A Question of Will (21 page)

There was a brief respite, and he was able to breathe for a moment. He noticed the moisture on his skin as he sweated with the strain of the experience, and felt the moisture around his eyes. And he noticed that Fil had returned, laying a comforting hand on Angel’s shoulder, a hand she grasped and held with great firmness. Apparently, he wasn’t always cold and heartless after all.

Then the next wave hit.

The materials in the Purge formula found every possible exit from the inside of his body. The sweating was of incredible ferocity, gallons of moisture pouring from his pores. He just had time to smell the foul aromas before material poured from his nose, ending his sense of smell. Fluid seeped out his ears. He retched, if it could be called that; there were no heaves, just a mass exodus of putrescence exiting his mouth. His mind reeled, unable to comprehend what was happening, shrieking for oxygen, unaware that his excretory organs were participating in the expulsion efforts. His limbs lost all control as muscles and tendons spasmed, and he slumped to the ground as if made of jelly, his limbs contorting out of his control.

He had no idea how long the torture lasted, only that he was suddenly breathing pure, sweet air again, gasping in huge gulps to feed his screaming cells with their fuel. He could not open his eyes out of pure exhaustion, but his ears worked well enough to hear Angel crying, the sobs seeming to come from miles away.

He sensed footsteps. “We’ll need to clean him,” he heard Fil say, his voice tight.

“He can’t walk,” Angel said, choking the words out between sobs as she sought to calm herself.

“I know,” Fil replied. He bent down and picked Will up with ease, and started walking.

“He looks
awful
,” Angel whispered. “He
smells
awful.”

“I know,” Fil said again, his voice strained, yet patient.

“Will he ever forgive us? I didn’t know it would be that bad. I tried to warn him, but I still had no idea it would be that bad.”

“I didn’t either.”

Will managed to crack his eyes open for just a moment, before the bright sunlight of the outdoors blinded him. His body thoroughly exhausted from the horrific intensity of the Purge, he finally crashed into unconsciousness.

But not before he’d noticed the single tear sliding down Fil’s cheek.

The fire still burned in Will as he woke up, but he found it to be a pleasant sensation. It was more akin to a hot washcloth on his face, rather than the burning embers he’d been subjected to, internally and externally, in the past several days.

He wondered how long he’d actually been here. He’d been asleep a lot, and given the traumas or medications he’d been subjected to prior to each round of sleep, he imagined he could easily have slept twelve hours or longer each session. He’d also been inside the entire time, which meant he had no ability to observe the daylight or the nighttime. He vaguely remembered being carried outside after the Purge had completed, carried somewhere by Fil with Angel following, apparently to clean him from the mess of everything that had come out of him. When it had all ended, he’d caught a brief whiff of the stench and gagged, but there was nothing left in him to vomit up.

His strangest memory was the sight of the tear on Fil’s cheek. Did the man actually have compassion for his suffering? Overall, he seemed cold and distant, and while he wasn’t specifically seeking friendship, he sensed a deep resentment from Fil, something that was uncomfortable with Will’s presence in their community. Perhaps he believed Will to be a threat in some fashion.

Regardless of Fil’s opinion of him, Will had work to do, and right now that meant recovering from the trauma of the Purge. His initial assessment was that he definitely felt better.
Much
better. He felt lighter. His muscles had no knots of tension and moved with greater smoothness. He thought he was seeing with a lot more clarity as well. He moved his hands to adjust his glasses, only to note that they weren’t there. He blinked with surprise, but reminded himself that one of Angel’s magic potions had healed broken bones; there was no reason at this point not to believe the ability of Fil to create something that could perfect his eyesight. His eyesight was now strong enough that he realized, with shock, that his all-white bodysuit actually had streaks of pink in it. He figured that must be Fil having fun with him.

The warmth he’d noticed inside was still there; what was odd was that it seemed to move and be more intense wherever his concentration focused. When he thought of his eyes, the warmth seemed strongest there. He concentrated on his feet, and his toes tingled. He looked at his hands, and felt them warming, almost seeing something sparking off of them. He cupped his hands together, and felt the warmth grow until he seemed to be holding a ball of fire. Smiling, he went into his pitching windup, turned, and threw the ball of fire at the chair that was standing in for the catcher in his little daydream.

The chair flew backward and slammed against the white wall.

What the...?

“I see you’ve already started experimenting with Energy,” a new voice said. “That’s excellent. You’ll be a fine pupil.”

Will turned and saw the brown-haired man from the escape vehicle, wearing a pale green bodysuit. The man was grinning at him.

“That’s the Energy? That warmth?”

“Indeed it is. Most of my pupils take quite some time to notice the Energy at all, dismissing it as a post-Purge fever or some other form of fantasy. Most of them also possess very little Energy, so it’s not difficult to understand why they can’t sense it or manipulate it. You already possess a decent quantity, which suggests that you’re predisposed to this type of skill, even with absolutely no training.” He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Those Hunters were looking for a man named Will Stark, the man who possessed the greatest ability to produce, acquire, and manipulate Energy of any Aliomenti in history. New as you are to Energy work, I dare say that at some point, the Aliomenti will wish they’d kept you captive when they found you. It looks like they may have found the right man after all. And they helped deliver him straight into the hands of their enemies.” Adam smiled.

Will smiled too.

XV

Duel

The Assassin sat on the floor in the room with his back against the solid wall, waiting for someone to come for him. He was trapped here in this room of uniform color with no windows or doors, and he was enraged, so much so that he was prepared to litter the room with bodies.

Everything about this place was strange. Since he’d awakened from his capture and crawled from the trunk of the vehicle, he’d detected no sense of Energy. He was accustomed to being bombarded with Energy in the Aliomenti communities he frequented, most notably the Aliomenti regions of Headquarters. Here, there was nothing. His experiences and inability to escape led him to conclude that he was in the hands of the Alliance, but if that was the case, he should sense at least some Energy. Was the Alliance now devoid of Energy? And if so, how were they restraining him?

He stood and faced the wall behind him. There was something very strange about these walls. He had seen the man who had called himself the Mechanic walk straight through the wall, yet there was no sign of an opening. He leaned close, his eye nearly touching the surface, trying to identify the materials used in its construction. He noted two details of interest. The surface of the wall gave off a soft glow, and he felt a gentle breeze coming from the wall, noticeable only when he was this close to the surface.

The Assassin moved back from the wall and began pacing. The wall was built of some type of permeable material. It kept him in, yet somehow allowed in exterior light and air. He detected no sounds from the outside, and had felt no moisture from outside precipitation. Was this room a standalone building? Did it have one or more walls — or the ceiling — facing the elements? Or was it part of a larger structure, perhaps a fully isolated room? That would explain some of his puzzling observations. They could control the amount of light, air, moisture, and noise available from the outside, and allow only what was desired through the permeable walls. Such permeability apparently allowed an Alliance member through, but kept him from leaving. He allowed himself a brief, grudging moment of respect for the Alliance; they’d created an exceptionally useful bit of Energy work here, one that mysteriously gave off no sense of Energy in its operation.

The brief sense of commendation ended. He needed to leave this building. Though he was in no danger of suffocation or otherwise succumbing to the elements, he was still trapped in here by supernatural means. He would leave, exact his revenge, and return to Headquarters where he belonged.

The Assassin slapped himself on the head. He was thinking like a stupid human, who would need to walk through a door or crawl through a window to leave a room. He could teleport, albeit only a few feet at a time. But that should be enough.

He marched back to the wall until he stood only a few feet away. One typically needed to have a firm picture of the target location in mind to teleport successfully, and unfortunately he had no idea what the outside of this building looked like. He had no idea of landmarks, or even the exterior shape, size, and coloring of the building housing him. So how should he do this? Could he just say “go forward five feet” and have it work? He’d need to test the approach.

He moved back several paces, and then spun around in circles until he had no idea which way he was facing. Once the disorientation was complete, he dropped his short sword straight down as a marker of his starting spot. He concentrated on simply moving himself forward two feet, without opening his eyes, and felt the familiar sense of displacement indicating he had actually moved. He opened his eyes and turned around, and the blade was two feet behind him.

Perfect. It worked. Not something he’d typically need to use, but in a situation like this, it was a critical nuance to his skill. And it would be the downfall of the Alliance, especially the man named Fil.

After retrieving and sheathing his weapon, The Assassin marched back to the wall, stood two feet away, and closed his eyes. He performed the same exercise, projecting himself forward four feet this time.

He felt the familiar sensation of displacement during the teleportation, but his body was jarred immediately after. When he opened his eyes, he found himself pressed flat against the permeable, but solid-to-him, wall.

Frowning, he moved back just a few inches, so that he was nearly touching the wall surface, and repeated the process. Once again, his teleportation effort only succeeded in smashing his face against the very solid surface of the wall. He grabbed his sword and stabbed at the wall in frustration, but the weapon merely bounced off the surface, without leaving even a small mark.

“You need to develop better learning comprehension.”

The Assassin whirled toward the voice, short sword instantly in his hand, assuming a defensive stance.

A young man sat in a chair he hadn’t previously noticed, lounging casually. He had short, jet-black hair, and wore wraparound mirrored sunglasses, a human fashion item that aggravated The Assassin greatly.

“Who are you?”

“I was told you were looking for me.”

The Assassin scowled. “You’re the one who threw me in... in there.” He gestured toward the vehicle sitting in the center of the room.

“Guilty.”

The Assassin stared at the man. He exuded no Energy, yet showed absolutely no fear in the face of a scar-faced man wielding a sword. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes. You’re the Leader’s lapdog, sent to perform the noble, brave work of killing unarmed human women and children. A true model of bravery for all to emulate.” The man clapped in a slow, mocking fashion.

“Humans aren’t worth the space they take up. I’m doing us — and them — a service by ending their miserable existence. The only shame is that I’m not allowed to be more thorough.” He moved toward the man, slowly, his blood-red eyes never leaving the face of this man who seemed unafraid of him.

“You judge an entire species based upon the acts of a tiny few, acting irrationally. Tell me, did you ever bother to follow up on that mob? Learn about the fact that every single one of them was ashamed of their actions, and sought you out to seek forgiveness? Or did you cede all control of your emotions to your hatred and anger, lumping the innocent with the guilty, forgetting that you yourself are committing the very crime you suffered?”

The Assassin stiffened. How could he possibly know? “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No? An Assassin, very much like you, decided that two people very dear to me needed to die, because it had been learned that at least one of them could do things she shouldn’t be able to do The two people killed were my wife and my young daughter. Does that sound familiar?”

The Assassin’s breathing caught in his chest.

“They notified me of what was going to happen. But they didn’t tell me where, just gave me a link to set up a two way video feed, so I could watch them be slaughtered, and they could see me helpless to defend them. I did watch. I would not abandon them. I met their gaze, told them I loved them, and that I’d avenge them.”