“Silence, you need to keep quiet until they have been debriefed, we have rules for a reason.” Sam chimed in from the front of the truck.
“Yes, Sir.” Silence hung his head.
No one spoke as the vehicle heaved up and down over the dunes of snow that went on forever in every direction. As we came close to a building that was tucked into the side of one of the dunes, a garage door opened spilling light onto the white ground. The driver pulled into the doorway and the door closed behind us.
Vanish was rushed off on a stretcher and we were shown into a sitting room.
A strange rush came over us as we all sat uncomfortably. Ronnie sat next to me, having trouble keeping his eyes open. He let his head fall back on the couch. I felt his irregular breaths turn into a more steady rhythm as he leaned against me on the small couch.
Sam walked into the room and clapped his hands together, "Here in a minute we are going to begin debriefing you all. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but I am obligated to not answer any of them until after the debriefing has finished.” he explained. We all wanted answers, but we were tired from what had gone down and tired of getting pulled around.
“Grace, do you want to go first?”
“Sure, why not.” I stood and followed him out of the room.
Sam showed me out into the hallway and to a room labeled “Debriefing.” He opened the door to a small room with a bay window the size of the outer wall.
There were two chairs looking out of a bay window, "Have a seat.” Sam said pointing to one of the chairs.
A fire burned in a fire place on the wall opposite side of the room.
I sat down.
“So I will make this as quick as possible.” He picked up a tablet computer that was resting in his chair and began to fill in some information, "So how long were you inside of the Aurora facility?”
“We checked the date a few hours after our escape. Best we can tell we were there for around thirty or so days.” I rubbed my face feeling a head ache coming on, "Events shortly after we were taken is a little fuzzy. It’s all a little fuzzy.”
“What is your ability?” He wasn’t typing, but allowing the computer to do the typing.
I wasn’t sure how to describe the ability so I just held out my hand and snapped my fingers making a flame about the size of a lighter’s flame hovered over my skin.
“PyroKinetics, we have only found one other with that ability.” Sam said, "And were you the person that caused the explosion at the facility?”
“I was the explosion.” I shifted in my seat and let the flame die.
“Alright, well I think that is about all I need for now.” he looked over the computer screen.
“What was it that you were calling each other?” I asked.
“We have call-signs, if the public were to overhear us speaking for any reason, they will only have our nicknames. One of our founders came up with the idea from old comic books and it stuck.” Sam put the computer on the floor next to his chair.
“Why did you get upset when Hothead said Liz’s name once we reappeared?”
“It is a layer of defense we use. They have to follow the rules regardless of present company. Every person has to be cleared.”
“That word you used mod? What does that mean?” I wanted to understand this new world that I had become a part of.
“It’s short for modification. That is what we refer to someone who was modified from their original DNA makeup in order to gain any number of abilities. Nat’s, or naturals, are people who gain their abilities naturally, and Reg’s are normal people.” he scratched his head, "You’ll learn as you go along.”
“You recorded the Tier six spike at Las Vegas, how did you know we had gone to the orphanage?”
“Shortly after the spike, we were contacted by a shadow agent, someone we’ve smuggled within Aurora, that there were new recruits. We started scanning for unregistered users, when Ronnie performed his first attack we honed in and Vanish took us there.” He explained like it was standard daily activity.
“My head is killing me.” I rubbed my eyes that began to burn from the stress.
Chapter 9: Eastcroft
Sam and I returned to the waiting room. He took Kenny next. I assured him that there was nothing to worry about and that I would watch after Sandy while he was gone.
I sat down next to Ronnie who was fast asleep crumpled over to one side. His eyes were racing around behind his closed eyelids.
I pushed him up and took my seat back. He didn’t wake at all.
Rachel sat down in the chair next to me.
“So, who are these people?” she tucked her feet underneath her on the chair for warmth.
“I don’t know. But things here seem much more copasetic.” I rubbed my eyes. I was feeling very tired myself.
Silence walked into the room. He looked underamazed by what was happening. He grabbed another chair and drug it to where we sat and joined our conversation. He wore all black clothes and his face was wrapped to just below his eyes with a black cloth. When he sat down he took off the face wrap.
“How are you guys doing?” He had a long scar on the left side of his neck that went up behind his ear and into his short messy black hair.
“I’m fine; I think Ronnie should see a doctor or something though. He was hit really hard. I’m surprised he got back up and started walking around.”
“He will get looked over just before his debriefing. Unfortunately the medical staff are all tied up with Vanish right now.”
“Is she going to be alright?” Rachel asked.
“I think so, Hothead is torn up, it’s been a long time since we have seen an overuse. Truth be told it’s been six months or so since we have been on a mission. When we got the message from Zach, we jumped on the chance for new recruits.”
I shook my head, my mouth hanging open, it was like he was speaking another language altogether. I kept looking at the scar on his neck and wondered if that could have been one of us if Rachel hadn’t been there to stop the bullets.
“Awesome force field by the way.” I turned to look at her.
“Thanks. I was kind of surprised myself that I was able to do it. I had only done it once before.”
“We have found that in times of dire need one’s abilities tend to work better. Not to say that someone who spends time learning to control their ability can’t do better.” Silence explained.
“Where do we go from here?”
“After Sam finishes all of the interviews he will gather you all together and kind of explain things to you, like some of the rules. He won’t be able to get them all and you will have a lot of questions I’m sure, but we will do our best to teach you as things come up.”
“Is this what you went through when you came here?” Rachel asked.
“Sort of, but I was only six when I arrived.” he counted on his fingers as if coming to this place would have been forgettable.
“What happened?” I wanted to know everything that I could, everything that he would tell me. I wanted to know if his story was like ours.
“My parents were fleeing from another branch of Aurora. We were all naturals and my father was informed that we were wanted for study. We got cornered in a small town in northern California. My father took on twenty sabers, and two Mods. Unfortunately, he was killed and my mother as well. He was just not powerful enough. The Mod tried to kill me. He was a telekinetic and he bombarded me with debris from the building that my father and the Sabers had torn to pieces.” He stopped for a moment, remembering.
“He would have succeeded if not for Acumen and Fade. Acumen is Sam’s code name. Fade is another teleporter, but she has been gone for some time now. I don’t think you’ll meet her. They killed the Mod and brought me here. Fade raised me until she left.”