The Phenomena of Fireflies and Star... - Chapter 27: Chapter 27

Andrade Residence
12:45 PM
The past few days had been very overwhelming.
Ames had been going back and forth between laser-focused and emotionally distracted. The agents had called him two days ago, indirectly, and unwittingly, informing him of the need for a seamless plan. He'd had to be very detailed with how he would do what he had needed to do. What he'd gone with was one of the many plans he had planted, just waiting to be selected and brought to fruition.
Two days ago, Eliza had reached out and revealed that she had made a powerful virus that would not only destroy The Mastermind, but also the Synapse chip installed in the laptop. Consequently, the virus would corrupt and destroy everything else. All the virus had needed to be activated was for somebody to create a new account and log in, which was exactly what Mr. Cabaljo had done.
With Eliza's help, Ames had been able to reprogram The Mastermind. He'd been able to remove all of the saved data and every data it had on the internet. He had left it a bare Mastermind that had the facade of its more experienced, more used version. He had left the husk as a trapdoor. Nobody would know it was all according to plan.
He had deliberately left quite the wrong impression on the agents, something Eliza had also helped in achieving. He hoped the agents continued to remember him as that person.
That person whose need to help had hypnotized him into almost taking part in a very questionable deal, influenced by the overwhelming pressure of immediately accessible perks.
Ames had hated playing along with the crap. He had needed to feign blind idealism, gullibility at the sight of money, and weakness of will. It was disgusting to look back to, especially how he had needed to amp his acting up when the bribery had started playing out. He had far too much self-respect in reality for all of that clownery.
But they were necessary lies.
He wanted them off his back, and for good.
No one would suspect a thing. They most probably now thought that he was just a weirdo with a program, but without a solid plan. A weirdo who had gone cuckoo at the severe inconvenience they had caused, knowing fully well that said weirdo hadn't been very meticulous in securing his program online, either. The virus was the cherry on top. A virus ex machina. To them, it had all been a big disappointment in a bizarre day.
But The Mastermind was no more. No trace. Nada.
Ames had been lying down on the sanitized sofa for about an hour now. His eyes viewed the ceiling, but his vision was purposeless. He couldn't feel anything. Nothing that lasted anyway.
Initially, he had wanted to cry it out. He had almost done exactly that, but he hadn't shed a single tear.
He couldn't anymore. He couldn't.
The years he'd spent building The Mastermind, aiming for the completion of his mission, they were all a blur now.
All for nothing.
He couldn't cry, and somehow, that was worse. He just felt very barren. Hollow. Empty.
'I did the right thing,' he told himself yet again. 'I did the best thing I ever could with The Mastermind and the Synapse in my possession.'
'If anything, I should be celebrating.'
'Right?'
No matter how hard he tried to remember everything he had worked so hard to achieve, he couldn't cry. He couldn't feel anything.
'I need to feel something,' he thought, clenched fist against his chest. 'Anything will do.'
Unleashing a frustrated breath, he pushed off the sofa and got up on his feet. There was nothing around him that could entertain him. Normally, he was creative when it came to entertaining himself. Today, he was a spent man.
'I could use an exercise,' he decided, walking out of the house to find something to do. He wasn't about to jog in this weather, though. He just needed to hit something really, really badly. That could be a good start.
'If only I could find something to hit.'
'I need something to...'
He paused, looking back through the open doorway of the house.
'Found one.'
Andrade Residence
12:51 PM
Max deactivated the invisibility field the moment he landed on the lot, shocked by what he was witnessing.
Ames was kneeling on the floor, his face emotionless as he smashed his laptop with a hammer again and again. The noise was definitely intrusive, but it was the emptiness that pulsated from Ames's heart that bothered Max. It was strong.
It was a strong, palpable, and unmistakable emptiness.
As for the laptop? Reduced to shattered pieces of hard plastic, chips, wires, and glass. Ames didn't seem to be planning to stop.
"Ames, what are you doing?" Max demanded, crouching in front of Ames. He carefully set the briefcase down to his side. "Hey. It's hot out."
"I know," Ames plainly replied, swiftly shifting into a reverse grip on the hammer's handle before slamming it one last time onto the remains of the poor laptop. The final crunch of glass concluded the series of loud noises that disturbed the early afternoon silence. Ames held the hammer in place, grinding the fragments slowly with its head.
"Satisfied?" Max inquired, not knowing what to say. It was as if there wasn't anything he could ask or suggest that could take away the emptiness that was pulsating right into his face.
Ames slowly looked up at him.
Max thought he was looking at tears, but a closer look showed that Ames was just drenched in sweat. The guy's eyes weren't even red. His eyes were expressionless, with nothing more than a faint smile forming at the side of his lips to indicate any emotion.
"It's a start," Ames replied, slowly standing up from his position. Max straightened up as well, wanting to take a good look at Ames's face. "I did the right thing. I did what was good."
With that said, Ames turned around nonchalantly and made his way into the house, leaving Max alone outside, baffled by the stoic act of rage that he'd just witnessed.
9:10 PM
They'd never had a date on the front porch before, but this one felt rather pleasant. The emptiness that came from Ames had weakened quite a bit, but it was still there. Max decided he would let it be. Ames should be able to make it through what he was going through, so long as he kept in mind why he'd had to do what he'd done. They sat on the top step of the porch, backs against opposite columns, half-facing each other, eyes to the sky.
A half-full beer bottle stood between them. Max had a glass in hand, and so did Ames.
"Two days ago, I checked out the Diameter," Max reported, lowering his eyes to Ames after randomly tracing the constellations in the night sky.
"How was it?" Ames asked, taking a sip of beer and looking back at Max.
"They're not playing around with the tech," Max replied, keeping the volume of his voice in mind. "You need to realize that they already have tech to develop the variant. They just really needed The Mastermind for future use. Quicker development. If you'd given it up, we'd be in very big trouble by now."
Ames was silent for a while, as if recalling that fact. Max felt the spark of realization in Ames's pulsation, but it was quickly covered by the predominant emptiness that had been pulsating for hours now.
"What's the plan, Max? What're we gonna' do?"
"I changed my mind about it, actually. This is something I gotta' do alone. Cut you the slack."
"No," Ames resisted. "We're in this together."
"What I have in mind is dangerous, Ames," Max reasoned out, noticing the fire coming back in Ames's eyes. "This isn't like this morning."
"I know it's dangerous, Max, but so am I," Ames's words were sharp but calmly spoken. There was that darkness in Ames's energy again. It wasn't as bad as Monday's energy read, but it was definitely back. "I just created a program that could've doomed us all. I showed them a weapon they can no longer use."
"Ames..."
"Don't forget, Max. You said that we'd figure it out. We. Where's that now?"
"You don't understand..."
"I do, Max," Ames interrupted, his stare relentless and unblinking. "Tell me what your plan is, and then we'll get through it. Where you go, I go, and that's settled."
Max sighed in surrender to the stubbornness being thrown his way. Ames was capable, more so emotionally than physically. Max wasn't belittling with that assessment, but he couldn't just throw Ames into the lions' den. Taking a stand against Division directly, or even through its projects like the Diameter, wasn't something even the most powerful Enforcers remaining had dared—or would dare—to do. Going against Division meant turning even the New Age Initiative against oneself.
He also knew that destroying the Creaton or its variant was an impossible task. The crystal regenerated itself, and taking shards from it wasn't a problem for Division.
There was, however, one good option.
He had saved it at the back of his mind to allow Ames to deal with his own battles with a ready support system. Now, Max could share it.
"There's no destroying the Creaton, and destroying its variant shards is pointless," Max said. "But we can get the people talking against it."
"Leverage," Ames added, leaning forward a bit to listen closely.
"This battle is far from over," Max continued. "I disturbed their plans. You slowed them down. But Malign and Current are still out there. They're gonna' want to get a hold of the variant. I assure you, they won't be late for the party. They'll try to be there day one. The Legion will not be far behind."
A bit of worry registered on Ames's face, but Max could feel from the guy's pulsation that he wasn't afraid of either superhuman.
"Are we going to face them head-on?" Ames asked.
"I hope not," Max replied honestly. "But this will be larger than the two of us. The two of them. Even The Legion. This is about to be our protest."
"I'm in," Ames said, his will resolute. His face was still largely stoic, but his eyes had regained their sharpness.
"Okay," Max replied, gulping down the logical hesitation he was feeling about Ames's involvement. "But once we get on with it, I'm gonna' need you to trust me and do as I say."
"So long as you don't deprive me of the opportunity, Max, I'll follow your lead," Ames said. "I want to help. Also, what we're about to do could expose you. I can't afford that."
"We can't afford that," Max pointed out. "Which is why we need to be careful. And sure. If we're gonna' have to fight them, we have to kill them. Or something like that. If."
"Not to be weird or anything," Ames replied, finishing his glass of beer and setting it down. There was a particular expression in his eyes as he looked up at the sky. It looked peaceful, but there was an insidious quality to it. "But "something like that" sounds less exciting."
They shared the bed that night, comfortable in the cottony warmth of their sweaters and wrapped in an embrace. Their legs were also just as lazily and conveniently interlocked. Seamless.
The physical connection was fending off the emptiness. It stubbornly remained, but Max was glad that Ames was, at least, responding to his embrace with warmth.
"You're an extraordinary ordinary person, Ames," Max remarked, pressing Ames's head gently against his chest. "You're crazy, too. It's crazier that you've always made sense all along."
"I don't mean to sound racist against your kind," Ames explained, almost mumbling. "It's just that superhumans changed everything. And the heroics? They distracted the public from everything else."
"I know," Max replied, his right hand cupping the side of Ames's face. His thumb massaged Ames's cheek lightly, and it was pleasantly satisfying to do. "Wouldn't have met me any other way, though."
"I lucked on an exception," Ames said, pressing his head harder against Max's chest. "If only you weren't an exception."
"So did I," Max replied, planting a long kiss on Ames's head. "I can relate."
"I want to do this with you," Ames said, parting from Max's chest and looking up at his eyes. "Wherever you go, I go. Your fight is mine. Your enemy is my enemy. So trust in me when I tell you that I will fight with you. Believe in me like I believe in you. You don't want to lose me? I don't want to lose you. You're not alone in facing the threat of that happening, so don't force yourself to be. You might not like what you'll get, if you insist."
'Determination,' Max recognized as he looked into Ames's eyes. There was that protective layer of emptiness, but there was also that determination in the young man's eyes that was indomitable. Remarkable.
"I'm scared of losing you, Ames," Max said, kissing Ames's forehead. "I don't want that to happen."
"That could," Ames said firmly. "I can't let them take away what we have, either. When I say "together", I mean "together". You understand?"
"I understand, Ames."
"I'm scared, too, Max. But I'm with you through and through."
"Through and through," Max echoed, resting his lips on the home that Ames's forehead provided.
"Someday, hopefully, this will just be another one of our battles together," Ames said. "We'll make that happen. Together."
October 28, 2023
Saturday
7:21 AM
Today's breakfast menu should be very satisfactory: omelets, meat loaf, and corned beef.
Ames was still sleeping, and Max had needed to levitate his way off the bed to not disturb the guy. Ames needed the sleep. He would need a good meal when he woke up, too.
Max knew that there was no talking Ames out of the plan. There was knocking him out of commission for his own safety, but Max wasn't about to be another obstacle that Ames had to overcome. That was the last thing Max wanted to be.
The only way through this was together, but Max had to make sure that they could really make it through. Ideally, unscathed. Realistically, with each other. At least.
Max took the can opener from the counter drawer.
'First, the corned beef,' he decided, proceeding to open the can lid. 'I should add some onions. Ames likes them with onions.'
He set the can opener down on the counter, having opened the lid successfully.
"Ah, crap," he complained.
A little too successfully, to be honest.
The wayward metal circle had been cut all the way, and it had fallen deep into the can.
"Come here," he muttered, using his fingers to pick the lid up. It was a bit of a challenge. The stubborn thing was stuck. "Come on."
Finally getting a good hold of the lid, he pulled it out and dumped it into the sink.
"Finally...," he paused, staring at his index finger and his thumb in alarm.
'Blood...,' he thought as he eyed the crimson liquid that covered his fingers and dripped onto the countertop. There was blood in the can, too.
"Dammit!" he exclaimed, putting the can down. He was still bleeding, and he continued to drip messily on the counter the longer he took to wash the blood off. "Disgusting."
'I should heal in ten more seconds,' he thought, cupping his hands to avoid making a bigger mess as he turned the faucet on. He suspended his hands under the flowing water, observing the blood as it seeped into the drain. Max stared curiously at the cuts on his index finger and his thumb. They were pretty deep cuts, and they stubbornly continued to bleed.
'Come on. Close up. This is nothing.'
They didn't. They didn't close up.
'The hell?'
Ten seconds had already passed.
Still, nothing had changed. The cuts were still open and bleeding.
'Why am I not healing yet?'
Max's breathing was starting to feel uncomfortably limited, and the longer he stared at his cuts, the deeper he sank into considering a foreboding thought that he hadn't known intimately for a long time.
'Am I...'
'Is this...'
"Hello?!" he jolted back to full attention at the sound of Ames's panicked voice from upstairs. "Elle! I need you to calm down. Breathe, okay?"
Max turned the faucet off, quickly looking for something he could wipe his hands with.
"What do you mean they..."
"Listen. What?"
"How did they find you out? Did somebody tip you off?"
'Screw it,' Max thought, taking the drying towel above the sink and hurriedly wrapping his hand up with it. He was still bleeding. 'I'll just get a replacement.'
'I have no goddamn idea what's going on...'
"Elle, what did they do to you?"
He rushed up the stairs and pushed the bedroom door open, finding Ames at the center of the room, phone to his ear, face distorted in anxiety.
Max felt a wave of disbelief and worry smack against him. It was coming from Ames. The emptiness was no longer there, replaced by a strong energy of alarm.
And anger.
Max stood by the doorway, following Ames with his eyes.
"Why would they do that?" Ames was almost hissing, unable to stand still. "You're the goddamn CFO. You're top of the line. How could you..."
"How could they do that to you?" Ames corrected himself, eyes shutting in severe frustration. Ames turned quickly, sending a clenched fist to the wall behind him.
The sound of the impact reverberated throughout the entire room, and the walls shook slightly at the force.
Max's defenses sparked up a bit, instinctively activating at the sight of violence. He stared at Ames, carefully keeping watch, just in case something worse came up.
"Okay, okay, okay," Ames rattled on, glaring at his shaky hand before lowering it. "Dammit. Okay. Just..."
"Don't think about me...," Ames finally said, sounding as if he had just jumpstarted from a failed attempt at acceleration. "Think about you, okay? Do whatever it takes. Do whatever it takes to not get in trouble. Just think about you. No. It's okay. It's okay. We'll get to that someday, but right now, I need you to put you first. You hear me? Do you hear me?!"
Max began to detect something else, seeing the symptom of it in Ames's tearful eyes.
A wash of guilt.
"Don't think about me, dammit!" Ames shouted. "Breathe. Okay? We'll get through this. Just protect yourself. Yourself first. Put yourself first. Okay?! Okay. Okay. Go. Don't get caught up with me. I got this. Look after you. Go."
With that, Ames poked his phone screen and threw the whole thing to his bed.
"Those sons of--," Ames broke off, dunking his head onto his hands and letting out a loud growl. His following breaths were heavy.
"Ames--," Max tried.
"They got Eliza," Ames interrupted, looking back at him with guilt and alarm. "They threatened her job. Her relationship with her family. They pulled strings on her. Bad."
"Oh no...," Max uttered, caught in the erratic pulsations of Ames's emotions.
"They bribed her, too," Ames continued, wiping frustrated tears from his eyes. "To make a new Mastermind."
7:35 AM
"Are you sure you're fine?" Ames asked, scrutinizing Max's fingers from across the tabletop. "Looks like you bled a lot."
"I guess so...," Max replied, glad that his cuts had finally closed and still confused about why healing had taken so much time. He healed from bullet wounds within seconds. Twenty seconds, to be exact. Cuts from a can lid shouldn't have taken that long. The towel now had a moist red stain on it the size of a fist, but there were no cuts on his fingers in sight. "Sure took a long time. It's weird."
"Everything's weird," Ames complained, lowering Max's hand carefully. "Those bastards really went that far. I can't believe it."
"Sadly, I'm not surprised," Max commented, scanning his own hand. There really were no other cuts. "If they're this desperate, I'm not sure I wanna' know what else they have in mind."
"I'm not really a black and white kind of guy, Max," Ames's words were ominous but casually spoken. "I can be as gray as them. Maybe darker."
"This isn't something we just trot into, Ames. If we do this, we do this smart and fast. No mistakes."
"Is there really a chance that Malign and Current will try their hand on Monday?"
"If they're smart, yes."
"Okay," Ames replied, leaning back on his chair. Max recognized the same fire he'd felt from Ames back in the gun range. It was back, and right now, it was the primary energy fueling the pulsations coming from Ames's heart. There was no hint of fear. No worry. Only fire. If only Ames's eyes launched the flames that were growing brighter and hotter inside of him, this house would've already been decimated. "Two birds, one Creaton."
Max threw his hands up, unleashing a large ball of dancing colors. A few slow waves of his fingers later, the colors settled into white. He lowered his arms, bringing the ball to chest level and making it hover between Ames and himself. Guided by hand motions, he molded the orb into a hologram of the Diameter. The bedroom curtains had been drawn together to avoid suspicious glances from passersby.
"The Diameter," he said, proceeding to craft a hologram of the dome's entire lot. "We can go in undetected from the front, provided we go invisible. We will be largely undetected anyway."
"Any guards to worry about?" Ames inquired.
"Pretty standard security," Max answered, crafting a separate hologram of the Diameter security, and then another one of more complex gear. "Expect Division agents. Maybe a joint security force. Maybe all three types."
"Malign and Current," Ames mentioned. "I've asked this many times before, but I will ask again. How sure are you that they're going to attack on day one?"
"Division has impressive security," Max said. "But it's also not the best team player. Day one's going to be a logistical nightmare for both Division and Wang Industries. They won't be able to settle down as quickly as they want. I've dealt with Malign and the rest of the Severance Seven for a long time. I know how they think."
"Why don't they just attack the transport convoy?"
"This is where it gets scary. They won't have the technology to secure the variant shards. So why hide anywhere else..."
"When you can settle in the Diameter," Ames finished, a confused look on his face. "That's brave of them. Almost stupidly desperate, but not. The Diameter isn't exactly in the heart of the city, but it's not hard to find."
"They pulled a city-wide attack a month ago," Max reminded him. "With a weapon they can control one heist away, Armed Forces won't be a problem."
Max moved the holograms aside, erecting a new one resembling the cylindrical structure and the rooms connecting to it.
"Is that where they'll keep the variant shards?" Ames asked, reaching out to touch the new hologram. "Viewing rooms? For variant observation, I believe."
"Correct," Max confirmed. "Security card-protected. Metal walls, too. Thankfully, we'll be invisible, but we have to be prepared in case we need to pickpocket."
"That's not a problem," Ames remarked, tilting his head confidently. Max found it an interesting gesture. "What? I was a gang member. Infiltrating rival turf and stealing crap to stir up fights was just another Tuesday."
"Remind me that I didn't hear that at all," Max commented, moving all the holograms aside.
They lay in bed, eyes up to the ceiling as Max played around with the holograms hovering above them.
"Are we expecting Enforcers, by the way?" Ames asked. "I have a feeling they'll be there."
"They will be," Max replied, using his fingers to reshape the holograms into humanoid forms. "I'm guessing they'll be using the New Age Initiative Enforcers. It's been a month. By now, they should be ferocious."
"Any old-timers?" Ames inquired.
"Channel might do the honors," Max said, eyes squinting in doubt. "He's a workaholic, however. He'll probably stay behind at Division HQ. Maybe Battle Cry and Sun Dancer."
"What if they find you out? We can't afford to get caught, right? Even if we have to engage?"
"I got that covered."
"We can't stay invisible for too long, and your light powers are limited when you're invisible."
"I know," Max replied reassuringly. He'd found a way to use his light powers a little bit differently. It was like the use of the non-dominant hand after years of using the dominant one. "That's why we won't have to be. Trust me."
"Normally, when you tell me to trust you, you're up to something crazy."
"And it has always worked to our advantage."
"You need to let me know, or my ignorance will make me a liability."
"Okay then," Max surrendered, turning to his side and casting his light powers toward the work desk. The holograms above him dissipated, and the work desk began to glimmer. He had an image in mind, and he had the tools to achieve it. In a way.
"Oh my god...," Ames gasped at the sight of the work desk's colors changing from brown to cerulean, intricate golden patterns taking the place of the otherwise standard drawer knobs. The new laptop turned into a large book. The entire setup glimmered for a while before settling. "What did you do?"
"Just a little something I picked up a few days ago," Max confessed, smiling proudly at the successful attempt of using a new variation of his photokinetic powers. "I bend light around me to hide me. I don't just break apart into tiny atoms and become omnipresent or teleport. I'm still there. I just can't be seen."
"An optical illusion," Ames realized, looking at him in awe. "A very fine optical illusion."
"Why hide forever?" Max added. "If you can just look like someone else for a while? It's much harder to maintain, though. Harder than going invisible. Needs a lot of focus."
With a click of his fingers, the illusory field blinked out, returning the work desk's appearance to normal.
"We go in invisible is number one," Ames said as he walked through the hologram of the Enforcers. "We stalk someone into the observation room or we steal ID cards. The observation room on the third floor should allow us a good vantage point."
Max lifted his hand, closing his fist and turning the light show off.
"We document everything," Max added. "We expose what we need to expose."
"If Malign and Current attack...," Ames continued.
"Enforcers should buy us some time," Max replied. "Hopefully, we won't need to be directly involved. Then again, we still could. We have to be smart."
He threw out a large holographic ball with his hands, gesturing to sculpt a large multicolored crystal with it. The dazzling colors spread all over the room, washing over everything beautifully. Max remembered the magnificence of the Creaton. He remembered the excruciating pain it had caused him, too.
He caught a faint pulsation of feeling intimidated coming from Ames, who stared at the Creaton hologram with as much enchantment as he did worry.
"Such a beautiful rock," Ames commented, sounding almost as if he was in a daze. "Such a dangerous beauty."
"So much misplaced power causing imbalance in the modern ecology," Max pointed out, crafting a smaller photokinetic ball in his hand. It glowed in mesmerizing gold at first, radiating more fiercely with each second, until it almost looked like a fireball. "And, perhaps, the cosmos."
He threw the golden photokinetic ball forward in a palm striking motion, using it to shatter the Creaton hologram into colorful shards, casting almost kaleidoscopic refractions onto everything.
"This success of the Division-Wang alliance will lead to large-scale societal shifts," Max concluded. "It is a statement of power. Therefore, it is a statement of challenge. Malign, Current, and The Legion will want the chance to make that same statement."
"Time to knock their lights out," Ames said, grabbing Max's wrist firmly.
At once, Max could feel Ames's strong pulsation of his desire to turn off the lights. It was such an empathic ambush that Max immediately willed the light show to stop.
And it did.
In a blink.
Max looked toward Ames in tight-lipped shock. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with Ames's growing capabilities of overloading him empathically, but the development was as impressive as it was unnerving, and that was something to laud. At least.
Ames looked at Max with an expression on his face so complexly indicative of both apology and tenaciousness. Max turned to face Ames properly.
"After this...," Ames spoke softly, loosening his grip on Max's wrist and slowly linking hands. "We go away. Start fresh. Sound good?"
"A plan has never sounded better," Max replied, lifting Ames's hands up to his lips and keeping them comfortably in place.
They had less than forty-eight hours.
The next best thing to do was store up energy.
They're going to need it.