Undisclosed (9 page)

The ringer chimed and the elevator doors opened. Travis kept his eyes fixed on the figures that were now hastily moving in his direction. Travis quickly stepped into the elevator and slapped the close button. The place was starting to give him the creeps and he preferred not to be trapped inside an elevator with a couple of strangers; he’d had his fill of weirdos. The elevator slowly rose upwards like an old bucket being reeled up a well.
If it moves any slower, I might as well drink the ice water, as that’s all there’s going be
, Travis thought as sweat dripped down his back.

The third floor wasn’t much better; lights flickered and something smelled rancid, Travis thought as he traipsed back to his room clutching the ice bucket in one arm. He was but a few yards from his room when he felt a tug. A hand wrapped around his mouth and hauled him into the stairwell, muffling his yell.

“Sshh,” the voice whispered, keeping a firm grip over his mouth and a tight arm wrapped around him, preventing the bucket from falling. Travis tried to catch a glimpse of the person, but their bear-hugging strength kept him from doing anything more than peering over his hand. He felt his feet touch the ground as he was pulled down towards the floor.

“Lincoln, the door,” a girl said.

That voice
.

It was the girl he’d heard the night of the crash. A boy, similar in height to Travis but slightly older, with hair swept back behind his ears, swiftly moved ahead and grasped the door, preventing it from slamming. The boy shot a quick glance down the hallway before closing the door.

The girl came into view, crouching at Travis’s side. “Okay, I think you can stop suffocating him, Mason,” she said. Travis took in a large breath as he felt himself being released. He slammed backwards against the cold iron stairwell and that’s when he saw them.

His eyes danced between the three figures facing him. There was the girl in tight-fitting pants, a handgun strapped to her upper leg, her jet-black hair hanging down—the same girl he had seen in the car outside The Daily Grind. The other larger boy with her, the one that was glaring at him and had practically broken his ribs, was tall, muscular, with shaved hair and a stubble face. Before he could get a good look at the third boy, the girl spoke.

“Where is it?” the girl demanded.

“What are you going on about?” Travis said.

“Great! Told you he didn’t know, now can I go crack some heads?” Mason said, moving up to the door. “Lincoln, what do you think?”

The other boy, Lincoln, spun around. “Uh, I think we better speed this up; they’re on the move and their heading this way.”

Lincoln and Mason ducked down and pulled back from the door.

“Stay quiet,” the girl said, moving close to him and touching her fingers against Travis’s lips as she looked in the direction of the door. And then it happened; her eyes turned from a shocking blue to completely liquid black with not a speck of white to be seen.

Travis couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He looked over at the other two, and their eyes had changed too.

Travis knew this wasn’t going to end well. Whoever these drug-fueled psycho maniacs were it didn’t look like they were going to settle for anything less than what they came to get, and he wasn’t going to stick around to find out what that was. He knew his only hope was to make a break for it.

Travis sprang up, knocking the girl back, and launched the ice at the other two as he bolted out the door and fell headfirst onto the corridor floor.

Turning towards his room, maybe only six doors away, the two men paused for a moment, studying him before they began their approach. Travis scrambled to his feet and darted in the other direction, his heart thumping in his chest. He had barely made it a few feet when he felt himself being hurtled in the air down the corridor by an invisible force. When he slammed into a gurney, pain shot up his neck and blood splattered as the metal tore through his skin. He turned to see Mason and Lincoln stepping in between him and the men.

“Get him out of here,” Lincoln yelled, motioning to the girl who was already heading his way.

“Guardians!” one of the men hissed.

Travis saw flames emerge from Mason’s palms. Bright swirls of blue and yellow tongues coiled their way around his wrists and in an instant he hurled the mass of fire through the air at the men, sending one careening backwards.

The other man reacted in fury, casting an entire gurney as if it was nothing more than a child’s toy.

When the girl reached him, she took a hold of Travis’s arm and hoisted him up.

“What the hell is going on?” Travis yelled

“You’re in the middle of a war—now, MOVE!” she hollered.

They took off towards the window at the far end of the corridor. Before they reached it she extended her arm towards the window. It shattered as if an invisible hammer had struck the glass, sending shards flying. Attached to the wall was a red metal cabinet containing a fire hose. She raised her hand, gave it a quick flick of the wrist, and the door tore off its hinges.

“Grab the hose and wrap it around you. I can’t hold us both up.”

He clutched the hose and threw it around his waist, tying it in a knot.

“Now jump.”

“Are you frigging crazy?” he said. “That’s three stories.”

She didn’t wait to debate it; Travis felt a wall of air shove him out into the rain-filled night. He heard the whirl of the hose’s reel spinning as gravity drew him down and then a sudden jolt of pain as he reached the end of the hose and his body collided with the wall. Travis was about two feet above the ground and was in the process of prying himself loose when he saw her pass him. She hit the ground like she had stepped off a curb, her one arm extended down as if somehow bracing and slowing her fall. She straightened up in one motion and moved towards him without batting an eye, as if jumping out of three-story buildings was the norm.

Freeing himself from the snake-like hose, Travis dropped to the ground, feeling even more bruised and battered than when he had gone into the hospital. As they advanced towards a dark Mustang, rain pounded against their faces, drenching them and soaking through their clothing. Trying to ignore the burning stitch in his side, he gasped for breath as they got closer to the car park. Out the corner of his eye he saw a man climbing out of a van, dressed the same as the men he saw in the corridor. The girl spotted him and pulled the two handguns from her side and unleashed an eruption of bullets, but the man kept coming while the bullets simply ricocheted off him.

“Here,” she cried out, slinging a set of keys to him with one hand while continuing to let out a repetitious burst of bullets with the gun in the other. Travis caught them and dived into the driver’s side. The Mustang’s engine roared to life and the wheels spun against the wet surface as he hit the throttle. The man continued to swat the bullets to the side as though they were nothing more than annoying flies.

Travis swerved the car around. The passenger door flew open but it was too late. The air appeared to warp between them as she flew up into the air and then crashed against the windscreen of a car nearby. She wasn’t moving.

Travis was horrified; he was at a total loss for what to do or even to what he was seeing. This was impossible!

The man’s eyes turned to Travis, and his lip curled before he leaped onto the front of the car. Travis jammed the stick into reverse and smashed the accelerator. The car screeched as it shot backwards. The man sailed, his body twisting and turning in the air only to land like a pro gymnast.

A sudden crunch of metal and Travis whipped forward, cracking his head against the steering wheel. The car had backed into another vehicle in the lot and stalled. Blood trickled down the side of his face as he lifted his head and gazed out.

Struggling to see through the rain slashing the night sky he could see the silhouette of the man approaching. Travis turned the ignition and it let out a weak splutter, another and then another. A sudden crack of thunder startled him, making his heart pound with even more fear.

“Come on,” he croaked, hitting his fist against the steering wheel. His strength was gone, worn down, and he was barely able to muster up enough effort to get out. He forced the door open and fell out onto the soaked pavement that had become like a shallow river. It took every last drop of energy in him to haul himself up and attempt to run, but it was pointless. His body was struck by the wall of air catapulting him along the lot floor to the front of a stationary van.

Beneath the downpour he gave a look of resignation. The man was almost upon him when his body jerked and convulsed, enveloped by waves of crackling electricity. He let out a sickening, guttural cry and then dropped. Coming into view behind him was Lincoln, blue and white lines of light crackling in short intervals from his extended hands. At his side was Mason, holding the girl’s limp body in his arms.

Mason pivoted. “Let’s go.”

“We can’t leave him here,” Lincoln said, his eyes fixed on Travis.

Mason scowled. “Why the hell not? He hasn’t got it, and you know the rules.”

“We’ll let Jack decide that. For now he’s coming with us,” Lincoln said as he hoisted Travis up. “Anyway, who knows what he’s got locked up in that head of his.”

Lincoln eased Travis into the backseat of the Mustang. His body rested up against the girl, who was still out cold.

“I can’t believe he messed my baby up,” Mason said bitterly as he turned over the ignition, bringing it to life.

“Ah, get over it; this is a piece of junk,” Lincoln said, smirking as he climbed into the passenger side.

“JUNK?” Mason yelled. “I’ll have you know this is a one of a kind, they don’t make them like this anymore.”

Lincoln chuckled. “That’s for sure.”

Mason grunted and then the car tore away. Lamppost lights seemed to streak in the darkness as Travis repeatedly peeked out beneath his heavy eyelids.

Travis could feel the warmth and the rumble of the car lulling him to sleep, but he strained to keep his eyes open. He turned sideways toward the girl and gave her a long, inquisitive look. Against the glimmer of the streetlights that continually flashed as they made their way along the road, she had a calm beauty to her. He could see a few cuts and bruises on her face and wondered if she’d be okay. His mind cast back to the Medical Center and the moment she put her fingers against his lips, and when her eyes had turned from brilliant blue to oily black. Who was she? Who were they? And why were the men after him? There had to be some logical reason to what he was seeing. There was no way people could display the type of power he had witnessed tonight unless they were using some form of technology, or maybe it was all mind tricks, something he only thought he was seeing, damage caused by the crash in the desert.

Eventually his thoughts drifted, and so did the sound of Lincoln and Mason quibbling back and forth over muscle cars as he felt his consciousness ebbing away, dreamlike images flickering, and he eventually closed his eyes.

Chapter Eight

The doors slid open and one of the men from the Medical Center fell forward, pushed from behind by another. Harlan Kaine stood with his back to them, his hands locked together behind him. His gaze fixed on the workers beyond the window who were milling around in the LANL parking lot.

“Like ants, so unaware, so busy doing, never questioning. I sent you to complete a simple task,” he said. “And. You. Couldn’t. Even do that.”

“He had help, Mr. Kaine,” the man said, in defense. “Guardians.”

He spun around. “Guardians? In Los Alamos?”

“Three of them.”

Kaine strolled over to him, his arm slipping around his shoulders. “Oh, had I known Guardians were going to be there, I would never have sent you,” he said as he guided him around the table and sat him in his leather seat. He kneaded the man’s shoulders from behind as he sat in Harlan’s chair. “Take a load off, have a cigar, it must have been awful.”

“Yes. It …” he stuttered.

The man’s eyes narrowed as a horror spread across his face. He began to look physically uncomfortable, unable to move his body as his eyes shifted from normal to pitch black and then ever so slowly beads of blood began to form around his eyes. Out of his ears and eyes blood began to stream and then gush down, covering his entire face. Kaine’s eyes remained fixed on the other in the room, his hands tightly gripped on his shoulders while the remaining color in the man’s face disappeared.

Kaine pulled a handkerchief from his suit jacket breast pocket and wiped the blood dripping from the backs of his hands.

He gave the other man a warning stare. “Get him out.”

“Yes, sir.” The man hurried over, removing the limp, blood-stained man from the chair and hauling his lifeless body out.

Kaine tapped his desk. “Susanne, get hold of my son.”

“Yes, Mr. Kaine,” a female voice replied.

* * * * *

Where am I?
Travis thought as he slowly came to. He pried one eye open, then the next, blinking and squeezing his eyelids tightly, repeatedly, as he tried to wake up. He was lying on top of a single grey cotton bed, and as he moved he felt a dull ache in the small of his back. The mattress was hard and smelled musty; in fact, it wasn’t just the bed that stank, the entire place had an odor like an old garage with rotting electronics. To his side there was a lamp turned on, a side table and several cabinets strewn around the room. There was little light coming in from the few windows that had been painted haphazardly with streaks of black paint.