by Kipjo Ewers
However, she could not stomach nor condone the lies and deception used to embark on her little voyage.
As much as she hated to do it, some strict law and order had to be enforced when they returned home.
The second they landed back onto the soil of Sanctuary and Sophia chased her daughter back into their house, a nervous Kimberly already had her hands up attempting to reason with her angry mother.
“Mom … mom, let me explain!” She began with a jittery voice.” You see …what had happened was …”
“You say one more word young lady, and I’m going to literally knock you into Africa!” Sophia roared. “Go upstairs, take off the suit, the bracers, and boots and bring them downstairs to me right now!”
“No …” whispered a defiant Kimberly.
Sophia paused with a stuck look on her face attempting to register what her child just said to her.
“What did you just say to me?”
“I said …no,” Kimberly said with a louder voice. “Erica gave this to me! I didn’t do anything wrong, mom! I get straight A’s in school! I don’t get into any trouble! All I wanted to do was go to Mars! I wasn’t hurting anyone!”
“Are you done?” Sophia asked with blazing eyes, “You lied and deceived me! We’ve been to the moon, how hard would it have been to ask me to take a trip to Mars?”
“I …I didn’t think …”
“No, you didn’t think!” Sophia snapped while advancing toward her. “Did you think what being in that prolonged atmosphere would do to you, or what would happen if you got in trouble out there? Did you think about what would happen if you did make it to Mars and you got in trouble there, who would come to your aide Kimberly, who?”
“I … I ….”
“No one, no one would have been there to help you! You are not an adult, and you are not invincible young lady!” Sophia roared at her. “You are a child! My child! Now I’m going to tell you again. Go upstairs, take off the suit and gear and bring it down to me …right …now.”
A trembling Kimberly folded her arms and stood her ground refusing to budge. It caused a sinister chuckle to come from her mother as she looked up to the heavens in disbelief.
“Dis rawtid pickney aw really try fee test me today?”
Sophia took several steps now towering over her daughter with her fists clenched. A rattled and intimidated Kimberly slowly unfolded her arms looking up at her.
“Me ah go say dis one time,” Sophia growled. “I am not your friend, and you are not going to be one of dem likle disrespectful brats who tink dem can say anyting dem want to dem parents. Ah me ah yah madda, whatever happened in the past happened, and you chose to come home, which means until you turn eighteen, your little ass belongs to me, and in this house …there is only one woman …and one child. Now, I have tried to be diplomatic, and I have tried reasoning, but you seem to be picking and choosing what you want to respond to, and that does not fly with me. Now this will be the final time I am going to tell you to go upstairs and do what I told you to do. And I’m only giving you to the count of two …one.”
A dejected and pouting Kimberly turned and stomped away heading upstairs.
“Keep it up, and let me find one crack or splinter on these floors or steps young lady!” Sophia warned. “And God help you if you slam that door!”
She heard the attempted door slam before it stopped and was quietly closed. A mentally exhausted Sophia sat at the foot of her bedroom steps saddened by what just happened, as a realization washed over her.
“Great …I just became my mother.”
After she confiscated Kimberly’s suit, she grounded her for three months which included supervised flights to school and back. For the times, she had to fly alone, Vincent monitored her flight pattern by tracking her Smartphone. She was given limited phone usage, additional chores, a set curfew to hang out with a friend on and off the island, and her video games were also taken for the duration of the three months. Computer time was only limited to doing homework.
The aftermath of the Mars incident set their relationship backward several steps. Sophia assumed the role of a stricter mother, while Kimberly took the part of the angry child who did what she was told with visible reluctance. The playful mother-daughter closeness they began to forge had disappeared, which was heartbreaking for Sophia, and she knew not how to get it back after that day or to find the balance.
All she knew was that “strict mom Sophia” kept her daughter and the world in check and safe. A necessary sacrifice she would have to endure for now.
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Coming back from her memories, a defeated Sophia fell against one of the lab tables with her shoulders slumped.
“She’s changing, and I don’t know how to slow it down. School bores her, children her own age are beginning to bore her. She figured out how to fly without overexerting the bioenergy with her. She then taught me. The two things she loves to do are pushing the upper limits of her powers and visiting her grandparents. In a few years, she’s not going to need me anymore …I don’t even think she needs me now.”
“Someone once told me, as powerful as they are they can’t hug themselves even when they are at their lowest.” Erica lectured.
Sophia lifted her head displaying a slight smirk.
“There isn’t a kid out there that doesn’t need their parents,” Erica said with an eye roll, “especially their mothers. Just give her time.”
“What she needs is mental stimulation on a highly advanced and complex level and a way to push her abilities to its upper limits until she’s content,” Sophia formulated. “But with my current responsibilities which now entail being a superhero, I don’t have a clue how to accomplish that.”
“Why don’t you let her hang out with me?” Erica shrugged.
Sophia stood there with an awkward deer in headlights expression on her face.
“Are you seriously looking at me like I’d be a bad influence on your daughter?” she scowled.
“I did not say that,” Sophia defensively held up her hands.
“Then you’re looking at me like I’d have her up in here like a lab rat!”
“I didn’t say that either!” She squeaked while attempting to inconspicuously shift her eyes.
Erica narrowed her eyes as she strolled up to stand closer to her friend and elder for a heart to heart.
“Let’s converse as two people who have their degrees in psychiatry, and not as one who dropped a kid, and one who didn’t. Kimberly and I may not be the same age-wise,” Erica said while folding her arms. “But I’ve been where she is, and still feel it from time to time, out of place. Majority of current EVOs are in their late teens and older, while the new generation is still among infants to early grade school. With me, she’d be hanging out with someone who looks her age, can mentally get her, and be a big sister to her. Not to mention she can come here, and cut loose in a place where she can learn to properly control her abilities.”
“Allow my kid to hang out on a government base,” Sophia sarcastically smirked while folding her own arms. “Yeah, I’m really going to win mother of the year.”
“We both know instilling fear is A) not very productive, and B) has an age limit. Right now, she’s compliant and brooding, eventually as she gets older she will resort back to acting out again,” Erica said with narrowed eyes. “And as she keeps getting older and stronger, she’s neither going to be afraid of nor is she going to want to listen to you anymore.”
Erica’s grim outlook made her nervously shift her stance a bit.
“I would try all peaceful avenues before it gets to that point.”
“Mom! Mommy! Mom! Mom!” A deep growling cybernetic voice echoed from the outside hanger.
It was followed by thunderous foot stomping which caused Erica to palm her face and then turn her hand into a claw as she wished she could rip her forehead off.
“I think, that’s for yo
u … ‘mom,’” Sophia pointed.
Erica stormed out of the lab with her following into the massive hanger of the Ranch.
“Oh! Oh my god!” A startled Sophia squeaked.
Erica gave her an irritated side eye.
“Seriously? You’ve fought cannibalistic superhumans, but this makes you jump?”
“Sorry, he’s just a little bit jarring to look at,” Sophia said sheepishly. “Especially when he looks like that.”
Standing before them was Sam, Erica’s former battle armor, now a fully functional cybernetic automaton likes his sisters. Except for this time, Sam was walking around without his armored shell. His black, and slate grey synthetic skin, massive muscular body, four-digit fingers, digitigrade legs and feet, blank face, and slant glowing yellow eyes made him look like an alien life form from another planet than a hulking android.
“Sam!” Erica yelled at him. “What did I tell you about walking around here with no clothes or armor plating?”
“Not to do it,” he groaned out his answer.
“Why?”
“Because it looks like I am naked, and it’s indecent.”
“Where’s the jumpsuit I fabricated for you?”
“Stupid Buster ripped it,” he answered pointing.
“El cielo me ayude, no necesito quedarme embarazada,” she muttered. “Buster, get over here!”
“Buster?” Sophia scowled her face.
Her eyes widened to the heavy metallic thumping sound that she felt through the floor and grew louder the closer it got. As she looked up, her eyes continued to expand to the point that they might fall out.
It was four-legged and massive, twice the size of SAM. It’s long thick metallic tail hovered in the air as it swung back and forth while its glowing yellow eyes curiously locked onto Sophia as it tilted its humongous horned head while in its mouth hung a large piece of silver and blue torn clothing.
“A dragon … you built … a dragon.”
“Yep,” Erica proudly nodded.
“Why?”
“I was bored,” she huffed. “And they’re in. Buster, did you rip Sam’s jumpsuit?”
The metallic behemoth purred while bashfully nodding its head.
“Roughhousing, right?”
It gave another shameful nod.
She stuck a finger in its face.
“I’m going to say it again; if you two can’t play nice, then you won’t play at all. You want me to put you in time out?”
It quickly shook its head no.
“Then do not rip your brother’s clothes again,” she warned while pulling the torn cloth from its mouth. “Jennifer!”
The purple and black haired female android strolled out of the lab with a teenage angst expression on her face.
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me?” Erica scowled, “Go take your brother and get another jumpsuit made for him!”
“Why can’t he do it his damn self!?” She yelled.
“¡Chica, estás seriamente probar mi paciencia, y dos segundos de un tiempo fuera!” She screamed. “¡Toma tu culo irrespetuoso, e ir a poner ropa a tu hermano! ¡Ahora!”
“Vamos, gran bebé!” Jennifer stormed off pouting.
“Jennifer is a stupid head,” Sam muttered as it stomped off following her.
“You’re a stupid head,” she spat back.
“You both are two seconds from a time out!” Erica screamed at them.
During the family spat, Buster stomped over to Sophia curiously scanning and analyzing her. She leaned back a bit holding a hand up to it with her palm outward like one would do a real animal.
“Easy boy,” she swallowed. “Easy.”
“Its A.I. is only two weeks old, so it’s still learning. Go ahead, give him a touch.” Erica brightly gestured. “He won’t bite.”
Sophia cautiously extended her hand, placing her palm on the side of its long serpent neck. Her eyebrows knitted together in bewilderment, as she felt something funny about its “metal scale skin.” With a bit of force, she realized that her hand could push inward making a slight imprint. Upon release, the metal skin snapped back into place.
“Flex metal, similar to Sam’s inner skin,” Eric smirked. “Greatly minimizes blunt force impact.”
It began wagging its tail while nuzzling its face against her hand.
“Let me guess, not your brain pattern,” Sophia observed.
“It belonged to my dog Akuma,” Erica answered. “A beautiful black and white Pitbull, he passed away at the age of sixteen. Had to do a bit of modifying so that it understood it was in the body of a mechanized dragon and not a dog.”
“Question, of all your children, why does Maxine show the least emotion?”
“She didn’t see the need for it,” Erica shrugged. “She can explore emotions like her brothers and sisters, but she decided that emotions were only useful for intimate and sexual interactions. And since she can’t feel pleasure or reproduce, she had no need for it. It pops out from time to time whenever her siblings do something they’re not supposed to be doing.”
“On another matter, how’s your investigation on the Tarapur Atomic Power Station incident?”
The question brought back Erica’s brooding scowl.
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Almost eleven months ago, both Sophia and the Regulators were alerted to the Tarapur Atomic Power Station in India losing complete power in a matter of minutes. Upon arriving, they discovered that someone or something put a humongous hole in the side of the main reactor and drained all of the energy. All cameras, however, went down at the time of the breach, none of the alarms in the facility went off. None the twenty-five employees present that night which included security, engineers, technicians, operators, and janitors knew or saw anything or anyone until the station was already drained.
Erica ran a spectrum of scans from DNA to fingerprint and could not find any trace of who or what caused the drain.
The return of Peace was instantly ruled out due to Erica’s new sensor system attuned to her energy frequency capable of detecting her the second she got past the distance of Jupiter.
The consensus was that a superhuman was the culprit. The EVO responsible has both eluded, confounded, and frustrated Erica to no end.
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Sophia was not shocked by Erica’s demeanor knowing that it was a sensitive topic that would set her off, nor her cold response.
“Still nada.”
To prevent awkwardness from sneaking in, Sophia decided to quickly change the topic.
“So, how are our former Zombie Nation members?”
“Still locked up in the psychiatric section of the new Purgatory,” Erica sighed.
Thanks to a boost in their budget the Regulators were able to move the superhuman prison facility from underneath the Ranch. They took a page out of comic books planting it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was the first fully automated federal prison for EVOs, ran by a Replicator staff along with Erica’s revamped security of Doozers providing extra muscle and firepower.
“Angela Waters, formerly known as Wendigo, is responding very well to weekly sessions. She has her episodes here and there, but I finally got her to verbally communicate with me last week. Angela’s very soft and intelligent; when she’s by herself, she attempts to draw out her power from the little sound wave of music we play in her room. It’s not enough to do any type of damage; she usually uses it to create sonic constructs of spheres or discs to fly around her room. She’s completely different from the individual we fought almost a year ago.
I haven’t heard it from her lips yet, but I think it’s kinda apparent her state of mind was altered after her abduction at the hands of other members of the Zombie Nation.”
“Have her parents come to see her yet?”
“No,” Erica exhaled.
; “What about Mr. Westgate?”
Erica’s face changed to one of mixed disgust or uncomfortably at the mention of his name.
“Michael Westgate formerly known as Anchimayen, who will only answer to Anchimayen, is a textbook sociopath with psychopathic tendencies, and no argument you put forth is going to change my findings on that.”
An uncomfortable tension spewed out of nowhere between the two as Sophia narrowed her eyes at an unintimidated Erica staring back at her.
“Erica …”
“He enjoys murdering, and he’s only seven.” Erica cut her off. “You’ve seen the sessions and heard them with your own ears. His pleasure of choice is using his telekinesis to rack people, and then slowly tear their limbs off one by one. His youngest victims were three years old, and he enjoys it so much that he pleasures himself to the act. He has a complete and total understanding of what he’s done and no remorse for any kind. That is not a child that is a monster in the making, whose abilities will only increase as he ages. If it weren't for our current laws, I’d have him executed after three sessions.”
“What about exile?” Sophia suggested. “It worked for the other members.”
“You guys decided on exile,” Erica steely reminded her. “I wanted the ax man for all of them, not to send them off to be someone else’s problem in the universe.”
Sophia sadly shook her head.
“Erica …you don’t want this on your conscience.”
She took a bold step forward toward Sophia locking eyes with her.
“He said the second he finds a way to get free, he will kill millions …billions with just a thought, and in the most excruciating way possible. Make them all believe they are drowning until their hearts stop. His second option is to do what he did in Manhattan to escape the first time but on a global scale.