Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  “Scan that parked fire truck, anyone in it?”

  Two firefighters.

  I land in front of the truck with a crunch of shattered concrete. The two firefighters in the cab stare at me open-mouthed. I thought people in LA would be used to seeing supers? Epic pumps up the volume on my voice.

  “Get out!”

  They don’t hesitate.

  “Three pods, front, middle, back.”

  I don’t have a lot of time, Rocket is coming around for another strafing run and there may still be two other attackers hiding in the concrete canyons of downtown LA. As we climb I hear my grenade launcher sing its quire of puff puff puff.

  Colossal turns around, managing to carve out enough of the buildings he’s using for balance to create an avalanche of glass and steel. Damn. Where is the SoCal team? This should be all over the news?

  “What’s with the jamming? Any chance we can find the source?”

  Scanning. They have a tight beam directional jammer tracking us. I will try to triangulate as you fly. Do not get hit.

  “Gee, you think?”

  Rocketman screams by. I spin to avoid him sending a stream of IP cannons after him but he’s too fast for me to follow, the energy just ends up washing against the side of a building. At least in the narrow canyons he can’t turn around with any speed.

  “Any chance Artemis is ready?”

  Negative, while she is in a stable orbit, she has yet to fully deploy her package.

  A glance at the firetruck and she’s still only a few feet off the ground. Just a few more seconds and she’ll be high enough for my plan to work. Seconds I might not get. I bank again, coming around a tall circular building and I see a man standing on top of it. He has long black hair tied in a ponytail and one of those long beards I see everyone sporting suddenly. Dressed like a logger he holds his hand out at me with his fingers shaped like a gun.

  “Epic—”

  He pretend fires and the world explodes. Flames engulf the suit, master alarms scream, the sheer force blasts me through glass windows and drywall and out the other side. The concrete firewall of the first floor stops me cold. Screams of panic fill the air. As my vision clears I can see the hole we made, thirty feet long and smoking. The buildings fire alarm sounds and water sprays down instantly turning to steam on contact with the suit. If I had been in the MKI— I’d be dead now.

  “Who the hell is that?” I ask. My legs are wobbly but they do the job.

  Hand Cannon. He can project massive pyrotechnic explosions from his forefinger. Based on what hit us I would say an order of magnitude greater than any missile or bomb. While the kinetic shields can absorb the secondary effects, the initial blast hits the armor.

  A glance at my chest and sure enough, a blackened scorch mark covers it dead center as if a bomb went off right in front of me. The suit is tough, but it’s designed to work with the shields.

  “Okay, they want to play rough, no more Ms. Nice Girl. Safeties off.”

  On the HUD the particle beam ready light flicks on. Both power up instantly.

  Kinetic Lance is also at one-hundred percent.

  Thankfully the office I hit was mostly empty; I don’t think anyone was hurt. I trigger my Emdrive and floor it out the hole I made when I entered. Rocketman must have been waiting because he’s on my tail in an instant. Epic fires the Lance as soon as I bracket his blazing form. He jerks up like he hit a wall and careens away in a spiral toward the ground.

  I can’t help but smile.

  “Okay, status on the fire truck?”

  Thirty feet up.

  “Perfect.”

  Staying low to avoid Hand Cannon, I swing back around, dodge a chunk of wall Colossal throws at me and fly between his legs. The fire truck is only sixty feet away, it takes a little less than two seconds to cover that. I line up behind it and trigger the afterburners. The truck probably weighs five tons. Five tons that my ag pods manage to nullify. However, force isn’t calculated using weight, it’s calculated using mass.

  I slam the truck into his back at a hundred miles an hour. The mass of the fire truck is a thousand times greater than I could achieve on my own and the impact crushes bones and pulps flesh. He goes down screaming. The forward pod is destroyed when the cab of the truck caves. I let it go to glide gently to the ground.

  Colossal shrieks in pain all the way down. His powers cut off and by the time he’s writing in agony the big man is nothing more than his usual height.

  “Pod him,” I tell Epic.

  Puff.

  Now, that just leaves—

  Fire and noise rains down and I tumble a hundred feet to the ground slamming into concrete and digging a furrow twenty feet long. My HUD flashes an angry red at me as system after system reports failure.

  Kinetic shielding 30%

  Particle Beams—Offline

  IP Cannons—Offline

  Kinetic Lance—Offline

  I manage to roll onto my back with a groan. All the things I’ve invented and this whack job with a stupid name is going to kill me. Real fear runs through my veins. Blood roars in my ears and my brain panics, scrambling for anything to reverse this.

  Propulsion—Offline.

  A shadow falls over me as I try to stand. Hand Cannon drops to the ground a dozen yards away.

  “You’re a tough piece of work, but at the end of the day— you’re only human.”

  He lifts his hand, finger out.

  “Epic…”

  A shadow slices across the sky and a bronze-tipped spear slams into the ground between us. Confusion passes across his face and mine. A spear? He straightens his hand out and ‘pulls the trigger’. Six feet of Spartan god slams the ground between us, shield facing Hand Cannon. The explosion impacts on the surface of the bronze shield. Fire and pressure shunt to the sides as if it hit a wall. Rocks and debris fill the air clouding my vision for a moment.

  When the debris settles, Protector lowers his undamaged shield. He gestures toward the spear. The ancient looking weapon leaps from the ground and flies through the air to smack against his outstretched hand. I’ve only ever seen him one time in person, sitting in the cafeteria at the Portland base. On TV? A hundred times. He is the most well-known superhero in the world. He’s also one of the few who doesn't operate on a team. After all, who could make him? He can go anywhere in the world, he’s nigh-invulnerable, and is so strong his upper limit can’t be measured as there is nothing heavy enough to test it. When I was sixteen he pulled a sinking cruise ship to shore using her anchor.

  “It’s over, Harold,” he says in a deep voice, that resonates even through my armor while pointing his spear at Hand Cannon… Is his name Harold?

  Systems rebooting… thirty seconds to full restoration, Epic informs me.

  “You can’t just come in here and save the day. You don’t get to do that!” Harold raises his hand to fire again. Protector flashes forward faster than Fleet could and slams his round shield into Harold’s chest sending him flying back twenty feet. Before he’s hit the ground Protector is on him. With one punch Harold collapses.

  Protector stands and looks around for a few seconds, his steely brown eyes scanning for threats.

  Say thank you, Epic prompts on the screen.

  “Right! Uh, thank you sir, Protector, sir.” I stammer. It’s one thing to see him on TV but… he’s amazing!

  “Arsenal, right?” He says in a much softer tone as he walks over to help me up.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. I don’t know why I’m suddenly saying sir. It’s just… he’s the only superhero I ever really paid attention to. He always seemed so incorruptible, so full of hope.

  “You can call me Syd, saying ‘Protector’ every few seconds is a mouthful,” he says with a sly smile. His helmet covers his head but his eyes and mouth are perfectly clear.

  He pulls me up no problem.

  Jamming has died. Authorities are en route. I’ve notified the local DMHA officer along with the US Marshals Service. ETA thirty-seconds.


  “Thank you, Syd, I was about to have my but whooped.”

  “About?” He says with a chuckle.

  “Fine, my butt was whooped.” My arms feel like rubber and if I didn’t have to fly back to Phoenix I could sleep right now. I put my feet together to blast off when he puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “I need to talk to you… somewhere else. Mind if I drive?”

  Drive? I nod. I have no idea what he means but if there is anyone I can trust, it’s the man who just saved my life.

  Flashing red and blue lights arrive freeing us to leave. I have Epic upload the footage to the locals and the US Marshals, that way I don’t have to stick around and answer a million questions. I give Protector—I mean Sydney – the thumbs. I’m ready to go.

  13

  Sydney… such a normal name for a not normal person. It sounds weird calling him that instead of Protector.

  He reaches around my waist and says, “Hold on.” With his free hand, he reaches back and hurls the spear into the sky. I’m not sure what—

  Holy crap! Air rushes by in a roar. Epic doesn’t even have time to tell me how fast we’re moving. I blink and we’re in orbit.

  Orbit!

  Earth, from here is a big, beautiful blue and green gem spinning majestically below us.

  I think the DMHA database is woefully misinformed about his powers. He does not teleport, but he certainly does not fly either.

  I want to say something but my mouth just hangs open. Ever since our fight with the Six I’ve wanted to do this and here we are, in orbit. Sensors pick up the vacuum around us, a slight radioactive emanation from the Van Allen belt, and lots and lots of space. Lots. He keeps a firm grip on me otherwise I would be turning to see the moon and beyond.

  We’re holding relatively still as the Earth rotates below us. I’ve seen the ISS camera as it traverses the Earth several times a day but seeing how fast the planet spins when were stationary is breathtaking. The East coast goes by, then the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, then Italy—

  He hurls his spear down, it vanishes in a second, leaving only a red trail from friction as it passes through the atmosphere. The next second we’re right behind it. Air roaring by in a heartbeat and then we hit the ground. I stumble a few feet with my hands out, my inner ear insisting that we’re still moving.

  “Holy crap!”

  “I’m sorry, I forget how disorienting and frightening that—”

  “Are you kidding me? That was frigging awesome!” I shout.

  We are in Greece, Delphi to be exact.

  “I’m glad you like it. After all these years of doing it, I still get a rush. Come, this way.” He marches forward to the old ruins. I’ve never really studied history, not the way I do physics and math. I’ve read a few, mostly American history. I have to admit, I’m partial to history around inventors like Ben Franklin and scientists like Newton.

  However, this temple seems familiar, I think I’ve seen it in a movie or TV show. Crumbling rocks and broken down arches dot the area. What little grass there is has a nice green color. In the distance, I see a modern city with the haze of pollution obscuring the skyline. If it weren’t for that I could almost believe we were back in time.

  GPS location confirmed. This is the Oracle at Delphi. An archaeological site where in ancient times the Greek people would come to consult Pythia, a high priestess of Apollo. A woman gifted with incredible powers of prophecy, or so myth tells us. The site was last used for this purpose in roughly the fourth century AD.

  “Is this where you hang your helmet when you’re not saving armored damsels in distress?”

  “Something like that.”

  Following him is like following a wall of muscle and steel. He’s huge and when he walks I can see the ripples beneath his skin. His breastplate, leather skirt, and sandals all look like he stepped out of an old movie. He leads me around the back of the ancient ruins that are little more than standing stones and crumbling foundations.

  He turns and smiles while he reaches for a pillar. His fingers brush a hidden button and there is an audible click.

  “Stand here,” he points to the ground next to him. “There are things about me others don’t know. They can never know,” he says while taking his helmet off. His eyes are the darkest brown I have ever seen. He steps closer to me and I fight the urge to step away. “But I’m told you’re trustworthy.”

  “I like to think I am,” I say lamely. How to accept a compliment like that graciously is beyond me.

  The ground shakes for a moment then lowers. It’s an elevator! We pass through the level of dirt and stone and a door slides shut above us once below ground level. From beneath a blue light emanates lighting up a cavern in a soft light. The underground cave is amazing, a languid waterfall splashes into a small pond in one corner. Light beams into the room from behind the water giving which is where the blue light comes from. I’ve never seen water so blue.

  It is a good thing you moved me into the armor. This room is one-hundred percent signal proof. I would like to inquire as to how they have achieved that.

  When the platform halts Sydney steps off toward the far corner where a mannequin stands. He places his helmet on it, then leans his shield down. When he unbuckles his chest piece my palms start to sweat. I know he saved me and all but I hope he didn’t get the wrong idea…

  “How did you know this place existed?” I ask, trying to divert my nervousness. “This has to be one of the most explored historical sites in the world. I’m stunned no one’s discovered this underground chamber.”

  “It’s on a separate plane of existence from ours. Parallel to Earth, but off by a hairsbreadth. Or, at least that is how it was explained to me.” He finishes pulling the breastplate off, leaving him dressed in a simple knee-length red tunic, not unlike the ones the Spartans and Romans wore. All respect to Luke, but damn this man has muscles on his muscles.

  “You’re saying we aren’t on Earth anymore?” My nerves vanish with the scientific implication of his words.

  He nods, “I don’t understand all of the details, but Pythia does and she is the one who told me to bring you here. While the powers I wield are great,” he turns and waves his hand around the room, “they’re only half the equation.”

  “Did you say Pythia?”

  “That would be me,” a little girl’s voice says from behind. I leap in shock, stumbling forward and scrambling for footing as I turn to face an olive-skinned girl with long braided black hair and impossibly large eyes. She can’t be older than thirteen, dressed in sleeveless white robes with intricate gold stitching running on either side down to the floor. She smiles patiently with her hands clasped in front of her while I recover.

  I can see and hear her, but Amelia, she is not there in any other respect. No vitals, no thermal variances, nothing.

  “Are you saying she’s an apparition?” I ask Epic.

  She laughs, “No, tell your computer I am no apparition.”

  Now both Epic and I are speechless. My armor is sound proof. Epic does a fantastic job of knowing when I’m talking to him or the people around me… she couldn’t have heard me let alone know Epic is a computer.

  “What… what are you?” I ask.

  “I am Pythia, High Priestess of Apollo, Oracle of Time and Guardian of the Gates of Olympus.”

  “Right.”

  She smiles, “It amazes me, Amelia, that you invented a machine to walk for you, fly for you, think for you, yet are these the only impossible things allowed?”

  Stun round number two… how the hell does she know who I am?

  She gestures toward the far wall. The light level raises revealing a large wooden table with a spread of food that would make a king envious. Fruit, meat, cheese, drink, the whole nine yards. Protector claps his hands and practically runs over, “I’m starving,” he says straddling the bench seats and digging in.

  When Wardenclyffe Tower went online in 1903, Nikola Tesla and three square miles of New York vanished in an explos
ion that blew out windows in Manhattan. The best scientist of the day couldn’t figure out what happened to him. Von Braun, the German scientist who eventually joined America after World War Two was the one who broke the forty-five-year-old mystery. Tesla had opened holes into other dimensions. Superpowers were nothing more than the physics or reality of another dimension inhabiting one person. Who, how, and why we're still, and are still a mystery.

  I guess if I accept that, then I must accept this… to a point. I don’t for one second think the gods of Olympus are real. However, Mr. Perfect thinks his magic is real, and regardless of what I believe, he does have a flying carpet.

  “Give me a second, I usually catch on pretty quick but this is a bit much. You want to tell me how you know who I am?”

  “Please, join us?” she says moving to the table. A plate of food, with all of my favorites including a cold can of open Coke with a straw sticking out, sits across from Sydney. He’s busy wolfing down sliced ham, cheese, and the occasional grape.

  “No strawberries huh?” I say as I walk around the table. Sitting in the armor is never easy. While it is flexible, it is only flexible to a point. I can’t cross my legs or do fifty other things non-armored people can. I slip as best I can into the bench like seating. Epic triggers my faceplate so I can try the food if I want. I eye that straw, the conundrum of this is firing around my brain like a Gatling gun.

  “You’re very interesting Amelia. By far and away you are the most clever mortal we’ve ever met.”

  “Well, you are like five minutes younger than me so how many could you have met?”

  She laughs and it’s like chimes and bells.

  “She’s a lot older than she looks,” Sydney says between bites. “I know this is hard for you to accept, I’ve read enough sci-fi to know the science-minded find it difficult to imagine things they can’t prove, but trust me, she’s the real deal,” Sydney says with an earnest expression.

  I nod, “How can you be sure she’s just not a figment of your powers?”

  He takes a long drink from a bronze cup, “Good question. Mostly, because I don’t have any powers.”