Let’s get this show on the road.

A.K.A chapter 10

Breakfast was a short affair. All members of the expedition had to be up early, as they were travelling under the cover of night. They gathered at a small conference room near the gate opposite the one Jeck and Quake originally came through.

Ten soldiers, one scientist plus two hired guns made for a total of thirteen people. He looked around the room, most of them familiar faces, all of them dead tired.

“So, is everybody ready to go?” Jeck almost shouted, loudly clapped his hands and rubbed them together, with all the impish enthusiasm of someone who didn’t need to sleep. Quake took a lazy swipe at Jeck. All of the other soldiers just groaned or mumbled out affirmatives, taking the occasional nibble on an energy bar.

The energy bar was the FDA approved version of performance enhancing steroids. Once consumed, It gave the average soldier enough energy to fight for three days straight. Of course, its distribution was heavily regulated and consumption required dire circumstances, or approval from the higher-ups. You couldn’t just eat it and go ham on the first enemy you saw.

This situation fell into the latter category, high ranking military personnel had approved their use. This was to be the second operation directed at ‘Mount Cyclone’, which was a very unimaginative name in Jecks opinion but, hey, it was rather apt, considering what was up there.

They had offered one to the two Plains Walkers, but they declined. They had also offered to give Jeck one of the specialized suits they were wearing, with protective helmets and oxygen tanks for breathing in zero oxygen environments.

“How can he be so peppy in the morning?” Moaned Alicia from where she sat, head buried in her arms.

“Stupid bastard doesn’t need to sleep.” Answered a slightly more well rested Quake.

Jeck laughed at them.

Feeling tired? What was that?

Exhaustion? Didn’t know him.

Sometimes he pitied those who still slept. Wasting up to a third of the day, just slumbering. Maybe someday they’ll be able to live one hundred percent of their lives instead of just sixty six percent of it. Until then, he was content to laugh at them.

The door of the conference room opened with a slam, startling the dozing soldiers to attention. James swept into the room, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Look alive boys, we leave in thirty minutes. We’ll be using the Dragonflys to make our way up the mountain. Based on our careful observation over the last couple of years, we have finally collected enough data to scale the mountain.”

He eagerly paced around the room.

“The storm king, Avanos has an unusual sleeping pattern. It flies around for a few days, kicking up a fuss, then sleeps for a week to recharge. According to our data, that resting period starts today. This, ladies and gentlemen, will be day Avanos is at her weakest.”

He pointed a finger at Jeck and Quake.

“You two!”

Quake snapped his head up. Jeck just kept smiled in anticipation.

“You, as our hired muscle, will be on guard duty exclusively. The other soldiers here are all excellent, but today they’re more focused on helping me with my research than anything else.”

“You!”

He swung his arm from us to Gillian. You’re in charge of Avanos. Make sure we don’t wake her up. We’ll follow your lead, you tell us to stop, we stop. No questions asked.”

Gillian smiled sweetly at him.

“I’m so happy you’ve got so much faith in my abilities. I won’t let you down, sir.

“Excellent,” He turned to the rest of the soldiers. “Any questions?”

Jeck stuck his hand up. “What’s a Dragonfly?”

“It’s a stealth transportation vehicle. You’ll see it in a minute.” James replied.

He looked around the room, looking for more questions but nobody asked any.

He clapped his hands together, nobody groaned at the noise, a sign that the energy bars were beginning to work. “Excellent, everybody to the gate.”

They all filed out of the room and made their way to gate. Everybody was a mixture of nervous and determined with the exception of Jeck and Gillian, who were both smiling in anticipation.

Sitting at the gate, left there by outposts mechanics while they were being debriefed, was a relatively small, chrome colored vehicle, floating about two feet off the ground. About the size of a small bus, it had four anti-grav thrusters shaped in the form of long wings sticking out of its ‘thorax’. The head was rounded and had a curved windshield. The ‘tail’ had AG thrusters lined all the way down it to balance the wings out.

Jeck stared at the in amazement. This was some seriously sci-fi shit! He walked around the vehicle, taking in every inch of it.

“Woah…”

Alicia watched him, mildly amused. “What’s wrong? Never seen anything like this before?”

He shook his head. “Never. What about you Quake?”

Quake didn’t answer. He was too busy waving a hand back and forth underneath the AG thrusters, causing them to cut out wherever his hand was.

James leaned down from sliding door on the side of the machine. “All aboard the Dragonfly express. Next stop, Mt. Cyclone.”

Gillian rolled her eyes as she hopped onto the landing. Bending down, she pulled Gelid up behind her. Hiro pulled himself onto the machine as did the rest of the soldiers. The seats resembled those he’d seen in military helicopters on TV, two rows of seats running down the length of the ship. Once they were all on board and strapped in, with Quake sitting as far away from the dastardly duo as he physically could, a pair of soldiers he’d never seen before jumped in the front seats and started to pilot it using some kind of joystick. They floated a few meters higher into the air and took off towards the mountain at top speed.

Jeck turned to James and asked. “So, what can this thing do? How does it do the anti-gravity stuff?”

James opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Terry.

“I’ll take this one if you don’t mind sir?”

James gestured for him to continue.

Terry grinned bashfully. “Sorry, I’m really into vehicles, anyway, the Dragonfly is a Nuvalt made, stealth craft designed for all terrain. It can fly at speeds of up to 2400mph or around mach 3. This machine uses specialized thrusters that, using some complicated scientific jargon that I won’t go into, can defy gravity and also produces zero noise. This baby is completely silent.”

“Neat. How come you won’t go into detail on the thrusters?”

Terry smiled apologetically. “Not to insult your intelligence, but I highly doubt that you, or anyone here would understand for that matter. It’s fairly complicated stuff.”

A challenge?

“Try me.”

A shrug. “Alright, but don’t blame me if it gets confusing. You see, When the thrusters engage, they use what’s known as a Mocking drive, a quirk in physics that allows a machine to..”

As Terry rambled on and on about the inner workings of the Dragonfly, everybody in the vehicle, even the drivers, slowly turned their head towards the man they had previously thought was just an exceptional soldier.

“…and using that is how the engine defies the gravitational pull of the Plains. Get it?”

“No.”

“Nope.”

“Not a clue”

“Why do you know this?”

“I don’t fully understand it..”

“I get it!”

Quake slapped Jeck upside the back of the head.

“I don’t get it.”

‘I do!’

‘That’s not fair, you have quadrillions of lives to look through.’

‘I don’t want to hear about ‘fair’ from you of all people.’

Quake shook his head. “Maybe if I had more background in the subject, I’d get it but most of the terminology went over my head.”

James looked intrigued. “Really? I might have to see about getting you a few books on the topic when we get back.”

Gillian let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

“I’m sorry but there’s one problem with that,” Said Jeck, “I don’t think Quake can read.”

Quake looked up at James and shook his head.

“Right…. We’ll work around that.”

Jeck just nodded. He wasn’t lying when he said he understood Terry’s explanation. He understood it better than Terry did. He understood it the same way he understood exactly how Quakes body manipulated ferrous material, he even knew of the various other properties Quake had, that even he didn’t know about. Like how his drill absorbed energy out of the atmosphere. Jeck could do it too, despite not being a Mechanimal. He never disclosed his third Aspect to anyone, because if they knew he had it, they would kill him for it. He’d be hunted down all over the globe by people seeking power.

His third Aspect?

[Comprehension]

Why is it so dangerous?

It’s dangerous because of how powers work on the Plains. You could make any power, in theory, if you understood it.

And if someone else understood it,

They could replicate it.

***

Half an hour after they departed, The Dragonfly came to a smooth stop at the base of the mountain.

From afar, it looked huge.

Up close?

It was positively monolithic.

Stretching up into the sky, the top was impossible to see. A quarter of the way up the mountain was obscured by clouds, the remaining three quarters stretching way up into the stratosphere. Millions of tons of rock piled their way towards the heavens. Trees, plants and stone covered the exterior of the mountain. According to long range photography via high flying drones, the foliage continued to extend far past where the normal atmosphere could support it. Another oddity of the Plains, they guessed.

It was also a volcano, Jeck sensed, as though the rainfall fowl wasn’t bad enough.

‘Rainfall fowl, nice alliteration, brain.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Haha, very funny.’

Ignoring the laughter coming from his head, he gazed up at the gigantic mountain. Now that he was up close, he could sense all the fuzzy details that eluded him back at the outpost. He could feel the oppressive heat of the magma swelling within the volcano. He could sense the wildlife, thriving on the fauna almost all the way up the mountain. Near the very top of the mountain, he could feel the storm king.

Avanos.

His power was immense and it almost felt like a physical weight, bearing down on him.

‘Geez! Just the pressure of his power is crazy.’

“Get ready folks, we’re starting our ascension now.” A voice called out from the cockpit.

The frontmost wings of the Dragonfly tilted forward, two still facing down. It slowly began to rise into the air.

Quake looked out the window at the back just beneath the tail at the ground that was slowly sinking further and further away. He leaned over to Jeck and whispered into his ear.

“I have no idea what’s happening.”

Jeck leaned over and whispered back. “The front wings tilt to anchor the vehicle to the surface it’s facing. It can only rise a set distance off the ground. Tilting the wings allow them to change what the ground is. In this case, the ground has been changed from the earth beneath us to the cliff in front of us, allowing us to rise up like an elevator.”

Quake looked forward.

“I see.”

He leaned back in.

“What’s an elevator?”

Jeck tilted his head back and sigh mixed with laughter.

“I’ll explain it when we get back. Actually, I’ll show it to you when we get to the city.”

Quake folded his arms and huffed in annoyance.

“You always say that.”

Jeck just smiled and ruffled his head.

Once they pierced the cloud cover and continued to about the halfway mark, the pilot pulled the vehicle over to a small area and set it down on the ground.

James stood up and addressed the occupants.

“This is where we transition from the Dragonfly to foot. Pilots, you stay here. If all the vitals on our suits go dead. Leave immediately.”

Hiro winced at that statement.

“As us, Gillian, Gelid, you two take point. Jeck, Quake, you know what to do. The rest of us will be collecting samples and taking notes. Let’s not waste anymore time.”

The soldiers shouted a collective “Yes, sir!” and started checking their gear. Walking up to the base of the slope, Jeck looked up at the mountain.

Something was gonna happen here. It was too dramatic of a situation not too.

If only everyone else wasn’t thinking the same thing too, for vastly different reasons.