THE CADETS: Children of the New Aion

CHAPTER ONE - THE FLYBOY

    "The city is in peril!" Mom's voice boomed as he floated into my space.
     I froze the simulation right as an arc beam was about to hit my chest. My score was only in the lower millions. Not even worth continuing. I threw my arm into the air and we entered a neutral three-dimensional space with a lower blue grayscale background. Mom put his hand on my shoulder and looked me up and down with a proud smile. 
     "Those colors look great on you," he said, referring to the new orange-and-blue color scheme I picked out for my shell's latest model. "You've always had a fantastic sense of color theory."
    "It's 4:07 AM, what's the situation?"
     "So serious," Mom chuckled. "Learn to take the compliment."
      "I thought the city was in peril?" I said.
      Mom altered into a cartoonish-flustered emoticon, with soft red cheeks and mighty streams coming from his eyes. It was then that I took note that he wasn't his usual self, but instead the magical girl Yoshimae from the rogue-like video game Center of Gravity, a game he had been speed-running for Easter Eggs recently. I snapped my fingers in front of his face and he snapped out of it, brushing off his frilled green dress to complete the scene.
     "Sorry, you're right," he groaned. "Charlie has the rest out in the real world."
      "Don't call it that," I said, teleporting into Pops' lab.
       There's a soft whir before my eyes open, followed by a quick soft hiss. My shudders blink three times as the feed picks up, obstructing my ability to focus. When this involuntary action ends I see Pops in the background of the top left corner of the frame at his three-monitor computer rig. I looked towards the work table where scraps of my previous body were still laying out on top of schematics and rough sketches for alternate designs we put together through meticulous drafting and mechanical research. From surfing search engines I've learned that this lab would be considered sloppy in human society.
     It's night. Odin's day. October eighteenth, 2525.
     I made eye-contact with my former eyes as Pops burst from his chair and rushed over to unclasp my restraints. First she freed my wrists, then my ankles. This seems extreme, but all of this is to protect him and my Mother from someone hacking this shell's programing. In fact, I'm the one who suggested it after an unfortunate encounter with my nemesis Dr. Uncertainty.
     "Sorry about the cuffs," he said, leaning over to open the clasps. "I'm still working on the code to automatically deactivate those."
     "You'll get it," I said. "What's going on?"
     "Dr. Patty just sent out an alert to the entire team," he said. "Apparently Common Cold broke into the vault at the Ramirez Saving & Loan while no one was there."
      "And this requires the whole team?"
     "That's what the alert said."
     Pops and I stood up simultaneously. It's a game he likes to play with me, since he knows me so well. Even with the new body he's still left me a head and shoulders smaller than him at 174 centimeters. He says this is to remind me that I'm still his little baby. Pops is weird like that sometimes.
     "Roger dodger," I said, increasing the speed on my rocket system with my wrist communicator.
     "Cloak yourself on the way out," Pops said. "We don't want anyone making a serious connection between your two selves."
     "I remember," I said, putting the cloaking system on a GPS timer before I jet out of our ceiling's retractable sky window.
     "Do you need the GPS?" Pops asked.
     "I've got it saved from last time."
     "And do you know who is on their way?"
     "I'll find out when I get there."
     "We can check right now.."
     "I thought you already knew. You're the one who caught the assignment."
     "I just wanted to make sure you knew who you're with," he said, scratching his thin black goatee,."It's important in your hero work that you always know who you're with. Always."
     "Why do they even need my assistance? It's just the Common Cold. I'm sure either of them could handle him on their own."
      "Well," Pops started, "why don't you go find out."
     He put his hands on his pants and smirked. It was at that moment that I realized Pops had been wearing the same blue, grease splotched boiler suit and ashen covered white lab coat for the past three days. This wasn't the time or place, but I knew that for his health that he would need to change as soon as I got back. Pops is weird like that.
     I shot out of the lab's retractable sunroof with my shell's cloaking shield on. It's important that Flyboy always appears out of nowhere, so no one can track down where he's coming from. That way, our family remains safe.
     I cut the cloak once I was over midtown. A Trilliun girl takes a picture of me from her fire escape, and I'm confident that it will go down as the first sighting of Flyboy tonight on the fan boards. I point to her as the camera flashes the first time, and do a twirl in the air for her second and third pic. I can feel her fingers trembling with the phone in her hand. The nervous taps of her fingernails on its screen as she frantically hits her camera button. She's so excited. The phone is so scared that she'll drop it. I wave at her and boost my speed.
     There's security in knowing about where information about me is coming from. I know that people think my existence is a farce. An abomination against nature. Something to be mocked or feared. I know what they think of my Pops. That he made my Mom for his perversion. I pass by the Axis Tower screen showing a broadcast of Dave Pool Tonight and something inside is commanding me to turn around and plunge my body through the screen.
     I focus on the Saving & Loan.
     When I arrive I see that the whole building is covered in ice, as though an iceberg rose up from underneath it. A massive vortex of snow and ice chunks circle the tip of the glacier bursting through the roof. Covering the bank was a vine-like purple energy shield. My sensors pick up ten armed MECH officers and four snipers on the roofs.
      Mystery Girl was speaking to the Chief, who was frantically wiping sweat from his brow. Her high-fashion brown-suit and beige raincoat always contrasted with the black felt domino mask with the squiggly white "M" symbol in between her eyes. It was joined by purple wrist-length gloves and a brown fedora with a yellow stripe around the trim.
     I looked over to the entrance of the bank, where Callisto was forming an energy shield with his outstretched hands to contain the radius of the ice. I could see his metallic gauntlets were covered in frost, and with my x-ray vision I saw that his small body was shivering under his thick rose-patterned green cloak. I can never tell if he is genuinely okay or not. He always acts so stoic and the full-faced blank wood mask he wears doesn't let any of us see his expression.
     A massive glacier blew out of the second floor like a drill and Callisto slid back on his feet, bracing himself. He pushed forward slowly, shrinking his shield tighter around the frame of the building.
     "What happened?"
     "It's bad!" the Chief hyperventilated. "It's so bad! My Barb, it's so bad!"
     "I thought Common Cold was behind this?"
      "He is," Mystery Girl said, "I can say definitively that it's him inside the bank."
     "What!?"
     "Shocking, I know," Mystery Girl said.
     "I was even a little taken aback myself!" Callisto yelled from his position.
      "We need to move fast!" A familiar voice bellowed from behind. I spun around and saw Inch-Foot armor towering over me. Her armor, one of the most advanced assemblies of tech that my own shell couldn't even compare to, was white with latex black lining around her joints. Painted on the center of her chest was a red and blue carbon molecule. I looked up at the black one way mirror visor on the face of her helmet as it reflected my blank expression back at her.
      "Dr. Patty!" I yelped, demonstrating my emotional range. It's important that I act out scenes like a person. Life plays out like a video game this way.
     "Good to see you, Flyboy," Dr. Patty said. "This is urgent. According to my readings, Common Cold has gotten a hold of some plasma straight from Vector Labs."
     "Plasma!" The Chief squeaked.
     "Is he okay?" I moaned.
     The Mystery Girl raised her hand, "What kind of plasma variant?"
     "Ice-nine. It's a rare form of synthetic cold fusion energy derived from plasma research. There's plasma from the Andromeda system mixed into the formula, which is why it's so unstable. If Callisto didn't have the shield up, the whole city would've been consumed in frost before any of us could get here."
     "And that idiot is in control," Helen said, rolling her eyes.
     The Chief crouched onto the ground and put her hands over her head, rocking back and forth.
     "We're gonna be okay," the Chief sang, "it's all gonna be okay."
     Dr. Patty went over and put her hand on the Chief's shoulder. Dr. Patty once told me that it was easier to force sympathy with her helmet on because she didn't have to change her facial expressions. The problems that people have.
     "Why don't you go home to your wife," Dr. Patty said. "We'll take it from here."
     Dr. Patty motioned for two Patrolmen to come over and they carried the Chief away, where two Social Workers greeted her with a fuzzy blanket and a warm cup of cocoa.
     "The whole city is in danger, obviously." Dr. Patty shouted through cupped hands. "This is going to be a full team effort."
     "Agreed!" Frippet stopped in front of us, kicking up dust. Everyone else coughed and waved away the invasive particles as soon as it happened. For a second I started waving my hand to fit in, but then I just felt ridiculous and stopped. She lifted up her yellow-lensed goggles revealing her worried big brown eyes. "Why hasn't anyone beat Common Cold up yet? Did I get sent to an alternate dimension again?"
     She looked over at the building, then at us. She balled up her gloved fist over her chest and gritted her teeth. Frippet wore a blood-orange latex speed-suit that she hadn't modified once she joined The Cadets. The design is rather basic, with no defining symbols, but she doesn't care. Creativity isn't Frippet's strong suit, but she makes up for it with consistency in every other aspect of her life. She even ties her bushy curly hair in the same poofy buns every time I've seen her in costume. I admire that commitment to detail in humans, especially her.
     "Sweet Saturnalia!" Frippet said, looking at the ice. "Is that plasma?"
     "I'm afraid so," Dr. Patty shook her head. "It's called Ice-Nine. According to the lab it gives the user who releases it the powers of a minor ice god. When it was discovered the scientists who formulated it all froze each other to death after a standoff, so imagine how this is gonna go with an idiot like Cold using it."
     An arrow attached to a cable wire hit the concrete street next to us. Zooming down towards the ground on a pair of nunchucks came The Pupil in his flashy purple-and-yellow scheme spandex outfit, his knee-length green-and-white checkered cape billowed behind him slowing his descent. He wore the symbol of Dr. philosophy (the mathematical empty set symbol that dually resembles an artistic representation of our globe spinning on its axis) on a kevlar patch sewn onto his left breast. No Dr. Philosophy or Pupil had carried on this early tradition since the early 20th century thanks to advancements in kevlar that could be placed all over a human torso. He perfectly rolled into a three-point crouch, his tangly hair whipping in the air. There was a pause, and I wondered if he was waiting for applause, until finally he said:
     "Is this about that robbery at Vector labs? I swear I've almost got that figured out."
     "Probably," said Mystery Girl. "Dr. Patty says Cold has some of the Ice-Nine."
     "That explains why this is taking so long," the Pupil grinned, placing his hands on his hips.
     "I'm glad you're here, Alexander," Dr. Patty said. "I can't believe I'm going to say this, but it's going to take the whole team to take down Cold. Otherwise, the whole planet could be consumed in ice, or less likely, he takes over the world."
     "Roger dodger," I said, readying my arm cannon. Once I do this everyone else readies their weapons: Pupil pulled out his throwing knives, Dr. Patty started up her taser gauntlets, and Frippet gripped her fists while bouncing from foot to foot.
     Dr. Patty made her way over to Callisto, and asked, "Is there any way you can open the shield for all of us?"
     "Yes," Callisto answered, monotone, "but you'll have to move quickly. Once you're in it I won't open it again until I know the Ice-Nine is secure."
     "Understood," Dr. Patty said. She turned around to face the rest of the team. "This is going to be high intensity. I know you all have class in the morning, but that idiot Cold has put the world in danger over a little money. So, it's time to save the world."
      I took the lead as we all walked past Callisto to the front of the forcefield. Everyone lined up behind me, and Dr. Patty shrunk to an inch and shot up to my shoulder. I could hear her sigh in exasperation. That must be nervousness.
     Callisto shouted, "The shield opens in three...two...one...!"
     Dr. Patty yelled, "Cadets, charge!"