The Xtra- Volume One

by Oliver Willis

  About time.

  "She was always looking over her shoulder. She was convinced that they would come for her and find us, that they would split us up and end our little world. She was most terrified of losing you. All the way up until the end, that's what she thought about."

  I put a hand on his. We both remember the pain, the sickness, the helplessness we felt as we watched her life slip away.

  "We're safe, Dad."

  "For now. But I'm not so sure. These people are dangerous, Carla. Your mother made that very clear. They would move heaven and earth for this thing that she stole. It means everything to them. Everything."

  "Where is it?"

  I figure they must have hidden this thing far away from prying eyes, using his military knowledge and her common sense to keep such a powerful thing away from what sounds like horrible people. Or whatever they were.

  "It's right here."

  I'm taken aback. That doesn't sound like the kind of thing Mom would do. She's careful. Cautious. The same is true for Dad. They're not reckless people who would put a weapon out in the open, would they?

  "Whoa, what?"

  He breathes in deeply.

  "Carla, it's you. You're the weapon. And now the entire world knows you're out there."

  Chapter 43

  The video from Taylor's phone nearly does the impossible: Break the Internet.

  It gets dangerously close. Seconds after she uploaded it, it is everywhere. People are sharing it, commenting on it, insisting that it is a fake or part of a viral marketing campaign, though nobody can explain what it is that's being marketed.

  "Maybe sneakers?" One unhelpful commenter offers.

  The number next to the video showing how many people have watched it looks like someone hit the jackpot at a Las Vegas slot machine. It just keeps spinning and spinning up. It hits hundreds of millions in almost no time.

  Of course, it isn’t the only video out there, just the first. Others in the lobby of the Herald-Examiner had their phones out too. While Taylor's is the steadiest (she's really good at this), there are dozens of others. They all more or less show the same events.

  Carla crushing a gun. Carla throwing the gunman across the room. Carla flying.

  ###

  The flying is what leads the television broadcasts. It's the kind of "did I just see that" image that television producers salivate over for their entire lives. Everyone has it and they are quickly dissecting it frame by frame.

  A biologist struggles to explain it on CNN. As he speaks half of the screen loops the video of Carla flying through the lobby, again and again. The biologist says words and phrases like "adaptation," "evolution," and "biological anomaly" but in reality, he is merely filling time. Despite his wall full of degrees and years of serious study, he is as clueless as everyone else.

  He's still in shock.

  "I thought it was a fake too," he admits to the anchor.

  The confusion is the same on the other networks. Is she an angel? A black nationalist? Some kind of alien?

  "Definitely a viral campaign," a mustachioed pundit confidently says on Fox News. He makes the declaration so stridently you'd almost believe he knows what he's talking about.

  Now the news broadcasts about the videos are getting tons of views online. It is a beast feeding on itself.

  Nearly everybody who was in the lobby is interviewed, even though they truly have no additional insight. People just want to hear what they have to say to feed their insatiable curiosity.

  "I saw her get shot," an intern at the paper says to NBC. "I saw her get hit by the bullets and she didn't even flinch. She was solid, like a rock."

  "It was God," a congressional aide insists to the BBC. "Only God can have angels. I know what I saw."

  "Crushed the gun like it was a piece of paper," a Metro editor for the Herald-Examiner explains on MSNBC. "I'm excited at what she could do for so many people. But also terrified of what she could do to our military."

  ###

  The radio host is not nearly as in awe of Carla as the people on TV are. He is up close to the microphone, his lips nearly slapping against the device as he screams into it.

  "This is illuminati, obviously. New World Order perpetrating a hoax on us. Mind control! Mass delusion. Or a government experiment. I told you that this stuff up at Roswell would come out. I knew they couldn't keep a lid on it forever. She's the first. They'll kill us all!"

  He is panting and nearly out of breath as he goes on and on with his diatribe. The video that they have all seen is verification of all of the ranting and raving he has done for years. Every second of it is worth examining as part of a government and/or alien plot.

  His audience is not far behind. One offers the idea that the entire incident has been staged. He references a YouTube video that exposes "inconsistencies" in the viral video. Another concurs, pointing out that special effects technology has progressed to the point where something like this can be "easily faked" especially when "you have as much money as the government does."

  The host agrees with these theories as well, even when they conflict with each other and cancel each other out. It all "makes sense" in his world.

  What makes even more sense is the woman who calls in and draws the chilling conclusion that both host and audience would prefer to avoid: "If it is all true, if there really is a woman who can do this, it is terrifying."

  "You're damned right," the host bellows into his microphone, his eyes wide as saucers as he delivers his terrifying verdict to his audience. "Damned right."

  Across the country people listen to him and nod in agreement. To see things like this frightens and terrifies on a primal level, down to the soul.

  ###

  The print media tries to be a little more level-headed than the others, but mostly fails. The headlines fly fast and furious.

  "Flying woman."

  "Real-life superhero."

  "Living God."

  There are thousands of articles in the first few hours, spanning every type of outlet imaginable. Straight news reporting. Wire services. The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, and of course the Washington Herald-Examiner all weigh in.

  They try, through sober and understated text, to grapple with the fantastic. It isn't easy. There is no template for this kind of story, nothing in their archives they can lean on for how to cover this sort of thing.

  But the traffic they see to all of their articles does not lie. People want to know about this woman. They need to know. They want to know where she came from, what it all means, and if they should be elated or afraid.

  These reporters are also finding the government extraordinarily tight-lipped about Carla's emergence. Their sources at agencies like the CIA, FBI, NSA and others charged with knowing what the hell is going on have nothing for them.

  They can't leak information they do not have.

  And once again, as has too often been the case, they are caught with their pants down. To add insult to injury this event happened in their neighborhood, Washington. It is as if a weapon of mass destruction was exposed within a stone's throw of the White House.

  "Assessing the situation" quickly becomes the mantra of agency spokespeople and sources.

  In all honesty at this moment they are just like everybody else: Watching videos, reading articles and trying to understand what is going on in their world.

  ###

  "One of us," the reporter on the urban radio station notes in her report of how Carla stopped the would-be shooter. The detail is vital and important, as central to the story as the spectacular nature of it all.

  The switchboard for the call-in show on the station has been permanently lit up since lines opened. Calling yields only a busy signal because everybody has their two cents to add about "that black girl magic."

  It has only been a few hours, but she's "better than a black president," one caller notes. In his view, this isn't hyperbole. He completely believes it and he tells the host it i
s a consensus that everyone on his block supports.

  "Will she be a role model?" A mother asks, pointing out that "girls and boys" are going to see themselves reflected in Carla, for better or worse. "You know how it is. If one of us is bad, we're all O.J."

  This is also a widely shared sentiment. Carla is not some distant curiosity to merely watch online. What she does has echoes already. She will alter perceptions of thousands, maybe millions of people. It could go badly.

  Other callers are more superficial. Some of the men comment on her looks, picking her apart like she's a piece of meat. Others comment on her hair, with one camp "disappointed" she isn't glamorous enough while another group hailing her for "being herself."

  It has only been a few hours, but the media and the public feel driven to examine and dissect.

  For the black audience, her arrival is personal.

  ###

  The two senators are in the green room of a cable news show. Both men are white and in their late sixties with bright white hair. One a Democrat, the other a Republican.

  One sips a Coke and glances at the monitor showing what's on-air at the moment. "Super woman creates shockwaves" reads the text at the bottom of the screen.

  "The president was clueless," he says, "He had no idea. A flying girl who can crush a gun and survive getting shot. Right here. She could be Al Qaeda. ISIS. North Korean. Iranian."

  "Could be one of ours," the other senator replies, stroking his chin and making a mental note to shave sooner rather than later.

  "You think? I mean if it was, would she be –"

  Both men look around conspiratorially, to make sure nobody else is within earshot of their discussion. The coast is clear, and they feel free to talk bluntly.

  "Probably not. If it was one of ours it would be a man. And someone more—"

  "All-American."

  Both men nod to each other, agreeing across party lines that if America had any idea how to create someone like Carla Logan it would definitely not be someone like Carla Logan.

  "The Intel committee is going to go wild with this. You didn't hear it from me but they're preparing a hellstorm. A lot of drama for the cameras."

  "So, the usual?"

  The men share a laugh. They are minutes away from going on television as elected leaders to discuss one of the most momentous occurrences in human history. Neither man knows any more than any random talking head and yet their words will carry extra weight and heft.

  People want to be reassured that their government is on top of things. It isn't.

  "A flying black woman, imagine that," the senator says.

  Chapter 44

  I hope Dad is joking. A little levity to break up the heavy story he's been telling me so far. But his expression pops that balloon quickly. He's serious.

  "A weapon?"

  He purses his lips and hesitates, like he did before letting me ride off without training wheels for the first time. I still have the small scar on my elbow to mark the occasion.

  "It was inside her. Her blood. She used some kind of technology – don't ask me to explain it, it's more complex than the Blu-ray player – to put the information in her blood. She stole it from that faction on her planet."

  "The Overseers?"

  "Yes, them. She stole it from them, somehow put it in her blood. It survived when she transformed herself to look like us."

  "Transformed?"

  "Some kind of DNA thing."

  A DNA thing? This is a lot. I want to hit pause and just try and take stock of everything, but he is continuing with his story. He needs to get this out, I can see it on his face.

  "What does that have to do with me?"

  "It's in your blood. She brought it to Earth, hoping one day she could figure out a way to neutralize it, make it so that even if they came up with a way of duplicating it, it could be eliminated, forever. But she never got there. And it lives on in you."

  I close my eyes. I breathe in and out, slowly. I feel him hold my hand.

  "I know," he says. "It's a lot. It's too much. But we'll get through it, together."

  I hope so.

  Chapter 45

  Madden Blanc is so angry that he is seething. He is livid. He prides himself on restraint, containing his emotions, keeping it all in check as lesser beings scurry around in a constant state of emotional upheaval and chaos. But right now he's just another one of them, a hurricane of emotions churning and spinning.

  What has him so angry is the same thing the entire world now seems to be obsessed with: Cara Logan.

  He sits in his expensive office atop his ridiculously lavish office tower and just like every other slack-jawed idiot around the country, he watches the footage of her in action. The flying. The strength. The power.

  Blanc does not like the unexpected. He has spent most of his life gaming out scenarios, preparing for eventualities and predicted outcomes. There are not supposed to be wildcards. Certainly not like this.

  But there she is, across multiple screens, a living wildcard. He takes a drink from his martini glass. He doesn't expect it to have much of an effect, alcohol rarely has. But for him, this is as close to "turmoil" as it comes.

  This wasn't supposed to happen, he thinks.

  Years ago when he was approached by The Overseers, they struck a bargain. They would give him insight, a leg up, access to technology and other things that would let him combine his intellect and killer instinct with a little "more."

  In exchange, he would help them on their long-term project, finding a mysterious someone they clearly wanted but had no idea how to find. As he had grown in influence, wealth, and power, he had benefitted from the grand bargain and done his part. Thus far they hadn't found what they were looking for. It had been years.

  But now, with this moment, it is clear to him that Carla is the person. Or at least connected to the person.

  And they didn't prepare him for it happening this way.

  He was skeptical at first. He had seen online hoaxes and been behind more than a few through one of his many subsidiaries. The markets moved based on so many ridiculous factors. A fake video of a competitor using slave labor? Child's play and a twelve-figure profit in minutes. It had been done.

  But this video was real. His teams verified it then triple-verified it. They examined every frame, excavated the location data, compared the footage to blueprints of the Herald-Examiner building, all of it.

  It is real.

  Blanc opens a file on his computer and looks at schematics and plans for a project he has had on the backburner, slowly building steam as he has executed his deal with The Overseers.

  The arrival of this black woman, exhibiting abilities nobody on Earth ever had, makes him feel strange. It is an inadequacy Blanc has rarely ever encountered. He overcame his modest background and now people look up to him, either out of respect or – more often – intimidation. Either way, they look up to him.

  He is in the tradition of what an "American" leader should be. The right height, weight. Gender. Race. All of it. But now…

  Maybe it's time.

  These plans have not been enough of a priority, he thinks. This woman unnerves him and he does not like the feeling. To no longer be at the top of every totem pole. It feels unnatural, like the pecking order has been changed, and completely without his consultation.

  Blanc likes a plan with a roadmap and now he is being forced to improvise.

  A window appears on his screen and he thinks it's his assistant Arley, again interrupting him.

  God damn it, I'll have to get rid of her.

  But then he looks closer at the words notifying of the transmission's source.

  Arley gets to keep her job after all. She isn't interrupting him, forgetting the protocol and how things operate around here.

  It's them. The Overseers. They want to speak.

  Chapter 46

  Madden Blanc controls his breathing to control his emotions. This is an unusual place for him as a man of control and power
. Now things keep getting shaken up.

  The Overseers do not contact him often. It has been years since their last direct communication. When they first came to him the interactions were more frequent.

  He got over his initial shock at their existence early. He had always assumed life existed on other worlds; it was just a matter of reaching out to them. He was focused on building a fortune on Earth and gaining power. He left interstellar exploration and fancy notions about reaching out across the universe to others with more romantic visions.

  But then they had come to him and he had immediately agreed to their proposition. The terms of the agreement catered precisely to his interests, after all.

  The early contacts were frequent, as they gave him what he needed to get ahead – but just enough. Blanc often felt they were leading him along like an animal, refusing to open the floodgates of information they held closely to their vests. It was never said out loud, but he could feel they viewed him as an inferior, not worthy of their largesse.

  It was just that they needed what was on Earth so badly that they came down from their intergalactic Mount Olympus to deal with him.

  He got it. He understood it. He dealt with it.

  But now here they were, just as a superpowered being emerged, contacting him. Not a coincidence.

  Blanc presses a button to initiate the video feed and they appear instantaneously.

  They wear black cloaks and stand in near darkness, but their strangely colored skin and large stature is clear.

  Supposedly they aren't expressing any emotions. For all intents and purposes their faces are blank slates.

  But Blanc can feel it. Contempt.

  They can't stand me. Can't bear the thought that they have to lower themselves to speaking directly to me. For them, this is like speaking to an insect, some kind of slug. That's how they see me.