Cherry Blossom Girls 8

by Harmon Cooper

  But with our enemies on the horizon, flying toward us, silver blips in the sun, our focus had shifted from reconstruction to defense.

  “Remember, we need evidence,” I told the group, as several of the flying robots began firing missiles at us. Stella managed to block most of them, and the ones she didn’t block were handled by Veronique.

  The headless robots stood about seven feet tall, and there were ten of them, built in the same way as the big robot that we had fought back in Japan. Their backs opened and smaller drones flew out, Dorian immediately seeing to those little fuckers.

  Chloe used soundwaves to blast them out of the air, plastic and metal exploding above the robots.

  It would be helpful to have one of the drones, so I mentally instructed Grace to grab one and bring it to the ground.

  She nodded; a drone disappeared from the pack and zipped off to the left, where it hit the base of a statue, and then stopped just above the ground, banging against it until it fizzled out.

  “Good,” I said, my palm aimed at the robot that was closest to Stella’s shield.

  I tore its knees out from beneath it, and the robot fell to the ground, still trying to fire at us as it malfunctioned. This one self-destructed, kicking up a cloud of dust and a small fireball.

  Damn.

  Michelle appeared on top of one of the robots with her daggers, cutting away at cords. The robot scrambled as it tried to yank her off.

  Eventually, the robot fell to its knees, and from there straight to the ground, out for good.

  Veronique charged forward, pulling metal from two of the firing robots’ arms and forming two long blades on her own. She continued to build this armor as she cut through the first robot, the metal vampire on the warpath as usual.

  I had to duck a bit as Chloe raced ahead, swirling in the air, energy forming around her as she dove into one of the robots, breaking it to bits and pieces and blasting away again.

  The goal here was to get parts and let Grace do her thing. We had already knocked a drone down, but we sort of needed one of the bigger robots intact as well.

  With their numbers dwindling, especially after Veronique cut through another, and Dorian exploded the arms off one that was just about to fire upon us, it only left a couple for us to deal with.

  While Ingrid could have smashed through one as Tulip, she had chosen to take her beast armor, and clever as ever, she jumped forward, breaking the robot in two, only severing the cables at its waist.

  Chloe blasted through another robot, shredding its torso with an energy-laced sonic boom.

  The final robot was handled by Stella, who wanted a piece of the action. The vector manipulator ran forward with her shield in front of her, casting her hands out, the shield engulfing the robot just as it released a homing missile, destroying it.

  “There will be more,” I said as Michelle started to celebrate, the black-haired youth dancing with her hands in the air. “No time to celebrate.”

  Michelle offered me a playful pouty face as Ingrid morphed back into her normal form, the young woman taking charge. “Let’s search as many as we can for any details, but most of this is going to fall on you, Grace.”

  “Right,” Grace said, moving to the nearest robot.

  “Let me see what I can do here.” I grabbed my smartphone and opened the Cherry Blossom app.

  I went straight to Grace’s telepathic power, noticing for the thousandth time that it labeled her as a ‘psychic,’ which kind of annoyed me considering that she was much more than a psychic.

  But I wasn’t the one who had classified them, so there was little I could do aside from get to tinkering.

  In the end, I brought down her Omnikinesis and brought up her Psychometry, temporarily, so she could get a better read. I took one more look at my handiwork, realizing I hadn’t really done much, but still feeling good for actually using one of the tools provided to me.

  Main: Psychic

  Omnikinesis: 5

  Second Sight: 5

  Psychometry: 10

  Telepathy: 5

  Clairsentience: 5

  Psychokinesis: 7

  Hypnosis: 6

  Nightmare Sight: 6

  Telepathic Radius: 5

  Oddly enough, and something definitely to note, bringing down Grace’s Omnikinesis also brought down several of her other powers, including Telepathic Radius, Psychokinesis and her base Telepathy skill.

  Good to know.

  “There are more people coming,” Michelle said, appearing next to me. “I ran down the hill and I saw all the people. Everyone wants to know what happened here, and now that there’s some fighting, people are interested. A lot of people have their phones. We should probably get out of here.”

  “I know,” I assured the young speedster. “Once we get the information that we need, we’ll get out of here as quickly as we can.”

  “Speaking of which,” Dorian said, “where are we going next? I don’t think this is the best place for us to stay.”

  “Can we go back to Japan?” Michelle asked.

  “That’s part of the plan, well, part two of the plan.”

  “You haven’t even told me all of your plan,” she said as Chloe landed next to her.

  “Yeah, Gideon, what’s the actual plan?”

  “Part one or part two?” I asked.

  “Part one,” Michelle said. “Let’s start simple.”

  “Part one is we find out where these robots are being made and we go there, destroying what we can at Hummingbird’s factory. Part two, well, a good author…”

  Michelle rolled her eyes. “Don’t you say it…”

  “Are you seriously going to keep us in suspense just to make things interesting?” Dorian asked, elbowing me.

  “That’s what authors are supposed to do,” I said, jokingly.

  “Life isn’t a book, Gideon.”

  “I agree,” I told Dorian, “and to be honest here, I’m still actually working on part two, that’s why I haven’t officially unveiled it yet. Let me get all the pieces together in my head, send out a few emails, and make it happen. Let’s just focus on part one for now, and hopefully, the robots are actually being manufactured here in Asia.”

  “What are the odds that they’re being manufactured in Asia?” Michelle asked.

  “You really don’t know anything about electronics, do you?”

  She grinned. “I have a cell phone now.” Her smile shattered. “Wait, no I don’t. It was taken away from me.”

  “See? With great power comes great responsibility.”

  Chloe shook her head. “It would be difficult to unravel what’s going on in your mind.”

  “That’s what therapy is for,” I reminded her, “and since I can’t afford it, because I don’t have any money that I can legally get to, that’s what Grace is for.”

  “Do you think she’s always in your mind?” Michelle asked as Grace, Veronique and Ingrid looked through some of the mechanical rubble.

  “I really don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I’m thinking my own thoughts, and sometimes I feel like she’s thinking my thoughts through me.”

  “Didn’t you say you were having problems writing your book?” Michelle said with a shrug.

  “Yes, I’m having a few issues right now, namely writer’s block considering I’m always busy doing this kind of stuff.”

  “Then why don’t you just let Grace take over your mind and put you in autodrive, or something? She could just turn you on like a robot, like one of these guys,” she said, pointing at a drone that had been exploded into pieces.

  “You know, that’s not a bad idea…”

  Grace raised her hand, and we made our way over to her. The psychic shifter was squatting in front of a compartment covering that used to house a drone.

  “What did you find?” Chloe asked.

  “More people are here,” Dorian reminded us.

  Grace smiled up at us. “The robots are being made in China.”

  I threw my
hands in the air. “I could have told you that,” I started to say.

  “In a factory outside of Beijing.”

  “How far is that from here?” I asked, trying to mentally picture where Nepal was on a map relative to Beijing. I knew Beijing was on the other side of China, and Nepal was south of the Himalayas. It was a far distance, much further, by my estimation, than Dorian would be able to teleport.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I know what it looks like as well as the surrounding area.”

  “Let’s go back to the hostel in Kathmandu,” I finally said. “It’s time that I pull some strings and call in a few favors. I can also get part two worked on,” I told Michelle and the others who had heard me rambling on about that earlier. “If we can pull this off, we can hit up Beijing, and then go straight to Tokyo and then back to the good ol’ US of A.”

  “We’re leaving Asia?” Michelle asked with a frown.

  “Not for long, I’ve got a feeling we may have to come back for other things, but we do need to deal with Hummingbird if he’s in America. If he’s here, then maybe we can just stick around. It all depends on what we find out at this factory. Grace, take whatever you need with you to double check the information that you’ve uncovered. I can adjust your stats back at our hostel, because right now I’ve had to turn everything down to crank up your Psychometry power. In fact…”

  I brought my phone out again and upped her Telepathic Radius. “I want you to do as much as you can to the people here to ease any suffering they may have about the temple. Reduce their panic, and most importantly, get them away from this area. Hummingbird will be sending more robots, at least until he realizes that we’re gone.”

  “Good idea,” Veronique said. “Minimize civilian casualties.”

  “You’re learning,” I told her, ready to give the metal vampire a high five.

  She gave me a snarky look. “Don’t press your luck, Gideon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: We Up Here

  Hell yes we got a private jet.

  I’m not going to say that it was less than twenty-four hours later that the CBGs found themselves on a private jet headed toward Beijing, courtesy of the Emperor of Japan, but it was less than twenty-four hours later that the CBGs found themselves on a private jet headed toward Beijing.

  Hell, I even ordered some drankohol, even though I knew I could only have a little bit.

  “Mimosa?” I asked Dorian, who was already waving down the Japanese flight attendant to bring us some orange juice.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  No, I’d never been in a private jet before, but after seeing this sweet ride, I was definitely thinking it would be a way for us to travel in the future, our very own X-Jet. But how would we come into possession of a private jet?

  It was questions like these and beautiful superpowered women like the CBGs that kept me up at night.

  Ingrid and Michelle were sitting toward the front, Michelle’s face glued to the window. Grace was behind her, looking at her reflection in a pocket mirror and shifting the color of her eyes, adjusting her makeup. Next to her was Stella, who had her hands behind her head, just relaxing.

  On the couch and to the right was where Chloe had decided to park it. The sound manipulator had her feet up, already asleep.

  Dorian and Veronique were in the back with the Sir Writes-a-Lot, in front of me, the two occasionally making quips as I pecked away on my smartphone like a damn CEO.

  It was intimate, everything inside the space spotless, the seats plush leather, woodgrain or sleek plastic where metal wouldn’t do, plus the private jet came with not one but two flight attendants, who were making damn sure that we were comfortable.

  And for a moment, I wondered what it would be like for us to just stop the whole superhero dream and steal a bunch of money, just live it up with the CBGs por vida.

  Imagine that.

  Staying in classy hotels all around the world, getting money whenever we needed it, enjoying that good one-percenter life and enjoying breathtaking views wherever we went; caviar for breakfast with a side of truffles; a couple Teslas in the garage; AppleSoft everything including their most expensive TV stand money can steal.

  Shit, we could really live like royalty, like that show that the rapper Two Chains did for a couple years that had him sampling all the world’s most expensive crap.

  But really in the end, that’s what it was, crap.

  And call it the maniacal Puritan in me, but I didn’t want to see people suffer, and I didn’t like that people were being exploited.

  So scratch that idea of living the lifestyle of the rich and infamous, the CBGs were destined to live the life of powerful paupers.

  I sighed as I took another sip of my mimosa.

  Vince Porter: I thought you would never ask.

  Me: So you can get something like that?

  Vince Porter: You know who you’re talking to, right?

  Me: The star of my next book?

  Vince Porter: I’m just waiting on HHTA2.

  Me: You aren’t the only one, bromigo. Well, you are one of the only ones, but there are a few others who have asked me about it. I just can’t get motivated to do that right now. This new life of mine is…

  Vince Porter: You don’t got time, I get it. But for real, as soon as you know which hotel you are staying in BJ, let me know, and I’ll have it overnighted to you. Luckily, it’s coming from Asia so it shouldn’t be that hard.

  Me: BJ?

  Vince Porter: Abbreviation for Beijing. Get with it, Gideon.

  Me: That seems like a very dangerous abbreviation.

  Vince Porter: It’s legit, look it up.

  Me: I know what I’ll get if I type “BJ” into GoogleFace.

  Vince Porter: That’s because your mind ain’t right and GFace knows you’re a freak. LOL. Yo, who should I address the package to?

  Me: Edward King.

  Vince Porter: That’s such a fuckboy name.

  Me: I thought it had sort of a Team Rocket feel to it.

  Vince Porter: Why would you want to be like those dumbasses? Although that one chick was fine. Forget her name.

  Me: For real.

  Vince Porter: One more thing, if I’m sending it to China, you’re going to need to message me on one of their apps. Just get WuBo GoogleFakebook. Download it as soon as you have Internet access. You can add me on there: Vince_Porter. East AF.

  Me: That’s right, the Internet won’t work in BJ.

  Vince Porter:

  Me:

  I still hadn’t received a response from the second person I’d emailed, but it may have been due to the time difference between here and America. Vince was up at weird hours, I got that, especially considering he had a workshop behind his home. But there was no telling when James-Andrew’s producers would be awake.

  I had also CC’d Jake Archibald, just so he knew what I was up to. I figured there would be an advertising angle with it, but I wasn’t expecting to get an email back from him as we descended into Beijing telling me that Carmen Hooper was going to be part of the interview.

  Really?

  I recalled the comedian who had hosted our last event, and couldn’t for the life of me understand why she wanted to get involved with something like this again. The point was not to have a lot of people there, just to get the message out. But Jake seemed pretty firm about it, and if Carmen was down with it, there was little I could do about it.

  The only thing is, Grace thought to me, it’ll give us one more person to protect. Aside from the producer and the camera people, and the makeup artist. I don’t know who else will be there.

  Are you reading my emails through me?

  Of course I am. I have to monitor the situation, Writer Gideon.

  I looked up at the front of the plane, at the back of Grace’s head.

  Fine, I guess I’d better hide the email about a surprise trip I am planning to Miami.

  There are better beaches...

  I don’t know, you haven
’t been to Florida.

  Let’s just deal with Beijing first.

  It was super sweet flying on a private jet, especially one owned by the Emperor of Japan. We landed at the airport, there was no BS, and a limousine was already waiting for us on the runway, meaning I didn’t have to keep my old man Gideon looks. It was the most VIP I had ever felt, even if the environment we landed in was…

  Not so great.

  From what I could tell, Beijing was basically a city trapped in a gray cloud of pollution. I could barely see fifteen feet in front of us, and there wasn’t anything on the skyline that I could make out either. Sure, the sun was in the sky, but it was a mellow yellow that looked like someone had drowned it in milk.

  Not pretty.

  Our driver, a Chinese man, opened the door of the limousine and waited for all of us to get in before shutting it.

  “You’ve got to be f’n kidding me,” Michelle said, trying to contain her excitement by squeezing her fists together and pursing her lips. “Are we seriously in a limo?”

  “It looks like we are.” Dorian went for a bottle of champagne that was chilling in a bucket of ice next to the backseat and poured up a glass.

  “You guys wanted to ride in a limo, right?” I asked with a shrug. “I made it happen.”

  “Please,” Veronique said as the driver started up, taking a private road that led off the runway. “We were the ones that saved the Emperor.”

  “But it was my idea. Ask and you shall receive…”

  She nodded, giving me the evil eye. “You’re not wrong there.”

  “And the tracker is coming, right?” Ingrid asked me.

  “I reached out to Vince while we were on the plane. As soon as we arrive at the hotel, I’m supposed to send them the info. And before anyone worries, I know that the Internet’s not the same in China, so Vince and I have already worked out how to deal with that. In fact…”

  I pressed the button that lowered the window separating us from the driver.

  “Can I help you, sir?” he asked in lightly accented English.

  “Does this limo have Wi-Fi?”