Juice continued, “Forcestar and Doublecharge, stay aerial and provide containment and ranged attacks if required. I will handle any brute physical needs. Jack and Sally, stay on the periphery and provide additional intelligence and support as needed.”
Sally nodded as she tried to take it all in. She felt like her body was stuck in thick, hot glue while her mind raced in circles.
“First priority is to contain any damage and protect any civilians threatened. Second priority is to remove the individual to a safe and secure location by whatever means necessary and to determine if the individual is in fact responsible for the power failure. Third priority is to secure the area and to ensure no additional threats remain. Finally, we provide whatever assistance we can to bring power back online.” Juice ticked off each point on his fingers.
“Two minutes to Medicine Bow,” said Ace over the cabin speaker. “No sign of the contact yet.”
“Stand by,” said Juice. “Stacey, charge me up.”
Doublecharge placed a hand crackling with electricity on Juice’s arm. He absorbed the power to fuel his strength and toughness. When he nodded at last, she stopped. The air inside the cabin smelled of ozone. Juice didn’t seem any different except for frequent pops of static electricity as the charge he’d absorbed slowly bled off. He would be powered up for about fifteen minutes before he would need to be topped off once more.
“Stacey, Eric, get to the lock.”
Doublecharge and Forcestar moved to the rear of the cabin and through a double-hinged door into a small chamber beyond.
Jack swung the door shut and dogged it tight. “It’s an airlock,” he said to Sally. “It lets the fliers deploy without landing the plane.”
“One minute,” said Ace. “I have visual confirmation of the target. Humanoid, estimated height ten meters, radiating energy of some sort.”
“Bring us around to port. Give me one complete circle so I can see it. Stand by on the lock.”
“Trust me, sir, you can’t miss it.” Ace banked the Bettie hard on her right wing. Juice, Jack and Sally all pressed their faces against the windows to see. The figure was pudgy and devoid of details, like an unfinished clay model of a person. It glowed a bright yellow-green. Purple-white energy bands arced across its surface. A shapeless dark mass lurked at the center of the torso. The figure lurched through a stand of snow-covered trees, which exploded in clouds of steam from vaporized snow.
“What is it?” Sally asked. “Is it a person?”
Juice said, “It’s humanoid, at least. We’ll figure out details as we go. Right now it’s a threat and we have to treat it as such. Ace, open the lock, then bring us down.”
Sally heard a thump from the rear of the plane. A moment later, Doublecharge and Forcestar cruised past the windows, she with electricity crackling around her and he surrounded by a blue energy nimbus.
The Bettie’s engines howled as Ace brought her down to hover at zero altitude. The bomb bay doors folded open, aligned to protect the heroes from the blast of the angled jet nozzles. “Go,” said Juice, and the heroes jumped to the steaming ground. Juice led Jack and Sally past the front of the plane. “Ace, get clear.” The pilot powered up the engines and lifted the Bettie back into the air once more.
They had landed in free-range territory, with no dwellings or roads nearby. Six inches of snow covered the fields, and it fell steadily from the thick clouds. The glowing figure trudged slowly about fifty meters away and did not seem to take any notice of Doublecharge and Forcestar overhead.
“Sally, give me a sweep in a quarter mile radius around the thing. I want to be sure we are in open country and there isn’t a town or anything just over the next rise. Also, report on its trail and heading.”
Sally peeled out across the snow, leaving a pair of frosty rooster tails in her wake. Everything was happening very fast, even for a speedster like her. She told herself to stick to what she knew—running. Sprinting through the snow with no path or road was hard work when she was used to pavement. She stepped lightly to keep her feet off the ground as much as possible. If she turned an ankle on something hidden beneath the snow, she would be useless.
She made her circuit around the thing in less than a minute. Its trail led in a straight line to the north, and it continued to plod in the opposite direction. The surrounding area was just open range with a few scattered stands of evergreens and rocky ridges. She skidded to a stop by Juice and Jack, who had taken cover behind a large rock to formulate a plan.
“Nothing around for miles,” Sally said. “It looks like the creature is heading straight south from Medicine Bow.”
Juice frowned. “Jack, where does that take it if it stays on course?”
Crackerjack consulted the GPS strapped to the back of his left arm. “Cheyenne, then towards Denver.”
“Stacey, any change in the creature’s behavior?”
“Negative.” Doublecharge’s voice on the radio was overlaid with static, which Sally figured was caused by the creature. “It’s moving slowly but steadily.”
“Give it a warning shot. Get its attention.”
Juice, Jack, and Sally moved around the rock to get a better view. Doublecharge hummed with electricity, and lightning arced from her to strike directly upon the creature.
“I said a warning shot!” Juice shouted.
“I did,” Doublecharge said. “The thing drew in my shot like a magnet.”
“Eric, try to confine it.”
Forcestar created a glowing blue dome of energy around the creature. The being ignored his barrier and stepped through it as if it didn’t exist. He tried again, but his field seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
“Regroup,” said Juice. “All right,” he said when Doublecharge and Forcestar dropped to the ground by the others. “Analysis. Stacey?”
“It absorbs electricity, like you do,” she said. “And it’s destroying things it encounters explosively, although not the ground beneath its feet for some reason.”
“Eric.”
“I can’t contain it. It’s the first thing I’ve ever encountered that I can’t hold inside a field.”
“Jack, your thoughts?”
“Putting some wildly disconnected ideas together, I’d say that it teleported or was teleported by an external agency to the vicinity of Medicine Bow. It must require electricity because it drained the power plant and absorbed Doublecharge’s blast. The military base in Cheyenne has its own power plant that is not connected to the local grid. If the creature needs electricity, that’s the next closest major source. Given its course, it either can sense the source or has been programmed. I’m not yet convinced it’s alive and not some kind of machine.”
“Hmm. And we’ll need to stop it before it gets there. After that, it’s the generators at Just Cause HQ. Sally?”
Sally watched the creature with curiosity. An idea had formed in her mind, borne from her love of science fiction. She hesitated for almost a second, an eternity for her. “What if… it’s made of antimatter? Maybe the glowing part is just a containment field.”
“That would explain why it’s not reacting to my own force fields,” said Forcestar. “Polarity’s all wrong.”
“Which is why it attracts my lightning. A containment field would need a tremendous amount of energy, and electricity is easy to come by. The thing could require electricity to maintain its field.” Doublecharge circled around them and kept an eye on the creature as it continued its slow trek southward.
“What happens if the containment field fails?” Juice asked.
“There could be a couple hundred pounds inside the field, if that’s what that dark mass is at the center,” said Jack. “That kind of potential explosive power could blow a crater the size of Wyoming in North America. It matches Glimmer’s hole-in-the-planet vision.”
“All right,” said Juice. “Let’s presume for the moment Sally’s theory is correct. We can’t let it take any more power, obviously, but we have to stop it in such a way that it
doesn’t lose its field integrity. Eric, you said something about polarity being wrong?”
“Yeah,” said Forcestar. “My fields are energy, of course, but they are charged to affect positive matter. If I could reverse the polarity, I should be able to hold the thing.”
“What would that take?”
“A big jolt from a capacitor might do it, but I don’t exactly have a power station handy. Oh, wait…” Forcestar grinned as Doublecharge made electricity crackle between her fingertips.
“All right, that’s a plan. Let’s try to resolve this peacefully first. Forcestar, you and Doublecharge take high point. Jack, Sally, with me. We’ll get in front of the thing and try to communicate. Ace?”
“Yes sir,” said the pilot.
“Contact Deep Six and see if they can rig up something to contain antimatter.”
“Roger that.”
“Move out,” Juice said. He and Jack jogged after the creature while Sally flanked them like a collie herding cattle.
In a few minutes, they had caught up to and then passed the creature and took up positions in front of it. It seemed to take no notice of them. Juice stepped up and held up his hands.
“That’s far enough,” he called. “We can’t permit you to continue. Come quietly and we’ll try to help you with whatever you require.”
The creature lowered its featureless head and halted in its stride. A sound emerged from it, a low thrum of a growl that seemed subsonic rather than audible.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Boss,” said Jack as he raised his submachine gun.
Juice took a step closer toward the being. “We don’t want to fight you, and we don’t want to hurt you, but we can’t allow you to continue harming others through your actions.”
“You are hereby ordered to return to your place of origin or the nearest convenient parallel dimension,” murmured Jack. Sally looked at him. “Ghostbusters. I quote movie lines when I get nervous.”
The creature’s ominous growl rose in volume. It lifted an arm to point down toward Juice; it didn’t have a hand, just a thickening at the end of a wrist. Time shifted into slow motion as Sally’s perceptions accelerated to their maximum.
A glowing particle emerged from the end of the creature’s arm, like a bubble in molasses. The instant the particle broke contact with the creature’s arm, the field around it contracted. Sally knew she only had a moment to react. She couldn’t pick up Juice and move him out of harm’s way; he must have weighed more than three times what she did. Instead she accelerated and body-slammed him at three hundred miles-per-hour. She had absolute control over her speed and the ability to stop and start instantaneously, but she still gave herself a terrific wallop and knew she would be hurting for weeks. Her check knocked Juice backward with the slow grace of an astronaut but quickly enough to avoid the onrushing particle. Once he came off the ground, Sally shoved him a second time, this time with enough force to push him several yards. She hoped it was enough.
A quick glance at the particle showed the glow around it was almost gone and its trajectory headed toward where Juice had stood a second ago. Sally turned and covered several hundred feet in an instant as the containment field collapsed. A powerful explosion tore through the air. Juice tumbled to the ground clear of the blast radius.
Sally dashed up to him, and made herself slow down enough that she could speak to him. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Yes. Ow.” He shook his head to clear it. “That was antimatter, I presume?”
“I think so. We don’t dare break the containment field.”
“Jack, no shooting at it,” Juice called.
“Don’t worry.” Jack sounded disgusted. He tossed away his rifle, the barrel twisted and smoldering. His clothing was singed but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
“Juice?” Doublecharge’s voice came from overhead.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Thanks to Sally. Negotiations are over. Wrap it up, Eric.”
Forcestar gathered his reserves of power and Doublecharge did the same. He cast another cylindrical field around the creature. Doublecharge sent crackling bolt after bolt of lightning into the cylinder. “More power,” said Forcestar.
“How will you know when it’s enough?” Doublecharge called as more and more electricity coursed from her.
“It won’t be able to get out,” said Forcestar. The creature raised its arms to the field. “It’s working,” he said. “Pour it on, Stacey. I can feel it changing.”
The creature swung an arm at the field, which crackled, sparked, and rebounded like gelatin. Another subsonic roar emerged from the creature. It released another particle, which bounced off the inside of the field wall and detonated within the enclosed space of Forcestar’s field.
“I got it!” Forcestar lifted the creature off the ground. It struggled within the blue field, but couldn’t push its way out.
“How long can you hold it like that?” Juice signaled Ace to bring the Bettie back around.
“I have no idea. It’s not very heavy, but the energy is making it tricky.”
Doublecharge slumped to the ground and yanked off her mask. Blood ran from her nose and she looked pale against the snow. Sally rushed over to help support her. A sharp smell of ozone permeated her skin and costume. She had released a tremendous amount of electrical energy, like hundreds of lightning bolts all going off at once, and Doublecharge seemed to have come close to overloading herself.
The Bettie roared in to stand on her jets. Sally and Jack helped get Doublecharge on board. Juice secured Forcestar in the airlock, since his powers wouldn’t function through the walls or windows of the aircraft; he would have to ride exposed to the cold and altitude. He strapped an oxygen mask over Forcestar’s face and wrapped him up in a thermal blanket, plugged into the side of the airlock.
“You need anything? Ace says it’s about thirty minutes to Deep Six.”
“How about a couple of chicken tacos and a mocha espresso?”
“Oh, sure, I’ll have Ace hit a couple drive-throughs in Butte,” said Juice as he closed the airlock door behind him. “Ace, we’re clear.”
The Bettie’s engines responded with a new whine as Ace tapped emergency reserves of power to coax just a little more speed from the craft. Sally wrapped a blanket around Doublecharge while Jack administered a sedative through an inhaler.
Juice came up from the airlock and knelt down in front of his second-in-command. “You did good, partner.”
In spite of her exhaustion, shock, and the onrushing effects of the drugs Jack had administered, Doublecharge managed a slight smile before her head lolled back.
The Bettie left sound behind her as she tore up the miles on course for Deep Six. Sally knew the parahuman prison facility in Montana would have the best chance of holding a creature made of antimatter until they could figure out what to do with it. She was disappointed that there wouldn’t be time for a tour, but there was going to be a lot of work to do even after they relinquished their captive. She yawned.
A hero’s work was never done.
Chapter Seven
The “activation” of parahuman abilities is a myth perpetuated by the media. There is no way to tell whether someone who has the so-called “power gene” will develop abilities, and if so, what those abilities might entail.
I’ve been asked if it is possible to create parahuman abilities in someone who has the power gene. I do not know, but I believe they may be triggered through evolutionary pressures. I’ve also been asked if parahuman abilities can be bestowed upon someone without the power gene.
I do not believe that is possible.
-From “The Origin of Parapowers” by Dr. Matasuko Musashi, 1995
January, 2004
Denver, Colorado
Sally flopped onto her bed, too tired to do more than kick off her cracked and friction-burned boots. Her last coherent thought was that she really ought at least to pull off her bodysuit before she passed out for good. Blissful sleep overt
ook her as she fumbled for her uniform zipper.
It seemed like she had slept for only minutes when somebody knocked at her door and jolted her awake.
She grimaced as she staggered over to the door on tender bare feet. “Yeah?” Her voice croaked like a frog’s.
“It’s Jason,” said a voice behind the door. “I came by to see how you were feeling today. Juice said you had a rough time of it last night.”
Sally rubbed her eyes, still feeling like her head was full of cotton. “Give me a minute, Jason… I just woke up.” She squinted at her bedside clock. 3:06. For a crazy moment she thought Jason had come to talk to her at three in the morning, but then she realized it was the middle of the afternoon and she’d slept all day.
“Oh, sure. I can come back later if you want.”
She almost said, yes, please do, but her heart was already racing and if he left she would only lie awake on the bed and wonder if it had been the right thing to say. “No, it’s okay. Can I meet you in the rec room in a few minutes?”
“Sure. See you.” She heard his footsteps recede as he tromped down the hall.
The bed called to her with a mighty voice, but she gave it a wide berth, lest it reach out and snag her. She grimaced because she still stank of copper cable. After they had delivered the antimatter creature to Deep Six, Juice had Sally running all over the area, helping to get the power grid back online so the citizens of the Mountain West wouldn’t freeze overnight. She’d run cable and installed fuses; she might have qualified as an apprentice electrician after all the work she did the night before. It had been sometime past way too late and before way too early when they’d gotten the grid back up. Forcestar had stayed behind at the prison facility, Deep Six, to help contain the creature until the staff had a chance to devise a suitable containment system. Doublecharge had been treated by the Deep Six medical techs and was recuperating in Just Cause’s medical wing. The rest of the team had worked like over-caffeinated speed freaks to get the power back on, and Sally ached all the way down to the marrow in her bones.
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