Chapter 4 - And This Was A Plan?

The last thing anyone wanted to do was eat.

However, Sarah’s statistical data calculated an 80% chance that refreshments would be needed at this meeting. So while the Guardians converged in their usual meeting place, Sarah busied herself making tea and preparing a snack tray.

The Complex, as it was officially known, had several spacious rooms used for formal entertainment. And below, on the first level, was an official “war room”, complete with global communications and holographic displays for any conceivable situation. But for some reason, be it tradition, be it location, or be it just the fact that nobody ever felt like walking all the way to the war room just to have a meeting; 99% of every group discussion happened in the kitchen.

The kitchen itself had enough cooking equipment to easily feed three hundred guests, but most of the time that equipment was kept in storage. Hence, there was a large vacant space in the middle of the room. The founding Guardians had placed a very large solid oak picnic table in here; weighing nearly three thousand pounds. Shela always complained that she looked like a kid sitting at the grownup table, to which Xerox immediately built her a booster seat. Now there was a regular (albeit long) picnic table that people were gathering around. The original table not having survived Shela’s wrath of the booster seat joke.

Fire sat at one corner of the table, with Tracy huddled next to her and Ice sitting next to the two of them. Across the table sat Xerox, still in diamond form. The light from the kitchen window was passing right through his head and hands, casting several tiny rainbows on the pickled-oak tabletop. The look on his face was unreadable; the clarity of his head making it impossible to see who he was looking directly at.

'It’s going to be okay,' Fire told her sister mentally, 'I won’t let anything happen to you.'

<He’s thinking about killing me,> Tracy’s frightened voice echoed back, <He’s got some kind of gun under the back of his jacket. He’s pretty sure he could at least get one shot off before either of you tried to stop him.>

'I know,' thought Fire, 'I’ve seen it before. He’ll calm down once Illusion gets here. For now, just sit quietly, and he won’t do anything.'

<How do you know?>

'He’s not a leader.' Fire thought, looking at Xerox’s statuesque pose, 'He’s a good soldier, but I’ve never seen him go directly against Illusion’s orders. He’s also bipolar. One minute he’s the jester of the party, the next minute he pounding some purp’s face into the ground.'

<Well right now,> thought Tracy, shuddering, <He’s wondering if he should shoot me in the head or if he’d have a better chance of hitting me in the chest.>

'Well if push comes to shove Ice has enough reserve built up to flash freeze him before he could ever get the gun out of the holster.'

Tracy looked over at Ice. He sat there seemingly at ease with the world. He always looked that way, regardless of the situation. Ice noticed her watching him and looked back down at her. Putting his arm around her, he gave her a small hug and asked, “You doing okay?” Tracy just nodded slightly. She tried to look okay, but right now she felt the need to excuse herself and throw up someplace... like back home in California.

Illusion, Terrain, and Valkyrie came out of the pantry and headed towards the table.

“Xerox,” said Illusion, “You’re needed downstairs. Level two is offline, and you’re the only one on staff who can fix it.”

Xerox sat still long enough to be just short of subordinate, then got up from the table and headed towards the pantry.

When he had rounded the corner, Illusion yelled back at him, “And I told you I didn’t want to see you carrying that gun again.”

There was a moment of silence, followed by the sounds of the elevator door opening and closing.

Terrain had already seated himself and poured Illusion a cup of hot tea. In many ways Terrain and Ice kept the same demeanor; they both looked like they were about to discuss the days sporting events more than someone sneaking into The Complex. What was even more surprising was that Tracy could actually feel the tensions in the room ease with these two men acting so calmly (along the departure of Xerox). Valkyrie simply gave the three of them a tertiary glance before leaving the kitchen into the main hallway.

To everyone’s shock, Illusion took off her glasses and pulled back the hood of her costume. Running her fingers through her hair, she tested the tea, then added a package of Equal and a small container of cream. Nobody said a word.

“Now let me see if I’ve got this straight,” she said, stirring her tea with one hand while rubbing the bridge of her nose with the other, “Your name is Tracy, right?”

Tracy nodded affirmatively, even though Illusion wasn’t looking up at her.

“And you’re Fire’s sister.”

Tracy looked at Fire for approval. Fire hesitated for a moment, and then nodded yes.

“And typically, you’re a three man team, but Tracy stays out of sight. Correct?”

“Correct.” said Ice.

Illusion looked up from her tea, “And this isn’t the first time you’ve been here?”

Tracy was becoming overwhelmed with both her own emotions and those she felt around her. She thought Illusion would have been furious at her, but what she felt was a mixture of anger, hurt, and fear... fear for something that could have happened, but didn’t. “I...” was all she could choke out, and then she burst into tears.

Sarah placed a box of tissues on the table in front of Tracy. Fire wrapped her arms around her and gently rocked her until Tracy could recompose herself.

“Because of her age,” said Ice, “We always kept her in the jump jet when we visited. Even when we’re out in the field, we usually leave her there. But when the maintenance robots were going to disassemble the jet, we hadn’t expected that, and she came in with us.”

“But you didn’t come up here.” said Illusion, pointing at the table, “You went to the med-labs.”

“When Sarah said she was going to go see Gabriel... I... followed her.” whispered Tracy.

“And you just walked right in with her?” asked Terrain.

Tracy nodded, biting her lip.

Illusion looked down at her tea for a few moments, “Okay...Now here’s where it gets important. Tell me what happened. And don’t hold back any details that you think I don’t need to know. I want to know exactly how this whole thing got out of hand.”

“I...” Tracy hesitated.

“You what?” asked Illusion after a few moments of silence.

“I... could show you.” she barely whispered.

Illusion sat back in her chair, finally taking a real drink of her tea. She exchanged glances with Fire, who nodded slightly in approval.

“Tracy,” said Illusion, setting down her tea, “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a little nervous sitting in front of someone who can read my thoughts. I can only imagine what it must be like for you to be able to know what people are actually thinking and feeling while something completely different comes out of their mouths. But Gabriel is very important to me, and all the other Guardians as well. And right now, we need to find him ASAP.”

She looked over to Terrain. He reached over and held her hand in his.

“Okay,” said Illusion, taking a deep breath and looking Tracy square in the eyes, “Show me.”

“If I do,” said Tracy weakly, “You have to promise me that you’ll never tell anyone what you saw.”

This caught everyone completely off guard, especially Illusion.

“Some of the things are... personal,” she added.

Illusion looked at Fire and Ice for guidance, and the only response they could offer was a collective shoulder shrug.

“Okay Tracy,” said Illusion, “I can promise you that anything personal I see will stay totally between you and me. But what I’m looking for is clues as to where Gabriel could have gone to, and that I will have to share with the rest of the Guardians.”

Tracy looked at Illusion, searching for some kind of reassurance. She must have found it, because they were suddenly standing in a maze.

Shela jumped with a startle. She had been sitting down, but now she was standing up. She and Tracy were standing in the middle of a gray corridor with a sandy floor. There, about twenty feet away, was Gabriel and another Tracy. Everything was standing perfectly still.

“Oh my Lord.” was all Shela could gasp.

Tracy explained the situation to her; the caked blood, the thick sand; all as best as she could. She would then play out a scene with the two of them watching; like a scene from A Christmas Carol. Shela would ask questions about a few details, then Tracy would continue the nightmare.

“Did your father hurt you when you were younger?” asked Shela after seeing Gabriel get struck by the belt and kill the man.

Tracy nodded somberly. It suddenly struck Shela that the personal information Tracy was trying to hide was about her, not Gabriel.

“Does your sister know about this?” asked Shela, bewildered.

“She suspects, but she doesn’t know how bad it was.” Tracy said, the tears starting to streak her face, “It got really bad after Betsy went off to college.”

Shela assumed that ‘Betsy’ was Fire’s real name.

The remainder of the memories were played out without much incident, until the walls began projecting images of Gabriel’s deepest fears. Then Tracy stopped the scene.

“This is where the other mind switched from manifesting Gabriel’s childhood fears, to one of his most primal ones.”

“What is it that he’s so afraid of?” asked Shela.

Tracy paused for a moment. “Telepaths.”

“Oh no.” said Shela, studying the images being played out on the walls. Some of the images were actually amusing, like the one of a young boy accidentally spilling water on his pants while talking to a pretty girl. Others were terrible; a man and his daughter being shot to death just before Gabriel arrived to stop it. Shela could actually feel Gabriel’s guilt of not getting there in time to save them. Others were very erotic; Shela stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who Gabriel was passionately making love to in one image.

“We never did that!” Shela protested hotly.

“It's only something he’s thought about,” Tracy said, blushing at the image, “These are things that Gabriel has either done, or has thought about doing but didn’t because it embarrassed him.”

Shela was beginning to feel very self-conscious... like she was reading someone’s diary only a thousand times worse. She tried to look away from the images, to focus on the figure of Gabriel kneeling in the sand, but her gaze kept shifting to the walls. She noticed a particularly dark picture. It was night, in some strange bedroom that looked like it was decorated more for a young girl than a boy. She could see the figure of a man slip into the room, putting his hand over the mouth of the girl sleeping in the bed. He pulled the covers off and began to run his free hand down the young girls blouse.

A wave of numbing realization swept over Shela. This wasn’t one of Gabriel’s horrors; this was one of Tracy’s. She looked at both the Tracy standing next to her, and the one that was frozen in place next to Gabriel. The look on both their faces was unmistakable.

“Dear God child,” Shela said as she embraced the young girl next to her. Tracy fell to her knees and sobbed uncontrollably. Shela knelt beside her and held her, trying to say anything she could think of, but in the end she couldn’t find the words to express her feelings; so she simply held her and cried with her.

After several minutes passed, Tracy composed herself enough to point to a specific image on the wall.

“That one.” she said, gritting her teeth, “He was the one doing this.”

Illusion instantly recognized the man in the image. It was the telepath they had fought.

Tracy let the scene play forward. Shela watched as Tracy grabbed the shotgun and obliterated the image on the wall, the recoil sending her flying back into the far wall.

Shela jumped again as she suddenly found herself sitting at the table in the kitchen.

“You okay kid?” asked Terrain.

Trying to get reoriented, Shela found herself staring into the pleading eyes of a scared, young little girl.

“Yeah,” she said to her husband, “It’s just a bit dizzying.”

“Did you find out where he went?” he asked.

“Not really.” she replied, looking down at the table to avoid Tracy’s gaze, “That telepathic meta that hit Gabriel put some kind of permanent nightmare in his head. When Tracy went in to help it attacked her too. Everything looked so real I think when Gabriel woke up, he didn’t know he was awake and thought we were part of his nightmare.”

“That flash of light,” said Ice, “How did Gabriel do that? I had his hands and feet bound tight.”

Illusion and Terrain exchanged glances. “One of Gabriel’s abilities that we never let go public was his ability to teleport.” said Terrain.

“You mean he can fly and teleport?” asked Ice.

“Yes, but his range is limited to around ninety feet. And that will strain him so hard he can't do it again for an hour or two.”

“So he’s somewhere downstairs?” asked Fire.

“Not likely.” said Illusion, taking another sip of tea to steady her nerves.

There was a moment of silence while Fire and Ice waited for more information. When Neither Illusion nor Terrain said anything, Ice asked, “Okay, so if he’s not here, then where is he?”

“We don’t know,” answered Illusion, “As crazy as this may sound, Gabriel has the ability to teleport across dimensions. To alternate earths, or alternate realities.”

Fire, Ice, and Tracy all sat dumbfounded.

“You mean,” said Fire, trying to force the last statement to sink into her head as fact, “Gabriel can teleport to alternate realities? Like that TV show with the kid and the remote control?”

“Sliders?” asked Terrain.

“Yes. Where he and several of his friends visit other earths. With other cultures that diverge from ours.”

“Basically, yes.” said Terrain matter-of-factly.

Illusion and Terrain sat silently for a few seconds to let the news sink in. Everyone heard the elevator door open, and Force came out of the pantry. In one hand she carried a clear plastic bag and some tubing.

“Xerox wanted me to show you this,” she said, putting the bag on the table. Illusion picked up the IV bag and looked it over. It was standard saline solution.

“It’s just standard IV solution,” said Illusion, “What did Xerox think was so special about it?”

“I don’t know,” she said as she headed back to the elevator, “He said it was the last one Gabriel had before the fight broke out.”

Illusion was about to call Xerox to find out why he had thought it was so important to see this when it suddenly hit her. “Damn him!” she shouted in disgust as she pounded her fist on the table.

“What?” said Fire, Terrain, and Force in near perfect unison.

“Franklin!” she said, the force of the word making it sound almost like a curse, “He set this whole damn thing up from the get-go.”

“Uh... you better back up a bit.” said Terrain, “I’m a little lost.”

“It’s standard saline.” said Illusion, handing the bag to her husband, “Gabriel was under heavy sedation. The mix was so potent it could knock out a rhino for a week. This stuff’s just water.”

Terrain suddenly understood. “But how do you know it was Franklin?”

“He’s the one responsible for all of this,” she hissed, “He must have known Fire and Ice had a telepath on their team.” Illusion sat up in surprise, and added, “That’s why he scheduled the jump jet maintenance!”

“Hold on a second,” said Ice, putting up his hand in confusion, “Who is this Franklin guy, and how could he have done all of this?”

“The man you were talking to in the elevator,” added Fire.

“The boy I was talking to,” corrected Illusion, “He’s barely seventeen. He’s one of our members who never went out in public. He always stayed here in The Complex and kept us supplied with all the latest hardware.”

“He’s a genius, but he also has a god syndrome,” added Terrain, “If you don’t keep him busy building massive world-saving devices or bleeding edge technology, then he goes off on some huge personal crusade to make the earth a better place.”

“And he knew about Tracy?” asked Fire, stumped.

Illusion ran her fingers through her hair, thinking about the past hour. “I’m fairly sure that he not only knew about Tracy, but planned to get her here, then into the med-lab, then have Tracy try to help Gabriel. The only problem was that something went wrong, and he tried to hold us off until she could finish with Gabriel.”

“How did he know I would go there?” asked Tracy, bewildered.

“He’s very good at manipulating people,” said Illusion, the anger obvious on her face, “He’s done it in the past with such precision that many of us never knew we were doing something to satisfy some means to his ends.”

“Where is he now?” asked Fire.

“We can’t find him,” said Terrain, “More than likely he had a contingency plan to escape if we caught onto him. He could be in another state by now.”

“Lovely,” said Fire, with none of the charm in her voice, “So you have a ‘secret’ member of your team who used the ‘secret’ member of our team to help Gabriel without either team knowing that either team had a ‘secret’ member. But both teams actually knew that the other team had a ‘secret’ member, but didn’t tell anyone so they could keep their little secret. Have I got it all straight?”

“You knew about Franklin?” asked Illusion.

“We knew you had another member, but we didn’t know who they were or what they did. This ‘Franklin’ guy seemed to know all about Tracy. Even to the point of her telepathic abilities. That’s why he put her down there, isn’t it?”

“Oww!” said Tracy, sliding away from her sister, “You’re lit!”

Fire checked her temper, and the flames died out.

“He didn’t force her down there,” said Illusion, her own temper flaring, “If she hadn’t gone down there inna first place, maybe none of this wouldof happened. And even if we had known about Tracy’s abilities, it was still too dangerous for some twelve year old girl to go down there on her own!”

“Fourteen.” interjected Tracy quietly.

There was a moment of silence as both Fire and Ice tried to calm down. As usual, both Terrain and Ice kept their composure, but both men knew they were going to have to pull these two apart if it kept up much longer.

“What did you say?” asked Illusion to Tracy, the volume of her voice much softer.

“Fourteen. I’m fourteen.”

Illusion sat there for a few moments in silence, stirring the last of her tea with the small red plastic straw she liked to use. Again, Tracy didn’t feel any anger being directed towards her, but that twinge of fear welled up inside Illusion again. When Illusion finally looked up, she looked both sad and tired.

“Young enough to be my daughter.” she said.

Tracy looked down at her hands, “Yes ma’am.”

“Let me paint a rather ugly picture for you,” Illusion said, putting her tea aside, “I’ve personally known Gabriel for only two years. And in those two years I’ve seen him get as angry as he did today only once.”

Terrain nodded, obviously remembering the event well. Tracy could feel the apprehension from both of them; it was something they both didn’t want to remember.

“I won’t go into details, but let me tell you this: Gabriel teleported several people to another dimension. He didn’t touch them, and he didn’t go there with them. He simply sent them there.”

Tracy looked puzzled, not understanding the point.

“You mean he can teleport people to other dimensions whenever he wants to?” asked Ice, beginning to see Illusion’s point.

“Exactly,” she confirmed, “Had he been thinking a bit more clearly, I have no doubt that you three, myself, Valkyrie, and possibly others would be someplace else. And that someplace else could be anywhere.”

'Is she serious?' asked Fire to her sister.

Tracy felt a shiver run down her spine, <Yes. And Illusion was trying to stop him before he killed us all.>

'Kill us?' asked Fire, surprised.

<She thinks that’s what happened to the other people he teleported.>

“Tell me this,” said Terrain, interrupting their thoughts, “Just before Gabriel teleported, did you happen to hear him say anything, or even think anything that might give us a clue where he went?”

“The last thing he said was, ‘Get out of my head.’,” said Ice.

Terrain turned to Tracy, “Did you get any thoughts from him?”

Tracy tried to think back to the moment just before Gabriel disappeared. “I was so tired. I used a ‘Bliss’ attack on him, so I couldn’t read his thoughts.”

“A ‘Bliss’ attack?” clarified Illusion.

“It sends the person into a totally euphoric state of mind. They experience their greatest joys and desires as if they were real. And for a moment it worked... but then he started screaming in pain.”

“So you didn’t know what Gabriel was seeing.” said Terrain.

“I couldn’t. The attack is... well... it’s like... I can’t describe what I’m trying to say. I can only make it happen. I don’t know what they will see.”

“Why did you attack Valkyrie?” asked Illusion.

“I can’t focus it,” said Tracy defensively, “She was in the hallway, so she felt it too.”

“So he didn’t have time to concentrate.” Illusion said to herself, “Well that doesn’t make matters any better.”

“Concentrate?” asked Fire.

“He has to concentrate on the dimension he wants to go to or he’ll wind up in some random place.”

“You know, there is one word I heard before he disappeared,” said Tracy, “but I didn’t understand it.”

“What was it?” asked Illusion, perking up.

“Noliea.”

“Noliea?” asked Illusion, making sure she heard it right.

“I’m pretty sure that was it.”

“Are you sure, or just ‘pretty sure’?”

Tracy hesitated, “Just ‘pretty’ sure.”

“Does that mean anything to you?” Illusion asked Terrain.

“Not really.”

“Sarah.” said Illusion to the waiting android.

“Yes ma’am?” Sarah replied.

“What can you tell us about the word ‘Noliea’?”

Sarah paused for a moment. “There is no information regarding that word in the online dictionary.”

“So what happens now?” asked Fire.

Illusion paused in thought for a while, “I don’t know. I guess we wait for Gabriel to calm down and come back home. I also want to find Franklin.”

“Do you think he may know where Gabriel went?” asked Terrain.

“Not really, but if we do find him, by the time I’m done with him, he won’t be able to tell us.”

A solid beam of light erupted from Illusion's index finger as she deftly sliced off a corner of the kitchen table.

Nobody said a word.