by Jason Zandri
Nathan squeezed her hands. “I understand the sentiment. If you or Adia or Jack were hurt, I would literally move mountains to help you. If someone stood in my way, I might say or do questionable things. Those are emotional responses to critical, personal events. I would like to think that I would handle them well, but until a person is in ‘that’ situation, there’s no way to know. Some first responders, the first time they go out, freeze in an emergency despite being well trained. Sometimes the average Joe in the crisis situation reacts better, smarter, and faster. There’s no true way to know until one is in the middle of it.”
“I have faith in you, Nathan; you would make the right decisions and prevail,” Lisa said with a slight smile.
“Lend a little of that faith to Rebecca if you can; she deserves the same consideration.”
“You’re right, I’ll work on it.” Lisa said and sat back and let go of his hands.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Zeus stood at the reflecting pool and looked into it, as Athena, Apollo, and Aphrodite approached separately. He raised his head. “I see that it doesn’t take long for some of you to realize I have returned.”
“No, Father Zeus,” Athena said. “We are all understandably curious as to what you discovered.”
Zeus looked up when a few other Olympians arrived. Hera stepped nearer to the pool while Hades and Poseidon waited further back with the few others there.
“So, with you gathered,” Zeus said, coming around to the near side of the pool, where the majority of them stood. “I will tell you what I have been able to find out. To begin with, Gaea wasn’t entirely forthcoming. She’s not entirely interested in our affairs here and, despite the critical connection to Earth Prime, she remained indifferent. I believe that I managed to understand, from the small amount of conversation that she would engage in, that the woman called Rebecca Farnsmith has deciphered enough of the ancient tomes to use the long version of the power enchantment. She’s been able to tap directly from Gaea’s powers of Earth and the ones from the Elemental Planes.”
Zeus paused while a small amount of murmuring took place among the Olympians. Once it settled some, he continued, “Unlike Nathan’s powers, which we govern, Rebecca’s are fully under her control at all times. Only her ability and will limit them.”
“And what of the personification of evil that was part of Ahzeem Ama’s eternal soul?” Hades asked.
“It is commingled with the soul of Rebecca Farnsmith. That was part of the price paid in leveraging the passages from that tome. That internal battle will wage until only one remains. In the meantime, Rebecca Farnsmith is in majority control of her being.” Zeus looked directly at Hades. “Her will shall keep him indefinitely at bay, or she will, eventually, be overrun by it.”
“And what of Nathan?” Artemis asked. “Will we continue to limit his powers and abilities?”
“As I recall, dear Artemis, you made one of the loudest arguments against granting Nathan his powers in the first place, in any form,” Hephaestus said, coming into view.
“And I have recently indicated that position was in error,” she said and turned to address him, and then glanced over at Hera. “In light of his responsible use of them in general, and especially considering his unusual tapping of the powers directly via Earth when he was in crisis and not exploiting that, I believe we need to consider closing the circle.”
More murmuring occurred, but Artemis spoke louder and over it, “We have our champion, and we have one that has usurped a level of her own control of some of the powers of the realm. We have no ability to exert any will or control over her, those powers, or their use. We must decide to act. Be it a direct action by our intervention, or by loosening the restrictions on Nathan to allow him to act independently.”
“If one of your concerns is the inability to limit the powers that the usurper has, how does removing our ability to throttle Nathan’s powers and abilities help with that? What would occur if Nathan also went dark?” Hephaestus asked. “We would then be dealing with two of them.”
“What if he’s our only chance to stop her and is limited in doing so and is then killed?” Athena asked. “The reason we kept the circle open was to limit the chosen champion’s powers. It wasn’t necessarily to always be that way. Once the champion proved himself, it was always the intent for the twelve to come back and discuss removing the limitations and to formally train him in the total use of his powers for the betterment of all mankind.”
The bickering got louder, Zeus stepped forward, and it abated. “I understand what is at stake here,” he said loudly to defuse the remaining side conversation. “At this time, we will put much closer attention to the direct affairs as they unfold, but we will not close the circle.” Zeus looked around to see an equal amount of relief and disappointment. “I believe, at this time, it is a premature reaction to a crisis that hasn’t manifested. We should wait on that action, and wait we will.”
Zeus walked away, and then disappeared. Slowly, the other Olympians ended their pleasantries with one another and left as well.
Artemis, Athena, Hades, and Aphrodite remained at the reflecting pool.
Aphrodite stared down into it and focused on Nathan, currently with Rebecca.
“Be well, Champion,” she said quietly. “Be ever vigilant.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rebecca leaned up in bed and stared over Nathan while he slept. She ran her fingers through his hair, and small bits of energy left her fingertips and danced into his hair.
Then she moved over him more and knelt so that her left arm no longer supported her body and she could caress him. With both hands, she touched his shoulders and ran them down his chest slowly.
He moaned lightly, but it was audible. “Again?” He smiled and peeked an eye open. “Your powers are on all the time; mine aren’t. I’m just a man right now, and you’re killing me.”
She looked at him and tipped her head. Then lowered her right hand all the way down and her eyes filled entirely white.
Nathan felt a huge tingling from her hand wherever she touched him. Immediately, he became excited and stimulated. A light sparkling moved about his eyes and field of vision.
“You are far more than just any man,” Rebecca said in seductive tones.
“Do you know something I don’t know?” Nathan grinned. When he attempted to get up, Rebecca moved on top of him. She straddled him and kept him in place. Playful, he resisted but was exactly where he wanted to be. She moved slightly so that they lay together as one. Nathan let out a pleasurable sigh.
Rebecca leaned down to whisper in his ear. As each area of skin made contact with Nathan’s body, a small amount of energy released. With each release, the whiteness of Rebecca’s eyes fluctuated. Finally, she got all the way down and next to his ear. She moved her whole body slowly and said, “I know many things.” Then she breathed lightly in his ear. The act alone stimulated Nathan to the edge. She continued to move her body and grind slowly against his.
“Such as?” Nathan said with a gasp.
“Well,” she whispered. “There are many paths we could go down together.” She kissed his neck, and more energy ebbed from her into him. Nathan let out another light gasp, and his eyes snapped open, filled with white energy.
“First, there was The Void,” she whispered while Nathan gasped and smiled. The energy filled his body. “Then, as time passed, Gaea and Uranus, parents of the Titans. Then the Olympians came—succession by overthrow. They are still there today.”
Rebecca sat upright, arched her back, and tipped her head toward the ceiling. Her eyes opened wide, and white light erupted around the room. Nathan’s body absorbed much of the escaping energy. His eyes, pure white, opened wide, and he watched her body on top of his.
“A new dawn of Champions, our children, will rise,” Rebecca said without looking down to Nathan. “Together, we will take the power the Olympians squander among their dozens, and protect and preserve it for our family so that peace will finally come
to Earth.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Senator Mackenzie Kelly sat at his desk and poured over the paperwork he’d collected over the past few weeks and brought to his office.
He stood up to move a box from the desk to a long, eight-foot table nearby. Then he set the box down, put his hands in his pockets, and from his dress pants fished out his personal cell phone and the emergency one Nathan had given him. After he’d set them both down, he grabbed at two of the notebooks on the desk.
“New York City,” he said aloud to himself, looking over the data. He set it down on the desk, and then took the folder for Los Angeles. “Three-point-eight million people … another property … locked out access … upper floors … what the hell did you stumble upon here, Patrick?”
He reviewed the information for a short while longer, and then set it all down. He went into the closet to grab his coat and keys, grabbed his phones, and headed out to his car. On his personal phone, he messaged ‘Jane Parker’ and sent a text, “911, meet at the diner now / ASAP. Come alone. No other agents or handlers.”
His mind raced, and he got into his car and drove away.
A short while later, he arrived at the diner. Once inside, he grabbed the free-standing ‘SECTION CLOSED’ sign and sat in the corner booth. The waitress nodded, closed off two other sections nearby, and then came over to get his order.
“Just a coffee, please,” he said.
The waitress nodded and returned in short order with the coffee.
Jane showed up a short time later and took a seat in his booth. “I have to say, Senator, of all the people I’ve ended up chatting with in here, you’re the last one I expected to see.”
“I hate these meetings,” Mackenzie said without much additional emotion. “Secret, behind closed doors … it makes me feel dirty not working out in the open.”
“It’s a necessary evil sometimes,” she said and looked over at the waitress and gestured for a cup of coffee.
“Well, before I get started on what I need, how are things? With the charges and the criminal case and so forth …” he asked with a solemn look on his face.
“You know how that goes. A million questions, charges raised, others dropped, and deals and bargains. My biggest help is going to be the deal I worked out with the Senate officials, your peers, and the Presidential interaction. That string you pulled is likely to keep me out of jail. I’m out on paid administrative leave right now, but I’m not sure how much longer that will last.”
“You have twenty years in, correct?” the Senator asked.
“Just barely; I just got under that wire three months ago,” Jane said while she stirred her coffee. “I was lucky that I started right out of high school as an intern, and then got my degree at night. Worst case scenario, I go to work in the private sector for another twenty years, and then I take the combination pensions when I retire. I’ll live.”
Senator Kelly sat up in his seat and leaned in. “Look, the reason I asked you here was because of all of that and, to be quite blunt, I don’t trust the NSA and the phone systems any longer. The way Patrick Johnson went about things was completely wrong. Despite that, he did uncover something—I’m just not sure it’s tied to Nathan.”
“I told him that as well,” Jane said, and then took a sip from her coffee. “He was just fixated on it being a part of something underhanded Nathan must be doing. The data he has is damning for whoever it’s tied to. The building ownerships and the leases are all legal. But they are, in fact, made by a number of shell corporations from all over the world. When you look at them separately, they look like everyday business transactions. When you look at them collectively, all of these different organizations and gray area individuals own or lease property in nearly the dead center of our largest thirty-five cities. Add to that, that most of them are heavily guarded, technologically maintained and operated, and have full redundancies built into their infrastructures, it does make you wonder who, why, and what for.”
“I agree, and that’s why I wanted to look all of it over and talk to you for whatever knowledge you might have on it,” the Senator said and leaned backward. “I can have my office cut you a retainer fee; I’m sure you can use it.”
Jane didn’t answer but nodded.
“Nathan just doesn’t have the financial backing to do this on his own,” Mackenzie said with a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Congressman Johnson seemed to think he might have been trading his special abilities to these corporations, or in some cases, those foreign governments, in exchange for the use of their space in these buildings.” Jane played with her coffee cup. “If it turns out to be true, we would have multiple issues. On the one hand, what is Nathan doing with all these locations? Why the need and secrecy? On the other hand, what did he trade? It might be one thing if an organization needed help … oh, I don’t know … to dig further into the ground than their technology could to get to their mineral rights, but as Doctor Tech, he could have built and designed things leaps and bounds ahead of what we already have. That would give those corporations and countries huge advances and advantages—in their corporate space as well as beyond. The military considerations alone are staggering.”
“How would we know the extent of a persona’s capabilities?” the Senator asked.
“That’s just it, we don’t. His powers mimic those of the EarthWorld characters, but they are not necessarily a one-for-one match. As far as Doctor Tech, Nathan does have a talking computer that is estimated to be able to handle trillions of simultaneous calculations. Somewhere between the HAL 9000 and Skynet is where I keep my paranoia.” Jane took another drink from her coffee.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Mackenzie said. “Nathan’s powers are only enabled when there is an emergency. He doesn’t have the ability to flip them on to casually assist a foreign government.”
“He doesn’t? He did recently for a short while from the reports,” Jane said and sat forward. “Who’s to say that isn’t a loophole or something he’s been exploiting all along and was only forced to reveal it when he had an issue? Additionally, he may have been somewhere performing a mission of mercy or something, and then the powers stayed active a short while later. While still active, he could have taken actions then.”
Senator Kelly sat quietly and processed the information. He reached into his pocket and took Nathan’s phone out.
“Is that how you reach him?” Jane asked.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I want to call him and just sit down and ask him all of this.”
“Do you believe he’d give you honest answers?” Jane asked.
“I always believed he would,” Mackenzie said slowly, and then turned to look out the window. “Doubt is a powerful bitch.”
Jane smiled. “Speaking of powerful bitches, there’s the whole Rebecca issue in the room now, too. Nathan might be a stable, stand-up guy. It might take power a long time to corrupt him if it could at all. But her? Have you read some of her papers? Have you looked into her history when she was in grad school? She’s out there. I don’t want to say she’s unstable, but her persona with that kind of power is not a good mix. As a regular human, she was a couple of sandwiches short a full picnic. If what you say is true, and Nathan is only powered up during crises, then he may not even be able to stop her if she were to go suddenly on the offensive.”
The Senator reached over and took the last drink of his coffee, pulled his wallet out, and left a twenty on the table. “Thank you for meeting me and for the candor. I do appreciate it.”
“I am glad to be of help. Feel free to reach out to me anytime,” Jane said, then stood and extended her hand.
Senator Kelly shook her hand and nodded. He slipped Nathan’s phone back into his pocket and turned to leave the diner.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In Madison Square Park, Adia looked skyward, hoping to see Nathan come in and land. She looked down at her phone to check the time, and then looked around some more.
Adia smiled, which made Nathan smile as well. The two embraced in a hearty hug, and then stepped back from one another.
“Look,” Adia said. “I know Lisa and I grilled you the last time you left. It’s been a few weeks; I want to put that behind us. We sounded like a couple of jealous schoolgirls, and the more we thought about it, the sillier we sounded. We’re sorry.”
“Wow.” Nathan exaggerated the word to sound funny. “You’re defending her and apologizing all at the same time. The little girl from Loisaida is all grown up.”
Adia punched him in the arm.
“Ow!” Nathan said. “That hurt.”
“Tough guy can land a space station and launch a nuclear power plant into space, but can’t take a hit on the arm?” Adia said with a laugh.
“Not powered up,” Nathan said and pointed to his bracelet. “Every-day-Nathan bruises easily.”
The two strolled through the Park. Adia looked over to the area where she’d gotten shot, and then across to where Nathan got shot. Nathan looked at her and touched her shoulder. “Both of the attacks; it still bothers you?”
“It does when I think about them,” she said, putting her hand on his. “It’s painful, but I come here to remember and put certain things into perspective.”
“Such as?” Nathan asked.
“The whole thing with Congressman Johnson. It’s riled a lot of people up now that it’s been fully exposed. It’s polarizing the extremes. The people on your side are defending you vigorously, and the people that were against you are becoming more rabid and adamant about you as a threat. There are less and less people in the middle.”
Nathan followed Adia’s gaze. “And what’s your perspective?”
Adia let go of Nathan’s hand and turned to face him. “There was a time that a man defended me in this park. He was given a gift of extraordinary powers, but they weren’t active at the time. He defended me anyhow. He put himself between me and the shooter with little more than some protective gear and will.” Adia looked up into his eyes. “He would have stood his ground and died before letting the attacker through.”