Chapter Five: Ordered Chaos

Chapter Five: Ordered Chaos

            The rescue craft looked like Abel expected it to; small, aerodynamic, and done up in red and white. It looked like a cross between a helicopter, spaceship, and plane, with a little racecar mixed in for good measure. Reina followed his gaze and smiled. He had that childish wonder in his eyes again.

            “Like it?” She asked.

            “Yeah. Why?”

             Reina stepped onto the landing pad and held up a remote. “Because I designed and tested and flew the thing.” The door on the left side of the craft swung open, and she lightly jumped inside. Abel climbed up on the right, and she slid her hands up and down the wheel. “Oh, it has been too long,” she murmured.

            “Are we going to catch the falling guys, or not?” He asked. She nodded.

            “Let’s go.” There was a hum and a vibration, but no rumble, as he had expected.

            “Smooth, isn’t it?” He remarked.

            “Of course it is,” she said. “I’ve worked on this for six years, and she handles like a dream.” The vessel lifted from the pad, and Abel gasped as he saw the expansiveness of the station. It was more than seven stories tall, with more windows than Swiss cheese of a similar height would have had holes. Long, levitating chains of boxlike metal structures spun around the station, and Abel surmised that they were apartments. Looking beyond them, he saw two small forms rapidly plummeting toward the ground.

            “There,” he said, pointing. She nodded.

            “They’re too far for us to pick them up,” she told him, veering toward them. “You’re telekinetic. Can you stop them from falling?”

            “The physics aren’t pretty,” he said. “If I stop them now, it’d probably break at least fifty bones, plus organ damage.” Abel closed his eyes. “Slowing them down, on the other hand…” A strange, heat-shimmer-like aura suddenly surrounded the falling people. “You’ve got a two-minute window, tops,” he explained. “I can’t decelerate them anymore without causing significant friction damage.”

            “Significant?” She echoed. “You’re damaging them now?”

            “They’ll have minor friction burns,” Abel told her, “like rug burns. But beats getting splattered, right?”

            “Right,” she muttered, angling the craft downward and gunning the throttle. Gravity itself aided her descent, and the craft soon moved underneath the falling pair. “I’m going to deploy a force field cushion to stop them. It’s a bubble shield, so they won’t be falling off the top of the craft, and the field itself is a complex form of ionic energy designed to minimize physical impact. . Will that kill them?” He shook his head.

            “Kill? No, probably not. Hurt? Yeah, definitely. They’ll live, at least.” She shrugged and hit the green button marked DEPLOY.

            “Good enough,” she said simply. Abel heard an electric crackle, followed by a loud whoomph. The screen on the console blipped, and two green dots appeared. Reina smiled and sat back in the chair. “Well, it worked,” she said. “That was lucky.”

            Abel started. “Lucky?” He asked. “What…” realization dawned on him. “You hadn’t tested the force field, had you?”

            She shrugged. “Not at high movement velocity, no,” she answered. “They refused to let me. At least it worked, though.” She flicked several switches on the control panel, engaging autopilot. “Now, let’s get them on board.”

            Lowering the field brought two people on board that neither of them had expected. One was a young woman, wearing a pullover sweater and jeans. She had dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a comically surprised expression on her face. Or it would have been, if she had not just nearly died. The boy was dressed in what looked like a prep school uniform. He had well-groomed red hair and freckles on his face. Wire-rimmed glasses completed the schoolboy look; of all the children there, Reina knew he was the youngest, at age fourteen. The girl was on her feet first.

            “Uh…thanks for the save,” she said, “but where are we?”

            Reina shook her head. “Time for that later. Right, now, we…”

            “No way.” Red-hair was on his feet now. “I got us out of that cell, and you aren’t putting us back in.”

            “No one’s putting anyone in any cells,” Reina told him. “Sorry about that. Management is a bunch of idiots.”

            “If you’re not putting us in a cell,” the boy asked, “then where are we going?”

            The girl stepped up to one of the ship’s viewports and looked out. “I guess that’s where,” she said, pointing up at the station.

            “That’s it,” Abel said. “Your new home away from whatever you had resembling one earlier.”

            “I’m not going up there,” the boy said petulantly.

            “Sure,” Abel snapped. “Rather take a dip in the ocean?”

            The boy’s eyes narrowed. “Very funny.” Abel noticed  a strange accent. British. The clothes meant wealthy. He detected strong expectations inside his head, and memories of a massive house. A spoiled rich kid, he thought. Great. Another thing we need less than an extra hole in all our heads. “On what authority are you holding us? Holding me, Harold Dawes?”

            “Our own,” Reina answered. “And that’s all we need.” She stepped back into the cockpit. “Strap yourselves in,” she called over her shoulder. “Otherwise, you’ll end up with your faces plastered on the hull.” The girl followed first, strapping herself into the copilot’s chair before Abel could sit down. He shrugged and took a seat behind her. The boy sat in the seat behind him, and heaviness behind his action told Abel he was still pouting. Reina disengaged the autopilot, and she maneuvered the ship into a steep rise.

            “All right,” she said, feeling adrenaline course through her. She loved flying. Always had, always would, she guessed. “Let’s take this one home.”

            Armory

            As Reina steeped back into the armory, she was pleased to see that Flint had at least prevented the team members from murdering each other. Little progress beyond that had been made, though; Emerald and Flint were looking like they planned on strangling each other. Hannah was sliding into a suit of armor that looked like it had seen better days, though Reina was pleased that she had the sense to choose a heat-resistant outfit. Justin was trying to talk Flint and Emerald down from whatever disagreement they were having, without much success.

            “I don’t care what you say,” Em persisted. “He’s an overconfident pain in the neck, Jus. Can I call you Jus? I don’t care, I’ll call you that anyway. So why are you telling us to listen to him?”

            “Because he outrank, I’ll call you that anyway. So why are you telling us to listen to him?”

            “Because he outranks you,” the runner answered.

            “So he’s a bigger pain,” she finished. “Doesn’t that just fill me with confidence…”

            “Whether or not you feel confident isn’t my problem,” Flint snapped. “Keeping you from doing anything stupid is. So shut up and listen for once in your life.”

            “Are you seriously going to lecture me about not listening?” She asked. “You haven’t paid attention to even one argument I’ve made to you. These people obviously have control issues. Why can’t you see that?”

            “Of course,” he said. “They’re micromanaging time. Do you think you could be anything other than a certifiable control freak and still do that? I agree; they’re controlling us. That’s all they do with all their people. And it’s an awful, awful thing to see. But you’ve got no right, none at all, to endanger all of us by open rebellion. So go along with it, and don’t make this whole thing harder on all of us.”

            “And cooperation is the way to go?” She challenged. “Couldn’t we just as easily win if we fought openly? If we made them concede as much to us as you want us to them, wouldn’t we accomplish what we really set out to do?”

            “What we set…?” Flint stopped speaking, and he looked for all the world like he wanted to explode. “You’re not here for you, child. Get that through your block head. You’re here because time is in jeopardy. Time is bigger than you can even wrap your mind around, and you want to set that aside because you don’t like your employment options?”

            “When you put it like that…” she conceded. “I guess it doesn’t sound so great.”

            “Great?” Flint growled. “It shows exactly how selfish you’re being, Em. I don’t want to be the one to say this, but you need to understand that we’re a team, and it’s because we’re a team that we have to learn that sometimes it’s necessary to set aside our own desires. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, but I’m afraid we don’t get the option of opting out of the situation. Yes, we’re going to be sent to places we don’t want to go, and we’ll be asked to do things we don’t want to do. But we won’t be given the choice. All we’re asking-all the team is asking-is that you understand that you will be asked to sacrifice.”

            “And when does the bloodletting stop?” Emerald snapped. “When do you say, ‘Sorry, not giving anything else up’?”

            “I haven’t gotten there yet,” he replied. “When I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

            Abel turned to Reina. “Should we wait outside?”

            “And miss all this fun?” She asked, grinning. “If you can’t take this, you won’t make it a week in the field.”

            “This goes on often?” He asked. Reina shrugged.

            “Flint and I go at it all the time,” she answered. “You’ll be fine. If not, oh well.”

            Emerald and Flint were going at it again, and this time it was extremely loud. They were almost yelling, and they were loud enough that one could not even hear them finish their sentences.

            “You can’t keep fighting against-” Flint started.

            “I’ll fight till I die, and I don’t see how-”

            “You can’t see because you’re selfish, you arrogant-” Any further conversation was cut off by both of them getting a Mach-speed slap to the face from Justin.

            “Shut up,” the South African said, stopping himself two feet away from them. “You’re not doing anyone any good like this. You understand this, don’t you? Fighting isn’t going to change the fact that if we don’t work together, we don’t work at all. I live at super speed, you two. Can you imagine how annoying it is to have to listen to people fight, and fight slow? So stop it, or at least do it quietly.”

            Emerald and Flint both turned to look at him, a surprised expression on their faces, but they made no moves. Flint seemed more stunned than anything, while Emerald had a strangely bemused expression on her face.

            “So,” Flint said, raising his voice, “What’s our play now?” Reina sighed.

            “Well, the Council suggested that we pair them with the Compendium Initiative kids,” she told him. Flint swore rather loudly, thumping his knee. Taking off his glasses, he started polishing them.

            “There’s a great idea,” he muttered sarcastically. “Bunks and everything?”
            “They won’t mix them,” she explained. “At least not like that. Their rooms are up on West End, but classes don’t start till tomorrow.”

            “Um…we are right here,” Abel told them. “Care explaining any of what you’re saying?”

            Reina sighed again. There was something oddly resigned about the sound. “They’ve essentially paired you guys up with a class of the world’s most arrogant snots, but also their most important snots.”

            “So they put us back in school,” Hannah Tully moaned. “Great.”

            “If the school’s the worst part of your stay here,” Flint told her, “you’ll be lucky.”

            West End Apartments

            Room 227

            The apartments had little in the way of adornment. In fact, they had little in the way of anything. The walls were grey with either blue or green wave patterns, and the panels’ hexagonal weave reminded Justin, in a very eerie way, of a massive beehive. Being ten thousand feet up locked inside a floating box did little for any confidence he might have had in security, either. He and Abel had been told that they were sharing a room, which neither of them had argued with. Abel had his trench coat now, a long black number with many pockets. Underneath, he wore a suit of red battle armor, which continued onto his legs. Justin was wearing a stripped down version of his armor, without either the helmet or the wrist blades. He did a lightning run around the room, checking all the drawers and the beds.

            “Looks pretty standard,” he told Abel. “They gave us some uniforms, too.” And, with that, the runner held up a blue jumpsuit with a badge on it that said Tully, J.

            “Well, they put our names on these,” Abel quipped. “It’s an improvement.”

            “Not by much,” Justin remarked. “Reina said classes start tomorrow, right?”

            Abel nodded. “She did. Why?”

            “Because there’s training to be had in the meantime,” Justin answered. “Did she say where we’d do that?”

            The other man shook his head. “All right. I’ll ask. Care if I join you?”

            “No,” the South African answered. “The more, the merrier. Do you know where to look for her?”

            “I’m a telepath,” Abel told him. “I don’t have to look.”

            Room 231

            Reina slipped out of her armor and into the standard-issue jumpsuit, sighing again as she did so. This assignment gets worse every second, she thought. The Compendium Initiative was one of the worst things Echelon had ever done, and her public opposition to the program had put her in charge of their new black ops team. A black ops team it was, she knew, because there was absolutely no way that they would have contracted so many other flight and violence risks otherwise. Aside from rooming with Emerald, an idea she already hated, her superiors also asked that she act as their guide through time. All because she had spoken out against their cold treatment of human life, and then its weaponization.

            “What was their problem with you?” Emerald asked. “Flint said you’re some kind of disciplinary issue.”

            “I…disagreed with some things they did,” she explained. “Though it doesn’t seem like you need a reason to pick a fight.” Emerald bristled.

            “Picking a fight?” She challenged. “I was right! Flint’s asking us to sacrifice our lives for people we don’t even know, and everything they’ve shown us so far points to the opposite. Why couldn’t he see that?”

            “He knows you’re right,” Reina said softly, trying to placate her. “Girl, I know you’re right. But there isn’t anything he or I or anyone else can do about it. The problem with this whole situation is that it’s layered in wrongness. We don’t have any counter but to play along until we understand. Yes, you’re right, and yes, you’ve got a point. But sometimes you have to be willing to concede your own wrongs first before correcting someone else’s. Consider this from his perspective, Emerald. He’s been on teams before, and they all ended badly, through the fault of a leader, not himself. He’s been picked as leader now, and he’s scared to death he won’t measure up. All you’ve done since you showed up is attack him and ask why he’s doing what he’s doing. Yes, maybe you’re right. But try to understand that you’re not all right, Emerald.” The girl’s fist tightened at her side.

            “So you want me to apologize?” She asked.

            “No,” the other girl answered. “I want you to be willing to. There’s a difference.” Suddenly, she heard a high-pitched whine in her ears and felt a searing pain in her head. “What in…” Then she heard the voice. It was low and slow-paced, and she realized that it was Abel’s. Uh, Reina, can you hear me? He asked.

            Yes, she responded, though I shouldn’t be able to. How’d you break through?

            It wasn’t easy, he admitted. But I did. Smart cloak, by the way. Almost couldn’t find you. The other girl wasn’t so good, though, so I got a fast bead.

            Reina shook her head. OK, so now that you’re in my head, what do you want?

            The practice room, he answered. We were wondering where to find it.

            That’s no problem at all. It’s on the eighth floor. Just take the elevator. Can’t miss it. And, if you’ll wait for a few minutes, I’ll bring a couple people up to join you.

            We have more teammates? Abel sounded incredulous and a little worried by the prospect.

            Yes, Reina told him. Don’t worry. You’ll like them. Guaranteed.

            Don’t make promises you can’t keep, he admonished.

            I never do, she replied.

            Great, Justin said, entering the mental conversation. Are there stairs?

            Yes, Reina said. Why…oh.

            A hint of laughter entered Justin’s voice. I’d say I was racing you, but I don’t think that’d be a competition.

            Emerald looked at Reina. “What’s wrong with you?” She asked.

            “Abel,” Reina muttered. “Got inside my head. Really trippy, too.”

            “What about?” The other asked.

            “Training,” her roommate answered. “Care to join in?”

            “Sure,” Emerald said. “Why not?” Even as she said the words, she realized that was probably a bad idea to say something like that. It was practically begging for trouble. Which she hardly needed; after all, it seemed to follow her around like a shadow.

            Location unknown

            Time unknown

            The jacketed man was waiting in the alley, his hands in his pockets and a scowl on his face. He looked down at his watch, his eyes narrowing. His informant was late, again. Which was really embarrassing, given the fact that the agent could travel through time. Though her being late was not all bad, as it gave him the chance to put his countermeasures in place. Though, this being a period of time close to the birth of the automobile, he expected little in the way of technologically advanced combat. A flash of violet light at the end of the alley, followed by the sound of feet hitting the ground.

            “I expected you sooner,” the man stated, tipping the brim of his hat. “But then, you never liked doing the expected, did you?” The red-haired woman shook her head.

            “No, and you’re not going to believe what I just found out,” she told him. “It seems Echelon’s picked up a few new agents. One of the names on the list looked familiar ,and I ran your tests.”

            “The results?” The man asked, taking his hat off in anticipation.

            “We found what we were looking for,” she answered. “However, the gene proteins remain inert.”

            “As anticipated,” he replied. “Our concoction shouldn’t have worn off just yet.”

            “Curious, though,” she mused, looking around. “I’d expected Castle before now.” He shook his head.

            “They’ll be here soon,” he said, surveying the street. “But you said we found what we were looking for. He made it through a portal, then?”

            “Yes. But as you recall, I was a bit distracted. Giving birth does that. It seems the child grew up in the Control Line, though, so it will take them a while to determine any irregularities.” She seemed about to say more, but the man held his hand up and sniffed the air. His grey eyes’ pupils suddenly thinned out, looking almost like cat eyes.

            “They’re here,” he whispered. “Six of them.”

            “How many of us are there?” She asked.

            “Four,” he said. “Brock and Kara came along, but they have orders to merely buy time.”

            “They won’t this time,” she told him. “There are Eon Rangers coming through the time stream now. We should go.” The man nodded and closed his eyes for several moments.

            “All right, they know,” he said. “They’ll get out of here.”

            “Have you given the call yet?” She asked.

            “No,” he replied. “But this is escalating. If Castle finds out about Stopwatch, or Echelon finds out about us, we’re done. Should I do it now?”

            “I believe so,” she answered. “It would give us a tactical advantage.”

            “It could compromise our sleeper, though,” he told her, stepping into the whirling vortex. “Is that really wise?”

            “How could it compromise him?” She asked. “He has no idea. And that will drive him straight to us. Where he belongs.”

            “Don’t you feel any compunction about manipulating him?” He asked. She stepped into the portal as well and closed it behind her.

            “Of course I do. We shouldn’t have to, and the people that made me do it are going to pay. No one makes us turn our backs on our son and gets away with it. Nobody.”