Hero Born: Project Solaris Read online

  Marcus was already rising, extending an arm in my direction. His face was locked in a grimly determined expression, though there was no animosity there. He was a professional, doing what he needed with no personal feelings clouding his judgement.

  Jillian, on the other hand, charged, launching a low kick at Marcus's ankle. He tried to evade, but Jillian was blindingly fast. The move spilled him back to the ground, and Jillian darted across the room back to my side.

  "Hold on," she murmured, seizing my shoulder in a tight grip.

  Something like ice washed through me, and I felt somehow lighter. Then the floor rippled around us, just like it had when I'd entered the grey men's ship all those years ago. We passed through the floor like it was water, dropping into the room below us.

  Chapter 5- Flight

  The room we landed in was occupied by an obese middle-aged man, who blinked wordlessly as we tumbled to the ground in a heap. The fall was painful, but thankfully adrenaline shielded me from the worst of it.

  "What the fu--" the man began, but Jillian was already up and turning in his direction.

  "Pain meds can cause hallucinations," she said, yanking me to my feet and pulling me toward the doorway, pausing to scan both sides of the hallway. "They'll be after us. We have to move quickly."

  A strange sound like butter in a hot pan came from behind us, then Summers and Marcus tumbled into the room in the same manner we had.

  "Crap," Jillian snapped, darting into the hallway. I stumbled after, a cocktail of fear and adrenaline somehow keeping me on my feet.

  Several nurses were already staring at us, though most had the disinterested gaze earned over a twelve-hour shift.

  "David, I need you to kill the power," she said, spinning to face me. "Can you do that?"

  "How the hell am I supposed to do that?" I asked, risking a glance back into the room. Summers and Marcus were getting to their feet. We only had seconds.

  "Just like you did upstairs, only stronger," Jillian explained in a rush. She rested a hand on my shoulder. "Grab the wall and feel the wiring inside it. Just add a lot more power and you'll trip the breakers."

  "Won't that turn off life support for the patients?" I asked, horrified.

  "Not on this floor. We're not in the ICU, so these people will be fine. Backup generators will come up quickly. They'll be fine." Jillian's eyes widened, and I didn't need to turn around to know why.

  Something unseen picked her up and hurled her nearly twenty feet, Jillian's body sliding across the linoleum into the nurses' station across the hall. I slammed my palm against the wall, closing my eyes. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was out of time.

  Sure enough I could feel the wiring within, long lines of humming power carried across copper wires. I willed an arc of electricity into the wall. Nothing happened.

  "David, there's no need for this," Summers said, striding into the hallway. She raised a hand, and I was pinned against the wall, unable to move. "Come with us, and we'll protect you from the grey men. We aren't your enemies."

  "Like hell you aren't," I snarled, anger rippling through me as I focused on Jillian's battered form trying to regain her feet. Blood dribbled down her face.

  Energy exploded from within me, pouring through my hands and into the wall. The lights flickered, and then died. Chaos erupted as nurses and patients alike began yelling. I heard an 'oof' from Summers, then the pressure holding me disappeared. I caught a flash of blonde as Summers was flipped through the air, then Jillian loomed from the darkness.

  "Come on," Jillian hissed from a few inches away. She grabbed my wrist, and we once again rippled through the floor.

  This time we fell into a dark room that smelled of bleach. I felt around in the darkness, eventually reaching a metal shelf. I used it to get to my feet.

  "Janitor's closet," Jillian said in a low voice. "Take a second to catch your breath while I figure a way out of this."

  I wasn't the only one out of breath. Jillian's breathing was ragged too, and I could smell her sweat. If she was anywhere near the kind of exhaustion I felt, then we were in serious trouble.

  "So, you have some sort of super powers?" I asked. Rather lamely.

  "Obviously," Jillian said, voice tinged with exasperation. "Just as obviously, you do, too. Guess where they came from?"

  "The grey men," I replied. I could almost feel her rolling her eyes in the dark. "Summers and that guy Marcus have them too. It looked like Summers could do everything we can, plus toss people around."

  "Yep," Jillian said, sudden light illuminating her face as she held her phone aloft. "She's demonstrated too many legacies to be a conventional super. Your mother theorized people like her might exist. She called it a mimic."

  "So someone that can steal other people's powers?" I asked, flashing back to one of my favorite X-Men characters.

  "Essentially. This is the first one I've actually met." Jillian angled her phone's screen toward the door, a thick wooden one with a metal handle. "You ready to get out of here?"

  "Yeah," I said, straightening. I'd caught my breath, though my legs were still shaky. "How do we get out without being caught?"

  "Just trust me and stick close," she said, taking my hand. She slid her phone into the purse that she'd miraculously kept hold of, then opened the door.

  It had been dark for less than three minutes, but the hospital staff had already reacted. The shouting was gone, replaced by confident calls as nurses moved around with flashlights. Jillian strode confidently down the hall, making for the metal door at the end.

  "We'll take the stairwell to the first floor, then see if we can make it to an alley," Jillian said. She yanked open the door to the hallway, plunging inside.

  I darted a glance behind me, but thankfully there was no sign of either Marcus or Summers. If we were lucky, the pair were still searching. It occurred to me that they might be able to sense us if they were getting close, assuming Summers needed to be close to others to mimic their powers.

  "Come on," Jillian called from the stairwell.

  I followed, closing the door behind me. Jillian had her cellphone out again as a makeshift flashlight. We descended several flights, and I was winded by the time we reached the bottom. Jillian waited patiently next to the metal door that led back into the hospital.

  "This is the most tricky part," she said, eyeing me with concern. "If I was going to try to stop us from leaving the hospital I'd be watching the exits on the first floor."

  "Will the hospital staff even let me leave in this gown?" I asked, looking down at the flimsy white garment. It barely covered me, and was open in the back. Not comfortable, and definitely not the outfit I'd choose to wear when escaping super-powered assailants. "I don't even have shoes."

  "Good point," Jillian said, biting her lip. It made me smile. In that moment, she looked just like she had when we were fourteen. She peered through the narrow window set in the top of the door. "Okay, so we need to get you clothes."

  "I have a better idea," I said, opening the door. I scanned the hallway, smiling when I located what I was looking for.

  I moved to a wheelchair next to a nursing station. Sitting down felt wonderful, and would also make a perfect disguise. None of the nurses or doctors around us seemed to notice, thankfully.

  "Great thinking," Jillian said, moving behind the wheelchair. She pushed me up the hall, keeping close to the wall to avoid other patients in the near darkness. "If we run into them, just grab my hand and I'll get us away. I think I have enough juice."

  Jillian wheeled me out of the hospital and onto the rainy San Francisco sidewalk.

  Chapter 6- Explanations

  One of the things that fascinated me about San Francisco was that the people there had the ability to completely tune out anything they didn't want to see. The homeless people all over the financial district were invisible, completely ignored by the suit-wearing execs littering the streets. The 1% saw only what they wanted to.

  For once that actually played
in my favor, because passersby studiously ignored Jillian and I as we hurried down Mission Street. I clutched the rear of my hospital gown, teeth chattering from the chill. My bare feet slapped the dirty concrete as we ran, finally ducking into an alleyway outside a small credit union.

  "Well, we got away," I said, peering around the corner. I turned back to Jillian. "Now what?"

  "Now we find a way out of the city. We need to get back to Tuolumne and link up with your mother," she stated, eyes ceaselessly roaming the foot traffic.

  "That sounds great, except that I'm just about naked and have no money. My wallet is back at the hospital," I said, rubbing my arms to ward off the chill.

  "Even if you had it we couldn't use it," Jillian said, finally looking at me. Her jeans and sweater weren't standard fare for execs, but were common enough with the startup crowd that it blended in. "I don't think the pair from the hospital worked for the grey men. If the grey men wanted you they'd have just taken you, like they took us when we were kids. Those people worked for another agency."

  "One of them-- the blonde-- came to Initech a few days back. They claimed to be investors for something called Mohn Corp, and Summers' boss was a guy named Usir." I supplied, teeth chattering. "That doesn't explain why I can't use my wallet though."

  "They'll be looking for credit card transactions," Jillian replied, frowning. It did nothing to mar her beauty, and I found myself eyeing her in a way completely inappropriate to our current situation. "We don't know what abilities they have or what resources they have, and if your mother has taught me anything, it's that we can't take chances."

  "That makes a scary kind of sense. Do you have money and a car then?" I asked, wincing as a blonde passed by the mouth of the alley. It wasn't Summers.

  "Nope. All I have are credit cards, and we shouldn't use them. My car is back at the hospital, and we can't risk going back." Jillian started tapping a finger against her lip, her brow furrowed in thought. "I do have an idea though. Every person we've found with abilities has something your mother calls a lineage. Your first one is telemechanics. You have the ability to interface directly with machines."

  I stood straighter, blinking once as I considered that. It made sense, given what I'd experienced at the hospital. "So, in theory, I could hack into a computer, like say..."

  "...an ATM," she finished, giving a restrained smile.

  I was silent for a long moment as I processed that. I'd been a fan of super hero movies and books my whole life, and the main character suddenly gaining powers was a mainstay. Most of those newly minted heroes agonized over their abilities, and how they might affect their lives. First they refused to believe they existed, then they wished they would go away. Not me. I'd spent a lot of drunken Saturdays with my geeky friends discussing this exact possibility. I was ready.

  "That. Is. Awesome. Okay, let's do this." I walked boldly from the alley, trying to ignore all the pedestrians who were clearly struggling to pretend I didn't exist.

  I glanced at the credit union, gauging my chances. They had an ATM, but it was just inside the vestibule. I'd have to go inside, and the teller behind the counter was already giving me the stink eye. I glanced at Jillian, who gave me a nod.

  "I think I'm going to open a new account," she said, opening the glass door and walking inside. She made a beeline for the teller, whose gaze left me and landed squarely on Jillian. Now was my chance.

  I darted inside, hurrying over to the ATM. Jillian was tall, and had positioned herself to block the teller's view of me. The cameras could still see me but, unless some bored security guard was manning them, the odds were good I was unobserved. For the moment. I needed to be quick about this.

  The ATM looked like a million others: a place to insert your card and, next to that, a key pad. I rested my hand on the key pad like I was using the ATM, but of course nothing happened.

  "Uh, give me money?" I asked in a low voice. Nothing, of course.

  I thought back to the hospital. The electricity had first manifested when I'd been stressed, then again when I'd been angry. That suggested that my abilities might be triggered by emotional responses.

  I thought about what had happened at the hospital, me being driven out of there. I thought about the possibility that the grey men were real, and about the life my mother had been forced to live thanks to their experiments. About the way I'd treated her, because I'd refused to believe, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

  Something jolted through me, a moment of vertigo that quickly faded. I could feel the software, just sitting there waiting for input. Its normal operation was to access someone's account, verify they had the necessary funds, dispense the amount they requested, then record the withdrawal on their account. Each piece functioned more or less independently. I smiled, overriding the part that dispensed money. I told it to dispense $500, the programmed limit for this credit union.

  It began to whir, then a series of $20 bills flowed into the tray. I resisted the urge to give a triumphant whoop, instead scooping up the money and shooting a glance at Jillian. She was still talking with the teller, so I hurried away from the machine and back outside, giggling like a crazy person. Once again, I received a few odd looks, but I ignored them. I couldn't stop smiling as I glanced down at the fistful of bills.

  Jillian emerged a few moments later with a pamphlet clutched in one hand. She joined me on the sidewalk. "Did it work?"

  "Beautifully," I said, showing her the rolled up wad of bills in my hand. "This will get me some clothes, but we're not going to be able to rent a car or anything."

  "We won't worry about that yet. Let's get you dressed, then we'll take the ferry to the east bay," Jillian said, her eyes once again scanning the foot traffic around us. "Once we get there we'll figure out a way up to Tuolumne."

  Chapter 7- The Ferry

  It felt good to be wearing clothes again. We'd stopped by a Macy's, and the clerk had been gracious enough to let me walk out in my new jeans, a simple black T-shirt, and some running shoes. Jillian and I hoofed it down to the ferry building, and by the time we'd arrived the terror that we were being followed had faded to a dull fear. It was nearing 7 p.m., which meant there were only two more ferries before they shut down for the evening.

  I walked up to one of the Clipper Card machines outside the ferry terminal. The cards worked on everything from the bus, to the ferry, to BART, and were as necessary as a driver's license in the bay area. I could probably have used my new abilities to get a card with preloaded cash, but elected to spend $40 from our dwindling supply instead. I was exhausted, and the Clipper machine's firmware wasn't nearly as straightforward as the ATM had been.

  "I'm still unclear on something," I said, scooping up the plastic card from the tray where the machine had dropped it. To be honest I was unclear on a lot of things, but this one was top of mind right now.

  "What's that?" Jillian asked, removing her sunglasses and stashing them in her purse. She'd worn them until it was too dark to see. I'd have done so, too, if I'd thought to buy them.

  "Why were you at the hospital?" I asked, picking up the Clipper Card from the dispenser and moving to join the trickle of people walking onto the ferry.

  "I told you. Your mom sent me." She threaded her arm through mine as we walked up the ramp and onto the boat. It was one of the larger ones, a double-decker affair designed to hold a couple hundred people. There were maybe thirty people heading across the bay, mostly commuters who looked like they were heading home early.

  "Why did she send you?" I asked, gripping the railing as I stepped onto the boat. I headed toward the back, dropping into one of the plush seats in an unoccupied part of the cabin.

  "She was worried about you," Jillian offered, sliding into the seat next to me. She peered around the cabin to make sure we were alone. "There's a lot I need to catch you up on. You remember your mother's reputation, obviously."

  "Yeah," I said, softening my tone. Thinking about it made me sad. "Every
body thought she was insane, and not just because she talked about alien abductions. I love her, but my mom isn't exactly all there."

  Jillian eyed me darkly for a moment before speaking. "Your mom is a great woman, David. And she is all there. She's the only reason the resistance got started, and, if not for her, abductees would have no idea what's going on--much less be able to protect ourselves, or harness our abilities."

  "Wait, what? My mom started a resistance?" I asked. My tone must have been incredulous, because Jillian's dark look became positively venomous.

  "Cut her some slack, David. There's a lot you don't know." She kept her tone low. "Your mom wasn't crazy. She really did hear voices, because she was a telepath. It was her first lineage. She had to live with dozens of voices in her head all the time. Of course she appeared crazy."

  I didn't reply right away. That was a lot to take in. If Jillian was right, I'd been horrible to my mom, all but cutting her out of my life over the last few years. Worse, the grey men were really out there, and my mom could be right about them coming back.

  It was time to make a choice. I could keep pretending it wasn't real, or I could accept the ugly reality that had just been rudely shoved in my face.

  "I'm sorry," I offered, tucking my hands in my pockets. "I had no idea, Jillian."

  "It's not me you need to apologize to." Jillian stared out the window as the ferry's engine thrummed to life. We pulled away from the dock and began backing into the harbor.

  "True. I'll talk to her when we get there. In the meantime, I've got a lot of questions, and we've got nothing but time," I said, changing the subject. "You obviously know a lot about what's going on, about people with abilities. What can you tell me about where those powers come from? What do you know about Mohn Corp, or how they also have people with abilities?"