/================================\ | TEAM INFINITY - REVISED | |Robert Marney, robyrt@marney.org| \================================/ This story is copyright (c) 2004, Robert Marney. All rights reserved. The most current version can be found at http://robyrt.coolserver.net/ti.html. Last Update: 7/28/2004, characters/plot edits MAJOR CHARACTERS ================ Alias Real Name Online Handle -------------------------------------- Space Sarah White soccerluvr Time Ben Eldinson -=34GL3-3Y3=- Power Rick Hughes evilken Mind Timothy Walker twalker1229 Reality Alex Brene trickhat Soul Lia Chin purplelia46 Mars John Tyler Ted Kavalec Lily Jill Reddings naturegirl13 PLOT OUTLINE ============ 1. Rick - Introduction 2. Timothy - Average Day; Misdirection 3. Ben - Birthday Party; Rivals 4. Sarah - School Dance; Possession 5. Timothy - New Girl; Capture 6. Alex - Escape; Big Project 7. Ted - Report 8. Lia - Social Circles; Showdown 9. Sarah - Stalemate; Extraordinary Day CHAPTER ONE =========== My name is Richard Hughes. My parents call me Richard, my friends call me Rick, my enemies call me Power. The last one is perhaps the most appropriate, 'cause power is my stock in trade -- but I'm getting ahead of myself. My English teacher says to start off with something that will grab your attention, even if it doesn't make sense, but my friend Ben says to begin at the beginning, and I have no intention of letting the teacher see this, so here goes, from the beginning, which was a cloudy night in late September. We're all heading back from Jonah's party, way out in the middle of nowhere. Somehow, I end up driving five people home, because I had the van. I'm not usually soft-hearted like this, but I figure it would just create more problems if I left them behind. Should have left earlier -- but of course now I'm glad I didn't. Anyway, I was driving the van, and the new girl Lia had grabbed the front seat early. She's smarter than she looks, but doesn't talk much -- your typical shy Asian stuff. In the back seats are the rest of them: Alex, Sarah White, Timothy Walker and Ben Eldinson. The only one of those I know well is Alex, who looks so respectable and serious it's no wonder he gets away with all the crazy stunts he does. I'm not a big fan of his friends, but hey, to each his own. It was about midnight, so those of us who weren't completely dead were still hyper. Behind me, Sarah was trying yet again to strike up a conversation with Timothy. Now there's a guy I don't understand: the girls all love him and he just brushes them off. He insists he's not gay, of course, but that doesn't mean much, of course. So I pop in a techno CD, get on the road, and wham! this truck comes barrelling through the intersection ahead of us, clips a guardrail and flips over, right in the middle of the road. We're doing, like, 50 here, there's no way I can get out. So I decide, it's now or never, even being a freak is better than being dead. (Hey, I'm already halfway there, so... but I'm getting out of hand here.) I push my hands in a big forward shove motion: Ryu from Street Fighter if you must know. Yeah, I'm a big nerd, get over it. You'll get my excuse later. I'm panicked and I don't get to practice much, so I don't even think of anything but a straight-up blast. The windshield liquefies, the asphalt cracks, the truck scrapes forward a bit and barely moves at all, and I think, Whoops. Nothing to do but keep doing it, slam on the brakes, and hope the truck disintegrates or something. Hey, the truck appeared out of thin air, maybe it can go away the same way. There's a flash over to my right, Lia slumps over in the seat next to me, and then things start getting really freaky. I start going crazy, and then I go all icy cold, calm to the extreme: there I am, in this van that's still going 35 barrelling into a truck, about two seconds to live, and I'm calculating the chances that Lia is hurt, maybe I blew the windshield the wrong way or something, so I turn off my blast and look over to check, and then we're not dead anymore and the truck is behind us. I wasn't concentrating too much, but with the whole action-hero cool-under-fire thing going on, I realize that somehow the truck started spinning, just fast enough to let us through, and I'd better pull over before a cop comes along. So I stop the car, unbuckle my seatbelt and everything, reflexively take a look where the rearview mirror would be if it weren't in a million pieces all over the hood, and the calm is gone. Just like that, maybe it was seeing my van trashed that did it. The windshield's splattered across the hood and the road behind us, the back half of Lia's seat is gone like it was sliced with a knife, Alex is practically embedded in the middle seat behind me, and Timothy in the way back is going crazy and trying to open the window. Everybody's freaked out, but nobody looks hurt, so I ask Lia if she's all right, and she looks at me like I'm some kind of alien from Planet Zorg. It takes me about a second to figure out why, and then I realize I used my powers in front of her. "Shhhh!" I say, "Are you hurt? Do you have glass on you?" She shakes her head, breathes deeply, says, "I'm fine. What did you do!?" I lie, hating myself but doing it just the same. "I... I don't know. That was a pretty rough ride; everybody OK back there?" This to the rest of the van. A chorus of yeses, some more shaky than others, but four of them anyway. Alex comes up with the first bright idea he's had all night: "Everybody outside. That way we can explain everything, and maybe see if Rick's van needs to be fixed." Everybody gets out, although Timothy and Ben in the back take a while to do it. What are they talking about, I wonder. They can't possibly have been looking at me... but it's best not to take chances, so I shoo them outside with the rest. Alex is a natural leader and all that junk, but he's scared out of his mind just like the rest of us, so he swallows and clears his throat before he starts talking. "I think we all owe each other an explanation. Some pretty strange things happened in that car, and I think we have the right to know what was really going on. One rule, first: nothing about this is going outside of this car, period. We have enough problems without somebody's tongue slipping and landing us all in real trouble, OK? So let's get started." An awkward pause, so Alex has to make the first move himself. "All right. For those of you who don't know me" -- a nod at Lia, although it's a safe bet Ben doesn't know him either, 'cause she's the new girl -- "my name is Alex, and I'm a shapeshifter. This is the trick I used in the car." He kinda... melts... and in a couple seconds he's three inches shorter and completely encased in steel, except for, like, his eyes and nose and stuff. We're all astounded, I see, except Ben and Sarah for some reason, maybe they saw him do it. Well, duh, since Sarah was sitting next to him at the time, right behind Lia in fact. (How do I know all this stuff? It's like I was taking notes!) Sarah taps him on the shoulder and sure enough, it's genuine metal, it clangs and all. After a few seconds he changes back to normal, and he's wincing a little. Could be just the pressure of being a mutant freak, or maybe physical pain, doesn't matter. Now I thought I was the only freaky mutant around, so this just about blows my mind. Of course, Alex can't just leave it at that -- it woulda been good enough, but nooo, he's got to show us all exactly what we're getting into -- so he does a second transformation, and this time he's an exact copy of Sarah, down to the hairstyle and clothes and everything. Still wearing his ring, though, maybe he missed it. I'm still impressed a year later, writing this thing, when he does the change-into-other-people trick, and seeing it for the first time I was just, like, Wow! Sarah leaps about two feet in the air and backs away, Ben raises an eyebrow (I'm thinking, is he stoned or something? Doesn't he ever get confused?) and the rest of us pretty much have our mouths hanging open. When Alex speaks, it's almost Sarah's voice, but not really. "Not perfect, but rather a good job, if I do say so myself." He can move, he can talk, he could probably fool my English teacher. I see some great slacking-off opportunities here; good thing I don't have his power, or you could kiss my grades goodbye. "You guys are the first people I've showed this to," says Alex. "Even my parents don't know, at least I think so. Of course, now that people have seen me, there's no harm in telling you the rest..." He trails off, rubbing that ring of his and looking for someone else to start talking. The rest of us are all too scared to talk, so he nudges Sarah and whispers something, and she begins her explanation. Little Miss "I'm on the cheerleading squad, watch me be happy" Sarah White is in fact ALSO a mutant with a power that makes slacking off in school easier. She takes out a locket she wears around her neck, holds it out, and opens a gateway for us, some kind of portal to an alternate dimension, straight out of the latest B-rated sci-fi movie. To us, it's just this black door-sized rectangle hanging there in space, until she reaches into it, rummages around, and comes up with her math book and calculator. Ben is kind of edging his way around our little circle while she does this, probably trying to see the thing from all sides. Not like I care personally, but Ben's more the engineer type. Alex is interested in whether her parents know she can do this. Surprisingly, the answer is no; maybe they just assume her room is clean enough or something, because she can always find stuff when she wants to. Whereas if I forgot my math book, I can maybe bust a hole through the side of the school and walk home, but that's about it. Trust a ditz like her to get one of the coolest powers I can think of, besides like invisibility, and fill her pocket dimension with her humongous collection of sparkle pens. This is getting boring. To cut a long story short, this happened to be the mutant 20th anniversary reunion and I wasn't informed. Practically everybody in the car is secretly a mutant, with powers of more or less coolness. Our little discussion clears up a lot of our personality quirks: Timothy's "a natural" with the ladies because he can read their minds, and Ben just happens to be able to see the future, which is why he's so annoyingly arrogant. He's still a jerk in my book though. Now that we all know Ben is, like, this super genius fortune teller dude, we're pretty open to what he has to say, and what he says is that we don't just remind him of the X-Men, we should BE them. You know, like, fight evil and everything, live in a mansion in upstate New York with a bald super-smart mentor and his alien princess. I wish. So we become a super hero team -- Team Infinity, pretty cool name for a bunch of geeks and losers like me -- and we agree to meet tomorrow night. Meanwhile, we pile back into the van, start the car up again (at least it works), and try to figure out how to explain it to my mom and dad. I just can't think of something that will please them, so I have to tell them the truth, or at least most of it. I wasn't lying, not really. I said I used my powers to save us from a car crash, and it blew the windshield out, and that's true as far as it goes. Anyway, Mom was so happy to see me alive, I guess, that she didn't care about the car. Dad was a little less pleased; hey, he's not exactly my biggest fan, so when I trash the van I can expect a little talking-to. But even he couldn't argue with what I did, not when we all would have died otherwise. He asked if anybody had seen me do it, and I had to say yes, but I said it was only Lia and Ben that knew anything. (I would have said just Lia, but I thought since Ben knew everything already, he could figure out what to say to my folks if anything like this happened again.) Now you know, and the rest of the story is in someone else's more capable hands. * * * * LiveJournal user purplelia46 [Lia] wrote on 2002-09-29: Welcome to my LiveJournal, everybody. Hope you enjoy the stay. Not that any of you will be reading this. I fully intend to keep the whole journal locked up until it can no longer be concealed. Last night, I got home about midnight, in a car which was probably in violation of state safety regulations even before the front windshield broke. Because obviously I have so much sense, I decided to create a LiveJournal and write it down. Not the smartest thing to do, but really, I'm afraid of forgetting what happened. Party last night at Jonah's place was a lot more fun than I expected. I wasn't even going to go, I didn't really know anybody except Rick and Becky, I'd probably just hover around the drinks and get fatter than I already am. -.- But somehow I ended up in Rick's van with five other people, my parents really worked up after I called them a half-hour late to say I didn't know when I'd be home, having a blast. Maybe somebody spiked the punch or something. I probably made a fool of myself. Hey, at least I met some new people, like Timothy. He's, well, the most distinctive thing about him is that such a nice, good-looking guy isn't already taken. From what I heard, he's gone out with every girl in the grade once or twice, then dumped them flat. The general consensus is that he's either gay or just waiting for the perfect mate, but he vehemently denies the first, so we keep trying. Off the subject. Jonah's karaoke machine is high quality, because nobody really cares how bad a singer you are as long as you're funny. Come to think of it, I gess I really was funny. At least to some people. Becky is so nice to me, I really don't deserve it. Except for certain comments, a smack upside the head for her about those. Keep quiet, will you? ^.^ We weren't even to the Parkway on the way back home when the car crashed into an overturned semi. Well, almost crashed, and that's the real reason for this entry. I thought Rick was sullen and quirky just because he's a gothy, geeky kind of guy, nothing wrong with that in principle but not very endearing when you're trying to make new friends. He's a mutant, the kind straight out of a comic book that you never ever expect to happen in real life. I kept repeating to myself, Rick throws fireballs, Rick's got crazy mutant powers, but it took a while to sink in. That's how he broke his windshield, he vaporized it by firing a blast to push the truck aside from the driver's seat. Rick was worried about me, of course. He says I turned white or something - I bet I did, seeing my life about to go up in flames like that. Anyway, everything is topsy-turvy and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. So that's why Rick is always reading X-Men comic books ^.^ Not only that, but like everybody in the car has mutant powers. Maybe that's how they all know each other and I don't - I'm the only normal person in the whole bunch. Even Timothy. How does he stay so, well, normal when he has super mind powers? Shouldn't he be wearing a trenchcoat and listening to nine-minute techno songs all the time, like Rick? It's all so confusing! More on this later. I have to go, my mom is banging on the door. Bye! CHAPTER TWO =========== I woke up last night - well, I suppose it was technically this morning - from a nightmare. I was in school, walking along between classes with a few girls like I always do, and suddenly my friend Alex was there in front of us. He pointed a finger directly at me, the paladin in righteous anger and warning, and we stopped. He called in a stern, judging voice, "Timothy Walker, you are a mutant. All of you, look at him for who he is. He's been controlling your minds all along!" I tried to run, but I kept falling into more and more friends, stepping away from me, cold to me, and then I was falling down to the floor as they all backed away, radiating disgust and envy and fear, but it never really arrived, and then I woke up. You see, some people dream in color and some in black and white, but a blind man never dreams in color. Normal people don't dream other people's emotions, but I do. It wouldn't be nearly as real to me otherwise. * * * * The alarm rang at 6:30, forcing me awake. I must have been in REM sleep, since it took me a few seconds before I could use my arms and legs. I leaned over, whacked the snooze button by reflex, and tried to go back to sleep. The house was still quiet and dark, and only my sister Mary was awake, doing her homework. Sleepy, bored, with a little undercurrent of irritation at having to wake up this early just to do some stupid homework. Of course, she shouldn't have been complaining, as the rest of us (like me) had enough trouble waking up at the last possible second necessary to get to school before class started. She was still peaceful enough that I could get back to sleep, though, and I think I succeeded, because I was asleep for sure at 6:39 when the alarm clock sounded its second warning. This time I got up. Being an empath really isn't that bad, once you get used to it. The problem is that my sense isn't really affected by anything at all except for distance, so when I step into the shower, I can pull out a curtain to stop seeing anything and turn on the water to stop hearing anything, but I'll still feel everyone around me. So I tune it out eventually. I know my dad is always grumpy in the mornings, because he's heading off to work and he hates his job. I also know he still loves my mom just as much as he did when I was born, possibly more. So in the shower I sang the latest Coldplay single absentmindedly, trying not to think about anything in particular. I do that a lot, because I can't think of much else to do. Then I remembered what happened last night, and I almost dropped the soap. Last night, the other kids in the car had been so busy being scared that someone would find out their secret that they scarcely had time to be afraid of me. Today it would be worse. I ran through everyone, trying to remember if they had shown signs that they would let my name slip. Ben? No, he wouldn't risk jeopardizing what he considered our "secret identities". The boy was a hopeless romantic at heart, always wanting to believe he was someone of real importance. Now that I knew where that came from, I didn't look down on him quite so much, though. Maybe he was right, and with a well-placed wave of his hand he was altering the future of Hancock High, but that wasn't very likely. The only problem I could foresee with Ben was if he tried to cover for us and did something stupid that just made everyone more suspicious. In fact (the thought struck me) if there was going to be trouble, Ben's ability to see the future made him the one person you could count on to be at the scene, trying to do something. So as long as he wasn't around, I could relax a little. Nobody's infallible, even him. Alex? Depended on his mood, really. Alex had always been hard to figure out. Sometimes he'd be very playful, up to mischief, hanging out with his friends who probably smoked pot behind the baseball field after school. Just the kind of kid I'd expect to announce to his buddies that he knew a few bona fide mutants right here at Hancock High. I'd just have to hope he was in his serious, studying, future-leaders-of-America mood, where he would refrain from saying anything for fear it would put someone else in a bad position. Lia, Rick, Sarah -- all three of them too self-absorbed and insecure to be blurting anything out, except by accident to their best friends. Nothing I could do about that, even if I wanted to, but not likely to happen at all. Lia in particular I could safely ignore, that is, if she didn't shrink back from me in horror when she saw me. I'd never had to deal with being an outcast before, not once. I wasn't sure how I'd handle it. At the breakfast table I caught the riot act from my mom. "Honey, I was worried sick about you!" and more along those lines. I knew she meant it, so I felt bad. I promised to make it up to her, to come home on time from now on, et cetera, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and rushed out the door. It worked, of course. I take my parents for granted more often than I should, but I think I have a right to, since they could never say no to me anyway. I was halfway to school before I remembered I had left my math homework on the kitchen table. This wasn't shaping up to be a good day at all. Even my favorite mix CD couldn't cheer me up, and by first period (math, of course) I was positively depressed. On the way to my locker alone I ruined at least three people's good days. One of them was Karen, though, so I only felt guilty for two. It was 7:34 (the bell rings at 7:35 for first period) and I was plodding my way to class, everyone unconsciously clearing a path for me to isolate my bad feelings, when Lia burst in the front door, out of breath. She apparently hadn't caught on that nobody cared if you were a few seconds late, but it was okay, she was new and probably used to fancy-pants private schools anyway. I happened to have a clear path to her through the crowd, and the lines in her flustered expression deepened a little as she came under my influence, but when she glanced at me, for an instant the rising sun caught her hair through the doorframe, giving her an ethereal quality, almost a halo. I turned away, and she was already attempting to push through the crowd. I didn't think much of her prospects, though, since nearly everyone else was taller than she was and had a lighter backpack to boot. I shook my head to clear my thoughts, forced a smile onto my face, and dashed through the door of Mrs. Lindenroot's class just as the bell rang. By some happy chance, the Terror of Room 134 was turned the other way, so I was settled in my chair before she could chastise me. This was followed immediately by another stroke of luck: instead of randomly choosing students to write the homework questions on the board, she went in alphabetical order. Sometimes it's good to have Walker for a last name. By the time she got around to me, I had surreptitiously flipped the book open to that page and had the one problem solved. The combination of these two events lifted my spirits significantly, to the point where I was merely ambivalent about my fortunes today. At least, I reflected, Lia had caught my eye instead of pretending I didn't exist like she was about to do. Besides, nothing ever really happens in math class, not in mine at least. Maybe the kids taking calculus were having fun, but I don't think so - they were merely knocking their heads on more difficult and complex homework assignments. Nobody who liked math would go to this school anyway. When the bell rang to release us from math class, however, my problems were just beginning. I could feel the righteous indignation and noxious self-satisfaction radiating from just outside the door. Karen. I pondered avoiding confrontation, but if I didn't want someone to discover my secret, I had to keep things operating normally. Don't give somebody a reason to suspect you and they won't do it, that's what I've learned. So I steeled myself a little as I stepped through the doorway and drew Karen off to the side so we could have it out discreetly. Public arguments were impolite, so I didn't do them, simple as that. "Timothy Walker," she hissed, "you are absolutely the worst scoundrel who has ever walked this earth! I can't believe you!" "Karen, please. I know you're upset. Maybe we can talk this over later, in private?" "You're not going to get out of this one so easily," she replied. Her resolve was beginning to break, though. If I could keep her talking a little bit longer, she'd forget why she was so angry in the first place. It occurred to me that far from acting normally, calming Karen's famous fits of rage down within two minutes was practically shouting "I'm different!" through the halls. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to even begin to fine-tune my effect on her, or if I could do it at all without affecting everyone else around me. Time to leave before she fell back in love with me, then. "You know what?" I said suddenly, as an idea came to me. "You're not in any condition to be reasoned with right now. Why don't you call me tonight when you've cooled down a little, all right?" "You... you...!" Karen stalked off in disgust. I'd put things off till this evening, at least: mission accomplished. To be frank, I wasn't certain what she was so incensed about, so hopefully I could take the rest of the day to find that out from the rest of her girlfriends. I'm sure I'd forgotten to send her flowers or something, I'm horrible at that sort of thing. I always have to enlist Alex or Dave to remind me at the last minute, and Alex usually threatens to tell me the wrong thing and get me in trouble. He actually did it once, but it totally dominated his thoughts when he saw me in class, so I caught that fiasco before it happened. "Hey, Timothy!" I automatically smiled and waved to whoever it was. I wouldn't be surprised if every girl in school knew my name. By this time I was hustling to get to my government class, but the girl turned around and followed me, grabbing my elbow to force me to look down at her. To my surprise, it was Sarah. Her emotions were so uncharacteristic of her that I hadn't even recognized her except on sight. She was up to no good, I just knew it. "You look marvelous today, as usual." Sarah was a very cheerful and supportive girl, but this sugary-sweet drivel was fake. "Thank you, Sarah. You don't look half bad yourself. Is there something you wanted to tell me?" "I believe the two of us have a couple things to discuss. Stop by my table at lunch, OK? Thanks a million! See you later!" She waved and flashed me her cutest smile as she ducked into a classroom. I was forced to admit, it was a disarmingly cute smile. As I passed, a freshman with an armful of textbooks and severely over-gelled hair suddenly noticed the girl looking at him, and his face brightened with recognition. Maybe I'd done it, maybe not - no way to tell. Now I knew how guys felt when they complained that they'd never understand women. Beneath the shameless flirting, she was in earnest. Normally I'd make some excuse, since I'd had quite enough of girls who thought they were madly in love with me. I couldn't take the chance this time, however; she might have some information about that... other subject. I refused to even think of it for long, lest my thoughts somehow influence somebody into suspecting me. Lost in thought, I passed the door I needed for third period and was ten yards down the hall before I realized my mistake. I made a quick about-face and was slightly more on time to government, where Mr. Allen greeted me warmly, as he always did. Fortunately, I'd actually done the homework for this class and was prepared to bear the brunt of being the teacher's pet. Today might not be such a disaster after all. As it turned out, all Sarah had to say to me was to meet after school at Alex's house, and to ask if I could give Lia a ride there. Of course, I could. "Thanks! That was it." she added brightly, and resumed conversation with her friends. I pretended not to notice Rosemary's eyes boring holes into the back of my shoulder blades as I left. Now she'd saddled me with the job of finding Lia after school, too, I thought. She was smarter than I imagined, and intelligence is one of the few things I value in girls anymore, because you can't fake it to get my attention. Oh well, I had three hours to find Lia; it couldn't be that hard. I went to lunch with a clear heart. * * * * We were already late. Lia had taken her own sweet time getting ready to leave, so by the time her friend - Betty? Becky? Belle? Some B name - let her go, the buses were leaving. I struggled to conceal my annoyance as I held the door open for her and swung into the driver's seat. "Have you ever been to Alex's house before, Lia?" "No," she answered absentmindedly. I didn't have to look to tell further conversation would be useless. She wouldn't be listening, she'd just be staring and ruminating. I did a little quick thinking to figure out what to do next. For whatever reason, fortunately, Lia wasn't romantically interested in me at the moment. Instead, she preferred to idolize me as one of her "cool friends". Meaning she'd still look at me like I just returned from Mt. Sinai, but her brain wouldn't totally shut down. A quite satisfactory arrangement, and one that was surprisingly hard for my other female friends to pull off. I wouldn't have put it past the girl to have planned this out last night, knowing she'd have to deal with a guy with what amounted to a superhuman power to be liked. To cover up the silence, I turned on the radio. The news was on. "In other news, the serial killer calling himself Annihilator has struck again at a gas station in Prince George's County, killing four and backing up traffic all along the outer loop of the Beltway. Police have definitively linked the attack to Annihilator, who posted another threatening note to the police tip website shortly after the attack. Police are questioning witnesses as we speak, but warn that details of the killer's vehicle or methods may not be forthcoming. Citizens are advised to keep on the lookout for a tall, long-haired white male in his thirties, wearing a red jacket. The killer is hypothesized to be a mutant and should be considered armed and highly dangerous. If you have any information, do not approach him; instead, contact the police on their website or toll-free phone number..." I clicked the radio to another station, letting the mediocre rock music overpower my worries, and shuddered a little involuntarily. Annihilator was like a five-year-old's idea of a serial killer: he made sweeping threats, dared the police to catch him, and made statements online like "My power is supreme!" All evidence pointed to his being a mutant, much as I hate to admit it. With him turning up in the neighborhood, there couldn't have been a worse time to form Team Super Heroes, or whatever it was. The guy sounded like a villain out of a comic book, and was already raising some anti-mutant hysteria in the locals. Not that it would make much of a difference what the rest of the world felt about mutants if word got around about my abilities; my life would be ruined anyway. Every day I pray to go unnoticed as much as possible, maybe rescue a few cats from trees with my mind or something, but as far as it concerns me to be at peace with all men. It looks like that might not be possible, which is why I'm here at all: if I have to use my powers, I might as well keep it a secret, and there's nobody better for keeping secrets than small insecure groups like us. Beside me, Lia stared out the window, her mind on something abstract, maybe homework, maybe how she was gonna handle this. I admit I was a little worried about her, and the pressure that would inevitably be on her shoulders from being the only normal human who knew about all our mutant powers and everything. By this time I was nearly at Alex's house, which was in a way richer district than I had thought. There was certainly no way for me to know: he never hosted parties or anything, didn't wear super-expensive clothing, and drove a VW Bug for Pete's sake. Regardless, his house was about one step down from having a gate on the driveway, if you get my meaning: one of those huge new monstrosities with a big backyard and practically enough space to play volleyball in the foyer. I parked the car, a little late for a Monday afternoon event but not too much, and notice that most of the rest of the crew is here before me. Alex opened the door and invited me in like the perfect host. He led me downstairs to this gigantic, mostly unfurnished basement; apparently the house was so new they haven't had time to make it into anything more than storage space. There were six folding chairs arranged in a circle in the middle of the floor, four of them occupied. We were the last car to arrive, then. I surveyed the position for a moment, then took a seat between Rick and Alex. I'm not best buddies with either of them, but Alex is a pretty cool guy, and I didn't want to give the wrong message by choosing the seat next to Sarah. As I sit down, I put on a careful smile and shoot a glance at her: she was a little wistful, but hiding it very well. There's a touch of revulsion in her too, and as I realize that, I get some first-hand experience with the "rueful expression" you always hear about. I guess this is what it's like to be a freak. Sarah's not sure if I'm manipulating her mind, so she doesn't trust me, not really. I've got to find a way to turn it off or something. It's causing me nothing but trouble these days. I thanked Alex for letting us all stay here, and asked where his parents were. Apparently, they were away for the week on some business trip or other, and weren't at home much in any case, so he basically had free run of the place as long as nothing in the house gets hurt. The whole place was spotlessly clean, even the apparently unused basement; maybe Alex's mom was a neat freak or something, or Alex was just paranoid. Not like it was hurting anybody, so I let it pass. Alex welcomed Lia and showed her the sole remaining chair, and she gave him a nervous smile, with a quick sheepish glance at me. Fortunately, Alex was fully serious at the time, so when I shot him a significant glance, he caught it and moved to correct the situation. He told Lia, "Thanks for coming. I was afraid you might not show up." with ever so slight a stress on the "I", to make it obvious that I haven't told him anything. This got him a slightly bigger smile, and she relaxed a little. Not too much, though, she was afraid of what the rest of us can do. As I sat down, I took a little time to look around. Here we were, five teenage mutants, banding together to, well, do whatever teenage mutants do, I suppose. Alex, the natural leader whenever he needed to be, already holding everyone's attention, somewhat nervous that he'd come off looking like a fool. But then again, we were all nervous. Now that I knew he was a shape-changer, I checked out his physical features a little more closely; they must be exactly how he wanted to look like. You'd think he'd want to be ripped, tanned, handsome and all that, but he was surprisingly conservative in that aspect. Sure, his eyes were a positively dreamy blue, and he probably hadn't had more than three square centimeters of acne since the day he was born, but he wasn't all that good-looking. Of course, I could have been a wee bit biased in that regard, as I tended to view attractive guys as the competition. His hair, a medium brown, was cut short so it stood up slightly, out of his way; it waved a little as he talked with characteristic animation. Next to him, Ben Eldinson leaned back in his seat, glasses in one hand, making small adjustments to balance the folding chair just enough so that it wouldn't fall over. I didn't doubt he could do it if he tried. He was a mutant, after all. Ben's emotions had always been kinda difficult to read; there was always a lot of stuff going on at the subconscious level, surfacing and resurfacing in ripples. That made a lot more sense now that I had the explanation: when he was looking into the future (or, I suppose, the past) he saw things we didn't, which drew brief, mixed emotions compared to everyone else's relatively constant state. The strongest emotion he gave off, though, despite his nonchalant, geeky appearance, was nervous tension. He'd probably spent a long time on the phone with Alex planning whatever it was we were going to discuss at this meeting. Being a fashion-conscious man myself, I resisted the temptation to jump out of my chair and tuck in the tag at the back of his T-shirt, which said something about hackers or being elite or something. Ben's gaze was mostly fixed on the back wall as he concentrated on his chair, but when he did look at someone, it was Alex or Lia, who was still wearing a troubled expression to go with her troubled thoughts. My heart went out to her, but nothing I said would make it any better, and if she were uncomfortable around a roomful of mutants now, unless she learned to relax on her own, it would only get worse as time went on. A situation out of my hands, in any case. Before I could get in any more analysis, Alex started talking, and I decided I should listen. Alex began, "Welcome to the first meeting of Team Infinity." There were no snickers at the name as there were the first time I proposed it, so I felt a little better. Even Rick didn't think it was an entirely stupid name, although he had to pipe up and ask "Oh, I thought we were the Justice League. I guess that means Wonder Woman is out of the question!" He laughed into his hand. Rick always laughs at his own jokes. Alex wisely ignored him, and continued, "I want to thank you all for being here on such short notice, but you'll have to get used to it. Ben and I have been talking some things over, and we've laid out some ground rules I think everyone can agree on. "First," said Alex, making eye contact with each of us individually, "we're going to be a team. This means that you don't just skip team meetings because you have homework. Ben here probably does twice the amount of work we do, and he didn't have a problem coming here today on such short notice." He turned to his right, a little of his satiric personality bubbling up through the cool exterior. Or interior, maybe. "And no, Timothy, your latest squeeze isn't a valid excuse either." I had to admit, that one hit a little close to home. Rick opened his mouth to make another snide comment, a particularly venomous one from how triumphant he felt that he'd thought of it, but Lia smoothly intercepted the jibe with an elbow to the ribs. I couldn't help but feel he had it coming, and apparently Ben felt so too. Sarah was too busy staring off in the distance to notice, retreating inside her shell. Something Alex said, maybe? But I digress. Alex still had the floor, and with his personality in force, he was likely to have it for a while longer. "Do you guys remember the trademark line from Fight Club? It goes, You do not talk about Fight Club. And then the next line is, You do NOT talk about Fight Club." Those of us who were still listening nodded. "That's how it's going to be with us. You can't tell your best friend, you obviously can't tell your parents, and even that diary hidden behind the sock drawer would be stretching it. In a little while, we're going to have people trying to figure out who we are. A lot of people. When that happens, it's essential that nobody suspects any of us." Rick was beginning to have a little more respect for Alex's plan, I think. At least, the only part that was rankled that Alex was giving him orders was his reflexive dislike of the guy. He sat up in his chair, pretending he was just now tuning in to the lecture, and piped in, "Makes sense. Spiderman spends, like, half his time trying to convince people he's not Spiderman, and he doesn't have to go to school." A quick mental run-through of the other three new "team members" confirmed that they were also going along with this. I was glad to know it, as I thought it was an extraordinarily sensible plan myself. Lia had something she wanted to say, but was too shy or too inarticulate to actually leap in and say it. I trusted she'd get to it in her own good time. Alex wasn't finished. He fixed Lia in his gaze like an insect on glue. "Lia, this is where you come in. Since we're going for absolute secrecy, you have to keep our secret too. This means you have an important role in case anything serious ever happens: you run interference. You can say with a straight face that you're not a mutant, and you're not part of any gang of mutant hoodlums, and these are perfectly legitimate social gatherings." He paused for a second. "Or at least I hope so." A little smile to reassure Lia, who had now been firmly impressed to my relief. Unless she had a deep-seated disrespect for authority or something, she wouldn't let us down. "I'm sorry to interrupt you like this, but I have a question, if you don't mind," said Sarah, raising her hand meekly. The girl sure knew how to sweet-talk Alex, because he warmed immediately and graciously retreated. "What exactly are we supposed to do? You've got to have goals if you want to succeed." Although I could tell from her twinge of emotion that she'd heard that somewhere before, it didn't show on her face. "Right. I was going to get to that," said Alex, a little annoyed but regaining his composure quickly. "Ben tells me that we could all be fairly strong mutants if we had a chance to develop and train each other in the use of our powers. That's what I plan to do, once a week, after school at my house. My parents are never home, like I said, and we have a nice big backyard in case you guys don't want to break the furniture during practice." Ben jumped in here, unable to restrain himself. "And once we can reliably control our mutant powers and we know how to work as a team, we can start saving the planet. Specifically, we need to do that by Friday." Cries of "What?" from the team and "Yeah, right!" from Rick were cut short by Alex's voice, suddenly commanding. "Quiet." A flash of Alex's anger washed over me, as hot as a lighted fuse and just as brief; it was all I could do to keep from flinching, from the raw emotion and the anticipated outburst to follow. A long time ago I would have wondered why nobody else had a reaction, and even now I have to remind myself occasionally that they have no idea what's going on behind the voices. I think it helps being a friend if you don't know what he's thinking, but I'm not sure. Alex said quickly, "I'd hoped we'd have a little more time to acclimatize ourselves to our new roles, but we're going to have to grow up faster than we thought. Ben has found something with his future vision that only we can handle. Ben?" Ben took over smoothly, launching into one of his famously boring monologues. Anyone who's ever had a class with the teacher's pet knows how this feels. "Today I happened to be at the new computer lab at school, looking around idly, and I saw a lot more than I expected. To put it bluntly, guys, Annihilator's next target is that lab, and he's coming tomorrow afternoon. From there, the future for the CS lab diverges into two major paths. First, Annihilator arrives after school and starts wrecking things, killing people, you know the drill. The police know this is a likely target, but it'll still take about five minutes for a squad to arrive, and by that time, the lab is in ruins and he's ready for them. Regardless of whether he escapes, a couple officers die." Alex looked and felt positively grim, as he should; he'd heard it before. Probably it was this discovery that prompted his whole spiel just now. Rick looked strangely elated, listening eagerly while trying not to be obvious about it; I didn't know why. Perhaps he wanted to use his powers, perhaps he wanted personal revenge on Annihilator (although I couldn't see why), perhaps he was just sorry for being such a jerk to Alex. The girls were listening intently, as if it were the only lecture for a quiz tomorrow. The scariest part, however, was Time. He was afraid under his voice, and I don't know what it meant, aside from something bad no matter what path the future takes. I hoped not to hear his next words, but they come anyway. "Second, the killer arrives on schedule and we're there to stop him. We take him down and think up a reasonable alibi, in five minutes, without giving the police any evidence of our powers. It's going to rely a lot on luck, much as I hate to say it, but we're the only people who can possibly be in the right place at the right time, so we have no choice. Fortunately, I have a plan..." The discussion was launched, with everyone interested and actively participating. Even Lia chimed in a few times with practical advice, and once with a request to be there when it happened. Alex responded matter-of-factly, "Of course you'll be there, Lia. When the police come, you'll be the one telling them what happened." It was agreed that we'd order pizza and stay here, trying to figure out what to do, what to say, everything. After about an hour, a thought struck me, and I waited quietly for my chance to speak. "You're forgetting one thing, guys," I told our new team. "A team's got to have a leader. Which one of us is going to be the leader?" That made everyone feel uncomfortable, me included, as everyone silently gauged their chances and desire for leadership. I waited for everyone to think it over a few seconds, and then said, "I don't know about the rest of you, but my vote's for Alex." One by one, the rest of them nodded their heads, until it was just Rick. He scowled, his annoyance at being outnumbered mixed with his relief at not having to take responsibility for a crazy venture like this, and shrugged. "All right, I guess Alex is it," he said. Ben chose that moment to whip out from his backpack several blue T-shirts with handmade logos. He passed them out to each of us, and there was a general hubbub as we looked at what he'd designed. On the front was a small logo with the infinity symbol and the words "Team Infinity" in white. The back of my shirt had "MIND" in block letters. From what Ben was explaining as he walked around, this was my codename. "Sorry I couldn't come up with anything that sounded cooler, but these are so vague they'll have no idea who we are, and I thought that was more important. You heard Alex." Ben wasn't sure he was doing it right (he was fine, he should stop worrying), so he looked at Alex, who gave him a thumbs-up in return and put his shirt on. We kicked back our chairs and indulged in some good-natured jostling to see everybody else's names. Alex. "Hey, what's with 'Reality'? Why don't I get something cool, like 'Power' or 'Space'?" He was still smiling, of course, from the ego boost of being named team leader by what I guess you could consider a unanimous vote. Sarah. "Oh. 'Space'. I should have known. Gee, Ben, your creative juices are really flowing today!" She didn't even put her shirt on, afraid it would clash with the rest of her outfit. Rick. "What the heck is 'Reality' supposed to mean anyway? I always suspected Alex was really an alien from the planet Saturn." Secretly pleased he got the macho moniker of "Power", I thought. I decided to add my voice to the chorus where it would do the most good: at Lia, who felt distinctly unhappy in her shirt. "Cool name, Lia. 'Soul', I like it... Come on, this is supposed to be fun. I think the shirt looks good on you." "Thanks, Timothy," she said automatically. A lightbulb went off in her head, and she corrected herself. "Or should I call you Mind?" "That's right," said Ben, thrilled that one of the girls had picked up on his little scheme. "When we're on a mission or something, we use codenames. This prevents us from accidentally revealing ourselves to whoever's in earshot. Also, it sounds more impressive, like we've been a team for a lot longer, which gives us the psychological edge." "I think I get it," said Lia. With a glance at Sarah, she added, "I think maybe it would be best if we just wore these shirts until we got used to each other's code names. I mean, I appreciate you going to all this trouble, but..." "I understand," said Ben with a casual wave of his hand, although he felt anything but casual. With that, the conversation moved to other subjects. Tuesday was going to be a very interesting day at school, I thought. * * * * Tuesday was a very "interesting" day at school, in the same way that a foot-long cockroach is a very "interesting" kind of animal. For the first time in a while, I felt really exposed, like I had a big sign on my backpack that says "Beware of Mutant". Fortunately, it was all in my head, so the most I got was some sympathetic looks from the girls, which don't mean anything because I wanted them to be sympathetic. My parents always said that if you don't let your emotions show, people will still be nice to you. "Don't throw stones at a watched pot" or something like that. I wish I had that luxury. The one bright spot in the day was taking a quick check of the premises before school began - Karen was out sick, or skipping class. That meant I could put off our confrontation till tomorrow. I wandered through the day in a daze until lunch, where I had barely begun to sit down next to Alex when Dave came rolling in. Literally, this time, on a rolling chair he'd stolen from somewhere. Of course, he was being as obnoxious as possible about it, yelling "Another victory!" as he grabbed my lunch bag. Alex and I just sat there and looked at each other, the same thing on both our minds, until Dave got bored and gave up. Then Rosemary came running up to me - she's in my science class, by the way - to remind me about this lab we needed to turn in this afternoon. I hightailed it out of there with some sympathetic nods of understanding from the rest of our group and a half hour to do two hours' worth of work. By the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around, I'd completely forgotten about our plan. By some miracle, I passed Lia in the hall as I was leaving, and asked where she was going. "The computer lab," she said with an absentminded smile for me. Then it registered, and a distinctly mischevious "Why, where are YOU going?" followed. It'd been a long time since I'd been embarrassed, so I beat a hasty retreat to my locker. Only later did I realize that she was nearly unaffected by my powers. Maybe she was directly compensating for them, maybe she had some natural immunity I hadn't thought of looking for in my other friends - either way, she looked like a likely candidate for someone to talk to. You know you've got some real relationship problems when the thing you look for most on a first date is the girl calling you an idiot to your face, 'cause you're sick and tired of the same "oh, you're so sweet" smile from anybody female. But anyway, I had the presence of mind to bring Ben's dorky T-shirt, and since my locker was close to the edge of the school, I was able to fight my way against the crowd as the buses started leaving in order to avoid any comments. Of course, I could have just put myself into a "don't touch me" mood, but I didn't feel up to it. It looked like Lia had been sent to find the rest of us as well, since she and Rick were just coming in when I got there. Alex took one look at us, said "Good, you remembered your shirts", and directed me to a computer next to Sarah, without getting up from his seat. The barb had its intended effect on Sarah, who had conveniently "forgotten" hers; her shame was brief and spiky, like a pinprick, meaning it was only peer pressure. While surfing the Internet, he talked at the rest of us as we come in: "You've all got your jobs to do, you should know them by now. Remember, when he walks in, everybody stand up and get into formation. Space, you cover for Mind while he gives the bad guy a mental beatdown. Power, you don't draw attention to yourself, just keep yourself and Lia from getting hurt. I'll take him head-on, buying Mind some time and hopefully getting this over with quickly. Time, you can take care of yourself, right?" No affirmative was expected or needed. There was far too much nervous anticipation going on, even from Ben - sorry, Time - who should logically be just as worried as the rest of us; I tried to calm myself (and by extension the rest of my friends) down, and though it didn't work as perfectly as it did by accident two days ago, nobody went crazy and nobody forgot the plan. Rick had only been seated for a few seconds when, a little ahead of schedule, the villain walked in through a different door than the one we used, one that opened directly onto the parking lot. The team, alone in the lab, positioned so that some of the computers mad a partial barrier between us and the door, so that we had places to hide and dodge when he attacks. We'd all seen the photos on the news, but our very own "Killer Mutant", Annihilator, was even more imposing in real life. He'd obviously been on the run, since he hadn't washed his hair or shaved in a week and all he had underneath his leather jacket was an undershirt. Based purely on physical appearance, he looked more like a street tough than a murderer, but I would have recognized him anywhere. I could feel his arrogance, that complete one-hundred-and-ten-percent self-confidence and superiority over anything he saw, and pushing its way through, his urge for destruction. He had given it rein for so long that it had become a habit he couldn't satisfy except through random acts of terror, I perceived. Once before I had met a man with an incurable mental disease, and I never want to repeat the experience again. While our opponent wasn't quite that far down, the most charitable way his condition could be classified was "enjoying attention from others." It was really a fanatic lust to be known, from the media and the general public and the policemen who live in fear and awe of him. We all got up, although my response was more automatic than anything, and I frantically tried my bit, something I've never tried before: consciously manipulating another mind. An ugly feeling, really, knowing you're working two steps away from a person's soul. If you ever get the chance to try it, don't. It didn't help that I had no idea if I was doing it right or not. I didn't dare try anything damaging, since I wasn't sure if my powers could be focused on someone or if I had to include people in a sphere around me. So I stuck to the plan: enhance the image as much as possible that Annihilator is a classic supervillain and we are superheroes. I wished I could do something substantive to attack him, but this was the best our brainstorming session could come up with, so I said my prayers and extended my "will" as far as it would go, focusing my mind on my opponent. Did I imagine it, or was that a wild, stereotypical evil laugh bubbling up within him? Can't take any chances, have to keep the pressure on, I thought. In front of me, Time put on his glasses and Space took her locket out from under her shirt, while Reality throwed his ring under a table somewhere and Power placed his feet slightly apart, probably something or other in martial arts. Don't ask me, my attention was definitely not on him at the time. I had more important things to worry about, like imminent danger to life and limb. "Behold, I am Annihilator, the instrument of your doom!" I was right, that was an evil laugh all right. He gestured with his left hand, and the computer Space had been sitting at exploded as if someone had tossed a grenade into it. I took an instinctive step back before I realize what had happened: Space, locket held in front of her, had created a doorway in front of the machine, at an angle so it caught all the shrapnel directed toward the team. Notably, no shards came back at Annihilator, but there was a pillar of smoke on the table and a tinkling of glass as a stray metal shard found its way into some unfortunate guy's monitor. Within a second the danger was over and the doorway closed. I almost panicked, and fought to keep myself calm and focused. Next to me, Time registered a brief peak of excitement: we had gotten a glimpse of one of Space's doorway things from behind. It didn't seem all that impressive to me, but I wasn't the scientist either. Annihilator looked in disbelief from Space to the computer and back again, then bared his teeth in a challenge. I squeezed off a quick prayer: "Lord, thank You for Ben Eldinson." His plan was working like a dream: under my influence, he wasn't even fazed by the appearance of another mutant or a group facing him instead of running away, but he actually wanted a battle! Space was shaking slightly; creating that gateway at just the right angle was luck, then, not some inner font of skill we hadn't noticed. Reality was on the ball, staring into the killer's face without so much as a quiver of his jaw. He played his part to the hilt, too, starting off with, "Allow me to introduce us." With a finger pointed to each of us in rapid succession, so fast he'd obviously practiced the timing to get all our names in order without leaving Annihilator a chance to think, he continued, "I'm Reality, and these are my teammates Space, Time, Power, Mind, and Soul. "We're Team Infinity, and we're here to stop you." His voice was deeper and more resonant, his personality hardened into steel. I'd never seen such a change come over Alex, and frankly, it worried me. If he'd been practicing and he was losing his grip on his normal personality after spending so much time transmuting himself... I abandoned that line of reasoning hastily and started paying attention again. "In gratitude, I will kill you slowly, one by one!" Annihilator raved. He threw up both hands and we all tensed. In one long horrible chain, several more computers exploded like firecrackers, one by one flinging themselves at us in a million pieces each. Lia had found the perfect place to hide, ducked behind a chair, while in front of her Time, glasses on to cue the team in that he's using his superior brain instead of his time-sense abilities, ducked and twisted so that nothing hit him, making adjustments for each explosion as its shards hurtle by millimeters from his face and arms. The surge of andrenaline from finally being able to use his powers was a welcome antidote to the sheer terror I was getting from Lia. Power shouted, "Raging Storm!" and pounded both fists into the ground. The floor tiles cracked and raised up in a perfect circle around him, while around him there is a blur of heat and a haze of blue-white sparkles. As I glance, about half of one machine's disk drive went straight for his nose, but a foot away, it turned into a shower of silvery blue dust, spreading around the edge as it shatters into ever-smaller pieces from Power's blast. Power felt even more shocked and awed than I did: he doesn't really know his abilities either, I think, surprised. He was impressive, even on instinct, for a comic book hero at least. It looked like we didn't have far to go before we were going by comic book standards all the time, at this rate. Reality morphed into the metal form I saw the other night in the van, except smaller this time, and the metal bounced harmlessly off him, except for one piece, which embedded itself in his shoulder. My view of the team was cut off by Space, who hastily and fearfully stepped in front of me and extended her doorway to catch the shrapnel from two more exploding computers, and then there was nothing for me to do except continue doing my job, and praying that I live to eat dinner tonight. It's all any of us could do. Annihilator had by now got the message that we were quite capable of defending ourselves from those 2000-dollar firecrackers of his, so he lowered his hands and yelled out something so hackneyed that I knew my mental tampering must have worked. "First rule of the villain's epic battle: Show your might. I will punish your impudence, right here and now!" He reached out towards Reality, squeezed his hand... and nothing happens. Reality, being metal, wasn't even in pain, he was simply missing a chunk of what used to be his vital organs. Enraged, Annihilator raises both hands and prepares another strike. The rest of us are rooted to the spot, the plan gone horribly wrong. Reality was supposed to confront Annihilator directly and deal with him while the bad guy was still blowing up machines, not face him down and lose within fifteen seconds! A thought struck me - as metal, Reality no longer had eyes or ears, so he couldn't tell that Annihilator was going for a more powerful attack so quickly. He'd guessed wrong, and we had nothing to offer against it. Lia started edging towards the door. Annihilator lowered his hand, and at that exact moment, Reality's metal body vaporized. It was like it sublimated directly into air, not a trace left and a wind rushing out from where he had been. We were at a loss, completely in shock, even Ben. I guess he's not the hero with nerves of steel he made himself out to be, I thought regretfully. But Annihilator was already one step ahead of us. "Second rule: Pick on the weak. Girl! Get up and face me!" She got out from behind the chair just in time to meet his gesture, casually contemptuous. I saw the next few seconds in slow motion. Her face turned upward, shining in the light streaming from the open door, and she opened her mouth to speak. Red blossomed under her shirt over her heart before any words could come out, and she clutched her chest and fell backwards, crumpling to the floor. The pain I felt from her was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was hard to think, but she wasn't dead yet. Not dead yet, thank God! We all glanced at Time, in the hopes that his brain could have figured out something. Instead, he grabbed Power's shoulder and turned him around to face our enemy. Power shrugged off Time's hand, stepped forward, and challenged Annihilator to single combat. "Rule number three," he said, and where Lia's consciousness of overwhelming pain was fading into unconsciousness, Power surged with a wild, suicidal rage. I knew the rest of the room could see it too, although not as much as I. I'd never been around such concentrated and conflicting emotions before, so I did what any sensible person would do in the situation: fell down. I suppose I should feel lucky I didn't hit my head on a chair. As I did, I poured everything I had into Annihilator, and I felt something... twist... the way it shouldn't. He smiled, a horrible, unfeeling, arrogant smile, and said, "Take your best shot, kid." Only a guy as well-versed in cheesy Street Fighter duels as Power is could have come up with such an appropriately bad comeback. "One shot is all I need, murderer!" He lunged forward with both fists, and the killer easily stepped backward to evade it. Regaining his footing, Power threw his arms back to his sides, his anger now commingled with a scary kind of joy, a feeling of power that for a moment approached that of his gloating adversary. WHAM. The ground under Annihilator's feet exploded in a thunderous roar, knocking him three feet into the air and hurtling him backward, straight into one of the room's support beams. He gave a yell that was all too human, and from my current location on my knees frantically trying to shut out the emotional overload, I felt rather than saw him break the power lines running down the beam. Enveloped in electricity, he kept on going through the beam, breaking it like so much balsa wood, and hit the floor just short of the next row of terminals. The lights on all the computers went out, the sprinklers turned on, and police cars started pulling up in the parking lot with lights flashing. Of all of us, only Time knew what to do. "Shirts off, people!" he snapped. "Look frightened and shell-shocked! I'll handle it from here." As if we needed encouragement. Sarah was at my side, helping me to my feet and taking my shirt off. I was too numb to feel anything but a faint, childlike pleasure at being undressed. Mind could provide the missing ingredient to help his super-powered friends take on their enemies, but plain old Timothy Walker felt like his head had just been run over by a herd of elephants. Rick was already crouched at Lia's side, feeling desperately for a pulse, wearing someone's jacket over his shirt. The blood had spread almost too far to bear to look at it, but then Rick cried, "She's alive!" Sarah sat down reflexively in one of the remaining chairs, a swirling mass of emotions she had no hope of controlling or even expressing at the same time. I couldn't help her now, not with Lia bleeding to death on the floor in front of me. Behind me as I bend over, trying to think of something, the police officer heard Ben's tale. Something about all of us hiding from Annihilator's attack, Lia the only one he could find -- Rick interjected, "She needs an ambulance! Somebody call an ambulance!" -- and in his rage, Ben was saying, he started destroying everything in the lab. One of his explosions hit the support beam he was standing next to, the power lines caught him, and he's down for the count; miraculously, out of five people present, four aren't even scratched and the other is still alive. The officer glanced over Rick's shoulder and realizes he has no time to question witnesses. He licked his lips nervously. "People, you four have just become the only survivors of an attack by Annihilator. Five, if the girl makes it to the hospital; she's lost a lot of blood, but he somehow missed her heart." Rick and I glanced at each other: not a miracle after all, just a flaw in Annihilator's impeccable aim. Rick disconnected his mind: too much information in a short period, I'd seen it before. He'd cry himself to sleep tonight or something, but for now he was just recording what he experiences, on autopilot. Ben was telling us to move aside, make way for the stretcher. He had to tell us twice, maybe three times. They brought an ambulance along, how convenient, I thought. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Ben explained our alibis, or what I could grasp of them, and concluded: "Well, that was a close call if I ever saw one. We almost lost a couple team members." Our jaws droped, and Sarah shouted: "What?!?" The rest of us echoed her sentiment: how can Ben be so callous about Alex's death, even if he knows Lia is going to live? For his part, Ben shook his head, rubbed his glasses on his shirt (quickly turned inside-out, I saw), and then the realization hit him. With an exasperated sigh that really grated on our nerves, he explained what he had noticed with his superfast brain, but the rest of us had been too busy with our own problems to see. "While Annihilator prepared his second, more powerful attack, Reality already knew what to do. What you three saw in action was the backup plan: if Reality was to come under direct attack, Power would take over and cut our losses by any means necessary. Just before Reality "exploded", he transformed into air, heavily compressed air but much less mass than his true form. Since you can't explode air, Annihilator succeeded only in scattering Reality's particles across the room. He'll rematerialize somewhere near his center of mass, and he'll know to wait to do so for enough time for everyone to have left. The only trick is finding a time to do so without a police officer finding him out, but that's his problem, not ours." As an afterthought he added, "Oh yeah. Lia will be fine." And with that, he was sandwiched into an awkward hug from Sarah, who was, well, overjoyed, I'd suppose, for lack of a better word. And to tell the truth, so was I, only too mentally burned out to show it. Victory in our first battle, against all odds, Team Infinity takes a licking and keeps on ticking. I thought two friends were dead, and they were both going to be fine. I thought my life was down the tubes when somebody found out about my powers, but I felt more alive than ever, with a group of friends who knew what I am and don't hate me. Annihilator wouldn't wake up until he was in mutant prison, under special sedation to prevent the use of his powers, and by fighting him we could have saved dozens of people's lives. In a word, "Wow." My mom was too happy to see me alive to ask me too many questions until I could call Ben and have him remember what my alibi was. * * * * LiveJournal user trickhat [Alex] wrote on 2002-10-01: People, please ignore this if you don't understand it. You really don't need to know, it's not like my life is completely ruined or anything. First team event was a rousing success, or so I hear. I wasn't able to be there for the big moment due to unforeseen circumstances. I suppose I was a little cocky, expecting certain people to be confused when they weren't or expecting people to know things they didn't. I don't like hurting other people, and I have a little experience with being hurt myself, but nothing like this. Took me quite a while to get back to normal - more mental shock than wounded pride, actually, but I always thought I was better, faster, more skillful than this. I feel kind of guilty as a leader now - I wonder what certain people think. I'm sure - well, I hope - Timothy knows my reasons; I'm not sure how much Ben told him. Not sure what I'm going to do about Dave. He suspects something is up, I'm sure of it. Maybe I could ask Timothy. Oh wait, he wouldn't know either. Grah!