by Lucas Flint
“Okay,” I said, scratching my head as I sat on top of a stump. I yawned. “We can’t do this.”
“Do what?” said Blizzard. She sounded slightly more irritable than usual, probably because she had gotten about as much sleep as I did last night, though at least she hadn’t been in a fight with two powerful G-Men.
“Walk until we find the place we’re looking for,” I said. “It’s impractical. Not helped by the fact that we don’t even really know where this INJ member is located anyway.”
“How else are we supposed to look for her?” said Ivan with a shrug. “You said it yourself that our combined weight would be too heavy for you to carry via flight. And that was before we found Triplet and before Rime got injured, so I imagine his presence here will make it even harder for you to carry us.”
“I know, but there’s got to be a better way,” I said. “It’s only a matter of time before the G-Men catch up with us again. And this time, we might not be able to beat them; at least, it would be more difficult, since we’d have to defend Triplet and Rime at the same time.”
“True,” said Ivan. He stroked his mustache, a frown on his face. “But that does not change the fact that we have no other form of transportation more efficient than our own two feet. Regardless of the validity of your point, we cannot really move any faster than we already are.”
“I know,” I said. I looked at Triplet, who was lying on the ground with an expression that told me that he was about as happy about our current situation as I was. “Trip, don’t you have any ideas? Like, could your Thirds help us?”
“No,” said Triplet bluntly, “they can’t. My Thirds would be just as wounded as me, so if I created them now, that would just mean more deadweight for you to carry. I wish I could help, but I can’t.”
Scowling, I looked over at Rime, who was sitting on the ground with his crutches by his side. “What about you, Rime? Any ideas?”
Rime shook his head. “N-No. I wish we had a car or something, though.”
“Yes, a car would be useful,” Ivan agreed. “I am starting to think that it may have been a mistake, perhaps, to leave the van behind. If we had been worried about identification, perhaps we could have obscured the government logos on its sides so that people would think it is just an ordinary van.”
“It’s too late to go back and get it now,” I said in annoyance. “So, unless a miracle happens, we’re stuck. And frankly, I’m not going to wait on any miracles.”
“I was only making an observation,” said Ivan. “I didn’t mean to talk about it like it was a mistake.”
“Then don’t talk about it at all,” I snapped. “Got it?”
Ivan frowned. “Kevin, there is no need for that tone. We are all friends here.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” I said, “but I’m just so … hungry and thirsty. I haven’t eaten anything more substantial than a spoon of peanut butter in forever.”
“Maybe we could go hunting,” said Blizzard. “We’ve already seen a lot of animals around here that we could eat.”
“But I don’t know how to hunt,” I said.
“I do,” said Ivan, causing us to look at him. “When I was a boy in Russia, my father would take me out on hunting trips to the wilderness. He taught me how to capture and kill wildlife and even how to prepare it for basic meals. It has been many years since I last went hunting, but I do recall most of what my father taught me.”
Worried, I said, “But if we spend time hunting, that might give the government more time to find us.”
“Yet if we do not eat, then we will be snapping and snipping at each other for the rest of the journey, assuming we don’t simply collapse from hunger and thirst,” Ivan said. “Besides, I suspect it will take the government some time to track us down, so why not take advantage of this moment to fill our empty bellies?”
I would have argued that point if my stomach hadn’t chosen that moment to growl. My mouth also suddenly felt dry, so I said, “All right. Go and hunt whatever you can find. But be quick about it; the more time we waste here, the more time the G-Men have to find us.”
“Understood,” said Ivan. “I will be back in half an hour or less with something we can eat.”
Ivan rose from the overturned tree he sat on and walked away from our little circle until he vanished into the trees. I hoped he would be okay, but then I told myself not to worry too much about him. Ivan was obviously a competent and strong man, which wasn’t even factoring in his nuclear powers (though I hoped to God he wouldn’t use them to kill any animals he might hunt; I didn’t think radioactive squirrel meat would taste all that great).
The rest of us just sat in silence, since we were all too hungry and thirsty to talk. I thought about how lucky we had been to avoid capture by the G-Men yesterday, but now—whether because of my hunger and thirst or for other reasons, I didn’t know—I was worried that we were only barely ahead of the people chasing us. I didn’t know exactly what the G-Men might do to us if they caught us, but I didn’t want to find out.
I was just about to take a nap as I waited for Ivan to return when there was a sudden sound in the trees nearby. It sounded like footsteps crunching leaves, but they didn’t sound like Ivan’s heavy steps. They sounded lighter, perhaps the steps of a woman; regardless, we all froze as soon as we heard it and looked at each other in worry. Had the G-Men caught up with us again? Or was it just another person wandering around in the forest, like a camper or hiker, possibly a hunter?
The footsteps were becoming louder; they were getting closer. I rose to my feet, ready to take them out if necessary.
But then Blizzard grabbed my hand, causing me to look down at her. She had a worried look on her face.
“What?” I whispered, because I didn’t want whoever was nearby to hear my voice.
“I’m worried,” Blizzard whispered back in an equally low voice. “What if it’s a G-Men agent? Maybe it would be better if you just stayed here and waited until they left.”
“I understand, Blizzard, but at the same time I can’t agree with that,” I said. “It sounds like they’re getting closer and I don’t want them to get the drop on us. Besides, I just want to look; if they’re just some hikers or campers, I will not engage with them.”
Blizzard looked like she still didn’t quite agree with that, but she let go of my hand anyway and whispered, “Be careful.”
I nodded, turned, and walked into the trees, doing my best not to make any unnecessary noise that might bring attention to myself. I had to move slowly so I wouldn’t make any noise, but I could still hear the sounds of light footsteps somewhere nearby. I couldn’t see anything beyond the trees, but based on how loud the footsteps were getting, I knew I was getting close.
Then the footsteps stopped. So did I. I listened closely for any other sounds, such as breathing, that might tip me off to the direction the person was coming from. The footsteps had sounded like they were coming from directly in front of me, but the sounds in this place seemed strange; maybe it was because I was so tired and hungry that my senses were starting to become confused.
That was when I heard something that sounded like a piece of metal being drawn out of a leather bag. A second later, I heard something fly through the air toward me, causing me to duck as an object shot past my head and embedded itself into the tree behind me with an audible thunk.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw that the object was a small ninja throwing star. But before I could look at it too closely, I heard a couple more stars being thrown and I looked back just in time to see them coming.
I rolled to the side, which was hard to do with all of the trees and bushes, but managed to avoid the stars, which embedded themselves into the ground where I had been. Rolling to my feet, I estimated that the stars had come from between two trees ahead of me, so I aimed my hand and shot a small but powerful charge of red electricity between the trees, even though they were too dark for me to see between very clearly.
Instantly, I heard a yelp of pain, fo
llowed by a loud thump as whoever I hit fell to the ground. It was probably another G-Man agent, so I ran over to the spot between the two trees and jumped through it, ready to beat up the person who had attacked us and maybe interrogate them so I could figure out if they were alone or not.
But to my surprise, the woman lying on the ground before me wasn’t G-Man at all. She was very young, not much older than me, wearing dark ninja garb that allowed her to blend in with the shadows of the forest. She was lying on the ground, clutching her shoulder, which was smoking slightly from where my electric charge had hit her. She was moaning in pain, or had been, until I showed up and she looked up at me with an angry glare, but her anger vanished as soon as she saw me.
“Bolt?” said the woman in surprise. “Is that you?”
“Emma?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
The woman lying on the ground before me was indeed Emma. She was a young superhuman, close in age to myself, and had been the personal bodyguard of my grandparents until they were defeated. After that, she had left America to go to Japan in order to find scientists there who could take away her powers, because unlike me, Emma hated her powers and wanted nothing to do with them due to how they had made her an outcast in her childhood.
But that had been months ago. I didn’t know what she was doing back here in America, of all places. Of course, I hadn’t been in contact with her since she left, but it still struck me as bizarre that I would run into her here again, especially because I had first met her at my grandparents’ mansion.
“What are you doing back in America?” I said. “And why are you walking around alone in this forest?”
Emma got onto her hands and knees and looked up at me with urgent eyes. “Because I am looking for you.”
“Me? Why?” I said.
Emma looked me straight in the eyes, a serious look on her face. “Because I have a message from your father.”
Chapter Seventeen
Emma didn’t elaborate on what she meant by that. Well, she would have, but I wanted to go back to the others and make sure they were still all right before she told me what the message was. I didn’t feel safe talking with her away from the others like this, even though there didn’t seem to be any enemies in the forest right now.
So I led Emma back to the camp, where I found that Ivan had apparently returned sometime between my departure and arrival, and was in the process of making a campfire to roast the three squirrels he had somehow caught. When the others saw Emma, they looked alarmed and worried for a second before I quickly explained who Emma was. Then they relaxed, though Triplet still kept a careful eye on her; then again, Triplet was always very suspicious of people in general, so I didn’t worry about that too much.
We sat in a circle around the campfire that Ivan had started, the smell of gradually roasting squirrel meat filling our nostrils. Emma also sat with us, her arms wrapped around her body, like she was cold, even though the morning was already warm.
“Emma, what are you doing back in America?” I said. “You told me you were going to Japan the last time I saw you. Did you succeed?”
“I did,” said Emma, nodding. “But the Japanese scientists I spoke with told me that their research about superpowers were inconclusive. So I didn’t get rid of my powers, like I wanted.” Emma sighed. “I volunteered to be their test subject, but they didn’t want me around, so I started traveling again, though I didn’t have a destination in mind. I was just going to wander the world until I found what I was looking for or some place I liked enough to stay.”
“But you ended up back here,” I said. “Why? And what is the message that my father gave you? How could he have even given you a message? He’s dead.”
Emma frowned. “The reason I came back to America is precisely because of your father. I know he’s supposed to be dead, but he actually did speak with me. I saw him with my own two eyes.”
“How?” I said, my voice almost cracking with emotion. “His body is in the graveyard back in Silvers. He’s been buried for months.”
“I don’t know,” said Emma. “Maybe it was his ghost or maybe it was something else. All I know is that I saw him and he talked to me.”
The others all exchanged doubtful looks, particularly Triplet and Blizzard, who had attended Dad’s funeral after his death and had watched the casket lowered into the earth. Yet I didn’t want to call Emma a liar, because she was a generally honest person.
“When and where did you see him?” I said.
“A month ago, in Berlin, shortly after the second Pokacu invasion,” said Emma. “I was eating in a restaurant when I saw him.”
“What did he look like?” I said.
“Almost exactly the same way he did when he was alive,” said Emma. “Glasses and everything. But there was something … different about him. There was a scar on his face, above his right eye, that I hadn’t seen in any of his pictures. I never met your father when he was alive, but Matthew had always told me that Genius was a kind person, despite his intellectual demeanor, but there was something about him then that didn’t seem right.”
“Can you be more specific?” said Triplet.
“Like … he was angry,” said Emma. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that he didn’t seem to care about others. He spoke to me like I was just another machine to use to send messages to others. It was odd.”
I scratched my chin. Dad could be a little robotic and insensitive at times, but what Emma described didn’t sound like the Dad I knew. Of course, that was assuming that the guy who had spoken to her was Dad, but that was impossible because Dad was dead. Either we were dealing with an imposter or something else was going on here.
“Anyway, he sat down to talk with me, which I normally wouldn’t have approved of, but when he told me who he was, I relaxed,” said Emma. “He asked me if I could deliver a message to you, a personal one that he thought was nonetheless very important. I agreed to deliver the message to you because I wanted to see you again anyway.”
“Why?” I said. “Still interested in joining the Young Neos?”
“No,” said Emma. “I wanted to know if you could introduce me to Professor Nathaniel Hernandez, who, from what I have researched, knows you. I’m still interested in getting rid of my powers and I’m hoping Professor Hernandez might be able to help me in that quest with his knowledge of neogenetics.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, how did you find me? I didn’t tell anyone I was out here. Did you hear about our escape from Ultimate Max?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Emma, shaking her head. “I heard that you were arrested and thrown in jail, but I didn’t know you had broken free. That’s why I attacked you. Thanks to the low light of this forest, I wasn’t able to identify you immediately and thought you were something else. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have tried to throw those ninja stars in your face. As for why I came out here, that’s because I wanted to go back to your grandparents’ mansion to hide from White Lightning.”
“Hide from White Lightning?” Ivan repeated. He turned the squirrels over above the campfire to get the other sides cooked. “Is he after you?”
“No, but I’m worried about being caught in one of his attacks,” said Emma. “So I thought that Mr. Jason’s mansion would be safe, because it’s out in the wilderness away from civilization. That way, if White Lightning attacked again, I would not be caught up in any of it. Also, I don’t have anywhere else to go, so it’s basically the only place in America I can really call home.”
“Lucky you, that me and the others were here at the same time,” I said. “But anyway, the message from Dad, or from the guy who says he’s Dad, anyway. What is it?”
“The message he wanted me to give you is this,” said Emma. “He said that he wants to see you again.”
“He did?” I said. I leaned forward. “When? Where?”
“At your grandparents’ old house in New York City, where he grew up,” said Emma. “You know the place.”
I did. I
t was the place where I had confronted my grandparents and learned about their true plans for me. It was also where Grandmother had died, but I hadn’t visited the place in a long time. I guess I thought that the place had been sold off to someone or perhaps had been taken under the control of the G-Men, but apparently that was not the case, if ‘Dad’ was there.
“Did he say when, though?” I said.
“No,” said Emma. “He just told me to tell you to come there as quickly as possible. That was about a month ago, though, so I don’t know if he’s still there or not.”
“He probably is,” I said. “I know Dad. He’s very steady. Once he picks a place to stay, he doesn’t move unless he has to.”
“Ah, Kevin, you are speaking of Genius in the present tense,” said Ivan. “But he is dead, yes?”
“Not unless this guy turns out to be him,” said Triplet. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at Emma suspiciously. “I’m not convinced that this guy actually is Genius. I saw his corpse in the coffin. He’s dead.”
Emma shrugged. “What are you getting annoyed at me for? I’m not making this up. Genius really did talk to me. Or, at least, a man who looked and acted a lot like him, anyway. I’m just the messenger.”
“It sounds like a trap,” said Triplet. “It really wouldn’t be very difficult for someone to impersonate Genius as a way to get Bolt.”
“But … but what if it isn’t?” I said. “What if there is something to this? Like maybe this guy might actually be Dad?”
“Ridiculous,” said Triplet. “You know that and I know that Genius is dead. And, unlike some superhumans, Genius never had the ability to come back from the dead after being killed. I say we ignore this message and move on.”
“Triplet is correct,” said Ivan. “It would be a big mistake to travel to that house to see this man who claims to be your father. We have nothing to confirm his identity aside from the words from this young woman.”
“I’m not a liar,” said Emma, folding her arms across her chest and pouting. “I’m just repeating what I saw and what I was told.”
