Savior Part 2: Son of Eden (The Savior Series) Page 4

  “Don’t do it, Reaper! It’s too late! I didn’t come all this way to watch you die!” Ace yelled as I kneeled and prepared to leap into the air.

  “I have to save them!” I insisted.

  “But what if you get caught in the blast?!”

  “I won’t,” I said firmly before launching myself into the air. Fire and smoke poured out of several shattered windows that littered the front of the building as I soared upward toward the hapless family. They all scrambled away from the window as I smashed through it and landed safely inside the burning room. My Reaper gasmask made it easy to deal with the thick blanket of smoke that filled the air, but I knew the family was not so well equipped. They cowered in fear as I zoomed over in the blink of an eye and beckoned for them to follow me.

  “Get away from us!” the man screamed, obviously mistaking me for a Stranger operative.

  “You have to come with me! It’s your only hope!” I pleaded, as the building rocked and more rubble fell to the floor and scattered throughout the room.

  The boy leapt into his father’s arms as the ceiling above us threatened to cave in, and then suddenly a deafening boom resonated throughout the entire building and triggered the first fight or flight response that I had felt since the night I saved Monica from the explosion that P.J. had triggered when he tried to kill us all. There were very few times when I felt that sort of power, very few times when I experienced the type of adrenaline rush that allowed my extremely dense muscles to contract so drastically that I could not only lift well over 20,000 pounds but also reach speeds of up to Mach 5 on foot. The tightness in my chest returned as the walls around us caved in, disintegrating into nothing as a blinding wave of white and yellow light slowly emerged and threatened to consume us. I knew it was all actually happening in the blink of an eye, but my adrenaline levels were so high at that point that, to me, the ensuing explosion seemed to occur in super slow motion.

  I reached back and grabbed the boy’s shirt as he and his parents seemed to stand there, frozen in time, while the sweltering walls of death expanded all around us. The boy and his father were still holding hands as the fire spread and turned his parents into nothing. I yanked him away with a fraction of a second to spare and rocketed across the room, as the fire swelled behind each supersonic bound that I made. I finally leapt through the window just as the entire building was consumed by the blast.

  As we zipped through the air like a missile, I knew that my actions had led to the liberation of hundreds of lives on that day, but for some reason I could only focus on the thousands of lives that I couldn’t save. I couldn’t save any of the hostages that were still trapped on floors 41 through 103 when the building exploded, nor could I save the parents of the little boy that I held in my arms. At the end of the day, it all suddenly seemed utterly pointless. I shed a tear beneath my mask as I realized that even the boy would not survive our descent back to the earth, which at that point was miles beneath my feet. No matter how securely I held him, I knew that he would be dead as soon as we hit the ground.

  4. THE CHALLENGE

  AREA 51

  (SOUTHERN NEVEDA)

  - SIX HOURS LATER

  “WAS IT WORTH IT?! WAS ANY OF IT WORTH IT?!” WELLS fumed as Howie, Ace, and I sat quietly in front of his desk looking like kids who had just gotten caught with our hands in the cookie jar.

  I was seated in the middle wearing dark grey jeans, black sneakers and a black and white graphic T-shirt with a picture of a human skull printed on the front of it. Ace was seated to my right wearing a stylish long sleeved red and black button up shirt along with a pair of designer jeans and matching shoes. Even without trying, he always seemed to look like some kind of celebrity fashion icon fresh off of a photo shoot. Seated to my left was the much smaller, curly haired Howie, whose mop top had now grown well past his ears. He was wearing a pair of the hyper-advanced smart glasses that he had designed, but aside from the wearable tech he was dressed a lot more conservatively: dark slacks and loafers for pants and shoes and a pale blue polo for a shirt. Wells sat across from us at his desk wearing his typical dark grey suit, which perfectly matched the monotone color scheme of his unremarkable office. He was a six-foot tall, somewhat chubby man who appeared to be somewhere around fifty to sixty years of age. He had one of those faces that instantly let you know he meant business, even before he opened his mouth.

  He continued to burn daggers into us with his stern grey eyes as we sat there in silence and avoided making eye contact. None of us responded to him because we all knew better than to answer Wells’ rhetorical questions. The three of us had been working for Director Wells for a little over two years by that point, and in that time we had long discovered that it was much better to simply shut up and take it once he started one of his rants. He had recruited us under the false pretense of him being a Special Agent with the FBI, but once we agreed to join his crusade against The Righteous, the proverbial curtain was pulled back and we finally got a good look at the true scope of his operation. Instead of a lowly FBI Agent, Mike Wells was actually the director of an ultra-secretive black ops agency of the government that operated with nearly complete impunity. As agents of his organization, our jurisdictional autonomy was virtually limitless. We were FBI agents when we needed to be. CIA agents if the current job called for it. NSA, DoD… everything—nothing was outside the realm of our control. The only person who we ever had to answer to was Director Wells and the only person he answered to was the President. Due to the rage that burned in his piercing pale grey eyes, I could tell that he must have gotten a most unpleasant call due to our transgressions in Manhattan.

  “So, no one has anything to say, huh?” he continued as he stood and paced back and forth behind his desk. “Well, I’ll answer the question. No! It wasn’t worth it! It was an absolute disaster!”

  “Not entirely,” Howie reluctantly offered. “I’m not justifying or condoning Reaper’s actions by any stretch, but I do think there are some positive takeaways here. After all, we were able to liberate nearly 1000 of the Manhattan hostages.”

  Did Howie just throw me under the bus? I wondered as I watched the already furious Wells somehow become more enraged.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Wells started as he intensely focused his frigid grey eyes on Howie, who now looked like he wished he had kept quiet. “You think saving a relative handful of hostages is worth ruining the reputation of this organization in the eyes of the President of the United States?!”

  “I just—”

  “Shut up, Vargas! Just shut the hell up!” Wells snapped. “And they say you’re the smart one…”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat as Director Wells suddenly turned his icy glare toward me.

  “Just where did you get this sort of cockamamie idea from anyway, Reaper?” he demanded.

  I looked down at the floor and remained silent as Wells continued to glare at me. I was still a bit sour at Howie for seemingly throwing me under the bus, but I certainly had no desire to do the same to him. It was true that I had gotten the idea to storm Manhattan after he told me about his theory, but ultimately it was my decision to actually go there.

  “Reaper?” Wells repeated.

  “It was my idea,” I groaned. “I saw a shot and I took it. End of story.”

  “You don’t get to end the story. That’s my job!” Wells growled. “And don’t think for a second that I can’t tell you’re lying! Now, who put you up to this? It was Vargas, wasn’t it?!” Wells asked while cutting his eyes to Howie.

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” I grumbled as my temper started to get the best of me. I was getting angry because the more and more I thought about it, the more I realized that Howie was absolutely right about one thing: It shouldn’t be taken lightly that my actions had saved almost 1000 people. Even I had not truly appreciated that fact at first, due to my failure to save them all, but I still didn’t think it should be treated as meaningless. I understood that what I did had quite a f
ew negative consequences too, but did that mean the positives didn’t matter at all? Yeah, the President might have been pissed but it wasn’t like he was going to shut the entire operation down. At the end of the day, I knew the only reason Wells was so upset was because I had decided to take action on my own instead of waiting for his instructions like a good little lap dog.

  “What did you say to me?” Wells demanded, as his eyes widened with disbelief.

  “You heard me,” I declared as I abruptly stood and tried to slow my heartbeat before my rage became too uncontrollable.

  “That’s it, Reaper! I’m pulling the plug on—”

  “Yeah go ahead! Ground me!” I fumed. “Take me off the case for… five weeks or months or whatever! I’ll let you know if I give a damn! You see, I’ve come to realize one important thing that I think you keep forgetting, Wells. You need me! You’ve already told me that I’m supposed to play a key part in this mysterious grand plan of yours, so if you think threatening to take me out of the action is gonna continue to work as a means to control me, you’re dead wrong! As a matter of fact, I’m taking myself out. I promise you that I won’t lift another finger until you tell me everything that I want to know about him and about my past.”

  The room fell silent as Wells and I glared at each other. He was probably hoping that I was bluffing, but I had finally reached my boiling point. I was dead serious and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew it. The last time I insisted on Wells telling me what he knew about the origin of my abilities, he had threatened to take me out of the action for good. When I mentioned that to Howie, he told me that he thought Wells was bluffing because of the fact that Wells had already told me that I play a significant role in his plan to take down The Righteous. After that conversation with Howie, I had made a mental note to bring that up if Wells ever threatened to take me out of commission again. At first I wasn’t sure if it would work, but as Wells stood there fuming in silence while he contemplated his options, I realized that Howie might have been right—but then again, when was Howie ever wrong?

  “Ace, Echo, you’re excused,” Wells finally said calmly as he pulled his left sleeve back and revealed a high-tech wristwatch. Howie stared awkwardly at the watch for a few seconds, then he and Ace both stood and exited the room without a word.

  “Cynthia, send The Elder to my office please,” Wells calmly said as he pressed a button on the watch on his left wrist. The room fell into uneasy silence for a few more seconds before Wells finally sighed and took a seat behind his desk. He extended his right hand and gestured toward the chair that I had been sitting in after I didn’t immediately sit down.

  “What’s gotten in to you, Sport?” he asked after I remained standing.

  “Nothing. I’m just tired of being jerked around. I need to know. I need to know where I come from,” I said firmly.

  “And you’re really willing to put the safety of this planet at risk in order to find out?” Wells asked.

  “The ball’s in your court, Wells, not mine. If you want my help, you’re gonna have to tell me everything. I’m done waiting.”

  He squinted his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his fingers as he stared off into space for a few seconds, obviously deciding whether or not to give in to my demands.

  “Have a seat, kid,” he finally said. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

  My heart thumped wildly with anticipation as I took my seat across from him. Wells cleared his throat and looked directly into my eyes as he spoke. “By now I’m sure you know that The Righteous and some of his followers are not of this world.”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “They come from a place called Eden. It’s a planet located in the Andromeda Galaxy, which is nearly three million light-years away from here.”

  My heart raced faster with every word he spoke. I had asked Wells for confirmation of the existence of Eden many times but he would always remain silent or threaten to ground me if I didn’t focus on the mission. Now that he was finally telling me what I wanted to know, I couldn’t help but wonder if what he was saying was true or if he was simply trying to mislead me.

  “So you’re saying they’re aliens?” I asked.

  “They're called Anokians and yes, they are aliens, but I’m not talking about those ridiculous little grey men that you see on TV. Aside from Eden’s massive size and immense gravitational pull, the environment of the planet is nearly identical to that of Earth. Consequently, Anokians and humans look almost exactly alike, making it nearly impossible to tell the difference between the two races at first glance.”

  I swallowed a massive lump in my throat as I prepared to ask my next question. It was a question that I had been dying to have answered since the first second I learned of the existence of Eden. Because of my abilities, I had always wondered if there was something about me that was more than human, and even though I never had definitive proof, somewhere deep down inside I already knew the answer.

  “What about me?” I finally asked. “Am I one of them? Do I come from Eden too?”

  “Yes and no,” Wells replied. “You see, Sport, you’re only half Anokian and you were born right here on Earth. Your mother was human. However, your father was one of them, but he’s dead now—killed when The Righteous and the others escaped.”

  “Did you know her? Did you know my mother?” I asked as I thought of the woman who had vanished after handing me over to my adoptive mother.

  “Yes… she was one of my best agents,” Wells answered as a hint of sorrow washed over his usually stony face.

  “Really?! Well where is she now?” I asked anxiously.

  He bit his lower lip as I waited for an answer but instead of replying he simply sighed and lowered his eyes to the floor in silence. The look on his face said it all. As I stared at the painful expression that washed across his face, I could tell that my birth mother had died. My hands trembled with grief as pain and anguish welled in my chest. My entire adoptive family was already dead, and now I had just found out that my only possible relative was dead as well. It was simply too much for me to handle. I abruptly stood and turned my back to him as my jaw began to quiver. I clenched my jaw shut and breathed as deeply as I could in order to keep the tears from falling, as Wells looked on in sorrow.

  “I wish… I wish I had better news for you, Sport. I really do,” Wells finally said as he stood and walked around his desk, stopping a few feet behind me. “I know you probably hate me for keeping you in the dark all this time, but believe me, Kid, it was for your own good.”

  “I want to know what happened to her,” I replied, still clenching my jaw as my vision became blurry from unused tears.

  “It’s not good, Kid. Not good at all,” Wells cautioned.

  “Dammit, Wells, stop jerking me around!” I growled as I whipped around and glared at him. “I’m not a kid!” I snapped as I angrily wiped a falling tear from my right cheek.

  “I’m just trying to protect—”

  “Tell me what happened to her!” I demanded as I clenched my fists.

  “He happened to her!” Wells shot back. “The Righteous is the reason she died. He’s a monster, Reaper—a monster capable of corrupting everything he touches. He and his followers were war criminals in the Andromeda Galaxy. He was the supreme leader of the powerful Anokian Empire but he wasn’t content with simply being the ruler of one of the largest empires in their galaxy. No, his ambition drove him to attempt to rule all of Andromeda space. He came before their Galactic Counsel under the ruse of diplomacy, but once there, he proceeded to single handedly slaughter the entire Counsel—and for a short period of time he had effectively seized absolute power for himself. It was only by the strength of our allies, the Equillian Federation, that The Righteous was removed from power. The Equillians, or the real little grey men as I like to call them, have had ties with the United States Government since as far back as the late 1800s. The U.S. has since served as a Guantanamo Bay of sorts for the Equillians’ most dangerous prisone
rs in exchange for the technological advances that have helped establish this country as one of the Earth’s superpowers. This organization’s primary function has always been to safeguard the prisoners that are transferred here from the Andromeda Galaxy. The Righteous and his closest followers were transferred here after he was removed from power and captured by the Equillian military. As I said before, your mother was one of my best agents, and she was the head of security here at Area 51 where we kept the prisoners. She was the brightest and most compassionate person that I had ever met which is why I still can’t come to grips with the fact that she was persuaded by The Righteous to betray us.”

  I was silent for a few moments as I took it all in. To be honest, the information was a bit overwhelming and I didn’t know how to react to it all—especially the part about my mother working with The Righteous.

  “I don’t believe it. You’re trying to manipulate me,” I finally said.

  “Why would I do that, Reaper? We’re all on the same side—”

  “You’re always trying to manipulate me! I think you’re lying,” I continued as I narrowed my eyes and studied his stony face.

  “You asked for it, dammit!” Wells barked, his face suddenly twisting into an angry scowl as he glared at me. “You asked me to tell you the truth, and I did! So, don’t you dare disrespect the hundreds of men that died on that day just because the truth wasn’t the fairy tale you thought it would be!”

  “But why? Why would she do it?” I asked, still not able to accept the idea of my biological mother being a traitor.

  “Because The Righteous is a master manipulator. It’s as simple as that, kid. Just look at what he did to your brother. Look at what he’s doing to this world,” Wells said solemnly. “He’s hell bent on destroying us, Reaper, and the sad truth is… we may not have enough time to stop him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.