by James Maxey
“I don’t suppose you could cut and paste me to the nearest bar, could you?” asked App. “I need to kill some brain cells.”
“No drinking while you’re on the job,” said Nathan.
“When am I not on this job?” asked App. He knew his tone probably came across as petulant. He launched the tiny camera drone from his belt and took a quick selfie giving a thumbs up with the wreckage of the burning plane in the background. “Just a scratch!” he said to his viewers. “Alas, I need to go offline while I talk to the cops. Full story later!”
He shut down his social media feed and was alone with his thoughts for almost a full ten seconds. He’d used the cops as an excuse, but it turned out there really were about a hundred of them bearing down on him. They’d been holding positions further down the runway, taking cover during the worst of the firefight, but now a battalion of squad cars raced toward him.
He searched the sky as they approached. Nothing but clouds overhead. “Nathan, you have a fix on Steam-Dragon?”
“Negative,” said Nathan. “It flew too low for radar tracking and cloud cover is hiding it from satellites.”
“She,” said App.
“She what?”
“Steam-Dragon isn’t an it. She’s a she. I caught a glimpse of a woman inside when I fell through.”
“Your feed has a lot of static when you pass through objects in ghost mode. We didn’t catch enough data for facial recognition. How good a look did you get?”
“Her gender’s about all I can tell you. I’m pretty sure she was white, but the light inside was all green, so who knows. She had short blonde hair, I think? Again, only a fleeting glimpse.”
“Okay. Narrowing the suspect down to half the population of earth is a start,” said Nathan.
“You’ve got a lot of video of the dragon. Whatever it was made of, I feel pretty sure you can’t just run down to Home Depot to pick up the parts. Building this took some crazy skills. That’s gotta give you some leads, right?”
“Yeah,” said Nathan. “But I’d like some physical evidence instead of just pictures. See if you can talk the cops into letting you take the claw you glued down. Maybe it has fingerprints on it. No way could someone build this without leaving behind a few clues.”
The cops had reached him. App wasn’t looking forward to the next few hours. The Covenant operated on US soil under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, but most local law enforcement weren’t keen on the whole superhero thing. Of course, nothing breeds respect like success. If he’d beaten Steam-Dragon, he’d be spending part of the evening signing autographs. Since he’d gotten his ass handed to him, he suspected he’d be treated like an incompetent. Oh well.
“Oh!” he said, as the cops exited their vehicles in unison. “Nathan! I got so worked up about the dragon, I forgot all about the dead guy! Any ideas about how a dead convict wound up as a murder victim?”
“Yes,” Nathan said tersely.
Unfortunately, there was no time for a follow up question, as one of the cops was now close enough to ask, “I saw that dragon tear your guts out. How the hell are you still alive?”
App grinned, trying to think of some heroic, witty, comeback. But the only thing his mind could give him was, What if I’m not?
“Has App reported back yet?” asked Sarah as she came into the control room. It was early morning, a Monday. This wasn’t her normal schedule; she normally worked in the evenings when Carson was on patrol, but Servant had been given a week off to take part in some church mission. He was helping that crazy preacher he followed build houses for the poor or something. Playing carpenter struck her as of a waste of talent for the mightiest man on earth, but who was she to judge?
“App’s still in the field,” said Katya as she studied the monitor feeds before her, slowly sipping her coffee. “First he had to talk to the local cops, then TSA agents showed up, followed by the FBI, then the AFSF, and…”
“What the hell is the AFSF?” asked Sarah.
“Air Force Security Forces. It was their drone.”
“I swear the worst part of cooperating with law enforcement is all the acronyms,” said Sarah.
“That’s because you don’t have to fill out all the paperwork,” said Katya, shaking her head. “Nathan scrammed the second I came on duty. I’ll be spending the bulk of my shift writing out reports for stuff that happened on his watch. He always does this.”
Sarah nodded. “You’re not the only person to complain. I hear it’s kind of a pattern for him.”
“Maybe you could speak to Mrs. Knowbokov about him?” asked Katya.
“Um,” said Sarah. “We’ll be covering a lot of stuff. I’ll see if I can fit it in.” She really didn’t plan to bring it up. Honestly, if she made it through her shift without speaking to her mother at all she’d count it as a good day. She changed the subject: “How are your kids?”
“Thrilled that Christmas break has arrived,” said Katya. “They’re still with Tim’s parents as part of a long weekend. I’ll be starting my vacation Wednesday. Unless… well….”
Sarah nodded. There was no need to speak the unspeakable. The dervishes hadn’t launched an attack since Labor Day, when they’d slaughtered seventy people at an amusement park in California before Servant had reached the scene. There was no intelligence suggesting another attack was imminent, but the Christmas holiday offered a lot of tempting targets—parades, packed malls, airports full of travelers. If there was another dervish attack, none of the Covenant’s support staff would be getting time off.
The Covenant had formed to deal with a pair of superhuman terrorists, Pit Geek and Sundancer. The two villains were now presumed dead but shortly after they disappeared, the first dervishes had attacked. The Covenant’s agreement with various law enforcement agencies was expanded to give them permission to counter that threat. With the Knowbokov Foundation’s space machine, the Covenant could reach any spot on earth in the blink of an eye. Alas, this speed didn’t help much if news of a dervish assault arrived even a few minutes late. The dervishes were said to attack so quickly they seemed like they were in multiple places at once. The attack on the amusement park had lasted barely two minutes, and when Servant had finally arrived only the body of a single dervish could be found, dead of a heart attack.
“I’ve got another thing I want you to find out from Mrs. Knowbokov,” said Katya.
“Go ahead,” said Sarah, sighing.
“Is your mother going to expand the team?”
Sarah eyed the techs on the other side of the room, then leaned close and said, “Ixnay on the othermay.”
“Sorry,” said Katya. Katya was one of a handful of Knowbokov Foundation employees who’d worked for her father and knew the truth of Sarah’s identity. Most of the new hires thought Skyrider and the Thrill were different people.
“Who knows when my mother will make up her mind?” said Sarah. “I told her the three of us are spread too thin. But, I get the challenge of trying to find suitable recruits. The day the Covenant went public, she started getting resumes from so-called crime-fighters. Some are just crazy people, a lot are well-meaning wannabes, and the few legitimately super-powered people we have looked into have, shall we say, strained relationships with law enforcement. She can’t bring just anyone on board.”
“So why not put in a good word for Chimpion?”
“God,” said Sarah, rubbing her eyes.
“What?” asked Katya. “She’s really good. She aced the combat simulations and set a record time on the obstacle course on her first attempt. She’s perfect for the team.”
“She’s a chimp!” said Sarah.
“She’s smarter than most people,” said Katya.
“Yes,” said Sarah. “And doesn’t the public just love that? Look, Pangea is still a haven for criminals and contraband. Putting a Pangean on the team is going to be a PR nightmare.”
“Or PR gold,” said Katya. “Chimpion is great once you get to know her. She really wants to
be a role model, to show the world that not all of the elevated chimps are mad geniuses plotting to destroy mankind.”
“I want to expand the team as much as you. More than you. App has, like, no life outside of the Covenant. Servant doesn’t have family, and doesn’t need to sleep, so he also puts in insane hours. But I have a life outside this team. You think it’s not putting a strain on me, feeling like I’m not pulling my weight in either of my lives?”
“Chimpion is prepared to devote her whole life to the team.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’d welcome ten team members—a dozen! Is it too much to ask that they at least be human?”
“Not everyone thinks of the existing team as fully human,” said Katya. “Remember all the ‘alien menace’ headlines after Jerusalem?”
“I know, I know,” Sarah said. She crossed her arms, feeling on the defensive. She probably sounded like a bigot. Katya wasn’t seeing the big picture. “It’s because I’ve been on the receiving end of a press crucifixion that I want to make sure the Covenant’s rep stays spotless. People are already uncomfortable with the whole idea of a team of superhumans being treated like law enforcement. If we give a chimp the power to arrest humans, the press is going to eat us alive.”
Katya said, “But the press is going to—”
Sarah held up her hands, cutting her off. “Look, I don’t make hiring decisions anyway. If Mrs. Knowbokov decides to hire a chimp, I really have no say in the matter. Let’s drop it. Is there anything I need to do to help with the case App’s working?”
“You don’t know?” said Katya. “I’ve already sent your assignment to your phone before you even came in.”
“Oh,” said Sarah, pulling her phone from pocket. “I felt it buzz but figured it was just App tagging me in a post.” The retinal scanner unlocked the phone and she found a list of names. She scanned them, finding them familiar, though it didn’t instantly strike her why they were familiar. Then, about ten names in, she knew why she knew them. The blood drained from her face. “Shit.”
“Talk about bad PR,” said Katya.
“What’s happened?” asked Sarah, pressing a button to transfer the list into her helmet’s memory.
“Nathan Todd Leone, AKA Mark Porter, was found dead last night. He’d been killed by a drone mounted laser rifle. All the evidence points to the possibility he was involved in smuggling high tech weapons.”
“How is that possible?” asked Sarah. “I mean, we have all these guys under surveillance.”
“We do,” said Katya. “It’s been over five years since they were set free and none of them have had any run ins with the law until now. After so many years of good behavior, watching their every move hasn’t been a priority. It’s not like we have spies on their tail 24/7.”
“If they are turning back to crime… Jesus. Every one of these men was a killer. Some were rapists.” Her eyes lingered on the name at the top of the list. “This guy, Allen Anderson… he ate people.”
“Don’t panic,” said Katya. “Leone getting caught up in weapons trafficking is an entirely different class of criminality that his former history as a violent sociopath. Case workers say he lived with a girlfriend he treated respectfully, with no hint of his former abusive tendencies. They were having some financial difficulties due to medical bills, though. Maybe money problems drove him to an opportunistic crime? We’re just starting to dig into this case now.”
“But you want me to check out the other names on the list,” said Sarah. “Make sure nothing looks amiss? You want direct interviews or something more stealthy?”
“Your call,” said Katya. “There’s not an operational precedent for a situation like this.”
Sarah bit her lip. All this time and she was still dealing with the horrifying consequences of her father’s good intentions. God, she didn’t have time for this. After Carson’s shift tonight, he’d be off for two days. Her time with the Covenant was already making him suspicious of where she went in her free time. Her job as a charter pilot gave her a reasonable excuse to vanish for a few days at a time, but he knew her well enough to suspect when she was lying to him. Was saving the world worth ruining her marriage?
“I guess I’ve got no choice,” she said, standing. “I’ll make contact in plain clothes. Pass myself off as a case worker trainee or something.”
“Sound’s good,” said Katya. “Go ahead and get changed and we’ll—”
Katya never finished her sentence. Every alarm on the compound started to scream. Katya spun her chair to look at her monitor. Her eyes went wide. Sarah knew the next word that would come from her mouth.
“Dervish!”
Chapter Four
Dervish
Sarah slid on her helmet a fraction of a second before the space machine grabbed her. She hated travelling via the machine. When her father had accidentally created the universe, he’d built reality around a limited set of mathematical equations that described the laws of physics as he’d understood them. Her father’s evil twin, Rex Monday, had figured out how to manipulate those equations in such a way that it was possible to change the location of an object or person simply by changing the underlying math.
App’s belt and Servant’s force fields protected them from the effects of the jump, but Sarah dreaded every jump. The interspace between the two points was a place of insanity, where all the geometry of her body felt distorted. On this jump, she had the distinct impression that her hands were now jutting from the sides of her head while her arms ended in a pair of ears. Arriving at her destination didn’t bring much relief. The body possesses dozens of invisible senses thrown into complete disarray by instantaneous transport. Gravitational pull changes with altitude and the composition of geologic substrata. Atmospheric pressure varies, as does the temperature and ambient light. Even the instant change in the way the air tasted and smelled left her body protesting that something had gone terribly wrong, leaving her slightly nauseated. The monitors in her suit triggered the delivery of nanoparticle anti-nausea drugs directly into her bloodstream, but it would take a few minutes for those to really kick in.
Sarah had no time for weakness. She had seconds to locate the dervish before he slaughtered innocents. She looked around. She was obviously in a shopping mall; her heads up display told her she was in Pallisades Center in West Nyack, New York. There were 400 stores here. Even though the mall had only opened a few minutes ago, tens of thousands of holiday shoppers were filling the concourses. Like most public spaces, people had to pass through metal detectors to enter. The Knowbokov Foundation provided one of the most sophisticated models of that technology. The ferric signature of an executioner’s cleaver, the favored sword of the dervishes, had just been triggered. Her heads up display flashed to turn her face toward the door where the guards at the metal detector were standing in front of a tall, broad shouldered man wearing a black trench coat.
“Found him!” she said leaping into the air.
Someone shouted, “Skyrider!” The name sounded strange to her, though she’d been operating under that identity for a year. She still expected to hear people shout out, “The Thrill!” Of course, those shouts would have been shouts of fear, since the Thrill was branded an alien terrorist. Fortunately, her Skyrider costume had been designed to distract the public from making the connection between two female superheroes who could fly. Her old costume had been white silk, practically lingerie. Her new costume was dark blue body armor, with padded plates that broke up the feminine lines of her legs and torso. Not that anyone would ever mistake her for a man, but she’d said good-bye her poster girl persona. The Thrill hadn’t worn a mask and wore her blonde hair long and flowing. Skyrider hid her face beneath a mirrored motorcycle helmet. The few times she did remove her helmet in public it revealed her spiky dark hair and her surgically altered face.
Finally, she no longer had the power that she’d been best known for as the Thrill. She’d voluntarily had surgery on her vocal cords to strip herself of the power to iss
ue commands that ordinary people wanted to obey. She pondered the wisdom of giving up that power as she flew toward the man in the trench coat, shouting, “Don’t move!”
The man moved, reaching into his coat as the mall cops went for their tasers. An instant later the mall cops were falling backwards, their heads tumbling away from their bodies, with arcs of bright blood hanging in the air as the dervish grinned, brandishing his fearsome cleaver.
“Crap, crap, crap,” said Sarah when the heads up display in her helmet went crazy as the sensor array lost its lock on the man. Suddenly, there were three identical copies of the man charging toward her, all laughing maniacally, rapturous in violence. Thankfully, she’d was only a few feet off the ground, within easy reach of a sword, making her a tempting target. She’d rather he attack her than bystanders. Her body armor had been improved recently with a weave of diamond nanofibers, and the neck brace that her helmet locked into was reinforced with titanium. The first copy of the dervish shattered his blade against her neck. It didn’t kill her, but it still felt like being kicked in the neck by a horse. She spun through the air, unable to think straight, until a second dervish grabbed her by the ankle and spun her around. They were near the elevator banks and he slammed her hard against the steel beams that ran skyward.
Her armor was nearly impossible to cut, but didn’t provide much defense against a sharp blow to the ribs. She bounced off the beam certain that bones had just broken. Fortunately, she’d been fighting as a superhero since she was a teen and was trained to push past pain. The dervish still had a grasp on her ankle, which meant her powers had a grasp on him.
