He looks at me, eyes wide open. “We’re really going to do this, then? Go back and save them?”
I smile, there are days I love my job. “Yes. There are a few caveats.” I point at Carlos and Kate. “When we're done saving your family, we need to go back and bring one more person forward in time.”
Frank looks around. The elation that was so clear on his face a moment before fading almost as fast. “Who?” he asks.
“This isn’t really well known,” Carlos says, speaking up when the rest of us remain quiet. “The Protector is a calling, not a superhero. A symbol left by the ancient Greek gods to help mankind on a path to peace.”
“Ancient... Greek... gods?” Frank looks from Carlos to me. “And you believe this?” he asks me.
Carlos’ veins bulge and I almost chuckle. Kate puts a reassuring hand on him and he relaxes.
“Yes. I do. The Protector has a guide—a mentor. Her name was Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi. She could see versions of the future kind of like how you go to versions of the future.”
“How come she hasn’t seen any of this? Warn you about your boyfriend? Or Strungel? It doesn’t sound like she’s much of a fortune teller,” he says with a smirk.
Now I’m feeling my blood start to boil. I may not have been the biggest fan of Pythia, but she did save my life. “Frank, first of all, she didn’t warn us because she died saving my life. And second of all—” I can’t believe I’m about to say this. “A man who travels through time shouldn’t throw stones.”
I guess I was a little more forceful than I intended because Frank takes a step back and looks appropriately chastised. “Sorry… it’s a lot to take in. What do you want me to do?”
Carlos glances at Kate and she squeezes his shoulder. Then he says, “We want you to take us”—he nods at Kate— “back in time to four-hundred AD, and bring the Oracle of that time forward with us. I need her guidance. The whole reason we started looking for you was to ask for help,” he says with a shrug.
Frank takes his ever-present rain hat off and runs a hand through his thinning hair. “I’ve... I’ve never gone back that far. I did twenty years once and it took a lot out of me. We could try, though. Why so far back?”
“She told me once that people stopped seeking her guidance after four-hundred. That she spent the next sixteen-hundred years in solitude. I know it left her in pain. I’d spare her that, if I could.”
Franks rubs his chin, clearly thinking about it. “You know I can’t alter the past, right? Once I take her I will have created a new timeline where her world goes on without her. She will be here with us, but the world we create won’t have a Pythia or anything she might have done.”
I hadn’t thought about that. Which means when we also take Frank’s wife and daughters... There will be a timeline where they are missing... and a Frank Parker in their reality looking for them. What if he goes and takes them from his past? And then so on and so forth. This isn’t quite a causality loop, but it’s similar.
Carlos arrives at the same conclusion I do, about three seconds after me. “I hadn’t thought about that, but it doesn’t change what I need to do. Can you do it?” he asks.
“I suppose there’s no harm in trying. But I want to save Jasmine and the girls first,” he says, then looks at Carlos and Kate. “I’m sorry, I do want to help you, but if your trip kills me... I want to know my girls are safe.”
Kate smiles at him with her trademark look designed to relax people. “It’s okay, Frank, we understand. We’ll get your girls and then we’ll see about the rest. What do we do next?”
I look over at the pod. It’s one hundred percent ready; we just need to go. “If I understand you correctly, you can travel in space and time?”
He nods and says, “If I’ve been there before it’s easier. I can take us right back to DC from here. But for our trip to Greece... I’ll need to be in Greece.”
“That’s easy enough,” Carlos says with a smile. “I happen to have a timeshare there.”
A snort that escapes my nose and I quickly cover it with a cough. I hate it when I snort. “Right, okay, let’s suit up.”
The inside of the pod is molded, designed to fit two adults on the outside and two smaller people in between. The layout is head to foot, not shoulder to shoulder; it saves on room.
“Are you sure this thing is safe?” Kate asks as she crawls in. I buckle her in using the built-in harness, then proceed to use the Velcro manacles to secure her legs.
“There’s a built-in air supply for twenty-four hours, an emergency kit, a radioactive decay beacon—you name it. I put everything I could think of into it.”
“Yes, but is it safe?” she asks again, looking me square in the eyes.
I’m tempted to joke, but she’s scared. Which in itself is odd because I’ve never known my Kate to be scared of anything. I put my hand on hers. “You’re safe, Kate, I won’t let anything go wrong.”
She smiles. “I believe you.”
I give her one last squeeze before reaching up and closing the lid. It hisses as the seal activates. The monitor on the outside shows all systems green.
Amelia, may I recommend the MK VI flight suit. This way you will have maximum speed.
“Spin up the MK VII, Epic,” I say, wheeling over to the loading chair.
The MK VII? It isn’t nearly as maneuverable as—
“The MK VII,” I say again. I don’t want to have this conversation in front of Carlos. Frank is in his own place, focusing on where we need to be. Carlos, however, hasn’t had anything to do but stand around and wait. He glances at me when I have my pseudo-argument with Epic. “I just want to cover all my bases,” I say by way of explanation.
Once the chair is locked in place I move from it to the specially designed chair attached to the wall.
“Epic, initiate.”
177
Amelia, I feel like you are not telling me something... something important.
“I’m sorry, Epic, I didn’t want to talk about it where Carlos could hear.” The suit finishes coming on around me and I’m deposited back in the lab. The wall splits open and I pick up my new BFG. As soon as I touch it, everything comes alive on the weapon. Fully loaded, fully charged, all safeguards intact. I modified it slightly. I couldn’t have foreseen someone trying to use it in my proximity with Epic offline. That was a mistake I won’t make again. This one will self-destruct, but the damage will be limited to the rifle and very little else.
May I ask what you are planning then?
I clip the rifle onto my back, run the diagnostics on the rest of the suit, then turn to Frank. The suit comes back 100% green. She’s good to go.
“Yes. I’m going to save Sydney,” I tell Epic as I go take my place next to the pod. It has two handles, one on either side. Frank sits on top, his feet braced against the edges, a hand on Carlos and me.
“You two ready?” he asks.
Amelia, it will not change our time...
“I know, but it will make me feel better.” I flip on the comms with a blink. “I’m ready Frank. Let’s rock and roll.” I supplied him with an earpiece and glasses so he could communicate with Epic and us.
“This is going to feel a little weird.”
He closes his eyes for a moment. Sensors in the suit go crazy. Alarms ring as gravity fluctuates up and down. Fear, real fear, clenches my gut. I don’t know if this was such a good idea after all.
Then the portal opens. Energy swirls clockwise around the vortex. The air flows like water in the center, almost like we’re jumping into the ocean. “Hang on!” he yells. We lift up, leaving my stomach behind, and orient with our feet to the portal, then we fall.
I scream. I’ve never been bungee jumping before, and if this is how it feels, I never will. The G’s pile up to fifty almost instantly, more than enough to turn even the most advanced fighter jet into a cloud of expanding gas. Not me, though, and not Carlos. We’re not in a tunnel, per see, but it feels like it. The only light is far in the
distance. I can’t risk trying to look behind us, I don’t even want to think about what will happen if we lose contact with Frank in here.
The light in front of us flares brighter as we close in. From a pinpoint it expands to encompass everything in a near blinding flash, then we’re falling again in a violent change of direction. We hit the ground. My brain is just sure the ground isn’t supposed to be there and it takes a second for everything to catch up.
It’s night time in DC. The lights are still on, so the blackout hasn’t happened yet. We’re on the sidewalk. Epic taps into the local GPS satellites to find our position.
We are one block east of Pennsylvania Ave. Behemoth will make her appearance in approximately one minute.
“How come we just don’t go back farther, take them from your home?” Carlos asks.
Frank just looks at him for a second. “That would be mean. The Frank here—he’s at work right now. He said goodbye, told them he loved them. He’s going to lose them no matter what. Taking them sooner would just be... cruel.”
Carlos shrugs. “Whatever you say. Where are they?”
Frank looks back behind us and slides off the pod. “They’re coming from that direction,” he says, pointing.
The pod hisses as it opens. “Get me out of this thing,” Kate demands. Carlos runs over and starts unbuckling her.
“Not fun?” he asks.
“More like going on a roller coaster with your eyes closed. I thought I was going to hurl,” she says while he finishes unfastening her. Kate leaps out with her usual grace, but with a hand on her stomach as if she’s holding its contents back.
“I’m going to scout the area, make sure we're safe from Behemoth’s initial attack. Radio me when you have her,” I say. I don’t wait for the response. Kicking in the Emdrive I blast off into the night sky.
EMP in ten seconds.
“This will go down exactly like it did in our timeline? Right?”
If Mr. Parker is to be believed, yes. We are in the past until the moment he returns us to his present. Therefore, events should play out exactly the same.
The ECM master alarm screams at me as my number three ZPFM flips into high gear, protecting the suit from the ECM. The team’s comms were set to power down right before and come back on a few seconds later; they should be fine.
Behemoth is beginning her attack on the White House.
At three hundred feet up, gunfire and explosions light up the White House lawn plain as day. The semi-truck she used to get close to the grounds without being seen is torn to pieces as she and hundreds of warbots storm out of the remains.
Fifty secret service agents fire their weapons ineffectively at the machines. Green plasma fires back, vaporizing flesh and blowing huge holes in the White House.
Amelia, you will be arriving soon.
“Contact this timeline’s version of Epic, explain it to him,” I say. It’s a risk. Will he believe us?
That’s when I see them. Bricklayer and Samantha Contee. I can save two lives that matter to me today, not to mention countless more.
“Go full auto on the grenade launcher, get her attention. And unlock the rifle.” I could go with the Sword, but from past experience, I know it won’t kill her. The rifle though? Without a doubt.
I kick in the Emdrive and break the sound barrier for a heartbeat before throwing everything in full reverse to slam into the ground between Behemoth and Samantha. Epic launches a flurry of HE grenades that devastate the nearest warbots. I still don’t like the idea of killing her. What if she were telling the truth when we spoke in the prison vehicle? Or what if she were saying what she believed was the truth...
“Epic, I’m gonna try something crazy.”
“Arsenal? New armor huh, well that was fast. Don’t worry, though,” she says, slamming her fist into her palm creating a small seismic shockwave. “I’m gonna tear you apart.”
“Karen,” I say over the PA, loud enough to be heard, even over the explosions. “Listen, you’re wrong. Ericsson isn’t going to win. And even if he did, the Th’un have infiltrated Cat-7. The moment they show up in our star system all his tech is going to go dark and we all die anyway.” I speak as fast as I can without tripping over my words. Behemoth is incredibly quick, quicker than someone of her size ought to be.
“What?” She pulls up short, just a foot in front of me. I have the rifle pointed down and my kinetic shields to full power. “How do you know his name?” she asks.
“Harold Ericsson. He was born in 1903. He switches bodies telepathically each time his current body dies. And tomorrow, Karen, is the last time he will do it.”
“How do you know this?” she screams at me.
“Because I’m going to throw him into the sun. Once he’s past the Van Allen Belt he can’t ever come back. It blocks his powers. Then I am going to defeat the aliens and save the planet. Karen, you have to believe me, please.” Until this moment, I didn’t realize I was here to save three lives. My Behemoth made her bed, just like this one, but the difference here is, I know how the future turns out.
She shakes her head. “No. You’re lying. You can’t know any of this.”
“I know how this is going to go. You’re not going to believe me, but I promise you, in five minutes you will. I know all of this because, for me, it’s already happened. I’m from two years in the future.” While shock rolls over her and she chews on this, I switch to internals and talk to Epic. “Epic, instruct the Marshals and the Secret Service agents to fall back to the interior of the White House. Ask this timeline’s Amelia to hang back long enough for me to handle the situation.”
Done. You are confident she will listen?
“I would.”
Carefully, as not to look aggressive, I sling the rifle on my back and free my hands. I know the rifle will kill her; I’ve done the math. It’s not the SDF-1 but it strikes with enough force over a small enough area, I’m ninety-nine percent sure it will take her out.
“You’re so full of crap your armor is brown. You should have shot me,” she growls as she charges forward.
“Full power kinetic emitters, maximum force,” I tell Epic as she charges. I’m not stronger than her—I can’t beat her in a straight-up fight. But I don’t have to beat her. She looms large above me and I strike. The ZPFM whines as power flows from it into the super-capacitor for one massive burst. Like the world’s largest rubber band snapping, the energy pops as I slam my fist into her chest. I only have a second to register the shock on her face as she flies backward into the semi-truck she emerged from. The cab explodes in a fireball that lights up the sky, casting long shadows on the White House lawn.
“Carlos, I need you here,” I say over the comms.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“At the White House. Look for the explosion.”
He doesn’t answer for a second. “Amelia, what are you doing?”
“Righting a wrong. Kate can handle Frank’s family. I need you here.”
Behemoth emerges from the flaming debris. She scowls as she stomps forward. The US Marshals and Secret Service Agents listened, thankfully. They’ve all retreated to the White House.
“I don’t know how you did that, little girl. But I am going to peel you out of that armor and bathe in your blood!”
I stand my ground. Epic updates Carlos’ position and he’ll be here any second. “I don’t think so, Karen. You can’t beat both of us.”
“Both of you—”
Her charge is interrupted as Carlos falls from the sky. He didn’t use his spear to travel, he just leaped. Landing with a ground-shaking rumble he stands right up, shield out, and takes her charge on Aegis. A thunderclap echoes and the shockwave rips up grass and cracks concrete as it emanates out from between them. Behemoth takes a step back, shaking her head clear.
“Sydney, I am... You’re not Sydney?” Behemoth stutters.
“No,” Carlos says. He glances back at me. He has to be wondering what the hell I’m doing. Me too.
/> “Karen, this is the new Protector. Tonight, if you don’t stop, you murder Sydney,” I say. “You do it by clapping your hands over his ears with all your strength. I suspect you’ve known how to do this for some time. Maybe something you learned while you were dating.”
Her eyes go wide. For the first time, something other than black pits of hate stare back at me. “I... I wouldn’t kill him...”
I shake my head. “But you do. He comes to stop you. To save me. When he does, you murder him. You leave the world defenseless. Without hope. Please, Karen, please listen to me. The world is stronger with you in it. You’re right about one thing—the aliens are coming and we have to be united to defeat them. Work with us. Help us stop them.”
For a second a mask of rage and hate passes over her face, then it’s gone. Her eyes clear and for the first time, I see the woman beneath the monster.
“I... I believe you. Ericsson… he told me this was the only way and... and I really thought it was.”
I nod. “I know. Help this world, Karen. Be a force for good.”
The whine of the Emdrive catches my attention and this timeline’s Arsenal lands beside me.
Behemoth looks between the two of us, confusion on her face.
“Amelia,” I say.
“Amelia,” my other-self says. “This is both weird and awesome.”
The armor I wore to fight Behemoth that first time looks like a Model-T compared to my MK VII. I’ve come so far in such a short amount of time.
“It really is true?” Behemoth asks.
“Epic, retract faceplate,” I tell him. He does. “Behemoth, you may not believe this, but I am trying to save your life. With it, a lot of lives. You can do such good if you try. I know you can. The Th’un are already here. Help us fight them.”
Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 95
