Amped: A Kid Sensation Companion Novel (13 page)

I raised my eyebrows in surprise and said, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to explain that.”

“Well, obviously I didn’t
literally
kill you,” Esper said with a wink. “But I telepathically went into the Kraken’s mind and convinced him that you were dead – that he had seen your lifeless body in the aftermath of the destruction caused by the induction engine’s destruction. Then I also placed a compulsion in his mind to stay away from us.”

I frowned. “Okay, but how far would you have to take that to pull it off?”

Esper gave me a look of incomprehension. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you convinced him that he’d seen my body. Wouldn’t you also have to plant the notion that there had been a funeral, that I was buried in a grave somewhere, and so on? And wouldn’t you have to do the same to a bunch of other people to make it seem like it had actually happened?”

Esper looked at me like I was an idiot. “First of all, don’t make the mistake of ascribing human emotions to a monster like the Kraken. Grief and loss for loved ones are terms he’d have to look up in a dictionary. In the memories I implanted, he saw you dead in the rubble and left you there, which is exactly what he would have done if it had actually happened. As to implanting memories in others, it wasn’t necessary. The Kraken said he’d seen your dead body, and that was good enough for the rest of Novercalis.”

“Why not just make him forget about me altogether? Make him forget that I’d ever existed?”

Esper gave a short bark of laughter. “Ha! If it were that easy, I’d have made him forget about
me
! The problem is that certain memories get reinforced, making them almost impossible to permanently eradicate – even for a telepath of my caliber. For instance, if you met a person once, perhaps at a party, you might eventually forget that encounter all on your own. A memory like that would be easy to jettison from someone’s mind because it never gets reinforced by additional meetings with the person. But if it’s someone that you see on a regular basis – like a co-worker or a neighbor – it’s harder for a telepath to erase all memories of that.”

“So, with the Kraken, erasing all memories of me wouldn’t have been possible.”

“Not on a long-term basis, and especially since you had been the focal point of one of his schemes, right up until the time Vir came for you. So all I could do after the League got to Aberdeen was make him think you were deceased. It’s easier to implant a false memory than alter a real one.”

The mention of Aberdeen immediately brought another question to mind. “When exactly did you and the rest of the League show up on the scene?”

Esper took a deep breath. “Vir had a letter delivered by courier to the League hierarchy an hour after he left to meet with the Kraken in Aberdeen and – hopefully – rescue you. In it, he explained in explicit detail the entire situation, including how he had compromised League missions. A group of us went racing out there immediately.”

“They let you come along?”

“Yes. The League was initially insisting that I stay at HQ – I was only seventeen – but I fessed up to my own role in the situation, and after that there was no way they were leaving me behind.”

“So they had no idea you were involved up to that point?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Vir never mentioned me in his letter, and had completely misled me as to when the meet was to occur – I thought it was happening three days later. I guess he figured he was protecting me. Basically, he left me with the option to disavow any knowledge of what he’d done.”

“But you admitted your role in everything.”

“In terms of getting to Aberdeen, it was the price of admission. But the damage was done by the time we got there, although you and Vir were safe. After that, it was all about damage
control
.”

“Like altering your father’s memories?”

Esper made a noncommittal sound. “Not really. I mean, I could feel the Kraken out there even before we reached Aberdeen, and when I peeked in his head I saw him already plotting to kidnap you in order to force Vir to do his bidding again. That’s when I knew the only way you’d be safe was if he thought you were dead, so I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to put the image of that in his head. The real damage control was how to handle everything that Vir had done.”

“What was the solution?”

“There were extenuating circumstances, but Vir’s actions – from the induction engine to passing along confidential information – had cost lives. That being the case, there were a number of government bureaucrats who wanted heads to roll. They demanded that charges be brought. We were already dealing with public backlash from a couple of the failed missions, so a criminal investigation would have been a PR nightmare. Rather than drag the League’s name through the mud, Vir made a full confession, took responsibility for everything, waived his right to a jury trial, and went to prison.”

“What about you? You were almost just as involved as he was.”

“I was also a minor. In his official statement, Vir declared that, as a more senior member of the Alpha League, he had exercised undue influence over me and convinced me that what I was doing was right. In fact, part of his plea deal was that I get a clean slate.”

“So he protected you.”

“His overall actions protected everyone. Me, the reputation of the League, and especially you. Every breath you draw is because of that man and what he did – a gift that keeps on giving. You’re lucky. Some people will never know what it’s like to have someone like that in their life, someone willing to sacrifice everything for their happiness.”

There was a longing tone to her voice as she spoke, and a wishful expression on her face. Then, out of the blue, it dawned on me.

“You’re in love him,” I said.

A pained look flashed briefly on her face, and I expected her to deny it. Instead, she simply sighed and said, “I offered to fix it for him, you know. After we got to Aberdeen, I offered to erase the short-term memories of everyone in the League who knew what he’d done.”

“I thought you said memories are hard to erase.”

“I said
certain
memories are hard to erase – namely, those that are long-term. Short-term memories, things you’ve only learned recently and which don’t have a lot of reinforcement, are fairly easy to manipulate. It would have been child’s play for me to do it, at which point the letter he’d sent would be the only indication that he’d done anything wrong.”

“What did he say?”

“He wouldn’t have it. In his view, manipulating his teammates in that manner would have been worse than anything else he’d done. I’d known that he would say that, but I’d felt compelled to try. He was that kind of guy, and everyone knew it. It’s one of the things people loved about him.”

“So, why do you guys always talk about him like he’s dead?”

Esper leaned back and her eyes fluttered slightly. “Because your father was exceptional. His power set, his brilliance, his idealism… He seemed to have limitless potential. And when he was sentenced to prison, we didn’t just lose a team member, we lost all that potential for good. And knowing the kind of person he was, none of us liked referring to the fact that he was in prison. So we just took to saying that we lost him.”

“I think I can understand that,” I said.

Esper smiled, closing her eyes for a moment. “Good. And now you know everything.”

“Not quite,” I countered. “I still don’t know why you never told me any of this. I mean, I’ve been of an age that I could have handled this for a while.”

“Novercalis,” Esper said in a frank tone. “As I mentioned before, if they knew you had actually survived, you’d always be in danger. That being the case, it was safer to simply never talk about all this stuff, even with you.”

“You didn’t think I could keep a secret?”

Esper blinked a few times, as if she were getting sleepy. “Of course you could, but we also know that you have people in your inner circle that you trust. Everyone does. For instance, I know you trust your boyfriend Jim, and had you known all this stuff, you might have shared it with him. Jim, in turn, has people that
he
trusts, like his grandfather. His grandfather, in turn, may have some old cape buddies that
he
trusts, and so on. Bearing all that in mind, it just seemed better to keep the truth under wraps and not say anything rather than risk someone somewhere spilling the beans.”

“Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, if the Kraken showed up on our doorstep.”

Grimacing slightly, Esper moved her head in an odd little circle a few times – as if she couldn’t decide between shaking her head or nodding. “Y-y-yes. Like I said, in addition to the fake memory of your death, I put a powerful compulsion in his head to stay away from us – to not even think about you or me. It w-worked for a long time, but he’s somehow overca…overca…over…”

I came to my feet in alarm. Esper seemed to be struggling not just to speak, but to stay awake as her eyes fluttered madly. Her arms lolled to her sides as if the bones in them had suddenly dissolved.

I gripped her by the shoulders and shook her, screaming, “Esper! Esper!”

She didn’t seem to hear me, although telepathically, I could feel her fumbling around in my mind. To my horror, her eyes suddenly rolled up in her head and she seemed to pass out. Just before she did, however, I heard her telepathically shout a single word into my brain.

I let go of Esper and she slumped over on the couch. I reached out, and could suddenly feel them – about a dozen people all around the house, and closing in. I didn’t need any guesses as to who it was that had come calling: Novercalis.

Bending down, I grabbed Esper and hauled her onto my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She was a little taller than average and had a lithe, feminine frame, but was more muscular than she appeared at first blush due to the workout regimen most League members engaged in. Still, thanks to my own physical conditioning and routine, I had no problem lifting or carrying her.

I took a moment to balance Esper’s weight, then headed for the kitchen as fast as I could. Using my power, I shorted the electrical circuits in the house, causing all the lights to go off. I sensed the assailants outside halt their advance, apparently thrown off by the sudden power outage.

The kitchen contained an exterior door that was mostly blind-covered glass and which led out to a patio. Navigating from memory, I went straight to it and then spent a moment getting a fix on where the attackers were located. There were four of them in the backyard.

I took a chance and peeked out the door blinds. Thanks to my power, I already had a sense of exactly where the raiding party outside was, but moonlight – reflected on the frost-covered ground – also let me use my eyes to a certain extent by providing a fair amount of illumination. Letting the blinds fall back into place, I took a deep breath and placed a hand on the doorknob. The hardest thing to do right then was be patient.

The assailants must have been in radio contact or something, because they all started closing in again at precisely the same moment. I did my best to ignore the others around the house and focused on the quartet in the backyard, who were now clustered around the patio door. A second later, I felt the doorknob begin to turn.

I sent a current of electricity through the knob and heard a scream of anguish on the other side. At the same time, I heard an odd hiccup of sound, repeated in triplicate, followed by a yelp of pain.

I yanked the door open, feeling a slight bit of resistance for a second. Standing in the doorway was a figure dressed in a dark outfit of what I assumed was body armor and holding some sort of firearm. He was shaking convulsively, the result of being zapped with electricity. On the ground next to him was one of his fellows; he was lying motionless, with what looked like a couple of darts stuck in his arm.

It was immediately evident to me what had happened. Electricity causes muscles to contract, and a person who receives a large jolt of it may not regain voluntary muscle control for a while. Apparently the guy who had tried to open the door must have had a finger on the trigger of his weapon with his other hand. When I shocked him, his trigger-finger had contracted, causing him to shoot one of his compatriots. (It also appeared that they were using tranquilizer darts, which meant that they wanted us alive.)

I felt for the remaining two attackers and sensed them on either side of the door. (At the same time, I noted that their fellows around the house were now all rushing to the backyard, apparently thinking it was the escape route for me and Esper.)

I stuck a finger outside the patio door and to the left, then fired a bolt of electricity. I was rewarded with a harsh scream, and I sensed the person on that side of the door fall to the ground. At the same time, I heard a couple of thunks sound in front of me, and when I looked, I saw that the guy having spasms in the doorway now had a dart sticking out the side of his neck. In short, he had essentially acted as a human shield and blocked shots fired by the last member of the backyard quartet.

As the convulsing fellow started to slide to the ground, I fired a bolt in the direction of the remaining attacker. I missed, but hit the wooden fence that surrounded our backyard and formed the boundary between our property and the neighbor’s on that side. The fence burst into bright flame, lighting up the area and momentarily blinding the assailant, who was wearing night vision goggles. As he was now a still target, I lit him up, and then closed the back door.

With all of the other attackers now seemingly headed to the rear of the house, I hurried to the front door, banging my leg on the coffee table in my haste and almost dropping Esper (who was getting heavier by the second, it seemed). Once there, I yanked the door open and dashed outside. I raced across the lawn (as much as you
can
race with someone draped across your shoulder), skidding slightly as I hit the frozen sidewalk and then took off down the street. Almost immediately, I heard footsteps behind me, felt the bioelectric fields of numerous pursuers.

In some part of my brain, I knew my antics were futile. There was no way I was going to outrun an assault team on foot – and certainly not carrying a grown woman on my shoulders. (Speaking of which, Esper now felt like a ton of bricks, and I was breathing heavily.) Still, I wasn’t going to just give up.

I glanced back and saw a half-dozen figures closing in on me fast. I fired a blast of electricity down the center of their ranks; someone screamed “Look out!” and they all dove willy-nilly to either side of the sidewalk. Smiling to myself, I turned back around – and almost ran smack-dab into some old guy in a suit, walking with a cane.

I tried to stop but ended up skidding on the sidewalk. Esper fell from my shoulder as my feet suddenly flew out from under me and I hit the ground with a thud, smacking my head hard enough to see stars.

Grimacing, I immediately started sending little spikes of electricity to the injured areas to soothe the pain.

“Are you okay, young lady?” asked a kindly voice. Looking up, I saw the old man I had almost run into. He tucked the cane under one arm and reached out to me, saying, “Here, let me help you up.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Then, as I reached for the proffered hand, he shot me in the chest.