By the way: I decided to leave Helena out of this chapter. Maybe to build drama, maybe just because I wanted to focus on the first villain, I don't know. Well, enjoy.
Chapter 3: Fate
Adam Bentley
San Diego, California
Adam was giddy all morning. He could barely hold his coffee cup straight because he was so overtaken with joy. Today was the first time he would get to see his son in over a week. Far too long he always thought to himself. Sadly his son's pickup was stalled by a terrible traffic jam on the Golden Gate bridge. It always killed him that Sarah decided to move to the other side of that damn bridge just to make it a pain in the ass for him to see his son, but it didn't make a difference; nothing was stopping him from getting his boy. Nothing. The traffic was gridlocked for as long as he had reached the bridge, and it felt like it would take him an eternity to be with his son again. He decided to call him and tell him he was on his way.
"Hello?" Sarah's voice resonated from the cell phone. He would never admit it, but her voice still made him quiver.
"Sarah, put Adrian on the phone."
"You're late, you should have been here fifteen minutes ago."
"That's why I'm calling. The bridge traffic isn't moving, and I just want to let him know I'm still coming."
"Fine…hold on."
"….Bitch." He said silently into the phone, assuming she had put it away from her ear.
"It's still me you ass. Here's your son."
"Hey buddy!" Adam said with a sudden lift in his tone.
"Hey daddy." His little boy said enthusiastically. "Are you still coming?"
"Of course buddy, of course. Wouldn't miss this for the world. I'm on the bridge, and traffic is crazy, but I'll be there in no time."
"You promise?" Adrian said in his cautiously optimistic voice.
"Of course I promise big guy, it'll just be a few more min…" Adam was caught off guard by the violent shaking of the bridge. He figured out soon that it was an earthquake, but it was much worse than any he had experienced in his life. He could hear the screams of the other travelers on the bridge, and he rushed out of his car to look at his surroundings.
He soon realized why the screaming was happening, as he spotted one of the supports on the right side of the bridge was beginning to fall. It's trajectory was leading it right towards a white mini-van with at least three children inside. He knew what he had to do, but wasn't sure he could. He ran beside the car and climbed on top of the hood.
"What the hell are you doing?" The frightened woman inside said as Adam stood readily on her car's roof as the pillar continued it's all too slow descent.
"Get back in the car, take care of the kids!" Adam said in a frenzy of emotion. Seconds later, the pillar was just feet away from Adam, and fear overtook him.
As the pillar fell within his grasp, Adam extended his arms, and felt the large red support fall into his hands. He felt a terrible strain in his arms, but only a second later, the pain subsided, and he could lift the massive support in his hands effortlessly. He could see the awestruck bystanders getting out of their cars to look at what everyone knew was impossible. Adam simply threw the beam into the ocean, not having anywhere else to put it. The quake continued to rattle everyone on the bridge for several minutes until it finally subsided leaving the commuters rattled and confused. Adam quickly ran back to his car and sat inside it trying to cover his face. He wasn't in any way ashamed of what he did, but someone had already captured his previous showing of strength and he had to conceal his identity whenever he could. The traffic soon picked up, as everyone wanted to get far away from the bridge.
Adam looked at the passenger seat and saw his phone still open. He remembered his conversation with his son, and the fact that he never finished it. He would see him soon enough; and hopefully it would take his mind off of the craziness of the past minutes.
Terry Schwartz
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Terry had just finished his power walk of the mile his gym teacher had made him redo. Terry had to withstand ten minutes of the teacher yelling, screaming, and egging him to run for at least a lap. Of course, Terry knew that if he got any faster, he would end up in Miami; and have to do this a third time. After his mile, he headed over to the football field to watch his friend Orlando during his team's practice. Though Terry tried hard to fight it, there were times when he was jealous, and sometimes hated his best friend. He had been given the gifts that he himself had been denied. Now that he had finally been given a gift, he couldn't use it to his advantage, or show it off. He had to keep the only special part of him a secret from the world. He saw Orlando running all over the field when he should have been "passing the damn football" as his coach so eloquently put it. Terry had to laugh as his friend never ceased to show off at any chance he could. The team's coach looked over and saw Terry standing on the edge of the turf. "Hey kid, you can't be on the field. Go up to the bleachers if you want to watch practice!"
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Terry said as he quickly stepped off the field. As he stepped away he heard one of the spectators on the bleachers scream. He looked to see two children playing on the top row of the large steel seating structure; and a second later, one of the small kids leaned back against the guardrail and fell over it.
Terry took quick action, and in a quick run, he bolted over to the bleachers, ran up to the top and tried to reach down and grab the falling child's foot. The little girl was too far fallen for him to reach, so Terry ran down to the ground and got underneath the falling girl. Time then returned to normal speed as the child fell into his waiting arms; safe and secure. Terry quickly took the child back up to her mother.
"How did you? I mean…you were all the way over there…"
"It's a long story. Keep the kids away from the railings." Terry said with a smile. He jogged his way back down to the bottom row of the bleachers. He took a seat only to realize the coach was staring at him with a bewildered look. "Damn it." Terry said silently to himself.
A half hour later, the coach called the practice, and Orlando made his way over to his friend.
"Hey man, how did I do?"
"You're a quarterback right? Maybe you should try throwing the ball. I'm just sayin'." Terry said with a smile.
"Yeah ok; smartass. I'm gonna go get changed; wait up alright."
"Will do." Terry said as his friend ran towards the school. He soon saw the coach walking towards him.
"Coach Miller, the team looks pretty good."
"Thank you. You're Terry right?"
"Yes sir."
"Ok. Now Terry, I don't know exactly what happened, or if what I saw was correct but if my eyes aren't giving out; I saw you on the turf, on top of the bleachers a second later, and then on the grass another second later. Tell me son, am I going crazy here?" The coach asked Terry.
"No, you're not crazy."
"How….How in the hell did that happen boy? There's no way you can move that fast."
"Honestly, I don't know how it happens. I just run and sometimes I can control it and sometimes I just move so fast I lose control."
"Any way you can run with just a hint of that speed instead of all of it?"
"Not that I know of sir. I've been trying to keep it as secret as I can."
"Well you can trust me son. What I want you to do is practice as much as you can trying to tame this thing. If you can slow it down a bit; I may have a spot for you on the team."
"Oh, I'm not much of a ball player coach. But…" The coach cut him off.
"You might not be yet, but give me a chance to help you. Well Orlando is coming, and I don't want to hold you up, but keep it in mind son."
"Thank you sir." Terry said as he walked away from the coach and over to his friend.
"What in the hell was that about?" Orlando asked.
"He knows."
Kent and Christopher Palmer
Dallas, Texas
"While the girls our away, the boys will play with their superpowers." Chris said with a devilish grin.
Kent, who always tried to maintain a stern attitude had no defense against the laughter building up inside of him. Had you told him ten years ago he would be on a ranch with his son lifting their tractor with their minds; he would have sent you to the crazy house: Yet at the moment he was doing exactly that. Sarah had decided to head out to lunch with friends, so Kent and Chris had an afternoon to kill with chores, a football game to watch and of course a few hours of telekinesis.
"How long have you known you could do this?" Chris asked his Father.
"Not long. Two months maybe. I was trying to pay the bills, got a little frustrated; next thing I know the checkbook is floating in air. Scariest moment of my life." Kent said with a smile.
"Well at least you didn't almost decapitate yourself with an axe."
"Yeah, what was that about?" Kent asked with a grin.
"I have no clue. I didn't think it through I guess."
"You guess. Next time try a pillow." Kent said with another chuckle in his son's direction. Kent lost his concentration in the moment, and the large tractor fell to the ground with a loud crash.
"Great…Now we've got to fix the tractor." Chris said in defeat.
"It's gonna be a long day." Kent said as he hugged his son and went to get his tools.
Timothy Sampson
Los Angeles, California
Timothy walked into the conference room ready to pull out his hair. "What in the hell happened people? We are working with highly radioactive chemicals here, there is no, I repeat, no room for error!"
Timothy had never wanted to take over the company. His father had spent years grooming his only son to be the future CEO. "Sampson Systems? Are we really that devoid of creativity?" He always joked to himself. Truth is, it wasn't until the day that his Dad died that something drove him to take over. He could never put his finger on what it was, but it didn't matter; he knew now he made the wrong choice. Tim never wanted to be a conniving, lying, backstabbing executive; fate had other planes he assumed.
"…Someone give me answers here! I don't sign checks away for god damned accidents. I hire only the best, yet I wake up to one gigantic shit storm!"
"Sir, it was simply a clinical error. One of our top scientist has given us the most logical reason. He said someone mislabeled the "P" serum with the "X" project. They put it through the usual tests but the mix-up caused the explosion." Gabriel Hartman said. Gabriel was always considered Tim's most likely successor, but Tim himself never could stand the guy.
"Were there no survivors?" Tim asked after pounding the table violently.
"An explosion of that velocity could incinerate any substance known to man. We're just lucky the lab was in an unpopulated area, or we could have seen some serious problems." Gabriel replied. A look of sudden anger flashed on Tim's face.
"Lucky…..LUCKY! We lost are main research lab, some of our top scientist, and that radiation could still be on the move; and you say we're lucky?"
"Sir, to be fair, Gabriel isn't all wrong here. It's a setback and a tragedy for sure, but there have been no civilian casualties, and only one noted incident of possible radiation exposure." Another associate said.
"The man lifted a support beam damn it, he didn't get that way from eating wheaties. Anyone have an I.D. on the subject?"
"No, but we do have the list of names of everybody on the construction site at the time of the event, so we should be able to narrow it down within a few days."
"Fine…Fine." Tim said sinking into his chair in defeat. "Ok, what's next? We'll have to start construction on a new lab, do some P.R. damage control, and try to figure out where possible radiation has spread."
"We can't start building a new lab! If we just gloss over the deaths of the scientist on hand, we would come off as heartless and cold." Gabriel said.
"Well we are a corporation." An intern said as he was walking by.
"What we need to do is put out a public relations notice to say how devastated we all our for the deaths of our employees." Gabe added.
"That's suicide. We've already lost millions from the destruction of both our laboratory, as well as our experiments; and you want to take time to smooth things over? No, we can't."
"Mr. Sampson, Gabriel is absolutely correct here. According to our numbers, we already are viewed as the average money hungry, heartless figurehead corporation; We cannot just sweep this under the rug. If we're going to rebound from this, we need to face it head on, and try to show that we are in fact a good business with good intentions. " Another of the men in the room said. Everyone but Timothy nodded and grumbled their agreement. A demented smile crossed Timothy's face.
"Well then, it's settled. Consider this meeting over." Tim said as he stepped out of the conference room in fury. Gabriel smiled in silent victory.
Later that day…
Gabriel entered the dimly lit parking garage, pounding on his electronic car opener, listening for the familiar beep of his horn. He finally heard the noise, and as he made his way to the vehicle, someone ran up behind him and threw him to the floor. Gabriel's head hit the concrete with a thud and a gash was formed instantly. Gabe shuffled to his feet wearily and saw his attacker: A deranged looking Timothy Sampson.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Tim said as he kicked Gabe in the ribs with a ferocious stomp. " My Father gave me this company, not you!" Tim said with another swift foot to Gabe's cracking ribs.
"Please, Mr. Sampson; we can do whatever you want. Please let me go." Gabe said in sheer horror as Tim inched closer to him.
"Oh, trust me Gabe, We are gonna do things my way no matter what you say." Tim said as he pulled up Gabriel by his tie, and kicked him in the back of the knee, causing him to collapse.
"Gabriel… Did you know that if you get a flame hot enough, it could burn away literally any form of matter on this earth? I don't know why, but I just find that fact to be so very comforting."
Timothy flashed a sick grin at his quivering enemy. Tim held his palm out, and in a flash a sphere of flames appeared in his hand.
"Because of the 'mistakes' at the lab, I have developed this side effect. Pretty nifty huh? Oh yeah, I had a blast writhing in my shower in complete and total agony as my entire body was engulfed in sudden flames. Do you have any idea what it feels like to have your skin charring off your bones?" Tim screamed at a whimpering Gabriel. "Sure it looks cool now, and the pain has subsided a bit, but you never do get used to secreting flames."
"Please…don't hurt me. We'll find a way to make it right."
"Of course we will…You just won't be a part of it. Oh and for the record…My dad always liked you most of all." And an instant later, a stream of glowing heat devoured Gabriel. The pained screams of unfathomable pain would soon be heard by many of the others in the offices, so Tim ran off to his car, and drove away. At any and all costs he would find a way to take away this curse. At any and all costs.
In the next chapter…
Terry is forced to use his powers for questionable purposes Adam has to outsmart potential attackers in his home Kent is forced to come clean to his wife Helena's conflicted emotions lead her to lose control Tim's dark quest begins with a run in with a new hero…
Well that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Review if you get a chance, and look for chapter 4 sometime soon. Later!