Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (85 page)

Maybe I didn’t want to know—didn’t want to connect helpful Simon Hewitt with the Bane called Psystorm who’d been our enemy. And every single person I’d meet today in the Warren had been in the exact same place.

Coming here had been a huge fucking mistake.

“Tempest?” Simon waved a hand in front of my face, concerned.

I snapped my head back, unsure how long I’d been staring at him—or what my face must have looked like. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you were ready to go? They’ll have heard the copter and be expecting us.”

“Yeah. Right, okay.”

He gave me another curious look, then led the way across the grass, south toward Fifty-Ninth Street. Aaron and I fell into step behind him. The last battle had been my first and only visit to Central Park, and we’d been dumped a few blocks north of here, so my only knowledge of this part of the city came from maps and reports. The few standing trees thinned out, replaced by various patches of planted flowers. Some were surrounded by rings of carefully placed rocks; others seemed to have been randomly dropped.

We exited the Park at what had been Columbus Circle, and a large hole in the ground marked what had once been a subway entrance. They’d built a fence around it out of rubble from nearby buildings, probably to keep stray kids from wandering into the pit. To our left and down about half the block, a small cluster of people stood on the sidewalk outside an apartment building—the only one on the street I could see that had received any sort of care in the last decade. The exterior looked like white concrete, and every single window was intact (not something its neighboring buildings could boast). During New York’s heyday it wasn’t the prettiest place on the block, but now it was the only thriving spot in a dead metropolis.

We’d found the Warren.

I forced myself to keep a steady gait as I followed Simon and Aaron across the empty, quiet expanse of Fifty-Ninth. Counted one woman and four men by the street-level entrance, watching us with a variety of expressions: alarm, curiosity, maybe a little bit of dread. They all wore the black tracking collar I’d seen once before, when Simon first came to help us in Los Angeles. I recognized faces from my research and easily placed names and powers on each of them—not to mention lists of past crimes against the Rangers and the general public.

Mai Lynn Chang stood at the front of the quintet, a slender woman with slashes of white in otherwise black hair. Hands folded in front of her, she gave Simon a polite nod, then fixed her eyes on me. Eyes that sparkled gold around a narrow catlike slit in the pupil.

“Mai Lynn Chang, Warren representative,” she said. Her voice had a soft purr that was bizarrely soothing.

“Ethan Swift,” I said. She offered her hand and I shook it, impressed by her firm grip.

“Scott Torres,” Aaron said in his borrowed accent and shook, as well.
“Encantado
.
”

“Welcome to the Warren,” she said. “Shall I assume you already know everyone standing behind me?” On our nods, she continued, “Excellent. We won’t waste time with too many introductions, then. There is quite a lot for you to see today.”

She seemed pleasant enough, but I still felt like a prize cow being sized up by hungry butchers—none of the looks coming from the men in her company were terribly friendly. I’d never met any of her companions, not that I could recall, and it struck me that Mai Lynn was probably smart enough to keep our little delegation away from anyone who’d been at Belvedere Castle that final day. No sense in tossing gasoline on an already-roaring fire.

Not unexpectedly, the tour began in the apartment building. The lobby had the look of an interior town square, with benches and chairs placed in small clusters on the left. Patio tables and chairs were scattered around on the right. Someone had even painted the ceiling blue. The walls had various murals of outdoor scenes from around the world—beaches with palm trees, leafy jungles, snowcapped mountains.

“This is our common area,” Mai Lynn explained. “This building has been our meeting place for over a decade, long before the Warren. We wanted a place to come and socialize that had a spacious feeling, as well as protection in winter. It can seem somewhat claustrophobic when snow makes it difficult to go outside, but we’re not alone.”

Made sense. I had no idea where the city of New York had once stored its snowplows, and searching for them had probably never been very high on their priority list. Still, the way she spoke of the Warren caught my attention, and I realize our accumulated research had a big damned hole in it.

“You say you met here for over a decade, long before the Warren?” I asked.

She nodded.

“How long has the Warren been around? How long has everyone been living together here?”

“Since our powers returned in January.”

I blinked. “Really?”

“Yes. Before that, we lived in more than a dozen small groups scattered around these few square blocks. There was always talk of creating a larger community, but some spoke very loudly against it.” Her expression darkened. “And then the government began drugging us, and for many, the topic simply disappeared in a haze of lethargy and nausea.”

Almost three years ago, unknown to the residents of Manhattan or the general public, Warden Hudson allowed a depressant to be added to the city’s ingoing water supply. Simon told us he hadn’t drunk it, nor had Caleb, but a lot of folks did. And they got pretty sick. Its use was discontinued the same week we defeated Specter—thanks to Teresa and Agent McNally.

“Once the haze lifted,” Mai Lynn continued, “we began to understand what was happening. Our powers had returned, but the majority no longer wished for the notoriety we’d earned during the War. We simply wanted to be left alone, and Simon’s efforts outside the island have made that seem less like an unobtainable pipe dream.”

I had nothing to say that didn’t sound trite, so I stayed quiet.

“Shall we continue?” she asked, and led us past two elevators to a doorless stairwell.

“Electricity is rationed, so we make use of the stairs,” she said as we went up. Her voice echoed in the cement block stairwell. “We only use the elevators when absolutely necessary, but we’ve also kept ourselves to the first four floors.”

At some point we’d lost Mai Lynn’s four shadows, which didn’t bother me at all. Their silent presence had creeped me the hell out. She showed us the second floor, which had seen some pretty impressive construction work. Walls were knocked out to combine apartments, creating a large kitchen and dining room. The setup reminded me of the cafeteria back at the old Rangers HQ.

Here we got our first eyeful of residents at work. Half a dozen people were in the kitchens working on the evening meal, which—according to Mai Lynn—was always a group effort. Everyone took turns preparing and serving meals, and all food was shared. No one hoarded. No one stole. The effectiveness of their system was astounding. Of course, I could imagine the wrinkles they’d ironed out back in the earliest days of creating such a smooth operation—especially with so many strong personalities in the mix.

Mai Lynn showed us the third floor, too. I was surprised that every single door stood open, and said so.

“Trust is tantamount to this community working,” Mai Lynn said. “We have a shared past, yes, but that doesn’t mean we were allies. We had to put aside many differences in order to survive, and this is one of the reasons you’re here.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“The loners you seek chose not to become part of our community, and for their own reasons. We don’t hunt them and we don’t turn them away when they need supplies, but they know that they aren’t welcome inside the Warren. Not unless they agree to live by our rules.”

“Sensible,” Aaron said.

Mai Lynn nodded. “We think so as well.”

“How exactly has the return of your powers affected the community?” I asked.

“For one thing, it’s immensely improved our ability to garden. And for another, these are no longer active.” She tapped her finger against the black collar circling her throat. “You have no idea the relief of knowing that your every move is no longer being monitored by a man in a black suit who’d rather see you dead than properly fed.”

Icy fingers dragged down my spine and the phantom odor of a musty basement seized in my throat. Too many nights spent in that freezing basement for perceived slights—incidents far beyond the control of a traumatized teenager. I could fully empathize with the anxiety and dread of living under an indifferent caretaker, positive the smallest slip-up would bring the hammer down.

“Tempest?” Aaron asked.
“¿Estás bien?”

The strong breeze fluttering the tips of my hair—not a natural occurrence in an enclosed upstairs hallway—clued me in, and I got my minor power surge under control. My emotions, too, which had suddenly skirted the edge of uncomfortable and gotten too close to full-on flashback. I spent a lot of time
not
thinking about the four and a half years I spent fostered with the Bacons, and I had no intention of thinking about them now. Especially not here, of all fucking places.

“Sorry, fine,” I said. “I just got lost in thought for a minute.”

“That must have been some thought,” Mai Lynn said. She gave me a curious, searching look, and I returned it without blinking, even though her cat eyes were a little scary. She looked away first. “Shall we head outside?”

The chill of long-buried memories didn’t fade, even after we stepped back into the summer heat. I wanted a minute to myself so I could get my racing thoughts together, but asking for a time-out wasn’t happening. One, it made me look weak in front of Mai Lynn and her friends. Two, where exactly would I go? I could fly anywhere in Manhattan to be alone, but everything about this damned city reminded me of the past. Reminded me of events and people I really, really wanted to forget.

An archway boasting of new construction led us into Central Park, and newly created paths met up with older paths. The distant sounds of laughter bounced off the buildings behind us, creating the oddest sense of displacement. Laughter didn’t belong in a place like this, and certainly not the laughter of children.

The first thing we encountered was a playground.

I am not shitting you.

The playground looked like anything you’d see in a nice, clean, safe, suburban neighborhood—or a rich person’s backyard. The wood fort-slide combo was under siege by three young children waving plastic swords, while a fourth sat by herself on one end of a seesaw. The swing set boasted three regular swings and a tire swing, which was being used by a man who seemed to be the adult on babysitting duty.

All of those kids had been born here, without the benefit of a proper hospital. No doctors. No checkups. Just the attention and love of their parents.

Intellectually, I knew the Banes had had children while imprisoned. I’d seen their photos on my tablet, even knew their names and the names of their parents. But seeing them playing Seize the Castle with fake swords and big smiles drove the point home with a sledgehammer. Simon and Caleb stopped being anomalies.

This was their reality.

The little girl on the seesaw noticed our quartet. She ran toward us, waving, sunlight glinting off her celery-green hair. “Hi, Mr. Hewitt,” she said in the high-pitched voice young kids are known for. She couldn’t have been older than eight.

“Hello, Muriel,” Simon said.

“You brought friends!” Her wide eyes took in me, then “Scott.” She leaned forward, put her hand to her mouth, and stage-whispered, “Are you Metas, too?”

“Yes, we are,” I said.

She squealed so loudly I expected my ears to start bleeding—and if it turned out her power wasn’t related to the pitch of her voice, I’d buy the kid a pony. She clapped her hands together and bounced on the balls of her feet. “Can you do anything fun?” she asked me.

I glanced at Mai Lynn for help, but she just smiled and cocked her head like she wanted to know the answer, too. I squatted down so I was eye level with Muriel. “I can control the wind. I use it to help me fly.”

“Super fun!”

Her antics had attracted the attention of the other three kids. The man on the tire stopped swinging and was watching us with a sour look on his face. Familiarity slammed into my chest, and I stared back, wishing he was closer. He was older, probably in his fifties, with the beefy build of someone who’d once lifted weights for a living—or thrown cars from one side of the street to another.

Muriel tapped my hand and recaptured my attention. “Want to know my power?”

“Okay,” I said, and prepared to cover my ears with my hands.

She closed her eyes. Her entire body began to sparkle, then shimmer. The shimmer turned into a fine shine, like polished chrome, and then she disappeared. Sort of. At different angles, I could still see the faint outline of her little body, but she’d bent the light in such a way as to create an effective camouflage.

I bet her parents
loved
that power.

“That’s a super fun power, too,” I said.

She squealed again and the camouflage dropped. She angled her head past me, probably about to ask “Scott” about his powers.

Mai Lynn anticipated this. “That’s enough for now, Muriel,” she said. “But thank you for coming over and saying hello.”

Muriel gave us an exaggerated curtsy, despite wearing slacks, and then raced over to the fort to tell her friends. I stood up, still curious about the man on the swing. He was walking toward us, shoulders back, head high, like he was about to tell a couple of unruly teens to get the hell off his lawn. And less than ten feet from us, I recognized him.

He’d killed one of my friends.

Six

Common Ground

F
rom the moment the copter touched down and ejected us sixteen kids, we ran. We’d been told to keep ahead of the fighting, that we were the last line of defense if the final Ranger Units fell. Except that not all of the Banes were behind us, and Mayhem wasn’t the first we encountered in Central Park.

One hit us near a stone fountain of an angel that overlooked a lake. No one saw him hiding there, not until he shot something at us the size of golf balls. A couple of them hit a girl named Rebecca right in the chest; she was the first of us to fall that day. Twelve years old. The Bane, Shard, had the power to shoot ice balls like bullets. Janel Murphy was our group’s ice manipulator, and despite being less than half his age, she kicked his ass in record speed—right into the lake behind the fountain. Then she froze it over.

I’d been surprised to discover later that Peter “Shard” Keene had survived being turned into a Banesicle.

And I was stunned stupid to find myself looking him in the face again.

Something in my expression must have warned him off, because Keene stopped walking while he was still a good six feet away from our group. He looked at Mai Lynn, less confident now, like he couldn’t remember why he’d walked over in the first place. I wrangled in my temper before I sent him back over to the swing set on a sharp gust of air. Maybe all the way back to the lake, if I put enough effort into it.

“You two have met?” Aaron asked.

Hooray for Captain Obvious.
I tossed Aaron a nasty look, and he started studying his fingernails.

“Maybe this is the wrong time,” Keene said.

“Ethan is here in a professional capacity,” Simon said. “I don’t think he’ll take a swing at you, if you speak your mind.”

This time Simon got the nasty look. He wasn’t wrong, though, and he’d just done an artful job of reminding me why I wouldn’t take my anger out on Keene. I was here as a representative of our group of ex-Rangers. I was here representing Teresa West, our leader and the woman fighting hardest for the people in this prison to receive full pardons for past crimes. Maybe I came with a hidden agenda, but I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass Teresa or jeopardize her initiatives.

Keene took a few more steps in my direction. While he had a good six inches of height on me, he seemed to stoop his body in such a way that put us at eye level. I watched him, unable to get my voice to work and ask him what the hell he wanted.

“I don’t remember you, but I know who you are,” Keene said. “I know you were one of those kids that day.”

Something squeezed my throat and made it hard to breathe.
Those kids? That day?
A whole cyclone of negative emotions kept me from doing anything except glare at him, while I worked to make sure I didn’t accidentally send a real cyclone swirling across the playground. I would
not
scare those kids.

“It don’t mean much now,” Keene continued, “but I’m sorry. Sorry for everything I did back then. Maybe it was war, but that’s no excuse to attack kids. Not ever. We were wrong.”

Well, knock me over with a feather . . .

My internal whirlwind settled a bit, and that loosened its hold on my vocal chords. I surprised myself by practically whispering words I had every right to scream: “She was only twelve.”

Keene didn’t ask whom I meant; he knew I was talking about Rebecca, the little girl he’d killed in a time of war. He blinked rapidly, and I felt oddly ashamed for bringing a grown man this close to tears. “I know,” he said. “And I’ll see her face every day until I die.”

He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “Anyhow, I ain’t asking for forgiveness, because I don’t deserve it. But I had words I needed to say.”

I was glad he didn’t ask for forgiveness. Forgiving him was not my job, nor was it something I felt capable of doing—not even lying about it to make him feel better. I knew how heavy guilt could get when you carried it around, unable to talk about it with the people who needed to know the truth. I also knew fake forgiveness didn’t help anyone, much less the person asking for it.

Still, Keene had made an effort. I could man up and do the same, damn it. “Thank you for saying that.”

“Lots of folks here feel the same way,” Keene said. “Most of us were doing what we were told by the guy with the biggest balls.”

Simon had said something similar once, that many of the Banes followed Specter in those final years because he was the strongest. His ability to control your mind remotely made his physical body difficult to locate and him impossible to defeat. He ruled through fear. Not for the first time, I wondered if anyone in Manhattan shed tears when the bastard finally died.

“I get that.” And I did, except . . . “Can I ask you a question?”

Keene gave a slow nod. “Sure.”

I glanced at Simon and Mai Lynn, so they understood they were included in this one. “If you feared and disliked Specter so much, why the deception with his tracking collar? Why pretend he was here all these years and keep an innocent man imprisoned in his place?”

Keene’s eyes went wide, then furrowed in confusion.

“Ethan,” Mai Lynn said sharply, and I gave her my undivided attention. “No one in the Warren was involved in that, I promise you. The people you’re looking for? They’ll have those answers.”

Something in her eyes made me believe her. She’d been incredibly candid so far and hadn’t given me any reason to distrust her. “Fair enough,” I said.

“I’ll let you be, then,” Keene said. His right hand twitched, like he was going to offer to shake and changed his mind. I wasn’t ready to go that far into the realm of friendliness yet, though, so I stuck my hands in my pockets and gave him a polite nod instead. Keene nodded back, then returned to his tire swing.

“The playground was his idea,” Mai Lynn said after he’d gone. “I think he finds some peace in the kids, especially when they play.”

Peace—if only it was as simple as finding it in a child’s laughter. Most of us wouldn’t truly know peace until all our secrets were out in the open, all past sins revealed. But that kind of peace always came at a personal cost.

Some things just weren’t worth it.

•   •   •

The garden was better than I’d imagined from the description. It covered a large swath of land northeast of the playground, and this late in the summer, it had stalks and branches and bushes ripe with vegetables and fruit of all sorts. Rows of corn, tomatoes, string beans, cabbage, peppers, even squash and eggplant. Heads bobbed around in the different rows, hoeing and harvesting and occasionally tasting. The volume of food they’d produced in a single year astounded me.

“It wasn’t always like this, unfortunately,” Mai Lynn said as she led us past a couple of blackberry bushes. “This was a city park, after all, and not exactly fertile ground for planting. It took several years to turn the soil properly and get it ready to grow anything. That first tomato was a very big deal for us. We were slowly able to expand and add other crops.”

She swept her hand out, indicating the entire garden. “This, though, is one of the ways our powers have made our lives better. Water for the garden was always an issue, but no longer. Old seeds thrive. Our children finally have all the food they could ever want.” She glanced at Simon, a sad, regretful look.

When Caleb first left Manhattan, he’d been scrawny and underfed. He hadn’t had the sun-kissed health that those four children on the playground possessed. In some ways he still didn’t reflect the same level of health, since he spent a good deal of time inside, hiding from the outside world that hated him for being Meta.

The four children I’d seen today seemed as normal as any kids in any city park. They were thriving here. This man-made island prison was the only life they’d ever known, and it had actually been improved by the reappearance of our superpowers. They’d never known traffic jams or television or computers. They’d never known war. Would their lives be improved if they left this place?

Or would the opposite happen?

“We’ve done this without fertilizers and chemicals,” Mai Lynn said. “That cannot be said for the majority of produce consumed in the outside world.”

True. The affects of the War on certain parts of the country (not to mention the environment) meant nearly fifty percent of fresh fruit and vegetables were grown in hothouses, using bioengineering methods most people didn’t want to hear about as long as they got flawless (and cheap) tomatoes at the supermarket tomorrow.

“Our powers could improve situations in a lot of places,” I said out loud before I could stop myself. One of Teresa’s favorite topics to wax poetic about was our potential roles as instruments of change, rather than simply putting out fires (real and metaphorical). Unfortunately, even in the places where we’d do the most good, people were still too suspicious of us to allow us to help—even with something as simple as food production in a drought-ravaged state.

“Or make situations infinitely worse,” Aaron said.

“Obviously, we still rely on the government for certain things,” Mai Lynn said, as though neither of us had spoken. “We don’t have the facilities or raw ingredients for producing bread or meat or dairy, and what we receive in the monthly drops is rationed as best we can. We also rely on them for medicine and other supplies, but as you can see, we are not wholly dependent on government charity.”

“No, you’re not,” I said. And, depending on what happened after November’s election, it was probably a very good thing. Meanwhile, I had no idea how I’d describe all of this to Teresa later.

•   •   •

Dinner at Simon’s house was a subdued affair, with Caleb doing the bulk of the talking. He chattered on about the book Luisa had helped him read—and I figured out she wasn’t just a nanny but also his tutor, and the kid (six years old next month) was already at a third-grade reading level. The midget continued to impress the hell out of me. After Caleb’s oral thesis on the lessons one can learn in
Bridge to Terabithia
(I’d never read it, but it didn’t surprise me that Caleb had connected to what was apparently a pretty tragic book), I excused myself to go to the apartment across the hall.

Teresa didn’t let her phone get through its first ring before she answered, sounding a little out of breath. “Ethan?”

“It’s me,” I said, then mentally subtracted three hours from the time. What was she in the middle of? “Should I call back?”

“What? No.” Some sort of thumping noise cut off into silence. “Okay, I’m inside now. Sorry.”

“Did I interrupt?”

“Just a little training exercise with Kate and Denny.”

I settled into one of the old beach chairs and winced when the fabric groaned a warning at me. “How’s it going with the new kids?”

“Throwing attitude, but I think they’re figuring out we’re on their side. Kate’s still pretty prickly, though. It’ll take time to smooth out her rough edges.”

“So sorry I’m missing it.”

“I bet.” I could see her rolling her eyes, despite three thousand miles between us. Teresa was just that predictable when it came to my sarcasm. “So what’s happening in New York?”

I picked at a frayed edge of the chair as I sorted through my words. “It’s been . . . eye-opening, to say the least.”

“Tell me.”

Reports and satellite images communicated only so much to the person viewing them, so I filled in all of the missing cracks and crevices for Teresa. Told her about the Warren, the community they’d built, and the rules they’d established. She made a funny noise when I described the children at the playground—something like surprise, with a heaping helping of sadness. The garden got a similar sound, only this time more surprised than sad. I could imagine exactly what her face looked like, too—eyebrows up, mouth half open.

“They’ve done a hell of a lot over there in the last eight months,” I said. “A hell of a lot more than I expected.”

“Sounds like.”

“They don’t want to leave, but they don’t want to be prisoners anymore.”

“I know. What do you think of that?”

Two days ago, that had been an easy question to answer. Not so much now. I tapped my fingers against my thigh. “I’m not sure. Mai Lynn is pretty sincere, and the few other people I’ve spoken with have all been the same.”

“But?”

“No buts. It isn’t the people in the Warren who worry me, it’s the nine people we haven’t found yet. They’re the ones who kept the Specter doppelganger prisoner for all those years.”

Teresa sucked in a sharp breath that whistled over the phone. After a moment, she said, “In a way, that’s good to know. It certainly helps Simon’s case for the Warren.”

“Yeah.”

The apartment door opened and Aaron stepped inside with two small plates. Something fluffy and vaguely dessert-like was piled on each. The moment he closed the door behind him, he dropped “Scott” completely in favor of his own face. He held up one plate. I nodded, then pointed at the floor. He put a plate down next to my chair, and I got a whiff of sweetness and berries. It looked like some kind of pudding or pie or something. Aaron sank into the other chair and scooped up a big mouthful from his own plate.

“So how’s Aaron? Behaving?” Teresa asked.

I caught my laugh and it turned into an abbreviated snort.
Speak of the devil, he’s already appeared.
“So far,” I said. “The only person who questioned his disguise was Caleb.”

Teresa laughed softly. Aaron flashed me a curious look over a mouthful of dessert, and I chose not to tell him he had whipped cream on his nose.

“Leave it to Caleb,” she said. “How’s he?”

“Something gives me the impression that he’ll be the leader of us all in twenty years. That kid’s too smart for his own good.”

“Leader of all Metas?”

“I was thinking the country.”

“Interesting premonition. Where’d this psychic streak come from?”

“Maybe Simon’s rubbing off on me.”

Aaron choked on his food, and I shot him a dirty look.

“What was that?” Teresa asked.

“Someone who needs to learn to chew properly,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” Her voice changed when she asked, “Tell me the truth, Ethan?”