Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero Book 1)

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  He shakes his head, his lips are pursed hard together. I notice Domino has her hand on his arm, good girl.

  “Okay then, I think I have a plan, but you all are going to have to trust each other, and when Epic tells you to do something, do it without hesitation? Are we clear?” I can’t believe I’m speaking to these people who have all been doing this a lot longer than me as if I know what I’m talking about.

  Domino takes her hand off Force’s arm and puts it out palm down. It seems a little hokey, but I’m in. I follow her lead. The rest follow me.

  “There are people down there who need our help. We save them, stop the bad guys, go home alive,” Domino says, “Now let’s kick their ass.”

  The Psychotic six have rounded up a hundred or so people and are holding them hostage in the baggage claim of Terminal six. Anyone of them could kill ten or fifteen hostages before we could stop them. The trick is to remove the hostages from the equation. The bad thing about baggage claim is the walls are almost all glass, with three sets of doors on either side leading to underground parking. There isn’t any way for us to approach without being spotted. The good thing about baggage claim is there are seven entrances they didn’t think to cover.

  Carousal seven is on the far northwest corner and offers me an almost perfect view of the whole room. I’m using a detachable wi-fi cam I borrowed from one of the pieces of luggage and I put it right outside the rubber shields. I can see four of the psychos, the only ones I can’t see are Tire-Iron and Nova, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t sneaking up on me.

  One hundred and three hostages, twenty-six of which are under the age of eighteen.

  “Awesome,” I whisper in my helmet. I have no need to whisper, Epic is fantastic at knowing when I’m talking to him or people outside, but it feels like I should.

  “Force, twenty-six kids, they’re the priority.”

  “Why is it always save the kids, as if adults have nothing to live for,” Fleet breaks in. “Because,” I try to remember he’s the new guy and not sound angry with him, “Any parent would want you to save their kid before you saved them.”

  “Oh, yeah I guess that makes sense.”

  “Kids first, Fleet. When you grab someone, does your inertia field immediately engulf them or do you have to stop for a minute?”

  “I’ve got to stop for a second. All I need to do is hold them before I start running and the field protects them.” I do some math, he can literally traverse the terminal six times in one second. The trick is, he has to stop to pick people up. For a brief moment it makes him vulnerable. Well, it’s this or go home.

  “Cops and Feds are here,” Domino breaks in. She and Force are topside to greet them. If I give the go code she’ll port him to me then follow with Perfect. Fleet’s only job is to rescue civilians, a perfect use of his powers.

  “Epic, turn on the AC.” Now that we’re inside the building we have a little more control, still can’t tap the cameras, unfortunately. Who knew the airport would have tighter security than a multinational Fortune fifteen company?

  I hear the distant hum of machinery as the HVAC kicks in. Cold air blows into the baggage area. Hopefully it’s enough to mask Fleet’s speed gusts.

  “Arsenal, there’s a Fed here who wants to know what they’re doing?” Force asks.

  “Nothing, each of them are standing around like they haven’t a care in the world. The only person who looks antsy is Blade, she’s marching back and forth snapping her sword on and off. Force, do we go? If they decide to start killing people…” I don’t even want to think how many will die.

  Long seconds stretch by. Visions of Blade lopping off people’s limbs run rampant in my mind. I can’t fathom why we wouldn’t go, but if the Feds are here maybe they want to negotiate. If they do, it could cost us the element of surprise. Nothing in any of their records suggest a probability of a successful negotiation. This isn’t some desperate loner who was caught robbing a bank and wants a way out. These six people are hardened criminals and mercenaries. They murder, maim, and kill, all before breakfast.

  “The AIC wants to try talking first,” Force growls.

  “Epic, distortion mode.” I wait a second for him to kick it in. “What did you say? Do we go?” To Force it will sound as if there is interference. I can always say the HVAC system jammed me up. I don’t care what the Feds want to do. This isn’t what it seems. It smells like a setup, again. Like Las Vegas there is a potential for a whole lot of innocent deaths. We’re heroes, we can’t let it go down like that.

  “I said don’t go,” Force growls.

  I pretend like I don’t hear every word, “Go? Roger that. Fleet, we have a go,” I say to him, then to Epic, “Cut off Force’s comms for a moment.”

  Affirmative.

  “No I said—” and the line goes dead.

  “Arsenal, do I go or stay?” Fleet asks.

  “Last word I heard was go.”

  He knows the deal and so will everyone else. This gives Force plausible deniability, but everyone else on the comms heard. Lucky for me it’s encrypted by me.

  “Okay, say when.”

  I turn it over to Epic, he’s the one who can do the math far quicker than I. He tells Fleet exactly which person to grab before he starts. To keep things precise he switches to a sharp half-second tone to tell Fleet when to go.

  The first one goes off. Fleet appears in front of a woman, grabs her and the baby she’s holding and disappears in a blur of speed.

  “Turn Force’s comm back on,” I tell Epic.

  “Don’t go, dammit! Arsenal, respond!”

  “Oh, I heard go, we’ve already got one.” I hear a commotion over the comms, it sounds like a crying baby.

  “Fleet dropped her off,” Domino breaks in.

  “It will work, boss,” Fleet says, “I can do this.”

  “Luke, if we want to play it by the book, you can declare this a state emergency by the Militia Act. If the FBI wants to wrest jurisdiction from us they’ll need to get a warrant.”

  Another tone goes off. Fleet blurs into existence in front of a little girl and her younger brother. He heaves them both into his arms and vanishes. He took too long, but it doesn’t look like anyone noticed. I make sure to capture the stream of tears on the dads’ face. I’ll show Fleet later and then he’ll get it.

  “Arsenal, are you sure? We could go to jail,” Domino says, “I’ve never heard of this law.”

  I chuckle, “Article twenty-six, title five-oh-seven. Tell him to read a book.”

  Another tone. Fleet’s in and out with another kid. This could work. There’s one, tiny flaw in our plan. Eventually they’re going to notice they don’t have as many hostages as before. They may not all be sharp, but they’re not stupid either. I check the power levels. Everything is charged, and my secondary kinetic emitter is at full power for my new surprise. If I have to alpha strike them I’m pretty sure I can hurt them.

  Another tone. Fleet appears in front of a young man. Oh god, no. The boy’s autistic and starts screaming when Fleet grabs him. He disappears in a blur but the damage is done.

  “Supers,” the Cowboy yells.

  “Kill all of them,” Blade yells as her sword snaps into existence. I don’t know if they mean us, or the hostages, but I’m not going to find out.

  “Full power thrusters,” the jets kick in and I burst through the carousel, “Backup now!” I scream into the radio. Fleet is a godsend. I see him blur in and take another hostage. I raise my arms to Blade and fire a full power cannon charge at her. She raises her sword and the blast wave deflects around her. I did not know she could do that!

  Force is there roaring suddenly, he’s much bigger as he charges Cowboy. The man in a ten-gallon hat quick draws two five hundred magnum revolvers and blasts away at the ex-Marine. The bullets hit with enough power to penetrate a car block. Unbelievably, Luke spins sideways to avoid the first two. I don’t know how he knew Cowboy was going to fire, but he did.

  I land between the lar
gest group of hostages and the killers in the room. My arms are out wide as I try to cover everyone as Fleet whips in behind me and rescues a hostage every three seconds.

  Jadoo and Blade rush me. He’s waving his hands and chanting and I can see the power rolling off of him, but Epic has nothing on our sensor suite.

  “Kinetic Lance, fire!” With the ZPFM installed I can keep all my weapon systems charged. The beam of pure kinetic energy smashes against an invisible barrier I didn’t know the mystic had. I jump left as Blade’s sword cuts through the space I occupied a moment before. I hear a pop and more chanting. I can’t take my eyes off Blade to see what is happening.

  “You come here to your death, stupid girl,” she says as she charges me. Yeah, I’m not playing this game. “Thrusters.” I lift off and go up fifteen feet, I’m glad they have high ceilings. I take three seconds to spin completely for Epic to know what’s going on. Mr. Perfect and Jadoo are locked in a blaze of psychedelic energy as they both try to annihilate the other.

  Force is punching Cowboy hard enough to push the man through the concrete pillar he was standing in front of. The important point is his guns are on the ground. Domino is teleporting in rapid succession around Sandman slashing away at his wrappings with a blade I didn’t know she had. He’s shooting blasts of sand at her but she’s not there to receive them.

  Epic puts the number of hostages remaining on my screen, 87.

  I lay eyes on Tire-Iron and Nova, they’re at the far end, away from hostages where the police would have come in. I’m out of time to look around because I hear Blade behind me. I jet forward clumsily and spin around, she leaps up and slashes at me with her sword. The plasma blade sparks as it cuts a two-centimeter gash through my chest piece. Luckily it’s the thickest part of the armor - I can take it.

  “Epic, I really need to not be fighting her.”

  Thirty-five degrees to your left, full power thrust.

  I do it. I blast away from her just as Force charges past me. It’s insane how agile he is when he’s big and strong. It’s like he knows when to dodge without even seeing the blow. I hope he fares better against her than I did.

  I slam into Cowboy at seventy miles an hour and crash him into the concrete wall behind him. It spiderwebs and mortar and dust fall on us. I’m pretty sure he’s okay, since he can theoretically be invulnerable to anything.

  I push off and level my cannons, they’re reading one-hundred percent, and fire. The blast of Ion energy rips through him and slams him back down to the ground from where he was almost up. He may be invulnerable to physical attacks, but he still has a nervous system.

  “Pod him,” I hear the puff of my grenade launcher and he floats unconscious up to the ceiling.

  “One down.”

  The number on my screen changes to 76. I guess without him having to wait to go he can move a little faster than one every three seconds. At least all the kids are out. I don’t know how to deal with Sandman, and Mr. Perfect and Jadoo are surrounded by bizarre energy which could disrupt my armor, I can’t risk it.

  “Major Force, Domino, trade,” Epic says over the comms. Domino, like a champ, teleports to Force, slaps her arms around him and appears next to Sandman with him. Then she’s back to Blade.

  Engage Nova and Tire-Iron before they have a chance to return to the hostages.

  Two on one and they’re both deadly.

  Awesome.

  The thing about superpowers, is they seem amazing until you fight someone your powers have no effect on. I blast down the baggage claim to the east end where the two most powerful members of the Six were waiting to ambush any police who came in. I land fifteen feet from them with my arms up to fire my cannons. I suspect it won’t have an effect on Tire-Iron. The big lug steps in front of Nova and the energy wave dissipates off of him.

  “Tire-Iron, Blade failed, do you think you can take her?” he asks in his creepy crackling voice. I’m not sure if he’s surrounded by fire, or is living flame. It’s hard to tell. The floor under him is black but not burning. My sensors register him at three hundred degrees.

  Tire-Iron leers at me, “I’m gonna rip you out of that armor and break you in half.” I fire my cannons again. Okay, he should not be fast and strong. I hear glass shatter and then a roar like a campfire and Nova is gone.

  Running? It doesn’t seem like the thing to do.

  “Epic, all power auxiliary kinetic fields.”

  This isn’t exactly the test I was hoping for. Tire-Iron lumbers toward me and I stand my ground. Five-eight in the armor and he has to be six-six. He towers over me.

  “And they said you were smart,” he rears back his arm. Did he just imply he was warned about me? I don’t have time to guess. His fist is nearly the size of my head. He lets fly, I reach up with my left hand—and catch his fist. A thunderclap blows through the room shattering windows and sending debris flying. My design worked, I’m holding his fist.

  I’m glad I’m recording the look on his face.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Yeah, it’s like that,” I put my right hand against his knee and bend my wrist down while flexing. Time to see how ‘invulnerable’ he really is. Sub-atomic particles charged with positive energy and accelerated to near light speed fire out of my wrist emitter in a howl of fury and fire. The beam splashes against his knee and for a brief moment I think it isn’t going to work.

  Then it cuts through and blasts out the other side.

  His mouth opens and his eyes fill with tears. The man mountain who’s committed countless crimes, falls down grasping his knee and keening like a little baby as tears and snot roll down his face. There are days I love my job.

  “Pod him.” Puff and he’s floating up. I imagine he could do some damage to the ceiling, even get through the roof, but all he would do is float away.

  Domino has Blade in a choke hold and is riding her down like a calf. I can’t hear what she’s saying but whatever it is, the swordswoman is slowly relaxing. The plasma sword vanishes and she drops to the ground unconscious.

  Perfect and Jadoo are still locked in their battle and I take an educated guess. “Fire kinetic lance,” the force beam smashes into the man on the carpet and crumples him like a rag doll. With his concentration broken, his energy constructs vanish and Mr. Perfect’s power crashes into him. A smoking husk of burning flesh and scorched hair falls to the ground.

  “I don’t know how to fight this thing,” Force screams. Sandman is the only one left besides, Nova. I step forward to help when Epic flashes a warning on my screen.

  Temperature outside is spiking. There are tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel in and around this airport. Nova could detonate it and cause a catastrophe.

  Done, I turn my back on my team, hopefully they can finish this and I kick in the jets. My armor blasts through the nearest window and I’m up in the air at a hundred miles an hour, banking to the West scanning for Nova.

  “Epic, these guys acted like they were ready for me. Come to think of it, Blade seemed pretty fixated on me. Who could sneak these monsters out of prison and move them to Phoenix without anyone noticing?”

  It would require contacts inside the North Dakota UltraMax. As well as some form of technology or power to move people undetectable across the breadth of the nation.

  “In other words—”

  Teleportation.

  “Yeah. Why am I not surprised. Same with Vixen and this supposed cabal. I’ve had enough of this crap – when this is done we’re going after the source.”

  Epic locks onto Nova’s position. He’s floating a hundred feet above the fuel storage. Jet fuel burns at fifteen hundred degrees. The HUD says eleven-hundred and I’m five hundred feet away.

  “Will the cannons work on him?”

  Unknown. Heat can disrupt ion-particles. “This really is Las Vegas again. At least he can’t melt the suit.”

  I aim for the center of the fireball and I dive in. My faceplate immediately goes dark to protect my vision. I slam into so
mething. He screams and I wrap my arms around him.

  “I will burn you to a cinder!”

  “Bring it, but I hope you brought your own oxygen supply.”

  “What?”

  “Epic, full power, ballistic trajectory straight up.”

  The thrusters will overheat.

  “He doesn’t know that.” The jets on my back, the sides of my boots and the one on the hand that isn’t wrapped around him, all light off with intense force. I hear the sound of a rocket blasting through the sky and I realize it’s me. He screams and the temp on the HUD flares to thirteen hundred. We hit four-hundred miles per hour and the overheating alarm starts blaring.

  “Punch it!”

  The afterburners kick in and we rocket past six-hundred miles per hour. He stops screaming. Warning lights are flashing all over my HUD.

  “Cut power, let’s fall.” The thrusters shut off and wind down and I’m falling. My faceplate clears and I can see again. Nova is unconscious, frost covers his skin and I think I might have broken all his ribs. Whatever, he made his bed. The HUD says we’re at seventeen thousand feet. “Hot damn, Epic. I need to work on the overheating issue. I want us in space. Wouldn’t that be—”

  Awesome?

  “You read my mind.”

  It’s weird being on a stage while thousands of people cheer at you. Plain weird. The crowd is huge, I only know exactly how many people are attending the celebration because of Epic. He kindly lets me know. I’m not sure if this is his idea of a joke or not. I hate crowds and if I wasn’t in my armor I would be rolling for the hills. Regardless, I have a running ballistic course set in for the HQ.

  We’re all here. It wasn’t a request. The mayor of Phoenix called Luke personally and asked for us. I think they like the fact that we stopped the Psychotic Six with no civilian or police casualties. Nova succumbed to his injuries and I’m trying real hard not to feel bad about it.

  I’ve prepared for this my whole life. Mentally, at least. Physically… I’ve watched a lot of movies and read books on tactics and fighting. Until three months ago I had never so much as had an argument with someone. Not in real life anyway. I argued plenty with a so-called ‘scientist’ at Harvard and MIT, over the Internet anyway.