Powers Enhanced

By Justin T. Bailey

As Garrett’s rapid growth slows down, he finds himself left as a teenager.  In an effort to blend in, and possibly even make some friends, he enrolls at the local high school as a senior.  Between unreliable abilities and new powers that manifest at the worst possible moments, Garrett finds himself a target for Dirk the Jerk, a bully who loves tormenting others.  Garrett’s one bright spot at school is that he has a class with his crush, Celeste Larsen.

Garrett finds acceptance among Celeste and her friends. However, Celeste soon finds herself embroiled in a life-threatening situation that no one could have foreseen.  Garrett will need to do everything in his power to help her, even if it means exposing his secret abilities to the world.

Meanwhile, the dreams from Garrett’s alter-ego, Rett, continue. Forced to flee their last base, Rett and his friends take up residence in a new hideout. They continue to try to find ways to take down the current dictatorship, eventually making a discovery that could change the entire course of the war.

Garrett believes he was put on this earth to do good, but he learns that there are others out there that would only use him for evil.  Will Garrett be able to learn how to control his powers, in order to keep the ones closest to him safe? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Bailey
• Release date: Nov 30, 2020

Book preview

TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER ONE

Fight

The panicked words of Leave me alone!! slice through the air like thrown knives.

I cut to the curb and screech to a stop. I jump off my bike, leaving it on its side in front of Coffee Cozy. Well, what’s left of the coffee shop. The owner decided to take the insurance money and set up elsewhere, instead of rebuilding after the tornado. 

The shops on both sides are back in business, but the destroyed coffee shop brings down the whole street, like a pretty girl sporting a black eye. Only the back wall is still standing, while the roof and the rest of the building is rubble piled in the center. 

A few people are on the sidewalks, going in and out of the shops. Everyone is rushing to get back into air conditioning. Heat rises in shimmering waves from the asphalt, while cicadas drone from the trees. It’s the hottest day in August so far. 

I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt to keep up appearances, but in truth, I could wear thermal underwear and a parka. Heat and cold just don't bother me. Good thing, otherwise I would never ride my bike on a day like this.

No one else seems to have heard the voice. That doesn’t really surprise me. My extra senses are on, which means I can hear, smell, and see better than any living human. I’m actually on par with some animals. 

I can read street signs two hundred feet away. The donut shop a block down from me just brought out a fresh batch of chocolate donuts. There’s an ice cream sandwich melting in a trashcan twenty feet away. 

But what I really need is my hearing. I close my eyes and open my ears.

It’s like I jumped into a vat of cicadas. Their whirring noise surrounds me, drilling into my head. It takes effort, but I tune them out. 

Conversations from down the street are suddenly right here. I filter them, trying to direct my listening away from the people I see. 

I hear a thump, like a body being struck, and then a clatter as if someone had knocked a trash can over. And I know right where it’s coming from. 

I grab my bike and wheel it into the walkway between Coffee Cozy and Gardens of Life. I leave it leaning against the gardening store and then head back to where I hear laughter. 

The small alley is made smaller by the police tape cordoning off the still-standing wall of the coffee shop. The wall is sturdy enough to not fall down on its own, but the police don’t want kids playing around it, either.

I make my way past the tape, into the large alley that runs behind all the shops. Trash cans and dumpsters line the walls, adding their own distinctive odor to the mix. I have to dial back my senses as far as they can go. 

The scene in front of me is about what I expected, but it still makes my blood boil. 

I immediately pick out the antagonists. It’s not hard. Two of them are carrying a third person by the armpits and ankles. A fourth person is standing on a box by a large dumpster, swinging the lid open.

The kid being carried isn’t going quietly, either. He’s flailing around, trying to kick the hands away, but I can tell that he’s not that muscular. He doesn’t seem to have a chance against the two people carrying him. 

They’re big, like steroids big. They could easily be linebackers on a football team. One has a large Roman nose with black hair, giving him a very distinctive Greek look. The other one has brown spiky hair that’s shaved on the side. 

The other bully, the one by the dumpster, isn’t as wide, but he’s tall, blond, and athletic. He has a high-school quarterback vibe to him; like he knows he’s the alpha dog, and everyone else will naturally follow him. 

The leader sticks his head into the dumpster and sniffs. Whoa, he says, jerking his head back out. Chris, are you in for a surprise! Looks like the menu tonight has spoiled milk, old Chinese food, and diapers! Nasty ones, too.

The two lackeys reaffirm their grip on Chris and then start swinging him back and forth. I can tell that they’re just going to chuck him into the dumpster. 

The kid’s face is mottled red, probably with fear and anger. He has a pale complexion, with a mass of freckles, and almost bright orange hair. 

 Let him go! I shout, startling everyone. 

Greek Guy loses his grip on Chris’s feet. Chris’s legs drop to the ground, where he uses the sudden leverage to push back against the other guy. Spiked Hair stumbles backwards, tripping over a trash can, and suddenly Chris is free.

He backs away, ending up next to me. His lanky form is taller than my five foot ten inch height by a couple of inches. Thanks, Chris fervently says, but I know it’s not over. These guys don’t look like they like getting the short end of the straw. 

The leader jumps down from his box and strides towards me, his friends joining him. Why’d you have to ruin our fun? he whines. Chris would have liked dumpster diving. He and his buddies laugh. 

Chris’s hands clench into fists, but he doesn’t do anything else. I don’t blame him. It looks like he’s bullied on a regular schedule by these three and has found out long ago that fighting back is useless. 

Chris, just walk away. I’ll handle them, I quietly tell him, while the three guys are still walking up to us.

He looks at me askance. There are three of them, and one of you.

I shrug. The truth is, right now I’m stronger than two grown men, and my reaction time is three times faster. I think I can handle three bullies.  This is all thanks to the first powers I received, extra strength and speed.  These abilities seem to originate within the adrenal gland, and they share some of the same characteristics as adrenaline.  Luckily, without any negative side effects.  The only downside to them is that I can't rely on them.  They come and go at random.        

I don’t tell Chris that, of course. I like to keep these gifts a secret. Yeah, it’s okay. I got this. Just go.

Chris gives me one last bewildered look, but then it melts into gratitude. Ok, sure. Thank you!

Chris backs away and then takes off running. Spiked Hair starts chasing after him, but that’s short-lived when my foot hooks his ankle. He goes sprawling into a pile of trash.

I turn back to face Greek Guy and Mr. Quarterback. They're no longer amused. 

You got a death wish or something? growls Greek Guy. I can pummel you where you stand. Spiked Hair joins his friends, spaghetti sauce coating his shirt. 

Look, I don’t want to fight you, but I’m not going to let you beat up on other kids, I respond, taking a few steps back so they can’t flank me. I do not want any of them to surprise me from behind. 

You didn’t want a fight? asks the leader. His perfect teeth clench into a grimace. I think it’s a little late for that. Liam, take him out.

Apparently, Liam is the one with the spiked hair. He frowns and takes a few steps forward to meet me. As he comes forward, he pulls his right fist back. 

Trajectories and amount of force calculations are instantly computed, thanks to another power I have.  This ability increases my thought processes, making me smarter.

Liam starts to swing forward, his fist moving towards me. A normal kid would not be able to react in time. I am definitely not normal.

I can tell from his trajectory he’s aiming for my jaw, so I take a step to the left and bob my head out of the way. Liam whiffs right past me, missing me by a few inches. I can tell he’s surprised, but he lines up again. Same result. I haven’t even put up my fists yet. I’m just timing the swings so he always just barely misses me.

Stay still! he yells, and I have to grin. This infuriates him. Alex, help me out, Liam commands, and Greek Guy steps forward. 

Two people are obviously harder, so I raise my fists in self-defense. I have to be careful that I don’t lash out. With my extra strength, I could break bones. 

Alex comes at me on my left, and Liam is on my right. Their large physiques block out the rest of the alleyway. It also means that if I get hit, it’s going to hurt. A lot.

This time Alex takes a swing at me, and it’s quickly followed by a jab from Liam.  I dodge the first punch and block the second with my left arm.  Alex tries to use my block to strike at my body, but I slip to the side so that his punch misses.  I dance back, as Liam overbalances on his own second punch, and then slips on some of that same spaghetti sauce.  He goes down and trips up Alex.  

Here’s my chance.  With Chris out of the way, now is a good time to make my exit. I don’t need to prove anything by sticking around. 

I do a quick about-face to make my escape and come face to face with Mr. Quarterback. His face glistens with sweat, and he’s breathing hard. He must have run out onto the street as soon as his friend blocked my sight of him and came around to the same alley I had entered. 

And now I’m trapped. With three very large, very angry teenagers. 

My extra hearing picks up a footfall behind me. I instantly process the information and make a quick decision. I duck to the left. 

A split second later, Liam sails past, his missed punch throwing him off balance. 

I dodge right, and this time Alex comes up empty. Maybe I can do this. If I make them miss enough, maybe they’ll get frustrated and leave me alone. Yeah, I’ll just keep thinking that. 

Dirk, a little help? grunts Liam.

Dirk snarls. He’s making you look like idiots! he says and steps forward to enter the fray.

And that’s when the worst possible thing happens. Like a tap being turned off, I feel my adrenal powers drain away. The feeling of strength and power that has accompanied me for the past two hours is gone once again.

Everything around me speeds up as my reaction time slows. The blond bully seems to move like a cobra, striking out and smashing his fist straight into my nose.

Bright lights flash in front of my eyes, and I instantly tear up, the pain so sudden that I almost can’t deal with it. I think my nose is broken. 

I try to look past the tears in my eyes and see a feral grin blossom on the leader’s face. That’s how you do it, he crows, and then comes back in for more. 

I take a flurry of hits to my face, and then I’m falling. My head strikes something hard, and I black out.

* * * * *

When I come to, I hurt. All over. My face is sticky with dried blood, and my nose throbs like a tween’s heart in the presence of her favorite boy band. My ribs are tender, and since I don’t remember any punches to that general region, I must have been kicked a few times while I was out. 

My three aggressors are nowhere in sight. I slowly sit up, groaning as more injuries announce themselves. I have a raging headache, and my jaw feels loose. I touch the back of my head, and come in contact with a massive goose egg. I gingerly touch my ribs, and while none feel broken, I should stay away from laughing or deep sighing. 

I sit there, amongst the trash, and wonder when my healing power will turn on. That’s something else I can do. I have a power that heals me, as well as others. All I have to do is touch them, and the energy will flow from my hand into their body. 

But, like my strength and speed and extra senses, they’re unreliable. They turn on and off randomly. I’ve gotten injured, and sometimes I’m healed instantly, and sometimes it takes a day. There’s no way to predict it. Same with my senses and adrenal powers.

My intelligence never turns off, luckily, but it’s unpredictable in another way. 

Whenever I’m not paying attention to anything and not doing anything active, I have the potential to go into a trance. My mind will get so involved in solving some little equation that I’ll zone out. And I mean out. 

Once, while I was helping with the tornado clean up, I started calculating how many leaves were on a tree. The only problem was that I was in the middle of a construction zone, with large trucks and bulldozers moving around me. Police Chief Mark Johnson had to pull me out of the way of a reversing backhoe. The backup beep was almost deafening, but I hadn’t heard it. 

It’s a good thing that Mark and his family already know about me, or else there would have been some awkward questions. They had found out when we’d been trapped in City Hall together during the tornado. It was kind of hard to keep it a secret after they saw the pulsing yellow cylinder that had grown from the ground and given me my extra intelligence. 

That’s how I have these abilities. In each case, I received a cylinder of a different color. The first one was red, which gave me strength and speed, when I had to fend off a wounded coyote. I got a green sensory one when I was trapped by myself in the dark. And the purple healing one when my adopted sister, Natalie, was crushed by a falling wall. 

Each one has come when I needed it. But, like already demonstrated, the powers they emitted do not stick around all the time. Oh, and even though the Johnsons and the Stillwells were around for the yellow cylinder, no one else got special powers. No one else was wracked with pain, either. The cylinders are not a pleasant experience.

I wait a few more minutes, but my healing powers are still a no-show. I check my watch and grimace. Susan is making a special dinner tonight for Jeff before he leaves for college tomorrow, and I can’t be late. That means I need to get going.

I carefully stand up, my headache increasing as I achieve altitude. It will not be fun riding my bike home. 

I find the alley I entered and realize that I won’t have to worry about biking home after all.

My bike has been trashed.

Both wheels are bent, the spokes caved in. The chain is hanging off the derailleur, and the handlebars are twisted backwards. I sigh heavily, which turns into a groan as my ribs protest.

I pick up my bike, frowning at the damage. I push it forward, and find that it at least can still roll. 

Before I leave, I head into Gardens of Life to use the bathroom. I make it to there without anyone seeing me, which is a very good thing. The mirror shows a face from a horror movie.

I carefully clean off the dried blood from my nose and lip and can finally see the extent of my injuries.

My nose is definitely broken. Normally, it’s aquiline, but now, it’s just a mass of red, blue and black, swollen to twice its size. I have a black eye as well, and a split lip that’s swelling alarmingly. I look like I fell out of a tree, and my face hit every branch on the way down.

I check the time again and know I’m going to have to hurry. Unfortunately, hurrying and bruised ribs are not a good combination.

I leave the store, scaring two customers. I shrug as I enter the heat again and grab my bike. For some reason, no one had stolen it when I had left it outside. I grimace at the wobbly wheels. Go figure.

I start pushing my bike, the chain swinging with the motion. An errant loose spoke pings against the frame with each revolution of the back wheel. 

My house is about a mile and a half away, and it’s going to be a long walk.

As I limp through town, pretty much everyone notices me. I see their suddenly widening eyes, and a desire to give me as much space on the sidewalk as I need.

I think everyone knows who I am by now. You can’t be in close contact with people, like I was during the cleanup after the tornado, and not notice when someone grows two inches over the course of a month. By the second month, after puberty hit, I was six inches taller, and people had begun to talk.

Luckily, Dr. Rick Bradley has done a good job in explaining what’s happening to me. He’s a doctor who specializes in childhood growth disorders, and who moved here after being told of my circumstances.

The official story is that I was seven years old when I was struck with the disease, an extremely rare form of progeria. Normally, progeria only affects the breakdown of cells, which is usually manifested as a body aging extremely quickly. So a five year old with progeria has wrinkled skin and bifocals, but he’s still the size of a five year old.

Rick now tells people that I’m physically and mentally growing older quicker, that my brain grows neurons and synapses at the same rate my body is aging. It’s a stretch, but the fact that Dr. Bradley, a noted expert in the field, is explaining it makes it easier for people to swallow. It’s much better than the truth. I mean, who would believe that the teenager growing up before their eyes has only been alive for six months?

I pass another person who quickly backs away to give me room, even though there’s plenty. Hopefully, from the state of my bike, everyone will assume I had a bike accident. It’s mortifying to think I got beat up. Yes, it was three guys against one, but if my powers had stayed on, I could have handled them.

A horn honks, and an older-model pickup slows to a stop next to me. John Larsen rolls down the passenger window. Garrett, what happened to you?  The surprise is evident in his voice, as he’s one of the few people outside the Stillwells who knows about my powers.

I open my mouth to respond, when John interrupts. Wait, hold on, it’s like ninety degrees out here. Do you want a lift? We can talk in the truck.

I nod gratefully, and John hops out. He helps me hoist my mangled bike into the bed of his truck. Normally, I could do it on my own, but my chest is not liking me right now. It’s hard to do heavy lifting if your ribs are on strike.

Soon enough, we’re ensconced in John’s truck cabin. It hurts to sit, but it also hurt to walk. At least I can avoid the curious stares. And I’ll now make it home in time for dinner. I tell John where I’m headed, and he nods.

The A/C is blasting ice cold air, but I don’t need the relief. It feels the same inside the truck as it did for me outside. I turn off my vents so John can have the extra air. 

So, what happened? John asks again as he takes off. 

Oh, just made a mistake, I respond, deliberately keeping the explanation vague. I don't want to tell him about the fight; I can solve my own problems.

Wow, pretty big mistake, he says, eyeing my face again. You lose a fight with a cement wall? 

Ha ha, yeah... I trail off, wincing as I touch my nose. It’s as sore and swollen as before. I bet if I pushed on it, I could see the cartilage move. 

How are you doing? I ask, hoping to change the topic. I haven’t seen you this summer.

I had first met John during the search and rescue portion of the tornado.  But I had met his daughter, Celeste, when I was a baby, about six months before. That was back when no one else knew that I could understand everything that was going on. The Stillwells just thought I was an orphaned child who grew two months every night. Luckily, they had kept that a secret from everyone else. 

John and Celeste share a lot of features: black hair, green eyes, with athletic prowess. No offense to John, but Celeste makes it all work perfectly. 

She hadn’t been around during the tornado, having gone with some friends to an amusement park in Des Moines, but I thought I would see more of her during the summer. 

Yeah, we’ve been out of town all summer. I have family in Kansas City, and Celeste went to a soccer camp there. Of course, we couldn’t really leave until all the tornado victims had been buried, but we made it in time for the start of her camp.

His mentioning the burial of the six people who died isn’t weird coming from him. John is the town mortician, and he was pretty busy for a couple of weeks. 

Like I said before, he’s also one of the few people who knows about me. He saw me when I was the size of a twelve-year-old lift a three hundred pound beam off his friend, Eric. Eric had been buried in some rubble when the building he was in collapsed. I might have been able to pass off the heavy lifting as adrenaline, but then John saw the purple cylinder. Once the cat was out of the bag, I had healed him and Eric.

But Celeste doesn’t know about me. I made John and Eric both promise. The truth is, that even though I find her highly attractive, she’s a seventeen year old girl. That age group is not known for their ability to keep a secret. 

That’s when I feel it. My face warms from my healing energy, and the itching begins. I pull down the sun visor and flip open the mirror. I want to watch what happens.

The energy sends flashes to my brain, telling me my injuries. I have one cracked rib, and yes, my nose is broken. But then it gets to work.

The energy spreads throughout my body, so I feel my ribs mending at the same time my face is being healed. I stare at my nose as the cartilage is straightened, and the energy shows me the cartilage being connected back together. Next up, the swelling starts to go down in both my nose and my lip. The bruising in my black eye and nose begins to disappear, just fading out until it’s all gone. My headache vanishes at the same time.

As soon as all my injuries are gone, the warmth and itching stops. I turn my face this way and that in the mirror, even though I know that no blemishes remain. Good. I would have hated for the Stillwells to see me all beat up. 

That... was amazing to watch, says John, while throwing quick glances between me and the road. I can’t believe how quickly that heals you.

Yeah, I respond. And I have no idea what it is, or how it does it. I just know when this healing power is on, I can mend bones, reconnect tissue, create skin, and dissolve blood. It’s pretty miraculous.

We slow to a stop, and I realize that I’m at my house. I got healed just in time. 

John helps me get my bike out of the truck. It was nice talking to you again. Have a great night, he says, and then waves goodbye as he drives off. 

I have to smile. Even though I just got beat up, it’s great knowing that other people out there know my secret, but still like me. Even respect me. John and Eric both have thanked me over and over again for what I did for them. 

It helps drown out the rest of my uncertainties: What am I doing here?  Why do I have these powers?  What causes the cylinders?  

I shake my head as I lean my bike against the garage and head inside.  Maybe one of these days I’ll know. 

CHAPTER TWO

Blue

Mom, did you get all my school supplies? I don’t want to miss anything, I ask Susan as I help her set the table.

Garrett, don’t worry, she smiles, tucking in a loose strand of her dark brown hair. I have sent four children to school over a span of fourteen years. I think I know what’s needed for a good start of the school year.

I chuckle. Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to doubt your abilities. I’m just a little nervous.

Susan pauses as she pours the stroganoff into a bowl. You’re right. It is a little different for you going to school.

I place the glasses as I think about her remark.

When I first found out that I was growing a physical year a week, I had thought I would be dead in just under two years.

But then my growth slowed down, to a year a month, and suddenly, attending a year of school didn’t seem so implausible.

I know some people might wonder why I'm choosing to subject myself to high school. I know for a lot of kids, it's not their favorite place. In fact, they would rather be anywhere except that Mecca of teenage angst.

The thing is, since I was outed by the tornado as a kid who grew fast, Jack and Susan relaxed some of the rules that had been put in place to keep my physical oddities a secret. All the kids could have friends over again, and I know that Michelle was the happiest about that.

She has two best friends, and I think they spent more time at our house during the summer than their own. Michelle is a different person when she's surrounded by her friends. Before the tornado, I only knew her as someone in a perpetually bad mood. Of course, I was the reason for that bad mood, so of course that's all I saw.

However, once she found out that I had healed her during the tornado, she had had a complete change of heart. We’d reached an understanding to just forget about the awkwardness from before.

Seeing Michelle interact with her friends made me want some of my own. Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out with my family. Natalie and I still share our special bond, even though I now tower over her, and we make it a point to do something fun together a few times a week.

But my family no longer scratches all of my social itches. I want to see if I can make friends by being myself. If there will be people out there who will choose to be with me. I know it's scary to put myself out there like that, but I feel a real need to belong to a group other than my family.

And I need a place where there are a lot of other kids besides me. Rick suggested that since I know so much already, that maybe college would be a good fit for me. However, Meriwether doesn't have as so much as a community college. I'd have to move to Omaha or Kansas City or Des Moines, and I'm not ready to leave the Stillwells. So, high school it is.

I had mentioned my desire in passing to Mark Johnson when I was helping with the clean-up, not really expecting anything to come from it.

But Mark had gotten together with Jim Hunsaker, who’s on the school board. Jim was someone else whom I had healed. I had reattached four of his fingers, and he decided to repay the favor by getting me into high school.

It took a bit of doing, since I didn’t have a social security number, or any school record at all, but last week, Jim and Mark had surprised me a school card with my picture.

Now, with school starting in just four days on Monday, the jitters are setting in. Will I make those friends I want? Or will everyone shun me as the kid with the weird growing disease? Was this really a good idea?

But I resolve not to say anything, especially tonight. Jeff is leaving for the University of Iowa tomorrow, and I don’t want to detract from this special dinner Susan has set up.

Susan calls out that dinner is ready, and soon enough, everyone is eating at the table. Jack is at the head of the table, sitting with military erectness, with Susan next to him. Next is Jeff, nineteen years old, who waited a year to work for his dad before heading to college. Michelle is seventeen, and will be a senior like me.

Natalie is twelve, and the one I get along with best. Our personalities are very much in sync. Lastly, there’s Jason, who at eight years old, is the baby of the family.

But there’s a somber pall over the dinner table. Everyone can feel that tomorrow, the Stillwell family will be missing one of their members.

Soon it’s too much for Jason.

I don’t want you to go!! he sobs, covering his face with his hands. His cowlick stands straight up.

Jeff jumps up from the dinner table, and moves over to his chair. Jason, it’s okay. I know, the University of Iowa seems really far, but it’s only three hours away.

Michelle also gets up to comfort her little brother. Jeff will be home on the weekends, she says, sweeping her blond hair away from her face. He made Mom and Dad promise not to change his room, so he’ll have a place to stay when he comes home.

Jason’s cries quiet as he digests their words. You’ll come home a lot? he asks Jeff hopefully.

Jeff nods. Absolutely. I have to come home so that Mom can do my laundry. Susan chuckles along with the others, and Jason gives a glimmer of a smile.

The mood lifts a little from the gloomy cloud it was before.

Jack stands up. Now that we’re not so depressed, I think it’s a good time to give Garrett his present.

I’m poleaxed. What? A gift? For me?

Jason’s face erupts in a wide grin. Yeah! Garrett’s gift!

I get up, confused, and am chivvied out the door by Jack, the slew of family close behind.

From the fanfare, I expected to see a large wrapped box with a bow on top waiting for me, but there’s nothing. Jeff’s car, a twenty-year old Volkswagen GTI, is sitting in the driveway, but that’s normal. I glance around, surreptitiously looking for anything that resembles a gift.