All American Rejects (Users #3) (11 page)

"Well, I won't be needing these anymore." Heath removed his glasses, dropped them on the floor, and stomped on them.

"We're in trouble," Evan said.

"Ya think?" Carter wanted to slap Evan up the backside of his head.

Chapter 14

"What are we going to do?" Evan asked.

"You help Ryker and Barber. I'll deal with this guy," Carter said. "I've been working on some new moves."

Heath had a wicked smile painted on his face as Carter stepped out from behind the table.

"I feel so...alive," Heath said. "I can sense the air around me. I can feel the blood pumping through my veins."

"Oh Christ, you aren't going to monologue now are you?" Carter asked. "Seriously, just kill me first."

Heath's smug expression was wiped from his face and replaced with a scowl. "Are you so eager to die?"

"I'd rather die than listen to another minute of your bullshit," Carter said and he cracked his knuckles.

"Then allow me to oblige you." Heath lifted a hand and the table in front of Carter was hoisted from the ground. Heath shifted his hand and the table came forward at Carter, but Carter hit the jets on his feet and was propelled up and over the table; it crashed into the wall behind him.

"You're going to have to do better than that," Carter said.

"Oh, you want to play with fire?" Heath ignited flames all over his body.

Carter chuckled, which judging by the intense look on Heath's face, only served to enrage the man all the more.

Heath growled as fire erupted from his uplifted hand, sending an inferno of flames onto Carter. Carter didn't so much as flinch. The fire was so intense that Carter all but disappeared within the flames. Heath let the torch from his hand burn Carter for close to a minute, but as the flames receded, Carter stood unharmed with a smirk on his face. He was covered in soot from the fire, but his skin was otherwise flawless, not showing even the slightest tinge of a sunburn.

"Dammit, I just got that hoodie, and I really liked it," Carter sighed, shaking his head in disappointed before returning his attention to the matter at hand. "Um...fire can't hurt a Scorcher, you dumb fuck. You'd know that if you hadn't just got your powers a whole minute ago," Carter continued. "You're untrained, a mere amateur, and I'm a pro when it comes to this super-powered stuff, you are way out of your league noobie."

Carter burst into motion, cocked back, and threw a ball of fire onto the floor before him. The fiery orb hit the ground just a few feet in front of Heath, and expanded into a wall of dancing flames.

"What is this?" Heath asked. "You are going to use fire on me now?" Heath cackled. "You said so yourself, fire can't hurt a Scorcher."

"It wasn't meant to hurt you," Carter said. "Only distract you." Carter's fist appeared a half of a second before he did through the wall of fire, but it was enough to take Heath by surprise, and Carter felt his fist connect with Heath's bony jaw before he could even see it. Carter burst through the flames with a flurry of punches. He put a quick jab, jab, right hook combination to Heath's face.

The blows were enough to make Heath take a step back to reorient himself, but he had the powers of an Enforcer in him, and the punches merely dazed him momentarily.

"Misdirection huh?" Heath asked. "You think your little tricks are going to be enough to stop me? I may be new to this, but I've got more powers than you could dream of having." Heath mentally picked up the chart he had been using all day from the counter next to him and did something that Carter had never seen before. The chart changed into a elongated blade without Heath even having to touch it. The scientist was using the powers of a Mover and a Changer at the same time. This was bad, really, really bad. If Heath could combine powers together to be used at the same time, with a little practice, he would become unstoppable. Like an all powerful wizard, Heath would be able to do almost anything. Unlimited power would literally be at his finger tips, and there would be nothing Carter, or any other User could do about it.

With a flick of Heath's wrist the blade swung for Carter's throat, but Carter ducked at the last moment, narrowly avoiding having his head chopped off. Heath growled and twisted his wrist, thrusting the blade right for Carter's heart, but it stopped just inches from his chest.

"Thanks," Evan said. "I'll be needing that." Evan grabbed the blade with his telekinesis and, being a much more practiced and powerful Mover, he ripped the blade from Heath's mental grasp. Evan slid the blade like an electric saw across the tubes running into the top of Ryker and Barber's glass cylinders, cutting them clean off.

Heath turned on Evan, but Carter stepped forward menacingly, drawing Heath's attention back on himself.

"Tell me," Carter said in an attempt to distract Heath from his friends. "Was there ever even a User registration, or was that all bullshit from the start? Was this all just a rouse to get your hands on the Users whose powers you needed?"

"The registration was real, the government has to believe they have some authority, or control, over that which they cannot. But what better way to get the powers we wanted for our own gain? The Users we needed just delivered themselves to the slaughter. It is sad really, when you think about it. All that power, and the majority of you are nothing more than sheep; just like the rest of the world," Heath said. "It was all so simple, until you and your paranoid conspiracy friends decided not to register."

"Paranoid? Apparently with good reason considering that you just shot their life into your veins like a dram of heroin. Where are the rest of the doses?" Carter turned his head around, searching the room. "I'm not leaving until I destroy every last drop of the User powers you've taken. There's nothing I can do about them being gone, besides kill your sorry ass to make myself feel better, but you are high if you think I am going to let you pass them around to some other sick fucks, such as yourself, for god only knows what."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. There was only one dose, and now it's inside me," Heath said with a sickening grin.

"Won't your bosses over at the government be pissed when they don't get their shipment for their super soldiers?" Carter asked thoroughly confused.

Heath cackled with laughter. "And what if they are? It's not like they can stop me now, not with all these powers. I'm going to eradicate every User on the planet, and anyone else who stands in my way. Starting with you."

"What?" Carter shook his head, thoroughly confused. "Why would you want to kill Users? You planning on draining the entire planet's worth of Users powers? Is this some nerdy, Highlander, there can be only one, shit? You really think you can handle that much power?"

"No, not for that," Heath said, incredulously. "I want not for the glory of being the only and all powerful one, I'm going to kill them for sport."

"Wow, your weirder than I thought," Carter said. "So tell me, what exactly did we ever do to you? Or are you just some serial killer with a hard-on for Users?"

"Users are the scum of the earth. They are a plague on human kind," Heath said.

He grabbed Carter with his telekinesis, lifted him up off his feet, and drug him across the room so he could look Carter right in the eyes.

"When I was just a child, a User broke into our house in the middle of the night, and murdered my parents, right in front of me. He slaughtered them, without a second thought, and all he took was my mom's jewelry. He killed them. For a couple of handfuls of shiny metal. That's all their life was worth to him. And I find your kind to be worth even less to me. I will eradicate you for the pleasure."

"So, killing thousands of innocent people is going to make that better? How is that going to bring them back?" Carter asked.

"Don't call yourselves people," Heath spat the words out at him and continued with a low growl in his voice "You're not people. You're Users."

Heath shoved both arms out, throwing Carter into the wall. Carter wasn't sure if it was his bones or the drywall that crunched as he impacted. Then, Heath lifted both arms to the sky, launching Carter into the air where he slammed into the ceiling. The ceiling tiles exploded into chunks that rained down from above.

Carter screamed as Heath simply let go of him. Gravity did Heath's dirty work, dropping Carter from the ceiling to the floor. Feeling he had control of his body once more, Carter ignited the flames in his feet and palms, saving himself from doing a belly flop on the concrete floor from nearly ten feet up. He hovered just inches above the ground, the fire shooting from his palms and feet like rockets.

"You are the resourceful one, aren't you?" Heath said. "Well, let's see how you handle this."

Carter braced himself, expecting the worst, and Heath did not disappoint.

The scientist may be new to his powers, but he had clearly done his research on the vast array of abilities he had equipped himself with. He unleashed a bloodcurdling scream that threw anything not tied down across the room. The scream was so powerful it ripped the doors off of the cabinets, peeled the tops off of the tables, and sent a field of debris soaring across the room at Carter. A table top hit Carter hard. He had his arms up defensively, but the table racked the bones in his forearms before it was knocked aside. A desk drawer slammed him in the stomach, and a stapler cracked him in the knee.

The sound wave hit him last, bludgeoning his ear drums, and throwing him back against the wall.

Carter slumped to the floor and laid there for a few moments, wishing he were dead. His forearms ached like they were broken. Blood soaked through his jeans on the knee that had taken the hit with the stapler. He gasped for air, unsure if either the drawer that hit him in the stomach, or his back slamming into the wall had knocked the wind out of him.

He managed to get up on his good knee to stare down Heath. "Is that all you got? You pansy," Carter said before he spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. His hot blood sizzled against the cold concrete.

"Resourceful and tough," Heath said. "Two traits I admire in an adversary."

"Let's finish this," Carter said, but he was slow to get to his feet.

Heath stood nonchalantly, one hand on his hip, as if Carter posed no danger too him whatsoever. And Carter found Heath's demeanor to be remarkably accurate. Nothing he had done so far had been even remotely detrimental to Heath. This posed a serious problem for Carter. Even if he sacrificed himself and his friends could find some way to escape, they would only end up being hunted down and killed with the rest of the world's Users later on. Carter needed to defeat Heath; here and now.

"Whenever you're ready," Heath said.

Carter scowled, and sent his arms pumping in and out, throwing a fireball from each hand as he extended his arm. Balls of fire, the size of a fist popped out from his palm with each pump. Carter used his ability to control the balls of fire to send them arching all over the room. Each ball of fire, turned back and hit Heath at a different angle. The fire itself may not hurt the super powered User, but each ball exploded as it hit Heath, knocking him around. Heath flung forward as a ball hit him in the back of the head. Then backward as another smacked him right in the face. Then two hit him in the back, another in the legs, and one in the stomach.

Heath put his arms up defensively to cover his face, but Carter didn't relent. He kept the barrage coming, unleashing ball after ball of fire.

"How do you like that shit!" Carter shouted as fires danced over Heath from head to toe.

"Enough!" Heath swung his arms wide to his sides and the next round of fireballs bounced off a wave of telekinesis like an invisible shield.

"Shit." Carter had seen Evan bring up a shield momentarily to block one or two objects, but never anything like this.

Heath was discovering more of his powers capabilities by the second. He limped a few steps across the lab, trying to close the gap between Heath and himself before he pulled out the new move he had been practicing over the past few months. It was a Hail Mary play, but he didn't have any other tricks left in his bag.

"I'm done toying with you," Heath said. "It's time for you to die."

Heath's eyes flashed, and Carter felt a sudden compulsion to kill, not Heath, but his friends. Carter shook his head, physically trying to wipe away the thoughts. The push from Heath would have worked on a normal human, but this was not the first time someone had tried to push Carter. He had mental blocks prepared for just such an occasion. Still, Carter had no choice, but to look away from Heath. The scientist was trying to push him. To control his thoughts, and like Medusa in the Greek myths, the power was in the Pusher's eyes. Carter didn't dare lift his head.

"Kill them!" Heath growled.

"You think you're the first User to try and push me?" Carter asked. "You're going to have to try a lot harder than that."

"Well, if you won't look at me, you're going to be a lot easier to kill," Heath said.

"We'll see about that." Carter puffed out his chest, dug deep into the fiery core that was his heart, and expanded the fires within him from head to toe. He growled with exertion, and a fiery replica of his own body stepped out from him like his soul was leaving his body. A ghostly red version of himself, made of dancing flames, stood between Carter and Heath.

"He'll be my eyes," Carter said. He had made fire versions of himself before, but this time would be different. This time he could control its motions.

The fire version of Carter blasted across the room, propelled by the jet like flames coming from its feet. It hovered a few inches above the ground, moving like a ghostly apparition.

Heath laughed spread his arms wide again, no doubt throwing down another protective wall of telekinesis, but the phantom form of Carter just wafted right through it.

Without lifting his head to look upon Heath, Carter punched out, and the fiery form of Carter did the same, hitting Heath right in the face. A small explosion went off as the fist connected.

"Ouch!" Heath gasped. "How are you doing this?"