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A faint beeping noise was coming from one of her consoles as she fanned her hand over a light cloud of steam.
"Melding process complete."
Angela looked over at the large machine where the female voice was still informing her of the melding. She paid it half a glance before returning to her computer, typing in figures that brought up several windows, all with complex signs and information.
"Activate ion neutralization," she spoke to her super computer.
It beeped and purred out, "Acknowledged."
With that, Angela walked briskly back to the puff of steam that was still issuing from a smaller machine. She slid on a pair of gloves lined with steel as she opened a latch in it. Instantly, a white light emanated from the small latch, and she slid her hand in to pull out a device similar to a computer chip. It was no larger than her palm as she held the glowing device to her eyes, inspecting its brilliance.
"Computer; analyze abnormal radiation."
"Unable to comply; radiation is too exponential to scan."
Angela frowned, placing the device back in its box before heading over to the larger machine that was still chirping about melding.
"Access melding chamber."
"-cess comple—" the machine cut itself off as it began saying another phrase; "Please enter access code. Please enter access code."
"Spectra."
"Access, granted."
The machine let out a groan as it began to open, a rush of air flowing from the open latch as a dark mist clouded her vision.
She pulled the goggles over her eyes that had been sitting idly on her head as she examined the sight. Through the goggles, the room became reddish, but she could easily make out yet another chip looking tool.
"Computer; analyze abnormal radiation."
Angela held her breath as the computer thought. Seconds seemed to pass like hours before the machine croaked out; "Unable to comply; radiation is too exponential to scan."
"Damn it!" she hissed, tossing the apparatus back in its melding chamber.
She pulled off her goggles in frustration and chucked them to an anonymous space in her lab as she returned to her super computer.
"Open communications channel via Lambda-Rho-Omicron-Eta-Chi."
Immediately, a box outlined in yellow appeared on the screen; it showed a room covered in the stark color of steel. It was unmistakably the new Lightspeed Headquarters; even Angela had no idea where it was located.
"Captain Mitchell, do you copy?"
Several moments of silence passed before a man walked into visual.
"Good to hear from you Mrs. Rawlings; how are things in the operation?"
"By the looks of it, it'll take at least another six months before these things are recalibrated. I can't even get the computer to give me some readout of the radiation, let alone a steady anomaly pattern."
Captain Mitchell looked irritated; "Angela, we don't have another 6 months. Operation Horizon X can't take a year to get up and running. What exactly do you need to get this done within the week?"
She let out a sigh mixed with a laugh; "A super computer capable of analyzing radiation more massive than several atomic bombs, a decoy for my family, and a whole lot of caffeine."
"Consider it done. Mitchell out."
—1—
"So what do you really think mom's doing in the basement?" Jennifer Rawlings whispered as she munched on more cereal.
Patrick Rawlings, her brother, looked over from the refrigerator as he continued to sip on his Gatorade, "What do you mean?"
"Don't you think it's slightly weird that she goes into the basement and doesn't come out until we're asleep?"
"No."
"Oh c'mon! Is it because your brain could be turned to mush from all the football?"
Patrick threw his empty bottle in the recycling bin; "Ha-ha, very funny. No, Jen, it's because it's her business. What part of privacy do you not understand?"
Jen swirled her spoon in the cereal, "I dunno, Patrick. I think there's something she's not telling us…and I intend to find out what it is."
The boy looked at his 16 year-old sister, seeing the slightly crazed look he'd seen in his dad's eyes, and that people said he got when he tried the impossible.
"You're insane…"
"Morning kids," Joel Rawlings, ex-Lightspeed Rescue Green Ranger surprised them, turning the corner and ruffling Patrick's hair.
"Hey!"
Their father let out a demeaning laugh as he headed to the fridge, "So what're the plans for this weekend?"
Patrick looked to Jen, who shrugged and mumbled something about a concert with her friend Christina.
"Is Christina the hot one?"
"You mean the under-age one?" Jen shot back, glaring knives into her 2-year senior brother.
—1—
"Big deal. Missiles. I played with missiles when I was 3; that was 30 years ago. Get me something interesting."
The woman flinched at his tone, but scurried away nonetheless.
"Sir, you have a phone call. It's from the CIA. They need some firepower."
"Oh…something interesting," the man laughed as he answered the cell phone.
The deal was over in seconds. The familiarity of power rushed through him as he clicked the phone shut. The mild satisfaction he got for being responsible of world changing events filled him up, but only temporarily. Nothing compared to those days of real glory, when he was out fighting for a cause; when he was rescuing rangers who didn't know anything about Rangering. Those were the days.
"Now, let's get back on the search for ranger powers. Has a link to the morphing grid been found yet?"
"Negative, sir," said a dark, tall male.
"Then find it."
"Nitros…sir…the morphing grid has been inaccessible for years. Only the most genius of people can manage to utilize its power and—"
The man was dead in seconds, much like Nitros' previous deal. His body lay strewn where it had once stood, his heart stopped from the incredibly high amount of electricity Nitros had induced to his feeble body.
"Someone needs to find that link…and soon."
—1—
Jen crept through the dark house, none of the stairs creaking as she headed to the lower level of their large home. She made her way around through the dining room, through the living room, and down a hallway that had several doors. On the farthest door was a high-tech padlock of sorts. The basement.
"You really are crazy, aren't you?'
Jen spun around, her eyes straining to see her darker skinned brother staring at her.
"Apparently it runs in the family; you came down didn't you?"
Patrick rolled his eyes, "Only to tell you how stupid you are, and that if we get caught, I'm totally blaming this all on you."
Jen ignored him as she crept closer to the door, looking over the padlock. It had no keyhole, but a series of buttons on it, and a thin green screen much like a calculator.
"I think you need to put in a password."
"Did you figure that out all by yourself?"
"Actually, I did. Did you think we were just going to barge into the basement without mom knowing?"
Jen pressed the buttons quickly, and a small click could be heard as it fell from the handle.
"Yup."
The teens crept down the dark basement stairs, glancing back up every few seconds.
"See? Nothing weird."
Jen refused to believe it. There was just no way her mom worked down here for hours at a time, with a government rented electric padlock.
"Look over there," she pointed.
A small emblem they were sure they'd seen before was visible just under a picture that had been knocked askew on the wall.
"What is that?"
"It's the Operation Lightspeed Rescue sigil," Patrick said slowly as they stepped closer.
Jen quickly pushed the picture of her and her family at a lake aside in order to fully view the mark. At further scrutiny, it was a button of sorts, fully encrusted with gold and blue metals.
"Don't push it!" Patrick half-shouted.
But it was too late.
Seconds later, the floor beneath Jen opened up and she immediately fell through a tube of sorts.
"Jen!"
The floor resumed its solidity at once, as Patrick painfully found out. He rubbed his now rug-burned chin as he pressed the Lightspeed emblem. Sure enough, the floor gave way and he was immediately sucked into the tube he'd seen his sister slide through.
Seconds later, he was standing in a true lab. Several huge computers with whirring sounds, beeps, and bubbling noises could easily be made out. To his left was a large pillar that seemed to be providing energy for all the electrical appliances, while to his right were several box like machines that held glowing black and white lights.
"What is this place?" Patrick wondered, seeing Jen observing the largest of the four computers.
"It's mom's work area…"
"Recalibration process incomplete. Unable to reconstruct exponential radiation and subatomic electron nodes."
Jen and Patrick looked at the computer in front of them. An ejecting sound much like a CD player was heard, and the boxes to their right and left pushed two chip looking devices out on trays.
"What are these?"
"MP Chips?" Patrick suggested, as he picked up the white and gold one, examining it curiously.
Jen grabbed the black and silver device, hesitating as she turned it over.
"Warning; X Morphers unstable. Warning; X Morphers unstable. Radiation levels waning. Mechanical radiation levels at an approximate 45.782. Bio-organic radiation levels increased; approximately 54.298 ."
"Whoa…did you feel that?'
Jen looked at her brother, whose eyes were now an eerie grey color, a faint light glowing in his pupil.
"Yeah…it felt…weird."
"Let's get out of here, dude," Patrick suggested.
He went to set the morpher down, but hesitated, looking at its shining beauty.
"Maybe we should just hang on to these and ask mom about it in the morning?"
—1—
"Do you think us randomly becoming sick has something to do with these weird chips?" Jen asked, holding her chip out to her brother.
He pulled her inside his room quickly; "Jen…look what I did to my alarm clock today…"
Jen looked at the fried heap that was her brother's clock.
"Wha…how did you do that?"
He opened the palm of his hand, and a small ball of light popped into existence; "I think these chips did something to us…"
"Then why hasn't anything happened to me?"
"Well, last night, I was holding mine a lot, trying to see if it opened up or anything. Nothing happened, so I went to sleep. Did you go straight to sleep?"
"Yeah…"
"Then maybe that's why. I think this radiation's made us sick."
"Maybe we should give the chips back to mom," Jen said, making a move for Patrick's chip.
He grabbed her wrist rather forcefully; "No."
She looked at him in confusion, "Patrick…what is wrong with you?"
He let her wrist go. "Nothing. I just think that if we give them back it'll cause trouble. Besides…mom probably won't even know they're gone. She couldn't even program them right, so maybe she'll think they just blew up or something."
Jen looked doubtful, but she stopped trying to take her brother's chip; "So what should we do?"
"I don't think we should do anything about it. Hopefully this illness will pass and we'll be fine…with cool powers."
Patrick opened his hand again and the light ball appeared.
—1—
"What do you mean gone?"
"I don't know! The last reading the computer has says the radiation levels reached about 46 percent, and then vanished. It's possible the chips melted under such intense heat and scrutiny, but it's a very slight chance."
"We can't take any chances, Angela! If someone stole those chips, they're more likely to be a threat than anything else." Captain Mitchell rubbed his temples; "I want you back at Lightspeed. We don't have any other choice than go straight to plan B."
"I agree, which is why I'd like permission to create an emergency ranger team."
Mitchell paused; "What?"
"When I was looking at the readouts from the computer today, I realized what the problem was; combining all 5 lightspeed morphers to create 2 was too much energy, so the radiation levels were too high. So, if I were to create 5 morphers, with say, the Titanium Morpher and the battle boosters, the radiation should level out at close to energies we've been seeing from the experimental SPD technology."
"How long would it take?"
Angela flipped open the book in front of them, glancing out the observation window of Captain Mitchell's office in the new HQ. She pointed at the amount of time and spoke, "If I have full access to your tech team, that is."
"Like that was ever a question."
—1—
Jade Daniels, redheaded with fiery eyes, was not happy. She'd been unceremoniously tossed into some military class vehicle, shipped around blindfolded, and completely missed her Roman History exam. There was no way her mom would believe her if she said she was now staring around the new Lightspeed Headquarters.
Next to Jade stood a tall blond girl who looked absolutely dumbfounded by her surroundings. Her bright blue eyes stared in wonder at the lights, the beeping, the people; it was all so weird. Caitlin McLuhan was definitely not used to the tech-scene. Then again, she hadn't really asked to be escorted from her house (still in her grey hoodie and pink pajama pants) and plopped in a room with people she didn't know.
"You five have been selected because of your outstanding intellect, relation to trust Lightspeed Operatives, and previous excelled hand-to-hand combat."
Angela paused, looking at the 5 young-adults in front of her.
"What is going on?" Shannah blurted, "Why am I here, aunt Angela?"
Shannah Martinelli stood at approximately 5 feet even, having inherited her father's dark hair and eyes and her mother's love of theatre. She'd never been especially close with her aunt Angela or her cousins Patrick and Jen simply because she'd been too busy with trying to get away from her family. Not that she was particularly ashamed of them, but she felt more…held back by them. Especially because of circumstances like the one she was currently.
"You are all about to become the newest, most formidable form of defense Earth has against an all powerful crime boss."
"…No offense or anything, because I mean, I'm not really in a position to, you know, insult; but…I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never had any type of combat training, or super intelligence or anything…and my dad is a lawyer and my mom's a professional trainer."
Angela frowned, looking at the young man who'd just spoken. Jud Matos, the son of the head of public relations department for Lightspeed rescue, Mr. Matos, who had dealt with the acquisition of ranger rights for Lightspeed. His wife Mrs. Matos was a co-developer of the combat section of Lightspeed and had helped trained thousands of the officers that protected Mariner Bay.
"Yeah, I have to agree with him here," a young woman with dark brown long hair piped up.
She was Michelle Davenport, the daughter of Angela's first lab partner, Nathalie Davenport. Angela hadn't heard from Nathalie in years, but apparently "Chelle," as she liked to be called, went to Bayside University. Furthermore, Nathalie had previous interaction with morphers and had a vast knowledge of Lightspeed protocols.
"None of you realize this because you're all too young to know it, but your parents are were all involved with Lightspeed at one point or another. When Lightspeed first started, a secret operation known as Horizon X began. Your parents all signed up for it, stating they would submit you for "drafting" if needed.
"So, when you were all born, you were all injected with a serum called Dimorphous-Deoxyribo-reformatus."
They all blinked, but Jade cocked her head a little; "Deoxyribo-reformatus? As in restructuring our DNA?"
Angela nodded. "I'm afraid I don't have time to answer all of you questions right this moment. Jade, Shannah, Jud, Michelle, Caitlin; I need you all to become the next generation of Power Rangers: Horizon X."
