A meta. A lightning meta.
It had been months since Friday – Swole H, now – had last thrown hands in the fight against evil. He'd been a different person then. Swole beyond what he allowed himself to become on stage, which was only slightly muscular. He'd been a beast, an unthinking beast, the Hulk without the social graces or pleasant green skin tones.
But as he looked up into the face of that lightning crackling in the rafters, the man who was once known as Friday knew several things in an instant.
This was one of those damned eco-terrorist metas that had been eluding his most favored niece, Sienna.
They were about to light this place up, drawing from the near-infinite well of the lighting rig to – well, probably kill everyone in the building.
And that all his time away from the spotlight and pressure of heroing was ending, now, tonight.
“You can only push a man so far before he breaks,” Totally (Not) Friday said.
“What's that, dear?” the kind old grandma next to him asked. They'd swapped oatmeal cookie recipes before the show. Hers sounded really great. She'd included a twist – a touch of cinnamon. Totally (Not) Friday was eager to try it out later.
“I won't let them kill you,” Totally Definitely (Not) Friday said, reaching into the depths of his jeans pocket and coming out with...
The mask.
He put it on, and got totally jacked as he did so, ripping out of his shirt.
“I won't let them kill anyone,” he said, ripping his seat out of the floor. “No one dies tonight – except the bad guys! HEY, LIGHTNING CHICK! UP YOUR ASS!”
And he winged the chair at her figure, which he could see at the top of the scoreboard. A flash of lightning in the ceiling sparked and went black.
Did she run and hide? Dodge his attack? Get cut in half by it?
Totally (Kittens) Friday grabbed his phone out of his pocket and (gently) thrust it to the oatmeal cookie grandma next to him. “In my phone, there's a contact – Sienna. Call her. Tell her about this.” He posed, totally jacked. “Tell her I'm here. Tell her...I'm back, baby. Old baby. Okay, you're not so much a baby. But tell her.” He turned his eyes to the ceiling. “Tell her...I'm going to war.” And he leapt up to confront the evil he'd ignored for entirely too long.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE
Sienna
I rode the last hundred feet of the gravity channel to the top of the Citigroup building, a slanted skyscraper sitting on East 53rd Street and Lexington Ave. I'd caught the gravity channel on the roof of my hotel, a nice way to avoid the evening New York traffic which, while reduced, was not zero and was still more than I wanted to deal with.
The cool early summer evening licked at my exposed skin. Not that I exposed much, but I was wearing a T-shirt that ended at the elbows, no sweater, and that was enough to give me a chill as I slid along the skies above Midtown, no control over my own vector. This was the problem with having to hide that I could fly; I was reliant on the travel abilities of others.
I came to a stop on the edge of the slanted roof, resting on the triangular top of a sheer fall of fifty or so stories.
Someone waited for me there. Someone wearing a bright red and black costume, something that looked like a stylish cross between Captain Marvel and Captain America, her long blond hair fluttering in the crosswinds.
“Hey,” I said as I caught my footing, the gravity channel releasing me only a few feet from its originator. Riding one of those was a heady sensation, kind of like being on a ski lift...but without the lift. “Thanks for coming. And arranging transport for me.”
“We could have met on the roof of your hotel,” she said coolly. Not quite indifferently, but there was a chill in her voice.
“We could have,” I agreed. “But there are people there. It's a rooftop bar, and...me and bars don't...I can't...”
“I heard about that,” Jamie Barton said. “You never know if it's true, reading it on the internet, or in the gossip pages.”
“It's true,” I said. “My name is Sienna, and I'm an alcoholic. Except I don't go to meetings. I probably should...”
“I'm guessing you didn't ask me to meet you up here to talk about that,” Jaime said.
“No, like I said on the phone,” I tried to neither hem nor haw, “I called you to apologize.”
“You were in New York working for the better part of a year,” the woman called Gravity looked at me with cool accusation. “You never did then. Why now?”
“I think making amends is one of the twelve steps,” I said. “Another reason I should go to meetings. Anyway, I was here with my crew, and it got me thinking about some of the last times we were all together. The very last time was Revelen–”
“When you managed to get yourself involved with a country that launched a bunch of nuclear missiles at the United States.” Barton's face was laced with icy reserve.
“Yes, exactly,” I said, trying to muscle through. It didn't seem like my audience was particularly receptive, but I needed to at least try to apologize and make things right with her. “The rest of us were there, and you...weren't. Obviously. And after what happened to you with the Scotland thing, I totally understand–”
“Do you?” Jamie Barton glared at me. “I had to leave my life for months. Months. Of not running my business, not seeing my daughter. I lost a relationship during that time. Because of you.” She looked up at the sky. “Because that Scottish lady thought she could use me to pressure you.”
“That is completely fair as a critique,” I said. “I understand why you'd feel furious with me about that. And I'm sorry you got sucked into it. Truly.”
“I'm sure you are,” Jamie said. “But saying 'sorry' doesn't fix things that are broken.”
“I know that,” I said. “My point is – we could have really used your help in Revelen.”
She stared at me suspiciously, and then...the ice melted a little. “I know,” she said quietly.
I straightened up a little. “...You do?”
“A madman launched a dozen nukes at us,” she said. “I was here, in New York, where I could do...absolutely nothing about it. If your brother hadn't stopped the ones aimed at us, my powers would have limited me to setting up a gravity channel or thirty to try and...shield us, basically. Keep it higher up in the air so it'd airburst a few thousand feet up.” It was hard to tell in the dark, with the city lights playing over her face, but she looked almost ashen. “You know what that would have done?”
“Made the fallout worse,” I said quietly. “Made the effects worse, in some ways.”
“Depending on how high up I stopped it,” she said, staring over the edge of the tower, “it might have fried every electronic circuit on the Eastern Seaboard. Casting millions of people into enduring darkness. Destroying the shipping industry in the northeast. Causing millions to starve to death.” She turned to look at me. “I would have done it, too. Didn't know, at the time. I was all set to head up, try and block it, if you had failed...”
“I'm sorry I put you in that position.”
“Did you put me in that position?” she asked, and again, I detected a softening. “Did you go to Revelen to start that fight?”
“No,” I whispered. “It just...happened. It probably would have happened at some point even if I hadn't been there.”
“But then no one would have stopped the consequences,” Jamie said, looking over the edge again. “I think about that a lot. That – and what you had me do with President Harmon.”
“He was going to–”
“You told me,” she said. “And I don't regret it anymore...I don't think.” She forced a tight smile. “You want to make amends? Fine.” She looked me right in the eye. “Next time there's a crisis...call me.”
“I was hoping to get us to that,” I said, “but I wasn't sure you'd be on board after all I've...done.”
“One of the things our first adventure together should have taught me,” Jamie said, “was how much being a hero and trying to do t
he right thing...really messes with your life.”
“Preach, sister.”
“I'm sorry I blamed you for the Scotland...thing.”
“I just call her the Scottish bitch. Or something a little less polite, depending on the company.”
Jamie Barton cringed. “How about 'wench?'”
“Right,” I said. “Forgot. You don't like swearing.”
“I'm not big on drinking, either,” she said. “Or–”
My phone started buzzing furiously, and I swept a hand down for it, plucking it out of my pocket. “Sorry, need to make sure this isn't terrorist related – what the...?”
Jamie stared. “What?”
I hesitated. The Caller ID read FRIDAY. After a second or two of agonizing, I bit the bullet and answered. “Hello?”
“Madison Square Garden!” came a frightened, definitely not Friday voice from the other side. “He told me to call you before he put on a mask and leapt up onto the scoreboard! There was lightning flying around all up there and – oh, my heavens! I just wanted to hear Morna Grey!”
I blinked, pulling the phone back from my ear. The click of disconnection followed.
“What is it?” Jamie asked.
“I think there's something going on at the Morna Grey concert,” I said. “Over at–”
“Madison Square Garden,” Jamie said, a little sheepishly. “I was going to get tickets, but they were sold out.”
“I gotta get over there,” I said, mind racing. How was I going to pull this off when I couldn't fly...?
Then the question answered itself. “Come on,” Jamie said, and I felt the tug of a gravity channel as she hauled me with her, over the edge of the Citigroup tower, “let's go.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TEN
Scout
“Francine?” Scout called down through the hole below. The raucous sound of the crowd was near deafening, the unrelenting herd of olds beneath them squealing and screeching like pigs or cows or some other animal heading for slaughter–
Except less worthy of mercy, because they knew what evil they were doing, and animals didn't.
Francine moaned in the dark, but there was no sign of her lightning. She was supposed to be raining it down on the concertgoers, zapping them into oblivion and wiping their damned carbon footprint from the face of the earth.
Twenty thousand people gone. It'd be a small start, but it'd be a start.
“Francine?” Scout lowered herself through the hole, dropping to the scoreboard. The clang was barely audible over the sounds of the crowd raging in panic below. “Francine, where are you?”
This is bad, AJ said. What do you think happened to her?
“I don't know,” Scout said. “I heard a thump or something. Maybe something fell on her.”
She almost tripped over something in her path and stopped. Dropping to her knees, she found an unconscious figure, shrouded in shadow. Scout lit up the tip of her index finger with glowing plasma, and–
“Francine!” Scout shook her.
Francine moaned. Thick blood matted her scalp, dripping down to the metal. Her eyes fluttered, and she looked up at Scout. “Mmm...wha...?”
“What happened?” Scout asked, shaking her shoulder.
“Mm...huh?” Francine's eyes were dazed, barely able to open. They fluttered closed again.
Hurriedly, Scout grabbed her wrist, plunging her fingers against the skin. Counting out the beats over six seconds–
“Her pulse is flatlining,” Scout said, and started to brush against Francine's head. The hair was so bloody, and–
“VILLAIN!” a deep voice announced, the clang of heavy feet landing on the scoreboard ringing out like cathedral bells. A massive, shadowy figure had just landed ahead of her, coming from...?
Where the hell had he come from?
“Your days of perpetrating evil are done, ne'er-do-well!” the masked man shouted. Bellowed, really.
Scout stood there, staring at him, big as life, twice as large as a car.
And her fist clenched almost of its own accord, heating up as it began to glow with plasma.
She stood. The other flared blue in the dark.
Get on it, girl, AJ said.
“Uh oh,” the big guy said, staring at her glowing hands.
He was right.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
(Maybe Kinda Sorta)
Friday
When the chick in the darkness lit up her hands with straight blue fire, like the angry Veronika, Friday knew he was in big trouble. Not as bad as the Great Anal Sunburn Incident of 2019, but close.
But this was no time for cowardice.
It was for time for heroics.
This plasma lady had lit up the huge cylindrical scoreboard they were both standing on, and now Friday could see the evidence of his good works: another chick, probably the one with the lightning, bleeding from the head on the deck.
It did not, however, stop the blast of plasma from coming his way from the angry woman who was still conscious. The blast nearly took Friday's head off, but he swung low, over the edge of the catwalk, grasping the edge with one hand. Soaring beneath like the majestic eagle he was, he flipped back up, like the...majestic silverback gorilla that he also kind of was.
Charging like the ape of fury, he sounded his mighty battle call: “LEEEEEEEEEROY JENKINS!”
The glow of plasma on the angry chick's face revealed not just anger, but deeper emotions. Sadness. Hunger, maybe. For a sandwich. (Friday was hungry for a sandwich, too, oddly enough.)
A smaller plasma blast came flying at him. Friday ignored it as it seared his shoulder, setting a small fire as it went.
The searing pain was gut-clenching. Anal clenching. Worse than the starfish sunburn by a thousand, million times. Why had he ever thought sticking his bare ass up in the air on his LA pool deck was a good idea...?
Oh, right. The internet told him to.
Now the panic was showing in the skinny girl's eyes. She feared for herself, for the girl at her feet, gushing blood from a head wound. She was growing a ball of plasma in front of her, though, a big one.
One that wouldn't miss.
She said nothing, but her eyes were as big as the hubcaps on a pimp's ride. The plasma glowed and burned, and Friday could feel the heat as he closed the last few feet between them. If she unleashed now...
Well, his upper body was going to be crisped. Like his anus, after the sunburn. But probably worse.
“Time to make like I'm in this stadium for the usual reason and play ball!” Friday declared.
The skinny angry plasma lady cocked her head at him, staring over the beach ball of flaming blue heat that was her tailor-made death – for him. “It's a basketball aren–”
“Fooled you!” Friday said, and he slid like a baseball player under her, kicking with both legs as he skidded across the scoreboard. It skinned his back, probably removed all the skin around his tramp stamp area, but–
He slammed both feet into the belly of the beast (the angry skinny chick), and all the air left her in a hideous, hilarious rush. Her arms flew up, the beach ball of flaming hell flew down, hitting the scoreboard just behind his head–
And then...everything started to go real wrong.
The scoreboard pitched sideways, hard. Friday's ass and legs started to backflip over his face, like he was positioning himself for another starfish scorching.
“NO!” Friday shouted. “The sun shall not burn my taint again!” The sky above was a field of dark, though, through a circular hole in the arena roof. “Nor shall the stars scorch my precious rectum-damn-near-killed-'em!”
He grabbed solidly onto the catwalk railing as he tumbled, ass thankfully returning to its appropriate, safe downward angle. Also, he was wearing pants, so the stars wouldn't have a chance to burn his ass. He hung there as the dark, shadowy figure of the unconscious lightning girl rattled and slid down the scoreboard toward him.
Something snatched her out of the air right as she was about to
tumble into Friday's face, then the shadowy profile of both shot up, up and through the ceiling toward the darkness and the twinkling star or two above.
Friday was left hanging from the scoreboard, the crowd raging below in a burgeoning mosh pit of old people. Not the usual scene at a Morna Grey concert, but he could dig it. “The world rests safe in my hands,” he declared as he hung there. “And my taint rests safe from the raging heat of the stars.” He let out a lovely sigh, feeling the cool grip of his leather mask upon his face for the first time in...so long. “It's good to be back.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWELVE
Scout
What the hell had just happened?
Scout shot out through the hole in the roof of Madison Square Garden, gripping Francine tightly to her. Once she was out, she thumped down to the circular rooftop, gently laying Francine down.
“Francine? Francine!” Scout brushed her fingers through Francine's wet hair. It smelled of copper, the stench of blood, and when she reached the skull–
It was...open...in the back. Unevenly. Shards of bones met her touch, threatening to prick her fingers.
Oh, man, AJ said. This is bad.
“Francine,” Scout whispered.
Francine's eyes barely fluttered. She'd lost a lot of blood. Maybe more than blood with that skull wound...
“What did he do to you?” Scout touched her paling forehead.
She's dying, Scout, AJ said. Sirens rang in the distance. And we gotta get rolling.
“Yeah,” Scout said, trying to get herself together. “Yeah, we'll just – I'll just–” She started to scoop Francine into her arms to fly away.
She ain't gonna make it, AJ said. Look at her.
Scout didn't want to look at her. “I'll fly to the top of another building. We can–”
She's gonna die, Scout.
“No.”
Nothing you can do for her.
“I can't leave her behind,” Scout whispered, lowering herself over Francine's body.
Didn't say you should. She could almost see the gleam in AJ's eye, though he was not there. She'd want to come with us. See it through, you know.
Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39) Page 32
