The Talented (13 page)

Alicia curled herself up far under the seat when a spray of bullets put a half dozen holes in the windshield. I felt a couple of hard impacts in my chest and shoulder, which must have caused me to jerk the steering wheel because the truck swerved and seemed on the verge of rolling. I just barely recovered from the skid and continued barreling toward the exit. Seconds before impact we could see the roadblock of about six more Hummers. Steadying my breathing, I added psychokinetic power to the momentum of the truck just before it slammed into the roadblock. The impact was not as loud as I expected, but my upper body slammed painfully into the steering wheel. Alicia let out a scream, but in the heat of the moment I didn’t know how badly she was hurt. For some reason my shirt was soaking wet, and two holes in it oozed blood. Damn. That can’t be good.

“Alicia, are you okay?” I asked in a panic and looked over to see her smash the side window with the butt of her assault rifle and lean out the windows with her whole upper body to aim the rifle at our pursuers. Keeping my left hand on the steering wheel, I extended my right arm to grab the top of her jeans and keep her from falling out of the speeding vehicle. She didn’t seem to notice as she fired repeatedly, and I could hear that at least one of the Hummers skidded and crashed behind us.

“Oh yeah,” Alicia gloated, “that’s what I’m talking about!”

I could not suppress a smile, which soon turned into giddy, maniacal laughter. For no reason at all I was positively elated, maybe the happiest I had ever been. It was a vicious and vengeful kind of joy. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to defeat them all, right here and right now. They threatened me and mine, and it was time to take the offensive. I slammed on the brakes and swung the truck around into a U-turn.

“What are you doing?” Alicia cried as she slid back into her seat.

Barely able to speak through the giggling I responded, “Payback. You drive.”

With more agility than I ought to have, I pulled myself out the window far enough to sit on the open frame. Alicia spat out a string of expletives as she scooted over to take control of the car.

Our vehicle was descending a hill facing the pursuers head-on, so from my new vantage point it was clear that there were still five trucks coming at top speed. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

“This little piggy went to market,” I screamed as I extended my mind into the cab of the first pursuer and used an image of invisible hands to pull the wheel out of the driver’s hands and spinning to the right. The big SUV careened off into a ditch as I continued, ”This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had roast beef, but this little piggy had none.” With each verse of the stupid rhyme, each truck was thrown off the highway as easily as the first, but the last truck gunned its engine forward toward us in a kamikaze game of chicken. It was three seconds to impact before I shrieked, “And this little piggy went wee, wee, wee all the way home!!!!!” and threw my hands to the sky. Just before the imminent collision the truck flipped into the air, just as if Godzilla had given it a good kick. It sailed over our heads and smashed into the asphalt behind us. I was still laughing and shrieking when the bridge tunnel came back into sight, this time lit up with the flashing blue and red lights of emergency vehicles.  That cured me of my manic state and snapped me back to reality. Alicia swung the truck around in a tight U-turn. We drove on without talking, the adrenaline dissipating. She took one random turn after the other, leaving behind the more populated areas for what passes for rural in this part of Virginia. We approached a small covered bridge constructed from thick wooden beams, which ran over a small creek. As soon as we were past the bridge, Alicia swung the truck sharply to the right into a dense sea of tall, reedy cattails.

She got out without looking back and disappeared into the cattails. Confused, I got out of the car to follow her, each step sinking a bit into the soft muddy earth. Not wanting to call attention to us, I didn’t call out, but simply followed Alicia through the marsh and into the adjacent forest.

After a few minutes, a blanket of weariness settled over me and I fought the irrational urge to just lie down and fall asleep. Additionally, my familiar headache returned in full force, one of the worst so far. At a small, natural clearing, which allowed in a bit more of the early sunrise, Alicia fell in a heap. My pain and weariness vanishing, I rushed to help her, only to find her on her knees, face down in a small spring, slurping noisily. I was about to tease her about it when a thought struck me; I made her like this when I replaced her drug addiction with a need for water. Lots of it, apparently.

The clear water trickled out from the earth between some rocks and ran downhill towards the larger creek that we had just passed. It seemed like a natural source of water, but for all I knew it sprang from a broken sewer pipe underground. I knelt down beside her, scooped the water to my mouth and took a hesitant sip. It tasted clean enough, despite a slight metallic aftertaste. After a few minutes Alicia took a moment to catch her breath and looked at me hard. “We are done,” she said, her voice shaking, still out of breath. ”Done doing things your way. What the hell was that back there? You completely lost it.”

“I…don’t know,“ I stammered, “It just happened. I went a little…” Crazy was the first word to come to mind, but there was no way I would admit to that. “…out of control. It seems to me like a reasonable reaction, given what we just went through. Besides,” I added with a grin, “It was fun.”

“You see,” Alicia replied, “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re reckless and impulsive. Combine that with those talents of yours, and that makes you dangerous, Adam—practically a menace to society. You’re like Superman flying around Metropolis while jacked up on Ritalin. Scary.”

Anticipating an accusation of insanity coming on, I retorted, “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

With a sigh, Alicia calmly answered, “Yes, but answer me this: How did they know we’d be crossing the tunnel at that moment?”

“Uh…”

“And what does this Harrison person have against Kate and her partners?”

“Well, um…”

“And now that he’s captured them, what does he plan to do with them? What is this ‘Alliance for Metahuman Threat Management’ anyway? And what does that have to do with the Program, of which Harrison was the prize specimen and Stuart the rising star? And who is the girl that Stuart called a slut, that made Harrison so angry? And most importantly, what the hell is going on with you, flipping big cars around with your mind? Are you really like Stuart and Kate? Because if you asked me, it seems like you’re a lot more like Harrison.”

That stung. Hard. My first impulse was to lash out in anger. I swallowed it, hard. Frowning with frustration, I had no answers for her, none at all.

Taking on a softer tone, Alicia took my hand and continued, “Adam, I’m sorry for being so hard on you. You’re doing the best you can. I understand. So here is what we do. First, I wipe down and get rid of this machine gun. Then we investigate. We find out the answers to these questions, one by one. We keep around other people as much as possible, prevent Harrison from mounting a full-scale ambush like in the tunnel. Mainly, though, you need to shake off your guilt and think clearly about this. Kate had her troubles long before you came along, so stop blaming yourself.”

In the moonlight, her amber eyes gleamed dark and intense, and I could not help but admire this incredible person formerly trapped under the yoke of her addiction. I held her gaze as I stepped toward her. Her full lips parted as her eyes drifted down to my mouth. My chest pressed against hers as I leaned in to kiss her, and her lips just barely brushed against mine when she jerked back. She lightly swiped her fingertips along my chest, then retracted them. They were shiny with dark blood. She leaned in and got a better look at my injuries. “Oh my God, Adam, you were shot!”

“Did I forget to mention it?” 

I gently touched the bullet hole in my shoulder and something solid brushed against my fingertips. I probed a bit, which hurts, by the way, and pulled the foreign object out of me. It was a badly deformed bullet that somehow lodged underneath my skin without going much deeper. The wound in my chest was the same, maybe even more superficial. Not as bulletproof as I would like to be, but I’ll take it. Lots of bruising, though. “I’ll be fine.”

Alicia retorted, “I’ll be the judge of that. Take off your shirt and lets take a look at it.”

Grinning, I replied, “I thought you’d never ask.” I removed my bloodied shirt and handed it to her. She knelt down to rinse it in the cool stream. Using my shirt as a washcloth, Alicia then began to gently clean the blood off of my chest. Then she used her long, miraculously intact fingernails to extract the remaining bullets. Wow, did it hurt. Just when I thought it would never end, she was wiping me down again.

“The bullets are out, but you need stitches or something. The bleeding hasn’t stopped.”

“Don’t worry about that. If we rest here for a while then I’ll be fine. So tell me, boss,” I asked softly, “where do we start our investigation?”

Alicia looked up and flashed a wicked smile, “Where every story starts, silly boy. At the beginning.”

“Okay,” I said, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s simple,” Alicia explained patiently, “When you told me what happened at Stuart’s house, what were you and Kate about to do?”

I thought back then answered, “We were going to try to contact the doctor who was once in charge of the program, Dr. Kildare.”

“And did you ever find out where he lived?”

“Yes, Kate looked it up on her phone. Ocean View something or other. Back in Norfolk.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go first thing in the morning. Now you rest up.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Remote viewing is not like GPS. If Harrison had been tracking us using remote viewing, he would be relying on external cues such as landmarks and street signs to figure out exactly where to find us. So long as we stayed in the woods, he would have no way to know in which forest we were hiding. This was what I told myself while Alicia took her time cleaning the blood off of me. I settled down on the ground seated in lotus position, and allowed myself to become fully aware of my body. It always fills me with awe to experience the miraculous collaboration of cells genetically programmed to keep the complex system of my body alive and well. Deep in my chest wounds, platoons of white blood cells battled bacterial invaders. The bacteria multiplied faster than my overwhelmed immune system could repel. Usually the inner workings of the body were best left to their own devices, but sometimes they benefited from a helping hand. Settling deep into my trance, I connected to the crude bacterial life forms. Single-celled organisms have no minds to control by most definitions. There are no thoughts to change. However, they do have something that I can use. They have purpose. They are motivated to survive. Touching upon every member of the infectious clan, I latched upon their sense of purpose…and crushed it. My immune system rallied against the now helpless invaders.

I meditated on the healing processes of my body for so long that by the time my eyes opened it was sunrise. Alicia slept curled on her side with her head on my lap, breathing softly. The peaceful moment filled my heart with a serenity that I had never known before. After a long series of perfect moments, Alicia rolled onto her back, arching it into a stretch. Her eyes opened and looked into mine, pleased, then suddenly troubled. She sat up, then turned to me with that questioning look that a child gives her father when she needs his forgiveness.

“Adam, are you sure that I actually killed that soldier? Maybe he survived.”

Stroking her hair, I answered, “You did what you had to do to. Those guys were trying to kill us.”

“It was so easy, Adam. That is what scares me. I didn’t think twice about it. It didn’t seem to bother me at all until just now.”

Now it was my turn to feel guilty.

“Alicia, you didn’t ask for any of this to happen. I’m the one who brought you into this. It’s my fault that you were put in that position.”

With a flash of anger in her eyes, she replied, “No. Stop that. You blame yourself for everything. That’s such a load of bull. You’re not responsible for the things that I do, ever. Got it? It’s pathetic to hear you carrying on like that. You were roped into this just like me. If you want to blame someone, blame Kate.”

I started to reply, but Alicia cut me off before I could.

“That’s not fair, I know, don’t even say it. This is all Harrison’s doing. He is the enemy here. It’s his soldiers who are trying to kill us.” She pondered that, looking more resolute, “You’re right. I did what I had to do.”

We trekked back the way we came, and circled around several times before finding the truck. The cattails seemed even higher now, which was impossible unless…”The tires. Look.”

The vehicle had sunk into the mud so deep that only the top half of the wheel was visible. The underbody rested on the mud as if it were a boat.

Without comment Alicia grabbed our bag of snacks from the backseat and started up the embankment. Somehow she managed this without stepping in any serious mud. I on the other hand, plodded forward, each step making a squelching sound. That was the sound of my shoes being ruined. At one point cold water seeped into my sock. Fantastic.

For someone with my particular talents, hitchhiking is not so dangerous. Anyone intending harm is sure to stand out like a beacon. In theory, anyway. We stepped up to the gravel shoulder of the two-lane road, serenaded by the droning chorus of cicadas. The first headlights to approach on our side of the road appeared in the distance, and as the car drew closer it became apparent that it was a small car, not a truck. Thank goodness. Harrison’s goons seemed partial to trucks. Closing my actual eyes, I opened my mind’s eye within the car’s interior. Behind the wheel was a pretty and somewhat heavyset young woman on her way back from a very late party. Her name was Amber. She drove with the driver’s side window rolled down and sang along to the dance music blaring on the radio. Anyone who might observe her would assume that she’d had a great time the previous evening. Yet her inner thoughts betrayed her happy and carefree appearance. Her girlfriends, Ashlee and Kaitlin, teased her most of the night, and while they both left the party with boys, she spent most of her time there dancing by herself. The moment she saw us with our thumbs extended she thought how stupid someone would have to be to pick up a hitchhiker in this day and age. I took that thought…molded it…shaped it.
Well, these particular hitchhikers don’t look all that dangerous. The guy even looks kind of cute. Maybe this is not a couple at all? He seems older than the girl. Perhaps he is available? Wouldn’t it be sort of thrilling to take the risk and pick them up? Ashlee and Kaitlin would never be brave enough to do such a crazy thing. That’s it, I’m going to do it. I am actually going to stop.