by C. C. Bolick
“Family reunions aren’t my scene.”
“Perhaps you were worried about my threat to blow up your base,” Louis said. “Taking out the entire city of Atlanta would have done the job nicely.”
“The U.S. government would have burned you to the ground,” I said.
“Nuclear bombs strong enough to destroy a city?” Paleris asked. “Does your agency use this technology?”
I shook my head. “The agency functions to stop people with this technology, not help them.”
“Earth’s governments have developed more complex technology than I realized,” Paleris said. “This planet could theoretically be destroyed by humans.”
Turning away from him, I coughed. “Yes, we have the technology. The hope is we have enough good people to keep any one person from destroying it.”
“Someone like me?” Paleris grinned. “With my knowledge of technology, accessing your simple human defense systems should be easy. When I destroy this planet…” His eyes met mine. “Perhaps you need some time to consider the future.”
Dad nodded and stood. As he walked toward the kitchen, he grabbed my arm and nearly dragged me out of the recliner.
When we reached the kitchen, he closed the door and I spun to him. “Why are we meeting Louis Castillo?”
“Haven’t you noticed his technology is a little advanced for humans?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ve been providing Louis with the components to build his bombs.”
“Why would you help him?” This was the man who could be Rena’s father. I glanced at the door; on the other side sat Paleris and Louis. No doubt they were cooking up some world-domination plan. Louis was good at scheming and Paleris had the weapons to back his wildest dreams.
“Haven’t you figured it out?”
“Two people in the next room want to destroy the planet. Do you search for the craziest people to hang out with or do they find you?”
He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “I needed to test Rena’s power. What you’ve seen so far is a trickle through the cracks of a dam.”
“She’s powerful,” I said. “I get that, but why are you testing her?”
“We need to tear down the dam and see the river rage.”
“Who is we?”
“I’ve upset you. That wasn’t my intention.” With a yawn, Dad motioned for me to follow him back into the living room.
I glanced around the empty room. “Where did they go?”
“Get some rest, Travis, and don’t go far.” He pointed to the couch. The drone floated toward the couch with a blanket and pillow. “Beyond the beach are a series of non-contact devices to ensure no one escapes on foot. I’m not going to tell you where because I don’t want you out all night trying to find a way off this island.”
“Me find a way off this island?”
He gave me a shrewd look. “Get some sleep and things will work out tomorrow. You’ll see.”
* * * * *
At least an hour later, I tiptoed into the kitchen. The room was dark except for a light over the stove. Inside the fridge, I found trays with various sandwich meats and fruits. I reached for the strawberries, not knowing what to expect after my trip to the other planet. The red fruit tasted like strawberries.
As I chewed another berry, I noticed a cell phone sitting on the table. I lifted the phone and checked the signal. My heart hammered in my chest when I saw two bars.
The door opened behind me. I dropped the phone and spun around, hiding it behind me.
“I told you to get some rest,” Dad said.
I thought fast for something to talk about. “You never told me about the apartment in New York.”
“There’s never been a good time, right now included.”
“You left me a clue, but I never found it. When I was in the coma, I realized I missed the Rubik cube.”
“I wanted to give you a fighting chance to learn the truth, although it wouldn’t have changed anything that happened with your life.”
“What could I have done differently to keep you here?” I asked.
“Absolutely nothing, but I felt like you deserved the truth.”
“What was in that cube?”
He held out a hand and the cube appeared. “Here’s your chance to find out. Let me know if it changes anything.”
I took the cube. Each side was a mixture of colored squares. “What now?”
“Solve it.”
Twisting the cube, I began to shift all of the blue squares to one side and all of the red to another. After several minutes of intense concentration, I had solid colors on all sides.
A hologram of Dad appeared above the cube and his voice spoke from somewhere deep inside. “Travis, congratulations on finding this cube. I hope you are treating Sylvia with the utmost respect as she has tried her best to raise you. It’s important for you to know I’m still alive, but also that I’m fighting for our future and the futures of everyone on Earth.”
I glanced at Dad, but he put a finger to his lips.
“Don’t waste your time looking for me. Train hard with your powers and I’ll find you when you’re strong enough to help with my fight. Together, we’ll make a difference in a way that truly matters. We’ll save the lives of the people we care about.” The hologram faded.
“Your fight?” I asked.
“I told you I needed your help to stop a disaster.”
“A disaster on Earth?”
“This disaster will affect Golvern and Earth. Our planets are dependent on one another in ways you can’t imagine.”
“Yeah, you steal our resources.”
His eyes watered. “I can’t begin to tell you what I’ve seen. This has nothing to do with resources.”
“Maybe if you’d try.”
He glanced at the empty doorway. “Not yet.”
“But—”
Dad lowered his voice. “We’re almost there, Travis. The final act of our story is fast approaching. Everything you think you know will soon change.”
“Why not come back sooner?” I asked.
“Because I couldn’t stand to look at you,” he yelled and I jumped back. “You’re human like them.”
“I thought you said the best part of me was—”
“I told you what you wanted to hear.”
Laughter came from the doorway where Paleris stood. “You made a mistake marrying a human.”
Dad looked over me, from the tips of my boots to the top of my head. “Yes.”
“You’ve brought weakness into your bloodline,” Paleris said. “There is no way to rectify your mistake.”
“We both know the way,” Dad said.
Paleris’s laughter faded. “We must prepare.”
Dad nodded, took another look over me, and left the room. Paleris followed without looking at me.
Dad’s words hurt, but at least I had my answer about why he left. He didn’t care about me; I was a mistake he needed to rectify. Why give me the ‘save the world’ spill? And why bring Rena into this? Testing her power? Sounded like they planned to use her gift to destroy the planet. I had to get to Rena before they did.
I counted three hundred and sixty seconds after the door closed. I grabbed the phone and ran outside and down the wooden stairs. Onto the narrow path. I made my way through the darkness, not daring to hit a button and light up the night.
When I reached the ship, I checked the bars—no service. I swore and ran back toward the house, stopping halfway down the path. Only a few windows still glowed. Above me, the dark sky didn’t show a single star.
I checked for service and found two bars. My hands shook as I dialed Sylvia’s number. It went to voice-mail. I tried Angel’s. When it went to voice-mail, I swore and gave her a short message about being stuck on an island and needing her help.
The service faded and my heart almost stopped. Two bars returned and I dialed the main line for the agency. The automatic answering system was down. A world-class ag
ency with a piece of crap phone system. After eight rings, the system rolled over to the operator. With four more rings, a female voice answered.
“I need to speak to Sylvia.”
“Please hold.”
“You’re kidding me.” I held the phone to my forehead as generic hold music played.
Another operator came on the line. “Who are you holding for?”
“Sylvia.”
“Name please.”
“Travis Payne.”
“What is your access code?”
I told her my fifteen-character code.
“What is your affiliation?”
I slammed the phone against my head. Did other people deal with this much frustration while calling in? “I’m an agent. Look, if Sylvia’s not available, let me speak to Donald Mason.”
The operator put me on hold. Service dropped and I ran around in circles while trying to get another bar. I called the phone every stupid name I could think of.
“Communications aren’t what they used to be.”
I spun, trying to find the owner of those words. I’d heard her voice recently. I held up the phone and tried to use it as a light. An invisible hand knocked the phone to the ground.
“Don’t let them know you’re down here,” she hissed.
“Are you really here?” I asked.
In front of me, the outline of a woman appeared, translucent and glowing like a ghost from TV. “Rosanna,” I said.
“Good observation, double-oh-seven.”
I couldn’t believe Rena’s mom was standing there. “Rena calls me that, but with you it’s weird. Maybe I’ll start calling you Casper or Bloody Mary.”
She smiled. “Just wanted to make sure you believe I’m the real thing.”
“I’m not sure how you got here or why I can see you—”
“I can travel anywhere and you see me because I was in your head. Remember the coma?”
“How could I forget? Can you help me get out of here?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“You knocked the phone from my hand.”
“An easy trick,” she said. “Getting you off an island is a little more complex.”
“You were able to stop the man who killed you from killing again. I saw the surveillance footage. You made Lloyd’s car swerve and crash.”
“He would’ve crashed into a crowd of people. I couldn’t let him kill again.”
“Well, that’s exactly what the wacko up at the house is about to do. He’s cracking into Earth’s defense systems, probably reading off nuclear codes as we speak. He wants to use Rena to blow us up. His goal here is to destroy this planet and I have no way to stop him. My powers are gone.”
She put her hands on her hips and her glow intensified. “Aren’t you an agent for Earth Under Fire?”
“What’s your point?”
“As an agent, your job is to stop people who want to destroy the world. You’ve been trained in how to deal with people with powers.”
“I’ve always given this job one hundred percent.”
“What about now?” Rosanna asked. “This doesn’t look like one hundred percent to me.”
“My powers are a part of me. Without them, I can’t operate at one hundred percent.”
“How sad. An agent who wants people to think he’s human, but can’t do his job without his powers. I’m not sure what Regina ever saw in you.”
My anger reached a breaking point. “Will you help me or not?”
She watched me until I gave up and turned away. “I will, but only after you help yourself.”
When I looked back, she was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Rena
The morning after flying with Mama, I stood in tall grass at a small airfield on the outskirts of Atlanta. The airport above the underground rooms was suitable for most agency travel, but not the landing of a spaceship. Our mission would require a guarantee of secrecy that couldn’t be achieved with thousands of people looking on.
This airfield had a small building similar to the airfield where Agent Dallas landed us in New York. Agent Dallas stood to my right in a suit designed for an astronaut, which matched the one I wore. I took a deep breath as I thought of blasting out of the atmosphere.
Yes, I’d flown less than twenty-four hours before. However, climbing aboard a spaceship required a dependency on technology instead of my power. At least my palms weren’t glowing yet.
Control. I had to maintain control or everyone on this flight could be in danger. Since I wouldn’t be leaving the ship, I’d have to project my power into space. I needed to dig deep for every ounce of power I could manage and I’d probably still need more.
If I lost control, it would be more than me crashing to the ground.
I took another deep breath and Dad reached for my hand. He stood to my left in his black agent suit.
“Where is all the tech?” I asked. “Shouldn’t there be a control tower or lights or someone watching the radar?”
“We work for a secret government agency,” Dad said. “To fly we must come out of the ground. The only way to stay off everyone’s radar, even other parts of the government, is to hide in plain sight.”
A black SUV sped across the grass, stopping a few feet away. Angel jumped from the passenger seat as Skip opened his door. She didn’t wait for him as she ran toward me while waving her phone.
“Rena,” she yelled, out of breath. “Sorry we’re late. Last night I got a voice mail but the recording was filled with static and I couldn’t make out the words. Skip put it through his clean-up program this morning.”
Skip reached her side. “It’s Travis. I couldn’t decipher the entire message, but we brought what I had so far.”
“Travis is on some island,” Angel said. “We don’t know where.”
“Sounds like a country song,” Dad said. “Were you able to pinpoint where the transmission originated?”
“No,” Skip said. “The signal bounced around towers and seemed to originate from space. I don’t think the location was accurate, more like a ghost.”
Ghost. I shivered as I thought of how Mama’s skin shimmered in the light from the setting sun.
Angel hit a button and Travis’s garbled voice came through the speaker. My heart raced at the sound of him, despite the fact I couldn’t make out his words.
The message ended and I turned to Skip. “I didn’t understand anything he said.”
“He’s back on Earth,” Skip said. “He thinks someone is trying to destroy the planet with nukes, someone from the sky.”
“Van?” I asked.
Angel shook her head. “Travis didn’t mention Van. He ended by saying, ‘Tell Rena I love her and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’”
“Has Agent Lockhart made it back yet?”
“No,” Angel said. “Other than this call, no one at the base has heard from him or Travis.”
Another SUV pulled across the grass. It stopped next to Skip’s SUV, and Sylvia climbed out of the back, raising a hand to shade her eyes from the sun. Ten other agents looked on as Van’s ship descended from the clouds and landed at the center of the strip. Not careening to a stop like a plane; he brought the ship straight from the sky to the ground with barely a thud.
I wasn’t sure what a spaceship should look like. It wasn’t much bigger than an SUV, with shiny metal that reflected the sun and slender wings jutting to either side.
A door opened and three steps lowered to the ground, each glowing with a white light. Van bent halfway over to climb out.
“Cozy,” Agent Dallas said.
Van walked toward her in a black uniform with a piece of blue fabric wrapped around his upper arm. “Most of us don’t use the steps. Is everyone ready?”
This was the first time Van made me think of him as a military officer; I’d heard he was commander of the prison on Golvern. After ten hours in a car with him, I wasn’t sure I believed Van was the killer Angel described.
“Why
the blue?” I asked.
“To remind me of what I’m fighting for.” Van stood before me, a rigid soldier waiting for his next command. “Do you have a reminder?” When I didn’t reply, he said, “Perhaps the flag on your arm.”
I glanced over the American flag emblem. “I’m not sure what I’m fighting for.”
Van eyed me but didn’t move closer. His voice wavered as if he feared this trip, but he couldn’t possibly fear space travel. “Don’t you think now would be a good time to figure that out?”
Sylvia approached and everyone gathered around her. “I’m not a fan of this mission and I’ve voiced my objections. Folks, let’s get this trip underway.” She looked at me. “Don’t let anyone or anything shake you up there. Don’t lose control.”
Van chuckled. “I’m glad she’s giving you that lecture.”
She shot him a frigid glare. “Don’t get me started on your part in this.”
“My part is returning her safely,” Van said.
“I don’t trust your intentions,” Sylvia said. “From what I’ve heard, you always have an ulterior motive.”
“Which is a fault,” Van said. “But not my greatest.”
Their eyes remained locked and people watching backed away as if Sylvia might go into power mode at any second. She had the same power of speed in a fight as Skip and I hoped to see her in action one day.
Just not today.
“I’m listening,” Sylvia said.
“I don’t enjoy lying,” Van said. “I avoid it whenever possible.”
Angel snickered. “For a killer, that’s hard to believe.”
“Why?” Amusement simmered in his eyes. “Killing has nothing to do with lying. Both are a conscious choice.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Indeed. Can we refrain from talking about killing until this mission is over?”
Van glanced at the sun as if gaging the distance. “I will do everything in my power to return my ship to this spot with every passenger alive.” He held out a hand. “This is my promise to you.”
After studying Van’s hand, Dad reluctantly reached forward and shook. He released Van’s hand and Van turned to Agent Dallas. “I heard you are my co-pilot for today.”