Caped (Book 1): The Burdens of Fate (27 page)

We know at some point we're going to have to
use them again, and I surmise that most of us are going to die. So why not learn
to fight, so that when push comes to shove we're just moving through the
motions and not making it up on the fly?

Thomas needs to train too. I asked him about it
and he just reminded me how much he loves to surprise people, grinned, and
avoided a giving me a straight answer with a vague "I've got it
covered."

Seriously? ...Fuck. That.

Edward Otep
-

Hours of exercises and demonstrations, seen
lots of cool things, but we were all worn out and exhausted by the time nine
o'clock, east coast time, rolled around. Most of us went back to the island
were we ate, laughed, and watched movies outside under the trees.

We agreed to meet bi-weekly on Saturdays, and a
whole bunch of other things I don't have the energy to write now. Yeah, journals
aren't always fun to write.

I started with enthusiasm but now I'm just
looking forward to falling asleep. 'Till next time.

Chapter Seven

A Hint of Normalcy

–
Monday, May 24th
–

Prisca
Amin
-

Aaand back to Alvin. Well, he's got this thing for double
dates. Not entirely a bad idea considering I've actually never been on one, my
only problem was finding someone to go with since all my close friends are
either single or dating someone I vehemently disapprove of.

But then of course there's Group B, the ones
slowly replacing Group A. The new people in my life, and one's who are actually
pretty amazing. So I sent out an e-mail and asked if anyone wanted to come
along.

Michael got back with me almost immediately.
Him and his fiancée have apparently been going on a string of dates lately
(sounds like he was put in the dog house) and said it sounds like fun. Good
stuff.

So it looks like I'll have some double date
action going on. It's set for Friday night so look for an update then.

–
5/26
–

Alvin
Turner
-

I'm losing track of time. Is it Friday or
Monday, May or June? I swear to God it's enough to drive me insane. I have got
to slow down; I'm not even sleeping like I should be. Three hours a night, five
if I'm smart enough to call it quits.

The only good thing about this is that I seem
to be picking up Mandarin pretty well, but there are so many languages out
there. My God. Did I really think I could learn them all? But I told myself
that if I could help, I would help. And I've stopped some pretty crazy things
today, at least I believe these were today, there was a bit of a gap between
them. Okay, so let's just say sometime this week.

First, this one guy in India just
beating the hell out of his wife in the middle of the street. She was bloody,
bruised, and you could tell she'd put up what little bit off a fight she could
muster, but it hadn't helped. And so of course I pop in seemingly out of
nowhere with my Hindi-English dictionary firmly in hand, and I'm trying to piece
together sentences I'm not even sure are right. As expected, the husband starts
yelling at me, waving me off like it's none of my business. And he walks back
over and tries to kick her again, and I stop him, so he tries to hit me.

I can see people looking out of their windows
and blinds, and I embarrassed him. I could've done a lot of horrible things to
him but I don't know this situation, only that it's never okay to hit a woman.
I told him that I'd be back to check on her. At least I think I did, but in all
honesty I lost the directions to the place.

And then there's Brazil where this crazy loon who'd
decided to stop rush-hour traffic in the middle of a four-way intersection
because some idiot in an SUV had just taken the back end off his new car off,
and he
flipped shit
. And by "
shit"
I mean people's
cars, while people were still in them.

I understand your loss but no bueno amigo. Now,
he wasn't nearly as strong as Laurie, but this man was tall, brolic, and
apparently going through some other stuff in his life that was equally
unpleasant for him. When I got there a couple of people had already started
shooting, which only managed to piss him off more. So first I cleared the
people in the cars, and then everyone in a two block radius; which I hate doing
by the way. Not because I'm afraid I'll hurt them, my ability takes care of
that, it's just so damn tedious.

So I come back and he's just punching and
kicking anything in sight, spouting, in Portuguese, "Where's my good luck?
I plan, I stick to the plan, and shit still goes wrong. Well now it's going
wrong for everyone." Yadda yadda yadda. And kind of like before, I
think
that's what he said, lord knows I don't speak Portuguese too well
either.

I was trying to calm him down, in Portuguese.
I've been there, things go wrong for everyone, but don't take it out on stuff
that isn't yours. It's not their fault. So I throw a tranquilizer dart in his
back. That got his attention. He charges in my direction. Three more tranq
darts and he's still coming. I give it a little time to work but he still
manages to toss a car or two at me, not that he had any chance of hitting me. I
put three more in his chest and at about twenty feet he's sluggishly stomping
his way towards me, drooling out profanities and grasping eagerly toward me.

Seconds later he was down to a crawl and I'd
moved to an arms distance away, his fingers creeping along the ground. I
crouched down in time enough to see his eyes roll into the back of his head and
hear the sirens I first spotted that led me to him, but I didn't stick around.
I never do.

Edward
Otep
-

So it's come to this? I almost can't believe
it, and if you don't watch the news or follow the crazy extremist talk on Twitter
and the like you can almost see a bit of normalcy coming back to people, even
to me.

For the first time in ages I sat back down at
the computer and started working on my website again, it's a refreshing feeling
that all artists get when they jump back into their true passion. Taking a
break from all the minor tasks that inch us away and make us, or at least me,
question why we could never settle for a normal job. And with friends like
Ivan, I can take my time and find some big game clients instead of surfing for
scraps on Craig's List. I'm too old for that and I've got far too much
experience.

The doubting is back though, that's for sure.
That, and wondering if every moment I spend not working on saving the world I'm
somehow damning it, but if I resign myself to living as if the end of the world
is coming I may subconsciously already be accepting it as an inevitability.

Life must continue as if life will continue.
Even Thomas, as obsessive as he is, found it necessary to leave the island. He
said he started feeling like "Zeus trapped on mount Olympus."
A bit of stretch perhaps but it proves that even the most dedicated of us needs
a little shore leave.

But that doesn't change the facts. Over a month
without any major incident, I wish I could say it's a good thing but the fact
is that it makes me more uncomfortable with each passing day. Perhaps this
rogue group has given up, scared by their inability to stop Alvin. Doubt they have, but he remains this
team’s greatest asset.

Ivan threw out the idea of another meeting but
I don't see why it's necessary. I don't see any major events happening, even if
I am unreliable, and everything seems quiet on the home front. I understand our
need to improve our control over our abilities but with so much happening so
close to each other I seriously wonder about burnout. Physically, we can work
out on our own; but I believe it'll help us grow as a group if we can discover
and explore our abilities, learning and laughing, together.

Laurie Stahl
-

Back to this thing again, surprised I've stuck
with it this long considering my garage full of half-finished projects. It's a
form of therapy I never thought I'd enjoy.

I'm actually out camping in the woods right
now, kids came up for the weekend with their little rays of sunshine and I
somehow convinced them to follow me out here. Haven't done this in God knows
how long but it's nice to get away from the burning cities, floating islands,
and general unrest of the world. Not that they know anything about that, but it
never hurts to just be around nature.

Had an amazing fire goin' earlier but it's only
a shadow of its former self now. Still more than enough light to write by
though, and if it goes out I can always use the gas lamp. Hell, I already feel
old to begin with, writing in my journal by the fire must make me look ancient.

Trees for miles around, the stars above keeping
a weary eye on the goings on of man, and darkness all around; this is where I
feel in control.

In the beginning it felt like we had everything
under control. Edward whisked me away in the heart of a bustling metropolis and
had answers to all he questions I could ask. He knew what he was doing, what he
was working for, and when to expect things to happen. We're far from that place
now. It seems every answer he gives is wrong, he's constantly changing his
mind, and even admits that time doesn't seem isn't nearly as "stable"
as it once was. Our enemies are toying with him, and through him, with us. With
his uncertainty grows our uncertainty.

Alvin
isn't much better off. Edward told me he is
the most powerful asset we have, and considering what I've seen him do I'm
inclined to agree. But that power only paints him as a target. Before the
events in L.A.
our enemy had already tracked him down and had one failed murder attempt under
their belt. Now they have two, how many close calls can he have?

...Oh no, I'm in trouble now. Sandra just came
out and said they wanna talk with their old man. They're gonna put the kids to
sleep first so I've still got a couple minutes.

The point I'm gettin’ at is that we seem to be
making tiny steps in a world that's evolving by leaps and bounds. And now
Carter says the chatter coming out of Richmond
has doubled since Chicago.
That's including the already unusual spike since the start of the kidnappings,
which, thank god, appear to be over. Can't blame them, if L.A.
was another Katrina, then Chicago was this
generations Pearl Harbor. They hit hard, fast,
and then left us to assess the damage. It was a declaration of war by a nameless,
faceless, terrorist organization, and the international community took notice.

...And my time's up, or at least it about to
be. So I'm going to pull out another bag of marshmallows to roast, put another
log on the fire, and "kick it" with the kids.

Prisca Amin
-

So I'm not going to lie, my first few
impressions of Ivan was that he was a little too clingy, you almost never seen
him away from Thomas. Well, I was just taught a good lesson believing half of
what you see and none of what you hear.

I just spent the afternoon with Ivan and his
son. Cool little kid, loves Lego's. If I'd believed what Kaylie told me, I'd
have never given him the time of day. It's fine, she's learning. Besides, she's
still got a lot of high school bias in her, life's far different a couple years
down the road.

So in any case, I found myself on the island
because it's Thursday night and I couldn't find a soul in Cali willing to go out tonight. No biggie, I
own an island I can chill on. Ivan was making pizza in the common room, while
his son was putting together some Lego contraption. He said they're designing a
city from scratch. Way cool if you're into that sort of thing. Too much nail
work for my taste, I just go a new mani, and if they were comfortable with
listening to me talk while I sipped on some wine, who was I to stop them?

His son Tyler was knocked out just after
eleven, but boy did he try to make it to midnight. Close, kid, but no cigar.

Me and Ivan talked for about an hour more, he
told me about this property he'd managed to buy in South Dakota with stuff he sells on eBay.
Told me he's going to build a mansion just for his wife, who he's still with by
the way. She was having a girl’s night in with some college friends who'd come
in town and he was giving her the house.

So he seems like a keeper to me, that, and the
whole trying to save the world bit. That's gotta make her proud, or give her a
big ass headache. Whatever. The point is, Kaylie was completely wrong about the
guy. At least from what I could tell. Nice family man, loves his son, and has a
wicked imagination. But it's late and I've got work in the a.m.

–
5/29
–

Michael Serna
-

Great night, the wife's happy and that's all
tha... ha! Just called her "the wife." Kinda drunk, not too much. The
sun's coming up. Three hours sure can make a difference.

Off to bed I go...

Prisca
Amin
-

I just woke up, don't judge me, last night was
rough and I'd given up on the idea of getting up early the moment I found
myself saying "Long Island Iced Tea." Sweeter words do not exist, I
promise you that. But we all enjoyed ourselves. Oh, double dates are so much
fun; I must do it again sometime!

Alvin
was such a doll. He made reservations at this
nice underground restaurant I'd never heard of. There were little waterfalls
coming out of the walls, cool greenery growing on the wall and cute little
roman inspired statues all about; it was nice and quaint and was perfect for
sitting down and conversing. The food didn't disappoint either but, as always,
the company makes the food all the better. It's obvious Michael lives on the
lighter side of things but he really is a jokester, him and Alvin kept us
laughing with one funny story after another.

Afterwards we made our way to a nice place
called Catalina Jazz. It had a smoky atmosphere, a nice dance floor, pool,
ping- pong, foosball tables, and chess sets. We danced, we played, and we drank
to our hearts content. It was like a dream.

Me and Iris even managed to have a little girl
time. She's so sweet and loves Michael dearly, but she told me how stressful
it's been since this all started; and I agree. We exchanged numbers just before
Alvin nicely
whisked me away to the dance floor again. Oh, such a wonderful night.