Lost in Amber

by Esther Rabbit

  “My sixth cup today.” She held it up like a trophy then sunk her lips in.

  “Everyone’s a little psyched today, right?” Emma raised her eyebrows at Jasper.

  It didn’t take him long to reply, crossing his arms over his chest while throwing Zoey a quick glance. “Now that we’re all here, today’s briefing will be short—we’re ambushing Professor Trenton Beck in three hours if Mia agrees.”

  There was a knowing look in Mia’s eyes as anticipation brought a wave of excitement and anguish quite difficult to put in words.

  She tried and failed not to sound too excited. “Finally!”

  “Rufus is stable, I just checked his charts and it’s looking good—he’s in good health, completely awake, great heart rate.” Alex smiled confidently at Mia as he placed not one but two intersats beside his plate.

  “Great!”

  Jasper placed his elbows on the table and continued, “We have the coordinates to Beck’s lab. It’s in Pamplona, Spain, and Rufus has been held over there exclusively. Gerard and Aline have searched the perimeter and it looks like a research center on the outside. There’s no one going in or out, though, so the plan is for Mia to portal us all in there. We rented an apartment in the main square, that way Alex can enjoy a nice view while monitoring with Emma and Sam.” Jasper smirked and saw Alex nod as if saying ‘I’ll take one for the team.’

  Lilou patted Emma’s shoulder. “Your training served you well, so if things get nasty I’m counting on you to save the day again.” She winked.

  Sam rolled her eyes at the findings. “All roads lead to Rome, don’t they?” She almost laughed to herself. Of all the places in the universe, it had to be Carlos’s hometown where all the nasty went down. “You’re lucky my Spanish is not half bad.” She threw a glance at Lilou.

  Zoey knew it all too well. Funny how destiny took them figuratively closer to their exes—Zoey to England and Sam to Spain. Frank was a local, so technically their first run-in with Beck had happened on his turf. It was hard not to shrug at how life found new ways to mess up what they’d thought they had in order.

  Zoey spoke confidently. “I’m coming with you, Mia. Thanks for allowing it, Lilou, and thanks for understanding, Jasper.” Alex raised a curious eyebrow seeing how Lilou raised her mug.

  “Girl power!” Judge Judy grinned.

  “To girl power!” The ladies raised their mugs in unison.

  Alex rolled his eyes, looking over his shoulder at Jasper. “We’re severely outnumbered.”

  γ

  Duffel bags stocked with intersats, neatly wrapped screens, and fully packed workstations awaited alongside heavy backpacks on the pale green rug in the grand ballroom. Sam took another look around, taking it all in—if it wasn’t for such pressing matters, she could spend eternity caught in the beauty of the intricate ceiling and warmth of the walls she’d probably never see again.

  Emma’s heels sunk with uncanny determination in the rug as she joined the rest and dropped her own duffel bag next to the others. Mia’s black boots stumbled at an eager pace to reach Zoey’s and Sam’s trainers beside Lilou’s impatiently tapping bare foot.

  “Where are your shoes?” Alex raised an eyebrow in her direction.

  “Jasper’s bringing them along as we speak, he fixed my soles.”

  Jasper shortly followed, poised and geared up, holding a pair of boots with kalenium soles. They looked tiny in his hand.

  Zoey’s heart skipped a beat seeing him so composed, and time stopped a little every time he looked at her like that. It was enough for Sam to lock arms with Zoey and lean in for a whisper.

  “He does rock a nice frame, doesn’t he?” Sam giggled under her breath, teasing.

  “You have no idea…” Zoey’s comment rendered Sam silent—she was not expecting defensive Zoey to come up with that, nor wink at her as they exchanged a knowing glance and nod.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” Sam watched Zoey lay a please-don’t-tell finger against her lips—it was enough to take it to the grave if need be.

  Jasper caught Sam’s excitement from across the room. “All good, ladies?”

  “Never better, Jasper!” She raised a coy eyebrow.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Alex.” He handed him an intersat with the coordinates and everything turned blue.

  Sam landed on her feet in the middle of a spacious living room—and how Spaniards loved their leather still made her cringe. No less than three massive white leather couches surrounding a geometric glass coffee table presented themselves in front of the window, leaving the small open concept kitchen at the back. Sam knew Spaniards liked their kitchens small and practically invisible compared to the rest of their homes—there was no grandeur in their appliances or kitchen furniture, saving all the glam for the living space.

  “Wait a sec!” Alex just realized he’d portalled them inside and this apartment had a self-check-in smartlock service, so he vanished only to open the door from the outside. It took him less than five minutes to mount two work stations on the kitchen counter and again on the coffee table, filling every available space with tech.

  “Don’t you dare move that coffee maker, I need it right where it is.” Lilou warned, anticipating his next move. The screens were up and running in no time and Emma was not shy to give a hand now that she knew where all the wires went.

  “I really had faith in a wireless future, Alex.” she said, plugging a wire from one intersat into the other.

  He smiled back from his intersat. “Oh, it is. But I still use a wire for backup because I’m traditional like that.” Emma smothered a laugh as she turned to see Lilou lining up coffee cups from the upper cabinet. “So, you see, we don’t run on electricity, we don’t need to charge things—kalenium does that.” He pressed a finger on the smallest intersat. “This is what you would call a black box—you know, like what your aircrafts have. In case Beck decides to blow this building up, this little wire is more effective than magnetic waves to store info and send it before the intersat can perish in the process. A few seconds mean a lot in this line of work.” And no one had any doubt Alex lived up to the expectations of his superiors.

  “Don’t these people have proper coffee mugs?” Lilou kept searching the cabinets, making Sam crack a laugh from the couch.

  “Ha! Welcome to Spain—nothing’s quite like you’d expect over here, I’ve even seen people have their morning coffee in glasses.” It took her back.

  Lilou’s eyes seemed to have a spasmodic contraction at the thought. “Preposterous!”

  “I know, right?”

  Mia pushed the windows open and her breath stopped short. Cold and beautiful, the square culminated with a small gazebo, trees popping along the sidewalk surrounding it in a perfect rectangle. There were benches everywhere and a couple of teens laughing as they crossed the wet pavement, oblivious to the beauty of the four-story buildings closing in like a colorful curtain on the magical plaza. It smelled like rain and mountains but Mia couldn’t care less. She was finally minutes away from Rufus.

  “Sam, you have to see this!” She almost sounded like a joyful tourist.

  Sam raised a brow from the couch. “I know every stepping stone of this forsaken place, my ex’s grandparents live two streets from here.”

  Mia took a few steps and sat beside her on the couch. “A walk down memory lane, eh?” She pursed her lips sympathetically. “Let me get you some coffee.” She got up and grabbed one of the mini cups on the counter and made her way back, careful not to spill a drop on the beige carpet in the sitting area.

  “Coffee shot?” She saw Sam smile as she grabbed the mini cup.

  “Thanks. You know, my ex used to say Pamplona’s so small that everyone makes the papers at some point during their lives here. His grandparents had newspaper clippings of all their family members in a photo album.” She sighed, remembering how well she got on with his grandmother—a woman of many talents and stories.

  “Did you make the papers here too?”

>   “He broke up with me before I ever had the chance.” She smiled and took a sip. Coincidentally, a coffee shot was all she needed to get back on her feet. “Promise me you’ll be careful today, Mia.”

  Mia pulled her hair into a ponytail. “I can’t promise we won’t make the papers.” She chuckled and made her way across the hardwood floor to find Jasper. She needed to know what was expected of her.

  “Hey.” She greeted him from the door of the master bedroom. Her eyes went straight to the weaponry laid out on the duvet. “Um…what’s all this?”

  “We’re gearing up. Grab anything you need.” There were two knives among the geometric pieces on display.

  “What are my options, two knives or some of these glass triangles?!”

  He took one of the small glass triangles in his hand. “This is a condrin, I can activate it to respond to your fingerprints—it can cut though mostly anything one layer at a time. This means if I activate it to cut down this wall, it won’t rip Sam in two on the other end; it’ll only cut through the wall.”

  “And the round ones?”

  “These are all Lilou’s, they’re called sansis.” They came in all sizes, from the size of an aspirin to a small ashtray. “And she doesn’t let anyone get their hands on them—they shield against all kinds of radiation. Soldiers use them in space, mostly.”

  “Say if you give me a condrin, will it cut Beck in half if I make the right move?”

  “That would be the wrong move. These weapons don’t have an effect on the living. Terminating one’s life should always be the last option, we don’t practice war.”

  “He would have killed you on the spot without blinking twice, Jasper! You’re only alive because he likes playing with his prey, trust me. He needs to die.”

  “He needs to live and answer for what he’s done. Don’t you want to know the purpose behind your enhancements? The reason he had you kidnapped for so long?”

  “Of course not! What difference does it make?” She scowled.

  “There could be others out there like you—what guarantee do you have that killing Beck would end it all? Information has more value than silence.”

  “He’s fucked the lives of people I love!” She knew she was selfish, she knew she wasn’t the only one affected, but it was getting hard to control, hard for logic to outweigh instinct at this point.

  Lilou walked into the room geared up in dark coveralls and propped her shoulder on the doorframe, crossing her arms at the sight of them.

  “Mia, do you know why Jasper was chosen to lead this mission?” She stepped closer to Mia, her small frame imposing. “We train hard—so hard that they have no clue they’re training. When they come of age, we assemble small groups according to their skills—five optans for interplanetary tasks like this one are sent out on over fifteen missions without knowing they’re fake upon embarking. It’s how we judge the true nature of their enhancements and see who they really are.”

  “Mia was just here for a weapon…” Jasper jumped, not really comfortable having Lilou sing his praises.

  “And she’ll get it once she understands she’s looking at it! Ambassadors are not a dime a dozen. This one carried out his team and was ready to die countless times to protect planets like yours, but not before outsmarting every trick we had lined up for him.”

  Mia placed her hands on her hips and stared at him. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Jasper, I’m just done playing nice.”

  A loud alarm noise startled all of them. “Shit!” Lilou made her way to Alex in less than a second. He was staring blankly at the intersat, like he couldn’t believe the odds. Despite the sweat gathering at his temples, he didn’t lose his calm.

  “Rufus is out of the lab—the lab is like thirty minutes away, walking distance—one second he was there and now he appears to be less than ten minutes away from us!”

  Jasper’s eyes narrowed in on the beaming red dot. “Beck knows we’re here. Send Gerard the new coordinates.” He grabbed an earpiece from the workstation and placed it in his right ear as Alex nodded. “Lilou, activate condrin for Mia and Zoey.” His eyes scanned the place for her. “I’ll leave you in good hands, Sam.”

  Neither of them had seen this side of him before—it left no room for bargaining, and Emma squeezed Sam’s hand before taking a seat next to Alex.

  “What can I do, Alex?” Sam bolted up and joined them.

  “Coffee.” Emma instructed to keep Sam busy, watching Lilou head into the bedroom with the corner of her eye.

  “What does this mean, Alex?” Emma stiffened.

  “It means he’s ambushing us!” Her stomach twisted in a tight knot. She felt her mouth dry and pulled at her sleeves to hide the goosebumps.

  Jasper walked in on Lilou as she was activating Zoey’s condrin and slid it into the pocket of her jeans. “Leave us.” he instructed watching Lilou gather some weapons and escort Mia out.

  He then grabbed Zoey’s face with both hands. “Stay behind Lilou at all times—you can’t harness energy out of nowhere, so if you do see any and we’re not there to help, focus on where you want to guide it.” He kissed her quick. “Promise me you’ll stay behind Lilou!” he pleaded with desperate eyes.

  “I promise.” Her core pumped with anxiety, heart pounding, worry triggering beneath her every pore as he let her lips go.

  He tied his hair in a bun, teasing her with a smile that was meant to be reassuring. “Let’s go get them!”

  When they walked into the sitting room, everyone was in position.

  “We can’t portal in plain sight, Mia—we’ll walk.”

  Mia hurried to hold the door open. “Lead the way, Ambassador.”

  The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

  “There is a fundamental limit to how well you can simultaneously know the position and momentum of a particle.”

  Anticipation rippled in Mia’s chest with a loud echo. Everything accelerated. She stormed down the stairs to the main square, passed the gazebo as if the pavement burned, and didn’t even notice Zoey’s hand squeezing her shoulder. Everything accelerated.

  The second they set foot on Paseo Sarasate, a peaceful promenade surrounded by trees and statues, the energy shifted. They’d left the citadel behind and made their way forward, Jasper taking the lead followed closely behind by Lilou and the girls. Zoey read Mia’s every gasp and registered every twitch in her shaking hands. It was hard to look ahead when all she wanted was to grab Mia’s hand and give her some sort of balance. Everything accelerated—not in the pace, but in the way the heartbeat slowly elevated, in the way everything felt small and unknown, like making your way through the dark, eyes closed.

  Lilou came to a halt and Zoey barely balanced herself on her toes, feeling the cold rising up her thighs.

  Rufus. Rufus, dressed in khaki pants and a black sweater, walking towards them, advancing at a casual pace.

  “Now, Mia!” Lilou whispered loud enough for Zoey to hear.

  Mia bolted towards Rufus and pulled him under a sea of blue. Lilou shifted to Jasper’s side, shielding Zoey. The cobblestone tore in strands of blue as Mia and Rufus resurfaced.

  Mia couldn’t believe her eyes, checking the insides of her palms and slamming her hand to the ground again while grabbing Rufus’s leg only to dissipate in violent shades of blue. They reemerged a second later under Mia’s terrified stare and for a brief moment, it looked as if they were fighting in water.

  “I could do this all day, you know!” Rufus threw her a menacing stare and made her crash against the cobblestone, keeping her in place with his mind. It was too much for Zoey to bear as she launched herself to Mia’s side, pulling at her as if she was trying to unglue her torso from the pavement. There was dirt and smudged mascara on her pink cheeks and watery eyes. Frustration thrummed through Zoey’s veins once more.

  “It’s okay, he’s not himself,” she whispered, but Mia was too hung up on fighting his mental constraint.

  Jasper’s attention shifted to Zoey but he held h
is ground, noticing people passing them by without throwing a glance. “You can control multiple minds at the same time now, nice!” Trying to divert Rufus from putting more pressure on Mia resulted in his jaw tightening in response, eyes saying “you’re next.”

  There was no time to think things through. “Remember how you couldn’t sleep thinking about getting Mia back? This is your Mia, you went through hell for her!” Zoey’s screams echoed as Rufus took over her body and slammed it against a tree till all air was out of her lungs and pieces of the trunk hung in her parka. A staggering pain washed over her spine as she collapsed. Jasper arched his fingers and threw a handful of what looked like sand at his face.

  “Enough!” That voice brought Rufus to a halt as Zoey coughed and gasped for air, palms on her knees to steady herself as footsteps approached. “That’s enough, Rufus. We’ll take Mia to the lab, this won’t take long.”

  Nothing surprised Lilou—nothing, no one dared to catch her off guard like that. No one rendered her speechless, nor drained the color from her cheeks or warmth from her breath.

  Hallucinations.

  Psychosis.

  “James?!” Zoey’s voice trembled in horror upon the realization. Lilou’s mouth dropped in complete dismay.

  A dry laugh escaped Jasper’s throat. “I should have known, how was I too blind to see?”

  “Indeed. I suppose you’ve always been two sandwiches short of a picnic.”

  Lilou cut him off. “I believe you went by Etienne the last time we saw each other.”

  Zoey froze in place, baffled, unable to follow the nonsense happening before her eyes. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

  Stomach twisting in a tight knot.

  Nausea.

  Brain coma.

  “I agree the timing is awful.” The voice Zoey’s always known as warm had lost its glow.

  Lilou tensed. “How are you alive?” Staring at him in the flesh made it even more incomprehensible—propped on his own two feet in a dark trench coat and matching sweater, Etienne’s body language read defiance.