The news media got it so wrong!
According to the news reports, a person dressed in a silver-gray suit of some kind easily disarmed and subdued the six men inside the bank with no loss of life to anyone, and no harm to the hostages then vanished.
That was so not the case!
I felt like a bumbling idiot, and I am not sure I looked any different.
Once the suit was active, I climbed the nearest building by the side facing the alley so as to hide myself as much as possible from anyone who might be around. Once on the roof, I moved over toward the edge, crouched down, and looked at the bank, which was now several blocks away. My eyesight locked in again and I could see the masked men moving about inside; five of them watching windows and exits, while one was talking on a phone. The one on the phone was disturbingly calm, while the negotiator outside was seeming to be more and more worked up and concerned.
*Your hearing should allow you to hear what they are saying, if you can sort it out from all the other noise around us.*
Following Becky's advice, I focused on the two men talking and thought about trying to hear them. This was not something I had practiced before, but I figured it was just a matter of thinking about what I wanted to do.
Yeah, not quite.
My ears were suddenly pummeled with the loudest sounds I had ever heard! I staggered backward clutching at my head, before dropping to my knees as I all but clawed at my ears to make the horrific cacophony of sounds attacking my ears stop. I heard voices, so many voices, car engines, horns honking, phones ringing and vibrating, birds squaking, all as if I was right next to everything and they were yelling at the top of their lungs. It was one of the worst hearing experiences ever!
*Focus! Filter out the other sounds! Focus on who you want to hear!* Becky's voice sliced through the riot of sound.
Focus, had to focus.
Focus.
I dragged myself back to the edge of the building and looked down toward the negotiator. I focused on him, wanting only to hear his voice, his sound. I only wanted to hear him, only him.
Slowly, over what felt like an eternity but was probably only a minute or two, the assault on my ears faded, though my ears still rang, and I started to hear the negotiator over everything else. Once I knew it was him, it became easier to filter out everything else and just hear his voice.
"....yes, I know what your demands are, but you have to understand that what you want takes time ....."
"You have 10 minutes, Mr. Negotiator. 10 minutes. If our demands are not met in one hour, we will kill everyone. After all, you and I both know you are waiting for a SWAT team to arrive and be ready to attack us. We will not be stopped. The jihad has come!"
The voice had an accent I could not place. It was like the person was trying to sound like they had an Arabic accent, but they were not doing it right. As a teacher, I had had several students from the Middle East, and I knew what an accent from that part of the world sounded like. What this guy was doing was not it.
Question for another time.
10 minutes was not much time!
"We have to move now," I muttered to my internal companion.
*Are you sure about this, Jonathan?*
I nodded my head.
"You gave me all of these abilities, Becky. How can I sit by if you gave me the power to stop something like this?"
*What I provided for you was for OUR protection, not for you to play hero and draw attention to us!*
I squatted down behind the crenel of the roof, "Really? Because you said you value life, and then you gave me what amounts to superpowers. What did you think would happen? You said you did a check of my mental state. If you did that, you knew, you KNEW doing what you did to me would result in this happening at some point, but you did it anyway. Why?"
Becky did not respond.
"Okay, so I guess we talk about this later. Right now, are you going to help me save those people?"
*Of course!* Becky actually sounded offended that I would even ask such a thing.
"Then let's do this."
I crouched down, getting ready to jump.
"Boost!"
I launched into the air, the electromagnetic burst from the suit causing me to jump the several blocks to the bank with ease. I sailed through the air, not noticing the helicopter I shot past, or the way people looked up as I shot overhead. I was focused on the roof of the building, hoping I could land quietly.....
....and I burst through the roof.
Yeah, my feet hit the wood, and my overly dense body broke through it like it was paper. I broke through the roof, the rafters, and slammed down on the bank floor in a shower of wood, dusty, and wires, with enough force to dent the floor and shatter the linoleum. I hit so hard, I stumbled and nearly fell on my face!
For a moment nobody moved. There was a stunned silence as both the hostages and the thugs stared at me in shocked wonder.
I took a moment to shake my head and clear it from the stars that danced there, then looked up at the hole in the roof and the bits that were still raining down. I could see the sky through the damage, and part of me thought, "Did I do that?"
Ooops.
"Who are you?!!!" Asked the phone call guy.
"Alter my voice." I said to Becky, under my breath.
*Done.*
"Drop your weapons." My voice sounded deep and robotic as I tried to stand up straight and look imposing. I have no idea if I pulled it off, everyone was still so stunned I could not tell if they saw me as imposing or ridiculous.
"Stop your actions and you will not be harmed."
Their response was to level their guns and start to shoot at me.
Seeing the guns move, I did the most natural thing in the world.
I gave a shout and ducked around a wall!
*What are you doing?!!* Becky almost shouted in my head.
"THey have guns! Real guns!"
*You knew that!*
"Yeah, but now they are pointing at me! They have guns! Weapons!"
*Jonathan, YOU ARE A WEAPON!!*
I was?
Oh yeah, I was!
Man, was I stupid.
Becky chose not to comment.
Stepping back around the corner, I tried to appear confident, even though I was shaking in my boots. Knowing what I could do, as a theory, was cool. Actually doing it was turning out to be a very, very different experience!
The moment I came around the wall, they started shooting at me. I nearly ran back behind the wall, but focused on the fact that I really was a weapon. I was a weapon. A weapon.
I let my instinct and training take over, tried to act and not think.
I activated the electromagnetic shield as the bullets raced toward me, trying not to wince or cringe as the deadly fusillade ripped through the air toward me.
Keep it up.
Keep it up, Jonathan, I told myself.
They stopped.
They stopped!
Each bullet froze its motion and hung in the air a good two feet from me, held in place by my magnetic shield. The bullets kept coming for a few moments until they ran out of them, but each and everyone hit the wall before me and halted mid-flight. By time they ran out of bullets, I think I had well over a hundred bullets floating around me, and everybody was gaping at me even more.
Again, silence reigned. I swear I heard crickets chirping. No one moved. No one spoke. They all just stared at me and the bullets hanging in the air before me.
I couldn't resist.
I reached out and plucked a bullet from the air, held it in my fingers, and looked at it for a moment.
"Cool."
"Get him!"
That was Phone Guy, ordering his men to attack me.
Really?!! I had just stopped their bullets in mid-air, and they wanted to attack me?! Who were these guys!??
"Do not do this," I said in the voice Becky had given me. "I do not want to hurt you."
Did they listen?
Nope.
I had three guys rushing me while two stayed back to reload their weapons.
I dropped the shield, the bullets clattering to the ground in a sound not unlike rain hitting a roof. Then dropped into a combat stance. Again, I was trying to let my training take over.
Don't think, just react. Move like I had been taught.
I regret what happened next to this day.
The first guy came in with a big knife in his hand. He lashed out with what looked like a really skilled move. But to my heightened reflexes, he moved so slow! I had plenty of time to chop down on his forearm, then shift my chopping hand to a palm-heel strike against his chest. I thought that would put him out of the fight.
I was right, but not in the way I had wanted.
I meant to just disarm him.
But my chop shattered his forearm, and my palm strike broke several ribs as it threw him back an easy 10 feet and smashed him into the wall. His eyes fluttered for a moment as he slid to the ground and passed out.
I was stunned.
I had almost killed him!
I felt the others hitting me but, I was so stunned by what I had just done I did not dodge or block the blows. I was staggered by a fist to my face, not that it hurt, but the impact still knocked me back as I was not standing properly. I stumbled back, nearly falling over, and that was all they needed.
They were on me like lions on a gazelle. They pounded me with their fists, slashed at me wiht their knives, as I instinctively put my arms up in a boxing defense. They didn't hurt me, between the armour and my own skin density, it barely felt like anything. But I was in such shock by what I had just done, I just stood there, letting them hit me, as I stared at the man I had nearly killed.
I did not mean to do that!
I had nearly taken somebody's life!
What was I doing?!
*Jonathan!*
Becky's voice in my head snapped me out of my thoughts and helped me focus on the fight.
I had to save the hostages!
I quickly moved to disable the others hitting me. But this time I tried to control my punches and kicks. I blocked their strikes, then struck back; resulting in a broken leg for one before I knocked him out, and several broken ribs to his companion before he too was out of the fight. Still more damage than I wanted, but at least I had not killed anyone yet.
Three down, and three to go.
The two gunmen had loaded their weapons and were turning them on me again.
*Not this time.* Becky spoke in my head. *Use the magnetism, Jonathan.*
Magnetism? Oh! Right! I could use magnetism!
I reached out with my mind, focusing on the weapons in their hands. As I did so, my magnetic ability bent their guns in half, rendering them useless. Each thug looked down at his now useless piece of metal in his hands with clear surprise as they tried to figure out how I had done that without touching the guns.
Then, they decided to rush me like their cohorts had done.
I did not trust myself not to damage them more than I had their companions, so I tried something I hoped would stop them without breaking anything.
I thrust my hands out, pointing one at each thug, and thought "pulse." As I did, there was a ripple in the air, a rush of almost invisible motion, that shot toward them and struck each full o in the chest. They were both thrown back against the wall to strike it with enough force that the air in their lungs was forced out in a gasping breath, all the air in them forced from their lungs from the impact. As they fell to the ground, gagging for breath, I turned to the last guy.
"Surrender."
Did he surrender?
Of course not.
Idiot.
He dropped the phone, rushing at me with a knife in his hands, moving it in patterns that, even to my heightened senses was moving fast. I tried to pull the blade from his hands, but it did not respond to magnetism at all. I was so surprised by this, he actually hit me with a slash, the edge skittering over my chest before I could move away from the blow.
How could I not pull his knife from his hand?
He came in again, his eyes glittering within the mask. As he did, I saw the dull whiteness of the blade he had and realized it was not made of steel. It was a ceramic blade.
That explained why I could not disarm him.
Now I really had to fight him!
"We will not be stopped. The Helter Skelter will happen!" He snarled as he attacked.
This guy was crazy!
But why was he only attacking me with his right and not his left?
I dodged his attacks, blocked them, as I tried to figure out what was going on. This guy knew how to fight, that much was clear, so why not use both hands? His attacks would have been more effective if he had. So, why was he......
....oh no.
I focused on his left hand, and saw it there, a small red button on a detonator of some kind.
No...no...nononono......!!!
I looked over at the hostages, and saw what the police had missed, what I had missed, before.
In their midst was a bomb, a stack of four sticks of what looked like C-4 to my untrained eyes, with wires coming out of it, a deadly looking mass of destruction that would reduce the hostages to nothing.
And I was fighting the guy with the detonator!
"Becky! Can you do something about that detanor?!!" I mentally asked.
*If I block the signal, the bomb could still go off. We do not have time for me to take a closer look and see what system it uses!* Becky sounded as freaked out as I did!
Not good!
Phone guy lashed out with his blade and, this time I caught his wrist. Looking into his eyes as he stared at me in shock, I squeezed his wrist until I felt the bones start to crack.
"Drop the detonator, or I break your wrist."
"Helter Skelter!" He smiled, his thumb moving to the detonator.
His wrist snapped like kindling as he screamed in pain. My fist sent him back into a chair, which broke under him, and he sprawled unconscious on the floor.
*I have slowed the signal, Jonathan! But you need to move!!!* Becky nearly shouted in my ear.
Move I did. I rushed over to the hostages and, without any explanation, grabbed the bomb in my hands, knelt down into a squat and, as I started to leap upward, I thought, "BOOST!!!"
I made another hole in the ceiling and roof as I burst through and up into the air.
My plan had been to get the bomb up high and then toss it higher.
I understand why they say God laughs at the plans of men.
I was a good 150 feet up, and getting ready to toss the bomb, when I heard the worst words ever from Becky come into my head.
*Oh no.*
"WHA.......??!!!!!"
The bomb went off in my hands.
There was a flash of light, a roar of sound that left my ears ringing, and the next thing I knew, I was flying through the air horizontally to the earth on a descending plane as my arms and legs flailed about me. The world was spinning, my ears were ringing, my sight was blinded by the blast, and my body felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck doing Mach 3!
OOWWWWW!!!!!!
I felt myself slam into something, then open space, then a slamming into something, then open space....
slam....
open space....
slam....
open space.....!!!
Then, I hit ground with a thud that shook my whole body and made my bones rattle.
My head was still spinning as I looked around in a daze.
I was in what looked like a city park, at the end of a trench an easy 20 feet long, with me at the deep end of it. I looked around and, thankfully, I did not see anyone looking at me. The area was empty as near as I could tell. Thank you for small miracles!
Looking up as my head started to clear, I saw a building across the street and groaned.
A big hole was in the side, a hole large enough I could see through it at an angle to the next floor, and the next, and the next, and the next, until I saw open sky at the other end.
Oh man.....!!!!
*That went better than I expected.* Becky said, sounding rather pleased with himself.
Better than he expected?!!
*Yes, much better. I was concerned you would actually kill someone. But, quite to my surprise, you did not kill a single person! For your first heroic act, I do not count the shark encounter as one, I think you did quite well!*
Why did he have to sound so cheerful, when I ached everywhere on my body. I had aches in places I did not even know I could ache!
*We should leave, before anyone sees us.*
"Ya think?!!" I almost snarled, but managed to just sound sarcastic.
*Yes, I do. Now get up, and let's go.*
Groaning, I heaved to my feet and, with a boost from Becky, leapt into the air toward home, a long hot shower, a bunch of Advil, and laying down in bed.
As I did so, I wondered what the man had meant by "Helter Skelter will happen."
The phrase bugged me, made me feel a chill in my spine, but I was not sure why.
Where had I heard that term before....?