Kinetics (12 page)

A few miles out of town I saw a sign
next to a road that wound into the woods back towards the opposite side of the
mountain.  It read Madison Lake House one mile, and the word Madison took me
for a moment.  I had heard it before or seen it somewhere.  Silence was going
on in the background, but I wasn’t listening.

“So there is a lake too?”

“Yeah, it belonged to the Madison
family.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the small dirt road.  It twisted
and weaved through a wooded area.

“The whole lake?” I turned back to the
road in front of us.

“Umm, yeah, they owned the mountain and
the observatory as well but they had to sell because some of the funding was
revoked for his company.  I don’t know much about it.”

I thought about the name Madison, but
after a while I pushed it out of my head, and returned my attention to
Silence.  He talked about all the things that went on in Eastcroft and some of
the things that The Last Line had done in the past.

We took a short trip over an interstate
and then he exited into the city.  We arrived around midday, the sun was high,
and my stomach was growling.  Silence heard it finally.

“I guess your stomach has decided where
we go first.  Where would you like to eat?”

“I don’t know.  Where is good?”

“I know a little place.” He turned off
the main road and got me lost with all of the turns on the back roads.

We pulled into the parking lot of a
small diner that had outdoor seating overlooking a manmade pond.  Fountains
sprayed in all directions from the center.  We got out of the car and walked
towards the diner but before we got to the door, he motioned for me to go sit
down at one of the outdoor tables.

“You don’t know what I want to eat.”

“Trust me.” He walked away without
giving me a chance to retaliate. 

I walked over to the table closes to the
water.  The sun came down just perfect not to get into my eyes, but to give a
perfect back drop for the ducks swimming in the water.  Silence returned
shortly with a couple of baskets of food.

“I used to come here all the time.  I
don’t get to come to the city much anymore.” He took a fry and dipped it into
his ketchup.

“Why don’t you come here anymore?” I
knew as soon as the words were out what he was going to say.

“I haven’t been back since Fade
disappeared.” He tossed a fry into the water so that the ducks could fight over
it.

The basket of food contained a few
Buffalo wings and some fries.  I dipped one of the wings in ranch and took a
bite, “not bad.”

“Yeah the food is good but I came for
the memories.” He played with a fry.

He told me a few stories about when he
was younger and I had the feeling that he was doing all of the talking, but I
really didn’t have anything to talk about.  I grew up in a handful of orphanages,
end of story.  Although that name was bugging me again.  I seem to remember it
from when I was younger. 

We went to a mall next, things were
slow; the halls were empty and so were the shops.  It was the middle of the day
and most people our age were in class somewhere.  We went to several shops.  I
purchased a wardrobe that was more my taste.  We went to a computer store and I
got the exact computer that I wanted.

I asked Silence about a cell phone but
he told me not to worry about it, Sam would give us all one.  We found a store
where I could get an IPod and that is where I decided to quit spending the
money.  I had already burnt through half of it.

We put everything into the car and left
Denver.  The road to Eastcroft was empty.  The sun was on its way down by the
time we were back on the interstate. 

By the time we got back into town,
everyone had long gone to bed.  Ryder helped me carry everything up to my bedroom
and I felt my face flash red when he got close as he went to leave.  He must have
noticed it because he smiled but he didn't say anything. 

I grabbed my new pajamas and went down
to the bathroom.  I took a shower and sat in the living room trying to watch
TV.  There wasn't anything that I wanted to watch, so after a few minutes of
mindless cartoons I switched off the TV, and went to bed.

I wasn't really tired but I figured I
would force myself to sleep so that I wouldn't waste most of the next day
sleeping.  Even though I couldn’t use my abilities, I wanted to be out with the
others while they trained. 

I was able to tag along for combat
training whenever I wanted to or I could stay at the house.  I really enjoyed
just hanging out at the field while everyone got more fluent with their
abilities.  After everyone mastered taking down the wooden targets, several
last line agents volunteered to spare with the others.

I would hang back as the rest of the
group would enter powerful combat with a wide range of combatants.  We were
introduced to some wild abilities that I couldn’t even understand.

I walked over and stood next to Ryder,
“It looks like everyone is really getting the hang of using their abilities.” An
explosion peppered us with dirt and grass.

“I really wish that we could be working
on your abilities." he smiled.

“Why are you training everyone in
martial arts?”  I had seen most of the moves they were now fluently using in one
movie or another.  I had always thought that the combat in those films was
nothing more than expensive choreography and didn’t really translate into
actual combat.

“We use martial arts to teach discipline
just as the creators had intended.  In fact, some of the styles that we teach
were developed by Kinetic users like ourselves.” He took a few steps back, “Why
don’t we start your hand to hand training?” He held up his hands. 

I had made excuses up until that point
and avoided taking part in the actual lessons, but as far as I knew we were
still wanted, dead or alive.  Powers or no, I needed some way to defend
myself. 

I took a few steps back and copied what
he had done with his hands. 

“What do you want me to do?” I looked at
my hands trying to recall what I had seen in movies as I was growing up.

“Whatever you can think of then we’ll go
from there.”

“Be easy, it’s my first time.”

“Come at me with your best shot.”

I took a deep breath and tried a
surprise round house kick.  As fast as I was in a blur he swiped my leg.  He
used enough force to not only divert the energy of my kick, but also make me
lose my balance and stumble.  I couldn’t catch myself and fell face first into
the grass.

“Not bad, but… not good either.” He held
out his hand to help me up off the ground.  I took it and pulled myself up onto
my feet.

“You are so fast!” I brushed off my
front.

“It’s part of my ability.” He said, “When
I realized just how much power you had behind that kick I had to move fast or
you might have crushed my skull.” He said.

“You can tell by one kick?  I would say
that crushing your skull would have been useful in a fight to the death.” I
really didn’t think that the kick would have caused any real damage. 

“You have a lot of raw power; your kick
would have broken bones.  We have determined from your group’s blood tests that
they tampered with your DNA in more than one way.  Your muscles are much denser
and somehow lighter.  So much raw power.” He pumped his fist behind his back to
dissipate some pain. 

I heard Sam’s truck before I saw it. 
The thick cloud of dust that always kicked up when someone drove to where the
tent was set up was billowed high in the sky.  Everyone joined me and Ryder at
the tent. 

“What’s with the visit boss?” Ryder
asked.

“I just wanted to have a chat with the
new recruits.” He opened up the back of his truck and unloaded a cooler full of
drinks.  He tossed waters to everyone.

“Is there something wrong?” I grabbed a
chair, and took a seat near the tent.

“No, everything is as it should be.”  He
took a deep breath, “Look, I just wanted to talk to you about a difficult topic
to get into.  Sometimes in our situation,” he paused pondering his words
carefully, “There is death and killing ones enemies before they kill you is a
necessary evil.  The Aurora Corporation, as you have seen, has no reservations
about taking the lot of you out of the equation.”

“So we are supposed to just flip some
switch and be soldiers.” Ronnie crossed his arms in determination.

“I’m not saying that you should just
give up on your humanity, but the Sabers for instance are killing machines that
are quite literally programmed to kill.  You can’t dissuade them, you can’t
stop them.  Most of the users that Aurora has on their payroll are there for
their own reasons.  They are highly trained, extremely powerful assassins.” Sam
grimaced having to explain this to a group of teenagers.

“Wonderful.” I sighed and took a swig of
my water.

"However much I hate it, you may
have to kill." he looked down at the ground.  “Our goal is to help people
like us.  We do whatever is necessary to get people out of Aurora’s grip, or at
least slow them down.  If we can help normal people so be it, but our kind is
our priority.  I know that that is a simplistic way of looking at things, but
we don't have the resources to look after everyone.”

Quiet fell as we drank our water.  I
thought about the first time we had seen Sam and the Last Line.  Hothead and
Silence had killed the Sabers without hesitation.  They just did as they were
told.

The others returned to training, while I
watched.  Ryder helped everyone to get back into rhythm offering suggestions,
and then he rejoined me sitting on the ground next to my chair. 

“How do you do it?” I squinted from the
sun as it reached its highest point.  The temperature had begun to rise to the
normal August levels. 

“You have to understand that Aurora is
more powerful than anything on the planet, and the man in charge of all that
wants you dead.  You can not hesitate. If you do, you die.” Ryder leaned back
on his arms basking in the sunlight, "I can't say that there will always
be someone to watch your back."

“So why put ourselves in their path by
going on what seems like suicide missions?”

“If we just hide here forever, they’ve
won.” He looked me in the eyes, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to
hide my whole life.  This little town is great and all, but I have a feeling
that they will find it eventually, and when they do there is nothing stopping
them from leveling it.”

“You don’t think that Sam can keep us
safe?”

“It’s a team effort.  He is only one
man, he needs our help.”  He stood up from the ground and brushed himself off. 
He held out his hand, “Now let’s get back to work.”

I took his outstretched hand and pulled
myself up.  He let go when I had my balance, and took a few steps back.  He
balled his fists and spread his legs to give him perfect balance.

“Give me your best.” He yelled over the
explosions in the field behind us.

~//~

When we got back to the house I could
feel the bruises from fighting Ryder.  I knew he was taking it easy on me too. 
I did learn a lot about defending myself. 

I went up to my bedroom and laid down in
bed. 

I woke up after a few hour nap when
Ronnie knocked on the doorframe.   "Hey, the showers are open."

"Thanks." I heaved my sore
body up off the bed.

I grabbed a new set of clean clothes and
went down to the first level.  When we had gotten home the sun was still up,
but now it was pitch black outside.  I went into the bathroom and looked at my
side where there was a nice bruise starting to show. 

I had taken so many face plants to the
ground but every time I just got back up and rushed Ryder again.  No less than
twenty times he asked me if I wanted to stop.  He kept telling me that we could
pick up the training another day.

I didn't want to stop.  I needed to be
doing something.

I took my shower and then went back to
bed.

Sleep came quickly that night.

I could hardly get out of the bed the
next morning.  I forced myself to crawl out of bed and go down to the kitchen
to satisfy my stomach’s need for food.  It growled loudly but there wasn’t
anyone around to hear it.  Everyone had left already for the practice field. 

For the second time I had to wash dishes
before I had a bowl to eat cereal.  Once I had my brand cereal and milk I
curled up on the couch to doctor my bruises while I watched TV.   

There was nothing on that I wanted to
watch so I just stared at the wall and ate my brunch.  Once I had finished I
cleaned up everyone’s mess.

I heard someone pull into the driveway
so I investigated.  I was so bored I was praying for something that I could
do.  Sam was getting out of his truck.