The intersection personified chaos. Rain drenched it and showed no signs of stopping; vehicles made spectacles of themselves with screeching halts, honking horns, and incandescent lights; pedestrians ambulated raucously, contentedly irreverent in their own little worlds. Jack stared out the tall windows of the corner café at the volatile environment; he saw a bomb and feared he was the fuse.
He tried to calm his nerves with another sip of coffee. He knew he was out of place in the establishment – he didn't just think he was; he knew it. He could hear the thoughts of his fellow patrons, even though they weren't speaking out loud.
That's a big dude.
Man looks like he just got out of prison.
It would've been hilarious if he'd've gotten a real frou-frou drink. Big hulking man sipping a dainty frappé through a fat straw? I'm gonna have to remember that for my webcomic.
Yeah, I'm getting mine to go today. Creep.
Don't. Stare. At. His. Muscles. Damn it, what did I just say?
He wouldn't have minded if all the thoughts were more like the last one. At least she wasn't afraid of him. He took another sip and tried to tune everyone out.
A small voice broke his concentration. "Um, hi."
He turned and saw a young woman with straight, blonde hair. She couldn't have been older than Adrienne, his eldest niece who was in high school. He couldn't remember what grade.
What the fuck am I doing?! he heard her think. He recognized her inner voice as the one that complimented his muscles earlier.
"Uh. Hey," he offered gruffly.
"I just felt like you needed to hear something nice, so I wanted to tell you... that you have very nice muscles." She immediately recoiled, deeply embarrassed.
Did I make her do that? he wondered.
"Uh. Thanks– thank you. That's very kind. But, uh, little lady, I am way out of your age range, so you better skedaddle."
"Yes, sir!" she squeaked and scurried away.
A sharp pang cut across Jack's torso. He needed to get out of here. He threw his coat on and plunged his fist into his coat pocket, hoping to find enough change for a cup of coffee to go. He came up empty.
"Excuse me, sir!" a barista called from behind the counter. "Would you like a refill to go? It's on the house!"
"Uh–" Jack winced as another pang fired. He caught his breath and accepted the offer through gritted teeth, then grabbed the cup and hurried out the door.
Outside, the voices in his head from other people's heads grew more dissonant, overlapping each other into indiscernibility. The pedestrians moved around him on the sidewalk, wordlessly compelled to get out of his way. He only wished he could walk in a straight line. His palms clutched his temples in a vain attempt to quell the disorientation.
"Just leave me alone!" he finally screamed. He had but a moment of clarity to realize he'd stumbled into the middle of the street. The taxi driver had even less time to react, and his cab collided headlong into Jack.
Scott knew the time was coming. He could only stand this hellhole for so much longer.
"Next!" the cafeteria lady barked. Scott had never seen her (or any of the faculty members, for that matter), but he recognized her voice. She was actually one of the nice ones. He balanced the knob of his cane between two fingers, picked up a tray, and joined the queue.
"Next!"
The scents of rectangular pizza, grease-logged tater tots, overcooked broccoli, and the same "fresh" fruit that had been there a week ago assaulted his overcompensating sense of smell as he shuffled down the lunch line.
"Next!"
It always seemed strange to Scott that they had a cafeteria worker stationed at the end of the lunch lines. It's not like the kids had to pay for the food. He'd asked about it once and been told that the worker was documenting what each child was eating. It wasn't a satisfactory answer, but his requests for clarification were deflected. Scott's best guess was that it was required by law, an attempt by the government to pretend to have a vested interest in the wellbeing of its unparented children.
"Next! Oh, it's you," she said, noticing Scott. "Hold on." She took Scott's tray from him and left her post, walking behind the buffet and gathering food. It was even quieter underneath the ambient drone of children in a cafeteria, but Scott could hear her mumbling to herself, making sure he didn't get a burnt piece of pizza or moldy piece of fruit.
"There you go," she offered flatly, returning the tray.
"Thank you," Scott replied as he balanced the tray on one hand and regripped his cane with the other. Not that Scott could see, but the lunch lady allowed herself a small smile before once again barking, "Next!"
Scott navigated the familiar path to his favorite spot in the cafeteria: a table in the far corner opposite the hallway that fed into the room. Scott was sure the other kids thought he was a loner who had no friends (as he'd heard as much in whispers to themselves), but it was really because the acoustics resonated in such a way that whatever the guards at the cafeteria entrance were saying echoed into Scott's ears as if the guards were standing right next to him.
He bit off one corner of his pizza and waited to catch anything noteworthy. Several minutes passed in radio silence. Scott sighed. There's gonna come a time, he assured himself. I don't know when, and I don't know how I'll know, but I'll know, and it'll be make-or-break time.
Another couple minutes passed before Scott heard a voice next to him.
"Boss wants a squad to go investigate a case downtown."
One of the cafeteria guards pressed the button on his walkie-talkie and responded, "What squad? We're short-staffed as it is."
A pause. "Send the rear door guards. Boss says this one has him intrigued. Just don't let any kids outside until the squad gets back."
"Fine," the cafeteria guard responded. "Green Team, you hear that?"
"Copy that," came a different, disembodied voice. "I'm assuming Boss has coordinates for us?"
"You should have them any minute," the original, disembodied voice confirmed. "Over and out."
"Over and out."
"Over and out."
Guess the time is now, Scott resolved. He stood up, left his tray and food behind, and navigated to the other end of the cafeteria. Once he was at the doors, he asked the guards, "Can I go to the restroom?"
The guards made hesitant noises that indicated to Scott they were looking at each other for answers.
"Er... Normally, yes, but there are extenuating circumstances right now. We can't let you go," one of them finally replied.
"Oh, okay," Scott accepted, unperturbed. He took a spot on the wall next to the guard that spoke and waited. Trying to pace it out nonchalantly, he started a routine of fidgets indicative of desperation to use the restroom, incorporating more and more every so often. Soon, Scott almost had himself convinced that he was going to have an accident.
"He's a good kid," the guard close to Scott finally whispered to the other. "He's been here for so long."
"It's only been a few minutes," the other guard refuted.
"No, not here on the wall; here at the facility."
"Oh. So, he's not a flight risk?"
"I really don't think so."
The other guard sighed. "Fine." Then, to Scott, he said, "You can go, kid. Just don't cause any trouble."
"Thank you," Scott accepted with exaggerated relief. "Wouldn't dream of it." He exited the cafeteria, putting distance between himself and the guards before letting a smirk cross his face.
Scott briefly considered stopping by his bed. As he considered it, though, he realized he really had no belongings. The only things he needed were his cane and his sunglasses, both of which were already on him. He continued a resolute walk to the rear of the facility.
Standing in front of the metal doors, Scott was just admiring that he hadn't run into anyone else on his way there when a stern voice interrupted, "Where do you think you're going?"
Apparently, not all the rear door guards had gone to investigate. It made sense to Scott now, and he chastised himself for being rash.
"Did you hear me?" the guard insisted.
Scott flipped his cane up and pinned the guard to the wall by his neck. "I could melt your skull with a glance, Sir, but I'm hoping it won't come to that."
"What did you say to me, punk?" the guard wheezed.
"You heard me. Give me your walkie-talkie."
"No... way..."
Scott stared straight at the guard's face. "Have it your way," he jibed and abruptly knocked his sunglasses off.
The guard screamed. "No! Please!" When the guard realized he still had his head, he looked and saw Scott holding his eyes shut. The guard, as with most others in the facility, had no idea that that was how Scott walked around all the time.
"Give me your walkie-talkie," Scott reiterated.
The guard complied.
"And your cell phone, too."
The guard once again complied.
"Is there anything else you can use to contact people, or that people can use to contact you?"
The guard shook his head vehemently enough to rattle the cane.
"I'm blind, dumbass; I can't see which way you're shaking."
"Sorry! Sorry. No, there's nothing else."
"No pager? No earpiece?"
"No, nothing, I swear," the guard insisted, on the verge of tears.
Scott let him writhe for a moment longer before accepting, "Okay." He put the walkie-talkie and cell phone in his pockets while keeping his cane to the guard's neck. "I don't expect you not to report me, although that'd be nice. I do expect you to wait until I disappear into the tree line before you run and tell someone, alright?"
"I won't tell anyone, I swear," the guard panicked.
"Bullsh– hey, you know what? If you feel so inclined? Sure, don't tell anyone, but all I'm asking is for you to wait until I'm lost in the weeds, you understand?"
"Yes! Yes," the guard assured him.
Scott paused for a moment, then said, "I'm gonna let you down now, okay? Nice and slowly. Quietly. Then you're gonna pick up my glasses for me, and then we're never gonna see each other again, okay?"
"Yes," the guard agreed. "Yes, I understand. Please don't kill me."
Scott removed his cane from the guard's neck and braced, either for impact or to run, but to his surprise, the guard followed orders. The guard made no move to detain Scott or call for help. He picked up Scott's sunglasses, put them on Scott's face, and offered, "Good luck out there, kid. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it's tougher out there than it is in here."
Scott frowned. "No. It isn't. But keep telling yourself that. I'm sure it lets you sleep at night." Before the guard could rebut, Scott was out the back door and making a beeline to freedom.
Jack opened his eyes. He was still standing, much to his surprise. He was unscathed, even. The same could not be said for the taxi cab. The front end was scrunched up around him; the engine was shoved up underneath the dash; the windshield was shattered. Jack couldn't hear anything from the driver's mind, but he couldn't tell whether that meant the driver was dead or just unconscious.
What just happened? Jack wondered. He looked down at himself and found his hands were crystalline and opalescent, no longer covered in skin. Bewildered, he clawed at his shirt, quickly destroying the red and white stripes. His chest matched his hands. What am I?
Cries of shock quickly turned to concern.
"Are they okay?!"
"Who is that?"
"How'd he do that?!"
Good samaritans and the morbidly curious started closing in. I gotta get outta here, Jack panicked. I just killed a guy. I gotta get outta here. I gotta–
The commotion disappeared. All the noise, all the voices – gone. Jack found himself staring at a forest. It was as if he blinked and woke up from a nightmare. He hadn't been dreaming, though; he checked and found that his body was still diamond.
I'm going insane, he concluded. I must be. I mean– Wait a second. I know these woods. Yeah! I'm back near the lab! He spun in circles, looking for signs of life. He closed his eyes and opened his mind, straining to hear any distant thoughts. Nothing. No one. He was alone.
How did I get here?
He ambled forward, hoping to recognize some landmark from the many breaks he'd spent wandering these woods. Tree after tree looked entirely different and yet exactly the same. Patterns in the undergrowth caught his attention then dropped it as soon as he inspected them. At this rate, I'll walk back into town before I find a trail, he bemoaned.
Eventually, he found a log and sat to collect himself. Blocking his sight with his own hand, he scoured his memories. He pictured the front of the facility, guarded by nothing more than chain link fencing, barbed wire, and an unmanned gate. He pictured the terminal where he scanned his access card. He pictured the gravel beneath it all and the crabgrass that defiantly perforated that gravel. He tried to picture beyond the facility to any path he'd taken into the woods, but he drew a blank.
Damn it all to hell. He dropped his hand and found that he was no longer sitting on that log but standing in front of the facility, just as he had pictured. Oh.
Another pang shot across Jack's stomach. It felt different from the ones that turned him diamond. Jack clenched his gut and fell to one knee. I have such... immense... power now. I need... more. More power.
A familiar voice came over the PA system. "Jack? Jack, is that you?"
Jack could tell it was a colleague but that was all he could discern through the pain. There was a gnawing hunger inside him. He couldn't tell whether his thoughts were his own or some other entity's. I need more power.
"Jack, just stay right there. We'll send someone out to get you."
No need, Jack retorted mentally. I can do it myself.
The person manning the security cameras kept the intercom button pressed. "Seriously, Jack. Don't panic. Don't worry. We'll get someone suited up and –"
Jack disappeared from the video feed. His colleague smacked the monitor instinctively before considering graver alternatives. He gathered his wits enough to reach for another intercom button, but he caught himself as he spotted Jack on another feed. Jack was standing in the main entrance, the fluorescent lights of the facility interior reflecting garishly off his diamond skin.
"Impossible," the colleague breathed aloud. He spent a full minute in stunned silence before collecting himself enough to sound the alarm. "Jack is in the building," he said as levelly as he could over every relay. "His skin is... diamond..., a-a-and he can teleport? I – I... He should be considered dangerous but not necessarily armed. We should attempt to contain–"
Jack cut his colleague off mid-sentence by teleporting into the room with his hand around his colleague's neck. "You always were a peon, Geoff. A yes man, afraid of power."
"Jack, this isn't you," Geoff coughed out.
"Oh, it's me alright. Your old pal, Jack."
"Jack, please... Please... We bowl together... Our kids have... birthdays together."
A gleam flashed across Jack's eyes. "Geoff?" Jack asked in astonishment, releasing his grip.
"Yes," Geoff exhaled, trying to push Jack's hand away. "It's me." Please don't kill me, Geoff thought.
Jack heard Geoff think. A shadow flashed across Jack's eyes. "You're not worth the effort. I need the power." With that, Jack disappeared.
Geoff hobbled over to the control panel, gasping for breath. He pressed the button to address all relays and wheezed out, "Jack... is armed... and dangerous. Evacuate... immediately."
Jack stood in the industrial freezer, spinning in circles and admiring all the power at his fingertips. There were vials upon vials hanging in perforated trays. Each vial contained a radioactive isotope kept stable in the cold temperature.
"These babies need to decay for me to get anything out of them," he thought aloud. "I can fix that."
He walked over and kicked down the locked, half-ton, metal door from the inside. As soon as the warmer air began to infiltrate the freezer, Jack could feel the isotopes start to stir from their cryogenic stasis. He turned around and grinned. "Time to go boom."
The potential to open his eyes and clear a path through the dense forest was growing ever more enticing in Scott's mind. He hated hobbling across the undergrowth at a snail's pace. Every time he thought he could ease up on how extensively he checked the ground before him, he tripped over something or ran into something else and immediately reminded himself why he needed to be thorough.
There's gotta be a clearing eventually, Scott whined.
Soon, distant sounds came floating in, sounds that were not the wet squelches of mud, the dry cracks of foliage, or the ambient noises of wildlife. Scott edged forward, not wanting to get lost to a red herring. The distant sounds did not fail him. They grew closer, louder, and crisper. Scott eventually discerned the distant sounds as panic, as people thinking out loud while their frantic steps disturbed gravel and their fleeing cars verbalized acceleration.
Scott's cane hit gravel, and he knew he'd reached the destination the panic was escaping. "Hello?!" he called out. "Does anyone need help?!"
No one answered.
Scott continued forward until his cane hit a fence. He felt his way up the fence until his cane snagged on something. Barbed wire.
He turned around to deliberate his strategy, but a concussive force interrupted him and knocked him on his face. Gravel scraped his cheeks and palms. Scott ignored the pain and checked his face. He'd lost his sunglasses.
"I have so much power!" a gruff voice proclaimed. It was the kind of voice Scott associated with tavern brawlers in cartoons, the throaty voice of brutish strength. The proclamation was made all the more menacing as it reverberated from the depths of the building and out into the clearing. No mere human could speak that loudly.
Jack levitated out of the rubble of the facility. He felt as if he'd ascended to a godlike state with the dose of radiation he just absorbed, and he certainly had the defiance of gravity to prove it. He gazed upon where the facility once stood. Subconsciously, he conflated the power of the explosion with the power he'd just gained, and he marveled at the destruction as if he'd torn down the building with his bare hands.
His reverie was interrupted by a familiar gnawing. There's more power? Where is it?! He scrutinized the grounds until he spotted Scott's body crawling into the tree line.
"Hey! You!" Jack called down.
Scott ignored the voice and endeavored towards the trees.
"Don't make me come after you!"
You don't want to mess with me, Scott thought.
"Oh, I don't, huh?!"
He can read minds?
"I don't only read them," Jack taunted, floating back to the ground. "I control them."
Scott scoffed as he grabbed his cane and stood up. He gulped as he turned around.
"See?" Jack asked, touching down. "Now, look at me."
Scott resisted with every ounce of willpower he could muster. His eyes remained shut.
"I said, 'Look at me.'!" Jack reiterated. A wave emanated out from him, blowing Scott's hair back and rustling the forest's canopy.
Scott opened his eyes, and all he saw was red.
The beams knocked Jack on his ass. The lapse in concentration allowed Scott to shut his eyes again.
Jack scrambled to his feet, hungry. "That power! I want it."
Scott stood resolute.
"Open your eyes and give it to me!" Jack commanded, another emotional wave bursting out of him.
Scott blasted Jack once more, but Jack was braced this time. He started absorbing the energy, drawing it into his core through a swirling vortex of melted diamond on his chest. As the beams flowed unimpeded, Scott started to see for the first time in a long time. Everything was tinted red, but he could clearly make out the absolutely ripped man with a buzz cut, diamond skin, and a whirlpool in his chest. His peripheral picked up the clearing, the gravel, and the crater where a building once stood. It was some kind of government facility as far as Scott could tell from the remnants.
"Please. You gotta stop," Scott pleaded.
"Never!" Jack retorted. "I'm gonna drain you dry, kid! You got so much energy, I really could become a god!"
Invisible waves of force started pulsing out of Jack consistently. They steadily grew in frequency, and Scott feared the worst.
"You're not gonna become a god!" Scott shouted. "You're gonna die!"
"Ha! That's rich, kid! I'm a back-to-back champ against nuclear reactions!"
Even so, Jack's body was fragmenting at the extremities.
"Please, stop," Scott begged. "Please. Don't make me kill you. Don't make me a murderer."
The crumbling, defiant titan retorted, "Just shut your yap and juice me up!"
Tears streamed down Scott's face. His newfound vision blurred back into nothing but a red glow. It was a blessing in disguise as Jack exploded into a million pieces in front of him. Pieces of the man he'd just killed lodged themselves in his skin, stinging exponentially more than the scrapes from the gravel. He was drained and exhausted, and the push off his feet and onto his back was enough to knock him out. Scott went from seeing red to seeing nothing once more.