“You don’t get it, do you?” Anita’s eyes flashed.
Erin felt a stabbing pain in her mind. Her grip weakened just enough to allow Anita to pull the tendrils off. She dropped, catching herself in a hover, and barreled right into Erin, throwing the two of them through the wall.
She bounced across the metal floor before finally coming to a stop. Erin groaned and slowly got to her feet. She took stock of her surroundings.
This wasn’t the Island. The special prison where she’d witnessed Anita’s betrayal. Now she was in the training room, located inside the Atlas.
Anita hovered above the ground in front of her, staring her down. Erin blinked a few times, trying to figure out how she got here so fast.
“What are you waiting for?”
Erin looked to the sound of the new voice. In front of the wall were rows of cinema-style chairs. And seated in those chairs were the members of Vanguard, both past and present. They had buckets of popcorn and large cups of soda.
“Go on,” said Leonard Thorne right before he tossed a few kernels of popcorn into his mouth. “You gonna take her down or what?”
“She deserves it,” said Dom, apparently now alive and well. He grabbed his head and rotated it in a full circle to show it was still broken. “You can’t let her get away with this.”
Her eyes went to Koji next. He sat next to their daughter, Vicky. Although they both looked about the same age for some reason. Vicky gnawed on her straw as she slurped her drink. Koji’s head changed into shark mode and he threw the entire bucket of popcorn into his large mouth.
“This isn’t…” Erin paused and looked at Anita, who still hovered above her. “It didn’t happen this way. What’s going on?”
“It didn’t happen the other way, either,” said Anita.
Erin furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re not meant to understand.”
Another new voice. Erin turned, the lights dimming until she was bathed in darkness. She strained her eyes to try and get a glimpse of something. A flash in the distance. She looked towards it.
“Anita? Koji? Dom?” She took a few careful steps towards the flash. “Anyone?”
The light grew brighter by degrees the closer she came. As she moved closer, she realized there was someone standing in front of her. The outline of a man, she assumed. Clad in heavy armor. As he came closer, she could start to make out the details of his face.
Reddish-orange skin, pointed ears, long hair in yellow braids, and catlike eyes that hummed with golden energy.
As soon as Erin saw him, she gasped and started to take a few steps back. “No, not you…”
“It is.” General M’Lak. Kotharian commander. The man who led the invasion against Earth.
She turned and ran the other way, but she was in a dark void. No light anywhere. But she could hear M’Lak’s laughter. It echoed around the void, coming from all directions at once.
“What’s going on? What do you want?” she screamed.
The laughter only increased in volume and intensity. Erin fell to her knees, clamping her hands over her ears to drown out the sound. When that didn’t work, her head shifted so her ears closed completely.
Yet somehow, she could still hear his laughter. It was everywhere. It was in her head, reverberating against her skull.
“STOP IT!”
“Erin.”
Now she was in her bed. Back in the house she grew up in. Back in Madison, Wisconsin. Erin sat up, the sheets dropping from her body. Her mother stood in the doorway, looking in and smiling at her. A cup of coffee in her hand.
“You’re going to be late.”
Erin didn’t say a word, just climbed out of bed. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and stopped. White skin. Long, blond hair. The face she wore before her special gene became active. A face she hadn’t tried to mimic in years. She’d actually forgotten what it looked like.
Erin stepped closer to the full-length mirror, examining her face in it. She explored it with her fingers, running them along her skin, testing different expressions with her eyes and mouth.
She smiled and looked away from the mirror. But when she saw the poster over her bed, Erin gasped.
It was M’Lak, drawn in stylized stencil in red, beige, and blue. Below the image was a single word in all capital letters: OBEY.
Erin jumped on the bed and tore the poster off the wall. She ripped it into shreds, reducing it to nothing. When she turned and looked in the mirror again, she screamed.
Her skin had become reddish-orange. Her ears pointed. Her hair in long, yellow braids. And those gold, cat-like eyes.
***
Erin woke up screaming in the darkness. A moment later, she felt a stirring by her side and then the room was flooded with light. Koji was by her side, his back to her as he’d gone to turn on the light. When he looked at her, he jumped out of bed. After a moment, he relaxed.
“Erin, babe,” he said as he climbed back into bed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Look at yourself.”
Erin stared at him in the eyes. She looked down at her body and saw she was dressed in a red and white uniform. Quickly, she got out of bed and looked into a mirror above the dresser.
Anita Jordan’s face stared back at her. Erin sighed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was back in her default, green-skinned form. She turned from the mirror and got back into bed. Erin rested her head against the pillow and laid on her side, her back to her husband.
She felt Koji’s hand on her waist. “Are you okay?”
“Just a bad dream.” She closed her eyes. “That’s all it was.”
“You wanna talk about it?” asked Koji.
“No.”
Koji sighed and moved away from her. The light remained on and Erin opened her eyes. She turned over to the other side and looked at him. He was lying down, staring up at the ceiling. After a moment of feeling her eyes on him, Koji looked at her.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “That’s the third night in a row you’ve woken up screaming.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Can you at least tell me about the nightmare?”
Erin thought. She thought hard, trying to recall what she’d dreamt. But it had already faded from her memory and she shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Nothing? Not even a single detail?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t remember.” She sighed and turned on her back, staring at the ceiling. “Maybe I’m just anxious. It’s been a few days since Atlas. That…thing is still here. Inside our home. Imagine what would happen if it suddenly became active?”
“Hey.” Koji placed a hand on her face, gently turning it so she could look into his eyes. “That’s not gonna happen. Damn thing’s locked up tight. Cassie says there’s no way it can be activated remotely. We’re safe, okay?”
She managed a weak smile. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry I woke you.”
Koji shrugged. “Sleep’s overrated anyway.”
CHAPTER 2
The tachyon generator sat on a table in Cassie’s workshop, completely stripped apart. Chronos sat at the table, the chronal emitter in front of him, working on it. He took components out and replaced them with other components found in the generator.
“Morning.”
Chronos didn’t look up from his work but offered a response to Cassie, recognizing her voice. The young woman circled around the table and sat across from him, sipping coffee.
“How’s it coming?” she asked.
“Slow.” In the days since they’d returned from Atlas with the tachyon generator, Chronos had spent almost every waking minute in the workshop, trying to integrate the generator with his armor’s chronal emitter. The armor’s AI provided him with a degree of assistance, but he often lamented that he still had no idea what happened to the Progenitor.
If only he knew where his ally was, this could have been fixed within a day of obtaining the genera
tor. But that didn’t seem to be in the cards. The Progenitor distracted Kotharian pursuers from attacking them when they’d arrived. And ever since, Chronos had no way of reaching him. Attempts to contact him through his armor were a wasted effort.
“I can do this,” he said. “At least, I think I can.”
Cassie’s sympathetic eyes stared at him through her large glasses. “You can. Maybe you’ve just been working at it too much. Maybe you have to take a step back, sometimes that helps me when I’m struggling with something.”
“Maybe.” Chronos set down the emitter and stretched. “Damn, I’ve been up for an hour and I’m already tired.”
“An hour? How much sleep did you get last night?”
He shrugged. “Not nearly enough, I guess.”
“I think we’ve found out your problem,” said Cassie. “Why don’t you get some decent rest and I’ll have a go at this for awhile?”
Chronos shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ve got to keep at it. Besides, you’ve got a project of your own, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Cassie put her coffee cup on the table and activated her smartwatch. A holographic projection of the Codex appeared on the table. “It’s still just sitting in that stasis pod. I’ve been too afraid to open it up yet, just in case. So I’ve been scanning it from the outside.”
“What’d you find out?”
“That there are a few hundred different special signatures so far.” She shook her head. “Azarov really outdid himself this time. Part of me wishes they hadn’t buried his head on that island. Maybe we could’ve learned something about how to destroy this thing.”
“You don’t think you can destroy it?”
“It’s got shapeshifting abilities, could probably adapt to anything we throw at it. No wonder the Khagan was going for such an extreme approach to get rid of it.”
Chronos studied the projection. The Codex was humanoid and completely sleek and metal. Not a single defining characteristic at all. Not even facial features. He rubbed his chin as he thought: could this be the Progenitor?
No, of course not. They learned from the Khagan that the Codex was built from the remains of Zenith’s body. But the resemblance…
“Hey!” Cassie had leaned across the table and snapped her fingers inches from Chronos’ face.
He shook his head and looked at her. “Sorry, what?”
“You zoned out there for a minute.”
“Oh.” He rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I do need some more sleep…”
“Unfortunately we don’t have time for that.”
The voice—and the appearance—of the new arrival still shook Chronos somewhat. And Cassie as well. The Khagan stood in the doorway except now, he was dressed in casual clothes as opposed to the usual eastern warrior garb Chronos had grown accustomed to seeing the man in.
Except it wasn’t the Khagan who inhabited that body anymore. Now it was the Analyst, who in battle with the Khagan had transferred his consciousness into this new body.
By the Analyst’s side was Jim Ellis, the original Gunsmith. Chronos wasn’t sure, but he believed this was the first time he’d seen the former general outside of his armor.
“Cassie, would you mind excusing us for a moment?” asked the Analyst.
“Sure, no problem,” she said, standing from the table. “Think I’ll go scrounge up some food before I get back to work.”
“Excellent.” The Analyst gave her a smile, which she still found a little weird, staring into the face of a man who had recently been their enemy.
Once Cassie had gone, the Analyst walked over to the table and stood behind Chronos. He looked at the technology scattered about on the surface. “Any luck so far?”
Chronos shook his head. “Very little. I’m getting somewhere. It’s just taking a long time.” His attention shifted to Jim. “But both of you wouldn’t be here to just check on my progress, would you?”
“There’s something we have to talk about,” said Jim. “And it’s something the rest of the team can’t know.”
Chronos set down his tools. “What’s going on?”
“There were two things that helped prompt the invasion,” said the Analyst. “The first was a Kotharian warrior named J’Karra. She was an advance scout, and from Earth, she sent word to the rest of the fleet recommending they strike us. The second was in the initial days of the invasion, our side experienced a betrayal that caused a massive setback.”
“Ramsey, right?” asked Chronos. “I already know about this.”
“No, not Ramsey. A Vanguardian.” Jim tapped his smartwatch. A holographic projection appeared on the table of a brown-skinned woman dressed in a red and white costume. “Anita Jordan, codenamed Paragon.”
“How come no one’s said anything about this?” asked Chronos.
“It was…” Jim paused, looking down at the floor. He tapped his smartwatch again and the projection vanished. “Difficult.”
He took a moment before he could finish his story. Then finally when he was ready, he looked at Chronos.
“Anita was…well, she was probably one of the best of us. When we first met J’Karra, it was as an ally. She helped us put a stop to some pretty horrendous experiments Azarov was conducting. But her real reason for being on Earth was to investigate us.”
“Like all Kotharians exposed to what they call the Chaknaar, J’Karra had powerful psychic abilities, and she was trained in those abilities since childhood,” said the Analyst. “She used her powers on Paragon, influenced her actions.”
“Anita was…odd, after that. She had visions of the invasion. She was spending a lot of time visiting J’Karra. Though she was there for interrogation purposes, she said she felt some kind of…connection with the Kotharian.”
“And then when the invasion came, Paragon killed two of our own,” said the Analyst.
“She was being controlled by J’Karra?” asked Chronos.
“I believe it goes beyond that. I think J’Karra essentially rewrote Paragon’s mind. Turned her into a Kotharian weapon.”
“What happened to her?”
“To be honest, we don’t know. Neither of us was there,” said Jim. “What we do know is that the Kotharians took over the Island, a ship-based prison for specials. They were after J’Karra. Vanguard—or what remained of it by that point—attacked the ship. That’s when Paragon killed Wraith and Howard. Zenith was taken out of the fight and Paragon and the Exemplar were taken captive by the Kotharians. They escaped with Zenith’s help. But once Zenith discovered footage from the Island of Paragon’s betrayal, they turned on her.”
“She nearly destroyed Zenith and killed the Exemplar,” said the Analyst. “After that, no one knows what happened to her. She vanished and we haven’t heard anything of her since.”
“So what do you want me to do?” asked Chronos.
“If we get you back to the proper point in time, you can probably avert the invasion completely by killing J’Karra,” said the Analyst. “But you may need to kill Paragon as well.”
“Why don’t you want the others to know about this? I’m sure they understand the dangers these two pose.”
“Erin’s long-believed that if only we could have broken J’Karra’s hold on Anita, she wouldn’t have turned on us,” said Jim. “They were close. In a lot of ways, she looked up to Anita.”
“And you don’t think that’s possible?” asked Chronos.
“The Kotharians are capable of some very powerful, very deep mental conditioning,” said the Analyst. “At that time, I wasn’t even part of Vanguard and even if you could convince me to join, I doubt my skill would be enough to reverse whatever J’Karra did to her.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said Jim.
“Right, I know.” Chronos took a breath. “Okay, I understand what has to be done. So where am I going to find them?”
“Anita is simple, she’ll be in Atlas with the rest of the team,” said Jim. “Of course, that means you’ll have to take on all of us. Without killing us. D
o you think you can do that?”
Chronos gave a nod.
“With the Atlas computers, you’ll have the ability to locate the Island’s location, which is where J’Karra was being held,” said Jim. “I can give you those access codes.”
“There’s a problem with this plan, though,” said Chronos. “Every time I jump into the past, the timeline alters. And eventually, my memories alter, too. It becomes a jumble.”
“But you seem to have clear memories of everything you’ve experienced and your own timeline,” said the Analyst.
“That’s because of the Progenitor, he was able to keep my memories shielded. But now, I’ll be going back on my own.” He turned his head to the Analyst. “I have an idea, though. If you can implant some kind of…I don’t know, a trigger or something. Maybe that will help me remember what needs to be done.”
CHAPTER 3
General Nathan Callus walked down the corridor, ignoring the salutes of those who stopped and offered them. He just continued marching towards his destination, of a singular mind. As he finally approached the doors, they opened automatically for him and then closed as soon as he stepped through.
“General, thank you for coming.” Governor Joseph Ramsey rose from behind his desk. He circled around it and offered a hand to Callus.
The general shook the hand, but his eyes weren’t on Ramsey. Instead, they were on the armored man who stood facing the wall, staring at the various framed photographs Ramsey hung on his wall. Pictures of the Earth’s governor with ex-Presidents, Prime Ministers, military officials, business tycoons, even a celebrity or two.
When the armored man finally turned, Callus felt a chill run down his spine. He still wasn’t used to the idea of having to work for a man like General M’Lak. The true power behind rule over the planet. Ramsey was more or less just a figurehead, responsible for handling the day-to-day operations. M’Lak rarely came planetside unless he had very good cause.
“General M’Lak.” Callus hated the Kotharian salute, but he was also no fool. He slammed his fist to his chest and bowed deeply. M’Lak returned it with not so much a bow but more a tip of his head. It was far more respect than Kotharians usually showed humans.
Vanguard: Season Four: A Superhero Adventure Page 16