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Riot
By Trace Oglesby
Chapter 1: Instability rising

My name is Alex. I am test subject number 11012, and I am being studied for the effects of mind altering brain wave frequencies on the human capacity for telekinesis. I live in the top floor of a big building, with no windows, and all the doors are locked all the time. There are always doctors running in and out of this building, running tests and analyzing data. Being a test subject, the data is often concerning me.
There are two kinds of tests, the ones with the big machine, and the test where I move things. At first, the machine nearly killed me, and I could only do that test only once a month, and my eyes would start bleeding. Now, I do the test at least three times a day, but the machine still hurts. This test consists of me lying on a table, inside of a big machine with a metal bar that wraps around my head. The doctors used to put these needle probes into my head, trying to “measure brain waves” or something. But one day, the first day I started passing out, I woke up and the probes were fried, sticking out of my head like burning hot metal horns. After the resulting surgery to remove the probes, the doctors were worried about me. They didn’t know why I had fainted, or what would happen if they put me in the machine anymore. The worrying stopped when I took the other test.
The tests where I move things are much less painful. Basically, this test consists of me sitting in a chair, tied down so I can’t escape. There are doctors in the same room, watching through the glass window at the objects placed there. What they tell me to do is focus on the object, to try and make it move. At first, I couldn’t do anything but just stare. Then, after a couple weeks, I could make the items vibrate a little, by focusing on it intensely. Afterwards, however, I had a migraine for quite a while, and I noticed a slight glow in my veins. But then, I started passing out during the machine tests. After the first time I passed out, I did this test again, and could easily move small objects, such as a pencil and a quarter. Then, day after day, they tested me with bigger and heavier objects to move. A teddy bear, a football. Then a few weeks later, a computer. And a car tire. An engine block. The entire engine. The whole car. The more I moved, the more my veins glowed, and stretched out. I could move whatever I wanted, including the doctors. But I’ve gotten enough scars to not try that again.
The machine tests are happening more and more often recently. My eyes continue to bleed. My veins continue to glow and stretch. But I’m getting stronger by the day, and the doctors know it.
The dream I have when I pass out during the machine test is always the same: my tenth birthday. The day they took me. I am sitting on my bed, wondering what my presents might be, like any other ten year old kid would. I go to the kitchen, my head filled with thoughts of the new toys and how much fun the next few days might be. Then, almost to the kitchen, I hear a voice. A low, angry voice, too deep to be Dad’s. I open the door, only to find my parents lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, and three men in black coats standing around them. The one I heard before sees me, and grabs me. I try and break free, but he sticks a piece of cloth over my mouth, and everything goes black. Then I wake up, and the tests are over, and its time to go back to my cell, and clean my bleeding eyes and stretched, glowing veins.
Then, after three times of that, they make me move things again. Then dinner with the other subjects, who are also my best and only friends, then back to our cells. Daniel, Ian, and Matt, the others, aren’t the same. Matt seems to always be really hyper and twitchy, and moves a bit too fast. Daniel knows things that nobody else seems to. He knows when things are about to happen sometimes, and can learn about different objects through contact. Nobody knows what Ian can do yet, but he has severe anger issues and is always getting mad and trying to fight. The doctors are always talking about brainwaves during our lessons, something about broadcasting radio waves at a frequency the brain can pick up. I guess that’s what the machine is doing to us.
Sitting at lunch after the first test of the day, Ian tells me about how mad the tests make him, while Daniel thinks and Matt twitches. Just another usual day here. I zone out while Ian is talking to me, and think about what this place is to me: all of our failed escape attempts, all the scars I have because of this place. Even if I left, I would never get back what these people took from me. I think of all the times I’ve been beaten, how many times the machine has made my eyes bleed, so many that it changed the whites of my eyes and my iris and pupil to red. How many times my veins have pulsed so hard, so close to bursting, that it left markings on my skin, almost like a tattoo, only the pain to get these were so much worse. The way that when I move things without touching them, my veins glow an eerie blue color, for reasons unknown to me. The things I never did, the things I’ll never get to do. The pain they’ve caused me, and how badly I want revenge.
Thinking I’ve zoned out, I hear the whirring of spinning blades in the distance, getting closer and louder, and a voice somewhere beside me tells me “get ready to run.” That snaps me out of my daydream, and I look at Daniel. He nods, and shakes Matt. I kick Ian in the shin. We stand up, and walk slowly towards the cells, as if we were going to bed.
Suddenly, there’s a really loud noise, like an explosion, and grinding metal. We all run through the hallway, with the guards, to see what had happened. Above the carnage and dismay, Daniel yells to us, “A helicopter has crashed into the building!!!” All the guards and doctors are in a panic, wondering what to do. I look to Ian, Daniel, and Matt. Sensing an opportunity, we all run towards the hole in the wall, and without a real plan, leap. Stunned for a moment, I stare.
I look up, expecting the bright blue of the sky as I remember. Wanting so hard to see that blast of color, that sweet vision of freedom, the disappointment almost physically stings when my eyes meet the cloudy grey of the beginning of a storm. The clouds are ridiculously shaped, a shade of depressing grey. Already starting to unleash its payload of water on the earth below, we fall with the rain.
I look below me, and see the city I left behind. It’s grown considerably, and I stare in shock as I see the seemingly impossibly tall new buildings. Needles of concrete and glass sticking into the thunderstorm clouds, my first view of freedom seems an ominous warning. Finally, my sense of awe and shock over freedom ends, and I then look at the ground rushing up to greet us with a cold, hard slab of concrete. The adrenaline kicks in, and I know exactly what I have to do. I pick up Matt, Daniel, Ian and I, just like a couple of objects in the tests, and right before we hit the ground, I catch us, stopping us from being smears on the sidewalk.
We land safely, and sit there for a moment, looking at the surrounding city, only one thing comes to mind: “Freedom!” I look at us, four random teens that fell from the sky wearing uniforms with numbers 11011 to 11014, and look at the people standing around, pointing at the smoke billowing from the building, totally ignoring us. I turn to the others and say “we need new clothes.”
I look around, and see a familiar sign from my early childhood: Fred’s General Store. We walk inside, calm, as if nothing were happening. Then, picking up a few articles of clothing, we hop into the dressing rooms, change quickly, and sprint out of the store. With all the commotion and disturbance outside, we slip out unnoticed. We run out fully dressed in our newly shoplifted clothes, and head towards the outskirts of the city.
The edge of the city, the suburbs, reminds me of my old life. I think, for an instant, “I’m free, I can have that life again!” Then a familiar nightmare image that haunts my sleep returns to me. my parents, lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood that’s flowering out, framing their faces that are screaming in silent agony, their voices extinguished by eternal sleep. I run, and the others follow. I turn to them, and I ask, “Why are you still following me? We’re free now. We can do whatever we want.”
Ian speaks up for them. “Exactly. And we want to stay with you. So shut up and stop complaining.” He laughs and pats me on the back.
I smile and reply, “Well, I can’t argue with THAT logic…” we continue walking, past the suburbs, right out the city limits, into a road that leads into a forest. We walk through the forest, looking around, not really scared. It’s getting darker quickly, but we know that there’s nothing in these woods that can hurt us any worse than what’s already been done. We occasionally hear a rustling in the bushes, or some noise in the trees, but it’s nothing dangerous. So we continue on our way, not really paying any mind to our surroundings, mostly buried in thought about where we’re heading, what we’re going to do now that we’re free.
We get through the woods with little effort, and emerge on the other side to see a small town nestled in a valley, with mountains on both sides. From our view in the edge the woods, with night having fallen completely, it looks like a popup picture from one of those fairy tales. Like the perfect little peaceful village settled in the valley, with the mansion on a hill with a pond at the bottom and a clock tower in the distance, with a perfectly crescent moon lying above it all in the darkness. I’ve read enough fairy tales to know that its towns like this usually burn to the ground early on in the story, and the main character swears revenge or something. But this is real life, not some book that someone is reading. Isn’t it?
Walking towards the town, we start looking at the houses. Spotting a particularly spooky looking house with broken windows and a hole in the roof, and then we realize that it’s most likely abandoned. I turn to our band of misfit test subjects and say, “are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”
“It’s been 6 years since I’ve had a piece of pie?” Matt asks.
“Well… that, and that house over there is probably abandoned and a really good place to hide out for a while.” I say.
“Oh…” he says, then smiles. “We can get pie later though, right?” he asks.
“What is it with you and pie, dude?” Ian asks.
“Pie is amazing!” replies Matt.
“He has a point, you know,” says Daniel.
“Enough with the pie already!!” I yell. “Can we just go to this house and chill now? I’m tired!”
“Alright, alright. Calm down.” Matt says, and we all go into the house. “We’ll just get pie later.”
I smack him upside his stupid head.
“Ow! Hey, what was that for?” he whines.
“I said enough with the freaking pie already!” I yell, then turn back to the house, which we are now standing in front of. I look at this run-down shack and smile at our new home.
“Well, its windows might be busted, and there may be a hole in the roof…” Ian says, “But I think we could live here.”
“Well, that’s the plan.” I say, and everyone nods. We head inside, and look around. It’s a total dump, complete with roaches, and a dead rat lying on the torn sofa. I pick up the rat the same way I picked up those objects in the tests, and I toss it out the window. Ian takes out a lighter he stole off of a smoker back in the city, to light up the place a little. We find some previously used, but still serviceable candles to light. After the house is more illuminated, we see the sofa has a large stain on it, and I wonder what made it. Deciding I’d rather not know, I flip the cushion over and we just pretend it isn’t there. “Home sweet home,” I say.
“Yeah. Right.” Daniel replies sarcastically.
The next morning, I awake to a growling stomach. “Man, I’m STARVING.”
“Well, there’s a dead rat outside on the porch,” Matt replies sarcastically.
“Don’t be crude,” Daniel says. “What we need to do is get a job.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Matt says.
“And that would be…?” Dan asks.
“Well, we’re poor, orphaned, and homeless…” Matt says. “We could probably beg up a good meal and some spare change, don’t you think?”
“I’m not begging.” Ian says.
“Suit yourself,” Matt says, and walks out the door to go begging. I watch him go, and shake my head.
“There goes a true moron.” I sigh, and Matt yells from outside,
“I heard that!” I laugh, and then turn back to Dan.
“So, what was this about getting a job?” I ask.
“Well, I saw a grocery store as we were walking to this house,” he says, “so maybe if we got a job there, we could get discounts on food too.”
I smile, pat my genius friend on the back, and say, “alright, let’s go.” So we do. Walking down the street, we see the few people walking around, glancing at the four strange looking kids heading towards the store.
I walk up to the counter, look at the tall, bearded man standing behind it and say, “can we speak to your manager? We’re here to apply for a job.” He looks at me for a moment, then laughs.
In a heavy southern accent, he replies, “Sonny, I AM this here store’s manager. Now what can I do ya for?”
I repeat myself again, “We’re here to apply for a job.”
He looks at me funny again, and walks to the back room. Coming back out, he says, “Well aint you four just the durn luckiest? We just so happens to have four openings, right here.”
I tilt my head to the left slightly and say, “So, that’s it then?”
“Well, to be formal and official, I have to get some identifications and what-not.” He says, frowning slightly. “But other than the formalities, yessiree, those jobs is as good as yours, if’n you want em.”
“Alright, cool,” says Ian, and then he takes his dog tags off and hands it to the man.
“What in Sam’s Hill is this?” he asks. “You aint no marine or army man. What’re you doin’ with them here dog tags?”
“Those are my ID tags, sir. If you look on there, that’s my name and subject number.” Ian replies calmly.
Dan says, “I don’t think it works like that here…”
Ian says, “Well, that’s the only identification we have.”
The manager looks at us funny. “Where’d y’all say y’all was from?”
“Do you have a map?” I ask.
“’S on the back wall,” he says. “Why?”
“Well, I can show you. I don’t know the name of the city.” I reply.
“Aw, durn… Y’all is them there city types, aint ya?” he laughs.
“Technically, yeah.” I say, then walk to the map, and point to the small dot that represents the city we just came from.
“Y’all are from Mordreth City and y’all don’t know it?” he says, dumbfounded.
We look at each other for a moment, silently.
The manager takes a closer look at us, a strange, lost group of abandoned teens. Then he turns to me, and stops suddenly. Noticing my glowing veins, he says, “Sonny… them there’s some fancy tattoos ya got there.”
“These? Oh. My parents… they were cultists. I got these when I was born,” I lie calmly.
He then looks at my solid red eyes, and stops dead. “Boy, just what are you?” he asks, now more scared than curious.
I hand him my ID tag without saying a word. He reads it, and then he looks at our group again. “Now, y’all… I don’t want no trouble. Just why are y’all lookin for jobs round these parts?” he asks.
Matt looks at the manager with the biggest, saddest puppy eyes I have ever seen, and say simply, “we need food, and money to repair our house.” He looks at us again, and he sighs. Then, with a twinge of pity in his voice, says,
“Y’all are hired, I guess.”
For the next few weeks, we work. Daniel and I are box boys, setting up boxes in the back room. Ian is a shelf-stacker, putting supplies on the shelves in the store. And Matt is a delivery boy, running to and from houses that ordered things from the store. The jobs are relatively easy, and they’re made even easier for some of us by our powers. Stacking boxes is a piece of cake when you can pick them up without even touching them. Of course, I have to do that when Keith, the manager, isn’t looking, otherwise we’d be fired. He’s already freaked out by me, and I’m not surprised. I’m rather freakish looking, I suppose.
Heading back home, now into our 3rd month of freedom. I sigh, and I realize that I’m almost happy with this. I have a good job for a kid, I’m living in a house that’s in much better condition than when we found it, and I’m living with my best friends, in this perfect little town. The only thing missing is… well, nothing.
I’m lying on the couch, next to Matt who’s in one of the chairs, and Daniel in the other, and Ian on the floor. We’re talking, relaxing, and just enjoying our freedom. Lying there, talking with my best and only friends, I ask them, “How long do you think this can last?”
Nobody answers for a long time. Then Ian says, “I don’t know…”
Matt adds, “Hopefully, a long, long time.”
Daniel stays silent.
The next morning, as we head to the store in silence, I think aloud: “why is it so quiet?” only to look around and realize that there is no one around us. Wondering what is going on, we go into the store. Behind the counter, Keith is sitting there, talking to himself. Mostly mumbling, but occasionally twitching and moaning.
He turns to us, and we see him fully: his tall frame hunched over, his dark beard stained darker with blood. He growls at us, and hops up on the table. He shrieks; an animalistic, tortured sound. Responding to the call, we hear calls eerily similar throughout the store. Suddenly, we’re surrounded, at least six people on all sides, all in the same condition: Howling, covered in blood. They all come for us at the same time, and before any of us has time to react, Ian screams in fury, and flames erupt from his fingers and mouth, enveloping the onslaught of insane creatures. Within seconds, we are surrounded by charred bodies. We just sit there for a moment, mostly from shock, but also partially wondering just what exactly is going on around here.
After grabbing a ton of food, and a pie for Matt. We head for the parking lot, where the plan is to hijack a car and get back to the house. Out the window, however, we see something that sets the alarm bells ringing: a limping, bloody figure, heading straight for the store. Instantly wary, we decide to take the side exit instead, to sneak around and get to the parking lot from the other direction. We walk to the side exit, past the bathrooms, and walk through the door…. Straight into a garage full of people, all snarling, twitching, and covered in blood. They stop snarling for long enough to spot us, then charge.
The next few moments are a blur: Matt is fighting so fast I can hardly see him; Ian is blasting people to bits and leaving a trail of charred, smoking bodies in his wake. I throw someone into a group, and they all go down. I turn and face one, and rip him apart, beating someone with the pieces. Daniel pushes a rack of boxes over onto about five of them.
And just as suddenly as it had started, it’s over. I’m looking at the carnage, when we hear screams in the distance. “I think they heard us,” says Ian.
“What makes you think that?” says Matt, in a very sarcastic tone.
“Because they’re right over there,” I say, pointing towards the horizon, and at the army of people running at us, thirsting for our blood. People who, just yesterday were asking us how we were and inviting us to dinner. We all sprint towards the nearest car. Dan gets in the driver’s seat, then hotwires it and starts it up. I get shotgun, and Matt and Ian are in the back. Matt just sits there, as Ian blasts fire at the insane people chasing us, and I grab random objects we pass and kill as many as I can. The damage we’re doing is cataclysmic, but still not enough. And the car we picked just happens to have run out of gas. I hear Ian mutter “just freaking perfect”. I hear Matt say,
“I’m going to look in the back,” and luckily for us, whoever owned this car was a hunter. There’s a shotgun, two pistols, and a spare lead pipe. Ian looks at Matt when he offers him a weapon, and laughs. So, Matt tosses the shotgun to Dan, and he keeps the pipe. I get the pistols. I load them, and say “is it just me, or are we going to do stuff like this a lot?”
The car stops. The mob is almost upon us, and there’s hundreds. We hop out, and instantly start shooting and blasting away. Immediately, I can tell it’s hopeless, but I keep fighting. A headshot here, picking up a car and slamming it into a few people here, lots of casualties, but not enough. They just keep coming. Ian blasts them away ten by ten, leaving piles of ashes and a smell oddly reminiscent of a sausage breakfast at the lab cafeteria. Dan pumps the shotgun and blows them away. Matt is nowhere to be seen, but the random person who falls over for no apparent reason has just met his lead pipe.
They don’t stop coming, and we don’t stop fighting. It’s clear we need to run, to get away, but we’re surrounded. We’ve already lost, it’s only a matter of time. The fighting is a blur, randomly crushing people with whatever I can grasp my mind around. Explosions every few seconds, Ian is completely out of control. Blasts of fire erupt off the middle of the street, looking like a demonic volcano got up and started to walk around and go off randomly.
I decide to take some inspiration of the cartoons I watched as a kid, and try the “flip the road like a carpet and they all fall over” trick. It doesn’t work quite as I expected it too. A chunk of asphalt, about fifteen feet across, flies up, all the people on it included, and slams into the side of a building. Getting an idea for a miracle escape, I call for everyone to get beside me.
As they all gather, I start lifting the asphalt below us. On command, it lifts and starts floating. I turn us away on our makeshift air-raft, and we fly to our building. The sensation of flying is amazing. The knowledge that I have total control makes it even better.
But as I fly, I start to feel woozy, and blue spots start showing in my vision. I guess I don’t have total control after all. Just when we get to our building, I drop the asphalt, and suddenly the world goes. Just whites out. Blank.
A few days later, I wake up, and I’m lying inside of our building, lying next to Matt on the floor. Matt is asleep, and Daniel and Ian are nowhere to be found. I start to worry, and then I hear the door slam shut downstairs. I walk to the stairwell, right into Daniel as he runs up the stairs to wake Matt up.
We both scream, and we both fall over. Ian just looks at us and laughs, and then Matt wakes up and wonders what just happened. Then we all laugh together, with the exception of Matt, who is still confused, which makes it all the funnier. Then we hear a scream from outside, and a car alarm go off, and that snaps us back to reality. Then Ian and Daniel remember the reason for their haste:
“We found out what’s going on!” yells Daniel enthusiastically. “It was in the newspaper!” “Remember the machine, and the day we escaped? That helicopter that crashed was just a distraction! Whoever crashed that helicopter stole the machine!”
“How does that explain everyone going crazy?” I say.
“Whoever stole it must have reprogrammed it to drive people insane, instead of enhancing the brain functions!” says Dan.
“That doesn’t explain how everyone is crazy. We had to go into the machine one at a time, didn’t we? So how could that effect all those people in so short a time?” Matt says.
“Whoever stole it and reprogrammed it must have hooked it up to something to broadcast further! Like… a radio station, or something!” said Ian.
“Would that work? Would a radio station broadcast a powerful enough signal?” I ask.
“No, it must have been something even more powerful… something with frequency broadcasting signal capabilities much higher than a radio station.” Says Dan.
“What do you think it is?” Matt and I say simultaneously.
Silence hangs in the air as we await Daniel’s answer. Dan looks around, takes a deep breath, and sighs.
“A satellite.” Answers Dan. Silence for a few seconds, as the depth of this news sinks in. I’m sure that we’re all thinking the same thing: if it’s hooked up to a satellite, could it affect the entire world? Are we the only ones left?