Chapter 86
Ashley took a deep breath to try to calm her nerves and excitement. Her moms had just called to say they were in town on an invite from The Council and wanted to meet her for a late lunch. They encouraged her to bring a friend. The thought depressed Ashley a bit. Since arriving at The Spire, she had been embroiled in a personal battle with Bailey and, therefore, hadn’t really made any super close connections. And then there was Bailey herself. Ash sighed and looked at her phone, thinking back on the generous invitation, and then walked to the kitchen where Bailey was preparing a salad.
“Put. The. Lettuce. Down.” Ashley jokingly ordered.
“Oh god! I'm sorry. Is it yours?” Bailey asked, freaked out that she had yet again pissed Ashley off right after they had just reconciled.
Ashley began to laugh. “Naw. It’s all good. I just didn’t want you filling up on greens. I wanted to invite you to lunch with my moms. They just called and are in town, and they said I could invite a friend to join us at some fancy restaurant at the top of The Spire. I was sort of hoping you would want to come.”
“Me?” Bailey was a little taken aback. She had had a fun time painting the town red with Ashley after the War Games were over, but since then, she wasn’t entirely sure where they stood. This was a positive development. “I’d love to. Let me throw on something appropriate, and we can head up.”
“Sounds good. Don’t take too long!”
As Bailey left to upgrade her look for the upscale outing, Connor came out of the men’s wing and saw Ashley waiting to leave.
“Hey Ash!” he called with his mild Irish lilt. “Just the hot blond I was hoping to run into.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Connor? I’m about to leave for lunch with Bails.”
“Cool. Cool.” he segued nonchalantly, trying to sound nonplussed. “Well, I just wanted to invite you both to my house tomorrow night. Since I may not make it much further on the show, I wanted to have everyone over for a nighttime pool party rager. Skinny dipping optional.”
Blowing past the innuendo, Ashley thought about it for a beat and answered, “Could be fun,” she winked. “I’ll run it by Bailey and let you know. What time is everything kicking off?”
“You know, seven or eight. We can all head over together, or I’ll just text you the address.”
“Thanks for the invite!” Ashley had just been dwelling on her lack of friends. This party would be quite the opportunity to remedy that situation. Hopefully, Bailey would be cool acting as her wingwoman.
Just then, Bailey rushed out of the women’s wing of the dormitory with a clutch between her teeth and pulling a cropped jacket over her left arm. She was stunning in her bright-colored sundress and sequined accessories. Ashley had a glancing thought about changing her own outfit so as to not be upstaged by the voice actor, but she was too excited to see her parents. “Let’s do this!”
***
“I’m so happy you could make lunch this late notice.” Tammy greeted her daughter at the table as Ashley and Bailey sat down. .
“Of course!” Ashley basically squealed in excitement. “I was so happy to get your call. I miss you both so so much.”
“And who’s your friend?” Christina asked with a big smile.
“Oh! I forgot! I mean, I assumed you had watched…”
“Hi, I’m Bailey,” Bailey cut Ashley’s excited rambling off to introduce herself.
“Nice to meet you, darling,” Tammy nodded.
“Thanks! Likewise.” Bailey answered. “Man, this place is nice!” she added as she fiddled with the menu card on the plate in front of her. It was a five-course prix fixe meal including high-end ingredients and meta-culinary techniques.
“Indeed.” Christina agreed. “I was told that this is the only restaurant in the world making food like this.”
“So who else is joining us?” Ashley asked her moms, looking over at an empty fifth chair and table setting.
“Yes, Indeed,” Tammy jumped in. “I’m curious as well.”
“It’s a special surprise. He will introduce himself when he arrives,” Christina answered with a huge grin.
Noticing tension building between the three Mills women, Bailey decided to change the subject. “So, how did you two lovely ladies meet?” she asked Ashley's very different moms. While Christina was blond, petite, and soft-spoken, Tammy was very tall and athletic, with brown curly hair and outwardly very brash. Both women, however, had identical responses to Bailey’s innocent inquiry. They looked at their daughter with somber guilt. For her part, Ashley’s eyes darted to the floor. “I’m sorry,” Bailey quickly reacted, “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, darling,” Christina said softly. “You have done nothing wrong. It’s just that that story is just as much Ashley’s as it is ours. And, I’m not sure if she is ready for the world to know.”
“Actually,” Ashley unexpectedly perked up a little. “I think it’s important that Bailey knows our past. She and I got off to a rocky start, but I’m like really really glad we are becoming friends now.”
Tammy placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Still… It’s not just Bailey that we’d be sharing this with.”
“Oh. I know.” Ashley giggled. “I’ve gotten used to living publicly at this point.”
Christina decided to start the story of how she and Tammy had met with a question aimed at Bailey. “So, have you ever heard of Herald’s Gate?”
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“You mean the cult?” Bailey incredulously asked. She couldn’t help the disdain that seeped into her response.
“Some call it that. Yes.” Christina tenderly nodded.
“And some would be correct,” Tammy added.
“Yes, well, anyway. Before I met Tammy, I was a member of Herald’s Gate. And Ashley grew up in their academy.”
Bailey looked over at the blond powerhouse. Ashley was once again staring at her plate, avoiding any and all eye contact. “Wow,” Bailey interjected. “That must have been int -eresting,” She stopped herself from saying “intense.” This was turning out to be quite the fraught subject, and it was going to take some conversational deftness to navigate the topic.
“Yeah. It really was.” Ashley didn’t look up. But Bailey could tell that this wasn’t nearly the extent of her feelings toward the matter.
Defending her choices, Christina started to opine on her reasons for joining the cult. “I always felt like the teachings of the group were powerful. Everyone can affect the world as the metas do, no matter if we have powers or not.”
Bailey had some sympathy for Christina. Even though she had always had powers, Bailey knew how lucky she was. The non-metas of this world were treated like lesser humans at best and like useless resource wasters at worst by the meta-run world. It was one of the reasons why Eclipse had become so popular. He targeted groups like Heaven’s Gate and shut them down when he rose to power. He believed that everyone had unique skills and contributions for the world. It was a viewpoint Bailey shared.
“Well, while Christina was raising young Ashley in the organization, I was working as a field agent with the FBI.” Tammy picked up the story from her point of view. “I had spent years looking into Heaven’s Gate. It always bothered me that the power base of the cult was made up of very powerful metas. That seemed at odds with their message. It would be like a billionaire espousing populism. Everything wreaked of grift or radicalization. We could never pinpoint the leader of the group, but we had found all of the academies and those that ran them and began putting in motion one coordinated strike on all of the compounds. We wanted to make sure that we got all of the children and innocent members out safely, all at once, before any of the satellites got word of the raid.”
“I think you can see where this is going?” Ashley rhetorically asked Bailey, who answered nonetheless.
“So, your mom saved you and your other mom from the cult?” she prompted.
“Precisely.” It was Tammy who confirmed the assumptions. “Although ‘saved’ is a little strong. By the time we made our way in and past the wall surrounding the compound, Christina, after having subdued the leader and armed to the teeth, had led all of the schoolchildren to a protected bunker. .”
“Noone lays a hand on my daughter and lives to speak of it.”
“Wait,” Bailey was putting the subtext together. “You took out a meta all on your own.”
“Several, actually,” Tammy smirked. It helped that the group had an unprotected and well-stocked armory that my lovely wife was able to use as a distraction to raid…”
“But, you’d be surprised what a mother can do to a group of narcissistic men when she has the proper motivation.”
“Amen to that!” Bailey cheered the group with a freshly poured glass of champagne. Just as Ashley was finally looking more comfortable with the discussion, a waiter came over to the table with four small plates of food.
“Excuse me, ladies,” he said, “Your fifth just called, and he is going to be unable to attend your lunch today. He has asked the chef to send over this little amuse-bouche as a small token of his apologies. Welcome to Metaisine, where all of our food is made using one-of-a-kind meta-techniques that neither science nor art is able to achieve. My name is Jacques, and I will be your server this afternoon. Now, which one of you requires the vegan preparation?”
Ashley raised her hand, “That’s me, I guess. Thanks.”
The waiter placed a plate with a small bite of food that looked like a green French macaron in front of Ashley, while the small sandwich bites that the rest of the table received were white in color. The small pre-appetizer looked delicious, and everyone but Tammy was eager to get the meal started. Instead, the former FBI agent looked on with suspicion.
“So, who was this mysterious man who stood us up?” she asked her wife with extreme side-eye.
Avoiding the question, Christina popped the bite of food into her mouth and began to chew. It did not taste how it looked. She expected a vanilla or coconut cookie. Instead, it was hot and smooth, like soup. Bursts of different vibrant fall flavors tickled her taste buds. Pumpkin and sage turned to a salty-sweet molasses-like flavor as she chewed. Her eyes widened, and she nodded in pleasure. “Wow. You gals need to try this. It’s incredible!”
Ashley and Bailey smiled at each other and popped their treats into their mouths. While Bailey was enjoying the same sensation that Christina had just experienced, Ashley’s amuse had a very different effect. The initial barrage of sage and pumpkin was similar, but before the sweet-tasting transformation occurred, her whole body started to shake as if the intensity of flavor had brought on a seizure. Unfortunately, the shaking didn’t subside when she swallowed. Ashley, along with her plate and silverware, crashed to the floor, and the other three women screamed and jumped into action. Bailey and Christina quickly descended on Ashley as she seized, eyes open and distressed.
Tammy scanned the room “Who was it, Christina?! Is he here?”
“I don’t know,” Christina sobbed through tears that ran down her face.
“You are the only one who knows your contact. Look, goddamn it? Is it him? Did you talk to her father?”
“Please, help her!” Christina helplessly pled with her wife.
Bailey got her hand behind Ashley’s head, making sure the force of the shaking didn’t end up concussing her friend. Ashley’s wide-open eyes began to change. Her pupils widened, and her gorgeous green irises started to get veiny. But the veins looked almost digital somehow, like the circuits on a motherboard. Then she noticed it. Ashley’s veins were popping through her skin and had the same green circuit board look about them. “Both of you shut up! Call The Show and have him get medical here NOW!”
“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?” Christina implored.
“Look!” Bailey forced Christina and Tammy to focus on the changes to their daughter’s appearance. “There is nothing normal doctors can do. This has to be some sort of meta reaction or meta virus or something. Just call The Show!” She tossed her phone over to Tammy. “The pin is 90210.”
Before Tammy could even unlock the phone, Ashley stopped shaking and inhaled. Bailey was the first to speak. “Don’t move, you just fainted. Take it easy.”
“Wha-?” Ashley looked around confusedly. “I’m empty. I can’t feel…” she stopped cold. Ashley reached out to the potted plants that were scattered around the restaurant, but her connection failed. “No.” She started to weep.
Bailey looked at her with pity and confusion. “Don’t worry, Ash, you are gonna be fine. You’ll be back to annoying the shit out of me in no time.”
“You don’t get it,” Ashley cried. “My powers. They’re gone.”
“It’s probably temporary.” Bailey forced a smile.
Christina kneeled next to her daughter and reached out to comfort her. Just as Ashley grabbed the outstretched hand, her mom’s wedding ring, gold bracelet, and watch all bloomed into beautiful white daisies.
“Wha-” Christina recoiled as all of the metal that came into contact with Ashley’s skin morphed into foliage.
Ashley freaked out and jumped up, grabbing the table. Her skin grazed a fork, turning it into a long-stem rose. “What’s happening to me?” she screamed.
Bailey shook her head. “I don’t know. But, we are gonna find out. I promise.”