Evolve - Chapter 6 Chapter 6

Having been patched up Marc and I sit the side lines, separately of course in our own force field protected dugouts. I myself am literally sitting on the side lines because I feel exhausted. Hera scowled at me when I came back probably because I got a tear through my first hero jumpsuit and here I was thinking they were made from durable materials.

Carla and Toni step into the center of the dome, this time Euroc remains silent as the simulation goes up. The set up is different this time, post apocalyptic style destroyed buildings with rancid air and scorched ground to match. The kind of place that screams there’s been a lot of war here.

It doesn’t take long until their assailants appear only these ones are human, the first one comes out from behind a wall with shotgun in hand aimed at Toni who has his back turned. The shot rips through the air, he should be hitting his mark but the small round projectiles from the shell just stop mid air half way between Toni and and his attacker and are almost immediately shot back the way they came, lucky for the dude who shot them he’s back behind cover so the only damage done is on a portion of the wall.

Out of nowhere another uniformed person jumps into the scene this one is a particularly huge person carrying a large section of torn off wall in his hands which he throws at Tony. Where’s Carla?

My question is answered as Carla suddenly appears right next to Toni one second then the two of them disappear the next second leaving the tossed section of wall to crash into no one and leaving me wide eyed wondering what happened? The third person camera finds its way to where Toni and Carla now are, on the second floor of a decommissioned parking building.

So that’s Carla’s super speed too fast for the camera to catch, interesting maybe…. But then again outside this training room I’m sure the other cameras can catch superspeed movement somehow.

Toni lifts into the air, his eyes are glazed over as the top part of the parking building tears off and hurls itself toward the one who tossed the section of wall at him.

He’s telekinetic then healing hands and telekinis but whats his third.

The wall-thrower guy literally just head butts the literal half of a building in two.

Holy chilupa this is crazy.

With a yell wall-thrower jumps up toward where Carla and Toni are, Toni nods to Carla who picks up a small rock and throws it at the wall-thrower, although its fast I follow the stone’s path mid air it changes into the shape of the most perfect dagger and catches wall-thrower in the neck. He goes limp midair and crashes face first on the edge of the floor Toni and Carla are on before falling to the ground below.

Rapid fire rings through the air and Toni screams in pain as he’s hit but I can’t tell where, once again I lose sight of Carla but she comes into view behind the gun man from earlier. She places a hand on the back of his head and freezes it solid, the man falls to his knees and slumps on the ground his head cracks in half from the impact because its now well frozen solid.

Damn these two are good, I’m more impressed with Toni who is now on his feet, there’s a trickle of drying blood on the side of his neck but no sign of a wound.

So he can heal himself.

Suddenly the floor bellow Toni just explodes in a shower of debris and a concrete dust cloud from behind him wall-thrower immerges from the hole he exploded through mid jump and just swats Toni away, my heart skips a beat as I watch the kid just shoot away like a bullet and hits the ground on what was once a theme park of sorts.

“TONI!!!” Carla screams before she disappears again in a mad dash in the direction Toni flew while wall-thrower roars in celebration.

“You can’t help this time.” Says Hera snapping me out my trance because I’m not longer seated I’m on my feet and stumbling forward.

I look at her with every intention of saying something, anything filled with anger but I find myself unable to form the words necessary so I just snarl instead then turn my attention back to watching.

Carla has reached Toni. A part of the right side of his face has caved in a bit and his right arm is mangled to point where its turning purple, Carla sheds tears uncontrollably.

A large portion of my attention is focused on Toni’s eyelids that are closed but there’s movement beneath them like his eyes are shifting back and forth under there. That does mean he’s alive right?

A massive thud shakes the earth beneath Carla as not far away wall-thrower lands and roars at her defiantly.

Carla looks down at Toni and whispers something I can’t hear before she dashes away again. She stands in front of wall-thrower and throws a lot of rapid fire punches whilst dodging the swats and grab attempts meant for her.

An angered wall-thrower jumps up high into the air and lands down hard sending a shockwave rippling through the ground, Carla tries to run but isn’t fast enough even the fastest person will have a little trouble running on shfiting vibrating footing.

Wall-thrower uses the opportunity to make a made dash for Carla.

“TONI NOW!” She screams as she raises both hands to the sky.

A heat wave ripples out from her and burns everything around. Toni isn’t affected by the heat wave it just goes around his little body.

He’s protecting his body telepathically.

Even the concrete is burning, all metal melts to the point where it looks like it’ll evaporate and wall-thrower tries to shield himself as his clothes just completely burn away along with every hair on his body. Wall-thrower himself however is still standing remarkably but the heat is taking a lot out of him.

She notices this and stands, still pulsating heat so intense even I’m sweating a little from behind this forcefield.

She walks up to wall-thrower and just touches his face and it melts away bones and all. The heat dies down and she runs over to Toni who has his eyes open ever so slightly.

He looks a little better actually using his internal healing hands i suppose.

The simulation ends and Carla helps Toni up to the edge of his colour coded dugout where Toni’s white coat takes him from her gently and immediately exits the dome. Who heals the healer?

“It’s time for food son.” Says dad.

Just like that huh? Kid almost gets pummeled half to death is the call for food.

“Let’s go.” Says Hera

Without a word I stand and follow her out, I pause just before exiting and take one last look over a Euroc Carmichael, he and I lock eyes but I break the gaze and walk out.

———–

Food’s done and I’m walking down the hall that leads to the recreation room, dad’s quiet in my ear. I wonder if he’s still there.

My thoughts are distracting me so I’m fully paying attention to my entrance into the rec room until it hits me that its brighter than usual in here then I look up and the rec room is…. well different.

Its no longer the cool gamer lounge set up, now its basically a park inside a greenhouse. Every wall around and the room is made of clear glass with a closed colour coded door. Outside the glass is a thick white fog, I guess so we can’t know where we are, but the sun high above is visible and so warm… Its nice. There’s a few park benches and swings and stuff, the grass looks real enough.

Tony is sitting on the roundabout speaking to Carla and Marc they are both lying on the grass. Toni’s gaze on me catches Carla and Marc’s attention as I approach, they don’t stop their conversation.

He looks fine considering just over an hour ago he was swatted across a post apocalyptic city and had half the side of his everything caved in and he looks in good spirits. Not that I would know what good spirits looks like on Toni but you know he looks…. Okay.

“—-its not that bad, I mean it’s good food three meals a day, training, recreation twice a day.” Says Marc

“You haven’t been to the tests yet and that’s what comes next after here.” Says Carla

I sit quietly not really up to disturbing them, I wanna hear this.

“But there’s gotta be a reason right? Maybe there’s chaos brewing out there again and they’re training us to be some kind of super team. Other than you three I don’t know anyone else that has more than one power and by the looks of it there’s no side efrects on you three either after using them.” Says Marc. “I mean I ran for a while from WECA because I just assumed if I was caught I’d be strapped to a metal table being prodded on 24 hours a day and being fed through a tube whilst in half a coma or something.”

“What’s your take on it then?” Asks Carla.

It takes noticing that all three of them are looking at me to get that question is directed at me.

“My take on?….” I ask

“Why we’re here, what’s your take on it?”

“Well,” I say pausing for a moment. Do I tell them what I know from what Frank and Janice mentioned? Come to think of it that feels like it was ages ago and it was only a couple days ago.

“Well what?” Asks Toni softly.

“Well I don’t really know a lot of details about WECA or what happened in the past year or how they got order back or how they really keep track of people with abilities. I only know bits and pieces, hell I didn’t even get to explore enough of the world that’s new to me outside these walls,” I say, “what I’m trying to say is I don’t know what’s wrong and what’s right, and honestly I miss my parents, I think getting a bunch of kids to fight stuff that’ll smack em around really painfully is fucked up,” I pause to glance at Toni who shifts uncomfortably, “but that being said I can’t assume why we’re here but I think we can all find out somehow and I also think we can’t be here forever.”

“You can’t say things that sounds like an escape plot, our directories are listening.” Says Toni

“It’s the truth. Look maybe Marc’s right and we’re part of some big plan but I think there’s something or someone bigger than WECA pulling the strings on what’s happening, leading peoole through a series of chaotic looking things with some kind of goal for us.” I say. Obviously I know the something bigger is Marlea. And I’m sure she’s watching.

The others sit before me silently, all of them in thought. When a thought hits me.

“Hey Toni did you understand everything I just said?” I ask

He immediately flushes slightly. “In Poland I was a child genius, I understand of lot of things some that even mature people don’t get I guess.”

“Huh.” I say with a nod.

Carla sits up and exhales loudly.

“My directory told me once that there’s gonna be five of us to keep me sane and to believe I wouldn’t be alone forever, this was when I was still alone month after month, going through the same process. Fight, eat, rest, test, fight, eat, sleep, repeat. Only there wasn’t Toni to heal painlessly. Here at WECA they have a healing serum of sorts but it hurts like hell because the pain you experience when you get hurt is reversed during the healing process the serum puts you through.” She says. Okay that’s fucked up, thank goodness for Toni.

“I don’t mean to bring up bad memories but that’s how you got so good at fighting, I mean even though it was two opponents you barely stumbled.” Says Marc

Carla nods. “To be fair that sim from today was more for you guys usually there’d be a lot more and they’d be a lot more dangerous too. Anyway back to there being five of us, there’s four of us now and to be honest I didn’t think it’d be two in one go. Something big’s gotta happen if and when they get number five here.”

“All I can think right now for some reason is what colour door will she have.” I say in an attempt to deflect the voice screaming TELL THEM ALREADY!

“That’s dumb dude.” Says Marc with a chuckle.

“You guys weren’t bad either for your first try at beginner level.” Says Toni

“Yeah? Says the guy who go swatted.” Says Marc jokingly and Toni flushes

“Error of judgement.” He mutters.

“Do any of you feel different?” I ask

“Different how?” Replies Carla with another question.

“I dunno, like normal like you don’t have powers, abilities, whatever.” I say

“Oh,” she says, “anywhere other than inside the simulation, not just the dome I mean literally inside the simulation we can’t use our powers like at all.”

“Some kind of power dampener field or something prevents it.” Says Toni

“But earlier I could feel my electricity before the sim went up, why’s that?” Asks Marc

“It happens, in the dome it’s a little weaker plus your suit heightens your abilities so you can get a little feedback from them but not really enough to do anything really.” Says Carla

“It’s smart I guess, kinda explains the lax looking security a little bit. You guys ever seen any guards?” I say

Toni and Carla look at each other and shrug.

“I dunno, only guards we usually see are at the lab… You’ll see for yourself when we get there I guess.” Replies Toni

“Toni and I promised we’d hold this question until there was more of us and there’s definitely more so I can finally suggest we all tell each other where we’re from and the story of how our powers popped up.” She says Carla. Her eyes light up a little as she says it.

“And since I ask the question I’ll go first.” She says. “In Minneapolis I lived with my older sister, our parents died a while ago and she was taking care of me. I wasn’t exactly able bodied, most of my life was spent in a wheelchair. Anyway I love pro wrestling, so anytime a show rolled around my sister would take me even if it was in the next town or state over we’d go and check it out. I remember when the event happened it was a couple hours before a WWE pay per view and I was excited. Then the meteor shower happened and my sister couldn’t see what I could see, the way they went off but I found it beautiful. So it ended and we made it to the show and the pay per view was sick, the energy was insane.” She says chuckling and smiling. Its a happy memory that’s cool.

“Then a weeks after that when people started getting abilities, my sister and were headed home on the bus when this spasm shot right through me like a bolt of lighting and I fell out if my chair, people rushed to help back on. Then I felt something I felt my legs for just a second then it was gone, whilst looking at my legs I got a warm feeling thinking about being able to walk.I wasn’t really paying attention to anything or anyone around me so when I looked up to tell my sister I was just as surprised as anything to find a pile of chared bones at my feet… I guess I autopiloted through maybe a month alone then I learned to walk and then got picked up by WECA just after the chaos started.” She says finishing her story.

Tears are stresming down her face, she doesnt bother to wipe them away. But as tragic as that story is she left out somethings, some gaps but then again I have stuff I haven’t told them and stuff I probably won’t tell them as well.

“I lived in Krakow in the Bronowice district, it’s a city just next to the boarder to the Czech Republic it’s a beautiful city, I was told it has a lot of culture and the one of the oldest universities in the world but I liked to go to Planty Park in the old town it had a beautiful fountain.” Says Toni quietly. “I found out when people were hurting other people and I was running with my mother, we had managed to get food but there were people chasing us they had powers and were ignoring their …effects, they were almost like animals and they were going to kill us I think so I broke their necks instead.” Says Toni. Well that’s dark. “So I just thought about it and it happened. My mother knew someone would come so we ran here to this country but she didn’t know this country was where this place was and we just got separated and I ended up here but Carla has been a good sister.”

“That’s a lot man. So your mom’s still alive out there?” Asks Marc

Toni just shrugs his shoulders and folds himself, resting his chin on his knees. Even with that vocabulary he’s still a kid.

“Okay I guess it’s my turn to share.” Says Marc. “I was…I didn’t…I don’t remember my parents or anything like that I just remmeber being a kid and the streets and surviving, that’s all I’ve known. I learned a lot of things from a lot of people you’d be surprised how many intelligent people are homeless. I learned how to read and write from this old man named Solomon that I shared a bunk bed with at a shelter in Pretoria for about three years from the time I was ten, then he just disappeared and I taught myself the rest. Stole books, stole worse, was beat on so I learned to beat up. I did some bad things to good people.” Says Marc, his gaze drops. “I mugged people at knife point, I stabbed people who resisted broke into a lot of houses, lived in some for very brief periods but I never did drugs I couldn’t bring myself to that but everyone I knew on the streets was on something or another.” Marc sighs and buries his face in his hands.

“Then you know the turning point that brought us all here happened the event where no one else could see what I could… Wait actually there was once guy, we called him Chilly he saw the way those meterors went off. When my powers manifested at first I just used them, I mean robbing an ATM is pretty easy when you can electrocute it or just put your hands right through. Cops and security didn’t stand a chance plus I could move with Batman’s agility. Then there was this night when things were really bad when you either had powers that let you defend yourself or you were armed. So this 12 year old kid was cornered by some sick fucks who wanted to molest her so I just burned em to a crisp and got me a partner until I lost her but I don’t know how it happened. That’s when I ended up fighting for information and money in a cage for this thug known as O.R after the chaos and WECA had order, I gave WECA the slip a lot until I met him.” Says Frank gesturing to me. “So yeah that’s me.”

All of us sit silently. I’m guessing the girl is Nicole, I wonder if he knows she’s the fifth.

“Wow I wouldn’t have pegged you for one who grew up on the streets to be honest.” Says Carla

“I second that,” I say

“What do I look like?” He asks

“The badboy lone wolf type like in the movies.” Says Toni. All of us exchange a look and can’t help but burst into laughter.

“You’re up.” Says Marc.

“I think I’m like third oldest here, I was in the tenth grade went to a semi-porch school. My life was simple, school, home, videogames go hang out with my friend maybe do something something interesting, my mouth gets me in trouble somehow. And start again the next day. I lived with my parents who now work for WECA since I was asleep, so uhm the day of the event.” I say. Can’t tell them about Marlea yet. “I came home took a nap and woke up when it was about half way maybe toward the tail end of the whole thing. When it ended just after it had, I got sick like my senses were all out of whack all I could smell was burning rubber and burning blood and I couldn’t move and then I blacked out and woke up a year later and here I am now.”

“Your the one they talked about.” Says Marc, “I heard about you in a lot of places, the first to manifest.”

“You’re right Marc, shit I remember seeing your video every where the CCTV thing from a hospital. You look a little different, I guess that thing they say about TV is true.” Says Carla

“Yeah I don’t know about all that patient zero stuff, I’m just here.” I say

“It’s lab time son.” Says dad. All four colour coded doors swing open and our white coats wait on the other side.

“Well lab time is every man for him or herself so catch you guys at dinner where we won’t speak so technically catch you guys at rec room two.” Says Carla.

With a nod we all go our separate ways, time find out if they’ve got needles because I hate needles.