Apocalypse Parenting

Does anyone have an accurate count on the attack force’s Intensifiers? Or a good estimate for how many Shards will be required to take down a Threat of this size?

– Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

Group up! Get close to someone with Invulnerability and get down!

I dashed toward my boys as I made my panicked Announcement, coating the ground in red arrows oriented toward my position.

It was a major effort from one of my weaker abilities, but this was an emergency. With my 360-degree vision, I could see everyone looking at me in shared panic. George, Priya, the kids, and myself all had a second of Invulnerability, and many of the soldiers ought to as well. The Arsenal had been prioritizing acquiring Invulnerability since we’d discovered it a few days prior.

I wondered if some of us ought to hold back and save our Invulnerability for later, but I discarded the thought immediately. There was no time to organize something like that, and even if there had been, the image of the too-still body being dragged away from the other root was fresh in my mind.

We had a lot of people to protect.

Samar, another little girl.

My sons.

Overkill is fine. Just let it be enough.

A dozen of us lifted our arms as the world grew dark, and I waited as long as I could bear to activate my Invulnerability. Even though I was pretty sure I had just seen Invulnerability save a man minutes before, part of me was convinced I was about to die anyway, victim of a cruel joke or mistranslation.

My fingers met the bark first, one hand intact, the other maimed, but both held overhead, tiny against the ponderous weight falling upon us.

I would have flinched if I’d been able to move, but activating Invulnerability had left me unable to twitch. I was frozen with my face tilted upward and my eyes held open. The tree was pulverized as it met my fingertips, splinters and dust ricocheting off my frozen body almost too quickly to perceive, obscuring my vision in a split second.

My rearview eyes stayed clear a microsecond longer. Micah had thrown himself on top of Gavin, crablike, staring up at the tree while using his body to shield his brother. Even the shadows cast by our impending doom couldn’t hide the terror on his face. I had just enough time to catch what I thought was the sheen of an invulnerability shield before I lost sight of them.

Be okay, I prayed.

I was enveloped by darkness, my body plunging inside the bulk of a branch like a well-hammered nail.

For a moment, nothing else happened. I had just started to wonder how long a second really was when the invulnerability dropped.

My fingers cried out in immediate agony, and I started to drop before stiffening.

No! I can’t let it hit my kids.

There’s no way I can hold this branch up, though… It’s so huge… Shouldn’t it already be resting on the ground?

It’s not, though!

The branch dominated my Life Sense, but I could still dimly feel others around me. Several stood upright, helping me bear the weight of the monstrous tree limb. Others were rolling or squirming around on the ground, confirmation that, somehow, incomprehensibly, we’d halted the branch’s descent.

I braced myself resolutely, prepared to tear every muscle and snap every bone in my body before I let the weight fall. Sawdust still swirled, stinging my eyes whenever I dared open them, but my Life Sense confirmed that my boys were alive. So far.

I should have held my arms out to my sides… I could have made a larger hole if I’d spread my body out more. The fact that the branch stopped doesn’t make any sense… I should have been focused on tearing a larger hollow for them to shelter in.

Something to keep in mind the next time I activate my Invulnerability to keep my family from being crushed by a lumberjack’s fever dream… Oh, God...

When the branch finally began pulling away, I could have collapsed to my knees and wept… but there was no time. My kids were still in danger.

Floor 2! Run! We need to get out of here before it attacks again!

Flyers swooped in to attack the moment the branch lifted away. My section of fencing had been crushed into a twisted mess and half-embedded into the ground. After a quick mental tug, I abandoned it: Telekinesis wouldn’t be enough to extricate it, and there was no time to stop and try anything else. Blessedly, my Invulnerability had extended to my clothes and backpack, but that protection had been gone by the time the branch withdrew. There must be a rip in my pack somewhere, because some of my weapons had fallen to the ground behind me.

I mentally grabbed what I could and set five items circling above our heads. All of it together was less effective than my single fence panel, but the birds were a minor, distant concern.

They could make us bleed, but another hit from the treezilla…

I scooped up my boys and began running. They made an awkward bundle, but at least my enhanced strength made them feather-light.

Pains I hadn’t even noticed faded and the fingers of my left hand straightened, making me gasp at a brief flare of pain.

Work done, Gavin squirmed his way free of my grip and yanked Micah from my arms. I let him take his older brother, knowing my middle son’s focus on the physical made him stronger and faster than even my twelve Abilities made me.

I still sent most of my floating weapons to keep the flyers off his back.

For his own part, Micah looked chagrined, but didn’t struggle. In general, he’d adapted well to his misshapen foot, but he’d already stumbled several times during our assault, thrown off by the uneven ground. The retreating bulk of the tree branch was a strong reminder that this was not the time to mess around.

“Run as fast as you can, Gavin!” I yelled, then activated Analyze and scanned the side of the tree, looking for Helen and the Ground Floor team.

There! I highlighted their location with an orange star, then frowned as I realized my chosen color stood out poorly against the tree’s pink bark and redid my hologram to edge the star in a stark black.

I couldn’t keep up with my boys, but several of the escorts could. The guards had started to use abilities profligately, smoothing terrain and rescuing the fallen. One woman even blasted a massive tunnel through the ruins of the burger joint. The route she cleared wasn't any wider than the chute we were currently running down, but at least our force would be spread out among two different places.

I was all-too-aware that our Invulnerability was spent.

From here on out, it was “dodge or die.”

As my boys rocketed ahead, I split my focus, counting up the rest of the group.

All the kids who’d made it into the doom corridor were still alive, and I saw the two other small children running with their escorts along the top of the fallen branch, a brilliant plan I wished I’d thought of. As long as they could keep their footing while they ran, they’d be able to dodge to either side at need.

Malia and her family were also atop the branch, but no longer moving forward. They seemed to be arguing with their escorts. They were all still alive, though, so I didn’t dwell on them.

We’d lost two of our group. Soldiers.

They’d died to my dumb decision.

I hadn’t even noticed them fade from Life Sense during my panic, but they were glaringly obvious now. My eyes registered them, held against the shoulders of their healthy compatriots, but Life Sense didn’t. The space their bodies occupied was hollow and empty.

My stupid fault.

After I’d accepted command.

Focus, I chastised myself. Blame yourself later. It’s too late for them now, but you’ve got more than sixty others still counting on you.

The branch that had attacked us was easy to pick out, its underside pitted by numerous holes. Now that it had lifted into the air, leaving a rain of splinters and sawdust behind, I could see that it wasn’t solid. A thick layer of bark surrounded a criss-crossing framework of internal supports, and those, too, had been damaged.

The branch itself was moving slowly and a little erratically, its jerky motions proof that the harm it had suffered was more than cosmetic.

It reached maximum height and started to curl back. As it did, I noticed flyers spinning away from the ruined burger joint to my right.

Could it be…?

On instinct, I flashed arrows on the ground, directing people within the area to follow the birds. A soldier vaulted over the remains of a drive-through window with a little girl in her arms, the child’s family and other soldiers scrambling just behind.

The branch started to fall toward us, but Analyze confirmed that our position was safe. The branch was set to land beside us, exactly where I’d predicted.

It hit the ground with a deafening boom, pulverizing the ruined restaurant and throwing a hail of debris our way. A flock of birds wheeled back into the space they’d vacated, having dodged the branch by mere inches.

I knew it! I knew it!

The hit - safely dodged by my allies - bought us a few more seconds of safety as it withdrew. I scanned my Ability-perfect memories of the last several minutes, attempting to confirm what I thought I’d realized.

It wasn’t obvious. The flocks of birds were constantly wheeling, changing direction and focusing on new targets. But… I had no memories of a single one being swatted from the air by their monstrous parent.

There were so many birds.

There was no way that was an accident.

Stay under the birds! They know where the tree will hit!

I’d blasted the Announcement out at my maximum range and stumbled, a wave of exhaustion cutting through my adrenaline. I’d been leaning heavily on my least powerful abilities, and it was taking its toll.

A soldier scooped me up, throwing me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. It was awkward and undignified, but he was moving faster than I had been. He glanced up from time to time, making sure there were birds overhead.

I heard Colonel Zwerinski’s voice repeating my Announcement, spreading my warning to the entire battlefield. I saw another branch hit, but its targets were well clear. Watching the birds only gave us an extra two or three seconds of warning, but that was enough to make a large difference.

My ride slowed as he reached the base of the tree, and he set me down gently in the large crowd that stood just outside, holding onto me for a second as if making sure I could stand. I patted his hand in thanks and stepped away, glancing inside the entryway. My sons were standing in small cavern, and Micah looked unaccountably delighted. I gave him a little nod of acknowledgement. Yes, kid, I was carried too.

His good mood was inappropriate, but he probably hadn’t noticed the deaths and I didn’t feel inclined to enlighten him. He’d been taking things seriously; scaring him was unnecessary.

Helen was keeping a thin collar of stone in place, preventing bark from sealing over the entrance. I peered inside the cavern and saw that the tree’s interior was filled with the same higgledy-pigglety supporting spars as the inside of the branch. A team with axes were chopping at the supports to varying effect. Sometimes their axes sliced them up easily, but on other strikes the weapons bounced off. My boys’ escort was inside the tree as well, fending off a constant stream of evil birds and weasels that were emerging from deeper within the treezilla.

The tree’s invulnerability - we’ve been dealing more damage to it as it attacks us, keeping it very close to the threshold where it won’t take damage anymore. We’re having to wait for it to regenerate in order to make progress inside. That’s probably why the branch didn’t smash all the way to the ground when it attacked us. We damaged it until we took it back to the threshold. Then, for an instant, it was invulnerable and so were we. When our invulnerability dropped, it had already spent its momentum and was just an enormous heavy thing.

Helen nodded as she saw comprehension dawn on my face. “Yeah. It's a shame, but people shouldn't hesitate to keep themselves safe. The branches and roots can’t seem to attack inside its own trunk, and we've got a little space clear. We can all crowd inside if we have to dodge an attack.”

Meghan, I have information for you.

The colonel’s voice echoed in my head. I flinched, guilty. “I’m sorry! I-”

No time for that. What I wanted you to know was that your Floor 2’s team just got seven people smaller. Malia’s father insisted that his family withdraw to safety, and I ordered Malia’s personal guards to escort them out of the danger zone.

I winced. “So we're down an Intensifier. Have we lost any others?”

One.

I didn’t ask the colonel if we’d still have enough.

I knew he didn’t know either.