Too Many Yesterdays
T. Mike McCurley

“Every day, we make choices. Do I turn left or right? Do I buy the paper, or read the one someone else has purchased? This door, or that one? Every single choice we make opens up a new avenue of possibilities. Sometimes, those choices enrich our lives, and sometimes they merely add to our pain. Occasionally, they come back to haunt us.”
--- Excerpted from the personal journal of Ian Calder a.k.a. Annihilator ---

Laziness, thought Ian Calder, is truly a bitch. A million things that need to be done, and I'm sitting here on my ass.

“Here” in this case meant the roof above the thirty-fifth floor of the Kifaru Corporation, a multinational trading company based in Tokyo but with branch offices around the globe. Calder was perched calmly on the edge of the roof, his legs swinging over as he looked out across the parking lots and miles of roadway to the dense forests of northern Oregon. The cold winds were of little concern to him even were he not wearing the battered black leather jacket that had become his unofficial uniform. He leaned back a bit, planting his hands on the chilly concrete on which he sat, and looked to the sky as if seeing it for the first time.

Blue and clear, the vast expanse of sky spread above him in majestic wonder. To his left, the sun hung suspended in the air with seemingly no effort; a wide splash of orange against the azure background. He sighed as the tranquility of the scene passed through him. It was a perfect moment. But it was only a moment.

The Voice snarled from inside him, berating him yet again for what It saw as Calder's failures. He shook his head in a gesture that had become almost second nature. Though control of The Voice came from within, he found that the physical act of shaking his head helped him to focus his will. Before It could become truly vocal, he pushed away from the ledge and fell, using his flight ability to angle away from the building and continue on to the north. Higher and higher he climbed into the sky, seeing the land below him recede until it no longer had any distinct form. Clouds blossomed around him; wisps of vapor clinging to his jacket like clammy fingers.

It was moments like this that he treasured. Moments of time when no one glared at him, ran in horror when he arrived, or spat on him for the things he had done. Precious fragments that were usually only found when he was alone - or at least as alone as he could be with The Voice chanting obscenities in the background of his mind.

He slowed his flight, arrowing toward the ground and pulling up short in a series of practiced swooping maneuvers that gave him the sensation of freefall, but still controlled his descent. He had no idea what would be the effect of slamming into the ground at terminal velocity, even though he sometimes thought it might be an acceptable idea. It was not the first time he had entertained thoughts of suicide, but he knew deep within himself that ending his life in such a manner would be somehow unfair to those left behind. There were so many people to whom he had sworn to make amends for his previous actions.

A flash of light on the northwestern horizon drew his attention, and he banked sharply toward it, performing a tight barrel roll for the sheer enjoyment of it. The flash had been more intense than any reflection off glass, and he wondered what could have caused it. He put on a burst of speed, making up time in case the flash was a harbinger of something more drastic.

He had begun to wonder if it had been an isolated incident, or even if he had truly seen the flash, when it was repeated. This time he knew what it was, and knew that he was about a mile off. His lips drew back in a grin that appeared nothing less than demonic as he homed in on the incident. His suspicions were confirmed a moment later as he saw a pair of boosters in flight, each circling around the other as if jockeying for position. One of them, a woman wearing an orange costume with yellow accents, with electric blue hair and skin so pale she looked albinoid, raised a hand, unleashing a jet of blue-white energy identical to the flashes Calder had twice seen. Her opponent twisted in midair, allowing the attack to pass harmlessly as he closed and struck with a fist, sending the woman cascading away from the flying man in military fatigues.

“Got you!” Calder heard shouted on the wind. He pulled up short, hovering in the air and content to observe until he had an idea of who was who in this particular melee. A half-mile below the battling pair was a massive structure comprised of long houses and a wide open field within the pattern of buildings. There were tiny figures visible there, and Calder figured them for the usual observers who thought genebooster battles were entertainment.

The female caught herself in mid-roll, arching her back and snapping her hands forward to splash a beam of brilliant energy across the man. He screamed and began to tumble from the air, all sense of consciousness wiped away by the unexpected attack. His female opponent hung in the air, laughing at his predicament.

Calder willed himself forward, ignoring the vicious calls from The Voice to enjoy the spectacle of the man's demise. He drove himself into a dive, pushing as hard as he could to catch the falling man before he struck the ground. From above and beside him, he heard the female shout in surprise at his sudden appearance. The wind was whistling sharply in his ears as he overtook the man, grabbing a fistful of the drab combat utilities in one hand and slowing his descent. Once the fall was slow enough that he was reasonably certain the clothing would not tear, Calder began to pull upward until he held the man in his arms. A massive scorch mark was patterned across his chest, and his eyebrows had been singed off.

Shielding the man with his own broad back in case the female attempted another attack, Calder glided to the ground amid the spectators, many of whom backed away when they saw who he was. A quick glance left him feeling somewhat confused. More than half of them wore some kind of uniform or costume. One of the spectators had four arms, and yet another sported a long, thin tail that whipped back and forth.

“Some kind of convention?” he asked, trying to smile. He pushed back the mental image, courtesy of The Voice, of his heat beams carving them into smoking pieces.

“Foul!” Shrieked a voice from above. Calder looked up to see the blue-haired female descend in a graceful arc to stand beside a man with gray hair. The man, dressed in a comfortable business suit, held a clipboard in his hand, and he stared in unabashed shock at the leather-clad form of Ian Calder.

“Charles, I call foul!” The woman reiterated. Her voice was shrill, and grated on Calder's nerves. Even The Voice backed away, leaving a lasting impression of disgust in Its wake. “I had the soldier-boy until he interfered!”

Calder grinned lamely as the woman pointed at him. He raised his arms as if to say that he had no idea what was going on, which he in fact did not. The whole scene was taking on a distinctly surreal feeling.

“Be silent!” snapped the man in the suit. He never took his eyes off Calder as he slowly approached, licking nervous sweat from his upper lip. Behind him, the woman fell instantly silent, though the angry pout that graced her pretty features showed her displeasure at the command.

“I know who you are,” the man said flatly. For a change, there was no trace of reproach in the tone, and Calder raised an eyebrow at the emotionless manner in which the statement had been delivered. The voice was vaguely familiar, but then Calder had heard his name cursed by literally thousands of people and it seemed everyone's voice had some ring of familiarity to it.

“So do I,” he replied, unsure how to answer. The joking way in which he delivered the line, combined with the smile Calder still wore, seemed to relax the man a bit. He even laughed, though only slightly. Cautiously, the man extended a hand. Calder gripped it warmly, trying not to pay attention to The Voice as It urged him to rip the arm from its owner.

“Charles Whittington,” introduced the man, blinking in relief. It seemed he, too, expected the forcible removal of his limb. Calder felt the initial joy and camaraderie of the meeting evaporate instantly, replaced by the usual fear and suspicion that Annihilator had engendered.

“Ian Calder,” Calder replied, trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy in what had become a truly bizarre sequence of events. Around him, the others moved slightly, each taking a moment to stare at him before they stepped aside to allow the next pair of eyes to take over. Calder noticed quite a few hostile glares mixed in with the usual frightened glances and the wide-eyed gazes of the truly curious.

“Yes. Yes. Well, allow me to welcome you to the Sylvia Bernard Academy,” Whittington said. “I must say, we never expected to see you here.”

“We didn't ask you here, either!” spat the blue-haired woman. She looked Calder up and down challengingly, sneering as he refused to take the bait. “Doesn't look like much,” she muttered to her peers as she turned and stalked away.

“I was in the neighborhood, saw the fight. Couldn't let that one fall,” he added, gesturing toward the man in fatigues, who even now had a pair of men with medical kits examining him. Calder again raised an eyebrow at the behavior, directing a quizzical eye toward Whittington.

“Class dismissed!” the man shouted, eliciting various happy and unbelieving comments from the surrounding people. Whittington moved forward and gently gripped Calder by the elbow, directing him toward a large white building. “If you would come with me, sir, I am certain that our Director would like to speak with you.”

Calder nodded, though The Voice urged him to kill the man for daring to lay a hand on him. Decapitation, It seemed to think, would be appropriate for such an offense. Calder forced It back with a snarl that caused Whittington to jump and jerk his arm away in shock. Calder sighed, knowing that the older man would never believe the reaction had not been to his touch. He walked beside the man to the building.

“So what's the deal here, Mister Whittington?” he asked as they neared the white structure. A massive oak door was placed squarely in the center of the wall, flanked by neat rows of windows. The whole thing had a utilitarian, almost military, feel to it and Calder suppressed a shudder at the ordered appearance. It seemed to be too inhuman for his taste, and the sentiment was echoed by The Voice, though It would have preferred a pile of rubble be left where the building stood.

“Oh, please, sir, call me Charles,” gushed the man.

“Only if you'll call me Ian,”he replied with warmth.

“You make me want to vomit!” shouted The Voice. “Why must you be so placid? These sheep deserve nothing less than your utter contempt and you play at niceties with them! Kill him! Taste his blood, hot and sweet in your mouth, and let the others do what they will to try and stop us!”

The echoes of The Voice were still flowing through his mind as Whittington tried to explain the reason behind the Academy. Calder focused himself, snarling an obscenity in his head to quiet The Voice.

“We are a training facility. We teach young geneboosters to use their powers appropriately so that they might become productive members of society. Many of our graduates have gone on to become municipally-sponsored activists, or 'heroes', as the media likes to call them.”

Calder nodded at the mention of the municipal heroes. In his head, The Voice laughed deafeningly as It recalled the heroes left bleeding in Annihilator's wake. Flashes of memory were thrown up before Calder's eyes, and he gagged at the horrific images. Whittington turned and looked at him with concern. Calder shook his head, raising a hand as he swallowed. The taste of bile was strong in his mouth.

“I'm okay,” he managed to say, fighting the urge to spit to clear his mouth of the flavor. The pair arrived at the oak door and Whittington pushed it open without ceremony. He ushered Calder inside, revealing a Spartan setting. As with the outside, the interior of the building was purely utilitarian. No pictures adorned the walls, no fancy sculptures or art were on display. Everything was painted a flat battleship grey. Walls, ceiling, floor, all an unending line of grey. If anything, it was more disturbing than the exterior. Whittington hurried down a wide corridor, pausing before a steel door. Rather than the grey surroundings, the door was a greasy-looking olive drab in color, with visible brush strokes indicating a recent hand painting. A small steel plate attached at approximately eye level read simply, 'DIRECTOR'. Whittington knocked twice on the door, sharp raps that echoed through the otherwise silent hall. A muffled voice advised him to enter, and the grey-haired man pushed the portal open.

The office had the sterile feel of a government building. A massive metal desk sat in front of a small window. A single lamp occupied one corner of the desk, while a pair of plastic trays marked 'IN' and 'OUT' sat opposite. To the right of the chair behind the desk was a computer terminal. A coffee mug filled with pens competed for space with a stack of paper-filled manila folders. Two padded metal chairs took up space in front of the desk, and the room was illuminated by a pair of overhead fluorescent panels. It stank of sweat and disinfectant.

Seated in the slightly more comfortable chair behind the desk was a woman with raven-black hair and shimmering blue eyes. She wore a conservative pantsuit in dark blue, with a single pearl pendant around her neck. She paused in the act of inputting data as the two men walked into her office. There was a moment of wonder in her eyes, then they opened wide in recognition.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, voice barely audible even in the small room.

“You see? Someone here recognizes you!” laughed The Voice. Calder fought the urge to grin at the unexpected quip. It was exceedingly rare for The Voice to make a joke that had no fatalities in it.

“Colonel Hart, allow me to present Ian Calder,” Whittington said formally. “Mister Calder, this is Colonel Colleen Hart, Director of the Academy.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Calder said, walking forward and extending his hand. The woman looked down at the extremity as though it were a diseased fish, lip curling back in disgust.

“I'm sorry, Ian, I should have told you,” Whittington said in a stage whisper. “The Colonel does not like to be touched.”

“Ever,” confirmed the woman, standing and smoothing the lines of her suit. Her voice was strong and clear, an authoritative tone that commanded instant respect.

“My mistake.” Calder stepped back a pace, dropping his hand to his side. It felt unnatural there, though, and he crossed his arms with a creak of aged leather.

“What brings you to the Academy, mister Calder?”

“Ian. Call me Ian. I saw a fight and came to help.”

“He saved Sergeant Savage from a nasty fall,” Whittington chimed in. The Colonel glared at him for a moment, then imperiously raised her arm, pointing toward the door. Nodding, the man retreated, closing the door behind him.

“I dislike interruptions,” she explained. “Please, have a seat.”

As Calder sat in one of the chairs, she retrieved a pack of cigarettes from a drawer in the desk. She offered him one, then shrugged as he politely declined. She lit one for herself and blew a thin plume of grey toward the ceiling. She made a quiet sniffing sound, then slowly took in a deep breath before speaking.

“What you have stumbled on here is part of a United States government training facility,” she began, scratching idly at her temple. “We train geneboosters.”

“Yes. Mister Whittington explained that much. Teaching them to be heroes, basically.”

Hart snorted at the phrase. “How very droll. What we teach are methods by which the boosters of today can compete with those who have years or even decades of experience. We take newly-Emerged youths and show them how to control their abilities, how to use them appropriately, and how to handle themselves. They are trained in military fighting techniques, emergency response, and first aid. We also give basic lessons in public relations, press awareness, and law. An Academy graduate makes a tremendous addition to any municipality. They provide security, disaster response, and a betterment of the image of geneboosters in general. We have never had a graduate so much as arrested for a crime, let alone convicted,” she added proudly.

“And yet they take names like 'Sergeant Savage',” Calder noted dryly.

“Yes, well, it is hard to break the mold when names are concerned,” agreed Hart with a smile.

“Yeah. I understand.”

“I would rather imagine you do, Ian.” Hart's voice took on an edge of sympathy, and the change caught his attention. She smiled again, this time in a friendly expression rather than one of amusement. “You have had more than your share of problems with breaking your own mold.”

“It's kind of difficult when no one is willing to give you a chance,” he replied bitterly, then stopped and looked at Hart in surprise as he realized what he had said. She tapped at the side of her head with a polished nail.

“Just my little gift, Ian,” she explained. “People tend to be open with me.”

“Telepath?”

“No, actually, as near as I can tell, it's pheromonal,” she admitted candidly, shrugging slightly and gracing him with a brief smile. “The gist of it is that I get past the usual lies and cover-ups people establish and go straight to the heart of the matter...yeah, okay, forget the bad pun,” she said, waving her hand dismissively as she grinned. “You say people won't give you a chance? I will. I'll give you a chance to help, right here, right now.”

“What, you mean at this school?” Calder asked, eyes narrowing in a mix of suspicion and surprise.

“Yes. Come to work here for as long as you like. I have the authority to add anyone to the payroll. I can see to it that you get your chance, and you'll get paid to do it.”

“And what would I be doing? Showing people how to destroy lives? Lady, I've got way too many dead faces in my past. Too many yesterdays and not enough tomorrows, if you know what I mean.”

Hart shook her head, dismissing his concerns. “Jesus, man, you're a walking piece of booster history. You've fought the best we have to offer. You've been down the darkest road there is and you've come back. How many of those kids out there are going to have to face the things you did, huh? Corruption, anger, hatred just because they're different? Their worst fears? The greatest temptations? How many of them do you think could benefit from your experience? More to the point, how many of them do you imagine would not benefit from it?”

Hart had risen from her chair as she began her speech, cigarette forgotten in her ashtray. She became more animated as she spoke, losing herself in the impassioned words until with the final question, she slammed her hands on the desk and stared straight into Calder's eyes.

“Well, you make a good argument, I'll give you that,” he replied. “But how do I know you're not using your power to try and persuade me?”

Hart leaned back, glaring at him as though his statement had been monumentally insulting. “Why would I bother?” she countered. “You've got more to gain here than I do. Think about that. It's not just you helping them that's an issue, but them helping you. You want people to see you for who you are now, rather than who you were then. You wanted a chance, I'm giving it to you. Make your choice.”

She sat back down in her chair, looking at him with an expression of challenge in her eyes. The Voice let him see how easy it would be to reach through her chest and rip through her lungs before she could even try to resist. Ironically it was that vision that made up his mind.

“Okay,” he said simply. “I'm in.”

Ten minutes later, formalities aside, Calder left Hart's office and made his way through the building to the closet-sized room she had indicated on a map would be his office. He passed a door of Kelly-green hue and paused as he heard Whittington talking on the other side. The sound of a telephone being returned to its cradle came a moment later. He raised a hand to knock, figuring the older man should be advised that he had been hired, when the door suddenly opened. Whittington stood there, eyes wide with shock at the image of Ian Calder with a raised fist. A barely-audible hum filled the air as Whittington took a half-step backward and bladed himself away from Calder in an automatic threat response, one hand coming up from his side. A second later, the man relaxed and took a deep breath, pasting a smile on his face.

“Sorry, wasn't expecting anyone to be standing there,” he said in a pleasant voice. The beads of sweat that continued to form on his forehead belied the calm nature he projected, but Calder had caused more than a few people to react nervously in his presence. He took it in stride and grinned, explaining that he had been offered a position at the Academy. Whittington congratulated him and even slapped him on the back, not knowing that The Voice suggested he be split down the middle for the gesture. He offered to show Calder where the cafeteria was, suggesting they go for a coffee, and quickly steered him away from the open office.

Over the next few days, Calder became familiar with his surroundings. He also came to know the various Emerged that he would be teaching. Each had their own special abilities, and while some might be similar to others in what they could do, it was their individual personality and the approach they took to using their newfound powers that made them truly special.

They carried names or symbols of their abilities with a mixture of pride and arrogance, and they were stunned when Calder announced that the practice was falling out of favor among the more recognized geneboosters of the world. Most were simply using their own names, as he himself did. Still, he felt that each of them should make up their own minds, and he learned to know them by the name they gave him and did not inquire about any other they might have.

He answered any question they asked, even when the subject was less than palatable. In particular, the exhaustive list of inquiries the students made about Annihilator seemed almost a test to see how he would react to the emotions they dredged up. They did not understand that he spent every moment of his life with those memories and had come to regard them as fragments of his lost humanity. He had actually grown to treasure even the horrible ones, as they kept him conscious of who he had been, and who he could so easily become once more.

Some of the students still showed a degree of fear when they were near him, but he noticed that even that was less than it had been. In the span of a few days, he had shown them that it was really possible for a person to change. There were those with somewhat biased minds, those who had seen firsthand Annihilator's destruction or who had lost friends or family to his rampages, to whom no amount of time or change would be enough, but there were also those who took the time to get to know the real Ian Calder, who spent precious moments of their life with him, who began to regard him as someone to know rather than something to fear.

He taught them humility and self-control, subjects that were very close to his heart. He showed them how to remain calm when all seemed hopeless, and how to see the brighter side of the darkest of times. He found that The Voice had become less and less vocal as time went on, though whether it was result of introspection or simply that he had little time to listen Calder was unsure. He was grateful for it, though. Even the slightest respite was a blessing.

He even acted one day as target dummy for their combat training, though by the end of that day The Voice was screaming so loudly in Its humiliation that he felt compelled to beg off from future repeats of the activity. The students, unaware of the inner turmoil Calder faced, were overjoyed at the chance to attack full-strength without fear of destroying their target. He was bombarded by radiant beams, kicked, punched, thrown, shot, and worse for hours until the noise in his head threatened to tear him apart. Through it all, both Calder and Whittington taught the students how to refine their attacks, how to seek out the weakest spots on their opponetns and exploit those weaknesses, and how to attack with precision that practically negated the problems of collateral damage.

It was on his sixth day, while discussing media relations with an assembled group of the students, that Calder found the ground reaching up to swallow his legs. He was unable to move as the earth solidified around his thighs, and he recognized it as being one of the abilities of Tremor, a booster with some experience in construction before he had turned his hand to this new lifestyle. He laughed aloud, thinking it to be but another in the long line of pranks that students played, when the sound began.

Starting as a whine almost too high-pitched to register, it soon changed tone to become a grating, nails-on-chalkboard screech that set his teeth on edge. From there it progressed to a brutal auditory assault that rattled his bones. He clenched his teeth and looked around, desperate to find the source. Most of the students were doing the same.

“NOW!” shouted a voice, and though it sounded like it could belong to Whittington, it was no louder than a whisper to Calder's tortured ears. He tried to turn, tried to look behind him for the speaker, but was unable to do so with his legs efficiently trapped. Before he could try any other action, a blast of energy smashed into his chest and shredded his shirt. The impact rocked him back a bit, and had he been standing free, it might have been enough to topple him. The blast was followed by a trio of golden fireballs that blossomed into ravaging flame around him, a dozen bullets, and a bolt of lightning that split the air with its thunderous report. It became obvious that someone had set him up, and that his eventual destruction was the intended goal.

His jacket was ablaze, and Calder shrugged out of it, dropping the garment to the ground as he examined the students that were attacking him. The Voice screamed in rage at the betrayal, snarling imprecations at Calder for failing to see it coming. It flashed pictures in his mind, horrific images of death and destruction.

He saw the albino girl with the blue hair lying on the ground, her head shredded as if by an enormous grinder, saw the fireball-slinging All-American boy with the Brad Pitt hair kneeling on the ground as he attempted to stuff his entrails back into his widely-opened abdomen, saw the tiny Asian girl called Bolt, with her pretty silver eyes, begging for mercy as he savagely tore off her lightning-generating hands. The mental pictures made him ill, but he choked them back and stared defiantly out at his aggressors. Through it all, the sonic attack continued, threatening to shatter his bones with its intensity.

“Stop it!” shouted one of the boosters, a teen with a black buzzcut and a Danzig t-shirt. He glared toward the nearest student, who suddenly fell to the ground unconscious. Calder recognized the youth as PsiKotic, the self-professed 'combat telepath' who focused his will into a stabbing mental probe that ravaged the nerves of his opponents. He was joined in his efforts to stop the attack by Sergeant Savage, who was putting his fists to good use subduing another classmate. The four-armed booster, who Calder had come to know as Gug, wrapped those powerful limbs around the torso of a young man who was blasting Calder with jets of fire, only to fall back with a cry of pain as the boy's entire body erupted into flame.

The area became the site of a quick and violent pitched battle, with incredible powers unleashed as if they were no more than thrown snowballs.The air grew thick with the smells of ozone and scorched flesh. Some attacks remained centered on Calder, however, and The Voice was growing in intensity as the blows began to tell. The sonic attack stopped for a moment, and Calder shook his head rapidly from side to side both to clear it and to force The Voice back into Its cage.

“Annihilator!” demanded a voice from behind him and to his left. Calder swiveled from the waist to see who it was, and his mouth fell open in surprise. He felt himself falling into a black emotional pit, and knew it was one dug by his own hands.

Face unveiled, with her scars brazenly exposed for all to see, the booster known as Siren stalked toward him with pure hatred flickering in her eyes. The single vision of her was enough to cause him to relive every second of the brutal night of torture to which he had treated the woman. She took a slow, deep breath, and Calder steeled himself for what he knew was to come. His efforts were of little use as the sudden scream washed over him like it was a living thing. The vibrations shook his entire body, making him feel as though he were made of jelly. Windows throughout the whole of the Academy exploded. Students fell to their knees, their individual battles forgotten in their pain. Calder screamed in response, though he was completely inaudible over the devastating blast. Blood ran freely from his mouth, nose and ears as capillaries burst. The Voice screamed again, and It had never been so close to resuming control since the day he battled it back.

Siren paused for breath and Calder jerked against his trapped legs, frantically trying to free himself from the stone. He slammed his powerful fists against the pillar of rock, sending cracks spider-webbing through it. Again he hammered it, and then the scream rent the air once more. It was so vicious an attack, and delivered at such close range, that Calder was forced backward. The stone split and then shattered violently as it was caught in the sonic wave. Calder fell back onto his his hip, rolling across the ground. He saw the students as he rolled. Each was crouched or lying on the ground, their hands pressed tightly to their ears to protect themselves. He found himself wanting to see them safe while at the same time enjoying the spectacle of seeing them in pain, and Calder knew that meant that The Voice was still trying to take over. He was being forced to fight a battle on multiple fronts, and he knew quite well where that placed him militarily.

He forced himself upright, battling the onslaught of the vibrations, and leaped into the air, intending to separate himself from the group of boosters that lay squirming on the ground. Even those that had initially attacked him were not a part of this fight. This was between Calder and Siren. Scarcely had he gained ten feet before he was forced to the ground by an unseen energy. He recognized the source, though, and turned to see Whittington glaring balefully at him from his position beside Siren. Calder suddenly knew why the man's voice had sounded familiar. Charles Whittington was Graviton, one of the boosters who had helped to subdue Annihilator. Together with the solar-ray blaster called Lightbringer, they had nearly spelled the end for him before the intervention of Deacon Blue.

There was another pause in the sonic blasts, and Calder turned to face Siren directly. His lip peeled back in a diabolical grin, exposing teeth turned red by the flow of blood through his mouth. He laughed aloud, though he was barely able to hear himself, and when he spoke, to his dismay, the words were delivered by The Voice.

“Give me more, you pathetic little bitch! You think you are good enough? You weren't then, and you aren't now! Kill me, if you can! Kill me! Come on, KILL ME!” he shouted.

“Oh, I intend to,” Siren countered, breathing heavily. Sweat poured from her in response to her exertions. Beside her, Graviton redoubled his efforts, bringing Calder to his knees. As the besieged booster tried to bring up his hands to shield himself, Graviton directed a strong burst of energy at them, forcing the arms to fall back to his sides. Siren began another breath even as Calder battled back his inner demons long enough to speak.

“Wait!” Calder shouted, his tone pleading. “Please!”

Siren stopped her inhalation, erupting into a deep belly laugh. “You're begging? Already?” she asked, eyes wide. “I seem to remember doing that myself, though if I remember right you didn't stop for me. I don't think I will for you, either,” she added with an angry sneer.

“Not for me,” Calder said, stalling her attack. He jerked his head at the students, his arms still too weighed down by the intensified local gravitic field to move. “You're killing them. You want me, take me. But do it somewhere else. We go into the woods, get away from them, then you do what you want.”

There was a momentary slackening of the pressure upon Calder as Graviton looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and admiration in his eyes.

“I told you, 'Becca,” Graviton whispered. “This ain't the same guy. He's different.”

“Yes it is!” She snapped in response, waves of force from her voice ruffling Graviton's hair. “That's the bastard that did this to me!” she continued, voice rising into a deafening crescendo as she pointed at her own face.

“I am and I'm not,” Calder said, still trying to calm the vengeful woman. “There's a part of me that will always be him.” He paused to spit out a mouthful of blood.

“But there's part of him that isn't,” called a voice from the parade field. The group turned to see the battered form of Sergeant Savage standing over an unconscious classmate. Like most of the others, he had streams of blood running freely from mouth, nose, and ears due to the overpressure of Siren's attacks. Even his eyes had gone red from burst capillaries, and he was scarcely able to stand. “There's a part of him that's on our side now, lady, and that's a side you just walked away from.”

The words hung like a challenge in the air, and the scarred woman laughed aloud, the sound echoing from the walls of the Academy. Her face was twisted into a demonic visage, and she gazed at the student as though he were no more than an insect.

“They teach you to talk like that here?” she asked derisively, then turned her back on him in a dismissive gesture. “Let's finish this,” she growled at Calder.

“No.”

The word came, surprisingly, from Charles Whittington, who simply released his gravitational hold on Calder and let his hands fall to his sides. Siren looked at him, mouth falling open in horror as she realized the implications of his action. It had been his constant hold on Calder that had allowed her to continue her assault. Without his assistance, she could quite literally be torn to pieces.

“I owed you, Rebecca. I owed you for years of your friendship. I swore to you I'd help you get him and I did.” Graviton said firmly. “But it's over now. This is not the man who hurt you. This is Ian Calder, not Annihilator.”

“You heard him!” Siren protested angrily, spinning on her heel to stare at Graviton.

“All I heard was a pathetic cry from the past,” he countered, shrugging his shoulders. “Another life, trapped in his body, begging to be taken. I won't be a party to it.”

He turned away from the woman, facing Calder with shame in his eyes. “I called her here, Ian. I set this up. I got the students who had reason to hate you to join in. It's my fault. Don't hold it against them.”

“I've had enough of grudges in my life,” replied Calder. He looked pointedly at Siren as he spoke. “They only lead to pain.”

“You've got to be kidding me!” Siren screamed, the force of her voice driving Graviton to his knees on the ground before her. She advanced on him in a slow, deliberate manner, glaring down at him as she moved. “All this, and you back out now? Fine, I'll finish it myself.”

“No, ma'am, you won't,” declared Sergeant Savage. He stood now, shoulder to shoulder with a dozen of his classmates. They began to spread slowly into a wide skirmish line, putting enough distance between each member of the group that hopefully Siren could not catch them all with one blast. Sergeant Savage crossed his powerful arms across his chest defiantly and looked at Siren as though daring her to act. “You move against him, and we come after you.”

“You think you scare me, boy?” Siren hissed. “I'll wipe you out, too.”

“But you see, that means you have to turn your back on Ian,” replied the fatigue-clad man, the beginnings of a grin turning up the corners of his mouth. “Knowing him, I figure he's got my back just as much as I've got his. You're in a no-win situation here. You want to take me out, fine. Give it your best. Bet on the others coming out to play, though. For every one of us you attack, there's someone else to meet you. You go after Ian, and we're gonna bum rush you. So, to borrow your own phrase, you think you scare me?”

Calder stood in stunned silence at the sudden show of solidarity. For once, even The Voice seemed to be at a loss for words. He watched as Siren turned to look at each face in a slow sequence, examining them carefully for any hint of indecision or weakness. She came at last to Graviton who, although he was loath to meet her gaze, refused to waver.

“Mark my words, boys and girls,” Siren said after a moment. “He isn't your friend, and he isn't your ally. He's a dangerous animal that should be put down. You'll find out in time how right I am, and I hope none of you ends up looking like me.”

She turned and began walking away, then suddenly turned back to fix the group with a baleful stare. “You people will be out on your own one day, you know. I suggest you all watch your backs, 'cause I'll remember your faces.”

Without waiting for a response, she sprinted away from the parade field, and the assembled students let out a collective sigh of relief. Many of them collapsed to the ground, their adrenaline having given out. It had served its purpose, though, and they all knew what they had done. None among them felt the gesture more than Ian Calder. Their willingness to sacrifice themselves on his behalf was like a weight lifting from his shoulders, and he felt a small part of that beast within him die and fall away. If these people could learn to accept him, there was perhaps some hope for others.

“Ian, I am truly sorry,” Graviton said, chewing thoughtfully at his lower lip. Calder spoke before any of the students could respond with a recriminating remark.

“No autopsy, no foul,” he said in a voice suddenly gone hoarse. “But you owe me a new jacket.”

END