Wesley dug for her hand, holding it tight while they passed shrubbery on their climb up the driveway.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
She wrapped her arm around his neck and kissed him for the last time. “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Event staff assisted her vehicle exit. Teeth clenched in a contrived smile, Florence entered the public eye and executed polite waves to people she’d heard of or met as a child.
“Welcome, President DeVries. There were some last-minute invitees added we need to review,” a young woman said, her words rushed. “They’re waiting for you in the study.”
A narrow, linear-columned runway spilled from the foyer into the main hall, where intricate celestial stories, posed as murals, were painted on its stone ceilings. Angelic warriors, elemental gods, armored men and women, and a red-eyed demon illustrated in eternal conflict.
Wesley returned from his briefing, sidling next to her as staff members directed them to a door.
“Hi, Mr. President, welcome, right this way,” they said and watched them pass. “Dinner is served.”
Did you find out? She projected.
Glad you brought the sword, Wesley thought and glanced at his Cynque. Stay alert.
Tyrian purple wallpaper stretched behind elongated mirrors, whose intricately molded frames atoned for being crafted in cheap metal. A modest chandelier twinkled.
Champagne glasses reached the attendee’s hands. Sweet desserts and savory dishes decorated a sanded and glazed cedar table in the dining room’s center, while aged, oaky Italian reds and buttery French whites were poured in faux camaraderie. The tension slipped down like a satin nightgown.
“King Nephthys,” Wesley greeted the Moroccan diplomat with a bow, “glad you made it. Will we be seeing Princess Celine this evening?”
“She’s not feeling well.” His curt reply was missing its reciprocal bow. He scooted by to take his seat. “I trust there’ll be no superhuman incidents.”
“No, your highness. It’s been handled.”
Major nations from the five U.N. groups promised to represent by sending the who’s who of their elite. High-net-worth individuals or respective elected or appointed officials showed up and showed out from countries like Morocco, Germany, India, Nigeria, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, Egypt, Argentina, Norway, Austria, Poland, the UK, and Brazil. They enjoyed lobster tails, filet mignon, roast, asparagus topped with poached eggs, and caviar.
“I don’t remember seeing her on the list of invitees,” a dignitary from Austria gossiped.
“She’s the late Lord Belladonna’s daughter,” the Norwegian Queen answered, “representing Italy and his filthy company, I suppose.”
The German prime minister snickered. “I heard she was dead.”
“Isn’t this the second time?” his consort quipped. Glasses clinked. Laughter ensued.
People loved to weave their personal truth into the world for consumption. Florence tossed her hair. Her forearms flexed as she picked up her steak knife by the acrylic handle and held it upright.
“Let them talk, sweetheart, let them talk,” Wesley said, lips parted, not moving.
“Would you like a glass of our 2028 Marchesi Cabernet Sauvignon?” a waiter asked.
Grinning, Wesley answered, “Yes, she would.”
Too distracted to appreciate the meal’s tantalizing flavors, Florence took calculated sips of her dry, full-bodied drink in fifteen-minute intervals. She never swallowed and spit it into the glass. If all went as planned she’d discard it on a circulating collection tray before anyone was the wiser.
Amidst casual conversation, Jane Wenyin, the former Korean director for the Andromeda Project, passed her a fake smile and the dessert tray. The woman sat opposite Chung Tae-Won, the former Chinese director, and on the table’s far end, a menacing Aleksander Karjavine, the former Russian director, shoveled roast into his mouth. Three traitorous tyrants responsible for funding C20’s research and development efforts.
Aleksander squinted at Wesley after a few glasses of cabernet and pointed. “You better have plan, DeVries. I love good meal, but I would not fly five thousand miles for one.”
Wesley’s posture straightened to the insult. “Too late.”
She coughed, knocked off guard, and brought the cloth napkin to her lip.
By contrast, the table joined in nonchalant laughter at the unexpected joke. “No, seriously, thank you, Mr. Karjavine. You bring up a good point. This is the perfect time to address the reason we’re here.” Wesley left the table and moseyed behind the guests, performed his speech. “If you take a look around the room tonight, you’ll see a plethora of different faces, nationalities, religions. At the end of the day, we’re people, we’re human, and we’re fighting to survive. It’s easy to forget that in your own home, surrounded by your country’s traditions, laws, and military protection. It’s not enough anymore.” He looked down. “What we’re facing is elimination. Unless we work together to preserve our way of life. We’ve found the Transporter gems, the most powerful thing known to man besides Z-energy, and thanks to Allister Adams’s cooperation, we’ve had time to study them and figure out how they work.”
Light clapping disrupted the president’s sentiment, or as Florence would call it, the president’s gigantic lie.
“We’re talking about opening new doors, in the figurative and literal sense. Let’s do it together,” he concluded. “I propose a toast to evolution and advancement.”
They quieted to eerie silence, no doubt reflecting on what it meant to them individually, and for their countries.
“To humanity,” Jane said.
“To humanity,” the room repeated, raised their glasses, and drank to their own desires.
“Where’s the superhuman?” one of the gossipers asked.
“We’ll be moving to the next room,” a waiter announced. “The summit commences in ten minutes.”
Wesley returned to sneak a kiss, and her head jerked back.
“What a riveting speech,” Florence said and shoved past him. She collided with a woman on her way out the door. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying...” Her voice went cold. “Attention.”
Jane Wenyin. The petite socialite smirked, picked up the solitary champagne glass on the table, and pursed her glossed lips.
“You look well,” she said, “cheers to your swift recovery.”
The drink tumbled into the basin Jane called her mouth in three classless gulps. Florence imagined peristalsis working the bubbling liquid down the woman’s should-be cigarette-rotted esophagus and depositing it in an acidic, oily pool of the event’s cuisine. An eighty-five-year-old body with brand new organs and shiny, plastic skin. She’d lived in her country through four generations of political unrest and stood as living proof that, in their world, immorality equaled immortality.
“You staying for our surprise demonstration?” Jane asked, “It is revolutionary.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat,” Florence replied and clenched her dress fabric by the nails.
“The Andromeda Project was worthless. My business damn near collapsed because of its failure and so did the global economy. I was forced to invest the leftover scraps of my portfolio in C20’s solution.”
“It’s not the solution I’m concerned about,” she blurted, “It’s the person leading it.”
“And the United States is a more agreeable option? Tsk, tsk, Doctor, I thought Lord Giovanni taught you better than that.” Jane’s finger rimmed the glass. “You have seen what happens when you get in the way. This time, I’ll make sure the job’s done.” She let the glass go and watched it shatter at their feet and feigned shock. Cruel reminders to her attempt at orchestrated murder. “Come along, little lady, you don’t want to be late,” she said and strode out the doorway.
Florence jumped after her, fists charged with psionic energy.
“Hey, hey.” Wesley tugged her by the elbow. “You have to relax.”
Deep breaths melted the energy and she turned
. “This is me relaxed. That woman is a b—”
He raised his eyebrow and a finger to her lips.
“Witch. She tried to have me killed.”
“I have to go in there, take a minute to cool off.”
“Wesley.”
“Yes.”
“He’s here,” she mouthed.
“I know,” he mouthed in response. “Stay alert.”
She traveled the corridor on her toes and groped the depths of an oversized, sapphire-studded clutch, gauging the appropriate time to slip behind a column and check her father’s Cynque for Bazzo’s overdue status updates.
“Can I help you find the conference auditorium, beautiful?”
Florence turned enough to catch Hunter Steele’s cheesy smile, and touched the telepathically invisible handle of her sword. “Detective Steele, what are you doing here?”
“My, my, my. Hello to you too,” he retorted. “Who else would the U.S. hire to run security but the best?”
Zosma Caster
World Energy Summit, Deep Cove, Vancouver
Hair coiled and pinned in a magnificent up-do, Zosma’s chiffon dress and sewn on cape plunged over her alien curves. The intricate, ever-present crown and its lustrous stone were conspicuous contradictions to her most convincing human costume, and cast an eerie glow on the leaves, twigs and dirt that plagued the mansion’s untended roof.
The man Zosma had met, Captain Jared Brandt, leaned on the ledge next to her. She exhaled as they witnessed the third lightning flash in under a minute.
“Storm’s comin’,” he said.
She remembered the captain. His decorated red uniform and his reluctant obedience. They’d worked together during the years she paraded around as Lieutenant Leesa Delemar. He changed from the soldier to the traitor. Slighted by corrupt policies and nonchalance toward human life, he embarked on a revenge quest against Nicolas Delemar and the Andromeda Project. Actions which were trivial in the universe’s grand scheme, had wrenched through reality, altering more timelines than she cared to imagine, including hers.
“Humans are puzzling creatures.” She watched him scrape at the ledge. “Admirable fascination with the unknown. I wonder, must they endeavor to control it?”
He broke eye contact and pressed a button below his palm. The weapon jutted out and reformed atop his forearms and locked in place. “We’re scared of anythin’ better or bigger than us.”
“Is not every being in this universe?”
One of two wrist canons’ gears cranked. She stepped away from the ledge. Light drizzling threatened her beauty, yet never touched her.
“If my power helps heal this world, I can be a symbol for preservation rather than destruction. The longing for belonging grips the minds of the strongest and weakest alike.”
He activated the second canon. “I’m nothin’ but a lost soul.”
“You can change your truth if you change your perspective.” Her dress spread around her as she levitated off of the ground.
Nodding, he stared up at her. “You an’ Neight are somethin’ else, I tell ya.”
Dry to her hollow bones, she floated to the winding staircase, and gave him a final smile, before she disappeared into misty submission.
Allister Adams
World Energy Summit, Deep Cove, Vancouver
A streak of hot silver split the sky, followed by the requisite thunder crackle. Black clouds billowed from the east, drenching the Canadian wilderness in the rain’s heady scent and pattering drops.
Allister stared through fogged windows, waiting for instructions that wouldn’t come. He huffed and rearranged himself in the BMW’s roomy backseat.
“Is there a signal or?” he asked.
Celine sat behind the driver’s chair, left leg folded over right. “What is in there is unnatural.”
“I’m still confused, who’re you talking about?”
She went to speak, and no words came out.
“Uh, Celine?”
“The rain,” she mumbled. Sand speckles fell from her cheek and landed in her lap. “I won’t be able to hold myself together.”
He jabbed a thumb at the downpour. “You didn’t do this?”
“I don’t play with the weather.”
“I mean, okay, but rain’s not what’s scaring you. So, why’re we out here?”
“Antarctica is covered in 15-million-year-old ice,” she spoke slowly and fixed her shawl in a trance. “If you want to know a planet’s secrets, that’s where you go. The ice told the ocean, the ocean told the rain, the rain told the soil, and the soil told me: Dr. Giro is—”
“I’m going in. You’re freaking me out.”
She didn’t protest.
He threw his hands up, opened the door and ducked out onto the sidewalk. Crouching beside the car, he estimated the distance to the vegetation encompassing the venue. Aggressive ivy and hostile vines snaked around the gate’s titanium bars the full forty feet up. Unruly shrubbery planted in equidistant rows offered him solace between their leaves, if he could get to them. A soldier patrolled past him.
He bolted.
“Hey,” the soldier sneered, spotting Allister beside the decorative hedges. He threw an elbow across the man’s jaw and knocked him unconscious. Click. Seconds before a blast released, he spun outward and wrestled another armed soldier into a headlock.
“Let go of it and I won’t hurt you,” Allister said.
The soldier kept a firm grip on the trigger. He cursed and tightened the choke hold. His assailant’s neck arteries and veins compressed. The gun hit wet tarmac. Allister’s head swiveled in the soaked darkness to confirm no one had seen. “If anyone’d told me five months ago, when I was baking croissants and restocking sugar packets, that I’d be...” Runoff water carried the sentence away. Anything that had happened in the last five months sounded too ridiculous or too sad. He took a breath and dragged the limp body across the concrete.
Gears grinding inwards moved the hydraulic system of a hidden entrance. He thought he was heading for a sly, quiet infiltration prior to the stressful undertaking of heroics, but the stark white spotlight shining in his eye had to belong to a Cynque or military artillery.
Allister stood at the opening, hands in the air, knowing it best he give up to get in. The light vanished, and the colossal property with its eyebrow style windows, and cavernous mouth of french doors, scolded his carelessness. Rapid, multiple white flashes weren’t paparazzi welcoming his arrival, they were a lightning storm on its worst behavior.
“Good morning, Sir Adams,” Detective Hunter Steele said, his strapping frame unveiled. “Welcome to the party.”
“You mind letting President DeVries know his guest of honor’s here?” Allister yelled over nature as he entered.
Bazzo Sparks
World Energy Summit, Deep Cove, Vancouver
“I bloody hate rain,” Bazzo said. The uncomfortable masked uniforms had questionable ventilation systems, but he gave silent thanks rain didn’t touch his bare skin. He tended to have adverse reactions to it, as any electrically charged superhuman would. The person next to him stood silent and still, obedient to a fault. He tilted his neck and whispered, “Mate, you in there?”
They didn’t break character.
Hunter Steele marched toward him, bearing a hostage. “Bringing in Allister Adams!” he shouted at his wrist and shoved the staggering body.
Bazzo and the soldier both straightened up, although their camouflage made them nigh invisible.
Oh god, he thought when they entered the double doors. I gotta get inside. He nudged the person he believed was his partner in crime. “Wiggle your fingers, I can’t tell if it’s you.”
Dorian nodded. Thunder, lightning, heavy rain—loud noises, especially blended, had triggered a sonic energy buildup. He clutched his now glowing hand, then shook it up and down, left and right. The energy dissipated.
He and Dorian were stationed at the majestic entrance. Concealed by lowlight and cloudburst, they scampered aroun
d the side of the house and flattened against the wall. Chest moving in temporary exhaustion, he said, “If I use my powers, I’ll fry the whole guest list. This is fucked.”
A loud boom sent Dorian to one knee. The side door swung open. Two soldiers walked out as Bazzo ducked below eye level and froze.
“Steele promised me fireworks tonight. I’m disappointed,” the first said.
“Night is young, man, night is young,” the second replied. They congregated out of earshot, too enthralled to look their direction.
“Hey, mate, pull it together.”
Dorian patted Bazzo on the chest in gratitude.
“Good on ya, let’s go in.”
Florence Belladonna
“Thank you for your patience,” Wesley said to a chattering audience. “Please, quiet down. We’re ready to begin.”
The auditorium doors banged open. A disoriented Allister, drooling blood and spit, was escorted inside by the armpits, his feet dragging behind him. The murmurs circulating the room hushed.
“Detective Steele, what did I say about violence?” Wesley left the podium to help Allister onto the ground-level stage and into an armed chair.
The conference hall’s wooden panels absorbed collective gasps. Dim, mood lighting fell, wrapping the room in secrets. None shined on Dr. Rabia Giro, as he hobbled from stage right.
“Welcome, all,” he rasped and leaned forward to each of the five U.N. groups.
Haggard. Pale. His ears and nose had morphed from rounded organs to sharpened ones. To which he blamed malnourishment and isolation. “It was kind of U.S. to let me join. We complete our first devices and are eager to show you, the lucky few. Thank you, Jane, Chung, Aleksander, for invitations, it is honor to be present for this pivotal gathering in human history. Believe me, I know. Mr. President, allow me.”
Wesley stiffened, huddled beside Hunter, who’d transformed, then folded his metal arms over his metal chest.
“Dr. Belladonna. Is no wonder we’ve gathered to rub elbows with socialite of such poise and skill at manipulation.” Dr. Giro neared the stadium seating’s bottom row. Taller than she remembered. Bolder than she remembered.
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