"You are the electricity."
So this excerpt is from Book 2 of my series, Hope Defined. It’s not new and this is a reboot of a story I released years ago, but I never completed the story and didn’t know squat about marketing. Over the next month, I’m completing and releasing all three books and the novella. So you big and small kids will have something yummy to warm your hearts over the fall and holidays. It’s a mashup of Harry Potter and Boyz n’ da Hood, if you can imagine that. Relatable science fiction for folks on Earth who want to a real world experience with a supernatural kick. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Watchmen or Black Mirror in a book.
So enjoy this excerpt. You’re never too old to pause from working hard everyday, and wonder “what if.”
“Hope.” A voice spoke deep into her ear, shocking her. She had forgotten about the small receiver she had placed inside her ear earlier. “Hope,” the voice said again. Gracie.
“Yeah?” Hope spoke into the microphone she had placed in her collar.
“You’ve… incoming…” Gracie’s voice broke up in the speaker.
“I can’t hear you,” Hope said.
Daddy’s friend Lester spat, “They already got this whole thang planned out. I don’t even know why we bothered to come. Ya don’ already decided you gettin’ rid of us. You sellin’ us out fo’ some strangers!”
Hope tried again. “What did you say?”
Gracie’s voice was more insistent, almost panicky. “You’ve… incoming. All of you… there. Now.”
“You sold yourselves out, Lester. We’ve been talkin’ about this for years,” someone replied, trying to keep his voice calm also. “We put all the meetings in the circular. Ya’ll never showed up until now. It’s time for us to get serious about throwin’ these hoodlums outta here.”
Bam’s mother, Ms. Pearl, yelled back, “My boys ain’ no hoodlums! They might not be perfect, but ain’ nobody’s kids perfect.” Right after she said it, she took out her cell phone and left the sanctuary, whispering on a call.
The debate raged on. Someone pleaded now. “Ya’ll think it’s gon’ get betta if you let them come in heah, because they white? It’s not. White ain’t betta. They’re ruthless. Remember what they did to our ancestors? How they killed ‘em off? They’re just gon’ make thangs worse, take our property for theyselves, and crush our legacy. You mark my words.”
Hope got up and squeezed past everyone in the pew, rushing into the church foyer so she could hear Gracie better.
“What?” she said to Gracie, through the tiny microphone under her collar.
“There’s a car full of guys outside with guns! Get everybody out of there! Now!” Gracie yelled into Hope’s ear. Standing in the front foyer, Hope looked up. Outside the wide open church doors sat an older model Chevy Impala with very dark windows. One of the windows slid down and revealed a long double-barreled gun she had often heard about.
“Driveby!” Hope yelled, running back inside. “Driveby! Everybody, get down!”
Hope turned on her electricity-based security system. She started flipping the switches on her suit. The car was old, and thus made of metal. She had to try.
“Girl, is you playin’!” someone asked.
The windows shattered, glass blowing over people’s heads, spraying onto the pews. Neighbors ducked and screamed. Hope was already turning to exit the church. Dear Lord, I hope this isn't that stupid. Amen, she prayed. She ducked low as her remote controlled electrical balls rose where she had planted them nearby. They flew to her.
"Hope!" her parents screamed through the chaos.
Bullets ripped through the building. Pandemonium raged behind her, as people screamed, grabbing their children and pulling one another to the ground.
Her fingers reached for the bodysuit she wore under her clothes, as well as both of her gloves, all stored with electricity. She also remotely switched on the hidden generator under the train tracks that had saved electricity and now delivered it wirelessly. Hope looked at the guns poking out from the car, the fire exploding from them. Cowering, she moved toward them.
“Hope, are you getting out of there?” Gracie’s voice asked through the earpiece.
“Uhh... yeah.”
As she got closer to the car, its brake lights went out. The headlights started to flash and flicker. The bullets started turning. The bullets slowed. The presence of electricity in the atmosphere was working. Electricity flowed everywhere. Nearby metal objects-- street signs, the building sign, aluminum cans, trash barrels-- slid to her.
It finally happened. The bullets moved slow now, and Hope could see them before they fell, like small wads of gum near the church walls. She moved so the guys in the car would not see her approaching the back of the car.
Hope heard Gracie’s voice in her ear again. “Please tell me you’re not doing what it looks like you’re doing.”
Hope walked fast, moving close enough to hear them argue through the open windows.
“Man, point that thing in the right direction!”
“I am! It’s like the bullets are going the wrong way!”
“Fool, Imma knock you the wrong way!”
She increased the attraction of electricity flow from near the railroad tracks.
“Somebody’s over here! Back there!” she heard a voice exclaim, and they all turned to look behind the car.
“It’s that damn girl, the nerd,” one of them said. “Man, go!”
Suddenly, Hope’s feet left the ground. She felt her body propelled upward, in the air and over the car. She kicked her legs to lower herself back down, not expecting this. She had too much electricity, and the voltage sent her flying. Objects began flying around in their car. Hope saw the guns disappear from the windows. Everything made of metal for about 100 feet began flying toward her-- fences, chains, toolboxes and tools, shovels, yard rakes. Hope started batting them away and dodging them.
Inside the gangbangers' car was clanging.
“The car won’t move!” she heard one of the guys yell.
The car ignition sputtering as the driver tried to turn it. She had likely drained the car of its electricity, and the car had stalled. Unable to reach the ground, she kicked out her foot and hooked it in the windshield wiper. She pushed her feet downward, hooking her toes onto parts of the car to leverage herself against the pull of the electro magnetic field. As her feet finally reached the ground again, she reached her hand under the hood to keep herself from flying away. Hope now levitated directly in front of the windshield. The clanking inside the car were the guns, now attached to the windshield. On the other side sat three young black guys every bit as shocked as she.
“Man, move the freakin’ car!”
“It’s stallin’! It won’t come back on.” The ignition turned some more.
“You got a gun. Use it!”
“She’s a kid!”
“Use it!”
The shooter pulled the gun from the windshield where it was stuck, and wrestled it from the electromagnetic pull, before finally pointing it at Hope. Objects still clanged in the air, so the electromagnetism was still working. Hope did not move. His finger pulled the trigger. The bullets protruded like spit from somebody’s mouth, tapped the inside of the windshield, and fell. Silence. The car doors flung open. Three guys got out. Their feet hit the pavement, taking off running. As Hope watched them run, the car remained. She couldn’t believe it.
“Your … pressed,” Gracie’s voice protruded into her ear.
Somewhere beyond her heart beating in her ears, Hope heard background noise. It was clapping. She turned toward the church where her neighbors stood right inside the blown out windows. At the end of their outstretched arms, cell phones pointed directly at Hope.
Hope then remembered to turn off the switches on the suit. Debris stopped flying. Hope spoke into her collar at Gracie, “What did you say?”
“Hope!” she heard a familiar angry scream. “You are in big trouble, young lady!”
“Never mind,” Gracie said.
Hope sighed. “No, really. What did you say?”
“I said your mom doesn’t look impressed.”