Living outside sucked. The rooftops hardly offered Cole any comfort, and now something was wrong with him. His head felt fuzzy and his thoughts were muddled. He barely had enough energy to climb down from the building he had been roosting on that morning.
He'd hidden from the Reapers to try and recover from nearly being murdered. But the rooftops were deathly cold... He'd spent the entire night huddled, shivering and coughing, under a tarp on top of an apartment complex. The fact that his clothes were now full of holes didn't help him to stay warm.
He felt himself shaking as he attempted to traverse the sidewalk. Whether it was from fear or whatever was wrong with him, he wasn't sure. The dead felt closer now. The shades that wandered the city along with him became clearer. He could get closer to them without them disappearing.
"What are you?" Cole asked one transparent woman who was standing at a bus stop just ten feet from him. She ignored him. Cole stepped closer and she shimmered and vanished.
"You okay?" the voice whispered.
Cole grasped a street sign for support.
"Just fucking perfect," Cole snarled. "I'm crazy, you know that, right?"
"Come on, at least you know I'm real," the voice said reassuringly.
Cole hesitantly let go of the street sign he'd been clinging to. It was true, the voice had answered him when he'd begged for help... He felt like he could barely think straight, but he felt sure that the voice had some kind of power. This invisible girl had made the trees move...
"So then what are you?" Cole asked, looking around for more shades to question.
"I told you, I'm nobody special."
"What's your name, then?"
"I don't have one."
Cole sighed and set off down the sidewalk once again. He was starving, he needed food, not more ghosts. He briefly considered going back to Shane's apartment, assuming she was even there. But... he didn't want to endanger her. Food would have to be obtained elsewhere.
"You're impossible," Cole grumbled.
Soft laughter floated past him as he stared at the outline of the hospital in the distance. That might work...
He wondered if there were still bandits there... As many Reapers and thugs as he'd killed, there always seemed to be more... where were they all coming from? The streets were almost always completely deserted, except for him and these freaks. This city had become terrifying. Gentle, kind laughter didn't seem like it belonged in this scene of destruction and desolation.
"How about this, you can call me whatever you want," the voice offered.
Cole sighed. Should he be naming his hallucination? Well, she did help save his life...
"Samantha, then," Cole said.
"Why that?"
"I don't know, I just pulled it out of my ass," Cole snapped. "First thing that popped into my head."
"Okay."
Cole kept going towards the hospital. Maybe the hospital was empty of bandits now, just maybe... And if it was empty, maybe he could get some food and medicine there.
He kept moving. This whole place felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for the next move to be played. But Cole almost didn't want to know what the next move was going to be. Kessler was still out there, doing God only knew what... Cole didn't know what he wanted anymore.
He wanted to end this madness so Shane could be safe. He wanted to find out what the voice really was. And he wanted to leave this place. Would he... no, could he stay alive long enough to do any of those things? Maybe, but he couldn't do it alone. Well, there was Shane, hiding out in her apartment...
She could help you, if you let her... that was what the voice had advised him to do. But it still didn't feel right, even though the girl was obviously skilled at moving around without detection... what other skills did she really have? What if he couldn't protect her?
"Are you going to stay with me, Sam?" Cole mumbled.
If I'm crazy, might as well just go with it. And at least I don't have to worry about getting you killed.
The breeze brushed his cheek, like a kiss.
"Of course," Sam whispered.
"And are you going to tell me what you are?"
"I'm your friend," the voice reminded him.
That evasive answer shouldn't have made him feel a whole lot better, but for some reason it did.
I have two friends now. Sam and Shane. I'm on a roll.
As Cole passed an intersection, a traffic camera zoomed in on him.
/
A large, black haired man sat in a dark room staring at the monitor, watching Cole cross the street without bothering to look both ways. Lucky for him, there weren't any cars to watch out for.
Cole's mouth was moving, as if he were speaking... but nobody was in earshot of him. The kid was talking to himself.
The black haired man growled. Kessler's experiment was a bloody waste of time. The boss had made the sphere, blown apart a major city, and for what? The kid was clearly losing his grip. He was powerful, yes, but unstable. The black haired man was bitter. Some kid had this power, and he could barely handle it. It was pathetic.
Kessler should have let him activate the sphere, not some random kid... He had joined Kessler because the boss had promised that he'd have power too, but no... some weakling was made to activate the ray sphere. But why?
The man heard the door open behind him. Heavy footsteps could be heard.
"Kessler," he growled in greeting. "Your little experiment is unstable."
"Do explain," the boss's voice oozed past his ears.
The black haired man jabbed a finger at the screen. Cole's mouth was moving again.
"He's talking to himself. This boy is mentally unfit to be any kind of weapon!"
Kessler strolled farther into the dark room, peering intently at the screen. After a minute of observing his specimen, a twisted smile spread across his face.
"So... you survived after all," Kessler said finally, an insane light in his eyes.
The black haired man simply stared, wondering if he and Kessler were seeing the same thing.
"I don't suppose you saw the footage of the ray sphere in action, did you?" Kessler said, his metal limb twitching. The man eyed Kessler's robotic arm warily. The boss had powers too, stronger than anything the underling had ever seen... no one knew exactly what the extent of his strength was.
"I saw it," the man said simply.
"Hm, I would guess you didn't watch carefully enough, Travis," Kessler said in a condescending tone. "This is why you don't make the decisions."
Kessler's hand shot out, grasping the man's neck from behind, forcing his face towards the screen where Cole could be seen looking around like he was worried he was being followed.
"Tell me what you see," Kessler demanded.
"A nutcase!" Travis spat, straining against his boss's iron grip.
"You know what I see?" the madman hissed. "I see a mistake."
Kessler released his underling, flinging him to the side of the room. Travis glared at him.
"This whole thing is a mistake!" the black haired man insisted, clenching his fists. "You should have given the ray sphere to me!"
"You?" Kessler sneered, baring his crooked, sharp teeth. "What makes you think you could control such power?"
"What makes you think he can!? You promised me power too, remember?!" the underling all but screamed. Cole was now ambling out of site of the camera, wobbling unsteadily. The young man looked for all the world as if he were about to drop dead right then and there.
Kessler wasn't even phased by the question. His large, blank eyes simply watched as his experiment wandered away.
"I have seen it. I have confirmed my information from a more... unconventional source," Kessler said simply, ignoring Travis's second question. Then he blinked, flexing his metallic fingers. "But for now, we have a little problem. As you said, there has been an... accident."
"I never said..." Travis began slowly. An accident? What accident? "He's unstable, that's the problem! We'll never be able to use him in the state he's in."
Kessler held up a finger for silence.
"Yes, his powers are growing stronger... the boy sees the electrical after images of human lives," Kessler explained, still in that condescending tone. "But those are not what he is speaking to, no... he is speaking to a mistake. An accident."
Then the truth hit him. An accident... a mistake. Something that should not have happened. The kid wasn't insane. The black haired man glanced back at the monitor. The trees were swaying gently in the wind. Empire city was almost always breezy, but wind didn't normally change direction completely at random.
No one had known exactly what the ray sphere would do once activated, except that it would bestow powers. Apparently Cole wasn't the only one who had gotten a taste of power...
"I want you to investigate this further," Kessler growled. "We must find out whether this is something that needs to be taken care of."
Kessler also spared a glance for the leaves dancing in the wind as they were broken off tree branches, almost as if an invisible hand were plucking them off one by one...
"Or... if this is something we can use to our advantage."
Finally, Travis grinned. This was why he'd been hired. Unlike science experiments and observation, stalking prey was right up his alley. Now to locate this mistake, and see what he could learn.