Caped (Book 1): The Burdens of Fate (8 page)

He sure could take a hit though, but the fact
that he wasn't himself, that none of them where, kept my options limited. I'm
not going to be the one to weigh one life against another; I'll leave that for
a higher authority than I. I kept my word and I showed up, I was told I could
help and I did my best to do just that.

Now I know things are only going to get worse,
but at least the air of secrecy is lifted. I just hope to never have that much
innocent blood on my hands again.
Edward
Otep (Cont.)
-

...this was what I couldn't let the world see.
A city on fire and razing itself to the ground one piece at a time, while even
those who'd sworn to protect it were hopelessly consumed within a blinding rage
that seemed to have no end; it still scares me. What if this happens again, but
worse? For all I know it could be some misguided extremist in a second or third
world country venting their misplaced frustrations on innocent people. I don't
look forward to witnessing what that type of fear will do to people.

Hopefully they'll realize that even through
such atrocities, there are people willing to perform noble deeds. Like the old
man strong enough to move a mountain, the girl who can literally do such with
her mind, and the telekinetic who can stand as their equal.
Michael
Serna (Cont.)
-

The thrill of flying loses its luster if the
only thing you have to look at is a crumbling city. There were gaping holes in
the sides of buildings, scorched black from fire and God knows what else… and
not just the ones from Laurie. There were deep craters in the ground,
overturned cars, too many fires to count, and too many bodies to stomach. It
had become an ominous and foreboding endeavor, not words people are eager to
use when describing their current predicament.

And yet, as terrified as I was, I kept going.
All because a man I'd met for all of five minutes said I could help... and that
I'd live, that's kind of the important part.

Have you ever seen a teenage girl go into a
hysterical rage? I have and it's far from fun, damn-near terrifying. So the
fact I was asked to take out a seventeen year old seismic event doing the very
same made me more than a little apprehensive. The alternative was to do
nothing, but even doing nothing is doing something and I couldn't handle that
on my conscience either.

Super-girl Kaylie was right where Edward said
she'd be, a wall of rock jutting upwards to encircle hapless citizens and
cutting off any escape they had. A great majority had taken to the water, a
fact she ignored as she began bringing down giant sections of the rock wall
onto the crowd.

I took immediate action, telekinetically
pushing her from the levitating platform she was standing on high above the
crowd. It immediately lost altitude, causing Kaylie’s unconscious mother, who'd
been knocked out earlier, to literally fall into view.

There was no time to feel like a hero, I just
had to be one. I quickly focused on the collapsing wall, which was an uneven
mess of compressed sand she'd molded into massive boulders. There wasn't enough
time to stop it just yet, only to slow its momentum. I had to focus on the girl
and her mother whom I could feel getting closer to the ground. I stretched out
my arm and slowed their decent to a crawl, gently releasing them from my grip
fairly close to the ground and focusing back on the collapsing wall.

Kaylie, however, wasn't too happy with that;
which for some reason didn't cross my mind at the time. She showed her
appreciation by sandwiching me between two massive pieces of rock. Best feeling
of my life! ...Not!

Rock was pushed against my flesh. I'd managed
to create a small bubble to shield myself but it was almost lights out when she
compressed it around me, and threw it few miles (plural) out into the pacific.
I'd done all I could to prevent being crushed, but I was running out of what
little breath I'd managed to gather when I finally felt her release her grip on
the rock. I quickly pushed in all directions, easily breaking free, and came to
an abrupt stop just above the water.

Oh, my beloved water. Home sweet home. Now that
was an element I was familiar with, all those hours spent exploring my limits
in the middle of the Atlantic. I figured if I
couldn't pull this off I might as well hang up the metaphorical cape and cowl
right now. That, or she might do it for me.

So I needed a distraction, a good one. Do you
think I had one? Nope. Well kinda, but it may have been lacking in the
"good" department.

First off, what it was supposed to be: A
massive spiraling tower of water fifty stories high or taller roaring towards
the beach and onto the land. Imposing, right?

Damn straight it is, don't lie to yourself.

What it was: A solid block of water barely
twenty stories high, undulating because of the concentration required to keep
it from falling apart slowly moving towards the shore.

Don't laugh at me, I'm new to this. Lucky for
me it worked well enough to keep my head firmly attached to my neck.

I flew around the back with a small ball of
water in my hands. She took chunks out the earth and hurled them towards the
giant mass. I carefully moved myself into position, cautiously stalking her
like a lion on the Serengeti. And then with cobra like precision, I struck.
Placing the ball over her head, tightly wrapping my arms around her small
frame, and darting up into the sky.

At least that's what was supposed to happen
but, like I said before, I'm new at this. Give me a break. The real world
doesn't come with a handicap option. So my sneak attack apparently wasn't too
sneaky, I needed to move faster. Again she tried to encase me in rock, I guess
that's her signature thing. Hey, at least she can't turn me to stone, right?

Wait, can she?

Regardless, it didn't work as well this time. I
was able to shield myself much better, so as the boulders went flying into the
ocean, I remained like the sturdy bathtub in a tornado’s wake. I darted
straight for her, dodging the pillars of rock she raised from the ground to
block me; a futile effort on her part.

At last, I had her. I quickly placed the ball
of water over her head, then constricted my arms around her like a boa
wrestling with its prey. Finally, I heaved upwards with all the inhuman force
as I could muster...only to find myself still firmly on the ground.

The sand had solidified into a solid mass that
gripped her by the ankles. As I strained it began to fracture into massive
faults, deep like lesions on a person’s flesh until, with a thunderous jolt,
they tore themselves asunder and rose into the sky.

I almost shit myself.

My knees weakened, and for a split second I
even lost concentration over the water, but I still had her; and though she
wasn't actively struggling, a silent desperation crept onto the cold menacing
glare on her face.

And then a thunderous roar erupted as massive
boulders began to crash against the bubble of protection I'd erected around us,
they fell apart and disintegrated back into mounds of sand. A barrage of
impacts, like a steadily quickening drum roll growing increasingly furious;
one, then another, and another. Her desperation steadily growing. I could feel
her chest convulse and see the thickening veins in her eyes.

And then it happened, one small gasp for
breath. She quickly coughed it out only to be followed by another. The boulders
came crashing to the ground around us; I gripped even tighter as she
desperately struggled to free herself.

We fell onto the ground, struggling a few
moments more before finally going limp. I immediately released the water from
around her and began my best replication of CPR.

Her mother, who had regained consciousness and
somehow managed to stay alive through all of this, came running across the
beach while hysterically screaming, "Don't you touch her! Get your hands
off her!" Kicking and clawing at the shallow barrier I'd put between us,
"Stop it! Stop it! Not her you freak, not her!" She was sobbing
almost uncontrollably and I wanted nothing more than to console her but it was
going on a minute and her daughter still wasn't breathing.

I yelled back that her incessant sobbing was in
no way helping me save her daughter and that, unless she could perform CPR
better than me, she needed to step back and calm the fuck down.

Was she grateful for those words? No. But at
least she got the message.

So what was I going to do? Something risky
obviously. I have a general idea of human anatomy; of where the lungs are, and
that they're more sponge-like than hollow. So I did the only thing that came to
mind; I telekinetically pressed her lungs as flat as I could. Mind you this was
the first time I'd ever done something to the inside of a person’s body, but it
had immediate results. The water bubbled out of her mouth and I turned her on
her side to make sure none went back down. I then repeated CPR and, after about
three or four repetitions, she began coughing and gasping for air. Bam! Mission accomplished,
bring home the troops and ready the parade. Crazy day over, right? You wish...

Edward
Otep (Cont.)
-

...Laurie had his hands full in the downtown
metro area, Michael was doing his best to stop a teenager from reshaping the west
coast, and although the major threats were being dealt with, the reality was
that the entire city was still tearing itself apart. Success was impossible,
just varying degrees of failure.

And I was nothing but a coach on the football
field, a general sending others into the heart of the beast while reduced to
safely barking orders and giving directions, never fully engaging in the
harrowing actions I'd asked of total strangers.

With great impatience I waited right outside in
the diner's entrance, anxiously waiting for the clock to strike two minutes
after ten. Under my arm I'd tucked a make-shift sign that had two simple
phrases and an address, "No time for an apology. Knock out the men. Save
the girl."

The clock struck ten and, in what seemed like
an eternity later, the time had finally come. I knew I had only seconds left.

And then Alvin
arrived.

I had already begun to lift the sign before he
could finish his first word, there wasn't enough time to listen to his apology,
it was inconsequential because we had a life to save.

Rapid symphonic pangs of gunfire were ringing
in my ear before I'd even fully extended my arm, and natural reflexes quickly
turned my confident posture into a cowering ball of fear.

The room was a war zone riddled with bullet holes,
broken furniture, a large dead dog in the doorway, glass on the carpet, and a
millions tiny bits of debris that was still busy making its way to the ground.

The gunfire stopped almost immediately, and
through the lingering ringing in my ears I heard the sharp winces of pain,
followed by short heavy breathing. Her name is Prisca Amin and those gunshot
wounds given to her by the angry mob that just burst through her door were
supposed to end her life. But I have this odd hunch she we needed to save her.
It’s just a feeling, but I refuse to ignore it.

"I'm going to take you to the hospital,
any objections?" said Alvin,
explaining that he'd taken the bullets out but would like more professional
hands to close the wounds.

There were two seconds of silence before being
taken a couple hundred miles south to the San Francisco UCSF
Medical Center’s
ER. Alvin had
already placed her on a gurney and surrounded her with doctors before I gained
a sense of my surroundings.

We were a few feet behind in the waiting area
when they realized what had happened.

"We need to talk, face to face for
once," he said, and I assured him that with just a little more patience we
would. But there were more pressing matters at hand, like knocking roughly 2.5
million people unconscious before they razed that pretty little city to the
ground.

He was clearly unhappy about it, and I
completely empathize with the menacing glare he gave me. I understood exactly
how much of an undertaking it would be for him, and in that look of extreme aggravation
I could tell there was books worth of insults and slander sitting on the brim
of his lips. I knew for a fact it wouldn't be the last time I saw this look. He
was a reluctant hero and their only hope.

He vanished without warning, simply there one
moment and gone the next. When I reached down into my pocket to get my phone I
found nothing but a few balls of lint, I laughed quietly to myself but long
enough to draw attention.

There was a brief moment of silent confusion
before I smiled graciously and asked the attractive young woman next to me if I
could borrow her phone. She hesitated, but then I dropped the quirky kindness
and stated, "It's kind of important."

The five hundred pound gorilla in the room was
the disparaging fact that there was almost no way to fully contain the amount
of media attention this event would garner; there's too much technology and too
many mediums, especially since most mainstream news sites substitute actual
reporting with combing the internet for data. With that known, our minimum
effort would be the gargantuan task of taking all social media out of the
equation.