The Next Chronicle (Book 2): Damage (20 page)

When Graysen snatched him by the arm to guide him to the ground Ray was in bad shape. Not from his injuries, which had already begun to heal thanks to the titanic volume of Surge energy coursing through him, but due to exposure. The air had become deadly thin and incredibly cold up there.

They drifted down slowly. He glanced over at Graysen nervously, but didn't want to backseat fly. The intense focus on her face was probably a good indication that distracting her was a bad idea. Much as he wanted his feet on solid ground again (and from there directly into a bed) he was happy to wait the ten minutes it would take to get there at this speed, rather than the much faster and more painful way.

“Holy shit!” Graysen shouted as the city below began to rumble. “What is that?”

“Earthquake,” Ray said, staring in horror. “New Madrid fault would be my guess.”

“That can't be a coincidence,” she said. “Can it?”

Ray shook his head. “Pretty unlikely. Unless what happened to me triggered it, though I don't know how it could have.”

They began to change direction. It wasn't a sudden shift since neither of them was up to dealing with the wrenching that came with having their personal gravity aimed in a new direction, but it was noticeable. Graysen angled them almost flat in the air, five thousand feet up. They still lost altitude, but moved far more laterally than before.

“You're aiming us at the facility,” Ray noted.

Graysen nodded. “At least outside the city. I'd rather not be standing anywhere near a tall building.”

They continued to drift for several minutes without incident. Ray guessed the two of them were about five hundred feet off the ground when Graysen began to falter. Her breathing quickened as her teeth ground together in concentration.

Ray was about to ask what he could do to help when they suddenly dropped out of the sky. Fear constricted his throat, preventing a scream. They dropped a hundred feet before Graysen was able to reassert control over their gravity.

“You're pushing yourself,” Ray said.

She nodded. “Never used my powers on someone else for this long. Using everything I have to do it.”

Ray mustered his own concentration and brought up his Surge vision. The problem was immediately clear; Graysen was straining to draw enough Surge to keep them aloft. The flow of energy stuttered before his eyes, causing another short drop before they were righted.

“You could drop me,” Ray said quietly. “I could probably survive if I made a tunnel in front of me as I fell. The dust would slow my fall.”

“I don't believe that any more than you do,” Graysen said. “I'll try to speed us up, but it'll make things harder.”

Ray doubted the young woman would let go of him even if it risked her own life. No one with the sort of grit Graysen displayed would give up now. Instead of trying to convince her to take an option he himself didn't want—living was suddenly high on his priority list—Ray took a chance.

Though much of his store of energy had been dispersed, there was still more than enough left in the well for his needs. Ray focused on the contact between them and funneled energy through that spot.

The result was immediate. Graysen's eyes widened as the flow of energy not only evened out, but strengthened considerably. She gazed at him in wonder, the deadly strain on her face easing.

The trainee wasted no time getting them to the ground. Inside sixty seconds they stood on a weedy stretch of county road. The shaking was over, though the world had not gone silent. The sound of grating stone and rending metal was replaced by the wail of sirens. They filled the morning in staccato bursts from every direction. Ray's imagination added the cries of injured people to the din, wondering what the quake would cost in lives. Which reminded him—

“Shit,” Ray
said
. “Kovacs is still out there. God, I hope he's okay.”

Graysen's iron grip on his arm slackened, somewhat belatedly, cutting off the transfer of energy from Ray to her.

She smiled at him. Then her eyes rolled up and she fell. Ray just managed to keep her from bashing her face into the road, but it was far from a graceful save.

He pulled her off the road, careful to cradle her head. God only knew how bad her injuries really were. As he got her settled against a tree, his forgotten earpiece crackled to life. The sound was rough and distorted.

“Ray, are you there?” asked a harsh voice.

“Kovacs, that you?” Ray said,

“It's Kit,” came the response. “Tell me where you are and we'll be there in a few seconds.”

“She needs a doctor,” Ray said when Kit and James appeared. “We had to leave Kovacs at the building.”

Kit glanced at James, who nodded. The tall, thin man demonstrated a strength belying his wiry frame by scooping Graysen up easily. He popped away as he walked.

“Are you okay?” Kit asked, kneeling next to Ray where he sat in the gold grass with legs splayed.

Ray nodded. “Bone tired, but not too bad.”

Kit eyed him critically. “You're covered in bruises. They look old. What happened?”

He quickly relayed the events of the previous hours. James reappeared in the middle of the story. He asked Ray for Kovacs's location and vanished again when Ray told him.

“He'll take Kovacs straight back to the facility,” Kit assured Ray when they were alone again. “Sounds like you did the only thing you could, Ray.” She smiled. “I'm proud of you.”

Ray shook his head. “Whatever that fucker injected me with almost caused another Fairmont, but worse. Even so, I think I caused this earthquake.”

“You didn't,” Kit said, stopping him cold. “Nunez did that. He has a team of Next under his control, and one of them is a Black Band who can cause quakes. My guess is Nunez aimed him somewhere with a natural instability to make it that much more powerful.”

It was then her turn to explain events to Ray, who by the end was barely able to contain his anger. “We thought someone did this to me,” he said, shaking, “but actually knowing...”

“It's a lot to handle,” Kit said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We'll talk about it, I promise. You can vent all you need, but for right now the city can use every hand it can get.” She stood and turned her attention to Louisville, where the clashing noises of emergency vehicles had grown even stronger.

“Give me a minute and I'll be ready to go with you,” Ray said. He dreaded trying to get to his feet, but his powers were perfect for clearing rubble.

“I appreciate the thought, but no,” Kit said. There was no room for argument in her tone. “Even if you hadn't had the living hell beat out of you less than an hour ago, I'm not comfortable with you using your powers until our people look you over. Just in case whatever Nunez had Brawner hit you with isn't out of your system.”

Ray frowned. He opened his mouth to argue and shut it again.

“You're right,” he said.

Kit arched an eyebrow. “I know I am.”

When James appeared again, he put a hand on Ray's shoulder and took him home.

Clad in jeans, steel-toed boots, and a thick, hooded sweatshirt she looked out over the city. The dust had begun to thin out, though columns of smoke still rose in dark smears against the brightening sky. Louisville had been brutalized. Below, broken streets wreaked havoc with emergency response. Huge chunks of concrete and brick littered sidewalks. Though the wind was strong and chill, pedestrians were everywhere.

She watched, listening to Waid through her earpiece as the reports came in. As always the information was distilled and collated into concise chunks that were easy to consume.

Easy to understand, at any rate. Nothing about what Nunez had done sat well with her.

Kit built a mental image of the city based on Waid's reports. Infrastructure had been badly damaged in every direction. Power and phone lines snapped like so many threads, water pipes sheared in the ground. She had briefly communicated with Archer, who was busy acting as the go-between for the facility and their superiors.

He had asked her to get a close look at what they were dealing with. Despite the amount of work she had piled on his shoulders over the previous weeks as she handled the more physical aspects of their hunt for the truth, Archer hadn't complained. Even with the exponential increase in his workload at present, he hadn't said a harsh word at being virtually ignored.

Knowing the man would work himself to exhaustion in the coming days, Kit made a note to herself to try to make it up to him—to shoulder more of the load herself.

“Director Archer needs you to come back,” Waid said, interrupting his own report. “Secretary Robinson is here.”

“James didn't have too much trouble finding him, then,” Kit mused, more to herself than Waid.

“He was at the White House,” Waid said. “Luckily Robinson told the guards to expect James to pop in.”

“I'm ready whenever he is,” Kit said.

James appeared, a sight Kit had already grown used to, and took her away.

Suddenly inside her own office again, Kit was slightly disoriented. Her brain needed a few seconds to catch up with the change in ambient temperature, lighting, and the many other small things people rarely had the chance to notice until they shifted suddenly.

Archer sat behind her desk. He looked up awkwardly, trying to keep the phone cradled between ear and shoulder from slipping.

“Sorry,” he said. “Deakins is using my office for staging. We've got visitors.”

“No problem,” Kit said. “What kind of visitors?”

“My kind,” Robinson said, stepping through the open door connecting the offices. “I'm throwing in where I can, helping deal with local authorities as they coordinate with the National Guard.”

Kit winced. “It's that bad?”

Robinson nodded soberly. “Worse. We think a man named David Gunther—one of the Next captured from the black site—was who Nunez sent to attack the New Madrid fault. New Madrid was expected to cause problems eventually, but Gunther amplified it. The quake was much stronger than it should have been, and lasted much longer.”

Robinson leaned against the door frame. “People felt it on the east coast. Buildings have fallen as far as five hundred miles from the epicenter. The damage is spread across eight states so far, with reports still coming in.”

Kit closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe normally. The urge to move was nearly overwhelming. Her powers came with the imperative to use them, which she tried to channel into useful work. But this...the scale of it was too large, the destruction too widespread.

“What's your take on the city?” Archer asked, bringing her back to reality.

Kit took a moment to consider the question, then boiled her response down to brass tacks. “We have two choices. The first is what I'm sure you're already planning, which is to organize every OSA agent with every volunteer Next we can find in order to aid the rescue effort.”

Robinson tilted his head. “You disapprove of the idea?”

“Not exactly,” Kit said. “If the National Guard is mobilizing, then at least there is one group out there working on a large scale to help. But they'll be normal humans. Which, given the extent of the work, means a limit to what they can do and how fast they can do it.”

Archer raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “They're trained to handle these sorts of things, though. We can give their units volunteers and agents to help, but it would spread the OSA pretty thin even if we used every Next the agency employs in all of the affected states.”

“You're right,” Kit said with a nod. “They know what they're doing, and we don't have numbers. What if we could supply the Guard with all the Next they'd need, guiding them to do the work. The Next would speed up the work, and because the Guard would be directing them, they wouldn't have to know exactly what to do.”

“That's exactly what we were just talking about,” Robinson said. “Except you seem to have some hidden cache of superhumans we're all unaware of.”

“Oh, you're aware of them,” Kit said. She pointed down, toward the heart of the prison below. “You're standing on them right now.”

What followed could at best have been described as a heated discussion. Kit made her case, arguing points and giving ground where it was clear the others wouldn't budge. She might have jokingly threatened to beat someone to death with their own arms, but in the end they agreed. Had the need not been so overwhelming she knew Robinson would have categorically shut her down.

Which was how Kit found herself sitting in Operations with her hand hovering over the switch to the facility-wide public address system. She took her habitual calming breaths, trying hard not to over think what she was going to say. Or think about it at all.

“Fuck it,” she said, toggling the PA on.

“This is Director Singh,” Kit began. Across the room, Waid gave her a thumbs-up without looking at her. She was being heard.

“As you may or may not know a powerful earthquake hit us today. Not just Kentucky, but nine other states and counting. Hundreds of thousands of people have been injured and displaced. Millions are without power and water. Thousands are likely dead, and many other trapped.

“The National Guard is working with the OSA to provide help in the form of Next volunteers. Many of us possess abilities which can be crucial in emergency response situations. The destruction is spread so wide, however, that progress is bound to be slow. We have an idea to help solve that problem. That's where you come in.”

She glanced at Waid's work station, where the array of monitors each showed feeds from four cells. The screens changed every two seconds as they cycled through a block of a hundred inmates. Every face was rapt, staring up at the speaker set in the ceiling of their cells.

“There's a program in the OSA some of you have heard of,” she continued. “It's called the REFRESH Project. It allows Next who have committed nonviolent crimes to apply for a sort of community service. You agree to work for us for a certain amount of time, and you get your sentence reviewed for reduction. Sometimes those who participate are pardoned.”

“We are expanding that program, effective immediately,” Kit said. “Every Next inmate convicted of a nonviolent crime will be allowed to participate. Violent offenders will be interviewed and allowed to join in on a case-by-case basis.” She had argued hard for that, thinking of Henry Griffin. She actually had managed to look into his record, and despite the fight he had given her weeks before—had it only been weeks?—she saw the telltale signs of a man who was mostly guilty of being Next. She couldn't be sure how many other inmates were in because a regular person got scared and called the cops, who then beat the Next in question for 'resisting', but she was determined to give chances to anyone who could help.

“This opportunity comes with heavy consequences if you violate the terms. Anyone who signs up is going to be working with the military until the current disaster is dealt with. That may mean weeks, but could be months. You will be required to wear security devices which can neutralize your powers in the event you decide to run or hurt someone.”

Kit let her voice go flat. “The bald truth is that if you take this deal you should be doing it because there are a lot of people out there who need your help. I think a lot of you are essentially decent people who have made mistakes. I expect you'll do your job and either go free or have your time seriously reduced.”

“But make no mistake,” she said, her voice as hard and sharp as any knife blade, “if you use this as a chance to run when you could be saving lives, I won't spend any time crying over your body. These soldiers will not hesitate to stop you from becoming another threat to the public in an already desperate situation.”

She let the words linger, hoping they would sink in. “Guards and agents are already moving through the detention levels with paperwork. This is your chance to do some good. Think about it, and I hope you choose to do the right thing.”

Kit clicked off the PA and sat back in her chair.

“I hope I'm not wrong,” she muttered to herself.

Kit stopped by medical before she left for the city. The temporary home of their clinical staff was the cavernous garage, which now stood empty of vehicles. In their place were hundreds of cots. One corner of the space held a canvas-sided storage area packed with supplies and equipment. Though most of the beds stood empty, emergency crews brought citizens in at a steady—if currently slow—pace.

Ray saw Kit and waved her over.

“What, didn't you rate a room of your own?” she quipped.

He smiled, though it was halfhearted. “All but a few of them are being turned into extra exam rooms. They're saving the rest for severe injuries.”

“How's Graysen?” Kit couldn't keep the worry out of her voice.

Ray gestured toward the cot next to his, which held rumpled covers. “She was taken a little while ago. The docs wanted to have some of the Next in medical take a look to make sure she didn't have any internal injuries they'd missed. Otherwise, she's fine.” His eyes lit up. “I forgot, she asked me to tell you she needed to talk to you the other day. Sounded important.”

“Well, we
were
a little busy,” Kit said with a small smile. “Which isn't likely to change any time soon. Let her know I'll stop by and see her when I get back today, okay? She can tell me whatever it is then.”

Ray bobbed his head in assent. “Guess that means I'm out of the field on this one, huh?”

“Afraid so,” Kit said. “Archer and Robinson pointed out that even if we weren't worried about side effects from whatever you were dosed with, it's still too risky to have you out there using your powers in public. The PR nightmare if anyone realized who you were would be...”

“Nightmarish?” Ray supplied with a straight face.

“Yeah, thanks,” Kit said. “Gimme a break, I'm not at my best right now.”

She cleared her throat. “Look, I came down here to see how you were doing, but I also wanted to tell you that if it were up to me, I'd have you out there with me.”

“Yeah?” Ray said.

“Sure,” she said. “Whatever you may think, you've done good work. I know you wanted to be out there with me. You restrained yourself and thought things through instead of letting your emotions push you into something stupid. I wanted to tell you how proud of you I am. I know that's probably weird since I'm younger than you...”

“No,” Ray said quietly. “No, it's not. Thanks. You have a city to save. You should probably go.”

Kit left.

A Humvee took her to the city. James was needed in more important roles than as her personal transportation, and the drive gave her time to think. What she said to Ray had only been the truth, but it seemed to have caught him off guard. His gratitude had been genuine, of that Kit was sure. She decided it made sense. The personal hell he had endured was one she could barely imagine, much less understand. His new identity afforded him the chance to understand what people really thought of him. Of Ray Elliot, who killed Fairmont.

Every day was a reminder of the pariah society had made him, right or wrong. How much must the trust and respect of someone he himself trusted and respected mean?

Over the years, Robinson had told Kit that she had innate qualities which made her a good leader. It was only now, thinking of the emotion in Ray's voice, that she began to believe it might be true.