Super Powereds: Year 3 (69 page)

                As he drew near the door, Vince paused. He could already feel them, already sense the electricity coursing through their electronic bodies, but he needed to be certain of their positions. This skill was still raw and unpolished; it was a technique he’d come across while fighting George. After a week or so of always trying to be ready to absorb George’s blows, Vince realized that he could sort of feel the energy in the robotic man. He couldn’t connect to it—with closed-off electricity, that required physical contact—but he could still make it out as it powered his metallic opponent. When he had time to mull that fact over, Vince realized it made sense. He’d always been connecting to the energy, which meant he could sense it on some subconscious level. The only difference was that now, he was aware of it.

                Vince carefully eased the back door open and slipped inside. There was a Sim somewhere down a nearby hallway, but he didn’t know which way it was facing. He could only get a sense of the energy present, not pick out fine details. With very delicate steps, he emerged from his hiding spot and began moving toward the nearest Sim. In his mind, Vince began gathering some of the electricity stored within him. When he turned to offense, it was almost impossible to keep his energy-sense going, but just doing the preparations didn’t cause him to lose it. Ideally, he would be able to sneak up on his adversary; however, he didn’t want to be caught defenseless if that wasn’t how this played out.

                When he reached a corner, he knew there was a Sim just around the other side of it. All he could do was hope for the best. Vince gently eased his head around to the new hallway, only to find a set of robotic eyes staring back at him. They seemed to glow, but only until he realized they were reflecting the yellow light shining off its chest.

                For the span of a single breath, neither of them moved. They merely soaked in the presence of each other, synapses firing as the inescapable conclusion of conflict was reached. If it had been a human opponent, Vince would have hesitated. Even as far as he’d come, it was difficult for him to immediately react with violence to a fellow person. Robots, on the other hand, were a different story. Three months in the miserable desert heat, being beaten relentlessly by a mechanical man, had ingrained Vince with very forceful reactions, as well as a bit of pent-up frustration.

                The bolt of electricity struck the Sim right in its center of mass, only a few inches below its yellow light. Whatever kind of power it possessed, no aspect of it involved electricity immunity. But despite the speed of the blow, the jolt was short and sweet. It was meant to incapacitate, not to kill. Of course, such things were hardly a precise practice in the field, so when the robotic opponent slumped to the ground, Vince had to resist the urge to make sure it was okay. With a person, he could try to shock their heart if something went wrong. On the Sims, he would just have to be as precise as possible with his voltage.

                One Sim down, Vince rose back to his feet and headed down the hall, on course to encounter the next.

*              *              *

                “Okay, Alex’s Force powers I sort of got, but this one has me stumped,” Roy admitted. On the screen, Vince took down his second opponent in similar fashion to the first. “How does he know where they are? Am I the only person in our whole damned dorm that doesn’t have some sort of ultra-sense?”

                “Alex doesn’t live in our dorm,” Alice pointed out.

                “Just a technicality; the guy’s one of us,” Roy replied, eyes still unmoving from Vince’s exam. He hadn’t realized that Alex was nearby, nor did he see the look of unexpected happiness on the shorter man’s face, all of which was likely for the best. Roy was his most genuine when he didn’t know he was being overheard, which made the sentiment all the more appreciable.

                “Judging from what I know about Vince’s ability, I would guess that he is somehow locating their energy signatures, and then using that to estimate their positions,” Chad said.

                “You nailed it,” Mary confirmed. “That’s exactly what he’s doing.”

                “Whoa, wait a minute. That sounds a whole lot like the sort of thing that only works on robots,” Alice said. “You know, the kind of strategy that we were all expressly forbidden from using.”

                “That’s only true if he can’t use it on humans as well,” Mary reminded her.

                “Can he?”

                In response, Mary just smiled and looked back at the screen. She knew Vince was nearly done with the guards and wanted to see how things went with the cluster room. Alice took the hint and glanced up as well.

                “Sensing them or not, our boy is in for a hell of a fight,” Roy said. “Six Sims in one room, three of them red. He’s either going to have to try and nuke the whole thing at once, or take them one by one and risk serious collateral damage. Either way, that’s tough.”

                “Don’t be too sure about that,” Chad said. “If there is one thing I’ve learned about Vince Reynolds, it is that he is oddly unpredictable at times. Perhaps he’ll show us something unexpected.”

*              *              *

                With the final guard down, Vince headed toward the massive concentration of electrical energy centered in the middle of the building. This would be the hard part, because he wasn’t confident that he could handle that many opponents without going overboard. Three were red-light Sims, he knew that from process of elimination, so killing them wouldn’t take away points. Still, he wasn’t that concerned about the points. He wanted to do this right. Dean Blaine had been right; this was training to be a Hero. Vince wanted to know that he could take down a situation like this his way. Otherwise, he knew in his heart, he’d never be able to do the job.

                Vince’s sense expanded as he drew close to the room. He barely even needed to focus anymore; he could hear the Sims in there shifting about. It wasn’t them he was reaching for, though. Instead, Vince focused on the light radiating off the bulbs all around him. Light was like fire, it assaulted him, pressed against him, tried to go inside him. All he had to do was open the doors. And in the desert, reeling under George’s blows, that was exactly what he’d learned to do.

                Vince took one step into the room where all the Sims were gathered, and the world went black. Not a single speck of light could be seen; all existence was devoured by a shadow.

                And then, in the miniature world of starless midnight he’d just created, Vince did something truly surprising.

129.

               “Everyone, stop what you’re doing! You are all suspected of various crimes and the intention of committing more. To those of you who are innocent, please lay down on the ground right now, and put your hands over your heads. I promise to do all I can to ensure you aren’t falsely charged. To anyone who stays standing: I will be forced to interpret that as a sign of aggression and respond to it with force. Make your choice now, before the lights come back on.”

*             *             *

                If Vince had conjured a dolphin out of his ass and hurled it at the largest Sim, he couldn’t have shocked the room of fellow students more than he had by demanding the Sims surrender. In fact, they would have handled the ass-dolphin better, because they were at least accustomed to that particular brand of unexpected action.

                “What a fucking moron,” Allen said, still in shock from the way Vince had blown his element of surprise. “What the hell did he think would happen?”

                “Perhaps we should wait and see how his gamble pays off before we pass judgment on it,” Thomas said. He kept his voice calm, but the slight puffing of his chest and widening of his eyes left no doubt over how he felt about someone insulting his friend.

                Even the Melbrook group was fairly flabbergasted, though not all for the same reason. As Roy and Alice gaped with open mouths at the dark screen, waiting to see what came of Vince’s ultimatum, Chad gently nudged Mary on the shoulder.

                “Mary, I am new to this group, and as such, haven’t seen the full range of all of your abilities, so perhaps this is something inconsequential. Still, I must ask, when did Vince learn to use area techniques?”

                “Huh?” Roy snapped out of his fugue at the words and looked over. “What are you talking about?”

                Chad pointed to one of the cameras that was looking down on a hallway near the center room. “See how the light abruptly stops halfway down, turning to darkness? That implies that Vince is absorbing all the light in a targeted area, not merely draining every bit of it he can.”

                Roy felt a whole new wave of surprise wash over him, this one far more cutting than the one that had come from Vince’s speech. If Chad was right, then it meant Vince was on a whole different level than they’d realized. Before he could thoroughly register the implications of that, though, Roy’s thoughts were cut off by Vince’s voice from the screen.

                “Time’s up.”

*             *             *

                The hardest part about Vince’s plan was switching gears with near-instant speed. He had to go from absorbing the light to throwing out energy in as much time as it took for his opponents to find him. Again, he found himself begrudgingly thankful for his time with George. Hand-to-hand combat had sharpened his absorption reflexes daily as he struggled to hurt George while defending himself. As a result, when light finally filled the room again, the Sims barely had time to register the change before Vince attacked.

                A bolt of electricity struck two of the red-light Sims. The shots weren’t as precise as the ones Vince had gotten on the guards at close range, but they still found their targets. One dropped instantly, but the other stayed on its feet, turning toward Vince as green sparks ran down its arms.

                Recognizing the flaw in his plan, Vince ceased the attack and reassessed the room. He had two yellow-light Sims closing in on him—one large enough to be a strongman unit, the other unknown. One red-light was down; the other obviously had electrical abilities. Most shocking of all, though, was the fact that one yellow-light and one red-light were actually on the ground with their hands over their heads. Seeing them there, knowing he’d avoided hurting innocents, filled Vince with a rare glow of pride. He’d reminded the class that they shouldn’t assume everyone was guilty at the outset, but that message wouldn’t mean much if it cost him the exam. He would have to get aggressive with these last three.

                Vince ran toward the yellow-light Sims. Though the red constituted a larger threat overall, he was confident he could absorb its attacks before any damage landed. Taking it would require concentration, which meant he needed to get these other two dealt with. As he got closer to the yellows, Vince let another twin shot of electricity loose. The smaller of the two went down, but the armored one shook it off. From his left, Vince felt the familiar crackle of energy as the red-light Sim let loose its own jolts. Contained electricity was hard for Vince to access, but once the stuff ran wild, he could grab it as easily as fire. With a mere thought, he absorbed every bit of energy the Sim sent his way.

                He probably only had a few moments before it recharged, which meant now was the time to handle the last yellow. The big, bulky thing launched from its position, heading toward Vince with thundering steps. Since he’d already been running toward it, it seemed they were going to forcibly collide. When they were only ten feet away from one another, Vince jerked himself to a sudden stop. From his hands came glowing orange tendrils of energy, a familiar sight to the students who were gasping in the observation room. Though he’d gotten a stockpile of Thomas’s energy from their training, Vince wasn’t nearly as good with it as its owner. Thankfully, he had enough skill to manifest a large orange hand that wrapped around the arm of the charging Sim, spinning it slightly and using its own momentum and mass to send it tumbling across the room—

                Tumbling right into the red-light Sim that was charging up for another blast. The area was filled with the sound of crackling electricity and crunching metal as they collided. Large chunks of the floor shattered, and dust filled the air. For a moment, it seemed both had been incapacitated, but then the burning scarlet of a red Sim light could be seen as it pulled itself up from the rubble.

                This time, Vince didn’t run. He walked over calmly, eyes unwavering from his final opponent.

                “You’re under arrest. If you stop resisting now, you can plead your case to a judge and lawyer. But if you keep fighting, I’m going to have to stop you. Please, just give up. I don’t want to hurt you. I really don’t.”

                Green sparks flew off its arms as the Sim readied itself for another attack.

                “I don’t want to hurt you,” Vince repeated, voice low and soft as the sorrow at what he was doing, what he was training to do, filled him. “But I can’t let you hurt anyone else.”

                This time, he didn’t use electricity, or fire, or even Thomas’s borrowed energy. Instead, Vince went with what he considered the most basic and useful technique he’d acquired so far. He punched the Sim, avoiding it’s clumsy attempts at blocking, right in the center of its body. As soon as he made contact, he released some of the kinetic energy he’d been holding in reserve. He only meant to use enough to dent the thing and knock it unconscious.