by Russ Linton
I see Jackie's red blip hurtling toward the ocean. Clouds gone, her altitude is crashing as fast as mine. I can't make her out, but she's tangled with a secondary target. They're both plummeting. She's far off with no hummingbird miracle in the works.
Our threat? It looks neutralized.
That's when you save people.
Even the bad guys. Because, really, who the fuck are they?
"Engines full thrust!" I shout.
The jets kick in as the waves diminish, no longer a rolling landscape but a single white cap stretched across the HUD. Sudden forward momentum sends the blood in my face draining to my chest. Water sprays behind us in great gouts. Wormfood's adjustments are useless without the stabilizers, and I cut off his frantic attempts to keep us skimming above the water. Focused on their falling blips, I go full arcade style on the controls. I am nothing but an extension of the suit. Saving them is saving myself—I get it now. Where I screwed up. Where Dad did too. They're coming up fast, and I can see her. She's cradling Marut against her as they fall, his faces dimmed and drooling. She could let go like I almost did, but she won't. She won't, and I'm beginning to understand why. Why his life matters to her and why it should to me. Distance between us down to a handful of yards, I throttle down. Got to match their speed, pluck them out of the air, or they're better off smashing into the ocean at terminal velocity. It's close. Too close. I recall the theater when Dad scooped us up and launched. His flight powers drained, he became an uncontrolled missile, a weapon used to carry us from danger and absorb the blow. That's when he was a hero. That's when he was being the Crimson Mask.
They impact my outstretched arms with a whisper, speed still fast enough, the trough of water shedding off the armor is the only reason they aren't wet. I pull them both close and shoot unsteadily into the sky.
Jackie’s breathing fast, her eyes squeezed shut. Her hand clenches around an object pressed to Marut's neck.
The fucking dart.
CHAPTER 53
THE FLIGHT TO THE CANADIAN frontier feels instantaneous compared to our trans-Atlantic voyage. A couple of hours with an actual view and a task to concentrate on make the trip bearable. The fact my task involves keeping the two people in my arms alive and breathing only adds to the level of focus.
Both are more resilient than your average person. Their Augmentation has likely gifted them the ageless, peak human condition granted to all who've undergone the procedure. Jackie seems more accustomed to the forces which accompany our rate of speed. She uses her body to shield the comatose Marut as we fly. I catch her examining his face, her own brow creased in concern. As far as I know, the Lady she and Hound referred to didn't have any major mutations. Could be she hadn't developed them yet.
Crossing the Rockies, night falls, and I realize for the past several days, I've been out from under the Aurora-emblazoned dome of North America. The light show is noticeably weaker than it was. I often wondered if those lights were dimming, and the time spent away has only magnified that perception.
Canada comes with a bitter cold. Eric's base is lost in a land of glacier lakes and backcountry. But we all benefit from the fact Wormfood is overheating, slowly burning away his usefulness. Exhaust ports are likely scarring to the touch. I don't dare slow down.
For all the good it is doing me that Marut is passed out, it only makes me worry. I have no idea what they'd loaded the dart with. Too much of a dose could easily kill him. My only hope is Eric has made it back and that he's dragged along Cyrus.
Hoping for his cooperation is maybe a bit too much.
From above, the abandoned mining operation looks like a long-healed scar. Whitish and ridged with an accumulation of debris dredged from just underneath the skin, the whole complex runs the narrow length of a single, forked road. Roughly in the middle is a massive gouge, the wound which won't ever scab over.
Steam rises from a series of buildings south of the pit near a fuel depot. One truck and a few abandoned pieces of mining equipment cluster near the largest building. I can't tell if there's any heat there. We go for the smaller of the two.
Once on the ground, I carry Marut and Jackie, and we explore the building together.
There's a garage bay and several offices. Most everything looks empty, though I see signs in the garage of projects Eric half-completed. Drones, cellphones, he's been a busy little tinker. I cringe at his inability to organize his parts. Old computer equipment litters the shop floor too, most of which I'd guess had been replaced or trashed while outfitting his "lair".
"Hello?" No answer. I see cameras hidden throughout, and Wormfood tags them, tracing live power sources and searching for heat signatures. The building has power, heat, and a slick humidity.
We make a cursory search, neither of us alert enough for more. Jackie seems to have finally wound down from her post-injection high and shambles ahead like a zombie. She takes a few pictures, seeming half interested in their results.
We find a freight elevator to a lower level. One floor indicates a geothermal power station. I'm curious, but not enough I want to shed the armor and cram in for a ride.
We search until we discover a small infirmary. There are two beds and a door broad enough I can shuffle inside, hunched and sideways. I lay Marut on one bed and watch Jackie give a listless nod then collapse on the other.
To exit the armor, I'll need to either sacrifice the acoustic tiles on the ceiling, so I can stand upright, or head for the garage. I opt for the second.
Bracing cold engulfs me the second the armor opens. I leap out and look out the open bay door, wondering if or when Eric will return. Climbing back inside the armor is the last damn thing I want to do, so it's back to the building and toward the small infirmary.
I pass the freight elevators once again.
The tech head in me wants a tour. My chilled skin wonders if a steam bath would be good or bad under the circumstances. Whatever it is, there's another draw to those unexplored reaches. A security camera perched near the door stares, unblinking. Would Eric have his office down there? Hell, if they were here, he'd have come found us. My hand slips away from the elevator button.
Back in the infirmary, Marut and Jackie are passed out. I check the new guy, who, in my unprofessional opinion, seems to be okay. He's got a pulse at least, and his chest rises and falls, air seeping out three noses and mouths. Shit. Yeah, he's peachy.
I dig through the cabinets, pulling out blankets. I drape a couple over the Salarium kid and one on Jackie. As the cloth touches her shoulders, she stirs. Squirming into the blanket her sleepy expression spreads with a child-like innocence. For a second, she's young, dreaming. A little girl who dreamed of flying with her mother instead of confined to her house, wondering each time if she'd come home. It feels creepy, but I stand over her, watching her sleep until a moan from the other bed catches my attention.
"Marut?"
He doesn't answer. I consider strapping him down, but what good would that really do? Digging out a pillow and another blanket, I toss them on the cold, hard floor and join the slumber party.
"CHROMA SAYS YOU'VE made it to Jericho."
Mom and I are standing on the cliff overlooking the beach. Sick of seeing endless expanses of water, I turn to face inland. Not too far away is the cave where the Swiss Family Robinson often found shelter from the all the bullshit animals or wild weather they encountered. A muscular figure looms in the shadows.
"Have you had a chance to explore?" she asks, wary sounding.
"I'm sleeping," I mutter, lost in the shadows of the cave.
She nods. "Don't try to do too much. There isn't any security, aside from the cameras. Chroma's monitoring, but you'll be safe. I'll keep you safe."
"I don't feel safe," I say, peering into the cave. "Do you think... Do you think he'll understand?"
Her sharp gaze pins me. "You did what you had to do. We've all done what we had to do. Your father would understand."
"No. Not my father."
Mom looks perpl
exed. "Who?"
"Him," I say into the shadows.
Mom stares into those depths with me.
WHEN THE REST OF THE group returns, I'm sitting in the hallway across from the elevator. Eric looks like he did the first time I showed up at his parent's basement, eager to share his little slice of the world. All of that is erased when he takes in the freight elevator doors, yawning open, a moist, dank chill exhaled into the room.
Hound is close behind, leading Cyrus who they've cuffed. Ember follows just out of reach; her smoldering glare daring the medic to try and snatch her powers again. Mom is the last one, and she steps around the corner meekly, her lip twisted in thought.
"Where's Chroma? The prototype?"
Eric's discomfort grows. He taps his headset. "You there?"
"I heard him!" she snaps. "I still don't understand why she had to come along. She's in our home, Eric."
"What the hell is her problem?" I ask.
He covers the microphone. "She might, uh, be under the impression Ember and I had a thing."
"A thing?" Ember snorts. She stares, incredulous for several heartbeats and I imagine myself finally getting warm over Eric's smoldering corpse. Before I can try to intervene, she starts to laugh.
It's a weak wheeze at first, one which might give hope it'll soon pass until the force of it informs us she's barely able to catch her own breath. She doubles over and steadies herself on Hound's shoulder, face buried. He gives a little chuckle, then, even Cyrus with his arms laced up behind him, smiles.
"Yeah, right," Eric says. "So...so funny."
Ember points and I see Eric flinch. There's no spark, just a full body convulsion with every muscle thrown into her laughter. Hound and Cyrus double down, and the mood gets so raucous, even Mom smiles. Most I can do is smirk.
"Ha-ha, okay, we had our laugh," Eric says, struggling to play the good sport. The room quietens, interrupted mostly by Ember's quivering breath. "Are the others still in the infirmary?"
"So she wasn't." comes Chroma's concerned waifu voice.
Ember completely loses it. She's crying now as she stumbles past Eric. "I can't even." Her strained speech ends in a snort. "Jackie!" she calls, drunkenly down the hallway. "You gotta... Jackie!"
Eric stomps past, the speaker buzzing in his ear. He snatches Cyrus' arm. "Let's go, traitor, we got work for you."
Any sign of joy Cyrus had, ends, and he regards Eric coldly. Hound bites back another laugh.
"I got this, slick," he says, marching Cyrus down the hall and patting Eric on the back. "Go sort out yer love life. And get us some damn radios worked up. Gonna need to keep in touch on these missions and such." Hound winks at me as he passes.
At first, I think Eric is going to argue. The leader of the Collective reduced once more to team errand boy. But he accepts the command in stride. "Radios? Please. It'll be something cool, not those giant toasters you like to carry around." He's soon headed the opposite way, muttering both to himself and a never-ending stream of chatter from his headset.
The silence becomes all-consuming. This could be a corridor one bend removed from a bustling office. But it can't shake the lonely landscape outside, or the sheer barrenness of the surroundings. I kind of understand why Eric is ready to suffer humiliation to have other people invade his space.
"Were you here at Camp Eric for long?" I ask.
Mom slides closer along the wall. "I came soon after I left the prison. I'd been looking for...Chroma found me first. She told me where everyone was."
"Him too?" I say, nodding toward the elevator.
She won't look me in the eye, but she puts out her hand. I take it, and she guides me through the vertical doors. I hop up and grab the dangling loop to pull them shut while she presses the button. Clear, molded plastic, the button labeled "B" lights amber.
I'm taken off guard by the lack of security measures here. I see Mom's utter lack of fear as she passes through the doorway into the underground chamber hewn from solid rock and veined with pipes bigger around than tree trunks. The vast pipes make uniform lines out and through the stone and off toward a generator elsewhere on the property.
In the middle, hanging by a series of chains lashed around the sturdiest of the pipes, Vulkan's body glistens above a vented floor pouring dense exhalations of steam.
"What did you do?"
Terror floods Mom's face at my reaction, and she quickly reins it in. "What I had to. They needed a power source here, and Chroma told me it could be done."
"Mom," I say, unable to take my eyes off the man, the object of so many hours of vengeful fantasy, hanging helpless. "You aren't Chroma."
"Aren't I?" Terror becomes shame.
I step up to look at him. His face is hardened volcanic rock. Without the proper reference in the shadowy light, I can't see where eyes or lips begin or even if they're open. Pumice embeds his skin like patches of blackened scar tissue. The bulk on his frame has dwindled, leaving a withered shell. They've got him hooked up to an IV, a catheter... Jesus.
"Help me get him down," I say.
"Spencer, you don't understand. I... I'm alive. We can have your father back too." She's right behind me, desperate and feverish. My throat convulses, and I start to blink as tears fuse with the moisture in the air. "We'll get used to him, just like you did with me. We can accept him in whatever form."
"Why didn't you come to me," I whisper.
This isn't about getting left in jail. It's about her left to wander on her own under the strain of those powers. Dad's rage, the wild look in Jackie's eyes, the tinderbox which is Ember, and Danger's tortured existence...these aren't powers anyone can just handle. She needed me, she needed family, but she didn't come.
"I wanted him to die," she says. "I didn't want you to see that. I didn't want you to know."
"And this?" I gesture at the horror show and finally turn. Accusations die as I see her face streaming with tears. "This was somehow better?"
"You wanted him dead. Don't tell me you didn't," she says.
"I did. I was going to kill him myself, but instead...instead I killed others. I justified it as training, as revenge, as a way to change my mistakes. None of it worked!" I've worked up to a shout and fight again to maintain control. "None of it." I point weakly to Vulkan. "This. This doesn't work. We have to find another way."
"Spencer, honey, listen to me," she says, searching for my eyes. "We can bring him back."
"He's dead!" My voice echoes throughout the cavern. "We can't bring him back. He died, and it was my fault! Yours! Everybody's! It doesn't matter. We can't bring him back, and nothing we do will ease that pain, only create more." She's quivering with sorrow, rage, I can feel them all flooding off her like the vented steam. "But I can try to be what he wanted me to be. He asked me to lead once. I turned him down. But now I know why he asked." The revelations are fresh, coming only as I speak. Their sincerity has even caught my mind reader mother by surprise. "Augments can't work together. Sheer ego and—"
I almost mention my true concerns—the possibility they're compromised in their mental state, their temperament. I check the words, even though my thoughts are as free to her as the humid air. "They sure as hell can't be in charge. Hound is right, those powers don't matter. He's the strongest leader and the one lowest in the pecking order. They need somebody at the helm who doesn't want to be there. Some mere mortal, but dumb enough, maybe reckless enough, to take on the position. They need me."
I'm afraid how she might react. So much emotion boiling out of control. Feelings buried so deep, I wonder if her powers could've sensed them before now or if she would have acknowledged them if she did?
But this isn't some out of control Augment. This is my Mom. Her tears have stopped, and she's concentrating, seeing through me. Her eyes flit to Vulkan, to me, then back again. Agreement comes as a sigh of resignation.
Chains rattle as if spooling free. I turn to see his body strike the vented floor in a shattered heap. Her expression remains unreadable.
"Eric is on his way to help you get him to the infirmary."
She leaves.
CHAPTER 54
"SO, HE'LL HELP?" I ask, watching the camera feed from the infirmary on Eric's monitor. Cyrus stands beside Marut's bed. Vulkan's drained form occupies the other.
"I told him I’d make good on burning his mustache off," Ember says.
"That worked?"
She sniffs. "Turns out he can't regrow hair so quick. Check his legs."
Still wearing the charred and tattered scrubs, I see his legs are baby-ass smooth, unlike the coarse collection on his arms.
"We should get him some new clothes," Jackie says.
"Meh," Ember grunts. "But yeah, he's going to help. She reaches over Eric who rapidly skates away in his rolling chair, and she grabs the microphone on his desk. "He'll help, or he's going to be his own burn patient."
Cyrus regards the camera with utter contempt.
"Good, because we'll need Mr. Lay on Hands for what I've got planned," I say.
"What you've got planned, robot boy?" asks Jackie. She defers to Hound.
Hound sniffs and feigns a moment of indecision. "I'll bite. Whatcha' got?"
There it is, me the center of attention once again, and this time, maybe in a good way. Ember, Jackie, Hound, Eric, and probably Chroma are all waiting. Mom? She didn't come, but does she really need to be here to be present? I'd feel better if she were.
"Eric, we're going to need a lab."
"No problem. Plenty of unused space here. We'll deck it out for all kinds of robot building shit. You won't even miss old Xamse's place."
"Not that kind of lab. For that, the garage works just fine. We need a biological lab."
"Oh yeah?" Eric says, gliding up to his keyboard once again. "You gonna try to replicate some nanos?"
"No tech. Well, maybe. But we need a real, functioning genetics laboratory."
That gets their undivided attention. Hound almost seems to be having second thoughts about giving me the floor. Ember's expression is harsh and a bit lost.
