Pythia nods, her smile lights her eyes and she speaks, “Amelia, humanity is in great danger. Fifteen years ago we had an infinite amount of futures. A year ago we had thousands. Six months ago, a few hundred.”
A lump forms in my throat, I don’t like where this is going. “And now?”
“Two,” she says quietly.
“I take it these two options aren’t awesome?”
She shakes her head. “Something terrible is coming. There is nothing that can stop it. Sydney and I have tried. Whatever is coming can… hide from us, I don’t know how. No action we take makes a difference for long. We’ve delayed for as long as we can and honestly I don’t know if we’ve made it worse or better.” She sighs with a shake of her head. Whatever else she might be, she genuinely cares I can see it in her eyes. “Three months ago things changed. I don’t know exactly how, but your team had just defeated The Creature when it happened. We went from one horrible future to two. At first, I thought this was good… but it isn’t, Amelia. Whatever force is driving humanity forward, it’s driving them toward slavery and despotism. A tyranny unlike the world has ever seen.”
I… I knew something bad was out there. Whoever took my parents, the people behind the weapons and the robots, the mind control… they had to have a plan and the only plan that made sense was this. Her words make more than one thing click into place. They want to conquer the world. As crazy as it sounds, it makes sense. A sufficiently powerful telepath could do it. Hitler was the last person to try and even he knew he couldn’t have it all. No Army could ever keep the whole world in check, but a telepath? Yeah, they could… maybe. It would have to be one crazy powerful telepath, though.
“I don’t know how they’re hiding from you, but they can’t hide from me. They took my parents, Pythia, they took my life. And now you’re telling me they will take even more from everyone I care about? No worries, you may not be able to stop them, but I can.” This is exactly what I needed. Independent confirmation. Her crazy aside, she obviously knows the whole story which means I’m on the right track.
“No, Amelia.” her voice pulls my soul and I can see the sorrow in her eyes as she speaks. “Despotism is the best outcome. The other, the one where you continue your crusade, it ends with the death of humanity. The extinction of your people from the face of the Earth. For the good of the future, Amelia Lockheart, you must stop. Let events take their natural course. In a few centuries, the natural ebb and flow of humanity will correct the wrong and overthrow the shackles of tyranny. However, this is the only future humanity has. You must let it play out. If you don’t stop, if you don’t let it go, then humanity has no future, because there won’t be any humans left.”
49
A famous religious passage says there is nothing new under the sun. I respectfully disagree.
-Notes On an Electronic Life, by Epic
The screen shakes as GAME OVER scrolls across. My avatar lies dead and Carlos chuckles as he pops another Coke.
“Someone’s on fire,” he says before swallowing half the can in a few seconds.
I try to care, but Pythia’s words have haunted me since I returned. All of this, laid in a grave and I’m the one who’s going to cause it? I don’t know how to be okay with ending humanity? Do I believe she is the Oracle of Delphi? The prophetess of Apollo? No. But, results speak for themselves. Whatever power she has is real, regardless of where it comes from. The evidence is too great to deny it.
“Amelia? Hello?” Carlos waves his hands in front of my face. He’s crouched down looking up at me with his puppy dog eyes.
“You’ve been staring off into space for a good minute, everything okay?”
“Sorry… sorry,” I run a hand through my hair, “Hero stuff on my mind.”
“I can tell; I don’t think I’ve ever beat you three times in a row. What’s going on?”
I want to tell him about my parents about everything. How do I say, “An immortal oracle of an ancient god told me if I don’t stop going after the man who stole my parents I’m going to destroy the world…”
I shake my head. I can’t tell anyone except Kate. At best people might think I’ve lost my mind. Not to mention this knowledge would put him in real danger. His only defense is he doesn’t know anything. For me, I don’t leave my lab unless I’m armored and Kate has her own defenses. No one else does.
“Is it trouble between you and Luke?” He stands to lean against the wall and finish his soda. Carlos has always been a good friend, ever since we were sixteen. If anyone deserves to know, it’s him.
But deserves got nothing to do with it.
Instead, I get the bright idea to tell him about my pet project.
“No, really. Luke and I are fine, though we haven’t spent nearly enough time together lately.”
“Where is the hombre?”
“Him, Fleet, and Perfect are on a special mission for the Governor. She flew to DC for a conference and took the boys as a special security detail. Show the flag, so-to-speak.”
He nods. “So what’s on your mind then?”
“Artemis,” I lie. I hate lying to him. Add another grievance I am going to extract in flesh from the person responsible for all of my pain.
“I don’t follow?”
I pull the breaks off and roll over to my computer screen, waving at the second of three monitors. Epic senses the movement and brings it to life. The screen lights up with a video of Earth from orbit.
“I’ve seen this channel,” Carlos says as he walks over to lean on the desk, “Anyone can tune into the camera on the ISS.”
“Oh, this isn’t ISS. Epic, zoom.”
The image blurs and we’re looking at a slightly angled image of Phoenix. Another blur and the image shifts to our HQ.
“Pop the window,” I order. The metal storm shutter creeks up as the image of our HQ on the video does the same.
“Holy crap!” Carlos runs to the window. He opens the glass and sticks his head out, hand frantically waving in the air. Looking back over his shoulder so he can see himself.
“You have your own spy satellite? That can’t be legal…”
I start to respond then stop, it never occurred to me it might be illegal. I know there’s a treaty against weapons in space, but that’s for governments.
“I’m not sure if it is legal, but what country’s laws am I violating? It’s space, I’m pretty sure it’s past the twelve-mile limit,” I say with a grin.
“That is frickin cool!”
The door slides open, revealing Kate and Glacier. Carlos spins around so fast he loses his balance. Stepping sideways, he tries to recover and ends up driving himself into the beanbag chair he favors for playing games.
I shake my head, Kate rolls her eyes and Glacier giggles. I couldn’t be more surprised at the ice queen if she suddenly turned human.
“Hi,” Carlos says from his half-fallen, half-laying position on the bag.
“Suave,” I say. I’m actually glad he fell. I don’t want anyone else knowing about Artemis and I haven’t had the chance to tell Kate. I may never have to use her but if I do, I want it to be a surprise. You can’t defend against what you can’t see coming.
Kate throws a glance my way, an eyebrow quirking up. Crap. She can probably sense my desire to keep Artemis hidden. I flip the monitor off and rely on Epic to take care of the rest. The window closes and the shutter rolls down into place.
“Carlos, this is Glacier, she’s the newest member.”
Carlos scrambles up pulling his shirt down and takes his ‘cool’ stance before muttering a ‘hey’ at our resident ice elemental. To my utter surprise, she actually smiles at him and does a little wave. I can tell it’s caught Kate off guard too, she gives them both a look before returning to me.
“Amelia, you mind if we talk for a moment?”
“Sure, Carlos can you show Glacier the break room?”
He stands up straight like he’s just been ordered to protect the Queen of England, “Of course. Uhm, I
guess you probably don’t eat, huh?”
Good one Carlos, stick that foot right in your mouth.
“No,” she shakes her head. “You can call me Monica,” she says. Carlos walks over to join her. I can’t really read her expression, the ice moves exactly as human flesh would, but being partially see-through makes it impossible to read the minutia.
“Well, then maybe I can interest you in a game of foosball?”
“You’re on,” she says as they walk out together.
“Should I be jealous?” Kate asks after the two leave.
“Maybe?” Kate isn’t serious, of course. Carlos, like virtually every other man in her life, crushes hard on her. But as she told me, it isn’t her, it’s her powers. Part of being an empath is everyone feels a connection to her, even if she doesn’t reciprocate. It just so happens my armor protected me when we first met. Our friendship is actually a friendship. It’s why she could teleport to me shortly after we met. Something that normally takes weeks or even months of knowing a person.
“Two things,” Kate says as she slides her shapely bottom onto my desk, “Any progress on Glacier? I know she’s hard to read but she really has built up some hope that you’re the real deal.”
I wheel myself back and spin around to my research station. I have the lab set up in parts. Armor maintenance, utility, and active research. Utility covers Artemis and just about anything I’m actively doing that isn’t the other two. My research station is farthest from the door and the most powerful quantum computer I’ve ever built. After I transferred Epic out of his housing and into the armor I re-purposed his old case as a research machine.
“She’s interesting, that’s for sure. You know about the Tesla waves right? The catch-all name for the other-dimensional energy scientist theorize you supers use?”
“Sure, that’s the thing they figured out after World War Two? Right?”
“Head of the class,” I mutter as I tap a few keys. What I wouldn’t give for a holographic interface like she has on her phone, but I will be damned if I allow any Cat-7 gear in my lab. And that kind of tech is slightly outside my bailiwick. Everything in here is something I’ve built myself, or had custom manufactured for my shell company, Mars Tech Global.
“Well when you or any super aren’t actively using your powers your Tesla waves look something like this,” I pull up a scan of Kate from a couple of months back. Epic needed a detailed biometric map of her for security reasons. The image of her body fluctuates in many different colors. With the punch of a key, I highlight the Tesla waves. They’re there, but faint.
“Now, if you use your powers actively,” the faint blue energy turns brilliant and blinding.
“Wow,” Kate says. She slides off the table and leans over my chair to look closer at the monitor. “How did you find this?”
“Epic. He did the math, I just set the parameters.”
“Does anyone else know this?”
“About Tesla waves? Sure, but there isn’t anything noteworthy in it. We can’t quantify the waves, measure their power or anything other than see the effect they have on our bodies’ electromagnetic field.”
“So this isn’t actually the waves we’re looking at.”
“Nope. This is a magneto scan of your field. As you exert power your field amps up. Think of a battery. Just sitting there it doesn’t really have much going on. But, if you charge it or expend the charge it lights right up.”
She nods, “Damn, I thought you were on to something with this. No Nobel prize for you then.”
“Ha, as if I want one.” I punch a few more keys and throw up a scan of Glacier I did a few days ago. “What do you see?”
“Uh, I’m not sure. Looks like mine.”
And it does look like hers… “Except it shouldn’t.”
She takes her glasses off, pulling the guest chair up next to mine and sitting down, “I don’t follow.”
A few clicks and I move their EM field to a side by side. “You’re a flesh and bone person, Kate. A perfect person, but a person all the same.”
She shrugs the compliment off, “Hardly perfect.”
“Still, you, me, anyone and everyone has an EM field. Some people naturally have strong ones, some have small ones, but everyone has it.”
“Okay, you’re telling me she’s just like everyone else.”
I wait for her to put it together. She’s not stupid, despite her public persona, she knows what’s what. Her eyes light up as she figures it out. “But she’s not like you or me?”
“Bingo. Ice doesn’t have an EM field. It’s just condensed gas, really. How does she have an EM field if she really is just gas?”
“I don’t suppose you know…”
“Not yet,” I grin, “But you know how much I like puzzles. We have EM fields because we’re physical matter with iron, copper, flesh, and bone. Our brains generate an electrical field that’s relayed through our central nervous system. If I had to guess, I would say Monica’s body is out there, somewhere. Maybe in whatever dimension the ice comes from. If that is the case, then there has to be a way to bring her back. However, that’s something I am nowhere near.”
I tap a few more keys and pull up the status of the labs Faraday cage. I’d put one in the whole building but everyone claims they need cell service or some such nonsense. Status is a hundred percent which means our conversation is private. “Okay, shields are up. What is number two?”
She rolls her eyes at my Star Trek reference.
“Your parents. I talked to Dr. Grace, the neurologist in charge of their case.” I try not to flinch but it doesn’t matter when my best friend is an empath. “It isn’t all bad, Amelia,” she says in a much lower voice, putting her hand on my shoulder. “The controls on them are pretty sophisticated, but…,” she gives me a squeeze, “There’s hope. She’s confident at least some of it can be undone.”
Some of it? What if the ‘some’ is just regular stuff? What if they never remember having a daughter? What if—my eyes water and I put my head in my hands leaning over as far as I dare. All this time. All this work. And for what? I have two people back who might as well be strangers. A well of depression opens up under me and I feel like I’m falling.
Think, Amelia! Think. Can a telepath be forced to undo his work? Maybe, but then he could just as likely do more damage, and why not? Sure, I know how to block him—maybe—but not everyone can walk around with a ZPFM powered Faraday cage.
“I take it,” I say between large breaths, “That a different telepath couldn’t really undo the changes, huh? I mean, they could give them new controls, but it would never be more than just another manipulation?”
Kate doesn’t answer, I don’t need her to, I already know. The only way I get my parents back is if they remember on their own, or I make the person responsible undo the damage.
Which begs the question, how much hurt am I going to have to put on them to make it happen?
“Amelia, I don’t like where your feelings are going.”
“It’s okay, I’m okay. Listen, I think I know what we need to do. How do you feel about a little trip to New York?” I fill her in on my plan along with Artemis and my little side trip to Greece, I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. And if there is one person who will believe it’s Kate.
“For real? Like, he’s a Greek god?” She asks about Sydney.
“No, but he might as well be. You believe me then?”
“Kate, you can’t lie to me. Heck, when I’m the room you can’t even lie to yourself.”
I smile, I knew she would believe me. At least, I hoped.
She leans over and hugs me in a warm embrace, “I will always believe you.”
50
I leave Carlos knee deep in Halo. He asked if he could hang out for the day and talk to Epic. I know they’ve spoken in the past about his future, so it isn’t a problem. I adore Carlos, next to Kate and Luke he is my only other real friend. He has no prospects, though. He plays guitar, lives with his fol
ks, and works a lousy nine-to-five. He needs a future of his own making and hopefully Epic can get him squared away and on the right path.
In the meantime, I’m on my way to New York. Flying high above the US in a lazy ark. This has got to be the best part about Arsenal—flying!
Incoming call—Major Force.
My whole world lights up. Okay, second best part.
“Luke!”
“Amelia! Oh, it’s good to hear your voice. I’ve only got audio, can you flip on video?”
I navigate through my HUD to the video option and activate the tiny camera looking down at my face. He sees a fishbowl view of me.
“You’re in your armor?”
“Yeah, it’s a long story but I’m actually…” before I spill I check the signal status. Epic encrypts all our communications but there’s always the possibility of a leak. Hmm, maybe I could really launch a comsat with one-hundred percent encryption security—
“Earth to Amelia,” he says with a heart-stopping smile.
“Sorry, I had an idea. Listen, I’m actually on my way to New York to check out a lead on about my investigation. Maybe I could swing by on my way back? I’ve never been to DC.”
“You’ve never been to New York either, is everything okay? You know you don’t have any law enforcement authority outside of the State Of Arizona, right?”
“I know. This is just a meet and greet at Kate’s old school. Otherwise, I’d inform Nightwatch before going.”
Can I tell him the whole story without endangering him? No. The less he knows the better. I shouldn’t have even told him where I was, but I really want to see him. I need his arms around me. Sigh. That just isn’t going to happen.
“I could have gone commercial but this saves us a couple of days.”
I check the clock, currently, it’s five p.m. in DC. Maybe another half hour to New York, and an hour there… “I could be there in a few hours, grab a late dinner?”
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