Gigaheroes

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen: Daniel Peterson

My senses guided my way to the basement. I appeared in a long concrete hall lined metal grates. In a snapshot, I knew there were about a hundred kids throughout the complex. Getting them out wouldn’t be a problem. Getting them out to a safe range was. 

Never mind the fighting that would soon commence, I knew ASA forces would arrive as soon as Mason was put down. They were probably gathering all the personnel they could around the regional headquarters to close in and contain the damage. That meant I would have to travel quite a distance to make sure the kids had a good chance to escape. 

I opened the grate to take a look, and my heart sank in my chest. Five faces covered themselves from what must’ve been blinding light from above. Three boys and two girls. They wore rags, and they were so skinny they might’ve been human sticks. They had been kept so that only two at a time could afford to sleep. The rest had to remain standing just for room. 

They were covered with the filth that came with such awful conditions, and the pit itself was stained with the filth of the countless children who had gone before them. I doubted they had the strength to flee, even if I got them to safety. And yet, despite the squalor, the three young boys who could’ve been no older than nine, stood to guard for the girls against the stranger who had opened the gate. 

Just seeing that made me realize Mason was right. This had been the right call all along. Looking over the rest of the pits, I made a decision. I could try to save a few with longer distance jumps, or I could try to save many. Sure, most of them would probably be snatched up again once things settled. 

But if I had been one of those kids, and I had known I had been passed over for a chance of freedom because of bad luck… 

There was no time to explain to them. Taking two at a time, I teleported quickly across tunnels and empty rooms and even a sewer until we were in an abandoned office atrium. The five children stumbled, disoriented by the quick transition. It had all been over in a few seconds, and from how they moved, I knew their limbs must’ve been impossibly stiff from weeks of being trapped in such a cramped space. 

The oldest among the group—a boy—stood to face me, to see what my intentions were. His expression was hard. His matted hair and dirty face stared defiantly at me, waiting to see what new trap had been sprung on them. The young kid had been forced to grow up very fast. He knew there was no such thing as a good turn—except for maybe just this once—there was. 

I nodded towards the outside rain. “Run as fast as you can.” I disappeared a second later. Pit by pit, I rescued those children. I didn’t get them out of harm’s way. In fact, as I was taking two into a nearby building, a great burst of flame shattered through the wall right in front of us. The roar of fire singed me, and I threw my arms over the poor children. I didn’t stick around to see what happened next as I took them a few more buildings over and returned. 

Did it feel good? Was this an act of righteous rebellion against the Democratic Union? I won’t deny it. It felt good finally sticking it to the world. But there was also further tragedy. Some of those kids I saved were too far gone. They could barely move, let alone run for their lives. Some were broken. They sat huddled as infants, not responding even as I desperately tried to make them run. And some were just feral. 

One child I rescued grew claws and tried to rake my eyes out in screeching hatred. There were others like him too, both boys and girls who would spend the rest of their lives as barely better than animals. 

But it was important to me that they got the same chance, the opportunity I never had. Maybe those feral children and those who were worse off could climb out of the terrible circumstances they found themselves in. Maybe not. But they were worth it, anyway. 

And for those like the first child I rescued, the one who stood defiantly, they were the ones who made me keep coming back. The ones who hadn’t been broken, the ones who remained steadfast, they especially deserved that chance. And I was damned if I was going to leave any of them behind. 

Ten minutes it took. Ten minutes to get nearly all of them. As I dropped another child off, I teleported to a building overlooking the ASA regional headquarters. Glancing down from a window, I saw the carnage that had been wrought. 

There were heaps of molten metal, still steaming in the rain. There were great craters in the street’s asphalt where the rain drizzled into puddles of grimy water. I took that to be Cosmic Warrior’s work, amplifying gravity to try to crush Mason. But amongst the devastation and ruin, I saw a lone body. 

It appeared Iron Shield had been the first to fall. The metal spilled out from him like a pool of widening blood. His head had been chopped off, probably by the strike of an arm. I didn’t know what to think of the corpse. Should I be happy? He had come here to kill or arrest us, or worse. Should I be sad? His was probably a similar tragedy to my own, except with a lot more perks to it. 

But to tell the truth, I didn’t feel much of anything. I don’t have it in my heart to mourn for everyone who dies along my path. I don’t think I can. I just can’t tear up for every tragedy that befalls the people of the Democratic Union. The man’s weight would have to be borne by someone else. I just had too much on my shoulders as it was. 

Iron Shield died and was left in the rain. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know his story. All I knew was that it would be up to his comrades to carry on this forgotten corpse’s memory. And when they died, it would be up to someone else to remember them. 

I looked into the blackened and thundering sky. I saw towers of fire and beams of contorted light as three figures fought in brutal combat. I was too far out to guess who was winning and who was losing. For all I knew, Adam Mason was on his last legs, and he would soon be brought down. And then again, for all I knew, he was the one who would come out on top. I wish I knew the answer, but until then, I had no choice but to fulfill his request. 

Teleporting away, I entered the last pit. The grate blocked out all light, but I could sense two forms huddled in the darkness. One boy and one girl stiffened at the new arrival. They hugged each other and tried to draw away from me. I took them and I put them in a distant alley. 

They slowly uncurled from one another, taking in their surroundings. 

“Run as fast as you can,” I told them as I turned to teleport away. 

“Wait!” The boy cried out suddenly. 

I glanced back at him. 

“Who are you?” he asked, quicker on the uptake than most. He knew I had been there to set them free. 

“Just call me Daniel,” I responded, disappearing a second later. 

I was all over the basement, running one more check through all the levels to make sure I had gotten everyone. It seemed I had. And since the fight was probably still going on, that meant I would have time to go back to the surface and try to get some of the kids further out into safety. But as I was doing my final sweep, I noticed something odd. 

My teleporting sense picked up six distinct humans on one of the most bottom levels of the complex. Now I had dodged and gotten out of the sight of fleeing guards, but these six were strange. I hadn’t spotted them before, and they weren’t running with the pace of men fearing for their lives. No, these men walked with purpose. 

I quit my sweep to teleport into an office hallway behind a corner where I could observe the men stealthily. They wore black uniforms similar to riot gear, but there was no identification or markings you would normally see with soldiers of the like. They carried big guns with what appeared to be silencers on the end. 

Just from one look, I knew immediately what these guns were. They were nullifiers, and they were amped up nullifiers too. They were the kind you could point at a regular human and kill them just as surely as you would with a bullet. The men walked down the hall in a brisk formation, clearly knowing the layout of this place. 

And yet, I somehow knew these weren’t ASA men. The ASA were professionals, but these guys looked to be on another level entirely. 

I decided to follow them to see what they were up to. As they rounded each corner, I teleported shortly behind. That way, they would not be able to hear my footsteps on the tile floor. I followed them for quite a distance, tailing them through several passages and down one stairwell until we came upon an innocuous hallway no different than the last. 

The underground of the ASA was surprisingly mundane. To call it an evil lair would be a misnomer. It was a hospital—a bad hospital—with all the horrible things that entailed. The men stopped at one seam running down a concrete wall. I had no idea why they stopped, but it seemed this was their destination. I crouched down and tried to listen to their conversation. 

It seemed they were talking with themselves and someone else who was phoning them. 

“…Mason is stronger than expected…more time than we thought…”

“—what about Vance?”

“…trap. He won’t make it…”

“Joker’s orders. Just get the target.”

One of the soldiers went up to the seam and brought out a plastic security card. Running it along the innocuous surface, a green light beeped in the crack. The concrete paneling rumbled as it fell away and folded to one side, revealing a previously hidden passage that was coated with a strange, dark material. 

I didn’t even know what to think. Normally, with my teleportation, I gain a snapshot of all of my surroundings. I am able to immediately understand everything around me in less than a blink of an eye and move for my best advantage. But despite that, this passage had somehow entirely escaped my notice. 

The men filed into the secret corridor, leaving the entrance open. I sensed that what was happening was way over my head, but my curiosity got the best of me. I carefully stepped out of the corner and quietly made my way over to the passage. 

The secret entrance led to a circular hallway. A catwalk was suspended from the ceiling, and above, dark red lights dimly lit the space. The walls were entirely dark, almost like they weren’t even there to begin with. It extended a long way, then started to descend down. The six men were already nearly out of sight. 

I made to follow, but as soon as I took the first step onto the grating of the catwalk, I felt a shiver down my spine. It was like some part of me was being cut off. My instincts kicked in, and I tried to teleport away, except I found I couldn’t. 

My heart started pounding in my chest, and I hesitated to continue. Except when I was in the deprivation tank, I had always lived my life with a way out. No one really understands what it’s like, but imagine having a button you could press to get you out of whatever trouble you were in. And no matter how fast the other guy tried, you were always faster. 

Now the button was somehow turned off. I didn’t even know what I was looking at, but I knew it was some kind of high-tech dampening room. And it was terrifying. 

It was the most difficult thing in my life to press on, to know that one mistake would cost me my life. Which was funny because I didn’t give a shit about my life ten minutes ago. But what can I say? There’s nothing clandestine men and a scary hallway to put the fear of death right back in you. 

I quietly tried to walk down the passage. The noise of my feet hitting the grate still seemed absurdly loud. But then I realized it was because this corridor was silent, too silent. There wasn’t the hum of machinery or the flow of air. There was… nothing. And the deafening silence began to hurt my ears. 

Going along a little faster, I reached the point where the catwalk was segmented into stairs leading down. Given that we were in the lower levels of a basement already deep in the earth, it unnerved me just how far down it went. All in all, I would say we were about half a mile under City 57. 

I tiptoed down the stairs as fast as I could, and when I nearly reached the bottom, I came across an open door with way too many security measures to make me comfortable. It was at least two feet of solid steel and with more keypads and finger scanners than I had seen in my entire life. The blocky aperture also provided good cover as I crouched to get a good look at the room beyond. 

The only way to describe it was part laboratory and part viewing room. Three large panes of glass overlooked a concrete chamber beyond, coated with the same black substance as what coated the hallway. In the viewing room were countless computers and control monitors and screens. Most of it showed diagnostic information I couldn’t make heads or tails of. In the back corner were several large servers and even what I took to be an independent power generator. 

Two of the six men had remained in the viewing room. They were seated, working the controls with an unnerving familiarity. 

From this vantage point, I couldn’t see what the viewing room was overlooking, and if I wanted to, I would have to get closer. 

I wanted to run away, but again I pressed forward. My feet felt like they were rooted to the ground. My breath was absurdly loud, only outpaced by my heart that felt like it was going to explode in my chest. And yet, I pushed forward. I was no more than a few feet away from the two men, but I could see the further room beyond. 

The concrete chamber contained three spheroid capsules placed on mechanical pedastals affixed into the ground. I say capsules because I didn’t know how else to describe them. Pods maybe. Either way, they were big enough to fit several grown men at least. They were covered in bizarre devices and blinking lights that again made no sense to me. The other four men worked on the leftmost sphere, inputting commands into an interface and monitoring the pod. 

On each of them was a pane of frosted glass that frustratingly revealed nothing of the contents. But in the dim red lighting, it didn’t take an idiot to realize it was nothing good. 

“It was just as Joker expected. He was able to trip the kill sequence when Adam Mason attacked. It’ll have looked like a malfunction,” one of the men said. “They’ll never guess what really happened.”

“It’s a shame we can’t get the other two,” the other said. 

The man shook his head. “Better off this way. One is going to be difficult enough as it is.”

There were a few more clicks on the keyboard and suddenly one computer flashed green. One of the guys near the sphere gave a thumbs up, and they all stepped away as the sphere began to whir into motion. Even from the viewing room, I heard the distinct clang of heavy locks releasing and various hydraulics pulling back. 

The sphere clicked and buzzed and hummed as lights began flashing. Then, without warning, the door with the frosted pane of glass retracted. There was a spray of mist, or perhaps steam, still obscuring what was kept inside. 

One of the men stepped into the sphere, and there was a long pause. I held my breath, not sure what monstrosity he would emerge with. 

I’m not an idiot. I’ve heard the stories of blacksites, but what troubled me was that this seemed to be something even more secret than a blacksite. There were rumors of things going on, but I have never even heard of anything like this. 

The man emerged from the pod carrying something. I blinked twice, trying to make it out. What was so terrifying that it needed to be hidden away by such lengths as this? What was so horrifying it was buried below the basement of the ASA regional headquarters? I held my breath as I watched the man stride forth carrying a…

I blinked. It was a young boy. Maybe a little older than the kids the ASA had taken, but not by much. 

There was a sudden flash from the other two pods and a klaxon blared. 

“Warning. Subject termination will commence in one minute!” 

“Just in the nick of time,” one of the men muttered. 

Another man reached out to help carry the unconscious boy, and they started back for the viewing room. 

That snapped me out of it as I realized they were about to walk in here and find me spying on them. I wanted to run back down the hallway as fast as I could, but there was no way I could make the distance without them shooting me. I glanced around in a panic, looking for somewhere to hide. 

In the corner with the servers. I ducked behind them just as a door opened to the viewing room, and the men came in. 

“We egress to the rendezvous point,” the apparent leader said. “Move out.”

They filed back into the passage without a further word. 

“Warning. Subject termination will commence in thirty seconds!”

When they left the room, I cautiously got back up. I stared at the two remaining pods, humming in the red light. If the first one contained a boy, then the two likely contained children as well. I would’ve risked teleporting into the pods to get them out, but my powers still didn’t work. There was nothing I could do but watch in horror as the humming of machinery grew louder. 

“Warning. Subject termination will commence in ten seconds!”

The noise grew almost unbearably loud, and it seemed the alarms blazed louder still. Parts of the spheres were rotating in their emplacements. Tubes injected themselves into steel ports. Something hissed as there was a clunk as some machinery finally locked into place. 

I blinked, and then it happened. There was a bright flash that burned from within the sphere, lighting up the entire room from the frosted glass. It was as if two suns had ignited within the spheres. I had to shield my eyes as whatever was contained within the spheres was eradicated down to the molecule. 

I didn’t know what to feel. I knew I had witnessed some crime here, some horrible atrocity that I couldn’t even comprehend. Something awful had taken place within this room, and now it was being covered up. 

Those words were all too prescient as not a minute later, hidden explosives triggered within the concrete laboratory. The glass panes exploded as I was thrown off my feet. I scrambled for footing as the machinery sparked and blew out around me. The hallway detonated as well, causing cave-ins and blocking my way out. I was trapped within falling debris and rubbles and two miniature balls of magma whose heat I could feel from even here. 

But as the world came apart, so too did that dark material which inhibited my powers. I felt something rush back into me, and my screaming instincts finally kicked in again. 

I blinked my eyes, and I was back in the sterile corridor of the ASA basement. The men were nowhere to be seen, and the secret entrance was already locked back up. It was as if nothing had happened at all. And if not for the dust and blood which coated me, I would’ve thought it would’ve all been a dream. 

I wanted to run away and pretend that none of this had ever happened. But I turned down the hall instead. 

Whatever this was, whatever I had just witnessed, it was no different from those kids who had been trapped in pits. And from how callously those men acted, it looked like they didn’t have that boy’s best interest in mind either. Taking a deep breath, I knew what I had to do. 

I teleported three times. I was in a hallway. I was in a closet. And then a blink later, I was in the middle of those six men. None of them had time to react. They couldn’t get so much as a word out as I appeared and placed my hand on the unconscious boy’s shoulder. 

And then we were gone. 

Link to Chapter Twenty