ODE TO THE END: A BALLAD OF BROTHERS

CHAPTER 18

ACHIM

From the outside looking in, Achim was a being of boundless possibilities. His movements were impossible. His strength, unfathomable. His powers, unlimited. What else was there to think? Even now, the boy traveled from one end of the city to the other in the time it took most people to walk from block to block. His feats spoke for themselves. To the masses, both then and now, he could have been a god.

It was a flattering sentiment. One that Achim once believed, but that was a long time ago. Years was what it took for him to learn the truth. Years of staving off human predators. Months of imprisonment when his "unlimited" powers failed him. Weeks of heinous abuse, days filled with fear, and a singular brush with death. It took all of that and little more before the change took root, but Achim was not just humbled. He was now characterized, and traumatized, by a deep knowledge of his own limitations. Every expenditure of strength had to be calculated and cost effective. If not, as told by his own experiences, Achim would easily become prey.

His portfolio, by his own assessment, painted a picture of an excellent sprinter. Achim was capable of devastating things when he was called to perform, but his effectiveness was by no means sustainable. Most would never know this but the truth was that he could only use his powers in controlled spurts. Any obstacle that demanded him to push past his cadence, such as a sudden need to run faster or lift more than what he was accustomed, or any scenario that required prolonged use of his powers were extremely dangerous. Efforts such as these left him incapacitated. Pained and drained as if his very soul had been fuel for the labor. And maybe it had been. Either way, Achim was no longer familiar with the sensation. His predilection to plan when he could, and to be prudent when he couldn't, now made him a foreigner to the feeling.

This most recent excursion to learn what Warden was doing was an extension of Achim's caution. That is not to say that the boy was always sound of mind - Achim's killing of the lady agent still perplexed him - but he always sought advantage when possible. Given the death he dealt to the inner city agent, Achim assumed that finding him would have been priority number one for Warden. But, as he and Naomi noticed, the gray-clad guard had not been guarding anything. At least not in the inner city.

Are they looking for me, Achim thought. After what I did, they have to be. Perhaps their search for him led Warden elsewhere, or maybe an entirely new threat emerged. Achim could not imagine a peril that proved more pressing than a kid who could snatch a spine out someone's back, but the fact was that Warden was somewhere Achim most certainly wasn't. A fact, given the circumstances, worth investigating.

"If it's nothing, then it's nothing," said Achim. "But if it is something, then what?" His mind went to Adlai. "...Well. It isn't like I'm getting anywhere following Naomi," Achim thought aloud.

By the time the thought of the sun kissed girl had come and gone, the rim of the long wall was within his sight. In the span of a moment Achim was at its base, and, in the next, he was scaling The Divide with momentum alone. He used the vertical incline like a springboard and, after running off the wall and into the air, Achim cut through the sky like a human rocket. Up and up he went at blinding speed but his eyes were as sharp as his ears. From the rising altitude, Achim scanned the realm for something, anything, to indicate where Warden might have been. From the edge of the slums to the span of the sunshine city, there was much to see before he reached his height. Perhaps too much. In seeing everything, he saw nothing at all. As Achim began to fall, he sighed.

"Well. I tried that," he thought aloud.

Achim may have been able to jump high, but he could not aim his fall. His only option was to look down and prepare for impact. It was no problem for him, of course. He was falling just close enough to The Divide that he could clip the surface on the way down, and clip it he did. With a tight grip and a bit of digging, Achim braked himself on the surface of the wall using the grip of a single hand. When his momentum was fully depleted Achim then began to climb. A slither of sweat fell from his brow though, his ascent slow and a little arduous.