NINE
Getting Carried Away
2079. January 9th.
Twelve years after his arrest for drug possession, Nick Santori walked out the front door of the Base City Detention Facility. There to meet him was his sister and brother-in-law, Ben and Kim Cummings.
“Nick!” Kim yelled, running to him. She hadn’t seen him since his trial. No one was allowed to have visitors in Detention.
“Hey, sis!” Nick said, hugging her. “You look good!” Then, turning to Ben, he shook hands with him, and the three got into Ben’s car.
“You hungry?” Kim asked.
“Starving,” Nick answered. “I haven’t had a decent meal since I went in.”
“Good. You’ll get to see the restaurant remodel,” Kim said, “and I’ll have Larry cook you up a steak.”
“Sounds good… Listen, I heard about the restaurant, about how you had that fire. I want you to know I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault,” Kim said. “Besides, that was a long time ago, and the insurance covered everything so…”
“Thing is it was my fault. I think I know who did it and I think I know why.”
“Why?” Kim asked, shocked at this news.
“They thought you might have something that belonged to me and they wanted to keep me from gettin’ at it when I got out. But it wasn’t at your restaurant, was it, Ben?”
“Nope,” said Ben. “I got it right here,” and he pulled a manila file folder out from under his seat and handed it back to Nick.
“What’s that?” Kim asked.
“It’s my arsenal,” Nick said. “Everything I need to get Bobby back for turnin’ me in and burnin’ down your restaurant and shooting Ben.”
“Bobby Fraley?” Kim asked in astonishment. She remembered Bobby, but it had never occurred to her that he had been the one to betray them. She thought Nick and Bobby had been friends. “Why?”
“Because he saw an opportunity,” Nick answered nonchalantly. “Now we have to turn the tables back around and, hopefully,” he waved the file folder up in the air, “this is going to help. We still have the money?”
“Yeah,” Ben answered, “it’s still there.” Nick had earned a lot of money, most of it from the Doc when he was working to bring him all the kids for the LifeSpace, and he had kept that money in an account under an alias that he had set up for Ben. It was a risk, he knew, putting the money under Ben’s control, but he trusted his brother-in-law, and it was the safest thing for it in the event that Nick was ever arrested or investigated, as he had been.
“All right,” Nick said, “then the first thing I wanna do is set up a place for myself. It’ll need to be big.”
“But I made a room up for you with us,” Kim complained.
“Oh, no, little sis. You won’t want to be around me too much when this starts.”
January 10th.
The next morning. “Eric!” Melody yelled through her cousin’s bedroom door.
“What?” he yelled back, still in bed. But Melody had already walked back down the hall. Eric rolled over and looked at his alarm clock. It was seven-twenty-nine. Seven-twenty-nine? The bus came to pick them up for school at seven-forty! “Why didn’t someone wake me up?” Eric yelled.
Danny, passing in the hall outside Eric’s door, yelled back, “We tried to!”
Then, Eric remembered his late-night video-game playing session. He needed to stop doing that. He had woken up some time in the night with the TV still on and the controller still in his hand.
Eric threw on some clothes and raced to the bathroom. No time for a shower, but he could at least wet his hair down and rinse his face off.
He ran downstairs to grab a quick bowl of cereal and saw Roxy – she was getting to be an old girl now – sitting by the back door, panting. Has anyone let her out this morning? Eric wondered. He opened the door for her, not bothering to turn the invisible fence on. He’d call her back in as soon as he got his cereal.
He was half finished when he heard Melody yelling again. “Eric! C’mon! The bus is here!”
Eric took one last bite, threw his bowl into the sink, grabbed his book bag on the way out the door, and ran onto the bus. It was only after he sat down that he remembered Roxy. Oh well, he thought. Mom’ll let her in when she wakes up.
That afternoon. “Hey, Eric!” Melody hissed, coming over to his lab table. It was the second to last period at T. J. Shultz Middle School, and Eric and Melody were both in Mr. Penfield’s sixth-grade science class.
“What?” Eric whispered back.
“Guess what?”
“What?” Eric repeated, reaching down and lighting his and his partner’s Bunsen burner. They were supposed to be finishing yesterday’s boiling point experiments.
“Susan just texted me. She wants to know if you’ll go out with her.”
Eric looked up, surprised. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I can let you read the text.” She pulled her phone out and handed it to him.
“Do u thnk Eric wld go out w/me?” the text read. “He’s so cool.” He read it again, trying to figure out what to do. Susan was okay, he guessed, but he had never thought about her like that. Now she wanted to go out with him?...
“Is she hot?” Eric’s lab partner, Connor asked. “Cause I’ll go out with her if she is.”
Eric smiled at Connor’s joke and said, “Sorry, man, she asked me.”
“So you’ll go out with her?” Melody asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Eric!” Connor exclaimed.
Eric turned back to the table. He had left one arm resting on the table while he talked to Melody and his hand had been touching the burner! He quickly pulled his hand away from the flame and instinctively started shaking it.
“Are you all right?” Melody asked.
Eric stopped shaking his hand and looked at it. “Yeah,” he said, not sure if he should believe himself.
“It doesn’t hurt?” Connor asked.
“No.” It didn’t hurt at all. There wasn’t even any sign that he had been touching the burner.
“Miss Shore!” Mr. Penfield said, suddenly looking up from the front of the class. “Get back to your table, please.”
Melody took one last look at Eric’s hand and walked back to her table, where her lab partner was hard at work on their experiment.
“How did you do that?” Connor asked Eric.
Eric looked at his hand again. “I don’t know. I must not’ve been touching it that long.” And the two boys got back to work.
Eric’s last class for the day was World Geography with Mrs. Forsythe, and it was the most boring class ever. All they did was color and label maps. Mrs. Forsythe was at the front, pointing to some mountain range in Asia, but Eric wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy thinking.
He guessed he was going out with Susan now, but what did that mean? Was he supposed to call her and text her all the time? Did he have to go over to her house and visit her or could he wait until she came over to see Melody? And what had happened in science class? Had he been touching that burner? If so, why didn’t it hurt?
Then, he started imagining what it would have been like if he had kept his hand on the burner longer. Would his hand catch fire? He’d be sitting there at the lab table and poof! his hand would burst into flames. He’d start screaming and running around the room. Eric chuckled to himself. It might be kind of funny to see that.
But then, Eric shifted in his seat and moved his hand to rest on top of his desk. As his hand moved into his own line of sight, Eric saw that his hand was on fire! He shook it, and the fire went out.
He looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed. No one was looking at him. Good.
Eric swallowed and raised his hand. “Mrs. Forsythe, can I have a hall pass?”
A minute later, he was in the bathroom. He went into a stall, locked the door, and sat down to think. What was going on? Where did that fire come from? And why hadn’t it hurt him? He had been thinking about his hand catching on fire and then it did. What would happen if he did it again, if he imagined his hand bursting into flames and fwush! there it was again. But this time, he didn’t shake it out. Instead, he stared at it for a moment, turning his hand this way and that, examining it. It looked as if the fire was somehow hovering on top of his skin because he could still see his hand, undamaged, underneath.
He held out his other hand and imagined it catching fire, and it did. He imagined it going out and it did that too. He imagined the other hand going out. Both hands were perfectly normal again. He rolled up the sleeve of his left arm. Then he took a deep breath and imagined his hand and forearm catching on fire. It worked. How is this happening? he wondered.
Then the bell rang, and Eric wished the fire out. A couple of seconds later, he heard students erupting from their classrooms and the loud slams of locker doors. Eric exited the stall and went to the sink to splash some cold water on his face. There was less noise coming from the hall now, and he knew he had to hurry to get to his bus.
He grabbed Mrs. Forsythe’s hall pass and ran to her room to return it. He had to get his stuff from her room.
“Took long enough,” Mrs. Forsythe commented.
“Sorry,” Eric said, and ran back out the door. He got to his bus just in time and sat across from Melody.
When they got off, Eric handed Melody his book bag and said, “Tell Mom I’m going to Byron’s for a little while,” and started up the street.
He had no intention of going to Byron’s though. He was heading to the park where he had his baseball practice and, more specifically, the park bathroom. He needed somewhere private to carry out his experiments.
At the same time. Ling got off his bus and was walking up to the door of Viola’s Home when he heard a rustling noise coming from the shrubs beside the porch. He turned and saw a man in a ski mask reaching for him. Ling tried to back away, but it was too late. The man had one hand around his mouth and the other around his chest and he was dragging him back off the porch and away from the door.
Ling tried to wriggle free of the man’s grip, tried to kick behind him, but it was no good. The man was too strong, and he was too close to get any kind of strength into his kick. Someone was trying to kidnap him – again! – and there was nothing he could do about it! Wasn’t anyone seeing this?
No one was. He was on his own. He wrestled again, trying to get free. If only he were stronger, larger…
And then he felt himself growing.
The man in the ski mask, Bobby Fraley, struggled to keep a hold of Ling. He had heard that Nick Santori had been released from Detention and he knew that this was his last chance to pick Ling up before Nick tried to get some sort of retribution on him. Fortunately, Bobby knew a little better now what the Doc’s kids could do. The others that he had placed for the Doc and then re-kidnapped had started to show their abilities. Apparently, this was Ling’s ability. He was taller, stronger, and his skin was harder. It felt like rock.
Bobby moved his hand from Ling’s mouth and tried to wrap both arms around the boy. He couldn’t. Ling was now three times the size of a well-built man. Bobby gave up and ran down the walkway toward his car.
Ling, enraged, was running after him. He grabbed Bobby by the back of the collar and flung him backward, slamming his body hard onto the ground. Bobby drew his gun and fired at Ling. The shot broke off a flake of Ling’s cheek and then ricocheted off.
Ling, eyes wide with fury now, bent down and, grabbing Bobby’s masked head between both his hands, squeezed until he heard a loud, sickening crack.
“Ling?”
Ling let Bobby’s head drop back down onto the cement walkway and turned to face Viola. She was pulling up to the Home with someone else in the car. Gretchen? Jenny had been back at the Home for about six months – the girls’ parents had been arrested again on drug charges – but Gretchen had been missing. Now, here she was. And she looked like she was pregnant.
Viola covered her mouth and started to cry. “Ling?”
Ling looked down. He was still large and changed, but Viola had recognized him anyway.
“What…What’s happened to you?”
Ling didn’t know. But he was different now. Everything was different. He looked at the body on the ground. He had just killed a man. He couldn’t stay here. He looked up at Viola one more time, met her gaze, and then turned and ran.
An hour later. At the park, after experimenting with his new ability for the past hour, Eric had stripped off all his clothes and was standing on the cold concrete floor of the public restroom in front of the mirror. This was it. He took a deep breath and imagined his whole body erupting in flames at once.
At the same time, Jim slammed the door behind him and dropped his briefcase onto the floor. Melody and Danny both glanced up from their spot on the couch. They had been doing their homework in front of the TV, but now started to wonder if it might not be a good idea to go to their rooms for a while.
“Jim?” Doranne said, coming out of the kitchen. She could tell he was in a bad mood.
“Sorry,” Jim sighed, half-rolling his eyes. He knew she was about to yell at him for slamming the door.
“You okay?” Doranne asked.
Jim sighed again. “Just a bad day at work,” he said. “The guys I had tailing Santori already lost him.”
Doranne nodded. “Well, dinner’s ready.”
Jim and the kids all got their drinks while Doranne pulled a roast out of the oven. When they had all sat down, Jim looked around and asked, “Where’s Eric?”
“He’s not here,” Doranne answered. “He’s at the Millers’. But don’t worry, he’s already in trouble. I had to call and call Roxy this morning before she finally came in. Melody and Danny say he let her out before school but didn’t turn on the electric fence.
Jim sighed again as he started dishing out his food.
Fifteen minutes later, they heard the front door open and close and then, a few seconds later, saw Eric ease into the kitchen. He glanced at the family at the table as he came over to take his chair. He had been hoping that his dad would be in a good mood tonight, but he could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t.
“What time is it, Eric?” Jim asked.
Eric glanced at the clock on the wall. “Five-fifty-five.”
“And what time were you supposed to be home?”
“Five-thirty.”
“Five-thirty. That’s right. Every weeknight. We eat together as a family.”
Eric knew the rules. He knew he was supposed to be home when his dad got home, but he had a pretty good excuse tonight. He was a half hour late for dinner, but so what? He could make fire come out of his body and not be burned by it! “I was…trying something,” he began.
Jim looked at him. “I don’t care what you were doing,” he said. “You be home by five-thirty for dinner. And where’s Roxy?”
“What?” Eric looked around him. Sure enough, the dog wasn’t there. She usually sat under the table while the family ate. Oh, no, Eric thought, remembering the events of the morning. “I was running late. I forgot to let her back in.”
“Yeah, and she got into a fight with another dog and got hurt pretty bad,” Jim said.
“Jim!” Doranne gasped, as Eric felt his heart sink.
Jim held up a finger for Doranne to be quiet and then continued. “And you’re going to have to pay for the vet bills since you’re the one who let her out.”
“How bad is she?” Eric asked.
But just then, he heard a familiar bark and scratch at the back door. Doranne reached back from her seat and let Roxy in.
Eric stood up to get a good look at her. “She’s not hurt?” Eric asked indignantly. “You just said that to make me feel bad?” he yelled. “And then the vet bills? Don’t you think I’d feel bad enough that she got hurt without you telling me I’d have to pay for it?”
Eric stormed off to his room as Jim yelled, “Go to your room!”
Outside, Nick Santori and Ben Cummings were pulling up to the Slate house in Nick’s newly purchased van.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Ben said. “I mean, this is the PG! This is big-time, Nick! We get caught, and we’re done! Detention for life!”
“So don’t get caught,” Nick said. “And remember, we gotta do it quick. Get in there, find the kids, and knock ‘em out before they can react. Remember what the Auger kid did at the hospital and the bank.”
“And the restaurant,” Ben said.
Nick nodded. “So we don’t want ‘em flamin’ up on us and bringing the house down while we’re in there.”
“You’re sure they’re like that though? I mean, they could be nothing more than regular kids, right?”
“Maybe. But I know that the girl, Melody – that’s the niece – was one of ‘em that the Doc told me to keep an eye on before I got put away and that the kid they adopted is one the Doc told me to drop off at County Services.”
In his room, Eric plopped down on his bed and then got up and began pacing around his room. Blast you, Dad! he thought. Blast you! You don’t ever listen! Just act like you’re the boss all the time! The big, bad boss! Just because you’re the PG! He angrily swept everything off of his dresser.
But as he did so, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He was on fire again! He must have gotten himself so upset that it had happened without him thinking about it.
Okay, calm down, he told himself. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and wished the fire out.
When he opened his eyes again, he was naked. His clothes had burned up, and the fire on his body was out, but now the carpet was lighting up in a couple of places where he had walked. Blast! he thought, stomping on the flames to make them go out. But more spots kept appearing on the carpet and then his bedspread where it was touching the ground. “Mom! Dad!” he cried, still beating at the carpet.
A second later, Jim came rushing in. Doranne, Danny, and Melody were right behind him. Jim saw the fire and pushed back past the rest of them, running to the bathroom for some water. He grabbed the bucket from under the sink and was filling it in the tub when he heard Melody scream.
Jim let the water run and poked his head out the door to see what was going on. There, at the end of the hall was his wife, lying on the ground with a thick bloodstain forming on the front of her shirt and a man forcing a rag over Melody’s face.
Jim grabbed for his gun, but it wasn’t there. He had taken it off before coming in the house, like usual, and had locked it in his briefcase. He rushed at the man at the end of the hall. Ben Cummings? But then he saw a flash of white light and…
“Jim!” Danny yelled, but Jim was down, knocked unconscious by the butt of Nick Santori’s gun.
Nick walked up to Danny and hit him with the gun too. Danny fell against the wall and was out. “She done?” Nick asked.
Ben was standing back up from lying Melody down on the ground. “Yeah, she’s out.”
It was then that a naked Eric ran out of his room and threw his whole weight into Nick. Nick fell back, and Eric was on top of him, his hands around Nick’s throat, seething with anger.
Ben grabbed Eric under the arms and pulled him off. Nick scrambled to his feet, and while Ben still had a hold of him, Eric flamed up again.
“He burnt me!” Ben yelled, letting go.
Eric was on fire, going for Nick again. Nick stepped over Jim’s body and ran into the bathroom. Just as Eric went in after him, Nick turned and threw Jim’s bucket of water at him.
The water hit Eric full in the face, and he went down. It was the coldest, most shocking thing Eric had ever felt. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
The flames went out, and Ben came into the bathroom. “Here,” Nick said, handing Ben a towel off the rack. “Cover ‘im with this and let’s go.”
The fire in Eric’s room was growing and spreading into the hall. Ben picked Eric up and carried him downstairs and out to the van. Nick followed with Melody.
But just as Nick was shutting the door to the van, Ben saw Jim come running out of the house, his gun leveled. Jim fired, and Nick’s body slumped against the van.
Ben jumped through the passenger-side door, keeping his head down as much as possible, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Identification please,” requested the van. Ben held his thumb on the sensor as a shot from Jim’s gun crashed through the passenger window and the windshield. “Identification validated. Destination?”
“Seven eight one three Hollman Avenue!” Ben yelled.
Jim had almost reached the van but was then suddenly left in the middle of the street as the vehicle sped away. He reached for his phone to call LandForce. If he called quickly enough, he could have them use the satellite system to stop all traffic until they found Ben’s van.
But then he heard a noise behind him. He turned and saw that one of Eric’s windows spewing flames and licking the overhanging roof. He suddenly remembered Doranne – badly injured if not dead – and Danny still inside. He dropped his phone back into his pocket, tucked his gun into his pants, and ran into the house.
He was carrying Doranne and Danny out – he had scooped them up, one on top of the other – when Fire Division pulled up. Darcey Piper ran over and took Danny from Jim’s arms, carrying him over to the Rescue van. Paramedics lifted him into the ambulance and put him on a stretcher while another team met Jim with a second stretcher for Doranne.
“Anyone else?” Darcey yelled.
Jim shook his head and climbed into the Rescue van with Doranne. On the way to the hospital, he called and had the satellite system put on pause so that the Force could search for Eric and Melody.
Two hours later, Jim and Danny were driving back home in a borrowed Force hovercar. Doranne was dead. Danny had suffered a concussion from Nick’s gun and some slight smoke inhalation, but he would be fine.
When they pulled up to the house, it was dark, but it didn’t look as if there had been too much damage. Jim noticed that Darcey’s car was still in the driveway. She got out of her car and held the door open for Roxy to jump out after her.
The cocker ran over to Danny, tail wagging, and jumped up to greet him. Danny stroked her head. He was glad she was all right, but it was small comfort with Doranne gone and Melody and Eric missing.
“I thought I should wait for you,” Darcey was saying. “The house isn’t good. Fire got up into the walls, all along the ceiling. And water damage, of course, from putting the fire out.”
Jim nodded. So the house was worse on the inside than the out. It didn’t matter. “The kids?”
Darcey shook her head. “John called a while ago.” John was Jim’s new Crime Division Deputy. “He said they searched everywhere. They weren’t on the road.”
Jim nodded again. With the speed that the navigation system directed traffic and how long he had waited to call in, Ben and the kids could be anywhere in the county.
“They searched the Cummings’?” Jim asked.
“Nothing. He said it’s possible that they or Nick could have bought or rented another place, but if so, they must’ve done it under an alias. It could take a while to track down. But at least Santori’s dead, right?”
Jim nodded. “So is my wife.” And he didn’t know what to do. Part of him wanted to take over the investigation to track down Ben, to find Eric and Melody, but part of him didn’t want to do anything.
Another car pulled up and out stepped Peggy Kines and Grandma Jodie. They had both been crying and they started again when they saw Jim and Danny.
“Jim,” Jodie said, hugging her son. She didn’t know what else to say.
“We heard on the news,” Peggy said, her arm around Danny’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Have they found Melody and Eric yet?”
“Not yet,” Jim answered. “I was about to get to work on that. Can you two take Danny?”
“Of course,” Peggy said.
Grandma nodded and hugged Jim again. “Find them,” she said.
January 11th.
The next morning. “Mercy!” the guy on the radio-alarm clock sang. “Yeah, mercy! Lord, You opened my eyes! Lord, You opened my eyes!”
Still half asleep, Gretchen reached back and turned the alarm off. Leave it to Viola to have the alarm clock tuned to a Christian music station.
But I guess that’s not a bad thing, Gretchen decided. She was back at Viola’s Home with her sister, Jenny. She was pregnant by Tim Hammond – a druggie twenty years older than she was – had been hooked on Cruise herself until finding out she was pregnant, had just turned her parents in on drug charges, and needed a change. Maybe this was it. Maybe listening to Christian music and trying out Peggy and the Dybeks’ faith was what she needed. Maybe she did need God, the Lord, to open her eyes.
And as soon as Gretchen lifted her lids, her eyes were opened. She saw everything at once, things she wanted to see and things she didn’t: Shawn in the shower, Viola getting dressed, Lucinda, the new day help, walking in the front door, Jenny and the rest of the kids either still sleeping or getting ready for school, the neighbors and people around the block she didn’t even know getting up, brushing their teeth, putting on their make-up, using the bathroom, eating breakfast, having sex, driving to work, driving home from work, herself lying in bed. All this she saw at once, and it did not stop. She kept seeing it, kept watching all of these people, including herself, going about their business. She could see them so well that she could even see the minutest details of their lips and tongues moving. She could tell everything they were saying, though she didn’t hear a word of it.
At first, she thought it was a dream. Either that. or a residual effect of her Cruising days. In fact, maybe the last twenty-four hours was all a bad trip. Her parents Cruising out, Ling turning into some kind of monster and killing that guy, this vision she was having… But as she lie there, she became more and more sure that she was awake and in her right mind. She closed her eyes for a moment, and all of the images stopped.
She opened them again, and the images came flooding back, the old ones more defined with new ones added on top of them.
Gretchen closed her eyes, trying to come to terms with what was happening. Was she really seeing all that stuff? How could she be?
She didn’t know, but it was too intriguing not to open her eyes again.
As she lie there, she watched, among all the other things, Viola finish dressing. Viola wasn’t doing well this morning. She had been crying already and looked like she was going to again. She was so worried and confused about Ling. LandForce had been here until pretty late last night.
When Viola finished getting dressed, Gretchen saw her walking down the hall to her room. “Gretchen!” Viola called weakly, knocking on her door. “Time to get up! It’s time for school!” And as Viola opened the door, she was greeted by the sound and then the sight and smell of Gretchen throwing up.
The girl’s head was spinning, and she felt sick. Maybe she had kept her eyes open too long that time? All of those images were too much for her mind to handle all at once.
Viola stepped in cautiously. “Gretch, are you okay? Are you having morning sickness?” Gretchen was sweating and panting, her vomit soaking the pillow at her side. She looked like she wasn’t looking at anything in particular but staring straight ahead. Of course, she wasn’t not looking at anything. She was looking at everything! But Viola couldn’t have known that. “Gretch?” she ventured again.
Gretchen saw Viola’s lips move and knew what she was saying before she heard it. Viola’s voice came to her softly, echoing, as if it was coming from a long way off. Gretchen’s sight had overpowered all of her other senses, dimming the sound of Viola’s voice.
Finally, Gretchen cleared her throat and managed to find her own voice. “I’m fine,” she said weakly, closing her eyes before she threw up again. “Don’t think I can go to school today though.”
“Okay. You just lie here,” Viola said, as she slid the soiled pillow out of the way.
Viola left and Gretchen, continuing to open and close her eyes, trying to get used to her new vision, watched Viola walk to the master bathroom and retrieve a bottle of Pepto Bismol. Viola came back and helped Gretchen sit up and take the medicine while Gretchen watched a school bus come round the corner at the Arbor Place. The Arbor Place? Gretchen thought. That’s two miles away!
Gretchen lied there the rest of the morning, seeing everything in flashes, letting it become normal to her.
At noon, Viola brought Gretchen some chicken noodle soup and crackers. She ate hungrily enough, but her mind was focused on other things. She had started being able to focus on one image at a time. It was difficult – she had to concentrate hard – but she could do it now for longer and longer periods of time. And if she mentally stretched a little, she could even see about another half mile beyond the Arbor Place.
Two hours later, Gretchen was still stretching, extending her vision ever farther. About three miles behind Viola’s Home and a few streets back was Hollman Avenue. And in one of the houses on Hollman Avenue were Eric Slate and Melody Shore. She recognized them from the news last night. They were the PG’s kids, and they were tied up, asleep, with tape over their mouths in one of the back bedrooms. A big black guy – his picture had been on the news too – was pacing nervously around the living room.
What should I do? Gretchen wondered. If I tell anyone where those kids are, they’ll ask me how I know, and I can’t tell them. They’d take me away and do tests on me or take my eyes out or dissect me or something.
But I can’t pretend I didn’t see them.
I could call an anonymous tip into LandForce. The PG’ll have ‘em out in two seconds.
Gretchen started to get out of bed to go ask Viola for a phone, but then she thought, LandForce’ll trace the call back here and I’ll be stuck again. We’ve had enough weirdness and enough of the Force here for now. I’ll have to call from somewhere else.
A couple of minutes later, she was all bundled up in her coat, gloves, and hat.
“Where are you going?” Viola asked. She had been sitting in one of the living room chairs, staring off into space, the whole time Gretchen was getting ready.
“Just to get some fresh air,” Gretchen answered simply. “I thought it might help my stomach a little.”
“Okay,” Viola agreed. “Just don’t stay out too long. And if you see Ling…”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” Gretchen assured her.
The nearest emergency phone Gretchen had seen – and she could see quite a ways now – was actually on Hollman Avenue, a block down from where Eric and Melody were being held. Gretchen was heading that way when she suddenly stopped. A guy with a pointy head and a bunch of kids had just pulled into the driveway of the house where Eric and Melody were. She knew she had to hurry.
Magus, with his telepathic powers, had been able to monitor all of the enhanced children for years, ever since he temporarily gave Luca the knowledge to create them. Now, all of the children were maturing, and with the deaths of Santori and Fraley, Magus felt it was finally time for him to step in. Bobby had already gathered up seven of them, the ones he himself now had with him in the van, and Santori and Cummings had taken two more, who were in the house where he now was.
Another two, Ling and Susan Junior, were also in Base City and he would take them next. Soon, he would have all of the children together and would begin training them for their return to Anduris. He knew that after he had worked with them and showed them the extent of their abilities, they would be even more powerful than the Ayviline. And the American engineers were getting very close to recreating the Geyr ship. So by the time the children and Magus were ready to leave, the ship should be complete. Then, with his mental powers and the abilities of the children he controlled, they would steal the recreated ship and make their assault on Anduris.
Ben heard the van pull up and was nervously looking out the window as he watched a hooded man and seven older kids getting out of the vehicle. What are they doing here? Ben thought. This isn’t their house. Maybe they’re selling something. I won’t answer the door. I’ll act like no one’s here.
A second later, there was a knock on the door. Ben didn’t respond. They’ll go away. But then there was a cracking sound, and the door opened. The door was locked! Ben pulled his gun and waited for the group to enter.
A dark-haired white kid walked in, followed by a strong-looking black kid – he kind of looked like Ben when he was younger – followed by three more white boys, one of whom had burn scars all over his face and hands, three white girls, and the Middle-Eastern-looking guy in the hood.
“Ben,” the man in the hood said mildly, “you have something that belongs to me.”
Ben raised his gun and pointed it at the man. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The black boy stepped forward, and Ben shifted his gaze for a moment to see what he was doing. When Ben looked at him, he felt his whole body go numb. He tried to look back at the man, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. He tried to pull the trigger on his gun, but his finger wouldn’t respond.
“Thank you, Cobra,” Magus said. “Mr. Fraley named you well. Now, Ben, I’ll be taking those other kids you have for me. Nales, do the honors, please.”
Ben watched as another boy, a skinny, blonde-haired, white kid stepped forward. He looked as if he was tensing all of his muscles at once. A second later, tiny metal shards – they looked like little nails – came shooting out the front of the boy’s body.
Gretchen, outside the house, saw some of the shards stick in Ben’s face and eyes, some in his chest and legs. Some flew past Ben altogether and landed in the wall behind him.
Ben’s body fell backward and thudded heavily onto the floor.
“War and Peace,” Magus said, “make sure.”
And a black-haired girl went to Ben, bent down, and touched his arm. “He’s dead,” she said.
It was hard for Gretchen to believe what she had seen – someone actually being murdered, by a kid her own age who could shoot spikes out of his skin. And that was only after being paralyzed in place by another kid, at the command of a guy with a pointy head!
Oh, what am I doing here? Gretchen thought nervously. She was behind the house now, having called LandForce from the emergency telephone down the block and then ran back in case the Force didn’t get here in time to prevent whatever was about to happen.
With Cummings dead, Magus was beginning to walk toward the back bedroom, but then one of the boys, the first who had come in the door, said, “The Force is coming.”
Magus turned. “How far?”
“Three miles. I just picked up the sound of their hovercars.”
“We have enough time. Let’s go.”
“I don’t think so,” the boy said and willed Magus to stop moving.
“Trinity’s right,” Sammy Auger said, his voice raspy. “We came with you to set those kids back there free, not for you to take them for yourself. You come and tell us Bobby’s dead, that you made us, and that we have to follow you. Like you thought it would be that easy. You’re probably the one who killed Bobby.”
War and Peace nodded her agreement. “Bobby was our father,” she said. “We don’t know you.”
“Kill him,” Cobra suggested. “Let Nales shoot him like the other guy, or I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
“Leave him for the Force,” Nales said. “I’m too tired to do it again.”
“I’ll do it,” Tsunami, a brown-haired girl, offered, but a blonde girl, Lightning, was already charging up.
“I’ll make him wish he was dead,” a boy named Plague said.
“No,” Trinity said, “we’ll take ‘im with us, find out what else he knows. Maybe he is telling the truth.”
“Or maybe he just wants to lie to us some more,” Plague sneered.
“Either way,” Trinity said, “we have to go. Now.” He released his mental hold on Magus as they all ran out to the van again.
“Fools!” Magus roared. “Now we’ll just have to kidnap them again!”
Gretchen was just laying Melody down on the ground outside beside Eric when Jim, along with a whole company of LandForce officers, landed their hovercars surrounding the house. Jim, crying, ran straight to them. He had seen them from the air. Eric and Melody were still asleep from the drugs Ben had given them, but they were alive, and that was enough.
The Force questioned Gretchen about what had happened for a while, but never doubted her when she told them that she had been walking by and saw something suspicious.
January 13th.
Two days later, the day of Doranne’s funeral. Jim sat in the front row of God’s Love church with one arm around Eric’s shoulder. Jim was trying not to cry, trying not to look at his wife’s body laying in the coffin on the platform. I have to be strong, he told himself, for the kids.
Beside him, Eric was busy studying his knees, the corners of his suit jacket, the deep red color of his tie, anything to keep from focusing on, or even acknowledging, what was happening. He wanted to be alone, wanted to be anywhere but here, but they still had a full day of people consoling them to go.
Danny, next in the row of chairs, was trying to listen to Pastor Frank. He had never been in a Christian church before, and he was interested in some of the things the pastor was saying. After his parents, Richie and Paméla, died, Jim and Doranne had given him the choice of whether he would continue going to synagogue or not. He had. Melody had decided not to.
Now, Pastor Frank was talking about Heaven, and he was urging the congregation to believe in Jesus so that they could all go there when they died. Interestingly, the pastor hadn’t commented on whether he thought Doranne was in Heaven now or not. Danny didn’t believe in Jesus – Rabbi Phillips said that Jews didn’t believe in Jesus as the Christians did – but he did believe in Heaven. He wasn’t sure if people who weren’t Jewish could go to Heaven, but he hoped so. He didn’t like to think of Doranne not making it.
Melody, next to Peggy, with Susan on the other side of her, was the only one crying. It’s happening again, Melody thought. She had lost her mother, Bethany, in the Chinese attack. Her father, Richie, and her stepmom, Paméla, had been killed in a car wreck, caused by terrorists. Now her aunt was dead, too, killed by a couple of thugs who had wanted to do God-knows-what to her and Eric. She wished none of it had happened. She wished things could go back to how they were, that Doranne wasn’t dead, that Doranne would somehow wake up and everything would be fine. She could see it now; Doranne would lift up her hand and sit up.
On the platform, Doranne’s hand swung up over the side of the coffin. Melody screamed, and everyone else in the church gasped.
Pastor Frank walked over to the coffin and laid Doranne’s hand back inside. He studied the body for a moment and then shut the lid, mouthing a prayer as he did so.
But Melody kept on screaming and sobbing, screaming and sobbing. Peggy and Jim both had their arms around her, but they couldn’t quiet her. Jim picked her up and carried her out of the sanctuary, followed by Peggy and Pastor Frank.
A few minutes later, Frank led Jim back into the sanctuary so they could finish the service while Peggy stayed with Melody in Frank’s office.
After the service, Jim went to check on them. Melody had stopped screaming and crying, but now, she wouldn’t say anything. She was lying on Peggy’s lap, staring out at nothing. They decided that Peggy would take Melody home while Jim and the boys went to the graveside service and the reception dinner.
Also opting not to go to the graveside service, Susan the First and Ayla took Susan the Second home.
When they got into the car, Susan said, “I want to go to Melody’s.”
“I know,” her mother said, “but Melody’s having a hard time right now. She needs to be alone for a little bit.”
“She needs me,” Susan said.
“You’ll see her soon enough.”
“I want to go now!”
“No. Maybe tomorrow Ayla can call them,” Susan glanced at Ayla, “and you two can go over.”
But Susan the Second didn’t say anything. She sat in the back seat, pouting.
On arriving at the House, Susan ran up to her room and slammed the door. A few seconds later, Ayla and Susan the First heard loud crashing sounds coming from the girl’s bedroom.
They opened Susan’s door and saw Susan flinging things all over her room. She was picking up shoes and trinkets and dresser drawers, aiming them at anything glass. Her windows, mirror, and lamps were already shattered, and she was about to throw a wooden jewelry box up at the overhead light.
“Susan! Stop it!” her mother yelled, running in and grabbing the jewelry box out of her hands. “What are you doing?”
Ayla stepped in after her. It was so cold in the room that she could see her breath. She crossed her arms and rubbed them with her hands. “Something’s wrong with the heat in here,” she said. “I’ll go check it,” and she left the two Susans alone, the younger crying into the elder’s shoulder.
Luca passed Ayla on her way out of the room and asked, “What’s going on?” He, too, had heard the commotion and now, he also felt the cold.
Susan the Second looked up from her mother’s shoulder. “Melody’s leaving,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“What do you mean she’s leaving?” Luca asked. His wife and daughter were sitting on the bed, so he took a seat in the desk chair.
Susan told him what had happened at the funeral with Doranne’s hand coming up out of the coffin and said, “And then Melody went crazy. Now, I’ll never see her again because she’ll have to live at the hospital or be on medicine all the time and she can’t live here” – she pointed toward the Slate’s house – “because her house is all messed up and…”
“Susan,” Luca said, “everything will be all right.” He turned to his wife and said, “Can I talk to Susan alone?”
The question came as a surprise. Susan the First didn’t know what Luca wanted to say that she couldn’t be there to hear, but she also didn’t have a good reason not to honor his request. She shrugged, rubbed her daughter’s back, saying, “I’ll be right back,” and walked out of the room.
Luca closed the door, and then sat across from Susan. “Melody’s not crazy,” he said. “I know what’s wrong with her and I’ll go talk to her. She’ll be fine.”
“You do?” Susan asked.
“Yes. But now I want to talk to you about something. Susan, do you feel how cold it is in here?” The temperature had gone up a little since he first entered, but not much.
Susan looked around and shrugged. “It feels fine to me.”
Luca nodded. “Susan, put your hand here on my arm. Grab hold of it.” She did. “Good. Now, concentrate and try to make my arm cold.”
“What?” Susan asked. Was he serious? How could she make his arm cold?
“Just try it. Think about my arm getting cold.”
Susan shut her eyes and tried not to think about how ridiculous this was. She imagined cold running down her arm, through her hand, and into his arm.
A moment later, Luca suddenly said, “Okay, okay! That’s good!” and pulled his arm away. Rubbing it where her hand had been, he said, “Geez, it’s like ice!”
“I..I did it?” Susan asked cautiously. She knew her body could do some amazing things, knew that she couldn’t get hurt, but this… She didn’t know she could do this.
“You sure did!” Luca smiled.
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he lied, “but you’ve gotta be careful with it. You could do something without knowing it. And you’ve gotta be careful not to tell anyone else, either. I’m your dad, and I understand this stuff, but it might scare other people; you understand?”
Susan nodded. She was already doing a good job of keeping her other ability a secret.
“It’ll be between you and me, okay? Like a father-daughter thing.”
Susan nodded again. Should she tell him about what else she could do?
“Okay. I’m going to go talk to Melody now, but when I get back, I want to talk to you some more about what you can do, okay?”
“Okay,” Susan said. Maybe she would tell him when he came back.
Luca looked around the room. “And we’ll have to get this mess cleaned up.”
Susan took in her surroundings and blushed. She felt silly now for throwing and breaking all that stuff.
Luca smiled, kissed Susan on the forehead, and left.
A few minutes later, Luca knocked on the door of one of the County’s guesthouses. Normally, these were homes set up for visiting dignitaries to use during their visits to Base City, but after the fire and the death of Jim’s wife and the kidnapping of his kids, the County Senate had let their PG use one until he was reestablished in his own house.
Jim, Eric, and Danny were still at the reception dinner, and so it was Peggy who opened the door. “Hi, Peggy!” Luca said. “Could I talk to Melody? Susan said she’d be here.”
Peggy couldn’t think of any reason why Luca would need to talk to Melody. “Um…I don’t know if she’s ready to talk yet, but I can ask her. I was just about to make some lunch and see if I could get her to eat. Come on in.”
Peggy walked him back to the bedroom where Melody was. “Melody, sweetie, there’s someone here to see you.”
Melody opened her eyes and saw Luca there. “Hi, Mr. Temlane,” she greeted groggily. “Is Susan here?”
“No. She wanted to come. She can come next time. But I wanted to see how you are.”
Melody shrugged. “Fine.”
“I’m going to go get started on that lunch,” Peggy whispered. “Call if you need anything.”
Luca nodded and took another step into Melody’s room. “I heard about what happened at the funeral. With your aunt’s arm. I know how that happened and it’s not anything scary. Would you like me to tell you?”
Melody didn’t answer, but she pulled her pillow onto her lap and waited for him to continue.
“Melody, I think you did that. I’m sure you did.”
Melody’s eyes were locked on Luca’s. He had her interest. What he was saying was ridiculous, but somehow it made sense, too, as if it fit.
“Try this,” Luca said. “I’m going to put my watch here at the bottom of the bed. I want you to look at it, focus on it, and want to make it move.”
Melody watched him take the watch off and lay it down. Then, she stared at it for a moment. Nothing happened. She didn’t know what she wanted it to do. She cleared her throat. “Like where?” she asked. “Where should I move it to?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about to the other side of the bed there?”
Melody stared at the watch again, and there it went, sliding right across the blanket to the other side! Melody’s eyes popped wide. Her sleeping bag at her first overnighter at Susan’s, her alarm clock when they were playing Bloody Mary. Had she been moving those things too? She focused on the watch again and this time, sent it flying into the wall beside her door.
As the pieces of the watch hit the floor, someone else walked through the door. “Hello, Luca. I see Melody has discovered her ability.”
The robed man walked into the room, followed by a brown-haired boy.
“Who are you?” Luca asked.
“I am Magus. And you should know Trinity. He’s one of yours, after all.”
“One of mine?”
“One of mine to be more precise, But through you, as Melody also is.” Magus waved his hand, motioning for Trinity to telepathically freeze Luca in place.
Melody was scared again. She didn’t know why Mr. Temlane wasn’t moving, but she didn’t like it. “Peggy!” she yelled.
“It’s okay,” Magus comforted. “Trinity’s like you. He can move things with his mind. And if he can move things, he can also make things be still, you see?”
Magus bent over her and took her hand in his. “I am your maker, Melody. I gave you your ability, just like I did for Trinity here and your cousin, Eric, and your friend, Susan, and I have come for you now to take you home.”
Melody pulled her hand away.
“It’s okay,” Trinity said. “You can trust him. He’s not very good at explaining himself – I didn’t trust him at first, either – but he’ll make you powerful. And when we go home, he’ll make us rulers of the world. We’ll be the new Ayviline.”
Ayviline? Melody thought. What are they talking about?
Magus reached down for her again. Melody shied away from him. “Peggy!”
Magus grabbed her with both his hands. “Still her,” he told Trinity.
“I can’t,” Trinity said. “I’ve already got the woman and Luca, and they’re in different rooms.”
Magus had a firm grip on Melody now. She was screaming and fighting to get free, but she knew he was too strong for her.
Then she had an idea. She stopped fighting and looked up at the ceiling, willing it to come down on Magus’ head.
And it did! A chunk of the ceiling broke off and fell right on top of Magus, but also on top of Melody.
A few seconds later, Trinity was running out the front door. When he was a few yards down the street, he released his hold on Peggy and Luca.
Luca coughed from the dust of the ceiling and went to help pull the debris off Magus and Melody.
Peggy ran in, panicked. “Melody!” she yelled. “Melody!” All the time she had been frozen, she had been picturing the robed figure kidnapping Melody again. She helped Luca throw the ceiling piece off.
Magus, with Melody underneath him, was lying facedown across the bed. When Luca and Peggy had picked up the ceiling piece, they had caught his hood with it and pulled it back.
Peggy squinted at the man’s head. He had long, thick black hair, but she could still tell that the shape of his head was different. Instead of being rounded in the back, it came to a point. “What…?”
“Just get him off her,” Luca said, grabbing hold of one of Magus’ shoulders and lifting him up.
Suddenly, twelve more figures appeared in the room. They all crowded around Melody’s bed.
“Greetings!” a man said. He had curly, dark blonde hair on a head that came to a point in the rear. “I am Hermes. We are the Ayviline of Anduris.”
As he was speaking, another of them, a white-haired and bearded man, scooped Magus up into his arms and turned him over. “It is him,” he said. “The Ayvil has led us.”
“Took it long enough!” a dark-haired man laughed.
“I can’t understand why I couldn’t find him,” a brown-haired girl said.
An older, stern-looking woman said, “Do not trouble yourself, Artemis. Zedek Kessed must have had some reason for Magus to be here.”
“As you say, Athena,” the dark-haired man agreed, and kept laughing.
Another blonde man came over and touched Magus’ head. “He is wounded,” he said, “but not terribly.”
“Do not heal him, Apollo,” Athena said. “Wait until we have him back home.”
“And what of the girl?” another woman asked.
Apollo bent down to touch Melody’s head, and Peggy took a step forward.
The woman who had asked the question laid a hand on Peggy’s shoulder. “Do not worry. All will be well. I am Hera and the Ayviline guard all life. Trust in Zedek Kessed.” Hera could tell that Peggy didn’t recognize the name of Zedek Kessed, so she clarified and said, “Trust in God.”
Apollo straightened, and Melody woke up.
Peggy began to cry with relief, and the jovial man began laughing again. “Dionysus rejoices with you,” Hera said.
“We are finished here,” the white-haired man said, and the twelve Ayviline disappeared again, taking Magus with them and leaving Melody, fully healed, in Peggy’s arms with Luca looking on.
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