Super World Two

by Lawrence Ambrose

  The room pulsed with red light. Jamie raised her head from Keira's shoulder.

  "What's that?"

  "We're being hailed, emergency priority," said Cameron. "Image on, Pat."

  For Jamie, the most reviled face in existence gazed out at them. President Tomlinson's cool blue eyes immediately sought out Jamie.

  "First, I want to extend my deepest condolences and my most profound personal apology for the unintended death of your daughter, Jamie," she said. "I've done some soul-searching – we all have – and are now reversing our strategy of bowing to the ultimatums of the so-called 'Elementals.' All efforts to harm or coerce you or your family will cease. In fact, should our planet enter into dire straits – either from the aliens or from our own actions – your family and closest friends will be allowed sanctuary in our most secure locations. From now on, it will be the policy of this government to seek out and destroy our enemy – hopefully, with you as our ally."

  Jamie regarded the President's image with narrowed eyes. If looks could kill, Cameron thought. Of course with her, they could.

  "I'm not asking for your forgiveness, Jamie," said the President. "Not that I don't want it – I just know that's an unfair request. What I'm asking for is that you consider working with us for the sake of your country." She paused to issue a pasty smile. "And yes, Jamie, I have directed the State Department to grant you American citizenship, effective immediately."

  Jamie listened to her speech through a numb, red haze, hearing the words but barely feeling their effects. She recognized them as positive, as offering a saner option, but she couldn't help thinking: Why now? What not before, when Kylee was still alive? They were small pieces of food floating in a toxic sea.

  She realized abruptly that the room was silent and people were watching her: the President, crewmembers, and the President's staff seated on either side of her. They were waiting for her to say something. But Jamie wasn't feeling that she had anything intelligent or useful to say. Certainly nothing remotely grateful.

  "Go tend to your family," President Tomlinson said, not unkindly. "Someone from my office will reach out to you after a bit."

  Chapter 17

  JAMIE'S IMPERVIOUSNESS TO WORDS persisted through the funeral service at United Calvary Lutheran Church, where a pastor she didn't know spoke lovingly about Kylee, who'd apparently been a regular Sunday school attendee until the last year or two. Pastor Joseph had watched Kylee grow up and "flourish" as a "lovely young girl," who had sadly been taken from them before "she could reach full bloom." But the good news was that she was now in Heaven. A real, honest-to-God Heaven, not some fake alien virtual heaven.

  Not that Pastor Joseph knew anything about that. The American "returnees" still had no clear idea what had happened. Events and news swirled around them while Jamie focused on staying upright – and also holding Dennis and her dad upright. Dennis was a complete wreck. No surprise there. Kylee had been his life for years, and he'd doted on her with everything he had. Her dad wasn't much better. Cal tried to maintain a brave front, to be their "rock," but his tearing up every few minutes didn't feel very rock-like. Jamie had fallen in love with her nine year old daughter in seconds, but seeing Dennis' utter collapse she had to acknowledge that his loss was greater. Which was scary beyond belief, because for her it was a nightmare beyond belief.

  So the pastor's pretty words made no inroads into her grieving thoughts, and she had little to say to the people who approached her uncertainly as the "long-lost twin sister/aunt" they'd been told she was, but she found tiny shards of comfort in their tearful eyes, in the fact that Kylee had touched so many lives. The worst part was seeing the people who knew who she was, and the worst of those were Terry Mayes and Kevin Clarkson. Even in their autistic universes, their hurt and agitation were obvious. She overheard Kevin Clarkson muttering to his mom that "I will not accept this, it's too logically improbable!" before she led him away. Terry just appeared sad and lost in his high-tech wheelchair, as if the large contraption was poised to swallow him. Grandma Mayes wore tear streaks as if they were part of her makeup, while her grandson, the indomitable black-power advocate, met her eyes for a moment and dipped his head in respect. Kylee had touched even Thomas Mayes.

  All the while, Tildie stayed by her side, a silent, supportive presence that Jamie appreciated beyond measure.

  After the pastor's talk, the mourners drifted in a chaotic mass over to the Montefiore Cemetery. The nightmare continued and even picked up some steam as the casket was lowered into its tidy, freshly dug square hole. The minister cracked his Bible and started reciting more homilies about how wise God was and how wonderful it was to rest in His bosom. Jamie blinked away, her gaze traveling across the cemetery where a motorcade of three black limousines was rolling through the gate. She watched in wonder along with the other funeral-goers as the cars stopped and a squad of Marines in dress blues emerged, some standing at attention while others opened the limos' doors. Among them was Nathan Andrews, also in a blue suit. He caught Jamie's eyes and gave her a grave half-bow.

  A sob lodged in Jamie's throat. Not now. Later. They were shoveling dirt onto her daughter's lowered casket, but she was still holding it together. She couldn't afford any weakness now. Dennis had his head pressed against her shoulder, grasping her arm like a drowning person grasping a lifebuoy, and she had to hold him up. Tildie, standing a few feet away, had fixed her gaze on the ground, lips trembling. Cal was staring off at the horizon, a muscle trembling in his jaw.

  On the far side of the cemetery, Nathan stood with his arms solemnly crossed, saying something to the Marines. They opened three boxes with their white gloves – and an explosion of white doves erupted into the sky.

  Jamie lost it. Suddenly it was Dennis trying to hold her up, which was difficult since she weighed over twice what she once weighed. Her great wails of pain followed the doves skyward, and as she folded up she couldn't tear her gaze away, as though she had to know where the birds were flying. She had the strongest urge to tear free and fly after them...and keep flying. But now Tildie and Granny Mayes had their arms around her and she didn't want to hurt them.

  Fly, baby, she thought. You're free now. Fly.

  KYLEE AWOKE in blackness. Not merely dark. This an absolute absence of light. She lifted her hands in front of her face but saw nothing. She touched her face. Nothing was covering her eyes.

  Where am I?

  She reached up, expecting to feel nothing, believing she had to be inside an unusually dark room, but her hands immediately encountered a barrier. Not a hard surface. Kind of cushy, and no give at all.

  A spark of fear lit her mind. Kylee wasn't quite ready for panic yet. She'd been having so many odd dreams – people talking, white rooms, her mom crying – and maybe this was one of them. Like fever dreams where you obsessively do stuff that makes no sense. But she was sure she had no fever. She had the oddest sense of being a work in progress, of gradually returning to herself.

  So where am I? The last thing she remembered was bursting in on her mom and some strange, beautiful woman – and then choking. She couldn't breathe. Everything got woozy. She must've blacked out. And now she was here, wherever that was.

  She felt soft, frilly material all around her, but no give or room to move. She couldn't sit up, and barely could roll on one side. Like I'm in a big box –

  Oh, no! A terrifying rush of logic: she'd been choking, blacked out, they'd tried to revive her – but failed. And then they buried me! I'm in a coffin!

  "I'm here!" Kylee shouted. She hammered the top of the casket. Surprisingly, her fists broke through the wood. Dirt trickled onto her face and lips. She twisted her head and spat it out. She had a horrifying flash of those stories of people buried alive, futilely attempting to claw their way out, later discovered with their faces ghoulishly contorted in a final scream of inconsolable terror. Was she about to become one of those people?

  No! No, no, no, no –

  Then the impossible happened: she was rising!
Shrouded in an explosion of dirt, the sun a blazing yellow sphere overhead, she soared skyward.

  WHEN KYLEE'S gravesite erupted, people cried out and ducked for cover. Even Jamie reflexively shielded her eyes. For an instant she thought she was responsible – that some inconsolable thought had slipped through and taken physical form – but then she spotted a figure in a blue dress rising high above them, her skinny arms thrust upward. Magnifying her, Jamie saw what the others couldn't – the unmistakable, irrefutable, impossibly beautiful truth: her baby was alive!

  Joy consumed her, paralyzed her. She knew before the dirt and wood shards had stopped raining down what had happened: her daughter had transformed. She couldn't piece together how – Was it a delayed reaction, triggered by stress, or something else? – but the important thing was that she was alive. The alien nanovirus had brought her back.

  Sirens sounded. Two DHS armored vehicles snarled to life on a nearby side-road cut across the cemetery. In moments they were awash in heavily armed federal agents. They encircled the burial party, rifles at ready, radio communications chirping through the air.

  "Please move away from the gravesite," someone with a loudspeaker requested.

  While the mourners backed away, their eyes firmly earthbound, Jamie watched her daughter continue to rise, the puzzled expression on her face suggesting she didn't know how to stop. It required all her will not to fly up and join her or to offer telekinetic guidance. Her daughter was super now. She was in little or no danger of harming herself. But once people knew about her, they could be dangerous. Only a small percentage of the people here knew her story, and Jamie wanted to keep it that way, especially for her daughter's sake.

  So far no one had spotted her. The explosion of dirt and wood, and her speed itself, had camouflaged her upward flight. Jamie backed away with the others, but with a subtle signal to a stunned Dennis, Cal, and Tildie, pulled them out of view between a pair of tall trees. The three formed a small barrier between Jamie and the crowd. When she'd assured herself no one was looking their way, Jamie launched herself upward at a few thousand feet per second.

  She found Kylee above the clouds, drifting, looking lost and amazed – her blue eyes so wide that Jamie thought they could hold a good chunk of the sky – and doubly startled when Jamie flew in beside her.

  "Going somewhere...?" Jamie was going to add "without me," but choked up.

  "Mommy!"

  They flew into each other's arms. Jamie felt the strength of Kylee's grasp and cautiously increased the power of her own hug. She's so strong, Jamie thought. Thank God. Love, joy, and relief roared through her. From one of the worst moments of her life to the best in the space of seconds. The shock of the reversal made her feel as if her head was screwed on backwards.

  Cool drafts blew over them, but Kylee seemed no more bothered by them than Jamie.

  "What happened down there?" Jamie asked. "You just woke up with superpowers?"

  "Ya, though I didn't know it. I thought I'd been buried alive." Kylee shivered. "I just started pounding and yelling and then – " She looked around. "I was here."

  Jamie held her tight, not wanting to focus on the image of her daughter's first moments underground.

  "Mom," said Kylee, still clinging to her. "Can we go home?"

  "Yes. Hold on, honey."

  They descended as fast as Jamie dared to the front yard of their property. They released each other reluctantly. Jamie brushed her daughter's sun-bleached brown hair from her eyes.

  "I'm going to call your dad," Jamie said, digging out her cell. She tapped his number.

  "Jamie!" Dennis cried. "What the hell's going on? Where did you go? Kylee's grave...there's no sign of the casket –"

  "She's alive, Dennis." Jamie thought her voice sounded like an old scratchy record. "Come home."

  "What – "

  "Come home. Bring Dad. Tildie, too."

  She ended the call. Kylee was staring up at her with pleading eyes.

  "Please, Mom. Tell me what happened."

  Jamie took a moment to settle herself. "Do you remember coming into the house? I was talking to a woman...what I thought was a woman."

  "Yup. And I started choking."

  "She released something in the air. What we found out later were 'weaponized nanomachines.' Like what's in me, but these were designed to kill." Jamie's jaw tightened. "They were trying to kill me, but the nanites attacked you, too."

  "Why were they trying to kill you?"

  "Kylee...I'm sorry, but I didn't tell you and Dad everything." Dennis hadn't taken it well at all when she'd filled him on her return from Captain Cameron's ship. He kept repeating that he couldn't believe she would withhold something to important – so life-threatening – from him. She hoped Kylee would respond better. "Honey, I won't tell you the whole story right now. But the bottom line is that I spoke with two of the aliens and they said my coming here changed the course of events – that because of me this civilization wouldn't self-destruct, but would evolve into a threat to the universe as the Earth on my world was predicted to. So now the aliens have decided to destroy us."

  "Because of you?"

  Jamie gave her a sickly smile. "That's what she said."

  "That's crazy! What could you do that would screw up the world that much? Those dumb 'Elementals' have no right to destroy us now for something we might supposedly do in the future."

  Jamie sighed, and patted her daughter's head. Still gently, unsure of how strong she was. "Believe me, we argued about that. But ultimately they have the power to do what they want to do."

  Dennis' pickup raced down the driveway at freeway speeds, kicking up a twister of dust and gravel. They skidded into the front lawn, Dennis leaping out before the truck had fully stopped.

  "Be careful, Kylee - watch your strength!" Jamie called to her as she flew to meet her father. Literally flew – her feet paddling the air a few inches off the ground.

  Cal and Tildie climbed out, too. Her dad wore a crazy, half-dazed grin, tears streaming down his face. Wiping her eyes, Tildie walked over to lean against Jamie and watch the reunion.

  "This has to be the most kick-ass funeral I ever attended," she said. "When we left, the jackboots were swarming around still trying to figure out what happened. I expect someone will call in the National Guard."

  "They haven't figured anything out yet?"

  "One guy was broadcasting that terrorists might be involved, and he commanded everyone to go home. Or maybe that's just for public consumption."

  "It won't take them long to at least suspect what happened."

  "I don't think anyone saw you take off. Or Kylee, either. She was in the sky, I take it?"

  "Yeah. A few miles up. Not bad for her maiden flight."

  Dennis had stepped aside and allowed Cal to wrap up Kylee. Dennis stumbled over to Jamie and sagged in her arms, weeping freely. They held each other for many moments before Dennis leaned back and regarded Jamie with tear-stained eyes and a fragile smile.

  "So your nanovirus finally took hold?"

  "That's one theory."

  "But the doctors saw no signs of life," he said. "Even with an EKG machine and a brain scan."

  "I know, Dennis. They told me they couldn't push a needle into her skin. I'm wondering now if those machines could even penetrate her skull."

  "If her skull's half as thick as her mother's," Tildie chuckled, drawing wan smiles from Jamie and Dennis. "Seriously, why did Kylee change now?"

  Jamie offered him an elaborate shrug. "Maybe her injuries awakened the nanovirus, or the stress of waking up inside that damn coffin triggered it?"

  "That must've been horrible beyond belief," said Tildie. "That's not how it worked on your world, did it?"

  "No. Nothing like that." Jamie frowned a little. An uncertain perturbation – the sense that she was missing something and that their troubles were far from over – clipped the high waves of happiness buffeting her.

  "So maybe it's a little early to get myself measured for a s
uperhero suit?" Tildie asked with a small laugh.

  Jamie smiled at the small note of disappointment in her friend's laugh. "What would the design be?"

  "I don't know. I was thinking about something with a lightning bolt. But I probably need to see what powers I actually developed."

  They retired inside the house. Kylee perched on the couch, the bow in her hair and pretty blue dress making Jamie think of a prom more than a funeral. Dennis dropped down beside her while Cal drooped in the living room recliner, covering his eyes with one hand.

  "Can I make you guys some coffee or tea or something?" Tildie asked.

  No one expressed any interest. Jamie remembered suddenly: the reception! Some of the townspeople, led by Karen Clarkson, had rented the local Legionnaire's Hall and arranged a potluck. Considering what had happened at the cemetery, she wondered if anyone would show. How would they react if we showed up with Kylee? Which raised another issue: How would they explain her being alive and what happened at the cemetery?

  "So what happens now?" Cal spoke up, lowering the hand from his face and looking at Jamie as though he'd heard her thoughts. "We have to figure the government will get wind of what happened to Kylee, if it hasn't already. They'll want to know why it happened and whether it will be happening to us or others you've had contact with."

  "President Tomlinson told me they would no longer be conducting any negative operations against me or my family," said Jamie. "She even promised to take you into their ultra-secure underground facilities if things get bad up here."

  Her dad raised an eyebrow. "But was she telling the truth? Or maybe it was more about accepting that they probably couldn't kill you, but you could probably kill them if they kept trying?"