Surprisingly, Ashley was waiting for me by the back entrance when I arrived at the base. I saw her from far away- another advantage to flying I hadn't noticed before.
I allowed a small grin as I landed solidly on the ground. She seemed a bit miffed, but I wanted to skip over whatever she wanted to talk about so we could discuss the whereabouts of Jeremiah. I had to speak with him.
"In all of two hours, you managed to get mixed up in a robbery and almost get blown to bits." Her arms folded, she stared at me, expecting me to defend myself.
"Absolutely," I said urgently. "Anyway-"
"No, 'anyway.' We have rules and procedures for that stuff. You have to at least let us know before you go off and play hero."
"Yeah, and we can talk about that later. But we need to talk about a more pressing matter: Zero."
She has already begun to speak, but the mention of him made her pale and shut her up. "Is that why you need to talk to Jeremiah?"
I nodded my head slowly. "I think he's sick."
She spun on her heels quickly. "You're in luck. He just got back."
"Oh, well, in that case..."
I left her behind, moving around her and speeding into the building, fervently searching for Jeremiah. I sped up and down corridors, around sharp bends, and through large-looking rooms, each time finding no sign of him. I returned to Ashley, humbled.
"Lead the way," I said dejectedly.
"Maybe next time." She patted my shoulder in mock concern, knowing exactly what I tried to do.
I followed her as she sashayed down the halls and stayed close to her heels. I avoided looking down at her swaying hips and her yoga pants, my cheeks slightly red at the thought.
She took me to the opposite side of the building, where she pulled out and waved her keycard at a blank, white wall.
"Um, you know that's a wall, right?" I asked her.
She smiled. A small section of the wall slid to the side, revealing a spiral staircase leading down to another lower down.
As we took careful steps to go down the stairs, a sense of familiarity suddenly struck me. These stairs were identical to the ones in the Antarctica Afterlight base. Almost as if I knew about them...or was that my future-seeing abilities at work?
The hallway darkened as we stepped off at the bottom. The whole place looked the same as the ones above, but in lower light, it seemed creepy. Disturbing.
I checked Ashley's location and watched her hesitate as well. Either she had never come down here before, or the place made her as jittery as me.
After a calming breath, we both continued on, the quiet sounds of our shoes on the floor seeming painstakingly loud. Our breaths were audible as well.
Ashley's voice was close to a whisper as she spoke. "We keep the worst prisoners down here, and this is also where Jeremiah's office is. Only he and I can come down here, but that excludes the guards who have to be present at all times."
Yeah, keep the head of the most important government operation right now next to the deadliest meta prisoners in the world.
"Where do you keep the not-so-bad prisoners?" I asked.
"They're transported to another facility we had made years ago in preparation for the chance that the metahuman population would grow," she explained.
"Nice foresight," I noted.
She moved her head up and down. "This facility is only used for metahuman operative training and the purpose I just told you, but Jeremiah likes it here because it's closer to you."
"But we're still really far away from Alabama," I noted.
"We didn't have that much funding at the time, so we tried to make regional bases. Things should be easier now that we're on the forefront of the government's problems right now.
I glanced at her. Her face had darkened, just for a moment.
I stopped. "What did you mean by we?"
"MARAD," she said quickly, looking away from my eyes.
We began to encounter the cells I expected to see. Our side was one-way glass, but the inside was made of some type of white plating. It was lit from within by lines of a glowing blue substance running through the walls.
Blue...
"You use Energy X in the cells?" I exclaimed.
"Why did you call it Energy X?" She redirected the question.
I stopped to think. "Why did I call it that?" I thought aloud.
She frowned. "A dormant memory. Your subconscious must have been triggered again. No worries, it's normal for you."
We continued on silently, and I looked into each of the cells, relieved to find most of them empty of prisoners.
One had a man in it hunched in the corner, and when I inquired Ashley about it, she replied coolly, "Someone you don't want to mess with."
A question was burning itself in my mind as we passed more and more empty holding cells. But I wanted to wait until we reached the end to voice my concern.
And soon, we did. At the end of the long hallway was a door and a sign next to it displaying Jeremiah's name in capital letters.
As I reached for the handle, Ashley slapped my hand away and moved in close, pushing me against the wall with her right elbow.
The sweet scent of her breath reached my nostrils, and I wanted to trace the curve of her luscious lips with my eyes. Sadly, they were locked in a fierce battle with hers.
"A word of advice: don't make him angry," she warned in a low tone.
I violently shook my head in understanding. Her closeness was causing an issue in my pants. A "big" issue.
Slowly, she lifted her arm from my rattled body. I took a breath of air. What was that all about?
I shook my head to clear it of the obvious attraction to Ashley. I really needed to stop.
I opened the door and pushed inward. It was very bright compared to the darkness of the hallway, but my eyes dilated quickly and I absorbed some of the light energy around me.
Jeremiah was standing when we entered the room, looking at some files on his desk. He was wearing an odd-looking pair of glasses, but he took them off after raising his head to view us.
"Oh, Jay. Ashley. It's good to see you. I was meaning to check up on you two soon, but I see you couldn't wait."
He talked with no malice or negative denotation, yet I felt offended by his words. Shaking off the unrest, I went straight into what had to be said.
"We need to talk about Zero."
He raised his head in understanding.
His eyes darted from me to Ashley. "Does she need to be here for this?"
"I was under the impression she was your closest confidant," I said. Was she not?
"She is." He paused. "Very well, then. You can start by explaining these."
He tossed the folder full of information down on the table, and Ashley and I moved forward to see what he was talking about.
The blood drained from my face. These were the files Zero had given me. I hadn't even gone through them yet, but Jeremiah seemed to be upset about something in them.
His voice sounded cold. "Can you tell me why you were planning on annihilating the entire human population of Earth?"