Bolt

7| The Beginning Of The End.

After leaving Gators, we grabbed something to eat, stopping at a food truck outside a gas station and mini supermarket. I chose where to sit while Officer Diana got the food. Hating the smell of gas, I picked the furthest table from the station.

I thought about what Shiver had said. He knew me. Or rather, who I used to be. But how was that possible? I was me. I had always been. "He's trying to mess with my mind."

In Tombstone, questions only bred more questions. If I wanted to know what Shiver meant, I had to talk to him again. But he answered questions with more questions, and I wasn't in the mood for that.

Phase 2 at 6 a.m. I looked at the sky, knowing the sun would rise soon. With that, Phase 2: Entrapment would start. Whatever that meant.

Officer Diana came to the table with two full plates in her hands and two bottles in her pockets.

"There you go." She placed one plate in front of me and the other before herself. Each had goat meat, bacon, grilled cheese, hot dog, fried eggs, white rice, vegetables—Yuck!—and tender baked apples stuffed with roasted pork.

She wants to kill me. Her plate had the same food, but twice of everything. The officer ate using her hands instead of a fork or spoon. She's an animal. At least she seemed more relaxed now than back at my apartment.

The officer handed me a bottle. "Nonalcoholic?" I asked.

"Of course."

I opened and drank it, grimacing. It was too sweet. Diabetes was already a big problem among black people in Tombstone. I had no plans of joining that statistic.

I placed the bottle on the table and vowed to never touch it. "I spoke to Shiver after you walked out." She hadn't asked me about it even when we were in the car. But I felt obliged to tell her.

"What did he say?" she asked.

I took a bite of the bacon. "You're not mad he spoke to me, and not you?"

"If he was going to feel comfortable talking to anyone, it was going to be a civilian like you."

"When you put it like that, it feels like you took me to Gators knowing he'd say something to me."

Officer Diana shrugged.

"He said Phase 1 was complete. It had something to do with infiltration."

"What does that mean?"

"Infiltration means entering or gaining access to an organization or place surreptitiously, especially in order to gain secret information or cause damage." Now that I've said it, it makes sense. Shiver works at Gators. Whoever he's working with must have wanted something from there. But what?

"I know what infiltration means." She sighed. "What else did he say?"

"He said Phase 2 will begin at 6 a.m. It has something to do with entrapment."

She glanced at her watch. "Ten minutes to 6 a.m. Let's see what happens. Anything else?"

Should I tell her Shiver knew about me? Nah, that's a problem Future Me will deal with. "No. You returned before he said anything else."

"I see." She prodded at her teeth with her tongue and nails, making annoying noises. I couldn't see how Mariah lived with her every day.

"Are we really going to wait here until 6 a.m.?" I asked.

"Yes." She stared at two men seated a few tables away from us, sharing a plate of spaghetti. I found it nauseating while the officer seemed enchanted. She and Mariah must have done dumb shit like that many times.

"It's not like we both have jobs or anything," I said, taking her focus away from the couple.

She stood and picked up her plate. "It's only until 6 a.m." She looked at my plate, which still had food on it. "Are you going to finish that?"

"Hopefully."

I watched her dump her paper plate in the recycle bin before entering the supermarket. After I finished my food, I leaned back in my seat—my hands behind my head—sighed in relief after the day I had, and closed my eyes.

The sound of people screaming woke me up; they came from the officer's location. Intrigued, I rushed to the supermarket, finding Officer Diana questioning the cashier with feminine hygiene products in her arms.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Look." Officer Diana pointed at the TV on the counter, showing the news. It was ten minutes past 6 a.m. Something seemed to have happened. The worst scenarios were terrorism, coup d'état, war. Anything to explain Phase 2.

And then I saw it.

We all did.

It was unmissable.

"What you're seeing here, ladies and gentleman, is some kind of dome," the news reporter said. The video showed something translucent cupping over the city. "No one knows where it came from, or what caused it. And there's something else." The reporter pressed his earpiece and listened to the additional information he received. When he got all of it, he continued. "Ladies and gentleman, this is breaking news indeed. I've been told by trusted sources that ever since this dome appeared over our city, every peculiar has lost their powers. I repeat, every peculiar has lost their powers."

The video cut to some decently known peculiars trying to break the dome by punching it, failing hard.

They showed a hero named Rapid Flames trying to ignite his body with fire, but he couldn't. Rush failed to run as fast as usual. It went on for another twenty minutes, showing different heroes and villains unable to use their powers.

Officer Diana grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. "This is bad," she said. "You said Phase 1 was...?"

"Infiltration."

"Infiltration," she repeated. "That means whoever Shiver is working with, is in Tombstone. What was Phase 2?"

"Entrapment."

"Of course, the dome. No one can leave or come into the city. Anything else?"

"Phase 3."

"You never told me there was a Phase 3." She frowned. "And what's that?"

"Purge."

She nodded. "Everything makes sense. Phase 1 was coming into the city undetected. Phase 2 was making sure no one can leave or enter. And Phase 3 is killing everyone without interference from the heroes."

"If superheroes don't have powers, doesn't that mean Shiver and whoever he's working with doesn't have them too?"

"Not if they made the dome so that they could still use their powers."

"Then that means—"

"We're all dead."

Shit.