I fall to my knees on the deck of the boat, the warm Costa Rican sun shining down on me.
“Retract faceplate,” I say to Epic. The faceplate slides back, revealing my face. I roll over, looking up at the sun and letting the warmth massage my skin.
“I take it you stopped the satellite?” Carlos asks.
“Welcome to the conversation, Captain Obvious,” I say with a smirk.
“You just had to get yourself stranded in orbit... again!” Kate says, waving her hands in my face. “I swear Amelia, it’s like you don’t even know how to save the day without almost killing yourself.”
I smile. “I have to keep Teddy employed, don’t I?” I close my eyes for a second and just breathe. I could do with a few less close calls in my life. I open them, look at Kate, and say, “Uh, speaking of Teddy...” I glance down at my body. “I feel like one big bruise.”
“Sure thing, hon. Can I get a volunteer to return the yacht?” Kate asks. Six hands shoot up in unison.
“Tell you what...” I let out a long sigh. “Take the boat for a couple of days, charge everything to the company—you all earned it.”
“No way!” Fleet says. “For real?”
I’d nod, but now that I’m laying down my neck is killing me. I signal Kate to get a move on. “Yeah, have fun. See you all back at base in three days. Uh, Carlos?”
Kate kneels down next to me, putting her hand on my shoulder. Carlos kneels opposite her.
“Yeah?”
“We have some other time-sensitive business to attend to,” I tell him.
“Oh, right.”
“Not today we don’t, Amelia. We’re going home to see Teddy and then you can figure out the rest of this after a few days of rest,” Kate says, pinning me to the deck with her piercing green eyes.
She’s right, of course. I need to sleep for a week. I should be elated at our success. The Armory is down, Strungel is down… but Luke is still out there. It all feels so hollow without him.
“Besides... I want to come back here and enjoy some sun,” she says throwing Carlos a bold wink as her luscious lips curve into a smile.
“Oh...” Is all he says. “Oh!”
“Right. Enough. Doctor please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Teddy has, once again, left me with stern instructions to stay off my butt for a few days. And, as usual, I’m ignoring him. Forty-eight hours is more than enough rest. Besides, if we don’t move to help Frank soon, he might decide I didn’t mean what I told him and keep trying to do this on his own. No, I need to do this. Need to help him. With the rest of the team down in Costa Rica for another day, this is the perfect opportunity for us to do this without involving everyone.
And I couldn’t be more giddy. Time travel... we’re going to travel in time!
I wheel out of the lab into my apartment, swing by the couch and grab my coat before heading for the elevator. I drum my fingers on the arm of my chair while I’m waiting. Carlos and Kate should be back by now and if Frank keeps his word, he’ll be showing up on the landing pad of the Spire in twenty minutes.
The elevator doors open on a swirl of air as a vortex of energy forms in front of me. He’s supposed to meet us up top. If he’s coming in now, it’s because there is a problem. I wheel back to avoid his landing while signaling Epic to call Kate.
Frank comes out of the swirl of air as if he’s falling, only to right himself as gravity re-aligns once he’s out of the vortex. He lands with a thump. He looks exactly the same every time I see him; haggard, shabby clothes, five o’clock shadow.
“I thought we were—”
He waves me quiet as he turns around and focuses on the portal. It closes… I can almost see something behind him... but then it’s gone.
“Someone is following me, I had to come now or risk not coming at all.” He takes a deep breath after speaking, his hands shake as he exhales.
“Do you know who it is?” I ask him.
Kate and Carlos are five minutes out.
He shakes his head. “No. Tall, muscular, square-jawed, that’s about all I saw before I leaped back.”
No. No way. “Uh…, “did he have blue eyes?” I say. I’m trying to keep calm but I can’t help but shake a little.
Frank looks at me for a second as if I grew a second head. “How did you know?”
“Is this him?” I reach into my bag I keep attached to the chair and pull out the photo of Luke and me. We took it right before I went off to fight the Th’un. It was the last time we had a proper date.
Frank takes the photo from my hand and examines it for a second. Oh please, let him say no. Please say no.
“Yeah, that’s him. He’s different, but not that much different. You know him?”
We’re interrupted by Kate and Carlos popping into existence behind me. Fear flickers through Frank’s eyes and I can see his instincts kick in. He holds it together, though, and stays. Good man. I glance back at them, Carlos is in his Protector garb, which is just as impressive as it was the first time I saw it. Kate is in her black form-fitting catsuit, with all her gear ready to go.
“How did you run into him?” I ask. I show the picture to Kate and nod to Frank. She picks up on what is happening immediately.
“I thought maybe I could see if we succeed or not, so I jumped a few months forward. It... it wasn’t what I expected,” he says, wiping the sweat from his brow. “The future isn’t set. I’ve seen a hundred different timelines—each time I go forward it’s different—but this...”
“But what?” I prompt him.
“Armageddon, is all I can think. The city was burning, people were staked on pikes like some kind of house of horrors. The sky was full of black smoke... I wasn’t there five minutes when he showed up, landing in front of me like a boulder. The whole ground shook. The way he looked at me, it was like he knew I was going to be there. I jumped back as fast as I could... then he jumped through the portal after me.”
“You mean he’s here?” Kate asks.
“No, I closed it but... I have no idea what will happen to him. He might keep going back, or be deposited in whatever time I left. I just don’t know.”
I nod. Whatever that thing is that controls Luke, it has to go. “Okay, focus. We’re still doing this. Luke doesn’t know what we're planning in the now, so he can’t interfere. If everyone will join me in my lab, I will show you what I whipped up and we can get this show on the road.”
I wheel around and throw a smile at Kate to let her know I’m okay. Her green eyes flash worry at me and I shrug. There isn’t anything I can do about that future. However, I do have a plan for Luke. I think. I’m terrified of how it will work and what he will think of me if it does work. It’s just… the only thing I can think of to save him.
The lab slides open, revealing my gadget. “Frank, if I understand you correctly, as long as you’re touching someone, you can go back in time with them, correct?”
“Uh... in theory.”
That stops me cold.
“What do you mean, in theory?” Carlos asks as the lab door slides shut behind us.
“I took an entire car back in time. It should work, but... I just can’t be sure,” he says, eyes nervously leaping about the room as if he’s trying to look every way at once.
“We’ll deal with that bridge when it’s on fire,” I say, to stop any argument. “Frank, we had a deal and I intend to honor it. You’re going to need help, though.”
“Help?”
“You said yourself you can’t control the exact moment you come out, and the farther back you go the harder it is to control, right?”
He nods. It’s funny—now that I have him here, he seems so much older than before. “Okay, so here is what I have. This pod will hold four people. Two adults and two kids.” For all intents and purposes, it looks like a Photon Torpedo made by Apple computers. All white, with a mesh of my special alloy wrapped around it. “It’s powered by a ZPFM and has the most powerful version of my kinetic absorbing te
ch I could make. It can protect someone well past a hundred g’s.”
He looks at me, eyes wide open. “We’re really going to do this, then? Go back and save them?”
I smile, there are days I love my job. “Yes. There are a few caveats.” I point at Carlos and Kate. “When we're done saving your family, we need to go back and bring one more person forward in time.”
Frank looks around. The elation that was so clear on his face a moment before fading almost as fast. “Who?” he asks.
“This isn’t really well known,” Carlos says, speaking up when the rest of us remain quiet. “The Protector is a calling, not a superhero. A symbol left by the ancient Greek gods to help mankind on a path to peace.”
“Ancient... Greek... gods?” Frank looks from Carlos to me. “And you believe this?” he asks me.
Carlos’ veins bulge and I almost chuckle. Kate puts a reassuring hand on him and he relaxes.
“Yes. I do. The Protector has a guide—a mentor. Her name was Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi. She could see versions of the future kind of like how you go to versions of the future.”
“How come she hasn’t seen any of this? Warn you about your boyfriend? Or Strungel? It doesn’t sound like she’s much of a fortune teller,” he says with a smirk.
Now I’m feeling my blood start to boil. I may not have been the biggest fan of Pythia, but she did save my life. “Frank, first of all, she didn’t warn us because she died saving my life. And second of all—” I can’t believe I’m about to say this. “A man who travels through time shouldn’t throw stones.”
I guess I was a little more forceful than I intended because Frank takes a step back and looks appropriately chastised. “Sorry… it’s a lot to take in. What do you want me to do?”
Carlos glances at Kate and she squeezes his shoulder. Then he says, “We want you to take us”—he nods at Kate— “back in time to four-hundred AD, and bring the Oracle of that time forward with us. I need her guidance. The whole reason we started looking for you was to ask for help,” he says with a shrug.
Frank takes his ever-present rain hat off and runs a hand through his thinning hair. “I’ve... I’ve never gone back that far. I did twenty years once and it took a lot out of me. We could try, though. Why so far back?”
“She told me once that people stopped seeking her guidance after four-hundred. That she spent the next sixteen-hundred years in solitude. I know it left her in pain. I’d spare her that, if I could.”
Franks rubs his chin, clearly thinking about it. “You know I can’t alter the past, right? Once I take her I will have created a new timeline where her world goes on without her. She will be here with us, but the world we create won’t have a Pythia or anything she might have done.”
I hadn’t thought about that. Which means when we also take Frank’s wife and daughters... There will be a timeline where they are missing... and a Frank Parker in their reality looking for them. What if he goes and takes them from his past? And then so on and so forth. This isn’t quite a causality loop, but it’s similar.
Carlos arrives at the same conclusion I do, about three seconds after me. “I hadn’t thought about that, but it doesn’t change what I need to do. Can you do it?” he asks.
“I suppose there’s no harm in trying. But I want to save Jasmine and the girls first,” he says, then looks at Carlos and Kate. “I’m sorry, I do want to help you, but if your trip kills me... I want to know my girls are safe.”
Kate smiles at him with her trademark look designed to relax people. “It’s okay, Frank, we understand. We’ll get your girls and then we’ll see about the rest. What do we do next?”
I look over at the pod. It’s one hundred percent ready; we just need to go. “If I understand you correctly, you can travel in space and time?”
He nods and says, “If I’ve been there before it’s easier. I can take us right back to DC from here. But for our trip to Greece... I’ll need to be in Greece.”
“That’s easy enough,” Carlos says with a smile. “I happen to have a timeshare there.”
A snort that escapes my nose and I quickly cover it with a cough. I hate it when I snort. “Right, okay, let’s suit up.”
The inside of the pod is molded, designed to fit two adults on the outside and two smaller people in between. The layout is head to foot, not shoulder to shoulder; it saves on room.
“Are you sure this thing is safe?” Kate asks as she crawls in. I buckle her in using the built-in harness, then proceed to use the Velcro manacles to secure her legs.
“There’s a built-in air supply for twenty-four hours, an emergency kit, a radioactive decay beacon—you name it. I put everything I could think of into it.”
“Yes, but is it safe?” she asks again, looking me square in the eyes.
I’m tempted to joke, but she’s scared. Which in itself is odd because I’ve never known my Kate to be scared of anything. I put my hand on hers. “You’re safe, Kate, I won’t let anything go wrong.”
She smiles. “I believe you.”
I give her one last squeeze before reaching up and closing the lid. It hisses as the seal activates. The monitor on the outside shows all systems green.
Amelia, may I recommend the MK VI flight suit. This way you will have maximum speed.
“Spin up the MK VII, Epic,” I say, wheeling over to the loading chair.
The MK VII? It isn’t nearly as maneuverable as—
“The MK VII,” I say again. I don’t want to have this conversation in front of Carlos. Frank is in his own place, focusing on where we need to be. Carlos, however, hasn’t had anything to do but stand around and wait. He glances at me when I have my pseudo-argument with Epic. “I just want to cover all my bases,” I say by way of explanation.
Once the chair is locked in place I move from it to the specially designed chair attached to the wall.
“Epic, initiate.”
Amelia, I feel like you are not telling me something... something important.
“I’m sorry, Epic, I didn’t want to talk about it where Carlos could hear.” The suit finishes coming on around me and I’m deposited back in the lab. The wall splits open and I pick up my new BFG. As soon as I touch it, everything comes alive on the weapon. Fully loaded, fully charged, all safeguards intact. I modified it slightly. I couldn’t have foreseen someone trying to use it in my proximity with Epic offline. That was a mistake I won’t make again. This one will self-destruct, but the damage will be limited to the rifle and very little else.
May I ask what you are planning then?
I clip the rifle onto my back, run the diagnostics on the rest of the suit, then turn to Frank. The suit comes back 100% green. She’s good to go.
“Yes. I’m going to save Sydney,” I tell Epic as I go take my place next to the pod. It has two handles, one on either side. Frank sits on top, his feet braced against the edges, a hand on Carlos and me.
“You two ready?” he asks.
Amelia, it will not change our time...
“I know, but it will make me feel better.” I flip on the comms with a blink. “I’m ready Frank. Let’s rock and roll.” I supplied him with an earpiece and glasses so he could communicate with Epic and us.
“This is going to feel a little weird.”
He closes his eyes for a moment. Sensors in the suit go crazy. Alarms ring as gravity fluctuates up and down. Fear, real fear, clenches my gut. I don’t know if this was such a good idea after all.
Then the portal opens. Energy swirls clockwise around the vortex. The air flows like water in the center, almost like we’re jumping into the ocean. “Hang on!” he yells. We lift up, leaving my stomach behind, and orient with our feet to the portal, then we fall.
I scream. I’ve never been bungee jumping before, and if this is how it feels, I never will. The G’s pile up to fifty almost instantly, more than enough to turn even the most advanced fighter jet into a cloud of expanding gas. Not me, though, and not Carlos. We’re not in a tunnel, per see, but
it feels like it. The only light is far in the distance. I can’t risk trying to look behind us, I don’t even want to think about what will happen if we lose contact with Frank in here.
The light in front of us flares brighter as we close in. From a pinpoint it expands to encompass everything in a near blinding flash, then we’re falling again in a violent change of direction. We hit the ground. My brain is just sure the ground isn’t supposed to be there and it takes a second for everything to catch up.
It’s night time in DC. The lights are still on, so the blackout hasn’t happened yet. We’re on the sidewalk. Epic taps into the local GPS satellites to find our position.
We are one block east of Pennsylvania Ave. Behemoth will make her appearance in approximately one minute.
“How come we just don’t go back farther, take them from your home?” Carlos asks.
Frank just looks at him for a second. “That would be mean. The Frank here—he’s at work right now. He said goodbye, told them he loved them. He’s going to lose them no matter what. Taking them sooner would just be... cruel.”
Carlos shrugs. “Whatever you say. Where are they?”
Frank looks back behind us and slides off the pod. “They’re coming from that direction,” he says, pointing.
The pod hisses as it opens. “Get me out of this thing,” Kate demands. Carlos runs over and starts unbuckling her.
“Not fun?” he asks.
“More like going on a roller coaster with your eyes closed. I thought I was going to hurl,” she says while he finishes unfastening her. Kate leaps out with her usual grace, but with a hand on her stomach as if she’s holding its contents back.
“I’m going to scout the area, make sure we're safe from Behemoth’s initial attack. Radio me when you have her,” I say. I don’t wait for the response. Kicking in the Emdrive I blast off into the night sky.
EMP in ten seconds.
“This will go down exactly like it did in our timeline? Right?”
If Mr. Parker is to be believed, yes. We are in the past until the moment he returns us to his present. Therefore, events should play out exactly the same.
Full Metal Superhero (Book 6): Explosive Arsenal Page 14