The Hijacking of the Siberian Bullet

Larissa’s eyes snapped open at the sound of voices. She scanned her surroundings: six rows of booths separated by a carpeted aisle; windows with a blurred view of a frozen terrain; six other people, all looking as befuddled and panicked as she felt. A train. It had to be a train. Larissa patted her pockets and found her phone and wallet missing. She didn’t even have a ticket. All Larissa had were the winter gear and a strange, metallic-mesh hat someone had forced onto her. Beneath that, Larissa felt matching metallic-mesh clothes on top of her normal outfit. She tried to think back to when she got on the train, but her memories were fuzzy, and the effort alone triggered a migraine headache and auras.

The last thing Larissa could remember was getting into her car to head to work. She forced herself to think further, and behind the throbbing head pain and auras, the memory of sweet-smelling chloroform rose. The smell surrounding her nose and mouth, suffocating her. Then, nothing. She didn’t want to think about what it meant. Instead, her attention shifted back to the train itself.

After taking in everything around her, Larissa realized, with some relief, that the train was electric. She placed her hand on the metal side of the train and closed her eyes. She willed herself to push past her migraine and get a reading on the train’s inner workings. Instead of a vision of wires and a battery or supercapacitor, Larissa encountered a black wall. Each time she tried to force her way past the obstacle, a pain hit her as hard as though she had run into a real brick wall. She pulled back her hand and rubbed her head, tears now spilling down her cheeks.

Shit, she thought. What the hell was…oh, shit again.

Larissa had only ever heard of one thing that could block a technopath’s powers: a Faraday cage. Normally used to protect things from EMF, a Faraday cage also prevented many mind-based powers from manifesting. Whatever was happening, the person who put her on this train knew who—and what—she was. But where in the world was this Faraday cage? Around the engine? The energy source? They would need to be inside the Faraday cage for it to have this effect. Was it the train itself? Why was she put on a train with a Faraday cage? By whom? She groaned and put her face in her hands. Her migraine was getting worse by the minute; she couldn’t figure this out alone.

She looked up at her fellow passengers through blurry eyes. When she wiped away her tears, she spotted a familiar face: Giselle Knight, the strong-woman from her graduating class at the Institute for Enhanced Human Abilities. Her heart beating hard against her ribs, Larissa took another look at the other passengers. They were all from her class: Selena Alvarez-Garcia, the empath; Mikhail Victorovich Milyukov, who had telekinesis and telepathy; Abeo Musa, a healer; Bodaway Huaman, a fire-starter; and—Larissa’s heart beat even more prominently—Trinity Smith, who had control over electricity, metals, and minerals. They all wore the same bizarre hat as Larissa did, and she assumed that, underneath the winter gear, they also had on the same mesh clothing.

“Larissa?” Giselle whispered. “Larissa Fontaine?”

“Giselle?” Larissa’s voice came out in a pathetic, croaking groan.

“Larissa, are you OK?”

Larissa tried to nod her head but couldn’t with the pain. “I’ve got a migraine. I tried to remember how I got on here, and…what are you doing here, anyway? What are we all doing here?”

Giselle shrugged. “None of us know. Last thing I remember, I was helping a client at the gym.”

“I was interviewing victims of a robbery,” Mikhail added.

“And I was in the middle of group therapy,” Selena said.

“Late shift at the hospital.” Abeo turned around in his seat to face Larissa.

“Answering work e-mails.” Larissa’s breath caught in her throat when Trinity’s eyes met hers.

“Arsonists recovery meeting.” They all froze at Bodaway’s admission. Quickly, he continued, “What about you, Larissa?”

“I…I was getting in the car to go to work. IT at an accounting firm.” Her head throbbed again, and auras danced in her eyes. The movement of the train, while smooth to others, made her nauseated. “God, how fast are we going?”

“Who knows? Can’t you tell with your”—Abeo waved his hand at Larissa—“powers?”

Larissa shook her head, immediately regretting the action. “No, something’s blocking them. I think there’s a Faraday cage somewhere on this train.”

Trinity frowned. “So, you and I…we just can’t use our powers?”

“Mine are useless, too,” Mikhail confirmed. He slouched in his seat, one hand covering his eyes and the other clutching at his stomach. “I’ve tried searching for other minds on this train, and I just ran into some sort of black wall and started having a tremendous migraine.”

Larissa raised her index finger. “Ditto.”

“Let me take care of that for you guys.” Abeo walked over to Larissa and placed his hand on her forehead. He closed his eyes, but his brow soon began to furrow. Tighter and tighter his brow pinched. Finally, he stumbled backward into his seat, holding his hand on his own forehead. “Shit. That’s a ‘no’ for my powers, too.”

Giselle frowned. “So, anyone whose powers are associated with their mind…they can’t use them with this…”

“Faraday cage.” Larissa groaned. “No.”

“So,” Giselle continued, “everyone but me is screwed?”

Before anyone could respond, a pair of men dressed in camouflage-colored winter gear and carrying semi-automatic rifles entered the passenger car. Their eyes stayed on the seven passengers, but neither man spoke. Instead, one of them pulled a tablet out of the backpack slung over his shoulder. After a few clicks on the screen, he turned it to Larissa and the others and pressed “play” on a pre-recorded video.

“Hello, beloved guests,” a light-skinned man in a cheap suit said from a home office. “You don’t know me, but you know of me. I am Harold Kingsman, founder of the American Nationalists.”

Larissa swallowed hard against the knot in her throat. Even Abeo assumed a sickly gray shade beneath his dark skin tone. The American Nationalists, a notorious hate group based in Florida. As bigoted as bigotry can be, the American Nationalists hated anything and anyone who did not seem truly American—or truly human. That didn’t include just People of Color, immigrants, and the LGBT+ community. People with enhanced abilities were at the top of the group’s hit list. For Harold Kingsman himself to be bothering with Larissa and her classmates…

“You seven were the top of your class at the Institute of Enhanced Human Abilities,” the video continued. “The smartest, the most advanced, the most powerful.” Harold sneered. “That’s exactly why you must be eliminated.”

Between her migraine, her rapidly beating heart, and the lump in her throat, Larissa now couldn’t breathe.

“You’ll notice that you are on a train. You might have even noticed that you’re somewhere frozen.” The man’s sneer turned into a malicious grin. “Siberia, to be exact. It wasn’t too hard to convince my connections in Russia to let me borrow the Siberian Bullet for a couple days. In fact, when we discussed my plan, they insisted upon it. They love the idea of ridding the world of freaks like you.” He intertwined his fingers and placed his hands under his chin. “It’s in everyone’s best interest, you know. After all, some of you have already proven that you can’t be trusted with your powers. Isn’t that right, Bodaway?”

Bodaway shrunk in his seat next to Selena and stared at his lap.

“Right now, your train is speeding toward a ravine. Normally, there is a bridge and tracks, but significant portions of those have been torn up for…maintenance.” Harold’s smirk grew. “It will be an unfortunate accident, really, one that no one—not the conductor, not my men, and certainly not you—will survive. Your families will be compensated, of course. No need to bring any more attention to this than is necessary. Besides, once they find you, well, you’ll be right up there with the hikers at Dyatlov Pass.”

Larissa couldn’t believe that Mikhail could lose more color, but there he was, so pale that he was almost ashen.

“One more thing,” Harold resumed, “if any of you try anything funny, my men will shoot you on the spot. Now, I’ll leave you to your trip, which should last” —he checked a piece of paper in front of him—“another two hours. Happy trails.”

The video disappeared, replaced by a timer counting down from two hours.

The two pseudo-soldiers continued to stare down Larissa and the others, their guns at the ready. None of the passengers dared to even breathe as the reality of their situation sunk in: they were on a train speeding toward a ravine with who knew how many men who’d rather die with them than let them live. And there was a Faraday cage onboard blocking most of their powers.

“We’re doomed,” Bodaway muttered.

“No, we’re not doomed yet,” Mikhail said, but his shaking voice gave away his fear. “There has to be something—”

One of Harold’s men cleared his throat and adjusted his gun, his eyes on Mikhail.

“That is your only warning,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice.

Mikhail avoided the terrorist’s burning gaze. None of the captives breathed for a moment, too afraid of incurring their guards’ wrath. Trinity was the first to move. She carefully lifted her hand to the hem of her metal-mesh tunic, only to quickly pull it away, as though the metal had burned her. She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears danced at the edges. As suddenly as she had closed them, Trinity forced her eyes open and wiped away the tears. She looked down at the mesh again, this time without touching it. Then she stole a glance back at Larissa before a guard clearing his throat sent her practically spinning around in her seat.

“Excuse me, sir?” Trinity said to the closest terrorist in the meekest voice imaginable. He grunted at her. “If this truly is our last” -- she looked at the timer -- “hour and forty-five minutes, would you mind if I moved back there to spend it with my friend?” She pointed to Larissa, who blushed. Trinity turned back to the man, her eyes wide and innocent. “Please?”

His eyes scanned the length of her body. Assessing her as no threat, he grunted again. “Go.”

Trinity rushed to Larissa’s row before he could change his mind. She sat incredibly close to Larissa, and the other young woman blushed even more. Trinity took Larissa’s hand and held it before placing her head on Larissa’s shoulder. Larissa was taken aback by Trinity’s sudden forwardness but did not resist. Trinity turned her head and put her lips to Larissa’s ear.

“The clothes,” she whispered. “The clothes are the Faraday Cage.”

Larissa looked at Trinity quizzically. She dared not question her, not with Harold’s men watching them all so closely. Trinity’s wide eyes drifted down to Larissa’s tunic and then back up to meet Larissa’s eyes, pleading with her to understand. Then it clicked. Conductive clothing. That’s why their unconscious bodies had been put in these clothes. The metallic mesh acted as individual Faraday cages. Larissa shuddered at the thought—both at the thought of being trapped in her own personal Faraday cage and at the thought of one of those men touching her long enough to put it on her.

Larissa took a quick glance at the guards before following Trinity’s example and pressing her lips to her crush’s ear. “How do we get them off?”

Trinity shrugged. Larissa mentally cussed. The one obstacle between them and the ability to fight back was just the clothes on their backs, and they couldn’t even remove it without alerting their captors. If they could just signal to the others, maybe get Giselle to distract the guards, then the rest of them could gradually slip out of the metallic clothes and helmet--

Bang! A gun went off, and Selena screamed.

Larissa’s and Trinity’s heads snapped around to find Bodaway with his arms wrapped around Selena, a bloody hole in his back, close to his right rib cage. Selena, her eyes closed tight and tears streaming down her cheeks, reached her head over the curve of Bodaway’s neck and vomited down his back.

“Disgusting.” The man with the backpack groaned. He raised his rifle and aimed for Selena’s head. Before he could take his shot, Mikhail grabbed the gun and tried to wrestle it away. Harold’s man was victorious and smashed the gun into Mikhail’s face, breaking his nose and knocking the young man out cold. “Everyone, freeze!”

Only Selena moved, discreetly slipping her hand over Bodaway’s bullet wound.

“General Kingsman warned you about trying to use your powers.” The man pointed his gun at Selena again. “You aren’t getting any more warnings, and I don’t care who I have to shoot--”

He stopped mid-sentence as Giselle and Abeo rushed both guards. Giselle headbutted the one with the raised gun, while Abeo narrowly missed being hit by several bullets and tackled the other shooter. Giselle managed to use her super strength to snatch the gun from her target and press him to the ground with her foot. She turned the gun on the other guard.

“Drop the gun!” she commanded. “Drop it!”

The man obeyed, and Abeo quickly grabbed it and pointed it at him. Giselle returned her focus to the man under her foot.

“Where’s the Faraday cage?” she demanded.

“It’s our clothes!” Trinity exclaimed. Selena looked at her, but Giselle and Abeo did not dare take their eyes off the captors-turned-captive. “Our clothes are the Faraday cage. I tried to get a read on the metal, and it burned my hand. I’ve only had that reaction when directly touching a Faraday cage in self-rescuing class at the Institu--”

“Then take it off! Now!” Giselle yelled.

Larissa and Trinity obliged, tearing off the hat and mesh clothing as rapidly as they could manage before pulling the winter gear back on. Selena more gently removed Bodaway’s outer layers and replaced his winter gear before doing the same for herself. Trinity went up to Mikhail’s seat and peeled his mesh off as well. With a lot of shaking and slapping, she also revived him—somewhat.

“Ugh...my nose,” he cried, a new nasally accent distorting his words. He held his cloth shirt up to his nostrils when he realized it was bleeding. Fortunately, he had fallen on his side and had not choked on any of it.

“Abeo, give Trinity your gun, take off those stupid clothes, and start healing Bodaway and Mikhail,” Giselle said. While Abeo and Trinity obediently switched places and Abeo removed his mesh, Giselle addressed Larissa. “Larissa, can you stop this damned train from here?”

Larissa put her hand on the side of the train and reached her consciousness out to the engine and brakes. All she could make out were the severed brakes before she snapped back into her mind. She tried to speak, but her stomach clenched, and vomit spewed from her mouth.

“I guess that’s a ‘no.’”

Larissa shook as she spoke. “Not from here. I had the conductive clothing on too long. It’s going to take a while for me to be at full power again. If I can get closer...I’m still not sure if I could do it. The brakes are out.”

“What if I help?” Trinity asked. “Our powers are complementary. We could work together to fix the brakes and stop this before the next” -- she glimpsed at the timer -- “hour and fifteen minutes are up.”

“If I’ve been weakened by the clothes, so have you. We’d still need to get to the engine room and touch the controls directly--”

“Then we’ll do that.” Trinity poked her captive with his own gun. “How many cars between here and the engine room?”

“Two.”

“And how many of you bastards are there?”

“Six, two in each car and two in the engine room.”

Trinity glanced at Giselle. “What do you think?”

“We get you two to the engine room, no bars held.” Giselle cocked the gun at Harold’s man under her foot. “No survivors but us.”

Trinity nodded and cocked her own gun. Without allowing any pleas for mercy, Giselle and Trinity shot their captives, one after the other.

Giselle let out a long sigh. Her eyes lost some of their shine as she stared at the dead men, both with identical bullet holes in their heads. It was one thing to shoot targets at the Institute shooting range, something else to do it to a person.

“How’re Bodaway and Mikhail?” she asked without looking away.

“They’re both stable, but Bodaway is incredibly weak,” Abeo replied. “We might need to leave him here--”

“No.” Selena stroked Bodaway’s long dark hair.

“We’ll come right back for him,” Abeo said in his soothing nurse’s voice.

“I’m not taking any chances.”

“Forget it,” Giselle interjected. “Abeo, come take over my gun. I’ll carry Bodaway.”

Abeo hesitated, but the sad determination on Selena’s face and the fierce determination on Giselle’s were enough to get him moving. After giving him the gun, Giselle picked Bodaway up off Selena and slung him across her shoulders in a firefighter’s carry.

“Larissa, Selena, get up front with Trinity,” Giselle said. “Mikhail, Abeo, fall in behind me. We’ll need cover if there are any of them in the back of the train that they didn’t tell us about.”

The six of them fell into formation. Rifle at the ready, Trinity cautiously led them into the next car. The bitter cold bit at her the second she stepped outside. She held her hand up to keep Larissa back, then walked to the next car alone.

Before Trinity could get past the door, a voice with a thick Alabama accent yelled, “Hey!” She barely had time to close the door before a barrage of bullets hit it, right where she would have been standing.

“Trinity, what’s going on?” Giselle demanded.

“Th-they’re f-f-firing fu-full-cocked,” Trinity said, shivering.

“Abeo, get up front! Give Trinity backup,” Giselle ordered.

Abeo rushed around the others to the front. Together, he and Trinity took a deep breath, cocked their guns, and flung the door open. They fired blindly into the car. When the return fire ceased, Abeo peeked inside to find the two American Nationalists slumped on the floor, as riddled with holes as the seats around them.

Abeo ushered Trinity and the others inside before getting in and closing the door behind him. “H-h-holy shit, it’s cold out there. We-we-we're going to d-d-die if we keep this up.”

Giselle gently set Bodaway on one of the seats. “Bodaway, hey, are you awake?”

Bodaway opened his eyes and nodded. He struggled to breathe due to the strain the injury and conductive clothing had put on his body, but fortunately, Abeo had healed him enough to not bleed out or have any internal injuries.

“Bodaway,” Giselle continued, “can you get us a fire going? Just contain it to that seat across from us?”

Bodaway’s eyes followed Giselle’s finger to where it pointed at a row of seats destroyed by the shooting. After a moment of thought, he nodded again and lifted his hand. The row ignited with a small spark that grew larger and larger until both benches were consumed, then stopped. Bodaway’s brows scrunched together and twitched, and a drop of sweat rolled down from his forehead to his chin, but he showed no other signs of strain.

“Thank you.” Giselle turned to the others. “Everyone, warm up really quickly. Then we need to get moving. We have another car until we hit the engine room. This time, I want both Trinity and Abeo up front. Open the door and shoot--”

The door at the opposite end of the car slid open with a whoosh. Two of Harold’s men barreled in, guns pointed at Giselle and Bodaway. Yet before they could pull the trigger, fire erupted from each of their chests, candle-sized flames at first that grew into all-consuming infernos. The men’s screams soon died out, but the smell of burning flesh and hair and the sight of the gun’s melting metal remained. When Giselle and the others turned to Bodaway, his breath was even more strained than before, and a crooked grin quirked one side of his mouth.

He saw the others staring at him and shrugged. “I said I was in an arsonists recovery meeting.”

Larissa’s eyes drifted back to the ash, bone, and melted metal that were once men. “I guess that takes care of the next car.”

Giselle nodded. “Yeah.” She shook her head and cleared her throat. “We still need to go, now. I’m sure that the ones up front must be suspicious by now, if their buddies haven’t checked in. Besides, we only have--”

“Forty-five minutes.” Selena lifted the tablet with the timer, which she had sneaked onto her person while leaving the other car.

“Shit. All right, let’s go.” Giselle turned her back to Bodaway and knelt down in front of him. “Get on my back. We have no time to waste.”

Bodaway didn’t dare argue, instead climbing onto Giselle’s back and letting her lift him up.

Once she had Bodaway properly adjusted, Giselle turned to Trinity and Abeo. “You two, go with the new plan. Get up front and watch for any danger. Shoot first, ask questions later.” She turned to Larissa to see that the woman’s eyes were closed. “Larissa! Are you OK?”

Larissa jumped as though startled. “Yes, yes. We’re leaving?”

Giselle eyed Larissa and nodded. “Yes. Fall in behind Trinity and Abeo. Selena, behind Larissa. Mikhail, behind me. Let’s go!”

The new formation assembled. Bodaway extinguished his fire, and the group ran to the next car. Trinity and Abeo opened the door guns-first. No one there. Certain that the coast was clear, Trinity and Abeo led their friends down the next car and to the engine room. As soon as they opened the door, a gun fired at them. Abeo automatically fired back, but Trinity dropped her gun and held out her hand. Immediately, the bullets from the American Nationalist’s gun froze in midair. She looked over her shoulder at Mikhail, who picked up on her unspoken command and sent the bullets flying into the back of the conductor’s head. By the time Abeo was done firing, the American Nationalist was dead as well.

“Nice job,” Giselle said as she set Bodaway on his uneasy feet. “Larissa, Trinity, you know what to do.”

They didn’t, really. Nothing at the Institute had prepared them for a runaway train scenario, but they didn’t have the time to argue. The pair ran to the controls, and Larissa pushed the dead conductor onto the floor. She looked over at Trinity, her vision clouded and distorted by more auras.

Without a word, Trinity grabbed Larissa’s hand. “Let’s do this.”

Larissa, disoriented by her migraine and Trinity touching her, put her hand on the controls a split second after Trinity. After a quick search of the train’s inner workings, she had a plan.

“Trinity, redirect some of the train’s electricity and convert it into energy that I can use without being killed,” Larissa said. “I’ll use that to repair the brakes and bring this train to a halt.”

Trinity nodded. The women closed their eyes and immersed their consciousnesses in the train. As Larissa felt the energy shock her and enter her system, she redirected it to her efforts to fix the brakes. The ends of the snipped wires leapt at each other and wove their fibers together again. The connection secure, Larissa mentally pulled on the brakes. The train began to slow. The wheels screeched. The timer on the tablet reached ten minutes just as the train came to a standstill, the collapsed bridge barely within sight in the Siberian bluster.

Trinity and Larissa returned to their minds, gripping each other’s hands tightly. Larissa swayed and started to fall, but Trinity caught her in her arms. They smiled briefly.

“We did it,” Trinity whispered.

“Yeah, we did it,” Larissa replied.

“I hate to burst your bubbles,” Mikhail interrupted, “but we’re still stuck on a train in the middle of Siberia with no supplies suited for the terrain.”

“Not to mention anyone we might have missed in the back of the train,” Bodaway added.

It was Larissa’s turn to smirk. “Oh, I think we’ll be getting help pretty quickly here.”

“How do you know?” Mikhail snapped.

“You know that tracking chip the Institute put inside our heads--”

“The what?” Giselle exclaimed. “They did what?”

“Don’t feel bad, they don’t tell any of their students about it,” Larissa said nonchalantly. “I just knew because I could sense the tech inside my head.”

“And I sensed the chip’s components,” Trinity explained.

“And how exactly does that help us? We were wearing damn Faraday cages for who knows how long!” Mikhail started pacing as nervous energy overtook him.

“That’s why I forced mine to send out an emergency signal while we warmed up.” Larissa almost laughed at Mikhail’s face, lost in his lack of response or complaint. “The Institute Rescue Team should arrive any minute from their base in Novosibirsk.”

“So, we wait and hope that they bother to look for us?” Mikhail voiced the one concern none of them wanted to admit to.

“Yeah, we wait.”

As the seven sat around another of Bodaway’s fires, trying to keep warm until help arrived, Selena opened herself up and searched the emotions and intentions of her fellow survivors. She found the same feelings in each of them: fear, concern, a little bit of anger that built with each passing second, and, beneath it all, a kernel of hope.