Free Vs Reality by Blake Northcott Page A

totally be watershed.”
    Dia rolls her eyes. “Alright kids, settle down. Don’t make me put you in a time-out.” She was used to refereeing these verbal sparring matches between her sister and her roommate, which ranged in importance from arguments over pizza toppings to disputes revolving around 1980s video game trivia. She pivots back towards Cole before continuing.  “ Anyway , there were multiple reports coming in from all different sources, but every blog, news site and message board that reported them quickly disappeared.  Nobody was talking. Even the pictures and videos were scrubbed from the web like it had never happened.”
    Cole knows what he saw in the alley. Unless he’s still experiencing one of his vivid dreams (no doubt brought on by multiple undiagnosed concussions) he’s pretty sure that he’s one of these anomalies they’re talking about. And so is everyone sitting in the room around him. “So the laws of the universe were being…bent?” he asks, glancing around him, now fairly confident they’re not planning to execute him.
    Paige nods. “Gravity, thermodynamics, the physical properties of matter – everything we understood about the universe wasn’t just being bent. It was unraveling.”
    “By people like us,” Cole says matter-of-factly.
    Paige nods again, heavy lids blinking slowly.
    “Okay, so if this is happening everywhere , all over the world, why wouldn’t the government warn us? Isn’t that what the New World Council is there for: to tell us if there is a virus or an outbreak or whatever?” The first lucid thought that drifted through Cole’s mind after he’d come to grips with this notion of ‘reality-bending’ was that this couldn’t have been an isolated incident. If one person had done it – if he had done it – so had others. Probably many, many times. How this had all been kept a secret seemed more far-fetched than the preternatural events themselves. A celebrity couldn’t take a crap without someone posting a high-definition video of it thirty seconds later, so how are real-life superheroes being kept under wraps?
    “Nobody knows for sure,” Brodie says. “Maybe the government was just covering up because they accidentally caused whatever the hell it is that makes us trigger. Or maybe we’re all just part of some big crazy experiment they’re running.”
    With a tap of her phone Paige re-illuminates the room, washing out the projected image on the screen. “Some people think it’s aliens,” she says flatly. “Others think the Earth is pissed off and it’s trying to get rid of us. Maybe a god got bored and decided to screw with us, if you believe in that sort of thing. Who the hell knows?”
    Dia interjects with a pronounced sigh that lets everyone know she’s disinterested with their theories. “What we do know is that we’re being rounded up, one at a time, and brought somewhere that the Collectors refer to as ‘The Basement’. Almost every time someone triggers  for the first time these agents are right there, ready to snatch them. Everything else is just speculation right now, but we’re looking for more answers.”
    “So can anyone manifest?” Cole asks, unconsciously running his fingertips along the back of his arm – the same arm where the coiling snake tattoo had taken form.
    Paige shakes her head, looping a purple streak of bangs behind her ear before it falls across her face. “No, as far as we know only a small percentage of people have the capability. But they can’t just do it whenever they want. To manifest they need a catalyst of some kind. A trigger.”
    With the room now illuminated, Dia flips open a small mirror and starts re-applying make-up to the bruise on her cheek using a small pad. “Like when you cleverly used your face to attack Heinreich’s fist,” she adds cheerfully.
    Cole can’t help but laugh. “But I’ve been slammed in the face before. A lot of times, actually. Why would I manifest tonight…what was