**
The plates belonged to Gideon Enterprises.
And that was the end of his investigation. There was really nothing else he could do short of going there and saying ‘Hey! I know you took an exploding man, what did you do with him and do you know anyone else with abilities?’ Yes, somehow that sounded like a terrible idea, so he tried to forget about it. And the nightmares just got worse; he hadn’t seen anything besides the explosion in days.
Hugo dropped his coffee. It splattered across the sidewalk and on his purple checked Converse, but his attention was on the row of TVs in the store window he was passing. It was the head of Gideon Enterprises, Alexander Gideon, in an interview. However, the important part of the program was what he’d seen when he’d caught it out of the corner of his eye. The explosion. It had been two months, and the only time he’d seen the explosion while awake was that first time. It was clear; this man, Mr. Gideon, was somehow the cause of the explosion that wiped out all of Seattle.
Hugo wiped off his shoe and slowly picked up the cup, dumping it in a nearby trash can. He lit a cigarette, much to the irritation of someone brushing past him on the sidewalk. Why was this happening to him? Was he supposed to be doing something about it? But how? What? He needed someone to tell, he needed someone to show him how to fix this before it happened and his family…everyone died.
Dr. McFadden was in the diner across the street. Hugo drifted in that direction before the conscious decision to see what she was doing there. Stepping up onto the opposite curb he wasn’t focusing on what was in front of him well enough to avoid running into someone. A girl with short, wild, ginger hair, and hazel eyes and an irritated expression. He’d seen her the night before at the hospital.
“Watch where you’re going!”
“Sorry!” The most peculiar thing happened. He saw his back. He was staring at a giant man who was preparing to throw a car at him, and he was just standing there like a dumbass. The girl was behind him. She glowed then crackled and her body fizzled into a humanoid-shaped mass of electricity. She was like a condensed, well, there was really nothing like it. She shot electricity from a crackling and glowing outstretched arm. It hit the gas tank on the car and the entire mass exploded, throwing shrapnel and knocking the giant man down. He shrank to a more manageable size as he hit the ground.
“Hey! Zombie dude, you ok over there?”
He was blinking owlishly at a lightning monster that saved him from a giant man; his heart was hammering. He had to say something. He needed to say something before she wandered away and he never saw her again.
“Well, uh, Ok. Bye guy. Um…like watch where you’re going, ok?”
“I know you can shoot lighting!” Oh…god…
The girl’s expression mirrored his disappointment in his mouth. There was a moment of wide-eyed surprise, and then her eyes darted around, looking for the trap. Her voice was thin when she recovered enough to speak, “I don’t know what-”
“It’s ok! I have abilities too. I can control the air, kinda, a little, well I’m not that good at it, but I can.” He was talking all fast and crazy and the girl was not appreciating it.
“You’re crazy,” she spat the words out, but her tone was a little soft on the edges; she knew it was possible that he wasn’t, but she was still suspicious of his first comment.
“Look, I’ll show you.” He glanced around. Just increasing the wind wasn’t going to be convincing enough; this was Seattle, the weather changed every fifteen minutes. There was a nearby garbage can. “Here, I’m gonna knock over that can.”
“Uh…”
He focused on it and there was a whistle between them and then the metal bin dented and rolled over, vomiting trash. Shit! He hadn’t meant to make a mess.
“That’s just a trick,” she sounded skeptical of her own assertion, but the truth was already making her nervous. He hadn’t considered that. What if she didn’t want to be discovered? What if she’d already met other people with abilities and they’d screwed her over and she wanted to have nothing to do with them?
“It’s not,” he said weakly, but she was already taking a few steps away from him, renewing her search of the area. He really wanted to talk to her, but he’d obviously invaded her privacy and made her too uncomfortable for that. He was terrible. Hugo lowered his head, stuffed his hands in his pockets, “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you,” he mumbled and quickly started to walk down the street.
“Wait.”
Hugo jerked to a stop. Inside the diner the doctor was walking towards the entrance, her hands in her jacket pockets. She passed by a fire alarm, and the handle drifted down inside its dome of glass. The fire alarm went off. Belatedly people poured out of the building and started scattering. The doctor was one of them, but she was going at a more casual pace.
Hugo ran around the side of the building to the parking lot. And there he was. The giant man, lumbering out the back door. Hugo skidded to a stop, staring up at the man who was only slightly smaller than the two story building. Their eyes met and the guy picked up a car at some unknown slight Hugo’s appearance had caused. Maybe he was like the Hulk and just pissed at everything.
He thought he should probably move. The lightning girl wouldn’t come to help him now that he’d freaked her out. He was going to get a car dropped on him and he was going to die and that was going to be unpleasant. But he didn’t move. Then the world behind him brightened and crackled, giving off heat. Hugo turned just in time to see the lightning girl shoot more lightning over his head to strike the car. It exploded as spectacularly as he’d seen it minutes before.
A marble man stood up from where he’d been thrown through the window of the diner, gun pointed at the fallen guy. The lightning girl arched along the ground and came up between the unconscious growing man and the marble man, and bobbed there. They both stared at each other for several seconds and then the man slowly lowered his gun, turned back to flesh and blood and very carefully pulled a small card from his jacket pocket. It was the fake agent from the hospital, the one with the short brown hair. The one that apparently worked for Gideon Enterprises. He placed the card deliberately on the ground, eyes always on the girl. “Give us a call if you want. My company employs people like you. We could help you,” and then the man backed away and around the corner.
It was several more seconds before the girl turned back into a girl and reached down to pick up the card. She glanced at it curiously, turned it over and then drew her attention to Hugo. She walked slowly towards him, her head cocked to the side. “How did you know what I could do?”
Hugo licked his lips, coughed, glanced to the side, and shoved his hands in his pockets, “I uh, saw you. Before it happened, I saw you shoot the gas tank of that car; you saved me.”The girl raised her eyebrows. “Like you have visions or something?”
Hugo blushed, the dreams sounded so embarrassingly dumb when put that way. “Uh yeah. I can’t control it, but sometimes I see things when I touch people.”
“And you can do wind stuff too? Can you turn into…um…air?” Hugo shook his head. “So do you know about this,” she glanced at the card again, “Gideon Enterprises?”
Hugo shook his head again. “I’ve heard of them, but…” the explosion, tell her about the explosion, she believes you, she’ll listen, “I don’t know that much about them.” He didn’t want to risk freaking her out again. And what if telling her made her part of it and got her involved in something dangerous?
“So, you think I should call them?”
Hugo nodded before she’d finished the question, “Yeah, it’s worth a shot.” She nodded. “Take me with you,” Hugo said without thinking, the words almost running together.
“Huh?” The girl raised her eyebrows again.
“I want to know what this company is up to. Would you let me go with you when you go to meet them?”
She shrugged, but the tension in her face dissolved a little, “Sure, um…”
“Hugo, Hugo
Meyers.” Hugo stretched out his hand and after a hair, she took it.
“CJ. Just CJ. Ok, so what now, Hugo?” She pulled on one of the cords of her jacket.
“So, tomorrow wanna meet at 11 and we can give them a call, set up a meeting or something?”
CJ shrugged again, “Sure, there’s a payphone over there. We can use that.”
Hugo nodded, “ok, that sounds good. See you later CJ, thanks.”
The girl waved, “Yeah, whatever. See you tomorrow.” And she wandered off. Hugo
continued on towards band practice. He was gonna be super late. Holycrap some giant guy was going to throw a car at him and he’d just stood there like a moron. He could have died! Hugo pulled out another cigarette and started smoking, his hands shaking. The wind picked up a bit.