Blank Slate | ONC2023

Chapter Seven: Are You Drowning Yet?

A hiss slides through my teeth and I clench my fingers in my pockets, the scrape on my shoulder stinging as David wraps a self-sterilizing FieldAid bandage around it. When I hadn't answered his question, he went straight to tending to my scrapes. In case they're poisoned, he said. Cyclone is known for dirty tricks.

Tricks. Lies. All villain things. Did I do that too? Did I hide poison on me, ready to use on innocent citizens? Somehow, I don't think so. Sighing, I lean back, coaxing my breaths to slow and letting my eyes stray to Citizen again.

His face is hard as he stretches out a hand to the components of the three-edged knife. The pieces twitch, tremble, then start to rise off the ground, slowly reverting into the knife they used to be.

It stops a few feet off the ground where Cyclone held it over my stomach not too long ago, hanging motionless in the air as if frozen in time. Citizen lets out a breath and drops his hand. Immediately, the knife disintegrates and crashes to the ground, lumps of ore once more.

My heart freezes. So this is Citizen's power?

"Blank Slate was here," Citizen says, tone sharp. He spins on his heel, facing me and David. "He still could be around here. David, get Denizen out of here."

David straightens, taking my arm and pulling me up. "Yes sir."

As David leads me away, I look over my shoulder. Citizen has his back to us, hand outstretched again, and Cyclone's scarf is reforming itself from a puddle of oil. He stands as stiff as a stone pillar, tension radiating off of him.

And for some reason, something in my chest twists. Perhaps it's because Citizen's immediate concern is my safety when I am the enemy. Perhaps it is the way he stands so stiff as if he would be consumed by an ache inside of him if he relaxed even a centimeter.

Or perhaps it's nothing at all; my chest is only hurting because Cyclone knelt on it. Whatever the reason, I don't get to ruminate on it as David ushers me into a sleek, black hovercar.

The interior is a pleasant mix of gray and black with white accents and plenty of open spaces for holograms, a few of which flick on as David starts the hovercar. He pulls out and up, rising far past the normal air lanes to the hero lanes set near the tops of the buildings, and shoots us off so fast I am pressed back into my seat.

Clenching my teeth and curling my fingers into fists in my pockets, I cast my gaze out the tinted window, watching sparkling skyscraper after skyscraper blur past. The low hum of the hovercar fills the silence between us, crashing against the static in my head.

David clears his throat. "What happened?"

I swallow, inwardly wincing. What am I going to tell them? Certainly not the truth, but it has to be believable. "The best lies are versions of the truth." Sliding my eyes to the side, I peek at David. His gaze is focused on the holograms around him as he turns on the auto-pilot.

"Cyclone kidnapped me."

His head snaps around to me so fast I hardly have time to blink. "From your home? When?"

"No, no. I was...taking a walk." David's eyes narrow and I hurriedly plow on, ice stabbing my fingers. "I couldn't stay in my apartment all the time! I was going stir crazy. And it wasn't that far..."

Blatant lie, and he knew it. I was blocks away from my apartment, nearing downtown where the thugs hung out. "...Cyclone was going to kill me, but then Blank Slate appeared and told him to back off."

David's eyebrows rose like birds on a sea breeze.

"You're just as full of lies as—" I look away, biting the inside of my cheek. The pain mingles with the guilt pricking my ribs, drowning out Cyclone's harsh voice. "He said I was his quarry." Was that a Blank Slate thing to say?