by Matt Carter
A loop of cable trails behind Dissident as she descends from the hole my head left in the ceiling. She barely pauses to stomp on Hedgehog’s other arm before swinging around Mayor Card in an acrobatically precise pattern while pulling the cable’s loose end to winch him up in the air by his feet, like a piñata.
I let off my energy buildup, blasting not only Bear Man but the floor beneath me, finally shattering it open. Bear Man is propelled straight upward, knocking Card into a spin with one flailing arm as he falls straight back down toward the hole I’ve left in the floor.
I put on a burst of lateral flight to avoid interfering with physics in action.
Bear Man grabs for the edges of the hole as he falls into the basement, succeeding only in widening it, dragging more floorboards down with him and making the few security personnel—who’ve finally caught up with the noise—jump back again to avoid following him.
Another few bullets bounce off of me where I’m hovering and Card yelps as one of the ricochets embeds itself in his shoe.
“Sergei! Tell your men to aim, or you’re done! You’re all done!”
Sergei watches Card spin around like a tire swing. He reloads his gun and raises it toward Dissident’s slightly less invulnerable armor.
She begins to swing the end of one of her bolas in a lazy circle, and I let my hands glow, ready to explode the gun in his hand if I have to.
Sergei looks between us, calculating his long odds and maybe the entire value of his career. He looks back up at Card, holsters the gun, and raises his walkie instead.
His instructions are relayed clearly through every other walkie in earshot.
“Vacate Card property. Our services are no longer required.”
Card struggles to reach the cable suspending him and only manages to make himself rotate faster. “Stay where you are!”
Several guards from outside the room trip over each other on the frequency to request clarification.
“I said we’re no longer contracting with the Card family,” Sergei repeats. “Lower the security field and leave the premises.”
The guards in the room glance at each other, holster, and run for the door before they can be called back. Sergei follows at a stroll.
Dissident and I do nothing to obstruct their exit.
“You do not have permission to leave!” Card rages from the ceiling. “I’ll see every one of you behind bars! Do you hear me, you cowards!?”
More clearly outnumbered than ever, Jacob forces a grin onto his mangled face and bolts down the hall in the opposite direction.
“One down,” I say, spraying a few sparks at Card to make him squirm as I land next to Dissident.
“He was already screwed for having the meeting in his house,” she says. “We need to round up the rest.”
“Where’s the file?”
“On a laptop. Erickson had it last.” She shows me her phone screen, displaying an aerial shot of the Card estate and a glowing dot marked at the south end. “I lost visual contact, but I got a tracker on him, and he hasn’t left the building. There’s a chance it’s still intact.”
We leave Card swinging from the ceiling and Hedgehog curled into a ball around his broken wrists. Bear Man continues to smash up the basement trying to climb his way back up. Dissident and I chase the glowing dot through the tacky labyrinth of the Card mansion, splitting up and rejoining whenever the corridors break into parallel rooms, to up our chances of catching a hint of Milgram on our way.
If we can’t get our hands on the Julian file, we have to at least make sure Milgram doesn’t get away, and that the others are caught red-handed meeting with him behind closed doors.
At one point, I barge in on Ace trying to work the door of a one-person panic room but unable to raise his immobilized arms high enough.
I set one leg of his designer pants on fire, but I don’t have time to stop and watch how compatible those casts are with the stop, drop, and roll maneuver.
A few of Milgram’s thugs, both super and not, take shots at Dissident and me as we pass, but they’re scattered, panicked, not forming a trail to their boss’s whereabouts.
“Back. The fuck. Off!”
We stop to listen to the distant shouting and look at each other, or rather, I look at her opaque faceplate and imagine that she’s looking through it back at me.
I check the screen in her hand.
“Get the file. We’ll meet you in the south wing.”
With a small nod, she rushes on, and I take a left toward the pool, Eddie’s voice, and the sound of something shattering.
The Cards’ indoor pool is shaped like a spade, with a Jacuzzi as its little triangular handle. Normally, the room has the unpleasant, chemical humidity of a gym.
Now it’s like walking into an industrial freezer.
Eddie’s standing at the edge of the Jacuzzi, which is frozen solid, ice crystals clinging to his hair and clothes, trying to fire his future gun across the pool at my mom. He’s shivering too hard to aim straight, and she’s pacing like a stalking cat, covering both sides of the pool against his escape.
“Back off!” he shouts again, defiant.
With a sweep of her hand, the edge of the pool rises in a wave toward him, sharpening into jagged icicles on its way. He hits it in its path with the gun, scattering ice across the jeweled tiles and back into the liquid part of the pool.
“Stop it!” I yell, flying out over the water between them and turning toward my mother.
I knew she was going to be here. I knew it, but it still feels wrong.
No one should have to walk in on their mom and their … whatever Eddie is to me, trying to kill each other.
“Kimberly, call off your friends and plant your feet right here,” Mom says, pointing to the ground next to her. “And I’ll go with you when you apologize to your uncle and our colleagues.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, though I no longer expect her to listen to me any more than she appears to expect the same of me.
She sends a wave of ice from the pool in my direction, but I’m ready this time to answer it with proportionate heat, melting it back down and then turning my flow of fiery sparkles toward the Jacuzzi, melting it as well and trying to bring up the ambient heat around Eddie.
“The day you saw me dancing with Quentin, were you already planning to kill him for his research?” I scream across the pool. “Or did you just not care when Uncle Ethan told you? Did he even tell you before it was done?”
“I honestly had no idea how important he was to you,” she shouts back.
“So if I’d never met him, that’d make it okay?”
Eddie fires at her again, and this time he’s on the mark—or he would be, if not for the ice wall she pulls up between them to take the blast for her.
“I hope you’re happy!” she snaps at him. “You’ve utterly poisoned my daughter against me. Mission accomplished!”
“I didn’t do shit!” he spits back through chattering teeth.
The pool water rises nearly to the ceiling at her direction, ready to crash down on Eddie’s head and freeze there.
“Mom, stop!”
“Say goodbye, Kimberly.”
I drop down onto the tiles beside her, reach out with both hands and shove her into the water.
“Goodbye, Mom,” I mutter to myself, as I direct my full power into the pool after her in a stream of purple fire.
The column of water crashes back down into the pool. The outline of my mother under the surface is highlighted with spreading ice crystals as she tries to direct the water to push her upward, to form a solid floor beneath her.
The half of the pool on the other side of my jet of fire heats up until it steams, simmers, then boils.
Eddie starts coughing from the chlorine in the air and circles around behind me, trying to absorb the heat from a safe distance.
The crystals keep forming around her, but I’m winning.
Her side of the pool turns from ice to slush to water, u
ntil the boil rolls over it, and she surfaces, gasping and hacking, her skin blistering a brilliant red.
I reach in, grab her by the back of her suit jacket, and drag her out onto the edge.
She curls up, wheezing, running her hands over herself, barely able to generate enough ice to form a layer over her burns.
“Don’t look for me,” I tell her.
Between his own coughs and shudders, Eddie looks uncertain whether he should offer thanks, condolences, or congratulations.
I don’t know, so I’m glad he settles on an all-purpose nod, and silence.
I turn and offer him my back, more to impart warmth than to speed our transportation, and he wraps his still icy limbs around me.
“Dissident,” he starts.
“I know. We’ll catch up.”
CHAPTER 23: THE DETECTIVE
For a brief, shining moment after Card’s personal security forces decided to bail, I had this glimmer of hope that things might not be that difficult after all. A lot of guns were taken off the table, and with both Card and Kline’s mom incapacitated, how bad could the rest of this fight be, really?
Stupid question.
Stupid, stupid question.
There may be fewer goons with guns, but there sure as hell aren’t fewer corrupt superheroes and Milgram henchmen. If anything, they fight even harder than before.
And yet, while we may not be the best match for them, we’re doing a better job than I ever would’ve expected.
Watching Dissident and Kline fight, two heroes in their prime, is something to behold. Dissident’s years of training in gymnastics and mixed martial arts make her brutally efficient, incapacitating Milgram’s men with quick, violent strikes—and gadgets when those quick, violent strikes aren’t enough. I’m so used to watching her fight in the dark and grime of Pinnacle City’s streets that it’s disorienting to watch her do battle in the gaudy, bright lights of Card’s mansion.
Kline probably hasn’t had the same kind of training, but she’s studied enough Cape Fu to look confident despite being a flying brick compared to Dissident. She uses her superhuman strength to utterly annihilate Milgram’s sturdier thugs, while her speed and durability come in handy on those occasions when she dives in front of a shot to save Dissident or me. She’s strong enough, fast enough, and powerful enough to take on several of the Guardians at once without even messing up her hair.
Compared to these two, I’m barely an amateur.
A big gun, a baseball bat, and a near-indestructible trench coat at least make me an amateur capable of bringing the pain.
I keep a heavy trigger finger on the Flesheater, as much to keep henchmen down as to tear this gaudy monstrosity of a mansion to the ground.
The only time this fails me is with a particularly large, bald henchman, completely covered in tattoos. I unleash the Flesheater on him, expecting a steaming henchman puddle, and am surprised when he just stands his ground, a large hole in his jacket the only sign anything happened. He slowly walks toward me as I unload several hundred laser shots to his stomach, chest, head, and even groin when I get really desperate.
Nothing works.
When he gets close enough to strike, I dodge out of the way. He laughs. I whip Harriet out of my jacket and crack him across the jaw with it.
He doesn’t flinch.
“Foolish man. I absorb all energy, even kinetic, and gain nothing but strength from it. Go ahead, hit me. Shoot me. But it will only make me stronger.”
“Thanks for the tip. DISSIDENT!”
“YEAH?” she calls from across the room.
“TRANQ DART!” I yell, dodging beneath another of this giant’s clumsy attacks.
“IS IT REALLY NECESSARY? I’VE ONLY GOT TWO LEFT AND AM RATHER BUSY!”
The giant smashes a hole in the floor with one of his fists, tearing out a massive slab of concrete like a boxing glove.
“PRETTY FUCKING NECESSARY!”
I don’t see her throw the dart, but I do see the giant grab his neck, confused for a moment, before falling down face-first onto the floor with a roaring crash.
“Thanks!” I call to Dissident, before shooting a volley at the group of henchmen she was fighting. I take two down, probably for good, and scatter the others enough to give her some breathing room.
“No problem!” she calls back.
A hole explodes in the wall next to me as Kline crashes through, followed quickly by Demigod, who looks to be the one who threw her through it.
“Would you?” Kline asks from the ground.
“With pleasure,” I say, aiming the Flesheater at Demigod.
His eyes go wide, and I take more than a little pleasure when I find out how high he screams. The Flesheater doesn’t finish him, but I’ve made him think twice about sticking around.
I reach down to help Kline up, but before I can, she’s on her feet, catching a marble pillar Strongwoman’s swinging like a club before it can turn me to jelly.
“Thanks,” I say as I duck away from the pillar.
“Don’t, mention, it,” she says through gritted teeth. “But, if you want to, return the, favor …”
“I’ll get out of the way and let you wail on Strongwoman?”
“That would, be, lovely!” she grunts, forcing the pillar back into Strongwoman.
I take this as my cue to exit. And keep shooting. And …
And …
And there she is. On a curving staircase leading upstairs. She means to look like any one of Milgram’s generic, well-dressed goons, but she’s far too nimble in climbing the ruined staircase. I’d know that body movement anywhere.
Bystander.
I run for the staircase, not fully sure what my endgame is. She appeared in such a place and in such a way that she had to know she’d get my attention and that I’d undoubtedly chase her, which means this is almost certainly a trap.
I go anyway.
Part of me wants to believe I can still get her out of this. She’s a killer, and I can’t stand by what she believes in, but I know that somewhere in there is the woman I fell in love with. I can’t change who she is, but maybe I can get her to ditch Milgram before she gets killed.
It’s a long shot, but I have to do this.
She’s fast, darting from room to room upstairs, and I’m barely able to keep her in sight, but every time I think I’m about to lose her, she slows down, slightly. This further backs up my trap theory, but for a while I indulge her because I don’t have a better plan in mind.
Then, when one comes, I stop.
The hallway is quiet for a moment, until I see her, not some face she’s assumed, but Bystander herself, edge out and look at me.
“I know what you’re doing, and I’m done playing your game!” I call out.
She says nothing. She doesn’t move.
“I don’t forgive you for what you did. I can’t. I won’t. You killed a lot of good people. But what I said, I’m still willing to do it. Back out now, ditch Milgram, and I’ll go with you anywhere. We can start over. We don’t have to be these people anymore.”
She doesn’t move from the doorway.
To show her how serious I am, I drop the Flesheater and hold my hands above my head.
“I’ve taken the first step. Now it’s your turn.”
“Touching,” the voice says from behind me.
I shouldn’t have dropped my gun, but maybe if—
I dart for the Flesheater.
Milgram doesn’t need to dart.
All he needs to do is say the word.
“STOP!”
And like that, I’m falling.
Falling into an infinite black void of my mind, the real world now so far away yet so close, out of reach yet still in sight.
I’ve heard what Milgram can do, but experiencing a full dose of his power is another story.
Damn chlorine, must’ve fucked up my earpiece.
I am a statue in the dark, motionless and numb. Whatever part of me wanted to go for the weapon has long
-since disappeared. Now I’m just here, waiting to be told by a greater power than myself what to do next. Milgram and Bystander loom above me, determining my fate with the uncaring gaze of ancient gods.
I am a statue being dragged into a nearby bedroom for further torment. In a faraway place his voice taunts me, telling me of his vast superiority and how I was a fool for thinking I could ever stand up against his might. It’s the same old bullshit supervillains have been telling heroes for generations, so I ignore it. He can’t tell me anything new—not anything that’ll help me, and despite all his speechifying he’s just a thug with delusions of grandeur.
Padre Peligro with more funding.
Bystander, for her part, looks impatient. She tells Milgram to hurry this along, but her voice says even more.
She doesn’t want me dead quickly so I’ll be dead, but just so this’ll be over.
There’s something more in play, too, that neither of them knows. Something that keeps me from completely being in the dark.
The pain.
The pill I took before our encounter began has kicked in, and the pain is no more than a dull throb, but it’s still there, anchoring me to the real world. The anchor is weak, barely held on by a thread, but if I tug on it in just the right way, I can use it to bring me back to reality.
So, while Milgram and Bystander debate between guns, knives, and other horrible ways to end me, I reach out. I try to find something, anything in my body that I can still control. I have a little strength everywhere, and can move slightly, but no more than just sway a little. Having frozen mid-step, my balance is off. With a little effort, I can sway more, first to one side, then the other.
They’re getting impatient. Bystander’s not listening to Milgram and pulls a large knife from her suit.
I rock to the side with all the limited might I can muster, overbalance, and then I’m falling for real.
I land on my left arm, hard.
And the pain. The sweet, beautiful pain. It’s there, exploding outward from my arm and wrapping around me like a comforting blanket of fire and broken glass. I scream so loud they can probably hear me in Amber City.
