The Ables (50 page)

***

“Wait a minute,” I said softly, mostly just to myself. Watching the two old men pick back up a half-century-old disagreement had given me time to think and reflect on some of the things I’d learned throughout the evening. And something didn’t add up in my head. I almost had my finger on it.

They either didn’t hear me or didn’t care, as Finch and Luther continued their argument.

“You think you’re just going to convince this kid to be evil? Join the man who killed his mother?”

That did it, and the bells inside my head began to clang with great force.

Thomas smiled, becoming almost completely calm, nearly looking the part of the kindly old grandfather he should have been all along. “You push someone up to the edge, you’ll see what they’re made of, Luther. All I’m trying to do is find the unlikely hero that was foretold. All I’m trying to do is get him angry.”

“It worked,” I said, loudly and firmly. That got their attention, as both men abruptly turned to face me. “You’re a murderer,” I calmly declared, keeping my rage back for just a moment or two more.

I was staring him down, trying to let him sense how furious I was. But he simply responded by pushing my buttons to get me even more riled up. “I’m sorry, Phillip, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to be more specific. I’ve killed far too many people in my life to have any idea which one you’re referring to.”

“My mother!” I snapped, no longer able to keep the bubbling anger at bay. “You went out of your way,” I chose my words carefully as I continued, “to kill my mother at the precise moment of my father’s partners’ appearance—”

I was almost totally overwhelmed with some of the darkest and most powerful emotions I’d ever experienced.

“—just so that we’d think it was
us
that caused it instead of you?!”

Perhaps surprised by my conclusions, he didn’t say anything. More likely, he was hoping I’d keep going.

“Didn’t you?!” I asked, a bit more forcefully. “Didn’t you?!” I shrieked. I’d never been more resolute in anything in my life. I was about to kill a man, but first he was going to confess the truth about his actions to what few witnesses were present.

Finch looked sheepish for a moment and then casually answered, “Yeah. Yes … of course I did, Phillip. Like I said … I had plans—“

“You took her life to further your charade, and you think I’m going to join you?!”

My left arm reached out and lifted slightly, and I used my powers to lift my grandfather up off the ground another ten feet. The rest of his men remained in place suspended a few feet off the ground, but I didn’t even have to think about them to keep them in check. My powers had grown considerably, so much so that I began to wonder if he might even be right about the prophecy referring to me. If the telekinesis had this much extra power lurking below the surface without my knowledge, what else might I be capable of?

“You know how you could have gotten me to join you, old man? Do you want to know what would have worked? How about being a grandfather, you bastard.” I took both my arms, starting them way off to my left, and wiped them quickly across my body to my right, sending my enemy flying twenty-five yards through the air to the school’s exterior wall. His body smacked into it with the sickening sound of bones breaking.

“Phillip!” Henry screamed in shock. He hadn’t expected that level of violence. I wasn’t really myself anymore at that point. I probably hadn’t been for weeks, if I’m honest. The violence was new, but the outburst had been building for a while.

I nudged Finch back away from the building—still dangling in the air, fifteen feet off the ground—and then mercilessly slammed him back into the concrete wall. Henry shrieked again in alarm.

“This is for my mom!” I said, pulling him back away from the wall again just as quickly as I’d thrown him into it.

“Phillip!” Mr. Charles shouted, just as horrified at my actions as Henry was.

“This is for my dad, who never got to have a father because you’re such a selfish asshole!” I sent him into the wall again.

“Phillip, no!” Henry wailed, openly crying at the raw horror of what he was seeing.

“And this is for me!” One last time, I fired his body at the wall, battering the old man even further. I didn’t have much practice in beating a man into submission, but I reasoned he was very likely well past that point by now.

He hung there, powerless and possibly passed out, like a rag doll. Four hits. That’s all it took for a kid to take down the most powerful bad guy in the world—that’s how quickly fortunes change in the world of empowered individuals.

“Any last words?” I asked. I was on the edge of the cliff, about to jump. There is no doubt in my mind I was ready to kill this man—my own grandfather—had it not been for Henry.

I suddenly lost my sight. I could tell right away, though, that my power—my hold on the enemy and his men—was still intact. It’s almost like I could
feel
them … their location … my connection to them. I wasn’t sure how long that would last, though, especially if I actually needed to move them.

Phillip
, Henry said with his thoughts,
you have to stop. You have to stop this now. I can’t be a part of this.

Fine, then: go
, I responded in kind.
You don’t have to be a part of it.

Phillip … this isn’t you, buddy.

What do you know about me, man? Nothing, that’s what!

If you kill this man, they’re never going to let you be a hero, Phillip. You’ll be a villain for life … no going back. No more SuperSim, no more Freepoint, no more Ables. Forever.

Who cares? The Ables don’t matter, Henry, can’t you see that? They’re already going to make sure we don’t get to be heroes. The Ables were doomed from the start! The whole town hates us; they think we’re liars even when we tell the truth. We have no real powers to speak of. We have no mentor or leader. We’re just a bunch of kids with half-powers and no idea of what to do with them.

“Is that what you think?!” he was speaking now with his actual voice. “You really think that?!”

“Yeah,” I said, surprised to find him so surprised.

“
You’re
our leader, Phillip.
You
are!”

I wrinkled my face in confusion, so Henry just continued.

“
You
suggested we form a team for the SuperSim.
You
chose the name and even the story that would serve as the historical significance of that name.
You
fought for our rights to participate and found a place for us to practice. You thought of the plan to trick Chad. You thought of going to Mr. Charles—I mean, damn, Phillip! I know you’re blind, but can’t you see anything? Without you, there are no Ables … period!” He took a few deep breaths and then wrapped it up. “So you see … if you kill this man, you’ll be killing the Ables forever. I’m sorry Phillip, but this is about more than just what happened to your mother.”

I hadn’t turned to face him the entire lecture because I didn’t want him to get through to me. I wanted to dismiss his words and go back to killing the man who killed my mother. But he
had
gotten through to me.

“But, Henry,” I protested weakly.

He read my mind and answered before I could finish the sentence. “He does deserve to die. And you know what? You probably deserve to be the one to do it. But you know what else, Phillip? Being one of the good guys means that sometimes, you don’t get what you deserve. Things aren’t always going to go your way, and sometimes you have to give up what you want for the greater good.” Henry didn’t know how closely his words echoed those of my mother.

“But he killed my mother,” I said, as tears formed in the corners of my eyes.

“I know, Phillip. And while I did not know your mother for long, I do know this for a fact: she would never—NEVER—want you to seek revenge for her death in this way.”

I slumped to my knees letting go of my grip on the body of Thomas Sallinger, who fell fifteen feet to the ground and crumpled on the grass, clutching to life by a thread.

But I wouldn’t have let him go at all if I’d been paying much attention to my surroundings while Henry and I had been talking.

The stakes were so high. For me, this was about my mother and revenge and honor. For Finch and Mr. Charles, this was about history and good versus evil and settling old scores. There were so many huge storylines, I just simply forgot about one of the smaller ones: Chad Burke.

Chad had been standing near enough to me to remain outside Mr. Charles’ NPZ. I hadn’t given Chad another thought since learning Finch was actually my grandfather, and neither had anyone else. He managed to activate his powers and slip away unnoticed.

It was easy for him to sneak up behind Mr. Charles, but I still don’t know where he got the gun.

***

The four rescuers in the school basement were being dragged through the hallway, right past the prisoners’ area. The guards had caught up with Patrick when he mistook a classroom door for the door to the stairwell. The fat guard had a hold on Bentley and James, dragging them both by their arms toward the same closet.

“Why don’t we just throw them in there with the grown-ups?” the skinny one asked.

“Because, idiot, the boss said not to open that door for any reason at all, okay? Besides … as long as the big man’s NPZ is covering us, those kids are just as powerless in a closet as they would be anywhere, you dig?”

The skinny one smiled but obviously still did not understand.

Something silent occurred, and Bentley was the only one who noticed it. And while it meant good news for the near future, it was a terrible omen for the long-term success of the Ables’ mission.

“James,” Bentley said as he shuffled. “I feel smarter.”

***

A single gunshot rang out, and I whirled around in time to see Mr. Charles fall to the ground face-first with Chad standing behind him, a trickle of smoke twirling up into the air.

All of Thomas’s men fell to the ground, and I spun back around to see them all staring directly at me. And then I lost my sight.

Henry gulped audibly.

I merely whispered, “Oh boy.”

We were in trouble, and we knew it. Our powers were neutralized, and those of the enemies had returned. It was several dozen against two.

But nothing happened, at least not right away. I waited for someone to speak or simply blow me up with a laser or something. There was nothing.

“What’s going on?” I asked Henry in a hushed tone.

“Um … nothing, really. They’re all staring right at you, but none of them is moving.”

It was my turn to gulp.

“Wait a minute, Phillip,” Henry said softly. “One of them is walking.”

“Toward us?!” I asked in stark fear.

“No. Toward Finch—toward your grandpa.”

I concentrated and could hear footsteps. He was walking on grass, but he was the only person moving in the entire field. He was walking from my left to my right, not quickly, but not slowly either. Finally, the footsteps stopped.

“He’s bending down toward your grandfather,” Henry announced. “He’s putting his hand on his shoulder.” The narration stopped, and there was silence for several seconds.

“Oh God,” Henry gasped.

“What?” There was no response. “Henry, what’s happening?”

“He’s a healer,” he whispered. “He’s healing him!”

While it was obvious we didn’t stand a chance against the remaining henchmen, I at least assumed we were done dealing with Thomas Sallinger. But if there was a healer in the mix, then all bets were off. My heart sank. Healers were among the rarest of all superheroes, like blockers or those with the ability to manipulate memory on a large scale. He’d planned so carefully for all contingencies to this point, it made perfect sense that my grandfather would have had a healer in his crew. But it was still a surprise to me, one that threatened to send me into a tailspin. We’d thrown our best at the enemy—heck, I’d nearly broken every bone in his body myself—but it was all in vain.

Suddenly, I got my vision back, only it wasn’t quite the same as it usually was. There was more clarity, and the colors were more vivid. “Henry? Are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” he snapped back.

“I’m doing that, Phillip,” Finch interjected. “I want you to see everything that’s about to happen. Because it’s time, son. It’s time for the end.”

***

“I
said
, ‘I think I feel smarter.’” Bentley repeated, with a distinctively slow delivery to emphasize each word.

James didn’t know what Bentley meant, so he just smiled a polite smile in response as they continued to be pulled down the hallway.

“James,” Bentley tried again, as the guards neared the closet. “All of the sudden, I feel smarter. Do you have any idea what that could mean?”

“That … you’re … getting smarter?” James asked. He couldn’t figure out why Bentley was making small talk at a time like this.

The skinny guard whipped out a key and unlocked the closet door. Time was running out.

“James … do you remember what my power is?”

The fat guard tossed both boys into the makeshift cell with Patrick and Freddie and started to close the door.

James answered Bentley excitedly. “Super-smarts,” he said, with a point of his finger for good measure. And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized what Bentley had been trying to tell him: the NPZ had gone down.

***

“I’ve pushed you pretty far, young man,” Thomas said, with a bit of his standard Finch charm now missing. He’d finally abandoned the Finch persona completely. “I’ve pushed you about as far as possible, and you’re still resisting your true nature.” He smiled. “I guess that stubborn streak runs in the family.”

I turned toward Henry, and the image I was receiving followed—I was somehow receiving a video feed of what my eyes would actually see if I weren’t blind. I wondered briefly which of the many men and women behind him was providing that little talent.

He continued, “There’s only one thing left to do, my boy. Only one way to find out if you’re truly made of … what I think you’re made of. And that’s to push you out of the nest completely to see if you really can fly. It’s time to fly, Phillip. It’s time to choose. Are you going to be the most powerful superhuman ever, or are you going to settle for being a blind telekinetic little imp?”