"Does that mean they have your tracker?"
"No, if it was able to send the file, then it would have also self-destructed right after. They have a melted glob of metal and plastic. What it did tell me is they were on the highway heading towards Chicago. The last recorded location was that big truck stop, do you remember the one? It had a huge red neon sign that says 'Stellas Truck Stop & BBQ' and has that giant pig on it?"
"I remember it. You wanted to stop there."
"Man, don't ask me to pass up BBQ," is my response as I'm starting to salivate at the thought.
"So, are we going to go down there?"
"I don't think so, not yet anyway. I don’t think that was their destination. I'm thinking I need to use a little smarter tracker, but it's going to take me a week to get the parts I need." I'm also thinking that my new combat suit shipped yesterday from the ballistic tech company I contracted it out to, and it should be here tomorrow.
The next day the suit is delivered to the lobby of my dorm and I pick it up when I get back from classes and take it up to my room. I pull it out, hold it up, and I want to cry. It's beautiful, with a soft sheen on the jet black finish. The texture is like you find on the really expensive, light armor super suits, but thicker and not as much stretch. I practically rip my clothes off to try it on and I'm thinking it's just a little too big in all the limbs and way too big in the chest before I remember the extra space is for the armor plates, which reminds me to open my locker and pull out all the armor parts in the locker. I strip out of the suit to start putting the armor pieces in, which takes a while as everything is fitted really tight and getting everything just right is a pain.
Carlos walks in and stops, with the door standing open and kids passing by in the corridor. "Wha…."
"Shut the door," I tell him, just before I kick it closed myself.
"Is that your suit?" He asks as he jumps out of the way of the slamming door. Carlos knows what I've been building as I am doing too much work on it in the room and storing all the parts for it in here instead of my locker at the student lab.
"Yeah, just came in today. Trying to get all the armor segments installed on it," I tell him as I go back to work and begin to ignore him as he goes through the pile of parts laying on my bed.
"You have shoulder pads on this thing?" I hate when he touches my projects.
"They're not shoulder pads, they're pauldrons. They protect my shoulders, upper arms, and back,” I say, snatching the armor piece from his hands, “They will attach to the chest piece and back pieces and help give me full protection. It's going to be a real trick getting them together just right, so quit bugging me."
Ignoring my last comment, "Why is the chest piece so flimsy?"
I'm used to him ignoring me when I tell him to stop bugging me. It's not flimsy. You could hit me with a bat full in the chest when I'm wearing this and I'd barely feel it. If you could hit hard enough to crush the bat, I might get a bruise from it, but that's about it. “It's not 'flimsy,' it's flexible. I'm using a combination armor with a hybrid plate, scale, and solidifying reactive armor design for the chest."
"Dude! That's awesome! Buuut, nobody wears armor, man. People are going to laugh at you." It's funny how Carlos' very proper English takes on a Latino flavor when he's putting something down. He even gets in big arm motions to emphasize his points. He says he gets it from his cousins.
"They'll laugh right up until my Class 2 butt takes a full hit from a Class 3 and I'm still standing. Here, look it,” I show him how the pieces go together, “The plate and layered armor pieces are backed by the solidifying reactive armor lining. The whole thing is designed to take a hit in a small area and spread it throughout the armor. The reactive gel stiffens only on impact so it already is in the shape of my chest at the time of impact. It distributes the force better that way.” Knocking on the armor with my knuckles, I continue, “If I take a massive blow it'll still protect me by going rigid and holding my body tight in whatever shape my body is in when I take the hit." The armor by itself should let me go toe-to-toe with at least a Class 3 — at least so far as taking a hit, and he doesn't wrap me up.
What I don’t tell Carlos is that once I add in the nuclear power supply I'm almost finished building, to power a beefed up repeller field generator that I still need to build, I might have a chance of taking a hit from a Class 4 without being turned into a shattered mass of pulped meat. But Carlos doesn't know about my repeller field generator, and I'm not going to tell him.
"Now leave me alone, I'm working here." I tell him.
"You're always 'working here.' You've turned our room into a factory assembly line."
I ignore him, which is my way of winning all of our arguments about all my projects I work on here.
"You need to get out and have some fun, bro. All you do is work all the time."
"Have you seen my girlfriend? I'm sure as hell having more fun than you out trying to find a one night stand every weekend."
"Hey, screw you, man. I've dated half the girls in this quad. Beat that."
I go back to ignoring him with the full knowledge Carly was "beating that" without even trying. Then, I wish I hadn't let him suck me into responding to him in the first place.
"I'm out of here." Throwing a chin toss at all my suit parts on the bed, Carlos tell me, "I want to see it when you're done."
Yeah, he won't be laughing when I'm finished with the suit, he'll be asking me to build him one. And, for a few hundred grand, I'd consider it.
I finish installing the armor plates in the legs and arms and start on the knees and elbows, which take a while longer to get the flex pieces installed correctly. When I get to the pauldrons and chest piece I manage to get it installed but will have to adjust it with the suit on, which I can't do alone.
Chapter 40
"Hey, you busy?" I make a quick call to Carly for the rescue.
"Can you come over?"
"Yeah"
"Cool. I'm going to blow your mind." I hang up before she can ask me how I plan on doing that and get back to working on my suit.
I hear Carly's footsteps coming down the hall and shout, "It's open!" when she gets to the door.
She comes in and gives me a kiss that ends in a head butt as she looks at the suit in my lap, "Hey, I'm here for my mind blowing. Oh! Wow! It's here!"
I'm smiling like a kid showing off his first BB gun to his friends. "It's awesome, just like I thought it would be! Hey, I need your help when I get this on." I stand up and start putting on the suit.
Carly moves around behind me while I struggle with it. It's still hard to get into with the pauldrons and chest piece not quite right. I finally stand up all the way and turn around to show Carly.
"It has shoulder…."
I cut her off, "They're pauldons; it's armor, they're called pauldrons."
Carly, being a little more attentive, and actually caring about my sensitivities, concedes, "Okay, 'pauldrons.' Whatever those are."
Starting to push and shove on the shoulder…pauldrons, I say, "Help me with this."
I get the help I need to finish getting the pauldrons and chest pieces in place and seal up the suit.
"You look insane in that thing. It's all black and sleek and you look like you have muscles everywhere and your stomach is all rippled. What is that?" She asks and starts running her hands over the armor on my stomach.
Taking a deep breath to keep from getting excited, I tell her it’s scale armor so it can be flexible and she starts pushing on my stomach.
Carly has a huge grin on her face when I look up and I watch her draw back and give me a punch in the stomach that would have crushed a baseline, and I barely feel it.
"That all you got?" I come back.
She steps back and gets a wicked look in her eye I've never seen before, and drives a perfect side kick into my chest. It lifts me off the ground and throws me into the locker door.
Leaning against the locker door, I look down at myself and see the dusty f
ootprint in the shape of Carly's shoe on my chest. "You want to try that again?" I challenge, and receive another kick into my abdomen for my trouble. This time she completely leaves the ground in a flying kick.
I take the full blow as I'm thrown back against the locker and I can still barely feel the kick. This suit is so awesome.
"That suit is awesome," says Carly, and I'm beginning to wonder if she can read my mind after all.
"Here, wait," I say and grab my helmet and boots from my locker. I get them both on and stand up again for her to see. The helmet is black like the armor and has a single full face, unbreakable, visor that is integrated into the helmet. The visor is nearly as black as the helmet. The back of the helmet has a slight aerodynamic shape to it like it is designed to cut through the air. The slight flare at the neck in the back for the electronics operating the HUD.
"You look like one of the 'enforcer' guys from the 'Chaos' movies."
I like the sound of that and remind her, "They're villains."
"I know. They look bad ass."
I can work with that. I wave Carly back and start some martial arts moves to test out how restrictive the suit is and am happy to feel it's not restricting my movements at all.
"Looks like we're ready to kick ass,” Carly says, with a big smile, “When are we going to try to track the bus again?"
"The parts for the tracker are backordered, so it's going to be another couple weeks."
"That's going to take us into Thanksgiving break,” she almost pouts.
"I know, but I'm pretty sure we're going to need the new tracker to be able to find out where they're going." That and I’m excited about the design of my new tracker and want to use it as much as I want to find out where the bus is taking the kids.
"Okay," Not sounding pleased, Carly accepts the delay.
"Hey! I've got something for you!" I almost shout it out and start digging into the bottom of the box the suit came in. Pulling out a smaller suit, I hold it up for Carly to see, along with a scale armor flexible piece that will cover her from neck to crotch. "What do you think?" It is a lot lighter, and easier to make, than my armor, but she doesn’t fight close quarters as much as I do.
Carly is hopping up and down and clapping as I hold it out to her. She has to strip out of her civvies to get into the suit, which just makes me even happier I made it, and starts to put it on. The most fun is when I help her fit the chest piece and get everything tucked into place before I seal up the suit and step back to take a look at her.
"Oh, you are so getting laid for this!" Carly promises as she tries to look at herself all over at once.
"Are you ready?" This time I'm the one with the wicked look in my eye.
She gets the "For" out of the "For what?" she's wants to say before my side kick takes her off her feet and throws her into Carlos' locker across the room.
"Bastard!" Is her response before she starts laughing uncontrollably, "Oh! You are so going to pay for that!"
Sure I am.
Bouncing back up onto her feet, Carly looks like a beautiful assassin from a video game as the sleek all black suit covers her from ankles to neck and her long curly brown hair flows around her face and shoulders. Maybe we can get in some Cosplay action tonight? I'm all for it and I'm thinking Carly may be game for just about anything right now.
As if in acknowledgement, she leaps at me and wraps her arms and legs around me and starts trying to kiss me through my face plate. I think she’s pretty happy I made her the suit.
Chapter 41
I get the notice the parts for my tracker have shipped on the day I'm leaving to go home for Thanksgiving. Which means I won't get to work on it until I get back next week. My power supply is completed though, so I'll be able to advance the work on my suit during break. I’m not too distraught about not being able to complete the tracker. Honestly, I'm glad for the delay in getting the tracker parts as it's given me the time to exponentially increase my abilities and I think I'm going to need it when we find out where they're taking the science students on the bus.
Carly's family lives in Upstate New York, so we said our goodbyes last night before she had to take an early flight this morning. We won't be seeing each other through the holiday, which blows. I'm already missing her and have her smell on the shirt I'm still wearing from last night because I didn't want to change it for the trip home. What are the odds the person sitting next to me on the plane has a super smell and complains about my BO? Sucks for them if they do.
Dad picks me up at the airport for the forty minute drive home and I want to talk to him about what's been going on, but can't bring myself to ruin the good feeling of just being home. It might be better if I wait until after Thanksgiving. Mom is waiting for us in the kitchen, which is not really like her to spend any time in there, but she's putting together a late lunch for us, and it's really good to see her. It's short lived though, when she tells me she invited Tess over for Thanksgiving dinner. Tess' parents are going to be out of town and Mom ran into her when she was out shopping and decided to invite her without asking me. Great.
Not that I don't want to see Tess, she's great. I just don't feel comfortable with her around my parents…because she's a telepath, which is something I've never thought of before. Tess is actually a great person and I don't think she would ever hurt my parents. Except now I know telepaths read people's minds all the time and will change a person's mind if they see something they don't like when reading your mind. It's like Mom's asked a really nice person over to supper, but the person will be carrying around a big carving knife the whole time they're here. It also means I have no choice but to wait until after Thanksgiving to talk to Dad. Actually, I think I will talk to Mom and Dad on this one.
I have to go see Maria first, because she'll break my leg and roast me on a spit if I don’t. I'm hoping it's not going to be awkward. When I get there it takes her about two minutes to figure me out and ask me what my girlfriend at school's name is, which is a little faster than I gave her credit for to figure it out. She takes it pretty well and lets me know to tell Carly that if she doesn't learn to share by the time she gets there next year, she'll roast her. Next year could be interesting. But then again, Carly might just make Maria not remember who I am. Elemental powers just don't seem as powerful as I used to think they were.
Chapter 42
When I get back home, Dad is watching a shootout between what looks like super powered villains and the city's super police team. At least one of them is an elemental and he's tearing up the pavement and pushing up earthworks around the bank building they've holed up in. I sit down to watch it with him and the shooting dies off as both sides stop shooting at each other. Less than a minute after the shooting stops, an opening appears in the earthworks and a man steps out into the street and looks around, then he turns and waves at someone in the building and a mother and child come running out and he directs them off to the side. He looks around again, nods to a Police Observer who is standing in plain sight, and then just walks off in the same direction as the woman and child. The Observer ignores them after that. And, when I look closer, I can see he is wearing the All Seeing Eye patch. He’s a telepath.
"Did you see that?" I ask my Dad.
"You mean the three people that came out?” He replies, never taking his eyes off the TV.
"Yeah." My voice is starting to rise. Everything I have been learning about from Carly is right there in front of me. In front of everyone, on TV.
"Oh, yeah. That happens in a lot of these shootouts. Sometimes the villains just don't want to hold all of the hostages and will let some of them go."
"You don't think that's kind of odd? I mean, the police are not even acting like the people coming out are even there. Look! Three cops just ran right past them!"
"Why would it be odd? It makes sense for them to send out hostages they don't need."
My dad is smarter than that, “Okay, but shouldn’t they be escorting them? Or, helping them get to cover? Look, they
’re just running off into the crowd.”
“Why would they? The police need to focus on the gunmen.” There is confusion directed at me in his voice. As if he was having to point out the obvious and the problem was with the question.
It makes sense all right: if the guy was a telepath and didn't feel like being a hostage, then it makes total sense. But if he can do what I just watched him do, he could stop the whole shootout. That's when it really hits me what Carly said about telepaths only doing what they need to do to protect themselves. She was serious because that guy didn't care about anyone but himself and his family.
The sound of shooting on the television starts back up and pulls my attention back to the shootout starting to pick up again. The camera angle changes to an overhead view from what must be a helicopter and I'm able to see on Dad's 140" Ultra HD TV the mom and child that came out of the building. She’s wearing a red jacket and I can easily see her dragging the kids along by their arms. The telepath is not with them. Looking around on the screen I finally see what looks like him heading away from the shootout on his way to the parking garage beside the bank. That wasn't his family. Did he know them? So, maybe the guy isn't completely self-serving. But he could have done a lot more than he did. He could have stopped the whole thing. The Police Observer may be able to do the same. So, why don’t they?
Dad starts giving his take on the shootout and says, "They're not going to be able to get them out with that elemental in there. The super team will not want to go in with all the damage he could do to the building.” He is rubbing his chin with one hand, and pointing at the TV with the other. It is a common position for him when he is trying to give me an impromptu education, “In a lot of ways, the elemental supers have the most powerful abilities among all supers,” he lectures, “I bet they end up negotiating a surrender.”
Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel Page 17
