Incendia then arched her back wildly, her face wincing in pain. She then spun around, with one hand reaching over her shoulder, as if trying to grab something in the middle of her back. As she turned, I noticed that another stream of water (or whatever it was) had struck her back and crystalized there as well.
“What’s that liquid striking her?” Gramps asked.
“A modified form of liquid nitrogen,” the colonel replied. “Chemically altered to be more concentrated and pernicious than the industrial grade. It freezes on contact, and there are spouts placed in hidden cubbies all around her cell that will smother Incendia with that stuff if the nullifier fails for some reason and she gets her powers back.”
As if to prove up what Dreiser was saying, it suddenly appeared as if someone had turned a firehose on Incendia, with jets of liquid hitting her and becoming frozen solid almost immediately. She dashed madly around the cell, trying to get away, but there was nowhere to run. (There was no audio, but from the way her mouth moved, I could tell she was screaming.) After about thirty seconds, she hunkered down in a corner with her back to the camera as she continued getting sprayed. Within a minute, she looked to be little more than a block of ice.
Dreiser tapped a key on the laptop, ending the video.
“In case you were wondering, Incendia survived,” he stated. “But just barely. She’ll spend the next few weeks being treated for severe hypothermia. Hopefully she’ll regain consciousness soon, and she’ll be lucky not to lose any fingers or toes.”
“She has our sympathies,” my grandfather said sincerely, “but what does this have to do with us?”
The colonel gave him a frank stare. “You’re kidding, right? Were we looking at the same video? Our facility got breached by a perp who’s a dead ringer for your grandson.”
“I saw a young man with a passing resemblance to Jim,” Gramps acknowledged. “But nothing definitive.”
“Really?” Dreiser droned sarcastically. “What about the part where he telekinetically disarmed a couple of my men, and then teleported them two miles away?”
Well, that explains what happened to the guards, I thought.
Gramps shrugged. “They were doing tricks like that with cameras forty years ago. These days, they’ve got apps that can make you look like a dog or turn you into the opposite sex. Making a couple of guys disappear on video is child’s play.”
“Come on, John,” Dreiser said, almost sounding exasperated. “This visit is off the record, so I’m not here in an official capacity. I’m here as a friend.”
Gramps stared at him for a moment, and then nodded. “Alright, off the record. So tell me, what do you have?”
“Just what I said,” the colonel answered. “Your grandson teleporting into a high-end facility last night, accosting two guards, and almost killing a prisoner.”
“That’s not Jim on that video,” Gramps firmly insisted.
Dreiser held up his hands defensively. “Look, John, I believe you, but let’s face facts. Your grandson is Kid Sensation. That info isn’t publicly known, but enough people at certain echelons are aware of it. And on the surface, we’ve got a guy displaying both telekinesis and teleportation – two of Kid Sensation’s well-documented abilities – not to mention the fact that he could be your grandson’s twin.”
My grandfather crossed his arms. “I get it. People above you on the totem pole think Jim’s a criminal now. Even if that were true, what can they do? Technically, he’s the Caelesian ambassador to Earth, which means he’s got diplomatic immunity. They can’t touch him.”
The colonel nodded. “True, but even if you can’t arrest a diplomat, you can always give them the boot – kick them out of the country. Or in this case, off the planet.”
“Make him leave Earth?” Gramps asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That would be one option,” Dreiser confirmed.
Gramps frowned. “Is there another?”
Dreiser made a vague gesture. “Being born on Earth, your grandson is considered to have dual citizenship, from a planetary perspective. He could voluntarily relinquish his Caelesian status.”
“Which would open him up to arrest and prosecution,” Gramps added. “So he can go to jail or leave the planet. It’s a bit of a catch-22.”
“Pretty much,” the colonel acknowledged. “Unless he can prove it wasn’t him.”
“Of course he can prove it wasn’t him!” Gramps declared. “He’s got an alibi.”
Colonel Dreiser’s eyebrows went up slightly in surprise. “Oh?”
“He was at a party last night,” Gramps said. “He was seen by hundreds of people.”
“John, your grandson’s a teleporter,” Dreiser stated flatly. “He could be here one second and on the dark side of the moon the next. Bearing that in mind, it doesn’t matter if a million people saw him at that party. He’s got no alibi for anything. Not now. Not ever.”
Chapter 30
Dreiser left shortly thereafter, with my grandfather walking him to the door. I stayed put, still trying to make sense of everything I’d seen and heard. In fact, I was replaying the video in my head when my grandfather came back into the room, albeit a few minutes later than expected.
“Permission to speak, sir?” I asked.
“Funny,” Gramps said sarcastically. “I didn’t want you talking because I didn’t want you to say anything that might inadvertently incriminate you.”
I acknowledged his comment with a nod. “So you took longer than necessary to show the colonel out. What were you two talking about?”
“I was getting a better lay of the land.”
“And?”
“Drake’s a friend, as you could probably tell. Since the facility that got breached is under his authority, I asked him to do what he could to help us.”
“Which is what?”
“Well, some people above his pay grade think the case against you is pretty clear-cut. The situation is still being looked into, but they want to fast-track the investigation. However, your standing as a Caelesian dignitary complicates things. Drake’s going to use that to insist
