“Because it wasn’t me. I was in Colorado, apprehending the Armory. I have my team as witnesses—and the US Marshals who accompanied us.”
“Uh-huh,” he says. He looks at Kate, then me. “You think I’m stupid?”
I open my mouth to say ‘yes,’ when Epic flashes a large “Red Alert” symbol across my vision. I sigh instead. “No, I don’t. You’re an FBI agent. That requires a level of schooling stupid people can’t achieve. You are a Special Agent, so you have years in the field. You’re also wearing a mask to filter out any atmospheric toxins, which makes you aware of our abilities and ready to counter them. Clearly, you’re well trained and motivated,” I say to him while looking him square in the eyes. I find people tend to get uncomfortable after about seven seconds of eye contact.
He doesn’t.
“And?” he asks.
“And you’re biased. You don’t like superhumans, or you don’t like me, and you're letting that bias influence your investigation. You think I’m guilty and there isn’t anything I can say or do that will change your mind.”
That catches him off guard.
“Are you telling me there is no way that could have been you in Seattle?”
“I’ve already told you it wasn’t. I can provide you electronic evidence—”
“It’s well known you have access to advanced computers and alien technology. Anything you provide could also easily be faked by you.”
“How about the testimony already provided?” I ask him.
He leans back in his chair and looks at Kate. She has on the business suit she usually wears when she’s working for the team in an official capacity. “She can manipulate peoples emotions—anyone who has come into contact with her without proper precaution,” he says with a gesture toward his mask, “can’t be trusted.”
I sigh again. “Then there is literally nothing I can do to prove my innocence—” His lips spread into a predatory grin and he’s about to speak but I go on. “And absolutely nothing you can do to prove my guilt.”
I expected his smile to fade or something but it doesn’t. If anything, he looks happy at the conclusions I’ve drawn.
“I don’t know about that. Now, I’m no scientist, but don’t you have the ability to remote control these ‘suits’ of yours?” He asks.
This is most likely a trap. I advise you do not answer him directly.
“That kind of technology is hardly advanced. Your kid probably has an RC car,” I tell him.
He frowns. “So you do have it?”
“Everyone has it,” I say.
“But you specifically, do you have it?”
I’m trying really hard not to let the frustration of the situation make me say something rash, when an idea pops in my head.
“Define, ‘remote control’?”
Now he’s frustrated—if his flaring nostrils have anything to say. “Don’t play games with me,” he says while glaring at us.
“I’m not the one playing games. Ask stupid questions, win stupid prizes,” I say before I can stop myself.
“So you can?”
“Yes,” I say with a sigh.
“Then what would stop you from sending one of your suits to Seattle and murdering the team that offended you while you were somewhere else?”
“Nothing. Nothing would stop me from murdering anyone I please. Other than the fact that I’m not a murderer.”
He smiles again as if he has me. “But you have murdered. You murdered an entire people. I think they call it genocide.”
I shake my head. Not this again. “Agent Brown, unless you have any questions pertaining to your investigation, we’re done. You may leave,” I tell him pointing at the door.
“Fine. Don’t leave town and I’ll be in touch,” he says as he stands. I give him my best ‘who me?’ look and smile.
I don’t take my eyes off him until he’s gone.
“What a piece of work,” Kate says. She didn’t speak earlier because she really was just there for moral support. I doubt there was anything she could say that would have made a difference anyway.
“He isn’t wrong, though,” I say with a sigh. “I could’ve remote controlled a unit to do just what he’s suggesting I did. Hell, If I was willing to do that, I could do it to anyone... just about,” I say with a shrug.
“But you’re not a murderer,” Kate says putting her hand on my shoulder for comfort.
“He has no way of knowing that.”
“You would think that saving the planet a couple of times would buy you some leeway,” she says.
“You’re only as good as your last movie,” I say with a shrug.
168
With no way to track Luke or neutralize him, and the Armory out of commission, that just leaves two things on my list: Frank Parker and Calhoon Strungel. Right now I’m at a dead end on both. Epic is running a search algorithm and as soon as he has some hits we’ll be ready. The questions is, ready for what?
Frank Parker is the easiest to predict. He has to come to me, and probably soon. The kinetic manipulator he stole won’t work without me. As for Strungel... he’s an enigma. Somewhere out there he has a lab, a lot like mine, where he’s cooking up his next plan.
I decide to call it off for the night. Too many late nights and early mornings are taking their toll on me. I lean over and check my foot. If it weren’t for Teddy’s ministrations I’d be in real trouble. I’m just glad I can’t feel the damage to my foot and leg—I’ve got one of those braces on my leg that make it look like I’m wearing an exosuit and my foot is still wrapped up tight. When I look up from my screen to wheel out, I see a swirl of condensed air like mist appear in front of me. Frank Parker falls out of it like he just jumped off a bridge. His body rights itself as he comes out of the portal, gravity asserting it’s dominance, and he lands silently on two feet. His face is a mask of rage and he growls at me.
The raw fury rolling off of him reminds me of Luke, or the thing controlling Luke, and I wheel back to put space between us. Epic detects his arrival and initiates our plan. In a moment Kate and Carlos will be here to help me deal with him.
“What’s the code?” Frank growls as he crosses the distance between us. “I need that code!”
I shake my head. “Not gonna happen.”
He looms over me, his fists shaking as he desperately tries to figure out what to do next.
“Please,” he begs. The anger evaporates from him, shoulders sagging and his chest deflating. “Please,” he says again as he slumps to the floor. “I’m so close.”
Ever since I returned and found out the government stole my suits, I’ve been putting safeguards in everything. All my stuff has a hardwired code built in now, nothing works without me or Epic. Like the mass driver rifle. No Epic, no worky.
“Mr. Parker... Frank, talk to me? If your goals are just saving your wife and daughters, let me help. I know a little about this sort of crusade. I spent fourteen years of my life looking for my parents. Believe me, I want to help you. You haven’t murdered anyone that I know of, even the events in California were limited. You haven’t crossed the Rubicon yet,” I tell him with as much confidence and reassurance as I can muster. Sympathy too, because honestly? This could be me. If I’d been a little older, or a little more traumatized... I could’ve gone the supervillain route.
He glances up at me, and even more of himself sags. He looks like a man who's lost all hope. The lines around his eyes and mouth seem out of place with the youthfulness of his eyes. He takes his rain hat off and runs a hand through his hair. Falling back, he lies on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, closing his eyes.
“I’ve seen them die so many times,” he whispers. “Hundreds...”
I don’t say anything, just let him continue. I really need a win here. If I can get him to stop running and let me help, it would be ideal. I signal Kate to hold off coming in, but be ready. I don’t want to startle him.
“Tell me about it,” I say. “Why can’t you save them?”
The first time I saw it I thought all the cars would crash or explode or something, but no—the cars all just sort of coast to a stop like a river of metal. That’s not when the dying starts, though. All the lights go off, it’s the city at night, it’s never safe, but suddenly there’s screaming. A car explodes near them. My wife... Jasmine, she grabs the twins and runs. She’s smart like that.”
I nod; he isn’t looking at me but it’s an autonomous reaction.
“Those damn warbots come from everywhere, spilling onto the road shooting anyone that moves. She... she pulls the girls toward the White House thinking it will be safe. When the fighting worsens, she climbs into an overturned military vehicle. I’m sure she thought the armor would protect them...”
Oh, God. The AFV Behemoth threw at me... there were people inside it?
I let him lie there for a moment while I think wishing Kate was here to help me. I do all I can to keep from hyperventilating but I remember it like it was yesterday. I give my breathing a minute to settle down. I’ve given him enough time—I need answers.
“Why can’t you save them?” I ask. He’s a time traveler—he should be able to.
“I’ve tried, God I’ve tried so many times.” He sounds tired, weary, like man who's seen too much pain and suffering. Maybe he has? “I don’t have a lot of control over my powers. They didn’t manifest until after that event. I can go back in time and I can go forward in time and I can return to my starting point... sort of.”
Interesting. I raise an eyebrow at how he said that. “You mean you don’t return to the moment you left?”
He shakes his head. “This is my present. Let’s say I go forward in time ten years and I spend six months there. When I come back, six months will have passed here. I can go back to the moment I left, but I can’t change anything behind my present. I’m anchored here, tethered.”
I try to follow him. It isn’t like I haven’t thought about time travel an inordinate number of hours in my life.
“How can you not change the past? Does some unseen force stop you?”
He pulls himself up, leaning against a cabinet. “It’s not like I can’t change events when I go back. But when I return to my present, nothing has changed. I tried a dozen times to save them and each time I thought I had succeeded. I would come back... and the house was still empty, they were still dead. I don’t know why when I change things in the past they don’t affect my present, but they don’t.”
My mind goes into overdrive... it has to be alternate reality theory. Wow. Of course, that doesn’t prove anything. It’s not like I could build a machine to travel in time. His powers come from a dimension where one can move through time in any order. Which mean his powers—and the effects they have on people and things—are unique to him... still, the possibilities?
“What’s your plan then? Why do you need my kinetic manipulator to save them?” If he can’t change events, then what is the point in going back? Torturing himself?
He yawns, rubbing his jaw. “The first time my powers activated I was in my car on the way to work. I was in a daze thinking about them. I shouldn’t even have been driving, to be honest. I didn’t even want to go to work—I just didn’t know what else to do. I was thinking about a time on the Oregon Coast where we went on vacation a few years before the girls were born... then I was falling. Have you ever been bungee jumping?” he asks.
The non sequitur throws me for a second then I look down at my legs with a grin. “Not exactly recommended for people in my condition.”
“Right, sorry,” he says. I wave away his apology. “Anyway,” he continues. “Going back in time is like jumping off a bridge in free fall. The farther I go back, the more the journey slows. When my destination arrives it’s like that moment where the bungee cord is fully extended, and for a second I don’t move, just hang there. That first time, the portal opened and I was on the beach, not far from where we were all those years before.” He laughs a little. “My car was there too, completely torn to pieces as if it had gone through a blender. Bent, warped, shredded.” He shrugs. “I didn’t stay long, I hadn’t figured that part out yet. The farther back I go, the more I have to focus to stay there. Before I knew it, I was hurtling back forward to the present. Only a few seconds had gone by, but now I was on the road without my car. That took some creativity to explain to the insurance company.”
I nod. “Anything you take with you is destroyed? I’m guessing—based on you taking the kinetic manipulator—G-forces?”
He smiles. “Can I have a Coke?”
“Sure,” I say, reaching into the mini fridge I keep in the lab and handing him one of the good ones. The Mexican brand ones with sugar cane instead of corn syrup. My hand pauses just before I pop the tab on mine. How did he know I had Cokes in the fridge? Right; museum.
He takes a long drink before continuing. “If I can fit it in my hand,” he nods to his notebook, “then it’s fine. But if it’s bigger and fragile, then it’s destroyed. I tried with a neighbor’s dog from two weeks before the coup in DC...” he says with a shiver. “That took a while to wash off.”
“My God, man. A dog?”
He shrugs. “I had to test it on something living and it was a really annoying dog,” he says with a sad grin. “Used to chase the girls when they went out front to play.”
I grin a little. Being in a wheelchair as a kid made me terrified of dogs, even little ones. An idea hits me. “Can you bring anything forward? I mean if you can’t change the past?”
He shakes his head, stretches, then climbs to his feet. For a second I think he’s going to run, but instead, he makes his way over to one of my chairs. “Nah, it doesn’t work like that. This notebook,” he says holding it up. “It’s my daughter’s from when she was five. I keep track of everything in here then transfer it to a computer I have at home. Every time I need a new notebook I just go back to that same moment and grab it. I don’t run into myself, so I assume that whatever I do in the past splits off into its own timeline. No matter how many times I go back, the past is always the same. I can take things and change things, but the next time I go back it’s exactly as it was. Which is why I need your tech. With the ZPFM from the government, your kinetic manipulators, and some things Strungel built for me, I’ve made a cocoon. It can carry three people and withstand the g-forces of time travel while protecting them—which means I can go back and bring them forward with me.” He sighs. “At least, that’s my theory.” He downs the last of his Coke and throws it into the can. “The way you fly and stuff—you’re brilliant.” He says the last bit so casually it takes a second for my brain to catch up.
“One, thank you. Two... you know Strungel?”
He nods, taking another sip. “When I started this, you were missing. When I went into the future it was a world without you. Let me just say, not pretty. Don’t do that again,” he says with a sad smile.
I shake my head. “I don’t plan too. Do you know where he is?” I ask.
He nods, putting the empty Coke bottle down beside him. “Yeah, yeah I do. He doesn’t know I do... but... time traveler,” he says with a shrug.
This is it. I can close two accounts with one stroke of the pen. Take Tempus off my plate and Strungel. “Frank, I promise you on my life, if you tell me where Strungel is I will do everything in my power to help you get your family back.” I hold up my hand as his face lights up. “You will still need to pay for your crimes, but I’ll provide the best lawyers money can buy. I doubt I can get you off, but I can make sure you see them as often as possible.”
He nods, still elated. “It’s more than I could have asked for... especially after what I did.”
“You didn’t hack my
satellite, and you didn’t provide Strungel the codes, right? You just knew it was going to happen and took advantage of the situation?”
“Pretty much.”
“Okay then,” I say. “I’m going to call in Kate and Carlos. They have some questions for you about your abilities. But I just want to know one thing.”
“If it helps me find my girls, anything,” he says.
“Where is Calhoon Strungel?”
169
Costa Rica. What a gorgeous country. Full of rainforests, blue water, and white sands. It also has stupid amounts of rain. More rain than I think I’ve seen in my entire. Life. The Emjet is on approach toward Juan Santamaría International Airport—miles and miles of green jungle stretch out under the plane. The whole team—minus Luke of course, and Teddy—crowds around the electronic windows. Monica and Tessa have never been out of the country before. The rest of us have, officially and unofficially. Since Agent Brown is hellbent on seeing me behind bars this is an unofficial visit for me, using one of the cover IDs Epic has whipped up for me. If I ever have to go underground again, I’m going to be prepared.
“It’s so green!” Lux cries out. She has her face plastered against the “window” despite the fact they’re electronic. “Oh I wish we could visit when the sun is shining?” she asks Tony over her shoulder.
“For you babe, anything. I’ve heard the weather here is pretty extreme. One day rain, the next day, eighty degrees and sunny skies,” Tony tells her. “I bet if we ask Milton real nice, he’ll let us know the perfect day to come and you and I can zip on down here.”
Lux’s smile brightens the whole craft—literally.
“Ooh check out that beach!” Tessa points excitedly as the plane banks over the far part of the city. Epic has the wheel, following local ATC. Technically, this trip is filed under a corporate retreat for Mars Tech. Major Nelson owed me after the debacle with my armor, so he made sure I would be covered—as long as we’re not too visible. He contacted the Costa Rican ambassador, explained the situation, and made all the necessary arrangements. All without informing the FBI. I love that our government is so massive that one hand and the other can have no idea what each are doing. It inspires a lot of confidence. Not for me, but I’m sure for someone.
Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 90