No, I can’t afford to think that way. There would be no reason to kidnap them if they were just going to let them die. After all, they could have just left them to die in the car. They went to a lot of trouble to take them and not let anyone know. They had to be alive.
“Arsenal, this is central. There is a report of a superhuman sighting in Tucson. How quickly can you be there?”
Epic hears everything I hear and before I can even consider it he flashes the time up on my HUD.
“About thirty minutes. You want me to go?”
“Affirmative. The computer says likely targets are a group of banks around Arizona National.”
Epic throws up the map of Tucson for me. Yeah, four banks all within a few blocks of each other. Brilliant.
“Roger, I’ll head there now. Can you notify the team in case I need backup?”
“Will do, Central out.”
I didn’t recognize the voice on the other end, but that wasn’t anything new. They must have a huge rotation of people to be the communications hub for all the state teams. Still, I prefer it when I receive instructions from our own people.
“Epic, let’s lock up the suit and set a ballistic trajectory. I don’t want to be exhausted when we arrive.”
He does all the math for me. I pull up until the lines on my HUD are in sync and then the suit goes rigid. The thrusters roar and I am up in the sky.
I pick up a tailwind on the way down and shave seven minutes off my time. I see Tucson up ahead. Funny, I’ve lived in Arizona for almost fifteen years and I don’t think I’ve ever left Phoenix. Tucson isn’t as big as Phoenix, but it is still a big city. We hit five thousand feet and Epic unlocks me. I take manual control and curl us around to the north.
“Go full active on the sensors. Also tap the local news, Youtube, etc.”
I have done this before.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. I come in a low arc over the banking complex. People on the ground are waving up at me, snapping pictures. They probably don’t know who I am. Flying heroes are still cool to see. I would wave back but I can’t without changing my flight path.
The white van parked in down the street has a high level of thermal radiation. Not dangerous, but extremely unusual.
“Well, let’s check it out, shall we?”
They’re parked near the intersection, giving them easy access to three places with high-value cash grabs. This doesn’t feel right. I slide down to a hundred feet above the middle of the street. I’m not trying to come right at them, but if I can fly close enough maybe Epic can better scan it.
“Epic, put me through to the HQ. I think I want backup.”
My HUD blinks as if I changed the channel on the TV. it shouldn’t do that.
We’re being—
He doesn’t have time to finish. The van’s back doors fly open and three men in tactical gear with hi-tech looking rifles leap out. The rifles are the source of the heat. They all take a knee as one and open fire on me.
“Whoa,” I shout.
I spin the armor as green bolts of something hot blows by me.
Experimental plasma rifles. Threat level unknown. Assume severe.
I pull a spin to follow their trajectory. They splash into the building behind me and explode inward. Facade and glass shower the streets. Okay, don’t be hit by them. I throw my hands out to halt my forward momentum and crash to the ground twenty feet from them. They’re aiming again. I lunge to the side and the bolts catch a mid-sized sedan behind me. Flames engulf the suit as the car explodes. This is going from bad to worse.
“Epic, I need backup, now!”
It will take me a moment to send a message via the Internet. If he has to use the Internet the radio is being jammed. Awesome. I let off a blast with my IP cannons in their general direction. The van’s windshield shatters as I miss them. Thrusters on. A bolt of green passes through where I was. I hear the explosion behind me. Okay, kid gloves off before someone gets killed.
“Pod them as I fly by.”
It’s bad luck one of the men shoots as soon as I launch the pod, it’s vaporized in superheated fire. I’m close to them now; IP cannons blast out again. The blue ionic energy washes over them… then dissipates into the ground with no effect. That isn’t possible. There is no frigging way they have armor specially designed to resist my weapons.
“Any luck?”
Domino is in a meeting with the governor; her cell phone is off. Major Force and Mr. Perfect are in the Portland base, but they have no way of arriving here in time to affect the outcome.
I want to curse so bad right now. I kick in the jets full power and pull up. Trails of green energy follow me. They weren’t ready for my speed burst. I shoot high up, about a thousand feet, then pull over and loop back down. By the time I’m level with the pavement I’m four hundred feet away from them, two feet above the ground, flying at a hundred miles an hour.
“Lock me up!” I shout, barely in time as I cover the distance in four seconds. I hit all three, plow into the van and explode out the other side. A large pickup truck stops my charge. The metal of the bed crumples around me.
It takes me a second to free myself. One of the men is embedded in the truck with me. I don’t think he’s getting back up. Another is moaning on the street fifty feet away. I don’t see the third—the whine of his plasma rifle charging registers. Epic fires my grenade launcher, the pod hits his rifle and pulls his aim off. The green bolt hits the ruined truck behind me.
My ramming speed maneuver charged my kinetic lance; I bracket him and fire as he struggles to put his barrel back on target. The beam of force hits him square in the chest and sends him flying into the brick building behind him. He slides to the ground, down, but not dead. Epic’s sensors tell me the grisly news; the other two are dead.
“Show me the source of the jamming.”
An arrow pops up on my HUD and I follow it to the back of the van. My mad flight ripped the roof off, but the stuff on the inside is still there. I hold out my hand and fire a pulse into it. Sparks fly and suddenly I can hear again.
“Central, I need the police and EMS to my location.”
No response.
“This is Arsenal calling the Diamondbacks dispatcher, come in?”
Still nothing. Fine.
“Put me through to the local PD, Epic. I’ll just call it in myself.”
13
It’s been two hours since it happened. Epic finally found a way to message Domino and she should be here any second. The problem I have right now is that Central is claiming they didn’t send me down here. When I tried to call them earlier and no one answered it was because our local monitors were supposed to be on duty. Except, they had been called to Portland HQ and assured Central was online. Central wasn’t monitoring me because they were assured my local team had me.
I smell a setup. Plasma weapons? Who even has those? Epic pulls up a virtual diagram of the weapons. I’ve spent the last two hours going through them, their tech is way past possible into the realm of impossible. Of course, I’m sitting in a suit that isn’t possible; I’m not exactly one to complain. Still, they couldn’t have been here to rob anything. Those guns are worth millions on the black market.
I hear a pop, thank God.
“Arsenal, what happened?”
Ugh, not the voice I wanted to hear. Luke walks toward me. His face tells me he isn’t happy, but at least he’s not yelling at me.
“You could read the police report, or the one I filed after the jamming ended, or watch my in-suit camera.”
I amped up my camera to include full video and sound after the Deadman incident. I don’t want to be framed for something. I know this is the wrong thing to say when the vein above his eye twitches.
“Well then, let me tell you what I know. You came down here without being asked and shot up a street, destroyed private property, and killed two men. Sound about right?”
I catch a glimpse of Domino speaking to the local cops. I’m glad she’s here
; she can put the rage man back in his box if needed. Except she’s over there and he’s right here in front of me. He certainly loses all his appeal when he’s mad. I can’t say I blame him about being upset. I take a deep breath and try not to sound snarky.
“Everything but the part about being asked.”
“Who asked you?”
“Central. They called me—”
He waves his hand at me to interrupt. I have to clench my jaw to keep from biting his head off.
“Central has no record of sending you here. In fact they have multiple attempts at calling you to explain yourself… which you ignored.”
No wonder he’s mad. At least he isn’t yelling at me. This was a setup. Dammit. I knew the risks when I joined. In a way this is good. It confirms what I already knew. Cat-7 was behind my parent's disappearance and now they want me out of the picture.
“I can give you the recordings on my end. They called me. I don’t know what’s going on here, Major, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Tell that to the two dead guys over there.”
He turns and walks away before I can respond.
“Jerk,” I say inside my helmet.
My gut hurts and I suddenly very much want the faceplate off. I don’t care the circumstances, or how much they brought it on themselves, I killed two men.
I’m detecting elevated cardiac vitals. I recommend deep calming breathes.
“Thanks. Domino, I need you…”
“One sec, just clearing things up with—”
“Now, please.”
She’s beside me in a second. Another second later we’re in my home. Her teleportation is vastly different than the quantum elevator. I don’t feel anything, I blink and I’m home. I lurch over to the bar and grab the handles. The suit flies off of me in a hurry and my chair slides underneath me. Then, the bar lowers me down into the seat.
I put my head down as low as I can and try to take deep calming breaths.
“Amelia… are you okay?”
“I could use some of those calming pheromones of yours right about now.”
She kneels down beside me, a hand on my shoulder as she speaks soothing words to me.
“It’ll be okay. I know it isn’t easy when this happens, but it’s part of the job.”
I know she’s using her powers on me; the logic of that doesn’t keep it from working. My chest loosens up and I feel like I can breathe again.
“It was a setup, Kate, plain and simple.”
She shakes her head, “They’re part of a hi-tech cabal. They’ve hit three or four central banks in the last six months using experimental weapons and communications tech. No one knows where they get it, or how. For that matter, why they use it to rob banks. They’ve gotten away with almost a hundred million dollars. It wasn’t a setup, it was bad luck.”
I shake my head and run my hands through my hair. No, it was. I wheel over to my mini-fridge and pop a Coke. I offer one to her, which she takes. I open mine and drink. Even with Kate’s whammy, I’m in shock. I know I am. Sugar helps; intellectually I know this, but it takes a few moments to remove the edge.
“Then why doesn’t Central have a record of sending me there?”
She sips her soda for a few seconds before replying, “Okay, you may have a point, but it could have been a technical glitch.”
“I’m not prepared to go full coast to coast just yet, but something is fishy.”
“Come back to HQ when you’re feeling better. We still have to file official reports and what not. Don’t be too long and,” she puts her hand on my shoulder and I can smell her perfume, which means her pheromones are working on me and my head clears a little, “don’t be too quick, either.”
14
I’m flying through the air on my way to Las Vegas when it hits me. I need to super cool the quantum field while heating the core! It’s so simple I almost missed it. The only question is, can I adapt it to Arsenal? If I can, even in a limited capacity, I can amp up almost every aspect of the suit. I grin at the possibilities
“—Do you copy, Arsenal?” Major Force asks.
Crap, I was too busy daydreaming to hear him.
“Negative, sir, uh it’s noisy out here.”
I can hear him sigh over the comlink. I’m still on probation and I haven’t impressed too many people. Deadman died, and there was a lot of suspicion on me. Luckily, a nearby surveillance camera cleared me. Then the trio from Tucson, and some people are still convinced I went rogue down there. Beyond those, there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity to prove myself. The PR stunt Kate put together to save the cat from the tree was the best thing to happen in the last month. I almost died laughing on the job. She says with how absolutely badass my red and white armor looks, I could easily be the next big thing on the toy circuit.
“The Las Vegas PD reports sightings of at least three F3s in the city. Superpowers of any kind are banned on the Strip, which is what triggered the alert. They’re there to rob a casino or pull some other sort of job. We need to locate them and bring them in with as little property damage as possible. Understood?”
There is a chorus of ‘yes’ and ‘roger’ over the net. “Understood,” I say. Mostly to be different.
“Do we know who?” I ask.
“Jack Danger is the only one we know for sure. The other two set off the alarms when they attempted to enter the MGM Grand.”
Meta-human sniffers developed by none other than Category-7 work by detecting a hundred different biometric readings from a person. In a microsecond, they correlate them to all known metas and then make a best guess. It works surprisingly well. The more they detect, the more accurate they become. It turns out almost every meta has altered brain waves or metabolic processes. It only takes one for the sniffer to work.
“If you check your staff email you will see the portfolio central has sent over on JD. Remember, he’s strong, fast, and agile, on top of everything else he can do. Don’t underestimate him. If he’s here with two others, then he’s in charge. Questions?”
No one asks any, so I don’t.
“We’re twenty minutes out, read the file and be ready.”
The transport we’re flying on is a private Gulfstream modified for in-flight departure. Since my armor works best in sunlight I opted to use the rigging on the belly to fly instead of being inside. It isn’t like I would pop my mask for a drink. I run a detailed note past Epic on my thoughts on Zero Point energy, then I dive into the email.
Danger really is dangerous. He’s capable of deadlifting three tons. He can run at seventy miles an hour, jump a half mile from a dead stop, and has low-level invulnerability. Nothing short of a sniper rifle can penetrate his skin and he’s been hit by a semi-truck and walked away. On top of all of his other abilities, he can emit a low-level EMP with a touch of his fingers. He’s been known to induce heart attacks and shut down buildings. Lucky for me, he can’t touch my skin and the armor is of course shielded from EMP. It would be pretty stupid to be flying around in electronics which could be shut off by a strong solar flare.
“Arsenal, we’re going to do a flyby of the city. I want you to detach and find us a rooftop on the Strip near the ‘Grand’.”
“Roger,” I reply immediately.
It wouldn’t do for him to not like me. As irritating as he is, he’s the final say on if I’m let on the team. Kate has assured me no one goes more than a month on probation. A month passed by yesterday.
The jet circles the city once. As it lines up for the airport they slow the engines so I can detach. I pull the harness and I’m falling. I’ve never been skydiving before; I’ve watched a lot of videos on it, but never done it. This would have to be as close as I get. I pin my arms and legs straight like an arrow and ignite my thrusters. They roar to life. I hit my top speed in a few seconds.
“Epic, full sensor sweep. Access the local cameras if you can and give us a bit more spread.” The team could have access to the cameras in retrospect, but with Epic we can hav
e him monitoring them live.
On it.
I put my hands in front of me to slow my thrust and bring my suit up to hover over the Hard Rock café; it looks like the only place with a roof flat enough to stand on. Sadly, it isn’t very high.
After I land I lean over the edge and scan the crowd. I’m not really looking, just giving Epic a chance to ‘see’ everything.
“You in position, Arsenal?”
“Yep.”
I hear a pop behind me, followed by a second one. Force leans out over the edge next to me. “You couldn’t have found a taller building?”
I restrain my biting response about his observation skills.
“This is the only one with a flat surface close enough to do us any good.”
“It will have to do.”
He holds his hand up to his ear to speak to central.
“ETA on the containment team?”
I don’t hear the response because I’m not tuned to the frequency, but from the look on his face I can tell he’s not happy.
“And if we can’t?”
I’m tempted to eavesdrop. However, there are more pressing things happening. I want Epic’s full computing cycles on finding JD. Two more rapid pops behind me and we have the full team. Force, Domino, Mr. Perfect, and me. We’re not exactly heavy hitters. If JD’s compatriots have any non-punchy powers, we could be in trouble. I go over my loadout. I put the pods after my bean bag rounds. I don’t know how effective they would be against a guy who can short things out. Four bean bags, four pods. Worst case I can hit his men with them. Kinetic lance is on, but it won’t charge until I’m hit. IP Cannons are ready to go, their capacitors are fully charged. The first shot will be full power. Finally, I bring the particle beam on-line. I can only power it minimally without severely affecting the other systems. My capacitors are at full and all the power I can produce is accounted for.
Mr. Perfect strides over to the side to look down at the Strip. His costume, or uniform, or whatever, is a bright red suit with a black tie, he carries a magician's cane in one hand and his other is gloved. He also wears a Phantom of the Opera mask. I don’t know why; his identity is public. Major Force has a military cut jacket, cargo pants and boots. He looks like he’s still an active duty Marine. His concession to the team is his mask; it covers his forehead and eyes down to his cheeks. It’s black and dangerous looking.
Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 7
