Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (20 page)

Michael got his left earplug in, but then a different kind of assault took place: An intense, blinding light filled the prison courtyard.  Michael was looking down to prep his second earplug, so he was saved from the brunt of it, but it still left spots in his vision. He heard Mark cry out, but he wouldn’t be able to help his partner unless he protected himself first. Palming the remaining earplug and keeping his eyes closed, he fished back into his coat for a pair of polarized, wraparound sunglasses.

Michael got the sunglasses in place, but the area was still damn bright! It was like the sun itself had decided to pay a visit, except that this light wasn’t hot and its source seemed to be moving along at ground level. He saw Mark’s silhouette and scrambled on his hands and knees toward his partner.

He found Mark kneeling, with one hand over his eyes and the other wavering out in front of him. Mark was yelling something, probably curses, but his voice just came through as a bass-y rumble — partly due to Michael’s blocked left ear, partly thanks to the ringing brought on by the thunderclaps.

Taking the remaining earplug, he tapped Mark on the arm to warn him that he was there, then worked the plug into Mark’s left ear. He reached back into his pocket for another pair when he barely made out a human shape running away from the prison perpendicular to the moving light source. One of the other escaping rogues? He wished he could be sure — he wanted to avoid friendly fire.

For now, he abandoned the other earplugs. They wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything if they didn’t do something about the blinding light first.

“Mark!” he shouted. “Can you see at all?!”

His hand still over his eyes, Mark shook his head. “I can’t see shit, Mike!”

Squinting through tightly slitted eyelids, Michael tried to look at the rogue generating the light. It appeared as though he was about to reach the far gate, where the armored truck had entered. Damn it.

“Mike,” Mark began, “can you—?!”

BOOM!
Another thunderclap, this time off to their left — thankfully, the side where they were both partially protected. That rogue was running for the nearer, smaller gate, where the visitors had come onto the grounds.

Closing his eyes against the painfully bright light, Michael ran a mental inventory of his counter-rogue equipment, trying to reason out his best options, when he registered that Mark was still shouting to him. Peeking through his eyelids again and leaning his open ear closer to his partner’s mouth, he shouted back, “Say again!”

Mark pointed his available arm toward where the light was brightest — he could probably see straight through his hand in that direction. He shouted something that sounded like “Amy.”

“Say again!” Michael repeated. “Again!”

Mark bellowed, “
Aim me
!”

Michael got it. He scrambled around to Mark’s other side, taking his right arm as if it were a bazooka. Squinting through his sunglasses, he did his best to target the source of the light, which was about to disappear through the gate. “Got it!”

“How strong you want it?!”

“Try not to kill ’em, but I won’t cry if you break some bones!”

Underneath his covering hand, Mark grinned. An instant later, a shockwave leapt from his extended fist. It flew across the courtyard, broadening to insure hitting its target, and the blinding light cut off as the skinny rogue was slammed against the concrete wall on the far side of the gate. His skin luminesced once more before he collapsed face-first into the dirt. Two guards, also wearing heavy sunglasses, moved toward him, but their raised arms suggested they were seeing the same after-spots as Michael.

BOOM!
The next thunderclap, somewhat diminished from the previous one, reminded Michael that it wasn’t over yet. Blinking rapidly, he spied the other rogue about to make her own exit behind them.

“Care to try that again?!” he shouted to Mark.

Mark dropped the hand that had been covering his eyes, struggling to open them before giving up. “Do it!”

They each reversed themselves, so that Michael was now holding Mark’s left arm. Ripping off his sunglasses and dropping them aside, Michael kept blinking, trying to will his vision back into sharper focus — aiming at the glowing rogue had actually been easier, because he just had to target the most blinding spot.

“Hurry up,” Mark urged him, “before she makes that noise again! I gotta big enough headache as it is!”

Michael leveled Mark’s arm, taking aim. Someone in the nearest guard tower fired his stun gun at the escaping rogue, but missed her. Michael figured they only had a few more seconds before the woman reached the gate, and she was already spreading her arms wide with purpose — if she generated that sound right against the gate itself, Michael was doubtful that it would hold.

“Here we go!” he said to Mark. “Same as before!”

“Great, but we still got—!”

Michael’s breath exploded from his lungs as something big and solid slammed into him from behind. Whatever it was pressed down on him, shoving him headlong into the ground. A strangled yell from Mark told him he wasn’t alone.

The third rogue!
Too late, Michael remembered the guard telling them that at least three rogues were trying to break out.

Their attacker rolled right over them, and only a last-second turn of the head saved Michael from a broken nose, or worse. As it was, his left knee, both shoulders, and other joints screamed in protest from being steamrolled — if the crushing force hadn’t kept moving, he knew they both would’ve been seriously injured.

Then Michael was free.  He struggled to get up, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. He managed to look up to see the rogue rolling away from them.

Perry Cooper! Damn it, we just put him
in
here.

Another
BOOM!
flooded the world. As predicted, the smaller gate collapsed; they were probably lucky the whole outer wall didn’t come down.

As Cooper rolled toward the now-larger entrance, he rotated around inside his bubble. He pointed at the gauze on the right side of his head, then gave them the double middle finger.

As a return message, Michael pointed at Cooper, then drew a finger across his own throat.

Cooper rotated away. A hail of stun charges descended upon him as more of the guards recovered their sight well enough to try, but the weapons were as ineffective against him now as they had been in the field.

Mark recovered enough to see Cooper escaping, cut loose with a string of expletives, and launched himself into the air.

“Wait!” Michael called.

But it was too late. Between his spotty vision, ringing ears, and having just been given the rolling pin treatment, all Mark accomplished was popping his tennis shoes off like a pair of champagne corks and flailing through the air sideways into the outer wall.

Another pair of
BOOMs
echoed from outside the pit, each coming from further away as the rogue made her escape.

Michael scowled.
And I thought the worst part of today would be seeing Christine? Jesus, this is embarrassing.

Grunting in pain, Michael picked himself up and hobbled over toward his still-swearing partner.

POWERHOUSE AND SHOCKWAVE

Lincoln hit the PCA gym a few hours before that afternoon’s synod. He’d been wanting to try nonstop running for a while, to self-test his ever-growing endurance. He knew that marathon runners could jog for hours, but what about an all-out sprint, as fast as he could go? Since he rarely got tired these days (physically, anyway), he figured this was as good a test as any; all they cared about over at the testing vault was how strong he was and how much his skin could endure.

Lincoln cleared security, and as he passed through into the gym, he overheard a pair of Ensigns commenting about a prisonbreak at the rogue pit. Lincoln perked up when they mentioned the name Cooper — wasn’t that the rogue from yesterday? He almost stopped to ask, but figured this might be what the synod was about. Besides, he was a little uncomfortable with the air of hero-worship he got from some of the lower-ranking agents.

Heading into the locker room to change into workout clothes (he hardly sweated anymore, but the habit remained), Lincoln had just finished dressing when the door was kicked open. He looked up to see Shockwave stomp past him toward the sinks. Shockwave didn’t greet him or even acknowledge him, but Lincoln saw the blood on Westmore’s face and the front of his T-shirt.

Curious and concerned, Lincoln trailed after him. Shockwave turned on the sink faucet and splashed water on his face, muttering under his breath the whole time.

Lincoln hesitated. If it were anyone else, norm or paranormal, he would have already asked if they were okay. But Shockwave had made it abundantly clear how he felt about Lincoln, so should he just leave well enough alone?

Unfortunately, Shockwave saw his reflection in the mirror and snapped, “What?”

Caught, Lincoln strove for nonchalance. “Just hoping you’re all right, that’s all.”

Shockwave guffawed. “Yeah, well, when I get the goddamn spots out of my eyes and the goddamn ringing out of my ears, I’ll let ya know.” He scooped water into his mouth, swished once, and spat it out — the water emerged a touch red.

Lincoln took one step forward. “What happened, Shockwave?” He knew to always address him as “Shockwave,” never as “Mark” — he’d made that mistake once, and once was enough.

Shockwave continued grumbling under his breath and took off his bloody T-shirt, tossing it to the floor. “Nothing special, just your run-of-the-mill prisonbreak at the pit. And it happened on my
watch, so I’m sure you’ll be hearing all about it.”

“Oh,” Lincoln commented, not knowing what else to say.

Shockwave continued on as if he hadn’t heard. “Same damn rogue we just caught, plus some really loud bitch.” He splashed more water on his face, adding in a lower voice, “At least we got the sun guy.”

This rekindled Lincoln’s attention. “A geeky looking guy whose skin gets as bright as the sun?”

“Yeah ...” Shockwave answered, then paused. Leaning on the sink, he scowled at Lincoln through the mirror. “Shit, let me guess.
You
originally took that guy down?”

Lincoln’s gaze drifted toward the floor as he answered, “I was there, yeah.”

Shockwave laughed, and it was an ugly sound. “Figures. Don’t insult me with that ‘I was there’ shit. What, you expect me to believe that
Pendler
actually helped you for a change?” He turned off the water with an angry twist and pounded the lever on the paper towel dispenser several times. “I guess even your eyeballs
are so tough that bright lights don’t bother you anymore. Wonderful.”

Lincoln felt the first stirrings of his own anger. “
No
. Like I said, I was just there. It was
Vortex
 who actually beat the guy. Bright lights never seem to bother him.”

Shockwave was in the middle of drying his face and hands, and this tidbit stalled him. For the briefest of moments, it looked like he might actually apologize to Lincoln ... but then his “angry face” morphed back into place, and he settled for a dismissive snort. Kicking his discarded T-shirt off into a corner, he moved to leave the locker room, and Lincoln stood aside to let him past.

Lincoln made one final effort to extend an olive branch. “Like you said, at least you got the sun guy. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help out with the other two.”

Bad move.

Shockwave zeroed in on Lincoln until he was standing uncomfortably close. Lincoln was the larger man, but he wasn’t as practiced at confrontation as Shockwave — he retreated a step, which put his back against the locker room wall.

Shockwave seethed, “I don’t
want
your help, ‘Powerhouse’ — ever. Things were a lot better around here before
you
came along and started showing off and hoggin’ all the glory.” He looked Lincoln up and down, his lips curling in distaste. “Hell, you started out as a goddamn
rogue
. No one else seems to remember that, but I do.” He sneered at Lincoln. “So take your ‘sorry’ and shove it up your ass.”

Lincoln stayed quiet. What could he possibly say in response to that?

Then Shockwave made his own bad move. He cut loose with one more, bitter-filled guffaw, muttered, “Get the hell out of my way,” and, quite unnecessarily, shoved Lincoln’s shoulder as though he needed more room to pass.

That was it. All of Lincoln’s frustrations came to a head — months of putting up with mistreatment from Shockwave; brooding over his changing powers and what they meant; dwelling on whether or not he truly belonged with the PCA: In that instant, Lincoln had taken all the abuse he was going to take from Mark Westmore.

As Shockwave turned his back and headed for the locker room exit, Lincoln reached up, placed his hand between Shockwave’s shoulder blades, and shoved.

The shove propelled Shockwave through the door — the fact that it normally swung
in
ward made little difference as the hinges and doorjamb simultaneously gave way and Shockwave disappeared from sight.

Lincoln stormed after him.

Shockwave, down on all fours about a dozen feet away, shook his head in an attempt to clear it. He didn’t seem to realize what had just happened, so Lincoln decided to clarify it for him.

Several agents, spread out over the gym — lifting weights, jogging, chatting — reacted to the noise, took in the scene, and immediately backed away.

Shockwave shook his head again and pushed himself up to his knees just as Lincoln reached him. “Did you just—?”

That was as far as Shockwave got. Lincoln grabbed him by the jaw and hoisted him to his feet, forcing him up onto his toes as Lincoln brought him to eye level.

Lincoln kept his voice low, but made no effort to hide his anger. “Listen, asshole. You’ve treated me like shit for the last time. You had a bad day? Fine, whatever. You want me not to care if you walk in here all messed up and bloody? Not a problem. But I’m tired of walking on eggshells around you. You’d better start showing me—”