Summoned Again?

Surprisingly, I didn't get another Divine Sight vision until just after Crystal's twelfth birthday. I was going to be summoned again and it was going to be a horrible summoning ritual. A power backlash was going to destroy my penthouse apartment and kill everyone present. I couldn't discern a cause, which meant it was either being kept from me or there were multiple reasons.

I immediately resolved to move out until it happened, then I groaned in pain as the vision shifted and the restaurant I was in exploded. It killed Stephanie, Bethany, and Miss Carlyle for some reason. It also killed fifteen other people. I knew Washington DC was out because of that and my headache grew as the vision shifted again and I felt the blood in my brain pulse.

I was supervising Crystal's school trip to a museum and it killed all of her friends. I was spending the weekend with the owner of the diamond mine, Vika Marusya, and it destroyed her car and killed her and her extended family. I was in my European country and the government building was left in rubble. I was...

“ARRRGGHHH!” I yelled and dropped to my knees, my head clutched in my hands.

“DAMON!” Crystal and Nat yelled and rushed over to me. Luckily, the guests had already left the hall.

“What is it?” Nat asked as Crystal climbed onto my lap and pushed my hands out of the way as she hugged me tightly.

“Vision... damn... damn... it won't...” I ducked my head to Crystal's shoulder and winced in pain as my head throbbed. If I had a mirror, I was sure that my eyes would be so bloodshot that there would be barely any white visible. “There is... only one way.”

Samantha, Eileen, and Sandy came over as well.

“Only one way for what?” Eileen asked.

I lifted my head from Crystal's shoulder and opened my eyes. The shocked looks on everyone's faces told me my thoughts on my bloodshot eyes was probably an underestimation.

“I need a cheap boat. Outboard motor. I need to get to open sea and at least a mile away from everything and everyone in about three weeks.” I informed them and the shocked looks changed to surprised ones. “Ow... two weeks... one week... a day... six hours... three... goddammit!”

“You'll get to the water and probably to the middle of the harbour with a small boat if you're lucky.” Nat said and took out her cell phone. She texted someone and waited for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, you've got a chartered helicopter leaving from the airport in thirty minutes. Sign everything when you get there. I'll get David to handle the insurance company if you don't bring it back.”

A vein on my forehead pulsed and I groaned. The new vision gave me an hour to prepare and that was it. The helicopter was going to be a loss and I had to accept that.

“I need to go.” I said and stood with Crystal in my arms. “Sweetie, I am so sorry about this.”

Crystal gave me a very pointed look before she leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Sign the adoption papers before you leave, Dad.”

Everyone froze, me included.

“Yes, I know you were going to surprise me in private later. You can't do that now.” Crystal said.

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Nat, the gift in the back room. Red ribbon and bow on the box.”

Nat ran for it and I gave Crystal a pointed look back.

“Everyone loves me.” Crystal said with an innocent look on her face and gave me her very best puppy-dog eyes. “I barely had to ask David what secret surprise you had for me.”

Various laughs came from our friends and Nat ran back over to us. Crystal tore the ribbon off the box and took off the top. I took out a pen from inventory and signed the first marked box on the top paper. I flipped three pages and signed and left my initials where David had said to and then handed the pen to Crystal. She signed the very last entry below where her mother Diane had signed.

“Congratulations, Damon! It's a girl!” Nat said and hugged us.

I kissed her cheek, then kissed Crystal's. I put Crystal on her feet and pet her hair briefly and turned to look at Eileen.

“I look forward to your return.” Eileen said.

I stepped close and gave her the same pointed look Crystal had given me. “I'm going to miss you, too.”

Eileen nodded and gave me a chaste kiss. “Good luck. We will wait for you.”

“I don't know how long I'll be.” I warned them. As soon as Nat had figured out how to get me away from everyone and not hurt anyone, the vision had ended and I gained nothing else.

“It doesn't matter, Dad. I won't abandon you.” Crystal said, adamantly. “Teddy and Wolfy are going to miss you, too.”

“Dammit, that's going to suck. Teddy's the best and always had my back.” I said and Crystal smiled. I took her into a hug and held her. “I love you so much, sweetie. Thank you for becoming mine officially.”

Crystal beamed a smile up at me. “Me too, Dad. I love you.”

I kissed her forehead and reluctantly let her go. “Nat, you're in charge. You have a limit of a trillion dollars and not a penny more.”

Everyone gave me a shocked look for a second, then they all laughed.

I gave them all a quick hug and ran for the door. I went out to the parking lot and hopped into my reliable vehicle and drove it at breakneck speed. I made it to the small airport just in time and signed all the forms like Nat told me to, then I was brought to the small two-person helicopter.

“Are you sure you don't need a pilot?” The airport attendant asked me.

“I have my license.” I said and hopped in to start the flight check. It had already been done; but, I checked it again. “Thank you.”

The man nodded and walked back towards the main building. He stopped at the door and leaned against it to watch me.

I didn't have the time to laugh at him checking to see if I really could fly the thing. I powered it up and took the control stick in hand and put my other hand on the power control. I lifted the height lever and pushed the power pedal slightly. The helicopter rose into the air and I pushed the control stick forward and stepped on the pedal.

The helicopter responded and took off with a whine of the engine and I flew out of the airport towards the water. I only had about fifteen minutes left before whatever I was near became a bomb and would explode. I left the city behind and was out over open water with nothing around me when there was a minute left.

It was at that moment that I remembered that I was one person of four. My vision from Divine Sight had changed the timeframe when I told someone else about it. That meant two things. One, I had changed the mission start parameters by intentionally interfering with the circumstances. Two, my summoning was going to be explosive no matter where I was... and so were the other three people.

“Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuuck!” I shouted as I brought the helicopter to a stop and put it into hover mode.

The slightly glowing summoning circle appeared below me and then it became impossibly bright. I closed my eyes and could still easily see the light, then the helicopter sparked and sputtered. I felt like my atoms were being torn apart as I disappeared and the unexplained power backlash blew up the helicopter in a spectacular fireball.

*

“Sir! There's a sudden drop in power for some unexplained reason.” A man's voice said in the control room.

“What? That's impossible.” The supervisor said and walked over to him. “Shunt more power into the system so we don't lose the molecular patterns.”

“I already did, sir. It's a constant drain.”

“And the patterns?” The supervisor asked and turned to the tech on the console. “Cellular cohesion?”

“Intact, sir. Recompiling now.” The tech said.

The supervisor nodded and walked around the small room and over to the four reconstitution platforms. It had taken decades of hard work and the best techno-scientists that existed to construct the thing. The power requirements for the initial testing was phenomenal and they had already used up two fission reactors for this latest attempt and the third was just about drained.

The funny thing was, they hadn't planned on testing the thing for another three weeks and then the boss sent word to speed it up. They needed proof now and if they didn't get it, none of them would be living through the next purge.

He started to smile as four figures seemed to form out of thin air from the inside out and a loud whine came from the third fission generator. It was perfect timing for it to cut out, because the four people from another world finished forming and they were in different poses.

The two females and one male dropped to the floor with shouts of surprise and the last male almost instantly changed from a sitting position to a standing one. He looked surprised for a moment before he looked around and took everything in, quickly assessing it all.

“Welcome, visitors.” The supervisor said with as welcoming a smile as he could. He opened his mouth to inform them that they were the first subjects to return from the dead from another plane of reality, when a fist slammed into his face and crushed his nose, both cheeks, and his upper jaw before the force of the blow snapped his neck and killed him.

Everyone in the control room froze at the sight of their supervisor's face being pulped and his dead body dropping to the floor.

“All right. What idiot authorized sending an enormously explosive fission material through an energy transference beam?” The only standing male asked with anger on his face.

“You just killed him.” A woman's disembodied voice responded.

The man turned to look at the control booth. “That's a lie. He's just a supervisor. He wouldn't have the authority to order the deaths of all the people around us when you kidnapped us.”

“Deaths? What are you talking about?” The other man asked as he stood up.

“Like I said, these idiots sent a transference beam powered by exploding atoms to hit wherever we stood. Anything around us would have been caught in the energy field and exploded, because it wasn't contained within the confines of a nuclear reactor.” The first man said, his anger palatable.

“NO!” The two women yelled and one broke down and started crying as the other held her.

“I was lucky enough to be over open water in a helicopter, so I only lost about 750,000 dollars for the cost of the helicopter, maybe another 100,000 for the insurance coverage, and my fucking life, because everyone will think I'm fucking dead!” The first man shouted.

“But, you were dead.” The woman's voice said.

“Do I look dead to you?” The man asked.

“No, because we reconstituted you.”

“I don't disagree that you did reconstitute me. The problem is you blew me up first!” The man shouted and took a step forward, only to hit a kind of energy barrier. “And now we're prisoners?”

“You are a clear danger to others, so we are cancelling the experiment and sending you back.” The woman's voice said.

“I don't think so.” The man said and his hands glowed. “Until you can bring back all the people you've killed on our world, I'm not leaving!”

“What are you...” The woman's voice started to ask as the man's fist hit the energy barrier and the glow spread out and revealed the invisible energy barrier. A loud whine came from somewhere and the man smiled and punched again. “STOP!”

“Either drop the barrier or the fission reactor I suspect is powering this whole facility is going to explode.” The man said and his fist struck again. The whine increased and the people in the control room started to panic.

“Stop! Please!” The woman's voice pleaded. “There are six thousand people in this building! You'll cause a cascade failure that will kill everyone!”

“You should have thought of that before kidnapping people!” The man said and punched again. The barrier was quite visible now and little ripples of energy rolled over it from each impact. “I also doubt it will just be this building. With fission power and other reactors close enough, the cascade should take out about a mile around us.”

“NOOOO!” Several people in the control booth yelled.

The man held up his glowing hands, ready to punch again. “You have five seconds to drop the barrier before you all die.” He said and his fist hit the barrier. It lit up the room and the ripples increased, clearly showing the power was destabilizing.

“End containment protocols.” The woman's defeated voice said and the barrier immediately lost power. It didn't disappear right away, though. It was much too overcharged to disperse quickly and took about ten seconds before the last wisp of energy faded.

“That was the smartest decision of your life.” The man said and then disappeared. He reappeared inside the control room and several of the operators screamed, men and women alike. “Lock this building down. Now.”

No one moved. The man sighed and grabbed the closest operator. He looked deep into the man's eyes for several seconds and pushed him aside onto the floor and sat down on his chair. His hands seemed to move faster than the eye could see for several seconds before the sounds of clinking could be heard.

“What are you doing?” The woman's voice asked.

“I can't let any of you escape.” The man said and his hands didn't stop moving until the clinking stopped. “All security measures are now in place and under my sole control.”

“You can't do that!” The woman's voice gasped.

“Your logic is flawed. I just did.” The man said and stood up. “You will send everyone involved in this project to me immediately. They will explain what they did and they will undo it.”

The woman's voice didn't respond.

“Shall I start killing more people?” The man asked and easily picked up the man on the floor by his neck. “How many need to die before you give in to my reasonable demands? Ten? A hundred?” He asked as the man he held started choking. “Didn't you say there are 6,000 people in this building alone? How many will you sacrifice before you try to start fixing your mistake?”

The woman still didn't respond, so the man flicked his hand and broke the man's neck.

“That's two.” The man said and walked over to the terrified operators huddled in the corner. “Shall I start on the women?”

“STOP IT, you murderer!” The woman's voice exclaimed.

“You are the murderers and kidnappers, or do other people's lives not matter to you?” The man said and grabbed a crying woman by her neck. “In my eyes, I'm merely punishing the guilty.”

“Who made you judge, jury, and executioner?” The woman's voice asked.

“You did by bringing me here.” The man said and lifted the woman. “Your callous actions almost killed my beautiful daughter and my best friends.” He stared into the woman's eyes for several seconds. “Going after me is fine. I can handle it. Going after the only family I have? That is unforgivable.”

“P-p-please... I have... daughter, too.” The crying woman whispered.

“I know.” The man said and his eyes didn't blink. “What would you do if someone blew up your home to kidnap you and killed her?”

The flash of anger on her face was all the man needed to see.

“Do I need to do that to get you all to cooperate? Go after your families?” The man asked.

There were several whimpers, including from the woman he held.

“I see. They live here.” The man said and let the woman drop to the floor. “How long does it take for someone to die of asphyxiation? Three minutes? How long for brain death?” He asked and walked back over to the console he had used before and sat down. “Air processor control... air processor... here it is.”

“Stop.” The woman's disembodied voice said. “I'll send you the technicians and scientists.”

The man kept typing. “That's good. The sooner you fix this mess, the sooner I can leave.”

“You... you were supposed to help us.” The woman with the daughter whispered.

“How?” The man asked.

“You were supposed to bring knowledge from beyond. Our entire world depends on us finding a solution and...”

“You have all these technological advancements and you thought kidnapping people from beyond would give you even more knowledge?” The man asked, derisively.

“Benevolent spirits should be overjoyed to have a body again.” She responded.

The man stopped typing and turned to look at her. “Did you seriously just tell me that you believed you were plucking us from heaven and we should be grateful to be stolen away from our eternal bliss and shoved back into a pain-filled mortal existence?”

A look of horror appeared on the woman's face when she realized exactly what they had done.