I slid my hand down his arm and took up his now-free hand in both of mine, trying to press my warmth and belief in him through that touch. That wish woke the electric fire of my powers and there it was again, another brief but powerful connection between us.
Confusion and disbelief twisted John’s features as he abruptly pulled his hands free. “Chris, you don’t need to believe in me. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. You won’t be disappointed then.”
I could feel the war in him between how he knew I felt, everything from my belief in him to my undercurrent of desire, and his own anger and hatred. I didn’t know which would win, but I knew what I was rooting for.
“I won’t be,” I said with total conviction. “We’ll get through this, and once Hardware’s back behind bars, we’ll talk again. I think maybe you’ll believe me then.”
John shook his head slightly. “You’ve got your head in the clouds worse than Paragon does, you know that, right?”
I couldn’t fault him for feeling that way, but I wasn’t going to let it drag me down. “Faith isn’t the same thing as naivete.” I leaned back on the couch. “You’ll see.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He let out a short chuckle. “I hope you do prove me wrong.”
“They don’t call me Ms. Miracle for nothing.” I stretched out my back and legs, resting my head on the back of the sofa. “So, the reporter in me wants to ask you what exactly did happen to the Omniarmor. You have to know, or else you wouldn’t be able to help us.” I glanced sidelong at him. “You do know where it is, right?”
“Unlike some folks, I don’t bullshit.” John started to reassemble the rifle with expert speed. “I do know where it is, but don’t you think we should wait for Bob before going on about this? Save retelling the tale?”
My reporter’s curiosity was chomping at the bit, eager to know the truth that had been denied me for years, but I tried to rein it in. “I suppose so. I’m just eager to —” I stopped myself with a smile. “Hold on. Get that story ready, John, because we’re about to have company.”
True to my connection to Paragon, I sensed him descend towards us, by the elevator judging by his speed. Almost on cue, the elevator door hissed open as Robert stepped out into the living room of the complex, still in full costume. “What is this Benedict told me about firearms on the property?”
John finished loading a magazine as he looked up at Robert. “Oh, Christ, please tell me we’re not doing this again.”
“Robert, it’s fine,” I said as I raised my hands. “John’s a Marine, remember? How else would you expect him to help us?”
Robert hovered over to us, hand at his chin like the Thinker. “I would assume he would simply inform us of the Omniarmor’s whereabouts and let us handle it from there while he stays safely here.”
I couldn’t help myself as I cracked a smile. “I forget that you don’t know John Munroe at all.”
“Chris’s right,” John scoffed as he loaded his rifle and set it down. “You don’t know me at all. There’s no way I’m not going with you two. Even if Chris weren’t involved in this, even if it were just you, Mr. Ubermensch, I’d want in on this after what Hardware did to my life.”
Their eyes met, and I could feel the tension as they seemed to feel each other out. They both had forceful, intense personalities, one thoughtful, careful, and selfless, the other fiery, passionate, and ready for action. I wasn’t sure if they could entirely mesh, as unmixable as oil and water, but I was going to try to get them to get along.
Standing, I put my hand on Robert’s arm, something that caught his attention. “John deserves this chance, Robert. I know it may seem crazy but …”
Understanding filled those deep hazel eyes as Robert studied my expression. “You need closure, a chance for your own justice.” He looked at John, his gaze focusing as if he were truly seeing the man for the first time. “It isn’t about revenge, no. It is about honor, responsibility. A chance to make up for previous wrongs.”
John’s brow knit and twisted as Robert spoke and his heart was a swirling tempest. After a moment, as if he had to rethink his words several times, John finally spoke. “I know you probably think I don’t deserve it, Bob. Hell, I’d be the first to tell you that you’re right. I’m as complicit in Hardware and Omnitech’s crimes as they are if you ask me.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out through clenched teeth. “But Chris, well, she seems to think I’m worth a damn, and I can tell by how you look at her that you think of her as highly as I do. If she thinks I should try, I guess I better do it, right?”
I was positively blushing at that. It didn’t matter that I looked like some goddess in the mirror or that I had all this power, it felt odd to be on this pedestal. Still, that didn’t stop both men from giving me a sidelong glance and a smile.
“I would definitely agree with you, John,” Robert nodded. “Christine has an amazing knack for being right, and I can tell she does believe in you, as she believes in me.” He touched down to the earth, taking a step closer to John as he held out his hand.
John looked at it as if it were an alien tentacle for a moment before letting out a brief chuckle, grabbing that outstretched hand in a firm grip. “Well, I sure as hell didn’t see this happening today, but … yeah, Bob. Let’s do this thing and show her that she’s right to believe, huh?”
20
Benedict had insisted that we should all eat before more heroics, as well as avail ourselves of the facilities. I got a nice, hot shower and a fresh uniform. Robert made a few more calls to Dr. Archimedes, while John took the time to clean himself up.
That gave me some time to think, to mull over what had happened to Robert and me both. The power inside me had grown stronger, that much was obvious. I was stronger, faster, tougher than I had been a night before, and my empathic senses were more acute, more wide-ranging. That didn’t even touch on this permanent connection to Robert, and the effect I seemed to be able to have on people I touched, temporarily bridging our emotions together.
And of course, there was Robert’s new-found power to alter organic molecules and create complex objects almost instantly. While I could argue with myself that my own powers were fresh, new, probably developing, I couldn’t make a good argument as to what had happened to him. Only one thing had changed since the fight with Magnetaur.
We'd had sex.
I found myself fetching my notebook from my purse in Robert’s room, reading over the shorthand I had scrawled about Dr. Bella Blair’s device. She had said it could create symbiotic neural bonds between people. Did that have something to do with the power I had now? Had the act of making love formed not only that empathic connection I had to Robert, but strengthened us both? That was the whole point of a symbiotic relationship, to benefit both partners, after all.
Maybe I should contact her. She might have answers for me.
All that mulling and soul-searching ground to a halt when John showed back up after his shower. When he stepped into the living room of the underground bunker, it was like the past had come back to life before my eyes. John had shaved the beard entirely, leaving just a bit of sexy stubble on his chin, while only trimming his hair a bit, leaving it wild and unruly. Instead of the finest Army surplus chic, he was dressed in a tight, black turtleneck that clung to his well-toned body, and black cargo pants that looked easy to move in with enough pockets to hide a small arsenal.
I fully suspected he had such an arsenal stuffed away. I had a feeling he had always figured this day would come eventually and made sure he was ready for it.
“So, now that we’re all on the same page,” I said, admiring John’s refreshed look and biting back a fresh round of desire, “what did happen to the Omniarmor?”
“Indeed,” Robert added as he settled into the couch beside me, putting an arm around my shoulder. His warmth mixed with my own and I regretted again not inviting him into the shower with me. “The government requested my help in searching for it after your … incident, yet I had no b
etter luck finding it than anyone. We presumed it was destroyed somehow.”
An envious echo passed through John as he scooped up his re-packed duffle, the rifle concealed for now, but it passed quickly. “Yeah, well, it didn’t want to get found out, so it hid its tracks.”
“Excuse me.” I raised a hand for attention. “You’re talking about this suit like it’s alive.” At John’s growing grin, my eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I told you, I don’t bullshit.” John slung his bag. “The Omniarmor is a colony of nanomachines, right? That’s millions of microscopic computers that are interacting to constantly form and shape the suit into whatever its wearer commands, or at least that’s the idea. What both Hardware and the Omnitech scientists didn’t figure was that when you put millions of little thinking machines together —”
“They would form a neural net, a sum intelligence greater than the whole,” Robert finished, a look of wonder in his eyes. “The Omniarmor attained full sentience.”
“Bingo, Bob.” John tucked his hands into his pockets as he stared off to one side, brow knit in thought. “See, they also got, well, picky. They operate by reading the wearer’s neural impulses, right? So, basically, they can read your mind. Over the testing of the suit, fewer and fewer people were considered compatible with the armor, not because of programming bugs, but because the armor adopted a set of moral principles to abide by, well, as near as anyone could tell.”
“The suit knew,” I murmured softly, then with greater intensity. “It knew that it was going to be used by the bad guys, even before we started our investigation.”
“I think so,” John acknowledged. “That’s why I should have figured it out when it stopped working for almost everyone but me.” He sighed darkly. “But I didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t realize that it was the suit whispering in my head, not until it was too late.”
Shaking his head to clear the dark emotions trying to crash back in, he continued, “But the point is that the Omniarmor went into hiding, deciding that if I wasn’t going to use it that it would deactivate until someone worthy would come along. I think some smartass ran the King Arthur legend through its collective brains. It only told me and, well, I thought it was better to let it sit as opposed to let it get abused by whoever tried to use it.”
“Well, you’ve got your head out of your butt now, right?” I smiled. “Let’s go get it before Hardware finds it, though I think if what you said is right, he might get more than he bargained for if he beats us to it.”
Robert nodded. “Agreed, Christine, but it is best that we don’t count on that. If I infer correctly, John, this machine intelligence still yearns for a wielder. It may not be capable of acting entirely on its own due to its own beliefs or programming.”
As we both rose from the couch, John nodded. “That’s it exactly, Bob. No matter how much the little guys have advanced, their core directive requires a pilot. While they might not want to work for Hardware, he’s got that crazy supergenius thing going on. He’ll crack them eventually like he hacked your bleeding-edge S.O.S. equipment.”
“Okay, guys, we better hurry then.” I pulled my mask back into place, pulling my wild red curls through and shaking them out. “We’ve got a day to save.”
John nodded grimly. “I’ll do the guiding … just maybe this time we can travel in a way where I’m not being carried like a baby?”
To our mutual surprise, Robert cracked a grin as he joked, “And I thought you would have liked her carrying you like that. I think I would have.”
To my surprise, John laughed, a clean, honest sound, breaking some of the tension. “Maybe I pegged you a little wrong, Bob. Yeah, maybe it was more fun than I’d like to admit. Still, something more pragmatic and less flashy might be in order.”
We were all smiles for a moment, and I found a thought running through my mind. More of an impulse, a desire. New love for Robert and a rekindling of something that should have been but could still be with John. Maybe it could work.
But that wasn’t something to entertain for the moment. We had a job to do.
As per John’s suggestion, Robert led us into the mansion’s huge garage and picked out the least ostentatious of his cars. After John noted that it was way too fancy for where we were going, Robert obliged by completely reshaping the outside into something a lot plainer, a grey Ford sedan instead of a sleek BMW roadster. With that passing muster, we drove out of the Bluffs, back down into the heart of New Harbor below.
Speeding down the streets, crossing Downtown on our way to the Waterfront District, I decided to bring up what we were all thinking. “You know, it’s almost certain that Hardware is still tracking us somehow.”
“Of course,” Robert added, sitting in the passenger seat next to John. “I prefer to think of it as drawing out the enemy as opposed to walking into a trap.”
“I don’t want to make a habit of saying this,” John added, “but I’m thinking like Bob here. This is a chance to get Hardware out in the open as well as secure the armor. Trust me, we’ve got words to exchange when we meet again.”
I leaned forward in the back seat, glancing at John in the rearview. “And when you say words, you mean bullets, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
I didn’t say what I was thinking, that we couldn’t let him kill Hardware, but I didn’t have to. John knew what everyone in the world did, that Paragon didn’t kill people and wouldn’t stand by if John tried to, and all it would do was cause trouble ahead of time to bring it up. Besides, I had faith in him, even if he still was having trouble finding it in himself. If John had a chance to kill Hardware, I knew deep-down that he wouldn’t.
John pulled the restyled electric car into an alley not two blocks from the New Harbor Port Authority. These weren’t rundown warehouses or abandoned buildings. We were in the heart of the usually bustling Waterfront, among the most modern warehouses and shipping companies. In fact, as we stepped out of the car, shrouded by the cover of night, I found myself smiling as I pointed up at the logo on the side of the warehouse we had parked next to.
“Washington Future Endeavors,” I said aloud. “One of your own company’s warehouses.”
Robert looked over at John as the ex-Marine tried and failed to suppress a grin. “You knew this before we left, didn’t you?”
“That I did, Bob.” John slid his pistol out of his bag, keeping it low and concealed against his thigh. “Hey, the Omniarmor is smart. Your warehouses are the best maintained, most secure, and best of all, ninety-nine percent automated.”
I stretched out my fingers, amazed again that my knuckles didn’t even ache from laying out Magnetaur the previous night. “Of course. So, the nanomachines tapped into the automated systems, keeping it safe, sound, and away from any workers that might disturb it.”
“Ingenious,” Robert admitted as he rose off the ground, his cape swirling in the unnatural wind of his flight. “At least we don’t need to concern ourselves with breaking and entering.” He hovered forward to the side door, replete with biometric locks too fancy for most warehouses. “I will simply let us in with my own authorizations.”
I nodded and followed him, John sticking with me. His eyes cast to the rooftops, the shadows in the alley, never staying still, while I extended my empathic eye as wide as it could go. Considering how many robots Hardware had used so far, it probably wouldn’t help, but it couldn’t hurt.
Robots, huh? Dr. O’Brien had been the head of the S.O.S. robotics department. More and more, I was sure that his death was wrapped up in this. This was just more proof.
Feeling a bit of righteous anger myself at the deaths and tragedy the technological fiend had caused, I swept the skies myself as Robert unlocked the door with a thumbprint and retinal scan. There was the faint rush of conditioned air as the door opened up into the chill, perfectly dry warehouse floor. Precisely arranged metal racks held plastic pallets of boxed goods, probably electronic components judging
by the carefully managed environment, while automated forklifts still whirred along, shifting pallets and sorting product without a care for our presence.
John stepped past both of us, glancing around for a moment until he caught sight of something. Following his gaze, it was a security camera, whirring to focus on us.
“Hey, Ohm,” he called out, waving his free hand over his head. “I know it’s been a long time since I saw you, and I’m sorry I haven’t found somebody to wear you, but we’ve got to move you. Hardware’s coming, old buddy, and we won’t let him take you.”
Like a switch was flicked, the lights sparked to emergency red, and the forklifts seemed to freak out, sending out squeals as they randomly spun and rolled around. A few even bumped into each other. One, though, looked, well, calm and sped off to the far corner of the warehouse.
Strangely, I felt an alien presence, like a million buzzing insects of emotion that forged into one unified but still cacophonous voice. It was happy, sad, lonely, panicked, calm, all at the same time. I found myself rubbing my temples, Robert grasping me comfortingly by the shoulders.
“What is it, Miracle?” he said softly, soothingly.
“It’s got to be the Omniarmor,” I murmured, managing to adapt to the strange thrum of its million emotions. “It’s awake.”
John nodded toward the returning ‘calm’ forklift, a pallet with a 50-gallon steel barrel set atop it. “Yep, that’s Ohm now. Uh, yeah, forgot to mention that’s the Omniarmor’s name, well, the name of the nanomachines inside it. Yeah, this has already gotten complicated.” John laughed a little as a look that combined relief and frustration crossed over his face. “We might actually get out of here before Hardware shows his stupid face.”
As if to spite that notion, another strong, vivid mind pulsed into existence, like it literally teleported into the immediate vicinity. Maybe it did, because as the wash of spite, jealousy, hatred, and greed hit me like a punch in the face, the sound of giant servos split the air outside, and two metal claws, each the size of a crane hook, tore through the ceiling above us.
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