The Break (The Aesir Saga Book 1) (3 page)

       Agent Williams walked outside to the Agency sedan. Quickly starting the car and leaving the Daniels' house, he made his way to the interstate. Not wanting to waste time turned on his Bluetooth and made a call.  “Kyle, its Chris, what’s the status with the safe house?" getting the word everything was almost operational; he informed them he would be returning shortly. He hung up, merging off the interstate at exit 105, driving past the dozens of warehouses. 

     The large industrial area of Seattle had taken a hit during the time of increased terrorism. With the safety of manufacturing and shipping being of top importance, major production areas were moved to a more inland setting. The argument used was that security could be stronger if the terrorists had to be several miles inside the state. This left warehouses, apartments, and business areas vacant for years.

    Williams finally arrived at the safe house. A sign had been placed on the outside that read “closed for renovations” to keep any questions about the increased traffic down. Pressing the button on the dashboard, Williams waited while the warehouse doors opened, and he pulled in. In a few more minutes he was out of the storage area and through the security doors. Kyle was waiting to brief Williams about everything so far, his field desk somehow already cluttered with paper. 

As Williams walked in, Kyle met him, turned and matched his pace. 

“Don’t you think this is being a little much for a kid that we don’t even know has an ability yet?”

              Williams walked to one of the desk chairs, collapsing into it as Kyle took the chair next to him. “What do I always say Kyle?” 

“I know” 

“There is no such thing as being too prepared.” They said at the same time, Kyle slightly rolling his eyes at the statement.

“So, where are we now?” Williams said glancing at the equipment set up, lights blinking. 

“Since you called I have established a network link with both our home station and Agency headquarters. We should be fully mission capable in forty-five minutes. Once that happens I’ll start running through the kid’s background, cross referencing with our list of known Spartans and captured Aesir, looking for any family members, friends, stuff like that.”

"What I really need," Williams said, sitting up in his chair, "is some CCTV of that interaction with the Police."

"Right, and as I have tried to explain, CCTV doesn't grow on trees" Kyle had rolled back to his desk, checking on the status of the uplink on his computer. "The NGC doesn’t care that much about suburbia, so cameras are limited there. Worst case scenario, an Aesir wrecks a bunch of homes, and that just gives you more people who want them destroyed. Trust me, the NGC are doing the smart thing by leaving it an easy target."

"And yet they expect us to be able to conjure up a quick apprehension with no information." Williams said as he brought his hands to his face, index and middle finger on his forehead, thumbs on his cheeks. 

              Kyle spun back to face Williams, arms outstretched almost in a challenge. "If you don’t like it, you could always talk to your dad." 

              With his eyes closed, Williams took his left hand and wagged his index finger at Kyle. "Not cool, you know the rules. My father is not someone I want to have a conversation with about any subject, let alone my job."

“Oh I know, but sometimes I just can’t help myself.” Turning back to his terminal.

Williams’ father was a member of the actual council that formed the NGC, and held the rank of Knight Grand Officer. This brought a lot of pressure on Williams since everyone felt he was given everything. This drove him to be the number one team at SI9, and caused his strict no contact rule with his father. 

“Okay, give me an update if something comes up. Where’s Marcus?”

                    Kyle’s focus was already lost to his screen. “He should be getting the Maiden all set up.” he said as he indicated with a head nod toward the rear of the control room.  

              Williams rose from the chair and walked through the doors separating the control room from the hanger. There was Marcus, setting up the COSMOS maintenance platform. The creation of the pilotable robot had really been the greatest weapon the Agency had created to fight the Aesir. The pilot was sealed inside, keeping him safe from environmental hazards, as well as the abilities of others. The Maiden was a Cerberus class COSMOS system, meaning that it was a general purpose mech, able to fight as well as capture. Her hull was made of titanium, making it lightweight and durable. There were grounding wires that ran through the suit to the boots, preventing it from being overloaded with electricity. The shoulders held the main payload of the Maiden. Stored inside the left shoulder were the targeting and communication systems. The right was far more dangerous, hiding a compact mini-gun, with enough ammunition to stay in a fire fight for two hours. The hands were outfit with launch able Taser wires and a spring loaded net housed in the palm. The soles of the feet had five thrusters on the bottom, allowing him to achieve Mach 1 flight speed. 

“Somebody looks happy” Williams said as he walked toward Marcus.

“You know it boss. I just can’t wait to get into her and be back up to speed. I feel naked when I'm on this side.”

Williams knew that Marcus preferred to be in the Maiden as much as possible. When he was younger, Marcus had been a victim of an Aesir terrorist attack, which had cost him his right leg below the knee. Even with his prosthetic, he wasn’t as quick on his feet as he liked. But when he was piloting the Maiden he was the fastest thing out there.

“How long till you’re ready?” Williams asked as he looked over the various tools used for the Maiden's maintenance.

“Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be ready. Just turn me loose.”

“Not yet Marcus, we're still watching the kid. You’ll be on surveillance for a little bit first, to see if this kid even is an Aesir.”

“Roger that, boss, and when the time does comes?” Marcus asked, leaving the question hanging like an excited child. 

“I’ll turn loose the scariest thing anyone has ever seen.” Giving Marcus a wink as he walked away. 

Williams needed sleep, since they left California he had only slept two hours, the rest of the time was spent looking over the burnt car Intel and gathering evidence. Flipping the lights off as he walked into his sleeping quarters, he collapsed on his bed, falling right to sleep.

              Gabriel woke up late, having given his alarm clock the summer off. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he slept until ten. He had spent most of the night trying to find anything he could on SI9 or Agent Williams.  Gabriel couldn't find any actual information, but a website kept coming up as the most related search. When he clicked on it, it took him to a white screen and a question. "Why are you special?" Below that was the answer text box and a submit button. Gabriel wasn't shocked he couldn't find any info about a government agency. One of the first things the NGC did was censor the Internet of any and all information about government groups, activities, and employees. It was said this was done to keep those people and buildings safer, but there were conspiracy nuts who labeled this as a sign of big brother.  

              Giving up on his search for now, Gabriel decided to finally getting dressed and head down stairs. His dad was already gone, having already completed two hours of work before Gabriel even woke up. A new note was left on the fridge, laying out the chores that were expected of him that day. His mom had added to the bottom, letting him know she was running errands, and wouldn’t be back ‘til dinner. He had the house to himself, and was not going to waste this golden opportunity doing chores. 

              Feeling hungry, he decided he was in the magic brunch hour, and made himself a sandwich, which he ate between rounds of online multiplayer on his Xbox. Sitting in his computer chair he was in the middle of a match, which he was winning by a huge amount, when there was a pop from the system, and it immediately powered off.

              "Oh, what the fuck?" Gabriel turned the system back on, where he was met with an error message and the traditionally green power light was now red. "Come on you piece of shit, work!" he pleaded as he unplugged the entire system, waited several seconds, re-plugged everything, finally powering it back on. The lights came up red again, showing the error message on his screen, shattering his hopes for an easy fix. "Fuck-ing work!" He bellowed in a deep voice, somehow hoping the console understood him and would fix the error of its ways. When his next attempt to turn it on gave him the same outcome, Gabriel stood up, banging on the system, turning it off then back on, now locked in a battle of wills with the broken system. Each time the lights went red, displaying the same error message. 

              Gabriel could feel his anger rising, finally spilling out, unable to control himself. "God damn it!" he yelled as he threw the controller against the wall. It shattered when it hit, sending pieces of plastic everywhere. 

              His anger was peaking now, not only did his system not work, but now his controller was broken too. Gabriel could feel himself getting lost in his anger, looking for other things to take his frustrations out on. He kicked his chair, sending it to the floor, rolling to its side before coming to a stop. The empty pop cans becoming his next target, flying across the room, spilling whatever contents were left. Gabriel’s anger grew, and as it did he could feel his fingers itch, which only fueled his rage further.

              With nothing left to throw, he eyed his desk, which looked like the final victim. Raising his fist into the air, he let out a frustrated scream as he brought it down on the surface. "Aauuggh!"

              His fist burst into flames, the fire rising from his hand like a piece of wood in a campfire. 

"Jesus Christ!" 

              Gabriel pulled his hand off the desk, seeing the charred fist mark left there. His brain tried to make sense of what he was seeing. White hot flames jumped from his fist, but he felt no heat, no pain. He lifted his hand to eye level, and released his fist, watching as the fire danced between his fingers, the blaze refusing to die out. As he stared, his breathing increased in speed, his anger melting away to shock and bewilderment. Gabriel stood there, wiggling his fingers and watched as the fire moved with them. As his anger faded, so did the fire, till finally it ended with a release of crackling sparks. 

              As soon as it was over, Gabriel knew he had to do that again. He began banging his hand on the desk, hitting it harder and harder, trying to make his hand catch on fire. He finally smashed his hand as hard as he could against the wall.

"Son of a bitch!" He pulled his hand close to his body, his whole hand throbbing from the pain. There was a new odor in his room, and its arrival stung his nostrils. It had the odor of something burning, and as he looked around he couldn't see anything that looked like it was on fire. He finally spotted the source when his eyes crossed the mirror in his room. His shirt was on fire! 

"Shit" he yelled, pulling his shirt off and throwing it to the ground. He stepped on it over and over, until the fire was gone. Now Gabriel had a hurt hand and another burnt shirt. "This is way easier in the comics."

              He picked up his chair and sat down, looking at his hand. Ok, Gabriel thought, in the comics there was always a key word that activated the hero's power. So, let’s try this another way. Raising his hand back up in front of his face, he ran through every option he could think of. "Go fire." Nothing. "Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em." His hand just started back at him. "This is stupid. Why won’t you work?" Gabriel was getting frustrated, he couldn’t make it happen, and nothing seemed to start it. "This is pointless." He was about to put his hand down when he noticed the faint glow to. "Ok, how the hell did I do that?" The glow faded away. "Fuck." The fire came back, this time brighter, a flame jumping from his fingertips. My anger, he thought to himself, that’s how I make it happen. Gabriel though about all the things that made him angry, all the names people had called him. The fire grew brighter, the flame dancing higher. "This is awesome!" 

              For the next few days Gabriel didn’t do much. He spent any free time he had experimenting with his new found ability. He started to get pretty good at making it appear when he wanted. He would focus on all the things that would make him angry and soon his fingers would itch and the fire would dance to life. Gabriel even went so far as to start using his power to cook hot pockets, toast, and fry an egg or two in a frying pan. His mom had started showing a concern that he was spending too much time in his room. He hadn’t talked to Amber in days, even though she had tried calling him all week.

              While looking for things to burn in his room, Gabriel came across Agent Williams’ business card. Looking at it brought the memory of that white website with its one question back to his mind. Logging on to his computer he pulled up his history and clicked on the link. There was the familiar question with its empty text box. Gabriel clicked the text field and began to type. He paused after finishing only "I". 

              What if this was one of the ways this SI9 group caught people? 

              Sitting staring at the blinking cursor, Gabriel was torn. He wanted to tell somebody, anybody, even this stupid website about his power. But he didn’t want to be picked up by Agent Williams and his people, either. After what felt like forever debating his choices, Gabriel finished typing his answer. He didn’t care where this went; he just wanted to tell someone about how awesome it was. His answer to the question sat in front of him “I can create fire from my hand”, deciding on those words because they were the easiest to understand. Gabriel took a deep breath and clicked submit. The screen changed to just a flat white, no more words, no text box, no submit button. Gabriel began to panic as he thought he had chosen poorly. After about a minute, two words began fading in on the screen. “Thank you.”

"Thank you? What does that mean? Am I fucked, or not?" Gabriel asked the two words. With no response coming from the pixels, he pushed himself away from his computer, a sense of impending doom beginning to wash over him. Just as he flopped his head back in exasperation, his computer give the all too familiar sound of a new email. Gabriel eagerly clicked the new message, and was greeted with a short, but disturbing message. 

“Hello Gabriel, we need to talk, soon. – Ma'at”