They say the lake holds memories… The more times you come here, the closer you’ll get to discovering your true potential, what you’re really good at deep inside—your aptitude…
“My aptitude, huh?” Mason said aloud to his adoring audience of washed up rocks. He skipped one he had in his palm into the water. It sank upon impact.
His mother used to tell him stories like the lake here, of old made up legends when he went to bed as a kid. About the Tortoise and the Hare, the Knights of the Round Table, the Origin of the Anthros. “All Furries Come From Texas,” she fabled. That was, of course, before the term became derogatory and all that. Well, that didn’t stop the bullies in middle school from saying it. Or high school. He skipped another rock. It met the same fate as the one before.
High school. Mason left for New Era right after graduation. He never got to say a formal goodbye to his friends. Maybe that’s why they never messaged him back. They didn’t know he was gone…
No, that can’t be right. They’d message him anyway. They’d ask him where he was, how he was doing, what his mom was wearing for some strange reason. But nothing. Nothing from SMS, nothing from social media, not even a phone call. Hell, he’d accept emails at this point. Yet here he was, sat by a haunted magic lake, with a phone dryer than the rocks he was skipping. Or, pelting haphazardly into the water, more accurately.
A stone whizzed by his shoulder that wasn’t his own. A flat grey disc that tapped the surface once, twice, thrice, in a solo performance witnessed only by him and a water strider passing by. It graced the horizon between the air and the water one last time before crossing over entirely. Mason turned around. His new friend had arrived.
“Flick it by the wrist next time,” Kai advised. “You look like a pansy with that Little League pitch of yours.”
Mason sighed. Time to go to work.
“So. What’s this job that’s so bad you’re too scared to do?” he asked, standing up and dusting off his expensive khaki shorts.
“You’re not gonna like it. We’re gonna talk to more strangers.”
“Oh. Great. That’s it? What else is new?”
“Knew you wouldn’t like it. Follow me.”
They got off the rocky coast, crossing the warm asphalt of the street. Mason stepped over a piece of hazard tape left over from a few days ago. Whoever was out here after him really cleaned the place up. Like nothing happened at all.
Across the road was a patch of field, where the grass concealed a pair of bicycles just lying there. Kai went over to one, claiming it as his.
“Xander left these for us last night. Get on, we don’t have all day.”
Mason scratched his head. “We can’t just, like, drive a car or something?”
“And let our guy know we’re coming from half a mile away? As much as I love the sound of engines, I wouldn’t be caught sitting on my ass if I saw a black hatchback with tinted windows roll up to my front window out of the blue.”
“Fine, I’m getting on. Geez.”
And so he did. It was an old BMX fitted for a high schooler, tricked out with bright acrylic paint. Kai had a well worn mountain bike, much bigger for a guy like him and painted with a coat of dirt. His BMX reminded him of simpler times.
The last time Mason had rode a bike was when he was twelve. He remembered it clearly. He was riding around the neighborhood with his friends on Halloween night. They were on a mission to find every “Take One” bucket and steal the whole thing. And he was pretty good at it. That was, until an old man came out and shot his wheel with a hunting rifle. He was forced to apologize and ended up getting the brunt of the punishment since all his other friends fled the scene at the sight of trouble. He never got that bike back. And then he didn’t even need a bike when the family bought the other house the next month—
“BROWN!” Kai yelled.
The boy swerved back to focus.
“Huh, what?”
He realized he was running on autopilot for a good five minutes. He was on his bike, bumping over the increasingly frequent rocks in the road.
“Focus! You almost ran into a ditch just there. And for the third time, I asked you where you’re from. Fuck, are you deaf or just braindead?”
“Yeah—no! I mean no. Why do you ask?”
“You got the clothes of a frat kid from Beverly Hills. You’re not impressing anyone here, it’s actually really tacky. So you either really are braindead, at least fashionably, or you’re not from here. Right now, I’m beginning to think you’re both.”
“Stop calling me braindead, cotton swab! I’m from California. Santa Barbara. Just moved last week. Not like I ever wanted to come to this backwater town, but right now we apparently have nowhere else to go. That’s what my mom tells me.”
“A momma’s boy, eh?”
“Hardly. She keeps telling me this is for my own good. Between you and me, I think this is the dumbest thing she’s ever done.”
“Don’t talk like that about your mom,” Kai advised. “She was at least smart enough to get you out of California.”
“Yeah, you’re so funny,” Mason spat, switching topics as swift as the gears on his bike. “Where did Xander get these bikes, anyways?”
“The Underground, believe it or not.” Kai took his hands off the bike and coasted leaning back. “They’re hardly in short supply in our circle—we hit up a bike store in Fargo last year so we could pawn ‘em off for double the price. Only problem was nobody wanted to buy. Not one of Splats’s finer ideas.”
“So she is your ringleader?”
“Hah. She pretends to be. Fact is she’d be nowhere without us pulling her weight. Only reason we stick around is ‘cuz we need the money.”
“What, you think petty crime is a way to make a living? It can’t be that hard to find a job.”
“Finding work is the easy part. The problem is getting it. Employers wouldn’t look twice at a bunch of sewer rats on bikes. You might stand a chance, all prim and proper with that California rich boy outfit. But you don’t think about that sort of thing when you’re holed up in your room all day like that Higashikata punk told us. Do you?”
That snitch. “Oh yeah? What else he tell you assholes?”
“Aside from being a lazy fuck?” He thought for a second. “That he hopes you’re safe.”
Mason peddled slower. Saki barely knew him a week, and he’s already saying those things? Nobody could be that nice to him. Too good to be true—they always say that when they want something. “He sounds like my mom.”
“He sounds like a friend. People like him are hard to come by in this town. With all these new people rolling in, I’d start making some fast, before I find myself making a whole lot of enemies.”
Mason thought about that for a moment. But only for a short moment. He got distracted by the paint on his bike.
“Oi. We’re getting close,” his colleague said when he put his hands back on the handlebars, just as they crossed city limits. Mason looked up. The scenery around him looked much less green—weeds took the place of trees, and coarse dirt passed off as soil. In the distance, one of the mountains he had always noticed in the horizon was now but a mile away.
“Woah. Kai, what the hell are we doing out here?”
“This is where our guy is,” the young delinquent said. “We don’t know what he’s doing out here or where he came from, but he has an RV parked right on top of one of our Underground entrances.”
“And you can’t get him to move?”
“We’ve made three separate attempts since he got here, but no dice. This is why I didn’t wanna come here. I haven’t got the slightest clue what his deal is, but we couldn’t have failed all those times for no reason. Be on your guard, Brown. Could be dangerous.”
The bikes slowed down. It would have been nice if Kai had briefed him on the “dangerous” part before he had peddled all the way out in the middle of nowhere. It would have been even nicer if he’d never stuck his nose in where he shouldn’t have yesterday. Mason sighed. There was no backing out now. Not like he had a choice.
They rounded a bend and came to a stop at the foot of the nearest mountain. Broken, jagged pieces of rock jutted out all over the place, forming the steep incline that they dared not approach. And nestled in a small mound of dirt and rock directly under the natural landmark was a lone camper van, immobilized by the surrounding terrain. They couldn’t even see the wheels.
“This is our stop,” Kai said, getting off his bicycle. Mason followed suit, parking it squarely on the dirt. He focused his eye on a wheel and snapped his fingers, emitting a little click from the bike.
“What was that?” Kai raised an eyebrow.
“A bike lock,” Mason answered.
They looked at each other for a second. Kai scoffed. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
Carefully, the two young adults approached the camper van, checking for any signs of activity inside. The blinds were closed and all the lights were off, yet a faint billow of smoke was noticeably escaping the roof through an open hatch.
“You think anyone’s home?” Mason asked.
“Only one way to find out.” They were now up to the only door accessible from the outside. Slowly, Kai brought a fist to the door and began to knock.
A loud shrill pierced the air on the second knock.
“GAH! WHO IS IT?!” cried a male, adult, and heavily accented voice.
Mason jumped back. Crackhead. Definitely a crackhead.
“Vhat is it zis time!?” the strange man from within the van shouted. A billow of smoke emerged from the roof. “Can’t a scientist practice zeir medicine in peace!”
Kai hesitated. “Uh, look man,” he started, “we hate to be out here as much as the next guy, but, uh… your van’s kinda on private property?”
The demand that was promised only five minutes ago ended up falling flat as a meek suggestion. Where was that inhumanly bad-boy exterior he was good at showing off before? Amazing how much fear takes over when you don’t know what you’re up against.
Just then, an auditory onslaught of chains and metal being jingled and rustled about from inside. Then, the door opened. And a man stepped outside.
He was not what one might consider normal, even by the standards of New Era. For every inch of his body that wasn’t covered by intricate lab-themed clothing, there was white gauze bandages and surgical tape covering his skin. The medical pattern was broken by three unorthodox accessories: a maroon newsboy cap fitted snug around his head, a brighter reddish-pink scarf flowing around his narrow neck, and a wide pair of mechanical goggles, literally rose-tinted. He stood no taller than Kai, but his position on top of the elevated floor of the RV moused the boys in comparison. They could not see his face—but they could tell he was angry.
“I zon’t care who ze landowners send, I’m NOT moving from zis spot!” The strange man stomped his black knee-high work boots together.
Mason gulped. This man was no crackhead. No, even worse. Far worse… He was totally a sex offender.
Kai began again. “So you’ve met our friends, eh? Well, not much I can say about that…” he rubbed the back of his shoulder. “But they’re not landowners. I don’t know what happened between them and you, but you’re covering up one of our tunnels that kinda connects the place we’re running, sooo…”
The man stepped down. “Do you really expect me to believe zat I, THE Doktor Ernst, vill just vacate ze premises for a batch of… no good HOOLIGANS?”
Kai gulped. “W-well, no, but-”
“And do you expect me to simply pack up ALL my hard-earned equipment, dig myself out of zis vell-hidden spot—maybe scratch zat ‘vell-hidden’ bit now—AND do so vithout so much as a danke schön? Who do you take me for?! I should grab my bonesaw right now and cut both of your legs off! I know how to do it!”
He took another step. Or, tried to.
His boot was stuck to the floor.
“That’s close enough, dickweed,” Mason managed, his fingers still in snapping position. His bike twenty feet away moved another foot down a slope he didn’t know he locked it on before.
“Vhat? Vhat is zis!” The man, presumably one known as Dr. Ernst, pulled his leg as hard as he could, to no avail. “You! You did zis to me! You’ll pay for zis!”
Kai whipped his neck to Mason. “Brown! What the hell was that, I had it under control!”
The other boy just scoffed in surprise. “I thought he was about to charge at us, what did you want me to do! It’s not my fault he looks and speaks like a maniac!”
“Well now he’s definitely going to charge at us, because your stupid ass had to do that whole locky thing on him!”
By the time Kai had explained Mason’s mistake, it was too late to dodge a glass vial from breaking in his face. He winced, staggered, and covered his head, as if the late reflexes would help get the shards out.
“Ahh! Bastard, what did you—”
The liquid contents expanded on his face, covering his mouth from saying anything else. In less than three seconds, the fluid was now a spongy yellow foam. He tripped, letting the foam cushion the impact of the fall. Almost too well. He couldn’t pry himself from the dirt. Mason turned, seeing Ernst untying his boots. He had almost figured out the lock.
“You vill regret coming to zis place, intruders!” Twisting his bandaged foot (which looked more like a long, long sock), the mad scientist freed himself from the locked boot on the floor. And now he was taking out a bonesaw from his belt.
Yeah, time to run.
The boy gathered himself and clambered away in the exact opposite direction. He didn’t care about what would happen if he stayed. He didn’t even think about his partner this time. This was nothing like fighting a giant boiling lake monster. This man had a working brain. And it was set to kill.
He ran past Kai. How could he save a guy who was glued to the floor and barely wanted him around? No, there was no time to save him anyway. This was different. Justified… maybe. Sure, let’s go with that. He found the bikes, sitting at least five feet away from where they dropped them. And those five feet cost him.
Another object whizzed right past Mason’s shoulder. It crashed with the sound of broken glass, fizzing and bubbling until the bikes were coated with the yellow foamy superglue substance. If he was five feet closer, maybe he’d have had a chance to grab one and push off into the sunset. But sadly, that wasn’t the case—it was still morning.
He turned back around, shaking. With one of two options gone from a human’s normal fight or flight response, the human in question now was forced to respond with the one he wanted least. Why did it always end up like this?
“Hey, hey! Let’s just talk about this, okay?!” Mason cried. “I’m not supposed to be here! I’ll leave you alone, I promise! I-I’ll even pay you to stop!”
“You two imbeciles von’t take me from mein new home zat easily!” The scientist yelled, preparing another bottle in accompaniment with his saw. “I vill not have my right to practice science ripped from me again! Do you know how much I’ve sacrificed to be here?!”
Ernst charged. Mason jumped back from a swing of the saw. Sweat from his forehead bounced off the metal blade. The scientist lunged again. He snagged the end of a dirtied red button-up shirt. Mason countered with a left punch. His fist hit, but only as his gut met an incoming elbow. The boy staggered back, tripping on purpose to evade one more attack with the saw.
“GAH! Hold still, Schweinehund!” Ernst raised his arm holding the bottle. The glare from the sun refracted into Mason’s eye by the sheen of the glass. The contents were yellow. It was the expanding superglue.
Just as it was about to be thrown, Mason snapped his fingers, and the bottle locked to the bandaged hand. Ernst could not stop the pitching motion in time before the bottle slammed into his side, setting off the reaction. His shrill voice pierced the air, letting the flora and fauna of the mountain above know his utter shock to his literal backfiring bottle.
It was Mason’s turn to charge. He locked the other boot as he picked up a nearby sandstone rock. “Get lost, mummy!” he shouted.
“Vhat?! Who are you calling MUMMY?!” Despite the immobilization of his right side the scientist pulled out yet another vial with his left hand from underneath his lab coat. This concoction was blue and of low viscosity, and was only seen for a second before the rock crashed into it. Suddenly, the liquid exploded into steam, blowing the new kid back. He rolled backwards, staggering up slowly… only to find his right arm punctured with shards of blue-stained broken glass. He winced loudly, covering it and looking up to see the mad doctor freeing himself of the foam. It had soaked with the blue fluid, turning an ugly green and slinking off his body like a soft mud. Bootless and goggles glowing blood red, Ernst marched his way to the boy. The latter could only pray to himself.
Oh Christ. Not like this, please! Mason thought as the fearsome bandaged man grabbed his glass-ridden arm in a vice grip. I don’t want to die! I want to go home!
The doctor’s hand glowed a brighter pink than his already pinkish-red goggles.
“No, wait! What are you doing? Get off me—” Mason started to shout. He soon stopped when he realized what was happening.
Ever so slowly, the shards embedded in his skin began to shrink like ice on a hot day. The blood dripping from the sites of injury dried up, and flaked off like dirt. The lacerations leftover closed up on their own, with no need for bandages, stitches, or grafts. Not a single mark of the fight was visible. It was as if the injury never happened.
“What… what did you just do?” Mason asked slowly.
Ernst backed away. “Isn’t it obvious? Your arm’s healed! Now shoo! Go away, I have more experiments to conduct!” He made little shooing motions with his hands.
“B-but… why—”
A foreign arm snatched Ernst’s neck from behind, and another quickly held a knife made of some clear, sharp material to it.
“Got you now, prick!” said Kai, with scraps of cut and shredded superglue foam still attached to his face. Ernst choked vehemently.
“Hey, hey! Kai, hold up!” Mason yelled.
“No fuckin’ way, Brown! He just tried to kill us!” his colleague refused. “I still have glass in my bloody face!”
“Well he healed me, so sucks to be you! The least we can do is just get our asses outta here!”
“Yes, zat would be a VERY good ide-_ach!”_ The doctor choked again.
“Why should we trust him? He’s been on our exit for days, probably attacked our other members just as badly as us-”
“I’m not a member of your sewer rat club,” Mason interjected.
“Shut up! This isn’t about you for god’s sake!”
“Zere seems to be a flaw in your logic!” Ernst pointed a finger. “You, not trusting me? Vhy should I, THE Doktor Ernst, trust you?”
The scientist swept Kai’s leg, keeping his knife arm away from both parties as the Underground understudy was pinned with a bonesaw.
“You’re ze fourth group to invade mein place of residence after losing mein job and status as a world-renowned scientist! If you hooligans wish to continue to harass me a fifth time, vell zat I cannot allow!”
He suddenly gasped.
“Mein Gott! I know who you are! You’re spies, sent by zat brain-rotted Samara to drive me away from ze city! Possibly ze country!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kai said. Only to be met with the blade again.
“Admit it! You’re both operatives of ERATech! And you’re doing awful jobs disposing of me so far! Did nobody think to bring guns? Or CARS?”
Kai and Brown looked at each other. Idiots, they both thought of each other. And talk about a flaw in logic. How paranoid did one have to be to assume a private army of a government tech facility came in the form of two kids barely over legal age? But that wasn’t quite the issue now.
“ERATech? I was told to stay as far away from there as possible!” Mason attested. “I have nothing to do with that place!”
“Who told you?” Ernst demanded, his blade digging into Kai’s throat.
“S-Skyber did! It was Skyber!” he answered. “This giant demon woman! She came to my house after I just moved in and told me not to go there! We’re not spies! We didn’t even wanna fight you!”
The doctor took another look at Kai, whose face did not refute this new information to him. Cautiously, he put his weapon down.
“Oh. Vhy didn’t you say so?”
He put a hand to his face, dissolving all of the glass and foam from the area, healing the wounds as well via what looked like his ability. Mason didn’t think it at the moment, but it was most likely the most fitting yet most ironic ability an Electi like him could have.
Ernst stuffed his things back into his belt and pockets, and walked away like nothing happened. He grabbed his boots on the ground, carrying them up to his RV where he swung the door open and moseyed his way inside.
“…What.” Kai sat dumbfounded.
So did Mason. The two idiots just sat there for a while. The sun beat down on them. The whiter of the two was starting to tan. The other didn’t exactly need one. They stared at the open RV. The man inside was messing with chemicals and tossing metal equipment around, with no more regard for the fellows outside. Kai then spoke.
“Who’s Skyber?”
“She’s my neighbor. I’m surprised you don’t know her.”
“I’ve heard someone like her going around threatening the newcomers. Some anti-Electi business she’s talking ‘bout that’s scaring our guys ‘cuz we almost all have abilities. That’s her?”
“Pretty much.”
“Ah.”
They sat in silence for another minute.
“You think we can get him to unglue our bikes?” Mason asked.
Kai paused a beat and sighed through his lips. “Worth a shot. Doesn’t seem to want to murder us anymore.”
“Well, that’s a plus.”
“You’re telling me. Let’s go.”
They got up and wiped the dirt from their bottoms, accepting the open invitation to walk into the RV.
“Oi! We’re not done with you yet!” The young leader banged on the metal wall, alerting Ernst out of his concentration.
“NGAH! Vhat now! Have you not bothered me enough today?!”
Instead of asking about the bikes first, Kai had a couple questions of his own. “What’s your story with ERATech anyway? Why did you think me and my members were a part of it?”
The scientist put down his test tubes. He rested his arms on the table, crammed up to the other side of the wall. He looked a bit silly there, considering her barely had enough room to squeeze himself through.
“Zey exiled me for attempting vhat zey were too afraid to before me. Harnessing the power of a new energy source. Powering ze country for generations to come. But all zey cared about vere politik!”
He slammed his fist down. “Four brave individuals vere brave enough to experiment against mein Director’s idiotic wishes! I vas to be ze fifth… but alas. I did not get zeir names before I outlived them.”
“Oh man,” Kai said. “I didn’t know all that.”
Mason thought the story to be a little too dramatic for his taste. He rolled his eyes. “Right. So how does Skyber play a role in all this? You seem to know her well.”
Ernst perked up immediately, switching his demeanor entirely. “Oh, I do! I saved her dog from a nuclear meltdown! Haha!”
Now neither of them believed his story anymore. “Er, you know what, this has been great and all, but can you just unglue our bikes so we can leave and tell our boss her underground exit is lost?”
“Just a moment!” Ernst swooped behind them and blocked the door. “I have some questions for you! My curiosity is piqued!” Mason jumped back, him being closest to the door at the time. He almost tripped on a stack of papers and empty cans.
“First! If not ERATech, tell me vhere you come from and who you’re employed under!”
Kai looked to Mason, who only replied with, “It’s your group, not mine.” He hung his head.
“We’re not exactly employed. We’re an underground ring we just call the Underground because it’s easy to remember. We steal shit and flip them for higher payouts, we recruit kids with competent skills or at least have nothing better going on in their lives, and we keep eyes and ears everywhere so the police or some worse people don’t catch us. And your van’s on one of our entrances. There’s supposed to be a pothole where you parked.”
The scientist nodded, currently disregarding the pothole. “Sounds intriguing! Now tell me, is zere room for one more?” His goggles brightened.
Kai gave him a bizarre look. “Hell no, you can’t join! Besides, you’re way too old! Everyone over twenty-five either dies, moves, or gets a real job. Someone even got married…”
“Vhat! I’m not zat old! I’m only twenty-four!”
“No you’re fucking not, dude,” Mason side-eyed him.
“…Fine! Twenty-eight! But who’s counting zese days? I zon’t see vhy not, after you took ze time to explain everything to me! Yes, we might have gotten on ze wrong foot, but I see a very lucrative deal for ze both of our parties!”
He opened a filing cabinet, where instead of keeping his collection of loose papers scattered across the floor, kept a wide variety of tools and contraptions one could not begin to comprehend the function of at first glance. The one he brought out, though, looked exactly like a laser pointer for pets. He twirled it in his hand.
“You let me into your little group, and I’ll gladly open your little entrance back up! In return…” he pointed the laser at Kai. “You shall provide me additional protection from anyone who wishes me gone! Vell, not like I need ze protection, but it never hurts to have some insurance! One could never have too many allies, no?”
“It sure looks that way,” Kai said, slowly looking to Mason. The boy turned away. He didn’t want to hear anymore.
The Underground’s representative gave his answer. “I’ll talk to my guys tomorrow. But you have to promise me not to turn on us, or the deal’s off. And this ain’t a one-way street; if we need something from you, or one of your crazy potion things, you give it to us, got it?”
“Zey are not potions! Zey are advanced examples of my chemical engineering expertise!” He flailed his arms around as he said this. “But I digress! I understand your terms and conditions, and I accept! Now, onto business!”
Pointing the laser down, he clicked the button with his thumb, emitting a blinding light shining directly into the metal floor of the camper van. The boys frantically looked away, while the doctor concentrated directly on the laser, which was now starting to act like an industrial-grade laser cutter. The metal burned and melted off where the light struck, sawing a large circle under their feet and eventually making a man-shaped hole underneath. He clicked the button again, turning off the laser. With his steel toed boots that he had back on, he kicked the metal sheet away, revealing a pothole in the dirt as promised.
“Zere! Let our partnership commence!” Ernst declared.
Again the boys had nothing to say. Their mouths stood agape, and tried to process what they just saw.
“…Now vhy are you still here?! Take your bikes and go, I’m very busy today!!” Ernst took another blue vial out of his pocket and shoved it into Mason’s hands.
“A-alright, Doc! Geez. No need to be pushy. Let’s go, Kai.”
The boys quickly escaped the metal death trap that was the mad Doctor Ernst’s new lair and base of operations. They made it to their bikes, where Mason dumped the contents on the yellow foam, releasing the adhesive texture from it. Wiping off the green excess goo, they quickly got on and set off straight home.
“Vow to never speak about this to anyone?” Mason proposed.
“Way ahead of you, Brown,” Kai said.