With Svetlana at the wheel, she managed to pull through the rural roads of Fort Lindell until they reached the main highway.

"Looks like we've lost them," she noted. Her Russian dialect gave off an air of authority while the rest of the passengers sat in the back attempting to absorb everything that just happened. Riding shotgun next to her was Jane who tapped away on her laptop. The hacker wanted to ensure that they were indeed out of harm.

"I checked and no tracking signals within the vicinity," she remarked. "I think we're safe."

From the rear, Paul Sandza sighed. "Don't be too sure about that. The Shop's tech is quite advanced. They might notice us without us being aware." The covert government agent turned to a sleeping Charlie McGee whose head was placed in Sue Snell's lap. The former guidance counselor parted her hair and checked her pulse to make sure she was okay. "How she is doing?"

"Unconscious," said Sue. "Whatever drug they gave her put her out like a light."

"It's a powerful sedative." Paul added. "It prevents Lot 6 carriers from using their powers. She'll be out for at least another hour."

Carrie exhaled. "I guess I'm your only weapon then."

Paul shook his head. "Not the only one." He pointed to himself. "Psychic here too, remember?"

"Wait a minute!" Rhonda interrupted from the back. "You're telling me that you guys are some type of superheroes with powers and stuff?"

Carrie shifted her gaze to her friend. "Uh, yeah. I guess you can call it that."

"Listen, Franny…I mean Carrie or whatever your name is," Rhonda clucked. "I'll keep an open mind about all supernatural things like ghosts and mediums, but I don't buy into this superhero bullshit! Yeah, I was a little freaked by that wackjob holding a gun to my head, but you didn't fling him through a glass window! That's impossible! He probably fell or tripped…"

Oh, these powers are real. I'll assure you, Miss Walker."

Rhonda's head spun around. "Who said that?" Paul's voice echoed around her.

I did.

She stared at Paul to see him smiling and his lips not moving.

It's called telepathy. I'm talking to you with my mind. Like I said, these powers are real. Watch.

He dug into his pocket, pulled a quarter, and flung it at Carrie. The red-haired woman knew exactly what to do. Carrie concentrated on the coin and let it float in mid-air. Rhonda stared at it in shock as it suspended for a bit in front of her and darted around the inside of the van. After whizzing around the vehicle, it returned to its original position and quickly dropped into Carrie's hand.

"It's called telekinesis," she explained. "I can move things with my mind."

A surprised Rhonda nodded in agreement. "I can see that." She turned to a sleeping Charlie. "And Liz, I mean Charlie. What's her deal?"

"Pyrokinesis." Carrie responded. "That means she can…"

"Start fires in her head." Rhonda answered for her. Carrie was impressed. "I do my reading." Her eyebrows lifted. "I don't know whether to be shocked or frightened."

Carrie covered her hand with hers. "Don't be scared, Rhonda. We're still the same people." She paused. "Just different."

Rhonda pulled away. She pulled her knees in close and wrapped her arms legs as she sat. "Different doesn't bother me, Carrie. It's the lying that really upsets me. You and Liz…er Charlie kept this big thing from me. It's hard not to be a little pissed off."

"They had good reason to." Sue jumped in. She stroked Charlie's sleeping head. "My daughter has powers too. Anyone exposed to the Lot 6 drug gave them these strange abilities. Imagine what would happen if anyone found out about it. People would go after them. They would be locked up. There would be wars and people getting hurt. Sometimes keeping secrets are the only option."

Rhonda shrugged. "You mentioned this Lot 6 drug. Is it some illegal street thing like crack or something else? Plus, who are these people called The Shop you keep talking about?"

"Lot 6 is definitely a pharmaceutical drug," Paul chimed. "Not anyone can get it and not everyone gets powers from it. As for The Shop, they are the bad guys we're running from and the group we need to stop. It's more complicated than you realize."

"We're half an hour from the safehouse." Svetlana added. "We can stop there temporarily to rest and grab supplies."

Jane agreed. "So far no signal of The Shop following us." She doubled checked her laptop. "We should be safe."

"Good." Paul noted. "Perhaps we can discuss who and what The Shop truly is."

The safehouse

Fort Lindell

The van pulled into another rural road off the main entrance of the highway. Along the rough terrain of rocks and dirt, Svetlana veered through several steep pathways until they came to a cabin that appeared to be hidden among the trees. Parking by the front entrance, the group got out as they went inside to rest and grab a bite to eat.

Furnished with some cots, a kitchen, tables and chairs and meagerly stocked refrigerator, Svetlana and Jane made some sandwiches from the ingredients inside while they laid a sleeping Charlie in a cot nearby. Rhonda pulled a chair nearby as she bit into her turkey sandwich and sipped on her water bottle.

"So, what's your story?" She asked Sue who picked at her sandwich unable to eat. "How do you know Carrie and this Charlie person?"

Sue Snell sighed. "I don't now Charlie, personally. I just know of her."

"Sue and I went to school together." Carrie jumped in. "Back in Maine. Did you ever hear of the Black Prom Massacre ten years ago?"

"A little," said Rhonda. "I mean I was about 10 or 11 when it happened but we covered current events in school. They said it was listed as one of the worst school tragedies next to the Columbine shootings and Sandy Hook. Why?"

"What do you know of it?" Carrie questioned.

"Just that some disturbed teenage girl started a fire in the gym during a high school prom and kids were trapped inside." Rhonda answered. It suddenly dawned on her. Her eyes widened as she looked at her best friend. "Oh my God! That was you! You started the fire!"

She stood up from her chair, but Sue placed her hand on her arm to calm her down.

"It's not her fault." Sue reassured her. "Carrie had no control over her powers back then! If you only knew how horribly she was treated back then, from her bullies to her mother…" She stopped herself. "The fact is it was an accident. She had no idea what she was doing!"

Disbelief and distrust weighed heavily on a reluctant Rhonda. "Over a hundred seniors were killed that day!" She yelled at Carrie. "Don't you feel any remorse for what you did?"

Carrie exhaled. "I do." Her voice quieted a bit. "I live with that guilt every day. Part of me wanted revenge for all the torment my classmates did to me. The name calling. The pushing. The shoving. The obscene things they wrote on my locker. Pelting me with tampons when I got my first period to dumping animal blood on me at the prom, while they all laughed at me in my misery…"

"Wait," Rhonda stopped. "They dumped animal blood on you?"

"Pigs' blood." Sue corrected. "They failed to mention that in any of the news articles, didn't they? It's always psycho girl massacres kids at teenage prom. I found out my ex-best friend Chris Hargensen left a plot list of getting back at Carrie. She and her friends butchered some pigs at a nearby farm and planned to douse Carrie at the prom. The police conveniently failed to mention that to the public, so they can paint Carrie as a 'disturbed teenage girl'."

Carrie continued. "The point is the other half of me let it happen. The moment I felt caged and beaten down, I completely blacked out. It was like my body took control over my mind and a voice inside my head told me to release. So, I did. The next thing I know I was surrounded by fire and brimstone and coming home to my mother stabbing me with a knife and wishing for it all to end. I only recall bits and pieces, but I do remember wishing to die in my house and everything collapsing around me."

"But you did die." Sue added. "The police said they found your body among the rubble. No one could've survived your house collapsing."

"Not necessarily." Paul Sandza interrupted. "The reason why the town law enforcement discovered a body was because I planted it there."

The trio of women looked at the government agent in surprise. Paul continued.

"Somehow, your powers cocooned around you, creating a protective barrier," he explained. "It was like you were suspended by a state of animation. No debris touched you while you slept. This gave us time for my team to plant a decoy, so we could pull you out. We replaced a female cadaver with your similar height and build, planted fake dental imprints, and made the body look as close to matching your appearance. Since the wreckage would've battered and destroyed the body to make it unrecognizable, none of the town's police force would be able to tell it wasn't you. Obviously, the plan worked, and we got Carrie White to a safe location."

Carrie placed her hand to her mouth. "So that's how I ended up in that cabin in Vermont."

"Exactly," said Paul. "We wanted to make sure you were safe from the Shop."

"Okay," noted Rhonda in a fit of annoyance. "Let's say, I'll buy into this whole superpower thing and this evil group called the Shop. How do we know you're involved with them? How can we trust you?"

Paul sighed. "Because the Shop ruined my life! They killed my brother and father!"

The group turned silent at the agent's admission. Paul rubbed his forehead as he gathered his thoughts.

"You wanted to know what the Shop was or is. It has a long history."

"Well, we have plenty of time to hear it." Rhonda clucked. "It's not like we can go anywhere when we have bad guys chasing us. Fess' up!"

His hands rubbed together as he pulled a chair close by, sat and began his story.

"Scientists believe that we use 100% of our brain power but, truthfully, it's more about 70 to 90 percent. What about the remaining 10%? What if that portion is connected to an undiscovered genetic anomaly that allows a small group of the population to perform superhuman feats?"

All eyes fixated on him now.

"Since the dawn of time, history has shown the superstitious belief of witchcraft, shamanism, and even demonic possession. What if I told you that none of that existed and that each of these situations were humans evolving into the next phase of their development. Darwin said it best concerning the survival of fittest due to natural selection. All of that came to fruition with the Nazis and Hitler."

Rhonda rolled her eyes and folded her arms. "Please don't tell me you're going to spout some white supremacist bullshit because me and you are going to have a problem in a minute."

Paul grinned and raised his hand to stop her.

"Don't worry, Rhonda. I'm not going to go on a racist diatribe." He exhaled. "This is important because Hitler believed in creating the ultimate uber-man, a superman of sorts, which he experimented on the Jewish prisoners as well as his own men to achieve his goals. As we know, the Third Reich failed and after the scientists and doctors were tried for war crimes, all their documents and work was destroyed…except for one."

Their ears pricked up.

"A Nazi sympathizer and scientist named Steffan Kynuggar escaped trial and fled to South America, where he changed his named to Stefan Keeng and continued his experiments with the locals there. He managed to perfect a serum which enhanced psychic abilities called Los 60. Because this was the start of the Cold War, he began selling his formula to various countries at war from Cuba, Korea, and Russia and eventually establishing his own covert mercenary group called PSI and sold their services to the highest bidder. PSI became such a huge threat that all nations began to fear another coming of another world war."

Carrie scratched her head. "Obviously, that didn't happen, otherwise, we would have experienced World War III. What happened?"

"Los 60 was still experimental," he said. "The subjects given the serum didn't last more than a week without cerebral hemorrhaging and their internal organs shutting down. Keeng knew he had to ramp it up a notch and began selling PSI to the American government in exchange for diplomatic immunity. If he could get Los 60 to work, then he was in the clear and he decided to try it with America's involvement with Vietnam. With thousands of soldiers exposed to chemical and biological warfare like Agent Orange, Keeng subjected many soldiers to Los 60. A good majority of them died with the exception being my father, Peter Sandza. After Vietnam, my dad joined the CIA. What he didn't realize was that exposure to Los 60 genetically altered his DNA and made him a carrier of the Keeng gene, a mutation that passes superhuman abilities to his children. My older brother, Robin, was a carrier and so was I. PSI saw the potential of creating superhuman children and weaponizing them. They murdered Keeng, kidnapped Robin, and disappeared. My father chased after them."

"Why didn't they take you too?" Sue asked the agent. Her abrupt question appeared to have offended him. "I mean, why take only your brother, Robin and not you?"

Paul shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe because my psychic abilities weren't that strong. PSI was in the business of creating weapons and a young boy who talks to other people in their heads isn't exactly that useful in a warzone. Robin, other the other hand, had immense gifts like Carrie. He had telekinesis, telepathy, and showed tremendous psychic skills. Sadly, it also got him, and Dad killed. PSI drove Robin to madness, and he used his powers to murder both himself and our father. Unfortunately, PSI escaped capture, migrated to various parts of the world, and resurfaced under a new named called the Shop. They have been continuing their efforts to create humans with the Keeng gene through a newly revised version of the Los 60 serum called Lot 6. To combat them, the Pentagon recruited me into their undercover program, and I've spent years trying to take down the Shop and their efforts."

This revelation deeply interested the ladies.

"Does Lot 6 kill all its subjects?" Sue wondered. She thought about Tommy and how he had passed the Keeng gene to their daughter.

"Surprisingly no," he answered. "Unlike the original Los 60 serum, which proved ineffective, the Shop discovered a way for the Lot 6 drug to genetically alter the patient's DNA without the subject realizing it." He turned to a sleeping Charlie McGee on the cot. "Charlie's parents became instant carriers of the Keeng gene after being exposed and reports suggested they had psychic abilities." He then shifted to Carrie. "However, Carrie's father showed no abilities but passed the gene on to her."

Carrie glanced down sheepishly. "I didn't know my father."

"You don't need to." Paul advised. "Our reports indicated that Lot 6 didn't give him any superhuman abilities. He struggled financially and needed to support his drinking habit. That is why he agreed to be a guinea pig for Lot 6 under the pretense of the Shop calling project 'medical research'. After he left you and your mother, his drinking didn't stop, and he would've died from alcohol poisoning eventually."

Carrie remained silent. She didn't like talking and thinking about her father.

Sue drew the attention toward her. "What about my daughter, Izzy, and her father, Tommy Ross? He wasn't psychic."

"He wasn't," he described. "But he was a carrier of the Keeng gene. I researched Tommy's father and his dad served in Vietnam. He too was exposed to Lot 6 and made him a carrier. Lot 6 is unpredictable. It can skip a generation. That is why your daughter Isabelle developed the Keeng gene."

Rhonda slapped her forehead. She could not believe all this information she was processing. "All right, I'm dealing with plenty of 411 here and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to this. We've got tons of psychics, superheroes, a secret agent, and an evil organization hellbent on taking over the world." She glared at Jane and Svetlana across the room. "I want to know what's up with their story."

Jane looked up from her laptop. "Let me give you the five-minute synopsis. Me, spoiled rich kid and ignored by stuck-up parents. Raised by Russian nanny who turns out to be a secretive government operative working with Agent Paul there. Have expert hacking skills, found out about the Shop and now helping with the Cause. Yup, that pretty much sums everything up."

"Aren't you scared?" Rhonda asked the goth teenager. "I mean the Shop sounds like pretty serious business."

Jane did a snort. "At this point, what do I have to lose? My BFF is also a Lot 6 kid who went missing so I'm already on their hit list!"

Suddenly, Rhonda's face turned pale. "Oh my God! My parents! I forgot about them! The Shop might go after my family!"

"Relax," Svetlana cut her off. Her Russian dialect sounding quite confident. "The Shop knows little about you. I doubt they would use your family as leverage. As far as they know, you're an innocent bystander in all of this, especially when one of their agents tried to use you as a random hostage."

"I don't know about that," Jane remarked with doubt. She turned her laptop around to showcase a video on an online newsfeed site. In the video from someone who shot it on their cellphone, it displayed a blurry vision of a crazed gunman waving a pistol at the crowd before shoving the anonymous face of Rhonda being shielded by the shadows of nearby objects within the area. In an instant, the faceless Rhonda hits the concrete while the gunman is whisked into the air and thrown into the glass panels of the bookstore. Screams and chaos can be heard nearby as the screech of tires is masked by running crowds and random people blocking the camera's view.

"It still proves nothing." Paul confirmed. "In that one-minute clip, they can't identify anyone so as far as I'm concerned, the Shop won't go after Rhonda's family."

This was not good enough for the twenty-one-year-old college student. Rhonda needed that extra reassurance.

"I just need a phone." She demanded. "To let them know I'm okay."

Svetlana handed hers. "Use mine. My phone has special software to make it untraceable. You have one minute."

Rhonda grabbed the device and began dialing. She had to make this quick.

"Hi, Dad. It's me. Look, I know this is weird but don't believe what the news says. I'm fine."

"I can't tell you where I am. I just wanted to let you know that I'm safe."

"Look, I don't have much time but let Mom know I love you both."

"Once this is over, I'll call you but don't worry."

"I'm sorry, Dad. I got to go. Bye."

She hated being cryptic, but she knew it was for the best. She handed the phone back to Svetlana.

"What now?" Rhonda asked.

"First, we need to get you to a different safehouse," advised Paul. "We can't have innocent civilians getting involved."

Putting her hands to her hips, Rhonda pouted. "Hold on! Now that I know everything, you can't keep me waiting somewhere! I want to help!"

"No," Paul said strongly. "It's too risky! You and Sue will…"

"Absolutely not!" Sue shouted. "My daughter is being held hostage by them and I'm not going to sit still and wait and do nothing! I'm coming too!"

"NO!" Paul yelled. "It is too dangerous! Svetlana is an experienced agent and former KGB operative! Carrie and Charlie are ultra-level Keeng patients and Jane is an expert computer hacker! I need people on my team that can handle themselves without me worrying about anyone getting hurt!"

Taken aback, Carrie folded her arms. "What do you mean ultra-level Keeng patients? Exactly, what does that mean about Charlie and me?"

He stared at her. "It means that you and Charlie have immense abilities that when utilized to its maximum potential could bring about mass destruction! Most Lot 6 don't even have that much power. I'm classified as a Level 8 and even my telepathy has limitations. You and Charlie are living, breathing organisms of power!"

Carrie shook her head. "If you're saying that we might be able to destroy the world, then I assure you that is not going to happen. I'll always regret what happened at the Black Prom, but I won't ever let it happen again." She walked over to Rhonda and nodded to Sue. Taking Rhonda's hand, she signaled to Paul. "Rhonda and Sue are coming."

"But Carrie…" Paul protested.

"But nothing, Paul." She declared firmly. "You obviously need us. Otherwise, you wouldn't just bring two agents to handle this mission. From what I can guess, you can't rescue Sue's daughter alone and you need Charlie and me to help with stopping the Shop. If we're ultra-level-whateveryoucallit, then that means you need our abilities to assist you." She smiled at Sue and Rhonda. "We need the two of them. They help keep us sane and help us not lose control. They help us remember that we're human and, more importantly, they help us realize we are better people." She stood up to the agent. "If you want us, Paul, then you take all of us. All or nothing."

The operative paused for moment.

"She is right, Paul." Svetlana agreed. "Everyone serves a purpose to this team and we don't have the manpower to take down the Shop. We need all the help we can get."

"Fine!" Paul relented. "Just be aware we're treading on dangerous ground! This isn't going to be easy!"

Carrie grinned. "These things never are."

A quick stir came from the cot nearby. Charlie McGee mumbled as she turned and slowly opened her eyes. Still groggy from the tranquilizer, she shook her head and brushed her hair from her face.

"Wh…what happened?" She asked, recognizing Carrie who sat near the edge of her cot.

Leaning in, her girlfriend planted a kiss on her forehead. "You were asleep, Sleeping Beauty." Carrie giggled.

Charlie eyes darted around the room to see Rhonda and a sea of strangers. "Who are they?"

"Long story," said Carrie. "Just rest, you'll need it. I'll fill you in later."

Paul sighed. "Well, we're semi-immobile right now. We don't even know where to begin. The facility that Sue broke out from has been stripped and any traces of finding where the Shop might be located has not yielded any results."

"Not quite," Jane declared from her laptop. "I hacked into my father's account and a mysterious deposit has been made from an anonymous company that no one has ever heard of. A CY Corp. CY as in PSI or their newly formed name the Shop? Ring any bells?"

Intrigued, Paul walked over to Jane. "Can you trace where this company is located at?"

She tapped a few strokes on her keyboard. A name popped up which made Jane's skin turn cold.

"Holy shit!"

"What is it, Jane?" Paul wondered.

"It's my old private school." She remarked. "The one Jennifer disappeared from. Saint Pelikan!"