Masked (30 page)

I was so damn sick of being shot.
Even though I could heal from most wounds, it still hurt like hell. How many
times had it been now?

I tried to take in a breath but
struggled. One bullet had hit my lung and the other was in my lower abdomen. I
could tell the lung shot went all the way through, so it would heal,
eventually.

There were two more loud bursts from
Emily’s weapon and I heard Alex shout out some pained obscenities.

“What the hell happened up
there?” Batton asked in his deep voice, dead of all emotion.

“That little telekinetic bitch
decided it would be cute to show off. The helicopter is down, we’ll be leaving
in the boat.”

“Fine. Do you have her then?”
Batton asked.

“Yes. They’re loading her now.”

“So James wasn’t as invincible as
he thought he was,” Batton said.

“Yes. He’s dead. A bullet to the
forehead.”

“Good, though it’s a shame we
lost him. He was a good drone.”

“Is Lairia ready to be moved?”
Emily asked.

“It seems the sedative is
working. We should be able to move her without incident,” Batton said.

I’d never had a reason to ponder the
fact before, but it was hard to do much with a hole in your lung, when you
can’t really get any breath in. All I could do was struggle to breath and lay there
while they took Sara and Laura away and killed Alex and myself.

The pain was incredible, but even
with such a blinding distraction, I was able to pick up on something they’d
just said. Besides the strange pronunciation of her name, they were really concerned
about Laura waking, so much it sounded like they’d used a specific type of
sedative on her. I wondered what it was she could do that they were so afraid
of.

I knew Laura had the building
shielded from people with mental abilities from breaking through to those
inside, but maybe it didn’t work the other way. Alex had been able to project
himself past the barrier earlier; maybe my ability would work from inside here
too.

While struggling to breathe, I
focused, not on the lack of air, not on the searing pain, but on Laura. At
first there was nothing as I reached in, searching for her consciousness, but
then I sensed more than heard something. It was faint, but definitely there.
There was hopelessness, despair and sense of regret, but no clear thoughts.
Whatever it was they had her on hadn’t completely shut down her mind. She was still
trying to fight.

I’d been thinking a lot about the
weird reaction I received from Billy when I read him at the truck stop. He
reacted as if he had heard me somehow. I’d been wondering if there was more to
my ability than I realized. Not knowing if it would work or if I could even do
it at all, I tried something I’d never tried before.

“Laura.” I pushed thought to her,
trying for the first time to open up dialogue mind to mind. “Laura, its
Michael. If you can hear me please acknowledge.”

The whole sense of her suddenly changed.
The emotions I’d sensed before disappeared and were replaced with hope.

Her mind responded weakly. “Michael,
where are you?”

“I’m in the lab. Alex and I have
been shot. They’ve killed James and have Sara. They plan on taking you with
them as well.

“We don’t have much time then.” Her
presence was suddenly stronger. Without warning, a flood of thought, memory,
pain and regret hit me like a tidal wave, flowing directly from Laura’s mind.
In just an instant I knew her, everything about her. In that instant, all my
questions about her, Titan and myself were answered.

Though it was just seconds that
passed, what I saw was a lifetime of memory, telling a story so incredible I
never would have believed it if not for the absolute truth I felt coming from
her.

She showed a civilization,
distant and alien from anything I’d ever known. I saw Caldwell, Batton, Emily
and others with Titan board large space craft, that’s right freaking space
ships, and leave their world for ours.

Once on our planet, they spent
years, slowly introducing their DNA into thousands of unborn fetuses. They left
those babies to be born and raised by their parents. Once the altered humans
reached maturity, several years were spent rounding them up. I watched myself
as I was captured, by Laura, and felt her dismay and dissolution start to build
at what they were doing.

Laura’s people came to our planet
to conquer and allow their race to grow. They were raising an army of enhanced
humans to help the efforts of their limited numbers. Once taken, each of us was
kept in a sort of stasis while they worked to perfect the process of
controlling their captured force of altered humans.

There were several unsuccessful
attempts and with each, Laura grew more and more dismayed with what her people
were doing. She, more than any others of her race, spent significant time out amongst
the normal folk, gaining a love and appreciation for all our world had to
offer. Finally, she got to the point where she knew she could no longer be a
part of what they were doing and just left.

It was several years later when
she came back and helped Sara, Alex and myself get out. It all made sense now.
I knew who Titan was, I knew who Laura was. She showed me who I was. They’d
stolen me from a life and people I loved and Laura was the one who had taken me.

The regret she felt at all of
what she and Titan had done was genuine and unyielding. Everything she did now
for us, for anyone affected by Titan’s touch, was her attempt at redemption.
She felt no matter how much she did, it would never be enough.

The flood passed as quickly as it
came and I was stunned by information overload. The tale she’d just told in a
moments time was so much more than I’d ever imagined.

“If your wounds were healed, could
you stop them?” she asked through our mentally connected state.

I’d almost forgotten where we
were, that we were all lying helpless.   took another second to sort out my
thoughts and answered. “Yes, I think so but how…”

I didn’t get to finish as my
consciousness flooded back into my own mind due to a strange overwhelming sensation,
best described as a tingling where the wounds in my chest and abdomen had been.
The pain was gone. Also, there were similar feelings, though not as strong, on other
parts of my body, places where I’d been injured earlier. Suddenly, the
sensations ended and my mind was clear. I no longer felt any pain and a renewed
energy coursed through me.

If I hadn’t just seen all Laura
had shown me, I wouldn’t have understood what happened. Laura had the ability
to heal others. Usually, she had to be physically connected with those she
healed, but she’d been able to heal me through our mental connection. When she
revealed herself to me, it magnified the intensity of the connection to a level
where such a feat was possible. I knew what I needed to do.

“What about these two?” Emily asked.

Batton’s voice was cold. “They’re
damaged. Kill them as well.”

At that, I opened my eyes. I felt
whole, fully energized and ready to kick Titan alien butt.

Batton and Emily both had their
backs to me. I could see two other agents in the room, but neither had their
attention on me. Slowly, I rolled to my chest. I positioned my legs under me and
pushed off, soaring towards the closest agent. No one knew I was even moving
until I hit them. With one fluid movement there was impact, my elbow crashing
into the side of his head and I had his weapon. I followed with a butt stroke
to the head and then turned it on the other agent.

Two quick bursts downed agent
number two and I brought the weapon on Batton and Emily. I didn’t give them
time to take in the situation before I started firing, a cold sense of purpose taking
over. I wasn’t trying to wound this time, which had been my mistake before. This
time I was going to stop them. Laura showed me their true nature and purpose. I
couldn’t let them take Sara and Laura.

Two shots hit Emily and impact pushed
her to the ground. Three hit Batton. He staggered back but didn’t fall.

He looked up at me with cold
bloodshot eyes. “You are weak. All that you are was given to you from us. I
will destroy you.”

He straightened himself despite
his wounds and started to move forward, cold and determined.

“Not today asshole.” With no
emotion behind it, just cold purpose, I raised my weapon and pulled off two
more shots, each hitting the same target.

The red wound appeared just above
his eyes. He fell back and was still.

I turned the weapon back to where
Emily had fallen. She was gone. I swept the room and found no sign of her. I saw
the open door and remembered Sara was on the boat. I rushed out of the room,
out the door and onto the dock. The boat was still there and Sara was lying
inside. I scanned the area but couldn’t see any sign of Emily. I tried to reach
out with my mind into the immediate area, but found no one but Sara.

Once I had Sara out of the boat,
I carried her back into the boat house.

“Damn! Man,” Alex said as I entered.
“How the hell did you pull that off? When I saw you take those shots I thought
it was over.”

“I did too.”

I looked towards Laura who was
still unconscious.

“Are you alright?” I asked Alex.

“I’ll live. Is Sara okay?”

“I think so. It looks like they
just sedated her. Did you see Emily get out?”

Alex shook his head. “No. I was
pretty out of it for a while. So she got away?”

“It looks that way.”

I looked around the room. Batton’s
body was motionless on the ground but the two agents were gone. “What about the
other agents. Where did they go?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, I was
pretty out of it.”

I guess I was lost in the moment
or just dense because it was just then I noticed the man who had been unconscious
and lying next to Rachael was gone as well. “What the hell? Now where did he
go?”

There was no way the two agents I’d
shot could have recovered that quickly and the other guy had been unconscious. Gently,
I put Sara down on the empty bed and rushed back outside, using the door that exited
to the path rather than the dock.

I was facing the area where James
had fought off the dozen agents earlier. I’d expected to see plenty of broken
forms and from what Emily had said James’ body. There was no one. The space was
completely empty.

What was going on? Somehow Emily was
able to recover all of her agents? In a matter of minutes? That didn’t make
sense. She shouldn’t have been able to get away herself. Also, why did they take
James’ body?

What I did know was Sara, Alex,
Laura and Rachael were all still with me. They were all either injured or
unconscious, but still there. I walked back into the boat house to take care of
them.

It seemed the fight with Titan was
over for the time being. They didn’t get what they’d wanted from us, they
didn’t get Sara. They’d almost had her. I’d almost lost her again and would
have if not for Laura’s help.

I had so much to sort through, so
much to figure out. For the time being though, I had friends and one outcast
alien who needed my help. That was most important. Everything else could wait.

The energy and anticipation
coming off the crowd was incredible. So many people crammed into such a small
club. It was only the third stop in the bands limited reunion tour. The tour
was the first time all four members had performed together since 1996, when the
band disbanded. They were only hitting small clubs and once it was announced The
Glowing Jims were back together and going on tour, the shows instantly sold
out. Lucky for us, Laura had connections.

I was starting to finally settle
into my new life. Alex and I had an apartment together downtown, only a few
blocks away. Sara and Rachael lived next door. It was great getting to just
spend time with all of them, especially Sara. Just being able to know her better
was perfect. Since the little skirmish at the lake, things had been quiet,
allowing us to focus on each other.

Rachael finally woke the morning
after Titan’s attack and like James, she remembered nothing of her time while
she was under Titan’s control. We still didn’t know the name of the other agent
who was with Rachael and James. We never found any sign of him, James or any of
the others.

Losing James was tough on all of
us. Despite our feelings towards him when we were at the HUB together, he was ultimately
the one who saved us, sacrificing his life for the rest of us. He was an
incredible warrior as he proved that night. It’s just unfortunate the only part
of his life he had any memory of before his death was our time at the HUB.

We spent a good amount of time
taking shifts at a small facility Laura had downtown. It was used as the base
of operations for our search of those out there with abilities. It was also where
we still held Peter, Lila and Darius. Peter was kept in a state of forced coma
and we’d been trying to work with Lila and Darius, but so far without much
success. The prolonged exposure to Peter’s control had really warped them. We
hoped to be able to help them, to be able to have a break through soon.

There were a few others who worked
with us, others with abilities Laura had picked up along the way. The truth
about where we came from, Titan and everything that had happened to us was kept
from them. As far as they knew, we were just others found by Laura, just like
them. The whole alien DNA thing was kept from them for now. It made things significantly
less complicated that way.

I hadn’t seen much of Laura since
we left the lake. She seemed to stay busy with her various business ventures,
though I still wasn’t clear on what all of those were. From what I’d gathered,
no one was very clear about that. There was so much I wanted to discuss with
her, so much floating around in my head I wanted to further substantiate with a
face to face conversation. She knew that and her absence of late was her way to
postpone the inevitable conversation.

I told Sara, Alex and Rachael all
I had learned from Laura. Honestly, I thought they were going to think I was crazy
when I did, but I was wrong. They listened and trusted what I told them was
true. Even though I knew it was true, I still had a hard time with it.

Laura had showed me I was someone
with a life and family and she personally took me from that. I knew some
version of the girl and babies from my dreams were out there somewhere as well
as parents, maybe siblings. Would I ever connect with any of them? I didn’t think
so. Though I thought Laura would help me find them, they were out of my reach.

Even if I was to try and take
back that life, how would it fit with what I now had with Sara and the others?
It was all too much to think about so I tried not to. For the time being I was
happy, really happy with Sara. That’s all that mattered.

I had to give Laura credit. She knew
how to get things done. Somehow she was able to put a lid on everything that
happened at the lake. An explosion, gunfire and a helicopter crash should have
been events that were hard to hide, but she did it somehow. There was never a
peep about any of it in the news.

She also sent out anonymous wires
to each of the banks I’d taken cash from, covering each unauthorized withdrawal
I’d made over the past year, with interest. I hadn’t asked her to do that for
me. I wanted to pay it back myself, but somehow she’d found my list and took
care of it.

On top of all that, I had the
Land Cruiser back. Laura was able to find it. Not only that, it had a new
engine, fully stocked weapons compartment and upgraded state of the art sound
system. I had everything I loved. Life was good.

“This is great!” Sara shouted,
trying to be heard over the noise of the crowd.

Alex looked less enthused with
almost a pained look on his face. “Yeah, great.”

I’d given everyone a punk 101
course sampling favorites from my extensive collection a few days prior. Alex
and Rachael were less impressed, but Sara seemed to love it. When Laura sent
over three tickets, Rachael said she’d take a shift at Laura’s facility that
night so the three of us could go. Alex tried to insist, but he was the one who
ended up at the club with us. Over the past couple of days I’d made sure Sara was
up to speed with the entire Glowing Jims catalog.

“You know, you didn’t have to
come,” I said.

“I know. I said I’ll give it a
chance.”

Weeks ago when I’d seen the
poster advertising the show, the best I could have hoped for was to come and
watch alone. I would have enjoyed the music, sure, but it would have been
different, an experience, but a lonely experience. Now, I was there, feeling
the energy of the crowd, together with the girl I loved and my best friend. I was
sharing the experience with my family. The feeling was incredible.

There was so much I needed to
figure out, but in that moment none of it mattered. In that moment all that mattered
were friends, family, love and great punk rock.

The band stepped on stage. I looked
over at Sara. The look of excitement on her face gave me a rush of incredible
emotion. Not only did I love her in every part of her being, her looks, her
wit, her kindness, her love, her ability to take down a helicopter with her
mind, but she was a girl who appreciated good music. She was perfection wrapped
up in a beautiful package.

They started the rhythmic intro
to a song I knew well, but the name escaped me. I wasn’t good with remembering
song names. The crowd began to jump and Sara and I joined the action. I looked
over at Alex. He shrugged and jumped with the rest of us.