More writing… Chapter 13 continues

An alert blared. “Unauthorized personnel at front gate,” announced the computer.

Solaria could be seen standing at the front gate, flames swirling around her. She had her arms folded in front of the sun symbol that she wore on her red bodysuit. Snowfall was clearly recognizable standing behind her and to the left, despite the fact that he wore a black trenchcoat over his costume and a black hat on his head.

Telekinetically, Rigel activated the front intercom. “7… 8… 9…“ said Solaria while flames crackled in the background.

“Solaria, this is Rigel. What are you doing?”

“It’s about time. We need to talk, and don’t I get a ‘G’Day’?”

“Sorry, it hasn’t been a good day. I’ll let you both in and meet you at the front door, assuming you’ve passed all the scans,” said Rigel. “Oh, and stay on the sidewalk. The grounds have mines.”

Rigel clicked off the intercom.

“I can talk to Solaria, if you’d like,” offered Ion with a grin. “I don’t mind.”

“I’m sure you don’t. Fine, you can come.”

After Solaria and Snowfall passed retina scans and made it up the sidewalk, Rigel and Ion greeted them at the front door to the mansion. Solaria was no longer projecting flames, but she seemed irritated enough to do so.

Before Rigel could even invite the duo inside, Solaria spoke up, “Are there going to be more tryouts or would you like to make us members of the team? I got arrested trying to help this guy,” she paused to point at Ion, “and my fiancé nearly got killed.”

“I’m sorry about what happened. I’ll inform the mayor that the two of you are members of the team and have your security clearance authorized,” said Rigel.

“So how long will that take? Weeks?” asked Solaria.

“Um, Solaria…” said Snowfall, who Rigel noticed was holding a woman’s trenchcoat and another hat.

“Sorry,” said Rigel, checking her communicator. “You are authorized. Half an hour to go through all the paperwork. Ion offered to help you with it.”

“I did?” asked Ion.

“Wait,” said Solaria, “did you just make us members of Freedom Squad?”

“Yes,” said Rigel, smiling.

Solaria hugged her.  “Thank you!” She turned to Snowfall, “We did it! We made it!”

“It’s great,” he said as she hugged him, “We made it. Freedom Squad.”

“Excellent,” said Rigel, “take care of them, Ion.” She added in a whisper, “Let them know about Protector once they’ve finished with the paperwork.” With that, she headed back inside the building.

Cori felt sick as she finished her sentence. Even now, Alex was in a bed in the medlab with Dr. Lord hovering over him. She knew he was asleep, but Jake had used the word coma. He thought that Alex had suffered a stroke. She hadn’t explained what the word “Ace of Spades” coming out of Alex’s mouth had meant. As she thought, she became angrier and the walls started to vibrate ever so slightly.

She stopped and took a deep cleansing yoga breath, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the nose. The shaking ceased. “I haven’t done that in years, losing control of the TK like that,” she whispered to herself. “Get yourself together, Cori girl,” she said, imitating her dad.

“Nightstar, is the Night Cycle ready for a test drive?” she asked into her communicator.

“Absolutely.”

“I need some air. Take me for a ride?”

Ten minutes later, Rigel sat on the back of the Night Cycle with her arms wrapped around Nightstar’s nearly perfect abs as they streaked in and out of traffic. She leaned against him. They had gone out on more than a few dates, and she had to confess that she was more than a little attracted to him. In her first real mission as Freedom Squad’s team leader, she had saved his life and in the process, she had touched his mind and learned nearly everything about him.

She always told everyone that memories like that faded in 48 hours. They usually had in the past. She had thought about telling Nightstar that she knew everything about him, but there never seemed to be a good time. This certainly wasn’t a good time.

She pretended that they were normal people riding through the city streets on a motorcycle.

“Invisibility projector’s flawless,” said Nightstar with excitement. She could hear the grin on his face. She wondered if he was really aware that she was on the motorcycle. “None of these cars have a clue that we are here. This is utterly fantastic. I owe Starlight for all of his technical expertise. Ion’s a pretty good engineer, helping me to integrate alien tech with my people’s psychic tech and meshing it with this beauty. I always wanted a Night-Cycle. Ready for dimensional de-synchronization?”

“What?” asked Cori, no longer able to pretend they were remotely like normal people.

“ Activating. Let’s just hope the gyroscopic solid detector works and the gravity field doesn’t get reversed. This is going to be amazing.”

“Wait, what is happening?” asked Cori, as the world around her seemed to fade. It was as if she had been in a watercolor painting which had just been splashed.

Nightstar took a hard left into a concrete barrier before Rigel could even think about her telekinesis. To her surprise, they passed through the barrier as if it weren’t there. “Awesome!” shouted Nightstar.

Cori thought she had been kidnapped by a crazed 12-year old.

“It’s all working, except… crud. Re-emerging… let me cut back over to the right side of the street before we materialize.”

Nightstar turned the Night-Cycle back across the barrier and kept going around a car and onto the sidewalk narrowly avoiding a streetlight before wheeling into an alley. He stopped.

The colors were back.

Nightstar sighed. “Too much power drain,” he said with a shrug, taking his hands off the handlebars, “it can’t handle that for any length of time. It will take it about 15 minutes to recharge. Still… you know what?”

“What?” she asked.

“I love this machine,” he declared.

It was Rigel’s turn to sigh, but she found herself smiling instead. Nightstar turned around to look at her. “What did you think?” he asked.

“It was pretty cool, I have to admit,” she said.

He kissed her.

Almost before she realized that their lips were together, he pulled away. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have…”

She wove her silver gloves into his long dark hair and kissed him back. “You should have done that before you started talking about loving a machine,” she said when their lips parted, “However, as much as I’m really enjoying this, we have work to do.”

She pulled out her communicator and dialed Stacy King.

“Agent King.”

“Good evening, Agent King. It’s Rigel, but I’m sure you knew that. I need to meet with you, and it’s urgent. I’m going to transmit some coordinates. It’s a park near that mega-mall they’ve built.”

“That’s in the Appleton planned community.”

“Right. We need to talk. Can you be there in twenty minutes?” asked Rigel.

“Yes.”

“See you then,” Rigel said, disconnecting.

“Are we going to the Appleton Mall Park, the one next to the golf course?” asked Nightstar.

“A few things first,” said Rigel, “One, do you agree that Solaria and Snowfall deserve to be on the team?”

“I guess it depends on what you used as criteria.”

“Snowfall and Solaria both responded when Ion called them. They both have powers that put them in the top percentages of paranormals. They pased all the security prescreening from the government, and  I like them.”

“Works for me,” said Nightstar. “Solaria’s hot and Snowfall’s cool. How can I argue?”

Rigel groaned. “I’m going to forbid you and Ion from spending time together. Anyway, two, I think Freefall doesn’t have the power that I want, and I don’t trust Chameleon, so I’m not planning on approving them at this point.”

“Fair enough.”

“Three, what do you know about the Ace of Spades?” she asked.

Nightstar adjusted his mirrorshades. “Very little other than the obvious. My guess is that he set up Defiance. I don’t know how we find someone like that, but I’m looking forward to trying.”

“Me too,” she said. “Four, how are you going to contact the Destroyers and are you going to pay them out of your own billion-dollar accounts?”

“I was going to call a shady contact and offer them an obscene amount of money from my billion-dollar accounts. Having access to the wealth of an extra-dimensional kingdom has its perks. Do you like the plan?”

“No, I don’t,” said Rigel. “But I have a better idea. So, among other things, I’m going to ask Homeland Security where to find potential new recruits, because if the Destroyers decide to help Defiance, we will need a few other members.  I’m sure they have some people under surveillance who might turn out to be great heroes. What do you think?”

“Sounds reasonable to me. What else?” asked Nightstar.

“This,” she said, kissing him again. “And what do you think of cosplay?”