Book 3, Chapter 2

I felt my perception of time expand as my precognition gift from Trix commingled with my expanded powers from Other Me. Instead of seeing what I now knew as the most likely outcome of the future in three seconds, I perceived the world in front of me like someone had overlayed an x-ray of possible futures in front of me.

Future sight is an incredible power, Other Me chimed in. It’s one of the abilities almost any being that transcends mortality pursues to one degree or another during their ascension. The fact that you got even a crippled and nearly useless version of it from Trix for a few sinners souls is a testament to how powerful she is.

Barely any time had passed since I slammed open the door, Other Me’s needless explanation having taken place at the speed of thought. We more or less shared the same mind-space at this point, and I had gotten used to him running a play-by-play on my life.

As the milliseconds ticked by, I examined the thirty or so guards in front of me. Most of them had guns that were annoying at best, but one small group of guards near the side were all operating one gun that thought would look right at home on a Gundam. My newly awakened magical senses condensed around it, and the power it was giving off made me worry.

One second was quickly becoming two, and I knew I needed to act if I wanted a chance of keeping this conflict as bloodless as possible. With a grunt, I shot down the corridor, the dozens of tendrils and tentacles I had sprouted moving me down the hallway like someone had strapped a jet engine to a spider from hell. I arched into the air, thankful for the high ceilings, my loose clothing snapping and flapping in the sudden wind. I heard several guards scream at my approach as they opened fire.

Only a few bullets hit me as I sprouted a dozen new tentacles from my midsection, bursting through my shirt like some horrible combination of a Chia Pet and an alien chest burster. The screams of panic from the guards turned to screams of pain as each tentacle snapped out and crushed the guns in their hands. I mentally winced, knowing I probably broke a finger or wrist here and there.

Another two dozen of the smaller tendrils I had left over from opening the door shot to the side and yanked on the big sci-fi gun with enough force to rip it out of it’s mooring. Which is when I learned it had been riveted to the floor.

Quick recoil lesson: You know in crappy action movies, you often see a guy getting shot by a shotgun and flying back? You likely had a friend or were the friend that noted such a feat is impossible. Because if the pellets/bullets/slugs of a gun have enough force to impact a human body with such force, that force would need to come from somewhere, right? Something has to move the bullet forward. If that force is strong enough to hit a human and knock said human away, that same force would also be strong enough to send the guy holding the gun just as far.

That was a long winded way of saying that I didn’t have enough tentacles anchoring me to the walls or floor to keep me in the air as I yanked the science gun out of the concrete.

I let out a comical “OOF” as the large piece of metal equipment slammed into me. Luckily I had a brand new bunch of tentacles sprouting from my stomach, which helped disperse the impact. I quickly adjusted in mid-air and threw the big gun behind me while desperately trying to slow myself before I crashed into the front row of guards.

I met some success, as I didn’t kill anyone. I did break a few bones (none of mine), however, which I felt bad about. I gently climbed out of the mess of bodies while directing my tentacles to break the rest of the firearms of the guards in the back. One guy had gotten especially unlucky with a snapped collarbone. A few of my tentacles set him aside as I began to Lash all the guards together on the left side of the corridor.

“Sorry about this!” I said as I felt my perception return to normal. My head felt hot and I was breathing heavily. Other Me had warned me that future sight usually came with a heavy cost, but even his frequent and stressed warnings didn’t prepare me for the fact that using it for two seconds had me feeling like I’d used my biggest spells. I took several deep breaths before continuing. “Hopefully someone will be by to cut you guys free. When they do, tell them Jeremy is tied up too.”

Some of the guards who hadn’t been injured tried to fight against me but—but it was like fighting children. Or maybe the blind? I was so much faster and stronger than any one of them. Not only that, but I could tell what they were going to do almost before they did. Whether that was a facet of Trix’s precognition gift or just the mental improvement of our last deal, or the changes coming about from incorporating more of Other Me into myself OR a combination thereof, I had no idea. All I know is that these Elysium agents didn’t have a chance.

Which is great, because if I had to spend more effort on incapacitating them I don’t know if I could have kept them all alive. I looked over the group one last time to make sure I hadn’t accidentally covered anyone’s airways before reabsorbing the tentacles back into my stomach and shooting down the hallway. It was a good quarter mile before the first turn arrived, and I rounded the corner with dread. When I didn’t see or sense another trap I slowed to a jagged stop and collapsed against the wall, gasping for breath.

You are pushing too hard, Other Me chastised. Your substance is deteriorating under the strain.

Yeah, thanks, I replied with a mental eye roll.

This was something we had figured might happen, along with the strain of using what Other Me called future sight. He used a bunch of fancy words to say that I had too much power and no foundation with which to hold it. If you’ll forgive the shitty metaphor, I was a Power Wheels car someone had shoved a V8 in. Every time I pushed my limits I risked breaking my body (the words “catastrophic molecular failure” were used when I discussed it with Other Me), or—and this is almost as scary—ascending mortality.

Ascending mortality sounds good, if you’re familiar with Xianxia fiction, but it’s not something one does without being ready for it. Other Me ascended after being alive for eighty years, becoming a thing so vast and powerful he has to hang out in the void between galaxies lest his mere presence start to corrupt the matter around him. For all that amazing power, the majority of his existence has been one of utter loneliness, having to interact with others via intermediaries and cat’s paws.

I gave myself a minute to rest before starting up a slow jog down the hallway, where a “slow jog” for me was faster than the speed limit of school districts. I could have gone faster, but that’d require I exert my magic to reduce the air resistance on my body. My baggy clothes were acting like parachutes, slowing me down every time my feet left the floor.

I turned another corner after another mile of running and slowed to a stop at what greeted me. Two squads of elite Elysium agents, their black tactical/fantasy armor gleaming in the fluorescent lights. I saw Kristy on the right, issuing quiet instructions to hold fire until her go.

“Kristy!” I shouted with a grin, waving my hand above my head in genuine excitement. “You got promoted!

The tension in the room ratcheted up and also smoothed out at my outburst, like some kind of emotional paradox. They had been prepared for monster Colm, who never showed any emotions except mild disappointment and mild interest.

“Colm?” Kristy called down the hallway. They were about a hundred yards away.

“Yep!” I shouted back. “Sorry for pretending to be dumb for so long,” I apologized, lowering my hand to scratch my scalp through the main of hair I hadn’t cut in three years. For some reason, out of all my body functions, hair growth was the hardest to control, so I stopped bothering. “It took a while to put my mind back together.”

I felt Albright slam his full mental power against my mind and I slapped his attempt away like a mother warding her kids from a pie right out of the oven. I saw the group on the left shift as someone I hadn’t seen lost their footing.

“Albright, you should know better,” I called out, then turned back to Kristy. “Are you doing okay? Any lingering effects from the Waker?”

Even as far away as they were, I could make out her expression easily. I’d had plenty of time to adjust my eyes to fix my nearsightedness, plus the upgrade from Trix just made everything about me better. As I watched her struggle to decide what to tell me, I noted the new lines on her face, the heavy bags under her eyes, the new, pixie haircut that showed off her ears that at one point had many piercings but were now nude of any metal. I scanned the other soldiers, those whose faces I could see, and not one among them looked like they’d had a good night of sleep in months.

“A bit,” Kristy said with a sigh. “I have some pretty bad sleep apnea.”

I clicked my tongue in sympathy. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

“What do you mean by that?” A voice I recognized as Roy’s came from the left squad.

“You’ll see,” I said while shaking my head and rolling my shoulders. “I’d love to catch up with you guys, but I got shit to do. You’d be doing me a real solid if you all could just pretend I overpowered you and let me past.”

Albright shoved to the front of the left squad, his eyes bloodshot and blood dripping from his nose. Oops, slapped him a little too hard. “You know we can’t do that,” he said as he produced his Garand and sighted on me.

“Sure you can,” I replied mildly, shrugging. “You just won’t. No hard feelings. I’ll try to avoid breaking any bones. Best I can do.”

I sighed and looked at the twelve individuals, some of which I could consider friends if things had panned out different. I didn’t want to hurt them, but the people who held their reins didn’t want me around. Trouble is, I’m uniquely qualified to stop the end of the world.

I just wish I didn’t have to beat up people just trying to do their jobs to do it.