Chapter 9
"The Matrix of Lies"
By Leaftop
Sil looked around and blinked her eyes. She seemed to be waking up from a long dream... a long, strange dream. She slowly closed her eyes and tried to remember yesterday, but images and words all spilled into one another, in a strange kolidascope of pictures. Sil pulled back her hood and turned to ask Donyell, "Is everything all right Donyell?"
Donyell, better known as Bandit took in a deep breath as if surfacing from the water. He looked around one more time and saw the other members of Psionex still lying down in their beds... their eyes shifting around... trapped in vivid dreams... Sil pulled back her hood and turned to ask Donyell, "Is everything all right Donyell?"
Bandit paused and looked at Silhouette, remembering a second ago she had done the same thing. He paused, "Whoa, deja vu."
Sil looked at him. "What did you say?"
Bandit shook his head of the cobwebs. "Nothing. It's just I thought I just saw you do that."
In the dark basement... he could feel it... just as he feared... when the ripple had struck the building... he wasn't fast enough... he couldn't hold it... Bandit and Sil were out of his hold.
Friday zoomed through hyperspace.
"Wow," Nova replied looking as the stars melted around him. "I never knew Friday was still functional. I thought - I mean, there was that accident."
"I got better," Friday seemed to reply in a jesting tone.
"I made a few modifications myself," Alex added.
"Isn't this one of those Killians ships?" Nova asked.
"Kymellians," Friday corrected. Nova sighed. "For all the intelligence, still a lack of humor."
"Not really," Friday commented. "I just don't find you funny."
Carlton looked at Nova and smiled. Nova, in return folded his arms across his chest and turned his head to look and watch the stars bleed away. "Look, the explosion thing was an accident. If you still harbor ill feelings, I am sorry already."
"Apology accepted Captain Neemo," Friday replied.
"Captain what?" Nova asked, looking around, figuring he had missed an inside joke somewhere along the lines.
Friday seemed to sigh. "For all those muscles, still a lack of intelligence."
Carlton laughed, unable to hold it in.
A short while later... Friday came out of hyperspace...
Carlton got up out of his seat... though it only took a matter of moments, it seemed, watching the stars bleed away in the window... it felt as if they had been seated for years. Hindsight Lad took a look around the ship and suddenly began noticing a few things... a few things that had gone missing in the Crash Pad were used to rebuild Friday. Looking up, Carlton meet Alex's stern gaze... almost daring him to say something...
But Carlton kept his silence.
For now.
His fever intensified. Sweat broke across his brow, pouring down like tropical rain down his forehead. Another burning, twisting sensation made him convulse in his bed once more.
"So young..." a voice came from the darkness.
"Who... who is there?" the young boy called out to the shadows.
"A friend," a voice replied. "A friend who has come to save you from your pain."
"Nothing can save me now," the boy retorted. "I'm as good as dead."
"That may be true," the voice in the darkness replied. "But there's something else about you, isn't there?"
"I don't know what you mean," the boy snapped.
"I know your secret," the voice in the shadows seemed to smirk. "I know all about you."
"How's that possible?" the boy coughed.
"Wealth can buy you anything," the figure smiled. A hand reached out from the darkness, his cut off gloves extending his hand to the young man. "All you have to do is take my hand and I end the other pain. The pain that burns in you to have this raw power, and yet die before your time, never able to use it. Never able to be the hero that Captain America or Thor ever was. I give you the opportunity to join me and my coming age."
He reached out his hand then yanked it back suddenly. Something told him, as sweet and coaxing as his words were - a man who hides in darkness isn't one to be trusted. "No," the boy finally said as another pain seized him.
"Fine," the voice said, nonchaulantly. "Die a nobody."
He didn't hear him leave, but he could feel the presence was gone.
Chris Bradley made the right choice... or so he told himself, as yet another set of nerves caught on fire... burning under the heels of the legacy virus.
Friday's systems came alive screaming a warning.
At that very moment, two bursts of laser barely missed the tiny ship. They didn't miss by accident. They had intentionally been warning shots. But from what? Where?
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Nova sighed.
"Look! There!" Dagger pointed out. "That... ship! My God, that thing must be about the size of New York City!"
"Probably bigger," Firelord corrected.
"Who or what is that?" Carlton asked, coming to the front.
"The very thing I raced against," Firelord sighed. "And our doom."
"Thanks for the suspenceful chatter, but could you elaborate a little more?" Alex asked, grabbing the controls of Friday.
Firelord place his hands on Alex. "Don't try to out fly them. They could shoot us down from here if they wanted."
"Again, who are they?" Dagger asked.
"I think I recognize them now," Nova sighed. "They're a part of the Shi'ar's escort, would be allies and sometimes enemies. Depends on the day of the week, and the mood of their captain."
"They're the Starjammers," Firelord nodded.
PROLOGUE:
"So that's all I have to do?" the voice asked. "Join your little army?"
"Yes," the voice in the shadows replied. "That's it. So are you with me, Pyre?" the voice asked, extending his hand with the cut off gloves.
Charles Knight took the hand of the stranger. His ice blue eye tried to pierce the darkness. "I may have just sold my soul to the devil, but I am all yours."
"Good," the voice smiled and pulled him into the darkness. "Take us home."
Where once stood three...
Now stood only darkness.
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e-mail the author, leaftop@juno.com