by C. C. Bolick
“Give me your purse,” he said.
I raised my hands and looked at Erin. Since I didn’t have a purse, she held out her tiny clutch. He grabbed the clutch and the two ran off.
She stood dumbfounded. “That was unexpected.”
“I thought you said this place was safe.”
“It had a user rating of four point eight stars. That would have been a great time for fireworks.”
I laughed. “You said I needed to work on my social skills.”
“Not while we were being robbed. My I.D. was in there. I can’t just go down to the D.M.V. and get a new one.” She patted her pockets. “Damn. I think the keys were in there too.”
My laughter died. “How are we going to leave?”
“Not much of a planner, are you?” asked a familiar voice.
I spun around in shock. Van leaned against the car. His hair, barely long enough to brush his ears, was dark like I remembered, with silver that also streaked the beard around his mouth and chin. He wore a pair of black pants and a white shirt that buttoned all the way to the collar. The black boots reminded me of Travis. He stood with his arms folded across his chest.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“You called me.” He waved and Erin’s clutch appeared in her hand.
Her eyes were the size of saucers. She dropped the purse and then stumbled to grab it. “Who are you?”
“It’s Van. He has the power to teleport like Travis.” I stared at Van. “You saw us get robbed?”
“I’ve watched since you left Atlanta. I had a bet running on how long you’d last without my help.”
“A bet with who?” Erin demanded.
Van smiled. “My employer. But enough about me. Where are you off to now?”
“The beach.” Erin opened her clutch and unlocked our doors. “After the last twenty-four hours, any place is better than here.”
“Mind if I drive?” he asked.
I glanced at Erin. She looked as if she couldn’t speak.
Van reached for the keys and she didn’t argue. “Who is your friend?” he asked me.
“A doctor Sylvia was interviewing for the position of genetics specialist.”
He paused. “My sister was the last person to fill that role.”
“Your sister was the one Sylvia wanted me to replace?” Erin snapped to attention. “And she was from another planet?”
“Yes. Ironically, she died saving Earth.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Van reached for the driver’s door and dropped onto the seat. I motioned for Erin to take shotgun but she shook her head and jumped in the back.
Reluctantly, I sat next to Van. “Do you know how to drive?”
“If I can fly a spaceship, this car poses little challenge.”
Erin said something I couldn’t understand, but I felt sure it wasn’t nice.
“Rena said you were interviewing.” As Van glanced in the mirror at Erin, he cranked the car. “Did you get the job?”
I looked at him, incredulous. “She’s on the run with me. Of course she didn’t get the job.”
He raised his hands. “No need to get upset. We’re going to have a nice, easy drive to the mountains. If everyone can get along it will be better for us all.”
“The beach,” Erin said in a frigid voice.
“Very well,” he replied. “Do you have a preference which beach?”
“It has to have water,” she said.
Van pulled the car out of the parking lot. Would Erin ask about Tyler? After a few minutes of silence, I turned around. She’d closed her eyes and leaned her head back.
Next to me, Van turned on the radio and hummed along with an old song. “I’m seeing a new side of you,” I said. “I think I trust you even less than the day we met.”
Smiling, Van set the cruise control at the speed limit. “I think we’ll get along fine.”
* * * * *
An hour later, we sat in traffic a few miles from the entrance to a tunnel under the bay.
“Isn’t there another way?” I asked.
“This takes us to the closest beach,” Van said. “Are you in a hurry?”
I pulled out the phone from Skip. I’d considered calling him for the last hour even though he said only in an emergency. I needed to know if they’d been able to help Travis.
Van glanced over his shoulder. Erin stretched across the backseat with her eyes closed.
“Your friend will be safer if I drop her somewhere.”
“She has nowhere to go.”
“I can think of a few places,” Van said.
“We stay together,” I said.
“My mission is to protect you. Only you.”
“What mission?”
“My orders are to keep you safe.”
“Who gave those orders?” I peered at Erin. Was she really sleeping? “If you’re trying to keep me safe, why not show up yesterday? You’ve watched me since Atlanta.”
“I waited for you to need my help.”
“Need your…” I laughed. “I hope you won your bet.”
“Not yet.”
A strange beeping sounded and Van held out his hand. A device appeared that looked like a phone. He slid his finger over the screen as if making a shape for a security code, but this involved a pattern of colors. Several buttons appeared, but not a keypad like I expected. He pressed a button and a voice came over the speaker.
“The mission is complete,” Tyler said. “We got Travis out without incident.”
Behind us, Erin sat up in the seat. She stared at the phone as if it was on fire.
“I have Miss Mason,” Van said. “She seems determined to avoid the agency.”
“Where is Travis?” I asked.
“Somewhere Sylvia can’t hurt him,” Tyler said. “Now that he’s out, you need to go back.”
“I’m not going back.”
“Trust me, there’s no where you can hide from Sylvia.”
Van lowered his hand to the wheel as the cars in front of us crawled forward. The device remained suspended in the air between us.
Erin reached forward and circled the air around the phone with her hand. With a look of surprise, she sat back. She mouthed, ‘Tyler?’
I nodded but tried to avoid Van’s attention.
“How did you get out of the base?” Tyler asked.
“Travis gave me directions and Skip got me a car.”
“So, my little brother is helping you. I can’t see this going over well with Sylvia, but I gotta give him credit. Our parents will freak.”
“Your dad said I could never leave the agency unless I died or lost my power.”
Tyler hesitated. “He’s right.”
“That’s all you have to say?” I shouted. “The agency holding me is illegal and totally wrong.”
“I didn’t say holding you is right, but the agency is the safest place for you. If your power were used by someone like Louis Castillo… Well, you know what would come next. Sylvia made the same decision I would in her shoes.”
“Rena has a friend with her,” Van said.
“Friend?” Tyler said. “It’s hard enough for two people to hide, but three will be nearly impossible. Who’s the friend?”
The cars moved again and Van eased us forward. Orange barrels stretched in a long line, forcing traffic to merge into one lane. “Why close the other lanes?” he asked. “Humans amaze me with their need to make life inefficient.”
“A doctor,” I said. “She got on Sylvia’s bad side.”
Tyler groaned. “Not the safest place to be. Sylvia never forgets a vendetta.” A beeping noise came over the phone and then a shrill whistle. “I’ve got to go. At least think about going back. Until then, stay with Van and ignore his complaints about humans.”
“Okay,” I said and the call ended.
“Travis is safe?” I asked. “He wasn’t making that up?”
Van gave me a strange look. “You’re asking in earnest. Tyler has no reason to lie. Perhap
s you should call your contact at the agency.”
Yes, maybe this constituted an emergency. I dialed the number Skip programmed into my phone and he answered on the third ring.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Van found us.”
“I’m not sure how to say this, but Travis is missing.”
“I know. Tyler broke him out.”
Skip swore and the sound shocked me; rarely did Skip say anything close to cursing. He took a deep breath and I prepared myself for his next words. “An hour after you left the base, so did Louis and Bethany. The working theory is she used her previous knowledge of the agency to escape.”
Louis and Bethany on the loose was the last thing I needed. But why was she helping him? “He’s probably planning another bomb. Why are you so worried about Louis?”
“When they left, they took Agent Mason.”
“They kidnapped Dad?” I couldn’t imagine Dad letting anyone take him by force. “He’ll probably tear apart Louis’s organization from the inside.”
“That’s not all. They also took Alfie.”
Chapter Four
Travis
Beep, beep… the sound intensified as the beeps picked up speed. Before, I’d heard only silence beyond the occasional voice. A shrill whistle split the air, like a needle stabbing deep into my ears. A man spoke words I didn’t understand and the whistle stopped.
My head felt foggy, my brain numb. I couldn’t remember the last voice I heard. Maybe Angel. She’d worried about her failed attempt at reaching me. Who knew her power wouldn’t work on someone in a coma?
The chair felt like leather, which meant I’d been brought out of the coma. My sense of touch worked again, along with my hearing. After two rounds in a coma, I’d rather die than be stuck in a bed without control of my body.
To either side, my elbows rested on smooth armrests. I leaned back against some type of headrest. When had I been volunteered for a road trip in a car that smelled like oranges?
Road trips were the assignments Tyler seemed to like the best. He never let me drive, always insisted on taking his place behind the wheel. I tried to be the best navigator possible.
I missed those missions with my partner. Thinking about our days working jobs for the agency made me feel sad. A good reason not to think about the past. Regret was a danger to everyone I cared about.
Rubbing my eyes, I tried to make out more than the blur of light in front of me. As my eyes adjusted, I looked over the black screen with tiny dots of light and the control panel made of polished steel. Stainless like on the med-level, but I was no longer at the base.
I’d seen a similar panel in a cockpit; this one had three times as many flashing lights and strips of displays with numbers moving faster than I could count. The screen came into focus and a brown and yellow ball appeared—a planet circled by a wide band.
Saturn. I must be losing my mind.
To my right was black glass that reminded me of obsidian; the smooth surface showed no reflection. The planet slid away, leaving the black screen dotted with lights. Stars. Constellations I’d never learned and couldn’t care less about. Despite the rapid pace of the stars blurring into lines, I felt no movement.
White fabric covered my arms and my legs, down to my feet, the familiar white outfit given to all prisoners of the isolation floor. A pair of black gloves sat on the panel. I tested my arms. Yes, I could move again. I reached for the gloves but hesitated.
“You should put those on before someone gets hurt.”
The familiar voice made my heart skip a beat. To my left, my father sat in a seat similar to mine. He pressed a series of buttons on the panel. From the side, his face hadn’t changed much in the almost thirteen years he’d been gone. Except now he had a rough beard.
“Dad?” My voice came out as more of a squeak than a word. After all the years he was gone, I couldn’t believe my father sat next to me.
He turned to me. His hair was the color of sand like mine and his eyes were brown but older than I remembered. Wrinkles now stretched at the corners. “It’s me, Travis.” When I didn’t say anything, he laughed with bitterness. “I didn’t expect a warm welcome from you.”
“Warm…” I managed to say. “Are you really here?”
“I’m really here.”
“I can’t believe…” I took a deep breath as my feelings surged. “You’re really here.”
“We’ve already established that.”
I leaned over and put an arm around his shoulders, careful not to touch my bare skin to his. “It’s been thirteen years.”
He hesitated, shaking as if he’d expected me to hit him. With a deep sigh, he patted my arm and then drew me into a hug. “I’m sorry for leaving you.”
Could this be a dream? Was I still in the coma? “Please tell me this is real.”
Dad pulled away. “I’ve been gone since you were nine. Travis, I didn’t know…” Tears glistened in his eyes. “I wasn’t sure how you’d treat me. I couldn’t see that part of the future.”
I sat back in my seat. Seeing him after all these years was too much to comprehend. I’d been right all along. “You didn’t know if you’d see me again?”
“It’s hard to see our own future,” he said. “By now you should understand that part of our gift.”
I stared at the screen, unable to watch his face. The emotions that twisted his features shook me to the core. If I’d ever doubted he cared about me, this told the truth. Dad didn’t want to leave me. “Who forced you to go?”
Dad coughed. “It’s hard for me to explain. Not now.”
“Tell me you didn’t want to go. That you didn’t have a choice.”
“I didn’t.”
The tension that gripped my insides relaxed. “Where are we?”
“On our way to Golvern.” He waved at the gloves. “Better get those on.”
The planet he was from… Dad was taking me to the other planet. The ship bounced and I grabbed the edge of the control panel to keep from falling out of the seat.
“Sorry.” He pressed a flashing red button and two green buttons. Then he turned a dial one click to the right. “I’m trying to stabilize us.”
I thought back to my last memory of the base. I heard voices including his. “You broke into the base?”
“Yes,” he said. “You were in a medically-induced coma. I wasn’t letting Sylvia hold you any longer.”
“On the isolation floor. I know.” I slid on the gloves.
“How did you know?”
“That’s hard to explain. You came to the base and took me from the isolation floor.” The words sounded incredible, like the teenage fantasy of an orphaned kid. “How did you get in?”
“I worked there once. I teleported inside.”
The ship began to shake and I grabbed the armrests to either side of my seat. “What’s going on?”
“Lately we’ve seen an excessive amount of radiation from the sun. Have you heard about solar flares?”
I thought back to one of Sylvia’s morning meetings when another agent warned us about damage from solar flares. We were going through an active period for the sun. The solar flares could affect electronics for the base, as well as all over the planet, but also cause interference with satellite communication.
The shaking stopped and I looked at my white socks, anything to keep from staring at him. “Please tell me you brought extra shoes.”
He waved a hand and a pair of boots appeared next to my feet. It was the same kind of boots he wore, black like the rest of his outfit. Although the boots looked thick, they felt weightless as I slid them on. The most comfortable shoes I’d ever worn.
“No need to thank me,” he said with a grin.
“Sylvia’s going to have a stroke when she finds out I’m gone.” I laughed and so did Dad. “I still can’t believe you’re here. I’ve missed laughing with you.”
“If only we could see her face. Sylvia won’t be happy.”
I thought ba
ck to my last conversation with Sylvia. She’d warned me against arguing with her in front of other agents, especially the senator. Just because she’d raised me didn’t give me the right to disrespect her. Challenging her authority meant disrespect, and she’d made sure I understood her anger.
Still, I had to do what I felt was right. “When she learns you broke into the base… Wait. You said you worked at the underground base, but you didn’t. You haven’t worked for the agency since before they built underground.”
“That’s correct.”
“You’ve never seen inside those walls.” I stared at him. “How could you teleport inside?”
“I had help getting in.”
“Who helped you? Mason?”
“I helped,” said a voice behind me. I swung around and Agent Lockhart sat in one of four seats. “Your father needed a way inside and I gave him access.”
To Agent Lockhart’s right sat Tyler Greene, the best friend I’d ever known and the person I hated most after he almost got me killed. “So did I,” he said.
Seeing Tyler brought relief and a rush of anger. He’d watched my reunion with Dad in silence. Of all people, he knew what this meant to me. A part of me felt proud of the fact he’d helped bust me out. “Sylvia will make all of you regret this.”
“Sylvia no longer gives me orders,” Tyler said. “Now I answer to my new employer.”
“Who?” I asked. “The queen of Golvern?” The last time I saw Tyler was at the Korean restaurant with Van. He’d mentioned his new employer. Tyler was smart. It took no time for someone else to recognize his skills and hire him, even on another planet.
“That’s right,” Tyler said.
I looked at Agent Lockhart. “You bought into this B.S.?”
“This has nothing to do with Sylvia or any queen. Charlene asked me for a favor.”
To Agent Lockhart’s left sat Charlene Sanders. At fifteen, Dad and Agent Mason discovered her power to shoot with precision. Although I spent my life training with the goal of reaching agent status, she had no choice and was drafted into the agency. Charlene took down several high-profile killers using her skills during her short tenure. After a recent trip to the base, she’d used those skills to neutralize Rena during a meltdown that could have killed everyone.
