Where am I? I open my eyes that feel heavy after I had just woken up from a deep sleep, I look around me and all I see is a ruined room, a hotel room. One wall is severely cracked and the roof is sagging with a small round gap in it, a roof fan is lying on the floor, the bed has been broken to almost no end and it looks as if some has tossed it to the side of the wall, red splattered stains are all over the carpet and I hope that they came from wine, but looking at the curling, torn and bubbled yellow wall paper I can tell that wine is not one of the things that you'll ever find in this place. My hand is sore and so is my head and I don't have a clue about where I am. Then I see him, a tall strawberry blonde man, probably David's height and figure but just a little slimmer considering that David's body is a little muscular. He's leaning against the wall by the window, carefully peering through a gap next to the plastic window shades; as if he's trying to see what was going on outside without anyone seeing him. There is such a ruckus everywhere, shouting and the sound of people fighting; loud crashes and alarms going off, there is dust coming from the roof as a huge fight above us is actually effecting the room, there is anarchy in New Zion. But why, how had this happened? I carefully try to stand up without making a noise but he speaks to me without turning around.
"It would be safer if you stick with me, that way you won't get killed by the citizens."
"Who are you and how did I get here?"
"If you don't remember who I am then I won't tell you my name; and it doesn't matter how you got here, what is important is why." His solemn voice catches me off guard; and I can't help but get the feel that he is a man with a complete disregard for authority.
"I am the High Superior of New Zion and I don't think that you are entitled to play games with me." When he doesn't respond I reach for my phone in my pocket, but it isn't there, neither is my gun.
"Don't bother, besides if you made contact with anyone now the people out there will trace your call, High Superior." He is seriously getting on my nerves, but why does he act as if I'm the one who's in trouble? I won't bother to ask him where my phone and gun is because it's pretty obvious that he has it.
"As your High Superior I demand that you…"
"That I what, you have no gun, no phone to call for help or back up and I'm the only person who knows where you are." Strike one, he's right I don't have a gun to defend myself if he has mine; strike two, he's right about the phone, with no back up my authority means very little; and strike three, I don't know where I am and with all the mayhem outside I don't think I'll be able to find any place that I do know. So I decide to concede as I am at the mercy of someone who unfortunately has complete authority over me at the moment. My biggest concern is why New Zion is tearing itself apart? The sound of an explosion fills the air, okay now things are getting far, far beyond all redemption.
"What is happening?" I ask the strange man, he turns around and I see his face for the first time, my heart almost stops and my mind goes numb. He looks so familiar, a feeling that I had never felt before is swimming all around me and a flash back suddenly rushes to my my mind and this time, for some unknown reason I'll let it come to me without a fight. We had been in the gutters together, just talking and joking around, he was telling me the most amazing things he'd do with his life when New Zion went back to what it used to be; he was so animated that it eventually became an illusion that he hadn't intended to make and he didn't even notice. He just went with it as if it was real and I was captured by it, how he could live his dream whenever he wanted; all I can do is walk through walls. I snap out of the memory and I have the strangest feeling as if I am more than just a High Superior. In my flash back I had thought about something, something that is going through my mind, it ended with such a strange idea. Me, walk through walls, that's impossible.
"Nothing is impossible, Shadow Cat." Bang! Like the walls of a dam that had come crashing, the truth and all of my memories pour into my mind with such speed and force that it's making me woozy.
"Ian, I think I need a little help here." I can feel my body begin to go limp and he rushes to catch me but my body goes right through his hands and I hit the floor, slowly the illusion fades away and I find myself in my apartment. I sit up and when Ian extends his hand to help lift me off the floor I swat it away.
"You jerk; you scared the living daylight out of me!" Even though I know he's smiling on the inside he is genuinely stung by my retaliation.
"What, what did I do!?"
"You had to put me in such an ugly illusion to get me to remember you!?"
"It wasn't just for me; it was for everyone back at home."
"And what did that have to do with the Armageddon you put me in."
"Actually Cat, what you saw and heard in the illusion, besides the hotel room was real. Look outside your window." Hearing that, I don't think I want to look outside, but I walk towards the window anyway and I look down at a world I don't know, I want to turn away and close my eyes but I'm frozen. Chaos, destruction and some of it is coming in my direction; Ian follows my eyes and sees that someone had looked up and was pointing directly at me, two others spot me and they run into the building.
"Cat, can you remember how to walk through walls because we are going to need it."
"I'm still trying to figure that part out."
"Try faster."
"Don't push it."
"I'm just thinking that we need to disappear before they make us disappear." I think about what he said, we can't get out of here because the only way out is through the elevator, trying to use the elevator right now would not only be stupid but dangerous. How do we get out without being seen?
"That's it Ian, we have to disappear, just use your power to make us invisible, they can't get what they can't see."
"I can make an illusion that replicates this room but without us in it."
"This is why I can always rely on you, you can actually think on your feet and make things happen. Okay let's pull a Houdini." He smiles at me and closes his eyes for a second or two and nothing has changed, a stampede of footsteps end on the opposite side of the door and then two huge kicks afterwards makes the door brake off its hinges, it nearly hits us as it flew across the room. Something that looks more like a blur passes us as it shifts back and forth in and out of every room. It finally slows down before it walks toward the door way, agent Sanchez, I saw him in my dream, except I didn't know it was a memory back when I worked for New Zion. He was one of the mutant trackers that chased me into the hotel, the hotel? The illusion Ian had put me in was one of the rooms in that hotel, my throat goes dry and I find it difficult to breathe; Ian sees this and asks me a question but my head is spinning. Ian is very strong, he had given me a hug once and lifted me right off the ground. I can remember the scent that came off the strong man that had tried to catch me in the hotel, Ian smells just like him.
"Nothing, she must have run when she saw us." Agent Sanchez told someone as she walked into the room, isn't that box? No wait, she wanted to be called Betty… Betty Thomson. She had been taken by the trackers and they probably turned her into the super computer at the membrane department, it makes sense, the Pandoras that control the entire city were linked to the box, Betty Thomson has the power of telepathy and in dire consequences she can even manipulate the minds of others. Did all of them break free when I initiated the compensatory release, wouldn't that make them my friends again; but if they were my friends why would they come here so aggressively? And what about Ian, he had found me just before Betty and Sanchez did and he is trying to help me; doesn't that mean he is on my side? But he was also the man who tried to catch me in the hotel…he could have used any illusion, why the hotel room?
"Check every apartment and every room, she couldn't have gotten far." Betty seems to be the person in charge here; because Sanchez did exactly as she told him, why did he have to question me when I gave him orders? That's beside the point, oh my gosh I can feel her in my head and hear her thought speech, it was like a microphone in an empty room, not that my head is empty.
I know you're here Cat, don't run because you cannot out run us and don't hide because I will sense you out, give me time to find your minds frequency and we will catch you before you can escape.
What is wrong with them, Betty is the centre of the compensatory release, why is she acting like this?
"Ian, we have to leave now!"
"Okay, we can still run while Sylvester is checking the building."
"Is that his real name?"
"Yes; and that woman who was talking to us through her thoughts is…"
"I know, she's Betty Thomson, she was with us in the gutters as a part of the patrol unit, I hadn't recognised her before the release. I didn't know that the agency had assigned a mutant recruit to be my PA."
"They wanted to make sure that if you remembered your past they could still catch you. In fact, your husband, David, he is also one of the recruits, the memories you have of the two of you were all conjured up and Betty had them rooted into your mind."
"Wow, you have it all figured out, but I don't remember telling you that I'm married."
"I saw the ring on your finger when I abducted you, sorry for that again it was for the greater good."
The greater good, I said that when I was High Superior, that was the motto that all the agents had to remember, 'for the greater good'.
"Its fine, I'm just glad I'll never get to see Mr Hiram again, he is an evil dictator."
"I know he works for the Zion, but he is a good man at heart."
"I guess so, so how did you find me?"
"I had to make sure I knew every detail of your life before I came to save you."
"Like my Husband's name that I didn't tell you."
"Exactly"
"So where are we going to now?" Any second now.
"I'm going to take you to a safe place, you don't have to worry I will lead you?"
"Towards what?"
"Towards your real purpose as the High Superior of New Zion!" I saw his hand inch towards his gun the minute I began to question him and just before he could point the gun at me, I let go of everything I knew about gravity and human biology and I fell right through the floor. I would have paid good money to have seen his face.
"Okay so it's official, I have no allies and there is no one I can trust; Ian still has my phone and gun, my phone?" I run through the exit and look left to right, how do I escape from a guy that moves at the speed of a bullet? My car, but it's in repairs, I'll go to the train station while they search the building. I run through every obstacle in my way and it means nothing as there is chaos everywhere, but the citizens aren't the cause of it, it's the agents. I don't stop moving, but everywhere I look I see the civilians running, scattering away from me like ants from a raindrop, it's like this everywhere. The agents are shooting into the crowds, mutant recruits are using their powers against the people they are supposed to protect, the mayhem, the fear and my power is the only thing that helps me reach my destination I run right through the walls of the speeding bullet train and land hard on its floor. I hear people gasp and watch them back away from me, but one man actually looks like he's ready to start a fight.
"You think you can just come in here and attack us for no good reason, you think that you can do whatever you want just because you work for the Zion." He's a large, bulky man whose red in the face with tattoos all over his arm saying things like 'peace to all' but they seem a little out of place as the guy's muscles tense, I know what he's going to do. I let his massive fist pass right through me, everyone gasps and I expect them to back away, but they do quite the opposite. They start to shout and shake their fists in the air at me and with I high pitched climax they converge, a single woman breaks free from the crowd and slips out the train doors as it slows down; she keeps walking until the train moves on and she stares at the people in the train looking confused as I am no longer there, when they are out of view she walks towards a shop and enters with her phone to her ear.
"David, when you get this, phone me back. There's this guy at our apartment that has lost it and is saying crazy things, he told me that you are an agent for New Zion. Just make sure that you avoid our place and don't even be seen near it, okay. I love you." She puts her phone in her pocket and she walks into one of the isles, I phase out of her body and leave the shop I hail down an agency taxi and tell him to take me to the Ecology department in the time drift gear, we are there in the blink of an eye hundreds of miles away from my apartment, just above the corners of New Zion.
"That's quite some distance, any reason?" I remember that even though I know who I really am, he doesn't, so I get into character as Catherine Shade.
"I am the High Superior; I don't need to explain my actions to anyone, now do I?"
"No, High Superior, sorry High Superior. May I open the door for you?"
"I'm fine, but thank you for your offer; I'll keep your kindness in mind during my next meeting with the executive." He smiles broadly and nods I step out of the vehicle and watch it leave before I go running again. I sent that call to my landline because it will go directly into voice mail, if Ian, Betty and Sylvester are still looking for me, they'll trace the call back to that woman's phone far away from where I am now. I'll go into the building of the Ecology department, but not for long because I'm going to be leaving the minute I see the right type of employee or worker. When I reach into my pocket for my ID card I feel nothing but the material of my pants, it was in my pocket when I showed it to the taxi driver I must have dropped it in the taxi as I got out; what if I need to clarify my status to security if they question me? I try to keep my composure as I walk towards the front desk and just as I expected the head of security walks towards me and I ready myself to run.
"High Superior, it is my pleasure to have finally met you, a High Superior does not need to verify their identity here, we always make sure that we know who works in every department. You're here because of the compensatory release, aren't you?" I am too giddy with relief to act high and mighty.
"Indeed, I have come to this department to enquire whether the professors here know how to resolve the situation as it is." There, that sounds diplomatic enough.
"Of course, do you need me to lead you to the laboratories?" He is so polite and helpful, I am so stupid. I am looking for someone who would have a vehicle and the man just walks up to me, he is the perfect candidate.
"There's just one thing, I'd like to park my car somewhere that is secure, due to all of the things that are happening at outside."
"Of course we have the company parking lot."
"That sounds ideal. You're right, it would be best if you show me the way."
"Anything you want, High Superior."
"Such a gentleman." I said batting my long and pretty eyelashes in such a flirtatious way that it makes him grin from ear to ear.
"Thank you High Superior."
"Please, call me Catherine."
"Okay Catherine, let me lead you there." I follow the tall and handsome man, if I was not a married woman, wait I'm married to a fraud! He takes me to the company parking lot and we look for a place where I can park my car. I scan the security cars, but I cannot tell the difference between any of them, I look at those big hands of his swaying slightly and I see a metal tag on his car keys, the ID of the car was 2871. Number plates are everywhere and every car is black, but there are a few cars that have stickers on the window screens and there is one car in row 2D, it said 'head of security', I don't really believe in signs but I'll take it.
"Is that your car?" He stops for a second and looks in the direction and nods with a proud grin."
"That's mine, latest model in all the departments, I'm privileged enough to have one of my own.
"Well I'd say it suits you, it's sleek yet it gives off the feel of sophistication and strength, how fast is it?"
"Well of course I can't drive past the speed limit, but it can out run any one of the vehicles in this parking lot. Plus it has all the features of the skyrocket hovercrafts that you'll see in the membrane department."
"Impressive, mind if I give take a spin?"
"What?" I grabbed his shoulder and phased into his body, wow he's tall.
"Okay, honey" I smile at the car and wave the keys at it.
"I'm taking you home with me."