None of the soldiers notice when Iris begins to glow. It starts as a soft, yellowish-orange, but by the time the first guard notices, the glow has deepened to a dark red.
“Hurry!” he shouts to his comrade.
That soldier lets go of my leg and retrieves a strange-looking set of handcuffs from his belt. They’re clear like glass, and inside is a white liquid that looks like milk. I don’t intend on finding out how they work.
As the soldier struggles to get the cuff around my wrist, I use my newly freed right leg to knee him in the back. It’s not a solid strike, but it throws him off balance. He stumbles into the guard holding down my left hand, and he lets go to steady himself.
I pull my left hand free from the soldier on top of me. He’s still off balance and looks surprised as I grab him by the head and throw him into a tree. The soldier holding down my right hand panics and grabs on to my left hand.
If I don’t make it to the rendezvous point, I may never see Earth again.
I pull the soldier over my head by his wrist, and he barrels into the one trying to hold down my left leg. I’m free, but I don’t expect to stay that way long if I don’t move fast. The other soldiers are rushing back before I can even get my feet under me.
Suddenly, they all halt.
I turn to see what stopped them in their tracks. Iris is blanketed in bright white light. There’s a series of deafening cracks as pieces of the netting snaps, freeing Iris.
The soldiers regain their nerve and run at Iris to restrain her. I tackle the soldier nearest me before he can reach her, but the others aren’t that lucky.
All at once, the white light rapidly expands, consuming the approaching soldiers. Their screams are cut short. The brightness fades, and I pull myself off the soldier.
I run to Iris and find her on her knees, her head resting on the ground. The netting has been completely vaporized, along with the soldiers who attempted to apprehend her. I carefully place my hand on her back, hoping not to startle her. It doesn’t work.
Her head whips around, and her glowing white eyes find mine. Her face is contorted in anger—anger which she is about to unleash on me. When she sees it’s me, though, the anger fades and her eyes change back to their natural emerald color.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. She just stares into the distance, lost.
“You … you … you’re a monster!” the lone surviving soldier shouts from behind us. He’s nervously backpedaling through the woods and tripping over branches and divots.
“I knew you were all monsters. I knew it!”
He turns and runs. Iris rises to her feet, her eyes locked on him and glowing.
I put myself between her and the soldier. “There’s no time.”
Right on cue, our wristwatches go off. Rendezvous time is two minutes away. If we’re not there when Vanish arrives, we’ll be stuck here for another twelve hours.
We have to go. Now.
Thirty-One
“Come on, Iris,” I say as I steady her on her feet.
The effort it took to break free of that netting has drained her. I don’t know what it was made of, but it was meant to contain someone very strong. Between that and the stun batons, it isn’t a coincidence that Volaris has weapons that take on metahumans.
Shouts ring out from the deeper in the forest, and I’m willing to bet they’re the reinforcements.
“I killed them,” Iris whispers.
“We can’t worry about that. We have to get out of here.”
Her eyes are empty, and she doesn’t look like she cares about whether we make it.
“Let’s move. I don’t want to get trapped here.”
A volley of small projectiles zips over my shoulder. They hit a tree just ahead of us, tearing it in half. It topples to the ground.
A second alarm goes off on our wristwatches, this one more urgent. Screw it. We’re running out of time.
“Hang on, Iris.”
I readjust my grip and grab her under her armpit. There’s more shouting, closer now. I tilt my head skyward, find a blue patch between the orange leaves, and leap.
We’re airborne but not ascending as fast as we should be. My powers are still acting up, and Iris is either completely depleted or not interested in helping me.
“Just leave me,” she says, barely above a whisper. “I don’t deserve to go back home.”
“You’ve got to help me, Iris. I can’t get us up there on my own.”
We climb past the tree line and continue rising into the sky. Behind us, I see the edge of the city and a battalion of soldiers running into the woods.
I feel Iris slipping. She’s heavier than I imagined, likely a side effect of whatever she did to expel enough energy to break out of her confinement.
“I need help,” I tell my suit. “Where do I need to be?”
It responds by displaying a red grid over my field of vision, with one small highlighted square representing the spot in the sky where Vanish is meeting us. Now that I know where I’m going, I summon all the energy I can from deep down. I need to fly as fast and in as straight of a line as I can toward that spot.
This effort lasts for about five seconds before I become winded. My suit doesn’t like being pushed like this, and it’s pushing back against me, overriding my will and slowing me down to conserve energy. The suit’s efforts to protect me are going to cost me my ride home.
“Stop fighting me! You need to listen to me and get us out of here,” I shout at nothing, but it works. The suit overrides the protections, and my speed increases.
A whistling sound below grows louder. I chance a look back and spot the source: another large projectile. They’re trying to knock me out of the sky.
The projectile is approaching fast, instantaneously mimicking any small adjustments I make in my flight. Looks like it’s locked on me.
“Iris, I know you’re tired, but I need your help. I promise if you do this I won’t bother you about anything else for the rest of the day. I’ll even try not to make any stupid jokes.”
Iris slowly lifts her head. Her face remains expressionless, except for the tears welling in her eyes. She lifts her dangling arm and wraps it tightly around my waist. I instantly feel my load lighten, and we speed up.
We’re nearing the edge of the atmosphere. My nanosuit reforms a full mask to protect my face. The square representing the rendezvous spot in my heads-up display morphs into a smaller target that resembles a three-dimensional bull’s-eye floating in space.
The projectile is on our tail and making up ground. Outrunning it won’t be enough. If it gets close, it could detonate and knock us off course.
Iris lifts her hand over our heads and pushes harder than ever. Our speed rapidly increases just as her watch flashes a bright red warning.
Ahead of us is a small flash of light. It’s Vanish. She looks around frantically, expecting us to be waiting for her at the rendezvous point. We have seconds to reach her before she rubber-bands back to Earth without us.
Vanish spots us and waves her arms. One last big push. I grit my teeth and pull Iris even closer as she does the same.
Vanish closes her eyes, and we make contact.
Thirty-Two
In an instant, we travel light-years across the galaxy and return to Midnight’s water tower base. This is the good news.
The bad news is we’ve brought with us the momentum we had when we collided into Robin.
This isn’t my first time dealing with teleportation momentum. I immediately slammed on the metaphorical brakes after making contact with Robin, but it’s difficult considering how fast Iris and I were traveling.
I wrap my arms around Robin and Iris and somersault over them to take the impact. l crash into the far wall, sending a reverberating thud through Midnight’s base. I don’t know what he’s reinforced these walls with, but it would take a tank to get through them. They stop our momentum, and we fall to the floor.
Midnight rushes over a
nd pulls Robin up from the ground.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says as she rubs her shoulder.
I help Iris back onto her feet.
“Are you okay?” Midnight asks her.
“Yeah, I’m okay too,” she quietly affirms.
“What the hell was that out there?” Robin screeches. “You two were supposed to be at the rendezvous point before I showed up, not barreling toward me at a thousand miles an hour after.”
“We ran into trouble,” I explain. “Trust me, we wouldn’t have shown up late if we could have helped it.”
“What did you find?” Midnight asks, eager to move past the issue.
“They aren’t refugees, and Earth isn’t a pit stop. They’re planning a takeover.”
“Just as I suspected.”
“They’re preparing a large ship full of anyone rich enough to buy a ticket. The rest of the planet is being left behind to die unless they can pony up the money. There’s no lottery. No selection of their top scholars.”
“Did anyone there suspect you?”
“I don’t know if they figured out we were from Earth, but there was a group chasing us, hence the dramatic re-entry.”
Robin grimaces at me.
“Sorry again about that,” I say.
I will the nanosuit to detach from my body and reform into a solid disk. I hold it out to Midnight.
“I got a few detailed scans of a transportation terminal. I figured they might be useful.”
“They might be,” Midnight says.
He takes the disk and places it onto a small white pad on his desk. The nanobots become active. Small spires rise from the surface, growing and shrinking in waves as the device transfers the data into Midnight’s computer. A stream of information appears on the screen, none of which I can interpret.
“I’ve reverse-engineered code retrieved from the crashed ship. It should allow me to process some of the information your magtonium captured. There’s no telling if it will be useful, but it’s better than nothing. It will take some time to process and decode.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna go grab some dinner, then. Haven’t had Burger Shack in months,” Robin says as she heads for the door.
Midnight doesn’t react. He's already engrossed in the code displayed across his monitor.
“Uh, we’re just letting her go?” I whisper to Midnight.
“Robin,” Midnight says without turning to face her, “back in an hour. Don’t make me come looking for you. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She opens the hatch and climbs down the ladder. She reaches her hand up to close the hatch, but Iris stops her.
“I’m getting out of here for a little bit too,” Iris says. “Call me if you find anything.”
“Wait,” I say. She stops and stares at me, but I’m not sure what to say, so instead, I just ask, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
She descends the ladder and closes the hatch, leaving me alone with Midnight. I immediately wonder when or if I’ll see her again. When she’s upset, she wants to be left alone. I understand that, but I also don’t want her on her own for long. I don’t know if it’s good for her.
“What happened?” Midnight asks, still staring at his computer.
He doesn’t have to specify. I know he’s asking about Iris.
I sigh and ease myself into the chair next to him. “She was trapped. The soldiers who were chasing us caught her in some kind of net. I don’t know what it was made of, but neither of us could break her free.”
“Did you grab a sample of it? It could be useful to analyze.”
“No, I was busy making sure we didn’t die on another planet. Anyway, while she was trapped, more soldiers came after me. I couldn’t fight them all. Iris started glowing, like really, really brightly. Soldiers rushed in to stop her, and when they did, she went supernova. After the light faded, they were all gone. I think they were incinerated.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm? That’s all you have to say?”
“I don’t have an explanation. Much of Iris’s physiology and abilities that is uncharted territory. I’ll ask her if I can run some additional tests when she comes back.”
“Additional tests? This isn’t about her powers. This is about her having killed people. That’s what she’s upset about.”
“She told you that?”
“More or less, but she didn’t have to. I can see it in her eyes. She didn’t want to do what she did. I think she lost control. I don’t like you talking about her like she’s a lab experiment.”
This finally draws Midnight’s attention away from the computer. His eyes narrow. He’s thinking about what I said, no doubt putting together that more happened on Volaris than what I’ve told him.
“The tests will help determine what’s happening with Iris so she can prevent it from happening again. I know you’re upset, Connor, but it’s important to stay focused on what’s important. I’m sorry to hear that Iris killed, and I’m sorry to hear it’s weighing on her conscience—it would weigh on mine as well—but these are all things we can address after this crisis has passed. In the meantime, I’d like to catch you up on what’s happened since you left.”
Midnight enters a few keystrokes, and the monitors mounted above the workstation switch to video of news broadcasts.
“What the hell?” I ask.
On the screen are a few small buildings similar to the ones on Volaris. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought the footage was from Volaris.
“It popped up overnight. A holographic message from the Volarians said it’s their embassy and a place for cultural exchange.”
“It looks like something out of Wilson World.”
“You’re not far off. The theme park-like appearance is no doubt meant to help portray themselves as unthreatening. There’s just one problem with that.”
Midnight clicks his mouse, and another window takes over the screen. A short video clip plays of two metahumans hovering high up in the air, talking. Their conversation quickly devolves into an argument. The footage zooms in, and I can clearly make out one of the metahumans. He’s a blond, middle-aged man in a blue uniform and yellow cape. The person he’s arguing with isn’t a metahuman, though. He’s wearing a suit of black magtonium.
“Who the heck is that?” I ask.
“I haven’t verified his identity, but as you’ve noticed, he’s wearing a magtonium suit similar to yours.”
“Is he an imposter? Do people think that’s me?”
“No, his chest is unadorned. He’s not trying to emulate you, but he’s also not alone.”
Two more nanosuit-clad people enter the frame, another man and a woman. They fly up from behind the first nanosuit wearer and hover on either side. The metahuman gives them the finger before turning around and flying out of frame.
“This video was taken near the outskirts of their outpost earlier this evening. The Volarians must have realized there would be resistance and that they would need protection, especially against metahumans, but they didn’t want to appear aggressive. Their compromise was dispensing magtonium nanosuits to individuals interested in helping to protect their new property.”
“How many people did they give them to?”
“By my estimate, two hundred individuals so far.”
“Two hundred! That’s not a security force. That’s an army. They could easily take on any metahuman group with those numbers.”
While cohesive teams are rare among metahumans, there have been a handful during the first and second waves. But when groups of more than three metahumans band together it tends to make people nervous. A few countries even have laws against it, as smaller countries could find their own military easily outmatched by a team of metahumans.
“And they’re still growing. This must be what the Kaldonians were doing with the metabands they took from the prisoners. They used them to power this new supply of magtonium. Intel on the ground confirms th
ey are still giving magtonium to individuals who pass a battery of tests.”
“That can’t be good.”
“No, it can’t. I’ve been trying to find out more, but we need to decipher your data. Here.” Midnight pulls a small drive from his computer and hands it to me. “This is a copy of the data you brought back from Volaris. I need you to bring this to Sarah. She’s one of the few people who’s worked with this technology before. She can help. After that, you should get some sleep too.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sleep while you can. We don’t know the next time you’ll have the chance.”
Thirty-Three
I land on the outskirts of campus and power down. I offered to let Midnight keep my magtonium, but he’d already extracted all the data. This was good news for me, because I did not want to take the bus home.
I ditched my Volarian clothes before leaving Midnight’s but exhaustion hits me hard once the nanosuit is off. I thought it was adrenaline keeping me going, but now I know the magtonium was helping out. I can only describe this feeling as a galaxy-sized version of jet lag.
To be honest, I’d rather sleep at Derrick’s tonight. My bed there is a thousand times more comfortable than the dorm room mattress, but I’d consider anything short of steel spikes adequate at this point.
The ship still looms overhead, completely motionless, like it’s glued to the sky.
I fish my phone out of my pocket and text Sarah, asking if she’s on campus. Minutes go by and she doesn’t answer. She could be asleep, but it’s a little too early to be in bed. Even if she is this is important enough to wake her, but I don’t want to walk all the way to her dorm if she’s not there. I should check in with Jim first.
Jim would know if she’s left campus or not. I promise myself that I won’t rest my head on my pillow, no matter how tempting, until I’ve given Sarah the data to analyze.
I notice a few lights are on in my dormitory. My window is dark, but Jim likes to work in the dark, so he could still be awake.
I enter the desolate dormitory and head upstairs. Upon putting my key in the door, I hear shuffling noises from inside.
Meta (Book 5): New Empire Page 13
