“I never was inside those trucks.” Mostly due to a fear that the feds might have shut me inside with the statues. “Right before that, I was inside the farmhouse for almost an hour.” Fisher didn’t believe this, and Beth was starting to look concerned. “How can I prove it to you? The couple who owned it thought I was a cop and talked my ear off. That’s what took me so long to leave.” That, and the wife had insisted on running my clothes though a quick wash and dry so I wouldn’t be embarrassed.
“What were their names?” Fisher asked.
Somehow, I don’t think he would have accepted Army Gandalf and Tall Betty White. I need to get better at this.
“Their golden retriever’s name was Rosco,” I answered, hoping that would be enough. At least the terror of me seemed to leave Fisher and Beth. “The wife collects salt and pepper shaker sets. They were all over the kitchen. The husband runs some sort of P.T.S.D. support group.” I started checking my pockets. “He gave me a card—probably thought my hands shaking was from almost being shot.”
I found the business card and held it out to him. Fisher looked at it and then brought out an identical one from his coat pocket. He’d met them, too—before I had.
“Do dogs like you?” Fisher asked.
I shrugged. “If I have treats or pet them just like anyone else. Some breeds can sense me as an initial threat, but I can’t fault them for that. It’s just biology.”
“Are golden retrievers one of those breeds?” Beth asked. I shook my head. “Rosco would stop barking while Fisher and I were there. They kept trying to calm him down, but he stayed by the door facing the trucks. I think I saw you in the field with Dex and Green Nova at the time. Another door would have been closer to all of you.”
“Rosco did the same thing while I was there,” I sighed, realizing I’d been too distracted and thought the dog was barking because of all the strangers around. “Someone else was setting him off—probably from my era. I don’t understand why, but some of Minos’s allies are my distant relatives. At a distance, none of you would have known any different. No one else was supposed to be there.” I looked at the door leading to the pods. “Mind if I take a look around in there? I want to check something. I’ll be fine, and I promise I won’t disturb any evidence I find.”
“I’ll go with you—at least to watch your back,” Beth offered, but I shook my head. “If someone in there takes you off-guard—”
“I can kill them on instinct—which is why you don’t need to be in the same vicinity,” I replied. “What happened at the park can’t happen again, Beth—ever. You got lucky, and it may take me decades to get full control over my powers again. If you trust me, let me do this. You and Fisher are the next line of defense for this place if anything else goes wrong. Always look out for your people first—not me. That’s the only way I’ll be able to stick around and help you.”
She didn’t like it but placed her palm on a scanner. “Be careful in there.”
I waited until the door shut behind me before I flew up about forty feet to the ceiling. Physically, I felt good. I felt great.
Too great. Part of me was craving a fight that wasn’t going to happen. Even the larger creatures like the giant were motionless. I focused on any signs of movement until I felt sure it was safe to land. This wasn’t a prison anymore. It was a tomb.
“You okay in there?” Beth’s voice came over an overhead speaker. I gave her a thumbs-up. “I just heard from Tiros. He said to thank you for your villain army—that the guards there fled the moment they saw them and the heroes working together. All the kids are safe—even a few who weren’t on the map. A lot of them are malnourished from being held captive, but there were no major casualties. You did it, Icarus.”
I felt relived, but the overall situation still felt hollow—wrong. Looking around, I couldn’t separate the psychopathic criminals from the blackmailed parents. A few of them may have been both.
I couldn’t blame Fisher or Beth for their deaths—or the feds in general for having these kinds of measures in place. They had to protect innocent civilians the only way they knew how. Most of these facilities were within range of major cities because of the power they required. Any major containment breach left them no other viable options.
Like pieces on a damn game board.
It took me a minute to locate Ponytail and his henchmen’s pods. They were more human than statue now, which made them easier to search. If the feds hadn’t been in such a hurry to freeze them, they may have found the transmitters on their ankles—just maybe not have known what they were.
Extreme cold can’t damage our era’s tech, and these devices had been designed to use temperature as a switch—broadcasting signals to the motion sensors as if all the prisoners had attempted to escape at once. The automated systems in the pods had done the rest.
I know what you’re thinking, heroes. This wasn’t me. This was someone like me—just a lot more efficient. Someone who didn’t care if a few compromised parents died in the mix. After all, heroes risk their lives every day, right? Wasn’t our world about to be a much safer place because of their sacrifices?
Dad taught me there are two good reasons to walk into a known trap—when you think you can turn it around, and when you love someone else more than your own life. It was ingrained into me like a pattern—a strength and a blind spot all rolled into one. It had made me a fantastic game piece for him, too—probably more times than I even knew.
The worst kinds of traps target your ego along with your heart, and you never see them coming until it’s too late.
We had all been played.
THE NICE GRANDMA WAITRESS AT THE BREAKFAST RESTAURANT in Corvus is named Jean. She seemed mad at me for leaving her a tip for the free food last time, but her revenge was to give me a tall stack of blueberry pancakes. I look forward to several future battles with her. That’s what all good wars should be—food-based. Not this sick tangled shit I can’t get out of my head.
“I thought I’d find you here.” Beth approached my table and sat down instead of instantly appearing across from me, so that was progress. She’s the first teleporter I’ve ever known. Back at the park, I just thought she could run or fly fast enough to keep up with me. “Daniel said you’ve stopped calling and responding to his meeting invites since you left us yesterday. He’s just worried about you. We all are.”
I took a long drink of ice water. Just the idea of trying to explain to her or anyone else made my mouth go dry. I also wanted to be careful on how I worded things in range of our cell phones—though that part might have been futile.
“I know something the rest of you don’t, and it’s major—like telling the planet an extinction-level meteor exists,” I said in a quiet tone. Her eyebrows furrowed in concern. She probably had friends who could literally divert meteors. Even I knew a couple of people—if you paid them well enough. “It’s not that exactly. It’s something more complicated. Something I can’t stop.”
She sighed and placed her phone down in front of me. Its screen had gone dormant. “Eli allowed Fisher and me to interview the clawed woman this morning. We’ve located her daughter, and they will be reunited soon. She’s cooperating, and we’ve identified her contact who worked for Minos’s descendants and their allies.” She tapped her phone’s screen, bringing up a paused video of Dad. “Is this your meteor, Icarus?”
I nodded—trying to keep my expression calm but internally screaming. Beth and Fisher had figured it out, and they had probably told Eli. I hadn’t been answering his calls or texts, either. It was only a matter of time before Daniel and his team learned the truth, too. I wasn’t ready for any of this. Maybe I was never meant to be.
“I guess Dad can be a bit theatrical, too.” I forced a laugh, and Beth’s eyes widened as if she thought I may be just as insane. I needed to warn her before she teleported out of the restaurant. “Look, even if I was smarter—which I’m not—I won’t go against him for making what he believed was the right call. None of you should e
ither.” I rested my hands over her entire phone and mouthed. “He will kill all of you.”
I was desperate for her to understand. I was compromised—trapped—and there was nothing she or the others could do about it. I didn’t even know what to do next.
“I can understand that.” She reached out and squeezed the side of my hand—lifting it off her phone’s microphone. “We don’t quite agree on his tactics, but we know he probably did the world a favor.” Her eyes darted to the phone then back to me. She knew it wasn’t safe to talk here. “Now that we don’t work together anymore, I still wouldn’t mind going to a movie sometime. Did you know we have an IMAX theater on the fifth level? You’d still have access until your contract is up.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Their facilities also had entire levels of communication dead zones—on purpose. That was the whole reason Dad couldn’t trigger all the pods remotely and had manipulated us into it. “Are you doing anything tomorrow? We can celebrate me having a win for once.”
“Sounds great.” She smiled when I squeeze her hand back. “Just don’t wear the socks with sandals—please.”
“You’re no fun, Super Agent Beth,” I said in my hero tone as she started for the door. “Hey, what’s your last name? It was never on your badge like the other nurses at the hospital. That’s what first tipped me off that you were different.”
“It’s Ross,” she replied—as in Tiros’s daughter. With her hair being dyed red, I never would have made the connection. “Don’t tell Dad I told you. He still doesn’t like you for some reason.”
“Oh, I won’t.” I’d have a lot more fun with him thinking I didn’t know. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m on my way.”
I waited for her to leave before I started watching copies of the messages Dad had sent the feds. Fisher had sent them about thirty minutes earlier—probably as a way to locate me—which meant I had about an hour before Dad’s AIs scrubbed them from my phone.
“If you manage to locate my son, agents, tell him I miss him.” Dad looked down and then back at the camera. “A parent will do almost anything to protect their offspring—and even I’m no exception.” The video had been dated five years earlier. He’d slipped about all the kidnappings, but the feds hadn’t caught it at the time. “I want to give him a better world than the one he endured as a child. I just can’t do it alone.”
When Minos first captured us, one of the first things he did was separate me from Dad. I didn’t even know Mom had been killed until Dad escaped and rescued me. We later learned from a neighbor that the wolf and all our dogs had died, too—in a failed attempt to protect her.
Mom hadn’t changed the wolf’s nature, but she had redirected it. That meant something to me.
Even with our powers and the ability to heal, people from my era still scar. I had my fair share now, and I remember Minos had, too—from knives, mostly. He’d tried to interrogate me to extract intel on Dad and other people we knew, but I hadn’t fallen for what had amounted to amateur scare tactics and intimidation. He never harmed or tortured me, though—because he still needed me for leverage against Dad.
To be such a calculating psychopath, Minos was actually kind of horrible at it. I just hated him so much for killing my mother that it had never mattered.
I fast-forwarded through the other videos until I found a still-shot of Dad leaned forward with his hands on his chin. He had on a black t-shirt—not the long-sleeved body suit that could connect with our wings at a moment’s notice. Wherever he was, he felt at home—safe—and his guard was down from taunting the feds with all these videos.
The faint lines from multiple scratches and bite marks were still there.
There are billions of reasons to save the world, heroes.
All you really need is one.
The Heroes of Corvus
will return.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia Gilliam is the author of The Hannaria Series and Thaw (Kindle Worlds Novella). She is also a short story contributor to The Immortality Chronicles (The Future Chronicles series) and It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! (Superheroes and Vile Villains). She and her husband, Cory, live in Knoxville, TN.
www.patriciagilliam.com
Heroes of Corvus (Book 3): Two Good Reasons Page 4
