“Did you get your driver’s license out of a fucking cereal box!” Miya screamed as the driver ahead of her lightly tapped on his brakes going downhill.
Ben gripped the handle above the truck door a little tighter. And she said she knew how to drive, he thought. Swapping drivers every couple of hours kept one person from grinding down, though only fifteen minutes into Miya’s shift and, from the sidelong glances they threw at each other, no one actually got any rest. Despite his brace, her merge sent him pressing into Amanda, sandwiched between him and his brother in the back.
“How much have you driven before?” Chris asked Miya from the shotgun seat.
“It’s not that hard,” she said. Well, that doesn’t answer the fucking question. Ben kept an eye on Chris, biting his tongue when he opened his mouth to speak.
“Do you have your license?”
“Yeah, I got my license,” replied Miya with a wave of her hand as she rolled her eyes at him. Ben’s grip on the handle tightened for a moment in terror. “You can pass that test even if you don’t own a car.”
“No, physically with you. Or is it sitting in some purse in Phoenix?”
Miya remained quiet.
“OK, pull over before a cop does.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it really ain’t,” replied Rob, glaring daggers at the back of her head as she abused his years long pet project.
“That motel look good?” asked Ben, pointing out a neon sign lighting up the night sky.
He took in the sight of the old, 50’s style motel. The sign sticking out of the roof simply said OT L. The barest shadow of the missing M and E letters broke up the light green paint of the sign. Pockmarks of rust splotched all across the whitewashed walls.
“Pft, no,” snorted Rob. The car hit a pothole, cutting off whatever else he was about to say.
“Excellent! It’ll be cost-effective,” answered Ben.
“You mean cheap?” said Chris.
“Yep.”
“Good enough. Let’s pull off here,” he said, pointing to the off ramp.
Miya bit back a complaint at the sight of their faces. twisted the steering wheel to pull the truck into the motel parking lot, more gravel than asphalt. Rob’s armor and various other contraptions rattled in the back with the abrupt turn.
“Hey, we’re in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, northern Texas. Take what you can get,” said Rob as they spilled out of the truck, hopping up and down to get the kinks out of his legs. Ten hours of driving. Nothing but sitting and driving. I don’t even know the name of this little town; I must have missed the sign.
Ben took in the glorious sight of about five dingy houses, a gas station, a stereotypical diner with two cars and a semi parked outside, and the vast expanse of dirt and nothing else beyond the nameless little sunbaked town. Not even a tree to break up the sight of the sun setting beyond the flat, featureless horizon.
“Where’s the next town?” asked Miya.
“Just looking that up. Another hour away, almost,” answered Amanda, tapping at the screen of her phone. “There better be couches in the room. I’m not sleeping on the floor of a place like this,” said Amanda, eyeing the two different boarded up windows of the motel, as well as the flickering neon “Vacancy” sign.
“Yeah, hon, cuz semen-stained mattresses are so much better,” said Ben with a grin.
“Stop,” said Chris, wincing. “Let’s just get the room, figure it out from there.”
He and Amanda went into the front office while Ben, Rob, and Miya lounged about, enjoying their time not being cooped up in a car. No one suggested splitting up the group with extra rooms.
“Wonder what Amanda was doin’?” said Rob. “Spent that whole time tappin’ away.”
“No clue. You two get your techie brains together?” asked Ben.
“Yeah. She actually wants a couple of those strongbox things of mine, with some modifications. We actually came up with some stuff yesterday, if you combine the physical locks with the electronic signals she mentioned-”
“Rob,” cut in Ben as Miya’s eyes began to glaze over and he felt his doing the same. “Don’t care.”
Rob sighed. “Philistines.”
Eventually, Chris and Amanda returned and led them to their room on the second floor. Smells funky, yellowing walls, old tube TV, frayed bedding, I don’t even want to know what the bathroom looks like. Exactly what I expected. I love being right.
“I want food. Anyone else want food?” Rob asked the group at large.
“Gas station food or diner food,” said Amanda. “Those are our options.”
Miya grunted, “No more burgers. We had those for lunch.”
“You’re right. Gas station junk food’ll be much better than greasy spoon shit, both taste an’ nutrition,” snarked Ben.
“Fuck it, I’m goin’ to the gas station. Tell me what you want in the next two minutes or get it yourself,” proclaimed Rob, backing away towards the door. Fuck it, I’ll give him a hand. Everyone rattled off their orders, such as they were, and the brothers left.
Loose dirt and rocks crunched under their feet against the concrete sidewalk as they made their way to the gas station down the road. The two streetlights the town boasted flickered as they lit their way.
“So what have you been up to out in Colorado?” Rob asked.
“Huh? Same old same old,” replied Ben. Didn’t we go over this already?
“Nothin’ new at all? Same shit jobs?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?” replied Ben, shooting Rob a confused look. We’re identical. We may run off and do our own things, but we’re still the same.
“Dude, I got my GED.”
“What?” burst out Ben before Rob could continue. “When did that happen?”
“About a year ago,” replied Rob with a shrug, not even bothering to keep up the pretense of a smile. “I know we were all cool runnin’ out, but man it makes life easier. You do the same? You improvin’ yourself?”
Ben laughed. “What’s there to improve?”
They reached the gas station and entered, nodding to the bored clerk slouched at the counter. Plastic wrapping crinkled as they grabbed the various snacks and prepackaged food that would make up the group’s dinner.
“Lots. It’s been years, man. You made friends? Join a sports team? Get laid? Anythin’? Or you still runnin’ around pissin’ off mid-level jackasses? More to life than that.”
Ben bit his tongue once again as they met back up at the counter to pay. The moment the rickety glass door hissed closed behind them, he said, “Like what? Make someone else rich? Fight someone else’s war? Motherfuckers don’t care about us. Fuck that.”
“Way I hear it, you brought along some girl to die, you care then? Honest now.”
Honest. Ben didn’t trust himself to speak. They returned to the motel room in silence. Miya, Chris, and Amanda picked up on nothing as they chatted and distributed the food. Ben crashed on the chair in the room and kicked his legs up on the small table in front of him. Other than those, the only pieces of furniture in the room were the two twin beds and TV stand in the corner. He checked his phone, to find no reception. Great. How did Amanda get hers to work then? I’m guessing techie techno-nonsense, or maybe my carrier just hates me.
Rob tossed him a greasy plastic package. Deal with it later. I’ve got artificial cake like substance to eat. Just like momma used to make. And soda to wash it down. We are living the life right now.
Amanda leaned back on one of the beds. She twiddled with a phone in one hand, the other drumming on the closed laptop on the nightstand. Rob sat on the floor beside Ben, back against the wall. Chris leaned against the wall near the bathroom door, and Miya lay spread-eagle on her back over the bed.
“Amanda,” spoke up Chris after a silent minute as everyone devoured their meagre rations. “Do you have anything on what’s going on back in Westward? Anything on us?”
“Not much. They found the alien’s body, and someone in the media found out, so they’re having a field day with that.”
“What the hell even was that?” grumbled Miya.
“That place used to be called Pale Man’s palace. Was just an urban legend,” said Ben. “Kind of shocked Olivia wound up there.”
“Yeah, but why us? Did Olivia piss him off?”
“OK, idea. As a group, an’ let’s think about this honestly, how many people would notice if we vanished?” asked Rob.
Ben and Rob exchanged glances. You, me, Sam. That’s about it for me. Come on, Rob. Tell me about all the friends you’ve got. Everyone else seemed suddenly very preoccupied with the floor when Rob asked that question.
“I… I’ve been busy, over the last couple years,” said Amanda. “Just, like, didn’t have a lot of time for much else.” She seemed to be talking more to herself than anyone else.
“No one, really,” whispered Miya in the meantime. Chris stayed quiet.
“Yeah,” said Ben. “An’ maybe he thought we’d be easy. I know Amanda woulda never gotten out if I hadn’t come around.”
“Why is that?” prodded Miya.
“It was kinda funny,” said Ben.
“Oh, come on. Screw you,” said Amanda, trying her best to suppress a smile. Oh my god, something besides hostility.
“It was this featureless grey void, I shit you not. Took me a moment to figure it out, I thought I’d died. An’ then,” he said with a laugh. “An’ then I turned around an’ saw her at this desk, all hunched over a computer, just whalin’ on the keyboard. Up above her is this big floatin’ mass of circuit boards an’ sparks an’ shit. I just walked up to her, shoved my face in front of hers, an’ said ‘if this is so great why am I here?’ Snapped her right out of it. Took twenty seconds, tops.”
Amanda laughed, and even Chris brightened a slight bit. Of course, he always looks like he’s brooding, so any improvement is a nice change. Man, we were desperate for something to smile at. Miya and Rob exchanged glances, even as they laughed along.
“Olivia’s was kind of cute. I hope she’s alright. She’s probably freaking out right now, too,” said Miya.
“I know, I fucked up,” said Amanda, bitterness tinging her words.
“How did you not see that airlift comin’?” asked Ben. Well, that should have been ‘we’ in there. Whatever.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” exclaimed Amanda. “Don’t you see my enormous, precognizant space brain? You don’t? Wait, that’s right, I don’t have one. Why would they move her by air, anyways? It doesn’t make sense to do that.”
“Us,” broke in Chris. “They move her by air and that’s five metahumans out of the picture. That’d be worth the risk. Before, Marcus probably thought we were just keeping her as a smart pet or something, but we’ve stuck together over the last month, so he probably worked out we were looking out for each other. Or some analysts hammered that into his thick skull after a couple weeks of his willful ignorance.”
“Fuck that guy,” said Miya. “I have no idea who he is but fuck him.”
“Ugh,” said Amanda, rubbing her forehead. “He wasn’t your old boss. You have no idea.” She mock shivered.
“We should kill him,” said Ben. Everyone looked at him. “At some point, not right now,” Ben clarified.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea-” began Chris.
“No, I think Ben has a good idea,” said Miya, cutting Chris off. Why thank you! “This is the guy that’s been hounding Olivia from the beginning. We should deal with him.”
“We do that and the whole weight of US law enforcement comes down on us. That is absolutely not something they roll over for and accept,” said Amanda, with an incredulous look on her face.
Ben looked at Rob. You haven’t chimed in yet. Rob shrugged. “I’m fine either way. It’s a lot like startin’ a morphine addiction. Not the best of ideas, but there’s a reason behind it.”
“And what do you think Olivia will say about you killing someone on her behalf?” asked Chris with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey, if she’s not willing to do what needs to be done, I will,” said Miya leaning forward.
“Miya, why are you so pissed off on her behalf?” asked Ben. I just want to kill Marcus because he’s a prick. You seem righteously indignant. “Righteous indignation?”
Miya grimaced and shrugged. “I don’t know. Because she cared, if I had to guess.”
“That’s it?” asked Amanda.
“What?” burst Miya. “I’ve always been a little Mexica girl from a piss poor neighborhood and the second youngest of five. I’d still be kicking around in Arizona in a dead-end job if I didn’t have my magic.”
“How does that work? Magic an’ shit?” asked Ben. She’s the first magic user I’ve been able to talk to. Always was curious as to how that worked.
Miya shrugged. “I was bored one day. Hungry. I’d skipped school and was just running around. I was, I don’t know. Imagining I was somewhere else, doing something else. I really don’t remember the specifics. Then I shot red spark things out of my hands. This wasn’t a trigger, I was just kicking around in an abandoned car lot. But if felt like something was tugging on a bit of my brain.
“Fuck. I barely understood it at first. I could make red sparks come out of my hands that made people spaz out, that’s all I knew. I tried it on one of my brothers when he had his back turned. When I figured that out, I shoplifted food or little things, and used magic to get away if I was ever caught. I was about eleven at the time, and looked like I was even younger, so everyone just ignored or underestimated me anyways,” she said.
“How old are you now?” asked Amanda. “You look about sixteen.” Miya comes up to about my chin, and I’m not a tall guy.
“I’m eighteen. And really, sixteen? I know I’m, what’d he call it? Vertically impaired, that’s it. But I like to think I look a little older than that.”
Rob snorted. “Heh. Little.”
“Shut up. I’m getting off track. Anyways, then this guy, Don, found me, maybe seven months after I’d first started channeling. He explained what I was doing was magic, and offered to teach me. It was great. Amazing I had power, I could do, well, at the time I thought I could do almost anything. You know how magicians and wizards are always portrayed as these super powerful guys who can do almost anything with magic? Yeah, that’s what I thought too, until Don told me about specialties. He offered to help me figure mine out, for a price.”
“Uhhhh…” began Rob. Amanda and Chris looked uncomfortable, or at least apprehensive, as well.
“Where is this goin’?” asked Ben. “Are we talkin’ souls or what?” Or is this a darker story than I thought?
Miya looked around at all of them. “What? No, it was money. He had a bad opium addiction, and was alcoholic now that I think about it, though he hid it well. Souls, really?” she asked with a laugh. Opium? That’s old school. Like, didn’t that fall out of fashion a hundred years ago?
“Question,” said Rob. “How is sellin’ a soul a laughin’ matter? Isn’t that how magic shit works?”
Miya laughed harder. “What? Seriously you guys? No, mortals can’t do shit with souls. Demons can, but any magician who tries to sell them souls is just killed. But why is a whole other lecture.”
“Huh,” said Chris. Yep. That about sums up my thoughts on that. The more you know, I guess.
“Yeah. So, I managed to scrounge up the money so he’d teach me. We figured out I could do bone stuff. Then he said the next lesson was going to be more expensive. I told Don I didn’t quite have that kind of money, and he told me that I was shit out of luck if that was the case. This should have gotten my alarm bells ringing.
Miya trailed off for a moment, biting her lip. “But, I don’t know. I wanted to do more. I tried teaching myself, but it’s super abstract. Very few people pick up on it quickly. Even the basic stuff took me a while to get down, and biology is the most complex out of all the magic fields.”
“Wait, biology is a scientific field,” said Amanda.
“There are old pretentious Latin and Greek terms for magic fields, but I learned it as biology, psychology, chemistry, and physics, only you’re manipulating those different things with magic,” explained Miya. “Within each four of those are different subsets. But if you want a magic lecture, I’d like to point you to the internet. It’s less about talking and more about doing. Anyways, I started mugging. As in, grab someone and immobilize them to take their wallet.”
“You, a mugger?” asked Rob incredulously.
“Yeah,” said Ben. “Wouldn’t see her comin’. An’ if she was smart an’ came in from behind, they’re not likely to see her an’ tip the police off later.” It’s the people you don’t see coming that are dangerous.
Miya nodded. “What he said. This went on, lessons got more expensive, though I was starting to work stuff out on my own. Don introduced me to the magic underground, people who would have never spoken to me otherwise. It was… OK, I guess. A means to an end.” We’d damn well better not be a means to an end too.
Miya stopped talking. “How did you get to Westward, then?” Chris prompted.
“Don sold me out to Overlord. Slim Jim attacked, and I woke up in some bizarre facility thing.” Miya stared at the bed beneath her, fiddling with the edge of a blanket.
“How do you know it was Don?” asked Rob.
“He’s my best guess. He knew how powerful I was. Overlord’s people knew exactly what I could do. Slim Jim knew exactly where to hit. I may have talked to other magicians, but Don was the only one of them to know all that.” Kidnapped, huh?
“You gonna go after him?” asked Ben. “I want in on that.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was going to do the second I could. Why do you care?”
“One,” said Ben, holding up his index finger. “Fuck kidnappers. Two,” he held up two fingers. “Fuck Overlord. An’ three, fuck this Don guy. An’ four, why the fuck not?”
Miya bit her lip, considering. “OK. Sure.”
“Don could have told others that info,” said Amanda.
“I don’t know. He’s my best guess. That’s my sad sob story,” finished Miya. “Gonna arrest me now? I see it in those cop eyes of yours,” she said to Amanda and Chris with almost forced joviality.
“What?” asked Amanda. “I was a cop for a couple months. That’s not nearly long enough for the indoctrination process.”
“Same here,” added Chris. “We joined about the same time. And no, there’s no indoctrination process.” Amanda mock glared and stuck her tongue out at him.
“Yeah, you and Amanda are pretty relaxed. Most cops don’t like me, especially MHU ones,” said Ben.
Rob shrugged. “Cops usually shoot at me, never really had a chance to talk to ‘em.” Miya nodded in agreement.
“I kind of regret that decision,” said Amanda with a shrug. “I was just out of college. I didn’t really want to go for a PhD at the time. I thought I could make a difference with the police, I guess. But I found that everything else was just boring. I’d spend all my time thinking of new things to try. Don’t get me wrong, I loved all the resources they threw at me, but the few patrols I had were with Jeremiah. Not a fun experience.”
“Ouch, I’m sorry,” said Chris. Jeremiah? Don’t know who that is.
“Wait, what resources are we talkin’ here?” asked Rob over Chris.
“Anything, so long as I filled out the right paperwork. But if I could prove I needed it, it showed up within a day or so.”
Rob’s jaw dropped. “What? Anythin’? I would totally have been a cop if I’d known that! I had to beg, borrow, cheat, and steal for all of my stuff. Do you have any idea how hard it was to hand make all of the tiny gears in this watch?” he said, holding up his wrist with the black and silver watch strapped to it. He was damn proud of that thing when he first finished it, too.
“This is the government we’re talking about,” said Amanda. “I had to fill out paperwork for everything, even the most basic of tools. You’d think some off the shelf resistors would be easy, but nope!”
“Well, how basic are we talkin’?” asked Rob. “Cuz a hammer an’ a good source of heat will keep me happy.” If I start banging my head against this wall behind me, will they notice this is boring the hell out of anyone who isn’t a techie?
“They’ll keep track of every ounce of metal-” said Amanda.
“Guys!” cut in Miya. “Now is not techie time. Get a room for that.”
“Agreed,” said Ben. Eyes… glazing over. Can’t… fight it.
“Right, sorry,” said Amanda. “So yeah, I don’t really regret leaving. What about you, Chris?”
He shrugged. “My foster mother was in the MHU, she got me interested. Took law enforcement classes and training at the Academy to keep me occupied.”
“Wait, you said foster parents?” said Miya.
Chris nodded. “Yeah, I was an angry little shit in middle and high school.” He shrugged. “I got better.” Hey, both him and Olivia don’t like making eye contact when you ask them questions.
Ben exchanged a glance with Rob. Someone’s dodging questions today. “So, the police. No qualms about leavin’?” asked Ben.
“Oh, ‘qualms.’ Someone’s pulling out the big boy words,” said Amanda.
Ben gave a gracious nod. “I try.”
Chris ignored them. “Sometimes,” he said in answer to Ben’s question. “Not a lot. It wasn’t all it cracked up to be.”
“That’s why I was a vigilante. Just go out, beat up dudes, or dudettes, I’m equal opportunity, an’ call it a day,” said Ben.
“Yeah, but how do you pay rent that way?” asked Miya.
“I worked. In the food industry, mainly.”
“Ew. Why would you do that to yourself?”
“Food is good. I like food. Meet all kinds of people, too.”
“Yeah, the weird kinds,” said Amanda.
“You do get those. But I’m talkin’ cool people. Lifers are some of the most interestin’ people you’ll talk to.”
“Lifers?” asked Chris.
“People who’ve been workin’ there their whole lives. Ex-cons, old dudes, the like. They’ve been around. Hell, I worked with this one guy, I told you about Green Man, right?” Ben asked Rob.
“Old gang warlord guy?”
“Yeah, so he was a big deal in Columbus in the mid-eighties. Then the MHU busted him an’ that was the end of it. Got out about seven years ago on parole. Worked with him for a while in some hole in the wall restaurant. Not what you’d expect. Didn’t bring up his old life much, an’ I didn’t ask, but he was still interestin’ to talk to. Different perspective.”
“Please don’t tell me you were a waiter,” said Amanda.
“Nah, back on the line.” At the blank looks he received, he clarified, “The kitchen. Also worked in fast food, an’ I ain’t doin’ that again.”
“I miss those free donuts,” said Chris.
“That was a fun job.”
“You had to go in at five in the morning. I remember because you woke me up a couple times when you left,” said Miya.
“Oh, sorry ‘bout that. But I don’t sleep too well anyways, so I got to live out a sugary wonderland fantasy every mornin’. At least, that’s what I told myself to get outta bed.”
“Sleep. Sleep is sacred,” said Rob. Yeah, that is something we should do at some point.
The conversation died off there. They threw away the trash from their imitation of a meal and settled into comfortable silence, with only the sound of Amanda tapping away at her laptop to keep Ben awake.
“Hey, Amanda, are you looking up how we’re going to get into that feral research place?” asked Chris suddenly.
“Yeah, I’ve been on that the last couple days. It’s not pretty.” Wonderful.
“How bad?”
“Big walls, pretty good firewalls and electronic systems, lots of Freeman guards-”
“Wait, wait,” said Chris. “Did you say the Freeman Company’s doing security?”
“Yeah, why?” asked Amanda.
Chris smiled. “My father, my foster father, works for them. Think we could wrangle a way in that way?” Oh, I’m liking this.
“Worth a shot. How high up is he on the totem pole?” asked Amanda.
“I’ll have to check. He’s in the paymaster section, not sure how much influence they have over the combat side of things in terms of who gets hired and where they go. Anything else sticking out to you?”
“Nope, not from here.”
“I’d say we actually look at the place before we plan anythin’,” said Rob. “Internet can only tell you so much.”
“Yeah,” agreed Amanda. “If you want, I’ll show you what I’ve got, but it probably won’t get us anywhere in terms of concrete planning.”
Chris nodded as Ben stifled a yawn. “Alright. I’m thinking about getting some shuteye. We’re only four or five hours out from Houston. Let’s plan on getting out of here by seven, we’ll hit the city by lunch and scout a place out.”
“Sounds good,” said Rob.
They scattered around the room, Miya and Amanda sharing one bed as best they could, with Chris in the other. Ben leaned back in his chair, trying desperately to ignore the wicked sore neck he would have in the morning.
Stone Burners 