Power

Ari underwent a transformative and awe-inspiring change from within. He experienced a surge of energy as if a previously untapped reservoir had suddenly awakened. With each beat, his heart seemed to quicken, as though a potent force was coursing through his veins, amplifying his very essence with an invisible power. As he gazed around, Hannah and Liam looked as though they were moving slower, as if time had begun to crawl. When he glanced up at the soft overhead lighting of the workshop, it appeared to intensify, causing him to squint his eyes against its brightness. As his sight acclimated, its sharpness enhanced to a clarity he hadn't undergone before, revealing a mesmerizing display.

The air seemed to come alive with floating dust and specs that swooshed through the room, and at first, the sight of it was so sudden it caused him to wince at the overwhelming multitude of white and grey particles. As he fixated on one in particular, he observed its intricate journey through the atmosphere. The particle swayed in response to each breath, drawing his keen attention to the enchanting waltz of debris unseen by all in the room except him. Each delicate sway and twirl held him spellbound as if he were overcome by a trance.

In the next moment, he noticed a distant noise that caught his attention. He strained to locate its source until he saw his mother standing in the corner of the room. It was the rhythmic thump of her heart beating, harmonized with the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. The realization of this familiar yet otherworldly sound enveloped Ari, stirring within him a sense of awe and wonder.

While he listened, a strange and unsettling phenomenon took place, causing the room to waver and distort. The longer he focused on the sound of his mother's heart, the louder it grew, blurring his vision in its wake. When his concentration broke, his powerful hearing subsided, and in its place, his sight regained its sharpness. That was the moment he met an extraordinary revelation. Ari could enhance one sense at the expense of another.

Suddenly the rapid pounding against the front door came to an end so abrupt that it left a jarring silence in its wake. His focus shifted to the hallway, and he began to discern the faint sounds emanating from beyond the room. As he concentrated, his vision faded again, yielding to his increasing ability to hear further and further away. His hearing became so acute that he could even detect the shuffling of footsteps outside the front door at the far end of the house. With remarkable precision, he distinguished each footfall and discerned the subtle shift of weight from one leg to the next. As he listened he somehow deducted the sound of 24 shoes, exigently indicating the presence of exactly 12 men in position just outside.

"Form a perimeter around the house," came the barely audible command, its terrifying words electrifying Ari and breaking the quell of the unique moment.

"Mom, we have to leave now," he exclaimed, springing to life as he reached for his mother's hand to lead her away from the room. As he began to walk down the hallway, he suddenly felt a strong tug from behind. It was then that he noticed Hannah moving glacially, stricken with fear as she tried to make sense of what was happening.

Ari and Hannah descended to the first floor, frantically searching for a way out of the massive home. With little time at hand, they settled for a room furthest from the front door. After Ari spotted a nearby window, he lunged towards it and attempted to slide it open, but it wouldn't budge. Desperate for an escape, he looked around and noticed a monitor on the wall before engaging it with haste. While interacting with its controls, he was met with surprise—a password was required to gain access. Leaning in closely, he noticed faint smudges on the dial pad. As he focused, entire fingerprints on 4 of the numbers revealed themselves, invisible to the naked eye, but somehow not to him. Realizing that these 4 numbers were likely the password, Ari faced the challenge of figuring out the correct order to enter the code.

As his sharp gaze locked onto the fingerprints, he discerned their distinct variations in size. In a moment of intense scrutiny, a sudden revelation hit him, intuitively leaving him with only two possible orders to enter the password in. Though he couldn't explain how he knew, he simply did. Armed with the instinctual knowledge of just two possible combinations, he ventured to test them both, and on his second try, the home's controls yielded to him. Without hesitation, he manipulated them to unlatch the windows, and with a smooth and salient motion, they slid open, revealing the world outside of the house. Ari sprang over the window's ledge with unwavering resolve, his heart racing with adrenaline as he reached out to his mother.

"Mom!" Shouted Ari, causing her to flinch as he broke her entranced spell. "If we leave now, we can make it."

The urgent words jolted her out of her paralytic state before she swiftly ascended to the window ledge as her son helped her through the magnificent opening in the wall. With tactical precision, Ari and Hannah navigated the backyard as they made their way toward the street in front of the house. It was there that a solitary streetlight illuminated his mother, whose abrupt stop in mid-sprint prompted Ari to pivot and look back to see what caused her to pause.

"What about the car?" Hannah asked urgently, scanning their surroundings. "I left my purse in the car!"

"Forget about the car," he insisted, gripping her hand as they hurried down the street. "We'll get a new one. Right now, we need to focus on getting out of here!"

"How are we going to get a car without money, Ari?" Her words pierced the air, and she quickly covered her mouth, realizing how loud she had been.

"Let's take that one!" He declared, his eyes flickering with determination as he pointed toward one of the vehicles behind Hannah.

"Are you crazy? We're not going to steal a car!"

"We don't have a choice, Mom! Do you understand what these people will do if they catch up to us?" Ari shouted under his breath as he cautiously gazed around to make sure they were still alone.

Keenly aware that just a few blocks away a determined group of men would soon be closing in on their tracks, Ari's heart raced with trepidation. He knew they needed to outrun their pursuers using any means possible, or face consequences too dire to imagine. He knew that evading them on foot was not a viable option, and he needed to convey that to his frantic mother who was struggling to keep up with the fast-paced turn of events unfolding before them. Ari quickly checked to ensure that no one was watching before hurrying to a nearby garden lined with manicured rocks. He grabbed two of them, one long and slim, and the other double its size. He dashed towards the car, holding one rock to the window as he struck the other against its edge.

"Ari, what are you doing?" Hannah shouted, gesturing for him to abruptly halt his spontaneity and catch his intense focus. "You're not seriously going to break that window, are you?"

Ari stood at a critical juncture, torn between heeding his mother's concern and the pressing need to flee their perilous circumstance. After a brief debate, he was seized by an unyielding resolve and readied himself to hoist one of the hefty boulders to smash through the window while his mother pleaded otherwise. After he struck the window, the car's blaring alarm sounded off, cutting through the silent night. Despite his action, he noticed that the window had only incurred a single crack. Undaunted, he persisted, pounding the window with unwavering determination again and again until it shattered into pieces.

As Hannah stood frozen in shock, she watched her 12-year-old son confidently unlock the car door and fervently jump into the vehicle. With a tenacious look on his face, Ari leaned in and examined an array of blinking lights and intricate circuitry under the sleek dashboard. His small hands deftly navigated through the tangle of cords, and with careful precision, he dismantled the nest of circuits, considering each connection as he worked. After skillfully manipulating the cluster of wires, the car roared to life. Ari leaped over the center console and into the passenger seat, twisting his gaze toward his mother who was fettered with disbelief.

"Quick, Mom, hurry!" He cried out, urging her to join him.

Hannah felt a rush of adrenaline as she scanned her surroundings, realizing that staying still would put her and Ari in grave danger. Without a moment's hesitation, she propelled herself into the driver's seat. Her heart drummed as she forcefully closed the door and swiftly secured the seat belt around her with trembling hands. Her thoughts were a chaotic whirlwind as she grappled with the uncertainty of her next move. As Ari hastily fastened his seat belt, he leaned his head against the car's window, anxiously surveying the area to see if anyone noticed that they had commandeered a vehicle that didn't belong to them. Turning back to check on his mother, he noticed Hannah was lost in thought, her gaze fixed forward into the dark shroud in front of them.

"Mom!" He shouted, angling himself to get a better look at her face.

As Hannah stared blankly ahead, her body was quivering uncontrollably, immobilized with fear as her wide unblinking eyes betrayed her deep sense of apprehension. Ari tried pulling her out of her state of unresponsiveness, but for her, the sound of his voice was distant and muffled, as if she was drowning in an ocean of duress.

"Mom! We have to go now!" He shouted again, the growing vex in his tone breaking her unfocused hold.

Suddenly Hannah slammed her foot down onto the accelerator, propelling them away from the crowded curbside of Liam's neighborhood. They sped down winding roads flanked by endless rows of homes, zooming past parked cars that were barely discernable from the darkness that camouflaged them. Although Hannah had no idea where she was taking them in their newly acquired car, she drove with a fury, putting as much space between them and the scene of the crime they had just committed. She knew that given enough time, the police would be hot on their trail, and she had no choice but to continue racing forward as fast as she could.

As they followed the narrow and winding path into the unknown, their surroundings transformed into a bustling main road before becoming a congested Boulevard that led them into an expansive freeway. Hannah accelerated with an unrelenting ferocity, gripping the steering wheel tightly as the landscape around them blurred by. While Ari's face followed the trail of cars and trucks that moved to either side of them, his mother couldn't dispel the pestering feeling that they were being pursued. She continuously shifted her focus between the road in front of her and the rearview mirror in search of any sign of the police or the enigmatic figures they had narrowly evaded at Liam's residence. Through the expansive windshield, Ari was treated to a captivating spectacle of a glowing sunrise that illuminated his face with an array of warm colors.

As his mother steered the car down the open highway, Ari kept a close watch on her, studying every aspect of her face. As he strengthened his focus on the intricacies of her skin, a familiar shift took place again. The gentle warmth from the sun began to diminish, and as he absentmindedly trailed his hand along the smooth surface of the car door, he felt a strange numbness spreading from his fingertips, before gradually enveloping his entire body. When he glanced back at his mother, he saw her with a newfound clarity that was unlike anything he had experienced before.

Droplets of sweat formed and vanished along the undulating ridges and valleys of her skin. He examined the masonry of her green eyes, captivated by the geometric design that interlaced their iris'. His gaze lingered on her mouth, studying the subtle movements, until he suddenly realized that she was speaking. While concentrating on her voice, the augmented visual environment around him appeared to recede, and he was able to perceive her words distinctly. He could feel the numbness that had once taken hold of him release its grip.

Just then, Ari's eyes fitted to an array of metallic frames that partitioned each lane of the freeway with its own set of cameras. While his mother drove faster than he had ever witnessed before, he began to wonder how long it would be before one of them alerted authorities of the presence of a stolen car that was moving faster than those around them, until suddenly, pulsating yellow lights illuminated their lane.

Just as Hannah pondered the meaning of the flashing lights above them, she peered out of the window and was alarmed to discover her view was suddenly shattered by a display of red and blue lights. Its blinding radiance was accompanied by a deafening siren that echoed through the car, creating a thrilling sense of disorientation and urgency. It was an enormous police drone hovering in the air next to them, an awe-inspiring spectacle and the first of its kind that Hannah and Ari had ever encountered.

As the vehicle moved forward, the colossal drone nearly half the size of the car ominously hovered alongside. The drone emitted an imposing presence with four spinning blades, one at each corner of its body. Its sleek metallic surface reflected the sun, giving it a futuristic appearance. The drone housed a sophisticated array of spherical cameras carefully positioned to capture every angle and detail, leaving very little within its sight unnoticed. As Hannah skillfully maneuvered through the assiduous traffic, her anticipation bubbled up, sending tingles through her nerves with each turn and acceleration. After a fleeting moment, Hannah revved up the engine of the vehicle, jolting them backward as she began to evade the massive drone. As the car surged ahead, the dashboard reverberated with a thrilling hum, prompting Ari to grip the center console tightly, bracing himself as his mother fearlessly pushed the car to its limits.

"Stop your vehicle immediately and await the arrival of local law enforcement!" The computerized voice boomed, sending a terrifying jolt through Hannah's body.

As Ari got a better look at the oppressive-sounding police drone, time seemed to slow. He carefully observed the drone, and much to his surprise, he noticed intricate markings on its metal surface despite their high-speed travel. California Law Enforcement - Securus Technologies - TD0011. Suddenly, Ari found himself transported to a different time and place, one where he was seated in front of the television at home, completely immersed in captivating footage being projected. A remarkable drone glided across the wall of his living room, instantly grabbing his attention. As he reminisced about the hazy specifics of a television special that showcased cutting-edge police technology, he could vividly hear the broadcast narrating the intricate mechanical functions of the law enforcement drone known as TD0011. The narrator of the show explained how the unmanned drone selects any divergence from public order.

He was just 4 years old at the time, and as his crayon scribbled along the paper of one of his drawings in the living room of his childhood home, the intricate workings of the police drone unfolded like a missing puzzle piece from the past. With his next breath, he found himself seated in the car with his mother again, hurtling forward at dangerous speeds. As he stole another furtive glance at the drone, a radical idea occurred to him.

"We have to collide with that car," declared Ari, pointing urgently at one of the distressed vehicles that flowed down the freeway at their flank. Hannah's heart skipped a beat as she dismissed the ludicrous idea, unmoved by her son's sudden revelation.

"The drone operates by surveying for the highest level of urgency. Anything that poses a more immediate threat will be prioritized," said Ari, attempting to reassure his frantic mother as they zoomed past clusters of traffic on the freeway. "The drone prioritizes traffic collisions as a more immediate threat to public safety. Don't you see?" He added, urging Hannah to carry out the bold and perilous maneuver.

Hannah stole a worried glance at her son, who she realized was increasingly sounding less like his usual self. As she guided the car along the winding interstate, Ari's gaze shifted from his mother's visible, unwavering determination before fixing on the intricate texture of the steering wheel. His mind raced with thoughts of the impending consequences. If they were to pull over and await the arrival of a police officer, his mother would likely be arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle. His greatest fear, however, was what would happen to both of them if the powerful entity pursuing him discovered that they were in police custody. Would they stop at nothing to track him down and possibly kidnap him once released? As he grappled with these troubling thoughts, a sense of foreboding dread enveloped him, causing a surge of electrifying emotion. He was overwhelmed by the harrowing possibilities of what might befall both him and his mother.

He was well aware that bypassing the police drone's protocols would lead to serious consequences. However, the thought of being caught by the authorities weighed heavily on his mind. He carefully considered his options, searching for a less risky course of action, but couldn't find one. Despite Ari's growing, exceptional intellectual abilities, he was limited by the constraints of his youthful maturity. Finally, he reluctantly concluded that his only choice was to intentionally cause a collision, resulting in a serious accident to stop the drone's pursuit. He knew his only chance at doing so was to rebel against his mother's determination.

At speeds well above 80 mph, Ari wrestled the steering wheel from Hannah, causing the vehicle to veer from side to side before she regained control and steered it back into the intended lane. He resisted her efforts again, causing the car to skid and swerve, creating a spectacle on the crowded interstate. The surrounding drivers watched in horror as their car darted across lanes in various directions, careening dangerously on the freeway.

As Hannah struggled with her son, she suddenly noticed how dangerously close they were to the neighboring car. In a brief moment of distraction, Ari seized the fleeting opportunity and steered their car into the nearby vehicle, causing a heart-stopping collision. The impact sent both cars spinning, and Hannah instinctively reached out to shield her son as they were jolted forward. Despite her valiant efforts to regain control, their car careened sideways and nearly crashed into the freeway's concrete barricade. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the drone swiftly redirected its attention to the other car, completely altering the trajectory of the unfolding scene.

"Attention! You are experiencing a car accident! Emergency services have been alerted and are on their way," the drone proclaimed loudly enough to reach Ari and Hannah clear across the freeway.

Hannah's fury blazed as she carefully guided her son out of the mangled wreckage. Her face turned crimson with frustration and fear, scolding him for his reckless behavior as they moved away from the clamorous freeway. After vaulting over the concrete barrier, they plunged into a sprawling suburban landscape cradled by dense trees and endless homes stretching for miles beyond view. With a scathing glare, Hannah lambasted her son as they fled the pandemonium. As they hurried on, Ari patiently absorbed his mother's descriptions of the numerous ways their desperate situation could have turned out differently. His daring response? "Well, it worked, didn't it?"

As Hannah stormed away in frustration, Ari's mind was consumed by an incredible reality. Though he couldn't understand how, he was tapping into a geyser of hidden potential. The mysterious machine in his brain was somehow supercharging his perception beyond the reach of ordinary people. While Hannah was oblivious to the shift taking place within her son's mind, she would soon come to the same dawning realization that Ari could do incredible things with his newfound enhancement. But this was all just the start. Soon he would discover the full extent of his abilities, unveiling an unseen power that has never been witnessed before by humanity.