Summus Proelium

To be completely honest, some part of me had thought this time would never actually come. As long as it had taken to get everything we needed and put these machines together to pull off our plan, part of me had thought there would always be something standing in our way. I thought we would basically be like Sisyphus, pushing this boulder up the hill and always needing just one more part. It wasn't Wren’s fault, or anyone else’s. Everyone had put the stuff together as quickly as we could. It was just a dark, pessimistic part of me that thought there would always be more to do, more stopping us from going onto the next part of the plan.

Of course, we weren't exactly home free just yet. Finishing the machine was basically just the end of the first phase. Okay, more like the end of the second phase. The first one had been going to Utah to get the damn thing in the first place. But now it was ready and we were ready to go on to phase three. That was the one where we actually targeted Pittman and pulled him over. It was a short, but incredibly vital phase. If we pulled this off and managed to teleport him to us and secure him, then… then we could work on phase four, actually getting the information out of him.

Yeah, that was getting a little ahead of myself. But I couldn’t help but feel at least a little optimistic right then. We could do this. We could get that bastard away from all his people, shove him into our new machine, and drag answers out of his fucking head. One way or another, whatever it took, we were going to get the cure to help my parents, Irelyn, and all the others. We were finally going to fix this whole situation.

Obviously, I didn't waste any time in getting back to the shop. I took an immediate ride into the neighborhood and went in through the back alley. By the time I got inside, the others were all there, and Fred had just locked up the front and put on the closed sign before pulling down the metal shutters to block anyone’s view of the interior. We weren't going to take a chance on any interruptions. Not when we were this close.

“It’s done,” Wren announced, excitement and obvious trepidation in her voice as she bounced up and down, looking around at all of us almost maniacally. “I mean, it’s as done as we can make it. We just tested it a few times and it managed to grab these guys from clear across the city.” Her hand gestured toward Roald and Murphy. “But we can’t test it any further than that. And… and definitely not as far as it needs to be. I don’t know if it’ll hold together for more than one shot from that far away. He’s clear out in the ocean. We just have to try it and… and if it doesn’t work--”

“It’ll work,” I interrupted. “You guys put it all together, I believe in you.”

“Yeah!” That was Qwerty, piping up from his place on Peyton’s shoulder where he was munching on two pawfuls of popcorn. “We did good work! Now we’re gonna grab that jerk and get the cure out of him so Paige and Sierra’s sister and Cassidy’s parents can wake up!”

“Well she’s not really my sister,” Sierra started to put in with a visible grimace. “I never spent any time with her and I don’t look like Paige. She’s not gonna see me that way.”

“I doubt she’ll have any interest in being mine either,” Paige noted. “I was just purchased by her parents. And now that she ended up going through… all that, something tells me she’ll want to stay as far away from me as possible.” She paused briefly before giving a heavy sigh. “Whatever she wants. The point is, we need to help her. We need to help all of them.”

There was so much I wanted to say to both of them. But I wasn’t sure how to start, and we had too much to do anyway. So, I just cleared my throat. “We’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna get the cure and put a stop to this entire Sleeptalk situation. After that… well, we’ll go from there, whatever happens. Let’s just stick with one step at a time.”

Peyton was nodding. “Yeah. We can deal with all the family questions and who sees who as what once they’re all awake. Right now I just wanna cure this shit so the people in charge can open up the city again and we can all move on with our lives.”

There were assorted murmurs of agreement to that. Then it was time. Without saying anything else, we all turned to the stairs and started to make our way up to the workshop area. All of this still felt so surreal, even after that whole conversation we’d had downstairs. It was really, truly happening.

Unless some sort of meteor suddenly crashed onto the shop to interrupt us, but what were the odds of that--shut up, Cassidy.

Reaching the lab, I got my first glimpse of how everything looked now that it was put together. The big teleportation machine was in the center of the room, with five separate computer terminals around it. Well, I assumed they were computer terminals. Mostly they just looked like a bunch of cobbled together electrical components with a couple keyboards and a screen here and there. Wires led out of the machine, through all those consoles, and over to the virtual reality thing from back when we had gone into Paige’s mind, the one that looked like an MRI machine with chairs arranged all the way around it. Hanging from the ceiling in a circle all around that area were ten or so of what looked like fancy megaphones with other components strapped to them. In some cases, all these things were literally duct taped in place. Or secured with zip ties.

Then there was that special suit Wren had put together to force Ashton to lead us to the vials. It was standing up on a half-broken mannequin, with even more tubes and wires leading from that over to the virtual reality machine, and yet another makeshift console next to it.

They definitely hadn't spent any time making this thing look pretty. Because who cared what it looked like? All that mattered was that it was functional and would do the job we needed it to do. And if all four of them said it would, I believed them.

Paige was going over things one more time, explaining what was going to happen and what each part was responsible for. We all knew this already, of course, but I was pretty sure she was saying it because she felt like this could be real too. She was detailing every single part out of the fear, or certainty, or whatever that doing so would suddenly reveal that we had forgotten something incredibly important that still needed to be done.

But nope, once she was done going over everything, nothing had jumped out at any of us. Not even Qwerty, whose entire power revolved around being able to improve things. If it was something else we could've done to make this more likely to work, he would have spoken up. Well, I was sure there were other things we could’ve done with a lot more resources and time. But this was the best we had under the circumstances.

On the other side of the room, mostly out of sight behind the teleportation machine, was a vial with some of Paige’s hair and skin cells that would be used as the genetic template to lock onto our target once it was pointed at the right general area. A glass tube with an assortment of colored lights within led from that vial over to the top of the machine. It was making various beeping noises that I assumed were good because none of the technical people acted like anything was wrong. Or maybe they all just had really good poker faces.

Before going any further, the others changed into their costumes (well, Peyton just armored herself), and I pulled my mask and helmet back on. Whatever happened next, we couldn't let this bastard recognize us. If everything went the way it was supposed to, he would be going back to prison once this was over, and it felt like a bad idea to have him talking about Paintball being Cassidy Evans. Sure, he could also babble about how a couple members of my team were his own Biolems, but something told me people wouldn't take that too seriously under the circumstances.

“Cassidy, Peyton, Sierra, you ready?” Paige started once everyone was dressed, looking at the three of us who would be going into the virtual reality system with her. We were going to be the ones directing Pittman inside.

With a nod, I chorused along with the other two that we were set.

With that, Paige turned to Murphy, Roald, and Fred, asking if they were ready. They, in turn, held up very large, very dangerous-looking rifles. If this went wrong, if it looked like things were about to fall apart, they were to shoot Pittman. The guns weren’t lethal, of course. Much as he probably deserved that, we needed him alive. Instead, the ones Murphy and Roald had would completely immobilize the man, while Fred’s would instantaneously transport a whole bunch of sedatives into his body, enough to make sure he wouldn’t wake up for a long time. Enough for us to analyze exactly what went wrong and fix it, hopefully.

Then there was Qwerty. He was on the far side of the room away from everything, surrounded by a bulletproof shield of reinforced glass, with a red button in front of him. If absolutely everything went wrong and the others couldn't contain the guy, he would press that button. The whole shop would lock down at that point, and the building would be flooded with potent gas to knock everyone out. It would even work to shut down the motor functions of Biolems, in case Pittman had upgraded himself with that sort of tech. Even though we were basically positive he wasn’t fully Biolem, he could have done something to his body along those lines. The gas was from Paige, who had spent a very long time, years really, coming up with a way to immobilize or neutralize beings like herself, her father’s army. It hadn’t been ready in time for her birthday party and all that, but it was here now. I just hoped we wouldn’t need to use it.

Either way, yeah, the gas should work on everyone, whether they had Biolem enhancements or not. Everyone, that was, except for Qwerty himself. He had already been given the antidote, or whatever the right term was for something that rendered him immune for several hours. Once everyone was unconscious, he would set out to flush the gas from the building and wake us up with more of the antidote. All that would matter in that moment was making sure Pittman couldn’t go anywhere. Even if he somehow wasn’t knocked out by the gas, the shop would be completely locked down with no way out. And in that case, Qwerty was hooked into Wren’s fledgling emergency teleportation system. If he saw that the gas wasn’t stopping Pittman, he would speak a single word, and would immediately be teleported out of the building. As would the rest of us, so we wouldn’t be left in there with that psychopath.

Obviously we didn’t want to leave Pittman alone in Wren’s lab, so that was a worst case sort of scenario, only to be used if it was the only way to make sure he couldn’t get his hands on any of us. And in that case, Wren had rigged her most important weapons and tools to either teleport out if possible, or simply melt into goo. We wouldn’t leave that bastard anything to use before we could get back on our feet, regroup, and get back in there to contain him once more.

Even all of this put together wasn't a perfect plan, but we really didn't have time for perfect. Still, I could hear voices whispering in the back of my mind that we should call in help, that we should tell every other Star-Touched group in town about what we were doing and go to some even more secure place surrounded by a legion of armed soldiers. But we couldn't. Doing so would expose too much about everything. If they even let us try. Honestly, the truth was that they might just object to yoinking a prisoner off Breakwater instead of going through diplomatic channels. Hell, they would probably have a few issues with us having left the city to get the machine in the first place. To say nothing of them finding out about Paige and Sierra being Biolems.

No, as much as that would have made things easier in some ways, it would make them so much harder in many more. We had to do it this way, had to deal with this ourselves. So I pushed those thoughts out of my head. Now wasn't the time for doubt. This was happening here and now.

We all took our positions surrounding the virtual reality machine. We didn't sit down, not yet. If this went wrong right off the bat somehow, we all needed to be ready to put him down before he could do any damage. Only once he was safely locked in virtual reality would the four of us go in there with him.

Wren, standing by the main controls, took in an audible breath before letting it out. Her voice trembled a little. “Coordinates are locked in. The DNA scanner found a match close enough to be a dad.” Her hands clenched and unclenched briefly before she went on. “It's charged enough for one trip. But I don't think it'll survive the process. We only get one shot, then it'll probably take me weeks to put it back together. If I did something wrong, if it's not really him, if--”

“It’s okay, Wren,” I interrupted, giving her a thumbs up as I forcefully made my own doubts and insecurities shut up.. “It'll work. You've got this. We've got this.”

The others audibly agreed, and her figures began to dance across the controls. “Triggering the yoink in ten… nine…. eight…”

This was the moment of truth, the moment we have been working toward for so long now. Getting Pittman here was the only way to get the cure out of him. It was the only way to help my parents, Irelyn, and everyone else affected by Sleeptalk. It was the only way to stop the quarantine and open up the city once more.

“... three… two… one… yoink!” As she finished the countdown, Wren hit one final button. Immediately, the machine whined to life. It began to make loud humming noises and a plethora of beeps and chimes. I could feel the heat coming off of it, could see lights dancing across the thing and through the tubes. Oh, and it was shaking. It was like those videos I had seen of old washing machines that were overloaded, bouncing and shaking on the floor. It really did look like it would fly apart at any moment. But, a glance toward Wren revealed that she was still staring that way with crossed fingers rather than panicking. So I assumed this was working as well as it could so far.

It only got more dramatic from there, the whole machine steaming and rocking wildly as it seemed to be screaming in distress. Still, we stayed where we were and watched, tense and ready.

Abruptly, the machine stopped completely. It went silent and motionless, the lights going out. I felt an immediate sinking feeling that it was dead. But just as my mouth opened to try to weakly say something, there was one more loud bang. The machine fell apart, literally. Half a dozen pieces just collapsed on the floor and it sank in on one side as though something within had broken as well.

Yeah, it definitely wouldn't be used again for some time. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was the figure who had appeared right on the bench leading into the MRI-like tube of the VR machine. As soon as the bench felt the weight appear on it, half a dozen straps looped around him to keep the man trapped there. He reflexively jerked against it, but had no chance of actually escaping. We had tested it, and even Paige empowered by purple paint couldn't get out of those straps.

I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding as soon as I saw his face. It was him. It was Pittman. He looked basically just like he had when I met the virtual version of him, and maybe a bit older than the version from my childhood memory. This was the man responsible for the condition of my parents. He was the one who had treated Paige like an object to be sold and used for his revenge. He didn’t take my memory of our friendship away, that was on Kent Jackson and my parents. But he’d contributed by using Paige like a puppet. He was the one who had taken her freedom away, making her treat me like an enemy for so long. He was the one who tried to make her kill me.

The man’s head jerked up, mouth opening as he tried to say something upon seeing us surrounding him. Then he looked confused.

“You might notice you can’t talk,” Paige announced flatly, making his gaze jerk to her. His eyes widened with recognition at the voice. “Don’t worry about the details, but everything you say is just being transported… somewhere else. No voice for you. We don’t really need you to talk.”

“Yeah.” Sierra agreed, head tilting as she stared at the man with her face hidden behind the mask. “We don’t need to hear anything you’ve got to say, Pops.” I could see the way he reacted to her calling him that, clearly reeling with surprise as his mind raced to explain what could’ve happened. After all, he’d thought the Paige replacement AI had been destroyed or whatever.

“Oh,” I put in, though my own voice was disguised as Paintball, “and you might also notice that you’re not dead. That bomb in your head isn’t blowing up because we’re duplicating the signal they use on Breakwater to keep it turned off. Thanks for the details about what you were gonna need to keep yourself alive after you escaped, by the way. Super-useful right now.”

Paige made a grunting sound of agreement. “Speaking of super-useful, if you’re wondering why your auto-poisons aren’t already leaving us choking on the ground, your voice isn’t the only thing being transported away. Anything biological that comes off your body, be it sweat, something in your breath, your tears, saliva, anything at all, gets sent somewhere far away and safe. Nothing that comes out or off of you is sticking around to do any damage.”

She let him absorb that briefly before continuing. “What we’re actually interested in, is the cure for that shit you’ve spread around this place. So lay back, relax, and this’ll all be over soon.

“Then you can go right back into the deepest fucking hole we can find for you.”