by Alan Janney
“Good night,” he said. “Keep it down.”
“Good night, Richard,” she smiled.
Dad arched his eyebrow at her and said, “Good night, Sam.” He left.
“Out out out!” she hissed and shoved Croc towards the window.
I asked, “Sam? Why’d he call you Sam?”
“Get out, Croc. I mean it. You just embarrassed me in front of Chase’s dad,” she glowered.
“I’m going, I’m going,” he smiled. “Want to invade Compton with me tonight? I need backup.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I have homework.”
“Homework?” he hooted.
“What??” she glared. “I don’t want to fail. You have homework too.”
“Chase? How about it? Compton could use an Outlaw sighting. Give’em some hope. Could be bonzo!”
“Sorry, Croc,” I yawned. “I’m exhausted.”
“Righto, mate, you look zonked. Okay, I’ll rack off. But you two remember,” he said. “I’m here for a reason. There’s a dodgy man holding a lot of people hostage, a right dunny rat. And he needs to cark it.”
That went straight over my head. For my benefit, Samantha explained, “That’s slang for, it’s time for the Chemist to die.”
“Bingo, love.”
I said, “I agree. Let’s do this. Soon.”
“Good. Aces. I’ll ring Carter and we’ll get a plan. Ta-ta,” he grinned and he disappeared through the window.
“He’s insufferable.” Samantha slammed the window and stalked back to her room.
“He’s so cool! And why does Dad call you Sam? …hello?”
Chapter Seven
Thursday, August 27. 2018
Samantha Gear
Another cargo plane landed in Compton Thursday night. I watched the live feed on television with Richard and the Outlaw, all of us frustrated.
Beyond frustrated, actually. With each shipment, the Chemist grew stronger. Each shipment gave him more ingredients for his drugs, more troops, more ammunition, and more clout within the world of zealots. Maniacs from across the globe were arriving in Los Angeles with the intention of sneaking into Compton and joining the Chemist’s cause. Some of them were apprehended by the police, and some of them were shot as they attempt to cross the restricted barriers. The rest were captured by the Chemist’s forces and put through a rigorous screening process, according to Puck.
I’ve crawled all over Compton, and I still can’t find that old man. I just want one clean shot.
On screen, the fat aircraft taxied to a stop, lights blinking red and white. Airport workers scurried out, pushing a ramp and staircase.
Richard and I stood up in disgust, as if on cue. He stormed up the stairs, answering his buzzing cellphone. The Outlaw stayed on the couch, yawning so big his jaw cracked. I stomped out of the house, cursing. The anger and the disease were rampaging through my body, threatening to overwhelm me.
I didn’t go far. To release tension, I practiced jumping over my truck. Chase had forbidden me from shooting civilians with wax bullets, which used to be my stress reliever. So now I practiced jumping, because I was indignant he could jump so much higher than me. Ten times as high.
I never go far. I’m drawn to him. I worry about his safety. I obey him. I need him. Not for any romantic reason or any other reason I can explain. Puck feels the same way. Carter does too, to some extent. I KNOW the Chemist feels it. And I bet Croc will feel it soon. He’s our gravity. He’s the center of our world now, though I don’t know why. He’s important and powerful. And kind, which is impossible in our condition. Power corrupts, and we’re the most powerful people on earth. We are heavily corrupted. But not him. The Outlaw shines like the sun. I would give my life to keep him alive, no questions asked.
Twenty minutes later, as I was leaning against my truck and panting, Mitch drove up. I groaned and hid; the last thing I needed right now was an overly eager Croc. He scaled Chase’s house without a sound and went in through his bedroom window. I suppressed a chuckle; the Outlaw was going to quickly tire of Mitch’s entrances, just as I did.
Mitch (I nicknamed him Croc years ago) is handy in a fight. He’s irrepressibly energetic and optimistic. Obviously he’s gorgeous. And rich, and charming and entertaining and fun, but none of these things matter to me. His affectionate loyalty is cloying and unprofessional, and I can’t make him stop.
The Outlaw trudged out his front door, yawning. He and Mitch climbed into the truck and roared off. I mashed a button on my phone. Puck answered.
“What up girl.”
“Puck, what the hell is Croc doing? Where’s he taking Chase?” I climbed in my own truck, gunned it, reversed out the driveway and chased the distant taillights.
“Training. Croc told me you approved.”
“No!” I switched the call from the phone to my bluetooth headset. Puck’s noises started pumping straight into my ear. “Training? What kind of training?”
“I don’t know,” he grunted. “Infected training stuff.”
“Damn it, Puck, we don’t train each other.”
“Never?”
“Never. Where is he going?”
“Some local construction warehouse. I’ll push the address onto your phone.”
Croc and Chase parked at the back of a dark supply yard and went over the chainlink fence. I parked farther away and entered from a different direction. The open warehouse had canyons of pavers, treated lumber, bags of concrete, hay-bales, rocks, and everything else local construction companies needed, including forklifts and mixers. The night was clear and warm, and I leapt quickly along the ridges of materials, twenty feet in the air, towards the security lights burning in the back. I sat down at a safe distance, on top of a plywood tower, wrapped arms around my knees, and watched in secret. The two guys were clearing a space to work.
Chase asked, “What if we get caught?”
“Crikey, Chase. You run away.”
“Dad will kill me if I get caught.”
I smiled. Despite being perhaps the most sought-after person on earth, Chase remained just a kid worried about disappointing his father.
“Why would you get caught?? You’re Infected! You could outrun a German Shepherd, if you had to.”
“You’re Infected. I’m still a kid in high school.”
Croc grabbed fistfuls of Chase’s shirt and glared. I stiffened. “No, Chase. No you’re not. You have the disease, mate. You must wake up. The story of your life has been entirely rewritten. You will never have a normal life again.”
I shivered, partially because of the chilly night and partially because his words brushed against my soul, the way scary truth often does.
Chase took his time answering. “I can have the disease and still live a normal life.”
“How many Infected do you know?” Croc hadn’t relaxed his grip on the Outlaw’s shoulders.
“You. Samantha and Puck. And Carter, I guess.”
“And the Chemist. And some of his baddies. Righto?”
Chase nodded.
“Do any of them lead normal lives? No. We don’t. We’re apples, Chase. Crackers. Crazy. And you will become increasingly so.” He smiled suddenly. “And it’s brilliant. Your headaches are gone, right? You survived. Now you must embrace the insanity. Admit you’ve gone apples.”
“Apples?”
“You can do anything. And I’m here to lend a hand.” Croc released Chase with a shove.
“What can you do?”
“You mean, what abilities has the virus given me?” Croc grinned.
“Yes.”
“I’m not as strong as you. Or as fast. Or as coordinated. Or anything, really. But I can read minds.”
“What??” Chase cried. “No you can’t.”
“Too right, I can’t.” He laughed and I rolled my eyes. Croc will never change. “That’s bollocks. But I can predict what people will do. Minor prescience through observation. I naturally observe people, especially during pe
riods of extreme stress, and I anticipate their movements and thoughts. I operate during the infinitesimally small period of time between instinct and action. Fast reflexes and all that rot. Martin can do this too, to a lesser extent.”
“Martin? The Chemist?”
“Yep. I’ll show you. Think of a word, and I’ll tell you what it is.”
“That’s impossible. Or at least, it better be,” Chase grumbled.
“Let’s try. Ready? Go.” He smiled and arched an eyebrow. “Wood. An elephant. Katie Lopez.”
“Whoa who WHOA!” Chase cried, waving hands in front of his face and reeling. “What the HECK! How did you…?”
“I was right!”
“Yes, good gosh.” Chase pressed his hands into his eyes. He was taking deep breaths. I stifled my laughter; I had a similar reaction the first time Croc used that trick on me. “That was insane! How did you do that?”
“Easy. I watched your eyes. Pretty standard. Plus it’s always an elephant.”
“Wow. I hated that.” Chase was still shaking his head, probably trying to dislodge the feeling Croc was in there.
Then Croc beat him in rock/paper/scissors. They played three games to ten. Croc won ten to three, ten to one, and ten to zero. Chase was grinding his teeth by the end, and Croc was enjoying this far too much. I debated shooting him with one of the wax bullets I always kept in my pocket.
“Okay, I get it,” Chase fumed. “You can predict what people will do. You should play poker.”
“I make millions playing poker, mate.”
“You do?! Cheater.”
“Hah! When are you going to figure it out? We Infected are bastards. The virus makes us mean as cat’s piss.”
I nodded. He was right. I pulled out my phone and alternated between reading the news and watching the training.
“Now what?” Chase asked.
“I’ve seen you fight, Outlaw. Puck sent me all the videos. You’re a right tartar. A real bruiser. No one your age should be able to fight like that. You’re more than a match for any of the Chemist’s beauties. But can you control it?”
Chase waffled his hand. “More than I used to.”
“Your body responds strongly to fight-or-flight episodes. Do you follow? Like pouring gasoline on a fire. The more epinephrine you have pumping, the harder your skin, the faster you run…you know the drill, righto? But you can learn to initiate these physiological changes, instead of depending on external stimuli.”
Croc was right, though I’d never given it much thought. Eleven years ago, when my freakish abilities were still new and foreign, I couldn’t control them. I broke my mother’s car door by accident. I was nervous on a date and broke the guy’s hand. Mom almost called the priest when she saw me snatch four aces out of a deck I’d thrown into the air. I moved out soon after, and Carter found me. Somewhere along the way, I grew into my new body. But it took years, and the Outlaw didn’t have that much time.
He put Chase through a series of impossible drills. Juggling bricks. Flicking quarters, sprinting twenty yards and back, and catching the spinning quarter in midair. Hoping around on one hand. Listening for noises a mile away. Throwing knives. Chase was really good at that. Lethal. At everything else, he struggled. He was tired and his adrenaline laid dormant and the minutes ticked by slowly.
Eventually Croc said, “Alright, well done. Keep at these, kid, on your own time. Now let’s have a biffo.”
“Biffo?”
“Biffo. Fight. A blue. I watched the tape of you in Compton. That night you moved faster than a possum going up a gum tree. You ran circles around those Chemist blokes, mate.”
“That was out of desperation,” Chase yawned.
“Which is why you practice, so you can do it on command. Do you have any combat training?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Show me what you got,” Croc grinned. “Hit me.”
“Don’t be weird.”
“M’not. Hit me.”
“No Infected has offered to teach me combat.”
“Can’t say I’m gobsmacked. We don’t like to help each other. ‘Sept me, I’m the cat’s whiskers.” He pointed at himself with his thumb.
“The what? You’re the cat’s…what?” Chase floundered with the Australian slang.
“So far you’ve only fought regulars, right? The un-Infected?” he asked. Chase confirmed. “Totally different story than fighting Infected, especially one that’s been around a while. Now hit me.”
“How many Infected do you know, Croc? Other than the Chemist, and Carter, and Gear, and Puck, I mean.”
“Not many.” Croc rolled his eyes up in thought, and scratched the back of his scalp absently. “I knew Europe, but she carked it last year. Real shame. She was a handy cobber, for a sheila. Who else? I met Retractor. Twice. But he’s gone.”
“What about Russia? Or China? Or Pacific? Or…I forgot the last one.”
The Zealot, I thought. That was the one Chase missed. The weirdest one, currently living in an African prison. Voluntarily.
“Heard about Pacific,” Croc nodded. “And I’ve met Russia once. Huge bloke, nasty Stand-Over Man, you know? Now hit me!”
Chase tried. He couldn’t. Despite wearing cowboy boots, tight jeans, and a cumbersome jacket, Croc evaded him easily. Within a few minutes it became obvious that Chase was quicker than Croc, but that didn’t help because Croc always vanished. Just like he stated, Croc knew exactly what Chase was going to do.
I grew irritated, quit watching, and went back to my phone. As usual, news about the Sanctuary dominated the headlines. Earlier today, Chemist forces shot down two military surveillance drones. Yesterday a jet raced over Compton and released ten thousand pamphlets about non-violent resistance, blanketing the small city in case any hostages weren’t checking the internet. Soon the government would storm the city again, this time with more troops, heavier equipment, and from multiple insertion points. It might work, but the loss of life would be catastrophic and it would not solve the long-term problem. The real danger was the Chemist and his elite leadership team. A large-scale assault would never succeed in capturing him.
It drove reporters mad to have evidence of extraordinary people under their noses but be unable to locate them or learn about their remarkable gifts. Wild conspiracies abounded across website and news channels, and politicians ran entire platforms based on dealing with these ‘unique individuals.’ The world ached for fresh Outlaw reports, but there weren’t any.
Little did anyone know he was just a furious kid in Glendale, stalking a grinning Australian around a lumberyard. Over the course of an hour, the frustrated masked vigilante grew angrier and bigger. Not only did his body swell with the virus’s inflammation, his presence increased too. During times of stress, the impression Chase made on our senses was heightened, and none of us knew why. He actually was bigger, but he felt bigger than that.
Croc offered advice and pointed out mistakes. Don’t lunge. Don’t overextend. Keep your balance. Don’t swing so hard. Small movements. You can overwhelm civilians with speed, but not Infected; you must be shrewd. Croc open-hand slapped Chase after mistakes to prove his point. Twice he grabbed him by the ear, like a child, to get his attention. Soon, however, as Chase grew angrier and more focused, Croc was having to block as well as dodge, and he could no longer launch counter-attacks. Croc, the wily veteran, had his hands full with the young quick-learning predator.
There’s nothing natural about Chase when he’s mad, I thought. He’s frightening, even to his allies. It’s the same way with Tank. Young Infected require years to learn their new bodies, but not those two. Carter thinks it’s related to the superior nutrition modern-day American athletes have access to, and the years of training they both had before displaying Infected symptoms. Chase was a gymnast before playing football. I wasn’t an athlete in my prior life, and neither was anyone else that I knew of.
“Okay,” Chase said, holding up his hands and backing off. His chest was heaving with exerti
on for the first time I could remember. “I surrender tonight. I need some sleep before school.”
Croc was out of breath too. “Good onya, Chase! This is a good start.”
“Why are we doing this? Don’t most of them use guns?” He rested his hands on his knees, and sucked wind.
“You need to get used to your body. You need to start thinking like an Infected, you know? You were stumbling around like a baby giraffe. But you still ‘ave a long way to go.”
Carter said, “I concur.” Carter was sitting on top of a pile of lumber near the edge of the guys’ practice area, wearing his customary black tactical fatigues. He had arrived twenty minutes ago, sat down, and watched silently. I had seen him but the others hadn’t.
“Ah, there’s the old slurry!” Croc laughed, and Carter cracked a fraction of a smile, which was a lot for him. “Back from destroying the world?”
“Mitch, my friend. Thank you for being here.”
“No worries, old man. I can already tell this is going to be ripper!” He pronounced it rippah.
“You enrolled as a student, Mitch,” Carter said. Chase, momentarily forgotten, opened and began devouring several chocolate granola bars.
“Yeah, I figured, since Samantha was-”
Carter interrupted. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Too right, but it’s been bonzer. I like it. Plus, since when do I ever follow your plans, mate?”
Croc’s willingness to irritate Carter made me nervous. The old man was annoyed.
“I was forced to make unnecessary adjustments, Mitch. Stick to the plan in the future.” A lighter flicked in his hands. He pulled the flame to his mouth, and a plume of blue cigarette smoke billowed out of his lips. “The hacker showed me the location of your room in Compton. I’ll rendezvous with you there in one hour. I want to survey that area.”
“Stella! I’mma rack off, change my clothes, and meet you there.” He thumped Chase on the back and said, “Well done, Outlaw. Let’s practice again, soon.”
He left and in the distance we heard his truck growl to life. Chase jumped up and sat next to Carter, and finished his snack. Carter smoked in silence for several minutes.
