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  Hunter jogged, arm still up to his mouth. “Cynque, activate emergency measure C20C using access code override, HS7692.”

  “Override approved,” it said. “C20 Compromised emergency measure activated. T-minus fifteen seconds.”

  “Time to light it up, fellas!” he yelled, running full speed, arms pumping at 90-degree angles.

  “Three,” it counted, “Two.”

  An explosive chain reaction rippled through C20’s remains. Boom went the watchtower foundation’s bottommost layers. The mushroom head and sabotaged stalk bent, snapped, and toppled onto the dome like falling timber. Fire and smoke engulfed the ruins and stampeded toward him from above and below the surface. Hunter, tickled by exhilaration, invited death to a rousing match of tag. It licked and chomped at his heels, reached out to snag him, but missed as he executed a vertical leap, grabbed the helicopter’s edge and hoisted himself up.

  Not this time. He flopped into an empty seat and slapped the shaken-up soldier’s leg next to him. “Need a drink after that one, eh? Where we headed?”

  “Took a minute, but we got his Cynque signal sir, looks like Allister’s in Morocco, ‘bout a half day away.”

  Allister Adams

  La Mamounia Palace Ruins, Marrakech, Morocco

  “Neight!” Allister yelled, surfacing from a lucid dream. Pain drove a hasty abdominal contraction. He sat up and reached for his lumbar region.

  “Bed’s uncomfortable, I know,” Celine muttered. “I’ve always been a minimalist.”

  By bed she meant the layer of thick leaves nesting in an obsidian bed frame.

  He touched his forehead. His mind was a mucky swamp of words and images. “What... what... how’d I get back... ” His Cynque displayed seven o’clock p.m. and behind its green numbers, Dolores’s slender face smiled up at him. He had to have been out for at least half a day. “Last thing I remember... the storm stopped... and then... the soldiers woke up, came in... shooting.”

  Inspecting the chessboard, Celine tapped her lip. A four-hundred-pound stone chess piece carved as a goddess of flaming hair and exquisite robes, an obvious “queen” interpretation, lifted from the ground and moved to protect her king. It slammed into an armor-clad sculpture holding a lance upright. Allister guessed it to be “the knight.” It wasn’t much of anything anymore, having been reduced to a pile of rocks.

  She sneered, “Check.”

  There was cold clay smeared on his thigh. He pressed his head down to get a better look and poked it while frowning and twisting his nose.

  “You had inflammation from second-degree burns. Thought it would help, works for me.”

  He thought she’d cracked a joke and let one side of his face curl up to show he had some humorous sense. The clay crumbled away after a few swipes. “Nice... ha, nice try... but uh, I’ll be fine. My body regen—”

  “I waited a few hours,” she interrupted. “Nothing was happening.” Her lips pinched together and she nodded at his hands. “It wasn’t luck that got you past the wall.”

  Cross-legged in his joggers, naked, chiseled chest on display, he peered at the Transporter gems and their fabric disguise folded next to him. Scientific research had shown that Earth’s retaliation to reckless human consumption would decimate, and possibly eliminate the population over the next one to two decades. The strongest nations of the world pooled their finances together to form the Andromeda Project, expecting to accelerate breakthroughs in sustainable energy and new power sources.

  He frowned. “The Andromeda Project had been hunting for these things for... like, ever. C20... C20 found them in a couple of months.” Tip of his forefinger gliding over the gem’s worn corners, he continued, “Makes you think... I don’t know, maybe they weren’t looking too hard.” The swamp waters in his mind receded, and an embankment littered with harsh realizations brought fluidity to his thoughts.

  How many innocent people did the Andromeda Project murder and sacrifice in their quest to find the gems’ power before anyone else? Allister didn’t want to know the answer, the two he’d lost, his parents, were plenty. Patrick Adams. Thirty-three, the classified file had read, the age he was when he died. Allister was eight. Superior intelligence filled in for his father’s powers puzzled him. Did it mean Patrick had been a superhuman too? His mother, Dolores, told him that his father was sharp as an ax, but she never acknowledged or hinted at him being more than human. No doubt a mechanism to keep Allister from exploring his powers. She harbored fear about “them” discovering who he was and what he could do.

  “Your government asked other countries for support in finding the alien artifacts,” Celine said. Gazing at the queen’s chess piece, she spun gold rings stacked on her finger. “Our family considered investing, then I went missing.”

  “But no one really knows what they do or what they’re for.”

  “They might’ve figured it out. An option impossible now, thanks to you.”

  “It’s not my fault,” he whined. “They have to bond to a host to be used.” Allister searched half-heartedly for his shirt and spotted it on the floor. “No superhuman would’ve survived what I went through. Not even you.”

  “We need another solution to the problem at hand.”

  “Can’t you stop whatever natural disaster you want?”

  “I do not control Earth, I communicate with it. In any case, me stopping a hurricane, an earthquake, and a drought, simultaneously?” She tied her hair into a ponytail and stood. “Not how this works, Allister. This threat is beyond what you or I are capable of.”

  Damn, he thought and slipped his shirt on. “Thanks for the—” he swirled his hand around the dried clay in his lap.

  She flicked a stray braid away from her eye. “So, the gems?”

  He dug his heels into the sand. “The thing is, well, the thing is, I don’t know... how they work... except, they hurt. And they take concentration. Which I’m not great at.”

  What Allister left out was that for any given transport, there was a fifty-fifty chance it had been done without his intention. He got to Morocco the first time on purpose, the second time, an unhappy accident. Success rate aside, prolonged, unfiltered use, had its consequences. The most noticeable being longer recovery times. A revelation less frustrating than her accusation.

  The Transporter gems’ use may have been a mystery. Their origin was not. One of eight artifacts from the Andromeda Galaxy, known as the Artifacts of Evale, the gems had been concealed from those who would seek and be able to master its power. The Cavern of Transports, an extra-dimensional cave with one entrance, would disappear and appear elsewhere in random yearlong intervals. To trace its position required knowledge of detecting and tracking a temporal or time/space energy signature. Earth’s technology hadn’t reached that level.

  “And then Neight Caster showed up,” he said to himself, riding alone on his train of thought.

  Faith in fantasy was required to accept bad magic luck as an excuse for why the Andromeda Project hadn’t obtained the artifacts after oh so many decades of searching. Majority of the world’s remaining population had misplaced their faith, especially those with money.

  “I told you to stay away from my country.”

  “Country, Celine? There’s no one here besides your minions. What are you hiding from?”

  “The people of Marrakech were evacuated! I stayed to stop the dust storm before it destroyed the rest of Morocco.” Celine’s chin lowered. “This city was our battle ground. I’m not hiding, I’m protecting what’s left.”

  El Jadida, Rabat, and Casablanca, the coastal cities, were what was left, safeguarded by open top domes. The domes were a dazzling construction of melded quartz crystals mined from Earth’s crust, the same material as Marrakech’s surrounding wall.

  Arms folded, she cocked her head to the side. “If you keep up this search, you’re going to start a war when what we need is peace and cooperation. Our leaders are planning a summit to discuss the planet’s fate.”

  “From what
I found in C20’s digital files, peace and cooperation have nothing to do with it.”

  “Is that so?” Celine’s posture softened, and she knelt down to scoop sand in her hands. “Is... that... so,” she repeated slower.

  “Yeah, looks like hiding and protecting mean the same thing all around,” he said. Those jerk-offs in foreign affairs would write off their former Middle East and C20 base occupation as “protection,” the same way she’d convinced herself the voluntary semi-solitude stemmed from a sense of responsibility. Falsehoods forged in fear.

  Allister swished Neight’s words around in his mouth, thinking how to approach the holographic encounter’s absurdity with a logical retelling. He didn’t give away the intel; she didn’t even know who Neight was. His jaw hardened as he walked. “I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, at least I’m not scared.”

  “You should be.” She smelled the sand, sifted it through her hands, and let it fall to her feet. “It says there’s an energy that doesn’t belong here. If used, it will upset the balance of nature.”

  Shouting drew his head the other direction. Allister snuck to the entrance, no longer listening for her next sentence. He crouched beside the doorway. The crackle of plasma firing from weapons’ barrels ended in blinding beams of light. One eye pinched shut; he turned his head as the stench of blistering flesh and ionized plasma plunged him backward.

  Celine gasped, “My soldiers. Who would dare?”

  The first and second tremors were faint, unnoticeable except the shifting sand around his soles. His other eye opened, and both darted to her. She was shaking, her emotions at their peak.

  “You. You led them here,” she seethed.

  The tremors matured to a full-on earthquake, 9.0 on the Richter scale according to Cynque. Geokinetic energy spread the floor’s length, and seismic waves continued to rock the earth beneath them.

  Earth grumbled with the anger of a goddess. Pillars kidnapped from their foundations, ceilings and walls shredded to tile bits and chunks of marble. La Mamounia Palace Hotel, preserved for over one hundred years, reduced to debris in minutes.

  Her enraged sea of braided locks lashing about, Celine’s arms parted, sweeping aside the building remains. Steady waves from the epicenter guaranteed Marrakech’s tumultuous collapse.

  As punishment for his mistake, Allister’s balance was in time-out. He lost his footing repeatedly, and alternated from falling on his hands, to his knees, to his butt. “You’re bringing down your own city!” he yelled.

  “This city serves no purpose if—” She cried out. Her arms and shoulders dropped. Her leg gave in. Celine said to him kneeling, “If anyone else knows I’m here.” The earthquake softened to vibrations and vibrations softened to stillness as the energy retired to her skin.

  Detective Hunter Steele, taller than Allister had remembered, approached wearing a casual smile, and a red coat blowing in wild excitement. A familiar, unfriendly face, their initial rendezvous was Hunter’s arrival in London, where he and Leesa Delemar were hiding out following the Andromeda Project’s demise. The detective had also towered behind the president, head to torso in metallic skin, when Allister was told he had one free year, and to spend it on his best behavior.

  “You’re in deep trouble, Allister Adams,” he shouted, his skin light brown like the sand, not the moon grey color of steel. “I’m here to take you home sweet home.”

  Celine’s short breaths came from behind, and Allister turned to see her trying to stand sans assistance. “Identify yourselves,” she said, hunched over.

  “Shut it, princess.” Switching a triple barrel plasma gun to the left hand, Hunter aimed at her with a provoking glare fixed on Allister and feigned a pouty lip. “Don’t make me hurt her.”

  “Screw you,” Allister said.

  “Screw me? Screw you! I was on vacation in what’s left of Sicily, and Prez called me up for a babysitting gig. You could’ve been out partying, traveling the world, sleeping with fembots.” Hunter activated the core reactor’s charger. “But no. You wanted to play fugitive. What’s it gonna be, kiddo?”

  Armed soldiers crowded the outskirts of their conversation. Celine’s power was exhausted.

  Surrender?

  “Identify yourselves!” she repeated.

  “This isn’t your fight, sweet ass, let the fellas sort it out.” He pulled on the slide release, loading the energy in the gun. From rear sight to muzzle, it measured about two feet in length and had to weigh as much as a small child. Hunter shot into the air and giggled. “Taking your silence as waving the ole white flag.”

  Allister’s silence equaled simmering. Simmering aggravation heated by Hunter’s condescension. The heat spread down his upper arms, past his elbows, through his protruding knuckles. Patience boiled into vapor, and left rage in the pot, cooked, ready to serve. Foregoing a battle cry, Allister plowed, seething, quiet, at the scene starring Hunter’s arrogance.

  “Appreciate your cooperation, miss lady, I owe you a dance—”

  Whoomph—he clotheslined Hunter. Plasma beams bombarded Allister’s personal space as he watched the detective land on his stomach. One sailed past him and Celine’s piercing shriek rang out louder than the battlefield. Knowing their extensive damage to him, and knowing his skin’s resilience to harm, he stood in the line of fire, paralyzed by her agony. The weapons’ combined efforts bore gaping, bleeding holes inches from his heart and through his stomach. One grazed his liver.

  He buckled to all fours. Hunter, the soldiers, and Marrakech’s leftover skyline, bounced as they spun around him.

  Hunter’s boot stomped on his back. Pain inhibitors firing faster and with more intensity than he’d believed possible, Allister’s whole body screamed, mouth rigid and open, nails digging into his palms. Scorching hot sand invaded unprotected tissue. Hunter pushed deeper and whispered, “See, you’re already getting people hurt, didn’t you learn the first time?”

  Allister glanced at Celine, needing her as a focal point to keep his vision from blurring further. A braided curtain did its best to hide exertion on her cheeks and a quivering chin. She inhaled. Her upper arm had been blown off and leaked sand over her fingers.

  Determination coursed through his back muscles, core, and biceps, and they flexed in harmony, cooperating to push up from under the detective’s oppressive heel. Hunter stumbled back, and his frustrated cry made it obvious he hadn’t accounted for Allister’s competitive strength.

  Plonk. Plonk, Plonk. Plonk. Plonk. Plonk, Plonk. Terrestrial remnants from the La Mamounia ruins congregated as a solid rock formation, stacked stone by stone, blocking another barrage of retaliatory blasts.

  “Celine, I-I’m sorry,” Allister said. “I didn’t know they’d—”

  “I warned you. I warned you about this.”

  Fists swinging, Hunter broke through and barged toward them, upper body shining in his metallic mutation. Allister threw a punch, full faith and bodyweight, and missed. The detective kneed him in the chin and socked him in the jaw. An oomph left his lips as he spun in the air, then slid along the ground, ending up next to her bare feet. Blood oozing from his wound sank into the sand under him.

  “Whatever you need Adams, we can help,” Hunter teased.

  “You’re violating international law!” Celine boomed.

  “Yeah, and I’m sure you’re violating the king’s curfew. You thought I wouldn’t put two and two together when you kicked up all that dust in Iraq? Come on, baby, you know better.”

  “Were you or were you not commissioned by the U.S. government?”

  “I can’t answer questions right now.”

  “Then Allister is under my protection until you can.”

  The orange evening sky disappeared in Allister’s periphery, and his cheek hit the sand. Hunter had halted, his backup otherwise occupied, sinking in quicksand. Celine, lifted above the battlefield on a piece of oval-shaped slate, had her good arm stretched out.

  “Don’t,” he moaned.

  She raised her h
and flattened to the sky and, starting with the pawns, her chess cavalry joined her in the air, sprinting to the place where the detective stood. Hunter jumped from side to side into, not away from, danger, smashing through rock like they were playing a game. The unused queen came from the side like a left hook, and knocked him to the ground with such aggression it sent him sliding through a building’s foundation in reverse. Check. He repositioned his hands to catch the brunt of the interior’s collapsing boulders, surged his arms upward, and threw off the sagging structure. Shoulders drooping, a visible loss in his signature pride, Hunter’s focus shifted from Allister to Celine and back. He wiped his mouth, spat and yelled, “This isn’t over!”

  Her slate rock slab displaced the sand as it settled.

  “Are-are you okay?” he asked, hair matted to his forehead, torn shirt covered in blood.

  “I’ve overextended myself.” She scowled at the injured arm, whole again, though made of compacted sand. “And you’ve overextended your welcome.”

  Allister wrenched as a healed stomach brought back the knot in its pit. Fat and connective tissue marched across the wounds like an army, coating them with a hypodermic layer. He expected that in forty-eight to seventy-two hours, when the epidermis repaired, the haunting burn would dissipate. Time would tell.

  He felt her staring at him, he assumed in both curiosity and disgust. He’d chosen to remain on his back, pretending to be busy fiddling with shirt scraps. When their tired gazes met, he mumbled, “You saved me.”

  “I did it out of respect for your existence,” Celine said. “I wish you’d done the same for me.”

  His mouth sewn shut, he contemplated basic ideology of respect for others that had diminished in human cultures over the last twenty or so years. Allister never wanted to be a culprit to such a crime. He adjusted his body to lay on its side, fixated on the fiery horizon beyond the quartz wall and the tail light of Hunter’s helicopter. A dot polluting the picture-perfect sunset.