Shaun was starting to put everything together in his head, looking off to the side as images flashed through his imagination. All the times that he had discovered new powers. All of the times that he had been able to use his abilities and grow them. Those times were all just part of the Vestige replicating itself within him and Mae?
“The test wasn’t a failure…” he interjected. “It worked. It just didn’t replicate in stone. It replicated in our bodies.”
Xara nodded solemnly.
“Zolyn still has something to collect. Once she gets through with Aberrants like you, the ones that already exhibit the power of the shards, she will begin herding the rest of your kind into a slavery system where they will be used like batteries until Zolyn leaves this place and searches for another power source to plunder. But, if there are others like you who can channel large amounts of power, then Zolyn has more reason to stay here for a long time.”
A feeling of dread settled in Shaun. So, I’m right, he thought. Zolyn is here to obliterate humanity. We’re just sources of energy to be exploited. The idea sickened him. It was no different from people being used in other ways, like for their votes and money, except this time humanity was up against a powerful alien being.
Xara was shaking her head.
“With Jeffrey dead, that means there are fewer verified sources of power for Zolyn to harvest. All of the focus is pointed at you. With Austin Spencer taken, you’re the last Aberrant on Earth.”
“Not the last one,” Shaun corrected her. “There are others.”
“There are more?” Xara looked hopeful for the first time since the conversation’s dark turn. “I suppose I should have expected that. I assume they are related to you.”
“In a way,” said Shaun. “She’s actually my partner. I was having dinner with her before Zolyn came and picked a fight with me.” Xara hung on his every word as he continued. “She wasn’t captured. I told her to run once the fighting started. I’m going to meet up with her once I defeat Zolyn.”
“Defeat her?” she said suddenly, pulsating with light for a brief second. Her hand lashed out and grabbed Shaun’s, gripping it tightly. “No. You don’t understand. There’s no way for you to take down Zolyn on your own. That’s why I came and intervened. You would have never made it out of her grasp out there. I tried to save Austin Spencer, but I couldn’t. I was too late. But, I could save you. So I have! If there’s another Aberrant out there, then I’m sorry, but she’s going to be Zolyn’s next target while you are in here. If she’s weaker than you, she’s probably already been taken.”
Shaun felt a red-hot rage flash in his mind. He yanked his hand away from Xara.
“That’s impossible. How could Mae have been found so quickly? I know how Zolyn found me. Austin Spencer knows who I am. He hardly knows who Mae is. If she went home, nobody except for those who know her would be able to find her.”
“That’s a nice thought, but you’re wrong,” Xara doubled down. “Austin Spencer did tell Zolyn about you. But, she would have found you anyway — even if she didn’t have a verbal lead. We are able to track the shards of starlight. It’s part of our programming. Within the collective pieces of our bodies are many sensors. Think of us as satellites. The shards of starlight — the Vestige — is like what you would refer to as a cellular device. It pings us, giving us a rough estimate of where it is located. That’s how we’ve been able to keep track of it for so long during our testing phase. You were located by Zolyn using this method, and at the same time, I also found you that way. You give off a very powerful signal due to your abilities. With you out of her reach, Zolyn will turn her attention to your friend. It will only be a matter of time before your friend is trapped and used as a power bank.”
Shaun couldn’t believe what he was hearing. No. This isn’t happening. It can’t happen.
Every ounce of his being wanted to bolt from that room and go rescue Mae. He needed to warn her! In any other circumstance he would have just pulled out his cell phone and called her, but nothing like that would work now that he was imprisoned in a high-tech alien vault. He needed to use his speed to get to her and pull her from harm’s way. Not only that, but if Mae was with his mother and Neil, then all three of them were in great danger. They would all be targets.
“You need to let me out of here,” Shaun demanded, getting to his feet. “Now. I need to go out there and get Mae. She’s not safe.”
“I can’t allow you to do that,” Xara answered with a pang of regret in her modulated voice. “That would be putting you back in harm’s way, and I can’t give you up now that I’ve got you.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” he asked. “Just sit around here with me?”
“No. I am going to leave you on your own. You’re safe here, and I have planning to do.”
Shaun shook his head.
“That’s not going to work,” he said. “Not with me. I need my friends and family to be safe. Otherwise I won’t cooperate with you.”
“You’re being incredibly childish,” Xara scolded. “I’m sorry that you are worried for everyone else, but right now you’re the only one that matters. If I lose you, then everything will be thrown off balance.”
Shaun didn’t know what else to do. All of the power was in Xara’s court. As she said, he couldn’t fight here. But, he could beg her.
“Please…” He got up and stepped directly in front of her. “If I can’t see my partner and my family to safety, then I might as well be dead. I don’t know how it works for you Xantherians, but we have a will to live. And if my loved ones aren’t safe, and they die while I’m stuck here, my will to live will be gone. You need to help me out here.”
Xara looked up at him with a calculating expression, as if all of her pieces were considering what he was saying. He hoped that they were. To hammer his point home, he folded his hands and shook them lightly in front of her.
“Please. I know exactly where my family is heading. I can go there, retrieve the bits of the Vestige that my partner possesses, and then return here. That way none of them will be on Zolyn’s radar. It will be fast, and you know I have super speed.”
The corners of Xara’s lips tugged upwards, though she appeared to be fighting it.
“Super speed. You humans name things in such quaint ways.” She paused, deciding what to say. “I suppose that I can let you out for just a brief time, if you are as fast as you say. You know these settlements a lot better than Zolyn does, so that gives you a small edge over her. Take note of that — I said small.”
Shaun couldn’t believe that he was actually getting what he wanted. Maybe his power of persuasion was getting better!
I doubt that, he thought, forcing himself to be realistic. Being realistic was the only thing he could do right now without feeling like he was floundering around. So many things had changed in such a short amount of time. Not only had he fought an alien menace, but now there were two of them. He counted himself incredibly lucky that he was able to make Xara into an ally that trusted him enough to go out and ensure that his family and Mae were alright.
“I really appreciate this,” he said. “You have no idea how important my family is to me.”
“Oh, I think I have an idea,” Xara replied with a hint of a smile. “Don’t forget that I’ve been monitoring a lot more than your power levels all these years. You humans are devoted to your families. I just hope that you can all come together when it counts. And you better be true to your word.”
“How long do I have?” he asked. Already he was pulling up a timer on his visor.
“A half hour,” she said. “On the dot. That should be more than enough time for you to get your family to safety, fill in your partner, and also hide the shards of the Vestige. Remember that. It’s imperative that you get the shards as far away from your partner as possible. The longer she holds onto them, the more of a target she becomes.”
Shaun nodded.
“Got it.”
That was quite a list of thin
gs to get done in such a short amount of time, but he was determined to do everything and make it back in time.
“And if I don’t make it back in time?” he asked, giving Xara a guilty look that said, I shouldn’t be asking this.
“If you fail to return, I will be forced to go out and hunt for you. I doubt you will be killed, but when it comes to Zolyn, there are worse things than death.” She pulled out the tiny capsule that controlled the doorway to the prison and clicked it once. The sound was perfect, bouncing off the walls in a hollow fashion that reinforced how isolated the two of them were from the rest of the world. The glowing doorway opened up above, and Shaun saw the night sky — open and inviting after the confines of this alien prison.
Xara locked eyes with Shaun as he prepared to take off into the air.
“Remember what I said about Zolyn,” she warned him. “Keep your eyes open.”
“Don’t worry,” Shaun reassured her. “I’ll be careful.”
He activated the timer and immediately it started counting down.
Then, not wasting any time, he jumped into the air and soared through the doorway.
16
Homefront
Shaun’s stomach turned as he shot through the opening in Xara’s prison. The world was upside down for a few moments and he felt like a fish being dumped from a glass of water into a large tank. It was a few moments of tumbling through the air before he righted himself and took stock of his surroundings.
He was back in the sky outside the restaurant, yet some time had passed. Blue flashing lights flickered against the surrounding buildings and the police force was moving through the area, questioning people and documenting the destruction. As expected, the roads were jammed with vehicles trying to get home. Horns blared at each other as Shaun hovered in the air.
“Alright, Mae. Where are you...”
The fastest way to reach Mae and figure out where she was, was to call her. Using a cellular technology was second nature.
Using his visor, he activated his contacts and pulled up Mae’s cell. With a few flicks, the number was activated and a call was attempted. Instead of picking up, however, Shaun got a horrible high-pitched beep that lasted a few seconds before an automated female voice informed him that all cell signals were busy and to please try again once service was restored.
“Damn it!”
Everyone was on their phones. The airwaves had to be so congested that nobody was getting through.
“Of course this happens to me when time is of the essence...” he muttered as tried to connect once more to the satellites, hoping upon hope that by some miracle that he might get through to Mae and figure out where she is. Was she alright? Had she already been compromised?
It was a struggle not to he paralyzed with fear and worry.
Snap out of it, he kept repeating in his mind. You’ve seen terrible situations before. This is no different. Snap out of it!
But, this was different. This was a global-scale horror show just waiting to spread out.
The signal on his visor flashed red, giving him the annoying triple beep that told him the lines were down, or jammed.
“Dammit!” he groaned through gritted teeth. If he couldn’t get through to Mae on a phone or through the internet, then he would have to find her the old-fashioned way: By flying around, hunting for her.
The best place to start was to look for his family at their home. It was the one place that they would go in an emergency. The real question was if they had made it there by now. They could still be driving, caught in traffic.
Shaun followed the most logical route that Mae would have taken to get back to their neighborhood, scanning the cars and license plates with his visor, hoping that they weren’t stuck somewhere. He wasn’t sure what he would do if they were stuck. Imagine swooping down in his Fallout getup and saying that he was singling them out specifically to bring them home, when there were hundreds of other people in the same horrible position. It wouldn’t make sense.
The more he flew and scanned, the more he believed that they were already home, or at least in the neighborhood.
I hope I’m right, he thought anxiously. I’ve already wasted five minutes flying through here...
His half-hour limit would soon be up.
Maybe Zolyn took out a few of our satellites on her way down to the harbor.
Shaun couldn’t believe that these ideas were actually being considered by him. In the span of an afternoon his entire mental picture of Boston, and indeed the world, had been tipped over.
Extra terrestrials? Space ships? Invaders from another planet looking for the Vestige? These were things that he never thought he would be considering, except in his own imagination as part of a plot for another Super Guy comic.
Yet here he was, and Zolyn looked nothing like the media had led him to believe that E.T.s would look like. She wasn’t big-headed and gray. She wasn’t even small. Her entire body defied logic, and no matter what Shaun had thrown at her, nothing seemed to faze the alien.
He was still holding his position when the sound of a jet engine came to his attention. It grew rapidly until finally Shaun spotted the military jet shoot overhead. Two more followed it.
At last, the military was there. This gave Shaun some relief and he didn’t feel like he had to tackle these aliens alone. Xara was nowhere to be seen since he left the alien cell, and he wasn’t sure when he would see her again. That was all fine and good for him. If he never saw these aliens again — good or bad, that was no loss for him. Here he thought that his life was going to finally settle down and that he would be able to take a real vacation!
I’m wasting time! he scolded himself. I need to get home.
Without wasting another minute, he shot through the sky towards his house.
The neighborhood felt like another planet entirely when Shaun came to a skidding stop on the sidewalk. He made sure to step out of his super speed a few blocks from his house in case anyone spotted him. As a precaution he fiddled with his settings on the visor and lowered the brightness of the blue light ring.
Everything was quiet. If he hadn’t just come from the heart of the city, Shaun would have thought that this was any old night. Nobody was running, shouting, or even out and about. A car passed by on the street, but other than that, Shaun found his home turf to be predictable, which sent a stab of fear through his gut.
Did that mean that his family hadn’t made it out of the city yet? Were they still stuck in traffic, waiting to get out of the danger zone? Or worse — were any of them injured?
He activated cellular communication and tried once more to reach Mae.
“Pick up…” he muttered as the ring tone greeted his ears. That was an encouraging sign. “Please, pick up…”
Another ring. Silence. Excruciating silence. More ringing followed by the scratch of static. Shaun was just about to give up hope when by some miracle, Mae picked up the line.
“...Shaun?”
“Mae! Yes, it’s me!” He practically tripped over his feet as he answered. “I don’t have a lot of time. Where are you guys? Are you safe?”
A bit of crackling interference, then Mae replied.
“We made it to your house. Where are you? Please tell me you’re alright?”
“I’m fine,” Shaun answered. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in a second!”
Within a few seconds he had stowed his visor and hood away and sped as fast as he could along the sidewalk until he arrived at the front steps of his home. He was relieved to see that Mae, his mother, and Neil were already inside. He wasted no time in going straight to Mae, eager to get her the information she needed — but, he was sidetracked by his mother.
“Shaun!” she cried, hurrying forward to wrap her arms around him. “You just disappeared out of nowhere — we couldn’t reach you. Don’t you ever do something like this again! I was worried sick!”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said, returning the hug as sincerely as he could. His heart was racin
g, and the anxiety was so strong that it felt painful to stand still. How much time did he have? A few minutes? Seconds? There wasn’t a lot of time for any formalities. “I’m okay now. I just got stuck behind a bunch of people. That traffic was madness.”
At last he was released and his mother continued, pulling his attention.
“Did you see the Aberrant in the sky? They were fighting that thing, whatever it was.”
“I saw a bit of it…” Shaun muttered. Neil came over to wrap an arm around Mrs. Boding.
“Looked like something out of a sci-fi movie,” he added. “Either that or it’s some sort of foreign weapon that we’ve never seen before. Either way, it’s trouble.”
“Well, the military looks like it was moving in once I left,” said Shaun, hoping to end the conversation there. He needed a distraction for his mother and Neil. “Has anyone tried the news? Maybe there are some updates.”
That was enough to get some movement. Neil and Mrs. Boding headed for the living room to try the TV, which left Shaun alone with Mae at last. She hugged him, leaning close to his ear to whisper, “What’s going on? Is that creature dead?”
Shaun shook his head as he pulled back. His eyes locked on hers. His brow lowered.
“We need to talk. Right now. We’ve only got a few minutes.” His hand gripped hers and he led her to a quiet area of the dining room, standing as close to the corner as they could. Mae leaned against the coffee bar, and behind that was a window overlooking the back yard. Shaun’s eyes kept darting to the window as he tried to rush through the information he had gleaned from Xara. He explained that the aliens were a race of strange creatures from Xanthar, and that they were here looking for energy to harvest.
The Aberrant Series (Book 4): Super Invasion Page 10