Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak. I really just want to rest here with my head against his chest and his arms around me with his hand running through my hair, telling me she will be okay. That is all I want…

  I blink to life with a start. The waiting room is hyper-real as I startle awake. Luke is here with me, at some point he pulled me out of my chair to rest on him.

  “Luke?”

  “Amelia, you’re awake, here have some coffee.” He hands a Starbucks out to me. I take the cup even though I don’t drink coffee. It smells divine and I try a sip anyway. He put enough sugar, cream, and caramel in the cup to override the bitter coffee flavor. I grimace as I sip it, still too bitter, but it’s better than nothing… however, I eye a Coke machine down at the end of the hallway and make a mental note to swing by later. The warm cup is nice to hold, though. My hands are perpetually cold and having the hot coffee is like having them wrapped in warm gauze.

  “How is she?” I manage to whisper.

  “Better. Teddy came out and said if she can make it through the next twelve hours, she’ll most likely live. That was four hours ago, he hasn’t left her side since.”

  My stomach does flip-flops and though it is good news, we’re not out of the woods yet. Kate’s strong; I just need to keep telling myself that. She’s strong, superhuman, and just too damn pretty to die. A chuckle escapes my lips before I bite down on it.

  “What’s so funny?” Luke cocks his head to the side as he stares at me. It’s… awkward to have him so close trying to talk to me. It’s like he’s looking down at an errant child in his lap.

  “Nothing,” I mutter. No point in trying to explain Firefly to him. Almost six months of dating and we’re not all the way through the original Star Trek yet. Kate would get it, or at least she’d roll her eyes at me. I can almost hear her, “God Amelia, is everything so geeky with you?” That brings a smile to my face. Now we just wait… wait, pray, and hope. Please, God, let Kate be okay.

  78

  Eight hours pass agonizingly slow. Epic hacks the hospital’s network for me so I can see the progress. I thought there would be a flurry of activity in her room. I’m not a huge fan of medical dramas but I’ve watched a few. I guess they’re as wrong about medicine as other shows are about science. Kate is wrapped head to toe in bandages. A tube down her throat helps her breathe, she has four IV’s plugged into her and a ton of monitors. Teddy, bless his soul, sits next to her, his hand on her thigh. He’s sleeping but I know his power works the longer he’s near someone, even if he’s asleep. If she’s alive, he’s the only reason.

  Still, no update. She lives, and that is good… for now. The question is, have I changed anything? When Pythia first told me about all this I laughed. Sure, she had some insight, obviously some power that allowed her to see things, like me needing a straw to drink while I was in the armor…. But… what if she can see the future? What if I have doomed the human race? Then Kate will have almost died for nothing.

  I whip out my smartphone and text Carlos for the tenth time.

  Kate is hurt badly. Thought you would want to know. I need to talk to you. Please message me back. —WheelsMcShooter

  I’m not sure who may be listening and there is no point in putting him in any more danger than needed. Or maybe I need a reminder of the simpler times. When my biggest concern was figuring out how to crack the temperature tolerance on my titanium matrix and beating Carlos in one of our all night Halo marathons.

  The simple life.

  I put the phone away and stare down the hall again. Pythia said there were two paths. But that was months ago. I shake my head, I don’t believe in fate or destiny. Maybe there is such a thing, it isn’t like I know all that is knowable… but… if the future can be seen, then there is no free will. And if there is no free will then what are we doing here? Going through the motions like puppets? I shook my head. No. That couldn’t be true.

  What was true, for good or ill, I’d done this. My team, my responsibility. All here with me waiting to see if Kate makes it. I close my eyes and rub the bridge of my nose.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Tessa asks. Luke is off getting grub for everyone, Fleet is conked out on the couch, and Monica is with her parents. She asked to go and who am I to say no? They’ve been out of town for a week and she wanted to show them the good news.

  “They’re not worth that much,” I tell her.

  “Still, if you want to talk…”

  I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Tessa is a tough-talking, no-nonsense woman. Whoever she might have been before prison, she was a pretty stoic woman now. She wasn’t prone to sharing her emotions or asking others to share theirs. I wish Monica was here. At least then I’d feel like I had a friend. I chuckle at that since Monica has never been overly friendly to me.

  “Thanks, Tessa, I appreciate it. I’m just worried.”

  “We all are. Kate’s tough, though, she’ll pull through.”

  I nod. Will she? There’s tough and then there’s only human. And while Kate’s powers make her the pinnacle of human perfection… she isn’t invulnerable or even semi-invulnerable.

  “It keeps coming back to free will. Do we have it?” I can tell my statement catches her off guard. She slips her legs under her, resettling on the chair.

  “No. We don’t,” she finally says.

  I raise an eyebrow at that, she can’t know that, not for sure. “Explain?”

  “Things happen to us and we react. Then, later on, we act, thinking we are making our own choices, but really we’re just reacting to the bad stuff that is already happening. So no, I don’t think we have free will. But I also don’t think there is anything we can do about it.”

  I nod. It’s a surprisingly logical argument from her. Only, I don’t buy it. “The fact that we’re having this conversation proves free will exists. Animals run on instincts. They have no choice in the decisions they make. A wolf sees you running in the woods he will run you down. That’s instinct, pure and simple. We’re not wolves. We get to choose. Maybe we don’t always choose carefully, or maybe we choose wrong time after time thinking we’re choosing right. But we do get the choice.”

  She shrugs at me, “Maybe. All I know is life feels like a sick joke half the time. When my mom called the cops on me for— what happened…” Alarms flashes on her face like she said something she wasn’t supposed to. I let her figure it out without asking. I don’t know all the details of her life, just the stuff since she was eighteen. “I never felt like I could go home. Never felt like I had any choice. I started stealing to stay alive. After that everything just snowballed into eventually running with Vixen and her crowd. What choice did I have as a kid on the run, go to jail?”

  “It happened eventually.” I point out. She scowls at me.

  “I guess it did. Maybe trying to fight the future is pointless if the outcome we’re trying to prevent happens sooner or later anyway.”

  Sooner or later… “Tessa, let me know if anything changes and thank you.” I throw my arms around her neck and hug her before she can protest.

  “Hey now, I’m not into girls.” She pushes me away.

  “It’s called friendship, Tessa. Read a book for Pete’s sake.” I wheel away, leaving her wide-eyed and stunned. “Epic, prep the jet. Is the armor clean?” I slip on my glasses so I can see his response.

  The Emjet is orbiting the hospital awaiting your arrival. Yes, the suit is cleaned and repairs and refits have been made. May I inquire as to our destination?

  “Greece. I want to see the Oracle of Delphi.” If there were ever words I thought I wouldn’t speak, those had to be them.

  79

  We are in a stable orbit of Delphi. Airspace is clear for now. Stealth systems operating at 100%. May I ask why we are not notifying the local government of our arrival?

  “Easy, I didn’t want to go through airport security.” The way the armor goes on in the plane is vastly different than the workshop. I have to say, I think I like it a lot
more. The forward most chair on the left is mine, even painted red and white so people know.

  I’m starting to rethink my policy about crafting the Emjet out of Titanium Tungsten-Carbide. If I did refit the Emjet, I could fly into space with my own shuttle. The possibilities flooded my mind and I spent the last hour drawing all kinds of designs. We could go to Mars… heck, the possibilities are endless. It also raises a lot of questions.

  Like, how do the aliens travel the span of the Galaxy? We know our nearest neighbors have no life. And if they’ve cracked FTL then we’re toast because there is no way we can beat someone who is advanced enough to use faster than light travel.

  Amelia, we have arrived.

  “Thanks, Epic. File this all away,” I gesture to my tablet. “On the server at home. Make it a priority and start running numbers. The moon might just be the beginning.”

  I swore I’d never let anyone have the secret of my armor but… colonization. I don’t know a single sci-fi nerd or geek who hasn’t dreamed of that reality.

  I shake my head, focus Amelia! “Epic, initiate!”

  The chair lays back in a slow, steady motion until I am in a supine prostrate position. The chair sinks into the deck, splitting as it does so, and the armor slides and locks into place around me. There’s a kick as I’m shot out of the underside of the jet. My HUD boots to life as the faceplate clears to reveal Delphi. The last time I was here was with Sydney. When he showed me the secret to his armor.

  I hadn’t considered coming back, but with Kate hurt… I need some reassurance I’m on the right path. It isn’t as if she left me a phone number to call.

  We drop from a thousand feet. The altitude vanishes in a few heartbeats and I hit the ground with a shudder. It is exactly as I remember, unchanged. Of course, it has been like this for thousands of years.

  Epic pulls the video up from our previous visit showing me precisely where we walked and exactly what Sydney touched. All of this presupposes she even wants to see me. We never did quite figure out the trick she did to have sunlight in the cave but also have 100% signal suppression. She claimed pocket dimension but… I don’t know. Shaking my head I reach for the place Sydney pressed. Before my hand touches it, the ground shakes and lowers. Figures.

  The cave is the same as I remember. Epic kills the video letting me take in the sight uninterrupted. A waterfall in the far corner fills a pond and both have this eerie blue light emanating from behind them. A beam of sunlight illuminates the figure kneeling next to the water running her hands along the surface.

  Uh, what?

  “Hello, Amelia.” Her voice is more alto than I remember. As she stands I don’t see the child from last time, but a young woman, perhaps my age. I can see the little girl who she had been in the very grown-up woman in front of me. As if she grew up in the space of a few months… and not just ‘up’.

  I nod uncomfortably. “Uh, hello, Pythia?”

  She smiles her eyes shining in the light. “Yes, I’m sorry if my appearance makes you uncomfortable. Let me put on a coat.”

  She isn’t naked… per se. Just… the white cotton robe she wears does little to hide her. She walks over to the corner and slips on a Northface jacket. Don’t ask me why she has one, it takes me by surprise.

  “Open faceplate.” The sliver portion of my helmet slides up so I can speak face to face. “You’ve changed?”

  “Do you not approve?”

  “Only if it isn’t a good thing.”

  She gestures for me to come and sit. The table that reminded me of an ancient feast hall is gone, replaced by a far more modern roundtable. No cornucopia of meats and fruit this time, just open, hot bags of fast food and a pizza that smells far better than any pizza has a right to. Now I’m thoroughly confused. I sit down, slide a Coke over and wait for her to explain. She just stares at me, unblinking with her larger than normal eyes.

  I can’t take it anymore and I look away to take a drink. “Why is everything so different?”

  “I am a reflection, a shade if you will. Sent here by Apollo to guide mankind. But I can’t do it alone.” I’ve heard the spiel before. Priestess of Apollo blah blah all knowing. She continues talking but the corners of her mouth turn up enough to make me think she can read my mind. “However, that is one part of who I am. My Champion determines the rest.”

  I jerk my head around. Champion? Sydney said she would choose another. I just assumed when she had, we would know. Not a lot of Greek-themed superheroes running around. “You’ve chosen a new champion? Where is he?”

  “Not here. He’s training with Athena.”

  This again. “Right. So your new champion, he influences your appearance?”

  She nods, “Sydney needed a daughter to protect. A little girl he could sacrifice for. It helped him through the death of his own daughter.”

  Oh. I hadn’t known. I can only imagine how much that had to have sucked. “What does your new champion need, a girlfriend?”

  She laughs and I swear if we put her and Kate in a room the guys would split fifty/fifty. “More than you know. But not quite. He needs someone to impress and at the same time, validation for the work he has done.”

  Validation in the form of Jessica Rabbit telling him he’s a stud… okay, whatever gets them going but this isn’t what I’m here for.

  “You wish to know if you’ve changed anything?”

  I try not to snarl. I need to develop telepathic powers so I can constantly ask and answer people’s questions before they have them. “Kate was hurt, badly. It’s my fault, I don’t know if she’ll live.” I hold up my hand, “I don’t want you to tell me that, it isn’t why I’m here.” Now it’s her turn to be surprised.

  “You don’t want to know if your friend lives or dies?”

  I shake my head. “No. I just want to know if you still can’t see the future. You told me that if I continued on my crusade mankind’s future ended. Well, clearly I continued.” I shrug.

  “It isn’t that simple. Last time you were here I told you I’m somewhat omnipotent. I can see possible futures, the most likely outcomes of actions, that sort of thing.” I nod. “That isn’t entirely true. Let me ask you a question. If you boil water at what temperature will you convert it to gas?”

  I’m taken aback by the sudden shift in topic. “Uh, that depends on the altitude.”

  “But I bet you can tell me what temperature at any altitude, am I correct?”

  I nod.

  “The future is like that. I can see where it’s going. People make decisions like throwing stones in a river. Sometimes those ripples change the course, sometimes they don’t. After the alien probe hit Seattle I discovered why I couldn’t see past a certain point. Now I can.”

  “How?”

  “Once it landed on Earth the aliens became the domain of Apollo, exposing them to my power.”

  I smile, “This is great. How do we win?”

  “I don’t think you can.” She shakes her head with a sad smile.

  “No. There has to be a way. A piece of tech, a weapon, what about your new Protector?”

  She looks to the waterfall for a moment her eyes glistening with the onset of tears, or did they always look like that?

  “It isn’t as simple as me saying, ‘build this or shoot that’. People make their own decisions. Often people make decisions that affect their lives the most when they aren’t even paying attention. I can’t change the future by telling you to shoot something. Only you can change the future by changing you.”

  Anger and frustration bubble up inside of me. I’m so sick of vague warnings and cryptic messages. Can’t someone just say, ‘Point a missile at these coordinates and fire.’ “Fine, tell me what to change on who and I will.”

  She shakes her head, reaching out to rest a hand on the armor. “You’ve built something magnificent. If you were alive two thousand years ago I think Apollo would have taken you to wed. You’re smart, clever, but just like everyone else, Amelia. You won’t change. You don’t think
you need to. No one ever does.” She says the last part with a sigh like this isn’t the first time she’s had this conversation.

  Everyone changes, it is the universal constant. I’m 21 I will be an entirely different person by the time I’m 40. I know that.

  She shakes her head again, “Change because of time is different than change because of need. Tell me, Amelia. Why did you build your armor?”

  “To find my parents,” I answer automatically.

  “And if you had never lost your parents…”

  “I guess I wouldn’t have built it.”

  “Probably, but you would’ve invented other great things. That is just how your mind works. The loss of your parents forced change upon you, but tell me, when is the last time you found yourself insufficient and decided to change?”

  I opened my mouth to answer but I can’t think of a time. Surely, there has been some point in my life where I decided I wasn’t good enough at something and changed it? Somehow I don’t think ‘becoming a better chemist’ is what she means.

  “I can answer for you, never. Like virtually everyone you think who you are is all you can be. You should be appreciated for that and forgiven your mistakes because you ‘tried your best.’ It doesn’t work that way. A crux is coming, Amelia, one your armor and brilliance cannot solve. One, no superpower in the world can solve. A problem that will only be overcome by you not being you.”

  I bite my tongue trying to not to raise my voice, “How the hell am I supposed to not be me? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Not everything has to. Hence why human history is so full of the same tragedies over and over. Only you can change who you are, Amelia. Dig deep and when you think all hope is lost, remember, humans can choose to be different. They just don’t.”

  I sigh. “I hate all this destiny crud.”

  “Fate’s a fickle bitch.” I look up sharply at her surprising turn of phrase. Her mouth quirks upward and I can’t help but smile.