CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Solo Mission, Part 1

The doctors discharged Sam from the hospital that same day because they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. Mr. Kim also thought this was a good thing because going home meant the Wardens wouldn’t be able to interrogate Sam in the hospital if they came back to question him.

“The Wardens really want to talk to me?” Sam asked.

Getting noticed by the all-powerful agency mandated by the U.N. to handle gifted-human affairs was kind of a mixed bag for Sam. Zetas didn’t get much attention from the Wardens, so their sudden interest in him might be good for his hero career, but getting noticed now would be troublesome since it would be difficult to explain how he saved the day when he couldn’t reveal the existence of Triple-A to anyone.

“Nothing good will come of their interest in you, Sam… I hear the Wardens treat zetas like they’re disposable,” Mr. Kim warned, voicing out the fears in Sam’s mind.

Mr. Kim packed Sam’s things while he got dressed.

While in the bathroom, Sam gazed into the mirror to check if anything about him had changed since becoming an Argonaut trainee. What he found staring back at him was the same sun-kissed face with the freshly-shaven chiseled jaw that he’d always seen there. His unruly dark-brown hair was a little longer now, going past the wide tip of his straight nose, and was now almost at length with his too-dry lips.

If Triple-A had changed anything about him, it might have been in his eyes. Sam could almost see tiny pinpricks of light within the depths of his teal irises.

“Hey, Mr. Kim,” Sam called from the bathroom. “Did anyone find a hammer with me when they brought me in?”

“Oh, yeah…an Officer Nolan brought it along since he found you holding it, but the Wardens confiscated the weapon when they came by the first time… They claimed it was registered to another hero,” Mr. Kim explained.

Sam thought it was too bad that he didn’t get to keep Onus, the Load Bearer. It was a mighty weapon that felt very comfortable in his hands.

He went home to his small, one-bedroom apartment in Queens that night and started the exercises that made up the daily mission Chiron had given him.

That’s not the right way to do push-ups, dumbass! Don’t forget your form…that’s the key to hitting the right muscle groups!

For the next two weeks, Sam trained his body and did all the push-ups, squats, lunges, and sit-ups Chiron prescribed. He’d always end his ten-kilometer run around the concrete jungle of New York City at Mount Zion Queens so he could visit Thunder.

Sam came by every day to cheer her up. Not that she needed it as she was always bright and cheerful whenever he visited.

“Heroes don’t have time to feel depressed,” she told him. “We put on a smile no matter how hard things get. That’s the job.”

Thunder had been undergoing physical therapy exercises to help slow the Blight’s infection, and Sam spent his visiting hours helping her stretch her legs out in the hallway or the outdoor healing garden on the surgical wing’s fourth floor.

“Huh…did you get a little buffer?” Thunder asked.

Her hands were holding onto Sam’s arms, which were definitely harder than when they’d first met.

“Just a little,” he admitted.

Sam was leaner now than he’d ever been before. Although he thought investing all his points into Strength and Constitution might have helped in producing these quick and obvious results just as much as the daily missions did.

Thunder eyed him from top to bottom while a smile played on her lips. “It’s a good look.”

Her remark made Sam’s cheeks turn the color of red apples.

“Th-thanks…” he stammered.

The following day after he received that compliment, the master thought it was about time for Sam to go on his first solo outing.

He was jogging along 30th avenue, stopping once to join some civilian gawkers looking up at the group of fliers who’d just passed by in their colorful costumes and capes, before resuming his run toward the hospital.

Forget the hospital... Wait until you see the day I’ve got planned for you.

With Chiron’s prompting, Sam’s ten-kilometer run took him past the hospital and into the driveway of a rundown building that had a sign by its dilapidated front gate which stated that the city had scheduled it for demolition a long while back.

Sam had a sneaking suspicion he was about to find out why the demolition teams had stalled tearing this building down for nearly a year. A strange chill crept up his spine as he looked up at the five-story, white-stone walls of the Goodwill Asylum.

“What am I doing here, master?”

Before we get into that, I recommend you check the notification you’ve been ignoring. It will help in this next exercise.

Sam tapped on the half-transparent green window floating in the air.

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve completed the daily mission [EXPLOSIVE TRAINING MENU #1] REWARDS: Permanent +1 increase to [DEXTERITY]

The reward two days ago was for Constitution. He got a boost to Willpower four days before that. Finally, nine days’ worth of random rewards plus the fourteen points he needed to distribute had changed his status by quite a bit.

STRENGTH: 32 (23 + 7 + 1 + 1) DEXTERITY: 17 (14 + 1 + 1 + 1) CONSTITUTION: 45 (36 + 7 + 1 + 1) INTELLIGENCE: 15 (14 + 1) WISDOM: 14 WILLPOWER: 11 (10 + 1)

Despite these increases in stats, no new powers had awakened for Sam.

“Maybe I’ll get something if I boost my dexterity up to twenty.”

I thought I told you that getting new powers wouldn’t be that easy?

“And I told you that none of this is easy,” Sam countered.

Hero training isn’t supposed to be easy! Now, if you’re done whining, it’s time to brush up on your knowledge of horrors. Tell me what you know.

Sam wasn’t finished with his complaints, but he decided now wasn’t the time to get cheeky. Not when his sixth sense was telling him something nasty might be hiding beyond the asylum’s open entrance.

“Horrors is what we call monsters born from—”

I don’t want to hear the textbook explanation. I want to know what you think about horrors.

Sam's eyes dropped to the asphalt.

“I think”—he was frowning now—“I think a horror’s origin story is the worst kind of tale because they’re born from tragedy…”

Sam wouldn’t say more, but he guessed Chiron could understand how he felt.

People say heroes and villains are two sides of the same coin, but that’s not accurate. It’s more like a pyramid really, with horrors taking up that third side.

“Most people think gifted that become horrors are freaks, but I don’t think it’s their fault… Sometimes we can’t control how we feel.”

Emotions are powerful stimuli, especially the negative ones like fear and misery and anger and jealousy…they can turn people rotten inside pretty quickly. And whether it’s how they’ve always been or an affliction caused by outside trauma, when someone blessed by the gods gives in to their darkest feelings, they become horrors instead of the heroes they were meant to be.

“It’s not like we can just shut our emotions off, you know…”

Sam’s hands balled into fists as an old memory flashed in his mind. He was only nine when his dad had told him to run away and call for help. But Sam wouldn’t go. He didn’t want to leave his father alone in a house with a horror that only a few hours before had been his grieving mother.

“Sam!” his dad had screamed. “Run!”

He’d shoved Sam out the front door just as a horror born from great despair stepped out of the kitchen and stumbled toward them.

Sam remembered seeing a ghostly face with blood-red eyes and an open mouth that had been fixed in a silent scream. To this day, that face would star in the worst of his nightmares.

Did you hear what I just said, kid?

Sam blinked. “Sorry, what was that?”

Get your head in the game or you won’t survive this next mission!

Sam frowned. He was still a little out of it from remembering the first time he’d ever run away in his life. “You’re giving me a new mission?”

Chiron’s silence was enough for realization to dawn on him. His gaze snapped toward the open doors of the asylum and into the darkness beyond it.

“No…seriously?” Sam asked in disbelief. “You know that place is haunted, right?”