The New Heroes: Crossfire

by Michael Carroll

  That hadn’t helped much. “Look at me,” Kenya said. “Look at my face, my arms and legs… I’m going to be scarred like this forever, aren’t I? How am I supposed to have a normal life?”

  Façade had shrugged. “Who says you’re supposed to have a normal life? Where is it written that everyone gets a fair shot? Brawn is thirteen feet tall and blue. Loligo—do you know of her?—has tentacles instead of arms. She has gills. Neither of them will ever be able to pass as a normal person. You get what you get. Being upset about it won’t help.”

  “That’s easy for you to say!” Kenya had snapped. “You were able to change your appearance! You could always pass for normal. No one would ever know.”

  “Yeah, I was a shape-shifter. That was great. And then we all lost our powers and I couldn’t change back. This isn’t my face. This is the face of Paul Cooper, a good man whose life I helped destroy. I have to live with that. Just as you have to accept who and what you are. Because what’s the alternative? Throw yourself off a bridge just because you have scars? End your life because you’re not as pretty as you’d like to be? We only get one shot at life, Kenya. There is no reset button, no do-overs. Just one go, and that’s it. You make the best of what you’ve been given and you don’t whine about the things you can’t change.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Façade leaned over and scooped up a small rock. “Oh good, it’s rock-metaphor time again. You know, I hate this rock. I wish it was a banana. Every morning I will pray to Mighty Odin for it to become a banana. I will write letters to my congressman. I will start a petition on the internet for this rock to be transformed into a banana. I will do all of these things. I will cry bitter tears every night and scrawl in my diary about how life would be so much better if this rock was a banana. And guess what?”

  “It’ll always be a rock.”

  Façade bounced it in the palm of his hand for a second, then threw it over the fence. “Yep. One of billions. But you’re not a rock. You’re a person. If you don’t like the way things are, and you can’t change them, then you can either moan or you can get on with your life. Care to guess which of those two options is more likely to achieve a positive result?”

  In the ten months since she arrived in Africa, Kenya had traveled more than two thousand miles, moving north along the east coast, through Mozambique, Tanzania, then Kenya—her mother’s homeland, after which she was named—and then into Somalia.

  She had helped hundreds of people, even though sometimes it was nothing more than giving their stalled car a push or finding an escaped puppy. But sometimes, she knew, her actions had a big impact on others. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, she’d chased down and caught a man who had savagely attacked another with a broken bottle. The following day she worked on a bucket-chain helping to put out a house-fire. She spent the day after that helping a young farmer dig holes for fence-posts.

  In her mind, there was a set of scales, and she knew that even if she lived to be a million years old, she would never get the scales to balance. She had killed six hundred and thirty people. No amount of post-holes or found puppies was ever going to make things right.

  But she knew she had to try.

  Now, she crept closer to the mercenaries’ camp, all too aware that her night-blindness put her at a serious disadvantage. They wouldn’t be able to hear her coming, but she wouldn’t be able to see them properly.

  I should wait, she thought. Whoever Façade is sending must be almost here by now.

  She almost regretted calling him. The raiders needed to be stopped, but if she had help did that count in the cosmic balance?

  Ahead, the light from the campfire flickered as something passed in front of it, and Kenya dropped low to the ground. She could hear voices now, talking, laughing. A man was attempting to sing an old Roy Orbison song and getting the words wrong; Kenya’s brother Eugene had been a fan of The Big O and had played his albums so often that Kenya knew all the songs by heart.

  Something bright moved in the distance, dropping down so fast she thought it could only be a meteor, but she couldn’t focus on what it was. Then another, off to the left, and a third.

  Shouts, then gunfire, erupted from the campsite.

  Flashlight beams bobbed and weaved as the raiders darted about, shooting at something Kenya couldn’t see. Then the area was awash with light blazing down from above, and for the first time Kenya was able to see the scale of the campsite.

  Thirty or more camouflaged tents, the same number of trucks and jeeps, and more than a hundred armed, frenzied men and women. The raiders were emptying their weapons at fast-moving objects that lay outside the beam of light. Some fired upwards, at the source of the light, uselessly—the light continued, and was now joined by others coming from the sides.

  A series of rockets streaked down from the sky toward the vehicles, corralling the raiders in a ring of ground-trembling explosions—Kenya could feel a wave of warm air from her position two hundred yards away.

  The sound of gunfire was mixed with screams of anger in a dozen languages. One of the flying objects smashed through a burning truck close to the heart of the camp, showering the raiders with red-hot debris.

  Something heavy landed next to Kenya, and she rolled onto her side to see a bulky figure in red metallic armor looking down at her. The air was suddenly thick with a strong chemical scent that made Kenya think of gasoline mixed with alcohol.

  “Kenya Cho, I presume?” It was a woman’s voice, strong and confident.

  Kenya nodded.

  “Good. Stay down.”

  “I can help.”

  “We can handle it.” The woman thumped her gloved fist against her armor. “Bullet-proof and bomb-proof. Stay here.”

  The woman’s jetpack flared into life, and Kenya watched as she streaked toward the campsite and crashed into a cluster of raiders without slowing.

  One of the raiders hurriedly lifted a rocket-launcher onto the shoulder of a colleague, but—before he could shoot—a blue-armored soldier zoomed out of the night and snatched the launcher from his arms.

  The woman in red touched down thirty yards from the last group of raiders, and casually strode toward them, their bullets ricocheting uselessly off her armor as she walked straight through the campfire, scattering the embers into a cloud of red and orange sparks.

  The roar of gunfire eased, and one-by-one the raiders dropped their weapons.

  Another armored figure—this one male—touched down close to Kenya, crouched and offered her his hand. “It’s over.”

  Kenya took his hand and climbed to her feet. “Who are you?”

  “A friend. You’re Kenya, right? My name’s Grant. Façade sent us.” He tilted his helmet toward the remains of the campfire. “Come on.”

  As she followed Grant, he pointed to another—still flying—figure and said, “That’s Alia. She’ll watch our backs. But we’re safe. Looks like we’ve caught them all.”

  The red-armored woman turned as Kenya approached. “Watch them.” She walked up to Kenya and flipped a switch on her helmet that turned its visor transparent.

  “But you’re only my age!” Kenya said.

  “A little older, maybe. Façade spent months looking for you, Kenya. Why did you run?”

  “I…” She shrugged. “I had to do things my own way.”

  “I understand that. You did good tracking these people. Their group has been terrorizing the region since the war. This is the first break we’ve had.” She turned back to the raiders. Her voice, electronically amplified, called out, “Who’s in charge here?” After a moment, she repeated her message in Spanish, then French, then German.

  A tall, slim young man with ebony skin, cradling an AK-47 in his arms, stepped forward. “Who are you?” His English was crisp and clear.

  “Who we are is not important. What is important is that as of now your operation is over. The supplies of food and medicine you’ve stolen will be delivered to their rightful owners, the refugees in the camps outside the R
ift Valley. You have killed hundreds of people and you will pay for every life you took. Do you understand? This is over.”

  “No!” The slim man raised his weapon above his head. “No! We fight for our freedom, and we will never surrender!”

  “You’re a bunch of deluded thugs who are willing to murder and pillage just because you’ve got some dumb point to make. You want a fight, go ahead. Take us on. Your weapons are useless against our armor.” She took another step closer to the slim man. “So you people will drop your guns and lie face-down on the ground. If you try to resist, you’re going to be face-down on the ground anyway. But you won’t be getting up. Ever.”

  The slim man spat on the ground between the girl’s boots. “You call them refugees like that should mean something. They’re parasites, swarming over our land like locusts! My father’s father was—”

  “I don’t care who any of your ancestors were.” The red-armored girl turned to one of her colleagues. “This is over. Call in the troops.”

  A voice from the side shouted, “No!” and Kenya turned to see another man approaching. He was considerably older than the others, his white hair and beard contrasting with his dark, wrinkled skin. “We will not submit to your rules! We fight because our government is corrupt and weak—they invite refugees from Ethiopia, take the food from our own children’s mouths to feed them!”

  The old man stopped ten feet away from them. “We fight for ourselves because no one will fight for us. Our cause is just and righteous and only God will judge us!”

  “Yeah? You psychos attacked a UN supply convoy last month with grenade-launchers. You murdered five innocent people, and for what? For eighteen hundred mosquito nets. And when you realized what they were, you didn’t just dump them on the side of the road. You poured gasoline all over them and set them on fire. You think God will look favorably on that?”

  The old man bared his teeth, and swung a bony fist that cracked uselessly against bullet-proof armor.

  Lights flickered on the northern horizon. “Troop carriers,” the girl said. “I suggest you lay down your weapons because they’re coming in armed and looking for a fight.”

  Cradling his injured hand, the old man said, “We will resist. We will never surrender. We will not rest until every Ethiopian—every outsider—is gone from our land! If that means they all must die, then so be it. Only then will we be free!”

  “Free of what?” She leaned close to him. “You keep this in mind: we haven’t fought back yet. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  He spat again. “Who are you to give orders to us?” He sneered. “A child, a girl. A pampered American girl pretending to be a soldier! You know nothing about the real world, nothing about the suffering my people have—”

  “Your people?” She matched his sneer with a glare. “The same people you’ve spent the past year murdering? That’s low. And you want to know who I am? Fine. My name is Renata Soliz. I used to be a superhuman called Diamond. Now I’m the leader of the New Heroes’ armored division.”

  Renata pulled a web of strong-looking straps from a pouch on her belt, and before the old man could resist, she had looped the straps around his arms and chest. She turned to one of her colleagues. “Alia, keep this area locked down. I’m going to show this fool the consequences of his actions.” As she clipped the harness to loops on her armor, she said, “Kenya might like to see this. Give her your backpack and helmet, link the controls to mine.”

  The young woman called Alia unclipped her pack and stepped up behind Kenya. She quickly connected shoulder-straps and a belt, checked that they were secure, then removed her helmet and placed it on Kenya’s head. It was a snug fit, but not uncomfortable. “You OK with the weight?”

  Kenya nodded. “Sure… What is this?”

  “Just relax, Kenya. You’ll like this,” Renata said. A soft whine emerged from her backpack, then seconds later Kenya felt her own begin to tremble a little.

  Then Renata was rising into the air, with the old man dangling from the harness beneath her. And Kenya found herself being lifted up, following close behind them.

  “This jetpack,” Kenya shouted, “it’s like Paragon’s, right?”

  “A more advanced version,” Renata said. “Much quieter, greater range. And much faster if you’re not wearing armor. Or carrying an old man beneath you.”

  For the first few minutes of the flight the old man screamed and kicked as he tried to undo the clasps that held him in place.

  “I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Renata said. “We’re eight hundred feet up. You wouldn’t survive.”

  The old man roared at her: “You have no right! You have no right!”

  “Shut up, or I will drop you!”

  Full night had fallen by the time their flight slowed. Renata hovered in place for a moment before gently descending to the ground.

  The old man had fallen completely silent.

  Renata said, “Look around, Kenya. What can you see?”

  “Nothing. Darkness. I don’t have good night-vision.”

  “Oh, right. Façade mentioned that. Cover your eyes. I’m going to light a flare. You too, old man. Do it—this is going to be pretty bright.”

  Kenya placed her gloved hands over her helmet’s visor, and heard a shark crack as something sparked into life.

  “Now look.”

  Kenya tentatively lowered her hands from her face, and looked around. The red light from the flare showed that they were standing on a dry, flat plain punctuated by a dozen small clusters of boulders and a few parched-looking bushes.

  Renata nudged the old man’s shoulder and pointed to the boulder-cluster nearest to them. “You see that? You know what that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “A marker.”

  “Right. They arrange them in a pattern they hope they’ll be able to recognize in the future. When things get better, and they’re able to come back here and remove the bodies of their loved ones from their shallow graves.”

  The old man turned his head to face her. “I know this. Why have you brought me here?”

  “Because every person buried here was killed by your men. Some of them you shot during your raids, others starved or died of malaria or cholera because you stole their food and medicines. Hold tight, Kenya, we’re going up again.”

  Renata activated the jetpacks once more, and as they ascended the flare showed more and more of the landscape below. The dozen grave-markers became two dozen, then a hundred.

  “You did this,” Renata said to the old man. “The flare isn’t bright enough to show you the true extent of your crimes… But I’ve got something that is.” She let the flare drop, then reached up and removed her helmet.

  She placed the helmet on the old man’s head. “The visors have thermal imaging. You know what that means? It allows me to see heat. Decaying bodies generate a lot more heat than you might realize. Now look down again. Kenya, there’s a switch on the left side of your helmet, along the jaw-line.”

  Kenya saw the old man lower his head, and for a moment he was completely still, as though the fight had been completely drained from him.

  She found the switch on her helmet, and flipped it. Instantly, the dark landscape below became a sea of glowing patches.

  “Our satellites show over fifteen hundred graves here,” Renata said. “Each one dug by hand. The smaller ones are children.”

  His voice weak, the man said, “This is a war. We’re fighting a war.”

  Renata pulled the helmet from his head, and said, “You’re butchering innocent, defenseless people. That’s not a war. That’s genocide.”

  He tried to twist around in the harness to see her face. “Who are you to judge us? Westerners with invulnerable suits and powerful weapons, forcing us to do your will! You are the aggressors here, not us!”

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we are the aggressors, this time. But we’re not murderers. We’re here to help the innocent, and we don�
��t care which side of an imaginary border they were born on, or what their beliefs are. We are going to save the human race, and if that means we spend the rest of our lives taking down trash like you, we’ll be happy to do that.”

  Renata clipped her helmet back in place, and glanced at Kenya for a moment. “Are you all right? Something like this can be pretty hard to take.”

  Kenya nodded. “Yeah. I… I’ve seen a lot of bad things. But this—”

  The old man began to rant again. “If you imprison my people, we will break free! We will track you down and when we are done we will dance on your graves! You especially, girl. We will tear your head from your shoulders and—”

  Renata interrupted him. “Yeah, right. Give it your best shot. But don’t forget that three of us took down your entire operation, and not one of us is superhuman.” They began to drift back toward the campsite. “You are under arrest for crimes of terrorism, mass murder, attempted genocide and anything else we can throw at you. You’ll have a lot of time in prison to rant about your unfair treatment.”

  The old man fell silent.

  As they approached the campsite, Kenya saw a convoy of vehicles converging on the raiders.

  “The UN,” Renata explained. “They’ve been trying to locate these jerks for months. They’re probably going to give you a medal, Kenya.”

  “I don’t want a medal. But I do want one of these helmets—I can’t see well in the dark and this would make a huge difference.”

  “Façade still wants you to join us.”