Chapter 1.2.12 — Evasion Successful

“Evasion successful,” TINA announced.

Within the cocoon of the Fast-Response Drone, Emmett breathed a sigh of relief. The rumbling around him slowed as the drone entered the tunnels beneath Belport. Soon it stopped and opened up on the catwalk of the armory. Emmett hopped out and watched Clara do the same.

Clara groaned and stretched her arms over her head. “That sucked!” Emmett nodded, reflexively glancing away as her bodysuit was stretched tight.

He didn’t need the reminder. Their near-loss was fresh in his mind—as was Serenity’s psychic power. Of all the powers he had gone up against so far, that was easily one of his least favorite.

“Thanks for helping me out back there,” Clara said, slapping Emmett on the back. “I could’ve punched through his magic defenses eventually, but I was worried that if I did his body wouldn’t fair as well.. the building, too.”

Emmett chuckled at that. “That’s annoying—pulling your punches so you don’t hurt someone or bring the building down on top of them. Thanks, too, I think. I’d rather not be under a building—”

“Dr. Venture is waiting for you in the section 002 hub.”

Clara grabbed her hoodie and beanie off the catwalk and shrugged. “Better not keep the old man waiting.”

~

When they got to the testing hub of the mechanical wing, Dr. Venture was staring at the wall monitors. He was replaying drone footage of Emmett and Clara’s fight with Serenity and Hunter Nine. Beside the video feeds, he’d pulled up dossiers of both the capes. Life size photos of their head and shoulders stared back.

Hunter Nine looked just as intense as Emmett remembered.

Dr. Venture waited expectantly, hands clasped behind his back. Emmett and Clara walked over to him.

“You were bound to run into the Summit eventually. This just moves up our timeline.”

“What was with those guys?” Clara asked, crossing her arms and glaring at the screens.

Emmett said, “I’m not one hundred percent on the Summit’s protocol, but that wasn’t it.”

Venture nodded. “From the looks of it, Serenity knew that her partner was taking things too far. Unfortunately, that didn’t make a difference.”

Emmett asked, “You said not to get taken in. Should we have cooperated?”

“No,” Clara replied, sternly.

Venture sighed. “I should’ve specified. We do not cooperate with psychics. Their mind reading techniques are rarely as subtle as they claim, and we have secrets I’d prefer to keep. That’s why Clara didn’t stand down.”

“Besides,” she added, “there was no way I was getting taken in by that Hunter guy.”

Emmett mulled over their situation—caught between the Summit of Heroes, Gnosis, and unknown supers. He almost jokingly asked if life was always this complicated as a super, but Venture spoke up.

“This is as good a learning experience as any, so let’s talk about what happened. Clara, what went wrong?”

Clara crossed her arms, almost as if she was hiding beneath her oversized hoodie. “I had trouble sizing up Hunter Nine’s defenses and physical capabilities. I didn’t want to overcorrect and risk injuring a member of the Summit.”

Venture nodded slightly. “A necessary precaution. And yet another reason why I want you to have other countermeasures onboard your suit.”

Clara grumbled, but nodded.

“Emmett, thoughts?”

“Their psychic locked me down easily. The only reason I broke out is because she didn’t realize I had a prosthetic… How does that work, anyway?”

“You mean why she couldn’t psychically freeze your arm? What do you think?”

Emmett had been over it in his head on the way back to the lab, and he wasn’t sure. He shrugged. “Somehow, her psychic power only affects the human body and not anything mechanical.”

Venture turned and regarded Emmett. “You’re correct, and you’ve stumbled on one of the basic laws of power interaction. The trinity in question are psychics, magic, and technology.” He held up three fingers for emphasis. “All three can affect biological matter, but rarely can they affect one another. Most psychics can’t control computers or magic artifacts. Magic can’t usually block psychic power or affect technology, and so on. Of course, there are caveats and other powers at play, but that’s a general rule.”

Emmett regarded the display and dossier of Serenity. “Psychics can’t affect technology, but tech can’t affect them either… So, it just cancels out.”

That was good to know, but how useful could it possibly be? …But Venture didn’t say that they couldn’t affect each other at all. He said ‘most’...

Venture looked at Emmett out of the corner of his eye. “I know what you’re thinking, and yes. There is some overlap between the three categories—as far as we’re concerned, there are ways for tech to either replicate or subjugate the other two. How do you think I rose through the ranks?”

“When do we start?” Emmett asked, only half-joking.

Venture laughed heartily. “Not tonight. At your level, there’s very few psychics and artifact wielders powerful enough for you to care about. I’ve got some ideas for you to work on, but we’ve got more pressing concerns. If you climb to Class Three, we’ll revisit this discussion.”

~

Both Clara and Dr. Venture excused themselves, presumably to talk about countermeasures for her to add to her suit… Or to talk about details that Emmett wasn’t privy to yet.

He stayed in the hub of the mechanical wing, hunched over the holographic table and flipping through schematics. Venture had granted him access to the system under the reasoning that Emmett should lie low for the rest of Friday night and head home during daylight tomorrow.

Emmett didn’t mind. He had some classwork, but it wasn’t due until Monday.

He was more put off about being excluded from the conversation. Frustration welled up in his gut, not from the exclusion, but at himself for minding at all.

Wasn’t he doing the exact same thing to his family and to Lock? Emmett had walled them off… What was one more brick? Frustration bubbled inside him, and worst of all, it was terribly familiar. Walling himself wasn’t something new—placing the bricks came easily.

Looking back, Emmett had always been a reserved, quiet kid. It had only been since getting into college that he’d even started to come out of his shell. He’d only just started taking down some of those old walls… Now he was putting more up, even faster than before.

As his thoughts got away from him, Emmett flicked through schematics. They were all basic—little more than outlines—but Emmett wasn’t paying attention to them, anyway.

Some of the older supers, those rooted in myth and magic, talked about fate as if it was something real and tangible. Talked about prophecy as if it was inescapable. Even if there was such a thing as free will, running from your fate usually resulted in damnation.

Emmett didn’t believe in fate explicitly, but it was hard to argue with it. Emmett had been building brick walls around himself for his entire life… It felt impossible to stop.

As impossible as trying to stop the world from turning.

Emmett leaned over the table, hands clenched together in silent frustration—until his human hand ached from the difference in force. He set his hands down on the table and forced himself to breathe slowly.

Finally, he got up and paced around the room, turning from the holographic table to the wall monitors. Dossiers of Serenity and Hunter Nine still hung lifeless on the screens. Instead, he thought back to his last encounter with a new super.

“TINA, do I have access to drone footage from Sunday night’s encounter?”

“Yes. Would you like me to replay it?”

“Yes. Start from just before Porcelain’s death.”

TINA minimized the prior displays and replaced them with several drone feeds. Footage ran in real time, feeds automatically minimizing or appearing to keep Emmett and Porcelain on the screen.

Emmett watched himself run away with Porcelain. Watched as the unknown super weathered a barrage from Clara’s exosuit and a dozen Fast-Response Drones without flinching. Interestingly enough, it looked like he had been mildly inconvenienced by Emmett’s noise makers and the smoke pellets.

Soon, the feeds came to the moment when the unknown super cornered Emmett and Porcelain.

On the feed, Porcelain turned and grabbed Emmett, putting him in a chokehold.

Porcelain: You were there the night I was poisoned.

The unknown super flinched.

Emmett had been meaning to watch the rest of the encounter to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. For some reason, he’d kept coming back to that moment—seeing his enemy flinch. Emmett had thought that it had been because Porcelain had known something about the super. Not just that the guy was there that night on Champion street, but maybe something identifying about him.

But Emmett hadn’t been entirely convinced, and now that Emmett saw the scene play out from the outside, he knew why…

The super hadn’t flinched because of what Porcelain said. He’d flinched when Porcelain took Emmett hostage.

Emmett watched the scene on a loop to be sure and kept asking why.

Had the super been afraid of Porcelain? Even though he clearly outmatched her, maybe he wasn’t completely immune to her powers… Maybe she’d simply done something unexpected and it caught the unknown super off guard…

At first, Emmett shook his head in disbelief, but then he watched the video of the rest of the encounter, all the way up until after Porcelain’s death.

On the feed, the unknown super still had Emmett by the throat.

Unknown: I’m not your enemy.

Emmett: It doesn’t feel that way.

Unknown: It doesn’t matter. I’m not your enemy. but don’t cross Gnosis.

Maybe the super had been under orders not to harm anyone but Porcelain… So far, that fit better than Emmett’s other theories. It would explain why both Clara and Emmett had been allowed to survive.

Unknown: I’m not your enemy.

There was one more theory, and it was the dumbest one yet: The unknown super was someone that Emmett knew.

It was ridiculous. Emmett had only met a handful of supers outside of Clara and Dr. Venture. Athena was out, and that left Zanté, Green Mask, and Feedback… Yeah, even if they were playing 3D chess and hiding their true strength, they wouldn’t go all ‘I’m not your enemy’.

Finally, Emmett turned off the feeds and went back to the holographic table with newfound resolve. He wasn’t frustrated anymore—just baffled.

But that was easier to work with.

~

Emmett worked at the lab long into that Friday night.

By the time Clara came back around to the testing hub of section 002, Emmett was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He’d been hunched over the center table, staring intently at holograms of sonic grenades and a sonic blaster mod, like the kind they’d used against Porcelain to stop her from duplicating.

Emmett glanced up at her, and Clara just chuckled. “Thought I’d find you here.”

Clara pulled a chair over and sat next to him at the table. She was half-hidden under her baggy hoodie and looked as tired as he felt.

She squinted her eyes at the holograms. “Sonic grenades and a sonic blaster?”

“I’m trying to figure out which to use. Your dad already had designs, so I just tweaked them and toned them down a bit.”

“Why?”

Emmett chuckled. “The noise makers have been useful so far, but these are something else. I don’t want to blow out my own eardrums. The original plans were like twice as loud as a jet engine and meant to stun Class four supers… What's so funny?”

“Nothing. Just interesting what Dad gave you access to.”

“Anyway, I toned it down to something that I can actually use.”

“You over-corrected.”

Emmett’s mouth hung open for a moment. “Huh?”

Clara pointed to the two designs. “These may seem like upgraded noise makers, but they’re not the same. These are directional. The sonic weapon is only audible in the direction you point it, and the grenades are only audible within a certain range—kind of like my suit’s concussive discharge ability.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, so you could use both designs. Use grenades as a distraction if you’re trying to escape or to incapacitate half a group of enemies while you fight the rest. Then keep the sonic weapon as your trump card, and jack it up to something that would mess up a Class three super. Either way, you won’t have to be on the receiving end of the weapons.”

Emmett sighed. She did have a point… “But if I’m fighting a Class three super, I won’t be able to use my arm at all. That basically means I’m fighting as a Class one.”

Clara raised her eyebrows at him. “First of all, if you’re fighting a Class three super by yourself, something has already gone majorly wrong. Second, you could always modify it so you can hold it in your regular hand and still fight with your mechanical arm. It might not be as secure, but it’s doable. But most importantly, if we’re in that situation, I’m your weapon.”

“The sonic won’t affect you?”

Clara shook her head. “The suits automatically dampen dangerous sounds. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still hear it and the sound is annoying, but you won’t have to worry about me.”

“Alright, alright. But if sonics are so good, why don’t you use them?”

Clara shrugged. “They don’t integrate well… Honestly, I probably should have them as a backup. But now I’ve got you.” She knocked her shoulder against his for emphasis, then immediately groaned. “I forgot which shoulder that was!”

They both shared a laugh and Emmett felt himself relax.

Suddenly, Clara grabbed his arm and pulled Emmett to his feet. “Come on. There’s a new episode of Full Throttle Heart out, and you’ve done enough work.”

A small part of Emmett wanted to protest, but he left it behind as they jogged through the lab to the living quarters in section 001.

~ ~ ~