Abilities

Paul Dunn stood in his office reading an old book that he had pulled from the shelf that contained quite a collection. Paul was the same man that went to the hospital twenty-three years ago to visit Michael and Mitchel. He was the man carrying the briefcase and the gun that made a deal with Gazet and William to let them split the kids up. He was the same guy that had a friend, named Eric, who transformed into a rhinoceros and attacked Brick. Paul Dunn was the head of the Tactical Defense Against Abilities.

The book was titled, “Mystery Evolution.” An old professor friend of his from Indiana had written it. The book explained why there were people with superhuman abilities, but like all other books that try to explain an unexplainable phenomenon it failed miserably with scholars.

The man closed the book and looked at the picture of his friend on the back and laughed. He shook his head and slid the book back onto the shelf. His office was big. He had an oversized desk that could have been used in a conference room instead of just for him. His chair was made of leather and more comfortable looking than most lounging recliners. In front of his desk were a couple chairs for any visiting clients and behind those were a couple couches for more personal visitors.

He took his jacket off and tossed it on one of those couches. His day was winding down, and it had been a difficult one thus far. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt so that he could breathe freely without the strain against his neck. A crystal decanter was filled with scotch on a table off to the side. He opened it up and poured his favorite scotch whisky into one of the four crystal glasses that were set up on the tray.

He took a slow sip enjoying each second the scotch flowed down his throat. He looked at the glass in his hand. Most drinkers appreciate their drink. The color. The texture. The taste. They believed that answers lie within each bottle, sometimes within each sip. He was no different. He finished the remaining scotch whiskey this time looking up so that he could really feel the pleasure of the alcohol slide down. He followed with a long drawn “ahh” just like they did in the old Coca-Cola commercials.

He removed his burgundy-trimmed eyeglasses and set them on the desk as he walked around to his chair. He rolled the chair back and sank into it, again slowly. Just as with the scotch whiskey, a man cherishes the things that comfort him like his family, his scotch, and sometimes even his work.

Behind him was a picture of his wife. Whether it was because of the black and white portrait of her or because of the timeless beauty she possessed, there was a classic look about her. She was an ageless angel. She was flawless.

He stared and turned to it slowly with such sorrow. He knew that the things he had done in his life would never bring her back, but he would try. He would try to recover the dignity that he had lost because he was too proud to save her.

He pulled a key from his pocket. It was a long key with no jagged ridges like most. It was smooth on both sides. The silver it was made from was clearer than the usual gray. It was chrome. It was strong. Built to withstand any massive amount of force, and to survive because it was the only one in the world.

He bent over and slid the key into a lock that was under his desk. He turned it slow. The sadness and sorrow he was feeling by looking at the picture had taken over his facial features. All expression was taken from him. He looked at the lock with no hope.

A drawer popped open once he had turned the key completely. There wasn’t a handle on the drawer, either. The only way to jar it open was to unlock it with the key. He pulled slowly. He was fighting with himself to turn the key and now he did the same as he pulled the drawer open.

Inside the drawer was a red button. It looked like an emergency stop button. It fed into the bottom of the drawer. There were no wires or base to it; it was just a red button.

The man looked at it. He looked back at his wife’s picture and ran his hands through his blond hair. It was combed over and after he ran his hand through it, it fell back into place. He lifted his hand and placed it over the button while never taking his eyes off of the picture.

His office door flew open. Karen came storming into the office without warning. He looked up slowly and smiled. He closed the drawer calmly so that no one would ever know it was opened, or even what it was.

“You set me up,” she yelled.

“Hi, sweetie. What did I do?” he rose to his feet oblivious to her accusation.

“Don’t sweetie me, dad. You set me up and you know it!”

She was interrupted by a voice coming through the phone intercom, “I’m sorry, Mr. Dunn. I couldn’t stop her.”

“It’s alright,” Paul said. He was never surprised when his daughter, Karen, burst into his office. It meant she was upset about something and it wasn’t the first time they would have an argument in his office. “I set you up?” he restarted the conversation.

“Me and Mitchel. Tell me you weren’t the reason that we met. Was it all part of your plan to find him? You knew he was an Ability and that’s why I was in that park.”

Paul walked to the other side of his desk and showed Karen to the couch. He sat across from her and prepared what he was going to say in his mind. Karen could see the wheels turning, but didn’t want a made-up answer. She didn’t want to be manipulated by her father’s words.

“Dad, tell me the truth,” she said.

“Karen, what you and Mitchel had was real. You were in love and he was too. I haven’t seen someone look at a girl like that since I looked at a girl like that,” he glanced at his wife’s picture. Karen smiled as he continued, “I could never set up a love like that. Nobody could.”

Karen laughed at her own foolishness, “So Mitchel manipulated me…again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I should have caught him.”

“It’s ok,” Paul watched his daughter wipe away tears and he felt the guilt of so many secrets that he needed to tell her the truth. He took a big exhale, “I knew about Mitchel, though,” he confessed and it changed the look on Karen’s face. “I knew all about him and his brother. I had to make sure that he wasn’t dangerous. I had to know more about him before I could arrest him. When I found him, he hadn’t developed any powers, but I needed to keep him close enough to know that he would.”

Karen’s face turned a crimson red, “I don’t believe you! Do you ever tell the truth about anything?”

“What do you want from me? Yes, I needed you to get to know him. Where he lives, what he likes to do, because I needed to know if he was as dangerous as we believed him to be, and he was. I’m sorry I had to go through you for that, but it was the only way,” Paul rose to his feet. “I’m sorry. But you’ve seen what he can do, Karen. Can’t you forgive me and believe that I had the best intentions in doing what I did?”

Paul opened his arms for her forgiveness. He stood ready to take her shots and felt completely vulnerable in doing so. She didn’t know where to walk. She looked at the bookshelf, which was filled with books on evolution, destiny, and superhuman abilities. She looked at the degrees he had received from college and graduate schools. His doctorate hung on the wall.

“The best intentions?” Karen screamed back. “You are out of your mind!”

“Karen, it is my job to find Abilities. No matter what happens inside this office, I have to find them out there so that they don’t hurt anymore people. Mitchel is dangerous. You know that better than anyone,” Paul stood from the couch but didn’t walk anywhere. He didn’t want to get closer to his daughter. He knew she needed to pace around the room in anger.

“You could have just told me! You could have told me everything. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know Mitchel. I would have done anything for this company.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“No,” she shouted. “Don’t you dare apologize. Sorry doesn’t work. Not anymore. It does matter what happens inside this office. Inside these walls you are Paul Dunn, director of the TDAA. You catch Abilities and you do a great job of it, but outside these walls you are just Paul Dunn, father. You’re a dad. Don’t forget to do that the way you forgot to be a husband.”

“Karen…” he couldn’t finish. There was a silence between them. A loud silence.

“Do you need anything else, Mr. Dunn?”

Karen was still a member of the TDAA and she knew that Paul had a point. He was an important man that had to go to drastic measure to lock Abilities up because some of them were dangerous. Some of them felt they were higher than the law, or were like gods in their own way, and those people needed to be locked up. Mitchel wasn’t like that, at first. Not until Paul, Karen, and the TDAA got involved with him.

“Will you please look in on the prisoners?” he asked. He picked up his jacket and began to put it back on. “Make sure Mr. Gazet is as comfortable as possible.”

CHAPTER 29

Gazet, and the rest of the prisoners were locked away in Cell Block U, which stood for Unknown. It was in the basement of Paul Dunn’s building. The door to get into the facility could only be operated by a six-digit code. Once inside, everything was high-tech; it had been designed for the future. The individual cells weren’t made of concrete, and the cell doors weren’t bars but instead were a rare Methyl Methacrylate that couldn’t be broken by usual amounts of force. The walls were made of concrete, but instead of bars, the front of the cell was blocked off by a sheet of indestructible glass. Most employees at the TDAA didn't even know what the glass was made of. As long as it worked, nobody asked.

Karen sat in front of one of the holding cells. There were concrete blocks in front of each cell so that visitors like Paul and his crew could talk to the prisoners. She stared unhappily into the glass at the back of the man she was talking to. He refused to look at her. She stepped to the glass and placed her hands on it.

“Gazet, please. Why won’t you talk to me?” she asked.

He turned slowly. The cane he usually walked with wasn’t the same one. This one was white and made of a stiff plastic. Gazet was dressed in a white jumpsuit. Inside the cell there was a bed in the corner that the prisoners slept in. The base was made of solid concrete, but had a relatively thick, comfortable mattress on it. There was a sink, toilet, and a mirror on the other side of the cell. The cells were bigger than normal police station or prison cells. Here, they were eighteen feet by eighteen feet.

“Why should I?” asked Gazet.

“Because you know who I am. I know what you can do. I made my decisions and I know you saw it.”

“It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. I don’t see what I want to see and if I did, you are of absolutely no use to me.”

“Maybe I am,” Karen tried to stay in eye-line with Gazet as he moved around the cell. She continued, “My father is a liar. He’s a cheat. He thinks he is doing the world a favor by locking Abilities up, but he isn’t.”

Gazet walked closer to the glass. He looked into her eyes. She meant it. She was angry and heart broken, two things that can change a young woman’s entire thought process.

“I think he’s hiding something.”

“What is he hiding?” asked Gazet.

“I don’t know. I don’t think his plan is to lock up the most dangerous Abilities. He’s gotta list of them. He’s only locking up certain ones that fit his plan. That plan includes you and Mitchel.”

“Why are you telling me all this, Karen?”

“Because I’m going to stop him,” she said with intense eyes. “I’m going to bring my father and the TDAA down.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late.”

“It’s not, Gazet. Just tell me where Mitchel is going. He thinks he has to kill his brother.”

“Then you need to go find his brother.”

“I can’t get the information on him. Not yet, at least.” confessed Karen.

“If you don’t have it, that means he doesn’t have it either. I have no idea where Mitchel is.”

Karen had other options but she would keep those to herself. Gazet smiled and nodded to her, and before she could say anything else, the door to the facility unlocked. When someone punches in the correct six-digit code, a loud, one beat siren sounds. Karen’s head snapped to the door. She watched as her father walked in. His jacket was back on, his tie was tightened, and his glasses were back on his face.

“That’ll be enough, Karen,” he said before he was fully through the door.

Karen looked into Gazet’s cell. Gazet turned away from the glass and went back to ignoring the people on the other side of it. Paul zeroed in on Gazet as soon as he entered and never took his eyes off of him. He came inches from pressing his nose on the glass.

“Thank you, Karen,” Paul said. Karen looked at her father and began to leave Cell Block U. She punched the code into the keypad and the siren sounded. “Don’t leave until I get the chance to talk to you. Wait for me in your office.”

Paul never turned his head, but looked at Karen out of the corner of his eye. She nodded knowing that something was wrong. That somehow, before she could even begin to betray her father, she was caught. She could feel the disappointment in his voice. In the corners of Cell Block U were security cameras with high-powered audio equipment. Karen closed her eyes after she looked at it. She knew she could make a mistake, but forgetting about the surveillance equipment was the one mistake she couldn’t afford to make. She left the room with a feeling of severe failure in her gut and she failed before she could even start a new life.

“Hi,” Paul said as the Block U doors closed behind Karen. “It’s been a while. Your leg’s heeled well, I hope.” Gazet remained silent. “To tell you the truth I figured you would have seen all of this coming, but some Abilities aren’t as powerful as others.”

“It doesn’t work like that. I don’t see what I want to see. They just come to me,” Gazet broke his silence.

“You never saw this?”

“No.”

Paul sat down on the concrete block in front of the cell. He took his glasses from his face and puffed a couple breaths of air onto the dirty lenses. He pulled a red cloth from his pocket and wiped the lenses clean. He held them up and looked through them. After he approved of their cleanliness, he put them back on his face and stuffed the cloth back into his pocket.

“Would you like to know why you’re here, Gazet?” Paul didn’t get an answer to his question. “I’ll take that as a yes. I want to help you. We’ve been trying to figure out why Abilities manifest their powers. We don’t know if it’s DNA, a disease, or as simple as something they eat. One step in our research is to determine why some Abilities can use their power at will and why some, like yourself, the power comes and goes.”

Gazet walked over to the sink and began washing his hands. The cells were clean, and Gazet hadn’t eaten anything in a few hours, so his hands weren’t at all dirty. He was doing it to get under the skin of his warden.

“With this research, I can help you. I want to help you, Gazet,” Paul raised his voice over the running water.

“How does any of this help me?”

“You’ll be able to use your powers whenever you want. You’ll be able to control them. You were in a car accident because you started to see a vision while you were driving. That won’t happen again. You’ll never have to worry about a vision interrupting your daily life. You can make it happen whenever you want.”

“So that’s why I’m here? For more research? And once you get what you want what happens to me? You kill me?”

“No, Gazet. We let you go,” answered Paul sincerely. “But first, I’d need your help.”

Gazet didn’t agree or disagree but decided to wait to hear more about Paul’s manipulative plans before giving an answer.

“Gazet, we’d like you to work for us. You’re a rare Ability. I’ll help you if you help us. And you’ll be well paid for your work. Trust me, I take care of my people.”

“No,” Gazet answered sternly.

Paul smirked. He looked down at his lap like he was trying to remember his next move. Paul knew that talking Gazet into working for him after they locked him up was going to be difficult, a chess game where each move had to be smart. Paul was ready to give as much necessary dig into his bag of manipulation.

“When my men were bringing you down here, did you see any of the other prisoners? If you did, you’ll notice that around their necks is a Babbitt collar. It is a device that harnesses Ability’s powers and energy. When an Ability is wearing this collar, they can’t use their powers. It eliminates them. It turns them into normal people. Some of them for the first time in their life.”

Paul stood up and glanced at the camera. There was a red dot blinking. That meant that the cameras were recording everything. He glanced at the prisoner in the cell next to Gazet’s. He nodded and stepped away so that the prisoner inside that neighboring cell couldn’t see him anymore.

“You’ll notice you are not wearing a Babbitt collar. That’s because I don’t want to harness your powers, Gazet. You are very special and I want you to thrive in here. I don’t want you to think of this as a prison, but a hospital. I’ll let you out of your cell and accompany you up to the sixth floor. That’s the Medical Center. The same one you awoke in after your accident.”

Paul walked around to the door of the cell. He punched in the same six-digit code that was used for the facility door. The door jarred open. He stepped inside the room. They were both calm. Gazet was in his sixties, and Paul approached his fifties, so while neither man was ready for a wanted to fight, but more importantly neither man was ready was ready to fight.

“You are not a prisoner here I assure you of that. If you want to leave, I will walk you out the front doors myself. If you’d like to stay, then I will do everything in my power to help you. You will have complete control over your ability, but I can only promise you that if you choose to help us.”

“So, I’ll be using my powers to help you find other Abilities?”

“Among other things. I promise, though, you will bring no harm to anybody.”

“So, I need to trust you?”

“I would like you to try.”

“Tell me where I am. What is the TDAA?” asked Gazet.

“The TDAA stands for Tactical Defense Against Abilities. We are a secret part of the government, but if you asked, we don’t exist. My job is to get the most dangerous Abilities off the streets so that they can’t hurt anybody, and I bring them here.”

“And where is here?”

“This facility is a couple miles outside of Chicago.”

Gazet looked at the bed he had been sleeping in and the toilet he had been using. The walls were over three feet thick of solid concrete. The door was a strong metal, and the glass almost indestructible. He walked over to the wall that separated his cell and his neighbor’s cell. He put his hand on the wall.

“Why are you holding him? He’s not dangerous.”

“Oh,” Paul sounded staggered. “You know about him?”

“Yea. He’s not an Ability, why is he here?”

“He’s here to help us, too.”

“Like I’m here to help you?”

“No, not exactly. He’s considered a prisoner. A lot of my men have been killed in the field, but I’m hoping in this facility, they’d have better luck.”

Gazet pressed his ear up against the wall. There was no physical way to hear what was happening on the other side of one of these walls, but he still listened. He closed his eyes and tried to sense it. Fear? Comfort? He hoped for a vision, but not of the future. He just wanted to see what was happening on the other side of the wall.

Paul watched him with curiosity. He smiled because he could feel Gazet begin to change his opinion about Paul and the Tactical Defense Against Abilities organization. Paul closed the gap between them. He wanted to get close to Gazet to try and feel what Gazet was feeling. He wanted to feel his energy.

“We’re hoping,” Paul continued, “that they’ll come here to break him out.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” said Gazet.

“So,” Paul reached his hand out to offer a sign of peace and partnership to Gazet. “What do you say?”

Gazet remained pressed against the wall like he had formed a close bond with his prison surroundings in the few months that he had been there. He turned to look at Paul, but he had no intention of ever shaking his hand. As far as Gazet was concerned, Paul was a monster. Locking up people just because they were different was not a career. It was a choice, and it was Paul’s choice to be the bad guy.

But Gazet knew that he was getting a good offer. Probably the best offer an Ability ever got in a place like the TDAA so. He felt that he had no choice but to reached out his hand slowly and shook the hand of his new partner.

“Thank you, Gazet. You will not regret this,” his words had no effect on the Irishman. “Let me show you to where you’ll be staying.”

CHAPTER 30

Karen slipped into her office and closed the door behind her. She leaned against the door like she was trying to block a mad man from getting in. She was breathing hard, short breaths. Her thoughts ran through her head like they were in a 100-yard dash. Her life had changed more during the walk from Cell Block U than it had over the last twenty-years.

She backed away from the door as if it were on fire. She ran to the desk and started searching for a specific list of items. She stuffed money, keys, and her passport into her jacket pocket. All the things she might need if she weren’t coming back to the office for a couple weeks. She opened the bottom drawer of the desk. Inside it was a gun and holster. The gun was a TDAA issued handgun. All agents that worked in the field, the corporate bosses, and anyone who needed protection from an Ability was issued the Glock 19 model.

She pulled the gun from the holster and dropped the holster back into the drawer. Like an assassin, she popped the magazine out, made sure the gun was loaded, jammed it back into the gun, and finally pulled back the slide. She flipped on the safety mechanism and tucked the gun away under her jacket in the back of her pants.

“I didn’t think it would come to this,” Paul said.

Karen looked up to see her father standing in the doorway. He had opened the door so quietly that she didn’t know he was there. He looked at her with such disappointment in his eyes. He closed the door behind him, quietly. Karen slowly pulled her jacket down over the handle of the gun to cover it. She swallowed hard not knowing what her father was going to say or, worse, what he would do.

“Your first mistake,” Paul paused to walk around her office, which was nearly half the size as his. “Is that Aa person should always have a bottle of scotch in their office.”

“I don’t drink.”

“But others do, Karen. Clients come first.”

Paul made it seem like he was looking for that bottle of alcohol like it would just appear out of nowhere. Perhaps he was looking for something else in the room.

“Did you ever read the book ‘1984?’” asked Paul. “No? It was written by George Orwell. He wrote that in 1984 man would live in a totalitarian government where there was the Inner party, the Outer party, and most of the population were a group of people called the Proles. It’s a great read. I highly recommend it. Karen, one thing this book makes a great deal about is Big Brother. You know what is meant by ‘Big Brother,’ right? You’re smart enough to know that someone is always watching you.”

Paul’s movements scared Karen. He was walking like a man possessed. She could see that the obsession of his job was beginning to take him overconsume his entire life. It started when he threw his daughter into the fray with Mitchel and never telling her. Paul could feel that he was so close to everything he had spent the last twenty years working towards. He was willing to sacrifice everything.

“I was crushed when your mother died,” Paul continued. He slowly kept walking around the room and Karen made sure to keep space between them. “I was crushed. The only reason I kept going was because of you. Because you were carrying a part of your mother around that I got to see every day. Karen, you made things easier for me.”

Paul sat on the front of the desk. He crossed his arms. His lip began to quiver and that brought a tear to his eye. It slid down his face and the teardrop dropped from his cheek and landed on his thigh leaving behind a small damp dot on his pants.

“I understand what I did to you. I understand that I can never take it back. As a businessman in my position, you need to understand that it was the smartest move I ever made, but that’s no excuse. I’m a father first, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Karen broke the space between them. She pulled up a chair in front of him and sat down. She grabbed his hands and pulled them in closer to her. “I was angry, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you because I do.” Although the words she spoke were true, her affection and compassion were being used as red herrings.

Paul squeezed his daughter’s hands and smiled. He felt a small weight lifted from his shoulders from hearing Karen say she still loves him. He knew that he was lucky to have a daughter like her, and he saw a lot of her mother in Karen. It always brought him joy even though she died at such a young age. Paul made a promise to his wife to always look after her and that is the reason, he asked Karen to join the Tactical Defense Against Abilities so that he could watch over her.

“It made me very angry to hear what you said to Gazet…that you are planning to ruin my company. You’d ruin me, Karen,” Karen heard her father’s words and while she wanted to feel guilty, she was still torn. She no longer respected the business her father operated. Paul continued, “I know that I hurt you and…and that I may never be able to give you a normal life. I am so sorry for that, Karen.”

Karen grew nervous. She could see her father on edge and didn’t know what he was capable of in this state of mind. He slipped off the table and kneeled down in front of her. He cupped his hands around hers and moved in close.

“Karen, I know what you are planning to do and I know you can’t do it by yourself. You’re going to find Mitchel,” he advised.

Karen didn’t know what to do. Her father had never been more set on something than he was at catching Mitchel. Now he was granting her what she wanted most. She wanted to leave the TDAA and go back to Mitchel. She was getting her chance. She smiled and a tear fell from her eye. She kissed Paul on the check and hugged him tightly. Her hands wrapped around his neck to the point where she could almost touch her elbows.

“Thank you,” she said to him.

Paul didn’t smile. He looked angry.

Karen released her hug and held his hands. She squeezed them as if it was a silent goodbye. She got up and grabbed her bag off the desk. After looking at him one last time, she headed to the door.

“Karen,” Paul said. Karen stopped and looked back at her father. She was still smiling. “I’m a business man. I am a great business man,” before he began, Karen's smile faded as her father spoke. “If you have to go find Mitchel, then go. Go find him and when you do I hope you two are happy together and can run away for good because my people will not stop looking for Mitchel. I will not let them. I need him, Karen. More than anyone I’ve ever looked for. I need Mitchel Wehde in here as my prisoner. When they find Mitchel, I just pray that you’ve come to your senses and are nowhere near him. For your sake.”

Karen threw the strap over her shoulder. She never took her eyes off Paul. He looked at her with such hatred in his eyes as if she was a stranger he’d never seen, the way two life-long enemies look at each other. This was no longer the father-daughter relationship they once knew. This wasn’t the daughter that Paul watched grow up and this wasn’t the father that Karen used to cuddle with at night after a bad dream. This was an entirely different connection.

“You really are a manipulative asshole,” she said to him. On her way out the door she looked at him on last time, “I only hope your people are ready because when I find him, and trust me I will find him, we’re coming right back to burn this place to the ground. I just pray you’ve come to your senses and are far away from this place…dad.”

Karen left the room without closing the door behind her. She was gone. Paul was internally torn between being a father and the director at the TDAA. He looked around her office. Years ago, when Karen’s mother was still around, she would drop Karen off to hang out with Paul while he worked and they would come into this very office. Back then, though, it was Karen’s personal playpen. She had video games, board games, dolls, and stuffed animals. It was her very own daycare. Paul closed his eyes and could still see her playing in the corner but that was gone now. With his eyes open he saw nothing but a cold, dark, empty room.

Karen kept a picture of the family on her desk. It was taken sixteen ago in San Francisco. Paul and his wife lifted Karen up. Behind them was the Golden Gate Bridge. Usually, the bridge is covered in fog and it’s tough to get a good shot of it, but this day was perfect. The sky couldn’t have been clearer. The wind couldn’t have been calmer. The sun shone and the clouds were parted.

Paul took the picture in his hands. He remembered the day like it was yesterday. He smiled, but then did something odd. He covered Karen’s face with his hand. He only wanted to see his wife. He only wanted to think of her.

“This is going to get worse,” he spoke to it. Searching for answers, he spoke to his wife more than anyone would think. “It is, isn’t it?”

Karen stepped out of the elevator and looked up. She could picture her father sitting in his desk chair heartbroken, but angry. She could feel what he felt because they were going through the same thing. They were both angry because of what the other had done, and both without hope.

****

“You are not a prisoner here I assure you of that. If you want to leave, I will walk you out the front doors myself. If you’d like to stay, then I will do everything in my power to help you. You will have complete control over your ability, but I can only promise you that if you choose to help us,” Paul said to Gazet fifteen minutes earlier. They stood inside Gazet’s cell inside Cell Block U as Paul began convincing Gazet to work together.

The security cameras picked up every bit of their conversation. Karen burst into the security office, out of breath. She had just run up from the prison facility and didn’t stop until she got to the security monitors. She startled the security officers, but they didn’t question her about what she was doing. As the boss’s daughter, she had access to almost every area of the building. All but one.

She watched the monitors, then checked her watch and synced the times up within a second. She looked up to the monitor and then left the room. The security guards, who were quite out of shape and moved as little as they had to, shrugged their shoulders as one drank from a 2-liter of Pepsi and the other nibbled on a Pop-Tart the way a chipmunk eats.

Karen made her way quickly down the hall. She passed people who worked in the smaller branches of the company. Some of them didn’t even know what the TDAA really did. To them it was corporate office of the government that dealt with criminal cases. She counted the numbers on the doors as she sped passed them.

She came around the corner and smacked right into another guy walking through the hall.

“Oh, Eric, hi. Sorry about that,” Karen said.

“You in a hurry, Karen?” asked Eric. Eric was known for having a bit of a temper. He could transform into any animal in the world, and people said his ability gave him quite a bit of rage. “What are you up to?”

“I’m trying to surprise my dad with something before he gets out of Block U.”

“With what?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about it. Family secret,” she lied.

“Family secret? Do you need any help?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Eric wasn’t social with anyone in the building. He and Karen never got along. Eric was Paul’s right-hand man, and Karen never appreciated that. It was another sign that Paul treated Karen like a little girl and not an agent.

“Well, I’ll see ya,” said Karen. She spun around Eric and continued down the hall. He watched her curiously. She was moving rather quickly and seemed to be nervous. Eric decided it was best not to start any problems though. Pissing off the boss’s daughter is one of the last things you want to do. It’s right behind pissing off the boss.

Karen turned the corner and found the door she was looking for. She pulled out a key card and slid it down the pad. She pulled the door open and closed it behind her just as quickly.

The file room. Inside were files from every Ability they ever had in the prison, every Ability they were looking for, and all the others ones that were given provisional freedom because they cooperated. The TDAA takes into consideration all powers when they search for Abilities. The ones deemed most dangerous were locked up, while the others were given a sort of Green Card to continue their freedom, but they had to clear all whereabouts with the TDAA.

Karen skimmed the letters above the file cabinets. For some strange reason the files were arranged backwards. A-B was in the back of the room, which. wasn't big enough to walk between the cabinets and walls with her shoulders square, so she slithered, clicking her heels together, her way between the cabinets and got to the final row of files on the back wall. She searched through multiple drawers looking for the correct file. Her two index fingers flipped through them like the way the two paddles of a pinball game move.

She stopped. Her eyes opened wide as she read the name on the file. She pulled it out and started reading more. She smiled and slammed the drawer closed. She tucked the folder under her arm and raced to the door. She opened it slightly and looked around the hallway to make sure no one important was coming, mainly her father.

She left the room and closed the door behind her. This time she didn’t run into any animal-like people. She slipped by everyone unnoticed and got to the front desk. She put the folder down in the face of one of the ladies who worked the front desk.

“I am coming back in fifteen minutes. When you see me, hand this to me,” Karen said.

The lady nodded and Karen walked away without another word. Paul was just leaving Cell Block U when she walked away from the front desk. He headed straight to the elevator. Knowing she had to beat him, she raced to the stairwell and sprinted up the stairs. The stairwell was empty, and usually if someone is in there the echo bounces off the walls and down the floors, but there was no echo so she knew she could run as fast as she wanted without running into anyone.

She reached her floor and flew out of the stairwell into the hallway. She came to her office and opened the door.

Karen slipped into her office and closed the door behind her. She leaned against the door like she was trying to block a mad man from getting in. She was breathing hard, short breaths. Her thoughts ran through her head like they were in a 100-yard dash. Her life had changed more during the walk from Cell Block U than it had over the last twenty-years.

****

Karen stepped out of the elevator and looked up. She could picture her father sitting in his desk chair heartbroken, but angry. She could feel what he felt because they were going through the same thing. They were both angry because of what the other had done, and both without hope.

She grabbed the folder from the lady at the front desk without saying a word. People were coming and going. It was the busy hour of the day. While many employees were busy with lunch meetings with clients or family, the rest of the agents were moving in and out during field assignments. Most employees weren't returning with their targeted clients.

She walked around the side of the building where Paul, other powerful members of the TDAA, and the field agent’s park. They park there because the lot has the quickest access to Cell Block U. And just as she unlocked her car, one of the TDAA vehicles pulled up to the side door. It was the size of a Hummer, but built like a tank, with strong metal to withstand the toughest blows by some of the most powerful Abilities.

The agents hopped out of the front seats and slid open the side door. Three more agents hopped out of the side and together they helped out a man who was handcuffed. He didn’t look dangerous, but rather homeless instead. His hair was pale white, like the color of snow or an iceberg.

They led him to the front door. Karen saw the handcuffs he was wearing. They were a bright orange color. The color the dark metal coils on top of an electric stove get when the temperature is turned to high. The cuffs had a thick cord trail into a battery that the last agent was carrying. It was pumping heat into his handcuffs. The soon to be prisoner of the TDAA Cell Block U wasn’t screaming at all. He wore them like they were normal handcuffs.

Karen hopped in her car as soon as the agents took the prisoner inside the doors and closed them. She took the papers out of the folder and double-checked the name and address. She tossed the folder onto the passenger seat, started the car, threw it into drive, and sped out of the parking lot leaving lines of burnt rubber from her tires.

The next place she needed to go was listed in the file she had stolen. She had made her father believe that she was going straight to Mitchel. She wanted him to believe she was going to protect him. But what she knew, what her father didn’t realize, was that Mitchel didn’t need help. Karen had, on multiple occasions, seen what Mitchel was capable of doing.

The name in the folder was that of the person she needed to find. She didn’t know what she was going to do when she got there, just that she needed assistance and was hoping he was in a helpful mood.

The folder read:

Weight: 235

Height: 6’4

Last name: N/A

First name: Brick