“The same way I did it to you,” Austin says. He motions behind him and one by one the hypnotized crowd outside begins to file into the lobby. Their eyes remain expressionless and each of them are holding their phones out. I catch sight of one screen showing nothing but a constant stream of static. Hidden in the static is Austin’s audio file.
I glance over my shoulder at Mae. Soon we will be overpowered, even with our Aberrant abilities, so the time to act out our plan will be within minutes. There is only so much time before the audio file begins to affect us, too. She nods slightly, and I focus all my energy on keeping my head cool.
Austin continues to speak.
“They aren’t going to get hurt unless you are the ones to hurt them,” he says. “So, no harm, no foul. All we ask is that you hand over the Vestige - both pieces - and join us. I promise it will be worth it in the end.” He reaches out a hand, waiting for me. “Just do it peacefully and this will all be a part of the past. Your records will be wiped clean. No more police after you because of your powers. Instead of you submitting to these people's will, they will submit to you!”
I know what Austin is trying to do. There’s a faint hum in the back of my mind, and I have to believe that this hum is Austin trying to work on my brain - to make me give in. The Vestige pops into my mind’s eye. Its shiny surface begins to glow, pulsating with light. I see myself reaching beneath the band of fabric wrapped around my arm and pulling the medallion out of its hiding place. I see myself handing the Vestige over to Austin just as he wants, peacefully and without a fight.
I see Mae taking her own piece of the Vestige out of her own armband, and I want to cry out, No!
Yet, when I look back at Mae for real, she steps forward, but she doesn’t take out her shard of the Vestige. Instead her eyes lock onto me and with a nod, I realize that she is getting into position for our big surprise.
“Maybe Austin is right,” she says, raising her eyebrows at me. “Maybe we should just hand over the medallion. We could never get the kind of power he’s talking about on our own.”
I’m about to play along when someone I recognize steps out of the crowd of hypnotized people.
“Officer Murphy?” I mutter under my breath. He looks the same as when Mae and I spoke with him at the station, except his eyes are glossed over and his phone isn’t in his hand like most of the others here. Instead his phone is tucked in his breast pocket, and in his hand is a baton.
I want to laugh, but if I open my mouth I’m afraid that I will lose my lunch. The idea that a police baton can take me or Mae down is absurd, but Officer Murphy is not in his right mind.
He stops just beside The Cloak and points his baton at me.
“Your friend is right,” he says in a voice sounding like it's being spoken through a tin can. “Hand over the Vestige and this will all be over quickly.”
I swallow a lump that’s been building in my throat. I really hope that Mae’s signal disruptor works, otherwise we’re in for a scene out of The Walking Dead.
“Yeah,” I say, doing my best to keep a steady, confident tone in my voice. “You’re right. Let’s settle this the easy way…”
Austin’s eyes turn gleeful as I pretend to hold out the Vestige to him. Both Mae and I creep slowly forward. The room is so quiet we can hear our hearts beating in our ears.
“It’s nice to see you finally give in to reason,” says Austin with a smug smile. “Give it over nice and easy.”
The medallion is just within reach when I stop and yell to Mae, “NOW!”
Mae flips a switch on her homemade jammer and whips it out from behind her back. A high-pitched whine fills the air and everyone’s phones go haywire. Some begin to emit a horrible ear-splitting feedback, the kind you hear at graduation ceremonies when someone doesn't know how to use the microphone. Multiple people in the assembled crowd crouch down, their phones dropping to the floor where they shatter and crack as hands shoot up to cover ears.
The sound seems to affect even The Cloak as he lets out a low growl, his eyes squeezing shut.
“What are you doing?!” he yells.
The fog that clouded everyone's minds lifts up and now sounds of shocked muttering and confused exclamations are heard throughout the crowd. Even Officer Murphy is shaking his head, looking as if he just suffered the most horrible migraine possible.
“What’s happening here?” he asks, glancing around.
There’s no time to explain. I blast The Cloak right in the chest. Streams of luminescent purple energy go flying everywhere as he flies backwards, his chameleonic suit malfunctioning until he becomes clearly visible. Even as he tries to slow himself, Mae leaps up into the air and roundhouse kicks him in the jaw. There’s a horrible cracking sound, perhaps a few of his teeth have been shattered, and his face is a blur. Then he crashes into the wall of people behind him.
Officer Murphy’s eyes widen as he witnesses my display of abilities.
“Stop!” he commands, aiming his gun at me and Mae, switching back and forth.
I hold up my hands.
“Officer, you need to get these people out of here -” I start, but before I can finish, The Drone smashes his way over to Officer Murphy and slams a fortified arm against the man’s side.
Obviously a single ordinary cop is no match for an advanced armor suit, so Officer Murphy crumples like an old futon and goes slumping to the floor a few feet away. His gun flies from his hand and spins across the glossy lobby floor.
“I’m done playing!” The Drone yells, turning to us.
Before either of us can register what he’s doing, his arm is thrust out in our direction and a pillar of flames erupts from a stream of fuel.
I just barely duck out of the way, and Mae is thankfully still airborne, so the seven-foot stream of fire misses us. Even so, it blasts against the lounge furniture and engulfs the synthetic material into a mini bonfire. Dark smoke quickly begins filling the lobby as disillusioned civilians dash out of the hole in the main entrance.
The Drone charges at me, putting on a burst of speed I’ve seen before. This time there is only so far I can run - and there is a ceiling between me and a flight to safety.
The Cloak is getting back up now and he picks up the gun from the floor and blocks the exit.
Mae and I are like fish in a barrel in this lobby. We need to get out of here fast, or we will succumb to the noxious fumes from the fire.
“To the elevator!” I yell to Mae just before the smoke chokes out my voice. Burning pain fills my lungs and I start gasping for fresh air.
Mae is struggling as well, but she reaches the doors before me.
“They're locked!” she calls out. “We need your key!”
My key!
It’s in my back pocket. As I run I try to pull it out, but my pants are too tight. I can barely get my fingers around the edge of the key card.
Behind me, The Drone charges onward. Every second he gains on me even more.
I need to act fast.
With a spin I send a blast of energy rippling through the smoke at The Drone. I have just enough time to see it smash into his arm before my focus is on the elevator doors nearly on top of me.
“Come on!” I groan, squeezing my fingers on the key card. At last I get a good enough grip on it to yank it from my pocket.
“Here!” Mae says, motioning to the sensor for the doors.
I slam into the metal wall and swipe the card multiple times in front of the sensor. For a moment nothing happens, but then the little bulb above the sensor turns green.
The doors slide open and Mae leaps inside.
“Come on!” she yells, pulling me by the arm until I am completely inside the elevator. As smoke fills the small box, I jam my finger against the button for my office’s floor.
“Close!” I plead. “Please, close!”
The doors start to shut when The Drone wedges his hands against both sliding doors, forcing them open.
He snarls.
“Going somew
here?”
30
Into The Archives
Mae cries out and jumps away from The Drone, who tries to cram himself through the closing doors. The safety mechanisms on the thick steel doors activate and they open again, allowing him free reign.
One of his metal-clad feet stomps into the elevator. The floor shakes violently and I grasp the side railing to keep from falling over. I don’t want this elevator to go crashing down with us inside. Even with our powers, we are no good inside a crushed metal box.
I use my free hand to blast at The Drone again, but with the quick action, none of my pulse blasts are strong enough to make a dent in his armor. The glowing energy ripples off of him like illuminated mist.
He leans in towards me now, even as I stand by the panel of buttons, wishing that they would take us anywhere but here. His eyes narrow viciously.
“It’s the end of the line for both of you,” he says.
Mae suddenly leaps up behind me, thrusting her foot by my head. Her boot misses me by just a few inches. Before The Drone can realize what’s going on, she activates the spikes in the sole and slams them into his face.
The impact makes me cringe. The spikes hit their mark and scrape open The Drone’s cheek. Tiny streams of blood begin pouring from between his fingers as he releases his grip on the elevator doors and tries to cover up his injury.
I take my chance and blast him out of the doorway, getting enough power behind me to send him five feet back where lands on his backside amidst the billowing smoke.
Mae jams her finger on the button for my floor. The doors close and we begin our ascent.
Our breathing is heavy, but we don’t find much relief from all the gasses in the air. I’m doubled over with my hands on my knees while Mae is resting her head and shoulder against one of the corner of the elevator. She looks over at me.
“You know he’s just going to find another way up here,” she says weakly.
“That’s why we need to go somewhere that we can regain our footing,” I reply.
The doors open and I lead us out into the fresh air. We both gulp down lungfuls of delicious oxygen, thankful that the dizziness of the fumes will finally subside. I wonder how long it will be before the fire department arrives to put out the blaze in the lobby. Will the sprinklers come on? If they haven’t already, it must be a matter of time. There’s no chance that The Drone or even The Cloak will remain down there and risk having The Drone’s armor go haywire.
As the two of us compose ourselves in the spare moment we’ve stolen, I glance down the hallway at the tall windows at the end. Rain begins to fleck against the glass and a deep rumble shakes the sides of the building.
The storm is upon us.
“You hear that?” says Mae, motioning to the ceiling. “Rain. We could go to the roof right now and escape. I bet The Drone would be stuck here because of his electric suit. He could be electrocuted.”
“That would be our job done for us, wouldn’t it?” I say. Up on the ceiling there are rows of sprinklers. I have to think that eventually they would all turn on in the event that the fire begins to travel upwards, which it inevitably will.
“I have an idea,” I say.
“What’s that?” Mae replies.
I nod down the hallway.
“We need to use our resources to weaken The Drone until he can be taken down and taken out of his suit. Once he’s immobilized again, he won’t pose a threat. We can turn him in and be done with this.”
“What about The Cloak?” asks Mae.
I shrug.
“Without his minions, he should be no harder to take out than a normal person. He also can’t climb walls as far as I’m concerned, so it will take him some time to get up here.”
There’s another shudder and the floor vibrates, except this time the vibration isn’t from thunder.
At the other end of the hall I see the door to the emergency stairs go flying off its hinges as one of The Drone’s fortified feet slams into it from the outside. The dented piece of metal screams through the air and smashes into the adjacent wall. Bits of Sheetrock and stone dust erupt from the impact. This floor is now another part of the war zone.
The Drone steps through the opening and looks both ways down the hallway. Then he spots us.
“Run!” I command and yank Mae down the hallway.
“Where are we going?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder at The Drone.
I maneuver us around a corner at the end of the hall and onwards as quickly as we can manage. Up ahead is the door I’m looking for.
“Into the archives!” I say, flinging open the door.
Mae comes to a stop and seems to freeze in place. Her eyes widen. The sound of The Drone’s heavy footsteps get louder and louder, sounding more like a stampede than a single person.
“Go!” I holler, and at last Mae hurries past me into the archive. Once in the doorway, I swing the glass door shut and it latches. Unfortunately there is no lock, and the door is just a sheet of glass.
Looking quickly around I spot a few metal tables.
“Here -” I say, grasping a side of one of the tables. “Help me move this over to the door.”
Mae takes the other side and we prop the table up as a makeshift barrier to cover the glass door. We do the same with a second, smaller table and round it out just in time with a few chairs wedged under the legs of the tables.
“Will that hold?” asks Mae with sweat dripping from behind her mask, rolling down her pale cheeks.
The sensors on my visor suddenly start to go crazy as the intense energy form that is The Drone comes lumbering down the outer hall towards us.
With nothing left to do, I blast the tables with my pulse energy and keep it up until the heat from the electricity warps the metal, melting the edges together.
“That will have to do,” I say.
I grab Mae by the arm and lead her back into the rows of archive boxes. Most of these are familiar to me from when I was originally researching the Vestige ages ago, and many of these shelving units are run on metal rods that come down from the ceiling, being able to come together to block out the light from the windows at the end of the room. I yank the first few shelving units away from the group and start to spread them out.
“What are you doing?” asks Mae, her voice rising as the sound of The Drone’s stomping gets louder and louder behind the wall.
“Giving us some hiding spaces,” I say as I grab another shelf to move along the rolling gliders at the ceiling. “And some distractions for The Drone,” I add.
Once the row of shelves is spaced out enough to be able to move between them, I motion for Mae to follow me back across the room where, in the corner, are a set of leather armchairs. We both push these chairs away from the wall and crouch behind them. Thankfully they are big enough that we have adequate cover when it comes to the doorway.
The Drone’s thundering footsteps come to a shuddering stop outside the room, and Mae and I hold our breath.
“Very crafty,” says The Drone, his voice muffled from behind the warped metal tables and pane of glass.
In the blink of an eye, a brilliant flash comes from behind the tables and shattered glass goes flying on all sides. Then The Drone slams his armored hand against the tables and dents the middle of them as if they were nothing but aluminum foil. The force of the punch is so great that I grind my teeth.
Another punch is all that he needs to send the twisted heap of metal flying across the room where it skids to a stop against the lip of one of the windows. The blinds ripple upwards gently as if they were ruffled by only a slight breeze.
I make eye contact with Mae who is trembling. I hold a finger up to my lips, then focus my visor on The Drone.
We just need to hold out a little bit longer. If we can keep from getting smashed to bits before the water turns on…
The Drone steps into the room, his metal boots crunching on the glittering bits of broken glass.
“Not creative enough to
stop me,” he says with a grin. Despite the majority of his body being armored in order to combat his paralysis, Bill Flagrant has still opted to keep his head uncovered.
His head turns and his eyes lock onto the row of shelves. He chuckles.
“Come on,” he says, advancing towards the shelves. “I didn’t think you would be this obvious. Why don’t you do us all a favor and come out right now. It will make things easier.”
I glance at the doorway, our escape route.
The doorway isn’t more than ten feet away. Even so, that’s not enough space to get away before The Drone can turn and stop us. I need him to go into one of the rows of artwork so that we at least have a five second head start down the hallway. Then we can lead him to his watery short-circuited doom.
As a precaution, a pulse blast in the back of the head should be good enough to cause him to stumble, giving us another five or so seconds to make a getaway and find a room with enough sprinklers.
I raise my hands, preparing to send a blast at The Drone at any moment when he stops at the end of the row of shelves.
What? I think, tensing my fingers.
Why is he stopping?
The Drone angles himself so that he has a clear view of both the row of shelves and the doorway, stopping us from getting away anytime soon. He folds his arms.
“How about I give you an ultimatum?” he asks. “I’m going to give you to the count of ten to come out from hiding, and if you don’t, I’m going to start destroying some of these boxes of archives.”
My eyes widen.
No! I think, wanting to cry out. He can’t destroy these archives. They’re all that’s left of my father’s work.
I strengthen my hands so that they are ready to send as big of a blast as I can muster at The Drone. He’s not going to get away with anything.
But, before I can even flinch, he unfolds his arms and sends a stream of fire from the mini flamethrower attached to his forearm, igniting a set of drawers beneath the counter on the wall by the doorway. The drawers, which contains some oversized layouts that my father and maybe another dozen artists worked on, catches quickly and the counter begins to spout thick, black smoke. Within seconds the room is half-filled with the smoke, the same as the lobby.
The Aberrant Series (Book 3): Super Villain Page 13
