Power (Book 1)

Chapter 40

"Where are you?" I shouted into the empty air. "Show your face!" He knew I was talking to him.

A door materialized from the ruin of the mansion, pulling itself together from bits of destroyed wood and metal. I waited until it was fully formed.

When it was finished, I walked around it to see if there was anything behind it. As I suspected, there wasn't.

I went to the other side and twisted the doorknob. The door opened easily, despite the heavy wood it consisted of. Another way to tell that it was a creation of the Master's mind.

Behind the door laid a hallway, made of the same dark brick used in the castle- it was probably another section of it that hadn't collapsed in the explosion.

Intricate tapestries lined the walls, depicting various scenes of knights fighting majestic dragons and saving the princesses. I wanted to set fire to those. Real life never worked like that. There were no happy endings.

I continued down the long hallway, which twisted and turned its way continually. It even went down at one point; I could feel the floor dropping below me.

Since the journey was so long, I had all too much time to think about Boan.

Boan, my mind's physical representation of the nanobots. Boan, who had made sure I was prepared for the world that was coming to hurt me. Boan, who had died- and it was all the Master's fault. Now all I had was an empty feeling where Boan used to be.

Speaking of Boan, I love the ability he gave me- so much that I may even use it to kill the Master. I could control and produce vibrational waves. And since everything vibrated, then I could do some real damage in a fight. I finally had a ranged power.

I grew impatient, so I started picking up the pace. I had been there for over an hour trying to get to wherever the Master was trying to get me to. I broke out into a full-on run, turning on my speed, following the sharp twists and turns of the mansion.

I remember when I couldn't control it. That seemed so long ago. Now it seemed as if I had near mastery of the ability. 

I glanced to the left of me when I was running and got a quick look at the tapestry next to me. I slowed to a stop to make sure my eyes were seeing correctly.

The knights were still fighting the dragons and saving the princess.

That was why it was taking so long to get to the Master. I was running around in circles!

That wouldn't happen again.

I began to walk backward, seeing if that would make a difference. Everything in front of me moved backward, but forward at the same time. I was moving in the right direction in the wrong way if that made any sense. The twists went in opposite directions.

I pinched my nose to ward off the oncoming headache. I was so tired of the Master's games. I just needed to see him so I could get this place back to the real world. I was going to kill him, too, while I was at it, just to pay for all the trouble he's caused in the city.

Walking backward, I came upon a door set into the wall. It had no handle or a knocker. I was going to vibrate through it.

But, before I could, the door swung open. I went through expecting to walk into another of the Master's trick games.

This time, I didn't. I entered a huge room that, again, reminded me of something out of Frankenstein. There were various bottles filled with mysterious multicolored liquids around the room, with a skylight above projecting moonlight in the middle. A giant glass tube was set up there. Electricity crackled around it, providing a sort of protection for it.

In the back, covered in shadow, was a desk. The seat behind it had a tall back that was able to cover anyone in it.

"You may enter." The voice emanating from behind the chair was the same as the Master's. It sounded just like him, the way it did when he was laughing at me for screwing up the gym.

"I had already let myself in," I said to him. "Are you ready to die?"

"Die? Oh, of course. You came here to kill me and to get this city back to where it came from, correct?"

My lips were tight, set in a thin line.

"How could you not think that I knew that?" he said. "I know everything. I play with people's lives. I am a god here."

"You're no god, you sick son of a bitch." I let the words spill out of my mouth, all the hate and rage coming out from inside of me. "You destroyed my family. You turned my best friend against me. You've killed people. You have ruined my life. And for what? Entertainment? No man should have that kind of power!"

"Are you done?" he asked calmly.

I took a step back. I had expected a more violent response. "Yes," I said.

"I did all of that as a part of a test," he said. "You are messing with forces you don't know anything about by trying to challenge me. I decided I should kill you, but then you go and get mad and send all of my army running- which I actually admire; you put the fear of God in those people, that's why they actually broke away from my control and listened to you. But you don't know what you're doing. If you knew why I did what I did, then you wouldn't be so bent on killing me."

"I know very well what I'm doing," I said. "And if I'm thinking correctly, breaking this thing in the middle of the room will put us all back where we belong."

He didn't answer back. My suspicions were correct.

"I'm just as much of a prisoner here as you are, just with a little more...leeway." He paused, waiting for me to say something. "Why haven't you done it yet?" he asked me.

He was talking about destroying the glass cylinder. "Because I want to know something first," I said.

"What?"

"I've been trying to figure out why you waited until now to try to kill me. You had so many opportunities to do it before, but you held off until now, when I'm at the height of my powers..." I trailed off, thinking he got it.

"Jay, you couldn't possibly understand," he said.

"Don't say my name," I said. "I don't know you. I hate you."

"Well, then, let's get to know each other. I'm sure you'll find that we don't have much to catch up on."

He slowly turned around in the chair.

And I swear, if I hadn't been in that room at that very moment, I would never have accepted it. That this man, the one sitting in the armchair. The one who I thought I hadn't recognized in the black hole that night...

Was the same man who had encouraged me not to use my powers, and to always hide them. The man who had raised me.

My father.