Rebellion (Zero Series) (10 page)

“Oh my lord,” he
said walking towards his bedroom.

“Don’t forget. Find
a disguise,” I called after him. He raised his hand to wave goodnight to me. I
finished my water and stood up from the table. I stretched and my back popped
multiple times along with my shoulders. The relief swept over my back. I
entered the armory converted to a bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. I
unlaced my boots and slowly slipped them off. I crawled under the blanket and
drifted to sleep.

It seemed like only
a minute since I had fallen asleep before being awakened by Jet getting out of
the bed. I barely cracked my eye open to look at her but still appear asleep.
She was wearing a white tank top and tight black pants. Every time I saw her,
her beauty struck me. Her blonde hair somehow appeared perfect even after just
waking up. I stretched my arms out and yawned. Jet turned around and smiled.

“What time did you
finally get back?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It
was late though,” I said.

“What did Pan
want?” she asked.

“I’ll tell all of
you in a few minutes. It’s incredibly important,” I said sitting up. She
slipped on a baggy gray shirt and left the room. I swung my legs out of the bed
and my feet touched the cold floor. I stood up and walked out of the room.
Flare was already up and working with the amplifiers. She burst into flames and
started to float.

“Check it out!” she
yelled, “I can alter the heat to make myself rise!”

“That’s amazing,”
Jet said, “Do the amplifiers make you feel drained?”

“Not yet. I have
been using them in small spurts,” she said.

“Good. I don’t know
if there are any prolonged effects of these things. We will have to keep an eye
on your energy level,” said Jet.

Flare lowered
herself and made the flames dissipate. Frost emerged from their bedroom and
said groggily, “Oh good. Everyone is up.”

“Yeah I need to
talk to all of you,” I said, “Let’s all sit.”

We all congregated
around the table and I started recounting what had happened. After I finished, they
sat in silence. “So Armageddon is a man?” Jet asked.

“Yes. A potentially
deadly man,” I answered.

“You said you have
a disk with data from the Kraken system, right?” Flare asked.

I pulled the disk
out of the bag I had taken with me. I made my way to the main computer and
inserted the disk into the terminal. The large screen lit up and showed a long
list of forty names, each with a full profile. I scrolled down the list passing
name after name. Quartz, Seer, Edge, Watt, Nova. These and many more adorned
the list of our potential army. I turned to the others and saw the intrigue on
their faces.

“Oh and one other
thing,” I said, “Vine and Pan think we all need some sort of disguise or mask
to protect ourselves when we are in the city. If we are identified, we could
get in serious trouble.”

Flare and Jet
looked at me like I was telling a joke and I hadn’t gotten to the punchline yet,
while Frost just had a look of disgust on his face. “What kind of mask?” Flare
asked.

“It doesn’t have to
be a mask. Just something that will obscure your face or eyes somehow like my
hood,” I replied.

“I can’t wait,”
Frost said sarcastically.

“Just shoot some
ice over your mouth like the first time we broke back into the city. You don’t
have to wear a mask if you are going to be a baby about it,” I said. He smirked
and shot ice across his mouth in the form of a small mask.

“I can just use my
work goggles I suppose,” Jet said.

“That’ll work. It
doesn’t have to be complicated,” I said.

“I’ll look around
for something,” Flare said.

“For now, we need a
plan. First we need to figure out where they are holding the other spikers.
They are sure to move them after last night,” I said.

“Does Vine have any
idea where they might be taken?” Jet asked.

“He didn’t seem to
know. I figured we should just listen to the Kraken radio and see if they
mention it. Until then, we should take some time to practice with the
amplifiers,” I said.

“I’ll take the
first shift on the radio,” Flare said.

“Let’s go out to
the forest and practice with the amplifiers then,” I said. Frost, Jet and I
exited Sanctum and walked to a remote part of the forest. Jet carried her rifle
with her. She had customized it in the previous days. She had added some
different odds and ends to the body and scope. No doubt she had used salvaged
parts from the old rebellion’s weapon stocks.

“These things are
amazing,” Frost said holding his hands up.

“They really are.
They are a feat of engineering,” Jet said, “I have never seen any technology
like it in my life.”

“It’s just too bad
that they never got them to work properly. Things could have turned out
differently,” I said.

“Our families could
be alive still,” said Frost.

“Unfortunately,” I
said, “We can’t change the past. We have to focus on making the future better.”

“We will. We have
made serious progress in such a short time,” said Jet.

“We have. I can
tell from listening to the radio transmissions that we have shifted some
balance. People are starting to rebel in isolated incidents all over the city.
It’s nothing that will completely dethrone Hades but we are making cracks
appear in their foundation,” Frost said.

“We know that as we
do more damage, Kraken will crack down on the people of Marsh City. We need to
get the spikers as soon as we can and figure out where they are keeping
Armageddon,” I said.

“I’m thinking that
they will move him somewhere more secret now. The warehouse was brilliant
because it was in plain sight but now that they know we know all about
Armageddon and the spikers, they will hide him underground until he is ready,”
said Jet.

“Then we will have
to search harder. We cannot let them unleash Armageddon,” I said. We entered a
clearing and set our gear down. Frost turned in a circle and raised a wall of
ice around our clearing. Jet knelt down and started cleaning her rifle. I used
my power to rip a tree out of the ground and pulled it into the clearing.

“Let’s make some
targets out of this tree,” I said. Frost held out his hand and a large axe made
of ice formed in it. He began hacking away at the tree. Forty minutes passed
and he had twenty wooden slats piled up where the tree was. I stood one of the
slats up on one end of the clearing. I took a knife and carved a target on the
wood.

“You can go first
Jet,” I said. Jet lay on the ground in the shooting position. She unloaded four
rounds into the plank. They landed in various spots on the target. She mumbled
angrily top herself and reloaded the gun. She spent the next few minutes
shooting and reloading the gun. At the end of her session, the target was
riddled with bullet holes. She grumbled and picked up her rifle.

“I really hope if I
end up having to shoot at something, it is very large and doesn’t move. My
accuracy is terrible,” she said tossing her rifle down on the pile of gear.

“Just keep at it.
It only gets easier with practice,” Frost said.

Jet muttered to
herself as she sat and started fiddling with the tool bag.

“Your turn, Frost,”
I said. I set up three slats in a line. Frost stood facing them and created a
handful of ice daggers. He tossed them as hard as he could and they landed in
the centers of the panels. He made a handful of throwing stars and slung them
towards the panels. The stars shattered the daggers that were stuck in the
wood. The wood fell down on their backsides. He looked pleased with his work
and crouched down into a squatting position. He placed his palm on the ground
and closed his eyes. His head tilted slightly to the left and large ice shards
shot out of the ground under each of the wooden panels shattering them into
only piles of splinters. He fell back into a sitting position and cracked a
smile.

“That was
incredible,” Jet said.

“These things
really open up our potential. It makes me feel like I have no limits,” Frost
said.

“Be careful,
though. If you over exert yourself, your body shuts down to recover,” I said.

“I’ll remember
that,” he said, “Now you go.”

He stood up five
wooden slats and moved back to our little spot. I stood away from the slats and
raised my hand in a cuplike shape. I focused and clinched my fist. The slats
turned to dust. I couldn’t explain what had just happened. Frost was right. The
more I wore them, the more free I felt. It felt the same way as when I created
the singularity in the woods except for the screaming and hallucinations. My
power was becoming sharper without me even doing anything. There was some
unanticipated effect of the amplifiers that lasted even after you took them
off.

“Talk about
amazing,” Frost said examining the wood dust.

“How did you do
that?” Jet asked.

“I don’t really
know. I’ve felt my spike almost evolving since we started using the
amplifiers,” I said, “I could feel the microscopic air pockets inside the wood
and in my mind I could see them breaking the wood apart at a molecular level.”

“That’s strange,”
Jet said, “Your spike shouldn’t be evolving. It didn’t say anything about that
in the plans.”

“It feels good. I
have been feeling mine change too,” Frost added.

“I’d like to take
small tissue samples from both of you when we get back to Sanctum. I need to
examine your genes. This could have incredible scientific implications,” she
said getting excited, “For now, you should take them off until I have a chance
to study them.”

“Okay. Whatever you
say,” I said. Frost and I both slipped off the amplifiers and placed them in
our equipment bags.

“What do we do with
the rest of the wooden panels?” Jet asked.

I turned and made
the same hand motion as before and crushed them. I heard Frost chuckle behind
me. We gathered our equipment and turned back towards Sanctum. We were stopped
by the ice wall that Frost had created. One swipe of my hand blew the wall down
and cleared a path for us. We passed through the ice wreckage and made our way
back to Sanctum. The sun was peeking through the canopy of the dense forest.
There was little wildlife in the forest. It was strange how quiet it got
sometimes. The occasional squirrel or rabbit would scurry by in the brush but
for the most part, it was silent. We approached the tunnel and entered the dark
passage. We emerged inside the lair and found Flare rifling through a trunk of
clothes and gear.

“What are you
hoping to find in there?” Frost asked.

“My disguise,” she
said. “I almost have my full one picked out.”

“I can’t believe
that we are really doing this,” he said.

“We’ve been over
it,” I said, “We can’t afford to show our faces in the city.”

“I know, I know,”
he said tossing the gear bag down by the workbench.

“Don’t forget you
two. I need tissue samples,” Jet said.

“When do you want
those? Can we take a rest first?” Frost asked.

“Yeah that’s fine.
I can get them later tonight,” she replied.

“Why do you need
tissue samples?” Flare asked.

“Zero has exhibited
some… growth in his spike. It seems to be evolving and I need tissue samples to
examine so I can determine if the amplifiers have lasting effects,” replied
Jet.

“Oh lord,” Flare
said.

“I’m going to take
a shower. Every time I go into the forest, I feel like I am coated in filth,” I
said. I looked up and Flare and Frost had already retreated to their room. Jet
was sitting at the workbench unpacking the bag that Frost had just tossed
aside. I walked up behind her and placed my hands on her shoulders. I squeezed
her muscles and she tilted her head to the side. She leaned her head back
against my stomach and her blonde hair slid off the side of her face.

“How are we going
to find Armageddon?” she sighed.

“I don’t know.
We’ll figure something out,” I said softly.

“What if we can’t?
They’ll unleash him and then the city will be beyond saving. Forty gene spikes
in one man,” she said.

“I know. Vine and
Pan are working on locating him and the spikers. We will be fine, I promise,” I
said. I leaned down and kissed her neck softly. She reached her arm up and
caressed my head. She went back to unpacking the bag and I retreated to the
shower. I stripped off my dirty clothes and stepped into the hot water. I
soaked in the stream for a long while. I lost track of the time as I leaned
against the wall. I was snapped back into consciousness by a hand touching my
back. I turned my head and saw Jet standing behind me. She draped her arms over
my shoulders and laid her head against my back. Her wet skin was warm against
mine and I felt all my worries momentarily melt away. We spent the next few
minutes enjoying the warmth before the water turned ice cold. Jet let out a
shriek and we both hopped out of the shower and grabbed towels. We dried off
and slipped on our fresh clothes. I opened the bathroom door and saw Frost
standing to the right of the room by one of the water pipes protruding from the
wall. He had his index finger pressed up against the pipe. His finger was pure
white and had a sort of steam emanating from it.