Supreme Leader Alexzander Hayward sat silently at his desk, waiting for the good news to reach his office. He sat silently, finishing a report that could mean the turning point in the war. Hevastwa had control of the war for about as long as he'd been in office, and that was going on two decades. It was time that changed.
But how? With Hevastwan forces making their way into Riland, what was the best way to drive them out? He tried doubling the number of troops in certain cities where Hevastwa was trying to create bases but this resulted in little success. It was only delaying the inevitable. Riland was hanging by a thread.
The truth was that Hayward struck first. After several years of political disagreements, war has ravaged both countries which have since led to hundreds of thousands of combined casualties that even Hayward agreed needed to stop. For over fifteen years, the Rilandish-Hevastwan war has affected the citizens of both countries tremendously.
Little did Hevastwa know, Hayward had an ace up his sleeve. It was against common law to experiment on humans, much less babies, but what was expected of him when his back was against the wall?
He'd done a good enough job of containing their forces until Project Next Gen entered its next phase. The subjects were now old and mature enough to have uncovered and manifested their powers to their basic level. What was next, you may ask?
That would be uncovered very shortly.
After printing his signature on the latest document, he rose from his seat and stepped out of the office. The staff that passed him down the hallway bowed respectfully, but Hayward never acknowledged them or their nervous faces. He kept walking until opening the door to the next corridor.
A while later, he entered a small cafeteria, where a number of his soldiers were finishing breakfast. They were engaged in casual talk before one of them noticed his presence. The six of them sprung to their feet and stood at attention.
"At ease."
The soldiers relaxed, but still awaited the Supreme Leader's orders. He scanned them for any possible miscue but had yet to find one. Hayward looked at the second soldier's name sewn on his uniform.
"Horvat, explain to me the main mission of Project Next Gen."
"Yes, sir!" Horvat exclaimed with a fearful expression. "Project Next Gen is designed to use our newest weapons of war against the forces of Hevastwa, sir!"
Satisfied with his answer, he moved on to the next soldier. "Pavlin, what is your role in the next phase of Project Next Gen?"
Pavlin stuttered over his words, progressively losing his composure. "Y-Yes, sir! My role is to...monitor the main grounds, sir!"
Hayward stopped and turned to face the soldier, whose legs were quivering with fear. "I don't believe you're being honest with me, Pavlin. Are you sure that's what your role is? Now's your chance to be sincere."
"I-I don't know, sir! I haven't looked at the itinerary yet, sir!"
The Supreme Leader took two steps forward to get right in Pavlin's face and spoke low and threateningly. "If I recall correctly, General Murray released the itineraries at 2000 hours last night. It is almost 0900 and you're telling me you haven't even bothered to look at it?"
Pavlin was speechless. His body was shaking in fear. Hayward smiled maniacally and stepped away, pacing in front of the soldiers. "Tell me, soldiers. Do you have families?"
They all nodded. He continued. "Do all of you have wives? Perhaps children?"
Five of them nodded, including Pavlin. Hayward stepped forward again and slowly raised a pistol to his forehead. Pavlin froze in fear along with the rest of the soldiers. "P-Please..."
Hayward clicked his tongue and shook his head. "You dug yourself quite the hole. Please, sir."
Pavlin whimpered, and Hayward pressed the gun firmly against his forehead to where his chin lifted. "I-I'm, s-sorry, sir. I'll do b-better."
"It's too late for that. Don't worry, I'll tell your wife and kids you died in combat."
"But I'm not a field-"
POP!
Pavlin's head exploded, blood splattering everywhere. His body fell lifelessly backward and landed with a heavy thud. Hayward sighed and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the blood off the tip of the gun. He noticed there was more blood on his clothes, and he cursed under his breath.
"Why do people have so much blood? It's such a nuisance to clean, especially on delicate clothes."
None of his soldiers responded. They stood still and tried to hide their fearful expression after seeing Pavlin drop dead. Hayward laughed deeply. "Oh, my. The look on your faces fills me with so much joy! Are you sad, Horvat? Are you scared, Hilton? Are any of you angry?"
He securely pressed the blood-stained gun under Hilton's chin, taking him by surprise. He instinctively staggered backward and fell onto his rear in the seat of the cafeteria table. After realizing where he was, Hilton looked at the Supreme Leader with a look of fear and desperation.
"Scared to move?"
Hilton hesitantly nodded. "Y-Yes, sir. W-What do you need me to do, sir?"
Hayward thought for a moment. "Stand up."
He quickly scrambled to his feet and stood at attention. "Yes, sir!"
"If you're going to die..." the Supreme Leader glanced down the row of men. "Then die as my soldiers. I can't have men scared of the tip of a lousy revolver. What are you going to do when you have Hevastwan soldiers spraying bullets at you from all directions? Are you going to fall on your ass like a fucking wimp!?"
"No, sir!"
Hayward aimed the gun at Hilton and fired two bullets in his heart and one more in his stomach. He immediately started bleeding through his undershirt and slowly fell out of the seat and onto the floor.
Hilton groaned in immense pain with widened eyes, and it was only a matter of time before he'd lose too much blood and perish. Hayward looked at his body which was rapidly losing its life before turning to the remaining soldiers. "Don't be like them. Don't be a coward and do as you're told. It's that simple."
"Yes, sir!"
"The next phase of Project Next Gen begins shortly," he explained. "Stand by for further instructions."
"Yes, sir!"
Hayward glanced at Pavlin's lifeless body, which was missing a larger portion of the top of his head. He rolled his eyes. "For future reference, look at your goddamn itinerary when it's released. Someone clean the mess up."
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Emily had an interesting taste in music. It'd go from your traditional pop star artists to depressing songs that'd make you wonder about her mental health. I had no right to say anything, though. My music taste would give me a few concerned looks, which explained why Emily had stereo privileges since it offered a bigger variety.
We were about halfway to Fera, and the drive was about as expected. Between there and Daita, our home city, there was a lot of open farmland and small towns. Emily wasn't afraid to drive faster than the posted speed limit because there was little to no risk of getting pulled over until we reached the capital's city limits.
Xavian leaned forward from the back seat. "So, nobody really explained why we're making a sudden trip to the capital. Can someone help me out?"
Emily and I shared a look, and I nodded to her. She pursed her lips. "We're going to find answers to where our powers came from and why we have them."
"Woah, what?" he asked in a shocked tone. "Isn't that a bit excessive?"
She glared at him in the rearview mirror. "We deserve answers, Xavian. You don't have to come in with us, but Eli and I agreed that there's no way we could just be born with these abilities out of nowhere. That's not how the biological body works. Something or someone had something to do with it, and we're going to find out who or what did this to us."
"I agree with you, but is this going to resort to violence?" he asked worriedly, which wasn't like him. "I'm on board and all, but it's not like I can do much. I don't have powers."
It concerned me that Xavian was being so apprehensive about this. Normally, he was the first to seek adventure and lighthearted danger. Even he has his limits, I guess. Emily's expression hardened, and I could see the thoughts running through her mind were stressing her out. I decided to rest my fingertips on her arm and step in.
"Like she said, you don't have to come in with us if you don't want to. We're not going to force you to do anything that you're not comfortable with. Emily brought up a great point while we were waiting on you."
"What's that?"
"As long as we're careful and combine our strengths and smarts, I don't see how anything terrible can happen. Everything will be fine."
I could see his face relax. Sure, we were doing something that could easily earn us jail time, but we were doing this for closure and to find answers. I wish it was as easy as sitting down with someone and asking him every single question we could think of, but my gut told me it'd take some digging to get what we wanted.
"Don't worry," Xavian reassured with a slick smile. "I'm not going to leave you guys to dry. If I need to bust some heads in, I got you. If I need to keep a lookout, I got you. If I need to hack a computer...I don't got you."
Emily and I burst into laughter. She shook her head with a big smile. "Unfortunately, I don't think any of us know how to hack a computer, but we could definitely use the extra eyes."
"I know my way around a computer," I said shrugging. "I'm no expert by any means, but I once hacked into my mom's laptop when I was younger. I'm unsure how I did it, but I remember the buttons I pushed."
Emily nodded. "Better than what I can do."
"Yeah, same here," Xavian added. "But do we have anyone who knows how to fight?"
We both glanced at him with a concerned expression. He slumped back in his seat. "Oh, right. My bad."
We shared another laugh. Whether it was his intention or not, Xavian was the best at keeping our spirits up when we needed it. He chose to tag along with our crazy adventure and is no longer showing signs of regretting it.
However, plenty of doubts ran through my head. What if something does happen to one of us? What if we don't find what we're looking for? What if I make a mistake?
I felt Emily glance in my direction. She put a gentle hand on mine, and all of the negative thoughts washed away. I did have both Emily and Xavian with me. I wasn't alone during this. Looking at Emily's touch, she never made the effort to move her hand away. I didn't have any intention either.
After banging our heads to a couple of songs, I thought of something that needed to be discussed before we arrived at our destination. "So, what's the plan once we get there?"
"Oh, all we have to do is walk in and ask the first person we see for access to their most confidential files and documents," Xavian sarcastically suggested before raising his hands. "Boom. It's a grand slam."
I looked at him with a displeased expression. "As much as I want that to work, I don't think it will. We're going to need something a little more creative than that."
He pouted. "Damn."
"I wish it was a walk in the park, but Eli's right," Emily said. "We can't expect to walk in and have everything handed to us. We're going to have to take it ourselves."
Pursing my lips, I knew she was right. "I hope we won't even have to use our powers."
"I agree," Emily nodded. "But I have a strong feeling that we're gonna have to. Does anyone have any ideas? I know it's complicated, but..."
I bowed my head in thought. What could we do? I had no idea what the building even looked like, and my power was too loud and destructive to try for a quiet break-in from outside. Frowning, an idea came to mind.
"Emily, you mentioned you wanted to wait until dark, right?"
With a thoughtful expression, she nodded. "I think so. Why?"
"Okay, so here's an idea," I started. "We'll camp out somewhere until well after sunset and wait until someone comes out."
Xavian suddenly snapped his fingers. "I've been to the capital building before for a field trip with the baseball team. They get in and out with keycards. Getting one of those will be huge."
"Perfect," I stated, feeling a bit more confident. "That's the first step. However, we can't draw any attention to ourselves. The less we have to use our powers, the better."
"Obviously," Emily agreed, taking a left onto another highway. "We just have to be discreet. We have the keycard, so what's after that?"
I pursed my lips. "It's not like we can just walk in. They'll have cameras everywhere."
Nobody knew how to respond to that. We sat in thought for a few minutes as we reached the climax of a hill that gave us a beautiful view of the city of Fera that sat in between the mountains. Despite the gorgeous sight, nervousness washed over my body. I tried to swallow it down and trust that everything would be okay.
It would be okay. I had my two closest friends with me. I feel I can do so much more with them by my side. It was the "not knowing" that was tearing me up inside.
The buildings in the distance stood tall, which made me feel insignificant compared to the rest of the world, the universe. Curvy roads and bridges detailed what was in front of us, and Emily took the second exit to the city's heart. After she merged onto a different highway, she glanced at us.
"We'll be there in ten," she elucidated. "I don't know what to expect, but we're going to stick together, alright?"
Xavian and I nodded concurrently. I pursed my lips and shoved the nervousness down. "We've got each other's backs. No matter what happens, we'll be there for each other. Once we commit to doing this, there's no turning back."
"I agree," Xavian expressed with a heavy face. "I know I didn't expect to do something this extreme, but I'm not backing out."
"Xavian, are you sure?" Emily asked with a worried appearance. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you're powerless. I have no idea what to expect when we get there. Something serious could happen."
Surprisingly, Xavian smiled. "That's why I want to be there. I want to be there for the serious things. Besides, I can trust you two, right?"
Emily and I shared a look before nodding. She came to a red light before turning to face him. "You know we do. We got your back."
He smiled again before his face turned to wonder. "Also, how did you know that I didn't have powers? You never know, I could be able to shoot lightning out of my ass."
"A wonderful ability, I'm sure," Emily said sarcastically but with a laugh, which I was involved in. The light turned green, so she turned left toward the capital building. "It's hard to explain. I figured out Eli had powers because of the burning flame inside him."
"What?" he asked, completely lost.
"Basically, my vision darkens and I can see a flame that burns inside someone," she explained. "I don't know how it happens or how to control it. My vision's darkened before, but I've never seen a flame. When I saw Eli, the only explanation I could think of was that he had some form of powers."
Xavian nodded. "I'm assuming there's no flame burning inside of me?"
"I'm afraid not."
Silence followed, and the capital building was now within eyesight. Taking a deep breath, I knew that our mission had officially started. Before anything, we needed to come up with a sure plan.
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