Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm (41 page)

Fil couldn’t help snorting. Will gave him a strange look. “Yes. That’s the price you must pay.”

Will nodded. “It sounds like my insides will remain intact. What do I need to do?”

Adam handed him the vial. “Drink this.”

Will examined the vial. “No blood red color? You’re losing your touch.” He smiled, then drank the solution. He spied the second vial in Adam’s hand. “Is that the second dose?”

“No, it’s the initial batch of nanos you’ll use to begin instruction. Once you’re comfortable with the small number here, we’ll provide a larger set capable of forming flying bobsleds at any time you choose.”

Will snorted. “How does this work?”

“It’s best to close your eyes and wait for the images to appear,” Angel said. “That’s when you’ll know that the communication nanos are in place. You then think at them to make them work.”

“Think at them? Like a telepathic projection?”

“No. You visualize what you want them to do, what shape you need formed, and any rules you need them to follow. That’s how we form our homes. We visualize the shape and designate who is allowed entry.”

Will nodded and closed his eyes. Fil watched him. His face was calm and confident, but Fil could detect a slight quivering in his jaw. It was subtle, and it took the enhanced vision of an advanced Energy user to notice. Will had developed a strong Energy Shield, but struggled to hide his thoughts and emotions. Fil was stunned. His father was… scared? Worried that he’d bring the Hunters upon his new family? He swallowed. His thoughts of family, despite everything, included the man in the sunglasses who’d made his experience in camp so difficult.

His father considered him family without even knowing his true identity.

He clenched his teeth, forcing the emotion beneath the surface. This wasn’t the time.

“I can see us!” Will was surprised. Fil watched as Will opened his eyes. “That
is
unusual. I can think the video images off, you say?”

“That’s correct,” Adam told him. “Just think at them. Tell them to stop sending video. They will.”

Will closed his eyes, then nodded. “Wow. That’s… quite a rush. I can see how it could become overwhelming, especially with a larger allocation. Can I parcel up the nanos to different locations and turn them on or off by location?”

“Like a set of security system cameras?” Adam asked. “Absolutely.”

“Good to know,” Will replied. He chewed his bottom lip and looked up at the sky. “I’ll try to form something with them.” He closed his eyes and held out his hands. Fil watched as the object formed in Will’s hands. It was a necklace. But it wasn’t just any necklace. It was—

Will opened his eyes, and breathed deeply. “This looks like the necklace Hope wore at our wedding. She said it once belonged to her late mother, and had been retrieved by a friend before it was lost forever.” He ran the links of the chain through his fingers, then held the jewel up to his face. “I may leave them like this for a while.”

They had Will practice forming the nanos into other shapes, then had him use the nanos to carry objects around. When he finished his training, Will reformed the nanos into the necklace, draped around his neck and hidden inside his clothing.

Fil coughed. “If you ever find yourself outside this location in the future, I’d recommend leaving the nanos unformed and invisible. Personal effects that disappear and reappear might raise questions.”

Will stared at him. “Why would it matter?”

“Fil’s right, Mr. Stark,” Angel said. “This is our secret technology, the one that helps us to overcome the advantages possessed by the Aliomenti. We must each do our best to avoid revealing that technology to our estranged brethren.”

Estranged?
Is that what she calls it?
Fil thought that was a generous description of the relationship between the groups. But he wasn’t Angel.

Will studied her. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

They separated for the evening. Fil and Angel moved back to their shared dwelling, both exhausted, both knowing they were a day closer to ending their roles. Sleep came quickly.

Will found the three of them the next day. He looked excited and terrified, eyes wide. “Where have you been?” Adam asked.

“I teleported, but that’s not important. Look, I—”

Fil was shocked. He’d teleported after two months of Energy work? Fil couldn’t remember a time when he’d been unable to do so, but development at such a pace for a neophyte was unheard of. He tried to feel jealousy, and used that emotion to start his rant. “You did
what?
How is that possible? Who told you how to teleport?”

Will wavered a bit. “Nobody. It just happened. But that’s not the important part. I ran into one of the Hunters there.”

They all knew who it was, and would have known without having seen this event from Will’s memory videos centuries earlier. “Porthos. What did he say?”

“He said that I confused him. He kept talking to me, and before I knew it, the other Hunters were there.”

Well, nothing quite like meeting the bad guys all at once,
Fil thought.

Will explained that they’d funneled him toward Aramis, and the sensation of this new Energy being crushed, a feeling not unlike having the wind forced from his lungs. He’d resorted to throwing an elbow at Aramis before he’d run to his old tree. The Energy synergy was instant and powerful, and he’d found himself right outside the new camp.

“You idiot!” The words came unbidden. He didn’t want to say them, but somewhere deep in his mind, the words burst forth. “They’ll be able to track your Energy back to your destination. We’re going to have to move again!” And then, since he’d not humiliated the man enough, he added the ultimate dagger. “If my sister is hurt again because of your carelessness, I’ll deliver you to the Hunters myself.”

The words weren’t true. He’d never turn Will over to the Hunters. But they had the effect he’d tried to instill in his father since they’d arrived from the past. Will needed a reason to leave this time and place. The man with the sunglasses was meant to be that reason.

And the man with the sunglasses had just struck the critical blow.

He could see Will deflate. And when the man departed him for his lessons with Adam, Fil returned to his room to weep at his words.

There was a knock at the wall. “Fil?”

He ran his nano sleeve across his eyes, then let loose a small burst of Energy to erase the moisture from his tears. “I’m fine.”

“Liar. Let me in.”

“Door’s open.”

“Ha ha.” She walked through the wall. “Are you okay?”

“You seem to have an opinion on that already.”

She sat down next to him. “You’re not okay.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“You’ve been blaming yourself for everything that’s gone wrong on this planet for over a century, Fil. You think the world would be a better place if you were no longer part of it. Am I close on this?”

He said nothing.

“That’s what I thought. Fil, everyone has moved on. Nobody in the human world ever knew what happened. Everybody in the Alliance does. Have either of those groups given you cause to believe you’re not wanted, not loved, not
forgiven
?”

He sniffed. “The humans at the cleanup sites wanted my head.”

“Did you listen carefully, Fil? Most thought the cause was an advanced weapon that malfunctioned. An accident. Did you hear who they blamed, who they wanted punished?”

“My memory seems to be failing me.”

“It wasn’t the person who hit the button to activate the weapons, Fil. No, they were angry at those who’d ordered the weapon fired. Which of those is you, Fil? Did you order the weapon fired? Or did you hit the trigger?”

“I’m not exactly sure either of those is a perfect description of my part in this. You’re leaving out the part where the launch operator left his wife and daughter unprotected and launched the weapons, not because of orders from on high, but because he thought it the only way to save his own family.”

“Is that what this is about, then?” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “Your regret is that you tried to save them, rather than giving up and walking away?”

Was it? No, he felt no guilt over his desire to save his family. It was the deaths, those of Sarah and Anna, and those of billions of others, that burdened him. He felt the torment from the weight of those lost souls every day he drew breath.

He realized that it was something deeper than that.

“I always thought I was invincible, and because of that, I thought nothing could happen to them. I realized there were gaps in the watch schedule, but I didn’t say anything. I knew I could fix any problem that came up. I’ve been told that since I was born, Angel. That because of my Energy, I couldn’t be hurt, couldn’t suffer any loss. That arrogance ruled my life, even though I didn’t know it. When I finally met a true challenge, I didn’t know what to do. That lack of humility drove me to act irrationally. I could just keep teleporting and catch Abaddon, because nobody could teleport farther and faster than me. I never stopped to realize that if that was true, he wasn’t moving. I would have stopped, I would have considered how far he might be able to travel in the time since he’d gotten them, would have realized he told me where he was all along.” Angel stared at him. “It’s true. He told me the aircraft was bound for Aliomenti Headquarters. He said he removed the Hunters. He never said he’d changed course.” He shook his head. “One small change, and billions of people would still be alive. I don’t know if I would have been able to find Sarah and Anna in time. But no one else would suffer as a result.” He looked at her. “That’s why I need to go away, Angel. I don’t have the emotional stability needed to control this so-called gift.”

“Fil, listen to me. You’re absolutely right about your sense of invincibility. You’re right that it requires control and discipline to wield that power. Let me ask you something, Fil. If someone has the ability to destroy cities, and it happens only once in two hundred years of living… is that evidence of a lack of control? In all the time you’ve been alive, you’ve never so much as knocked over a bully. You could level a house by breathing loudly, Fil. The reality is that you were blessed with this ability specifically because you
are
uniquely disciplined.”

Could that be true? “Dad would have done better.”

“Dad did better in his time of trial because he didn’t have the power to do anything about it. You sensed the raw emotion when he healed up a bit. He had every intention to track down each Hunter and the Assassin. He had no interest in sparing any of them. In other words, had our father been in possession of your ability, the world would be short one Assassin and three Hunters. And he wouldn’t have concerned himself with the fact that his anger—his explosive anger—would have taken out the city of Pleasanton.” She shook her head. “It’s not a lack of discipline on your part, Fil. It’s your incredible restraint that sets you apart. And I’m proud—incredibly and constantly proud—that I get to call you my brother.” She stood and kissed the top of his head, and then walked out.

Fil didn’t know whose words that day—his to his father, or Angel’s to him—had a more profound effect. But when he slept that night, he didn’t dream of death. He dreamed of Anna’s birth, and felt the profound joy of her arrival once more.

Adam arrived again that morning to report that Will wasn’t in his room. Fil and Angel traced his last steps. Angel reported that Will’s lingering Energy carried feelings of guilt, of a belief that his presence put those he cared for in danger. Will believed that if he left, the risk to those he cared for would vanish. Fil could feel her eyes boring into him.

He closed his own eyes and traced the Energy trails, found the burst of Will’s teleportation hop. He could almost see the image Will had in mind when he made that jump. He’d gone back to the old campsite, the spot where the Hunters had found him. The Energy signals of the Hunters lingered as well. He could see that new Energy emanation from the Hunters and Will had terminated at the same point in time.

His father had given himself up to protect them.

Fil didn’t feel any safer. And he realized that if he was gone, those he cared about wouldn’t be any safer from those who would do them harm. Perhaps he couldn’t be everywhere at once and protect everyone. But he’d do everything he could.

Adam’s look brought him back to the present, to the timeline and plan set out decades earlier. Will’s temporary visit to Aliomenti Headquarters meant the end of this script was in sight.

They waited.

Angel bolted upright. “He’s back at the same location.”

The trio exchanged a glance. “Let’s go,” Adam said.

Fil arrived in the clearing and saw the tree. It had been charred during the Aliomenti attack. He could feel the tree working to repair the charred bark, using sunlight that its accelerated growth made accessible. Without Will’s work, the tree might not have suffered a direct hit. But that same work meant the tree now had the means to recover.

He’d ponder the deeper meaning later.

Will seemed different. The experience at Headquarters had changed him. He’d gotten answers to questions he didn’t know he ought to ask.