Nathan Returns

by Jason Zandri

  “Her signature is easier to track because it’s constant. Nathan has been under his Captain Delta powers more often than not recently because of the number of incidents and accidents he’s been responding to globally. Because that power set allows him the fastest travel time, he’s able to respond better.”

  “He went clear across the country in a matter of minutes to address this issue.” Jane said.

  “Correct,” Natalie confirmed. “It would have been easier for him to deal with the events as Weather Master but he couldn’t get there in time. We only know so much about his powers. We do know there are times they are ‘off’ but I would expect that if he could simply change shirts mid-way through an event to better leverage powers that he would. It must not work like that.”

  “I agree, from what we’ve seen historically, that’s proven out.” Jane said turning away. “Where is Rebecca headed?”

  “It appears to be back to the home she owns,” Natalie responded.

  “She never seems to have a concern about that,” Jane said shaking her head. “She goes right back to her house like anyone else might, regardless of the powers she has or who might want to come after her there.”

  “Too confident?” Natalie asked.

  “Arrogant. Nathan is confident. She simply presumes that no matter what happens, she can defend herself or that Nathan will save her.”

  “Ma’am,” another specialist called out. “We’ve received a 911 call from the epicenter. Three casualties.”

  “I want a live track,” Jane called out. “Put it on the big board. Put Rebecca and Nathan on it.”

  The specialist followed up and the displays changed and the main monitor in the center of the room powered on with a live track.

  “Rebecca has arrived at her home and Nathan is now on approach.” Natalie said.

  “Nathan was in a big hurry; makes you wonder why.” Jane said. She picked up her Bluetooth headset and put it on. “Get me Senator Kelly.”

  After a few moments Natalie returned. “The Senator is unavailable. The aide indicated that he’s heads down. His outer office door is locked. The inside aide was called and she informed me that until his inner door is opened he cannot be disturbed.”

  “Damn it; we don’t have another point of escalation on this.” Jane said looking about. “Well, I guess this is all Nathan until the Senator contacts us.”

  ***

  Senator Kelly exited the secret area inside his office and closed it behind the wall. Then he walked back to the desk to lock it back into its prior position. Once he finished, he walked from the bookcase and then back to the desk a couple of times looking things over..

  Satisfied with the way his office looked, he went over to the computer in his office to review the weather feeds and the news updates from the disturbance area. He rubbed his hands together reviewing the most up to date information and then grabbed his office phone.

  His assistant picked up. “Put me through to Jane Parker,” he said.

  “Yes sir; she called no more than ten minutes or so ago,” the woman responded.

  “Why wasn’t I informed?” he asked angrily.

  “Per your prior orders sir, when the inner doors are locked…”

  “I understand,” he said cutting her off. “From now on, when Jane Parker calls or any senior specialist from her division, you can buzz this room.”

  “Yes sir,” she said, muting the line for a moment. “I have Jane Parker on the line,” she said upon returning to the line.

  “Jane,” the Senator said looking back over the monitor. “Open a socket so I can connect to your big board. I am sure you’re working something from the news feeds.”

  “Yes,” she said. “There are three casualties from the epicenter. I just got off the phone with the first responders onsite. It appears that the victims were a three-person news crew that was in the area.”

  “Wonderful,” the Senator said sarcastically. “We don’t have enough problems with the superheroes…”

  “I have the feed loops from Steven Capshaw from WADC; it was his news crew that was onsite.” Jane said. “Natalie, open a second socket and give the Senator the feed.”

  After a couple of moments, the Senator was able to open the second connection inside their facility and review the raw footage.

  “How much of this made it on air?” the Senator asked.

  “As you’re watching the feed, you can see a degradation in the quality; that change is where they lost their microwave feed to broadcast. Everything that appeared clearer, that made the on air broadcast.”

  The Senator reviewed the recording several times with Jane on the line and working with her specialists.

  “Jane, what do you see on this recording… right after the four-minute mark?”

  Jane stopped working with people in the situation room and dropped her attention to a smaller display in front of her. She moved the play back up to the four-minute mark and watched it forward. She repeated the process a couple of times. “It looks like the news van is making its way forward, behind the reporter and the camera operator.”

  “Right; the camera operator was moving along on foot with the reporter. They must have been stopped and recording something. Then they must have seen Rebecca and moved along to get in closer.” The Senator mused. “Watch the whole thing from the beginning with that in mind. Focus on the background after Nathan arrives; right around the three fifteen mark or so.”

  Jane backed the recording to the beginning, redirected the sound through her headset and leaned it to watch it closely.

  “This is Pamela Samson for WADC news. We are coming to you live from Rural Route Four between Bucksville and the interstate which appears to be the epicenter of this flash storm.”

  The camera pans away slightly to show the fury of the storm around them. Pamela is right next to the van and the wind jars her slightly toward it as the camera operator turned the view back.

  “As you might be able to make out in the distance,” she said loudly over the wind, “you can see what from this vantage point appears to be Rebecca floating a few feet above the ground.”

  The camera operator again panned away and attempted to zoom in and clean of the shot but the wind and the rain made the image somewhat grainy.

  “There have been a number of news reports in the past of Rebecca not having fully control of her abilities; that she may be trying to use a certain volume of wind, as an example and then exerts too much force… from this vantage point, she seems to be fully in control. She isn’t moving from her location; she is in perfect position. The winds from the storm are not affecting her in the sky, it also appears at times as if the elements from the storm, the wind and the rain, are moving around her.”

  The camera shot panned into the storm more and then back to Pamela.

  “As we made our way along this road from Bucksville, we were forced to stop our vehicle when the ground began to shake. We are waiting on confirmation that it was an earthquake. There is an old fault system in this area but it has been inactive for decades. There is almost…” a wind gust overtook Pamela’s commentary and left what she continued to say inaudible. She continued to attempt to report but the intensification of the storm made it impossible for her to do so.

  “Look,” the camera operator called out a few moments later as he jostled the camera, further blurring the shot.

  Pamela turned to look in that direction. “…appears… not one… funnel clouds have formed. From this…. appears that they are… they might be…”

  Jane looked down at the time stamp to judge when Nathan would arrive in the upper part of the shot. She saw him and the electrical discharge from his powers race into the scene as debris flew and took out the recording.

  When the recording continued the quality and clarity was noticeably lower. Pamela’s voice could be heard but much of the shot was shaky imagery while the camera operator moved along carrying the equipment.

  “That was a massive volley of lightning�
�� I don’t know how he survived that. I can’t tell…” there was static and wind breaking up her speech. “…it looked like more than just the lightning took him out of the sky.”

  “I can see the size of the hail stones from here,” the camera man called out as smaller ones pelted the van.

  “Is that a valley area? I thought the ground pitched up there?” Pamela remarked as they came to a stop.

  The van driver slowed and called out the window. “I don’t know how much closer we should get. It’s not safe. She’s not safe. The mud is getting deep and this van is rear wheel drive.”

  A flash of light disabled the recording at that point and then it began again after being restarted.

  The scene replayed where Pamela tried to engage Rebecca and Jane watched as the shot went in and out of focus. The recording clipped the point where the Senator highlighted and she stopped it to move it frame by frame.

  “Are you talking about 4:22?” Jane asked.

  The Senator moved his recording to that point and froze the frame to look at it. “Yes, right there. You tell me what you see.”

  “Rebecca’s eyes… there’s no iris, no pupils… they are totally black.” Jane said in a low voice.

  “There have been scattered reports of this prior by eye witnesses but it’s generally been dismissed. They actually caught it in this shot.” Senator Kelly said sitting back slightly.

  “It seems like it,” Jane said raising her hand to her mouth. “The quality of the shot is poor and it’s less than two seconds in length before she moves so radically and the camera operator becomes more unsteady with the shot.”

  “I know,” the Senator said moving the mouse on the screen to zoom in on the still frame. “This is the first real confirmation of the rumored reports.”

  “The ending of the recording is lost,” Jane replied.

  “I think what is there says it all,” Senator Kelly said softly.

  Jane backed the recording up to replay the end.

  “Shouldn’t allow? Who are you to allow or not allow?” Rebecca’s voice was heard on the recording. A faint sound of thunder could be heard.

  “Nathan and I have the powers of the gods. We are benevolent but we could easily rule.” Rebecca continued; the camera operator focused in on her and showed that her eyes became completely black. “We rush from one corner of the world to another whenever there’s an issue, to address problems that are often the result of man. When something doesn’t go perfectly for us, fixing your mess, the criticisms follow.”

  The scene panned left to take in the entire sinkhole and then back up to Rebecca but the shot was becoming more unstable and the damage to the recording media was beginning to affect the playback, digitizing portions of the sound and the imagery.

  “Miss Rebecca… situations where the direct result… caused almost as much damage… comment?”

  The playback ended. Jane breathed in deeply and let out a sigh. “What are we going to do?”

  “Nathan is on his way to Rebecca; we are going to have to let him take action on this,” Senator Kelly responded.

  “Senator,” Jane responded sitting upright in her seat, “with all due respect, do you really have that much faith in Nathan that he will do the right things here? He’s progressively become harder to deal with, perhaps to a degree because of her. Maybe it’s the powers going to his head over all this time.”

  “Would you rather deal with trying to bring one of them in and have the other protecting them, which makes it so you really have to try and bring them both in, or would you rather try to reason with one of them and have them assist you?” the Senator asked.

  Jane said nothing at first. She lowered her head slightly and spoke. “And Phases?”

  “Our friends thought we had already begun without them,” Senator Kelly answered.

  “It would seem to me that we don’t have to take on a campaign to discredit them and have the media and popular theory work against them; they are doing this all on their own with the current set of events.” Jane said lifting her head and looking around. One of her specialists was coming over and she held up her hand to pause her where she stood.

  “My counterpart and I both agreed that because of the events and the way they unfolded, we are effectively at Phase Four.”

  “I thought the four phases of the plan were called to be set at given stages and if needed,” Jane said and lowering her voice more.

  “That is true; we were supposed to contact one another, agree on the actions, then set the phase and set the action into motion. Because circumstance took us there on its own, he called the Phase and I agreed to it. Now that it occurred organically and not in a manipulated manner, it’s better for us.” The Senator responded.

  “So why move the Phase to ‘four’?” Jane asked.

  “If we decide to continue with the contingency plan at this point, in a proactive manner, we would need to go to Phase Three. In order to do that and call up the other operative branches, then this level must be set.”

  “I hate to say it Senator,” Jane said sitting up in her chair, “a lot of the time I forget I am talking to you and I keep hearing Congressman Johnson.”

  “Well perhaps the need has changed some. I won’t deny it; I don’t like the path I am on. I don’t like that we moved on the PrimaSync Tower in the center of Phoenix without all the warrants in place and I am not going to sanction that again. This little negative public relations effort, while unsavory, is legal as long as we are not fabricating things.” Senator Kelly wiped his mouth with his hand.

  “Phase Four was intended to do that…” Jane said.

  “If necessary. We were going to stretch the truth if necessary to paint an unfavorable picture to get the ball rolling if we needed to. We didn’t need to. What bothers me is that three people directly paid with their lives to get us here.”

  “I would have rather had the stretched truth,” Jane said plainly.

  “So would I,” Senator Kelly said, disconnecting the line.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lisa slowly opened her eyes. The brightness of the room made her squint lightly. She felt lightheaded as she tried to sit up. She suddenly realized she was on a very large bed. She quickly checked about herself; she was fully dressed.

  She quickly jumped off the bed, became dizzy, and sat back down on the edge.

  “Yeah I did that too,” Adia said softly walking over to her.

  “Where are we?” Lisa asked.

  “Some fancy hotel here in this city of yours,” Aphrodite said, now appearing in her own form. “When I was told this was the place to go, I spoke with the manager and he simply insisted I take this room.” Aphrodite said with a smirk.

  Lisa looked around the stately suite from the edge of the bed and then slowly stood up. Her mind continued to clear. She felt and immense emotional pull toward Aphrodite. She tried to clear her head.

  “We can get back to the discussion now that you’re awake,” Adia said.

  “Yes,” Aphrodite proclaimed, “we must and then as much as I enjoy these surroundings, I really must be going as well.”

  “It’s harder and harder for your kind to spend expended time in this realm,” Lisa said plainly.

  “You have been one of the most accurate studies of us in recent memory,” Aphrodite smiled and walked over to her. “The reason I am here is that so much of your focus was on me and your interest level and passion for what you were doing, for Nathan, was so high, it was coming across almost like prayer and worship. Therefore, it was something I could ‘hear’, so to speak.”

  “You skirted my comment,” Lisa said.

  “I did,” Aphrodite replied quietly, raising an eyebrow. “You are correct. The more aged we become as the millennia pass by, the more of our being is consumed… aged suddenly, if you will. It is almost that when we are here, our bodies are greatly affected by what our true ages in the realm should be. The life forces we have at our disposal and the connection to the power of the Prime Univer
se notwithstanding, we are impacted.”

  Adia stepped alongside Lisa. “You said there was much to discuss and not a lot of time to discuss it…”

  “Yes,” Aphrodite said stepping closer to touch Adia’s face. “You and your friend Lisa here would piece together everything before long but I am afraid it would be too late at that point. At this point there is a lot of confusion and turmoil in the work The Fates are undertaking and what the Watchers see. So much so that there has never been a time when there has been so much divergence in the path of life.”

  “I’s sorry Aphrodite,” Lisa said trying to shake off what she was feeling. “You’re not being clear.”

  Aphrodite smiled at her and stepped in to kiss her. Adia watched her initially resist and then total succumb to it. Adia felt the urge to look away and at the same time, she couldn’t and felt her own emotions edge in.

  Aphrodite stopped and backed off. “That should help clear your mind some; let me try this again. For every action there is more than one outcome; you can go left or you can go right… in its simplest form. Any action not taken in the Prime Universe is taken in another realm in the multiverse. Right now, the fabric between the universes is thin. We believe there is… interference, from the dark magic that Rebecca used to co-opt the powers she has gained for herself. That interference is allowing fragments of the nearest multiverse to spill into this one. This is why what the Watchers seeing isn’t always clear and why The Fates are repeating tasks and are unclear on peoples’ fates.”

  “And the rest of the Olympians?” Lisa asked.

  “They do not know I am here,” Aphrodite said turning away slightly. She turned back to Adia. “Actually, that is not totally true; Hera knows I made this journey. Not that I told her about it. She was watching from the reflecting pool as I transversed through the gateway from our realm to yours.”

  “So let me see if I understand this,” Adia asked. “This is the main universe. Actions are taken here and these are the initial response. An action not taken here, is elsewhere.”