inFAMOUS: Legacy of the Beast

Chapter 11

"Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power."

~Benjamin Disraeli

~The 2nd Day~

"What?" Kuo glared at Cole, a nervous tremble in her eyes. "What do you mean you can't set off the blast?"

"I don't have enough energy for it," Cole replied, trying explain what little he understood as simply as possible.

"How can you not have enough energy? You drained the light."

"It's not electricity I need. I need more of —" He stopped himself, finding that he didn't have the exact words to properly express what the source of his new power was. All he could gather was that it felt like he was two-hundred feet underwater, enduring the crushing weight of the ocean all at once.

He sighed and, for lack of an oral description, summoned his lightning to one hand. "Look. I have plenty of electricity to run on." Then he brought a chilling mist to his other hand. "I use it for the ice, too. But this...."

He dismissed both elements and ignited a pitifully tiny flame in his palm.

"...this is something else. I don't know what it is, but I can't use electricity to feed the fire."

At this point, Kuo stared helplessly at the ember. "And that's all the fire you can make?"

Cole nodded grimly and snuffed out the flame without any effort at all.

"What do we do now?" asked Rush nervously.

The noises in the city sounded louder than before. Sirens wailed closer and closer, whether it was a police car racing to meet them or an ambulance hurrying to save another Plague victim.

"Nothing," Cole said without any strength in his voice. "Head back to the truck. We're gonna find a place to spend the night away from the city."

"...and let the Conduit die." prodded Kuo with a sour tone.

"Kuo," the electric man glared at her, his blood pressure rising. "I don't need a lecture right now."

Whatever authority she had tried to display melted away into shame.

Cole pressed his companions back to the vehicle. Should the sirens belong to the police, he did not want to be seen. Without the power to blast the town, the last thing he needed was the entire city coming to kill him and someone slipping word that he was alive. If nothing else, the blast was a witness eraser.

In the cold winter rain, Torin shut his eyes and placed his forehead against his bent knee. In the solitude and loneliness, the only sound that reached his ears was the constant pitter-patter of rain against the asphalt. The overhang above his head kept him dry for the most part. However his shoes were beginning to grow soggy from the puddle inching closer to the wall at his back.

He shivered, hearing a flood of whispers fill the vacant spaces in his mind. As much as he tried to drown them out by focusing on the rain, the breathless voices endured to haunt him.

"Go away," he pleaded to himself. "Leave me alone."

The phantoms of New Marais did not heed him. Their incoherent consonants relentlessly pelted his thoughts.

After a moment, one seemed to rise above the chatter, separating itself as an individual. This voice was not merely a hushed moan, it had its own tone and rhythm.