Mercury

by Emerald Dodge

  Reid and Ember’s giggles floated out of janitor’s closet that I walked past on my way to the courtyard. Shaking my head, I pushed open the glass door and immediately sighed in unwilling contentment.

  The courtyard was enormous, designed to mimic a sort-of jungle. Leafy trees and fragrant flowering bushes, planted right into the floor, flourished in the dim, muggy room. Piped sounds of birds and chattering monkeys called overhead, making me smile. A path wound through the growth towards the koi pond I’d seen from another angle hours earlier. As I walked down the shaded path, I heard splashing, and then another noise, something vaguely animal in nature.

  I reached the end of the path and almost fell backwards in surprise and instinctual fear.

  Two enormous tigers crouched at the edge of the koi pond, their whiskery faces not even an inch from the water. Whenever a colorful fish approached, the smaller of the two tigers batted at it and splashed water into the bigger tiger’s face. The bigger tiger would huff and shake its head, then lick the smaller tiger.

  I’d found Abby and Edward.

  I slowly knelt down. “Hi, Abby,” I said softly. Of course they’d go to the “jungle.” I knew, in every bone in my body, that they’d flee to the real jungle as soon as they could. I’d help them, if they let me. If ever two people were destined to be together, it was Edward and Abby.

  Abby slowly lifted her head and looked at me with her large, green-gold eyes, then sauntered over to my side. She laid her huge, furry head on my shoulder, and I stroked her coarse fur.

  Edward padded over and settled primly on his haunches, assessing me. I extended my hand. “I’m Benjamin Corsaro.”

  Abby pulled her head back and shook it, and I somehow knew what she was saying: Nuh-uh, none of that.

  “I mean, I’m Benjamin Trent.”

  Edward extended his salad-plate sized paw and I shook it. “I know you guys are on a date,” I said apologetically, “But we’ve been looking for you. How about you let your teams know where you’ve been?”

  They bumped noses, then silently walked into the shadows of the trees. A few seconds later, I heard a door open and shut. I was alone in the jungle, and though I knew I wasn’t safe as long as I was in the hospital, I fell onto a wooden bench near the koi pond and let out a deep sigh of contentment.

  A second later, I stretched out on my back, my arms behind my head, and gazed up at the stars that were visible through the glass ceiling.

  What a mission we’d had.

  Names and faces swirled in my mind, mixing together to form a stew of memories I’d never forget. Had it only been a few days since we’d come back to find Graham dead on the floor? And could it have only been a day or two since I’d torched Gabriela’s home and killed Daisy? Had anyone found Will’s body? Had I done right by my mother?

  It felt as though a lifetime had passed, a lifetime of fear, pain, and uncertainty. Where were Reuben, Gabriela, and Jen? And for that matter, where was the strike team?

  Most importantly, where was Beau?

  A shooting star winked in and out of existence above me in the space of a breath. “Make a wish, Ben,” I murmured. My wish came easily. I wish my brother would show himself so we can finally move on.

  As much as my team insisted that Beau and Alysia weren’t a threat, they were. I’d calmed down enough to admit that they probably weren’t hiding behind the trees in the courtyard, so to speak, but they were probably in Leesburg.

  And no, Beau wasn’t the criminal mastermind I’d played him up to be, but after all, I’d played him up because he’d successfully abducted my wife. There was no getting around that. How could I scoff at him believing a “really obvious lie” when we’d been lured away from our home by a bomb? Any supervillain would tell you that the best plans were also the simplest ones.

  However, did we have to fight?

  I wanted to, but Jillian didn’t, nor did the rest of my friends. They wanted to shed their weapons and uniforms and leave this life behind. It had taken all of two minutes for them to adjust to the prospect. Perhaps that was the true difference between us all; I was the only one who had chosen our life. Leaving it behind was a loss to me and the end of an adventure, whereas the adventure was about to begin for them.

  “I should fight him,” I muttered, the words leaving my mouth without prompting. He deserved it. He deserved to be defeated by the brother he’d wronged. He deserved jail. He deserved humiliation and fear.

  But we didn’t always get what we deserved.

  In a short while, I wouldn’t be a superhero anymore, and Beau’s fate would be in the hands of other branches of law enforcement.

  I groaned and made a face. If I couldn’t have that satisfaction, what did I have to look forward to? I sensed that my path to the military was closed to me, but what about my old dream of nursing? Not every hospital was like this one—and who said I had to work in a hospital? Home nursing companies, hospices, urgent care centers, schools…all of them needed RNs.

  There was something beneath the thoughts, a disquiet that caused discomfort. I closed my eyes and focused on it. Be honest with yourself. Why are you unhappy?

  I was proud of how quickly I admitted the truth: I didn’t want to be a nurse anymore. I just wanted to be with Jillian.

  Of course I wanted an occupation, but I didn’t want to be away from her for long hours. Perhaps the desire was borne of protectiveness after all that had happened to us. But no matter the reason, unless Jillian was working with me, I just didn’t want to do it.

  And after all, my Army nursing plans had been part rebellion, part boyish desire to fight, and part desire to help people. I no longer had anyone to rebel against, I’d seen far too much combat, and I’d spent seven months helping people in every capacity imaginable. I’d even helped bring down the camps. In a way, my actions would help people long after my lifetime ended.

  So what was I going to do with myself? I had to support myself and my family somehow, and a man without a purpose was no man at all.

  One of the doors to the courtyard opened, and the sound of masculine footsteps coming towards me made me sigh. I’d just started to relax.

  “It’s ten o’clock,” said a young man from somewhere down the path. His voice sounded familiar, but I didn’t think it was Josh’s. Where did I know it from? Before I could sit up and look for a face, he added, “It’s after curfew. Please report to your room.”

  I bolted onto my feet, instantly annoyed. Curfew? Josh had mentioned quiet hours, but nobody had said anything about a curfew, and I didn’t appreciate being sent to my room like I was a kid. I had a long tirade at the ready for this dipstick, and I didn’t care who the hell he was.

  I stood my ground, ready for whoever came out of the trees.

  A nurse emerged on the other side of the koi pond. He was barely older than me.

  For one second, I was transported out of the hospital. I was back in the hallway at my parents’ house, staring at the picture my mother had taken at my tenth birthday party. Next to my chubby childhood self, another young boy grinned at the camera. Like all of my guests at that party, he’d been the son of supervillains.

  I spoke without thinking. “Brock Snider?”

  Brock and I gasped at the same time.

  His bullet collided with my Kevlar vest in the same second that a bomb exploded in the hallway.

  I flew into the bench, which splintered and collapsed. Another bomb exploded nearby, the shockwave shattering the courtyard’s ceiling. I shielded my face just in time—glass shards rained down on us, slicing my hands and wrists.

  Though my head spun from the gun’s blast, the bombs, and the echoing of emergency alarms, I whipped out my baton and stumbled towards Brock, who’d been knocked into the koi pond.

  He looked up at me, a vicious scowl on his face. Immediately, snakes and horribly large spiders began to crawl all over my body…or so it appeared.

  “Nice try, dick,” I growled, shivering as a “wolf spider” scuttled down my arm and i
nto my sleeve. It’s not real, they’re not real, they’re just an illusion…

  A third blast, much closer this time, caused me to tumble down onto the tile floor. Trees crashed down around me, covering me with palm branches and large green leaves. Tiny bits of rock and brick littered the ground. Over to my side, Brock splashed around in the koi pond for a second, then clambered to his feet before running awkwardly towards a door.

  I groaned and pushed the branches off me. Nothing was broken, but my head was ringing from the multiple blasts. No…that was alarms. All over the hospital, emergency alarms were blaring, their cacophonous screech echoing up and down the hallways to create an eerie, near-yet-far effect.

  I stood on shaking legs and cursed myself for wishing on that shooting star. Beau was here, and if Brock was with him, there was no telling who else I was about to meet. How had they sneaked in? And how had they brought so many bombs with them?

  I stumbled through the destroyed jungle and shoved the cracked glass door open. The alarms became a thousand times louder, and the emergency lights lining the walls flooded the hallway with an ominous red hue.

  A man stood at the far end of the destroyed hallway, facing away from me. He was still wearing his prison jumpsuit.

  “Uncle Mike,” I said, knowing full well that he couldn’t hear me over the alarms.

  Yet, my mother’s younger brother turned around, his eyes dark with hatred. In his hands, two glowing orbs of explosive energy took form. His thin face was haggard from months of incarceration, containing all the ill will he’d stored up since he’d fought my friends and lost half a year ago.

  I backed up. We were no longer uncle and nephew.

  I was Mercury.

  He was the Destructor.

  And this time, it was personal for him.

  Item Twenty-Two

  Headline of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 29, 1942.

  CHRISTINA ST. JAMES DIES

  Nation Mourns Its First Super-Hero

  22

  Almost as soon as Uncle Mike had turned around, half a dozen armed guards flooded into the hallway behind him, their M4s pointed at the both of us. The leader shouted something, but his orders were drowned out by alarms, distant screams, and my own partial deafness.

  The man shouted again and pointed to the ground.

  Never taking my eyes off my uncle, I slowly knelt and put my hands up. I was fast, but I couldn’t outrun bullets.

  My uncle’s eyes hardened. Jillian had once described to me how his eyes had flashed before he tried to kill her, and I’d been confused—he’d never looked like that when I’d known him. But now I saw what she meant. A crazed hatred lit up his gaze, making him look terrifyingly inhuman.

  I dove for cover behind the open door of a supply closet just in time. The explosion rattled the shelves, and various medical supplies and boxes tumbled down on me, though I wasn’t hurt. Instead, I stood on unsteady legs, trying to catch my breath. Nobody was shooting.

  Sprinklers overhead sputtered to life, and then water began to spray in every direction, even inside the closet. Cursing, I grabbed my baton and ran out of the closet, determined to beat my uncle’s face in. I’d finish him off, then find Beau. Or maybe I’d find my team first. I had no plan, since I wasn’t sure what to expect.

  My uncle was standing by an open door with his hand raised, a glowing orb taking shape. Faint, terrified screams came from inside as he shot the orb into the room. There was a flash and small explosion, and then no more screaming.

  “Hey, Mike!” I gripped the baton so hard I expected it to bend in my grasp. There was too much debris in the hallway to run directly at him—bricks, pieces of wall, pieces of the guards—but he couldn’t bomb me if I was near him.

  I squared my shoulders and began to walk towards him, never blinking. Unless he was on a suicide mission, his bombing was over. For now.

  He faced me and raised his hand, though a wisp of uncertainty lingered in his face. Was he debating killing a nephew, or whether the blast would kill him?

  I flicked my baton into strike position. His hesitation would be his downfall. I took a breath and—

  He gasped. “What?”

  I couldn’t help a gasp, either.

  Every droplet of water from the floor and walls levitated up and flew between us with ballet-like grace, converging into a translucent wall of liquid through which I could almost make out his surprised expression. Every drop in the air stopped mid-flight, spiraling like melted sideways snowflakes until they hit the wall, making it bigger.

  I dared to turn around for a bare second. Who…?

  Elijah stood at the far end of the hallway, his eyes glowing as Reid’s did when he was at full power. Unlike Reid’s large, muscular movements when he controlled the earth, Elijah manipulated the water as a marionette master would his strings, with delicate finger movements and sweeping arms, though he was missing one hand, giving the whole display a grotesquely comical appearance.

  A bomb hit the water-wall, but the water didn’t even bow from the extra energy. Instead, Elijah just smiled in his own serene way and shook his head. He flicked his hand outward. The wall surged forward into my uncle, sweeping him up with the rest of the carnage and slamming the mess into the glass wall of the far hallway.

  The glass broke under the might of the tsunami, shattering and releasing everything into the snow beyond. I caught a hint of motion, but couldn’t make out what it was.

  Elijah released the water in the sprinklers, and it began to rain on us again. Without taking his eyes off the broken window, he stalked past me with his hand still raised.

  I almost fell sideways in my hurry to get out of the hallway. I had to find my team and come up with a plan. Amid the din, screams and shouts punctured the alarms and general sounds of carnage, but I couldn’t make anyone out. Where had my friends gone? Where was I in relation to them?

  Surrounded by so much chaos, I struggled to recall the layout of the hospital. I turned a corner and squinted at the empty, red-tinted hallway. The only thing more threatening in battle than combatants was an eerie lack of them.

  “Ben!” Marco’s strained voice came from a door to my right that I’d just passed.

  I dove inside and saw that it was a supply closet full of board games and other pastimes. He was huddled between a shelf and the wall, his hand pressed to his side. Blood leaked through his fingers, and his lips were tight with the strain of not showing his pain. He blinked several times. “It was Alysia,” he gasped. “They’re here. They’re all here. She’s got a knife.”

  I offered a hand and he grabbed it, hoisting himself up as his wound healed. “What happened?” I asked in a low voice as I shut the door. “What do you know so far?”

  “I was looking for more yarn in here when the bombs started going off,” he said quickly. “I ran out to see what was going on when that stupid cow bum-rushed me. I singed her, but not before she got me. I saw Beau at the end of the hall. There are a few others. I don’t know where the teams are.”

  I swore under my breath as another bomb went off, making plastic bins full of card games topple over on top of us. Either Uncle Mike was still alive or my brother had brought ordnance. Both were entirely possible.

  Immediately after the explosion, motion at the door caught my eye. Alysia’s long fingers phased through the door, followed by the tip of her nose.

  I shoved the door open, slamming her backwards into the hallway. “Marco, go!”

  He sprinted down the hall and out of sight.

  Alysia had already recovered. She stood up straight, her drenched brown hair hanging in strings around her face. An ugly burn marred her cheek. Like Josh, she was dressed in a nursing uniform. Unlike Josh, her uniform was covered in blood and gore—or so I thought. The omnipresent red light from the alarms made it hard to distinguish the color of her uniform, much less where the stains were.

  “Alysia.” Get her talking.

  She twiddled her knife. “Bleeding Heart Benjamin,”
she spat. “You’re still the same little runt as ever, I see. I suppose if you’re here, then sweet little Jillian is, too. Or did you fly her carcass here for the autopsy? Wanted a description of my handiwork?” She shook her head to get the water off her face.

  Though heat flooded through my cheeks, I ignored her puerile taunts and analyzed what she’d said. She didn’t know if Jillian was here or not, which meant that their mission was solely to find the JM-104. And if she didn’t know that Jillian was here, that meant she hadn’t returned to the house. And that meant…

  “Have you heard from your brother lately?” I asked, trying not to smirk.

  She stopped playing with the knife. “I…what are you talking about?” She shook the water off again, obviously uncomfortable with being wet.

  I couldn’t help a grin. “I’m talking about how Jillian turned him into Swiss cheese.”

  “No!” Alysia raised her knife like a psycho.

  I slammed into her before she could phase through me. Her head hit the glass wall with bone-cracking force, yet she was able to slash at me, missing my eyes by inches. I moved to throw her into neck-breaking position, but she kicked me in the groin.

  I stumbled backwards, falling into a crouch as I figured out how to fight someone with her powers. What was her weakness?

  She lurched forward with her knife in hand. No doubt she’d chosen it for intimidation, because I’d never seen her wield a weapon before. In fact, I’d never seen her fight at all. Six months of knowing Jillian allowed me to see that Alysia’s handling of the knife was embarrassingly amateur. Alysia was all smash and grab, leaving the ugly bits of life to her brother. In a way, she was like the evil version of Ember.

  With that realization, my strategy immediately presented itself.

  I slowly stood, contorting my face into the blackest expression I knew how. I rolled up my sleeves, subtly drawing her attention to my muscles, which were far larger than she’d ever seen them before.