ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) (15 page)

Ellison
still screamed into her face. “Did you get some new freak power that lets you
be two places at once?”

Nyx
shook her head, her voice little more than a whisper. “No, sir.”

“Then
how in the hell did you capture the flag
and
guard this position? I gave
you one job, Nyx, and it required you keeping your dumb ass here!”

This
time Nyx didn’t try to answer. Jeremy looked over at Talon. Just like Nyx, his
body was rigid and his arms were at his sides. Jeremy thought he looked pale.

“You
are going to goddamn answer me!” Ellison snapped again, hammering out each
word.

“Hey.
Take it easy.” It was Jeremy’s voice, and at first he wasn’t even sure he’d
spoken the words out loud, but it was him, and whether he meant to speak up or
not, it was too late now.

Ellison
jerked his head around, fixing his cold eyes on Jeremy. He stepped in closer,
staring, daring Jeremy to look away, and when the major finally spoke, his
voice was low. “What did you say, freak?”

And
now any feelings of guilt or fear were gone.

“I
said you need to back off, Major.” Jeremy could hear the edge in his own voice,
and he didn’t care.

Ellison
stepped in closer, pointing his finger at Jeremy’s chest. “You think you have
any idea what’s going on here?”

“It’s
called capture the flag, so yeah, I think we all have a pretty good idea about
what’s going on here.”

Ellison
screamed again, this time directing all his wrath at Jeremy. “You think we care
about winning some goddamn game? This exercise is about following orders! Plain
and—”

“Well,
they were bad orders! Ask your men!”

For
a second Ellison stood frozen. Then he snapped and lost all control. Without a
warning, he dropped his rifle and reached with both of his hands for Jeremy’s
throat.

Jeremy
stepped back and pushed hard, both his hands slamming against Ellison’s chest,
throwing the major back. Ellison landed in a heap on the ground, but as soon as
he hit the dirt, he was moving again, rolling over and back up on his feet.

Ellison
reached for the Beretta on his hip, screaming, “Try and touch me again, freak!
Touch me one more time, and I’ll—”

Jeremy
was screaming back now, “What? You’re gonna shoot me with your laser gun?”

“No
blanks in this one, freak-show. Touch me again and I’ll kill you! I swear to
God, I’ll kill you!”

Jeremy
clenched his fists, and for a second he didn’t care about the threats or the
bullets, but before he could answer, a strong hand pushed him hard in the
chest, and he stumbled back. Jeremy wheeled around, ready to fight, but then he
saw the man who pushed him.

Gauntlet
stood directly between Jeremy and Ellison, his left shoulder turned to face the
major, with a large, round shield of black metal mounted to his forearm.

Jeremy
looked past Gauntlet at Ellison. The major’s whole face had changed now. His
eyes were wider. The tension was gone from his jaw. He looked, in a word,
scared—like a kid who gets backed into a dare he never wanted to accept, and
now he was groping for a way out. At that moment, Jeremy almost felt sorry for
Ellison.

Then
Gauntlet spoke, his voice rattling from deep behind his helmet. “Your move.”

Ellison’s
face changed again. His jaw set, and Jeremy realized what came next. There
wasn’t going to be a way out.

Suddenly,
an olive-drab Humvee came roaring into the clearing, and before the tires could
even stop, Colonel McCann was jumping out of the passenger’s side door,
screaming, “Stand down! Everybody stand down right now, goddamnit! I said stand
down!”

McCann
marched himself between Gauntlet and Ellison. Neither one was moving; neither
one standing down.

McCann
repeated himself slowly, “I said stand down!” Jeremy watched as Gauntlet rolled
his shoulders. Then his whole armored body seemed to relax. He turned his back
on McCann and Ellison, and with a metallic
shink
his black shield folded
up, spiraling back and around, segment by segment, until the whole weapon fit
in place on top of his armor. Then Gauntlet walked back and sat down in the
dirt in front of the flagpole, exactly where he had been stationed before.

McCann
turned to Ellison. The major slowly let go of his grip on his pistol, and
reached down to pick up his M-4 from the dirt.

McCann
called back to the Humvee, “Mirror!”

 Lara
climbed out of the vehicle. She was wearing black pants and a black parka, and
Jeremy could see her breath as it hit the air.

She
turned to McCann, “Yes, sir?”

McCann
barked, “Take the Anoms down to the Rec Room and start your debriefing. I want
a full report by 2100 hours.”

“Yes,
sir,” Lara answered.

McCann
turned back to Ellison, “As for you, Major, you can march your men to the field
observation tower. We are going to review every last second of today’s
exercise. Am I understood?”

“Yes,
sir.” Ellison turned back to his men and shouted the order, “Fall out to the
observation tower. Double time.”

Jeremy
watched as Ellison followed his men, running east into the forest. He watched
as McCann climbed back into the Humvee, and he watched it turn and drive away.
Jeremy stood and watched, not trusting himself to move. His legs still felt
like jelly. Maybe he wasn’t alone. All of the Anoms, everyone except Gauntlet,
seemed to be standing frozen in place.

Finally,
Lara spoke up, “Let’s head for home, guys. It looks like we’re walking.”

Jeremy
turned and started after the others, lost in his own thoughts, hardly paying
attention, replaying his exchange with Ellison over and over. What could he
have done differently?

 A
quick movement to his left caught his eye, and he looked up. It was Gauntlet,
walking next to him.

Jeremy
shook himself free and found his voice. “Thank you. Thank you for stepping in
like that. You didn’t have to do that.”

Gauntlet
didn’t answer.

Jeremy
looked away, but he couldn’t just let it go either; he turned back to Gauntlet,
“Why did you, anyway? I mean, why did you step in?”

Gauntlet
looked over at him. “If Ellison had pulled his gun, what would you have done?”

Jeremy
looked back at the ground; it was the same question he had been asking himself,
and he still only had one answer. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

Gauntlet
looked forward again, his voice almost a growl. “If he pulled his gun, I would
have killed him. That’s why I stepped in—because I could answer the question.”

The
metal door slid open, and Jeremy stepped into the room. Lara was already
sitting in one of the square, leather-wrapped armchairs, the red Pinewood derby
car resting in her lap and her tablet cradled in her arm. She was writing
something across the screen of the tablet and didn’t bother to look up as
Jeremy entered.

“Have
a seat.”

Jeremy
walked up to the back of the chair, leaning forward and digging his fingers
into the leather. “I think I want to stand.”

Lara
wrote on her tablet, still looking down. “This is our second debriefing. Once
again, there are no recording devices present. So…” then for the first time she
looked up into Jeremy’s face. “What happened today?”

“Nothing.”

Lara’s
eyebrows knit together. “How about defying an order, insubordination, and
striking an officer in the United States Army? Does any of that sound familiar?
Try again. What happened out there today?”

Jeremy
shrugged. “It sounds like I defied an order, I was insubordinate, and I struck
an officer. I miss anything?”

Lara
slammed her pen down on the tablet. “Dammit, G-Force, this is serious. I have
people I need to answer to. So do you. We have to tell Colonel McCann what
happened today. My advice, right now, is that you start helping yourself.” She
picked up her pen, ready to write. “How do you feel? Maybe you’re overwhelmed
by the recent events. That might explain—”

“No,
I feel fine.”

Lara
lowered the tablet. “You’re lying. You feel angry, defiant. You’re borderline
paranoid—”

“You
said you couldn’t read me like that. Now who’s lying?” Jeremy’s voice was
suddenly louder, but he couldn’t help it. Lara was right: He
was
angry.

“I
told you I can still pick up big emotions. Right now there’s nothing but big
emotions—”

“Then
maybe you should upgrade the chip inside my head!”

There
it was. He said it. All his cards were out now, and Jeremy wanted answers.

For
a moment, there was silence. Lara opened her mouth, ready to answer, but then
her voice fell away. Jeremy watched her reaction. He could see the tension
around her eyes. It wasn’t confusion—surprise, maybe—but it was only there for
a second. Lara sat back in the thick leather chair, and the look on her face
was gone. Jeremy’s suspicion was confirmed. She knew about the microchip, and
she was surprised that he knew too.

Jeremy
tried to press his advantage. “You know, the microchip filled with explosives
that you stabbed into my brain.” This time there was no reaction from Lara.

She
folded her hands in her lap, and when she spoke, her voice was calm, “All
right, G-Force.”

“All
right what?” Jeremy was ready for a fight—ready for her denials.

Lara
spoke again, her voice still low, “You obviously have questions. I think you
deserve to hear the answers.”

“All
right.” Jeremy stepped around the chair and sat down, still trying to hold onto
his anger. “Let’s start with the microchip. Why’s there a bomb inside my head?”

“So
we can kill you,” Lara’s voice was cold.

The
answer was terrifying—a confirmation of his own worst fear—but, at the same
time, Jeremy felt a sudden sense of relief. If nothing else, at least he could
be sure she was telling the truth.

Lara
looked at him. “You’re dangerous, G-Force. You know that, but you’re probably
even more dangerous than you realize. You stopped a bus like it was nothing.
How much more would it take for you to stop a tank?”

Jeremy
had never thought about that. Could he really stop a tank?

“Now
what if you decide to turn violent? What then? How does the Army stop a man who
can’t be stopped?”

Jeremy
forced a cold, half-smile. “It’s easy. You detonate the C-4 you stuck in his
brain.”

Lara
smiled now too, and it was somehow more genuine before. “That’s your answer.”

“So
you have an explosive chip too?”

Lara
shook her head. “No. I’m a class three. We’re easy to kill, but you—you’re a
class four. That’s a whole different breed.”

Jeremy
laughed; the whole thing sounded absurd, “How do you expect—”

“It’s
my turn now,” Lara picked up her tablet and looked at the screen. “You want
answers? So do I. When did you first manifest your powers?”

Jeremy
was confused again. Her question had nothing to do with microchips or class
fours Anoms. It wasn’t even connected to Ellison or the training exercise. It
was meaningless, easy, safe. Then Jeremy understood—that was just what Lara
wanted.

It
was a redirection. Jeremy had seen enough counselors after his dad that he
recognized the pattern. Lara needed to get him talking again—it didn’t matter about
what. It could have been any question.
What’s your favorite sports team? Do
you like action movies? How was your weekend?
Anything. Then, when he
dropped his guard, she would start asking the real questions again.

Jeremy
laughed—the whole thing was so obvious. He expected something more devious, but
it didn’t really matter. As long as he was getting answers to his questions, he
would play along.

 “The
first real thing was the bus, I guess.” Jeremy leaned back against the leather
chair, trying to remember. “I mean, there were other things—maybe a hundred
different things before that, but they didn’t mean anything at the time. Now
you look back and you can see it. Little things like you break a glass just by
holding it. Or you fall out of bed and land six feet away. But then you get hit
by a bus and stand back up like it’s nothing—that’s when you take notice.”

Lara
wrote something across the tablet and looked up. “But can you remember the very
first thing? The first little thing that ever happened?”

Jeremy
knew exactly what she wanted to hear.

*****

He
was standing in the living room at his father’s wake wearing a suit, and the
whole house was filled with strangers.

“They’re
here for us.” That was the line from his mother, but Jeremy knew better. They
were here for the ritual; to say the right things and be seen by the right
people saying the right things.

It
was hot inside. His mom had the AC going, but there were so many people crammed
into the house that it didn’t matter. Someone pressed a glass of water into his
hands and told him to drink it. That’s when he saw Mr. Peters, CEO of the
hospital. Jeremy had never met the man in person, but he knew the name and
recognized the face.

Peters
walked right up to him from across the living room—like they were old friends
or something—and the old man reached out for his shoulder. “I’m sorry about
your dad’s accident.”

Accident
. Like he slipped
on a goddamn wet floor or something.

That’s
when the glass in Jeremy’s hand shattered. It fell away in a thousand pieces,
slipping between his fingers like a handful of clear confetti. The water in the
glass went straight down, splashing across the floor and Peters’ black leather
shoes.

*****

 “When
did your ability first start?”

Jeremy
looked away at the wall. “I’m not sure. It was after my dad.”

“That
would make sense.” Lara scrawled a note on her tablet and looked up. “In most
cases our abilities are triggered by some kind of trauma. A lot of times it’s
physical, but an emotional trauma, like the way you lost your dad, could be the
catalyst. When—”

“Why
can’t you read me?” Jeremy quickly asked. He was willing to play her game, but
he needed answers of his own.

Lara
straightened in her chair. “That’s more difficult. There’s—there are things you
don’t understand. You will, but right now you don’t. The simple answer is I
can’t read you because you’re spiked.”

Jeremy’s
face twisted.

Lara
continued before he could ask the next obvious question, “A spike—it’s the
first trick any Psychic Anom learns, how to spike a target. You can think of it
like password protection for your brain. No one can get access without the
right code.”

Jeremy’s
mind raced, trying to follow. The way she was talking, it all sounded so
commonplace, but that made it even harder to accept. It was like the first time
you hear someone ask for a pop instead of a soda, and your first thought is
they must be joking.

“We
spike a target so we know what to expect when we use our powers. That way no
one can come in behind us and start changing what we’ve already done. It’s
safer this way—for everyone. A good spike is usually something short, simple,
and easy to remember. It could be a name, or a place, or a color—”

“Something
like ‘Seattle?’”

Lara
laughed. “Yeah. Something like that. You weren’t supposed to hear that, you
know? I didn’t realize you were already spiked when I tried it.”

“And
so that’s why you can’t get in my head now. I’m…spiked?”

“Yes
and no.” Lara shifted in her chair. “I can see some things from you, like those
strong emotions, but I can’t see everything. So you’re spiked, but I think it’s
fading.”

Jeremy
nodded, acting like it all made sense now; the truth was it made anything but.

“So
now my question for you is, who did it? Who spiked you, G-Force, and why?”

Jeremy’s
mind reeled. He hadn’t gotten that far yet—hadn’t even considered it. He was
still stuck on the idea of a password locking up his brain. But Lara was right.
If he was spiked, that meant somebody put it there. Until yesterday, he didn’t
even know Anoms existed. If it weren’t for the thing at the mall—

“What
about the guy in the mall?” Jeremy asked. “Hot Shot. Maybe he did something—”

“No.
He was a kinetic anomaly. Different kind of Anom.”

Jeremy
tried to think. “There was a guy when I was in the hospital. Some nurse that no
one seemed to know about.”

Lara
shook her head again. “I know who you mean. He was actually one of ours. It’s
how we got your DNA. Think again. Could there be anyone else? Someone close to
you?”

But
Jeremy couldn’t think. Not about this anyway. There were too many other things
to consider; too many questions worth his time. Like taking his DNA in the
hospital. How did they get there so fast? How did they even know about the
accident with the bus? How long had they been watching him? Did they know about
his abilities even before the bus?

Jeremy
looked closer at Lara, and his voice was hollow now, “What is this place?
Really?”

Lara’s
body stiffened, and Jeremy could see it, just for a second. This was the
question he needed to ask; the question he needed answered.

Lara
looked down at her tablet, “You already know what this place is, G-Force. We
told you this is a research facility. Reah Labs has partnered with—”

“You
don’t need the Army for research.” Jeremy’s voice was hard now. He wouldn’t let
her parrot back the same lies from their stupid introduction video.

Lara
looked up, locking eyes with him, and just like before, if nothing else, at
least now he would get the truth; she started slow, halting, feeling her way
between the words. “When President Truman ordered the atomic bomb dropped on
Japan, he believed he was saving lives. Whatever horror he was about to unleash
on the world, he thought those lives were worth it. You really want to know
what we’re doing here? We’re saving lives.”

“So
Anoms are supposed to be your nuclear deterrent?”
“No, G-Force, not a deterrent. You’re supposed to be our response.”

Jeremy
felt the bile rise in his throat, but Lara pressed on before he could
interrupt. “Other nation-states are already recruiting Anoms. We know that for
a fact. So are terrorists. Paramilitary groups. Home-grown militias. We’re all
after the same thing. And we’re not talking about
if
it happens anymore,
G-Force. We’re way past that. We’re speaking about
when
. When it
happens, you, and Nyx, and Talon, and Gauntlet, you’ll be the horror we unleash
on the world.”

Jeremy
nodded. Maybe more than anyone, he could understand the truth behind what Lara
was saying. He saw firsthand the devastation caused by a single Anom. He knew
too well how a group like the Red Moon could use them.

“We
need you on the team, G-Force. We need you, and that’s why we need to talk
about what happened today. Tell me what happened this afternoon with Major
Ellison. You failed to follow orders. Then what?”

“It
had nothing to do with following his orders. Ellison crossed a line.”

Lara
twisted in her chair. “Major Ellison is the officer in charge of the Anoms.
Everything we just talked about, being a response team, none of that works
without Ellison.”

“No
offense, but it doesn’t seem to work
with
him either. The guy’s a dick.”

“You
don’t even know him.” Lara’s voice took a sharper edge. “He raises his voice a
little and you all get your feelings hurt. He’s in the Army, and you’ve been
here for less than a day. Maybe he was motivating the team or addressing a
specific issue with Nyx. You don’t have any—”