Lynn waved for us to follow. We skulked close behind, only a few yards away. When he reached a short alleyway he slipped in and hid behind a brick wall from the street lights. As we got closer he signaled for us to stop. I felt like I was in the climax of a spy flick.
He leaned out from behind the wall. His head scanned the street in front of us like a secret agent surveying for counter operatives. After checking if the coast was clear he gestured again for us to follow. We filed in closer behind him, sticking to the wall just as he was.
"Come on," Cindi said, a little louder than I thought comfortable. "Why are we sneaking around? We already dealt with the threat." She thumbed back toward the canal, where a sleeping midtwenties gangster took his catnap. "I have fucking superpowers!"
"Shhhhh." Lynn drew a finger to his lips and hushed her. When he turned around again she mimicked the gesture for us. She copied Lynn's stern glare and mimicked his hush. Dharia giggled, maybe a little too sharply. She wrapped her hands around her mouth to stifle the sound.
"Shhhhh." Lynn hushed again. This time he glared at Dharia. She shrugged innocently. He sighed and turned the corner.
After following him through an abandoned lot, we stumbled onto a boarded up warehouse. It was a wide steel box, like a toy block. Inside one of the broken windows a pool of inky darkness hid the inner workings of the steel skeletal insides like a black tarp. We circled around the back until we arrived at a back door, rusted at the edges and a little dented. Lynn shook the handle violently. It rattled like a loose chain but there was no sign of it opening.
"Wait a minute," Cindi said. "Let me try." She pointed with both hands back towards herself. Lynn sighed again, even louder this time.
"Don't get a big head," he said before stepping out of her way. She reached her hands out, closed her eyes, and said something under her breath. It was practically inaudible but I could make out the quietest, "Please, please, please, please."
Her eyes squinted tight, like she was trying to see through the door. Her hands shook--No, they vibrated slightly. Static. I squeezed my hands closed as she got closer to the door. Her hands rested on its flat metallic surface. The door began to shake. Ripples of movement extended out across its surface, like how a pebble dropped into a pond and the ripples skipped out across the surface of the water. The edges of the door shook and rattled in place before coming to a disappointing pause.
"Shit," Cindi cursed.
"Didn't work," Lynn said, unamused.
"Okay wiseguy. You give it a try," she said, gesturing to the door.
Lynn walked up beside it. He stood beneath a broken window on it's right. He began to feel around the edges.
Dharia placed her hand on Cindi's shoulder. "Honestly, I thought it was still pretty cool," she said. A haughty smile peeked out from behind Cindi's heavy eyelids.
The sound of glass shattering woke me up like an alarm clock. Lynn reached his arm into the broken window and unlocked the door from the inside with a satisfying click. The door swung open. Immediately my nose was assaulted with a wall of dust and stagnant air.
I wafted the air away. "After you," I said. He rolled his eyes and walked into the warehouse. We trailed into the dark after him.
Inside, we could barely see further than ten yards ahead. I stood just inside, sulking in the rotten stench of an abandoned warehouse. Nope.
I felt a weight settle on the small of my back. Then, after a moment of hesitation, someone shoved me deeper in.
"You're a man, right? Get in there," Cindi said, annoyed. Funny, she could have just walked around me herself.
"It reeks," I said. I plugged my nose. "Why don't you take the lead?"
"Pffffft. Scared, aren't you?" she said.
"Worse. I'm gonna puke."
Lynn, who was now deeper into the building, said, "Are you two done stalling? Both of you. In here. Now."
"Why?" we both whined in unison.
"Fine," Lynn said. "Stay out there in the middle of the street while a gang is on the lookout for two scrawny kids. I'm sure that sounds like a fun time."
Welp, that didn't take much more convincing. We followed him in and began to explore the bottom floor of the warehouse. It's smell never really got any less horrid the deeper we went in, but I eventually got over it. I had to. Dharia, who was sticking close to me, practically glued her fingers to her nose.
When we were sure that no one had followed, and there wasn't anyone waiting for us in the dark, Lynn gathered up a pile of trash into the center of the warehouse. He lit a match and watched as our little pile sparked and filled the room with a campfire-esque light. Our shadows danced across old equipment and abandoned crates, nearly startling Cindi and I.
"Okay, we should be safe here for a little while," Lynn said.
"Perfect," Cindi said. "Away from any witnesses or cops. Just a pleasant choice of locale."
"It's safer than walking around out there," he said. "I saw two more cars after we split. So there's at least three in total looking for us."
I turned to Dharia, who was staring at the fire. Its flames licked the dry air in front of her. She rubbed her shoulders. Was she cold? Why hadn't I noticed how cold it was? I walked up beside her.
"I'm sorry you got roped into this. And thank you for helping. But, Dharia, what the hell are you doing out of the hospital?"
She smiled. "I had, um." She hesitated to say. Cindi and Lynn were waiting to hear what she had to say too.
"A dream?" I asked. She nodded. "It was vivid. And kinda scary."
"Dreams…" Lynn said under his breath. "Great."
"It was Cindi's dream, actually."
Cindi's interest was piqued. "Me?" she said, leaning forward. She got closer to Dharia, practically breathing down her neck. "Wait really? You can do that? I mean, before when you were explaining things, it sounded like to me at least it only worked for you and Monty." Her face soured. "I can only imagine the kind of gross dreams he's been having."
"Hey!" I pleaded. "Stay on topic. Besides, I'm a saint."
"A little levity isn't going to kill us," she said. "And I really doubt it."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Lynn said.
"Oh?" Cindi said. "The levity part or Monty's head?"
"We're not entirely out of the clear yet, is what I meant."
Cindi frowned.
Dharia nodded. She was like an anxious mouse, shivering and eyes darting left to right. "W-well yea. I haven't been able to really explore someone else's dreams before. Besides my own and Monty's. It's still such a new experience that I've been kind of hesitant to really push it."
My attitude soured as I remembered Paradigm.
"Monty," Lynn said. He placed his finger on his own chin. "You're bleeding like crazy."
He was right. I felt a thin line of liquid trailing down my chin. I touched it and the streak felt sticky. A scary realization hit me. My fingers were stained dark red.
"Shit," I said. "That bastard did a number on me." I wiped my chin with my sleeve. The color in my shirt dulled.
"Dude, what are you doing?" Lynn snapped. "Here." He removed a small cloth from his pocket and gave it to me. "Dab."
I did as he said and dabbed up the blood. "Thanks." He nodded. A thin smile curled at the corner of his cheeks. "Dumbass. What if the cops see?"
"Sorry, Dharia. Continue," I said, focused.
"You sure, man? You seem kinda…"
"Beat?" Cindi said. The three of us looked at her. "What? Cause he does?"
Lynn noticeably looked me over and said, "You got some bruises and a split lip, but you'll live."
I sighed. "Thank fuck, I though I'd have to get amputated."
Lynn smiled. "It's not that bad. Thankfully. But it could be a lot worse if we run into him again."
"I don't even want to think about that possibility," I said.
"Fair enough." Lynn looked at Dharia and nodded for her to continue.
"There's this feeling I had when I tried to connect to your dreams. I think there needs to be some kind of connection between the person and myself in order to enter their dreams. Or make our dreamscape, or whatever. I don't know the mechanics myself. I'm grasping at straws here." She absently twisted one of her curls with her index finger. "I think when I shunned you guys out, I created a strong enough emotional reaction to warrant a connection, but when I tried to reconnect, what I saw could only be described as vague and murky."
"Heavy stuff," Lynn said.
"Hey," Cindi said. "I'm sorry about earlier, I really am. We should have been more considerate."
Dharia shook her head. "No, I get it. Really. It's not you guys. I should tell you why I was hesitant to trust you at first. It's only fair."
"You don't have to if you're not ready," I said. I wanted to be considerate of her feelings, since I hadn't been before. Lynn looked hesitant himself. He glanced around the warehouse, eyes scanning for something to focus on. He fidgeted with his hands quietly.
"Well I'm here, aren't I?" she said. "What you guys should know is, I was put in the hospital because of an AAD. The doctors said it stands for Anomalous Autoignition Discharge. A clinical name for something so…brutal."
I thought the same. AAD. It wasn't scary in the sense that something like the name Mauler implied. Something animalistic, derived from a brutal act I could imagine happening to someone, anyone, let alone me. AAD, like COPD or CAD, was first and foremost a way to desensitize and make it easy to wrap someone's head around a new destructive phenomena. How could someone in a suit and tie seriously tell the whole city, the whole world that people are blowing up for no reason? He'd be laughed off his platform. People would demand his resignation. It was preposterous. And yet, it happened. It felt like the city was in some sort of waiting period. A form of stasis. And worst, it feels like there's no rhyme or reason to the phenomena, no terrorists waving around their manifesto, no evil mad scientist lauding his inventions from a tower on high. Maybe there was a reason, but I doubt we would find that out anytime soon. Was a "Commission" really the way to go about it though? We needed something more.
Dharia glanced my way and in seeing her wishful expression, I realized that I was stuck in my own head. I braced myself.
"There was a man," Dharia said. "A stranger. I was feeding the birds in a park. It…happened so fast." Her voice cracked.
Cindi reached over and wrapped her up into her arms. "That's okay, Dharia."
"Yea, don't push yourself," I said.
She shook her head. Her eyes were determined, unflinching.
"He ignited. Right in front of me. I can still smell the ash on my clothes." She caressed her jacket. The room was still so dark that the shadows of her folds were like streaks of ash.
"I'm so sorry," Cindi said. "I'm so--so sorry."
No wonder she had that kind of reaction. I felt like a real piece of shit.
"That's awful," I said. Something stirred within me. A feeling of hopelessness. The suddenness, the sheer spontaneity, of the details resonated with me.
I did not want to explore further. Or maybe I couldn't? As she spoke my mind wandered again.
She wiped her eyes with her sleeves and steadied herself. "It wasn't a pretty sight, I can say that much."
Lynn cursed. He turned around in the dark. "I'm gonna go look around. See if anyone's being nosy, or whatever." And just like that, he slipped back into the dark. Cindi clung to Dharia for a little while longer.
It's been fifteen minutes since Lynn had left to check the entrances on his own, and I was getting worried.
The fire was getting a little low. That dirty, artificial smell of burnt trash lingered. We huddled in the glimmering dark--Cindi, Dharia, and I--around dying flames as our eyes got heavier and the air grew colder.
I had been up since six-thirty, maybe? What time was it now? I checked my phone: 11PM. Already past my curfew. How would I explain this to David? He was going to be pissed.
A pipe hissed and woke me before I could let myself grow too tired.
A quiet trill left me wondering where Lynn had gone. Surely we would have heard him had he seen someone. A part of me wanted to go looking for Lynn. To whether or not he was right to worry. It would beat just waiting here in the dark. Should I have left Cindi and Dharia alone? They would have been fine together, surely.
I can't make a single decision on my own.
After Lynn left Cindi and I gave Dharia a quick rundown of recent events; the blackbox--or Hypercube, the encounter with Brady May, his gang, and Lynn, the fight with the Saints at the abandoned lot, and Mauler's hunt. Dharia took it all in stride. She took it better than I thought she would, actually.
"Well, I have a superpower," she said. "It's not hard to believe."
Fair enough.
Cindi, while facing a bare wall, reached out her hand and kept it held there. She held her arm, outstretched, with her other. She vibrated slightly.
"She looks constipated," I said aloud.
"Funny, dipshit," Cindi said without missing a beat.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm practicing my superpower. Channeling my awesome gift."
"Doesn't look like you're doing anything, actually."
"Yea that's the issue." Cindi sighed and lowered her arm. "I don't get it. What am I doing wrong?"
"Maybe it only manifests when you're in mortal danger?"
"Maybe you're dumb," she mocked.
"Fair enough. But to be frank--"
"Frank? I thought your name was Monty," Cindi interrupted.
"Funny. Can you listen for one minute? Just one, please?"
She shrugged.
I continued. "What can you even do? Like what is your power specifically?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know? That was the first time it's ever happened. I think."
"Well, if Dharia can manipulate dreams then maybe it has something to do with controlling people's perceptions?"
"Dude, what are you even talking about?" She raised her eyebrow at me, perplexed.
Dharia shook her head.
"No?" I asked her.
"I saw it too, it's not like only the two of you saw the way Mauler was thrown to the side. It looked real. It was like a concentrated forcefield. Not an illusion." She pondered for a moment. "Maybe she can control the air?"
"Or pressure?" I added.
Cindi was conflicted. She closed her eyes and squinted. She looked like she was having a migraine just by listening to us. "I don't know," she said in a defeated voice. "It didn't feel like I was really controlling anything."
"Maybe sound?" Dharia said. "Those ripples that we saw, they reminded me of sound waves."
"It could be echolocation. Like a bat," I said.
Cindi crossed her arms, still unsure. "Whatever it is I can do, I better figure it out quickly." She turned back to the wall in an attempt to return to what she was trying to accomplish before our interruption.
Dharia glanced at me and smiled awkwardly. "Whole lotta help I am," she said.
"What?" I asked, genuinely confused.
"It's nothing. Forget it." After she clammed up she scooted closer to the fire. She reached out to try and gather up the little bit of warmth left in the embers. I did not realize how dark it had gotten nor how quiet. It was also a lot colder than I realized.
Five more minutes went by before I got up from my spot at the fire.
"I'm going to go check on him," I told Dharia. She acknowledged me with a slight nod. Cindi was still trying to get her super powers to work.
I struggled on the way back towards the rear entrance. Old warehouse equipment, unopened boxes, and a slew of other odd nicknacks and doohickeys littered the place. In the dark, I managed to stub my toe a number of times. I wouldn't be shocked if I looked down and a red fat tomato was stuck at the end of my foot.
A breeze swept through the warehouse. I began to rub my shoulders.
I eventually made it back to the rear door. An odd clanging came from where I assumed the door was. I turned the corner and was met by the revelation that the warehouse was so breezy because the door was opened, swinging on its hinges.
Lynn was nowhere in sight. All was quiet except for the creaking metal door and a hushed, beastly growl calling out to me from the dark.