Project: MI

Self-destructing… Kira ran the thought through her mind, uncertain what to make of it. When pressed, her mother explained it a little bit—that bleeding through the nose was a sign of the intense stress that a heroi’s body was undergoing when their powers had a negative impact on it.

“I could be wrong but…just in case, stay away from him,” Amanda admitted, but she was adamant, elaborating no further beyond ‘what she read in school’ about heroi. Kira scowled.

And of course she won’t call the hospital or anything. She’s just going to leave him alone like that. Kira drew her mouth up in a look of self-loathing. She left him alone as well, not bothering to defy her mother.

How much of that was because of…today? She shook her head fiercely. Stupid… It’s probably just like he said. He tripped. He sure looks like he can’t keep his feet under him, and…

Closing her eyes, Kira exhaled. Her thoughts were a tangled mess.

“Are you okay?” Amanda asked next to her, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m fine,” the girl replied coldly. Amanda’s lips tightened slightly at the response.

“He’ll be fine,” she told her daughter, guessing what was on her mind. “He has his Companion. If there is anything wrong, the CHC will help him. There’s nothing we can do for him that they can’t.”

“I wasn’t thinking about the twerp,” Kira said vehemently. “Just drop it already, will you?”

“Young lady,” Amanda began, the sky seemingly darkening above them as she narrowed her eyes angrily, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t adopt that tone with me.”

“I just wasn’t thinking about that kid,” the girl replied, her tone hard, but with an honest effort to at least disguise it. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Amanda sighed, deciding to at least settle for this. “Fine. If that’s how you want it to be.”

They drew to a halt at the bus stop, neither saying a word. The air was thick with tension between them.

Kira was relieved when the buzzing of her cell phone caught her attention, and pleasantly surprised, as well as scared due to her mother’s presence next to her, when she saw Malcolm Maher’s number show up on her caller ID. Flipping it open she brought the phone to her face.

“Hey,” she began, adopting as normal a tone as she could that wouldn’t arouse her mother’s suspicions. “What’s up? I thought you said you couldn’t…?”

“There’s not enough time to say this, so just listen,” Malcolm interrupted sharply. “Romana Pax has turned on their transmitters again and they’re zeroing in on their target. I’ve pinged the kid’s Companion. He’s located at…” He paused for half a second before giving her the address. “…Adonis street, apartment 136. I need your proximity to the broadcast to backtrack it to its source. How quickly can you get there?”

“Slowly right now,” Kira scowled. What with being under the radar, she added mentally, glancing at her mother, who was looking at her out of the corner of her eye. There was another pause on her phone before Malcolm resumed speaking.

“All right,” he said. “Give me about five minutes to blind the CHC and then be ready get there as quickly as you can. This is it. This is the moment you need if you want to find your sister.”

“Okay,” Kira nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“I’ll call you back and let you know when to get moving.” With that, the line went dead, leaving Kira alone again with her mother.

“Who was that?” she asked a bit warily, as though afraid that this would start another argument between them.

“Monique,” Kira replied without missing a beat. “I told you she’s back, right? She wants to hang out.”

Amanda’s expression softened and a small smile drew across her face. “By all means…”

Kira had to repress her eagerness to prevent her Q-Field from activating. At last… At last! She was going to do what her mother should have all those months ago…

I’m coming Ran…

Jamie arrived at Justin’s house and took a deep breath. He still was not convinced that this was a good idea, but lacking anything better he raised his hand and pressed the doorbell, hearing the distinctive ringing from inside and the inevitable sound of feet plodding toward the door. Next to him, Monster pressed against him affectionately and he returned the gesture.

The door opened and at once Jamie found himself straightening himself out, fighting down the fearsome blush that suddenly erupted on his face. Standing in the doorway was a tall, lithe girl wearing a black tank top with a white skull emblazoned upon her chest and dark hair tied back into a long pony tail. Erin Page, Justin’s older, newly college-bound sister. She grinned upon seeing him.

“Hey Beanie,” she greeted, invoking her nickname for him. Jamie felt his ears start to burn and he looked away, his fingers fidgeting against his palms. He resisted the urge to curse under his breath for his bad luck. In the past year she had unexpectedly become nearly impossible to talk to or even look in the eye. He didn’t know why; just that he felt horribly self-conscious around her.

“Here to see Justin?” she asked, still grinning. Was there a hint of mischievousness in it? He couldn’t tell. His damnable eyes kept darting away almost as soon as they flitted up toward her face. Erin tilted her head to one side. “What? No hello?”

“Hey,” Jamie muttered, his voice barely audible. “Is…” He cleared his throat as his voice croaked. Oh gods, why is it so hard to talk? “Is Justin in?”

“Upstairs!” he heard his friend call from the aforementioned floor as he appeared at the top of the stairwell behind Erin. The older girl stepped to the side, allowing Jamie entry, to which he acquiesced by dashing inside and up the stairs, leaving her to smirk at his back before closing the door.

“Jeez, that sounds freakishly crazy,” Justin said, breathing a heavy sigh as Jamie and Beth finished relaying yesterday’s events to him.

“You’re telling me,” Jamie replied, head in his hands. “I don’t know anything about…Monique or whoever she really is. And all that stuff she said about my pills not working or anything…”

“I thought something looked weird yesterday when we got attacked. I could have sworn that you shot something out of your eyes at the guy but…” He rubbed the back of his head in confusion before shrugging, dismissing the thought. “Anyway, Beth, you said that she’s on the up and up?”

“That’s how it appears,” Beth replied from Jamie’s side. “At this point, I am unable to determine who to trust…”

“Hmmm…” Justin glanced at Jamie’s bottle of pills sitting on his computer’s desk, frowning at them. “Pretty sure you could do better than me. I mean, I know first aid and how to get on the net, but…”

“As I stated, this is only a security check that will go through no one except you. You won’t even have to open the file. We can then cross it over with the official report and compare them. If there are differences, then I believe we can ‘trust’ our visitor. To some degree anyway.”

“If she’s telling the truth, why shouldn’t we trust her?”

“Do we know anything about her? Or why she’s here? As a metamorph, she could be in the employ of a foreign nation. Cooperating with her would be the same as committing treason.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Justin said, looking disconcerted. “What about you, Jamie? What do you think?”

Looking up, Jamie opened his mouth at first to respond and then closed it, thinking hard about the question for a moment before answering.

“I…don’t know,” he said finally, one hand going to his Cerberus’ back and giving it a good scratch. One of the two heads rose, trying to sniff at his arm but failing due to the angle. “I mean, it’s like you said. If she’s telling the truth then…” His brow furrowed, he thought back to when he woke up. He had been scared then. She could have kidnapped him from the moment he fell unconscious, or killed him. But in spite of himself, he couldn’t help but remember how her amber eyes looked when he awoke, radiating an odd concern for him. They didn’t seem like the kind of eyes belonging to someone who meant to betray him or lie to him, but he couldn’t disregard Beth’s words. What did he know about her?

The fact that she so casually broke into his house and assaulted him in the bathroom at school didn’t exactly win her any points either. She may have had ‘good reasons’ for doing those things, but at the same time he was left with a sense of increasing vulnerability not helped by the other recent attacks on his person and…

Monster suddenly yipped and gave a light snap at Jamie with his heads. The boy snatched his hands back and stared at them for a second. His fingers had curled themselves tightly around Monster’s fur.

“Dude…” Justin said, his voice full of concern as he raised a hand toward him. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” Jamie replied, rubbing his hands together and licking his lips nervously. “Can we just get this over with? I’m going to catch Hel from my parents if I’m out too late.”

“Like they actually care,” Justin snorted under his breath, covering his concern out of respect for his friend’s privacy. Still, he had to make one last effort. “Maybe it would be a good idea to see if you could spend the night, just in case this chick tries sneaking back in or something. My mom won’t mind having company other than me and my sister for a change.”

Jamie paused again before glancing away. “What if she gets mad and hurts my folks because I flaked out on her?”

“Then what if I spent the night at your place? Just so you have someone to watch your back?”

Jamie looked at his friend with raised eyebrows, not sure what to make of his friend’s offer.

I don’t want him getting involved, he thought to himself. Well… Not anymore than he is already.

“I’ll think about it,” he replied neutrally. Justin bit his tongue and held his hand out for him.

“Suit yourself. Anyway, I’m going to need to plug Beth into my computer so we can get this show on the road. Is this going to take a while?”

“I don’t think it will in this case,” she replied. “All I need to do is come up with a report that will seem natural for his progression, but cause Romana Pax to edit the material. I imagine all I will need to do is mention his Q-Field…

“All right,” Justin nodded as Jamie unclipped Beth from his side and handed her over. “In that case, while we work on this, think away, bud.”

Justin turned away, leaving Jamie alone with his thoughts. The boy sighed despondently and looked down at his hands, now clasped together.

Why’d this happen to me? he wondered. Why is it still happening to me? What did I do to deserve this mess?

He thought back to that fateful day in the park when that man…did something to him. He knew next to nothing about him or why he did what he did. The man was just…gone from the moment the CHC took him into custody. So far as he could recall there had been a brief report in the news about a criminal—a subversive—being apprehended, but beyond that the media was silent on the matter. Eventually he just gave up on the issue and went on with his life in the hopes that he could live as normally as possible in spite of being a heroi.

Beth can’t help me dig up any information on him. She only knows whatever her bosses tell her, and she can only tell me whatever they’ll let her. A realization came to mind just then. That metamorph… Does she know something about why I’m like this?

The thought seemed to fire something inside him that began to burn away at his fears. They remained, but with this there was a chance that he could get to the bottom of everything. There was a big ‘maybe’ in this, that he knew, but it was better than the nothing he knew up to this point.

Parting his hands, he turned one over so that the palm was facing him and he flexed his fingers. He focused on it for what felt like an eternity, one long second drawing into two, and then three.

He shook his head and dropped his hand. This is crazy. I don’t know the first thing about my powers and I’m trying to make something happen after I took my pills. Maybe that girl was lying to me about the whole thing being a whatchamacallit. A placebo…

Beth’s electric eye swung over to him just then.

“Jamie? I just got a message in your inbox from Monique. It seems she’s looking for you at the house.”

“Crazy stalker,” Justin said, twirling a finger around one ear. “She even knows your number now.”

“What’s she want?” asked Jamie, feeling rather disturbed by this.

“She says that she wants to see you and that she has someone who can…help.”

“That’s great,” said Justin. “Does she say anything about who they are or are we supposed to just believe that we’re not catching any flack from this?”

“We?” asked Beth.

“We?” echoed Jamie. Justin scowled at the pair.

“What? I’m not letting you keep me out of this. Heck, I’m kind of for calling the cops and nabbing her, but since we can’t trust her and can’t just forget about her…”

“I don’t want you to be in this mess!” Jamie said, suddenly standing up.

“Are you kidding me?!” Justin asked sarcastically. “You just got me involved with this!” Ignoring Jamie’s horrified expression, he gestured to the computer where Beth was still downloading her ‘report’. “Don’t forget that we’re friends too. I’ve got your back through thick and thin, remember?”

Jamie’s shoulders sagged and he glanced away. I said that once, he thought. “I know that, but…”

“What? You don’t trust me?”

“What if you get hurt or killed because of this?”

“Let me worry about that.” Justin leaned back in his chair and threaded his hands behind his head. “I said I’ve got your back, so I’ve got your back. What kind of friend am I if I just let you deal with this without me?”

“You’re not a heroi…”

“I’ve been your friend since you became a heroi. Do you really think I give a rats crap in Hel about that?”

“Uh…” began Jamie, a bit dumbfounded. Justin leaned back in his chair, looking carefully at him.

“You’d better not,” he warned. “Do you have any idea how much that stinks?”

Jamie blinked, befuddled by his statement. “Bu-wha…?”

Justin pinched his nose for emphasis and grinned.

“This is not funny.”

“Excuse me for trying to be your friend,” Justin shrugged, still grinning. “So what’s the plan? Are we going to meet with this chick?”

“There is no we in this!”

“How are you going to stop me, just out of curiosity?”

“I…” Jamie nearly balked at that. “I’m a heroi! I’ll...”

Justin raised an eyebrow. “You’ll…what?” he prompted. “Last I checked you don’t have control over your powers. Until then, you know I can outwrestle you any day of the week, sick or blindfolded.”

“Will you cut it out? You’re not making this easy!”

“Hey.” Leaning forward, Justin clapped his friend on the shoulder companionably. “All you need to do to make this easy is to include me in on this. Do you really have to be like all those heroi from the old Ages? Acting like you’re carrying the world on your shoulders on your own? We’re buds, right?” He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “You’re thinking about your brother aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” Jamie said, but the redness that now began to burn his face told a different story. He pushed Justin’s hand off his shoulder. It was pretty clear that nothing would sway him now. His friend’s conviction had all the certainty and unreasonableness of an avalanche. “All right. I guess I can’t tell you otherwise until I can tie you to a chair or something.”

“I’d be pretty peeved if you did that,” Justin said. “But whatever. What’s our first move?”

“Let Beth finish making her report first,” Jamie said, turning to the Companion Device, still not liking this development. “How close are you to finishing?”

“All I need is another minute to finish composing and then I’ll save it before sending out a copy,” Beth replied.

“How will you be able to see the changes?” asked Justin. “Aren’t those files supposed to be classified or something?”

“There are certainly layers of security to go through, but I can request to view filed reports. As long as it’s not marked by higher ups it shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Well that’s a relief,” breathed Jamie. “Then I guess afterward we can go meet Monique.”

Justin leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. “I wonder what her real name is. It’d be interesting to see her real form too. I’ve never met a metamorph before. What’s she like?”

Jamie shrugged and placed a hand back on Monster’s back, stroking his soft, purple fur gently. “No weirder than you I guess, except she can literally make whatever face she wants.”

The Cerberus’ tail thumped against the floor in response, causing the boy to smile.

“Bet her parents used to tell her a lot about how her face would freeze then, huh?”

Jamie rolled his eyes at his friend. “Oh gods…”

Kira came to a landing on top of the roof of her destination and took a look around her. She frowned slightly. The skies around and above were clear, save for the odd bird. Pulling out her phone she flipped it open and dialed Malcolm’s number, hoping that he would answer it. One ring. Then two. Finally, at three, she gave up and dropped the call.

No doubt he’s trying to maintain a low profile until he gets Ran’s location. She panned her head around and looked down at the streets below. Reopening the phone she checked her maps to make sure she was in the right location. Everything looks quiet enough. If Romana Pax is trying to trigger the Grey kid, they’re not doing a good job of it.

Stepping off the side of the roof, she levitated down, getting a view of the inside of the house to see if there was anything going on inside. So far the place appeared equally quiet.

Is he asleep or something? Trying to influence him through his dreams? There was a thought, but she rather doubted it given what Malcolm said about her sister and what she knew of her abilities. Now that she thought about it, why wouldn’t it be possible for them to make her illusions more powerful?

Mal would probably have his own opinion on that. Probably something like “Why don’t they just use hard light holograms” instead? He’d probably also say something else involving a dumb chessboard

She touched down on the ground and peered into the final window. She spotted Jamie and one of his friends sitting at the far end of the room in front of a computer. The other boy was smiling and talking. Kira quickly ducked away so as to avoid being seen.

Guess that answers that question. So…if Romana Pax is broadcasting something…then what is it? Mal said that there was something involving Q-Fields and Ran’s powers so… Wait!

She thought back to the attack at school, or more accurately the attacker.

Is that what they’re transmitting? Using my sister’s powers? They’re creating a…fake heroi and attacking this kid? Kira’s stomach churned as he seethed with anger. She barely knew the kid, but she knew her sister well enough to know that he was absolutely the last sort of person Ran would do this sort of thing to. What are they doing to her to make her do this? Why are they even doing this in the first place?

She pulled her hands into tight fists. Right now she wanted nothing more than to tear down the walls of Romana Pax. Their plan, whatever it was, and their methods sickened her. Grinding her teeth together she raised her phone and prepared to dial Malcolm again in the hopes of reaching him. As she did so, a shadow fell over her. Hesitating with her thumb over the call button, she turned to find a tall, shadowy figure wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a tattered long trench coat. Instantly recognizing the figure as the attacker on her school her Q-Field instantly enveloped her, flaring brightly.

“All right!” she exclaimed, dropping into a defensive stance. “You’re going to tell me who you are and what…” she began, only to stop as the figure spoke but a single word in a voice that she knew all too well.

“Kira?” Ran’s voice asked from behind the darkness, raising a shriveled, mummified hand and pointing at the girl. Kira’s voice choked in her throat and died. Remembering the incident in the bathroom, she was suddenly filled with the certainty that this was her sister communicating with her.

Only she could control her puppets, she remembered, her fists lowering and her Q-Field dying back a bit.

“Yeah Ran…” she whispered, nodding her head. Her eyes brimmed with tears and she ran her arm across her face to clear them. “It’s me. I’m your sister…”

Lowering her arm she staggered back in surprise to find the shadowy figure suddenly standing directly in front of her, eyes blazing red with horrendous fire. The shriveled, mummified arm came up and snatched her around the throat. It didn’t hurt by a long shot—it would take a lot to get past her invulnerability—but she was surprised nonetheless.

Did this freak just trick me? she wondered, somewhat stunned as she took hold of the figure’s arm.

The figure tilted its head to one side and a moon-lit smile spread across its face like a Cheshire cat grin.

“Play with me, Kira,” the figure laughed before electrical blasts snaked up its arms and surged along Kira’s body. Clothing sizzled and burned as Kira deftly ripped herself free. The figure’s arm shattered into a thousand sparkling shards upon her breaking loose, but didn’t seem in the least bit inconvenienced by this. Indeed, as Kira watched, the arm began to regenerate.

What the Hel…? Kira thought, her eyes wide with horrified amazement as shadows began to spill forth from the figure’s clothing and spread across the ground like oil.

“Play with me, Kira,” the figure repeated, its mouth now bloody crimson. “Play with me!”