Massacre-Cole leaped forward, fist balled to strike. Tia wasn’t quite at a semi-truck yet when the fist smashed into the side of her face. When they told her Cole had superhuman strength they hadn’t lied. A clap of thunder rolled out from around the two women, sending debris and dust flying away in a shock wave of displaced air.
Tia tumbled back, blood filling her mouth as she struggled to keep her footing. Massacre-Cole was on her, slamming her down and rabbit punching her face. Tia struggled to get her hands up. Fisticuffs was never really her thing… she just needed a moment... the next blow banged her head off the tile floor in an explosion of concrete. The blow after slammed against her stomach, collapsing her lungs. She struggled to breathe, panic racing through her as the most basic life function was cut off.
However, the fourth blow that collided with Tia brought a grunt of pain from Massacre-Cole as she fell backward off her. Tia shook her head, gasping for breath as she rolled over, trying to stand. A foot hit her back, bouncing off harmlessly. At this point it didn’t matter how much strength the agent possessed; she could no longer hurt Tia.
The diminutive blonde stood up fully, regaining her ability to breathe and relishing the feeling of weight and mass to her movements. The very air around her seemed weighed down with her presence.
“Let’s start over.” She darted at Massacre-Cole who dropped below Tia’s outstretched hands and punched the hero in the stomach. The blow stopped cold, ending with a crack as Massacre broke his puppet’s hand against the diamond hard abs of Catia Tichenor.
Tia spun around, swinging her fist but missed as Massacre rolled away.
Pure hate blazed in her eyes—then she ran.
I wish Fleet were here.
She tried to run after her but each step shook the building and cracked tile. The sad truth was, she wasn’t very fast when massed up. Before Tia could get to her, Massacre-Cole leaped through a window, sending glass in every direction. She dropped to the runway, disappearing behind a water truck.
Tia let some of her mass go, freeing up her body to move faster. She ran over to where Agent Brown lay but she already knew what she was going to find. She covered her mouth out of shock. He lay crumpled where he hit the wall, his face a ruined mess of bone and blood. She forced herself to kneel down and check his pulse; nothing.
She didn’t know Phoenix. Didn’t know anyone here. And with the team in jail, she was on her own. If she turned herself in they would either toss her in jail or deport her.
The right choices are rarely the easy ones.
Tia crossed herself and said the last rites for Agent Brown; she had no idea if he was Catholic, or religious at all, but it felt like the right thing to do. Then she took off running after Massacre. She had twelve hours to find him… In a foreign city with almost two million people. She didn’t like her odds.
SEVEN
THE PAST
Epic, try it again,” I say. A blast of noise and static comes out of the helmet where it rests on the table. I don’t really have any tools other than my wrist computer and Epic. The armor is in pieces, spread out before me while I tinker away trying to figure out how to get it all working.
“Amelia?” Luke asks, rubbing his face as he stands up from the chair he slept in. “Did you stay up?”
“Hmm?” I say over my shoulder. I really need this functional. Not just for me; if we’re going to get out of here, the armor has to work.
“You did, didn’t you?” Luke says with a frown.
I sigh as I hear that tone of voice. I love the big lug, but his propensity to worry about me can be a little annoying at times.
“Luke,” I say without looking at him, “We’re stuck a hundred years in the past with only my suit to protect us. When, and if, we can go back, I can’t go without my suit to protect me from the extreme g-forces of time travel.
“I have no idea how long it will take me to repair it and I won’t even know what I need to do until I’m done with the diagnostics.”
Not to mention, without the suit your mobility is nil. Turn of the century Europe was not known for their handicap accessible buildings.
I chuckle at Epic’s joke. Sadly, since he wasn’t himself when we came back, Luke doesn’t have his goggles with him. Which means, for now, only I can see what Epic says. Which is what I’m currently trying to correct.
I glance over at Luke, who’s standing there with his arms folded across his chest. “Fine, I’ll rest in a little bit, just let me nail this, okay?”
He lets out a long sigh. “Deal. I’ll go check on Pythia.”
“You do that... Hey, have you noticed something different about her?” I ask as the thought occurs to me.
He nods. “I have, I just can’t put my finger on it. She’s certainly not at all like the woman we will meet, err have met... I’m not even sure.”
“It’s our past, her future, so it’s met. Yeah, keep an eye on her; she’s acting so different that I’m not sure this is the same Pythia.”
That arouses his attention. “The same?”
I shoot the bed a look to make sure she’s still asleep and I drop my voice real low. “She’s a creation, a construct. Alive, but not human. Who’s to say there aren’t multiples of her? If I were to do that, I would have... backups.”
“You don’t have Epic backed up,” he points out.
“That’s different.” I’m suddenly miffed and I don’t know why. Did he just compare me to a Greek god? Or question my logic?
“Epic is far more than just a program. Simply copying him won’t create a second version. It’s complicated and I can’t really get into it without going over your head, but even if I could copy him, it wouldn’t be Epic. It would be Epic #2. I don’t want a #2, I want the original.”
I would not copy you either, Amelia. I like the original as well.
“Thanks, buddy.”
“Well, I’ll keep an eye on her and let you get back to... whatever it is you’re doing,” Luke says with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“You do that,” I say. I don’t like that I’m upset with him. It seems such a stupid thing to make me mad. I just got him back and I should be a better person than that. I let out a long sigh. “Luke?” I say to him, turning as much as my position on the bench will allow.
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” I say trying very hard to keep eye contact with him.
He deflates a little as his grin reappears. “I love you to, Amelia. So much.”
I turn back to my work and I hear him moving around behind me. I throw another line of code at the problem and hit ‘go’. The static from the helmet speaker isn’t nearly as bad and I can almost make out a few words.
A few minutes pass while I figure out what isn’t working. Pythia rises from her bed, all grace and beauty. She speaks to Luke for a moment; I can’t make out what she says but I do hear the hushed whispers. When she’s done, she walks toward me, her hand out, palm up. As she approaches, a platter materializes out of thin air.
“I thought you would like some lunch,” she says, sliding a plate of cold cuts, bread, and cheese toward me.
“Lunch?” I glance around. No, it is just morning...
“Yes. It’s half-past twelve. You haven’t moved in the last three hours. I thought you were asleep, but Luke assured me you were, ‘in the zone’,” she says putting up air quotes. “That’s what he did,” she says with a shrug.
“Now that you mention it, I’m starving.”
I take a break, stretch, and throw a cube of goat cheese in my mouth, followed by ham and some bread. “Delicious,” I say with my mouth full.
She perks right up. “I’m glad you like it. I’d like to explain about what happened last night.”
I nod, mouth still full of food, and enter the last line of code I need; from now on everyone should hear Epic in his old school gravely voice. I hadn’t used it in forever, but I never deleted the code.
While she’s talking, I pull up the diagnostic results on the suit�
��s integrity. It’s about what I expected. “Epic, run a search—see if there is anything we can do to seal up this hole. I don’t want to try and go through the temporal vortex with my thigh wide open like this. I’m not sure I would have a thigh when we got back...”
On it.
“Go ahead, Pythia, you have my undivided attention.” I put my chin on my hands and lean against the table.
“You seem to know a great deal about me, and I know very little about you. Tell me, were we friends?” she asks.
For a second I see her standing in the reactor room, holding her hand on my chest while Epic warns me of the quantum gate drive spinning up. Then she pushes me, and I fall... she saved me, so yeah...
“I’d say we were. Yes.”
She frowns, cocking her head to the side, her eyes go wide for a moment. “I see,” she mutters. “That is... disturbing.”
“You just saw that, didn’t you,” I say with a sigh. How am I supposed to hide the future from someone who can see things randomly that I don’t mean for her to see. “You told me once you aren’t a telepath. How did you do that if that is true?”
“I have flashes of insight to the past. I wasn’t seeing the future—this has already happened to you. Do not worry, though, me knowing won’t change what has already happened,” she says with a lot more confidence than I feel.
“How can you know that?”
“Because it already happened,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the universe. “As for last night, I received a message from Apollo.”
I quirk an eyebrow up at her and throw another cheese cube into my mouth. “Just a message? I thought they couldn’t cross the barriers now?”
She shakes her head. “They can’t. I imagine it took a tremendous amount of power just to speak to me for that short time. For a moment I thought they were returning and I wouldn’t be alone anymore, but I guess I should have known better, considering what I saw in my own future.”
“Yeah. You don’t seem too upset about that...”
She shrugs. “Am I supposed to be? What will happen, happens. Everyone dies Amelia, even a god. No, what upset me was the vast loneliness I didn’t even know I was feeling until I heard his voice,” she says, her big eyes turning down as slow tears leak out. “Along with what he told me to do,” she says in a whisper.
I reach out and touch her hand, holding it in my own. I’m not sure what comfort I can offer her.
“What did he tell you to do?”
She sighs, pats my hand then pulls both of hers back to her lap. “I am to assemble the armor of the Protector and choose a new one to serve humanity.”
Now she has my interest. “When we met in the future you indicated that it didn’t happen until after the Tesla event... oh, I see.” Understanding floods into me.
She smiles. “Of course, I wouldn’t have told you we had already met,” she says.
“Right. Okay, so you need the armor. Let’s break it out and get it ready,” I say to her as I finish the last of my food and stifle a yawn. After all, how hard could it be to polish up some two-thousand-year-old bronze?
“I wish it were that easy. I have no idea where any of it is.”
And that is the other shoe. “I guess you’re lucky I’m here,” I say, yawning again. “Luke?” Weariness comes over me, an exhaustion so sudden and hard that I almost fall off the bench. Luke is there in an instant, cradling me to him and lifting me up in his strong arms. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.”
“I’m just a wheelchair with arms that can cook, aren’t I?”
“Your sandwiches are magic,” I say as my eyes droop shut. Dreams of delicious sandwiches and playing on the Xbox with Carlos fill my night.
I sure hope Kate and Carlos are okay.
EIGHT
DOMINO
Drugs were a common questioning technique in the agency. Kate had undergone extensive training to resist the effects of various serums and concoctions. Some were impossible to resist, others she could fight to a point. Then there were some that required such high doses that the person was left nothing more than a raving lunatic.
However, Kate wasn’t the average agent. Her mind, due to the nature of her powers, had a much higher tolerance to truth serums and other persuasive drugs. As she could control the feelings in others, she could also control hers—to some degree.
When she woke from unconsciousness the first thing she noticed was the tangy after taste in her dry mouth. A sure sign she had drugs in her system. The second thing was that her head hurt where Nelson had clobbered her.
Nelson, that bastard.
“She’s awake,” a man said.
If the jig was up; there was no use pretending. She opened her eyes slowly, careful to give her brain time to adjust to the additional stimuli. Light faded and she could make out three men in the room. At first her brain leaped to Agency people. But no... the freak with spikes growing out of his head wasn’t agency. Not looking like that. The other two could be undercover, but the large bald one with the prison tattoos didn’t look anything like an agent. The last one, a small thin man with slick black hair and a pencil thin tie, was most definitely not agency. He didn’t look like he could do a push-up if his life depended on it.
“Who are you supposed to be, the three musketeers?” she asked around a swollen tongue. What she wouldn’t give for a glass of water. She was sitting in a metal chair; not the folding kind. Her ankles were zip-tied to the base and her wrists were zip-tied to the back of the chair, pulled just enough back that it was uncomfortable.
The mechanical arm Amelia built to replace the one the Th’un had amputated wasn’t responding to her mental commands. Which meant whatever drug they gave her, it was suppressing her powers.
The large bald man reached out and slapped her across the face. Not hard enough to break anything, but enough so she felt it. He wasn’t just a normal human. Spike, chuckled. She didn’t need her powers to spot a sadist.
“I’m Rodrigo Dominguez, and you are Kate Petrenelli—otherwise known as Domino,” the one with the goatee said. Clearly, he was in charge.
“Bravo. You have access to the internet and learned what anyone with a smartphone can find out in five minutes. Your momma must be so proud,” she said.
The standard technique to withstanding interrogation was to repeat the same sentence over and over again. No matter what. Once a person started answering, there was no telling what they might give up, even by accident. Kate needed answers, so better to let them do as much of the talking as possible.
However, that assumed she was the one under interrogation.
She wasn’t. They were.
“Cute,” Dominguez said with a nod to the large man. “This is Kronk,” he said. Kate wanted to laugh but Kronk slapped her across the face again, cutting her off.
“You really gonna hit me at some point? Or just keep using those love taps?” she said, spitting the tiny amount of blood in her mouth out at his feet.
“It would be unwise to anger him, he’s an... how do you put it? F5?”
“So? What’s your plan? Torture me to tell you… what? I came to Nelson to figure out what he knew. Obviously, I am the one in need of info, not you.”
Dominguez smiled. “Yes. The poor Major was under the impression that he was following orders from on high. When he discovered the deception... well he’s my next stop.”
That relieved Kate somewhat. At least Nelson thought he was following orders and wasn’t corrupt—as so many people obviously were. How did an organization this large slip into all levels of government without anyone noticing?
“Now, tell me about Amelia Lockheart,” he said.
“Ha,” Kate laughed. “She’s smarter than you? How’s that for starters.”
“Funny,” he said. “Where is she?”
The ex-spy smiled slyly. Only she, Carlos, and Milton knew the truth, Amelia was in the distant past looking for Pythia.
If the rest of the team was on comms, the
n they would know, but that was unlikely since they were all under arrest.
“Right outside that door over there, about to come in and bust your skull.”
Kronk slapped her again. More blood filled her mouth and her vision dimmed. Why did they want to know about Amelia?
“We know she hasn’t been sighted since she left her base in Arizona. The question becomes, where is she?”
Kate tried to shrug but it did no good. Kronk hit her again. It took longer for her vision to recoup after the strike. Her ears rang and she had to shake her head several times to refocus. “You hit like my grandmother,” she said with a smile.
Kronk grunted, raised his hand to strike again, but Dominguez stopped him. The thin man kneeled in front of Kate.
“You are stalling. You think someone is coming for you? No one is. Not Ms. Lockheart, not your friend in the Greek armor, not anyone. I assure you, Ms. Petrenelli, no one will ever find you here. And we can do this for a very long time.”
Kate peered at his brown eyes for a moment. If she had access to her powers she could escape easily, but whatever drug they gave her blocked that. However, long before she was a superhero, she was a CIA agent. Spooks made Boy Scouts look like unprepared mall cops in comparison.
“What do you want to know?” she said with an exaggerated sigh.
“That’s better.” He stood and pulled his phone out. The soft blue light illuminated his features for a moment before it went away. “Ghast,” he said over his shoulder to the man with the spikes on his head.
“Yes?” spike-head replied.
“You’re needed in Belize. Report to our local contact there.”
“But...”
He was silenced by a look from Dominguez. Whoever this man was and whoever he worked for, they clearly had some clout. The freak shut his mouth with a click then turned on his heel and knocked once on the metal door. It opened and he exited.
When the door shut again, Dominguez returned his attention to Kate. “Now, let’s talk about your friend and her AI, shall we?”
Ancient Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero Book 7) Page 4
