Chapter 2- The Call
Lantern District, Seattle (Saturday Morning)
In the blissful morning rays of the rising sun, a small town delinquent known his heroism and for defeating the Mighty “Concrete Queen” of the DUP was waking up after a long night of sleep.
It had only been a few months since Delsin Rowe had defeated Brook Augustine and now, there had been some major changes that have taken place. For one thing, thanks to him, Fetch and Eugene, the conduits locked up in Curdan Cay were now free men and women who were able to live their own lives and make their own choices. Humans and Conduits could now live together without being afraid of each other anymore. As for him, he had kept his promise to Betty… and the rest of the Akomish.
Now though, he had already eaten breakfast and was on the way to Eugene’s hideout in the Lantern District. Eugene is a conduit that has control of Video Manipulation and could create angels and demons like his character in the online game, Heaven’s Hellfire. He could even turn himself into his in-game avatar (which was a freaking huge angel that Delsin had to fight on one occasion).
Right now though, he was doing something far more important than fighting online. As Delsin would find out, Eugene looked like he pulled an all nighter trying to work on whatever he was doing.
The conduit entered the small room as calmly as possible, trying not to scare the gamer. The entire hideout was filled with screens of all different things everywhere. Some more startling than others.
“Hey Eugene! You in here?”...... No response yet. At least right now that is.
Curious, the Native American began to look around. He remembered the small labyrinth from when he first met Eugene after chasing a few of his angels that have been taking suspected conduits away from the DUP. That was only a few months ago. The place itself was improved a bit, but looked more like a college lan party than a place to live.
Sooner than expected, he heard the movement of a whiteboard marker being used on a whiteboard and the shifting of someone’s feet. The figure at the board was none other than Eugene himself. Turning around, he was surprised when he saw his friend and greeted him.
“Oh, hey Delsin. I-i’m surprised to see you.”
“Hey Eugene.” Delsin replied, noticing that his friend looked a little tired as well as a little shaky. “Are you okay? You look like you haven’t gotten any sleep.”
“That… you’re actually right about.” The gamer admitted. “I was working on decrypting the DUP Hard Drive we found back at Curdan Cay.”
“Oh?” The Conduit replied. About two month ago, Eugene had found a laptop that hadn’t been disposed by the DUP when they were freeing the inmates at Augustine's Mega Prison. “Did you find anything?”
“A few things actually. Most seem helpful, but one thing just… bugs me.”
“Bugs you? Why?”
The gamer sighed and showed a list of documents that he printed. It seemed like a series of reports that were being sent from Augustine to another member of the DUP. Looking at the reports, Eugene had highlighted areas in the text that sounded very disturbing given the context.
“These were letters that, after a bit of research, I found out that she was sending to her main second in command of the DUP.”
“What?” Delsin stared blankly at Eugene, surprised by what they were. “Wait… What do you mean by “main” second in command?”
“It seems as if she had four second in commands that would be in charge of different regions of the United States when she either had to take leave or was gone.” Eugene explained, pointing out the illustrations on the board. “Her main second in command was the only one who she trusted and goes by the name of Roman. However, I haven’t really found out his full name.”
“Any idea who else is part of ‘The Queen’s court’?” The Akomish asked, trying to imply a joke. The only answer he got was his friends head shaking from side to side, answering with a no. “Okay, so what did you find?”
“Something that might take your fancy… A DUP list of Conduits and their powers.” Eugene told him, handing a paper list “It might not be everything they had on file, but at least it’s a start.”
Oh, Delsin liked where this was going. Looking at the list, he saw the names of these men and women and their powers.
Electrokinesis/Electromagnetism (Cole MacGrath: Status-Deceased)
Cryokinesis (Lucy Kuo: Status-Deceased)
Pyrokinesis (Nix (Real name unknown): Status-Deceased)
Mutation (Joseph Bertrand III: Status-Deceased)
Power Absorption (Delsin Rowe: Status-Alive)
Smoke Manipulation (Henry Daughtry: Status-Missing)
Neon Manipulation (Abigail “Fetch” Walker: Status-Alive)
Video Manipulation (Eugene Sims: Status-Alive)
Concrete Manipulation (Brook Augustine: Status-On trial)
Paper Manipulation (Celia Penderghast: Status-Unknown)
Gunpowder Manipulation (Pablo “Powderkeg” Alvarez: Status-Captured 7/18/18)
List will be updated once more Conduits are discovered or found.
-Brook Augustine
“Uh… Eugene? This guy at the bottom… Pablo?”
“Yeah, what about him?” Eugene asked.
“It says here that he got captured yesterday.”
Now this was surprising. The DUP’s weren’t as active as they were before since their entire operation had slowly began to crumble with Augustine on trial. But how were they able to capture him yesterday?
“I’m going to call Fetch and have her drop by. Can you find out more about our gunpowder friend?” Delsin asked, heading for the exit of the hideout.
“No problem Delsin. I’ll see what I can find.”
Kingstons home, San Diego (Saturday Morning)
As morning began to drift, the rays of the sun penetrated through the curtains of Shawn’s room. The light was bright enough to wake the teen from his slumber, causing him to rise to where the top half of his body was not lying down on the bed. As he opened his eyes and adjusted his vision, the first thing he could see was the time on his alarm clock.
9:13am
Shawn sighed. He creaked out of the bed and opened the closet to grab some clothes. This time, he chose a light blue shirt and a new pair of jeans. The only difference was that this one wasn’t a V-neck like the day before and the jeans were lighter in color than the navy jeans he wore the day before. After making his selection, the Teen went to the bathroom to take a shower, wash his face, and clean himself up
He had to look presentable even though today was a Saturday.
After changing his clothes, Shawn went back into his room and opened the curtains. The room lit up with the sunlight coming from the window, showing all the posters and collectibles of different movies, videogames and TV shows that were on his shelf and walls. This even included artwork prints from when he was in Equestria LA back in Anaheim on mothers day last year and some Pony figurines from Hot Topic. Nearby those was his bookcase. It stored a bunch of books that Shawn liked to read in his own time. This included The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Legend of Drizzt by R.A. Salvatore, all nine of the vizbig edition Volumes of Dragon Ball Z by Akira Toriyama, The My Little Pony comic books made by IDW publishing's inside the hardcover volumes, The Maze Runner series by James Dashner and a lot of other books that took his interest.
Many other items were scattered across his room, but the teen had to focus less on that and more on his empty stomach. Off to the kitchen!
Shawn left the room and closed the door behind him, passed through the main hall on the first floor of the two floor house and walked his way to the near the back of the floor and by the living room. To his surprise, he didn’t see his father. In fact, he couldn’t find him anywhere or any sign of him being here just now. That’s when the Conduit noticed the note on the Dining Room table next to where he normally sat.
It was from his father. Shawn could tell by his handwriting and the blue ink used by his dad’s ballpoint pen.
Hey Buddy,
Sorry that I can’t hang out with you today like I promised. Got a call this morning about some Conduit sightings near downtown. Not to mention the DUP’s being surprised about what happened yesterday.
‘That’s a first,’ Shawn thought. ‘Dad never call the DUP “The DUP’s” like… ever.’
Anyways, if you want to meet up later, we can grab something to eat or just do what you want to do. It is your special day after all.
Happy 16th birthday,
Dad
P.S. I talked to mom yesterday. She’s very proud of you for your heroics yesterday at Target and for protecting that little girl. She wishes the best for you.
The Teen smiled when he read the last line. He was glad to hear from her. His mother had been working full time overseas as a nurse and health worker. She was currently in Hawaii because over a couple of weeks before, Hurricane Iselle went through the Tropical resort as well as Hurricane Julio. The storm might’ve ended a few days ago, but the effects still remained on the people of Hawaii. He knew that it might be some time before she could come back home. Still though, Shawn was Glad to know he had her blessing.
Folding the paper and putting it in his pocket, The Snow Conduit began to get himself some breakfast. A bowl of Rice Chex with Fat Free milk would do nicely while he waited for a bagel that was already pre-cut in half to heat in the toaster. While waiting, he continued to work on his cereal as he turned on the TV in the living room. Like what his dad told him, the subject of Bio-Terrorists was on the top headlines this morning… again.
“Officials of the Police Department have Downtown San Diego on high alert after possible sightings of a few Bio-Terrorists inside America’s Finest city. We are short on details at the moment on how many Bio-Terrorists have been spotted, but we can confirm that there are two females, possibly sisters. This just occurring almost a week before officials in Sacramento get together to discuss whether a new law should be passed that will make these men and women, who call themselves “Conduits” legal citizens.”
The male anchor on the news continued for another few minutes, doing interviews with so called “Experts” on Conduits and that’s when Shawn had enough and just shut off the TV. His bagel was just about done and he got it out of the toaster and applied some Cream Cheese from the fridge before putting it away again. Before eating though, Shawn left the kitchen for a minute to grab some “Essentials.”
Moving around the bottom floor, he turned on his phone after shutting it off the night before. Then, he went to the desk in his room to grab his keys, headphones, IPod and his Wonderbolt's Jacket from the hook on his door. Lastly, he grabbed his bagel and went out the front door, locking it before leaving the house.
Shawn had no need to demonstrate his powers right now. He was just going to walk through his neighborhood to the SDMTS Trolley station by the Mission Valley Center, hop on board the Green route, and get off once in Downtown. Sounds simple right? Well, not quite
One thing to note was that where he lived was a bit of a walk from Mission Valley. Second, the Area of Mission Valley itself might be crowded for a Saturday. The third and final note was that the DUP might be in the area after the Mall Incident yesterday. Shawn didn’t really stick around for when those guys showed up because he rather not be thrown in a Cell for his actions.
Despite these though, The Snow Conduit didn’t really mind the walking distance or the risk factors. He needed the exercise anyway and he knew how to deal with risks.
Forty minutes. That’s how long it took for a ten minute walk and a thirty minute trolley right to the Downtown Gaslamp of the city. Either that or it took longer, but he didn’t seem to care about how long it took. Shawn was here in the City, and was lucky that there weren’t any DUP’s in sight right now to notice him. However, the ride over was only the easy part.
Getting out of the small station was harder.
Exiting from the Convention center stop, Shawn walked out of the train only to find a whole ton of Construction and Assembly Crews.
‘Of Course…’ He thought to himself as he looked around him. He had almost forgot that it was the week before Comic-Con. The annual four day event was where the best in entertainment, comics, games, and Media turn Downtown San Diego into a Living comic fantasy. It usually occurs near the end of July, but the preparation began almost a week before. Same with the attendee’s.
Crossing the street, Shawn could now notice that something big was being planned at the Parking lot for Petco Park, the stadium and home of the San Diego Padres. As he noticed though, he began to hear something. At first, he thought it was a DJ at one of the nearby Hotels. But that's when he notice that it was too close by to be a DJ.
It was his cell phone.
Grabbing the phone from under his shirt and on his waist, Shawn was surprised to see that an Unknown number was trying to reach him. At first, he thought it was a telemarketer. Then he thought it was a misdialed number. Lastly, he thought of the possibility that dad was calling from his work phone. Thinking the third possibility, Shawn answered the call as he walked across the left hand side of the convention center.
“Hello?”
“Is this… Shawn Kingston?”
That definitely did not sound like the chief of police. In Fact, the voice was more… Feminine.
“Who is this?” Came Shawn’s next question. He stopped by the side of the convention center that he was walking along in order to ask.
“I’m sorry for surprising you, but we need to talk. In person… You did rescue me yesterday after all.”
That’s when it hit him. He couldn’t believe it at first. But then remembered her handing him his phone the other day after he dropped it. Still though, Shawn had to ask.
“Are you… the girl from yesterday?”
“That I am.” The voice replied.
“And I’m guessing you got my number from when I dropped my phone?” He asked
“You are pretty perceptive, conduit of snow.” She replied over the phone. Shawn noticed that her voice was different this time, and not like the little girl from before. “You can also consider me a conduit as well if you want to… Or is that not the right term?”
That’s when the teen froze. ‘How can this girl not know about this? Had she seen the news this morning or anytime recently?’ The word Bio-Terrorist was used as a common word daily, but some people see it as a negative insult to called people who are ‘Different.’
“Yes, the proper term is Conduit.”
“Oh, thank goodness I didn’t mess up.” The teen heard her reply.
“Anyways…” Shawn redirected the conversation. “You said that we needed to talk?”
“That’s right?”
“What do we need to talk about though?” Shawn proceeded to ask.
“Well, we need your help with something. Something really important.”
“Wait a minute,” The teen interjected. “Who’s we?”
“My older sister and I,” The girl clarified. “We both need your help, Mr. Kingston.”
Shawn thought about it to himself a bit. This whole call, the girl, and not one, but two people needing his help? It didn’t make any sense. Still though, he couldn’t just turn down anyone without a good reason. He should help them.
“Where do you want to meet? Currently right now, the city and the DUP are on a manhunt after the news reported about a few suspected conduits being inside the city. Two of them are said to be sisters…” Then he stopped. The caller saying she was a conduit and also had an older sister… “Wait a minute… Are you-?”
“I promise we’ll explain everything later. For now though, can you meet us on the top of the structure next to the tall building with the word “Hilton” on it?”
Turning to his left, Shawn noticed what the girl was talking about. “You mean the Parking structure next to the hotel?”
“Would that work for you, Mr. Kingston?”
“It sounds good to me. Oh and what’s your name? It would be impolite for me not to ask.” The conduit followed up with his question.
“Very well,” He heard the reply. “For now, you may just call me Lulu. I’ll see you soon, conduit of snow.”
With that, the phone call had ended and now Shawn wondered. ‘What exactly did I get myself into?’
End Chapter 2