Calm down Eli,” Taia said patiently. “Just calm down and bring it in.”

  Eli then began taking several deep breaths with the flame on his arm becoming smaller and smaller until it was gone. His eyes stopped glowing and he was breathing heavily.

  “Eli that was incredible!” Taia exclaimed. “Look at that, you did—“

  But she was interrupted by Eli hugging her and kissing her on her forehead. The same warmth that filled Taia before at this action, did again. “Thank you,” Eli whispered to her. “You’re incredible.”

  Taia smiled into Eli’s chest. She didn’t know what it was, but this boy did something to her.

  “Ew,” Jesse said looking at the pair disgustedly. They quickly separated.

  “How did you do it?” Taia asked, trying to contain her excitement.

  “I don’t know how to explain it,” Eli began. “But my powers are like an extra limb, like a muscle. But the gravity part and heat part are like two different muscles. The gravity part has always been easy to control. It’s as easy as controlling my arm. But the heat part has always been too strong, when I try to lift it, it’s just too heavy and it gets too wild. But with you, it didn’t feel so heavy.”

  “So you can practice every day?” Taia asked.

  “No way,” Eli said quickly. “It wasn’t as heavy, but it was still entirely too heavy. I won’t risk the Sector like that. I barely stopped the flame.”

  “But—“

  “No
Taia,” Eli said. “It’s not worth it.”

  “Yea Tay,” Jesse said “Just let it go.

  And Taia gave up. She just didn’t have a choice.

  While Eli taught the two cadets about Supes and how to fight them, they, along with Kate, provided Eli with more books and taught him as much as they could about the Sector.

  They told him all 9 of the Sectors weren’t in communication for fear of any communication being intercepted by the Regime. They taught him about where the food came from: the different Greenhouses because obviously there was no growing food in the Wasteland and the farms where they had cattle, pigs, chicken and other animals. They showed him the hospital where they were able to give him a tour because Kate interned there. And Kate made sure she showed extreme discontent for the head doctor of the maternity world Dr. Perry, an old bitter woman who Kate insisted was the meanest person in the Sector. But Taia reprimanded her for this saying that since Dr. Perry had dealt with so many stillborn births in the Sector, she was probably just in a state of constant depression.

  The group spent as much time as they could with one another and Taia, Jesse and Kate welcomed Eli into their fold as if he had been with them for their entire lives.

  Weeks passed and the group had pretty much gotten into a routine. They would go to the Academy, hang out as a unit, and then Taia, Jesse, and Eli would go and train at night.

  One day was particularly difficult at the Academy. PT in particular had been extremely arduous for the cadets.

  This is why Eli and Taia were having a relaxing day laying down in Taia’s favorite park. They had decided that they wouldn’t train at all tonight. They could use a day off and could use a few more hours of sleep. Taia was in Eli’s arms as he read one of the books that she had given him.

  “Not gonna lie,” Jesse said walking up to the couple, “Really happy we’re taking a day off. I did not want to train.”

  Rolling her eyes, Taia said “Do you ever want to train Jesse?”

  Jesse sat down and smiled. “Good point,” he said. He then laid down and was sleep within minutes. Not long after Jesse had arrived, Kate showed up.

  “Aww,” Kate said smiling. “You guys are so cute together. Like a scoop of chocolate and vanilla ice cream.”

  Taia felt her face burn while Eli just laughed.

  But Taia did not understand how Eli could be so calm about comments like that. And they were comments that her friends made constantly. Whether it was while he, Jesse and Taia were training or while they all were hanging out, her friends always teased her about her about her relationship with Eli Proof.

  But it wasn’t really a relationship. Sure she felt something for Eli. Something much more than friendship but they had never talked about her feelings. She didn’t even know how to bring it up to him.

  Did he feel something for her? And even if he did, did he want to act on it? After all, he was Transcended and she was human. How could they ever have a functional relationship?

  And then, as if he knew something was bothering her, he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. It was the most intimate action that the pair shared, but it meant the world to Taia. And every time he did it when she was bothered, it was like a ray of sunshine being shine down her while she was in a freezing blizzard. And it lit up her entire body.

  The group sat like this for a couple of hours. Jesse sleeping, Eli reading and Kate speaking frantically to Taia about her day. Soon, Jesse woke up and stretched.

  “Alright big man,” he said to Eli. “Let’s go take you home.”

  Eli stood up and pulled Taia up with him. The group all began walking toward the Stockade.

  Suddenly a loud explosion was heard near them. Immediately everyone in the group was on alert.

  “What was that?” Taia asked. The group all looked in the direction that the explosion came from. Soon, someone in what looked to be a yellow hazmat suit came running down the street in a rush.

  Eli grabbed the person before they passed them and ripped off the top of the suit. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “The-the reactor,” the person stuttered. “It’s corrupted.”

  Realization dawned on Jesse’s face. “Oh no,” he whispered. He then began running down the street.

  “Jesse—Wait!” Taia yelled before chasing after him, with Kate and Eli hot on her heels.

  Soon the group had arrived at the Power Building. Several people in hazmat suits identical to the one who had run down the street were outside of the building.

  “What’s going on?” Jesse asked.

  The men in the hazmat suits ignored him. Jesse went over to one of them and grabbed him and pulled him close to him “What is going on?” he asked again.

  “We don’t know,” the man responded. “The reactor inside, it just all of a sudden started going off. We’re about to have a meltdown. We need to evacuate the city.”

  “Evacuate the city?” Eli asked. “What is the reactor being powered by?” But Eli felt that he already knew the answer to that question.

  “It’s nuclear,” Jesse groaned.

  “Why,” Eli said irritably. “Why is everything bad nuclear?”

  “We have to evacuate,” the man in the hazmat suit said. “We have to sound the alarm.”

  It didn’t take long before a truck arrived outside of the Power building and the General hoped out of it with a few of his guards. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

  “The reactor is about to explode sir,” someone said fearfully. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Explode?” The General asked. “Why Craig? It’s been stable for over a century.”

  The same man spoke. “We don’t know,” Craig said. “It just suddenly started overheating sir.”

  “Well we need to evacuate then. Sound the alarm.”

  “But sir,” Craig began nervously. “Even if we started evacuating the city right now, the explosion will be too big for us to escape it.”

  “What can you do?” Morris asked desperately. “What can you do to stop this?”

  Craig’s mind was racing. “The only thing that might work sir is if someone can go in there and shut the reactor down manually. I can tell them exactly what to do with this.” Craig held up a small earpiece.

  “Well then what are you waiting on?!”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Craig said. “It’s why we’re all out there and none of us want to go in there. Right now the reactor is leaking. Anyone that goes in there is going to be infected with radiation poisoning.”

  Before anyone could say anything Eli grabbed the ear piece out of Craig’s hand and ran into the power building.

  “Eli!” Kate screamed.

  “What is that crazy boy doing?” The General asked.

  Panic seized Taia initially before she realized something. Even if Eli contracted radiation poisoning, all they would have to do is keep him stable and he would heal with the next sunrise. But Taia did not think Eli was even thinking about that.

  Knowing him, all he was thinking about was saving everyone in the Sector that he had come to know and care about. That’s just who Eli Proof was.

  Eli was in the building with the alarm blaring and a red light dimming everything. He put the ear piece in and pressed the small button.

  “Where do I go to shut this thing down?” But no one responded.

  “Hey!” Eli said louder. “Anybody there? How do I shut this thing down?”

  Static came over the earpiece before Eli heard Craig’s voice. “It’s in the basement,” he said. “One floor down.”

  Eli looked around the room he was in and saw an elevator and ran to it. He pressed the button to go down but nothing happened.

  “The elevator is taking too long,” Eli said over the earpiece.

  “It’s not going to work,” Craig responded. “The elevators are shut down during lockdown.”

  Eli rolled his eyes and began running to the stairs. “You could have told me that.”

  He pushed the door ope
n to the stairwell and began running down the steps two at a time until he arrived at the basement.

  “Where do I go now?”

  “Go left,” Craig said over the com “Down the hall and in the last room on the right is where the reactor will be. But be careful. You won’t be able to be in there for too long before you start feeling the effects of the leaking radiation.”

  Eli ran down the hall and pushed a button to open the door. The reactor was a large metal cylinder hooked up to multiple wires and outlets. “I’m in” Eli said.

  Immediately Eli began feeling weak and nauseous. His entire body was on fire. “There should be a metal plate on the left on the reactor,” Craig said. “That’s its control panel. Open the plate and pull down the lever, which should shut down the reactor.”

  Eli trudged over to the panel. He opened it but what he saw inside didn’t make any sense. There was no lever. Instead there were a ton of wires sticking out of the panel like it had been tampered with. “Someone’s messed with it,” Eli said disbelievingly.

  “What?” Craig asked.

  Eli began coughing before repeating himself. “Someone messed with the panel!”

  He ran out of the room and up the steps of the building and launched himself outside, falling on the ground coughing and breathing heavily.

  Looking up, Eli had seen that multiple people had run over to him. He saw his friends, The General and even Connor had arrived.

  “What did you do boy?” Connor asked him angrily.

  “The panel,” Eli sputtered. “The panel was broken. The lever was ripped out.”

  Connor grabbed Eli by the scruff of his shirt. “You bastard! You’ve killed us all!”

  Taia pushed the Lieutenant General. “Back off jerk!” she said. “The reactor was already about to explode. Eli risked his life to save us. He didn’t have to go in there! It was already damaged when he did.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?” Connor asked laughing sarcastically. “Over a century with the reactor working perfectly, powering our sector without incident. And then this kid comes along and it starts malfunctioning after a few weeks. Then, he goes in and claims that the one way that could actually save all of us is damaged?”