Inescapable Arsenal

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  “Rot in jail? Just because I don’t want to kill you doesn’t mean I think you should live after what you did. The Protector was the best of humanity. He was the ideal. You murdered him. If the government comes to me and asks me to invent something to execute you? Believe me, I will.”

  Incoming!

  Kate vanishes a heartbeat before the transport explodes. Burning napalm sticks to my armor like glue obscuring everything around me.

  “Epic, I can’t see!”

  The visor darkens until only the HUD is visible. Epic brings up a wireframe representation of the burning wreckage. I check the driver, dead. Dammit.

  “Anything we can do about the napalm on the suit?”

  Negative. It will burn until the fuel has expended. I recommend not giving anyone hugs.

  “Right. Locate Behemoth.” I do a complete 360 to take stock of our surroundings. The team is clearing the area of civilians and Monica is already dousing the flames from the explosion.

  “Kate, you okay?”

  “Yes. Epic warned me just in time. Thank you, by the way.”

  You are welcome.

  “Where’s Behemoth?” I don’t see her anywhere. It would help if I wasn’t on fire.

  I cannot see her on my sensors.

  “Glacier, can you absorb the heat of a flame?”

  “Yeah, give me a sec, I’m trying to keep this shop from catching fire.” We’re in a bad spot to fight back, thankfully, no one engaged us other than with a single missile. One incapable of killing Behemoth, but more than lethal enough for anyone else.

  “Coming to you.” I blast off and fly up to take another look around for our prisoner. Nothing. I land a few feet away from our teenage ice princess.

  “Here goes nothing,” she says, holding her hands out to me. The air temp drops alarmingly fast. The flames bend toward her, seeking her out as if they were alive. Within a minute the ambient temperature goes from ninety-one all the way down to fifteen. “It’s a lot of heat. I’m not sure I can get all of it.” Frost covers her, the ground freezes at her feet as ice forms around her. “Got it!” She exclaims, dropping her hands and letting out an icy breath. “Might have been easier in elemental form, but there you go.”

  The visor clears and I can see again. She got it all. “Thank you. Fleet?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do a perimeter search for Behemoth, she’s vanished and I want you to look for anything suspicious up to a mile out.”

  “On it.”

  “Epic, anything?”

  I admit to being confused. She is not in the immediate vicinity. Checking further out. Unless she can teleport, I do not understand how she could disappear so thoroughly.

  Kate appears near me, swords at the ready, “I can’t feel her anywhere. Not that I have a ton of range.”

  “Just the one missile?” Tessa asks. The escort vehicles the team rode in were fine, no damage, not even gunfire.

  Fleet slides to a stop before us, skidding in the dirt and leaving a little trail of dust from where he came. “Nothing, Arsenal. No trucks big enough to carry her. No underground tunnels I could find the entrance to, she’s just gone.”

  I glance at Kate before taking one last look around, she raises an eyebrow at me. “Now who do we know with teleportation tech?”

  If I had to guess, I would say Matahal still has access to a quantum teleporter,” I tell the assembled team. “This is both good and bad.” We’re back at HQ, hanging in the Enterprise conference room. It’s late in the day, but I wanted to go over what we know while it’s still fresh. Plus, Kate called in some favors and got a couple of large pies from Bianco’s!

  “And you’re saying that this Matahari—” Tessa began.

  “Matahal.”

  “Matahal guy is an alien who was working for Cat-7 as their chief scientist?”

  “Pretty much. From what I put together, he infiltrated Cat-7 in order to hold them back. I thought Ericsson had been the one who had their tech self-destruct after they were exposed, but I’m starting to think it was Matahal. What better way to lull someone into a false sense of security than to give them all this tech to fight aliens, only to have it stop working the moment they arrive? Anything based on Cat-7 tech would be as useful as a paper shelter in a firestorm.”

  Heads nod around the room in understanding. We’re in hour two of trying to figure out what to do next. Normally I’d just sit in my lab and ponder until a solution presented itself. But… Pythia said I needed to not be me. This is me trying to include others in the chase.

  Kate waves to get my attention, “Epic hasn’t had any luck locating him with cameras?”

  There are only so many accessible cameras in the United States. I estimate only seven percent of the land mass of North America is under direct surveillance.

  “And your satellite?” she adds.

  “It’s just one satellite.”

  “You own a satellite?” Monica’s expression is priceless.

  “Well, Mars Tech global owns it. Technically.”

  She shakes her head, “I want a raise.”

  “Wait, we get paid?” Tessa asks mockingly.

  “Focus,” Kate interrupts before things get too out of hand. I’m smiling though. I was worried the team wouldn’t come together like this, but now… they’re doing great.

  Fleet holds up his hand. Of course, he stuffs a slice of pepperoni in his mouth the moment he does. We have to wait the twenty awkward seconds for him to finish eating before he speaks up, “What about Cat-7 facilities?”

  “We’ve checked them. The government raided all of their buildings, offices, warehouses, anything and everything they could find. Epic, put up all their properties on the screen, please.”

  A long, long list of properties appear. Epic has the database Shai-Hulud downloaded. Everything Cat-7 had on the books and everything they kept off the books in the Cabal. It’s all there.

  Fleet walks around to the front of the table to stand in front of the monitor scanning the list as it scrolls by. It still surprises me when he moves at normal speed.

  “Monica, when you first manifested you said they flew you to a facility up north right? In Canada?”

  She nods, “Yeah they thought I would need to be in a colder environment. That’s where we found out I could freeze in place.” She shivers just thinking about it and I can’t blame her. Eternity as a statue isn’t on my bucket list.

  “It’s not here,” Fleet says. “When I was in training I was with a weather manipulator and she told me the same thing. A facility up in Whitehorse or someplace like that.”

  Epic immediately puts a map of Canada on the other monitor, cross-referencing every facility he knows they have north of the border.

  I can find no mention of a facility owned by Cat-7 in Whitehorse. It is not exactly a densely populated province. The total population is only twenty-five thousand.

  “Is it possible they didn’t own it?” Kate asks.

  “What do you mean?” I reply.

  “What if the research facility was third party? Some other company or whatever owned by someone else. Epic, check for any large facilities in Whitehorse. Canada isn’t very big, there can’t be many. Then flash us pictures, if Monica can identify it—”

  “I can. That was three months of hell.”

  “Then we should—” Before Kate has finished speaking my wonderful AI has pictures of buildings flashing on the screen.

  “That one!” Monica leaps out of her seat, pointing at a four-story building that looks about a hundred years old. Whitehorse itself is a barely-there town on the edge of a river. It actually looks like was built in the bed of a much larger river. Scary place to live. And cold.

  “No wonder we missed it, the place looks like a haunted house,” Tessa mutters.

  “Epic, start surveillance. Fleet, it was your idea, you want to go up north and take a look around?”

  He grins, “Of course I do!” He vanishes in a blur of speed and flying paper as the door slam
s open and he’s gone.

  “How far will he get before he realizes it’s cold up there?” Kate asks with a smirk.

  “Tessa, take the Emjet and go back him up. Also, yeah, take him a coat.” She grins, throwing me a mock salute before heading out.

  “Well, this has all been interesting but if there is nothing else…” I know what Teddy wants, he missed several days with his wife and Kate tells me he feels guilty about it. Add in we’re looking for the person who did this to her… he’s under a lot of stress.

  “Of course,” I say with a wave and a smile.

  “I’ve got homework to get to, now that I’m back in school.” Monica stands and stretches before heading for the door. “My parents want to have you over for dinner, and soon.”

  Once she’s gone it just leaves Kate and me.

  “Say it.” She’s had the I’m going to tell you something for your own good look on her face the whole day.

  “He left, you know.”

  “I own the building, of course, I know.” Luke left me a message saying he was going home and that it was too painful for him to be around me. She told me to talk to him before it was too late and I didn’t. Now he’s gone.

  “It’s not too late.”

  “I think it is. Besides, Kate, Behemoth, who we thought for sure was dead… is alive. You can’t know he’s not out there. Waiting for me to slip up. Waiting to…” I’m shaking. So bad I can’t even hold the cup of water I was drinking. I put it down before it falls and bury my head in my hands.

  “It’s okay, Amelia. It’s okay.”

  “Is it? Will it ever be again?” My voice is muffled from talking into my hands. “He took everything from me, Kate. And he still is. My parents, my life, now Luke. It hurts so much I want to scream but there’s nothing I can do about it and that makes it worse.”

  Normally, her presence is reassuring but it isn’t working. Her patting my back and telling me everything would be okay only works for so long. Slowly, without me even realizing it, I’ve put myself in prison. A prison of my own mind.

  And I never gave up hope that my parents were still alive. But I’ve given up hope that I’ll ever have them again. That’s when the tears start.

  My instinct is just to go in and blast the place up. Which I fully intend to do as soon as the Canadian government gives us the okay. This new age of heroes where we get to cross the border is exciting, but it also means waiting for bureaucrats to do a job they don’t want to do. It helps to have a little AI assistance, but time is still on their side.

  “Fleet, anything?” I ask. I’m up at ten thousand feet, clear of the air traffic control paths, with my most powerful camera focused on the building. The rest of the team, minus Teddy, is on the ground.

  “Negative. No movement.”

  “I saw a dude step out for a smoke a few minutes ago,” Tessa adds. “They’re in there.”

  The walls of the building are lined with thermal resistant paint and they clearly have a Faraday cage of some kind since Epic can’t find a wireless network to hook into. Despite its decrepit appearance, it’s hi-tech.

  “If Behemoth is in there… do we have a plan for dealing with her?” Kate asks. I do, but I don’t want to. She seemed somewhat reasonable the other day. Though, I don’t buy her story about being mind-controlled for a second. She’s the one who told me she wasn’t being controlled. What if I’m wrong? I growl in my helmet. Pythia. You can only win by not being you… now I can’t help but wonder what is me? Is stopping Behemoth me? Or letting her work with me, me? Do I even know?

  I sigh. Part of the problem is, I don’t. Not really.

  “Worse case, I can use my SDF-1 on her.”

  “The gun you used in Seattle?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think it will work?”

  Amelia, god you’re an idiot sometimes. “I… yes?”

  “I only ask because your sword is supposed to cut through anything…”

  I shake my head in wonder. I need people. Especially Kate. She has a way of looking at things I don’t. Can’t.

  “Well, worse case maybe you can try your whammy on her and we can calm her down.” She doesn’t respond but I do see her pop from one building to another. Everyone is wearing a thick coat and snow pants up here. Winter in Canada is frigging cold. If it weren’t for the fact that my armor can keep me alive in outer space, I’d be a meat popsicle right now.

  We are cleared to go. The Canadian superteam, Maple Leaf, is on the way. The government would like to remind us we have no law enforcement authority here and our jurisdiction is the one building.

  “Okay, people. We’re a go. Be ready.”

  I bank and roll, flying right toward the center of the roof. Stealth is good and all, but sometimes a point needs to be made. “Max shields.” The power level on the shields lights up a second before I slam into the roof at a hundred miles an hour.

  The wooden structure caves in an explosion of beams and splinters. My momentum carries me through all the top floors to slam against the concrete slab of the ground floor. Shields hold steady as I rise and ready my weapon systems.

  Now that we’re in the building ECM is going crazy. The dark interior lights up with the staccato roar of machine gun fire. Flashes of light paint the room in brilliant strobes of motion. Bullets freeze inches from impact, their kinetic energy stolen by my shields. The clink of brass hitting the concrete floor is echoed by the bullets themselves.

  Nine-millimeter rounds fired at twelve hundred feet per second.

  “Lowlight,” I order. The darkness recedes so I can see the room with just the light from the guns and the hole above me. Some kind of entryway with a reception desk and couches. Totally normal, except for the machine gun fire raining down from the hidden gun ports. Turrets?

  Four quick zaps with the kinetic lance leave the guns in shambles, their parts strewn about the room. “They have to know that won’t work on me?”

  No, but anyone else on the team could have succumbed.

  “True that. Everyone, hold back for a moment. They’re playing for keeps. Kate?”

  “Here.”

  “Make sure no one escapes the building.”

  She confirms while I search for the secret entrance. “Let’s use echolocation, I bet they’ve lived the walls for infra-red, but the materials they use will have a different vibration.”

  Sound pulse in three… two…

  The external speakers I use reconfigure to emit a ping, not unlike a submarine. Epic’s advanced algorithms trace the sound in three-dimensions. The sound echoes off of stone, wood, fabric, and metal in completely different ways.

  Enter the room to your left, and hold.

  I follow his instructions and as soon as I’m in the room another ping emits from the suit.

  There. Right wall, behind the painting of Admiral John Paul Jones.

  The caption says, ‘I have not yet begun to fight’. How fitting. “Is it an original?”

  No.

  “Good.” I reach for my sword, pulling the long black bade out of its kinetic sheath. I love this thing. “Tally ho,” I yell, bringing the blade down. It slices through the painting and the wall behind it. Three more strokes and the wall crumbles behind it, revealing an elevator shaft.

  “That’s a long way down.” Range-finding laser shoots down the hole as I look and end up leveling off at one-thousand feet.

  Do you want to bring in the rest of the team?

  I’d like to, but worry gnaws at me. Who knows what’s down there? Gas? More bullets?

  “Domino, the building is empty. I’ve found an elevator shaft that goes way down. Let the Canadians have the building when they get here and then you all retreat to the Emjet. Be ready. If I call, start teleporting everyone to me.”

  “Fantastic. Call the moment you need us, Amelia. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  “I know and I will. As soon as it’s safe.” Here goes nothing. I step out into the darkness. It’s funny how much falling is
n’t like flying. Not really funny. “Let’s see how far this rabbit hole goes.”

  Turns out, pretty darn far. The floor rushes up at a hundred and seventy-seven feet per second. Epic hits the Emdrive in time to slow us down enough. I only flex my knees a little when we hit. I feel the thud on my back. The sword makes short work of the elevator door, slashing apart in a shower of sparks. I slide it back into its sheath, freeing my hands to wrench the doors open.

  The base down here reminds me a lot of the one in Portland. Bright lights, bland paint on the walls and, of course, a half-dozen warbots pointing plasma cannons at me!

  I dodge back behind the shaft wall a half second before green balls of superheated gas vaporize the doors. The resulting explosion pelts me in fire and debris.

  “Epic, HE grenades, auto fire.” I know from experience they have a cycle rate to their plasma guns and if I time it right, I can take advantage of that.

  When the last ball explodes I leap across the much wider hole in an Emdrive assisted move. The puff-puff of my launcher signals a second before I slam into the far wall, still shielded by the shaft. Two far more conventional explosions rip through the hallway.

  “Particle beam. Safeties off!” I roll out, arm up, wrist down, firing as fast as I can trigger the beam. Blue silicate rips through the remaining warbots, cascading them in their own secondary explosions. When the dust clears, the hall is a scorched pile of parts.

  “Bring the active sensors to full, but don’t fry anyone with it.”

  Roger.

  We need a panel to access, some way to infiltrate their internal network. I mentally kick myself for not thinking of all this sooner. Matahal is an alien; he infiltrated Cat-7 and the Cabal. Of course, he would have a base off the books. The only question is when I find Behemoth, is she going to be with us? Or against us?

  “Do you think the new improvements to the superconductor will hold if we have to use the SDF-1 again?”

  I thought they would hold last time.

  “Good point. The whole ‘theoretical versus practical’ we keep running into.”

  Ideally, we would test it before implementing such a drastic change in the field.