by Dawn Jansen
We all nod to each other and, after activating a console on the wall, the elevator slides open noiselessly.
━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━
We’ve been sneaking around the depths of the Academy for a few minutes by now and, aside from having to avoid a few harmless-looking scientists that still haven’t called it a night, we haven’t run into any trouble—even security cameras are conspicuously absent down here.
Unlike the rest of the mansion, which looks like it was built in the previous century with molded ceilings and ornate carpets, Epsilon is all sterile and modern. As we sneak through the corridors, going from room to room, we only occasionally have to use either Tristan’s or Gate’s powers to evade detection. But we don’t find anything that stands out. Even more disappointing is the fact that I don’t feel anything toward this place—if this is where I really spent all those years growing up, wouldn’t I have some kind of emotional reaction being back here? And while it definitely has the same metallic aesthetic of the room from my memory, it just feels different.
We move deeper and deeper into the complex. I never would have imagined that there was such a massive structure underneath the Academy, and I know there must be a secret entrance from the outside, because I’ve never seen scientists walking around the Academy before. Very few of the rooms even have their lights on, and sneaking through the darkness I can’t help but feel a tinge of exhilaration. I used to love exploring abandoned places—of which there are a surprisingly large number of on Long Island—before I came to the Academy, and this brings me back to those times. The only difference is that if we get caught here, the punishment will be much more than just a slap on the wrist or a trespassing fine.
“Didn’t you guys say this is where they experiment on bad students?” whispers Damion. “I haven’t seen anything like that yet.”
“Maybe those are all just rumors,” Tristan says.
“Look,” Gate says, pointing toward a big metal door at the end of the hallway we’re currently in. There’s a plaque next to the door that says “UNSTABLES.”
“There’s your answer,” Tristan says to Damion. “Unstables; those are EMPs that are deemed too dangerous, that can’t control their powers.” Then he turns to me. “If you were here before, that’s where you would have been. We have to check it out.”
“That door is definitely locked,” Gate notes.
“Let me go in,” Tristan says. “You guys wait here. There’s no reason to put all of you in danger.”
“No way,” I whisper. “I have to go. I’m the only one that will know if it’s the place from my memory or not.”
“I’m going with you,” Damion says seriously.
Tristan sighs. “Alright then, I guess we’re all going in. Be careful though. I’ve heard stories about some of the Unstables; they’re dangerous.”
“I’ll make a portal,” Gate says.
Everybody nods. Gate makes a gesture toward the wall and a circular tear opens up there with the same distorted lensing effect I saw before.
“You guys go first,” Gate says, holding his hands in the same position to keep the portal open.
It feels remarkably normal going through the portal. It’s like stepping over a threshold and then I’m on the other side of the door we just saw.
Once everybody is through the portal, we all huddle together in the corner of the room, scoping out the situation. We’re in a long hallway with a metal walkway above that runs the length of the room. There are about a dozen heavy-duty metal doors against the opposite wall spaced ten feet apart from each other.
But everything is quiet. There doesn’t seem to be anybody at all on this side of the complex.
“Those rooms must be where they keep the Unstables,” Tristan whispers. “Let’s see if that’s where you were, Mazzy.”
I nod and we all scuttle across the hallway to the first door on the opposite side. There’s a plaque next to the door.
“Holy shit,” Tristan whispers, reading the plaque. “This is Parasite. I’ve heard rumors about him, but I never knew he was real.”
I skim over the details on the plaque next to this door. It describes an EMP whose power is his symbiotic relationship with a parasite living inside him. He can vomit it out and have it attack people, defend himself, and perform other tasks. Barf.
There’s a slim, horizontal window in the center of the door. With my hair on end, I get up on my tiptoes and peer into the cell, bracing myself for the worst.
When I see that the interior of the cell is not the same scene from my memory, I feel a weird mixture of disappointment and relief. I really thought this would be it, but at the same time I’m somewhat relieved that it might not be the Academy that kept me as a test subject all those years.
Just then, something from inside the cell splats against the window I’m peering through. I jump backward with a shriek and then immediately cover my mouth. The disgusting bug creature that smashed itself against the glass then slowly oozes down out of sight.
Tristan looks through the window.
“Ugly bastard,” he says. “Good thing these cells are soundproof. He looks really pissed.”
Damion peers in too. I, however, decide not to take another look. I already saw enough of the room to know it wasn’t the one from my memory, and luckily I didn’t notice Parasite the first time—I don’t want to see what kind of freak could shoot something like that out of his body.
“This isn’t the place,” Damion says quietly, turning toward me. He looks somewhat disappointed too.
“Let’s check out the others,” Gate suggests. “Maybe some of them are different.”
We go from door to door, looking into each cell. There’s Midas, who can turn things to gold with a touch; Specter, who’s coated in acid and uses it as a weapon; Flux, who creates copies of himself that act autonomously before they explode; and a whole other cast of colorful characters, but after the first few cells all look the same, I’ve already given up hope.
“This isn’t the place,” I say to everybody. “I thought I could tell before, but now I’m positi—”
My sentence is cut short by the loud sound of metal cranking. With a collective gasp, all of our heads snap toward the big metal doors that we bypassed to get in here. They are being opened from the other side.
Chapter 15
Mazzy
All of us look around in panic, but we quickly realize there are no places to hide in this bare hallway. We’re going to have to face whoever is coming through that door.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Goldie Hawn and the three stooges,” a familiar voice says before the door is fully open.
MacCready.
And he’s brought his gaggle of sycophants with him: Melody, the Arm, and Vector. MacCready and his gang have given me nothing but trouble since my first day at the Academy. When I see it’s them, my power churns inside me; it wants to leap out and strangle MacCready.
“What the hell are you doing here, MacCready?” Tristan growls.
“This area is off-limits, dickwads,” MacCready says. “We’re gonna bring your sorry asses to the Architect. You’re gonna have lots of fun explaining to her what you were doing sneaking around a top-secret area.”
I have no doubt that Melody was the one who brought them here. Her power allows her to control sound waves, and she uses it all the time to hear about everything that’s happening at the Academy. She must have overheard us planning our mission somehow.
“This has nothing to do with you,” Tristan says. “Just get out of our way. We’re leaving.”
MacCready and the rest of them cackle like the hyenas they are. “If you wanna leave, go ahead, Tristan,” says MacCready. “I know you can get out of here any time you want through the shadows. We’ll just mop the floor with whoever you leave behind.”
I know Tristan won’t leave us behind. And I also know MacCready doesn’t care about reporting us to the Architect either. He’s been looking for an excuse to fight us for we
eks, and now he’s finally found one.
“If it’s a fight he wants...” I say to the three guys with me.
We all share a look of understanding with each other that things are about to get serious.
The atmosphere in the room becomes tense as all of us get into combat stances, waiting for anybody to make the first move. I look around for anything I can use to my advantage. I would have been paralyzed with fear a few weeks ago, but after having undergone training and brought out more of my power through everything I’ve been through recently, I’m much more confident. There are a few pipes along the wall that I think I can use to block attacks, and if things get really desperate, there’s the walkway above us and even the metal pillars in the room. I’ve grown accustomed to quickly assessing my environment for any object I can use as a weapon since learning how to use my power.
To my surprise, Tristan is the first to make a move. I guess he’s really been chomping at the bit to get a piece of MacCready. We’re lucky this area is so dark because there are a lot of shadows that Tristan can use to his advantage. He disappears into the shadow beneath him, and within mere seconds he comes flying feet-first out of a patch of shadow above Melody. I’m astonished at how quickly he was able to find the right shadow, and I realize that he must always purposefully be moving slowly in the shadow realm when he’s with me; on his own, and especially in a combat situation, he can probably move like lightning through the shadow realm.
It would have been a great move, but Vector is just a little too quick. His power lets him manipulate the trajectory of moving objects around him, and he does so to Tristan now, sending him flying toward the wall instead of flying toward Melody. Tristan is on a high-speed collision course with the wall, but Gate throws up a portal in Tristan’s path that brings him right back to us.
If it wasn’t such a serious situation, I’d almost want to laugh; it took lots of effort and the use of three different powers, and the end result is that Tristan is right back to where he started. I wonder if he’s dizzy?
I don’t have any time to wonder though; Melody, Gate, MacCready, and everybody else are jumping into combat.
What follows is a hectic melee. I know I can trust my guys, so I just try to focus on my main threat: Vector. He’s singled me out and is already making his way toward me. One thing I’ve learned from training these past few weeks is that I’m most effective if I can keep distance between me and my opponent, so that’s what I try to do now. As Vector is moving toward me, I use my power to make one of the nearby metal pipes on the wall tear free of its restraints and strike at Vector. Some kind of gas spews violently from the spot where the pipe was torn from the wall, obfuscating my view of Vector.
If I hit him with the pipe, it definitely would have hurt him bad; he might even be knocked out. But that whole area is covered in a thick, white gas, so I just brace myself and prepare for the worst. To my dismay, a few seconds later Vector comes running out of the smoke. He looks pissed and he’s only about twenty feet from me now. I can hold my own, but I’m not sure if I can take Vector in hand to hand combat.
Thinking fast, I notice that the floor is made up of these metal panels, each one about three feet wide. It’s difficult to time my power with Vector’s steps properly, but just as he steps on one of the floor panels, I wrench that panel up from the ground, sending Vector flying into the area. This is something I’ve never tried before, and it worked perfectly. My sense of achievement is short-lived, however, because Vector has somehow managed to grab on to the ascending panel with one of his hands, and he’s now controlling the momentum of the panel with his own power. I can feel him changing the upward trajectory into downward momentum; he wants to come straight down on me.
As the sounds of battle erupt around us, Vector and I are locked in a test of powers. I call on every ounce of power I have within me, trying to draw everything out of my core, but Vector is more experienced, and I can feel him winning out. Just then, out of the corner of my eye I see the Arm pull a dirty move on Tristan, who is fighting nearby, tripping him to the ground with his gross disembodied arm, and this distraction is enough to make me lose focus of trying to control the panel that Vector is still hanging on to.
Now Vector is free to control all of the kinetic energy in the panel and us it to guide him toward me with tremendous speed. Already feeling exhausted from using up so much of my power just now, I roll out of the way at the last second before Vector collides into me, but I forgot one thing: Vector can manipulate the trajectory of any moving object. That gives him complete control to lock on to me like a homing missile no matter which way I roll.
Vector slams into me with great force, putting me on my back, and immediately uses this advantageous position to pummel me with strikes. I do my best to cover up, but I can’t take punishment like this for long. My first thought is to use the panels again, moving the one I’m under to scatter the both of us and put some distance between us, but then I remember that Vector might be able to use that to his advantage, as he’ll feel the panel start to move before it gets any real momentum. One of Vector’s punches gets through my guard and my vision goes white for a moment from the hit, but luckily my combat instincts are good enough that I keep my guard up and don’t get blindsided by any follow-up strikes.
That’s when I notice we’re right by one of those big metal pillars. In between punches and elbows raining down on me from above, I somehow manage to disengage a chunk of the pillar. It is perhaps the heaviest thing I’ve tried to move yet, and even though I’m fatigued from all the action so far, my emotions are in high gear as well, so I have enough strength in me to follow through with my plan. The whole room groans loudly as part of this pillar is ripped from the structure, but I’ve got my weapon, and it’s heading sideways straight for Vector’s head.
Fortunately, the pillar was in Vector’s blind spot, and he was too busy raining punches down on me to notice anyway.
Unfortunately, MacCready did notice. What happens next takes place in the course of a split second; MacCready uses his power to instantly swap places with Vector. At that moment, though, MacCready was grappling with Gate, so when he swaps in, Gate is with him too, and MacCready has positioned himself so that the massive metal pillar swings right into Gate’s head.
It cracks into Gate’s skull with a sickening crunch. Gate and the pillar go flying into the wall, and I am frozen in shock. The speed, weight, and hardness would have been enough to kill anybody.
“No!” I scream.
MacCready has now assumed Vector’s position on top of me. He’s covered in Gate’s blood and laughing.
“You killed him!” I yell.
MacCready puts his hand on my throat forcefully. Moving that huge pillar took so much energy out of me; I wriggle under MacCready’s strength, but it’s hopeless.
“I ain’t the one who swung a pillar at his face, bitch!” MacCready spits.
MacCready can tell how fatigued I am. He puts a knee on my belly and sinks into it with all his weight, squeezing all the breath out of me, and then looks back at the others. Melody has Damion kneeling on the ground, no doubt sending supersonic sound waves directly at him, paralyzing him with pain. That shows just how much they’ve thought this out; they know that Damion can manipulate people he comes into contact with, so they had Melody deal with him because she can disable him from a distance. The Arm and Vector, meanwhile, have Tristan grappled up tightly; even if he could find a shadow to disappear into, he wouldn’t be able to with those assholes hanging on to him. I wish I’d never gotten them roped into this with me.
“Looks like you losers are fucked,” MacCready says.
“Let’s bring ‘em to the Architect,” the Arm says in his dumb voice.
“Wait,” MacCready says. “Not him.” Keeping one hand on my throat, MacCready points to Tristan. “I’m through with his shit. Let’s feed him to Parasite.”
The Arm and Vector laugh, forcing Tristan up to his feet.
“You’re a psycho
, MacCready!” Tristan says, blood coming out of his mouth. “Don’t do this.”
I don’t know how they’re going to get Tristan into Parasite’s cell, but I know he’s as good as dead if they put him in there with that monster. I raise my hand, trying to bring the overhead catwalk down on to them. It might hit Tristan too, but at least it’ll give us time to figure something out.
But I’m too weak. The catwalk shakes as the screws holding it in place strain against the force of my power, but it doesn’t detach. MacCready figures out what I’m doing and gives me a hard smack across the face. It stings bad.
“What do you think, guys,” MacCready says to his pals. “Should we throw the bimbo in there with him?”
Before any of them have time to answer, something big and heavy smashes into MacCready. With a loud grunt, MacCready is sent flying off of me. He skids along the ground and comes to a stop a few dozen feet away, where he remains unmoving.
Once I recover from the shock of what just happened, I realized what—or rather who—just smashed into MacCready; it’s Paul!
He looks at me for a split second, his eyes filled with a complicated mixture of anger, concern, and passion, before turning to the others. I’m hurting everywhere, but I quickly scamper to my feet as well. I’m overjoyed that Paul is here, but I don’t have time to think about how he got here or why he came. I thought after our little incident in the library, I’d never see him again, and now he’s showing up when I need him most?
Paul looks different than I’ve ever seen him before. His powerful chest is heaving with each breath, but he’s standing tall and proud, staring unflinchingly at the Arm and Vector, who are still processing what just happened to MacCready. They look terrified when they see the look in Paul’s eyes.
Paul’s dramatic entrance must have shocked Melody too, because Damion bounces up from his kneeling position and tackles her to the ground. She is totally caught off guard and struggles to get Damion off of her, but once he has his hands on her face, she immediately goes comatose. I guess that’s what Damion meant when he said he could control people.
