Super Powereds: Year 2 (30 page)

If Vince had been more superstitious, he would have known that such thoughts are like chum to the gods of mischief.

56.

It was no surprise to Nick that his group was the first to arrive in the rhythmically thumping lounge with red light cascading from the ceilings. He had something of a knack for mazes and puzzles, plus Rich had proven to be more observant than expected. The result was four people cutting a veritable swath through the variety of rooms after their initial slow start in the morgue (the secret had been to open one of the corpse drawers that was actually a tunnel). Nick glanced at the party-filled room, immediately assessing the variety of costumed revelers and noting that none of the others he knew were yet present. He briefly considered putting his sunglasses back on, but with only the crimson lighting and a night spent without his eyes adjusted to less light, it was a recipe to invite disaster. Besides, Nick enjoyed his pirate outfit and the glasses took away from the effect.

“I think I see a booth.” Alice pointed to a corner of the lounge with a black and orange booth that was either currently empty or populated by people in exceptional Invisible Man costumes. It looked large enough to contain the bulk of their party, which was no small feat.

Nick nodded his agreement and the four hustled over. They made it just before another set of partiers their age, these dressed like a famous rock group, arrived. Some dirty looks were exchanged, but all of the faux musicians scampered away in short order. Dim as they were, it was clear the four already in the booth were utterly unconcerned by their ire.

“We could have invited them to join us,” Mary said as the brightly-colored marching uniforms slinked away.

“Pass,” Rich said. “I don’t associate with the lower beings unless I have to.”

“Lower beings?” Alice was surprised at the shard of anger in her voice.

“Consider your audience carefully,” Nick cautioned. “It’s been a pleasant night so far.”

“Relax, I’m not talking about you guys. Previous freaks or not, now you’re more important. I’m talking about humans.”

“I’m not sure if that’s better,” Alice replied.

Rich rolled his eyes. “Fine, my mistake. You weren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet either.”

“That’s because we wanted to save room for everyone else,” Alice said.

“Whatever, forget about it.”

“I’m not sure I want to. Do you really think of humans as lesser people?”

“It’s not an opinion, it’s fact. They’re weaker, slower, dumber, all around less-capable entities. Don’t paint me as an asshole for saying what all of us think.”

“Everyone doesn’t think that,” Mary said, her voice barely audible over the same background music that protected their conversation.

“I guess you’d know. Look, I’m done with this line of discussion. Let’s drop it, shall we?”

“I’m fine with that,” Nick agreed. He’d known enough people like Rich to see that there was no traction to be made in arguing. “How about a different topic? Tell us about the talent that makes you better than human, Rich.”

“Nice try, but I’m not doling out hints about how to beat me, either.”

“I didn’t mean like that. You don’t have to give away weaknesses; I’m just curious what exactly happens to people when you freeze them up. Are they stuck watching you or something?” Nick inquired.

“Not really. The truth is I seal them away inside their own minds. I can construct a delusion for them to wander around in, or just plunk them into their own subconscious and leave them to meander.” Rich said. A blaring note of pride was quite conspicuous in his voice.

“That sounds pretty cool,” Alice complimented.

“It comes in handy.”

“I like it, but I’m not sure how effective it would be,” Nick said. “I mean, someone with mental training could probably free themselves once they knew it was all fake.”

“Trust me,” Rich assured him, “They don’t.”

“Whatever you say, Chief. I’m getting a drink.” Nick began to scoot along the vinyl, bumping Mary to force her to move with him so he could get free.

“You think it’s that easy to overcome?”

“Not at all,” Mary said, trying to calm him.

“I’m just pointing out that the only person we’ve seen it work on is Roy, and he’s not really an intellectual juggernaut,” Nick prodded.

“Let’s test your theory, then.” Rich drove his knee upward, slamming it into the bottom of the table. The noise wasn’t loud enough to draw looks from beyond their area, but it did startle everyone at the booth into glancing in his direction. That glance was all it took; in the moment they met his eyes, Rich sealed all three of them away. Their bodies froze in place, the muscles tensing enough to hold their positions. Nick and Mary were awkwardly propped against each other, the unfortunate outcome of being in movement when stopped. Alice, at least, looked a bit more natural. Rich could have let them go limp, or stowed them into some maniacal hell-dream that would have them freaking out; however, he sensed that would have led to more trouble than it was worth. Instead he’d just chunked them into their own subconscious without bothering to give their illusion any shape. They’d still be pissed, but it would show that loud-mouth Nick just whose power was weak.

Rich looked around to see if there was a waitress anywhere near. He couldn’t very well leave them like this, yet he greatly wanted a drink. Using his power always gave him cotton-mouth, though for the life of him he could never figure out why. The unrelenting music bouncing off the walls wasn’t exactly making him more comfortable, either. Ah well, at least he didn’t have to deal with incessant yapping coupled with an overblown bass line.

* * *

“I haven’t found anything yet.” Vince very much wanted to ask her if she had more success, however he knew if he did she’d snap back that if she had wouldn’t she have told him. In truth he doubted she would, it was more likely Sasha would just open the passageway and continue on without so much as a grunt of indication.

“Keep looking.” You could have chilled a lake with the ice in her voice. The two of them had hit a frustrating snag with this latest room. It was built to look like an outdoor graveyard, complete with bursts of chilling winds, lush green grass, and grey marble headstones bursting forth from soft, malleable dirt. The designer had even engraved each of the headstones; Vince walked past one where the name had been worn away but “1818 – 1857. Died by drowning” was still visible. The edges of the room were dark and obscured; one had to walk right up to them and grope around to feel anything solid. It was truly a masterpiece of craftsmanship, one that Vince would have probably enjoyed far more in different circumstances. Unfortunately, the room was more difficult to find a way out of than any of the previous ones, and his company was growing more and more irritable with each passing minute.

“This is bullshit, there has to be a way out!” Sasha’s wrath had tweaked her voice to a higher level than normal.

“I’m sure we’ll find it eventually,” Vince assured her. “These things aren’t meant to actually keep people in, after all.”

“Oh, fuck you, I bet you’re loving this.”

“Yes, Sasha, this is my greatest dream realized at last.”

“Just look harder, dickhead.”

Vince bit his tongue and redoubled his efforts. Baseless accusations aside, he would have rather been in a Coach George workout session than in this room with Sasha. He just hoped his patience would hold until he managed to escape to sweet, sweet freedom.

57.

Mary was in the woods. These weren’t just any random cluster of trees though, these were her woods. She tread along the small path, one that had been carved by her own feet through the years, and breathed deep of the clean air and silence. She’d forgotten how quiet her woods were, how peaceful they made her feel. This wasn’t just a telepathic silence, either; that one she could now achieve on her own. This was a world without car horns and buzzing electric lines and humming air conditioners. This was a place of peace. Well... almost. Every now and then Mary caught a sound from another direction, something like the sound her parents’ change had made when she’d knocked it from the counter as a child. Mary didn’t know why that memory crystallized so clearly; she’d barely been three at the time. For a moment she could swear she saw that toddler version of herself peeking back from behind a tall oak, but then she blinked and it was gone.

The rogue sound persisted. It came in snippets, always out of sight, but always from the same direction. It was off to the east. Mary didn’t know what it could be; in that direction was a small lake that she’d splashed about in when the sun grew oppressively hot. It wasn’t lake weather today: it was a perfect temperature, the kind where she could have lounged among the leaves until sunset. The noise didn’t want to let her; however, it insisted upon intruding in her woods, poaching her precious peace with its chittering tones.

It came again and Mary adjusted her direction. She would attend to whatever it was and then resume her day. She hadn’t been home for a long time, and even if she couldn’t remember how she’d come to be here, Mary was going to damned well enjoy herself. As she walked, it seemed like the light slipping through the trees was changing. It had been a slightly overcast but bright day when she was on her path, now the sun was glowing a hot yellow overhead. The canopy began to thicken, the leaves turning from their emerald green to a steadily deepening autumn red. A curiosity splashed against the bulwark of Mary’s peace. Why were the leaves changing? It wasn’t the right season for that, was it? Mary began to realize she didn’t know what season it was, or what day it was. With every step she was becoming increasingly aware of how little sense this all made. How had she even gotten back here? Hadn’t she been somewhere... doing something... with some people? The memories were resisting her, but Mary was becoming more dogged in her insistence that they appear.

She glanced around and realized the canopy had turned into a red ceiling, dozens of mini-suns glaring down at her from its crimson heights. No, not suns. Light bulbs; it was a ceiling with seemingly endless recessed lights. The trees were no longer very tree-shaped either. They’d thinned out and taken on a silver shimmer. Each had only a single branch, angled upward at its side like an arm raised to answer a question. The fronts seemed to have strange symbols on them; Mary stared closely at one before realizing it looked like a crude drawing of a lemon. A tickle in the back of her mind insisted she knew this peculiar shape, but she just couldn’t access it. Instead she plodded onward, making note of what changed as she did. The trees were shrinking; the tallest ones now stood only around seven feet tall. They were getting boxier, too. As she moved forward, Mary noticed mushrooms in front of the trees were growing tall, with wider red tops and black stems. She brushed the tops of one and found it soft, yet the stem was cold and hard.

“Stools,” Mary said softly. She didn’t understand why it wouldn’t come earlier; that was obviously what the mushrooms were changing in to. Maybe it was because in her forest there were no stools, so such knowledge in this place served no purpose. This wasn’t her forest anymore; it hadn’t been for nearly half a mile. Mary rolled that thought around in her brain. She knew how far she’d walked, but her feet weren’t sore at all, and despite her brisk pace she’d never once taken a ragged breath. This wasn’t right at all.

Mary began to run forward, the silver box trees whipping by her in an increasingly swift blur. She never could have moved this quickly before, why was it so effortless now? The world slipped past her, the trees and mushrooms seeming to move like a flip book, each passing one becoming identical with the others around it. All at once Mary burst forth from the trees and found herself standing in a room that positively dripped with the tinkling sound she’d heard in the woods. Now it was no longer a gentle annoyance, it was an overbearing anthem encasing her. It was the sound of coins cascading onto metal, and an electronic mimic was being blared by every slot machine in the room, of which there were hundreds.

“Slot machines.” That’s what the trees had been turning into, why couldn’t she see that before? Mary stood on the threshold of the lobby, a row of slots to her back and a beautiful marble floor only one step away. Upon it were tables lined with green felt, bars set up strategically at key intervals, and nothing even close to resembling a window to the outside. There were people, too: big men in striped suits, older couples rhythmically tugging the arms of machines that refused to pay out, tall women in skimpy clothes carting drinks to the cheerful gamblers. Mary had heard about places like this, she’d seen them featured in movies, but never in her life had she actually been to a casino. Given the high emotion and packed population, it would have been an indescribable hell in her Powered days. She wondered how such a place had manifested in her woods, and without thinking, she took that final step onto the main floor.

Mary nearly doubled over at the bursting sensation that ripped through her head as soon as her foot made contact with the polished marble. It all came flooding back, everything that existed outside her forest. Lander, Alice, George, the match, Halloween, the look in Rich’s eye as he’d stared at them... and then it all made sense.

Mary picked herself up slowly, making sure there weren’t going to be any aftershocks from that mental dam breaking. Everything seemed to be responding appropriately so she started to venture forward. She’d nearly forgotten Rich could induce paralyzing illusions in people’s minds. It seemed she had something of a travel visa; at least this certainly didn’t seem like her mind anymore. That would explain why she was aware of her predicament, perhaps. As her sneakers trod across the ground, she made sure to take in as many details as possible. Unless Alice had a gambling problem she’d hidden exceptionally well for the past year, Mary had a strong hunch of just whose brain she was taking a tour of and this was not an opportunity to be squandered.