“Nah, it wouldn’t have been worth the plane ticket, and sending the Seajet would’ve been a bad idea the last few days,” Black Comet replied, shaking his head. “No, though. Vlad was pissed off at us, since apparently he’s been keeping an eye on Lilith and considers her important for some reason or another. None of us were happy that he was irate with us.”
“That… that would be one way to put it,” Pauline replied, swallowing hard and wondering if she needed to make her exit sooner than later. “That also doesn’t give us a lot of information to work off of. I’d rather not have him come after us.”
“Same here, and due to the government bounty, every two-bit hero and villain is in the area too. I think you’re going to have your work cut out for you, now that you’re back,” Black Comet began, and suddenly Hypergizmo appeared in the doorway.
“Comet! Insomnia just hit the San Mateo Mall!” the tech said, nodding at Pauline. “Hey, Orchid, you’d best get settled; we’re getting slammed.”
“On my way,” Black Comet replied, and the man burst out of the room in a blur, leaving a gust of wind in his wake.
“I could help too,” Pauline offered, but Hypergizmo shook his head.
“No, no… we’re slammed, like I said. You, me, and Galvanic are the best people to man the control room,” Hypergizmo said grimly. “I don’t think an hour’s gone by that there hasn’t been some alert in the last day. You’d best get used to using one of the ready rooms. Good thing you got a vacation, right?”
“Oh, yuck. I’m sorry, Hyper,” Pauline said, wincing honestly this time. While she may not care for heroes, the bits she knew about the tech from Blooming Orchid’s memories made her mostly like him, and what he was talking about would be horrible for anyone. “You get back to it; I’ll get settled in. Like you said, at least I’ll be rested for this.”
“True enough,” Hypergizmo said, chuckling darkly as he left.
“This will be interesting,” Pauline murmured, feeling more confident than she had been. Getting such extensive access to the heroes’ Control Center had been a hope of hers, but not one which she’d expected to manage any time soon from Orchid’s memories. Maybe the emergency wasn’t so bad after all.
San Mateo Mall, San Mateo
The sound of screams and sobbing echoed loudly throughout the mall, and Black Comet winced as he entered the building. He didn’t see any sign of Insomnia, but what he did see was quite bad enough.
All around the food court he could see people cowering in corners and beneath chairs or tables, sobbing and hiding. A man in a hall leading to the restrooms was bleeding, looking like he’d run headlong into the glass doors leading outside, and virtually no one looked like they were in good shape. Over the entire food court hung a large bronze sculpture of a classic sailing ship, which seemed like a poor idea to the hero. What if it fell during an earthquake? Though there was a fenced off space below it, he supposed.
“Look out, Comet. Insomnia has a potent fear attack according to SuperNet, but we’ve never had to deal with her before,” Hypergizmo warned. “Emergency personnel are on their way, as is Sky Defender, but what I’m seeing says to try to take her out as fast as possible, before she has a chance to target you.”
“Right. This doesn’t look good, Hyper,” Black Comet replied, shaking his head unhappily. “The people here are hiding in corners, almost catatonic.”
“Then be careful. The medics should be there soon, and we don’t want them in the same state,” Hypergizmo warned.
“On my way. I have to find her first,” Black Comet said, and began to race through the structure, which wasn’t small by any stretch of the imagination.
Black Comet’s perceptions were odd when he was moving at full speed, he knew. It was a strange sensation, as though every moment stretched out for him, allowing him to react quickly to danger even if he wasn’t entirely conscious of what had warned him. His mind didn’t work at quite the same speed as his body, though he often wished it did. It would make studying for his PhD easier, that was for sure.
The upper floor was largely deserted, so Black Comet started there, figuring that if people were afraid of the villain, they would’ve run from her. There were a few people here and there, and multiple windows were shattered, displays knocked onto the floor from where people had fled, which made him feel that he was on the right track.
A few moments later, he came around the corner and saw the villainess, easily identified as she was the only person he’d seen who was moving normally. Insomnia looked like a goth, with black lipstick, heavy eyeshadow, and her black hair was in a pixie cut that came almost to the collar of her black leather jacket. She kept up the black leather motif for her boots and pants, all of them with gleaming steel adornments. At the moment, the woman was grabbing jewelry from a store she was loitering in, grinning like a loon and with her skin glistening with a sheen of sweat.
“Found her; going in!” Black Comet reported and raced in at the woman. Hopefully he could knock her out before she could react, and—
As Black Comet closed on the woman, the world seemed to slow still more, and her head suddenly, unnaturally twisted around to face him. Her eyes were like pitch-black voids, and her mouth stretched into a smile over three times the size it should’ve been, her teeth serrated like a shark’s.
“Hello…” she crooned, her voice reverberating oddly through the room and sending a shudder through Black Comet as something within her mouth moved and began to spill outward. A black radiance spilled down her chin and onto the ground almost like water, but bubbling and roiling, twisting into a horribly deformed face that spoke, its voice wet, fleshy, and bubbling with malice. “Don’t you look delicious?”
“Holy shit!” Black Comet blurted, falling back as the face lunged upward, reaching from the villain’s mouth like a living column of malevolent water, panic almost overwhelming him.
The entire room had twisted as well, he realized; the pillars supporting the roof were now bone-like ribs, and the roof… he shuddered as he saw a single immense eye looking down at him as a deep voice spoke, the same woman’s but now much more malevolent. “You’re already inside; you can’t escape…”
The sight of people enveloped by fleshy mouths protruding from the walls made Black Comet’s eyes almost bug out, seeing how they were chewing… and nausea overwhelmed him as he yelled. “Oh hell no! You’re not going to catch me, freak!”
“Black Comet, she uses fear! Don’t—” Hypergizmo spoke frantically, but it was too little, too late as Black Comet went to full speed toward the doors, only to be brought to an abrupt halt.
A sound like a gong rang out and everything went black as the horrors that had surrounded him melted away. The last thing Black Comet saw was the massive bronze sculpture of a ship, now with a large dent from where he’d hit it.
“I’ve lost contact with Black Comet. His comm’s on, but he’s not answering!” Hypergizmo reported, his voice frantic. “How close are you? I—”
“Hyper, calm down. I’m going in now,” Sky Defender replied grimly, flying through a shattered window of the mall. A moment later, he winced as he saw the bronze sculpture swaying, with a sizable dent in the side of it and Black Comet laying beneath it on the ground. His voice was far brisker as he reported in. “Hyper, we’re going to need medical attention quickly. Comet looks like he slammed into a sculpture headfirst. Vital signs are… stable, from the looks of things. I’m going to take down the villain before she does anything to anyone else.”
“He’s down? Shit, I’m going to get the Seajet and get out there to pick him up. I’ll grab Orchid quick too. Thank God she’s back!” Hypergizmo cursed, then went offline again.
Circling around the sculpture, Sky Defender headed toward the upper floor, rising high enough he had a good view down the wide halls of the mall. Only a few dozen feet away, he saw Insomnia, the woman rapidly running down the hall as if all the hounds of hell were at her heels. They may as well be, considering how Sky Defender was
feeling.
His thrusters propelled the hero down the hall much faster than the woman’s legs, and in mere seconds he was in front of her. Extending an arm toward the villainess, one of his laser cannons glowed ominously and Sky Defender spoke flatly, his shields blocking all but the faintest hint of her psychic attack. “Insomnia. You have a lot of nerve coming into our city. What did you do to Black Comet? If you’ve caused permanent damage…”
“Whoa, hold up, freakin’ hells!” Insomnia replied, her voice slightly thicker than most as she skidded to a stop, her eyes huge and pupils massively dilated. “I give! I dunno what you’re talkin’ about, but I jus’… I was grabbin’ the jewelry when I heard someone behin’ me, and then there was a sound like a bell! Nex’ thing I knew, a guy’d run headlong into that metal ship thingy!”
“You claim you didn’t attack him?” Sky Defender asked skeptically.
“No!” Insomnia said, shaking her head as she dropped a bag to the ground which clanked with the sound of metal. “I din’t want ta fight heroes! I was jus’ almost out of stuff ta take!”
“Well, you’re going to stand right there and focus on not using your powers or I’m going to have to hurt you. You’ve hurt quite enough people as it is,” Sky Defender told the woman, hearing the chatter of the approaching police cars over his scanner. “You’re going to be going into detox as well. Then you’ll be actually safe to have around.”
“Ah, damn.” The villainess scowled, shivering but raising her hands. “Tha’ always sucks.”
“So does getting sent running into a wall,” Sky Defender said icily, and Insomnia didn’t have a retort.
Ocean Shield HQ, San Francisco
“How’s he going to be?” Ocean Spirit asked, and Blooming Orchid raised her head in response, then shook it gently.
“Comet hit the sculpture hard, Spirit. He’s lucky the metal was thin as it was, and that the space below it was cleared. Even so, he has a nasty concussion, and a little internal bleeding. There’s also a fair amount of other damage… he’s going to be in a neck brace for a while, and I’m not certain how long he’ll be unconscious,” Blooming Orchid replied, her voice sober. “I doubt Comet is going to be in any state to participate in patrols for a few weeks. I’m keeping an eye on him, but without Morgan here to perform magical healing, he’s going to be out for a while.”
“Damn it. I’ve always heard that Insomnia could be dangerous, but he seemed to have a far, far worse reaction to her power than anything in the records. It’s rather frightening, really,” Ocean Spirit replied, scowling and shaking her head firmly. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
“I don’t have any idea for certain, mind you, but I have a suspicion,” Blooming Orchid replied, pausing before continuing. “You understand that anything I offer will be speculation?”
“Of course. You do have an idea of what happened, though?” Ocean Spirit asked, her mood improving ever so slightly.
“Yes. From what he’s said before, despite Comet’s ability to move far more quickly than others, his mind doesn’t function quite on the same speed, while his involuntary, more instinctive reactions do. It’s possible that they function even more swiftly than we think, and Insomnia’s power plants psychic fear and hallucinations in others, doesn’t it?” Blooming Orchid said, checking the IV on the hero again as she frowned. “With it planted in his mind, it’s quite possible his accelerated subconscious caused the fear to affect him more than it would have hit others.”
The thought made Ocean Spirit blanch, but the suggestion sounded all too realistic to her. Black Comet’s retreat had been caught on video via the security cameras, and his reaction had been far too abrupt. No one else had been affected nearly as quickly as he had, and it certainly didn’t seem like Insomnia had noticed him ahead of time.
“That sounds far too likely, especially with the footage we got. Insomnia is way nastier than her reputation or rank gives credit for,” the team leader replied after a moment, shaking her head. “Thank goodness she’s not on the streets anymore… for now, anyway. She’s usually not out to deliberately cause destruction, but she’s nasty enough for that not to matter.”
“How does her power work, anyway? Isn’t she going to cause problems?” Blooming Orchid asked, frowning as she did so.
“No, she won’t,” Sky Defender said, poking his head into the room and nodding in Ocean Spirit’s direction, prompting her to tense slightly. “Sorry, Spirit. I just was going to ask if I could go get some maintenance done on my armor while there’s a lull in the fighting. I don’t want it going out on me in the middle of a fight.”
“That’s fine, Defender. None of us want that to happen, not with everyone in town right now,” Ocean Spirit said, relaxing a little as she realized that it wasn’t another disaster. “What do you mean, she won’t be a problem? I haven’t had time to go over Insomnia’s file.”
“Because her power is tied to how drugged she is. The cops said she was on LSD or something like it, and once she’s detoxed she’s harmless,” Sky Defender explained. “The problem is that while she seems to be immune to all of the nasty side effects of the drugs, she’s not immune to addiction, and that means she’s constantly trying to find her next fix.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Blooming Orchid replied, her smile fading as she shook her head. “Is it wrong that I really wish she’d never discovered that power?”
“Not at all. I’d rather that Shadowmind had never discovered her powers, but that’s an idle wish. I’m going to get started on maintenance,” Sky Defender said, leaving the room quickly.
“Thank you for your hard work, Orchid. You barely got back from vacation, and all hell’s broken loose,” Ocean Spirit said, her tone apologetic.
“It’s fine, really. At least it did wait until my vacation was nearly over,” Blooming Orchid replied, smiling as she added. “Why don’t you get some rest? I’m going to get Black Comet as comfortable as I can, then relieve Hyper. He needs to unwind, I think.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Ocean Spirit agreed and sighed as she headed for the room she’d annexed for herself. She didn’t like staying at the HQ, but it was equipped to house them for a reason. It would be even nicer if the chaos would calm down.
Pauline found herself completely stunned by how easily she’d managed to get into Ocean Shield’s most secure rooms. Hypergizmo had left half an hour before, and she had been getting used to looking over their systems. The memories that Blooming Orchid had given her were fairly detailed, but she didn’t really understand all of the base systems, so there was a fair amount of learning to do.
At least she had the passwords, and Pauline allowed herself a little time to read up on some of the files that the heroes had buried in their database. It was interesting to see how normal many of the seeming paragons of the city were.
The city was relatively calm for the moment, so after a little while, Pauline fished out a data stick and calmly slid it into the console. The data stick was loaded primarily with music files, and she pulled up a playlist, even as the virus embedded in the data stick began to infiltrate the computer system of the team.
Soon she should be able to contact Maureen again, even if she’d have to keep it relatively clandestine. That made Pauline happier, as she was concerned about her sister. Staying in the base of a villain like Doctor Johnson was dangerous, and if they weren’t trying to build their reputation and get some decent funds, neither of them would have dealt with him.
With everything going on, at least it shouldn’t be too hard to fake a hoverbike accident or the like in a week or so.
Chapter 21
Wednesday, January 9th, 2031
Shadowmind Utah Lair Alpha-Three
Lilith stretched, frowning as she felt how the suit flexed with her movements, uncertain how she should feel about it. The suit was some sort of fabric, but the science involved in its makeup had been more than she could follow yet. The odd thing was how it felt almost like a soft, flexible
rubber, and how tightly it clung to her body was slightly… not uncomfortable, exactly, but it annoyed her. She was growing used to it, but that didn’t make her any happier with the sensation.
“Why is this so tight against me?” Lilith asked finally, scowling. “It doesn’t impede my movements, but it feels strange to have it almost as a second skin.”
“Welcome to the joy of being a superhero. Most of us seem to end up in something similar to spandex,” Gina said dryly. “I’m not entirely certain why.”
“There are multiple reasons for the fitting of your undersuit, Mistress Lilith,” Circe replied, almost seeming to ignore Gina, though her answer continued to address the heroine’s comments as well. “First, while a large number of superhumans have enhanced resilience, it’s been noted that a degree of that resilience also tends to extend to clothing which fits close to the wearer’s skin. This was noted as far back as the first clash with Pyroclasm the First during World War Two, though the records are circumstantial. This assists in reinforcing the structural integrity of the outfit. Second, Mistress Amber believed in being prepared, and an emergency force field in the suit collar can contain atmosphere, while the suit is proof against water pressure as deep as five hundred feet below sea level and functions as a pressure suit in vacuum, with air reserves for up to half an hour.
“Third, the innermost layer of the suit is designed to help seal injuries in the case that you’re struck by projectiles which are capable of piercing the integrated armor. This is aided by how closely it fits to your skin. Fourth, the suit acts perfectly as an undersuit to a suit of power armor, with the suit designed to allow the medical sensors to function through it perfectly,” Circe continued relentlessly, before pausing and finishing. “Finally, Mistress Amber said that it made her look more attractive, and that such was useful at times, especially when trying to distract heroes.”
Down with the Queen Page 20
