Code 61

Chapter 3

The world erupted in a chaos of smoke and dust. I crouched, shielding my eyes. My visibility was greatly limited, impaired. The heat was quickly dissipating. The car was beginning to get away. I turned to its direction, my body gravitating to the familiar heat. Then it was gone.

I kept one hand over my nose and mouth as I turned. Sensing more than seeing, I felt myself being surrounded. As the dust and smoke cleared, I saw the guns trained at me. There was too many of them and I doubt that the people carrying them would shoot me with one wrong move.

"Get down on the ground!" yelled the man looked like he was in charge. "NOW!"

Around us, the pavement had broken. Large debris stuck up from the ground. A spiderweb of cracks rippled outward, its destruction growing more pronounced as it drew close to the centre. I realised with growing panic that I stood in the middle of it all.

"Get down!" the officer barked again.

I raised my hands in surrender and slowly lowered myself to the ground. Immediately I was held down, my face becoming friendly with the rough pavement. Debris scraped my skin but I made no complaints.

This wasn't the first time I was being hauled to jail for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. For those people like me, it was nothing new.

The memory of my first arrest was still as vivid to me as if it happened just moments ago. I remembered what if felt like when my body was slammed against the metal hood of the police car. The impact was strong — maybe not enough to crack my ribs, but enough to bruise for the next few days.

A fire had broken out sometime in the night. It was already late, but I had just finished my overtime shift at the diner I worked at. I felt the fire before I'd seen it. Large flames consuming a large apartment complex. The screams of the people trapped inside echoed in the night, louder than the crackles of the material being swallowed whole by the fire. I knew back then it was illegal to use our powers regardless of my intentions but I couldn't let them die in that fire. I couldn't live with it. I was sixteen.

I tried to put them out, hiding in the shadows so no one would notice. My progress was slow but I was getting somewhere. But it was hard to hide the red-orange glow of my eyes when I had to use to use my powers, and as soon as someone saw me, the blame had shifted entirely to me. I spent that night in jail, hating the world for being unfair to me.

There was a click from behind me, and I felt the cold metal of the cuffs restricting my movements. Then I was being pulled up, pushed into the crammed backseat of a police car that stank of cigarette smoke, cheap coffee, and piss.

The officer who made my arrest slid into the driver's seat, another one slid beside me, a gun pointed to my head. "One wrong move and I'll shoot. Good riddance, if you ask me."

I didn't bother replying. I remembered panicking back then. The fear. Pleading my innocence.

No one believed me then. There was no way they'd believe me now. It would be a waste of time and effort. They'd release me eventually like they did before, once they realised I was just trying to help.

They brought me to a facility in the outskirts of the city. It had no name, no indication that beyond what looked like an abandoned industrial building was a high-tech facility built to contain and study people like us. High concrete walls, barbed wires at the top, desolate surroundings. No one would think to look twice at the building if not for the armed guards at its entrance. The rifles they cradled in their arms were anything but inconspicuous.

It was the same building my parents brought me to when I was young. Instinctively, I ran a finger over the tattoo on my left hand.

The door to the car opened, and the police officer who'd arrested me told me to get out. Guns greeted me when I got out of the car; not as many as when they made the arrest, but still more than what you'd normally threaten a person with. Then again, I wasn't normal.

They led me through a labyrinth of white-walled hallways. High-security lined the doors, and for each one that we passed, I wondered what lay beyond them. There were rumours going around that aberrants were being experimented on for their abilities. Normal people were hoping to reverse-engineer them and make them go away. Rumours usually had some basis of a truth before they got twisted.

If that was true, it would be someplace else in the building. Not the same ones where we'd be locked up.

We stopped before a nondescript room where there was only a metal table with and chairs facing each other. On one side of the wall was a large mirror, likely two-way, so I couldn't see whoever was watching me from the other side. This was an interrogation.

I was cuffed to the table. Two officers settled behind me, their guns trained at the back of my head. Everything was still and silent. It was beginning to get to me, the waiting game they were planning. I clenched my fist and controlled my breathing until the anxiety that was starting to heighten the temperature in the room faded.

The door opened and a man with an aristocratic face walked in. I'd seen his face before. Embroidered on his uniform was his name: Lt. Kim Junmyeon. Lead investigator on the string of robberies involving aberrants. His face was all over the news as the manhunt persisted with little progress.

His gait heavy with intent, he stopped before me, and asked. There was no humour or doubt in his voice. Just a straightforward question. "Why did you do it?"

I looked at him, confused.

He opened a folder which I assumed contained my dossier. "At seven thirty-eight this morning, you used your abilities in the middle of the streets. According to witness statements, a blast of heat threatened them so they had to run. Only you remained in the middle." He glanced at the mark on my hand. "An aberrant classified as a pyrokinetic."

A chill ran down my spine. I knew they were tightening the noose around aberrants but I didn't expect this to be a crackdown.

"I was trying to keep them safe."

"Are you? Or are you making sure that your accomplices would get away?"

"What? No! That's not what happened!"

Lieutenant Kim slammed the folder on the table. The resounding noise echoed in the closed chambers. "Where are they?"

"I don't know!"

They weren't going to listen to me. One look at my arrest records and they assumed that I was living on the other side of the tracks. The verdict had already been passed long before the trial began. No words would convince them out of the prejudice they had already convicted me of.

"Tell me where they're hiding, and we'll get you a deal."

A deal. A deal where I'd still be locked up for something I'm not involved in, simply because they believed every aberrant was capable of committing crimes.

I kept my mouth shut. Refused to say another word. Lieutenant Kim tried again to ask me in multiple ways, switching between good cop and bad cop. I remained immobile in that chair, watching him with barely repressed anger. He threatened me, made offers to me, but in the end, his frustration got the best of him.

I didn't know how long he'd been cajoling me when he finally declared, "We'll see what you don't know. Lock him up. Make sure he doesn't get away."

The guards behind me unlocked the cuffs to the table and pulled me out of my seat. They led me outside.

"If he tries to run," Lieutenant Kim warned. "Shoot him."

I knew every single one of the guards here would like to make that come true.