ISSUE NINE: That Which We Call A Rose
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The collision, I later learned, happened twenty thousand feet above northern Pennsylvania.

My jury-rigged vehicle crashed at full speed into the tail plane of Pierson’s aircraft; and I likely have to thank Jeeves, who had the good sense to go in with the most solid part – the bottom, which held most of the electronics equipment – if I’m even alive today. The impact sheared off the left part of the tail plane, sending the aircraft in a spiral; my chair, on the other hand, all but disintegrated, shards of metal and computer parts flying everywhere. Miraculously, I was left strapped to the seat, which still had Jeeves’ primary unit and two thrusters attached to it, and the AI managed to somewhat control the fall so I didn’t crash into the ground at terminal velocity.

I’m sure Pierson had no idea what hit him at first; but when he pulled the ejection lever, shooting him and the two heroes out of the cockpit, his seat passed in front of me by chance as we were tumbling towards the ground. We made eye contact, and I saw from his expression that he recognised me, and realised what had happened.

As for me, I took the occasion to flip him off. With both hands.

And then he was gone, his parachute deploying and slowing his fall, while I went down towards the ground much faster than him or the other two.

Despite Jeeves’ best efforts, it was a hard landing; I crashed through the canopy of a forest, which slowed my fall a bit more, and then to the forest floor. I remained there, dazed and winded, for a few moments; but not for long, I had to get going.

I tried to undo my restraints, but realised my left arm was broken, just above my elbow; it was sticking out at an awkward angle, which all but prevented me from moving the limb. It didn’t seem the bone had poked out of the skin, however. I unbuckled my seat belt using my right arm, then grit my teeth, and set my left arm straight; weirdly it didn’t hurt as much as I expected – I guess I was still running on adrenaline at that point.

Salvaging part of the seat belt I put my left arm in a sling as best as I could, then took stock of everything else: I had plenty of bumps and scrapes, some cuts which were slightly bleeding, my dress was badly ripped, and my tights were destroyed, but it seemed the broken arm was the worst of it. I’m sure I was a sight to behold, though. Luckily that afternoon – no, the previous afternoon, I realised – I had had the foresight to wear comfortable shoes with laces and no heel, so at least I could walk on the forest floor without worrying about injuring my feet.

I looked up. Through the tree branches, in the early morning light, I could see three parachutes, slowly descending. I judged the direction, then hesitated. It didn’t feel right to just leave like that.

I turned to the remains of my vehicle; Jeeves’ camera was sticking out of it, not moving.

“Thank you, Jeeves. I owe you,” I whispered.

Then I turned back around, and started running.

I reached the landing point just after Pierson and the two heroes had touched down. Well, more or less: while Claire and Moonshine had apparently managed to land in clear ground, Pierson’s chute was stuck in a tree. Finding where he was wasn’t hard, he was very loud in expressing his displeasure with the situation: I could hear him swearing from at least half a mile away, and the sound made me smile. “That bitch! That fucking bitch!” I heard him shout. He had many other choice words to say about me, too, which I will never repeat in polite company.

I guess the last command I’d heard him give, follow me, was still in effect, because even though the three had landed apart from each other, when I reached them the two heroes were standing beneath the tree Pierson was stuck in; I snuck in, watching from behind another tree, keeping my distance.

“I should have just shot her when I had the chance. When I get my hands on her…” he growled. “Anne Smith, get me down from here!” he commanded. “As for you, Ross Kyle,” he continued, pointing at Claire, “Find Antonia Shaeffer and bring her to me. She should be around here somewhere.”

Perfect. Unwittingly, Pierson was giving me the ideal opening to talk with Claire alone.

Claire clearly tried resisting the command again, but in the end she took off, and started surveying the forest from above; I wasn’t afraid of her spotting me, though, in that place the canopy was particularly thick, and as far as I knew she didn’t have any kind of enhanced vision. My guess turned out to be correct, because soon she landed, and started patrolling the forest on foot. She was moving slowly – much more slowly than she was capable of, as if trying to delay the inevitable. I waited until she was alone, out of sight and out of earshot from Pierson and Moonshine, and then I made my approach.

I had thought about how the encounter would go ever since I’d decided to chase after them. I had a guess, and hoped it would pan out. Well, not a guess. It was a gamble. If I was wrong, I was dead. I knew that.

That’s why my heart was beating very quickly when I called out to her.

“Claire.”

She turned to face me, and her eyes widened, then her face fell. She clearly wished she hadn’t found me.

“Tonia,” she said, her voice full of pain. “Please, go away. Run. Hide. I…”

“Claire,” I repeated, stepping towards her.

“Tonia, don’t. Please. I can barely stop myself,” she pleaded. “He told me to find you and capture you.”

“I know,” I nodded, still closing the distance. “I heard him. Ross Kyle, find her and bring her to me, he said.”

I stopped right in front of Claire, put my good arm on her shoulder, and looked into her eyes.

I took a deep breath.

“But that’s not your name.”

Claire’s pretty eyes widened. “What…?” she said.

“Moonshine seems to think so, at least,” I continued. “Did she tell you about the conversation she had with me? I explicitly asked her if she’d heard from PowerJack since he disappeared after Dallas, and she told me she hadn’t. And I was using my power at the time, so I know she was telling the truth.”

I was still holding her gaze. I couldn’t decipher what was going through her mind, her emotions were all over the place.

“But,” I said. “But. Last night, when we talked, you told me you’d been talking to Helen very often for years now. And I was startled to learn that. How do I reconcile the two things, I wondered? And then I realised.”

I gripped Claire’s shoulder. “Moonshine hasn’t been talking with PowerJack. All these years, she’s been talking with you.

Claire’s eyes, if possible, became even wider.

“But…” she said. “But I am PowerJack.”

I shook my head. “I know what PowerJack looks like. Big dude. Built like a brick shithouse. And I have never seen him in person.”

I paused, formulating my next few sentences in my mind. I had to play this carefully. Then I continued: “When I first came to Montana, to Deer Lodge. In that steakhouse. PowerJack wasn’t the one who was sitting there. Neither was Ross Kyle. It was Claire Rose.”

Some of the fog that was hanging in the back of Claire’s eyes seemed to lift a bit.

“And when my car broke down, Ross Kyle wasn’t the one who gave me a lift back to town.”

“But…” Claire protested. “All those people at Dallas… I killed them.”

Again I shook my head. “First of all, I disagree; if anything, it was Pierson’s fault for putting you in that situation. And second, PowerJack was the one who was at Dallas. As far as I know, Claire Rose has never been there.”

“But I am PowerJack. I am Ross Kyle.” Claire’s voice was very quiet, almost a whisper.

I sighed. “No, you’re not. You’re Claire Rose. I’ve never met PowerJack, I've never met Ross Kyle, but I’ve met you. You’re funny, smart, clever. You worry about people.”

I gripped her shoulder even harder. “And you’re the woman I love.”

I leaned in and kissed her.

At first it was as if I was kissing a wooden log, she didn’t reciprocate at all. But then she melted into the half-hug I was giving her with my good arm, and started kissing back. I felt tingles of pleasure go up and down my spine.

After a few seconds, the kiss ended, and I leaned back, looking at her. The fog had cleared completely; her eyes were the brightest I’d ever seen them.

She was beautiful.

I smiled. “Are you okay?” I asked.

Claire smiled back. “Yes. Yes… I think I will be,” she replied.

“Good girl,” I said, and leaned in to kiss her again, but she held her hand up. “What, you don’t want to?” I pouted.

“I do want to, very much,” she replied. “But we have a pressing concern right now. Pierson.

Oh, right. I honestly almost forgot, kissing Claire had set off so many fireworks inside my head that I had trouble concentrating on anything else.

“Okay, what do we do about him?” I asked.

“I won’t kill him,” Claire said. “Except as a last resort. I… PowerJack may have been like that, but I’m not.”

I nodded. “So what, then?”

Claire smirked. “Let’s go get him. Don’t worry, I’ll see to it he never hurts anyone again.”

Following Claire’s instructions, I walked in front of her as we returned to where Pierson had been hanging from the tree. Moonshine had clearly managed to get him down in the meantime, because he was standing on the ground, looking around impatiently.

“Finally!” he said, when he saw us approach. “Good work. Now. Ross Kyle, bring her to me.”

From behind me, I heard Claire say: “Nope.”

Pierson’s eyes widened in realisation, but everything was over almost before it began; Claire clearly was in no mood to fool around. In a split second, Moonshine had been knocked out cold, and Claire was standing in front of Pierson, her hand clamped on his mouth. He mumbled wordlessly and tried to twist out of her grasp, but it was useless: she was holding tight, and not letting go.

“Shut up,” Claire said. Then she turned to me. “Tonia, see if you can find something we can use to make a gag. The parachute should be good.” She nodded towards Pierson’s harness, which was lying on the ground a small distance away.

I gave a glance to Pierson: his eyes were full of powerless rage. And then I got to work, ripping long strips of cloth from the chute with my good arm.

Ten years later…

I rang the doorbell, and as usual, a camera popped out from the door. “Hello, Jeeves,” I said, before the AI could speak.

After we dealt with Pierson, Jeeves had been salvaged from the forest, and refurbished and reactivated by Jennifer; when he was first turned back on, he was very worried about me, and asked if I was alright. Even robotic butlers can have feelings. Unexpectedly, we had become good friends: whenever I called Jenny’s house, I often spent quite a bit of time chatting with Jeeves. Sometimes I called just to talk to him, and not because I had any business with Jenny. Jeeves, as it turned out, was a huge nerd who liked horror movies and historical fiction.

Claire and I had decided to take a risk; after gagging Pierson and tying him securely to a tree, Claire had flown off to the Association to ask for their assistance. Fortunately no one there except for Moonshine had fallen under the sway of Pierson’s powers, and he had been locked up in an Association prison, which he hadn’t left since. He was in isolation, with food and other necessities delivered to him by an ever-changing rotation of guards, who were under strict orders not to talk to him under any circumstance; even with his mind-control powers, there was nothing he could do without knowing his target’s name.

After a couple weeks, Moonshine had awoken from her trance: it seemed that without Pierson being present to reinforce the control, it naturally faded with time. She’d thanked both me and Claire profusely, and also offered Claire her old spot back at the Association, which she’d politely declined. She still kept in contact with Moonshine, though, and was still on call should a threat arise that couldn’t be stopped by the current Association members. In ten years, that had still to happen even once.

“Good afternoon, Tonia, mistress Claire,” Jeeves replied. I had to insist quite a bit for him to drop the mistress when talking to me, but he was still holding onto the title for everyone else. “Mistress Jennifer has been expecting you. Please, come in. Oh, and I’ve finished another book, maybe we can talk about it later tonight?”

“Of course,” I replied.

The door buzzed, and then opened. Jenny was standing there, and she opened her mouth to greet us, but was then nearly tackled to the ground by a small blur.

“Aunt Jenny! Hi!” Abby said, hugging her tightly.

Abby was Abigail Rose-Shaeffer. Six years old. The daughter of Claire and I.

A couple months after the incident with Pierson, when my arm had healed, I resigned from the newspaper and moved in with Claire at her farm. Our relationship had moved a bit fast, maybe, but you don’t foil a villain bent on world domination with someone without getting quite close to them.

My editor Emily had rejected my resignation at first; I had to tell everything that had happened in detail – after swearing her to secrecy – before she gave up. I still did some freelance work for her now and then, though, as a compensation for having to keep the big story I’d planned to write under wraps. We were still friends.

Claire and I enjoyed our married life for a while, but after a few years we decided to add to the family.

As it turns out, Claire was entirely correct in her assessment of the Sculptor: Morgan really was a sweetheart and a great person. And they were capable of much more than simple plastic surgery; because of their intervention, Abby was the biological daughter of both me and Claire.

Jenny smiled, and mussed Abby’s hair. “Well hello there! How’s my favourite niece?” she asked.

“I’m great!” Abby said. “Wait until I show you how good I’ve got at Smash! This time I’ll beat you for sure!”

“Keep dreaming, kiddo. You’re a hundred years too early,” Jenny replied. Then she turned to me. “Come in, dinner’s almost ready. The trio made up a new recipe, and I thought I’d try it. How was your flight?”

“Harrowing, as always.”

“Well then, next time you can take the plane,” Claire said in a mock-offended tone, punching me lightly in the arm.

“Nah, it’s okay, dear,” I said. “I trust you not to drop me much more than I trust a piece of machinery not to fail.” I turned and gave my wife a quick peck on the lips.

Jenny was still single, and I didn’t know if she was seeing someone or not; she still kept herself busy though, between her new job – she’d been hired by the Association as their head programmer and engineer, following Claire’s and Moonshine’s reccomendation – and her games. And I think she liked it that way.

As we sat down at the table to have dinner, I considered the past ten years of my life.

I’d moved out of the big city into the mountains, as I always wished I could have done. I had a wife, a daughter, and a good number of friends, something I’d always missed during my days as a journalist. And, truth to be told? I loved the farm life.

True, I had to give up on writing my big piece on PowerJack. The one that would’ve likely earned me my third Pulitzer. But I didn’t mind.

In the end, the world never found out what happened to the Man of Tomorrow.

And that was perfectly fine.

The end.

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