Chapter 4

August 19th, 10:45 am

--LAUREL--

Laurel sat on the back porch of her house, sitting on the edge in between a gap of the railings that she had carved out for herself. The deck was a reddish-brown wood, perfectly smoothed out with no imperfections. No cracks, no splinters. She idly swung her feet forward and backward as she sipped freshly brewed coffee. In front of her is a scene of incredible detail. A monstrous forest spanned out, with a wall of trees on both sides that created a natural hallway. Farther out was a vast prairie landscape; zebras and buffalo galloped freely underneath the magnificent warmth of the sun. Flocks of birds glided along the perfectly blue sky. Directly beneath her was a roaring waterfall that dropped off hundreds of feet down into a river, which flowed through the bottom of the jungle hallway and into a reservoir in the plains. The sound of the waterfall was tempered, reduced to a quiet ambience of moving water.

Laurel took another sip from her mug as she leaned back, letting her head rest against the air behind her. Her brown hair flowed just below her shoulders, lying over the soft, navy blue sweater she wore She took another moment to appreciate the landscape in front of her; breathing in to capture as much of the pure air as she could.

Laurel then gently brought her right hand up, softly opened her palm, followed by flicking her index and middle finger straight up. Suddenly, in a midst of swirling pink and blue streaky colors, the beautiful landscape before he vanished with the sound of a sharp burst of wind. The wonderful sounds of a waterfall and wildlife gone. The spectacular scene faded to reveal a small backyard with a few oak trees. Her porch now only rested a few feet above the ground. She stood up from her spot and walked back into her home, the gap in the railing repairing itself behind her as she left it.

Laurel stepped through the soft silk curtains that hung above the open frame and into the expanse of her home. She had kept it modest at the moment; she hadn't had any company over for some time. The interior of the home was warm brown wood, with a concave pyramid ceiling that had vines sprawling between logs of wood that formed the façade. Lanterns hung on the corners of the space.

In the center of the room was a square recession in the floor with, which matched the dimensions of the base of the ceiling design above it. Two steps surrounded the whole square on the floor, which led down to a mound of cushions and blankets. All this faced a massive screen against the left wall, floating just in front of a pillar of bricks which formed the chimney to the fireplace below it.

All this was how Laurel chose to keep her home, but at any moment she could change it all, warping and shaping her home magically with the flick of a finger.

Laurel gingerly walked toward the kitchen, placing her empty mug into the sink in the island. Straight ahead of her, across the open interior was the floating screen on the other side. She picked up her hand, pointing her fingers at the screen. Laurel stretched out her fingers and pushed them outwards, opening her palm. The screen expanded to her motions, now enlarged enough for her to see from where she stood.

"It should be around her somewhere. It's not really a place that's meant to be found."

Just before she activated the screen, Laurel could hear a voice just outside the house. She crept to her right approaching the window on the front wall of the home. From a distance, she pointed her finger at the curtain and flicked to the side. Laurel continued to tip-toe closer to the window, moving at an angle to reveal more of her front lawn. Her brown eyes scanned the outside of her home. It was surrounded by trees on all sides and a layer of bushes 6 feet high with only a small portion of grass in between them. Whoever was in the woods wasn't close enough to be seen yet.

"Last time I ever let you give directions." A second voice could be heard in the trees.

"I know where were going."

"Sure doesn't seem that way."

"I've been there before, it's somewhere in this area. She has a way of keeping it hidden."

"You've been here before? You dirty dog."

"Fuck off."

The two voices argued while the sounds of their feet crunching leaves and sticks became louder. Laurel stood at the window, listening closely. She waved her hand in front of her, making the glass disappear so she could hear better. The sound of the footsteps got louder, and eventually, Laurel could hear them going across the threshold of the tree line, on the verge of stepping into the open grass before her home. Laurel held out her hand, extending her arm out in front of her, holding it steady as she closed her eyes to concentrate on her hearing. The subtle sounds of wind and rustling trees were tuned out as she zeroed in on the footsteps.

For a split-second, the steps stopped. Immediately, Laurel clenched her fist, violently sprouting vines up from the Earth beneath the two intruders. She opened her eyes to see they were still behind the wall of bushes. She could hear the two of them struggling as they were wound up in vines.

Quickly, Laurel went out the front doors of her house, making her way down the wooden steps of her front porch. As she walked through the grass, a robotic voice could be heard:

"God damn it Leo, look what you got us into."

Leo? She thought to herself. And that voice...

With a little more urgency in her pace, she stood in front of the bush wall. With both of her hands facing outward, she spread them apart, causing the bushes and trees in front of her to part, revealing the intruders tangled up in the vines.

"Surprise," said a robot with a vine wrapped around his right foot, dangling him upside down. The other man next tied up across his whole torso, being held perfectly horizontal. His right arm: restricted against his body by the vines, but his hand held a weapon that was very familiar to Laurel. An axe with a large, black metal blade. Along the edge was silver, beveled carefully to be deadly sharp. Across the broad side of the axe head were engravings that glowed a faint gold. On the opposite side of the axe head was the counterweight, large, but still much smaller than the blade. The handle was about a yard long with a slight backwards curve from the blade front. It was made from polished brass, with two texturized rubber grips, one on the top half of the handle, the other on the bottom half.

"Leo? Tommy? What the hell are you guys doing here?" Laurel shouted at them.

"We absolutely just love nature and came out here to get manhandled by Poison Ivy herself. Isn't that right wilderness explorer?" Tommy said to Leo.

Leo grunted frustratingly in response.

Laurel caught herself grinning ear to ear. She was just happy to finally see her friends again. The two of them turned their heads to look back at Laurel standing there watching them.

"Are you gonna cut us down or what?" Leo asked.

"Oh! Yes sorry!" Laurel said frantically, raising her hands up high, then slowly bringing them down, sending the vines back down to Earth. The two men were gently laid onto the ground as the vines slithered away. They got up to their feet and dusted themselves off. Tommy, despite being metal, wore a black hoodie with brown cargo pants. He didn't need to wear clothes, but he knew that it made other people around him more comfortable, so he did. Leo wore a dark grey T-shirt that was just slightly oversized with black sweatpants. He held the bottom grip of his axe as its top hovered above the cover of dead leaves on the ground. They both stood there looking at Laurel.

"Hey!" Tommy said in a sarcastically cheerful tone.

"Oh, come here you two," Laurel walked towards them with her arms out wide. The three of them embraced each other, locking arms around one another's back in a big group hug. "Let's get you guys out of the woods, yeah?"

"Please," Leo said.

Laurel led the two of them up the stairs of her porch and through the front double doors inside. Leo and Tommy stood just past the doorway awkwardly as Laurel closed the door behind them. Leo gently set his axe down on the ground, leaning it against the wall. She scurried around in front of them, standing up on her toes and holding her arms out wide with a teethy grin. "You like it?" she asked them.

"It's nice," The two said in unison while subtly nodded their heads. "Looks like you've done some redecorating since I last saw it," Leo mentioned.

"Oh yeah, I always get tired of it every so often. So, what brings you guys here?" she said to them, leading them towards the island in the kitchen.

"Well, we were hoping you might have some answers for us," Leo said. Him and Tommy took a seat on two barstools on one side of the island and Laurel made her way to the opposite side, standing with both her hands planting on the marble surface for support.

"And what may be your questions?" she replied.

"It seems like you don't know yet," Tommy said.

"Know what?"

Leo and Tommy shared a glance at each other, then looked back at Laurel. She responded to them with a confused glance, furrowing her eyebrows. She flicked her finger at the screen across the room, striking it with light. It immediately lit up and displayed the national news channel. On the screen it read: President Regis dead after explosion at ceremony in Chicago.

Laurel's mouth hung open in surprise as she read the headline. "Can't say I feel sorry," she commented.

"Yeah, you're not alone on that," Leo said. "On top of that, Tommy and I were there." Laurel turned her gaze Leo after he said that. "We saw the whole thing."

"So, what happened?" she asked.

"We don't know," Leo answered.

She struck him with a confused look before turning towards Tommy.

"All we got is something that just makes it more confusing," Tommy said.

"Hit me," Laurel said.

Tommy's glowing, blue LED eyes dimmed for a moment, before re-lighting and casting a holoprojection before her. It played a recording of his eyesight from the night before, in full detail. On the tape, Laurel could see the whole scene: the ballroom, the tables of people, the stage with Regis front and center. Suddenly, the recording stopped. It zoomed in behind Regis to a layer of curtains that hung at the back of the stage. The image was then overlayed with an x-ray scan, revealing the front grille and tires of a truck, just as it rammed into the brick of the building behind the stage.

Stolen novel; please report.

Laurel looked back up at the screen across the room to see a helicopter view of a building, with black smoke spewing out from high above the ground. But Tommy's recording showed a truck breaching the back wall.

"What floor was this on?" she asked.

"Tenth," Tommy answered.

"Only thing this proves to us is that there was intent behind this explosion. No accident," Leo chimed in.

"But what I don't understand is why a truck?" Laurel questioned.

"Gas tank for extra fuel to the bomb. Metal frame to become shrapnel. Couple of factors at play," Tommy explained. "And it also lends into our culprit. Someone of "regular human capabilities" couldn't have done this," Tommy said, making air quotes with his fingers.

"So, you think there might have been some magic manipulation at play?" Laurel asked.

"Exactly," Tommy confirmed.

"It also could be from strength. The truck might have been thrown up there," Leo interjected.

"Possibly, but there's a couple of reasons that lead me to believe that might not be the case," Tommy said. "If you look closely, the car is travelling upward," he said, pointing out to the projection. "That means if it was thrown, the assassin is standing on the ground. Can't see how he wouldn't have been seen."

"It does make sense to move it from a distance. Keep yourself hidden," Laurel said.

"Also, I only caught it for 6 frames. Leo, you remember what my optics FPS is?" Tommy asked.

"2000."

"Correct. That means I only caught 3 thousandths of a second of it."

"Not even I could fling something that fast," Laurel confessed.

"I was worried you might say something like that," Tommy said.

"Well, if I may, to me this has Rayshe written all over it."

"He's suspect number one," Leo agreed. "He's also one of one,"

"You know for sure it was him?" Laurel asked.

"Rayshe checks off the motivation criteria. Assassinate Regis, move into President,

"And he checks off the super-enabled criteria," Tommy adds.

"I still don't see the motivation though," Laurel said. "I get he wants power, but why assassinate Regis and put himself under the searchlight? Why not just wait to run for president?"

"We think we know why," Leo responds. "Just before the explosion, Regis said in his speech that he planned a meeting with an alien colony for the first time. He had been talking about trying to do this for years, we heard all about it when he fought for him during the war."

"Really?" Laurel asks. "I thought no-one wanted anything to do with us Terrans."

"Which is probably still true," Tommy joins in, "But once they get here and see the shit-show that is Earth, no way they plan on being best pals with us. Plus, Rayshe never agreed with Regis on that. He knew they'd never help us, no matter the diplomacy involved. He'd rather conquer the planet, turn it into "Earth 2" as Leo called it."

"We think that Rayshe plans to take over their planet. "Save our planet" by massacring another," Leo said.

"It sounds like you guys got this all figured out already," Laurel compliments suspiciously. The two of them awkwardly nod their heads slowly.

"So, why did you really come here?"

The light from the projection warps back into Tommy's eyes as he stops casting the recording. Leo glances over at him and then back to Laurel. Tommy does the same. The three of them share an uncomfortable silence, neither Leo nor Tommy had the courage to pop the question.

"Leo, this is all you buddy," Tommy finally said.

Leo let out a frustrated sigh and prepared his response: "Look, we're on the cusp of something bad going down. There's a civil war about to break out on this planet, and billions unsuspecting on another. We're not going to be able to sit this one out." he says. "This will be it. No way out this time. Rayshe wouldn't leave people like us around if we didn't align with him." Leo said solemnly. Laurel carefully listened to him.

"To answer your question, we're here because... we want you to help us," he finally said.

"Yes," she agreed unsuspectingly fast. Leo seemed taken aback initially.

"Really?" he said.

"Yes," she said once again.

A smile crept onto Leo's face as he finally relaxed his shoulders that had been flexed the whole time. Laurel couldn't help but smile back at him as they shared eye contact.

Tommy smacked the island countertop with both of his hands. "Look at us, huh?" he said. "We got our own little dream team going here." Laurel finally broke eye contact with Leo to look over at Tommy.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said, whilst giggling.

"We already got a buddy of ours, Frank, on board. You haven't met him, but you'll like him. He's like the dude from the Green Mile." Tommy said.

"What about Boone?" Leo asked.

"He's last up on this list. I'll give him a ring right now, see if he's still around," Tommy said.

He stood up and walked himself out the front door to make the phone call, leaving Leo and Laurel alone in the kitchen. The two of them watched Tommy walk away, and as the door shut behind him, they turned in unison to look at each other again. The longer they looked at each other, the heavier the silence became.

"Hey..." Leo said to her. Laurel didn't answer, rather she responded with a smile from the corner of her lips.

"So... how have things been?" he asked, his eyes nervously looking away.

She chose not to answer again, instead she started to walk towards the back door of the house.

"Follow me," she said.

Leo obliged and followed behind her out to the back patio. Beyond the deck were the three oak trees that surrounded the grass lawn, followed by the bush wall and the forest expanse behind it. Laurel walked to the wooden railing, looking out over the backyard. She raised her right hand in the air, flicking her index and middle finger straight up like she did before. The scene in front of them became streaky and distorted as the illusion took hold. Within seconds, the beautiful oasis of nature that Laurel spent her morning watching had reappeared. Leo's head panned across the display of art that appeared.

"You always were good at that," he said.

"I've been working on it for a while now. Do you like it?" she asked.

"Do you like it?" he said as he joined her at the railing. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the wood beam.

"For now, I'll probably rearrange it all next week," she said, copying Leo by putting her forearms on the beam as well. She turned her head to the left, looking at Leo as he observed her masterpiece. "How've you been?"

"I asked first," he rebutted. Leo slowly turned his head around to look at her.

"I've been alright," she said. "It's pretty quiet out here but I like that. Sometimes it does get lonely."

"I'm not too busy nowadays, you could always give me a call," Leo offered.

"You haven't been working?" she asked.

"No. Not for the past year," Leo said as he turned his head to look back out over the patio.

"If I had known that then I would've called you," Laurel said. “But you know the phone goes two ways, right?”

“I know,” he said. “Sorry.”

"I get tired of talking to the tree out in the front lawn."

"I'll try to be better company than the tree but that's a lot to live up to." Leo joked.

"As long as I know you're trying," she said.

"Have you been out recently?" he asked. "I know you like your privacy."

"No, but I have been thinking about it. I haven't had some outside food in a while. I do 'create' whatever I want here, but it just doesn't feel the same," she said.

"Well maybe we can make that happen," Leo said. Laurel's ears turned hot, and her cheeks flushed. She subtly glanced up at Leo, he still faced forward; the wind rustling his hair.

"So, where are you at now, since you haven't been working?" she asked.

"Buffalo. Tommy's not too far, in Massachusetts. After the war, Regis set us up, housing and all. He told us, "I don't want you guys to worry about another thing ever again."

“Do you like it over there?”

“I do,” Leo said. “I’ve found that I like the cold.”

“Me too,” she agreed. “That’s partly why I decided to live here in Michigan. And that I’ve become a Michigan State fan as well.”

“One of your sports teams?”

“It’s a school actually,” she clarified. “But they play sports, yes. I really oughta take you to a game. I think you’d like it. Tommy would for sure like it.”

“You’d indoctrinate me into your fanbase?” Leo quipped.

“No,” she scoffed. “I’d show you schools. Let you see what they’re about, and then you pick your favorite. But you better pick the right one,” she joked.

“Sounds like a plan,” Leo smiled.

“See, there we go,” Laurel said happily. “Two dates already. You take me to dinner, and I take you to a football game. Deal?” she held out her hand to solidify their agreement.

“Deal,” Leo accepted, shaking her hand.

Laurel turned, leaning her right elbow against the wood. Leo looked over, the wind blowing his hair over his forehead. She reached up gently, brushing it back into place.

"How do you feel about that? The war, that is. And... you know, what happened," she asked. Leo didn't respond at first, which made Laurel worry that it was wrong to ask that question.

"I didn't mean to pry if this is sensitive to you. You don't have to answer, I’m just curious," she apologized.

"It's ok," he said. "How do I feel about it? Horrible. You put everything you have, fight for so long for what you think is right, only to find out in the end... we're the bad guys in this story."

"That's not fair to say about yourself," she assured. "You couldn't have known what would end up happening, and no one blames you for it."

"I get that, but to think that Regis launched those nukes because we were losing... If I had been better, maybe all those people would still be alive. They didn't deserve that. They weren't my target. I thought that maybe if we removed the corrupt top, that maybe we could save the bottom," Leo vented to Laurel.

"I should've been there to help," she said.

"Is that why you agreed to help us now? Because if that's the case, I don't want you to be doing this because you feel guilty or obligated in some way. I want it to be because you really want to." he explained.

"I really want to, Leo," she stated while looking over at him. He slightly turned his head, looking at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment before turning away again.

"I appreciate that Laurel," he said.

"Of course," Laurel responded and resumed her nature watching.

"Why did you never reach out to me?" she asked. Leo looked at her confused. "After the war, you didn't come by."

"I dont know,” Leo said. "I had to deal with some things on my own."

Something about that answer didn't sit right with Laurel. He knows that it would've been fine with her to show up unexpectedly. The two of them were starting to grow close; to her it felt like their relationship was blossoming. The war began soon after, which put them on hold. She didn't blame him for that, obviously. He sent the occasional letter, even stopped by once or twice while he was in the states. But when the war ended, nothing. It was over for months before Leo just now showed up at her door with Tommy. She wanted to keep prying, find out what really was the reason. Even if it was selfish of her. She thought their bond was one that Leo would think of her if we were battling something internally, seek her out for support. On the other hand, there was never anything official between them, nor all that serious. It seemed like that's where it was going, however.

"I know that's not a good excuse," he said. "I guess I had just needed to process."

"I understand," Laurel replied. She did understand, but it still hooked on her consciousness a little. In an effort to not kill the mood, she put it out of her mind and went back to the bird watching. The door suddenly opened behind them. They turned around to see Tommy standing in the doorway.

“Just know,” she continued. “My doors always open for you. In the future. And I want you to come by.”

"When the fuck did all this get here?"

The two of them turned around, suddenly interrupted by Tommy’s loud interjection.

"It's not actually here, it's just an illusion," Laurel explained.

"That's cool. Anyways," Tommy said while walking over to them. "Good news, Boone's on board, and I have a plan. Today's Rayshe's first day in office, so he's gonna have a full debriefing about all the... president stuff. Which means, our buddy at the CIA is there."

"Roger Fuld?" Leo asked.

"Exactly, Roger. You remember what he was like; if there's anyone that we could get to start blabbing, it's him. We go tonight, so we should probably head out now. We got a couple of states to cross. Boone will meet us there."

"What about Frank?"

"Dunno. He told me he has a plan and didn't care to elaborate. He said he'd catch me up later, who knows how long that might be."

"You guys are leaving like, now, now? I haven't used any fighting spells in a while, I might be rusty," Laurel confessed.

"Don't worry about it," Tommy said. "We need to keep this low profile anyways, adding more people makes it harder to stay hidden. The three of us will be in and out." Leo and Tommy began walking towards the door.

"You sure you don't need anything else," she asked them.

"Just hold down the fort for us," Leo said. “We’ll meet back up with you after.”.