One of my closest friends in the world tried to kill me. He was a brother-in-arms, comrade, and colleague. And his hands were around my throat, choking the life from me. I shoved my hands together up between my friend’s wrists to force them apart. I may as well have been pushing against an iron rod for all the good it did. The fingers clamped around my throat remained locked there. My trachea closed and protested under the pressure of his thumbs.

Andy hit him from behind. One of the metal legs holding up the bunk beds had been bent and torn free, and Andy was standing over my friend, beating him over the head with the bar. It impacted the back of Yankee’s skull with a crunching sound, and the man went limp. His grip immediately slackened around my throat, and I pushed his arms away from me and scrambled back, hacking in lungfuls of air.

“Damn.” Andy looked down at his hands, the weapon tipping from his trembling fingers. The metal impacted the concrete floor with a clang and came to a rest. “I shouldn’t have hit him so hard.”

I tried to speak, but could only cough and hack air through my lungs. So I brought my open palm to my forehead as a “thank you”.

“I was just trying to knock him out.”

I reached toward Yankee’s body, feeling for a pulse. It beat out a rapid, steady cadence against my two fingers. I nodded to Andy and tapped my wrist two times. He nodded in return.

I grabbed a chem off the ground where it had fallen from my hand during the struggle. Part of it was covered in blood, diminishing its light slightly, but I paid it no mind. I brought two fingers up to my eyes and gestured to the door and hooked my fingers left. Andy nodded and stooped to pick up the metal bar again. I ducked out our twisted door and into the hallway. The neighboring door was also twisted in its frame, but not so severely that anyone could get out.

I hammered my fist on the door, cleared my throat, and croaked out “You okay in there?” I kicked myself. Talking should probably be done by the person who didn’t recently have a crushed trachea.

“Some of us are a little motion sick, but we’ll be fine,” came Chewy’s voice.

“I’m going to go for help. I don’t want to break you out only to have some trigger-happy border patrol agent shoot us for escapees.”

“I’ve never felt an earthquake like that before. What the hell was that?”

“No idea,” I admitted. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Bring food, if you can.” It was Crash who spoke up this time. “Maybe it will settle my stomach.”

“I’ll try.”

I made my way down the hallway. It was a mostly straight shot with the door at the end of the “cell block”. When I tried the door, it was locked, so I battered on it.

“Hey! We got wounded in here.” There was no response for a long time. But after a while, a voice came back through the door.

“How did you get out of your cell?”

“The earthquake warped the door, and I could crawl out. One of my men is injured, and the other group is trapped in their cell.”

“Bullshit. There was no earthquake. I woulda felt it.”

“Look, we need medical assistance.”

“Step back from the door.”

“Okay, I’m ten paces back,” I said after I’d done so. I was about halfway to the twisted metal door that was left on my cell.

The door opened and a chem was tossed inside, sliding along the floor. “Get on the ground and put your hands behind your head!” The order came fast as two men burst through the door with M4s, clearing the room to either side of the door, while the third came straight in, only holding a handgun. With the poor lighting and the gun aimed directly at me, I could only tell it was a 9mm. I admired their tactical coordination, even if it was wholly unnecessary under the circumstances.

I, of course, dropped to the ground immediately, placed my forehead on the floor, and laced my fingers together with my elbows resting on the uncomfortable concrete. I almost laughed at the irony of the situation. I was usually the one yelling at others to get on the ground or I would shoot them. I managed to hold my chuckle in, though. No need to piss off the men with guns.

“Shit,” one of them said when they got a look at the room behind me. “It does look like an earthquake shook the doors loose.”

“We woulda felt it,” another one said. “How did you do that?”

“I’m telling you the truth. The room started to shake, the biggest damn earthquake I’ve ever been through. It even shook the bunk beds off their anchors. Take a look if you don’t believe me.” I said all this without looking up, as much as I wanted to. “We got at least one man with a head wound, and he was bleeding pretty badly.”

“Gonzales, get the trauma kit.”

“Yes, sir.” I could see one of the pairs of combat boots move away out of the corner of my eye. As the figure moved away, I saw the muzzle of the rifle the agent carried.

“As I said, there was no earthquake, so I want to know what the hell you did to your holding cell.”

I felt my hackles rise, but not at the tone or question of the border agent. My senses were telling me that something was very wrong. That was when the room began to shake again. It was worse this time than the first. I was glad I was already on the floor because the other two men fell heavily to their backsides as the room rocked. I was tossed and rolled to the side of the hallway, which gave me a clear view of Andy diving out of his cell just as a loud crashing noise came from behind him. The wall to his cell seemed to buckle behind him. It didn’t so much collapse as it appeared to be pulled toward the center of the cell as if by some immense gravitational force.

I heard yelling from the second cell that my team was in, the same crashing noise audible in there as well. The wall did not buckle inward, however. It exploded out toward us. Fragments of plaster and concrete zipped through the air like bullets, digging into the backs of my hands and arms that covered my face. It also ripped through the clothing on my legs and into my knees where I’d shielded my groin. The two agents had not been as fast to cover themselves, however, and they were closer to the force that ripped the wall apart. The one carrying the M4 lost half of his face when his head snapped back, and if that didn’t kill him then the impact with the wall across the hallway did.

The agent next to me had been looking at me as this happened. Instead of taking a face full of concrete shrapnel, it peppered his side. He screamed as he fell limply, and I couldn’t tell if he was dead or not. Hell, I wasn’t sure if I was dead or not.

What came through the doorway, though, made me wish I was dead. X-Ray stepped through. It looked like he’d grown half an extra foot, and his usually dark, Asian complexion had faded to the same white as I’d seen on Yankee. Andy groaned off to the side, and X-Ray’s eyes locked on the man before he lunged.

Without thinking, I reached for the sidearm of the agent lying next to me. My arms screamed in protest as I hauled the weapon around. From this far away, it should have been an easy shot, but my hands were slippery on the grip, and my arm was shaking. I took a deep breath, willed my body to stop shaking, and forced my eyes to focus through the dust in the room. I pulled the trigger.

I had been aiming for X-Ray’s ear, the circle being the closest thing to a bullseye I could ask for. My aim was high, however, and the bullet took him near the back of the neck. Blood and bone flew from the wound, and Andy pushed the dead man off him with a yell of, “What the fuck is going on!?”

“No idea,” I said. I seemed to be saying that a lot recently. For an elite team who was supposedly tied closely to the intelligence community, we were caught in a perpetual state of “what the hell?”

I checked the pulse of the agent on the ground next to me. I didn’t bother with the one missing half her head. The man’s pulse was shallow, but he was not breathing. I immediately began chest compressions — stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, hey hey hey hey. “Andy, get over here and give him some air.”

He stood and limped over to us, nearly collapsing on top of the man. He performed mouth-to-mouth with the detachment of an old pro, giving him air, and monitoring his pulse. Less than a minute later, the pulse faded, and a minute after that, we knew we’d lost him.

I pounded a fist into the man’s chest, yelling “dammit, dammit, dammit.”

“What’s going on here?” The third agent was back, M4 trained on us like it was before.

“Earthquake,” I said.

“There was no earthquake,” he said, keeping his rifle trained on us.

“Tell that to the men trapped in those cells,” Andy gasped, pointing at the rooms. The agent kept his weapon on us as he moved closer to the gaping hole that was left of the wall. He glanced into the room, and his eyes snapped back over to us. I was sure he’d looked too quickly to see anything, and my suspicion was confirmed when he took a second, slower look into the room.

“Damn,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s what I was saying. The wall exploded out.”

“What kind of charges did you use?” His gun still hadn’t moved off us.

“Oh, come on,” I groaned and gestured between myself and Andy. “Do we look like we were the aggressors here?”

“You look like the only survivors.”

“Yeah, point.”

“I have to call this in,” he said.

“Electricity back up and running?”

“Oh,” he looked embarrassed. “Habit.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, just lock that door at the end of the hallway. You go get whoever you need to.” I looked over at Andy to confirm those plans, but he was unconscious on the floor. “Double-time it!” I barked as I moved toward my friend to check his pulse. It was rapid but weak. “And bring some water!” I yelled again before the door closed behind the agent. I didn’t hear the bolt slide closed, which I found surprising.

Andy seemed stable, if unconscious, so I checked our former cells. Metal from the bunk beds had flown apart, leaving a wave of destruction in its wake. None of the other men had survived. Chewy was crushed under the weight of the pipes, and Crash had one of the pipes driven into his chest.

There was something different about the body, and I stumbled my way closer until I finally identified the problem. Crash’s skin had gone chalky-white, just like X-Ray and Yankee. I hadn’t noticed at first because Crash was already one pale bastard, but his complexion had looked positively tan compared to his current pallor. There was a faint glow coming from Crash’s chest where the metal pierced through him. I moved closer, keeping an eye on the body for any sudden movements. I reached out to the body and moved the arms away from the hole in the chest. Sure enough, a small, blue gemstone was sitting right there in the middle of the man’s chest cavity.

I reached my hand out to the glow. I expected the gemstone to feel cool to the touch, but it was warm, the light from inside the stone beckoning me closer like there was something to see at the center of the rock. The gem pulsed, and a jolt of energy shot up my arm to settle somewhere in my chest. I reflexively tried to pull my hand away from the foreign sensation, but my hand wouldn’t move — the energy had caused my entire hand and arm to stiffen in its current position.

After another moment, the feeling faded, and the gemstone vanished right in front of my eyes. I felt the chill in my chest, a slow counterpoint to my heartbeat. It made me feel good. Not strong. More… aware of what I could do. I could handle anything in the world.

I pulled the bar out of Crash, the metal easily sliding free from the corpse, and walked over to the body of X-Ray. He was lying on his front, and I unceremoniously flipped him onto his back. Without hesitation, I lifted the bar over my head and brought it down, point first, into the body. I yanked it around, widening the wound as much as I could. As if summoned, a green gemstone rose to the surface of the wound. I quickly stooped to touch the thing.

This time, the sensation was solid. Not a pulsing, winding energy that snaked up my arm and into my chest, but as if it were a solid bar of metal, forcing its way through my body and into me. I felt like I could move mountains and even feel the pulse of the ground beneath my feet.

I almost charged into the room that served as my cell, looking around wildly for Yankee’s body. It lay in the corner, and I savagely drove the metal, spear-like, into his chest, again twisting and turning the metal until the same gemstone came to the surface. This one was green as well, and without a second’s hesitation, I stooped and touched it too. The same pulse of energy coursed up my arm and into my chest.

When the sensation ended, I moved back into the hallway outside the cells. I checked on Chewy’s body, looking closely at the skin for any signs that it had changed color. It hadn’t, and I felt almost disappointed that I couldn’t collect that strange warmth from him too.

I heard a crashing in the hall and poked my head out to see the border patrol agent from earlier.

“You need to come with me. Pick up your friend.”

“What is going on?”

“Hell if I know. Those are my orders, and you’ll do the same.”

“Great,” I said as I picked Andy up. “Just another person who doesn’t know what’s going on.”