Cherry Blossom Girls Box Set

by Harmon Cooper

  Main Second: Teleportation

  Tele-Sphere Radius: 4

  Conscious Spatial Awareness: 9

  Recharge Speed: 6

  Restoration Speed: 6

  Teleportation Rapidity: 7

  Teleportation Distance: 9

  Empathetic Teleportation: 6

  Banishment: 4

  Overcharge: 2

  “Okay, we’re done for now,” I told her. “Let me know if the Overcharge makes you feel odd or anything. Give it a day.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” Dorian stood, bent over, and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Send the other one in – I mean the next one, Ingrid. Two more to go.”

  It only took a moment to check the info on Ken’s app and transfer it to a Word doc. I then had Ingrid sit on the table while I plugged into her neck just to get the correct levels. Once this was done, I printed the document for her.

  Ingrid, Subject I

  Build: 3.2

  Base height: 150 Centimeters

  Base weight: 40 Kilos

  Strength: 1

  Intelligence: 3

  Constitution: 5

  Wisdom: 4

  Dexterity: 7

  Charisma: 5

  Main: Beast Morphing

  Beast Soul: 10

  Morph Speed: 10

  She looked over the paper. “Just two?”

  “That’s all they have listed. I’m guessing that when you change to your beast form …”

  “Tulip.”

  “My guess is your physical attributes change when you morph into, um, Tulip. You’re maxed out for now. Do you think Tulip would let me check her stats?”

  “Tulip is a him.”

  “Okay, would he let me check his stats?”

  Ingrid paused, then shook her head. “Nah, he’s not so friendly. It takes a lot of power to get him to behave around the others and not kill them.”

  I gaped at her. The thin brunette was entirely at odds with the thing she transformed into; uncanny didn’t begin to describe it. She was petite, just a bit taller than Michelle, and of the three, she was the one who seemed the most emaciated. “How do you trigger your transformation? Do you have to get angry or something?”

  She started laughing.

  “What?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I’m just asking. There are loads of ways people trigger their inner beast monster.”

  “Beast monster?”

  “You know what I mean. Tulip. What I’m trying to say here is that historically there have been different ways for people to change into whatever it is they change into. The Hulk, or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or … I don’t think you’ve read Superpowereds by Drew Hayes, but like Hershel and Roy Daniels …”

  “Do you want me to change into it now, so you can see what triggers it?” she asked, her eyes narrowing on me.

  “Ha! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, um, I’m just trying to know more about your ability so I can coordinate better with the others. That’s … that’s what I’m trying to say here.”

  “Well, to answer your question …” She hesitated a moment.

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  She snorted. “That sounded so dumb. I pinch myself to trigger the transformation. And someone else can’t pinch me, it has to be me.”

  “Cool, that’s all I’m asking. Send Fiona in, please.”

  Fiona came in a few minutes later, which gave me time to type out her base stats and abilities. I had her sit on the desk, plugged in, and got the levels typed up. Interesting stuff, too; she would be most versatile in a fighting party.

  Fiona, Subject F

  Build: 9.464

  Base height: 153 Centimeters

  Base weight: 41 Kilos

  Strength: 3

  Intelligence: 5

  Constitution: 6

  Wisdom: 5

  Dexterity: 4

  Charisma: 4

  Main: Aquakinesis

  Hydrokinetic Flight: 1

  Water Vortex Creation: 3

  Viscosity Manipulation: 8

  Tidal Wave Generation: 2

  Aquatic Adaptation: 7

  Water Pressure Generation: 6

  Motor-Skill Manipulation: 3

  Water Negation: 4

  Morph Speed: 9

  “I have no idea what any of this means,” Fiona said after looking over her abilities. “Okay, I’m lying a bit. I know a little about it, but what’s Viscosity Manipulation? And Hydrokinetic Flight?”

  “Fiona, I think there’s a lot to your abilities that you may not know about.” I turned back to the computer and scrolled over it once again, wishing I’d taken some notes because I had to think twice about some of these words myself. “The first one you mentioned, Viscosity Manipulation, has to do with manipulating other bodies of water. The second one, at least from what I can tell, would give you the ability to fly using water. But I don’t know how that would play out.”

  “I can fly?” She raised an eyebrow, and I could tell she wanted to give it a shot right then and there.

  “Wait, don’t do it in the house. We’ll play with it tomorrow. Let me do a little more research before we really dive deep – no pun intended – into your water abilities. I know that’s kind of a letdown, but I have a ton of other work to do and it’s getting late. Plus, we need to get some food, right?”

  “What kind of food?”

  “The best kind of food there is: pizza.”

  The only problem with getting pizza was that I didn’t think they would deliver seven or eight pies without wanting a credit card. This meant I needed to find a place close by, phone in an order, and pick it up there. Even then, I knew they’d want a credit card. Looked like we were going with cash.

  Luckily, there was a place a few miles away, and after showing it to Dorian, she made a quick sketch of it in the air and we both teleported there.

  “You don’t have to actually make the sketch though, right?” I asked.

  “No, but it does help for some reason. It’s like reinforcing the idea,” she said as we walked into the pizza place.

  I ordered seven pies of different varieties and paid with a Benjamin.

  We waited outside, the cool Colorado evening reminding me of New Haven, making me wish I’d brought a sweater.

  Nashville and New Haven aside, we didn’t normally travel alone, but Grace and Veronique were in the middle of some property show they’d also gotten Stella hooked on, and the Super Teens were playing video games.

  So it was just Dorian and Yours Truly.

  I told Dorian what I’d figured out so far about the Super Teens and especially Fiona's abilities. She listened, her attention on both what I was saying and our surroundings. I also told her about my plans for the rest of the night, that I was getting serious with my research, and that I wasn’t talking about research for writing; I was talking about research for destruction.

  “There’s a facility in New Mexico, two in California, and one in Washington State. I don’t know if there are more than that, but I want to spend a few hours just going through everything with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “Do you think you’ll find something else?” she asked.

  “I’m hoping so, but I’m going to need to be able to focus to really look through all his stuff. Think you can distract everyone for me?”

  She smirked. “This crowd doesn’t need a lot to distract them if you haven’t realized it. But to be honest with you, I wish we could go somewhere tonight, somewhere far away again. You have to admit, that was kind of fun when we went to Nashville.”

  I instinctively placed my hand on my tattoo. It was still sore, but I’d been so busy over the last two days that I hadn’t thought much about it aside from keeping it clean. “Yeah, that was fun. Maybe when this stuff settles down, you and I can go somewhere really far for just a day or two. I’d love a little writer’s retreat. And …”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to see more of you, more of your
tattoos, and more of your art.” I turned to her. “Like the stuff you did on the wall in the hotel room in Austin.”

  Dorian was in the ribbed sweater she’d purchased in Austin, a pair of black denim shorts, and tights. She’d bought a new pair of shoes at the mall too; red combat boots, which looked pretty badass.

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” she finally said as a cold breeze whipped past. “We’re all going to have to get out of here once we finish doing what we’re doing. And I don’t know what that means yet, but it may mean going to another continent, or country.”

  “I haven’t thought much about that, to be honest with you.” I shrugged. “I don’t know how we’d get through the airport, but with Grace, it would be doable. She would just have to be at the front of every line and mind flash anyone we came into contact with. It’d be a little stressful.”

  “But it might be something we have to do.”

  “Definitely.”

  The pizza was finally ready, and we stacked all seven boxes in my arms. Dorian placed her hand on me, and just as we were about to teleport away, Michelle appeared out of nowhere.

  “I was so hungry I had to run here,” she said, not at all out of breath. The young woman pivoted from foot to foot, ready to take off again if need be.

  “Here, have a slice,” I told her. I opened the box, letting the smell of melting cheese escape. “How did you know where we were?”

  The excited girl grabbed a piece and started munching. “Sorry, Grace told me,” she said between bites, gulping the whole slice down in seconds. She stood on her tippy toes and tried to look into the top box. “Come on, give me another piece, Gideon. Or I’ll pass through you and the pizza boxes and steal one!”

  “That’s not how it’s supposed to work,” I laughed. “You’ll get to eat more when we get back. And you don’t have to run this time; let’s just teleport there. How does that sound?”

  “Fine,” she said and reached out, touching Dorian’s arm.

  A second later we were standing in the dining room with seven pizzas, eight supers, and one writer ready to slam.

  Chapter Twenty-One: Know Thy Enemy

  I let the supers eat around the television while I continued my work in the office. I didn’t come pizza-less though; I had a stack of slices on a fancy schmancy plate, ready to satiate my craving for cheese, carbs, and meat.

  Focus, focus, focus.

  Now that I had the CBGs and Super Teens figured out, I needed to dig deeper into the abilities of the attackers back at the New Mexico facility.

  I started with Chloe, the one who used light-based attacks.

  What I found was even more unsettling than I’d previously imagined.

  Chloe, Subject C

  Build: 17.169

  Base height: 185 Centimeters

  Base weight: 56 Kilos

  Strength: 4

  Intelligence: 7

  Constitution: 7

  Wisdom: 5

  Dexterity: 7

  Charisma: 4

  Main: Acoustokinesis

  * Sound Sculpting

  * Acoustic Acceleration

  * Sonoluminescence

  * Rhythm Manipulation

  * Sonokinetic Combat

  * Sound Detection

  * Sonic Stimulation

  * Overcharge

  “Damn,” I said. I typed up the information, solidifying it in my mind.

  Like all the other supers on Ken’s app, I wasn’t able to see her actual levels, only her abilities. But seriously, from what I could tell she could: a) turn sound into energy; b) use sound for combat; and c) use sound to stimulate something or someone, probably like a siren’s call.

  I wasn’t presented definitions of what the other abilities did. Some were self-explanatory. Others, like Sound Sculpting, needed further investigation.

  Rather than move on to the other two supers who had accosted us – the metal woman and the fire and ice guy – I went to the video section and started clicking randomly through the clips. There was no search option here, but I did figure out something as I began going through the videos, deciphering their labels.

  The super’s build number is also in the file name! This meant I could parse through the thousand or so videos much more easily.

  I checked Chloe’s build again – 17.169 – and did a basic document search for the number seventeen. There were others, but I finally found a video labeled: 11182029AEFL#17169.

  Filmed on November 18, 2029, Agency of Enhancement and Future Logistics # 17.169.

  Sure enough, it was a snuff video.

  In this first video, Chloe, a shapely brunette with an oblong face, exploded an inmate’s head using her powers. Just to confirm that there had been no sound when she did it, I turned the volume up and watched the snuff vid again while chewing on a slice of pizza.

  “That’s fucked up,” I whispered.

  I red-X’d that video and moved on. In the next clip, marked May 5, 2029, or 05292029AEFL#17169, a dozen men and women in prison uniforms stood around Chloe. It was a short video, and as it played, I saw her throat quiver.

  The inmates suddenly turned to each other and began fighting – not a regular fight with fists, but a brawl to the death.

  One beat another with a crowbar while a stocky Mexican guy used a shiv to carve the face off a beefy skinhead. Another inmate broke a smaller guy’s jaw and tried to pry it off with his hands.

  Brutal.

  In the next video, she used sonoluminescence to cut down a series of concrete pillars like they were made of butter.

  The clip after that showed her standing in a long room, blindfolded. Two cameras this time, giving a split-screen image. A man stood at the other end of the room, wielding a big knife and a gun as he stalked her. When he got within five feet of her, she responded, cutting his knife arm off with a blast of light. The man tried to respond by firing his weapon at her with his remaining arm.

  I heard the report but saw no bullet.

  A slow-motion playback started up automatically, showing the bullet exit the muzzle of the gun and a wave of force knocking it aside, almost in the way someone would flick away a marble.

  “Shit …”

  So Chloe was our force to be reckoned with. She was the most powerful member of three, the one we would have to take out first.

  Having seen enough, I moved back to the app and typed in ‘steel’ to pull Victoria’s stats, which I then transferred to my computer file.

  Victoria, Subject V

  Build: 22.232

  Base height: 187 Centimeters

  Base weight: 66 Kilos

  Strength: 9

  Intelligence: 4

  Constitution: 7

  Wisdom: 4

  Dexterity: 8

  Charisma: 5

  Main: Metal Mimicry

  * Thermal Resistance

  * Bio Metal Weaponry

  * Dermal Armor

  * Amorphous Metal

  * Enhanced Strength

  * Contaminant Immunity

  I’d already checked her out once, but it was good to give her a second look. Victoria could resist heat attacks, make metal weapons, had a metal-based armor, and was immune to contaminants.

  “Yeesh,” I muttered as I went for another slice.

  Navigating to the video folder, I searched for her build number. Sure enough, I found the label 10062029AEFL#22232, from October of last year.

  In the video, which again had multiple camera angles (including drone camera angles!), Victoria faced off against an actual tank.

  They were in an open area, not one of the underground facilities, with a blue sky overhead. The tank was on one side, with its main gun aimed at Victoria as she changed forms. Turning to steel ripped Victoria’s clothes off, showcasing her perky metal nipples, something I’d failed to notice in all the chaos back at the New Mexico facility.

  The first tank blast hit her and she skidded backward, leaving a trail in the gravel. Recovering quickly, she dropped back onto one foot and
took off toward the tank.

  The next blast was rearing up to go when she reached the war machine, but it wasn’t able to fire the round before she punched into its front armor, sending its main gun to the right.

  She snapped that in half and began ripping at the top of the tank as if it were made of cardboard. In moments, she had it dismantled and was jumping up and down on it, most definitely killing the driver.

  Yikes!

  I clicked on another video of Victoria using a blade that had formed on the outer part of her arm to cut into a six-foot-thick concrete wall.

  “Got it,” I said, taking the last bite of pizza. “Her abilities are self-explanatory.”

  The final Super I needed to search for and note was the fire and ice user, Augustin. I found his details on the app and typed them out to get a better grip on them.

  Augustin, Subject Au

  Build: 35.998

  Base height: 189 Centimeters

  Base weight: 59 Kilos

  Strength: 2

  Intelligence: 8

  Constitution: 5

  Wisdom: 9

  Dexterity: 3

  Charisma: 3

  Main: Fire Manipulation

  * Fire Negation

  * Heat Manipulation

  * Pyrokinetic Flight

  * Pyrokinetic Combat

  * Overcharge

  Main Second: Ice Manipulation

  * Ice Negation

  * Cold Generation

  * Cryokinetic Constructs

  * Ice Aura

  * Cryostasis

  “Video reel, here we come.”

  The usage of fire or ice powers was pretty easy to imagine. They’ve been common magic abilities and powers used in video games, comics, fantasy novels, and other media since my childhood. Hell, my MC in Breakpoint Online – God rest the souls of books I shall not finish – was a pyro mage. His main love interest, cliché enough, was an ice mage.

  A hot one too!

  Still, seeing these powers in real life was crazytown. I watched Augustin light a man on fire, wield a fire weapon, freeze a second man to death, and torture a third with ice spikes.