Cherry Blossom Girls 8
Author: Harmon Cooper; Gideon Caldwell
Date: 2019-07-25 04:00:00+00:00
Description: The best-selling superharem phenomenon is back for a brand new adventure! A shaman’s prophesy, saving the emperor of Japan, fighting a terrifying robot the size of a three-story building, and an epic adventure through southeast Asia fighting supervillains? This is the stuff of fiction, not real life. And while I’d love to say I made all this nonsense up, that my life truly is creative nonfiction gamer scifi, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg of the things I have on my plate at the moment. More enemies, more life-altering decisions, more media madness, and more brushes with death. And that’s b
Publisher: Boycott Books, LLC

Cherry Blossom Girls
International

~Book Eight~

By Harmon Cooper

Copyright © 2019 by Harmon Cooper

Copyright © 2019 Boycott Books, LLC

Edited by Andi Marlowe @ Andromeda Editing

www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com

Email signup: https://geni.us/HCReaders

Facebook Group: https://geni.us/ProximaGalaxy

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HarmonCooperWriter

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Seriously, I make this $H!+ up.

Chapter One: Caged in a Yurt

You can’t reason with your heart; it has its own laws and thumps about things which the intellect scorns, Mark Twain wrote in one of his more popular books about a Connecticut kid who ended up in King Arthur’s court.

And while I preferred my favorite Mark Twain quote—I’m so happy I could scalp someone, which he wrote to a friend after asking Olivia to marry him for a third time and finally getting the answer he was looking for—the first quote was more apropos to my current shit-uation.

Especially as I watched our prisoner, Arianna Lord, glare up at me with fear in her eyes.

“I have to keep you weak,” I reminded her as I used Veronique’s power to drain more life force from the woman, feeling a power swell inside of me.

“Angel is tricking you…”

It was uncanny how much she looked like Veronique. It kept throwing me off. I knew it wasn’t her, but with those sharp features and her blonde bob, it was spot on.

Even if the metal vampire and this woman shared similar features, Arianna was something else entirely. She belonged to Damon Lord’s crew, and I was starting to wonder just how many supers he had manufactured in Asia.

All of them seemed to have been raised and brainwashed by him. And like the albino shifter, Regina Lord, none of them looked old enough to have been created at the same time that shit went down at AEFL, when Damon Lord left for Asia with all of Father and Mother’s research.

“Angel is lying to you,” she said again, her voice barely above a whimper now.

We were in a yurt, one of several that were clustered together.

Stella, Ingrid and Angel were resting in the other yurt, the same one shared by the family of the man who’d discovered us in the Mongolian steppe.

Surprisingly enough, my crew trusted me to watch our prisoner for the first shift, which I was happily doing (well, not happily, because I didn’t like seeing anyone being held captive).

I knew that Arianna would have killed us if she could, and I still recalled what it was like to get punched when she was in her invisible form. But putting her in a cage reserved for a goat?

I was surprised that I had enough of Grace’s psychic power to pull it off, that the Mongolian herders believed for some reason that we were Russian KGB members, and that Arianna was our captive.

Or at least that was what I conveyed with as much imagery as I could conjure.

The other option would have been to take the family out, which I wasn’t advocating for, even if Angel was ready at a moment’s notice.

No way.

This herder and his family had basically saved us. We would have wandered across the plains of Central Asia for quite some time had it not been for them.

“I can’t believe you put me in a cage,” Arianna said for what felt like the seventh time.

“You can turn invisible, and you haven’t revealed your other power to us.”

“I don’t have another power,” she said.

“No, I think you do. You have enhanced speed, not as fast as Michelle, but faster than a normal human, which has augmented your strength in some way. There’s no way you could have moved that quickly back in the police station in Tokyo.”

“I was invisible. You would be surprised what people can do when they’re invisible and others can’t track their movement.”

I lifted my hand again to drain more of her power and stopped, shaking my head for a moment.

“You’ve already taken enough,” she said, a little haggard now. “I won’t be able to break out of here.”

“One can never be too cautious when dealing with superpowered individuals.”

“That’s a clever little quote you have there.”

I sat before her, my legs crossed under my body. “I’m not what you think, by the way. I’m not some kind of monster, nor am I your enemy. There really is no telling what is coming next in this line of work, which is why I have to be cautious.”

“Yet you are teamed up with your enemy, Angel.”

“Another example of what I just said; there really is no telling. Angel and I have a history, sure, but we have a shared goal at the moment. And that goal is taking down Damon Lord.”

She glared at me. “That’s where you are making a mistake. Damon Lord is trying to change the world, and to do so, we need more visibility, we need to show people our powers. And the best way to show our power is by stopping an incredible force, saving the day.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked her. “By turning the US government against us, you are doing anything but trying to save the day, you are only making all of our shared existences more complicated.”

“You aren’t thinking straight, Gideon; the US government isn’t interested in you, they’re interested in Angel and his kind.”

“What? No,” I said, shaking my head. “Up until about a month ago, the US government funded Angel and Mother. They were both part of AEFL. Are you actually familiar with what AEFL is?”

“The Agency of Enhancement and Future Logistics; I’m well aware of the program that Damon Lord started.”

“He didn’t start the program…”

“Everything you have been told is a lie, Gideon. Let me out of here, you and I…”

The yurt was lit by a single light casting an orange glow into the circular space. In that moment I registered something in her dark eyes, something I hadn’t expected.

“No,” I started to say.

“You and I could be capable of so much,” she said, pressing her face against the cage. “Just let me out of here. Let me show you.”

I scooted back just a little, suddenly wishing that one of the others had stayed up with me. I didn’t like the way Arianna was talking to me, or the suggestion I felt that she was hinting at.

“Come on, I’ve seen the way you look at Stella, you want her.”

I almost laughed. “Stella?”

“It must be so hard being around all those beautiful women and not getting laid.”

She couldn’t read what I was thinking, but if she could, she would have known that this line of reasoning wasn’t going to work with me.

I was continually paid in the shade, or better, laid in the shade.

Anything she could offer me sex-wise didn’t really matter, not with the fact that I would be with the others soon. And besides, I had never been one to care enough about sex to risk my own life to have it.

Well, aside from a couple of times Dorian and I had done it while free-falling…

“What are you suggesting?” I asked, deciding to see where she would take this.

“I think you know what I’m suggesting.” Arianna sat with her back against the cage now, her knees pressed against its front. She unzipped the front of her uniform some, revealing the top of her cleavage.

“Sorry, I still can’t figure out what you’re suggesting.”

“Does this help any?”

She dropped her hand to her crotch, and moved her fingers back and forth in a drunken way, the effects of having her power drained clear as day, even though it was well past midnight. “Why don’t you let me out of here? It could be fun.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I think you know why,” she said as she unzipped the front of her uniform even more, reaching her hand inside and bringing her small breasts out, which were shielded by a training bra. “Let me out. I will tell you everything you need to know, and you can still join with the others after. Damon Lord will accept you. We will accept all of you. And you can have me anytime you want,” she said, practically purring now. “Just let me out.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, you know you want to,” she said, licking her lips.

I started to laugh, and the predatory smile on her face shattered.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “This is all, um, so sudden.”

“Don’t you know what I’m suggesting?” she asked. “Anything you want, Gideon. Anywhere you want, and I mean that. Hell, I can even go invisible for you. I bet you’ve never experienced something like that.”

I paused for a moment, pondering if Grace and I had done it while she was invisible.

Through her morphing, Grace was able to turn herself invisible, and she was able to do so on her own, without me adjusting her stats.

From what I could recall, we hadn’t done it while she was invisible, which now was something I totally wanted to try out.

I mean, I didn’t know what it would be like really, to be fucking someone but not actually seeing them. And equally important: would I be able to see my own penis coming in and out?

Just like the teleportation sex, it was something that the Giddiest Gidster this side of Gidston, Gidorado needed to test out for scientific purposes.

In the name of Bill Nye!

“Do you like that idea?” she asked, now touching her nipple with one hand, still getting herself worked up with the other. “You like the idea of fucking me while I’m invisible?”

“I’m trying to think of a cool pun as a response, but I got nothing,” I told her, trying not to start laughing again. “I’m coming up blank.”

She glared at me. “Have you even had sex before? If you haven’t, that’s okay, I can be gentle. I can be really rough too. I have a lot of bottled up aggression…”

“You know, come to think of it, I haven’t had sex. But I have watched a lot of porn. I bet that would help me, right?”

She didn’t know me well enough to register the sarcasm in my voice, so I let her continue, wishing that I could have recorded this somehow to show to Dorian and Grace at a later point in time.

They would have gotten a kick out of her shenanigans.

“The first thing I would do is start up here,” she said, pointing at her lips.

“By talking to me?” I asked, squinting at her.

She gave me a funny look. “You are very strange. No, I mean by sucking your big cock.”

“Like sucking, sucking?”

“Yes! You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” she said, placing her finger in her mouth.

I looked down at my proof of writerhood. “I don’t know if it’s that big,” I admitted. “Maybe average-sized?”

“That’s… fine. But that’s what I would start with, by sucking your average-sized cock, and then you could have me any way you want. I’d serve you. You could even finish on my face if you wanted. All you have to do is let me out of here. And I mean any way. However you want. Any position, any…”

“Any what?” I asked her.

“Just let me out of this cage and I’ll show you. I’ll be gentle.”

“You know, when we were walking in the Middle of Nowhere, Mongolia, earlier, I would have never taken you as someone who was very sexual.”

“What’s wrong with being sexual?” Arianna asked, still touching herself.

Oddly enough, I could sense that she had actually worked up her arousal in some way. And using Grace’s telepathic power, which she clearly didn’t know I possessed, I checked in with Arianna’s thoughts to confirm this.

Holy shit! She was actually thinking about fucking me if I let her out. She would kill me after, but Arianna truly wanted to get a taste of the G man.

She also kept reminding herself to get ready if I approached the cage.

“Have you not paid attention to anything I’ve done since we got here?” I asked her finally.

“I just want to pay attention to you, baby,” she said, with less conviction in her voice than she’d had just moments ago. “Boo.”

“I prefer baby.”

“Okay, baby.”

“I want to show you something,” I told her with a smile on my face.

“Please, show me, I want to see it. Bring it over to this cage, and let me out of here, and I’ll show you something… And take those glasses off too. They only get in the way.”

“That’s what the strap is for,” I told her, “and as for what I wanted to show you…”

Arianna lifted her hand from her crotch, her fingers starting to curl, all except for her middle finger. She watched in horror as her own hand turned around, flashing the bird to her own face.

“That’s too bad. Positive body image is important in our line of work. At least, according to comic books.”

“You’re controlling me?” she said, gritting her teeth.

“If you haven’t figured it out already, figure it out now. I can hear what you’re thinking, and I can control what you do. Trying to use sex to free yourself isn’t going to work with me. Even if you actually wanted to have sex in the end. Your idea, not mine.”

“No, I didn’t!” she said after I let her lower her hand.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of; we all get worked up sometimes. You can finish touching yourself if you like, I won’t watch.”

“Fuck you, Gideon.”

I started to laugh. “Not today, Arianna, not today.”

Chapter Two: Mary

Stella took watch after me, the vector user with her copyrighted Dutch braid less than enthusiastic about having to wake up in the middle of the night to keep her eye on the caged woman.

Once I got good and comfy in the other yurt—the family also in the circular space with us (which was odd)—I recalled something that Arianna had said.

After trying to seduce me, and failing miserably, Damon Lord’s minion had doubled down on her statement that Angel had lied, telling me that he had come to Japan chasing after them, that they hadn’t kidnapped him from the event back in Seattle as he had told me.

This did make me a little suspicious of Angel, but not any more suspicious of the aunt-banger than I already was. It seemed like a detail that wouldn’t really change the outcome here.

At some point, we would reach civilization again, and a decision would have to be made. And rather than go with my gut, rather than keep Arianna Lord with us, I was planning to listen to the advice of others for once.

Imagine that.

It was odd to be in such an enclosed structure with so many people.

There were eight of us in a yurt no larger than the bedroom portion of my garden apartment back in New Haven. Four beds, the family on one side, the CBGs on the other, anyone who couldn’t get a bed taking the floor.

Angel had chosen to rest outside, ignoring the family’s protests. Whatever, tough guy.

No restroom either, the only sounds in the yurt being an occasional snore, a stomach grumbling, or the wind hissing over the Mongolian steppe.

In the end it didn’t matter.

My own exhaustion knocked me out, and I only awoke after hearing a sizzling noise, and feeling a warmth radiating near my body.

Since Stella had bequeathed a bed to me when she came to take over night watch, this left me with one of the more sought-after spots in the yurt. It also gave me a pretty good view of what was happening when I woke up.

The family’s youngest girl, who couldn’t have been older than two, had been tied to a leash that was wrapped around the center pole of the yurt to prevent her from going too far from her mother.

The mother was at the stove, cooking something up, and also preparing a basket full of what looked like rectangular biscuits.

The men who had found us in the middle of nowhere were already gone, out to herd their livestock or do whatever it was herders did in the morning. Ingrid sat with the mother, watching her cook, and Stella was asleep on the other bed now, which led me to believe that Angel was now keeping an eye on our prisoner.

Feeling like resting, but also knowing that I needed to check on Angel just to make sure he hadn’t done something crazy, I shifted out of bed and slipped back into my shoes.

“Saihan amarsan uu?” the mother asked me. She was thin with dark hair, a bulbous mole on her neck, and high cheekbones. She wore dirty clothing, which I assumed was the yurt equivalent of house clothing.

“Are you fluent in Mongolian yet?” I asked Ingrid.

“No, I just picked up a few things. Just hello and the names for a few objects,” she said. “It’s really interesting here.”

“It’s definitely something,” I said as I turned to the door.

“I think some of their family members are coming.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked her.

“They showed me a picture of them on their phone, and then sort of pointed around the space. You know, making gestures like they were coming here. Maybe one of them speaks English.”

“We can only hope. Any idea which part of Mongolia we are in?” I asked with a yawn.

“No idea. I looked around earlier for a map, but they didn’t have one here. They have cell service though. The mother used her phone earlier to call someone.”

“Maybe we could use that to contact Dorian…”

“Just phone service though, no Internet. They have a satellite; did you see that?”

“I did not,” I said as I stepped out of the yurt.

I was greeted by a beautiful view, rolling hills, the sun coming up, three men on horses in the distance, circling around a flock of sheep. To my right was a satellite dish, just as Ingrid had said. There was also a solar panel, and a motorcycle.

On the other side of the yurt was a vehicle that looked like some kind of post-Soviet merger of a bladeless helicopter and a pickup truck. The front was round like a helicopter, no protruding engine as we normally had on a vehicle in America. The back was all truck, with a bed that had been bolstered by wooden support beams on the side. It was ingenious, actually, how they had bolted the wood to the flatbed to make it better at carrying stuff.

There was an outhouse as well, about fifty feet away, which was where I headed to take my morning piss.

“Fwoo,” I said as I waved my hand at the huge flies buzzing around the outhouse.

This wasn’t like the outhouses I had seen in Western movies, or on Red Dead Redemption Three (badass game, btw). It was merely a deep hole in the ground with flies buzzing around it, and a front wall built up so someone on the yurt side couldn’t see what was happening.

Of course, if you moved around to the other side, one would definitely see someone squatting or draining the lizard.

But the flies. Big flies, too, easily the size of peanut M&Ms and annoying as hell as they buzzed around me.

Once I finished up, I moved away from the makeshift outhouse to the yurt where Arianna was being held.

I let myself in and found Angel sitting on one of the beds, watching her.

“How long have you been watching her like that?” I asked.

“What does it matter to you?”

“I guess it doesn’t,” I said as I looked over to our prisoner, who looked to be sleeping. “Did she try to seduce you?”

“No. What the hell kind of idiotic question is that?”

“Yeah, me neither,” I said, trying to gauge the temperature in the room.

I was glad that Angel wasn’t part of our group of supers who had abandoned AEFL.

He was too goddamn moody, and while I didn’t know what his fashion sense was ten years ago, I had this itching feeling that he had been emo as fuck at the time and that this had, for some godawful reason, carried over to now.

At least that was how I imagined his youth in my head.

In actuality, he’d been being trained to be a super soldier and having a relationship with his aunt at that time.

Definitely fucky.

“There are family members coming; maybe one of them speaks English,” I said after a moment of silence.

“Good. We will get to civilization; Arianna and I will go from there.”

“How are you going to take her into civilization? Just keep her in that cage?”

“Yes?”

I shook my head. “Talk about terrible optics, even for a supervillain such as yourself.”

“I have my ways,” Angel said, not looking up at me. “And fuck off with the superhero and supervillain bullshit. That’s something normals came up with to reimagine fantasy in the twentieth century, moving it away from medieval shit and into something more relevant.”

“How insightful of you.” I settled my breath, trying not to debate his previous statement. “I don’t know what you plan to do with her, but I think that…”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. And if there were more of my peers with me, I would be taking you and the others as well. Don’t forget that, Gideon,” he said, finally locking eyes with me. “We are still enemies after all this.”

“You know, when I first met you, I thought you were this super macho alpha-y guy, but then I get you alone and you act like a brooding asshole who’s good at making threats, but not so great at following through on them.”

“Pfft…” Angel stood, and took a step closer to me. “Want to say that again?”

“This would be a terrible place to fight,” I told him.

I was definitely feeling a few butterflies in my stomach by this point, my brain sending all the signals to my body telling me some shit was about to go down. But I bottled it up. If Angel attacked me, I would absorb his power and I would use some of it against him.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, especially in such an enclosed space, but I was ready to throw down if the aunt-fingering greaseball wanted to make it happen.

Two interruptions stopped us from acting like a pair of assholes.

The first was Arianna Lord, who awoke violently, the woman having seemingly forgotten that she was in a cage. There was a moment of terror in her eyes as she tried to break out, then fear once she looked up and saw both of us, then the realization of where she was again.

“Good morning,” I told her.

Angel shook his head with disdain.

“Let me out of here,” she said hoarsely, rattling her cage. “Let me out, now. Now!”

I was still human, and a large part of me hated to see someone caged. And an even larger part of me hated to see that someone was a female, to hear her shrill plea. But I knew this was for good reason. She could turn herself completely invisible, and if she did that, the situation would take a turn for the worse.

The second interruption came in the form of a motorcycle pulling up, the engine shutting off.

Angel and I both looked to the front door of the yurt. He nodded me toward it, in a way that indicated that he would watch Arianna.

I waved awkwardly at the two who had just shown up on their motorcycle. One was a guy about my age with odd tattoos on his neck and slicked back black hair; the other was a girl that couldn’t be older than ten.

It was a cool motorcycle too, one of those ones with the sidecar, this one clearly a refurbished military number with its camo paint job.

To my surprise, it was the girl that approached me, a smile on her face as she took me in with her dark eyes. She had long black hair and red cheeks, and she wore a peacoat, black jeans and clean DisNikes. I say “clean” here because of just how polished her shoes were. They were obviously something that she took good care of.

“Hello,” I told her as slowly as possible.

“Why, hello,” she said in a British accent.

I looked at her strangely for a moment.

“Was it something I said?”

“You speak English?”

“I’m speaking to you in English, aren’t I?” she asked with a smile.

“You speak British English?”

“Is there another English?”

“No, I mean, yes, well, shit. Sorry for cussing. Okay, this may not sound very inclusive of me, but I wasn’t expecting to run into a young girl with a British accent in the Mongolian countryside.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m from Mongolia, but I lived in London for ten years.”

“And how old are you now?”

“Eleven.”

“So you just moved back to Mongolia then?”

“That’s right.”

“I see…”

Ingrid approached, offering the young Mongolian girl a wave.

“My name is Michidma, but you can call me Mary.”

“Hi, Mary, I’m Ingrid.”

“Gideon,” I told the girl. “Well, since you speak English…”

I stared at her intently for a moment, using Grace’s power to the best of my ability.

I wanted to make sure that she was somewhat under our control, that she would serve as our translator. It didn’t take much effort in the end—the young girl was brought here for the specific purpose by the family. Mary, as she’d asked to be called, was the niece of the mother I’d seen cooking earlier.

“Okay, first question: where are we?” I asked her.

“I thought you already knew where we were. We’re in Mongolia,” said Mary.

“No, I mean where in Mongolia are we?”

“In western Mongolia, a few hours from the city of Khovd.”

“Okay, this gives me something to work with.”

Mary nodded. “And we will be taking you to UB after we have breakfast here.”

I looked to the motorcycle she came in on. The Mongolian man with the slicked back hair stood near it, smoking a cigarette, eyeing us suspiciously.

“UB?” Ingrid asked.

“That’s what foreigners call Ulaanbaatar, U-B,” Mary informed her. “I suppose it is easier than saying the longer name. I think it would be funny if we just called it by its translation, ‘Red Hero,’ but no one seems to agree with me.”

“Why Red Hero?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I believe it has something to do with Soviet times, long before I was born.”

“That’s right, Mongolia used to be part of Russia.”

“Exactly,” she said, “but we separated about thirty years before I was born. If you have more questions about those times, you could ask some of the older family members. A few of them were alive then and they still speak Russian.”

“Will do,” I told her.

Mary tilted her head as she looked from Ingrid to me. “Why are you in my country?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” I told her, scrubbing this question from her mind.

It wasn’t like using Jedi power, but that’s how I imagined it. As if I were trying to smuggle droids out of Tatooine, I simply directed her question elsewhere.

“You don’t happen to have a cellphone, do you?”

“Of course I do,” she said, reaching into her back pocket. “But it doesn’t work out here in the countryside very well. It can only place calls in certain areas.”

“We need the Internet,” I said, glancing to Ingrid.

“You will have the Internet in UB,” she said.

One of the yurt doors swung open and the mother of the family poked her head out, yelling something to Mary.

“She wants to know if you’d like to have breakfast.”

“Sure,” said Ingrid.

“And your friends in the other yurt?”

I shook my head. “They are not so hungry.”

Once we reached the yurt door, I turned back to look at the young man by the motorcycle.

“Is he coming in?” I asked Mary.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s just the neighbor boy my parents paid to drive me out here.”

“I like her,” Ingrid said after Mary entered the yurt.

“She definitely has a personality,” I replied, stepping inside.

Once I was in, I could stand up fully, the high ceiling providing plenty of room for tall people. Well, relatively tall people. An NBA player or anyone over 6’ 5” would have trouble staying in a yurt.

“This is your milk tea,” Mary said, bringing me a cup, “and yours,” she said as she gave a second cup to Ingrid.

The mother of the yurt motioned us toward a bed.

“Please, sit,” Mary said. “And what about your friend?”

I glanced over to the bed next to ours, where Stella was still sleeping.

“I will wake her,” Ingrid said.

She lightly placed her cup on the floor and moved over to Stella’s bed, where she tapped on her shoulder.

Stella’s eyes fluttered open, and for a moment she had that shocked look of someone who had been woken up from a deep slumber. Her eyes settled soon after, and it wasn’t long before she too had a cup of milk tea.

Salty milk tea.

I didn’t know exactly what I was drinking, but it tasted like thickened saltwater. At first, I didn’t like it, but after a few more sips, it grew on me.

“And what is this called?” I asked Mary.

“Suutei tsai.”

Ingrid tried to say the word and sounded like she was sneezing.

Mary laughed. “Close,” she said, helping Ingrid say the word by sounding out each syllable.

Along with our milk tea, we were given a plate full of fried pieces of dough. After taking my first bite, I realize that this could totally be a donut if only there was some sugar sprinkled on it.

I glanced between Stella and Ingrid to see if they had also come to the same realization, but neither seemed to know what I was hinting at.

“So you’re going to take us to UB, right?” I asked Mary, just to strike a conversation up.

“That’s right. That’s why we came here.”

“And how are we all going to fit on the motorcycle?”

Mary looked at me like I was stupid. “I see someone has a sense of humor,” she finally said, laughing lightly.

“No, it’s a serious question,” I told her with a smile on my face.

“We’re going to take the lorry back to the city.”

“Lorry?”

“You are American, right?”

“You couldn’t tell by the accent?” I asked her.

“There are plenty of other people who have the same accents as you, such as Canadians.”

“Good point.”

“In that case,” Mary said, nodding to the exit, “the British would call that vehicle out there a ‘lorry,’ and Americans would call it a ‘truck.’”

“There’s not a lot of room inside,” I said, recalling the oddly shaped truck parked behind the yurts.

“That’s why you will be sitting in the back,” she said, “with your other friends. Can I meet your other friends?”

“You will meet them at some point,” I told her, trying not to make my statement sound ominous.

This would prove complicated. I didn’t know how we were going to bring a caged woman into the city.

While it was possible for me to control people here, we would not be able to control the other people we encountered in a typical major city, such as other drivers, or pedestrians that saw us driving around in a pickup truck with a caged babe in the back.

No, we had to be very careful in how we handled this.

My train of thought was shattered by the two-year-old girl, who was still leashed to the center pole of the yurt. She came toward us with her hands out, squawking, reaching for the bowl of fried dough, cute as hell.

Mary handed her a piece and the girl walked away happily.

“And what’s her name?” I asked.

“Sor.”

“Does it mean something cool?”

“All Mongolian names mean something,” Mary said.

“And what would my name be, if you were to give me a Mongolian name?” I asked as I finished my milk tea.

Mary laughed. “Teneg.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Silly, but in a stupid way.”

Ingrid and Stella cracked up, and Mary offered them the biggest shit-eating grin the young Mongolian girl could conjure up.

I wished our banter could have continued too, but commotion outside caught our attention, and I knew that trouble was brewing.

Stella and I advanced toward the front of the yurt, Ingrid staying back with Mary, telling her to remain inside.

Yelling reached my ears just as I kicked the door open.

Our nice morning had just turned sour.

Chapter Three: Once an Aunt-Fucker, Always an Aunt-Fucker

Angel held Mary’s neighbor boy by the throat, blood streaming down the dude’s face, Arianna on the ground still locked in her cage.

I had to hand it to the kid: even though he was about to be choke-slammed by a superpowered aunt-shagging asshole, he was still trying to fight back, kicking, spitting blood at Angel, yelling curse words in Mongolian.

“Gideon,” Angel said, a sinister grin taking shape on his face.

“What in the hell are you doing?” I asked, seconds away from activating Veronique’s draining power. “Put him down, or face the consequences, you stupid fuck!”

Angel bared his teeth. “It is time for us to leave, and since there’s a motorcycle right here with a sidecar, I figured it would be the best way for us to go.”

“Put him down,” Stella said, her power flaring up around her wrists, “or we will put you down.”

“No, you won’t. This is where it ends, Gideon,” Angel said, his grip tightening on the young man’s neck. “I told you we would go our separate ways at some point, and this is that point.”

“Put him down, or we take you down,” I growled. “Last warning, douchebag.”

“Fine.”

But rather than put the young man down, Angel brought his hand back and cast the guy aside. The man hit the ground hard, tumbling for a moment before finally coming to a stop.

“I need you to do one thing before I leave,” Angel said, returning his focus to me. “I need you to drain her power a little bit more. I want her good and passed out. This is going to be a long ride.”

“You don’t even know where you are,” I told him.

“Let me worry about that,” he said.

“No,” I told him firmly. “No. This is not how this is happening. I’m not doing shit for you, you hear me? If this is how you want to make your exit, then bye, bitch.”

“Gideon, don’t be a fool. I’m letting you go, which no one in their right mind would do considering what you have done, especially to my…”

“Look, man, I know Mother was pregnant, but she was also your aunt. That is some fucked up Game of Thrones meets Deliverance shit right there. You know it, I know it, and…”

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t care about your trivial references, or whatever bullshit you just happen to be going on about,” Angel said. “And I most certainly don’t care about what you think when it comes to my relationship with Ava.”

“I can take him down,” Stella whispered.

“But then what do we do with him?” I said under my breath. “We can’t have two prisoners.”

I looked to Arianna in her cage. The woman that was the spitting image of Veronique was wide-eyed now, gritting her teeth, not knowing where this was going to go.

I could tell she was scared, and as much as I knew she was our enemy, I felt for her in that moment.

I took a step closer to Angel.

“Let’s just focus on getting back,” Stella told me, her hand falling on my shoulder. “We don’t need any prisoners, not if we’re going to the capital city. And unless you want me to kill both of them…”

“Try it, you and I have trained together before. You know that I can break through anything you throw at me. So what’s it going to be, Gideon?” Angel asked, curling his fists at his sides.

I took another step forward, hesitating in that moment. It went against my upbringing and my basic code of morality to let her go with Angel, but I knew that Stella was right. We couldn’t just bring a caged woman into society, especially if our ultimate goal was joining the others.

It was a tough call, but I had gone with my gut before, and oftentimes that had turned out to be a selfish choice, only causing more trouble for our group going forward.

With another step forward, I turned from Angel to Arianna, a grimace on my face.

“Good,” Angel said. “You’re listening for once.”

“Keep your goddamn mouth shut,” Stella told him. “Or we’ll have one prisoner and one dead body to deal with.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Stella to see just how pissed she was. Her face was red, a crazy amount of energy radiating off her.

She was definitely not playing around.

With a deep breath in, I approached Arianna, my head shaking as red energy swirled around my fingertips.

“Please, don’t,” she said, looking up at me with pleading eyes.

I closed my eyes for a moment and drained enough to make her pass out, the woman’s skin turning purple, her head falling forward.

“More,” Angel told me.

“I’m good,” I said, looking at him defiantly. “Now get the fuck out of here. And next time we see you…”

“What?”

“It won’t be pretty,” I told him with a huff.

I stepped aside, allowing Angel to grab Arianna’s cage. He lifted the cage with one hand and carried it over to the motorcycle’s sidecar, where he looped the seatbelt through a corner and buckled it.

From there, he got on the motorcycle and started it up, the key already in the ignition.

The regret hit me the hardest when I saw his motorcycle speeding away, Arianna caged at the side.

I didn’t know when this would come back to haunt us, but I knew it would happen sooner or later.

“You did the right thing,” Stella said as she stepped up to my right.

“I hope so.”

“You really did.”

She forcibly lifted my arm up and brought it around her shoulder, leaning her head into the nook of my arm. It was the closest to an embrace I’d ever had with Stella (aside from the one kiss we shared), and I went from being filled with remorse to being filled with surprise.

“Don’t get used to it,” she said as she patted my stomach.

“Used to what?”

“You know what,” she finally said.

“How are we going to explain this to the others?”

“We’re not going to tell them about the hug.”

“No, I mean how are we going to explain what happened here to the Mongolians.”

“Oh, that. You will use your power, and to demonstrate your goodwill, you will heal the poor man over there.”

The Mongolian guy that Angel had nearly choke-slammed was on his knees now, coughing, blood dripping from his chin to the ground.

He started to move away as I approached him, fear spreading across his face.

I showed him both palms, indicating that I wasn’t going to do anything, that I was going to help. Eventually, he relaxed some, allowing me to crouch before him. I started up my healing power, the young man breathing heavily as I did so.

“Bayarlalaa,” he said.

“Thank you?”

“Yes,” he said in broken English. “Thank you.”

The door of the yurt burst open and Mary ran out, Ingrid chasing after her.

“What happened?” Mary asked, her hands coming to her mouth.

The young man began speaking to her in rapid-fire Mongolian, even as I tried to explain what had gone down. Mary simply nodded, ignoring me and listening to him. Once he was finished she turned to me.

“Your friend caged someone, right?”

“Um, that’s right,” I said, looking to Stella. “And he’s not our friend. Screw that guy.”

The mother of the yurt was also outside now, her baby in her arms. The young man greeted her, and began explaining the story again as Mary continued her line of questioning.

“And then he stole Dorj’s motorcycle,” Mary said. “Right?”

“That’s right. We couldn’t stop him.”

“Why couldn’t you stop him?”

“Because… I don’t think you’re going to believe what I tell you next.”

“I might. You just healed Dorj, and that’s something that doesn’t happen very often.”

“Very often?”

“My uncle is a shaman,” Mary said with a shrug. “Strange things happen around shamans. In fact, that’s where we’re going when we go back to the city.”

“Okay, let’s circle back to the shaman thing in a minute, but to maybe tell you more than I should: we are superpowered. There, I’m being honest with you. And the guy that took…”

“Dorj.”

“Yeah, the guy that took Dorj’s motorcycle has a superpower as well. He’s incredibly strong, and he can heal himself too.”

“So that’s how he lifted Dorj so easily,” Mary said. Even though she was younger than Michelle, she seemed more mature in the way that she was putting all this together, more articulate.

“That’s right.”

“What is her power?” she asked, nodding to Stella.

“You don’t want to know,” said Stella.

“She can manipulate vectors,” I told Mary, ignoring Stella’s ominous tone. “Just think of it as, well, sort of controlling parts of reality. Like making an invisible shield. That sort of thing.”

“Okay. And Ingrid’s?”

“She turns into a monster if she pinches herself.”

Mary looked at me skeptically for a moment.

“I’m serious,” I told the girl. “You don’t want to see what she can do, trust me.”

“It’s true,” said Ingrid. “I may not look very strong, but when I turn into Tulip…”

“Your monster has a name?”

Ingrid nodded. “He does.”

“And you?” Mary asked me. “What can you do?”

“Well, I have a unique power that allows me to absorb other people’s powers.”

“Like a bloody leech?”

“A leech? And isn’t the word ‘bloody’ technically a curse word in the UK?”

Mary grinned.

“I’m not sucking out their blood or anything. But whatever. You asked, so I’m explaining. As for how I healed your neighbor, I have the ability to heal, which I absorbed from someone else. I have a few other powers, and I can switch them out.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I know this almost sounds like a bunch of nonsense…”

“No,” Mary said with a shrug. “And I’m fine with it. I won’t tell anyone unless you want me to.”

“Thank you,” I said, knowing full well that Grace would do a mind sweep on the girl once she met her. “Now, I don’t want to cause any more trouble for this family. Please, let’s go to…”

“UB, Ulaanbaatar.”

“Yes, let’s go there. Then we can meet with our friends who’re in Japan.”

Mary’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to Japan? I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“We are, and trust me, you don’t want to get into what we are about to get into.”

Chapter Four: Asian Spaghetti and a Long Trip to the Capital

And that was that.

It wasn’t twenty minutes later that Ingrid, Stella and I were sitting in the back of the lorry, as Mary called it, our young translator and the man named Dorj up front, the vehicle aimed at Ulaanbaatar.

It was going to be a bumpy ride, since there was no road per se. We simply sped toward the east, barreling over the countryside, occasionally stopping so the driver could talk to local herders.

It was an exhilarating experience.

The blue sky above us seemed eternal in that moment, the Mongolian steppe as grand as it was foreboding, small pockets of civilization signaled by a cluster of white yurts, then nothing again for miles upon miles, long spells of barren grasslands.

We came across a group of wild horses, the driver skidding to a halt and kicking up dust, and Mary poking her head out the window.

“Do you see them?” she called back to us. “Horses!”

“It’s amazing,” I said, the horses galloping off to our right.

“Can you ride a horse?” she asked Ingrid.

“No.”

“Neither can I,” I said, noticing the disappointment in Ingrid’s voice. “And I’m sure Stella can’t either.”

The vector manipulator shrugged. “Why would I need to ride a horse when I can fly?”

“Touché…”

“It’s okay,” said Mary, “I can’t ride a horse either. He can,” she said, pointing to Dorj, “and you wouldn’t want to ride one of those horses anyway. They’re wild.”

“I can see that,” I said as one of them reared onto its hind legs.

Once our horse-gazing had ended, we continued on our way toward the capital city. There were a few points where I had to close my eyes to take in gulps of oxygen in an effort to steady my stomach. The jarring ride was shaking me up like a can of soda, and I was glad when the vehicle slowed for a moment to circle around a pile of rocks covered in blue flags.

“What do you think that is?” Ingrid asked.

“No idea,” I said, biting my lip again as Dorj slammed his foot down on the gas.

We were hauling ass now, occasionally hitting bumps that sent us up to a foot off our seats. It was brutal, and I was relieved as hell when we came to an actual road, even if it was filled with deep potholes.

There were a couple other vehicles now, and they sort of stayed in a straight line as they barreled toward the capital city.

Of course, wanting to get there faster than the others, Dorj began passing these vehicles, a smile on his face as he did so.

“Do you think this guy even has a driver’s license?” I asked Stella.

“Don’t worry, I will protect the vehicle if we crash into something.”

“Good to know,” I said, wincing at the pain in my gut.

“Come on, I thought you were a tough guy,” Ingrid said.

“Me?”

Stella slugged me in the arm.

“Hey!”

“Just kidding. He’s tough,” she told Ingrid. “He almost fought Angel back there; you missed it.”

Ingrid pondered this for a moment, her hair whipping in her face until she swept it behind her ears. “I feel like I’ve seen you fight him before, but I don’t know, my memory gets a little hazy when I’m Tulip.”

“I don’t like what happened back there,” I said as our driver honked at another vehicle, trying to get the other man to speed up.

The three of us waved at a child who stood on the side of the highway selling watermelons. He was with his parents, or at least I assumed they were his parents. I suddenly felt hungry for watermelon; all I’d had for breakfast was salty milk tea and fried hunks of dough.

“What other choice did we have?” Stella asked me. “We couldn’t bring Arianna to the city in a cage, unless we were able to force her to remain invisible, and even then, that could prove difficult.”

“I know, I’ve already thought about that. But I just don’t think it was the right thing to do. Something’s telling me that, and maybe I shouldn’t listen to that voice, but I normally do.”

“Don’t listen to the voices in your head,” Ingrid finally said with a chuckle. “Don’t listen, Gideon…”

“What voice am I supposed to listen to?”

“How do you even know the voice in your head is yours?” Stella asked.

“Who else would it be?” I asked, immediately thinking of Grace.

That was who the voice would be, or who the voice usually was. And while it was nice to hang out with Ingrid and Stella, and get to know both of them better, I was excited as hell to see the three original CBGs again, most notably Grace.

I felt empty when I wasn’t around her, like she filled a portion of my skull or something, augmenting my thoughts. I still had my suspicions that she controlled everything, that there was nothing that I said, did or thought that wasn’t somehow touched by her.

In that case, maybe it was Stockholm Syndrome.

And from Grace my thoughts drifted to Dorian, even as Ingrid continued to talk to Stella about something Mary had told her about this region of Mongolia and the herder lifestyle.

I needed a damn Internet connection.

I needed to know how far Ulaanbaatar was from Nagasaki, or Tokyo for that matter. I really had no idea where the other CBGs were, but we had set up a joint email account, and there were ways for us to get in touch with each other now. The only thing I was curious about was why Dorian hadn’t already used her empathetic teleportation power to come to us.

Then again, maybe we were too far out of range.

Dorj slowed to a stop about thirty minutes later. There were a couple of yurts along the side of the road, a sign in Cyrillic out front. He got out of the vehicle and stretched his arms over his head, yawning.

“We’re going to eat now,” Mary told us.

“How far are we from UB?” I asked as I hopped out of the back of the truck. It was weird to be on solid ground, my center of gravity a little iffy.

“Hopefully, we will reach there by night.”

“I thought you came from the city,” I told her.

“I did, I came from the city of Khovd, from my grandparents’ home, but we’re going to Ulaanbaatar and that’s pretty far away. Luckily, they have this new highway that will take us there. It used to be a very long trip.”

“Why didn’t we just go to Khovd?”

“There aren’t many foreigners there, and the airplanes only come three times a week.”

I looked to Stella, who was stretching a bit, a pained expression on her face as she twisted to the side.

“But you think we will be there by tonight, right? To UB?”

“Probably,” Mary said with a shrug. “We need to get petrol too, but we should be able to do that soon. Anyway, it’s time for lunch; let’s have some tsuivan.” Mary gestured toward the roadside yurt.

“What’s tsuivan?” Ingrid asked as we stepped up to the entrance.

“It’s like…” Mary thought for a moment. “It is sort of like Asian spaghetti. Trust me, it’s delicious!”

The tsuivan was good, and Mary was right, it was sort of an Asian spaghetti without tomato sauce. It definitely wasn’t like ramen, or any other Asian noodle dish I had eaten before, a bit saltier, and no broth either.

It did the trick in the end, keeping us satiated on the bumpy ride to the capital city.

The temperature dropped considerably as we grew closer to UB, as the day started to shift into night, and it didn’t help that we were sitting in the bed of a truck that alternated between thirty and eighty miles-per-hour depending on if Dorj got a clear stretch of highway.

Oddly enough, the vehicle’s rumbling had put me to sleep at some point, only to be woken up by the sound of the horn and someone yelling, the noises gone just as quickly as they appeared.

Eventually, I was able to see through the windows of the vehicle that there was a city on the horizon.

More traffic too.

Even though I could now see Ulaanbaatar, and could smell it too, it felt like the last stretch was the longest as we pulled into a line of vehicles, more and more cars trying to cut into the space in front of us, people honking their horns all around us. It was maddening watching it all; seeing how unorganized it was and how antsy some of the drivers were had me feeling manic.

Lots of headlights were flashing on us too, and I wondered in that moment what some of them must have thought to see three, clearly not Mongolian, people on the back of a lorry.

We came to a police checkpoint and a man wearing a Soviet-esque military uniform that included a cool beret waved us through, not at all paying attention to the three foreigners in back. There were dozens upon dozens of vehicles behind us, all cantankerous, and the checkpoint guy seemed like he just wanted to go home.

I couldn’t blame him.

Not only that, I felt his pain; I couldn’t help but think about my bedroom in Colorado, away from all this madness, the noise, the smoke, the dust, the bedlam that I would come to recognize came hand-in-hand with many an Asian city.

We had gone from rolling hills and sparkling streams to a slum of sorts, yurts behind cracked wooden fences, the occasional shack, people loitering on the side of the road, stacked tires, two kids pushing a cart that contained two large jugs, roadside food stands, drunken men moving around, women walking in high heels even though they were on cracked sidewalks and dirt roads, their purses clutched tightly to their chests.

I turned to Ingrid and saw the expression on her face, one of both shock and wonder. Stella’s was different, hers was one of sheer curiosity.

I’d never seen anything like this before.

Sure, I’d seen some of the rundown areas of New Haven, the neighborhoods around Yale University (I never understood why a university so rich couldn’t give two shits about the space that surrounded it), and most of the homes in Fair Haven with their chain-link fences and ‘beware of dog’ signs.

But nothing like this.

“Is this really the capital?” I asked Stella, who seemed fascinated by the sights and sounds. It looked nothing like what I had seen from the road, skyscrapers and blinking lights atop large buildings.

It was only after we continued for another twenty minutes that I realized that Ulaanbaatar was similar to Rio in the fact that the center of the city was modernized, with tall buildings and public works, while the outer rims were where the poorest people lived.

We reached a wide boulevard with more Soviet Bloc apartments. There were lots of Korean restaurants too, karaokes, everything from English to Cyrillic plastered across some of the buildings, a few surprise American restaurants as well such as McStarbucks and Wendy’s Hut.

I even saw a billboard for Krunkin’ Kronuts.

America runs on Krunkin!

We came to a traffic circle, Mongolian drivers making up their own traffic rules as they zipped around each other fighting for the exit points.

Dorj swerved around a public bus that was hooked up to an electric line above it, the bus driver shaking his fist and yelling something out the window, an unlit cigarette perched on his bottom lip.

We cut down a side street, and into an alley that opened up to a courtyard that doubled as a parking area, Dorj kicking up dust and debris as he skidded to a halt, nearly colliding with a roadside trash can.

There were no rules as to where someone could park. I even saw someone partially parked on a basketball court, a few older boys still playing basketball even though it was getting late.

“We’re here,” Mary called to us as we got out of the truck. “This is where I live with my uncle.” She looked up at an apartment building, easily nine stories tall.

“I thought you lived in another city,” said Ingrid.

“I’m living in Khovd for the summer, to stay with my grandparents because they’re getting old.”

“So you don’t live with your parents?” I asked as Dorj peeled off, likely taking the truck out for a spin or possibly back to the countryside.

Who knew with that guy.

“No, my dad still lives in London. He’s a chef there, and hopefully, I’ll move back next summer. My mom lives here in UB, but she isn’t here right now. She’s in Singapore studying English. She never picked it up while we lived in London. She mostly stayed home with me, so she’s trying to improve her English before we move back.”

“How global,” I said as we came to a big metal door.

Mary stopped in front of the keypad and pounded in a number. As soon as she did the door popped open, allowing us to step inside.

We came into a small interior space with a stairwell and an elevator. The elevator door opened and a woman wearing a super tight dress and high heels stepped out, a clutch under her arm. Next to her was a well-dressed man in a suit and black tie.

They looked at us curiously and moved past.

“Where you think they are going?” I asked as we got to the elevator.

“Maybe to the disco,” Mary said. “They are quite popular here.”

“Discos?” Ingrid asked.

I was about to ask the same question. I hadn’t heard that word used for a nightclub, well, ever.

“You know, nightclubs,” Mary said as she pressed the button that went to the ninth floor.

“Your Internet’s working now, right?” I asked her.

“Yes, but my phone died,” she said, reaching into her small bag and showing me her dead phone screen. “But don’t worry, I have a computer. You can use it to contact your friends.”

“Nice,” I told her as we reached the top floor.

The doors cranked opened, and the first thing to meet my ears was the sound of a beating drum.

“Oh no,” Mary said, pausing.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“Well, I guess this isn’t such a big deal. I told you earlier my uncle is a shaman. He must be seeing some people tonight.”

“He’s a shaman?” Ingrid asked, looking from Stella to me.

“Yes, and hopefully he isn’t taking his red spirit,” Mary said as she made her way to a big metal door that reminded me of a bank vault. All the apartments had them. It would take a damn bazooka to get through these things.

“Did you say his ‘red spirit?’” I asked.

“Let’s just go to my room when we get inside, and I’ll explain everything. Maybe you can meet the shaman,” she said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Mary opened the big metal door, and sure enough, we were greeted by the loud pounding of a drum, some random noises too, which sounded like garbled chants. Rather than go all the way into the hallway to the right, where the sound was emitting from, we hung a left straight into Mary’s room.

She plugged her phone in and pointed to her laptop, which sat on the desk.

“I’m sorry there’s not a lot of room,” she told Ingrid and Stella, “but you can sit on the floor.”

“That’s fine,” Stella said as she sat.

“I can also bring chairs. Well, I don’t want to disturb my uncle.”

“No, this is fine,” Ingrid told her.

“Here we go, here we go,” I said as I opened her laptop and saw the login screen. I turned the laptop to her, and Mary typed in her information. Once she was done, I went to GoogleFace and clicked on the email icon.

I typed cherryblossomgirls and keyed in the password, “Michelle.”

It loaded for a moment, my heart fluttering for just a second in anticipation.

Sure enough, I saw that Dorian had already saved a message in the drafts folder.

Gideon.

We are all safe. We don’t know where you are or what to do, but for now, we are staying at a hotel in Nagasaki. I will keep checking this email account. Please respond.

Love,

Dorian

“We got them!” I told the others.

“They’re okay?” Ingrid asked.

“Yes, they are,” I said as I started to type a message:

Dorian,

We are in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, which is…

(I looked up the distance on GoogleFace.)

about 1600 miles from Nagasaki. I will keep checking this draft folder through the night and into the morning.

“Where would be a good place for our friends to meet us?” I asked Mary. “Preferably a very large space, that is easy for them to find.”

The young Mongolian thought for a moment. “You mean in UB, right? Because Mongolia is an incredibly large country, twice the size of Germany.”

“Yes, here in the city.”

“Sukhbaatar Square,” she said. “It’s in front of our government building. It’s very large, and it should be easy to meet them there.”

“Thanks,” I told her as I continued to type my message:

We will meet you in a place called Sukhbaatar Square. You can use your empathetic teleportation to get there. We are currently in an apartment on the ninth floor, but there are a lot of buildings around, and you would be teleporting a long way. It’s best to pick a large place, so that’s why we’re going with the square. Let me know as soon as you get this message and we will arrange a time. I can’t wait to see you all.

(I did another quick internet search.)

You are one hour ahead of us, FYI. So if I tell you meet us at 9, I’m telling you 9 your time, which is 8 our time. We’ll work it out.

Love,

Gid-ee-un (my Korean name)

I made sure the message was saved, and once it was, I turned to the others.

“As soon as Dorian sees the message, we’ll be heading to Nagasaki.”

Stella nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Are we checking out the shaman in the meantime?” Ingrid asked.

Mary hesitated for a moment. “It can be a bit strange,” she finally told us, “but it is something that is unique to Mongolian culture, that people find interesting. I don’t know if you’ll be able to ask the shaman any questions or anything, but maybe you should at least observe it.”

“I’m down,” I said. “Ingrid?”

“Definitely.”

Stella shrugged.

“Right.” Mary stepped out of the room and returned a few minutes later. “The shaman will see you now.”

Chapter Five: My Uncle the Shaman

I was ushered into a small room and told to sit in front of a man wearing a red mask, with fringe hanging off it that stretched past his waist. The shaman wore black robes with trinkets pinned to his lapel, a string of prayer beads wrapped around his wrists. He sat with his legs crossed, rolling his head on his shoulders, trembling.

A pair of eyes, a nose and an open mouth were stitched onto the front of his mask, glaring down at me.

The room smelled of smoke and alcohol, a haze hanging in the air. Next to the shaman was his translator, a girl just a few years older than Mary, who sat on her knees listening to the shaman grumble.

I would later learn that shamans needed translators because they spoke in the spirit’s native tongue, and considering the spirit could be from an era that stretched as far back as Genghis Khan, it was usually different from the modern Mongolian language.

It was fascinating how this woman not much older than Mary seemed to understand the shaman’s garbled responses, which sounded like a drunk Daffy Duck to my ears.

The translator went for a long pipe and stuck it under the fringe of the shaman’s mask. She took a cigarette and lit the end of it, taking a few hits off the cig before stuffing it in the pipe. The shaman began puffing on the pipe, the end of the cigarette glowing red.

I caught a glimpse of Stella to my right.

I didn’t see her conjure anything up, but I was pretty sure she had put a vector shield in front of us, her eyes showcasing her fright, her body language showing that she was ready for anything.

Ingrid sat behind me on my right, Mary too, the Mongolian girl whispering to Ingrid.

“What’s going on here, Mary?” I asked.

“My uncle has taken his angry spirit,” she explained. “That’s why he’s wearing a red mask.”

The shaman continued to puff away at the cigarette until it was gone. The translator removed the pipe and gave him a bowl, which she quickly filled with liquid from a three-liter Fanta bottle.

“And what’s he drinking?” I asked.

“Watered down vodka,” Mary said.

“Um, okay.”

“The spirit likes it. All spirits seem to like things like cigarettes and alcohol.”

“So he’s drunk?”

“No. You will see once the spirit leaves him. He won’t be drunk.”

The shaman’s voice rose. He started speaking in a garbled language like he was cursing under his breath. The translator bent over and listened for a moment, and when she was done, she spoke in Mongolian to Mary.

“She says that the shaman is ready to meet you.”

“Okay, hi,” I told the shaman, scooting forward.

“No,” Mary said. “Bow before him and let him touch your head.”

I did exactly as I was instructed, bowing before the shaman, his hands guided to my head by the translator.

He made a grunting sound as he massaged the back of my skull. He said something, and I heard a metal bowl being filled with alcohol. The shaman swallowed it down and spit it on the back of my head.

I shot back up.

“Relax,” Mary said. “He’s blessing you.”

“With his spirit?”

“You’re the one that wanted to see the shaman,” she said.

“I thought that was Ingrid,” I told her.

“My idea, but you’re the guinea pig,” Ingrid said, Stella chuckling under her breath.

Mary nodded. “You need to donate something to him. Do you have something you can give him?”

“Not really,” I told her as I tried my best to wipe away some of the liquid that had gotten on my glasses.

Mary took my glasses from me, wiped them on her shirt, and handed them back. This gave me a moment to think, as the shaman still gyrated on his hips, grunting every now and then, making gargled noises with his throat.

“I’ve got something to donate.”

I took the knife that Veronique had made me from my boot. Holding it in both hands, I pressed it forward, telling the shaman that it was a gift. Mary explained this to the shaman’s translator, who then spoke directly to the spirit.

The translator guided the shaman’s hands forward, the man making a sound that reminded me of Yoda as he took the blade from me. He brought the blade to his face, even though he couldn’t actually see it. I grew tense once he traced his finger along the edge of the blade, figuring he would draw a bead of blood.

The shaman grunted and handed the knife to his translator, saying something to her.

Not a moment later, she was handing him a drumhead that was about three-inches thick. It had a cross on the underside of the drumhead that allowed him to hold it like a shield.

Once his drum was in place, he stuck his free hand out, the translator giving him a mallet with blue fabric tied to the end.

The shaman brought the drum in front of his face and started beating it, harder and harder until the sound was deafening. As he tapped out the rhythm he shook his head, the fringes of his mask beating against his chest and face.

He finally let up, and beckoned me forward again.

“Okay,” I said, following his lead. He placed his hands on my head, and began speaking to the translator.

“He wants to know where you’re from,” Mary said. “He knows that you are a foreigner, but this spirit has never left Mongolia, so it is a bit confused.”

“I’m from America,” I told him.

Mary translated to the translator, who then spoke to the shaman.

The shaman’s spirit tried to pronounce the word a few times but couldn’t, so he moved on.

“He wants to know how you came here. Are your horses well?”

“My horses?”

I looked back at Mary to see that she was nodding.

“We came here…” I hesitated for a moment. I got the sense that I was talking to an old spirit, especially with the horses question, but I didn’t know how much I should say. Then again, wasn’t like the shaman was going to come after us or tell anyone, especially if he really was channeling his spirit. “We were teleported here through a portal,” I finally told him.

Mary was stumped by this one for a moment. Eventually, she figured out a way to tell the shaman, which was then translated to him by his assistant.

“He says that you have a great power, one that he has never sensed in a person before.”

“Thank you.”

The shaman spoke some more.

“He wants to touch your head again.”

“Sure,” I said, bowing before him, the musk of incense berating my nostrils.

“He says that your power is hidden, that it is something that may surprise even you.”

“Hidden?” I considered this for a moment. “It’s not exactly hidden, but sure, and it always surprises me.”

“He also says that you recently parted with someone, and that it was a mistake.”

I swallowed hard; I knew exactly what the shaman was referring to.

Or at least I thought I did.

Letting Arianna go with Angel was against my normal mode of operation. I knew it at the time, and I was definitely feeling it as I knelt before the shaman, the man speaking in a garbled tone again.

He dug his fingers into my head, the pain making me wince.

“He says that you have made a very dangerous mistake, that it is going to come back to haunt you. That your enemies are growing stronger.”

“Great.”

“He says that your life is at risk.”

“Not so great,” I said, Stella chuckling behind me.

I was trying to be skeptical about all this, but it was kind of hard given the situation, the intense man seated before me whispering things to a translator who then spoke to Mary.

The shaman mumbled for what felt like forever. Finally, Mary spoke again: “He says that the next five days will decide your fate. You need to throw milk to the wind every morning for the next five days. He also wants you to carry this with you.”

I felt the translator’s hand drop onto my shoulder, indicating that I could sit up now. Once I did, I saw that the shaman was holding an old coin.

“A coin?” I asked Mary.

“It’s an old Mongolian coin. Mongolians don’t use coins now, but we used to. It’s fifteen tugrik,” she told me, and sure enough, when I turned the coin over I saw the number fifteen. I also saw the date 1970, as well as Cyrillic writing.

“The shaman says that this and the milk will protect you.”

“Okay,” I told her.

“I will show you how to do the milk in the morning.”

“Thanks. Can I ask him some questions?”

“Please,” Mary said.

“I…”

And in that moment I suddenly didn’t know what to ask the spirit. Even if I respected his culture, I didn’t quite believe in what he was doing, what he was telling me. Then again, it was easy to be superstitious when a shaman just conjured up a doomsday prophecy.

“Do you have a question?” Mary asked after I didn’t say anything.

“What am I doing wrong?”

It was a stupid question, and I regretted it just as quickly as it came out of my mouth, but Mary translated it anyway.

The shaman replied; his translator got his pipe again, which she shoved under his mask. She lit a cigarette once it was in place, and took two puffs of it before placing it in the pipe so the spirit could do his thing.

I was called forward again, and once I bowed, the shaman took a deep drag off the pipe, blowing cigarette smoke onto my head. He did it again, and again, until I was coughing.

Finally, the shaman spoke, Mary listening to the translator once he finished.

“He says that it is important to know the difference between your instincts, what’s right, and what’s wrong. He thinks that you get confused with these things sometimes, but if you seriously take the time to consider what you’re trying to do, the answer will present itself.”

“Okay,” I said, the cigarette smoke all around me now. “Okay.”

Once he set his pipe down, the shaman took his drum again and started beating it. We were told to back away, and as soon as we did, he jumped up, startling all of us. He fell back to the ground, the spirit apparently gone.

His translator was at his side immediately, helping him take off the tight mask.

And I assumed he would look red-eyed and possibly drunk after all the alcohol and cigarettes he had smoked. But nope. From what I could tell, he was completely sober, a stern look on his face as he took us all in.

Finally, Mary’s uncle turned to his translator and asked her something in Mongolian, or at least I recognized that it wasn’t the same crazy language he’d spoken in his trance.

“What’s he asking?” Ingrid asked Mary.

“He wants to know what happened,” she explained. “He never can remember what the spirit has said. Did you enjoy it?”

I looked from Stella to Ingrid, both of whom had wary expressions on their faces. “Sure, and tell him thank you for the coin,” I said, showing the coin to the shaman.

His eyes narrowed as he spoke to his translator.

“He can’t believe the spirit gave you that coin. It’s the spirit’s favorite coin,” Mary translated rapid-fire. “The spirit never gives objects like that away, especially his wrathful spirit.”

“So the shaman can take more spirits?” Ingrid asked.

“He sure can,” Mary said with a smile. “He is up to three now, and one of the spirits he takes is the spirit of a horse.”

“Let’s save that one for next time,” I said.

Mary laughed. “Not a bad idea. The horse spirit is absolutely mental.”

Chapter Six: Sukhbaatar Square

I was so happy I could cry.

(Of course, tough alpha-types like myself only shed tears when we lifted too many weights, and only because pumping all that iron had somehow shaken free a repressed childhood memory.)

All kidding aside, I was glad as hell when the next morning came around. I had received an email from Dorian.

Thank Jeebus.

“We’re so out of here,” I told Ingrid and Stella, coming into the room that they were sharing with Mary.

I’d had my choice of sleeping in the shaman’s bedroom, or sleeping in the living room, and after his little performance last night, I definitely chose the living room.

I didn’t want to meet his goddamn horse spirit, and I actually said that aloud last night, only realizing later how salacious it sounded.

Or at least it felt like it should sound salacious because horses have giant cocks.

Never mind.

Quiet, Writer Gideon, I thought to myself in Grace’s voice.

“What?” Stella asked, her hair a mess.

I cleared my throat, canceling my inner monologue. “Tighten up that purty Dutch braid, milady, our besties are ready to get us!”

“Please translate,” Stella said aloud.

“I got nothing,” Ingrid told Mary.

Both CBGs had slept on the floor, on makeshift beds made of fluffy comforters and pillows. Mary was on the actual bed, already laughing when she saw the stupid look on my face.

“Thanks for letting me use your laptop, by the way,” I told her, now holding it under my arm.

“What did your friend say?”

“They said that they are in Nagasaki,” I glanced at the message again, “and that she is ready to get us.”

“Boo. I was just starting to enjoy Mongolia,” Ingrid said.

“Maybe you could come back,” Mary told her.

“Yes, maybe,” I said. “But listen, kiddos, I hate to rush everyone, but we sort of have a mission to get back to.”

“Let’s throw the milk first,” Mary said as she got out of bed. She was wearing an oversized Avatar t-shirt and pink leggings, which didn’t go so well with the thick leather Mongolian sandals she slipped into at her door.

“Follow me.”

She led Yours Truly to the kitchen, where she got a small shot glass and filled it with milk.

“Where am I supposed to throw it?” I asked her.

“Off the balcony,” she said. “And you need to do it three times.”

“Okay, I can do that,” I told her.

I left the kitchen with a shot glass full of milk and she called back to me, “Aren’t you going to bring the milk?”

“Good call,” I told her as I went back for the cardboard milk carton.

I followed Mary out onto the balcony, which was protected by a thick wall of glass. There was a handle to open one of the panes, which she did, allowing a cold morning breeze in.

“Okay, throw it.”

I tossed the milk out the window, wondering for a moment if I was going to piss any passersby off with milk from the sky. But we were pretty high up, so if anything, they could chalk it up to a bird crapping on them.

After two more shot glasses, I returned to the living room to find Ingrid and Stella ready to go.

“I will email Dorian,” I said, going for the laptop. “What’s the name of the square again?”

“Don’t you want to eat breakfast first?” Mary asked.

“Normally, I would say yes, but we have some very important stuff we need to do. Thanks so much for your hospitality, Mary, and tell your uncle that we appreciate him letting us stay here, and the advice his, um, spirit gave us. Wait, we may need him to take a ride to the square.”

“We can just catch a taxi,” she said. “It isn’t very far, just a couple kilometers.”

“Awesome, and the name of the square?”

“Sukhbaatar Square.”

It wasn’t thirty minutes later that we came to a stop at a busy intersection, a policeman in white gloves directing traffic. I didn’t know what it was with Asia having an actual person direct traffic, but it seemed like both a shitty job and a waste of manpower.

Boy, was Ulaanbaatar congested.

While we were technically driving on a four-lane road, other drivers treated it as if it were eight. There were cars coming in from everywhere, a few bicycles, motorcycles, buses, vehicles from the countryside, as well as storage trucks equipped with advertisements.

The Mongolians loved their advertisements, and all the models they used on billboards and banners hanging from buildings looked cooler than any model I had yet to see in Asia. Whether they were wearing sunglasses and going for a hip-hop style, or doing something traditional, there was something very photogenic about the people from Central Asia, something that set them apart from the other regions.

At least, that’s the vibe I got on the short drive to the square.

“What’s that building called?” Ingrid asked, pointing at a glistening building across from the square.

“That’s Blue Sky Tower,” said Mary. “It’s supposed to be shaped like the mast of a giant ship.”

“What’s that have to do with the blue sky?” I asked her.

She laughed. “Actually, I don’t know. You sure have a lot of questions.”

“It’s my superpower.”

“I thought you were a mimic, no?”

“That too.”

The cabdriver, who spoke very little English, pulled up to the side of the curb across from the square. We got out, and Mary led us to a crosswalk, where we waited with a large crowd of people to make our way to the other side.

To the right of the square was an old opera house, definitely some Soviet architecture; at the end of the square, facing away from the street, was the Mongolian Capitol with a large statue of Genghis Khan in front of it; and to our immediate left was a string of old buildings that reminded me of some of the antediluvian structures around the New Haven green.

We followed Mary toward the towering statue of Genghis Khan.

There was also a statue in the middle of the square of Sukhbaatar himself, the man credited with bringing Russians to Mongolia. He was seated on a horse, the front two hooves coming up. Benches all around the statue were already filled with people.

A guy wearing a tweed newsboy cap approached and showed us pictures that he’d drawn, asking if we would like to buy any.

As I started to tell him no, I saw a purple flash at the front of the statue, my heart leaping into my chest as Dorian and Grace appeared.

I reached them in a matter of moments.

“We need to go,” I told Dorian, who was just about as happy as I’d ever seen her.

Rather than say anything, she jumped into my arms, wrapping her legs around me, nearly sending the both of us tumbling down the steps.

“I’m so glad to see you!” she said, Grace too coming at me and hugging both of us. Dorian was wearing her punk rock usual with a scarf, Grace going for a gothic Loli look.

“Ingrid, Stella,” Grace said, not able to take her white eyes off me.

“Are we ready to go?” Dorian asked as she got down.

Mary came running up to us. “Wait, wait,” she said, her cheeks a little red from running. “Are these your friends?”

“Yes, and we have to go, people are starting to watch.”

Grace looked at the Mongolians and tourists who had gathered around us; all of their phones fell from their hands, shattering on the ground.

Rather than having the intended effect of scaring the crowd, this angered them. A few of the men started to come forward.

“Okay, Mary, thank you so much for your help, but we really have to go,” Ingrid said hurriedly. “I don’t know if we will ever be back to Mongolia, but if we do come back, we will look you up.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“Promise,” said Ingrid.

“I’ll send you an email,” Mary said. “I still have your email address logged into my computer.”

“Fine, that’s fine,” I told her.

You don’t want me to wipe her mind? Grace thought to me.

No. She was really cool to us, and I don’t think she’ll be able to do anything with the info she has, I thought back.

As you wish.

“I need a moment to charge.” Dorian looked around, spotting a tall building not far from the opera house.

Whoosh!

The five of us teleported away instantly, appearing on the tall building. The square was now to our right.

Dorian crouched, a vein pulsing on the side of her head.

“I can get a phone back in Nagasaki and mess with your settings,” I started to tell her.

“No, I’ll be fine, it was just long-distance. That can be a little… Well, you know.”

“I know,” I told her.

“I’m so happy to see you all,” Grace said, now smiling at the others. “If we hadn’t set up a network to talk to each other, this would have been impossible.”

“Agreed,” I told her. “But it wasn’t my idea, it was Michelle’s. She’s the one that wanted a phone, which led to all of this.”

“I’ll be sure to thank her when I see her here in a bit,” she said cheerfully.

“Michelle is going to be so happy to see us,” Ingrid said. “We should be very careful about how we approach her unless we want her to run one of us over.”

“She already knows you are coming.” Dorian adjusted the red headband she sometimes wore. “And yes, you should be careful. She ran so quickly around the room after I told her that she almost burned a ring in the flooring.”

“That’s so Michelle,” Stella said.

“Totes.”

She looked at me funny.

“You’ve never heard that term before?”

“Not from a man,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me.

“We are in Nagasaki, right?” Ingrid asked.

“Yes, but we aren’t staying with the cute old man and his wife any longer,” Dorian said. “We got a hotel thanks to this one.” She pointed her thumb at Grace.

The psychic shifter shrugged. “Look, I didn’t come to Asia to stay in an Airbnb.”

“Agreed,” I told the group, “let’s live it up a bit.”

Chapter Seven: There Goes Our Sunny Morning in Nagasaki

“GIDEON!!!”

Michelle pumped her fist in the air before pacing back and forth as slowly she could, trying to contain her excitement.

“It’s okay to hug me,” I told her, spreading my arms wide, but rather than the young speedster coming into my arms it was Veronique, followed by Chloe, both of them hugging me tightly.

“Tell us everything,” Veronique said, a slight agitation in her voice.

“Where did you guys go?” Michelle asked Ingrid, tugging on her arm. “I mean, what country?”

“Mongolia.”

“Wow! Where’s that? Near America?”

“Did you pay attention back at the training facility?” Ingrid asked her.

“Pay attention to what? The classes they made us take? Sometimes, but…” Michelle looked around the room. “My mind wanders.”

“I need a shower,” said Stella, “and also, hi, everyone. I’ll forget the fact that no one hugged me.”

“Do you need a hug?” Michelle asked, launching herself at Stella. Stella laughed as Michelle squeezed her waist tightly.

“How’s this? Tighter? Dorian, help me!”

“I’m not hugging it out,” Dorian said, even though she was already approaching Stella, just in case the vector manipulator actually wanted one.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Stella said. “But I do want to take a shower.”

“Pay attention to me,” Veronique said, draining just a bit of my power.

By this point, she had led me over to the couch. The television was on in the background, Chloe was sitting on my left.

“I’m trying to pay attention. Having so many people in our group can be distracting,” I said, biting my lip instantly. I didn’t want to make this sound like we needed any less people; luckily, no one took it like that.

“Well, what happened?” Chloe asked. “Or do I need to ask Grace to download it from your brains and transmit it out?”

“I’m always available for that,” Grace said, sitting down on the armrest next to Veronique.

There was plenty of seating in the spacious hotel that Grace had booked for us. I just so happened to be sitting on a loveseat, but I also saw a longer couch directly across from the TV, and another loveseat.

Quite the pad.

Behind the television was a gray wall, which had two large windows on either side of the TV that provided water views. There was an open concept kitchen space as well, the hotel more of an extended stay type of place than a one-night affair. Ingrid and Michelle went to the kitchen area and took some drinks from the fridge, heading off into one of the bedrooms.

There are four bedrooms, just in case you are wondering, Grace thought to me.

This caused my hair to stand up on the back of my neck for a moment. I forgot what it was like to have you in my head, I finally thought back.

You were only gone for two days.

Yeah, but I had no access to the outside world, so it felt longer. You’d be surprised what two days feels like without having any access.

Sometimes it seems like the Internet has rotted everyone’s brains.

I don’t disagree, but I wouldn’t be a best-selling writer without the Internet, so I consider it a necessary evil.

Veronique elbowed me. “Stop thinking to Grace.”

“How’d you know?”

“You had a look on your face. Now, what happened, Gideon?”

“Right, what happened…” I took a deep breath in. “I will keep this as short as possible because I know that I can be a little long-winded at times.”

“A little?” Veronique asked.

“Basically, we were banished to Mongolia by Bae, and Angel was with us.”

“He was?” Chloe asked.

“We didn’t see him back there,” Dorian started to say.

“Yes, he was with us,” I said. “We actually parted ways yesterday. And he wasn’t the only one. The woman who assaulted us at the police station was there too,” I told Grace. “Her name is Arianna Lord, in case you forgot, and she was invisible until we took her prisoner.”

“And I am guessing she went with Angel?” Veronique asked. “Or is she here right now?” She glanced around, trying to be playful and failing.

“Um, yeah, that’s right. It was between us taking her and Angel taking her, and…” I swallowed hard. “I let him take her.”

“Good.” Dorian sat down on the longer couch. She turned to me after curling her knees to her chest. “It’s not easy keeping a prisoner.”

“Tell me about it,” said Chloe.

“Sure, after Gideon finishes,” Dorian said, laughing.

I remembered what it was like to have Dorian as our prisoner, how she had woken up in Austin, thirsty, and how I had stupidly brought her a glass of water. For a while, I had even thought that she had betrayed us, until she appeared in my jail cell and rescued me.

How long ago was that?

It seemed like a century had passed since we were at that dusty hotel in Austin, Texas, off Congress Avenue. How could such a complex time suddenly feel simple to me?

I stuck my hand in my pocket, feeling the coin that the shaman had given me.

What a life, what a fucking life.

“Anyway,” I said, “I thought it was better to let Angel take her. And now I’m sort of regretting it.”

Veronique rolled her eyes. “Why would you regret something like that?”

“Because who knows what Angel will do with her.”

“She’s our enemy,” Chloe reminded me.

“She is, but at least three people in this room right now were once our enemies.”

“Do you think you could have turned her?” Dorian asked.

“I don’t know. She did try to seduce me too, which was weird as hell.”

“And you resisted, right?” Veronique asked.

“Of course I resisted. I’m still here, aren’t I? If I’d let her out, she would have beaten the hell out of me, possibly killing me. Well, at least that’s the vibe I was getting when I looked into her mind.”

“Better Angel’s problem than ours,” Grace said, focusing on the television remote. Using her telekinetic power, she began changing the station. There was a kid’s show, then a nature show, then a baseball game, then…

“Go back to that one,” I said, looking at the TV.

Grace went back to the previous station, a news channel, where we saw a Japanese newscaster speaking frantically. A video played over her shoulder of an attack of some sorts. Unfortunately, all the information was in Japanese.

“Someone hand me their phone.”

“Here,” Veronique said, taking her phone out of her back pocket.

I went to GoogleFace and began doing a little sleuthing, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

It didn’t take me very long to find live updates from the attack on the Imperial Palace, and when I read the next words, I knew that we needed to act now.

“The Aum Shinrikyo have taken the Emperor and his wife hostage,” I announced to the group.

“The who?” Chloe asked.

“Ah,” Grace said, her eyes suddenly white. “That’s the name of the terrorist group that we took down in Shibuya.”

“When we had just arrived, right?” Dorian asked. “I had such bad jetlag then.”

“Well, I am already suited up,” I told them, handing Veronique her phone back.

“You can’t be serious,” said the metal vampire.

“As it stands, the people of Japan aren’t too happy with the Cherry Blossom Girls,” I explained. “If we can do something like rescue the Emperor, we may get the public on our side. Feel me?”

“No.”

“Everyone get suited up,” I said, ignoring her negativity. “Let’s take out the terrorists, try not to kill them, get a private word with the Emperor, and then get back to our hotel. I know this is jumping right into things, but it’s what we are here to do.”

“And if it’s a trap?” Chloe asked.

“Let’s be ready for that as well. We’re leaving in five minutes,” I told them, making the ‘wrap it up’ sign.

People were going to exploit us, and we were going to be scapegoats for a lot of things that we didn’t cause. But I was convinced that high-profile rescues could change this.

After all, people love their royalty.

Chapter Eight: Rescue Mission

There wasn’t a lot of time to go over schematics or try to figure a way into the Imperial Palace via the sewers.

For this to work, we had to strike fast, and above all, we had to avoid as much collateral damage as possible.

“As soon as we arrive, Grace is in charge of damage control. Chloe, back her up,” I told the CBGs, all of whom stood before me now, suited up.

We had two cellphones out, providing us with pictures and maps of the Imperial Palace. The easiest place to teleport was going to be an open space in front of a bridge, a classic Japanese castle behind it with a classic pagoda roof.

“I will take care of any metal,” Veronique said.

“Yes, and Michelle, I have a very important mission for you.”

“Me? What’s that?” she asked, slipping her knife back into its sheath.

“I need you to find out where the Emperor and Empress are. The complex is large, so I need you to go around all the nooks and crannies and identify how many terrorists you can find, and also where the Emperor is being held. Do you think you can do that?”

“I know I can do it!”

“And don’t attack them, not yet, anyway. Remember, you’re just gathering intel.”

“Right!”

“Do not engage the public,” I reminded the group. “Let’s get the military and any other law enforcement there on our side.”

“And me?” Ingrid asked.

The beast morpher was next to Stella, who had just gotten out of the shower, her hair wet and pulled into a ponytail. It was odd not seeing Stella with her Dutch braid, and for a brief second, this made me ponder how much haircuts defined who we were.

“I don’t want to release Tulip unless we have to. So once we arrive, take your beast armor.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Ingrid asked.

“By all means.”

“It may be better to send Tulip out. He can round up any of the terrorists that are holding the perimeter.”

“True, but just stay in your beast armor form for now. If we need Tulip, we’ll let you know. Finally, Stella, you’ll be playing defense as usual.”

“Can do,” she told me.

“Which reminds me, I should switch out my powers.” I raised my hand to high-five Stella, replacing Veronique’s metal manipulation power with Stella’s vector ability. This would allow me to cast a shield and knock people aside if I needed to.

“Are we good?” Grace asked.

“Maybe it would be best if you go invisible first, before we arrive,” I told her. “You can act as our secret weapon in that regard.”

“Will do,” Grace said, starting to fade away.

“Finally, if this is an ambush, our new mission will be to get out of there as quickly as possible. So stay close, and be able to rendezvous with us. Once we have established that this isn’t an ambush, and once we know where the terrorists are holding the Emperor and the Empress, we may split up at that point.”

“I think we should stay together.”

“We’re a bigger target when we’re together,” Chloe reminded Veronique.

“That doesn’t matter to me. There is nothing that the Japanese government has that will be able to take us down. But our superpowered enemies? That’s a different ballgame. And for that, it would be best if we stay close,” Veronique said.

“Got it, let’s aim for that then,” I said with finality. “Are we ready?”

“On me,” Dorian said, stepping forward. “And remember, I may need a moment to recharge after sending us so far away.”

And just as we had done not thirty minutes ago, we appeared in Dorian’s teleportation tunnel, or whatever bastard of quantum mechanics she had conjured up, all of us running, Dorian leading the pack. Of course, Michelle caught up to her, the young speedster backpedaling a bit in a way that reminded me of Skyrim, of all things.

I had sunk a good couple of years into that damn game, and I always found it funny when the character I crafted ran backward to avoid something.

But portal traveling I did not find so funny.

Everything was blasting past me, purple lightning crackling on my periphery, Chloe to my right, Veronique and Ingrid behind me, Grace invisible somewhere, my stomach doing somersaults.

I hadn’t thought about what we were doing, only that we were doing it. And maybe this was a bad idea, maybe we should have just let the standoff come to its own natural conclusion.

Too late for that now, Writer Gideon, Grace thought to me as we appeared on a paved space, dozens upon dozens of police and people in military uniforms turning to us.

“Shield is up,” said Stella, who was now down on one knee, all of us a little jarred from how quickly we had arrived.

“I’ve got this,” invisible Grace said, and a moment later a military official came forward, speaking in English to what the others must have thought was a ghost.

The Japanese man turned to the other soldiers and gave out the command for them to lower their weapons, to let us pass.

I could tell by the looks on some of their faces that they weren’t going to let this happen, the men and women in uniform were not about to let the Emperor get harmed. Chloe took care of that, the sound manipulator floating into the air, her throat glowing as everyone began to lay down their weapons.

There was a body of water across from us, and on the other side of the water were hundreds and hundreds of people, the media too. I spotted several helicopters overhead, and I had a feeling that more reinforcements were on the way.

“Grace, tell him to call off all reinforcements. We don’t need to be bringing down helicopters once we’re inside.”

The Japanese man began to speak again, this time into his headset.

“I’m taking my transformation,” Ingrid told us.

“Not to Tulip,” I reminded her.

“I know; we’ve already been over this,” she said as she pinched herself, her body starting to bulge, muscles pressing out of her form, veins swelling.

“Can I go yet?” Michelle was hopping from foot to foot, an excited look on her face.

“Yes, find the Emperor, and make it as quick as you can. Remember to return to us, and do not stab anyone.”

“Okay,” she said, disappearing in a flash.

“It doesn’t appear to be an ambush,” Stella said, her focus on her shield.

“No, it really doesn’t. But the ambush could be waiting for us inside, so we should stay close.”

“Should I do anything with their weapons?” Veronique asked me.

“No,” Grace’s voice answered from somewhere, possibly to our right.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Dorian, whose face was a bit red.

“I should be feeling better soon,” she said.

“Let me see if I can help any.”

I placed my hand on Dorian’s shoulder, healing her, her skin returning to its normal color.

From there, I looked back up at the palace, wondering how the terrorist group had done it.

I was sure that the place was heavily guarded, not as heavily guarded as the White House, but definitely secure. This made me think that it could have been an inside job of sorts, that someone had let the Aum Shinrikyo in.

There was only one way to find out.

“Let’s do this,” I told the group, so stoked to be able to say the next line. “Let’s save the fucking Emperor of Japan.”

Michelle reappeared, a worried look on her face. “There are so many of them!”

“How many?” Veronique asked.

“So many.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“More than twenty, no, yes, maybe. There are a lot.”

“Any Japanese security?” I asked her.

“All those guys have been shot or tied up. It’s pretty bad in there.”

“I’m ready to do something when you are,” Veronique said.

“Hold up,” I told her, returning my focus to Michelle, watching as she nodded her head rapidly. “And the Emperor?”

“They’re in that building there,” she said, pointing to the castle on the hill.

“Where in the castle?”

“In the basement.”

“Any supers?” Chloe asked.

“You mean people like us?” asked Michelle.

“Precisely. Anyone like us?”

“I didn’t see any.”

Our conversation was interrupted when a pair of men wearing black ninja outfits and kabuki masks—I shit you not— came running around the castle firing assault rifles at us.

The bullets all stopped midair, Veronique walking toward the men as they continued to fire.

“She is so pissed,” Michelle said, biting her lip.

“I guess that is our cue to get in there and do something about this,” said Grace, all of us turning toward the castle.

After the terrorists finished their bullets, one started to run away, the other loading another magazine.

He was the first to go down, his rifle breaking in two, the sharp part going under his chin, stabbing him through his mouth out the back of his head.

He fell to the side, choking on his own blood.

“Reminder that we’re trying to limit casualties,” I told Veronique as we reached her.

The metal vampire’s eyes were fixated on the man running away, bullets slowly swarming around her like angry hornets. A few of the bullets zipped toward the man, striking him in the back of the head and taking him down as we entered through a gate.

The rest of the bullets continued to hover around Veronique.

“Stay in a group,” I reminded the CBGs as we came to a lush garden, a few masked terrorists running out to meet us. These guys were also taken down by Veronique, who lodged several bullets in each of their thighs, melting their weapons as we walked past.

The castle grounds featured an elaborate fountain, beautiful hedges, everything manicured and sculpted in a way that screamed royalty. We looked up at the castle just as a window punched out, a man firing at us.

It was Stella who took this guy down, swelling one of her vectors toward him and yanking him out, tossing him to the ground.

“Minimize casualties,” I reminded the group, again.

We stood strong, looking up at the castle, bullets floating around us. It was a surreal moment, one of those times when I wished there were a photographer, possibly pitched off at a cool angle to make us look bigger than we really were.

Don’t get cocky, Writer Gideon, Grace thought to me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as we prepared to move to the main complex.

“Check the other side of the door for us, Michelle,” I told the young speedster.

“Will do.”

Michelle disappeared through the door, returning moments later.

The explosion that followed sent all of us flying backward, Stella’s vector shield not able to protect us completely.

While we weren’t hit by any shrapnel, the force definitely scattered us. Veronique and Dorian got up first, Dorian’s paintbrush already in her mouth as she traced a purple ball of energy in the air.

She lobbed it toward the entrance, her power cutting through the smoke and disappearing. Dorian fired off a few more blasts, anger on her face as Veronique sent all the bullets she had toward the entrance.

Chloe was up next, using her echolocation ability, immediately coming down and telling us that they were behind a barricade.

“A barricade made of what?” I asked.

Michelle appeared again. “Something really strong,” she said. “That’s why Veronique’s bullets didn’t break through!”

“Let me go in there,” Ingrid said, still in her beast armor, “I’ll clear them out.”

“Better idea,” I said, looking to the others. “How about you let Tulip out?”

Ingrid smiled just about the biggest smile she had ever shown me as she pinched herself again. The rest of Tulip started to form, her jaw distended, teeth pressing out of her flesh, the creature’s gnarled face taking shape.

Seething now, Tulip took off toward the smoke; I heard a couple of screams inside once the terrorists saw what was coming for them.

“Do you think that was a bazooka?” I asked as we edged along the perimeter, waiting to see an indication from Tulip that she had cleared out the foyer.

“No idea,” Grace said, her form solidifying. “I need to be able to see them, and I can’t quite understand their thoughts, at least the ones that are being broadcast.”

She was beautiful in that moment in her Scandinavian form, her Cherry Blossom Girl superhero outfit tightly hugging her body, not a smudge on her body, not like the rest of us who had experienced some of the previous blast.

“Sorry about the blast,” Stella said again, mostly to Veronique, who seemed annoyed that she hadn’t been able to protect them against it.

“Didn’t you have a shield up?” Dorian asked.

“I did, but I don’t know. I don’t know why it didn’t protect us more. Maybe my focus was on the guy that I had taken out of the window.”

“Tulip is done,” Michelle said, appearing in front of us, nodding excitedly. “He’s also starting to explore the castle, so we should probably go get him. I tried to stop him, but I wasn’t able to. Fiona was always better at that than me.”

“You’ll get better at it,” I finally told her, after contemplating for a moment how I should respond to what she’d just said.

There was no point dwelling on the past. Right now, we need to rescue the Emperor and the Empress.

“Grace, Veronique, and Michelle go after Tulip. The rest of us will head downstairs toward the Emperor.”

“Don’t worry,” Dorian said, stepping between Veronique and me. “We will be in communication with you,” she assured the metal vampire.

“Good, don’t go too far.”

I knew that Veronique didn’t like separating, but we simply had too big of a group to move together all the time, and someone needed to get control of Tulip. Besides, there were probably more terrorists upstairs, and even though Tulip could take them all out, it was best if he had backup.

We entered the foyer, Grace, Veronique and Michelle headed to the right, the rest of us going to the left.

“I’ve got a shield up,” Stella said. “It will protect us better this time. Again, sorry.”

I stopped, placing my hand on her shoulder. “Mistakes happen.”

She whipped her shoulder away from me. “And people die when they do.”

“What a cute conversation,” said Dorian, “but rather than have it now, can we have it later? We’re trying to rescue some people here.”

“Right,” I said as we came to a stairwell. I turned to Chloe. “How many are down there?”

She nodded, her throat glowing as she used her echolocation ability to assess the situation.

“There are several guards, four to be exact. But it goes down further, and I can’t figure out how many are down there. Not yet anyway.”

“Got it. Dorian, send out a few energy creations, and then we’ll go with Stella up front, shielding us, Chloe taking down anything that makes it past Dorian’s attack.”

“Affirmative,” Dorian said, her paintbrush coming out of her mouth as she traced up two homunculus-sized beings with blasters for arms.

She sent them forward, the sound of gunfire immediately meeting my ears once they reached the bottom floor.

We came down after them to find three of the terrorists dunzo, one still awake, trying to load his weapon and fire it again. He was blasted backward by a burst of sound, and slammed into a wall, a heavy portrait falling on his head.

The door behind us kicked open and another terrorist in ninja clothing and a kabuki mask popped out, firing his gun immediately. Stella’s vector shield protected us from the bullets, while I used Grace’s power to slug him in the stomach.

Chloe finished the job by offering him a knee to the face that sounded like it hurt. He hit the ground, and a few seconds later, I saw a pool of blood forming around his head.

“Damn, Chloe,” I told her.

“The CBGs are not to be fucked with.”

“I see that.”

Grace, is everything okay? I thought aloud as we continued down the hall to another flight of stairs. I wished I had a moment to stop and appreciate the art on the walls, the beautiful portraits that looked like they cost millions of dollars, but now wasn’t the time to appreciate art.

Focus, Writer Gideon, I had to remind myself.

I heard Grace laugh inside my head. Yes, focus. We’ll be joining you soon. The top is cleared; Tulip is almost morphed back to Ingrid.

“Grace and the others are coming,” I said as we stopped at the next stairwell. “Chloe, will you do the honors?”

Another masked terrorist came running up the stairs, firing his weapon, his bullets slapping against Stella’s shield and bouncing off.

He was down in a matter of moments, his body pressed to the ground by the throbbing bass sound, the man crying out in terror as his whole form shook.

It wasn’t long before he too passed out, the four of us stepping around him.

We came to the final floor, where we stopped in front of the only door in the hallway.

“They may be ready to kill them when we enter, so make it fast,” I told the group.

“Let’s go in blazing then,” Dorian said, tracing up another creation, this one a huge spiral of fuzzy energy. She sent the spiral forward, blowing through the door.

Chloe was in first, bring everyone in the room to the ground with her bass attack.

It turned out there were two terrorists, and they scrambled to use their weapons, only to be thwarted by Stella, who tossed both of them up to the ceiling by lifting vector pillars, then dropping them to the ground, doing it again and again.

Michelle burst into the room, a smile on her face as she saw the Emperor and the Empress, both with their hands over their heads, speaking to each other in Japanese, terrified looks on their faces.

“It’s fine,” I told them as I approached. “We’re here to rescue you. You speak English, right?”

The Japanese Emperor gave me an incredulous look. It dawned on him that we weren’t about to attack him, and once he realized this, he nodded, helping his wife to her feet.

“Yes, of course,” he said with a slight British accent.

“You are the people we saw on television,” the Empress said to all of us.

“We are,” I told him, “but it’s not what you think. It’s not what it looks like, that’s what I meant to say. We would never attack the people of Japan. We stopped the first terrorist attack, and now we are stopping this one. What you may have seen on television, well, that’s a bit of a long story.”

The Emperor smoothed his hands over his clothing. He was wearing a black suit, tailor-made, but it was a bit ruffled from being held hostage. Still, he looked pretty fly. The Empress was also dressed well in a silk dress that matched a shawl over her shoulders.

“I believe yours is a story we would like to hear,” the Emperor finally said. “If you have a moment.”

“Do you have a moment?” I asked. “I have a feeling that this place will be swarming with just about everything Japan can throw at us in the next few minutes.”

“Then we will make this brief, and we will vouch for you, for rescuing us.”

“Thank you,” I told him, bowing my head.

“I see you picked up on our customs,” he said, returning the bow.

“From anime, yes,” I told him.

“We definitely have,” said Michelle, bowing repeatedly.

The others? Not so much.

Veronique was busy making sure that the final two terrorists in the room wouldn’t wake up anytime soon. Grace, Stella, and Chloe were watching the door. Ingrid was interested in the Emperor and the Empress, and Dorian was sort of in between all of us, ready to teleport the group if it came down to it.

“Good, then let’s get down to it: what brings you to Japan?” the Emperor asked me. “Please tell me as much as you can.”

Chapter Nine: Quickie

“I understand,” said the Japanese Emperor once he had heard our long and twisted tale. “The Americans created you, and now they want you dead.”

I weighed my response for a moment. “Sort of. Actually, some people still like us. But they have framed us here in Japan, and in Washington, for that matter. Also, I was created by my parents, birds and the bees, not that this matters. Shit, does that sound classist? Totally not the vibe I’m going for here.”

The Emperor said something to his wife in Japanese.

I sensed that the CBGs were ready to go, but I needed to finish our conversation before we teleported the hell out of here.

“Well, as you may know, I don’t have the power here in Japan to control the military, but I do have some media power. And I will be certain to tell the Japanese people that you saved us.”

“That would be much appreciated.”

“What are all of your powers?” the Empress asked. “I’m curious about things like this.”

“We all have different powers. My power allows me to borrow someone else’s ability. I can borrow four at a time. She’s a telepath,” I said, pointing my thumb at Grace. “This one is superfast, this one can teleport, this one can control metal, she can manipulate sound, the one giving me a dirty look can manipulate vectors, which I still don’t quite understand, and this one turns into a terrible monster. Am I forgetting anyone?”

“I’m not terrible,” Ingrid said.

“She’s sweet, just her monster is terrible.” I glanced around, making sure everyone was accounted for. Veronique gave me the ‘wrap it up’ signal, Dorian nodding in agreement.

“Well, this has been nice,” I started to tell the Emperor, “but unless there is something else you would like us to do, we should probably go before the military gets here.”

“I’m sorry that I do not know more about the man you told me of, Damon Lord,” the Emperor said. “But I can have a few people look into his dealings here in Japan. Maybe we will be able to find out more about Hashima Island, and how he came to possess it. I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. But it is a place to start, and the people I know may be able to dig up more information. How should I get it to you?”

“Um… email?”

“Sure, tell me your email address,” he said.

“Do you want me to write it down or something?”

He paused, furrowing his brow. “Those thugs destroyed my phone, so I will have to remember it.”

“I can help with that,” Grace said.

The Emperor looked at her curiously and then back to me. “Find, just tell me what it is, and as soon as I have information, I will let you know.”

I gave him my email address, which should have been pretty easy for him to remember considering it was my first and last name at GoogleFace.com.

“Thank you, Gideon,” he said.

“The pleasure is all mine, Emperor,” I told him.

I turned to the others, who had already gathered around Dorian.

And just like that, we were running through a tunnel of purple energy, electricity sparking all around us. Dorian was at the front, Michelle quickly catching up to her, the punk rock teleporter calling to Michelle and telling her to slow down.

Even though I was already starting to feel it in my stomach, I had to laugh. I’d seriously gone from working at a Yale gift shop to meeting the Emperor of Japan, and sometimes it helped to take a step back and think about this, to try to get some perspective on it.

But the problem was the world was always coming at me, like I was participating in some type of MMA match with an opponent twice my size, four arms like Goro. And if the world wasn’t trying to attack me, my own mind was.

It was always something, but I was glad to be alive, and even happier to reappear in Nagasaki, in the swanky hotel that Grace had arranged for us.

“It’s gonna be a minute,” I told them, my hand on my stomach.

Dorian fell onto the couch, breathing heavily, fanning herself with her hand.

“I can’t believe we saved the Emperor,” Ingrid said, no one else as excited as she was about this fact.

“Who’s hungry?” Stella asked.

“How can you be hungry after something like that?” I asked her.

“Saving the day works up quite the appetite.”

Chloe approached me and placed a hand on my shoulder, producing a smooth vibration with her palm. Just a few moments later, I felt better, rejuvenated.

“Do you think the Emperor will actually email me?” I asked Grace.

“His intention seems pretty clear to me,” she said.

“I can’t wait to tell Luke about all this.”

“Then tell him,” she said, nodding to a package on one of the chairs in the dining room area.

“What’s this?”

“A present!” Michelle said excitedly.

“We figured you would need a new laptop and a phone, so we went ahead and got them for you.” Veronique was off to my left now, a hangry look on her face. “So, enjoy.”

“Does someone need to feed?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“Okay, then let’s take care of that too, and then maybe I will set this stuff up, or maybe we can go for lunch. Does everyone still have their disguises?”

“Yes,” Dorian said, still fanning herself.

“Sure do,” said Chloe.

“I’m going to wear my hat.” Michelle zipped out of the room, and reappeared, the pink Denver hat on her head. “You should change too. Are you going to wear your bolo tie?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but sure, why not?”

“Also, Gideon, you have to check out the toilet in here!” Michelle said. “It’s so crazy. We had a crazy toilet at our last place, but not as crazy as this one. It sprays your this part,” she said, pointing at her crotch, “but any temperature water that you want. It also plays music. It does some other things too. I can’t quite figure it out. I wish there was an instruction manual.”

“Sure, I will check out that toilet.”

“Yeah, you will,” Dorian said from the couch.

Chloe pumped both hands in the air. “Making brownies.”

“Why is everyone teasing me all of a sudden?”

“Going to spend some quality time in there, huh?” Veronique asked, trying to be part of the humor, but failing due to the stilted tone of her voice.

“I don’t even have to go to the restroom,” I said.

“Take it easy on him.” Grace approached me and morphed into a Japanese woman. She giggled and then turned to the others, bowing. “Gideon-san and I must change his clothing,” she said in a high-pitched, cute anime voice. “Please change as well,” she said, bowing again, “so we can enjoy a lunch together.”

Grace looped her arm into mine and took me into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. She proceeded to push me onto the bed and climb on top of me.

“Are you serious right now?” I told her, my hands instantly coming to the small of her back.

“We could make it really quick,” she told me. “It’s been a while…”

“You know I’m down,” I told her, “but it’s kind of rude to leave the others waiting.”

“It will take them forever to get changed,” she said.

“What are you talking about? Michelle is probably already changed by now.”

“You sure are protesting getting fucked,” she said, still in her high-pitched voice.

“That voice is too crazy, and you know what…” I shrugged. “Sure, we can make it quick. They were giving me hell about spending time in the bathroom, so maybe you and I should spend some time in there.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

I nodded. I was pretty sure Grace was thinking through me by that point, so I was definitely thinking what she was thinking.

She hopped off, grabbed my hand and took me to the bathroom, where she bent over the sink.

After jutting her hips out a bit, she pulled her panties down and hiked her skirt up.

Rather than jump right in, I got to my knees and started eating her out, licking her from the top of her pussy all the way up to her asshole. I kept at it, feeling my own proof of writerhood tripling in size, pressing against the front of my uniform.

“We have to be quick about it,” she said, looking at me through the mirror’s reflection. She was now using her own voice, her eyes a bit white, a devilish look on her face.

“Definitely,” I told her as I got out of my uniform, pulling it down to my knees and just keeping it there.

I was too lost in the moment to deal with stepping out of my boots and taking the entire uniform off, so I just went from my current position, launching straight into it, literally, my member easily slipping inside of Grace.

She was tight, warm, and as we started going at it, she continued looking at me through the mirror’s reflection. She was in her Asian form for a moment longer, but then her hair started to turn pink and red, almost as if she was morphing into…

Mary Jane?

Why not, Writer Gideon? Grace thought to me. It was this or Spider-Gwen, and we already played around with that one.

I just smiled at the redhead as I went at it, trying to finish as quickly as possible, but not too quickly. I watched Grace as she morphed into a black woman, a Hollywood actress whose name I forgot, her hair short, her lips full, her eyes dark.

From there she went for Tifa from Final Fantasy XII, her breasts bouncing like a pair of basketballs. I watched those things for way longer than I should have, eventually looking up to my own face.

I couldn’t look at myself.

I didn’t want to see my own fuck face, and even in that moment, even in the midst of all this crazy spontaneous sex, I couldn’t understand what it was that women found sexy about the way men looked when they were screwing. Maybe they didn’t find us sexy, which kind of explained a couple of the positions. But there were others that required eye contact.

Not that I minded eye contact…

Shut up and fuck me, Writer Gideon! Grace thought aloud.

“Yep, focus, focus,” I said, closing my eyes, and just trying to be in the moment. I watched her breasts bounce, the determined look on her face, occasionally glancing down to see my own member sliding in and out, everything running smoothly.

I got the sense that she was fucking herself through me, which wasn’t the first time I’d felt that. I noticed the change in my rhythm, a dip in my speed. My shaft tilted upward just a bit, so it got into all the right places.

And soon, I was putty on the floor, breathing heavily, Grace crouched in front of me, wiping up.

“Dammit, I missed the hell out of you,” I finally said.

“I know you did. And we can have a better time later,” she said quickly, “but the others are getting restless, and they’ll start wondering what we are doing in here.”

“I don’t know if I should thank you, or tell you not to take over my mind while we’re doing it…” I started to say.

“You should thank me.” She smiled at me, a look of realization painting across her face. “Ooo… let’s try it invisible next time!”

“How did you?”

She tapped her temple and smiled.

Chapter Ten: Ramen and A Giant Robot

I know that these types of scenes are played out, but…

Signal the slow-motion walk as the eight of us stepped out into the hotel lobby, all in some sort of disguise, exciting hip-hop music playing in the background, the camera panning to each of our faces and then zooming out.

I had gone with old man Gideon, taking Grace’s shifter power to replace Stella’s shield, obviously rocking the bolo tie; Michelle wore sunglasses and her pink Denver hat; Dorian was in a hijab and a black leather jacket; Chloe had her hair in pigtails and wore fake Ray-Bans with tortoise frames; Veronique was in short shorts with a scarf tied around her neck and glasses without lenses; Stella wore the beret I had picked up in the subway on my mad dash back from nearly having my ass handed to me in Setagaya; Ingrid wore a dress over one of the Manchester Missions shirts, her hair in a ponytail; and Grace had turned the cosplay up a notch as Nurse Joy from the Pokémon franchise.

Which definitely wasn’t distracting.

As usual, no one batted an eye, Grace doing what she did best by forcing people to instantly forget us. We had other plans for the day, at least I did, but food was a must, so after Veronique fed, we chose a ramen joint near the hotel.

As soon as we entered the steamy place, we were greeted by a screaming woman, at least it sounded like she was screaming.

“That means ‘welcome,’” Ingrid told me, as my heart settled.

“My God,” I told her, half-joking. “I thought we were getting ambushed or something.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard them calling out like that before,” Ingrid said. “We’ve been in Japan for a while now.”

“No, we haven’t,” I told her. “We were here for a few days, then we were in Mongolia.”

“I still want to go to Mongolia,” Michelle said to Ingrid as the hostess led us to the bar.

“You’d like Mary.”

“I’m sure I would!”

There were only six stools, and she apologized profusely as she glanced around, biting her lip.

“It’s okay,” Dorian told her. “Gideon and I can sit here.”

And that’s how Dorian and I ended up in a booth together, the others at the bar. And since we didn’t really know what to order, I went with the words that I understood on the menu.

Miso Ramen.

There were two chefs behind the bar who immediately jumped into action as soon as the orders were in. It was a pleasure to watch. They diced, they sliced, they lifted baskets out of hot water and dipped noodles in, tossing the rest of the water on the floor, preparing our meals with chopsticks and knives, calling out as each bowl of ramen was delivered.

“This is going to be so awesome,” Dorian said, licking her lips.

“Agreed. Have you eaten here before?”

“No, Grace just had food delivered to our room. We only went out a few times,” she said, “mostly to get you equipment.”

“And I appreciate that,” I told her as I placed the laptop they’d got me on the table.

I powered it up, and it asked me to connect to the Wi-Fi. Luckily, our hotel was close enough that I was able to pick up the signal. I connected, and waited for it to do its uploading thing, Dorian smiling at me as my eyes went wide with excitement.

“You sure like new technology, don’t you?”

“I think it is sort of a Generation Z thing,” I told her.

“You don’t think they liked new technology in the last century?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t alive then,” I reminded her.

“That’s right,” she said as I logged in to my email, noticing that there were over a hundred unread messages.

There were some marked as urgent, especially the ones from my agent, Jake Archibald. I saw messages from fans too; some of them had grown pretty concerned that I hadn’t replied or posted anything on social media in the last week or so.

I wanted to write a message back to them letting them know I was busy saving the world, but I realized just how ridiculous that sounded.

You really need to get it together, I thought to myself.

I agree, Writer Gideon, Grace thought to me.

Can’t I have a moment alone?

Not with me around.

I looked over to Grace, who was perched on her barstool. A bowl of ramen sat before her and she busied herself mixing it up with her chopsticks. She turned to look at me as she raised the chopsticks to her lips, slurping up the noodles.

“Ridiculous,” I said as I returned my attention to my laptop.

“Gideon, Earth to Gideon,” Dorian said. “Did you hear me?”

“Were you talking to me?”

She frowned. “That laptop has already taken over your life, hasn’t it?”

“Possibly,” I told her, trying not to make eye contact with Grace, even though she kept whispering the words ‘look over at me’ in my head.

“We should go back to the island after lunch, especially now that we’re all together,” Dorian said out of the blue. “What do you think?”

I looked at her curiously for a moment. “Wait a minute, I was about to suggest the same thing…”

“Grace?” Dorian asked under her breath.

“Likely so,” I told her. “But it isn’t a bad idea. Who knows if the Emperor will actually reach out to us with info or not,” I said. “Maybe we’ll be able to uncover something on the island.”

“They may still be there,” she said.

“We can do our best to scan the island before, using Chloe.”

“I heard my name,” Chloe said from the bar.

A doorbell chimed at the front of the restaurant. A Japanese salaryman entering and saw that the place was pretty much full. He took a seat at the only booth left, and the waitress immediately ran over to him, bowing, taking his order.

“We’re going to check the island after lunch,” I announced to the group. “Well, we should let our food digest for an hour or so, but after that…”

“Always playing it safe, huh?” Veronique asked.

“And I’m guessing we’re going to need my echolocation ability, right?” Chloe asked.

“Yep. We can have Dorian teleport you and Grace to one of the buildings left standing, and then both of you can scan the area.”

“We should all go at the same time,” Veronique said.

“Or we could do that,” I added.

“I have an idea! I could just run out to the island and circle around, you know, make sure no one is there,” Michelle offered.

“No, Veronique is right; it’s best if we stick together. We also don’t know what happened to that boy, the power nullifier,” I added.

“I forgot about him,” said Dorian as the waitress brought her a bowl of ramen.

“We need to be prepared for anything,” I told them.

“It would be easier for me to get in and out with just a few people,” Dorian said as she dug her chopsticks into her bowl of ramen. She started swirling the mixture together, coming out with a poached egg and losing it before it reached her mouth.

“Do you want to use a fork?” I asked her.

“I’m getting better at it,” she said, going for the lump of noodles again, and this time just stabbing it.

“There you go,” I told her.

“So the plan is to chill for a minute, then go check out the island, right?” Michelle asked as she tried to slowly eat her ramen.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her struggle to eat slowly, and it looked even funnier considering she was still wearing a hat and sunglasses, all her gestures stilted in a way.

“That’s the plan. I have some other ideas though,” I told her.

“Like what?” she asked, slurping up a noodle.

“A good author keeps the reader wanting more.”

“But I don’t want to read your books!” Michelle said. “They sound so strange.”

Chloe and Stella laughed.

“Hey, you guys might enjoy some of my books, especially you, Stella. Actually, no, you wouldn’t like them. Maybe you would, Ingrid.”

“If you’d just give me a copy, I would read it,” the beast morpher said. “I want it to be the one that you are always talking about, what’s it called? Heavy Axe?”

“How Heavy This Axe?, and I’m still working on the follow-up. It is about a, um, dwarf in love with a dragon. GameLit, dark fantasy, some adult content. Sorry, Michelle.”

Ingrid and Michelle started laughing, Michelle laughing so hard that she spit some of her ramen out.

“What’s so funny?”

Ingrid shook her head at me. “The book you’re always talking about is about a dwarf and a dragon?”

“Not just any dwarf,” I told Ingrid. “A…”

“What?” Chloe asked, egging me on.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said as my ramen came to the table. “It’s a long story, a great book, and maybe one day I’ll let you check it out. It’s a goddamn hero’s journey and those are still important, even in 2030!”

A few of the CBGs chuckled. Veronique rolled her eyes, and Grace slurped up more noodles, winking at me.

I ignored them, focusing on my ramen, my mouth watering as the steam billowing off the noodles reached my nostrils.

“Don’t let them bother you,” Dorian said. “I’m sure your book is good.”

“I just want the time to write again,” I told her, glancing at my new laptop.

“We’ll give you time, maybe when we get back to America.”

“We do need to go back sooner or later,” I told her. “That’s part of my plan.”

“I thought that was the ultimate plan.”

“No, I mean going back to handle something is part of my plan. I’ll explain later,” I told her as I stuffed a hunk of pork in my mouth. “Trust me.”

I was connected to the world again via my fingertips, and the first thing I did was send a message to Luke, letting him know that I was okay. We were back in the hotel now, planning our trip to the island, and just letting our food digest as Stella showed Michelle how to braid her hair.

Luke: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Me: Mongolia?

Luke: LOL. Wait, really? Holy Genghis Khan!

Me: Really. It is a long story, but I’m now back in Japan, and we’re going to check out an island here in a minute.

Luke: Not what I expected to hear from you, but sure, if I were in Japan, I would be checking out islands too.

Me: So, how goes it?

Luke: It goes. I’m working on an intense scene right now where my main character gets stuck in a spaceship barreling toward an asteroid. And he’s handcuffed and can’t move. Shit.

Me: And let me guess, you can’t get him off the ship?

Luke: Sort of. I have a few ideas on how to make it happen, but now I think that it all feels too cliché. But I’ll work it out. Life of a writer, amirite?

Me: I only wish I had time to write.

Luke: You should take a day off to just plot and write.

Me: I don’t disagree with you. TBH, I always thought that going to a different country would be like a vacation, and it turns out, there was a small part of it that was kind of fun and touristy, but the rest has been ridiculous. I’ve got to go, but before I do, let me just give you a taste of the craziness I’ve already gotten into today: I started off in Mongolia, teleported to Japan, where we promptly rescued the Emperor of Japan. And then I had ramen, and now I am at a hotel.

Luke: You’re keeping track of all this stuff, right? To write about it?

Me: Sort of. I’ll work on doing a better job of that in the future.

Luke: Keep me posted. I’d read the shit out of that.

Me:

I shut my laptop and turned to the group. “Okay, everyone get suited up. Let’s check out the island and go from there.”

I had already installed the CBG app on my phone, the one that Father had invented. I was still planning to use it more often, rather than actually do the fighting myself. Part of the plan was to kick up Grace’s psychometry power, which would allow her to pick up information from any object that she touched.

That should get us something as to where we should go next.

But there was a saying about plans, something about mice and men…

After everyone was suited up, my thoughts went from our rescue mission to what possibly lay ahead.

We would really need to scan the area before we did anything, and I was apprehensive about all of us being there, knowing that teleporting that many people put a bit of a strain on Dorian.

Yet I understood Veronique’s concern.

She didn’t want to separate the group; I was starting to realize that the metal vampire had a sort of separation anxiety, one that a therapist could have a field day with.

I glanced down at my ring, the one made from Fiona’s crystal. Maybe she was right to worry.

Maybe the rest of us didn’t worry enough.

“I think our best bet would be to teleport as high in the air above the island as we can,” Dorian suggested. “I need to make sure the buildings are still standing before we choose one to land on.”

“Good call,” I told her.

“We will stick together in all this,” Veronique said, taking charge. “We don’t know if they are there or not, and…”

“It’s fine,” Grace told her. “If they are there, we’ll do our best to take them down.”

“In that case, if they’re there, our target is Damon Lord,” Veronique said firmly. “Everyone he employs is dangerous, but he’s the only one that can…”

A few of them nodded, I gulped, Ingrid looked away.

“Here goes nothing,” Dorian said, motioning for everyone to gather around her.

And with a puff of purple energy, we were all gone, reappearing in the air high above the island.

We were only there for a couple of seconds, long enough for Dorian to spot a stable building, where we reappeared, Stella immediately forming a shield around us.

“Hurry,” Dorian said, her eyes wide as she scanned the area.

Veronique was ready to go as well, red energy forming around her hand.

About the only thing we could see was the exposed metal of a building near the northern part of the island, just about the only place left standing aside from our current location.

Hashima Island seemed pretty much abandoned, and after a quick scan, Grace confirmed my assumption.

“Are you picking up on anything, Chloe?” she asked.

“Other than the buildings, no,” said the sound manipulator, who floated just a foot or two off the rooftop.

“Then I guess we should explore,” Ingrid said, prepared to pinch herself if it came to it.

“Let’s start with the rubble.” I pointed to one of the buildings that had been brought down. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s where they were holding you all. Maybe we’ll be able to get some info there.”

“Good call,” Grace said, turning to the rubble.

“Did anyone see that?” Michelle asked, wide-eyed, standing at the edge of the building.

“See what?” Dorian asked her.

There was no time to prepare for the blast that took down our rooftop.

We were catapulted toward the island, and those quick enough to react, like Stella, were able to protect some of the others. Veronique was already standing too far off, and I didn’t see where she landed. All I knew was that she wasn’t protected by Stella’s shield.

“Shit…” I whispered, the blood draining from my arms and legs.

A towering robot loomed before us, partially concealed by dust.

It was like something out of Iron Giant. And from what I could tell, the huge robot had formed out of one of the buildings on the island, clearly some type of advanced Transformer technology. I tried to get my bearings and locate the others, my ears ringing, dust and debris obscuring my view.

The CBGs were going to have to take down a giant robot.

Chapter Eleven: Avian Holograms

I didn’t quite shit my pants, but I definitely felt my sphincter pucker up as the towering robot brought both hands forward, shields cascading out of its forearms in a way that reminded me of blinds being lowered, a whirring noise signaling that the shield had solidified.

Chloe tried to blast it with sound, her ear-piercing attack creating a bundle of energy that slammed into the robot’s shields, which were now easily as tall as a one-story home.

The robot hunkered down for the attack, only to be met by Tulip, who came running forward prepping to leap onto the metal fucker.

Tulip was swept aside in a matter of seconds, the robot’s shield connecting with the beast, sending him somersaulting to the left, where he slammed into a pile of building material.

The robot did not have a head; it simply had a body, no silly red eyes on top or anything tropey like that. It was sleek, mean, and poised to kill. But it had to see us somehow. There were enough compartments on it that a few of them must have been host to cameras.

“We need to locate the cameras!” I said, suddenly getting my bearings.

I saw Grace using her power to lift rubble and fling it at the robot, the metal monstrosity blocking most of it with its shield. One rock went a little wide, clipping it in the shoulder, the sound of rock scraping against metal as the robot charged forward, shrugging it off.

Two wolves made of purple energy took off toward the metal monster. Dorian was now off to my left, her paintbrush whipping out of her mouth as she conjured a spear of energy and chucked it forward.

The wolves slammed into its shield, Dorian’s spear also fizzling out.

“I have an idea!” Dorian started to say, but she had to teleport out of the way as the robot came at her, using its shield to push up soil as if it were a bulldozer.

Tulip leaped forward again, only to be sideswiped, this time flying far enough to the right to actually land on the shoreline.

Its cameras! I thought aloud. If we can take them out…

But we don’t know where they are! Grace thought back to me.

“Stay behind me, Gideon!” Stella shouted, forming a shield around us.

The robot took a knee as the ground beneath it rumbled. The sand started to give way, the robot stabbing its shields in front of its body, trying to pull itself out from the trap that Chloe had conjured up.

I shook my head, trying to think of how we could take this damn thing down. We needed Veronique, but I didn’t know where she was, and wouldn’t be able to find her with that thing around.

It struck me in that moment that Veronique could very well be dead.

No…

No way...

The thought caused my fists to tense as the punk rock teleporter vanished, reappearing on the huge robot’s shoulder, dropping both hands onto it, trying to charge its body. She was bucked off, disappearing in a puff of purple energy again, and reappearing at my side.

“It’s fast,” she said, sucking in deep breaths.

“Try charging and then teleporting,” I told her quickly. “So once you land, you can let off your charge. Like a video game.”

“Now isn’t the time for video games!”

“I definitely know that,” I told her, “but try. Try it with a… a rock!”

Dorian lifted a rock easily the size of a basketball, holding it under one arm as she licked her finger and charged it.

She vanished, reappearing above the robot and tossing, vanishing in a flash.

The explosion sent the robot face first into the ground, and for a moment, I thought we were in the clear.

That was, until it pressed back up to its knees, its legs now becoming its arms, its arms becoming its legs.

“Whoa…” I whispered as the metal fucker lumbered to the right, where it lifted an iron storage container.

I dove, sure that the storage container would land on us, only to see it suspended in the air, a combination of Stella’s shield and Grace’s telekinesis. The psychic shifter was in her base form, on her knees, her eyes completely white, her head thrown back, her mouth open as she held the object.

It took Chloe’s power to shift the storage container to the left, where it sat erect for a moment and finally fell to the ground, causing the earth to shake.

The robot turned one of its palms to us, blasting our location with a concentrated energy weapon. Compartments opened up on its back, homing missiles firing out all aimed at Chloe, who had just landed at its side.

Michelle appeared out of nowhere, tackling Chloe, saving the sound manipulator from an explosion that sent sand and rock into the air.

The young speedster appeared next to me in a matter of seconds, her knife in her hand. “What do I do, Gideon? What do I do!?”

“Just… Keep doing what you’re doing,” I told her. “Make sure none of us get hit.”

“Okay,” she said, and just as she was about to zip away, my eyes fell upon her knife.

“Michelle, see if you can take out any of the power cables on its body. You see them, right?” I asked her, putting my hand on her shoulder and pointing at the damn robot, which was now engaging more of Dorian’s energy creations as well as telekinetic attacks from Grace.

While most of his body, legs and arms were covered with black metal armor, there were some sections that were partially exposed, and in those sections I could see that there was wiring beneath it, wiring wrapped in... steel.

Dammit...

“No, that won’t work,” I said with a huff. “Just run interference; distract it if you have to, and make sure…”

“I understand,” Michelle said, disappearing again.

Tulip came from out of nowhere, jumping onto the robot’s leg and quickly crawling up to its back, pounding his fists into its shoulder. The robot tried to throw Tulip off, but the beast held strong, until one of the compartments opened on its back, a missile firing straight into Tulip’s chest.

Tulip flew up into the air, only to be hit by another missile that sent the beast spiraling to the left, where he hit the ground, rolled, and came to a stop, facedown in the sand.

“Hit it with everything you’ve got!” I shouted to them, Grace mentally pushing my message out.

Dorian started conjuring energy ball after energy ball, Chloe blasting the robot with waves of sound, Grace hitting it with telekinetic force, Stella lobbed some vector blasts at it. None of their attacks worked, but I did have an idea, especially as the robot started to charge up for another blast, more compartments opening, more missiles coming out.

“Stella,” I said quickly, “cast one of your reverse shields on it, now!”

Stella focused on the robot, floating into the air as her hands came in front of her, as if she were Goku about to seriously level some shit.

The robot fired off another round of missiles, blasting its hands forward at the same time, only to hit Stella’s reverse shield instead, its own attacks ricocheting, bringing the robot to the ground.

“It worked!” Stella said, her hands still in front of her as she touched down.

“Keep your guard up,” I told her, as the others started to gather around. “Michelle, find Veronique!”

“Okie dokie!”

The robot trembled, smoke billowing off its form, electricity sparking all around it as the dust settled.

A box lifted from its back, casting a hologram before us, the hologram depicting a man with a hummingbird’s face.

“This is the last thing that you will see,” the hummingbird man said in a high-pitched, robotic tone. “Thank you for allowing me to gather data from this fight. Goodbye.”

Compartments covering the robot’s body lifted, tiny needles pressing out.

But whatever final attack the creator of this robot had planned, it was thwarted when Veronique stumbled forward, completely eviscerating the metal monstrosity with a flick of her wrist. All the metal ripped apart and twisted together, forming a ball in the air before it was tossed into the ocean, where it exploded, a giant wave heading toward the shoreline.

“I found Veronique!” Michelle said, excitement in her eyes.

“Hummingbird did this, right?” Chloe asked, landing to my left. “He’s the same guy who we saw in Mexico.”

“It has to be him.” I took a few breaths to steady my heart. Everything had happened so quickly, and I was still worried about the well-being of the others, especially Veronique, who had bloody slashes on her face.

“Fuck, are you telling me we have to fight robots now too?” Dorian said.

Grace smirked.

“Apparently,” I told her.

We were all silent for a moment, all of us processing what had just happened in our own way. Tulip morphed back into Ingrid, the thin girl immediately bringing her hand to her chin, deep in contemplation.

“Did it say something?” she finally asked, looking up at me.

“The hologram?”

She nodded.

“It thanked us for the data.”

“Great.”

“This is bad,” said Stella. “That thing just fought all of us aside from Veronique. Hummingbird could totally use this data to make the next one even stronger, more lethal.”

“Which is why we need to pay the fucker a visit once we get back to America,” I told the group.

“We don’t know if he’s in America,” Grace said.

“Good point, but this guy still has to go. I also think he has been stalking us using cameras, that sort of thing. I mean, how else would anyone know that we were in Setagaya? How would they know to send Arianna after us?”

“Natalie is working with Damon,” Grace said, “so it totally makes sense that they are sharing this type of data.”

“I have a sneaking suspicion that they have been working together all along, that Natalie has rented her mercs from Damon,” I said. “Makes sense, right? I mean, where else would Smiley come from? Or Tokyo? Or Bae’s hairy ass?”

Michelle snickered. “Screw that guy!”

“What she said. And there’s nothing about some of these supers in the app that Dr. Kim made, the registry.”

“Does that mean there could be more?” Michelle asked me.

“That’s what I’m afraid of. At least right now we have known variables, including giant killer robots,” I said, nodding off toward the ocean. “In the future, it’ll be these unknown variables that make this even harder.”

“Let’s look around,” Grace said, “maybe we’ll be able to figure something out.”

“It’s like you’re reading my mind.”

Grace smirked at me.

“Everyone stay close. In fact, let’s go with the buddy system again. Grace and Michelle, Stella and Dorian, Chloe and Ingrid, Veronique and me. Besides, I need to heal you,” I told the metal vampire.

“I was wondering when you were going to take care of these cuts on my face,” she said. “Any chance I could get a bite to eat too? Take-out will do.”

I realized that she was trying to make a joke, so I offered her a light chuckle. “Later, let’s look around first.”

Chapter Twelve: Gideon’s Island

Nothing.

If anything, visiting the island had only obscured things more, presenting a new threat that we would have to address in the future.

Hummingbird.

It made my blood boil to think that Veronique could have been killed by a stupid-ass robot. It also made me worry about what Damon and Natalie had in store for us in the future; I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was just the start...

We had searched through the rubble for the last several hours, and had only found portions of the metal that had been in the room where they kept Angel, Grace and Stella captive.

So basically nothing.

Naturally, I wondered about Angel during this time, and what he had done with Arianna. I still had no idea how she would have fit into our equation, or where we would have kept her, especially once we reached the capital of Mongolia. But I did have a gut feeling that what we had done was wrong, and even without the shaman suggesting it, I knew it would come back to haunt us.

We just had to be ready when it did.

“It would be nice to watch the sunset from here,” Michelle said, a happy look on her face.

“It’s also nice from our hotel.” Grace told her.

“I have to agree with Grace here,” I told the young speedster. “It would be best if we got back to the hotel and hunkered down for the night. This would give me some time to do a little research, possibly a little writing. You all can watch television, or do whatever it is you would like to do.”

“I want to go swimming,” Michelle said.

“Where?”

“In the hotel pool, duh! It’s a nice hotel. They have all sorts of amenities there. They have a massage area too. Maybe we can all get massages? I think there are only two tables in there. But we can share it. Well, I guess we can share them in shifts. Never mind.”

“I will take Michelle swimming,” Stella volunteered.

“Did someone get bathing suits while we were in Mongolia?” I asked.

“We don’t have to have you around to figure things out,” Grace said, a smirk on her face.

“Ouch.”

“What? You don’t think the CBGs can handle themselves?” Veronique dropped her hand and a metal support beam fell, kicking up sand.

“You have become quite the jokester since our brief trip to Mongolia,” I told her.

“You think I’m getting funnier?” she asked in a flat tone.

“Sort of,” I said.

Michelle laughed. “Now that is funny. Veronique isn’t a jokester, but you can be. Sometimes I don’t get your jokes, though.”

“Are we done here?” Chloe lowered herself to the ground, energy spiraling around her feet, kicking up sand.

“I suppose so,” I said, turning to Dorian. “Care to whisk us back to our hotel?”

“With pleasure.” The punk rock teleporter motioned for us to gather around her. Everyone touched Dorian, Ingrid the last to place her hand on Dorian’s arm.

“It’s pretty out here,” Ingrid said, a forlorn look in her eyes. “It’s too bad we can’t just hang out on an island for a while.”

“I definitely think that this is something that can be arranged, but first, we need to figure out a few things. For one, we need to understand more of what Damon Lord was doing here in Asia. Clearly, he was creating other superpowered people, just like yourselves. We need to find out where, because from what I can tell, and what we haven’t uncovered today, he wasn’t doing it here. Another thing we need to get a grip on is Hummingbird; he’s tracking us, and he’s becoming more and more deadly as he gets to know our powers. That still leaves Mother and Angel to be dealt with, but I guess for now, we can put them on the back burner.”

“I still can’t believe Angel hung out with you all for so long and didn’t try to kill you,” Veronique said.

“Well, he definitely wasn’t a nice guy during our little trip,” I said, after we reappeared in the hotel room. I felt my heart in my throat for a second, but everything was back to normal in a matter of moments. “Anyway, there were a few times where I thought we would have to throw down, but we never did.”

“And we would have backed you up if you did,” Stella said, offering me a rare smile.

“Good to hear. Speaking of throwing down, have you guys already found a Japanese Home and Garden show?” I asked them all.

“Definitely,” Michelle said, “and we’re not guys.”

“It’s an expression,” I told her as I headed to the bedroom. The plan was to change, and then get on the Interweb, to see what I could conjure up.

“I will handle food for tonight,” Grace said. “Pizza?”

“We’d better go swimming now then,” Michelle told Stella. “It will be amazing to have hot fresh pizza after!”

“Who all is going swimming again?” I asked as I stopped in front of the bedroom door.

“Me,” said Stella.

“I will go down there and read,” Ingrid informed us.

“I’m definitely going, why are you asking us this?” Michelle asked.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” said Grace. “Anyone care to join me?”

Michelle snorted. “Who would join you in the shower?”

Grace made eye contact with me and winked. “It was just a dumb joke.”

“I’ll go swimming too,” Dorian said.

“If Dorian’s going, I’m going,” Veronique chimed in.

“Same here,” said Chloe, “I want to swim.”

“Well, damn. It looks like almost everyone is going down for a swim. Works for me. I can chill there on a poolside chair and do laptop stuff. Wait, I have an idea. Let me get one of those surgical masks from you,” I told Michelle.

“Okay,” she said, back in a flash with a case of the white masks.

I had seen Japanese people wearing these on the streets, dozens of them actually. It seemed to be the norm to wear a mask on your face if you didn’t want people bother you, or you were possibly afraid of getting sick.

In any event, it had worked earlier, and it was a pretty good disguise. While I could morph my face, the whole body was a little bit difficult; I didn’t want to have the face of an old man, but the body of a strapping young lad such as myself.

It took everyone a few minutes, but eventually, we all met at the entrance and took the elevator down to the pool, which happened to be on the fourth floor.

It turned out that I didn’t need my surgical mask disguise.

There were a few Japanese people around, the women wearing bathing suits that had long sleeves for some reason. Chloe cleared all of them out, even as a few noticed Dorian’s tattoos, frowning.

“People around here really don’t like tattoos,” she informed me.

Michelle jumped in, kicking up water. Chloe hopped in as well, using sound to propel herself forward, which looked fucking sick.

“Why don’t they like your tats? Or should I say, our tats.”

“Grace figured it out.” Dorian said as we brought a couple of chairs next to the pool.  “It has something to do with the Yakuza. Basically, only the Yakuza have tattoos, well, them and the more rebellious members of Japanese society. It’s frowned upon.”

“You know, now that you say that, I think I’ve heard something about this from an old roommate of mine. Weird. You would think that by now, especially with all the US soldiers in Japan, they would be used to seeing foreigners with tattoos.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is.”

Dorian rested her head on the chair, and kicked her legs out, yawning.

I tried to get in the same position as her, but I was unable to use my laptop in that position. Once I was in a laptop-worthy position, I started checking my book sales and deleting emails that I didn’t feel like reading.

Veronique brought a chair up on my right and sat down, both of us watching Stella jump into the air and bring her knees to her chest, doing an epic cannonball using a vector shield for added strength.

Michelle laughed so hard that she accidentally swallowed some water, the young speedster starting to choke for a moment before spitting the water out.

Ingrid, who sat on the other side of the pool with her Lonely Planet guide, looked up for a moment, making sure that Michelle was okay.

I was just about to fire off a message to Luke when I decided to check my draft box instead. I found a message from Father, asking how things were going, for any updates.

I typed up what had happened over the last several days, and saved the draft so he could respond later. I went back to the message and also asked about Clarence, to make sure he was okay.

A message came in from Vince Porter, the cool cosplayer who worked for DisNike and designed our uniforms.

Vince Porter: Gid.

Me: Vin.

Vince Porter: Yo, yo. You up?

Me: Of course. You?

Vince Porter: Alive and well. When ya’ll coming back to the States?

Me: Why? You miss us?

Vince Porter: LOL. No, just wanted to check on the uniforms.

Me: The uniforms are holding up; I haven’t had any issues with any of them yet.

Vince Porter: Cool cool cool. When you come back, hit me up. Wifey and I would love to have some BBQ with the CBGs.

Me: BBQ FTW.

My inbox flashed and I clicked back over to it, noticing that the sender’s name was written in Japanese.

“Oh shit,” I said under my breath. Veronique looked back over to me.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It… it’s a message from the Emperor,” I told her.

“Read it.”

“It just says that he has some information that may prove useful to us. That he’s getting it verified, and that he will be sending more in the morning. But it involves Nepal.”

“Where?” Dorian asked.

“Nepal.”

“Never heard of it,” Veronique admitted.

“Nepal is a country between India and China, but that’s about all I know about it. I think that they speak some form of Hindi, and that there are Tibetans there.”

“And we’re going to have to go there?” Dorian asked.

“We need a lead, and we have to go somewhere, so yes. Unfortunately, we can’t stay in Japan.”

“I’m not ready to leave Japan,” Dorian said. “Part of it reminds me of Chicago, but just… Different.”

“We can visit again in the future, when we have time.”

She gave me a pouty face.

“We’re not on vacation, you know,” I started to say.

Dorian rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun, Gideon.”

“Hopefully the Emperor’s information will lead us to Damon Lord. The sooner we kill Damon, the faster we can get on with our vacation,” Veronique said, a satisfied grin on her face.

“Why do I have a feeling that isn’t going to be that easy?”

“It never is,” Dorian said.

I nodded in agreement as I clicked on my file of notes for How Heavy This Axe? Book Two. Sometimes it was nice to escape, even if the way I escaped was by plotting out the harrowing tale of a transgender dwarf and his dragon lover.

Someone had to do it, and apparently, that someone was me.

Chapter Thirteen: Pen Pals with the Emperor

I awoke the next morning with Dorian on my left, nude from the waist up, and Veronique on my right in her Manchester Missions shirt, nude from the waist down.

Hell yeah...

I rolled onto my back and placed both my hands on their thighs. No funny business last night, and for just a moment I wondered if someone had spiked the pizza.

“Or it was just a long day yesterday,” I told myself as I patted both of them.

“We’re not your pets,” Veronique said, finishing her sentence with a deep yawn. Dorian simply pressed closer to me.

“Just my way of saying good morning,” I told her as I roll over to Veronique’s side, my hand coming to her waist. Her hand found its way to my cock, and for a moment, I thought she was going to start jerking me off, but she drained me instead, chuckling as I gasped.

“Geez,” I told her, moving away from her body, even as she held on to my member.

“Do you want me to squeeze it harder?”

“No. Nobody wants that. Well, I guess some people like that kind of stuff. Not my style, though.”

And for some reason, my mind jumped to a video I’d found on Pornhub of a guy paying Thai hookers to take turns kicking him in the nuts.

It had been my policy for some time now not to yuck anyone’s yum, but having been accidentally kneed in the gonads by my ex, as well as a few fiascoes in a game of dodgeball back in middle school, the mere thought had me cringing.

“Let go,” I told her, lightly pushing her away.

Veronique rolled over, moving onto my waist, straddling me, bringing both her hands to my neck.

“Just playing,” she said as she got off, allowing me to move away from the bed.

Rather than deal with her crazy ass any longer, I stumbled into the living room, still in my boxers and Missions t-shirt. I found Grace sitting on the couch watching some Japanese morning show, her head tilted to the side as she turned to look at me. She started laughing almost immediately.

“What’s funny?”

“Veronique’s funny,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe to you. She was trying to castrate me in there.”

“What’s castrate mean?” Michelle asked, appearing at my side.

“Holy shit!” I nearly jumped out of my skin, not expecting the young speedster to suddenly be standing there.

Michelle started laughing. “You knew it was me.”

“No, you’re too fast; no one knows that it’s you until you’re just standing there. It’s like… You’re like a ghost or something,” I told her.

“I’m not like a ghost,” she said, an apprehensive look coming across her face.

“Just, never mind,” I finally told her. “I need to check my email.”

I joined Ingrid at the table and opened my laptop, heading straight to my inbox, where I found a message from the Emperor.

“Jackpot,” I said, rubbing my hands together.

“You look evil when you do that,” said Michelle, who had gone for a slice of cold pizza. “Have you ever eaten pizza cold?” she asked as she chewed her first bite. “I think it’s so much better than when it’s hot.”

“No, that’s impossible,” said Ingrid, not looking up from a manga that I assumed Grace had ‘purchased’ for her.

“You have to try it,” Michelle told her.

“I will do no such thing.”

I tuned the two out as I read the email from the Emperor.

Gideon,

I have found out several things about Damon Lord since my last email. For one, he’s being funded by a British man named Kenneth Thompson. Thompson has a string of hotels that he owns in India and Nepal, and according to our sources, he will be at his hotel in Kathmandu for the next few days for the grand opening of a new wing in the hotel.

So that’s one place you may want to start.

Damon Lord entered Japan legally in 2025, but we have no records of his exit, and while Japanese authorities have tried to find him, they have always come up short. This leads me to believe he hasn’t left the country since then, or he is leaving and returning in a way which we can’t track.

I tried to have my people look into things like his cellphone records, but there is nothing listed under his name. I will keep encouraging my people to dig, but the best place to pursue Damon Lord may be in Kathmandu, at a hotel in Thamel known as Hotel Himalaya.

“That settles it,” I told the three of them. Grace looked at me, her eyes starting to fizzle white. She nodded, and returned her attention to the TV.

“Are we going somewhere?” Michelle asked, excitement in her eyes.

“We sure are. We are going to Kathmandu.”

Alas, I wasn’t the most kickass MC a story could ever have (and I also was an ass for using the word ‘alas’). But for the most part, I found a lot of those guys laughable, if not a bit insufferable.

The reason dudes and a few dudettes read male power fantasies was so they could be taken to a place where they would never be able to go, or possibly become someone they were not. I got that part.

But I personally never got the appeal of these alpha male MCs, especially since most of the readers, aside from guys who had been in the military or that one guy in Florida who was a crab fisherman, would ever be tough like the typical MC of your run-of-the-mill pulp fiction e-book OP in the testosterone department.

So I wasn’t alpha, and if anything, I was about the furthest thing from it.

That said, I had a feeling that most alpha types would be jealous of me, not just my super sweet-ass mimic ability, but the laissez-faire situation I found myself in when it came to the opposite sex. Laissez-faire? I didn’t know how my history teacher at Southern Connecticut would like me using that term to describe my harem-tacular ways, but fuck him.

I also wasn’t that good at strategy.

My concept of strategy generally worked in a video game, but that was because I could die and respawn if my plan didn’t work. Plus, there really was nothing on the line if I did something stupid, or tried to switch up my armor before I went in, or did a ‘quick save’ before attempting something devious like looting a house while the owner was in there with his wife.

Alas (again!), there were no quick saves in real life, and if there ever was a truly unique superpower to have, it would be the ability to do a quick save before you made an important decision.

About to marry someone that you aren’t so sure of? Quick save. Contemplating signing those student loan documents so you can get that degree in hospitality management? Quick save, holy fucking shit quick save! Thinking about driving home, because you’re not that far away from the bar, and it’s not like you are that drunk? Quick save or bust.

Damn, wouldn’t that be awesome.

So I wasn’t very alpha; I wasn’t great at strategy; I wasn’t really all that strong unless I took Angel’s power, and even then, I probably couldn’t bench much more than half my weight; my books weren’t that great, at least according to some nasty reviewers; I wasn’t the best son, but I also wasn’t a bad son, aside from the fact that I had taken advantage of civilians and gone against my own government; and to be honest, for real for real, I hadn’t been all that successful at life until Grace showed up on my doorstep, naked and ready to change my life.

But if there was one thing I was good at, one thing that set me apart from many of the Gen Zers that relied on their Millennial and Gen X parents to do the heavy lifting when it came to computer savviness, it was GoogleFace searches.

And in the time it would take a frat bro to shotgun a beer and say something rapey, I used my God-given Internet skills to put together a quick flight out of Nagasaki that would get us to Kathmandu, Nepal.

I wasn’t keen on getting on a plane, but after researching the city of Kathmandu I figured it would be easier for us to go there the old-fashioned way, rather than risk Dorian teleporting on top of a market, or the temple where they kept the child goddess, which I’d stumbled upon on a different Internet deep dive.

TLDR; we were on our way to the airport now, one of Grace’s gophers driving us in the hotel van, the CBGs in the back, all of us in some sort of disguise.

I was done up as old man Gideon with a surgical mask, Michelle and Ingrid also donning the masks to literally save face; Dorian wore her hijab and a pair of glasses; Veronique was in her beret; Grace was in her hot soccer mom look, her skin a presidential orange from over tanning; and Stella and Chloe both wore beanies, Stella with sunglasses on, all of us wearing our superhero duds beneath our clothing.

We were going to make this quick.

At least, that was the plan, and as they had before, our airport disguises worked, albeit for a different reason in Japan than they did in America.

In the States, we were doing our best to blend in, which was why we chose a church group. Here in Japan, everyone kept to themselves anyway, and hardly anyone looked at us aside from a foreigner or two, and even then, they looked away.

So we were in the clear, not too damn shabby.

I came up to the counter, and once Grace did her mind thing, we were given tickets and pointed in the direction of the security checkpoint. That went smoothly as well, the Japanese TSA, or whatever they called themselves, friendly and polite, barely saying anything as we went through.

Of course, Grace was in full mental control, orchestrating everything and making sure no one looked at us or called for any type of backup.

And as soon as she found an airport official who spoke English, she recruited the man as our newest gopher, letting him take care of everything else going forward, including getting us into the exclusive lounge at the airport where we were served cocktails.

“We did it,” I told the CBGs, raising my drink.

Of course Michelle and Ingrid had apple juice, but they toasted us as well, all of us sipping our beverages like a bunch of primadonnas at an exclusive Sunday brunch in the Hamptons.

Veronique’s face turned red almost immediately. “This is strong…”

“Crap, I almost forgot,” I told her, turning my arm over. “Go ahead and feed, but keep it copacetic.”

She nodded, placing her hand on my arm.

I felt the drain, and I also noticed the channels open up, beckoning me to take her power. I didn’t do it, keeping Grace’s powers, Father’s healing ability, and Jules’ power negation on deck, which I figured would come in handy if there were any type of disaster.

Even if we had been careful of any cameras in the airport, our group purposefully fanning out and not moving in a large cluster, I couldn’t help but feel that Hummingbird was tracking us.

As if she had switched powers with Grace, Veronique interpreted something about the look on my face. “Are you worried?”

“No,” I lied to her.

“We could find another way,” she suggested.

“I know, I was thinking of that, but I just don’t see how.”

Veronique looked to Dorian, and the punk rock teleporter pointed at herself. “I’m your other way,” she said in a playful tone.

“Wow,” Michelle said, flashing in and out of existence in the time it took me to blink twice. “I just ran around the entire airport. It’s really big! Not as busy as the Tokyo airport, but it’s definitely not small. I think it’s bigger than the airport in Denver. Dunno. I didn’t have a chance to explore that airport much, but I can tell you this, this airport actually has hot showers and a hotel inside. How cool is that?”

“Michelle, come here a moment,” Ingrid said, taking over. “I want you to look at this book with me.”

“Why would I want to look at that book with you?”

Suddenly Michelle’s eyes grew sleepy. She moved over next to Chloe and sat down obediently, the sound manipulator placing a hand on Michelle’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” I told Chloe quietly.

Ingrid returned her focus back to her book.

“Why is it so hard to go to Nepal?” Veronique asked.

“Because it’s in the mountains, for one,” I said. “Well, so is Denver, but we’ve never been there before, and the pictures that Dorian and I can find on GoogleFace aren’t as good as I would like them to be. There are just too many risk factors. It seems to be rather…”

“Crowded. Very dense,” Dorian said, finishing my sentence.

“What she said. So we’ll go to New Delhi, and then we will transfer to Kathmandu. It won’t be as long a flight as it was from Denver to Tokyo, don’t worry.”

“Okay,” Veronique said as she finished feeding. She licked her lips, smiling at me. “As usual, I’m ready for anything. Now, back to Kathmandu. Let me ask you, Writer Gideon, what do you know about Nepal? Enlighten us.”

Writer Gideon? I gave Veronique a funny look, not used to her calling me that. “Aside from what I’ve read on Wikipedia an hour ago, not much.”

“Great. So we’re going into this without knowing anything about the place we’re going.”

“But at least we’re together,” I said, giving her a thumbs-up.

“Yeah, at least.”

“And they have a child goddess there, so there’s that.”

“What does that even mean?” she asked, taking a sip from her cocktail.

“I don’t know, but if ever there was a good title for a dark fantasy novel…” I could picture it now. “Child Goddess Book One: Immaculate Conception.”

A few of the CBGs groaned. Ingrid seemed interested in my premise, her eyes jumping from her book to my face.

“Before you get excited there, Ingrid…”

“I’m not excited, more curious.”

“...Let me work on what I have already plotted before I take on another book,” I told the group, Grace making a playful, exaggerated sigh.  “Big things ahead.”

Chapter Fourteen: Think No Think

Nope, I still didn’t like the way it felt when a plane took off, but I don’t think anyone did, and I wasn’t in a window seat, so I survived.

We were seated in business class, all of us together, Veronique next to me, looking out the window as the plane left the runway.

Like I said, everything was cool, we were just a group of missionaries hoping to bring the gospel to Nepal, to cure the heathens.

Cure the heathens? What are you going on about, Writer Gideon? Grace thought to me.

The psychic shifter sat next to Dorian, both of them flipping through the flight magazines.

We were on a Japanese airline, the flight attendants all dressed in cute outfits, each in a little hat and pressed skirt and all of them certainly under a hundred and ten pounds. It kind of weirded me out. I was used to American flight attendants, who had a wide range of body types, ages and ethnicities.

Apparently, the Japanese airline company only wanted a certain breed of woman, which was pleasant on the eye, but a little fucked up if you thought too much about it.

So I didn’t think too much about it.

Rather than respond to Grace, I simply laid my head back, my eyes closed, my limbs tingling as we reached our altitude.

Eventually, food came, a very different type of food than we would normally receive on an American airline. We were served trays with dumplings and seaweed on them, small cucumber rolls, pancakes with syrup inside, and some sort of pudding. I was offered alcohol, but I chose water.

I wanted to be level-headed for where we were going, and was feeling good about this decision as we began our descent into New Delhi.

Veronique was the first to spot it.

“Do you see that?” she asked, looking out the window.

“I try not to look out the window when I’m on a plane,” I told her. “The less I see, the better.”

“Seriously, Gideon.”

I couldn’t quite tell what she was looking at, but I did notice something sparkling on the horizon.

“What do you think it is?” I asked.

Something landed on the wing. Veronique glanced over her shoulder, her eyes going wide with fear.

An explosion caused the airplane to blow off course, people screaming, the oxygen mask dropping, the pressure suddenly changing as the cabin began to spin, cold air bursting in.

A panicked voice shouted over the intercom, but by this point, I was too focused on getting my seatbelt unbuckled, the oxygen suddenly thin, everything a frenzy.

The sound, the terror, the instability.

It was a wonder that I was able to collect my thoughts, my eyes closed as I finally was able to unbuckle my seatbelt, as I tried to press myself out of my chair only to find Veronique scrambling over me, her hands on the seat as she moved down the aisle toward the wing.

Stella was standing as well, her eyes closed, arms spread wide while Ingrid held on to her waist, anchoring her.

The spinning aircraft started to slow as the vector manipulator took over, but there was full-on panic now, people scrambling over their seats, trying to help their loved ones, a few spilling into the aisle, crawling toward us.

A hole blasted open at the back of the plane and a human-sized robot, like the one we had fought on Hashima Island, burst into the cabin. A passenger flew out the hole that had opened up, the temperature fluctuating, oxygen waning as Veronique ripped the killer robot apart with her power.

She slammed the robot’s own metal into the opening it had caused, trying to seal it up. Another hole burst open at the back. The cabin creaking, electricity faltering, the plane started to turn downward.

Realizing that there was nothing I could do to be useful, and figuring it would be better than doing nothing, I ducked down, each breath in stinging my lungs as I went for Father’s vial of blood and dabbed my thumb, taking his reality manipulation power, replacing his healing ability.

Even with all the turmoil, the utter chaos, I closed my eyes and bit my lip, embracing the carnage before me.

This wouldn’t end well.

I could see that now, especially the fire at the back of the cabin, the people passed out, an Indian man having a heart attack, everything going wrong all at once as Veronique tried to keep the plane together, as Stella tried to balance it.

I felt a low hum, and suddenly felt relaxed, Chloe doing her best to calm the crowd.

I focused on these positive vibes.

I ignored the options that ended in death and destruction, the ones that saw our plane barreling toward the earth, our story ending in the skies over India.

No...

The future I saw had Chloe joining forces with Stella to stabilize the plane, Grace going forward to the cockpit, taking over the pilot’s mind, bringing the plane down safely on the runway.

I focused on this future, ignoring the shaking, the lightheadedness, Michelle now at my side as I started to lie down in the aisle, the young speedster tapping my chest, trying to wake me.

“Just let me do this, Michelle,” I told her, not breaking my focus.

I heard her voice and I ignored it, willing everything I could conjure forward, disregarding the fear at the back of my mind, the whisper of death.

I felt a shift in my stomach as the plane righted itself, more cries and yelps, a woman screaming at the back, Veronique yelling as well as she tried to keep the plane intact.

I blinked my eyes open to see Michelle on her knees, looking down at me, her hands on my shoulders, tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” I told her, “we’re going to make it through this. Trust me.”

It wasn’t supposed to work. There was no way that we could have parts of a wing blow off and a damn hole in the side of the plane and still land smoothly.

Okay, that last adverb didn’t exactly apply to the way we landed on the runway in New Delhi, but it was smooth enough, and as soon as the pilot hit the brakes (or whatever the hell pilots do), and we came to a slow stop, people started to cheer.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t stick around and enjoy a hero’s welcome, especially with the fact that there could be more attacks on the way, and there really was no telling how the Indian government would perceive the CBGs showing up on the side of the Ganges.

So we made a run for it.

Veronique blasted out the big hole she had sealed in the back, and Chloe and Stella floated our group down as people were glued to their seats by Grace.

The psychic shifter and I were the last to go, and as soon as the others were out, Grace pushed me toward the exit.

“Go,” she said, turning back to all the people looking at her.

Even though the plane had stopped, we were still supposed to be taxiing. We wanted to hurry, which was why Grace quickly called everyone’s attention to her and wiped all of their minds in a matter of seconds.

With that done, she lowered us to the ground, taking off toward a stretch of parched grass between runways.

“I’m totally regretting this now,” I said as we looked around, a plane landing on a runway a couple hundred feet from us, airport vehicles already making their way to us.

“Let’s get one of the vehicles, and then get the hell out of here,” Veronique said, pointing at me.

“Why are you pointing at me?” I asked.

“You’re the one that knows how to drive.”

“Dorian can drive too.”

And with that statement, the punk rock teleporter zipped away, her form taking shape on one of the luggage vehicles barreling toward us. The driver braked and Dorian flashed away again, reappearing next to him, then pushed him out of the vehicle and commandeered it, peeling out as she picked up speed.

“That’s why,” Veronique said. “She’s a risky driver.”

“Risky? That was badass,” I told her.

“Hell yeah!” Michelle said, her eyes wide with excitement.

“We need to go, people!” Chloe said. “The sooner we get away from the runway, the better. Am I the only one wondering what we are we doing with vehicles when we could just fly away?”

“Okay, then let’s fly,” Veronique said.

A plane touched down about four hundred feet away, definitely close enough for me to feel the rumble of its jets.

Dorian pulled up in the luggage transport vehicle and made a ‘get in back’ gesture with her thumb. “What the hell is everyone waiting for?”

“Change of plans,” I told her.

“We’re flying now!” Michelle said, and as the words left her lips, she rose into the air, controlled by either Chloe, Grace or Stella.

And not a moment too soon.

I saw Indian military men in tan outfits moving toward us, several piled up in the back of a vehicle that matched their uniforms.

By this point we were already floating, and I didn’t know who was controlling me, so I just let it happen.

I still didn’t have the grace of Peter Pan’s delusional ass, but I was used to flying, well, as used to it as anyone could get.

So I simply let my arms fall to my sides, Chloe spiraling ahead, the rest of us hanging out in somewhat of a cluster.

“This way!” the sound manipulator said, and our group moved higher into the air.

They wouldn’t be able to catch us. Hell, even if they sent in the choppers, we would be able to get away, and that was if Veronique didn’t unleash a bit of metal unhappiness at the helicopters.

Minimize civilian casualties.

This was still at the back of my mind, especially when entering a new country, but there had already been some deaths on the airplane, none of which were technically our fault.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel responsible.

Hummingbird was after us, and the fucker was pulling out all the stops. We were too far away to address him in Mexico (if that was indeed where he was), but it was becoming a necessity to take a step in that direction, to hunt him down.

And maybe this would be a wild goose chase, maybe Kenneth Thompson, the British hotelier who funded Damon Lord, would be a pointless target in the end.

There really was no telling.

We cleared the airport parking lot, dozens upon dozens of taxis and rickshaws screeching as their drivers looked out the window, passengers too. It was hazy; India had clearly missed their 2030 deadline to reduce pollution.

I saw apartment blocks in the distance, smaller buildings around the airport, highways with bumper-to-bumper traffic, the occasional tree, a billboard with a cricket player on it selling some type of cookie called a Parle-G, a million occurrences of humanity that I wouldn’t have the time to appreciate.

We moved quickly, trying to get as far away from the airport as possible, traveling at a brisk pace for another ten minutes or so. Eventually, we came down onto a building in what looked to be a mixed commercial and residential area, new too, by the looks of the architecture.

“Time to regroup,” I told them as soon as we got our bearings on the rooftop. “We still need to head to Nepal, but it looks like we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Or we can get some Internet connection and try to teleport there.”

I still had my phone, but the others’ phones were all in...

Whew.

I was damn glad to see that Ingrid had one of our bags flung over her shoulder, and it just so happened to be the bag with my laptop, some of our disguises and the rest of their electronic devices.

An Indian woman came out onto the rooftop to hang clothing, gasping as she took in our forms.

Grace had control almost immediately.

“Yes, I can help you,” the woman said in a thick, Indian-English accent, her smile softening. She wore a pink sari with gold sequins on it and a pair of sandals on her feet. Her nose was pierced, and there was a red dot between her eyebrows. “Please, come with me.”

“Okay, here we go,” I said as we followed the woman to the rooftop entrance and down two flights of stairs to a large apartment. The smell was a stewed amalgamation of turmeric, garlic and onions, oil heavy in the air, the apartment tidy, yet a bit squalid, cozy and foreign.

“Shoes off,” the woman said as she ushered us in.

“Are we safe here?” Stella asked.

“I think we’re fine for now,” I told her. “We won’t stay for long.”

“Nonsense,” said the Indian woman, “I’ll make you some chai and then we’ll have a conversation.”

A little boy in an oversized shirt and a pair of shorts came running out of the bedroom. He took one look at us and ran back inside, hiding behind the door and peeking out.

Michelle took this as a sign to play. She slowly approached the boy, and as soon as he finally started to reach out to her, she bolted away, appearing on the other side of the door, startling him.

“Stop playing around, Michelle,” Veronique said. “There’s a seat near the door, I want you to sit there.”

“But I don’t want to sit…” Michelle started to say.

Veronique shot her a look that could crack a cinder block made of adamantium; Michelle quickly did as she was instructed.

“Please, everyone relax,” the Indian woman told all of us, “I’ll answer all your questions, but first, it is important for us to have something to drink.”

Don’t you have control of her mind here? I thought to Grace.

I’m thirsty, she thought back, and she was about to make tea anyway.

Chapter Fifteen: Chai

It struck me as we were drinking chai that we could have died back there in the airplane. Duh. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out, nor an aerospace engineer, but because of our mad dash to get away, I hadn’t really had the time to process it.

Sitting there in the woman’s apartment on the floor, my legs crossed under my body, finally gave me the time I needed to decompress. The chai was good, sweet, a bit spicy and way better than the swill they tried to pass off as chai at McStarbucks.

It warmed me some, and for some reason, it also reminded me that it was probably better not to be rolling around with Father’s reality manipulation power. I quickly dabbed his blood against my finger, switching powers, and wiping my hand on my thigh.

Good enough.

Dorian returned from the kitchen with another glass of tea. We had already looked at pictures of where we could teleport to in Nepal and had decided on Pokhara, mainly because it was less populated than Kathmandu, and it would give us a place to stay for the night before moving to the bigger city.

All of us seemed a bit frazzled, and even though Grace looked perfect as usual, I definitely noticed some exhaustion behind her eyes.

Michelle appeared in front of me, a scarf draped over her head.

“Well?” she finally asked when I didn’t bite.

“I thought you were supposed to be sitting.”

“I got bored,” she said under her breath. Michelle spun too quickly for me to really see her move. “I’m dressed as an Indian woman!”

Veronique, who rested against the wall, looked at Michelle in a way that told the young speedster that it was best she didn’t annoy us right now. She was gone in an instant, back to the kitchen to join the mother and her young child.

“Anyway…” I started to tell the group. “Pokhara. That’s where we’re going next.”

“I thought our mark was in Kathmandu,” Veronique said.

“After surviving an airplane attack, I figured a little rest wouldn’t hurt anyone…”

“It’s probably best if we move quickly,” Veronique said. I glanced at the others to see Chloe and Stella nodding in agreement, Grace, Dorian and Ingrid not so much.

“All right, then let’s teleport to Pokhara, get our bearings, maybe grab some dinner, and keep going from there if we feel up to it.”

“Isn’t this cute?” Michelle asked, appearing before me again with the Indian woman’s phone. She showed me a picture of the baby and her that was now on the mother’s GoogleFace feed.

“You didn’t upload that, did you?” I asked, my heart leaping into my throat.

“Oh…” Michelle said, a scared look coming across her face.

“We need to move,” I said.

“What did you do?” Veronique asked. “Explain it to me.”

“We have to avoid stuff like this while Hummingbird is still alive,” I started to say.

“Crap, I’m so sorry Gideon! I…” Michelle tore her scarf off, bunching it up in her hands. “I’m…”

“It’s fine, Michelle.”

“What did she do?” Veronique asked.

Dorian and I locked eyes.

“Everyone up,” the punk rock teleporter said, motioning for the CBGs to gather around her.

“Are you ready? Do you need to see the Pokhara pictures again?” I asked her.

It was that fast.

One moment we were settling on a teleportation location, the next the wall exploded, a terrible blast of white energy bursting into the hallway.

Stella immediately cast her vector shield around the mother and her young boy, ushering them to safety. Dorian flashed away and reappeared, quickly telling us that there were robots outside, that a portal had opened up on another building, that Tokyo, Regina Lord, and Smiley were there.

Shit…

There wasn’t a single second to spare.

Ingrid charged forward, pinching herself, her transformation taking place as she ran toward the partially collapsed wall, dust everywhere as Tulip emerged.

The monster jumped to the building across the street and climbed up, his muscles forming, bulging as Smiley waited for him.

“We’ve got to go!” Dorian slapped her hand on my shoulder, both of us reappearing on the rooftop to give us a better vantage point. Grace was with us as well, the psychic shifter focused on the action on the other rooftop, which was a few stories taller than our current building.

Blasting forward, Chloe met Tokyo head on, a wave of energy blowing the dark-haired woman off the roof. Regina started tracing up some cosmic energy, only to be brought down by Grace, who stood with her hands in front of her, her eyes blazing white.

But Grace couldn’t finish the job.

A series of metal drones attacked our rooftop, humanoid robots flying alongside them.

Dorian went for her paintbrush.

I stretched my hands forward, sending a telekinetic wave at the robots that caught some of the drones. They hit the ground, but I wasn’t strong enough to keep them pinned, a few self-destructing, sending bits of metal into the air just as Dorian painted up a series of flaming purple fireballs.

Michelle appeared behind one of the robots, and quickly took out the cords on its legs with her knife. She jumped in the air and kicked off its back, sending it facedown, allowing me to blow off the back of its head.

“Grace,” I said as I finally made it to her side.

I helped Grace up; a loud boom indicating that Chloe was still on the attack. A sphere floated out of the apartment building below us, Stella and Veronique inside, the two landing on the opposite rooftop.

Ruthless as ever, Veronique cast her hand at Tokyo and started draining the woman long-distance, pulling scraps of metal from an air conditioning unit over to her hand as she approached the power amplifier. Tokyo quickly fell to her knees.

I had never seen someone get decapitated before.

It was as swift as it was grotesque, Veronique forming a blade and slicing Tokyo’s head off in one fell swoop.

Damn...

Blood squirted out of her neck hole for a moment, Tokyo’s body falling to the side.

The metal vampire turned her attention to Smiley.

They had faced off before, Veronique never able to best him.

And as Tulip tried to deliver a big fist to Smiley’s stomach, the man with the tattooed smile on his face headbutted Tulip and struck Veronique before she could get any protection up.

The building started to crumble; Regina sent one of her huge cosmic balls of energy through the building, crowds of people moving in the streets below as the apartment block started to collapse.

“Veronique!” I shouted, mentally sending my cry forward, hoping she would respond. “Take us down there,” I told Grace, “now!”

“We need to start regrouping…” Dorian said, a wild, scared look on her face. “The authorities will be here any moment.”

I looked right. From our vantage point we could see some of the roads clearing, police vehicles with sirens blazing racing in our direction, a few trucks with armed men in the back. The Indian military was already out because of what happened at the airport, so it hadn’t taken them long to respond to the disturbance.

“Get the word out,” I told Grace. “We have to gather around Dorian, but I have to… Veronique…”

Grace took my hand and led me to the edge of the roof, both of us jumping over the side, only to be swept up in a telekinetic wave that lowered us into the cloud of debris below.

There were men and women moving about, a grandmother carrying her child, many of them with blood-streaked clothing, utter calamity until Smiley and Tulip exploded out of the debris. The two bruisers traded more blows, neither able to get the upper hand.

Regina tried to swoop in for another attack only to be brought down by Grace, the woman spazzing out as Grace shredded her mind.

More drones buzzed into the area, tracking us.

Michelle appeared out of nowhere and leaped onto one of the drones, dragging it to the ground and driving her blade into the back of its body. Chloe took out another one, a bright sound bursting through it reminding me of a hand clap, the drone fizzing and exploding in the air.

Guns started firing in the distance.

Regina started to foam at the mouth, twitching, and she would have died right then and there had it not been for another portal, from which more robots tumbled out.

Three of them hit the ground, their backs opening and drones rising out of their bodies, all aiming their weapons at Grace.

She managed to swipe them aside just in time, but this made her lose her focus on breaking Regina’s mind. The woman slipped away only to find herself crawling right to Dorian’s feet.

Dorian looked up at me, her finger in her mouth.

I nodded.

And that’s how Regina Lord died.

Dorian sent a blistering purple spike through her chest, and the woman hit the ground, shifting forms until…

She became a man?

Regina was clearly a man now, which only made me more confused about whether it was truly her or not.

Her base form?

I couldn’t focus on that in the moment.

I continued searching through the rubble for Veronique, moving aside anything I could, trying to use Grace’s power to augment my own.

I screamed Veronique’s name again, using all the strength I could muster to lift huge chunks of brick and pipes, cuts appearing on my arm as I continued to dig.

“Help me!” I shouted to Grace, as she finished taking out the last of the robots.

She rose into the air, telepathic energy swirling around her and lifting the debris. Grace’s hair stood up, her features fading away as she became herself, the dark-haired girl, thin, blemishes on her skin, eyes white as a cocaine Christmas.

Shit.

I spotted Veronique, her eyes shut, blood painted across her face and hair. I dropped to my knees and immediately started healing her, ignoring everything around me, the debris floating over my head, the fight still happening between Smiley and Tulip.

“Please…”

I pressed my head against her chest to see if her heart was beating, as a siren went off, drowning out my ability to hear.

No… no… no…

I tried again.

Grace’s hand dropped to my shoulder, the sights and sounds all hitting me at once.

“Please…” I whispered, pushing forth as much healing power as I could. “Veronique.”

And something happened to me in that moment.

It was as if a biblical force had moved through me, beaming down from the sky, my actions no longer my own as I pressed my hands to Veronique’s body, my own skin pulling up as if it were separating from my skeleton.

An incredible wave of energy swelled around me; Veronique opened her eyes, gasping, back from the brink of death, She brought her hand to my cheek and slapped me so hard that I nearly lost my concentration.

But I held strong, my whole body trembling as I healed her.

I suddenly felt more powerful than I’d ever felt before.

I looked down at my hands, blistering energy radiating off of them.

All of it crescendoed until...

Suddenly, it was gone, and I was back to normal.

“Are you okay?” Grace asked, a scared look on her face.

“I… I don’t know.”

“We have to leave,” Dorian said, looking to Michelle. “Do you think you can distract Tulip enough to have her change back?”

“On it!”

“Stella, we need you to contain Smiley for a moment,” Dorian said, “while Michelle gets Ingrid.”

Stella nodded.

And as the rest of us stayed put, Veronique still waking up, the three of them took off, teleporting over to the fight between Tulip and Smiley.

Michelle started jumping around, getting Tulip’s attention.

To help her out, Stella prevented Smiley from attacking by erecting a vector shield around him.

I tried to get to my feet but couldn’t, my body still reeling from the energy that I’d expended.

I felt like there had been a sudden shift within me, but I couldn’t be too sure. I would need to plug in first, I would need to see if there was some type of change...

And I had to laugh at this notion, this idea that I would be able to understand what happened to me by simply reading out some bullshit make-believe stat sheet.

But it was something, and as Dorian returned with Ingrid, Michelle appearing to my right, Stella launching herself toward us using her vector power to propel her, I figured that now wasn’t the time to get to the bottom of it.

First, we had to get the hell away from New Delhi.

Chapter Sixteen: Gurkhas and Fwends

We landed in a field. A water buffalo with blonde hair grazed in front of us, flies buzzing around its head.

“Do you see this?” Michelle asked, appearing next to the creature, startling it. It tried to move away, and once it did, she simply disappeared, the water buffalo too stupid to understand what was happening.

Then again, I couldn’t really blame it. Most people couldn’t comprehend how quickly Michelle moved.

“What kind of cow is that?” Chloe asked.

“A water buffalo; they are unique to Asia. It’s not quite a cow,” I said.

“It looks like a cow,” Dorian said.

Veronique was still weak, so Ingrid had taken her beast armor, easily holding Veronique in her arms. Yeah, it looked weird as hell, Tulip’s overgrown body with Ingrid’s teenager sized head holding Veronique.

But at least I didn’t have to carry her, not that I wouldn’t have, but it gave me the freedom to do other things, like scratch the back of my head while I tried to figure out how far we were from civilization.

“I’m… sorry,” Michelle told Veronique for what seemed like the tenth time. The teen kept oscillating between being distracted by what we were doing, like our teleportation antics to get out of New Delhi as Dorian geared up to bring us here, to utter remorse.

She had run the gamut over the last twenty minutes, expressing just about every emotion possible as she tried to deal with the guilt she felt over calling Hummingbird to us.

But luckily, Veronique wasn’t giving her too much hell about it.

“I already told you, it’s…” Veronique closed her eyes. “It’s not your fault. Not quite. Just be careful next time and maybe you shouldn’t have a phone.”

“But…”

“We can talk about this later,” I told the both of them.

“Any idea where we are?” Stella asked me. “It seems like we’re in the middle of a jungle.”

“Not a bad observation,” I said, turning in the direction of the mountains on the horizon. “But to answer your question, we’re supposed to be in Pokhara, a city in the country of Nepal.”

The rest of the view was blocked by a tall tropical tree. There was a squad of birds I’d never heard before, something that sounded like a monkey, a smaller animal moving through the brush, away from us, and of course the sound of the water buffalo, which made a noise with its throat as it backed away from Michelle.

“Michelle, don’t bother the water buffalo,” I said to her.

“It would be so cool to ride one of these things.”

“I’ll handle this.” Chloe lifted into the air, the wind fluttering the skirt attached to her uniform as she sailed overhead, almost to the point where she became an apex in the sky.

Once she descended again, she pointed us in the direction of the trees, to the mountains.

“Civilization is that way.”

“Then that’s the way that we are going to go,” Ingrid said, turning to the jungle.

She stopped at the edge of the field, the rest of us following behind her, Veronique still in her arms.

“Thank you for carrying me,” Veronique said in her stilted way. “But I think I can walk.”

“I don’t mind,” Ingrid told her, “and you took quite a beating back there. Just let me help out for a little bit. No harm done.”

“She’s not wrong,” I started to say, catching the look from Veronique.

I backed off, not feeling like getting drained, my thoughts jumping from the fact that I had actually never been in a jungle before, to what had happened back in India.

What the shit was this Goku-like power I had exhibited?

I really, no, we really needed to get back to America. I needed to go over this with Father, and we needed to take care of that motherfucker Hummingbird. Just thinking of him in that warehouse in Mexico had my blood boiling.

If it hadn’t been for him…

“Did you save the mother and her son?” I asked Stella.

Of all of us, Stella seemed to have the least dirt and grime on her, just a smudge under one of her cheeks, her Dutch braid a bit frizzy.

“Of course I did.”

“Good,” I said as we came down a narrow path that led over a small stream, the canopy above us filled with life.

“Look, a monkey!” Michelle said, pointing up at the trees. Sure enough, a mama monkey leapt from limb to limb, her baby on her back, staring down at us.

“That’s so cool,” I said.

Grace laughed. “You would find a monkey interesting, wouldn’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Me,” said Dorian, eyeing the monkey and her child. “Those things carry diseases.”

“How do you know that?” Chloe asked her.

The sound manipulator was next to Dorian, and I could tell by the tone of her voice she was sort of teasing her.

“I don’t know; I just heard it.”

“I’ve heard a lot of things about monkeys, and I’ve never heard that they had diseases,” Michelle said. “Can I run ahead to see what’s up there? The anticipation is killing me!”

“No, stay with the group,” Veronique said.

“Okay, sorry.”

“It’s fine,” the metal vampire assured her.

“We aren’t too far,” Chloe informed us. “I saw a school or something about a quarter of a mile from our previous location. Maybe even closer. And the city is beyond that.”

“A school, huh?” I asked as we came out of the brush into a glade filled with beautiful flowers.

“These are almost as pretty as cherry blossoms,” Grace said, going to the first bunch of flowers and taking a big whiff. “Almost.”

“I’ve never seen so many flowers in my damn life,” I said. “And you’re right, this is way better than what we get back in Wooster Square.”

Now there were two words I hadn’t heard come out of my mouth in a while.

When all this started, I lived in a garden apartment in Wooster Square, the highlight of my week usually the weekend farmers’ market, or the occasional concert at Space Ballroom in Hamden, or scoping out some of the college bars in downtown New Haven.

What would the CBGs think if they knew just how pathetic I’d been before Grace stumbled into my life? I mean, I wasn’t a loser, I had a girlfriend from time to time, but I definitely wasn’t some sort of incel…

Grace looked to me, crossed her eyes, and stuck her tongue out.

What was that? I thought to her.

Stop living in the past. You’re with us now, and it doesn’t matter what your life was like before you met me.

You’re right.

I am always right.

That’s not true.

Remind me of a time that I wasn’t right?

I don’t know, I’m sure there has been a time in the last couple of weeks. Maybe you weren’t right to show up at my doorstep and thrust me into all of this.

She gave me a pouty look. You don’t mean that, she thought to me as we continue deeper into the jungle.

“Fine, fine,” I said under my breath as we came out of the trees again, the sound of grunts meeting my ears.

Standing before us was a squad of Gurkhas, the men wearing khaki trousers and white tank tops as they practiced their moves. And yes, they had curved blades at their sides.

They speak English, Grace thought to all of us. I’ll handle this.

The leader of the group stepped forward and smiled, his hands behind his back. The man had bronze skin, dark hair, and light brown eyes, and was thin and muscular. He was a head shorter than me, but was a towering figure nonetheless. For some reason, and even with my superpowers, I got this vibe that he would still be able to hand me my ass.

Thank you, college, specifically, Southern Connecticut University.

Had it not been for my history class, I wouldn’t have known about some of the things that the Nepali Gurkhas had done during World War II, from keeping the peace in India to slaying the Japanese in Burma.

These dudes were the real deal.

“Welcome to Pokhara,” he said. The men behind him snapped their legs shut, all clapping their arms at their sides.

I mean, I wasn’t scared, but I definitely saw a few of the CBGs bristle, especially Stella, her hand coming up, ready to get her vector on.

But as their leader continued, everyone relaxed.

After all, Grace was in control.

“I will have Batsa take you to my family’s hotel in the city,” the Gurkha leader said graciously. “There will be enough rooms for all of you, and we have an excellent chef. Please enjoy your stay in Nepal, and thank you for all you do, Cherry Blossom Girls.”

“He knows our name?” Michelle asked, wide-eyed.

“No,” Ingrid started to say.

But I cut her off. “Yes, he knows who we are; they know that we’re trying to do good here.”

The man nodded, the wind kicking up and whipping through his dark hair.

The Gurkha known as Batsa came forward and stood at attention. Once he got the go-ahead, he broke attention, gesturing for us to follow him.

“You cannot go into to town like that,” the man said, referring to Ingrid in her beast armor.

“I told you I can walk,” said Veronique.

“But I felt so important carrying you,” Ingrid said as she set the metal vampire down.

I moved over to her side, making sure she was stable. Slipping my hand around her waist, I stood there with Veronique for a moment, waiting for her to drain me.

To my surprise, she didn’t, and we walked like this for a bit, until it became awkward to try to step together at the same time.

So we separated, our hands coming together, our fingers interlacing.

Batsa proudly led the way, Grace beside him, Dorian behind her followed by Ingrid and Stella. Chloe was to our right, and Michelle moved back and forth, excited as ever.

“Is there anything I should know about Nepal?” Michelle asked me. “The people look like they come from India. I can definitely say that. That isn’t racist, is it?”

“No,” I told her. “Well, not quite. I don’t know. It sounds something a diversity and inclusion center could spend years tackling.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Isn’t this the place where monkeys come from? We saw some back there.”

“I don’t think monkeys just come from Nepal,” I told her. “Maybe Africa?”

“I hope we get to go there too.”

Chloe laughed. “You would go anywhere, wouldn’t you?”

“If it is with you guys, sure, I’ll go anywhere. We should visit all the countries. How many countries are there, Gideon?”

“A lot.”

“Continents?”

“Seven.”

“Countries again?”

“Like I said, a lot.”

“That’s not a very good answer. And I’m being serious here, how many are there? Twenty? Thirty?”

“Higher,” I said. Veronique cracked a smile.

“A hundred?”

“Higher than that.”

“Six hundred,” she said excitedly.

“A lot less than that.”

“Okay, so somewhere between one hundred and six hundred.” A determined look painted across Michelle’s face. “We will explore them all.”

“No, we won’t,” Veronique said. “But if you want to believe that, fine.”

“I want to visit all the countries. I want to see every type of person and hear all of their languages. I don’t want to learn to speak their languages, because they sound too difficult. I heard the Indian people speaking their language and that was a very strange sounding language. Very fast. And then I heard how they spoke in Japan, and it was kind of interesting. Polite, and quiet, but also it sounded complicated. And who is supposed to learn all these characters that they use? English is easy. Just twenty-six letters.”

“Hey, Michelle, why don’t you run ahead and check out the town and let us know what it looks like?” Veronique asked. “That would be quite helpful to us.”

“Are you f’n serious?” she asked.

“Yep, go on,” I told her, “and then come back here and let us know if it’s nice or not.”

“And it’s just this way, right? Straight ahead?”

I confirmed her question with a nod. “Don’t go too far.”

She took off, kicking up dust. Dorian turned to Veronique and me, and smirked.

“What?”

“You can’t just send her off whenever she’s being annoying.”

“She wasn’t being annoying.”

“Yes, she was,” Veronique said, squeezing my hand.

“Well, maybe.”

It was warm, but there was also a breeze in this place that reminded me of Colorado, a wind that had had some time to simmer in the mountains and bring down some of that cold air. The sky was blue, aside from a gray cloud to my left, and as we approached the city I could see the sparkle of water in the distance.

The dirt path we were walking morphed into a proper road, motorcycles and older cars skirting along it, women selling vegetables arranged on plastic tarps, a bus parked on the side of the road as the driver and a few men worked on one of the tires.

There were people walking as well, most of them barefoot, a few carrying straw baskets, others with their hands in their pockets. People noticed us. And as soon as they did, they couldn’t stop looking, not until Grace used her power to turn their heads the other way.

It was odd being stared at like this.

We had come from Japan, where people hardly paid attention to us, rarely making eye contact, to Nepal, where everyone was interested in who we were, why we had just come out of the Gurkha training academy.

Different folks, different strokes.

“We are going to rest here, right?” Veronique asked.

“I thought you wanted to go straight to Kathmandu…”

“That was before I was buried alive.”

“I’m…” I looked at her, biting my lip. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner. I’m sorry we couldn’t get you.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Stop apologizing like Michelle, whose fault it was, for the record.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“We’re fine now, and we’re together. That’s all that matters,” she said, squeezing my hand again.

Chapter Seventeen: Pokhara’s Finest

The hotel had an old-world charm to it, the place clearly built in the mid-twentieth century. The curtains, the quality of the woodwork, the elegance of the dining room with its white tableclothes and silver platters, a few foreign guests having an early dinner.

“Who’s hungry?” Chloe asked, after Batsa bid us farewell, heading back to the Gurkha academy.

“We will have food for you a bit later, madam,” the concierge told us. Even though it was kind of warm outside, the man still wore a black suit, everything tailored, his hair parted off to the side and glossy from hairspray. He smiled as Chloe continued to speak to him.

A thought struck me like a mallet: we had left our backpack back in India, the one that contained our laptop, and all of our communication methods.

“We are going to need some cell phones,” I told him.

“Certainly,” he said, Grace already controlling his mind.

“And…” I shook my head. “Never mind.”

I knew it was too much to ask for a laptop, and I saw that they had a business center to the left of the entrance that didn’t seem very private.

But I still wouldn’t have minded one at the time.

Whatever happened to being a writer? I thought as we took the stairs to the third floor, two of us assigned to each room.

And did it really even matter if I ever wrote again?

With the life that I was living, and the plans that I had to “save” the world, there wasn’t a lot of time to plot out my stories.

And in a way I could feel Manchester Rich begging me to write her, the city of Dwarvington ready to reveal to me more of its secrets, the dark mysteries that lurked in its back alleyways and hidden entrances.

Meowroar!

All those make-believe concepts were secondary now, pieces of an imaginary world in my head that only a small number of people gave two shits about.

Then there was Mutants in the Making, my best-selling series that continued to hold its rank in the EBAYmazon store. It was for sale in bookshops, imagine that, and it was now available at libraries, at least according to an email I’d recently got from my agent, Jake.

But what could I do? It was better for me to focus on the mission at hand, uncovering more about Damon Lord, than to think about transgendered dwarfs or try to manage a career that would always be tainted by what I had done here.

Still, the thought was there: maybe I needed to write another book.

Maybe I needed to write a book about what we were doing internationally.

Yes.

I thought about this idea as I changed out of my clothing into a robe. For now, it was Gideon in a robe, sitting in his hotel room, Grace on the bed, her hands behind her head.

I could feel she was monitoring my thoughts; she always was, so maybe it was her who had spawned the idea to write about what we were doing now.

Maybe...

Was she the mastermind behind all this?

I didn’t dare think it, but I couldn’t help but let that thought push to the surface, and as I had before, I waited for Grace’s answer.

None came.

I made my way over to her, to see that she was sleeping, her mouth open, utter exhaustion on her face.

She looked beautiful, but rather than stand over her like a creepy motherfucker, I moved to a plush chair, going back to the idea that I’d just been contemplating.

A creative nonfiction gamer sci-fi book about our adventures abroad? How interesting would this be? How cliché would it be to come at them with a follow-up? I wondered if in the future, my works would fall into the same lane as Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan books, stories larger than life, too surreal to be true.

What would someone in 2090 think?

Gideon…

The melodic sound had my ears twitching. I wandered out into the hallway to find Chloe standing there, also in a robe.

“Ready for your massage?” she asked me.

“My massage?”

“Didn’t you hear them talking about this downstairs?”

“To be honest, I was sort of in my head at the time.”

“Aren’t you always in your head?”

She took my hand, leading me down the wooden staircase to a lower level, where we found several rooms and a receptionist waiting for us.

“Ready for your massage?” the female receptionist asked, smiling.

I hadn’t seen a lot of Nepalis up close, but the ones I had seen looked different from the people of India, as Michelle had mentioned earlier. Due to their proximity to China, they had more of a mixed look to them, the brown tints of the subcontinent with the higher cheekbones, sure, but also the wider faces of the Himalayan region and Central Asia.

They were definitely unique, as were the two people waiting on Chloe and me.

“We’re getting a blind massage?” I asked.

“Would you rather a seeing massage?” one of the massage therapists asked with a chuckle. Both were male, and both stood there gazing off into the distance, not quite making eye contact with Chloe and me.

“Yes,” the receptionist said. “A blind massage. Is this okay for you, sir?”

“It’s more than okay,” I told her. “Sorry if I, um, made that awkward in any way.”

“It is quite all right,” she said as she led Chloe and me to a dimly lit room, where we found two tables waiting for us.

“Are we supposed to undress fully?” I asked the receptionist before she could step out.

She laughed, her hand coming over her mouth. “No, sir, please remain in your undergarments.”

I looked to Chloe, to see that she was also giggling at me.

“What? These are important questions.”

“If you are expecting a happy ending, you probably will have to wait until later,” she said.

“Is that so?”

“We’ll see what happens.”

Chloe took off her robe and lay down on the massage table, her bra still on. She unhooked it and kept the bra on her chest as she pressed against the table, allowing me to bring a towel over her back.

“Who’s going to put a towel on for me?” I asked as I also lay down, arranging the towel myself.

“Wow, you are really learning to take care of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Please, I’ve been taking care of myself for twenty-five years.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, believe what you want, it’s true.”

“You walked out of the womb taking care of yourself, huh?”

I chuckled. “Something like that. Had my first job at a different Yale gift shop when I was three months old. Anything to support the thriving Yale economy.”

“You’re so ridiculous,” Chloe said as the two male massage therapists entered the room. My head was facing down, stuck in a hole that looked out onto the underside of the table, which made it even stranger when a pair of hands landed on my back.

The hands started up, softly kneading my skin, digging into my muscles. And while I was aware of the sensation at the start, within ten minutes, I was in a spell caused by the release of endorphins, or whatever the hell getting a massage released in a person’s brain, on my way to la-la bliss.

There were a few pieces to our recent puzzle that I hadn’t quite figured out yet.

First, the Angel and Arianna angle.

I knew that we shouldn’t have let her go with him, and the shaman had confirmed it. But the question still remained: where had Angel taken her, and what was he plotting to do?

Arianna had hinted that Angel was lying to me, but I had never figured out what he was lying about aside from the fact he’d come after them, which wasn’t really that important of a detail anyway.

I really couldn’t get a read on him.

And if he had wanted to double-cross us, he would have done it then, or at least he would have tried. Hell, maybe the two of them together could have done it, and then Angel could have turned on her. There were a lot of factors and possibilities, but I still found it hard to believe that we were in an enemy of my enemy situation.

In the end, Angel would come after us as well.

And what about Mother? What about Remy, and all his goddamn clones? They had to be gunning for us, especially after what Michelle did to Mother’s unborn child by stabbing her in the stomach. This made me think of Natalie Johansson, that dirty Hollywood hating-ass bitch who continually tried to kill us with her minions.

Well, we at least got Tokyo, which was not exactly what I was expecting. And we took one of Damon Lord’s as well, Regina, who was apparently a man all along.

“It feels so good,” Chloe said, interrupting my rambling thoughts. “Enjoying yours?”

“Yeah, it feels great. Thanks.”

“It is my pleasure, sir,” the massage therapist said as he started applying more pressure to the back of my head. It was as if he were pushing out ideas and concepts, each press of his thumb sparking something new.

I was transported again to the Mongolian steppe, Michelle racing ahead; Fiona and her water clone running in circles around me; Ingrid floating, reading a book; Chloe seated on the pillar that had lifted out of the ground, a microphone in her hand as she sang a beautiful song; Grace and Dorian, both looking the same aside from Grace’s white eyes, beckoning me forward; Stella erecting a vector shield between us; Veronique, my Veronique.

I choked back a sob and the massage therapist let up.

“Are you okay, sir?”

“Sorry,” I told him. “You just released something there.”

“I will continue, a little more softly now,” he said. “Sometimes these massages can reveal emotions that you may have been keeping secret.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Better to keep it out of mind and just let it pass. Memories are powerful things.”

He wasn’t wrong. Just a few hours back, hell, less than that, I had literally thought Veronique was dead.

I couldn’t hear her heartbeat, there was chaos all around me, and in that moment of calamity something came to me, a power that I still didn’t understand.

“We need to get cellphones,” I told Chloe as an afterthought.

“Just enjoy the massage, Gideon. You’ve earned it.”

“Right,” I said as the man moved down to my calves, digging his fingers in again, releasing some tension.

I needed to relax.

I knew that I was supposed to be enjoying this, but I was the leader of this strange little group, and I needed to wrap my mind around not only what we were supposed to do next, but what had happened today.

It was clear that Hummingbird was after us, but how had he known we had gotten on the plane?

He must have been running some sort of global facial recognition system, and one of our features was picked up in the airport.

He was good, I would give the bastard that, and he would continue to be a thorn in our side until we took him out.

As the massage therapist continued to knead my calf muscles, I started to formulate a plan on how we would do this.

First, we would need to go back to America, clearly, which would give us time to check in with Father, meet with Clarence, and have our uniforms serviced by Vince Porter.

I also felt that going back to America would allow me to get control over my writing again, take a bit of a breather as I talked to my agent, to Luke, to see what else I could do to spread the story.

Maybe that should be my focus.

It wasn’t a bad idea; the more people that knew about the Cherry Blossom Girls and what we’d been through, the more they would get on our side if the government tried to throw us under the bus, as it normally did, or if there was some type of televised attack.

Then again, how many people actually read? It wasn’t exactly the most popular medium, even if there were tons of readers out there. We needed a bigger reach, and that meant we needed to move into larger mediums to tell our story.

A new novel would help propel this forward.

The last thought I had before the massage was over was about the coin that the shaman had given me. I’d kept it with me, just like he said, but was it really just a superstition? How was this going to help me do anything?

After our massage, Chloe and I headed upstairs, dressing in the clothing they provided. It was yoga clothing, loose, made of nice organic cotton, but it worked, and we looked like a bunch of hippies afterward. Grace was awake now, and once our group gathered, we had dinner downstairs, where we were served curry.

“It’s so spicy and good,” Michelle said, a headband tying her black and pink hair back, the young speedster eating her naan like it was pizza with curry on top.

“You’re supposed to sort of tear off a piece of the naan and then use it to scoop up one of the potatoes, or whatever. Or you can just dip it in,” I explained to her.

Dorian, who had been eating her naan like pizza quickly changed her eating tactics.

“You will feed right after this,” I told Veronique, who sat at the end of the table with a cup of coffee in her hands, watching me with a hungry look on her face.

“Thanks.”

“And someone else needs to volunteer. I was her last meal,” I said, as the waiter came by with more food.

“I’ll volunteer,” Ingrid said, as the waiter set a tray of dumplings in front of her.

“What are these called?” Chloe asked.

“We call those momos, madam,” the man said. “It’s a Tibetan dish, but I think it really comes from China.”

“Great,” Ingrid said as she used her fork to stab one of the dumplings and stuff it in her mouth.

More curries came, little bowls of lentils too alongside homemade yogurt and other dishes, including a big plate of fried noodles. The waiter also brought small glasses of rice wine which he told us was called “roxy,” the alcohol warming me with the first sip.

I was stuffed in the end, my belly distended, the food heavy in my gut. I needed to walk it off, I knew it, and as I looked around the room, I figured a few of them would want to go for a little evening stroll as well.

“Who’s up for a walk?” I asked.

Dorian, who wore loose yoga clothes and a scarf around her neck, slowly raised her hand, the same hand which she used to place over her mouth, hiding a small burp.

“That was cute,” I said.

“I don’t even know if I have enough room to burp,” Michelle said. “I ate too much. I need to… I need to run.”

Veronique cleared her throat. “As much as I appreciate your offer, Ingrid, I need to feed. I think it would be best for you to take a little rest, Michelle.”

“Don’t be mean to me,” Michelle started to say.

“She’s not being mean,” Grace told the young speedster. “You’ve been up for quite a while.”

“How did you know I didn’t sleep last night?”

“I just know,” Grace said.

“I’m down for a walk,” Chloe told me.

“Anyone else?”

“I will join you too,” said Grace.

“Good, let’s have a walk, and then get some rest. Tomorrow, we go to Kathmandu, where we’ll hopefully be able to get the drop on Damon Lord. Everyone get as much rest as you can. Shit could get pretty real in about twelve hours.”

Chapter Eighteen: Pretty Garden Stat Dump

The next morning came faster than I would have liked, but I was well rested, no disturbances during the night. As soon as I stepped out of my room, I ran into Michelle, who already had a small glass of milk.

“Don’t forget, we still have to make the offering,” she said. “Ingrid’s instructions!”

“Right,” I told her. “Let’s do that.”

We went outside to the hotel’s courtyard and tossed a small cup of milk onto a bush.

“Like that, right?”

“Sure,” I told her. “I think Mary put a little more finesse into it, but it’s the thought that counts.”

“Uh-huh. And that’s now our good luck bush,” Michelle said, beaming at me.

“Sure, we can call it that.”

“Cool.”

“Definitely cool.”

It was a pretty bush, one of many in the courtyard, with big yellow flowers that reminded me of daffodils. Maybe they were related to daffodils, there really was no telling.

The space was serene, and its greenness made me miss Edgerton Park in Hamden. I felt at ease as I watched a tiny squirrel move along the limbs of the tree.

“They’re so cute, right?” Michelle asked.

“Definitely.”

The Nepali squirrels were small, with black stripes down their backs, different than the critters we had running around Wooster Square back in New Haven, and easily a fourth of the size. Those were some serious megachonkers back east.

“Gideon,” Michelle said, startling me.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want me to bring you some coffee or tea?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

She reappeared again in a matter of seconds with a cup of coffee. Sure, the liquid was trembling a bit, but none of it had spilled out.

“You really are talented, you know that?” I said as she sat down next to me, kicking her legs.

“You think so?”

“I don’t tell that to everyone.”

“You’ve never told it to Dorian?”

I bit my lip for a moment. “I plead the Fifth.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Grace?”

“I’ve definitely said something like that.”

“So you’ve basically told everyone, right?”

“Okay, you got me.”

Michelle laughed. “I really wish we could stay in this city. It’s really small and, um... another word that means ‘small and cute,’ please.”

“Quaint?”

“Quaint. There are a lot of really cool shops, all sorts of spiritual items too, like prayer beads and little figures and prayer flags and prayer wheels…”

“Prayer wheels?” I asked.

“Yeah, I saw one yesterday. It’s like this stick with a cylinder on top. There are prayers inside, and every time you spin it, the wheel sends those prayers out to the universe.”

“How did you learn all that?”

“A guy tried to sell me one.”

“Nice to know,” I told her with a smile as I took another sip of my coffee.

Eventually the others joined me, the last one to step into the courtyard being Dorian, who was always a little bit sleepy.

“We should start getting dressed,” Veronique said, taking charge. “We have to get to this Kathmandu.”

“It’s going to be so crazy,” Ingrid said.

“Did you read up on it or something?” Stella asked.

“No, I talked to one of the hotel workers. He’s from Kathmandu.”

“And we’re going to have to remember to keep an extremely low profile. With Hummingbird out…”

“We’re going after him, right?” Veronique asked, her eyes narrowing on me. “Like soon. I’m still pissed about the attack in India.”

“You bet your ass we are; I already told you this.”

Michelle snorted. “You bet your ass, Veronique!”

“Language,” I said, suddenly feeling a change of energy at the front of my body, Veronique draining just a little bit of my life force. “And I have a plan for what we need to do about Hummingbird, but like I keep saying, it’s too far to get to Mexico at the moment, and we don’t know if he’s actually there or not. Next on our list after Damon Lord.”

I pulled out one of the smartphones that Grace had arranged last night. The hotel workers who had brought us clothing has also brought us phones, aside from Michelle, who was still in time out for taking the selfie back in India. She took it well, but I could tell she wanted to play with her phone.

I hadn’t really played with my phone yet, aside from checking my email and telling Luke I would reach out to him in the future.

“So what now?” Veronique asked.

“Stat time.”

“Fun,” Grace said, winking at me.

I sunk my hand into my pocket to find my phone, my fingers grazing against the coin that the shaman had given to me. I had a few other things in my pocket that were always on my person, including the vial of Father’s blood, and the USB key that had Dr. Kim’s info on it. I hadn’t used this in a while, but it sort of stayed with me.

I noticed a few messages in my inbox, ignoring them as I clicked on the cherry icon that launched the CBG app.

While I hadn’t played around with anyone’s abilities last night, I had checked my own to see if there had been some change after my little incident with Veronique.

Nope.

Everything was still the same, and I still had the same powers on deck: Jules’ negation ability, and Father’s healing and both of Grace’s powers.

The psychic shifter in mind, I navigated to her stats, just to give them a quick looksee.

Sabine, Subject S

Build: 008

Base height: 181 centimeters

Base weight: 54 kilos

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 9

Constitution: 4

Wisdom: 8

Dexterity: 3

Charisma: 6

Main: Psychic

Omnikinesis: 10

Second Sight: 5

Psychometry: 5

Telepathy: 7

Clairsentience: 5

Psychokinesis: 8

Hypnosis: 6

Nightmare Sight: 6

Telepathic Radius: 5

Main Second: Shifter

Speed of Change: 10

Texture Consistency: 10

Opacity: 10

Transparency Control: 10

Voice Match: 10

She was OP with her Omnikinesis, but it always helped us, and there really wasn’t anything I could think about improving aside from her Telepathic Radius, which would allow us to take minds from an even farther distance.

Bringing her Omnikinesis down allowed me to up her Radius by two points, which made her abilities look pretty well-rounded in the end:

Main: Psychic

Omnikinesis: 9

Second Sight: 5

Psychometry: 5

Telepathy: 7

Clairsentience: 5

Psychokinesis: 8

Hypnosis: 6

Nightmare Sight: 6

Telepathic Radius: 7

I didn’t mess with her shifter ability because she was maxed out.

Seriously.

I looked over to Grace and saw she had now taken the form of a Nepali woman, caramel skin, thick eyeliner and a red dot between her eyebrows. She looked like some type of Southeast Asian princess or something, enlightened.

You likey? she thought to me.

Not now, genius at work over here…

She laughed and turned to one of the bushes, bending over to give one of the yellow flowers a sniff.

I checked Ingrid out next and didn’t do anything to change her stats.

Ingrid, Subject I

Build: 3.2

Base height: 150 centimeters

Base weight: 40 kilos

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 3

Constitution: 5

Wisdom: 4

Dexterity: 7

Charisma: 5

Main: Beast Morphing

Beast Soul: 7

Morph Speed: 8

Beast Armor: 8

Maybe one day I would play around with her Beast Soul, and try to get to the bottom of what that was exactly. We definitely needed to do more training, which we could do back in Colorado. I could even take Manchester again and see if I could better get that form under control.

Moving on…

I didn’t really do anything to Michelle either, especially since we didn’t have our training ground to test some things out.

It would be fun to play with her Manic Warping, but this could also be risky.

This ability and Molecular Oscillation were how she moved through solid objects, or blasted to the kitchen and back with a hot cup of coffee without spilling it. Michelle could seriously warp reality, which was totally not something a fourteen-year-old hyperactive girl should be capable of doing.

Michelle, Subject M

Build: 012

Base height: 153 centimeters

Base weight: 35 kilos

Strength: 1

Intelligence: 4

Constitution: 6

Wisdom: 4

Dexterity: 8

Charisma: 8

Main: Enhanced Speed

Focused Time Perception: 6

Manic Warping: 4

Acceleration Resistance: 7

Molecular Oscillation: 8

Deceleration: 8

Aim Dodging: 7

Hyper-Accelerated Metabolism: 7

So, I kept the young speedster the same and moved on to the punk rock teleporter, a personal fave if I had to choose favorites.

Dorian Gray, Subject DG

Build: 7.543

Base height: 170 centimeters

Base weight: 49 kilos

Strength: 2

Intelligence: 6

Constitution: 7

Wisdom: 3

Dexterity: 6

Charisma: 8

Main: Ergokinesis

Overcharge: 2

Charge Capacity: 5

Charge Integrity: 5

Main Second: Teleportation

Tele-Sphere Radius: 6

Conscious Spatial Awareness: 10

Recharge Speed: 6

Restoration Speed: 7

Teleportation Rapidity: 5

Teleportation Distance: 10

Empathetic Teleportation: 8

Banishment: 3

Overcharge: 1

Dorian Gray was looking pretty good at the moment. She could possibly teleport a bit faster, but she already moved at a blazing pace, and from what I could discover, adjusting this hardly had any effect on her ability to get from point A to point B.

However, it would be nice if she could recharge faster, especially after a long teleportation.

With this in mind, I kicked down her Teleportation Rapidity by one digit and put that into her Recharge Speed.

This kicked her Overcharge up, which definitely wasn’t something we wanted, so I returned it to its normal state by bringing her Banishment down and her Teleportation Rapidity up. This did the trick, and putting one point in her Recharge Speed this time didn’t affect her Overcharge.

Main Second: Teleportation

Tele-Sphere Radius: 6

Conscious Spatial Awareness: 10

Recharge Speed: 7

Restoration Speed: 7

Teleportation Rapidity: 4

Teleportation Distance: 10

Empathetic Teleportation: 8

Banishment: 2

Overcharge: 1

I explained to Dorian what I’d done, and she nodded. “I don’t use Banishment as often as I should, and it’s not that hard to just grab someone and teleport away with them,” she said.

“Yeah, I never really understood why that was on your stat sheet to begin with, but I think there’s something about it that allows you to better judge your return to the battle. At least, that’s how I envision it in my head, or possibly the distance you can take them.”

“A lot of things go on in that head of yours, don’t they?” Veronique asked.

“Is that a cry for help in the form of asking me to check your stats, my dear?”

Michelle snickered; Ingrid started to laugh as well.

“You sure are funny this morning, aren’t you?” Veronique asked as she changed chairs, plopping down next to me. She turned to me, cocking her head to the side.

“Patience, young metal vampire,” I told her with a wink.

“You should be glad you’re not a telepath.”

“I am, and I don’t like what I’m seeing,” I told her.

In actuality, Veronique was thinking about fucking me. She kept saying, let’s fuck, let’s fuck, let’s fuck on repeat, which made Grace laugh as well.

“This is totally not how telepathy is supposed to work,” I grumbled as I returned to the CBG app.

Just a few more check-ups to go.

In the end, I didn’t do anything to Veronique’s stats, but I did look them over anyway, as I always did when I checked everyone’s stats at once.

Veronique, Subject V

Build: 2.7341

Base height: 171 centimeters

Base weight: 50 kilos

Strength: 4

Intelligence: 6

Constitution: 7

Wisdom: 5

Dexterity: 6

Charisma: 2

Main: Metal Absorption and Modification

Wielding Capacity: 7

Adaption Speed: 6

Alloy Integrity: 6

Blood Metal Conversion: 7

Veronique was a force to be reckoned with, and there wasn’t a lot that could take her down. I wished at that moment that I’d had a little more time to spend with just her, but we had a mission to get to, and there’d be time for cuddling and humping at a later date.

Next I moved to Chloe, also not changing anything but giving her stats a quick check just for shiggles.

Chloe, Subject C

Build: 17.169

Base height: 185 centimeters

Base weight: 56 kilos

Strength: 4

Intelligence: 7

Constitution: 7

Wisdom: 5

Dexterity: 7

Charisma: 4

Main: Acoustokinesis

Sound Sculpting: 5

Acoustic Acceleration: 6

Sonoluminescence: 5

Rhythm Manipulation: 6

Sonokinetic Combat: 6

Sound Detection: 5

Sonic Stimulation: 6

Overcharge: 3

Echolocation: 5

That left me with the vector queen, Stella, who had a bored look on her face by the time I reached her.

“I’ve saved the best for last,” I said, hoping to appease her.

“Really, Gideon?”

“Hey, at least I don’t have to plug into your neck now.”

I brought her stuff up as I had a dozen times before, my eyes falling upon her Quantum Manipulation power.

What did it do? And how quickly would Emeril or Thanos get here if we tried to turn it up a notch? And equally important, how cool would the name ‘Quantum’ be for a main character in a GameLit novel? I almost started plotting this one out, but focused on the task at hand instead.

Stella, Subject St

Build: 002

Base height: 172 centimeters

Base weight: 48 kilos

Strength: 5

Intelligence: 5

Constitution: 4

Wisdom: 4

Dexterity: 6

Charisma: 4

Main: Vector Manipulation

Kinetic Energy Manipulation: 8

Quantum Manipulation: 1

Vibration Emission: 7

Inertia Negation: 3

Telekinetic Regeneration: 5

Tactile Telekinesis: 5

Deflection: 6

Velocity Manipulation: 4

Aversion Field Creation: 7

Overcharge: 3

I didn’t adjust anything, keeping Stella right where she was. I could do some more experimenting once we got back to Colorado, and if we really wanted to get creative, we could try to open up a black hole or something.

But not in a foreign country, dammit, especially one that had shown us as much hospitality as Nepal had.

Chapter Nineteen: I Think I’m Going to Kathmandu

Another message would come in from the Emperor of Japan at some point, but he hadn’t said anything since our last one.

I figured he got busy doing stately things, whatever it was emperors actually did. What a cool life that would be, to be born royal and famous and rich all at the same time, never having to experience poverty and never worrying where your next meal was going to come from.

Hell, the only thing royalty really had to worry about was being kidnapped by a terrorist group, and subsequently saved by a team of superheroes.

The good life, amirite?

From the videos and the pictures we had seen, Kathmandu looked a little too dense to blindly teleport there. We would have to be a little bit more strategic about it, but Ingrid had already heard from one of the hotel employees that the bus ride between Pokhara and Kathmandu could get a little rocky.

According to him, sometimes the buses came too close to the edges of the cliffs along the way and fell. He also told her that people had to sometimes move to the other side of the bus to prevent it from falling, to shift the weight...

Now, in this scenario, we would have superheroes on our bus, but still, I didn’t feel like taking a risky six-hour ride when we had a teleporter.

There had also been a suggestion that we could take a plane there, but pretty much everyone was against this, with the caveat that we would have to travel by air again one day.

I started checking out each of the smaller cities that surrounded Kathmandu.

Eventually, I stumbled upon a city called Patan, and looking at the pictures of it totally had me feeling some sick Mortal Kombat vibes. It looked ancient, mystical, alien even. And the place I focused on particularly was called Durbar Square, with its pagoda rooftops peppered with buildings with flat roofs.

I knew there would be people there, clearly, but if we picked one of the high rooftops, it would give us a chance to get our bearings and then teleport down to the ground, or float our way down, however we decided to do it.

So that’s what we did.

I showed Dorian a bunch of pics and she rubbed her hands together, a determined look on her face as everyone joined her. We were back in our superhero uniforms, with our Nepali clothing over them, the local stuff loose enough to actually do a pretty good job at disguising our super underoos.

“Everyone ready?” Dorian asked. She waited for confirmations before smiling and saying, “Here goes nothing.”

One purple poof later and we were standing on a high rooftop, Michelle’s hands coming to her mouth as she looked over the edge and saw just how packed the place was.

It was Veronique who took over from there, opening a window on another part of the building and telling us to get inside.

Once we did this, we were greeted by monks, not Tibetan monks, but something definitely Tibetanish. These ones wore different clothing than what I’d seen before in pictures and videos, the men in orange robes with big yellow sashes over them.

If they were shocked when they saw us all coming through the window, they didn’t let us know, courtesy of our favorite psychic shifter.

“How far is Kathmandu from here?” I asked one of the monks, who sat in front of a large idol smeared with red wax, dozens upon dozens of flower petals at its feet.

“Maybe eight kilometers,” he finally said.

“I could easily run that,” Michelle told us, her hands on her hips, a proud look on her face.

“I’m not gonna tell you that we need to stick together, because you already know that,” I said, turning to Grace and Chloe. “Let’s get out there and charter ourselves a van. The Hotel Himalaya is in a part of Kathmandu called Thamel, and we will probably want to take residence at a different hotel or hostel near there to scope it out. Remember team, there are better ways to get people than just blowing down the walls and taking everyone hostage.”

“Sometimes I do wish that was our style, though,” Veronique said.

Dorian smirked at her. “Yeah, you do.”

I waited for Raiden to step out from one of the buildings in Patan, lightning crackling around his eyes, ready for a fight to break out along the rooftops, ninjas leaping from rooftop to rooftop, flipping, spinning their staffs.

“It’s a very old part of Nepal,” Grace said as we approached the taxi stand.

There were men gathered around with vehicles, all of them looking at us considering we were the only foreigners in the area aside from a couple taking pictures of one of the temples.

“How old?” Michelle asked.

Grace scanned a few of the minds of the taxi drivers vying for our business.

I had already checked the area for any cameras, and had thankfully come up empty-handed. Still, with a group of beautiful women we would draw attention to ourselves, even if Grace were able to cast her power in a wider net now.

A man stepped forward.

“Right this way, Edward and Jill King,” he said, his eyes flashing white. We followed him to a large van, all of us piling in the back and the driver jumping in the front, immediately honking his horn at a man pushing a cart in front of us.

“Sorry,” Grace told Michelle. “And to answer your question about the age of this place, from what I gathered from some of their thoughts, Patan has existed in some shape or form for over two thousand years.”

“It’s that old?” I asked, looking at some of the buildings and their tiled rooftops. I could see some new construction too, and some renovations taking place. There was also a sign in English saying that reconstruction from the 2015 earthquake was still underway.

“That’s sooooo old,” Michelle said, looking out the window as our driver nudged onto a road.

Competition was fierce when it came to driving space, and I soon got in the habit of looking straight ahead, rather than paying attention to who we were sharing the road with, from cyclists to tractors, from small beater cars to an actual horse and buggy.

As we got behind a long line of traffic, the driver honked his horn, cursing, shaking a fist. Eventually, we saw what was causing the holdup: a cow had sat down in the middle of the road, taking a rest.

“Why won’t anyone move the cow?” Veronique asked, an annoyed look on her face.

“We are Hindus,” our driver said, Grace clearly giving him enough of his own consciousness back to answer our questions. “The cow is sacred.”

“But no one will move it out of the road?” Ingrid asked.

“No. If the cow wants to sit in the road, the cow sits in the road,” the driver said.

“You are honking your horn at it,” said Michelle.

“I was honking my horn at the other drivers. Nepal has very bad drivers. Very, very bad,” he said as he careened around a man pushing a cart, nearly hitting him.

“This place looks so much older than America,” Dorian said, staring out the window, awe-struck.

“It is much older than America, at least America in its current form,” I told the group, ready to put my history professor suspenders on. “Settlers didn’t even arrive in America until the 1400s, and before that, maybe some Vikings. Definitely some Vikings. But my point is, we have only been in the area for six hundred, a country for less than three hundred, and I say all that without mentioning the Native Americans who lived there for thousands of years before we even arrived.”

“Maybe that’s why the traffic is so bad here,” Michelle said. “It was developed before there were cars.”

I laughed. “America was also partially developed before there were cars.”

She shrugged. “You know what I mean. Look at the roads, look at how close the buildings are.”

“That’s not a bad point,” Chloe said. “Did any of you hear some of the music that was playing back there? It was very curious to me. There’s something alluring about it, something mystical.”

“There are many mystical and magical things in Nepal,” our driver said, wagging his head as he spoke. “This is where the Buddha is from. Not Patan, but further south, closer to the Indian border in a place called Lumbini. India says the Buddha came from their country, but no, the Buddha came from here. The Tibetans also have some famous places in Nepal, including the cave where Guru Rinpoche reached enlightenment.”

“Enlightenment, what’s that exactly?” Michelle asked the driver.

He pondered this for a moment before finally saying, “You are asking the wrong person. But maybe you could go to the Guru’s cave and figure it out for yourself.”

“I want to go to the Guru’s cave,” Michelle said.

“We aren’t here to sightsee,” Veronique reminded everyone.

“His cave is in a city called Pharping. There are many foreigners that go there. I haven’t been there, but they say when the Guru reached enlightenment, he stepped out of the cave and pressed his hand into the rock, that you can still see his handprint.”

“What’s the Guru’s name?” Ingrid asked.

“Many names. Some say Guru Rinpoche, others call him Padmasabhava.”

“Maybe he was a superhero, like us,” Michelle said.

Dorian laughed. “I like to think of it that way. That’s cute.”

“Anyone who can press their hand into a rock and change the rock’s shape is a superhero!”

“What about someone who makes clay sculptures?”

Michelle snorted at my suggestion. “Okay, I guess you’re right. Wait, that’s different. Maybe you’re not right, Gideon.”

“We’re near Mount Everest, right?” Ingrid asked the driver.

“Yes. The Himalayas stretch all the way through Nepal, separating us from Tibet.”

“Which China owns now,” I added.

“It’s a very political situation,” the driver said, briefly making eye contact with me. “But I used to give tours around Bhoudanath Stupa in Kathmandu, so I know a lot of Tibetans. Most can never visit their families again, and many escaped here with only the clothes on their backs. But it was their choice. They could have stayed under Chinese rule. Nepal gives them freedom, allows them to practice their Buddhism without interruption. But there are lots of troubles here in Nepal, and they have to put up with that. Plus, they usually need to have fake names, and other fake documents to get things like passports or ID cards.”

We started up toward a bridge.

“Holy crap,” I said as we drove over an empty river that had been filled with garbage, mostly plastic bottles.

“Many Nepalis are very bad when it comes to trash,” the driver said, noticing the concerned looks on a few of our faces. “There aren’t as many rules as other countries, like America and maybe Japan. People here are interested in spirituality and enlightenment, but many times they don’t take care of the space around them.”

He shrugged and honked his horn at another driver who had pulled in front of us, black smoke billowing out of the other vehicle’s exhaust pipe.

I could now see a city in the distance, scattered buildings, most not higher than four or five stories. There was no urban planning here, and everything seemed to have been just cobbled together, no building permit required. It reminded me of scattered Legos, the buildings different colors, shapes and sizes, everyone only concerned about their small parcel of earth.

It was an eye-opening experience.

It made me miss New England.

Chapter Twenty: Petal Bloom, White Moon, Edward Star and Anil

I couldn’t help but be reminded of Terry Pratchett’s line, the city’s full of people who you just see around.

Bustling, overflowing, filled to the brim, humanity practically spilled out onto the streets of Kathmandu. Everywhere I looked there was someone pressing through the crowd, or selling something, or trying to steer their scooter onto a sidewalk to avoid the congested roadway, or zipping around a street dog, a monk, a tourist.

It reminded me of New Delhi, but with more people, or perhaps the people were just condensed into a smaller space, less traffic rules too. Anything and everything shared the road, from rickshaws to a motorcycle with an entire family sitting on it.

Literally. The man sat in front, a baby in his lap, a kid behind him and finally the wife at the back.

“We should ride motorcycles like that,” Michelle said.

“That seems like a terrible idea,” said Stella, an anxious look on her face.

I was feeling a little anxious myself.

There were too many people, and we had been stuck in traffic now for forty minutes, just breathing in exhaust fumes, barely moving an inch. I would have suggested that we get out and walk, but I had a strange feeling that getting to Thamel would prove quite difficult on foot.

Plus, we brought less attention to ourselves in the van.

Our driver honked his horn as a taxi cut in front of him, a dark-skinned man in a funny hat looking out the window and cursing at our driver.

Rather than deal with the traffic, we cut through an alley, where we came across a woman carrying large containers of water with the help of a younger man. They moved to the side and let us pass, our pathway now blocked by yet another cow.

“We aren’t waiting for this again,” Veronique said, turning to Grace.

The cow got to its feet quickly, as if someone had whipped it on the ass. It moved on, allowing us to continue through the alley.

I found the alleys in Kathmandu even stranger.

Many were dirt roads littered with trash, but every now and then I would see a doorway that opened onto a beautiful garden, hiding a treasure within. Statues too, everything from wrathful demons to a nude Buddhist woman with green skin. There were hand-painted signs and symbols, tons of advertisements too, from Western products like Coca-Cola to local biscuit companies.

It was overwhelming.

We turned onto another street lined with tourist shops selling everything from leather goods to cashmere scarves and hiking gear. An old woman stood in front of one of the shops throwing water out onto the street, which I interpreted as a way to stop vehicles from kicking up dust.

It was dizzying how much activity there was in the small space, and I was glad as hell when we pulled onto a final road, the driver pointing at a hotel just two blocks down.

“Hotel Himalaya,” I said, confirming the name, which was visible on a sign above its gate.

“And we should take a place…” Grace looked around until she saw a hostel to our right. “There, at that hostel.”

“What’s a hostel?” Michelle asked.

“It’s like a cheaper hotel,” I told her as we got out of the van, the CBGs gathering on the sidewalk. A man approached us, hoping to sell small containers of Tiger Balm. Grace sent him away, only for another beggar to step up to our group, this one a woman with a baby in her arms.

“Milk for my baby, milk for my baby,” she pleaded.

I had no cash, but I immediately felt pity for the lady, reaching for a wallet that I knew I didn’t possess.

It was Grace who sent her away, a disturbed look on the psychic shifter’s face.

“We should get some money,” Dorian said, also feeling bad for the mother. “Let’s find some rich person or a bank or something.”

“First of all, that’s not how we operate,” I started to say.

“You know what I mean.”

“She’s poor, but she doesn’t need milk for her baby,” Grace informed us.

“But she was asking for it,” Michelle said.

“I checked,” Grace said, tapping on the side of her head. The psychic shifter was in her base form now, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, a surgical mask on her face that she had apparently picked up in Pokhara. “She begs foreigners to buy milk for her baby, then they buy the milk, a powdered formula, which she sells back to the shop. That’s how she makes her money. The better she begs, the more people buy milk for her, the more she can sell back to the shop and make a small profit.”

“Geez…” I said, shaking my head.

Veronique was at the back of the group, totally keeping a patrol alongside Stella, who also was on alert. Chloe was near Dorian, Ingrid in front of them. Grace and I took the lead as we stepped into the hostel, Michelle off to my left.

The man who worked at the place came out of a back room, his eyes going wide for a moment as he saw how large our group was. Grace had control in a matter of moments, and after a brief discussion, we were led to a pair of private suites that had additional rooms, allowing us four separate sleeping spaces.

I took one of the smaller rooms to the right, and immediately relaxed onto the bed, pulling out my phone, ready to unwind from the taxi drive.

A message from Luke popped up.

Luke: You alive?

Me: Yasss…

Luke: LOL.

Me: Hey, how goes it on the writing?

Luke: Writing is going well. I’m actually looking for an audio producer right now for my next book. I’ve got two offers, one for a percentage of gross profits, the other for a percentage of net profits.

Me: Gross profits FTW. Wait, I think. Shit. I’m bad at this.

Luke: Lol. Yes you are.

Grace came into the room and smiled at me, letting me know that the others were going to have some tea, that they wanted to rest for a bit.

“Is the traveling getting to them?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Same here. Have Chloe help everyone out with a little bit of her vibrational magic, if you get my drift.”

“I get your drift,” Grace said, sticking her tongue out at me. “And who do you think gave you that thought?”

Whoa…

She was gone before I could respond, and just to play around with her, I tried to put some weird thoughts out there:

What if I left the CBGs here and just moved back to America and became a new person? I could join the FBI’s Witness Protection Program. Maybe I could move to Utah and become a Mormon, and get myself six to eight new wives that don’t have superpowers that allow them to listen to my thoughts. Also, not being attacked by them would be nice as well.

Shut up, Grace thought back to me in a playful tone.

How cool would that be? I could just have a main house, and then put them in the house in the back. I saw a documentary about Mormons, and that’s what they did. I mean, who wouldn’t want that? Then again, what kind of job would I have to have to be able to support all these women and children? And what kind of world did we live in where this was a normal thing? No, I couldn’t become a Mormon and move to Utah to start a Christian harem. I would have to do something else. Maybe I could actually enjoy my royalties for once and use them to travel to Greenland or something, or Iceland. You know, just live off the grid.

I’m tuning you out.

“I’ll stop,” I whispered as I turned back to my conversation with Luke. The Canadian writer had continued on about the offer from the audio companies.

Me: I get it. Gross profit is your best bet.

Luke: Well, you would think, but if you can negotiate a high enough cut of the net profit, you may actually come out ahead. For our scenario here, let’s say an audiobook costs ten dollars.

Me: Canadian or America?

Luke: Lol. USD.

Me: USA! USA!

Luke: Let’s dial the patriotism down a notch, eh?

Me: (Dials down patriotism, whispers “USA, USA,” to himself while reading your mathematical breakdown.)

Luke: Good. At least I don’t have to hear it. So let’s say the audiobook sells for ten dollars gross and you only sell one.

Me: Ouch.

Luke: Yep. And let’s say the royalty rate is 15% of the gross, so 15% of ten dollars.

Me: $1.50.

Luke: Einstein!

Me: I prefer Doctor Einstein, but thanks.

Luke: Now let’s say you get 30% of net, and the audio production company has inked a deal with EBAYmazon that gives them a 60% cut of the sale. So out of a ten-dollar audiobook, they get six dollars, and you’d get 30% of that, which is $1.80. So it really depends on how much the company that’s offering you a cut of the net is offering versus the company that is offering you a cut of the gross.

Me: Bravo.

Luke: ???

Me: That’s so much clearer to me now. I didn’t even look at my contract with EBAYmazon.

Luke: Of course you didn’t.

Me: In my defense, I was sort of on the run when it all went down. And I just wanted to get the story out there. But that said, I think I’ve got something else in the works here…

Luke: Is it hooking me up with your EBAYmazon rep and getting me an exclusive audio deal?

Me: I have mentioned your name to him before. I think he’s on drugs.

Luke: Perhaps…

Me: As cliché as this may sound, I believe the next thing I’ll write will be a follow-up to Mutants in the Making, rather than How Heavy This Ax? Book Two.

Luke: I was wondering if you were going to do a follow-up. It makes the most logical sense, especially since you already have a built-in audience, and you are somewhere in Asia right now doing something crazy. At least I assume you’re doing something crazy.

Me: I’m definitely doing something crazy. Also, we should have a video chat sooner than later. I’ve got stories, including one about a pretty crazy plane ride…

Luke:

Me: Exactly. We will talk soon, bud. For now, I have some espionage work to do.

Luke: Ever thought about writing a thriller?

Me: No, but only because I’ve been living one and it’s exhausting.

Luke: Okay, stay safe and I’ll let the community know that you’re off saving the world, and it’s all a big top-secret mission that even I don’t know about.

Me: L8r H8r.

Luke: LOL so lame.

Grace woke me from a nap once she stepped into the room, now in the guise of a Nepali tour guide. She looked sort of like a Boy Scout, except for the cool Nepali flag on her shirt and, well, everything aside from her khaki T-shirt.

“I’m guessing this is your disguise?”

“That’s right,” she said, reaching her hand out to me.

She helped me up, and I would have brought her into my arms, but she was currently in the form of a man, and it was throwing me off a bit.

“Is this better?” she asked as she took the same form but as a Nepali woman.

“Much better,” I told her with a yawn. “I guess it’s time for old man Gideon to make his appearance.”

I felt my skin shift as mild-mannered features took shape across my face, again going for a Stan Lee look (RIP), wrinkles, wisdom, elegance.

“How do I look, darling?” I asked as Grace stepped away from me.

“Beautiful,” she said in slightly accented English.

“You two aren’t going there without us,” Veronique said, stepping into the room. She was followed by Dorian, both of them in their yoga disguises with flowing pants and tight tops with huge elaborate scarves wrapped around their necks.

I didn’t know how long I had napped, but in the meantime someone had gone out shopping, outfitting all the CBGs in clothing that would make them blend in more with the foreigners in Thamel.

Their outfits were pretty elaborate too, from Dorian’s Buddha necklace to the bandanna with OM symbols on it that Veronique wore.

“Did you get clothing for me?” I asked.

I was still in my superhero uniform, which wasn’t exactly nice to sleep in.

“That’s what this bag is for,” Veronique said, handing me a paper sack. “Strip.”

“Seriously?” I asked Veronique.

“Come on,” she said. “Are you afraid to get naked in front of us?”

“As you wish,” I dropped the paper bag onto the bed and got out of my uniform. It was sort of like a wetsuit, and once I was out, I placed it next to the clothing I’d been wearing over it when we first arrived in Kathmandu.

There was nothing wrong with our Pokhara clothing, but what Grace had picked out for me was new, so I went for it. There were a couple of fresh pairs of briefs inside the bag, a pair of which I gladly slipped into, Dorian using her teleportation ability to appear behind me and smack me on the ass.

“Funny,” I told her, almost losing my facial transformation.

I stepped into a pair of yoga trousers, which were loose and flowing, something only the guru-est guru would wear. From there it was a cotton shirt without a collar, buttons down the center of my chest.

“And the necklace,” Dorian said.

I started putting all the stuff back in my pockets, from my new phone to Father’s vial of blood to the Mongolian coin. “While I like playing dress-up, this is a ridiculous disguise.”

Michelle burst into the room, also in a yoga-ish outfit.

“Holy shit, Gideon, you look so stupid!”

“Language,” I called after her, but she was already gone, giggling in the hallway.

“Did you guys let her run around?” I asked Dorian.

“There are too many people and vehicles out there to let her run around. So she has been running back and forth in the hallway between our rooms instead.”

“Great,” I said as I put on the leather necklace with a pillar-shaped rock attached to the other end. It was supposed to be an energy stone of sorts, but I didn’t feel anything once it settled on my chest.

“Are you sure this thing works?” I asked Grace, showing her the stone.

“The man said it would give me good luck, and he also tried to charge me double the price he would normally charge someone for it. So I got it for free.”

“Of course you did.”

“We need to get to the hotel,” Veronique said, cutting short our banter.

“We are just getting information for now,” I reminded them as we stepped out of the room and into the main living area, where we found Stella and Chloe watching a static-ridden television, Ingrid looking through some of the books that were in the room.

They were also dressed like a bunch of damn hippies, like people I would find at a farmers’ market in Vermont.

“Stop staring,” Stella said, focused on the television.

“I like your pants,” I told her. Stella rolled her eyes.

Of all of our pants, hers looked the most like something MC Hammer would wear. Rather than say anything else she simply turned her attention back to the TV.

As I approached the door, I looked over my shoulder at her to catch Stella looking back in my direction. Our eyes locked and she glanced away.

I will never understand that one, I thought as we left our hostel, making our way across the street. The four of us blended in now with our outfits, aside from Veronique, who still looked like a stone-cold hard ass even if she was wearing yoga clothing.

“So here’s our story,” I told the group as we neared the hotel. “I am your yoga teacher, and you are our guide,” I told Grace. “To make the backstory a tiny bit better, Veronique, you and I have been secretly banging.”

“Are you expecting someone to ask us about that?”

“You never know what to expect, it’s just a backstory. I learned this from an EBAYmazon series called Sneaky Pete. Also, we need cool yoga names. I will be Edward Star. Dorian, you are Petal Bloom, and Veronique, you are…” I looked at her curiously for a moment as I let my brain do what it did best, crank out some bullshit. “Flower Moon. Yeah, Flower Moon.”

“And I’m Anil,” Grace said.

“Careful with that name,” I told her.

“It’s a Nepali name, and I know what I’m doing,” she said with a wink.

“Okay, um, so Anil, Edward King, Petal Bloom and Flower Moon.” I paused as a rickshaw zipped in front of me, the guy using a discarded plastic bottle as a horn, which somehow worked. It was only a flash, and he was gone.

We approached the entrance to the hotel, which had two snow lion statues in front of it. There were white scarves draped around the snow lions’ necks, and from what I could tell they were definitely new, especially with how dirty the streets were.

A peculiar smell met my nose and I looked to my right to see that someone was burning a pile of trash.

My mouth started dropping, but then I remembered to stay focused, to pretend like I’d been here for a while as a yoga instructor, that I’d seen things like this. Of course, I had no idea why someone would be burning a pile of trash, but if the landfills were full, what else was one supposed to do with the stuff?

Grace took over from there, the concierge simply opening the door for us and bowing as we walked in.

True, she could have handled our little reconnaissance mission on her own, but I was trying to do what Veronique had been bugging me to do all along, to work in numbers, which seemed to be her code for saying she just wanted to be by my side.

As part of the plan, and simply because she looked out of place in her yoga clothing, I took the metal vampire’s hand and squeezed it, the channels opening.

I replaced Grace’s psychic power with Veronique’s metal manipulation ability, figuring that I needed to focus on keeping my transformation anyway. Besides, it was always good to have a little metal wielding power just in case.

It wasn’t a shabby hotel either.

Especially compared to the street out front, the Hotel Himalaya almost reminded me of stepping into some of the East Coast money mansions in Newport, Rhode Island. Expansive ceilings, pillars, marble wherever wood wasn’t available, opulence and… Backpackers?

While the space was grandiose, the clientele was dressed even more casually than we were, which made me totally appreciate the work Grace had already done in making us blend in.

There was an espresso bar, and seated before it were foreigners pecking away on sleek AppleSoft laptops, others in similar clothing to what we wore, facetiming loved ones.

Another man, who sat with his back to me, edited pictures of snow-capped mountains, possibly Mount Everest. I knew that was one reason foreigners came to Nepal, well, maybe one of three reasons, and seeing it now struck me as odd considering just how depraved the city looked outside of these walls.

I even turned and looked to the front entrance to make sure I hadn’t stepped into a portal or something, going from a Third World country to a First, if those terms even held meaning any longer.

But this was reality, my reality, and I didn’t have long to contemplate it as we approached the woman at the front desk.

“He’s not in right now,” the hotel clerk said, “would you like me to take a message?”

I glanced right to see Grace’s eyes were white, the psychic shifter not wasting any time getting the information that we needed.

“And what room will he be staying in?” Dorian asked.

“He has a permanent room on the top level, suite thirty-three.”

“Do you mind if we take a look around?” Grace asked.

The woman nodded, stepping away from the desk and returning with the key card.

We turned to the elevator, Grace now in the lead. The door slid open and a German couple stepped out with their child, all of them ready to get their Edmund Hillary cosplay on. The Germans merely looked at us and then looked away, their son staring for a second longer, a stern look on his face.

“They seemed friendly,” Dorian said as the elevator door shut.

“I think that most Germans just have resting bitch faces,” I explained as we made our way up to the third level. “Russians too. It might be an Eastern Europe, or close to Eastern Europe thing.”

“You could really tell the difference?” Dorian asked.

“You mean between an American and a German?”

She nodded.

“They dressed differently, and they hold themselves in a different way. But sometimes I can’t, I mean, some of the foreigners I’ve come across looked American to me until they spoke. Of course, when they speak I can tell. But sometimes, yeah, I will say that. White people don’t all look the same.”

Grace smiled as the elevator door opened. “Is that what you thought she was trying to say?”

“I have no idea what she was trying to say,” I said as we stepped out onto the third floor and keyed ourselves into room thirty-three.

We took a quick look around, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t hoping to find something crazy or serial killer-ish in the room, like some dead bodies or severed hands or lamps made out of skin.

But no, this Kenneth guy’s room looked just like any other hotel room, tidy and put together nicely. There weren’t any clothes lying out or anything, nor were there any papers on the table that would give us an idea of what was happening with Damon Lord.

Which meant we would need to move to Plan B.

A surprise attack.

Chapter Twenty-One: Surprise Attack Squared

So we waited.

The four of us discussed teleporting back later tonight, but we wanted to get the drop on Kenneth, and from what Grace had gleaned from the hotel clerk’s mind, it would be anywhere between one and four hours before he returned.

“Have we ever done this before?” I asked at some point, fishing in my pocket for my phone to check the time.

“Waited for someone to come?” Veronique thought about it for a moment. “I can’t remember.”

“Do you remember that guy in Austin who tried to kidnap us? Butler, something Butler was his name.”

The three of them nodded.

“Damn, that was pretty crazy.”

“It feels like so long ago.” Dorian stood, smoothing her hands over her yoga outfit. “I’m going to tell the others we may be here for a minute.” And without another word, she disappeared in a purple poof of energy, leaving the three of us sitting on a couch in front of Kenneth’s bed.

“I know something we never talked about,” I started to tell Grace and Veronique.

“I did get to train with many of them,” Grace said, reading my thoughts.

“At least let me get the question out first…”

“I don’t want you to waste your breath.”

“What was the question?” Veronique asked as she returned from the door.

“Well, I’m just wondering what else Mother and Angel could possibly throw at us. There was Augustin, the metal lady you killed in the desert.”

“Victoria.”

“Who knows where Jules is, and then there was that one teleporter that Dorian killed. I can’t remember what her name was. Also, there was Olivia, remember her?”

Grace nodded. Rather than describe what she looked like, Grace started to morph into a thicc woman, with her short red hair combed to the side.

“Well, someone here remembers what she looks like,” I said with a chuckle. “But anyway, my question was, who are the others? Who could we inevitably go up against?”

Veronique placed her hand on the back of her head for a moment.

“Well?”

“She’s thinking,” Grace said.

“Stay out of my mind, Sabine,” Veronique said sharply.

“I try not to go there if I don’t have to.”

“There were a lot of failed experiments, and then there were also some that were executed after various mishaps, or to put it more bluntly, when they were retired. They didn’t actually let us know who was still technically in commission,” Veronique explained. “I believe this was to keep us nervous, to always remind us that we were expendable. But if I were to guess, I would say that Madelyn, Amandine, Blanche and Gabin are still active. Of course, Remy is still alive, with his explosive clones, and there’s also the telepathic boy, Adam.”

“I remember him. He almost forced Clarence to kill himself.”

“But those are just the ones that I think may still be active. There were six facilities, and if you recall, something or someone was moved from the island off the coast of California to, well, who knows where.”

I had to think back for a moment, but I remembered Santa Cruz Island, and Michelle and Ingrid clearing the place while we fought, both of them claiming that it seemed as if someone had left in a hurry.

“And what were their powers,” I asked Veronique, “the ones you mentioned?”

“Amandine can control electricity; Gabin has enhanced strength and can turn his body to stone; Blanche morphs into a winged creature that spits acid, and Madelyn can manipulate light and shadows.”

“Wow, damn. I guess when I get back to my computer I will check Dr. Kim’s app and see if I can find anything more about those ones. If you think they’re still alive, then I would say it’s a safe bet that they will eventually run into us. Angel would have done something to the three of us if he could have.”

I remembered the aunt-banging test tube manchild speeding off on his motorcycle like some straight to DVD tough guy flick to be sold at the last Blockbuster in Alaska. He had a hostage too, and there was no telling what had become of Arianna Lord over the last several days.

This gave me an idea.

“You know, and don’t look at me for the answer of how we could pull this off, but maybe we could pit Lord and Mother’s crew against each other, and then we could pick off whoever was left standing.”

Dorian reappeared, a pack of cookies in her hand.

“Hungry?” she asked, handing me the pack.

“For cookies? I’m always hungry.”

“What did I miss?” She took a seat on the chair across from us.

“We were discussing potential enemies that Mother and Angel may have, and how we could get them to fight Damon Lord’s crew. At least with Mother, we may have some known variables in terms of who she could send next.” I repeated the rest of what Veronique had just told me, Dorian confirming Veronique’s assumption with a nod. “So you are aware of these people?”

“I am, especially Madelyn.”

“And you think they’re still in commission?”

“I’m sure of it. When I was hunting the three of you, they were off doing something in the Middle East.”

“Really,” I said, my attention going from ripping open the package of cookies to Dorian.

“That’s right. Otherwise they would have probably been there with me. And if they had, things would have turned out a lot differently.”

“I can only imagine,” I finally told her.

Veronique tapped her finger against the side table. “But back to what Gideon said: how can we do it? How could we make them fight each other, essentially making our battle easier?”

“If I had the answer to that question, we wouldn’t be hanging out in some random dude’s hotel in Nepal,” I said. “Actually, we may still be hanging out in some random dude’s hotel in Nepal, but we would be doing so with a plan.”

Grace smiled at me, Veronique frowned, and Dorian laughed.

“What?” I asked as I ate one of the cookies. It tasted like a shortbread cookie, but a little staler. “Just let me think about it for a bit. I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

The door opened and Dorian immediately teleported over to it, grabbing the man named Kenneth Thompson, and reappearing in front of us as the door shut.

And that was all it took.

His arms and legs turned to thick goo almost immediately, swiping Dorian aside, doing the same to Veronique, the metal vampire hitting the window and flying out onto the balcony.

The man spun before Grace could do anything to his mind, his arms elongating, sludge-like as he blasted both Grace and me to opposite sides of the room.

I was winded, my mind jumpy and kicking into overdrive as I tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. There was no way we could have known that he was superpowered, and now that he’d revealed his ability, our only choice was sudden action.

Kenneth lunged for Dorian, grabbing her with his long sludgy arms and holding her up against the wall, punching her repeatedly in the face.

A metal chunk of railing came sailing through the wall, shattering the glass and cutting through his arms.

Veronique was just running back into the room when Kenneth cast his hand along the floor as if he were throwing a bowling ball, a line of black sludge zipping along the carpet, lifting into an uppercut just beneath Veronique’s chin.

I tried for an attack as well, using Veronique’s ability to pummel him with light fixtures.

It was about as effective as pummeling anyone with light fixtures would be, which was to say it was entirely ineffective.

And for my efforts I got a solid punch to the gut, a slippery hand coming around my neck and slamming me into the ceiling twice, my glasses falling off as soon as I crashed to the ground.

Luckily, they were on their strap, and as Dorian attempted to fire a purple burst of energy at Kenneth A.K.A. the goddamn Swamp Thing, I scrambled to get my vision correct, narrowly missing Dorian’s shot, which went wide and burned through the bedding.

The wood planks beneath Kenneth tore him from his feet, another plank coming forward and smacking him in the head. He used his sludgy arms and legs to shoot himself off the ground, his arm stretching seven times their normal length as he swiped Grace across the face, the psychic shifter tossed into a cartwheel that landed awkwardly.

“Grace!”

Anger came over me as I charged the man, slamming into his body, bringing him straight to the ground.

He used his legs to throw me up into the ceiling, and right back down to the floor. The man rolled out of the way just in time, throwing another sludgy arm at Veronique, who was just making her way back into the room, metal floating in the air all around her as she tracked her target.

The metal hit the ground; Veronique was out cold.

Grace stumbled to her feet as Dorian tried for another attack. Kenneth threw his arms at her, and she vanished in a puff of purple energy, reappearing behind them, trying to deliver a direct blow.

He turned just in time to take the brunt of her attack with his arm, which exploded it into bits and pieces all around the room before quickly reforming into the long, sludgy appendage.

Kenneth delivered two quick blows to Dorian that left her staggering, and another one that finally tossed her to the ground.

It was on me.

Normally, the CBGs could have taken someone out like this, but his ability, and the way he suddenly attacked them had disrupted the natural flow of the battle, taking them off guard.

And was there a natural flow?

It didn’t matter.

This was my chance.

I burst forward, tackling Kenneth and slamming him into the ground again, this time bringing my fists up, an energy swelling over my knuckles fueled by seeing the women that I cared for injured.

Kenneth quickly overpowered me, flipping me onto my back and rolling on top of me. His gooey hands came around my neck, starting to turn to liquid, entering my nostrils, my mouth.

I tried to bite down on his fingers, but it was like biting through running water, absolutely no effect, his slippery appendages moving deeper into my throat, further into my nose.

I scrambled to grab something; nothing, and just as I was about to pass out, just when I was about my choke on my last breath, my hand landed close enough to my pocket and I remembered something.

I used what power I still possessed to fire the Mongolian coin through the man’s center, all the way up his body and out the crown of his head.

He fell forward on top of me, bleeding profusely, his hand slipping out of my nostrils and mouth.

I pushed Kenneth off me as I coughed, as I got to my knees and made my way over to Grace, who just happened to be close to me.

“I got him…” I told her. “I fucking got him…”

“We have to go,” she said, bringing her hand to my head. “You did good. Really good.”

“I’ll get Dorian and Veronique, make sure…check Kenneth… you secure the hotel…”

Grace nodded as she slowly got to her feet, her form wavering.

“Don’t worry about appearances right now,” I told her as I moved back over to the man, hoping to figure out something, some tidbit of information that would lead us to Damon Lord.

His legs were a mess from the morphing, but his pocket was still intact, his phone still with fifty percent battery. The only problem was it had a lock screen.

Boy, was I lucky. In that exact moment as I turned the screen toward me, a message appeared and flashed away.

See you in Pharping… Damon.

“Pharping…” I whispered.

Where have I heard that name before?

It didn’t matter. We could get to the bottom of that later. For now, we needed to get the hell out of this hotel.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Vector Shower

Could this have been what the Mongolian shaman hinted at in terms of saving my life?

And by saving my life, I had killed someone, which was something that would have weighed heavily on my soul if I didn’t think that the man named Kenneth Thompson was a threat.

And who knew?

Maybe the CBGs would have persevered, taking Kenneth out, and maybe he would have spared my life in the meantime…

Fat chance.

Even if the coin I now possessed, which was more oblong than anything else, had saved my life, I felt cheated in a way.

Stupid, I know, I get it. But the warning had been so foreboding, so powerful, and for it to simply mean that I needed some metal to send through a super’s body cheapened the prophecy in a way.

No, no it didn’t.

I was arguing with myself, up late, Grace asleep next to me, her back pressed against my side.

Tomorrow we would go to Pharping, which thankfully, Ingrid had already read about in one of her guidebooks. The taxi driver that drove us from Patan to Thamel had mentioned it too, which was why the name sounded familiar.

We had Kenneth’s phone, and once we got back to America, I’d give it to Father to try and crack. The likelihood of him doing so may be nil, but at least it was worth a shot.

Restless...

This was why I hated the brain. I’d been tired all the way up to this point, and as soon as I’d laid down, my brain had morphed into Michelle’s, running circles around itself, jumping from one idea to the next.

And I tried to go to sleep. Lord knows, I tried. Counting sheep, focusing on my breath, even snuggling up next to Grace, and squeezing all the good parts—nothing seemed to work.

Damn if I wasn’t wide awake. I thought for a moment about getting online and seeing what Luke was up to, maybe plotting some of the sequel to Mutants in the Making, or diving back into Manchester Rich’s head for a spell.

But I also felt like taking a shower, just sitting in there for a while, the hot water warming my skin as I thought about things.

So that’s what I did.

I quietly stepped out of the bedroom and made my way to the bathroom, noticing the door was cracked, the light was on.

I started to peek inside when I saw Stella sitting on the toilet, finishing up. I turned away immediately, only to run into an invisible barrier.

“Sorry,” I said, not turning back around.

I heard the toilet flush, and the door open.

“Can I turn around now?”

“You are such a perv,” she started to say.

“I just came out to take a shower,” I told her quietly.

“I was planning to take a shower too.”

I turned to Stella to see her standing in a bra and a pair of boy shorts.

“Okay, you can go first.”

“It would be faster if we…”

I raise my eyebrow at her.

“Stop looking at me like that and just get in here.”

What?

Stella turned, and my eyes naturally fell to her ass, the way the bottom of her ass cheeks were barely contained by the boy shorts.

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Hurry, before I change my mind.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I slid into the bathroom, Stella using her power to shut the door behind me.

It was a large walk-in shower, almost new, with a showerhead that was supposed to replicate what it would feel like to be standing in the pouring rain.

“This doesn’t leave this bathroom,” she said as she unclipped her bra, her back still to me. I started taking my shirt off, my eyes naturally jumping from her reflection in the mirror to Stella herself, as she slipped out of her boy shorts, her legs coming together, a perfect gap between her thighs.

I didn’t think anything like this would ever happen between Stella and me, and…

Don’t overthink this, don’t overthink this, don’t overthink this.

I played it just about as cool as I could, slipping out of my pants and my boxers as well, acting like it was no big thing, even though I had already started to get an erection.

Stella stepped into the shower, and turned the water on, her back still to me.

“Clean my shoulders,” she said, nodding toward a soap dispenser on the wall. I pumped a few squirts into my hand and used it to lather her shoulders, eventually moving my way down to the small of her back, Stella letting out a few deep exhales, which I could hear even with the water trickling onto us.

Suddenly she turned to me, her hands coming to my chest.

“Just washing,” I said, showing her my soapy palms.

“I have never…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine to want to be close to someone,” I said, hoping that those were the words that she was looking for.

“Can I wash you?”

“I’m not finished washing you.”

Stella smiled, biting her lip a bit. “Okay, finish.”

It was now or never, I pressed my hands forward, taking them down her chest, where I lightly squeezed her breasts. Stella had perky breasts, and she was even thinner than I thought she would be.

The thing was, I never really looked at Stella in this way, and seeing her now, nude before me, was an experience that I was still trying to wrap my mind around.

But rather than say anything stupid as I normally would have, I pumped more soap onto my hands and continued to bring my fingers down her body, getting to my knees right in front of her blonde bush.

I looked up at her. “Do you mind?”

She looked up at the showerhead now, the water sliding down her face. She nodded, and I began lathering her pubic hairs, still crouched before her, lightly touching her clit with my thumb.

I had to taste it.

The urge came over me and I placed both hands on her buttocks, pulling her in a little bit closer and lightly licking her.

Stella dropped her hand on my face and pressed it in even further, my nose bunched up against the front of her sex.

It was not the way to eat someone out, but I could tell what I had done had fascinated her in some way, excited her, and she was interested in exploring it further.

I continued to try to lick at her, but it was an awkward position to really do this right, so I reached my hand up to her and lowered her to the shower floor, spreading her legs, diving back in.

I was by no means an expert, but I had done a bit of research on pleasuring a woman, and had some experience under my belt now.

Maybe more than I was letting on.

Once I got over the awkwardness of the situation, I really got into it, lightly touching her with my hands as I licked her clit, occasionally using my thumb to press against it, apply some pressure.

“Oh my God, my God,” she whispered.

“Just guide me... tell me what you want,” I said into her sex, my voice sort of muffled.

“More, more,” she said breathlessly.

So I continued, occasionally looking up at her and seeing that her cheeks were red, her skin glistening, her nipples erect, her eyes closed as she took in deep breaths.

I went in deeper and as soon as I did I felt a rush of something, a warmth spreading over me, Stella digging her nails into the back of my head, eventually letting up.

“It’s okay,” I told her as I moved back to my knees, both of us on the shower floor.

“What do I do now?” she asked. “For you. What do I do for you?”

“Anything you want. Take it as slow as you would like,” I told her, both of us looking to my throbbing cock.

“How?”

“Well, I’ve never…” I was about to say that I had never given someone a blowjob before, but I realized she was literally asking how it would work. “You jerk it like this,” I said, pulling at myself. “That is how a guy does his thing.”

“I know that part.”

“Well, you asked.”

“I want to help,” she said, coming forward, pushing me back, so my back was against the shower wall. She placed her hand on my penis.

“How’s this?”

“It’s a start,” I said, a bit breathlessly.

Now crouched before me, Stella started to pump her hand up and down, her grip way too tight.

“Careful,” I told her.

“I want to get it right, and then later, maybe another time, other things,” she said.

“You’ll get it right, just…” I placed my hand on the base of my penis, sort of making the ‘okay’ symbol. She placed her hand on top of mine, and together, we started working at it, Stella eventually wrapping her other fingers around as I let go.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s… Nice,” I said, my eyes focused now on her tits.

“I can go faster.”

“Just a little bit, and don’t squeeze too tightly.”

Stella started going faster, occasionally rubbing her thumb against the tip of my penis, which felt great. Every time she did that, I let out a gasp, all my nerves firing at once.

“You like that?” she asked, still touching it.

“It’s good, keep it up…”

She kept jerking my cock, and stopped for a moment to shake her hand out. She returned with her other hand, grabbing at my testicles, squeezing them.

“Interesting.”

“Yes they are,” I said, leaning back, ready to finish.

“How do I get it out?”

“Keep jerking at it. I can help, if you want.”

“Okay, help,” she said, allowing me to jerk myself off for a moment, fascinated by how I worked my own penis.

Like any man, I was an expert at giving myself a handjob, so it wasn’t long before I was ready to blow my load, but rather than do it myself, I whispered for Stella to grab my penis, which she did quickly, moving her hand even faster.

“A little slower…” I told her, the water making her skin glisten.

Stella locked into a good pace, picking up where I left off.

I dropped my hands to my sides, leaning my head back for a moment, allowing a sense of euphoria to roll over me.

That same sense of euphoria surged down to my groin and exited through the tip of my penis, the rest seeping out onto Stella’s hand as she continued jerking me.

“Let go, let go, let go,” I said, the sensation too powerful.

She did so immediately, dropping her other hand to my balls, squeezing them lightly.

“Does that help?” she asked.

“Damn.”

Stella looked at my semen on her hand, and brought it up to her face, smelling it.

Her tongue came out of her mouth to taste it...

“Whoa,” I told her, not recalling the last time I saw someone actually do something like that in real life.

“It’s a little salty,” she finally said, washing the rest off.

“So I’ve been told. Maybe if I ate more pineapples, it would change the flavor. But I don’t know if that’s actually true. I guess I should look that up on the Internet.”

“Quiet,” she said as she came forward, bringing her face close to mine.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“Sure…”

Stella kissed me, and I tried to ignore the fact that she had just licked my semen as I kissed her back.

“I want you to wipe your mind,” she said, pulling away.

“Wipe my mind?”

“I don’t want Grace or the others knowing about this.”

“I’m not able to wipe minds,” I told her. “And to be honest with you, Grace wouldn’t care. And I won’t tell the others.”

“I don’t know… I really don’t know what came over me. But…”

“What?” I asked, dropping my hand to her arm.

“It felt good.”

“It usually does.”

“I don’t want them to know.”

“Grace won’t care; she’s the only one that can read our minds. We’ll just keep it between ourselves. She may tease me a little, but she won’t tease you.”

“Maybe this was wrong of us,” Stella said, turning back to the shower. “You are usually busy with the others, especially your favorite three.”

“I don’t play favorites,” I told her.

“Whatever,” Stella said, washing her face now. She finally turned back to me. “Another time.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Sometime late, when the others are asleep.”

“I look forward to it.”

Chapter Twenty-Three: Off to the Mountains

I didn’t know what it was with me, the CBGs, and hooking up in showers, but they seemed to be the place where most things went down. I guess it was an issue of privacy, especially because we were always around each other.

It was the next morning, and I was sitting in the living room area, Michelle watching a Bollywood flick on a Nepali TV.

Ingrid was there as well, reading up on Pharping, as were Veronique and Dorian, both already in their uniforms.

“Will breakfast be here soon?” Ingrid asked without looking up from her book.

“Breakfast isn’t being delivered to us,” I explained to her, “we’re supposed to go get it in the lounge. But they haven’t started serving it yet.”

“Fine, fine,” she said with a grumble.

Stella entered the space and did not make eye contact with me. Her hair was up as usual, and she seemed a little looser than normal, her shoulders relaxed some.

“Did you sleep well?” Michelle asked, balancing on the edge of the sofa, rocking back and forth.

“Yes,” Stella said shortly. “What makes you think I slept poorly?”

“You were in the shower for a long time last night,” Dorian said. “I almost teleported in there to make sure you hadn’t slipped and hurt yourself.”

“That’s because it was a nice shower. And trust me, I don’t slip. Now, where’s breakfast?”

“They haven’t put it out yet,” Ingrid said. “Why are things running so late here? Shouldn’t breakfast be out by now?”

“It may be more of a brunch thing,” I told her. “I mean, this is a pretty hip hostel. Maybe most of their guests aren’t up so early.”

Grace stepped into the space and looked from Stella to me.

Not a word, I thought to her.

I’m so proud of her!

Not a word, I repeated inside my head.

She’s kind of a freak, isn’t she?

Please, stop.

I’m surprised she didn’t stick a finger in your ass.

STOP!

A smile came across my face and I had to look toward the wall to prevent Stella from seeing it.

Well, it seems to have loosened her up some. So I guess that’s a good thing, Grace thought to me.

Can we talk about this at another time?

I can’t wait.

Neither can I!

“Can you get them to hurry up with breakfast?” Ingrid asked Grace. “It seems like they are taking forever.”

“As you wish,” Grace said, heading to the door, morphing into a Scandinavian backpacker as she did so. No backpack, but she definitely wore the type of clothing that you would buy in bulk at the L.L. Bean outlet outside of Portland, Maine. She slipped out of the room, and returned just a few moments later with a big smile on her face.

“It’ll be ready in five minutes,” she told us.

“And we’re going after that, right?” Michelle asked me.

“Yes, and we may need a tour guide. Grace?”

“Why do I always have to do all the heavy lifting?” she asked playfully as she stepped out of the room, dealt with the front desk again, and returned.

“You never gave me a chance to answer that question,” I said.

“If I had psychic powers I would be doing a lot of heavy lifting,” Veronique told her. “I would have most of our problems solved by now.”

“Is that so?” Grace asked her.

“Well, maybe. I actually have no idea what I’d do if I heard everyone’s thoughts. Maybe I would hate it.”

“Yes, you would,” Grace said as she stepped into the bedroom.

I went in after her to make sure she was okay, and found her sitting on the bed, one leg crossed over the other.

“Don’t listen to Veronique…” I started to say.

“Gideon, you know what she says doesn’t get to me. Not much gets to me, to be honest with you.” She tilted her head a bit, her eyes flashing white.

“It’s hard to be a telepath, isn’t it?”

“You would know better than any of them,” she said.

“Stella wanted me to wipe my mind after what happened last night, but I knew that wouldn’t work.”

“See? You are learning. I would have figured it out. She’s never that relaxed. I’m wondering if Dorian has figured it out yet or not.”

“I don’t know, I rarely see them interact. She mostly just interacts with Ingrid and Michelle, sometimes Chloe.”

“We can’t all be best friends.”

“I’m just glad that you all seem to get along, even with Veronique in the group. And please, do something to Dorian so she won’t dwell on it.”

“Done,” Grace said with a yawn. “So the tour guide coming with us is an expert, according to the guys at the front desk. They believed it too, so I don’t think they were just trying to upsell him to me. He should help us navigate Pharping. We’ll also need to come up with a strategy for what we should do if we run into Damon Lord, or better, when we run into him.”

“We don’t know exactly if he’s there or not, but we’re pretty sure,” I said.

“He may have some protection with him, then again, he might have come alone.”

“I’m pretty sure he’ll have someone with him, especially after what happened in India. Hummingbird would have let him know, and Bae would have brought some backup. I mean, why else would we be in India unless we were trying to get to him. So let’s operate on the assumption that he has muscle with him.”

“And is our plan the same as it was back at the island? We go straight for Damon?”

I considered this for a moment.

There were too many variables, that was the real answer, and it depended on who Damon had with him, and if it was a person we had dealt with before.

There really was no telling. We had absolutely no info on how many supers Damon had created in Asia, and apparently, if Kenneth was any indication, Damon could unlock powers in “normals,” as Angel would have pejoratively called him.

“I’ll have a word with Veronique about it, but I do have some ideas. As usual, we’re going into a situation that could prove troublesome for us. But the most important thing to me, and I’m serious here, Grace, is that we all make it out alive. The faster we kill him, the better, but it’s equally important that every member is accounted for, and that we make it out alive.”

Grace nodded. “We can’t have another Fiona.”

“No, we can’t.”

We were back on the road in Nepal, cutting through the city in a chartered van, the developing Third World nation swelling all around me, the space tight, the horns of the vehicles loud as our driver expertly Froggered his way through traffic.

I swore that the drivers here had some control over physics, a superhuman ability to merge into traffic without touching one another, reminding me of the way a school of fish swirled in the ocean, their forms swelling and changing shape.

The exhaust was getting to me, and after another twenty minutes or so, I was glad to be out of the city racing along a dirt road, a jungle to our left and a highway to our right.

The driver assured us that this was the fastest way to go, and once I saw all the traffic on the highway I could see that he was indeed an expert. Sitting next to him was our guide, a man with long black hair and high cheekbones named Karma.

“Tell us more about Pharping,” Ingrid said.

“There are several temples there,” Karma explained. “Maybe the most famous is the Buddhist temple near Guru Rinpoche’s cave and the Dakshina Kali temple, but there are also other temples in Pharping including the Phamting Vajrayogini and the Sheshnarayan temple. But most Hindus go there for Dakshina Kali.”

“Which god is that?”

“She’s a goddess, Shiva’s wife.” Karma reached into his pocket and got out a cellphone, cycling to an image and showing us.

“Damn,” I said as I took in the picture of a woman with blue skin and four arms, one of which held a sword, a severed head in another one of her hands. She was standing on top of a man, and seemed to be rather pleased with herself.

“Her temple is there in Pharping,” Karma said, tapping on his phone. “People make sacrifices.”

“Human sacrifices?” I asked.

He gave me a funny look. “Of course not human. Goats, chickens, and if people don’t have animals, they use melons. It is pretty bloody.”

“I can imagine,” said Dorian.

“Interesting too, for tourists. On one side of the temple, they are making all their sacrifices. On the other side, a band is playing. If you look left, you see the band, and if you look right, you see bloodied walls.”

“Why bloodied walls?” I asked.

Our driver hit a pothole, the vehicle dipping and resettling.

“It’s the way they sacrifice,” he explained. “Your goal is to spread the blood on the wall near the goddess.”

“What happens to the animals after their sacrifice?” Michelle asked, concern on her face.

“Then the families take them home and eat them.”

I nodded, a realization hitting me. “So it’s like taking an animal to the butcher, but the butcher is at a temple, and it doubles as a ritual space, right?”

Karma shrugged off my question. “It’s nothing like that, and maybe it’s something like that. I don’t know.”

“Do you believe in her?” Ingrid asked.

“I am Hindu, so of course I believe in Kali, but she is not who I worship. I worship the Lord Vishnu,” he said, and as he said it, the driver touched his prayer beads hanging from his rearview mirror, saying something under his breath.

“And he does too, right?” Ingrid asked, nodding to the driver.

“Yes. But it is okay, we have many gods here in Nepal and in India. You can choose which god you want, and sometimes the god chooses you,” he said with a chuckle.

Even though Grace was actively managing his mind, I was starting to like Karma and his personality. He seemed pretty chill, almost like a reformed stoner, sort of reminding me of some of my friends who moved to Massachusetts to get into the marijuana business.

Talk about lucrative.

“How close are we?” Michelle asked.

“Maybe another thirty minutes. It’s only twenty kilometers, but the traffic is bad, and the road condition is poor. I have an uncle in Germany, and he says they can go twenty kilometers in under ten minutes. Not like here in Nepal.”

He spoke for the rest of the trip about his childhood in Kathmandu, growing up near a part of the city called Swayambhu. It was an interesting drive, and I couldn’t help but feel magic in the air as we grew closer to the city of Pharping, a temple in the distance, roadside stands taking shape.

The small city sat before a mountain covered in trees and colorful prayer flags. It definitely had a Vermont feel to it, if the citizens of Vermont had lived in the area for thousands of years and built their temples on the side of the mountain overlooking their cities.

There didn’t seem to be very many people living there, maybe under five thousand, but there were definitely tourist shops, hotels, and other places for foreigners to stay. It made me wonder how much of Nepal’s economy was built solely on tourism, both religious and those wanting to climb Mount Everest.

“Okay, because he’s not a Hindu, we will probably check the Buddhist temple for Damon Lord,” he said, his eyes flashing white. “To get into the Hindu temples, you need to be a Hindu. So if he came here, he probably came for the Buddhism.”

“First, let’s get a base of operation,” I said. “Then Grace and I can go in dressed as tourists, or people seeking enlightenment. You get my drift. And before you worry, Veronique, we will absolutely keep this as low-key as possible. Maybe we could dress Dorian up as well, but Damon knows what she looks like.”

“No,” Grace said. “It will have to be you and me. That’s the only way this is going to work. How many temples were there?” she asked Karma, and before he could answer, Grace continued her line of thinking. “There are only two Buddhist temples and a retreat, so it shouldn’t be very hard to clear them all. Once we spot him, we get the others, strike, and then we get out of here.”

Chapter Twenty-Four: Temple Discovery

Veronique wasn’t happy, but we seriously couldn’t bring the entire group on a tour of the Buddhist temples in the area, it would be too suspicious, and if Damon Lord was there, he would easily recognize us.

“We’ve got this,” I told her for what felt like the twentieth time.

We were in another hostel now, a two-story affair run by a Tibetan family. There wasn’t a television in this one, the CBGs forced to stew in their anticipation as Grace and I left with our tour guide, Karma.

They knew what to do, and Dorian’s Empathetic Teleportation power would bring them to us instantly if we needed backup. Besides, everything was close together in a small city, and Grace’s Telepathic Radius definitely covered the area, hell, it had covered even longer distances than this in the past.

But I got the gist of it.

When we separated, bad things happened, but it was easier to do what we were doing in a smaller unit. And even though Veronique didn’t quite see this, as the self-proclaimed leader of the Cherry Blossom Girls, the lone Cherry Blossom Boy, I knew it was necessary.

I had both of Grace’s powers on deck, Father’s healing ability and Jules’ negation power. While I wasn’t good at shifting my entire body, I’d morphed my face into a backpacker I’d seen at our hostel in Kathmandu, an older man, Grace mirroring my selection by choosing a woman hiker that looked to be around my age.

We both wore scarves, and I’d borrowed prayer beads from the Tibetan family that owned our hostel just to blend in even more. It was a good disguise, and we had already seen a pair of tourists dressed like us as we made our way up a dirt road, Karma in the lead.

Our guide was completely silent, Grace preventing him from distracting us, and as we walked, I took comfort in this silence. It gave me time to think, to observe my surroundings.

And really, what an interesting city, unlike anything I had seen before. The homes were mostly made of brick, and some of the homes had walls lining the property, shards of glass cemented onto the tops of the walls.

We passed an outdoor food stand and a woman called out to Karma, who ignored her. Grace turned her attention to the woman and the lady’s facial expression went blank, the woman returning her focus to a large pot of boiling water in front of her.

Two young monks ran out onto the street, shooting toy guns at each other, laughing.

Being from the West, and especially being from a liberal state, I had read about and watched documentaries on the plight of the Tibetan people, including VICE videos about monks, reincarnation, mystical practices and self-immolation.

But I’d never seen a monk no older than the age of six running around shooting toy guns.

This brought a smile to my face.

Boys will be boys...

Grace reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it, and my focus returned to our path ahead.

There was no need to mentally exchange an apology or anything of the sort. She knew me, she knew how my mind worked, and the simple act of her squeezing my hand reminded me to focus, to be ready for anything.

We came to a temple surrounded by stupas, Tibetan prayer flags connecting the temple to the tops of the trees that surrounded it, angry eyes painted on the top of the main structure. We entered a courtyard, where we found prayer wheels, Tibetan phrases carved into the walls and a small statue of a Buddha with a thousand arms surrounding his body.

We heard chants from inside the main temple.

As intrusive as it was, we would have to check. After telling Karma to stay behind so we could peek in, Grace and I made our way to the temple door.

She fired off a mental message to Dorian to prepare herself just in case. Dorian responded immediately in both of our heads, letting Grace and I know that the CBGs were ready.

There was an entrance at the back of the temple which was open, allowing people from the public to join the monks in the chants. We stepped through this entrance and took a quick look around the room.

And that’s when we saw him, his back to us. I recognize his black hair almost immediately.

It was Damon Lord.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Monk Madness

Grace’s hand fell onto my arm.

I took a seat at the back as casually as possible, getting onto my knees, matching the other foreigners who had come to hear the head monk’s sermon. Grace did the same, both of us just trying to blend in.

We’re not alone, Grace thought to me.

What do you mean?

I’m sensing something that reminds me of Remi.

Remi’s here?

We need to call the others; we do this now.

Agreed, I thought back to her.

And it was only a few seconds later that I saw a flash of purple behind me in the courtyard, the other CBGs getting into position.

Minimize casualties. I don’t want any civilians harmed, I thought to Grace.

But Grace was already focused, her eyes turning white as she locked on to the back of Damon Lord’s head and slammed him into the wooden floor.

He cried out in agony as she eviscerated his thoughts, as the monks seated before him all jumped to their feet, turned to us and…

They all looked the same.

Every one of the fifty monks had the exact same facial features: thick nose, devious eyes, all Asian men. And it dawned on me in that second what Grace meant when she said it was like Remi.

One of them is a replicator.

Grace could have finished Damon Lord in that moment had it not been for one of the monks flying forward with his fists drawn, knocking the living shit out of her, the man nearly as quick as Michelle.

It was like they were attached to pulleys, the monks jumping around the room as the CBGs entered, as the tourists tried to bail, as the head monk at the front tried to escape through the back of the temple.

I lunged for the man that had kicked Grace, and was thrown backward into the wall, hard enough that it knocked the wind out of me.

Healing myself as I stood, I sent a burst of telepathic force forward, sweeping the killer monk off his feet.

I saw more crazy shit as I bolted over to him, more monks flying through the air.

It seemed that the replicator had a second power, one that kinetically charged and sped up his attacks. The clones kept coming, and when I reached the one who had initially assaulted Grace, he filtered away into a pile of dust.

Weird.

I helped Grace to her feet, healing her.

“We have to stop Damon…” she said, her eyes scanning the fight.

It was too late. A portal had already opened up, Damon Lord dragging his ass into it.

A woman that looked like Regina stepped out, the shifter with cosmic abilities conjuring up a blast of energy that would have taken several of us out had it not been for Stella’s shield.

She’s still alive!? I shook my head, gearing up to deliver my next blow when Veronique charged the woman, reaching her hand forward and pulling apart a golden statue of a Buddha, which she used as a spear to take Regina down.

The spear tore through Regina’s body, driving her into the wooden floor, the end of the spear bending over and stabbing her in the throat.

But it wasn’t Regina.

It was another damn shifter, the woman turning into a man almost instantly and dying.

Or was it her?

How many of these bastards did Damon Lord have at his disposal? And why did they all look like Regina?

I focused on blocking another ass-kicking monk from attacking Grace and me. I caught his strike with my forearm, which hurt like a bitch, Grace tossing a telekinetic blast forward that sent the man straight into a pillar. Bae’s portal started to close.

Damon Lord hunched over, bleeding…

Bleeding?

Michelle appeared at my side, a bloodied dagger in her hand.

“I stabbed him.”

“Jesus Christ, Michelle,” I said, both hands coming to her shoulders. “You’ve got to be careful.”

“But I got him,” she started to say.

“Yes, good, you did great, just…”

Another portal opened up, and a blast of crystal came firing out, cutting across the temple floor and taking a pillar out with it, the ceiling starting to collapse.

“Gideon!” Michelle latched on to my waist and busted out of the back door, both of us skidding to a halt in the courtyard.

“Thanks,” I told her, ignoring the channels opened up, telling me that I could take Michelle’s power.

No way.

My ears screamed as a terrible sound ripped across the airwaves, growing louder, amplifying.

The monks that had spilled out of the courtyard began to fall over, turning to dust, Chloe a spinning wheel of noise as an ear-piercing sound radiated all around her.

I kept waiting for a portal to open up, for more to arrive, Smiley, another Regina clone, whatever Damon could throw at us.

But as the sounds subsided, the only thing I was presented with was more kinetically charged monks, the courtyard a sea of saffron red, the monks a flurry of punches and kicks all kicking up dust.

Tulip burst onto the scene, grabbing and tossing monks, biting into a couple of them, pulling their bodies apart. He roared, and in that moment I felt like joining him.

I felt like doing some ass kicking myself.

“Let’s take out the monks!” I said as I ran toward Tulip. Even though he was dangerous, I neared the beast and slapped my hand on the side of his leg, Ingrid’s power coming to me, replacing Grace’s shifter ability.

“Here we fucking go…” I slipped my glasses into my side pocket, the one that still kept its shape when I took Manchester’s form. I was just about to transform when I saw a glint on my finger, Fiona’s ring, which I also took off and deposited in the pocket.

I did what I had to do to transform, focusing on the things that kept me up at night, the CBGs dying, the final scene.

I could feel my bones moving, muscles bulging, veins popping, gills forming, anger radiating through me.

It was impulsive to take Manchester’s form, but I was glad I did once I saw more monks, a portal opening up again and another blast of crystal cutting through the courtyard.

Stella barely managed to stop this one, and even in my panicked, anger ridden state, I felt a skip in my heart as I watched her avoid Damon’s sudden attack.

While he may have been injured, he was still part of this fight.

But there wasn’t much I could say or do at that point that the CBGs didn’t already know. They were a unit, some of them more trained than others, but we all knew what had happened to Fiona.

Rage boiling through me, I tackled a pair of monks, beating them into the ground like a drunken King Kong.

Something hit me in the back of the head, and I turned to see that a monk had tried to kick me, the man now standing with his fists ready. I shredded his torso in half, everything red as I flung what was left of him to the other side of the courtyard, his pieces turning to dust.

Dorian appeared before me, and flashed away again, leaving a purple ball of energy behind her. I jumped to the ground just as a pair of monks jumped at me. Dorian’s energy ball exploded, ripping them to shreds.

I felt a burst of air next to me, and several monks went down as Michelle quickly swiped her blade across their bodies.

We needed to find the main replicator, the one who kept creating the monks, but I had yet to see the clones forming, and in my current state of mind it was too hard to focus on something like that anyway.

Whoosh!

Chloe flew over me, delivering a sonic boom to the side of the temple, tossing concrete and wood into the air, taking out some of the monks on the rooftop.

This place would be destroyed once we were done here, and I almost felt like Team America in, well, Team America World Police, destroying the Eiffel Tower just to get a few terrorists.

But it was what had to be done, and we had gone way too far to turn back now...

I caught Stella out of the corner of my eye casting a shield, protecting a few tourists that had just barely managed to escape the temple, screaming for them to leave, to go as far away from here as possible.

The tourists ran off; a trio of monks landed in front of Stella, all of them dropping into position, energy radiating around their fists.

It was a pleasure to see the vector manipulator in action, Stella pressed her arms forward as if she were conjuring mana, spinning, cutting off the first one’s head with a vector blade, the second one demarcated at the torso, the third losing his legs beneath his knees.

All turning to dust.

Encouraged by Stella’s attack, I jumped into the air and came down hard onto a monk, bringing my fists back and punching out another one.

It was inevitable, a fight like this couldn’t go on forever, not without more supers joining. A portal opened up. One of the monks slipped inside, what was left of the clones turning to dust.

This left the CBGs in the courtyard, all of us loosened up from the fight, a few wanting more. Tulip was still stomping around, Michelle had started to chill him out, and I too felt my energy starting to wane as I turned back into me.

“This is going to cause so much trouble,” Dorian said, appearing next to me, Manchester long gone.

“Yeah,” I told her, out of breath. “Just give me a second. I’ll figure out what to do next.”

“Next, we find the monk,” Veronique said, coming forward defiantly, metal dropping from the air to the ground.

“Which monk?” I asked.

“The main one, the one leading the chanting, the one that wasn’t a damn clone,” she said. “He must know something. How could there be all of these clones in front of him without the monk recognizing they weren’t his students?”

“Good point,” I told her, sucking in another deep breath of air. “Did any of you see where he went?”

“I can find him!” Michelle said, a finger in the air.

“Wait, go with Grace as well, he can’t be that far from here. Unless he took a taxi or something.”

“Okay, okay,” Michelle said, slowly taking off toward what was left of the temple, Grace alongside her.

“That was sudden,” Chloe said, landing next to me. “I didn’t expect you to take Manchester.”

“I just want to be able to fight better, and I can’t fight as well in my, um, normal form. But when I take Manchester, I kick just a little more ass than your everyday Gideon.”

“A little?” Stella asked. “Manchester was holding his own.”

“You liked Manchester, huh?” I asked as I wiped the sweat from my brow.

“No,” she said, looking away from me. “But he’s growing on me.”

Chapter Twenty-Six: Board Meeting

Unfortunately, the head monk at the monastery, a man named Tenzin Lhodron, didn’t have a lot of information. This was mainly because he spoke only Tibetan, which meant we needed to round someone up who could actually translate.

With the Nepali police on the scene this would become increasingly difficult, which was why we teleported back to the Pharping hostel with the monk in tow, the man not as shocked as a person normally would have been after being teleported.

Weird.

The Tibetan family that ran the place spoke English, and as soon as they saw us, Grace took their minds, instructing the best translator to take a step forward, who just so happened to be their daughter.

For some reason this reminded me of Mary the Mongolian, the youth of Asia increasingly fluent in English because of globalization and the Intrawebs.

The woman translated what the monk was telling us, and lo and behold, it wasn’t really anything we couldn’t have put together ourselves.

“The Lama says that they came and demanded a ritual,” she explained, “so he sent all the other monks to the other monastery in the city, and then he held a ritual for them. Yesterday and today. It was supposed to be a three-day medicine Buddha ritual, but now you have interrupted it. He also wants to know who’s going to fix the monastery.”

I exchanged glances with the CBGs and returned my focus to the monk named Tenzin, who was apparently what was known honorifically as a ‘Lama.’

“Do you think we could be of any help?”

“Normally, I would say yes,” Grace said, “but I think that it will be best for us to get out of the area, in case he comes back to retaliate. I don’t believe he will retaliate against the monastery, unless we are there.”

“But I feel bad,” I said, “I don’t just want to leave them hanging.”

“When are you going to learn that we can’t help everyone?” Veronique tapped me on the back of the head.

“Hey,” I told her, realizing that she wasn’t trying to be rude, she was literally trying to knock some sense into me. “Look, you guys know who I am by now; it’s sort of in my nature to want to help out when I can. We’ve done a lot of illegal shit, so something like this…” An idea came to me. “Okay, we may not be able to help, but I believe I can get some funding together, and not by stealing money.”

“I will tell him,” the translator said, relaying this information to the Lama.

Lama Tenzin reached into the front of his robes and pulled out a wallet, handing me a business card.

A monk with a business card? It made sense, it was the twenty-first century and why wouldn’t a monk have a way to exchange contact information?

“Thank you,” he told me in accented English. “Thank you very much.”

“That’s not a bad plan,” Grace said, before I could announce how I planned to get money to the group.

“It’s not fair…” Michelle crossed her arms over her chest. “You always read his mind before he can tell us his great plans.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” Grace said, a few of the CBGs laughing.

“Hey, why am I always the punching bag around here?”

“Because you’re fun to punch,” Michelle said, sinking her fist into my stomach. Lama Tenzin cringed.

“Dammit, dammit all,” I said, hunched over now. Ingrid and Stella were cracking up. Michelle had hit me hard enough that I instinctively activated my own healing power.

“Shit! Shit! That wasn’t supposed to be so hard! My speed made it hurt more. So sorry, Gideon!” she said, and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she actually meant it, that she felt bad.

“It’s okay,” I told her, my hand on my stomach. “And language. Watch your language.”

“I didn’t expect to be fighting monks today,” Chloe said as she sat down on a chair with a wool rug on it. All the chairs in the Tibetan hostel had rugs on them with mountains or yaks stitched onto their fronts.

“Yeah, that was unexpected,” I said, still massaging my stomach.

“What’s this genius plan of yours to get money for the monastery?” Dorian asked.

Our Tibetan translator stepped out of the room, Lama Tenzin following her, both discussing how the young girl had slugged me in the tum-tum (at least this was what I thought they were discussing).

“My plan? I’m glad you asked. I’ll send an email to the Emperor of Japan. Surely that dude has some money lying around that he’d like to donate to a Tibetan monastery. They are Buddhists there, you know.”

“But not the same kind of Buddhists they have here,” Ingrid said.

“Same, same, but different, and I’m betting that he’ll want to help out. Everyone loves Tibetans, well, not the Chinese, but that’s an entirely different story.”

“Why don’t Chinese people like Tibetans?” Michelle asked.

“No, no, no,” Veronique said, stepping between us. “We aren’t going to have a long discussion about this now. We need a plan, and after you have a plan, maybe over dinner, we can discuss Tibetan and Chinese relations.”

“Fine,” Michelle and I said at the same time.

“We don’t have any leads now,” Dorian said, “which is sort of the problem. This was our only lead, and now that Damon is gone…”

“You know what would be helpful?” I asked.

Dorian shook her head.

“It would be helpful to have a tracking device that we could plant on him. That’s one thing.”

“How would we get close enough to do that?” Chloe asked.

“You didn’t see back there? Michelle stabbed him.”

“You did?” Veronique asked.

Michelle nodded. “I stabbed Damon in the stomach. That guy is an a-hole!”

“Good job, seriously,” Veronique told her. “You are so lethal when you put your mind to it.”

“I try.”

“So Michelle stabbed him in the stomach,” I said, returning to my train of thought. “What if she could put a tracking device on him next time, something small?”

“Where we going to get something like that?” Grace asked. “Can you order it on the Internet?”

“Actually, you probably could,” I told her. “But we may need an even smaller one, something that he wouldn’t notice, at least not at first. I will reach out to Vince Porter. I don’t know why I have a feeling he may know a guy who knows a guy, but he probably knows a guy who knows a guy.”

“What does it mean to know a guy who knows a guy?” Michelle asked in all seriousness.

“It means that he has some type of secret hookup,” Ingrid explained.

“Exactly,” I said.

“So, we put a tracking device on him the next time we see Damon, I get that, but what about actually seeing him, how are we going to make this happen again?” Ingrid asked. “Because if this was our only angle, we’ve now used up our only chance to tag him.”

“This is going to sound crazy, but an idea came to me just now, something that will take some working parts to pull off.”

“Go on,” Dorian said.

“We have sort of talked about it before, but what if we could figure out a way to force Angel and Damon Lord to go against one another? They are already enemies, but what I’m saying here is that we figure out a way to force them to fight. Not only would this give us a chance to hopefully put a tracking beacon on Damon Lord, to see where he keeps going, but it may take out some of our enemies.”

“I get it,” Veronique said, “but how are we going to force them to attack one another? We can’t just call both of them up and ask them to meet us.”

“What if we can?” I asked her.

Veronique raised an eyebrow at me. “What are you suggesting here?”

“I’m saying we have done something similar before, but it didn’t work the way that we wanted it to work.”

“In Seattle?” she asked.

Stella nodded. “So you are saying to put ourselves out in the open with the hopes that they will both attack us at the same time, right?”

“What if I took it a step further than that?”

“Call them out?” Grace asked, her eyes white.

“Don’t read ahead,” I told her. “But yes, what if we just doxed the hell out of them? We set a time, we set a place, and we start revealing everything that we know. Now, some people might not believe it, and some may call it fake news, you know the type, so what if we did something that we didn’t do as much in Seattle, what if we actually publicly displayed our powers? I mean, really displayed them.”

“The people that are going to believe that we have powers already believe it, and those that think the videos of the fight in Seattle are faked won’t change their minds,” Veronique said.

“True, but I have an idea, leverage that we can use. At least to get Damon Lord there. Now, getting Angel and crew may be a little bit harder, but they may show up if they assume that Damon is coming.”

“That is a lot of superpowered people fighting at the same time,” Chloe said. “I know that we are all excited to do something about Damon Lord, and hopefully track him, but if Angel brings some of the other AEFL members, it could get pretty hairy. And what if he brought Mother? I know that she was recovering for a while because of what Michelle did to her…”

“I stabbed her,” Michelle said.

“You and your knives,” I told her, imagining what it would be like to be on the receiving end of one of Michelle’s attacks. It made me cringe thinking about it, the blade pressing through my skin, cutting through muscle, flesh, possibly organs.

It was not pretty, and while I had experienced unthinkable pain in my role as the lone Cherry Blossom Boy, I couldn’t recall a time that I had been stabbed.

“We can’t telepath-proof ourselves, but we can prepare for other things they may do. We just have to focus on sticking together, and getting out of there once we either take Damon Lord down, or get some type of tracking on him,” Veronique said.

I nodded. “Good point. With that many supers there, it will be hard to really focus and take him down. But if we could track Damon, we may figure out where he’s hiding. Another option would be to go back to America and deal with Hummingbird, but if we did this correctly, we could get information on Damon Lord, possibly pit him against Angel, and then go back to America and deal with Hummingbird.”

“There are a lot of variables in there,” Grace said. “And we don’t know if Hummingbird is still in Mexico.”

“Well, we don’t really have another option except trying to find him down there,” I said. “Unless he sends more robots, but again, that’s not going to help us find him necessarily. However…”

Grace and I locked eyes, hers flashing white. “We could find out where he’s manufacturing the robots. There’s something we haven’t tried yet.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Dorian said.

“You know, Hummingbird may be scanning this area now, considering the attack that just happened here. I don’t know if he’ll send robots just yet, because he could be assuming that we teleported to another city, or to a different country even. But maybe if we went back to the monastery, and got on TV, or on the Internet, robots would come.”

“And then we disassemble them, and try to figure out where they came from, right?” Veronique asked.

“Which I can help with,” said Grace, “if human hands touched them.”

“Even then, there must be some parts that are labeled; we’ll probably be able to find a part that leads us to where he’s manufacturing them,” I said.

“Definitely,” Dorian said, and the others nodded in agreement. “It’s a start.”

“So let’s go stir up some robots,” Stella said, grinning at me.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Robot Detectives

The CBGs arrived on the scene, Stella immediately erecting a barrier around us and Grace taking over the minds of anyone who spoke or understood English, letting them know to clear out of the area and to help others.

We were back in the courtyard of the monastery, and it still pained me to see just how demolished the place was.

I could tell it had already affected some of the local community as well. A few of the Tibetan women were crying, Nepalis stood around with their heads hung, children were not quite sure what had happened, but felt their parents’ grief.

All of them had to go, all of them except for the news media, who Grace instructed to stick around.

“I guess we can do some practice cleanup work until the robots get here.”

I had already replaced Tulip’s power with Veronique’s, which I figured would be most helpful against Hummingbird’s deadly androids. I used this power to start moving a few things in the courtyard, most notably a statue that had fallen.

It was heavy lifting too, and I was surprised that I was actually able to get it to stand upright.

“You’re getting better,” Veronique said, as she used a flick of her hand to move a series of prayer wheels.

Ingrid took her beast armor and used her enhanced strength to start moving pillars, while Michelle zipped around, checking the rubble. Chloe stacked brick, Grace continued to manage the crowd and Dorian between all of us, her paintbrush at the ready.

We were in a remote city in Nepal, so I wasn’t surprised that it took nearly an hour for the robots to appear. In that time we had done a lot of cleanup, at least making it a bit easier for the crew that would eventually be responsible for picking up the place.

But with our enemies on the horizon, flying toward us, silver blips in the sun, our focus had shifted from reconstruction to defense.

“Remember, we need evidence,” I told the group, as several of the flying robots began firing missiles at us. Stella managed to block most of them, and the ones she didn’t block were handled by Veronique.

The headless robots stood about seven feet tall, and there were ten of them, built in the same way as the big robot that we had fought back in Japan. Their backs opened and smaller drones flew out, Dorian immediately seeing to those little fuckers.

Chloe used soundwaves to blast them out of the air, plastic and metal exploding above the robots.

It would be helpful to have one of the drones, so I mentally instructed Grace to grab one and bring it to the ground.

She nodded; a drone disappeared from the pack and zipped off to the left, where it hit the base of a statue, and then stopped just above the ground, banging against it until it fizzled out.

“Good,” I said, my palm aimed at the robot that was closest to Stella’s shield.

I tore its knees out from beneath it, and the robot fell to the ground, still trying to fire at us as it malfunctioned. This one self-destructed, kicking up a cloud of dust and a small fireball.

Damn.

Michelle appeared on top of one of the robots with her daggers, cutting away at cords. The robot scrambled as it tried to yank her off.

Eventually, the robot fell to its knees, and from there straight to the ground, out for good.

Veronique charged forward, pulling metal from two of the firing robots’ arms and forming two long blades on her own. She continued to build this armor as she cut through the first robot, the metal vampire on the warpath as usual.

I had to duck a bit as Chloe raced ahead, swirling in the air, energy forming around her as she dove into one of the robots, breaking it to bits and pieces and blasting away again.

The goal here was to get parts and let Grace do her thing. We had already knocked a drone down, but we sort of needed one of the bigger robots intact as well.

With their numbers dwindling, especially after Veronique cut through another, and Dorian exploded the arms off one that was just about to fire upon us, it only left a couple for us to deal with.

While Ingrid could have smashed through one as Tulip, she had chosen to take her beast armor, and clever as ever, she jumped forward, breaking the robot in two, only severing the cables at its waist.

Chloe blasted through another robot, shredding its torso with an energy-laced sonic boom.

The final robot was handled by Stella, who wanted a piece of the action. The vector manipulator ran forward with her shield in front of her, casting her hands out, the shield engulfing the robot just as it released a homing missile, destroying it.

“There will be more,” I said as Michelle started to celebrate, the black-haired youth dancing with her hands in the air. “No time to celebrate.”

Michelle offered me a playful pouty face as Ingrid morphed back into her normal form, the young woman taking charge. “Let’s search as many as we can for any details, but most of this is going to fall on you, Grace.”

“Right,” Grace said, moving to the nearest robot.

“Let me see what I can do here.” I grabbed my smartphone and opened the Cherry Blossom app.

I went straight to Grace’s telepathic power, noticing for the thousandth time that it labeled her as a ‘psychic,’ which kind of annoyed me considering that she was much more than a psychic.

But I wasn’t the one who had classified them, so there was little I could do aside from get to tinkering.

In the end, I brought down her Omnikinesis and brought up her Psychometry, temporarily, so she could get a better read. I took one more look at my handiwork, realizing I hadn’t really done much, but still feeling good for actually using one of the tools provided to me.

Main: Psychic

Omnikinesis: 5

Second Sight: 5

Psychometry: 10

Telepathy: 5

Clairsentience: 5

Psychokinesis: 7

Hypnosis: 6

Nightmare Sight: 6

Telepathic Radius: 5

Oddly enough, and something definitely to note, bringing down Grace’s Omnikinesis also brought down several of her other powers, including Telepathic Radius, Psychokinesis and her base Telepathy skill.

Good to know.

“There are more people coming,” Michelle said, appearing next to me. “I ran down the hill and I saw all the people. Everyone wants to know what happened here, and now that there’s some fighting, people are interested. A lot of people have their phones. We should probably get out of here.”

“I know,” I assured the young speedster. “Once we get the information that we need, we’ll get out of here as quickly as we can.”

“Speaking of which,” Dorian said, “where are we going next? I don’t think this is the best place for us to stay.”

“Can we go back to Japan?” Michelle asked.

“That’s part of the plan, well, part two of the plan.”

“You haven’t even told me all of your plan,” she said as Chloe landed next to her.

“Yeah, Gideon, what’s the actual plan?”

“Part one or part two?” I asked.

“Part one,” Michelle said. “Let’s start simple.”

“Part one is we find out where these robots are being made and we go there, destroying what we can at Hummingbird’s factory. Part two, well, a good author…”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “Don’t you say it…”

“Are you seriously going to keep us in suspense just to make things interesting?” Dorian asked, elbowing me.

“That’s what authors are supposed to do,” I said, jokingly.

“Life isn’t a book, Gideon.”

“I agree,” I told Dorian, “and to be honest here, I’m still actually working on part two, that’s why I haven’t officially unveiled it yet. Let me get all the pieces together in my head, send out a few emails, and make it happen. Let’s just focus on part one for now, and hopefully, the robots are actually being manufactured here in Asia.”

“What are the odds that they’re being manufactured in Asia?” Michelle asked.

“You really don’t know anything about electronics, do you?”

She grinned. “I have a cell phone now.” Her smile shattered. “Wait, no I don’t. It was taken away from me.”

“See? With great power comes great responsibility.”

Chloe shook her head. “It would be difficult to unravel what’s going on in your mind.”

“That’s what therapy is for,” I reminded her, “and since I can’t afford it, because I don’t have any money that I can legally get to, that’s what Grace is for.”

“Do you think she’s always in your mind?” Michelle asked as Grace, Veronique and Ingrid looked through some of the mechanical rubble.

“I really don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I’m thinking my own thoughts, and sometimes I feel like she’s thinking my thoughts through me.”

“Didn’t you say you were having problems writing your book?” Michelle said with a shrug.

“Yes, I’m having a few issues right now, namely writer’s block considering I’m always busy doing this kind of stuff.”

“Then why don’t you just let Grace take over your mind and put you in autodrive, or something? She could just turn you on like a robot, like one of these guys,” she said, pointing at a drone that had been exploded into pieces.

“You know, that’s not a bad idea…”

Grace raised her hand, and we made our way over to her. The psychic shifter was squatting in front of a compartment covering that used to house a drone.

“What did you find?” Chloe asked.

“More people are here,” Dorian reminded us.

Grace smiled up at us. “The robots are being made in China.”

I threw my hands in the air. “I could have told you that,” I started to say.

“In a factory outside of Beijing.”

“How far is that from here?” I asked, trying to mentally picture where Nepal was on a map relative to Beijing. I knew Beijing was on the other side of China, and Nepal was south of the Himalayas. It was a far distance, much further, by my estimation, than Dorian would be able to teleport.

“I don’t know exactly, but I know what it looks like as well as the surrounding area.”

“Let’s go back to the hostel in Kathmandu,” I finally said. “It’s time that I pull some strings and call in a few favors. I can also get part two worked on,” I told Michelle and the others who had heard me rambling on about that earlier. “If we can pull this off, we can hit up Beijing, and then go straight to Tokyo and then back to the good ol’ US of A.”

“We’re leaving Asia?” Michelle asked with a frown.

“Not for long, I’ve got a feeling we may have to come back for other things, but we do need to deal with Hummingbird if he’s in America. If he’s here, then maybe we can just stick around. It all depends on what we find out at this factory. Grace, take whatever you need with you to double check the information that you’ve uncovered. I can adjust your stats back at our hostel, because right now I’ve had to turn everything down to crank up your Psychometry power. In fact…”

I brought my phone out again and upped her Telepathic Radius. “I want you to do as much as you can to the people here to ease any suffering they may have about the temple. Reduce their panic, and most importantly, get them away from this area. Hummingbird will be sending more robots, at least until he realizes that we’re gone.”

“Good idea,” Veronique said. “Minimize civilian casualties.”

“You’re learning,” I told her, ready to give the metal vampire a high five.

She gave me a snarky look. “Don’t press your luck, Gideon.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight: We Up Here

Hell yes we got a private jet.

I’m not going to say that it was less than twenty-four hours later that the CBGs found themselves on a private jet headed toward Beijing, courtesy of the Emperor of Japan, but it was less than twenty-four hours later that the CBGs found themselves on a private jet headed toward Beijing.

Hell, I even ordered some drankohol, even though I knew I could only have a little bit.

“Mimosa?” I asked Dorian, who was already waving down the Japanese flight attendant to bring us some orange juice.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

No, I’d never been in a private jet before, but after seeing this sweet ride, I was definitely thinking it would be a way for us to travel in the future, our very own X-Jet. But how would we come into possession of a private jet?

It was questions like these and beautiful superpowered women like the CBGs that kept me up at night.

Ingrid and Michelle were sitting toward the front, Michelle’s face glued to the window. Grace was behind her, looking at her reflection in a pocket mirror and shifting the color of her eyes, adjusting her makeup. Next to her was Stella, who had her hands behind her head, just relaxing.

On the couch and to the right was where Chloe had decided to park it. The sound manipulator had her feet up, already asleep.

Dorian and Veronique were in the back with the Sir Writes-a-Lot, in front of me, the two occasionally making quips as I pecked away on my smartphone like a damn CEO.

It was intimate, everything inside the space spotless, the seats plush leather, woodgrain or sleek plastic where metal wouldn’t do, plus the private jet came with not one but two flight attendants, who were making damn sure that we were comfortable.

And for a moment, I wondered what it would be like for us to just stop the whole superhero dream and steal a bunch of money, just live it up with the CBGs por vida.

Imagine that.

Staying in classy hotels all around the world, getting money whenever we needed it, enjoying that good one-percenter life and enjoying breathtaking views wherever we went; caviar for breakfast with a side of truffles; a couple Teslas in the garage; AppleSoft everything including their most expensive TV stand money can steal.

Shit, we could really live like royalty, like that show that the rapper Two Chains did for a couple years that had him sampling all the world’s most expensive crap.

But really in the end, that’s what it was, crap.

And call it the maniacal Puritan in me, but I didn’t want to see people suffer, and I didn’t like that people were being exploited.

So scratch that idea of living the lifestyle of the rich and infamous, the CBGs were destined to live the life of powerful paupers.

I sighed as I took another sip of my mimosa.

Vince Porter: I thought you would never ask.

Me: So you can get something like that?

Vince Porter: You know who you’re talking to, right?

Me: The star of my next book?

Vince Porter: I’m just waiting on HHTA2.

Me: You aren’t the only one, bromigo. Well, you are one of the only ones, but there are a few others who have asked me about it. I just can’t get motivated to do that right now. This new life of mine is…

Vince Porter: You don’t got time, I get it. But for real, as soon as you know which hotel you are staying in BJ, let me know, and I’ll have it overnighted to you. Luckily, it’s coming from Asia so it shouldn’t be that hard.

Me: BJ?

Vince Porter: Abbreviation for Beijing. Get with it, Gideon.

Me: That seems like a very dangerous abbreviation.

Vince Porter: It’s legit, look it up.

Me: I know what I’ll get if I type “BJ” into GoogleFace.

Vince Porter: That’s because your mind ain’t right and GFace knows you’re a freak. LOL. Yo, who should I address the package to?

Me: Edward King.

Vince Porter: That’s such a fuckboy name.

Me: I thought it had sort of a Team Rocket feel to it.

Vince Porter: Why would you want to be like those dumbasses? Although that one chick was fine. Forget her name.

Me: For real.

Vince Porter: One more thing, if I’m sending it to China, you’re going to need to message me on one of their apps. Just get WuBo GoogleFakebook. Download it as soon as you have Internet access. You can add me on there: Vince_Porter. East AF.

Me: That’s right, the Internet won’t work in BJ.

Vince Porter:

Me:

I still hadn’t received a response from the second person I’d emailed, but it may have been due to the time difference between here and America. Vince was up at weird hours, I got that, especially considering he had a workshop behind his home. But there was no telling when James-Andrew’s producers would be awake.

I had also CC’d Jake Archibald, just so he knew what I was up to. I figured there would be an advertising angle with it, but I wasn’t expecting to get an email back from him as we descended into Beijing telling me that Carmen Hooper was going to be part of the interview.

Really?

I recalled the comedian who had hosted our last event, and couldn’t for the life of me understand why she wanted to get involved with something like this again. The point was not to have a lot of people there, just to get the message out. But Jake seemed pretty firm about it, and if Carmen was down with it, there was little I could do about it.

The only thing is, Grace thought to me, it’ll give us one more person to protect. Aside from the producer and the camera people, and the makeup artist. I don’t know who else will be there.

Are you reading my emails through me?

Of course I am. I have to monitor the situation, Writer Gideon.

I looked up at the front of the plane, at the back of Grace’s head.

Fine, I guess I’d better hide the email about a surprise trip I am planning to Miami.

There are better beaches...

I don’t know, you haven’t been to Florida.

Let’s just deal with Beijing first.

It was super sweet flying on a private jet, especially one owned by the Emperor of Japan. We landed at the airport, there was no BS, and a limousine was already waiting for us on the runway, meaning I didn’t have to keep my old man Gideon looks. It was the most VIP I had ever felt, even if the environment we landed in was…

Not so great.

From what I could tell, Beijing was basically a city trapped in a gray cloud of pollution. I could barely see fifteen feet in front of us, and there wasn’t anything on the skyline that I could make out either. Sure, the sun was in the sky, but it was a mellow yellow that looked like someone had drowned it in milk.

Not pretty.

Our driver, a Chinese man, opened the door of the limousine and waited for all of us to get in before shutting it.

“You’ve got to be f’n kidding me,” Michelle said, trying to contain her excitement by squeezing her fists together and pursing her lips. “Are we seriously in a limo?”

“It looks like we are.” Dorian went for a bottle of champagne that was chilling in a bucket of ice next to the backseat and poured up a glass.

“You guys wanted to ride in a limo, right?” I asked with a shrug. “I made it happen.”

“Please,” Veronique said as the driver started up, taking a private road that led off the runway. “We were the ones that saved the Emperor.”

“But it was my idea. Ask and you shall receive…”

She nodded, giving me the evil eye. “You’re not wrong there.”

“And the tracker is coming, right?” Ingrid asked me.

“I reached out to Vince while we were on the plane. As soon as we arrive at the hotel, I’m supposed to send them the info. And before anyone worries, I know that the Internet’s not the same in China, so Vince and I have already worked out how to deal with that. In fact…”

I pressed the button that lowered the window separating us from the driver.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asked in lightly accented English.

“Does this limo have Wi-Fi?”

“Yes it does. The network is called My Limo. The password is China, all capitals.”

Once I logged in, I was given a bunch of prompts from the Chinese government letting me know the Internet restrictions. I accepted them and used a rerouted search engine to find the WuBo GoogleFakebook app.

It downloaded in a jiffy, and I quickly fired off a message to Vince, letting him know I would send him the hotel information in a hot minute.

For once, everything was going to plan.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: All or Nothing

While all of us wanted to just launch right into the attack and go after the factory where Hummingbird was making these robots, we also knew it was a good idea to have a place to teleport back to, a home base.

And talk about a home base.

We were somewhere on the fortieth floor of a hotel that overlooked the city, a view that would have been wonderful had Beijing not been so polluted. I felt like we were in the sky, floating above a storm cloud heavy with rain.

We wouldn’t be here for that long, just enough time for us to formulate a plan and do as much research as we could. The Emperor also had another gift for me as well, a laptop that was already being charged once we entered our room.

And luckily for me, he also had a VPN set up so I wouldn’t have to figure out how to use China’s most popular search engines.

A translator had greeted us at the door, a thin man with a calm look on his face named Kaito. The clean-cut man quickly explained that he was fluent in Chinese, English and Japanese, and he also apologized profusely for not meeting us at the airport.

“I wanted time to set up the place,” he assured us with a slight bow.

“So we have a laptop, I can use the real Internet, and we’re pretty much good to go from here on out, right?” I asked him as Ingrid and Michelle made their ways to the white sofas and plopped onto them.

Stella went to the balcony, while the others joined me at the table with Kaito.

“Whatever will make your mission easier to accomplish, I will procure it for you,” he assured us.

“Are you like Secret Service or something?” Michelle asked him from the living room.

“No, I am merely a man who works for the Japanese government here in China, at the embassy. I take care of…” He thought for a moment. “Things that need to happen discreetly.”

“I guess we should be as clear as possible, then: we are all superpowered in some way,” I told him, feeling proud from just uttering the words. “The likelihood of us wiping your mind after we utilize your services is high. I’m sorry about that. It’s just a safety precaution.”

“The Emperor has already explained this to me.”

“Good, just so we’re clear. Anyway, we’re looking for a particular factory on the outskirts of Beijing. Grace,” I said, nodding to the psychic shifter, “has an idea of what it looks like and its location. But that’s about all we have.”

“I’m sending it to you now,” Grace said, her eyes flashing white. “I believe it is in the northwest part of the city.”

“The Yanqing District,” Kaito said, a look of realization on his face. “That’s not so far from the Great Wall, but since they don’t want the factories to be seen from the wall, I believe that…” He pulled out his phone and started typing stuff in Chinese characters. A few seconds later he showed us what he was talking about. “I believe it would be in this area.”

“That looks about right,” Grace said. “But we would need to go there to confirm before we bring all of us to level the place.”

“I’m going,” Veronique said.

“I guess that means I should go too,” I said, starting to shift my form into that of the avatar I created for the Manchester Missions outfit. A nice, middle-aged American with a bullshit smile.

“We haven’t been spotted yet by Hummingbird,” Dorian started to say, “which is probably because we have been using private transport. But if we go closer to his factory, who knows what kind of surveillance he will have in the area.”

“They also use drones in that area,” Kaito said. “It’s quite radical.”

“Then going at night wouldn’t really help us,” I added.

“The best people to go would be Kaito and me,” Grace said.

“I can’t let you go there alone,” I told her. “What if we took a ride there in a vehicle with heavily tinted windows? Then you and Kaito can get out and confirm the place. He won’t raise any suspicions, and with your shifting power, you won’t either. But a whole crew of us? We will definitely catch someone’s eye.”

“I can arrange a diplomatic vehicle,” Kaito said. “There will be several traffic stops along the way, and if we are in a vehicle like this, they won’t stop us.”

“You speak Chinese; what’s wrong with them stopping us?” I asked.

He nodded. “Fair question. The Chinese police at the borders all wear glasses that take pictures of every person in the vehicle. If you’re trying to be discreet, the best way would be through diplomatic means.”

“Okay, that works for me then. Anyone have any objections?”

“So you, me, Dorian and Veronique, right?” Grace asked.

“I believe everyone can come,” Kaito said. “The diplomatic vehicles are quite large, meant for a big group.”

“And the windows are tinted, right?” I asked.

“Most assuredly. I will make a call; it may take up to an hour for the vehicle to get here because of Beijing traffic. In the meantime, I’ll have snacks brought to the room.”

“I love snacks,” Michelle said, and sure enough, it wasn’t ten minutes later that we heard a knock at the door, and a Chinese man and woman both in three-piece tuxedos wheeled in a cart full of food.

There was everything one could desire, from Korean dishes like kimchi to British scones. And as they placed the food on the table, another man came in with a fully stocked beverage cart with hot tea, coffee, soda and expensive whiskey.

“This is the life,” Dorian said, going for one of the cans of soda.

Veronique raised her hand, requesting a cup of coffee. She looked at me in a way that told me she would want to feed soon, and I gave her two thumbs up in response.

“She’s mentally communicating with you,” Michelle said, her mouth full of cookies. “Holy moly, this stuff is good.”

“Michelle, chew with your mouth closed,” Grace said.

Behind her, Kaito paced back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, talking in Chinese and Japanese. I didn’t know what he was saying, but I could definitely tell when he switched from the Chinese language to a softer tone.

I scarfed down some food as well, feeling satiated by the time the waiter came around to refill my glass of soda. It was an interesting soda, something in between Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper, but I dug it, and I wished that they had it in America.

“Everyone should change after this,” I reminded the group.

“We can’t wear touristy clothes anymore?” Michelle asked.

“It’s better if we’re ready to jump into action,” said Dorian.

“But remember, we’re just getting information right now. We’re not trying to engage just yet.”

“If we’re all going, why don’t we just engage?” Veronique asked. “I don’t understand the point of just doing a little espionage and coming back here. Let’s take it out. Let’s wipe that place off the face of the planet.”

“She has a point,” Stella said.

“I’m definitely ready.” Michelle stuffed another scone into her mouth. “I hate those stupid robots.”

“All right, if that’s what you guys think, then let’s do that. Let’s be ready to attack, but also be willing to come back here, especially if it looks like there will be civilians in the way,” I said. “Remember, we’re trying to avoid any and all civilian casualties. I think it would be better to fight at night, to be honest with you, considering that there may be human employees in the warehouse. But if it looks like it’s the time to go, let’s go. And also, don’t forget that we’re trying to get info too. So if we can salvage the place some, let’s try to do that.”

“Yeah,” Veronique said. “And then we can take the night off after we destroy the place.”

“Has this been your plan all along?” I asked.

“Sort of, yes.”

Chapter Thirty: Robopocalypse

The Beijing traffic reminded me of Mongolian and Nepali traffic, except there were more vehicles, wider lanes, and even more congestion. So like New Delhi?

Sort of, but with more pollution.

The factory district wasn’t very far from our hotel, but it still took us a good forty-five minutes to reach it with the crazy number of vehicles on the road. Chinese drivers liked to use their horns, and they liked to try to fit their vehicles into spaces that they shouldn’t go, but our driver, who apparently worked for the Japanese embassy, was a pro.

Cool, calm, collected, he even wore white gloves like the taxi drivers did in Japan, an eerily serene expression on his face as he passed police checkpoints and zipped around other vehicles and people on bicycles wearing pollution masks, a literal sea of humanity.

Kaito instructed the driver to creep around the district until Grace could find the factory in question. It took another twenty minutes or so, but eventually, we pulled up to a place with a tall gate mostly made of iron, no markings at all along the outer wall.

“That’s it,” Grace said, her eyes white as she looked in the opposite direction of the building in question.

She was in full trance mode, and it wasn’t like her vision would help her anyway. But just to be sure, she morphed into a man that looked just like our driver, telling Kaito that they needed to get out to check.

Grace shuffled out and Kaito followed after her. A bike whizzed by, the man carrying a cart filled with packaged ramen boxes. There was also a roadside shop across from the factory, which looked pretty much like any food truck I’d ever seen, an old woman inside frying something.

All of us watched as Grace and Kaito approached the factory wall. She turned to me and confirmed, and as she did, two drones came up and over the wall, hovering above her.

“I’ve seen enough of this,” Veronique said, and the drones collided and spiraled to the ground.

“Dammit,” I started to tell her, but it was too late, more drones were coming.

I noticed a shift beneath us, the ground trembling as if we were experiencing an earthquake, the driver immediately bailing.

So much for calm and collected…

The blood drained from my hands and arms as I saw a robot start to stand, large enough that it dwarfed the one we had fought on Hashima Island. The robot was made from parts of the factory itself, pieces of the exterior wall visible in the form of armor.

If there were people inside, they were now part of this terrible mechanical monster, a towering creation that must have been the height of three city buses stacked vertically on top of one another.

“Everyone out!” Stella cried, her eyes closed as energy radiated off her.

We filed out of the vehicle, Dorian latching on to my arm and teleporting away, both of us reappearing across the street. I saw Ingrid start to morph, and as soon as the teenager took her beast form, Tulip tore off toward the robot, easily scaling the factory wall.

Veronique stripped two streetlamps from the road, forming an enormous spear which floated in the air before taking off toward the robot.

But it already had a shield up, formed of cascading metal that extended from its forearms, a shoulder cannon firing a missile at our parked vehicle.

Dorian flashed away and reappeared again, this time with Kaito, who was so scared he could no longer speak.

“Stay here!” I told him, pointing behind the nearest barrier I could see, which just so happened to be a parked taxi.

A compartment on the robot’s chest opened, dozens of drones spilling out, all making a beeline toward Veronique.

She tried to take them down, but they were…

Apparently made of plastic.

And as muzzles withdrew from their undercarriages, I knew Veronique didn’t stand a chance. Dorian grabbed her just in time, as dozens upon dozens of rubber bullets fired out of the drones, hard enough to leave small craters in the pavement.

They took off toward us, but Grace brought the drones down with a swipe of her hand, Dorian on my right now, Veronique with her, the punk rock teleporter pulling her paintbrush from her mouth and quickly painting up a snake that was easily her height.

Once it was finished, it took off in the air toward the robot, only to explode against its shield.

The robot lifted its large foot and stepped onto the wall, crumbling it and bringing it down, kicking up dust as it took another step forward in the streets. Stella blasted away using her vector powers, landing near us and reconstructing her shield.

I had no idea how we were going to take the damn thing out.

It was clearly too large to really be affected by any of our attacks, and I didn’t know if I would be able to get into a focused mind space to try to play around with Father’s reality manipulation ability.

Tulip climbed up the monster’s leg. Michelle was nowhere to be found but was probably running up and down his body, trying to find an opening.

Even with Grace now ignoring the people trying to escape the area and focusing on disrupting the creature’s movement, I knew that we were going to have to think outside the box to bring the robot to its knees.

And if this was what Hummingbird was capable of…

More drones fired out of the robot’s chest, quickly making their way to Tulip and firing rubber bullets, which did little to stop the beast from climbing up the robot’s leg. The robot tried to swipe him off, but Tulip merely used this as a chance to move to its hand, to climb up its arm.

Another compartment opened next to the robot’s shoulder cannon.

A larger drone fired out, helicopter blades lifting from the top of its body and quickly taking shape as it started to fall.

The larger drone rose into the air, moving toward Tulip and shooting a giant net at the beast. The net was attached to a cable that was hooked to the drone’s body, and as thrusters fired, it ripped Tulip off the large robot, Tulip’s weight instantly pulling the drone to the ground.

The drone was useless now, that was clear, but the net that it fired seemed nearly indestructible, Tulip roaring as he tried to break his way out.

Panels opened on the robot’s stomach, dozens of needlelike missiles firing out, exploding everything from vehicles to nearby buildings and streetlamps, some of them homing missiles that tracked civilians trying to escape.

Grace tried to focus on those as I came to her aid, just barely managing to telekinetically swat a drone away in time.

An explosion at my feet sent me sailing forward, where I hit my chin hard on the ground. I heard something crack in my body, my jaw possibly dislocated.

The other CBGs were too distracted to see that I had sustained an injury, but this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, so I scooted to cover, immediately bringing my hand to my chest, blood dripping onto my fingers. I focused my healing power, manually moving my jaw back into place, feeling something tighten within my skin.

Kaito ran toward me just as a metal bolt fired through his chest, spearing him to the pavement.

I cringed, but I knew I had no time to process what had just happened.

And thank God for Michelle.

I was just getting to my feet when she tackled me, pulling me to the side just to avoid another metal bolt spearing the place that I just been hiding.

“That… that would have killed me…”

“We have to take it down, Gideon!”

And with that Michelle was gone, leaving me to fend for myself.

I saw Chloe zip toward the robot and let loose a blast of sound that nearly caused it to take a step backward.

Veronique worked her way up its body, pulling metal until she was thwarted by another net fired from a drone. The net brought her to the ground and slammed her against the concrete hard enough to knock her out.

And that’s when the idea came to me.

I took off toward Stella, mentally shouting at her to create a shield.

Stella, who had been conjuring up something to hit the robot with, immediately followed my command, running to meet me, a shield forming in front of us.

I pulled out my phone, jamming my phone on the CBG app. I had to adjust the brightness, but once I did, I clicked on Chloe’s name and her abilities appeared on the screen:

Main: Acoustokinesis

Sound Sculpting: 5

Acoustic Acceleration: 6

Sonoluminescence: 5

Rhythm Manipulation: 6

Sonokinetic Combat: 6

Sound Detection: 5

Sonic Stimulation: 6

Overcharge: 3

Echolocation: 5

“What are you doing?” Stella asked as I looked at the phone.

Rather than say anything, I mentally fired a shot off to Grace to let her know that I was going to use Chloe to bring the robot down, and to tell Chloe to land somewhere away from the fight for a moment just in case I cause any internal issues for the sound manipulator.

I’ll tell her, Writer Gideon! Grace thought back to me.

I started making adjustments, my tongue halfway sticking out of my mouth as I kept my eye on Chloe’s Overcharge.

Main: Acoustokinesis

Sound Sculpting: 1

Acoustic Acceleration: 8

Sonoluminescence: 8

Rhythm Manipulation: 10

Sonokinetic Combat: 10

Sound Detection: 0

Sonic Stimulation: 0

Overcharge: 4

Echolocation: 0

It was a radical departure from how her stats normally looked, and once I had them set…

The robot threw a burned-out vehicle at Stella’s shield, the mere sight of the vehicle coming in my direction causing me to drop my phone, the screen shattering.

Yes, I should have gotten a protective case for my phone, but that was the last thing on my mind considering what we had been through over the last couple of days.

Cursing to myself, I focused on Grace again, telling her to send Chloe to me.

And a few seconds later, Chloe landed behind Stella’s shield, smudges on her face, a bruise forming on her cheek.

“Are you okay?”

“Damn rubber bullets.” Chloe brought her hand to her throat. “What did you do to me?”

“I turned everything to eleven!” I shouted over the roar of the machine. “I want you to generate the biggest, gnarliest, loudest, King Kong-worthy sound that the world has ever heard. Aim it at that thing,” I said, pointing my finger over at the robot.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s the only way that I can think of.”

“You may want to get the others out of the area.”

“Okay, Dorian and I can coordinate that, just start charging and be ready.”

Chloe nodded, lifting back into the air and blasting off.

“Dorian, we need to get everyone far away from here, yet not far enough away that we can’t jump back into action. So…” I looked around. “Okay, maybe that rooftop over there. I don’t think the robot can throw something at us if we’re that far away.”

“I can get some of them, but what about Tulip and Veronique?”

“Bring them in their nets,” I said, both hands on her shoulders now. “This is going to work.”

She teleported away, depositing me on the rooftop and disappearing again before I could say anything clever.

I turned to my left to see the action, the giant robot like something out of NeiR: Automata, swinging his hands at Stella and Grace, and possibly Michelle, wherever she was.

Dorian reappeared a few moments later, immediately turning to Tulip, who was still stuck in the giant net. The monster roared and hissed at me, trying to break free, and as Dorian vanished I approached him, both hands extended.

“Ingrid, it’s me,” I started to tell the beast, who had murder in his eyes. “You have to transform back to your normal self. Ingrid, listen to me. Please.”

Tulip gnashed his teeth at me.

“You don’t want to bite me, I’m your friend, remember me?” I asked, pointing at my own face. “I’m your favorite writer, your leader in a way, your buddy Manchester.”

Tulip gave me a funny look, as if it were cognizant of what I was saying.

“Yes,” I told the beast, continuing along this line of thinking. “It’s me, Gideon, the coolest guy that you have ever met, a father figure to you in a way, the strongest member of the Cherry Blossom Girls,” I said with a grin.

Tulip’s face twitched as he started to morph back into Ingrid, his form shrinking, muscles reforming into skin, hair taking shape on Ingrid’s head.

“Wow, you got her to transform back!” Michelle said, a big smile on her face.

“Did you run all the way over here?” I asked her, wide-eyed.

“Of course I did, Dorian told me to go to that rooftop, and here I am! But congratulations, that’s the first time that you’ve done that with Tulip!”

“Gideon, how…” Ingrid asked, untangling herself from the net.

Veronique appeared, still in her net. She was passed out, and I immediately went to her, healing the metal vampire. As soon as her eyes opened she started draining me, only to realize who I was before letting up.

Michelle and I helped Veronique get out of the net, and it was about this time that we saw helicopters approaching the robot. Dorian flashed into existence again with Stella and Grace.

“Okay, let Chloe know that it’s time,” I told Grace.

“Will do.”

The psychic shifter turned to her left, focusing on the battle, as the robot swiped down one of the helicopters.

“I’m putting up a shield,” Stella said.

“Good idea,” I said.

“I will put one up as well,” Grace chimed in.

“What are you going to do?” Ingrid asked me, wiping the sweat off her brow.

“Chloe’s going to drop a nuke of sound on the robot.”

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“We’re about to find out.”

I felt the building shake as a giant sphere of energy rose from the ground beneath the robot and blew it to pieces, followed by a corona of light. A windstorm of electricity and energy reached us, and it would have blown us off the rooftop had it not been for Stella and Grace’s shields.

“Where’s Chloe?” Michelle asked, once the blowback had started to die down.

“I’ll bring her here; we’re gone after that.” Dorian vanished before anyone could stop her.

“I can’t believe that worked…” I said as I sat down, both hands on my head, taking just about the biggest sigh of relief I had ever taken before.

Chapter Thirty-One: Chinese Pizza FTW

I was relieved as hell to get back to the hotel, away from the mayhem, to a place that was comfortable even if it wasn’t quite home.

We had made it, but unfortunately we hadn’t uncovered anything about Hummingbird, except that his factory was a giant robot that had decimated part of the Yanqing District.

“Great job,” I told the group, always trying to keep it positive.

The truth was, while we had taken down the robot, there had been too many civilian deaths, including our translator Kaito, who seemed like a pretty cool dude.

Distraught at what had happened, I took a seat, massaging my temples for a moment, my eyes jumping to my laptop. Maybe I needed to disconnect for a bit, but something told me that I should tell the Emperor what had happened, that it was the polite thing to do.

I also needed one of their phones.

“Who wants to donate their phone to Uncle Gideon?” I asked.

“You’re our uncle now?” asked Michelle, a goofy grin on her face. “I guess that makes sense, if Father is Father and Mother’s Mother, then you could be our uncle.”

“No, I take that back. I’m not your uncle, and seriously, who isn’t using their phone?”

“None of us use our phones except Michelle, Dorian and Ingrid,” Chloe said. “And Michelle’s been banned from phone usage.”

“I’m still banned?” Michelle asked with a pout.

“Yes,” Veronique said.

“You can have my phone,” Chloe told me. “I’m fine without it. I don’t think it’s charged, though.”

The sound manipulator’s face was still red from what she’d done back at the factory, her hair a bit frizzy too. She sat down next to me, and I instinctively placed my hand on her leg, pushing forth some healing energy.

“Thanks.” Once I was done healing her, Chloe went to the other room and returned with her phone and charger, plugging it into the wall. The green battery flashed on the screen, letting me know that it would fast charge in about fifteen minutes.

Nice.

I remembered back in the day when it took phones forever to charge, but not any longer.

Once I gave it a few minutes to charge, I signed in and went to my inbox, ignoring the other messages as I clicked on the Emperor’s last email.

I didn’t know how to word it so I just came right out with it, that we had gone to investigate one of the supers that was able to create advanced technology, or at least that’s what we thought Hummingbird’s power was, and that he had turned his factory into a giant robot and ended up killing Kaito.

Yikes.

From there, I scrolled back to my inbox and saw that someone from the James Andrew Hour had gotten back to me, that they were willing to set up an interview anywhere we wanted to set one up. And they would move fast too, promising to set it up within twenty-four hours or less depending on the location.

I also saw an email from Jake, asking me where I had been, and why I hadn’t answered any of his emails aside from telling him my interview plans.

I started my reply, basically giving my agent a synopsis of everything that had happened since we arrived in Asia.

Well, not everything.

I left out a few of the juicier details and I also didn’t go into some of the more desperate moments, like how Veronique had almost died, and how this power had emerged from within me, as well as the civilian casualties and the guy I killed. My agent wasn’t the right person to talk to about this stuff anyway, that person would be Father.

Speaking of which…

I clicked ‘send’ and went to my draft inbox. Sure enough, there was a message from Father telling me that everything was fine in Colorado, that he was satisfied with what he had been working on and that Clarence missed us.

I started another email, telling him what had happened, my fingers clicking away rapidly as Michelle watched them go.

“I hope I can type that fast one day,” she said.

“It was my first superpower,” I told her.

She snorted. “You’re so funny, Gideon.”

“See?” I told the rest of them, all of whom ignored me.

A few of the CBGs headed to the bedrooms to change. Dorian was the first to step out in a pair of black jeans and a tank top, her tattoos on display. Chloe changed as well into a flowing dress, and Stella wore some of the yoga clothing that we had picked up in Nepal.

“Don’t you want to change?” Michelle asked.

“Sorry, when I start working I get distracted and…” I shrugged. “Well, I get distracted.”

“Watch how quickly I can change clothes,” Michelle said, zipping away and reappearing about ten seconds later in loose yoga clothing.

“That was fast,” I told her.

“I’ve seen her do it even faster,” Ingrid said from the couch. She hadn’t changed yet, and from what I could tell by the expression on her face she was completely pooped, the beast morpher sprawled out and fanning herself with her hand.

“I’m waiting for you to heal me before I change,” Veronique said, “and possibly feed me.”

“You can feed on me,” Michelle said, offering her hand to Veronique.

“With pleasure,” the metal vampire said, placing her hand on Michelle’s.

“Whoa,” Michelle said, her shoulders starting to loosen. “That feels so crazy when you… Do that…”

“Not too much,” I told Veronique, looking up from the message I was typing to Father. I almost hit send, but stopped myself, remembering that we weren’t communicating in that way.

Instead, I closed my laptop and placed my hand on Michelle’s shoulder, healing the damage that Veronique had caused.

“Thanks, Gideon,” Michelle said as she zipped away, Veronique taking her place so I could heal her as well.

“There has to be some food to eat around here,” Ingrid said, still sprawled out on the couch.

Grace turned the television on with her mind by telekinetically using the remote. She went straight to a news channel and sure enough, the destruction at the factory was the number one story.

“I really wish we had a translator,” I said.

“What happened to that one guy?” Michelle asked.

“He didn’t make it back,” I said firmly, exchanging glances with a few of the others who understood what I meant.

“Too bad, he seemed pretty cool.”

“Did someone say something about food?” Ingrid asked.

“I’m with her,” said Dorian. “The sooner we eat, the better I’ll feel.”

“And... there we are,” Grace said, as images of our battle against the robot appeared on the television.

I couldn’t tell by the newscaster’s face how they were going to spin this, if the Chinese were going to say that we were helping, or if they were going to say that we were enemies of the public. Either way, it was best for us to keep a low profile.

As usual.

“Grace, you’re up,” I said, nodding to the door. “I’ll go with you, and together we can see about getting some room service.”

“Pizza?” Michelle asked.

“I don’t know how good pizza will be in China,” I started to say.

“What kind of crazy answer is that? Pizza is good anywhere.”

“She makes a strong argument,” Dorian said, watching the action on the television.

“Fine, fine,” I told the group, “we’ll try to get some pizza and something healthy.”

“Nothing healthy,” Ingrid said. “I’m stress-eating tonight.”

Chapter Thirty-Two: I Can Show You the Wall

I actually got some writing done.

You would think that I would be tired after our fight with the giant robot, but it had emboldened me for some reason, and after dinner I’d managed to crank out a couple thousand words.

A breakthrough of sorts.

It dawned on me then, as I closed my laptop, that we had failed to do something, or more specifically, I had failed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thrown milk in the morning, as per the Mongolian shaman’s instructions.

Don’t be superstitious, I reminded myself. We seemed to have made it through without following the ritual, and there was little I could do about it now. But still. Talk about vibing on a bad omen.

There was another thing bothering me at the moment.

According to a few Internet searches I had already done, the Chinese were actively blaming the Cherry Blossom Girls for what had happened. Their national newspaper—government-run I might add, which sort of defeated the purpose—had already posted editorials peppered with patriotic cries for the country to unite together and do something about us.

So, as usual, we were enemies of the public.

And it sort of made sense, even if I didn’t want us to be on the receiving end of what the public felt. We were a threat to them because of our abilities, and our abilities had brought out some pretty wicked things, from giant robots to the superhero fight in Washington, DC.

The list went on and on.

So I got that part, but it was exasperating at times, and it sucked to want to be the hero yet constantly be typecast as the villain.

“You’re still up?” Chloe asked, coming out of one of the bedrooms.

“I sure am. Just finishing up here.”

“Are you coming to bed?”

A curl of her brown hair fell into her oblong face and she swept it aside. The sound manipulator was in a silk robe, which was open at the front revealing that she only had a bra and panties on beneath.

“Is that an invitation?” I asked her.

She came into my lap, lightly running her fingers along the side of my face.

“I was just finishing up,” I told her again.

“What are you working on?”

“Something new. Trying to get my notes together, and I have a few other ideas I want to explore.”

“You’re just so full of ideas, aren’t you?”

“I guess you could say that.”

Dorian came out of the bedroom as well, also in a silk robe with a black tank top on underneath.

“I know, I know, I’m coming to bed,” I started to tell her.

“Who said anything about sleep?” she asked, looking to Chloe.

“Was there something else you two had in mind?”

“Actually, yes, we thought it would be fun to go on a little trip.”

“Go on…” I told the punk rock teleporter.

“What’s the most famous structure in China?” Chloe asked me.

“The Great Wall, hands down.”

“So what if we took a little midnight flight? Dorian could teleport us to the area, and we could go from there.”

“I mean, that would be a dream come true,” I finally said.

“See? I told you he’d be into it,” Dorian said.

I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m pretty spontaneous.”

Chloe grinned. “Okay, so you’re ready?”

“Wait, you two are going in your robes?”

“Yeah, why not?” Chloe asked. “Unless you prefer that we go in our underwear.”

“I…” I took my glasses off and used a napkin on the table to clean them.

“Do you want to wear a robe too?” Dorian asked, not waiting for my answer. “All the rooms here have nice silk robes.” She flashed away and reappeared in a matter of moments, a robe in her hands.

“Okay, sure, I’ll get undressed right here,” I said, lowering my voice. “Are you sure Michelle isn’t up?”

“No, I saw to that,” Chloe said.

“Good.”

I stripped down to my boxers and slipped into the robe from there, keeping my socks on just in case my feet got cold.

“Are you ready?” Dorian asked after she had pulled her black hair into a tight ponytail. Chloe stood next to her, holding her hand.

“Most definitely.” She reached out for me and I stopped her. “Wait, you already know where you’re going, right?”

“That’s the fun in it.”

The three of us vanished, reappearing somewhere near the factory from earlier, a smoking crater below. Chloe took over, flying us in a northeastern direction.

The wind beat the ends of our bathrobes as we took off. I eventually tightened mine, not wanting to lose it and find my crazy ass flying over the Great Wall in my underwear.

“This is fun, right?” Chloe asked once we got further away from the bustling Yanqing District. I could see lights on the horizon, which I assumed were coming from the Great Wall.

“Unexpected, for sure.”

“It’s fun to be spontaneous,” Dorian said. “Speaking of which, do they do tattoos here in China?”

“I think they do tattoos everywhere. Also, you have to be careful what you get in another language.”

“Why is that? And who said anything about getting a tattoo in another language?” She laughed. “You’re way too cautious, Gideon.”

“It’s better to be safe than have a shitty Chinese tattoo that says Xi Jinping.”

“Who?”

“We should get tattoos when we get back to America,” Chloe said.

“You’re in?” Dorian asked.

“Maybe. Well, probably not. But if I did, it would likely be a musical note or something.”

“Hey, you’ve got to appreciate your talents, which is why I have a typewriter,” I told her, patting my tatted shoulder.

“I remember when you got that…” Dorian twisted in the air and steadied herself.

“Do you even know how to use a typewriter?” Chloe asked me.

“I mean, I know how to type, but to answer your question, no, I don’t know how to use one.”

“So, you have a tattoo of something that you have no idea how to use, right?”

“Don’t beat me up about my tattoo idea,” I told Chloe, “it was spur of the moment.”

“That’s the best time to get a tattoo,” Dorian said.

We came closer to the lights, confirming that it was indeed the Great Wall. At that point, we changed our trajectory, flying above the Great Wall, high enough away that the lights couldn’t pick up our forms.

It was an amazing structure to see from above, and it also made me think of how little help it had been once Genghis Khan came charging through.

Having now spent time in Mongolia, it was hard to imagine the friendly people were once the great Mongol warriors, the stuff of nightmares to most of the known world at the time. But rather than do a deep dive on Central Asian history, I let my thoughts go for a moment, just enjoying the view, the breeze.

It was a bit cold out, but I felt warm, which I knew had something to do with Chloe’s power. Of all the CBGs who could fly, I liked the way her flying ability felt the best, a low rumble all along my body, as if I were getting a light massage.

“This is awesome,” Dorian announced to both of us. “Just what I needed.”

“We’re going to go back to America soon, right?” Chloe asked me. “Maybe we could do this along famous places in America too, like the Grand Canyon.”

“After Tokyo, yes, we’ll go back to America. At least for a while.”

“Good, because I think that we still need to check Mexico for Hummingbird. We could just fly around the area; I know it sounds like a long shot, but I just have a feeling.”

“I have the same feeling as you,” I told her. “In my head, I keep saying that he’s in Mexico, and maybe it’s me trying to tell myself something.”

“Or Grace trying to tell you something through yourself,” Dorian chimed in.

“A very real possibility, yes.”

We changed directions along with the wall, the wind picking up and settling, quiet enough for us to speak.

“Of all the CBGs, she’s the one I would trust the least,” Dorian said, “but I just accept this fact now, and having done so, I trust her completely. Is that strange?”

“It sounds like she’s in your head,” Chloe said.

“And she’s not in yours?”

“I really don’t know. But since we’re all in this together, and we’re always around each other, then sure, she’s probably in my head as well.”

“What do you think her real personality is like?” Dorian asked. “I mean, I see some parts of it, more of the softer side, and possibly the emotional side, but her actual personality. Like what does she like?”

“How did this become a discussion about Grace?” I asked.

“We can talk about anything up here,” Chloe said, “it’s not like anyone can hear us.”

I nodded. “Well, let’s talk about everyone in that case. Veronique is stilted but sweet in her own way; Stella is a bit like Veronique but finally warming up to me; Michelle has ADHD and I worry about her heart sometimes considering that she’s constantly bouncing around the room; Ingrid isn’t the funnest person to be around, but she’s an integral part of this team and I believe as she grows older she will become even more important.”

“And me?”

“You’re Dorian. You like to give me crap sometimes, but you are one of the easiest to get along with and, as you said, quite spontaneous.”

“And me?”

“Well, Chloe, you’re kind and powerful, a bit mysterious, but that’s because you’re the last to join our group.”

“Mysterious?” Chloe laughed as she sped ahead. “I’ll take it.”

“Do you think anyone else will ever join the Cherry Blossom Girls?” Dorian asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not opposed to other members, but we seem to have a pretty tightknit group as it stands. Actually, I have this feeling that Arianna would have joined had we not let Angel take her.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, but maybe that was just in my head, maybe because she looked like Veronique, I assumed she would be like Veronique. And seriously, I know you two weren’t there, but Veronique literally tried to kill Grace the first time she met us. So if she could change, I’m pretty sure that Arianna could change as well. I don’t know. Just an assumption, and maybe I’m projecting a bit. Not everyone is good. Not everyone has what it takes to be a superhero.”

Dorian snorted. “I was with you until that last line. We aren’t superheroes, Gideon, we’re just superpowered individuals trying not to be an evil force in the world.”

“Maybe I should reframe the way I think of us,” I told her. “And it’s probably because of my childhood growing up in America in a post-superhero world that I have these ideas, these conceptions.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe we could just enjoy the rest of this flight,” Chloe said. “After all, how often does one get to take a private tour of the Great Wall of China?”

“Not often enough,” Dorian said.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Parent Trap

There was a gray haze obscuring the morning sun, something foreboding about it, making me feel sorry for the people that lived here. Was there ever a clear day here? Was there ever a day that went by when people could actually look up and see the sun, a blue sky overhead, fluffy clouds?

But I guess that was the price one paid to live in a city like this, one of the biggest in the world, the center of the universe that was China.

What a life.

My phone buzzed and I ignored it, still looking out at the gray cloud that hung over the city.

“Your phone,” Michelle said, appearing at my side. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, the young speedster in one of the kid robes provided by the hotel. “Also, the hotel people delivered the package from Vince.” She nodded to a box on the table.

“Cool.”

“It’s the tracking device, right?”

“It is,” I said, noticing my phone buzzing again. I glanced down to see a message on WuBo GoogleFakebook.

Michelle watched the expression on my face change. “What’s wrong, Gideon?”

“Oh no, oh no…”

I nearly spilled my cup of coffee as I tried to get to a place to sit down, to take in what I’d just seen. I read the message again and again.

No.

Writer Gideon, what is it? Grace asked inside my head.

“Dammit,” I said, feeling a wave of anxiety move over me. My breaths were shorter now as I reread the message, trying to come to grips with how we were going to make this work.

“What is it, Gideon? I can help. I can run in there. What is it?” Michelle asked, feeding off my sudden frenzy.

“Let me see,” Ingrid said as she moved over to me, swiping my phone out of my hand. I didn’t fight back or anything, I simply let her take it. She read the message, her eyes going wide.

“That is… Very bad.” She handed the phone back to me. “I’ll go get the others.”

“What happened? Is Clarence okay? Is it Father? What happened? Please, tell me,” Michelle said, almost in tears.

“It’s not your fault, don’t worry,” I assured her. “I… my…”

My phone buzzed again, and as much as I hated to, I slid my finger across the green button.

“Gideon Caldwell,” Natalie Johansson said, offering me a big smile.

All I could see behind her was a thick forest of green trees, a slight breeze moving through some of the limbs.

“Don’t you fucking touch a hair on their goddamn heads,” I said, pointing my finger at the camera, feeling stupid for threatening someone over video. If there were an ability that would allow me to slip my consciousness into a phone and out another I would have done it in that moment and killed her.

“Walk with me,” Natalie said. The woman was clearly using a selfie stick. She started to move around the tree line, a confident grin on her face. “Remember when you killed my cousin in Nevada?”

“That wasn’t us,” I told her, seething now.

“Remember Tokyo? My employee that you decapitated, remember her?” she asked.

“Why are you talking to her?” Michelle asked, but I waved her away, letting her know that I needed to focus.

“I swear to you, Natalie, if you…”

“Hang up the phone,” Dorian said, appearing in front of me, a flash of purple energy radiating off her skin. “We will go there now.”

“One moment,” I said, my finger up in the air.

“So you want to come here?” Natalie asked playfully. “And you are currently in… Somewhere in Asia, right? Possibly China? Hmmm… Or maybe you’re back in Nepal, or Japan. I like visiting Japan, the people there are so friendly.”

The actress gave me a predatory smile as she turned back in the direction that she had come from, allowing me a glimpse of my uncle’s house as she did.

“Don’t you dare…” I said, realizing that my threats had no power over her, that there was little I could do to prevent Natalie from doing anything.

“Is there something you would like to say to them?” she asked as she approached the house, the video going jittery for a moment. I heard the squeak of the back porch door as she opened it.

Natalie made her way to the kitchen, past family photos on the wall, where she paused, that same wicked smile on her face.

“I swear to God…”

The CBGs had gathered around me now, Veronique’s face so red with anger that it looked like she was about to explode. Energy was radiating off her fists, her shoulders hunched forward.

Relax, Writer Gideon, Grace said inside my head. If you get too angry you won’t be able to figure out a solution to this. I’m going to tell Chloe to help you relax.

“No…” I started to tell Grace.

“No?” Natalie asked. “You don’t want to see your parents?”

“Yes, I mean, of course…”

“Too bad.” Natalie moved past the living room, the camera skipping over my parents and my uncle. Instead, I saw a towering figure standing in the living room, his arms crossed over his chest, a tattooed smile across his face.

“Smiley,” Ingrid said.

A strange wave of relaxation rolled over me, and even though I was still boiling with rage, it gave me a second to catch my breath, to figure this out.

“What do you want?” I finally asked Natalie, rather than threatening her.

“Twelve hours. You have twelve hours to get to your uncle’s place in Vermont, or I’ll have Smiley here kill your parents and your uncle. Or maybe I’ll spare your uncle’s life.” She shrugged. “I guess a cousin and a former employee for a couple of parents and an uncle isn’t quite an eye for an eye, but no one said that I needed to be biblical about this, and I never really was that religious to begin with.”

“You just want us to come there?” I asked.

“Is that so much to ask? What part of what I have already said here do you fail to comprehend? Twelve hours from now. What time is it where you are?”

I fumbled to check the time on my phone. It was a little after six in the morning.

“Six fifteen in the morning.”

Natalie grinned. “How convenient is that? It’s six fifteen at night here. I guess that makes this even easier for you, so hopefully, I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow. If not, well, I guess you can already figure out what happens next.”

“I want to talk to them; I want to know that they are okay.”

“Sorry,” Natalie said, hanging up the call.

I tried to call her back again and again. While I frantically pressed buttons on my phone, the CBGs started hatching a plot to get back to the states to help me save my parents.

Eventually, Dorian came to me, taking the phone from my hand.

“I… shit…” I said, biting my lip.

“We’ll get there by then,” Dorian assured me. “We won’t let Natalie kill your parents.”

Chapter Thirty-Four: Reverse Red Eye to California

I checked the calculations again, my hand trembling as I tried to get ahold of myself. I knew that the distance between Beijing and Japan would not be as difficult as crossing the Pacific Ocean. We were all suited up now, our loose Nepali clothing over our uniforms.

Ready to go.

“A little over thirteen hundred miles,” I said, confirming again through a different search. “Within your range.”

“Everyone get what they need,” Dorian said, a determined look on her face. “We’re leaving in five minutes or less.”

I took a deep breath in. We were going to do this, we were going to make it, and it would take confidence and belief in Dorian’s ability for that to happen.

“Where exactly are we going in Tokyo?” Ingrid asked.

“Let’s make it easy; let’s go back to the hotel that we originally stayed at.”

Dorian nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. And we can go to the rooftop from there.”

“We don’t need to go to the rooftop,” Grace said. “But we’ll probably want to refuel and relax to prepare for the long trip over the ocean.”

“She’s right,” I said, nodding to the psychic shifter, who was in her base form, her bleach blonde hair pulled up into a bun. “Everyone have their phones? Grab anything else you want, and don’t forget the tracking device.”

“Already in my bag,” Ingrid said.

“We don’t have our disguises anymore,” Stella reminded me. “All that stuff is in India.”

“And it’s a damn shame too. Maybe we will send Grace to grab some stuff in Tokyo. Food too.”

“We have to get back to America,” Michelle said.

“We have twelve hours. We have to do this smartly, and Dorian is going to need to recharge every time. I can already think of a couple issues that we’re going to run into. But we’ll solve them. From Tokyo, we’ll start making our way across the Pacific.”

“Are we going to an island?” Michelle asked.

“Something like that.”

“I’m ready,” Chloe said.

“We won’t let her do this to your family,” said Stella.

And rather than bask in the sentimental moment that could have happened, Dorian merely stepped forward, motioning everyone to touch her.

We appeared in the tunnel made of purple electricity, Dorian already running ahead, Michelle easily catching up with her, smiling as she kept up with the punk rock teleporter. I knew this was going to be uncomfortable for me, but I tried to keep up, ignoring the shift in gravity in my stomach, the way my chest felt like it would explode.

We had to do this. I had to get there.

We appeared at the hotel in Tokyo, startling a German tourist.

Grace had his mind in a matter of seconds, the man lying down in the corner, his back to us.

“Can’t you just send him out?” Veronique asked.

“I thought you would like to feed,” Grace said.

“Right, I’ll do that then.”

Veronique crouched in front of the man and drained him, enough that his skin started to change color. Once she was done I healed him up, looking to Dorian and seeing her staring at her phone and scrolling through a map.

Ingrid had her phone as well, calculating distances, and Stella seemed to be engaged with both of them, a piece of paper in front of her that she had taken from the man. She had a pencil as well, and was writing out calculations.

“Good,” I said, turning to Grace.

“Gideon and I are going to get food,” Grace said. “We’ll be back shortly, with some disguises just in case they’re necessary. They may not be.”

“I’m going with you two,” Veronique said.

“Fine by us.”

We took the elevator down to the main floor to find the old Japanese woman watching a daytime soap. She looked at us with surprise until Grace took over, the woman simply nodding, immediately moving toward the kitchen.

“A home-cooked meal?” I asked Grace as we stepped onto the streets of Ueno.

“I thought it would be a nice touch.”

We made our way straight to the black market, Grace in her pastor’s wife form, yours truly as old man Gideon and Veronique quickly getting a disguise by finding a hat and a pair of sunglasses.

We quickly got a backpack, beanies, sunglasses, scarves and a few hats just in case.

We returned to the hotel and gave the backpack to Stella, who readily put it on.

“Let me wear one of the hats,” Michelle said, choosing one with a picture of Mt. Fuji on it.

“So what’s the plan?” Veronique asked.

“There are two ways that we can do this,” Dorian began. “One is to go from Tokyo to Wake Island, and from there we can make the leap to Honolulu, and from there to California.”

“Why do I get a feeling that that’s not going to be as easy as it sounds?”

“Because it isn’t. The distance between Tokyo and Wake Island is nearly two thousand miles, which is the upper limits of my teleportation range. And there are nearly twenty-three hundred miles between Wake Island and Honolulu.”

“What’s the other option?” the metal vampire asked.

“The other option would still have us going to Wake Island, but we would make the shorter leap to the Midway Atoll, which is about fifteen hundred miles. We would then go from Midway to Hawaii. We would still have a long stretch between Hawaii and California of about twenty-five hundred miles.”

“But you can only teleport two thousand…” Veronique said.

Dorian looked to me. “Hopefully, we can fix that.”

I was already looking at my phone by the time she said this, curious as to what I could do to her stats to make this work. The thing was, her teleportation distance was already at its highest number, but maybe there was a way for me to augment the distance by turning everything else down.

In the end, I set Dorian in almost a min-max sort of way.

Main Second: Teleportation

Tele-Sphere Radius: 9

Conscious Spatial Awareness: 10

Recharge Speed: 3

Restoration Speed: 4

Teleportation Rapidity: 7

Teleportation Distance: 10

Empathetic Teleportation: 1

Banishment: 1

Overcharge: 2

I didn’t know if it would help her distance-wise, but I was hoping for some type of boost. Plus, there was another way we could go about doing this, and I had a feeling it would work.

The elevator opened and the Japanese woman stepped out with food. “Let’s refuel and get started,” I said. “We’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”

We appeared in the air above Wake Island, a stunning location with a turquoise lagoon in the center of the island. There was an airstrip on it, and Chloe and Stella took over immediately, lowering us to the long runway.

American soldiers had already started to come out, only to be greeted by Grace, all the soldiers pausing and returning to their duty stations aside from one.

“Can I get y’all anything?” the female soldier with a southern twang asked, a dazed look on her face. “Water? Food?”

“How are you, Dorian?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her hand on the side of her head, a vein pulsing. “Actually, I will take some water.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The soldier returned with a bucket of ice-cold water bottles. “Y’all traveling far?”

“Not now,” Veronique told her, looking to Grace.

“No problemo; if you need anything let me know.” And with that, the soldier returned to one of the barracks.

It was a peaceful island, and just being on it made me want to research what it was all about, why the US had an airstrip out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, I knew that we had an island here because of World War II, but just because I knew the answer to the question didn’t mean I wouldn’t like a few more details.

I sat next to Dorian and started healing her as she scrolled through her phone, now looking at pictures of Honolulu. We had settled on a hotel there, a Marriott, and had chosen a particular one that was quite tall with beach views. We had pictures from the sky, and of every angle, our only mission now to get from here to there.

Of course, it was out of Dorian’s teleportation range, but I had cooked up a way to handle that which I was quite proud of.

“And you are sure that you feel okay?” I asked her again.

“I’m fine, Gideon,” she assured me. “Just give me about twenty minutes, and then we’ll go.”

“Your call.”

I moved over to Stella and Chloe, reminding them of what we needed to do.

They nodded, and Michelle appeared on my right, a big smile on her face.

“This island is so small,” she said, her Mt. Fuji hat casting a shadow on her face. “I saw some really pretty palm trees and beaches, and the water is a color I’ve never even seen before. There are airplanes and soldiers here, I think it’s a military base.”

“Stay close,” Veronique said, patting Michelle’s shoulder. “We’ve got to get back to America.”

“You would have liked the island,” Michelle told her. “Some parts of it are really pretty. Prettier than here,” she said, pointing to the barracks. “Trust me, you would have liked it, VeeVee.”

“I’m sure I would have,” Veronique said. “And before you try again, ‘VeeVee’ won’t work as a nickname for me.”

“Okay…”

“Everyone should drink something,” Grace said, floating water bottles to each of the CBGs. She sent extra to Stella to put in her backpack. “While Dorian is doing most of the work today, we are all traveling in the sun, and we could get dehydrated.”

“She’s right,” I said. “Everyone drink up. And we have two more hats, so whoever wants one, now would be the time to get them. I’d hate for any of us to get a sunburn.”

“We totally shouldn’t have got beanies,” Veronique said, who wore the hat that she’d picked up in Ueno.

“Yeah, that was dumb,” I agreed as Stella handed Dorian a hat.

“Who wants the last one?” the vector manipulator asked. “Grace?”

Grace’s skin began to darken until it was completely black, her hair still bleach blonde. “I’ve got my own protection.”

Michelle laughed. “That’s so cool!”

“Not a bad idea,” Ingrid said.

“Ingrid or Chloe, one of you can have the hat.”

“But you look the hottest,” Chloe told me.

Stella floated the hat over to Ingrid, who pulled it over her head to the point that the bill sat just above her eyes. The CBGs finished their water bottles and placed them back in the bucket that the soldier had brought.

“I’ll be fine.” I tried to darken my skin but ended up with the old man Gideon face instead. “Dammit.”

“Try again,” Grace said. “Just focus on your skin.”

I did what she said, imagining my skin darkening. Eventually, I opened my eyes to see that my hand was a lot darker, almost a caramel tint to it.

“Wow, Gideon looks handsome with a tan, right?” Michelle asked, much to the other CBGs’ amusement.

After a few more minutes, Dorian stood, rubbing her hands together.

“I’m ready.”

“All right, let’s do this.”

We gathered around Dorian and were gone in an instant, all of us barreling through the tunnel of purple energy and light.

We kept going and going, Dorian pressing further and further ahead until she started to trip. Michelle was next to her immediately, helping her stand. Dorian kept pressing forward, almost as if she was running in slow motion, and suddenly, we appeared in the sky above the ocean.

We landed on a platform that Stella had made out of vectors, bolstered by Chloe’s sound ability. It was creepy as hell to be on the invisible platform, the ocean beneath us, water as far as the eye could see, but it worked.

My idea of having Stella and Chloe create an artificial platform for us had actually worked...

“Have another water,” Ingrid said, taking one of the water bottles from Stella’s backpack.

Once we were in Honolulu, Grace and I could get food again, mostly because the snack the Japanese hotelier had provided was small and, well, very Japanese. We would also need to get in some shade. The sun was blistering out here above the waves.

“Too bad we don’t have someone who can modify clouds,” Michelle said, looking up at the sun, shielding her eyes with her hand.

“That would be helpful.” I wiped to the bead of sweat away from the side of my head. “But it won’t be long, we must be at least halfway there.”

“I think so,” Dorian said.

She sat on the invisible platform, drinking from the water bottle, taking deep breaths in. Naturally, I dropped behind her, placing both hands on her shoulders, healing. Dorian loosened up a little, letting out a deep breath.

“You can do this, Dorian,” Veronique told her.

“We’re almost there,” she said. “Almost.”

“We still have to get all the way to the East Coast, right?” Michelle asked.

“Don’t remind me,” Dorian told her. “Let’s just get to California first.”

“Where are we going in California?” Michelle asked.

“To that one place we stayed at in Los Angeles,” I told her. “That director’s house.”

“I liked that place,” she said with a smile. “That’s where we met Clarence.”

“It is indeed.”

“The director’s name is Scott Reid,” Ingrid said. “He directs superhero movies.”

“I wonder if he knows Vince…” I said, figuring I’d ask if we ran into the director.

About fifteen more minutes in the sun had my skin glistening. Luckily, Dorian was feeling better, and once we all gathered around her, we disappeared again into the tunnel of energy, Dorian charging ahead, Michelle keeping up alongside her.

I wasn’t feeling nauseous at this point; I only wanted to get back to America and stop Natalie from doing something to the people that had raised me...

Dorian started to slow, Michelle encouraging her to keep up.

A determined look on her face, the punk rock teleporter charged forward again, energy spiraling all around us as we landed on the rooftop in Honolulu.

“We made it! We’re not quite halfway there,” I said, catching my breath, “but we’re getting close. We’re going to do this.”

“How far between California and Hawaii again?” Michelle asked.

“Twenty-five hundred miles,” said Ingrid.

“I need food, and I need water,” Dorian said, using me for support now. Her face was completely red, her eyes watery, her throat quivering. I was already trying to heal her, but she still seemed weak, almost like Jell-O in my arms.

“Let’s get inside the hotel and chill out for an hour,” Grace said. “We have time, and once we have relaxed some, we can continue on our way. I’ll take care of everything else. Whatever you want to eat, whatever you want to drink, let me know.”

“Eat?” Dorian smiled at Michelle. “Pizza. Drink?” Dorian smiled at me. “Fucking whiskey.”

“Pizza and whiskey it is,” Grace said as we turned to the rooftop entrance, the psychic shifter leading the way.

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Final Stretch

“Nice vacation to Hawaii, right?” Dorian asked, a grin on her face.

We were in a hotel room with ocean views, the balcony door open, the sound of the beautiful blue waves echoing into the space. There were a couple empty pizza boxes, and Dorian had a tiny plastic bottle of Jack Daniels.

Michelle and Ingrid were on the balcony, looking out, and Stella, Veronique, and Chloe were in the other room watching a home improvement show about Millennials trying to pay off their outstanding student loan debt by flipping houses.

I was happy to be sitting in a nice chair, Grace on the arm rest, her hand wrapped around my shoulder, Dorian in front of me, finishing the last slice of pizza.

“Are you feeling better?” Grace asked me, her skin still dark.

“No, I’m feeling full, but I’m at least content here. It’s nice.”

“Understatement of the year,” said Dorian. “How come you haven’t taken us to Hawaii yet?”

“We sort of didn’t need to come here for anything in particular…”

Dorian rolled her eyes. “Next time we go to Asia, we don’t take the airplane, okay? We go through teleportation, and we spend a day or two in Hawaii. Deal?”

“I mean, I’m always down to get down, you know that.”

Grace snickered. “Where do you get these phrases?”

“I thought they were your phrases?” I asked, looking to her. “Aren’t you always speaking through me?”

“I only say smart things.”

Dorian laughed, throwing back the rest of her little plastic bottle of whiskey.

“I want to go down to the ocean,” Michelle said for the seventh time as she peeked in from the balcony. “Please, please, please…”

“No,” Dorian, Grace and I all said simultaneously.

“But it looks so pretty down there. People are playing. And people are also getting their tans, and then there’s a lifeguard, and probably cool fish…” Michelle confirmed with Ingrid. “Yep, and there’s some people on floats, and everyone’s having fun.”

“There’s no fun allowed for today,” I told her. “We have business to handle.”

“I can be fast…” The expression on Michelle’s face changed. “Okay, I’ll stay here and not bother you any longer.”

“Thanks,” Dorian told Grace once Michelle was gone.

“It’s my specialty.”

We hung out in the room for another twenty minutes or so, giving Dorian plenty of time to recharge. Once she was ready, I reminded Stella and Chloe to be ready with their invisible platform.

We flashed away, reappearing in the tunnel of oscillating purple energy, all of us taking off and running forward, trying to keep up with Dorian and Michelle.

As it happened previously, Dorian started to grow tired, and once she did we appeared over the ocean, all of us falling until we were cushioned by an invisible platform. Dorian sat almost immediately, and Ingrid walked over to her with a water bottle.

“One more teleportation and we are back in the States,” I told the group.

The sun was blocked by a cloud this time, which made being on the platform more bearable. I noticed my skin was white again, probably an aftereffect of relaxing in the borrowed hotel room and not paying attention to the form I had shifted into.

Concentrating again, I was able to darken it.

“Wait a minute, are those dolphins?” Michelle asked, an excited look on her face as she stepped to the edge of the platform.

Sure enough we saw a school of dolphins moving through the waves, heading in our direction.

“Oh, that’s so awesome,” Grace said.

“This happened to us before,” Michelle explained. “When we went to that island. I forget the island’s name.”

“Santa Cruz Island,” I said. I looked to Chloe and Stella. “Lower the platform a little.”

They did as instructed, lowering the platform until it was about five feet above the sloshing waves. Chloe stepped forward, making a sound with her throat. The dolphins stopped, a few of them lifting their heads above the water.

“Just don’t get any closer,” Veronique said, at my side now, gripping my arm tightly.

“We’re not going in the ocean,” I assured her. “Don’t worry.”

“I can swim, you know,” she said.

“I’m sure you can.”

The dolphins started circling us. Ingrid had her phone out, trying to capture it on video.

Yet another moment that I would think back to sometime in the future, a strange sliver of time in which all this made sense, where I had this idea to just abandon it all and disappear with the CBGs forever.

But reality returned once Dorian was able to teleport again, and after another trip down the purple lightning tunnel, our group took shape in Director Scott Reid’s Los Angeles home, on the rooftop near the hot tub where I’d first hooked up with Chloe.

“You did it…” I said, breathing heavily as I turned to Dorian.

“I’m just glad we made it,” she said with a satisfied smile.

“How are we doing timewise?” Ingrid asked.

It was nighttime in California, lights glittering along the horizon, hills in the distance, a dark cloud sitting over the city. I’d purposefully kept the clock on my phone at Beijing time, which would make it easier to calculate twelve hours than continually dealing with time zone changes.

We’d been at this for about three and a half hours now.

“We have about eight hours,” I said, giving us a little extra time just in case.

“I’m getting hungry again,” Michelle said.

“You just ate in Hawaii,” Grace told her.

“I know, but we’re close to home, and I am thinking about Clarence’s food now.”

Chloe smiled at her, the sound manipulator taking a seat on a plastic chair. “I’m sure Clarence will be able to whip something up for us while we rest.”

“Two hours,” Veronique said. “That’s all the rest time we have in Colorado.”

“Three hours tops,” I said. “Then we can move to New Haven. It’s a long teleportation, but it still should be under two thousand miles. I’ll check everything to be sure. From there, we move to Vermont.”

“What’s Vermont like?” Michelle asked.

“Lots of trees, but we aren’t there to be tourists.”

“Focus, Michelle,” Dorian said, the punk rock teleporter now sitting on a chair next to Chloe, her elbows on her thighs, hands in her hair.

“Need any healing?”

Before Dorian could answer I placed my hand on her shoulder, bringing it up to her cheek, pushing forth some of my power. Her skin cooled off a bit, the redness leaving her face.

“The director is home,” Grace said, her eyes flashing white.

“Let’s not bother him,” Veronique said.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t come up here.”

“He’s awake?” I asked.

“He’s sort of a night owl.”

“I’m so excited to get back to Colorado,” said Michelle, spinning once and grinning. “Even if it is nighttime. I love going home.”

“I want you to try to get some rest tonight, Michelle, okay?” Chloe said. “We may be in for a serious fight in the morning.”

“Because this is clearly a trap,” Veronique said, finishing Chloe’s line of thought.

“Clearly,” I said in agreement.

About twenty minutes later, we teleported from Los Angeles to our headquarters in the Rocky Mountains. Michelle immediately burst inside, ran straight through the door and announced to Clarence that we were home.

The bearded man was ecstatic to see us.

Before we could even settle in the living room, Clarence launched into the kitchen, whipping up food, turning on the oven, all the sounds associated with intense cooking filling our living space as he chatted with Michelle.

Father stepped into the house wearing a terry cloth robe. He greeted everyone, eventually making his way over to me.

“Have a minute?” I asked him.

“I have more than a minute,” he said.

After I took some of the items out of Ingrid and Stella’s backpacks, we headed down to the CBG situation room, the basement, where I explained to him what had happened, and why we were back so suddenly.

“And you are aware that it is a trap?” he asked.

“Deadly aware.”

“But it’s something that you have to do, I understand that,” he said.

“It is.”

His eyes glowed orange and fizzled out, Father shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Gideon. I can’t get a feel for this one; I can only wish you luck.”

“I understand.” And in that moment I felt a true kinship with the man, guilt spreading over me for ever thinking he was working against us.

“We have this as well,” I said, pointing at Kenneth’s phone and the tracking device that Vince had sent us in Beijing.

“And this Kenneth guy, he had a superpower?” Father asked, taking the tracking device and opening the box, impressed by its size. “He was the one in the hotel in Nepal, right?”

“Yes, with sludge-like forearms power. I don’t know. His power kind of reminded me of Swamp Thing, if that makes any sense.”

“Fascinating,” Father said as he turned his attention to the phone, not daring to touch it. “It appears Damon Lord’s skill has improved.”

“According to the Emperor of Japan, Kenneth Thompson was the one funding Damon Lord; I’m guessing he got a superpower for his efforts.”

“Possibly. The answer may be on this phone. We have to be careful, though. If we make too many mistakes trying to open it, it’ll lock for good,” Father said.

“Aware, which is why we powered it off.”

“Good.” Father took the stairs to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a plastic bag. “Place it in here for now, and I’ll think of some ways that we can crack it. I already have some ideas, but I will need to do a little bit of research first.”

“I’m sure we can figure it out, I just haven’t had time to wrap my mind around it, and now my parents…”

“I get it, Gideon. You need to save your family. I suggest going upstairs and resting with the others. It’s important that you are at a hundred percent once you reach Vermont. There’s no telling what could happen when you arrive.”

Chapter Thirty-Six: Tunnel Vision

We sped through Dorian’s teleportation tunnel as we had countless times before, the punk rock teleporter at the front, Michelle running circles around her.

We still had four hours to get to Vermont, plenty of time, all of us a bit more rested than we were just a few hours ago.

The anticipation was killing me, but I tried to keep it down, tried to focus on running, ignoring the cramps in my stomach.

It was a pretty big leap, but visiting Connecticut first would give us a moment for Dorian to recharge, for us to prepare for the assault. And as a portal opened up in front of us, purple energy radiating all around our bodies, I found myself yet again in Wooster Square, in New Haven, not far from Yale University.

There were just a few cars moving up a side street, none of which would have spotted us because of the shadows provided by the ancient sycamore trees in the square. It was cool out, and I instinctively turned in the direction of my basement apartment, just remembering how many times I’d walked through this very square.

“So this is where you met Grace,” Michelle said, her hands on her hips.

“It is; she showed up at my doorstep right over there.” I pointed to the apartment building in question, a few of the CBGs following my finger.

“I think it will only be fifteen minutes,” Dorian said.

“No, you need to take longer than that. You just jumped almost two thousand miles; let’s make it at least half an hour,” I told her. “Please, relax, I’ll heal you.”

I stepped away from Grace, leading Dorian over to the park bench. She sat and I placed my hand on the side of her neck, ignoring the channels that opened up.

I’d replaced Grace’s shifter ability with Veronique’s metal manipulation. I knew things were going to get hairy once we got to Vermont, and at least this would give me the ability to drain someone.

My uncle lived in a home outside of Brattleboro, on the other side of I-91, not far from a quaint, one street town known as Putney. It was a peaceful place, quiet, and it pained me to think that Natalie had violated my uncle’s sanctuary, the home he had moved to so that he could escape it all, to be himself.

I dropped my hand from Dorian’s neck and took a few steps away, looking over toward Wooster Square’s cherry blossom trees. They were just regular trees now, no sign whatsoever that for a week or two every April, they turned into beautiful acts of nature with their white and pink flowers.

The start of my story.

My real story.

And as I looked over at them, I figured this would be a good way to kick off the follow-up to Mutants in the Making. That was where it all started, how we got here, what we were going to do next, and why it had come to this.

But now wasn’t the time to plot even if an idea had come to me. I sent the thought to the back of my mind, my eyes closed, hoping that I would remember it later.

I’ll help you, Writer Gideon.

I smiled at Grace’s voice inside my head.

And I can help you in other ways too; I can help you focus more, she thought to me.

That would be nice. I may need to escape in my own fiction for a while, to process all of this.

Understandable. But let’s just save your parents first.

“This place is pretty cool,” Michelle said, appearing to my left.

“Did you run all the way around it?”

She nodded. “What was it like to live here?”

“It wasn’t bad,” I told her. “My life wasn’t great, but you’re right, New Haven is nice, plus the best pizza in the world is just down the street.”

“Sounds nice,” Michelle said.

Once Dorian was ready, we teleported to a small farm not far from my uncle’s place. There was a chill in the air, Vermont several degrees cooler than Connecticut.

“I can go right now…” Michelle started to say.

“No, it’s going to be a trap,” Grace told her. “We’ll go together; remember, our main goal is to save Gideon’s parents.”

“My uncle too,” I reminded them. “Uncle Brandon. It’s his home.”

I turned to the west, taking in a deep breath as I did so. The air was different here, cleaner, smelling of nature. Everything was a midnight blue, but there were signs that the sun was close to coming up, a warmth radiating from the horizon.

“I can check to see if there are people there,” Michelle said.

“You will,” Dorian assured her, “but only after we get closer.”

“And what if we’re attacked here?” Michelle asked.

“There’s no one here,” Chloe told her. “Aside from some livestock in that direction,” she said, pointing off to the right. “Some llamas.”

“What’s a llama?” Michelle asked.

“I’ll show you a picture later,” Ingrid assured her.

“Enough banter. Everyone stay alert as we move closer,” Veronique said.

We were still a little too far from my uncle’s house to pull off an all-out assault; there was a chance that we could fly over the place for a headcount, but we didn’t want to be spotted in this way.

Grace was monitoring any thoughts that might be projecting, in case they had their own telepath, Chloe was using her echolocation ability, and I knew that Stella had a shield around us.

If something did come at us while we made our way through this field, we would be able to respond in force.

“Remember, if Damon Lord is here, you need to place a tracking device on him,” I told Michelle.

“I’m ready; just like we practiced back in Colorado.”

If Michelle ever got out of the business of superhero work, there would always be a job for her as a magician. She had great sleight-of-hand, not so much because of her finesse but because of her speed.

The small tracking device that Vince gave us could be affixed to anything, flesh or fabric. And as it turned out, Michelle was fast enough to make it happen without the person feeling her action.

Dorian looped her hand into mine. “We have to be ready to leave,” she said, a nervous look on her face.

“Are you sensing something?”

“Look, I don’t have the power of the others, but something is off here, I can at least tell you that. I don’t know if it’s going to be a fight or what, but it’s off.”

Silence spread over us as we made our way to the end of the dewy field, coming to the start of a small forest, powerlines off to our left. There was another house or two in this patch of woods, and my uncle’s was the one on the end, along the two-lane road that led from 91 to Putney.

“You’re up, Michelle,” I told the young speedster.

She was just about to take off when Ingrid stepped in front of her. “You’re only gathering surveillance,” she reminded the younger girl. “It’s important that you move as quickly as possible, don’t stick around, and return to us once you have seen how many supers are there, and where they’re holding Gideon’s family.”

“I know, I know, we went over this.”

“If something starts to happen to you, or you sense something is about to happen, shout in here,” Grace told her, tapping her temple.

“I will, I promise, just trust me,” Michelle said, agitation rising in her voice. “Please, just trust me. I may be young and a little crazy at times, but I care about Gideon’s family too. I’m not going to let them die.”

And as she said those words, Michelle disappeared, a low-hanging branch trembling in her wake.

“Here we go,” Grace said, her eyes flaring white.

“I’m ready when you are,” Veronique told Dorian.

“Only if something happens,” the punk rock teleporter reminded her.

“Once we get a headcount we’ll circle the home,” I said, “and then we’ll strike.”

“I’ll get your parents out, as planned,” Chloe said.

“And I’ll assist her,” Grace told me.

“Good.”

“Smiley is mine,” Ingrid said, and while she said this in her normal voice, I could hear something tinting it, a hint of Tulip.

“What’s taking her so long?” Veronique asked after a few more seconds. “She’s usually faster than this…”

“Just give her time,” Stella told her.

Confusion spread across Grace’s face. She started to open her mouth, like she didn’t know how to form the words.

And before Grace could say anything, Michelle appeared in front of us, terror in her eyes.

“This is bad,” she started to say.

“What is it, Michelle?” Dorian asked, practically running to her and grabbing her by the shoulders.

“They… I…”

“Dammit,” Grace said, collapsing her face into her palm.

“No, I can tell them,” Michelle said, taking deep breaths now, on the verge of tears. “They killed them, Gideon. Your parents and your uncle. Smiley killed them.”

Tunnel vision.

That was the only way to describe what I experienced next as I reached into my side pocket and pulled out my phone, seeing that we were well within the time given to us, several hours early to be exact.

They… they…

“They…” I swallowed hard. “They lied to us. She… Natalie lied.”

Michelle nodded, her eyes welling up. “There’s no one there, just the bodies. You don’t want to see it. You really don’t want to see what they did to them.”

“We have to check it out,” I finally said. “We have to confirm.”

Michelle brought her hand to her mouth for a moment. “It’s really bad. It’s not a nice death. I’m so sorry, Gideon.”

I turned to my uncle’s home and took one lumbering step forward.

I knew between the time it took me to get from here and there that I would go through a change, that I would come out a different man on the other end.

I felt a sense of calm come over me, and knowing exactly what it was, I turned to Chloe and asked her to stop.

Tunnel vision.

I needed to feel this, I needed to come to grips with what had happened, I needed to understand what we were up against.

Even if it killed me.

The end.

Back of the Book Content

Reader,

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Harmon Cooper

(My new series is in the same vein as CBG–fun, wild, crazy superpowers, just… read the blurb.)

https://geni.us/WeCouldBeHeroes

Not everyone can say they met their new girlfriend while being detained for impersonating a superhero.

Hell, not everyone can say they have a superpower.

But Sam Meeko can, and this is the story about how he discovered his strange power (hint: through police brutality), the people he met immediately after (hint: three beautiful women), and the kick ass team they formed once they realized there was a vampire outbreak descending upon their city.

Hate your job. Win the lottery. Get a superpower. House of Dolls.

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A fantasy harem adventure inspired by Pokemon Go!, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and the Persona family of video games. Check out this Amazon best seller!

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Tokyo, Japan meets online fantasy gaming and South Park-styled humor. Yakuza, goblins, action, intrigue - add this book to your inventory list!

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What if Ready Player One was a multi-part epic? Gritty LitRPG action, gamer humor, fantastic fantasy worlds, and a killer MC. Read now!

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And now… A book by LUKE!

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