by John Jr. Yeo
“So….no more Ambassadors?” I asked.
“Oh, we could make another Ambassador,” Dr. Progeriat answer, leaning against the wall. “Making a clone is the easy part. But he’d age normally, like the rest of us. It would take twenty-five years before he’d be the man he was.”
“And he wouldn’t have the memory implants plugged in,” Eric pointed out. “Nearly three decades of unique experiences would probably lead to a different man altogether.”
“I’m not worried about the sociological implications here,” the colonel snapped. “Ambassador’s existence completely hinges on us having an working device. He’s the heart and soul of the League, and if you want any hope of congress to continue funding the team, you’re going to need the Ambassador alive and well.”
“There is one more CDA,” Submission pointed out. “But we need to remember that since it’s capable of causing such a huge explosion, it could be utilized as a very dangerous weapon. We need to bring the last one here before our enemies steal it.”
“Can’t we just build another one?” I asked.
“It’s far beyond our science,” Eric pointed out. “We’ve been trying to reverse engineer it for years in case something like this happened, but it’s far beyond what we could create. The Ambassador came to Earth with only three working arrays.”
“One was destroyed when I…well, when the original Ambassador was killed seven years ago by Sens’r,” Progeriat told us. “The second one is right here, and thanks to our saboteurs it’ll be useless after a few more clones are hatched. The last one is locked up at the DSA headquarters in Houston.”
“You know, there’s more than a few alien hate groups out there,” I pointed out. “Do you think Baltrin might have joined them? He might want us to stop the Ambassador from being cloned anymore.”
It was a possibility that sent an uneasy tremble through the room. Colonel Bridge met my eyes for a moment, and then looked away uncomfortably. I think I was on to something, but he wouldn’t confirm it.
“Major Baltrin never agreed with the idea of cloning the Ambassador,” the colonel admitted. “It’s one of the reasons he left the League in the first place. The whole Legacy Initiative was a sore point with him. But I’m not convinced he would have gone this far. But whatever the truth is, we need to retrieve the last one.”
“I agree,” Dr. Progeriat conceded. “I’ll have a courier transport it here as soon as possible.”
The colonel looked at the old doctor for a moment, and I swear I saw a glimmer of suspicion pass between the two men. Again, the question hung in the air. Who do I trust?
“No, that’s not fast enough,” the colonel decided. “I’m having an extra security detail assigned to the device right now. I want your team to immediately escort the package back to your base.”
“I’ll go right now and fetch it for you if you want,” offered DeathTek. “I got nothing better to do this afternoon.”
Colonel Bridge seemed to consider this for a moment, but I got the impression that he wasn’t weighing the pros and cons of DeathTek’s offer. I seemed like he was trying to decide if he had an ulterior motive or not. Perhaps it was hard for him to tell, with him being at the other end of a holographic call. In the end, he shook his head and made a different call.
“The whole team goes,” he decided. “Hop on the Event Horizon right now. I should be back at the Dome by the time you get back.”
“Well, the current Ambassador won’t be activated for another few hours,” Dr. Progeriat reminded him. “Should we wait for him to come out of the birthing chamber?”
“That’s a negative, Dr. Progeriat,” he decided firmly and impatiently. “We’re not wasting any more time. You have your orders, people. Let’s get this done before something else happens.”
With that final declaration, the holographic image flickered and vanished, and we were alone once again in the eerie glow of the silent Genome Lab.
“I’ll get the Event Horizon warmed up,” Captain Quincy announced. “You’ll be ready to lift off in ten minutes.”
As everyone began to break company and make a final dash for a cup of coffee, a trip to the bathroom or any number of other activities before we took to the skies, I walked with Submission and discretely whispered to her.
“Am I still on your side, girlfriend?”
“I hope you are,” she replied back, looking over her shoulder for anyone else listening as we walked through the corridors together. “I think we’re about to find out who’s been trying to sabotage the Infinite League.”
“I’m going to be really disappointed if I found out it’s me,” I told her. “I smell a set-up coming, and Baltrin is right. I don’t know who to trust.”
“I heard Progeriat sent the Ambassador after you,” she informed me. “He left a little welt on your face, I see.”
“That’s the last time that shit happens, too,” I assured her. “When we get back from this, I’m will be deciding who I really trust.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
I stopped walking, and looked at Submission directly in the eyes. I wanted her to know that I was at the end of my patience, and it was time to force my hand.
“It means that either you’re going to lay out everything and tell me what Baltrin is really doing, or I’m going to fly right to the media with everything I know and burn anyone or anything that tries to stop me.”
“So it’s one extreme or another,” she decided, barely blinking an eye. “I think that’s exactly the corner our enemy is in, too. But I’m betting that by the time we get back, your decision will be easy to make.”
Well, that was a maddeningly inconclusive response, and it didn’t give me a fraction of the satisfaction I was hoping for. I was still just as confused about everyone’s motivations as I was before.
“I also want to know who Kordan is,” I finished. I’d never heard the name before, but Major Baltrin was obviously addressing someone in his holographic message.
“I understand,” she nodded, urging me to continue following her towards the hangar. “Let’s get on board.”
“Do you think we’re in danger?”
“Honestly? I have a feeling it’s going to be numbingly boring, or bloody as hell.”
20
The Retrieval
Sunday, June 2 – 9:10 p.m.
On the flight to Houston, I noticed the mood seemed more tense than the time we went to stop the train robbery in West Virginia. There was an undercurrent of suspicion and fear washing through all of us. Ambassador wasn’t here to back us up this time, and Major Baltrin’s appearance had really stirred up feelings of distrust.
DeathTek piloted the Event Horizon in almost complete silence. He monitored radio chatter from the DSA Headquarters in case there was an attack, but there were no alarms throughout the flight. Necromancer sat in the corner of the cargo hold, giving his gadgets and weapons a routine inspection before we began our mission. Submission spent some of the time meditating, and the rest of the time giving me reassuring glances. It didn’t do much to sway my opinion one way or another. After everything that had happened and that I had seen, my nerves were becoming shot.
As we entered the airspace over Houston, the sun had just begun to set. I was the one who saw it first. A dull red glow and a column of billowing black smoke pouring from a two-story building at the edge of the city. DeathTek started swearing and pushing buttons on the jet’s dashboard, but I didn’t need to be told what was going on.
Someone had attacked the Department of Superhuman Activities headquarters.
“Land us on the roof,” Necromancer ordered.
DeathTek swiveled his head around and glanced back at the tall dark man with a confused tilt of his head. “Hey, I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but the bad guys have probably already bugged out of here with the package.”
“Or they’ve got the security team cornered, and we might be here just in time to save them,” Submission replied, slapping him on the side o
f his metallic head. “Hover over the roof, alright?”
The building was intact, more or less. There was a fire in two of the rooms on the second floor, and four burning cars near the front entrance.
I saw blankets of broken glass on the ground, and at least three burning corpses. From inside the darkened windows of the building, I could see the distinctive flashes of gunfire blink like strobe lights. They were still here.
When DeathTek brought the jet to a stationary hover just above the building, I knew where I was going to go.
I spotted the window where the most intense gunfire seemed to be taking place. The glass was blackened, but at this distance, I could just make out a pair of security guards on the other side. Whoever they were shooting at was keeping them too preoccupied to notice me hovering outside the window. I noted the direction they seemed to be shooting, and flew down to the closest window. It was probably the most foolish plan I had ever come up with, charging in where bullets were flying, but it would definitely catch the intruder off-guard.
I summoned as much fire from my hands as I could channel. It was enough fire that could knock a car into the air, and it was more than enough to shatter the window. Glass and brick exploded around the body on the other side, knocking the shooter into the wall. I floated through the smoking crater that had once been a window, and I stretched my hand towards the security guards. They thankfully seemed to recognize me and instantly lowered their weapons.
I saw the man that I’d just slammed into the wall, and immediately recognized him. His purple and green costume, although ripped and covered with blood now, was very familiar. He was one of the crooks that attacked the train in West Virginia. It was the teleporting crook, the guy who gave me so much trouble a few days ago. He started to talk when he saw me.
“They told us you bastards wouldn’t be—“
I don’t know what he was about to say before I cranked my knuckles into his temple. His skull rebounded satisfyingly off of my fist, banging into the brick wall next to him. The double impact ensured he wouldn’t be mouthing off anytime soon.
“I found Wormhole,” I said, hoping that the audio connection between me and the others was still active. “He’s taking some sleepy time.”
No one else responded immediately, there was only a quiet static buzzing in my earpiece. The rest of the team were probably still jumping out of the Event Horizon and making their way down into the building.
I tapped on my earpiece and called for the others again, but I jolted when I noticed the guards at the end of the hall raising their weapons again while taking a fearful step back.
I didn’t see the new threat until it was very nearly too late. With that ridiculous red leather suit exposing her cleavage and those black lightning bolts going up and down her legs, it could only be the speedster Adrenaline. She ran past me and swiped at me with one of the blades attached to her forearm, barely missing my cheek. I was patting myself on the back for dodging her attack, until I realized she was actually aiming for the security guards with the itchy trigger fingers at the end of the hall. They weren’t as lucky, and she slashed at them with her blades before shoving them out through the shattered window, and into the yard below.
In the confusion, I saw Wormhole lurch suddenly, and then vanish after summoning another teleporting vortex right underneath his body. It had the effect of making it look like he just melted through the floor, but he was definitely gone now, leaving Adrenaline and I alone.
“You gave my girlfriend a concussion the other day,” she hissed at me from the other end of the hall. That was right before tried to kick me with a vicious roundhouse.
I deflected the blow, slapping my wrist across her foot and knocking her backwards a few inches. “I was just trying to knock some sense into her. She couldn’t see what a skank you really are.”
It was a ridiculously cheap shot, totally engineered to make the speedster lose her temper. The angrier your opponent gets, the more mistakes they’re prone to make. Fortunately, she’s only speedy when she gets a running start. She threw a punch at me, which she telegraphed by a wide mile. I twirled around completely as the inertia of her punch carried her right past me. When I completed my turn, her back was to me. The back of her head might as well have had a bulls-eye painted on it, so I took the shot.
Had I connected, I’m sure I would have knocked her on her ass. But her damned partner materialized once again, flipping me a middle finger for good measure, and vanishing with Adrenaline in his arms. I hit nothing but air after they teleported away, and ended up tumbling to the ground in an embarrassed heap.
I cursed to myself, and was initially happy that the two guards hadn’t been there to witness my awkward moment. Then I felt guilty that the reason they didn’t see it was because they were probably dead. I picked myself and charged towards the window that they’d been knocked out of. To my relief, the grassy field outside the second story window had cushioned their fall, and they had already gotten to their feet and began heading back towards the front of the building. They were bleeding, either from the fall or Adrenaline’s knives, but they weren’t dying.
“Andromeda, we need you down on the first floor,” said DeathTek, communicating to me through my earpiece. “They’re trying to get into the vault.”
It never ends. Taking a deep breath, I flew outside the broken window and made my way back towards the main entrance. When I got there, a small squadron of security guards waved me past, guiding me to where I needed to go. I didn’t actually need directions. The evidence was unavoidable. The trail of unconscious guards, melted windows, and massive holes in what were once solid walls made it clear enough which way I needed to go.
In a medium-sized room past a number of winding corridors, I finally came to the high security vault of the Department of Superhuman Activities.
The first thing you saw in the room was a massive steel door. It was the sort of vault that looked like only classy European thieves from Die Hard could have opened. Adrenaline and Wormhole were standing right in front of the vault door, taking cover behind a steel desk.
Submission and Necromancer were standing just outside the opening to the vault room, as other guards fired wild rounds at them. Wormhole had a gun, and he was firing back. Adrenaline would occasionally burst from behind her hiding spot, take a stab at one of the closer guards with her blades, and then bounce back around the corner while Wormhole covered her with his weapon. For now, it was a standoff.
“Where’s DeathTek?” I asked them.
“He stayed in the Event Horizon,” explained Necromancer. “In case we need a quick getaway.”
“What are they doing anyway? Wormhole can teleport, why are they just standing there?”
“Because they want what’s in that vault,” Submission guessed. “But it’s blocked by a dampening field that prevents Wormhole’s teleportation powers. They probably don’t want to leave without the last working array.”
“Okay, I follow you,” I nodded dumbly, absolutely not following her. “Shall I burn them out?”
“No, we want to question them,” Necromancer decided. “We’re going to kill the lights, and I’m going to toss a few sonic screamers into the room to disorient them. It’ll give me a few seconds to rush in and incapacitate both of them. Submission can then use her powers to force Wormhole to tell us exactly why—“
The power snapped off at that very second, leaving the entire area bathed in the dim glow of the emergency lights. I know that Necromancer had abilities that could cover an area in darkness, but the look on Necromancer’s face told me that this wasn’t his doing.
“This wasn’t you, was it?” I asked him unnecessarily.
“Someone killed the power,” he replied.
“The dampening field is down, too,” Submission realized. Without another word, she charged around the corner and into the room.
“Wait,” Necromancer shouted, following her into the room and steeling himself for the fight that lay ahead.
&
nbsp; But what she feared was true. Neither Adrenaline nor Wormhole were there. They must have teleported into the vault, where hundreds of objects, weapons and artifacts that had been created or possessed by enhanced individuals were stored.
“Get the vault door open,” Necromancer commanded the guards, slamming his fists uselessly into the steel door. “Those bastards got in!”
“It’s magnetically sealed,” the guard reported. “The power will have to be restored, the reboot procedure will take hours…”
“Should I try to burn through the door?” I asked, knowing what a useless idea that really was.
A moment later, the suggestion was moot as both Adrenaline and Wormhole materialized once again in the center of the room. Wormhole was grinning wildly, holding the last functioning time widget that everyone was fussing about back at the Dome. It looked shinier and newer, but it was definitely a similar device. They had the Chronal Dampening Array, the third and final one on Earth.
He also had what looked like a golden ray gun, and he aimed it towards me and fired. Necromancer slammed into me, knocking me to the ground before a beam of purple energy could touch me. Instead, the beam struck the security guard standing behind me. While I was on the ground, I saw the last few moments of the poor man’s life. It was a sight I’ll never be able to forget for the rest of my life.
The guard screamed for just a few seconds, but the sound deteriorated into a raspy, dusty echo. His body inflated like a balloon, and then just burst into blood and ash.
Wormhole laughed, and tossed the array to Adrenaline. He tapped a few buttons on a gadget wrapped around his wrist, and a shimmering portal appeared underneath her feet. With a smirk, Adrenaline dropped through the warp hole and out of sight.
We had failed, I realized. If only we’d gotten here a few seconds earlier, we might have been able to stop them from stealing the device. But perhaps if we could apprehend the teleporting bandit, he might give us a clue where to find the stolen goods.