Rayna’s smartphone chimed.
The early warning system her brother had set up was useful.
She kept her Threnosh-made armor in the master bedroom, so she had to race up the stairs. Clothes came off, undersuit onesie went on in less than thirty seconds.
The armor opened as she approached, allowing her to step into it.
The HUD lit up as the system awakened.
Aside from the faint hum coming from the power sources and the hiss as it sealed, the armor was as eerily quiet as it had always been.
She levitated off the floor on her own power and floated herself down the stairs and out of the house.
The armor had a direct link to the satellites, bypassing the Omninet.
“Show alert.”
A live image projected on her faceplate showed something giving off a great deal of energy flying toward SoCal from the southwest.
The system gave her pertinent information, like projected flight path and current speed.
“Send message to ranger command. This is Rayna. I’m investigating the potential threat.”
“Hello, favorite sister,” Cal’s voice came in crystal clear over the comms. “I see that you’re already on your way. I’m ready to back you up.”
“Thanks. I thought you’d be too busy today.”
“Not for emergencies. Besides, I’m only entertaining the kids and interrogating a spy. Plenty of brain bandwidth remaining to go do a bunch of other things.”
“Entertaining? Is that your new word for child abuse?”
“Hey, they wanted it and their parents or guardians signed off on it.”
“You know that Ranger Command almost squashed the whole idea?”
“I may have heard that.”
“So, I’m going to have to tell them that their infosec needs improvement… again…”
“Listen, if they can stop me from getting my brain on super secret stuff, then they can probably stop anyone. I’m helping them train and improve.”
“No arguments from me on that account.”
“You know that if you had weighed in then the vote wouldn’t have been so close.”
“I’m retired from official ranger business. I merely consult when necessary.”
“Hmm… anomalous energy signature just sped up.”
Rayna sighed.
“Tracking’s changed too. How accurate is this?”
“Pretty accurate.”
“Specifics, please.”
“Well, you’ve got the readings.”
“Yeah, but how accurate are they?”
“I’m literally looking at the same information you’ve got in your HUD.”
“Right, yeah, I get that, but what I’m trying to get is how accurate are they?”
“Are you doing a thing, right now?”
“I’m being serious.”
“The accuracy is what the readings say,” her brother sighed. “Anyways, it probably doesn’t matter. An energy entity is right up your alley.”
“I’m leading it away.”
The master of gravity soared toward the highest reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.
“Yup, looks like it’s definitely focused on you. Picking up speed too.”
“How accurate—” she laughed. “Sorry, being serious now. Please monitor my situation and feel free to jump in. Unlike other people I’m not about that stupid lone wolf crap.”
“That seems a little pointed.”
“Well, if it does then I’d say it’s a you problem.”
“Mean, but you are the favorite, so you get more leeway. Going radio silent so as not to distract you. Good luck!”
The anomalous energy thing increased its speed as it went from a few hundred meters above the Pacific’s surface to a few thousand in a few seconds.
Rayna figured there weren’t any more doubts about it.
The thing was headed for her.
That being said, the accuracy rating of its projected track was probably too low.
She extended the gravity field around her by a few hundred meters. Then placed a second, smaller one on the projected path.
The energy thing appeared as a swirl of two to three colors in her HUD. Shades going from yellow to orange to red.
That meant it was generating heat.
“Give me visual, only in a small screen at the bottom left corner, please.”
The armor’s intuitive system gave her what she had pictured in her mind.
A small window with nothing in it.
Invisible to the human eye, but not to her helmet, nor her ability to feel the presence of things interacting within Earth’s gravity field.
The thing put on a burst of speed that might’ve caught her off guard had she not prepared the gravity field in its path.
It hit the field.
She increased the pull, trapping it inside an invisible sphere about twenty meters in diameter.
The energy thing flared in her HUD while remaining invisible in the smaller window.
“Scan and record.”
She switched to her helmet’s built in speaker with a cybernetic thought.
“Can you understand me?”
One couldn’t assume everything was a monster out to kill people or an outworld invader out to kill people. Not all outworld invaders had been out to kill people.
She didn’t want to kill a peaceful sapient out of ignorance and fear.
The energy thing roiled in the cage of her gravity field, but didn’t respond in any way that she recognized as sapient.
What her brother needed to do was to get the Threnosh to design and build a sapience detector.
It obviously had mass, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to contain it.
The HUD readings weren’t particularly helpful with telling her exactly how much mass it had.
“If you can understand me, please stop moving?”
Nothing.
Well… there was one foolproof way to find out if it was sapient.
She just wanted to save it as a last resort on account of what it’d cost her.
“I need your help,” she said into the comms.
“Anything,” her brother said.
“Please do you thing and tell me if its alive.”
“Brace yourself. In… three… two…”
The world’s worst ice cream headache struck her like a brick to the back, front, sides, top and bottom of her brain as her brother used it to reach the energy thing.
A snap of a finger later and the intense pain vanished to be replaced by a throbbing one.
She had barely felt her brother’s psychic presence.
“Good news. Its a monster, not a person. It wants, well, wanted to suck the energy in you… out of you. You know, the source of your power. That’s how it grows. Now it just wants to get away.”
She grimaced.
The throbbing headache would linger for a day or two.
“So, what I’m hearing is that my, um, inner energy is of superior quality to your own?”
“That’s not anywhere in what I said.”
“Yes. That’s what’s called reading between the lines. Implicit rather than explicit. If I wanted to be explicit I’d say that it’s obvious that my inner energy is superior to yours because this,” she gestured toward the energy thing trapped in her gravity field, “connoisseur of energy went straight for me instead of you.”
“Or it could have a type?”
“Yes. I agree. It definitely seeks out superiority.”
“Okay, well, take all the readings before you get rid of it. I’m so so so sorry about the headache. Doubly sorry because pills and magic won’t do anything to help. Bye, favorite sister!”
“Low blow, jerk.”
It appeared that her brother got the last laugh if victory or defeat was measured by the amount of throbbing in her head.
She pulled a multi-purpose scanner from its hidden compartment near the small of her back and set to scanning.
Honestly, it was easy.
She just had to turn it on and point it at the energy thing.
It took care of the rest.
“Scanning done. Also scanned with the helmet.”
All that remained was to get rid of it.
She considered a miniature black hole. Just a little, quick one. This far from the surface meant that it’d be mostly safe. No real chance of accidentally sucking in buildings or people.
The headache was a problem though.
It was making it harder to concentrate and that was just asking for a black hole that got out of her control.
One needed both finesse and power to keep it safe for the surrounding environment.
On the other hand, she wasn’t too far from outer space.
A call came in through the comms.
It was her other brother.
“Hey, Rayna? Um… you good?” Eron said.
“Yeah, just taking care of an energy-based monster thing.”
“Oh, so that’s what that was. I got the alert thing, but then saw that you were taking care of it. But then I happened to be flying in the area and I saw you. Can you see me? I’m waving?”
“Where? I don’t see you. How far away are you?” she looked around and saw nothing even with her helmet’s visual enhancements.
“I don’t know. Hard to judge this high up without stuff in the background for reference. I was in Australia taking care of a thing and I went into space at, like, a forty-five degree angle toward the Pacific. So, you good? Cause there’s, like, a thing…”
“I’m fine. Just deciding what to do with this thing.”
“Throwing it into space is always good. Unless it can propel itself in a vacuum, which if it’s energy then that seems likely. Er… sorry, got to go. Be careful.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Yeah, thanks, you too.”
A second call popped up.
“Hey, Rayna. Is everything cool? I felt some weird stuff in the magnetic field.” Remy said.
And that made it all her brothers.
She gave him a quick recap.
“Oh, yeah, I saw that alert thing. I really should get involved with this stuff, huh? I’ve been back almost a year and I’ve been mostly on vacation this whole time.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Take however long you need. I mean, you had like no day’s off in, like, fifteen years.”
“Yeah, but it might be time.” He sighed. “Do you want some help? If you give me your coordinates—”
“No. Thanks, but I’ve got it. Just going to maybe throw an energy monster into space or suck it into a black hole.”
“Oh, that’s what I felt? Makes sense… wait? Did you say ‘black hole’?”
“Yeah.”
“Since when could you do that?”
“I don’t know, like, five-six years ago maybe.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You didn’t ask and I don’t like to brag. Also, I figure its better that I’m not telling everyone out there what I can or can’t do. Keeps bad guys guessing.”
“But… I tell you what I can do. I even sent you detailed information from when I was off world.”
“Much appreciated. It’ll come in handy if you ever turn evil and have to be defeated.”
“I really should get back to progressing.” He sighed again. “Okay, I’ll stop bugging you. Take care and let me know if you need help. Laters.”
“Bye second brother. Stay on vacation as long as you want.”
Yet another call chimed in her helmet.
“Hey, Fed. Just taking care of an energy monster.”
“So that’s what the alert was about. From your unbothered tone, I’m guessing things are going good?”
“Yeah, just about to get rid of it. What’s up?”
“I’m planning on picking up dinner. Do you want anything specific?”
“Nope. I’m good with whatever you pick. Unless there’s a food out there that removes headaches.”
“Um… yeah… there’s all sorts of things like that. Magical cooking. Skill-created food. Wait? You have a headache? You never get headaches. We’ve been together for almost five years and I don’t remember one time.”
“It’s a weird powers thing. Don’t worry about it.”
“If you say so. Alright, I’ll try to get some anti-headache food. The best stuff doesn’t last long before they run out for the day.”
“Thanks, Fed. I’ll see you when I get home. Love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Prepare for space flight,” she commanded her armor.
It sealed completely, pressurizing and switching to it internal oxygen supply. It didn’t have much fresh oxygen stored, relying more on a recycling system that turned her carbon dioxide into oxygen.
Strictly speaking she didn’t actually need the suit to fly into space when she could use her gravity field to carry oxygen and protect her superhuman body from the rigors of a vacuum.
However, her powers required conscious control and any number of things had the potential to disrupt that.
Sure, she could hold her breath and survive in the void much longer than any normal human, but why even take the risk?
The energy monster struggled inside her gravity cage as she towed it past the Earth’s atmosphere and into the cold, uncaring void.
An involuntary shiver traveled up her back.
Cal and Eron were weird for not being creeped out by the dark immensity of it all.
It was like that abyss gazing thing she remembered reading somewhere.
“Sorry, monster.” She hurled it into the void.
Freed from her cage, it struggled against the momentum of her throw, slowing until finally stopping and heading back to her.
“Black hole it is then.”
Her headache rebelled against her will, but she remained gravity’s master.
An even darker void appeared in the path of the energy monster.
It vanished in an instant, sucked in quicker than she could blink.
She waited a moment before making the black hole vanish in turn.
“Stupid headache.” She grimaced as she headed home, “stupid brother… got to make him pay.”
Another call chimed in her helmet before she even got back into the atmosphere.
Cal was a stupid brother, but the satellites had crazy good reception among other more important capabilities.
“Just took care of the thing, Kayl.”
“Yup, we figured that’s what you were doing. Loving the tracking system. Are you in outer space right now?”
“Yeah, heading back.”
“Damn! That’s fucking awesome! I wouldn’t mind visiting it one day… hint, hint.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“C’mon…”
“I’ll take you or have my brother do it on the day after you retire.”
“Hey, guys! I’m retired!”
She heard laughter in the background.
“Just kidding, but I’ll hold you to that. So, sorry to interrupt, but you’re presence is requested tonight at a very important and very secret meeting thing.”
“Unlike you, I’m really retired.”
“Yeah, but this is one of those things you said you wanted to be in one. So, be at Ranger HQ at eleven tonight.”
“That’s late.”
“Says the person that only needs a few hours of sleep a week. Just be there. It’s about the future… maybe… in any case. I wouldn’t mind the extra security your presence would bring. Maybe, invite a brother or two.”
“That’s not ominous at all.”
“Yeah, it totally is. This is Ranger Colonel Kayl, signing off.”
Age hadn’t changed her friend at all.
Over thirty years and Kayl was the same.
----------------------------------------
“What’s with this format?” Rayna said as she tried not to wince at every throbbing spike from her headache.
Fed had picked up a very delicious anti-headache cronut for her.
Tasted great, completely ineffective.
“They’ve been coming to us all week with ‘dire prophecies’, but they wouldn’t say what exactly until they got a meeting with Commander Kayl and you,” Captain Butcher said.
They sat at a plastic table in plastic chairs that weren’t comfortable up on the raised dais of the largest lecture hall at Ranger HQ.
The stadium-style seats were actually full with the overflow of people spilling out to the aisles.
“That’s a fire hazard.”
“Followers or congregation members of the prophets. I’m waiting until it’s just about to start to kick them out. Meeting won’t start until they clear out. They refuse to leave and we’ve got an excuse to threaten cancellation. If they escalate then we get to kick everyone out except for the people with the actual prophecies.” Captain Butcher’s smile didn’t each her eyes.
“Just kick them out anyways. This is going to be a circus.”
A podium with a microphone had been set up near the center aisle.
She recognized a few of the so-called prophets seated in front row seats. A few had preached in their mosque, synagogue or church that she was an ‘immortal abomination’. She couldn’t remember which ones.
There were also a handful of independent ‘I see the future’-types. A few oracles, seers and fortune-tellers. She didn’t mind them because they didn’t go into that religion nonsense.
Seriously, it had been close to thirty years since the spires threw the human paradigm into a blender, shredding it and they were still preaching against the gays and each other.
Like, dudes, you’ve got one building and maybe a few hundred people still practicing your religion, maybe re-think how you go about things?
They flinched away from her gaze.
Captain Butcher cleared her throat.
“Maybe you should tell them to clear out.”
“Tempting, but they they’ll start preaching about my ‘immortal tyranny’ again.”
“Again? They never stopped.”
“You’d think after years of no traction they’d pivot to something else.”
“The old U.S. Government dropping by last year lit a fire under the Christian ones. They thought their good old days were coming back.”
“And yet less than a hundred actually took them up on the offer to relocate to the east coast.”
“I guess life here under the immortal abomination tyrant isn’t too bad.”
“I’m retired. Had a big, forced celebration and everything.” Rayna sighed.
Kayl glanced over and raised a brow.
Rayna shrugged.
Kayl nodded.
Captain Butcher went to the podium set at the left side of the dais.
“Fire hazard. Everyone not in chair, leave. Failure to comply by eleven,” she pointed to the clock on the wall, “will result in this meeting being canceled.”
Unhappy voices, some louder than others filled the lecture hall.
Captain Butcher deliberately turned her gaze to the clock.
Some of the prophets crossed their arms and glared. Some gestured for their followers to comply.
“And we are canceling in…” Captain Butcher traced the ticking of the red second hand.
That did it.
The extra people headed for the exits.
Kayl took Captain Butcher’s place at the podium.
“It’s late, which, I’ll remind you, was at you all’s request, so no complaining. No extra talk. No proselytizing. No taking shots at each other. No inciting your followers. No grandstanding. When it’s your turn, you give your prophecy and only reply to questions if asked. We aren’t here for your interpretations. If we require further input then we’ll ask you back. Right, so, according to the random draw, you get to go first.” She pointed to the Islamic prophet.
Some of the Christian ones opened their mouths on reflex, but showed the sense to shut them before a word escaped.
The prophet stepped up to the podium.
“Thank you for hearing my words.”
He was a well-built young man in a suit and tie whose scarred face and bent nose made him look more like one of the gladiators of the GCA than one of the robed imams that had accompanied him.
“I see it in my dreams.”
One of Kayl’s aides was at the whiteboard ready to take notes.
“Dreams,” the girl audibly muttered as she wrote.
“For weeks now. I stand in the street. Always the same place. In the middle of the intersection. The best donut shop is to my northwest.”
He gave the location and waited for the ranger at the whiteboard to write it down.
“Agree to disagree on that one,” Kayl chuckled. “Keep going. Don’t slow down on our account.”
He cleared his throat and nodded.
“I see a dark fire. Thick. Across the entire horizon. I look up and fail to see the top. Then it washes over everything. I wake up cold and sweating. The dream is the same every time I sleep.”
“Okay, thank you. Please sit down. You next.” Kayl pointed to one of the Christian prophets.
Rayna didn’t know which sect of Christianity the middle-aged man belonged to.
He also wore a suit and tie.
She didn’t know if the prophet had any official capacity in his particular sect. It was hard to tell who were pastors and what not, since they didn’t have official uniforms. Unlike in Catholicism, which, admittedly was the only religion she could claim some knowledge of.
“I’d like to start with a prayer—”
“No,” Kayl said flatly.
The prophet scowled and reddened, but he gave a stiff nod.
“And lo I foresaw—”
Kayl rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“This isn’t your sermon thing or whatever. We are on a strict schedule. None of the poetic shit. Quickly and succinctly. Like the guy that went before you. Do it like that.”
His face purpled.
“A dark tidal wave swallows all unbelievers!” He stomped back to his seat.
“You next,” Kayl pointed.
The Catholic prophet was a young woman in jeans and a hoodie. She had her parents with her in the front row along with a priest, judging by the all black attire with the little white square in his collar. Probably an uncle from the familial resembled.
She slouched over the podium with the attitude that this was all so stupid and she had better things to do.
Rayna immediately moved her up to the number one on her list of favorite future-tellers.
“Mine’s a dumb black cloud that eats everyone.” She rolled her eyes and immediately slouched back to her seat.
One by one the rest of the prophets took their turns.
A clear theme had emerged.
It all seemed pretty obvious to Rayna.
Some great threat, probably monsters, was going to go horde mode all over their faces.
The independent oracles, seers and fortune tellers went next with similar visions, dreams and nightmares.
“Okay, thanks. We’re done here for now. We’ll be in touch if we need more. And if you get new stuff then come back and tell us. Listen, if this,” Kayl gestured at whiteboard, “is remotely close to real then I don’t have to tell you how dangerous it could be for all of us. So, don’t be thinking that only the ‘unbelievers’ are gonna get fire washed away. Everyone is. Remember, nearly thirty years of history has proved that the spires and the monsters don’t care about what you believe. They’ll eat us all the same.”
They waited for the lecture hall to empty.
Kayl and the rest of ranger command were there along with the command officers that weren’t on duty elsewhere.
Rayna regarded the white board for a moment.
“So, what are our future see-ers saying?”
The rangers had their own small team of oracles and seers.
They were mostly for trying to predict potential big threats, like random wandering monster attacks.
The year since the Terminus announcement had given them quite a boost to their leveling speed on account of safe-ish encounter challenges suddenly turning into spawn zones. Or the latter spewing significantly greater monsters in terms of strength and numbers.
She supposed the future tellers had an excuse to be cranky.
Poor things probably hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a year.
“Pretty much the same,” Kayl sighed. “They’re consensus is pointing to something like an endless horde of… something… they can’t come to an agreement on what the ‘something’ might be.”
“Monsters. Invaders.”
“I think there’s a thin line between the two.”
“Agree to disagree.”
Rayna trusted her brother on this account.
Not all alien invaders should be considered that.
There were desperate refugees among the imperialist colonizers.
“They didn’t give time frames?” She shifted the focus to head off the argument.
“Ours are better. Higher leveled.” Kayl grinned smugly.
“Well?”
“Either our generation will face this or the next one will.”
“So, what that means is… anywhere from now to twenty-thirty years in the future?”
“That is in the ballpark.”
“I’m retired.”
“Yeah, we know, but you’re consulting right now so you can’t leave.”
Rayna sighed and remained in her chair.
“Why did you even hold this thing so late?”
“I was hoping some of them wouldn’t come or at least keep most of the older zealots at home. It’s past their bedtime.”
“That’s ageist and isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“I’m not that old… yet.”
“Alright, fine, I will remain to consult… for the next hour.”
Kayl waved her hand dismissively.
“Won’t take that long. This is just to get a quick outline of our response to yet another existential threat to our existence. No big deal, right?”
Ranger command laughed and went to work.