Inescapable Arsenal

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  “Why? We’d just come back. It isn’t like you never leave your lab.”

  I do leave the lab, but not the building… something is nagging at me. I wish emotions were as easy as science. Half the time I don’t even know what I’m feeling.

  “I don’t know. I just know I screwed it up with him.”

  Kate bursts out laughing, which turns into a snort as beer goes up her nose. “Oh honey, you’re precious. Amelia, you had a fight. It isn’t the end of the world. Get your butt over to him and apologize and all will be well. Besides, tomorrow’s your birthday, he has to forgive you, birthday rules.”

  I hope so.

  Ihave to say, if there is one thing I love about the new building, it’s my lab! Tech so state of the art it doesn’t exist commercially. I have two quantum computers in tandem just for running numbers. Everything else is powered by a third quantum computer as well as a few more traditional servers. All buried fifty feet underground in a bunker that could take an oblique hit from a nuke. Add in the four workstations, numerous monitors showing updates on different projects, and every conceivable piece of scanning tech and I’m a happy camper.

  Of course, with so many monitors the news is impossible to ignore. They aren’t being very kind. Some reporters stayed in the area and filmed the giant robot attacking Colorado. The President was on TV not ten minutes before asking people to stay calm and that his new Superhuman Initiative was dealing with it. Then the footage of us getting our butts handed to us comes on and yeah… not the best showing ever. I know he gave me carte blanch to do what I felt was needed. But am I?

  Despite yesterdays setback I am trying to persevere. After all, today is my birthday and I have one helluva present for a friend. Of course, I’m assuming it works. I hope it works.

  The door chimes. “Come,” I say as I wheel over to the vault. It’s not really a vault, just a box I built with the same material that makes up the suit. The biometric lock on top of Epic needing to open it should keep my experiments safe from thieves. I’m digging in it when I hear the door swoosh open and the temp in the room drops ten degrees in a heartbeat. I shiver involuntarily as I dig out my treasure.

  Monica walks in with Kate at her side and Tessa right behind her. I didn’t realize they would all be coming, but maybe I caught them at the right time. If Kate is affected by Glacier’s cold aura she doesn’t show it. Tessa has a hoodie on with the worlds, I heart Arsenal. It takes me by surprise. Is she being sarcastic? I can’t tell, but it has to be sarcasm, right?

  “Cute shirt.”

  “You like it? I’m selling them on Amazon for thirty bucks a pop. They’re quite popular.”

  I still can’t tell if she’s joking but I’m going to go with she’s just messing with me. The ice princess looks like she would rather be anywhere but here. Kate gives me the eyebrow. She must sense my excitement. I place the belt I’ve been working on over my lap and wheel to the largest monitor.

  “Epic, play it for my guests.”

  Affirmative, flashes on the screen before a diagram of Kate’s magnetic field appears.

  “When I first started looking into your problem, Monica, I was intrigued. I read Cat-7’s notes on it and wasn’t impressed. They were never interested in finding a solution.” She clenches her fists hard. I figured they’d strung her along with promises of reversing what had happened to her. “All their research focused on weaponizing your abilities. When that didn’t work they sent you to us. Which, is actually the good news.”

  “I don’t see how two years of my life wasted in a lab while being poked, prodded, and chiseled is good news.” Two years? I had no idea. Now I feel like a heel.

  “No, that wasn’t and I am sorry for what you had to go through, truly.” That seems to make her feel a little better. I get an approving nod from Kate anyway. “The good news is they sent you to me. They were looking at you as a biology problem and I am not a biologist. I’m an engineer—”

  “Among other things,” Kate interrupts.

  “True. Here is a picture of a magneto scan I took of Kate a few months back. The yellow lines are her magnetic field. This is with her power at a minimal level, watch as she actively produces pheromones.” The lines thicken and brighten. Spreading out farther from her.

  “Okay, pretty color show,” Monica says. I know she’s not happy about her situation. But how can she not see how cool this is?

  “This is Behemoth when she was at rest,” another image pops up. Behemoth was much larger than Kate and her magnetic field was immense. Thick yellow lines nearly made her one solid color.

  “I’m not following what this has to do with me?” Monica asks.

  “Patience, young Jedi… this is you.” Her magneto scan I took two weeks ago pops up. It’s brighter than Kate’s but not nearly as powerful.

  “Okay…”

  I sigh. Kate flashes me a look and I smile. Not everyone geeks out on the science like me but… they should. “Here, let me demonstrate.”

  “Amelia, just tell her.”

  “Nope. The process is important. It’s the proof. I’m showing my work, quit hassling me,” I say with a smile. “Every living thing has an electromagnetic field. For a variety of reasons, electrical current, iron in our blood, tons of different things…” I raise an eyebrow and smile like she should now get it… blank eyes. “Fine,” I mutter. Wheeling over to her I hold out the belt, “Put this on.” Please, oh please work.

  “This looks like a weight belt…” Monica says.

  “It isn’t. Just put it on.” She wraps it around her waist and secures the Velcro straps in the front. “Listen, this is going to feel a little weird,” I tell her.

  “How weird?”

  “Well,” I say wheeling over to the keyboard that controls it, “Let’s just say I’m pretty sure you won’t die.”

  “What? Wait a second!”

  I hit the button, grinning ear to ear. There is no possibility of her dying. But I have no idea of how painful the process could be or if it will work. It should. But, like I always say, there’s a difference between thinking something is possible and building it.

  She screams, not out of pain but surprise and halfway through her scream goes from sounding like an echo in a glacier to a human girl. She drops to her knees, naked as the day she was born, covered in steaming ice, and dripping water on my floor. It worked! Oh my God, it worked!

  “Okay, sorry I didn’t think you’d be naked.” I nod to Kate and point at the locker with my lab coat. She runs over and swipes the coat before porting right to Monica and wrapping it around her shoulders. I shake with excitement as I wheel over to her.

  Monica sits up, resting on her knees and staring at her hands. Somehow, I didn’t think she’d have pale blonde hair, eyebrows, and eyes the color of old ice when she transformed initially. That could be side effects of the time she spent… wherever she went. But who cares… it worked!

  “I can feel her emotions,” Kate says. “Monica, are you okay?” Kate kneels down next to her, running a hand through her hair to get the water out.

  “How…” she says, eyes still on her hands.

  “Well, since you still had a magnetic field, and clearly ice doesn’t, I theorized you had a body, hidden away in the dimension where your powers come from. I just had to find a way of swapping your ice body for your human one.”

  “How?” she asks again.

  “I just explained how… oh, now you want the science?” I can’t help but grin. “It’s complicated, and most of the math Epic did while I worked out the device. Suffice to say there is a carrier wave that holds your ice body together. Blocking it forces the connection to dip below the dimensional threshold and wallah!” Of course, the other theory I won’t tell her about is that her consciousness might have stayed with the ice… in which case we would have gotten a frozen corpse back.

  The three girls still have blank stares. “Point is, you get your body back! The battery in the belt is good for eight hours or so, but there’s no reason
I couldn’t fashion the same sort of power supply I use for my suit… or this.” I have one more present up my sleeve. I hand Kate a small black box the length of a pencil and as wide as my wrist. I had it in my chair pouch waiting for the right moment.

  Kate’s eyes go up in surprise. “Amelia, how did you hide this from me?”

  “Trade secret, take it and open!” I hold it out to her. She takes the box pulls it open. I know what she sees. A silver chain with black highlights. Hanging from the center is a green gem the same color as her eyes.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the gift but— Oh!” She gets it. That’s my Kate, sharp as a knife!

  “It isn’t really an emerald. Epic and I grew it here in the lab. Pressing it activates the miniature ZPFM inside which will power ECM until the sun goes nova in about four billion years.”

  She looks down at the necklace and then back to me.

  “I don’t get it,” Tessa says, “Are you two a couple or something?”

  I cough, choking on my own spit, “No. No not at all! You never had a best friend Tessa? Friends do things for each other. Now Kate can have a normal day without being bombarded by other people’s emotions. She can turn it on and off when she wants.”

  Monica makes it to her feet, a little shaky as she reaches out for Tessa to help her stand. “This is the best day of my life,” she says. Her voice is rough like she hasn’t had a drink in years.

  Kate slips the necklace on and gives me a smile, “Thank you, Amelia. It’s been so long since I couldn’t feel the emotions of everyone around me… I didn’t even remember what was like until we went to Seattle.”

  Now I just have to get them out of my lab before they remember it’s my birthday. My secret plan was to overwhelm them with gifts so they would forget to celebrate.

  “Well, it’s getting late and this has been fun, but we have a busy day tomorrow. Monica, enjoy the food, just don’t eat too much.” I wheel around and I hear Kate’s throaty laugh.

  “Hold on ‘Wheels McShooter.’ Where do you think you’re going?” she asks.

  “To bed?”

  “I haven’t turned it on, Amelia. Don’t think I’ve forgotten your birthday. Or the fact that you haven’t left your lab in a while.”

  I sigh. Shoulders slumping forward. “I have a very good reason not to go out. Cat-7 had detailed files on me. Everyone knows I’m Arsenal and I saved the President. It’s only been a few of months since the incident. What if…” Kate sees right through me. She walks over, kneeling next to me with a hand on my arm.

  “Amelia, he’s gone. He’s not coming back. Don’t let him keep you in a prison of your own making.”

  I hate it when she’s right.

  “Well I don’t really know what the hell is going on,” Tessa says, “But I need a frigging drink, Blondie needs some clothes, and Amelia needs to lighten the hell up. I know just the place,” she finishes with an evil gleam in her eye.

  Every muscle in my body aches as I finish the long bank to bleed off speed. The spire of the HQ glints in the sun just a few miles away and I’m glad to be back. Despite the fact the girls kept me out until the wee hours of the morning, we still had training today. The whole team ran a course Luke designed to push us together and stress our limits. After nearly nine hours of flying, shooting, carrying, and being hit, I’m ready for a hot shower and bed. It didn’t leave me any time to talk to him. I’ll call him tonight, that is exactly what I will do. If I can muster the courage.

  Kate took off to Paris since today is Friday, she wanted to spend the weekend at home. Teleporters, sheesh. Everyone else is crammed aboard the Emjet headed back this way. They’re only a few minutes behind me.

  “Epic, what’s with the crowd in front of the building?”

  Milton has not made me aware of a disturbance or security breaches. Checking.

  I use the HUD’s zoom feature to check out the crowd. Uh-oh. Signs with, ‘All supers belong in jail’ and ‘no more powers’ are held high. I’d heard of anti-super protests in some of the bigger cities. But Arizona loves the Diamondbacks, I didn’t think they’d make much headway here. Of course, they’re probably bussed in. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who I am and what this building is for. I guess they know now. It isn’t like my identity was ever secret. From the moment I joined the DB’s I had to give Cat-7 my name and I knew the cat would eventually be out of the bag. After I dumped all of Cat-7’s secrets on the web and saved the President, people found out.

  It isn’t like it made me a celebrity. I got a host of requests for interviews and then it all died down when I didn’t respond to any of them. Like Kate said, I haven’t left the lab in a few months, other than to see my folks. I spent more time out of my lab and armor when we recruited the team than I did the three months before.

  As we get closer, I can see building security in their bright red shirts standing impassively between the crowd and the front doors. We have a front like a hotel with a pass through driveway. It makes it easy for people to drop off guests then drive to the underground garage or have the valet do it. Okay, it’s a lot like a hotel. Hotel Mars. I smirk, maybe a revamp of the building logo is needed.

  There really isn’t anywhere for them to stand on the outside gate since we’re right off a state route. They must have waited for a car to go in then ran through to the front doors. At least the pass-through is under the spire and out of the sun. The last thing we want is to have an out-of-towner have sunstroke on our lawn and then be blamed for it.

  “I’m gonna touch down and see what’s going on.”

  Amelia, I do not advise that course of action. Crowds are unpredictable. The only weapon systems we have will severely hurt them.

  “Weapon systems? Epic, clearly they’re upset about something. I’ll land and explain to them what is going on. I’m sure if I just tell them what’s what they’ll understand. Everyone knows about the aliens now. Clearly, we need to be working together.”

  Amelia… have you met people?”

  “This isn’t the Internet where no one is allowed to be wrong and heaven forbid anyone else be right. These are real people, in the flesh. Trust me, it will be fine.”

  I have recorded your last phrase in order to play it back to you next time you are tempted to ignore my advice.

  “Funny. Ease up on the thrust and let’s land slowly.”

  The deep hum of my boots alerts the crowd to me just before I get there. Pulling up, I slow to a hover before setting down. A hush falls over the crowd for a second, all of them look up at me… gripping their signs like weapons? Why?

  “PA on.” The light flashes letting me know. “Hi, I’m Arsenal. Let me answer—” A tomato hits my faceplate.

  “Supers belong in jail,” the thrower yells. The crowd picks up the chant and starts shaking their signs and fists in the air. This makes no sense.

  “Epic scan the crowd, facial recognition. This doesn’t feel right.”

  On it.

  “Please, listen,” I say with the PA up to thirty decibels. That gets their attention. “I’ll happily answer any questions you have.”

  For a second I think they’re gonna take me up on it then the stupid chant starts. What is up with that? I’m being perfectly reasonable here. I wish Kate was here, she’d have them eating out of her palm in about five seconds.

  “I have a question.” A hand shoots up from the middle of the crowd. The crowd instantly silences and parts for a tall man with cold black eyes. I suppress a shudder, I know him. Pedric Matahal. Former head scientist of Category-7. I very much want to rescind my offer and take off right now. But I can’t. I’ll look like I’m hiding something. Best to play the gracious host.

  “How do you justify your actions in Seattle? Elliot Bay is all but uninhabitable now. And Colorado? If it weren’t for the actions of a few brave humans we might never know the truth.”

  “And what is the truth, Mr. Matahal?” I ask. I instantly regret opening my mouth. He’s in front of the crowd now and he
turns to them.

  “The truth is you are lying to us. Supers, the government, you’re all liars and thieves. Look at this building behind us? How did you afford it Ms. Lockheart? When you came to work for Cat-7 you had meager earnings… now you are on Forbes top 500… how is that?”

  “I don’t see what one has to do with the other. You were—” he cuts me off with a wave of his hand.

  “Of course you don’t see, you’re not one of the chosen. Either through incompetence or collusion, you have allowed this calamity to fall upon us. People,” he turns to the crowd, “She is the harbinger of the end times. Look at her.”

  I tune him out for a second as he keeps working the crowd. “You were right Epic. But I could have been.”

  You could have been. If people were logical, reasonable beings who listened to facts other than their own.

  “Touche. Scan him. When we met in Cat-7 the man made me feel like he hated everyone and everything but… there’s something… Why is he here now?”

  Scanning. He appears perfectly normal. Crosschecking. Wait one.

  I wait. But I have a feeling I know what Epic is going to say. The crowd is cheering now. When he raises his fist they roar. I send a text message to the lead red shirt, telling him to take his men inside. The people out here are no threat to anyone and I can reroute traffic to our backup underground entrance if need be. If they aren’t out here that will be one less reason for the crowd to confront anyone. My HUD shows his name. O’Brien. If I recall, he’s an ex-SAS man looking for a clean start in the states. Epic did all the hiring and he seemed to have put a lot of different people together who all work like a well-oiled machine.

  O’Brien gives me a nod before tapping the man next to him on the shoulder, he does the same to the fellow next to him and within seconds, without a word, all four men are inside locking the doors. Dang impressive.

  I have the results back. I checked with the national database and then I went international, do you want to know what I found?