Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (45 page)

“What
message?”

“This
one,” he said while he showed the booth off to the beggar. “Did anyone use it
and leave this message behind?”

He
scratched his ratty hair and said, “Most people just walk by me and don’t use
the phone. There was this one guy who looked as bad off as me who used it for a
moment.”

“What’d
he look like?” Bryce asked.

“He
was in tatters and rags,” he said, “Just like me.”

“Yes,
but what did he look like?”

The
man only shrugged and admitted that he didn’t get a good look at his face.

Bryce
thanked him, gave him a few bucks for his help, and raced back to Mia’s
apartment. He dashed up the stairs, pounded on her door, and tried his best to
catch his breath before Mia answered.

“What?”

“Did
you…” he tried to catch his breath once again, “Have you seen the phone out
there?”

“What
about it?”

“Did
you see what’s painted in there?”

Mia
frowned and asked what it was. He told her about the message and she swore. “I
just painted over that a few days ago and it’s back now?”

Bryce
only looked at her and asked, “You knew about that?”

She
said she did.

“Why
didn’t you ever say anything?”

“It’s
not important,” she told him. “Was there a homeless looking guy there when you
saw it?”

Bryce
felt his heart miss a beat. “What about him?” he asked.

Mia
swore again and ran outside and to the street to see if he was still there,
which he wasn’t. Bryce caught up to her and only saw the few dollars he’d given
the man on the sidewalk where the man sat before.

She
rubbed her eyes and told Bryce to follow her back to her apartment. “I need to
show you something.”

They
walked back up to her apartment and though he had a lot of questions, the list
only grew exponentially once he saw the sorry state of her apartment. Mia’s
apartment had worsened. The walls were plastered with papers, most of which
were photos, short bios on the victims, testimonies of witnesses, and notes
throughout the room. She had the same sticky notes Detective Sage used, with
questions posted throughout the room and next to individual victim’s lengthy
areas of her wall. Her kitchen counter had four short, disorganized piles of
papers labeled from ‘heroes outside of Baltimore’ to ‘locations and possible
meanings.’

Bryce
looked around and found a vastly expanded version of the victim’s wall in
Detective Sage’s old office along with nearly a hundred different images from
all around the city. Her floors, counters, couch, and he guessed her bed were
all covered in clothes, garbage, documents she’d obviously discarded, and
dozens of other items.

“What
the hell happened?” he asked without thinking.

“I
don’t really have time to pick up right now,” she told him. “Listen,” Mia
looked him in the eye, “Do not breathe a word of all of this to anyone,
alright? Not to Sergeant Murdock, Detective Felton, and especially not to the
chief, okay?”

He
slowly agreed. “You know they said we weren’t supposed to take notes right?”

“Does
it look like I listened to them Maguire?” she asked rhetorically while she
cleared a small walking path toward her kitchen to access some of the documents
on her counter. Mia dug through the stack of heroes outside of Baltimore and
asked if Bryce knew of any hero closer to Baltimore than Doctor Diet in
Philadelphia.

“No,
sorry.” He waited a moment and asked, “What’s that got to do with the case?”

“There
aren’t any true heroes in the city, considering Cladis seems to kill anyone
with any semblance of an ability within the first few days of them gaining
their ability. I originally had a theory that there was a pattern similar to
the one here that would show when people would gain abilities elsewhere, but
I’ve since disregarded the idea since numbers aren’t growing exponentially and
multiple cases across the world are impossible to manage from here.”

“You
could use REFOIA,” he suggested.

But
Mia said she didn’t have time to. “This is just an alternative avenue I’d like
to manage in case it ever becomes vital to the case, but I doubt it ever will.”

“Is
there anything you need me to do?”

“Not
here,” she said. “I need you to act like you’ve never seen this before and to
keep your mouth shut about that phone booth and the homeless guy, okay?”

“Who
was that?”

She
told him she was working on that as well.

“Do
you think it’s Cladis?”

Mia
stopped what she was doing and looked at him crossly. “Why the hell would
Cladis waste his time to tell me to find him? If Cladis had any interest in me
it’d be to simply find and kill me, and since that hasn’t happened yet there’s
no reason to think it would be him.”

“Okay,
then who do you think it is?”

She
sighed and said she wasn’t sure. “It could be someone who read about all of
this on REFOIA and is messing with me because they know I’m a cop.”

“Do
you think someone could be–”

Mia
cut him off and told him, “What I need you to do for me, Maguire, is to look
into how many of the victims were buried and how many of them were cremated,
okay?”

“Sure,
but why?”

“You
remember that Detective Sage’s corpse was stolen, right?”

“Of
course.”

“Well,
so was Jenna Bell’s, and as one of them was the twelfth victim I can’t help but
wonder whether the rest of the victim’s bodies were stolen or not.”

Bryce
frowned, “But wouldn’t someone have noticed multiple grave robberies?”

Mia
shook her head, “I don’t think the bodies ever reached their graves.” She went
on to briefly explain that it would be simpler for Cladis to remove the bodies
before they made it into the grave, otherwise someone would notice. “Just let
me know how many were cremated and how many were actually buried.”

“Do
you think this will make a difference in finding him?”

Mia
let out a breath and said she wasn’t sure of anything. “Just do that for me,
alright?”

Bryce
agreed and said he’d let her know. “What does that mean though?”

“I
don’t know Maguire,” she snapped. “It could mean this guy’s collecting the
bodies like trophies, he could be eating them, I don’t know! Stop asking me
questions neither of us has an answer to. If you really do want an answer, find
it for yourself, okay?”

Bryce
only apologized and said he’d let her know while he headed for the door.

---*---

8:18
PM

Somewhere
over the Pacific Ocean

Drake
sat in a private jet on a return flight home. When he was arrested, his
thoughts, his concerns were centralized on the meetings he would miss because
of the interruption, but his father’s company was the furthest thing the
pondered on the flight home. What concerned Drake was why his father and Victor
were killed by the same individual.

A
young stewardess walked toward him and asked whether he wanted a drink. Drake
simply nodded and asked for a generic orange soda he knew his father had
stocked on the plane for him. He watched the woman turn around and walk back
toward the tail end of the plane. Drake watched her walk and studied how she
slowed down ever so gradually to the point in which she nearly remained still.
The world outside continued to fly past him, though at a slower rate. Drake
returned his gaze to the frozen woman and allowed her to resume her task,
though he sped her up to the point in which when she returned within what Drake
felt was a second, he’d missed her comment entirely. He let the world return to
its normal pace, thanked the stewardess, and took his drink.

He
discovered his ability while in prison in Tokyo and quickly discovered he had
the unique power to age anything he touched, but more importantly, that it was
rooted in a much greater skill, which was time manipulation. Drake fooled the
authorities by only revealing the portion of his powers that would allow him to
return to the United States as a free man. He never told them he could
manipulate time though, as Drake knew it would further incriminate him. Upon
release, Drake dealt with the press, scheduled a flight home, and tried to push
the level of his powers.

He
learned that his time manipulation allowed him to completely control the flow
of time, be it accelerating, slowing, or even stopping time altogether. Drake
discovered that when time was frozen he could walk on water, yet rain or other
forms of moisture in the air did not hinder him, and additionally, he could
continue to hear and see in that realm (although there was nothing to hear when
he stopped time, aside from his own voice). Initially Drake assumed light and
sound would cease to function, but to his astonishment the two senses seemed to
continue unhindered. Drake could not however jump forward in time or fully
control the extent of his expeditions into the past. He’d only been able to
move backward in time but did not end up when or where he’d originally hoped
to. The limitations to his powers bothered him and Drake eagerly wanted to test
them.

Drake
asked one of the flight attendants how long until they landed, then mentioned
his plan to sleep through the rest of the flight, and asked not to be
disturbed. Once he made himself comfortable and pretended to sleep, he
accelerated the flow of time and made the rest of his trip in what felt like
only a minute to him. Time resumed its normal pace, he woke up, and readied for
landing.

--          --          --

He
arrived home later than he wanted to on account of the press that awaited him
outside of the airport, as well as Jonathan Vane and other executives of his
father’s company. All parties expressed their condolences, though both groups
held differing motives. Drake dealt with them as quickly as he could and
returned home via taxi Jonathan opted to pay for. Drake wanted to walk back
through means of stopping time, but he felt obligated to accept Jonathan’s
offering, if for no other reason to conceal his abilities. Once home, Drake
left his things at the door, wandered up to his room and paused in silence. His
bedroom continued to feel adolescent and meaningless in contrast to the sudden
loss and gravity of how his life would be from then on. His father’s room on
the other hand seemed to be a hallowed place he dared not disturb. All he could
manage was to close his father’s door and leave it as it was.

The
kitchen was immaculate and cold, just as the marble countertop felt as Drake
ran his fingers across it on his way to the refrigerator. His home was hushed
aside from the hum of the appliances and Drake’s rustling about the house. It
felt alien and Drake was unsure of how he could counteract that isolation.

He
quickly took his keys, exited his house, locked the door behind him, and
started off down the road on foot. The sky was still a deep blue and the only
other people out that early in the morning were people on their way to work or
the exceptional few who dedicated themselves to an early morning exercise
routine. Drake checked the time on his watch and tried his best to calculate
how many hours had passed since he took the orange soda from the flight attendant
on his father’s private jet. After another minute of walking Drake focused his
ability, stopped time, and continued to walk.

The
world remained still beside him while he contemplated the facts in his father’s
assassination. The obvious similarities between his father’s murder and Nick’s
brother’s death raised questions, none of which he could answer. Drake knew his
father and Victor were well acquainted, but he wasn’t certain of what
connection could warrant two well-timed murders by the same killer.

Drake
remained lost in thought as he headed down toward the heart of Bothell.
However, Drake saw a man off in the distance who walked toward him. The figure
wore decorative equestrian-styled armor and a cape of extremely fine material
which Drake couldn’t quite distinguish. The individual continued toward Drake
and only stopped when their paths crossed.

He
wore a kind smile and asked Drake what troubled him. “I gather this is the
first time you’ve found someone who moves in this realm besides yourself?”

Drake
nodded. “I assumed there could be others, but I assumed they would not notice
my decision to stop time.”

“Meaning,
you believed you would never cross paths with another soul like you because in
your mind, I would not have noticed your activities with your powers.”

“But
you did and here you are,” Drake began, “So I assume this is something you’re
familiar with?”

“Actually,
this is a first time for me as well,” he chuckled. “How long have you had your
power?”

Drake
told him it was very new. “All of this is still a trial run to me.”

“Then
you haven’t discovered the limitations, have you?”

Drake
said he had found a few. “Do you mean the inability to jump forward in time or
to completely control where and when I go when I go back into the past?”