Hidden Potential: Nibiru Rising: Book 1 Page 8

  “Put. Me. Down. I’m still your commanding officer. I’m willing to forget about this temper-tantrum if you walk away right now and forget about that mission.”

  “No, you’re not…” he said quietly.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you’re not my commanding officer anymore.”

  He raised his voice using his powers, his words echoing throughout the building.

  “Everyone, can I have your attention? Listen carefully. You’ve got five minutes to get out of the building before I raze it to the ground. Starting now!”

  Dropping Reaper, he started walking toward the exit.

  “Where do you think you’re going? I’m ordering you to stand down. Now!”

  “You don’t give me orders anymore. It’s only because of our relationship that I don’t kill you right now where you stand.”

  Before he could take another step, he felt the cyborg clamp down on his shoulder. Rick realized Reaper was trying to crush the extremity. He also felt him trying to yank him back in an effort to spin him around.

  “This is treason! You hear me? I’ll have you court marshalled and thrown into the deepest pit we have!”

  “No, you won’t,” he said, reaching up and crushing the robotic hand. Slowly turning around, he glared at the other man.

  “You made me commit treason when you had me eliminate a target that wasn’t a threat to anyone but yourself. I’m correcting that mistake.”

  Reaper tried to punch Rick with his free hand, a hidden blade popping out from the back of his forearm. The blade stopped like it’d hit a brick wall a half-inch from Rick’s eye.

  “So you’d rather try and kill me than own up to your mistake. So be it.”

  Reaching forward, Rick grabbed the cyborg’s upper arm. Blurring into motion, he let go of the crushed hand and grabbed the opposite arm at the same spot. Flexing his muscles, powered by absorbed energy, he yanked outward, ripping both arms off. Hydraulic fluid geysered out of the sockets while the other man screamed in pain. Before he had a chance to recover, Rick lashed out with his foot, kicking Reaper backward. Boosting the impact with his aura, Reaper shot backward like he’d been launched from a cannon, disappearing from sight as he smashed through a far wall.

  Turning back around, he headed toward the exit. He distantly realized he was grinding his teeth as he reached the parking lot. Coming to a stop in an open space, he started drawing in all the kinetic energy he could sense, his aura expanding further than he’d ever let it. When he went back in, he planned to level the place in a way he’d never tried before. Without warning, alarm klaxons started echoing from the building behind him. Taking a deep breath, he turned around and started slowly walking forward, preparing to destroy the organization that, up until this moment, he’d considered family.

  §§§§§§§§§§§§

  Consciousness returned slowly as the memory of the klaxon going off echoed through his mind. Trying to move, he realized he was sore all over. The coppery taste in his mouth took him a moment to identify as blood. Feeling significant pain and tasting blood in his mouth were both things he hadn’t experienced since his abilities fully manifested.

  The intense throbbing behind his closed eyes was an order of magnitude worse than the headache he’d woken up with yesterday. Trying to remember what happened, he tried to move again but couldn’t. Something was resisting his efforts. Not being fully conscious yet, he panicked a little. Struggling against whatever was holding him caused broken bones in his chest to shift, the ends grating together and causing new eruptions of pain to blossom through his body. Pausing, he struggled to breathe in through the agony of cracked and broken ribs. It also forced him to reevaluated his situation.

  With a start, he realized his eyes were still closed. Opening them, he tried to examine his surrounding, but all he saw was darkness. Changing tactics, he slowly tried moving his extremities again. Using a bit of force, and gritting his teeth against the pain, he was able to move his arms slightly, partially freeing them from whatever had been holding him stationary. With his arms freed, he started feeling around. After a couple minutes of exploration, he realized he was in some type of cave or tunnel, but no memory of how he’d gotten there. Rubbing his eyes, he tried focusing on locating some type of opening or exit from whatever kind of chamber he was in. After a few minutes, he realized he could see a slight lessening in the darkness from one direction.

  Where am I? What the hell happened to me?

  Focusing his energy in spite of the immense pain in his head, he tried to launch himself forward and almost dislocated his legs in the process. Berating himself, he realized his legs were just as stuck as his arms had been. Not only had he hurt himself more by using his powers to move, he’d accomplished very little in moving toward the exit. Gritting his teeth, he slowly managed to work his legs loose before crawling his way toward the opening. Approaching the entrance, he started remembering bits and pieces of what had happened, a benefit of his powers slowly healing the concussion he now realized he had. It probably explained why his head hurt so much beyond what normally happened when he used his powers.

  Hazy details of the battle slowly bubbled up through his throbbing headache. With unexpected relief, he remembered throwing them out of the blast area, hopefully to safety. After that, all he could remember was the air igniting and everything going black.

  Continuing to crawl forward, he tried to analyze the blast that had nearly killed him. Initially, he thought it felt exactly like the blast he’d destroyed Maelstrom’s headquarters with nearly two decades ago, but now he realized something was slightly different from what he’d done.

  For starters, he’d had reached out with his greatly magnified aura and causing the air to vibrate. He’d kept adding to the vibrations, gathering energy from the earth itself, helping to fuel his rage at the organization that had tricked him. He remembered the strain of trying to contain so much energy concentrated into such a small area, of leaping up when he released his control, then riding the shock wave to safety while carrying what was left of Reaper with him.

  Finally reaching the opening, he tried standing up, but collapsed back to the ground when his legs wouldn’t hold him. The pain radiating from where he’d nearly dislocated his legs reminded him that he needed to heal himself. Focusing on the injured area, he tried to project his power into the damage to speed up regeneration only to realized he had almost nothing left in the tank. He then noticed even his clothes were hanging off his almost emaciated frame.

  That blast must have nearly killed me if I’m nothing but skin and bones because of it. In fact, my powers didn’t bounce me away from the blast or the impact from my landing, wherever this place is. It just absorbed the energy, trying to charge me up enough to survive. I’ve never felt this weak before, at least since my powers manifested.

  Looking up at the sky, he tried to figure out where he was, but the overcast night sky didn’t help. Looking behind him, he noticed a low hill of dirt had been thrown up from his impact. Taking into consideration the angle of the impact tunnel, he looked in the opposite direction. After a few minutes of straining, he could just make out the glow of the city. Trying to gather up some energy again, he managed to focus just enough to take the edge off the pain in his hips, allowing him to wobble unsteadily to his feet. Unfortunately, it caused the pain in his head to increase with a vengeance. The pain also caused another unexpected memory to surface, making him reflexively reach behind him in a panic. With a sigh of relief, he realized he still had his combat spheres. With a sigh, he realized he’d lost his metal cloud in the blast. It was something he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to replace due to the cost.

  With another sigh, he started hobbling toward the city. Hopefully, at some point soon, the jackhammer behind his eyes would go away since he didn’t have anything to take for it. It was so severe now that he couldn’t even concentrate enough to consciously absorb energy from the environment. He just had to wait for it to trickle in b
efore he could do something about his injuries. Or to travel faster for that matter.

  Here’s to a long walk.

  §§§§§§§§§§§§

  Rick sighed with relief as he slowly hobbled through the outskirts of the city. Already, he could sense all the wonderful movement happening, even at this early in the morning before dawn. Granted, he could absorb some kinetic energy out of the air, but as weak as he was, his aura didn’t extend much more than a foot from his body. It also tended to make it harder to breathe when he took all the energy out of the air, freezing it motionless in place.

  Walking down streets, he stayed close to the edge of the curb so he could leach off passing vehicles. It took nearly ten minutes of walking before he’d absorbed enough energy to heal up the rest of his injuries for the most part. What remained would be fixed by his latent healing factor.

  He kept walking, intentionally not staying in any one place long enough to be easily located. Until he figured out how Maelstrom was tracking him, he couldn’t take any chances.

  Their first appearance in the city could almost be regarded as a coincidence. Just because he hadn’t been able to find any stories of similar events happening elsewhere didn’t mean they hadn’t happened. The attack at his work, on the other hand, couldn’t just be explained away. The sudden screech of brakes and someone laying on their horn snapped him out of his musings.

  “HEY! Watch where you’re going you idiot!”

  He waved apologetically toward the driver before hurrying out of the way. As he passed by, he could hear the driver mumbling about all the bums in the area. Glancing down at himself, he realized that all he had on was his jacket-length duster, torn fatigue pants, and work boots, all covered in drying mud. He thought for a minute about heading home now that he’d absorbed enough energy to make the trip quickly, but decided against it. The last thing he wanted was his house getting destroyed while getting cleaned up.

  Besides which, nobody’s going to look at me and make the connection that I’m the guy everyone is looking for. I look homeless. Then again, it’s not that far from the truth.

  Keeping his head down, he pulled up the collar of his jacket, trying to blend into the background.

  So how did they find me, anyway?

  It’d been a long time since he’d had to think tactically, so he spent a few minutes remembering other missions he’d planned in order to get into the correct mindset.

  Okay, how would I go about doing this if it was my mission?

  He thought about the first encounter. Why make such a public attack?

  Easy, they didn’t know where I was in the city. Why?

  He turned the idea over in his head several times, but got no closer to an answer. He’d specifically picked this city because of how large the population was, how many blue collar jobs were available, and ease of passage in and out of the area. All in all, a pretty generic plan. One that matched dozens of other cities in this state alone. Then again, they had a very detailed profile dossier on him, or at least they used to. Could they have come up with an algorithm that could figure out where to find him based off that? Reaching a dead end on that line of thought, he moved on to the next one.

  If they could only narrow it down to the city I’d be in, how were they able to find me at my job?

  He started turning that problem over in his head. After a few minutes, he realized the computer model didn’t fit the mental model he had started building.

  They wouldn’t have been able to gather enough additional intel from our first encounter to let them find my workplace that accurately. What am I missing?

  He started comparing the first and second encounter, trying to determine similarities between the two event. After a few minutes, he made a realization.

  Wait a second, I got one of my assumptions wrong. Reaper didn’t actually know where I worked. He was yelling for me out in the street. If he’d known exactly where I was, he would have just flattened the building with me in it. So I can’t rule out the tracking program after all.

  He turned the problem over in his head for several more minutes, wandering along before cutting into an alleyway. Reaching a dead end in his train of thought, he started getting angry. He lashed out, kicking at a discarded chunk of brick. Without meaning to, he’d pulsed his field to keep from hurting his foot. The brick rocketed away, slamming into the side of a dumpster like a cannonball, leaving a huge dent in the side and causing the dumpster to roll several feet away.

  That’s it! That’s how they’re tracking me. They’re tracking me by my ability somehow. Even when I’m not actively using it, it still affects my environment. They could tell I was somewhere in the city because of my powers, but they couldn’t narrow it down further. Since that first confrontation, I’ve started actively using my powers, building up my energy levels and making myself easier to find.

  The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to fit the available information.

  Wait. Something’s still missing. Why didn’t they attack me at my house? I know I’m assuming that whatever method they’re using to track me takes time, but I was at home longer than I was at work. So why wait to attack me at work?

  “HEY! YOU! What are you doing down there? I’ve already called the cops, so they’ll be here any minute!”

  The sudden voice startled him. Glancing up, he noticed what looked to be a short order chef coming down the alleyway toward him, the faint stains of meals past leaving a permanent stain on the apron he had wrapped around his large girth.

  Holding his hands up in front of him, he started backing away.

  “Sorry about the noise. I was just leaving.”

  Turning around he realized the alleyway was a dead end. He heard the man yell at him from behind.

  “Look at what you did to my dumpster. Someone’s going to have to pay for this!”

  Rick sensed the man approaching from behind, his voice continuing to rise in volume from anger. With a quick thought, he blurred away, pin-balling his way up the alley walls, ricocheting off each side until he was high enough to clear the roof ledge of one of the buildings. He could hear the other man’s startled shout as he took off, running across the rooftop under normal speed. Until he could work out why they had waited to attack him at work and not home, he needed to keep his power usage to a minimum. Reaching the other side, he dropped down to the alleyway below, absorbing the impact before hurrying out to the main sidewalk. Looking both ways, he melted into the morning traffic, disappearing from sight like another piece of human detritus that the city had callously discarded.

  Chapter 13

  “Mr. Rick! Is that you?”

  The familiar voice caused him to raise his head up, looking for the source.

  “It is you, isn’t it sugah?”

  An involuntary grin broke out across his face after realizing he’d unconsciously wandered over to his favorite greasy spoon.

  “Oh, hi Barbara.”

  “Lord have mercy Mr. Rick. What in the world happened to you?”

  The question reminded him he couldn’t stay long. He didn’t want to risk the Crusty Kettle being the next site of attack.

  “Long story. Unfortunately though, I can’t stay.”

  “Nonsense, hun. At the very least, I’m gonna get you something to eat.”

  Rick tried to argue, but the older woman grabbed him by the arm and steered him inside the diner.

  “Really, I can’t stay…”

  “Don’t be silly. At least let me make you something to take with you before rushing off to wherever you’re in such a hurry to get to.”

  Sighing in defeat, he took a stool at the counter. He didn’t want to chance stretching his senses out in case Maelstrom could track him by it, so he kept staring out the windows instead.

  “Keeping an eye out for an ex-girlfriend or something sugah?”

  Pulling his eyes away from the street, he glanced back at her.

  “No, but something just as bad.”

  Resting he
r elbow on the counter in front of him, she looked in his eyes and smiled.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  Rick struggled with the decision. He didn’t want to involve her, but by the same token, he’d run out of ideas. He wasn’t sure why, but taking a chance, giving her the barest outline.

  “Some people from my past, bad people, figured out a way to find me. I’m not sure how they did it, but now that they’ve located me, I’m a danger to everyone I know.”

  The expression on her face darkened slightly as she took a step back.

  “You’re not a felon or crook, are you?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. I got some people in trouble, now they want to make me pay. I really shouldn’t even be sitting here.”

  “Don’t worry about it hun,” she said, resuming her position at the counter, “they’d be hard pressed to sneak up on you, what with the way you keep lookin’ around like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs.”

  Rick chuckled slightly, surprised at how unfazed she seemed by his story. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by her cook ringing the bell, signaling his food was ready.

  While she started placing the food in front of him, he realized how empty the diner was, especially for the time of day. Looking back at Barbara, he mentioned the strangeness of it.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Ever since that shindig up top the Rapier building, we haven’t had many people come in. Probably waiting for everything to calm down some.”

  Rick winced slightly at the mention of the battle, but Barbara didn’t seem to notice.

  “To be honest, it’s a mite nice to have a break once in awhile, if ya know what I mean. The crowd’ll come back soon enough, then I’ll have to climb back into the trenches again.”

  Rick nodded as he took a bite of food. The crisp, salty taste of the bacon was complimented wonderfully by the yolk that had broken open, pooling on the plate in a glistening yellow puddle. If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost think he could almost feel his energy levels returning just from the plate she’d served him.