Chapter 6: Long Distance Relationship
Tenra tidied the Kit-chen antsily, waiting for Vesta to come back with Molly. His guest hadn't even eaten the bread he offered, but had picked it apart and gotten crumbs on the carpet.
"Good morning, Pops." Tenra's daughter, Shay Solis, had come emerging from her quarters, still dressed in some light blue PJs, rubbing her eyes.
"Good morning? Young lady, it's 20 hours! Why are you just getting up now?"
"I was, uh." She scratched her head and let off a yawn. "I was up late doing homework, you know?"
"You work for a secret organization! You don't even go to school!" Tenra groaned and rolled his eyes. Sheesh, teenagers, right?
Shay Solis was fifteen years old, and stood a foot shorter than her father. She'd inherited some of his looks, his atrocious eyesight, and some of his desire to fight against Alogos. From her mother, she had inherited a vast quantity of spunk.
"Okay, I was playing Girthworm all night. Happy?"
"Those screens are gonna rot your brain, kid. Now, get on your computer and track Molly. She should be home by now."
Shay grumbled, but did as she was told. They slid down a ladder and got down to the armory, where there was a LightBox that could operate without its signals being detected. Shay cracked her knuckles and sat down. Her father was right behind, looking over her shoulder.
She ravaged the keyboard with her 110 wpm typing speed, opened up TrackGod, and selected Molly.
"Yeah, looks like she's..." Shay did a double take. "Sprinting away from the Nidus Correctional Facility?" They looked at each other, both thinking the same thing: oh no.
--
Molly and Vesta sat next to each other on the couch, heads cast down. Shay was cozy in a chair to the side, relishing the instance where Molly was the one in trouble.
"You got arrested? And you broke out?" Tenra's eyes were wide from something between anger and stress. He was pacing back and forth in front of the guilty party, placing and removing his face from his palms for around twenty seconds. Then, he took a deep breath.
"Alright, I'm calm. Now, tell me how you got out."
"Vesta can block shit with her mind," Molly boasted.
Vesta elaborated on the misleading statement. "We were shot at, and I finally had that moment you said I would, where I realized what Backlash did. It caught the bullets and suspended them in air, then I used more SOLE to send them back."
"Holy shit." Tenra and Shay looked in awe. Vesta was nonchalant.
"Also, I have a question." Vesta sat up, mimicking the posture of the others in the room. "I know I sent back a couple dozen bullets all at once. With a normal SOLE powered handgun, I can normally only pop off about twenty rounds before needing to take a few seconds. How is it that I felt fine after not only stopping the bullets' initial trajectory, but completely reversing it? Do Kits just ignore the laws of physics?"
"Oh, that's actually a really good question." Tenra reached out a hand. "Can I see one of your guns?" Vesta obliged and handed a pistol to him.
"See this 25?" He pointed to a specification number on the barrel of the gun. "That means 25% efficiency in conversion to SOLE. A Kit, on the other hand, converts SOLE at 100% efficiency. Also, this-- ugh-- this bothers me so much; if you ever see somebody saying their device converts at higher than 30%, no matter what it is, they're full of shit. The amount of times I see..." Tenra shook his head, lost in thought about the time he got ripped off on a crate of grenades.
"I suppose it's a good thing I've been training my SOLE reserves." Vesta looked at her hands and arms, like she was admiring her own power.
"I wish someone," Tenra coughed, "would have the same attitude about exercising her SOLE." Molly looked around the room, pretending to not hear him.
"There's something more important I need to addr-" Vesta was cut off.
"I'm sorry, who are you? How do you all know her?" Shay interjected. Maybe if you hadn't slept through everything... Tenra thought.
"This is Violet's daughter." He explained. Shay held her tongue after that.
"As I was saying, something happened to me. When I touched the fuse box in our prison cell, I saw something. It was like a dream, or a vision." Everyone collectively leaned forward in their seats.
"I was being dragged away from myself, the night that Mom and Dad --I mean, Violet and Marriam-- died. Then, I was in this white room, and then it was a black room, and then it was white again. But, before that, I heard a voice. It told me it was trying to reach me, but it needed more power. Said I had to help it. I would say whose voice it was, but it was more like a thought, in the voice of my head..." Vesta squinched her face. She was doing the same thing as everyone else in the room: trying to make sense of what happened.
A silence hung over them all when they realized there was no more to the story. Molly ended the quiet.
"We have to give some credibility to this, now that you're a Kit user. Could be an ability we don't understand. Guys," Molly pitched, "I think we should look into this."
"I guess we're on the same page." Tenra was staring warily at Vesta, like he was expecting her to catch on fire. "But, unfortunately, if we need power..."
"Alogos. The city, not the country." Shay mumbled under her breath.
Vesta, who was completely unable to read the room, said, "Okay, we will go to Alogos, if you think it is the best option. We can get the power, and find out who it is trying to get my attention."
"I'm sorry, you're going where?" came a voice that was worn and weak, but jarring enough to get everyone's attention. The man to whom it belonged was hunched over deeply, and his face was a raw, empty white, like it had been drained of blood. His unsettling visage was completed by deep-set eyes, that made you feel like you were staring into the void. His hair shouldn't be so thin and grey. He looks no more than forty, Vesta thought.
"I've overheard your conversation, Ms. Lavender." He stared right at Vesta. "I am Ozzy Gastro, leader of this group, ever since your mother passed. There is no way in hell you are going to Alogos. We have no way to trust you. Besides, it's too dangerous. You could all die. That woman is rumored to be in the wretched city. I don't know if you think you can hide from her on her own turf, or what-"
"I know she might be there," Tenra stood up, ascending past Ozzy's height because of posture alone. "Of everybody here, that should scare me the most. But, this is the first spark of hope we've had since Violet died. Fifteen years of just taking it from Hirudinea, and now we have a woman with a strong Kit and a new lead on our doorstep. You just wanna ignore that?" Tenra looked at Ozzy with pity more than anger.
"Tenra, that would put lives at risk! I forbid it!" Ozzy declared.
"We have to go. We're Kit users! We don't have the option of sitting on the sidelines!" He clenched his fist and adjusted his stance to make one thing clear. "I'm not budging."
"Fine. I didn't want to have to say this, but you've forced my hand." Ozzy looked at all of them now and waved his arm. "If you choose to depart for this reckless, wild goose chase mission to Alogos, there will be consequences. I will have to expel you from the organization."
Tenra scoffed. "If we aren't out there fighting, there is no reason for an organization. The other hundred something of us are all on missions. It's time we got on their level. If you really think you have the authority to kick us out, then by all means... But, I've been sitting on my ass in this house too damn long. I'm gonna go pack my bags."
Ozzy growled as Tenra exited the room. "You children better stay here where it's safe. Don't listen to that... imbecile." Ozzy took his leave as well, probably returning to his office.
So I guess that's it. The leader said they aren't coming, so I'll have to do this with just Tenra. The monotonous numbness of Vesta's heart was interrupted by a flicker of disappointment.
"Alright, so I guess we'll have to catch a different train, and probably stop in Demeton. Tenra's got some old friends there who will probably be happy to see us," Molly rambled.
Shay backed her up. "Sounds about right, but if I have to hear, 'look how tall you are!' even one more time, I'm selling you all out to Hirudinea."
Vesta shook her head, confused. "Wait, he just said we can't go. Don't you guys care about your loyalty to this place? Also, what if he's right, and it's a bad idea?"
"Well, we are loyal." Shay suggested. "Just to each other, not to Ozzy. And we're especially loyal to Pops." She hastily added, "Not sure why, but we are."
Molly nodded her head. "I trust Tenra more than I trust Ozzy. Also, you're part of this, now, too. Why can't we show a little loyalty to you, and follow your dream-vision thing?"
Vesta almost smiled. "... So, the four of us?"
"Yup. Me, You, Shay, and Tenra." Molly's head was held high.
"I'll go charge my bike."
--
Tenra was deciding between his forest green and olive green camo outfits when Vesta walked in the room.
"Tenra?"
"Hey, Vesta. What's up?"
"You said if I brought Molly home, you would tell me some stories about Mom. I mean, Violet."
Tenra smiled and sat down on his bed. He tapped the space next to him, and Vesta stood still, having no idea what that meant.
"Come sit next to me." She hesitantly did so, stepping over his feet and arching her back to keep distance.
"Your mother was unwavering and confident. Even in the face of overwhelming danger, she was always sure that there was a way out. And hell, with her around, there normally was. There we were, assaulting some base in a forest or somewhere..."
--
"We're surrounded, huh." said Violet with a weary grin. She and Tenra were ducked behind a girthy tree, taking shots from all over. Gunfire raged loud in their ears, chipping away at the bark of their cover. They had way underestimated the number of Hirudinean soldiers who would be here.
"Violet, if we die here, I want you to know something."
Violet smirked in anticipation, even with death just around the corner. "You were in love with Mary the whole time? I was right?" Tenra nodded, and Violet celebrated. "I knew it! The soldier has a romantic side! You cannot hide anything from me!"
Tenra rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you got me..." A feeling began to take hold inside of him. Like he was... growing.
"Woah. That felt weird," Tenra said.
"Did you just get a little stronger with that confession? I think you get more SOLE from my Kit than anybody else. You owe me." She raised an eyebrow.
"Not just stronger... I feel different." Tenra rubbed his forehead, brushing his glasses. He was having a moment, speaking to his Kit, 4sight.
Suddenly, he dashed out from behind the tree, and reached out with his hand to a soldier five meters away. The soldier immediately reacted and pulled her gun up. However, when she went to squeeze the trigger, she noticed her hands were empty. Tenra spun around the newly stolen gun and popped three shots off.
4sight just got a whole lot better, Tenra thought, revelling in the fact that he just snatched the rifle from such a distance.
Violet stared intensely, mouth agape. "Did I give you that?"
"Your Kit did." He smirked. "We might just get out of here alive."
--
"And that was the time your mother gave me the very powers I have today. As you can imagine, her Kit is pretty strong. The more you know about her, and the more she knows about you, the more SOLE you get. Even though she's gone, my SOLE reserves are still stronger than most of the people around here, because of how close we were."
"My mom was kind of... amazing, huh?" Vesta still wasn't smiling, but her eyes were starry with admiration.
"Hey, I was the one who took out those soldiers! But yeah," Tenra made a bittersweet expression and wrinkled his brow. "She was amazing... Now, do you have anything you want to tell me about her?"
Vesta looked at the wall. "What do you want to know? I only remember so much."
"What was the last thing she told you? That you remember, I mean." Tenra gave his full attention to the coming story.
"The last thing she said to me was something about eating the right foods or else I would get sick and die from arthritis," Vesta lied.
Tenra nodded his head. He decided to let Vesta keep her last memory of her mother to herself.