Diary of a Teenage Superhero

  Chapter Nineteen

  “May I sit down?” he asks.

  Seeing as how he didn’t mind walking in on us without waiting for an invitation, it seems nice that he asks for a chair. I point him to one. Everyone stares at him in amazement. If I could take a photo it would show Brodie with her mouth wide open, Dan frozen in position with a forkful of food, Ebony with eyes like saucers and Chad – well, nothing much impresses him. He simply raises his eyebrows for a few seconds. Then he glares at Jones like he’s an unwelcome guest.

  Which he may well be.

  “This is a nice pad you’ve got here,” Jones says. “Who picked the apartment?”

  Dan holds up the fork. A piece of pancake slides off it onto the floor.

  “You’ve got class, kid,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  “Enough of this bull!” Chad snaps. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  Chad looks so threatening even I feel a little concerned. I keep remembering that burst of fire that engulfed Ravana back at the building. Jones, however, regards him with little more than a curious expression. He looks him up and down before leaning forward and clasping his hands together.

  “Chad,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”

  How he knows Chad’s name is beyond me. All I know is –

  “You can cut the riddles,” Brodie says. “We want some answers.”

  Jones nods. “You deserve that. Especially after everything you’ve been through. Although there are some gaps in your knowledge I can fill and other items that will forever remain a mystery. First –”

  “Our names,” I interrupt. “What are our names? Our real names.”

  The man in the suit gives a sad smile. “Unfortunately, I don’t have that information. Very few people do.”

  “And what happened to our memories?” Dan asks. “Why can’t we remember who we are or how we came –”

  Jones holds up a hand. “Wait. Let me explain how you came to be here. That should answer most of your questions.”

  We all wait expectantly. “First of all, you are part of a venture known as The Alpha Project. The name of the project has a number of meanings. Alpha is the first of its kind. Alpha is also short for alphabet. Your names – your chosen names – are derived from the alphabet.”

  I’m already confused. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “Axel, Brodie, Chad, Dan and Ebony.” He paused. “Do you notice anything? Your names are –”

  “The first five letters of the alphabet,” I finish. “A, B, C, D and E.”

  We sit in silence for a moment.

  “The Alpha Project is one of the many scientific endeavors carried out by The Agency,” Jones explained. “The scientists involved assembled a group of orphaned children to create a new form of modified human.”

  Dan starts. “And The Agency is…”

  Jones sighs. “There are a few pieces of information I’m about to disseminate that are going to change your whole view of the world.”

  We all look at each other.

  “Sure,” I say.

  He studies our faces one by one. “Okay. Here it is.” For a moment he looks like he would rather not continue. Finally, he says, “Aliens are here on Earth. They’ve been on Earth for thousands of years. They are a race known as the Bakari. The Agency was started by the Bakari to monitor and guide our activities.”

  No one says anything.

  Mr. Jones continues. “One day we’re joining the galactic club. We’ll be a fully fledged member of everything that’s out there. Until then they’re helping us develop technologies to get ready for that day.”

  Still, no one says anything.

  “Mostly they leave us to our own affairs. They don’t want to interfere with our internal politics, but nor do they want us to destroy ourselves,” Mr. Jones continues. “That would be a waste. They want us to help ourselves, which is why they started the Alpha Project. All of you were modified to make the world a better place. To help save us from ourselves.”

  Mr. Jones stops and studies our faces. “That’s about it. Does anyone have any questions?”

  “I do,” Chad says. “Is there any pizza left over from last night?”

  I ignore him. “How come no one’s ever heard of The Agency? How could something like this be kept secret?”

  “They have their methods,” Mr. Jones says. “As I say, they like to observe. They don’t want to interfere.”

  “But they were happy to experiment on us,” Chad says.

  “For the greater good,” Mr. Jones replies.

  “And we’re orphans,” Brodie says.

  He nods. “You were all chosen because your parents had died or abandoned you. Some of you were in orphanages. Some were in juvenile detention centers. We needed children we could use for the Alpha trials –”

  “You mean guinea pigs,” Chad interrupts.

  Jones levels a gaze at him. “You all signed paperwork consenting to the procedure. We needed teenagers because your bodies are still in a state of growth. Adult tissue, as the scientists involved in the project found, would not work. The adult test subjects did not survive.”

  Brodie laughs hollowly. “We signed paperwork? But we have no memory of consenting to these procedures. How convenient.”

  “I assure you we explained the process in full,” he says. “I’m told you were all most enthusiastic. And why not? You were promised powers far beyond those that any human has ever possessed.”

  “You made us…superheroes,” Dan says as if he’s trying to assimilate this information one piece at a time. “And there are aliens on Earth. Do they have two heads? Are they grays like in the movies?”

  “They look just like you and me,” Mr. Jones says. “Identical.”

  “And you operated on us…” Ebony says.

  Jones nods. “The scientists in charge of the Alpha Project made you superheroes. The combination of drugs and implants were designed to react naturally with your own latent genetic abilities.” He looks at Brodie. “You were naturally fast and lithe, so you became even more so. Axel rated highly in terms of psychic abilities. So did Dan and Chad.”

  “But I can make fire and ice,” Chad protests. “And Ebony can transmute substances. What sort of latent genetic abilities are those?”

  “Those are abilities that have been long lost and forgotten,” Jones says. “Some of our ancestors had these abilities millennia ago, but these genes were disseminated throughout the gene pool. The Alpha Project reactivated those genetic markers.”

  I shake my head. This is all too much. It’s crazy. It means I have no family. It means my name was stolen from me. It means I once agreed to be pumped full of drugs because I wanted to be some kind of…superhero. It means every human being has latent incredible powers. It means –

  It means there are aliens on Earth.

  Aliens.

  “So how did I end up in a seedy hotel room?” I ask. “What the hell went wrong?”

  “Our security went wrong,” Jones says grimly. “An organization known as Typhoid infiltrated The Agency with the intention of killing all of you. You would have been killed, but a group of scientists, led by a man named Doctor Richards, secreted your group out of the facility to save your lives.

  “They were uncertain as to whom they could trust, so they planned to reassemble once the crisis had passed at The Agency. Unfortunately, Typhoid was ahead of us and ambushed the scientists at a meeting. Most of them were killed.”

  “Was that Doctor Richards in the hotel room?” I ask. “He was injured and died shortly after I awoke.”

  Jones nods. “We believe he survived the attack and returned to the hotel.”

  “Still,” Chad frowns. “We were abandoned in warehouses and hotels all over the city with no memories and no one to turn to. That’s not much of a save.”

  “For the scientists involved it was that or certain death,” Jones points out. “I’m sure you prefer their poor solution to no soluti
on at all.”

  I think back to the man on the floor of the hotel room. It all seems so long ago. Like it all happened to a different person. I almost ask Jones about the meaning of the book and the strange device we found inside it, except I remember Richards’ advice.

  Trust no one.

  Some…at The Agency…will help you.

  Some at The Agency will help us. That might not necessarily include Mr. Jones. Or maybe it does. Regardless, the best way to handle this is quietly. Dan has displayed some psychic abilities. Maybe they will stretch to determining who is on our side and who is a traitor.

  “So what happens now?” I ask.

  “That’s a good question,” Jones says. “It has taken us some time to track you down. Now you have to come back to the facility to complete your training.”

  “Really?” Chad gives him a mocking grin. “I like things exactly as they are.”

  Jones does a pretty good job of containing his cool. If Chad has a superpower, it’s pissing people off. I agree with Chad and I still want to punch him in the face.

  “You have all signed waivers,” Jones says. “You belong to us whether you like it or not.”

  “I belong to me,” Chad says.

  “We don’t want to force you back,” Jones says. “Twelve, in particular, wants you back to assist with a mission.”

  “Twelve – what?” Brodie asks.

  “He’s known as Twelve,” Mr. Jones says. “He’s –”

  “Don’t tell me,” Chad says. “He’s an alien.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “I hope it will not come to that.” The agent looks like he’s about to try a different tact when there’s a knock at the door. Dan jumps up to answer it.

  “That must be the ice cream I ordered,” he says.

  “You ordered ice cream for breakfast?” I ask incredulously.

  “Absolutely,” he says. “You know, eat, drink and eat ice cream for tomorrow we die?”

  Brodie shakes her head in disbelief. “I don’t think it quite goes like that.”

  Dan opens the door. One of the serving carts is sitting outside. The attendant has already gone. As Dan wheels it in I’m thinking how strange it is that room service has abandoned the cartload of food. It seems so unlike –

  Daniel reaches for the serving cover.

  No!

  The cart explodes.