by John Jr. Yeo
“That’s the only reason the bastard got away,” DeathTek complained. “Little creep zapped my weapon packs before I could apprehend him.”
I realized I was more or less anxiously waiting for him to take off his helmet, but it didn’t happen. He flexed his shoulders and stretched his arms, and the fluid layer of metallic joints and iron muscles rippled over his body. The helmet, as always, stayed on his head.
“How is your training going, Emily?”
I turned to look at the Ambassador, who was smiling at me with those vaguely familiar eyes of his. It was maddening, I was sure I’d seen him somewhere before.
“I’m getting better, at least that’s what the doctor is telling me. How was your night of beating up bad guys?”
“We stopped the villain from absconding with a quarter of a million in precious jewels, but the fiend managed to escape by placing a group of innocents in jeopardy.”
Wow. Listening to him talk like that in real life sounds even stranger than it does on paper. He’s been called the world’s Big Gold Boy Scout. I still can’t tell if it’s a routine, or he’s legitimately that corny.
“The dick locked up my external armor with one of his electric blasts, and then he dropped a power line on top of a city bus,” DeathTek explained. “He lost the loot, but he slunk off while the Big Guy here was rescuing the people on the bus. I’m gonna kick his bony ass next time I see him.”
At least somebody around here spoke a language I understood. I was about to ask them if we were going to go back after the guy when one of the shorter technicians began sweeping some goofy looking gadget over the Ambassador’s body. I couldn’t tell what the numbers on the display meant, but I could tell the man didn’t like what he was seeing.
“Sir? How are you feeling?”
“Absolutely fit as a fiddle,” he remarked. “Why do you ask?”
“I just want to run some precautionary tests,” said the other. “Dr. Progeriat’s orders, sir.”
“Go ahead, big guy,” DeathTek told him. “I’ll fill out the reports this time.”
That’s one thing I learned since coming here that still surprised me. The super-heroes had to file reports, just like police officers. At least, the ones that were registered with the DSA did. I suppose ever since a hero shoved his fingers through some shmuck’s head, certain procedures had to be followed. They weren’t all glory-seeking divas after all, a lot of them were mired down in the same bureaucratic nonsense that cops were, too.
Ambassador went down one hallway with the concerned technicians, and DeathTek strolled down the other hallway to file his report to Colonel Bridge on what happened in the field tonight. This left me alone with my forbidden Hot Pockets, and a few moments later I was completely alone.
It was two in the morning on a Saturday night. I hadn’t been laid in over two months, which was increasingly becoming a distraction. Any thoughts of inter-team shenanigans went out the window after just a few days. The Ambassador, as gorgeous as he was, struck me as being the world’s sexiest virgin. Plus, he’s bulletproof, so I didn’t want to dwell on how much effort it was going to take to get him off. DeathTek had never, in my observations, emerged from his armored shell. I could only imagine the fragrance lurking underneath his fresh-pak seal. I wasn’t desperate enough to hit on Submission, who hated me anyway. And the Necromancer really hated me, and had been keeping his distance from me ever since I arrived.
The numerous young technicians and officers walking around the facility were strictly off-limits, by orders of the colonel himself. They were under orders to always behave professionally and appropriately in my presence.
That pretty much left Colonel Bridge, who was a total no-go for way too many reasons---and Dr. Progeriat, on the basis of him being older than dirt and smelled vaguely of buttermilk. Outside of my left hand, I was completely alone.
“Emily, could you come to my office, please?”
It was Dr. Progeriat’s voice, blaring out unexpectedly on the compound’s various P.A. systems. Hearing his voice nearly immediately after dwelling on my plans to return to bed to get in touch with myself again made me jump backwards and screech. I probably looked like an idiot, which is just par for the course these days.
“I know you’re awake, you just had a conversation with two of the team members and you ate one of Officer Jeschke’s pizza snacks. Please come to my office. Sometime before sunrise, yes?”
Nothing like a small dose of paranoia to get your heart racing. How many cameras did they have in this joint? Well, there was no point pretending like I didn’t hear anything now. I nodded in the direction of where the voice was coming from, and began making my way down towards the old man’s office by the Genome Lab.
Along the way, I passed by one of the doors marked Meeting Room C. These rooms were generally always empty, but occasionally I noticed the room being used for small meetings with the various officers and support staff that seemed to work around the clock here on the base. As I approached the door, a less than friendly face suddenly appeared in the doorway and met me with crossed arms and a withering look.
“Hey girl,” I said with a casual smile that seemed to annoy her in a satisfying way. “Have you lost some weight? You’re looking good tonight.”
“Don’t keep the doctor waiting,” Submission advised me. “Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”
I smiled back at her, refusing to let her see how the thought of another day of five mile runs, weight lifting, hand to hand combat training and the exciting flight and OPT sessions made me want to puke. I sneaked a glance behind her, and caught the Necromancer facing the wall, leaning against the table with his arms folded. With only two seconds to make a quick assessment, I’d have guessed that he’d been crying. Submission stared me down again and pointed in the direction of the Genome Lab, and I took the warning to keep moving with a polite nod. But something was going on, that’s for damn sure.
The door to Dr. Progeriat’s office was closed and locked, which was a little annoying since I hustled down so quickly. The adjacent room was the Genome Lab, which I’d never been invited into yet. But the door was open and a few lab geeks were hovering over some equipment. Out of boredom, I casually wandered inside.
I’d heard a few people refer to this place as Farmville. When I’d first heard the phrase, I assumed that Dr. Progeriat had a fascination with mobile games. But one of the walls was lined with dozens of small jars of green sticky liquid, and each one had what looked like a tiny fetus floating within the goo. They were growing something in here, it seemed.
The three scientists were carefully adjusting a machine I’d never seen before. It was a device made of iron and steel, it was about the size of a toaster, but it looked like it belonged in a car engine. They were debating about a problem with its power source, and one of them pulled a lever that popped open a side panel. When the panel opened, I saw an interior lined with gold plates and neon lights. Floating in that compartment was a bubble of light, about the size of an orange, and it was swirling and pulsing with an otherworldly energy that I couldn’t even begin to understand.
The scientists were discussing the power levels, and I was just transfixed by the beauty of whatever that bubble really was. Neither of us noticed Dr. Progeriat enter the room, and he caught us all by surprise.
“Are you trying to kill us all?” he shouted, storming up to the machine and shutting the compartment with an agitated growl. “That’s lithium tachyons! You need to keep it contained at all times, you know what happens if it destabilizes!”
“Sorry, sir,” the lead scientist apologized. “The readings dropped, we were just troubleshooting.”
“I’ll perform a full diagnostic tomorrow,” he decided, and then he turned his attention towards me. “I told you to wait by my office!”
“It was locked. I was bored.”
He grunted again, and snapped at the scientists one more time. “Just keep an eye on the new model. I’d like it to last more than forty-eight ho
urs this time, please.”
The scientists began buzzing around the lab, and Dr. Progeriat returned to his office with me following behind him. He slowly lumbered towards his desk, leaning heavily on his cane as if he bore the weight of a thousand worlds on his shoulders. With no one to complain to or bark orders at, he simply seemed…old. He sunk into his chair, and quietly reflected on a portrait hanging on the wall. I stood there in front of him, silently, waiting for him to talk.
His office was an extremely tasteful looking room, contrasting sharply with the boring military decorum of the rest of the Dome. Comfortable grey carpeting flowed over every inch of the floor, and warm wood paneling made you feel you were standing in an old library. The walls were a mixture of books, expensive looking vases and sculptures from a variety of different lands and eras, and an aquarium filled with fish I’d never seen before.
He was standing in a rumpled grey suit that seemed woefully too large for him, exacerbating his already skeletal frame. His attention remained focused on a portrait.
It was a photograph of the Infinite League. The Ambassador, flashing a boyish grin for the camera. Necromancer, his face completely obscured by his dark hood. Submission, posing seductively and looking like a fetish model with her skintight suit and chains. DeathTek, towering above them all with an earlier version of his armored suit that looked clunky and primitive compared to his new suit.
In the middle of them all, Andromeda. Beautiful, young, and alive.
The Infinite League. The heroes that couldn’t be killed. He gazed at the photo another moment longer, breathed out a regretful sigh, and finally returned to his desk.
“Take a seat, Emmaline.”
I did as I was told, unsure of whether I was in trouble or not. “I…I didn’t know if I was allowed to stretch my legs or not. I couldn’t sleep.”
“You’re not on complete lock down,” he assured me. “Not within the compound grounds, anyway. You’ve trained hard these last few weeks, and you’ve followed the rules. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, a walk around the base relaxes me as well. On behalf of the team, we truly appreciate what you’re trying to do to make this right.”
“It’s not like I had much choice.”
“You always had a choice. You just happened to make the right one.”
A smarmy remark, sure, but I decided to let it go.
“Well, I appreciate it. I just want to do whatever you need so I can go back to my son.”
“Then we should get started, I would think. You’re going out in the field tomorrow afternoon.”
If I got too excited, he might change his mind. But it took a lot of self-control to contain my eagerness to get out of this base for a few hours. “I’m going out on a patrol?”
“Not as such, no,” he replied. “Andromeda hasn’t been sighted in nearly a month now, and there’s some buzz on the internet that she’s been injured. So before any major news agencies begin to pick up on this, I think it’s time for you to make an appearance. You’ll be accompanying the Ambassador to a hospital in the city to visit some children in the oncology wards.”
“Cancer patients,” I nodded. “Not my favorite place in the world to be, you know.”
“Yes, I know that you’ve lost your father recently,” he said sympathetically. “Around here, we all know too well the pain of losing a loved one so soon.”
Enough said. It was another subtle jab at how my activities screwed up their lives. “I’ll go, of course. Is there anything else, sir?”
“No, that’ll be all,” he concluded. “Get some sleep, and report to the armory in the morning for your approved attire. It’s where you go to put your cape on, as the kids like to say.”
Go to the wardrobe department for your super-hero costume, he meant. Why can’t these people just talk normally? I gave the old man another nod, and turned to leave.
“Emmeline?”
I stopped, lingering in the doorway, but didn’t look at him.
“I’m not sure how long you’ll be with us, but you should know that you are helping this legend persist in the minds of good people everywhere. Tomorrow is your first public appearance, and I’m truly counting on you. I want you to know how much I appreciate this.”
After a pause, I gave him a glance and a smile. “My friends call me Emily,” I informed him, before returning back to my room.
The walk back to my room seemed to take a bit longer. I hadn’t set foot outside the compound since my trip to the cemetery, and the notion of actually walking outside in costume gave my frayed nerves a fresh jolt.
I was in the best shape of my life, and the staff had done an epic job of making sure I looked the part. Could I actually fool the world into thinking I was Andromeda? More to the point, could I actually get into a fight with some of the costumed criminals that I might be running into?
When I was a cop, there were a few criminals who were confirmed to be Alpha Sparks. We were warned never to directly engage one-on-one. Leave it to the super-heroes, I was told, that’s what the government pays them for.
To tell the truth, I was almost looking forward to seeing what I could do with these freaky gauntlets of mine. Just point me in the direction of someone who wants to terrorize a stadium full of citizens for a quick ransom payout. I’ll light the bastard up.
The thought of cutting loose with these powers out in the real world put such a jump of excitement in my mind that I didn’t realize I had been gently floating down the hallway like a feather. My feet hadn’t touched the ground for the last few steps and I hadn’t even realized.
I carefully dropped back to the ground and shook off the thoughts. God, don’t let me become one of them!
“You have got to get your head together. One way or another, it’s all going to hit the fan soon. I need you to stay focused, Chidike.”
That was Submission’s voice, coming from the meeting room that I had last seen them in. She sounded agitated, which is to say she sounded normal.
“You should have let me do it, Cassiopeia,” said the deeper baritone voice of Necromancer. “I’ve betrayed my father’s faith. I don’t deserve to—“
“No, that’s bullshit,” she cut him off, even more emotional than before. “You were upset, no one is blaming you.”
“You seek to justify my sins so that we may remain true to our cause.”
“You need to think of the bigger picture, Chidike,” said a third voice that I had never heard before. It was a male voice, with an authoritative but calm center. “What happened with Natalie was tragic, none of us expected it to happen. But she’d want you to continue with our plans. So would your father. When we’re successful, then I’ll do everything I can to help you absolve your guilt, I promise.”
I floated past the door as casually as I could, but I took a quick glimpse of them all with my peripheral vision as I passed. Necromancer was sitting in a chair, looking as if he had been sobbing for hours. Submission was standing next to him in a green nightgown, her hands on his broad shoulders. Standing next to him was a man I had seen once before, on my first day in the Dome. He was a hologram at the time, but I couldn’t tell if this was the real guy or another illusion. It was the man who made me aware of the scar on the back of my neck, the man who didn’t want me to mention him. Submission spotted me, and she stared at me suspiciously as I walked by.
Once I had walked past, the door of the meeting room slammed shut.
Were Necromancer and Submission having a dirty little fling behind Andromeda’s back? Were these guys plotting something behind Colonel Bridge’s back? What were the dark secrets behind the shiny façade of the Infinite League?
I decided that I was going to have to keep my eyes wide open from now on. Not only on the criminals out in the world, but on my team mates as well. Something wasn’t right.
11
Facing the Public
Wednesday, May 21 - 3 p.m.
To say that I was feeling sick was putting it lightly.
It was disorienti
ng this morning to be standing in front of a mirror back at the Dome, looking at an unrecognizable reflection. My hair had been chopped and dyed to match Andromeda’s punky blonde do. My eyes were covered with a pair of oversized opaque goggles that had a golden, frosted glaze to the lenses. I was wearing her tight yellow tank top that highlighted my cleavage far more than I was comfortable with, and her bright red skirt and matching leather boots. I looked like I was heading to a slutty Halloween party. Even though I was unrecognizable under the uniform, I felt exposed.
That sinking feeling in my stomach only got worse when I was loaded into a large van with DeathTek, and we drove off the facility and out on the open highway. Maybe I had developed a nasty taste of agoraphobia during my time of detainment at the facility, but it felt simply weird being out in public again.
But the idea of setting foot in a hospital---particularly an oncology ward---was the notion that was really making me want to throw up. The ride from the facility to the hospital took nearly an hour, but the minutes seemed to fly by the closer we got.
For the majority of the ride, my only companion in the back of the van sat in silence. The ever-present electronic humming that came from whatever powered his armor was the only noise, so I was a little startled when he finally spoke.
“You look like you need a drink.”
We were riding in the back of a van disguised to look like a cable repair vehicle. There were monitors and equipment filling half the van, apparently intended for doing covert x-rays of trucks on the road to scan for things like drugs, weapons, illegal aliens, and so forth. I was told it was occasionally used to transport our team to locations in the field. The bargain cushions hastily attached to a rigid metal frame didn’t make for the most comfortable ride.
“Real V.I.P. treatment,” I grumbled. “I could have flown there, you know.”
“You’re still on probationary status. I don’t think Dr. Progeriat wants you flying around solo just yet.”
