Daniel Peterson

  I cradled the strange kid in my arms as I sat in an office room. We were at the top floor of the ASA regional headquarters. It wasn’t the safest place to be, but everywhere looked worse.

  I had been camping in one of the nearby buildings, trying to figure out what to do, when I heard an explosion, and the entire world turned into flying rubble. I let my instincts take over, and I was teleporting so fast that I couldn’t even keep up with it. Then a blink later, I was near the roof of the ASA watching the rest of the city collapse around me.

  There was a huge dust cloud, and the noise of everything falling apart hurt my ears. I could only look in horror at the devastation. I could never really picture a nuclear bomb going off, but I guess this was close enough. I waited for the rumbling to stop, and after things settled, I was alone with the kid in the dark office floor.

  The kid wasn’t in good shape. I knew that much, at least. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit, not unlike what prisoners would wear. Except instead of a muscular tattooed criminal, this kid seemed to be one hamburger short of dropping dead. But even that didn’t concern me as much as the bizarre implants that were fastened along his body.

  I didn’t know how much cybernetic technology had advanced in the Democratic Union, and I didn’t really want to know. But this kid was something else. There were what I presumed to be feeding tubes all over his stomach. And there were deep metal sockets in his arms and the back of his shaved head.

  He was alive and breathing, but how much more than that was anyone’s guess. And I had no clue what made this pasty kid so special that he had been locked up in some sort of ultra secret laboratory.

  And then again, maybe I didn’t want to know.

  The class system went one through five. Though it would be astronomically rare, I suppose there could also be class sixes and above. There wasn’t anything that theoretically stopped it, at least not that I knew of. It was possible—though extremely unlikely—there could be a person born out there who could destroy a country or maybe even the whole planet if he wanted to.

  Maybe the kid I held in my arms was a monster who could somehow destroy the whole world. Maybe the best bet was to find a gun and put a bullet in his brain for everyone else’s safety. I won’t lie. I thought about it. It was one of those gruesome thoughts that wriggled into your head because it felt like a sin to even think them.

  But as I looked down at this kid, I couldn’t see anything other than a ten-year-old. Maybe I was holding the destroyer of the world in my arms. Maybe I wasn’t. And if this kid was that dangerous, did the world really deserve to be saved? The second option was that I let this kid go loose, and if he burned the Democratic Union to the ground, wasn’t that a good thing?

  This country was sick and rotten, and the world was probably even more so. I didn’t know why I was so scared for it. Maybe because even if we burnt it all down, the world wouldn’t get the do-over we all wanted. If there’s anything that living in the Democratic Union taught me, it’s that the end of the world is usually the start of a worse one.

  And then there was the third possibility. If the kid really was that dangerous, how did he get caught in the first place? Did he get caught? How did I know this wasn’t some clone or test-tube baby? Maybe he was some other third thing. Something that wouldn’t change the world at all.

  There was so much I didn’t know, and so much was riding on a decision I was the least qualified to make.

  A minute passed, and no convenient answers appeared.

  I finally sighed, letting the tension out of me. Fuck it. I wasn’t a child killer. Or at the least, I didn’t have the right to make that call. And as I realized, I didn’t believe in saving the world anyway. That is what every fucking person has told me all my life, but it’s not true. You don’t “save” the world. The world just moves on, with or without you. And more often than not, it’s you who needs to be saved from the world. From wasting your life on all the bullshit.

  I’ve done awful, horrible things for the millions of people in the Democratic Union. And I made the best decision in my entire life for the sake of one guy.

  Funny how that so often works.

  So I stayed hidden, keeping a lookout for Adam Mason. I hoped he wasn’t dead. I wanted to tell him that I did what he asked. I got everyone out. And no matter what happened, what we did here wasn’t all in vain.

  We did it. We actually fucking did it.

  I exhaled, letting the realization wash over me. We won. We actually won. Even if the ASA and CitySec and all the rest came marching in at this instant, it wouldn’t undo the damage. We had made our stand here, and now it was over.

  I waited in darkness for a while—waiting for a sign I guess. Every passing second just felt surreal. I didn’t know how to process everything that had happened, didn’t know what to do. I was just in a daze, not the least because I was nearing my teleporting limit. Even as I wanted to pump my arms in the air, I had to fight waves of nausea and dizziness. I think I had a bad nose bleed, but I was so covered in blood and so exhausted that I couldn’t tell.

  My heart rose in my chest when I finally noticed a flying speck in the damaged city scape. I squinted my eyes, and I knew it was Mason. But damned if he didn’t look bad. He was covered in more blood and debris and ash than I was—and that was saying something. He seemed in one piece, but he was battered, and he looked like he had gone through hell and back. From the top floor, I saw the tiny speck of Adam touch down on the concrete and he began digging.

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  I hesitated to teleport over. I didn’t want to put the kid in the crosshairs of whoever else was coming, but I was also afraid to leave him alone. Too much was quiet now. Too much was still. I guess I was just holding my breath for the next bad thing to happen, and then I got it. I don’t know whether I jinxed myself or not, but I heard the whisper of a voice of Seattle Vance shouting down below.

  “That’s a lot of damage! Do you think you got it all out of your system!?”

  I could barely hear it. I knew if I wanted to eavesdrop on the conversation, I would have to go many floors down. It was a risk, but I needed to know what was going on. I held the kid tight as I teleported to a better spot in the shadows that overlooked the whole scene.

  Closer up, Adam Mason looked no better standing in the rubble. But he was alive, I guess. So there was that.

  “I really like your fashion choice! It’s very minimalist!” Seattle shouted.

  “Just stop with the bullshit! Where’s my serum you promised!?” Adam yelled back. “I did exactly what you wanted me to!”

  “I would love to give it to you, but I ran into some trouble! Where’s your friend, Daniel Peterson!?”

  “I have no fucking idea!”

  “Well…” Seattle hesitated. “Can you place a call!?”

  Adam looked down where his clothes should’ve been, and the question answered itself. Then I heard a voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Enough! Either Peterson appears, or I blow Vance’s head off!”

  I strained my eyes, and behind Vance, I saw the same man in the black uniform from earlier. He was holding the sonic cannon to Seattle’s back. I gripped the kid more tightly as I realized this was the result of my fucking around. Whoever this guy was, I had thrown a wrench in his plan, and now he was gunning for Mason. I could only hope Adam was up for round two—or three. I had lost track of many beatings the man had been through.

  Adam was quiet for a moment, and then he shrugged his shoulders, confused. “Okay!? I don’t really know him!?”

  There was an awkward moment of silence. I stifled a laugh as I saw Seattle panic and cry out before he got shot. Yeah, now who was being fucked with.

  “Wait! Wait!” Seattle waved his arms. “I die, and you don’t get your serum. All of this will have been for nothing! Use your super senses to find your friend!”

  Adam spat on the rubble. “Serum now, or I don’t do shit! And none of us will get what we want!”

  To tell the truth, I was perfectly fine letting this play out. I didn’t give a damn about Vance, and it looked like Adam had the situation under control. That was, until the man in the black uniform jumped off the side of the building and fell at least fifty feet to the ground.

  He landed unfazed and walked right up to Mason. He grabbed him and put the sonic cannon to his head.

  “I’m tired of this. Daniel Peterson! I assume you’re watching right now! Come out with the kid, or your friend dies!”

  I chuckled quietly at the absurdity, but it became far less funny when Adam couldn’t break the guy’s grip. My eyes widened as I realized Adam had finally been pushed to his limit, and now it was do or die.

  “You have until the count of three!” The guy in the black uniform yelled. “One!”

  I was down there faster than you could blink, but I left the kid behind. I wasn’t just about to hand him over.

  I raised my hands in surrender. “All right, let’s talk.”

  Standing face to face in the strewn rubble, I wish I could’ve seen what the other guy was thinking. He wore a black mask with a visor. I didn’t know anything about what I was dealing with except that this guy was bad news.

  Lightning crackled. The rain was pattering around us, but the storm seemed to be weakening. Even so, the raindrops fell upon my head like tiny weights. I was tired, I was so very tired. I just wanted to drop dead.

  “Hand the kid over!” The guy in the black uniform ordered. “Hand him over, and I let you two live!”

  I thought about teleporting to Mason and grabbing him away, but black uniform’s finger was pressed against the trigger. It would only take a twitch, and with Adam looking as he did, I just didn’t know if he could take it. He might’ve been in one piece, but he was absolutely drenched in blood. His eyes looked like someone had tried to claw them out. There were gashes along his body like his flesh itself had been burst open.

  He looked like he was on death’s door already, and I didn’t want to risk it.

  “One!” The guy in the black uniform shouted again.

  “Don’t give him what he wants!” Adam struggled against black uniform guy. “I can take it!” he yelled, trying to egg me into teleporting him out.

  “If your friend thought that, he would’ve already tried to rescue you.” He told Mason, and then he looked up to me. “I can’t say whether this won’t pop your friend’s head open like a smashed pumpkin, but I’m excited to try. You wanna roll those dice?” black uniform asked me.

  I stuttered. “And what would you do with the kid, huh!? What was that laboratory down there! Why do you want him so bad!?” I tried stalling for time.

  “That’s none of your concern! Two!”

  I gritted my teeth. Why did it all have to come to this? Where was that higher power when you needed him most? Adam Mason was the only friend I had in City 57—maybe the whole world. I didn’t want to lose him, not after all this. He was dying, and I still would’ve traded my life for his in a heartbeat.

  I just couldn’t lose another friend. I had nothing left except him.

  Adam looked at me and slowly shook his head.

  I was quiet for a moment, realizing this was it. I sighed. “I did what you asked, Adam. I got the kids out.”

  I wished I had something more to say, but that seemed to be enough for him. He closed his eyes and gave a weak smile. I saw a look of happiness on his face, and I realized he had found a good way to die. He was okay with this. And if he was okay, then so was I.

  “Three!”

  I braced to teleport. And if I left holding his corpse, then that was it.

  Okay. Let’s do it.

  I blinked, but I didn’t teleport. Suddenly, there was another stranger in a black uniform standing next to Mason and the guy holding him hostage.

  “We got him,” he said, placing a hand on the first guy.

  I stepped forward, confused. “What?”

  And they were gone. Adam fell to the ground, but I didn’t catch him. My thoughts raced in my head faster than my body could react. I stumbled and teleported back up to where I had left the child, only to discover he was missing. I screamed in rage as I realized they had another teleporter on their team. Maybe he was there from the beginning. Maybe he got called in as soon as I took the kid.

  It didn’t matter.

  I had been played. I should’ve ran out of there with the kid as fast as I could. But no, I had to be stupid and forget other people had superpowers too!

  I teleported around as fast as I could, hoping to catch a trace of them so I could follow their trail. But my moment’s hesitation and going back to check for the kid cost me. I searched desperately for several minutes, popping in and out of reality everywhere, practically spewing blood from my nose and eyes before I accepted that they were gone.

  Stumbling back to Mason, I saw him lying on the rubble. He wasn’t passed out, but he looked to be weak. I got on one knee, and I pulled him upright, setting his back against some rubble. He looked at me deliriously, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t much better off. My head was pounding, and it took everything in me to keep seeing straight.

  “Not feeling too good,” he weakly gasped. “Think this might be the end of the road.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re going to get you better,” I reassured him as I looked up to the ASA headquarters.

  Seattle Vance was gone, but it didn’t matter.

  Even as weak as I was, he couldn’t outrun me.