Zosma crouched to the stone patio in anguish. “What about the artifacts?”
“I was the guardian. Your psyche, the mystical barrier.” Her hands created a circle, and Uragon’s Z-bands of unlimited energy were redrawn line by line and colored into reality. They shone a fierce gold, flashing like a pulsar with radiation. “The time has come for you to bond with them and take control.”
She watched turbulent energy race at them. “I cannot take these. They symbolize destruction!”
“They do.” Leesa fastened the artifacts onto her forearms. “It will be up to you to change your perspective, and then everyone else’s.” She swept an arm out, drawing the inferno in on its arrival. A single torch played above her fingers. “You’re ready to take back your power.” She jammed the torch into Zosma’s chest, and, in expansive rippling waves, disappeared.
The tower caved on itself. Zosma floated down, willing her feet and legs into existence as her face returned to its violet beauty. Golden shin guards, the girdle, her mother’s heirloom necklace, a white high-collared cape, and the Uragonian crown, physical components rebuilt to perfection. Smoke and embers drifted in the aftermath. Moisture-robbed terrain smashed under her two toes. She breathed, smiling in gratitude, knowing the hard work of repairing the utopia was ahead.
Allister’s gruff yelps sucked her consciousness to reality and threw it at her crumpled body. She opened her eyes to the C20 engineering room. Z-energy no longer consumed her. Ice had lost its grip on walls and crumbled ceilings, drizzling into growing puddles. And for some reason, bone-chilling quiet surrounded her like a blanket too thin. Had his cries been a hallucination or—he screamed again.
She listened for his heaving and his heartbeat with no better sense of his location. Her wild intuition impelled her. Stepping over stray generator parts, squeezing between crushed machinery, ducking under hanging wires, and rushing past the cracked energy-cancelling barrier, she pressed her ear to the wall and yelled, “Allister! Are you in there?”
“Zo-Zosma?” he exclaimed, fighting for air.
Though his voice was consumed in a fit of coughs, she’d heard what she needed to hear. Her finger’s downward swipe severed the metal separating them, and as she shoved her palms out, it peeled to reveal him. She glided the short flight.
Hovering horizontal, centimeters above his gouged insides, her finger brushed his swollen eye and traveled along his cheekbone. “It is trust that makes you strong.” She nuzzled her crowned forehead close to his exposed, thumping heart. “And it is love that makes you invincible.”
Sickening squelching sounds gave her a reason to rejoice. It meant mended lungs and intestines, reconnected blood vessels and nerves, fused bones, and reattached ligaments. Signs of revival. From lower sternum to his neck, an invisible needle retraced the skin with an invisible thread, closing the gaping chest wound.
Lifting his head, he took her hand and said, “I don’t get it... how?”
“The bands. I did not have a choice.”
Allister eyed the golden bands and laid his head to rest on the floor. “We’ll deal with it. You’re alive, that’s all I care about.”
Days prior Zosma had been a devoted member of the organization C20. Weeks prior she’d been willing to sacrifice her life for a purpose that was not hers. Falsehoods forged in fear.
“The universe has spoken its truth,” she said to him, “it is written, and so it will be.”
Zosma willed a blue telekinetic field into formation, suspending them in the air. It rose through the hole in the ceiling, pushing aside fallen fixtures, breaking intact platforms piled on top of each other, and blasted out of the avalanche-sealed crater.
Two figures trekked toward nowhere atop the frozen land mass, clothes blowing in wind. They swiveled at the emphatic boom caused by her exit. The psychic, Florence, shouted and pointed up at them, then tugged at the other human. It was Bazzo Sparks.
Antarctica showed the courageous no mercy, but Zosma did.
Allister Adams
CIA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
“Blood pressure good, neurological functions good, cognitive response good,” the doctor said. Face wrinkles appeared above his mask, indicating a smile. “Quite the recovery, Agent Adams.”
“That’s not my name,” Allister mumbled.
Besides, he’d been admitted in perfect condition. His previous treatment history lived in a screen attached to the bed, and in a holographic projection from the Cynque. So, his hospitalization four months ago, came into question.
“It’s how I’ve been told to address you. Nothing personal.” The stout doctor reread the assessment through a monocle embedded in stylish headgear. “If I may make a suggestion.” Chip by chip, the mask retracted to reveal a buttery face, rewarded by years of life-saving sagacity. “Your accelerated, regenerative abilities, as astounding as they are to a young, crime-fighting superhero—”
“I’m not a superhero.”
“Right. Nevertheless, you’re aging faster than normal. I’m not sure what this says about your lifespan, but be mindful of your body’s reactions to trauma. If you go too far, you may not heal, or if you do, you may not wake up.”
Well, fuck, he thought. Power had a price tag.
“Thank you, Doctor...” He read the name. “Rojas.”
Dr. Rojas glanced up past his forehead for the sixth time.
“I know! My hair is fucking purple, man, sheesh.”
“It’s not the color that concerns us, it’s the genetic trigger.”
“Don’t suppose I could convince you to uh, share the results?”
The doctor typed onto the tablet and no details on the visible screen next to him changed. “Cynque, close file,” he said to the room.
“At once, Dr. Rojas,” the computer replied, blanking the displays.
Allister huffed. “Of course not, the secrets have secrets in this place.”
“You’re all set. Dr. Belladonna wants to take a final look at you before we move forward. Take care,” he said.
Florence survived. Apprehension swelled in his throat, when he’d expected relief and a pinch of joy.
“Move forward?” he asked.
“Cynque, examination mode, please.” The doctor’s mask extended from the same headgear and snapped over his mouth, as if it would prevent his leaking the answer. “She’ll be in soon.”
They were hidden on the CIA research and training facility’s fortieth floor. Langley had been re-zoned and upgraded to a full-blown military city. And it had taken a credible official (obviously Florence), pulling numerous thin strings to get them to admit an alien, and two unstable superhumans into the building for treatment. Then again, there were not many other places they could go, especially unsupervised.
Bazzo and Zosma alternated from eavesdropping to chatting outside the door like children. Dr. Rojas scanned his Cynque against the examination room entrance. It slid sideways and Bazzo strolled in.
“Bang up job, mate,” he said. Following their firm handshake, he rearranged the sling on his shoulder.
“How’s the hand?”
“Ah, minor damage. I need surgery. New bones, nerves and such.”
Allister’s eyes fell to the hospital blanket.
“What’re ya gonna do? With my pockets this stuff’s replaceable. Not everything is ya know,” he added, shrugging and nudging his head at Zosma, “I put in a good word for ya. Just do me a favor and don’t let anyone inside her—” He whistled while tapping his temple.
“Bazzo, I’m sorry about Bridget. She was a good girl.”
“Who’re you tellin’? Bridg was special. Bright, hilarious... kind back in those days. When we got our powers, she wanted to tell the world, learn how to use ‘em. But we had a few incidents on the farm and... she spiraled from there. She grew up so fast. I don’t know how I lost track of her.” Entrapped in his childhood, Bazzo rocked on his heels, inhaled, and tapped the bed’s railing. “Wasn’t scared of much besides herself. She was a brave
one, loads braver than me. Bloody shame nobody gave her a chance to show it.”
Leaning forward, he touched Bazzo’s slouched shoulder and nodded in agreement. “She came through when it counted most.”
“If you ever need anything Double A, you gimme a ring,” he finished, sniffling. “I prefer blue sapphires to diamonds though.”
Bazzo curved his mouth in a resilient smile to offset a film of tears welling up. He retired to the exit.
Zosma, who dillydallied by the door as Bazzo strolled out, sidled to the bedside and squeezed Allister’s two extra fingers. “A unique skeleton, indeed,” she cooed. “I do not gather you need five of these.”
He sat up higher, coming to eye level and cupped the back of her neck. “If we didn’t need them, we wouldn’t have them. What about this wild flower hair color? Can’t be natural.”
“As natural as the genes that code for them,” she teased. She spun matching clumps, one of his and one of hers, in their shared focal point.
Heads angled to the side, two pairs of lips came closer and closer, breaths mingling before a long-awaited kiss lit yearning bodies on fire. Her thick fingers ran down his spine, pulling, until there was no space between them.
“Ahem.” Florence’s austere expression extinguished the passionate encounter. “Zosma, can I see you in private? When you’re done.” She plopped a duffel bag by the door and said to him, “FYI, you’re being permanently relocated.”
Cold-blooded. Not a beat missed. Not a tender tone detected.
Complicated questions and logistics lingered above Zosma and Allister’s grazing noses and below their connected foreheads. Their dirty laundry was multiple loads of confusion, different colors washed, rinsed, and hung to dry together. She drifted to the window.
“You covered them up,” he remarked, noticing she’d wrapped glossy sand-brown fabric taut around her forearms.
“My aim is not deceit. It is to avoid anyone posing questions I am unable to answer.”
“Hey, I get it, I still can’t explain.” He ran a hand through his mini-afro and said, sighing, “We’ll talk later. I could use some downtime too.”
“I care for you, Allister Adams,” Zosma said, engaging her telekinesis to open the door. “It is the only thing I keep faith in these days.”
Left to ponder the last few months’ gains and losses: no greater gain than Zosma; no greater loss than his mother, there came a Cynque news alert: “Vice President Evan Muenchow is scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow, replacing the late President DeVries. He’s chosen a controversial candidate for vice president, proclaimed independent Dr. Florence Belladonna. A dual citizen with a long-standing political tenure who has already faced multiple assassination attempts. She would be the first female of African-American descent to hold such a high-ranking position in the presidential cabinet.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Cynque, summarize article.”
It read aloud in a fabricated female newscaster’s nasal voice. “This comes mere days after twenty untested energy-conducting machines were delivered to major cities: Berlin, Cairo, Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Morocco, to name a few. Their true purpose largely unknown.” Cynque news went on to bash C20, other questionable organizations like the Andromeda Project, and initiatives like the Z protocols, suggesting the world’s twenty wealthiest people and their governments start offering explanations. The U-generators had since become two-story eyesores among the few prospering metropolitans in the world. “And to make matters worse,” it concluded, “we’re told they can’t operate without a source. I speak for billions when I ask, what are they hiding from us?”
What are they hiding from us? A trinket’s glimmer in the unzipped bag teased his focus. He shuffled to it.
Heart pangs followed, as he picked up the medal for outstanding military service given to him by Captain Jared Brandt. At six years old, the shiny thing and its heroic meaning had so fascinated him. He couldn’t bear to part with it, and Brandt couldn’t bear to make him. The man he’d called “Uncle Brandt” was different back then. He was family. The doting godfather’s kindness immortalized in plated gold.
Allister polished the smudges with the hospital smock’s silk fabric, remembering the unintentional transportation inside the disruptive field. The Z-energy pulse had reached its height and brief words redeemed Captain Brandt.
“They’re gonna sacrifice Zosma, an’ you’ll be the only one who can stop ‘em. If ya love her,” Brandt had said, as he slipped into the arms of lady death, “don’t make the same mistakes I did. Instead of killin’, find a way to live for somethin’ bigger than our own selfish needs.”
Florence Belladonna
Florence slipped into a nightmare, tormented by the black velvet box she’d found in Wesley’s desk. Sensitivity had no place in the position she’d accepted, but two fingers pulled it closer, and she sighed, fighting off a tsunami of memories and sadness.
“Vice President Belladonna?”
Her executive assistant’s grating voice went in one ear and out the other.
She waved a hand over Florence’s eyes. “Vice President Belladonna, are you okay?”
No. “Yes.”
Not the focus, so, out of focus, the executive assistant rested in her peripheral, hidden behind nostalgia. Florence caressed the miniature treasure chest. Inside glinted a promise—to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, as long as they both shall live. She picked up the 10k diamond, enormous and obvious, the opposite of their relationship. At the time, she had a soft spot for gaudy things. Life forced simplification on her. She twirled it around, imagining their wedding dance, then struggled to slide it on, reliving when Wesley had done it for her. This time she wouldn’t be breaking both their hearts, by giving it back to him a month later. She squeezed her hands and lowered her forehead to them, swallowing loss lodged in her throat.
“I can give you a minute,” the young woman offered.
Twisting off the ring put her on the path to self-control. Florence nestled it into its home and slammed the box shut. Emotions trapped inside velvet, in the company of diamonds. Keeping her lips close together, she asked, “What do you need, Mrs. Gibson?”
“You’ve been requested to oversee Detective Steele’s interrogation.” Her assistant leaned down to whisper, “Also, three files were retrieved this morning. President Muenchow wants you to have a look and schedule a meeting first thing next week.”
“Have you looked at them yet?” she asked.
The freckle-faced, red head’s light green eyes expanded. “Not yet, it’s password protected. I had them sent to your Cynque.” She tiptoed to the conference room door while Florence became entrenched in her now reattached Cynque device, and the unlocked files.
The word “classified” had been graffitied in the bottom right corners. Four digital images snapped by the International Space Station, depicted a remote area in the Pacific Ocean. “Taken in early 2052,” she mumbled, getting closer to the holographic projection. Unusual energy readings showed disruptive wave emissions increasing two-fold month by month and based on a loose predictive model they’d peak at year’s end. Scientists believed them the principle cause for seismic activity, rise in super hurricanes, and abstract climate patterns.
“Is now an appropriate time?” Zosma asked.
Florence locked the Cynque, dissolving the image. “Come in.”
Zosma obeyed, but didn’t come too far in, pacing the room at its fringes and observing the humans bustling outside.
“I must accept blame and take responsibility for actions I performed, even under the entity’s persuasion,” Zosma said. Her purple hand traced the glass. “I apologize for my hand in taking the love of your life from you.”
“Did you know what you were doing?” Florence asked, standing, hardened, unsure if she were speaking as vice president, a devastated significant other, or a fellow super-powered creature.
“I suppose I was aware.” Zosma frowned and looked away. “Vulnerable, influenced, yet a
ware. Disguised as Rabia Giro, I could not ascertain the threat Dylurshin posed against myself and your people, until his actions validated what, deep down, I knew to be true.”
“You mean, when you found out he wanted to kill you. Got it.”
“Coinciding coincidences, Florence Belladonna. Imagine the tall tales of fright told in your youth, and the diabolical creatures in them carved in your night terrors.” Blue light surged beneath her palm. “Imagine, having just one of those demons resurrected from human flesh before your eyes, knowing it wants a single thing in the entire universe, and that thing is you.” Three stretched fingers balled into a fist, snuffing it out. “I fought it for my sense of self, yes, I deserved it. And once reclaimed, I fought to save you from Z-energy’s destruction.”
“Celine Nephthys destroyed the first deployed generator. You owe her a big thank you.”
“I would wager we all do.”
Five percent had kept her alive. The looming question was, how did she get the rest?
Zosma ambled the perimeter, stopping parallel to her, facing the opposing direction. “You have asked me here, why am I the one speaking?”
A funny coincidence, the same power struggle she and Leesa Delemar had experienced, existed with Zosma as well.
Hands stuffed in navy trouser pockets didn’t hide that her Cynque was back, which meant Florence Belladonna was back. “I had to handle the repercussions of—” She hesitated at the obligatory use of his name. “President DeVries’ assassination, the policies he’d presented to Congress, the laws he was writing. I’m reviewing what’s in the pipeline, finishing what I can and crafting my own.”
She didn’t have a choice, except it wasn’t about collecting a fat paycheck, it was about upholding morality. She’d gotten the confession she wanted, time to get to the point.
“The world isn’t ready for Zosma Caster,” she blurted out. “I need you to become Leesa Delemar again.”
“Have you given thought to the psychological effects on Allister?”
Demanding face-to-face conversation, Florence stepped toward the alien princess, tilted her neck up, then admitted, “It doesn’t matter. I told the world leaders you left.”
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