Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  “That’s so much cooler than a video game… eh, Niña?”

  It can’t be. The spear hurls back to him smacking against his bare hand. He turns and smiles at me.

  “Carlos?”

  “In the flesh.”

  93

  I have my t-shirt pulled up to my bra and I groan as Teddy places the last piece of tape to finish wrapping my ribs.

  “This is the second time this year you’ve fractured a rib, Amelia. It isn’t exactly easy to do,” he glances up at my eyes. “They don’t always heal right either,” he tells me in his professor's voice.

  “I swear, Teddy, I’m not doing it on purpose,” I tell him with a weak grin.

  “I’ll visit you later to keep the healing sped up. Just remember, it isn’t regeneration. You’ll still have scar tissue. I can’t bring you back from the dead.”

  “I know,” I whisper. “I’ll be more careful.”

  He smiles and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Thank you, Amelia. For everything.”

  I blush and manage not to embarrass myself with anything stupid. He packs up his kit. When he’s at the lift, I say, “Can you send in the clowns?”

  He guffaws. “Sure thing. I’m off to see Caroline. I’ll stop by the lunchroom and let them know.”

  I nod and lay back on the couch, lifting my legs up onto the cushions and trying my best to find a position where nothing hurts. I crack open the ice pack and press it against my face. I’m so glad he left—I can barely hold it together as it is. I’d take something stronger than Advil but I need my head clear, even if it hurts. There’s a lot of work to do and only a little time to do it. If he had a clue about how much pain I’m really in, he’d sedate me; I have something better in mind.

  “Epic, have you finished compiling the scans of Lux’s ship?” I ask my faithful companion.

  Affirmative. I do not think there is anything else we can do to learn how it works… short of taking it apart.

  I nod to him; a wave of exhaustion hampers my thoughts. The cold of the ice pack makes me flinch as I press it to my face. I bit my lip when I crashed. I’m not sure which time. It swelled up pretty bad. At least I can be in my little apartment on my couch, surrounded by the things that matter to me and in a place I know is safe. I know Lux didn’t mean to kidnap me, but she certainly did nothing to diminish my fear of being out in the open.

  I close my eyes for a second and I have that strange time dilation where I feel like it has only been a second, but minutes go past. The elevator doors open, and I glance over to see a blurry Kate, Luke, and Carlos.

  Carlos! He’s so big now. I think he probably gained fifty pounds of muscle and while he’s still only slightly taller than me, he’s wide. He’d give Luke a run for his money in the muscles and looks department. However, in his Protector armor? He’d wipe the floor with my beau.

  My eyes start to focus and I see Kate’s go wide. I must look a mess for her to be that openly worried about me.

  “Hey,” I say to the three most important people in my life.

  Luke and Kate come right over to me; Carlos goes over to the Xbox and notices I still have his monogrammed controller. Picking it up he shoots me a smile. When I moved here I made sure to bring the one with his name on it. I never told him how important he is to me and it wasn’t until he went to Spain—or Greece I guess—for three months that I realized it myself.

  “You doing okay?” Luke asks, kneeling next to me. He puts a hand on my forehead and his touch sends all kinds of endorphins into me.

  “Mmmmm. Better now.”

  “Amelia,” Kate says. “How did it hurt you? I’ve seen you stop a blow from an F5!”

  I nod feebly. It’s hard to look up at them from on my back. I roll onto my side with a couple of grunts and groans of pain.

  “It had the mass, something F5’s don’t have a lot of. A person only weighs a few hundred pounds. It’s one thing to lift a hundred tons; it’s another thing to weigh a hundred tons. I should have been more careful. If it wasn’t for the Protector,” I nod to Carlos, “I don’t think I would’ve stopped it.”

  “Thank you, Carlos,” Luke says over his shoulder.

  “Just doing my job. Pythia is the one you should thank. She sent me here. I had no idea that was going to happen.” He shakes his head as he realizes it sounded like he wasn’t planning on seeing me. “Not that I wasn’t going to come visit, but I wanted to see my folks first… you understand?”

  I nod, letting him know it’s okay with smile. “She intervened on my behalf?” I ask. The incredulity in my voice had to be obvious because Carlos cracks a grin, the first one I’ve seen since we got back from the Antarctic.

  “She really likes you, Niña. It’s hard to get her to shut up about you, actually.”

  “Psh, she does not.”

  He shakes his head, “Hand to God,” his hand goes over his heart. “She admires you. Say’s you’re the only human who ever listened to her advice or something like that. She considers you a master class on irony since you don’t believe she is…” his voice goes low, almost painful, “…you know. Who she says she is.”

  I look at him for a good long minute before I reply, “Well, she’s either telling the truth or she’s the world’s greatest fitness coach.”

  He cracks a smile at that, “Yeah I’m a little different now, aren’t I?”

  “I’ll say,” Kate bursts out, “You could be on the cover of GQ tomorrow if you wanted.” Kate stops suddenly, her eyes go wide and to my utter amazement her cheeks turn pink. As do Carlos’s.

  “Listen, guys, can I have a moment with Kate?” I ask.

  “Sure,” Luke says, placing a kiss on my forehead. “C’mon, Carlos, let’s make the ladies something to eat.” The two men walk into the kitchen and I can’t help but sigh watching Luke’s backside.

  “God, Amelia, what happened to him?”

  I know she’s talking about Carlos, and shake my head, “I don’t know. Clearly, the three months were good to him.”

  She shakes her head, “That isn’t what I’m talking about. He’s reserved. All the bravado he used to have is gone. It’s like… it’s like he’s twenty years older. I never see this level of… humility and confidence in a young man. Not ever. It’s why when I date, I almost always date older men. The young ones think they know everything.”

  The admission that she dates at all surprises me, but I save that question for another day. “I’ll talk to him, but I need your help on another matter.”

  “My help? Do tell.”

  I point to her necklace, “Can you take it off?”

  She looks down and frowns, fingering the green gem that sparkles as the light reflects off its multifaceted surface.

  “I’ve been dealing with other people’s emotions in my head since I was fourteen,” she whispers. “I’d forgotten how quiet it could be. I…” She closes her eyes for a second before continuing. “I only took it off earlier to ‘port to you. Before that I hadn’t had it off in days, and to be honest,” she looks at me and I swear there are tears in her green eyes when she opens them, “if you could make it permanent I would beg you to.”

  “I’m sorry, Kate,” I whisper. “But I really need your help.”

  She nods. With a sigh, she reaches behind her and undoes the clasp, which is a circuit. As opens, the circuit breaks and the gem turns off. The ZPFM inside shuts down and Kate squeezes her eyes shut. I know what’s coming…

  “Oh my God, Amelia… how are you in this much pain? Didn’t Teddy give you something?”

  “Yes, Advil.”

  “Well I’m calling him back; you need morphine or something.”

  I grab her arm as she starts to stand up. “No. I need to work. You didn’t see what I saw, Kate. I think I might have been wrong about them not knowing their drones weren’t working. This one was going to end humanity. The next one might not even land, it might just go find a big rock out at the asteroid belt and hurl it at us. With no more people, they could land and take
whatever they want.”

  “But Amelia, I can feel your pain. You’re screaming inside. What do you want me to—oh.”

  I smile and cock my head to the side. “Yeah. Can you?”

  She closes her eyes for a second, her long eyelashes contrast across her skin. How she has perfect makeup all the time is beyond me; even after tearing up her stuff doesn’t even smudge.

  “I can block it, I think. Amelia, you know how you told me being paralyzed was dangerous because you could hurt yourself and not feel anything until it was too late?”

  “Mmmhmm.” I’m too tired to make words without effort.

  “Same thing. If I do this, you could seriously hurt yourself and not know it.” I love how concerned she is, really. To say she’s my best friend is an understatement. Kate is my sister. I’d do anything to protect her. Which is why I need this.

  Despite my exhaustion and pain, I muster the will to speak. “I live with that every day, Kate. Please. I need to work, I need to focus. I can barely hold it together right now. If Luke finds out how hurt I really am, he’ll make Teddy come down here and knock me out. We don’t have the time to wait. I need new weapons right now, while I can still put them to use. Next week might be too late.” I hope she can feel my sincerity over the pain. I know I barely can. Every second is a fight not to break down in tears.

  She sighs, touching my forehead with her fingertips. “You don’t have to save the world alone, you know,” she whispers. A tremendous wave of relief flows through me and I almost cry from the absence of pain. Kate folds me into a hug and we sit like that for what feels like forever.

  “We’ve got food,” Luke interrupts.

  “Good, cause I’m starving.” I forget about my worries for a few minutes as we all sit around eating and talking. Carlos is home again. I keep smiling at him. Simply enjoying not being in pain, in the company of friends, is a wonderful sensation.

  “I don’t get it,” Luke says to Carlos. “I knew Sydney for years. I get the armor made him strong but… does it change you the way it changes us?” He points to Kate and himself.

  “No,” Carlos shakes his head. “Pythia told me not to tell you what happened—”

  “Is it a secret?” I ask, my curiosity peaked.

  “No,” he smiles. “She said you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try us,” I say.

  “Oh, not them.” Carlos gestures to Kate and Luke as he takes a sip of his Coke. “You specifically.”

  “Carlos, you’re my oldest friend. If you tell me it happened, I’ll believe you. I mean, we did just come from Antarctica after fighting a giant alien drone trying to jump-start a volcano…”

  He smiles, “I went back in time and trained with Hercules for… a while. Then I served in Alexander’s army and after that, I spent some time with Athena. She’s quite charming.”

  I can tell my mouth is hanging open and I want to close it, but I can’t. I also can’t quite bring myself to believe it…

  “In a dream, right? You were only gone for three months. She gave you visions?”

  He chuckles, “See.”

  “But…” They all laugh at me as I sputter trying to come up with a logical reason that what he said could be true. I’m not sure which part I have a problem with. Or— I guess—the most problem. “So… Hercules?”

  “Nice guy.”

  “He’s real?” Kate asks him. She slips her hand on top of his and if he notices, he doesn’t mind. The old Carlos would’ve fallen over with excitement.

  “Yeah, you’d be surprised. I think a lot of what historians think they know about the world is really wrong.” He says it so confidently, I can’t quite reconcile this Carlos with my Carlos. He’s talking about Greek myth like I talk about science.

  Kate glances over at me with a shrug. He’s not lying. She’d know.

  “So… uh, time travel?” I ask.

  “I don’t know all the details. Pythia told me to tell you that it is a form of quantum entanglement. Man, I hope I said that right,” he says with a grin.

  I nod. That makes some sense, at least. I glance at the lab. Quantum entanglement is when two particles are actually one on the quantum level. What one particle does, the other copies. Regardless of the distance. I guess, if someone had a better understanding of quantum physics than I, then they could maybe devise a way for this to work. I can only imagine what would be needed. As much as I would love to dive into the mystery of time travel, I’m lacking a critical component; whatever she has entangled in the past with the present. Without that object, no time travel.

  “How did you train with all those people in just a few months?” Luke asks. “I was a Marine, even eight weeks of intensive training wouldn’t result in this kind of physical transformation.”

  Carlos looks away, I can see the sadness in his eyes. I’ve seen it at the edges of him since he returned. Part of his reservation. Three months is a long time, but it isn’t… oh no. Was he gone longer? Three months for us, but with time travel he could have spent years in the past.

  “Carlos? You okay?” I ask. He shakes his head.

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” He stands up abruptly, picking up the dishes and heading over to the island in the kitchen. “I’d like to see Monica if I can. Can I come back later, Amelia? You owe me some rematches on Halo.”

  “Of course,” I say with a smile. “Milton will give you full access. Come by anytime.”

  He nods to everyone before walking to the lift. No one says anything until the doors close behind him.

  “He was gone for more than three months,” I tell Luke.

  “How?” Luke asks. I can see the wheels turning behind his eyes at the implication.

  “I don’t know. Kate?”

  “That boy—that man—is in a lot of pain. He’s happy to be home, but he’s in a lot of pain.” We sit in silence for a minute. I reach over and hold Luke’s hand. My heart goes out to Carlos. I never knew he wanted this kind of life. I just wanted him to be happy. I hope he is… or can be someday.

  “I’m going to go check on him then I’m off to bed.” She reaches up and clasps her necklace back on. Her shoulders go slack as if the stress had all her muscles clenched and now she can relax. “I’ll be back in six hours to check on you,” she tells me before vanishing with a pop of displaced air.

  “Luke—”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I smile and lean over and kiss him. I lose myself in those lips and don’t rush away from him holding me while we kiss. At some point, he pulls me onto his lap and I curl up around him like a kitten.

  “I love you Amelia, and I never want to be away from you again. If you’ll have me, I’d like to be on the team.”

  My heart skips a beat, that wasn’t how I thought that sentence was going to end. I bury face in his chest for a minute before I reply. “Of course, you can be on the team.” We sit like that a while longer when Epic flashes a light on one of my monitors to get my attention.

  I am ready.

  I nod. “Luke, I need to get some rest.”

  “I’ll put you in bed.” He lifts me up. I smile at how delicious it feels to have him hold me like this.

  “That would be nice. Uh, I hate to say this, but can you not stay?”

  “Why? You need someone to check on you, make sure you’re okay.”

  I hate lying to him, but I know him. He won’t leave me if he thinks I’m hurt. “I’m fine, Luke, just tired. Besides, if you stay I won’t get any rest and you know it.” I finish with a kiss to his neck, running my tongue up the vein to his ear.

  “Riiiiight,” he growls. “I’ll go crash in the guest room upstairs. Call me if you need me?”

  “For sure.” I give him my best sultry look. Granted, I’m no smoking hot supermodel, but I like to think I have cuteness going for me.

  He coughs, putting me down on the bed and pulling the covers up. He smiles, kisses me again, and walks toward the lift. I watch him go. He turns the light off
and shuts the door. I hear the lift ding, then close a second later.

  “Epic, am I alone?”

  Affirmative.

  “Time to work for a living.”

  94

  Kate has visited me twice since Luke left, and I haven’t slept for a minute of any of that time. Between her whammies and the small lake of Coca-Cola I’ve consumed, I’m as high as a kite and twice as light. Three monitors each display a different project as I wheel around my lab from station to station. I can only focus on one at a time, but Epic can work on all three and I bounce where I’m needed. We have a mass spectrometer working on deciphering the molecular composition of the alloy the Th’un use to construct their drones. We’ve already hit it with infrared, acid, and a bunch of other methods to determine what it’s made of. I’m convinced it’s created, not natural. As far as I can tell it’s the same alloy that Lux’s ship is made from.

  While that’s running I’m using a decryption program to crack the Th’un programming from the download we did on the first drone. I should have done this sooner, but I was so wrapped up in what was happening with Luke, and what Pythia told me, I forgot that I’m first and foremost a scientist. I’ve tabled the mass driver problem until I can have the new suit up and running. If I can combine the alien alloy with my tech, then maybe I can craft the armor strong enough to use the mass driver with full power.

  Amelia, I do not believe we will be able to crack the encryption of the probe’s database. Besides the language difference, there is an evolving algorithm defending it much like an AI.

  “Did you ask Lux for help?”

  Her language and the Th’un aren’t compatible. In her natural form, she uses sounds and light to communicate. Kate believes she might even be slightly empathic with her own species.

  “Great,” I mutter. “What we need is another programmer who can code in AI and…”

  If you are considering contacting your mom for help, I think it is an excellent idea. After all, my base code is from her notes.