Project Frostbite

Chapter 7

For a moment, Azi and I stood in an awkward silence. Trying to ignore his gaze over the counter, I let my own wander around the shop. The shelves were full of little trinkets and bags of magic tricks for kids. If I looked closely enough, I could see the smallest of the small screws in some of the toys that enabled them to do whatever they were made to do.

"So," Azi broke the silence, and I slowly swiveled my head back to face him. "-you're a Potential then?"

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?" I asked. "Isn't that the case the NYPD are working on?" Azi chuckled.

"You catch on fast." He observed, but I stayed quiet. "Tell me this Tryston, what did all of those bodies have in common?" Thinking for a moment, I tried to remember all of the media reports on the TV.

"The needle prick in their neck?" I asked when I could come up with no other explanation. Azi lifted his eyebrows and he chuckled again, this time in approval.

"I like you kid. Exactly, now every one of those bodies had something taken from them. The media reckon that this is because they had something in their DNA that could be used for something. So, they've named the case the Potential Mystery, because this DNA has the potential to become something great. You displayed powers, which the LAPD believe the bodies were drained of. Therefore, you are a Potential." I stayed silent when Azi had finished, trying to take in the information, when two new thoughts surfaced. I only voiced one of them.

"So, who is taking the DNA?" I asked. The other question bothered me, but I didn't dare say it out loud. It had only just occurred to me that I had never actually seen any evidence that I had powers. What if I didn't? What if the street accident was just that... an accident?

"That's the thing the media don't know." Azi answered carefully, and I noticed how he said the media, not we. He knew something.

"So what do you know then?" I asked. Azi smirked, obviously impressed with the question. Taking his arms off the top, he rounded the counter and pulled a coin out of his pocket. I watched as he threw it up into the air. As it fell back down, Azi held his hand out, and the coin stopped inches from the palm of his hand. I watched in awe as it floated easily in the air, and couldn't take my eyes off it as Azi began speaking.

"Over the past few months, people have been turning up missing. My theory is they are amateur Potentials. No one knows where the Potentials are taken. If the prisoners resist, they turn up dead the very next day."

"What happens to the prisoners? Where are they taken?" I questioned, and when I didn't look up from the floating coin, Azi let it drop and quickly pocketed it. Finally I looked up to meet his eyes.

"They never come back. Only one has ever escaped." He said. Azi crossed to the other side of the shelf, and I matched his pace as he began to walk, browsing the items. "Everyone calls her the Balacqua Child. One night, these kidnappers invaded a young girl's house. She was only eleven." At this he shook his head. "She was a - special - Potential, because her powers were very... unique. In fantasy stories she would've been called a pyrotechnic, a fire wielder." The way Azi whispered the last two words, made him sound like he was in awe of the very notion. "They tested her DNA, draining it and all. Then they made a breakthrough; they manipulated the cells controlling her powers, and reversed them."

"An ice wielder?" Azi looked at me and nodded, before continuing his browse.

"After five years, the girl escaped. She took down 70 trained killers, and was hit by an uncountable number of neurotoxic bullets that all bounced off her skin the way a ball does a brick wall."

"What happened to her?"

"Oh she got out. Disappeared off the grid a week after she escaped. Changed her identity and everything. Been on the run for two years now. She could be your sister right now and you wouldn't be any the wiser."