Nighthawks (Children of Nostradamus Book 1) (2 page)

She understood the pomp and circumstance, and that every object in the office was there for either historical or public relations reasons. She could accept nearly all the décor, but each time she saw the ugly carpet imprinted with a large eagle, she shivered a bit. She had mentioned it time and time again, but alas, to change even that had the potential of creating an international incident.

“Eleanor,” said the woman behind the desk, “I’m glad to see you.”

“Likewise, Madame President,” Eleanor said with a minor curtsey.

She waved her hand in dismissal. “Only for a few more months, and then I can spend my time at charity events and talking about the glory days.”

Eleanor sat down on the couch. “Shall we begin with pleasure or business?”

The president let out a long sigh. “Pleasure will have to wait, my friend,” she said. “There are monumental decisions to be made today.”

“We shall save the world first,” Eleanor jested. “Then we can talk of this retirement.”

The president was forty years her junior, her hair only beginning to show the faintest of white. In her suit, she was as intimidating as any man Eleanor had ever watched. She stood up and moved to the couch with several stacks of papers in dark folders. “Before we begin, I wanted to let you know that the young girl we discovered has been given a new home.”

Eleanor sat up straight. “Really? You convinced them to take her out of the program?”

The president nodded. “I believe in the program, Eleanor. These mentalists have so much potential for the world. But a young girl should be given a choice. She’ll be approached when her powers begin to flare, but until then, she has been given to a couple who work in the Library of Congress.”

“Thank you, Cecilia.”

“I promised you that we wouldn’t let this project become a scientific prison. I want them to contribute under their own free will. I only hope that her powers are able to be tempered.”

“I agree,” Eleanor stated. “It is such a shame what happened to that young boy.”

They both took a moment of silence to commemorate the boy who died after he decided to use his gifts for something of a more sinister nature.

Eleanor pulled her gloves off, folding them and resting the article of clothing on the coffee table in front of them. She picked up the first stack of papers and looked at the sticky note that read
“Classified.”

“I find it amusing that your classified folders are merely labeled with sticky notes. You would think with the number of these that cross your desk, there would be a business of making official labels.”

Cecilia laughed. “I’m sure there are some of them around here.”

Eleanor let her hand rest on the folder. She felt the cool paper against the tips of her fingers. A jolt that came with her gifts surged through her body. She never needed to see the contents of the folder; she would never have understood the contents. Her eyes were open on the room, but phantom images emerged across the office. She felt herself jump from one moment to the next. She could see the timeline connecting each of the moments, splintering into “what ifs” and “what could bes.” Small lines of light tied each moment together. She began to choose and pick which ones she would follow. On several occasions she worked backward and then forward again.

The images washed away and a slight breeze touched her skin ever so lightly. In the matter of seconds in which she looked at the folder, she had witnessed thousands of possibilities.

“Do not sign it,” she said flatly. “It will result in defunding thousands of hospitals around the country in the next decade. Tell them that you will only sign if they agree to massive health care reform.”

“That will be quite the upset,” said the president.

“Your popularity will drop, but you’ll be potentially saving millions of people.”

“Potentially?”

Eleanor nodded. “Too many decisions influence the future to predict the outcome. But this gives the best chance for that to never happen.”

“Done,” said the president, taking the folder and setting aside.

“Do you ever question what it is we do here?”

Cecilia shook her head without hesitation. “You are one of my dearest friends, a confidante and a genuinely good soul. I also find that nearly all your decisions are supported by data, a think tank of advisers, and my gut.”

Eleanor took the younger woman’s hand in hers. “Thank you,” she said.

Before the president could respond to the contact, Eleanor’s hair began to stand on end. She waited for the images to fill her vision, but she couldn’t use her gift when she focused on her longtime friend.

“No future,” she whispered.

Eleanor focused on the hand tightly gripped in hers. Instead of walking forward, she felt as if she was falling, moving backward. Where she couldn’t foresee the future with Cecilia, she could recall the past.

It began with her movements this morning, and as Eleanor pushed harder, she could see events that had happened weeks ago. Finally she saw the woman standing at the door to this very office and what she saw shocked her.

Nothing.

Eleanor let go of the woman’s hands. She had never felt such a dark and cold sensation envelop her body. She could feel it sinking into her bones. “Who are you?”

Cecilia stood up, gasping at the sensation of having her entire life played out. “You’re only a precog,” she gasped.

Eleanor pushed away from her on the couch. While she had felt fine when she walked into the room, fear started to wash over her body. She grabbed her purse and continued to scoot back from the woman.

“You’re not Cecilia,” Eleanor said calmly.

The President swung her hand, her knuckles hitting Eleanor with enough force that it knocked spit from her mouth.

“How long have you been Psychometric? How long have you been able to see my past?”

“Long enough,” Eleanor said, trying to keep her composure and not let the fear take control of her body.

“You will be…”

“No.”

Cecilia froze in mid-sentence. Eleanor could sense the woman’s muscles struggling against her will, but she stayed paralyzed.

Eleanor could sense the wildness in the woman in front of her. The fake president was right, these gifts were new to her. She had been able to see the future her entire life, but only in the last year had she been able to see the past and touch another person’s mind. A year wasn’t enough time for her to master these gifts.

“…kill you.”

Eleanor grit her teeth as the woman resisted her compulsions. She could feel the headache beginning just behind her eyes. It would only be moments before the nosebleed followed, and if she was unlucky, she would pass out from the strain. Her frail body betrayed the immensity of her mind.

She reached into her purse and held up the gun, flipping off the safety. “You will not continue.”

“We did everything…”

“To avoid this?” Eleanor could feel her mind losing its grip on the woman in front of her. “For humanity,” she whispered.

Her finger squeezed the trigger and a loud bang sounded throughout the room.

The breeze rushed along her body and the images began to overwhelm her. The event in front of her was creating a new path into the future and her gift was attempting to show her the repercussions of what she had done. While she had spent months examining each possibility, hours spent in a trance trying to unravel destiny, she had known any attempt to foil the president would result in her demise. She realized that her actions were not the catalyst that her gifts had shown her. The dark future still obscured her visions. Her actions today would not lift the turmoil on the horizon.

Bang
.

The bullet penetrated her chest, pushing through her lung and sending her small frame to the floor. The shadows of the future washed away and she was aware she was in the present, grasping the plush carpet, staring up at the ceiling of the Oval Office. The woman she had shot stood above her. The bullet hole in her white blouse was apparent, but where she should have been bleeding, there was nothing.

“I’ve won,” said the president.

Eleanor could feel her vision beginning to slip. “Only the handmaiden of destiny,” she whispered.

The president’s brow rose at the ominous statement. “You can’t do anything now,” she said, leaning over her, pretending to cradle her dying friend.

“But I already have,” whispered Eleanor.

***

“While there was an attempt on the president’s life this afternoon, authorities are certain it was not the act of terrorists. The threat, an elderly Eleanor Valentine, had been invited to the White House as a guest to share afternoon tea with President Cecilia Joyce. Investigations are still underway as to how she acquired a weapon. Sources say the Secret Service agents reacted quickly and may have saved the president’s life. We will provide more details as we hear from inside correspondents.”

Chapter Two

May 16th, 2032 1:30PM

“
What
do you think?” he asked.

The short woman with neon pink hair placed the canvas against a white wall and took a few steps back. She examined it, walking back and forth, tilting her head. She stood so it was mere inches from her face. She opened her mouth to talk but hesitated, instead opting to make a clicking noise with her tongue ring.

He grunted at her delays. “Gretchen, you’re killing me.”

“It’s like…” She turned to him. “It’s totally awesome.”

“Really?”

She hugged him, the spikes of her leather choker threatening to stab him in the chest. “That makes twenty, right? We finally have enough that you can have a show.”

He hugged her back, lifting her off the ground and swinging her around. “It only took two years to finish them.”

She felt her feet touch the ground again. She turned back to the painting, clutching his hand. “You told me you’d explain who she was once you finished. So spill it, who is the girl in the painting?”

Gretchen examined the young woman in the painting. “She can’t be older than twenty, yet there’s a maturity reflected in her eyes.”

That was one of the very few typical traits about the subject. Covering nearly two thirds of her face, bones protruded from the skin. Where her forehead should have been, a large callused surface rose above the epidermis, the young woman deformed. The growths were more extreme in some places, ranging from an alteration to the look of her collarbone to the more pronounced spike growing from her shoulder. Conthan knew Gretchen understood his aesthetic and only she would comprehend his fascination with the woman’s beauty. His compassion showed in the way he took care with each brush stroke. He suspected she wanted to inquire about his bond with his subject, but so far she had held her tongue.

“She’s beautiful, Conthan,” Gretchen said quietly.

“I know,” he said.

She wrapped one arm around Conthan’s black leather jacket, nestling herself against the side of his body. “How do you know her, Conthan?”

He squeezed her. “We used to go to school together.” He took a step forward, staring at the bone-covered girl. “I met her my freshman year of high school after my foster folks split up. She was kind of my saving grace. She listened to me complain and complain about the divorce. All the while she would steal my notebooks and doodle all over them.”

He let out a faint laugh at the memory. He reached out, almost touching the painting, remembering his best friend. “She was so unbelievably beautiful. She was the kind of girl you couldn’t help but notice, especially when she smiled. Then one day she got called out of Social Studies class to the office. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were discussing the long-term implications of Nostradamus’ predictions. Mr. Whittaker was wearing that ugly tweed jacket and Zack Quiggley was snoring two seats behind me. I found out later she had been reported to the Genesis Division.”

“She didn’t have the…” Gretchen paused, then tapped her forehead, gesturing to the girl’s cheeks. “Growths?”

“Not yet,” he said. “She had been reported as an anomaly because the school nurse had noticed she hadn’t been sick since she was a small child. She met with the principal and they took her blood. I recall thinking she had been missing from class for so long. I had even started a doodle of her as a robot attacking the school.”

“She came back positive?” Gretchen asked.

He nodded. “She was considered a Class III mutation. Benign, no active threat. That was her last day at school. She was required to go to a live-in research facility.”

Conthan stared off into space, remembering the super slick building she lived in. “It was kind of cool when I went to visit with her mom. She had her own bedroom and she had to go to school there with the other kids. Her room was covered in drawings of the other kids with her in classes. Sarah talked about them. She had friends at the facility. She told me about their abilities, and it almost sounded as if she was happy to be among her own people. I thought she would be in some evil laboratory, but for the most part, it was a nifty place.”

“But…” Gretchen interjected.

“But it was still a research facility. About six months into being there, they had confirmed she was a Child of Nostradamus. Her body began to undergo mutagenesis. During the tests they found that she had an abnormal amount of calcium in her body and it began to show. She had a single pimple on her cheek as the bone pushed through her skin. When I saw her next, several spots of her face were covered in bone.”

“Oh God,” Gretchen gasped.

“She said it didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t comfortable either. The scientists said it would continue and could potentially prove fatal if her body couldn’t find a way to expel the excess calcium. She slowly became a prisoner in her own body. But…” He paused for a moment. “She never stopped smiling.”

“She’s beautiful,” said Gretchen, admiring the girl’s sly grin.

Conthan smiled. “Yes, she is. One day I asked her if I could touch one. She wasn’t ashamed and she laughed as I poked her cheek. If she was ever sad about being kept under house arrest in the facility, she never let it show. My junior year of high school I went to visit on my own. We were sitting in the common room watching television when she leaned over and kissed me. It hurt so much as the bone dug into my face. It was the first kiss for both of us.”

“It was the last,” Gretchen said, sensing the change in his tone.

“Her dorm turned into a Class II research facility. They started housing some pretty mean individuals there. Because she wasn’t a threat, they moved her to a new research center on the edge of the Danger Zone.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I had hoped she would come back after a while. But the local facility closed. Now they were at the Danger Zone, supposedly it was big enough to house them all. The first place had treated her like a human, and there was talk about her being able to be integrated back into the mainstream. But once it became a Class II facility, it was like she became a prisoner, made guilty by fate.”

“You’ve never seen it?”

“Once,” he said, “I snuck to the facility. I had to make arrangements to see her almost a month in advance. Unlike the first place, this one looked like a prison. There were guards everywhere and the large mechs patrolled the building. When I got in, they gave me a radiation badge and let me see her.”

He tried to hide the sadness in his voice. The image of his friend looking worn and defeated crept into his thoughts. “We had to sit on the opposite sides of glass, just like a prison. We talked quickly and I could see that she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t say anything bad, but it was obvious the facility had begun to change her.”

“How can they survive the radiation from Ground Zero?”

“The Children of Nostradamus are more resilient than us. They don’t get sick and apparently are immune to the radiation. The prison was so heavily guarded I can’t imagine what kind of powered people were housed there.”

“Did you see her again?”

He shook his head. “I tried over and over again, but I couldn’t get approval to visit. I tried writing her letters, but they all came back unopened. I tried calling, but eventually I was told that her mutation had made her more dangerous and that she was being housed with the Class IIs.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody talks up there.”

She squeezed his arm tightly. “Well, I’m sure she would appreciate what you’re doing here.”

“You don’t think people will see it as a circus sideshow?”

She ran her hand over the shaved side of her head and pulled her shirt down, revealing her collarbone covered in tattoos. She smirked. “I’m pretty sure my clientele will approve.”

He smiled at her. “When do you want to do the gallery opening?”

“Well,” she dragged out, “I didn’t want to make you nervous, but I knew you were bringing this by today.”

“Gretchen,” he said firmly.

“It’s tomorrow.”

Conthan’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you serious? How are you going to get people here?”

She reached to the front counter and grabbed a flier. “I’ve been promoting it for the past couple of weeks.”

“How did you know I’d finish?”

“Have a little faith,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “I’ve been as excited for this as you have.”

She gestured to the back of the gallery. The lobby was a small area, and through an archway there was a massive back room. The walls were painted a bright white and lights shone down from the ceiling, illuminating dozens of art pieces hanging on the walls. As he walked closer he could see his portraits, framed and mounted.

“I took a few liberties with hanging your work,” she said. “I didn’t think you would mind.”

He walked up to the first oil painting and admired the dark hardwood frame. A small plaque next to it read:

‘
We find beauty in the heart and courage in the soul. To display these virtues is to overshadow the judgments of the bitter and callous.’

–Cecilia Joyce

He examined the painting of Sarah, her face turned away from the observer, playing a coy game of hide and seek. He couldn’t help but smile at the mannerism of his best friend. He continued to the next and saw a pencil portrait of her sitting on a bench. He had always admired her while they waited for the bus, and looking at the bones protruding from her body, he couldn’t help but see the beautiful girl hidden behind her own skeleton.

“We are featuring another artist as well. He’s a former member of the Corps. His approach to expression is a bit more brutal than your oils, but it creates an atmosphere that I believe will juxtapose yours quite nicely. I believe we will also have a speaker to give a speech during the evening.”

“All this for my work?”

She nodded. “I had some faith in you, mister. I told you that we’d make this happen.”

He had turned to explore the work of the other artist when Gretchen pushed him toward the door. “It can wait,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Look sharp. It’s your debut, Mr. Cowan.”

“You’re sure of this?”

She gave him a final nudge out the door. “When you come back, you’re going to have your mind blown.”

He stood outside her gallery, a warm breeze hitting his face. He heard Gretchen slam the lock into place. He began to feel nervous. For the first time, his work was going to be seen by the public. The prospect thrilled him, but there was something melancholy associated with the event. His subject, his best friend, the girl he had admired for years, was locked in a cell somewhere, unable to see the beauty she inspired.

***

“
This
isn’t a drill,” she barked.

All six men reached down to their feet, grabbing their weapons. They checked their magazines and punched them back into the weapon. One of the men toward the back fumbled with his magazine. On the second attempt he managed to secure the magazine.

“We’ve got a rookie on board,” she yelled.

“Fresh meat,” they recited back to her in unison.

Each of the men held his weapon tightly to his chest. Tethers ran up from their backs and secured to the ceiling of the plane. The men closest to her shut their eyes tight, and as they opened them again, a dim red light shone in the back of their retinas. Each man turned on his optic implants. She didn’t need to look closely to know they were linking into the central network and activating their other enhancements.

She tried to hide her distaste. She would tell her superior her squad was a well-oiled machine, moments like this made the saying all too true. She walked down the line, tugging on their tethers as she passed the soldiers. She reached the rookie and pulled at his line.

The man’s face looked deathly ill as he realized his commanding officer was staring him in the eye. He brought his weapon against his chest like the soldier in front of him. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He had run hundreds of live simulations before joining the Paladins a month ago. It was the first mission their commander had greenlighted.

“What do we do with fresh meat?”

“Feed it to the wolves, sir,” they replied.

His eyes went wide as she punched the release above his head. A screeching filled the air as the lights began to flash red. The floor under the man-boy vanished and he was falling. All the soldiers reached up and hit their releases. The floor broke open underneath each of them, dropping them from the plane. The soldiers whooped and hollered as they fell from the aircraft.

“Paladins are in play,” she said.

“We have visual confirmation,” a voice replied in her earpiece.

“Mack, hover us,” she said.

The commander turned around, walked through a small door, and slammed it behind her. As the room got dark, blinking lights fired to life. Holographic displays began to appear around her, six monitors suspended in space. Each of the monitors projected images from the optic cameras, showing the ground fast approaching the soldiers.