Chapter 12
“I know that for a fact that I’m
fired for sure. The process is taking too long. They probably already sent out
a search warrant for Anne. Those release documents won’t work; they’ll see
right through them. This is bad. This is bad.” Garner muttered to himself and
paced the floor. Although he was worried, the promise of realizing Anne’s
abilities kept him from acting out against the research.
Morgan had no such thoughts. She had been
hammering away at Anne, scanning her psychic powers, checking the strength of
her ability from various readouts, and running off on odd tangents. Since the
tests had begun, Morgan had learned that Anne was far more intriguing than
Garner had originally made her out to be.
Garner
stared at his computer. Anne’s anxiety levels had dropped since she was first
placed in Morgan’s tank. Garner looked up at the child and she stared back.
Anne floated in a tube of highly oxygenized liquid, giving her and the world
around her an orange hue. Morgan had put a spell on it that would keep Anne
from phasing out. Garner waved while a knot of grief cooked in his stomach.
Anne harrumphed and his heart flittered.
Garner
was responsible for Anne; he wondered why he let Morgan talk him into going the
whole hog and kidnap her, even with forged papers. He felt his cooking knot
long to relieve a burst of sudden pressure. He balled his fists and stepped up
to Morgan. She was engrossed in her console covered with graphs and readouts of
Anne’s power.
“Look, I’m already fired, I can just feel it,
but do we still need to keep Anne here?”
Morgan looked up at him from an incline, her
eyes half-closed and unreadable. Garner pointed at Anne.
“I was responsible for making sure that one of
the most powerful metas in recorded modern history was content. What if she suffers
irreversible trauma from this experience?”
Garners face paled.
“Oh, great Gaia with an apple pie, what if she
is traumatized by this experience?
How will we cope with her if she becomes a criminal?”
Morgan sneered and tried to ignore her ranting
partner.
“Anne would tunnel through buildings for goods
while harnessing her ability to project her thoughts, rendering her presence a
non-issue; people’s eyes will just slide off of her.”
Morgan shut her eyes and sighed. Her anger was
bubbling up.
“Pretty soon, our economy would falter because
she has all the worlds’ goods and we would have nothing. She could vibrate her
atoms too quickly and leave fires in her wake as well.”
Morgan smacked the console and stood up. Garner
yelped; his full attention was on her.
“Was this not your idea?” She asked. Morgan
took a step toward him.
Garner sputtered more than he gave an answer. Morgan
spoke over his retort as she strode toward him.
“Was this not your request of me?”
More sputtering. More advancing. A fit of retreating.
Anne and Clive watched them from across the room.
“Am I doing exactly what you asked of me?”
More sputtering. More advancing. A fit of
retreating.
“Are
we getting the results that you wanted?”
Garner nodded.
“Well, yes, but, you see…
“Are we hurting her?”
“No, but there are psychological—”
“Then there is no problem here.”
Morgan turned on her heel and went back to her
workstation.
Garner felt like crying.
“To ensure that there is no problem, Doctor,” she spat the word, “I would
suggest that you adjust your ghastly disproportionate sputtering to coherency
ratio and continue with your research.”
Garner stole a glance to his left to see Clive
staring down at him. Garner sighed and went back to his station with a dark
cloud looming over him.
Morgan looked at her display and at Anne. Her
readings seemed to have peaked, her telekinesis, projection and tunneling appeared
to have reached a cap. Morgan thought back to the catalyst for her own
independent testing with Anne. Her original idea of expiration was proven wrong
when she had to transfer one meta human power set to another just over fifteen
years prior. This gave her plenty of ideas to mull over. Anne’s potential had
not been reached, and Morgan knew from experience that more power would be
needed for ample results. She was too far on her own tangent to turn back and
leave the young Anne alone.
Morgan sneered and adjusted some settings to
her liking.
“At least there… was no
problem, Doctor…”
Morgan pressed a button and Anne jerked at
attention. Garner watched as Anne’s head shuddered. She started to scream.
Morgan smiled, her data exploding. She read it quickly, stumbling over some of
it.
“Yes… yes…”
Garner watched Anne, feeling her pain. His
knot burst.
“Morgan, you have pushed this too far, you’re
amplifying her powers to her wits end. You need to let her go!”
Morgan glanced at Garners approach and waved
her hand.
“Clive, dispose of him.”
“No!”
Garner
latched onto a console as Clive shot up and picked him up.
“Morgan, no! I won’t let you break—”
The test chamber exploded.
Clive
swore as he dropped Garner, letting the fluid and glass projectiles slide
through his body. Morgan ducked behind the console. Anne was screaming. Morgan
checked the console; the dials were rising steadily and Anne was generating a
gale force of wind.
“Good. As long as she’s in the area, she’ll
produce ample readings.” Morgan said.
Clive shook his head. Anne was growling, trying
to suppress her power.
“She seems too preoccupied to try and escape.
What did you do to her?”
Garner gapped at Anne. He pulled on what
little hair he had left.
“What are you doing? Prematurely boosting her
power was not part of my plan Morgan. There may be unexpected side effects and
consequences that could befall Anne and the entire country, the world even. You
don’t know what you’re doing!”
“Everything… is under control. William. Clive,
get him out of here.”
“No! I need to—” Clive slapped him and then
dropped him. Vertigo swam in Garner’s head and stars floated in front of him.
“That
should shut you right up.”
Clive sneered at the girl. Anne’s fingers were
curling and images of blood and sharp lines surrounded her like an aura.
“Say, mum, do you think that he might have a
point about…”
“Out!”
She yelled, and pointed outside.
Clive made a face.
“Fine, I’ll see him out and do whatever else
blows your skirt up…”
Morgan was lost on the statement. She had
chosen to wear her sleeveless black catsuit with flat boots to prevent herself
from catching on stray debris. Morgan dismissed the remark and got back to
work.
Clive plucked Garner from off the floor. He swore
wordless threats as the world spun around him. He noticed that the light had intensified
after a moment and that his hip struck concrete and demanded all of his
attention. He moaned and Clive locked the door.
Garner shook his head to relieve himself of
his lightheadedness, and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He ignored the
cracked screen and called up the single most important number in his speed
dial.
Three rings.
“Hello, Meta Corps dispatch, this is Rachel,
what is the nature of the call?”
Before Garner could answer, all of the windows
burst outward and shattered. Garner yelled.
“Sir?
Sir, I heard an explosion, where are you?”
Garner tried to stand, but his hip protested
too much. A red glow exuded from the windows accompanied by the sound of Anne’s
sobbing. Garner licked his lips, feeling her pain and wondering how Morgan
could stand to put her in that situation.
Garner drew strength from within.
“Ma’am, I’m at a warehouse in Dogpatch, just
off 20th street
near pier 70, and I’m dealing with a crazy woman! The address is…”
A large shadow swallowed the sunlight below
him. Garner looked up to see a dark vortex swirling in the sky and growing
bigger by the second.
“Oh my…”
Garner’s eyes rolled up into his head and his
vertigo returned in spades to help displace his consciousness. He fell to his
back as Rachel tried to coax more information from him.
Chapter 13
“Clark…. Country wide interest in
metas is going down the drain, again.” Florence said. She twirled her finger
above her computer screen showing a line graph.
Clark Sanders never wanted to leave the
forties, as outwardly indicated by his beige work shirt and suspenders. People
had class back then and, to him, the modern world was nothing but bad music and
sensationalism. He slicked his burgundy hair back and walked over to Florence.
“Are they complaining about how EnWol are too
powerful again, Dilly.”
The graph illustrated overall interest in meta
humans and how it has been declining since the second world war. There was a sharp
rise in 1977 when Meta Corps subsidiaries, Aviator Films released the first
modern and well-made EnWol movie, with Cave Comix releasing tie-in comic books.
Since the start of the millennium, interest and sales have declined, with the
lowest point being in autumn of 1992. The company had extremely high insurance
issues from citywide crime fighting coupled with general utilities and other
fees. There were predictions that said that Meta Corps would collapse in 2012
unless they either came out with a killer franchise or forced a global takeover.
Florence
shook her head.
“We
can’t have any more slopes or else we’ll have to close some branches.” She
said. She fingered the line from the war and traced it up and down into the
present. Clark shrugged.
“Well, at least the mutations are prevalent
enough so that there’s a steady trickle coming in for medical study and power harnessing.
Hey, I still think that hiring on writers that paint EnWol as overpowered is
part of the problem. Barely anyone knows how to write us and it comes off
badly. It’s a danger to the innocents that drives good stories, not EnWol.”
Florence
nodded.
“Our greatest gift is our greatest curse,
although, I’m not sure if that trickle that you mentioned will be enough.”
Florence said. She started to think aloud.
“Our
students and heroes pay for their own tuition, but there isn’t an insurance
firm that will touch us; that’s what’s been killing us for the longest time
now…”
Clark
walked around the desk.
“We could look at a merger with someone, or
license some of our lesson plans out to drum up interest. Give up the
monopoly.”
Florence leaned back in her seat.
“I don’t know. I had thought of that a while
ago, but I’m worried that our own tactics will be used against us. Aviator is
too overblown to be practical, but actually exporting our services to others…” Florence
trailed off.
Clark cracked his knuckles out of habit; his
EnWol hands bent in random directions.
“I know that in this job you can afford to be
paranoid, what with every single person signing non-disclosure agreements, but
it might help us out.”
Clark stretched his neck out to study the
monitor again.
“At least the entertainment district isn’t
making us look like fools anymore.”
Florence laughed at his remark, remembering
her cartoon from the eighties that gave eco-friendly advice without any
entertainment value. She leaned back to reminisce.
Clark
retracted his neck and made his way to the window. He frowned and focused his
attention to a point in the sky behind the trees.
“You know what the worst part about The Little
Squirts is?” Florence
asked.
“What’s that?” He asked with an odd quality.
“The distributer is capitalizing on the
nostalgia niche with shirts and videos. I told them that…” Florence stopped. She
frowned.
Clarks
question was right, but the tone was wrong. She stretched her neck out to his
side and joined him without leaving her seat. Clark glanced at her and pointed
at a dark, pulsating cloud peaking up over the tree line.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what that is,”
Florence said, “but it looks bad. Call for a dispatch, I’ll see who’s available”
Clark nodded, fingering an imaginary pole sticking
out of his mouth.
“I wish I had a cigarette… being EnWol has
made it hard to use… or, hey, even really want one.”
Florence resumed her normal shape.
“What would the Little Squirts think of that?”
She said with a playful smile. Clark chuckled as the dark cloud in the distance
raged.
If you would like the whole book, a souvenir of the experience, check it out at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87111
If you would like the whole book, a souvenir of the experience, check it out at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87111
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