Unbreakable Arsenal

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  I nod. “No, it has to be him. Tia?”

  “Si?”

  “I hate to sound like a typical American, but believe me when I say I would ask this question of any police officer in any country if we were in the same boat … but… can you trust your people?”

  She sighs. “I would really love to say we are just and true and every officer follows the oath of their badge, but I cannot. I also can’t tell you which ones we could trust and which ones we couldn’t. It wasn’t long ago that hundreds of officers were fired or jailed for corruption. With the way the economy is, it’s hard to watch your family starve.”

  “Well,” I tell her with a smile. “If it makes you feel better. I doubt I would get a different answer in LA or New York. Any city with a sufficiently large population is going to face corruption challenges in politics and law enforcement. I’m just glad you were assigned to us.”

  She shakes her head. “I volunteered.”

  Now I’m a bit taken back. “Why?”

  “My mother was in Greece when the Th’un invaded. Had they made landfall, she’d likely be dead. I wanted to say thank you,” she says with a coy smile while looking down at her feet. I match her embarrassment. Far too much back-patting for this situation.

  “Okay, if we’re all done, we have a problem coming. I can hear sirens and they sound like they’re coming this way.” Kate points north as she speaks.

  “Whatever they are using to block communications is blocking everyone, right? But the thing they are using to block your teleporting, that is specific to you. If we could just get out of range of their jamming, I could call Epic, suit up, and we’d get the heck out of here.”

  Kate nods. Looking around, though, it’s clear she doesn’t know where to go. The sun is almost down, only a sliver of it remains on the horizon. “In order to get out from under it, don’t you need to know where it is coming from?” she asks.

  My shoulders slump. “Yeah, yeah I do. Wait, I have an idea—” I ignore their looks as I pull my sleeve up and activate my computer. I may not have access to my AI, but I am a really smart person. I pull up the interface, activate the wireless controls, and then open up the console to reprogram them. It takes a few minutes. I can hear Kate and Tia speaking but the programmer part of my brain takes over and I’m too immersed in code to hear them.

  “Finished!” I say, excitedly. The two beautiful women stare at me expectantly. Right, they can’t read my mind. “I reconfigured the wireless antenna to act as an RF detector. Jamming is just a more powerful signal. Using this—” I hold up my arm. “I can tell the direction it’s coming from just by…” I hit the button turning it on. The static is audible as I move my arm in a slow circle; starting facing south then turning north… when I hit sixty degrees it beeps at me. “That’s the direction, we need to go South-West.”

  “Damn, Amelia. Any other tricks you have up your sleeve?”

  I start to answer before my brain catches up. I flash her a smile. “A girl can’t tell all her secrets.”

  “A few miles south of here,” Tia interrupts us. “Is what you would call a ‘freeway’. It goes from the seashore then heads west before turning south. Once on it, we could be a hundred miles away in a little over an hour. Whatever jamming they are using couldn’t possibly stretch that far, si?” Tia asks.

  “Good plan. I see this is why they pay you the big bucks,” I tell her.

  “Big bucks? I can barely afford new uniforms when I trash mine. Thank goodness for the micromesh I wear underneath or I’d go around naked every time someone throws a grenade at me.”

  In the distance, I hear the heavy drum of helicopter blades. “They’re really looking for us now. A mile you say?”

  “Si.”

  “I can do it, Amelia,” Kate says to me. Her breathing is normal, and she doesn’t appear to have a problem carrying me but… my Kate was a super spy, I don’t think she’d have a problem concealing the truth if she wanted to. She makes her way to where I’m sitting and lifts me up, shifting my load until my arms are around her shoulders and she’s carrying my weight on her back and my legs in her arms.

  “Lead the way, Tia,” Kate says.

  Tia stands, checks her bearings, and starts running. She’s incredibly graceful as she leaps off the rooftop. Her body shimmering as she sheds mass and density until she’s almost translucent.

  “That is an amazing power,” I tell Kate.

  “For sure. Hang on.” Kate runs after her, picking up speed as she leans into the run. She hits the lip at a dead run and we are sailing through the air. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t take the sudden verticle acceleration of our leap. My stomach stays behind and not for the tenth time today, do I wish for my armor. I have such an awesome delivery system setup if only I could use it!

  We hit the ground running. Her breath comes in gulps as she picks up speed, following Tia through a maze of small buildings. I take a chance and open my eyes. About a half a mile from us the big buildings and apartments disappear and are replaced by homes and small business. We won’t be able to play rooftop dash for much longer.

  As we run, the sound of the helicopter blades approaches. I try to twist my head around to see it and I catch a glimpse of it.

  “Kate, we need off the rooftops now!” I shout loud enough for her and Tia to hear me.

  “What?” she asks, dodging a rooftop AC.

  “It’s an attack helicopter. Off the roof, now!” She has to feel the terror in my heart, I sure as hell do. It isn’t one of those retrofitted civilian helicopters with a door gun, but a straight-up Apache helicopter, Hellfire missiles and all. Enough to take out a square block.

  Tia leaps off the nearest edge and Kate follows her down. Halfway down I realize the ground is thirty feet below us. Tia reaches out and clasps Kate’s hands as we sail past. Kate lets out a terrific grunt as all our weight is suddenly dumped on her shoulders.

  I wish I was as strong as her… then I wouldn’t be falling. I manage not to let out a cry as I fall the last five feet. I do everything I can to land on my side. The impact knocks all the air out of me. Kate lands beside me, taking a knee to see if I am okay. I’m having trouble breathing but other than that, I’m peachy.

  “Stay here, okay? I’m going to go look around.”

  “I won’t run off,” I say between wheezes. Kate vanishes in the dark. One second, she is there, the next— noting.

  “Your friend is very skilled,” Tia says as she takes a seat beside me.

  “You have no idea.” I start to ask her about her police when the helicopter flies overhead. The wash of its rotors hits me like a wave of water pushing me down and sending debris stinging against my skin. Then it is gone, moving on to the next area with its bright search beam lancing out in front of it to push back the darkness.

  “Psst,” Kate whispers from a few feet away before she materializes out of the darkness.

  “I always wondered why you wore all black.”

  Kate scoops me up in one swift move. She barely breaks a sweat as she trots between buildings. Tia follows along behind us keeping an eye on our backs. I hear the helicopter swooping back around for another pass. The bright searchlight lighting up the sides of buildings.

  “I’m getting the feeling they know where we are,” I whisper in Kate’s ear. It’s almost completely dark out, nothing but the street lights and the helicopter to show us the way.

  “Over there,” Kate whispers, nodding awkwardly at a beat up old flatbed truck. Other than the beat of the helicopter blades on the air, this street is quiet. The semi-suburban neighborhood is lined with parked cars waiting for the next morning. There are a few lights on here and there but for the most part, the street is dark. “I think I can hot wire that one,” she says as we move toward it.

  I spot a BMW M3 parked in a driveway. The newer cars all have Bluetooth, computer-assisted driving, the whole suite of tech. For now, the car manufacturers have no idea how to secure their onboard computers. Which plays to our advantage.
I tap Kate’s shoulder.

  “Not that one,” I say about the truck. “That one.” I point at the sleek black sports car.

  “I can’t hotwire a Beamer, Amelia. Their anti-theft is ridiculous.”

  “Trust me.” I wave at Tia to follow as Kate runs up next to the car. It’s parked in a driveway with very little to hide behind. Kate lowers me to the ground next to the driver side door. It’s a four-door sports car with a very small backseat. Lucky for me, I am very small. It isn’t like I am going to drive it.

  “What are you doing?” Tia asks as she kneels down next to me. Kate faces the road, eyes scanning for threats while I focus on my arm computer. It only takes a second to find the right frequency, then I have to beat their encryption.

  “Modern cars, especially luxury cars all use signals to do things remotely. Start the engine, unlock the doors. No matter what they use, whether it’s Bluetooth or a proprietary system, it really is just a radio. Once I have the signal…” I tap a few more keys to defeat the encryption. Now, all I have to do is—

  “Down,” Kate snarls as she dives on me and Tia. Lights shine above us as a police cruiser drives by going far too fast to really search for us. The Police siren kicks in, causing my heart to practically leap out onto the ground. After a few moments, Tia gives us the all clear.

  “With the cell phones all down they are probably responding to a lot of emergency calls. I don’t know the numbers, but last time I read about it only a third of the residents had landlines anymore.”

  “I think the states are about the same,” I whisper. My computer beeps quietly, signaling the programs completion. The doors to the car unlock and the engine revs to life.

  “Amelia… it’s almost like you’ve done this before?” Kate asks with a smile.

  Tia opens the back door and easily lifts me onto the seat. Closing the door slowly, as quietly as possible, she then motions for Kate to go to the other side before she slipped behind the driver wheel. I can see the hesitance on Kate’s face, but ultimately common-sense wins. Tia knows the city, we don’t.

  The car rolls out onto the street before she clicks it into gear, engaging the engine and pulling out at a reasonable speed.

  “No reason to attract attention,” she says.

  “Right, I just figured we would burn rubber and floor it,” I say. I hadn’t thought about it, to be honest. I was so caught up in running away, if it were me driving we’d be going a hundred by now. “I guess we didn’t need the BMW after all.”

  “It’s a good choice, Amelia,” Kate says to reassure me. She turns and faces me. “If we do have to run, few cars can corner as fast as this one. Plus,” she says with a grin. “It’s very comfortable.”

  “Ha. I guess so.” I glance out the window as house after house silently passes by in the dimming light. “How long to the freeway?” I say, stifling a yawn that refuses to be quiet.

  “Five minutes tops. Another twenty until we’re out of town. Our speed limit is a hundred and twenty—”

  “What? I have to drive down here sometime,” Kate says with a smile.

  “Uh… sorry, that is kilometers per hour… I don’t know—” Tia says.

  “74.5 miles per hour,” I say. The yawn finally wins, and I lean against the window.

  “How does she know that?” Tia asks Kate.

  “She’s good with numbers, computers, metal…” I don’t catch the rest as my eyes close. Exhaustion seeps into me and it isn’t long before the drone of the engine and the passing lights lull me to sleep.

  Honking horns wake me up with a start. I grab the headrest in front of me a second before I’d hit it with my head. I blink several times trying to clear the sleep from my eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “We have a problem,” Kate tells me soberly. I lean around the seat to look out the windshield. “What the heck?”

  The freeway is covered in abandoned cars. Like something out of an apocalypse movie. The police have the entrance and exits closed off in every direction but East. Flares line the streets showing where the lanes go instead of the painted lines.

  Tia pulls the BMW off the street into a side alley. “Will the car start again if I shut it off?” she asks over her shoulder.

  “Of course,” I tell her.

  “I’m going to go try and find out what is going on.” Before she can open her door, Kate shrugs off her jacket and hands it to her. “Thanks.”

  She’s gone a second later, shrugging on Kate’s jacket as she walks away.

  “You think we’re safe here?” I ask her. The eerie silence of the car sends tingles and goosebumps up and down my spine.

  “If Tia were going to betray us, it would be written all over her. I may not be able to teleport, but I can still sense everyone’s emotions.” She looks away for a second. Her cyber arm, which is indistinguishable from her natural arm, rests absently on the dash. She flexes her hand for a second, watching the fingers move.

  She turns to me. “If you hadn’t given me this, we wouldn’t be in this predicament, you know?”

  I sigh. It didn’t take her long to find a way to blame herself for this. “I thought I was the one with the weight of the world on her shoulders? You’re supposed to be the one who tells me ‘it is what it is.’ Then I feel better and you feel better and we kick some bad guy butt.”

  She smiles. “Right. It’s just… if you had your alien armor—”

  I put my hand on her shoulder to stop that line of thought. “I wouldn’t. You know, and I know, that the government was never going to let me keep it. If given the choice, and I was, between handing it to Rafael and crafting you a new arm? Clearly, I did the right thing.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I feel like I’ve let you down. Everyone was so sure you were dead, everyone except me. I know the team believed me but as the days stretched into weeks and then months… It was hard to be around them… knowing… knowing the only reason you were lost was to come save me.” She blinks several times as tears form in the corners of her eyes, leaking out and trailing down her cheeks to pool on her jaw.

  “Kate, I… I was never going to stop coming for you. If I had to burn the entire universe down, I would’ve. You’re my best friend. You understand me, and you were the first to believe in me. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have come for everyone, because I would have. Regardless of who they took. But they took you. And I wasn’t going to let them get away with that.”

  She pats my hand before squeezing it. “But at what cost, Amelia?”

  “For me? A few sleepless nights and a little nagging regret. For them? Everything.”

  Her eyes pop open and she peers at me. I see a little fear and a little wonder starring back at me. “I’m sorry,” she says again.

  “Don’t be. They had it coming. Regardless of what I did, they did a hundred times worse. At least I gave them the courtesy of a quick death. Something they didn’t show any of their victims.”

  She opens her mouth to say something when the car door jerks open. Rough hands drag her out as she shouts. My door follows and men in black balaclava’s grab my shirt and hair, yanking me out so hard I scream in pain as my shoulder smacks the metal frame of the car.

  They dump me unceremoniously on the ground. Wiping my face, I roll over to see how many there are. My heart drops. A dozen at least. Then I see Tia. She’s on her knees, a blank expression on her face. An older woman with streaks of silver in her hair hovers a few inches off the ground behind Tia. A soft white light emanates from her fingers, wrapping around Tia’s head like a chain.

  “Amelia!” Kate yells from the other side of the car.

  “Over here,” I scream out. A boot collides with my ribs and I groan and my vision dims.

  I hear Kate scream followed by a meaty thud. They must have hit her with a gun or some—

  Kate leaps over the car, her booted foot planting on the masked man to my right, snapping his head around like a bottle cap. She hits the ground, rolls and comes up slamm
ing another man in the jaw using her momentum and considerable strength to lift him ten feet off the ground before he collapses in a heap.

  “Kate,” I yell to get her attention, “Full Beast Mode!” Confusion crosses her face. I really haven’t had time to tell her about all the things her new arm can do…

  Three-inch mono-molecular claws sprout from her fingertips. Sharp enough to slice between the molecules. A predatory grin lights her face.

  The woman with the silver-streaked hair yells something in a language I don’t recognize. Seven men charge Kate and two come for me. I know what they plan on doing. I won’t let them hold me hostage and force her surrender. I drag myself forward using my arms. I’m not as fast as someone walking, but a lifetime of having to push myself around leaves me faster than one might think. Certainly fast enough to get around the front of the car. Pebbles and bits of broken glass tear through my clothes and skin leaving raw spots on them as I hustle around the car. What I wouldn’t give for Epic and my armor right now.

  Two masked men circle wide expecting a trick. When I lean against the grill, panting, they come for me. I slap my wrist activating the car's high-beams and horn. They holler, shielding their eyes. I love frigging LED lights. They’re so bright! Then I strike. I push off the car, grabbing the closest one’s boot and pull with all my strength. He lifts his leg up, then I smash his other knee with the side of my fist. It hurts like hell. More for him than me. He collapses to the ground holding his knee in a writhing screaming mass of agony.

  Using his clothes as handholds I pull myself up. His companion grabs the back of my pants and hair, yanking me up in the air. I’m not exactly heavy. I bite my tongue as he tosses me against the wall. I hit with a grunt, collapsing to the ground. My legs go out at an awkward angle and I push down the spike of fear that flies through me. I’ve lived my whole life with a fear of falling. Right now, I don’t have time to worry about it. Luckily, I hold onto my prize.