by Matt Blake
“Hey,” Damon said, sparking up his electricity. “My powers might have something to say about that.”
Again, Saint ignored him. He walked toward me and reached a point where he was opposite me, and Daniel was opposite Orion.
We stood together as men, the four of us, and I felt like I understood what he was saying.
“So now we face a choice,” Saint said. “A choice we’ve pitched to you before.”
“There is no choice,” I said.
“What?”
“If there’s a choice between letting the world crumble and… and fighting, then there’s no other choice but to fight.”
Saint sighed. He nodded. “Good. You’ve seen sense then, at last.”
He turned around and walked away.
“We’ll regroup in an hour. Take some time to refresh. Then, we’ll discuss what we do next. How we proceed.”
Everyone left the room except for Damon, Daniel, and Orion. I looked at Orion, and he looked back at me. There was something unspoken between us. It didn’t even feel like we had to speak anymore to understand one another.
I headed into the bathroom area and looked in the mirror. I pulled off my Glacies mask, and I saw myself, and I felt so scared. This was me. Kyle Peters. Not Glacies. And Kyle Peters wasn’t strong enough. He had never been strong enough.
So I put the mask on again, and I took a deep breath, accepting who I had to be, and the responsibilities I had.
I had to take a breather, and then I had to fight to save this world.
But it still felt, as I stared into the eyes of my alter-ego, like I could see Kyle Peters’ shadow burning right through…
15
The following morning, I went looking for the members of the Resistance.
I say “morning,” but of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. There was a glimmer of daylight shining around the edges of the large spacecraft, but mostly it just created a deep amber glow, much like the nightmarish red I’d seen in my dreams.
The sky was filled with those smaller crafts, too. They flew around like drones, waving their metal tentacles in their wake. I could hear the hum from the craft, like it was connected to me almost. I’d asked the others if they could hear it too, but they insisted I was just imagining things.
I was certain I wasn’t.
There was something linking me to this craft. Something I couldn’t see yet.
We’d decided to each pursue a member of the Resistance. I was going after a guy called Rhynart. He had the ability to change the form of objects. I hadn’t known him well, only that he’d been experiencing his abilities for years. The first time he’d realized he had his abilities was by accident. His father, who used to beat him, was taking a bath. When he’d got in there, after a round of whipping, Rhynart poured all his anger out and wished that his dad’s bath filled with lava.
The awkward thing? It did.
Of course, the house was ruined, and Rhynart was soon moving out. He left home not long after, and was homeless from very young. He told me he tried to use his abilities on demand, but it wasn’t as simple as that. They only surfaced in times of real need. I understood what he meant by that.
But he’d learned to hone his abilities. He’d become a strong member of the Resistance.
Now, I was hovering over the building in Phoenix, AZ, where I heard he’d transformed a cardboard box into a fully self-functioning home, preparing to convince him to join the fight. Saint, Cassie, Orion, Daniel, and Damon had each gone on a mission of their own. But this was mine.
Only I wasn’t alone.
There was one of those crafts right outside his house.
I moved slowly in its direction, holding my breath. It didn’t look like it’d seen me. If I could throw it through a wormhole quickly, then that would be ideal.
As I got closer, I saw the craft wasn’t moving at all. It was totally still.
I felt a sense of unease carpet me, as I slowed my progression even more. That was weird. From what I’d seen of these things, they were very rarely still.
And that humming noise I usually heard when I got close to them. I wasn’t getting that right now.
Still, I kept on moving. I stretched my arms out in front and focused my abilities, which seemed to be back to scratch after the scares I’d had over the last couple of days. I focused on the craft and went to blast it into oblivion.
Then I saw a movement behind it.
I went still.
There was someone in Rhynart’s house, peeking through the window.
I lowered my arms, chuckled a little. “Jesus, Rhynart. At least make it move.”
Then I dropped right beside the craft and walked past it, barely giving it any attention.
Because it wasn’t a craft at all.
“Hey,” Rhynart said. “I had a spare teddy bear and I saw what those things looked like. I at least had to try scaring you off.”
Rhynart looked thinner than I remembered. His cheeks were gaunt, and he had long, curly ginger hair, with a little hair on his top lip. He was dressed in a checkered shirt, and scuttled around clumsily, like he always did. Not such a good thing for a guy who was prone to changing objects into other things to be, really, clumsy.
“So you were expecting me then?” I asked.
Rhynart scurried around his living room. It was open and spacious, with photographs of animals in their natural habitats hung up around the place. “I figured one of you would come for me.”
“So you didn’t think I was dead, then?”
Rhynart snorted. “You? Dead? Next joke, please.”
I was pleasantly reassured by Rhynart’s faith in me. He seemed like the first person who wasn’t genuinely stunned that I was still living.
“Nah, I figured you were probably some part of a government lab somewhere. Or something along those lines, at least.”
“I wish that were true,” I said. “Really, it was a whole lot weirder.”
“Tea?” Rhynart asked.
“No thanks.”
“Right. Sure. Because you’re not here to drink tea, are you?”
I knew I had to get to the point. “I’m guessing you’ve seen the—”
“Intergalactic spaceship that’s threatening our entire kind with extinction? Yep. Just about clocked it.”
“Then you’ll know what we have to do.”
Rhynart threw a few things into a rucksack and then zipped it up. “I know what I have to do. Run the hell away from this place, now you’ve led a trail to here.”
He started to walk past me, but then I teleported myself right in front of him. I couldn’t just let him leave.
Rhynart laughed a little, defeated, and lowered his head. “Right. Because you weren’t gonna just let me leave without a fight, either.”
“We need all the help we can get if we’re going to fight this threat. You have to see that.”
“Oh, I see it alright. I just don’t want to be a part of it. Now if you’ll let me leave my own home, please.”
I was stunned by Rhynart’s resistance. He pushed past me, and I couldn’t help moving out of his way. “After all the fighting we’ve done together. After everything we’ve worked so hard for. You’re just gonna walk away?”
“Yep,” Rhynart said, reaching the door to his home. “Kyle—you don’t mind if I call you Kyle, do you? Look. Sometimes, we fight. Other times, we have to know when it’s time to stop fighting, or we’ll end up killing ourselves.”
“As opposed to this mothership butchering the lot of us himself, you mean?”
“I know you don’t like the idea of seeming weak. But I can see it in your eyes. You want to run just as much as I do. Because you know this is a battle too far. Hey, we’ve had a good run. But we have to know when to decide between fighting to the death and fighting for our survival. And right now, the odds of a latter looks a whole lot better to me.”
I couldn’t say a word. I was just stunned. “After everything. You’re just walking away.”
I wanted to stop Rhynart from walking. I wanted to convince him to come back. He could be an asset to the Resistance. He was a part of the fight.
But the worst thing?
I could see where he was coming from.
I looked down at the list of names of ULTRAs I’d already tried contacting. There were still some left. It wasn’t game over yet. There were always going to be those who didn’t want to get involved.
I was about to teleport away when I saw something.
One second, Rhynart was there.
But he wasn’t alone.
There really was a craft opposite him.
My muscles tensed. My mind raced. I had to go over there. I had to help…
But it was already too late.
With the blink of an eye, Rhynart was gone.
And as he vanished, I could’ve sworn I heard him scream out my name.
16
I looked at the spot where Rhynart had vanished and I felt my stomach begin to turn.
The day had stretched on, and I hadn’t been able to progress my search. I’d spent a little time out just trying to absorb everything that was happening, and everything that had happened.
In the end though, I just kept on coming back to that moment when I’d seen Rhynart there one second, reluctant to involve himself in the battle.
The next second, gone.
Screaming.
And I couldn’t help wondering whether that was supposed to be me.
The desert air was hot and humid, a vast contrast to the rest of the country at this time of year. My throat was dry, and I was getting a headache. The smell of the scorched earth clung to the sides of my nostrils, making me think of everything that had burned since I’d become Glacies.
My home.
Mom, inside it.
I flinched when that thought entered my mind. I didn’t like to think back to Mom too much. As much as painful memories charged and fueled my abilities, that one was just too painful.
I couldn’t sit around here and mope for long, though. I knew I had to go back to Orion, Saint, Daniel, Cassie, and Damon. I had to see how they’d progressed in attracting old members of the Resistance to their side.
I teleported my way to the Galapagos. We’d agreed to use it as our base. We’d made sure we’d picked an island that didn’t already look pretty inhabited by animals. Didn’t want to disturb them.
When I got there, I saw conflict right away.
Someone was zooming through the sky, fighting off a craft. The craft was firing blasts out of its tentacle arms. They were shelling, hard.
I lifted my hands right away and sent a massive blast of ice in the craft’s direction.
The craft turned to look at me. Then it flew toward me. Fast.
I pushed back with more ice, intensifying my assault. I could hear voices, but I didn’t focus on them. Only on pushing back.
The craft kept on hurtling toward me.
I flinched back, losing my focus. I held my breath and waited for it to collide with me, which it no doubt was going to.
And then from the right, something smacked into the craft and shattered it into pieces.
I stood and looked at the fallen remains of the craft, smoke rising from it, and tried to process what I’d just witnessed.
“Thank me later. Or now. Preferably now. Kid.”
It was Stone.
I grinned and walked up to him. “Good to see you here.”
He rubbed his hands together and eased the stone away. “Wish I could say the same about you. As it stands, we’re in a pretty shitty all-round situation. So it’s not that great, is it?”
“I guess it isn’t.”
“Is he moaning already?”
I looked over Stone’s shoulder and I saw Vortex. Her hair was different. Looked like she’d dyed it blonde.
I still felt a quiver in my stomach whenever I saw Vortex. My cheeks flushed. “Hey. Good to see you again.”
“You too, Glacies.”
We stood together over the fallen craft, which was nothing more than wires and metalwork now. In the distance, I could see Saint, Orion, Daniel, Cassie and Damon, heading toward us.
“You all cool working for Saint all of a sudden?” Stone asked.
“We’re not working for him.”
Stone snorted. “Seems to be the man with the plan. You sure you trust him?”
I looked over at Saint. He was speaking with Daniel. He glanced up at me, then nodded.
“No,” I said. “I never will. But what else do we have right now? Anyway. Is this everyone?”
“Not quite.”
The voice made me flinch. I turned around and saw her.
Roadrunner was standing opposite me. She looked more muscular. Her hair was shorter. She had a scar across her face, which made me wonder where she’d been and what she’d seen. The time for questions would come.
I hugged Roadrunner, and so too did the others. Then we stood together in a circle, all nine of us, and looked down at the fallen craft.
“Did you not manage to find anyone, bro?” Daniel asked. There was a slight smile on his face.
I gritted my teeth. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
His smile dropped, and he nodded. “Sorry. I sometimes forget my sense of humor is a little… alternative.”
After a few moments of reunion, it was Orion who walked to the middle of the circle.
“Now, I know this scenario isn’t something we ever anticipated. I know we’re being forced to swallow differences. But we aren’t going to defeat this threat if we stick around down here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stone asked.
Orion looked right at Stone. “I think you know what it means. We’re going to have to take the fight to the enemy.”
He looked up at the sky. We all looked up with him. Up there, I could see a small, circular blot, not much bigger than the moon. It was completely black.
“The mothership,” I mumbled.
“The enemy are hunting us down. They’re killing humans and animals in the crossfire, too. So as far as I see it, we don’t have a choice. We take the fight to their mothership, all nine of us. Are you in?”
There was a pause.
Then Saint stepped forward. “I’m in.”
Orion nodded. “Anyone else?”
Daniel stepped forward. Then Roadrunner. After that, Stone and Vortex, although Stone didn’t look best pleased about this arrangement.
Damon, Cassie and I still held back.
“We need you,” Saint said. “All three of you.”
I took a deep breath and clenched my fists.
Then together, in unison, the three of us stepped forward.
“Good,” Orion said. “Right.” He looked up. “Then it’s time we take the fight to them.”
17
Hielo looked down at the Earth below and a part of him felt a twinge of sadness to see all the conflict.
It was the middle of the day where the mothership was right now. They were positioned just outside the Earth’s atmosphere, floating graciously above. Down below, the sun shimmered against the sea, making Hielo squint. It was beautiful to look at, though. So peaceful. So serene. Mother Nature really was a goddess.
He saw his soldiers hovering around in search of ULTRAs and his stomach knotted.
It wasn’t that he felt guilty about wiping out ULTRAs. After all, it was what he had to do. He knew things the people on this planet didn’t. He knew what happened if he let the ULTRAs live. He’d seen it before, so many times.
It might seem to the world right now that he was the villain, and that the ULTRAs would be their heroes again. But that was not how it worked. In time, history would remember him for the great act of kindness he’d gifted the planet.
History would remember him as a savior.
And if it didn’t… well, being remembered didn’t matter so much. At least he knew, de
ep down, that he was doing the right thing.
“Hielo?”
The voice behind him made him flinch. He turned around from his enormous window, which looked out over the planets. “What have you got for me?”
It was one of his soldiers, B837. Being spoken to by mechanically developed creatures wasn’t strange to him anymore. He’d been surrounded by them for so many years that artificial intelligence was just the way now. If anything, it was the most advanced life form in the universe.
B837’s cold, steely exterior glared at him. The tentacles were hanging by its side. “Someone who’s been close, I believe. To the one you are searching for.”
Hielo felt a tightness in his throat. He looked down, then quickly back up, to maintain an air of composure. “You’re sure?”
“I can sense it on them. The presence you spoke about. Would you like me to bring him in here?”
Hielo felt both his tension and his anticipation rising. “No,” he said. “I’ll come to him.”
“Absolutely, sir. I’ll be right outside.”
“That’s okay, B837. You get back to work.”
“Are you sure? I can—”
“Really. Thank you.”
B837 didn’t protest after that. He—yes, artificial intelligence was gendered now, too—just turned around and climbed out of the room.
Hielo looked back out of the window. He saw more of his soldiers leaving, falling to Earth. He saw explosions in South Africa. He wanted to go down there himself and intervene.
Now he had a chance. Someone who’d been close. Someone who could help him.
He walked out of his room and into the corridor. The walk down the corridor was long and drawn out. The walls were narrow, and the ceilings were low. It was made of metal, and that metal hadn’t been painted. It was all very industrial, and not at all homely.
He didn’t need it to be homely. Homeliness wasn’t its purpose.
He stopped when he reached the room. He didn’t have to ask which room to go to, where the captive was. He just knew already. He could feel their struggle. He could hear the tension in the air.
He took a deep breath and prepared himself for one of a number of people he could see.