Read Online Emergence by Various - Free Book Online Page A

some casinos today. What do you say?”
    Bullet grinned.
    It was time to go all in.
     

We Could Be Heroes
    Eloise J. Knapp
     
    Now…
     
    Vlad reached out to give the cashier money for his candy bar. A chipped name tag pinned to the cashier’s shirt read “Dimitri.” When Vlad’s skin made contact with the old man’s hand, he saw what Dimitri had for dinner. He saw his thoughts during his smoke break, the agony he was in over the recent loss of his wife, how he replayed seeing her on her deathbed six times before his break came to an end.
    The memories and sensations were fleeting. Vlad saw as much as he could in the split seconds his fingers brushed Dimitri’s outstretched palm. He was used to this now. His face didn’t betray what he’d just seen, though his own heart felt the phantom burden of the old man’s feelings as if they were his own.
    Dimitri blinked slowly. “Did you say something?”
    “No, why?” Vlad asked, curious. People normally didn’t feel his presence inside their minds. Over the years he’d only encountered one or two.
    Dimitri shook his head, made Vlad’s change, and shoved the candy bar towards him. “Have a good night.”
    Vlad took the treat and left the shop. By the time he crossed the street and resumed his position outside the nightclub, he’d mostly forgotten the old man’s memories. When he was a boy, he clung to all kinds of memories, from mundane thoughts to life changing events. Especially the good ones. But keeping them clouded his mind.
    As much as he wanted to keep some of them, it was best to free them. It was too easy to stay in the ghost word they offered, and they didn’t belong to him anyway. If it were up to him, he’d never use his powers. It would mean no physical contact with another human being, but it also meant he wouldn’t be violating their deepest, darkest thoughts.
    His attention drifted to the front of the nightclub. Bass thumped inside the windowless, squat building. A sign hung behind the bouncer on the club’s metal door, ‘No chimerics! ’, as if there was a need for it. As if a chimeric in Moscow, or anywhere in Russia, would feel comfortable enough to even walk the streets. He was willing to bet the only chimeric with enough guts to show his face was Pecos, the hero from Texas in America. Now there was a superhero. He was tougher than any chimeric Vlad had heard of. He used a steel cable lasso like a cowboy. Many Russians fancied the idea of the American Old West and cowboy culture. Vlad was one of them.
    If he had any choice in the matter, he’d be thousands of miles away from Russia. Like every other night they spent in Moscow, he did not want to be there. He didn’t want to be home, either, but at least here he had some feeling of freedom. Here Cheslav wasn’t breathing down his neck, beating him senseless because he was unhappy with what they’d brought home.
    The club’s neon green sign cast an odd glow on the snow drifting from the sky, heaps of it pushed aside on the sidewalk and road. Vlad stared at it like a moth to light while he gnawed on the candy bar. Lucy was late. Typically, when they hit a club, she tried to get a mark in the first hour or two. It was nearing four. Vlad stood no chance of getting into the club—not with his over-sized, beat-up parka and ripped jeans—and had to wait for her.
    Music swelled and became clear as a group stumbled out of the building. They looked about his own age, eighteen, perhaps students. Curious, Vlad watched them. There were two girls and three guys. The guys helped both girls, obviously drunk from their sluggish, uncoordinated movements, with their jackets. They laughed and nudged each other, joking, then headed in the direction of the university. Vlad wondered what it would be like to go to school, to make friends, to…
    Lucy exited the club after the group, hanging off the arm of the mark. The mark wore a striped suit, the collar loose, tie nowhere in sight. Even from where Vlad