by Evan Currie
Tessa spat the word, shaking her head in disgust.
“Maybe, but he’s being watched, and he knows it.” Pitr gestured idly to where the TV crews were setup, and all the smaller cameras right down to the phones that were recording everything. “He’s gone public, right from the start, and he seems to care what people think. He’s the most famous person on the planet right now, did you know that?”
Tessa snorted.
“One of the most loved too,” Pitr chuckled, “though that is likely to fluctuate day to day. He’s a comic book hero come to life, Dudley Do Right in marine camo. The world, this generation especially, has practically been trained from childhood to worship at the feet of someone just like him. You think this our city, Tessa, and I agree… but it’s his planet.”
“For now,” She sneered. “Let’s see how they love him when he falls. Tell Malcolm it’s time to move.”
*****
Where are they all coming from!?
This was getting ridiculous.
Hale ducked a super powered punch that had been intended to take his head of, tapping the arm on the way by the throw the puncher off balance and into the next man with enough force to send the pair toppling into a third. He reeled as he was tagged from a fourth, his head snapping around from the sheer force of the strike.
Damn. I felt that.
Hale jumped, aiming to get some air to put a little distance between himself and the crowd, but found himself being swarmed by three of the mob hanging onto his legs. He kicked them loose after a few seconds, only to be hammered by a series of heat blasts that sent him reeling long enough for more of them to jump up and begin wailing on him in mid air.
Cursing under his breath, Hale threw himself into a fast spin. The force of the centrifuge ripped the hitchhikers off in all directions, throwing them into the air, buildings, and each other as he extending his arms and fists to force everyone around him to back off.
Slowing to a halt, Hale paused for a moment, eyes rolling as he clasped his hand to his head and tried to make the world stop spinning around him.
“Let’s not do that too often,” He groaned. “Comic books have not been entirely truthful with me.”
The mob was in a near frenzy, all of it seemingly aimed at him, and Hale couldn’t work out why. He shouldn’t have drawn this much ire, hell a good chunk of them shouldn’t even have any clue who or what he was, right?
He stilled where he was, floating a few feet above the pavement, and glared as he slowly turned around in place to stare down the group that had surrounded him.
“Are you all sure you want to do this?” Hale demanded in a clear voice, “because I do not believe you’ve considered the consequences.”
He let his eyes drift away from the group, falling on the still prone body of the first man he’d taken down, who was still groaning from the pain of his dislocated shoulders. The gaze of the mob followed his for a moment, before coming back, and there was hesitance in many of them.
Alex brought his hands up, spreading out from his body, as he stared down the mob.
*****
Tessa stiffened, a flicker of outrage in her expression as she made an odd sound deep in her throat.
“What is it?” Pitr asked, looking over sharply.
“He’s actually convincing some of them to back off,” She said indignantly.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” Pitr blinked. “Don’t you have total control?”
“Of course I do,” She snarled, climbing to her feet. “They’re MY puppets! How is he doing that?”
Pitr shrugged, “appealing to their sense of personal survival?”
She glowered at him, “They have no sense of anything personal. Not anymore. They are mine.”
She turned her focus on the mob, eyes blazing with inner light as she snarled and Pitr shifted slightly away from the dread feeling that shrouded her.
*****
The flicker of fear, uncertainty, whatever it was exactly… was gone like someone snapped their fingers or flipped a switch. Hale blinked in surprise, not quite certain what he’d just seen, but had no time to consider the mystery as the entire mob snarled in some unleashed rage and charged him as one.
Nope.
Hale wasn’t waiting around to get dogpiled, not a second time. He launched himself vertically, cracking the sound barrier and leaving a toroidal cloud behind him as his disruption of the atmosphere caused the moisture present to suddenly condense into a roiling mass.
The crowd slammed into each other in the place where he’d been, and actually began to tear at each other before they seemed to figure out that he wasn’t there.
A few blaster types spotted him and opened fire with beam and pulse blasts that really made no sense to Hale at all. He focused on dodging them while keeping himself positioned in such a way that there was nothing behind him that they might hit.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and some of them will potshot the target.
Hale didn’t think that was terribly lucky, but he’d take the longshot in this case, especially while he was trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. There were just too damn many of the changed below him, and they weren’t fitting the pattern he’d become used to seeing. Something was wrong, but for the life of him, Hale had not clue as to what.
He tapped on his earpiece.
“Pierson.”
“Are you seeing this? None of the changed have ever acted like this before, I swear I’m getting a zombie movie chill off these ones,” He said.
“I don’t know about the zombie film,” Pierson said, “but they are acting atypically when compared to previous data points, unfortunately we just don’t have enough data points to say what that means. Be careful.”
“Really?” He asked dryly, “that’s what you’ve got for me?”
“Duck.”
“What?”
Hale twisted as a blur of motion caught in his peripheral vision. He didn’t move quite fast enough, however, as a car came out of nowhere, three stories up, and slammed him out the air with a huge crash.
“Ow.” Hale griped, twisting the car off him as he sniffed the air. “Oh fuck.”
A roar filled the air as the broken gas tank found an ignition source and the whole thing went up in flames all around him. Hale shoved, flipping the burning car up on it’s side so he could get out from under it, and got to his feet, walking out of the fire as he brushed his hands against his BDUs in a vain attempt to get the gasoline off of him.
“Now I’m going to smell like a gas station until I get home, damn it!”
“Are you alright?” Pierson asked.
“I’m fine. Who threw that, anyway?”
“Big guy, about half a block up the road from you. Can’t miss him, he’s pretty close to buck naked, probably from the way his body expanded when his abilities expressed themselves.”
“Thanks, Hale out.” He said, tapping off the earpiece, wondering that it had actually survived that hit and the aftermath, but not too concerned about it. He had other things to deal with.
A quick boost to supersonic doused the remaining flames that had been trying to get a purchase on his BDUs and brought him face to face with…
Ech. Damn it, Pierson, you could have told me he was THIS much taller than usual.
Hale carefully floated himself four feet into the air, so he could be face to face with the one who’d tossed the car at him.
“Look, I’m sure you understand the pain of getting new clothes,” Hale said agreeably, “so could we please avoid tossing vehicles with full gas tanks around?”
The unintelligible roar the guy put out wasn’t encouraging for any hope of negotiating limits on the fight, nor was the big wide roundhouse punch that came Hale’s way. The air shook as Hale lifted his left arm to catch the blow, stopping it dead in place and leaving the hulking beast gaping in shock for a brief moment before Hale responded with short, sharp, uppercut to the jaw that laid the big guy flat out on the ground.
> Sighing, Hale turned away from the unmoving foe, “Dry cleaning is going to be a serious expense if this keeps up.”
It was almost worth re-upping with the government, frankly. They’d at least assign new equipment, clothes, and the like and cover damages incurred on missions, if nothing else.
He stopped, finding himself facing dozens of angry superhumans, all advancing on him as though controlled by one mind.
“Oh, come on!” Hale complained, “No one is this stupid! I’ve just laid out what? Three of your guys, four? All you’ve managed to frigging ruin a good set of BDUs, and you’re still coming after me!?”
He had to dodge in a hurry as another flurry of blasts converged on his position, the air suddenly filled with glowing beams and pulses of energy.
Kinda reminds me of night over Baghdad, actually, He thought as he flew around the area, avoiding the blasts. Less green here, since I’m not using nightvision, but still pretty close.
Dodging the blasts was child’s play, thankfully.
Despite what some of them looked like, he wasn’t facing lasers or the like. Nothing moving even remotely that fast, or even to bullet speeds for that matter. Ducking around the blasts, even occasionally batting one off course if it looked like it was going to intersect with a building in a bad way, these were easily done.
Harder, was figuring out what to do with the rather large group of super human types, that all seemed intent on causing him bodily harm.
This is such a pain in the ass, Hale realized. At least in Fallujah, killing the people shooting at me was an entirely reasonable course of action. Actually, isn’t it still?
Hale honestly wasn’t sure about that.
On the one hand, they were rioters, civilian true, but certainly not of the peaceful protest sort. They were using lethal attacks, or they would be against a normal person. In all truth, however, Alex wasn’t really feeling like his life was under threat. As long as they were focused on him, or just breaking stuff, he didn’t feel right just flying around snapping necks.
He was still trying to make a decision about his next logical course of action when something he honestly didn’t see coming happened.
Where the hell did that come from… and, is that a school bus!?
*****
“Malcolm outdid himself,” Tessa chuckled as she watched the school bus careened around a corner and skidded to a stop, blocking the street almost entirely from one side to the other.
Even from where they were perched, the pair could see the faces pressed against the glass, some terrified, some excited, looking out at the fight that was going on just a few meters from where they were.
“Where’d get the kids at this hour, I wonder?” Pitr asked.
Tessa shrugged, “Does it matter?”
“Not really, just curious.”
“Ask him later,” Tessa said with a casual air. “For now, it is enough that they are here.”
She focused, her face becoming tense, lips drawing back over her teeth.
Below them, the mob paused in its assault on the flying man and slowly turned as one toward the now parked bus.
A puff of smoke heralded Malcolm’s arrival at their side, and Pitr wordlessly handed him a bag of popcorn.
“Danke,” Malcolm said, dropping down onto the ledge. “Getting started, are we?”
“You know Tessa,” Pitr said with a shrug.
“Crazy bitch, and proud of it?”
Tessa laughed mirthlessly, her voice almost a hiss beside them. “Let’s see what hero boy does now.”
Pitr nodded wordlessly, “Exactly.”
*****
Chapter 9
Approval granted.
The probe sighed, almost in what some might call pleasure though that, like all sensations of life, was a foreign concept to it. With the approval for the final stage granted, the probe set manufacturing in process.
The chaos below was a perfect microcosm of the effects it had designed into the cidoforming protocols custom tailored for this world, and the positive test results were utterly beyond expectations. Something about this species caused its biology to be particularly susceptible to potent manipulation in ways that really couldn’t be fully explained.
Accessing the quanta of the universe was not normally something associated with biological systems, after all. The inept and haphazard ways that the changes caused the species to do so, however, was vastly amusing to the probe and, through it, the convocation beyond.
It was a rare sight indeed to see a potential threat species such as this one being the cause of their own downfall.
Normally a more direct action was required, originally this would begin with the redirection of a small planetoid from the outer system onto an appropriate ballistic trajectory. Unfortunately, that method proved… ineffective.
Destroying the predominant species was simple enough that way, but the festering things were birthed from spores that could survive the rigors of space despite their obvious weaknesses. A few million years after dropping planetoids on target species, the convocation had found itself fighting off festering infections on other worlds in the same systems… previously CLEAN worlds, less.
Worse, in at least three instances, the infections had spread across STELLAR distances.
Life had to be removed entirely, leaving no trace behind, otherwise it would always find a way to return and infest whatever foothold it might locate.
The current solution, however, was poetic and while it would not destroy the infection it would turn it on itself. That delaying action was all that was needed, and so there was only one final step to take.
*****
USSOCOM Bunker, Virginia
Pierson and the rest stared in horror as the mob of powered humans turned on the bus, the long range blasters in the crowd striking almost immediately.
The first blast that struck the bus blew one of the tires to shreds, rocking the whole vehicle back like it was a toy. Screams could be heard from the inside, small hands pounding on the glass as the novelty of seeing the action outside was replaced with shock and terror.
A second blast was on track for hitting the bus higher, nearly in the middle of the vehicle, when a blur interposed itself and took the hit in a blast of light and smoke.
As the smoke cleared, Hale was floating there with his arms up to protect his face, smoke curling from the scorched fabric of his BDUs, flickers of flame showing where the gasoline from earlier had relit. He didn’t put it out, or move, he just glared down the mob.
The news channel they were watching had fallen silent, the commentators didn’t seem to know what to say about what had just happened.
It was just as well, Pierson supposed a moment later, since it turned around and happened again.
Another blast, a blur as Hale shifted position, and a minor explosion as he intercepted it. He seemed to tense in mid air, and she thought he was about to attack, but then a flurry of attacks rained down and he was forced purely on the defence. Blurring from one position to another, stopping just long enough to tank the incoming blast as best he could, then lancing off again to interpose his own body between the bus full of children and a blast that could tear it to shreds.
Pierson winced with each hit.
Alex was tough as hell, she knew that well, but he wasn’t invulnerable. Pinned down, unable to attack, he would be worn down sooner than later.
She grabbed up her phone, dialing out using a number from the phone’s memory.
“Colonel Pierson for Captain Sanderson.” She snapped, “ETA of the package?”
She grimaced at the answer.
Fuck.
*****
Berlin
His ears were ringing, the constant explosions were becoming more than he could deal with, but there were so damn many incoming blasts. Hale didn’t know what to do.
He could go on the offensive, but before he could do anything workable at least some of the blasts would hit the bus.
Hale tried not t
o rage at the very insanity of why a bus load of kids would be out on the streets in the middle of a damned riot, at night… but he was failing miserably at that even as he kept move, kept tanking shot after shot.
He could feel himself getting slower, though.
It wasn’t appreciable, not at first. Just a little slip in his reaction time, barely noticeable. It just meant that he had to retreat slightly, an inch maybe, in order to intercept one of the blasts. Then, a few blasts later he had to do it again.
Slowly, Hale knew he was being pushed back to the Bus. Once it was at his back, there would inevitably come a blast that he couldn’t retreat far enough to stop.
I need a solution!
*****
“Well damn,” Pitr said, sounding impressed. “The man really is what he seems to be. That’s real hero material there, I have to admit.”
Tessa scoffed, irritated by the display she was observing.
“He’s going to fail,” She hissed.
“Slowly, but yes he will,” Pitr nodded, tilting his head to one side. “You know what? Let’s speed that up.”
He gestured slightly and a rip opened up in the air beside him, letting him reach through and pull back a cannister with yellow lettering. He looped his finger in the ring on the top and yanked hard, letting the handle pop clear before he gestured again to open another rip and casually tossed the cannister through.
“What was that?” Tessa asked sharply.
Pitr just smiled.
*****
Hale felt something thunk off the back of his helmet, surprising him for a moment. He twisted to see what it was, his eyes opening wide as he recognized the cannister at the last second.
Shit!
A crump of sound exploded in his face, a flash of light blinding him as he was assaulted by sound and light from all sides it seemed. He blinked furiously, casting around wildly as he willed himself to see through the distraction and pain.
He saw it too late.
A blast tore past him as he started to move again, straining against the impossibility. As fast as he could accelerate, he knew it wasn’t getting ahead of that one.
The cop in riot gear that stepped into its path seemed to have come to the same conclusion. His shield was up, and he was braced as best he could as the blast struck, but he may as well not had bothered.
