Cherry Blossom Girls Box Set

by Harmon Cooper

  I wasn’t stupid enough to think it could take a shot, but if someone like Angel decided to punch through a wall next to me, it would help.

  “The scrubs and lab coats are in the backpack,” he told me.

  “Great,” I said as I tried the vest on. It fit perfectly. “You’ve done an excellent job,” I told him. “There’s only a few more things to do.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, his bushy eyebrows lifting.

  He listened intently as I explained the next step.

  “Great, I’ll get right on that. Do you want me to return here after I finish?”

  “Sure, come back here, or meet us at our room on the top floor.”

  You need to give him your duffle bag and laptop to put in the Dodge.

  I smiled at Grace; she was right.

  “Actually, come up with us to our room so I can give you some stuff to take to the Dodge.”

  “Got it.”

  Chip packed up all of our stuff and followed us up to our room. I quickly tossed the clothes I’d left on the floor into the duffle bag, followed by my laptop and Yale hat. I needed to get rid of that damn hat, but it was what I had at the moment.

  “This is it,” I told Chip. I handed him the bag, the keys, and off he went.

  Grace yawned. “Want to rest before we begin?”

  I smiled at her as she changed back into her base form, her hair growing long, her features lightening, her eyes turning a crisp blue.

  “Definitely. I want to eat something too.”

  “How about pizza?”

  “You smelled it earlier too? In Wooster Square?”

  “It’s so good,” she said, licking her lips.

  “Sure, Grace, let’s get a pizza.”

  What a fitting choice for what may be my last meal on Earth, I thought as I sat in a chair near the window.

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Easy Access

  I asked Grace to lie down on the bed so I could play with her stats for a moment. I had a feeling there was more I would be able to do with them, but I wasn’t quite as computer savvy as others, and there was a lot of information in her system that made no sense to me.

  I logged in, the shadow box came up, and I began looking through files. I wasn’t able to locate the picture of myself, a conundrum that still burned at the back of my mind.

  Had I been part of these experiments?

  The answer to that would anger me, but it would still be some time before I learned the truth.

  Not able to really sleuth anything out, I moved to her psychic abilities.

  Main: Psychic

  Omnikinesis: 10

  Second Sight: 5

  Psychometry: 5

  Telepathy: 6

  Clairsentience: 5

  Psychokinesis: 7

  Hypnosis: 5

  I wished I could crank up Omnikinesis to eleven a la Spinal Tap, but ten was the best I could do; the dial wouldn’t go any higher. I moved to her second ability.

  Main Second: Shifter

  Speed of Change: 10

  Texture Consistency: 10

  Opacity: 10

  Voice Match: 10

  One good thing about her morphing ability was that changing any of the numbers didn’t alter the others.

  I decided to play around with what was listed though and turned the texture consistency down to one.

  As I did, the hooded sweatshirt and yoga pants she wore turned shiny, as if they’d been spray painted on. I reached out and touched her leg, noticing that it felt more or less like skin now, even though she technically had a pair of pants on. And no, that wasn’t a dig on yoga pants and how tight they’d become by 2030 – it legitimately felt like skin.

  “Change to a sweater,” I told her.

  My sweater took shape on her body – the same one I’d given her back at my place – only now it seemed like it had been painted it on somehow. There was no texture to it, and I could see in detail the contours of her body and her nipples beneath it.

  So, texture consistency does exactly what I thought it did. Duh. I turned it back up to ten, the wool and fuzz on my sweater reappeared, and I moved on to opacity.

  This was what we would use later tonight. I turned it down, and as I did, she began to fade away. I could sense if she moved – thank you, reptilian brain! – even though she was now completely see-through.

  I turned the dial back to ten.

  “This will work,” I told her. “But I’d really like to see some building schematics.”

  “They’re in there,” she said, and suddenly, I felt as if Grace had possessed me.

  She still lay in front of me, but fuzziness clouded my psyche, and my hand began to scroll through her drive on its own.

  The folders opened, as did subfolders, and more subfolders. Eventually, she pulled up the Rose-Lyle building schematics and downloaded them onto my smartphone. I was a silent observer in all this, my actions far from my own.

  I started to get the weird sense that Grace knew everything, that she was some type of goddess, and it was only when she chuckled that I realized she’d left my head.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “I’m no goddess,” she said.

  “I don’t know how amplified your power can become,” I admitted, “but you could end up as a goddess at the rate you’re going. What you just did was phenomenal. Everything you do defies explanation.”

  She frowned at this.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I just want to be normal.”

  I didn’t say anything, letting that comment just simmer for a bit.

  I was about to pull up the map and figure out the best way forward when I noticed another file had downloaded onto my phone. I clicked on it, and the PDF quickly loaded. It was a schematic for the plug that was installed in Grace’s neck. Parts of it were too technical, but it did show basic design and installation instructions.

  I saved this as well.

  “You don’t happen to know where the cameras are, do you?” I asked after I opened the map on my phone.

  “No.”

  “We’ll have to be hyper-aware of cameras.”

  I could tell by the schematics that there was an odd, square-shaped room only accessible after a long hallway, well past the basement. The room was listed as the ‘Plastic Room,’ a clear indication that it would be the right place to store someone with Veronique’s abilities.

  There were restrooms outside the entrance to this room, which would be a great place for me to hole up while Grace did her thing. I knew I was of no help, aside from being able to turn her invisible, so my job would be to wait for her to come back with Veronique. Besides, we’d be able to communicate telepathically.

  We got a call from the front desk that the pizza had arrived.

  “You want me to get it?” Grace asked as I unplugged from her neck.

  “No, I have cash.”

  Chip Parker sat in the driver’s seat, Grace next to him in a lab coat and scrubs. I was next to her, also dressed like a doctor. I wore the bulletproof vest under my lab coat and had placed the ballistics helmet and the other pair of scrubs in the backpack, which was stuffed between my legs.

  Grace’s scrubs, of course, had been made on her own volition. The set in my backpack was for Veronique.

  It was night now, and a light fog had settled over the city of New Haven. The streets were relatively empty, lit by dim orange lights.

  We pulled into a parking lot less than a block away from the entrance to the Rose-Lyle facility. It amazed me that they’d done all this experimental work so close to the campus center, with its old brick buildings reminiscent of Colonial America.

  “We’ll be back,” I told Chip.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said, his eyes locked on the dashboard.

  Weird.

  Whatever happened to us, I wanted to make sure Chip got some money for his troubles, so I stuck a roll of hundred-dollar bills in his hand and told him to reimburse himself for his expenses.

  “
Will do,” he said, eyes still locked on the dashboard.

  “You ready?” I asked Grace as I got out of the truck. This time she had gone for an Asian man with unkempt hair, rimless glasses, and a mad scientist look about him.

  She nodded, and I asked her to lead the way.

  We walked like colleagues, my backpack slung over one shoulder like I was a graduate student. With my glasses, shaggy beard, and doctorly outfit, I looked a little unorthodox, but definitely not out of place, which was exactly what I was going for.

  I followed Grace through a checkpoint and an armed guard waved us in after verifying our credentials.

  My ‘credentials’ were little more than a Krunkin’ Kronuts card my uncle had given me. Grace didn’t have a card at all, so the guard examined mine again, scanned it – it came back false – and let us through.

  With that, we were in. We hung to the left as we entered a long corridor with hallways jutting off rhizomatically. I briefly glanced at my phone to make sure we were going in the right direction.

  Once I confirmed this, we headed deeper into the facility until we got to an elevator. There were other scientists around, and a few places that didn’t seem as restricted as others, but the elevator was clearly marked for restricted access only.

  This presented a problem, as we didn’t have a badge to scan us in. We waited for a few nervous minutes as I kept expecting whatever security apparatus patrolled the facility to come around the corner and hold us up.

  Eventually, an Indian scientist stepped out of the elevator, and directly into Grace’s trap.

  One glance at him and he turned back to the elevator, scanned us in, and went to the basement with us.

  Who knew all this was down here? I thought as we entered a room that was almost like a subway platform. We got into a metal pod and the doors locked into place. The pod took off with the three of us inside, and as it did, I traced its trajectory on my phone’s map.

  What I had thought was a long corridor, was actually some type of hyperloop tunnel.

  It didn’t take us very long to get to the other end, and after the pod slowed to a halt, we stepped out onto a wide platform with a single door at its apex. We entered a much narrower hallway, turned a corner, and I froze.

  There was a moving camera on the wall currently aimed directly at us. Grace and I pretended to talk to each other, and once the camera rotated in the other direction, we slipped into the restroom.

  The Indian man now stood in front of the bathroom door, his hands on his hips as he awaited instruction.

  “Do you have access to the Plastic Room?” I asked him point-blank.

  “I do.”

  After double-checking to make sure there weren’t any cameras in the bathroom – there weren’t – I plugged into Grace’s neck and found her opacity setting.

  “Remember, let me know what’s going on by communicating here,” I said, touching my head.

  I could no longer see her, but when she moved to the door, I caught a slight hint of her body. The Indian man followed her out.

  I took my place in a stall and put the ballistic helmet on. And as stupid as it was, I took a picture of myself and sent it to Luke, figuring it may be the last picture I ever sent out.

  Luke: Holy shit! Are you serious right now?

  Me: Just in case I don’t make it out. We’ve arrived and are rescuing V as we speak.

  Luke: Keep me up to date, buddy. Please, be safe! I’ve never had to tell someone ‘don’t get shot’ but …

  Me: That’s what the vest and the helmet are for.

  Luke: You look like Shredder, or Snake Eyes, or Snake Eyes meets Shredder. It’s a good look, but seriously, oh my god, Gideon! Good luck. Seriously, good fucking luck!

  Chapter Twenty-Five: The Plastic Room

  We are in and moving toward the Plastic Room.

  Great, I thought back to her. I was still in the bathroom stall furthest from the door pretending to be going number two just in case someone came in.

  Talk about on edge.

  If I had any nails left to bite I would have bitten them clean off. I was panicked, my mouth was dry, and my breaths were shallow. This was it, if we got Veronique and made it out of here, we’d get out alive. Hopefully. A proverbial cleanup crew could also be on their way, and we’d be trapped far beneath the city of New Haven.

  This begged the question: What if they find you in here?

  I didn’t even want to think what would happen if they found me in the bathroom.

  Relax, Writer Gideon.

  I had to smile. Just hearing Grace’s sweet voice in my head cooled my nerves. That was, until someone came into the bathroom to take a piss. He was a heavy-footed fellow, a little gassy too. The guy grunted as his stream hit the porcelain, and after a long sigh, he was gone.

  Someone may be coming your way, I thought to Grace.

  No matter.

  That last phrase from her left me feeling a bit uneasy. What was she going to do?

  Omnikinesis, I reminded myself.

  That’s right.

  I cracked a grin. She really was something else. As I sat on the toilet waiting for destiny to take its toll, a quote from Dune came to me: “The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

  I suppose Frank Herbert was right, but then again, he’d never broken bad like I had. I mean, having people battle over spice is one thing, but finding yourself in an underground facility …

  Ha! You’re an idiot.

  I needed another term aside from ‘break bad,’ but damn if it didn’t fit. From a shitty sci-fi writer who worked at a gift shop to the resistance.

  Yeah, the resistance.

  I tried to quiet my mind and failed. I began counting back from one hundred, hoping that would help some. It didn’t. I then tried to focus on the gunmetal gray of the bathroom stall, and from there to the halogen lamp above, and then to the stall door, noticing that it had recently been repaired, as evidenced by the newness of the screws.

  “Quiet, Writer Gideon,” I mumbled to myself. Pranayama breaths, going over the map, trying to remember everything that had happened over the last days – I still couldn’t calm my mind.

  My spirit nearly left my body when the bathroom door kicked open and Grace whispered my name.

  I burst out of the stall to find the Indian scientist and another guy holding up Veronique, who was wearing a hospital gown. Her head was bent forward, she was breathing hard, her blonde hair was tangled, and the look in her eyes was one of utter madness.

  As the two men stared at me, their eyes completely white, Veronique’s hands landed on their necks. They twitched as she began to consume their power.

  “Gideon,” Grace said, startling me. I’d forgotten she was invisible. I fumbled to get my phone out to plug back into her port. Once I had the cable ready, she guided it into the port for me.

  I started the system, pulled up the abilities menu, and adjusted her opacity.

  She reverted back to her Asian scientist form just as the two men behind her fell. Veronique crouched over them, continuing to consume their life force. Her skin was glowing, the look on her face predatory, but something about the way she held herself told me she was still weak.

  Even after feeding on two people?

  The men’s bodies shriveled until they resembled prunes. Rather than feel disgusted at the gruesome sight, I ignored it and got the scrubs out. Together, Grace and I began dressing Veronique, who was still pretty loopy.

  “What did they do to you?”

  Sorrow appeared in the corners of her dark eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “We’re here now.”

  She let us take her shirt off and place the scrub over her body. To get the pants on, I lifted her and placed her on the counter, careful to avoid a small puddle of water.

  I pulled her pants on and her arms draped around my shoulders. She started to sob, stopped immediately and took a deep breath, then made sure her pants were on co
mpletely.

  “We’re almost out of here,” I told her. “Stay with me now.”

  I did not think about footwear, but then again, these disguises were only to make it a bit harder to spot us from a distance. Grace would be able to handle anyone who was in our immediate vicinity.

  I cupped Veronique’s face in my hands. “Are you strong enough?”

  “I need more,” she whispered, her throat parched. “More.”

  I glanced at Grace and she nodded. “Do it, Writer Gideon.”

  “Use me,” I told Veronique, my hands still on her face. “Just let me have enough energy to be able to walk.”

  She swallowed hard as her hand lifted to my arm, red energy radiating from her fingertips.

  I grew woozy.

  My knees started to buckle and as they did, she let up.

  Grace moved forward to catch me as I started to fall. Veronique quickly joined her in holding me up.

  “Thank you.” She guided me to the sink so I could brace my hands on it for support. “I think they have just a little more.”

  Veronique knelt by the first scientist, the Indian guy, and finished him off. She then moved to the second, her hand on the guy’s forehead as his skin turned the color of a plum.

  “Are you good?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “Much better than before.”

  Grace stepped out to make sure the camera was not facing us – not that it mattered at that point – and we left the bathroom. After traveling through a few hallways, we arrived in the room that reminded me of a subway platform and took the hyperloop pod to the main facility.

  It was one of the longest rides of my life, even though it would finish in about a minute.

  Whatever lay in the main body of the Rose-Lyle facility could be our undoing. We’d made it this far, but I had a feeling things were about to get a lot worse.

  I stayed down, my ballistics helmet now on my head, front piece covering my face. I was braced, willing and ready for shit to hit the fan once the pod doors opened.

  Grace was standing, poised to use her abilities, her eyes flaring white. Veronique stood as well, her fists at her sides as the pod slowed to a halt.