Claire dusted bits of blue detritus off her clothes as everyone turned to her, Apex stepping closer.
“What did you see Claire? Did you use your power? With the subtitles?” Gutshot asked.
Claire blinked at him and seethed, eyes locking onto the very Claire-shaped powder outline around his stomach.
“Don’t talk to me right now. I’m not even close to being over you hiding behind me when your name is Gutshot!” she whispered in a rage.
Gutshot recoiled, placing a palm on his stomach and frowning.
“I would’ve helped, but… then I saw one of those guys. Even behind the mask, I was certain.” Gutshot looked around before leaning in and whispering. “That was my dad.”
“Yeah, I’m not buying Apex being your dad until I get some confirmation.”
“Not Apex… The speedster with the intruders! That was my dad!” Gutshot mumbled urgently.
Claire stared dumbfounded, weighing whether or not to slap him.
“Don’t just share it with him! Speak up! What did you see?” Sami called from across the warehouse, waving arms overhead. He was kneeling next to Steve.
“Hold it,” Apex said, a hand placed gently on his head, rubbing his temples. “Let me go get Naomi before you start saying anything, I want her to hear it all.”
Claire almost didn’t hear him, but the subtitles under him were easy enough to read. She nodded, feeling awkward as she felt the eyes of the rest of the organization lingering on her. Sami was waving even more emphatically when Apex left the room.
“You want something?”
“Yeah, come over here! I don’t wanna drag Steve any further, but I wanna listen in!” Sami called.
Claire looked around, feeling like she was waiting for someone’s permission, but realized she didn’t care about anyone’s opinion in the room aside from Sami and Steve. Nodding, she made her way to the side of the warehouse where Sami knelt, two of his fingers placed on Steve’s neck. A dozen footsteps echoed across the broken room as everyone followed Claire from a few steps away.
“I think his pulse is good, nothing weird there, but he won’t wake up. Based on what they did to my Shadow Hand, I’m pretty sure those darts had paralysis. At least the ones he shot at us. I’m considering he can probably make more with different concoctions,” Sami said, wiping purple dust off of Steve’s face.
“That was pretty cool what you did,” Claire said.
“Really?” Sami looked up at her, excited. Eyebrows wiggling, it looked like he reevaluated the entire fight in a moment. His smile went thin. “What part? Really didn’t do much. I actually think my results were pretty lame.”
“The way you ran in before we even knew what was going on,” Claire replied. “I think I like to imagine that I would act at the first sign of danger, if I had the right power, but it’s kinda inspiring to see someone do it for real.”
“Oh. Thanks. I still don’t think I really did anything,” Sami said, grinning as he scratched the side of his eyebrow, smearing purple coloring.
“No one else started running in until you did.”
Sami looked genuinely surprised to hear that. Nodding, he accepted the compliment graciously, bobbing in place, bouncing like he sat on a truck engine.
Claire looked over her shoulder, hoping Naomi would show up. Instead, the footsteps stopped around Claire, the others having gathered around her. All eyes sat on her expectantly, like an audience at a hearing. Scanning between them, some looked hungry for information while others looked fearful. An ambush was definitely unexpected at HUE Headquarters. It should have been the most fortified place in the city, with all the Awakened in there. But without Apex, they were barely holding their own.
“Well? What did you see?” Sami asked eagerly.
“Apex said to wait.”
“I know, but like a sneak peak! Did you get any specifics about their group name?”
“No.”
“But you’re sure they were talking with someone else on the other end of the line?”
“Yeah.”
“Then, you know what they’re after?” Sami asked.
“No.”
Sami continued to bob in place, but looked mildly disappointed. Claire frowned, suddenly feeling like maybe she shouldn’t have announced to the whole room that she read the conversation. Then, Sami looked away from her, eyes darting around the damage.
“I wonder what they wanted?” he mused as he investigated.
Claire sighed internally, releasing a knot of tension in her stomach. Sami wasn’t disappointed in her at all, just the lack of answers. It was cathartic to speak to someone that felt like they were on the same team as her.
“If I had pictures of them, I could tell you who said what,” Claire offered. “Do we have cameras set up in here?”
“Does anyone have paper or something?” a young man around Claire’s age stepped up. Claire recognized him from the clay evaluations.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Ulysses. Tall, but unimposing, and lacking of a strong power, like her. A bit lanky, but had a kind face, looking eager to help. From what she remembered, he could only draw something weird on the clay mannequin during tryouts.
“I have index cards if that helps!” Sami held up a small stack.
Claire tried to read him as she passed the cards to Ulysses. “Why do you carry index cards? To take notes with your Shadow Hand?”
“No, but that’s a great idea! I was using it to show someone else how cool their power could be,” Sami explained.
Claire couldn’t get over how earnest Sami was when talking. She felt she was good at reading people, and felt the Subtitle power was a bit earned in that respect. Occasionally, she’d tried to parse his words for sarcasm or arrogance, but he constantly radiated sincerity. He was taking time out of his day to help someone else with their power? He somehow inspired her more than Apex, not that she’d ever admit it. Maybe it was because they both shared weak powers, but he wasn’t held back by his limits. If she tried as hard as him, she could do more.
“Here,” Ulysses held out a card to Claire.
She grabbed it and flipped it back and forth several times as she looked at it. The card had a picture of one of the masked men printed on it, as though it was taken from a polaroid. Incredibly immaculate for the two second span that Ulysses held the card.
“Wow. What is your power, exactly?” Claire asked, marveling at the detail in the picture.
“I call it Photographic Memory. I can take a memory and make it into a photograph, if I remember it well enough.”
“Cute name,” Claire said flatly.
“My mom helped me name it,” Ulysses murmured, offended.
“I said it was cute!” Claire snapped, snatching the next index card image from his hand. “I recognize this one. He threw the cloud bombs. This one said ‘maybe we should send in Thugg.’ That’s Thugg with two Gs.”
“How do you know it’s two G’s?” Gutshot asked.
Claire shot him a silent, annoyed look before swiping the next card from Ulysses hand and holding it up to Gutshot.
“You said this guy was your father right?”
All eyes turned to Gutshot.
“What? No. Where are you getting that from?” He looked a mix of aghast and offended.
“You literally just told me, you dunce!”
“I told you before! Apex is my dad!” Gutshot insisted.
Claire groaned, eyes to the sky as she forced herself to turn away from him. Naomi was approaching them from across the warehouse, thick shake in one hand and dragging an IV set in the other. The IV was in use, supplying some fluid to her as she walked over. Claire raised an eyebrow, a mix of disturbed and curious.
“Did I miss anything important?” Naomi inserted herself to the circle of HUE members.
“Where’s Apex?” Sami asked.
“Resting.”
“In that case, I have a theory, Naomi. I think they were after Annie,” Sami said. “They broke down the wall to the back and then another wall in the direction of her room. I don’t think they knew where she was, but it looks like they had a general idea.”
“Why would they want Annie?” Dawson asked.
“To use her,” Naomi said, looking at Sami with a curious gaze. “It’s not a terrible theory. What about you, Claire, what did you want to share?”
“What about Steve?” she asked, looking at his unconscious form.
Naomi squinted at him, then snapped her neck to the side.
“Beth! You didn’t heal him?” she asked a girl a little younger than Claire.
“I was waiting for the right opportunity,” Beth said, startled.
“The right opportunity is the second after he’s hurt! Get him up, it’s paralysis,” Naomi ordered sharply.
Nodding, Beth rushed forward and held a palm just ahead of Steve’s closed eyes. A white shine emitted from her hands, then Steve breathed deep and winced like a river of pain flowed out of him. Suddenly, his eyes shot open.
Twisting on the floor, Steve took in the allies surrounding him. Scanning quickly, there was a hardness in his eyes that Claire was shocked to see. After seeing him in action, it was clear he was much more capable a fighter than a speaker. And he had the hard eyes of a warrior to match.
“Where are they?” Steve asked, a massive dome of clay crawling up around all members in the warehouse and guarding them from the outside world.
“It’s been resolved. Stand down,” Naomi assured him.
Steve seemed startled by Naomi’s presence. “Oh.” Drops of sweat dotted his forehead and mixed with the remaining purple dust on his skin. “Sorry, I didn’t…”
He cleared his throat and wiped his forehead as the earthen dome crawled down in an embarrassed shrinkage.
“It’s fine, Steve. Good work. You were saying?” Naomi asked Claire, sipping from her shake.
“I read the conversation when I could see their mouths,” Claire explained. “They spoke to one another through earpieces, but there was another man as part of the conversation. They argued with him a lot, but he was definitely calling the shots. I’m not sure they knew exactly what they were attacking here.”
“They didn’t know this was HUE?” Naomi asked skeptically.
“Maybe?” Claire suggested, going through the pictures and picking up the one of the masked leader. “This guy basically freaked out when Apex took down his guys. Said ‘I don’t care about any agreement, you didn’t tell us Apex would be here.’ That was right before he started speeding around and grabbing people to run away. Before that was mostly orders. They put a lot of focus on getting Steve down in the beginning. Then the smoke made it hard to see anything after that. Bits and pieces. They were pretty happy when they got the west wall broken down. And when the big guy got a good hit on Apex.”
The group reflected for a few tense moments.
“Anything else of importance?” Naomi asked.
“To be honest, they seemed pretty satisfied with themselves. One said ‘I think we’ve done enough damage here to get the job done.’ And another said ‘We can get the target next time.’ I think they were sending a message to HUE.”
“From EUE?” Dawson asked.
“Eww?” asked Sami.
“No, EUE,” corrected Claire.
“That’s what I said,” Sami clarified patiently.
“It’s not,” Claire said with finality.
“There’s no evidence of this being EUE,” Naomi reminded, then glanced at Claire for corroboration.
“Nothing indicated EUE other than the masks. What does it stand for again?”
“The Equality Unification Entity,” Naomi said, her tone dry.
“That seems intentionally misleading,” Sami said, looking as though he just figured out the ‘EUE’ and ‘Eww’ confusion.
“This has been enlightening, thank you Claire.” Naomi nodded. “Whoever needs time to rest, please take it. Otherwise, who is ready and willing for deployments?”
Sami shot his hand up, among a few others. Claire kept her hands to her side, slightly ashamed she wasn’t as eager as her fellow HUE members. But getting ambushed on the very first day was harrowing. She couldn’t imagine taking on enemies like that with even fewer team mates to protect her.
“Excellent. We were going to start with light training, but instead you should go get some rest. Kutso and Sami go wash up and meet Magnus at the front desk in three hours. You will be deployed,” Naomi reported.
Sami grinned, turning to smile at Claire.
“Wish me luck!” Sami said, running off to grab his water bottle before heading to the inner rooms.
And advanced chapters on Patreon)
Favorite Character So Far?
