THE GREAT ESCAPE

By Tobias Christoper

Four Years Ago

Grant Emerson had been forced to strip as he was given a set of raggedy clothes to wear. From now on, the DEO’s goal was to break the spirits of its captives. Ragged clothes, gray and colorless food, and zero fun were apart of the plan to make their captives miserable and make it easier to mold them to their liking.

As Grant stood in a cell with a large plastic window, he wondered who else would be apart of this ‘program’.The window stared across the way into another empty room, one which be occupied by Cody Driscoll six moths later.The white shirt he was given was torn on the side and the orange pants he’d have to hold up with one hand or else they’d fall unless he was given a belt. He had a glowing collar around his neck to restrict his emerging powers, which would only be turned off for training purposes.

“This is your new home, Mr. Emerson,” Director Romero told him. “You will live in this room and do as ordered. You work for the US government now, son.”

“Don’t call me son. Where’s my brother?” Grant asked as he started getting dressed. “He was with me when you brought us in.”

“Young Trevor appears to be traumatized,” Romero sighed. “We may find a use for him yet, right now we’re trying to find proper psychological help for the boy. What happened to him to render him mute?”

“I want to see him,” Grant told him, avoiding the question. Only Grant knew why Trevor had shut down to the world around him, and only Grant knew he could bring brother back from the edge of darkness.

“In due time,” Romero told him. “It depends on how well you behave for us. You’re going to be a very important part of this program, Mr. Emerson. Rest for right now, your training begins tomorrow.”

“Take care of him,” Grant pleaded with desperation in his voice. “He’s the only family I have.”

As Romero left, Grant slid back against the wall as he cried a little.

“Who’s crying?” a voice asked. He sounded fairly young for someone who would be in a place like this.

“My name is Grant,” the boy told him as he wiped his face. “Who are you?”

“Cameron,” the voice replied. “I guess we’re neighbors. Never had a neighbor before.”

“What are you here for?” Grant asked as he stared at the ceiling.

“I don’t know, but whatever it was, it must have been bad because I’ve been here my entire life. You?”

“I’m here because I deserve to be,” Grant whispered. “I think I’m here because I’m a horrible person.”

The two sat there and talked for hours, learning all they could about each other and becoming good friends in the process. Even though they wouldn’t physically see each other for a while, Grant had formed a pretty good picture of what Cameron looked like in his mind, having had his image down to the last detail when they met four years later.

Today

The alarms started blaring as soldiers were sent flying through the hall as the four superpowered teens made their way across the compound to rescue their friends. Grant led the charge, using energy discharges as bolts to knock the coming soldiers to the ground as they appeared. The angrier and emotional he became, the more powerful the blasts were.

“The others should be a few floors down,” Grant said. “We get Anita and Walker out, and our freedom’s in the bag. We need to find a way to transport Seren.”

More guards came around the corner as Mikey’s hands started glowing with fiery energy. 

“Time to fry these bastards!” Mikey smirked as he got ready to open fire.

“Don’t kill anyone,” Grant ordered as he held Mikey back. “They’re assholes, but they don’t deserve to die.”

“Since when?” Mikey asked angrily. “They’ve been holding us against our will! They’ve been making our lives miserable! They’re keeping you from Trevor!”

“Taking lives is a road we don’t want to go down, trust me,” Grant ordered as he thought about Trevor. “We just want to get our friends and get the hell out of here. No one dies, that’s an order. Killing someone changes you, I don’t want that to happen to my friends.”

“Ugh, fine,” Mikey sighed as he started throwing fireballs at the soldiers while Grant threw energy charges to knock the soldiers off of their feet.

Cameron held Joey in his arm as they stayed close behind to avoid the fight.

“Hold onto me real tight, okay?” Cameron told the boy as he stared the boy in the eyes. “Grant’s going to lead us out of here. You don’t have to be scared.”

Joey paused to think about who he had waiting for him out in the real world. By now his mother and brother had forgotten about him, and his father? He probably could care less about Joey’s fate. He proved that the night Joey lost his ability to speak.

Cody sat on his cot, staring at the ceiling when he heard alarms going off. He sat up and looked across the way at Grover’s cell.

“What the hell is that?” Cody asked.

“Fire alarm,” Grover shrugged as he stopped running across the cell. “Used to set them off all the time before I got my powers. It’ll be fine, they won’t let anything happen to their precious weapons. You know, us.”

“They took Grant and the others. Think they’re okay?” Cody asked with a slight nervousness in his voice.

“Oh, come on, they’re not going to let something to their star player,” Grover laughed. “Worried about him?”

“Hell no,” Cody replied as he took a deep breath. “I don’t care about those guys, I just don’t want them to start making us miserable because Emerson pissed them off.”

“What the hell is going on out there?” Director Black asked as he heard the sirens blaring.

“Emerson and three prisoners have escaped,” a guard said. “They’re heading this way, probably to get their friends.”

“I want every guard on alert, take those brats down, whatever it takes. Kill Emerson to set an example for the rest of them if it comes down to it,” Black told them. “Move the remaining prisoners to the safe room underground until we get this contained. And bring me Emerson’s brother before they get to him. We’ll put an end to this rebellion.”

Mikey shot a stream of fire down the hallway, forcing the coming guards to get out of the way. The most power Mikey put into it, the more the fire spread across his body, engulfing his shirt in fire. When he stopped the fire and it retracted into his body, his shirt had turned to ash around him.  Mikey felt the cold hitting his skin as he looked down at his half-naked body.

“I’m glad I didn’t use too much fire or I’d have nothing left on me,” Mikey said. “I could really use that costume they made. If I go full fireball on the bad guys, I’ll be fighting with my little Vulcan hanging out.”

“Didn’t want to picture that! Alright, we free the others then we’ll double back for Trevor,” Grant told the group. “Cam, you protect Joey.”

“On it,” Cam said as he looked at Joey. “Unless you got a better idea, kid.”

“Grant, what are we going to do if we get outside? We need clothes and shoes, all we have are these rags they put us in,” Mikey told him as he looked at his bare chest. “Most of what’s left, anyway.”

“First world problems, kid, we’ll worry about those things later,” Grant promised. “Right now we need to focus on actually escaping.”

“What about our costumes?” Mikey asked him. “They should be in the training area.”

“When we go to get Trevor we’ll get them,” Grant promised as he heard a stomping noise as a dozen more guards came rushing around the corner. Grant’s hands started glowing with energy as Grant and Mikey jumped right into the fight, punching guards left and right.

Joey looked scared as he started to think about something he heard his father had said about him. He had overheard his parents talking while they thought he was asleep one night shortly after his ‘accident’.

“The boy’s too sensitive, he’s not a fighter. He’d be torn apart in a real fight.”

“Our boy is special, he’s not like you or his brother!”

“No. No, he’s not. I still care about him, but he’ll never be a strong man. He’ll always require others to do the fighting for him. He’ll always be weak.”

“Joey?” Cam asked as he saw Grant and Mikey overwhelmed. “Snap out of it, kid, we have to find a place for you to—“

Contact.

The guards continued coming as Grant and Mikey were backed into a corner. “There’s too many!”

A blast of energy started hitting the guards from behind, sending the guards flying back as Grant noticed Cam standing there with one hand glowing and the other one on fire.

“I didn’t know you could use two powers at once!” Grant said in amazement.

“Neither did Cam,” Cameron replied as he kept blasting soldiers.

“Where’s Joey?” Grant asked as Cam gave a thumbs up. “You mean he’s inside you? Wait, that sounded wrong. But seriously, that’s one way to help out. Keep blasting! We’re getting through!”

“These hallways are too narrow, it’ll take forever to go through all these guys!” Mikey shouted.

“Then let’s go bowling,” Grant said he focused his energy. “Get ready to go for it!”

Creating a large ball of energy, Grant tossed it, knocking down most of the guards in the hallway. The boys started running as the soldiers recovered.

“We’re almost there!” Grant said as they passed a cell he hadn’t noticed before. It was several hallways away from the regular cells where the others had been kept. “What’s this? I’ve never been in this part of the wing before. Who’s in there?”

There was a pyramid-shaped energy beam shining down on something that looked like an invisible human shape. It looked like a child, but Grant couldn’t make it out.

“It’s an extra pair of hands! Open it and find out!” Mikey shouted as Grant turned off the security grid around the cell. The pyramid disappeared as whatever was inside stopped showing.

“This one is set up differently, it’s like an energy field,” Grant said as he looked inside the door. “Hello? Anyone in here? It’s empty!”

“That seems kind of dumb,” Mikey told him as he grabbed Grant’s arm. “Let’s go, the others are a few halls that way!”

The boys got to the other cells and found them abandoned.

“Anita? Grover?” Grant shouted as he looked at the empty rooms. “Walker? Where the hell is everyone? Where’s Cody? I mean— I mean, where are all of our friends?”

“They’re gone,” Mikey said as Cam gave the thumbs down as he found the same. “Do you think they pulled everyone out before we could get here?”

“Trevor!” Grant realized as he started running. “They’re going after Trevor next! We need to take down Black and tell him to back off of everyone!”

As Grant ran toward Director Black’s office, his hands started charging with energy as his anger reached the boiling point. “If they’ve hurt my little brother—“

The door to Black’s office exploded in a mass of wood chips, plastic, and glass as Grant stepped in to find Black holding a gun to Trevor’s head. For the first time in a long time, Trevor showed emotion on his face as Grant arrived to rescue him.

“It’s about time you arrived,” Black told them with a sinister smile. “Trevor and I have been having a little talk about you.”

“You’re a dead man,” Grant told him through gritted teeth. “Let him go and I’ll only beat you into a coma.”

“Nice try,” Black laughed as he clicked the safety. “Now, all of you are going to go back to your cells nice and slowly, and maybe little Trevor here won’t have his brains splattered.”

Grant lowered his hands in defeat, seeing no other option. He wouldn’t leave with Trevor under any circumstance. “Fine, I surrender. Just don’t hurt him. It’s going to be okay, Trevor. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“That’s a good boy,” Black told him. “Now, go back to your cells until I think of a suitable punishment.”

Trevor remained silent as the two guards that had threatened Grant the previous day burst in with their guns drawn.

“Don’t worry, boss, we got him!” the first guard shouted as he fired.

“No, you idiots!” Black shouted as the gun went off. The bullet flew past Grant, but before he could do anything to stop the bullet, it hit Trevor in the chest. The boy flew back as he hit the ground with Black staring at his bargaining chip. “What did you morons do!?”

Mikey and Cameron were already on the two guards, punching them unconscious as Joey stood near Grant, holding his hand to try to calm him.

“Trevor?” Grant asked softly as he stared at the unmoving boy. His lips were shaking as he approached his baby brother, the person he’d sworn to protect from birth. The person he’d die without hesitation for, the person whose life mattered more than his own. He could feel the chemical fusion in his body start building toward a large detonation. “Trevor?”

“Oh, shit,” Mikey said as he looked at Cam and Joey as he knew enough about Grant during training sessions to know what was coming. “We’d better run, it’s about to get real ugly in here.”

Grant’s anger started building as Mikey and Cameron ran out of the room, knowing what would happen when he got angry enough. All of Grant’s rage had built beyond all reason into an uncontrollable storm as he started screaming in rage. Black pushed a button and escaped into the wall while dragging Trevor behind him, closing it off as the two soldiers barely squeezed through.  Grant’s body exploded into a large biochemical ball, taking the roof, the office, and the closest few hallways with him. Cameron, Joey, and Mikey got out of the way just in time for the explosion to engulf everything in its path.

When the smoke cleared, there was rubble everywhere. The roof had caved in and the night sky had been revealed as Cam, Mikey, and Joey returned to the office and started digging for Grant.

“Grant?” Mikey asked as they found him underneath a large slab. “Talk to us!”

“Hang on,” Cam told them as he spit on his hands and used Grant’s strength to lift the slab, finally finding Grant laying among the rubble, his ragged clothes now barely hanging off of him.

“Leave me,” Grant pleaded with tears in his eyes as he whispered. “I don’t want to go. Leave me here to die. I deserve it.”

“We gotta go, Grant,” Cam pleaded as he helped his friend up. ‘Reinforcements will be here soon and we’ll be screwed again. You have to lead us to freedom, dude. You’re the only one who can.”

“The others,” Grant whispered in defeat.

“They have to be alive,” Mikey told him. “We’ll run now, get help, and come back for them. I’m setting fire to this place as I go so they can’t lobotomize our friends. We’ll come back with reinforcements of our own.”

“Trevor,” Grant said as he looked behind him. “He’s dead.”

“Which is why you need to survive, Cody’s too much of an asshole to die like this,” Cam told him as he held Grant’s face close to his. “Cody’s alive, and we have to save him and the other kids like him. Every night for four years you promised me that I’d get to see the sun and that you’d be right by my side when it happened. I’m not leaving this place without the guy that kept my hopes alive. Let’s go!”

The quartet walked out as Grant punched the wall in anger as they went. As they headed out, Mikey made sure to set fire to the wing where they were set up to perform lobotomies. As it exploded behind them, Cam put his arm around Grant’s shoulder to comfort him.

“We’ll avenge him, Grant,” Cameron promised as he looked at his depressed friend. “It’s time we started taking care of you, too. We’re in this together. You’re not alone.”

The boys returned to the training area to unlock their costumes when they saw the cases were empty.

“They took everything,” Mikey said in a barely a whisper as he saw the empty case where his black and gold and costume should have been. “They knew we’d come for them.”

“Then we’ll get new costumes,” Grant said. “We’ll come back with something even better and we’ll kick their asses.”

“The fire’s spreading, we’d better get out of here,” Mikey told them. “All the soldiers retreated, they’re probably going to regroup and attack us soon if we don’t move.”

“Then let’s roll,” Grant told them. “Be prepared to attack anyone that comes at us until we’re safe.”

It was early morning as the boys found their way out of the compound while the building burned around them. The sun had started to shine as Cameron started smiling as his eyes adjusted to the outside world. A small smiled crossed his lips as he started shedding tears.

“The sun…It’s beautiful,”

“I told you you’d see it someday,” Grant said sadly as he held Cam close. “Let’s get the hell away from here and make a plan. Let’s find a sewer entrance, we’ll go a few miles in the sewer in case they’re already searching for us. Mikey, weld the sewer entrance shut behind us so they can’t follow.”

As they started walking, someone was watching them from not too far away. He started floating after them, wondering if these friends were trustworthy enough.

A mile below the destroyed compound, the remaining captured children sat in cages still wearing their collars. Black stared at a cell where a plant sat in the corner with a sunlamp shining on it to keep it healthy.

“See what you can do with this,” Black said as he tossed Trevor’s still living body to someone after stepping off of the elevator. “Just because Emerson and a few kids escaped doesn’t mean this is over. I will have them retrieved. Send every agent we have after them, but make sure they don’t cause a scene. The others, bring back alive. I want Emerson left alive just long enough for me to slowly murder with my own two hands. We still have eight kids left, we’re still ahead.”

“Seven kids, sir,” a guard told him. “I saw them release that ghost kid earlier.”

“They let him loose? Everyone, get out there and find those kids NOW!” Black shouted. “If they make it to someone like Superman, we’re dead!”

“Okay, here’s the other shoe for you, Mikey,” Cam said as he stood up in the donation bin wearing a pink t-shirt a while later. The group had made it to the nearest town after walking miles through the sewer to the nearest town. The first goal was to find decent clothes and shoes to blend into the crowd. The others were putting on the clothes that had been tossed out to them, where a lot of old fashions had been thrown away. As long as they fit, no one complained. “I think we might be good for outfits now. Except for Joey, we couldn’t find shoes small enough for him.”

“We’ll find him something if we run across another bin,” Grant said with Joey on his shoulders, wearing blue jeans and a Flash t-shirt. “He can ride on my shoulders so he doesn’t have to walk around barefoot for now. Now we just have to focus on getting some food.”

“And a place to sleep,” Mikey told him as he pulled the other high top on as he hopped along. “We have nothing but the clothes on our backs currently. I’d love to sleep in a nice soft bed for once.”

“Wait, you mean I get to wear shoes and I can sleep on something besides the floor?” Cameron asked with a smile. “I think I’m going to like this world. I can’t wait to try this ‘underwear’ thing you’re making a big deal out of.”

“Wait until you find out what a Breakfast Baconator tastes like,” Mikey said as he slapped Cameron on the back. “Speaking of which, when will we be able to afford overpriced breakfast sandwiches, by the way? We need to address our cash flow issue.”

“I’ll find a way to get us through,” Grant told them as they made sure the coast was clear as they started walking. “I’ll sell blood, I’ll do part-time jobs, I’ll— I’ll strip if it comes down to it for money—,” Grant said with a heavy sigh.

“Please God, no,” Mikey said as he tried to get that image out of his head. “I don’t want to imagine you naked,” Mikey said as he paused. “And there’s the image burning itself into my brain right now, I’ll be dealing with that for eternity. Thank you for that.”

“What’s wrong with thinking of Grant naked?” Cameron asked. “It’s just the human body, there’s nothing wrong with that. We’ve all got one, I think. I don’t know very much about human anatomy.”

“Please stop thinking of me being naked,” Grant told the group. “I promised I’d take care of you guys and I mean it. We’re going to be okay. I lost Trevor, I won’t lose any of you.”

As they started walking away, a teenage boy appeared in front of them from out of thin air. He had sandy brown hair and wore a blue Superman t-shirt under a brown aviator jacket.

“Maybe I can help!”

TO BE CONTINUED…