“We work together to actually find our way out of the maze.”
*****
It took about ten minutes of concerted effort to find our way out of the maze. In truth, it was actually a lot of fun working together to solve what was effectively a giant puzzle, and a few times we bumped into other people who were also trying to locate the exit. By the time we made our way out, Electra was speaking to me again in something akin to her usual tone. Making a bold gamble, I reached out to take her hand, and this time she let me (and also rewarded me with a smile).
“We should probably head back,” I said, and immediately regretted it as I sensed tension and ire rising in Electra.
“Or not,” I quickly added.
Electra looked as though she wanted to make a comment, but before she could someone softly cleared their throat nearby. We both turned in the direction of the sound. Facing us, camera in hand and dressed in a tux, was the photographer we’d met the night before.
“Matt Kroner,” I said flatly, trying to hide my surprise. “If you’re trying to avoid being confused with paparazzi, crashing private parties is not how it’s done.”
He chuckled a little nervously. “Believe it or not, I actually have an invite.”
“Oh?” said Electra, sounding somewhat skeptical.
Kroner nodded. “Yes, Indigo asked me to come. They never lined up an official photographer, and she decided at the last minute that she’d really like some keepsakes.”
I kept my face passive, but internally I felt that what Kroner had said was reasonable. It actually sounded like something my grandmother would do. More to the point, from what I could sense of his emotions, Kroner was being truthful.
“So why are you out here wandering around instead of being inside where the party is?” Electra asked.
“There are folks partying outside, too,” Kroner countered, glancing around at others who were also taking the air. “Plus, I’ve been snapping pictures of people inside all night. But the real reason I’m out here is you.”
Electra’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Me?”
“The two of you, actually,” Kroner answered. “Indigo told me to make sure that I got a picture of you and the quick-change artist” – he nodded at me – “so I tracked you down.”
Quick-change artist? I frowned for a moment, trying to make sense of his comment, but decided not to dwell on it as Kroner gave a quick rundown of how he’d found us. Essentially, my grandmother had told him to look for the famous teen model Vestibule, who in turn had pointed him in the direction where Electra and I had last been seen. (The rest was elementary, although he’d had to wait a few minutes for us to come out of the hedge maze.)
After he finished speaking, Kroner had us quickly strike a few poses – standing side-by-side, face-to-face, back-to-back, etc. – and then hurriedly bid us adieu.
“Well, that was fast,” Electra whispered as we watched Kroner walking away. “I guess there’s some bigwig inside whose picture will sell for more money than ours.”
“It’s more likely that he’s just trying to give us some privacy,” I said. “Remember how he announced himself by clearing his throat? He obviously realized he caught us at an awkward time.”
She nodded. “Good point.”
“Anyway,” I said, changing the subject, “where were we before Kroner captured us on camera?”
“You were about to apologize.”
“I was?” I droned, raising an eyebrow. “For what, exactly?”
“For what?” she repeated. “For being an a–”
She stopped in mid-sentence as a young couple appeared nearby. Holding hands and looking starry-eyed, they hurried past us towards the entrance to the hedge maze.
Electra was silent for a moment as the couple went around a hedgerow and vanished from our line of sight.
“Look, is there some place where we can talk in private?” she asked.
“Of course,” I assured her, and then teleported us.
Chapter 26
We popped up on a high veranda facing the rear of the mansion and enclosed by a decorative stone railing. It not only let us look down on the poolside terrace where our friends were, but also provided an epic view of the grounds and surrounding area. All in all, it was a stunning panorama that was difficult to absorb with a single glance.
“Wow,” Electra muttered, taking in the view. “Where are we?
“One of the upper balconies,” I replied. “But this wing is one of the few parts of the mansion closed off tonight, so we won’t be disturbed.”
“Balconies, wings, mansions,” she said teasingly. “Someone’s growing accustomed to haute living.”
“On the contrary, my lifestyle’s finally catching up to my taste,” I quipped.
She giggled merrily at that, the sound of her laughter making my heart race. Then, still smiling, she stepped close and kissed me, catching me a little unprepared but I quickly recovered.
She pulled back a few moments later, a coy grin on her face as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Then she took me by the hand and led me to a couch that was part of an outdoor furniture set, along with a couple of armchairs and an ottoman. She took a seat in the middle of the couch and drew me down next to her.
She didn’t say anything at first, just sat there with a thoughtful expression on her face. Knowing that she was working up to something, I simply stayed quiet, perfectly content to merely hold her hand.
After a minute or so, she let out a deep breath and said, “I don’t really dislike her – Myshtal, that is.” She added the name hastily, as if I wouldn’t have known who she was referring to. “And I don’t think she’s a terrible person because of this…situation that you’re both in.”
“Then what is it?” I asked.
“It’s the fact that you live in the same house with her, you sleep under the same roof, you’re both royalty, you’ve had adventures together, and the two of you speak a language that no one else understands.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true. I mean, not that many people on Earth speak Caelesian, but –”
“You know what I mean,” she interjected, cutting me off. “Basically, the two of you connect in ways that you and I can’t.”
“Look, I can’t deny that Myshtal and I have a rapport,” I admitted. “You can’t go through what we did on Caeles and not develop a bond of some sort, but it’s not like what you and I have.”
“Yeah, what you and I have is very different,” she stated in a huff, letting go of my hand and crossing her arms. “I’m the one you’re not engaged to.”
I laughed. “You say that like it’s a competition.”
She gave me a steely look. “You said that, not me.”
“Fine, I said it. So will it make you feel better if I even up the score?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll just get engaged to you, too,” I announced with a smile, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close.
Electra burst out laughing. “Ha! That’s your idea of evening up the score?”
“Sure,” I insisted with a nod as Electra leaned towards me and lay her head against my chest. “If I’m engaged to you, that’ll be an additional connection that you and I have.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint you,” she said, feigning a stern tone, “but on Earth, we don’t just arrange marriages at the drop of a dime. Maybe on Caeles they sell women off as brides for a candy bar when they want a snack, but here we do it differently.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way,” I stated. “I’ll just ask your father for your hand.”
Suddenly, Electra went stiff. Although I had meant for my statement to be generic, I had inadvertently touched upon a sensitive subject.
Electra had been raised by the Alpha League since she was an infant. However, she had recently found her birth parents, and the details about them had been sobering, to say the least. For starters, her biological father was in prison,
while her mother had suffered a psychotic break shortly after Electra’s birth. Even worse, the entire maternal side of her family – but for one notable exception – were essentially bad apples whose calling card was synonymous to “Supervillains R Us.”
The only silver lining was the fact that her father, Vir, was actually a good guy who – from what I had been told – didn’t deserve to be behind bars. That said, it didn’t appear that parole was likely to happen any time in the near future. (It certainly didn’t help that Vir had recently broken out. There had been extenuating circumstances and he had willingly turned himself back in, but he clearly hadn’t earned any brownie points with that maneuver.) Nevertheless, Electra and her father had started developing a relationship and had grown close, but it was obviously an area in which my girlfriend was pretty touchy.
Fortunately, Electra plainly realized that my faux pas was completely unintentional, and after a few seconds I felt the tension drain out of her.
“I think you might be putting the cart before the horse,” she finally said, a little snarkily.
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Well, anything like that is obviously years away, but before you start asking anybody for my hand, you might want to figure out whether I’ll say ‘Yes’ when you pop the question.”
Chapter 27
Electra and I didn’t return to the party. We simply stayed on the balcony, talking and spending some much-needed quality time together. (And it’s just as well that we didn’t go back, since I’m sure something else would have happened to sour the mood. It just seemed to be a recurring theme whenever Myshtal and my girlfriend drifted into each other’s orbit.)
Thankfully, our friends weren’t offended when I gave them a telepathic heads-up that they were on their own, so to speak. Likewise with my mother and grandparents, who made sure Myshtal got home safely. In fact, the only person not too keen on the idea of me and Electra being off by ourselves was Esper, another member of the Alpha League who generally served as Electra’s de facto guardian. (It had recently come to light that Esper was also my girlfriend’s aunt, which explained why she had a tendency to be overprotective on occasion.)
I hadn’t seen her at the party, but I’d known she was present and had no trouble making mental contact with Esper, who was typically ranked as the most powerful telepath on the planet. She, in turn, had given me very specific instructions on when I was to have her niece home – and how swiftly I was to depart thereafter. To someone on the outside looking in, it might have appeared that Esper didn’t like me. In truth, however, she actually approved of me as Electra’s boyfriend. That said, I clearly hadn’t done myself any favors in her sight by returning from Caeles with a fiancée in tow.
Thus it was with Esper’s directives still fresh in my head that I teleported Electra home at the appropriate time. A big smooch before she went inside let me know I was pretty much forgiven for any transgression, and I teleported home and went to bed in a generally good mood.
*****
I woke up the next morning to the sound of my cell phone ringing. Still groggy, I checked the time and noted that it wasn’t exceptionally early, but – after a late night – I had actually planned to sleep in a little longer. I then looked to see who was calling me, and saw a message saying, “Caller ID Blocked.”
I immediately became wide awake, all signs of drowsiness gone.
Among the various applications and programs on my phone was a feature known as Anonymous Caller Rejection. In essence, if someone attempts to phone me while blocking their own number, their call won’t go through. That said, there was one person who seemingly had the ability to circumvent the anonymous caller feature, phoning me at will while keeping their own caller info private.
I debated for a moment on whether to answer as the phone continued ringing. The person calling wasn’t a friend – far from it. And it was a sure bet that he wasn’t calling with good news. More than likely, he wanted something. However, in the past, taking a similar call had ultimately worked to my advantage. In short, if I was careful, there was a possibility that I could derive a benefit from speaking with my caller.
Mind made up, I answered, uttering in an uninterested monotone, “Gray.”
“You know,” replied my caller, “I’m not so young that I would be offended if you chose to use an honorific when addressing me. Something like ‘Mister’ or ‘Monsieur’ or–”
“What do you want, Gray?” I demanded, cutting him off.
“Straight to the point, as usual,” he said, sounding a little disheartened. “Fine. I’m actually calling to see if I can assist with this situation you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Situation? I thought, frowning. Was he talking about Myshtal? It was pretty much a given that my caller, Gray, knew about her. Although he had no super powers to speak of, Gray had been granted nigh-limitless, global authority – ostensibly to maintain peace and order (among other things) – and it made him one of the most powerful men on the planet, as well as one of the most dangerous. More importantly, it was within his mandate to eradicate anything he determined to be a threat. It was a label that had seemingly been applied to me in the past, but Gray’s statement made me wonder if the definition might now include Myshtal, since his jurisdiction also extended to extraterrestrials.
“Are you talking about the princess?” I asked, deciding to address the matter head-on.
“What?” Gray replied, momentarily confused. “Heavens, no. That’s a mess of your own making. You’ll have to clean that one up yourself.”
Tension I wasn’t aware of suddenly left my body, and I let out a deep breath. It was one thing to personally be the target of Gray’s machinations. It would have been something else entirely if Myshtal had somehow been central to one of his schemes. Knowing that wasn’t the case came as a great relief.
“Okay, so we’re back to my original question,” I said. “What do you want?”
“The same as I said in my original answer: to help you with this issue that’s come up.”
“What issue? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He seemed to contemplate that for a second. “I suppose it really hasn’t popped up on your radar yet, which is why it would be best if we deal with it now.”
“We?” I repeated. “So we’d be working together?”
“Surely you don’t object? I mean, I’m only trying to help.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered sarcastically. “Assuming that you really are calling to lend me a hand with some undefined problem that I’m completely unaware of, you wouldn’t do it for nothing. You want something.”
Gray chuckled. “Astute as always. All right, I do want something, but it’s the same thing I’ve sought in the past. I want you to work for me.”
“Forget it. Conversation over,” I declared. The last thing I wanted or needed was to be indebted to a man like Gray. Working for him was completely out of the question.
“But don’t you even want to hear what the problem is?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” I replied definitively. “Whatever it is, I’ll handle it on my own. I don’t need your help.”
“And you know that for a fact?”
“I do.”
“Then you don’t know Jack!” he blurted out, laughing, and then hung up on me.
I sat there for a moment, frowning. The way he’d uttered that last statement had struck me as odd – as if there had been some inside joke I was unaware of. However, before I could devote any more time to it, I felt my grandfather reaching out for me mentally.
Chapter 28
At super speed, it took me less than a minute to shower, get dressed, and make myself presentable. Dashing downstairs, I found my grandfather in the main living room, but not alone.
With him was a man who I pegged to be in his early forties, but in great physical condition. He stood next to my grandfather
with his hands behind his back in a position I recognized as parade rest. His dark hair was just starting to show a hint of gray, and was cut in a high-and-tight style. Finally, he wore a dark uniform that appeared to be military, although it didn’t conform with the standard attire for any of the armed services that I was familiar with. All in all, despite the unusual uniform, everything about him screamed “career soldier.”
“Jim,” my grandfather said, motioning me over. “This is Colonel Drake Dreiser. Drake, this is my grandson, Jim.”
“Colonel?” I repeated. “What branch of service?”
“Drake’s part of a special unit,” Gramps cut in, not giving our guest a chance to reply. “He’s here to talk about an issue that’s come up.”
“I’ll get straight to the point,” the colonel said. “As you’re both aware, the government maintains several discreet high-end superstructures for the purpose of containing sentient threats that can’t – for a variety of reasons – be housed in ordinary facilities.”
Supermaxes for supervillains, I thought, but didn’t say anything, choosing instead to simply nod as Gramps did.
“Last night,” Dreiser went on, “one of these structures was breached.”
“Someone broke out?” Gramps asked.
The colonel shook his head. “No, someone broke in. But it’s probably easier to show you than tell you.”
Dreiser shifted his stance, bringing his arms from behind his back and revealing a small object in one hand. He stepped over to a nearby table where a laptop computer sat open. I didn’t recognize it as one of ours, so presumably the colonel had brought it with him. Gramps and I approached and stood next to him as he plugged the object in his hand (which I now recognized as a flash drive) into one of the ports on the side of the computer, then pressed the Enter key. A moment later, the screen began to play some type of video.
It only took me a moment to recognize what I was seeing: security footage of some sort, showing two soldiers in the same type of uniform that Dreiser was wearing – except for the fact that the duo in the video also wore sidearms. They were sitting at a couple of side-by-side desks, with their backs to the camera that had filmed them. On each of the two desks was a standard computer monitor and keyboard. Mounted on a wall directly in front of the soldiers were several large security monitors, each of which had a screen that relayed images from multiple cameras.
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