Emergence (22 page)

“Why were you in that apartment, Blink?” He didn't walk straight towards the chimeric, but instead away from the dome, moving closer to her as he did.

“I was looking for this place,” she said with a smile. “That fool with the pinball machine works here. Or worked here, before you buried him under his own home. I was just looking for this.”

Blink pointed towards the dome. An arc of electricity shot from the glass and into her finger, through her, and down into the console she sat upon. Sparks flew and electronics sizzled. Smoke puffed up from the console, and the screens died.

“Uh-oh…” Blink stared down at the sizzling, smoking wreck.

The Other didn't waste the opportunity. He crossed the distance between him and Blink in mere moments, grabbing hold of her arms in a tight grip. She wouldn't be able to teleport with him.

Blink started as the Other grabbed her, but she quickly relaxed. “Such strong arms,” she purred, pushing herself back against his body and wriggling. “But we have a more pressing issue, hero.”

The console was dead, a small fire burning somewhere within its metal depths. The sphere within the dome was still arcing electricity outward toward its glass cage.

“What is it?” the Other asked, keeping a tight grip on the woman.

“Look a bit closer, Other,” said Blink. “I mean really look. Not at the dome. At the sphere.”

The Other tried to ignore her writhing in his arms. He squinted against the arcing electricity and focused on the sphere inside the dome. It was smooth and silvery, almost like metal but too light, too translucent. There was also something inside the sphere, and it looked a lot like a child, naked with their knees drawn up to their chest.

“Who is that?”

“I don't know,” Blink said with a smile. “I'm calling him Sparky for now.”

The Other shook his head, there was so much happening. It was beyond his understanding.

“Don't move,” a guard shouted from the stairway down into the room. He had a rifle trained on them. Two more guards moved around him, heading down the stairs.

“I caught the teleporter,” the Other yelled.

“I said don't move!”

“I don't think either of us are getting out of this if they get their way, hero,” Blink whispered, turning her head to look up at him over her shoulder. “Let me go, and I'll deal with them. Then we can figure out what to do with the rest of the night.” She winked a beautiful, sea-blue eye at him.

He had a sinking feeling she was right. The guards wouldn't care that he had come for her, only that he had broken in. They might even think him in league with the thief. Even if he wanted to incapacitate the guards himself, there's no way he could do it without letting Blink go.

“Don't kill them,” the Other said, then he let go of her.

There was a shimmer in front of the first guard on the steps, and a fraction of a second later Blink disappeared from in front of the Other and appeared by the guard, her knee connecting with his face. The guard’s rifle flew out of his hands and sailed towards the ground.

Another shimmer behind the guard who had just reached the floor. Blink appeared, an elbow
slamming
into the base of his skull.

The third guard turned, spraying bullets that ricocheted off the floor and impacted into brick walls. Some bullets found the slumped body of the second guard, but Blink was gone. A shimmer formed above the firing guard. Blink appeared, the tip of her boot
crunching
into his face, sending him crashing to the ground.

A final shimmer in the air just a few feet in front of the Other. He stepped forward, reaching out. He managed to grab Blink just as she appeared. The look on her face was shock and fear combined in one.

“How did you…?”

“It appears I have adapted. I can see where you're teleporting to now, Blink.”

“Wonderful,” she growled, trying to wrench her arm free. He held her tight. “Let go of me!”

She seemed small and young all of a sudden, and the Other realized she actually was. He had been chasing her for weeks now, and only just realized that she probably wasn't even twenty years old. Struggling against his iron grip, her short hair fallen across her face, she looked fragile. Far from the villain he had sworn to bring to justice.

Blink punched the Other in the chest with her free hand and drew it back, cursing. She tried to shake away the pain.

“Stop struggling. Tell me exactly what is going on here.” He shook Blink by the arm. “Before more guards arrive.”

“Isn't it obvious?”

“No.”

Blink stopped struggling and stood up straight, a fierce look in her pretty, blue eyes. “The boy’s a chimeric labrat. They're experimenting on him, seeing how much power they can leech out of him.”

The Other looked again at the dome and the electricity arcing out of the sphere inside. Science wasn't his strong suit.

“
That's
why the power plant keeps going dark,” Blink said. “They're testing to see how much electricity they can draw out of him. They want to use him like a generator. Make him spend his entire life like this. A prisoner. A
slave
.”

“So what are you doing here? You're a thief. A bank robber.”

Blink pushed against the Other's chest. He stood strong, far too big for her to move without using her speed or teleportation.

“I'm also a person, you jackass. Nobody deserves to live like that. Someone needs to help him. Might as well be me. Idiots like you won't do it, too busy trying to catch people like me.”

“How?” the Other said, letting go of Blink.

For a moment, the girl stared up at him, confusion making her look even younger. Then she vanished.

The Other let out a sigh.

Looking down at the control console, he still saw smoke rising out of it, though the fire didn't appear to be spreading. The dome looked to be unchanged, electricity arcing out against the glass. The Other approached and placed a hand against the glass.

A woman shouted from behind the Other, and he turned to see another guard tumbling down the stairs. The air a few feet away shimmered. Blink appeared. She had a wary look on her face and kept a good distance between them.

“Console is fried,” Blink said. “My fault. There's a safety shut-off if we can break the glass of the dome.”

“What happens if we don't?”

“Then we don't save him, and this machine keeps leeching electricity off him until there's nothing left to leech. Either we help him now or he dies, and I can't break that glass.”

The Other wasn't sure if it was the right thing or not, but it felt like the right thing. He stepped close to the glass and punched. The glass didn't budge, but the shock traveled up his arm, and he rolled his shoulder.

“Harder,” Blink said.

The Other shot her a glare before turning back to the glass and punching again. Hard. This time, a small crack appeared. He punched again and again and again. Each time, his arm felt like it was about to break, but the crack in the glass grew larger and larger.

One final punch. A section of glass shattered inward. Shards rained onto the floor of the dome. The Other took a step back. The arcing electricity didn't stop. A bolt of lightning snaked out of the gap and hit the console, sparks flying where it touched the metal. Another arc shot out and connected with the brick wall by the stairway, leaving a trail of smoking, black brick in its wake.

“You said—” the Other started as another arc leapt out of the glass and struck him.

#

Daniel felt something tugging against his face. He groaned and tried to go back to sleep. His head was pounding like nothing he'd ever felt before. It felt like someone was stabbing him in the brain.

Again something pulled against his face. He tried to move a hand to bat whatever it was away, but his arm didn't move. Slowly, very slowly, he opened his eyes.

The world was a blurry mess. He saw a figure in front of him, tugging something up and over his eyes, but he was having problems focusing and there was something else, something like lines of static. With a groan, he realized his new corneal modification was malfunctioning and closed his left eye. The world slid into focus.

A pretty, young woman was staring down at him from a few feet away. He appeared to be in dimly-lit building with a glass dome to his left and electricity arcing around inside of it.

The woman smiled. A blue-white arc of electricity shot out of the dome. It hit her, and she breathed in deeply, a look of ecstasy on her face for a moment.
A chimeric
. Daniel's worst fear had come to pass. He had been kidnapped by a chimeric.

“Who-who are you?” he stammered.

“I'm Blink,” said the woman. “Who are you, handsome?”

“I'm Da…What have you done to me?” He tried to move his arms again. He was kneeling on the ground, his arms limp by his side.

“I didn't do anything to you, hero. You got hit by a jolt and then collapsed. Figured I'd take the opportunity to get that ugly helmet off of you. You're actually cute.”

Daniel thought about it. A strong jolt of electricity could knock some of his modifications offline. As long as the pathways weren't fried, the software involved should reboot in only a couple of minutes. Easily long enough for this chimeric to kill him.

“Please let me go,” he begged.

“Huh?” the woman grunted. Then shook her head and vanished. Daniel saw her appear inside the dome, in front of a big sphere. Electricity arced out of the sphere and into the woman.

“You're a teleporter.”

“Uh, yeah. Something we established months ago, hero.”

The arcs of electricity coming from the sphere were slowing down now. Blink waited in front of it.

“The electricity doesn't affect you.” The static lines disappeared from his vision signaling his corneal modification software had rebooted. He hoped his muscle enhancements weren't far behind. He needed to run.

“Oh, it affects me,” she said, tuning towards him. An arc struck her in the back and she took a ragged breath in, her eyelids fluttering and her eyes seemed to shine a little brighter for a moment.

A shimmer disturbed the air in front of Daniel. A split second later, the woman appeared in front of him. His modification was working, allowing him to see the displacement of her teleportation just before it happened.

“You think doing that is easy?” Blink asked. “Takes a lot of energy ‘porting about like that. Some chimerics are lucky, like him in the sphere. They produce energy. Some to power their abilities like flight or…well, shooting electricity. Some of us have to absorb the energy we need from other sources.”

The woman laughed and vanished, reappearing inside the dome again. “I didn't even know I was a chimeric until last year. Tried to off myself by sticking my fingers in a plug socket. Next thing I knew I was standing thirty feet away. What a rush.”

The arc of electricity had stopped. The woman started feeling around the sphere. Eventually, she found what she was looking for, and the sphere split into two halves, cracking open and peeling away. A small boy lay on the pedestal, naked and unconscious.

Daniel felt his arms and legs tingle as the modifications that he had made to his body started to return to life. He reached out, grabbed his helm, and put it back on.

#

The Other got to his feet and rolled his head around on his neck, feeling a few satisfying cracks. He was a bit fuzzy and couldn't help feeling he had lost some time. The boy was out of the sphere and in Blink's arms. She was cradling him close, a look of concentration on her face.

An area outside of the dome shimmered and Blink appeared there, the boy still in her arms. She dropped the lad and grabbed hold of the broken console to steady herself. The boy hit the floor and didn't move.

“Whoa,” Blink said, looking unsteady. “That never fails to hurt. Feels like having my soul ripped out or something. Never teleport another person, hero.”

“Can you get him out of here?” the Other asked, pulling the boy to his feet. He was young and skinny, his skin an unhealthy yellow-brown color and not a hair on his head. His eyes were distant and unfocused, but he was conscious at least, if not coherent.

Blink snorted. “I could barely get Sparky out his cage. I was hoping you might help.”

“More guards are undoubtedly coming,” the Other said, scooping the boy up and placing him over his shoulder. “We should go.”

“Gotta say, you look better without the headgear thingie, hero,” Blink said. “Now lead the way.”

He glanced at Blink to find her smiling at him. The Other wondered when she had seen him without his helmet, but it was a question for another time. He started towards the stairway, the boy over his shoulder, and the thief just a step behind him.

They stopped at the top of the staircase, the corridor ahead filled with armed guards, and ducked back around.

“Come out,” shouted one of the guards. “Hands up and slow.”

“We have a problem,” the Other said with a sigh.

Blink raised her hands and stepped out into the open.

“Good girl,” shouted a guard. “Now come…”

Blink stepped back around the corner and lowered her hands. “I count eight.”

“Is there another way out of here?” the Other asked.

“Not for you two,” Blink replied quickly with a grin. “Don't worry. I'm not about to leave you after going through all this effort to save Sparky here. Eight is a lot for me to take, and they're bunched pretty close together.”

“You used a flashbang on me a while back,” the Other said. “Do you have any with you now?”

Blink reached up and pulled the large, round earring from her ear. It looked just like a circular disk with another one on top. “Just press the button and throw.”

The Other lowered the boy to the floor and took the earring from Blink. “Look after him,” he said as he pressed the button and launched the device down the corridor.

Guards shouted in confusion, and then there was a loud
bang
and a flash. The Other didn't stop to wonder how stupid it was to charge straight down a corridor with armed guards at the other end, he just turned and put on a burst of speed.

Bullets
zipped
past him. One hit the armor on his chest and made the Other stumble a step, though it barely slowed him. Another hit his leg, and the pain was intense. The Other fell, his momentum carrying him enough to take the first guard down with him. He punched the man as he struggled to rise, knocking him unconscious.