“Alright Phase. We are on practical test number one. We just need to make sure the glove works. We’re pretty sure it works but it could go horribly bad so take it one step a time. No pressure.”
Phase, Darren and Feint were all on the roof of the apartment. Darren and Feint both had tablets in hand, Darren wearing a headset with a camera pointed at Phase. Phase had one on his own head almost identical to Darren’s.
Phase raised his hand and saw the gadget he was wearing. A black glove with strings lined through the finger tips that he felt when flexing the digits. At his wrist was a glowing green light that hummed slightly. The whole thing was light though it was tight at his forearm.
“No pressure. Right,” walking to the edge of the roof top he looked down and could just barely make out Echo and Rogue on the other buildings ready to act. Taking a slow breath, he rotated his arms and then looked back at Darren. “Go over how this thing works again.”
Darren nodded and held up their hand all fingers open. They flexed their fingers in all sorts of ways, “Doing all of this won’t trigger anything from the glove. Regular fields of motion and all that.” They made a gun with their index and middle fingers, holding their thumb out. “However, doing this primes the glove. And this,” they brought down their thumb. “Triggers it.
“Once triggered to reverse it just spread your fingers all out and it’ll reset the glove,” they replied. “Really easy to pull off. The idea is to interface with your mask later on but that’s something I’ll work on after these tests work out.”
“Alright. Sounds simple,” Phase scratched his head lightly and looked out towards the others. “You got me in case something goes wrong Echo?”
“Yes sir,” Echo saluted from her rooftop. “I’ve got Rogue ready to snatch you out of the air.”
“Thanks,” Even after a year he still wasn’t a hundred percent used to Echo’s voice in his head.
Taking another deep breath he looked over the edge of the building. If this was a normal jump he’d make it with his eyes closed and with a couple flips in the process. But now he had to do it with a brand new piece of tech. He trusted Darren and Feint to make a good gadget and trusted Rogue and Echo to save him in case things went sideways but it still took some mental preparation.
“Here goes nothing.”
He took a few steps back and then jumped off the edge diving head first. That moment of floating in the air definitely was fleeting as he took in everything. The tall apartment, the empty street below him, a beat up old sign and the train tracks in the distance. And then he started to fall and things had to click into focus.
Remembering Darren’s word’s, he threw his arm forward and pointed at a nearby rooftop like his hand was a pistol. Pointing with his fingers he felt the glove tense up and when he brought down his thumb he heard it whirring sharply. He heard something click and his arm jerked as the cable shot out. It moved so fast he couldn’t even keep track of it.
It spiraled through the air and slammed into the side of the building. The wire went taut and it was almost like his arm got yanked out of the socket. Gritting through the pain his hand wrapped around the cable and he was suddenly swinging forward using it as momentum. It was hard, almost impossible for him to control which way he was swinging but he went with it.
Rotating around the apartment he started to go up with the swing. He had to admit that doing this was a huge rush of adrenaline. He let out a shout that was snatched away from him by the air and it made his throat raw but he couldn’t help the laughter.
Swinging with the momentum, he opened his hand and the glove whirred. The cable jerked and it was loose against his wrist. It came back with a jolt and his arm buzzed from the sensation. He was flying through the air like he’d just taken a massive jump except he had almost no control over the direction he was going.
Kicking his legs in front of him he tried to aim where he was going but it was an awkward angle and gravity was quickly starting to drag him low. He wasn’t going to be close enough to grab onto a ledge like this. “Hold on Phase. Rogue’s got you!”
Right on time he felt arms around his chest and shoulders and then they were on the roof. Stumbling forward together Phase took a shaky breath and looked at Rogue whose eyes were just as wide as his. “For the record. I’ve never done that before.”
“You and me both.”
Rogue teleported the two of them to Echo and then back up to the balcony. When they got there both Rogue and Phase nearly collapsed. Rogue needing to catch his breath and Phase just wanting to be on steady ground after that. Next thing he knew though Feint had rushed over and had her arms around him tightly.
“You’re safe. Thank God. You are okay right?”
“Yeah Fei I’m okay. In one piece and all that,” he laughed and she laughed with him as he worked to catch his breath. She kissed his forehead and then his lips softly before helping him to stand.
Darren came over their face red with emotion as they laughed, “Holy shit Phase that was amazing. The footage we just captured and all the data. How’s the glove? Did it work fine? Any pain? Did it hold up? How was the swinging? Did all of the mechanics work?”
“Whoa whoa Darren. Give me a second to catch up,” Phase said finally standing up.
Looking at the glove it was still tense around his arm, flexing with the movement of his fingers. The green light was blinking slowly and eventually went yellow then red, sputtered a few times and sparked once. “The hell does that mean?”
“It means that the glove got put through the ringer but that’s fine. We can work with this. I had it run on cycle as a part of a test thing to make sure we didn’t overdo it on the first experiment. And apparently, we could only get one test like that but I can make adjustments soon and we can test again. Today even.”
Phase started to say something but his shoulder yelled at him and he winced keeping his arm down. “Yeah well I need to work on my swing. Might have pulled something in my arm.”
“Practice. We’ll get plenty of practice as we test but damn that was a good first run,” Darren grinned looking at Phase again.
“Alright let’s get back inside and go over it from the top.”
They went back inside and Phase got an ice pack for his shoulder but Darren and Feint brought him into the tinker room immediately. Darren plugged in all of their cameras and the glove to take the data as they finally turned back to Phase and grilled him on how the mechanism felt. If it was responsive, did the cable feel strong enough and if anything felt off. He answered as best he could for everything still feeling the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Darren grilled him as intensely as they could, logging everything away in the computer. Feint was looking over their shoulder adding her own commentary to things and suggesting new calculations. They went back and forth talking in a language that was beyond Phase. He left them to it and ate lunch with Rogue and Echo.
About an hour later they came back out with the glove and the setup ready to go again, “Alright who’s ready for the second test?”
Phase looked at the two of them and sighed nodding his head. “Sure why not?”
“That’s the spirit!” Darren said giving him a thumbs up.
They were back on the roof but this time Phase wasn’t the one in the swinging space. It was Feint, adjusting the glove against her wrist. Phase’s hand being larger than hers meant there was some minor adjustments to do with it. There was only one functioning prototype.
Echo and Rogue were on their respective points on the opposite buildings and Phase stood next to Feint this time. “Alright so it’s weird. I think to avoid the shoulder thing you should probably lean into the swing and keep your legs together once you get to the bottom of it. Or maybe even shoot it early on so it’s not a sudden jolt.”
She looked at him, watching him fret and tapped his nose lightly, “You know I helped to design this right?”
“As your field tester I’m just giving you some hands on experience.” He put his hands on her shoulders and winked.
She raised both eyebrows and laughed, “Hands on huh. You’re not cleaver Phase. Been listening to Yumi and Shade way too much.”
He laughed and took both of his hands up. “You ready to go Feint?” Darren shouted from their spot on the roof with the tablet out and ready.
“Yep,” she said. “Commencing test two. Calibrated for increased stability to allow for multiple swings. Assistance on standby. Let’s do it.”
She jumped off the apartment flipping forward like she had done several times before. The muscle memory of moving was there like riding a bike. But before she could fall far she jerked her head upward and pointed with her hand. Firing the cable, she watched it slam into the ledge of the building in front of her.
The glove whirred to life just like in their tests, no hiccups in the process. Leaning into the swing she kept her legs together and swung forward going down on the swing. She swept through the air with the air racing through her hair and just like with Phase she let out a whoop of laughter.
The cable remained taut as she started to come up from the swing. Checking the battery, it showed that it was still holding strong and this was the hard part. Kicking her legs forward she approached the peak of her swing. She took a deep breath and spread her fingers as the cable dislodged flying back to her wrist. It jolted lightly but she leaned forward and aimed at another apartment complex.
Pointing she fired the cable and it jolted out just as smoothly as the first one. She felt it hit home and kept her legs together as she swung forward. Mid swing she checked the glove and once again it was holding steady. A grin flashed on her face at how well everything was working out.
Deciding to really put the glove through its paces she spread her fingers pulling the cable back and then turned aiming at the corner of the next corner as she past. She fired and it slammed into the corner. Holding on tightly she leaned into the cable instead of swinging forward swung at an angle doing a sharp turn.
She swung around trying to keep her legs going with it but as she came around the cable shook and grinded into the wall. Looking up quickly she saw that the cable was grinding against the corner of the building badly. It wasn’t tearing away the cable but she felt it shaking as she turned.
Before she could let the wire go it forcibly dislodged from the wall and suddenly she was sinking. Fighting her massive panic as she looked for another place to aim she realized that the building she had turned form was actually the tallest building near her. There was no good place for her to hook back onto. Mild panic touched at the edges of her mind but she forced herself to think quickly.
Turning around she forced her arm back at a weird angle and shot the cable into the wall of the building. The cable dug into it hard but she fell and pulled at her arm in the socket. Even worse she started swinging face first into the building.
“Ah shit. Echo how close is Rogue?”
“He’s on his way.”
Grabbing the cable with one hand she raised her other arm and held on for her life as the brick wall came up quickly. Either she was going to have to hope Rogue got her in time or worse slam into the brick wall and pancake like Wily Coyote slamming into a mountain.
Taking a deep breath, she winced and braced her legs for impact. Before she could enact a Looney Toons cartoon Rogue appeared in front of her. She spread her fingers dislodging the cable and then Rogue grabbed her and they vanished going down to the street. They landed sloppily and both stumbled into the ground. Feint stared at the sky her chest heaving and then looked at Rogue. “You’re getting good at this.”
“With you all around I have to,” he helped her stand and took a shaky breath. “Can we stop with the test for a few hours? I need to rest.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we have enough data until we get to the next phase of testing. Can you get us back home?”
He turned and looked toward the sky and the building above them. He was silent for a moment and finally nodded, “Yes.” She took his hand and then they were on the roof of the building she’d just swung around. From there it was an easy journey of building to building until they were back at the roof of the apartment.
Rogue almost collapsed onto the roof with her helping him. Forcing himself back to his feet he stumbled back toward the roof and teleported to Echo, bringing her back to the roof. “I’m going to bed.” He said finally, stumbling back toward the apartment.
“Can’t blame him,” Phase said and squeezed Feint’s hand helping her stand up. “Are you okay?”
“Shaken up but yeah,” she nodded and looked over to Darren. Taking off the glove she glanced at their gadget and laughed softly. “We need to work on the drill piece. It got dislodged on a turn but it held up well otherwise. Also, if we’re going to be using these, we definitely need one on each hand.”
They smirked taking the glove from her and nodded, “Trust me. I’m way way ahead of you on that.” They were going to say more but paused looking at their tablet. Scrolling through it a few times they didn’t actually open it up until they were back inside. Rogue and Echo were gone but Roxie was running back toward them excited.
Phase bent and laughed playing with the dog, rubbing and scratching her head slowly. “Hi Roxie,” Feint said getting her attention. She jumped toward her and licked at her hand and trying to reach her face. “Yes puppy it’s good to see you too.”
“So this is interesting,” Darren said leaving the glove behind and looking at the pair of them. Dragging their hand across the tablet they tossed it forward and the TV turned on the image taken over by an email.
The pair of them looked at it confused but then started reading. It was from someone titled Bishop. The pair of thieves stared at the message scanning the contents quickly.
Bishop D,
The group that you mentioned in your last email. A contact has told me that they are hosting a meeting in the Harris LLC tower tonight. I know that it is directly in response to the deal that you intercepted last week. The meeting mentioned G as well. I do not know what will be happening but I know that I want whatever they’re doing stopped. It’s really bad for business.
Consider your favor repaid.
Phase and Feint both read it over more than once but Darren was already coming forward the tablet put down back in the tinker room. “I got this while we were doing our test on the glove. Long and short though this is a job. Someone from my old contacts with Numb3rs has some interest in whoever the heck these people are. Plus this is right up our alley.”
Phase looked at them and then the email, “This is going to get us thrown into some kind of war with them isn’t it?”
“Honestly no idea. I know things have been calm for the past year but trust me when I say if Numb3rs is interested then I have a bad feeling about anything that might be going down tonight.”
Phase frowned hard keeping his arms folded across his chest before finally nodding, “Fine. One mission. Recon. See what’s going on. We don’t get involved seriously unless we really have to.”
“You sure Phase?” Feint asked and Phase shook his head.
“Honestly no but I see where Darren’s coming from at least.”
“I appreciate the faith you have in me,” Darren cracked a smile.
Phase shook his head, “You’ve earned that much. And at the very least Yumi’s going to be happy about getting some action in.”
“If you ask me everyone should be on board,” Darren said leaving them to it. “I’m not going to be able to get the gloves ready by then but I’m getting to work on it now.”
“Do you want to call Yumi?” Phase asked and she shook her head.
“Nope. All you leader.”
“Feeeei.”
She winked, “All you Phase.”
Sighing he rolled his eyes and went looking for his phone.
The Harlequin Library 