The
Eagle was falling.
It
was not a slow, short descent as had occurred earlier in the previous day. This
was a rapid freefall, causing mayhem and destruction across the entire Eagle.
The turbulence created by the fall was blowing cars, small objects, and even
the unlucky person around. Inside the buildings, rooms were being tossed around
and people struggled to stay unscathed by the flying objects. Luckily the Eagle
was too large to be controlled by the wind, and it did not plummet into a spin.
However that was about the only luck to be found.
John
had seen Alex rush out of the private quarters towards his hovercraft. Alex
yelled to John to keep Damien safe before racing off, and did not hear John’s
exclamations that Damien was missing. John ran back inside the building to
alert the other staff members to continue their search for Damien before
jumping into his own hovercraft to chase after Alex.
The
drive to the central generator was perilous, and multiple times Alex had to
swerve out of the way to avoid crashing into other crafts, branches, or random
objects. A few times the wind even blew his hovercraft off the road, and Alex
had to struggle to guide the craft back on track. When he finally reached the
generator, the guards were gone. Alex ran inside and found them taking cover in
the hallways. A brief exchange told Alex all he needed to know, although none
of it was anything good.
Alex charged into Valerie’s room
and found Damien on the floor unconscious. The young boy was drenched in sweat
and his breathing was shallow. As Alex tried to bring his son back to
consciousness, he glanced up and was struck with another horror. Valerie was
still unconscious, but her body was no longer held gently up by wires and tubes.
It was slumped against the bottom of the glass tube and the electrical conduits
controlling her powers were disconnected.
“Alex!” John burst into the room
and took in the scene quickly. He rushed to Alex’s side and took Damien. “I’ll
get him to the hospital. Just get her powers back on before we hit the ground!”
John hurried out with Damien in
his arms as Alex punched in an override command on the terminal. A red light
above the containment tube started blinking and the warm liquid that filled the
tube slowly started draining out. Once drained, Alex opened a hatch on the back
of the tube and gently pulled Valerie to him. His hands shook as he caressed
her head and his heart thumped in his chest.
This was the first time he was
holding her in his arms since she went into the tube, but instead of enjoying
the moment, Alex had to complete his responsibility to all the citizens onboard
the Eagle. He placed his hands on her temples and focused on creating an
electrical current to her brain. Alex couldn’t rush this part or risk permanent
brain damage, and if it weren’t for his immense concentration on the task at
hand, his body would have been shaking from the anxiety. He didn’t know how far
the Eagle had fallen, but he knew there wasn’t any time to lose.
Finally he felt the current fall
into place as Valerie’s powers reactivated. Alex briefed a sigh of relief and
leaned his back against the wall, continuing to hold his wife. He knew he would
need some help in placing her back into the tube, but for now he took the moment
to close his eyes and just breathe. The Eagle was still in the air, and Damien
was in good hands.
“Um, sir?” Alex’s eyes shot open
and he looked at the guard, who was standing wide-eyed in the room’s doorway.
“I-I saw Mr. Murray run out of here with your son. I figured I’d see if
anything else needed to be done. I’m…not really sure what’s going on, to tell
you the truth.”
Alex nodded, the realization
that his secret was now potentially exposed hitting him in a peculiar way.
Instead of panic and fear, Alex felt an eerie calm. His secret, his burden, was
about to be lifted. Damien knew, and now this guard. It was only a matter of
time before word got out one way or another.
“Do you need help, sir?” The
guard was confused and unsure what the proper procedure was in this situation.
Not many people onboard the Eagle knew what Valerie looked like, but the
tragedy that had befallen her and Alex was general knowledge. And by the way
Alex was holding the woman in his arms, the guard made the correct assumption,
albeit it not making any sense.
Alex smiled, which calmed the
guard a little. “That would be very nice, thank you young man. Here’s what I
need you to do.”
After a day in the hospital,
John now sat on the edge of Damien’s bed after tucking him in his own room back
at home. The doctor’s had found nothing negatively wrong with him besides
exhaustion, but their readings indicated Damien’s body had undergone a change
that now allowed him to create electrical pulses, similar to his father. But
while Alex can power machines, Damien’s electricity seems to only affect
organic material, humans and metahumans included.
After the clean bill of health
and congratulations on the metahuman powers coming forward, Damien returned
home with John for some prescribed rest. Alex was still dealing with the
political and social turmoil that the fall created. The Eagle was still in the
air, but only barely. They had stopped just three miles above the ocean’s
surface. The US government had requested information about the drop, Cloudtop
City was a mess, and there was a mild chaos across the Eagle. Alex had enough
on his plate, and so he was still unaware about Damien’s newfound powers. As
such, John had a good idea why Valerie’s powers stopped and was careful to not
excite the boy. New powers were often uncontrollable and John did not want a
repeat of the previous night.
Damien’s eyes were closed, but
John knew he wasn’t sleeping. The boy had been quiet ever since the doctors
told him about his new powers. John helped raise Damien, and so he knew Damien
was blaming himself for what happened.
John gave Damien’s hand a
squeeze. “Everything will be alright, Damien.”
Damien opened his eyes, and John
saw tears forming. “But I hurt…” John knew Damien wanted to say “my mother”,
but couldn’t. Damien was a smart boy, and had seen enough pictures and videos to
identify the woman who was his mother.
“You didn’t hurt anyone,
Damien.” John got up and opened the curtains in Damien’s room. Beyond, the
lights of Cloudtop shone brightly as people worked into the night to clean and
repair the city. “See? Cloudtop still stands, and everyone is alive. There were
no reported deaths at all. We’ll fix everything up and rise back into the sky
soon enough.”
Damien looked away from the view
and John closed the curtains before sitting back down. “Try to get some sleep,
Damien. No one is blaming you but yourself.”
Damien turned back to John, the
tears falling down his face. “Why did he hide her from me? She was there the
whole time!” Damien couldn’t hold it in anymore and started crying.
John pulled the boy closer to
comfort him. “Damien, your father did what he thought was best. He didn’t want
to give you any false hope. Your mother is sick, and there’s no promise that
she’ll get better. He didn’t want you spending your life expecting her to come
back and being upset that she never does.”
“But I still could have visited!
I still could have known. Everyone told me she was gone!”
“And she might still be, Damien.
She’s in what is known as a coma. It’s like she’s asleep, and she might not
ever wake up. That’s why your father didn’t want you to know. He didn’t want
you to know she was alive, only to have her never wake back up.”
Damien was quiet for a bit, with
only a few sobs here and there. John let him cry it out, knowing Damien needed
to come to terms with this on his own. After a little while, Damien spoke up.
“Maybe I could help her now, though. The doctors said my powers affect people,
not machines. Maybe I can wake her up!”
John let the boy have this
moment. “Maybe, Damien. But you’d need to get stronger and learn more about
your powers.”
“I’ll do it!” Damien was getting
excited again, but John could see the crying had taken the zest out of him and
that sleep was imminent. “I’ll become strong, just like my father, and then
I’ll wake mommy up, and we’ll all be a family! And you’ll be there, and that
pretty nurse you’re always talking to, and…”
John let Damien ramble on until
the boy fell asleep. He tucked him back into bed and turned out the light,
smiling as he walked out of the room.
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