Please—” The kid gasped.
Slick showed no mercy. “You’re the first, did you know that? The only graduate to ever refuse induction.”
Lights from another building flickered, then went out.
“You think we wouldn’t make an example of you?”
“I’ll . . . come back. I’ll—”
“It’s a little late for that.” He cranked up whatever gizmo he had in his hand. The kid cried out, curling into a ball, trying to breathe.
“Stop it!” Andi yelled.
“He’s just a boy!” Cowboy shouted.
Slick ignored them. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you?”
“Release him,” the professor called. “Release the boy and we will go.”
Slick broke out laughing. “Go? Oh, you’ll go, all right. But trust me, you won’t be leaving. Not this war.”
“War?” Andi shouted. “What war?”
“Do you think you four were brought together by accident? Are you really so naïve as to think there are not greater forces at work here?”
“What are—”
“Please . . .” the kid whimpered, gasping.
“You’ll not succeed. They’re too powerful. You may have won the battle but the war has barely be—”
He was cut off by a muffled explosion at one end of the auditorium and a small puff of smoke rising. At the same time, the kid groaned and seemed to relax. Apparently the pain had stopped.
Slick wasn’t so lucky. “Ahh!” He doubled over. “No!”
We traded looks.
“The security field?” Andi asked.
The professor frowned. “It must be shorting out.”
“No! No . . .”
Cowboy shook his head. “I don’t think—”
“I’ve done everything you’ve asked!” Slick cried. “I’ve—” He began to stagger. “No!” He threw up his arms, slapping away at something no one could see. “No!”
“Those are some ugly fears,” I said.
He fell to his knees and began choking, gagging.
“Them ain’t fears, Miss Brenda.”
“Stop this!” A different voice sounded. It came from Slick, but it was deep, guttural. “Stop this at once!”
Slick’s normal voice came back, pleading. “No . . . don’t—”
“Stop!” The other voice started cussing. Worse than me on a bad day.
Slick’s hands shot to his face. He began scratching at it, clawing until it was covered in blood. He spun back to us, his eyes wild. “Help me! Help—”
“Shut up!” the deeper voice yelled. “You are a failure!”
“No! No, I did every—” He screamed and threw himself on the ground, where he began to writhe.
“That’s enough!” Cowboy shouted. We turned to him. Before any of us could stop him, he stepped back into the field.
“Tank!” Andi called.
“Ain’t nobody deserves that,” he said, and kept walking forward.
“Cowboy!”
He kept right on going. You could tell he was hurting. His back was to us, but you could tell something real bad was running through his head. He stumbled, almost lost his balance.
“Tank!”
But he kept pushing forward. The air over the yard crackled like electricity. For the briefest second it filled with sparks.
Cowboy staggered, but kept right on walking.
It happened again, crackling louder and longer. Sparks, like glitter, filled the air.
I turned to Andi, but she didn’t have a clue.
“He’s overloading it!” the professor yelled.
“He’s what?”
“Whatever he’s thinking, he’s overloading the system.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Tell him that.”
I turned back to Cowboy. He kept walking. The crackling got louder. The sparks brighter. Finally he reached Slick.
By now the man was screaming uncontrollably, convulsing and rolling on the ground. Cowboy knelt down to him. He took him by the shoulders and said something so soft no one but Slick heard. The man showed his appreciation by spitting in the big boy’s face. Cowboy barely noticed. He just kept on holding Slick and talking.
And Slick kept on struggling. But it did no good. He gradually got weaker and weaker until he finally wore himself out. When he quit struggling, Cowboy let him go. But the man wasn’t done. He threw up his fists and began beating on Cowboy’s chest and shoulders, tried punching his face, all the time screaming and swearing. Cowboy was unfazed. He just grabbed Slick again, held him, and kept talking.
Slick’s eyes bulged in frustration, but he couldn’t move. His face grew red. The veins in his neck bulged. It looked like he was going to explode. Then he threw back his head and let go a chilling scream. A howl like an animal’s. It went on until he ran out of air.
He finally collapsed into Cowboy’s arms. This time it was real.
The air over the yard stopped crackling and sparking.
“Tank?” Andi shouted. “Tank, are you all right?”
The big guy turned to us.
We all waited.
He broke into that good-ol’-boy grin of his. Then he scooped Slick up into his arms and rose to his feet.