Steve tried desperately to twist, to land on his feet like he’d done thousands of times. When he realized that he was too stunned to perform so intricately, he switched gears to a Judo roll, but it was far too late. He landed hard, face first. A jagged stone lacerated his left forearm and nearly fractured the bone in the process — this was the least of his injuries. He struck the ground with his forehead toward the right temple — this, too, resulted in a relatively minor concussion, nothing he hadn’t experienced before in his years of kick-boxing.
A beer bottle, crusted with dirt and still containing a smattering of tobacco juice and saliva, shattered across the bridge of his nose. Had it not been for the impact near his temple, the resulting glass fragments would have been driven all the way through to his frontal lobes. As it happened, they did not penetrate that far, but both his eyes were punctured simultaneously, rupturing like pierced grapes. For a brief moment, he fumbled blindly to pull the jagged glass out, then he lost consciousness.
Richard McLane and his two companions gazed down at Steve from the top of the ditch.
"Would you like me to finish him off?" one of McLane’s men asked, a redhead with electricity still crackling around his hand.
"He’s dead," McLane pronounced smugly. "And I want some of the bodies left identifiable. Now let’s do what we came here to do."
McLane stole one last glance at the young man, out cold and bleeding profusely, and then led his men up the road toward the Davison home.
TAKAYASU
"Takayasu, Ensign Michael," Lieutenant J.G. Barry called.
Michael looked up, hoping to God that he didn’t look as nervous as he felt.
"The Captain will see you now, Ensign," the man said.
"Thank you," Michael said, rising to his feet and striding for the office doors ... and trying to act as though he visited the head of the Paranormal Control Agency’s regional headquarters every day.
The doors slid open at his approach, and although it was far too subtle for any normal human being to detect, Michael knew that he had been the subject of a thorough identification process, ranging from passive retina scans to skeletal structure comparisons. Otherwise, far from opening, the doors would have sealed shut, and no one short of a Class One Paranormal could have gotten through them.
The office Michael entered was no different in appearance from that of any other law-enforcement agency. Again, Michael knew that there were sensors and weapons and defenses, all present and ready for use, but none of them would ever be noticed by the few civilian visitors who might have cause to visit. He knew from his technical training at the Academy that if a paranormal were to use any of his or her physical senses to spot them, such as x-ray vision or an electro-magnetic probe of any kind, the very act of their detection would be enough to activate half of them. There wasn’t much they could do yet about
mental
senses, such as a psychic paranormal who just
knew
where they were, but advances were being made in that arena every day.
Michael stood at attention before the captain’s desk. The gruff-looking, dark-complected older man was sipping a cup of coffee and held up a hand for him to wait.
Michael waited.
"Sit down, Mister Takayasu," he said at last.
Michael contained his surprise at the incongruently high-pitched voice that came out of the man. His experiences at the Academy, and perhaps all those cop movies, made him expect the order to emerge as a growl.
"Coffee?" the captain offered.
"No, thank you, Captain."
"Mm. Your loss. Mister Barry makes a helluva cup." The man smirked. "You’ll forgive me if I usually
avoid
the use of our designated ranks. I served four years in the Navy, and spent a good part of my life in the FBI until I was pulled for PCA detail back in the day. I, personally, find it rather silly to be addressed as ‘Captain,’ but I suppose it’s no less pretentious than ‘Deputy Director.’ How about you just call me ‘sir,’ and I’ll continue to address you as ‘Mister.’ "
"That’s fine by me, sir," Michael smiled casually.
"Mm. Now ..." The Captain leaned back and laced his fingers behind the back of his head. "Mister Takayasu, as I’m sure you are aware, you are the first graduate of the Academy to work for this particular district, though we’ll have a
bunch
of you running around this region soon enough. Since they just started cranking you kids out this past year, everyone else you’ll meet here was pulled from any number of law-enforcement agencies, mostly the FBI, but also from the CIA, the U.S. Marshall’s office, et cetera. You know all this, of course. My point is, you’re going to encounter all kinds of different ideas on how things should be done in the PCA. Between you and me, this agency was slapped together so damned fast that I don’t think
any
protocols were worked out beyond the general idea of ‘stop the rogues!’ So I admittedly don’t really know what they taught you at the Academy about the so-called rules and regulations, but in this office, it basically just means you come to me with any disputes or conflicts and I settle them on the spot as I see fit. Clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Your file puts you at the top of your graduating class."
"Yes, sir."
"Now, you are
norm
, correct? No paranormal abilities popped out yet?"
"I am completely normal, sir. I’m told I score particularly high on the ESPer tests, but it’s nothing that couldn’t have been charted before the White Flash. The
theory
is that if I were attacked by a paranormal whose abilities were
mental
in nature, I would prove more tolerant than the average norm agent."
"Interesting. You ever have psychic flashes, Mister Takayasu?"
"None that I am conscious of, sir, beyond a strong gut feeling from time to time that rarely leads me astray."
"Mm. In other words, if your talents weren’t being wasted nailing rogues to the wall, you would have made one helluva cop back in the day."
Michael assumed this last bit was rhetorical and remained silent.
"It’s dangerous work, taking down the Class One rogues, especially for a norm.
Somebody’s
got to do it, of course, but a lot of norms request detective or paraforensic work. I understand that you
volunteered
for Class One duty. That correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mm. How exactly does a norm deal with a rogue that could burn you down with a thought?"
"I’m in top physical condition, sir, and have been trained in all of the state-of-the-art paranormal containment equipment, ranging from weapons to psi-jammers. If we’ve built something for it, I know how to use it. The Class Ones are a problem for us all, but anything below that, I can handle virtually on my own, sir."
"Good. Some might find that a cocky statement. Personally, I appreciate someone who knows their abilities. However, this is the PCA, so we don’t get to pick and choose whom we tackle. Class Ones or not, they stir up trouble, we take them down. But I don’t want to lose my first, bright, young Academy-graduated ensign anytime soon, so I’m assigning you a partner. He didn’t go to the Academy, obviously, but he’s been with us for a while."
"I look forward to meeting him, sir."
"Mm. Just wait’ll you
do
meet him, Mister Takayasu, and you might not be so eager about it. He’s a paranormal, a true Class One, so unfortunately we have to put up with a lot of his
bullshit
in the bargain."
"Understood, sir. His abilities?"
" ‘Generation and partial manipulation of kinetic shockwaves.’ Started off as a purely offensive ability, but he’s recently learned to turn them into crude force fields, so long as he’s at the center of the protected area."
"Sounds like an excellent associate for the PCA, sir. What’s his codename?"
"Mm. ‘Shockwave,’ if you can believe that. Me, I find the notion of
codenaming
our paranormals about as clever as calling our agents ‘ensigns’ and ‘lieutenant commanders’ ad nauseam, but there it is. It’s comic book
silliness
, I think, but then we’ve found ourselves in a comic book
world
of late, haven’t we?" The captain leaned forward. "Well, that’s about all the time I have for today, Mister Takayasu." He extended his hand. Michael stood and shook it — Jarrah either did not notice the scars on Michael’s hand, or he was better than most at covering any reaction he might have had. "Report next Monday to the training arena to meet up with Shockwave. And don’t say I didn’t warn you."
"Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure meeting you."
"Mm. Likewise."
PCA
Five of Hearts, Jack of Spades.
Dealer showing a Seven of Spades. If the hole card was a ten or face, then the dealer had seventeen. Couldn’t take a hit, but still beat fifteen.
There had been no face cards at all in the last hand, so odds were fairly good that the dealer
was
holding seventeen.
So, hit or stand?
Michael closed his eyes. He concentrated, tried to feel the next card. All he needed was at least a three, but no more than a six.
Concentrate ... feel the next card ...
"Hit," he decided. He was committed now, but he felt
certain
that the next card ...
... was an eight. Break. Dealer had sixteen.
"Son of a bitch," Michael muttered as he scooped the card back into his deck and shuffled. Sometimes he thought that, now that he was graduated and an "officer" in the PCA, he should find the instructor who scored him so highly in the ESPer tests and
fire
him.
"More coffee?" the waitress asked.
"Sure, why not?" Michael answered as brightly as he could. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t going to
profit
off his phantom abilities anytime soon.
The waitress, a cute blonde whose name tag read, "Christine," filled his cup for the third time, smiled, and walked away.
Michael had found this quaint little coffee shop just a few blocks down from his new apartment on his second night in town. Back at the Academy, he and his roommates had a similar hangout where they blew off their daily steam and crammed for their exams. He missed James and Ray, but somehow he had been surprised to find that he missed their hangout even more. So far, this place had proven an adequate substitute, but no more.
Hopefully, the place would grow on him.
Absently dealing the cards out for solitaire, he returned his attention to the open folder before him. He glanced briefly at the file-photo of his auburn-haired, brown-eyed, Van Dyked, new partner, then began rereading the file ...
Shockwave’s real name was Mark Westmore. He was thirty-eight years old, and the highlight of his record prior to allying himself with the PCA was a Dishonorable Discharge from the Army, for striking a superior officer.
Swell
, Michael thought.
It’s a wonder he didn’t go rogue.
All joking aside, Westmore really
did
fit the stereotypical rogue profile: Loner, black sheep, odd-man-out, with no respect for authority and a reputation for barroom brawls, suddenly turns paranormal three years after the White Flash, Class Two ranking quickly growing into Class One.
Not many paranormals gained in intensity after their initial shift. Most changed, then locked into their new form. Westmore’s increase in power was enough for the PCA to want him, and his surprising willingness to
cooperate
both encouraged and unnerved the powers-that-be in their decision to accept him.
In the last two years, "Shockwave" had assisted in taking down 17 rogues, most of them Class Twos, but a handful of Class Ones as well...
That
must be a sight straight out of the comic books
.