“MajesTech.”
“Are you s-s-sure this is a bank?” Mickey asked. “I d-d-don't think Esmeralda M-M-Majesty owns any banks. Does she? Maybe we're in the wrong p-p-place.”
Andre hesitated for only half a second before he stepped up to the door and said, “Maybe she designed the vault. The technology of it and all that.”
“Maybe,” Mickey mumbled to himself. “S-s-so how do we get this th-th-thing open?”
“Stay here,” Andre said as he handed Mickey the flashlight and turned to run back up the stairs.
He could hear Mickey's protests behind him, but he ignored them. He needed to focus. On Carmen.
As he ran over to the truck, Victor asked, “Everything alright, mate?”
“You tell me,” Andre replied. “Just keep your attention on the future and I'll handle the here and now.”
When he flung open the passenger door, Carmen's voice sounded worried.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said with practiced confidence. “Just need your help with something.”
Carmen glanced up and down the street. “What about the truck?”
“Victor!” Andre called out. “Switch out with Carmen. Honk if you sense something.”
Victor nodded and ran up to the driver's door. Carmen hesitated, but finally crawled out of the truck and made her way around to the pile of rubble. Andre led her to the staircase and down into the vault room. Mickey was holding the flashlight, and perked up when they returned.
“What's going on?” Carmen asked, following the beam of light to see her surroundings.
“Just a little snag,” Andre said, snatching the flashlight out of Mickey's hand.
“What kind of snag? I thought the guy that hired us had this all planned out.”
Andre nodded as he summoned the lie he had concocted. “I have the code for this thing. Should've been able to pop it right open. Problem is, same thing that's letting us do this without setting off any alarms, is also leaving the vault without power.”
“So we're screwed,” Carmen said, glaring at Andre. “What mastermind came up with this plan? He didn't think that a powered vault might need power?”
Andre tapped on the vault door. “They must have upgraded it or something.”
Carmen crossed her arms over her chest. “Something doesn't feel right about this, Andre. This guy knew everything. He knew where to dig. He knew how to get inside. He knew what was inside. But he didn't know this?”
“Do you wanna argue about this?” Andre asked, trying not to show his worry that she would see through his lies. “Or do you wanna open this thing up?”
It took Carmen longer than Andre expected to realize what he was saying. But after a few seconds, she ripped the mask from her face to show him her disgusted scowl.
“Carmen-” he started, prepared to calm her before she blew up, but she surprised him.
“Stop. Stop right now,” she said as she shoved him to the side and stepped up to the vault door. “You're disgusting. You know that? You're supposed to be my friend. You're supposed to be a friend to all of us.”
“I am your friend,” he said, glancing back and forth from Mickey to her. “Of course I'm your friend.”
“Yet, when you needed our help, what did you do? You lied to us. You tricked me into coming here.”
“I didn't trick you. I just-”
“You knew you needed my power to get into this vault. Didn't you?”
“No, I-”
She placed her hand on the vault and said, “Tell me the truth, right now, and I'll melt through this door.”
“Carmen, I didn't trick you.”
She shook her head with disappointment. “If you keep lying to me, I'm walking away. And you'll never get your money.”
He looked at Mickey, whose eyes peered through the Everlast mask with both worry and confusion with the argument between his friends. Andre let out a heavy, strained sigh, trying to push the truth from his body. He pulled the clown mask from his head to show her his true face.
“Fine. I knew we would need your help. But I also knew that you would never have come along if I didn't-”
“You didn't know shit, Andre. You assumed. You assumed I was a cold-hearted bitch that wouldn't help her friends because I was too scared to get caught. You assumed, like you always do, that I wasn't tough enough to run with you and your friends. You assumed that I needed you to make my decisions for me.”
She looked down at the floor for a moment, then peered up into his eyes. In the glow of the flashlight, he could see tears hanging onto her eyelids.
“You know what really bothers me? There was a time that I didn't think you could actually be a supervillain.”
“I knew you never believed in me.”
“No! It wasn't about believing in you. I just didn't think you were cruel enough. I didn't think you had it in you to be evil.” She looked at the floor and said quietly, “But maybe you can be evil, Andre. Maybe you are cruel enough.”
“I'm not being cruel. I'm trying to help my friends. I'm desperate to help my friends. Because this is a desperate situation. And I knew you would never go along with this, Carmen. You'd try to come up with a safe plan. Some sorta long term, slow moving way to make up the money that Victor owes. But you don't know Bobby. Once you owe him money, you're never outta debt. There's interest and fees and hazard pay and all the crap he can come up with until you're dead. Then he goes after your family. I knew this was the only way. And I knew I didn't have time to argue with you about it.”
“Yeah,” Carmen said. “I'm done arguing with you, too.”
Her eyes flared red and her hand started to glow. The room lit up. The metal of the vault door glowed red, then white. Andre could feel the heat emanating from it from across the room. The solid metal turned to sludge, pouring down around Carmen and onto the floor. It melted through her shoes, but left the skin of her feet unharmed. Andre had seen her resist the flame of a candle or the burner on her stove when they were kids and they wanted to show off, but he didn't realize how resistant to heat she actually was. It only took her a minute to melt her way through the vault, leaving a man-sized hole in the door.
“There,” she said. “It's all yours. I'm out.”
Carmen turned and made her way toward the stairs. Mickey hurried after her, trying to get her to stop, but Andre had only one thing on his mind. He stepped over the cooling metal on the floor and shined the flashlight through the melted hole in the vault door. He prepared himself for the sight of piles of gold bars, expecting the glitter of his fortune to greet him, but all he saw was emptiness.
“No,” he said, then shouted louder, “NO!”
Mickey and Carmen both stopped on the stairs and turned around. When they saw Andre dropped his flashlight and start pounding his fist into the metal wall of the vault, they rushed to his side. Mickey picked up the flashlight when he wouldn't respond to their questions and shined it into the vault.
“You've got to be joking,” Carmen said.
“This isn't a joke!” Andre shouted into her face. “This was my chance to get outta here. This was my only chance to make something of myself. Now what? Now what do I do?”
“Don't you mean, this was the only chance to pay off Victor's debt? Oh no, wait, that's right. You were just down here for selfish reasons. I almost forgot.”
Mickey pulled on Andre's arm and said, “We sh-sh-should get out of here. We can talk about this later.”
“There is no later! Don't you see?”
Andre shoved Mickey away, but he didn't hold back on his super strength. Mickey went flying across the room and slammed into the far wall. He stood there, shaking with his awkward super speed, staring back at his friend with fear in his eyes. For the first time, he aimed the fear at Andre, the guy who was always there to protect him. The guy who would beat up the bullies in the neighborhood. The guy who was always like a big brother to him. The look in his Mickey's eyes was enough to snap Andre out of his
rage.
“Hey, man,” Andre said in a softer voice, stepping toward Mickey. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take it out on you.”
Mickey rubbed his chest where Andre had shoved him. “I-I-It's okay. I'm okay. Let's just go.”
Mickey hurried up the stairs.
Carmen stepped in front of Andre and said, “You know what, Andre? After tonight? I don't want you to contact me ever again. Do you understand? Lose my number. Forget my name. We're done.”
Before Andre could answer, the horn on the delivery truck beeped twice. Carmen and Andre's eyes grew two sizes bigger, and they rushed up the stairs.
Andre came out of the doorway first, but didn't see the delivery truck anywhere. Instead, he saw the metallic sheen of Stiletto walking toward him, her hands extending into long blades.
“Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head unless you want me cut you into a thousand tiny pieces. And trust me, I'd prefer that option.”
Andre glanced down at Carmen, who was hiding below the doorway, then back at Stiletto. He considered making a run for it. He could probably outrun her, but if he couldn't, there was no way his skin would resist her blades. They were legendary for their ability to cut through anything.
Just as he was about to lower himself to the ground, he heard the roar of an engine. His gaze turned toward the noise as the delivery truck came bounding over the curb. Stiletto turned toward the noise too, but it was too late. The front of the truck slammed into her metal body, throwing her through the air. The truck came to a halt just past Andre, its back door open wide. Mickey was holding onto a strap, buckled to the side of the cargo area.
“C-c-come on!” he yelled, holding out his hand.
Carmen rushed past Andre, who was still stunned by everything that was happening, but when he saw her climb in the back and heard the engine rev up, he followed. As soon as he was in, Mickey banged on the wall of the truck, and Victor stepped on the gas pedal. The rubble spit out for a second before the tires found traction and thrust the truck forward. They squealed out onto the road and Andre watched Stiletto climb to her feet and start to chase after them. He hoped, with Victor and his foresight directing the wheel, they might actually be able to lose her.
“Why are we running?” Carmen asked. “We didn't actually steal anything.”
“They can still lock us away for B&E. And I'm not sure you wanna explain how we melted through that vault, do you?”
Carmen looked down at her hands, then pounded on the wall between her and Victor.
“Drive faster!”
He took a sharp left, throwing all of them to the right side of the truck bed. Only Mickey stayed upright, holding onto the strap with both hands. Andre managed to climb to his feet, but as soon as he did, he heard the brakes squealing and the truck lurched to the side. He was thrown out the back of the truck as it slid sideways down the street and crashed into something. The sound of glass shattering and metal bending filled his ears as he flew through the air. He slammed into the street, rolling end over end until he smashed into a parked car.
He was unhurt, but disoriented. When he tried to climb to his feet, he stumbled to the side. As he managed to get his wits about him and peer down the street at the accident, he saw the delivery truck wrapped around what looked to be a giant, purple foot.
35
STILETTO
Perched on the edge of an office building, looking down on the snow covered streets below, she saw the getaway truck laying in pieces, scattered around Behemoth's foot. The driver was stumbling out of the cab, holding his now unmasked head. The big one that fell out of the back was trying to make his way toward the truck, but he looked disoriented. She figured that it should be easy to round them up while they're all still trying to figure out what happened.
“Are you both On-mind?”
“Here,” Behemoth thought back.
“Yup,” Replica's voice sounded in her head.
“Link?” Behemoth mentally asked. “Can I get an identification on these two. I'm still a little sore from Malignus and I'd sort of like to know what we're dealing with. I don't want any surprises.”
There was a pause while Link used her psychic power to look through their eyes, scanning the faces of the criminals that had broken into the MajesTech building. She was running them through the facial recognition software back at Power Tower before replying mentally.
“Okay,” Link said into everyone's minds, “we've got nothing from the academy. If they have powers, they're unregistered.”
“Good,” Stiletto thought to everyone as she leapt off the edge of the building, spinning in the air and landing on the street with precision. “We can go at them as hard as we want.”
“You couldn't handle this yourself, Stiletto?” Replica thought. “I've got better things to do.”
Replica was leaning against the doorway of a deli, checking her nails.
“You want your paycheck? You do your job.”
Replica let out a mental sigh and said, “Fine. Whatever.”
As Behemoth shrunk down to a more manageable size, Stiletto saw the bigger man pulling the body of a young woman out of the back of the truck. When he laid her on the ground, another young man jumped out too.
“We've got two more, people!” she yelled into her mind as she dashed toward them.
Replica split into a five different copies of herself and flanked the truck. Behemoth stopped shrinking, still towering over the street at an impressive ten feet tall.
“What are we looking at?” Replica thought. “Do these other ones have powers?”
“I'm looking,” Link thought back.
“Just take them down. We'll sort out the bodies later,” Stiletto growled as she leapt at the driver.
“I hate hearing the stuff going on in Stiletto's mind,” Behemoth thought. “You've got some dark stuff going on in there, girl.”
Stiletto ignored the comment as her blades slipped past the driver's head. He ducked a few inches to the left, like it was nothing. She rolled across the sidewalk and hissed at the nonchalance of the man. She leapt again, this time swinging one of her sword-hands at his chest. He took a step back, and the blade missed him by less than an inch. Another swing, and the same thing happened. When he winked at her, it only infuriated her more.
He twisted his mustache between two of his fingers and she growled at him, “When I shave that thing off your face, I'm going to take your lips with it.”
“No need to get nasty, love. I'll give ya my lips fer free.”
She swung both arms inward, like a pair of scissors aiming for his neck, but he spun to the side, unharmed.
“I've got this one,” Replica said into her mind.
Stiletto glanced over her shoulder and watched the copies spread out to surround the man attending to the young woman's body that was laying in the snow. Behemoth took a few steps toward the other young man, who was a blur of vibration.
“Is that kid wearing an Everlast mask?” Link thought.
Stiletto couldn't help thinking, “I'd really like to take a few stabs at that one.”
“He's got some kind of super speed, but it looks pretty faulty,” Behemoth said.
“No ID on the woman,” Link said. “If she doesn't have powers, she could be a hostage.”
“Three of us to arrest a few misfits,” Replica thought. “Seems like overkill, don't it?”
“We're superheroes,” Behemoth thought. “This is what we do.”
“Just take them down,” Stiletto thought, leaping at the driver with both blades pointed straight at him.
He stepped to the side and yawned.
Replica closed her circle of copies around the big guy crouched over the woman and said, “Okay, pal. Just lay down on the ground and we can do this peacefully.”
The guy glanced over his shoulder at her for a moment before lunging at one of her copies. His fist slammed into her face, lifting her off the ground and launching her half a block away.
“Um,
guys?” she thought. “I think this guy might have super strength.”
He roared with anger and punched another one, slamming it into a nearby wall. Replica responded by splitting herself a few more times and rushing at him. The copies piled on top of him, covering him like a dome of flesh.
Behemoth reached for the young man, but as his hand closed to wrap the young man up, the blurry body ducked under his fingers and ran down the street. His quick sprint turned into a rocket of speed as he disappeared into the horizon.
“We got a runner,” Behemoth thought.
“You're joking. The kid with super speed is running away? What will they think of next?”
“Cut the mind chatter,” Stiletto thought. “Behemoth, stomp the other guy.”
Replica whined, “But I've already-”
Her thoughts cut off when the pile exploded, bodies flung through the air in every direction. Fifteen Replicas tumbled across the street. The man stood up straight, flexing every muscle in his body as he shouted into the air.
Behemoth made his way around the truck and stepped toward the man, shaking the ground every time his foot slammed into the street. The man braced himself for the attack, but Behemoth was already swinging. The back of his hand swatted him, tossing his body in a spinning cartwheel through the air. He slammed into the side of a sedan parked down the street, crushing the driver's side door. Behemoth lurched toward him and the man scrambled to his feet.
“No!” he screamed at Behemoth. “You're not going to stop us. Just leave us alone!”
“He's got invulnerability,” Behemoth thought.
“Just keep hitting him until he doesn't get up,” Stiletto thought.
Replica laughed into everyone's mind. “Does anyone else find it funny that every time Stiletto is in charge, that's our only plan?”
Stiletto turned her attention back to the driver, who was trying to slip away down an alley.
“Oh no you don't.”
The Super Power Saga (Book 1): Super Powers of Mass Destruction Page 29
