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WEEKS PASS. NO LONGER stuck in the daily routine of sleeping pill, lab, sleeping pill, I'm stuck in a more sinister loop. Augment hunting, pills, Augment hunting. I'm thankful for Xamse's gift of prescription sleep. If I had trouble before, I'd not be able to now.
Sleep.
Thor.
Sleep.
Regulus.
Sleep.
Patriot.
More fall. I stick to the cycle. This is my new normal. How it all must be.
Vulkan remains elusive. Cantor was right, he's disappeared off the face of the earth. Hanging out in the core perhaps with Balrogs and lost scientific expeditions. If only I knew where to dig, the new armor could take him. I'd wrestle him into the hell where he belongs.
The C.E.O. has grown more distracted as I've grown more detached. Several missions, I've launched from Xamse's office without him even being present. Ayana objects and always shows in his absence. But her glower doesn't keep me pinned, and the demilitarized zone around Nanomech prevents our little rivalry from ending too early.
With Xamse gone more often, he's given me access to Nanomech systems. Ayana refused his request for weeks, claiming her team never got the email then saying she'd assigned it to Abel, Chinua, Johnathan, and Zala until her list of senior security members had run out of alphabetical responses and possible excuses.
She's making the right call. Surely, he can't trust me, although I get the sense he does—enough the thought of betraying him stings. More than that, the idea of proving Ayana right is a non-starter.
In my spare time, I explore. I stroll their digital perimeter and toss a few imaginary rocks at the fence. Nothing serious. To Xamse's, hell, maybe even Ayana's credit, they've got the systems locked down tight.
Hacking into the guts of the systems would set off layers of alarm bells. I'd be better off with an external attack. At the very least I'd need somebody else's workstation. A friendly employee or two wouldn't hurt, but I don’t feel like making friends.
Ayana hasn't allowed another visit from our client. Cantor's last offer sticks with me, though. I'd hated the idea of being shunted into another fucking bunker, but I'd love some space at this point.
As the number of successful missions increase, the time between them lengthens. I don't leave my basement hideout. I don't want to answer questions. Don't want to talk about the job. I want to focus on what is going to happen. When I'm going to find Vulkan.
Nanomech has nothing of interest going on. Their sole effort has been to support the government's attempts to rebuild at all costs. FreedomNet explains away military seizure of power generation plants in Canada and Mexico. China keeps slow playing the necessary parts, sending too little, too late. Even our presumed allies have taken a step back.
With the financial collapse, Europe is struggling too. However, there's something more disturbing. FreedomNet can't be telling the whole truth. They're stalling not just because they too were wounded, but because they've caught a glimpse of the future.
The Collective. Motherfucking Eric and Chroma. They've been restoring both internet connections and financial transactions at a blazing pace. Europe is getting cozy with the idea of a unified economy not dominated by outside interests. Without American tech giants monopolizing search, social media, online sales, and sending the bulk of those profits to the once mighty superpower, the continental rivals have room to breathe. With the Collective's tech which, as much as I hate to say, is revolutionary, they can see the Old World re-positioned to lead the New.
Another solid week passes without a mission. I'd like to take the armor and just fly, alone. But despite Xamse's trust and absence, he's not allowing that quite yet. When the waiting gets to be too much, and the prattling of FreedomNet too grating, I take a pill. Maybe two.
"Mr. Alexander."
A voice in my room. I come to like I'm climbing out of a well, each move a new struggle. My bedroom is empty and trashed. Clothes strewn across the floor, a few books on the bed, and plates stacked both by the door and on the fancy interface table which could use a good hosing down.
"Mr. Alexander? You have a call."
Must be a call from Xamse. A new mission.
"Put it through," I grumble.
"Yes sir."
"Xamse, my friend!" I pre-empt his standard greeting. "Who's on the radar now? I need a good one. Preferably Russian, made of magma and don't give me any shit about international incidents."
"Spencer?"
Her voice cuts right through the wall of separation built by time. I see her face instantly and know by her tone the precise worried expression she wears.
"Emily?" I sit upright, my eyes searching the room. She's on the speakers, I know this, but a tiny hope that she's standing nearby burns in my chest.
"Oh my God! I can't believe...how are you?"
"Good. Fine." There's nowhere to hide in the room, but my eyes continue to rove. "You?"
"Uh, sure," she says.
"I saw you on FreedomNet," I say, suddenly excited and on my feet. "You were in New York? Helping people."
"Oh, yeah, I still am. Things are a mess here. With so many people in one place, you know, you don't realize how a little bit of power can make all the difference."
I've tried to avoid the reports. As upbeat as they are, they can't hide the fact people are dying. Lack of medical care is one, exacerbated by disease and no way to climate control the concrete skylines. Power has been restored in most places, but only intermittently, and cities with concentrated populations have suffered the most.
"Are you feeling okay?" I ask. "You haven't gotten sick, have you?" Fucking stupid question. Why would I bring that up? What can we safely talk about?
"Spencer, I heard."
She doesn't continue and doesn't need to. I'd hoped she'd never hear about Dad, I guess. I couldn't tell her. In my mind, she was busy being her own kind of superhero. Saving lives and no time, or no desire, to watch the news.
"Yeah."
Her voice trembles. "I'm so sorry. I wish..." She can't go on. We've long left wishes behind. I've accepted Dad's fate as part of the order of things in this universe. She can't, probably ever, and that's good. "Do you need anything?"
Of course, she'd ask that of me while she's working to save a fucking city. Knee deep in finding ways to treat raw sewage, and she'd ask me that of me.
"I'm good. How the hell did you find me?"
"There's the news," she says. Of course, she's on the shortlist of who would figure out the whole Beetle thing. "I'd missed enough I didn't piece it together right away. Then there was...a dream."
"What?" It's been so long since I had one, the concept sounds alien.
"I was on a beach." All it takes is for her to say those words and I'm wandering toward the screen, switching on the picture. "The whole place, water, sand, air, had this bluish hue. It took me a moment, but I remembered when I'd seen it. I had a glimpse when we jumped out of Charlotte's little treehouse." She's strained. I know how it goes with those dream visits; they always feel fresh, the past instances reawakened. "She was there. Not Charlotte but your mother."
Emily hadn't met face to face with mom since the strange transference, but she knew. So instead of speaking to me first Mom reaches out to Emily for her first discussion about Dad's death.
"Fuck," I mutter. "What else would I expect?" I say out loud, not for her, but for me. The concern is quickly displaced by another, rawer emotion. "Why did she talk to you? Why would she ever talk to you first and not me?"
Too much anger, too much pain comes out with those words. She's silent for what feels like forever, and I wonder if the call has been dropped. How long do we even have? A rolling brownout or a system overload could end this reunion at any time.
"Emily?"
"She said she couldn't find you, Spencer. She's been trying, she really has."
"Why did she leave me?" Emily has no reason to know this, but she's become the surrogate for a conversation I've needed for a long time. I should back off. I can't. "She left me in prison. Prison, Emily."
"Hang on. One thing at a time. This is difficult, for all of us."
"Sure, sure. You've watched your body snatcher Mom abandon you, and you've watched your father die. I get it."
"Nobody should see that. Ever," she says, quietly. "I've watched things close to that happen, over and over here. My own family, they haven't exactly been immune to all this either."
Yep, something like ten brothers and a Mom and Dad once protected in suburban bliss. The crisis I'm sure hit them hard. She's got family to spare. Who do I have?
"Fuck. I'm a terrible person, Em."
"No, no you aren't."
"Mom left me there for my own good, didn't she? She knew what I would become."
"Don't say that. She didn't say why she left, only she had something to do. She didn't want you there. She said she meant to come back for you when she was done, and by the time she did, you were gone."
She's crying silently now, I can tell. I am too. I've got to clear my throat before I can speak.
"Where is she, do you know?"
"She wouldn't say. Only that she's with Eric and she hopes you're okay. She's coming back later to ask."
Eric? She's with Eric? How does that make any sense? He's part of the reason her husband ended up dead. Goddammit, I need to find him. Even a general location and I can get the armor up and running into search mode. Vulkan can wait.
"Tell me where she is." I know the demand is cold, seething, but I can't say it any other way.
"I don't know. The strange beach, all in my head like when Charlotte held me prisoner. She could be anywhere."
"But she knows where I am. She's not talking to me, just Eric."
"She can't, Spencer. She's tried. I could tell she was frustrated. She does really want to speak to you."
"No, if she really wanted to, she could find a way."
I say that, but even I'm not sure. Nanomech security is top notch. The digital pipelines Eric and I used to roam freely are wrecked and mangled. Contacting Xamse could be difficult, especially without Eric revealing his location and he doesn't want to do that. Especially not to me right now.
"I don't know, but I do know she cares. She wants to see you. Her coming to me was difficult. Those powers she has work in strange ways. Connections to people and their emotional bonds or something. But you, she can't find you."
I don't know what all this means. Does it even matter? I've chosen my course here, and there isn't a way to turn back.
"Maybe that's for the best," I say.
Feedback fills the line. Other conversations bleed over into our connection. A taste of a psychically open world where everyone's thoughts are laid bare, yet somehow, you're blocked from those who matter most.
"Shit," Emily says, the curse shredded by the echoes. "Spencer, she wants you to remember who Sean was. How he tried so hard to do the right thing and was manipulated. She doesn't—"
The line goes dead.
This is for the best, I know it. She doesn't need to see who or what I've become. I remember exactly who my father was. He was an asset of the United States Government, and he did what they told him. He died trying to fix that. That's my legacy.
"Bye, Emily," I say into the empty room.