All American Rejects (Users #3) Read online

  "Yeah, and the Nazis never said anything about concentration camps to the Jews either," Evan said.

  "I think you're being a little over dramatic," Ryker said.

  "I don't think he is," Barber said.

  Carter watched as the news of the registration tore a rift between his friends until he could take it no longer.

  "Enough!" he shouted.

  The entire room turned to stare at him. Carter was suddenly very conscious of the fact that, as the leader of the Compound, the rest of the Users might be looking to him for an answer.

  "Let's not jump to any conclusions here," Carter said in an attempt to calm the worried Users. "They may say one thing and do another. Besides, they can't possibly enforce this rule on every User in the country."

  Carter couldn't possibly know how wrong he was.

  *****

  The days passed and, as registration stations for Users to enroll and declare their abilities were set up at court houses across the country, the Users at the Compound remained conflicted. Maybe it was because they were all recovering drug addicts and/or alcoholics, or maybe it was because they were just rebels, but the majority of the Compound's Users just didn't deal well with authority. Especially when that authority was the same government who, when given the preference, would rather throw them in a jail cell than get them the help they needed to treat their addiction in a recovery center.

  The choices for recovering addicts were limited, and even more so for Users. The Compound was the only place Carter knew of that would take in recovering Users, with consideration of their special needs. The last thing a recovery center needed was a pissed off detoxing User lighting the joint on fire or bringing the building down on everyone.

  The Compound was little more than a campground, with dozens of individual cabins backed against a thick forest on one side, and the big house up against the fence on the other, but for Carter and the others, it was home. It was a place for him to hone his powers in peace. He had spent the last few weeks doing just that. He had been working on a new move that was going to blow everyone away.

  It hadn't always been this way, but after the demise of the previous leader, Carter had stepped up to help run the place the best he could. He had seen the Compound through a few bumps in the road, but he had faced nothing of this magnitude before.

  "There goes another one," Barber said as Todd, a Blinder who had recently moved into the Compound, made his way out of the front gate.

  A wooden fence made of thick logs ran the entirety of the Compound, offering privacy from prying eyes, but also turning the grounds into somewhat of a fortress. There was only one way in and one way out. The front gate. This made it all too obvious who was coming and going, as far as Carter was concerned.

  "He's going to register?" Carter asked looking up from his newspaper.

  "Yup," Barber answered.

  "They're dropping like flies," Ryker said coming up to take a seat at the table on the big house's deck.

  "What have you decided to do?" Barber asked looking at Carter from over his bowl of cereal.

  "I have decided...," Carter hesitated. "That the registration is bullshit and I'm not doing it."

  Barber slapped him on the back heartily. "That's what I'm saying."

  "I think you guys are overreacting," Ryker said. Carter and Barber exchanged a glance from across the table. The registration had been a sore subject ever since its announcement, and Carter really didn't feel the need for another argument about it.

  "You going to register with the others?" Barber asked.

  "I may, but I'm in no hurry to do so," Ryker said.

  "Where are you going!" A voice from inside the gate roared.

  "Oh no, Evan's at it again," Barber said. And just like that, it seemed there was going to be an argument about the registration whether Carter wanted it or not.

  Carter sighed, rose from his seat, and trotted over to the gate with Ryker and Barber following close behind him.

  "What's going on here?" Carter asked as if he didn't already know.

  He knew damn well what was going on. This was the third time this week Evan had started a fight with another User over the registration and a crowd was already gathering to watch the spectacle. Evan's fights with the other Users had become like car accidents; no one wanted them, but once they had started, no one could look away.

  "This traitor is going to go and register," Evan said with enough venom in his tone to kill a full grown elephant.

  Todd, the User on his way out to register, wouldn't make eye contact with Evan, but instead looked uncomfortably to Carter for support.

  "We've already gone over this Evan," Carter said. "Anyone is free to register if they want. We're not going to force anyone one way or the other."

  "Force? Oh, I can force someone," Evan said and he raised a hand to Todd and lifted the man a couple of feet off the ground with his telekinesis.

  "Back off Mover! Just because you want to break the law, doesn't mean we all have to!" Todd yelled.

  "He said back off!" One of the guards stationed at the gate who had already gone and registered the previous day, said as he grabbed a pebble from the driveway and cupped it in both hands. Jeff, a Changer, walked toward Evan mashing his hands together. With a grunt, the pebble became a softball sized rock.

  "What exactly do you think you are going to do with that?" Evan asked, not even remotely threatened.

  Jeff answered by cocking back and hurling the rock at Evan's face.

  "No!" Carter screamed as the rock soared at Evan, but Evan dropped Todd and turned his powers on the rock at the very last second.

  The rock hovered in midair right in front of the tip of Evan's nose.

  "Nice try Changer," Evan said. "Better luck next time."

  Evan extended one arm in a throwing motion, but as he cocked back Carter clasped a hand around his wrist.

  "Don't do it, Evan." Carter tightened his grip on Evan's wrist to let him know he meant business.

  Evan's eyes went wide and he looked at Carter like he had been betrayed.

  "Just cool it," Carter said. Their eyes were locked on one another.

  "Fine," Evan said. "You want to end up on some government hit list, go ahead. Let them brand you like cattle for all I care."

  Evan tore his wrist from Carter's grasp, turned, and stomped off to his cabin. Throwing a fit worthy of a toddler that was told they couldn't have another piece of candy, he slammed the door behind him.

  "What an asshole," Barber said exasperated.

  "You got that right," Carter agreed.

  Chapter 3

  Later that same evening, Carter and Ryker sat quietly enjoying the warmth of the fire pit at the center of the Compound, just as they did most other nights, only this night would be different, but neither of them could see the storm that was headed their way. Dozens of Users milled about, enjoying the warmth of the fire, or were settling in at their cabins for a good nights sleep.

  "What's that?" Ryker asked out of nowhere. Ryker popped up from his seat on the log and gazed off into the distance.

  "What's what?" Carter lay propped up casually with his back against a log and he had to look up to see what Ryker was staring at.

  "That light," Ryker answered. "I've never seen that light before."

  "Where?" Carter asked. All he could see were the silhouettes of the trees that rose above the fence against the night sky. It was relatively clear compared to most Seattle nights with only a sparse dotting of clouds obscuring their view of the stars.

  "There! Right there!" Ryker pointed. Carter gazed hard and seemingly out of nowhere, a light appeared to be moving through the tree line. It stopped, hovered for a second, and continued on in a horizontal line that Carter knew couldn't be produced by nature.

  "I see it," Carter said. "And it looks like it's coming right for us."

  And in a flash, a beam of light shot down on top of them. The scene was like something out of a bad movie about alien abduction. Carter half
expected to be beamed up to a spaceship. Where with his luck, he'd probably be anally probed.

  "It's a fucking spotlight!" Ryker shouted.

  Then they heard it. The telltale whipping of a helicopter's blades spinning above them. Before Carter could get to his feet, ropes dropped down around their campfire.

  "It's a raid!" Carter yelled above the whip, whip, whip of the churning helicopter blades.

  "Nobody move!" A voice from above shouted down at them through the telltale buzz of a megaphone.

  Those closest to the campfire bolted. Users scrambled in all directions as a familiar face came gracefully down one of the ropes.

  "I said nobody move!" It was Alaric.

  Of course it was, who else would dare to drop in on a camp full of Users in such a fashion.

  The Enforcer was the first down on the ground, but far from the last. Behind Alaric came a number of what Carter could only assume were more Users, spiraling down the ropes. And by the presence of Alaric, Carter knew exactly who those Users would be. The All Americans, the world's most famous superhero team, were raiding his home.

  "We've gotta go," Ryker exclaimed.

  The back of Carter's shirt ripped as Ryker yanked him to his feet.

  "Just let me talk to him," Carter said.

  Ryker looked at him doubtfully.

  "This is a bad idea," Ryker said, but it was too late, Carter was already approaching Alaric.

  "What the hell do you think are you doing here?" Carter asked.

  "We're here to bring you in," Alaric said. "You and all your friends who haven't registered."

  They were surrounded by an all out panic. Those who hadn't registered either fled or fought back. Most of those who had already registered, fell to the ground with their hands behind their heads, but a few joined in on the fight to help their friends. Several fights between the Compound's Users and the All American's had broken out across the yard. Carter flinched as one of the All Americans Screamers, Stella, laid a couple of the Compound Users out flat with a scream that took them and a nearby cabin to the ground. Chunks of wood and roofing shingles were thrown across the yard by the force of her scream. This scene played itself out all over the Compound. User faced off against User. Powers were being thrown around like liquid in water fight, and by the looks of it, the Compound Users were losing their ground.

  "And this is how you go about it?" Carter asked pointing to the helicopter and the ropes.

  "You've had your chance to come in peacefully," Alaric said calmly.

  "So you rappel in here, like some G.I. Joe on steroids and demand us all to comply with your bullshit fascist registration? Fuck you!" Carter didn't like Alaric's attitude one bit. He, for one, didn't much care about registering either way, but now Alaric had crossed the line. He wouldn't register if it was the last thing he did, just for the principal of the thing. He was a bastard like that sometimes, and he enjoyed any opportunity to piss off Alaric.

  Alaric's steady expression changed to a Cheshire cat grin. "Don't ever say I didn't give you the option. Now we do it the hard way."

  "You got that right," Carter said, and he threw a right cross that almost connected with Alaric's firm jawline, but Alaric snatched Carter's fist in mid-swing. "You've gotten faster," Carter said.

  Carter noticed that since their last fight, Alaric looked bulkier too, as if having the body of a Greek god were not enough for Alaric. The dude looked like Vin Diesel fucked The Rock and they produced a child on steroids.

  "I've been training," Alaric said casually and he started to squeeze Carter's fist and bring his arm down to his waist. "While you on the other hand have been getting fat."

  Carter couldn't deny that he hadn't been training as hard as he should as of late, but he had a compound to run. Maybe being the leader was turning him soft, or maybe he just didn't have the same sense of urgency that Alaric had after their last fight, but either way, Alaric literally now held the upper hand.

  He was left wide open and Alaric took advantage of it by snapping forward and hitting Carter with a head butt to the face. Carter's nose crunched.

  "You done talking?" Ryker asked sarcastically between hitting one of the All Americans with a block of ice and dropping an ice ball on another's head.

  "I've beat him before. I can do it again," Carter growled in defiance, but he knew he was telling a half truth. He set fire to his fist and Alaric grimaced in pain, but did not let go.

  "I've seen enough." Ryker stepped up and blasted Alaric with a blizzard of snow that left Alaric encased in a frozen layer of ice.

  Carter used the flames to thaw only the ice on Alaric's hand before he pulled back and was finally able to free his hand from Alaric's grip.

  "Don't move, or I'll explode your head like a cherry bomb." A voice from over their shoulders threatened.

  "Stella," Carter said. "Long time no see."

  "Not long enough," Stella said flippantly.

  "You always were the smart ass," Carter said.

  "Better a smart ass than a dumb ass," she said with a wry grin. "Now lay down on the ground with your hands behind your back."

  Carter threw Ryker a mischievous grin.

  "You're not thinking about running from a delicate little girl, are you Carter?" Stella asked. Her chin was tilted down, she looked up at him innocently through thick black lashes with stunning green eyes.

  Though she stood only slightly over five feet tall and weighed maybe a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, Carter knew this precious little flower was anything but delicate. Her Screamer powers had been honed to perfection, earning her the status of second in command on the All Americans team.

  "Nope," Carter answered taking a step forward threateningly.

  "Yes, you are." Ryker pulled on his arm, bringing him in close. "Live to fight another day," he whispered in Carter's ear.

  Carter growled in anger. If he left, he would be abandoning all those left behind, but if he stayed, they would no doubt lose the fight. They were in a lose-lose situation.

  Without so much as another word, Carter turned and ran as fast as he could, but Ryker needed no warning. He was right on Carter's tail.

  "You always were a fool!" Stella hollered after Carter before unleashing a blood curtailing scream that swept them off their feet.

  Carter was thrown forward as the wave of sound hit him from behind. The force of impact was doubled as Ryker came crashing into him, but the two froze in midair; grabbed by some unseen force.

  "I told you it would end like this," Evan said from the side.

  Carter turned to see Evan with his hand out preventing them from falling flat on their faces.

  "Now let's get the fuck outta here." Evan set them down on their feet in mid-stride.

  Soon the three of them were in an all out race for the gate. Lucky for them, someone had thrown it's double doors wide open. Behind them a catastrophic battle raged on, and was being lost by their friends. Most lay beaten or were soon to be joining those in defeat. Others had fled. Carter had no way of knowing how many had escaped, but as he reached the gate, he looked over his shoulder to peak at the Compound and found nothing but ruin. In the fight many of the cabins had been all but destroyed, the fence had been knocked down in a number of places, and the big house had a giant hole through the wall of the kitchen.

  "What took you guys so long?" Barber appeared from behind a bush just beyond the fence. "Let's get the hell out of here already."

  The four Users turned down the road, taking the few effortless strides before they easily disappeared into the thick underbrush of the dense Washington forest.

  Chapter 4

  Alaric took the steps leading to the basement in stride. He and the other members of the All Americans had entered through a side entrance that avoided the prying eyes of the security that monitored the twenty plus floors of office space above. The lab that filled the basement appeared to run the entirety of the building's width. It was far from modest. The Federal Government had spared no expense t
o fill the lab with the most cutting edge technology, all at the behest of one extremely talented scientist and doctor by the name of Heath.

  "Hello, Alaric," Heath said.

  "Good morning," Alaric said with a nod.

  The man was older than Alaric by at least a decade. Heath looked the part of the nerdy scientist, complete with thick glasses and a white lab coat. He had a thin frame and a long beak of a nose. His hair was going gray along the sides, but was still a dark brown across the top.

  "How's the hunting going?" Heath walked with a slight slump to his shoulders as he came over to shake Alaric's hand.

  "Don't call it that." Alaric warned him. "I don't like it." Alaric left Heath's hand hanging until Heath finally pulled it away.

  "So sorry," Dr. Heath bowed with sarcasm, rolling his right hand over a few times before extending it out as he bent down. "How would you prefer I reference it?" he asked, looking back up from his hunched position.

  Alaric couldn't help but notice how socially awkward the scientist was. His attempt at a joke, came off with him sounding like a real asshole.

  "We are arresting those who have broken the law. We are doing what is in the best interest of the American people, and doing our part to aid in the government's effort to maintain public safety and order." Alaric boasted patriotically. "They are common criminals as far as I'm concerned...But they are not animals."

  Alaric looked back to his companions for support, but they were milling about at the bottom of the stairs, heads down; obviously uncomfortable with their surroundings. Beyond the sometimes volatile and, in general, disturbing demeanor of their host, the large laboratory boasted a major feature reminding them all of the current state of their world. Along the far wall from the side entrance was a row of seven foot tall glass cylinders built to house the non-compliant Users they had apprehended. Most of them were occupied by the Users they had caught the night before at the Compound.

  Some of the Users banged on the glass, others screamed, but Heath, Alaric, and the All Americans on the outside of the small containers heard nothing. The barrier was nearly a foot thick; built to withstand the deepest depths of the ocean. The individual holding cells were bullet proof, fire proof, and essentially User proof. The perfect prison for Heath to keep his subjects in.