The Escaped Prisoners

The alarm of the prison rang hollow through the forest as cell doors opened and guardsmen swarmed the control rooms adjusting non responsive dials and knobs. This was an inside job. That was what the rumors had said.

The location of the prison was unknown, as were the prisoners. Top secret in the state of Maine, high in the hills. So who had done it was the question. Who had known about the clandestine endeavor that rendered 22 individuals - Talented.

The public had wondered. They had seen the reports of the exploding buildings and bridges turned to dust by men using only their minds. But most of those reports were buried under the stories of the advancing war front. The stories where Newsmen spoke with ghosted faces and showed depictions of an ever shrinking land mass captured by the invasion. They had taken Boston, and Europe long before that.

Months and months went by in cells where all a man had to keep him occupied was the broadcasts of CNN and MSNCB - on repeat 24/7. It was the only thing they allowed us to watch. At first it was Berlin where it started. A thousand people staring blankly at the Brandenburg gates for days with no stopping to eat or drink. News broadcasters arrived and tried to question them, and then the news broadcasters were them, taken by the same affliction that had captured the masses. The blank faced illness had spread like a virus, the method of transmission unknown.

Riots began. The remaining uninfected individuals looted the shelves of a dying country. The German government tried to take control. Dozens of soldiers with face shields and mace were sent in to stifle the frenzy, but to no avail. Soon the sea of people had grown, those same soldiers now joining their ranks like drones captured by an unknown antigen.

France, Belgium, and the UK soon followed, then Africa and the Middle East. The torrent of infection would not stop. Borders were sealed, quarantining the US from a billion hollow shells which swam across the Atlantic ocean and pummeled trench lines on our shores. America was the last stronghold in a sea of war.

Outside my cell guards scurry to their electromagnetic machines, but their power source has been cut - a deliberate move. My fellow inmates are awaking, the effects of their sedation wearing off. They seek vengeance. We were 2,000 but only 22 survived the experiments. The endless injections and tinkering with their serums for months on end.

They took us to the experiment room every day. They would hold us underneath the water, waiting, seeing for how long we could survive. And when we would emerge with blue lips and shivering from the cold they would make a check in their testing book like scratching off an item on a grocery list.

The lights flickered through the courtyard of the prison, as I walk to the door of my cell. I can hear the rhythm of the helicopters in the distance. The marines I imagine. They are still far away but they are coming. This is one of my talents. I hear things far away. I can hear the pounding of the heartbeats as the guards scramble to the doors, and cock their useless guns. I can smell the scurry of the rats and the cockroaches bolting for the shadows.

Those who have not harmed me have nothing to fear, but I fear the number who have not is zero. Karma is a mantra that I follow; a relentless warrior in a sea of wrongs that must be righted, and it leaves no prisoners, as do I.

I turn the corner and see the warden holding the pistol by the prison exit below. My friends walk towards him like hounds stalking a master. The doors behind him are unlatched, but they do not budge. They are telepathically sealed. Jenora’s clouded eyes are making sure of that.

Sweat makes puddles of the wardens white shirt and his guardsmen cower. They fire rounds into our self healing skin and their eyes dart around as the chambers click empty. Those eyes do not contain the same elation they had when they were drowning us for hours on end, as we pleaded for air. They do not contain the crinkles of the smiles they made when they injected us with all viruses known to man. Those eyes were happy; these eyes are not. Oh how the tables have turned, and karma finds it sweet retribution.

Jenora did not even have to reach out, and search for me telepathically. I was just there. The was something we kept secret: that this connection was never completely stymied by the electromagnetic machines holding us prisoners.

Barely did she have to look in my direction before I knew what she intended. She tilted her head and the warden and his pets crumpled like plastic containers in a pressure pot. Her smile drifted over my consciousness as she cast the dead soldiers aside like rag dolls.

I go to her and interlock my tattooed fingers between hers and we step past the carnage into the yard outside. Orange suited inmates seek the few remaining guards which lay hidden in the nooks and crannies of the moonlit exterior. I give a nod to a couple of the inmates, giving direction to the location where the stragglers scent is located.

The helicopters are approaching now; a thousand hornets to the nest. I take the first one down sending a torrent of flame hurling at its center and it spirals into the trees.

“WE HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER. SURRENDER NOW AND SHE WILL REMAIN UNHARMED.”

Jenora’s ebony skin looks white in the moonlight, as she gives me a nod. The rest of the inmates now take their place behind me readying themselves for battle as the helicopters land.

From the apex chopper emerges Stanley Karington - even I would recognize that pompous suit anywhere. He is the talking mouth I’ve seen on the news so many times before. Behind him pour a thousand soldiers, their electromagnetic devices emitting a wall of protection. Our Talents cannot pierce through it, or so that’s what they think. Jenora's two year old daughter lay over the shoulder of a help-man at Stanley's side.

He motions to a soldier who throws at our feet 22 sedation vials.

“Take those, and no one gets hurt.”

Jenora’s mind reaches out across the night air, and I feel her presence merging into mine.

“Do you want to know why they call me the dragon Mr. Karington?”

Stanley laughed through a gritted expression, condescending and careless.

“I dunno - I imagine it’s because your riddled in those disgusting dragon tattoos.”

“No that’s not why. It’s because I can do this.”

I clap my hands and feel my powers merging with Jenora’s. Our summation mixing and reaching out past the electromagnetic barrier, jumping over it, and in that moment I am light. Seeking, and identifying every mind on the battle field. I activate my fire, heating them from the inside out. The men drop their weapons and thrash at their skulls.

“WAIT!” says Karington looking up with a nose bleed.

“Who do you think it was that freed you! Wanted you to escape. They’ve kept you locked up in there like pigs to the slaughter. I want better for you. I want you to thrive. To reach your full potential under my guidance. I can offer you facilities to hone your skills.”

“Oh and what about the millions of zombie soldiers that right now march on America soil? What about the people?”

“Well we can help them, us together… for a price.”

The moonlit sky was overtaken by dark clouds, and it began to rain.

“You launch down assaults to those you deem lesser than yourself and would sell services needed for survival? That makes you no more than those that shackled us in this prison. I think the heavens have answered, Mr. Karington. Justice must be served. Karma will find it’s vengeance.”

I reach out and clap my hand's once again sending a torrent of telepathically charged energy in the soldier's direction, feeling the fully emerged intermingling of Jenora and mines consciousness. I touch again the minds I visited moments ago. They alight like Christmas lights with too much power and burst. Karma is served.

Jenora’s little girl runs forward and as the connection between our minds is still tangible I feel the child's embrace, returned.

Now to find the people who locked us up.