by Kaylee Kane
My heart clenched with fear. “How do you know all these?”
“I paid attention, Katrine. I knew everything about Xavior,” said Vylan.
I hoped Vylan had not researched into what I had done with Xavior. “What do we do now?”
“We have to hack the bombs! That’s the only way to stop them,” said Vylan.
“But how are we gonna do that?”
“Let me do it,” said Cecily. All heads turned to her.
You’d never know you took light for granted until you were left in the darkness. In the generous brightness of the ground floor, I felt better, even though we only had ten minutes left before the bombs would swallow up the whole city.
Sweat slick my face as Vylan and I hovered over Cecily’s shoulders as her fingers danced furiously on the keyboard. We were at the reception.
I switched roles with Cecily and now I was the timekeeper. “We have seven minutes,” I said, my heart beating faster by the second.
Cecily barely nodded as her gaze was affixed at the computer screen. Strings of numbers and letters jumped up and I had no idea what the fuck were they. All I could do was put my faith in Cecily. But then again, Cecily never disappointed me.
“I managed to connect to the Wi-Fi and used it to detect the bombs. There were seven of them in this building,” said Cecily in a no-kidding manner. “I am going to disengage them now.”
“How did you connect to the Wi-Fi? It’s blackout here.”
“How did you think I power up the laptop? Using the backup battery!”
“Just a quick question though, how did you learn all these?” I asked.
“Why? You thought I was nothing but a trophy wife?” Cecily smirked. “Well, how did you think I got onto my husband’s database to get you Xavior’s address?”
My heart skipped. I wanted to kick Cecily’s chair. I stole a glance at Vylan and relieved that he was too focused on what Cecily was doing instead of what she said.
A loud roar thundered throughout the building, making the furniture vibrate and some glass shattered. The three of us ducked for cover, Vylan hovered over us, protecting both of us with his arms and body.
My heart almost burst with fear. I thought the bombs detonate until the large shadow that cast over the building began to move.
“The spaceship! Xavior is fleeing!” cried Cecily.
“Don’t bother that first, Cecily. Focus on what you are doing!” said Vylan.
Cecily scrambled to her seat and back to smashing the keyboard with her fast typing. “I got four of them. How much time do we have left?”
I just realized that Cecily’s phone wasn’t in my hand anymore. The earth continued to quake as I groped on the floor until I found it. “Five minutes!”
My heart pounded faster as every second ticked by. It was the first time in my life I felt the seconds trickle slowly as though they were my last seconds before my life and everything I ever knew ceased to exist.
To be fair, if whatever Cecily was doing failed, they would be the final seconds of my life. Even so, it gave me a new perspective. Our time was ticking whether or not there was a bomb. Today we were alive and the next time you knew, you’d be long dead.
While there were plenty of things I hadn’t had the chance to experience, I was glad that I hadn’t chosen a life that I would regret because I was trying to live up to someone else’s expectations.
I glanced up at Vylan and felt even prouder at my own choices. Vylan caught my glance and smiled at me. He went back to staring at Cecily’s screen. Would he think that I was crazy to have such thoughts at such a time?
“Done!” announced Cecily as her finger tapped on the last tile dramatically and the digital clock on her screen stopped.
I glanced at Cecily’s phone. My stomach lurched when I saw that there were only thirty seconds left.
Cecily grabbed her phone back and gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me we had less than a minute left?”
“Uh, I didn’t want to pressure you, really,” I lied, feeling slightly guilty.
Vylan moved towards the window and watched the shape of Xavior’s spaceship slowly retreating from the building. “Now if only we could hack into that spaceship too. I really have no idea what will happen if he really does what he’s planned. And knowing him, sure as hell he will.”
Cecily closed the laptop and tucked it under her arm. “I can’t be possibly hacking into the spaceship, but if we get close enough to it, I could hack into that bomb he got in the spaceship.”
A vicious idea stirred in my head. “Could you detonate that?”
Cecily’s malicious smile matched mine. “If we could get close enough. I could set a timer so that the bomb would detonate once his spaceship was out of danger zone. But we need to get close to it.”
“I could drive,” volunteered Vylan.
“Let’s get going, then,” said Cecily. I had no idea since when Cecily took leadership of the team, but it didn’t matter to me. I never really saw this side of Cecily before but I thought the three of us would make a great vigilante team.
Or maybe it was just me daydreaming. No way in hell Cecily would slave away for less than minimum wage when she could be lounging in her husband’s yacht. And Vylan would want to focus on his career after the promotion.
The Mysterious Kitty worked alone and she would always be.
19
Dangerous was an understatement for the way Vylan drove. Luckily the streets were pretty clear after declared emergency. That didn’t stop my heart from pounding against my chest.
I had never seen Corn City being that empty it looked almost inhabited. Most people would seek refuge in the comfort of their homes.
A couple of police cars were patrolling the streets and few had attempted to stop us. They gave up after following us for a few miles, knowing that this wasn’t going well with Vylan’s way of driving.
“Try to get under that bridge and follow the shortcut towards the bank!” shouted Cecily from the back seat. “Don’t worry about the car. I’ll get a new one next week.”
I was clinging onto my seat like grim death as Vylan made a sharp turn to the left. The tires screeched in protest and the whole car almost floated as it turned.
“We are not getting new lives next week, Vylan! If plane engines take time to warm up before every flight, I’d bet you with my life that the spaceship is going to take longer to get ready.”
“Granted, but I will need time to hack into the bomb,” said Cecily. “We are getting real close. I think I will be able to connect with it near the park!”
The sceneries in the window blurred as Vylan swerved left and right and finally skidded to a stop. Gravity threw me forward and my seatbelt hauled me back. My back was slammed against the seat.
My bones ached in protest. Getting older wasn’t fun. Holding onto my waist, I stretched my back, trying to relax my tensed muscles.
My heart almost jumped out of my chest. I was gasping loudly and let out a sigh of relief when we finally stopped.
“You alright?” asked Vylan.
“Yeah, I’m pretty surprised I’m still alive.” I looked into the side mirror and gawked in horror at my hair.
I swept my hand over my hair to fix it and scanned around. We pulled up right below the hovering spaceship that looked like it had parked there.
The sound of Cecily’s fingers tapping the keyboard filled the car. She grunted, “I can only get into the spaceship. I can’t detect the bomb from down here. We need to get on top of the building!”
I looked out of the window on the right at what looked like an apartment. Some residents had poked their heads out of their windows to check out what was happening.
“We’re already here. Why not?” I said.
Adrenaline already pumped in my system. I had no idea how long the spaceship was going to stay there. And when I looked at the innocent civilians, my Mysterious Kitty’s senses were tingling. Urgency catapult
ed me out of the car.
“Alright, let’s get going!” Vylan chanted.
The three of us bolted towards the entrance. Whipping out my hacker device, I unlocked the password-protected glass door and pressed the ‘Up’ button on the elevator. Ha! Cecily wasn’t the only one that could hack!
When the three of us went through and were waiting for the elevator only I noticed we weren’t alone. Some middle-aged women were looking at us up and down with strange looks, wondering where the hell we were coming from.
Seconds stretched to eternity. From the looks in Vylan and Cecily’s faces, I could tell they noticed that too. A brief silence fell over us until the ping from the elevator saved us from the awkwardness.
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I let out a relieved sigh. I was the first to jump into the open elevator, followed by Cecily, then Vylan.
The women were staring at us, unmoving. I shrugged and closed the elevator door, sparing no time.
Cecily hit the highest floor, which was twenty-fifth and the elevator soared skywards. She flipped open the laptop and typed one-handed.
“The signal is getting stronger here. We might have some luck on top,” said Cecily, her eyes affixed on the screen.
“Well, let’s hope so,” I said.
The elevator door split open and the three of us got out. I scanned the empty foyer, analyzing our situation, and spotted the door to the staircase with a sign read ‘To Rooftop’. “There!” I went to push it open and ran up the staircase that led to another door.
It felt like déjà vu that I needed to kick another door open. This time, however, it was unlocked and I easily opened out to the rooftop balcony.
A gust of cold air brushed my face and blew my hair like silk ribbons. The skyline of Corn City stretched out into the horizon and looked like the grids in computer chips from right here, a reminder of how tall this building was.
Xavior’s spaceship was just hovering right above our heads, casting its large intimidating shadow over us. It was so close that it was easily reachable by just jumping up. The thought of how close I was to Xavior and Trixter made my nerves tingle.
I pinched my eyes closed and shook my head. Though I forgave myself, no matter how hard I tried it, I still couldn’t wipe out what happened between us.
How they fucked me real good and fucked me over. It was the humiliation part that made it feel wickedly sweet. Never before anyone had made me feel so filthy and dirty like a fucking slut before.
“Are you alright?” I just realized Vylan was right behind me. The warmth of his palm against my back made me feel instantly better.
I nodded and leaned my head against his chest, finding my way home to his heart. Guilt pricked me. I shouldn’t have cheated on him with Xavior and Trixter. I felt like a terrible person.
“Guys!” shouted Cecily from behind us. “Bad news!”
I peeled away from Vylan and we both took her sides. “What happened?” I asked, unable to decipher the screen full of number and word strings.
“I still cannot connect to the bomb. There must be some sort of shield on the spaceship that blocks off the signal,” said Cecily. She tore from the screen and looked around. “Maybe we should find a way into the spaceship.”
My heart almost stopped. First of all, I didn’t want to see Xavior’s face anymore. It wasn’t like I would fall for him all over again. I just wanted nothing to do with him.
Second of all, it was too dangerous. Xavior was a psycho–
“Let’s do it!” said Vylan suddenly.
Cecily nodded. “Yeah, there must be somewhere we can sneak in.”
I held up my hands to stop them. “Whoa, whoa, hang on there. We are not getting up that shit. Xavior and Trixter are crazy bastards. If we ever get in, no way we will ever get out again.”
“The world’s strongest nuclear bomb is in that fucking spaceship. If Xavior brings it back to his home planet, there will be a war and it isn’t between the countries anymore. It’s us against the aliens and we stand no chance,” said Vylan.
Cecily nodded. “Vylan is right. We are the only hope the planet’s got.”
“Hang on there. I am the Mysterious Kitty. I am the senior vigilante here. So you gotta listen to me,” I said in annoyance. “We will stand no chance against Xavior if we ever get on that spaceship. We have no fucking idea what awaits us. Maybe it’s a fucking setup.”
Vylan grabbed my shoulders and his blue eyes pierced into mine. I cringed at the memories of Xavior’s eyes whose color the same as Vylan. How the two of them could look so similar yet they had two different mindsets?
“That’s right. This is your moment, Katrine. You are the Mysterious Kitty! You are the hero and idol of Corn City. You have been serving our city long enough. It’s time to step up the game and save the whole world,” said Vylan.
“We are here with you, Mysterious Kitty. You are not alone. You might not be able to defeat them alone but you have us this time, Kat. We can do it!” added Cecily.
My eyes darted between them in turn. Then, my resolve strengthened and I nodded. “Alright, let’s do this together then.”
Vylan and Cecily smiled at me and I smiled back and clapped them on their backs. “Make sure we survive this to get the reward money. I’ve got some bills to pay,” I said.
“We will,” assured Vylan.
He turned around and whipped out a device that looked like a smartphone.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a device to detect possible entrance to any facilities or structures. It was on sales at Superhero Co. and I thought it might come in handy,” said Vylan casually as he waved the device at the spaceship.
“So you shop there too?”
“Yeah, they got lots of great deals and their prices are the lowest in the market. You’ve been there before?”
“Yeah, a couple of times.” My heart sank a little. I thought I was the savvy one with cool gadgets.
The device beeped and Vylan checked the screen. “There is a door at the back of the spaceship,” said Vylan, pointing at what looked like a silver door on the white cube.
“Another bad news, guys. This giant cube will be flying off in less than ten minutes,” said Cecily. She glanced at us in turn, expecting a response.
“Do you think we can get in, hack the bomb, and get out in ten?” I asked.
“Yes if we start now.”
I sighed my resignation and pulled out my phone to set the timer. “I’ll keep check of the time.”
20
We hacked in through the back door and as soon as we set foot into the spaceship, the familiarity of Xavior’s house drowned me. We were in the empty marble-floor hallway in what looked like a mansion, not a bit like a spaceship.
The smell of rose-scented sanitizer filled my nose, like the first time I came into Xavior’s residence. All the secret, juicy memories between Xavior and I came alive, along with the feelings I had been bottling up.
Did I really still have feelings towards Xavior? Even though he tried to kill me? No, it was just nostalgia. I couldn’t deny how much fun we had had, but over was over. No way in hell I would go running back to my crazy ex.
I slipped my hand into Vylan’s and held his hand tightly, reminding myself who my true love really was. I forced my mind to think about the night where Vylan rescued me from the perverted thief. When he took me home and we ended up fucking each other.
Gosh, it felt sexier and hotter thinking about it. My pulse raced through my veins. I looked at Vylan’s handsome face and his hot, strong shoulders and gulped hungrily. When we got out of here, I wanted to fuck him like we’d never done it before.
Vylan glanced at me and mouthed, “We’ll be alright.”
“I got it!” mouthed Cecily. “The signal is still quite weak. I need to get closer to the bomb.”
“Xavior might be anywhere. We have to tread carefully,” I muttered, whipping out the heat s
ensor. “Where are we heading?”
“Towards the lounge room. It’s just there,” said Cecily.
Guilt trickled into me as we traveled down the hallway into the center of the spaceship. It was hard to imagine we were in an alien transportation when the interior looked like some five-starred ballroom, especially one I knew too well.
The diamond chandelier still hung from the heart of the two-story high room. I remembered the crisp tapping of my heels against the glossy marble tiles. I drank in the rich aroma of the leather seats where Xavior made me feel like a fucking whore.