I Am Phantom (10 page)

“What
the hell, Jen? How much did he drink? Cody?” Cody had fallen to a cross-legged
position on the floor. I think he’d drank more than I had. Matt had wandered
off a while ago, and suddenly wandering off sounded like a good idea. I felt
great. I didn’t want to be cooped up inside feeling this great. This needed to
be shared.

When
Melanie wasn’t looking (“Do you have any idea how much trouble we can get into
if someone from the Lab sees this?”) I slipped past a Star Trek guy and
somebody Matt had told me was Captain America before I was free to the street
outside. I turned left and walked.

The
fresh air made me feel better. A little bit of the film began to lift from my
eyes but my head still spun so I kept going.

The
streets wound and swirled together in a disconcerting mixture of neon lights
and empty shop fronts. I was sure I had been on at least some of them before
when I was freerunning but they didn’t seem familiar now. I saw nobody else.

Geez,
how much alcohol had been in the drinks? First I was mad at my vampire #1 for
telling us to drink it, then I was mad at myself for listening. Then I was
thanking vampire #1 because, to be honest, I
did
feel pretty good.

But
I was lost.

The
high buildings on either side of me made it nearly impossible to see the
Queensbury campus where I had come from. I had never been to this part of the
city and definitely not at night. I needed a better vantage point.

Thinking
clearly (because that’s what I was doing best at the moment), I latched on to
the nearest fire escape. It was ten stories to the top of the building. There
was a lot of fumbling and nervous swaying side to side and the monk’s robe was
nearly impossible to lift my legs in, but I finally made it up.

At
last, a good view. I saw the campus behind me. I had come out above the thin
layer of smog and dirty streetlight below. Dark faced glass sidings and vacant
rooftops surrounded me. Lights from the tops of buildings and cell phone towers
looked like stars and I leaned back and felt my skin prickle as I got close to
the edge and a rush of wind brushed up the side of the building. A lot of the
buildings were about the same height. Perfect for Parkour.

Probably
shouldn’t try it when I’m buzzed, but still perfect for Parkour.

I
made a mental picture of which way I had to go to get back to campus and
started climbing down the other side of the building.

Man,
the guys in the alley were quiet.

I
mean, I’m a quiet guy, but they made no sound at all. They had formed a little
Congo line from the rear of the building I was climbing down all the way to a
truck, turned off and dark. There were five of them. At least I thought there
were; my head was spinning again.

I
let go of the fire escape and promptly stumbled over. The men kept handing
boxes to each other, completely oblivious that I was there.

Maybe I should try to stop
them,
I thought. Wait,
what was I doing? I had no idea who these people were or why they were here, or
even if they were doing something illegal. Maybe they were being all stealthy
and secretive and loading boxes in the dead of night because…okay, that did
sound illegal.

But
what was I supposed to do about it? I should just walk away and call the
police. They would be able to take care of this, this was their job. And yet, I
had to do something. It was if I just let them continue doing whatever they
were doing then I would be no better than Sykes. He had said we were the same,
at least in abilities. I still wasn’t willing to believe him. He was right and
yet he was wrong. He had chosen what he wanted to do with his powers. He wanted
to kill and cause fear. It was time for me to choose what to do with mine.

           
The guy at the rear of the line, the one moving boxes from the back of
the building, finally noticed me.

           
“Hey!” He immediately dropped the box and pulled a gun on me. “Who are
you?”

I…I
just kind of stood there. At least part of my brain was making a plan of
attack, imagining where and how I could take each one down. But I was a little
slow on the uptake.

The
other men turned. They also pulled guns. Guns. Another sign this was probably
illegal.

“Hands
up, freak show, or I’m putting one between your eyes,” the man near the truck
said.

“You
can’t see my eyes,” I said disbelievingly. I could reach him pretty quick.

“It’s
just some bum,” another said. “Give me the next box and get him out of here.”

“What
if he tells someone?” the man near the truck said, keeping his gun on me.

“He
won’t know what to tell anyone if you shut up,” another man snapped. “He’s
probably all shot up anyway.”

Both
men lowered their guns a bit.

And
that’s when I moved.

Holy
CRAP was I slow.

And
by slow, I mean everything was at normal speed; for them, anyway. I really
hated that punch.

Speaking
of punch… the guy near the building took one to the face and down he went. I
spun, ducked under another man’s arm, elbowed him in the sternum and threw him
against the wall.

One
of the other guys dropped his box and tackled me in the side. We tumbled into a
dumpster. I rolled on my back (
slooow
)
and, with all my strength, kicked him off. He hit the fourth guy and by then I
was up again and hit both of them beneath the ribs in a sweeping punch that
would have made Sonam happy.

Now
for number—

Click

“I
don’t know what you’re game is but it’s over, punk.”

Punk?
This guy didn’t sound too old himself. But he was holding a gun and that meant
he made the rules. I felt so sluggish right then I didn’t think I could twitch
before he shot me. I turned towards him. He was shaking just a bit but the gun
leveled at my chest was completely steady. It was strange. I felt no fear
having it pointed at me, knowing that at any moment I could be shot and left to
bleed out and die. Was it the fact that I struck fear into the man? Was it a
high?

“Now
get out of here before I—”

A
trash can toppled over at the entrance of the alley and the guy glanced over
his shoulder for a millisecond.

Big
mistake.

I
came under him, low, with my center of balance strong, and hit just below the
armpit.

The
guy’s arm crumpled and I hit him again in the jaw and he was out, leaving me in
a silent alleyway with five incapacitated guys who had been doing who knows
what. I needed to get out of there before somebody saw. But I lingered. Partly
in shock, partly to let my lethargic brain process what I had just done. I
should have been scared but instead I felt more alive than ever before. A
feeling of purpose and possibility settled on my shoulders. It was a good
feeling.

My
adrenaline was pumping by then so I moved a little faster. I Parkoured it back
to the dorms, leaping over fences, slipping through back yards and weaving
through neighborhoods and vacant streets.

I
managed to make it inside the dorm without seeing anybody except a couple guys
and a girl far down my hall. Only when I was completely alone in the darkness
of my room did I let out a pent up breath.

What
had I just done? Short of assaulting some guys who were probably—okay, were—doing
something illegal.

I
pulled off my robe and stared at it all crumpled in my hands. My head was
killing me, but in the undercurrent of the pain I felt purpose. Not extreme
guilt as I had the first time I had hurt somebody, those guys who were car
jacking. There was rightness to it, too. I had stopped those men, they had been
criminals, and I’d stopped them. I had made a difference. It wasn’t much and it
wasn’t legal, but it had been good. Those men had been stopped. Because of me.
           

That
was as much as my tired brain was going to reason. As soon as my head hit the
pillow, my weary body steered me off to sleep.

Cody’s
text woke me up. Thank goodness it was Saturday because I had no intention of
using my brain any more than was absolutely necessary to grunt and breathe.

I
grabbed my phone, ignored my headache, and read:

Meet at Lab. Something you
need to see Our code is 1994

           
That sounded ominous. Against my fatigued body’s wishes, I cleaned up
and was in the Lab elevator almost half an hour later.

The
bell dinged and the doors opened. The clear glass windows leading my way
revealed vacant rooms with projects hidden under white cloth. There was nobody
there except in the last one.

“This
had better be good,” I said the instant I stepped inside. Cody lay facedown on
a table, sleeping. Matt and Melanie were both seated in chairs beside him,
gazing intently at Matt’s laptop.

I
walked over and shook Cody. “Hey, what did you want? I’m about to pass out from
lack of sleep.”

Cody
grunted and pointed at Matt’s laptop. I tried to go look but Melanie stood and
held her hands up to stop me.

“Where
did you go last night? After you left the party?”

It
took me a moment to remember what I had done last night. A party and then I
left and then—oh. “Uh, you know. I wandered around campus for a bit and
then went back to the dorm.”

Melanie
lowered her chin. “Where did you really go?”

Last
night’s consequences were real go-getters to have caught up with me already.

“That’s
where I really went.”

Melanie
stepped aside and I finally got to see the computer screen. The video looked
like it was from some grainy security camera but what it showed didn’t lie:

Me,
or at least a shrouded figure dressed in a robe suspiciously similar to mine,
beating up five guys in an alley. Some news channel woman narrated:

“
Officials say the unknown figure has not
been found though police are urging anyone with information to please step
forward.

“Dolborn INC.
representatives have released a statement saying that the goods recovered from
the scene do match those stolen from one of their supply shipments earlier this
week. Back to Christie.”

“
There are all kinds of phantoms about around
Halloween, aren’t there?
” the anchorwoman said, chuckling. “
Looks more like a lost trick or treater who’s
been playing too many video games
.”

Matt
paused the video.

“Was
that you, Drake?” Melanie asked. Boy, she didn’t beat around the bush. “Cody
told me what you did to those car thieves. I know you could do that.”

“It’s
not me.”

“It
is you,” Matt said. “I followed you from the party after you left. I was there
in the alleyway. I accidentally—”

“Knocked
over a trash can,” I groaned, the memory trickling back. “That saved me.”

Melanie
crossed her arms. Matt stared at me in his own unnerving way. Why would it hurt
to tell them? They were my friends and I hadn’t technically done anything wrong
except assault some criminals.

“It
was me,” I said.

Cody
rolled over on the table. “We know. We wanted to hear you say it.”

The
admittance hung between us, as unsure of what to do as we were. I shifted
awkwardly from foot to foot, not wanting to fully accept what I had done. I
took a deep breath.

“Matt,
can you look up something called Project Midnight for me?” Matt gave me a
quizzical look and then began typing on his laptop.

“I’m
not coming up with anything. It doesn’t exist.”

“It
does,” I countered. “It’s why I’m…” Different. A freak. “Not normal,” I
finished lamely.

Melanie
shot a look at Cody and Matt. They all looked as though they had talked about
this before. Without me.

“Why
did you lie to us?” Melanie said.

“Because
you wouldn’t believe the truth.” The video of me taking down the men in the
alleyway kept playing behind Matt. It was hard to draw my eyes from it.

“We’ve
all seen what you can do,” Melanie said. “When you saved those people from
having their car jacked—”

“Fighting
at the gym,” Cody added.

“In
the alleyway,” Matt finished. Cody shrugged as in ‘see, told you’.

“The
truth about…whatever this is can’t be that bad.”

“It’s
not you I have to convince,” I said softly. “I’m different. It started when I
was fourteen and gotten stronger. I’m,” I gestured to the screen. “faster,
stronger. I can learn fighting techniques like
that
.” I snapped my fingers. They were all silent. Cody didn’t look
like he had a headache anymore.

“How?”
Matt said.

“Project
Midnight,” I said. “I think. I don’t know.” I threw up my hands. “I know it
exists but…I don’t know, maybe he was lying.”