“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know your boyfriend was over,” the redhead said, perturbed.
“My what?” Blake asked with surprise, glancing behind him at Alex.
She nodded her head over Blake’s shoulder.
“He’s not my boyfriend, Vanessa,” Alex said.
“Why would you think that?” Blake asked her.
“Well, it’s clear you’re gay because you’ve taken no interest in me when I’ve been more than flirtatious with you, and isn’t he wearing your Clippers clothing? Funny, I had no idea you’d go for someone with such a…past.”
“Um, that’s not how it works.” Then, Blake turned to Alex. “What does she mean, a past? And how do you know her name?”
“We used to date in high school.” Alex said.
“Really?” Blake replied, stunned.
Alex shrugged. “It didn’t work out because I didn’t understand my sexuality at the time.”
“It’s too bad, because…”
Alex cut her off. “Why don’t you tell him why you’re really here?”
Blake looked back at Vanessa and watched her face lose color as her eyes widened with embarrassment.
Oh my gosh, you work for The Order.
“Whatever do you mean, Alex?” she asked, playing coy and nervously twirling her hair again.
Blake folded his arms across his chest. “If you know who I am then you know what I can do. You’ve got one chance to tell me why you’ve been pestering me ever since I moved in here.”
She blinked but said nothing.
Alex scoffed. “For fuck’s sake, it doesn’t matter anymore, Van! We’re all gonna be polishing up our resumes tomorrow. Blake, Victor stationed Vanessa here to keep an eye on you.”
Figures.
Blake glared at her. “So, you’re not a high school student?”
She shook her head. “I’m twenty-three. With a little makeup and the right hair style, I look seventeen.”
She’s right there.
Blake took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I should feel incredibly angry or betrayed, but I’m not surprised. I kinda thought something was up with her strange advances, but…I didn’t realize she was working for Victor all this time.
“Walk away, Vanessa, and don’t ever bother me again.”
She swallowed nervously and nodded. “For what it’s worth, I…” she paused, then looked at the floor. “Never mind.”
She glared at Alex then left. Blake closed the door behind her and silently walked back to the stove. He turned up the burner a little and continued stirring their meal.
Alex leaned against the counter near Blake. Again, he stood unusually close.
“Gosh, I need a drink after that…whatever that was. Sorry about that.”
Blake shrugged. “It is what it is. Thanks for telling me about her.”
“Do you have any booze? That’ll help warm up my veins, too.” Alex asked, looking around the counter space.
Blake looked at him with furled eyebrows. “Seriously? I’m sixteen.”
“Oh, right.”
“Besides, I can’t get drunk.”
“Why not?”
Blake gestured with his free hand and waved it up and down his body. “Whatever causes the superpowers speeds up my metabolism. Several weeks back, I sucked down some of my dad’s vodka when I was pissed off and got a slight buzz that made me feel…dizzy or drunk. It was my first time, so I wasn’t really sure. Long story short, I went for a run and after a brief altercation with the police, the buzz was gone. When I went back home, I polished off the handle and the same thing happened. I got buzzed for a couple of minutes and then…nothing. For a half-handle of vodka, I thought the world should have been spinning for me.”
“Um, yeah. That sucks.”
“It is what it is.”
Alex shrugged and looked down at the Clippers sweatshirt he wore and gently tugged at it. “So, um, yeah. I never thought I’d wear the gear of my enemy,”
Right, you said that earlier… “What do you mean?” Blake asked.
“I’m from Dover. I went to Spaulding High.”
“Oh, sorry. That sucks.”
“Ha.”
“I assume you’re hungry?”
Alex looked at the cooking food and nodded. “Hell yes. Thank you. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. And, um, thank you. I know this is weird, but I live in Dover and I couldn’t drive away from the facility or they would arrest me on the spot. I’m still not sure how I’m going to get my car back.”
“And you found me how?” Blake asked, stirring the pasta meal.
“As a librarian, I have access to the employee directory.”
“Interesting. This is almost ready. Why don’t you tell me what happened, because when I went back, I wasn’t able to recapture the facility.”
Alex looked at him with surprise. “Really? You?”
“Yeah. They have some kind of electrical stun gun that hurts like a motherfucker. I don’t know how to defend against it.”
“Weird. So, all morning we saw some weird activity on the baseball field. Hundreds of marines and navy soldiers flooded our side of the island, and our people had to pull in to avoid detection. They built a structure that turned out to be a news stand, and it looked like they were going to do some kind of special report. Then Blue Spekter arrived and started talking with the reporter.”
Blake frowned at the mention Quinn’s superhero name.
“The next thing we knew, all of the added security surrounded all three buildings. Then, the buildings’ doors unlocked all by themselves. The video feeds still worked, and I watched Blue Spekter lead marines through the facility. They took it over room by room until all of our people were outside on buses, waiting to go who knows where.”
“How come they didn’t get you?” Blake asked, narrowing his eyes with his suspicion.
“I am one of the last lines of defense for the facility’s data.”
Blake pulled his head back in confusion. “But you’re a receptionist…” Alex smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m the facility’s librarian. I’m responsible for the data.”
“Ah.” He pointed to the cabinet behind Alex. “Two plates, please.”
Alex turned and grabbed the plates. “When I realized the facility was going to be compromised, I manually wiped all the local backups and data from the server room. What I wasn’t able to do is cut the three hard lines that connect the facility to the rest of the private network.
“I don’t understand.”
“Uh, it’s like our own version of the Internet, but The Order doesn’t use the public Internet. It has its own version. The three buildings on Seavey Island are still connected to the private network, which means if the military’s techies hack into the computer systems, they’ll have access to almost anything they want. I um…I kinda need you to go cut the hard-lines. I’ll tell you where they are.”
Blake served two equal portions onto the plates, then pointed toward the kitchen island where they sat down to eat. “I don’t know if you heard what I just said, but I can’t get in there. They have stun guns, remember?”
“If you can’t cut those hard-lines, they get all the data and they will learn everything about us. That cannot happen. If you cut the hard-lines, then they can’t get to the private network and the system automatically purges any remaining on-site data. Once the facility is back under our control, we can reconnect it to the private network and all the data can be restored from the off-site backups, but you need to sever the connection tonight.”
“All right, fine, I’ll figure something out, but first we eat.”
Alex nodded and shoved several heaping fork-fulls of Chicken Broccoli Fettucine Alfredo into his mouth and spoke with a mouthful. “This is so good. Thanks again.”
Blake watched him inhale his meal with amusement. “You need to slow down or you’ll choke and need CPR or something.”
Alex paused and stared at him. Then, he shrugged and bounced his eyebrows
at Blake. “I’m always down a for a good time.”
Blake paused and looked at him funny. So, Vanessa wasn’t being a prick when she thought I was his boyfriend. “I’m not gay.”
“What? Oh, um…sorry. The way you didn’t respond to Vanessa…I guess I got my signals mixed up, then. That rarely happens. Oh well.”
“Yeah. So…uh…how did you hide from the marines and Blue Spekter when they stormed the prison? How did you get off the island if you couldn’t drive out? I’m guessing you didn’t walk off?”
Alex swallowed a mouthful of food and took a deep breath. “After I manually instructed the local data center to purge, I ran into the locker room and jumped into one of the laundry bins. I hid under all the dirty uniforms until the coast was clear.”
“How did you know that?”
“I watched the internal cameras from the app on my phone.”
“Your phone wasn’t in your pocket. I checked your pants pockets before putting everything in the dryer. Wasn’t trying to be nosy.”
“Oh, thanks. It’s in my bag. I should probably empty it after we eat so the stuff can dry out. Anyway, they were confident the place was empty, so all I had to do was sneak around and then sneak out the northwest side of the building. That’s where you should sneak in, by the way. It’s really close to the water which means there won’t be too many marines with stun guns to stop you.”
“Good point,” Blake said, thinking about the island’s layout. He took another few bites of pasta and listened.
“I followed the tree line around and crossed the island under the cover of darkness on foot—which is not easy to do, let me tell you. When I got to the other side, I followed those trees and realized I couldn’t just walk across the bridge because they’d arrest me once they swiped my badge. The one thing they didn’t do was patrol the waterway under the bridge, so I sucked it up and swam across the cold, calmer, low-tide waters under the Stoddard Street Bridge, holding my bag over my head with one hand.”
“That explains why you were soaking wet.”
“Yeah, let me tell you, it took ten minutes in your shower for my balls to come out from hiding.”
They chuckled.
“Anyway, when I got across, I had already looked you up and since you were the closest person to me, I ran to your condo. I got a few strange looks from people out walking their dogs.”
“And my address is simply…in a database somewhere?”
“Of course. Like I said, I have access to that kind of restricted data because I’m the facility’s Librarian. Um, you do realize they’re going to find your address if you don’t cut those hard-lines, right?”
Blake sighed and shoved the last of his dinner in his mouth. Then, he said, “Fine, you do the dishes and I’ll go change. Stay here for the night and we’ll figure out what to do when I get back. If you touch anything besides the television, you know what I’m capable of.”
“Got it.”
He needs his car if he’s going to get out of here…
“Um, what kind of car do you drive?”
“A blue Subaru Forester with the license plate Yoda.”
Blake raise an eyebrow with amusement. “Like Star Wars much?”
Alex sheepishly grinned. “Yeah.”
❖
Blake ran upstairs to change into a pair of purple tights and his purple sneakers. He pulled on a white muscle shirt, then pulled it off and tossed it on his bed.
I don’t need them ruining another expensive shirt with their nasty stun guns.
Blake went downstairs to the living room. Alex had finished cleaning the dishes and was cuddled up on the couch under a blanket, aiming the remote at the television.
“Don’t you get cold wearing…almost nothing? Not that I’m complaining, I mean, your muscles are on point. You’re ripped.”
Blake smirked. “Not usually.”
Then, he stepped out onto his balcony and into several inches of freshly fallen snow. That night’s snowstorm would bring another six to eight inches of fresh snow to the seacoast and even more inland. He became invisible, jumped off his balcony, and flew downriver to the western end of the naval prison. A few soldiers posted guard on that side of the facility, but the majority of the troops patrolled the front, back, and eastern sides of the prison. Putting his hand out in front of him, he shattered one of the darkened solar windows and flew into the prison, softly landing on the upper level of the battery storage area.
Alex had explained that each building was connected to the onsite server room, but they also had a redundant connection to The Order’s private network in case of a server disconnect. To succeed, Blake would have to eliminate each building’s connection to protect their secrets, including his.
It’s only a matter of time before they detect my entry, so I might as well take out a few soldiers along the way.
Still invisible, he made his way through the battery room and into operations where he crept past several soldiers and technicians who were working at the server terminals, trying to gain access to the system. As he walked past a technician, he realized they already had access.
He frowned, but no one saw it.
On the other side of operations, he pressed the button for the elevator and when the doors slid open, he stepped inside and pressed the button for the middle floor. The soldiers glanced over and wrinkled their brows with confusion but didn’t move to investigate. The door slid shut and the elevator descended to the lower level. When the doors opened, he followed the gangway around the reactor chamber, enjoying the momentary flow of pure orgone energy through his body.
When he reached the door on the other side of the chamber, he became visible long enough to place his hand on the door control and gained access to the server room. When the door opened, he smiled.
Good, they haven’t figured out how to lock The Order out yet—not that they’re expecting this little incursion anyway. Oh wait…all the doors are already unlocked.
Shifting to invisibility once more, he stepped inside and looked between the server racks for the conduit that contained the external connections to the private network. He spotted it on the opposite side of the room in a corner, behind one of four guards who were lazily standing near some server racks.
No stun guns, just regular machine guns. Interesting.
Three military technicians were working at the racks, but he didn’t care about them. He became visible and stormed across the room. The soldiers flinched when they saw him appear out of thin air and then aimed their machine guns at him, but Dark Flame was faster.
Reaching out with his mind, he grabbed the four guards and threw them across the room, smashing them into the metal server racks and the stone walls of the old prison building. They all fell to the floor and didn’t move. With a swift mental push, he knocked the three technicians off their chairs and held them to the floor while he walked to the conduit pipes in the corner.
He placed his hands on the metal pipes and ripped the pipes from the anchoring brackets that held it to the stone wall with his super strength. Then, he crushed the pipes with his hands and pulled, but the numerous wires inside the conduits were stubborn and refused to tear away. Momentarily frustrated, he heated his hands and melted everything in his grasp. Then, he tore the conduit in two and severed the connections. The active terminals behind him started beeping and flashed a red warning message on their monitors that read: Disconnected; Auto-purge in fifteen minutes. Cancel with command authorization code at any time.
That will get someone’s attention.
Satisfied the first of three tasks was completed, he turned and walked back to the elevator, releasing the technicians and shifting back to invisibility. He rode the elevator to the underground tunnel and made the crossing into the workshop building.
When the elevator doors of the workshop building opened at the top floor, several soldiers were waiting for him, their machine guns aimed at the back wall of the elevator car. They looked at each other with confusion unti
l Dark Flame mentally shoved them back with his mind. Becoming visible, he walked across the large storage room, tossing soldiers against equipment or walls if they got in his way.
Weird, the soldiers inside the building don’t have those nasty stun guns…I bet they never expected me to attack from the inside. Ah, there it is.
Seeing the conduit piping in the northeast corner, Dark Flame walked over and grabbed it, then pulled with his super strength. The conduit piping ripped away from the wall, but the stubborn wiring needed his special touch. Heating the conduit with his hands, he melted the metal piping and pulled the conduit and wiring apart, fusing the ends in his hands so they couldn’t be easily reconnected.
Satisfied the second task was done, he walked back through the workshop area to the elevator and made his way to the living spaces. His super hearing alerted him to soldiers running and shouting throughout the facility, but he didn’t know where they were.
They probably don’t know where I am, either.
Unfortunately, the reconstructed layout of the campus didn’t include an underground passage connecting the workshop building to the living quarters building, so he had to ascend to the mid-level then walk back through the server room. The three technicians quickly put their hands up in surrender when they saw him return, but the four soldiers on the ground didn’t move. Entering the other elevator, he descended to the tunnel level.
When the elevator doors opened, soldiers with stun guns opened fire at nothing. Surprised, the electrical blasts caught Dark Flame square in the chest and slammed him against the back doors of the elevator. He involuntarily returned to the visible spectrum and reactively put his right hand up and pushed the guards back, but in his surprised and electrically disrupted state, he only knocked them off their feet. It was enough of a distraction for him to regain his balance and lunge at the solders, forcibly pushing them away and running through the security room to the barrack-style living spaces beyond.
The conduits in this room, Alex had explained, were trickier to get to because contractors had sheet-rocked over them by accident when the building was renovated for the troops and technicians who worked at the facility. He could hear more soldiers scurrying around and he knew the building was teeming with more stun gun carrying Marines. Footsteps around the corner alerted him to an attack, so he shifted into invisibility.
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