Jared follows the top of Coordinator Tara Larsen's strawberry blonde head down the monotonous central corridor in Atlantic's south headquarters. This is surreal; I don't know what I'm doing.
The soles of his scruffy Keds press onto the linoleum floor and pull off the uncompromising surface under his feet.
Who is he kidding? This mission is a trip into insanity: a death sentence that his big mouth got him into and his pride won't let him back down from.
Jared follows Larsen into a large room filled with slanted schoolroom computer stations and lined with ceiling-to-floor monitors. She stops and faces a cell paneled with one-way glass. The clatter of support personnel bustling around the operations room fades. A hot babe is completely naked inside the cell, toweling herself off with her back partly turned the door. Lustrous, dark hair brushed the skin of her back as she reaches for her clothes. Tiny black panties raced up her long, slender legs and—
He tears his eyes from the woman's panties. Coordinator Larsen's innocent, intense face is turned to look up at him.
"Your cover identity is good?" she asks.
Pull it together. Not a teenager.
"Yeah, absolutely. We've kept it up-to-date. It's a complete cover." And his cover identity and the company he, Jeannie, and Gabe had painstakingly built was their fall-back if Atlantic abandoned them in Pac Northwest Region.
"I'm glad to hear that. As Rapunzel, we want you to interview for a sidekick position for both Containment and Dr. Badass. It is critical that you can't be traced back to Atlantic."
Both of them; it was only Containment before. Job interviews with superpowerful crazy supers who might be minionized or under mind control ... it's going to be a bear.
"Right, we prepped a cover story with a minor change. It'll be obvious - reading between the lines - that Samantha is seeking protection as a sidekick because of sexual harassment by a super in Twin Cities Region and dismissal of her case by Pro Tyle - everyone knows he's an extreme chauvinist on the verge of mandatory personality modification. As CEO of a company operating domestically in the United States, it doesn't make sense for her to hail from one of the Gravity Kingdoms...," and Jared doesn't want the modification necessary to implant Greenlandic and Danish in his head and there's no time to learn it like a normal, "...Twin Cities does not maintain diplomatic contact with Pac Northwest and from B.C. it'll take weeks for clearance. Gabe has a line to one of their admin personnel. She'll hold up the process for a couple weeks. Even if Dr. Badass hacks the files, all he'll find is corroborating evidence. I haven't dropped my identity cloak almost since my awakening and we've laid the groundwork for her backstory. She travels extensively visiting distribution agents in her company. It'll be nearly impossible to break my cover identity," Jared says firmly, suppressing the nervousness racing in his bloodstream.
Tara looked ... impassively cute and blandly pleasant. He can't read her. She could be thinking anything.
"Gabe cleared it with McG. I know that time is critical on this mission and I want mind control at a minimum," Jared says, "Just removal of the power blocks."
Tara stares at the blank black glass of the wall, then she nods once. "That's acceptable to Witness. The mind control program removal will take a minute."
Silence. Jared checks the time on his iPhone: 4:51 pm.
He stares at Tara's profile. He wants to ask for details about the mission, but he's pushed his luck getting on it at all - what with that ass Mercury's Quick pulling out. No reason to bring up any doubts Tara had regarding his complete lack of qualifications for a combat mission.
Come to think of it, if he makes it back, his appointment schedule is going to be a mess for weeks if not months. Coordinator Larsen had ordered them not to inform patients of canceled appointments until tomorrow morning.
Maybe dying wouldn't be all bad.
The glass door swings open and the woman walks out. The straight, masculine lines of her heavy brown jacket and dark pants with bulging pockets look good on her body; the contrast of the cut of her SWAT-team clothing make her even more girlishly beautiful. Her thick, metal toolbelt hangs low on her wide, curvy hips and dips below her belly button.
The feel of the soft fuzz on her belly sends heat-
Jared stares at the black flecks on the linoleum floor while he steps past her into the cell. The glass door shuts. At the far end, a small bench is bolted to the floor, a hamper for dirty towels by the right side. In the far left corner, a tall wood cabinet is stacked with fluffy beige and white towels. He snags a towel and mops the sweat off his neck and chest.
He takes off the wig first. The boost to his hair powers is messing with his head. Jeannie'd picked the worst or best place and time to visit her family in Vancouver. At least she'll be on the ground when he gets there. He'd facetimed her and she'd walked him through restoring the hair cells in the wig, but the cell lines are not perfectly restored, or plain dead.
The metal clips on the plastic pouches of hair samples clatter loudly as he sets his costume top on the bench.
A quietly bland, electronic voice speaks, "Please take a seat."
Jared sits on the bench, facing the black glass wall. On the other side of one of the dark panels, a mind-controller - Witness - is going to read his mind and strip away the protection that keeps him and his family off Atlantic's high-risk watch list.
Nothing happens. Jared looks around for an intercom's speaker; he doesn't see anything resembling an intercom.
"Re-
Jared flinches.
"...moval complete," the voice blares. "Take time to become accustomed to your powers, Jared."
He hasn't heard his name in a long time.
"Thanks," Jared says to the air.
The mind-controller has his file and the notes on the mind-control programs installed inside of him eight years ago. It makes sense. The whole thing is unsettling.
Jared gets dressed, picks up the wig and pushes open the glass door.
The dark-haired woman calmly slips a roll of paper into a plastic sleeve on her belt, probably some top secret Support Network agent thing that he doesn't know about.
She is incredibly hot.
She looks up at him intently, as if she sees him. For a moment, Jared feels his identity cloak waver, as if it and his female identity are an illusion, and he understands that it's a lie he fools himself into believing because he needs to believe it to make the cloak real. He wonders what she sees. She looks tense.
The room behind her bustles quietly with activity. A slob of a man shambles up from the desk he was sitting behind, a fistful of papers clutched in one large hand. The monitors showed satellite images of a typhoon and the insides of some offices and another command center. From this angle, he sees a moveable whiteboard in the far corner of the room. Someone had written ~6340 in red marker on the upper left and drawn a box around it - maybe an estimate of the number of deaths without superhero intervention. The team in this center must be prepping for disaster relief for Typhoon Haiyan.
The moment stretched uncomfortably long. "It's removed," he says, trying to sound calm, like he takes off mind control programs and goes on dangerous missions all the time. He doesn't know how often three backup teams got called up as support for one mission - but it sounds bad - and he isn't ready for this.
"Rapunzel, this is Ruby, the lead for Team B," Tara says.
Oh.
Ruby gives him a wide, deep smile. "Glad to work with you on this case."
The warm, mellow timbre of her voice runs into his body like the bubbles from a sip of soda, buzzing inside his throat and settling low in his belly.
"Oh yeah, me too." Jared forces his face to smile and tries to sound calm and confident. "I'm looking forward to defending Super interests and protecting civilians inter-regionally."
"Right," Ruby glances at Tara Larsen, then starts to walk down the corridor.
Jared trails after Ruby's tiny, briskly-moving body. The top of her head would come up to the middle of his chest.
"How much of the mission information have you reviewed?" Ruby asks.
He blanks for a moment before he remembers. "I glanced over it," Jared says. "Madison showed me her files." He'll review the files thoroughly on the way to Vancouver.
The derpy plastic poncho and the hair samples bounce uncomfortably as he walks. He regrets the lack of thought he'd put into the design of his registered combat costume.
"I understand it was a last minute decision," Ruby says.
"Absolutely, I can't let Madison go alone. She's not ready for a combat mission," Jared says urgently. "I realize the backup teams need a rapid teleporter to pull people out in case the shit hits the fan, but I don't understand why a more experienced combat super couldn't be assigned—
They head down a narrow, spiral flight of stone stairs leading to the shielded chambers below. Jared stops talking to balance on the unevenly cut and hand-smoothed stone steps. The humming roar of bees grows loud enough to drown out human speech. An arched, stone doorway inlaid with fiery opals the size of his fist looms in front of them. The opals flare as they approach, and Jared blinks his eyes shut as they cross the archway. The sound of bees cuts out on the other side.
Without pausing, Ruby strides into the chill of the narrow, irregular labyrinth guarding the earth chambers.
"…to this mission. She's eighteen!"
He'd mentored her since she'd awakened and moved to the East Coast to go to Super School: a young, high-strung teenager. She's as close to his daughter….
Ruby glances back and gives him a sympathetic look. "I understand the concern and your frustration. The psychics detected the incident at short notice and the other ARTs are unavailable. I'm sure she'll be safer with a minion master to counter-
Minion master. Jared hates the label. Awakening had been … hard and he's never used his minion master powers outside of the minimum to get his powers under control.
"...ial power abuse," Ruby says. "I'll give you a rundown of the mission analysis."
She's good for her word
It's reassuring to hear her lay out the mission: a straightforward interception. Psychics predict the super will go rogue and carve out a chunk of the world to rule. Superpowers and and some people's values don't mix well. Team B is running short to mid-term backup to extract or neutralize potential targets of mind control or minionization. Maximum mission time of two years before recall, estimated time in weeks. It sounded … relatively safe … as long as Team A did their jobs perfectly and everything went like predicted by the psychic supers and astral sorcerers.
"How often does it come out like planned?"
Ruby gives him a look and hesitates a split-second before she answers, "Less than a third of the time. But adherence to mission guidelines is critical for astral force mitigation and avoiding negative scenarios."
Right. Wouldn't want everyone to die like in those other universes.
The nerve in his arm jangles like his thoughts. Another episode of vertigo … it hadn't felt like he'd drawn too much energy. The labyrinth is lit with widely spaced crystals embedded on either side of the corridor. They glow dimly to life as he approaches. In other circumstances, this would be amazing. Right now, all he can think of is that he needs a checkup with an astral sorcerer. He'll make an appointment with Crystal when he gets back.
It's some ironic karma piece-of-shit. The ruling supers of B.C. who'd tried to kill him when he'd awakened had died fighting Dr. Teddy Bear. Now he's heading back to the area with Dr. Teddy Bear as a potential target, not that he'll be helping Dr. Teddy Bear directly, but his Team will be. The whole situation in B.C. Super Region is … strange.
The dossiers on the five major supers in the area were tampered with … who knows why, and more than one person has to be in on it. Grace of God's major superpower is healing; she doesn't just emanate an unreal light and levitate. CBC gives nightly news report on people she's healed. It's hard to miss that.
And Jared'd seen her with his own eyes. He had his old co-star Russ, the super-fan, to thank for that. The day he got into Vancouver, Russ had taken him to St. Paul's to leave a gift for her at the petitioner's entrance. ...More than one volunteer or intern in the Network or at the Hospital had to have a full-time job sorting through the shit. It would be convenient and less of a security risk if she took credit cards.
And then Containment's file - Madison's right - the file lists his only superpower as a Class I superset. The feel of it reminds him of Jeannie's file: the way her immunity to minionization is covered up against the day she agrees to the dull, thankless, and dangerous work of investigating active minion masters suspected of power abuse. She's stuck by him, kind of a retirement before she got started, but they do compassionate work with their hair powers combined … but she's always kept a certain distance between them, a restraint. It's too bad, because she's beautiful, and easy to talk to, and good to him. She knows him and likes him; they could have had something.
Jared wonders if Ruby knows what's missing from Containment's file. People didn't talk about it, but massive memory modification and mind control programs with supers working with astral sorcerers had been common in the '80s, before Atlantic stopped most types of superpower abuse. Jared remembers the explosion of South Texas Nuclear Generating Station very clearly. His whole family sitting in front of the T.V. and watching the news coverage. His parents' helpless fear. The disgust he felt watching Torment gloat over the Channel 13 news crew he'd taken hostage. Madison had told about this, from her classwork at Super School - he hadn't known, he'd been too young, but Texarkana got their shit together and joined the Network because of that incident. In the end, the Network slapped a no entry Agreement on Containment and pressured the CIA into retiring him from service.
Why hadn't she known Containment's powers?
And of course, Vancouver has to have a sleeper agent so secret, the only thing in the file is the codename: Psy B, and two contact portals they're not authorized to use.
Team A had better handle the situation.
Ruby stops in an alcove in front of wide, golden double doors.
Jared smiles helplessly down at her.
The doors to the earth chamber open outwards. An eerie, shimmering light spills into the corridor and makes Jared blink. A few tears trickle out of his eyes. The hexagonal chamber is enclosed in a steel cage with unnaturally shiny bars sunk into the soft, powdery dirt floor. A constellation of dimly lit crystals hang overhead and the rock walls are lined with blurry drawings that Jared's eyes can't focus on.
Over the threshold, the alien wrongness swallows him. He stumbles on a hard lump of earth under the thick layer of fine dirt.
Ruby's firm, strong hands catch him around his hips, her solid body pressed against his back, the side of her cheek and forehead a steady rock, grounding him. Jared shivers. He wants to wrap his arms around her and-
"Thanks," Jared blurts out. What is it about her?
Ruby releases him carefully. She peeks out like a tiny, adorable animal, hiding behind him as she looks up.
"How are you feeling?" she asks.
"Good, a little low on energy, nothing I can't handle," Jared says.
"Alright. I can do a quick energy draw before we start. I'll enter synchronization on sphere three?" Ruby says tentatively, as if asking for his approval.
"Right," Jared takes a deep breath. "I'll follow your lead." He wonders how many other supers she's synchronized with … he hasn't synchronized since combat training at Super U.
"We can do this standing," she says, as if she read his mind.
The doubts he had about the mission, about Atlantic, the dissatisfaction with his life ... he imagines a wicker box on the earth beside his feet, and he puts those thoughts inside.
Ruby steps on the powdery earth, lighting small candles.
"I invite you to close your eyes on your exhale breath…," Ruby's word rolled off her lips in a clear, strong voice, a lifeline, that he needs to obey.
Closing his eyes, he exhales. He inhales. A rich smell of chocolate permeates his body. Cocoa butter candles, who would've thunk? A steady energy flows through him.
Better than eating it.
He feels calm following her voice. Jared moves his eyes from the crown of his head on the right side of his body to the earth below his feet - they flicker and jump and he brings them back to the jagged shape - the shape of his body instead of an oval - on his inhale breath, he closes the shape from his feet to the crown of his head.
He senses Ruby moving inside the cage. The light of the candles intensify and move high, a circle of heat surrounding his body - a ring of red light through his closed eyelids.
"Synchronizing our breaths … inhale together…."
His eyes relax. Her chanting is steadily and plainly narrated. He imagines her movement in the room from her words - her voice, her footsteps, the air.
"...into your awareness. As we open the door to the astral sphere, entering it joined to..."
Jared peeks. Ruby draws the linkage on the touchscreen monitor set on the ledge next to the doorway. From this side, the golden double doors are mottled rock slabs gouged out and smoothed by inhumanly strong hands. The walls begin to sweat and sweat beads on his forehead and trickles down his neck. The taste of dirt in the back of his throat grows heavy. He closes his eyes again.
"...at the edge of the earth that holds us, the gravity between us. Think about why we're here..."
The space between his eyebrows tingles. He sees through Ruby's eyes.
The touchscreen blurs with black and white words and numbers, calculations run in ASTRAL to find the synchronization parameters as Ruby continues to chant. Jared lets himself surrender and accept her words as faith. Her words are his ground.
"Open your eyes to witness the light of our synchronization."
He opens his eyes.
A stubby, milky blue channeling crystal appears like magic in Ruby's slim fingers and then in the socket above the monitor.
No sound or movement. Jared blinks. The crystal rod looks like glass now, translucent. A dim, white light sparks and shines in the rod.
Smooth. The synchronization felt like it had taken ten, maybe fifteen minutes tops.
He looks down at the top of Ruby's dark-brown hair. She's looking up at him and holding his hand, waiting patiently.
When did that happen? Jared thinks idly. A deep sense of calm eases his nerves.
The doors open and Ruby's small, firm hand leads him outside. She stops and looks up at him, gives him a smile, pleased with him … with the successful synchronization. Jared tries to smother a goofy grin.
She won't see him as male with his identity cloak active … no use scaring her, but … she is ... definitely single and available. Not seeing anyone. He can feel it. A vibe of restrained urgency comes off her. She must be worried about the timing of events.
Ruby starts down the corridor. "Have you flown with Angel before?" she asks quickly.
"No," Jared says huskily and clears his throat.
"I'll describe the procedure. It's important—
Jared lets her words tumble into his ears and sink into his mind without conscious thought. He stares at her glossy black hair. He wanted to run his fingers through it, feel the silk on his body. The strands of her long, straight hair sway and flick across her jacket, then curl upwards, against gravity, reaching-
Stop it.
"...at the border of Atlantic, I'll check in with you before—
He's punchy and his powers are getting out of hand … nerves and power overuse, except he's calm and just got an energy transfer.
He hates it, all of this. Hates being a super. There's nothing super about his dysfunctional superpowers.
They ride a noisy cage elevator up to the roof. The starkly functional industrial metal looks simultaneously out of place and fitting against the hand-laid stone slabs of the underground labyrinth and the equally functional industrial hallway. They walk into a locker room, the antechamber to the airlock-style exit. The walls are straight and it's not filthy.
He should have registered a winter-ready costume.
Ruby pops open a locker bulging with clothing and rummages through it. She takes out a thick ski vest.
"I love your sweater," Ruby says with genuine appreciation.
It is a nice sweater. It looks like the thin, blue sweaters that Mr. Rogers wore. One more image connoting harmless kindness and defraying the malevolent reputation of minion masters.
"Thanks," Jared says. He lifts the poncho and she helps him shrug on the vest. He pulls the poncho over it, adjusting the bags of hair samples as they ruck up against the jacket.
Out of nowhere, Ruby holds out a reusable glass water bottle in a rubbery neon green sleeve. The plain water on his tongue tastes like sweet, liquid candy. He must be dehydrated.
Jared gulps it down.
A trickle of water dribbles out of the side of his mouth and he wipes at it hastily. Drops of water spatter accidentally on the poncho, but Ruby had her back to him, entering a code into the keypad.
The lock clicks open with an audible thunk. Ruby pushes. The door looks heavy from the slow way it opens... Jared reaches over her head and leans on the door a little. Ruby glances up, gives him a grateful look. Warmth buzzes in him.
A blast of cold air rushes in with the second door, and they step onto the sloped concrete roof. A small delta-wing aircraft - sealed - no visible engines - perches on a two-story girder platform that blends into the dim light of dusk. Massive, incorporeal white wings flow like plumes of liquid smoke around the aircraft and platform.
Jared follows Ruby up the steep, narrow, metal grid stairs to the platform. The fabric of her pants pulled tight against the rounded curve of-
Jared stares down at his feet. The dirt from the earth chamber had embedded itself into the cloth of his shoes and turned the white stripes into a dull, light brown barely distinguishable from the dyed parts of the brown canvas. The thick coat of greenish-grey nonslip marine paint on the stairway is starting to wear away. He wondered what the maintenance schedule is like... nonexistent, if the condition of the rest of the building is anything to go by.
On the deck, Madison's curled in a crouch underneath the left wing of the aircraft, next to rectangular pods that looked a lot like the sinister, over-sized coffins used to contain and transport supervillain criminals.
Jared hopes they don't have to get into those things and suspects that's exactly what's going to happen.
"Gen," Madison scrambles up and sticks out her hand. Her chubby cheeks were red with cold and she's swallowed up by her over-sized jacket. She looked even younger now.
Jared watches as the two women shake hands. They're both brunettes and about the same height. Ruby's hair is dark, glossy, and straight and Madison's is curly and a little wild. Seeing them together ... Madison moves with a gawky, self-aware alertness, her superset tightly under control, no hint of speed in her motions. She looks young and soft and a little tense, natural for her first mission.
Madison looks Ruby in the eyes and glances over at Jared, sizing them up coolly.
It's freezing and the wind cuts through the sleeves on his arms and right through the skirt and pants. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of the vest.
"Please, call me Ruby for the mission," Ruby gives the young superhero a wide, brilliant smile.
"Sure," Madison answers chirpily.
Ruby's hand brushes against her toolbelt. A flimsy piece of plastic unrolls into a blocky printed circuit in her fingers. "Let's exchange identifiers and synchronize."
Huh. Never seen this before.
Madison's plastic microchip goes in Ruby's toolbelt.
The gold tattoo on the inside of Madison's wrist glows as she draws the sleeve of her jacket back. She takes a silvery razor blade from Ruby and cuts inside the border of the tattoo, laying down the plastic film; her flesh knits over the circuit as fast as her finger move - too fast for his eyes to see the details of the pattern.
Just like that, Jared feels Madison's presence on the outer edge of his awareness.
Madison's hand dips into a pocket and comes out with a piece of bedsheet he'd cut up and given to her for handkerchiefs. She dabs a drop of blood pooled on the plastic film, then tucks the cloth back in her pocket.
He can imagine her ... in her late twenties or early thirties, walking into a mission with a last minute substitution of supers, backing up a combat team intercepting a rogue super and handling it ... like Ruby.
It's me.
He's not ready for her to be ready.
Out of the aircraft's open bay: a big, broad, bald guy who looks like the stereotype of a prison inmate. His wide face is edged with a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard, Zappa-style. Large cross tattoos stand out on both arms. The man looks nothing like an angel.
The notion of looking at the blurry, liquid wings sprouting from the guy's back makes Jared's thoughts drift away … some variation of identity cloak.
Jared lets his eyes defocus and wander over the aircraft. In his peripheral vision, Angel's incorporeal astral wings are bird-like, with white-grey feathers … he might not be space-capable.
"You ready to go?" Angel asks in a light, pleasant voice.
Ruby gives Angel a look and he nods back at her. Jared can't read Ruby's reaction.
Wonder what that means?
"Any last requests?" Ruby asks.
"Where's Gabe?" Jared asked. And SS? Not that he wants to meet the guy.
Madison looks at Angel, as if she expects him to jump in, then says, "Oh, they got called into a meeting, last minute."
Huh.
"Super-screensaver transferred," Ruby cuts in. "He mentioned a past personal conflict and requested a reassignment."
Oh. Leaves us short-handed. Ruby doesn't look or feel concerned, more like she doesn't want to talk about it.
"Gabe has our luggage and supplies," Jared says. The defective wig dangles from his fingertips and longer tendrils of hair brush the metal deck.
"They'll catch up with us later," Ruby says. "If Gabe stays as ground support, Team C will bring your personal items." Ruby pauses. "This is an active incident and may potentially be active when we arrive. I have orders to abort without confirmation from Coordinators Larsen and Royce every hour."
Madison looks nervously at Ruby.
That's what makes you realize how dangerous this is?
"If we're separated or you suspect one of us may be compromised, report information to Command directly through the astral sphere. Use the G-12 path," Ruby says.
Separated? I've never done this secret agent shit!
Jared glares at Madison. If the situation gets out of control they have an out, as long as Madison sticks with it, she's the teleporter. Madison catches his eye and gives him a look.
I hope that means she's with me.
Ruby glances at the coffins. "Let's get you loaded and we can take off."
They are going to fly to Vancouver in the prison coffins.
Jared eyes the narrow, dark opening with trepidation, then sees his expression mirrored on Madison's chubby, young face.
"Let me go first," Jared says, taking off his poncho.
The bulk of the coffin's astral warding and insulation raises the opening an awkward two feet above the deck.
Jared grabs the top rim with both hands and held himself precariously balanced. The slippery mass of wig hair and the poncho grind under his fingers and palms as he crabwalks his feet inside. His back bumps over the padding and the vest is in his face. He shoves and pulls at the padding, grabs the harness with his wig hand and holds it out of the way. A sharp lump. The zipper of the vest snags on the padding, he rips it away from the fabric and slides inside. He tosses the wig in the footwell and shoves it down with one leg, then untangles the harness and straps himself in.
He'd noticed the gentle hand touching his sweaty forehead and protecting his elbow from bumping into the metal edges of the coffin. He cranes his neck and looks at Ruby's upside-down face. She isn't smirking or laughing at him. She smiles tentatively and leans into the coffin. The soft curve of her body stretches out over his.
"Let me check your straps, make sure you're secure." Ruby places the water bottle in a cup holder that he hadn't noticed and hands him the poncho, which he'd lost on the way inside.
"Thanks," Jared says, slipping the poncho under the harness.
Ruby gives him another upside-down smile. Jared holds himself limp on the bottom of the coffin. She crawls over him, her hands lightly touch his body as she slips her fingers under each strap, adjusts the padding, and gives the harness straps firm tugs. It's amazing there's space for her, because it had been a tight fit getting in.
He looks at the fabric of the headrest. Perfectly curved hips shift in his side vision as she moves. The back of her hands pressed on his hipbones.
Sweat pools in the hollow of his throat. He hopes she doesn't notice. Jared wraps his identity cloak tighter around himself and stares at the lonely parachute button on a blank instrument panel. Each unit had individual oxygen and pressurization, but no lighting.
Which idiot designed these things?
Ruby finishes her checks and backs out. Her upside-down face gave him the shadow of a final smile … she crouches and her face and raised arm are dark silhouettes against the evening sky. Before she can swing the end closed-
"Hey, if I stay still will you pick me up?" Jared blurts out.
A pause. "Angel and I will secure you in the bay and we'll be en route soon." She slides the top shut with a thud.
Darkness. His awareness of Ruby and Madison dim.
The air turns stale and thin. Jared exhales slowly, making each breath last. The coffin rattles and jolts, as if he's being dragged inside the aircraft and then secured from below.
A lurch and a jump upwards. It isn't anything like an airplane or how he imagined a bird would fly - not that he's really tried to imagine it. Jared wonders how Angel's powering the aircraft. Maybe he's carrying it in his hands? From what Ruby described, they're flying low, without lights or electronics because of Dr. Badass' superpowers, just faith in Angel …. Come to think of it, it's a fitting codename.
He takes out his iPhone; no text from Gabe. Jared turns on the LED flashlight.
One of the clips of hair samples on the underside of his costume top digs into Jared's side; he fumbles with the small bag of hair, hampered by the harness and padding. Finally, he gets the thing out of the way and padded by the folds of plastic. Ruby had been emphatic about the padding and getting the harness buckles and bags of hair out of the way in case of sudden acceleration.
The air is making him spacey … it's hard to string two thoughts together.
Lying there in the dark is a shitty way to travel.
His phone buzzes.
Ruby.
He hopes she didn't notice how far out of it he is.
"Ruby," Jared says, forcing his voice to speak clearly. He drops the phone on his chest and lets his arm rest.
He tries to sound alert as Ruby gives him a run-down of the abort procedure. When she asks, and of course she asks, he tries to explain that he's never consciously or willingly used his minion master powers, he's not like that, and he doesn't feel them now. He hopes that's what he says. Words are hard to find.
She cuts him off, says that they're approaching the border of Atlantic and electronics can't be trusted.
Jared lets the phone go dark. The padding and harness are digging into his side again, but he feels too disconnected to adjust the straps. His body doesn't feel like his own. The team might need him to counter the rogue, whoever it is … he needs to wake up and read the mission files, get a better sense of the situation. He needs to wake up ….