Chapter 6 - Moving Forward
It's been two days since The Man on Fire attacked Claire and I. Two days since we lost contact with Sara.
The locator device we needed to locate Sara had been destroyed in the chaos, which at this point I half expected. We're lucky the house stood long enough for me to find Claire.
"Dad! Are you going to tell me where we're going or what? Wheres Mom?"
Claire. She was taking all this surprisingly well considering that before this, she didn't even know I had powers, let alone that I was the "Super" known as Sheerforce.
"Kiddo are you ok? I mean this is a big change for you"
"Oh I am terrified to tell you the truth. But I know Mom is going to be even more scared that we aren't ok. We just need to keep moving forward."
God am I envious of the teen spirit. And thankful for it, without it we wouldn't have a chance at finding Sara.
The failsafe I had made is extremely effective, but it's also a double edged sword. Whoever uses one of the bracelets is instantly teleported at random to one of my former safe houses -27 total, spanning 27 major cities. The closest one to us now is Mineral City. In an ideal world, Sara would be in this safe house. But this world is far from ideal.
"Claire. The goal here is to make it to my safe house in Mineral City, so we can find your mother. I know you've got your powers now and that's great, but if you see a crime in progress you walk the other way"
"But Dad, if we have these powers we have to use them t--"
"The. Other. Way." This is the one time my demeanour changes, not out of anger, but fear. "If someone, anyone, sees you using your abilities, it's game over. We're illegal for a reason. All we're doing is a quick pop in, and then if your Mother isn't there we get one of the spare locators and leave."
I don't get an answer this time, but what I do get is a look of reluctant acceptance. I respect that Claire wants to do the right thing if we have to, but we aren't a part of this world anymore.
I look towards the dashboard of our car. Somehow it was already 7.30pm, and we've still got almost 200 miles to go. We need to stop off somewhere. We drive further down the road until we find a roadside hotel.
I go to sort our accomodation for the night, and leave Claire to fill the car up.
I walk inside towards the reception desk, and a doorman stops me.
"Can I help you friend, we don't get many visitors around here"
"Oh yes actually, my daughter and I are just passing through, on our way to Mineral City, we were hoping we could get somewhere to stay for the night" I reply. One thing I learned from my superhero days is never let your real personality show. We couldn't afford to raise any alarms here.
For the past 2 days we had been plastered over the news, or at least Sheerforce had. The HFP saw to that, despite the agreement we had, they've got their optics to worry about, and if there are corpses around the house of this man who isn't supposed to have his powers anymore, there's not much that can be done.
Luckily there aren't any pictures of Claire to get out yet, but it doesn't help that there's a large reward for information on the both of us. Nor does it help that Claire's healing factor isn't fully developed yet, and mine isn't back up to scratch after my power hiatus, so we both look pretty banged up, and fit the bill.
"Let me just check on the PC for any spare rooms."
"Anything will do, single, twin we don't mind, it's more for my daughter to get some sleep, long trip and everything."
"Won't be a minute now, where did you say you were heading from?"
"I didn't. The room?"
"Oh yes. The room. Looks like you're in luck, we have one twin room available. However, it isn't in the main building, I hope you don't mind. We're currently expanding, and it's in the new development. Don't worry it's fully furnished, we can't afford not to open it a floor at a time!"
"That's perfect. Is there anywhere we can park the car? my daughter is just filling it up"
"Oh yes, private parking next to the new building"
I take the key from the man, and take Claire over to the new building, but something doesn't feel right. Had he recognised me? Did he put the pieces together? Or am I just paranoid? It's been a long 3 days, and I'm a fugitive now. My wife is missing, and my daughter is now the wild card of the family. I don't see how much else could go wrong.
There isn't time to worry, we just need a quick pit stop here, and we get back on the road.
"Claire, you get to sleep, you're driving tomorrow, so get some rest. I'll keep w-"
I turn around to see Claire already fast asleep on one of the beds, I cover her with the sheet she's fighting with, and sit in my bed with one eye always on the door.
We have these powers but we aren't Gods, the phrase I have told myself for the past 7 years rings true in my head, Claire and I barely fought off one man, what can we expect to happen in Mineral City if we run into trouble.
The harder I think, the more I drift off until, I too fall into a deep sleep. It's only 8pm, but we've earned it. And we just have to hope that for tonight we can catch a break
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"Hello" A raspy voice answers the telephone, in a top floor office of a high rise in a bustling city. It's 9pm, and they weren't expecting any calls at this late an hour.
The other end of the phone speaks back to them, and their demeanour suddenly changes.
"Oh there has, has there. Looks like we need to teach Matty a little lesson. Mobilise the troops, we're going in now, and I want them alive - if possible".
They look towards the window, and a small smirk can be seen on their face as they stare off into the night.
"Oh Matty what have you done?"