Kinetics (8 page)

“He would have succeeded if not for
Acumen and Fade.  Acumen is Sam's code name. Fade is another teleporter, but
she has been gone for some time now.  I don't think you'll meet her.  They
killed the Mod and brought me here.  Fade raised me until she left."

"Why did she leave?" I sat on
the edge of my seat hanging on every word.

"No one knows.  It was about a year
ago, she was just gone one night." He looked devastated. 

Sam returned with Kenny and swapped him
for Rachel.  Before long he had brought her back and with the help of a male
nurse, carried Ronnie out of the room.

"He seems nice enough." He sat
with Sandy, who would be next.

"Acumen is like a father to a lot
of us." Silence smiled.

We all sat quietly and waited for the
next step.  Ronnie looked like a million bucks when he came back and Sam
brought a shirt for Rachel to change into, hers being covered in blood. 

Sandy didn't take long.  Lastly Sam took
the twins together.

~//~

Sam came back to the room after a short while;
the twins however didn't return.

"Where are Mike and Mary?" Rachel
demanded. 

"They are on a flight to New York
City.  There is a family there that wanted to adopt a child and they were
ecstatic to be able to adopt twins." Sam looked sorry, but confident. 

"Wait, you just sent them
away?" I protested. 

"Don’t worry; they will be taken care
of.  If we hadn’t sent them now it would have been just that much longer before
we can leave for a warmer climate."

"But we didn't even get to say
goodbye." Rachel was very upset.

"Don't worry Rachel, this is not
goodbye.  They are in good hands and you will see them again.  I promise."
He stopped and took a breath.

"But!" Rachel pleaded.

"I'm sorry.  I am very sorry that
it had to be this way.  I promise that you will see them again, soon." he looked
genuinely sorry.

Sam paced, gathering his thoughts for a
few moments.    

"Care to explain what's going
on?" I started. 

He took a deep breath.  "Well, let
me start by saying that it's nice to meet all of you.  We call ourselves
The
Last Line
.  As far back as the Salem Witch Trials we have been here to
protect users from humans and humans from users in one form or another."

"Are you with the government or
what?" Kenny, the ever paranoid, asked.

"No, we are affiliated with the
government and we do get some funding from them, but otherwise no.  We found
that with the government, no matter how hard they try, there always seems to be
a few corrupted politicians.  After a few incidents where they tried to use us
as an end to their means, we decided that it would not have a place in our
organization."

"We work together trying to make
the world a safer place for people like us.  Look, I'll be honest with you; we
have never rescued more than two people at one time.   We are not really
prepared.  We didn’t get a whole lot of notice from Zach."

"What is going to happen to
us?" Rachel asked.

“We have a complex in North America
where we have set up a small community.  There we will train you to properly control
your abilities and meld into a social environment.  We also think that
education is very important so we will make sure that you have a strong
foundation.  We will also provide you with pathways to pursue higher
education.” Sam explained.

“Sounds great.” I wasn’t really excited
but I wanted to get some sleep that wasn’t medicinally induced.   

"When can we get a meal?"
Ronnie rubbed his stomach.

"There are a couple cooks working
right now."

"Well, alright then." Ronnie
sat down.

"We aren't staying here in
Alaska?" I asked.

"Oh no, no it's far too cold
here." Sam acted like he was shivering.

"Good to hear." Sandy said.

Sam's phone chirped.  He took it from
his pocket and looked at the screen.  "The food is ready.  So let's go get
something to eat." he motioning for us to follow him.

I didn't know how to react to what was happening. 
These people went from soldiers to normal people in the blink of an eye.  Like
someone had flipped a switch.

The dining room wasn't big; one long
table ran down the center.  The five of us, Sam, and Silence all took a tray
and filled them with the different foods that the cooks prepared.  We had a
Thanksgiving Day feast on each of our plates.

For the first few minutes everyone just
ate.  Silence finally broke the silence, "You'll like Eastcroft, it’s a good
place to live."

"Where is it?" I asked between
bites.

"It's in the mountains of
Colorado.  Twenty years ago the town was built as support for an observatory. 
We found that it was a great spot for us to set up shop." Sam explained.

"How many people live there?"
Ronnie asked.

"A few hundred; it's about a three
hour drive to any large city.  Most of the people that live in Eastcroft work
for us, or run one of the shops in the town, or teach in the school." Sam
explained.

"When are we going to leave?"
Ronnie asked mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"In the morning."

~//~

I never wanted to fly in a small one
engine plane again.  It was the most terrifying experience in my life.  Every
little bit of chop made me dig my fingernails into Ronnie's leg and then he
would hiss in pain. 

"Sorry."

"Its alright." he grunted
through clenched teeth.

The plane was so small we could only fit
five people besides the pilot in the thing.  Rachel had to catch the next
flight which I could look out the window and see it bobbing around behind us.

We passed over miles of towns,
mountains, and fields.  The fifteen hour flight seemed like it took far
longer.  We had to land twice to fuel.

"There it is." Sam pointed to
the left side of the plane to a crescent shaped mountain formation.

The first thing that I could see was the
observatory.  It sat on top of the mountain and we had to look up out of the
windows to see it.  The landing on top of the mountain was very rundown.  One
of the two large satellite dishes had collapsed and damaged one of the two
buildings that rested on the landing. 

The town itself was small and tucked
back into the base of the mountain itself.  Outside of the edge of the mountain
was a small airport, or dirt strip anyway, that had zero traffic.  There was
one road leading out of the town, and I would barely call it a paved road.  It
merged into a better two lane road that curved back around to the other side of
the mountain. 

Trees were thick in all directions and
there was a small lake centered in the woods on the opposite side of the
mountain.

The whole place almost looked man made.

"What is so special about this
place?" Ronnie asked.

"Well besides being for sale when
we were looking and very cheap.  The mountains are perfect for a device that is
designed to mask Kinetic brain waves from Aurora tracking systems." Sam
grinned with pride at the sight of the rundown town.

The pilot swung the plane around and
lined us up with the runway for a landing, "Eastcroft, this is LL01
requesting clearance for landing." the pilot said into his radio.

He pushed on the steering wheel forcing
the nose of the plane down and I couldn't help but dig my nails in more as the
plane thrashed around in the wind.

"First thing we are going to do is
get your nails cut." Ronnie grabbed the back of his leg. 

I couldn't ease up at all.

The wheels touched down and rocked
violently on the uneven ground beneath us, "I'm so sorry Ronnie." I pried
my fingers from his flesh.

"I hope you guys are ready for
this." Sam opened his door and climbed out of the passenger seat. 

The pilot remained.

"I don't know what I'm ready for
anymore." I followed Ronnie out, Kenny and Sandy following behind me.

We left the hanger through a long
hallway that led to a door built into the rock.  The door exited out onto a
street, where an SUV sat parked on the shoulder.  The sun was falling behind
the mountains making it hard to tell what the time was.

We all crammed into the SUV.  Silence
and Hothead helped Vanish into another small car before speeding off into town
without a word.

"Where are we going?  I would love
to get a shower." Sandy said from the backseat.         "We have had
people working all day to prepare a house for the bunch of you to move into and
it’s ready so we are going there right away.” Sam said.

We drove down an outer road that was
hardly paved.  It went around the far outreaches of the small town right up against
the base of the mountain range.  He pulled into the driveway of a two story
house with large windows on the second floor and on either side of the front
door.  The rest of the house lacked windows altogether.

“Why are there no windows on the rest of
the house?” Sandy took the words right out of my mouth.

"The sun never hits those parts of
the house.  There are three bedrooms, so there will be sharing.  There is a
full kitchen and two full bathrooms on the first floor.  There is a computer
and a TV, but the computer is a little old.  We are working on getting you some
money so you can go out and buy clothes, laptops, whatever you need to feel
like home." Sam put the truck into park and cut the engine.

We all climbed out of the truck and went
inside.  It was medically sterilized and the furniture looked like it had never
been used. 

I went up the stairs.  There was a landing
with five huge bay windows and three doors.  Ronnie, Kenny, and Sandy all
climbed up a second set of stairs on the other side of the landing.  They all
looked happy, something I hadn’t seen, ever.

"Who gets their own room?"
Kenny asked.

"We share." Ronnie smacked
Kenny on the back of the head.

"Sandy? Rachel?" I asked.

"You take it Grace." Sandy
said.

"Yeah, I'm good to share." Rachel
walked into the middle room followed by Sandy.

I walked into the last room with the
feeling that no one wanted to be too close to me, just in case.  The room
wasn't small; two beds could comfortably fit and have plenty of room for other
furniture.  The bed was pushed up against the back wall and the dresser was
placed at the end of the bed.  There were no windows.  A thick blanket was
folded on the bed and two pillows were stacked behind it against the headboard.

I sat down on the bed and folded my
hands in my lap.  I looked around the room.  I was supposed to call this home
now.  My home before was not the greatest, but I knew it as a norm.  I had no
idea anymore what a normal life was or if I would ever have one again. 

I looked up to see Ronnie standing in
the door way.

"Hey." He said when he saw me
look.

"Hi." I said quietly. 

"What do you think?" he walked
into the room.  He leaned against the wall next to the bed.

"I think that we have a chance to be
normal." I said, “Whatever that may be.”

"I think that our current situation
puts us just about as far from normal as you can get.  I think that we need to
be careful." He looked at the back of his hand.

"Think about it Ronnie.  Yeah we’re
different now, but everyone around us is different too, we can take this chance
to fit in, and maybe stop acting so, well for lack of a better word,
different.  In being different we are now just a new group of students, kids,
people to join this community.”

"I see.  That's an interesting way
of looking at it and you know what? I like it."

We left the room and went down stairs. 
Sam was in the kitchen with his head in the fridge.  He heard us walk into the
room so he closed the door and turned around.

"I have gathered some clothes for
all of you.  It's nothing too stylish but it'll have to do until we have a
chance to go into the city." He pointed to the couch where some bags were
piled.

"Well, I call first shower." I
grabbed the bag marked Grace.  The two bathrooms were at the back of the
house. 

Inside the bathroom, the smell of
cleaner filled my nose and bright white tile blinded me.  I looked into the
mirror and traced my face with my eyes.  I held out my hands and I tried to use
my abilities.  I closed my eyes and tried to go back to that desert that I had
seen back at the Aurora facility.  I tried to force fire out of my hands but
nothing happened.

I got frustrated and let my arms fall to
my side.  I figured that with some practice that I should be able to use my
abilities again, but if I couldn't I wondered if Sam would make me leave?  I
started the water and got into the shower letting the water flow over my body,
washing the filth away.