Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (43 page)

“Althea, is it?”

“Yes.”

“We know of some others who have talents like yours. We call it accelerated healing. What has us confused is we have never seen someone able to do it to other people.”

The man walked closer. “In all documented cases, those who have been gifted with that ability could only restore their own bodies.”

Althea shrugged.

“Maybe she got some radiation or something from the Badlands?” The man lifted an eyebrow.

“You’ve read too many vid comics, Mike. Radiation doesn’t turn you into a superhero; it melts your skin off.”

“Yeah in large fast doses sure, but who knows what very low level exposure over generations can do.” He smiled. “We know what we saw; can you explain it?”

“Althea, there is a place we can take you where you can learn how to get the most from your abilities. It’s a safe place where we can protect you and teach you.”

“Home. I want to go home.” She stomped each time she said ‘home.’

“What if we brought your family here?” Michael patted her on the back. “Just for a little while so you can be with them while you see the school. If you don’t like it, you can go back.”

Althea stared at the floor. This place might be tolerable with Karina and Father, but the people of Querq depended on her too. “My home needs me. There are so many people there I miss.”

“Why would anyone want to be out there? All the creatures, the mutants, the gangs, the violence…” Anita shook her head.

Officer made a noise, stifling a thought. Althea peeked. He wanted to say “we got gangs here, too.” Some of the images in his mind looked terrifying. Flying cars, screaming people, gunfights in the streets, junkies, homeless, crime scenes, all of it swam together and made her wrench her telepathic link away from him with a whimper.

“What’s wrong?” Anita tried to be consoling, but she was not her sister.

“I don’t like this place. There’s evil here. I’m sick of being kidnapped so much. I was finally happy, and they took me away again.” Her voice twisted with tears, but she defied the urge to sob. “I want to go home, and I want to go home right now.”

“You haven’t been kidnapped, honey.” Anita patted her lightly on the cheek. “You’ve been rescued.”

“It feels the same.” She pouted. “‘Cept I’m not tied up.”

“That’s so sad.” Mike passed over a cup of hot chocolate from one of the blue men. “Here, hon. Take this. It’s good.”

She sniffed at it, allowing Anita to pull her into her lap. A big swallow went down her throat like fire as she discovered how hot it was, and cried out. Gasping, she fanned at her mouth. It tasted wonderful, but hurt.

“Sip it, slow.” The woman giggled. “See, there’s a lot you need to learn. That’s why we would like to take you to the school. It’s not safe out there.”

“People don’t hurt me; they just lock me up and fight over who owns me. They call me the Prophet. I don’t want to be owned anymore, and I know I can make them stop now.”

“You’re in the city, Althea. Nobody out there knows who you are. It’s a dangerous place for a little girl. Hell, it’s a dangerous place for me.” Mike laughed.

Althea sipped the sweet, warm liquid, staring over the rising edge of the cup at his blue eyes. He wanted something from her, but not the same way the raiders did. She intrigued him the way inventing things intrigued the Water Man. They wanted to help her. There was no malice in them, but they also were not letting her go back to her family.

“Look. We have to follow procedure.” Anita sighed. “Let’s pretend for a bit the law would allow us to send you back into the Badlands; before we could do it, we’d have to at least work with you for a little while to understand what you can do.”

“Why?”

Slurp.

“It’s the law. We need to catalog psionics, especially when we find someone that can do things no one has ever seen before.”

Slurp.

She stared at him. They were afraid she would be a danger to people, a thought she found ludicrous. “I can’t kill people. All I want to do is help.”

A telempathic pulse of sadness at being thought of as a potential threat knocked them both loopy for a moment.

“Oh my.” Mike grabbed his head.

Out in the hallway, four men burst into tears.

“Telempath.” Anita gasped, sniffling into full on sobs. “Sadness… Please stop. Holy shit, she’s strong. I can’t resist her.”

Althea backed off. “I’m sorry. It made me sad when he thought I could kill someone.”

“Hey.” Mike tipped her chin up with his finger, sucking back the urge to cry. “I believe you, but our boss will be mad at us if we don’t. Will you help us, just for a few hours and then we’ll talk to her about getting you home. We have cars that can fly out there if everything works out okay.”

If she’s this powerful, she might be better off out there away from the corporations.
Mike’s voice in Anita’s mind; Althea overheard him.

“What’s a corporation?”

Anita mumbled. “You know it’s rude to…”

“What is rude?”

Slurp.

Mike cracked up laughing. He thought for a moment, and smiled. “A corporation is like a gang, only they use money instead of guns.”

She stared. “That’s stupid. Who’s afraid of money?”

“You’d be surprised.” Anita chuckled.

Slurp.

The cocoa was gone.

ecause they promised to take her home when they could, she agreed to go with them. Beard’s truck was missing from the space between the gates when they walked outside. In its place sat a shiny black car with a strip of clear glass across the roof that snapped side to side with nanosecond flares of blinding blue light. Mike led her by the hand to the door; the steel ground had gotten colder now since the sun hid behind the jagged claws of metal and light that scratched at the sky.

Althea trembled at the city looming over her. It felt as though it would come crashing down at any time, smothering her with a strange foreboding darkness she could feel lurking just behind the gleaming edifice of civilization. She stood on the far side of the great wall of flame the elders had spoken of, only it was not made of flames. It was made of metal, with guns bigger than cars that threw fire instead of bullets. When she had asked about it, Mike told her it was to protect the city from mutants and gangs. There were no ancestors here. This was not the land of the dead.

She frowned at the blue spots her eyes made on the armored door panel until it swung up and open. Soft grey seats waited for her, and she gathered her skirt up and sat. Mike reached across her for the seat belt, and she stiffened like a dutiful slave as he pulled the strap across her lap.

“You said you wouldn’t tie me.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

“This is a safety belt; just in case we hit something, you won’t get hurt.”

Seeing Anita put one on as well calmed her down, and she sat still as Mike closed her door. The console flooded with light as Anita played with buttons and Mike slid into the passenger seat and belted himself in.

When they floated straight up, Althea lost her mind. Screaming, she scratched at the glass and kicked at the seat. The belt held her down and she tugged at it, trying to escape. Anita set the hovercar back on its wheels hard, struggling to overcome the radiant terror emanating from their passenger. As soon as they hit solid ground, Althea’s panic became bawling tears. Mike leaned through the gap between the seats and held her hand.

“Hey, calm down, sweetie. There’s nothing to be scared of. You’re in a hovercar; it’s supposed to fly.” He smiled.

Althea clutched the lap belt and strained, grimacing as she tried to get out. Mike reached over and clicked the buckle off. Freedom let her relax. He laboriously explained the workings of the seat belt, telling her to look at his thoughts if she needed to. She did, and after a few sniveling breaths, put it back on. When the vehicle again moved into the air, her fingers clawed at the seat, but she contained herself.

The inner wall of the checkpoint fell out of view as they floated higher. She looked out over an endless sea of great buildings glimmering into the horizon. With terrified curiosity, her head swiveled around as they climbed to join a stream of similar flying cars. These sights were beyond imagining, not a scrap of bare earth or vegetation to be seen anywhere. So many people lived in this place, yet this mountain of human achievement was flooded with such sorrow.

Waves of bad emotions zoomed by from other cars. Anger was the most popular, jealousy, greed, and depression followed. One car made her raise an eyebrow, as the mood wafting from it seemed as though someone was getting wifed.

She had gone with them only to get home as fast as possible; whatever it was they wanted to do would take a few hours, and then they promised they would send her home if she still wanted to go. The city slid by outside, blurred by the haze of liquid sadness that fell from her eyes. When the passing windows slid upward, she realized the car descended and looked to the front.

“There you are.”

The voice, with a British accent, came from a ghostly head protruding from the console with thick brown hair and a prominent brow. He offered an arrogant smile in Althea’s direction which curled the thin moustache fringing his mouth. A patch of hair beneath his lower lip spread down over his chin.

“Who the hell are you?” Mike glared at him.

Althea drew a breath. “Ghost?”

“No, it’s a hologram,” Anita muttered. “Someone hacked our comm channel.”

“Do holler grams have feelings?” Althea’s voice trembled.

“No, they’re just li―what the hell?” Anita blinked at the head. “Mike… That fucking hologram has surface thoughts… Ow.” Anita gasped and grabbed her head.

“How amusing.” The head frowned at her. “Indeed I do, but they are
not
for the perusal of my lessers.”

“You realize you are intruding upon Divis―” Mike grabbed his head and screamed.

“That is quite enough prattle from drones.” The head sneered at Mike. “You… time for a nap.”

Mike faceplanted the dashboard, instantly unconscious.

“You…” The head looked at Anita and the free will melted out of her face. “Please give my guest a ride to our rendezvous point.”

The eyes within the holographic head flashed to static for a second. Anita pulled at the control sticks and the car banked off to the left, taking a slow glide to the ground. Althea hyperventilated, seeing her promised trip home evaporate. In her panic, she forgot how to work the seatbelt and thrashed at it.

The hologram chuckled. “You have much to learn, Althea. You needn’t be afraid of me; I am like you.”

She froze, staring, not liking the way he pronounced her name, all-thaya.”

Rage and terror collided in equal amounts in her mind, leaving her feeling neither. “What?”

“These pathetic individuals are merely psionic. What we are is something much greater.”

“Don’t hurt them.” She writhed; her heels slid off the seat as she tried to get her hips through the belt.

His laugh made her feel small. “I will not hurt them if you behave yourself. I am just borrowing them for a moment. I am saving you from the tyranny of a society that cannot possibly understand you. They only want to control you, like everyone else. If you think they would have actually ferried you back into primate land, you are sorely mistaken.”