Painful Memories

"What the hell were you thinking?!"

Captain Savanna stormed down the hallway to her office. In a fit of rage, she slammed the door open and marched in, visibly furious.

Mark followed suit and sat on a sofa, with his palm buried in his head.

He raised it up once, only to bury it again when he noticed Natalya staring at him from the opposite sofa.

"You violated a dozen protocols!" Captain Savanna fumed. "Protocols which exist for a reason. I could have you stripped of your rank right now!"

"Oh, come on," Mark turned to the captain, trying to plead with her. "I only asked her for some intel. It's not like I was conspiring with her."

"You very well could have. For all I know, you two could be working together right now!"

"You seriously believe that? That woman tortured me for a decade. She's insane!"

"And now she wants to help you? So, all of a sudden, she had a change of heart?"

"Maybe…"

"No, Marcus. She's leading you into a trap!"

"The intel she gave was legit, Captain."

Natalya, who had remained quiet throughout the discussion, finally chipped in.

The captain took a moment to regain her calm with long, deep breaths. Then she returned to the sofa and took a seat beside Natalya.

"Show me." She ordered.

Natalya picked up the digital pad on her lap and swiped its contents onto the round glass in the middle of the room.

She raised her left palm in a lifting gesture, and a three-dimensional hologram of a scary-looking man in a combat uniform appeared on the table.

"Meet John Parallax. Male, late thirties, maybe early forties. According to eyewitness reports, he's about six-foot-one and weighs somewhere over two-fifty. He's a bounty hunter for the Agency, and yes, police records confirm he was in Grandview City on the night of Christina Thornwell's murder."

Mark felt his heartbeat speed up. It always happened whenever he heard his mother's name. But no, it was different this time. Faster even.

He couldn't tell if it was fear or anticipation. But one thing was certain – he was going to find John Parallax.

When he recovered from his freeze, Mark realized that the captain was unusually quiet.

"What is it?" he asked.

Captain Savannah was caught in a trance. Her gaze, now cold and expressionless, remained fixed on the hologram.

"Captain?"

Savanna quickly jolted back to reality, cold beads of sweat appearing on her forehead.

"What's wrong, captain?" Natalya asked.

Savannah waved her palm lightly.

"It's nothing. Just a blast from the past."

Something clicked in Mark's mind.

"You know him, don't you?"

Captain Savanna froze at the question.

"I… Uh... He…"

Savanna stuttered, which was unlike her. Mark knew that she always had a commanding tone and spoke with unparalleled clarity.

Now, her voice trembled with fear, and her fingers rattled uncontrollably.

"Who is he?" Natalya asked.

"He… H… He…"

"He was your student." Mark blurted out. In response, he was met with weird stares from both women.

"How… how did you know that?" the captain inquired.

After exchanging glances with Natalya, Mark shrugged.

"It's just a… hunch."

Visibly puzzled, Savanna's gaze remained fixed on Mark.

"Marcus, is there something…"

"Captain," Natalya interrupted, "Who's John Parallax?"

Once again, the captain winced at the sound of the name. This time, she regained her composure, and her trembling stopped.

"His real name is John Payne, and he wasn't just my student. He was the first powerborn I rescued."

Savanna stood up, walking around the room as she continued.

"Fifteen years ago, the Powerborn Containment Agency tried to recreate the activated powerborn strain in normal humans using gene modification. This was part of a larger plan to create 'Powerborn Agents' to capture other powerborns." Captain Savanna made air quotes to emphasize the word.

"They recruited dozens of convicted inmates and experimented on them to activate the strain. Safe to say, the project was a failure. Otherwise, we would have had a major problem today. However, there was one inmate who survived the experiment."

Captain Savanna pointed at the hologram.

"Around that time, I was part of a group doing the same things I am today, just a bit more radical. We rescued him, along with some other powerborns but little did we know that it would be our biggest mistake."

Mark was quick to notice a cold shift in Savanna's countenance. His expression grew more dazed, and her voice began to crackle again.

"I tried to teach him how to live with his new power, but he was too unstable, too violent. I couldn't ..."

Captain Savanna broke off, her voice failing her.

"What did he do?" Natalya asked, the concern in her voice apparent to all present.

For the first time since his arrival at the base, Mark felt sorry for the Captain.

His first impression of her was a female version of Zorn, willing to risk innocent lives for the sake of a cause.

Now, seeing her tense up, Mark realized she was just another human with an equally messed up past.

"Are you alright, Savanna?"

The captain jerked her head up as if she'd heard something weird.

"Yes... Yes, I am, Marcus."

"You don't have to say it if it's too bad."

"No, No. You need to hear this."

The captain cleared her throat and sat upright. All the tension suddenly disappeared from her face.

"His power was induced in a lab, hence he had almost no control. When all efforts to stabilize him failed, I decided it was best to keep him... Contained."

The captain's eyes locked directly onto Mark's as she emphasized her next words.

"Needless to say, he refused my offer and went rogue. But before he disappeared, he decided to put an end to the resistance."

"Wait, you don't mean..."

"Yes, Natalya."

"That was him?"

"Indeed."

Mark was perplexed.

"What is it? What did he do?"

Natalya pulled out her glass pad and tapped on it a few times. The hologram in the center of the room changed to show a large mushroom cloud in the middle of a city.

"The destruction of Penton City."

Mark stared at the hologram, his wide eyes gleaming with awe.

The captain continued, her eyes focused on the hologram.

"I remember it all like it was yesterday. Five hundred thousand people, lost their lives that day."

The gravity of her statement hung in the air, forcing all into a tense silence.

"I don't get it," said Mark. "He just goes around planting bombs in cities?"

"No, Marcus."

The captain turned her gaze back to him.

"He is the bomb."