Predominance (28 page)

“Yvette! Sarah!” I called over my shoulder. “Don't move from where you are!” I figured I had a better chance of stopping those bars if I knew exactly where they were. In those few seconds I realized I had to make a choice... And then suddenly, Roger's words rumbled inside my head:

“What you call the future is no more than a destination based on your choices. There are as many as the numbers you keep running in your head. Yet in your case, there's only one, no matter what choice you make.”

“Sonya!” I called out desperately. “Please! Don't do it!”

But she just scowled and launched those bars with the full force of her hatred.

Like a splash of cold water inside my brain, my slow-motion trance kicked in once again, allowing me time to try to find equilibrium within this chaos. But deceleration or not, what happened next happened too fast to control or stop.

The three bars approached in a triangle formation—an effective way to cover any miscalculation Sonya might make. This shot was not going to miss Sarah. On the contrary, it was going to kill her, and anyone around her, in this case my already-wounded Yvee. No time to run the numbers on this one; there was only one thing I could do, hoping it would work as well in real life as it did in my head…

I let go of the platform as soon as I saw the bars pass by me. A desperate yell from Damian reached my ears, but I paid no attention. I spun around, aggressively, with the intention of making a full 360o turn in order to get back to Sonya and stop the platform once again. I followed those bars with a glare as soon as I began my spin, my hands clutching the air, trying to gain control over the deadly steel. Sarah and Yvette cringed in slow motion, closing their eyes and tightening their hold on each other, as if they were waiting hopelessly for the end. I yanked my hands toward me as soon as I felt my mind's final connection to those bars, which came to a sudden stop in midair, radiating their lost kinetic energy as heat—just a couple of feet away from the faces of the two people who mattered the most to me in the world. Then I let go of the bars, which dropped straight to the ground in a noisy clatter of steel-on-steel, and continued my spin back to my point of origin—Sonya.

I could see Damian trying desperately to stop the falling platform using his powers. But he was too weak, and the platform far too heavy. I thrust my hands in the air as I completed my 360o spin and aimed at the platform again. My mind connected to the giant beam even faster than expected... But wait! Something was wrong! An overlooked variable from the equation I'd never had the time to run in my head had made it impossible for me to stop the platform. The 1.23 seconds that it took me to complete the spin had been time enough for the platform to build momentum, making the entire structure feel twice as heavy as it had before. I fought with all my strength to keep the platform from falling, my head, and upper body pounding with pain, until something suddenly snapped inside my right shoulder. The excruciating pain wrenched a scream of agony from me, and even then, I tried to hold it up the platform—but it was too late.

The platform finally gave in to gravity, coming down hard. Sonya was crushed instantly by the colossal collapse, before the eyes of her beloved husband. “NOOO!!!” a painful, bereft cry burst out of the deepest corners of Damian's soul. “SONYA!”

I got to my feet, my vision blurry, and began to stagger towards the warehouse. I found myself clutching my shoulder, which I suddenly realized was bleeding profusely. The injected-lava sensation that I'd had felt earlier had been a wayward bullet lodging itself in my deltoid. As I got closer to the warehouse, I saw that the chemical fire had spread beyond containment. It was only a few feet away from reaching the cylinder rack, the one filled with oxygen tanks.

“Damian!” I called, reaching the threshold of the overhead door. “I'm sorry... I'm so sorry—”

“Get away from me!” he growled furiously. A steady stream of tears flowed down his ravaged face. “Get away!”

“Damian, I can't even begin to imagine what you must be feeling right now,” I said weakly. “But we can still make it out of here. Let me help you. Please!”

“Sonya…” Damian sobbed over the wreckage, pressing his head against the rubble that had buried his wife. “Sonya! Sonya! Sonya! “He continued his disheartening call, knowing too well that he would never hear an answer again.

“Come on, Damian.” I knelt next to him, and tried to get him back on his feet. But he wouldn't let go of a piece of metal that stuck out of the debris. “Come on. You have to let go.”

“Let go?” He captured my eyes with a livid glare. “Like you did?”

His words made a horrible feeling of guilt overrun my heart, making my voice betray my growing conviction of the truth. “S-s-she tried to kill Sarah and Yvette, Damian… I had to stop it. Believe me. I tried to save her.”

“Save her?!” A push of his hand mixed with some of his telekinesis sent me five feet away from him, making me land almost flat on my back. “You… you killed her!”

His face began to shudder, along with the rest of his body, his eyes bulging with hatred, as if they were going to pop out of their sockets. His breathing became frantic, a desperate wheezing that made his eyes roll to the back of head. Then I saw what I thought to be the first tangible manifestation of evil incarnate. A gaseous cloud of red vapor spawned out of thin air, like an unearthly apparition summoned by Damian's wrath. I watched this bizarre energy whirl around his head for a second or two, before it began to force itself in through Damian's eyes.

I didn't know what else to do but watch. I was perplexed, stunned by the unnatural event. Then I realized that this visible force was not trespassing any boundaries; on the contrary, it was being absorbed willingly by Damian himself. The more he absorbed it, the more his eyes changed toward the sulfurous yellow I'd seen before. Soon, the mysterious red vapor was gone, inhaled completely by Damian's brain.

“Damian?” I called warily, watching as his breathing returned to normal. His eyes were solid yellow now, so yellow they glowed, an enhanced version of the wicked hue that had driven him to kill more than a dozen men back at his cabin.

And now they were glaring right at me.

“She's dead because of you,” he rasped. “Because of them,” he added, looking over my shoulder, locking his hateful glare on Yvette and Sarah.

“Damian, you need to calm down!” I warned, getting back on my feet.

Despite his wounds, Damian found some way to stand, regaining his feet even before me. “You are going to die,” he said, raising his hand toward me, curving his fingers as he had when he snapped the guard's neck, “And so are they.”

Invisible iron bands curled around my throat, cutting off my air supply as I instinctively reached for my neck. But my choker was incorporeal; there was no way to fight it with my hands, so I decided that my only chance was to fight fire with fire. “Stop!” I managed to gasp, thrusting my hands forward toward Damian. It felt like someone had put a hot poker in my shoulder and twisted, but my effort caused him not only to release me but staggered him backwards a few feet. After I dragged in a deep, sweet breath of oxygen, I declared, “I am not going to fight you!”

“Then you are going to die!” he said, thrusting his hands forward again. He left me no choice but to do the same.

As our wills collided, an incredible, almost tangible energy field filled the space between us, warping reality, but stopping our attacks from reaching each other. I held my ground as well as he did, even as I felt him pushing harder and harder. My arms began to quiver. Damian's changeover was complete, and he was more powerful than ever. I had no idea how long I could hold out against him, or even if I could. I knew for certain, though, that if I were to let go, I was as good as dead. So I tried to hold it up as long as I could. “Damian! I am not your enemy,” I gasped. “Stop!”

“You killed her!”

“Damian, please!” This was my last plea before I noticed that the fire inside the warehouse had reached the cylinder rack and was cradling the oxygen tanks. At that moment I felt as if the force field between us was at the same state as those oxygen tanks—ready to give.

A sudden and powerful explosion sent me flying into the air, extinguishing my consciousness like a sharp exhalation extinguishes a match. I never knew what went off first: the burning oxygen tanks on the cylinder rack, or the burning desire for vengeance that Damian had unleashed upon me. But what I did know was that I couldn't blame him for hating me, and as I went down in the dark I wished desperately that I'd had a few more seconds before the explosion—not to understand what really set it off, but to have the opportunity to say I'm sorry one last time.

Spit and Image

A COLD SHIVER
forced opened my eyes, followed by a desperate gasp that echoed inside my head, as if my brain had suddenly taken over the role of my lungs. I tried to understand where I was, but it was too dark to recognize the place. All I could make out was the corner where I was crouching—cold and frightened, with no memory of how I'd gotten there. Groping blindly in the dark, I forced my eyes to adjust to the shadows. But it wasn't until my hands stumbled upon the fourth corner of this dark place that I realized I was trapped inside a room—a room with neither windows nor doors. A room filled with nothing but silence.

Terror flooded me then, because I got the feeling that I wasn't alone in this place, that something was sharing these tight quarters with me, and that for some reason, it didn't like me much. I groped my way back into a corner and crouched warily against the wall, hoping that this feeling was nothing but paranoia… But soon, the echo of a half-familiar voice proved it to be otherwise.

“Do you really think ignoring me is going to make me go away?” The tone of the voice made me shudder, not because it alerted me of its presence but because it frightened me to think that I knew who it belonged to. “You don't look so good,” the voice added. “In fact, you look exhausted. Maybe it's time for you to let go of your stubbornness, and embrace the truth.”

“What… Who are you?” I asked tentatively.

“That is a question, I'm afraid, that only you have the answer for.” The thing reply to my query in a casual manner, yet it gave me no real answer. I sat quietly in a corner while my eyes scanned the shadows, looking for the source of the voice. But despite the fact that my hypersenses were in full flood, I found nothing.

“You seem confused to be here,” the voice noted, as it began to take on solidity in the opposite corner of the room, a silhouette mirroring my crouching position on the floor. “I guess that's the difference between you and me. You look for answers that aren't there, whereas I don't bother.”

“What is this place?” I asked warily, as my eyes finally adapted to the darkness. My tormentor was still just a dark shape across the room. “How did we get in here?”

“See?” The man in the corner laughed, his face still shuttered by the shadows. “My point exactly. Though honestly, the nature of your inquiring mind is not your real problem. I think it's your choice of inquiries that throws you off.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I snapped, frustrated by his cryptic talk.

“It means you're not asking the right questions!” he retorted angrily, leaning towards me in the darkness, as if offended by my insolence.

“I'm sorry,” I apologized quickly. “I meant no disrespect.”

“Of course you didn't,” he scoffed, leaning back against the wall. “You're spineless, weak. You've always been weak.” His tone became angrier and more contemptuous with every word he uttered. “Your weakness disgusts me!”

I ignored his snide comments and tried to go back to the previous subject, realizing that it wasn't in my best interests to upset the only person who might know what was happening here. “What did you mean by saying I'm not asking the right questions?”

“Hmm…” he sighed, “Well, isn't it obvious? The real question is not how did we get here? But how do we get out?”

“Okay, then, how do we get out?”

“Funny you should ask,” he remarked flippantly. His leather-soled boots made a loud thud on the floor as he got to his feet in a single jump. He took a few steps and stopped in the middle of the room, peering over his head. I didn't see the point; it was too dark to find the ceiling, if there even was one. “There's only one way to get out,” he said, “but you may not like it.”

“Tell me.”

He made me wait for a few seconds; his loud breathing was the only thing that disturbed the dead silence that engulfed this prison cell. Then he turned to me and blurted out his terrible truth: “One of us needs to die.”

“What?!” I demanded, jolted to the core. “What kind of answer is that? Why?”

“You keep asking the wrong questions, Victor.” He spat my name as if it were an obscenity.

“Stop toying with me,” I said steadily, “and just tell me who you are.”

“I've told you,” he said, his voice beginning to distort into a malevolent growl, “That is a question that only you have the answer for.” The change in his voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I leaned backwards and began to climb up, cautiously, against the wall, until I was finally back on my feet.

“Tell me, then,” I said. “Are you here to…?”

“...kill you?” He finished the question I was dreading so much to ask. “Not exactly. You see? It's complicated… I can't kill you any more than you can kill me.” His voice suddenly returned to normal. “But one of us can persuade the other to forfeit his life.”

“That's ridiculous!” I countered. “Why would I persuade anybody to do something like that?”

“Argh!” he complained, turning violently toward one of the walls, where he landed a powerful punch that echoed through the entire room. I felt a sharp pain in my head, as if he had punched me and not the wall. “You're asking the wrong questions!”

“All right, relax!” I said calmly. “Let's pretend I'm stupid. I'm definitely ignorant, so teach me. Tell me, then: What's the right question?”

He turned back to me, and although I still couldn't see his face, I could feel a powerful scowl being thrown in my direction. “You want me to formulate your own questions?” he asked, with an audible stain of disgust in his voice. “That's so typical of you, Victor. But I'm afraid that this time, you're going to have to run the numbers all by yourself.”

His words made me realize that this person—whoever he was—knew a hell of a lot more about me than just my name. I decided to do what he said and analyze the problem at hand. So—I ran the numbers. “You want out,” I noted swiftly, “But you're stuck. You need me dead, but you can't kill me… thus, the real question is: what would be strong enough to persuade me to give up on my own life?”

“Finally!” he remarked jeeringly. “And do you know what that is?”

“No. Why don't you tell me?”

“Love,” he said quickly, as if afraid of the word.

“Love?”

“Yes, love,” he reaffirmed, “That irrational emotion that leads to personal attachment towards another human being; an emotion that, in your case, is the only thing that would persuade you to give up your own life.” He paused just long enough to catch his breath and continued. “And I know you well enough to know that you would sacrifice yourself in order to save someone you love.”

“Of course I would,” I said matter-of-factly. “So now we're talking about a trade?”

“In a way,” he responded thoughtfully.

A long uncomfortable silence followed his words, forcing me to probe for more information. “Well, would you care to elaborate?” I pressed.

“Something is coming, Victor,” he said, “Something unforeseen, something that'll put the last two people you care about in this world in grave danger.”

“If that's true, you just gave me a reason to persuade you to give up your life.”

“So you can get out?” he asked with a mocking chuckle.

“I need to protect them.”

“That's just it!” he said, leaning against the darkest corner of the room, making it even harder for me to try and see his face. “You can't!”

“What the hell do you know about what I can or can't do?” I snapped angrily. “You don't even know me! You're nothing but a hack who knows my name, that's all!”

“I'm afraid I'm a lot more than that, Victor,” he countered. “And I do know your limitations when it comes to your delusional views of morality—which have only gotten people killed so far. I also know that this so-called conscience of yours is your greatest weakness, which will eventually not only be your undoing, but will result in the deaths of everyone around you.”

His words were like jet fuel tossed onto the flames of my blazing fury. But my strong desire to know the truth forced me to maintain my composure and allay my craving to run across the room and swing my fists into his face. He laughed as he said, quietly, “I, on the other hand, do not bind myself to petty ideals of altruism, thereby giving me an advantage over people like you... Not to mention that my powers have grown far beyond yours.”

“Powers?” I breathed in shock.

“What you really should be asking yourself right now is, what’s the right thing to do?” He began to pace around the room as he delivered his disturbing argument. “If you set me free, I will not only keep Sarah and Yvette safe from the danger that is upon them, but I will also avenge the deaths of the people who have fallen in vain, from your father to Denali and Sonya. Even Damian, not to mention all the nameless others whose bones are rotting in unmarked graves scattered over R.C. Labs' grounds.”

He stopped in the middle of the room and sighed. “If you don't let me live, I'm afraid you'll be condemning the girls to death, along with everything they've fought for. And you, my friend, will be back in this cell with me. I'm not threatening you; I would never hurt either one of those girls.” He paused. “There! I've given you the facts. Now it's up to you to choose the variable with the highest probability. You or me, Victor?”

“You're insane!” I exclaimed in shock. “Even if I choose to believe that an imminent danger is stalking Yvette and Sarah, I would never trust someone like you to protect them!”

“Did you just say someone like you?” He seemed amused for some reason.

“Yes! It's obvious you hate me. You've made that point perfectly clear. Why would you care what happens to the people I care about?”

A long-suffering sigh escaped his lips before he began to speak again. “I don't hate you, Victor,” he said quietly. His voice was almost sad now. “How could I? In fact, I've often wished I could be more like you… just like I know you've wished to be more like me sometimes.” He paused again. “But that will never happen. It can't.”

A cold shiver ran throughout my entire body. “Who are you?” I demanded, though I was beginning to suspect the truth.

He ignored my terrified question and continued. “Our nature is to be opposites, sharing nothing but one thing. Do you know what that is, Victor?”

A morbid feeling compelled me to probe. “No,” I whispered. “Tell me.”

“Affinity,” he hissed sharply. “We share the same inclinations towards the same things.”

“What are you saying?” I asked puzzled.

“I'm saying that I love them, too, Victor. And just like you, I feel the conflict of loving them both at the same time.” His words made my heart stop, sending an icy shudder racing up and down my spine, as if my subconscious were truly beginning to understand the meaning of his twisted words. “I suppose that's another difference that sets us apart,” he added in a ponderous tone. “I'm not
afraid to admit my emotional dissonance, which in my case only supports my claim. And my strong commitment to keeping both of them safe, no matter what extremes I have to take.”

Though I was beginning to dread the answer, I kept asking the same question. “Who are you?” But he kept ignoring me, as if my question had never left my lips, let alone reached his ears.

“And as for trust,” he continued, “Sometimes all we can do is take a leap of faith… Isn't that right, Victor?”

“Who are you?” I demanded, edgier than ever before. “Tell me!”

A powerful quake shook the room, knocking us both off our feet. And it continued to shake us with such magnitude that it made it impossible for either of us to get off the floor. I could hear the walls cracking, like a walnut under the pressure of a powerful fist. With every splintering sound I felt an agonizing pain that stabbed through my head like an ice pick—or one of Sonya's steel rebars. I applied pressure to my temples with the heels of my hands, like I used to do not so long ago when my headaches got the best of me.

I felt crack after painful crack. I thought my head was about to explode—until the quake finally stopped.

I opened my eyes and slowly lifted my head, to see that strange shafts of bright light were beginning to stream through the cracks in the fissured walls. I was relieved to see the light—relieved to discover that this dreadful darkness didn't continue beyond this room. The light was white and powerful, almost...cleansing. Yet the cracks where the light were entering were too narrow to illuminate the entire room, which—as strange as it may sound—made me feel safe.

I no longer wanted to see the face of the man I had to relinquish my life to.

“What… What just happened?” I asked, still shaken by the episode. 

“We're running out of time,” my mysterious cellmate replied, pacing nervously back and forth in the only corner still untouched by the light. “You have to let me out.”

Then, driven by his trepidation, he strayed away from the shadows and walked right through one of light beams, which in its narrowed form created, from temple to temple, an unveiling eye-mask that allowed me to see, if only for one second, the intensity of his glare. A sharp knock of fear suddenly pounded my chest when I realized that I'd seen those eyes before. The color was pure gray, the same malevolent gray that had tainted my eyes when my anger and revenge had almost taken control over my volition. I stumbled backwards in fear and asked the same dreadful question, one last time: “Who are you?”