“Are you two hiding something?” Marco said looking at the pair of them. Jack was fiddling with his necklace while Sarah was engrossed in her phone but not entirely focused on it. Marco had been on the couch reading but the two of them had caught his gaze “I was going to ignore it but you’ve been weird for a while.”
“What?” Sarah asked absently turning to look at him and he frowned at them. “Sorry handsome. Just distracted.”
“I can see that. What’s on your mind?” he closed the book looking between them.
She frowned sitting up slightly and drawing her legs against her chest. She looked over at him and then frowned harder. She was fighting not to look over at Jack. It was torture to not tell Marco about the new day ‘job’ that she shared with Jack.
Before she could say anything, Jack turned around and spread his arms. “Look Marco. We’ve got something crazy to show you. But not here. And we’ll explain a lot of it along the way.”
Sarah turned around to stare at him slightly wide eyed and then narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Why not?”
“Because it could be dangerous.”
“No more dangerous than him not knowing. Besides he might be able to help us if we need it. You two are the smart ones remember?”
She frowned glancing toward the ground before nodding slowly. “You’re not wrong. Plus he was bound to guess it eventually. Okay. Where did you want to take him?”
“Uhh the pier maybe? Some place with a lot of space.”
“You want to go that far just to show him that?”
“Why not?”
“Because we can be closer to home babe and still find an empty place.”
He was silent for a moment and then nodded shrugging his shoulders, ”Fair enough.”
Marco looked back and forth between the two of them and tried to follow the conversation but he knew that he was missing something. “You know I’m still here, right?”
“Yes we know,” Sarah said taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. “And we’ve got a lot to tell you. So, come on. The walk over will be long enough for us to go over it.”
“Go over what?”
“What’s been going on the past week,” Jack said grabbing his keys and though Marco kept asking questions they just pushed him out the door and down stairs. The sun was setting outside but Sarah was in the lead holding onto Marco’s hand tightly and pointing them forward.
“Okay okay I can walk Sarah,” he caught up to her and glanced over his shoulder. “You too Jack. I can handle this. You two though. Start talking.”
Jack looked over at Sarah and she shrugged. “Well, remember the party last week? The one where we came home one at a time and kinda shit wrecked?”
“How can I forget,” he rolled his eyes. “I had to take care of you all of Sunday. Never have I seen so much vomit. In a rainbow of hues. And knowing you two you learned nothing.”
“He’s doing that thing again babe,” Sarah said.
“Being a stick in the mud,” Jack rolled his eyes. “As if he doesn’t go as hard as us.”
“I haven’t since we graduated.”
“Maybe you should again. Loosen you up,” Jack rubbed his shoulders slowly and grinned at him. Marco sighed and Jack continued, “Me and Sarah and a few others took something weird. Like out of this world weird.”
“You had a really good high.”
“More than that handsome,” Sarah grasped for the right words. “Whatever we took that night turned us into.” She sighed. “Well super heroes.”
Marco stopped walking and turned to face her and noting how seriously she looked at him he shook his head fighting the urge to laugh. “Are you still high?”
“I wish.”
“Jack please,” she looked at him and he resigned to her. She faced Marco and took his hand and then placed it against her bracelet. He touched the stone and frowned. “It’s serious. Those reports you heard. Of the attacks and the weird explosions or accidents. The part where people saw robots and people in armor fighting. That was us and our team.”
Marco took a step back and rested his hands on either side of her shoulders. He took a very slow breath. “Let’s say I believe what you guys are saying. This sounds insane. You know, that right?”
“I know it does and that’s why we’re walking like we are,” Jack said as they started again. “But you know and trust us. So, give us a second and we’ll show you. And you’ll get blown away.”
They were walking close to the spot where they had been attacked. There was construction setup over there to fix the hole in the ground that the Taq-Law had made. They skirted around the edge of it, the majority of work on that having been conducted during the day.
They walked into the empty lot together and kicked through the grass leaving a small path behind them. Letting go of Marco’s hand Sarah followed Jack to take a few more steps further into the lot and looked over at him. “You ready?”
“Always ready.”
They touched their stones and felt the rush of power form them as the armor jumped onto their bodies. Covering them from head to toe they crouched feeling the power coursing through them. Jack cracked his neck back and forth and then smiled behind his helmet. Marco stared at the two of them, looking back and forth and taking a step back.
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah,” Sarah said stepping forward. “This is what I meant. It’s really real.”
“Jesus,” Marco put his hand against his head. “A lot of it makes sense. The days those aliens went crazy you guys always looked exhausted. And trying to skip out randomly.”
They let the armor fade away back to their normal clothes and went back to his side. Before they could get too close both of their stones suddenly vibrated to life. They looked down at their stones and then at Marco. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Marco asked quickly.
Jack shook his head. “Trouble. We have to go to work. I promise we’ll explain when we get back.” Jack kissed him, then Sarah kissed him and they both started running.
The Harlequin Library 