The Last Battle
The last battle of the Alpha Wars (as history would later refer to the conflict between Parish’s followers and the Alphas working for the U.S. government) was a long, bloody affair that lasted for the better part of the day. But the contest’s outcome was inevitable. Stanton Parish’s people all had their abilities upgraded by photic stimulators, they were all willing to fight and die for their cause, and they had the home field advantage during the battle, at one of the last of the Red Flag bases. Red Flag also had had Charles Webb’s psychic abilities, as well as all of Parish’s 200 years of military experience, to guide them.
But none of it was enough.
Dr. Rosen’s team had too many advantages for Parish’s people to overcome. Due to Rosen’s newly upgraded ability to attract even greater numbers of individuals with Alpha abilities to his person, Rosen’s small team of Alphas had grown into a small army over the last six months. An army that easily outnumbered the small group of fanatics that Parish had at his heavily fortified base. Furthermore, Rosen’s group had federal funding and Skylar’s genius, which gave them a large technological advantage over Red Flag. And finally, Dr. Rosen had Carl Webb on his side.
Despite the fact that Dr. Rosen wouldn’t let him fight on the front lines (a condition Carl had agreed to only after Lee had agreed to take Charles straight to Carl after the battle was finished), Carl Webb’s involvement in the battle heavily aided Rosen’s people in a number of ways. Obviously, Carl was able to use his abilities to pinpoint the positions, abilities, and weaknesses of every Alpha in the Red Flag base, but his influence over Rosen’s success extended farther than that. Carl was also able to use his insights about Parish’s psyche, which the tracker had acquired over the last six months, to inform Rosen’s changing battle strategy as conditions of the battle fluctuated. Furthermore, the instructions that Carl had given Rosen’s forces before the battle, concerning how to block their thoughts from Charles, and any other psychics Stanton might have with him, allowed Rosen’s people to guard their minds during the battle with at least moderate success.
For all of these reasons, by the time the sun had set on the last battlefield of the Alpha Wars, it had become quite obvious to everyone that, despite the fact that the Red Flag forces had managed to kill almost 3 of Rosen’s people for every 1 of their soldiers that died, leaving Stanton’s base and the surrounding area a bloody mess, the battle had turned against Parish’s forces. Therefore, out of desperation, Stanton’s remaining Alphas unleashed the full brunt of their upgraded abilities against their opponents.
This was a mistake.
As Rosen and Rachel had found out over six months ago, upgrading an Alpha’s abilities using a photic stimulator often made that Alpha’s powers unstable. A lesson that one particular Red Flag Alpha, who had the ability to create small earthquakes when he became angry, learned the hard way when he disregarded Stanton’s orders to manage his anger in favor of becoming consumed with rage over the way the battle against Rosen’s people was turning out. Although this tactic did, in fact, cause the ground underneath five of Rosen’s people to swallow them whole, the quake quickly grew out of the angry Alpha’s control and consumed the earth-moving Alpha himself…and then kept growing, swallowing Rosen’s people and Red Flag forces alike, until it became apparent that the quake was going to destroy the entire Red Flag facility and the surrounding area with it.
Thankfully, Skylar’s numerous scout robots were able to ascertain how bad the quake situation was getting long before any of the Red Flag forces figured out their base was doomed, so most of Rosen’s forces were able to evacuate the Red Flag base. Carl (against Dr. Rosen’s orders) was even able to dash in the crumbling military base (with a few of Skylar’s stun robots in tow to keep him safe from enemy attacks) and get his son away from harm and back to “Rosen’s” train” just before the building and it’s immediate surrounding collapsed.
Carl hugged his green-eyed, blond haired child while he wept and checked his son for injures, all of which were quickly healed by Rosen’s medic Alpha. However, even after his son was healed, the tracker Alpha wouldn’t stop checking to see if his son was okay as he repeatedly asked Charles: “Are you alright?!”
It was only after Carl’s son wiped the tears from his own moist eyes and rolled his green orbs before replying, “I’m fine now, dad,” that Carl let himself relax a little and smile at his son while Skylar and Zoe Adams observed the father-son reunion with a smile.
Carl’s joy was short-lived however, when the tracker Alpha, who was hugging his nearly emaciated son at the time, finally noticed something with his Alpha ability. Although all the other Red Flag forces, and their vehicles, had been destroyed during the quake which was still raging on, Stanton Parish himself was still alive and on the run.
Carl quickly acted on this revelation, and with a loud exclamation of “Parish is still alive!”, the tracker Alpha quickly ran off on his own, away from the rest of Rosen’s group, including Skylar, and started up a government jeep that one of Rosen’s Alphas had foolishly left near the train with the keys still in the ignition, then took off like a bat out of hell towards Parish’s general direction with a special gun in his back pocket.
The tracker’s actions swept Rosen’s remaining forces into a frenzy, as most of them talked among themselves, debating whether anyone should risk getting close enough to the epicenter of the ongoing earthquake in order to save Carl and/or help him kill Parish. Bu Skylar was busy doing something else, as she quickly formed a plan in her head while looking at a nearby jeep without keys in the ignition, even as she lead Zoe towards Nina and told the dark-haired Alpha: “Take care of my daughter.”
By the time that Dr. Rosen came to see what all the fuss what about, Skylar was already sprinting towards said jeep, and when the psychiatrist asked the tech expert what she was doing, she yelled back. “Saving Carl from himself! I lost him six months ago, and I’m not letting that happen again!”
Skylar then quickly hot-wired the jeep, and she was just about to take off after Carl, using the device she had created to track the tracker’s Alpha signature, before she heard someone cocking their gun in her direction. When the technopath looked up, she was surprised to see Bill Harken pointing his gun at her right arm, although Skylar noticed the black man’s hands were shaking slightly as he spoke. “I can’t let you take that jeep, Skylar. That vehicle is the property of the U.S. government, and you are a government asset, which means I can’t let you put yourself in harm’s way without cause.”
Skylar gulped, then glared at the former FBI agent. “Without cause my ass! Carl is our teammate, your friend! And I care about him. I let him down at Grand Central Station when I failed to rescue him then, but I will not let him down again! And I will drive this jeep with one arm, or even my knees, if I have to, Mr. Harken! The only way you are going to stop me from saving Carl is if you kill me! So what is it going to be?!”
Skylar didn’t wait for an answer. The technopath simply started the engine and drove off at the Army jeep’s top speed, an action which caused Bill to lower his weapon and sigh. “Damn.”
Carl Webb wasn’t a bad driver, as he had been forced to navigate through bad traffic conditions, such as rush hour on the streets of Hong Kong, countless times during his days as a corporate head hunter. However, despite his above average driving skills, it was taking every last bit of concentration the tracker had to run down Parish, who was currently running away from the quake and the remains of his base on foot, while simultaneously avoiding the areas where the ground was being swallowed up by the quake. Therefore, Carl was not going as fast as he would have liked when he finally caught site of Parish.
At the same time, Skylar, who had a lot of experience driving cars at fast speeds to get away from various pursuers in the past, started catching up to the tracker Alpha and his vehicle.
Skylar’s jeep had nearly caught up to Carl’s, and the technopath was just about to yell as the tracker, when the brunette woman felt a tell-tale lurch beneath her feet, even as she heard the earth under her jeep give way, as the back of her vehicle started to sink into the earth and the front two tires of her jeep span uselessly as the front of the vehicle started to follow the rest of jeep down into the depths of the earth.
“Ahhhhhh!” Skylar screamed as she quickly climbed over the jeep’s driver side door, then onto the vehicles front windshield before jumping up towards the still sturdy patch of ground several feet in front of and above her (for the earthquake had finally ceased).
Skylar’s hands just missed the edge of the newly formed cliff while the jeep she had just been occupying seconds ago plummeted away from the world above, never to be seen again.
The combination of Skylar screaming and the sight of her jeep plummeting off the newly formed cliff several yards behind his own vehicle finally snapped Carl out of his dazed tunnel vision, and distracted the tracker from his single-minded pursuit of Parish. The male Alpha slammed his hand against the steering wheel and swore. “Fuck!” But the tracker Alpha quickly turned his vehicle around and aimed it towards the spot Skylar’s jeep had been while he simultaneously prayed to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in that Skylar would still be alive when he reached the cliff.
Carl’s prayers were answered, and when the dark-haired man stopped his jeep as close to the new cliff as he dared, Skylar, who had evidently heard his vehicle pull up, called up towards Carl from her current precarious position, holding onto a root springing out of the ground about a foot below the cliffs edge. “Carl! Help me! Please!” The tracker’s face betrayed his feelings of both anger and worry when he looked down towards the tech expert who had endangered her life just to chase him down and stop him from killing Parish. For a short moment, Carl actually turned away from Skylar towards the still-fleeing Stanton while he mused to himself that Parish just might still be in range of his special gun right now…
But the moment only lasted half a second before Carl quickly turned back towards Skylar, as his love for Skylar (and it was love, Carl knew, although he wasn’t ready to tell the tech expert that to her face yet) won out over the tracker’s hatred of Stanton Parish, and the dark-haired man bent down to offer both his hands towards Skylar just as the root she was holding onto began to tear itself from the earth under the strain of the slim woman’s weight. Thankfully, Carl had reached towards Skylar just in time, and the tech expert was able to use first one, then both of her hands to grab onto Carl’s arms just before the root fell away from its place and fell into the bottomless pit below.
Carl managed to pull Skylar up towards stable ground with only a little bit of effort, and the technopath quickly threw her arms around Carl’s torso and put her head on his right shoulder. “You saved my life! Thank you so much, Carl!”
The tracker’s response was instinctual, and before he knew it, his arms were returning Skylar’s embrace as he put his head on top of Skylar’s, not caring about the dirt on Skylar’s person that was now getting all over him as well. Then, as the brunette woman sobbed onto his shoulder, the tracker’s anger at the technopath for making him lose his chance to kill Stanton Parish today dissipated. Even though Carl’s anger towards the Alpha with the healing factor was still burning white-hot in his heart, he knew that Red Flag was losing the war, and that another chance to kill Parish would present itself soon. On the other hand, Carl knew that he would never have forgiven himself if he had let Skylar die, even if doing so had resulted in Parish’s death…
Carl’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud BANG! By the time Carl turned around, his tracker sense told him what had happened, as he felt Parish’s life force finally, finally begin to dissipate nearby, close to the presence of another Alpha’s energy signature. But when Skylar and Carl turned around, the former was confused and frightened about where the gunshot had come from and what it meant, because neither she nor Carl could make out the person on a hill who seemed like a dot on the horizon from this distance, although they could just make out the glare from the lens on what they both guessed was the man’s sniper rifle. But the tracker just smiled at the technopath and said. “Don’t worry, Skylar. I cans sense that there are only two people out here besides us. I’m guessing the man who fired the gun was Cameron Hicks, and the individual who got shot must have been Stanton Parish! It looks like you got your wish, Skylar. Cameron killed Parish with the special ammunition I helped create, because that bastard’s life force is fading and he should be dead right about…now.”
Carl frowned. He had expected to feel something more concerning Stanton’s death, other than the empty feeling that resided in his chest right now, and the tracker was idly wondering whether he would be feeling better or worse right now if he had killed Parish himself, when Skylar pulled the tracker away from his thoughts as she spoke to him with a smile on her face. “So it’s done then. The war’s over, and that bastard is finally in the ground. And you didn’t have to kill him yourself. You won’t have to live with the guilt of having his blood on yours hands. We are all finally free of Parish’s shadow over our lives!”
Carl returned Skylar’s grin, as he decided that maybe it was better that he hadn’t killed Stanton himself after all. But before the tracker could reply to Skylar’s words, the technopath, high on the adrenaline still in her system from her recent near death experience, as well as her happiness that the threat of Stanton Parish toward all non-Red Flag Alphas, and the world at large, had ended, without Carl having to kill the regenerating Alpha himself, did something really impulsive. Something that took Carl’s breath, and the words that would have come from him mouth, away completely.
Skylar quickly closed the small distance between herself and Carl and crashed her lips into the tracker’s own. Despite the rather jarring onset of Skylar’s osculation, Carl’s lips instinctually responded in kind, meeting Skylar’s lips with his own before slightly opening his mouth and allowing the technopath’s tongue to lightly brush his own. During this perfect moment, both Alpha’s were experiencing a feeling of euphoria that neither of them had felt in a long time, as they both became lost in the kiss for several seconds.
But all good things must come to an end, especially experiences that an individual is not yet ready for, no matter how wonderful those experiences may be. And this moment was no exception to this rule.
When Skylar leaned even further into the kiss and put her right hand behind Carl’s head, the latter party’s brain finally caught up to his body and the tracker quickly pulled away from the technopath before the latter could put her tongue into his mouth any further. Skylar then snapped out of her love-induced mental haze and quickly backed away with a fearful look on her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I just thought, with the way you look at me sometimes, and some of the things you said, that you felt the same way as I do, but I guess no…”
Carl sighed and rubbed both sides of his forehead as he closed his eyes for several seconds. “It’s not like that, Skylar. I do…like you, like that. You didn’t do anything wrong, per se, but…”Carl shook his head from side to side to clear the mental cob webs in his mind as he tried to put his thoughts into words as delicately as he could. “It’s just too soon for me. I’m not ready for…” the technopath awkwardly moved his right hand in the air between himself and Skylar. “This. Not yet. Not so soon after…”
A tense look appeared on Carl’s face then, as his eyes stared straight ahead and his mouth set itself in a firm, straight line. It was clear that Carl didn’t want to finish stating his last though, even though he felt he had to, so Skylar did it for him while she had a frown on her face and a sad look in her eyes. “So soon after your wife died?”
Carl nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes to keep tears coming out of them. “Yeah.”
A sad smile appeared on Skylar’s face as she gently put one of her hands on Carl’s shoulder and said. “Yeah. Sorry about that. My timing sucks sometimes, but...That’s okay. I understand. You need time to process Charlotte’s death before you can…move on. T get it, believe me. It took me a long time to get over the death of Zoe’s dad so…I know what mourning, really mourning, like you are doing right now, feels like. You take all the time you need, Carl. I’m not going anywhere.”
Carl opened his eyes with a surprised expression on his face, and he was about to ask what Skylar meant by that last statement, when he was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle approaching his and Skylar’s location. After the two Alpha’s put what they considered to be a professional amount of space between them, Cameron Hicks opened the car door with a smirk on his face that made both Carl and Skylar wonder just what the super-coordinated man had seen them do, before Mr. Hicks finally spoke after several seconds. “Oh good, you’re both still alive….”
“Parish is dead.” Cameron added offhandedly.
Carl nodded. “I know. I felt it happen.”
Hicks nodded back. “Of course you did. It still creeps me out that you can do that, by the way. But anyway…”
Cameron gave both Carl and Skylar pointed looks. “Dr. Rosen needs to see you both now.”
….sometime later…
Dr. Rosen was pacing back and forth in front of the train when Carl, Cameron, and Skylar all arrived at the team’s mobile base. Carl raised his eyebrow at Dr. Rosen when he noticed that both Charles and Zoe where standing next to Lee, but no one else was outside the train with the doctor. The tracker’s suspicions where increased after Lee signaled for the sniper to go inside the train, and Cameron did so. Apparently, Carl noted, Skylar was getting the same strange vibe that he was about the whole thing as he was, because even as Charles and Zoe ran forward into the arms of their respective parent, the technopath was glaring at Rosen as she hugged Zoe. Finally, after several seconds of awkward silence, Lee gave Skylar a pointed look and said. “Skylar, I would like to speak with Carl and Charles alone for a moment about some urgent business. Why don’t you and Zoe go ahead and get settled in the train?”
Skylar looked at Carl and raised her eyebrow while keeping Zoe in her embrace, and Carl shook his head and gently, but firmly, grabbed hold of Charles hand, before turning to Dr. Rosen. “I think everyone will stay just where they are, thanks. What’s with the cloak and dagger routine, Lee? What is this really about?”
Dr. Rosen sighed. “You know, I liked you more when you called me Dr. Rosen.”
Carl shrugged. “I liked you more when I thought you could protect my family.”
The tracker Alpha simply waited for several seconds until Dr. Rosen nodded. “Right. Fine. I’m going to tell it to you straight then, Carl. I think you’ve earned that after over a year of service to DCIS, and for helping insure today’s victory over Red Flag. The FBI wants to investigate your role in every atrocity that Red Flag has committed over the last six months, and investigate any possible collusion with Stanton Parish on your son’s part….”
Charles started to cry as he was forced to relive several unwanted memories, and Carl was helpless to do anything but hold his son and cover the telepath’s ears as the young boy wailed. “No! I don’t want to remember the bad men! I don’t want to remember them hurting you us, daddy! I don’t want to remember all the bad thoughts they were thinking!”
Skylar and Zoe shot Carl and Charles a concerned look, but after Mr. Web shook his head, indicating she couldn’t help Charles with this, Zoe’s mother held her daughter close and glared at Dr. Rosen as she spoke. “Did you explain to them that both Carl and Charles were being tortured? That they were forced to watch each other be hurt until they gave Stanton Parish information? Did you explain to them that everything they did for Red Flag, they did under duress?!”
Lee frowned. “I did. But they didn’t listen to me. I’m afraid, with Parish dead, the Feds aren’t sure they need Carl walking free anymore. Therefore, the FBI has orders from the Pentagon that Carl and Charles Webb are to be captured and held in the Bureau’s custody pending a government investigation and military tribunal. Until then…the government wants both of them to be held in Binghamton.”
Having successfully calmed Charles down, Carl stood up and looked at Lee with no expression on his face, but that changed when Charles caught images of Binghamton from Lee Rosen’s thoughts. Images of Alphas being tortured, studied and cerebrally neutered and turned into factory workers in a government lab. Images that made Charles cry out again. “No, daddy! Don’t let them send us there! It’s a bad place! I can see it in that man’s mind! I can see it!”
Carl hugged his son once again, ceasing Charles’ crying even as an angry expression appeared on the tracker’s face as he spoke to both Charles and Dr. Rosen. “Don’t worry. We’re not going there.” Skylar nodded towards Charles to reassure him that his daddy’s words where true, even as she gently told Zoe, who was asking what was going on, to remain silent.
The tracker’s full attention turned to Lee as he looked over his son’s shoulder. “I’m guessing the Feds told you to hold my son and me until the FBI gets here?”
Lee nodded.
Carl nodded back. “And, given the lack of a welcoming committee when Skylar and I got back, I’m guessing you are refusing to obey that order?”
Lee sighed harder than Carl had ever seen the old man do so. “That is correct. I will not hold you here, by force, until the Feds arrive to take you and your son to Binghamton. But if you and your son decide to run, Carl, I’ll have to lie and said that the two of you evaded arrest by my team. You and Charles will be wanted. I really think it would be better for you and your son to surrender to the Feds while I get you a good lawyer to plead your case…”
Carl shook his head, dried the last of his son’s tears, then stood up, with one of his hand’s holding his son’s smaller hand, and glared at Dr. Rosen. “No thanks. I trusted you to protect me and my family once. I won’t make that mistake again. And my son will never set foot in that experimental hellhole for one second. I promise you that. My child is only nine years old, and he’s already suffered enough for an entire lifetime. I will not let him be hurt again by you, or any other government tool. Charles and I are running.”
Lee shook his head. “Be reasonable, Mr. Webb! You have no experience running from the authorities! How far do you think the two of you will get before…”
All three males outside turned around when they heard the beep of a car horn, then spotted Skylar pressing another button on a portable controller in her hand, just before the rear train car opened in the back. An electric blue sports car then rolled out of the caboose and speed towards the Alphas’ location in front of the train…just before the vehicle came to a screeching halt right in front of Skylar and her daughter! The technopath smirked, but the look in her eyes was serious when she looked in Rosen’s direction. “Actually, I think the four of us will be just fine, Dr. Rosen. I’ve been running all of my adult like, and Zoe’s been doing so almost as long as I have. I’m sure we can show these boys the ropes and help them stay under the radar!”
Skylar turned towards Carl with a small smile on her face. “If that is alright with you, of course. If you trust me.”
Carl smiled back and led his son towards the sports car and the Adams girls as he spoke. “Of course I trust you, Skylar. Thank you so much for this! I promise Charles and I won’t make you regret this!”
Skylar nodded. “I know you won’t. Besides, I couldn’t let those government bastards throw you and your son in that hellhole anyway”
The mom turned to Zoe as she unlocked the car. “Come on, Digit! It’s time for us to get in the car and go! And don’t forget to put on your seatbelt!”
Carl smiled at Charles. “You heard the nice lady, Charles! It’s time for us to go! Why don’t you sit next to Zoe and see if you and her can make friends after you put your seatbelt on, okay champ?!”
Charles nodded enthusiastically, hugged his dad, then looked at Skylar for a long moment and said. “You are a nice lady! Thanks for keeping us away from the bad men, Skylar! I can see why my dad likes you so much!” And with that, the little boy dashed into the car and buckled up in his seat next to Zoe as his dad and Skylar both blushed bright red.
After Carl shot Skylar another thankful glance and got into the passenger seat of the car, Dr. Rosen finally regained his wits about him after recovering from Skylar’s stunt from with the car, and the older man ran up to the technopath and grabbed Skylar’s right arm. “Don’t do this, Miss Adams! Despite your criminal past, the government has cleared you of all charges in exchange for your help against Red Flag! The FBI doesn’t want you or your daughter arrested, just Mr. Webb and his son! But if you help those two get away, that’s aiding and abetting, Skylar. You could get sentenced to Binghamton a long time for helping Carl and Charles escape, and Zoe could lose her mother! Please don’t…”
Skylar shrugged Lee’s hand away. “Sorry, Dr. Rosen. But I never liked working with you government flunkies anyway. I helped you stop Red Flag so that we could save the world…and get Carl and Charles somewhere safe. I’ve already helped you accomplish that first objective, now it’s time to get my friend and his son somewhere safe. Besides, even if I didn’t mind working with the government, I wouldn’t be setting a very good example if I let Zoe see me abandon my friend, would I? Especially since Carl saved my life. Several times. Even if I wasn’t as…fond of Carl as I am, I would still help him and Charles now. I owe him that much.”
Lee’s shoulders slumped, and the man looked defeated as Skylar climbed into the driver’s seat of her car and shut the door while she smiled and whispered to Carl. “I never liked that train much, anyway!”
Everyone in the Carl was all smiles when Skylar loudly asked. “Who here likes to go fast!”
Both Charles and Zoe raised their hands and enthusiastically shouted “Me!” This earned a chuckle from Carl and a smile from Skylar before the latter party added. “Then hold onto something, Digit! Mom’s going to take this thing up to light speed!”
Emphasizing her hyperbolic point, the sport car took off down the road, away from Skylar’s old train, at a breakneck pace, kicking up dust as it went along.
Several minutes later, while Charles and Zoe where playing in the back seat as Skylar drove down a long, straight road, Carl leaned towards Skylar and briefly squeezed her right hand. A silent promise of things to come for the two adult Alphas. Soon. But not yet.
Skylar smiled at Carl and squeezed the man’s hand back for a brief second before she turned her eyes back to the road and whispered back. “I understand, Carl. Thank you for trusting me, and...I promise I will always be there for you..."
"And Charles and Zoe of course." the technopath added awkwardly.
Carl chuckled, but gave Skylar a smile to show there was no malice in the gesture before he turned back towards the road. He knew it might be a long time before he was done mourning his wife, and he was truly ready to be…close with Skylar. But, as guilty as it made him feel, the tracker knew it would happen eventually. And both of the adult Alphas in the blue sports car knew that moment would be worth the wait when it came.