After the formalities are over the party degenerates into groups of people gathered around plates of food and drink. I wheel myself over to the TV and restart the movie.
“It’s pretty good. Critics didn’t like it though,” Carlos says as he walks up next to me.
“The only time critics like Star Trek is when it isn’t Star Trek.”
He laughs. We’ve had this discussion a thousand times.
“A lot happened while you were gone. I’m sorry about your lab. Luke asked to be the one to tell you—”
I wave and smile it off. “Listen, you all were in an impossible situation and it was partly my fault. I should have foreseen the possibility and kept my more sensitive things off-site where no one but me knew about them.”
He opens his mouth to say something and I stifle it with a slice of my hand, “Really, Carlos. It’s okay.”
He gives me one of his trademark lazy smiles and for a second, I can see the kid I used to know. I pat him on the leg before nodding over at the team. “Listen, I’d ask Luke this but things between him and me are… weird. I think we just need to spend more time together. I keep having to remind myself a year and a half has gone by.”
“It’s freaky for sure. I mean, for you a week and change passed. For us, even though Kate insisted you were still alive… I think even the most optimistic person would give up hope after a while.”
“You didn’t, right?” I don’t mean for my voice to sound like I’m pleading but it is strangely reassuring to know they didn’t give up on me.
“Nah. You’re a fighter. I knew if you were alive you would find your way home.”
Awkward silence encroaches on us. I have a question I want to ask him—I was hoping for a private moment, but this is as good as it is gonna get. “I don’t know how close you are to everyone but…”
He sits next to me, leaning in close enough our conversation can remain private. “But what?”
“Why isn’t Kate on the team?”
He looks away, eyes scanning the room to give himself a moment. I can tell he’s thinking; he has this little thing he does with his eyebrows whenever he’s trying to put together what he wants to say. I let him have his moment; I’ve postulated a theory as to why Kate isn’t here, but I want to know what he thinks.
“When she came back,” he starts before looking at me, “she wasn’t in the best shape. I don’t know the whole story—she doesn’t talk to me any more than she talks to anyone else. But… she was awake when they did some of their experimenting on her.”
A cold shiver runs down my spine. The memory of that room haunts my dreams. I saw the machines they used, smelled the fresh blood of my friend. The horror of seeing her hooked up to their hoses… I squeeze my eyes shut trying to block out the image of her splayed up on the wall like a trophy.
“I take it you saw, then?” Carlos asks in a whisper.
I nod, not trusting my voice. He goes quiet for a moment, giving me time to recover.
“It… was bad. But I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I hoped she would recover,” I say with a sigh. When I open my eyes, I can see tears in his.
“I care for her Amelia, but she’s locked everyone out. She needs you, I think, more than she needs anyone else.”
I nod. “Yeah…" I sigh, “Yeah I can see that. Okay. Well, there is a lot for me to do, I guess.”
He takes a swig of his soda—the tension in his shoulders relaxes as he drinks. It’s a heavy subject. I catch a glimpse of several of the female staff ogling him. Carlos seems oblivious to the figure he cuts. Good for him. I don’t want his newfound looks and physique going to his head—of course for him they aren’t newfound, are they. A year and a half.
“Have you spoken to your parents?” he asks suddenly.
“Hmm? Yeah, we had dinner last night, courtesy of our Kate.” I tell him.
“Did it go well?”
“It was a little awkward at first, but once we started talking science it livened right up. It was nice to see them again.”
I shake my head, letting my thoughts drift as I sit with my friend and watch the new Star Trek movie. So much has happened that I haven’t even begun to catch up on. Things like everyone’s lives. They all seem like different people. Even Luke. It’s like I stepped out of Q-space into a slightly different universe. But I know that isn’t possible. It’s only the time that has passed.
Damn if life doesn’t just sucker punch you in the kidneys.
First things, first. I need my lab put back together, then I need to design a new arm for Kate and then, possibly, get started designing the MK VI. I have a bad feeling the government not only isn’t going to give me back my stuff, but they are also going to demand this armor as well. As much as I would like to fight them on it, the only way to keep it from happening is to not have it.
Which royally sucks.
127
Some people live in a concrete jungle, some even in a real one; my jungle is cardboard. The room is filled with empty boxes stacked to the ceiling from computer equipment I’ve already set up, and with full boxes, I have yet to open. I have to navigate carefully around the formerly empty space that was my lab.
“What’s next, Epic?” I ask my AI assistant.
The server in the cold room needs to be connected.
“Right,” I push up on my chair as the MK V flows out of my skin under my clothes and wraps around me. I don’t have it cocoon me in combat mode—just the minimal I need to walk and move around like a normal person. It’s exhausting to do like this because the armor is limited to stimulating my nervous system. It’s bizarre, but it works, for a few minutes at a time.
I take a shaky step out of my chair toward the server box.
“Amelia?” I hear Kate’s voice behind me. “Where are you?”
“Over here!” I grunt as I push the server box toward the cold room. I hear her move through the room. Her hand appears next to mine and she pushes on the box with me. The server moves easily—Kate is considerably stronger than me. She’s stronger than most humans. Part of her power set gives her a near perfect physical body. She once told me she can lift three-hundred pounds without breaking a sweat.
I glance over at her and smile. “It’s nice to see you again. I missed you last night.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t at your party.” She doesn’t offer any explanation. With her help, it only takes a minute to pull the server out of the box and plug it in. I have them all pre-configured at the factory so I don’t have to put them together; just plug them into the power and connect the orange fiber optical cable. Once the server powers on, the AC in the room kicks in, dropping the temperature a few degrees to counteract the heat produced by the high-powered server.
I will have it finished and ready for production in thirty minutes.
“Thank you, Epic.” I turn to Kate and put a hand on her shoulder. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”
She nods, eyes narrowing at me. “Of course. I hope you’re not going to try and talk me into coming back though, Amelia. I’m done as a superhero.”
I grin back at her. Clearly, she’s wearing her necklace and can’t read my emotions. “I’ll bet you ten bucks I can change your mind.”
Twenty minutes later we’re sitting in Starbucks and I watch her play with her drink with her one hand. She isn’t wearing her prosthetic. Instead, she has her coat arm pinned. I take a moment to examine her. Her long black hair is more severely cut than it was when I last saw her. She’s wearing very professional clothes, nothing sexy or alluring at all. It dawns on me as she’s sitting there that this is unlike my Kate. I don’t know everything the Th’un did to her, but at this moment, I’m glad I blew them all to hell.
“Okay, Amelia, clearly you have something you want to say,” she says with a grim look then takes a sip from her coffee.
I nod, playing with my stir stick. I have the hot chocolate instead of coffee. With summer coming to an end, it is pretty nice to enjoy something warm instead of
having to drink cold things to stay cool. This is the closest Starbucks to the Spire, right near Sprouts Farmers Market. Despite the weather cooling off, there are plenty of people around.
“Kate, I know it’s been a year and a half for you guys, but to me, it’s been less than a month since I chased the Th’un ship with you on board. And only a couple of weeks since I…” I glance away. I’m not proud of what I did. I don’t regret it… well, not in the way that I wish I could undo it. More like, I wish I hadn’t had to do it.
She reaches out with her one hand and places it over mine. “I’m sorry Amelia. I hadn’t thought of that. Lux told us what happened. Did you cause the black hole?”
I nod, squeezing my eyes shut, and try not to think about the billions of people I killed. “It was the only way. And…” My voice breaks and I fold my arms on the table and drop my head into them. I don’t want to cry about this, but I haven’t talked to anyone about it until now.
“And what?” she asks as she gently runs her hand through my hair.
“I was so mad, Kate. When I found you, what they did to you—” Her hand stiffens for a second and I can tell she’s upset.
“I wanted to ask what happened… and I also didn’t. I don’t… I don’t want to talk about it, but I know I need to,” Kate says. She lets out a massive sigh. Her chin hits the table and I glance up and we are looking at each other eye-to-eye.
“They had you strung up like an animal. I killed the Th’un that was in the room with you—cut him down without hesitation. It was at that moment I realized we were never going to be free of them. I saw what they did to the Lux—”
She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Lux showed me the images of her home. They’re rebuilding, you know. They named a city after you. I don’t know if Luke told you—”
Now it’s my turn to stiffen. “Luke and I haven’t really talked since I’ve been back. There’s a weird vibe between us. Well, between me and everyone. I don’t know if it is me, or them. I…” I sigh. “I found their singularity research lab and I overrode all their safeties. It wasn’t an accident, Kate. I purposely set off that singularity and I was fully aware that it would wipe out their solar system. I just didn’t see any other option.”
She nods, tears welling up in her eyes. “Amelia, you did what you had to do. And as for everyone acting weird, well, it’s been a tough year. There has been a lot of scrutiny on the superhero community. The thing with the tech, your lab, the push to get rid of costumed heroes—”
I hadn’t heard about that. My eyebrow kicks up with a question.
“Epic hasn’t completely caught you up, I see. There’s been some serious talk about making it illegal to be a superhero. If you want to use your powers to help people, there is a growing desire to have us join the police or other civil agencies. So far nothing has come of it.” She takes a deep breath. “My point is, we’ve been under a lot of stress. If you add in that our favorite armored heroine went on a walk-a-bout to God knows where… the last year and a half have been pretty hard.”
I stare into her eyes for a minute before smiling. She’s right, of course. I was focused on my own feelings; then again, I’m me, so of course I was. It would do me some good to try and—
An explosion erupts from across the street, shattering the window, knocking us both down. My chair clatters away and I hit the tile painfully hard with a grunt. Before I’m finished sliding across the room, Epic has the armor wrapping around me. My helmet forms around my head just as I come to rest against the bar. The HUD boots up, showing me the situation. Kate’s a few feet away shaking her head. She’s bleeding from a half-dozen cuts on her torso, and her very conservative outfit has several large rips in it.
Her eyes go wide for a second before she clamps her hand over them. “Amelia, I lost my necklace, I need a second,” she yells out blindly.
“I’m on it,” I tell her. Standing up, I bring the entire sensor suite online. Everyone in the cafe is alive, but I can’t say the same for the broken and battered people across the street outside the… “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I want to swear as I move to stand between Kate and the threat.
Six armored people descend from the sky, landing a few hundred feet apart. Their armor is a solid black with no markings; bulkier than my MK III suit but still recognizable as people. They immediately disperse in groups of two. It only takes a second for Epic to catch up with what is happening.
There are three banks in this shopping center. Their explosion took out the main communications relay for the block, along with the power transformer.
“Are you saying those bastards just murdered a bunch of people to slow down police response?”
Yes.
“Epic, battle mode.” The HUD flashes red as the relevant data highlights objects, people, and possible threats in my field of view.
“Kate, stay here, keep these people safe,” I tell her.
I blast through the broken window, hitting a hundred just as I slam into the first one. Epic tags them as Alpha One through Alpha Six. Whatever their suits are made out of, it’s tough. I hear an audible grunt as I crash Alpha One into the wall on the other side of the street. I punch him as hard as I can in the back of the head. The helmet clangs and he drops to his knees; I know how disorienting it is from personal experience.
I spin around and bring up the particle beam. The other five fan out. With a whine of my Emdrive, I surge into the air just as they open fire with projectile weapons. Epic scans them, revealing they are standard forty-five caliber rounds. Bullets spark off the wall and their friend. I open up the particle beam; hyper-accelerated silicate burns through the air, striking number six… only to deflect off, burning a line through the foliage and setting fire to a tree.
“Epic, what the hell?”
Five lifts off into the sky with a roar of jets. Fire leaps out of his legs and back as he accelerates toward me. He pulls a big hammer off his back, gripping it with both hands.
I smile.
He probably expects me to dodge, instead, I stand absolutely still. I want to make sure he hits. I transfer power into the kinetic shields.
Amelia, I am not sure this is wise.
“I want to show them who they are messing with.”
Amelia, evasive—
The hammer slams into my chest with the force of a raging elephant. The sky flashes above me and my vision dims as I fall to hit the roof of the Farmers Market. I crash through the corrugated metal and slam into a carrot cart, the concrete floor my final destination. I groan from the pain. My chest burns and I can taste blood.
They appear to be able to bypass kinetic shielding. As of this time I do not know how.
I withdraw the armor around my mouth, so I can spit out the blood pooling in it. “Well, you’re full of help,” I say.
I can tell you this; do not take another hit. Whatever their weapons are, they will shred your soft armor without the shields. If they were using energy weapons, we would have the advantage.
Great. One of the things I traded off for the animetal was rigidity. Yes, it can be rigid as I need, but it isn’t the same as my old armor. I counted on the kinetic shielding to make up the difference. Woops.
I pick myself up, sealing the armor as I go. No more Ms. Nice Girl. I leap up, kicking in the Emdrive. They’ve scattered around. Gunfire erupts as soon as I emerge. Bullets ping off my shielding, thank goodness, dropping to the ground below me. Okay, they’re immune to my particle beam and it’s too crowded to use my mass driver. That only leaves one thing. Great. The one thing I don’t want to do is engage in melee and it’s the only weapon I have that will work.
“Epic, I could really use some backup here. Any chance Carlos is free?” I ask as I dodge a blow from Three. He has a big spear that crackles on the end. I don’t want to find out what it crackles with.
He is currently in Canada helping with a massive avalanche. I have notified the rest of the team; they will be here in minutes.
Something tells me
I don’t have minutes. I spy a decorative rock on the green next to the sidewalk; it looks heavy. I jet down, landing in a crouch to absorb the impact, and dig my fingers into it. It is heavy—at least eight hundred pounds. For a suit that can lift a car that’s not a problem. I heave, pulling it out of the ground. Twisting, I hurl it with all my mechanical strength at Three. The rock strikes him with a thunderous crack and he flies back, flopping lifelessly on the ground, a huge dent in his chest piece.
“You can’t fight physics, punk.” Gunfire rains down on me as the remaining five open up with their hand cannons. Each second I’m in close proximity to them, Epic is collecting data. I don’t think I’m going to win this fight, but I can keep it going long enough for them to retreat.
I flip my hands out, a Sword of Doom forming in each one. Emdrive to full, I dive toward Two. I can’t tell for sure, but it seems to move a lot more gracefully than the others so it might be a she. She reaches behind her back and pulls out a shield. Not a tower shield like the Romans used—more like a buckler. I see the edges glow as I close in on it and I only have a second to think about what that might mean.
I throw myself hard to the right as an energy wave rolls over me. The HUD dims, the Emdrive cuts out, and alarms warble in my ear. I crash into the dirt at her feet and roll past her to a stop, bits of grass and turf stuck to my armor.
“Okay, Epic… what the hell?”
Amelia, they may not have chosen this spot by accident. There is a high likelihood that this is a setup. I suggest an immediate retreat.
Black booted feet, burning hot from jet exhaust, slam into the ground next to me. My brain only has a second, which is more than enough for me. I roll hard as Five’s hammer blasts into the ground where I had been a second before. The resulting explosion tosses me several feet.
Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 69