Jupiter Jones chews her lip. Street lights illuminate her silhouetted hand which she raises with reluctance. Pausing, her eyes turn towards Cain, standing resolute beside her shoulder.
"Are really, really you sure you want to do this?" He returns her gaze, each seeking reassurance from the other.
"You think we're not ready?"
"Probably not." She glances down while a small grin plays along her lips. "No more than they are."
"That seems fair." Caine's eyes twinkle with rare amusement. Jupiter lifts her chin, and opens the Bolotnikov's front door.
In the warm light of the living room, shiny new luggage is piled neatly in the middle of the floor. Beyond, seated at their customary places at the dining room table, still clad in comfortable, if bright with hues of Caribbean blue and Tahitian yellow, travelling clothes and sensible sneakers, her mother and Aunt Nino sip contentedly from small mugs.
"Jupiter!" exclaims Aleksa Jones. Cups tinkle against the table as the pair rushes to greet her. She returns her mother's long embrace. Nino steps forward, then stops, her eyes falling speculatively upon Caine.
"Mom," Jupiter slides over to stand beside Caine, "Aunt Nino, this is Caine. Caine Wise." Aleksa's smile widens.
"Yes, of course, we've..." she catches herself, "we've heard so much about him."
"No, we haven't," Nino interrupts with a huff, her protective instincts risen. This young women, her sole niece, the babe whom she held under her very first sunrise and proclaimed her a worthy destiny, her tiny form the promise rising from the ashes of what had remained of their lives. "So, Jupiter's young man, what is your sign?" she asks pointedly.
"My what?" Caine asks with a bemused wrinkling of his brow.
"What is your birthdate?" Nino steps closer.
"Well," Caine begins with a slight stutter.
"And where were you born?"
"Um..." Caine mumbles and shuffles his feet in discomfort. His dark eyes flash over to Jupiter, seeking her assistance. She gapes a bit, then shrugs while Nino continues on.
"He doesn't sound Russian," she confides sidelong to Aleksa.
"No more questions," Aleksa interjects, "just say 'hello'." Nino blushes, the questions are still bubbling behind her subdued eyes. "Shut the door, Jupiter. Do come in," Aleksa instructs, moving closer to offer Caine a proper welcome.
"Father," interrupts a slight moan from above, "is that you?" Vladie, his bright white sneakers and boldly striped shorts in the lead, toddles a short way down the stairs. Aleksa scolds him even as she grasps Caine's hand within her own.
"No, žúlik (faker), this is Jupiter's young man."
"Oh, there really is one?" He brightens and comes down two more steps, running an assessing eye over anyone who might hold more sway over his cousin than his self.
"Where is Vassily? And Irina and everyone?" Jupiter had hoped to endure all the introductions only once and be done with it.
"Zeno bundled them all up in his shiny new truck," Aleksa affords Jupiter a slight knowing nod and wink, and Jupiter knew who had really helped sell the massive diamond ring she had 'inherited' from her brush with Titus Abrasax, the son that wasn't her son. "Vassilly promised them ice cream, but if I know him, he'll cart them all on rounds to inspect the crews' work in his absence."
"So, what," Jupiter hands come to rest on her hips, "you plead sick to duck out?" Vladie's mouth opens in an offended 'o', and whatever else he obviously wants to say is interrupted by a pronounced, thunderous knock. Mouth slightly ajar, his brows raise and his eyes travel to the front door while he drops into a crouch, ready to spring back up the stairs. Caine swivels towards the sound, hands reaching beneath his black jacket, touching the weapon hidden there.
"If that's the cops, I'm not here!" and Vladie slinks backwards. Jupiter rolls her eyes with a scowl.
"What did you do now?"
"Nothing!" Vladie insists with a hiss, mentally ticking off anything he might actually HAVE done that could warrant a warrant.
Her aunt and her mother become still as rabbits trapped in headlights, captive within the threat of that demanding sound. They are illegal immigrants, Jupiter reminds herself. Their security always balanced on a knife's edge.
The pounding comes again.
"Fine, I'll get it." Jupiter steps quickly to the door, Caine at her heel. He nods, and with a quick flip, she turns the knob, then together they step deftly to block the family from the line of site. The door swings inward.
Framed by distant street lights, a hulking shadow blocks the entrance. Jupiter takes an involuntary step back, her fingers tightening on Caine's arm. Even as Caine moves protectively before Jupiter, the house lights fall upon the massive shape crouching under the awning of the stoop, revealing the stuff of Vladie's residual nightmares. Nino clutches herself in sudden, uncomprehending terror. Aleksa swallows hard, her eyes wide.
Jupiter fans her fingers in a vain attempt to hide the large, lumpy, reptilian sargorn from her petrified family, even through the surprise and pique written across her face. Not now, of all times!
"What are you doing here, Aknet? I thought I made it clear that you can't just show up like this!" Her hand waves as if to dispel a wisp of smoke, but smacks against a solid, hard, scaly flesh. "You are actually here?"
"I had to come," She hisses in a gutteral rasp. Having noted, and ignoring, Vladie's silent scream, Caine moves beside Jupiter, scanning beyond the sargorn into the night for the danger he knows must accompany Aknet's visitation. "I must report my failure in person. I am prepared to take the punishment I have earned." **** drops to one knee with a floor shaking thud. A squeak escapes Nino's tight lips.
"Explain," Caine demands.
"I promised that the remaining *workers would protect you and Earth. I failed. Another lures many of us away with promises."
"Many? How many?"
"Too many. Too many to secure this perimeter."
"Damn." He steps forward, hands clenching as if to strangle whatever or whomever would dare threaten Jupiter. With a slight clearing of her throat, Jupiter's mother interjects a calm, common sense suggestion.
"Jupiter," get that... person... inside, quickly, before the neighborhood sees... it!"
"What are you saying?" Nino gasps. "What is it?"
"I," Aleksa shrugs herself back into calm, "don't know. But I've danced at this party before," she admits.
"What do you mean? You knew about... this?" Nino offers a weak wave at the mind bending scene playing out before her.
"Another time."
"How could you not tell me?"
"Another time!" Aleksa takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders, turning to face her daughter. "Come, Jupiter, what are we to do?"
"We?" Jupiter glances at each in turn, from Vladie's silent scream, Nino's blood drained face, Caine seeking trouble where trouble should be, the sargon's bowed, gray-green head, to her mother's expectant confidence as if she, Jupiter, actually knew what the hell was going on. She felt she should say something wise and learned, but instead managed to stammer, "What we?"
Before Jupiter can formulate a more coherent answer, the sargorn lifts her massive self from her submissive pose, her eyes glowing like green lanterns. After a moment, she speaks with new urgency. "The perimeter is breached. A party of assassins can be expected." Aleksa soaks in the words, and ghost of an old pain darkens her eyes. Aunt Nino leans as if she wishes she could move, and comfort her sister in that remembered moment. That night had up-heaved both their lives, never to return. She senses that this night, too, will change everything. Jupiter squares her shoulders and takes a steadying breath, turning to Caine. "How long do think we have?"
"Maybe an hour." Caine places a hand on her shoulder. "We'll never make it to Stinger's in time."
"He'll have to come to us."
Aknet growls. "No. This location is known." Jupiter lets that sink in.
Caine's head lowers, and he brushes a finger across a small, pearl hued protrusion alongside his neck. Aleksa's glance betrays her concern at his sudden quietude. Jupiter silently requests patience with a raised hand. Caine speaks softly, as if to himself.
"Yes, that's the situation." He turns back, all the lines on his face stark and grim. "Stinger will meet us." Jupiter nods, already knowing the place. Caine lifts his shoulders in preparation to shuck his concealing jacket, then pauses with a question bright in his eyes for Jupiter. She bites the inside of her cheek before nodding decisively. He swings the jacket from his shoulders.
"Wings?" Vladie squeaks from his perch on the stairs. Eyes turn to him as if recalling his presence. Caine's broad bronze wings snap open, commanding the space within the living room. He stares between the talking dragon in the doorway, and the tarnished angel in the living room, as if he can't decide which is the greater freak. "Wings," Vladi repeats with a resigned shrug. "Why not?" Aunt looks like she could faint if mother weren't holding her up.
"Come on, mom, aunt." She nods to Caine, who begins ushering the two women toward the open door. *** moves back, her own wings spreading in the night. "Don't worry about the luggage," she admonishes her aunt, who determinedly plucks on small bag from the stack and hugs it to her chest before hurrying past Caine. At the door, Jupiter pauses, turning back with an obvious reluctance. "Vladie, come on."
"What? With that? Them?"
"You aren't safe here." He clutches the railing, but his eyes wander the living room, a vague memory dancing like a devil behind his eyes.
"I guess. I guess," he repeats, forcing his feet down each step. Jupiter gives him a decisive shove out the door, into the city night.
"Aknet and I will fly point." Vladie scuttles sideways as the sargorn's wings stretch, and she launches into the night air, a shadow against the struggling stars.
"That means I'm driving. Good, I need to make a stop anyway."
"In that?" Caine asks pointing a finger in disbelief where her mother and aunt are clambering into the family station wagon.
"Not inconspicuous enough?" Jupiter quips, sliding into the driver's seat. "Just wait," and she starts the engine, pulling onto the street with a cautious speed that leaves Caine scowling and wishing with a desire he could not explain that he would be the one in control of that steering wheel. Instead, he resigns himself and takes to the air with a rueful shake of his head. "Keep up, you two," Jupiter calls back with a wry grin.
"Who is after us, anyway?" Vladie whines from the back seat while Jupiter glances frequently at the rear view mirror to catch sight of their flying companions as the wagon swings up onto the freeway ramp.
"I'm not sure," she admits, too preoccupied to prevaricate.
"Not sure? Then how do you know anyone is coming after us? Because a ... dragon... thing... said so?"
"I don't know who," she replies, "there are so many to choose from."
"Eyes on the road!" Vladie barks at Jupiter's slight swerve back into her lane. "Where are we going? Do you even know where we are going?"
"Shut up, Vladie," Aleksa commands, even though her own knuckles are white upon the strap of her seat belt. Soon enough, Jupiter turns off the freeway and down onto a side road, then slows as she pulls up before a broad expanse of chain link fence where a high gate sports a large plaque proclaiming 'UStashIt'. She dims the lights, but keeps the motor running.
"Why are we here? It's obviously closed," Vladie states.
Jupiter opens her door and motions to Caine above. His wings tighten in a dive, and he pulls out at the last moment to glide next to her.
"Woah," Vladie whistles. "Where can I get some of those?"
When Caine reaches within his munitions belt, Jupiter steps back, squinching her eyes and covering her ears. Caine lands a quizzical glance in her direction, then lays a palm sized device against the gate. With clicks and whirs, a portal spirals open, and he motions Jupiter onward. Jupiter ducks her head with a hint of chagrine, and steps through. Scanning the numbers on the faceless storage units, she fumbles with her keys, dropping them in the near dark where they fall with a clatter.
"You dropped them!" Vladie leans forward to yell out the driver's window.
"Do shut up, Vladie," Nino hisses sidelong. The squeals and groans of a nearby garage door sound to him like a dinner bell tolling out across the night. What other obvious comment he might make falls short upon glimpsing the array of brightly colored royal guards filing out behind Jupiter.
"Guard," Jupiter commands, pointing directly at the station wagon. Her handful of royal guards array themselves around the vehicle like a gawdy Thanksgiving day float. With a cacophony of metallic clunks, they grav themselves to the wagon, prepared to move out.
"Right," Caine sighs, "that won't draw any attention." Jupiter slides back behind the wheel. "Follow me, then," and he takes flight once more, angling towards the heart of Chicago.
"Don't they have arms?" Nino asks softly.
"Just guns," Jupiter answers, her eyes trained on Caine.
"Robots? With guns? Taking over the world?!"
"Shut up, Vladie!" Jupiter, Aleksa, and Nino cry in unison. He sinks down in his seat, sullen, while they rise back onto the freeway once again.
"Oh," Aleksa murmurs looking behind them to the fading crash of glass and the grinding of metal from the collision of two nearby cars. "I think that was our doing. And that. And, probably that." Jupiter grimaces, doing her best to ignore the rising chaos they are creating while keeping Caine and *** in sight.
Miles, and multiple accidents later, the tamed expanse of river glitters beneath the bridge where they cross. Jupiter swings off the expressway, grumbling beneath her breath about one lane roads and buses and downtown parking. Diving low, Caine motions to the towering glass height of the Sears tower.
"You'll never find a place to park," Vladie pipes up.
"Vladie," Aleksa begins, but Jupiter just pulls to a stop in the middle of the road.
"He's right." Vladie's eyebrows raise in surprise. "Out, everyone out."
"Here?" Nino glances at the street signs, the traffic, the curious gazes of the crowds strolling along the brightly lit streets. "What are we doing here?"
"That," Jupiter says, pointing to a long, thin blue beam illuminating the sidewalk with an unearthly glow. About them, a crowd had already begun to gather, pointing upward where the beam disappears into the haze. Aleksa stands near her open car door, hesitating.
"Jupiter, can you, can you do what they did to Katherine Dunlevy and party? No one remembered a thing."
Jupiter groans. Those words pricked at the depths of her own guilt and confusion. What was right? What could she, as Queen of the Earth, do that would not make her just another Abrasax in training? Having learned a few hard lessons about acting when action was required, she waves away her concerns with a quick swipe of her hand, and shakes her head as if to clear away any impending fog of fear.
"I know. I don't know. I can't worry about that right now."
"What, you want me to go into that thing?" Caine cradles his forehead in his hands for a moment, throwing a frustrated look at Jupiter. She returns his question with a nod, and Caine gives Vladie a brisk push into the beam. The onlookers oggling visages are rapidly obscured by a score of phones aimed in Valdie's horrified direction.
"Look at their faces." Aleksa gazes into the sea of wide eyes gathering around them. Some want to believe. Others can not, could not believe. "They aren't ready, my darling girl. I doubt even your father, Bog lyubit yego (God love him), would have been ready." And she nods toward Nino, white as cheese while she watches Vladie's writhing form rise like a bubble in a straw. Aleksa places a hand lightly upon Jupiter's shoulder, her eyes as soft as her voice. "They will believe what they need to."
Believe what they need to. What did she need to believe, Jupiter wonders to herself. Did she actually believe that she was Queen of the Earth? Did she need to believe that, really believe it, in order to face what she knew was coming?
"What, never seen street magic before?" Jupiter improvises an explanation, a comprehensible reality, over her shoulder even while pushing Nino toward the blue beam of light. A collective 'Ooooh' rises and falls like waves, ointment to soothe her trepidation.
Caine's face jerks skyward, where, far overhead, spats of light herald some unseen number of ships. Ships engaging in battle.
"And a meteor shower, too, wow, what a night, huh?" The blue beam flickers, but does not fade. Aknet swoops close, should anyone fall. Caine grasps Jupiter about her waist, and with a heavy sweep of his wings, lifts them upward.
"Our hour's up."