Into The World

# 25 - Epilogue

1st May 2022

"Jason?" Carrie calls, panting while straightening her dress. She's just teleported from the Emerald House. She scans the desolate, eerie pool as she retrieves her buzzing phone. "Did you find him?"

"No, I've looked everywhere." Chris answers on the other end.

Carrie exhales sharply, hearing the mumbles of the members of the Congress of Henwrich and their clacking footsteps as they enter the extravagant hall.

Her brother Jason is missing. Again. 

What is his problem? Carrie muses, crossing her arms and rubbing the scar around her left forearm. For a moment she glances at her arm, flexing its fingers. It's been four years since the operation.

Four years since Jason dropped out of university.

Carrie bites her lip. "Make sure nobody knows that he's missing," she says. "I'll grab him and be back ASAP."

She cuts the call, looking around. She sighs, "Jason Bettany Smith. If you don't appear before me right now, I'll make sure you're out of the Bootcamp-"

She flinches when a man appears, just inches before her face, and almost stumbles on the marble floor. Her cheeks go red in embarrassment. She has always known when her brother was near, although invisible. 

"Sorry," Jason says, helping her get up. He looks older now, the deep purple bags under his wavering eyes, the prickly beard, the sickly skin.

Carrie shrugs off. "You're glad Mom didn't notice when you were gone. Why on Earth would you disappear like that?"

Jason glances at the pool. "I found out about the place."

Carrie's brows arch. They've been searching for the place stuck in their heads, a dark manor in the middle of nowhere, for four years.  "Sector 5?"

Jason nods. "I overheard a conversation between Mom and Dr. Fix." "Says an Anthony Banks has disappeared."

Carrie scrunches her brows. "Wait, I've heard him somewhere."

"He was one of the top general surgeons twenty years ago," he says. "I checked him out online."

Carrie nods. "Yes, but there's more." She taps her phone to open a blue folder in it. This was given by the Superpowers Training Bootcamp earlier this year, thought to be useful to know people like them.

"Yes. He's an Invis like you," she says, reading from the profile. "He can also generate forcefields."

 
"Forcefields?" Jason asks, surprised. Out of the few existing superhumans existent on this planet, nobody can generate forcefields. "So, he's like Violet from the Incredibles?"

She nods. "He went missing? But from where? Where was he?"

"Pearl Manor," Jason says, though a blank comes in his mind. He gets an eerie feeling, like he's said this before. "The manor in Sector 5."

"But we checked there. There's nothing."

"I know, but you said he had those two abilities. Maybe he safeguarded it well."

"Then you would've seen-" She pauses. "Do you think we've been looking at the wrong spot?"
Jason sighs, "I wish we were. But it's that place. I know it."

Carrie rubs her forehead. "But there are four other sectors."

"All of them had manors, before it got destroyed during the January attacks," Jason says, recollecting. He looks at her.

"No," Carrie says, checking her band. "If you hadn't gone missing, then we would teleport. You made me waste my energy searching for you."

Jason hears a click. A door opening. He grabs her hand. "Did you tell anyone?"

"Nobody knows except Chris." She says, checking her phone.

"Jason?" A voice calls. The two siblings are shocked to see Chris.

"He came here so quickly," Jason whispers.

"No way he could've left," Carrie whispers back, shaking her head.

"There you are," Chris says. He looks at Carrie, "How do you where to find him every time?"

Carrie eyes her brother's best friend. "How did you come here so fast?"

"And why do you keep running away, Jace?" Chris says, ignoring her.

"Who are you?" Jason asks.

Chris raises a brow. "What do you mean? I'm Chris, your best friend."

Jason and Carrie look at each other. Chris doesn't have superpowers. 

"It will be disadvantageous to you if you teleport now, Ms. Smith," a voice says. The trio look around, Chris the least perplexed.

A man about Jason's age walks in, his blond hair ruffled at the tips.

"It's been a long time, Jace," he says, a weary smile on his face.

Carrie gasps when her gaze falls on the person behind her.

Jason turns to see the person standing before him. Though his eyes don't sense anything, a word escapes his mouth. "Eliza?"