Things Change
Things change. Everett Thomas rolled the phrase over and over in his mind. He had to think it because he couldn't speak at the moment. The blood wasn't actually in his lungs, not yet, but the shock was enough to keep his vocal chords suppressed.
People change. When you've been shot, the world moves in slow motion. You're a million miles away from everything and everyone. Everett saw Angelo crouched above him, saying something, his lips moving silently. To Ev, he was just a tiny speck in the distance.
Things change. Everett smiled at the thought. It wasn't funny, but he smiled anyways. One friend was dead. Another had shot him. Who'd have thought Ev would ever see this day? Who'd have thought he could take a life? Not him, let me tell you.
Things change. People change. Everything changes, and it's all far, far away right now.
It all started with a phone call.
It was Autumn, and the Xavier Academy was blanketed in reds and yellows and oranges. Ev kept saying how it was his favorite season. Jubilee kept throwing leaves at him and telling him to get back to work or they'd never get the front lawn raked.
He reminded her that it was her prank that got them this duty. She smiled and threw more leaves. He loved that smile. He loved this season. He was happy.
But that all ended with a phone call.
"Phone for ye, Ev." Sean called across the lawn. Ev was sure to give Jubilee a quick poke before he ran off, just to see that smile again. God, he loved that smile.
Maybe if he hadn't picked up the phone... Maybe if he'd just stayed warm and happy with Jubilee and leaves and that smile...
"Who was it?" Jubilee was still smiling. It didn't last. Everett was past and gone with no answer. No smile. He had to go home, he said. He had to leave now. And he did.
Angelo and Jono had seen him at the dorm, they said to Jubilee. He wasn't himself. He didn't talk. He wouldn't talk to anyone. He just had to go home.
"Been hanging around Jono too much." Angelo joked. No one felt like laughing. Jubilee was biting her lip and looking concerned.
Follow him, she asked. Go with him. Emma was too mad about the prank to let her go.
Jono said no. Angelo did too. Ev's business was his own, they said. But still, they went.
It all started with a phone call. It all ended with a phone call.
St. Louis General Hospital was a cold place. A dead place. Nobody wanted to go in. They did anyways.
The room was on the ninth floor. A tiny room with a bed and a sink and a chair. Nothing else would fit.
On the bed was Everett Thomas' father.
They had to take the nurse's word for it. Stan Thomas' face was burned beyond recognition. At least, that which could be seen through the pasty white gauze. His skin looked like overcooked bacon. The kind that come in circles, not strips.
Everett cried. Jono and Angelo waited out in the hall.
An explosion, Dad Thomas said. He couldn't say much else. It hurt pretty bad.
An explosion. His clinic had exploded. One doctor died. So did two volunteer nurses. One doctor, two volunteer nurses, a patient and Everett Thomas' mother. Stan had forgotten his lunch. She had been bringing it to him.
Stan forgot his lunch a lot.
Everett cried.
Jonothon Starsmore hated hospitals. He couldn't smell the blend of cherry flavored children's medication and drying vomit. He couldn't feel the coarse, stiff chair with the dried pimples of chewed gum on the arms. He couldn't taste the stale air.
He still hated hospitals.
Jono couldn't smell. Couldn't feel. Couldn't taste.
But he could hear. He could hear a lot. He could hear their whispers before they spoke.
One of them.
He could hear their whispers in their minds.
Come to finish Thomas.
Dark, angry whispers.
Scarf? Bad disguise.
Let's fuck him up.
Jono wished Angelo hadn't gone to find the vending machines.
Everett heard the crash. He heard the bang. He heard the shouts, the curses, the threats. Above it all, he heard Jono's voice in his mind.
They attacked him. Bunch of thugs, with their knives and their fists and their shouts. It had something to do with Everett's dad. Jono didn't want to use his powers.
Something to do with Everett's dad.
Ev ran out of the room. He ran down the hall. Out of the room, down the hall, to the waiting area where Jono was.
Jono wasn't Jono anymore. He was a big, writhing ball of human body parts. Punching and kicking and slashing.
Everett shouted. He didn't know what to say, so he just shouted. He tried to pull people off of the pile. Angelo was there too, his Snickers forgotten. Someone said something about fire.
The guy's chest was on fire.
Then, the fighting stopped. It was as if someone had pointed a magical remote control at the scene and pressed the little stop button. But there was no remote control. Just a voice.
A familiar voice.
Everett noticed that all the attackers were black.
Diego Carter didn't always have an earring. He didn't always have the first letter of his name shaved into the back of his head. He didn't always have a tattoo. He didn't always walk around with a pistol tucked into his briefs.
Diego Carter didn't always lead a street gang.
Diego Carter was once Everett's best friend.
People change.
Dee. Little Dee who was afraid of the closet monster till he was twelve. Little Dee who would only drink purple Kool Aid with breakfast.
Little Dee's word was now law.
Little Dee's word was to stop fighting. Everyone listened.
"Ev?" Diego seemed happy. Everyone was surprised. No one saw Jono refitting his scarf.
"Ev Thomas? Jesus, is that really you?"
Ev nodded. He just needed to sit down.
"Fuck, man, I'm sorry about your parents... S'why we're all here, keeping an eye out to make sure none of them try to finish the job."
Them? Ev's thoughts came out as words.
"The Lords." Dee's words were bitter. "White Power gang moved into our turf few weeks back. Been kickin' up all kinds'a shit, makin' a name... But your dad's clinic... It was the first time they..."
Dee didn't finish. Ev didn't need him too. A lot of hands tightened around their weapons and angry murmurs ran through those present.
"They said 'us niggers' shouldn't be cuttin' up no white folk. But we're gonna get 'em, Ev... We're gonna get every last one of 'em."
A cheer of bitter resolve rose from the gang. Ev felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Angelo.
"We'll help, amigo."
Jono nodded in agreement.
The waiting room was alive with talk again. Plans, threats, jeers. Hate seethed in every word.
No.
Ev didn't shout, but his one word silenced the room.
No.
"What do you mean, no?" Diego didn't understand.
"I mean no. It's not right... We can't fight hate with hate. It can't work like that. It's wrong."
Everyone was silent. Then Diego spoke. "Christ, Ev, are you fucking insane? They killed your mom! Nearly your dad..."
"I know. It still doesn't make it right." Ev was fighting tears. "I want them just as bad as any of you... But we're going to do it my way."
Silence again. Ev could feel everyone's eyes on him, but he was only looking at Dee. Dee was looking back.
You better be right, Diego Carter's eyes said. Then he nodded.
A young man stepped out of the crowd. "God damn, Dee, are you as crazy as him? We gotta hit 'em hard, it's the only way!" Some nodded or called out in agreement. Diego called for silence with one motion of his hand.
"We're trying it Ev's way. I trust him. I owe him. Some of you do to."
There were murmurs.
Talked me out of running away from home.
Helped my little sister learn to read.
Stood up for me when everyone said I was stupid.
Ev had more friends here than he thought.
They would try it his way.
Down the hall, listening to the empty echoes of the words, Stan Thomas cried.
Not with pain.
With pride.
Jonothon Starsmore used to love bars. Then he couldn't smell the choking, acrid mist of cigarette smoke. He couldn't feel the thick air against his skin, wet with the sweat of too many people. He couldn't taste the beer or the liqueur or the extra-hot buffalo wings.
Things change.
People change.
He found a seat at the bar.
We need to know about them.
This was Everett's way.
We need to know who they are. How they think.
Jono's skin color made him the only eligible candidate for the undercover role.
You can imagine his joy.
He looked around. The bar was stocked with the usual vermin... The types that only come out of hiding to drown their lives in numbing alcohol. The drifters, the freeloaders, the people who would only be an asset to working society if they vanished from the face of the Earth.
And there was the Lords.
They couldn't be missed. They seemingly possessed their own portion of the bar, swarming around their pool table like flies on a freshly steaming piece of dog feces, shouting and cheering and drinking and generally doing their part for the deconstruction of America.
Jono just wanted to leave.
Instead, he walked across the bar to the dimly-lit corner full of skinhead flies swarming around their dog shit pool table.
"Yer the Lords." It wasn't really a question. The flies all stopped to look at him.
One man stepped forward, his hands tightly gripped around the shaft of a pool cue. He watched Jono like a lion stalking its prey. Jono saw a Swastika tattooed on his left bicep.
"Who wants to know?"
"I do." Jono resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably. He put all his concentration into making his psionic speak sound as real as possible. "John Star. Heard of yer. Like the way yer all work."
Silence. Jono just wanted to leave. Then, Lion Fly laughed. The others followed his lead.
"Hey boys, this pussy-ass pretty boy Brit wants in. What do we say?"
A wave of jeers arose from the flies.
Lion Fly shook his head, chuckling. "What makes you think we shouldn't just kill you now, Pretty Boy? Why would we trust you?"
Jono brought one finger up and hooked it under the edge of his scarf, pulling the fabric down just enough to show the tattered mess of scarred, blackened flesh that used to be his lower face.
"'Cause a nigger did this."
Everett stood with Diego and Angelo on the roof of the building across from the bar. Behind them Dee's gang, which he called the Ebons, waited with little patience.
"How is he?" Ev asked Angelo, who was holding contact with Jono through a psionic link.
Angelo's eyes narrowed in concentration. "Good, I think. They're acceptin' him in."
"Good. Stay with him." Everett began to walk away. He touched Dee's arm as he passed.
Walk and talk.
Diego still wasn't sure about this mutant thing, he explained. A few members backed out because of it.
Ev didn't want their help, then.
"We're gonna need all the power we can get, man."
"No we won't."
"Why? One of you got some power to kill 'em all on the spot?"
Angelo called over his shoulder, "They're going down to the basement."
"No. we won't be killing anyone. We won't be fighting anyone."
"God damn, Ev, what's the matter with you? We've got to fight. We've got to fight to survive..."
Ev spun around suddenly and poked a finger into Dee's chest so hard he almost fell back. "Don't you get it!? You don't fight to survive, you fight to die. And you'll all die, everyone will die, if you don't find another way. Die like my mom..."
"Ev, that's not what I meant..."
"Well that's how it is. We're not going to war. We're looking for peace."
Diego frowned, "Ev, you've always been my boy, but I can't follow you that far. You're on your own."
Diego was Ev's best friend.
Things change.
People change.
This wouldn't work. Ev was going to call it all off.
Then Angelo shouted.
"I lost contact! Jono's knocked out!"
Or dead, Ev thought.
He never would have thought that before.
Things change.
They stormed the basement. Jono was unconscious on the floor.
One wrong word was all it took.
The basement stretched out beyond the bar. A small underground cavern full of weapons and entertainment systems and workout benches and little bald flies.
Weapons were drawn. Tables kicked over. Shouts and threats and slurs polluted the musty air. Everyone got ready for war, but no one shot first. They couldn't yet.
Ev was in the center.
Standing between everyone. Unarmed. The Lords wanted to know who he was. What he was doing. The Ebons shouted for him to get out of the way. He'd snapped, they said. He'd gone crazy.
No.
Ev wasn't crazy, he said. Everyone listened. No one believed.
"This isn't going to happen. Not now, not ever... It's not right. This hate will kill every one of you until there's no one left to hate or be hated. Don't any of you see? Don't you see how stupid this is?"
Ev was crying. He didn't notice.
Then, there was a hand on his shoulder. He expected Angelo, but he could see Ange pulling Jono to the side.
Diego.
Little Dee stood beside Ev. Unarmed.
Two crazy men trying to stop a war.
"Ev's right."
The room was quiet on both sides. Then one man, the Lion Fly with the Swastika tattoo, stood from behind an overturned table. Without a word, he raised his gun and fired two bullets.
He was not unarmed.
He didn't want to stop the war.
The two bullets dug deep into Diego Carter's chest with a sickening sucking noise. Dee, Little Dee, collapsed backwards with the force of the impact.
Everett dropped to his knees beside Dee even as the room erupted with gunfire. He wasn't even in time to see his best friend's last breath.
It wasn't fair, he cried.
His voice was lost.
It wasn't right.
It was all a lie... Everything his parents had taught him, everything he believed....
Lies, lies, lies.
This was the only way.
Ev was still crying when he was enveloped in the swirling colors of his aura. Jono was still groggy, but that didn't stop Ev from taking his power.
The darkness of the basement was gone, lost to the raging, toiling energies that swarmed around Ev's body as he lifted into the air.
The gunfire was drown out by the roaring psionic energies that carried Ev, that atomized the bullets before they could even reach his body.
This was the only way.
Fight hate with hate.
Everett's first blast destroyed the bar above them. Moonlight and debris rained down on the now-scattering Lords and Ebons alike.
Bang.
One less fly.
Bang.
No more hate.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
This wasn't always the only way.
Things change.
Terrified.
The word didn't begin to describe how Angelo felt as he watched. Everett shone like a dying star in the open night sky, picking off the scattering gangers with enough power to throw city buses around.
<< Wot the 'ell... >>
Jono rubbed his head as he began to sit up in the sheltered corner Angelo had pulled him into. He couldn't feel, but pain was still real to him.
It wasn't fair.
Angelo gave the morbid details as quickly as possible. His eyes never left Everett.
Like a train wreck.
"Dios, I've never seen you use your powers like that before..."
<< I only 'ave once. >>
Angelo understood immediately.
Jono had a face once, too.
Bang.
Was that a Lord or an Ebon?
Bang.
It didn't matter anymore.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Angelo was shouting something. Ev couldn't hear. Ev didn't want to hear.
He was busy. Bang.
"Ev, you gotta stop, man!"
He wasn't listening. Angelo's throat was starting to hurt from trying to scream over the roar and the screams and the bang, bang, bang.
<< S'no use. 'e's too far gone. >>
"Can't you..."
<< Can't even stand up. >>
"Fuck."
Angelo didn't want it to be this way.
It wasn't fair.
He picked up a gun. Was it dropped or was its owner atomized?
He aimed it.
"Ev!"
Ev turned to look.
Bang.
Ev fell. Splat, he went, as he landed in the creeping puddle of Diego's blood. There was a small hole in his abdomen with the same warm, crimson liquid leaking out.
Except Diego's wasn't warm anymore.
Angelo crouched over Ev.
"Ev, can you hear me?"
Ev smiled. It was a distant smile.
<< Wot 'appened? >> Jono was limping slowly towards them.
"I shot him. We gotta get him to a hospital."
<< None of the other shots got through. >>
Angelo looked down at Ev's eyes.
"He let me through."
Some things don't change.
* * End * *