*~[]

The room flashed with white and purple light.

"That was intense," Axel said through the helmet.

"Only speak when you are spoken to," the intercom said. "Is it planted?"

"Yes," Axel looked towards the window on the other side of the large room. A few men in suits stood still, and Stephanie Saunders was the only person who didn't dress up. "It's firm in the ground." Even after saying it, he had a hard time believing it.

One of the suits leaned over and pressed the intercom button. "Good."

It was a simple task—plant the American flag into the red ground of Mars. And don't move. They had sent him around Optimal for practice and training. Well, Stephanie did, per orders. Today Axel went far, becoming the second person to step foot on Mars.

"You can take the suit off now." the intercom said.

No one else was in the same room as Axel. Perhaps it was fear, or they didn't trust the radiation detectors installed. Regardless, Axel had to suit up himself, including the oxygen tank. It helped that it was a more modern suit than Connor's, as it was easier to put on and take off. He removed the helmet. "So this is what you and my bro were up to?"

Stephanie raised her eyes. He could feel her piercing sting through the slightly darkened thick glass.

"That building I saw, he put that together?"

Stephanie didn't change her posture as she pressed the intercom button. "Just do as you're told, and hopefully, Optimal isn't lying when they say you'll be out of here soon."

"I'm surprised he managed it. I can build a better one."

He got no response.

"Did he have weird dreams too? Did he cry for daddy?"

"Stop projecting," Stephanie said.

Wait a minute, he thought, that wasn't a lucky guess.

The Lucid Passage wasn't the same for everyone. Connor had Stephanie to guide him, but Axel had no idea what was going on. He was fishing with his father on the test trips he took, and his passage to Mars and back was no different. The suits around Stephanie broke his concentration as they began turning switches and removing Stephanie from the terminal. The Aeon Switch hoisted on a mantle next to her, behind a glass case, and it started floating, and electricity sparked out. Then the glass darkened, hiding everyone behind it from Axel's view. The switch and the stand would periodically spark bolts of electricity.

"Back in your room," one of the officers said. Axel went into the only door he could get through, which shut automatically behind him, locking him in until next time.

Axel sat down on his bed and thought about how Mr. Furyk had told him he'd have to be put to work for a while before getting paid. Something about how his younger brother could handle it, maybe he would too, and how he and his brother knew too much, and he'd have to gain his trust before being let go with the thirty million. Mr. Furyk never said what would happen to Connor or where he was.

***

There was never any warning or announcement, as Mr. Furyk does as he pleases. He never treated anyone as a guest except for Teresa and Stephanie, and Connor still hadn't gotten used to his sudden visits.

"You hanging in there?" Mr. Furyk asked. Connor wasn't. He hadn't slept since Joules died, barely said a word, much less made eye contact. Mr. Furyk paced around the room a little, waiting for a response. It was a decent makeshift room with a couch, TV, bed, personal bathroom, and shower. Connor did change into the clothes they gave him. Slacks with a matching button-down shirt weren't entirely his style, though.

He's thought about the teenager and what may be amiss. "Listen, Connor. When I went to college, I left my dog, my best friend, behind. I got him when I was ten years old and walked and played with him every day for eight years. While in college, I called home for my mom's birthday. When I asked how my dog was doing, she said they had put him down. They didn't bother to tell me, and they didn't think to tell me until I asked. That hurt like hell. I managed to keep it together, but only for a moment. On my way to class, I fell onto the grass and cried. In the end, I gave my dog the best life I could, and if he could do it all over again and be my dog again, knowing I wouldn't be there for him in the end, I know he'd do it in a heartbeat. No one forgets the love of a dog because it's real. It's genuine. It will get better. And you will go free when we can trust you."

"Don't lie to me," Connor said.

Mr. Furyk groaned but continued his pace around the room. "Listen, I'm trying to help you and this country. It's not an easy decision, but if she stays rogue, you stay here."

"Whatever."

"You can build a life here with people who chose to be here. Just remember, Teresa chose her freedom over coming back with you. Sometimes, you have to move on."

"Whatev—"

The room flashed a bright light as the ceiling blew off above them. The sun shone down, and Connor felt the heat on his skin, but it still wasn't enough to get him off the couch.

Mr. Furyk tapped his earpiece. "Where's Stephanie?" He instantly reacted to figure out what was going on as he tried to open the door. The power to his keycard no longer worked. There was no red or green light on the panel, either.

A shadow zipped by and stopped suddenly. Connor barely turned his head to look at Teresa as she floated down.

Mr. Furyk pulled out his gun and pointed it at Teresa. "Don't move, Connor. Teresa, this is unexpected."

She swung the Aeon Switch around her finger. "I figured it out."

"I meant your unexpected visit. You're always welcome here—"

Teresa bent her knee to get her foot behind her, and she tapped her heal. Pulling the gun via her anti-gravity suit. The gun landed solidly in her hand, and she pointed it at him. Without looking away at Mr. Furyk, she spoke to Connor. "Come on, get up."

"Cute. I didn't know your suit could do that." Mr. Furyk said.

"Connor," Teresa tapped her heal again. "Please."

He didn't sigh or show excitement, just slowly picked himself off the couch, like waking up from a nap. Teresa could see he wasn't doing well, having messy hair, a five o'clock shadow, and a slenderer face. At least his clothes looked clean.

"I thought you were lifeless," Mr. Furky said to Connor as he walked by.

"Whatever." He grabbed one of Mr. Furyk's badges.

Teresa was gentle with him as she grabbed his hand. "Step on my feet." He did so and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and they rose off the floor.

Teresa looked at Connor, expecting a sweet, shared reunion smile. Instead, Connor had a glazed-over look, not fixated on anything, despite the excitement of lifting into the air.

Mr. Furyk watched. This rebellious phase is getting on my nerves.

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She scoured the wreckage below. Almost like a toy building with the roof off, all floors and walls cluttered with office furniture, computers, and personnel scrambling. A thunk echoed behind them. The entire roof just fell from the sky and landed on the airstrip. Hundreds of officers were scattered, yelling on walkies and coordinating their efforts. Few noticed Teresa and Connor in the air.

She found what she was looking for—the stairwell by the elevator shaft. "About thirty floors down is where Stephanie will be. We also gotta find Axel."

"Can't we use the Aeon Switch?"

"No, because I think it's thirty floors, and I only have two charges left."

As they switched back and forth down the stairwell with red flashing lights on the stairs for vision, they weaved by unarmed, confused personnel. And eventually, they made it. Connor counted thirty floors. The last switch back on the stairs went much further down than the rest.

"Just don't talk about what you see down here. We get Stephanie and jump out. Just don't let go." The door to get in was more significant than the rest. She struggled to get it open. Connor waved the badge he took on the panel next to it, and it opened. "Thanks."

As they entered the corridor, it was not what Connor was expecting. The ceiling was high, with multiple floors, windows, and platforms cutting across it, not to mention the other marble hallways branching in varying directions.

Connor whistled, "Nice."

She ignored him, carefully placed herself in the middle of the wide hallway, and tapped her watch. The Aeon Switch illuminated, and the walls, for the most part, brightened to the vanishing point, the end of the thirtieth floor. And the walls disappeared in the light. It instantly went dark, and the emergency lights on the ceilings turned on. The exposed wiring sparked down the long corridor, and Optimal employees poured out of their respective rooms using their phones as lights.

She looked at Connor. "One more. We have to find her."

"I thought you hated Stephanie."

"Most of the time."

"So why help her then?"

She looked away from him. "Because you like her. No more talking. We've gotta hurry."

He stepped off her, and her body bobbed up and backed down from releasing his weight. "Think whatever you want."

The staff reached them but most kept their distance from Teresa and Connor, and as soon as they realized the elevator wasn't working, they began taking the stairs. Teresa nodded forward, and they began making their way against the crowd, hoping to see Stephanie before any Optimal officers came in.

"Do you know where she is?"

"No clue. She may not even be here, but it's my best guess." To Teresa, the corridors looked different in the dark. It was always lit, twenty-four hours a day, except for the living quarters, where she could turn the lights off to fall asleep. "We just gotta check every nook and cranny."

"What if she takes this chance to get out without us knowing?"

They turned a corner, and Teresa floated over a small group of people discussing what was happening while Connor had to weave through. Some recognized Teresa, but none were impressed with her flying.

"I didn't think of that. I doubt they'll have her near her Aeon Switch with easy access like last time."

They approached an all-too-familiar sight for Teresa. They went by a massive lab with windows from floor to ceiling, about twenty feet high, and the floating cube she used to experiment on with her anti-gravity tech was still in full effect. Still rotating in the same direction, she left it hovering above the ground at the same height. Connor glanced at the sight and even slowed down to take it in.

He pointed at the immense metal floating cube. "This your doing?"

"Yeah, it weighs about fifteen tons and hasn't moved in a year. Awesome, right?"

Connor nodded, amazed. It occurred to him what her tech could achieve. Beyond flight, but construction, even mining. And the duration—that cube hasn't gone anywhere in months. It could change all of architecture. Connor imagined a floating city above the ocean.

Though his enthusiasm stood behind his depression, Teresa could still see it in him.

"Wait a minute." Connor thought for a second. "That's a lot of energy to keep it floating for a year."

Teresa hovered left and right in front of Connor. "Energy is only required if there's a change of direction or speed. Remember when we met on the neutrino meteor? Once out of the atmosphere, I traveled about seven hundred miles an hour, but that's roughly forty minutes of power."

No way.

"I would fly around here faster, but carrying you would suck the energy out."

"You know, I never asked. What were you doing up there anyway?"

She tilted her head, and her hair moved slower than it should under the effect of her suit. "You probably didn't see the tank strapped to my back. I filled it with energy for antigravity, and I was going to set it up and send the meteor flying in another direction. But your bomb was there, so..." Teresa picked up her pace. "Anyways, come on," and they continued down a new corridor. This particular corridor didn't have all of the walls blown out. She didn't remember how far it went, so the last hundred feet looked normal, at least for a moment. She stopped midair as the wall at the end broke apart.

"That's gotta be her," Connor said.

She floated next to him, "Oh God."

"What?"

A leg came out of the crumbled wall, then an arm and a man stepped out into the hallway and spotted Teresa. "Did you cause this?" The man said. He seemed to walk through the air. The now destroyed wall and debris may not have been there in the first place.

Connor could tell he was an Optimal sympathizer. Whatever he was going to do, Connor would be ready, and then he caught a glimpse of something. A near-invisible light shone around his skin, even on his face and the tips of his fingers.

"Doctor Rodrigues, we're just here for Stephanie."

Rodrigues caught a glimpse of Teresa's Aeon Switch in one hand and the gun in the other, and he began speaking in another language. Teresa responded instantly in his native tongue, and the two argued like friends deciding what to do for a school project.

"Spanish?" Connor noticed Dr. Rodrigues got a little upset.

"Portuguese," Teresa corrected.

He spoke in a thick accent. "I'm glad you're home, Teresa. But this ends now."

She floated higher, "Run."

Connor followed her as best as he could while feeling lethargic like he had woken up from a long nap. Moping around for over a week without much movement took a small toll. They turned the corner, and she flew into a room.

As he caught up, he yelled, "Why are we running?"

"Look behind you."

The corner they just turned got destroyed as Rodrigues cautiously—he didn't want to walk into an Optimal researcher or officer—walked through it, destroying it in his path with no effort. The light shone across him and looked like car headlights through a window at night.

"He's an unstoppable object," Teresa pushed open a door, and they went down a narrow hallway.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, we've gotta lose him."

"Can you shoot him?"

"Yes, I can, but it won't hurt him. He's stronger than Superman in his suit."

They made a turn into what looked like a lab. Teresa signaled for him to get on her feet, and as he did, they floated higher and higher. He piled through the wall underneath them not a moment later and continued without changing speed. Teresa then dropped down, and they began heading back down the hall from where they had come.

"Jeez," Connor said. "Any more of these guys we gotta worry about?"

"Just the black hole engine guy."

"What?"

Teresa chuckled. It surprised Connor that she was still making jokes. "Don't worry," she said, "just tiny ones way out in space, and they only last for a second or two. He's trying to create a wormhole."

That blew Connor's mind yet again. Just what else was she aware of?

"And then there's the nuclear bomb the size of a peanut guy."

"Okay, I'm good," Connor said. "No more nightmare stuff."

As they returned to the main corridor, they checked another lab and then another, passing employees as they made their way out. Eventually, they made their way to the area meant for recreation, a gym, and a swimming pool. Both were empty. The emergency lights lit up the basketball rims and wooden floors just enough to show what it was. At this point, everything looked intact. The walls this far off the main corridor weren't sent flying into the sky from Teresa's Aeon Switch.

"Up ahead is the living quarters."

Doctor Rodrigues walked through a wall not far ahead of them. Teresa stopped midair, and Connor fell and slid backward on his hands. Connor began scrambling, spinning his arms backward and kicking back with his feet to escape Rodrigues.

Rodrigues approached Connor as if he was walking in a park. "There's nowhere to go."

Teresa fired her gun at him, the bullets bounced off of him like rubber, and he didn't flinch. He didn't even look her way—he figured her shooting was just a message that they were serious about not staying. As he went to grab Connor, Teresa tossed the gun and tapped her watch. As soon as the Aeon Switch glowed, he stopped.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Dr. Rodrigues said.

Teresa lifted the Aeon Switch like a replacement gun. "We don't want to stay here."

"It's for the future of humanity, the future of this country."

She had to use a precious charge. "I'm not American," she tapped her watch, and Doctor Rodrigues was sent away along with a good chunk of the surrounding walls and the ceiling above them. Dirt and random pieces of construction tumbled over. Zero.

"Welp, it just got interesting," Teresa said.

"What?"

"Almost out of juice. We're stuck here until I power this up more."

It got quiet, and Connor could catch his breath and composure. "Thanks for the save. But how are you going to power the switch?"

In the silence around one of the holes in the walls, a hollow echo resonated out of the room. And then another, and they saw a foot stepped into the corridor.

"Hey, bro," and Axel ran straight for Teresa.