The Phenomena of Fireflies and Star... - Chapter 23: Chapter 23

6:02 PM
The past two weeks had been a happy and formative struggle. The weeks hadn't been easy, but there had been a frequent collection of the fruits of their labor. Even if they hadn't always been the largest rewards.
Last night, Max couldn't have been any happier. The relief of finally saying his truth had felt like his heart had been unbound from a straitjacket. A flimsy and hole-ridden straitjacket, but a straitjacket, nonetheless. Telling Ames everything above the Astronomer's Rock, up in the air with the moon and the starlight as their witnesses, was a memory forever marked in his brain and in his heart.
They had woken up to what had started out as a beautiful morning, only to come home to the news of trouble. Max watched as Ames ate in silence, unleashing pulsations of negative emotions. It was Ames's poker face, and how it significantly contrasted the true heights of his negative emotions, that bothered Max.
"You should eat your food," Ames said, his voice low and unenthusiastic. He had skipped lunch and hadn't gone out of his room until he'd had to cook for dinner.
"I can't...," Max admitted. He couldn't. It didn't feel right.
"Turn your empathy off for ten minutes so you'll know how hungry you are," Ames replied, taking a lazy bite. "I'm in the dark. You don't have to be. Eat."
"Ames...," Max called out in a whisper, carefully putting his hand on Ames's.
His gesture made Ames pause. For a moment, Max couldn't read Ames properly. He had a feeling he was just about to regret it.
"Your employers are really something, Max," Ames commented dryly. "They've been on my nerves for quite some time now. Today, they really clogged in."
Max didn't know what to say.
He knew that Ames had been taking on disappointment after disappointment. He knew that intimately. Seeing Ames this gloomy was overwhelming for Max, too, but he didn't want to leave the guy alone in the darkness he was in.
And the darkness that seemed to come from Ames himself.
Max had been picking up the force in Ames's emotions. Tonight, he felt it like another superhuman was pushing him back, blocking him and resisting him.
Ames then looked up at him.
The complex mixture of hollowness and deep festering rage felt so caustic that Max actually leaned back in the sudden surge of the negative emotions he was picking up. It was arresting. For a moment there, he felt the instinctive need to disconnect from Ames empathically.
But there was this force coming from Ames's emotions that made Max stay connected, and it felt like an intentional pull. It was like Ames was purposely locking him in an open state.
It was the first time that an empathic link had ever done that to him.
After a while, Ames looked down. Max felt a disconnect in the pulsations he was getting. The resistant pulling force was now gone. It felt as if somebody had stopped preventing his open channel from disconnecting.
"I'm sorry, Max," Ames said, shaking his head. His hand gestures were slow, but they were careless. Ames's utensils landed noisily on his plate. "I have no idea what I'm doing."
Max let out a breath, trying to process what had just happened. There was so much darkness inside Ames right now, and that was no joke.
He had to do something. He couldn't let it consume Ames.
"What the hell is Division's problem?" Ames demanded, returning to forcing himself to eat. "Hmm? What is it? Why are they so bent on this whole superhuman agenda?"
Max realized that he had never really explained the dawn of the interest in developing a controllable version of the Creaton. He had only told Ames about it being a plan.
To an extent, he knew that the New Age Initiative was something that he had inspired.
The clamor for control over the Creaton, however, was somebody else's fault.
"Midnight Sambac," Max replied.
The Ruby Rivers Torture Camp
The mission was simple: save the captives, eliminate the threats, clean up.
Cleaning up was easy.
Midnight Sambac had that covered. With her powers, today would simply be another unexplainable day with no solid material for gossip.
The cement facility had considerable width to it. It wasn't the tallest building, merely three floors high. The captives should be inside. Alpha's job was to bring down Col. Geraldo Carbelo: head torturer and manager of the camp. Otherwise known as "Verdugo". He would be heavily guarded by his men. Killing shouldn't be the first option. Frightening him and his subordinates into surrender would be better. If they did fight back or threaten the lives of the captives, they needed to be killed.
Alpha hid in the trees, watching as Midnight Sambac discreetly floated down to the roof of the facility, a swarm of black energy constructs that resembled ash surrounding her. The swarm almost looked like a sentient cloak over her black tactical suit, which already had a hooded cloak attached. It was such a vivid spectacle under the noontime sun. Her task was to take out the captors and the torturers and to free the captives. Division agents kept an eye on her. She was the priority Enforcer in the trio for this mission.
The cue would be Midnight Sambac's teleportation into the facility.
Alpha waited patiently, keeping a low profile in the trees. He kept the dirt road leading in and out of the facility in mind. It wasn't far from his position. He had also managed to camouflage with his surroundings by bending light around him.
"We're keeping an eye on her, Alpha," Agent Maristela Cruz said via the walkie-talkie. She'd already taken out the river guards. She should be on a boat by now, keeping a low profile. Other covert agents had helped themselves into good hiding spots in the woods around the facility. "Anybody tries escaping on your end, knock them out or take them down. Do you copy? Over."
Alpha lifted the walkie-talkie up to his lips and gave his "Copy".
"Good. Dragon, what's your status? Over."
"In position. Opposite side. Instructions loud and clear. Over."
"Remember to follow the plan. Let's up the cleaning house energy. We cannot be exposed. Copy? Over."
"Copy," Alpha whispered.
"Copy," Dragon followed.
"Best of luck, Enforcers. Going radio-silent from here onward. Over and out."
Alpha watched as Midnight Sambac dispersed into a swarm of dissipating black energies.
'Brace yourself, Alpha,' he thought to himself, hands on the trunk of the Acacia tree he was hiding behind.
He took a deep breath, savoring the flow of air in and out of himself. He kept in mind that he might have to kill today, and while he'd already found a way to execute such an instruction without an emotional toll, it still wouldn't be his first choice.
But if he had to, he would.
Soon enough, he could hear the sounds of alarmed shouts followed by thrilling sounds of gunfire.
Alpha focused his empathy on the pulsations from the facility.
The alarmed shouts and sounds of resistance slowly transitioned into cries of fear. Midnight Sambac's powers of teleportation and atomic manipulation had always had a darker flair to them, and she had never failed to strike fear on anyone unfortunate enough to have to deal with her. The cries of fear, Alpha recognized to be coming from the captors and the torturers. The pulsations he was receiving were fearful, but also reeking of resistance and arrogance.
Soon enough, other pulsations joined in. They came with fear, but they were more vulnerable and more exhausted.
Something else followed after.
It was a strong pulsation. Unique.
Dark.
A distinct darkness.
"Midnight Sambac," Alpha recognized. He honed in on it. The darkness that pulsated from Midnight Sambac had a spike of terror, followed by disgust, topped off by a fit of fury. It was such a drastic transition.
"Enforcers," his walkie-talkie picked up. "Something's wrong. Be ready. What the hell is Midnight doing?"
That left Alpha slightly uneasy. This had never happened before.
'What the hell is happening in there?' Alpha wondered, keeping his worried thoughts at bay. He could still feel the rage from Midnight Sambac.
A strong wave of rage, fear, and vengeance crashed onto him.
It struck him like the wake of an explosive blast.
"Oh!" he gasped, shoving a hand against his chest. "The hell was that..."
The screaming from the facility escalated, but it was now a chorale of terror and wrath.
"Shit," Agent Cruz's voice set off. "Shit. Midnight, what are you doing? Agents, start closing in. Enforcers, do not deviate from your instruction."
The sounds were becoming more dreadful now. Much more dreadful. Alpha cracked his neck, pressured by the constant flow of heavy emotions. He just wanted to punch something now to relieve himself of the inner constriction on his breath and the uncomfortable disruption of his inner workings, but he had to remain still. He had to be largely undetected.
They had their own time to engage.
Five armed men in uniforms burst out of the facility's large doors. Alpha's instincts kicked in instantly upon recognizing Verdugo in the fleeing group. The men hurried into a large black container truck.
'Here we go,' Alpha braced himself as the truck roared into life, beginning to move out of the facility grounds and hitting against some motorcycles.
"Alpha," Agent Cruz called out. "Verdugo is yours."
Alpha pushed off the tree, carefully making his way to the end of the woods. He took a deep breath, focusing on becoming fully invisible. He could retain control over his invisibility if he didn't use other light powers. He could only control it for so long, though. Three minutes max. It was already a pretty big window of opportunity anyway.
He huffed as he twisted the light around him, bending it and concealing his shadow.
'Three minutes max,' he thought, making it to the end of the woods just in time to find the truck exiting to the road where he needed the targets.
Alpha made his way toward the middle of the road, right in the path of the oncoming truck. This used to intimidate him, but he'd long since been exposed to threats of similar gravity. The truck sped on, closing the distance.
It was coming in hot and fast.
"Ha!" Alpha shouted as he jumped up, breaking through the air.
And the truck was in position below him.
Alpha zoomed back down, slamming his fist into the container.
"Hrah!" he roared, pushing through metal after metal in a quick shoot until he crashed onto the ground, fist planted down alongside a strong knee.
He stayed planted, the metals breaking apart around him and unleashing him to the open in a loud burst of embers.
Alpha looked behind him, finding the front of the truck elevated by the strong force. Frightened screaming came from the risen truck cabin.
"Ha!" he flew off toward it as quickly as he could, grabbing the steel railings of its front and slamming the entire thing down as he landed.
Windows and windshields blew open, tires exploded, and bodies crashed onto each other.
Shards of glass brushed against him.
The explosion of noise added to the adrenaline that he was working on.
According to the reflection on the steel railing, he was able to maintain invisibility.
"Here goes," he snarled, wincing a bit as he pulled the cabin up and shoved it down to its side. The weakened screams from inside were short-lived, interrupted by the loud crash that followed.
Pained groans poured out from inside the cabin. He moved to the side a bit to look at his handiwork. The men were still alive despite how they'd ended up on top of each other, trapped by the metal and each other's bodies. Alpha could still detect five epicenters pulsating. The pulsations were faint, but they were at a sustained frequency.
Alpha heard running footsteps around him. He turned around to check.
'Division agents,' he recognized the agents as they approached, guns at the ready and trained toward the five men trapped in the cabin.
Alpha made his way to the exposed underbelly of the cabin, taking down the invisibility field around him.
"Target secured," one of the agents said to him. "We'll take it from here."
Alpha nodded to the agent affirmatively, erecting his invisibility field again and flying toward the facility. He flew cautiously, reading the pulsations he was getting as he swam through the air.
To his right, he saw Dragon flying toward the same direction, the red scaly wings that had morphed from her back and her bespoke burgundy tactical suit guiding her controlled flight.
Alpha could feel the immense dread that was emanating from the facility. The large red doors were open, and they gave off a sense of foreboding. Alpha landed just beside the open doorway. Dragon landed on the opposite side, her body and molecularly adaptable tactical suit morphing back to her normal form. She sniffed the air, recognizing Alpha's scent before her. Her superhuman senses were so finely trained that she could identify where and who he was just by capturing his scent.
"What do you think happened?" she asked, looking at his general direction.
"I don't know...," Alpha whispered, still feeling the dread from inside the facility.
Division agents approached from all sides, guns at the ready as they set up a perimeter around the building.
Agent Cruz led the approaching agents, her rifle poised on alert and light distortion detector goggles strapped over her eyes.
"Enforcers, return to HQ," she commanded, walking into the facility with some of the agents. The other agents stayed outside, assuming an alert stance.
"See you at the base," Dragon said to Alpha, walking off with the company of two agents.
"Oh my god, Midnight," Alpha heard Agent Cruz gasp. "What have you done?"
He sneaked into the facility, stopping in his tracks at the jarring vision of crimson.
He tried not to gag. This wasn't something he was new to. Part of his training as an Uwak had involved desensitization to gore and violence.
But there was something gravely haunting about the sight of the captors and torturers in the places and lifeless positions they had ended up in. There were deep red splatters on many surfaces, too. Midnight Sambac stood there in the middle of the aftermath of carnage, hands obscured by black orbs. The same black energy manifested in the eyes of the liberated captives behind her, all of whom looked different.
They looked strong. They weren't emaciated like the reports had said. They looked well-built. Vicious, even. Muscular and veiny in some limbs.
Reports had said that the captives were students of a community college and members of the "Busilak", a student-led organization dedicated to the advancement of human rights. In response to the darkness that had taken over the country, the organization's activities had picked up. Unfortunately, that had also made them targets. Alpha couldn't even begin to imagine what they had gone through. They were too young.
The blood on their skins suggested their culpability in the slaughter of their torturers.
"Midnight!" Agent Cruz called out in a firm and assertive voice. "Why?"
Alpha watched in awe as Midnight Sambac lifted her hands slowly and flicked the orbs away. Not even a second after, the black energies that were manifesting from the eyes of the liberated captives blinked away.
The liberated captives began to shriek and groan in pain, falling to the floor and groveling in a level of pain that smacked Alpha in waves. His vision began to sway, and his stomach felt as though it had begun to churn. He pushed back against the emotional waves that assaulted him, thankful at the very least that he had managed to block the exact heights of pain that the liberated captives were feeling. They began to shrink, their musculatures seemingly returning to normal. The pained groans turned into weaker and ghastlier utterances of helplessness. Their physical decline eventually stopped, leaving them tearful in the survival that had been finally granted to them. They looked like young students again.
"Caught a gang rape happening," Midnight Sambac reported, removing her hood and liberating her long black hair that hung to about waist-level. "I figured these students wanted a chance at revenge. After all the pain they've been through for doing the right thing."
Alpha could only stare at her, intimidated by her display of power and brutality. The inner darkness that came with the ghastly beauty of her motherly face resulted in an image of the frightening power of a woman who had command over her own demons. He knew she could see him, too. Somehow. She stared at his direction silently, as if trying to understand the bend of light around him. What followed was a look of recognition.
And then realization.
And then subdued but deep-seated horror.
She had always been protective of Alpha. Specifically, she had always protected him from her own darkness. An understandable darkness. She was a woman who had come from a time period that hadn't been the most appreciative of personally powerful women like her. Despite her darkness, she had since established herself as a maternal figure to him.
Alpha understood why Midnight Sambac had done what she had done, but it seemed to him that her guilt was too strong.
She hadn't been given the best treatment in her career. Back in the day, she'd been regarded as a black witch. Sometimes, an aswang.
They had forgotten that she used to be a combat nurse and mother who had lost her daughter in the Second World War, a woman who'd had to soldier through war without properly dealing with her grief, and a person with demons that she had always so bravely dared and hadn't always succeeded against until she had finally developed the skill to do so.
"Go back to HQ, Midnight," Agent Cruz said, lowering her weapon. "That's an order."
Alpha watched as Midnight Sambac dispersed, teleporting herself out of the place.
"I think I'm going to vomit," one of the agents said.
"Did she transform the kids?" another one whispered. "How's that possible?"
"She's special," Agent Cruz said, glancing at the agents before looking at the bloodbath's aftermath again. "Good luck to the damn cleanup crew. The rehabilitation facility, too. These poor kids. Agent Lim, get these students to the Ark. Get them checked and medically assisted. Make sure they're safe and secured. Move."
"Copy that."
"This is going to be a damn long day."
October 23, 2023
Andrade Residence
"A superhuman temporarily turned ordinary students into superhumans?" Ames asked, looking more perplexed by the second. "Like the Creaton?"
"Similar," Max clarified. "But not the same. Midnight Sambac was a teleporter and an atom manipulator. Because of her powers, which were similar to the Creaton's, some people saw her as a black witch. An evil sorceress. An aswang, too. Her atom powers allowed her to change the captives into something stronger. For a while. Made them bloodthirsty. Allowed them to kill off a facility of armed men. So they could have their revenge."
Max recognized the worsening gloom in Ames's mood. The sharing wasn't helping, but Max felt that it was the right time for Ames to know that part of the narrative.
"I don't like where this is headed, Max. I have an idea, but I dread that I might be on point."
"Super-soldiers," Max said. "With a controllable and limited variant, they can turn any willing participant into a superhuman agent."
The look of disgust in Ames's face was as expected. Max found the idea of it to be a recipe for bad news, too.
"We could be seeing a future where being superhuman becomes a payable experience," Max added. "If availability becomes looser, that is. On a more optimistic note, they might use the variant in the field of medicine. Then again, I don't trust them to be so safe. I've worked with them for decades. Ethics are what they say ethics are. Not what ethics supposedly are."
Max knew about Division's intent to make super-soldiers via a more controllable variant of the Creaton. He knew that for sure. The rest, he merely hypothesized, but he would be damned if his hypotheses didn't have high probabilities of coming true.
Division scientists would be celebrating such an advancement with a focus on the idea of progress, but the idea was not, and could never be, as amazing as it really was, especially moving forward. The irony of power was that it required restraint—or at least some keen management—to ensure usefulness. Power without restraint would be catastrophic, especially to the user. Of course, Division would try its best to keep power in check, but to continuously pursue its advancement, no matter the protocols put in place, still meant a consequential imbalance in the ecology and in society's more intricate designs and elements.
"What's our worst-case scenario?" Ames inquired, rubbing his forehead with his fingers.
"Well...," Max didn't have to think much. "We could see a world where superhumans are the apex predators. That's one thing leading to another and another."
The grimness of the idea had Ames standing up, leaving his food unfinished. For a while, Max thought Ames was just going to dump his food, but he merely stood behind his chair, gripping its sides with a morose expression on his face.
"What's your plan, Max?" Ames asked, not making eye contact. "I'm all spent. I have nothing left."
"We can't let them get to work," Max started with the obvious. "Shutting it down is one."
An even worse thought came to mind.
"If Malign and Current get their hands on the variant, they can start their own New Age Initiative," the more Max thought about it, the worse it sounded. "The Legion's a start. That's really, really bad. Dammit. It's going to be win-win for them if that's the case, considering how they would've soured by now."
"Are we even gonna' get close enough?"
"I have no idea."
"You heard that the transport's gonna' be on Monday, right? Friday, contract. Monday, transpo'."
"Yeah, I was nearby. Good thinking with the invisible eavesdropping idea, by the way."
"Good thinking," Ames echoed sarcastically, sighing in an overload of stress. "Some goddamn good thinking, indeed. My good thinking got The Mastermind the MacGuffin tag for the Wang-Division tandem. And now I have a contract and cash about to be waved in front of my face. Good thinking."
Ames pushed off the chair he was clinging to, walking off toward the stairs.
"I'll do the dishes," Max offered. Ames's pulsations weren't losing strength no matter how far he had walked off. They could fill the house without a problem. If only it wouldn't sound so intrusive at the moment, Max would've offered to use his power to make Ames feel better. "Just take some rest."
When Max walked into the bedroom after cleaning up, he found Ames already in bed, but not asleep. Ames simply lay there, eyes open but aimless. It was as if he wasn't mentally there. The only light that was on was his bedside lamp. It was a lonely sight, and the cold temperature of the room wasn't helping.
Seeing Ames struggling was something Max had walked into over a month ago, but he had also walked into Ames conquering the vines that had been holding him captive. What Max was looking at now was a person skidding closer and closer to the limits of his patience.
"May I lie down beside you?" Max asked gently, leaning on the study desk with his hand. He noticed that The Mastermind was on. Its red figures cast a strange glow over the desk's surface. He pressed the sleep button, and the laptop monitor went black.
"Feel free...," Ames replied. It was awkwardly nonchalant.
Max did as he intended, carefully slipping into the thick blanket as he lay down beside Ames. He lay sideways, facing Ames, who was still preoccupied by his thoughts.
"Hurts me to see you like this...," Max mumbled.
He caught the shimmer of freshly wiped tear streams on Ames's face. As a reflex action, he reached out to touch it, stopping before he even made contact.
"May I?" he asked gently.
"Yeah...," the meek response.
Max pressed his finger considerately onto the lines of dried tears, wiping them off as softly as he could.
"Hey..."
"I have to destroy The Mastermind," Ames declared. Max retracted his hand slowly, both very surprised and very curious about how and why Ames would come to such a conclusion. "I will destroy it..."
"No...," Max spoke up, not really intending to interrupt. "You've come so far, right?"
"I should've listened to Doctor Masuda," Ames insisted, his voice quivering faintly. "She warned me about this. I persisted. I was stubborn, just like I've always been. Now, I'm here, being pathetic in front of you, and it sucks."
"You had a mission in mind," Max reminded him. "You had a vision, and you fought for it. You fought for them both. It's just that, sometimes, they don't turn out the way we want them..."
"I didn't want anybody getting in the way," Ames turned on his position to face Max. "You know how stubborn I am."
Max wiped off the dried tear lines on the other side of Ames's face before proceeding to finger comb the guy's bangs off his forehead.
Max decided to put up an empathic shield around himself. He needed to keep a clear mind. He couldn't help Ames if he allowed the negative pulsations to keep on overloading him.
"I didn't start this research to turn people, Max."
"I know."
"I did it for people who couldn't learn like most people. There's nothing that'll make me happier than to see people become better versions of themselves. I see a lot of bullshit going around, and people just buy them 'cause they don't know better."
"I know," Max replied, placing his hand gently over Ames's cheek. He wasn't used to seeing Ames this close to defeat. The cackling fire that normally glowed in Ames's eyes had been replaced with weak flames. Max's thumb massaged the thin apple of Ames's cheek.
Max would've offered to destroy the variant shards, but it would be pointless. The Creaton would continue to regenerate and make new shards for future use. He would be exerting all that effort for nothing. There still had to be a way. Somehow.
Ames held on to Max's hand, keeping it in place on his cheek. Max moved close, pressing his forehead onto Ames's.
Their eyes met, and Max could detect the gnawing helplessness that was insisting on breaking down the armor that Ames had been building over himself all this time. Max found it hard to put up the holographic fireflies and starlight that had always comforted them because of his position, but he did know something else that Ames liked.
He willed his eyes to light up softly. He could see the reflection of their glow in Ames's own eyes.
"We've gotten so comfortable with the fireflies and the stars," Ames commented, looking into Max's eyes earnestly. "What if they no longer help? What if that day comes, Max?"
"We'll find a way," Max replied, massaging Ames's apple softly with his thumb again. "We always did, right?"
Ames looked away momentarily, his face turning stern and contemplative, followed by a long breath. Strangely, it was similar to a breath a shooter took before pulling the trigger. Max recognized that very well. He was, after all, a former Enforcer of the law and an ex-Uwak.
"I'll see what I can do with the contract first," Ames said, eyes meeting Max's once again. This time, however, they had a brighter fire in them. It wasn't as bright as it normally was, but Max could tell that Ames had at least gotten something he could work with. "That should get me somewhere. I dunno'. But I need to see the contract."
"They're going to really try you, Ames."
Ames didn't even blink.
"I'm counting on it."
"Ames. What's on your mind?"
"A lot."