Aberrant Trilogy 1: Super Charged (8 page)

How original,
I think. This guy is totally full of himself.

I look over at Kimberly and see that her mouth is pulled into a smile and hangs open slightly. She looks to the left.

“Really?” she says.

Next to me, Tyson nods.

“I’m being completely serious,” he says. “I bet you were waiting for me to ask.”

Kimberly sets her silverware down on the table and sits back.

“What took you so long?” she says. “We’ve only been going to school together for, what? Ten years?”

Tyson smirks.

“I was waiting for the right moment,” he says. “So, what do you say?”

All of us at the table are looking at Kimberly. If I know anything about high-schoolers, especially typical high-schoolers, then simply asking someone to go out with you is a slam dunk when you’re a football star.

But, to my surprise, Kimberly hesitates.

The tension is so strong it could be cut with my butter knife.

“You know what?” Kimberly starts. “No.”

Tyson takes a step back, scoffing.

“No?” he repeats like a parrot.

Kimberly nods.

“Yeah. I’m thinking no. But, thanks for the offer.”

Tyson presses both hands onto the table now, causing our trays to tremble on the tabletop.

“Don’t you know what you’re turning down?” he asks. It’s obvious that he’s used to getting his way. His voice is wounded, and the sound is pretty enjoyable to me at this moment.

“I do know what I’m giving up,” says Kimberly, looking Tyson dead in the eye. “I’m giving up on a person who doesn’t hesitate to throw a classmate, who can’t swim, into the lake and then leave them there to almost die. So, thanks. But, no thanks.”

That should be the end of the conversation, but suddenly Tyson gets violent.

He slams his fist down on the table.

“You can’t just say no like that!” he says.

I turn to him.

“Actually, she can,” I say. I pick up the Vestige and put it in my pocket for safe keeping. “You already escaped judgment once today. I think you should count yourself lucky and walk away again.”

Speaking up seems to be the worst thing I could do, but I couldn’t help it. Tyson turns on me and gets right in my face.

“You stay out of this!” he says, spraying me with spit.

He goes to grab me by the collar of my shirt, but I am not going to sit back and take it this time. I reach up my hands and go to shove him away from me. But, what happens next is not something I could have imagined happening in my wildest dreams.

My hand shoves towards Tyson, palm out, and it hits him squarely in the chest. Suddenly this pain happens in my forehead and temples, like a migraine has just seized me in its grip, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

The next thing I know, I open my eyes to see Tyson flying across the cafeteria. His arms flap out like a wind-up toy, and he lands on his back about ten feet from where I’m sitting.

When he sits up I see that his t-shirt is singed. Smoke emanates from the dark patch and Tyson gets roughly to his feet. His eyes are watering and his jaw trembles.

“Let’s see who’s in trouble now!” he says, aiming a finger at me. Then he hurries out of the cafeteria, no doubt on a collision course for the principal’s office.

Robby has his mouth hanging open behind me and Kimberly is giving me a look that I can’t read. Is she shocked? Embarrassed? It’s impossible to tell.

“Wow!” says Robby. “You didn’t tell me that you were that strong in hand-to-hand! Why didn’t you fight them off down at the lake?”

I’m not listening. Again, for the second time that day, I get up and leave my new friends on their own. Even when they protest from the lunch table, I don’t listen.

I’ve snatched up my comic book, the medallion, and my backpack and make my way to the guidance office. Once there I inform the secretary that I am not feeling well and that I need to go home right away.

Thankfully there isn’t much of a fuss. They call my grandmother and inform her that I am sick. She must have accepted it because fifteen minutes later she arrives with the car to bring me home.

I play up the sickness for part of the drive and grandma promises to make me some soup. Once we make it to the house, I hurry up to my bedroom and lock the door.

I sit on my bed and stare at the star-shaped medallion in my hand.

“It’s real,” I say. “It’s actually here in my hand. The Vestige.”

As if confirming my statement, the Vestige glows slightly. It lasts for only an instant, then it’s back to its normal self.

I look up at the ceiling in disbelief.

What in the world am I supposed to do with the Vestige? The list of things runs through my mind like a ticker tape.

Protect it.

Hide it.

Fight crime with it?

I roll my eyes. Yeah. Me? Fighting crime? I highly doubt that’s a possibility.

Then one more essential thing I should be doing with the Vestige takes precedence over all the others.

“I need to do some tests with this,” I say.

12

Pulse

Once I arrive at home I hurry up the stairs, not talking to anyone. Grandpa hears me come in, but I can’t stop to talk to him. I need to figure some things out on my own.

I’m so anxious that I’m sweating up a storm. I head into the upstairs bathroom and peel off my shirt, going to toss it into the hamper.

But, then I am stopped by the sight of Dad’s old football jacket. It’s crumpled into the hamper where Grandma must have thrown it earlier this morning. No doubt it’s still wet, but its moisture isn’t what catches my attention. One of the sleeves of the jacket is hanging out of the hamper and I can see that the thick cuff of the jacket is frayed. Picking it up I examine the cuff closer and find that it is ripped apart at the edge, and inside there is a small silver chain.

“What in the world…” I mutter and pull the chain out. It is finely made and has a loop in the middle of it.

I reach into my pants pocket and take out the Vestige, holding the chain up to it to compare. They look similar in color, and when I slip the loop into the opening at the top point of the star, it fits perfectly.

That’s it,
I think.
That’s where the Vestige came from.

It was hidden inside my father’s jacket. He must have sewn it into the lining for some reason. Most likely he was trying to keep it away from prying eyes, or people who would use it for evil or malicious intent.

I shake my head, looking at myself in the mirror.

I truly can’t believe this is happening. But, no matter what I believe, it
is
happening.

Still, I need to test out these powers, preferably somewhere that is not a house that can be destroyed, so I slip the Vestige around my neck, pull on a clean shirt from my duffel bag, and hurry down the stairs.

“I’ll be back for dinner, Grandma!” I call out. Then I’m out the door and down the driveway.

The Vestige bounces against my chest as I walk briskly down the country road. There are no sidewalks in this area of town, so I kick up dirt along the soft shoulder of the road. My hands feel like they are filled with energy. This must be what Super Guy felt when the Vestige first came to him.

Suddenly I let out a laugh and shake my head.

“Super Guy is a made up character,” I mutter to myself. “It’s
Dad
who must have felt what I’m feeling back when he first found the Vestige.”

But, how did he find the Vestige? Did it come to him mysteriously like it did to me?

Those are questions that I tuck away in the back of my mind. For now, my focus is on testing out these powers.

I come to a stop at a wooden fence, the kind made by sticking two rounded poles horizontally into the stakes, and look out beyond at a giant field of tall grass.

“This is perfect,” I say. There are no houses around, and there are no animals grazing that I can tell. No chances that someone will see what I’m doing from the roadway if I wade far enough into the grass, and no chance that I will injure or kill something if I lose control. I’m lucky I didn’t do any permanent damage to Tyson back in the cafeteria.

With one last glance around me, I step over the fence and make my way into the sweet-smelling grass.

Insects buzz by me, zipping past my ears as they are stirred by my footsteps.

I walk until I can’t see the road any more.

On three sides of me, to my right, my front, and my back, are trees. They form a diorama of sorts, and they also give me easy targets if I can manage to make the energy blasts travel more than ten feet.

A gust of wind tugs at me, rippling the grass like a rolling ocean of greens and ochres, as I plant my feet on the ground and face the trees. The roadway is to my left, so I will be sure not to aim anything that way.

There’s a scraggly, dying tree in front of me. Its limbs snake this way and that, twisting up towards the sky. What little leaves it has are all brown. That will be my target.

“Alright,” I say. “Here goes nothing…”

I lift my arms up and aim the palms of my hands at the tree.

Without over-analyzing it too much, I feel the energy pooling in the soft pads of my hands, and I pull my fingers back, spreading my fingers until they are taut, creating a stretched feeling in my hands.

In an instant a rippling, purple energy appears, pooling at the center of each palm. It looks almost like liquid, but it’s not wet. It’s shimmering, rolling around like a sphere of light. Then, before I can get too good of a look, the spheres shoot out in front of me. They cut through the grass, singeing the ends of the ochre-colored blades, until the blasts of energy evaporate into thin air.

The force of the blasts is so powerful that when I look down at my shoes I can see that there are tracks coming from my toes where I have been pushed back on the dirt.

“Wow!” I say.

This is some powerful stuff. I feel like I’m super charged with energy.

I wonder if I can do this single handed.

Reaching out my right hand, I aim for the gnarled tree. Focusing all the energy in the center of my palm, I stretch my fingers out and send the ball of energy hurtling over the ends of the grass, rippling them out like water, until the blast strikes the trunk of the tree about twenty feet away. Bark is ripped in tiny bits from the impact zone and goes flying through the air.

As for the energy, on impact it is mostly absorbed by the tree after the initial impact, and it quickly disappears.

I find myself trembling.

I turn my hand so that I can see my palm, lying flat in front of me.

This power is certainly not for someone who’s careless.

Next I reach up and pull the Vestige out of my shirt.

If things go exactly like the comic book, then I have to have the Vestige on my person in order to do things like energy blasts. If it’s true, that means that this tiny little medallion is incredibly valuable and I need to guard it with my life.

I take the Vestige off of my neck and set it down in the grass beside me. I make sure that no part of me is touching it or the chain that it’s attached to.

Then I aim my hands at the gnarled tree once more and prepare to fire two blasts of energy.

I flex my fingers out…but nothing happens. I am ordinary once more.

It feels strange, and I’m a little relieved when nothing happens.

My powers are only usable if the Vestige is on me. If not, then I am normal.

That means that the same rules apply to anyone else who happens to pick up the Vestige. That’s good information to know.

I reach down and grab the Vestige by its chain and put it back around my neck, making sure that it’s tucked into my shirt.

“Well, I definitely have the power to do pulse blasts,” I say to myself as I walk towards the old tree. “I wonder what else I can do.”

It’s not a lie that all my life I’ve wanted to fly.

Super Guy can fly in the comics. However, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to fly just like he does. According to the comics, each person reacts to the Vestige differently. One person might have three powers - flight, energy blasting, and super hearing - while others will have only one. In the back of my mind, I really hope that I have more than one power. While blasting things with my hands is pretty fun, I think it would be even more fun to be able to fly. I can escape from people without getting in trouble, and also avoid long commutes.

I reach out for a low-hanging branch, preparing to pull myself up, when a voice speaks up behind me.

“Shaun?”

I lose my grip on the tree and fall flat on my butt with a groan.

Right behind me is Kimberly. She’s coming through the tall grass towards the tree, her arms crossed.

I get to my feet, wincing as I straighten up.

“Hey,” I say. Did she see me earlier? I really hope not.

If she did see me, she doesn’t betray it in her expression. She seems sheepish and doesn’t make eye contact for very long before looking away.

“What are you doing out here?” she asks.

Good. She didn’t see what I was doing.

“Uh…” I start. “I was going to climb this tree.”

Kimberly lets out a laugh as she looks up towards the top of the tree.

“What for?” she asks.

I scratch the back of my neck.

“I dunno. Just for fun.” She seems to accept this excuse, and I try to revert the subject back to her. “What are
you
doing out here?”

Kimberly tucks her hair behind her ear as another gust of wind whips through the field. “I stopped by your grandparents’ house to see if you were home, and your grandmother said you went for a walk. So, I came to find you.”

“Well,” I say, spreading my arms out slightly. “You found me. Have you come to tell me that I shouldn’t have pushed Tyson like that?”

This makes Kimberly smirk.

“No, actually. I came to thank you for defending me the way you did. In case you didn’t notice, Tyson doesn’t really take ‘no’ for an answer very well.”

“Really?” I say sarcastically. “I would have never guessed.”

We both share a laugh. Then it dies down and the sound of the insects buzzing around fills the air. Kimberly looks away. Whatever she wants to say, it must be pretty awkward because she is hesitating up a storm.