‘Welcome to the Seattle Watchtower emergency response number,’ a pleasant female voice said. West’s voice sank. He was talking to a machine. He could just tell it was an automated system. ‘Please speak clearly and state the nature of your emergency.’
Well, he had to try. ‘My name is Weston Carter. I’m the Ultra responsible for the explosions in Colorado Springs and… and Lexington, and those. Please, I need help. There are people trying to get me.’
‘Please wait,’ the voice said before he could say any more. ‘Please wait,’ the voice repeated after a second or two. West waited.
Iron Cap Black Site, WA.
The insistent buzzing of Theakstone’s phone dragged him out of a dreamless sleep with several grumbled oaths. He picked up the offending device and thumbed the screen to answer. ‘Theakstone. This had better be important.’
‘Sir.’ The voice on the other end sounded urgent. That was good. ‘The NSA intercept has picked up a call they believe to be from Subject Overpressure. He’s using a payphone in Seattle. A twenty-four/seven near Seattle Center.’
‘Then get a team out there to capture him.’ Theakstone considered checking who this agent was and having him demoted to base latrine cleaner.
‘Yes, sir. They’re already on their way. It’s who he’s calling, sir. The call is to the Seattle Watchtower.’
‘What?! Get that team out there now!’
Seattle, WA.
Vindicator swept around the Space Needle once, all his sensors working to locate the boy he had spoken to minutes earlier. Weston Carter claimed to be the source of the explosions which had been happening across the country. He claimed to actually be the bomb. A power he could not control. He had said he was safe for the moment, but Vindicator had seen the stats on those detonations…
Carter also claimed that there were shady agent types after him. Vindicator had no doubt that people were looking for the kid, but the little description he had given of these agents suggested that this was something else. His radar picking up three fast-moving vehicles also tended to suggest that something weird was going on. He located the cars by sight: black SUVs with obscured licence plates. That was not good.
Then he saw the boy. He was standing right where he said he would be: in the parking lot beside the Needle. Shoeless. Dressed in worn jeans and a black windbreaker. And those SUVs would be on him in seconds.
Swooping down, Vindicator planted his feet on the tarmac with enough force to leave cracks. ‘Are you Weston?’ he asked, his voice distorted by the suit into something a little more menacing than was needed right now.
‘Y-yes,’ West replied.
‘Then hold on. We need to leave.’ Stepping forward, Vindicator wrapped metal-clad arms around the boy and lifted him up, tight against his chest. Rocket engines re-engaged, and they blasted into the sky as an SUV screamed to a halt not fifty feet away. ‘You’re safe now,’ Vindicator said.
‘I need to see Cygnus,’ West shouted over the roar of the air flying past him.
‘Yes. So do I. I’ll put a call through as soon as we’re at the Watchtower. I just hope she won’t mind being woken up too early.’
~~~
Cygnus dropped from sixty-five thousand feet and some Mach number she did not want to think about toward Lake Washington and the Seattle Watchtower. She was just above fifteen thousand feet when her radar picked out a moving shape crossing Lake Sammamish: a helicopter which seemed to be making all speed for the same destination. Maybe it was jumping to conclusions, but she figured she had less than five minutes before someone federal turned up at the Watchtower for Mister Explosion, or whatever his name was. She accelerated downward.
‘Denny?’ Cygnus asked as soon as her feet hit the helipad.
‘I am here, Cygnus,’ Denny replied. The signal was being relayed through the Watchtower’s communications system; it was lucky that Eldritch-03 had turned up and made linking comms a useful thing.
‘Tell Andrea that plan B is a go and urgent. There’s a helicopter on its way here right now. ETA one minute.’
‘Plan B confirmed,’ Denny responded. Cygnus watched the sky as the chopper grew closer on her radar.
Jon Patterson, now without his Vindicator armour, walked up to join her as the black dot resolved into a fast-moving helicopter shape. ‘Carter’s downstairs,’ he said. ‘If you want to talk to him, it looks like you need to hurry.’
‘That’s being handled,’ Cygnus replied. She nodded toward the helicopter as it shifted trajectories to circle around the tower in what was probably meant to be a threatening manner. ‘You know stuff like this better than me, I’m sure. Is that thing likely to be armed?’
‘They can be. It didn’t fly in from any of the local military bases.’
‘I expect they’ll say that they’re UID or FBI.’
Patterson paused, cupping his hand over his left ear and listening. ‘CIA,’ he said, sounding surprised.
‘Really? That’s kind of stupid.’
‘Twilight says to tell you “Target acquired,”’ Denny said into Cygnus’s ear.
Cygnus smiled, speaking aloud. ‘Okay, we’re going to argue with them for a while, but if they push, you can let them search as much of the tower as you want.’
‘But– Oh, right. I’m not used to the idea that she can just… do that.’
‘Pretty sure the feds aren’t either,’ Cygnus said as the chopper’s wheels touched down on the pad.
New Millennium City, MD.
West walked out of one of the guest bedrooms looking a little wide-eyed. ‘That… That was weird,’ he said.
‘Everyone says that,’ Andrea replied as she followed him. ‘If you ever get used to it, you’re probably as strange as me. What’s your name?’
‘West. Weston Carter. I really need to talk to Cygnus.’
‘Cygnus is in Seattle, Mister Carter,’ Denny said. ‘She is keeping the CIA busy for a while.’
‘CIA?’ Jacob asked. ‘They aren’t supposed to operate within the USA.’
‘They are claiming that Mister Carter is an intelligence asset. He has information regarding the recent terrorist bombings.’
‘Which would fall under the FBI or UID. It’s domestic terrorism.’
‘T-terrorism?’ West asked. ‘I’m not a t-terrorist.’
Jacob turned his all-blue eyes on the boy, peering at him. ‘I get that, kid, but try looking at it from an outside perspective. Massive explosions. Unknown cause. Why didn’t you just go to the police? I mean, it turns out that would probably have been a bad idea, but why didn’t you?’
‘I was scared,’ West mumbled.
‘Ease up, Jacob,’ June said. ‘He’s still scared, and probably with good reason. You want Cygnus to take your power away, is that right, West?’
‘I can’t control it. And what good would it be to anyone if I could? I can blow up and k-kill a lot of people. How’s that useful?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ Andrea replied. She walked over to the coffee machine and poured herself a mug. ‘But it’s an ability we want to keep out of the hands of anyone it would be useful to, so I’m going to get you somewhere safe in a bit. Cygnus will come see you as soon as she can, but I don’t think you’re dangerous for a while yet, are you?’
‘Not unless I get angry,’ West replied. ‘I try not to get angry.’
‘Your history of events suggests much greater regularity than that,’ Denny said. ‘There has been an event every twenty-two point five days since the first in Scottsdale.’
‘It happens anyway, even if I don’t get upset. It’s about twenty days after I wake up. I… die every time, and then I wake up a couple of days later. The last one was a couple of days ago. This time, I woke up in Seattle. I knew Cygnus worked with the Watchmen on that big monster that came out of the sea. I figured they could contact her.’ West was looking around, trying to figure out where Denny’s voice was coming from. ‘Are you on a phone or something?’
‘I am the house�
�s computer, Mister Carter. You may call me Denny. How is it that the event two days ago went unrecorded?’
‘They put me in a big underground room. I think they wanted to figure out how I work. They didn’t know I wake up miles from where I have an episode. I mean, I’d never had one underground before. I didn’t know I’d wake up outside.’
‘And now we get to the important part,’ Andrea said. ‘Do you know where they were keeping you?’
‘Uh, no. I was unconscious when they took me there, and dead when I got out. It can’t be too far from Seattle. I’ve never woken up more than twenty miles or so from where I die. It was underground. All of it, I think. The corridors looked like they belonged in some spy movie. Like the secret base of the villain.’
Jacob looked at Andrea. ‘A black site, probably somewhere in Washington State.’
‘I’ll make a phone call,’ Andrea replied, heading for their apartment.
Brian had been woken by the commotion outside the room he was using and had been sitting on a sofa, quietly, trying not to be noticed. He knew this was all important, and he knew that the others suspected that West had been held in the same place as Josie. He had to ask. ‘Uh, did you see a girl where you were being held? Blonde. Really beautiful. Eyes like rainbows.’
West looked at him for a second, wondering what a kid more or less his own age was doing among all these heroes. Well, the tall brunette with the big breasts did not look especially heroic, but she was older and very fit, and here was a teenager who looked very out of place. Kind of the way West felt. ‘No. Sorry. I didn’t see anyone except a few men in suits and this old guy.’
‘Old guy?’ Jacob asked, his tone sharp.
‘He said his name was Kopf. People called him Professor. He was the man who seemed to be interested in how my… power works.’
Andrea was out of the room now, but she would have to be told. Jacob glanced at June, raising an eyebrow.
‘This just keeps getting better and better,’ June said.
~~~
Cygnus was back from Seattle by the time a UID vehicle rolled up to the house. She waited in the doorway, scowling. Jacob and June had told her about Blutadler. The fact that Herman Kopf, Professor Blutadler, mad scientist extraordinaire and very sick individual, was conducting his experiments in some sort of government-run bunker explained a lot. Cygnus was pissed off. Andrea had been scarily calm.
Cygnus was expecting to see Special Agent Caldwell and his partner get out of the car, but she was surprised when she recognised only one of the two who did exit the vehicle. ‘Senior Special Agent Brent,’ she said. ‘Or is it still Senior Special Agent?’
‘It is,’ Brent replied. He sounded like a dog growling. Brent was an asshole with a bad attitude to Ultras. He had had a sudden transfer to DC not long after being promoted. Cygnus suspected that had happened to get him away from her as he had a bad habit of making a fool of himself. ‘This is Senior Special Agent Wise.’
Cygnus forced a smile. ‘You were sent to detain me for extradition to Naryan Tan.’
‘That was me, yes,’ Wise said. ‘We have information suggesting that you are harbouring a suspect in a terrorism case.’
‘Oh, so he’s a suspect now? He was an important source of information fifteen minutes ago in Seattle.’
Wise’s eyes hardened. Brent’s throat turned an interesting shade of red as he suppressed the urge to say whatever came into his head. ‘A suspect,’ Wise said. ‘Identified as Weston Carter of Scottsdale, Arizona. You are required to hand–’
‘He’s not here,’ Cygnus interrupted. ‘He’s in Antarctica.’
‘The Union of Ultrahumans has no right to take him off American soil. He’s a wanted criminal.’
‘Upgrade from suspect there, agent. Mister Carter has requested asylum with regards to his illegal incarceration by American government officials. The Union has the right to do that by international treaty. You can, of course, file a request to have him released into US custody. You should speak to the US liaison through normal channels. I look forward to getting that call. Unfortunately, Mister Carter does not know where he was being held, otherwise the Union would be contacting the Office of the President to have a search conducted of that establishment. I’m looking forward to making that call.’
‘You can’t just–’ Brent began angrily, but he was cut off.
‘I wouldn’t go out,’ Wise said. ‘You can expect someone to contact you quite soon regarding Carter’s extradition.’
‘Like I said,’ Cygnus reminded him, ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
Andrews Field, MD.
In fact it was several hours before the call came through: President Hart wished to see Cygnus on a matter of some urgency. They had actually gone all the way to the president on this. Someone was worried.
Hart looked a little surprised to see Astraea walking into the official office alongside Cygnus, but she greeted them both without a comment on the extra visitor. Delphine was in her usual place at the side of the room and there were no additional guards. That seemed good. That seemed to suggest that Hart was not worried, and that she was not buying whatever story had been concocted to get West back.
‘So,’ Hart began, as though not quite sure how to phrase her question, ‘I’m told that you’re harbouring a fugitive, Cygnus.’
‘He was an informant to the CIA in Seattle,’ Cygnus replied. ‘When the UID came for him in New Millennium, he was a suspect who became a wanted criminal in the space of a couple of minutes. The Union has granted asylum to a young Ultra with a very bad problem. I am not personally harbouring anyone.’
‘They say he’s responsible for the bombings in Scottsdale, Lexington, and the rest.’
‘Sort of.’
‘Then…’
‘They weren’t bombings, in the traditional sense anyway. Weston Carter explodes every twenty-two and a half days. He literally explodes. Doctor Ultimate has had a chance to run some scans while we waited for your call. West is slowly absorbing cosmic energy. At some point, when he’s absorbed some threshold amount, he blows up.’
Maybe, at some point in the life of every Ultra, the thought occurs that they could have got some power other than the one they ended up with. Some imagine flight or telekinesis instead of the ability to turn invisible when naked or the power to speak to moths. Some probably had the self-awareness to imagine what it would be like to have something much worse. President Hart had obviously had a few thoughts along those lines. She sat there looking horrified for several seconds.
Against protocol, Delphine spoke into the gap. ‘How does he survive that?’ She was a telepath and had maybe gone through a phase like Jolene Beck. She sounded horrified enough to have experience of the darker side of Ultrahumanity.
‘He doesn’t,’ Astraea replied. ‘He must have a power like Slapstick had. He dies in each explosion. Then he wakes up a couple of days later, miles from where he died.’
‘He’s been trying to get across country to me,’ Cygnus went on, ‘because he heard I could remove someone’s powers permanently. I know he should have gone to the police, but he’s a scared teen and, as it turns out, that would probably have been a bad idea anyway. Someone found him after the Lexington explosion. They’ve been holding him in some sort of base. We believe this base may be related to a supposedly shut down UID project codenamed Jekyll.’
‘I’ve never heard of it,’ Hart said. She looked around at Delphine.
‘It’s not one I’ve ever been read in on, Madame President,’ Delphine replied, ‘but wasn’t that the name of the project that the Amazon Queen claimed had trained Bodach?’
Cygnus nodded. ‘It started in the sixties just after the UID was founded. It was a super-soldier project, shut down after five years with no results. However, it was apparently continued as a black project with a remit to find ways to use Ultrahumans within the military and intelligence communities, using any method they thought could work. Bodach was an invisible assassin. We believe, though t
he evidence is circumstantial, that they’ve inducted and trained another Ultra known as Heartbreaker. She can kill any man she kisses.’
‘By heart attack?’ Hart asked and then waved the question away as too obvious. ‘Do you know where this Project Jekyll is based? Has Mister Carter been able to provide any details of the location?’
‘No, unfortunately not,’ Cygnus said. ‘He was drugged before he arrived and technically dead when he got out. He returns to life miles from where he died, so his appearance in Seattle isn’t much help. But we are looking.’
Hart nodded. Her lips pursed for a second. ‘Obviously, if you discover that location, I would expect you to let me know at your earliest convenience.’
‘As soon as I have a confirmed location, Madame President, I’ll do that.’
~~~
In the air, heading back toward New Millennium City, Astraea slid in close beside her girlfriend. ‘Neither of them were lying, or guilty. Neither of them knew about Jekyll. And that was genuine horror when it came to what’s happened to West.’
‘I figured,’ Cygnus replied, ‘but I wanted you along in case either of them fooled me. I doubt they’d manage to fool both of us.’
‘You’re feeling guilty. About lying to the president.’
‘Yes, I am. But I also think she knows why, and I think she’s given us tacit approval to go ahead and sort this out.’
‘Well, she said “at your earliest convenience.”’
‘Yeah, and that’s going to be right after I’ve pulled that damn place apart with my hands.’
Iron Cap Black Site, WA.
The underground base was exactly where the Court had said it should be. It was not dark in Washington State, but there was plenty of shadow beneath the trees which surrounded the bunker-like entrance for Andrea to do her thing. Nothing but a presence in the darkness, she swept in and down, jumping between shaded areas where she could find them, but taking note of every security provision she saw on the way.
It was certainly big enough. There were four levels to the place, excluding the entrance directly under the surface and the vehicle park behind a much larger entrance near Crawford Lake. That one was far more carefully disguised, and also far less thoroughly guarded, but the lengthy corridor leading down to the base was basically a shooting gallery; it would be fairly easy to bring quite overwhelming firepower to bear on anyone trying to enter that way.
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