JASON'S POV
It was one of those dreams where you knew you were dreaming but didn't want to wake up. No, instead you wanted to take the reins and crush the opposition you were facing. In my case, I was beating the crap out of Rogue—again. Anger swelling inside me, tears building in my eyes as I pounded away on his mechanical robot suit, denting the metal with every resounding punch, too eager to break through his oversized skull-shaped headpiece and bash the main thing. All the while I was screaming "How dare you!"
There were no cops this time—like there were when it happened in real life. No cops to warn me, to hold me back, to witness the death I was about to deliver to the man who blew up my parents in their own home. Alas, this was just one of the many ways I almost killed Rogue in my dreams. But like in reality, I never seemed to be able to land the final blow. Apparently the cops had nothing to do with my eventual restraint. No, it wasn't even Blitz. It was that accusing voice of my conscience telling me this was all my fault. Telling me that if I'd arrived sooner, if I'd taken the threat more seriously, mom, dad and all the others in that apartment building would still be alive to this day.
It was in times of regret like these that I remembered my true slogan "I've got to save these people."
"Jason, wake up." Blitz's voice roused my consciousness. "I have good news and bad news for you."
My eyes slowly fluttered open. The warmth of streaming tears on my cheeks was there again. I sniffed long and hard, shutting my eyes tight and escaping the scenario in my head with the reminder of the present and the thought of what more I could do to make up for that mistake.
"Oh, g'morning Blitz." I rubbed my eyes as I slowly sat up. " What do you got?"
"Like I said, good news and bad news."
"You could start with a good morning too." I mumbled.
"Alright, good news first."
"No!" I was finally wide awake. "I want the bad news first."
He hummed before responding. "That doesn't seem like a good idea. Since you left the studio last night, you've been rather gloomy. I think it's best to raise your mood first—"
"Before dipping it in more agony?" I snarled. "Bad first, please."
"If that's the way you want it. So, the billionaire philanthropist, Huan Gong, is missing."
"Who?"
"The co-founder of the conglomerate, S.P.E.R.E. The media presumes he's been abducted and they're pretty spot on. His disappearance was estimated to have taken place on his Bank's premises around the time of Kazar's strike."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Just great. "Were you able to confirm it?"
Blitz popped my Tekeon helmet around my face and raised up little holographic displays in front of my eye space.
"Relatively, yes. Kazar wasn't working alone. See, all the security cameras were jammed immediately after Kazar's break-in, like a hack. All but the one which was in the private underground parking lot for the Bank's executives. It wasn't connected to the same network as the others, so it continued to function."
I furrowed my brows at the recording of the parking lot on display. A group of six men was speed walking in a circular formation—with someone in the middle of them. They were heading towards a black jeep.
"That's a fraction of Huan Gong's Security team getting him to his ride." Blitz clarified.
Suddenly, men in thick black clothes emerged from the shadowy corners of the place and opened fire with machine guns. My heart jolted for a second as I observed that.
The middle-aged man with cropped black hair was suddenly standing startled and defenseless in his glistening black suit. He watched with a look of horror as the driver's seat window of his jeep wound down. The opened window revealed a smirking face hidden behind black sunglasses. But I recognized that smug smirk anywhere, a shiver ran down my spine at the sight of Alain Archer.
Gong's new 'escorts' led him at gunpoint into the back seat. Some followed him into the car while others entered the escort vehicles around the car.
Blitz paused the video and phased out my helmet. "I couldn't grasp it either. The possibility of Archer working with the Alx Army."
I ran my hand through my hair. I think I'm about to have a meltdown.
Forcing myself to analyze this new story, I spewed my thoughts as they came. "So New Chronos' most wanted played me for the fourth time in a row? Great. I'm officially a joke. I wonder what Huan Gong has to do with all this. And how could Archer be working with that monster? None of this makes sense."
"Or working for the monster." Said Blitz. "Remember the digging I talked about? You were exhausted yesterday but we'd better get to it now if we want to find some answers before the end of the world."
*****
I stood in a plain tee and cargo shorts, in front of the vast expanse of a grassy field which was my backyard (boy is it hard to maintain those three inches.)
I was basically at the center of the field as the summer sun bathed the Earth. "So we're actually digging? Huh." I crossed my arms knowing fully well what was buried under this spot. The night after my first save as Tekeon, Blitz and I set out to recover the scattered parts of his spaceship to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands; starting with the pod he came out from in the alleyway. But by the time we got there, it was gone. And the chances of finding the other parts were slim because they were probably wrecked and offline. Our only hope of locating them would be the media; supposing whoever came across them announced it publicly. That or I could straight up stumble upon them by sheer coincidence. The latter happened about a month later.
I had crashed a mafia trade meeting in an 'abandoned' warehouse and after rounding up the ones that didn't escape, I realized that the object of trade was a spaceship part.
"So the busted piece of tech we recaptured like 11 months ago holds all the answers to this crisis?" I stared down at the patch of dirt, already imagining the one-fourth of a metal sphere buried below.
"Not all. Just the key answer to confirm my suspicion."
"Which is?"
Blitz averted my question. "Whip up a shovel with your creative beams. We don't have much time."
I solidified my armor, making it seem like it appeared around my skin from thin air. "Are you sure no crime alert will go off soon? I'm about to slash off 80 percent of power time to create a blue shovel. Amazon is just a click away you know?"
Venom dripped from Blitz's voice. "You don't understand the gravity of the situation do you? If I wasn't fused to your whole being, I wouldn't need you to. But since I am fused, you might as well drive this into your subconscious; everyone you know and care about is dead if you don't act fast."
"Geez you think I didn't already know that? I'm trying not to breakdown here and you're doing a tremendous job at helping. You can just say 'we don't have time for delivery' than barking doom at me. Or in me—I suppose."
A tense silence settled for a moment. My focus shifted to channel electron-plates in their trillions towards my lenses and blasted out the compacted beams. Sweeping my gaze down slowly, I willed the beam particles to combine into an extra large blue shovel which formed from top to bottom. Then swiping it from midair, my hands got to scooping up huge chunks of dirt, unraveling the earth layer by layer until I heard a clanking sound.
Sticking the shovel's blade into the dirt to prop it up, I crouched and rubbed off the dirt from the surface of a surprisingly still pure white metal surface. I clasped the edges of the object and pulled it out, plopping it down beside the hole. It was larger than I remembered. It reminded me of a slice of cake--if the cake was cut into four places, and one of those slices was almost three metres in length, made of unearthly white metal and completely hollow on the inside.According to Blitz, the object was one-fourth of a spherical spaceship; specifically one of the two top parts. He said the bottom parts had thrusters attached to them as well the internal components. So this one was more like the roof. I guess that would make the shape resemble a fourth of an orange instead.
"So it's out and stuffed with dirt, what truths are we looking for here?" My voice took an edgy tone.
"Try blowing away the dirt pile inside first." Blitz replied neutrally.
I nodded and pointed my fists at the interior space.
Electron-plates on my shoulders spiraled upwards, reshaping into cylindrical tubes on each shoulder, modified to suck in huge amounts of air which they did. Down my shoulders, circling to my elbow were slim glowing blue pipes that channeled the air to my reshaped forearms. Forearms that now took the form of a technologically advanced wind blower. The air blasted out in multiplied force, dislodging the chunks of soil from the hollow interior to reveal a web of neon red lines zigzagging around the metal's walls. I definitely did not recall seeing those when we retrieved this.
"Oh no." Blitz's voice faltered.
"What is this?" Fear crept into my words.
"Sadly, my suspicions were correct. The Alx didn't completely destroy the Blue Fields, at least not Fusion Fort where my spaceship was built. Rotore technology is always connected and for my spaceship, that means even though it was assembled in parts, those parts weren't just linked with each other, they were also linked to my bioengineering pod."
"In other words, the ship and pod form a singular system."
"Correct, if one deactivates, all deactivate, and if one reactivates—"
"All reactivate," I completed his sentence. "So if everything was busted when you entered Earth's atmosphere, that means a part would have to be fixed and activated to trigger the rest."
"Precisely, and the downside of Rotore tech connection is now these parts are like a beacon to Fusion Fort. And Kazar must have followed it here."
At that point, my power time ran out and my armor could no longer remain as solid particles. After it phased off, I tucked my hands in the pockets of my shorts trying my best to not freak out. "But isn't Chargeora light-years away? He'd need like a crazy fast spaceship to get here right?"
"Actually, that kind of technology wasn't a problem for us Rotores, not sure of the Alxs though."
"Hold up, how long did it take you to reach Earth?"
"I... don't know. I was in barely conscious all the while I was in my bio-enhancer pod."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. A headache was definitely stirring. "You know what, just give me the bottom line. Wrap it up for me, what do these red lines mean?"
Blitz sighed. "Listen carefully Jason, the Alx hijacked Fusion Fort, they know I'm here but their invasion might be slowed down if we destroy all the parts of the spaceship and the pod. That'll turn off the signal and hopefully leave us with a one on one against Kazar—if of course there isn't another Alx here already."
A flashback of my previous battle made me cringe and shudder. "Blitz," I muttered. "I don't think I can face Kazar again."
"I can see you're experiencing a slight trauma." He sighed.
My eyebrows shot up. " Slight trauma? That thing made me feel pain! Tekeon doesn't feel pain. Bullets tickle! Do you know what that means?!"
Blitz hummed like a therapist speaking to a patient. "Then he's an anti-Tekeon. Imagine that."
My frown deepened. "How is that supposed to help? Tekeon is—" I paused before lowering my voice. "—was invincible."
"Perhaps." Blitz's voice hinted an incoming twist. "Or perhaps a beatable Tekeon means a beatable anti-Tekeon."
Wasn't a strong enough twist. "He wiped the floor with my face. I almost died. I'm sorry but you're wasting your time. We can plead with the government to send a nuke or something. That guy is beyond me."
"Jason, we need to be on the same page to save the world. Do you understand? Believe me when I tell you that you are the world's only hope."
My muscles tensed like steel when he said that. The more I tried to step up to my responsibilities, the freaking more burdensome they became. After failing to capture Archer, to save Huan Gong, to save the people who were stuck in the bank, after losing brutally to Kazar, I could only but wonder was I really cut out for this?
I snarled."Then I wish I took another alley that night. I'm going in for a drink."
"Wait—"Blitz's paused me in mid action. "Before you decide to drink your problems away temporarily, which you shouldn't by the way, I've not yet told you the other news."
My brows knotted. "You mean the good news? Fine, spill it."
"So when you came back last night, you went straight to bed. But I routinely accessed your emails to see yet another interview request from NC-Desk. I was about to decline it like the last twenty ones, however, this time they promised a 100 gram compensation for your time and also promised not to pry excessively. Since we established I was in charge of official stuff, I gave them the green light to be here by noon today—which is just 20 minutes from now."
My eyes just about popped out of their sockets. "What?"
"That's right, NC-Desk's finest are lumbering towards this Villa in their SUV as we speak, with Elise Sally at the helm."
"Blitz, you son of a b—"
******
"—eautiful day, Miss Sally," the words tumbled out, forced from between my teeth which were barred in a smile. "Wouldn't you agree?"
The olive complexioned reporter sat a meter across from me on a wooden stool. Tufts of her black hair slowly danced to the rhythm of the outdoor breeze. Around us, the news crew were moving and adjusting cameras, lights and whatnot. I tried my best to narrow my attention. It was the only way I could make it through this without going berserk. After all, Blitz went silent shortly after the timely heads-up. I was going to grill him about his definition of good news when he recharged. But now? Now it was me in this stuffy oxblood suit sitting just outside my porch preparing to burn under the scorching light of journalism.
"Mr. McLean, the day is anything but beautiful." She didn't know the half of it. "But needless to say, thank you for having us." Her lips curved in a smile but it didn't reach her eyes.
I hoped my forced smile wasn't easily recognizable too. "The pleasure is mine. It was about time I considered your requests."
She exhaled loudly. "If only Tekeon grew such a courtesy." Her eyes quickly scrutinized me, head to toe, no doubt looking for any sign of a slip.
My toes curled beneath my oxblood loafers. I'd be ripped in half by Kazar before I ever slipped again.
"Good to go, Elise." The camera man I saw with her yesterday came to her side and gave her a thumbs up. She rose, letting her brown overcoat fall gracefully at her sides, over her curves. The two of them walked out of earshot and ran through a brief discussion before she came back to her seat. She placed her hands over her laps and smiled. A mischievous smile. "Everything is set for filming. Just give the signal when you're ready."
I cleared my throat, attempting to sound less agitated than I really was. My heartbeat was rarely this loud. Usually, Blitz is my word bank in times like these but my buddy ditched me for sleep. A real pal.
"Just to be clear," I squared my shoulders. "This is not going to be broadcasting live?"
"Not at all." She nodded. "It'll only be recorded and— if the need be—, edited before being referenced in subsequent reports. Again I can't thank you enough for letting us have this interview."
My words became like gravel. "You don't need to thank me. Shall we cut to the chase? I have a long day ahead."
Her brown eyes pierced mine and her face was scrunched into a laser focused mask. "Why of course, we have some truth to unravel."
*******************************************
Yeesh. Tension ama right?
Wassup Cool stuff! Glad you're sticking around,
P.S Another Archer scene ahead>>>>>>