Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  I bounced off a barrier that flickered with red static and a nimbus of blackness. I barely managed to snag the railing and forestall a fall to the laboratory floor. Hanging from the rail, I started to pull myself back up.

  "Masquerade," he said, a deep voice resonating within his helmet.

  "Yes, Not-Sharky."

  "Do your job."

  "Yes, Not-Sharky."

  Masquerade found another mask and lashed out with a whip that wrapped around my ankle. With a sharp tug, my progress was undone, and I was dangling from my grip on the rail. The black-clad boss finally moved, bringing his fist down on my fingers, dropping me to the floor below. Masquerade yanked on the whip again, casting me clear to the opposite side of the room. I crashed into the wall and slid to the floor. Darkness encroached at the edges of my vision as the distant girdered ceiling appeared to pull back away from me.

  Masquerade stood over me, peering down though a mask that looked like the face of a Japanese schoolgirl. "You like taking masks? Lets see how you like me taking your mask."

  As he reached down, my fist caught him in the throat, sending him reeling with a gurgle. I staggered unsteadily to my feet, a swarm of white-coated minions closing on me. Pam was right: they were fast, and the beating I'd taken made me slow. Well, slow for me. Their vitals were covered with armor plate, and my fists barely made any impact on their assault. They came at me with batons and cattle prods; they wailed away and jolted me into inopportune spasms. I tried to drive them back, but their long coats hid the weak spots in their armor, and where there should be joints, the armor was even heavier.

  With a jolt to my lower spine, my legs went from under me and I tumbled into one of the white coated minions. In that moment, as I stared into the amber eyes of the hood, and the mechanical irises adjusted to my extreme proximity, another thought occurred to me. These weren't men, but robots.

  Another jolt between my shoulder blades had me sagging to the floor.

  "Ack," Masquerade said, "You're a dirty player, Shadowboy."

  "Go to Hell," I said.

  A baton to the back of my skull sent me spinning into blackness.

  Part 6

  The first words to penetrate my unconsciousness were, "Why didn't you kill him?" They had the resonance of the black-clad man's voice, but seemed to be filtering through a lake's worth of water. As my senses returned to me, I realized I was floating in some sort of viscous fluid. Thicker than water, but not as thick as table syrup. There was a tube down my throat and a clip on my nose. The tube was feeding air into my lungs.

  "You wanted test subjects. We're up to eleven now with him and the girl."

  "Where's the hydrogen cyanide? I'll kill him myself."

  The fluid gave the world a sickly yellow hue and stung my eyes as I opened them. I was in one of the glass tubes not far from where I'd been taken down. I had no idea how long I'd been out, or what Cupric had been doing in that time. A head injury with blackout could easily be a concussion, not good news, especially with the way the world still resisted my efforts to make it stop spinning. Was dizziness a symptom of concussion? I couldn't remember.

  Despite the stinging fluid, my eyes popped wide as I realized Masquerade was wearing my mask! Looking down, I realized they'd taken off all my gear except a pair of Speedos. The horrifying part was I hadn't been wearing Speedos when I set out. Someone had changed me into them. A number of IV lines ran to my arms, feeding who knows what into my system. In a fit of panic, I started tearing them out, leaving little trickles of blood flowing into the fluid I was suspended in. The motion caught Masquerade's attention and he turned to look.

  "Not-Sharky!" he cried. The black-clad man turned. Before he could launch into a tirade about why you should kill hero prisoners, an explosion sent a cascade of robot parts scattering along the central catwalk. "Who is it now?" Masquerade cried. Cupric rolled onto the catwalk, firing a bolt of green flame to demolish one of the white-coated robots on the lower level.

  "This site is compromised!" the black-clad man cried, "Too many incursions for coincidence." He made his way to a control panel as Masquerade gleefully scrambled up a ladder to the catwalk level. As Masquerade engaged Cupric with a flurry of kicks and punches, I tried to break my tube. Bracing my back against one side and my feet against the other, I pushed with all the force I could manage. As I strained against the glass, it occurred to me that I might not be able to break it even if I wasn't banged up. On the catwalk, Masquerade's manic attack had Cupric on the defensive. As he tried to break through to Cupric's torso, I realized that the madman was fighting like me.

  The implication made me pale. If stealing my mask let him fight like me, what would happen if he stole Jack's mask? Cupric was right about him being dangerous. If he weren't batshit insane, he'd be a threat to everyone in the community. I redoubled my efforts to break my tube. Cupric needed my help; I couldn't just sit around and wait to be rescued.

  With the first crack, the integrity of the chamber was compromised. A moment later, it shattered, sending a cascade of fragments and thin goo all over the floor. As I crashed into that mess, the shortcomings of my plan became clear. Glass shards embedded themselves in my back and the upper cap of the chamber plunged down, bearing large crystalline spikes. I rolled out of the way, collecting even more lacerations as it hit the floor with a crash. I pulled the respirator tube from my throat and promptly vomited.

  Something bright blue and glowing wound its way down the IV lines and into the people still trapped in the other tubes. A similarly phosphorescent blue stain expanded from below the ruins of my chamber. I stood, a shower of glass and goo falling from my skin along with a splattering of blood.

  Red crystal lenses covering angry, lidless eyes turned their gaze to me as I advanced towards the controls. He held out a hand and I was encased in a bubble of red static and a nimbus of shadows. With a flick of the arm, he smashed the bubble through the catwalk, knocking Cupric from his perch and sending us crashing into the floor on the far side of the room.

  The bubble vanished, but I was practically coughing blood. Cupric rolled me onto a clear patch of floor and took up a ready stance. Masquerade was dangling from the tattered edge of the catwalk, giggling at his own predicament. He could easily let go, as it was only a three-foot drop to the floor.

  "This riffraff is currently being given quite a catastrophic dose of an untested mutagen," the black-clad figure said. "So I give you the classic hero's choice and begin my exit." He formed a bubble around Masquerade and smashed a hole in the wall opposite us, withdrawing to the raving cackle of the lunatic he bore along for the ride.

  Cupric rushed to the control panel, and looked at it in confusion. "Crap-- Cyrillic. I can't even guess what it reads." He looked to the prisoners in the other tubes, who were now spasming uncontrollably as more of the glowing blue glop poured into their veins. As Cupric pressed a button, I passed out again.

  Someone had set up a vase of flowers by my hospital bed: black and white roses. The walls were a pastel blue, and I'd been moved close enough to the window to look outside. I'd been beaten up so badly that they'd put me on a morphine drip. They gave me control of the dosage, and it has been mostly off for a while. The nurses seemed appalled that I didn't use it more, but building up pain tolerance would only help me in the long run. My torso was a mosaic of small bandages and bare skin. It took over an hour to change them all each morning. They kept checking to see if there was any sign of inter-cranial pressure, but so far I seemed to be free from that problem.

  I looked at the room phone askance when it rang. Reaching out with the hand not hooked to an IV line, I picked it up. "Hello?"

  "Dude, I'm not gone a week and you're in the hospital?" Donny asked. "Do I still have to watch your back?"

  "I don't recall you ever watching my back," I said. "As I recall, when we patrolled together, I covered you."


  "It looked different from where I was standing," Donny said.

  "Did you call halfway across the country to nag me while I'm convalescing?"

  "Yes."

  "If that's the case, I'm hanging up."

  "Okay, okay. But you really need someone to watch your back. I think you should join a team. It'd do you good."

  "Do you not remember all of the trouble Dad went through just to find you a traineeship? And that's not even a long-term commitment on their part."

  "You're ever the pessimist."

  "Got anything else?"

  "Not really."

  "Later, Donny." I hung up on him. I noticed Jack hanging out just outside the door. I waved him in.

  "We had to cancel your party," he said.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't plan on being used as a wrecking ball." I smiled to show him I meant it lightly. That didn't alleviate the worry on his face. "Who was that anyway?"

  "I don't know. I heard Cupric's report. The big brains are still trying to figure out who that was at Technomation, but the description doesn't fit with known offenders."

  "What happened to the Fifth Street Gang?"

  Jack looked away.

  "Jack, what happened to them?"

  "Most died. Their bodies were so horribly twisted that you couldn't even recognize them as human anymore."

  "Most?"

  "One survived. She's being treated for massive blood loss from the way her body tore itself apart during the transformation. There's some debate about whether treating her is even the more merciful choice. But I don't philosophize."

  "So our leads are Masquerade and those crates marked 'Final Star Network.'"

  "What crates?"

  "Didn't you find them at Technomation? I watched the workmen unload them from the truck."

  "I can have someone go look, but there were no suspicious crates there."

  "They were plastic crates bearing a red star marked 'Final Star Network.' They and the equipment in the truck were important enough for Masquerade to personally escort them into town." I sighed. "So what are they going to do with me?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Masquerade stole my mask. Both he and his mystery boss saw my face."

  "I don't know," Jack said. "That's a question for the Fund board and your dad. You know, strategy, risk assessment, those things I'm not that good at."

  "Did you know that when Masquerade puts on one of our masks, he gets our abilities?"

  "Yeah. It happens with any mask, not just ours. That is his power. People keep saying we're lucky he's crazy."

  "Makes strategy harder. It's why he didn't kill me. Logic just doesn't seem to apply to him."

  Jack looked back at me. "I didn't ask how you were feeling."

  "Lucky."

  "You got trashed."

  "Not all luck is good, but I had enough good luck to live through it."

  "I'll tell someone about the crates, and we'll see if we can find them. Just focus on getting better." As he left, Fae slipped in. Her choice of clothes hadn't changed much, but she was wearing shoes this time. She adjusted the way the flowers sat in their vase.

  "I don't know if they told you, but I got you the flowers," she said.

  "I wondered who did that. Thank you." I hated flowers, but being polite didn't hurt.

  "I heard you got messed up pretty bad, but I didn't ask what by. I don't have much in the way of sage advice on how to handle your situation."

  "Asshole!" Nora shouted, pushing her way into the room. "This is your fault!"

  "What?"

  "They're moving us! I have to give up my boyfriend and my internship because you got sloppy!" She loomed over me, leaning in over the side of the bed.

  "Nora, this is Fae. Fae didn't know who you were until you burst in here and announced it."

  Nora glared at Fae. "Get out," she barked. "I have business with him."

  "I don't think it's very nice to shout at someone in a hospital bed," Fae said. In a rush of air, Nora picked up Fae and whisked her out of the room. A few moments later, she raced back in alone.

  "What did you do with her?" I asked.

  "I put her on the sidewalk outside. Now, you're going to start by apologizing."

  "Nora, ask Ben why he doesn't own a cell phone, and why he can't use a laptop."

  "What?"

  "Also ask him where he got that nice bruise on his jaw about the size of a fist."

  "That bruise faded. What's the point of this rambling?"

  "Ben's skin generates electricity, I'll bet he's had a habit of accidentally frying electronics and degaussing laptop hard drives. At night, he dresses up in a costume that concentrates it at his fingertips for ready delivery. Then he goes out to learn how to fight crime alongside Cupric."

  "What?"

  "I gave him that bruise during a case of mistaken identity on the street. Then Jack broke a table at May's diner."

  "You're certain of this?"

  "As close as I can be without unmasking him directly."

  "Well, you have a habit of that."

  "It came in handy fighting Masquerade."

  "Bah!" Nora threw up her hands and stormed out. I laughed, then I cried as it triggered a wave of pain through my chest. I tapped a bit of morphine to take the edge off. Nora came back, dragging Ben behind her. "Direct question Ben," she said. "Are you a licensed sidekick?"

  After looking sheepish for a minute, Ben pulled out his wallet and extracted a BHA card. Nora held up hers, moving too fast to see her fetch it. "I would hold up mine, but I don't even have pockets in this hospital gown," I said.

  "I'm not very good at hiding it, am I?" Ben asked. "And I didn't even peg either of you two."

  "Sorry about the crushed windpipe," I said. The moment of horrified realization coming over his face was the bright spot of my hospital stay.

  "You're not just... you're..." Ben stammered.

  "Yep. I figured you might put two and two together and I wanted to remind you of rule two of the code."

  "Right."

  "And remind you who enforces the code." Half of Dad's reputation grew out of his volunteering to bring to justice heroes who violated the code after Mom died. It was his way of making sure no one else suffered the same fate. The hunter of those who fought threats to the world made him sound more badass than he was. After all, his reputation was a weapon all its own. Rule one was heroes don't kill. Rule two was the secrets of other heroes are sacrosanct. The government doesn't hear about rule two much. The code kept going, each later rule generally regarded as somewhat less important than those that came before. It helped when making moral choices about the community.

  "And Nora."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry about costing you your job," I said, "I was trying to save--"

  "Nine lives, I know. That doesn't make me less mad."

  "Is it rude to say I'm glad I wasn't there?" Ben asked.

  "I'm glad you weren't there," I said. "You'd probably have died. Then Cupric would have to deal with the pathos and Nora would never forgive me for starting it."

  "Thanks-- I think."

  "I have a few questions I need to ask Nora, would you mind waiting out of earshot?" I asked. Ben nodded and left.

  "Nora, you said we were being moved, but Jack didn't know anything about it."

  "Well, Jack needs to learn to check his messages more often."

  "Where are they putting us?"

  "For now, they're going to have us stay at your hideout."

  "I don't have a hideout."

  "If you hadn't missed your party, you'd know better."

  "Excuse me?"

  "It was supposed to go down like this: Jack wou
ld ask for your help in checking out a suspicious building since the party wasn't scheduled until later. You know, because punching through the wall is bad form in a lot of cases. So you'd get all suited up and break into what looks like a base of operations for some group who's out at the moment. The two of you would poke around a bit until you reached the garage, then it's 'Surprise!' We all pitched in to build you this hideout on the cheapest plot of dirt we could find. But you had to go and get hospitalized. Jack was so excited too. He'd been trying his darnedest not to blurt it out to you and ruin it."