Paranormals (Book 1) (19 page)

PCA

In his dad’s office, Steve sat in his dad’s chair and stared out his dad’s window. That’s how he thought of it — each time that little voice tried to pipe up and remind him that it all belonged to
him
, he slammed it back down into the recesses of his mind.

From where he sat behind the desk, Steve could barely make out the next closest building, which just happened to be the second building his dad built on this property. Steve allowed himself a bitter-sweet smile ...

The structure was just taking shape, and his parents stopped by on his dad’s day off to see how things were going. Alan kept assuring Joseph that everything was fine, that he didn’t need to be such a mother hen, but those were the days before his dad could suppress the urge to micro-manage.

The Davisons owned a station wagon back then — their first Mercedes was still a few years off — and they left John and Steve in the car. After all, they weren’t going anywhere. They just stepped out for a minute or two, talking to Alan and shading the sun from their eyes as they marveled at their latest investment.

John sat in the very back, stretched out across the bed of the wagon as he read a
Dungeons & Dragons
manual, or something like that. Steve, on the other hand, clambered over the seats and slid behind the wheel. At four years old, his feet didn’t come anywhere near the pedals, but he enjoyed going through the motions of driving, which to him pretty much culminated in steering all the way to the right, then to the left, and back again, and so on.

Yet somehow, he managed to get the thing into
Neutral
. The engine wasn’t running, but the key was in the ignition. Either he turned it enough to free the gear lock, or his dad had rotated it just enough to kill the motor when they parked. They would never know for sure — he was too frightened to remember!

Regardless, Joseph Davison glanced back their way just as the station wagon began to roll backward. That edge of the property was on a slope back then, before the ground had been leveled out to allow for easier expansion. Piles of supplies — bricks, wood, steel — stood in precarious stacks at the bottom of the little hill, and the car was headed right for it.

Joseph was on the move before his wife and vice-president even realized what was happening. Steve gaped out the windows in shock, while John, his mind contemplating chilly tunnels and fire-breathing reptiles, remained oblivious. Joseph reached the car fairly quickly, but a quick jerk of the handle revealed that Steve’s playtime had
also
managed to lock the doors.

Amazingly, somehow, his dad performed the acrobatic stunt of reaching through the open window, finding the doorlock, opening the door, shoving Steve over as gently as possible, and leaping into the car ... all while running
sideways
at ever increasing speeds! He hit the brakes, bringing the car to a halt less than ten feet from the various building materials ...

Over the years, of course, that distance managed to
shorten
with each retelling. The last time Steve remembered his parents telling it — two Christmases ago, if he wasn’t mistaken — the gap had closed to the point where the back bumper actually
dinged!
lightly against the bricks as Joseph completed his miraculous save.

But that didn’t matter. Whether his parents chose to exaggerate later or not, the
fact
was that they could have easily been hurt, especially John in the very back. Little Steve had considered his father
The Six Million Dollar Man
for a long time after that.

Steve smirked now as he recalled the joke he’d made in the hospital, when he first tested his thermal vision.
Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive. We can rebuild him ...

... which included, along with two legs and an arm, a bionic
eye
.

Steve glanced down at his hands and flicked his thermal vision on and off. Fate, it seemed, was not without a sense of
irony
.

A damp feeling drew Steve’s attention. He wiped the back of his hand across his cheek and realized that he had been crying. It was the first tears he’d shed since receiving the implants. What a strange sensation, to cry without feeling it or having it affect your vision.

Even
grief
can’t reduce their digital accuracy! Two more points for the radioactive leeches!

A sudden
buzz
shook him from his acrid reverie. At first, he glanced around in confusion, until the sound came again and he realized that it was his dad’s intercom system.

Depressing the only button, he spoke, "Um, sorry, Alan’s not here. It’s just me."

"Actually,"
his dad’s receptionist — what was her name? — replied,
"I was looking for
you
, Steve. There’s someone here from the PCA to see you."

"The PCA? To see
me
?" For a moment, he felt a swarm of butterflies take flight in his gut. What did the PCA want? They couldn’t have learned about the implants ... could they? But he supposed there was only one way to find out. He would just have to play it by ear —
nothing
would come across as suspicious as refusing to see the agent. "Just, uh, send’em on in, I guess," he told her, trying to sound as unconcerned as possible.

A moment later, the main doors opened, and an Asian man entered the room. He was surprisingly young — couldn’t have been much older than Steve himself. He wore a long coat, and Steve wondered how many hi-tech toys he might be carrying on him ... and how many of them had been developed by his dad’s company.

Stay focused, Steve
...

"Steven Davison?" the Asian man prompted as he approached the desk and Steve stood to greet him.

"Yes."

"Michael Takayasu," he said by way of greeting. He extended his hand and met Steve’s firm handshake with a not-inconsiderable grip of his own. "If this is an appropriate time, I’d like to ask you a few questions about your recent experience with the rogue."

Steve shrugged and sat down while gesturing for Takayasu to do the same. "Sure, I guess. I’ve already told the police everything I know."

"I understand that, Mister Davison," the agent said smoothly as he made himself comfortable. "I’ve read the report. However, I’ve been indirectly assigned to your case, and I felt it prudent to acquire all my information as directly as possible. I’m sure you understand."

Steve shrugged again ... then wondered if the apathetic gesture was a bit too much. Inside, his heart was pounding, and he kept hoping that Alan would suddenly waltz through the door. He wanted to leave as little an impression upon the agent as possible, but he didn’t want to behave as though he didn’t
care
. "I’ll help you in any way possible, Agent Takayasu."

The man smirked, although it did not feel as though it were directed at Steve personally. "It’s ‘Ensign,’ actually. How about you just call me ‘Michael?’ "

"Sure."

Takayasu — Steve wasn’t ready to think of him as "Michael" just yet, and he didn’t invite the man to call him "Steve" — produced a little notepad and began asking questions. Most of them were standard no-brainers, nothing that Steve hadn’t already disclosed. Then the ensign popped out with, "The electricity that struck the tire — could you describe it?"

Steve hesitated out of nothing more than confusion. "Well, as I just told you, it was pretty much like a bolt of lightning."

"I understand the ease of that comparison, Mister Davison. But, if you’ll indulge me: Was it narrow or broad? Did it appear purely white or bluish-white, or did it perhaps appear like a prism?"

"I ... don’t know. As you can imagine, it happened pretty fast, and I wasn’t expecting it. I guess it was just white — and it was very bright, of course. If I’d been looking directly at it, I probably would have been blinded."

Steve almost panicked when he realized what he’d said, but Takayasu sailed right over it. "How about the
noise
?"

"Pretty damned loud."

"Deafening? Has your hearing been impaired by the event?"

Given the circumstances, Steve hadn’t even thought about his
hearing
. "... no. It was loud, but I guess it wasn’t ‘deafening.’ What difference does
that
make?"

"I’m merely trying to determine the exact nature of the rogue’s abilities," Takayasu explained. "Paranormals with electrical control are a relatively common manifestation ..."

"Really? I thought all paranormals were unique?"

"Oh, no, not at all. It’s difficult to nail down hard numbers — so many stay hidden, and more people turn paranormal each year — but we estimate that less than a fourth of paranormals have abilities that aren’t mirrored elsewhere."

"Huh. Didn’t know that." This conversation was certainly giving him new food for thought — information he would have to familiarize himself with if he were going to continue down this insane road.

"Many of them
do
, however, have their own personal ‘twists,’ " Takayasu continued, apparently on a roll now that Steve had expressed interest. "For instance, some electrical paranormals can generate a charge internally, while others can only manipulate external sources. The ‘lightning’ that struck your motorcycle sounds as though it were produced from a fairly local source, and not from the sky."

"It came in sideways."

"That doesn’t always eliminate the sky, but natural lightning
does
tend to be much
louder
than the biological variety. I’d wager that this rogue was his or her own generator."

After that, the questions became more mundane again. A few minutes later, the ensign finished. The man stood, thanking him again and mentioning that he sympathized with Steve’s recent loss. Steve looked away as he mumbled his thanks, and that was the only reason he noticed Takayasu’s burn scars as they shook hands this time. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask about them, but he decided that might be in bad taste.

Takayasu had just turned away when he stopped. Facing Steve once more, the ensign suddenly appeared to be studying his face with a scrutiny that made him uncomfortable.

"Something else, Michael?" he probed, trying hard to sound casual.

"You commented before that if you’d been looking right at the lightning, you could have been blinded ..."

Uh, oh.

"I understand that you
did
, in fact, suffer eye-injury as a result of the incident."

"Yes. It was, uh, touch-and-go for a while there. They were afraid that I
was
going to be blind, but it turned out not to be as bad as they first thought."

"Your vision’s been fully restored?"

"Better than ever."

"Good. Good for you." But he kept staring.

"Anything
else
?" Now he added a touch of irritation.

"It’s probably nothing, just an error in our files. We had you listed as ‘hazel eyes,’ but I was just noticing that yours are very
blue
."

Think, Steve! Think, think,
think
!

"Probably because of my driver’s license," he lied. "They got it wrong years ago, I just never bothered to correct it."

"Ah. Well, have a good day, Mister Davison."

"You, too."

When the door closed behind the ensign, Steve melted into his seat. Now that his performance was at an end, his body apparently realized that it was all right to
sweat
... and sweat it did! He had to grab a trembling handful of tissues from his dad’s drawer to mop it up.

That was pretty weak, Steve
, he chided himself.
"Got your driver’s license wrong?" Like
that
can’t be researched easily enough! You should have just said the accident
had
damaged your vision, and now you’re wearing colored contacts.