Jamie moved to the front window, resentful that she couldn't just revel in her daughter being alive. "I'm sure that had something to do with it. But whatever her reasons, Dad, I'm also pretty sure Tomlinson was telling the truth. For now."
"And now she has two super-powered people to worry about," said Tildie.
"But if just being around you, Mom, made me change, it could make lots of other people change, including President Tomlinson, couldn't it?"
"Kylee makes a good point," said Cal. "I think we're missing something about what happened to her. Something important. Jamie, after that android or whatever it was attacked you, can you think of anything special you did – in the house or at the hospital?"
"I didn't do anything, Dad, unless you count crying over her or taking her to the hospital or standing around being helpless."
"I kind of like the stress theory," said Tildie. "But I don't see myself agreeing to being buried alive anytime soon to test it out."
Jamie remained by the window, half-expecting to see a fleet of helicopters on the horizon or a cavalcade of armored vehicles snarling down her driveway. President Tomlinson and the authorities would surely find the creation of another augmented person a threat – and an incredible opportunity.
She gave a small start as Kylee snuggled up against her side.
"Are you worried, Mom?"
"Not too much." Jamie noted her daughter's knowing smile. "Well, maybe a little."
"Now it's both of us against them."
Jamie couldn't quite stop her grimace. For her, those were the exact opposite of comforting words.
"You're afraid they could hurt me?"
"I'm afraid they could hurt both of us. Kylee, I told you I'm not invulnerable. Neither are you."
"Okay." She turned her face upward, and the hard glint in her blue eyes made Jamie feel as if she were staring into a mirror. "Then maybe we should find out how vulnerable I am?"
PRESIDENT TOMLINSON watched the latest NSA recordings taken from the Shepherd home, along with several slow-motion and freeze-frame reviews of Kylee succumbing to WANDA's killer nanites. It was a far more intimate viewing party – just her, her friend, Vice President Molly Winters, the NSA Director, United States Space Command's leader, General William Akron, and Jacob Kushner. A new addition was a scientist named Dr. Elena Lane on loan from DARPA's Biological Technology Office.
The image froze on Jamie bending over her daughter, tears falling from her eyes.
"That's the moment," said Dr. Lane. "The only time in the recordings when a transfer of bodily fluids could've occurred."
"When she's crying over her daughter," said Molly.
"And her tears are falling into her daughter's eyes." A camera zoomed in from another angle, catching a teardrop centimeters from one of Kylee's wide and staring eyes. "That could explain why her daughter developed superpowers nearly three days later. Mrs. Shepherd's alien nanites could've entered her lymph or circulatory vessel system then. Granted, her heart wasn't beating, so presumably there wouldn't have been any circulation – except for motion-induced lymph flow – but I think it's a reasonable supposition that the alien nanites are self-propelled. Even many of our own nanodevices are."
"Do you have any explanation for why Jamie's nanodevices aren't able to aerially infect people here as they were on her world?" Kushner asked.
"If I had to guess, I'd say they had a pre-programmed infectious cycle. Mrs. Shepherd's NDs are no longer in infectious mode, so direct contact would be needed."
"That would explain why no one's turned super until now," said President Tomlinson.
"Precisely, Madame President."
"But they haven't figured that out yet, assuming your guess is right."
"It doesn't appear to be on their radar now."
"But there's one problem with your theory, Dr. Lane," said Jacob Kushner. "If the alien nanovirus was in her tears, then why not in her saliva? Or in her vaginal mucous? She's had sex with her husband, hasn't she?" He turned to the NSA Director, Milton Barnes. "Hasn't she?"
"We have recordings of them being intimate, yes." A slight suggestion of color invaded the NSA Director's flinty expression.
"I have considered that question, as well as the hypothesis that extreme stress induced their expression." Dr. Lane didn't appear perturbed. "We can only resolve those questions through experimentation."
President Tomlinson exchanged a look with her Vice President. Now what?
"Show me the cemetery drone video again," said Tomlinson.
From a drone three or four miles up, they observed a puff of what appeared to be an explosion at the gravesite. But what happened a second or two later was far more interesting: the blur of a human-shaped missile rising from the ground straight past the drone – too fast for its cameras to catch much more than a fleck of blue, even when slowed to a stop at maximum resolution.
"So she can fly," said the President. She rubbed her throat. Not all of her emotions were dread about this latest and rather ominous development. She felt a pleasant twitch of relief – I'm not a child-killer – and something akin to being moved by this supremely improbable mother-and-daughter reunion. For the briefest of moments it was as if she'd been a mother herself.
Another thought intruded: the two super-powered people were American citizens. What if... She had to breathe in to allow herself the vision. What if they had many "supers," all in the employ of the United States Government, just as Jamie Shepherd's DARE team had been. Wouldn't that give them even more of an edge than they already had? She'd dreamed of having Ms. Shepherd at her disposal, of what she could accomplish. But could they accomplish with an army of such individuals? The U.S. was already a super power. But what if it were a super-powered super power!
President Tomlinson smiled at her conceit. She'd never been one to think small or to shy from the bold, even outrageous, move when it came to asserting her country's – or her own – power. Looked at one way, a bunch of "augmented" people appeared to be a grave security threat. Seen at another way, they could be a boon for her country. She was used to wielding double-edged swords. You just had to be careful how and where you swung.
"We're now at risk of a plague of superhumans," said Kushner. He paused to give the President a steely-eyed stare. "We could still drop a MAME right on top of them. She's inside with her family. She'd never see it coming."
"Assuming we could get anyone in one of our starships to fire one," said President Tomlinson. "That didn't work out too well last time."
"PAT would."
"Right. Then Jamie would intercept it and drop it on Washington, D.C."
"The missile could be easily disarmed at any time, just as it was before."
"And we had to mount a military recovery operation in Utah just outside Salt Lake City. What if the missile had crashed in the city? Or in another country? As it is, the alternative news has been spinning conspiracy theories all week – some of them dangerously close to the truth." President Tomlinson shook her head, her patient smile evaporating. She'd appreciated Kushner's hard-nosed support before, but this was a different chess game. "No, Jacob, we're going to try something new with Ms. Shepherd. And where you see a 'plague of superhumans,' I see an army of patriotic super-powered American soldiers."
Kushner suddenly looked intrigued. "How would you control them?"
"How would we control an army of WANDAs? How do we control starship commanders with the most powerful weapons in our history? Or the ICBM operators? Hell, I myself could cause untold damage."
"Interesting point. We already have allocated extraordinary power to certain individuals, but we don't see that as an extraordinary risk because they're loyal to the government – they're part of the system."
"That's it. It's belief in our system of governance that unites us all. People talk about checks and balances, but most of our agencies have become powers unto themselves. What keeps them in check is that we all ultimately work for the same team – are part of the big club."
Kushner was nodding. "You think we could convert our own people into 'augments'?"
"Why not?" President Tomlinson smiled at Molly, who was giving a subtle shake of her head. To the President, that was a sign she truly was on a roll. "All we need is a sample of Jamie's bodily fluids. Or her daughter's. Then we inject that into select individuals, and – voila! – we have our legion of loyal superheroes to battle our enemies on Earth and in space."
Kushner continued to nod. Rumor had it that Tomlinson had a genius-level IQ, which he'd always believed was bullshit. Now he wasn't so sure.
"Can we get Shepherd to cooperate?"
President Tomlinson's triumphant smile dimmed a shade or two, but then hardened. "Could be tricky, but I'm sure we can find a way."
"TRY TO move the rock again," said Jamie. "Just a few yards, nothing too spectacular."
Kylee's forehead wrinkled with concentration, and the two or three hundred pound rock started to roll, then rose a few feet into the air. Jamie looked around for possible spectators, uneasy despite being out in the prairie miles from the nearest house or road. Kylee's rock accelerated, banging into a nearby steel fence post. She grunted with concern and the rock dropped to the ground.
"Try straightening the post."
Kylee concentrated. The fence post shifted, but the fence moved more energetically, twisting around the post with the humming sound of stretching wire. Kylee stopped with a disgruntled snort.
"It takes practice, honey," said Jamie. "Using your powers isn't automatic. There's a learning curve."
"I know."
"Why don't you try lifting the rock with your arms? No telekinetic assistance."
Her daughter flew over and lifted the rock without any show of effort.
"Wow," she said. "How heavy do you think this is?"
"I don't know. I'm guessing two hundred, two-fifty."
"It feels like maybe two or three pounds."
"Toss it to me."
She tossed it underhand. The rock sailed several feet over Jamie's head. She jumped up and snagged it.
"See if you can pull it out of my hands telekinetically."
Kylee smiled. The rock jerked a little, but Jamie's grip held firm. Kylee's smile turned more mischievous. Jamie rose within the embrace of her daughter's telekinesis and glided halfway to her before her progress stopped.
"Keep trying," Jamie said.
Kylee's fine eyebrows squinched down. Jamie felt the force of her telekinetics as a mild breeze. Jamie wasn't sure if that demonstrated their relative strengths or if it was more about their skill levels. Kylee might be exerting only a small percentage of her potential telekinetic power.
"Darn," Kylee wheezed. "You're waay stronger than me."
"Let's not jump to conclusions, baby." Jamie dropped the rock. "Okay, why don't we see how fast you can run. No telekinetics."
"Sometimes it's hard to tell when it's just my muscles or the telekinesis."
"Well, try."
Kylee took off. Jamie flew overhead. Soon her daughter was bounding along at what Jamie guessed was freeway speed, her strides lengthening to many meters, planting her in awkward places between the rising and falling land. She lost her footing in a ditch and plowed into the side of a hill. Jamie held her breath and raced to her – but her daughter sat up, spitting grass and dirt and grinning.
In the DARE underground Advanced Research Complex, Jamie thought, they had several large enclosed areas designed to test augmented abilities. Sophisticated equipment for testing both muscular and telekinetic strength – how much someone could lift, how high they could jump, how much force they could exert telekinetically – but even there, measuring someone's powers was a rough science at best. Some powers, such as psychic ability, defied quantification. Jamie still had only an approximate idea of her own physical limitations.
So far, by her even less scientifically accurate estimation, she guessed her daughter qualified as a Class Three or possible Two by DARE test standards. But it was early yet.
"Let's fly together," Jamie suggested. "Let's see how high and fast you can go. Start out slow and stay close to me. We'll speed up gradually. The instant you start to feel uncomfortable, we'll go back. No debate."
Jamie hated putting her daughter at risk, but not knowing her limitations struck her as far riskier. She was confident she could save her, and more confident that the alien nanovirus, which had brought her back from "clinical death," would surely save her from anything less than catastrophic damage.
They ascended at what Jamie guessed was a few hundred miles per hour, slowly picking up speed. Soon they were passing the highest point Kylee had reached in her maiden flight. Three, four, five miles. Jamie drifted in close to her, making eye contact. Kylee smiled and nodded she was okay.
"We'll be running out of oxygen soon," said Jamie. "We won't be able to hear each other."
Kylee nodded, a fierce slant to her jaw. They continued to rise, the clouds retreating to a white shag carpet below their feet. Above, the sky was a dark, majestic, near-purple, blue. As many times as Jamie had seen it, flight into the higher atmosphere continued to be a haunting experience. Something about the air of a vibrant, living world filled with color and warmth surrendering to a cold, lifeless abyss of blackness – to Jamie, it symbolized the surrender of life to death. Of course she knew it wasn't that simple, but that's how it had always struck her.
Overhead, the royal purple was shading into the bleak darkness of space. Jamie focused on her daughter, every sense alert to the tiniest hint of distress. Most fliers could not fly beyond a certain altitude. Tildie was typical in being capable of high altitude flights for short periods, limited by how long she could hold her breath, much as a skilled diver or a whale could during a deep sea dive. So far, Kylee didn't seem bothered by the lack of air. That was extremely rare. Jamie had only known of two other augments who'd been able to fly in space – the only two super-adversaries who'd cleanly bested her – Geraldo Rodriquez and his girlfriend, whose name she couldn't remember.
They'd reached the Mesosphere. Instead of distress, Kylee's eyes and smile were full of wonder. She is "spaceflight capable," Jamie thought with relief and a modest dose of personal pride.
Kylee hadn't fallen far from her mom's super-powered tree.
JAMIE WASN'T especially surprised when Nathan Andrews showed up at their door one morning a couple days later. She wasn't even surprised when Nate admitted, with a chagrinned smile, that he was there on behalf of the Tomlinson Administration – and no, he didn't have laser-eyes or killer nanodevices, he assured them – nor did it come as a shock that the government knew about Kylee's resurrection. But when he told them that President Tomlinson wanted them to come in for testing so that they could determine just how Kylee had contracted the "superpower bug," Jamie felt instantly wary.
"Sounds a lot like a trap to me," said Dennis. "They set you in a room next to an antimatter bomb and..."
"I don't think there's much chance of that," said Nate. "For what it's worth, I believe she's telling the truth. If they were planning to kill you, I think we'd see some signs of that trickling down through the DHS, but everything I'm seeing points instead to a new plan to deal with the alien threat. Besides, their assassination attempts on you have been spectacularly unsuccessful."
"What does she want?" Jamie asked. Since Kylee's recovery, Jamie's animosity toward the President had diminished, but it was far from gone.
"Why don't I let her tell you that herself?"
Nathan motioned to a coffee table before their living room couch, and Jamie nodded. He opened his laptop and tapped on the keys for a few seconds.
"Just setting up a secure, direct link to the President's private server."
"Have you met with her in person, Nate?" Jamie asked.
"Yes. And to anticipate your next question, I do believe she's had a change of heart about you and the whole situation. But I'm no psychologist. I guess you'll have to judge for yourself."
Jamie sat down ne
xt to him, grateful that Kylee was off playing at the Clarksons'. Her conversation with the President might involve some comments she didn't want her daughter to hear.
Nathan's laptop screen resolved on an image of a smiling President Loretta Janus Tomlinson, sitting at the Oval Office desk.
"Hello, dear," she said. "It was wonderful and amazing to hear that your daughter is back with us – and in a super-powered form, I understand."
Jamie said nothing.
President Tomlinson's smile faltered a little. "May I ask if you have any idea how this happened?"
"We're not sure."
Tomlinson folded her hands on the desk in the same gesture she favored during her televised speeches. Her initial friendliness was transforming into a grave expression.
"Jamie, I hope you are able to put aside your personal feelings toward me for the greater good. What happened to your daughter was terrible, but it has led us to an extraordinary opportunity for discovering how your nanovirus can be transferred to others. Once we learn that, we'll have the ability to create a superhuman force to stand against the Elementals. It wouldn't all come down to you, Jamie. That could make the difference between life and death for the human race. That human race in this universe, that is."
It didn't surprise Jamie that President Tomlinson and the government would be more than a little interested in knowing about how she'd infected Kylee, but she hadn't expected such a positive spin. She assumed they'd be worried about the super virus spreading. How would they keep all their control-freak rules in place when people were so powerful?
"You really want to create an army of super people?"
"I'm not too proud to admit we need help."
President Tomlinson was smiling in a way that suggested to Jamie they were sharing in a secret joke. If so, Jamie was missing the punch line. Tomlinson being so open to the idea of super people didn't seem to add up. Unless...she stood something personal to gain from it. Something more than just survival. After they defeated the Elementals, if they did, what would she do with them?
Jamie recalled abruptly President Tomlinson asking her to work as an ally against other powers. Obviously, whatever power she would've gained with Jamie as her servant would be multiplied many times if she had an army of super-soldiers under her control.
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