Age of Power 1: Legacy (46 page)

Okay I was tempted, but all I said was that this guy named Shield
had told me that he’d heard about Yasmine’s plans and decided to fight for the
good guys. They didn’t like my answer. But they didn’t pursue it with me. I was
a hero to the public, and none of them wanted to arrest me for obstruction of
justice. Arrests like that tend to get out of control with the public involved.

It was also during all those interviews that I found out that
the government believed Dane Eisenhawk to be dead. Since they had no body, they
thought Rao Kular killed him. Officially, he died a hero. Unofficially, well, I
had to wonder. He disappeared into thin air. The question remained.

Was he teleported, or disintegrated?
 I
mean, did the Noumenonii do that? Are they like vampires in a Joss Whedon show?
Who knew? They’d be back, just the same. This wasn’t over. BJ had said
something about teleportation. If they pulled Ian back, then they’d gotten a
dead body. For that alone, I was certain they would return.

But they weren't here right now. And as worrisome as the
government was, some of the pressure eased after the President gave a major
speech. In it, he warned the Empowered to be careful in the use of their
abilities. He got to the big point right away. He was introducing a bill that
had one basic stipulation. If an Empowered committed a criminal act with
superhuman power, law enforcement would take whatever means necessary to stop
that Empowered.

I wasn’t going to argue. I had reservations on its
open-endedness
  and
state by state
interpretations, but I knew that it could be worse. In some states, there were
strong discussions about outlawing all use of ‘neurogenic abilities.’
The
most extreme
talks were of outlawing the
Empowered, period.

Yes, the fears had started, and as usual, the politicians were
using those fears to keep their power. Conversely, there now was a strong
pro-Empowered movement on the Internet. Mom said I’d have to answer a few
thousand emails. Someone even put up a site on the web called the Age of Power
Events. I was the top lead story now, and an Internet star.

The words ‘Age of Power’ was now a favorite phrase. Fans used
it, non-fans used it, and oh, definitely, politicians were using it. Both for
and against the Empowered, there were people who wanted to be in charge of that
Age, and right now, they were fighting for control. But I moved past that whole
insanity and focused on getting better until Dr. Kirksten let me out of the
hospital. This was a good thing, except that I had no home, thanks to Brand. I
did however, have a place to live. The whole family did, thanks to Dana. She
let us live in her house. I just wish she had stayed in Riverlite, too. She had
yet to train me. Go figure.

But she wasn’t happy about what BJ told her. After a single
hospital visit to hear my side of the story, she flew off to San Francisco. In
kindness, she gave the house over to Mom and Dad while she was gone. What
little had survived from Brand’s attack of our home was now in her basement.

Once I got out of the hospital, I gave interviews that the media
kept requesting. Once more, I had to deal with the pundits and the obnoxious
questions. But, hey, I was nice about it. I gave people the sanitized version
of what had happened in Riverlite. I said that I had no idea who Shield was. I
just said that he was fighting with me. And I still kept to the story that
Brand had been the puppet of an evil, telepathic Empowered.

BJ sent a thank you text for my not revealing him. Dana did,
too. Along with that, she said she was staying in San Francisco to investigate
the Noumenonii. I think. The text was rather short and cryptic. But she told me
I could use a room she had in the back of her house to hold anything personal.
I guessed that BJ had told her about the disk and the necklace. I put them
there and let it go for the moment while I did the interviews. I was just glad
I still had the two things.

I had Nurse Wells to thank for that. When they brought me
in, someone had put all my personal items in a storage locker. When the
authorities had demanded to look at them, she had left them in the bin. I
wasn’t going to argue about it.
At the moment
, the
disk was in the box, and the crystal necklace hung around my neck. If it hid
Claire and Alex from the Noumenonii, then it would hide me. Or at least, Ian
Devonshire hoped it would. As for the DVD, I just hoped the Noumenonii didn’t
have psychic bloodhounds able to track such things—at least until I figured out
what to do with it. As time passed, I did come up with a solution. And I had
the chance to deal with it come mid-summer when my parents remarried.

Instead of it being a private affair, it turned out that all the
people of Riverlite attend and turned it into a major celebration. Mom and Dad
didn’t mind. They realized that it would help the people in town to move past
the craziness going on since Yama. One change happened with the wedding.
Instead of me, Jim Houseman was Best Man, and Karla was Matron of Honor. Me, I
just sat in the front row, grinning like a goofy idiot.

“And in name of God, by the authority given to me by the State
of Iowa and the United States of America, I now pronounce you man and wife,”
said Pastor Parkinson. Dad kissed Mom while the guests whooped with joy. Even
Aunt Cassie did, though
she was a tad annoyed by the
non-denominational pastor
. But she put her feelings aside and celebrated
along with everyone else. And there was a lot of ‘everyone’ in the
crowd. I had a feeling that half the town had taken the day off for this. Once
they said the words, ‘I do,’ I felt as though a big part of my life had
returned to normal.

But it wasn’t quite normal yet. No, to get that, I felt I had to
do something to get closure. But for the moment, on a fine spring day in the
park near Riverlite, I celebrated as well as I could. I did have fun. How could
I not have fun, what with nearly half the town all hanging out around the park?

Just outside of town, the Riverlite Valley Park was essentially
a fold in the Earth that lay on the other side of the hills lining Riverlite’s
western edge. Go west of it, and the surrounding forest the land would become
the hilly farms most people thought of as Iowa. It was private, and though
filled with lots of people now, it was still idyllic. I walked through the
area, listening to the joy and laughter of the partiers and guests, and I felt
the peace that I’d needed for a long while now. There were just a few things
missing.

Angela Tursow was one of those things; in spite of the days that
passed, I just couldn’t get over her. I tried. But I was stuck with her in my
head. Maybe it was just that we hadn’t gotten past the start of something. It
might have been the fact that I’d just felt there was someone I could focus my
heart on. I hadn’t told anyone, and the one I would have told...well, that
would have been Brand.

They never found his body. Days of searching the river turned up
nothing. That fact alone made me think of the saying about comic-book
villains. 
If there’s no body, expect the villain to return.
 But
this was reality. Brand was dead, and the river
had been
covered
in ice for miles downstream. It just hadn’t shown up.
Not yet.
Still…was it a foolish thing to hope for—

My cell phone beeped. Pulling it out of my dress jacket, I saw
the text message and put it back. I went through the crowd, politely excusing
myself and
walked
down the path out of the valley to a
graveled parking lot. Passing under a large and very old oak tree, I waved to
the author of the message. BJ got out of the 2012 Camaro and walked over.

He said, “Vaughn, what’s up? You said you wanted to see
me?
Here I am.”

Motioning with a hand, I began walking down a pathway that
skirted the upper hill of the valley. A dirt path made for bikers and walkers
both; it was wide and took a winding path through the thick forest. Eventually,
we stopped running into other guests. At one point, a break in the forest
showed a full view of the valley from one side to the other. Treetops mixed in
with a wild assortment of flowers in full bloom. It wasn’t a very large valley,
but the depth and breadth of it lent to beauty of the scenery.

BJ saw it and whistled. He said, “Wow. Alex said he’d show me
the place someday. He wasn’t kidding about the beauty. I never knew Iowa could
have something like this.”

I just nodded. The beauty was breathtaking. We watched over the
valley for a while longer. On the other side, where the valley rose up on the
eastern ridge, I saw a hawk flying above the trees and crying out. As it flew
up into the sky away from us, I pulled out the computer disk Eisenhawk had
given me. I handed it over to BJ.

After a moment’s look at it, he said, “Have you seen what was on
it?”

I said, “Nope. And right now, I want it hidden away. Ian didn’t
just zap Alexi’s mind. From what I’ve overheard, everyone who saw that
information has developed some selective amnesia. Even Erick Ryan has little
recall about it.”

“So why give it to me?” BJ said.

For a few moments, I said nothing. The hawk had appeared again,
and I watched its flight among the faraway trees. I took the moment to gather
my thoughts.

Then, I said, “For whatever reason, you seem to be an unknown to
the public. You weren’t seen on camera at the hospital; what recordings
survived show just me, and that’s all garbled now, too. And Delmar only caught
your costume, not your face.”

Tapping the disk in his hand, I said, “Add that in with your
shielding ability and you should be able to keep Ian’s people from finding out
about its whereabouts.”

BJ said, “And what about the other Empowered? Shouldn’t they
know about it, too? I mean, we still have a lot of things to figure out.”

I shrugged. I said, “Look its contents over. If you can figure
things out, great, but for now the Empowered are in too much disarray with
everyone scrambling to catch up. Unless there’s another Yasmine in the world,
we all should be able to take the time to work things out about ourselves. As
for anyone else, I don’t want them to have information that could get us hurt.”

BJ was putting the DVD in his jacket. He hesitated for a moment,
and then, giving me a baffled look, said, “Them?”

The hawk called in the distance, crying out with exultation over
its flight. I said nothing for a moment, wishing that I could take part in such
freedom.

Finally, I looked back at him, and said, “Oh, the government,
the unnamed corporation, the evil masterminds, the vile creatures of the pit,
the innocent schmuck with a lust for dominance—you name it. They’re out there.”

I snorted, suddenly realizing something. “Not to mention that
the Noumenonii will try to get that info again. You know, I just realized
something. The night they tried to send Yama at us…”

BJ cocked his head to the side, giving me a look. “You told me
that Alex blocked them by aerobraking the asteroid.”

I nodded.
“Yeah.
Remember
that night?
It wasn’t just the Solstice. There was a prophecy thing
going on. It was based off the old Mayan calendar and some big-mouth’s
‘recalculation’ of
it’s
true date for the end of the
world.”

The redhead nodded. “Yeah, I remember now. Why bring it up?”

I looked at him. “It just seems awfully coincidental that those
guys would send Yama at us right then, is all. The Noumenonii have one sick
sense of humor.”

BJ grunted, looking at the faraway hawk. After a moment, he
said, “You know that the info will get to them, Vaughn. It’s basic
biology. Eventually, maybe even now, they will have an Empowered to
examine. Ian’s mind erasure stunts just put the Noumenonii back. But it didn’t
wipe out the ability to find it out.”

I nodded. I said, “I know, I know. But right now, we should take
the time to see if there’s a chink in our armor. We know of one. I think I ran
into it during the fight with Brand. I got hurt bad, and while I healed, it was
as though I couldn’t use my power. That’s a bad thing in a fight. So if there’s
more, we should be ready for it.”

I grimaced and said, “Wasn’t I just at a joy filled party? I
think I had better get back to it. Do you want to join in? Mom and
Dad would love to have you.”

He snorted and said, “Nah, I have to go back and see if I can
find the servers that Parry used to store the conclave data. I’m hoping to find
where she lived. If I can get that, maybe…”

Paradoxis…up until this
point,
I hadn’t
given her any real thought. But without her gathering people in, there was no
way of knowing where things might've ended. I would never have lost Brand, or
my home, or…well, everything. But she did try to take the proverbial tiger by
the tail. Without her, we might have ended up with a far worse existence than
what we had now. I just hoped she was able to get out of whatever trouble
Yasmine had caused her. And now, I had a feeling that BJ was going to try to
rescue her.

I said, “Well, I don’t want to be a superhero, but if you need
help, don’t hesitate to call.”

BJ grinned and said, “Oh, I won’t! Trust me, tweety! You’ll be
the first person I call for help!”