“Huh?” I said.
“My bottle!” the homeless man screamed, spewing spittle as he came towards me. “I know you have it!”
Without warning, his eyes began to take on a mild red glow. At the same time, the Geiger counter began making even more noise and the temperature seemed to rise.
“Look,” I said, trying to speak in a calm voice. “I don’t have your bottle, but if you just stay calm, we can get you something to drink.”
“Give me my bottle!” Atomic Bum screamed, making it clear that my words hadn’t registered with him. Now at the front of the cell, he reached menacingly through the bars, causing me to take an involuntary step back.
His eyes were now a deep crimson, and the Geiger counter was going completely crazy. This guy was obviously starting to give off a ton of radiation, as well as oppressive heat. He was still rattling on about his bottle, and it was clear that no amount of talk was going to calm him down.
“Mouse!” I shouted. “Based on what the Geiger counter’s saying, we need to get out of here!”
“Have you forgotten about Dream Machine?” Mouse asked. “If this is his power source, we can’t just leave him.”
“Then shut down whatever he’s using to siphon power off this nut!”
“There’s not enough time.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then I’ll teleport this guy some place where he can go nuclear without killing anyone.”
“No!” Mouse exclaimed. “If he unleashes some type of fission reaction, you don’t know how big the explosion will be.”
As usual, Mouse was right; I had no idea how much damage this guy could truly cause. Moreover, even without considering how big the blast radius would be, there would still be the other effects of a nuclear explosion to contend with – everything from radiation poisoning to flash blindness to nuclear fallout.
No, I couldn’t teleport him without knowing more about the likely outcome.
“Phase the bars,” Mouse suddenly ordered, catching me by surprise.
“What?” I said, not quite sure I’d heard him correctly.
“Phase the cell bars,” he said. “Make them insubstantial.”
I phased the bars as directed. Atomic Bum, who was leaning against them at the time, still reaching for me, fell forward off-balance and toppled to the ground.
Mouse stepped forward, and I simply watched, unsure of what he would do. Maybe try to talk some sense into Atomic Bum? Or promise him a drink if he’d just calm down? Or –
My thoughts were cut off as Mouse, planting a foot just as Atomic Bum came to his hands and knees, kicked the fellow solidly in the jaw. Atomic Bum flipped over onto his back, unconscious.
Or that, I said to myself.
Chapter 2
Mouse’s kick sent Atomic Bum into dreamless unconsciousness, at which point he seemingly stopped generating radiation and heat. My mentor then spent a minute poking around the cell Atomic Bum had been in until he found what appeared to be a hidden panel. Behind it was a fair amount of sophisticated tech and equipment, which was apparently designed to siphon off radiation and – ultimately – use it to create electrical power.
“There,” Mouse said with finality, after fiddling with the equipment behind the wall panel for a moment. “Dream Machine’s power supply is no more.”
“And the upload?” I asked, almost timidly.
“I’m not connected to Dream Machine’s network anymore,” Mouse admitted, looking at his tablet. “But I’m using a remote link to monitor the satellite’s systems, and all indications are that the upload aborted.”
I allowed myself a small grin, thankful that my earlier faux pas with the train had not had lasting repercussions.
“I think we’re done here,” Mouse added. “Why don’t you head on back to HQ and get checked out? We can do the formal debrief tomorrow morning.”
It was a kind gesture on his part. He knew that – aside from the mission – I had a lot on my mind.
Basically, I had just returned several weeks earlier from a sojourn to the distant planet Caeles – the homeworld of my maternal grandmother, an alien princess known as Indigo. My grandmother herself had been called home decades ago, leaving my grandfather to raise their infant daughter alone.
My own visit to Caeles had been fraught with peril, and I’d almost been killed on more than one occasion. Needless to say, I was happy to have made it back to Earth in one piece. Even better, Queen Dornoccia – ruler of the Caelesian Empire – had allowed my grandmother to return home with me. (Indigo had essentially been under house arrest on her homeworld.) Unfortunately, the queen had also required me to come home with something else that was entirely unexpected: a fiancée.
To someone on the outside looking in, it probably appeared that I had won the lottery. My betrothed was a Caelesian princess named Isteria (although she preferred that I call her “Myshtal,” which was one of her many middle names). She was a great-great-granddaughter – and favorite – of Queen Dornoccia. Because of the way Caelesian politics worked, Myshtal was not necessarily in line to inherit the throne, but she was heir to a considerable fortune. On top of all that, she was breathtakingly beautiful, with a sharp wit and lively personality that made everyone she met practically fall in love with her – everyone except my girlfriend, that is.
Frankly speaking, however, the arrangement with Myshtal was more of a business deal than anything else. On Caeles, it’s not uncommon to use betrothals to cement commercial partnerships or political alliances. In my case, it had been the cost of getting Queen Dornoccia’s support for my Caelesian family, which was under political attack, among other things. In exchange, I was to bring Myshtal home with me and look after her. (Myshtal had some budding super powers, and the queen had felt those abilities would be better developed on Earth, where such talents were more common.) Of course, I would have made Myshtal’s well-being a priority even without the formality of an engagement,
