The Next Chronicle (Book 1): Next (16 page)

“I am Philip Darby,” he said, a faint African accent she couldn't place rounding the edges of his words. “I have been asked to speak for the group.” He gestured to the people filling the lobby. “We have offered to help, and this is the time we were to appear.”

Kit smacked herself in the forehead. “Oh, I'm so
stupid
,” she said. “I forgot to tell Tucker you were coming.” The little man made a face at her. On anyone else it would have expressed only the mildest of annoyance. From him it was the equivalent of the same murderous glare she often gave Archer.

Tucker switched off the alarm and Kit led the mass of Black Bands into the main office. She sent the group off to join the men and women who would direct them in the first round of transports.

Kit caught sight of Peep, who was now awake and watching the proceedings with interest. She waved at Phillip, who waved back and swooped over to have a word. Several people in the group of new arrivals did the same; it was impossible for individuals as powerful as these to go any length of time without interacting with OSA personnel.

Archer sidled over and nodded his head fractionally. “Look at Robinson,” he said in a low voice.

Kit glanced at the old man, and what she saw changed her perspective.

Robinson was a soldier and a politician, two careers excellent for building restraint. The expression on his face was subtle but unmistakable to anyone who knew him. He might as well have been glaring with naked hatred, as far as Kit was concerned. The thin line of his mouth, the narrow eyes, the aggressive posture of his body. Robinson wasn't just nervous around the powerful group of Next. He despised them.

“Maybe he's afraid of them,” Kit said.

Archer snorted. “
I'm
afraid of them,” he replied. “But I don't hate them.”

Robinson pulled out his phone and put it to his ear, walking away.

“You wondered why I don't trust him,” Archer said. “It's that right there. I've seen it before, and heard him say things about the Next that make me wonder if he wouldn't be happier if they all died out.”

Frowning, Kit said, “He's always been good to me. I never got the impression...”

Archer nodded. “It does seem to vary. I think he hates the really powerful ones, so this little parade must be like pulling teeth.”

Kit said nothing, but her conversation with Nunez inside the white room came back to her. How would Robinson react when he discovered the Next were all growing more powerful? Worse, how would he react when he realized Kit hadn't told him about it?

The teams left long before the command units. Though they had widely published the intended movement of more than a thousand superhumans living in Louisville, Kit and Archer had no plan to reveal the location of their agents before they were in position. Ray was paired with Phillip Darby, who could be trusted to keep his mouth shut about his assignment. The rest of the teams, bolstered by their attendant Black Bands, moved quietly across the city to meet with the first wave.

Robinson would of course remain at the facility. Archer would coordinate as needed in the western half of the city, Kit the east. Half an hour after the teams left, Kit readied herself to go.

No body armor this time. No carefully selected assortment of tools and weapons. She would be one of the obvious public faces today, and Kit dressed the part. Her suit could have been taken from any police procedural on television. She looked like a professional, a leader, rather than the operative she had been playing lately.

She hated it.

Her only concession was the pulse gun in the holster beneath her arm. The backup strapped to her ankle fired mundane rounds, but Kit would be damned before she gave up something as useful as the pulse gun. It was the same one Nunez had given her several days previously, the prototype. And though she would never admit it (especially to Archer), in her mind she actually did think of it as a ray gun. She was very fond of it.

“Ready?” asked Ben Carlton. Archer had assigned him as Kit's driver. In theory it was because Ben's ability to remote view would allow Kit an extra measure of control and awareness throughout the evacuation. It was logical and, more important, true. Ben would be able to report conditions in real time should Thomas Maggard appear.

Kit was equally sure Ben was on her detail because Archer was an evil man who truly enjoyed fucking with people. Rather than show her embarrassment, she strode to the SUV they would share for most of the day without looking back at him.

Ben climbed in the driver's seat. “That was well done, Director Singh. I almost didn't feel the heat coming off your face when you remembered the two of us would be spending the day together.”

Kit counted to ten. “Look,” she said. “I don't remember the other night very well. We can talk about it all you like when Thomas Maggard is in custody and we aren't dealing with a shitstorm of epic proportions. For now I'd like to keep my eye on the ball.”

“Of course,” Ben said, with a smile she chose to ignore.

The spot Kit had chosen as a command post was only a few miles from the facility. It served as a checkpoint for every vehicle moving Next from the city. They would remain there unless circumstances forced them to leave.

Ben parked and moved to the rear of the vehicle, which contained two desk chairs and a wall full of communications equipment. Kit turned on her earpiece and took her seat.

“
This is Singh,” she said into the microphone. “We are in position.”

“
Archer,” came the reply. “We're set here. Give me a checkoff.”

Ben watched the screens as each agent and volunteer checked in. The system, designed in-house, flashed a confirmation message for each of them. Even the volunteers had given a voice sample. Though the computer was doing a virtual checkoff, Kit completed her own on paper. In was done in less than five minutes, everyone accounted for. Except the last two. They were the key to the entire plan.

“Last check,” Kit said. “Cassidy and Darby, are you in position?” she asked, using Ray's new last name.

“
We are here,” Phillip Darby said.

“
What he means,” came Ray's reply, “is that we're about a thousand feet up. I'd like to lodge a complaint about the harness I'm wearing. I don't think I'll be able to shit for a week.”

Suppressing laughter, Kit shook her head. “It's keeping you from falling to your death, Cassidy. Be thankful. Are you ready to go?”

“We're positioned over the main route, boss,” Ray said. “Assuming you get everyone to move down this road, I'll be able to see him if he shows up.”

Archer's voice cut in. “Final check complete,” he said. “All agents switch to unit channels. Unit leaders, please use the general channel for check-ins and emergencies only.”

Kit's headset clicked twice, Archer calling on their private line. “This is your show, Kit.”

She switched back to the general channel. “Here we go, people. Everyone is in position, all units are ready to move.” She took a deep breath. “Begin transport on my mark.”

Glancing at the array of computer screens again, Kit noted on the GPS map that all of the green dots representing her teams remained motionless. Had the dots been red, they would not have been in position. Every Next scheduled to be transported was in the vehicles. They could still call it off if needed. But once she gave the word, the OSA was committed.

No matter how much she worried, no matter how many angles she viewed it from, the math always worked out the same. This was the best way.

“Mark,” Kit said.

John Franklin slapped the table again. This time he was more careful about it, managing to avoid denting the steel.

The placard on the door of the room said it was a conference room. Upon reaching the lab and being given a room next to his parents, John decided to go exploring. The areas he wasn't allowed in were all separated by steel airlocks, so there was no worry he would walk into them by accident.

Though it might have been a conference room at some point, the space was now wholly dedicated to new versions of testing equipment in various stages of completion. The table itself was lined with computers—every one loaded with the promised video games—but John had politely declined offers to play made by the many off-duty lab employees.

Instead he had asked about the testing equipment. A lab assistant named Lourdes had been happy to explain them to him, as nothing in the room was classified. John's interest was piqued by the fact that he had seen older versions of most of the equipment only a few days before. This was the stuff they had used on him to test his powers.

Lourdes had explained each piece in enough detail to make him understand their use and how they worked without also melting his teenage brain with dull lecturing. Not that hearing her talk would have bored John, even were she reading the phone book. John reckoned he might have a bit of a crush. The fluid Spanish accent didn't help.

John wasn’t allowed to actually use any of the machines, of course. Some were discarded prototypes, others unfinished. Still, he had a keen interest in getting more precise measurements of his own abilities.

The Hooper tests, he had been told, were designed with the strange facts of newly-discovered Next in mind. Though most Next experienced stability in their powers over the long term, people with newly awakened abilities didn't follow that rule. Their powers were still unfolding, settling in. Many people who gained new physical attributes such as resistance to damage because of dense skin, muscles, and bones, were known to go on weeks-long feeding frenzies. Their bodies needed mass to meet the demands made by their changing physiologies.

John was not like them. His changes were far more drastic in effect but far simpler in execution.

He had been tested at least three times for each possible attribute. Most were simple; you could detect energy powers with the right kind of scanning machine. Others were harder. Invulnerability came in many forms, after all, and the increasing power in newly awakened Next made multiple tests necessary.

John wasn't hard to hurt because of his skin or bones. He hadn't put on weight in months. In fact, the stress of being bullied every day had caused him to eat less at meals. John was not damage resistant, not as the term as explained by the agents who tested him was defined.

He was invulnerable.

The first test was simple—just a needle. His arm had been placed in a metal cuff to hold it still, while a thick, sharpened steel pin was slowly pushed against the flesh of his forearm. This wasn't a test they used unless a degree of damage resistance was already known to exist in the subject.

The pressure had increased. It was uncomfortable at first, then painful. John had asked them to stop, but his skin hadn't been punctured. The second time he went through the test had been the same, though the agents said he went much longer before stopping. The third time, the needle broke. John's skin hadn't even dimpled under the pressure.

Which was why he kept slapping his hand onto the table. The slightly warped surface was littered with the smashed and broken shapes of thumbtacks. John wasn't especially interested in seeing if he could hurt himself. After all, the agents had confirmed the existence of a field of energy coating him like a second skin. It was unlikely, based on Next with similar powers, that any force short of a nuclear weapon would hurt him. The field would protect him from impacts, falls, energy of all kinds, even the basic forces of physics. It wasn't as though he wore armor, they explained. The field permeated him, weaving though his body completely. A car wreck wouldn't cause his brain to slam against the inside of his skull.

But he was having a hard time feeling anything.

It was like wearing thick gloves, but all over his body. After a day of trying everything he could think of, John had come to the sad conclusion that his life would never be the same. He was a Next, which was bad enough. People would be afraid of him for that fact alone, treat him differently. They would see the dreaded black ring on his finger and know that he was capable of unthinkable feats. It didn't matter how gentle his spirit was, or that he would choose nearly any course to avoid hurting someone else. Who he was just didn't factor in.

That was bad enough, but this was worse. He couldn't luxuriate in a hot shower. John had tried. Hot and cold were sensations beyond his reach. The water did register on his skin, like the pelting of rain through a winter coat, but that was the sum of it. Food, thankfully, still had taste. He wasn't completely cut off. That would have been a nightmare, never being able to gauge his strength by touch.

He had nearly crushed his father in a hug before realizing how little sensation he had.

So John sat alone, slowly working out a new understanding of his own body. He would have to be careful from now on, always, to prevent himself from hurting anyone by accident.

The boy carried these burdens, and though his body was now stronger than all but the most powerful of his kind, his heart was still that of a child. It was filled with love and fear and a thousand other emotions, all thrashing against each other. Among them was the wry amusement at the irony of being kept safe in this place knowing very well that he couldn't be harmed. At least his parents weren't in danger.

Though the weight pushed down on him, John did not give in. Deep within was a strength forged not in genes or fueled by the
Surge, but uniquely his. Beneath the fear and anger, the sense of dread, was a shining flame of hope.