Trance (30 page)

I put the Vox away before he could respond. McNally was staring at me, a peculiar expression on her face—a mix of amusement and commiseration.

“You’re lucky to have him,” she said.

“I know.”

She settled back into her seat. I closed my eyes and dozed
for much of the trip. Only a few hours of sleep in the last couple of days was starting to wear me out.

McNally shook me awake a while later. I rubbed my eyes, oddly refreshed from the nap. I half expected to find my vision clouded by violet, but it wasn’t. Not even a hint of side effects, yet, from my earlier power use.

We’d arrived on the East Coast. We transferred from the jet to a copter that had seen better days. Ten minutes later, we set down on top of the observation tower on Ellis Island—one of the many security checkpoints surrounding Manhattan Island Prison.

High walls of electrified fence ran the entire perimeter of the twenty-thousand-acre island. Dozens of sections were reinforced with stone and mortar, completely blocking access to the Hudson, East, or Harlem rivers. Underwater tunnels like Lincoln and Midtown had been destroyed, sunk beneath their respective bodies of water. Every bridge except the Henry Hudson was half gone. Guard posts stood on the fractured ends of those bridges, overlooking the island.

We exited the copter and were greeted by four men armed with rifles and tasers. They led us across a grassy area to the steel and concrete tower.

After speaking briefly with one of the guards, McNally flashed her ID and we were taken into an interrogation room. Apparently she had called ahead; we were expected. Good, it made my job a little easier. We waited on one side of a glass floor-to-ceiling barrier separating one side of the room from the other. A chair was bolted to the floor on the opposite side. The table and chairs on our side were
loose. McNally sat down, while I perched on the edge of the table.

Minutes later, the door to the other room opened. Two armed guards entered backward, rifles trained on the door. A man shuffled in, jeans and sweatshirt sagging on his thin frame. His brown hair was thinning on top, making his hollow cheeks seem sharper, more pronounced. The security collar around his neck looked like a freakish punk accessory. Metal bands secured his arms to his chest, wrists to each other, and loose ankle shackles gave him little room to walk. It was a waddle-dance to get him to his chair. Four more armed guards entered behind him.

The prisoner looked more like an exhausted auto mechanic than a supervillain.

Guards secured him to the chair. He submitted to their handling. Either he didn’t care or he was drugged. His eyes might have been glassy from the bright lights shining down from the ceiling. He answered my unasked question by lifting his head and looking right into my eyes. A gentle nudge tickled the corner of my mind, and I felt his curiosity. Pain, fatigue, and restlessness warred just behind it, but his interest in the interview’s purpose won out.

Who are you?
His words rang in my head, a voice as frail as his neglected, forty-something body.

“My name is Trance,” I said, unsure at first if he could hear me through the glass wall. He nodded, so I continued. “You were once known as Psystorm.”

“Yes,” he replied out loud. “Still am, I guess. I don’t remember you.”

“Probably because I was ten the last time you might have seen me.”

He studied me through the glass, his expression unreadable. He nudged again, gently. I imagined a violet wall between us, strong enough to block his attempts to peek into my mind, and he jerked backward in his chair. The movement startled his guards. They all raised their weapons. Psystorm ignored them.

“You’ve got some power there, kiddo,” he said. “Trance, is it?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

First step in negotiating with bad guys: Offer them something they want and make it sound like a favor. “To get you out of here. Off the island, out of prison.”

No reaction, not even a glimmer of hope. “Working vacation, I take it? And then right back here when you have no more use for me?”

I shook my head and took a step toward the partition. “No, for good. Your help in exchange for a full pardon of all past crimes. Stay clean, and you won’t end up back here for future crimes.”

“Who do I have to kill?”

“It’s not that kind of job.”

“I’m listening.”

Another step. I kept the mental shield in place. Without knowing the exact limits of his powers, I didn’t want any chance of manipulation on his part. My part was another story entirely.

“What do you know about Specter?” I asked.

His head listed to the left, a gesture that came off as bored rather than thoughtful. “You’ll have to be more specific, kiddo. Specter led us during those final years, and you very well know it. We both know how his powers work, and we both know he’s a bloodthirsty, power-hungry son of a bitch. So why don’t you ask me about something you don’t know.”

Second step in negotiating with bad guys: Establish rapport.

“Fair enough. Tell me, then, did you know Specter wasn’t on the island these past fifteen years?”

“No, but you start to hear things, especially when you’re living with the same seventy-two people for so long.”

The number gave me pause. Sixty-five Banes had been imprisoned on the island, not seventy-two. He continued before I could ask him to clarify.

“Some guys liked to brag,” he said. “A few years ago, I started hearing rumors about Specter. He wasn’t on the island. Someone had bribed two guards into collaring the wrong guy, and those guards doled out extra food and goodies to the guys who kept the doppelganger fed. Kept the ruse up.”

“Do you know names?”

“Yep.”

“Any you’d care to share?”

“Absolutely not. In a place like this, you learn how the pecking order works. Some of the names are lot more powerful than me, and pardon or not, I have no intention of landing on their shit lists. No help to you there. If they want to sing
about the old bastard, they can come forward by themselves.”

Self-preservation seemed to win out time and again. “So tell me, Psystorm, if you hate Specter so much, why did you follow him?”

“Because he was the strongest.” An implicit “duh” in his statement. “The weak follow the strong. You should know that well. You are the lead Ranger, are you not?”

“I am.”

“Good. There’s nothing more insulting than negotiating with a lackey.” I didn’t respond, so he continued, “Specter wanted power. We wanted to survive. It was a pretty simple choice to make.”

“Murdering Rangers was a simple choice?”

His eyes blazed, the first real sign of emotion since our interview began. His anger poked at my mental barrier. “I hate to sound elementary school about this, kiddo, but you started it. Your parents and your teachers, they killed first. We were playing by their rules.”

“That’s a lie,” I said before I could reconsider.

Surprise replaced anger, and Psystorm smiled. “Revisionist history, I should have known. Your old man ever tell you about the first battle? The one that kicked off the War?”

“Trenton, New Jersey. Six jewelry heists in one hour, three million dollars worth of jewels and cash stolen and four people killed, including a Ranger.”

“Wrong.”

He said it with such utter conviction that I believed him. I didn’t want to, but I did. My head swiveled toward McNally. She stood with her arms folded, back straight, and eyes on
the floor. Her stance and silence only served to confirm that Psystorm was telling the truth. Revisionist history, my ass. It sounded like good, old-fashioned lying. More lying by MHC. And what about my father? Had he known the truth, or had he somehow been duped, as well? Had he lied to me?

A cold rage churned deep inside me. “Then, what’s right?” I asked, giving him back my full attention.

“Ocean City, Maryland,” he said. “Twelve days before Trenton. Three of us were down there, laying low. You remember the names Acid and Somnus?”

I tried to recall them, to give us something else to connect over, and failed. They were not only unfamiliar names, I had no conscious memory of hearing them in reference to a Bane, living or dead. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“I’m first to admit we weren’t saints. The three of us made a lot of money robbing private residences. All I had to do was knock on the door and hold the home owner in my thrall while my partners emptied the place. We were criminals, yes, but we avoided violence whenever possible. When things started getting hot, we went down to Maryland to hide. We had no intention of starting trouble, just getting our shit together, so we holed up in a rented house and kept to ourselves.”

“The fire.” I remembered the newspapers strewn across our apartment, headlines about half a mile of the Ocean City boardwalk burning to the ground. Arson was mentioned—nothing about Bane interference, no mention of a battle as the cause of the blaze. Just my dad talking about a Corps Unit being dispatched and trying to save as many lives as possible.

“The fire,” Psystorm said. “I bet your old man never told you that we were down there trying to help save lives. Pulling kids out of burning hotels, keeping folks calm until your precious Corps Unit showed up. Only they didn’t stop to ask questions when they arrived. They saw us, recognized us, and assumed we were responsible.”

I inhaled, held it, until he said what I hoped he wouldn’t.

“Your people killed Acid and Somnus for trying to help,” he continued. “That’s all we were doing was trying to help. No one reported our presence, because it would make you people look bad. They shot first, never asked questions, then covered it up. That started it for me, kiddo. After your old mentors killed Somnus, my wife, it didn’t take much for Specter to convince me.”

Grief for two people I hadn’t known, two innocent lives lost, struck me hard. Senseless, all of it, the whole damned War. Could the death and destruction have been avoided completely? The notion made me want to vomit.

“I’m sorry.”

He blinked, eyebrows raising. “Too bad your precious predecessors weren’t sorry. I followed Specter out of a keen desire for revenge. Not against you kids, though. Those last few weeks when he wanted to exterminate children … a lot of us started to speak up, only it was too late. When we lost our powers, the feds tossed every one of us onto this forsaken island and locked it down.”

His attention shifted to McNally. She continued to stare at the floor, and I wondered now if she regretted staying in the room. She must have known Psystorm would air all sorts
of dirty laundry implicating MHC in even more not-so-nice things. She just stood there, listening, and didn’t react. Didn’t try to find fault in any of his statements. Didn’t try to excuse herself this time.

I kind of admired her for it. I also wanted to blast her through the wall.

He was watching me again. “What exactly do you want from me, Trance? Loyalty?”

“No, just a promise. In exchange for this pardon, you help us find and contain Specter. Once he has been permanently neutralized, you’re free to go.”

“Neutralized?” He spat the word, as though it was a curse on his name. “You want me to help you kill him?”

“Contain him. I should want the bastard dead for the things he’s done to us this past week. He’s been responsible for the deaths of seven Rangers, my friends, but I’m tired of killing. I just want him stopped.” Besides, if we killed him I’d never know who was helping him. I’d never sniff out the traitor who had spilled about Fairview, the interview, everything.

I moved forward again, until my breath puffed vapor circles on the glass partition. “Don’t misunderstand me, Psystorm. I don’t want to restart the cycle of killing that brought us to this moment, but if it comes down to his life versus the life of anyone else, he can die.”

He puckered his lips, eyebrows slanting. The expression held for the space of several breaths, then his face softened. He looked almost peaceful. “I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.” I stumbled over the words. As much as we
needed him, a tiny part of me hadn’t expected his acquiescence. An earlier portion of our conversation came back. “Just one thing, though. You mentioned you lived with seventy-two people on the island? How’s that possible?”

His damned eerie smile returned, and he said, “We were powerless, Trance, not neutered. Men and women, prisoners or not, still have sex. Babies are born, which brings me around to one condition affecting my acceptance of this deal you’re offering.”

“Which is?”

“My son. I want him to come with us. He goes where I go, so if he stays on the island, then so do I.”

Surprise washed over me. In war, they teach soldiers to dehumanize the enemy, to make killing easier. I’d been raised to believe the Banes were monsters, less than human, so it had never occurred to me that the imprisoned Banes had constructed real lives for themselves. Once powerless, the country had essentially forgotten about them. News reports never mentioned the population increase inside the prison. No one wanted to remind the world that the Banes were still people, too.

“Where’s your son?” McNally asked. “We’ll send someone to get him.”

Psystorm closed his eyes briefly, and then reopened them. “He’s on his way to the main gate. They’ll find him there.”

“I’ll go.” McNally turned to me. “We’ll meet you at the helipad.”