The Last Specter (Chap 1-6)

This is the first six chapters of my first novel The Last Specter. Read some of it, all of it, or none of it if you want. Any and all feedback/criticism is welcome in the comments section, via email, or through my social medias. Without further adieu, I present the first installment of The Specter Chronicles.

Chapter 1.

I’m on one of my little trips to a city North of Purgatory.  It is a large one full of grocery stores and pharmacies.  I ghost along the streets, practically invisible, looking for a grocery store because my food supply is starting to get low.  Due to my Specter training, I’m not making a sound and avoiding soft patches of ground as I go, even though I’m at a steady run.  After all, what good is a cloak that renders you practically invisible if people can see your footprints.

            The city is organized into a grid which makes it very easy to navigate.  The buildings have mostly glass walls but there is the odd stone building too.  Some of the windows are broken but most of them are still intact.  Most of the plant life is dead because of the radiation, so it’s practically a desert here.  Nevertheless, the day is about noonish and the sun is reflecting off the buildings in a spectacular way.  It’s almost as if every window is reflecting light at me.

I see a large group of Mutes in the middle of an intersection.  They seem to be gathering around a German Shepard.  The Mutes have been gaining more and more in number over the past few months, so my best guess is they are trying to turn this place into a Hive.

Poor guy.  You should save it.

Okay, okay, I reply.

I turn visible so that I can properly see my energy weapons, then I draw my xiphos and parazonium, setting them to Radiate with my neural interface.  While in this mode, they radiate a brilliant white light and all the different types of energy, but they mostly radiate heat, light, and electric energy.  The light of my weapons draws the attention of the Mutes from the dog and they all begin to rush towards me.  I sprint away from them towards a building, switching on my anti-grav boots to run up the side of it.  About twenty feet up, all the Mutes are gathered at the base of the building, trying to claw their way to me.  At that point I kick off the building and deactivate my anti-grav boots.  I do a graceful backflip (or at least I think it is) and land on top of a Mute which crumples underneath my weight. 

Your form was a little off.

Shut up, dude.  You’re cramping my style.

What style?

Oh, screw you.

I don’t even pause from my landing, slashing immediately at the ankles of the Mutes around me from my crouched position.  The sword and dagger cutting through flesh and bone like it’s slicing through thin air. 

I leap into the air from my crouched position, cutting the head off a Mute as I fly over it, and land on the chest of another, stabbing with my dagger in a backhanded grip as I do.  I rip my dagger from the now charred chest and slash with my sword in a circle to clear some space, cutting down six Mutes as I do.  I feel a crushing bite in my neck and the anxiety that comes along with the wound, but there is also the tingling in the back of my head that tells me it’s just my Preflex warning me of a Mute about to bite me.  As I turn to stop the attack, the pain crosses my body as the Mute's target changes position and I grit my teeth the entire way.  The pain only stops when I cut the Mutes head clean off its body, my blade cauterizing the neck so there is no spurt of blood.  I finally cut down the three remaining monstrosities with a slash of my sword and a jab of my dagger, then deactivate my blades, and return them to their mag sheathes.  While in their mag sheathes, the blades change into what are basically grey disks with handles protruding from them.  This makes it easier to run with them.

The dog starts walking to me hesitantly at first, then seeing that I’m not going to hurt it, comes trotting over to sniff my outstretched fingers, and I pet him on his head with my free hand.  Not wanting him to get hurt, I pick him up, and run up the side of a small building where I find some rope.  I tie him there so I can get him later.  After that, I switch my shimmer cloak on and continue my search for a store.

Finally, I see a Super Mart up ahead.  It was one of the stores that was fully loaded with canned goods, protein bars, pharmaceuticals, and toys.  Maybe I’ll grab a couple toys for the kids back at the town. 

Just when I’m thinking that, I see a couple Mutes.  The virus seems to target the genes in the human body that controls a person's senses and physical strength, tapping into some of the genetic potential for strength and speed.  But for some reason the Mute’s seem to be little more than animals.  Their brains are fine, the genes that control the production of enzymes and proteins for the brain are fine.  They don’t even have radiation damage.  That leads me to believe there is something wrong with their minds.  It reminds me a lot of the formula I was exposed to, just in different ways.

Mutes are disgusting things to look at.  Their skin is a dead grey and covered in scars and scabs, probably self-inflicted or from fighting each other.  But the worst things are the mouths.  Constantly moving, like a mute trying to say something.  Their hearing is terrible, but their sense of smell is very powerful.  They could probably smell me a mile away if it wasn’t for my shimmer cloak. 

It is more of an all body suit than a cloak.  One of its features is to keep in any and all smells for when I get close to a person.  The last thing I need is for my smell to give me away as I’m about to kill something. 

I decide to just wait for the Mutes to pass.  I’m not quite sure if they are still capable of conscious thought or not, and I don’t want to have to kill them unnecessarily.  As they pass me by, they get so close that I can smell their unwashed, unclothed bodies and see the individual scars on their faces, some are still oozing pus and very dark blood.  Their hairless heads swaying from side to side in unison with their mindless shuffle forwards.

When they disappear around the corner, I shiver at the cold chill running down my back and continue on my way towards the Super Mart once more.  The building is a small one. There is an overhang with Super Mart in red writing above the entrances, sliding doors with the windows shattered and boarded up, and a couple broken cars moved in front of the doors as if to keep out an attack.  Another attempt to survive the Apocalypse that failed.  As I near the entrance, I hear lots of shuffling inside so I decide to activate my anti-grav boots and walk on the ceiling to avoid bumping into the Mutes inside. 

When I walk inside, what I see and smell makes me gag.  The place is filled with Mutes until there is next to no standing room.  They are all gathered around something that I don’t quite see at first.  Then I realize that they are gathered around a dead carcass.  Probably some poor animal.  Hopefully it’s just an animal.  The thing that gave away it being a beast was the thrashing limbs of the Mutes throwing what appeared to be red tubes.  I finally put two and two together and concluded that it was something's bloody intestines. 

It apparently wasn’t the first time they did this either.  Bones were lying everywhere, broken in half for the marrow.  The runts of the crowd were still gnawing on scraps from their previous meals.

This is disgusting.

I know it is.  I’m going to just get what I need and get out.  I might stop to get some toys though.

You’re a child.

No, I say, mocking being stern.  It’s for the children.

            This all goes through my mind in about a half a second before I sprint up the nearest wall towards the ceiling, desperate to get out of reach from the monsters in the room.  One of them wouldn’t be able to do much damage, but they tend to attack as a group, so it’s safest to keep my distance.  When I get up there, I activate my visor’s filter to keep the sickly-sweet stench of rotting meat out of my nostrils. It’s replaced by the smell of fresh summer air.  Now that I don’t feel like gagging, I begin my search for supplies. 

            I spend about a half hour in the Super Mart, browsing the aisles for supplies, putting them into my purse when I find something I like.  It isn’t actually a purse.  More like a pocket dimension that stores anything I put into it.  It’s only six inches by six inches on the outside with an opening that stretches to fit most things through it.  The material it’s made out of is a type of woven chrome colored metal that feels like silk when I touch it.  The Specters called it a purse because mothers always seem to find space in their purse for more stuff. 

I empty the store of canned spam, canned yams, granola bars, pharmaceuticals, and basically anything that wasn’t spoiled by time or the radiation.  I will trade a lot of it when I get back to Purgatory, but keep some for myself.  I get salt, pepper, and some other spices that I’m going to trade at the town as well.  Finally, I find the toy section.  You would expect a highly trained agent walking on the ceiling in the middle of a store filled with mutants feasting on the corpse of a mystery animal to be a little more serious, but there is something about the toy section of a store that makes me always want to check it out.

I see some Legos and transformers which I grab for the kids.  I also see some cool kites, a few easy bake ovens, and some model ships.  When I am just about done with looking at the various toys, I hear a faint noise that isn’t the ripping of flesh or the snarling of angry breathing.  It happens again, and that’s when I realize it’s a scream.  It’s coming from outside.

I run to the exit.  Just as I get to the edge, I turn off my anti-grav boots and do a flip off the ceiling.  I land on the ground at a dead sprint heading towards the screaming.  It’s coming from a nearby building, so I look up to see if I can see where the screaming is coming from when I see her… standing at the edge of the roof on a six-story building across from the Super-Mart.  I turn on my anti-grav boots and run up the side of the building.  The screaming continues, but becomes more desperate as I ascend the building.  It gets to the point where it sounds like nails on a chalk board. 

Running up, I hear the electrifying zap of plasma shots being fired from a standard issue handgun.  A second later, I see a standard issue handgun flying past my face along with a Mute.

As I get to the top I jump forwards, breaking contact with the side of the building, still stuck in this gravitational orientation, and fall past the woman towards the Mutes that have her cornered.  I turn off my anti-grav boots, but still have my momentum from the fall, and I land feet first on the chest of the first Mute.  I feel it’s chest cavity give way to my boots and it falls to the ground, dead.  I draw my xiphos and set it to Absorb.  I do the same with my dagger.  This turns them black.  It’s actually more of an absence of color as it absorbs any and all light around it.  I stab my sword through the chest of the second Mute, and the life literally drains out of him as my sword sucks any chemical, heat and whatever other energy he has, out of him.  He solidifies into a solid statue.  I rip my sword out of it, shattering him, and pounce on the last Mute, stabbing both my dagger and sword into it with a backhand grip.  When I rip out my sword and dagger, the Mute shatters as well.  All of this takes less than three seconds. 

I turn visible just in time to see the woman step back out of shock at what just happened.  Unfortunately, there is nothing to step back onto, and she falls without a sound.

Chapter 2

It was a normal day.  The sun was shining, the grass was green, and my family and I were at the park having a picnic.  “Better catch up, loser,” my brother Jake taunted, panting while we were racing to the wharf a quarter mile away.  What he didn’t know was that I was holding back for the last stretch. 

I ran at a light sprint about ten feet behind my brother.  He was panting hard, while I still hadn’t broken a sweat.  Finally, I decided to finish the race and darted ahead of Jake.  His eyes widened as I flashed past and shot him a sly grin.  I crossed the line where the concrete ended and the wood began for the wharf.  Jake was thirty feet behind me when I looked back.

Now, us being twins, people would expect us to have the same physique and skills, but we don’t because fraternal twins were a thing.  I was taller and wirier than Jake, while he was shorter with broad shoulders and naturally beefy.  It wasn’t showy beef, more like a dense, powerful beefy with a thin layer of fat, kind of like a gladiator.  I’m sure he could have thrown me off the wharf with ease if he had half a mind.  In fact, Jake is crazy enough that he might actually do it!  The two similarities that we both had were brown hair and blue eyes, but even then, our eyes were slightly different.

“I still don’t know how you can run so fast, Adam,” Jake said between gasps for breath.

“I guess it just means I’m the better twin.”

            “Really?  Let’s have a wrestling match to make sure you are.  Dick Cheney’s gonna get you,” Jake laughed.  He’s been obsessed with Dick Cheney since he stumbled upon a book about him.  I don’t know why.  He died a really long time ago.

            “Sure, but we need a ref to give the count when I have you pinned,” I bluffed, already knowing that he would beat me.  “Hey sis, come over here and ref the match.”  My friends called her ‘hot’, but I didn’t see her like that.  She was my freaking sister after all.  Juliet had long, blond hair, unlike Jake’s and my brown hair.  We all had blue eyes though, just different shades.  I had light blue eyes.  Jake had more of a stormy grey-blue color that were always scanning, looking for weakness.  It was some inborn trait that only he had inherited.  Juliet’s were a stunning dark blue that gave away her intelligence way too easily.

            “What?” Juliet yelled back.

            “I said come and ref while me and Jake wrestle!” I shouted.

            “Okay jeez, you don’t need to yell,” Juliet replied with a smirk and a little wink.  She heard me the first time.

            With Juliet in position, Jake and I put forward our right feet.  Juliet waved her hand between us, signaling the start of the match.  I was fast as a runner, but Jake was built to be a wrestler.  He was quick and light on his feet.  I was at quite the disadvantage now.  He faked a shot and I almost sprawled on thin air.  Seeing me staggered forward, he put me in a front facing headlock, and hooked his free arm under mine and across my back.  He then used this as leverage to twist me in a slow but deliberate circle to my back.  Juliet got down on her hands and knees to check for the pin.

            “Whistle!” She said in the absence of an actual whistle.  Jake won the match in under ten seconds.

            As he got off me, he gloated, “What happened, I thought you said you were the better brother.”

            “I let you win so you would feel better,” I said halfheartedly.

            “Ok, if you say so…” He laughed.

The thing with all of us was that we were insanely smart, but never let on.  The three of us looked like average kids, taking average classes, getting average grades, and doing only a sport or two.  Jake and I both did lacrosse, him being a defender while I was a midfielder.  He did wrestling during the winter.  I tried it my freshman year, but I didn’t really like it.  Juliet was really into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and did it year-round.  I also did BJJ, but it was for far different reasons than Juliet.  She did it for love.  BJJ is quiet, quick, and not flashy.  It’s perfect for my kind of work.  However, it was currently mid-summer, so we were on break and wanted to make the most of it while we could before school started again.

However, we weren’t your average day do-gooders.  Jake was the owner of a multi-billion-dollar corporation selling armored cars that he designed himself.  He was really good with mechanical stuff, especially regarding cars and engines.  His relatively cold approach to situations also gave him the perfect mentality for business as well.  The business name he chose for the company was DC Motors.  The DC was short for Dick Cheney.  I couldn’t tell you why, but he had this fixation on Dick Cheney.  Juliet was a stock market savant, just without the autism part.  The last time I asked, she had about two million stashed away in offshore accounts and swiss banks.

I was the oddball among my siblings.  I didn’t have tons of money or anything like that.  I owned the streets of San Francisco.  I started off by starting up a drug trade in San Francisco to try and keep up with Jake and Juliet, but things were getting dicey.  I hated selling drugs.  Knowing what I was putting people through almost killed me with stress and self-hatred.  I just wanted to live up to Jake and Juliet.  I eventually changed up my tactics once I saw what my drugs were doing.  I only sold to existing users outside of the city.  I began taking advantage of an already broken system to make money.  Some pretty key people were in my payroll in the Police Department and city government.  At this point, all crime in the city was under my control.  As a result, I decided to clean up the streets.  I did a lot like set up rehabilitation clinics in the city, made boys and girls clubs, repaved streets, and prevented a power vacuum from forming. 

I still needed to make money and the best way to do that was through drugs.  As a result, I set up what I called Dream Lands in other cities.  I had local businesses pay me a fee for making druggies relocate to the Dream Lands and had the druggies pay me a fee for living in the Dream Lands.  Basically, these Dream Lands were safe places for doing their drugs.  They would be given measured amounts from carefully cooked batches.  Another thing:  I only sold to existing users.  No newbies and definitely no kids.  I couldn’t handle another kid dying from my drugs.

My brother and sister weren’t ecstatic when they found out what I was doing.  It was only to be expected after all.  However, when they saw the good I was doing, they begrudgingly accepted what I was doing.  On occasion, Jake and Juliet would ask me to lend them some of my people to help them convince some notable businessmen /stock brokers to invest in certain products or make certain deals with certain people.  It was shady stuff, but the worst thing my people have ever done to these notable businessmen/ stock brokers is they get a couple sleepless nights until they fell through with what Jake and Juliet want them to follow through with.

            “Adam, Jake, Juliet, come over and have your lunch!” Mom yelled over.

“Lunchtime, savages,” Dad echoed.  Savages was what he called the three of us.  It was just a little joke that he concocted in his head.

Dad was a Fire Inspector working for a really big corporation and my Mom did odd jobs for a local company.  She never took any of us to her work, but from what I gather, it isn’t quite pleasant.  Dad and Mom were both in the Military, and I think Dad was still enlisted, just not active.  I didn’t really understand what he did for the Military.  Something about reporting in every once and awhile.  He also went on trips for them as well.  It was all top-secret stuff that he couldn’t even tell his three kids about.

            We all ran back, Jake arriving last since he was six inches shorter than Juliet and I.  We were having pastrami sandwiches with some potato salad on the side. 

            “Jake, there isn’t any egg in the potato salad, ok?”

            “Thanks, mom.” He said through a mouthful of pastrami sandwich.  He was deathly allergic to egg, and had to constantly watch out for it.  Unfortunately, the list didn’t stop there.  He was that guy that people would say was allergic to life.  He couldn’t have eggs or soy because his throat swelled up, he was constantly sneezing around cats, couldn’t wear nickel belt buckles because they gave him a terrible rash, and had several other minor allergies that gave him hives.  It was a shame because he really liked eggs and all of his belt buckles were made of nickel.  There were treatments to get rid of these allergies if you had the money, and since Dad was only a Fire Inspector, we didn’t have the money for it.  He could have payed for it himself using the money he “earns” but it would be really suspicious if one day he was allergic to everything and the next he wasn’t.

            Dad was asking us questions about what movie we wanted to see that weekend, but I was only half paying attention.  I was looking out over the water, taking in the picturesque scenery of the sun at its apex over the Golden Gate Bridge.  The park was full of lush grass and wildflowers.  The path next to us was flanked by old oak trees that were covered in green leaves, which was to be expected from it being mid-summer.  There was an assortment of people today, from joggers to bicyclists to soccer moms walking their dogs.

            “Did you guys hear about the North Koreans mobilizing their troops?” My mom asked.

            “Yeah, my friends were talking about that.  We made bets on which part of California they would hit first.  I said Vegas.”  Jake said with a smirk.

            “How much money did you bet?”  I asked.

            “Five dollars.  I wasn’t too convinced that they were going to do it at all.  Probably gonna invade Russia or something.  They’re always mobilizing troops.”

            “You’re gonna lose no matter what you dope.  Vegas is in Nevada,” I laughed at his expression.

“Oh,” was all he could say.  Juliet and I laughed at the shocked look on his face.

“Don’t be so sure they won’t try to invade, Jake,” Dad intercedes before Juliet could taunt him.  “North Korea has been having a grudge match with us for as long as I can remember.  They just cannot be reasoned with.  Constantly manipulating their people into believing that they are the superior race of mankind.  They hate America so much because we’re more powerful than them and they know it.  What with the new technology we’ve been creating and our monster of a military, they’re probably too terrified to fight us and too proud to accept U.S. friendship, so instead they choose to hate us.”

            “But why would they listen to a leader like that.  You know, the Korean leader,” I inquired.

            “They are a communist country son.  They’re the only true communist country left I think.  It’s a government doomed to failure eventually.  But they are surviving only because China and Russia are supplying them with relief money, as both have Communist roots and want to see it succeed.”

            “I’d argue that it isn’t communism that’s doing this,” I replied.  “Communism itself should work, but the Koreans aren’t implementing it properly.”

Dad smiled.  “You know I fought against these assholes for ten years.  I could be a little biased, but Communism doesn’t work.  That same argument you just gave me has been used time and time again to justify using it.  Communism is great on paper.  Everybody pitches in and helps, but when has that ever worked?  You’ve done group projects before, right?”

“Yeah, but---” I began to say.

“There are no buts about it,” Dad continued.  “In every group project, most of the work falls one or two people.  Imagine that on a nationwide scale.”

“I can imagine it one a nationwide scale.  Communism is just an extreme form of socialism.  Look at Europe.  They have a descent working system.  Universal healthcare and all that.”

I looked over at Jake for some help.  He was completely focused on his food.  Probably trying to ignore our conversation.

“Do you know how much Europe taxes it’s citizens?” Dad asked me.  “And the government doesn’t completely control the free market like communism does.”

I was starting to get a little angry.  I was running the damn streets of San Francisco.  I had complete control over my people, and they didn’t even know about it.  I talked to my puppets, they gave my people money, and they did what I said.  How was that not like communism?  “What about the streets in San Francisco?  I’ve done some digging into that and a lot of these people are working for the same thing, working in tandem.  They are united against everyone else.”

Dad’s eyes narrowed, kind of like he new something.  “I’ve been keeping a close eye on that.  Those criminals are working for money.  And if they start slacking, they either get their pay cut or their throats cut.  That’s kind of like communism, at least the throat cutting part is.  But is that any way to live?”

“Whatever,” I mumbled.

Dad continued to talk.  “Regardless of what you think right now, with the way things are going in the world, I’m sure you’ll be seeing the effects of communism first hand soon enough.”

Jake’s head jerked up all of a sudden.  He had potato salad hanging from his mouth a little.  “I’m going to go check out some of the local fauna,” he said, slurping the potato salad into his mouth.  There were two very attractive women walking by that caught his attention. 

Still angry a little bit, I said, “I’ll go too.”

            Dad smiled sadly.  “Ok, behave yourselves.”

            “Okay,” I said.

            As we left, we hear Mom whispered to Dad, “Stop them, they could get into trouble or get hurt.”

            “You know as well as I do that they can handle themselves.”

            “That doesn’t mean they can pull out,” she said angrily.

What did Mom mean by that?  I didn’t have much time to give it thought though.  Those girls were smoke shows.

            The girl’s names were Kailey and Clara.  Kailey had blond hair with a beautiful smile and a great set of…eyes.  Clara was a brunette that had good legs and another great set of... eyes like Kailey's. 

            “So, what do you guys want to do?” Kailey asked.

            “How about we go to the beach?” I suggested.

            “Sounds like fun.” Kailey said with a smile.

            The beach was really fun.  We played some games like Marco polo and also chicken fights.  Jake and I didn’t bring any swim trunks, so we had to use our shorts instead.  It stunk because I really liked these shorts and the salt water destroyed them.  It was worth it though.  When we decided to leave, the girls wanted to meet up later that night.

            On the way back, Jake laughed.  “We can’t tell Mom about this.  She would freak out.”

            “True.”

            The walk back was a short one.  We saw our Dad in the car and waved.  He honked his horn and waved back.  We ran to the car which soon turned into an impromptu race.  I let Jake win this time, feeling generous.  As we climbed in the car with Jake panting hard and me just being awesome, Dad asked, “So how was it?”

            “Good, we just talked for a while and then went for a swim.”  Jake said.

            “Did you get their numbers?”

            “Yeah.  Come on Dad, that’s a given,” Jake said jokingly.

            “Well obviously, sorry for doubting,” Dad grinned.

            “Were they pretty?”  Juliet questioned.

            “No.”  Jake and I said, making sure to lay the sarcasm on thick, hoping to shut her up.

            “Then why did you go after the---,” Juliet began to say before Dad interrupted her.

            “Mind your own business, Juliet.”

            “Fine.”  Juliet crossed her arms and started to pout.

            “We will talk later boys.”

As we rolled up to the house, I couldn’t help but smile.  It was an old Dutch colonial house that was turned sideways to the street.  The paint was an eggshell white and I remember helping Dad put that paint on the house.  From the street, the roof was slanted like a barn’s roof with a small round window overlooking the street.  On the left side is a pathway leading to the front door and on the left was a more discreet path leading to the back door.  Around back was my backyard where it was very open but surrounded by trees.  In the very center was a cluster of trees that arch over the surrounding ground giving the area huge amounts of shade.

            When we got back to the house it was getting dark, so Jake and I went up to our room and crashed for the night.  I dreamt that I was running through the darkened streets of San Francisco at night.  This wasn’t the first time I’d had this dream either. It had been happening for the last six months, once or twice a week, but lately it was getting to be almost every night.  It always started out the same way.  I was always scared at the beginning.  I didn’t know what I was scared of, just that I had to keep running and not get caught.  Finally, the fear passed.  I stopped running at a dark alley every time I had this dream.  I was always the same freaking one.  A dumpster halfway down.  A street light by the entrance.  The far end was hidden by shadow.  I couldn’t even control my movements.  I was stuck staring into the darkness.  Every now and then I would catch movement out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t move my head in either direction to try and see whatever was moving.  Then I was overcome with a terrible sadness.  I just collapsed in my dream and cried and cried.  The ending was always different. It always ended with me being overwhelmed with a different emotion. This time I was sad. 

I didn’t want to mention it to Mom or Dad because they might think I was insane.  I told Jake about it once, but he wasn’t much help.  He just made a Dick Cheney joke and somehow started talking about if Jell-O was a solid or liquid.

I woke up to distant plasma gun fire.  It was pitch black out, but I could still make out the outlines of round parachutes in the sky and the plasma bolts being shot off on ground level.  Our house was in the suburbs of San Francisco, and the parachutes looked like they were over the city.

Jake and I exchanged a look and he ran to Juliet's room to check on her.  I grabbed my lock knife and ran to Mom and Dad’s room to find them huddled in the far side of the room at the wrong end of a gun.  Dad held my Mom in his arms and he was giving the man with the gun a defiant look.  He got up to charge the man, but the gun went off twice before he could get to his feet.  Mom and Dad lay on the ground with holes in their chests, already cauterized by the searing hot plasma bolt.  I gripped my knife in my right hand, overcome with rage, and jumped on the man that killed my parents.  I was half blind by the red-hot rage coursing through my veins.  I could feel nothing but anger and hate towards that one person in this one moment.  Nothing mattered but killing the man that killed my parents.  I brought my knife down with a vicious swing into the back of his neck, killing him instantly.  He collapsed to the ground like a rag doll.

            I rushed over to my parents.  Dad was still breathing, but Mom was as still as stone staring at something with eyes that couldn’t see.  Dad looked at me and said, “I love you so much.  Tell Jake and Juliet that I…” he paused and coughed up blood, “Tell them that I love them with all my heart.” He took in a shuddering breath, “The Specters should be here soon.  Get one of the guns and hide in the basement until they do.”  What were Specters?

            Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, “Please don’t go Dad.  I need you.”

            “It’s okay son, remember that your mother and I love you guys with all our heart.”

            “Don’t go Dad, please.”  As he took in his last breath, I said, “When you see Mom, tell her I love her.”  Why did I say that?  I didn’t even believe in God or an afterlife.

            Just before his eyes went blank, he winked in acknowledgement, then he died.  I wrapped my arms around both of them and submitted to overwhelming grief and despair.

Chapter 3.

I jump off the building after the woman, staying within arm’s reach of the side of the building.  My arms folded close to my sides, I streak through the air until I become level with the woman.  I quickly grab her, activate my anti-grav boots, and touch the building at the same time.  The world seems to flip and suddenly we are sliding across the side of the building as if it is flat ground.  I make sure to keep myself between her and the building. Finally, friction brings us to a stop and we lay there gasping. 

Making sure that I keep a firm hold on her, we stand up and look each other over.  She is dressed in rags that cover up every square inch of skin, probably to stop the sun from scorching her.  The only visible feature is her face which is stunning to say the least.  Her eyebrows are perfectly defined as if she had just gotten out of the hairdresser and her lips are on the thinner side but still full and voluptuous with a slight off pinkish color.  She has violet eyes and hair as black as the darkest night but retains a healthy sheen to it at the same time.  Her high cheekbones seem to make her eyes pop that much more.  But those eyes keep grabbing my attention.  They seem familiar, as if from a memory long forgotten.

What she sees is probably a shocking sight.  In my full shimmer cloak, I look like a white ghost.   My face is fully concealed by a pure white face visor with grey spots where my cheeks are, as well as three vertical slits where my mouth should be giving it a skull-like appearance.  It has seams in it where the visor breaks apart to retract into my head covering.  Since my cloak is Nano-tech, that’s there so as to mislead anyone who captures me into thinking those seams are a weak point.  In actuality, they are just as strong as any other part of my cloak.  My hair is covered in a snug, yet thick, white fabric.  It is almost like a combination of leather and silk.  The rest of my body is covered in the same skin-tight fabric.  To cover it all is a pure white cloak with the hood drawn over my head.  My sword---a leaf bladed xiphos---and dagger---a triangular bladed parazonium---are sheathed to the left side of my hip and my plasma handgun is in its magnetic holster to the right side.  The trademark plasma rifle of the Specters is in its travel mode, strapped to my back under my cloak.

“Hello, are you okay?” I ask.  “You took quite the fall back there.”

The shock is evident on her face.  “What are you? How did you do that?”

She is probably in shock.  Not many people know what a Specter looks like and we can be a very intimidating sight.  “My name is Adam Witicker.  I’m a special operative called a Specter.  Actually, the Specter now.  I used my shimmer cloak to become invisible and killed the Mutes.  What were you doing up there anyway?”  Her eyes light up when I say I’m a Specter.  She must know of us, meaning she’s some kind of Ghost in our organization.

“I-I’m Jessica.  I was trying to hide from those monsters.  What did you call them? Mutes?” I nod. “Well we were trying to hide from them but somehow they kept finding us.  My men, they all…” she trails off, lip quivering.

“It’s okay, I understand.  Keep going.”

She nods and continues.  “I ran up the stairs in the building to get away, but it was too late when I realized that I was cornered.  I shot at them, but one of them dove at my gun and jumped off the building with it.  Then you came to save me.  How did you stop us from falling?  How are we standing on the side of a building right now?  This is impossible.  Unless you have anti-grav bo...”  she trails off, realization dawning on her face.

Now I am officially confused.  Nobody knows about a Specter’s anti-grav boots.  Very few of our own people that weren’t fully fledged Specters even knew who we were.  This woman must be one of our scientists to know that anti-grav boots even exist.  But she isn’t a Specter.  I can tell that much just by looking at her.

Be careful around this one.

Give me some credit, I reply.  I’m careful around everyone.

You weren’t careful around Him.

I hate it, but he’s right.  Neither were you.  There was no other reply. 

“You are just full of surprises, aren’t you?” I say to Jessica.  “Not many people know that anti-grav boots exist.  But what I want to know is why you are in this city at all. You obviously haven’t been living here for the last two years because you should have been killed by the Mutes already.  So, I’ll ask again, why are you here?” 

“I came here to try and find something.  Something very powerful.  It is someplace to the north of here.  I was coming here with my guards to restock my supplies, but the Mutes found us before we could.  My guards sacrificed themselves so I could escape, but…” she trails off.

What thing is this she’s talking about? “I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, feigning sincerity.  I would normally have a little more empathy, but there are more pressing things at hand.

Your brother really rubbed off on you.

Shut up.

Stop being so crass then.

Once you stop being a dick.

“Thanks.”

“How powerful is this thing?” I ask, trying to move things along.

“Um, do you remember the Northeast before the war?”

I nod. 

“Well, it’s powerful enough to power that whole area, and then some.”

“Wow.  That must be quite the power source.  Now it begs the question.  Why would you need something that powerful?”

“I come from a Research Base that was founded before the nuking.  Its purpose was to develop advanced technology and weapons for the Specters.  The base was top secret, so it wasn’t a target for the bombs.  Now, we’re working on a device that can restore the environment to its previous state before this wasteland.  It’s almost complete, but it needs a power source that can support its energy needs.  That’s why I need it.”

            This woman is telling the truth.  She is part of the research team that invented my entire arsenal of weapons and tech.  No wonder she knows about the boots.  Most of her base wasn’t told about the intentions the Specters had for the tech they designed, so that’s probably why she didn’t know I have anti-grav boots right out of the gate.

Just as I finish thinking this, I feel a piercing pain on the back of my head and the familiar tingling at the bottom of my neck.  I look up just in time to see a brick falling down at me.  I jump out of the way and feel the pain across my face as I move.  The Mutes are dropping bricks on us. 

“Hold on tight,” I warn as I pick her up and turn us both invisible.  I use a little trick I learned in the academy to turn something, or in this case someone, else invisible too.  There is a cut on my leg and a pain in my arm accompanied with the tingling on the back of my neck, so I jump out of the way as more rocks rain down on us.  There is a whole hoard of Mutes now, all of them dropping rocks.  I have to run.  And fast.

I run across the side of the building to a ledge that would normally be a corner.  There is another building, shorter than the rest, directly below me.  If I time it right, I should be able to land on the roof of that building using the momentum from the gravity shift.  I back up a little and run off the edge.  I fall fast, and about halfway, I turn off my anti-grav boots and we revert to the normal gravitational orientation.  Now instead of falling, we are being propelled to the other building.  It is a fifty-foot drop to the roof from here, so my cloak should absorb most of the impact, but it will still hurt.  A lot.

I land hard on my back, trying to roll out of the fall but Jessica is in the way and we both go sprawling across the building’s roof with me taking the majority of the impact.  “Are you okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, just a little cut and bruised.  Nothing major.  But I should be asking you that question.  That was easily a fifty-foot drop.  How on earth did you survive that?”

“I guess I’m just lucky.” I reply, not exactly telling the truth. My shimmer cloak; hood, cape, body suit and all, acts like a solar panel does with light, except, like my sword and dagger, it absorbs all types of energy around it using Nano technology.  It converts heat, light, electrical, and nuclear energies the best, but it also absorbs kinetic, chemical, and sound adequately. It powers all my cloak’s systems and my weapons along with my anti-grav boots and Holo-ring.  She probably doesn’t know about shimmer tech.

“Yeah, okay,” she says, the doubt evident in her voice.  “So, I guess this is where we part ways.”

“Yeah, um, not really.  You are going to come with me back to a little town called Purgatory where we’re going to plan our next move.”

“You’re going to help me?”

“Yeah.  If you can fix the world from the hellhole that it’s become, then I want to help anyway that I can.  Plus, you would probably step off a building again if I wasn’t there to literally bend gravity to save you.”  I also think she is kind of hot in a desert scavenger sort of way.

“I guess I could use the help.”

“Yes, you do.  So now we go and get my dog,” I tell her with a grin.

“Your what?” she asks incredulously.

Chapter 4.

Jake came in the doorway to my parents’ bedroom. Juliet was a few feet behind him.  I looked up from my parents and gave him a look telling him to keep Juliet out of the room.  Jake’s face went white and he disappeared around the doorway and reappeared a few seconds later.

“What happened?” Jake whispered as his eyes get glassy and his voice cracked. 

“There was a man dressed all in black.  He was pointing a gun at Mom and Dad, and Dad went to attack him, but before he could even stand up the guy killed him and Mom.”  I started to cry just then.  “I killed him Jake.  I stabbed him in the neck.”  I kept on crying and gestured to the guy.  Jake came over and hugged me and I buried my head in his shoulder.  That’s when Juliet called out if it was safe.

“Hold on,” Jake called back.  “We can’t let Juliet see them like this,” he said to me in a lower tone.

“Your right.  Let’s move the guy under the bed and lay Mom and Dad on the ground.”

“Okay.”  The work was bitter and tears were shed.  I stripped the gear off the man and set it to the side, then I stuffed him under the bed.  We left Mom and Dad in the room and closed the door behind us.  Juliet was waiting at the end of the hall with a baseball bat in her hands, poised for action.  “Juliet, Mom and Dad are dead,” Jake managed to choke out

“What?”  She asked, her face going pale and dropping the bat to the floor.

“They’re dead, Juliet,” I said grimly.  I would have started to tear up, but there was something far worse brewing in my gut.

Juliet collapsed to the floor and cried.  Jake and I both went over to her and hugged her, telling her everything would be okay.

“Let me see them,” Juliet said after she sniffled and stood up.

“Follow us,” I replied flatly. 

We led her into the room where she instantly raced over to hug Mom and Dad.  Jake did as well because he didn’t get the chance before.  I just stood there, thinking about the dead man under the bed. 

That feeling in my gut.  The twisting and turning of my intestines.  The bubbling of stomach acid and bile in my throat.  The oppressive weight pressing in on all sides making me retreat into a ball on the floor.  I couldn’t believe I killed a man.  Who was I to take another person's life like that.  I understood that he was probably going to kill the rest of my family, but I wasn’t thinking about that.  It was raw, visceral, blinding wrath that drove me.  He killed my parents.

As I was thinking about all this, the feeling in my gut was getting more and more intense.  It felt like my intestines were tied into several knots.  It was almost too much to bare.  My hands began to shake.  My brain was swimming in circles as if I were moving through black, boiling tar.  I started to sweat and shiver at the same time.  Finally, the rising bile and my stomach contents found their way to my mouth and I threw up.  My mind seemed to snap and I passed out with a flash of white.  Something had changed

I had the running dream again.  Running from something.  It was like the first time, except different.  I was still scared out of my mind.  I knew it was catching up.  Finally, I felt something claw my back from my left shoulder to my right hip.  I gasped and turned to face what was attacking me.  Nothing was there, but even scarier than that, there was no wound from the clawing on my back.  I stood there for a few seconds, gasping for breath and then something jumped out of the darkness.  It raked my chest instead of my back.  The pain was as excruciating as it was the first time, but this time there were deep gashes left by the claws.  What I saw above me however, was worse than any pain that I may have been feeling.  It was a monster from hell itself.  It had the body of a Rottweiler, except ten feet tall and covered in black fur.  Its paws were as big as dinner plates with claws the size of cutting knives.  But it’s face was the worst.  It was flat and covered in shorter black fur.  It had a mouth that was stretched in a grin from one side of its face to the other and filled with razor sharp teeth.  The mouth was framed by folds in the skin from the smile.  It had two slits in the middle of its face that served as its nostrils.  But the eyes were too terrible to have been imagined.  They were a deep red with specks of black in them.  The part that made them so terrifying was the malice that they carried.  It was as if I had raped, killed, mutilated and disposed of a hundred people, and this creature was here to make me pay for it.

Its grinning mouth opened wide enough to engulf me, which is exactly what It did.  It moved its mouth over my head and I could only wait as the oncoming darkness surrounded me.  Then everything went white.

I woke up drenched in sweat.  Jake was sitting in the corner of the basement, with the guy’s plasma rifle across his lap, standing guard.  He must have been there for a while because dark circles were forming under his eyes from exhaustion.  Juliet was asleep on the basement couch, covered in a quilt.

“What time is it?” I asked groggily.

“You’re awake!” Jake exclaimed.  “I was worried out of my mind,” he continued in a lower voice so he didn’t wake Juliet.  “What happened to you? Why did you pass out?”

“That man I killed.  I didn’t kill him because I had to.  I did it because I wanted to.  He killed Mom and Dad and I just got so angry that I couldn’t stop myself.”  My hands started to shake and I was getting cold sweats again.

“Woah, woah, woah dude.  Relax,” Jake said.  “Take a deep breath. Good.  Now, do you think you could have stopped yourself?”

“No.”

“Okay.  Do you remember when we were learning about fight, flight, or freeze in biology?”

“Yeah,” I said, beginning to see where he was going with this.

“Good.  So, you know the fight, flight or freeze reflex is controlled by your genes, and you’re feeling guilty for killing that man?  That’s saying you’re feeling guilty for your eyes being blue, or you being able to run at mark five.”  That last one brought a smile to my face.  “So, you just need to realize that you’re a fighter, not a runner or a freezer.”

“But I killed him, Jake.”

“I know.  That’s part of being a fighter, but that doesn’t mean you’re a murderer.”

“Okay, you’re right.”

“I know I am.”

“Dick,” I said with a smile.  He really was right.  I needed to move on for now.

“Dick Cheney,” he said offhanded.  “So, what do we do now?”

“Dad said to stay down in the basement until the Specters got here.”

“What in the hell are Specters?” Jake asked.

“I have no idea,” I reply.  “Whatever they are, we should probably wait for them if Dad told us to.”

“But the soldiers are everywhere.  We need to get out of here.”  He’s right, but he’s also tired.

“That may not be the best choice.  We should wait to decide.  You’re dead tired, and I’m exhausted.”

“How? You slept for fourteen hours.  You should be wide awake.”

“It wasn’t exactly restful.  I had a nightmare.”

“Seriously?” He said with a smirk.  “A nightmare?” he teased, like it was super serious but was just being an ass.

“I’m serious.  But it wasn’t a normal nightmare.  It seemed so real.”  Jake was beginning to get serious now and motioned for me to elaborate.  “I was running down a dark street until I came to an alley.”

“Wait,” Jake interrupted, “is this the same dream you told me about before?”

“Yeah.  So, I was running down the alley, and that was where I felt something claw at my back, but when I turned around there was no claw mark there.  After a few seconds something scratched me on my chest right where it would have scratched me if I hadn’t turned around.  It felt just like it did the first time.  The thing that clawed at me looked like a freaking hell hound dude.  Its eyes were the worst part though.  It wanted to make me hurt.”  I was starting to shake now.  “It seemed so real.”

“Was this the first time something like this happened?”

“No.  I've had dreams like this for the past six months but this was the first time something else was in the dream. Not every night, but at least twice a week.  I had one last night.  You know, just before the attack.  I was still running down the same street and stopped at the same alley.  I was scared just like the last one.  But when I stopped at the alley, I just collapsed and started to cry.  I was just so sad.  Exactly like when Mom and Dad died…”  I started to trail off as I realized the connection.  In all my dreams, I just now realized, the emotion I had was always tied to the next day.  I remember in one of them, I was so angry at the end.  The next day, I found out a group of my people were selling to kids.  I was so angry that I almost gave them a sample of their own medicine.  Something was holding me back though… almost like a voice in the back of my head telling me not to.  However, the anger from the dream was the same as the anger I felt when I got news of the sale.  I told Jake this.

“Oh my god.” Jake exclaimed sarcastically.  “Do you think you can tell the future?”

“No,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm.  “It’s more like a feeling.  Like if I have a bad feeling in the dream, then something bad will happen the next day.”

“It could just be a coincidence.”

“Maybe, but it just seemed too real to be a dream.”

“That sounds crazy, even to me.  It’s probably just a weird thing going on in your head.”

“Whatever.  What time is it anyway?”

“About three in the afternoon.  Why?

“And you’re saying it’s been fourteen hours since I passed out?”

“Yeah.”

“You must be exhausted.  Get some sleep and I’ll keep watch.”

“But-”

“Don’t argue, I also want to think some stuff through.”

“Fine.”  He walked over to the corner where I woke up and curled up in the blankets.  He was snoring lightly within seconds.  I went over to the corner where Jake had been sitting, picked up the plasma rifle, and sat down. 

Why was I having these dreams?  They seemed so weird.  It was probably the scariest thing I had ever seen.  There was no way my subconscious could have imagined that naturally.  Could they have been premonitions?  I remembered hearing about people who have dreams of crashing in planes the night before a flight.  They decided not to go, and then the next day they hear about that exact plane crashing.  But these dreams seemed too broad to be like that.  They were more like vague warnings than anything.  But what was it?  It didn’t seem like a warning at all.  It seemed more like something evil.  Like it was trying to claw its way into my mind.  I couldn’t let that happen.  I didn’t want to know what it would be like if it got in.

These thoughts kept swirling in my head until I had enough and had to clear my head.  I took a deep breath and stopped thinking.  It was a strange feeling when I stopped thinking.  My mind would buzz for a couple minutes and then it would begin to drift elsewhere.  I began to think of the soldiers and who they were.  Why they were attacking in the first place.  I didn’t notice any markings on the guy’s clothes when Jake and I moved him under the bed.  I decided it wouldn’t hurt to go up and check out the guy’s face.

I walked up the two flights of stairs, avoiding walking next to any windows so that no one would see me from outside. I couldn’t hear anything outside, but I didn’t want to risk it. 

When I got upstairs I went down the hallway to my parents’ room.  I stepped inside and saw a blanket with two lumps under it.  Jake must have covered Mom and Dad up after I passed out.  I dragged the guy out from under bed and felt a pang of guilt, so I took in a deep breath and relaxed.  The man’s face was covered in a balaclava with night vision goggles, so I pried off the goggles and rolled up the balaclava.  I gasped when I saw his face.  He was oriental.  His face was lean and trim with a mustache growing in.  But the part that made me gasp was the tattoo on his cheek.  It was in Korean.  The Koreans would tattoo ranks and serial numbers on their soldiers faces so they could be easily identified.  I couldn’t read what it said, but the message was clear.  The North Korean Invasion of San Francisco had begun.

That’s when I heard the front door get kicked in.

Chapter 5.

            “Hi buddy, what’s up?”  I say playfully to the dog.  He trots over and I bend down to pet him.  “Did you see any more baddies?”  I ask.

“Roof” He barks.

“Good!”  I exclaim.  Then I untie the rope from the pole.

“I still can’t believe we came all the way up here for a German Shepard,” Jessica complains.

“Hey, he’s man’s best friend.  I was also getting kind of lonely, what with being the last Specter in existence and all.  Plus, I did save you.”

“You do realize this is a dog, right?”  Jessica asks a little perturbed, probably ignoring the last thing I said.

Yeah, do you?

“And yet he’s surprisingly good company,” I reply to them both.

Jessica is at a loss for words.

“So, you ready to get out of here or what?”

“Okay, sounds good.  But how are you going to carry both me and the dog to switch gravitational orientation?”

“Oh, I’m not carrying you, I’m carrying the dog.  You’re going to ride on my back.”

“Oh no.  Not gonna happen.  Can’t you just make two trips?”

“Nope.  It would take too long.  I want to get to Purgatory as fast as possible.  They need some supplies and I’m also running low on drinking water.”

“Fine.”

            She hops on my back, arms wrapped around my chest.  I go over to the dog and pick him up.  His chest is puffed out, mouth open and tongue hanging out.  I think I’ll call him Kalkan.  

“Everyone ready?”  I ask.

“Yep.”

“Roof!”

“Okay, here we go.”

I walk up to the ledge, and stand there with my toes barely over the edge.  I breath in the fresh air and take a step off the ledge, keeping my legs straight.  As I fall forward, the foot I stepped off with contacts the side of the building and we all switch gravity orientation.  I set Kalkan down, keeping a tight hold on the rope tied to him.  Jessica hops off my back.  I grab her wrist and we begin the walk down.

“So, what do you look like under that mask of yours?”  Jessica asks out of the blue.

“Uh, what?”  I reply dumbly.

“What does your face look like.  I’ve almost died three times in the past half hour and I have no idea what you look like.”

I told you to be careful.  Don’t do it.

Oh my god!  What’s she going to do if she sees my face?  Kidnap our family?

That’s not funny.

That humbles me a little.  I know, sorry.

I use my neural interface to lift my visor.  It doesn’t actually lift.  It splits into about ten pieces and slides back onto my head covering, sort of merging with it.  As it does, it turns from its normal rock-hard state to a stiffly malleable state similar to the head covering. 

“Good to finally meet you” she laughs.

“Nice to meet you too,” I grin.

Jessica begins to look around.  “I get that you’re a Specter and all, but could all of them really do this?” she asks in wonder.

“No.  Some of them, like my brother, could teleport short distances.”

Your plan might pay off.

Hopefully.  I need to gain her trust a little.  If I give a little information now, I’ll get a lot later.

“You have a brother?”  She asks.

“Had.  He was a Specter like me.  He died from a twisted experiment on his brain.”

“What was he like?”

“He was a vicious fighter and a brilliant mechanic.  He also saved my life more than once.”

“He sounds like he was a great man.”

“He was an even better brother.”

“I know this isn’t my business, or even appropriate, but are your parents still alive?”  She asks with an empathetic look on her face.

“No, they died in the invasion.”

“Oh.”

“What about your family?  Are any still around?” I ask.

“Yeah, my brother is actually in charge of the Research Base, but my parents were caught in a radiation zone.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” she replies with a slight sniffle, “but my brother will freak out when he sees you.”

“I hope to meet him soon.”  I say with enthusiasm.

As we near the street, I pick up Kalkan to switch gravity orientation.  Jessica and I both step onto the street.  She stumbles forward, not accustomed to the switch.  I catch a patch of clothing on her back just before she hits the ground and lift her back to her feet.

“Thanks,” she says.

“No problem.”

“How are we going to get out of here?  You can’t turn both me and the dog invisible.”  Jessica asks as we round a corner.

“Sure, I can.  But you need to hop on my back again.”

“Okay.”

The combined weight of both Jessica and Kalkan wouldn’t have been too heavy to carry if I was just walking, but running for any distance would be an issue.  My cloak can help me out a lot with that though.  I can carry two or three times more than the average person due to its gravity dampers.  I flip my visor forwards, and hear Jessica gasp when she turns invisible.  I take off at a fast jog towards Purgatory.

We encounter a few Mutes on the way out of the city.  They turn their heads in our direction when they smell Jessica and Kalkan, but are too confused by the lack of owners to the scents, then we are too far away for them to do anything when they figure it out.

After we’re a few miles away from the city, I turn my shimmer cloak off and set them down.  Even with the cloak helping me, I am out of breath and covered in sweat.

“Wow, that must have been five or six miles!” Jessica exclaims.

“Yeah, I can usually run all day at that pace, but Kalkan was a little awkward to carry.”  This isn’t the total truth.  I hadn’t slept in a week.  I rarely sleep when I’m out in the wasteland.

“Kalkan?”  Jessica asks.

“Oh yeah, I decided to name the dog Kalkan.”

“Okay then, why not.” She says with a grin.

“It’s starting to get dark out.  We’re going to have to set up camp.”

“Okay, so you have a tent in your purse, right?”

“Yea-, wait, how do you know I have a purse?”  I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Come on, seriously?  My Research Base invented shimmer tech.  We also invented the anti-grav boots, along with pocket dimension capabilities.  We weren’t told what for.  We were only developing the weapons to be sold, and we were paid good too.  We saw Specters around the base every once in a while, but we didn’t actually know what kind of gear they had.  We just thought they were making sure we were still running the straight and narrow.  Now I know my base basically outfitted you.” 

“I knew it was a matter of time before you figured it out, I just wanted to see how long it would take.”

You’re playing a dangerous game.

How?

She could know some of your cloaks weaknesses if she designed it.

She doesn’t have any guns on her anymore.  I doubt she has the brute strength to knock me out with my cloak on either.

She might have friends trailing her.

It’s a risk I have to take.

“Well, how long were you expecting?”  She asks with a hint of venom.

“Not this long,” I grin.

I thought for sure she was about to smack me, but instead she laughs.  It completely disarms me but I start to laugh as well.  After a couple seconds she manages to say, “So how about that tent?”

            “Sure, but you’re cooking.”

            “Obviously.  I’m a scientist and cooking is basically a set of chemical reactions.”

            “Good, cause I got a couple of granola bars, some spam, and a ton of canned veggies that may or may not be spoiled already.”

            “You’re not exactly making it easy to cook for you.”

            “Take it or leave it, honey.”

            After the campsite was all set up and the food was cooked, we sat by the campfire and ate.  I fed the fire a little from our stack of dried out wood.  There are enough dead bushes in the Waste to make a sizeable stack.  Collecting the wood had given me the perfect opportunity to place laser trip wires surrounding the campsite for about fifty yards in all directions.  We were in a relatively open space, so the trip wires were just there to make sure my six was covered.  I had taken off my visor and lowered my hood and head covering before I sat by the fire, but still kept on my cloak.  You never know when you will need it.

            “You did a great job on the spam.” I say through a mouthful of food.

“You have a great eye for spam,” she laughs.  “This was prime bacon flavored.”

“I’m glad you find that funny,” I smirk.

“What were you planning on doing with it?”

“I was probably going to leave it as it is.”

“That’s gross.  Why not cook it?”

            “I don’t always have the time to cook my food.  It’s just fuel nowadays.”

            “Sounds like you’ve had it rough.” she said with a tone of sympathy.

            “You have no idea.”

            “Well you must have some stories you can tell me.  You know, about being a Specter and going on dangerous missions.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you about that.”

“Oh,” she says sadly.

“It’s nothing against you,” I say quickly, “but I took an oath of secrecy when I joined the Specters.  I’ve only revealed as much as I have to you since you were from that Research Base.”

“But all the Specters are all gone,” she tells me.

“I know.  That doesn’t mean I can betray that oath.”  It’s not that I don’t mind breaking the oath, it’s that I really don’t trust her at all.

And you shouldn’t.

Stop listening to my internal monologue!

No.

“It’s okay,” she says glumly, staring at the ground.

            The silence continues like that for a few minutes until I break it.  “You should get some sleep.  I’ll take the first watch.”

            “Okay. Wake me up when it’s my turn to watch.”

            I grunt in acknowledgement.  I have no intention of waking her up.  Now that I am alone with my thoughts, I begin to think about the events today.  My mentors always told me to look over the day's events to see if I can find anything that I may have missed before.  The whole situation with Jessica seems a little too odd.  I know that she said she is working on a device to repair the environment, but it just seems too good to be true.  She said that it could power the entire North East, which was basically one large city before the bombing.  Nothing short of nuclear fusion could power something like that.  There were only three nuclear fusion reactors ever made and they were all lost in the bombing.  And even if one did survive, there is no way one person could transport one.  In fact, they were so massive, I’m not sure a million people could transport one in one lifetime.  This thing must be extremely powerful.  There is something mysterious going on here, and I am going to find out what she is doing here.

            The next day, we pack up camp and continue on our way.  Kalkan following us quietly as we talk.

`           “I can’t believe you stayed up all night!  How did you manage?”  Jessica asks in amazement.

            “I learned a thing or two to relax my mind from the Specter Corp.  The therapists I saw as a kid helped a little too,” I explained, realizing, too late, that I said too much.

            “What do you mean?  Why were you seeing therapists?” 

            “Nothing, forget I said anything.”

            We continue walking for several minutes in silence until a question pops into my head.

“What do you guys do at the research facility nowadays.”

            She stiffens when I ask.  She must not have been expecting that.  Or she doesn’t have a lie prepared.

            “Well, uh… like I told you, we are working on a way to restore the environment.”

            “Oh yeah, the device.  How exactly does it work?”  I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with here.

            “Well, it’s hard to explain.  I was never part of designing it.  My brother just sent me to find the power source and retrieve it for him.”

“But why would your brother risk your life, his sister’s life, for a stupid piece of machinery?

“Because I was the only one he could trust that had the knowledge to fix any damage to the core.  My guards only knew we were going to get something important for the base.  You see, there are rumors of a rebel faction that wants to use the Research Base’s resources to make a bio bomb.  I’m not sure how they would go about doing it, and we don’t even know who they are.  But for now, they are content to just work in silence and talk about mutiny.  My brother just wanted to be sure that the power source will return to the base safely, so he sent me.”

            “Well, sounds like you have quite a problem on your hands.  I would be happy to help, after we get the power source of course.  But I’ve been thinking, to power a device that would repair this hell hole, it would need an immensely powerful source of energy.  Nothing short of nuclear fusion could power it.  So, what exactly is it?”

            “You’re smarter than I thought Adam.”  Excuse me?  I’m probably smarter than half the know-it-alls at that damn base.  My talents were just placed elsewhere.

Just what I was thinking.

Right?

That was a joke.

Screw you. 

“You’re right of course,” Jessica continues, oblivious of the interruption.  It wouldn’t have made any sense for her to hear it anyway.  It was in my head after all.  “You would need a very powerful energy source to power the device.  The research team that I work for was working on a smaller version of the fusion reactor before the war.  We were able to assemble it, but needed something to jump start the whole thing, so we sent it to one of the existing fusion reactors.  It was a complete success.  The convoy that it was being transported in was a small army.  The truck it was contained in would have repelled anything short of an atomic bomb.  Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened.  The reactors were a target from the beginning, and the one that it was activated at was the first one to get bombed.  It was far enough away from the reactor by then for the container to just barely protect the mini reactor, but the entire convoy was wiped out.  Now it's in the middle of a hive."

Crap, I think to myself. Hives are where Mutes are the most concentrated and also where they are greatest in numbers.  The city I rescued Jessica from was actually in the process of turning into a Hive.  I could see the progression of it being abandoned completely to there being Mutes on every street corner.  It’s only a matter of time before that city becomes a full-blown Hive.

“My brother also sent me because I took part in designing the reactor and would be able to stabilize it if it was damaged from the explosion.”

“Sounds like a suicide mission to me.  Your brother’s plan is flawed and not well thought out.  He’s probably never even seen a Mute hive.”

“What are they like?”  She asks with a note of fear in her voice.

“You’ve been to the bee farms that used to be around right?”  The bee farms were acres of honeycomb, bees, and flowers, all mushed together.  The honeycomb would rise of the ground as high as ten feet in mounds.  Bees filled the air till it got to the point where you had to wear a special suit with its own oxygen supply so you could breath.  Then there were the flowers.  They were genetically altered to appeal to the bees and produce maximum amounts of pollen and nectar for the bees to make honey with.  These flowers basically made up the surface of the ground.

“Yeah.  Who hasn’t.”  She said with a look of confusion.

“Well, imagine the honeycomb as the buildings in a city.  Then imagine the bees as Mutes.  Now imagine the flowers as bones and decomposing bodies.  That pretty much sums up what a hive is.  And my guess is that the reactor is at the very center of the hive.  Your brother would never have gotten near the reactor, even if he had an army at his disposal.”

“So, what should we do?”  She asks.

“You have me.  I’m better than an army.  I’m a Specter.  I’m the last Specter.”

Chapter six.

I tiptoed down the hallway to try and get to Jake and Juliet.  I’d kill the Koreans if I had to.  Son of a bitch!  I left the rifle downstairs like an idiot!  My knife was still lodged in the guy’s neck, so I took my Dad’s boa knife instead.  As I walked down the hall, I heard somebody coming up the stairs.  Quickly.  I jumped into a bedroom and hid in the closet.  There was a lot of laundry laying on the ground, so I piled it on top of me.  I felt cowardly for hiding, but if I got killed trying to get to Jake and Juliet, that wouldn’t do them any good.  All I could hope for was that Jake was woken up by the crashing and he hid Juliet and himself behind the gun safe.  The closet the gun safe was in was kind of hard to notice since it was under the stairs. Dad put it in that closet specifically because it is so hard to notice.  There was a hole that the gun safe covered that Jake and Juliet could probably fit in.

I sat in that closet waiting for the Koreans to come in.  I heard them stomping around the second floor till one of them found the guy.  I knew that because I heard shouting and the rest of the upstairs squadron converged to the shouts. 

After a couple minutes, they continued their search of the house.  One of them entered the room I was hiding in, padding lightly on the carpeted floor.  I felt a drip of sweat slide down my face but dared not to wipe it, much less move.  The steps stopped in front of the closet door and I completely stopped breathing.  The anxiety of being found was too much.  I felt as if I were about to burst.

A thought came to mind and I almost shat myself.  The Koreans were most likely looking for weapons and the hole was covered by a gun safe.  They’re probably going to have to move it.  But first they would have to find it.  Right now, Dad’s secretive thinking was the only thing keeping Jake and Juliet alive.

The Korean outside of the closet door began to twist the handle.  I could hear the rusty creak as he did so.  The hinges squeaked as the door swung open.  The only protection I had was the pile of clothes covering my body.  The Korean prodded my pile, the blow landing in between my legs.  That could have been really bad.  He seemed satisfied and moved on out of my room.

For another twenty agonizing minutes, the search continued and then they left.  I never heard Juliet or Jake screaming, so I hoped they weren’t discovered.  As soon as they left, I sprinted downstairs to the basement.  I ripped open the closet door with the safe and pried it off the wall.  I probably should have asked if Jake was there before I took it off the wall, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.  The moment the safe came off the wall, Jake jumped on me like some gorilla from hell.

He recognized it was me before he could beat my face into pulp.  “It’s me, bro,” I said frantically.

He got off me and offered me a hand.  “Sorry dude.  Next time lead off with that.”

I grabbed his hand and he hauled me to my feet.  “I need to tell you guys something.”  I explained how I had found out that it was the Koreans invading.

            “Oh my God,” Jake gasped when I told him what I found out.  Juliet was on the couch trying to calm down.  This thing really got into her head.

            “Yeah,” I agreed.

            “What should we do?”  He asked.

            “We need to get out of here.”

            “But Dad said to wait for the Specters.”  Jake countered.

            “I know dude.  But have you seen what they do to American women?  They're savages,” I explained.

            “Oh my God,” Jake said for the second time in as many minutes.  “Juliet.  We have to leave.”

            “Okay, but let's leave in two hours.  I want the chance to dream before we leave.”

            “We don’t even know that your dreams tell the future Adam.”

            “They don’t tell the future, they warn me about the future.”

            “Whatever.  It could just be a coincidence.”  Jake countered.

            “Me and you both know that I can Jake!”  I yelled.

            “Okay, lower your voice.  Maybe you can, maybe you can’t.  What good is an emotion going to do for us?”

            “We’ll know what to look for.  Just trust me.  I may not even have the dream tonight.”

            “Fine.  Go dream about the future, master oracle.  I’ll take over the watch.  Get some sleep, then we can leave.”  Jake finished.

            We went back downstairs and Jake and I swapped places.  He took to the corner while I curled up in the blankets.  I was dreading seeing It again.  But I had to face It.  For Juliet.

            I took a deep breath and calmed my mind.  After a few minutes, my mind began to drift off to the land of dreams.  I was running down the dark street again, feeling that crushing fear, and stopped in the alley.  I looked to my right and saw Its shadow, which is weird because everything was already dark.  The shadow was just darker.  There was a clawing in my back again, but instead of turning around, I jumped out of the way.  It landed soundlessly beside me. 

            “So, you’re learning.”  It said in a gruff, gravelly, deep voice, turning towards me.  Its eyes were a gentle yellow with coal black specks in them now.  I felt less threatened by it.  "You can talk?”  I gasped in amazement.

            “Of course.  I’m a part of your mind.  What you know, I know.  What I know, you will find out.”

            “Why did you attack me last time I saw you?”  I asked, now thoroughly confused.

            “I needed to hurry.  The emotions you felt were me manifesting myself into your mind.  I still needed a longer time to manifest, but things changed when the Koreans landed.  I had to talk to you face to face, so I rushed the process by attacking you,” it explained as it sat down in front of me, visibly shrinking so he was about the same size as one of the werewolves from that old movie called Twilight.

            “What are you?” I finally asked.

            “Do you know what your reflex is?”

            “Yes, why would I not?”

            “Well, instead of reacting to a situation after it happens, you react to a situation before it happens.  That is what I am.”

            “You’re my Preflex?”  I asked, disbelief in my voice.

            “If you want to call me that, sure,” my Preflex said.

            “Okay, so what do you do exactly?” I questioned, wondering the full extent of my Preflex’s power.

            “I warn you before harm falls on you.  While I was growing in strength, I presented myself as emotions that warn you of danger in the near future so that I could exercise my power in a discrete way without scarring your mind.  But now, I can warn you of danger immediately before it happens.  Give or take two or three seconds.”

            “Can I ask you a question?”

            “Well of course.  You can ask for advice from me whenever you go to sleep and even when you are awake at times.”  This was more than just a new sense.  This was a being in my head.

“How does my power actually work?  This seems too good to be true.”

“You are absolutely right.  This power has a very large cost.  You will feel the full pain of the attack before it is delivered until you get out of the way.  So, if somebody was going to shoot you, you would feel it all the way up until it hit you, then you would experience the pain as it is in the present.  However, you will also feel me in the back of your neck, telling you it is your gift at work.  It will feel like a tingling in your neck as if someone is watching you, but you can’t see them.”

            “Like when you attacked me.  I felt the attack before it actually happened.  But what about the tingling sensation?”

            “Since this is in your head, and I was the one attacking you, there was nothing to give you the sensation.  By attacking you in that way, I rushed the process of my manifestation.  It would have taken another month for me to be at full strength versus the two times I attacked you.” 

            “Oh.”  I said as I realized that I had gained a very powerful friend.  “Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?”

“As I said, I didn’t want to scar your mind.  If I had done that right when I first woke up, you would have gone into a vegetative state.  I was far enough along in the process where I could do this without any serious repercussions.”

“This is kind of a lot to take in,” I said.

            “I know it is, and we will continue to talk about it later.  Until then, it is about time that you woke up.  You’ve been asleep for about an hour and a half and your brother has been doing for the last half hour.  And remember.  When the whole world is against you, I will be there at your side.”  I was taken aback.  That was something Dad would always say to me when I was having trouble with bullies.

            “Thank you,” I said, overcome with a sudden sensation of trust for this creature living in my head.  I ran over to my Preflex to hug him.  When I stepped back, he was giving me a gentle smile.

            “Go.  Wake up and save your sister.  But remember, your ability will give you the full pain of the attack,” he repeated.

            “I will,” I said with a smile.  Then everything turned white, and I woke up.

            Jake was dozing in the corner, so I walked over and woke him up.

            “What? What is it?  I’m awake,” he claimed.

            “Uh, no you weren’t, but that doesn’t matter.  I talked to it.”

            That got his attention.  “You what?”

            “I talked to it.  He called himself my Preflex.  He explained what he can do.  He-”

            “Is this the same thing that attacked you in your dream?”

            “Yeah, but he was just trying to finish manifesting in my brain or something.”  I paused to see if he was going to reply, but instead gestured for me to continue.  “Anyway, he will allow me to feel an attack before it actually happens.”

            He just looked at me.  Finally, he grinned.  “Hahaha!” he laughed.

            “Hey!  I’m serious, cut it out!”  I yelled.  This woke up Juliet.

            “What’s going on guys?  Why are you yelling?”  she asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

            “Adam over here thinks he can tell the future.  Calls it his Preflex,” Jake giggled.  “This nutjob is fruitier than me.”

            “Really dude?  I’ll prove it.  Let’s have a wrestling match.”  I challenged.  He finished his third year of wrestling this year as opposed to my one year as a freshman.  He probably thought that it would be an easy match.

            “Guys, stop it. Mom and Dad are dead, and we don’t even know who killed them,” said Juliet voice quivering, tears threatening to spill out of her eyes.

            “No, we do.  It’s the Koreans.”  I replied, still staring Jake in the eyes.  He had this infuriating smile while he stared back.

            “How do you-” she began, but I cut her off before she could finish.

            “I looked at Mom and Dad’s murderer’s face.  He had tattoos on his cheek in Korean.”  I explained.

            “I thought the murderer was wearing a mask?” she asked, still innocent of this knowledge.

            “Adam killed him Juliet,” Jake said, the smile disappearing from his face as he remembered that I killed someone.  “We hid him under the bed so you wouldn’t have to see him.”

            “Oh.”  She looked dumbfounded.  Then she got indignant.  “I appreciate you trying to help and all, but I’m not a little girl.  I can take care of myself.”

            “I stabbed him in the back of the neck, Juliet.”  I told her, maintaining eye contact with Jake while I did so.  Now he was all serious, puffing out his chest and stuff.

            Her face turned green.  “In that case, I’m glad you hid it.”  Juliet was terrified of head injuries.  When she was little, there was a car accident that we were passing by on the way to school.  There was no one on the scene yet, and Dad was a firefighter, so he stopped the car to help along with another good Samaritan.  The driver was still alive, but his chest was pinned between the seat and the steering wheel, slowly being crushed to death.  The guy in the passenger seat was already dead.  His head had been split open on impact.  Brain was still oozing out of the head when Dad pulled him out of the car to get to the driver.  We realized that Juliet was watching, but too late.  She was staring at him, open mouthed, face turning green.  Ever since that day, she had never been comfortable with head injuries.

            “But back to the subject at hand.  You really want to wrestle me?” he thumped his chest.  “Well alright, let’s wrestle.  Juliet, could you ref?”

            “Oh my God.  You guys are impossible.”  She began to cry.  “Mom and Dad are dead and the two of you are really going to fight?  Screw off!”  She stormed off to the far side of the room and continued to cry.

“Fine,” Jake snapped.  “I’ll tap it out with my foot.”

We got into line, Jake tapped three times, and the match began.

            Almost immediately, I felt Jake's arm wrapped around my head, jamming my nose.  His other arm hooked my arm up against my head with his hip on my hip as a pivot to flip me.  The son of a bitch was going to put me in a head and arm.  But we were still circling each other.  The tingling in the back of my head told me it was my Preflex.  It felt kind of funky.  Almost like when you know something is going to hit you in the back of the head, but don’t turn to face what’s going to hit you.  My Preflex’s description could have applied too, but I preferred mine.

Suddenly, Jake made a move, and me being ready for it, stepped out of the way.  I felt the head and arm turn into an armbar, and finally a slap as I moved to the side until I had avoided his reach altogether.  He stumbled forward, and I ducked behind him, locked my hands around his waist, put my foot against his heel, and pulled him down, all in one fluid motion.  We both landed with a thud.  He was still stunned, so I took my chance and hooked my arm under his and grabbed his neck.  Now that I had him in the half nelson, I drove forward until he was pinned. 

I got off Jake, and we all stood there in stunned silence.  I won.  This is the first time that I beat Jake at wrestling.

            I broke the silence. “You were going to put me in the head and arm.”  Juliet and Jake both gawked at me.

            “How did you know that?”  Jake asked with a touch of fear in his voice.

            “I felt your arm around my head and your hip against mine,” I explained.

            “You really can tell the future,” Jake gasped.

            “No, I only feel an attack before it happens.”

            “How long has this been happening, Adam,” Juliet asked with a look of concern.

            “I only just discovered my ability to feel attacks before they happen, but I’ve been having dreams.  Something would be chasing me, then I would be hit with an emotion that warns me about the next day.  I finally put two and two together the other day when I told Jake about it.  Then I met what was chasing me.  It was a dog with a human like face.  It told me that it was my Preflex and that it can help me and give me advice when I need it.”

            “Didn’t we go to the power plant about six months ago?  Could that have something to do with that?” Juliet suggested.

            I had gone to the fusion nuclear power plant just outside of San Francisco.  I was with my family and Jake and I wanted to go check out one of the fusion chambers.  My family wanted to go get some lunch, so Jake and I went on one of the tours by ourselves.  There were four kids about eight years old and seven other kids Jake’s and my age.  They were all part of different foster families.  We went into the fusion chamber which views the fusion reaction.  There was a wall made out of crystallized platinum so we could get a good view of the destructive forces at work. 

           The tour guide had to go to the bathroom, so he told us to look around until he came back.  After he left, alarms started to go off, the firewall closed off the doorway, and a terrible burning began. 

We were in there for ten minutes when the reactor had finally stabilized.  All of us were hospitalized immediately.  The doctors said that we would all die within thirty-six hours, but the government heard about it in time.  They had an experimental drug that would neutralize the radiation poisoning, but needed a consent form signed before they could use it.  We all signed it.  The drug was actually a series of shots into both wrists, both legs, two in the stomach, one in the heart, three spaced out along the spine, and three in the brain itself: one in each temple and another in the base of the skull.  They were relatively painless except for the ones in the spine and the base of the neck.  Those ones hurt a lot.  After two days, we began to feel better.  Jake and I made friends with four of the older kids. 

            We all stayed in touch.  One of the kids, Josh was his name, was telling me the other day that he was having weird dreams as well.  They were recurring like mine were, but a little different.  He told me that he could feel everything around him in the dream.  He also said that there was something watching him.  He couldn’t see it, but knew it was there.

            What if everyone who was exposed to the radiation got super powers like I did?  I needed to call them right away.  “We need to call Josh, Jake.”

            “Why?”  he asked.

            “I think he is getting powers too.  He told me on the phone the other day that he was having dreams like mine, except different.  He was aware of everything around him.  But there is something else.  He also had something else in the dream with him, just like me.”

            “Holy shit!”  Jake exclaimed.  “Why do you think this is happening?”

            “The radiation from the reactor, dude.  I think that the drug they gave us never got rid of it completely.  It changed us.”

            “So why haven’t I gotten any powers?  I don’t have any dreams either.”

            “I have no idea.  Maybe the drug worked on you differently,” I said doubtfully.

            “Maybe,” Jake added.  “But we need to prep if we’re going to get out of here.”

            “Your right.  I’ll pack up some clothes and food.  You get Dad’s rifles and ammo.  You have the rifle from the Korean, right?  We may need that.”

            “Already got it.  I put it behind the gun safe when the Koreans came in,” Jake replied.

“Nice.”

            When we had got everything, ranging from three rifles plus the plasma rifle, to the bare essentials like food and a Med Pack, we piled it in the corner.

            “You both should get some more sleep before we leave,” Juliet told us.  “I’ll keep watch while you do.”

            “Fine, but wake us up after a half hour.  We can’t stay here any longer than that.”  He must have gotten a total of three hours of sleep since the invasion.

            I couldn’t wait for sleep to come.  I wanted to see my Preflex again even though we had spoken not too long ago.  When I did, the setting was totally different.  It was in the park my family and I were at before the invasion.  It was still dark out though.  My Preflex was curled up by a tree, so I strolled over to him.  As I did, I felt something watching me.  It wasn’t my Preflex.  There was something else in my dream.

            “Hi,” I greeted him with an uneasy grin.  That feeling was creeping the hell out of me.

            “Hello, Adam,” My Preflex said in his rough voice with a gentle smile.  “I was hoping to get the chance to talk to you before you left.  You seem to have a lot of questions about your new power and how it came to be.”

            “Yeah I do.  How is this even possible?”  I asked.

            “Do you want the answer that will put your mind at ease, or the truth.”

            “My mind won’t be at ease with either now that you said that,” I grinned.

            “Well, I’ll give you the truth then.  I have no idea how I came to be.  All I can tell you is that there is no way the radiation did this by itself.”

            “We kind of figured that.”

            “I know.  The question that you have to ask yourself though, is whether this is a side effect of the drug, or the drug’s intended purpose.”  He paused as I started to look around for whatever was watching us.  “You feel it too.”  It wasn’t a question.

            “Yeah.  It feels like something is watching us.”

            “You are right.  There is something else in this dream.  Something that is alien to your mind.  But I can tell you this.  It doesn’t mean any harm.  If it did, it would have done so already.”

            I felt something right behind me.  I whipped around and stared into empty space.  I kept on looking, just barely making out a distortion in the air, shaped like a person.  Then it disappeared.  The sensation of being watched had gone.  “Did you see that too?”

            “Yes, I did.  And I have a feeling of who it was.  Now you must wake up.”

            “Who?  What do you mean, who?”  I’ve only been asleep for less than five minutes.

            “You will find out when you wake up.”

            “Okay.”  Then everything went white and I woke up to find Jake shaking my shoulder with a scared look on his face.

            “What is it?”

            “Your Preflex looks like a dog, right?”  Jake asked.

            “Yeah.  Why?”

            “You were at the park.  It was night, and you and your Preflex were talking about where he came from.”

            “How did you know that?”  I asked, the answer already coming to me even before Jake said it.

            “I was there, Adam.  But there is something else in that dream too.  There was something that I couldn’t see.  It was watching me.”