Episode 4 - Forewarning

P-roes Spin-Off
Pisay Garnet 2013
Ordinary People. Extraordinary Abilities.
Real People. Unreal Adventure.
Episode 4 - Forewarning
Written and directed by Bianca Publico 
Co-directed by Marianne Cadiz

Previously, on PG13… 
“It’s great to get out sometimes. And watch you play.” 
“Ah, yes. A lot seems to lead up to this dance thing.” 
“Waterbreathing, huh? Do you know how it works?” 
“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and all that.” 
“Oh, so that’s why I lost consciousness after getting in the car.” 
“Actually, I’d like to talk to you. Can we go somewhere else?”

Now, PG13 continues.

_________________________

Pardau looked wearily down a list. Finally locating the right name, she crossed it off with a little more force than necessary.

“That’s pretty brutal.” Jethro winced, seeing the deep indentation the ball point pen made on his name.

“Well, you’re already here.” Stephen leaned back in his chair, facing the table. Bianca was on Pardau’s phone, on loudspeaker. “So, do I set him up for training or something?”

“Yeah,” Bianca sounded exhausted, and Dave’s car whirred in the background. “Hey, about the photokinetic—”

“Agent Tamayo just reported back; she agreed on five days for basic control training and surveillance, then insisted wanted to go back to school,” Pardau said. “It’s understandable. It’s the start of her school year.”

“And it’s a science school,” Stephen said with slight amusement.

“So she’s there now?”

“No, but they’re on their way here. Olin says they’ll be here in a few hours. Looks like he had some trouble talking Jadee into it.”

“And I assume Agent Espiritu has the precognitive back there?”

“Silvestre? Of course. He’s already in the training room… But why are we training him? He’s a precog. You don’t make precogs field agents.” Stephen, Pardau, and Jethro looked around as Stephen’s phone beeped.

“He’s a kinetic precog. He can predict where an object will move, or, rather, an opponent’s next move. He’d make an excellent field agent, especially in hand-to-hand combat.” Bianca paused, and her voice rose octaves as she turned excited. “Hey, he might be able to defeat you!”

Stephen’s mouth thinned; he hit the mute button and told Pardau, “I have to get back to the training hall, Pia says she’s supposed to be helping Javi with an experiment… and she needs a break.” He stood up to leave.

As he reached the door, Jethro on his heels, he whipped around and yelled, “He still wouldn’t be able to defeat me without using his powers!”

-xxxxx-

Bianca hung up after Pardau gave her a proper goodbye, and returned the topic to her and Dave’s mission. “This is the last we have to check for this month… finally.”

“How long have we waited for the day that someone beats Stephen in combat!” Dave said excitedly.

“Without using their abilities,” Bianca reminded him. “Stephen picked up on that, you know.”

A few minutes later, Dave stopped the car. “We’re here.”

She opened her eyes. “Yes.” She drove away the ancient, creaky mutterings of the apartment, complaining about how it had been recently refurbished.

-xxxxx-

The doorbell rang. Andrei looked up from his thesis. Nobody ever rang his doorbell except for those insufferable door-to-door business men and that… pair.

Not again.

He slouched to the door and opened it. The black-hooded girl and the overexcited boy were there. Again.

Especially annoyed from no progress on his thesis, he snapped, “The answer is still no, I’m not going with you. I haven’t exposed my powers to the general public, and no, I’m not planning to any time soon, so I don’t understand why you two would come by.” Andrei shot them a glare and he slammed the door in their faces. When would they stop?

On the other side of the door, Dave was about to whine, but Bianca shushed him. “I want to find something out,” just as Andrei switched on the radio.

A few seconds later, Dave heard Andrei growl as he shut it off. Dave only heard Andrei shuffling around in the room and was already growing impatient, but Bianca closed her eyes and he knew she was reading something.

“What is it?” he asked, following her as she made to leave.

“Later,” was all Bianca said, but the fear and worry was apparent in her voice.

-xxxxx-

Kirby’s hands were already lit with small flames when Gene and a young girl with long, curly hair skidded around the corridor. “Issa!” the little girl breathed.

“Pia!” the augmenter acknowledged the girl as she morphed into her normal, adult self. Kirby gasped, and the flames flickered. “It’s becoming more difficult to hold him back. I end up needing more effort than I began with.”

“Why hasn’t it gotten easier to control? Isn’t that a bit of an overreaction?” Gene said, getting nervous.

“Don’t you think he’d be scared of burning himself and the entire building down?” Issa said sarcastically. “I’m guessing you’re the new recruit. Bianca said your powers match his nicely. Let’s see it.”

The temperature in the room rose ever so slightly as Gene started to panic. “Now?!”

“I’ll keep his power down, and boost yours. It’ll be easy.”

“I thought you had a hard time control—”

Keeping her right hand low and her fingers pointed at Kirby, Issa raised her left hand and pointed it at Gene. Nothing happened.

“What was supposed to happen?” Gene said. Issa sighed in exasperation, poised to try again. “Give me a minute, I’m trying to figure out how to do this again.” As she raised her hand once more, Gene felt something stirring in his bones. Something good. He managed not to say ‘wow’.

The flames on Kirby’s hand, however, grew stronger. Issa tuned to Gene. “Hurry!”

Gene’s hands turned a deep, navy blue, in stark contrast to Kirby’s flame-covered, red orange hands. Pia shuddered as the temperature dropped quickly, and the blaze on Kirby’s hands burnt out. Gene was very conscious that it took him a fourth of the effort usually required to manipulate the temperature; it felt wonderful.

“Keep the temperature like this for now,” Issa said, slowly returning Kirby’s power back to normal as he shivered violently.

“Very nice, Agent Gansit,” Pia said as Issa finally released her hold on Kirby’s powers, pride in her voice.

Gene exhaled quietly as his hands turned brown again, and the temperature rose once more. Kirby muttered tiredly, “Thanks f-for helping m-me. But I d-don’t feel so…”

The prodigy inventor dropped down on the floor. Issa knelt down and took his pulse. “Just unconscious. This is a good time as any to take him back to the Company.”

“We’ll need your help smuggling him out of the building, though,” Pia said.

“No problem. I can make an easy excuse.”

Pia’s phone rang shrilly in the quiet. “Hello?” She mouthed, ‘Bianca’ at Gene and Issa. “Yeah, we’ll be right there.” She hung up.

“What was that?”

“Bianca wants us at headquarters ASAP.”

Issa’s brow knotted in confusion. “Is something wrong?”

Pia’s voice gradually turned into a child’s as she said, “She might’ve found a threat to the posthumans’ secrecy.”

-xxxxx-

Arriving at HQ, Gene had taken Kirby down to Dr. Pascasio for some rest, and thirty minutes later had to bring him back up to the training hall for the meeting; Pardau said he was vital. The training hall was the biggest room in the makeshift headquarters, and all field agents had been called.

As Gene steered Kirby in, he looked around at the agents, looking for Pia, his mentor. He found her beside Issa, who offered to look after Kirby for the time being, seeing as how she didn’t have a mentee yet.

“Bianca’s not here,” Pia noted.

The person in question burst through the double doors breathing heavily, Dave right behind her. “Sorry I’m late. I was tracking someone down. Didn’t find her. Is everyone here?” She went to the front of the room while Dave hopped over to sit beside James.

With a huff, Bianca said, “Dave and I came from a check-up on a posthuman, Andrei Jimenez. For long, we have known him to possess… hostile qualities, but never to use his powers in such a way.”

“What’s his ability?” Kirby asked suddenly, raising his hand as an afterthought.

“Temporal duplication. He can summon and control clones of himself from the past, but they only last for a very short time. Because he is not an agent, we haven’t had the chance to gauge how long they could possibly last. His ability is similar to Agent Patron’s, but her own body changes to that age instead of calling a duplicate. By the way, welcome, Kirby Manuel.

“Now, I heard something in his apartment while he was yelling in my face.”

“Smoke and flash bombs?” The agents looked around at the doorway.

“Ah, Agent Cadiz,” the psychometric said calmly. “So my manhunt earlier was pointless. I should have known you’d come of your own accord.”

“The perks of not being an agent, Bianca. I’ll come by when I want to.”

Everyone in the hall watched as the new arrival handed Bianca a slip of paper. “Oh yeah, hand the blind person something to read, why don’t you,” Stephen said scathingly, rolling his eyes. Marianne shot him a glare.

“Printed out two days ago,” Bianca murmured, ignoring them. “By… a shipment company. What is this, Marianne? I’m blind. Still blind.”

“It’s the delivery receipt of an unusually large amount of adrenaline to the Caloocan area. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact location, but this should be enough.”

“What’s the big deal?” James asked, noticing how some of the more experienced agents turned edgy.

“Adrenaline is a hormone released into the blood stream when the body gets excited, threatened, et cetera. To a regular people, an adrenaline overdose can cause insomnia and turn you into a ball of hyperactive nerves. To a posthuman, however, an adrenaline overdose can lead to disasters nobody wants to think about. “Adrenaline overdose is most dangerous in those who have openly combative powers,” Marianne recited in a bored voice. “The most common example is pyrokinesis” (Kirby looked up curiously) “where the posthuman releases uncontrollable amounts of fire. To someone like Bianca—”

“—the whispering in my head turns into yelling.”

“In any case, Andrei must be planning something.”

“You don’t have enough proof,” Stephen said matter-of-factly. Marianne’s jaw twitched as the lights flickered and a low whistle sounded through the room.

“How do we know she’s to be trusted? We don’t even know her…” Olin said.

“Your boss trusts me.”

“And that’s a valid reason?” Stephen asked.

Before Marianne could come up with a reply, Bianca cut in. “If I recall right, Agent Tamayo, you were an agent from seven months ago?” He nodded. “I guess I’ll have to introduce you. Everyone, meet former Agent Marianne Cadiz. She was an agent until a year ago, after which she resigned from the Company for… reasons.” Bianca pulled up her hood instinctively. “I know her well enough to trust her. Even though it works only one way.”

“Hey, I trust you!” Marianne corrected, then reconsidered. “…Well, I trust the Company. Sometimes. Kinda. That’s why I’m here. I need your assistance. If everything works out, we’ll all benefit.”

“If what works out?” Jethro asked from the corner of the room. Majority of the new agents were still clueless about what was happening.

“Okay, let me start from the top.” Bianca ripped her gaze from the slip of paper. “Andrei Jimenez is in possession of smoke bombs, flash bombs, possibly a hefty amount of adrenaline, and an unusual personality.”

“In short, he’d ruin the dance.” Marianne supplied, leaning against the mirrored wall. “Back in third year high school, he had a crap prom, but then again, he’s a hell of a pessimist. Ybiernas Industries’ party is like a prom, and Andrei would want to ruin it. He’s just like that, I don’t… He was my classmate for two years. It’s indescribable, but… it’s something he would willingly do.”

“I found the smoke and flash bombs in his apartment when Dave and I checked up on Andrei,” Bianca said. “He bought them shortly after his senior prom. Quite amusing, really, how I found them so fast. They were literally yelling.”

“And this shipment receipt,” Marianne held the sheet between her fingers, “is proof. What would he do with adrenaline? Andrei majored in biochemistry for two years, he should know what adrenaline does to posthumans. He’s not stupid, you know.”

“It’s still not conclusive,” Stephen said determinedly. “There’s no guarantee that Andrei plans to use all that stuff on the dance.”

“What, you would risk being exposed? ‘Cause if you’re not going, then I am.” Marianne said, just as determinedly. “Once the posthumans are no longer a secret, we’re gonna be in trouble.” She turned to Bianca for the final decision. “There’s nothing to lose in being too careful. David—”

“—would go. I am too.” She paused at the mention of her uncle. “I set up this branch to help out the Palawan outpost, to cover while the Company is gone. We shouldn’t turn our backs on a threat, no matter how baseless our accusations may be.”

Digesting what she said, she turned around to face the agents, a big grin plastered on her face, contrary to her serious look a few minutes ago. “Now, who’s going? You have to wear a tux or dress, it’s all part of being undercover!”

- - - - -

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alien mission
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
- American Idiot by Green Day

End of Episode 4.