“The power to live up to an impossible legacy.”

  It’s strange to think about. I have so much power it boggles the mind sometimes. I can easily break the speed of sound at will, rip concrete apart with barely a thought, and plow through hordes of monsters without slowing. And yet, I still can’t live up to Mom.

  How can I? Everything she did was about saving lives. Mom would charge into burning buildings to pull people out. I once watched her make it out literal seconds before the building collapsed. She fought housefires, wildfires, industrial fires. During the summer fire season, she’d leave and none of us would know if we’d see her again. She went anyway, saying the same thing every time.

  ’Don’t go, Mommy! Don’t go!’

  I’m sobbing as I latch onto her leg, trying to hold her back.

  She stops and leans down. She meets my tear-blurred eyes.

  ‘I know it’s scary, honey. I’m scared too. But I have to go.’

  I grab tighter, barely bawling out a muffled, ‘Why?’

  ‘If I don’t go, and someone gets hurt, I’ll always think about it. What if I was there?’

  Dad gently pries me off her leg.

  She hugs me close, her strong arms wrapping around my tiny body.

  ‘There are some things we have to do, even knowing what it could cost us.’

  She kisses my cheek, ruffles my hair, and walks out the door.

  “What do you mean by that,” Morgan asks. “An impossible legacy?”

  I look away, unable to meet her gaze.

  “I will always live in the shadow of my parents, I think. Either of them would be better than me, if they had these powers.”

  I clench my fists.

  “Both of them should be here.”

  Morgan’s look turns soft.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

  I look up and meet her eyes. I see only trust and kindness there.

  I sit up.

  “It starts with Finals Week of my sophomore semester at college…”

  Tears stream down my face. I just got back my thermodynamics final, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be an engineer. Mom finally picks up, and I already feel bad for calling her. I can hear the exhaustion in her voice. It must have been one of those days.

  ‘Hey, honey? How’s college?’

  When I take a shuddering breath, she already knows.

  ’Oh, honey, what happened?’

  ‘…I don’t think I’m cut out for this, Mom.’

  ‘Bad exam?’

  ‘Yeah, Mom. I don’t…I don’t think I can do this.’

  ‘Do… do you want to change majors?’

  This hurts, this failure. Mom and Dad gave so much to get me here. To get me into engineering school. Years, decades, of saving. A constant sacrifice, long before I was born. I can’t do this, not to them.

  ‘No I… I think I just wanted to talk to you, Mom.’

  ’You can always talk to me whenever you want, honey.’

  I can hear her smile.

  The plane lands, and Mom is late. She said she’d be here with Dad when I told her I was taking off. I take my luggage, and start to look around. Calls keep going to voice mail, and it’s starting to scare me.

  When I turn a corner and see her Captain and Lieutenant in dress uniforms, somber expressions plastered over their faces, I know. I break down and cry.

  Morgan sits down next to me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Heard that too many times.

  “What for?”

  “It’s just so terrible. I can’t imagine losing my parents, despite our… differences. I can’t imagine what kind of wreck I’d be.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She gives me a searching look. She goes to say something, but bites it off.

  “What?”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Nothing, it’s nothing. Later. What happened next?”

  I shrug.

  “What’s there to say? After the funeral… I just couldn’t anymore. Couldn’t go back. I let them down one final time. Threw away everything they sacrificed.”

  She puts a hand on my pauldron.

  “I think they’d be proud of you. Look at what you’ve done.”

  My head hits the nose of the Chinook with a thunk.

  “I wish it was enough. I wish I could do more.”

  “Do you even know what would be enough?”

  “Yes. Nothing. It’ll never be enough. I’ll never be enough.”

  It’s the middle of the day, just past two in the afternoon, when the worst happens. Monsters come pouring up onto a Florida beach. I catch a clip on social media of a brittle star large enough to eat a man whole haul itself up onto the beach. I push it to Morgan’s phone, and McKinley’s tablet.

  Redding looks down at us.

  “Is something more important than this hearing, ladies and gentlemen?”

  “A very low bar, Senator,” Morgan snarks. “But, yes. Looks like Florida has had a triple rupture. The Cat-3 Triplet off the coast of Daytona just ruptured.”

  A trio of Cat-3 Fractures sitting just off the coast of Daytona Beach have all ruptured at once. After the rupture at Mayo Beach, just an hour east of DC, the world realized that Fractures are not relegated to just forming on land.

  A massive coordinated search found a triplet of Cat-3 Fractures off the coast of Daytona, though they weren’t the only aquatic Fractures by any means. Doctor Patricks’ team guessed at their age, and it looks like they were wrong.

  I look towards the door, and Redding glares at me.

  “You are not excused, Mr. Ryans. There are others who can and will deal with it. I believe the 4-Star Blur is close enough to respond. I’m sure he’ll be more than enough to deal with the problem.”

  And he’s partially right, Blur is already at the scene. A few more clips showcase the speedster laying into monster after monster. A brittle star explodes into gore, and then another.

  Despite moving at just above Mach 3, the literal hundreds of monsters are pouring onto the beach faster than even he can kill them. Dozens of them pop into viscera like firecrackers. For every one he kills, three more pour onto the beach.

  “I don’t think so, Senator. I should go! Morgan can portal us!”

  He scoffs.

  “Please, Mr. Ryans. Try not to oversell your worth to wriggle out of an important accountability hearing. Now, where were we?”

  After a brief pausing of rummaging through dozens of reports across his desk, he picks one up.

  “Ah yes. You intentionally damaged National Guard property. The Abrams tank known as Dodge This had to be sent back to the factory to be repaired after you intentionally destroyed its barrel.”

  I tune him out, partitioning the part of me answering questions off to a separate thread. Another Empowered arrives just a few minutes later, but it’s already too late. I watch as a young man is eaten alive by a ravenous brittle star.

  ‘If I don’t go, and someone gets hurt, I’ll always think about it. What if I was there?’

  I’m sorry, Mom.

  Guilt fills my chest.

  The newly arrived 3-Star Empowered, a young woman, is dressed as a surfer. I recognize her as well. She goes by Rip Tide, and is one of the few American aquatic Empowered. She surfs along the water, faster than a speedboat. Even with her joining the fray, it’s still not enough.

  The brittle stars flow around the two Empowered as they desperately fight to hold back the tide of monsters. Blur tries to pull a few victims away, but he only manages to reach a handful. The monsters tear more innocent people apart, and I physically shudder. Redding notices.

  “What’s the problem, Mr. Ryans? Tired of having your mistakes come to light?”

  I look up at his sneering face.

  “Oh, Senator. You have no idea.”

  By the time the day is over, the massacre at Daytona Beach is as well. A few more Empowered managed to arrive, and they helped stabilize the situation. Despite their best efforts, the death toll is grim. Nearly two hundred people died. I could have cleared those Fractures, but instead I chose to bend to the whims of the system.

  There’s not many Empowered in America who are capable of operating in underwater environments. Most of them are in Micronesia and South East Asia. With the Triplet Fractures being underwater, everyone assumed the environments would be as well. Trying to find someone who was both willing and capable of clearing such a Fracture was… difficult.

  It was assumed in many circles that I would clear them, once the hearing ended. DARPA said we had another two weeks before they ruptured. It appears they still have a lot of work to do on their models.

  I’d like to the lay the blame at Redding’s feet. He’s the one who kept me here. Kept Morgan here, McKinley, Rains, and the rest. He’s the one who didn’t let me go.

  But that’d be a lie, really. It’s my fault. It’s like Thor said. Those in power are terrified about losing control, and in their flailing for relief they’ll drown the rest of us. I have the strength to tell them no. That I will not allow them to stop me from doing what has to be done. Yes, I caused damage. Yes, I made mistakes. And staying here, in DC?

  This was my biggest mistake yet.

  As soon as evening falls and Redding finishes another day doing nothing but getting people killed to assuage his own ego, I leave the Capitol Building in haste. I carefully dodge reporters and their questions before getting to some large roads. I open up, and sprint out of the city at sixty miles an hour.

  There’s a Cat-2 Fracture west of here, and as far as I can tell, there’s no one around to clear it. It’s already six days old, so it only has a few more days before it ruptures and spews blood thirsty monsters out in our universe.

  I won’t let that happen. Not again.

  It takes four hours of sprinting before I make it. The Fracture is out near a river in a State Wildlife area. We were lucky that it was detected when it formed, a few hunters were nearby and called it in. When I arrive, there’s a park ranger ordering about dozens of civilian militia.

  None of them have any kind of heavy weaponry, the kind that would be needed to deal with the kind of horrors a Cat-2 Fracture can throw out. Instead, they’re limited to small arms. The largest weapons I see are two machine guns that I’m sure were lost in a boating accident, and a Barrett .50 Caliber Anti-Materiel Rifle.

  What they lack in firepower, they more than make up in courage. Unfortunately, courage doesn’t kill monsters. As I walk up to the stronghold, barbed wire and barricades everywhere, the park ranger hurries up to me.

  “Mr. Machina! What are you doing here? I thought you were stuck in DC?”

  He spits on the ground.

  “Fucking Redding. Not that we’re not happy to see you, sir,” He adds.

  I slow my pace while making my way towards the Fracture.

  “I’m here to do what I do best. What can you tell me about the Fracture? The region?”

  The ranger gives me a quick overview. He can’t tell me anything new about inside the Fracture itself, but what he tells me about the region is far more helpful. Given that it appears Fractures generally use the environment they form in as a base, for both monsters and internal landscape, it’s extremely helpful.

  “In terms of animals around here? Black Bears are the probably the most dangerous individually, but a pack of wild boars is nothing to scoff at. They’re far more lethal than bears in terms of deaths.”

  “Thank you, Ranger Cooper.”

  He gives me a grin.

  “You can call me Wane.”

  As I’m about to step into the Fracture itself, he calls over to me.

  “Mr. Machina?”

  “Hm?”

  “What Redding is doing to you is a fucking travesty. You’ve been doing what you can, when you can. Ain’t nobody going to fault you for not being perfect, not in times like these. At least, nobody ’round here will.”

  “Thank you, Wane.”

  I turn and enter the Fracture.

  Before I go, however, I would humbly leave you with another shoutout, this once again from the author community I'm apart of.