Two more days passed uneventfully. Emmett spent the time on patrol or working in the lab, and a scant few minutes watching Full Throttle Heart cuddled up next to Clara on the couch. 

Clara kept busy too. They would go their separate ways for the day, then meet up for lunch or dinner.

Clara put the pizza in the oven, then Emmett wrapped his arms around her before she could take the mitts off. “Come on, what are you working on?” he teased.

Clara giggled and looked away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh.” Emmett kissed her forehead and let her go. “Fine then, keep your secrets.”

Clara side-eyed Emmett as she pulled off her oven mitts. “You’ll see it, eventually.”

Emmett didn’t see much of Dr. Venture those two days. In the mornings, Emmett would find his mentor cradling a cup of coffee and standing in front of the living room monitors, studying them intently. Then he would slip out before Emmett could check in with him.

There were still intermittent attacks along the coasts, but Belport was quiet. Morale amongst the capes, relief workers, and refugees continued to grow. Smiles and jokes were commonplace, even between capes on patrol. 

To Emmett, it was disconcerting.

Emmett couldn’t shake the feeling of seeing things while he was on patrol—shapes beneath the water and moving behind the windows. He never actually found anything, nor did Arsenal’s systems or Venture’s drones. 

Maybe everything really was all in his head. TINA had offered the explanation, like it would help him feel better. It hadn’t. The last thing he needed was his brain or his systems malfunctioning. 

~

Emmett was alone in the mechanical wing, looking over the latest simulations of his fusion rifle. He’d spent the better part of the last few days refining the rifle’s design and testing prototypes. Almost another entire day of that had been dedicated to refining the battery design. 

It was no wonder that Dr. Venture had started harnessing her power to run the lab. Clara’s power was similar to fusion, in that it used small amounts of matter to produce massive amounts of energy. The best part was that it was self-sustaining. As long as the battery remained 80-90% full, the fusion-like energy inside would refill. If Emmett discharged it too fast and the level dropped too low, then the energy took longer to refill. 

He knew that the power within the cell wasn’t infinite, but the limits and longevity were almost impossible to measure. TINA had tested multiple batteries, running them through constant tests. But her power almost behaved more like it was a living ecosystem—as long as there was something left inside the battery, the energy would eventually rekindle itself.

“At least it’s safe,” Emmett muttered to himself. It wasn’t easy bottling Clara’s power, and there was still so much they didn’t know about it, but Emmett was grateful. 

He was less happy about the weapon itself. Technically, the rifle design was usable, but Emmett wasn’t satisfied. 

Currently, his fusion rifle had two firing modes—semi-auto kinetic blasts and steady plasma beam.

Kinetic-blast mode was lifted almost exactly from Arsenal’s gauntlets. Power was channeled into a thin laser, super-heating air and causing an explosion. By adjusting the laser, the range and power of the blast could be mediated. 

Thankfully, the rifle could link to the quick-connect rails in Emmett’s arms. Instead of controlling those details manually, the linkage would allow him to control them with nerve impulses, just like his whip. One day, the rifle would even recalibrate itself automatically, using a mixture of Emmett’s vision and thoughts. 

In the Gray Room, Emmett had managed to hit repeated bullseyes at 100 yards when stationary and bullseyes at 15 yards when moving. And that was before nerve integration. Accuracy wasn’t a problem, so much as range—outside of 200 yards, both types of firing modes lost effectiveness. 

The current design could fire kinetic blasts at a steady two rounds-a-second cadence without depleting the battery, and as fast as four rounds-a-second. It wasn’t as fast as a machine gun, but good enough for now. 

The steady plasma beam was both a marvel and the biggest hurdle with the design. Just one second of sustained fire could punch a coin-sized hole through most material—wood, steel, concrete, even military grade armor. Hitting a stationary target was easy, but one second was a long time to track a moving target, even with Emmett’s cybernetic accuracy. The other issue was that the steady plasma beam drained the battery drastically. 

5 seconds. That was all a single battery could manage. 

Emmett tried to tell himself that 5 seconds was more than enough, but it didn’t leave a lot of room for error. 

There were other issues too. Right now, the rifle still took almost two seconds to charge a laser beam shot, and it took almost five seconds for the internal mechanisms to swap from one firing mode to the other. 

“It will take time to acclimate to it,” TINA said. “In the meantime, we’ll continue fine-tuning the design.”

Emmett leaned back in the lab chair and rubbed his eyes. “Thanks, TINA. You’ve been a huge help with this.”

“It’s what I was made for.”

It might’ve been Emmett’s imagination, but something in TINA’s voice made it sound like she was attempting a joke. Emmett decided that her humor was getting better. 

Emmett smiled. “I mean it. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“You’d be dead.”

His smile faded. 

“That was a joke.”

Emmett humored her with a chuckle. Maybe she still needed some work. 

~

Emmett wouldn’t be deterred—he kept working on his designs in the lab. He didn’t even realize that it was the weekend until his mother texted him that Sunday. 

Mom 9:02 AM: Just checking in. Don’t tell me they have you working Sunday too?

Emmett 10:39 AM: Yeah. I want to keep moving. Keeps my mind off of things.

Mom 10:40 AM: Have you seen Antony yet?

Emmett 10:55 AM: No. Why?

Mom 10:57 AM: He’s been working a lot too. Haven't heard from him since yesterday. I think his phone died. 

Emmett’s hands clammed up as he read his mother’s texts—first, from lying to her, then that she hadn’t heard from Antony.

Antony was a momma’s boy. There was no way he’d leave her text unanswered. Not for a whole day.

Emmett 10:58 AM: Hey bro. You good?

Maybe his phone died and he didn’t have a cable or a portable charger handy. Maybe he lost his phone.

It was probably nothing.

The minutes ticked on and Antony didn’t reply. 

Emmett’s mouth was dry as he asked, “TINA, can you—”

“Tracking Antony’s phone… The last known location is just outside the city to the East. Bringing it up on the screen now.”

Several views of Belport’s East side appeared on the wall monitor. Warehouses lined the horizon. Flooding hadn’t reached that far into Belport. Some parts of Eastside were packed with corporate headquarters—like the part near Venture’s lab and Gnosis’s headquarters. But not this section. This was the edge of Eastside. The outskirts of the city. 

The buildings on the screen were abandoned and looked like they’d been that way for years, and there was no one in sight—no relief efforts and no one from the Summit. 

“…What the hell was Antony doing over there?”

“I’ve got a lock on his last known location.”

One of the views began to move. The drone descended from the rooftops toward the street and finally settled in an empty intersection. 

An overhead map appeared in the corner of the screen, charting the path of Antony’s phone until the signal cut off. 

“Maybe his phone died…” Emmett repeated the words like a mantra, even though he didn’t believe them. 

“TINA, can you find out what group Antony’s been working with? Mom said he was working with the relief effort, but—”

“Several organizations are working in unison, but most of Antony’s time has been with a local division of FEMA. It appears that his group was working with a local electronic company to move donated supplies…”

“What is it, TINA?”

“There were thirteen individuals in Antony’s volunteer group. All of their signals end at this intersection, and all of their cell phone signals are still offline.”

Names and photos of the other members appeared along the side of the screen. Emmett didn't recognize any of them, so he minimized the information.

“TINA, are there any cameras that might’ve picked up what happened?”

“No, but I found several other cell phone signals in the area around the time Antony’s group went missing. Tracing them now.”

Emmett’s phone buzzed again.

Mom 11:14 AM: I’m starting to get worried. Is there someone you can ask about him?

Mom meant someone in the Summit. She still thought Emmett was volunteering with them. 

That was fine. Emmett had somebody better. 

Emmett 11:15 AM: I’ll ask around.

Emmett took off down the hall to get his suit. “TINA, relay this to Clara and Dr. Venture. I’m going out.”

Clara’s voice echoed back through the speakers in the hall. “Not alone, you’re not! I’ll be right behind you.”

Emmett paused. “TINA, load the fusion rifle and a spare battery in a drone. Just in case.”

~ ~ ~