Keystones: Altered Destinies Read online

  The victim was waxen and unresponsive, but there wasn’t much else that Slate could do. A blood transfusion and stitches were needed, but stitches ran the risk of breaking the seal made by the bandages. The chemical seal was fragile at first and took time to harden into a flexible and durable shell. And a blood transfusion wasn’t an option if you didn’t have blood on hand. Teleporting to a hospital wasn’t possible either because the jerking it involved would in all likelihood reopen the abdominal wound.

  It would be at least ten minutes before the man could be moved without destabilizing him. That was ten minutes he probably didn’t have. Slate strongly doubted that the man could be saved.

  With lips near the man’s ear, Slate asked, “Can you hear me?” There was no response. All that was left to do was to stand by him and wait for him to die.

  The victim’s labored breathing grew weaker and weaker. Cries became small moans; then there was silence. Slate reached down and closed the man’s eyelids.

  Recovery

  Deklan’s eyes snapped back open. His unbearable pain had diminished like a tide receding at a beach. In a few more moments it was gone completely. Even his throat was no longer raw from screaming. Deklan’s fingers danced over the healed wounds, pressing and prodding the unbroken flesh. A relieved smile ghosted over his face. He’d had no confidence that he could survive.

  Looking up and craning his head back, he jolted back when he saw an eyeless face over a long black leather trench coat observing him. Despite the figure’s lack of any distinguishing features, its overall body language still conspired to make the observer look quizzical and confused.

  “Who are you?” Deklan asked.

  A hidden mouth opened on the blank face, and its response was deep and uninflected. “Slate.” The head pivoted left and right, looking at Deklan from different angles. “If it makes you feel better, most people react the same way to my appearance.”

  Reassured by the polite answer, Deklan bowed his head forward and raised himself on one hand. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. You just surprised me. I saw you on the news this morning. You’re becoming quite famous, you know.” He then levered himself into a sitting position and surveyed the scene. They were on a rooftop, and the area around him was a still wet puddle of blood.

  He reached down to his abdomen and felt the ragged hole in his clothes. The skin underneath the fabric was unblemished. It looked newly formed, not so much as a single hair appearing under the caked gore. He reached around to his back and detected another hole in his clothes there.

  Taking in the red crust on his hands, Deklan said to Slate, “We’re not on the road anymore. Did you move me?”

  “Yes, and I bandaged you.”

  This man was the first stranger to help him in Boa Vista. Deklan made sure that his voice conveyed real appreciation. “Thanks so much. I’m Deklan, by the way. How far did we go, and how long was I out?” Deklan looked around, trying not to stare at Slate’s face, or lack thereof, yet still fascinated by it.

  Slate’s head turned to the left, then back to Deklan. His voice was matter-of-fact. “I teleported us to a nearby roof, and you’ve been out for about half an hour.”

  “Teleported?” Hearing that someone could teleport was one thing, seeing it on the news another, but finding out that he had been teleported was hard to process. “I hadn’t realized that you could teleport other people too,” he said. “That’s quite an ability.” Deklan reached down to touch his stomach again. Not even a trace of a scar remained. He kept feeling for one, remembering the overwhelming pain.

  He then looked at his forearm. The scabs from where Mittens had clawed him remained. His fingertips were also bloody where he’d scraped them while looking for Susan. Uncanny, especially since his left wrist was uninjured from Chain’s attack. He didn’t understand his Keystone ability, but it was nice to know that it was still working. “Half an hour?” he asked Slate. “By any chance did a man with wings show up?”

  Slate merely shrugged. “I’m not sure. I was busy with bandaging your wounds.”

  Something about Slate’s voice registered vaguely in the back of Deklan’s mind, but he dismissed the thought and hid his disappointment. “That’s okay. He was just going to give me a ride to catch up to my parents and get to the Elevator.”

  “The Elevator?” Slate’s voice was nuanced, implying questions that extended beyond the two words.

  Deklan owed him an answer for all of his help, so he explained his thoughts on The Sweep. “I don’t think things are going to get better down here. I had assumed that the animals were going to be a threat, but it seems that man is still the most dangerous predator on the planet.”

  Slate nodded in agreement with his points. “So why the Elevator?”

  “I’m trying to get up to the Terra Rings. I convinced someone else that it was the smartest thing to do. She’s dead now, and my parents are alone.” Deklan felt the weight of his mistakes bear down on him. After the attacks by Chain and the shadow, he wondered whether the Rings were going to be any safer or whether he was on a fool’s errand.

  “Stop that!” Slate sounded disgusted.

  “What?” he asked.

  When Slate’s head turned toward him, Deklan was forced to match gazes with an eyeless stare. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You tried; you failed; you continue. Feeling sorry won’t bring your friend back. In fact, it doesn’t do anything useful. Just be happy that somehow you came back to life.” The words were like those of a drill sergeant relaying orders to a solider.

  Slate then pointed to the sites of Deklan’s various injuries. “I’ve seen many people as injured as you were, most of them in the past few days. None of them survived, yet you don’t even look surprised.”

  “Yeah,” replied Deklan lamely. “I guess not.”

  “Then why do you still have those cuts on your forearm?” The question was softer than Slate’s previous comments.

  Deklan wondered the same thing. “Fickle gifts?” he said. He reached out to give Slate a handshake. “Thank you for watching over me. I have no way to repay you. Is there any favor I can do for you in return?”

  Slate shook his head. “Just remember the offer.”

  The man was preparing to leave, but Deklan had another question. “Why aren’t you trying to get off planet?”

  “I’m trying to help people here,” Slate responded. “Besides, you said it yourself: man is still the most dangerous predator.”

  “True enough, but the animals here aren’t making life any safer.”

  Slate’s voice was low and held a touch of irritation, conveying impatience to move on. “No, but I don’t stay in one place long enough for that to be a problem.”

  Deklan had another important question, which he asked without much hope of an affirmative reply. “Will you help me get to the Elevator?”

  Deklan could almost see the gears turning in Slate’s head. “Okay, but we may need to take a detour to rescue someone else.”

  “How often does that happen?”

  Slate’s blank face was impossible to read. “Too often.”

  It didn’t sound to Deklan as though he was going to have company for long. “Where did you find me?” he asked.

  Slate pointed to the square below them.

  Seeing the pool of blood that marked where he had lain, Deklan mused quietly to himself, “How is it that I am still alive?”

  “Good question,” said Slate.

  The two figures stood in silence for a moment before Slate asked, “Are you ready to go?”

  Deklan held up a hand again. “Almost,” he answered, “but I have just one more question.”

  “Yes?” said Slate, drawing out the monosyllable.

  “Do you have an Uplink I can borrow so that I can tell people I’m alive?”

  “Uplinks can be tracked, not a good idea for a vigilante.”

  Deklan sighed, the answer not being what he’d wanted to hear. “I guess it was too much to hope for.
Let’s go.”

  No More Needles

  “Derek,” said Jonny, “if you prod me with one more thing, I’m going to demand that we subject you to every test that I endure.”

  Derek looked both disappointed and amused as he put away the paintball gun. “This is all for your own good,” he replied.

  “So what was the paintball gun supposed to be testing?”

  “Um, surprise, pain, and stimulus response.”

  “How fantastic!” Jonny unleashed a brief burst of stout beer over Derek that would have made a fire hydrant proud. “We’re done here,” he declared.

  A prostrate Derek wiped his eyes and looked at Jonny, an outraged scowl dominating his face. “I’m going to be sticky for weeks,” he opined.

  “Try taking a shower then.” Jonny thought about all the different places where he’d had tubes put. He was pretty sure that something permanent had been done to him, but he let it pass. He’d had enough fun at Derek’s hands.

  “Step into my office.” Derek gestured toward a closed door.

  Jonny rolled his eyes. “You’re aware that I’ve seen your office, right?”

  “Can you complain less, or is there an unmapped section of your genetic code that prohibits such behavior?” Derek swung the door open, and they stepped inside his office.

  Jonny looked around. “Fine. Now what?”

  “Open the closet door and look inside.” Derek took a seat at his desk, squelching into place and watched Jonny with a smug look.

  Jonny opened the door to a tiny closet that enclosed little more than a few shelves. He didn’t see anything special about the space. “Is there something in particular that you wanted from in here?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Feel free to close the door.”

  Jonny closed the door and turned to face Derek. “If you didn’t want anything from the closet, why am I in your office, and why did you make me open that stupid door?”

  “Do you remember what I said when I waived your fee?” Derek’s voice suggested an undertone of muted excitement.

  “Something about splitting the profits,” replied Jonny, always suspicious of anything having to do with sharing money.

  The excitement in Derek’s voice grew, and he smiled like a magician about to pull off his best trick. “Excellent! You remember. Watch this.” Derek stepped over to his closet and opened the door. The space inside was now large and well lit, its perimeters reminding Jonny of outer space if you took away the stars and substituted velvet.

  Jonny gaped at what he saw. “What’s this?”

  Derek nodded with a satisfied smile. “Potential.”

  “Potential for what?”

  Derek reached to the inside wall of this pocket space and grabbed a beer. “Potential for the most profitable bar on the Terra Rings.”

  “So you’re a Keystone now, too?”

  “Yep.” Derek looked very pleased with himself.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I was busy testing you.”

  “And you want us to start a bar together?”

  Jonny couldn’t think of a proposal he would have expected less from Derek. The bar was an amusing idea, but the implications staggered him. Jonny had spent his adult life facilitating contracts, always finding people or companies that provided solutions his clients needed. He knew that abilities grew apace. Under Derek’s regimen of testing he’d progressed to being able to produce fifty-seven different beers on command.

  Jonny smiled because his idea was so much bigger than a bar. There were going to be hundreds of thousands of people who would want to know what they could do with their abilities, and there was no one who could help them, yet. “I have a better idea,” he said.

  “Oh?” replied Derek cautiously.

  Jonny leaned forward, beaming a broad smile. “I have an idea for a unique business, and I’m in a position to help you launch it.”

  Chaos at the Elevator

  Michael landed with less grace than usual. Having a passenger threw off his balance. Instead of a smooth landing with wings flared to the side, his feet hit the ground with force, and they both stumbled forward before regaining their balance.

  Tricia had watched their landing, but she then went back to watching where they were headed. Her posture was tense, and she clutched her arms to her sides. “Do you see that? Do you see that?” She wasn’t frantic or demanding, but she sounded scared.

  Brice dusted himself off. “Thank you, Michael.” His deep voice sounded calm when contrasted with his wife’s. “That was invigorating, and I hope never to do that again. I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

  Michael laughed. “I understand,” he said.

  “Are either of you listening to me?” Tricia’s voice had grown shriller and was tinged with irritation.

  Brice walked over to Tricia and held her. “Yes, dear.”

  She didn’t leave his arms but pointed toward the Elevator. “How are we supposed to get over there?”

  “The only answer I see,” replied Michael, “is that I fly you up high and then bring you down on the roof of the Elevator terminal.”

  “No!” Tricia and Brice said in unison.

  “Okay, fine.” He kept his tone non-confrontational, more than willing to let Deklan sort out that particular issue. “It’s either that or deal with the fighting.”

  Michael looked out over the small distance between them and the Elevator, his telescopic vision adjusted to allow him to take in the entire scene. In all fairness things were relatively quiet, with isolated patches of violence or activity. It was the patches that caused the problem, though.

  Gunfire was the least scary form of violence he saw, because it was something he’d seen all his life in various forms of entertainment. Although scary, it didn’t hold the terror of the new. Keystone powers were what caught his attention. They were unique from user to user and unpredictable. Michael had spent his life being afraid of everything, and the unknown was always the scariest of all.

  People ran from buildings in a dash to the terminal, some on their own and others in groups. Groups generally fared better in the chaos, though it occurred to Michael that a Keystone who could move fast, like himself, or move undetected would do just as well if not better on his own. He turned back to the Tobins, keeping his voice reassuring. “I’m going back for Deklan. I doubt that the terminal will still be functioning much longer.”

  “Why not?” Tricia demanded, her voice still worried.

  Michael decided to leave that answer to Deklan as he launched himself into the sky. He chose to fly in a high arc as far from the ground as he could get.

  Below him Boa Vista spread out like a map. Some areas burned, while others were more or less untouched. In one section of the city, not far from the Elevator, Michael could see a massive leopard. It swatted threats down as it guarded and herded a group of frightened people toward the Elevator.

  Looking for the place where he’d left Deklan, he saw a large discoloration on the ground. A feeling of dread filled his stomach. He dove down for a closer look, but doing so only confirmed his concerns. The stains on the ground were blood. Of Deklan’s whereabouts there was no sign.

  Thinking of his personal safety, Michael rocketed back into the sky. Once he’d achieved an altitude that felt safe, he tried to figure out what he should do next. He needed to find Deklan. He could only hope that the bloodstains he’d seen had been left by someone else. He wobbled momentarily in the air as an ugly thought crossed his mind. What was he going to tell the Tobins?

  As always when he was apprehensive, he turned to his Uplink for answers. Stabilizing his flight, Michael tried to contact Deklan, but there was no answer. He tried again and again, each time without success. Cold logic told him that there probably wasn’t going to be an answer.

  Michael realized that he needed to get back to the Tobins, but he didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. They’d already seen the vet, Susan, die, and now he had to tell them that Deklan was gon
e as well. He had to get those people to the Elevator. He just had to find the courage to tell them what had happened.

  Stalling for time while circling higher and higher, Michael was surprised to see a man rising through the air without the aid of wings or any of the methods of flight that other Keystones exhibited. Too far away to help, Michael was forced to watch as the man continued up at an angle, hit the peak of an elliptical arc, and then hurtled to the ground where he slammed into a parked car on the street. The car crumpled around him. Brushing himself off, the man crouched in the debris with a slight bend at the knee before reentering the sky.

  Girding himself to deliver the news about his search for Deklan, Michael spiraled back toward the Tobins while maintaining his altitude in the sky, as though the act of staying higher would make the coming conversation easier. He flew until he was almost over the top of the roof where he’d left them; then, like a man pulling off a band-aid all at once, he descended. His wings tucked into a narrow “V” formation, Michael dove, the wind screaming past his ears and tearing at his face.

  Atop the building he saw Brice and Tricia watching the Elevator while keeping a low profile. Seconds before impact Michael snapped his wings open and jerked himself upright in the air, momentum carrying him to the roof where his feet touched down as he landed in a crouch.

  Tricia and Brice looked at Michael and spoke as one. “Where’s Deklan?” Their voices were right on the edge of alarm.

  For a moment Michael couldn’t speak. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I went back to meet him and found a pool of blood. I’ve been calling him, but there’s been no response. I’m so sorry.” Realizing that he was babbling, he clamped his mouth shut.

  A sobbing Tricia collapsed into her husband’s arms. Brice Tobin remained silent, but his face was grim and set.

  Michael bowed his head and looked away.

  Tricia stopped mid-sob, her voice conveying a thread of desperate hope. “Did you see a body?” she asked.