Vivid Stars Online

I reached out with my senses as I approached, leveraging Technokinesis to detect technology in the area. As much as I wanted to trust the people Linnea had waiting for me, it was best to be safe.

Both the men were armed with hidden guns, some form of pistol I wasn’t familiar with. I was pretty sure that wasn't legal here, but I also wasn’t too surprised. They did work for some kind of underground organization, after all.

Beyond them, the car felt like a standard vehicle with no odd surprises or explosives that I could detect. Even with my powers weakened in the real world, two guns wouldn’t be much of a threat to me.

I was sure I could disable one and summon the other before either man could draw, leaving me with the advantage in any fight. If they started something, I could end it.

It was crazy how much I’d changed from that scared man being mugged in an alleyway, but I guessed getting strange powers from another world did that to you. With a snort, I moved forward with a confidence I’d rarely felt on Earth before.

One of them was looking at something on his phone and looked up as I approached. He glanced back and forth for a moment before nodding. “Jared, I presume?” He asked in clear, though accented, English.

I wonder how they got a photo of me? I mused, assuming that he’d been checking me against a picture on his phone. “That’s me,” I responded with a nod. “You’re my ride then?”

“Of course,” the man said. “Please jump in and we can get going,” he continued with a gesture at the backseat. His partner opened the door at his motion before stepping away to give me room.

Despite the greeting, something felt a little off here, but I had little choice. This was the whole reason I’d come to Sweden, if I turned back here I may as well go straight home.

So I moved forward but prepared for anything fishy. For the first few steps, everything seemed fine, then the speaker lunged at my back just as I was slipping into the seat. Ready as I was, I caught the motion out of the corner of my eye, and the world slowed as I triggered Enhance Cognition.

I only had a rough view of the man, but it was enough to see him lunging with something in his left hand. With a thought, I teleported the item into my left hand, and his gun into my right. With a second thought, I jammed his partner’s gun.

While my thoughts had sped up, and thus my powers, my body lagged far behind. Committed as I was, there wasn’t a lot I could do to reverse my momentum.

Even if I could, that would just put me back in between the two men. Instead, I went with the motion, slipping into the seat and then spinning on my behind until I was facing the door.

With a frown, I mentally flicked off the gun’s safety and aimed it at the man, watching the shock spread across his face. I could feel the bullets in the gun, it was loaded and ready to fire if I needed it.

“Slowly there,” I said, trying to add an intimidating deepness to my voice. “Tell me what the hell is going on or I’ll shoot.” I wouldn’t actually do it, killing someone in an airport car park wouldn’t be about the worst thing I could do. But they didn’t need to know that.

“Shit,” the man muttered as he raised his hands. “They told us you might have some kind of power, but I don’t think anyone expected anything this strong.”

Next to him, I could hear his partner drawing his own gun but ignored it for now, knowing that it wouldn’t work. “Talk,” I responded, filing the information away, but not being in the mood for any stalling.

“We were just supposed to knock you out and bring you back to talk,” he said, his voice tinged with nerves. “Peter wanted to make sure you were on the up and up before letting you see his daughter.”

Pursing my lips, I glanced at my left hand without letting the gun sway off my target. Just as he said, I held a syringe filled with a clear liquid. It only barely counted as technology, so I hadn’t detected it.

Thankfully, my Technokinesis had advanced from Item Attunement, and I was able to use it to move any items that had been crafted.

“So you’re claiming to be the people I was supposed to meet,” I said, my mind whirling with possibilities. “But you planned to interrogate me before sharing any secrets?”

It didn’t sound too farfetched, but they could just as easily be an entirely different group. Linnea hadn’t told me a lot, but what she did share painted the people behind VSO as dangerous. It could just as easily be an attack by them.

At the man’s frantic nod, I continued. “I’m going to need something more than that. How do I know this wasn’t an attack by someone else?”

“Right… right,” the man said while his partner readjusted to the side. It looked like he was getting a clear shot through the rear window, and I braced myself to act if he tried to fire. The gun wouldn't work, but it would be a clear sign of hostilities.

“You’re Linnea’s boyfriend, and she gave you an introduction despite not being allowed to,” the speaker started. “She and Elana thought you had potential, and they managed to get their father, Peter, to agree to a meeting.”

“Apparently you had Psi powers of some kind that might help to unravel the secrets of VSO, though she never mentioned that you could do this,” he finished, waggling a hand at the gun I still pointed at him.

That’s fairly good information, I considered, not letting my aim up. But it’s also all information that they could have gotten with surveillance in VSO. That’s where we discussed this meeting as well, so they could have intercepted it and put their own people in place.

“That’s a good start,” I said, letting my frown fade a little. “But it’s also all information that you could have picked up by spying on us. I’ll need something else if I’m going to believe you.”

I kept an eye out for reinforcements as I spoke. The car park was quiet, and I couldn’t detect anything else nearby with my senses. The very lack of extra enemies suggested to me they were telling the truth.

I couldn't believe that anyone would put this much effort into faking a meeting and then only deploy two guys for it. If it was actually fake, I would have expected extra vehicles to show up as soon as it went wrong.

“I can call Peter,” the man responded with a careful gesture at his left pocket.

“The man I’ve never met?”

“He can put Linnea on the phone,” he responded, a hint of panic in his tone.

That caught my attention, despite the circumstances I still trusted Linnea enough to hear her out. “The phone in your pocket?” I asked, flicking my attention to it.

At the man’s nod, I summoned it to the seat in front of me and bypassed the passcode. The language was Swedish, but it wasn’t too hard to find the contacts button. Part-way down the list, I found Uncle Peter and opened a call with my gun still aimed.

It rang twice, then a terse voice responded. “Marcus, what’s going on? You weren’t supposed to call before arriving.”

Marcus, as I now knew him to be, glanced at me for permission before speaking as I gave it with a nod. “It ah, didn’t go as planned, uncle. Jared caught us and I currently have-“

I cut him off before he could explain the full situation. “Peter is it? I have to say this has been a less than ideal introduction. I’m told you can put Linnea on the line to clear this up.”

The voice on the other end paused for a long moment, then spoke again. “I apologize for the way things have gone, Jared. From what little I heard, I can assume you halted my nephew’s attempt to bring you in unconscious.”

“I assure you that this is the standard procedure we take with any new potential recruits. My compatriots insist on-“

“I don’t care,” I said, cutting him off as well. “Put Linnea on the phone or I’m walking.” I might not want to get done for murder in a foreign country, but I would leave if I had to, information be damned.

Peter paused again, for several seconds this time. Finally, he continued,” I understand. I’ll bring the phone to her now.” The sound faded out after that, but I thought I could hear the distant sounds of walking.

A tense minute passed, with both the men around me shifting awkwardly. Then Peter spoke again. “I’ve put the phone on speaker. Linnea, could you please talk him down?”

“Jared! I’m so sorry, I thought they would skip the stupid interrogation for you. I told them it wasn’t going to work.” The voice was weak, but distinctly Linnea, even if it lacked her normal vitality.

“If you had told us why it wouldn’t work, then perhaps we would have skipped it,” Peter’s voice was annoyed, yet still fond. The sound of someone chiding a loved one.

“And I told you I wouldn’t betray his trust like that,” Linnea’s voice snapped back, though it barely gained any strength as she spoke.

“Look,” I said, interrupting what sounded like a family argument. “This has not gone at all like I was expecting, but I’m beginning to believe what you're saying. Linnea, are these really the people you asked me to meet?”

“Yeah, they are. Again I’m really sorry, Jared,” Linnea said, her voice trailing off in sorrow. “I totally understand if you want nothing to do with these idiots or me anymore.”

That tugged my heart a little, if she was acting then she was doing an outstanding job. It was hard to believe the Linnea I’d known for months now was capable of that, so I was inclined to trust her.

“And if I’m not done?” I asked with a deep sigh. “What do we do next?” As much as part of me wanted to call it all off and go buy a ticket back home, the reason I was here hadn’t changed.

The information these people might have was just too important to understanding what was really going on. I’d let myself stick my head in the sand for too long, and I couldn’t afford to be ignorant any longer.

Not when people back on Altheias were counting on me.

“If you're willing to go with them, then Marcus and Simon can bring you here,” Linnea responded. “Straight here,” she continued, anger clear in her voice.

“Marcus,” Peter’s voice rang out, still tense but lighter than before. “Is he worth it?”

Marcus glanced at me again before responding. “I think so, Uncle. He has some crazy powers and teleported my syringe, gun, and phone straight to him. Then he broke into the phone and called you without ever touching it.

Peter’s tone was eager when he spoke again. “Then I agree. The very fact that you haven’t been attacked after he stopped you suggests that he’s not with the enemy. While it could be a long con, I judge the risks to be worth it.”

I considered the situation before deciding to go along with it. Even if things went sideways, I still had options available to me. “I’ll come along, but I’m keeping the gun,” I said at last.

“Excellent, we will see you here,” Peter responded.

“I’m sorry again, Jared,” Linnea said sadly, “This isn’t how I wanted things to go.”

“We’ll talk soon,” I said, before cutting the call.

“Do you mind if I move now?” Marcus asked, his body relaxing even before I spoke. “I’ll need to get in to drive.”

“Sure, and your friend at the back can come around to the passenger seat,” I said with a nod. I tracked him with the gun as he moved while watching Simon’s movement out of the corner of his eye.

Simon hesitated as he reached the passenger seat before Marcus told him just to get in. When they were both seated in the front, I lowered the gun and flicked the safety off.

Both men in front of me let out a sigh of relief at the sound and started buckling themselves in. “I’m glad things calmed down there,” Simon spoke for the first time.

“I nearly shot you when you first pointed that gun at Marcus.”

“Wouldn’t have worked,” I said with a shrug, unable to keep a smirk off my face. “Your gun’s jammed.”

The man cursed under his breath and I kept my attention on the two of them as we left the car park. It would be a tense drive, but I was now fairly convinced that things would work out all right.

I guess these are the dangers of working with secret societies, I thought wryly as we shifted onto a highway.