His words broke off. “Shit,” one of the other Cybermen reported. “She just went straight through him!”
“Blow her away,” a third snapped. The sound of firing grew louder. “Sir, she just ran into the building!”
The lights around them dimmed as they reached the first floor. They blew away a pair of mutant soldiers who had been running towards the sound of the guns.
Hope should have trained them better, Jackson thought. He picked off a mutant that was trying to retreat. They didn't know that running towards the loudest noise wasn't the brightest idea in military history.
A moment later, a brilliant flash of light seemed to run through the ceiling. It manifested into the form of a glowing woman, with rage in her eyes. The briefing had warned that she was a grownup version of Sparky from the Young Stars, with enough oomph to draw electric power from the Cybermen and turn it into a weapon. At least the Cybermen had been rigged to make it difficult for her to draw power from all of them at once.
“Lightning,” Ron barked. In her energy form, most of their weapons simply wouldn't touch her at all. “Return to human form and get down on the floor, now!”
Lightning lifted a hand and fired a burst of light towards him, forcing him to stagger backwards as the lightning crackled over his chest.
Jackson ducked as a second blast of lightning went over his head, and dived for the fire extinguisher he’d seen hidden away in a corner. He'd often cursed the health and safety bureaucrats, particularly when they insisted on new safety regulations during exercises, but for once he blessed them. Chris went flying backwards as she hit him, just before Jackson brought the fire extinguisher up and sprayed her with water.
Lightning’s form blazed with blinding white light as she shorted out, returned to human form, and crashed to the ground. Without the lightning protecting her, she was a remarkably young girl; Jackson pushed the thought aside as he injected her with a capture drug and cuffed her arms and legs. As an afterthought, he dumped her in the nearest office after finding something that could serve as a gag.
“I feel like someone hit me with a brick,” Chris growled, as he staggered to his feet. “Damn lucky that the fucking grenades didn't detonate when she hit me.”
“You probably used your last piece of luck there,” Ron agreed. He’d torn away the front of his webbing, along with the body armour that was supposed to protect his chest. What remained of the armour was a molten, useless mess. He started to report in as they resumed their path towards the Oval Office. “We just stunned Lightning. No other contacts; I say again, no other contacts.”
“Communications with Tracker report that Triple A and Warrior Girl are both down,” Polly reported. She was pulling double-duty as coordinator and tech expert, although they assumed that Mainframe would force his way into their system and eventually shut it down. At that point, they’d be reduced to a handful of individual teams fighting their own little wars. “Hope and Fireman have vanished into the distance.”
Jackson winced. Both Level 5 superhumans were capable of hypersonic flight; they could be anywhere on Earth by now, fighting it out for supremacy. Someone would probably be able to track it on earthquake monitoring systems, assuming that the global network was still active. The SDI had controlled it from New York, but the SDI had been effectively destroyed. There was no way to know who had emerged the winner until the winner arrived in Washington.
“Keep tracking anything that flies through the skies,” Lane ordered. “Gamma Team?”
“We have multiple mutants and flyers heading for the White House,” David confirmed. The snipers had assumed their positions around the building by now, ready to provide covering fire for the assault force. “We are engaging with lethal force.”
Ron held up a hand as they reached a sealed door. According to their HUDs, there was a secure office just prior to the Oval Office, one that normally belonged to the President’s private secretary. The security systems were still defeating the best efforts of Layla to hack into them, even though Team Two had managed to link a modified router into the system, so there was no way to know what awaited them. Ron crept forward, attached an explosive charge to the door, and jumped back. The rest of them took cover. The shaped charge detonated, blowing the door off its hinges and sending debris into the room.
A moment later, a hail of blue blasts of light blew out of the room, attempting to track and kill the assault team.
“We have a visual on Mainframe,” Jackson said, as the cyborg superhuman came into view. Unlike the Cybermen, Mainframe’s talents allowed him to link directly into his armoured suit, creating a nightmare right out of science-fiction. His suit looked like a mutated cross between a metal octopus and one of the egg-shaped bad guy’s machines from Sonic the Hedgehog. The thought made him smile just before metal tentacles lashed out, one latching onto Chris’s leg and pulling him out of cover. “He’s armoured and ready for trouble.”
Chris unhooked a grenade from his belt and threw it at Mainframe, who batted it away without concern. There was a flash as the grenade detonated under the nearby desk, shattering a work of art almost as old as the White House, but Mainframe was not seriously affected. A second tentacle grabbed Chris’s leg as Jackson and Ron held their fire, unable to shoot without risking Chris’s life. The issue nearly became moot an instant later as Mainframe lifted Chris up, almost tearing him in half. He screamed in pain ...
“I control the vertical, I control the horizontal,” Mainframe said. “I control this entire building; I control the security systems that were designed to protect the President of the United States. And your attempts to hack the system or insert a virus into my mind are futile. I designed the living software used to run this building. Do you think it has any terrors for me?”
Jackson pushed his rage aside, thinking hard. The reports they’d pulled out of Washington had been vague, but none had reported the security systems actually engaging the oncoming superhumans. Rumour had it that Mainframe’s alter ego was a highly-successful computer genius with a string of patents to his name. If one of them had been used to help protect the President, no wonder the system had collapsed so quickly.
“Your assault on this building has less than a ten percent chance of success,” Mainframe continued. “I am already coordinating the oncoming superhumans with the armed drones I recovered from the nearby USAF base. Your snipers will be removed by Hellfire missiles fired from the drones, followed by your armoured suits. I am everywhere in the system.”
“Yeah, right,” Chris said, as he reached for his belt. “I think you talk too much.”
“No,” Ron shouted, too late. “Don’t...”
Chris detonated all the grenades in his belt at once, blowing his body to pieces and knocking Mainframe back on his heels. The blast shook Jackson badly, even hiding behind a piece of debris from Hope’s first attack on the White House, but he managed to pull himself to his feet and sprint into the office. Mainframe’s suit had been cracked by the blast; inside, Jackson saw a face intermeshed with metal tendrils leading into the brain. The sight was sickening as the face turned to look at him, almost unrecognisable under the damage inflicted by Chris’s sacrifice. But he could place the face.
“Ian Micah,” he said, in surprise. The rumours hadn't been too far wrong after all. Ian Micah was a wealthy philanthropist who had a reputation for charity work, including opening several foundations that had been intimately involved in helping the Congo, once Hope had removed the warlords. There had been no suggestion that Micah had been a superhuman, but if he operated largely outside the country—no one knew for sure where Mainframe had been born—there wouldn't have been any demand to make him register. “Why...?”
The tendrils seemed to come to life, repairing the suit with astonishing speed. Jackson didn't hesitate; he fired two shots right into Micah’s head, using heavy penetrators.
Micah’s head shattered, leaving nothing but bloody remains. His suit emitted a sound that was alarmingly like a cry of pain b
efore it collapsed. Micah’s powers must have pervaded the suit, and without them, the suit couldn't function.
“Mainframe is down,” he said, keying his earpiece. There would be time to mourn the dead later. “I say again, Mainframe is down.”
“Good work,” Ron said, coming up behind him. A piece of debris had sliced into his chest, leaving blood trickling down his uniform. Jackson cursed his own blindness; he hadn't even realised that Ron hadn't been following him until after Mainframe had died. “And now...”
He nodded towards the Oval Office. The bright Washington sunlight burn through the windows, casting eerie shadows as the two soldiers advanced, ready to charge through the open door into the room. Ron held up a hand, signalling that they’d move on three...
“You may as well come in, gentlemen,” a voice called from inside. Jackson felt the mind static suddenly grow stronger, just for a second. “There’s nothing to stop you.”
Jackson motioned for Ron to cover him before he stepped into the Oval Office. A woman was sitting behind the President’s desk, a woman so small and slight it seemed unbelievable that she could pose any threat to him. At first sight, she seemed oriental, perhaps Japanese or Chinese, but her skin was a light green colour and her eyes a bright yellow. The air around her seemed to be shimmering faintly, as if there was a heat haze in the room.
“I am the Redeemer,” she said, quietly. There was something about her that reminded Jackson of Dreamy Girl, but where Dreamy Girl had been driven by her powers to feast on human energy, the Redeemer seemed much more calculating. “I understand that you have come to kill me?”
Jackson’s surprise must have shown on his face, because she smiled. “One of your friends down there got into a brawl with a mutant, who tore off the device protecting him from my probes,” she explained. “I know everything about you and your team.”
“And yet you can't touch us,” Ron said. He lifted his rifle and fired; Jackson followed a second later. The shots ran into the haze and simply stopped. Even the explosive rounds failed to penetrate her shield. “What...?”
“It would have been foolish of me to wait here for you without protection,” the Redeemer said, dryly. She was laughing at them behind her eyes. “I may not be able to touch your mind, but I can still use telekinetic power to hold your shots at bay.”
Jackson studied her for a long moment. Physically, she was almost nothing, but he had a feeling that she could simply use her powers to rip their brains apart if they made a threatening move. Or she could collapse the floor below their feet, or bring down the ceiling on their heads. He remembered the CS gas and started to reach for the grenade before stopping himself. It was possible that something would happen to distract her...
“Why?” Ron asked. “It’s pretty clear that you manipulated everyone involved in this...affair. Hope, his fellow Saviours...maybe even the first people who opposed you. Why?”
The Redeemer smiled. “Why not?”
Their earpieces buzzed before Ron could say another word. “Incoming,” someone screamed. “Incoming!”
The Redeemer looked up, surprised. “But...no!”
A moment later, the entire White House shook so violently that it almost collapsed.
Chapter Forty-Four
The White House was under attack from within—and without.
Hope noticed that the attackers had taken up position around and near the White House, some firing at his people as they tried to retake the building, others clearly trying to get out of the line of fire. A handful were even wearing suits like Mainframe’s, with enough firepower to even the odds against some lower-level superhumans. Hope ignored them, even as a handful of missiles were fired in his direction, and crashed into the White House. The Redeemer was sitting in the Oval Office, staring at a pair of soldiers.
He stared at her as he came to a halt, feeling the building shaking around him. She looked as beautiful and innocent as ever, but how much of that was her manipulating his mind? How much of what he’d done had been her idea? His mind kept going over it time and time again; he was sure that he’d had the idea for the Saviours before he met her, but what if she’d planted the idea in his mind long before they’d ever formally met? Telepaths were far from all-powerful, yet she’d practically told him herself how easy it was to slip an idea into a person’s mind. What if she’d done it to him right from the start?
Fireman had thought that he’d been doing the wrong thing—and had carefully planned their encounter so that they’d fight without The Redeemer’s interference. Hope saw it all now; they’d been outthought by their enemies, by one of the most experienced superhumans in the world. Five of the core group of Saviours were dead or captured; one more was in a questionable position...even though Hope was still alive and free, his dream of a better world might have come to an end. How could he save his dream when he no longer knew if it was his dream?
“Hope,” the Redeemer said. Her voice was as soft and seductive as ever, but there was something about it that rang wrong to Hope now. Fireman had said that she’d killed Mimic and the other superhuman had clearly believed his every word; it wasn't easy to lie to a Level 5 superhuman. Hope had embraced honesty because he knew that a lie would be detected sooner rather than later, even if it did surprise the media. “These two would like to kill me...”
Hope felt his temper snap. “You killed Mimic,” he snapped. Ever since he had sparked, he had forced himself to keep his powers under rigid control; now, he felt his control fray for the first time since his panic had pushed him into superhumanity. “And you lied to me!”
He should have been able to detect a lie. In hindsight, the story he’d been told was a tissue of lies. Mimic would never have simply walked away from the Saviours, not someone with such a powerful sense of right and wrong. He would have gone to the United States and warned the SDI, putting the world’s best-trained fighting team up against the Saviours when they invaded Washington. Instead, the SDI had been caught by surprise and wiped out. And yet he had believed every word he’d been told.
“I did what was necessary,” the Redeemer said, unflinchingly. Hope admired her calm...but was that another sign of telepathic tampering? His mind kept spinning, trying to separate out his thoughts from the ones she’d put into his head. “I kept your dream alive.”
“By killing one of my friends?”
“By removing someone who would have stood in your way,” the Redeemer said, calmly. “I knew that you had to save the world, so I merely ensured that your path to...world power would be clear.”
Hope refused to look into her eyes. “And you pushed me into becoming more and more extreme,” he said. It had been the Redeemer who had urged him forward, time and time again. But how much of what he’d heard in the Congo had been real? Had she made the girl’s family kill her to give him another reason to meddle? “Why? How much of the decision to invade Washington was mine?”
“It had to be taken,” the Redeemer said. “Did you think that the world would leave you alone? You thought that you could save the world piece by piece, but those who drag the human race down would have found other ways to hurt and kill you. I had to push you forward for your own good.”
Hope’s voice became a howl. “Why?”
“Because the human race needs you,” the Redeemer said. “Look at the world, Hope; look at it! Everywhere, right across the globe, people are trapped in hells made by their leaders. Their lives are reshaped and destroyed by those with the power to influence them. They spend more time admiring celebrities than they do building a better world. Everyone is so damn banal because their leaders keep them that way—and their leaders are no better. Each nation competes with other nations and wastes resources in that competition that could be used to improve the human condition.
“Everyone is told, time and time again, that they are special, that they have rights and entitlements that set them against everyone else. In the homes of religion, they are told that they follow the one true path and everyone else i
s a shameless infidel, so lost to God that they wilfully refuse to follow the one true path. And then they are told that women are always subordinate to men, or that dying in a holy war grants one immediate access to heaven—and none of them see that their enemies are just like them. Or that mutants are still human, even if they look like animals. Or that superhumans, for all their powers, are still very human!
“Even when they try to help the less fortunate, they screw it up because they don’t see the less fortunate as human! You saw the debris left behind by the international aid workers in the Congo and the rest of Africa; you know it happened because someone in power didn't really bother to think that the Africans were human. They got the help the outsiders thought they needed, not what they actually needed. Every single human being is trapped inside their own skull, a misshapen entity warped and twisted because it can no longer relax and trust anyone. They tear themselves apart over issues that are actually of no concern to them.
“They need you, Hope. They need someone who they can trust to reshape their world for them. You have the vision and the power to create a better world. I just pushed you in that direction. And I killed Mimic because he would have betrayed you, just like Judas...”
Team Omega Page 43
