Awakenings Pt. 01

Dozens fell, his heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, dust filling the air as the metal projectiles slammed into the walls too, chipping and slicing away at them as if they were made of a far less substantial material than they were, pitting and digging into the fabric of what had been his fortress for months already. The robots were relentless, David not able to cut them off and stop the bloodshed, to stop bodies from stumbling over bodies, the stronger Superhumans leading the charge with grit and determination in their eyes.

At least, that's what he would remember of them, rather than the way they jerked and flailed as their bodies were peppered with shards of metal. Some brought fire, others manipulated air, others with more traditional telekinesis -- though, finally, it was a Titan who slammed through a wall, breaking across the line of robots with a roar, a man who stood eight feet tall. His lips twisted into a grimace, dirt smeared across his face as he smashed through them, taking bullets to the thighs and stomach before crushing the final robot.

Yet the damage had been done as his head spun, nausea twisting and roiling in his stomach, his creations destroyed, and yet that was not the true terror that had come to take place there that day, night... David didn't even know anymore. It could have been day or it could have been night, but it ceased to matter as he slumped to the ground, bodies looming over him, though those bodies were still standing, lips moving.

A sharp prick entered his arm, though he did not even have the strength in him to flinch, the ringing in his ears growing and growing, the faces and shapes above him fading, blurring as he fell unconscious.

The last thing David saw was the face of one of his robots, the sensor still blinking, but its ability to discharge ammunition was shredded.

If only he'd had more time...

*

David woke slowly, sluggishly, as if he was dragging himself up from a deep, cloying pit that hung from his shoulders, pulling him down, panting, his skin damp and clothes clinging to him. He must have been sweating, though it was hardly a comforting piece of knowledge as he sat up very, very slowly, testing every muscle in his body, stretching out his arms one at a time.

What he was in was clearly a cell, his lips pressed together, yet there was no tension in his jaw. There was a door, of course, with a window with bars on it, but the rest of the room appeared like a simple hotel room with a comfortable bed, even a desk with a seat and a separate armchair. A bookcase sat under the windowsill, small and functional, with a few books resting on their sides, an open wardrobe with a mirror showing him where dressing and the like should have taken place. He couldn't help but notice that that spot would allow anyone at the door, looking through the bars, even if there was glass or something similar there too, to see exactly what he was doing. But privacy there was probably a little too much to be hoped for.

He hoped the separate door, near the main door, led to a small bathroom at the very least. But he wouldn't get his hopes up too much on that one.

"Damn it..."

He sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, running his fingers back through his hair. It was still short and freshly trimmed, bristly at best, but smart. That probably wouldn't make any difference when they judged him, but...

His heart twisted, sickness rising in his gut. If only he'd been quicker. It had not been his fault, not really, and yet every last bit of it was his fault. He'd never asked to be a Savant, yet his very effort to protect himself had dropped him into the very shit that he had sought to avoid -- as if it had all been predestined from the beginning. Maybe that was the way of it for every Savant, or maybe there had been more of them, since the ones that had tried to dominate the world, the ones that had been caught by the government, trapped and... And what?

He didn't know the answer to that question. David wasn't all that sure either that he wanted to know the answer.

Thankfully, or perhaps not all that much so, it was not all that long for him after waking that a tall man with what could have been a military uniform to those not in the know, but what David understood was the black and green, tasteful, uniform of the Government Superhuman Agency. The badges on his chest were derived from past military traditions, but helped place him in the ranking, David swallowing, though there was little he could do but sit there and wait to be spoken to.

"I see you have awoken. Can you confirm that your name is David Joneson?"

David nodded.

"Yes... Harris, as a surname, from birth, but Joneson was given to me in the foster system."

"I see."

The man was polite, if a little clipped, though David could take that over a tongue lashing, even if that was, by far, not the worst thing they could do to him now that they had him trapped. He shifted his weight, wanting to tap his foot anxiously, yet that wouldn't have gotten him anywhere. The body, however, would still want it regardless, nerves racing through him with each beat of his pounding heart.

Be still...

The man surveyed him. David noted that he did not give him a name. Perhaps they did not think that he deserved to have a name to know who he was speaking to, placing the man in his mind solely as The Uniformed Man. It would have to do, at least for the time being, like much else in his life.

"How did you find me?" David said, breaking an uneasy silence, the calm a little too still and settling for him. "I didn't try to cause any trouble... I just thought if I could bring the robots to the government, there might be a job for me there."

He laughed shortly, though it was the kind of laugh that had no humour in the tone, looking at the plain, beige wall directly opposite him. Of course, the window to his cell had the curtains drawn over it, all light in there artificial. He was not such a fool as to think that they would have allowed him an easy avenue to the outside world, as much as his fingers twitched, the gaping cavern in his chest longing for something else, an escape. It was not so much that he was claustrophobic or anything indoors, but that the lack of being able to leave somewhere made him want to leave even more. He supposed that that would be the same for anyone in his position.

"We track the universities." David was surprised to get an answer from The Uniformed Man, though his name was getting old already. "Being that most powers are awakened when our students are of university age, possibly college if they were pursuing diplomas and alternative courses of study, that is where the majority of our attention is."

"Ah." David shook his head. "And that's how you found me. I dropped out of my courses, changed the patterns of my behaviour...and even signed up for counselling."

He'd thought he was being so clever and yet all he had done had been to walk into their trap, even though he could not fault them for what they'd done. If he'd had that knowledge, it would have been exactly what David would have done to catch people just like him.

"Most powers, of course," the man continued, surprisingly conversational, "are recorded when individuals see their doctor or declare it during their studies for forms and whatnot, but you... You declared nothing."

David grimaced. He could have made something up. Damn it. But hindsight, indeed, was a wonderful thing...

"When we became aware that you were a Savant, the third to ever exist, I am sure you understand that we could not take the risk that you would go down the same routes as your predecessors."

David listened carefully, filing that nugget of information away for later. While the man seemed to be imparting information, it did not sound like they had apprehended or captured any other Savants. It would have been a strange thing to say if they had captured or even killed ones like him before that were not officially known.

Interesting...

That could help him.

"As you are too powerful to be left unchecked, Mr Joneson, the decision was made to bring you into custody. This is where you are now. Your needs here will be met, you will not be starved. You will be given everything a body needs to function here."

"But it's still a prison cell, isn't it?" David shot back, on his feet, hands balled up into fists, shaking his head. "I'm not crazy like them -- I promise! If I was going to do something, wouldn't I have already done it? Don't I have rights or something? I shouldn't be here -- I'm not evil! I'm not a villain! I've done everything possible to show everyone that I'm not going to be crazed, power hungry... I don't know what the fuck you want to call them. But all I can tell you is that that's not me and I wish I could do something more to show you that too!"

The man raised an eyebrow, his clean-shaven face suddenly a bit too perfect, the line of his jaw a little too masculine. Anger boiled in the pit of David's stomach, his body too hot, heat racing to his face.

"And the scene caused in your, ah, basement?" He said, less than delicately. "There are lives gone and blood on your hands, Mr Joneson, and that is something that can never be taken back. If you had intended to come peacefully, would the route to take have not been to come forward imminently?"

David growled under his breath, though it only cumulated in a sigh. Despite his frustration, he simply didn't have the energy in him to fight back, not like that.

"Look, I did my best. There's not exactly a playbook for things like that, you know? I didn't think anyone was going to blast the door off. If I had only set the security trip on those to be more accessible, maybe by voice... But I couldn't even talk when I was stunned... Damn it, they need work..."

He devolved into mutterings, seeing only numbers in his head, calculations, all beyond the comprehension of the man staring at him with more than a small degree of fascination.

"To see one of you up close... It's uncanny. But, no, you do not have rights, not here. You are only alive because the Clarketech you have created is of immense value, which I'm confident you are already aware of. That is all that we need from you, whether you want to give us your co-operation willingly...or not."

Clarketech? Ah... He dredged up the word from the back of his mind, seeing the pages of his history books, from his schooling days before university, on the old, worn school desk before him. That had been the name for technology created by Savants. And he guessed that that too was what he was able to create.

"People will ask about me." He stated dully and flatly, like a dog put to a rattlesnake, both holding firm, unwilling to make the first move. "They'll know I'm gone, my university, my friends..."

Well, just the one friend. But the government didn't have to know that.

"No, that will not be so." The man cleared his throat and straightened his tie. "The press release has already been made, as there was quite a scene. All the public knows and will ever know is that many of our agency were killed trying to contain a newly awakened Superhuman that was rampaging."

David swallowed hard. "That". Not "who". Not "who was rampaging". The deliberate word choice came off as colder and chilling than he could have expected.

"They'll know the truth," David said, eyes locked with his all too calm opponent. "They'll have to know, sooner or later. None of this was my fault, it's not my fault they died. I would have come forward if only someone had contacted me, tried to talk to me. My friends will know that I would never rampage... That's not me. That's not the person I am and those that know me will attest to my innocence."

"They'll never be given the chance to," the man retorted, a small smile on his lips. "The truth does not matter, only what we put forward. No one cares about anything else. Now, you will soon be moved from your current location to a secondary secure facility. How pleasant, or unpleasant, things will proceed to be for you going forward is entirely up to you. You can co-operate with us or not and the choice is in your hands."

The man peered at him, edging in a little closer to the glass, though David doubted very much that he would have wanted to be on the same side of the glass as him. He breathed slowly and deeply, trying to relax, head aching deeply, wanting to press his fingers to his temples even as he unclenched his hands, leaving crescent-shaped indents in his palms where his fingernails had dug in a little too viciously.

"So, what will your choice be, David Joneson? You don't mind if I call you David."

There was no need for David to answer, not as the uniformed officer left, no nametag to remember, only the bars on his chest that had denoted his rank. David groaned, alone, sitting heavily on the bed, blood roaring in his ears, the ache in his head spreading to a dull, throbbing pound.

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

Had his heartbeat always been that loud? It felt wrong, so very wrong, but his life was over, everything that he had known, everything that he had worked towards...gone. Just like that. He may as well have never worked so hard in school, never tried to turn the rough start to his life around with his studies, never done so many things.

It had all been for nothing, sinking back onto the bed, his head laid back, feet still on the floor. Dimly, David was aware that he was still wearing his old, scuffed up trainers, one lace untied. He'd never gotten around to replacing them when he'd started wearing through the toe of the left one in the last few months.

He laughed shortly, though it was more of an exhalation of breath than anything else. Like that mattered anymore. No more clothes that he had, most likely, would be of his choosing. Nothing ever would be, not a single breath he took nor a single mouthful of food lifted to his lips with utensils that were not his known.

"Fuck..."

And he would never see Sabrina again, her smile, her blonde hair, how she had made his days, when he lived behind her house with his foster family, just a little bit brighter. All right: a lot brighter. She had been the light of his days, the friend that he had hoped to never be without, only more distant after he'd gone away to university simply because, well...his powers had awakened. David stood by his decision to not drag her into that shit and side of life, for never in a million years would he have wanted to see her across the way in an adjoining cell.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes but he brushed them away angrily with his knuckles, digging them into the soft pits of his eyeballs, before they had a chance to fall.

His life was gone, destroyed as he knew it.

And David didn't know what came next.