We walked to the huge doors, taking the wooden pole that kept it closed off, and entered, saying our goodbyes to Dan.
“You going to be okay going back on your own?” I asked the old man, slight worried that an elder was going to walk all that distance alone.
“Bah, Don't underestimate me baldie,” he spat back without anger.” I know these places like the back of my hand. See you all later” and he went away, taking the lantern with him.
I turned to the barn the open doors just let a bit of the light of the moon inside, the rest in complete darkness, but this time I decided not to ask what we were going to do.
Good I didn’t as well as a light shone from a concrete wall close to the back of the barn, it illuminated a huge empty space, with only a little concrete cabin in the center, the wall facing one had metal doors, every part of the construct looking out of place in the old barn, as the doors finished opening, I realized what it was.
An elevator, it was a secret underground base. I looked at Spotlight giving me a huge grin. “A hero’s romance, don’t you think.” he said moving forward with the others, I laughed and went after everyone.
Waiting at the elevator was only one person, a tall and wide man, wearing a lab coat. Guess this one was the researcher. The guy gave a big smile as he saw everyone approaching. And greeted everyone amicably.
“Pleased to mee you” he said shaking my hand. “I'm Victor, I take care of the research around here.”
The guy seemed to be very charismatic, his huge appearance being misleading, he joked around with the team as we all entered the elevator, which was a heavy duty one fitting everyone.
Even Spyglass seemed in a better mood now, I didn't know if it was because we were now at a base or if it was Victor's presence. As the elevator activated to bring us down, “you the only one here?” I asked him.
“Not at all, there's other two recruits here. They're both already sleeping though, I think so you'll have to meet them tomorrow.”
Other two recruits, I had no frame of reference to know if the organization was big or not, or if this was a huge amount of people, with everyone in here, old man Dan outside and those other two, we were at 9 people, not that much, but I had no idea if this was everyone or how many of these bases were out there.
“Araphel still hasn’t come back?” LED asked. So at least ten people I thought.
“No, he didn’t send any alarm though, so just normal complications I imagine.
We descended in silence after this until Victor realized me looking at the number of floors, we were descending at the second out of three, he explained:
“it's a small place, the first floor is the mess hall and a lot of storage spaces, the second we going out now is the living quarter, and the last one is the lab.”
“Wasn't there a training area?”
“Ah, its together with the lab, it’s the same place we test, uh, the weapons.” he grinned at the last part, so that was what he researched? “You could use the farmland up top, if its wide scale stuff.”
“Hmm I don’t think I'd need it; I seem to be a brawler, outlast the other guy first type, but still don’t know really.”
“I see, pretty good. You regenerate? How extensively?” he eagerly asked seeming very interested.
Before our talk could really develop in a mutual agreement of most likely me getting shot at by a bunch of weapons, we arrived at the living quarters, everyone coming out and LED cutting our talk in the middle.
“Spotlight show the new guy to a room, the rest grab one for yourselves.” LED directed the group.
I noticed then how he, or any of the others, never used my name. It was probably to preserve my identity, but I didn’t think it was really that hard to find out if someone wanted to. He and Victor didn’t come out of the elevator, the doors closed and me and Spotlight stayed put while everyone gave their goodbyes and went away.
“Let's go, I want to sleep as well.” he led the way to a small room just a single bed with a little bedstand, the room was barely two meters wide. “It isn't much but gets the job done.” Spotlight said. Patted my back and went away.
I sat on the bed, putting the backpack I had slugged with me all along out of my shoulder. It was all I had now. I didn't even know if I could take more money out of the bank, I was seen together with Spotlight and LED going out of my house and the confrontation with Thunder really didn’t help my profile with the bank, for sure.
I had a bit of cash in the backpack, some necessities and some clothes, but going forward the Dawnbreakers weren't just protection from the government they were also my way to survive. I had no regrets though. I felt for the core of power inside me and there it was, ready for anything the world could throw at me. I felt satisfied and whole.
I changed into another set of clothes, having worn the ones I was using since going to school, it seemed like a week ago. I hoped they had showers here because I really wanted a bath but for now, I just laid down, taking out my phone and opening the app for the sleepwalker forum. Stopping midway realizing what I was doing out of habit. I sighed, and went about deleting every way I could think of the government tracking me by my phone, eventually turning it off when I was satisfied.
With that done I just prodded at my power and thought over what I'd seen of it since it triggered, first when I was attacked, I healed almost right away but also mutated, coming together with new ways to resist the method of attack. Was it conscious or just a passive natural reaction, how did it choose what kind of mutation? could I control and optimize it? I filed all that away for testing, the other part was what made the power not be just the adaptive mutation.
My power seemed to learn from others it encountered, I felt in my core seeing the structures that were different, this core that I felt in my mind, people always talked about sensing the presence of their power but no one really got into details and I didn’t really interact with other powered people before, maybe I could ask around tomorrow, now I was surrounded by them.
But anyway, I could learn from other powers, when used on me I got this feeling of understanding, slowly unraveling what made the other powers tick, and when I got it, it all just clicked and I could then also mutate me and my power, I could evolve. That was probably the growing factor, I had to encounter and understand various powers to grow mine. It was a power that I was really satisfied with, the old fear of having a useless ability fading away being replaced by the anticipation of growing this newfound part of myself.
It wasn't just my powers; this was the new me. I told myself, having read of people failing to see things when separating their powers as an external factor, feeling the core inside of me I made an effort of seeing it just like I saw an arm or leg, eventually falling asleep.
A bang in my door woke me up, I felt the cold first, it was a frigid morning and I completely forgot about taking a blanket, I shivered. Calling “Wait, just a second” to whoever was on the other side of the door, wishing my powers, no that I could adapt to not only attacks.
I got a coat from my backpack, and put it on going for the door. Opening it to see Payback on the other side.
“Hello there, thought I'd ask if you want to grab breakfast? Sorry if I woke you up.”
“It's totally fine, I wouldn’t really know where to go so thank you.”
I gestured for him to lead the way and we went, taking the same way that I used with Spotlight the day before, I could remember it on my own but I really didn’t know where on the mess hall the eating part was.
“You settled in fine?” he asked me, the situation now a bit awkward without anything to talk about.
“Yeah, slept fine.” I said, feeling it was too short I added. “Just forgot to ask where to get a blanket, were there any?”
He grimaced, “sorry man, I actually did the same thing, forgot to tell you about it, they stay in the little bedstand besides the bed.”
“it's fine, I could have found it if I searched, was too tired.”
“Yeah, I get that, the first day I was here I just stared at the ceiling till I fell asleep.”
We kept walking and as we clicked for the elevator to get us, he continued. “It isn't easy, leaving the old life getting behind, learning a lot of the stuff we knew are lies, but it gets better. And what we do here is worthwhile.”
“I'll trust your word on that, I just fell here out of nowhere.”
“it's going to be all right; you’ll see what I mean in no time.” he really had a vibrant demeanor, and I felt better having this talk, it was something I didn’t realized but I was starting to feel isolated, thinking of what to do alone. These people are the ones I waited around for so long, people I could be real friends with.
I was thinking if I should ask him how he ended up with the Dawnbreakers when the elevator finally arrived beeping its doors open, inside there were two other people.
