Ch 3 - Lightning Boy

"Nothing?"

"Not that I can see."  

Matthew Powers shook his head.  It had been a weeks since the incident in the Bay.  His brother Rob said that the kids, Igor, Henry, and Merone had shown no ill effects from falling into the water, essentially, into the light.  And Matt had continued to grill his own kids, Dean, Eddy, and Ben.  

Does anything hurt?  Do you feel hot?  Do you feel sick?  

No, Dad, we feel great.  Never better.

It was true.  Eddy, a budding star in long distance running, had his best time in a 5 kilometer run.  He blew away his previous times.  But it wasn't just him.  All the kids felt fantastic.  Ben, who had just started mowing lawns, was eager to do his jobs and add more customers.  Dean's mind, always ahead of his peers, seemed sharper.  Matt would find him up late at night reading.  And he wasn't reading Harry Potter.  Rob was a pastor and Matt was a pastor and a theologian.  He found Dean reading the works of Nikolai Berdyaev.  

When Matt quizzed Rob, the same was true on his end.  Igor, Henry, and Merone were flourishing.  He continued his conversation.

"So, are you sending Igor to the camp?"

"I don't see why not." 

Matt changed the subject.  "What about you?  You were in that water too."

"Matt, we've been through this."  Rob sounded not irritated, but definitely weary.  "The water felt great, not too cold, not too hot.  It felt like an overwhelming energy.  Even opening your eyes under the water didn't hurt the way it normally does in the ocean.  But, all you could see was unbelievable light.  It was beautiful, and that's it."

"And since then," Matt inquired with some hesitation.  This was at least the third time they'd had this conversation.

"I don't feel any better.  I know, I know, I know. The kids all feel like they could fly to the moon.  My lousy knees still hurt like heck when I run one mile."  

"Alright," Matt sighed.

Rob hung up the phone.  He was as confused as his younger brother, but he didn't know what to do.  He and Candy had talked and talked, and they could not think of a reason to hold Igor back from the camp.  It was design camp.  Igor had blossomed as a creative artist both in painting and sketching, and in building.  Entrance to this camp was limited.  Only 20% of the applicants were accepted.  It was an expensive camp, one the Powers had already paid for.  They let Igor go and prayed for the best.

It seemed to be the right decision as Igor had an amazing week of new friends and exciting learning.  Igor hated school unless it involved building or drawing.  In those cases he was at the head of the class.  And his team in design camp had done so well, they were to be honored as "Top Structural Designers."

The final night a group of friends crowded into a dorm room.  There was a lot of laughing and card playing.  Someone had smuggled in him some beer.  Igor had resolved not to touch the stuff, and kept his commitment.  That did not stop him from reveling along with his friends as they slowly became drunk.  The party was rocking on when someone smelled smoke.

An exposed wire had ignited a blanket.  The party was raucous enough that no noticed until it rose to a dangerous fire.  And then, panic.

They were on the fourth floor of a building in which only this morning the elevator had stopped working.  And this now roaring fire originated in the dorm room right next to the stairwell.  Smoke was filling the air.  High School students streamed into the hallway only to have their eyes burned and their lungs choked in the smoky haze.  There was utter confusion.  

"The windows," someone yelled.  "We have to jump out the windows."

"Are you nuts?"  Another kid scream.  "We are four floors up."

"We can wait out on the ledges until the fire department arrives."

Some began this plan, opening windows and piling out onto the ledges.  But there certainly wasn't enough room on the ledges for all those students.  And some of the 16 and 17-year-olds, under the influence of alcohol, acted rashly.  Igor, still inside, was unsure of this desperate plan.  Then he heard "Oh No."  

Two boys, one a friend of his, had lost their balance and were plummeting down.  

Without pausing or thinking, Igor leaped over the throng of bodies, into the air, and then down.  But he wasn't falling.  He was ... flying?  He didn't know.  He also was not aware that his body was turning to flame.  What he would remember was an odd sensation that everything around him seemed to slow down.  He felt a sense of control that increased as his temperature increased.  But, thought he became hotter and hotter, he didn't feel hot.  He just felt energy.  And it felt good.

He grabbed the boys by their shirt collars and slowed their descent so that they landed unharmed - unharmed by impact any way.

Their shirts were aflame. Igor's entire body seemed aflame.  They looked at him - wide-eyed.  He returned the shocked stare.  Then he blurted out "Stop, drop, and roll.  Stop, drop, and roll."

"Ahhhh!"  One yelled.  And only then did Igor hear the cries above him.  He was coming back to himself.  He looked up to see flames shooting out of the room where the fire originated.  Soon the hall would be an inferno leaving boys the terrifying options of death by burning, suffocation, or fall.

Igor, felt flames rise up around and he knew the blinding light was coming from him.  He shot into the air and in less than a blink he was hovering outside the fourth floor balcony that was starting to bend under the weight of too many bodies.

“Get inside,” He yelled.  The boys just stared at him blankly.  He surged above their heads, into the smoke, into the flame.  It was as if could see everything and nothing.  He momentarily wondered if he was dying or had died.  He shook that off and flew through the inferno to the source, the dorm room where it started.

Igor landed in the middle of bright, angry flames.  He could sense the slightest differences in temperature, but he never felt hot.   It didn’t hurt.  In fact, he noticed that as the heat increased, he felt full of unbelievable energy.  It was exhilarating.  He could draw the heat to himself.  Instead of the fire reaching for the precious oxygen in the air, as fire does, he controlled and drew it all to himself. 

The night air filled with the ring of blaring sirens as fire trucks filled the parking lot.  The ladder truck was in place quickly, evacuating students one-by-one.  Igor, a lover of fire engines since childhood and to this day, never noticed.  He had been absorbing the fire into himself.  It was nearly out.  The smoke was still deadly, but the source of it, the raging flames were now contained.  Consumed in Igor’s body.

He felt as if he would explode.  He felt as if he were going to blow up and blow the entire North Carolina State University campus off the map.  He was shaking violently.  He stuck his right arm, straight as an arrow, out the window, skyward.  A stream of lightning flew forth into the night, into the deep of space.  After more than it minute, it stopped. 

He expected to feel exhausted, but he didn’t.  His body resorted to its fleshly form, the flames and lightning now receding.  He didn’t know what to think or do.  He walked to window and looked down.  Hundreds of people stared up in silence.  Firefighters.  His buddies.  Professors who ran the camp.  The girls who had all flooded out of the girls dorm.  It seemed like everyone in the camp was there, staring up at him.

Not knowing why he did it, he suddenly jumped out the window.   No one had time to yell stop.  In a flash he was light, then on the ground, and then in human form again, unharmed.  Still, all eyes were on him.  And there was a nervous stillness. 

His buddy Jack said, “Um, Igor … you’re …”

“What?”

He looked over at Stephanie, the cute blonde he had met.  It started as a crush and only this morning, they walked and held hands.

She giggled and blushed.  “Hi Igor.”

Only then did he realize that while the flames had not harmed him, his clothing was not so lucky.  No matter what powers you have, even if your name happens to be Powers, if you are 16, you don’t want to have 400 people staring as you stand buck naked.  Igor’s body suddenly again turned to pure, hot light, and he shot into the night. 

Reports of unusual lightning strikes were noted by both the national weather service and United States surveillance satellites. These reports made it to the desks of Colonel Dukes and Major O’toole.