Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (28 page)

“Yes, it is. Though I doubt that’s how Powerhouse would describe it.”

Callin’s hand glowed brighter for a second before extinguishing. “I know firsthand how unsettling it can be to spend your life one way, and then suddenly be something else. But I suspect your friend has ... I think your idiom is, ‘he has issues,’ which I do not.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. He’s never been comfortable with being paranormal. Frankly, I’ve never understood it myself, because of all the ways he could’ve turned, he got pretty lucky. Solid powers, no changes to his body ...”

Callin nodded, forgetting for the moment to exaggerate it the way humans do. “The conversion wave can have terrible effects on some. Body and mind.”

Steve stopped. “You’ve seen more than me, I guess. Whole worlds more.”

“Yes. Worlds we visited, hoping to make our home, but we couldn’t stomach the pandemonium. We’ve had too much of that.”

“What do you mean?”

Callin considered before answering, “Whatever ‘contribution’ my grandfather might have made ... if Alan is correct, if the living stars did this to balance the Cargaun’s chaos, then they made a terrible miscalculation. On the worlds we have seen affected by the conversion wave, chaos reigns. A handful are changed, and it becomes a question of which group will destroy the other first — the minority or the majority. The converts lash out, the unconverted strike back. And even in the absence of full anarchy, it seems that all converts care about nothing but using their new abilities to pursue their selfish desires.”

“Yeah, I know. So many paranormals go rogue ...”

“But it’s different here.”

“How so?”

“Your world may have its problems, even outside your rogue converts, but as a people, you’ve handled it so much better than most. You attempt to incarcerate your rogues, rather than summary executions. The two I met tonight, Shockwave and Powerhouse — converts, standing in defense of the greater good. And
you
... I admit, my friend, I don’t fully understand
what
you are, but I’m not sure it matters. The fact is, you are more than human, and you’ve chosen to don noble regalia and stand for what you believe is right. You don’t know how admirable that is.”

Steve was glad to still be wearing his mask. But then, would Callin know what blushing meant on human cheeks?

Callin continued, “I have read some of your literature, watched some of your entertainment. Your world has an affinity for
heroes
. Even if many of your people fail to act on this, your culture as a whole favors upstanding champions. You cheer those who place others before themselves.”

Smiling, Steve admitted, “I suppose we do.”

“This is one more reason why I hope my people can make this our home.”

Silence fell between them, the human and the alien. But it was a comfortable silence, and in very short order, both were again looking up into the star-strewn sky.

At length, Steve said, “I suppose you’d better get going.”

“Yes. I’ll see you at dawn.”

“I hope so.”

Callin smiled. “You will. I promise. No more lies between us.”

And with that, wrapped in his glowing, silver shroud, Callin Lan flew off into the night.

COOPER

Early the next morning, Arturo Froment limped into work at the Great American Bank. He had only missed two days after that crazy old white guy attacked him in his apartment, scaring the hell out of his mamá and killing his bro, Ramon. While he was grateful to have gotten out of that situation alive, he’d still been pretty banged up himself — cracked ribs, cracked bones in his foot, and a fat lower lip that had just last night shrunk down to its proper size. But he was really hoping for a decent raise after his next review, so Arturo forced his way past his paranoid mamá and returned to his job.

The morning started off typical enough. He counted his cash till and waited for the doors to open to the public. A few coworkers asked what happened to him; he was tempted to talk about his fight with a big, bad-ass rogue, but since he hadn’t exactly come out on top, he held his tongue for now and shrugged them off. Maybe he could think up a few juicy embellishments over his lunch break and share the story then.

Arturo was wrapping up some minor paperwork from the previous customer when he saw a white man’s hands come to rest on the counter on the other side of the security glass. He raised one finger and mumbled, “Be right with you.”

“Hey, punk.”

Arturo froze ...

... and very nearly lost control of his bladder. He slowly lifted his gaze, knowing damn well who he would see but praying to God that maybe it was just some sort of post-traumatic stress thing playing tricks on him.

It wasn’t.

Perry Cooper, in an Army jacket and baseball cap pulled down to the level of his still-red, missing ear, loomed over Arturo.

Okay, “loomed” wasn’t literally true, since Arturo was nearly the same height as the old guy and was sitting on a high work stool. But the instant he laid eyes on Cooper, he envisioned the man standing on top of him down by the pool, crushing the life out of him from inside that magic bubble of his.

Arturo’s ribs hurt.

“I’ll keep this simple for you,” Cooper said in a low voice, “since it looks like you got a lot on your mind: You know who I am, you know what I can, you know you’re not safe from me behind this glass wall of yours. Right?” When Arturo didn’t instantly respond, he repeated, “
Right
?”

Arturo nodded, really big and really fast.

“Stop that. You look like a retard.”

Arturo stopped.

Speaking very casually, Cooper ordered, “Open your drawer, put all the twenties and fifties you can fit in one of those envelopes right there, and slide the envelope over to me. Just the one envelope, nothing too obvious. Then I’m walking out of here.” Cooper leaned forward until his nose almost touched the security glass. “If an alarm goes off, if that security guard comes near me, if the cops or PCA show up before I’m long gone, I promise you this: They won’t take me down before I take
you
down. You got all that, punk?”

Arturo nodded again, mindful to keep it subtler this time. God, he needed to piss so bad!

Cooper, in turn, nodded toward the manilla envelopes. “Get to it.”

Praying that no one in the back chose that moment to take a closer look at the security camera over his station, Arturo began filling the envelope. His hands were trembling so badly, he was terrified he would drop it or the money or both, causing a scene that would bring the old man crashing through the counter and glass to kill him. A couple of rogues tore this place up the year before, so this branch had some pretty slick security now — not that it would do
him
any good.

After an agonizing minute, Arturo got the manilla envelope stuffed with enough cash that Cooper said, “Okay, that’s enough. Nothing obvious, remember?”

Swallowing hard, Arturo closed the envelope; he was too rattled to get the little tab through the hole, so he just pushed it through the exchange tray at the bottom of the glass. For a heart-stopping moment, the envelope wouldn’t fit, but he gave it an extra hard shove through the dip and into Cooper’s waiting hands.

“Okay,” Cooper said. “I’m leaving. Don’t do anything stupid until I’m gone.”

Arturo nodded again, then surprised the hell out of both of them by saying, “I didn’t tag your car.”

Cooper stared at him for a long moment. Arturo again almost pissed his pants before registering that this look wasn’t all that threatening. The guy just looked ... tired.

When Cooper spoke again, his voice suggested the same. “Yeah, I guess I believe you. I’m ... I’m sorry, kid. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He snorted. “We both were.”

Arturo was amazed to feel a little touched by this apology (not that he would admit that to anyone in a million years).

Cooper rallied enough to say, “Just don’t do anything stupid to give us both more regrets, okay? Let me get out of here and I’ll never bother you again.”

Arturo nodded once more, and watched Cooper as he left the bank. The next customer walked up and asked him a question, but Arturo didn’t have a clue she was even there.

PCA

Once outside, Cooper moved along the sidewalk at a hurried pace, forcing himself not to go too fast, so as to avoid drawing any attention. He had the envelope of money tucked under his arm inside his stolen jacket; he needed to get out of sight of the bank and transfer the bills to different pockets about his person — a big envelope of cash would raise too many eyebrows. Then he needed to take a bus out of town, because he could not handle another nerve-wracking night jumping at every shadow. The worst part was, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched or follow—

 A cop car rolled to a stop at the intersection in front of him. The officer inside glanced his way ...

That might have been all it was, a harmless glance; it wasn’t like Cooper had been put at the top of the Most Wanted Rogues list (had he?). Either way, Cooper turned into a tight alleyway between a coffee shop and a fast food restaurant, the latter of which had been his destination; now he just wanted to get out of the cop’s line of sight. He was relieved to see that the alley was fairly narrow, too narrow for the cop car to enter — if it came to pursuit, it would be a foot race, and Cooper had learned that his shield could roll faster than most norms could run.

Heading through the alley toward what appeared to be an employee parking lot, Cooper slowed down, stopped to withdraw the envelope ... and dropped it when he heard a voice speak right beside him.

“Stop hiding.”

Cooper’s yelp hadn’t fully left his mouth before he was hovering above the ground, safe within his protective shield. He looked all around, turning his head and rotating his shield back and forth, but he could see no one else around. He wanted, desperately, to roll out of the alley without looking back, but the money had fallen outside his shield and he needed the cash even more desperately than he needed to run.

The voice spoke again. “I did not relieve you so that you can escape quiet,” it said. Its qualities were almost as bizarre as its apparent lack of a speaker — a completely monotone male voice with an odd accent Cooper couldn’t place.

When he could get words past his dry tongue, Cooper did his best to sound brave. “Who are you?! What do you want?!”

“I want you to make noise,” the voice replied, now coming from somewhere above him. “I want you to break things. I want you to pull down fire, as you did to the communal dwelling.”

The “communal dwelling”? What the hell?

“I do not,” the voice continued, “want to watch that you are hiding. I do not want to watch that you are quiet. If you do not make noise, I will not to need you any longer.  You understand?”

Cooper put it together: Whoever this weird-talker was, it was the person who freed him and the other rogues from that holding cell.

Jesus, that’s creepy.
Out loud, he said, “Yeah.  I understand.”

“Then make noise. I will watch.”

In the silence that followed, Cooper fought back tears of defeat. He didn’t
want
to “make noise” anymore. The frustration that he had built inside him, the fire that had fueled his violent outburst back at his apartment, was long gone. Financial difficulties and a spray-painted car now seemed so stupid and trivial compared to the trouble he’d brought down on himself, to the people he’d hurt.

Maybe it would be easiest just to turn myself in ...

Cooper had actually dropped his shield and taken a step back toward the street and the cop car when it occurred to him that, if his invisible liberator could break him
out
 of jail, he could just as easily break back
in
to get at him.

Feeling twice his age, Cooper stooped to collect his envelope of cash. Noise or no noise, he’d need money, right? Should he just go back to the bank and take all that he could carry? That would make a lot of noise, right?

But no, he’d caused that Arturo kid enough trouble already. Besides ... he was hungry, too.

Dragging his feet, figuratively and literally, Cooper begrudgingly headed back toward the fast food restaurant, planning how to get the food inside his shield before all hell broke loose.

THE WHITE HOUSE

While Cooper was storming the fast food restaurant, lowly Ensign Adam Vogt was signing people into PCA headquarters. Most of it was standard operating procedure, with familiar agents getting a knowing nod, although every one of them still had to peer into the retina scanner and speak their name into the voice-print verification microphone. Other agents, randomly selected by the computer (though Vogt always tried to imply that
he
 was in charge of the selection process), had to place his or her hand upon a scanner that not only checked their handprints but a few other bio-signature readings that Vogt barely remembered from his PCA academy tech tests. So here he was, still just an Ensign, even though he graduated from the academy in the same class as ...

Speak of the devil
.

The nauseatingly famous Lieutenant Takayasu and Shockwave entered the building with a few other people in tow. Rather than heading around to the retina scanner, et cetera, Takayasu led his company right up to the desk.

“Can I help you, sir?” Vogt asked, making sure to keep his tone congenial after the direction his thoughts had been going just a few seconds ago.

“I need the Guest Registration book. And please bring over the box of temp badges, too.”

The Ensign nodded as he slid over the registry “book,” which was actually a dedicated tablet computer. Most guests had to be cleared in advance, but much to Vogt’s chagrin, Takayasu was a full Lieutenant and had more leeway. He was reaching for the temporary badges (which were themselves a dirty little secret, as anyone who acted up while wearing one of these bad boys could be stunned by remote) as he glanced over Takayasu’s shoulder for a head count. He recognized Powerhouse right away, of course, so he wouldn’t need a badge, which just left the other—