“It’s not just the phone they’re going to get you with; it’s the emails you send from your laptop. That’s how they found you in Stamford. If you didn’t know, the FCG has a private corporation that pays for location-based data from GoogleFace. It’s expensive, and they have to pay each time they access it, but we’re talking about unlimited funds here – funds given to them by the American taxpayer.”
“Your minute is drawing to a close,” I said as I looked at Grace. She was crouched in front of me now, same as Veronique, both of them listening intently to what Dr. Ken Kim had to say.
Grace’s brow was furrowed, a look of concern in her blue eyes.
The phone cut out for a second and he continued. “What I’m trying to say is that every time you send an email, they’re able to track you. If you stop sending emails or send them through an encryption app, you’re fine. But as of right now, they know where you are and are coming. Shit. They’re coming now, Gideon – you need to go!”
I was panicked at that point. I’d just used my laptop not too long ago to email some readers. I was so screwed.
“We’ve got to go,” I whispered to Grace and Veronique. They quickly stood and went to our room to begin packing.
“I want to help you,” Ken said. “Please let me help you. I don’t know how much longer they’re going to let me live, but I want to help you. They’ll come after me, just like they came after Bobby. I … I fucking know they will. I’m surprised they haven’t already; I was there when Sabine escaped. One more thing. To prove my intent, I want to give you a code you can put into their systems that will improve their abilities.”
“A code?”
“That’s right, another code,” said Ken. “As you likely understand by now, you can modify their abilities to some degree. They don’t level up, per se, but there are ways to unlock abilities that were previously hidden. One of them is by entering codes into their drives. We didn’t give them all these abilities at once – not that they couldn’t have figured them out on their own.”
“So they are arranged codes?”
“Yeah, something like that. But I have one for you. Do you have a pen?”
Grace, I thought.
Yes?
I’m going to tell you a code in a second, can you write it down for me in there?
“Okay, I’m ready,” I told Ken.
He rattled off a string of letters and numbers. “XFLT16689L147DDFBERV.”
I repeated it back to him, thinking each number and letter as I said it aloud.
Got it, Grace said inside my head.
“Scroll to the bottom of the list of available options, and you’ll see an input section. Put this code there. And yes, the same code works for both of them. Like I said, they could figure these abilities out on their own – they may have already done so – but this will speed up the process. We’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks for the information.” I hung up the phone and turned it off. I disconnected the battery, removed the SIM card, and once again – just like I’d seen people do in movies – threw the phone over the balcony. I bent and twisted the SIM card and flicked it onto another balcony.
My laptop would be next.
Everything was saved in the cloud anyway, but it still pained the writer in me to smash it to pieces.
Luckily, by the time I got into the room, Veronique had already done that for me.
My laptop looked like it had been dissected by an alien, and all of its metal pieces lay in a circle around its square body.
“Keep the balcony door open,” Veronique said as the metal pieces lifted into the air. Just like with the man’s fillings back at the biker bar, she turned the pieces of my laptop into projectiles. The bits of metal flew out the window and down to the Tennessee River.
“Ready?” Grace asked me.
“Yeah, let’s get out of Chattanooga. And maybe something to eat along the way.”
A smile spread across her concerned face. “Pizza?”
“I was thinking barbecue.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Barbeque pizza?”
I chuckled as I looped my duffel bag over my shoulder. “Sure, barbeque pizza.”
Chapter Three: I Want an Ice Cream Truck in My Back Yard
We drove south toward Jackson, Mississippi, a barbeque chicken pizza on the seat between Grace and me. Veronique sat in the back of our big truck, and every now and then, I would catch a glimpse of her through the rearview mirror, her skin porcelain, her blonde hair sharply framing her face, her dark eyes fixated on me.
“Are you sure you don’t want a piece?” Grace asked Veronique. She took one last bite up to the crust and threw the rest out the window.
“I’m fine,” Veronique said.
“What’s with the crust?” I asked Grace. “I thought you like the crust.”
“We saw on TV that the crust has more carbs,” she replied. “So you could enjoy the pizza, but if you throw out the crust, you cut like twenty-five percent of the carbs.”
I laughed. “You can’t believe everything you see on TV. But I guess that makes some sense. Not diet-wise, but just in the sense that you’re throwing away a portion of the pizza, so you’re definitely going to cut some carbs.”
“I think barbeque pizza is very good,” Grace said. Lights from the cars flashed across her soft skin. She was in her normal form, Scandinavian on fleek, and she wore my sweater and pants.
I don’t know why she always reverted back to this form, but there was something kind of cute about it.
“It doesn’t smell so great,” Veronique said. “It reminds me of a bathroom.”
“I guess …” I glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “I guess a lot of meats kind of smell like a bathroom if you think about the smell in that way. I mean, there are similarities. Anyway, enough bathroom talk.”
“It’s too bad we had to leave the hotel,” Grace said. “We really like that show.”
“Which show is that?” I asked.
They were constantly watching some show about tearing down houses and rebuilding them. Or maybe it was remodeling crappy places, or possibly it was a real estate show.
I had no idea. I was usually busy on my laptop when they were watching TV.
As nice as it would have been to hop onto the bed and rest between them, a beautiful woman on either side – a harem in the making – writing a book took time. It took a lot of time, and that was why so many writers I admired were a little bit on the chubby side.
Writing is a sitting sport.
What better way to describe the act of sitting for hours and hours to bleed onto an empty page with the hope that someone will read what you have to say? It’s hell, but you’re in charge, and for a good many writers, their calculated words are the one thing they control in their hectic lives.
As my mind wandered, skipping over books I’d read and lessons I should have learned from them, Grace and Veronique told me their favorite program was about a pair of brothers who fixed houses and sold them for a profit. Their second favorite show was about a married gay couple who did the same thing, and their third favorite show was about a group of teenagers who did pretty much the same thing.
“We’re going to take this place down, make it right, and sell it at a good price!” Grace said, now in the form of one of the brothers.
Veronique laughed, a long and harsh laugh that seemed fake, the way I envisioned how rich people laughed while vacationing in the Hamptons.
“Do more,” she said as she clapped her hands together.
Grace’s form morphed into a young girl with orange hair in a side braid. “Sure, we’re just kids, but that doesn’t mean we can’t flip this house! So we’re going to start in the bedroom, knock the bedroom walls out, expand the bathroom so it’s a master bathroom, not the little bathroom that it was before. And it’s a kid’s house, so we’re going to put a jungle gym in there. Why not, right? And the backyard? Basketball court, a pond, and an ice cream truck. Because who doesn�
��t want an ice cream truck in their backyard?”
Veronique laughed again. “I want an ice cream truck in my backyard.”
They continued talking about the houses they had seen flipped, how they would flip them, and at some point, I returned my focus to the road and Dr. Ken Kim.
Who was he really trying to help? He had given us a code, but for all I knew, it would activate the GPS system in the two women.
There was no way of telling, and curiosity wasn’t going to get this cat, or writer, or the Cherry Blossom Girls (the name I had started to call them in my head).
Their abilities were fine; they were where they needed to be. At least until I could fool around with Veronique’s a bit more.
I looked in the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of myself, bearded and now with a badass looking scar. I couldn’t believe I’d made such an amateur mistake of not encrypting my emails.
Seemed about right, though; even though I’d been at this for about a week now, I still had no idea what I was doing.
And if it was Ken who put all the information on their drives, I should have asked him about my photo and why it was there.
The mystery continued.
Chapter Four: Dorian Gray and the T-Rex Made of Energy
We stopped at a gas station at a quarter after midnight, and I figured now would be a good time to switch vehicles. We found a man in a station wagon, gave him the keys to our truck, and transferred our things to the back of his car.
“This one is not as nice,” Veronique said as she got in the back.
I waved her concerns away as I went inside the convenience store to get a cup of coffee. I nodded at the attendant behind the counter and glanced around in search of liquid crack.
A punk rock looking woman with jet-black hair and deep red lipstick stood nearby, staring at me. She wore a leather jacket, tight black jean shorts over a pair of fishnet stockings, and black military boots. Her midriff was exposed below the short tank top she wore under her jacket, and I could see the swell of her breasts above the top.
I nodded at her, looked away awkwardly as I normally did when I saw hot women, and made a beeline for the coffee station.
There weren’t many options, and the coffee looked like it had been brewed two days ago. But what could I do? I filled up a twenty-ounce cup, added a bit of hazelnut creamer just to give it some flavor, and took a sip of the lukewarm beverage.
I sighed. It tasted like yesterday’s McStarbucks warmed for fifteen seconds in the microwave.
I glanced back at the woman and noticed she was now holding a paintbrush. She was also staring at me in a strange way.
She lifted the paintbrush to her lips, placing it in her mouth and holding it there for a moment before taking it back out.
As if she were conducting an invisible orchestra, the punk rock super began tracing an image in the air. Purple magic took shape as she moved her brush.
The door swung open and Grace entered, surprise spreading across her face as she saw the woman.
Gideon, get down!
The woman lowered her paintbrush and a human-shaped form appeared, its body made of blistering purple energy. It charged at me with fists on fire. An invisible force moved me to safety just in time to miss its first strike, my coffee flying out of my hand in what felt like slow-motion.
As if they were on wheels, the aisle shelves thundered toward the woman with the paintbrush, the result of Grace’s omnikinesis.
Just before the shelves reached the woman, she disappeared in a flash.
The gas station attendant stood up from his hiding spot behind the register, a shotgun in his hand. “I want you both to get the fuck –”
The human made of purple energy slammed into the counter, exploding anything its body came into contact with. It continued forward, pressing through the counter, and even as the attendant fired his shotgun, it reached the man’s body and exploded that too, spraying gobs of red goo everywhere.
I nearly lost my barbeque pizza as a clump of human landed on my shoulder.
I stumbled backward, where I was met by Grace. By this point I was crouched down, my ears ringing from the weapon’s report, my fingers covered in the man’s blood, which I tried to wipe off on my shoulder.
Veronique stepped into the gas station, her hands lifting into the air as screws and bolts from the shelving became projectile weapons.
She was breathing heavily, hyper-aware as she scanned the area.
“What the hell is going on?” I whispered to Grace, who stood next to me, her hand on my shoulder.
“It’s Dorian Gray.”
I shook my head.
I’d read Oscar Wilde’s book of the same name, so that was the first thing that came to me. Then my thoughts jumped from that to the clump of body matter on my shoulder, the body matter scattered all around me, the fact that we were in a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and we’d been attacked by a human shape made entirely of flaming purple energy.
My brain was running wild again.
“We have to find her,” Veronique said. She looked like a southern badass in her cowgirl get-up, her hands red with energy, screws and bolts buzzing around her like wasps.
“What are her abilities exactly? How do you know about her?” I asked Grace, still catching my breath.
“Later,” she assured me as she looked around, ready for another attack.
“Come out, Dorian, and paint me a picture,” Veronique shouted, her hands clenching into fists.
“Can she paint anything into existence?” I asked, connecting the dots.
My answer came in the form of a T-Rex that chomped into the corner of the building, tearing a portion of the ceiling out, and exploding all the lights and electric outlets.
The charged T-Rex ripped more of the ceiling away, using a kick from its clawed leg to smash a wall.
I wish I could say this was your normal T-Rex with the little bitch arms, but no. This one had been customized to bring death to the three of us, and since that was the case, it had two huge weapons instead of arms, each with muzzles the size of beach volleyballs.
And they could shoot.
A searing blast tore over my head and went straight into the beer cooler nearby.
The explosion that followed sent shards of glass into the air, accompanied by the sweet sick stench of adult beverages.
I was running by this point toward the back exit, trying to get my ass out of there before the T-Rex fired off another shot.
“Grace, Veronique!” I cried.
I’m here, Writer Gideon! Grace wasn’t far from me, covering her head as she ran.
I turned just in time to see Veronique press her hands in front of her as if she were moving chi. Half the metal in the store scissored toward the T-Rex.
Since our attacker was made of energy, the only thing those random chunks of metal could do was cause mini-explosions all over its body as the projectiles attempted to pass through. But that was better than nothing, and the T-Rex expended more and more energy as hunks of metal struck its form.
Eventually, like the person made of energy, the Cretaceous abomination began to dissipate, no longer able to cause damage.
Veronique was still in a battle-ready pose, more metal fluttering around her just in case she needed to use it quickly.
“Where did she go?” I asked as I surveyed the damage.
The energy Dorian created had done some pretty strange things, either exploding or melting everything it came into contact with. Did she really conjure this stuff with a paintbrush? Was it activated by her saliva or was it just her schtick?
I moved through what was left of the convenience store, my nose twitching at the smell of burning plastic, food wrappers, flesh, and anything else flammable.
Veronique smiled grimly as I approached her, and a few bits of metal fell out of the air.
“Thank you,” I said in earnest. “Both of you.” I turned to Grace. “I was just getting my coffee. She would have blasted me if you hadn
’t done something.”
“They’ve started sending others for us,” Veronique said, as more metal fell.
“Fuck, so they still know where we are. Shit.” I glanced at Grace, who was still looking through the damage, one hand poised at the ready just in case she needed to act. She could use her abilities with her mind alone, but similar to Veronique, it seemed that physical movement had some psychological effect that possibly strengthened the attack.
I mean, if I were superpowered, I’d be making poses too.
That’s a strange thing to be thinking about, I told myself. But then again, we’d just been attacked by a woman with a paintbrush who conjured up a goddamn dinosaur. And a guy’s body had exploded, leaving my shoulder a mess.
“We should move,” I told Veronique as I cautiously stepped over to a rack of clothing that had been partially burnt to a crisp. There were still a couple of shirts, so I took one that had the American flag on it just to have something change into.
“Nothing?” Veronique asked her counterpart.
“I don’t sense her at all,” Grace said. “It’s like she’s completely vanished.”
“You should have used your powers to take over her mind.”
“You know that doesn’t work as well on some of us,” Grace reminded her as she moved to the door. “Normals, yes, but not us.”
Normals. I recalled Angel using a similar term. I guess everyone needed a name for someone unlike them.
“You took over my mind,” Veronique reminded her.
“I did, and I’m surprised I was able to. But like I’ve promised, I won’t do it again. Believe me. I tried with Dorian, but she resisted, so I sent the shelves after her. I was only able to get a flash of who she was and the powers she had. The charging power. That’s all I could discover.”
“I already knew that about her. I don’t know how she got away so fast, though.”
I heard sirens in the distance.
The rest of the metal around Veronique fell. As we made our way over to what was left of the entrance, I glanced at the convenience store’s office.
The cameras.
Cherry Blossom Girls Box Set Page 21
