Chapter 1.2.32 — Preparation 1

Emmett, Clara, and Dr. Venture settled on three preparations that needed to happen before their mission.

Venture’s expression grew stoney as they discussed what was needed. “Emmett, I expect you to complete the first item before you leave the lab this evening.”

Emmett nodded, trying to hide his reluctance. “I won’t let you guys down.”

The first preparation was that Emmett learned how to pull Clara out of her exosuit in case of an emergency.

It wasn’t that Emmett didn’t want to learn—he knew it was an important protocol, even if he didn’t understand Venture’s suits or Clara’s secret powers. It just felt like a big step…

Like Venture and Clara were trusting him with something big. Not to mention potentially trusting him with Clara’s life.

Despite that, or maybe because of that, Emmett resolved to finish this preparation tonight. To become as smooth and practiced with the emergency protocol as he was with swapping out his mods. He owed Venture and Clara that much.

Dr. Venture regarded Emmett and Clara before asking her, “Are you ready?”

Clara nodded slightly, for a moment looking like she was putting up as much of a show of confidence as Emmett was.

“Good,” Venture said. “Take him to one of the experimental suites of section 003. Tell him everything he needs to know.”

Clara turned to Emmett, her normal hard shell faltering. For a moment, she didn’t look like the tough engineer or even the badass super that Emmett had come to think of her as.

She looked normal.

Like she was just another student at Belport. Like she was about to ask him to study after classes.

“Come on,” Clara said with a sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”

~

Neither of them said anything as they walked through those first few hallways of the mechanical wing. There was nothing but the hollow echoes of their footsteps on metal—

Which did not help Emmett’s slowly building apprehension.

When they got to the main hallway and started toward section 003, Emmett couldn’t take it any longer.

“He’s talking about your powers, isn’t he?”

Emmett winced as soon as he finished. It came out more like an accusation than a question, and immediately he began stammering to add something else.

Clara stopped him with a nod, adding, “Sorry. I just haven’t had to explain it to anyone in a while. Give me a minute.”

Emmett swallowed dozens of questions, resolving to wait until they got to their destination.

Clara led them past the hub of section 003, past the familiar heat sink testing chambers, and into a small room. It wasn’t much bigger than some of the medical suites that Emmett had seen, but this one was the familiar steel gray of the rest of the bunker and lined with exosuit shells. They hung from the walls like old medieval suits of armor and took up most of the room.

As Emmett looked over them, he recognized a progression in design. It was slight, and hard to see, since most of the armor and components were missing, but he was sure it was there.

Clara said, “TINA, please bring up the holographic table and display.” A moment later, a holographic table rose out of the center of the floor and lit up with a hologram of Clara’s familiar exosuit.

Sure enough, Emmett was even more certain of the progression of the exosuit models. The hologram of Clara’s current suit was the newest of the designs.

Clara reached up and spun the hologram, almost whimsically. She watched it as the spin slowed and then turned it so the hologram faced Emmett.

“Here’s the deal,” she said, her familiar seriousness returning as she crossed her arms over her tank top. “Just because I tell you about my powers doesn’t mean I can tell you anything else. Not about where they come from or how exactly they work.”

Emmett nodded. “I won’t ask.”

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be curious.

Clara nodded and drew in a deep breath. “So, this is the deal…”

Clara proceeded to draw in several more breaths, starting and stopping before finally groaning in frustration.

“TINA, please explain to Emmett the extent of my powers.”

“Dr. Venture said—”

“I know what Dad said, but it will just be easier if you explain it.”

“Clara Venture manufactures excess power within her body similar to that of nuclear fusion reactions. Through rigorous training and concentration, she maintains moderate control over her output, staying within nominal levels when in the lab or in public.

“But even with practice, Clara’s powers remain too volatile to be used without mechanical guidance. In response, Dr. Venture manufactured special exosuits to channel the energy that Clara generates into flight and kinetic weapons. Even with exosuits and safeguards, there is a nonzero chance of a meltdown.”

Emmett listened intently, trying to keep a straight face—it felt like all the questions and all the hints had finally lined up. He was simultaneously mesmerized, blown away, and also felt like a dunce.

He’d spent so much time working on heat sink designs and staring at Clara’s armor… None of which had a goddamn generator… And somehow he hadn’t put it together that Clara was the generator.

As Emmett listened, it felt like both he and Clara were staring at the hologram of her suit. Clara’s face was white, like she’d been caught sneaking out of the house or something—

The whole moment felt so ridiculous that Emmett couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe I missed it.”

Clara’s momentary surprise turned to a smile. “Dad and I were wondering if you’d ask about it. I thought you were just being polite.”

“Secrets are part of being a superhero…but I also knew it was a big deal to both of you, so I tried not to pry.” Emmett punctuated the thought with a shrug.

“Thanks.”

“...Should I be wearing a radiation suit or something?” Emmett asked.

“No!” Clara replied quickly. “Uh, no. It’s like fusion, but it’s not the same. Unless I’m in the middle of a really bad meltdown, you’re fine.”

Emmett nodded, and suddenly, the last part of TINA’s explanation clicked. “Uh, how bad are your meltdowns?”

Clara’s mirth faded quickly. “TINA, show Emmett the surviving footage from my last meltdown in the lab.”

They turned toward the one wall of the suite that had monitors. These hummed to life and showed from almost three years ago. Only the year was visible—the rest of the date and timestamp was blurred out. But before Emmett could dwell on it, he became captivated by the video.

The monitors simultaneously showed seven video feeds of Clara sitting in the middle of one of the large heat sink testing chambers. Instead of the familiar fusion apparatus in the center of the floor, the room was completely bare. The only thing in the room was Clara, who wore an earlier model exosuit and knelt in the center of the room.

Even through her thick armor, Emmett could see she was convulsing.

The shoulders of her exosuit glowed orange and then red before beginning to melt and run down her arms. In seconds, the rest of the exosuit was a molten orange. The air in the room grew hazy and Clara was only visible as a bright, glowing mass.

Then arcs of power burst out of her.

They cut through the fog like lasers in a light show, except they arcked and curved like they were made of electricity instead of liquid power.

Even watching through a silent video feed, Emmett could imagine the violent crackling sounds rising from his friend. The air was exploding like billions of popcorn kernels. The arcs stretched outward, pulsing in discordant rhythm and the ends whipping like they were possessed.

Video feeds blacked out as arcs of power stretched across the room and vaporized the cameras.

Red lettering flashed across the bottom of the remaining feeds:

CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ENGAGED

Emmett watched as his friend became a runaway nuclear reaction, his horror slowly building in time with her power. Still, there was beauty there, and something else Emmett couldn’t place until only two video feeds were left intact—

He’d seen this phenomenon before; Clara’s power looked just like solar flare eruptions.

It felt like it took an eternity for the containment protocol to start, but it couldn’t have been more than a second or two. Blocks emerged from the floor around Clara, forming a crude circle. Then more emerged from the ceiling and walls in similar arrangements. Each stuck out about three feet and began to glow with white light.

The arcs of power began to curve around on themselves, tracing molten gashes across the floor. They shrank quickly—in moments their arcs were so tight they were spinning and wrapping around Clara like she was a spinning top.

The last things Emmett saw before the video feeds cut off were the charred and gouged floor and the last of Clara’s exosuit melting away. A blinding visage of Clara appeared—a molten, white hot silhouette. She was hunched over, hands clutched to her chest. Screaming.

Even though there hadn’t been any sound in the video, when it cut off, the silence in the room became deafening.

“Holy shit,” Emmett muttered.

Clara continued staring at the small hologram of her exosuit. She hadn’t looked at the video of her meltdown—not once.

“You asked me why I was so good at yoga and meditation. It’s because I have to be. It helps me keep control.”

Emmett nodded, still staring at where the video had been. “Does it hurt?”

Clara shook her head. “My power doesn’t hurt—not me. It feels like throwing up and not being able to stop. The containment hurts… All of them hurt.”

“There’s other ways to stop a runaway reaction?”

“The magnetic field is the best way, but obviously we don’t have access to it outside of the lab. There’s encasement foam and a drone could always drop me in the bay. They all suck.”

Emmett’s curiosity got the better of him. “Where does the energy come from?”

It was Clara’s turn to shrug. “We don’t know. Dad jokes about magic, but for all we know, that’s what a lot of superpowers are. Most of them don’t follow the laws of the universe. There isn’t an equal exchange of matter and energy. There are supers that create and destroy matter… Their powers don’t make sense.”

Emmett knew this—he’d read the same thing. But it was one thing to read it and another to see it. And another to see how it all affected Clara. To see the turmoil she lived in…

To want to get rid of a part of yourself and not be able to. To barely understand the how or the why, and know that there probably weren’t answers to either of those questions.

Emmett said, “The way you guys talked about your powers and how you covered them up made them seem like a burden… But I had no idea.”

Clara winced and quickly covered it with a smirk. “I can’t change it. I can’t change what I am. All I can do is live with it and put it to good use.”

“You’re doing a good job.”

The pair shared a smile.

“I do have a question though… What am I supposed to do if that happens?” Emmett asked.

“Down here in the lab—nothing. Up there, do what Dad and TINA say. Most of the time, the suits have containment and dispersal protocols to stop runaway reactions before they become full meltdowns. There might be a handful of times where you need to pull me out of the suit, which is why Dad wants you to learn. But the general rule is to run.”

“Has it ever happened up there?”

The look on Clara’s face made Emmett immediately regret asking. It wasn’t pain or shock or embarrassment—it was utterly blank and deadpan. Eerily robotic. Like she was reading from a textbook.

“I’m one of the unofficial reasons Dad was forced to retire.”

It felt like the rest of the puzzle that was Clara Venture fell into place in front of Emmett. She was always walking on eggshells and afraid of her own power. Hiding not just who she was but tamping down the regret of what her power had already done to people close to her.

“I’m sorry,” Emmett said. “And I’m sorry you had to keep it a secret for so long.”

The second admission seemed to catch Clara off guard and snapped her out of her stoic trance. She smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve talked long enough. You need to learn how to crack open this exosuit.”

With a wave of her hand, the hologram of the exosuit expanded and Clara set to explaining how the seams along the head, neck, and back of the suit all came apart.

It was easy—ridiculously easy—for both of them compared to the conversation they’d just had.

In just a few hours, Emmett had successfully completed the procedure for both the hologram and for several of Clara’s suits. Which resulted in excited cheers from both of them.

And it felt like their friendship had turned a corner.

~ ~ ~