by Alan Janney
I rifled my first pass a thousand times harder than I should. It hit Josh Magee in the helmet and ricocheted thirty yards into the sky. All twenty thousand fans and players stared at the ball spinning upwards into the dusk, and then held their breath as it plunged. I jumped over them all, far too high, caught the ball, and was massacred at landing. Even from underneath the dog-pile of Panthers leaping onto of me, I heard Croc and Gear howling with laughter.
“Nice job, teenager!”
“Good on’ya, mate! You’re a normal student!”
They were laughing so hard they couldn’t stand.
After that debacle, the three of us bore down and played more like high school football players should. Really really really good football players, but still. I threw touchdown passes to Josh Magee and Brad Atkinson, both junior wide receivers, and another one to Gavin, our running back. He and I also rushed for one touchdown each. Samantha’s kicks returned to the realm of normalcy, and Croc only intercepted one more pass. We won forty-one to ten, and our fanbase’s thirst for blood was satiated.
Samantha, who wasn’t allowed inside the boy’s locker-room, was waiting for Croc, Cory and me outside. Croc spread his arms and smiled. “Which victory rager should we attend?”
Samantha scowled. “I’m sick of people, and I’m going home.”
I didn’t say anything. PuckDaddy was texting me.
> >Nice game i listened on the radio
>> dont want to crash ur party but…
>> the chemist just sent u a message
>> and thats not a typo
Chapter Ten
Saturday, August 29. 2018
When the sun came up Saturday morning, it found me staring at the message on my tablet.
From: napoleon
Date: August 28. 19:32
Subject: Los Angeles
Dearest Wart,
The future king,
Greetings. From your most ardent admirer.
All is on the hazard. Eh, scout? The fate of Rome rests on your shoulders. So perhaps its greatest generals should have parlay.
Good words are better than bad strokes, young man. You can trust me. Merlin was never treacherous.
Martin
* respond quickly, son. Soon your city will be no more and I will be elsewhere.
* if I were you, I’d leave Carter out of this. Old Baldie is using you.
What. The. Heck.
I called Puck last night, seeking answers. “He emailed me,” Puck said. “Believe it or not, he and I used to communicate a lot, though it’s been a while. Last night, bing, there it is in my in-box, with a polite note asking PuckDaddy to forward the message to the Outlaw.”
“Did you tell Carter?”
“…no. It’s addressed to you. And I think I agree with the Chemist’s final line.”
“What should I do?”
“Beats me, man. This is way above PuckDaddy’s pay-grade. I’m just the messenger.”
So I stared at the words until I feel asleep, and I was staring at them again in the morning. I knew he was referencing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, because I studied it in English last year. The Chemist was comparing our situation to Anthony and Brutus battling for Rome, and he wanted to talk before he destroyed Los Angeles, like the generals did in Act V. And he thought I should leave Carter out of it.
Soon your city will be no more.
Old Baldie is using you.
I needed to talk with someone about this. Someone I could trust. Someone who cared about the city as much as me. Someone not tainted by Carter or the Chemist. Someone…without the virus.
I texted Natalie North.
I need to meet with your boyfriend. Pronto.
* * *
That night, just after dark, Croc and I went to our training grounds again. The spot he found was perfect: a secluded clearing in the back of a construction/lumber yard. Croc was quickly leap-frogging up my list of favorite people. Most Infected were grouchy and secretive, but not him. He was secretive alright, but also honest and happy and eager to be around others, like a stray golden retriever.
“Okay, mate,” he said, holding up a quarter. He was wearing his usual jeans and cowboy boots. “Let’s see how you do. I’ll flip it, you get to the pile of wood and back, and then catch it. Ready?”
“Croc, I can’t do that. Maybe in the heat of battle, during a fight-or-flight episode, but not right now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Chase,” he grinned. “Real sorry. Because my girl Samantha is going to shoot you with a wax bullet if you fail.”
“What?!” I whirled around. Sure enough, Samantha Gear was sitting cross-legged on a stack of treated lumber, ten feet high, calmly screwing a silencer onto her pistol. Both the silencer and pistol caught the cold gleam from the overhead security light. “Samantha! You can’t shoot me. I took you into my home! Shame on you.”
“Sorry, Outlaw,” she shrugged. “Better learn fast.” She fired four shots, the bullets snapping and breaking on a nearby pallet of bricks and rocks. “First failure, I’ll shoot you in your rear end. Second, your shoulder. Third, your skull. That one’s gonna hurt.”
“Guys,” I half laughed, half groaned. This sucked. “I’m not good enough-”
“Ready Go!” Croc called, flicking the quarter upwards.
I bolted without thinking, cursing under my breath! Stupid friends…gravel, lumber! Back! The world was a blur. Made it! I snatched the quarter a foot off the ground and hurled it at Samantha. She yelped and ducked, just inches under the slicing coin. Had she been a tenth of a second slower, the coin would have scalped her like a small scythe. I’d thrown hard enough to bury the metal into concrete.
“Hey!” she shouted. “What’s that for??”
“You were going to shoot me!” I yelled back, anger hot and gritty in my voice.
“But I didn’t!”
“Well, I didn’t hit you with the coin either.”
“You tried!”
“No I didn’t! I hit my target.”
“Me too,” she snarled, and she fired. Two shots.
Time slowed. I could see the projectiles distorting the air. I heard their hiss. Outraged, in the ocean of time during that half-instant, I twisted away from the first bullet and plucked the second bullet out of the air. Or rather, I redirected it, slinging the bullet around my body and releasing it back in her direction. The bullet caught her in the stomach. The wax melted from the hard impact against her jacket, sticking to the leather. She didn’t react. She gaped at me, stunned.
“Crikey,” Croc whistled.
“Jeez, Chase.”
“What?!” I asked. I was still mad, determined not to be distracted by their shock. “What’s the matter with you two jerks?”
“You just…”
“That was a pretty spiffy trick, mate.” Croc laughed and shook his head. “Ripper, bonzo, you know? Good on’ya.”
“You just caught a bullet, Chase.” She was gingerly rubbing her stomach.
“No.” I frowned and tried to remember what I’d done. It didn’t seem impressive at the time. “I just…aimed it back at you. That’s all.”
“That’s all??”
“I don’t…” I said. The details were fuzzy. It just…happened. “I don’t know what that was. Yeah, that was weird.”
“Didn’t know we could move that fast. And, mate, you caught the quarter.”
“Of course I caught the quarter! She was going to shoot me.”
“No she wasn’t,” Croc said. I was getting sick of his mischievous smile. “We just told you that. Made you believe a whopper.”
Samantha said, “We lied. There was no genuine external stimuli, Outlaw.” Her jacket and shirt were pulled up, and she was examining the skin of her stomach. Her abs were impressive. She could be on an exercise magazine. “You just thought there would be.”
“In other words, brother, yer brain tricked yer body. You controlled the ability.”
“You two are the worst friends ever.”
/>
But he was right. I had launched myself into the virus’s clutches simply out of fear. There was no real danger. It was a mental ruse, a device I could potentially use in the future. The rest of Croc’s drills were simple, now that I was engorged with adrenalin. My muscles strained against hard skin; my emotions strained against will-power; the impossible became elementary. I was punchy and felt like fighting them both at the same time, or juggling blocks of concrete, or taking Compton by storm.
“Focus, Outlaw,” Croc warned, noticing my impulses were becoming harder to control. “This is how Infected die. The virus is a rager. You give it control and yer toast. Up a creek. Use the energy, mate. Don’t let it use you.”
Controlling the storm inside was like flexing a muscle. It was exhausting and after an hour I was mentally and physically drained.
“Okay,” I panted, laying on my back and staring upwards past the light at the nonexistent stars. “Done for the night. I’ve got another appointment.”
“With who?” asked Samantha, casually, from her perch.
“With Katie.”
“Liar.”
“Say’s who?”
“Puck. He told me you’re going to meet that FBI agent.”
“Ugh. Freaking Puck,” I growled. “All up in my business. He still monitors all of my phones?”
“Always.”
Croc noted, “Nosey bloke.”
Samantha said, “I’m going with you.”
“I told Captain FBI I was coming alone.”
“Don’t care. I’m coming. I can stay out of sight.”
We scaled the chain fence and went to our vehicles. I pulled on the new black vest I’d picked up from Lee’s backyard a week ago.
Croc said, “You trust this FBI fella?”
“A little. But I trust his girlfriend completely.”
“Right-o. I’m gone surfing.” He waved and roared away in his truck. Samantha sat in hers, lost in thought, as I camouflaged my bike and my helmet with red decals. I also altered the license plate. The Los Angeles night was quiet and thick around us.
“Puck told me about the letter. From the Chemist,” she said.
“He tells you everything.” I was reapplying a few misplaced stickers. Just like all crimefighters do.
“He came to the same conclusion I have.”
“Which is?”
“This battle is not between the Chemist and Carter. It’s between the Chemist and you.”
“I bet Carter disagrees with you,” I observed dryly.
“And we’re not sure we trust Carter anymore.”
“Did you ever? And does it even matter if you trust him?”
“Chase!” she snapped. “You’re not listening. Carter is a way of life. Our leader. For years. Decades. And suddenly…we’re questioning our allegiances. Our everything. This is not a small detail.”
“I don’t understand the significance.”
“Our existence has always been about secrecy. Most Infected naturally want it that way, but also because Carter enforces the secrecy. We’ve lived in shadows for centuries, like scared animals, and the only unifying element was Carter. Do you know how much good we could have done over the years? But we didn’t. We laid low, did Carter’s bidding for money, and died spectacular deaths. Now…right and wrong have entered our world. Good and evil. Choices. Morality. And it’s all because something inside of you resists the reptilian tendencies of the virus, and we see what we could be. Is any of this making sense to you?”
I stood and brushed the gravel off my pants. “I get it. At least, a little. But I’m just a kid trying to graduate high school. I realize I was born strange. I’m slowly coming to accept that. But I don’t live in your world. At least not yet.”
She threw her hands up in exasperation. “You know how hard these changes are for you to accept? That’s how we feel too. Suddenly, I don’t think I can go back to my cold, empty house in Germany.”
“Cool. Stay with us.”
“I wish,” she growled, “that I could make you realize how unlike an Infected you sound. No one says stuff like that. Especially not Carter. Which is one reason I think this fight is more about you, and less about him.”
“I’m not crazy about Carter either. But I wouldn’t make him an enemy yet, if I were you. The world is full of them already.”
“He’s not an enemy. I’m just reevaluating…blind loyalty.”
I pulled on the black mask that covered my nose and mouth, and then I tied the red bandana around my forehead, Rambo style. “An excellent idea. But don’t be blindly loyal to me, either. I’m not the leader.”
She scrutinized me with pursed lips for a moment and said, “A hurricane is a hurricane. Whether he admits it or not.”
I groaned, yanked on the helmet, and said, “Let’s go.”
* * *
Months had passed since I’d been on top of Natalie North’s building. I decided to try a new route to the roof: Jumping.
“Gear, you in place?” I asked through the bluetooth earpiece. I was standing in the murky shadows of an alley, watching midnight cars roll by.
“Roger.”
“Puck?”
“PuckDaddy is always ready, dummy.”
“Okay,” I took a deep breath and let it out through my mask in a sharp blast. “Here we go.” Gonna jump up this wall. No big deal. I’ve done stuff like this before. Easy peasy. Won’t even think about it. Just go straight up.
I ran. Fast.
I jumped.
And I hit the bricks hard, barely five feet off the ground. I dropped, stumbled and fell onto my backside.
“Oooowwwww,” I whimpered. “That hurt.”
A noise crackled in my earpiece. For a moment I assumed the impact had broken it, but then I recognized the noise: laughter.
“Oooooooowww,” I said again, holding my shoulder and my head with different hands. I laid down in the filthy alley. “It’s not funny.”
“What? What happened? Tell PuckDaddy.”
“He…he hit the…he hit the…” Samantha tried to articulate the words between hysterics. She sounded like she was crying.
“I jumped into the wall, Puck. Can you zap Gear with a satellite laser or something?”
“He hit…so hard…so hard!…ohmygosh…ohmygosh…”
“I wish I hadn’t taken my helmet off. My head is ringing.”
Gear laughed so loudly I heard her voice without the aid of the earpiece. She was behind me on a small tower a couple blocks away, but the sound wafted on the air currents over city noises. I stood up, shook off the cobwebs and glared at my enemy, the wall. The accumulation of embarrassment and anger was all the motivation I needed. I charged the wall again only this time I Leapt three stories high, snatched a purchase on the wall, and flung myself upwards. I sailed over the building’s decorative soffit and landed on the green astroturf.
Natalie North and Isaac Anderson both started in surprise. As per my request, Natalie had turned off all the rooftop lights but enough ambient illumination from the city reached us to make out details. They were an attractive couple; she was one of the prettiest and wealthiest actresses in Hollywood and he looked like Captain America.
“That’s quite an entrance,” he noted. Due to my shocking and dramatic and theatrical and sudden and heroic and super cool arrival, his hand automatically went for the pistol at his belt, but he didn’t draw it.
“Don’t touch anything, Outlaw,” Natalie said. “I know him. He’s going to fingerprint everything later.”
Special Agent Isaac Anderson didn’t budge or blink.
“Thanks for meeting me,” I said, keeping my voice to a low growl.
“Oooooh, I’ve missed that voice.”
Isaac said, “I appreciate you arranging it. I think perhaps we can be of mutual assistance.”
I glanced around. “You’re not videotaping?”
“No. You have my word.”
“No audio?”
“No. She made me promise.”
/> “Your girlfriend is persuasive.”
“Yes I am.”
His hand finally released the butt of his gun, and he said, “I’d be a fool not to comply. For many reasons. Should we sit down?”
“No. Keep your distance,” I said. “My companions might be jumpy. They don’t trust you.”
“You brought someone here?” he asked in surprise. He scanned the area, but Samantha could have been in a million windows or on hundreds of rooftops.
“Not here. But we’re being watched.”
“By who?”
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s talk business.”
He ran his hands through his hair, his thick brown Captain America hair, and he said, “I have so many questions. I don’t know where to begin.”
“Tell me what you do know. I’ll fill in some gaps. I think you and I are after the same thing, anyway.”
“This is so cool,” Natalie said. She smiled a ten-million-dollar smile and sat on the turf between us.
“Okay. Okay, yeah sure. Here’s what I know. There are people in Los Angeles that seem to have enhanced bodies. According to an audio file we have of you, these enhancements are due to an illness that is often fatal. We’ve termed you guys Hyper Terrorists, or Hypers for short. One of the terrorists is named the Chemist and he’s holding a large portion of Los Angeles hostage for unknown reasons. And finally, there appears to be division among the Hyper Terrorists. You guys aren’t getting along.”
“That’s correct. Your overall impressions are accurate.”
He nodded. “Here are a couple of things we don’t know, but have assumed. First, the criminal computer hacker known as PuckDaddy is one of your accomplices. Right? That’s how you can guarantee most, if not all, of any video taken tonight from a nearby window will be deleted.”
