The morning sun played across the surface of Lake Alabaster, making swirls of brilliant light on the few ripples that were briefly gracing the water?s surface every time something came into contact with the calm waters. From her bench at the lakeside Amanda was looking out over the water with an odd mixture of serenity and unease, serenity because she was safe here, and unease because no matter where she went she probably wasn't. It had been a few days since she had fully started to grasp her developing powers now, and though it still had this feeling of absurdity around it she couldn't deny what she was capable of. And that, that was both why she was safest here, and not safe anywhere.
Here, at Lake Alabaster, she had the greatest ability to defend herself, as well as a hideout to retreat to in case they came for her again. And above all, she wasn't a danger here, not like back in her apartment. Before she had realized her powers she had noticed an increase in road work around the campus, ruptured water mains and pipes mostly. At the time she had thought it odd, but now she was certain that she had something to do with it, and the unstable weather around campus had probably been her fault as well. Brief showers that materialized from nowhere and lasted for upwards of ten minutes before dissipating again.
She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands as she kept her gaze on the lake in front of her, ignoring the sounds of passing cars and the occasional pedestrian or jogger behind her heading into the city center. This whole situation was unbelievable, or well, it was believable to her now, but that just made it even more so. She had never given too much thought to people with powers, she knew about them from the occasional article or newsreel, but she had been certain that they wouldn't have much of an impact on her fairly uneventful life. And now she was one, probably. Maybe she should have paid a bit more attention to them, then at least she would have known where to start or something like that. As it was now she was still uncertain if she'd cause another spontaneous accident, or if people were still after her. She hadn't even been back to her apartment for almost a day and a half now for fear of endangering Maria and the other students. At least she had texted Maria to let her know she wouldn't be home in a while to keep her from going looking for her, and luckily it seemed like she had accepted that, the last thing she needed was for her to get involved in this as well.
Her limbs felt sluggish as she stifled a yawn, the fatigue of being awake for nearly two days was slowly creeping up on her, as well as the almost ever present cold sweat she had been burdened with for the last days. At least it had almost gone away now, when her powers had just started to make themselves known it had felt like a cloud of dampness clung to her and her immediate surroundings at all times. Letting out a sigh, partly out of exhaustion and partly due to expiration, she just added it to the fairly long list of "odd things" that had been happening since the attack at Goldmar. Goldmar yes, she was by now pretty convinced that had something to do with this. Especially from some of the messages she had seen on her phone a few days ago that indicated the other survivors experienced similar oddities. At that point she had yet to awaken her powers, or perhaps she had just still been in denial over them?
The television in the living room blared on about the news with the President?s visit to Silverhollow still being repeated in conjunction with all kinds of news about the Goldmar attack, a summary of events from what Amanda could tell, though she wasn't really paying attention to any of it. The television was merely background noise, something to drown out the vulnerability she felt while she was alone in the apartment with a whole herd of journalists and reporters waiting like predators for her to come outside. Luckily for her Maria had taken it upon herself to do all the errands outside, showing her characteristic brand of sympathy and understanding for Amanda not wanting to go wading through the gaggle of people in a hurry. That was part of why Amanda was doing the cooking today, even though they usually took turns doing it every other day, as she felt that since her roommate was doing all the chores and errands outside the apartment, then she could at least return the favor by taking on more of the indoor chores.
Rinsing the knife before she started dicing the onion for Maria's chili recipe, she herself wasn't big on spicy food, but Maria had assured her that she'd written down instructions for her mild variety. Well, it had been her turn to cook today, so Amada didn't have much of a problem with Maria dictating what fare she would be making, saved her the trouble of thinking about it.
Lost in thought she found herself listening in on the news while her hands were busy chopping up the onion, moving with practiced motions, though far from expertly. At her old workplace they had been required to cook and bake fairly often, and though she wasn't a master at either she had picked up a few tips and tricks to make the work go faster and smoother. For every downward motion with the knife her fingers moved back, letting them mark the next cut before the knife came down again. The TV was now still going on about the police investigation surrounding the Goldmar incident, and she tuned in just as they were changing between an officer explaining their (meager) findings and over to someone else. That someone else took her by surprise, someone from the FBI was on telling the public that they were investigating the case from all angles, even going so far as to include that "...all those involved in the accident would be investigated to make sure that they were not working for, or with, the perpetrator."
Amanda turned her head to look at the screen from the kitchen corner to get a look at the woman dressed in a black suit currently occupying it. As she did however her automated routine skipped a step as the knife went down a second time without her fingers moving out of its way. The result manifesting itself as a sharp pain in her fingers as the knife cut into three of them, making her drop the knife by instinct, sending it clattering to the floor two or three feet away. She winced as she held her stinging and bleeding left hand, seeing a slow stream of blood trickle its way through her fingers and over her unremarkable fingernails before dripping from them onto the countertop. Her hazy mind momentarily clear she clutched her hand tighter as she quickly walked over to the bathroom where they kept a small first aid kit, blood trickling over her fingers and down to the floor as she went.
Opening the cupboard under the sink revealed what she was after, a small orange case with a green cross on it and the words "first aid" emblazoned underneath. Opening the case she retrieved what she thought she'd need as she held her wounded hand over the sink to avoid droplets of blood staining anything else. Her hand had started to feel a dull numbness now instead of the sharp pain, but she thought little of it as she retrieved the gauze and disinfectant from inside the kit, noticing something odd in her peripheral vision, but dismissing it as light from the television. Turning her full attention back to her hand, supplies ready, she was left utterly dumbfounded. The wound simply didn't seem to be there at all.
She held up her hand in front of her to get a closer look at it, turning it as she half expected the light to be playing a trick on her befuddled mind. Finding nary a scratch on herself she looked down into the sink, and there was nothing. Not a single drop of her blood to stand out against the white of the ceramic. One quick gaze down and into the living room told the same story, not even a speck of red against the floor. Amanda took a deep breath and packed away the first aid kit again. What was up with her? Had she imagined it all? That had to be it right? She hadn't had a good night?s sleep since the incident, maybe the fatigue was just catching up to her?
That had been a day or so before the messages started ticking in, and about two or three days after the police had showed up at her doorstep for her statement surrounding what happened in the lecture hall. She sighed to herself as she looked out over the fairly serene waters of lake Alabaster in the morning light, with nary a gust of wind to cause ripples over the mirror shine. There was little doubt about it, that incident at the lecture hall had caused this change in her, and likely the other survivors as well. And, though she had been blind to it at the time, her own powers had started to manifest around the same time as the others started sending messages about "odd things".
The powers, however odd, she could probably live with given enough time to come to grips with them. What bothered her most at the moment were the people after her. She didn't know for sure, but putting two and two together they had to work for the man who had made himself out to be Edgar Reynolds, and probably to capture the survivors for some reason or other. If things hadn't gone the way they had she'd probably be in their clutches now, it was something she didn't like the thought of.
The man at the doorway was about 5'8", slightly rotund, and wore a white shirt and a burgundy tie together with a grey suit that she noticed had started to fray at the sleeves. He had unruly black hair, broad facial features with a slight stubble at this chin, and a pair of black-rimmed aviators sat obscuring his eyes. However it was the badge the man was presenting in his left hand that Amanda had her eyes on at the moment. A SHPD badge shone with black leather surrounding it and lent some credibility to the otherwise slightly shady character at her door, if not for it she would never have removed the chain for him and avoided him like the plague like all the rest of the journalists still at her doorstep.
The man cleared his throat and with a smile that she couldn't help feel was forced repeated his words to her. "As I said Miss Zegers I'm here from the Silverhollow police to help you. We think you might have been experiencing strange occurrences and health problems as a result of the attack and would like for you to speak with some of our medical examiners down at the precinct." He snapped closed the badge and put it back into his suit pocket from whence it had come. Amanda looked at him in a mixture of uncertainty and fear, what if something had happened to her? She hadn't felt well the last days, her sleeping was off, her body was covered in cold sweat all the time, and she was hallucinating as well... She didn't like to think that something was actually wrong with her, but if something was, then it would be best to go with him wouldn't it?
Keeping his fake smile plastered on his face he continued, perhaps spurred on by Amanda's look of indecision. "Of course, if nothing proves to be wrong then you'll be free to go back home, I'll even make sure you're given a lift as an apology for the inconvenience. If something is amiss then you'll have to spend a few days at Elixir again to get it straightened out. Nothing major either way." Though still uncertain, and more so due to the man's obviously faux smile, Amanda found herself agreeing to go with him. Despite his looks he seemed to be a genuine member of the SHPD, and she'd never been one to go against the wishes of the police.
She followed the man, who by now had introduced himself as "Officer Acker", out of the building, taking the rear entrance to avoid the still stationary journalists milling about outside. Finding it a bit odd that the officer couldn't just have dispersed the journalists, she was none the less grateful that she didn't have to deal with them today. Eventually they found themselves in an old deep-green Ford Mondeo, with Acker behind the wheel and Amanda in the rear seat. The ride itself started out uneventfully enough, with Acker announcing on his phone to someone that he "...have the Zegers woman, heading back now" and driving off towards the station.
It was first after driving for a good while that Amanda noticed something wrong, as the blue expanse of Lake Alabaster spread out to the left of the vehicle. This wasn't the way to the station was it? Had Acker taken a wrong turn somewhere? It seemed odd to drive all the way from Millennial to Lake Alabaster, in fact she wasn't even sure that Lake Alabaster even had its own station.
"Excuse me, officer, where are we going?" She asked the man in front as he rummaged around in a backpack in the passenger?s seat, retrieving a can of fizzy drink that he opened before answering her. "Don't worry Miss, we're just taking the scenic route since 7th street is closed due to road work." Amanda froze, that fake smile of his was back, and furthermore his explanation didn't hold up to scrutiny, bypassing 7th in Millennial wouldn't take them anywhere close to Alabaster. Doubt began to spread through Amanda's thoughts as she felt a sense of unease rise in her. No, that couldn't be it, there had to be some other explanation as to why they were taking this route. Maybe he was heading to the station in Brightfields? But that didn't make any sense either.
"Sir, which station are we heading to?" She tried asking again, a bit more meekly this time. He tensed up and put down the drink can in the cars cup holder before reaching for his bag again, not answering her. And then, just as the question was about to be asked again he lifted a handgun out of the passenger seat and pointed it briefly at Amanda. "I suggest you stop this line of questioning and sit down, quietly, until we've arrived. Miss." His smile had vanished, replaced by a stern face without a sliver of emotion. She ceased up as the pistol was pointed her way, her situation clear, this man, whoever he was, was abducting her.
"Good, now stay silent." Acker said as he withdrew the pistol and held it in his lap, ready in case she got any ideas, for good measure he activated the central lock, making sure that she couldn't do anything rash, like jump out of the car. Amanda's heart was in her throat, she dared not speak for fear that he would make good on his non-verbal threat of using his gun. Her eyes dashed around the car in search for something, anything that could help her out. Whatever came out of it, she didn't want to stay in the car and find out what Acker had in store for her.
Finding nothing that could help her she closed her eyes, and like in the lecture room on that day she again willed herself away, far far away. But as her thoughts were so occupied she heard something, no, felt something odd, at the edge of her perception. She could feel it in front of her, one small and confined, and one large and circulating. She felt them respond, echo within her. The feeling freaked her out, but it also gave her hope, and as the feeling spread and she opened her eyes she knew. Feeling an uncharacteristic sense of rebellion she willed them both to move, one with vigorous force, and one with as much precision as she could muster.
The hood of the Mondeo burst open as an immense cloud of coolant and vapor ripped out of the radiator, making Acker curse loudly and slam on the breaks as his visibility turned to zero in an instant. In that moment a column of soft drink rose out of the can and pressed on the button to disable the central lock, letting Amanda scramble out of the vehicle before Acker had any idea what was going on. He was quick on the take however, "Subject has escaped near Lake Alabaster, initiating pursuit." He quickly spoke into his earpiece as he grabbed hold of his gun and got out of his still sputtering automobile. It didn't take him long to align his gun and keep his aim on the woman running away from him, across the barrier and down the slope towards the lake below. He hesitated, they were supposed to catch them alive, but he wasn't one for running, but if he shot her now she could fall into the lake and drown before he got to her.
Still, there was a chance that she wouldn't.
A gunshot rang out as a sharp burning pain spread out from Amanda's right leg, sending her rolling down the slope as she completely lost her footing. Recovering at the bottom of the slope, at the very edge of the water, bruised and battered she looked down at her leg only to be met with a bullet wound going straight through her calf. A horrid burning sensation spread through her as her brain processed the pain from the injury, only to be again muffled by a fresh dose of adrenaline. Acker was starting to walk down the slope at this point, taking his time as the woman started to sob in pain. However, that surge of rebelliousness still raged inside of her and unlike before she now knew that she could do something. And again she felt it at the edge of her senses, an immense object calling out to her, so close she could touch it, and ready to be used.
Acker smiled, not the same fake smile he had used to try and convince Amanda earlier, but a smile with a sadistic twitch, he looked like he enjoyed it, like he had been hoping she'd try something. A goddamn superior smirk plastered all over his features. She reached out, letting her disgust with the man run into the force she had found and willing it to pummel him, throttle him, and above all, get him away from her. The response took less than a minute as Acker was still reveling in his victory, pointing his gun at her in triumph, before the lake rose up in wrath. Acker saw it coming for him, but proved powerless to stop it as the lake reached out in turn and pummeled and throttled, not just him, but the entire slope, water gushing out onto the roadway and lifting his still sighing car a couple of feet away.
When Amanda again woke she had felt herself cradled in someone?s embrace, a warm homey feeling surrounding her. Imagine then her surprise when she opened her eyes to find herself at the bottom of a lake. Instinctively she tried to hold her breath, leading to some panicked tossing and turning as she tried to swim back to the surface. In time she came to realize that her lungs were already filled with the watery substance, which for some reason she had no trouble breathing. To make matters weirder the only thing that could even hint at her being wounded by Acker were two holes in her pants about the size of a penny...
The lake was the closest thing she had to a hideout after that episode, the one place she knew they couldn't reach her. She didn't know what had become of Acker after the wave had carried her out of there, but something told her that while he might have been beaten and bruised by the encounter he was still probably out there somewhere. Or at least that was what the paranoid part of her brain was now telling her. Truth be told she was getting sick of hanging out like this day after day, keeping as close to the lake or any kind of water source as she could to keep herself safe in case he came back. That wasn't to say that it was boredom that was killing her, she had used the time rather well in coming to grips with her powers, even though she had yet to repeat the feat of utilizing an entire lake in one fell swoop.
She had found that she could condense moisture out of the air to have water handy, that since it was non-compressible it could be used as an effective self-defense in a pinch, and that she could manipulate existing sources of water. Ice... Not so much, she had tried to do something with the ice cubes left over from a soft drink yesterday, but without any success. Apparently it wasn't malleable enough, or so she thought. Other than that, well, it was obvious that she could breathe underwater, though not being a great swimmer she still felt handicapped in a watery environment. She could also reverse her condensation process by turning it into water vapor, but that had little application besides drying herself out after getting out of the lake. Her other power was still something of a mystery to her, it was apparent that she could regenerate injuries, and even the pain from small cuts and bruises seemed to have faded a little now. Apparently it had something to do with her affinity to water, the blood was simply absorbed back into her body leading to the wounds regenerating on their own. And she had also found that it didn't have to be blood, it appeared moisture dependent, so water worked as well, and was actually sometimes quicker than the normal mending. If any of this worked with larger injuries... She had no idea, and she was in no hurry to find out.
No, her time had been spent well finding out about her twisted body and mind, what was making her sick of it all was the constant need to look over her shoulder. The fact that if she was close to her friends or her family they could be targeted, or worse, be victim to an accident of her making. She still didn't have full understanding of her powers after all.
Amanda sighed again, this situation couldn't go on for much longer. Sooner or later they would use more underhanded means to get her, or she would slip up her guard, or some other unfortunate occurrence would befall her. Frankly she was out of ideas, and despite her abilities she had no idea how to proceed against that which had turned her everyday life into something else. She couldn't go to the police, despite this Bastion working with them, Acker had appeared to be a genuine officer after all, what if there were more of them inside their ranks?
There was one group of people she could get in contact with however, there were presumably others like her, judging by those messages. She could ask them. Perhaps they would know how to proceed? Likely she hadn't been the only one targeted either, or the only one full of questions. Amanda smiled to herself wearily, it was worth a shot, right?
She retrieved her cell phone, an old beaten up thing, but waterproof, a lifesaver under her current circumstances.
Code:
Hello, this is Amanda, from the police station earlier this week. Sorry for not getting in touch earlier but strange things have been happening and I wondered if you could meet me somewhere to discuss them? I'm currently near lake Alabaster.
She picked one of the phone numbers she had gotten that day at the station and pressed send. No need to bother all of them, if one was busy then she'd just try the next one on the list later.
