Trance (4 page)

I could accept that I was once again a Meta (maybe). I could accept that my brain was more than a little trauma-warped (definitely). I could even accept that everything I remembered about my life before the age of ten wasn’t all childish cowardice and failure (with more therapy). I just couldn’t accept the extra purple or the floating orbs.

Of all the things I had ignored or forgotten, I knew this for certain: they weren’t my original powers. My Trance ability had been a kind of telepathy—the power to plant suggestions and influence the minds of others. While not exactly
the same, these new powers were oddly similar to Granny Dell’s.

Had all the powers been released from the ether and played musical chairs with their former owners? Like me, were the other eleven kids-now-adults waking up with someone else’s powers? What about the sixty-odd Banes imprisoned on Manhattan Island?

Dozens of tiny tremors shot up my spine.

The high walls and harbor patrols of the world’s largest man-made prison would not keep the Banes contained once they began to manifest their powers.
If
they began to manifest. At that moment, I had no proof anyone besides myself had powered up. I also had no proof that this wasn’t some sort of psychotic break. The result of too many sleepless nights, unsanitized bathwater, and bad nutrition.

My ICU/appendicitis theory was still on the table.

I squinted at my reflection in the dented surface of a toaster. Those eerie eyes winked and shimmered. If I had some warped version of Granny Dell’s power, who had mine? I had to find the others (if they were still alive) and make sure I wasn’t the only one turning strange colors.

Something squealed, sharp and muffled. A smoke detector in a nearby apartment, maybe. It ceased, and something new niggled at my memory. An item I’d kept ever since the War. Something I hadn’t allowed any of my foster parents to take away. The squeal repeated itself, lasting only a few seconds. Definitely not a fire alarm.

Half a minute passed.
Scree!

I stumbled across the small apartment to a warped closet
door. It screeched on its rusty hinges, and I yanked on the string of a bare bulb, drenching the small space in sickly light.
Scree!
Behind a pile of winter boots, old sneakers, and an antique wooden baseball bat, I found a dusty cardboard box. Inside the box, swaddled in an old T-shirt that had belonged to my dad, was a six-inch-square, carved jewelry box. I held it to my nose and inhaled. It still smelled like roses, even after all this time.

Scree!
I almost dropped the jewelry box. The sound, so familiar now, came from inside. I lifted the lid and put it aside. Picked out the small assortment of pins and baubles I’d collected as a teenager. I pulled at the bottom of the box, and the faded satin gave way.

An old Corps Vox communicator was nestled on top of the cotton batting, shiny black and unmarred by age or war. My hand jerked. I struggled to breathe as I picked up the Vox, smaller than the palm of my hand, smooth and warm. My thumb brushed across the silver
R
and overlapping
C
engraved on the plating, and beneath it, the name
Hinder
.

Hinder. Dad’s alias in the Corps.

I closed my eyes and held the Vox close. I could see his face, rugged and tired. Wide brow, thick hair, and an ever-present grin, always trying to keep us in good spirits. He told terrible jokes, and we laughed at their sheer awfulness. We read the comic strips every Sunday morning. He made pancakes shaped like the letter T. His laugh sounded like music, reverberating in my chest long after he stopped.

Grief squeezed my heart; an ache settled deep in my gut; tears stung my eyes. How could it hurt so badly to remember a man who died more than half a lifetime ago? Mom
died when I was five. She was only a shadow in my mind, unformed and barely visible. But Dad … I’d tried so hard to box him up and push him away, so that the grief of losing him didn’t kill me.

It hadn’t worked too well.

I flipped open the Vox and studied the colorful buttons. Open channel. Private channel. Alert. Vibrate. It fit in my hand perfectly, fingertips lined up with small grip indents along the sides. I pressed the red “alert” button, praying it still worked and that someone received the signal.

“Identify,” a computerized voice squawked out of the Vox.

Since it was Dad’s Vox, I said, “Hinder.”

“Invalid identification. Identify.”

I grunted. We each had code names, given the day we officially became Ranger Corps trainees. My father chose mine—a name that matched my old powers.

“Trance,” I said.

“Identification accepted. Message sent.”

“Thanks.”

I put the Vox down on an overturned crate serving as my coffee table. It stayed in plain sight as I yanked a gray sweater off its wire hanger. Corps Headquarters still existed in Los Angeles—a crumbling monument to an era of failed heroics. Someone there would know what to do next.

Was that what I wanted? To walk out of my life and its never-ending cycle of dead-end jobs, which were relatively safe? To return to a life that had almost killed me once but had also, even as a child, made me feel necessary, like I was doing more than just floating through my life?

I was no hero, but I was sick of being a waitress—of simply existing, rather than living. It was time to get dressed and figure out how to get almost a thousand miles from my little apartment in Portland, Oregon, to Southern California as quickly as possible with no car and twenty bucks in cash. My next payday was five days away, so short of bumming train fare from a Good Samaritan or using my newly acquired powers to rob a bank, I would be hitching.

My other unique challenge: concealing my newly acquired amethyst eyes from the general public. I scrounged a blue knit cap from a box of winter clothes to hide the purple hair streaks. Odd-colored hair wasn’t altogether unusual; the eyes were harder. I finally settled on a pair of cracked sunglasses.

With my father’s Vox—mine now, I supposed—in my jeans pocket, and extra clothes, and the last of my cheap, taste-like-cardboard protein bars in the cloth knapsack slung across my shoulder, I set out, wondering if there was anything more pathetic than a broke superhero.

I
don’t remember dozing, just jerking awake with a cramp in my neck and no idea where I was. The faint odors of gasoline, deep fryer grease, and stale cigarette smoke assaulted my nostrils. The tractor trailer I’d hitched on was turning into a truck stop off I-99. It was busy enough, with dozens of rigs and trucks and traveling families coming and going at regular intervals. A huge fueling plaza was connected to a convenience store and greasy spoon diner. Two hundred yards away, across a service road, was a low-rent motel. It was after 6:00 p.m., dark again, and the place was jumping with activity.

“We’re in Bakersfield,” Cliff said.

I jerked my head toward him, self-consciously brushing a hand over my chin for a quick drool check. Sleeping upright in cars meant my mouth falling open, but I found no evidence of my slumber and sat up a little straighter. Some of the immediate panic died away, but not all. I’d fallen asleep—let my guard down while locked in a moving semi with a complete stranger. Stupid.

Neon lights from the diner sign glinted off Cliff’s bald head. His plaid flannel shirt was untucked, covering his lap and substantial gut. He navigated his rig through the lot behind the diner. It looked like a boneyard for trucks—I had never seen so many in one place. He found a space and turned off the ignition. His hands clenched the steering wheel. I held tight to my knapsack, which hadn’t left my side since we began our trip in the early-dawn hours. The rig’s engine hissed as it cooled.

The way he shifted in his seat made the skin on my forearms crawl. Maybe accepting the hitch had been a bad idea. I dreaded what Cliff might demand as compensation for this trip. We’d barely spoken when he picked me up. Enough words to communicate that our destinations coincided and he was willing to take on a passenger.

And that he didn’t want my money.

My bladder throbbed. “How long was I asleep?”

“About four hours. You up for a stretch and some dinner?”

“Definitely a stretch, but I really should be getting on my way.” And as far away from his leering eyes as possible. “I wish you’d take my money.”

“Nah, thanks, though. Didn’t chafe my ass any, since we’re going the same way. Where’re you headed to from here?”

“South. We’re only about two hours from L.A. I’ll get there somehow. Thanks for the lift.”

Meaty fists tightened around the wheel, and he still didn’t look at me. I eyed him, clenching my own hands, half expecting some sort of attack; a snarled demand for
physical reparations. Instead, he climbed out. He walked around to my side, opened the door, and then offered me his hand.

I smiled warmly, feeling a bit like an ass, and accepted his offer. I bounced to the ground and slung my knapsack over my shoulder.

“Sure I can’t buy you dinner?” he asked.

One more hash mark on the scorecard of things I would owe. No, thanks. “Thank you, again, for the ride, Cliff. I can manage it from here. Take care.”

His left eye twitched. He nodded. “Yeah.” With that, he pivoted and strode toward the diner. Okay, waddled more than strode.

My stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten for hours. I eyed the convenience store. Food in there was overpriced, and I might need my cash for the rest of the trip south. The cold fist of hunger tightened around my belly. Dinner with Cliff, even if he gave me the squiggles, was sounding better and better.

Food later. Bathroom first, and then back on the road.

I chose the convenience store’s bathroom, since I needed a key to get in. I wanted the privacy, if only for a few minutes. On my way to the rear of the store, key in hand, I passed a large display rack of newspapers. Half a dozen different headlines screamed information at me. A man was placing fresh copies of the
Valley Gazette
on a smallish rack near the bottom.

“Fairview Hospital Fire, Two Dead, Accident or Arson?” Oddly professional headline from what looked like a low-budget
gossip rag, if the “Aliens Impregnated Me” story below it was any indication.

After washing my hands, I took a moment to let my hair down. A few more purple streaks had sprouted along my part, working their way from root to tip. It might have been a nice look if my damned eyes hadn’t gone all amethyst on me. Unusually colored contact lenses had been banned decades ago, when civilians started going around pretending to be Metas, and several got themselves killed. Even after the War, the ban wasn’t lifted. No one wanted to be a Meta. Few wanted to remember we’d ever existed.

I leaned closer and inspected my hairline. The lightest purple haze had settled over the skin at the top of my forehead, like the start of a bruise.

“Now I’m really going to scare the locals.”

Roughly half of the old Rangers had been able to blend into a crowd. I’d managed to pass, even with faint lavender streaks, and to use my Trance power without being caught. Now I looked like a reject from a last-century bubblegum band.

A shadow flickered behind me, reflected in the mirror. I froze. How the hell had someone gotten in? A woman’s face watched me, out of focus. Underwater. Eyes that were there one instant, and hollow the next. A coalescing swirl of color and nothingness. Impossible.

I spun around. A single toilet and handicap railing faced me. I was very much alone. Chalking it up to lack of sleep and fried nerves, I stuffed my hair back into the cap and left.

Back outside in the cool night air, I started to relax. Hunger
was making me see things in the mirror. I probably should have splurged on overpriced snack cakes, just to stave off my admission to the funny farm.

I navigated my way through the maze of the parking lot, past dozens of tractor trailers in long rows of angled spaces that stank of rubber and oil. Their drivers were either eating or sleeping. Furniture deliveries, grocery trucks, and unmarked trailers of all sorts, with license plates from across the country.

Something shuffled behind me; I froze. I glanced over my shoulder—only shadows cast by the trucks and moonlight. Their presence was oppressive, ominous. The rumble of traffic seemed far away, the din of the fuel plaza even farther. I doubled back, determined to get out of the truck maze and into the open.

As I passed a silver cab, something spun me around. The cloth knapsack fell off my shoulder, hit my ankle, and tripped me. I hit the grill with my left shoulder, cracked the back of my head, and saw stars. The sunglasses clattered to the ground. A meaty hand closed around my throat and squeezed, while a second grabbed my right wrist, twisted it, and pinned it against the cab by my head.

Idiot!

Panic hit me in the face like ice water. I raised my knee, hoping to find a soft target, and hit nothing. Hot air wafted over my face, reeking of stale smoke.

“Guess I wanted my twenty bucks’ worth after all,” Cliff said, coating my sense of smell with his noxious breath.

My stomach quailed. I tried to scream. His hand constricted
my throat, and he pushed his gut against my stomach. He had at least six inches on me, plus seventy pounds of flab in all the wrong places. I put my left hand on his shoulder and tried to push—like shoving against a granite pillar. I needed a weapon, something to get him off before he contaminated me with his stink. And worse.

A car rumbled past on the opposite side of the lot, its headlights briefly illuminating our row, giving me a glimpse of my fingertips. Their purplish tinge. The power orbs. I didn’t need a weapon. Hell, I
was
a weapon—untested, but had there ever been a better time?

I grinned, channeling my fear into my hands. The skin warmed.

“What’s so funny?” Cliff asked, squeezing my throat just a little harder.

My new eyes met his soggy gaze. He blinked. His brow furrowed. Ignoring my seizing lungs, I raised my left hand and snapped my fingers. Instantly a lavender orb of energy appeared and hovered above my palm. He gaped at it, the pale light casting a bizarre pallor on his jowls. His grip loosened, and I sucked in air.