Super Sales on Super Heroes

by William D. Arand

  “Anything else?”

  “It utilizes all the same cues your mark two did. Use the war-net just as you did previously.”

  “Right.”

  Stepping out of the loading bay, Felix had the impression that he could move freely. There was no delay from his body’s commands to the movement of the small mech.

  “Looks like everything is running smoothly. Any questions?”

  Felix turned towards the arsenal and pulled down the energy rifle. There was a connection port and locking mechanism that the Warden’s hand fit into perfectly.

  With a pop, his HUD changed, turning red. A crosshair in the top left of the screen came to life. In the top right, the silhouette of his energy rifle and an energy bar showed up.

  Pulling the rifle up to his shoulder, the crosshair changed its location, matching up with the direction of the rifle.

  “Two questions.

  “Where is Wraith’s tracker, and how do I get out of the lab? Time is money.” Felix pulled the rifle’s muzzle up and held it against his shoulder.

  He was ready.

  Now, if only his opponents weren’t, this’d be a lot easier.

  Chapter 33 - High Voltage -

  He’d taken the four Wardens after finding out they had survived the blast. They’d only needed a minimal amount of re-equip and repair, and would meet them at the location once ready.

  In addition to that, he’d taken all three of the internal security squads from HQ. With Victoria and Lily, that completed his small army, and they’d set off for Wraith’s location marker.

  Felix was looking at the war-net virtual map. He was slowly going over all the notations and markers that his people had been adding as they scouted the area.

  Looking up to his screens, he tried to imagine the map overlay with the actual layout.

  They’d ended up at a large, sprawling… farm.

  An actual farm on the outskirts of the city-state.

  It had the look of a militia holdout farm. Self-sustaining, armed mundanes wandering around on patrol, and paranoid signs disavowing the local government.

  An organization of supers, mundanes, and others who had targeted him personally, masquerading as an anti-government mundane militia.

  His long-range Wardens had set up in the distance, both providing cover and vision. The melee Wardens had been assigned each to a squad, leaving the third one with Felix. Victoria was with team one, and Lily with team two.

  “Tee-one, guard change,” crackled the radio in his ear.

  This was it.

  They’d only been here for a short time, but they already had a solid idea of what they were walking into. The entire complex was regularly patrolled, but the number of people didn’t match how many heat signatures they got from inside.

  Which meant this was much like his own base.

  Underground.

  “El-ef actual, engage and take both. Confirm,” Felix said into his mic.

  “Tee-one actual, copy. Tee-two actual, copy. El-ef, copy.”

  “Engage.” Felix watched his displays.

  His people quickly overran the enemy positions. There was no noise, no gunshots.

  “Tee-one, confirmed.”

  “Tee-two, confirmed.”

  The squad leader for his own group moved ahead now. Felix took up the rear guard and leveled his weapon.

  The squad fanned out and moved at a quick jog, sweeping and clearing the field as they went.

  Their goal was the farmhouse wall ahead. There were no windows or overlook to it, which meant the approach was ideal. The two closest patrols were built in such a way as to watch the area.

  When they hit the halfway point, Felix heard his comms pop to life again.

  “El-ef, phase one complete. Go phase two.”

  There was no response to the command, but Felix knew they were moving towards the third and fourth guard positions.

  He couldn’t spare a thought to look, as he was making sure he was doing his job.

  Felix swept his head to the left, then right, confirming that their flanks were still clear.

  The squad reached the wall and sidled up to it. Four members of the squad broke off and rushed to each end of the wall.

  “El-ef two, west clear. Sight on tee-one, on engage.”

  “El-ef four, east clear. Sight on tee-two, post engage.”

  Felix moved to the wall and squatted down, turning himself into an impromptu ladder. Kneeling with nothing to do, he pulled up the war-net.

  The plan was going accordingly. There were only two more patrols that they knew of. Catching them during the guard change would eliminate the most hostiles, but was also the most risky.

  Then he heard something he didn’t want to. Something he’d dreaded.

  A gunshot.

  “Tee-one, shots fired, post engage.”

  Felix licked his lips. It wasn’t the worst outcome; they’d managed to clear a good number of the patrols before this point.

  Maybe they didn’t hear it.

  “Ess-one, hive active. Clear shot, engage?”

  They heard it.

  Two members of his squad had vaulted over him and onto the roof of the building. That was the end of him being a ladder.

  Turning his face to the wall, Felix took a deep breath.

  “El-ef actual, weapons free. Move to final.”

  As he finished giving the command, Felix burst forward, activating the jump jets.

  Plowing through the wall, Felix brought his energy rifle up in a low firing position. Wood, cement, and rebar exploded out from his dynamic entry.

  Stopping dead a foot inside the building, Felix immediately cleared the corner to his left, then swept right.

  There were two doorways.

  Triggering the communications button for his own squad, he moved to the right. At the same time, he dropped his left hand into the armored ammo pod on his thigh and fished out a grenade.

  “El-ef five six, left doorway, seven eight, hold room.”

  Activating the high-explosive grenade, he tossed it through the left-hand doorway and then focused on the right.

  Two men with assault rifles were stepping free of the doorway as Felix centered his crosshair.

  Pulling the trigger on his rifle, it discharged a brilliant white beam of light.

  The powerful discharge turned the first man into a flaming pillar, before cutting through him. The man behind the first went up in flames next.

  Before either human torch hit the ground, the grenade Felix had lobbed into the other room went off.

  Stomping forward, Felix moved towards the right-hand room.

  With his left hand, he slapped both flaming dead men aside. Entering the next room, Felix acquired a target at the end of the hallway and pulled the trigger briefly.

  He’d held the trigger down last time. He wanted to see what a quick trigger depress would do.

  As the bright light of the discharge struck the man, he immediately burst into flame. The energy cut off almost as soon as it touched him, though.

  The man screamed, dropped his weapon, and ran off down the hallway.

  Felix started to look into each room as he cleared the hall, making sure there’d be nothing behind him as he went. The chatter of weapons fire behind him alerted him to the fact that his people had encountered resistance.

  Drawing his energy pistol in his left hand, Felix lifted the weapon and fired it several times into the torso of an unarmed woman trying to get into her clothes.

  Smoking holes appeared in the woman’s chest where the rounds hit her. She dropped to her knees, her eyes widening, then slumped over.

  Felix dismissed her from his mind and went to the next room, re-holstering his pistol.

  The next two rooms were empty. Felix pulled up short at the exit to the building. Activating his mic, he looked out into the interior of the complex in front of him.

  “El-ef actual, right doorway and adjoining rooms clear.”

  “El-ef six, left doorw
ay clear. El-ef five was KIA.”

  Felix felt his lips peel back in a grimace. Every life counted right now since he couldn’t bring them back.

  “Tee-one, tee-two, sitrep,” Felix called into the void.

  “Tee-one actual, final complete. One KIA.”

  “Tee-two, final complete. Actual plus two KIA.”

  “Ess-one, clear.”

  “Ess-two, clear.”

  “El-ef actual, sweep and clear. Find entry.”

  Felix killed his mic and then set off to look for the entry.

  “I don’t understand,” Felix said slowly, looking at the corpse of Victoria.

  A bullet hole marred her forehead, damn near directly in the middle of it.

  “There was a super in the group. Before he could attack us, she engaged him, killed him. Before we could cover her, someone got a shot off. We dropped him after that first shot, but it was already too late,” said the new leader of squad two. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Felix took a slow breath, then shook his head. “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. She died doing exactly what she wished. We’ll bring her back with us.

  “Take the bodies somewhere safe and mark the location. We’ll pick them up afterwards.”

  Wraith materialized out of a shadow nearby. “Found the entry. I couldn’t get past the first checkpoint without setting things off,” said the shadow. “There’s no doubt they know there’s something going on up here, but I wasn’t sure how you wanted to proceed.”

  Felix blew a raspberry and then shrugged his shoulders.

  “Doesn’t matter. They do know were here and are probably expecting an attack. I’ll take point, follow in behind me.”

  Checking his display, he saw his batteries had recharged thirty percent of the fifty percent he’d used.

  They really had done wonders with this Warden. And this was only the first iteration.

  Tapping the open command for the armored pod on his left hip, he reached in. Using his HUD to verify what was in it, he pulled out the black metal shield his squads had deployed at the school.

  The metal snapped to his hand at the connection point and then expanded rapidly to its full size, then shrank back down to the starter size. It wouldn’t get in his way, and he could activate it quickly.

  Felix looked to Wraith and nodded his head. “Lead on.”

  The black shadow that was Wraith flowed back in the other direction.

  Following along behind, Felix felt his thoughts slide off into a new direction.

  He had to wonder if this was what it had felt like for his attackers when they’d tried to invade his base the first time around.

  Both of their attacks had been brute strength with little in the way of coordination or strategy.

  Could he believe that’d be their response while even on the defensive?

  He needed actionable intelligence.

  Wraith oozed up next to a wooden door like one would normally find leading into a basement or root cellar.

  “Once I get their attention, I need you to phase in and do what you can to cause havoc and figure out where to hit them.

  “I’ll be playing distraction. If I can manage to soften them up at the same time, great. Otherwise, I plan on pulling back after an initial probe.”

  “Understood.”

  “Great,” Felix said, and then jumped forward. His feet slammed through the wood and he dropped into a cement-lined tunnel.

  At the end of the tunnel was a machine gun slit and a big steel door.

  Bringing his rifle up, he centered the crosshair and held down the trigger.

  In such an enclosed space, the light put out from the muzzle was blinding.

  Felix kept the beam flowing for another three seconds, moving as fast as he could. It was a fairly narrow tunnel and his arms were brushing against the walls.

  His displays filtered out the light quicker than his eyes could have. The machine gun was gone, and the room it was in was a roaring inferno.

  Reaching for a grenade, he came up against the machine gun position. Pulling the pin, he stuffed the explosive into the slit and then moved back several feet to aim his rifle at the heavy door.

  He focused his reticle on the point where he assumed the door was bolted or barred on the other side and then fired.

  For five seconds, the beam weapon unloaded into the door. Then the muffled boom of the grenade going off could be heard.

  The door gave out, weakened from the extreme heat the energy rifle put out and then capitulating under the confined explosion of the grenade.

  Blowing outward, it hung on the frame brokenly.

  Charging ahead, Felix drew out his pistol, trying to give his rifle a second to cool off. The heat gauge next to the outline had gone from yellow to orange.

  Slamming the door to the side with his shoulder, Felix scanned the room.

  There were men and women all over. Wounded, dead, dying, all of it.

  His HUD rapidly marked each target and Felix lifted his pistol.

  Methodically, with precision, he shot each one in the head. They were against him. They were the enemy.

  A woman sat up slowly, her eyes slowly focusing on him. She was beautiful.

  Felix pressed the tip of his pistol to her forehead and pulled the trigger.

  The back of her head blew out and splattered her brains all over the wall.

  Sweeping the room one more time, Felix found no hostiles. Holstering his pistol, he moved towards the hallway that led into the machine gun nest.

  Dark and without light or noise, it was clearly a trap.

  Activating the night vision camera, he found it was nothing but an empty concrete hallway.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t see to the end of the hallway.

  Taking a breath, Felix leaned up against the wall and trained his rifle on the hallway.

  “El-ef actual. Front position secured. Tee-one, move up and hold this position.

  “Detach Mel-War one and two and prepare for assault.”

  Closing his eyes, he tried to calm himself.

  The enormity of the situation wanted to overrun him. He was no soldier. No warrior.

  But I’m a murderer. Killing wounded and unarmed people. They were my enemy, though. They were against me.

  But they didn’t even have a chance.

  His mind flashed back to the confused look the woman had had on her face a moment before her brain had been turned into a microwave dinner.

  Felix felt his lips tremble, his mouth going dry as his stomach pushed upwards, threatening to make him throw up.

  Miu, Victoria, Ioana, Andrea. Miu, Victoria, Ioana, Andrea. Doing this to bring them back. Miu, Victoria, Ioana, Andrea. Save Kit, bring them back. Doing this for them.

  Felix muttered in the quiet dark of his Warden, no one hearing him, no one seeing him.

  Alone with his thoughts.

  “You in there?” Lily asked, her finger poking at the camera, getting his attention.

  “Huh? Yeah,” said Felix. She’d caught him off guard; he hadn’t noticed her arrival.

  “Open up, let me see you.” Lily folded her arms across the tactical gear she’d put on from the armory.

  “Lily, I’m fine. If I do th—”

  “Open up.” Her voice was calm, clear, and commanding. There would be no arguments.

  Felix triggered the opening sequence. The smell of the room hit him in the face. Coppery and rich. The stink of blood was all-encompassing.

  “Yes. That smell. Remember it. You can never go back from here,” Lily said, pinning him in place in the open cockpit with her glare. “There is no hemming or hawing in this situation. You did this. You killed them. And that’s something you have to live with for the rest of your life.”

  Reaching into the Warden, she pressed a cool hand to his face.

  “But you won’t hold that guilt alone. This is to save our people. Your people. You did this with good intentions and a belief that it’s what you had to do.

  �
�It’s only death. Death isn’t the end. They’re all already moving on.

  “I’m afraid I realized that fact after the first time I took someone’s soul.” Lily sighed while giving him a bitter smile.

  “You, on the other hand, Mr. Campbell, have to help me carry my burden as well. I expect to be spoiled.”

  Felix nodded his head slowly, digesting her words.

  She was right, of course. In many ways, she probably carried more guilt around than he ever could.

  “Thanks… Lily. You’re right. And yeah, I’ll do my best to spoil you. Haven’t had our first date yet, though. Kinda hard when we keep having to reschedule.”

  Lily’s tragic smile turned bright at that. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll make sure to make it memorable, then, so it overshadows all the problems we had getting there. Now. Button yourself back up and get ready. There’s a number of people waiting for us, and we can’t keep them waiting, can we?”

  She leaned back away from him, her eyes glowing in the soft light, her smile truly bringing out her beauty.

  Then a lightning bolt sprang out of the dark hallway and went into one side of her head and exited the other. Her hair caught fire, her skin crisped, and her ears smoked.

  Her body locked up into a rigid pose, and then collapsed.

  In that moment, Lily fell to the ground.

  All around him, his people opened up with their rifles, firing down the dark hallway.

  Desperately, agonizingly, Felix pulled at his character screen for Lily. He wanted to make her healthy, put her back to rights. Victoria had been struck by a similar attack and had gone into cardiac arrest.

  Maybe this would be easier or fewer points or—

  Status Correction: Dead -> Living and Healthy

  Correct Status? (60,000 points)

  She’s dead.

  Felix stared at the smoldering corpse of Lily. The fire in her hair went out on its own, and all that was left behind was the sickening smell of burnt flesh and hair.

  Lilian Lux was no more.