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Prism Academy: Inferna
 License Notes: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of
the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is
purely coincidental. This e-book is licensed for your personal
enjoyment. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.

Prism Academy- Inferna

Copyright © 2022
David Burke
Cover art copyright
David Burke
Table of Contents
Prologue - Earthfall
Chapter 1 - Slums
Chapter 2 - Light in the Dark
Chapter 3 - Better than Sparkling Vampires?
Chapter 4 - Dreams Aren’t Free
Chapter 5 - Coming to a Head
Chapter 6 - Dim Past, Brighter Future
Chapter 7 - Lean Man
Chapter 8 - Suit Up
Chapter 9 - Entrance
Chapter 10 - The Door
Chapter 11 - Images of Horror and Hope
Chapter 12 - Shadow Within
Chapter 13 - Stats 1.0
Chapter 14 - Adapting
Chapter 15 - Rivals
Chapter 16 - Affinities
Chapter 17 - Orientation
Chapter 18 - The Morality of Supers
Chapter 19 - Capacity
Chapter 20 - Lecture
Chapter 21 - A New Way of Looking at Things
 Chapter 22 - As Real As Can Be
Chapter 23 - Not Quite So Easy
Chapter 24 - Harsh Lessons
Chapter 25 - Assets
Chapter 26 - Making Friends
Chapter 27 - Flaming Out
Chapter 28 - Stats 1.1
Interlude 1 - Shadowy Offers
Chapter 29 - Power Ranking
Chapter 30 - You’ve Got to Be Kidding
Chapter 31 - Gilded Cage
Chapter 32 - Interrupted
Chapter 33 - Close In
Chapter 34 - Clean Up
Chapter 35 - Hero Track
Chapter 36 - Birds and the Bonds
Chapter 37 - Vinegar or Honey?
Chapter 38 - Introspection
Chapter 39 - Stats 1.2
Chapter 40 - Too Close
Chapter 41 - Training
Chapter 42 - Grabbing a Bite
Chapter 43 - A Date?
Interlude 2 - Heels Are For Being Kissed
Chapter 44 - Water Under the Bridge
Chapter 45 - Check Please
Chapter 46 - Tiny Cages
Chapter 47 - Upstaged
Chapter 48 - Summoned
Chapter 49 - Blowing Off Steam
Chapter 50 - Burning Up
Chapter 51 - Aftermath
Chapter 52 - Stats 1.3
Chapter 53 - Getting to Know Her
Chapter 54 - Monster Assassin
Chapter 55 - Getting Wet
Chapter 56 - Rising Up
Chapter 57 - Fire and Water
Chapter 58 - A Grade?
Chapter 59 - Stats 1.4
Chapter 60 - Incursion
Chapter 61 - Too Close to Home
Chapter 62 - Back at the Ranch
Chapter 63 - Unlikely Allies?
Chapter 64 - Going All Out
Epilogue
Index
Final Stat Sheet
 Prologue - Earthfall
‘Shadows are cast when the light is blocked. What must
that say about the shadows of our soul?’ — Inscription on the
tomb of Eli Weston, better known as Prism.

A man stood staring at the tomb. It was a large marble affair

and sat at the heart of the academy. It was a testament to the care
given to this tomb, that one hundred and two years had neither
weathered nor worn either the inscription, the statue, or the tomb
itself. The principles the man inside that tomb had stood for hadn’t
fared nearly as well. Albert Feinston shook his head.

“I thought I’d find you here,” said a voice behind him.

Albert didn’t need to look back. He knew that voice all too well,
his right-hand man—or woman—Catherine. Together, they were
responsible for not only running this branch of the Prism Academy,
but also with finding new supers, world-wide.

“Every time I feel like I’m losing hope, I come back here,” Albert
said, his voice heavy with the weight of responsibility. “Prism made it
work. Surely, there will be others.”

“It’s been over a century. Perhaps it is time to look in other

directions,” Catherine replied.

Albert clenched his jaw briefly. “We were meant to learn

something from this. I refuse to believe it’s all random—something
so important should not be left up to chance.”
 “You see a plan,” the tall brunette replied, “where I only see an
apocalypse.”

He turned to face her. “178 years ago, Earthfall happened. The

progenitor rays fell across the entire planet. If it had been a natural
phenomenon, it would have only hit one side of the planet. You have
to realize that means something.”

“I know the shadow fell at the same time. I know that something
like sixty percent of the Earth’s population died in a single day and
another twenty percent died in the thirty years it took to stabilize the
safe zones. I know that innocent women and men were struck by
these rays and changed, with some becoming supers and others
becoming monsters. And that is amazing, as you and I well know,
but many others simply died.”

Feinston frowned at her.

“Truthfully, they might have been the lucky ones, because

those who were turned…” She shrugged. “Well, you’ve seen it. It is
horrific, and those who weren’t instantly changed, still changed
slowly. They simply lived long enough to betray humanity from the
inside.”

Catherine shook her head. “No, I don’t know how the progenitor
rays can be seen as any more of a blessing than the shadow.”

Albert sighed. “I can’t argue the horror of that day, or of what

followed. If Prism and a few others hadn’t risen up, humanity would
have been lost. But you are only focusing on what happened. You
forget to ask why.”

“Why? You mean why do men fare so much worse from the
progenitor rays? Or why different colored rays trigger different
powers in different people? Why does yellow give sensory abilities,
or blue psychic abilities? They simply do. We don’t have time worry
about that. I know you want to romanticize it, but Janice’s failures
prove it is simply random.”

“Just because we haven’t found it doesn’t mean there isn’t a

pattern. Why else would male supers become Refractors capable of
displaying multiple affinities, but female supers become Rays with
only the affinity for one progenitor ray? Or why is that Refractors can
only access their affinities after bonding with a Ray?”

“We should be more focused on this year’s test,” Catherine

said. “It’s only two days away.”

“Not like I could forget. Sometimes the government lives up to

their name. Whoever thought of naming it the North American
Alliance Government was crazy.”

She laughed. “I’m glad they nag you, rather than me. What is it
this time?”

“They are pushing for more people to be tested. They want us

to hide the truth of the test. I’m so sick of secrets. I just can’t do it
anymore. Fortunately, I don’t have to.” He nodded to the statue.
 “Prism made sure of that, when he founded this as a private
corporation. Even the government can’t overwhelm the people who
sit on our board,” Albert said.

“Maybe they have a point, though. No Refractor has had more

than three affinities in as many decades—and even that is becoming
less common. Soon, the Refractors won’t be any stronger than the
Rays, and then humanity in their safe havens will be overrun. I know
you spent time fighting with the military, but even you have to admit
they can’t drive back the shadow without supers. And not just any
supers—we need more powerful ones. If they won’t occur naturally,
then we need to make our own.”

“You know we’ve tried.”

“Then try again,” Catherine said.

Albert looked at her for a long moment, then shook his head.

When Albert turned to look at the tomb one more time, he didn’t
see the hardening of her expression.
 Chapter 1 - Slums
I scanned the street while walking home—it was only common
sense to do so. Any slummer would have told you that. These
streets weren’t safe, not even during daylight, and certainly not with
the sun long down.

At best, one in six streetlights still worked. For a world that

depended on light for safety, this just seemed stupid. But then again,
maybe the powers that be didn’t care about the lives of us little folk
way down here.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be getting home this late. My job

wasn’t so enjoyable that I lost track of time or anything like that. Hell,
pretty much the definition of a slummer was that if we found work, it
was guaranteed to be unpleasant. But the overtime was hard to
come by, and I was the only one the boss trusted enough to pay
time-and-a-half.

I would never be rich. I might never be able to break free from

the slums and live in the burbs, let alone the city proper. Yet, I was
close to being able to take my shot. Years of grinding, scraping, and
saving were hopefully going to pay off for me and Cara. That was, if
she could stay clean.

If the price for chasing a dream was that I had to walk home
alone in the dark, so be it. Never let it be said that Aden Samuels
wasn’t prepared to do whatever it took.
 The deck might be stacked against me, but I’d make the most
of the cards I’d been dealt—and then I’d fight, sneak, or steal
whatever else I needed to get by. That was just the way of the world.

It wasn’t like going home was a big thrill, either. Odds were, I’d
be walking into an empty apartment. Cara might be there, but she
wouldn’t be present. It was rare for me to see her when she wasn’t
high these days.

Bliss was all the rage—or at least the latest trend in the slums.
There were always drugs, which too many slummers used to escape
their dreary lives. That much never changed.

Cara should have known better. She’d had the medical training.
She’d even had a job at one of the clinics as a med-tech. But life
here was hard.

Another rule of the slums was that you don’t judge anyone. I’d
seen some of the shit Cara had gone through since we’d met on the
streets nine years ago. She’d had my back when a kid from the
burbs ended up stuck on the street.

She’d actually made something of herself, and if anyone was

going to get out, it looked like she just might. But then addiction hit.
Maybe that was why I put up with it all now—I’d seen the potential
she had.

The loud sound of a trashcan being knocked over, metal

clanging off metal, resounded down the mostly empty streets. I
jumped. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle myself. Quite the contrary, I’d
spent a great deal of time learning to fight.

First, when I was younger, before my parents died, I’d learned

at a formal martial arts academy. That sort of thing was taken
seriously these days. It was hard to believe that, once upon a time,
kids did that stuff for an after-school hobby.

If you got into one of the academies, you worked your butt off
to prove you were good enough. For many, it was a launching pad to
a military career; and for others, it simply taught them the self-
discipline needed to excel in an ever more demanding world.

Those had been the days. Living in the burbs. Both my parents
had good jobs working at a tech firm. I wasn’t sure which. I hadn’t
paid that much attention then. Hell, the me of now would have kicked
the ass of 15-year-old me for what I now saw as a sense of
entitlement. Besides, a tech firm… I could only laugh at that idea
now.

Slummers didn’t get tech. It was a class of jobs restricted for

those of a higher station. All we got were endless channels of drivel
pumped into vid screens ranging from handheld devices to ones
bigger than my bed.

It was all the same. They weren’t there for the benefit of the
slummers. No, the so-called ‘Liv Stream’ was just another drug. This
one got into your system through your eyes, rather than your mouth
or a needle.
 It always surprised me that the screens never ran out of juice.
But no way in hell would the higher ups let the pacifying screens for
the masses die. They were the only tech that seemed to always run.
AIs, food machines, and a million other devices ranging from
lifesaving to simple conveniences were always on the fritz.

Hell, personal cars weren’t even allowed this far from

downtown. The signals connecting them to the grid were reserved
for the limited public transportation we were allowed. Thus the
reason that I hoofed it almost everywhere I went. We couldn’t even
get our hands on the mini-generators used in the burbs.

Since my parents had died and I ended up in the slums nine

years ago, my training had become even more practical in the school
of hard knocks. Yet it worked and, for the most part, I was left alone.
I had built up a rep on the street as a guy not to be messed with. But
also as a guy who’d help those who needed it—which was rare
enough in the slums.

The two might seem at odds, but I believed the goodwill I’d built
up was part of why I was mostly left alone nowadays. Of course, a
reputation is only as good as the number of people who have heard
about you. When people didn’t know who you were, they felt free to
test you. That was the way it was in the slums.

The worst scenario for me was the one that it appeared I was
about to face. While my attention had been distracted by whatever
alley cat had knocked over a can, two scrawny kids had come
wandering down the street from who knows where.
 Thing was, no one on this block would let their kids be out at
this time of night. The established local gang, the Chi-Kings, while
they might have a laughable name, wouldn’t have any use for kids
here. That meant that these kids were a thing that shouldn’t be.

No, they were undoubtedly scouts from another gang that

wanted to lay claim to this part of the slums. Unfortunately, it
happened far too often. Usually, the Chi-Kings had no trouble
defending their turf, but sometimes such gang wars got truly bloody.

Not like the police would willingly step into a slum like this—not
unless the mayor was on some clean up the city drive or one of his
corporate bosses felt the need for some PR work. If the police
wouldn’t come here, then I couldn’t bet on any supers, either.

Sure enough, the first kid asked if I had any food. Oh, he could
have been a simple beggar. It wasn’t like those didn’t exist. But as
bad as the slums were, the locals here took care of their own,
despite the little they had. There it was. As soon as I ignored the kids
and walked past them, one of them whistled.

When I turned, both the children were running off and I saw a
group of half a dozen guys walking straight for me. I took a second to
take them in. They were definitely slummers—all young, probably
sixteen to twenty-five.

They were all wearing a symbol I didn’t recognize—so either a

new gang, or one from outside of my sector. Their clothes were
nothing special, but I saw the glint of metal on a couple of them. That
they were rather thin spoke to the fact they weren’t eating enough,
which might account for their desire to expand.

At twenty-four, I would have recognized these guys if they’d

been from this neighborhood. We were close enough in age for that,
but I was confident after looking at each face that I’d never seen
them before.

As they got closer, I saw a length of metal pipe in one of their

hands. Apparently, they weren’t interested in talking. Another
clutched what looked like a small shovel while three of the others
mostly fidgeted.

It wasn’t the visible weapons that worried me, though. I was

confident in my ability to take on a couple of thugs with what
essentially amounted to clubs. Six of them might be tough, but
working at the foundry had given me a physique most guys in the
slums would die for, and most girls lusted after.

Hell, given how valuable even base materials were, it wasn’t

surprising that the foundry included large meals as one of their
perks. Such industries needed a strong, stable workforce.

Fighting a group had a radically different dynamic than fighting

mano-a-mano. Situational awareness was everything. I couldn’t
afford to go to the ground, unless I wanted my head kicked in. Now,
if one of them had a hidden knife or, even worse, a shock gun… that
would make things significantly more dangerous.
 The first, because I might not see it until too late. The other
because there was no way a normal person could resist it. Being lit
up by a shock gun wouldn’t kill you, but in this situation spasming on
the ground was as good as dead.

The guy in the middle called out to me. He wasn’t the biggest in
the group, but the way he carried himself said that he might actually
be dangerous. “What do we have here, boys? Looks like another
late-night trespasser. We’re going to have to collect the toll.”

I just shook my head. Not that crap again. Why couldn’t new
gangs ever come up with something original? I decided that the best
thing to do was simply to ignore them. Well, not exactly ignore them.

I was going to be doing my best to pay attention to where they

were and what they were doing, but maybe if I didn’t engage with
them, they would move on and find easier prey. That might have
worked, if it had been one or two of them… or if their leader hadn’t
been so determined. As it was, I think all I did by refusing to engage
was piss them off.

One of the younger ones yelled out with more bravado than
actual ability, “Hey, man, Dog is talking to you.”

Shit. ‘Dog.’ Seriously? What sort of moron ends up with a name

like that? At least he could have copped to ‘Junk Yard Dog’ or
something more inspiring.

I spun, so I was facing them. “Look, I just got done working

eighteen hours and I just wanna go crash in my crappy bed, in my
crappy apartment, in that crappy building, which is part of this entire
crappy neighborhood. If you want a fight with the Chi-Kings for the
streets, that’s fine. Just let me know when one of you wins.”

I didn’t wait for a response. They seemed shocked that I hadn’t

just rolled over and showed my belly. I angled my path so that I
would walk around the far end of their group of six, just out of reach
of the guy with the shovel.

But it just had to be one of those nights. The two guys next to
Dog pulled out small weapons from inside their coats. These were
six-inch-long knives—including the handles. Nothing too impressive.
These guys obviously couldn’t afford real knives, because theirs
looked to be made from sharpened plexiglass, but they’d cut flesh
nearly as well as steel did.

That wasn’t the problem though. I realized just how serious my

situation was when their boss pulled out a small weapon. This wasn’t
another blade, though. It had a stock, barrel, trigger and all. A cold
chill ran down my spine. I felt my heart start to pound faster as my
eyes narrowed and my muscles tensed.

That wasn’t a shock gun. Shock guns were illegal for anyone
but the police or other government types, but they weren’t outright
lethal. No, what Dog held in his hand was a particle gun, or in slum
slang, a P-gun.

P-guns were a truly dirty weapon, from what little I had heard
about them. Cheaper, and less accurate, they were significantly
lower tech than beam weapons. Old fashioned firearms, with their
small metal projectiles, had gone out of regular use nearly one
hundred and fifty years ago. With the restrictions on where humans
could safely go, resources were simply too limited to mass produce
such metal-dependent cartridges.

Metal was valuable, and becoming increasingly scarce. That

was part of why my job at the foundry was such a good gig. Of
course, just because one thing no longer worked didn’t mean that
humans wouldn’t find other ways to kill each other.

P-guns fired a form of concentrated particle radiation. At least

that was what my limited understanding was. Weapons were not
something I had ever worked on.

If it didn’t kill you outright, the particle radiation would pass right
through, ripping up your insides. If you got hit too many times, you
died a miserable death over a couple days, retching and in agony as
your body literally broke apart from the inside.

If you got hit less than that, it would ultimately be no less fatal
as you developed a veritable array of cancers or any number of
other chronic conditions over a period of years. The worst part was
that the effects were cumulative. If there was any cure, it certainly
wasn’t something available in the slums.

The fact that he had this weapon at all said something about
Dog. His gang was either connected or maybe he had just gotten
lucky. Either way it wasn’t something one expected to see here.
 I moved slowly and raised my hands, avoiding any sudden
movements, although I did take a step closer to them. The normal
way to deal with a gun was to create some distance between you
and it. If you could get far enough away, they might miss, and P-
guns supposedly had a relatively short range.

Or, of course, if you were the right type of daring—or perhaps

downright crazy—you could get in closer. Up close, a gun was no
more dangerous than a knife. I figured they’d probably react poorly
to me backing away, so why not do what they wouldn’t expect?

One of the knife wielders laughed. “I don’t think he knows who

you are, Dog. He thinks the Chi-Kings still matter.”

Another of the guys in the group snickered at that and said,

“Those shitheads are so much melted goop on the ground. Probably
dribbled down the sewer drain by now.”
 Chapter 2 - Light in the Dark
“I’ll pay the toll,” I said slowly. It ate me up inside to give a
single buck to these idiots, but it was a better alternative than having
a P-gun eating me up from the inside out. I had to be alive to try for
my dreams, after all.

The leader said, “Nah, too late for that. You just disrespected
your new boss. Hell, to you, I might as well be your new god. This
entire block has been entirely too uppity. It’s time for some tough
love, boys.”

Then he whistled, using two fingers in his mouth, like some sort
of clown. No sooner had he done so, though, than I saw groups of
people being pulled out of nearby buildings—old women, young kids,
it didn’t matter.

Some cried, some struggled and kicked, but most were inured
to this sort of thing. This was the life of a slummer, after all. Different
faces, different names, but someone always had their boot on your
neck.

At least I didn’t see Cara with any of the groups. She might be
a druggie who seemed to ignore me most of the time lately, but she
was still technically my girlfriend. Well, that, and even with the weight
she had lost, she was still hot. Life in the slums was hard for women
like her.

There really are things worse than death.

 “Hold him. We’ll make him an object lesson for all these fine
people,” the leader of the gang called out. The pipe and shovel
wielders took up positions on either side of me, while the two guys
with the plexiglass knives moved forward, though not within reach.
The unarmed member of their crew was the youngest and
clearly nervous. He mumbled something which I wasn’t sure if I’d
heard correctly, “Is he the type she wanted?” His voice trailed off as
Dog glared at him. He was clearly unwilling to stick with whatever
point he had been trying to make.

Dog turned to the other groups that had dragged the residents
out of the nearby apartment buildings. “Get them all lined up here.
Let’s show them what happens to fools that lip off. Then we can see
if any of them match up.”

My adrenaline was pumping big time by now—things were

beyond serious. I hated to think about what could happen with all
these people out in the street and that P-gun, but surrender wasn’t
an option. I didn’t think they intended to let me off with a beating, not
that I was going to roll over for that shit, either. This was definitely
not a time to hold back.

As the pipe guy walked up on my left side, he must have

expected me to be too scared to move, because he left himself
totally open. I quickly threw my backpack at shovel guy, a step
behind me on the other side, and stepped forward at an angle on
pipe guy, who’d started raring back for a big swing.

What an idiot, I thought to myself, but the side of my foot driven

into the big idiot’s knee caused it to buckle in a direction no knee is
intended to go, showing him the cost of his mistake. I rode his knee
to the ground—hard. The impact probably fractured the man’s
patella, let alone the damage my strike had done to his ligaments,
but I couldn’t stop there.

No half measures, not tonight. A conscious enemy was still a

threat, so my hands shot out to grasp the back of the man’s head—
which now came to just above my waist—and then yanked it down
while driving my knee up into his descending face. Once, twice,
three times, my knee met his face.

All that was left was a bloody ruin—as a flattened lump of

tissue that had been his nose and fragments of teeth all over the
ground soon attested. Pipe guy groaned when he fell onto his ruined
face as soon as I released him.

It wouldn’t do to have an enemy coming up behind me, so I

pivoted and stomped on the back of the man’s neck while lining
myself up for shovel guy. I just prayed their boss wouldn’t shoot
while I was still next to his guys.

Predictably, the second idiot swung the small shovel at my

head. A shovel, even a small one like this, was hardly aerodynamic
—certainly not when used like that. A quick duck brought me under
the swing and a charging step forward brought me inside my foe’s
guard. I drove my shoulder into the shovel-wielding-fool’s wide-open
solar plexus, which emptied the man’s lungs of air, post haste.

I didn’t stop there, though, but continued my motion forward.

The only real danger here was Dog with his P-gun. Seeing how
these guys moved, they were never a threat to me.

I kept my momentum going, using shovel guy as part battering

ram and part shield. I used him to knock one of the knife wielders
back and then threw him into Dog. Thank goodness for long hours in
the foundry.

At six foot four, I was a big enough guy, but hard work had
refined me into a stack of muscle. The impact sent Dog stumbling
back onto his ass and the flailing feet from shovel guy even
managed to knock the knife out of the second guy’s hands.

Continuing forward, I delivered a quick snapping crescent kick

to the first knife wielder’s wrist. It pushed his hand wide and sent his
knife spinning into the dark. Then I turned to see Dog on the ground
underneath shovel guy.

He was struggling to free the arm that held the gun, so I

decided to help him free himself of that dangerous implement by
stomping down hard on his wrist. I heard the crunch of bones
cracking under the force of my work boot.

Between me and shovel guy, we had managed to kick the

knives out of both the wanna-be thugs’ hands, but the two of them
were still standing and pissed. Sliding up next to the closer of the
two, I blocked a punch with a knife-hand strike to his inner elbow.
Not only did it keep him from punching me but, I knew from
experience, his arm was now most likely numb.
 Hooking his arm, I spun him around. I jerked him back so that
he was completely off balance before locking my arm around his
neck. Killing them wasn’t something I was afraid to do, but living in
the slums for the past nine years had taught me that anything I could
do to stay off the police radar was a good thing. I simply meant to
choke him out.

Unfortunately, despite the swiftness of my attack, the second

guy moved more quickly than I expected. He managed to pick up the
P-gun Dog had dropped, and got a shot off. At least his aim was
abysmal.

It took his comrade in the chest. I couldn’t tell, though, if the

particle had passed through me, too. There were stories about P-
guns shooting through three or more targets in a row who were lined
up. I felt okay—for the moment.

There was nothing I could do about it if I had been shot. I

pushed the fear out of my mind and shoved my now-screaming foe
into the one still pointing the P-gun. The witless fool fired a second
shot into his friend, and bloody froth came spewing out of the gang
member turned victim’s mouth as he tumbled into his murderer.

I was moving before either of them realized what had

happened. Coming in at an angle, I hoped he was too distracted to
get another shot off at me. The writhing victim was hacking up blood
on his former comrade, which prevented him from even raising the
weapon. This left his arms caught up with his dying comrade and his
neck exposed when he pulled his head back to get away from the
blood being coughed up all over him.
 It also provided me an opening as obvious as a flashing neon
sign. I stepped in and executed a ridge hand blow to his throat. The
stiff edge of my hand crushed the thug’s larynx in an instant and he
too fell to the ground, grasping at his throat as he struggled to pull in
oxygen that no longer came. Satisfied that neither presented a
threat, I looked for their boss—the one I’d knocked down before.

No longer trapped under shovel guy, what I saw wasn’t good.

He had one hand wrapped in the hair of some teenage girl, while his
other hand pressed a plexiglass blade to her neck. I’d hoped that I’d
broken his wrist before but whatever injury I had caused, he was
working through it.

“Fancy moves. You could have been useful to me, but now you
just have to die,” Dog growled.

The unarmed gang member behind him trembled, as did most

of the people from the apartment complex. The other gang members
were clearly nervous, as well. As with most any bully, they weren’t
prepared for someone to fight back.

I was sure there were plenty of guys there who had the mettle
to handle conflict. If they weren’t tough, they wouldn’t have lasted
long in the slums. But I’d caught them off guard and I needed to
press my advantage. The odds were still against me.

“Hold on, nobody else has to get hurt,” I responded, desperate

to buy some time.
 Dog might be a loudmouth, but he was smart enough to keep
his distance. He ordered another of his gang members to hand over
his gun and soon his knife was gone, and he was holding his P-gun
to the girl’s head. His gun was a much bigger advantage with fifteen
feet between us than it had been for the other fool in close quarters.

I held up my hands and took a step forward.

“Not another step. I’m not going to fall for that again. Stand
right there. You killed one of ours, so we’ll kill three of yours. Now,
everyone can see what happens when you resist,” the leader said as
he called for his gang members to bring out a few victims. “Before,
they were just going to watch you get beat to a pulp.”

He continued, “Now, I may let you live—at least for a while. I

wonder how all these folks here are going to feel about you being
responsible for three deaths.”

My mind was racing. The world was an unfair place. If only I’d
been one of the few to get a power. I mean, I’d been too young back
when my parents were alive to go take the test. Since I’d been living
on my own, it hadn’t been a possibility. Eating beat paying a fee,
betting on the one in a thousand chance that I would be a Refractor
—what they called male supers.

Now, I’d grown up. Dreams like that were for fools. I’d had the
same dreams every kid did, but these days, my dreams had to do
more with starting a small shop of my own in the burbs, where
people could pay more for my skills. I was good with my hands and I
could fix most any machine with moving parts.
 “This doesn’t have to go down like this. You know the police
may be slow, but eventually they are going to come here. Just leave
and I promise you that I won’t remember your face.”

Dog narrowed his eyes at me. For a moment, I thought he was

seriously considering what I’d said, so I yelled to the group of people
being held at gunpoint. “None of us can remember what they looked
like, can we?”

All around me voices echoed my statement, confirming that

they too would have amnesia if the police arrived. But just when I
thought Dog might take the deal, his face curled in a sneer. “Not
going to happen. You need to learn who rules these slums. I can’t go
back to report a failure like this, not and expect to live. And she
always knows.”

I was lost, at first, but then it made sense. If they had actually
taken out the Chi-Kings, then this was most likely a better organized
set up than a group of thugs roaming the streets. It should have
been obvious when they had enough guys to pull groups of people
out of their apartments. The P-gun should have been another
giveaway.

Weakness was never a good thing. Showing weakness to the

wrong person, in the slums, got you killed. I could only assume it
was even worse in a gang. Apparently, Dog felt he needed to regain
face and was intent on doing so by executing some of the innocent
bystanders in front of me, in front of the entire street.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Calling to von Sarnoff, “Take care of the beast!” Carl
sprang to Sana’s side and freed her from her bonds.
Von Sarnoff hurried after him, but Carl was first to reach a little
clearing in the jungle. A wild cry escaped his lips as he beheld the
strange sight before him.
Sana was tied hand and foot to a tree. At her feet lay a heap of
twigs. Had de Rochelle dared dream of torture? The question came
to Carl, as with clenched fists, he turned to look for de Rochelle. He
must answer for that outrage.
But de Rochelle was beyond answering for the misdeeds of his life.
At the opposite edge of the clearing lay what was once a man.
Tearing savagely at the body, stood the mate of the panther that had
attacked the horse. Sensing danger, the beast raised its head to
glare at Carl, its tail swishing angrily.
Calling to von Sarnoff “Take care of that beast!” Carl sprang to
Sana’s side and freed her from her bonds. She had fainted on
seeing him at the edge of the clearing, and he picked her up
tenderly, whispering, softly, “All is well, beloved.”
Meanwhile von Sarnoff with a well directed shot had laid the panther
low.
Holding his sweetheart in his arms, Carl saw the dismal jungle
brightened with the rays of the setting sun, as Sana recovered
consciousness and with a cry of joy embraced him, realizing that she
was safe at last.
The world may be but a Fata Morgana and life an illusion to those
who keep not the faith, but to those who tend the fires of truth, the
rays of the setting sun shall be messengers of Peace.
THE END
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been
standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE
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