The Prospects

by Daniel Halayko

  Alex handed out helmets with clear visors. “These aren’t psionic-resistant. I wish that was a standard feature, but the government says it’s too expensive to line every helmet with lead and magnets.”

  As they adjusted their helmets, Alex handed out pouches attached to thick bands. “These first aid kits go on your left thigh like a garter.”

  “I don’t know anything about first aid,” said Steve.

  “Whoever treats your wound will appreciate it if you bring your own bandages. Since you’re not real agents, you don’t get guns. If anything bad gets near you, use your superpowers.”

  “Wait,” said Kayleigh. “I don’t have superpowers.”

  Alex looked around. “You box, right?”

  “I cardio-kickbox.”

  “You slugged me hard enough.” Alex took a pair of heavy gloves with spiked knuckles from a basket. “These shock gloves, invented by our own Doctor Von Dyme, discharge five million volts upon contact. Activate them by slapping the buttons inside the wrist together. You have fifty punches with each hand.”

  Kayleigh slipped the gloves on and shadowboxed.

  “Last, boots and kneepads. Pick your size.” As they did this, Alex took an assault shotgun, a bandolier of shells, and an adjustable periscope.

  The four of them stepped out of the van.

  Kayleigh peeked at a car’s mirror. “I think I’m pulling this look off.”

  Steve said, “Agent O’Farrell, what’s my motivation?”

  “You want to save your friends, right?”

  “I mean, why do agents do what they do?”

  “Don’t pretend you’re an agent. Remember who you are and why you do it.”

  Alex looked at the picture of Emily and Calvin on his smartphone’s locked screen. That picture gave him a charge of courage in the past. Now it was a relic of his past life. His family was gone and he wasn’t’ a superhero. This mission was going to be his last.

  He waved to a dozen agents in full armor with weapons and stood on an ammo crate. “Team Echo, over here. First, roll call. Where are my weapons experts?”

  Five agents raised their hands.

  “Demolitions?”

  Two agents raised their hands.

  “Psychic defense?”

  Three agents in black-and-yellow helmets raised their hands.

  “Hostage negotiation?”

  The last two raised their hands.

  “Listen, agents, we have additional assistance. The short one is technically a metahuman reservist with the New York Guardians under the code name Gale Force. The other two aren’t trained or legally recognized, but they’re here to help the hostages after they’re rescued.

  “Here’s the situation. There is an underground entrance to Griffin Tower. I have no information if this passage is open or usable, which is why the demolitions experts will make it usable if it isn’t.

  “There are potential hostages inside. Two, Lady Amazing and Professor Photon, or Doctor Harry Von Dyme, are superheroes and may be holding their own. Three are Young Sentinels, and it may take negotiation to get these public targets out. Vijay Gupta, or Asura, is a hacker who’s useless without a weapon. The last is Mind Dame, who I believe has returned to villainy against her will. Our objective is to extricate all seven.”

  A weapons expert raised her hand. “What’s our margin of error?”

  “Zero. If we endure casualties or put the hostages at unnecessary risk, we fall back and declare the mission a failure.”

  A psychic combat expert raised his hand. “What about medics?”

  “I’m trained. I couldn’t get the bureau to spare anyone else.”

  That caused some grumbling.

  “Let’s move out,” said Alex.

  The MAB agents followed Alex to 42nd street. Once again, Alex felt naked without the exoskeleton he wore into battle for five years. He missed the whine of the servo joints, the heads-up-display relaying each agent’s name and specialization, and the weight from the concussion blaster on his wrist.

  Going back into action in the standard agent suit and armor with a shotgun felt like a demotion. He was no longer bulletproof, no longer had parabolic audio enhancements or low-light infrared vision. Instead of a superhero, he felt like the kind of person superheroes save.

  Someone shouted, “Hey, government guys, I’m looking for Agent O’Farrell.”

  Alex turned. “Deon?”

  The young hero formerly known as Goldstreak wore a loose white shirt and pants, running shoes, and two satchels overstuffed with alcohol swabs and packaged bandages.

  “What happened to your costume?” asked Jenny.

  “I couldn’t get the blood out. I felt stupid in that thing anyway.”

  “Why are you here?” asked Alex.

  “I talked it over with mom. Long story short, she said there are too many people running around this city hurting each other. Someone should start running around healing people.”

  “We’re on a rescue mission,” said Alex. “We need a medic.”

  “I’m in.”

  “Stay to the back.”

  Jenny added, “And try not to piss yourself.”

  Alex said, “Jenny, knock it off. He’s on our team.”

  “And he ran away.”

  Deon said, “Look, when Candilyn died …”

  “I’ve been there.” Alex put his hand on Deon’s shoulder. “We can’t save everyone.”

  A weapons experts said, “Agent O’Farrell, it is against regulations to bring non-MAB personnel on our missions.”

  “First, that agent speak really is annoying,” said Alex. “Second, given how much trouble I’m going to be in for the things the New York Guardians did behind my back, I’m already planning my resignation letter. This is my last mission, and I’m not getting rid of a guy who can treat wounds and brought his own supplies.”

  Team Echo followed Alex to an abandoned platform below the 42nd Street subway station.

  “This is the place,” said Alex. “There’s tracks in the dust and a hole in the east wall.” He picked up a brick with an “N” painted on it.

  “Steve, throw some light down here.”

  “You told me to stay in the back,” said Steve.

  “Act like a hero,” said Kayleigh.

  Steve grumbled and generated a swirling light. About ten feet down the tunnel was a thick steel slab.

  “Demolitions, can you take that out?”

  “Not without a lot of noise,” said one of the experts.

  “The tunnel might collapse,” said the other.

  Deon sniffed. “What’s that oven smell? You know, like hot metal.”

  Alex put his hand in the tunnel. “It’s warm in here. Steve, give me more light.”

  The heat got worse as Alex got closer to the steel slab. He spat on it. His saliva hissed and boiled.

  Alex turned and whispered. “Everyone back. Evacuate the platform above us. Put in a call for all available legally recognized superheroes. Have them gather outside the street-level exit.”

  “What’s going on?” a negotiation expert asked.

  “Someone’s coming out.”

  “How?”

  “Sunburn’s helio-cannon was in the research lab. It can generate enough heat to melt steel. Let’s fall back. If we do this right, we can take some of them out and not lose the element of surprise.”

  A few minutes later, the orange-hot slab of steel turned to liquid and spread across the ground.

  Captain Rust wiped sweat from his human head as his robot head scanned the tunnel.

  Two Iron Pirates stepped forward. Each sprayed a fire extinguisher on anything orange.

  Captain Rust’s iron feet clanged against the recently molten metal floor.

  From a periscope below the platform Alex watched six Iron Pirates follow their two-headed, four-legged, tentacled, obese cyborg leader to the stairs.

  He felt Jenny tremble at his side. He wanted to whisper something encouraging, but he knew many Iron Pirat
es gave themselves auditory enhancements.

  “The ninjas left this place a mess,” said an Iron Pirate with tank treads instead of legs.

  “Are they getting out?” asked another with black glass eyes.

  “Not our problem,” said Captain Rust as he dragged the Golden Gryphon battlesuit behind him.

  Alex waited until the last one was out of the tunnel and Captain Rust was up the stairs before he shouted, “Open fire!” He rolled out of his hiding spot and fired his shotgun.

  The air got cold as Jenny came out of concealment next to him. She sent a gust of wind away from the hole and towards the stairway. The glass-eyed cyborg in the rear dropped the helio-cannon and clambered up the steps. It took so much effort to keep his balance he couldn’t return fire as Alex shot his metal arm and leg.

  Upstairs, smoke and flash-bang grenades detonated left and right of the Iron Pirates. MAB agents opened fire from behind cover. A weapons expert shot the tank treads off one cyborg. Two others dropped to the ground and covered their heads.

  One cyborg with large mechanical legs sprinted to the exit. As it got near a pillar, a demolitions expert pressed his remote control. The explosion threw the Iron Pirate against the wall with enough force to embed its robotic shoulder into the tiles.

  Captain Rust and two others made it through the gauntlet of bullets. They tore through the exit stall and ran up the steps to the exit.

  Captain Rust stopped. He and his crew were surrounded by a dozen costumed superheroes with twice as many armored MAB agents behind them.

  In the middle of the superheroes, a purple-haired midget in a black-and-red-leotard slammed her glowing fist into her palm. “Time to kick some cans!”

  Back in the subway, Alex spoke into his smartphone. “Casualty report.”

  “A psychic defense agent took a stray shot to the leg,” said the communications specialist. “Your medic patched him up in seconds, but the agent can’t carry on. Sounds like a hell of a battle on the street.”

  “Let the capes-and-tights fight Captain Rust,” said Alex. “If they win, they’ll be famous. If they lose, the MAB will take him down. Arrest the surviving cyborgs down here.”

  Ten minutes later, the glass-eyed cyborg’s human arm was cuffed to the cyborg with broken treads. The one with mechanical legs had a white cloth over his face. No sounds of battle came from the entrance, only the cheers of local neighborhood superheroes congratulating each other for defeating Captain Rust.

  The team reassembled in front of the tunnel.

  “I’m taking point,” said Alex. “Special assistance, stay in the back with weapons experts. If we have to retreat, Jenny will slow the attackers down with wind. Steve, light.”

  Steve created a dim glow that gave the team enough light to see the rough spots on the floor made from recently melted metal. They advanced in a tight formation until the tunnel ended in an unoccupied room filled with barrels of water and crackers.

  From the next room they heard someone say, “I won’t ask again. I demand an answer.”

  A young man’s voice said, “Green.”

  A chorus of laughter. “That’s amazing! Let’s try again.”

  A few seconds later, “That was green too.”

  “I thought we tricked him that time.”

  Kayleigh made her way to the front and whispered in Alex’s ear, “That’s Ira, or Cantrip. He can tell M&Ms apart by their taste.”

  Alex had to think about that. “That is, literally, the lamest superpower ever.” He snuck to the doorway and used the periscope to peek around the corner.

  Several Shade Blades circled the tied-up and blind-folded Cantrip, who was still suspended from the ceiling. A ninja standing on a stepstool held out an orange M&M and popped it into the young magician’s mouth.

  “Orange,” said Cantrip.

  “He has to be peeking,” said one of the ninjas.

  Alex tilted the periscope. He saw the exoskeleton laid out on top of a barrel. He adjusted it. Many more Shade Blades were in the next room.

  He retracted the periscope and whispered a plan to the rest of the team.

  “Blue,” said Cantrip.

  “Ten for ten.” said one of the ninjas. “I can’t even do that with Skittles.”

  The flash-bang grenades caught the ninjas off-guard as the weapons experts rushed forward. Kayleigh and Steve ran to Cantrip. Alex ran to the exoskeleton.

  The weapons experts opened fire into the next room. A ninja drew long needles dashed towards an agent. The air got cold when Jenny created a vertical burst of wind that slammed the ninja against the ceiling.

  Steve grabbed Cantrip. “Are you okay?”

  “Give me a boost,” Cantrip said.

  As Steve lifted Cantrip the ninja who had M&Ms raised a curved sickle.

  Kayleigh stepped in and threw a right hook into his face and a straight punch into his stomach. Electricity arced through the gloves with each punch. The ninja collapsed.

  “Did you see that? I punched out a ninja!”

  A sword slashed across her helmet’s faceplate. She leaned back and kicked another ninja in the stomach. When he doubled over, she jabbed him twice in the jaw. The ten-million volt combination was more than enough to knock him out.

  “Two! I’m a badass!”

  As Cantrip’s hands slipped through the ropes that held him up, Alex ran to the Agent Exo exoskeleton. He remembered how good he felt inside the suit, with the boot jets that allowed him to jump over buildings, the joint engines that gave him the strength to lift small vehicles, and the armor that made him feel invincible. In that exoskeleton he was a recognized superhero on the world’s most famous teams.

  Then he remembered how the New York Guardians wanted him to die.

  Alex flipped the left wrist and entered a sequence of numbers into a hidden pad. The servos lit up.

  “Fall back,” Alex said. He fired his shotgun to give suppressing fire as Steve carried Cantrip back to the room with the barrels. Kayleigh walked backwards but kept up with him. Jenny and the MAB agents retreated as the ninjas from the other room came forward.

  Jenny created a chilling gust of wind. “There’s so many of them.”

  “They’re like cockroaches,” said Alex. “Always more than you see.”

  The exoskeleton’s blue lights turned yellow.

  “Let’s see how good the self-destruct system is,” he said.

  There was a pop and a puff of smoke. The exoskeleton fell to pieces.

  Alex said, “Well, that was disappoint-“

  Before he finished the exoskeleton’s pieces exploded in a series of dry bangs followed by pings from ricochets. Tiny chunks of smoking metal streaked through the room. Red marks appeared on the Shade Blades as the fragments cut them to pieces.

  When it was over, the Shade Blades were reduced to a bunch of black-clad bodies in various stages of mutilation.

  “Steve, Kayleigh, look away,” said Alex. “Deon, get started.”

  “But these scumbags killed Candilyn,” said Deon.

  “Think of this as practice, because if they die you won’t feel bad about it. Watch their hands, abandon any who try to stab you. I’ll help.”

  The loud roar of a power chainsaw echoed through the bunker. “Big Bad Roy is here to destroy!”

  “Agents,” Alex said, “tasers out.

  Big Bad Roy charged into the bunker. He was immediately hit with a dozen barbed needles from tasers. The berserker swung his power chainsaw at the cords and severed many of them.

  “Hey, stun gloves,” a weapons expert said, “a little help.”

  Kayleigh ran in as Big Bad Roy swung to the other side. She punched his thighs. His legs tensed and quivered and could no longer support his weight as he tried to turn back. From the second he hit the ground until Alex pulled her off she pounded his face.

  The weapons expert said, “Good job, honey.”

  Kayleigh thrust her fists in the air and whooped.

  Big Bad Roy’s tongue lolled out fro
m between busted lips. His huge muscular limbs twitched limply.

  Two weapons experts led Big Bad Roy back through the tunnel with instructions to tell the agents on the street to come down with more ammo. Kayleigh and Steve consoled Cantrip.

  Alex stood over the smoldering pile of blue and silver metal that was once his exoskeleton. The only recognizable piece was the top of the helmet. He picked it up, looked at both sides of it, and threw it away.

  He asked Kayleigh and Steve. “How is he?”

  “I’m fine,” said Cantrip. “When the gag slipped off, I told every joke I knew to keep them from putting it back on.”

  “Did anyone else come through here?”

  “They talked to a guy named Asura. He said Le Parrain cheated him, so he stole that guy’s money to buy the Agent Exo suit.”

  Alex nodded. He walked to the front of the room.

  “Great job so far, everyone. We rescued one hostage. There are five left.”

  “Five?” said a negotiator. “You said there were seven.”

  “Vijay isn’t a hostage, he’s on their side, which explains a lot. If you see a skinny kid in green and black, treat him as an enemy. Reload your guns and restock your first aid kits, because from this point on it only gets rougher.”

  As the team got ready to move, Alex noticed the psychic nullifier on the ground. He tucked its straps into his belt.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Weapons experts, get out your heavy gear and sniper rifles,” said Alex. “Jenny, make sure the wind goes their way. Demolitions, get everything you got ready. Negotiators and psychic defense, cover me. Special assistance, wait down here.”

  Everyone except Deon, Steve, and Kayleigh walked up the stairs. A weapons expert said, “Agent Exo beat the Bone Terror thing once. How?”

  “I fought until he passed out,” said Alex. “That took hours. We’re going to hit it with everything we got until it’s too broken down to fix itself for a while.”

  A weapons expert patted her rifle’s magazine. “Do we have enough ammo for that?”

  “No. Jim – I mean Mister Griffin – installed pop-up machine guns in the lobby that didn’t deploy during the initial invasion. I’ll go to the mainframe and try to get them operational.”