The United States of America,
A Memory of a Town
“Not a huge amount out this way.”Fields stretched almost impossibly far into the distance, barely observable undulations rising and falling that darkened as the sun dipped lower. Narrow dirt roads cut through and between the fields, occasionally passing the remains of abandoned farmhouses that had long since surrendered their straight lines to the roots of the trees. The air was cool and heavy with the scent of damp earth and curing hay, as the afternoon light turned a pale, dusty gold. In the distance, a few white and red farmhouses could be picked out, their windows catching the last of the glare, while the massive silhouettes of silos stood motionless against the darkening horizon.
“I thought you might appreciate the quiet, after your last few duties.”
It wasn’t an entirely wrong suggestion from the team, ever since her return to Earth Carol had been kept as busy as she had ever remembered being with key appearances around the US. Most were actual missions of importance, she just no longer had instructions to remain subtle in her actions, in fact, quite the opposite. Now that the President was fully, if not entirely comfortably, on board with the Project, they wanted to flood the public with the positive actions of the Warbird, a counterpoint to the rise of vigilante action. Some, however, were simple photo-ops, showing up at key locations just before, or even during, cultural events, stamping her mark on the country she was now the official protector of.
“Just so long as I make it home before the morning, it wouldn’t be very upstanding citizen of me to start missing my final year.”
The farmstead sat at the end of a gravel track that had long since been choked out by ragweed and yellowing stalks of volunteer corn. From the road, the house appeared abandoned, its white paint stripped away by seasons of prairie wind until only the grey, thirsty wood remained. The porch had buckled toward the earth, and the windows were nothing more than dark, jagged holes that stared blankly across the flat expanse of the plains. To anyone passing, it would look like a dozen other casualties of the regional drought, a hollow shell left to rot in the heat.
The exterior had been a perfect picture of neglect, a casualty of the heartland's long-term decline, but the official intelligence had been adamant: several of the administration’s private most wanted had been traced to this region before going dark.
She stepped over a missing floorboard, the wood groaning a tired protest beneath her boot. The air inside was thicker, stale and chemical-laced, a sharp, sterile scent completely at odds with the decay of the house. Her enhanced senses immediately registered it, residual ozone, faint traces of heavy metals, and a tell-tale spike of exotic radiation that only accompanied high-energy particle work.
She didn’t bother with the main rooms, which were choked with dust and broken furniture arranged in convincing disarray. Instead, she followed the trail of the radiation signature to the back of the house. There, hidden behind a false pantry wall, was a modern steel door, incongruous and tightly sealed against the chaos of the farmhouse. The lock was high-grade, but no match for a controlled burst of energy from her knuckles. The door hissed inward.
The space beyond was a cramped, brightly lit laboratory dug into the earth. It was a hurried evacuation; consoles were smashed, vials were scattered, and equipment lay toppled, but the evidence was irrefutable. She ran a hand over a scorched workstation.[color=#1f1f1f] [/color]
On the one intact monitor, a repeating loop of text flashed:
PHASE 3 COMPLETE. SUBJECT 004 STABLE. EXTRACTION TO ALPHA-SITE PENDING.Carol blink-activated the recording cameras set into the otherwise unnecessary contacts she wore, the tiniest spark of her power enough to bring them online.
“Thought you might want to take a look at this.” Carol kept her vision on the repeating text for a few moments longer, before drifting around the ruins of the lab. Unlike the farmstead-proper, this was very clearly a rushed destruction rather than the ravages of time. That anything was left behind at all suggested even that effort had been interrupted. She would no doubt have noticed the signs of movement had it been her presence which had caused such, but then, there were plenty of other agencies that might have moved in without altering the Pentagon. Plenty of other bad guys as well, it wasn’t like they were all buddy-buddy in their plans to destroy and/or dominate. There wasn’t much else to be seen, but what she had glimpsed was still a chilling confirmation. At least for her handlers, she had little fear for herself.
“That should do, Warbird. Stand down, any further updates we will let you know.”
“Ace, catch you on the flip.” With a surge of motion Carol propelled herself out of the concealed doorway and through the spindly frame of the farmhouse, briefly trailing that would be harmful for almost any other living creature, the chemical detritus of a destroyed lab of little note to the Warbird.
The air up high was a clean, sharp cold that scoured the chemical scent of the lab from her suit. It was a long flight, a silent, solitary burn through the night sky, and the speed and altitude were the first steps in shedding the day’s grime.
She arrived without fanfare, a controlled drop that killed all forward momentum a hundred feet above the familiar, oversized shed in the backyard. She lowered herself soundlessly onto the wet grass, the dew sizzling at the heat of her post-descent touch. The house was dark and quiet, a sure sign her dad would already be passed out somewhere.
Her boots were off before she even made it to the mudroom door. She phased her hand through the lock and slipped inside, moving like a ghost. The floorboards of the old house were mapped in her memory; she knew which ones to avoid to prevent the slightest creak.
The fridge light was a blinding beacon in the dark kitchen. She eased the door open and bypassed the organic juice and the sensible low-fat milk, her target the back corner, one of the crisp and cold bottles she had stocked for her dad that had already shown significant thinning in their numbers.
For whatever reason she avoided hovering in the house, it helped prevent her from accidentally doing so while out and about in public, even if it would have made moving around quietly easier. Not that it would really matter, her dad may as well have been dead to the world at this hour.
The bathroom door closed with the softest of pulls. She shed the Warbird suit quickly. Under the spray, the heat was a physical release, the jets of water drumming away the final tension in her shoulders. She’d barely had a chance to stop and breathe over the last week. Catching up to her
normallife was going to be an additional effort the next day. She leaned her head back, letting the water rush over her face, and finally, she allowed herself a long, slow swallow of the beer. The taste, even if it was about as cheap as you could get, was about as comforting a sense of familiarity as Carol had left.
By the time she had made it out of the shower and into her room, she was on her second, allowing herself to slump down onto the comforting hold of her bed sheets as she pondered the ceiling of her room, as if it would hold any answers to the cascade of thoughts springing around her head. She didn’t really ‘need’ to sleep, apparently, but eventually it claimed her all the same.
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