Trance. Part 25

I hadn't known that about her. "I'm not afraid of heights, just of everything else." Had I really just admitted that to Dr. Seward? I had all the insecurities of twenty people my age, and no one to talk to about them. I had to be brave for the team, brave for my friends. I couldn't afford to be weak, hence my hiding on the roof instead of facing them with my grief. Facing their grief.

"What are you afraid of, Trance?"

"Losing it all." I flicked a stone and it skittered across the cement. "My whole life, everything I value has been taken away from me. Friends, jobs, money. Freedom. My mom and dad, my powers, my memories. William. Control over any aspect of my life, all taken away. And I can't stop it."

"Few of us ever maintain the control over our lives we would like to have, but we do what we are called to do, Trance. When your powers returned and Rita McNally called me, I left behind a wife, two grown daughters, and a life in San Diego to come here."

"I didn't know that." I was dumbfounded, having never considered his personal life. h.e.l.l, it took hard thought to recall his first name. What did that say about me?

"My wife, Annabelle, is furious at me right now. Fifteen years ago, after we secured you children new lives, I handed in my notice and walked. It was supposed to be my retirement from twenty years of service."

"Why'd you come back? Why didn't you stay with your family?"

He smiled, a warm gesture that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "My mother worked for MHC and the Corps, as did my grandfather. It's always been a part of my life, and I've sacrificed a lot for it."

"Has it been worth it?"

"Most of the time, in moments like this. People forget that Rangers are human beings with feelings and fears and love and pain. It hurt your predecessors to think the people they were fighting for no longer gave a d.a.m.n."

"But you give a d.a.m.n."

"Yes. You have a gift, Trance, to make people listen and follow. You can rebuild the Rangers and repair the indignities of the past."

"Be the leader my father was?"

Dr. Seward shook his head and put his hand on my arm. "No, be the leader only you can be. Don't compare yourself with the past, because it's gone. Blaze your own path."

Stay the course.

I wanted-no, needed-to do right by my friends. Stopping was only part of my course, bite-size and easy enough to work with; a chunk of the larger picture of rebuilding the Corps and, just maybe, reuniting the Metas without the dividing lines of the past.

The golden sun melted deeper into the ocean. I squinted into the glare, watching red and deepening purple spread across the sky. The sun would rise and set every day. The world would continue, lives would be lived, babies born, as inevitable as breathing. Those things lay outside of my control.

Everything else lay within me. The desire to change, to do right by my fellow Metas, and to stop the century-old rivalry between Rangers and Banes. To destroy whatever misunderstandings and supposed differences had put us on opposing sides of a battle that no one could ever hope to win. Maybe I would fail and that was okay. Failure and success were out of my hands; the power to try was not.

Grief had to wait a while longer. I had work to do.

"Did the pilot go inside?" I asked.

"I think so. Why?"

"Can you find him and tell him we're leaving in half an hour?" I stood up and dusted off the seat of my pants. "I'm going to Manhattan. There's someone I need to talk to."

Twenty-six.

Psystorm Twenty minutes after the ATF's private jet took off from the Burbank airfield, my Vox beeped. I ignored it as long as I could stand it, and then accepted the signal.

Across the cabin, Agent McNally cleared her throat. She'd secured permission to use the jet and made arrangements to get us from the airport in Newark to Manhattan Island Prison. I'd asked her to come along in case I needed her clout to get access to Psystorm. His powers put him among our most dangerous enemies, and access to him was likely restricted. McNally had argued against not telling the others, and against not taking anyone else along for backup. I listened to her advice and then promptly ignored it.

I held up my Vox. "Cipher, Trance here. I'm almost over Nevada, why? Where are you?"

"I'm not in Nevada, I'm flying over it. Or rather, I'm in a jet that's flying over it."

He didn't seem to appreciate my attempts at levity, because venom coated his next words. "Taking the next step in ending this. You were right. Psystorm is our best chance at stopping Specter."

"Stupid, irresponsible, and foolhardy, yeah, I got the list." I cut my eyes at McNally. "You know what's more foolish? Taking every able-bodied Ranger I have left to an island full of people who hate us. One wrong move, and it would be Ethan and Dahlia against the world. Do you want that?"

Silence.

"Gage?"

"I know."

"No, but I like hearing it."

"I promise."

His cold tone left no room for negotiation.

"You'll be kept informed, Gage, now go get some sleep. Out."

I put the Vox away before he could respond. McNally was staring at me, a peculiar expression on her face-a mix of amus.e.m.e.nt and commiseration.

"You're lucky to have him," she said.

"I know."

She settled back into her seat. I closed my eyes and dozed for much of the trip. Only a few hours of sleep in the last couple of days was starting to wear me out.

McNally shook me awake a while later. I rubbed my eyes, oddly refreshed from the nap. I half expected to find my vision clouded by violet, but it wasn't. Not even a hint of side effects, yet, from my earlier power use.

We'd arrived on the East Coast. We transferred from the jet to a copter that had seen better days. Ten minutes later, we set down on top of the observation tower on Ellis Island-one of the many security checkpoints surrounding Manhattan Island Prison.

High walls of electrified fence ran the entire perimeter of the twenty-thousand-acre island. Dozens of sections were reinforced with stone and mortar, completely blocking access to the Hudson, East, or Harlem rivers. Underwater tunnels like Lincoln and Midtown had been destroyed, sunk beneath their respective bodies of water. Every bridge except the Henry Hudson was half gone. Guard posts stood on the fractured ends of those bridges, overlooking the island.

We exited the copter and were greeted by four men armed with rifles and tasers. They led us across a gra.s.sy area to the steel and concrete tower.

After speaking briefly with one of the guards, McNally flashed her ID and we were taken into an interrogation room. Apparently she had called ahead; we were expected. Good, it made my job a little easier. We waited on one side of a gla.s.s floor-to-ceiling barrier separating one side of the room from the other. A chair was bolted to the floor on the opposite side. The table and chairs on our side were loose. McNally sat down, while I perched on the edge of the table.

Minutes later, the door to the other room opened. Two armed guards entered backward, rifles trained on the door. A man shuffled in, jeans and sweats.h.i.+rt sagging on his thin frame. His brown hair was thinning on top, making his hollow cheeks seem sharper, more p.r.o.nounced. The security collar around his neck looked like a freakish punk accessory. Metal bands secured his arms to his chest, wrists to each other, and loose ankle shackles gave him little room to walk. It was a waddle-dance to get him to his chair. Four more armed guards entered behind him.

The prisoner looked more like an exhausted auto mechanic than a supervillain.

Guards secured him to the chair. He submitted to their handling. Either he didn't care or he was drugged. His eyes might have been gla.s.sy from the bright lights s.h.i.+ning down from the ceiling. He answered my unasked question by lifting his head and looking right into my eyes. A gentle nudge tickled the corner of my mind, and I felt his curiosity. Pain, fatigue, and restlessness warred just behind it, but his interest in the interview's purpose won out.

Who are you? His words rang in my head, a voice as frail as his neglected, forty-something body.

"My name is Trance," I said, unsure at first if he could hear me through the gla.s.s wall. He nodded, so I continued. "You were once known as Psystorm."

"Yes," he replied out loud. "Still am, I guess. I don't remember you."

"Probably because I was ten the last time you might have seen me."

He studied me through the gla.s.s, his expression unreadable. He nudged again, gently. I imagined a violet wall between us, strong enough to block his attempts to peek into my mind, and he jerked backward in his chair. The movement startled his guards. They all raised their weapons. Psystorm ignored them.

"You've got some power there, kiddo," he said. "Trance, is it?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

First step in negotiating with bad guys: Offer them something they want and make it sound like a favor. "To get you out of here. Off the island, out of prison."

No reaction, not even a glimmer of hope. "Working vacation, I take it? And then right back here when you have no more use for me?"

I shook my head and took a step toward the part.i.tion. "No, for good. Your help in exchange for a full pardon of all past crimes. Stay clean, and you won't end up back here for future crimes."

"Who do I have to kill?"

"It's not that kind of job."

"I'm listening."

Another step. I kept the mental s.h.i.+eld in place. Without knowing the exact limits of his powers, I didn't want any chance of manipulation on his part. My part was another story entirely.

"What do you know about Specter?" I asked.

His head listed to the left, a gesture that came off as bored rather than thoughtful. "You'll have to be more specific, kiddo. Specter led us during those final years, and you very well know it. We both know how his powers work, and we both know he's a bloodthirsty, power-hungry son of a b.i.t.c.h. So why don't you ask me about something you don't know."

Second step in negotiating with bad guys: Establish rapport.

"Fair enough. Tell me, then, did you know Specter wasn't on the island these past fifteen years?"

"No, but you start to hear things, especially when you're living with the same seventy-two people for so long."

The number gave me pause. Sixty-five Banes had been imprisoned on the island, not seventy-two. He continued before I could ask him to clarify.

"Some guys liked to brag," he said. "A few years ago, I started hearing rumors about Specter. He wasn't on the island. Someone had bribed two guards into collaring the wrong guy, and those guards doled out extra food and goodies to the guys who kept the doppelganger fed. Kept the ruse up."

"Do you know names?"

"Yep."

"Any you'd care to share?"

"Absolutely not. In a place like this, you learn how the pecking order works. Some of the names are lot more powerful than me, and pardon or not, I have no intention of landing on their s.h.i.+t lists. No help to you there. If they want to sing about the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, they can come forward by themselves."

Self-preservation seemed to win out time and again. "So tell me, Psystorm, if you hate Specter so much, why did you follow him?"

"Because he was the strongest." An implicit "duh" in his statement. "The weak follow the strong. You should know that well. You are the lead Ranger, are you not?"

"I am."

"Good. There's nothing more insulting than negotiating with a lackey." I didn't respond, so he continued, "Specter wanted power. We wanted to survive. It was a pretty simple choice to make."

"Murdering Rangers was a simple choice?"

His eyes blazed, the first real sign of emotion since our interview began. His anger poked at my mental barrier. "I hate to sound elementary school about this, kiddo, but you started it. Your parents and your teachers, they killed first. We were playing by their rules."

"That's a lie," I said before I could reconsider.

Surprise replaced anger, and Psystorm smiled. "Revisionist history, I should have known. Your old man ever tell you about the first battle? The one that kicked off the War?"

"Trenton, New Jersey. Six jewelry heists in one hour, three million dollars worth of jewels and cash stolen and four people killed, including a Ranger."

"Wrong."

He said it with such utter conviction that I believed him. I didn't want to, but I did. My head swiveled toward McNally. She stood with her arms folded, back straight, and eyes on the floor. Her stance and silence only served to confirm that Psystorm was telling the truth. Revisionist history, my a.s.s. It sounded like good, old-fas.h.i.+oned lying. More lying by MHC. And what about my father? Had he known the truth, or had he somehow been duped, as well? Had he lied to me?

A cold rage churned deep inside me. "Then, what's right?" I asked, giving him back my full attention.

"Ocean City, Maryland," he said. "Twelve days before Trenton. Three of us were down there, laying low. You remember the names Acid and Somnus?"

I tried to recall them, to give us something else to connect over, and failed. They were not only unfamiliar names, I had no conscious memory of hearing them in reference to a Bane, living or dead. "No, I'm sorry, I don't."

"I'm first to admit we weren't saints. The three of us made a lot of money robbing private residences. All I had to do was knock on the door and hold the home owner in my thrall while my partners emptied the place. We were criminals, yes, but we avoided violence whenever possible. When things started getting hot, we went down to Maryland to hide. We had no intention of starting trouble, just getting our s.h.i.+t together, so we holed up in a rented house and kept to ourselves."

"The fire." I remembered the newspapers strewn across our apartment, headlines about half a mile of the Ocean City boardwalk burning to the ground. Arson was mentioned-nothing about Bane interference, no mention of a battle as the cause of the blaze. Just my dad talking about a Corps Unit being dispatched and trying to save as many lives as possible.

"The fire," Psystorm said. "I bet your old man never told you that we were down there trying to help save lives. Pulling kids out of burning hotels, keeping folks calm until your precious Corps Unit showed up. Only they didn't stop to ask questions when they arrived. They saw us, recognized us, and a.s.sumed we were responsible."

I inhaled, held it, until he said what I hoped he wouldn't.

"Your people killed Acid and Somnus for trying to help," he continued. "That's all we were doing was trying to help. No one reported our presence, because it would make you people look bad. They shot first, never asked questions, then covered it up. That started it for me, kiddo. After your old mentors killed Somnus, my wife, it didn't take much for Specter to convince me."

Grief for two people I hadn't known, two innocent lives lost, struck me hard. Senseless, all of it, the whole d.a.m.ned War. Could the death and destruction have been avoided completely? The notion made me want to vomit.

"I'm sorry."

He blinked, eyebrows raising. "Too bad your precious predecessors weren't sorry. I followed Specter out of a keen desire for revenge. Not against you kids, though. Those last few weeks when he wanted to exterminate children ... a lot of us started to speak up, only it was too late. When we lost our powers, the feds tossed every one of us onto this forsaken island and locked it down."