“Good afternoon, sir. May I help you?” The driver asked.
Nova smiled. “I need a ride.”
The man blinked and held his head as the power of Nova sunk in.
A woman in exquisite clothes, draped in a golden silk shawl, walked out. “What are you doing to my driver?”
Nova turned and held his hand out, “You will leave and I will take that shawl for my wife.”
“I will most certainly not. POLICE!” She called out and then went silent.
Nova stepped closer, “Now!”
She smiled and handed him her scarf and merely walked away. He folded it up and then turned to take a seat as the driver had opened the door for him. The driver closed the door and then rushed to fulfill his new boss’s orders.
EB hopped in a circle around Justin much as he often did to Nova. Justin appreciated with the same enthusiasm as Nova.
“Would you stop that? You’re making me dizzy!” Justin barked.
“Oh, sorry.” EB stopped and then asked, “So, you alerted all the leagues and stuff. Now what? Huh? I was thinking that we could access all the cameras and computers in the world. There are like billions of little cameras attached to EVERYTHING. We could see if anyone sees anything. I know, it breaks lotsa laws and stuff, but it would mean we would have eyes everywhere. Just, don’t look in locker rooms, I don’t need to see that much man-stuff, and bathrooms, that would be super creepy and kinda icky. You know, this one time I followed this hot babe all around town and accidentally ended up in the girls’ bathroom at a bar. It was weird. They were screaming, someone called animal control, and I... why are you looking at me like that?”
Justin waited a moment for EB to stop rambling. “We aren’t going to spy on every camera on Earth. Even if we did, we don’t have enough people to watch all that footage.”
“It was just an idea.”
Gar walked into the room with Arx beside him. “We’re back.”
“I know. I saw the shuttle docking. Do you have anything to report?”
Arx said, “No. We scoured every last inch of the throne room and questioned all the remaining witnesses, which weren’t many. Nothing to help figure this out.”
Gar said, “And the Shadow Krampus is like a game now. Heroes are coming just to beat him up and train.”
Justin looked up at the screen, which still displayed the ongoing battles with Krampus. “Let them train. As long as no one is getting hurt and no major property damage is happening. Besides, if Nova or that Lady Echidna shows up in Ka’an Dorado, we’ll already have a pretty powerful force there to tap.”
“What’s the next move then?” Arx asked.
“I don’t know. Patience... I suppose.”
“Incoming Transmission: Stockholm BADGE office.” Robot 10915 announced.
“On screen.”
The woman in charge of that office came on screen. “Acting Director Justin, we have a mystery on our hands. Something just happened here and no one can remember it. There was an alert that someone was here without permission, and then he simply disappeared. I first considered it nothing, but then we found that twelve minutes of time had lapsed that were not only erased from all our computers, security footage, and sensors, but our memories as well.”
“Is there any indication of what happened?”
“No.”
Justin thought about this for a moment. “Our enemy used mind control in Ka’an Dorado to manipulate people. This is too much of a coincidence to not be connected. I will send Gar and Chase to check on this. For now, your office is on top level security. Activate your robot forces. They can’t be mind controlled as easily.”
“Already have the robots working.”
“Good. Alert me if you discover anything before my team gets there.”
“Understood, Stockholm out.” She turned off the signal.
Justin turned around. “Gar, go get Chase and prepare to leave immediately.”
“Right.” Gar left the Operations center.
Arx asked, “What about me? I’d love to help.”
“You’ve done enough so far. You’re in charge of the ATLAS program, and that needs your attention here. If we need your help outside of that, I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.”
EB hopped up and down. “SEND ME! I can help. I know I can. Mind control doesn’t work so well on us Vexillians. I could be there and make sure no one else is hurt or mentally controlled. They won’t get me!”
Justin said, “I need you here. We’re down Nova, who was far more than just one man. With Gar and Chase going, and Arx in charge of ATLAS, I need someone here if something happens.”
“Gotcha... WOW, I get to be like your first officer, your Spock, Riker, or Chewbacca. SOOO COOL!” EB bounced around the room in glee.
Stepping out of the limo in his Louis Vuitton Manhattan Richelie Shoes, Nova gazed up at a hillside.
“Are you sure you want to stop here?” His driver asked from inside the limo.
Nova smiled as he put on a pair of Cartier sunglasses and put them on. “This is exactly where I want to be.”
He walked up the hill and looked out across the bay from this elevated position. The ferry boats scurried in and out of the docks as they transported people. The sun glimmered in the partly cloudy sky, and the winds were chilled, but pleasant. For a brief moment, the arrogant face of this new Nova turned into a softer smile. But, that didn’t last long. He climbed the hill and pressed his hand into a rock. His hand print remained behind and the rock sunk down. Dirt and grass fell away from an ancient door that parted, revealing a short set of stone stairs.
Walking into a long, narrow cave, Nova passed pedestals with artifacts on them that had gathered so much dirt and dust it was hard to tell what lay beneath. The last pedestal at the end of this tunnel was just as encrusted with natural debris as the others. Nova stood before it was a gleam of greed in his smile. He reached down with his gloved hand and picked up a strange iron key that had a shape on the end like a cookie cutter, not a key. It was the shape of a small face of some kind of beast.
“One step closer to the eye.” He whispered.
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