06 - Vengeful

by Robert J. Crane

  I tucked Phillips under my other arm on the fly and burst out the newly shattered windows, corkscrewing away from headquarters in a mad flight path to get them clear of any building collapses. I dropped them with the others, and Phillips shouted at me. I caught it as I zoomed back toward headquarters. “The guards on the first floor!”

  I got the meaning. There were guards in the prison, sure, but it was hardened against meta attack. Those people would be safe; I knew because I’d seen the blueprints. It’d take more than an earthquake to break down those walls. There was an alternate emergency exit that could only be opened from inside the prison, so they’d be able to get out, but the guards in the first floor, the checkrooms where we entered the prison—that was about to get buried under the rubble of HQ.

  I swept into the lobby and shot past the two guards that were shaking at the entry to the prison room. “Get out!” I screamed as I went past, hoping they’d just flee the damned building on their own power. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope, though.

  I burst into the entry room, prioritizing these guards over the ones who could conceivably make it clear of the lobby on their own power before it all came down around them. Rogers blinked at me in surprise as I came crashing in, and he blinked again as I grabbed him under my arm like a puppy. I scooped up the other guy and went flying out, passing the other two laggers halfway across the lobby.

  I made it just outside the portico before I dropped Rogers and the spare, and turned on a dime, reversing back toward the last two guards above ground. Wind from my momentum whipped my hair. I could hear their screams, I could hear the fourth floor collapsing, and I knew it was going to be a game of seconds.

  I shot into the lobby, asking Wolfe for all he had to try and save me from falling debris. The ceiling was coming down, there was no stopping that now, and I grabbed the two guards as they were trying to jump the defunct security barricade. I hauled them out and came damned close to going supersonic. I tore out from underneath the portico and dropped them on the lawn, falling to my knees as I looked over my shoulder at headquarters, waiting for the inevitable.

  HQ had seemingly frozen in its collapse; the fourth floor had fallen, but the rest of the structure was holding, even though it was shaking like a drunk’s hand. I watched it for a second, wondering why it wasn’t collapsing before the answer came to me: Augustus.

  Zollers must have told him I was out, because suddenly it just split at the seams like someone had sliced the corners right out. The buildings broke apart, collapsing in every direction and dusting me with a wave of brown cloud so thick I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do much more than hold up my hands and hope most of it didn’t hit my pretty face. I blocked the guards with my body as best I could, and waited for the destruction to pass.

  38.

  Ma

  She heard the buildings fall in the distance, saw the dust clouds over the boughs, heard the thunder past the trees, and her smile only broadened. She squeezed Simmons’s shoulder, and he sagged, ready to collapse, his pitiful little endurance all drained out. “Well,” she said through her grin, “I reckon that ought to just about do it.”

  39.

  Sienna

  I looked across the wreckage of headquarters and over to the dormitory building, the debris that marked the destruction of the place I called home, and I felt a strange calm curtain off the rage that should have been bursting out of my head.

  I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was rage. It was present. But it wasn’t an all-consuming sort of anger, just a background feeling somewhere behind the dejection that settled in like the quiet that followed the collapse of HQ.

  “Everyone get out okay?” I asked. The guards that were on the ground around me muttered. I wasn’t talking to them anyway.

  “Yes,” Dr. Zollers called, hustling over to me at the back of a whole pack of people. Dog let out a bark as I counted everyone who had been in my quarters for the little meeting, safe and sound, covered in dust and powder, as well as Phillips and his black-clad buddy, who looked like he’d had some serious steroid problems since last we met. He was a Hercules, I realized, and I don’t mean the Greek hero. “Everyone made it out okay except for the ones down in the prison tunnel. But they’re safe, just trapped for the moment.”

  “Great,” I said, coming to my feet, brushing some of the dust off my arms. Phillips looked winded, trailing a little behind everyone else. He didn’t have the build of a runner.

  “What the hell was that?” Phillips asked, gasping a little as he put his hands on his knees and bent nearly double.

  “That,” I said, “was Eric Simmons and the Clary family making a hostile visit to the edge of our campus, if I’m not much mistaken.”

  “How do you know it was the edge?” Augustus asked. “How do you know they didn’t just roll up in here and drop their thing down? Because this?” He swept a hand around. “That’s a big mess. I didn’t see this Simmons dude drop any buildings when y’all were in New York.”

  “Because I jacked him in the jaw and knocked him out,” Reed said. Man, he looked weird like this, all baldy all over. “He did derail a train before I got to him, though.”

  “Well, he just destroyed government property,” Phillips said, pulling himself upright.

  “Since he already broke out of a federal prison facility earlier this year that has pretty much nothing but life sentences,” Augustus quipped, “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that does not exactly trip the man’s worry switch.”

  J.J. raised his hand, drawing everyone’s attention. “What’s a worry switch?”

  “J.J.,” I said warningly, tilting my head to indicate the destruction.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, taking it all in. “This just keeps happening, doesn’t it? Like the place is cursed or something. How many times is this, now?”

  “Counting the one where she blew it up?” Ariadne asked, not looking like she’d suffered for the run. “Three, I guess.”

  “I only partially—” I stopped mid-defense. “Whatever. If Simmons did this, he had to have been nearby.”

  “Oh, yes,” J.J. said, again drawing attention to himself. His computer with the alien face was still clutched under his arm, and he sat down and crossed his legs in front of him while opening it up. It glowed softly on his face in the bright light of day, which made me wonder how many kilowatt hours he had pumping through that thing under normal conditions. “Okay, coming online now …”

  “What are you doing?” Phillips sashayed his way to stand behind J.J., arms crossed and face inscrutable as he squinted at the screen. “Do you still have Wi-Fi connection?”

  “Hahah, no,” J.J. said, all fake mirth. “I’m on the nearest tower. 4G, baby. Give me a sec.”

  “While you’re doing that,” I muttered and flew off toward the dormitory. I soared over the green lawns, wind biting my face.

  We must kill for this transgression, Little Doll, Wolfe breathed in my ear. They need to die.

  Might I suggest a pleasant explosion? Gavrikov offered.

  Cloud their minds, burn their bodies, Bjorn said. Leave no trace.

  Bind them, kill them, Eve said.

  Please don’t turn into a giant dragon unless you have to, Bastian said. It’s so embarrassing.

  “I’m not gonna kill ’em,” I said as I came to the rather obvious remains of my quarters, the roof all fallen down on the wreckage of the fourth floor. “I’m just gonna make ’em wish they were dead.” I paused. “Unless they get too far out of line, too dangerous. Then I might actually have to make them dead.”

  Don’t be a fool—

  Dumb—

  Bad strategy—

  Why would you think they aren’t dangerous—

  Do what you need to, Zack said, drowning them all out for me. Whatever it takes to get the job done and maintain your humanity.

  “Roger wilco,” I said, pulling the biggest segment off the roof off where my bedroom used to be. What was with all this roof moving
? Twice in two days; had to be some sort of personal record.

  When I lifted it up and tossed it, I ignored the shattering sound it made as it landed, focusing instead on the sight of my bed, broken but still there. I saw a glimmer of light as sunlight hit the shiny metal object I’d left next to the bed, still appearing completely intact. My AA-12 shotgun looked like a total loss, though, the barrel having caught a stray piece of concrete. It was like a sign.

  I brandished the old spark gun, which was my name for the model of independently powered wireless shock weapon that the Directorate had issued when it wanted to counter threats in a non-lethal fashion. It looked like it was silver-plated, a monstrosity with a giant barrel. The originals had been destroyed when Omega had blown up the Directorate, but the plans had been saved on a backup server, and Ariadne had seen fit to have a couple constructed after the war—“Just in case,” I think she said.

  I held it in both hands, like a shotgun with a big stock and a charge capability that’d drop an Atlas-type to the ground in shaking pain. It felt good there, like it belonged.

  Stupid, Wolfe said.

  Needlessly dangerous, Eve said.

  They destroy your home and you don’t retaliate? Bjorn asked, genuinely surprised.

  “I’m not Death,” I said, running fingers over the smooth metal of the barrel as I lifted back up. “I’m not the spirit of vengeance, and I’m not here to wipe out my all enemies like some old power from the days before civilization.”

  What are you, then? Wolfe asked.

  I thought about it and couldn’t come up with a great answer, so I settled for a good one. “I’m the boot that’s about to kick some ass.” And that was damned sure true.

  40.

  Ma

  The van bounced along the back roads as they sped toward the ruins of Glencoe, Minnesota. “Wheeeeehaw!” Junior shouted out the window. Ma just grinned at him; that was the kind of enthusiasm she was looking for when she started this plan.

  Simmons was still in the front of the van, just shaking. Looked like he’d used his powers on himself. “You gonna be all right?” she asked, brushing against his shoulder from where she sat in the back.

  “I need some water,” he said. He was still pale, still shaking. He’d let it all get to him, she figured, put it all into the attack, let it drain him down. His face was so white she could see the curly little hairs from his barely-there beard peeking through. It was hardly enough for a cat to lick off if she’d doused his face with milk, but it was much more pronounced now that he was so damned white.

  “That was badass, I don’t care what anybody says,” Junior opined, turning them hard around a corner. Ma could see the empty crater of Glencoe ahead, probably only a couple miles off. “Badass. I bet she lost some friends today.”

  “I sure hope so,” Ma said, looking out the window. She hadn’t worried about that avenging angel coming down on them before, but she worried about it now. Just a few more minutes and they’d be there, and then it wouldn’t matter if she came swooping down on them … because they’d be ready for her.

  41.

  Sienna

  I landed next to J.J., who now had everyone watching over his shoulder as he fiddled with his laptop, even the guards, who looked funny cradling their M4s while completely covered in dust and dirt, like someone had just pulled them out of a sandstorm.

  “What is that?” Thorsen asked, pointing at the screen.

  “Google Maps?” Phillips’s Hercules asked.

  “Brilliant deduction, Guy Friday,” Reed snarked at him. The way the Hercules glared back at him, I suspected they had a history, and not of the romantic sort. Probably.

  “Looks like Mars,” Augustus said, looking at the screen. He wasn’t far wrong.

  “Harper put a drone in the air nearby during the manhunt,” J.J. said. “This is the live feed.”

  “Why’s it still up there?” Phillips asked, his suit covered in—you guessed it—dust. Looked like someone had rolled him in wheat flour.

  “Because Harper’s military and you never countermanded the order you gave her,” J.J. said, so matter-of-fact that he probably didn’t even see Phillips’s face turn into a scowl for a quarter-second. “She’s probably been refueling and sending it right back up.”

  “Why didn’t she ask for—” Phillips cut himself off halfway through the question. I knew the answer. J.J. knew the answer. Guy Friday probably even knew the answer. It was because Harper didn’t like dealing with Phillips any more than the rest of us did; she just hid it better than most. “What’s the point of this?”

  “It’s …” J.J. squinted at the computer. “Hold on …” He zoomed the map in to show a van streaking down a back road, the lines dividing the lanes going by like laser shots across a film screen. “I’d say they’re guilty of speeding. Reckless endangerment, maybe.” He zoomed out again, and now I knew why Augustus had thought it looked like Mars.

  They were heading straight for Glencoe, Minnesota.

  “I’m about to wreck their day and their car,” I said, and braced to launch myself into the sky, my spark gun in hand.

  “Hold it,” Phillips said, and he just asked so nice I couldn’t help but stop myself.

  I flipped him the bird. “Why?”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, ignoring my rude gesture.

  “Bring them in,” I said. “Just like the others. Why? Are you going to give me a ration of crap about how I’m suspended?”

  He looked inscrutable, as usual. “No. You’re going to take on the four of them alone, though?”

  I rolled my head a little left and a little right, hedging. “Maybe.”

  “Take support,” Phillips said, and he gave a nod at Reed, then Augustus. He paused as he looked at Scott, then Zollers. “Who the hell are you people again?”

  “Consultants,” Zollers answered.

  “Hired by whom?” he asked icily.

  “Me,” Ariadne said, stepping up to stand between him and the team. “We needed extra muscle.”

  “Where’d you find that in the budget?” Phillips asked, seeming genuinely curious, or as close as he could get without showing much actual emotion.

  “We suddenly have a surplus in the facilities management area,” she said, casting a conspicuous look over her shoulders at HQ.

  Phillips’s face fell down to the ground floor, any hint of amusement now gone. “That’s gonna be a deficit and you damned well know it. This is gonna cost.” He took in the whole wrecked campus. “This is going to …” He let out a sound of complete frustration and looked at Guy Friday with stern resolve. “You go with them.”

  “Hey, bossman, the parking garage just ate shit,” Augustus said, pointing to the evidence of his statement. The topmost floor looked like it had been bent into a slanted V as it collapsed. “How are we supposed to get to this battle?”

  Phillips stayed true to his inscrutable self, but reached into his pocket and fished out his keys. “Here.” He tossed them to Reed. “Not exactly a Challenger, but …”

  “Oh, come on.” Reed looked disgusted, which was an even weirder look on him without the eyebrows. It kinda freaked me out, to be honest. His gaze drifted along the main driveway, and there, sitting parked with the sheet metal portico draped across it, was Phillips’s company car, an orange-as-soda-mixed-with-blood VW Beetle. “Really?”

  “It’ll get you where you’re going,” Phillips said, eyeing the car. “If you can get it out of there.”

  “Okay,” I said, and looked over my little team. “Reed, Augustus, Zollers, Guy Friday, Scott—” I paused, frowning. “What a sausage fest.” I shook my head. “Get to your ride, boys. Let’s go.” And I started into the air, ready to wreak some havoc.

  42.

  Following the orange beetle meant my progress was frustratingly slow. I wanted to zip ahead with my spark gun and started raining down some lightning from the heavens. The smallest part of me regretted that I didn’t have lightning powers, because I still kinda w
anted those, but the spark gun would have to do for now.

  The wind was cool, the breath of autumn in the air. It hadn’t even been that long since the State Fair, but it was already here, lurching into the close of another year. Pretty soon the ground would be covered with snow, and I’d have to wear a coat or set myself on fire just to tolerate flying through this crap.

  Or not. My base did just get destroyed, after all. I eyed the fields of the Minnesota landscape, caught a glimpse of one of those ten thousand lakes we were known for. I could just call it a wash, pull up stakes and go elsewhere. They’d just brought my home down around my ears again, and it felt like a little bit of a signal to me that maybe I was getting a little too rooted for my own good.

  For the first almost eighteen years of my life I’d essentially lived in the same house and never come out. Then I’d attached myself to an organization headquartered in the exact same place as I lived now, serving a non-governmental agency until the real government came in and took over. Somewhere between, I’d chased vengeance on my own accord for a while, and it had been the most disruptive, destructive time of my life.

  No more.

  No strings, Zack said. Nothing keeping you here.

  “I still have a house,” I said as the orange beetle wended its way along the lane below like a bug crawling across a floor. Oh, so slow. Step on it, Reed.

  Houses sell, Zack said.

  “I still have a job,” I said and felt a quiver. “Apparently. For now.”

  You can always get a new one.

  I took a breath. “This is all I’ve ever known.”

  And until you stepped outside on a cold winter day, the inside of your house was all you’d ever known.