Amelia, you are required in the lab.
“Coming.” I glance over at my chair then Carlos. “Muscles.” I snap my fingers, “Chair. Pronto,” I say with a smile. Carlos leaps up to mock attention and snaps a salute. Grinning, he walks over and lifts me up like a paperweight. I can’t help but blush as I rest against his rock-hard biceps.
“Wow,” I murmur. He coughs politely before putting me down in my chair. “I kind of meant just go get my chair. Dork.”
He looks down, running his hand through his hair, “Yeah I realize that now. Sorry.”
I let it go with a shrug, “No worries. Follow me, sir.” I roll over to the bookshelf and pull on John Steakley’s Armor. The shelf slides open revealing my lab. Carlos whistles.
“That’s so cool.”
“I know, right?” The ramp down lets me glide into the room. The lab’s square footage is four times the apartment. Off to the right, I have three display cases. Each has a set of my old armor in it. The MK I with its acid scoring and pitted metal. The MK II hangs in slightly better shape, but the helmet is partially crushed from Behemoth’s blows. The MK III is intact, I upgraded for upgrade sake, not because I had to. The armor I’m wearing now, my three-point-five is on a maintenance cycle in the automated factory below the lab’s floor.
The lab is set up as one big open room. Fewer doors to navigate through and fewer obstacles to go around. It’s circular in shape with each of my workstations a few feet apart making it easy to navigate to the one I want. I have six workstations in here, unlike my old lab that only had three.
Every one of them is working on a different aspect of the final suit build. “The alloy is really cool. I can’t make it here on Earth, it’s only thirty percent terrestrial, but I have more than enough of the alloy from the drone attacks to make a hundred suits of armor.”
“How?” he asks.
“I’m the Full Metal Superhero, don’t you know? When the President of the United States tells DARPA to hand over a couple of hundred pounds of alien alloy, they do it.”
He chuckles. “Don’t let it go to your head, Amelia.”
“I’m not. I keep waiting for them to demand schematics or something. Not happening. Anyway, the alloy is incredibly malleable when stimulated with the right EM field combined with these polymolecular chips they implant. Once Mom cracked the alien database, making the chips was a snap. Programming them came next, and once Epic knew how to do that, the rest was easy. Mix the entire suit with computronium and we have the MK IV. The suit’s cooking right now and it should be done any minute. All I have to do is have Epic imprint my brain waves on the circuits and the suit will obey my impulses.” I tap my temple for emphasis. “No more synthsuit, which makes me really happy.”
“Wow,” he says. Carlos takes a long moment to look around the lab. Seven monitors for six workstations and each one has a different schematic up. Emdrive, Sword of Doom, Particle Beams, Mass Driver, the suit itself, polymolecular chips, and finally, the quantum gate drive.
“You’re putting an FTL drive on it?” he asks wearily.
“Yup!” I wheel over to the drive stations and tap a few keys. “It’s super simple. I just need to have a particle frequency to jump to. I don’t know how the Th’un do it yet, but I will crack that too. When I do know how to navigate, I want to be ready.”
“What happens if you activate it without a destination?” he asks.
“That would be bad,” I say with a frown. “Which is why I’m not going to do it. If I did my end location would be completely random. All I know for sure is, I would end up somewhere with a ZPFM and that’s about it.”
“Don’t do that,” he says, chuckling.
Amelia, it is ready.
I slap my hands together with glee. Epic has me roll over and put on the brain scanner, a clunky helmet wired with electrodes. It’s designed to map all electrical impulses in my brain and make a sort of key, whereby only someone with my exact brain function can use the MK IV. Which means only I can use it.
The machine hums while it maps out the electrical function of my head and neck, pulsing with each burst of energy. Epic pops images on the closest monitor to map out different segments. They also act as a ‘zeroing’ of sorts. Only I respond to a picture of Kate the way I respond. Someone else might look at her, but their brain would have a very different reaction to her. Epic flashes a hundred pictures at me, recording how each image affects my brainwaves. After five minutes of this the machine shuts off.
Are you ready?
“Epic, I was born ready.”
Carlos groans as I wheel over to the last station. This is the scariest part. Did I do it right? Are the calculations correct? My hands shake a little as I place them on the cookie sheet like receiver.
Amelia, we can wait. You do not have to put it on right now.
“Amelia, is this dangerous?” Carlos asks.
“No. Not at all,” I say with a smile. “At least, not to the equipment,” I murmur.
“I heard that,” he says. I can hear him walking toward me. No time like the present.
“Epic… Initiate!”
The dispenser above the cookie sheet looks like a faucet. Brown liquid pours out, splashing all over my hands. The gobs that miss return to the mass as a whole on their own. The alloy is in-between solid and liquid. There’s a feeling of weight as it crawls across my skin. The ugly brown flashes through a kaleidoscope of colors as it contacts my skin. After a few seconds it settles into a mirror finish. It reflects light and has the effect of looking like I’m being dipped in a bath of silver nitrate. By the time Carlos gets to me the alloy is half up my arms. The faucet shuts off and the rest slides up my hands.
“Amelia? What is this?”
I’m desperately trying to stay calm but the claustrophobic feeling of being buried alive is hard to push down. I unconsciously find myself pushing up in my chair trying to get away.
“I call it, Animetal. It’s an… uh... animated metal…”
It slides under my shirt as it proceeds on its journey to wrap itself around my entire body. Carlos reaches for my hand.
“Don’t touch,” I shout at him. He freezes. “It’s programming itself to me. If you touch it, then it will try to encase you too.”
He frowns. It covers my arms, shoulders, and crawls across my stomach in just a few seconds. I know when it hits my legs because the sensation vanishes. I have to look. Pulling the blanket aside I watch as it covers my legs in its mirrored surface.
“This is freaking me out, Amelia,” Carlos whispers.
“Join the club,” I say with a nervous laugh. “Trust me, it feels ten times worse than it looks.”
“Epic, can you stop it?” he asks.
It is operating within normal parameters. Trust me Carlos. If Amelia were in danger I would abort.
“Okay. Time to put my money where my mouth is.” I take a deep breath and close my mouth as it starts crawling up over my face. I throw a wink at Carlos as it covers my lips. I cringe, close my eyes, and start counting in my head. The film covers my nose, eyes, ears then up around my head.
I can hold my breath for about forty seconds. The process shouldn’t take that long.
I hope.
My chest grows tight as I fight to hold my breath. Any second I should hear a tone telling me the process is complete and I can open my eyes. My lungs go from uncomfortable to burning. A tiny spark of panic ignites behind my eyes. Any second…
It’s taking too long. I try to move but my arms feel like lead weights are holding them down. I open my eyes and— a long low tone sounds in my ear. I take a deep breath. A couple.
The HUD flashes to life as Epic transfers his main processes into the suit. I hold up my hands as the suit solidifies in its final form and pattern, the same scheme I used before, I don’t want people thinking I’m a new armored hero. However, the suit’s thinner. There’s no mistaking I’m a girl now.
I glance up at Carlos, he looks ready to rip the armor right off me.
“Slow down, slugger. I’m fine,” I tell him.
“That was freaky, Niña. Don’t do that again.”
“You have no idea.” I take a few deep breaths to center myself. Time to see exactly how well it works. I push up, taking a step out of the chair. My balance is off causing me to stumble into Carlos. He grabs me, holding me up.
“Thanks,” I mutter as I focus. “Epic, recalibrate the neural interface.”
The interface is fine. The armor is reacting to your nerve impulses point-two-five times faster than the previous interface. With full contact, and no synthsuit to slow the process down, you are now faster than you were.
“Just take it slow then, understood,” I say. The HUD finishes booting up flashing the suit's systems as online. I glance around looking for the mirror. I keep it by the door, so I can see the lab as I wheel out. Carefully, I walk over. The armor… no my feet make a thump-thump on the floor as I walk. It’s crazy but I can feel the floor.
“Epic, am I getting feedback from the exterior of the armor?”
Affirmative. The vibration is transmitted to the polymolecular chips which in turn communicates the feedback to your nervous system. I think you will find a complete range of sensation with the armor enabled. While this is unexpected it should not be a problem.
“Unexpected? This is great… but uh, can you turn it off? If I get punched I don’t want to feel it…”
I will program limits into the circuits. I would not want you feeling too much.
I stand before the mirror and let out a whistle. The armor is a little more form-fitting than I would’ve liked, but the tradeoff is a suit with ten times the ultimate tensile strength of the old one. Not to mention all the benefits of having it in one piece.
Should I have it go into storage mode for further tests?
“I think a field test is in order. Yo, Carlos?” I turn and grin at him. The suit responds to my mental impulses in a heartbeat. My face mask and helmet dissolve leaving my head as if I had taken the helmet off. My HUD doesn’t go away though. Another awesome invention. Though this one is by Epic. Instead of a visual HUD to look at, the information is overlaid on my optic nerve by the suit, since it is already interfacing with my nervous system.
“Wow, Amelia. You’ve outdone yourself this time,” he says. He comes and stands next to me, running a finger down my arm which I can feel as if he were touching my bare skin.
“Pretty cool, huh?” I ask.
“Bad ass is what it is.”
“Wanna help me test it?” I ask with a grin.
“What did you have in mind?”
The spear cuts through the air an inch from my face, sending me twisting hard and back over. I kick in the Emdrive and floor it, hitting Mach three in as many seconds before I loop up and come back down.
We’re outside the HQ in the desert. There isn’t anything to hurt around here but scrub brush and sand. The perfect place to test my MK IV. It’s so frigging light and responsive it’s easy for me to forget I’m even wearing a suit. The best part— the part that makes me scream with joy— I can feel the wind against my body as I cut through the air.
Carlos is standing his ground, tossing his spear at me when he can but mostly acting as a sitting duck for me to blast him with low power particle beams. No matter how fast I am, he raises his shield to block the attacks.
I scream by him at three times the speed of sound ten feet off the ground. The shockwave causes him to raise his shield to block the blast and all he does is take one step back to brace himself.
I peel back around in a turn that would be the envy of any fighter pilot in the world. Slowing down as I do so I come to hover a few feet off the ground twenty feet in front of him.
“You’re holding back,” I tell him. I really wanted this to be a proper test, but so far, he’s just letting me hit him.
“You noticed, huh. I’m not exactly weak, Amelia. If I hit you wrong, I could kill you.”
I shake my head. “Carlos, hold up your shield.” He does.
I land. “Epic, full power to kinetic manipulators.”
Affirmative.
I run forward, leap, and come down hard on his shield with my fist. The suit amplifies my strength a hundred times. A hundred times what my kinetic manipulators could already do. My knuckles hit the shield, Carlos grunts, and a massive clang of metal on metal rings throughout the desert. The shockwave whips up sand in little eddies around us.
“Well, alright then,” Carlos says with a grin. It’s still weird seeing him in the armor. The bronze breastplate leaves his ripcord taught arms exposed. He wears a red tunic underneath and the Greek/Roman leather skirt dangles down to his knees. Bronze boots come up to his knees. The helmet, shield, and spear are his only other adornments.
The spear flies back to him and smacks his open palm.
Amelia, I am detecting some abnormal readings in your neuro-electric current. I would suggest taking a break while I run a diagnostic.
“Are you kidding me, Epic? I feel great. Better than great.” I slap my hands together. “Okay. Protector, let’s do this!”
I fire off a couple of full power particle beams at him. They bounce off his shield and turn sand to glass a few feet away. Time to show off my shiny new toy.
I don’t need to say my weapons to use them anymore, just think them, but old habits die hard. “Sword,” I tell the suit. The alloy on my arm swirls as it forms my black Sword of Doom. It only takes three seconds and I’m holding my blade. I charge forward on an Emdrive assisted leap, sword up in both hands.
Predictably, Carlos steps back, shield up. I bring the weapon down with all my new-found strength. The Sword of Doom sparks off the ancient shield. He knocks the blade away, taking a swing at my off-balance stance. He shield-checks me, slamming me down into the desert where I dig a twenty-foot furrow before I grind to a halt.
“Don’t close with me, Niña. Despite your physical strength, you lack any formal hand to hand training and that is something I’ve spent a long time working on. Use your range weapons, keep me off balance.”
It pricks my pride to have him talking to me this way. A spike of irrational anger flares up in my gut. I try to push it down, it doesn’t feel right to be mad at him. But… I’ve been doing this almost a year. I defeated every single threat that has come my way, who is he to tell me how to superhero?
Climbing to my feet I flick my wrist at him and let a full power particle beam speak for me. The blue ions flash through the air. He’s so fast I barely see him move. The beam hit the air where he was. I drag it around, following his evasive maneuver. He’s fast. Faster than anyone but Fleet. Maybe even faster over short distances. He comes in on me, shield first, slamming against me. My horizon goes crazy as I flip end over end. Epic shows the hit as being almost six thousand newtons, but the suit isn’t even scratched, and I barely felt it.
“Awesome.” I get control, flip around, and punch it. Breaking the sound barrier a half second later, I smash into him. Alarms scream at me from the impact of using my body like a battering ram. Carlos folds in half as we dig a furrow in the desert.
He backhands me. Anger flares up heating my cheeks and twisting my stomach. I’m Arsenal, dammit. I can take him down. Standing back up I fire off the particle beam at him. He dodges again, this time throwing his spear at me. The Emdrive kicks in leaping me into the air over his throw. I shoot up into the sky to put some distance between us.
Amelia, I am concerned about the amount of neuro-activity. Your synapses are firing at an unusually accelerated rate.
“Will you shut up about the stupid neurons. I’m fine. Prep the mass driver.” If none of my other weapons will work, this should ring his bell.
Amelia?
“You heard me, let’s smoke him.” My heart pounds and my mouth is dry like the desert around me, but I can do this. I can beat him. I’ll show him who’s boss.
Amelia, I will not use the mass driver against Carlos. It could kill him.
I shake my head, the suit wobbles or is it my vision? I check the HUD for alarms, nothing. The Emdrive cuts out. For a second, I hover… then we’re falling. The HUD vanishes, and I can’t hear Epic. A massive headache blasts through me, my eyes blur and there’s a ringing in my ear. What… what am I doing?
Without warning the suit vanishes, returning to storage mode. I’m falling buck naked, and the ground is at least two thousand feet below… and closing.
“Kate,” I mumble, “Help.” The world goes dark and the last thing I see is the Arizona desert rushing up at me.
My dreams are a jumbled mess like they are when I’m drugged. Sadly, I’ve experienced the sensation of sedation far too many times. There’s a gaggle of images and feelings. Luke, though, is as constant as the northern star. Through it all, I hear his voice. Sometimes clear, sometimes faint, but ever present.
“Amelia.” I hear him talking to me. Whispering, really, as if he were speaking into my mind. “Come back to us.”
The dreams fade, replaced by a foggy haze and pain… lots of pain.
“Ugh. Who fonged me?” I mutter. I slowly open my eyes and blink a few times. Harsh white lights, the kind only hospitals seem to use, greet me. Familiar beeps and whirs of hospital equipment greet me. Luke, smiling, looking like he hasn’t slept in ten years, looks down on me from above.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I croak back. Luke takes my hand and smothers it with his own large ones. Heat from his hand flows into me. I smile, the sensation of his heat reassures me. I stay like that a few minutes, holding his hand, letting life flow back into me.
Kate pops into existence looking fabulous as ever. She wouldn’t be out of place at an expensive club or a night on the town with her svelte jeans, knee-high leather boots and maroon blouse. Jewelry dangles from her neck and her makeup has a dark blue vibe.
“How long?” I manage to say as she comes to the other side of the bed.
Alien Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero Book 4) Page 6
