Chapter 7

Chapter 7

You know that feeling you get when you’re dreaming, and suddenly you wake up because you think you’re falling? Nick was now feeling that, just ten times worse.

His stomach flew up into his throat as his feet left the safety of the plane. The wind whipped by him as he flailed about, trying desperately to right himself, but to no avail. He began to spin violently, making himself nauseous as he sped downwards.

“Concentrate!” Nick yelled to himself, but with the wind flying by, it was impossible to hear. Nick looked down to see ground speeding towards him even faster. How much longer did he have? A minute? Two?

“First things first,” Nick thought. “Right yourself.”

Nick held out his hands, concentrating with all his might. His spinning gradually slowed. He was still plummeting towards the ground, but at least he was doing it in a controlled manner.

“Okay Nick, you can do this.”

The ground moved ever closer. One thousand feet. Nine hundred feet. Eight hundred feet.

Nick closed his eyes and concentrated on himself, willing his body to stop. Suddenly, Nick’s stomach left his throat and plummeted towards his feet as he began to decelerate rapidly. Nick kept his eyes shut tight, praying he would stop in time. Slowly, his decent slowed and finally stopped. Nick opened his eyes timidly.

He didn’t crash into the ground because he wasn’t yet on the ground. Nick was floating about twenty feet in the air above a large corn field.

“Yes!” Nick said, pumping his fist in joy. Unfortunately, this caused him to lose his concentration and he fell like a stone to the ground, landing with a crash.

Nick groaned and rolled over in the corn, which had been crushed upon his sudden landing. He hurt all over, but he didn’t care. The elation he felt a moment ago hadn’t left him. He had jumped out of a plane without a parachute and survived.

He looked up to see the other five zooming to the ground, gradually slowing until they gently landed.

“I’m so sorry Nick,” Josh said, running towards him. “I lost my concentration there at the end! Are you okay?”

Nick’s smile wavered. “Huh?”

Tom took this opportunity to tear Nick down even further. “Did you think you stopped yourself on your first try? Josh had to catch you.”

Nick’s face fell, the joyous feeling gone, replaced by a savage emptiness. He hadn’t succeeded at all. He would have died if not for Josh.

Tom turned away from Nick and towards the others. “The facility is right over there,” he said, pointing across the field towards a large building which was just visible over the thick corn stalks. “We’re going in quiet, which means…” he turned back to Nick “…you’re staying here.”

Nick looked at him dumbfounded. “No! I’m part of the team. I want to go!”

“No!” Tom shouted. “You have no training and are nothing but a liability. I am the leader of this team and I will not put everyone else in jeopardy just because you can’t control your powers. You’re staying here!”

Nick stared at him at a loss for words. Tom ignored the look on his face. “Come on,” he said, running off in the direction of the building. Erica followed him quickly, but the other three stayed behind for a moment.

“Sorry Nick,” Lizzie said. “Next time.” With that as their final word, they ran to join Tom and Erica, leaving Nick alone in a field.

He watched them until they disappeared into the corn. Nick continued to stand in the field, grumbling to himself.

Finally, he had enough. “I’ll show him. I can control it.” He said it, but a bit of uncertainty began festering in his mind. Could he control it? Nick shrugged off his skepticism. He had to prove himself somehow.

He removed his mask from his pocket and slipped it on, then took off after the team.

 

Erica and the rest of the team (minus Nick) approached the edge of the building, ducking behind anything they would to avoid the gaze of the numerous cops positioned out front. Eventually, they reached the side.

Tom caught their attention and pointed up. They all got the message.

Together, they lifted off the ground in tandem and upward, landing quietly on the roof. They noticed a small maintenance match and hurried over to it. Unfortunately, it was locked with a large metal padlock.

“Lizzie,” Tom whispered. “Work your magic.”

Lizzie nodded and crouched down next to the hatch. Putting her hand to her temple, she concentrated hard on the inner workings of the lock. No matter how many times Erica saw her pick a lock with her mind, she was always impressed afterwards.

Lizzie didn’t disappoint. A few seconds later, the lock clicked, indicating it had successfully been unlocked. Lizzie smiled wide and removed it from the hatch.

They opened the hatch and leapt inside. They fell down inside a large room containing large amounts of electronic equipment, including several computers and a large wall of computer screens. From the looks of it, it appeared to be some kind of surveillance room.

“Henry,” Tom motioned. “You’re up.”

Henry grinned and walked forward, sitting down at one of the computers. His fingers flew across the keyboard furiously, displaying lines of code on them that flew by faster than Erica could make out. She was never very good with computers, but Henry was a computer genius. You gave him enough time, he could hack just about anything.

A minute later, Henry spoke up. “I’m in,” he said. “We now have access to all the security cameras in the facility.” To prove his point, he hit a key and the screens sprang to life, each displaying a different section of the building. One caught her attention.

“There,” she said, pointing to one screen in particular. The screen displayed a large storage room, but it was the people inside that drew her attention. There were several armed men inside positioned around a group of people who were bound and blindfolded. “The hostages,” Erica thought.

“Where is that?” Tom asked.

Henry pecked some more on the keyboard. “Storage area B. It’s not far from here.” He rattled off the directions, which the team quickly committed to memory. Being an Enhanced means you have greater brain function, which means a photographic memory comes included.

“Come on,” Tom said, hurrying out of the room. They ran through the facility, running into only a few guards, who they subdued quicker than they could bat an eye. Eventually, they saw the room up ahead.

“We’re going in quiet,” Tom whispered. “Follow my lead.”

They tip toed towards the door and peered around the edge. They first made sure no one was looking in their direction, then they ducked around the corner, hiding behind a row of large boxes.

Tom held up a hand, displaying three fingers. Three minutes until action.

He pointed to Lizzie and Josh, motioning to the far side of the room. They nodded and ran out of sight. The other three sat in silence, waiting for them to get into position and the three minute timer to count down.

“Hey! Stop right there!”

Erica tensed up. Looks like the plan failed before it even began.

 

To say things went wrong almost immediately for Nick would be an understatement.

Sure, things seemed to be looking up at first. Nick was able to sneak up to the side of the building unseen. There were a large number of cops parked outside, but their attention was trained elsewhere, not on Nick. He slipped in through a fire escape, amazed at his good luck, but that’s all that he would get that day. 

As soon as he popped in to the actual building, a loud cry startled him. “Hey! There’s someone over here!” Nick turned to see a heavily armed mercenary rushing down the corridor towards him. He was decked out in full military gear, which made him pretty intimidating.

He stopped about twenty feet away from Nick, his semi-automatic trained on him. “What are you doing here?” he growled.

Nick’s mind went into overdrive as he tried to see a way out of this situation. The man before him didn’t appear overly bright, but he had a gun, making any intelligence he lacked irrelevant.

“I have a better idea,” Nick said, repeating his trademark phrase which he had used on the previous man to aim a gun at his head. “How about you hand your gun to me and I will give you a ten second head start before I come after you.”

The mercenary laughed. “You have guts. I’ll give you that. Too bad I was ordered to kill anyone who entered.” He leaned his head in towards the scope, leveling it no doubt on Nick’s head.

“You could do that, or…” Suddenly, Nick thrust his hand out behind the man, pointing. “What the hell is that?!”

It was the oldest trick in the book and wouldn’t have worked if the mercenary had even an ounce of brain cells. Thankfully for Nick, this man was dumber than a box of rocks. He swung his head around, giving Nick all the opportunity he needed. He ran forward, charging into the man with his full body weight, sending them both sprawling on the ground and the gun sliding across the floor.

Nick jumped to his feet and aimed a kick at the man’s face as he attempted to stand. The downside to carrying all that equipment around is you aren’t very agile. Before he could do anything about it, Nick’s foot made contact, knocking him down once again.

Nick rushed down the corridor and picked up the gun from the ground. He pointed it at the mercenary, but it was too late. He had recovered quickly and had drawn a side arm from a holster at his side. That very sidearm was now pointed directly at Nick.

The mercenary’s face spread into a cruel grin as he pulled the trigger. Nick closed his eyes and threw his hands up in front of him, waiting for the inevitable pain and death to follow, but it never came. He opened his eyes to see the bullet suspended in midair directly in front of him. To say he was surprised would be an understatement. He could barely do anything with his powers, let alone stop a bullet, but he did.

“How…” the man stammered, but Nick didn’t even give him time to finish his thought. He ran forward and swung the gun like a bat, hitting the man squarely in the jaw with a sickening crunch. He crumbled to the ground and lay motionless.

Nick smiled in victory, but it was short lived. A pair of men equally armed as the first ran around the corner, their weapons drawn. Nick did the smart thing and turned to run.

He ran as fast as he could, not bothering with where he was going. The good news was he didn’t run into any more guards. The bad news was he had no clue where he was or where he should be going. He eventually ran into an intersection of corridors, with three options as to where to turn. Suddenly, a large crash echoed from the hallway to his right. He sighed and turned down that hall, chasing after the noise.

Seconds later, he emerged into a large room which greatly resembled a war zone. There were about a dozen men barricaded behind a pile of boxes, firing shots periodically. The hostages were behind them as well, bound and blindfolded. Nick continued to scan the room and his heart leapt when he saw his team.

They were engaged in heavy combat in the center of the room and were using moves that would make any ninja proud. Tom and Erica were tag teaming a group of five men that had surrounded them. Erica was holding her own, but she was nothing compared to Tom, who fought so fiercely, it genuinely scared Nick. He spun around between opponents, taking them down one after the other, just to have them get up again for another beating. They probably should have learned after being thrown to the ground a few times, but they didn’t. This only solidified the image in Nick’s mind of mercenaries being bumbling idiots.

Henry was on the opposite side of the room, taking on a pair of especially tough looking mercenaries. Though Henry was considerably smaller than them, he seemed to be holding his own.

Nick looked up to see Lizzie and Josh perched atop a stack of crates in the far corner, their hands to their heads in concentration. They had been delegated to protecting the rest from the bullets, which were curving in midair to avoid those on the ground. 

Tom turned when Nick entered the room, and though he couldn’t see his facial expression, he could tell just how mad Tom was through the mask.

“Go!” Tom shouted over the commotion, but Nick shook his head. He hadn’t come this far to turn back now.

Suddenly, movement on the far side of the room caught Nick’s attention. A man had emerged from a back room, carrying a large bag in his hands. The man was huge and had a large scar stretching across his face. Nick couldn’t hear what he said, but he could read his lips. I’ve got it; let’s go. The man disappeared down a hallway with two others in tow.

Nick looked at the others, expecting one of them to follow, but no one seemed to notice, too busy with their respective jobs. This was his chance to prove himself. Without even hesitating, Nick sprinted off in pursuit. 

A guard saw him coming and foolishly stepped in front of the hallway, blocking Nick’s way. He was moving too fast for the guard to even raise his weapon. Nick plowed into him at top speed, sending them both sprawling on the ground. Though the guard was still conscious, Nick didn’t bother to stick around. He had a job to do. He jumped to his feet and rushed down the corridor.

A few hundred feet from the battle, Nick began to hear footsteps echoing through the deserted corridor and sped up.

Suddenly, his muscles tensed. Up ahead, he began to hear voices. Favoring stealth over speed, he slowed, placing each step strategically to avoid making a sound.

He paused and hid behind a corner, noticing the footsteps had stopped. He removed his mask so he could hear better and leaned as close to the edge of the wall as he could, trying desperately to listen to the conversation.

“Yes sir, we have it,” a man’s voice said. “I am on my way now.” A slight pause followed, indicating the speaker was on one end of a phone conversation. “Don’t worry sir. We’ll be able to get it. These mercenaries are useful as hired guns, but I doubted they would be able to succeed in breaking into the Pentagon.”

Nick’s heart leapt. The man was talking about what happened at the Pentagon the previous night. There was another pause, then the man continued speaking.

“The Enhanced showed up, but the others are keeping them distracted.” Pause. “No, there wasn’t anyone new with them. Why do you ask?”

Nick began to breathe quicker as adrenaline surged through him. Whoever was on the other end of that phone expected there to be someone new on the team, but how did they know?

“We’ll see you soon Professor Blackwell. Goodbye.” The man hung up, but Nick’s mind was still reeling from what he heard. The man was talking to Blackwell.

Nick heard footsteps coming down the corridor once more. He was about to give chase when an invisible grip from behind stopped him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tom hissed, suddenly right beside Nick. “Do you know you could have died? But I guess that’s not important to you since you are so powerful, huh?”

Nick wanted desperately to make some smart remark, but there were more important matters to discuss now. “Tom let me go!” Nick cried. “There are some men going that way! We have to catch them!”

Tom scoffed. “Oh really? That’s interesting since we already subdued all of the intruders, no thanks to you.”

“No really!” Nick said, trying desperately to shake himself free from Tom’s invisible grip. “One of them was on the phone and talking about the break in at the Pentagon! He’s working for Blackwell! We have to stop them before they get away!”

Though Nick thought he laid his case out pretty well, Tom didn’t seem to buy it. “Don’t act like I don’t know what this is,” he said, his voice eerily cold. “You want to play the hero. Well let me tell you something Dark Angel, you may act like a hero on the street, but here, you’re nothing.” He released his grip. “Nothing.”

Tom turned and stalked back down the corridor, leaving Nick standing there, dumbstruck. It took him a moment to remember what had made him so frantic in the first place. He quickly turned and ran off in the direction the men had gone.

Nick ran up and down the hallways, trying desperately to find some evidence of the three men, but he was finally forced to admit they had eluded him.

“If it wasn’t for Tom, I would have caught them,” Nick thought angrily, stalking through the corridors, searching for the rest of the team. Finally, he emerged back into the room they were battling in before. They were all there, surrounded by the unconscious forms of mercenaries. At least Nick hoped they were unconscious.

Lizzie ran up to him. “Come on! We have to go!”

“What?” Nick asked. “What about the hostages?”

“That’s the cops’ problem,” Lizzie said. “We’re part of a secret government organization. We have to go before they see us here!”

Nick nodded and followed them out, trying desperately to keep up. While they were all in perfect shape, Nick wasn’t. He was clutching his sides in pain as they exited the building and ran back out into the cover of the corn field. They ran until they emerged into an opening where they could see the sky above them.

“Erica, help Dark Angel please,” Tom said, shooting a scathing look at Nick. The way Tom said his title made Nick hate him even more. Like it was something to direct criticism on rather than just address him by.

“Hold on,” Erica said quietly, grabbing Nick by his arm. Suddenly, they rocketed off the ground, the other members of the team following close behind.

To say Nick was surprised was an understatement. He had seen them glide to safety from the plane, but this wasn’t anywhere near that. This was genuine flying. They soared through the air, with Erica clutching his arm tightly as she flew them both.

Nick looked up and saw the jet flying slowly above them. They approached it quickly and flew in through the open hatch.

“Well Mr. Mclain?” Raymond said from the front. “Did it go well?”

Tom smiled. “Yep. We stopped them from taking anything. The police are raiding that place as we speak.”

“Excellent,” Raymond said, smiling. Nick, however, was not. He knew that they had not succeeded. The three men had gotten away with what they had come for.

Nick collapsed in his seat and strapped himself in as the jet picked up speed. He noticed the team exchanging uneasy looks as they glanced from Tom to Nick. Obviously, they could tell something had happened.

Nick sighed and gazed out the window, watching the ground zooming by below him, but his mind wasn’t on the quarrels of his team. His mind was on Blackwell, and what he could have possibly wanted at that warehouse.

An obsession had taken root in the back of his mind. An obsession with Blackwell.