Chapter 2: The Kinetic
The world flashed alive with color.
With a gasp of breath, Nicole found herself on the train station platform, subway cars screeching into the stop. The thick crowds of people pressed in around her. Loudspeaker announcements and overlapping conversations filled the station.
“What the ...” Nicole looked around.
Out of nowhere, Daniel appeared in front of her.
“Ah!” she exclaimed.
He leaned close and whispered in her ear.
“It’s still tracking us. You need to follow me.”
Nicole looked past him and watched people board the train she was supposed to be on. Maybe if Amy hadn’t tricked her, she’d be safe in a subway car far away from here. She suddenly felt angry, and that helped a little. Anger felt better than fear.
“Nicole?” he asked, urging her on with a hand on her back.
She nodded, trying not to think about the reaver, trying not to be scared out of her wits. She followed him towards the escalator. It was strange seeing the columns and archway whole again after the reaver had torn through them. It felt like a dream.
“Was all of that real?”
“Oh, it happened,” Daniel said. “What happens in a tau freeze is very real and very deadly.”
They stepped onto the escalator. Daniel pulled his sword hilt out and looked at the broken blade.
“Damn. Shoko is going to kill me for this,” he said, shaking his head. “This was some of her best work, too.”
“You went after that thing,” Nicole whispered. “With a sword?”
“Well, of course.”
“Why not, I don’t know, a gun or a bomb or something?”
“Uh huh. And how long did you want to wait for the bomb to explode? Time wasn’t moving.”
“I don’t know! This is all very new to me!”
“I can’t use something like that in a tau freeze, okay? Too much energy involved, plus the whole chemical reaction thing. In fact, I don’t think there’s a tau guard alive that can actually fire a gun in a freeze.”
Daniel sheathed his sword and pulled out what looked like a compass. Nicole crowded next to him.
It was a compass, except it had two hands instead of one. One hand wiggled gently, pointing north. The other pointed east ... then south ... then west ... then started twirling around in circles.
“It’s closing in on us. Crap,” Daniel said, pocketing the compass. He pulled out a cell phone and dialed.
They waited on the escalator. Nicole could finally see the landing at the top. A massive chandelier hung from an elaborate domed ceiling.
“Come on, Viktor. Pick up, you damn commie ... Viktor! Daniel here. I’ve got a ... Would you just shut up for a minute!? I’ve got a situation over at the Avtovo train station and I need backup! ... No, I ... Viktor, just send a team as soon as—”
* * *
The whole world froze except for Daniel and Nicole.
“Ah, crap! It found us!” Daniel said. He pocketed the cell phone and pulled out three gleaming metal knives. “Here.”
Nicole took one. “What’s this for?”
“It’s better than nothing,” Daniel said.
He twirled his two throwing knives between fingers. Nicole cringed, expecting to see a finger fly off and blood spurt wildly out, but Daniel’s reflexes didn’t fail.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get to the surface.”
Nicole sucked in a deep, calming breath. It helped a bit, but her stomach felt full of terrified butterflies.
They were almost to the top when Nicole heard the sound again, like a person madly slamming keys on an old-fashioned typewriter. She stopped and looked towards the bottom of the escalator.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah, I hear it. Keep moving!”
Daniel jumped onto the escalator railing.
“Can you see it?” Nicole asked.
“No ... Wait, I think—”
BRAAAUGH!!!
Noise like an angry jet engine roared up the escalator shaft with a deafening echo.
“Yeah, I see it! It looks pissed! Hurry and get to the surface!”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know! I’ll think of something!”
They climbed the last few steps of the escalator, weaved through a group of Russians covered in metal studs and spiky hair, and ran across the domed atrium. Nicole followed Daniel out through a tall, columned archway and into the open. Afternoon sunlight streamed down through a partially clouded sky. They rushed down a flight of wide stairs to a two-lane street with a few frozen cars on it.
Stone and metalwork exploded within the train station. The reaver had almost reached the top.
“Okay. What do we do?” Nicole asked, gripping the knife so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“Umm ...”
“Daniel?”
“Umm ...”
“That’s not a very encouraging plan!”
“Shut up and let me think!”
The reaver reached the top of the escalator. It turned and faced them. One of the eyes had blackened. Yellow fluid laced with gooey pus dribbled out of the eye. The reaver threw back its mandibles and roared.
BRAAAAAAAAUGH!!!
“Daniel!” Nicole shouted. A wave of furnace heat struck her face.
Daniel threw one of his knives. The reaver shut its eyes, and the knife ricocheted off its face. He threw the second knife and the reaver batted it away with a leg.
Daniel drew two more knives from his trench coat.
“That didn’t work!” Nicole said.
“Don’t you think I know that?”
The reaver charged out of the train station, bursting columns aside with its girth. It clambered down the stairway towards the street. Nicole squinted from sunlight gleaming off its body. The thing moved so fast, she couldn’t possibly outrun it.
“Circle it!” Daniel shouted, running to the left. “Stay away from the front!”
Nicole ran to the right. The reaver turned, tracking Daniel. He threw two more knives. One struck a leg at a joint and severed it. The second bounced off the creature’s thick skin.
Daniel drew two more knives before he rolled away from an attack. The reaver stabbed three legs through pavement, just missing him. Rock and dirt exploded upward and hovered in the air. The reaver turned, following him.
Its body was so long that Nicole still couldn’t see the tail end, which was somewhere up the stairs, through the broken archway, past the atrium, and down the escalator.
Daniel screamed and Nicole had to duck down to see underneath the reaver. The creature had stabbed one of its legs all the way through his thigh. With a brutal jerk, the reaver ripped the blade free. Blood splattered onto the pavement.
Daniel fell back, a frantic look on his face. He scrambled away from the reaver, blood pulsing out of his leg.
The reaver inhaled deeply. Nicole thought she heard a satisfied rumble deep within the creature. It reared up, its many legs catching the sunlight, ready to butcher Daniel.
Nicole didn’t think. She just threw the knife with all her strength. But instead of clattering harmlessly off the reaver’s flanks, something entirely different happened.
The knife didn’t arc clumsily through the air, nor did it slow down. Instead it accelerated. When it hit the reaver’s segmented body, the knife was a streaking glint of metal. It punched into and through the reaver. Heat, light, and fetid pus blasted out of the wound.
The reaver flung its head skyward and let out a shrill, high-pitched cry of what sounded like intense pain.
BREEEIIIIIGH!!!
“Oh my god, you’re a kinetic!” Daniel shouted. “Holy sh—!”
BRAAAUGH!!!
The reaver turned towards her with shocking speed, its eyes wide, its mouth a hot furnace of rage. She scrambled out of its way. The reaver brought dozens of deadly legs and a train car’s length of body segments crashing down behind her.
“Throw another one!” Daniel shouted, skidding a knife across the pavement towards her.
Nicole was about to stop the knife with her shoe, but the knife halted without apparent cause. She opened her hand and, shockingly, the knife jumped into it, handle-first.
She turned and pulled her arm back, ready to throw. The reaver raised its body off the cracked pavement. Pus and liquid fire streamed from its wound. The ground hissed, and fires started wherever it bled. It lunged towards her like a thicket of blades.
Nicole fell back. Razor-tipped legs sailed over her head, almost decapitating her. She flung the knife before she hit the pavement.
The knife accelerated towards the reaver like the first, somehow picking up speed and striking the reaver underneath its horrible mouth. Twisted metal, fire, and pale fluid burst out of the wound. The knife punched all the way through, and more liquid fire blasted out the back of its body.
The reaver cried out with a high-pitched screech. Its legs gave out, and its heavy body crashed down on its side.
Nicole ran over to Daniel, who had cut a strip off his trench coat and had wrapped his leg in a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. His breaths were labored, but his face still had color.
“Nice throw,” he said weakly. He tightened the tourniquet with a wince.
The reaver started to get up. Nicole turned sharply around. But the reaver didn’t attack. Instead it whimpered like a beaten animal. Slowly, it crawled back into the subway station, trailing pus behind it.
“What a truly awful smell,” Nicole said. She started laughing. Or crying. She wasn’t sure which.
“You get used to it,” Daniel said.
Nicole wiped under her eyes with a shaky fist.
“You okay?” she asked, looking at his leg.
“Believe me, I’ve had worse. The reaver missed the big blood vessels in my leg, and I stopped what bleeding I had, so I’ll last until a resetter can look at it. I think there’s a safe house not far from here. But look at you! A kinetic!”
“Yeah, that certainly was something.” She felt like sitting down and having a good cry, but for some reason she kept going. “I don’t even know how I did it.”
“Still, that was amazing. I can barely believe it.”
“Was it really that unusual?”
“Are you kidding? There hasn’t been a kinetic tau guard in something like twenty years! And that second throw right through the main pump? Perfect! It’s like you’ve been doing it all your life.”
“Yeah, about that. How did I do that?”
Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. Same way I jump around like I do. Same way a pyro lights stuff on fire. Some people have an innate ability to bend the mutable laws in a tau freeze.”
“They what?”
Daniel screwed his face up as if trying to remember something.
“What’s with that look?” Nicole asked.
“Well, it’s been a while since I studied the actual theory,” Daniel said. “To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention in that class. I never saw the point when several tons of angry reavers are rushing towards me.”
“Yeah, I guess I can see that.”
Daniel pushed himself up with his arms and craned his neck. “Well, this is a surprise. Better late than never, you damn commie!”
Nicole followed Daniel’s gaze down the road. A dozen Russians ran towards them, some moving extremely fast. They slowed and looked around, aware of their surroundings. Five of them had swords like Daniel’s. The others had no obvious weapons. All of them moved with a professional confidence, as if this was just another day on the job, and they were the right badasses in the right place.
The Russians wore civilian clothing, but Nicole couldn’t help noticing a pattern. Nearly all of them wore at least one black and one red article. It gave the group a strange sense of uniformity.
Nicole stood back, watching the group fan out and form a perimeter.
A heavily-built, square-faced Russian with a graying buzz cut stopped in front of Daniel. He looked down with a grim expression.
“Hello, Viktor!” Daniel said, waving weakly from the ground.
“Horosho. Jar ad chto my hashli vas vovremji.”
“English, Viktor, if you please.”
“Yes. Sorry. We were delayed by a large infestation near the Winter Palace. Resetter, pomogi emu s ranami. I’m glad you’re alive.”
“You and me both,” Daniel said.
A red-haired Russian girl in her tweens bent down and looked at his leg.
“And the reaver?” Viktor asked.
“It went down into the station. Watch out. It’s a big sentinel-type, at least a ten on the Novikov scale.”
Viktor nodded. He turned to a stern-looking woman with a sunken, skull-like face and short, white hair.
“Anya! Vozmi svojo grupu zahvata e zakonchi ego!”
“Da!” the woman said. She gathered the squad and led them into the subway station.
“I’m glad you brought a resetter with you,” Daniel said, nodding towards the girl removing his tourniquet.
“Yes,” Viktor said. “Our timing was fortunate. We were able to tunnel most of the way here.”
“You don’t seem too surprised by the size of this reaver,” Daniel said.
“We fought a sentinel almost as big at the Winter Palace.”
“Damn, really? Just what the hell is going on?”
“I wish I knew.” Viktor turned to Nicole. “Who is this girl?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Daniel said with a stupid grin. He didn’t seem to be in any pain. Nicole stood on her tip-toes and looked over the resetter’s shoulder. She watched the torn flesh in Daniel’s leg knit back together.
“Try me,” Viktor said.
“She got stuck in the tau freeze with me, and you know what? She’s a kinetic!”
Viktor furrowed his brow. “You’re kidding.”
“No, she’s a kinetic, all right. She’s the one that chased the reaver away. Threw one of my knives right through its main arterial pump.”
“An untrained amateur fought a class ten sentinel and lived?”
“Yeah, isn’t that something?”
“And she’s a kinetic?”
“Pretty cool, huh?”
Viktor turned to her. “Is this truly your first time in a tau freeze?”
“Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nicole said. “I’m just happy to be alive right now.”
Viktor frowned. He seemed to do that a lot.
Daniel sprang to his feet, his thigh and pant leg completely mended.
“You know, someone’s going to have to watch over her,” Daniel said.
The scowl on Viktor’s face deepened.
“Come on, what do you say?” Daniel said.
Viktor glowered at him.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Daniel said. “It’s not like I’m going to abandon Overwatch. Come on, it’ll be good for me to do something else for a while. And someone’s got to watch over her until she’s trained up.”
“Wait a second,” Nicole said. “What was that about watching over me?”
“We will find someone else,” Viktor said.
“Someone else to do what?” Nicole asked.
“Like who?” Daniel asked. “She already knows me. Nicole, you trust me, right?”
“I hardly know you!”
“See, Viktor? It’s perfect. She already likes me.”
“What are you two talking about?”
“No, Daniel,” Viktor said. “I refuse.”
Daniel flashed Nicole a toothy grin. “Please excuse us for a second.” He walked away with a firm hand on Viktor’s shoulder. Nicole had no idea why they stepped away. Even though they were out of whispered earshot, their voices kept getting louder until both were yelling at the top of their lungs. The resetter actually cringed a few times.
It didn’t matter, though. Nicole had no idea what they were talking about. Triple-C this and Overwatch that. It might as well have been a foreign language. She walked over to the girl who’d mended Daniel’s leg.
“Is that how they normally act?” Nicole asked.
“Ia ne razgovarivau po angliski,” she said.
“Never mind, then.”
A thunderclap boomed. Nicole faced the subway entrance. Three more explosions cracked the air. She backed away.
The resetter smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.
“Oh, so that was a good sound?” Nicole said. “You could have fooled me.”
“Good news!” Daniel said from behind her.
“Ah! Damn it! Don’t sneak up on me when stuff is exploding!”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear the bangs from the subway?”
“Huh? Oh, those! Don’t worry. That’s perfectly normal. Two of the tau guards in Viktor’s group are pyros. I imagine the reaver is painting the walls now.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Anyway, Viktor has some good news for you. Right, big guy?”
“You must work for us,” Viktor said.
“Excuse me?” Nicole said. “I have to what?”
“Now, Viktor. She isn’t a tau guard yet. Don’t try ordering her around.”
“If you insist,” Viktor said. He took a deep breath. “I mean we would like you to work for us.”
“Ah, no,” Nicole said. “No-no-no-no-no. No way in hell am I going to do that again. One time was more than enough. I mean, I almost got killed fighting that thing, and I still have no idea what’s going on.”
“If you agree, I will assign Daniel to guard you until you can be properly trained.”
“Sorry, but nothing is going to change my answer. Now can you please tell me how to get out of this time freeze thing?”
Daniel wore a crestfallen expression. Or at least tried to. His expression was so patently fake Nicole knew he had a backup plan.
“You sure?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, I’m sure!”
“Okay. Well, I suppose this is goodbye then.”
“Yeah, umm, I guess so.”
“It was really nice meeting you.”
“Yeah, err, you too,” Nicole said. Maybe he didn’t have a backup plan. She was almost sorry to see him go.
“You’ll reappear on the escalator when we let the freeze end, same as before. You can catch up with your class from there.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Daniel said. “I’m sure you’ll do fine with the next reaver you meet. Well, come on, Viktor. No need to take any more of her time. Ha ha. Little tau guard joke there since time isn’t—”
“What-do-you-mean-the-next-reaver?”
“Didn’t I say?”
“No, you didn’t!”
“Only now that they found you once, they might send more.”
“They what!?”
“They tend not to forget when one of them has been wounded or killed. You might say they have your scent now, though that’s probably not a good analogy. Actually, I don’t think they have a sense of smell. That’s why I’m so surprised you don’t want to come. But then, after all, it is your life and you may lead it—”
“Is this true?” Nicole asked Viktor.
“Yes,” Viktor said. “You will almost certainly encounter reavers in the future.”
Nicole put her face in her hands and dropped to her knees. “Oh no. No-no-no-no-no. What have I gotten myself into?”
“Hey, don’t worry. That’s why Viktor is going to free me from my normal duties. I’m going to protect you full-time until you’re trained up. Right, Viktor?”
“That’s correct.”
“So we’re going to take this nice and slow. You get to go back to your friends and keep going to school. Where did you say you were from?”
“I didn’t.”
Daniel paused, expectantly.
Nicole sighed. She stood up. “Burlington, Massachusetts.”
“Burlington, right. You can keep living there and we’ll figure out some sort of compromise with training that doesn’t involve bringing you to Chronopolis.”
Viktor nodded. “And in return, we get the first kinetic of this generation.”
“See? And it’s not even Christmas yet.”
Nicole felt she didn’t have much of a choice at this point if what they said was true. Maybe it wasn’t, but the risk of being wrong was facing another reaver alone, and she didn’t want that.
Besides, having Daniel nearby would be comforting. He didn’t pay attention to anything she said and under any normal circumstances she’d find him insufferable, but she couldn’t help liking the guy. At least a little.
Daniel turned her way, and she quickly looked at something else. She wondered if she’d been staring.
“Hey, Viktor,” Daniel said. “I’m going to need another sword. The reaver broke mine and ate the pointy end.”
“Pick one up at the safe house,” Viktor said. “They should have some spares.”
“Right.” Daniel looked to the subway. “Aren’t they done with the reaver yet?”
Ten tau guards exited the subway and walked down the stairs towards Nicole and the others.
“Ah, good,” Viktor said.
Daniel patted her shoulder. “You okay?”
“What could possibly make you think I’m okay right now?”
“I don’t know. You survived your first encounter with a reaver and still have all your limbs. That’s a big plus. And look at it this way. You’ve made all these new friends today.”
“Has anyone ever said you can be insufferably cheerful?”
“Hmm, now that you mention it, I think Shoko said that once.”
“Who’s Shoko?”
“Osvobodi zamorozjenoe vremia cherez desiat sekund!” Viktor said.
“Da!”
“Oh, I know what that means,” Daniel said. “Get ready.”
“Ready for wha—?”
Blackness swallowed her.
* * *
Nicole gasped, lost her balance, and stumbled against the escalator railing. She was back in the subway station.
“Damn it, give me more warning next time,” she muttered.
Nicole looked around but couldn’t see Daniel anywhere. She waited for the escalator to take her all the way to the top, then took it back down. The train was gone when she got back to the platform.
Feeling suddenly tired, Nicole put her back to a column and sagged against it.
“What a horrible day.”
Her cell phone vibrated. She took it out and read the text message from Mrs. Woytowich.
where r u can u meet us at the next stop?
Nicole wrote a quick reply about becoming distracted and missing the train. She didn’t mention Amy’s little game. It wouldn’t get her anywhere. It never did. She looked up at the train schedule marquee, which fortunately had enough English on it to decipher.
“Seven minutes till the next train. Not too bad.”
Nicole grimaced, head suddenly throbbing.
“Ouch. What the heck?”
She massaged the back of her neck, but that didn’t seem to help.
“You okay?”
Nicole looked up to see Daniel walking over.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I was seeing Viktor’s group off. Are you feeling all right?”
“I don’t know. I suddenly have this pounding headache. Is that normal after one of those freezes?”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “Your head hurts?”
“Yeah. Why? Is that bad?”
“You sure you didn’t have the headache before the freeze?”
“No, it just hit me. Come on, what’s with that look?”
“I’m just wondering if we can get the resetter back here in time before ... Well, maybe it’s better if you don’t know.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it didn’t!”
“Hold on. I think I have something that’ll help,” Daniel said, patting his trench coat. “I always keep some on me just in case of emergencies.”
“Oh, good,” Nicole said. “You had me worried there for a second. What is it?”
“Special medicine for what afflicts you.”
Daniel proffered a small red and white packet. Nicole took the packet. She turned it over in her hands and read the label.
“Extra Strength Tylenol?” she asked.
“It’s great stuff for headaches. Even the tau ones.”
Nicole punched him in the arm, but he just laughed.