Soda supreme, p.6
Soda Supreme, page 6
At least if she could get her conscious self out of the way. That was hard, of course. It was, in short, making herself vanish, so that the part everyone always ignored could take over. Only leaving enough of her in there to guide that part into paying attention to the right things and then actually doing something about it. The hard part of being psychic then wasn’t in having the powers in the first place. Everyone did. No, it was all about using them correctly, which was so difficult that most people barely noticed that they could do anything like that at all.
Still, she was learning how to do that, at least she was trying to, so she sat, noticing the flow of the object in front of her, then, with an act of will, blanked her mind out, so much she could barely tell she was even speaking.
“A ball of paper. About this big.” Her fingers moved on the right hand. She could tell that, but not make out anything else. Not even how far apart they were.
“Lines of force, flowing from... Two locations, in the room. There and there. The second one is really weak, but it’s there. Not force... It’s... Um, information, telling things where to be?”
She pointed, using her uninjured hand.
Terry gasped.
“Lara? You have superpowers?”
Hannah couldn’t tell what was said then, but spoke again.
“Normal amounts, but she’s actually doing something that way. It’s still there.”
Then she did something, which was probably her head barely moving.
“Al. About to contact. Nate, there... In about two and a half minutes.” She pointed, with her right hand.
Then she sat, not aware of anything being said at all, for what felt like a long while. If Alistair was talking to anyone, it hadn’t been her. At least she wasn’t aware of it having happened. She just tried to hold her mind in place, sensing anything of a psychic, or magical, nature. She didn’t jump when she spoke next, but she hadn’t planned to say anything.
“Chris, Megan and Reese.” She pointed, with a single finger. At the intercom on her wall. Kate moved to it, and as soon as the call came in, spoke.
“Send them up, please.”
Others were coming as well, but she didn’t speak about that. Finally, when someone sat next to her, and touched her arm, she opened her eyes. Whoever it was had a very strange sense of motion all around them. It was still, and ephemeral, but constantly being absorbed, at the same time.
“Reese. There you are.” She leaned over and carefully gave the boy a one-armed hug. He did it back, barely touching her. Not because he thought she was fragile or easily broken. Due to the fact that his mom clearly suspected that they were sleeping together.
Which was a bit insulting, since Hannah didn’t date that far out of her age range. She could have been mad about it, but realized that to someone like Megan Kant, there were only a few reasons a twenty-six-year-old woman would be paying that much attention to her son.
The least scary option was the kid getting some illegal booty.
Meaning that what was openly and honestly happening was going to freak her out.
She glanced at the other two there.
“Reese has powers? What are they and why?”
She wasn’t being polite, but she’d seen the drinking of whatever it was the guy was taking in. It was a real thing, not something hazy or low powered. Megan went wide eyed, and seemed ready to deny the whole thing, and Chris smiled tightly, glaring at Hannah a bit.
Everyone else just stared.
Finally, Christopher sighed.
“We didn’t know if they’d manifest. Reese, you know that you’re adopted, we never hid that from you...”
“Yes. Powers, though? That’s new. I don’t feel like I can fly...” He flapped his arms, playfully, as if that made any sense. “So, my parents had powers? You... never really mentioned that.”
Chris shrugged.
“You were recovered from a lab. It was clear, even when you were a baby, that you had genetic level alterations made. Mainly to your mental processes. It should mean that you’re a high-level genius, as well as very healthy as you grow older. There... You have an extra set of partitions in your brain. A separate lobe, that probably has to do with processing time in an unusual fashion.”
Hannah nodded.
“That’s it, then. You’re absorbing time. Constantly. Cool. We can work with that, later. You’ve already been working on meditation, so it isn’t going to be a big problem for you. Now, I think your mom was planning to yell at me, for involving you in things last night? That... worked out. Also, Megan, I want to point out that I was a bit out of it, having been kidnapped and just fighting for my life minutes before that. So... Go ahead. Scold me. I deserve it.”
Hannah was still in a trance, so sat there nodding, as the woman actually did yell a bit. She paid attention to the words, so that she could fix things, in the future. After about ten minutes, Megan just stood there, panting.
Still in a trance, Hannah looked around.
“Green Runner, incoming. Up the side of the building. Someone go wave to him, or he’ll hit the floor above us.”
Vidya did that, standing well to the side and waving, even before the low-pitched thrumming could be heard. Then, Kate left and came back with everyone from The Requiem who wasn’t already there. Including John, which was interesting. He wasn’t really part of the group, as far as she knew. Then, he was closer to that than she was, so it made a bit of sense that way.
Eventually, as the clock struck five, everyone who was supposed to be there, was.
Even Lichen, from The Society, showed up. Half of them were in costume, but half weren’t, so introductions were going to be needed. Interestingly, Veronica handled that for them. She started with her own group.
“This is Linear, Luminous and Chameleon.” She waved at each of them. Linear looked nice, in his sparkle free, very tidy, white outfit. He had a full-face mask, but took it off, showing that he was actually Jaime, from the food bank. Luminous did the same thing, proving he was only her brother, Nate. Chameleon made a disgruntled sound, and turned her costume off, revealing a decently pretty blonde girl. One who might have been about twenty or so. Possibly. Maybe younger. She wasn’t a giant, but stood about five-eight, which made her tall, for a woman.
Her face was a bit round, and she had a few extra pounds to her figure, or more likely, she looked how a real woman was supposed to and Hannah was holding her to some mythical ideal, built on the figure of a twelve-year-old boy. She glanced down then, because even having gained a few pounds, she still more or less fit that mold. The one that was impossible for most women to live up to, without it really gaining anyone anything worth having.
The girl waved.
“Chloe. Though, if we’re going to have secret identities, we might not want to share them with the whole world?”
Veronica shrugged.
“This is a safe space. Anyway...” She went around the room, giving both names and code names, for the people who had them. When she got to Reese, she shrugged. “This is Timekeeper. He’s in charge of this. Coordination, at least. Reese Kant. That leaves Hannah de Peyser. Damsel.”
Sitting across the room, Debbie was holding Lashondra’s hand and seemed ready to speak, when Veronica waved at Reese.
“What do you want done, Boss? We have food coming, shortly.”
The boy, looking way too young, his dark hair tidy and face bruised, from a single punch, which had left an imprint on the side of his head that called for attention, looked around.
“Thanks for coming, everyone. We have several issues to go over and at least one of them is possibly important. The tech that gave those men powers? What do we have on that, so far?”
The room stirred, but Carl, holding a folder file, a paper one, that was a light tan color, tapped it.
“I can’t understand all of this, but this sounds right. A two-part system. The first builds a delicate construct in the digestive tract, that attaches to the neural net of the body and sends signals, overriding certain functions. Powerfully. The second part is a pill. One that isn’t that at all. It just adds a small amount of electricity, as a booster. Any current will do it. Taser someone with this inside of them and they’ll be charged up as well. Stick a fork in a light socket or suck on a nine volt and it will do the trick, too.” He flapped the file a bit. “In testing, the biggest drawback was that it allows a person to push themselves to death. Not each time, and some people control for that better than others, but about half the time, in emergency conditions, they’ll die.”
Linear nodded.
“It’s already on the street. Not that popular, but out there. It’s called Supreme. Also, Black Soda. Because it makes your heart pop? Whoever is putting it out isn’t charging too much for it. About a hundred dollars for what amounts to real superpowers. It’s out there, too. I mean, asking about it, I was offered some, for free, two different times. It isn’t illegal even. Sure, you `can die using them, but if you’re careful, you can work at about five times your normal strength and be three times faster. Endurance goes up as well. Like running for hours? That’s real and will be tempting to some. The downsides are holding the number of users down, so far. Also... If you kamikaze you can do a lot more than that, for a minute or two. Everyone was really clear on that.”
Clearing his throat, Lichen, who was the only person there in a business suit, swore. Softly.
“Fuck. We were afraid of that. Darpa was doing experiments on this, or something similar, about ten years ago. It was deemed too dangerous for soldiers in combat, but at top end use levels, with a fit person who’s willing to die... They can get a boost of nearly twenty times their personal best for a time. This isn’t great news.”
Reese, looking youthful, still standing, nodded.
“Agreed. We need to get ahead of this. I want three teams. One to investigate what this can do and ways of stopping it. Can we disable it remotely? EMP, or by draining the power from it, from a distance? Check out what Darpa has first, in case they already know what to do. The second team needs to be on whoever is distributing this. When we find them, we bring in everyone to take them down. We have to assume that they’ll be staffed with people who have at least some powers, given the subject matter. The third team needs to work on the Hannah issue. Someone kidnapped her last night. Teleportation and telepathic skills. I know, that isn’t likely to be directly linked. No one takes one of us without it costing them. No one.”
Tom gave the boy a cool look then.
“Who do you mean by us? The people in this room or...”
Reese shook his head then.
“No. All of us. The good people of the world, no matter who they are. Even the ones we don’t know. Someone is clearly going to war. We had those attacks, and the follow ups. Twenty cities in the U.S. alone lost people, in three waves. There are rumors of more things happening behind the scenes, that aren’t making the news. We have to stand for everyone, if we can. Right now, that means mainly focusing on this new tech and shutting it down. People are going to get hurt, if we don’t. This is really only going to be effective for people who have a grudge and nothing left to lose. Untraceable school shooters and spree killers, who the police pretty much can’t handle. Gang wars escalating to insane levels. Who knows what else? Athletes looking for an edge? For that... Well, I don’t really care about that. We need to be on the look out for that, though, in case it will allow us a way to track these things.”
The man from The Society, Tom, stared at Reese then and very slowly, smiled.
“That’s not bad work, actually. I’d call it about the same way. Close enough that I won’t even recommend anything else being done. Now, can anyone tell me why some kid is in charge here?”
Everyone seemed to want to know that answer as well. Carl snorted.
“For the same reason the crime victim is going to find the rest of the assailants. So they can practice on low level shit, with a lot of good backup. We can’t keep them safe. Not really. But this way they can get their legs under them with people standing by to catch, if it’s needed. You, Lichen, you’re working this with Kant?”
It was clear he didn’t mean Superion X.
The slightly off seeming government man... let his head drop, and held it at the bottom.
“Of course. You’re still lead on this, Reese. That means you need contact information and a cleared communications system for that, for everyone here. I want a report, every twelve hours. Even if it’s just letting me know that nothing much has happened. Also, hold your cover, by making it to school each day. How are your grades?”
That sounded a bit like he was expecting Reese to be playing at the job, but Christopher smiled.
“Top marks, for the last several months. Hannah has been making sure of that. Also seeing to his other training. I don’t know how that’s going?”
She nearly laughed, since it was kind of clear that Christopher Kant, Superion X, sort of figured that they’d been playing video games the whole time, as a form of therapy. She didn’t know if she was getting that right, but it seemed close.
~That’s what he’s thinking.~
Al’s voice hit her mind then, and went silent, so as to not break her out of her trance. Due to the fact that he expected her to do her own work, that night.
She nodded, but Carl spoke first.
“Top one percent handgun shooting scores. That doesn’t mean super human, but he’s been running high level, hyper realistic scenarios, so is a lot better than most special forces or any police unit members that way. Nate, you’ve been working him on hand to hand? He stood there last night, and barely started to dodge when a super human suddenly showed powers...”
Her brother, blond and good looking enough to be annoying to a lot of other men, smiled.
“Meh... I wouldn’t put him into pit fights with professionals or anything. Part of that is size. He’s good enough. Boxing, kickboxing and grappling, so far. Also knife?”
Hannah nodded.
“That, and escape and evasion courses. The kind that special-forces get, with extra practice on the escape portions. In the summer we have survival training lined up. The real kind. That’s about it, so far.”
The man in the suit, who was probably no older than forty, nodded.
“Nice, then. Almost none of that will help with any of this, of course. Good. I expect you to do ten times the work, given that. If you know you aren’t up to the job yet, then you don’t have any excuse to slack off.” This time there was no smile.
Reese nodded.
“Of course. That’s just how my life is, now.”
Megan tightened, and seemed ready to start yelling again. It really wasn’t like her, so Hannah wasn’t amazed when she controlled herself, and spoke gently, instead.
“Shouldn’t I have a say in this? I’m his mother, after all.” She seemed almost meek, suddenly.
Chloe, who didn’t look that old at all, nodded.
“You do. You can stop this whole thing, with a word. We’ll all back you, if that’s what you want. Only, do you want your kid running around, testing out his new and unknown powers in parking lots and trying to fight crime on his own, or would you rather he have the backing of twenty odd people who have been through similar things, and who are actually the ones out doing the leg work, as he sits in an office with a computer, and a minder who’s checking on him twice a day?”
Megan stared at the girl for a bit.
“It’s bad enough that I have one hussy trying to corrupt him. Now there are two?”
Half the people in the room looked strained then, at the implications. Only Veronica nodded at the words.
“Well, if I can get him alone, I mean, he’s pretty cute. He should be safe with the rest, though?”
Megan smiled at least.
“See, I meant Hannah here. Spending three days a week with him, alone for hours. Talking to him every night... That sounds a bit like a girlfriend, doesn’t it?”
The trouble there was that, when put that way, it honestly did. Only she really wasn’t cruising for some underaged Reese loving that week. Saying that would be rude, and might make the kid feel bad about himself, so she wasn’t going to do that. She didn’t even have a real boyfriend to point to, as a shield. Trevor, the guy who’d tried out for that role most recently had actually dumped her after three weeks. He hadn’t said why and still wanted to be friends, but she had to assume it was about another woman. Possibly one who was a ghost. Like his personal assistant in the ghost world, Bethany. He saw her as a real person and she was solid to him, thanks to his powers, so that was a real option in his world. Not that Hannah was cutting him off or anything. They weren’t dating, which was kind of what she needed, at the moment.
Instead, Kate simply shrugged.
“Ask Al? He won’t tell us everything, but he wouldn’t let some kid be raped, either. Not if he could stop it.”
That probably wasn’t the truth, and Hannah knew that one first hand. Alistair Marks had a very strict code and while it would hurt him to let that kind of thing happen, he was aware of so many things in the world that he probably had to let some horrors like that slide, most of the time. Just to have a life, he had to. That he had to even know about such things, to hear them happening inside his head, had to be enough to drive a person mad.
Hannah shrugged.
“Go ahead, Al? Tell the whole truth, whatever that is. Does everyone agree to let him speak in your mind?”
Everyone did, without asking more questions, which meant, after a pause, they all heard him.
~Alistair Marks here. Now... Hannah hasn’t been doing anything sexual with Reese. She does think he’s cute, she’s just not a pervert. For his part...~
The other kid groaned, but also laughed at the same time.
“You aren’t really going to put my sexual fantasies out to a room full of people are you? Come on, dude!”
The sense in her mind was of laughter.
