Ex-Patriots (10 page)

“No, they tried that before,” he said,
crossing his legs. “It didn’t work for the reasons I just mentioned
and no one could ever get any definitive results. It also doesn’t
solve the real problem. We want to make you superhuman, not
dependent on drugs that make you superhuman. You’ve felt jittery
these past weeks, haven’t you?”

I had. In fact, this was the first time I
hadn’t felt on edge in days. I’d’ve noticed sooner if not for the
headache and sore muscles.

“The injections you’ve been getting for the
past few weeks have boosted several processes in your body. It’s a
compound called GW501516 paired with AICAR, which activates a
metabolic—” He paused again and smiled. “I won’t bore you with all
the technical terms. Your muscle tissues are developing faster. So
are your skin and bone cells, which also means more red blood cells
carrying more oxygen.”

I frowned. “Isn’t that the same drug
dependency, though, sir?”

“Normally, yes. If we stopped the supplements
your body chemistry would go back to normal in a few days. Which
brings us back to restraint. What we’ve done is disable those
safeguards. If you made a serious effort you’d create new pathways
and learn to keep the body in check again. For now, though, you’re
going to run at those optimum performance levels. Your mind isn’t
going to tell your body to hold back. This is going to be your new
normal, so to speak, and we’ve given your body a kick-start so it
will change to keep up.”

I drank some more water. My mouth was feeling
better and flexing random muscles was helping the stiffness. As far
as I could tell all I needed was a couple Advil for the headache
and I’d be good to go.

My splitting, painful headache.

It must’ve shown in my eyes, because Sorensen
was about to say something and stopped. Monkey-boy took a step
back. They were both watching me.

My free hand, the hand that wasn’t chained to
the bed, reached up. The back of my head had been shaved. I brushed
the wet threads in my scalp and winced. I put a bit of pressure on
the raw skin and felt part of my skull shift underneath.

“What did you do?”

“It’s a shock at first, I know,” said
Sorensen. “I’m cer—”

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BRAIN?!?”

Looking back on it, I admit I lost it for a
minute. Which I think he planned on. I lunged out of the bed.
Monkey-boy tried to grab me and I knocked him halfway across the
recovery room. I heaved the doctor out of the chair and his glasses
fell off.

“What did you do to me?!”

Sorensen was very calm, even though I had his
coat wrapped up in my fists. “That’s not the important question,
Staff Sergeant Kennedy.”

Name and rank was good. Chilled me down, made
me stop. I almost cried, but girls cry. I’m a soldier.

“The important question,” said Sorensen, “is
how did you get out of the bed?”

It took a moment to sink in. I looked away
from his eyes, down to my wrists. One had a piece of surgical tape
and some blood where the IV had torn loose. The other one had a
single handcuff with two links of stainless steel chain dangling
from it. The last link was twisted apart. I could see a bruise
forming where the cuff had bitten into my wrist.

I looked over my shoulder. The hospital bed’s
railing was bent a good four inches out of line toward me. The
other handcuff swung back and forth in a deep gouge. Its last link
was broken and stretched long. It looked more like a thick hook
than a piece of chain.

Oh, hell yeah. Look at me now, Dad.

NOW

“Hey, St. George,” someone called out. “You got a
minute now?”

A skinny man trotted toward Roddenberry,
waving his hand. St. George settled back down to the ground and
swung his jacket over his shoulder. It took a moment to recognize
the young man at night. He’d never noticed how few lights there
were around the central building and garden. “Cesar, right?”

“Right.” They shook hands. “Look, I really
need to... ummmm, confess something.”

“You still haven’t killed anyone, right?”

“No, dude, this is serious.”

“Okay,” he said, “what’s up?”

Cesar glanced around. “Can we walk or
something?”

“Why?”

“Just feel kinda nervous standing right here,
y’ know? In front of her building? Especially at night.”

St. George felt the corners of his mouth
twitch. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. “A walk around the
garden work?”

“Yeah,” he said, “that’d be cool.”

He led them across the north edge of the
garden. A few years earlier, when the Mount had been a film studio,
the garden had been a gigantic pool that could be filled with water
for movie shoots. The north edge was a huge mural called the Blue
Sky. They walked along the narrow path between the base of the
mural and the garden.

Cesar took a breath and steeled himself.
“Probably should’ve told you or Cerberus or one of you guys months
ago, but...” The former Seventeen looked left to right and back,
never meeting the hero’s eyes. “I’m the Driver.”

St. George cocked his head and waited. “The
what?”

“The Driver.” He gripped an invisible
steering wheel in the air before him, and the hero realized the
young man’s fingerless handgear was a pair of cheap driving
gloves.

“The driver of what?”

Cesar sighed. “D’you remember there were a
bunch of carjackings and smash and grabs a couple years back? About
a year before the exes showed up?”

St. George nodded. “Down in the Wilshire
District? Yeah, I always meant to look into those.”

“That was me.”

The hero raised his eyebrows and smiled. “As
I remember, the cops caught the guy,” he said. “A big, fat white
guy. Blew out the tires of his Mustang with a spike strip. He tried
to run and the police laughed themselves silly.”

“Yeah, right,” nodded Cesar. They turned the
corner of the garden and started heading south. “Wayne. He was my
partner.”

“Partner?”

“Look, what if I just show you, ‘kay?”

St. George shrugged. “Okay.”

Cesar jogged ahead a few yards. The garden
had a thick wall protecting it on the east side, and there was a
small parking lot where they kept the scavenger trucks.
Mean
Green
.
Road Warrior
. The twins were
Big Red
and
Big Blue
. Off to the side, against the back corner of the
Zukor hospital, stood a few stacks of spare tires. Luke’s people
had pulled them off other trucks on the lot, plus some they’d found
in the other studios.

The young man took a few more quick steps to
put himself in front of
Mean Green
’s grill. He waited for
St. George to catch up and gestured the hero to the side. “No one
in the cab, right?”

“Nope.”

“No keys, right?”

St. George pulled the door open and glanced
under the steering column. “Nope. Should be in Luke’s office.”

“‘
Kay, then. Watch
this.”

The young man pulled off his glove and held
up his bare hand. The palm was covered with a flurry of half-faded
scars. He pressed his fingers against
Mean Green
’s grill and
the metal sparked. The flashes grew into long arcs that wrapped
around his hand and twisted up his arm with electric crackles.

Cesar vanished in a flash of light and
Mean Green
’s engine roared to life. A wisp of smoke spun in
the air for a moment, and then it was sucked into the grill by the
truck’s fan.
Mean Green
’s headlights came on. The engine
revved three times in a row.

St. George dropped his jacket. His eyes
flitted between the empty space and the growling truck. “You’re
kidding me.”

The horn let out two quick blasts. The
headlights flashed back and forth like winking eyes. The engine
growled again and the truck’s front wheels shifted left to right.
The hero took a few steps back and
Mean Green
rolled a few
feet forward. He walked to the left and the truck turned after
him.

“Okay,” he said, “I believe you.”

There was another crackle of electricity, a
flash, and the engine cut out. The headlights faded and Cesar stood
between the hero and
Mean Green
, his hand pressed against
the grill. The young man swayed for a moment, shook his head, and
grinned. “What you think of that?”

“So,” said St. George. “The Driver.”

“Damn straight.”

“You possess cars?”

“Not just cars,” said Cesar proudly. “Big
rigs, jeeps, SUVs, anything that’s self-powered, y’know? I did a
generator once on a bounce house. And a golf cart. Motorcycles are
tough because I can’t balance that good in ‘em.”

“What about a walkie-talkie or a radio or
something?”

He shook his head. “Too small. I get... I
dunno, cramped. I can’t fit inside.”

St. George studied the young man. He didn’t
have a scrap of green on him, but most of the former Seventeens
went out of their way not to wear the old gang color. The ornate
17
on his left shoulder was the only sign he’d been one of
the bad guys less than a year ago. “How long have you been able to
do this?”

He shrugged. “About four years.”

“You’ve been part of the Mount for eight
months now. Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Dude, we were on opposite sides.” Cesar
shook his head. “Even when I moved in here after Peasey was dead,
who knows what Stealth would’ve done if she found out there was
another Seventeen who had powers. Besides,” he jerked his head at
the truck, “that was the first time I’ve done it since the night
they grabbed Wayne.”

“Your partner.”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re the one with the powers, why’d you
need him?”

The young man shrugged. “I needed somebody
who could grab the cash. I’m in a car, it’s just a lot easier to
stay there. Takes a lot out of me, switching back and forth.”

“Okay,” said St. George, “so if he was
willing to sit behind the wheel for a smash and grab, why’d he need
you?”

Cesar grinned. “Dude, d’you ever read
Lowrider
or
Car and Driver
? Fucking loved
Car and
Driver
.”

“Once or twice. In waiting rooms.”

“Saw this phrase once—the car outperforms the
driver. When you get those sweet, high-end cars with tons of torque
that can turn on a dime. Rich jerks crash ‘em all the time because
the car is so much better than them. Moves faster’n they think it
can, reacts quicker’n they think it will. Tweak the wheel
this
much and you’re doing barrel rolls down the freeway,
y’know?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Well not when I’m inside,” said Cesar. “When
I’m inside, the car’s my body. Know every inch of it, what it can
do, how well it can do it. If the car can do it, I can do it, and
better than anyone sitting at the wheel ever could. I’m the
greatest getaway guy stunt driver in the world. I’m like ten times
the fucking Transporter times Knight Rider.”

“So how’d they catch your buddy?”

He held up his hand again and showed the
scars. “Like you said, man. Spike strip, right across Olympic.” He
pulled the glove from his waistband and tugged it back on. “Cops
arrested Wayne, took the Mustang to impound. I got out, my hands
and feet were all messed up something bad. Limped home and mama
took me to the emergency room. Man, that sucked. Six hours in the
waiting room at Hollywood Presbyterian.”

St. George picked up his jacket and batted
some dust off it. He looked at the truck again, then back to the
young man. “How’d you get this? Were you born with it?”

Cesar shook his head. “My cousin, Tony, he
was a gearhead,” explained the young man. “Worked on all the cars
for the Seventeens. Tune-ups, rims, nitrous, whatever you needed.
One day right after my sixteenth birthday I was helping him out,
trading out an alternator and...”

“And what?”

“I got struck by lightning,” said Cesar. From
his tone, St. George could tell he’d defended this point before.
“Right there in the driveway, sunny day with clear skies. Burnt my
hair off and fried the alternator.”

St. George drummed his fingers on
Mean
Green
’s side. “You got struck by lightning while you were
working on a car?”

“Yeah.”

“That has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve
ever heard.”

Cesar glared at him. “What, how’d you get
your powers? D’you get bit by a radioactive dragon or
something?”

“No,” said the hero, “I got... well, I got
hit by a meteorite. And doused in some experimental chemicals.”

The young man smirked. “And you’re making fun
of me?”

“There had to be something else to it.
Thousands of people have been struck by lightning. It doesn’t give
you superpowers.”

“Yeah, but it did.”

“But it can’t.”

“But it did. Look, man, the important thing
is, I want to join the team.”

“What?”

“You know,” said Cesar. “Start doing stuff
for good and all that. I want to contribute something to the
community.”

“How?”

The other man’s smile faltered. “What d’you
mean?”

“I mean how,” said St. George. “I’m glad you
came clean and told me about your powers, yeah, but... well, what
can you do for us? It’s not like we have tons of open road to go
speeding around on.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“And at regular speed, well, Luke’s got half
a dozen drivers for each truck past himself. Do the cars get better
somehow when you’re in them? Do they stop using gas or... I don’t
know, heal or something?”

Cesar shifted his feet. “No.”

The hero shrugged.

“You saying I can’t join up?”

St. George paused. “Look, Cesar, if things
were back to normal, I’d say sure thing. But, honestly, what can
you do that can’t be done by half the people in the Mount?”