I wheel around from the monitor she was speaking to me on and look up at my current project. The MK VII Combat suit is almost ready; I found a way to add in an extra ZPFM along with a fourth kinetic manipulator, which I’m in the process of working on. It’s in pieces on my workbench—I had a neat idea for maybe fine tuning it’s shields. Epic can reshape them to a degree, like stealth mode, making radar bounce off me in angles so that I can’t be picked up by conventional means. What if, though, I could shape it into tighter angles? I mostly use them to absorb kinetic shots and G-forces that would sheer me in half. If I could—
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and goosebumps spread up my arms. I suddenly feel like I’m being watched. I glance up at the far monitor with my lab’s camera output displayed on it... sure enough, there is a man behind me not ten feet away. I can’t help but stiffen as my heart races. There isn’t any way for me to suit up in here. The best I could do would be to use my mobile gateway and go that route. But that would leave a strange man in my lab who—so far—hasn’t made a move to hurt me.
“Hello Mr. Parker,” I say as I wheel around, affecting a calm demeanor I certainly don’t feel.
He nods, more to himself than me. “You’re very clever, Ms. Lockheart.” His voice shakes a little as he speaks, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. Or eaten, for that matter. I get him; he’s trying to save his family.
“Can I call you Frank?” I ask. He doesn’t really move, just clutches his notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. Now that I’m close to him I can see a few more details. He has deep brown eyes and his face looks like it used to smile a lot. He wears simple clothing; sketchers, slacks, a white button up shirt with no tie, and his gray overcoat and rain hat, which he takes off while we speak.
“Sure,” he says, glancing around as we speak.
“No one is going to hurt you,” I say to reassure him. “I’m not in the habit of hurting people who aren’t trying to hurt me... you’re not trying to hurt me, are you?”
He shakes his head. “I just want to save my girls, that’s all. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, but I don’t always have a choice,” he says, taking the first step since he appeared in my lab. Not directly toward me, but in my direction. His eyes dart around the room as if he’s looking for something.
“I’m very sorry about your family, Frank. Believe me, I did everything I could that day to stop Behemoth—to stop all of it.” I don’t have to pretend to hurt; I am. I’ve grown used to the pain of losing innocent people, but Kate is right—it’s not my fault. I do my best to stop Behemoth and that is all I can do. If I didn’t do what I did, a lot more people would be dead right now, possibly the whole planet. I’ve had to find a way to be okay with that. If I’m not, next time maybe no one is saved. I can’t imagine that pain would be any better, and most certainly worse.
I notice the monitor behind Frank has a blinking light. Epic is trying to get my attention. There are days I’m glad he doesn’t have a voice.
Kate is on the way. They are still trying to rescue people from the aftermath of the battle. She says three minutes.
“I know. You all did your best. Behemoth was a monster and I’m glad she’s dead. But that doesn’t change the fact that my girls are gone. At least, in this present.”
I cock my head to the side. “You know I’m a bit of a scientist,” I say with a chuckle. “Maybe I could help?”
His eyes don’t stop moving as he takes another step. It’s like he’s trying to see everything at once. “You can, I mean, you are, or you will. I’m not sure anymore, things tend to blur together.” He shakes his head like he can clear it all up in his mind. “I need your kinetic manipulator, the one you have on your workstation.”
I clench my jaw to keep from saying, “Like hell.” Instead, I smile thinly and say, “Frank, I can’t let you have my tech. The government seized a bunch of it and turned it over to a madman and I’m still trying to clean up that mess. I can’t just hand over the one thing that...” My eyes narrow as I look at him. “How do you even know about that?” It occurs to me the only people I’ve ever even told about my kinetic manipulators are on the team. It’s not like I publish papers or anything. And the very, very, stripped down version I sold to Lockheed to get all this started couldn’t even be used in this capacity.
“I read about it in your museum. It absorbs kinetic energy and lets your armor survive G-forces that would,” he holds up his fingers to do air quotes, “Make a fighter pilot cry.”
I shake my head. I do recall writing those words in my journal a few years back, when I was testing the MK I. Was it really only two years ago? Seems like a lot longer.
“Um… museum?” I ask.
He cracks a grin for the first time since entering the room. “Time traveler,” he says with a shrug. “I can go pretty far in the future. But it’s not terribly relevant because it’s a future without me. Too many things can be changed by a single person. I go often to see what happens next and about half the time I’m seeing something that won’t happen because—”
“The observer effect!” I shout it out like a prize physics student answering her favorite professor.
He smiles. “Yep. I change things every time I observe them. At least, I can see a few things and I can learn things I wouldn’t otherwise be able to know.”
“Like what?” I ask because I’m curious… and I’m stalling.
“Like how your best friend can feel your emotions at any given time. How your AI works. Things like that. If an event happens that I have no way of influencing, I can be pretty sure it will happen, even if I do observe it.” He checks his watch, it’s a lovely timepiece. Something I haven’t seen in a while. I think it’s a pilot’s watch, an Aviator.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” I ask.
“No. I can tell you a lot of things, Amelia. I can tell you how things turn out with Mr. Lancaster, or if your friends,” he gestures toward the picture of Carlos on my desk, “will ever marry, or if you will have kids... I can tell you anything you like. And I will, if you give me the kinetic manipulator.”
How to save Luke... that’s the only thing I can think of that would matter. Could he tell me though? I know he says that if he doesn’t have involvement in it then it’s more likely to happen... but now that he’s here, he’s involved. Just telling me could change it, and not for the better.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss, Frank, I really am. I can’t give it to you, though. If this got out... I can’t even imagine what would happen.”
He nods like he knew that was going to be my answer. Has he done this before? Is this his past? My present? If it’s his past, then it has already happened for him... thinking about time travel can give Grand Canyon-sized headaches.
“It’s the last piece I need and it’s the only thing I can’t get from the future. Every time I’ve tried it fails to work. No one I’ve taken it to can replicate it, not even people with powers that allow them to understand tech. No. I get it from you, here and now in the present, or I don’t save my family. I’m sorry, but I have to save them.”
“What do you mean it’s the last piece. It isn’t useful without a power source and—”
“I stole a ZPFM from the government. It’s why I had people in California, they had a rough prototype they were shipping to—oh, you didn’t know?”
I work my mouth open and closed a few times as I try to suppress the rage building up inside of me. Of course they stole one. Of course! Major Nelson and I are going to have words. I thought the worst of it was Rafael creating those monstrosities with my armor... something I still haven’t figured out how he did.
“I just need that,” he says pointing at my tech, “and a few more things and I’ll be set.”
“Well, I’m not going to let you have it,” I say, the anger from the revelation seeping out in my voice.
He rechecks his watch. “I know. That’s why you have to leave. We’re out of time, Amelia. I’m truly sorr
y about Carlos.”
“Over my dead—”
Amelia! We must evacuate the Spire immediately. Red lights flash and emergency klaxon's sound with an ear-splitting ring.
“What’s going on?” I ask both Frank and Epic.
Someone has hacked Artemis and is preparing to launch an arrow at the Spire. We have less than three minutes to evacuate.
“What the f—” Frank leaps past me, lays a single hand on the kinetic manipulator and then flings back to where he first appeared, vanishing in a swirl of air that appears like a portal of water in the middle of my lab. Then he’s gone along with my tech. “Epic, red alert, get everyone to a minimum safe distance. Call the team, let them know what’s happening. Can we evacuate in time?”
Maybe. Security is doing an exceptional job. Amelia, you need to suit up and leave right now. I am transferring myself and Milton to our secret servers. I will save as much of your tech as I can in Q-space. But you must go right now.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I just did.
“Where’s Carlos?” I ask him, my mind swirling with the possibilities of what Frank said a few seconds before.
He is s assisting in the rescue of a ferry in Thailand. Shall I notify him?
What do I do? Is it the ferry that hurts him, or coming here? “It’s your call, buddy. I can’t make that decision; no matter what I do I could play into Frank’s hands and I won’t play that game.”
I roll over to the wall where the chair is, slip in and take one last look around my lab. Dangit, I like this one. I don’t know how anyone managed to hack my satellite, since they would, in essence, also have to hack Epic to do so... and that is impossible, isn’t it? Now the question is, did Frank give someone knowledge that allowed them to hack it, or did he only see the event coming and time his theft to coincide? So many questions.
“Epic, initiate,” I say once I’m fully seated.
Thirty seconds later I’m blasting out of the tunnel into the sky.
“Amelia,” Kate says over the team comms. “I’m here. I’ve got Teddy’s wife to safety and I’m working on the medical staff.”
Epic puts a timer on my HUD, counting down to impact. In about thirty seconds we’re going to see the arrow coming down in a streak of fire.
“Tony, where are you?” I ask Fleet.
“Working... on... the... grounds... staff...” Each time he speaks it’s after he’s dropped another person more than a mile away.
This is precisely why I built in the middle of nowhere. “Don’t forget the security staff. Epic, can you evacuate the maintenance crew out through the Emjets?”
The second Spire isn’t as tall as the first, but it is full of mechanical equipment for both the jets and everything else the team uses.
On it.
A beam of light shoots past me as Lux flies through the air so fast the molecules ignite behind her. She zooms down to the ground level, picking up several people as she slows down, then turns and accelerates to our predetermined rally point. We never expected to use it for this—only for earthquakes or fires.
“Medical staff is with Teddy, working on the janitors,” Kate says to me.
A deafening roar fills the air. I look up and realize we’re not going to get everyone out. The arrow burns through the air, lighting up the sky even under the noonday sun. “Everyone out, now! Thirty seconds to impact.”
“We still have people in there,” Fleet yells. I see a trail of dust leading back to the building.
“Fleet, there’s no time.”
Another glint of light falls past me and for a second I think it’s Lux, but no, I make out the spear as it hits the landing pad on the spire. A second later The Protector lands in a crouch next to his spear.
“Carlos, what are you doing?” I yell over the team frequency.
I’m a few hundred feet above him but I can see him perfectly with my HUD enhancing his features.
“My job,” he says. He picks the spear up and lifts it back, hurling it forward and up at the Arrow. A second later, as if pulled by an invisible tether, he leaps forward. He curls up behind his circular shield bracing it on his shoulder as the magic of the spear throws him bodily toward certain doom.
I know exactly how much energy is in the weapon—I created it. I scream as Carlos vanishes from sight. The light of the falling Arrow burning through the sky eclipses my friend.
The Emdrive whines as I kick it into high gear, chasing after him. Maybe I can hit him and divert his trajectory enough to—
Blinding yellow light fills the sky. An explosion of heat and sound expands in a near perfect circle as the arrow detonates a half mile from the surface. The force of the blast hits, knocking me out of the sky and sending me tumbling to the ground amid an earful of alarms.
For the first time in a long time, I’m not the one lying in the hospital bed; I wish it was me. I’ve grown so used to Carlos being this indestructible giant as The Protector, that I almost forgot he can be killed. I imagine Sydney thought the same thing. The machines beep softly as we watch his chest rise and fall, as if each time he breathes in, we think it might be the last.
“Come on, Carlos,” I whisper to him. “You can do this.”
Kate is the only other person in the room with me. She sits silently on the other side of the bed from me, holding his left hand while I hold his right. Carlos, maybe even more than Kate, is my support structure. Just knowing he’s out there keeps me in going. Seeing him like this...
Teddy suggested not taking his armor off of him while he recovers. It can’t be pleasant for Carlos, lying there in his bronze era armor and helmet, his shield and spear are leaned against the wall beside him. Of course, he’s unconscious so I guess he doesn’t feel much of anything.
“Teddy thinks he’ll make it, Amelia. He’s a smart guy so if he says he will, he will.”
I shrug. “Smart people aren’t the end all, be all. We make mistakes... so many mistakes.” I drop my head into my hands and press my palms against my eyes, trying really hard to keep my mind right. A soft hand rests on the nape of my neck as Kate drags a chair to sit next to me. The gentle massage of her fingers combined with her powers eases a lot of the tension.
“Carlos loves what he does. I know that,” she says to me in a whisper.
“It’s not that. It’s just... Luke, Tempus, The Armory, the list goes on and I have no idea how to stop any of them. It’s like... I came back to Earth and the world has gone crazy. I spent most of my life preparing to find my parents while keeping my tech safe. I find my parents, but now my tech is out there. Kate, Tempus said the government had built a prototype ZPFM. Do you understand the devastation unlimited power could cause in the wrong hands? It would make a nuke look like a kid’s firecracker. And now... Tempus has one, the government has one, the Armory has five...”
She’s silent for a moment, her fingers working their magic on my shoulders. Even if she wasn’t using her powers on me I’d appreciate the human touch. Something, anything to tell me I’m not alone in this.
“I know, Amelia, I know. I’m sorry hon. I know this has to be hard. You don’t have to do this alone. I will be by your side every step of the way.” She gives me a little smile and her green eyes sparkle in a way that I wish mine did.
“My optimistic Kate,” I say to her.
“Yes, I am. No one ever achieved anything complaining about how impossible things are. Where do you want to start?”
I had a list of things but there was only one real possibility. “Until I have some way to stop the Gem— or whatever is in the gem—from hurting Luke, looking for him is on hold.”
“Right,” she says with a nod. “No point finding him if we have no way to neutralize the hold it has on him. What’s next?”
“Tempus is a time traveler. I mean a legit one. I’m not sure what I can do that he can’t see coming. He’s not omnipotent, though. I’d love it if he’d sit down with me for five minutes and talk about temporal mechanics,” I
say with a smile. “But I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing him again.”
Kate shakes her head and slaps me gently on the back of the head. “Leave it to you to want a chat with the villain about how his powers work.”
I chuckle. The few minutes I spent with Frank Parker were pretty interesting. The little bits he let drop about how his powers work were impressive. However, he isn’t the one I can deal with right now. “Of the problems I have right now, that leaves my tech being out there, and the Armory.”
Kate grimaces. I know the feeling. The last time I dealt with them they beat me within an inch of my life. If it wasn’t for Carlos... I’d be a speared fish.
“Okay, what do we do?”
Carlos stirs, moaning for a moment. We both freeze, waiting to see if he wakes up. When he doesn’t, Kate motions for us to leave. Outside the door, Tony and Lux sit in adjacent chairs, holding hands and whispering to each other.
“Any change?” Fleet asks. His Boston accent is just as strong today as it was when I met him.
I shake my head. He and Lux glance at each other, communicating almost silently. She nods her head toward us and Tony speaks up. “We want to help with whatever you need, Amelia.”
“Thank you, Tony, I appreciate that. I’ll talk to Milton and see what your schedule is like. If I can free it up and I have something for you to do, I’ll let you know.”
“I meant what I said Amelia Lockheart,” Lux says, standing as she speaks and bowing to me. “You are the savior of my people.”
I open my mouth to speak, but what could I possibly say to that? Thank you? Instead, I take her hand and clasp it with a smile.
She and Tony head out, stopping to peek in on Carlos before they walk to the elevator.
“Kate, follow me,” I tell her after the couple disappears behind sliding doors. The private lift takes me right to my apartment, which feels a lot more lonely without Luke stopping in for dinner or to hassle me for spending so much time in my lab.
Full Metal Superhero (Book 6): Explosive Arsenal Page 5
