I walked home feeling low. Lower than I’ve ever felt before. Verge of tears, hoping a car would swing out of nowhere and just put me down, feeling my stomach drop with every step I took. Once or twice I stopped and buried my face against a wall, feeling I couldn’t head home, couldn’t face it.
I don’t know what happened by what I’d seen or what I’d done. Brick had tossed a credit chit at me and I reached out to catch it, and then lightning came out of nowhere and detonated the chit mid-flight. If you’d told me then it was a freak thunderstorm or a prank, I’d have bought it.
But not after seeing Brick’s face. The horror carved into it. The anger, the betrayal. In one heartbeat, he went from a man who would lay his life down for me to one who would kill me with his bare hands.
Thoughts chased themselves around in my head that all kept landing on one conclusion I just could not accept.
Somehow, impossibly, without doing or changing anything, I was now Exhuman.
While my mind had wandered, my feet had stayed to the path, and I found myself at my house, front doorknob in-hand. Barely having time to blink, I found myself walking in.
“Hey there champ. Another notch on your belt out there tonight, eh?” Dad immediately ambushed me at the door and wrapped an arm around my shoulders in as manly a show of affection as he was capable of giving. “Some kids might slow down once they land their ticket, but not you, eh shooter?” He broke off his grip to make a series of ridiculous finger gun gestures and noises at me.
Mom had gotten off the couch and was trying to herd me into a chair so she could thrust a variety of home-cooked food at me and tell me how tired and hungry I must be after my big win. My younger sister, Lia sat on the couch, sweatshirted arms hugging her long legs as she rolled her eyes at me and our parents collectively, even as she smiled at me.
And all I could think was that any second now, I’d gesture or move or someone would do something and they’d all blow up with a bolt of lightning.
I tried to fight Dad off me gently and explain to Mom that I wasn’t hungry and yes I was sure and yes it looks great thank you but no thank you, as I slowly backed away towards the stairs.
“How ’bout we just throw the old ball around a bit then, eh?” Dad asked, and made a throwing gesture at me, making me wince.
“NO. No. No thanks, Dad. Sorry, just not feeling well, gonna go lay down okay?”
“Sure, son. Sure, anything you need. You just call for your mother or me, eh?”
“Yeah Dad, thanks.” I rushed upstairs before he could try grappling or shooting or throwing anything else at me. I never noticed until that exact moment how hostile all those gestures could be interpreted.
I went to my room and fell face-first into bed, light still off, clothes still on.
Man. What was I going to do? At the very, very best, I had a lifetime of being jumpy and nervous ahead of me, and that was assuming I never exploded anything ever again.
But there was no way that was going to happen. What was I going to do when I made it to college? Ask all the other players not to throw or kick a ball at me, or touch or tackle me? I could never play football again. And without that, what kind of future did I even have? Why did everything in my life have to crumble apart just the second it looked like it was coming together?
I pulled a pillow over my head and made a noise of frustration into my bedsheets. Sort of a cross between crying and an inarticulate scream.
“So, I’m guessing this has nothing to do with the game,” someone said from the corner where my desk sat.
I bolted upright and stared into the darkness. I couldn’t see anything except the sliver of light from the crack in the door, landing on nothing but the old wooden floors. Lia helped me out by turning on the desk lamp.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Heya bro. You don’t…sound so good.”
“Lia, get out. I’m really tired, I told you.”
“It’s cute that you think I’d buy the same crap you throw at Mom and Dad.”
“I’m not messing around. Get out of my room.”
She looked like she thought about it for a second and frowned. “No, don’t think so. Not until you tell me what’s up,” she said. Lia was a pretty ok sister, relatively speaking, but she was also stubborn as hell.
“I told you, nothing, I’m just tired, okay?”
“And I told you, I don’t believe that story for a second.”
“Well, too bad. That’s the only story you’re getting.”
I looked her over to see what I could read off her. She was sitting like she usually did, heels and butt on the chair, knees up in front of her like a shield, making her bare, long legs look even longer. She was wearing shorts like always and a dirty grey sweatshirt still from being out at the game, with long sleeves her fingers only just poked out of, and a well-worn hood, currently not being worn.
Like me, she had green eyes with some brown in the center and was athletically built, but while I was tall and broad, she was tall and thin. She was on the girl’s volleyball team, only JV, but she was only a freshman. And also like me, she had brown hair, but while mine was kept to strict military styles by our father, she kept hers medium-length, where it was often a frizzy, blown-out mess stopping at her shoulders. I guess if it already went in every direction, she didn’t need to tie it up for gametime.
As I looked her up and down I remembered good memories and fights we’d had, and completely forgot I was trying to read her for hints on the current situation. I forced myself to focus and came up with…nothing. She was sitting there with an earnest expression, leaning forward towards me somewhat, and with a concerned frown that’d been there since I last saw her downstairs.
“Okay, what do you want?” I asked.
“I told you. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
“Why don’t you believe me?’
“Gee, maybe because A) I’m not stupid and B) I’ve literally known you my whole life? And C) It’d take a real ding-dong to fall for that stupid line, when you were looking at Mom and Dad like they were made of landmines.” She added: “No offense to the ding-dongs downstairs.”
“Yeah well, I have some issues going on right now, but it’s nothing I want to talk about, okay? So please shove off?”
“Hmmm…” she fidgeted with a strand of her hair as she thought, which was probably one of the reasons her hair was always all over the place. “No. You gotta tell me.”
“What the heck, Lia. You don’t just get to decide that.”
“And you don’t just get to decide without telling me, Athan. That’s equally as unfair.”
“Between the two of us, I’m the only one who knows what’s going on here, so if I say I don’t want you knowing, you should accept that.”
“Between the two of us, you’re also the only one who’s a stupid big brother. So tell me.” She sat further upright and crossed her legs instead of having them up. “Look, I’m actually worried about you and want to help. I don’t care what your problem is, I promise I won’t laugh, okay?”
“Lia I…I really appreciate that. I do. But this is really big. I don’t think I can tell anyone, y’know?”
“Did you tell Brick?”
“Not…exactly?”
“But he found out anyway?” Lia was always good at reading between the lines.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She stood up, still frowning.
“Wow, just like that?” I was surprised she’d just give up on it. “Wait. Are you going to ask Brick?”
“No. I believe you when you say it’s big. If you need to tell me, you’ll tell me. Just promise me you will if you need to, ‘kay? Someone has to take care of my dumb older brother.”
“You are in very real danger of being a good, understanding sister. You know that?”
“No. I put scorpions in your bed. ‘Night, bro.” She walked to the door and started to close it behind her. “But…promise me you will tell me if you need to. Seriously.”
“Okay. I will.”
“Thanks. Tomorrow’s another day. Keep your chin up.” She gave me a small smile and closed the door, leaving me with my thoughts and the annoying chore of turning off the desk lamp now. She probably did that on purpose so I’d get dressed for bed. She was always a step ahead like that.
I turned off the light but didn’t undress. I just wanted to lay there for a while longer thinking before I went to bed. Yet somehow, the conversation I’d had with Lia had managed to calm me down enough that when I hit the bed, I fell right asleep like I did at the end of any big game.
I woke after what felt like only an hour, but it was already early morning before the sun came up. There was a kind of anxiety in the air which woke me up fully immediately. It felt too still and wrong, like the world had been frozen in time by an ancient curse. As I got up, parts of me were sore from the game, and parts of me felt gross from sleeping in my day clothes, but I crept to the window and looked out.
There, on the street below, I could see occasional flickers of activity, as armored men quickly and quietly moved from place to place, behind armored cars and setting up in positions all around the house.
I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and stared at the familiar symbol on the side of an armored van. It was a logo I’d seen on the holo hundreds of times, but never in person. A plain white federal insignia of a shield with a sword on it, surrounded by stars. Next to it, in the same plain white, lettering reading XPCA.
Exhuman Pacification and Control Agency. The feds. The big guns. They were here, and I was fucked.