Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
The reunion between Jack, Ross, and Eric was as joyous as Beth expected, when Eric returned to the townhouse in the late morning, after several hours of questioning by the authorities. The three friends embraced in a hug, pulling Beth into their midst after a few moments.
"I don't know what we would have done without you, Beth," Ross said. "And Conner."
The three roommates, along with Beth and Conner, moved to the living room, where they remained for several hours, talking nonstop. When Eric discussed meeting Sapphire Angel in his cell, and Valik showing him her costume, Beth and Conner exchanged a glance. Conner's face tightened when Eric spoke of hearing a woman's screams from a nearby cell.
"I thought they were hurting Sapphire Angel, but I guess not, since she rescued me a few minutes later," Eric said, before fixing his gaze on a pair of glasses Beth wore on her face.
"I like the glasses, Beth," he said. "And the hair. That's new since college."
Beth, who wore her hair in a bun on top of her head, was glad for the change of topics and gave Eric a smile. The glasses and hairstyle were new since that morning, not just since college. Beth glanced over at Conner, who had referred to her hair and glasses as the "hot librarian" look.
"Thanks," she replied. "I sometimes wear the glasses when my eyes are tired. It's been a long week."
Beth's glasses had nothing to do with being tired. She wore them because she feared running into someone who had seen her naked in captivity, when her necklace and costume didn't protect her identity. Conner had picked up a non-prescription pair of glasses at a local pharmacy, along with some hair pins. The risk of discovery was low, since the authorities had arrested all of WarTech's guards and scientists, but she wasn't taking any chances until her flight arrived back in Pennsylvania. Even the slight change in appearance might help.
The friends spoke for a few more minutes, before Beth and Conner slipped out onto the back patio, where they shivered in the chilly October air. Conner spoke first.
"So you saved the day, again," he said.
"I couldn't have done it without you and Stanley. Without both of you, I'd probably still be WarTech's prisoner."
Conner shrugged. "Stanley did the hard work. He paved the way for me to get into the building to help you, and he helped you get back in at the end."
"And maybe more importantly," she said, "he mastered WarTech's network before the authorities started searching it, and purged anything about me on it, and from their backups."
Stanley's actions had been a mixed blessing. The purge would prevent the police and others from discovering WarTech's trove of information about her, but it hurt her chances of learning about herself. Stanley only had time to download a small amount of information before he needed to start the purge.
"Yes, that too," Conner said. He put his hands in his pockets, looked down, and kicked his toes at the floor.
"What's wrong?" Beth asked. "It was tough, but it had a happy ending."
Conner took a deep breath before turning to look in her eyes.
"I'm going to do my best not to badger you about this secret life of yours," he said. "But I don't know if I can do it. It killed me last night, knowing you were alone in that building, and that there was nothing I could do to help."
Beth bit her lip. Perhaps she shouldn't have revealed her secret to Conner. It wasn't fair to him, having to live a life filled with worry about her. But she couldn't take back her secret, and would need to make do the best she could.
"I... I wish I knew what to say to reassure you," she said. "Next week it will be one year since I first became Sapphire Angel, and I've always come out on top. Just trust me."
"If it were up to you, I would," he said. "But there are other people out there — bad people — with a say in it, too. And your list of enemies isn't getting any shorter as time goes by. But I'll do my best to keep my mouth shut and let you do your thing."
Beth remained silent, knowing there were no words to ease Conner's worry. Her thoughts moved from Conner's concerns to her own questions about her powers. Even without the information from WarTech's network, she finally had information to act on. Perhaps Stanley could analyze the black brick, which Officer Jennings would be shipping to one of Stanley's anonymous shell corporations. And if Beth were lucky, Stanley might recognize the name Altor Unitas, mentioned by Roy Devlin when he questioned her.
There would be time to probe those issues later. Right now, she was here, with a man she thought she had lost before this whole mess started. She nestled in closer to Conner, standing shoulder to shoulder as they looked off to the mountains in the distance. She leaned her head on his shoulder as he put an arm around her and pulled her closer.
Cal Valik wiped tears from his eyes as his car sped down the highway. His father was dead, and it had to be Sapphire Angel's fault. There was no other explanation, based on the news reports, which mentioned her takedown of the conspirators at WarTech.
Worse than Roy Valik's death was how people were speaking of him. Cal's father dominated the news, as commentators branded him a traitor to the United States. A programmer, Eric Stump, had come forward with proof of WarTech's corruption. A short while after that, another programmer, Dameon Wilson, came out of hiding with even more evidence. Supposedly, federal authorities found additional corroboration of illegal activity during their search of the WarTech campus. Some pundits said that if Roy Valik hadn't died in a freak experiment gone wrong, federal authorities would have sought the death penalty.
Cal shook his head. The words being spoken didn't describe his father at all. Roy Valik was many things, but he wasn't a traitor. He often became obsessed with achieving his goals, but could any goal have driven him to do what they were now accusing him of doing? Cal looked over at the black box on the floor of the passenger seat. It was his father's network attached storage device, containing all the secret backups of his dad's work at WarTech. Cal carried the passwords from his dad's safe in his pocket.
Perhaps the device would reveal what had driven his father to such behavior, if it were true. But it would be difficult for Cal to decipher the information on the unit, since his father never took time to annotate his work. And Cal was just learning his trade. But if he had nothing else, aside from his extraordinary intelligence, he had time. Time to sift through the data and analyze it.
Cal pushed the gas pedal to the floor, as the mountains faded in the distance behind him.
THE END
The End . . . of this story. More Sapphire Angel to come!
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Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
I cried for several minutes before even starting my first draft of this comment. Roy Valik stripped Sapphire Angel bare, experimented on her, and put her through intense humiliation. But that was because he wanted to find out more about her powers. He was a genuine learner, but while he did do a lot of inexcusable things, was he actually in on the plot to betray the United States with WarTech’s arsenal? His name’s being soiled. And his name should be soiled, after what he did. But he still shouldn’t be held to things that he didn’t do. .....Unless the public learned that Valik mistreated Sapphire and they branded THAT as him being a “traitor to the United States”. If that’s what was happening, then fine, but if he’s being lumped in with Devlin, Chappelle, Gregor, Nassar, and all of the others, then it would really leave a bad taste in my mouth. And he’s definitely not resting easy either, from the atrocities he’s committed.
In short, I just shed tears for literally everyone. Sapphire, because she was humiliated by Valik---the memories of which likely will not leave her anytime soon---and because possible answers to her superpowers were deleted along with Stanley’s purge. Valik, because he’s likely getting burned AND was being wrongly grouped in with the other traitors. And Cal, because he lost his father and now has to go through life by himself, AND is probably going to attack Sapphire Angel at some point in retaliation.....depending on what exactly is contained within the black box. Maybe they’ll come to blows later and Sapphire will tell him the truth about what happened to Roy.
(gasp) Maybe CAL can be the silver-eyed man’s champion! He can be all like “YOU KILLED MY FATHER” and stuff like that, kind of like Black Manta with Aquaman for killing his father, and Simba with Scar for killing HIS father. And the silver-eyed man could probably find some way to give him superpowers. He could be all like “You want revenge, don’t you? Join me and I’ll make you more powerful than you could ever IMAGINE!” ......Or maybe he’ll fuse Mantis, Olivia Lockheed, Nassar, Mantis, and Cal into a huge inhuman monstrosity and sic that on Sapphire. Or if Azari goes after Sapphire first, fails, and gets defeated, the silver-eyed man can also incorporate HIM into it. ......I have a weird imagination, I get it. It’s best reserved for my own novels. xD
Maybe Cal will be to Azari or the silver-eyed man as Roy was to Devlin.
There’s so many different ways Cal’s character could go (my autocorrect briefly changed that to “Carl”) and there’s so many more loose ends for Sapphire, Conner, and Stanley to take care of. But I do agree with how the first half of the chapter ended; with Beth and Conner simply taking a break and gazing out at the horizon. We won a great victory today, and now it’s time for a rest. See what you get when you sell out the U.S., WarTech?! American Supremacy FTW!
Looking forward to the update on Monday! Legit driven to see how Azari and the silver-eyed man get ended. And Lockheed, too.
Brilliant work as always, my guy! See you in Book #4! There’s......six novels in total, right? I keep forgetting that. Let’s have a supervillain this time around, maybe?
Now, excuse me while I go back to crying over Roy and Cal.