Ride the Lightning

Ohm 3.7

"This is Director Piggot. I am declaring a state of PArahuman Emergency within the city of Brockton Bay. All PRT Agents are to report to their unit commanders for assignment. All Protectorate Parahuman Assets are to report to their pre-assigned rally points. Emergency Briefing in the Action Room in 10 minutes."

The announcement finished it's second play through before being again being replaced with annoying alarm klaxons. Armsmaster and Aegis had left, heading towards the Action Room, wherever that was. The rest the Wards who were present were subdued, anxious. Kid Win had tried to leave when Miss Militia reminded him that he wasn't to go anywhere without orders. Why was I still here?

Clockblocker.

"Isn't there anything you can do to get my hand away from this glove?" A note of desperation had entered his voice, clearly he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to help in the current crisis.

I looked at the glove, a little hesitant to touch it.

"I'm not sure. Nothing like this has ever happened before. You're sure this isn't your power?"

"No, it's not my power. My power flat out does not last this long."

"I don't think there is anything I can do."

The panic in his voice was palpable.

"Are you serious? Are you fucking serious?"

"I'm sorry, I just….I don't know…."

Miss Militia stood next to me.

"Flash, I know that you may be a little upset, but we need to get ready to mobilize. Trust me, Clockblocker will be reprimanded for his little joke, but we need him right now. Is there anything you can do?"

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit… It's like I'm the one who is trapped. It's not my fault, how was I supposed to know that this would happen? It's not like my powers came with an instruction book. Was I going to be in trouble? I needed to not be here, I need to be out there helping. Bombs are going off all over the city, people are getting hurt, people are dieing. Why am I here?

My body began to shake, normal micro vibrations aggravated by my distress. I felt like my head was filling with static, blackness crawled across the edge of my vision, a roaring filling my ears. Something was there, something at the tip of my tongue, on the periphery of my mind.

Everyone in the room began to sway back and forth, looking for all the world like they were on the edge of sleep.

Two beings, immense, spiraling through space….

My muscles were twitching, sparks of electricity dancing along my body, my skin alive the with sensations.

Trajectory?

Agreement.

Destination?

The roaring in my head grew louder. My vision took on a golden haze and the lightning danced over my body. Just when I couldn't take it anymore, I thought I heard a voice, from the innermost part of my mind, in a voice that was profoundly different, but at the same time was my own.

"Run Taylor, all you have to do is run."

My vision cleared. Everyone in the room shook their heads, as if clearing cobwebs. Clockblocker has calmed slightly, but was beginning to get agitated again. I turned slowly in place, making eye contact with everyone in the room.

Then I began to run.

I lapped the room, once, twice, ten times, a hundred times. Moving around statues, electricity arcing from my body as I built up speed. I felt the lightning sing in my veins, felt my body vibrate, felt the fundamental relationship between me and everything else protest before it simply changed.

Breaking off from my circuit of the room I turned and ran straight for Clockblocker. Making contact with him I allowed the speed I had built up, the sense of vibration in my body, to propagate down my arms and into him. I hesitated just a moment, slowing my forward momentum to enure it passed into him, and then I pushed off as hard as I could. There was the feeling of pressure normally associated with moving things at speed, but it was different. My perception was different. I could see everything moving but not moving. There were gradients. The people moved more than the floor and walls did. The frozen glove didn't move at all. I pushed Clockblocker and his movement shot up past everyone else, approached the rate I was moving, I was vibrating at. His hand passed through the glove as I moved him forward. We passed through the doors and into the hall, through the other wall and into the elevator shaft. I turned us around in an arc and we did it again. Wall, then hall, then wall, then Wards common room.

Clockblocker fell to the floor. Everyone else jumped. From their perspective I had blurred around the room for a couple of seconds before seemingly teleporting Clockblocker and myself from his previous position to the middle of the room….. And somehow leaving the top of his costume behind.

"What the," Clockblocker began, before promptly doubling over and throwing up the contents of his stomach.

Into his helmet.

"Sorry, first time I tried that," I offered, slightly out of breath.

"What did you just do?" Miss Militia was looking at me differently than she had ever done so before.

The answer I was about to give was cut off by the sounds of another explosion, not too terribly distant. I reached inside and tapped the lightning, felt it crawl across my body.

"I ran."

And with that I took off, past the gathered Wards, through the wall, and out of the building.

Emerging from the side of the building I stopped moving for a microsecond, throwing off my inertia, arcs of golden lightning continuing along my original path. Bereft of forward momentum, I turned down, facing the street. I began to run again, feeling the force of my speed not…..adhere me to the side of the building so much as let me ignore the downward pull of gravity, instead turning it into forward momentum. In the distance I could see columns of smoke, the hazy orange light of fires, moving ever so imperceptibly slow as they rose further into the air.

Approaching the ground I lept from the side of the building, arcing to the street, and landing at a run. The PRT HQ was quickly left in the distance as I ran towards the Docks. I needed to check on Dad.

I shot through the city, trying not to let myself get distracted. Still, there were people hurting, people in danger. I passed a burly Asian man swinging a fire ax at another man's head. I grabbed the ax handle as I passed by, pulling it and the man swinging it with me. I let go ten blocks further down the road and four blocks over, letting him finish his swing into the side of an armored car. If I had stayed around, I'm sure I would have been treated to a panicked yelp of surprise fighting with a cry of pain. He had been swinging that ax pretty hard.

Closer to the docks I had my first direct brush with the bombings. There was a blister in the road. As I got closer to it I figured out what was happening. The street was in the process of exploding upwards, creating a large hump that was expanding rapidly enough for me to watch it happening. At the apex of the hump, a look of absolute panic on his face, was an obviously homeless man. He was slowly standing up from a bent forward position, his hand holding a ug of water. There was a small cable running from the jug of water into the street.

Detonator.

I could see a shock wave forming in the air around the expanding road. I accelerated, running up the asphalt blister, aware of the difference in sensation as I transitioned from relatively solid street to the heart of the explosion. I grabbed the man and maintained my speed and trajectory, leaving the road surface at the top of the hump and angling towards the wall of the tenement building across the street. We ran up the wall, over the roof top, and jumped to the next. I left the man on the fire escape and continued on. City blocks blurred past me until I came to a stop in front of a chain link fence with a sign on it.

International Association of Dockworkers Local 1052.

Coming to a stop allowed sounds to rush back into existence for me. I could hear distant screams, cries of pain and anguish, shock and fear. In front of me I could see dockworkers. Most I didn't recognize, some I did. Older men and women who had long ago hurt themselves on the job, who had been given administrative jobs, supervisory positions, anything my Dad could do to help them make a check and get by. They were heading into the building. If they were here, he was here.

I waited until the door was approached by someone I recognized, Bibbo Bibbowski. When he started pulling the door open I dashed into one of the port-a-johns behind the building and changed into what I had worn to the PRT HQ, minus the domino mask. I dashed back around to the front of the building and, making sure no one was watching, slowed into a normal run.

"Mister Bibbo, hold the door!"

The large man stopped at the sound of my voice, turning his head. A look of happy surprise was quickly replaced by one of mingled anger and fear.

"Little Taylor, what are you doing here? It's not safe."

Catching up to him, I feigned catching my breath.

"I had to see my Dad. I need to know he's ok."

"And a phone is too hard to work?"

I treated him to my sternest look. We locked eyes for what felt like an eternity. It was closer to ten seconds

Erupting in the deep belly laughs that I remembered from years ago, Bibbo placed a large hand between my shoulder blades and ushered me into the building.

"Come on Little Taylor, I'll take you to ya Dad.

Walking through the building, I was reminded of the state of the local Dockworkers. While the walls and floor were clean, they were also worn, as tired looking as my Dad was when he came home at the end of a week. We walked down the main entrance hall towards the work room, a large, open room. Years ago, according to Dad, this room would be filled every morning with Dockworkers picking up assignments, completely empty by 8am with open jobs left waiting to be filled. Nowadays it would have those who still bothered to show up waiting around for whatever scraps of work came in. As we neared the double doors, I could hear murmuring voices.

Opening the doors was like walking into chaos. The space was filled with Dockworkers as well as their families. On the stage at the front was my Dad, his voice raised, his arms gesturing.

"Thompson, take Peter's, JackJack, Burley Jim and Rasheed and head to the North end of the lot. Sally-Anne, you take Old Bob, Young Bob, Pete, and Davis and head to the South end. Mike, I want you to take Not-Dave, the Ant, Flanders and Radar out to the West side fence. Everyone's radios need to be on channel 2. Call in anything you see AS SOON as you see it."

"AND WHERE SHOULD WE GO YOU SKINNY BASTARD?"

Bibbo's deep voice quieted the room and grabbed my Dad's attention.

"Bibbo? Taylor? What are you doing here?"

Laughing and walking towards my Dad with me in tow, Bibbo gave a quieter response.

"I'm a lifetime member Dannyboy, where else would I be. Also, I found your little lady outside looking for you, thought she could use an escort past all of these miscreatary fellows."

"Taylor, are you ok?"

"I am Dad, but I need to talk to you."

Dad was quiet for just a moment. I doubt anyone else would have noticed.

"Sure Taylor, we can go to my office. Bibbo, could you cover things until Kurt gets here?"

In a much more subdued voice, Bibbo answered, "Sure Danny, I've got the ship."

Handing his radio over to Bibbo, Dad and I walked out a side door, then down the hall to the cramped office Dad seemed to call home half the time. Closing the door behind us, Dad turned and gave me a tight hug.

"When the explosions started, I was so worried about you kid. What have you been doing?"

I returned the hug, squeezing as tight as I could.

"I was worried about you to. I was at that place picking up my outfit when the bombings started. I ran out thinking I could help some people, but when I saw how bad it was, I…. I needed to make sure you were safe first."

"Taylor don't worry about me. I'm one of the safest people in the city. Back before Endbringers were a thing, the Union hall was a fall back shelter for all of the workers and their families. That's what we're doing now. Be safe, but go do your thing."

I hesitated.

"Taylor?"

"Dad, I think this might be my fault."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember when I told you I met with Lung? I think, if I hadn't of done that, then this wouldn't be happening."

"Oh Taylor, don't think that."

"Why not?"

"Because these things sometimes happen Taylor. Would this be happening right now if you had never met with Lung? Maybe, maybe not. Something like this doesn't happen overnight, or in a week."

"But.."

"I know you want to stop all of the bad from happening, but you can't. No one can."

"Then what should I do?"

Dad smiled down at me.

"Do all the good that you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as you can."

My eyes widened a little at his words. It had been years since I had heard them, not since before Mom had died.

"Thanks Dad."

"Be safe Taylor."

Dad opened his window. I stuck my head through, made sure the coast was clear. Giving Dad another hug, I turned and did what I do best.

I ran.

**********Authors Note**********

Ok, for realsies, this is the last post for the weekend. I am trying to decide if I should do the bombing as the last several chapters of Ohm, or if I should follow this with an interlude and have the anti-bombing campaign as the first part of the next arc. For those who don't know, what Danny said at the end is a quote from John Wesley. No I am not inserting religion into my story. The reader can interpret it however they wish, but I felt like it communicates an excellent sentiment.