“I remember when you got that…” Dorian twisted in the air and steadied herself.
“Do you even know how to use a typewriter?” Chloe asked me.
“I mean, I know how to type, but to answer your question, no, I don’t know how to use one.”
“So, you have a tattoo of something that you have no idea how to use, right?”
“Don’t beat me up about my tattoo idea,” I told Chloe, “it was spur of the moment.”
“That’s the best time to get a tattoo,” Dorian said.
We came closer to the lights, confirming that it was indeed the Great Wall. At that point, we changed our trajectory, flying above the Great Wall, high enough away that the lights couldn’t pick up our forms.
It was an amazing structure to see from above, and it also made me think of how little help it had been once Genghis Khan came charging through.
Having now spent time in Mongolia, it was hard to imagine the friendly people were once the great Mongol warriors, the stuff of nightmares to most of the known world at the time. But rather than do a deep dive on Central Asian history, I let my thoughts go for a moment, just enjoying the view, the breeze.
It was a bit cold out, but I felt warm, which I knew had something to do with Chloe’s power. Of all the CBGs who could fly, I liked the way her flying ability felt the best, a low rumble all along my body, as if I were getting a light massage.
“This is awesome,” Dorian announced to both of us. “Just what I needed.”
“We’re going to go back to America soon, right?” Chloe asked me. “Maybe we could do this along famous places in America too, like the Grand Canyon.”
“After Tokyo, yes, we’ll go back to America. At least for a while.”
“Good, because I think that we still need to check Mexico for Hummingbird. We could just fly around the area; I know it sounds like a long shot, but I just have a feeling.”
“I have the same feeling as you,” I told her. “In my head, I keep saying that he’s in Mexico, and maybe it’s me trying to tell myself something.”
“Or Grace trying to tell you something through yourself,” Dorian chimed in.
“A very real possibility, yes.”
We changed directions along with the wall, the wind picking up and settling, quiet enough for us to speak.
“Of all the CBGs, she’s the one I would trust the least,” Dorian said, “but I just accept this fact now, and having done so, I trust her completely. Is that strange?”
“It sounds like she’s in your head,” Chloe said.
“And she’s not in yours?”
“I really don’t know. But since we’re all in this together, and we’re always around each other, then sure, she’s probably in my head as well.”
“What do you think her real personality is like?” Dorian asked. “I mean, I see some parts of it, more of the softer side, and possibly the emotional side, but her actual personality. Like what does she like?”
“How did this become a discussion about Grace?” I asked.
“We can talk about anything up here,” Chloe said, “it’s not like anyone can hear us.”
I nodded. “Well, let’s talk about everyone in that case. Veronique is stilted but sweet in her own way; Stella is a bit like Veronique but finally warming up to me; Michelle has ADHD and I worry about her heart sometimes considering that she’s constantly bouncing around the room; Ingrid isn’t the funnest person to be around, but she’s an integral part of this team and I believe as she grows older she will become even more important.”
“And me?”
“You’re Dorian. You like to give me crap sometimes, but you are one of the easiest to get along with and, as you said, quite spontaneous.”
“And me?”
“Well, Chloe, you’re kind and powerful, a bit mysterious, but that’s because you’re the last to join our group.”
“Mysterious?” Chloe laughed as she sped ahead. “I’ll take it.”
“Do you think anyone else will ever join the Cherry Blossom Girls?” Dorian asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not opposed to other members, but we seem to have a pretty tightknit group as it stands. Actually, I have this feeling that Arianna would have joined had we not let Angel take her.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, but maybe that was just in my head, maybe because she looked like Veronique, I assumed she would be like Veronique. And seriously, I know you two weren’t there, but Veronique literally tried to kill Grace the first time she met us. So if she could change, I’m pretty sure that Arianna could change as well. I don’t know. Just an assumption, and maybe I’m projecting a bit. Not everyone is good. Not everyone has what it takes to be a superhero.”
Dorian snorted. “I was with you until that last line. We aren’t superheroes, Gideon, we’re just superpowered individuals trying not to be an evil force in the world.”
“Maybe I should reframe the way I think of us,” I told her. “And it’s probably because of my childhood growing up in America in a post-superhero world that I have these ideas, these conceptions.”
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe we could just enjoy the rest of this flight,” Chloe said. “After all, how often does one get to take a private tour of the Great Wall of China?”
“Not often enough,” Dorian said.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Parent Trap
There was a gray haze obscuring the morning sun, something foreboding about it, making me feel sorry for the people that lived here. Was there ever a clear day here? Was there ever a day that went by when people could actually look up and see the sun, a blue sky overhead, fluffy clouds?
But I guess that was the price one paid to live in a city like this, one of the biggest in the world, the center of the universe that was China.
What a life.
My phone buzzed and I ignored it, still looking out at the gray cloud that hung over the city.
“Your phone,” Michelle said, appearing at my side. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, the young speedster in one of the kid robes provided by the hotel. “Also, the hotel people delivered the package from Vince.” She nodded to a box on the table.
“Cool.”
“It’s the tracking device, right?”
“It is,” I said, noticing my phone buzzing again. I glanced down to see a message on WuBo GoogleFakebook.
Michelle watched the expression on my face change. “What’s wrong, Gideon?”
“Oh no, oh no…”
I nearly spilled my cup of coffee as I tried to get to a place to sit down, to take in what I’d just seen. I read the message again and again.
No.
Writer Gideon, what is it? Grace asked inside my head.
“Dammit,” I said, feeling a wave of anxiety move over me. My breaths were shorter now as I reread the message, trying to come to grips with how we were going to make this work.
“What is it, Gideon? I can help. I can run in there. What is it?” Michelle asked, feeding off my sudden frenzy.
“Let me see,” Ingrid said as she moved over to me, swiping my phone out of my hand. I didn’t fight back or anything, I simply let her take it. She read the message, her eyes going wide.
“That is… Very bad.” She handed the phone back to me. “I’ll go get the others.”
“What happened? Is Clarence okay? Is it Father? What happened? Please, tell me,” Michelle said, almost in tears.
“It’s not your fault, don’t worry,” I assured her. “I… my…”
My phone buzzed again, and as much as I hated to, I slid my finger across the green button.
“Gideon Caldwell,” Natalie Johansson said, offering me a big smile.
All I could see behind her was a thick forest of green trees, a slight breeze moving through some of the limbs.
“Don’t you fucking touch a hair on their goddamn heads,” I said, pointing my finger at the camera, feeling stupid for threatening someone over video. If there were an ability that wou
ld allow me to slip my consciousness into a phone and out another I would have done it in that moment and killed her.
“Walk with me,” Natalie said. The woman was clearly using a selfie stick. She started to move around the tree line, a confident grin on her face. “Remember when you killed my cousin in Nevada?”
“That wasn’t us,” I told her, seething now.
“Remember Tokyo? My employee that you decapitated, remember her?” she asked.
“Why are you talking to her?” Michelle asked, but I waved her away, letting her know that I needed to focus.
“I swear to you, Natalie, if you…”
“Hang up the phone,” Dorian said, appearing in front of me, a flash of purple energy radiating off her skin. “We will go there now.”
“One moment,” I said, my finger up in the air.
“So you want to come here?” Natalie asked playfully. “And you are currently in… Somewhere in Asia, right? Possibly China? Hmmm… Or maybe you’re back in Nepal, or Japan. I like visiting Japan, the people there are so friendly.”
The actress gave me a predatory smile as she turned back in the direction that she had come from, allowing me a glimpse of my uncle’s house as she did.
“Don’t you dare…” I said, realizing that my threats had no power over her, that there was little I could do to prevent Natalie from doing anything.
“Is there something you would like to say to them?” she asked as she approached the house, the video going jittery for a moment. I heard the squeak of the back porch door as she opened it.
Natalie made her way to the kitchen, past family photos on the wall, where she paused, that same wicked smile on her face.
“I swear to God…”
The CBGs had gathered around me now, Veronique’s face so red with anger that it looked like she was about to explode. Energy was radiating off her fists, her shoulders hunched forward.
Relax, Writer Gideon, Grace said inside my head. If you get too angry you won’t be able to figure out a solution to this. I’m going to tell Chloe to help you relax.
“No…” I started to tell Grace.
“No?” Natalie asked. “You don’t want to see your parents?”
“Yes, I mean, of course…”
“Too bad.” Natalie moved past the living room, the camera skipping over my parents and my uncle. Instead, I saw a towering figure standing in the living room, his arms crossed over his chest, a tattooed smile across his face.
“Smiley,” Ingrid said.
A strange wave of relaxation rolled over me, and even though I was still boiling with rage, it gave me a second to catch my breath, to figure this out.
“What do you want?” I finally asked Natalie, rather than threatening her.
“Twelve hours. You have twelve hours to get to your uncle’s place in Vermont, or I’ll have Smiley here kill your parents and your uncle. Or maybe I’ll spare your uncle’s life.” She shrugged. “I guess a cousin and a former employee for a couple of parents and an uncle isn’t quite an eye for an eye, but no one said that I needed to be biblical about this, and I never really was that religious to begin with.”
“You just want us to come there?” I asked.
“Is that so much to ask? What part of what I have already said here do you fail to comprehend? Twelve hours from now. What time is it where you are?”
I fumbled to check the time on my phone. It was a little after six in the morning.
“Six fifteen in the morning.”
Natalie grinned. “How convenient is that? It’s six fifteen at night here. I guess that makes this even easier for you, so hopefully, I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow. If not, well, I guess you can already figure out what happens next.”
“I want to talk to them; I want to know that they are okay.”
“Sorry,” Natalie said, hanging up the call.
I tried to call her back again and again. While I frantically pressed buttons on my phone, the CBGs started hatching a plot to get back to the states to help me save my parents.
Eventually, Dorian came to me, taking the phone from my hand.
“I… shit…” I said, biting my lip.
“We’ll get there by then,” Dorian assured me. “We won’t let Natalie kill your parents.”
Chapter Thirty-Four: Reverse Red Eye to California
I checked the calculations again, my hand trembling as I tried to get ahold of myself. I knew that the distance between Beijing and Japan would not be as difficult as crossing the Pacific Ocean. We were all suited up now, our loose Nepali clothing over our uniforms.
Ready to go.
“A little over thirteen hundred miles,” I said, confirming again through a different search. “Within your range.”
“Everyone get what they need,” Dorian said, a determined look on her face. “We’re leaving in five minutes or less.”
I took a deep breath in. We were going to do this, we were going to make it, and it would take confidence and belief in Dorian’s ability for that to happen.
“Where exactly are we going in Tokyo?” Ingrid asked.
“Let’s make it easy; let’s go back to the hotel that we originally stayed at.”
Dorian nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. And we can go to the rooftop from there.”
“We don’t need to go to the rooftop,” Grace said. “But we’ll probably want to refuel and relax to prepare for the long trip over the ocean.”
“She’s right,” I said, nodding to the psychic shifter, who was in her base form, her bleach blonde hair pulled up into a bun. “Everyone have their phones? Grab anything else you want, and don’t forget the tracking device.”
“Already in my bag,” Ingrid said.
“We don’t have our disguises anymore,” Stella reminded me. “All that stuff is in India.”
“And it’s a damn shame too. Maybe we will send Grace to grab some stuff in Tokyo. Food too.”
“We have to get back to America,” Michelle said.
“We have twelve hours. We have to do this smartly, and Dorian is going to need to recharge every time. I can already think of a couple issues that we’re going to run into. But we’ll solve them. From Tokyo, we’ll start making our way across the Pacific.”
“Are we going to an island?” Michelle asked.
“Something like that.”
“I’m ready,” Chloe said.
“We won’t let her do this to your family,” said Stella.
And rather than bask in the sentimental moment that could have happened, Dorian merely stepped forward, motioning everyone to touch her.
We appeared in the tunnel made of purple electricity, Dorian already running ahead, Michelle easily catching up with her, smiling as she kept up with the punk rock teleporter. I knew this was going to be uncomfortable for me, but I tried to keep up, ignoring the shift in gravity in my stomach, the way my chest felt like it would explode.
We had to do this. I had to get there.
We appeared at the hotel in Tokyo, startling a German tourist.
Grace had his mind in a matter of seconds, the man lying down in the corner, his back to us.
“Can’t you just send him out?” Veronique asked.
“I thought you would like to feed,” Grace said.
“Right, I’ll do that then.”
Veronique crouched in front of the man and drained him, enough that his skin started to change color. Once she was done I healed him up, looking to Dorian and seeing her staring at her phone and scrolling through a map.
Ingrid had her phone as well, calculating distances, and Stella seemed to be engaged with both of them, a piece of paper in front of her that she had taken from the man. She had a pencil as well, and was writing out calculations.
“Good,” I said, turning to Grace.
“Gideon and I are going to get food,” Grace said. “We’ll be back shortly, with some disguises just in case they’re necessary. They may not be.”
“I’m going with you two
,” Veronique said.
“Fine by us.”
We took the elevator down to the main floor to find the old Japanese woman watching a daytime soap. She looked at us with surprise until Grace took over, the woman simply nodding, immediately moving toward the kitchen.
“A home-cooked meal?” I asked Grace as we stepped onto the streets of Ueno.
“I thought it would be a nice touch.”
We made our way straight to the black market, Grace in her pastor’s wife form, yours truly as old man Gideon and Veronique quickly getting a disguise by finding a hat and a pair of sunglasses.
We quickly got a backpack, beanies, sunglasses, scarves and a few hats just in case.
We returned to the hotel and gave the backpack to Stella, who readily put it on.
“Let me wear one of the hats,” Michelle said, choosing one with a picture of Mt. Fuji on it.
“So what’s the plan?” Veronique asked.
“There are two ways that we can do this,” Dorian began. “One is to go from Tokyo to Wake Island, and from there we can make the leap to Honolulu, and from there to California.”
“Why do I get a feeling that that’s not going to be as easy as it sounds?”
“Because it isn’t. The distance between Tokyo and Wake Island is nearly two thousand miles, which is the upper limits of my teleportation range. And there are nearly twenty-three hundred miles between Wake Island and Honolulu.”
“What’s the other option?” the metal vampire asked.
“The other option would still have us going to Wake Island, but we would make the shorter leap to the Midway Atoll, which is about fifteen hundred miles. We would then go from Midway to Hawaii. We would still have a long stretch between Hawaii and California of about twenty-five hundred miles.”
“But you can only teleport two thousand…” Veronique said.
Dorian looked to me. “Hopefully, we can fix that.”
I was already looking at my phone by the time she said this, curious as to what I could do to her stats to make this work. The thing was, her teleportation distance was already at its highest number, but maybe there was a way for me to augment the distance by turning everything else down.
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