Preserving Will Read online

  With the event so powerfully embedded in Will’s mind, they were easily able to locate a memory in which Will read a newspaper article about the event. The article gave the date, time, and location of the crash. The sentence that attracted everyone’s attention noted the young survivor asking how it was he’d survived a crash that had killed both his parents in an instant and left the family automobile a crushed mass of gasoline-soaked metal. The team had exchanged looks at this news, and all of them, including Will, reached the same conclusion. Will had survived unharmed because he’d had help.

  Alliance help.

  The crash would start atop an overpass protected on both sides by a steel guardrail reinforced with cables, and end on the road below. The guardrail had been inspected just days earlier; a mechanic had performed routine maintenance on the car a week prior, and everything had checked out in perfect condition. Yet the brakes had failed as Richard Stark tried to stop the vehicle. The guardrail, the same guardrail that had prevented a dozen similar tragedies in the past two decades, had loosened upon impact, and the Starks’ car had plunged to the road below. In the minds of the human authorities, neither the accident nor the survival of the teenage boy in the back seat could be explained. Young Will was told, repeatedly, that it was all a terrible accident, that it shouldn’t have happened, and that every bit of available evidence suggested that it couldn’t have happened. Human error wasn’t to blame.

  The newly orphaned Will Stark had chosen not to sue any parties involved, much to the chagrin of the dozen lawyers hounding him to file charges. When asked to explain his decision, Young Will had given his characteristic shrug. “My parents are dead, and no court decision can bring them back.” His voice tinged with a hint of sadness. “My last memory of them now is one of them screaming. I have no interest in reliving that experience for a trial that can have no benefit to me.”

  The nightmares had continued throughout the past millennium, often jarring Will awake from a deep sleep, leaving his skin damp with sweat, shaking as the haunting memories consumed him. Reliving the experience for the Project 2030 team had been oddly therapeutic for him, for reasons he couldn’t explain. And it allowed him to consider alternative explanations for the tragedy.

  “The number of coincidences—newly installed brakes and freshly inspected guardrails both failing at the same time—led to a great deal of speculation about foul play.” He drummed his fingers on the table they sat around, each watching the memory video on a holographic screen in front of them. “It was true that I didn’t want to relive it, didn’t want to go through something that had no possible benefit to me. People told me I’d make a lot of money, which didn’t interest me. It would be like trading my parents for a check. And as… imperfect as they were, in later years I would have happily given away my fortune to have them back, to make peace with them. No, my private reasoning was that I did believe the accident was no accident. I had no idea if my parents had enemies, but if they did? Those enemies had managed to stage a car accident that couldn’t be explained. If they could do that, surely they could silence an orphaned teenager.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to die.”

  Adam had steepled his fingers together, his face taking on a look that all of them found disquieting. Will faced Adam, arching an eyebrow. “Say it, Adam. I’ve wondered the same thing as well. So… might as well put the theory out there for discussion.”

  Adam sighed. “What if it wasn’t an accident… and Will was the target?”

  The words had chilled them all. Had the Aliomenti discovered the secret of Will’s origin, and decided to eliminate him at the beginning, before his vast Energy skills made such attempts impossible? Was it something handed down from on high by Arthur Lowell, Leader of the Aliomenti, an order to seek out Young Will and eliminate him from the pages of history before he could become a threat?

  Will drummed his fingers again, with more aggression, and Energy sparks danced off the wooden surface with each contact. “I don’t think Arthur ever had a clue about me. And I don’t think his initiation tactics would allow anyone else to present such a theory to him. It would mean that someone was better than him, that someone had figured out something about me that Arthur had never realized despite our centuries spent together. The Hunters would have been told if Arthur suspected I was only thirty-five at the time of the attack and likely an Energy neophyte, and it was clear they were stunned at my lack of skill.”

  “That doesn’t eliminate the possibility that this was an attack orchestrated by Aliomenti leadership, though,” Adam replied. “Let’s say that Arthur realizes that there are people in the human world called Will Stark, and wonders if you might hide in plain sight, as it were. He might tell his minions to kill everyone with that name, making it look like an accident, and report back when they’re done.” He cocked his head. “The only way they might fail is if the targeted Will Stark had our help, and that would certainly be of interest to Arthur. But think about it… if you failed in that effort, would you tell Arthur Lowell?”

  “Fair point,” Will conceded. “And as much as I’d like to dismiss the idea, it makes too much sense to do so. We have to approach the event assuming foul play initiated by the Aliomenti. I don’t know of anyone else who would target me at that age—and I certainly have no recollection of my parents having the type of enemies who’d stage an accident like that to kill them.”

  Eva waved her hand. “What if it really was just an accident?”

  “We still need to have people there to protect Will,” Hope replied. “No human could survive a crash and forty foot plunge to a concrete road below.” She glanced around, her gaze settling on Adam. “This new insight, though, means we need to be prepared to deal with an Aliomenti presence.”

  “We’ll need two teams at the site, each with a different focus,” Adam decided. “One or two people will need to provide an Energy shield of some kind to protect Will from the crash itself.” He glanced at Hope. “Is it safe to assume you want to be part of that effort?”

  Hope nodded. “Like you could keep me away.” She shot a fierce, protective glance at Will, who smiled.

  “Good,” Adam replied, a faint smile on his face as well. “I think we also need to have at least five others in position—invisibly—watching for any Aliomenti lurking around the crash site. If we see them there loosening bolts or tampering with the brakes… we’ll know how it all happened, but we have to let them finish the job.” He nodded a sympathetic glance at Will. “Sorry.”

  Will shook his head. “I understand. No need to apologize.”

  Adam nodded, and then turned his gaze to the woman seated to his right. “Eva, this is the type of effort the Defense Squad typically handles. They need to let the Aliomenti present—however many there might be—sabotage the car and guardrail. And then they need to swoop in, subdue the perpetrators, and take them to a safe house for questioning.” He thought for a moment. “We may need to alter their memories as well. No point letting Arthur and company learn there’s someone getting an extra bit of help, especially someone with that particular name.”

  Eva nodded. “I will assemble a team to patrol and monitor the site.”

  Eva had kept the promise she’d made years earlier. Three invisible craft hovered above the future accident site, watching and waiting for the hint of Energy that would announce the arrival of one or more Aliomenti saboteurs. Hope piloted a fourth solo craft, monitoring the Stark household. She’d planted small cameras, microphones, and GPS devices within the car; which would enable her to track the vehicle and ensure she protected Will during the upcoming collisions.

  The team had leveraged a pair of submarines to travel the bulk of the distance from the Cavern, using the underwater vessels to haul the reconnaissance craft they now used to observe in invisible silence. Hope checked the time. She still had a few minutes before the Starks would emerge to begin their fateful trip. Though the air was breathable in the flying craft, the purification systems weren’t quite to the same standards
as those in the submarines. She’d been out of fresh air and sunlight for more than a week, and decided to enjoy a brief excursion outdoors. She piloted the vessel down into a thick grove of trees near the house and teleported to the ground just outside the craft.

  She allowed the early spring sunlight to touch her skin with its warmth, felt the caress of the cool breeze that whispered through the trees, felt the handful of twigs lining the ground break beneath her feet with sharp snaps. Hope closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, allowing the familiar sensations of nature to calm her nerves in advance of an event that would traumatize the teenager who would one day become her husband. She could see his childhood home through a gap in the trees. His beginnings were humble, indeed. While the Starks weren’t poor, they were far from wealthy. Will attended public schools, wore second-hand clothes, and did not own a mobile phone—a device that would become ubiquitous in the next five years. Will Stark certainly hadn’t become the richest man in the world building upon the successes of family who’d come before him and left him a vast fortune with which to start.

  Hope’s wrist communicator vibrated. The sensors she’d planted had detected the family leaving the house, commencing their journey to the local Department of Motor Vehicles so that sixteen-year-old Will could take the test for his driver’s license. With a sigh, she teleported herself back inside the invisible aircraft and floated into the sky. After locating the green four door sedan via her tracking sensors, she put the craft on autopilot, allowing the vessel to match the movement of the car below. Hope needed to focus her attention on the passenger in the back seat. She was solely responsible for protecting Will, and she’d do so by surrounding the teen with a thick Shield of Energy. That Energy expenditure was dangerous, however. The longer the Shield existed, the greater the chance that any Aliomenti in the area would sense the Energy burst. She needed to track the car and the conversation to ensure that she knew exactly when to activate the Shield.

  Will sat in the back seat of the car, looking glum, hardly the reaction one would expect for a teenager heading to take his driving test and enter a new stage of his life. His parents, Richard and Rosemary, made idle chatter in the front seat, oblivious to the presence of the young man in the back. Will looked nervous, but cleared his throat. Richard glared at him via the rearview mirror, and Rosemary turned to look at him. The loathing felt for their son was clear in their eyes.

  “What do you want?” Rosemary snapped. “We’re taking you to get your driver’s license, aren’t we? Isn’t that enough?”

  “Thank you for that,” Will said, his voice timid and quiet. Rosemary nodded once, and then turned away from her son. “But once I’m able to drive myself around, I’ll need to get a job, and…”

  “You are not getting a car,” Richard said. “We’ve discussed this.”

  “I’m not asking you to buy me a car,” Will replied.

  “And we can’t waste time driving you around, so getting a job is out of the question,” Rosemary added. “Don’t we provide you enough as it is? You get an allowance, and…”

  “If I get a job and can walk or ride my bike to and from,” Will said, speaking quickly, “I can save up the money, buy my own car, buy my own gas, and then nobody would need to drive me anywhere.”

  “There’s the insurance cost, however,” Richard said, in a tone that was both cold and bored. “Are you accounting for that in this plan of yours?”

  Will nodded. “The insurance cost goes up whether I have a car just for me or not, so…”

  “What?” Rosemary whirled on him once more, eyes blazing. “I was under the impression that insurance costs only kicked in with a car registered to you.”

  “My friends at school said that the insurance costs for their family went up as soon as they became registered drivers,” Will replied. Hope detected the softening of his voice; the boy was clearly worried about the direction this conversation was heading.

  Rosemary directed her gaze back at her husband. “Did you know that, Richard? Did you know that this boy’s going to cost us more money when he gets his license?”

  Richard glanced in her direction. “The boy didn’t see fit to tell me, either.” His eyes flicked briefly in Will’s direction via the rearview mirror. “Thought you’d spring that little surprise on us after the test was over and the damage was done, did you?”

  “No!” Will shook his head in protest. His hands pressed against the edge of the seat, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge. Hope could feel his desperation and despair. “I thought you already knew. It’s why I want to get a job so that I can help pay for the increase…”

  “Help?” Richard interrupted. “Help? You’ll be fully responsible for those increases as soon as they come in. Thought you’d drop something like that on us when you know full well my hours have been cut back, how tough times are, and…”

  “I never tried to hide anything!” Will snapped. Then his face fell. “I mean… that’s not what I… that didn’t come out right.”

  Rosemary snorted. “It didn’t come out right? You’re trying to con us into an extra expense that you know we can’t afford, and you have the gall to sass us when we catch on?” She glanced at Richard. “There’s only one way to properly punish the boy.”

  Richard nodded. “I’ll turn around up ahead.”

  “What…. what do you mean?” Will asked, his sixteen-year-old face marked with a crease of worry that told Hope he knew exactly what they meant.

  “You’re not getting your driver’s license,” Richard hissed. “And that’s final. When you’ve saved up enough money to fund the increase in insurance costs, and your own gas money? Then we’ll talk.”

  “Then I can get a job, right?” Will asked. “I can walk, or ride my bike, or…”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Rosemary told him. “It’s too dangerous to be walking or riding your bike around at night.”

  “So… you’ll drive me, then?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Richard replied. He glanced at his wife before his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror and Will’s quivering image. “I think you need some time to learn your lesson. It’s not right to lie to your parents.”

  “But I thought…”

  “Nobody cares what you think!” Rosemary snapped. “You’re not worthy of having an opinion. Remember?”

  Will winced as if slapped, and his head dropped. Hope’s heart broke. She wished she could hug him.

  Rosemary shook her head. “Seth never would have given us this kind of trouble,” she muttered. “It should have been him, not Seth.”

  Hope could almost hear the tears rolling down Will’s face. The sense of devastation would have overpowered her if she’d been flying the craft at that moment, would have caused her to crash the vehicle, and she was grateful, yet again, that they’d worked so hard to build autopiloting features into everything they built.

  That was another innovation Will had insisted upon.

  Hope used her sleeve to wipe the tears from her eyes.

  The sensors began to beep once more, and Hope snapped to attention.

  The three Aliomenti neophytes were there. Two stood in the middle of the otherwise empty road, positioned so as to force Richard to swerve to his right to avoid them. The third stood near the guardrail. Hope could feel the tiny trickle of Energy, the physical intoxication, the sense of new power gone to the heads of men clearly unready for its responsible use. This was no effort or directive planned from the top. It was, instead, three men figuratively and literally drunk on their ability to murder those they considered their inferiors without detection, without repercussions, randomly choosing to do so to the first unfortunate souls that came along.

  This was no planned murder. Will had been orphaned in an act of stupid cowardice.

  Hope felt a slight sense of shame when she realized that she might well have chosen not to save the lives of Will’s parents, even if history said they’d survived. The scene she’d just witnessed in the car
left in her a smoldering anger towards her in-laws that even the passage of centuries would fail to quench.

  She tapped the radio. “Three bogeys at the scene.”

  “We see them as well, Hope,” Eva replied. “Will needs a Shield right now.”

  Hope reached her Energy into the car below, forming a thick shield of Energy around Will’s body. The hopelessness and despair of his situation traversed the link between them, nearly overpowering her Empathy sense. Hope shook her head, clearing her mind. She then pushed back, using the Energy Shield to surround Will with positive emotions, impressing upon him a sensation of being loved fully, of acceptance, a belief that his life was one worth living. She filled her Energy with a sense of purpose and destiny, of an overwhelming and powerful belief that Will was one destined to change the world for the better, to improve the lives of millions, even billions, of people… and to be the truly special person in the life of at least one. She could feel his emotions turning, sensed the feeling of pride and purpose beginning to overwhelm the powerful sense of neglect and worthlessness he’d lived with his entire life.

  And then she felt him lurch.

  “Look out!” Rosemary screamed.

  “I see them!” Richard shouted. Hope could feel his rising desperation. “The brakes are out! I… I can’t stop the car!”

  “Richard, do something!” Rosemary screamed.

  “I’m trying!” he shouted. In the last act of his life, he glared at his only living child with complete loathing, a look that said he knew who he’d blame for the accident.

  Will saw that look.

  Hope ramped up the push-empathy Energy levels. She didn’t care if she was caught at this point. She couldn’t let Will be lost to the despair he felt in this instant.