Altered Ch. 08 Pt. 01

I panicked and jumped down after her, and used counter vectors on me and her. I appeared to float down past her, and she was able to regain purchase on a rung below her. As I floated down, I steadied her and we got into the boat.

"You are ALL full of surprises!" she said, exhilarated.

What we were doing was very dangerous, and normally no one would even think of trying it while the boat was still moving. But if someone was tracking the ferry, then stopping the boat would have told them exactly where we were. They slowly eased us away from the boat by a long mooring rope until we cleared the major wake behind the ferry, then I released the knot and started the engine. The boat's size and the roughness of the wake got us completely soaked by the time we turned the motor on and made our way to land.

Rita was gasping in shock, and I'm guessing, excitement. She was smiling, and although I felt miserable in my wet jeans, I couldn't help reciprocating.

I looked around and saw the closest landmass - Treasure Island. We made our way to shore. Once landed, I moored the boat to a metal "no fishing" sign sticking out of the rocks near the shore. I pulled out my phone and looked up what was on Treasure Island on Google Maps and saw that the round quarter moon shaped building across a parking lot from us was the Treasure Island Museum. I was hoping they had taxis hanging out nearby.

Before we could seek shelter at the museum, five mechsuits popped out of stealth over the bay. They followed the ferry's wake and caught up to it a mile later. We were pretty far away by then but we could still make the boat out from our vantage point. The mechsuits hovered over the ferry for a few minutes, before they started firing missiles at the boat. Explosions rocketed the sky and the sound of the blast were heard all across the city, and we, from our close proximity could feel the concussion. A tremendous fireball lit up the sky that was brighter than daylight, and the city seemed to grow quite for a few seconds before screams, sirens and honking all roared out to play catch up to the events.

Rita gasped in horror and put her hands to her face as if to hold it still. My link with the captain was suddenly severed and I knew that everyone on that ferry was likely dead. I heard screams from the parking lot next to us as museum patrons witnessed what they thought was another act of terrorism. I looked around and off in the distance, with my eagle eyes, I saw people lined up along the railing of the Oakland bridge pointing towards the black smoke rising from the water.

The mechsuits flew straight up and stealthed out of sight. I used my third eye and sure enough I saw a faint trail. But they were so far away it didn't matter, I had no way to respond to them at this distance - I wasn't superman.

Rita was sobbing uncontrollably and I stood shell shocked for a minute as she cried into my shoulder. But then, the hardened resolve kicked in - that feeling that veterans of battle get once the bombs start dropping. I'd been in battle before and I knew that us watching from the sidelines wouldn't help us or get us out of danger.

"Come on, we have to go!" I commanded, but she seemed to be dragging her feet, and didn't seem to be aware of what she was doing. She was lost in her own head.

We needed to move, and fast, so I scooped her up in my arms and carried her, through the parking lot toward the front of the Treasure Island Museum. I was hoping to catch a taxi or an Uber from the Museum and cross the bridge back to downtown San Francisco, but with the attack everyone leaving the museum might grab the awaiting taxis before we got there so we had to hurry.

As I ran, I looked up in the sky trying to track the mechsuits with my third eye. I heard sirens everywhere as police and fire boats rushed out to the wreckage to save any survivors. The sky looked like biplanes flying around doing skywriting. The mechsuits seemed to be following a grid pattern. They weren't leaving, they must have had orders to be sure that she was dead. I was kicking myself, wishing I had brought my railgun, but hiding a gun that big in public was next to impossible, so it was left behind with the rest of my gear at the hotel with Jenny.

If the men in the mechsuits were trackers, they would find Rita's aura soon. I needed to get her into cover and out of site. Mass didn't completely block an aura from a trackers site, it wasn't like light, it was more like radio waves. But mass did dampen an aura and the more mass separating a tracker from someone's aura the weaker it would be and less likely that they would notice her.

Luck wasn't with me, carrying Rita slowed me down too much, I was afraid to move too fast with her and snap her neck in my haste. I only made it halfway through the parking lot, (which filled in the void of the quarter moon shaped building), before I saw a mechsuit head my way.

I looked Rita in the eye and pleaded with her to come out of her shell, 'Get down behind the car!' I sent frantically including a picture in my mind of the car we were next to.

It must have done the trick because she suddenly became lucid and ran to the back of the car ducking down out of site.

I had been studying telekinesis in my off time, besides single point vectors that applied a single force like a cannon, telekinetics could also apply vectors in 4D. Imagine a rollercoaster and you are on it, you follow the path of the tracks, you have both a forward motion usually caused something launching you forward and the tracks minimal resistance keeping your momentum, but also you have gravity constantly applying a downward vector on you the whole way as well as the upward vectors from the tracks keeping you in place. From my reading, depending on the level of mastery in telekinesis, I could apply a constant force vector along a given path, usually a straight line, but if I was good enough it could be a windy, twisting path like a roller coaster. So in essence I could make someone fly. The problem was that it would take all of my own concentration to do something like that. I couldn't make myself fly, because that's all I would be able to do was concentrate on flying, I wouldn't have enough self-awareness to avoid running into things, at least not at my current ability anyway.

Besides moving objects, a master level telekinetic could bring up shield walls of force. They weren't walls per se, they were more like nets of force. They were porous, so they couldn't do things like hold water or form a sail, wind and water would pass right through them, but they were tight enough that small objects such as bullets would be slowed down, and just like with a solid material when the bullet passed through the force netting, it would change its direction slightly (depending on the angle of deflection). However, all of this was mute since, I still hadn't figured out how to do it yet.

I couldn't focus my vectors on the suit since he was still hidden and nearly invisible. I kicked my brain into hyperdrive, and "slowed" down time. I knew that if he did shoot a missile at us, it wouldn't be like in a movie, it would be way too fast to dodge. The suit was also too far away for me to throw objects in its general direction that would be any threat to him. So, it was just a waiting game for him to make his move as I prepared to defend Rita.

The mechsuit dropped down until it was about 500 yards out before it dropped its stealth. It then unleashed a barrage of missiles. I used my sharp eyesight and slowed time effect to track each missile fired, and used the vectoring to deflect each missile wide, I didn't have time to do more than that since he shot five of them. Each missile flew off randomly around the parking lot, blowing cars, parts of buildings and asphalt apart. The blasts were far enough away not to be lethal to Rita, but shrapnel started to rain from the sky. Rita, to her credit, was fast thinking and rolled under the car she hid behind.

The mechsuit was obviously out of missiles but it still had a Gatling gun. I knew that the Gatling could turn a car to swiss cheese, and I only had seconds to decide what to do. So even if I could tap into that inner knowledge that had saved me so many times before, it wouldn't be fast enough to stop the guns. I couldn't vector the suit to the ground, the suit had a computer that automatically adjusted to outside forces, keeping it stable. The only hope I had was to turn it away, so I applied to counter vectors to its right and left sides, causing him to twist in midair, his guns cutting swaths though the parked cars until he was facing the sea and firing impotently into the water.

If I could lure him to the ground my vectors would have more effect, I could even toss objects at him, but as long as his jet propulsion system kept him aloft all I could do was act in defense.

I looked past the mechsuit and I noticed that I was well and truly boned. The other mechsuits were on their way over and judging by their distance I'd say I only had a minute. There was no way I could fight them all and protect Rita. I had a lot of powers but I didn't fully know how to use them yet. So, although I was able to keep the first mechsuit at bay there was no way to keep them all at bay. I kept slamming the first attacker with random hits of force, keeping his suit busy keeping him aloft. He might have other weapons to bring to the fight so I kept him shaking in his suit in the hopes I could keep him distracted while I thought of something.

My eyes darted around for split seconds trying to gather as much as I could, but I had to keep my eyes on my opponent in order to throw force vectors at him. Through my quick glances and my peripherals, I noticed that the whole area was being filled with smoke by the fires caused by the destroyed cars all around. My best bet I decided was to get Rita undercover and act as a target for their fire.

The noise from the mechsuits propulsion system was deafening, so calling out to Rita would be useless.

'Rita! Get out from under there - quick!" I sent.

Once she was standing upright, I sent, 'Don't freak out! You have to get out of here. Get inside and if they have a basement, get in it."

She looked lost and shell shocked, her face was a mess of ruined makeup, tear streaks and a runny nose. Her face was pale and her eyes looked sunken and bloodshot. I had never seen someone so scared in my life.

I gave the mechsuit a gigantic push, that flipped him, causing him to face downward at an awkward angle. His suit recovered but it caused him to launch himself up in the air and out of my reach. I turned back to Rita and pushed her, throwing her into the air, and tried my best to steady her flights but she still tumbled wildly, screaming the whole way. Then half way between here and the entrance to the museum, I timed a counter vector to slow her velocity and she stopped just short of the entrance. Someone must have been guiding me that day because I could just have easily hurt her.

'Get inside! Now!' I sent.

Thank God she complied, because I was about to have my hands full. At that point, I doubted I would live through it, but Rita had almost a century to learn a few survival techniques. She wouldn't have lived long without it - especially since she must have been on the run half the time.

Rita got back inside and I my mind raced, "What if I played one against the other?"

'They are too disciplined to fall for that for long, Nate,' Rita answered.

Two of the mechsuits were flying in range of the fight, their missiles were short range so they had to get close to fire them. I ran into the smoke knowing they would have to switch to infrared to see through the smoke. One of them got within range and I saw his missile battery open up to fire. I turned him suddenly toward the suit closest to him, and his full battery launched in the other suit's direction. One of the missiles blew a hole in the other mech's propulsion system setting off a massive explosion. The guy who fired the missiles was so close that the concussion knocked him out of the sky and he landed on the ground hard. The concussion was so large, in fact, that it knocked me flat on my ass also. Another flying unit that was about to open up on me, tumbled in the air and flew off to recover.

'Nate, hide. You can't take them on by yourself.'

'I have to keep them away from you.'

'They'll kill you!'

'Don't let my sacrifice be in vain,' was my only answer.

'Maybe I can help you. You were saying before that knowledge of your abilities seemed to be locked in your head. Maybe I can unlock that knowledge for you."

'I'm going to be dead in a few minutes, so do what you can. My mind is opened for you...'

She must have known just where the knowledge was locked away, because as I was hiding amongst the wreckage and using the smoke as a cover I was suddenly flooded with knowledge. The knowledge was in my brain the whole time but it was like a computer hard drive with deleted files, the operating system doesn't actually delete the files but it just removes them from listing. And like a software program the restores deleted files, Rita brought the memories to my conscience mind so that I could access them.

"Holy shit!" I thought, surprised at how much knowledge was brought to bear. I didn't know the extent of my ignorance until right then.

Not only was there knowledge about all of my abilities and how to use them but there was knowledge on Ataru technologies thought to be long lost to the survivors here. There was even a chunk of their history in there that I knew that my 'father' must have withheld from his people. I went from scrambling to find a way to survive, (or at least to sacrifice myself without it being in vain), to suddenly having an abundance of ways to defeat my foes.

I quickly surveyed the battlefield and saw three mechsuits in the air and one hobbling around the parking lot searching for me. I grinned knowing that for once I would be the cat playing with it's food. I disappeared from sight, then five illusions suddenly appeared in different locations around the parking lot.

One of my illusions jumped up into the air and started flying and pulled out an illusionary rail gun and fired "missing" its target by inches. It would not do to have him actually hit its target or the mech would quickly dismiss them as non-threats. The rail guns near miss would force him to react. Two more of my illusions jumped at the other mechsuits firing rail guns at them and maneuvering them like chess pieces.

The handicapped mech on the ground was firing round after round at the impossibly fast illusions circling him on the ground as I snuck up on him stealthily and invisible. I had to keep him distracted because although my invisibility was real, his suit would have countermeasures he could use if he had time to think to use them. I Imagines his surprise when I jumped up in the air with the broken off wheel of a car (tire mostly burned away) slammed into his visor with such force that it broke through the bullet proof shielding and lopped off the top of his head. I doubt he even saw it happen.

I sat perched on top of his suit, his onboard computers were the only thing keeping him standing but it was as still as a statue. My illusions kept getting the three mechs to get dangerously close to friendly fire but their onboard computers must have been tracking each other because their minigun rounds would stop when they would get in the line of fire and resume after they left the line of fire.

My intention wasn't a repeat performance however, the bobbing and weaving of the illusions was for two reasons; first I wanted them wasting their ammo, and second, I wanted them to get grouped closer together. In order to keep the illusion going I had to let one of my illusion get "shot" out of the sky once in a while. But I had the two on the ground quickly take their place. Finally, after some deft maneuvering, I got two suits within 50 feet of each other at the same altitude of about 200 feet up. I then slammed them with 50 huge vectors on the opposing vectors pointing towards each other rather than away. Each vector had enough force to throw a 200 lb. man up in the air and having him land a football field away. The Mechs suddenly accelerated toward each other at great speed. The resulting collisions was like watching a head on collision on a freeway going ninety mph both ways, there was an explosion of metal debris and surprisingly no fireball from their propulsion system. But the propulsion was still firing at the time of the crash and without the onboard computer to control it, the ball of debris rocketed up in the sky over 1000 feet before turning wildly around, making a complete U-turn toward the ground. The resulting mess as they hit an outcropping of rocks lining the shore left nothing identifiable expect bits and pieces of a billion-piece puzzle.

The last mech wised up and ignored the illusions, so I dismissed them - he was out of ammo anyway. He finally started searching for me so I removed my invisibility illusion and waited for him.

"Come get me, mother fucker!" I yelled, futilely, although I doubt he could hear me I was betting his computer could read lips.

He was smart and slowly descended to the ground. I could have messed him up with force vectors but I wanted to demonstrate to the people that were watching his live feed just how useless and ineffective they were against me now. His minigun had withdrawn so he was either out of ammo or conceding not to shoot it - it didn't matter though, it would have been useless. He had my full attention. The guy was cocky and really shouldn't have been. He did something stupid - he popped his claws.

Like Wolverine the mechsuit had some retractable bayonets along the forearm area of his suit that, curved out like claws, extending past his fingers by about a foot. I wanted to show off my powers more but he left me with an easier and less messy solution. His arm suddenly bent and angled his bayonet toward his head piece, slamming into it over and over again until his bullet resistant glass cracked then broke piercing the rider inside spraying blood against the inside of the face shield.

I walked over to the last combatant and couldn't help myself and said "Stop hitting yourself!" as I spat on him in disgust.

'I don't know how you did it, but you saved my life...' I sent to Rita.

'I also saved MY life, so I don't know if that counts' she returned.

'I'm alive and grateful,' I sent with my heartfelt gratitude.

I sprinted over to the entrance of the museum. The helicopters, police boats and police cars swarming the area came out of my peripheral vision - I had been so focused on my enemy that I hadn't seen them until they were almost on top of me. I had a choice to make, I could run and try to sneak Rita out of there or I could allow myself to be arrested and escape later, but I wasn't about to go to war with the cops - I had enough enemies.

I rushed into the museum and saw Rita come out of hiding and started to run towards me, but out of the crowd of people milling about came two men-in-black looking goons - and both grabbed her arms.

'They must have some sort psychic protections, Nate, I can't read their minds,' she sent.

"Rita Thompson," one guy commanded, flashing a badge. "You're coming with us, ma'am."

"And if I don't want to go?" she asked.

The bruiser next to her grinned. She didn't bother looking at him, she just stared at me.

"I wouldn't get so cocky, fuck-wad," she gloated, (she's got quite the potty mouth on her for being almost a century old). "My boyfriend doesn't take too kindly to my kidnapping and I know my rights. Unless, you are arresting me and have an actual legitimate charge, I think you're screwed."