Carly, standing up against the fence, cries out. No one is near her and I'm worried the speedster got to her while I was distracted.
Then I remember Carly told me that when a telepath in a telepathic duel cries out, they're in trouble, so I scan back to where the Amazonian woman was standing – she's still standing there, now with a look of sheer pleasure on her face, so I re-target Black Dragon and have it unload all of his ball bearings on her. I'm amazed she's able to stop the first two bearings as they stop in mid-air, then she drops like a stone to the ground as the next four bearings pummel her to the ground. In great pain and her concentration broken, she screams and grabs at her temples. The bearings had all hit center mass, so I'm pretty certain Carly was able to recover and is now tap dancing in the amazon's pain clouded mind.
I go back to worrying about the guy with the assault rifle as he's once again shooting at me and make a rush at him with my shield up, blocking the bullets. When I reach him I flip my shield up into a backhand shield bash that shatters his gun and sends him flying. I'm not too concerned whether he is a baseline and don't hold back when I use the edge of my shield to punch him in the throat.
Changing direction to swing back by Carly, I feel a "whoosh" go past me. The speedster just misses me and I see a blur go past the right side of my head, just in my view. I'm now pretty sure he's faster than me.
But, the odds are a bit more even now, and I'm feeling a little more like we have a chance to escape. I am also counting on my armor and equipment giving me the edge I need to beat the speedster. I continue to try to track him and the last guy who hasn't committed himself yet.
The speedster has settled into doing drive-bys and I'm having a hard time keeping my shield in position to take the hit. He's at least a Class 2 strength and may be a Class 4 speed, but I'm not sure as I've never a met a Class 4 speedster, I'm just certain he's a lot faster than me. He makes several passes on me and finally gets a hit on my shoulder that spins me around. I'm up in a flash, but not before he hits me again and flips me back into a storage rack. At least now I am pretty sure he is Class 2 strength as he is not hitting me hard enough to be anything more than that.
I roll under the rack and into the next aisle and ready myself. Between racks he can only approach me from the two directions, so I'm able to see which way he's coming from and get turned toward him. This time I don't try to get my shield up to block him, and instead do the opposite and open my shield to pull him in close. He smashes his fist right in my chest at the exact same moment I punch him in the kidney. I was still holding my war hammer, but had a choked up grip as I didn't have room to swing it in the narrow aisle. The added weight of the war hammer with my kidney punch had to have hurt, but the results are far more than what you would expect from just being punched.
I go flying when he hits me as I did not re-energize my repeller field generator. Instead of re-energizing the field, I focused on hitting him first and activated the Taser in the bar across the knuckles of my gauntlet. I'm not the only one who goes flying.
We both hit the ground hard, but my armor did its job. I’m barely shaken up, while he’s still down. The speedster made the mistake of hitting me in the strongest part of my armor, the chest. I stand back up and look over to see him spread eagle on the floor, his body is bent in the middle. He's groaning and trying to get back up, which is surprising. Carly pins him to the ground using her telekinetic powers, then he stops moving.
I've got a few cobwebs in my head and try to get myself re-oriented when I hear a growl and something heavy coming from behind me. Spinning around and swinging wildly with my shield, I miss my last assailant as he bowls me over in a mass of hair and claws and teeth. This guy, this monster, is a mass of hairy claws and teeth and he's seriously testing the material of my suit as he is raking them across my chest and stomach. I try to swing up my shield and he bats it away and lands on me. He is trying to shred my suit. It is holding up, but I am not confident enough to keep from panicking. I try to swing my hammer up into him, but he's too close and I can't get any leverage. I try again to punch him with my weapon hand and he blocks it again and this time his foot comes up and grips my arm like he has an opposable thumb, or toe, to hold onto me with. My suit is holding up, but the panic I’m feeling is increasing as the sheer violence of his attack has me in full defensive mode. I drop my shield; it's not doing me any good anyway, and use grappling techniques to break his foot's grip on my arm so I can reach for his head that is all gnashing teeth and fangs. I feel him try to bite my head as I break his grip; his teeth are scraping against my helmet and I can see inside his mouth through my face shield.
I grab him on either side of his head. He thinks I'm trying to hold his head back from biting my neck and face and he's pressing down with all he has to get to me. I make him pay for it, though, as I pull the neural neutralizer off his head. I'm expecting Carly to put the monster to sleep, but he just keeps trying to get to my face. I can't see Carly, but can feel the monster being pushed off of me. She must have resorted to her telekinetics and I'm wondering why her telepathy didn't just put the thing to sleep.
The monster slash werewolf slash hound of hell, whatever it is, is thrown of me off by Carly and I'm surprised to find I'm going with him as he doesn't let go with any of his four limbs gripping different parts of my body, my neck being the most concerning part.
We land with me on top, though, and I use the momentum to aid my switch from trying to push his gnashing teeth away, which didn't stopped their gnashing as we flew through the air, away from me to jerking him in for a head butt. His snout full of teeth smashes into the front of my helmet and my vision is blocked by the blood and teeth splattering on my face shield. We roll again and the monster sits up on my chest with a blank stare and his arms drop to his sides. Mary mother of god, this monster is scary.
Rather than wait for him to snap out of his stupor, I charge the Tasers in both fists and bring them up together on both sides of its head and he is thrown across the room as Carly finishes him off. His body is limp and flopping like a rag doll when he hits the ground.
Carly runs over to me and helps me to my feet and we look around to see if anyone else is around. As I look toward the offices, I see one of Black Dragon’s target designators pop up in my HUD, marking a person standing in a large observation window on the second floor of the offices. The figure is looking down at us through the window. He looks familiar, but I can’t place him. Whoever he is, he’s well over six foot and has an impressive build. I have the feeling of someone trying to pry open my brain just before I hear Carly catch her breath and begin to gurgle a cry that sounds far worse than the one I heard her make earlier, then I'm lifted off the ground.
I'm flailing around and can feel him trying to push into my mind and grit my teeth and try to throw my baseball at him, but I don't have any leverage hanging in the air and can't aim my throw. The ball hits the ceiling and falls to the ground. The pressing on my mind is becoming painful and, not knowing how to push back telepathically, I'm mostly just tightening all the muscles in my face and neck and I can feel the blood pressure in my head rising from my straining, making the pressure worse. Carly has stopped making sounds and I feel her fighting back, doing what sounds like lamaze breathing exercises, she's still fighting him, but doesn't sound like she can last much longer, so I do the last thing I can do and order Black Dragon through the interface in my helmet to suicide into the plate glass the figure is standing behind and detonate.
Turning toward the window, the drone accelerates and detonates just as it impacts the glass, sending a shockwave of glass shards at the figure where he disappears from view in the explosion. We're released and drop to the ground.
I lift Carly back onto her feet, "Are you okay?"
She pushes me away, screaming, "Let me go!" She's visibly shaking and seething with rage.
Rage that we don't have the luxury of indulging, "Come on, we have to get those kids out of here!" I shout and run to the lab doors, "Ever
ybody back on the bus! It's time to go! Now! Drop what you're doing! GO!" Either everyone had been brainwashed to take orders from people in black super suits, or I scared the hell out of them, because every one of them jumps up and starts running. Carly finishes getting everyone out of the building and on the bus while I do a smash and grab for a handful of completed neural neutralizers in the security cage and grab our bags from in the hall of the offices, then we get the hell out of there by taking the bus they came in on.
We spend the rest of the night parked behind our cabin, trying to undo, or at least patch, the changes that were made to the science student's minds. It takes a while to explain to them what has happened and to get them to accept we actually saved them from being mind controlled, and not that we abducted them from the facility. We were going in circles arguing semantics until one of them asks himself how he ever came to work for someone without being paid. From there we are able to let them hash it out between themselves, which goes on for most of the ride back to the campus. At least they leave me alone to drive the bus. Carly is giving nudges to the ideas that explain correctly what happened and suppresses the wild claims coming from the students as they talk about what had happened to them.
It is a full hour after we get back to campus that we remember we left Carly’s car behind and hit up Carlos to borrow his car. On the way back to the cabin we are exhausted, but the thrill and excitement of the fight is starting to surge through our veins again as we talk about the fight. Something we did not feel we could do with the kids on the bus. We go back and forth about what we did, and why. And how we could have helped each other more. I did not think there was much to critique, but Carly tore down the whole thing in detail as I drove and tried to absorb everything she was saying.
The last thing we discussed was the telepath we fought at the end. We know nothing about the man other than he was incredibly powerful. Far beyond Carly’s power to fight telepathically. And, he was telekinetic. He scares me. A lot. I was helpless to stop him and we would have died or been captured if not for the Black Dragon.
On the way back home we drove in separate cars and I spent most of the time thinking about what could have happened, and how I can stop it from happening next time.
Chapter 47
Freeing the rest of the students from mind control turns out to be time consuming, but not difficult. We keep the bus and simply show up every evening at 5:30 to pick up the next group of kids who come to get a ride to the facility and take them for a different kind of ride instead. The Henderson Robotics people did not reappear to continue their abductions. On the fourth day, no one shows up and we figure we got everyone. I do not see any other science students on the campus with the hats on and those we do see we pull their hats off and Carly quickly scans their minds. None of them complain as Carly also takes care of any objections they have to having their hat snatched off their heads. A couple days later we ditch the bus in town because we don't know what else to do with it. All told, we freed 132 students from mind control.
Things go back to normal after that and we are able to go through semester finals in December without any surprises. Although my engineering professor tries to fail all of us with a surprise final project that counts as half of our final exam. I do the final without any problem, even if I am cussing the professor the entire time I build the project that turns out to be a manufacturing run for a device the professor is using students to build what he is selling on the eNgineers.com auction site. Thinking back, several of our projects were just the type of thing you could sell on that auction site.
The neural neutralizers are a mix of two mad scientist designs, the first being the neural network design of Henderson Robotics, and the second being adapting it into a neutralizer by whoever is behind this whole thing. It takes a while to figure it out and reverse engineer, but I am finally able to figure out the principles involved and implement elements of both scientist's work into my suit. What? You didn't think I'd use someone else's work? That somehow I am too proud to think something someone else made could be useful to me? Get real. First, there are plenty of advanced science minds out there just as good as mine, and second, no one else could have adapted the device to work with my HUD and suit. So, shut up.
I replace my HUD with instantaneous neural imaging and communications using the neural interface and upgrade the neural neutralizer into my field generator. Next, I am working on Carly's.
We're in one of the private labs I reserved earlier in the week and Carly is leaning over my shoulder, watching me work, all curiosity as she tries to figure out what you get when you combine a neural neutralizer with a field generator, "Will this make my shield stronger? It's already pretty strong,” she asks.
"This won't make it stronger, I'm just giving it a new feature you can use," I reply, teasing her along.
"Really! What's it do?" I love it when she gets excited about my inventions.
"It should block mind powers from being used on you."
Frowning, Carly asks, "What about my powers? Will it block my powers when it's activated?
"Yes, it'll block the neural energy going in both directions. Nothing I can do about that." Before she can protest, I continue, "But! I have two settings for you: one that uses the same field it's always used, and the other that routes the power through the neuro-frequency modulator."
"The what?" She shakes her head, "Nevermind. But why would I need it?"
"I need it to keep from being lifted up in the air like a helpless rag doll. And you need it because I need it, which means I don't know why you need it, since you can fight that kind of power, but just in case you do need it, we have it." The truth is I know why she would need it, but I'm going to keep that to myself rather than offend her.
Carly looks at me like, WTF kind of logic is that? but there's not much to be done about it, because if she wants to have the field generator, she's going to have to take it the way I give it to her.
Finishing making the upgrade to the generator, I put it on and energize it, "Okay, hit me."
I didn't have to ask her twice, and she punches me in the gut. I could feel the punch, but her fist never touches me.
"Nice shot,” I say, “Now use your telekinetic power on me," and I turn on the modulator.
I can see her trying to do something to me with her powers, but nothing is happening. This goes on for a minute before she resorts to a different tactic and picks up an iron bar on the table and hits me with it. I can say I wasn't expecting it, and the results are more me jumping in surprise than the bar smashing into my shield.
Carly helps me back to my feet, "Well, it definitely works, but it's not a perfect defense. I couldn't touch you with either my telepathy or telekinetics. And, there is no feel to your mind like I usually can. But, it didn't stop me from hitting you with that bar."
"Yeah, thanks for that. Point made, by the way. But, I'm not trying to stop the powers completely, just stop them from working directly on me." Although, that just gave me an idea. What if I could project the field onto another person?
"Is this what it’s like to be a mad scientist?" Carly breaks my line of reasoning with her question.
"Pretty much. A little bit, anyway. Except I didn't build in a world ending super bomb or weather control device."
Chapter 48
I hear someone running in the hall outside my dorm room just before the door flies open and Carlos bowls his way into the room. "It's you! Isn't it! You and Carly!"
My stomach sinks as I know exactly what he's talking about, "Close the door would you. And, what are you talking about?"
"Man, I saw the pictures, I know it's you,” Carlos continues as is his annoyingly persistent habit.
"Come on, Carlos, we both know you don't know anything."
"No, huh uh! This I know, smart ass. I've seen your suit!"
I could kill him. Stuff him in his locker. And no one would know until the end of the year. "What are you talking about?" I say instead.
"The
fight in the warehouse in Chicago, it's online! You were seen in your costume on that bus on campus for like a week after the date stamp on the video! That was you! I've seen your suit, bro. You're working on that thing all the time!"
"How is that me? I wasn't anywhere near that bus!" I'm not above lying.
"Yeah, sure. YOU weren't near the bus, but that suit you been working on sure as hell was! I've got a picture – Look!" Carlos shoves his smart phone into my face and, sure enough, there is a picture of me, in my suit, standing on the first step of the bus.
He's got me, and he knows it. I may be doing his homework for the next four years. "That's not me. You don't know crap. And, if you say anything to anybody about me, the guy in that picture is going to pay you a visit."
"No, man. Your secret’s safe with me." Carlos says. The smug bastard is not capable of being as sincere as he's trying to make himself sound.
"Just don't. Really. Don't," I warn him.
HA! My roomie's a superhero!" Carlos yells at the top of his lungs and leaves as fast as he arrived. I can hear him laughing his fool head off all the way down the hall.
My day is officially ruined, so I see no reason not to take care of anything else I can that could ruin tomorrow too, and call Carly to let her know about Carlos. The call goes something like this: "Hey - Carlos knows - video - yeah, me on the bus - How are you going to take care of it? - Oh! Right, of course. Wait! - But! - All right. - No. Go ahead." And, now I'm not concerned Carlos will be able to expose our identities. And, I'm glad I never gave Carlos one of the neural neutralizers I took from the facility or I would have to snatch it off his head for Carly to do her magic.
With Carlos "fixed," (I know, it sounds like he's been neutered, which he kind of has been) things go back to normal and Carly and I are able to continue to enjoy our anonymity. The new semester has started, which doesn't mean anything to me as most of my classes are just continuations of first semester. With the exception that I no longer have a class together with Carly, which sucks. We make up for it by having lunch together every day.
Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel Page 20
