F³ Not My Fault 01

             I woke to screaming by Natalie and Kate. I had been yelled at a lot, so thought nothing of that. I did wonder why Kate was there, though. Her territory was the Pacific Northwest, whereas Natalie looked over the Great Lakes area. I had the in-between up to the Rockies.

            “Why’s Kate here?” I said. At least I thought I said, the words echoed and muffled in my head.

            They were still screaming, but I couldn’t make anything out. I tried to sit up, but couldn’t. I was sore, everywhere, as if I had spent all day yesterday working out. I felt drained, too. I was out of lightning and air, which was not generally a good thing for a storm rider. We absorbed both ambiently, and I had been full up not that long ago.

            Or maybe not. How long was I out?

            “Whoa!” I made the time-out T with my hands. “I can’t hear you, so save your voices.”

            The muffled sound was gone, but the echo was still there.

            The two women looked at one another and began speaking in what I assumed was quieter tones. Their mouths didn’t open as wide.

            Kate nodded to whatever Nat said, then they waited.

            Ten minutes later, and I was able to hear clearly. I still couldn’t sit up, though.

            “What the fuck happened?” I asked.

            “You tell us!” Kate yelled.

            I shrugged my shoulders.

            “Reilly, what’s the last thing you remember?” Nat asked.

            “Waking up.”

            Nat smacked me upside the head. Kate followed on with her own.

            “Ow. Okay, I was cloudsurfing chasing this . . . thing. Seven tentacles on its butt. I hit it with some lightning and it went down. Don’t’ remember anything after that.

            The women looked at one another. Kate hauled on one arm and Nat the other, getting me to a sitting position.

            I looked around. I was in a crater.

            “This is not my fault.”

 

F³ Evasion

             Nikki stepped back, but not to leave, not to recoil in horror from me, but to sit in the chair in front of the desk. She carefully arranged her skirt, showing the perfect amount of leg according to some arcane formula only she knew, but I couldn’t argue with the results.

            “That won’t work, Matthew.”

            “Hmm?” I said, still staring at her legs. She wore some kind of micro fishnet, the holes in the stockings bigger than in regular nylon—who am I kidding, Nikki wore silk—and ordinary fishnets.

            Wonder if they factor into her equations.

            “Staring at my legs will not relieve you of telling me the story.”

            “How about your heart. That’s looking fairly unprotected, right now.”

            “My breasts are not enough to distract a mind like yours for long. Do credit me with knowing you like I do.”

            “Do you?” I flounced in my chair, sending up puffs of dust. “I don’t think I even know myself, anymore.”

            “Stop evading, Matthew. You were gone for weeks. Jennifer and Jessica were worried sick. Your curt messages did nothing to allay any fears. They—we—deserved better than that.”

            I took a deep breath, prepared to argue the point, especially as the events of the past week flew through my head. I hadn’t realized it was weeks, here, but it made sense. Time was relative, according to Einstein, and he didn’t have to take into account mythological realms. I blew out the air as a long sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, you do. I could offer up excuses, but that was lousy. I’m sorry.”

            “The best apology is an explanation. You might be able to fool mortals, as they have not seen what I have, but I perceive a change in your down to your soul. You have been through much in the time we’ve known each other, and though you have suffered through traumas, I have not seen the like affecting you so.”

            I gave a slow nod. “It’s still pretty raw in my head, Nikki, so don’t expect a tight story like one of Marlowe’s.”

            “As long as there is a femme fatale,” she smiled.

            “Ha! Yeah, you could say that. More than one, actually. God, where to start?”

            “As with all stories, Matthew, the beginning is traditional.”

            “Okay, you ever heard of Storm Riders. . . ?”

F³ Coming Back

             I stared at the door. A piece of cardboard had been taped over the glass, covering my name and profession, which was probably for the best. But what surprised me is that the place hadn’t been rented out to some other business.

            I tried my key, and it worked. Another surprise. I had skipped out without paying the last month’s rent, so I fully expected both a seizure of property and a changing of the locks by building management.

            I flicked the lights on, and the old fluorescents took time to flicker back to life, as if unsure of how they were supposed to do that. Jen’s desk was still there, covered in a fine patina of dust that I tried not to stir up. I passed through into my office, my soles echoing strangely on the floor. I hung my hat on the rack, along with my coat. The feel of the place was entirely different, now. Colder, lifeless, exactly the spirit I left it in.

            I pulled up the blind, looking out at the darkness, but here my name was still on the window: “Matt Allen Investigations.”

            “It’s about time,” the breathy, seductive voice made me jump out of my skin. Only one person could do that to me.

            “Hey, Nikki.” I didn’t turn to look at her.

            “I think I deserve much more than that, Matthew.”

            “If you say so.”

            “What happened to you? You were able to elude even my resources.”

            I shrugged.

            “I much prefer your usual demeanor to this taciturn version.”

            I shrugged again.

            A slight prickling of neck hair was all the warning I had before she spun me around, traversing the distance from my door to the window without the clack of a single heel.

            Cold hands held my head, forcing my eyes to meet hers. I stared into those ancient blue depths. I wanted to lose myself in them, but I wasn’t feeling it.

            She looked into my eyes, then flinched back. “What darkness has moved into your soul?”

            I looked away, not wanting her to see any more. “Life,” I said.

F³ Unhappily Pt. 2

             My head swam, like I was under the effects of some chemical, but I was holding my breath. Perhaps just contact with my skin? I fixated on the lump, which was already becoming less distinct. I took another step forward, almost faceplanting on the floor but for a hand that caught an end table.

            Can’t do it. Can’t reach him. Have to wait for FDNY; they’ve got the gear, and I don’t want to add to the body count.

            I turned, and the outline of the door danced hazily in my vision. I tried walking, but quickly fell to hands and knees. The doorway was becoming less distinct, or maybe my consciousness was. I forced myself to go on, lungs burning for air.

            Finally, I gulped in sweet air. As before, there was no smell, but I didn’t like the gulping in that stuff. Didn’t have a choice, though.

            I forced myself ahead, but the feeling of the floorboards under my hands changed. It felt like dirt, now, and the doorway was no longer there, just a wavering rectangle of light.

            My stomach did cartwheels, my nose smelled the outdoors, but not the city, nature, like Prospect Park. My ears heard nothing, not even my own breathing.

I stretched out a hand in the direction of the doorway, but it had been completely swallowed by the sparkling fog, and my strength gave out.

F³ Unhappily Pt.1

             “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Lee. We’ll look into your husband’s disappearance.” I closed my notebook and shut off the recording.

            “Be sure to check down the hall. They’re always doing something weird at the end of the hall. Strange sounds and lights. It’s not natural. They must’ve had something to do with it!”

            I nodded to her and turned to go.

            “Aren’t you going to check down there?” she pointed at the apartment at the end of the hall.

            I barely suppressed a sigh. “I’ll go check.”

            I went to the door and knocked. “This is Detective Faraday, NYPD. Please open up.” I repeated the knock three more times to no answer.”

            “See,” said Mrs. Lee from her doorway, “they’re suspicious!”

            I looked down at the floor and sighed, which is when I noticed the fog. It crawled out from under the door in slow tendrils, one of them clinging to the door and snaking up it. Motes of light sparkled in it, like twinkling stars. I squatted and fanned my notebook at it. The fog reacted, but it was delayed, like an internet video buffering. And when it did, it was in slow motion.

            I sniffed at it, but there was no odor. Nothing chemical that I could distinguish from the ordinary smells of the building.

            I pounded on the door again. “NYPD, open up! Something is coming from your door.”

            Nothing.

            “I’m coming in!”

            “Yes, get them!”

            “Mrs. Lee, go back into your apartment and stay there.”

            I got on my rover, asking for the FDNY to come out. If this was a precursor to a fire, I’d want them here, pronto.

            I tested the knob, the door was unlocked. Very unlike any Brooklyn apartment. I pushed the door in, uncovering a room full of the same sparkling fog. Light came in from the window, but it wasn’t as bright as it should’ve been. But on a patch of floor near the window was a lump that looked a lot like a body, like someone had collapsed due to whatever the fog was.

            I took a deep breath and plunged in.

F³ Fairy Tale Dentistry

             I hated dentists. Really, who didn’t hate dentists? But right now, I desperately wanted one. A molar had broken on me, and what was underneath hurt like hell. The left side of my mouth ached into the jaw, and the slightest touch of liquid sent an electric jolt through me.

            I was even desperate enough to try the local solution, a fairy tale witch with potions and whatnot. She was hunched over and sounded older than she looked, really, with a smoker’s rasp in her voice though no evidence of the habit. She plucked leaves and berries and other odds and ends from various earthenware jars and ground them all up with a mortar and pestle. Then she whispered words of magic and twinkling motes of green, gold, and purple danced over the concoction. She thrust the thing at me as it bubbled coldly, each popping bubble releasing a noxious skunk odor or peppermint or even smoked hickory. My nose and tastebuds didn’t know what to make of that combination.

            “Drink, and all the pains of your mouth will disappear.”

            I was about to bolt when my sigh hit the exposed tooth, spearing my jaw with fresh pain.

            I downed the draught in one gulp, doing my best not to breathe while I did so.

            Nothing happened.

            Of course, nothing happened. It wouldn’t be dramatic if it happened right away.

            I belched, sending out a literal purple cloud of the skunk/peppermint/hickory mix.

            The pain went away.

            I belched again, and felt a weird sensation from that side of my mouth. My tongue sought it out to find the jagged edge of missing tooth replaced by smooth enamel.

            “Wow. That’s some good—” I belched a series of smaller clouds, now, then felt pain from all over my mouth as well as a sharp sound. In short order my mouth filled with bits of things. I spit them all out into my hand to see a couple of porcelain crowns and several metal fillings.

            I ran my tongue over my teeth, feeling each one had been restored to good as new, no modern dental work remaining in my mouth.

            “No wonder your mouth hurt, chewing metal. Silly man.”

            Sure beats any dentist in Brooklyn. Sometimes this fairy tale place isn’t so bad.

 

F³ Reeducation

             Flynn eased the thruster control up. He tried not to let his nervousness show, but the jerk of the ship in response to the thrusters gave him the lie.

            “Sir, are you sure about this? Officers aren’t known for doing real work,” Eltie said.

            “Says the lieutenant.” Flynn shot back. “So I’m a little rusty. It’s been a while since I conned a ship out.”

            “And the enlisted did it for you?”

            “I still called out the orders, though.” Flynn turned the yoke, adjusting their heading. The ship, slowly at first, turned to the new heading. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”

            “We’re still in system.”

            Flynn sighed.

            Yeah, that.

            “Not for long.”

            The ship coasted through the bow shock and into interstellar space. Dark energy winds filled the sails, pushing them at faster-than-light speeds. Alarms blared as the sensors registered a negative trim: the bow was tipping forward. Technically, in space, this didn’t matter as it would in water. However, FTL sailers that trimmed too negative or positive could flip entirely. It wouldn’t hurt the ship, but the masts might rip out and the sails shred, entirely.

            “Captain?” Eltie said, alarmed.

            “I know, I know. The dorsal sail is filling while the ventral isn’t. I just need to get the angles right.”

            Flynn’s hands flew across the controls. He adjusted the lines, slightly luffing the dorsal sail. Then he worke don the ventral sails, trying to get the telltales—the small flag sensors built into the sails—to break even. He overcorrected more than once, but finally got the wind flowing smoothly over the ventral sails. The trim evened out, and Flynn got the dorsal sails to do the same.

            He sighed in relief. “See, no problem.”

            Flynn looked over to Eltie, who had a white-knuckled grip on the arms of her chair. “You were working on that for over half an hour.”

            Flynn’s eyebrows went up, and he checked the time himself. “Okay, so I need to put in some more practice.”

            “And hire a pilot.”

            “Hey, it wasn’t that bad.”

            “Anything that makes a marine nervous is bad.”

            “Marines always get this way when sailors do their jobs.”

            “Maybe if sailors didn’t do it so poorly.”

F³ Naval Tradition

             Flynn looked at the senior staff assembled in the ward room. This was the first meeting of them on Atlas. The XO had just gone through the usual business according to the agenda she and Flynn had discussed, previously. A lot of this was standard procedure, bordering on naval tradition. The usual round of questions came from the department heads, which the XO fielded with Flynn’s expectations. Finally, all the business was done, and it was time for Flynn’s speech.

            He stood, giving a gesture to have the staff remain seated.

            “The Navy has traditions that we’re all part of. Atlas has its own part in naval traditions, as well as her own story. In mythology, Atlas holds up the sky. We bear the weight of the universe on our shoulders. I’m honored to be part of Atlas’s story. It’s a weight and an honor.”

            Flynn gave a nod to the XO. “Years ago, when I was still vacuum-behind-the-ears as an ensign, a chief gave me some good advice. ‘Sir, everyone always thinks about the load on their shoulders, but that weight goes all the way down to their feet. You make your feet comfortable, and your shoulders won’t mind so much.’”

The XO began passing parcels to all the senior staff. “So with those wise words, I propose a new tradition on Atlas to make our feet comfortable. Go ahead and open them.

Each officer opened their bag to reveal pairs of socks personalized with their name and rank as well as “Atlas,” and the words “Broad Shoulders, Comfy Feet.”

“Sir,” Lt. Commander Benton, from engineering spoke.

Flynn nodded for him to go ahead.

“This is the finest tradition I’ve ever seen started on a ship. Our sister ships are going to be so jealous.”

“As they should be,” Flynn said to smiles and chuckles throughout the wardroom.

F³ Waterspout v. Hurricane

             I wasn’t too sure about how it worked in the water, but I knew if I had attempted to create a cyclone in the air with Nat, it couldn’t happen. Or at least, not without a lot more build up. Moving air took time and distance. Maybe working from Nebraska with a good tailwind I could get enough mass moving to create a cyclone from scratch. I suspected the same was true for the water. Probably even longer because of how much mass water already had.

            But me and Maddy, using the Frost power, it seemed like nothing. Somehow the combination of our powers led to something almost exponential, and it was hard not to like that kind of power.

            Maybe that’s why Jack and Nat are so opposed to it. Power corrupts, etc.

            Maddy swung us up, corkscrewing our way to the surface inside the waterspout. The spout surged sending millions of gallons into the eyewall of the giant hurricane. I had heard of hurricanes creating waterspouts, but nothing on this scale. The eyewall was too massive to be completely engulfed by the waterspout, but it swallowed a big chunk of it, disrupting the wind. And before we reached the top, I felt a chill coming from Maddy. The spout began crystallizing.

We burst out of the top of the spout, where I quickly formed a cloudboard for both of us. I swung us around to watch as the entire spout froze, like a movie special effect. It wouldn’t last, not with tropic temperatures, but with the eyewall disrupted and the convection current completely wrecked, the hurricane should begin to dissolve.

“We can fly without the board, you know,” Maddy said wryly.

“Oh, right. Habit.”

F³ Supercavitation

             The Frost powers gave me a lot of abilities, and Maddy, too, but none of them were really helpful for increasing speed underwater. Maddy had us going at her top speed, but that was nothing compared to what a storm rider could do. I tugged on her to drop back, letting me take the lead. From an outstretched hand, I let out a thin stream of air.

            Immediately, bubbles formed until I got the balance right, and then one large bubble enveloped us. The water slipped around the bubble, frictionless, and our speed increased. Russian torpedoes used the same principle. My wind supply, even compressed, was limited, but I had plenty of lightning, so I sent arcs between my fingers, almost as thick as my fingers, to boil the water, creating the same effect.

            We shot forward through the water, and just like when I cloudsurfed, created a wake behind us, one that Maddy really expanded until I could see the beginnings of the circular current, and even felt ourselves rising with the water.

            Holy shit, it’s going to work.