Action Figures - Issue Six: Power Play

by Michael Bailey

  But...

  “I don’t think in terms of punishment anymore. I think in terms of atonement, and no, I don’t think you’ve atoned for anything you’ve done.” I lean forward. “I also think you haven’t been given an opportunity to make amends. Now you have one. What are you going to do with it?”

  He frowns, my question catching him off-guard. “I don’t want any more trouble,” he says. “All I want is to be left alone.”

  “Unless you plan to move to Antarctica, that’s not an option. You wanted to be part of the real world? Well, now you are, and the real world isn’t going to leave you alone because you want it to. You’re going to be interacting with people — real everyday people, not prison guards and lawyers — and each and every time you do, you’ll have to decide how you’re going to deal with them. You’re used to acting selfishly. I guarantee you, if you keep it up, it isn’t going to work out.”

  I settle back on my bench, leaning against the cool steel transport wall. Archimedes mirrors me, his expression thoughtful.

  “I don’t know how else to act,” he says.

  “There are a million ways to be good. Give a homeless guy money for food. Volunteer at an animal shelter. Start off small and tip waitresses twenty-five percent.” I shrug. “Maybe just try not to be a dick to other people. You’re not going to save the world that way but at least you won’t make it worse. That counts for more than you might think.”

  Archimedes is silent for the rest of the ride.

  Our trip to the marshals’ office in Boston is, thank God, uneventful. A pair of marshals greets us outside the federal courthouse to officially take possession of Archimedes. One of them touches Archimedes’ shoulder and gestures for him to follow.

  “Be good,” I say.

  Archimedes’ mouth twitches, as if he’s trying to smile but doesn’t quite know how.

  He then disappears into the courthouse and, officially speaking, from the face of the Earth.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “Skyblazer, this is Psyche. You’ve been quiet for too long. Give me an update.”

  “The target’s still southbound on Route 93,” Skyblazer says. “Hurry it up, guys. If they get off the highway —”

  “Hold tight, we’re almost there. ETA five minutes.”

  “Yeah, quit your griping, Concorde Lite, or next time we’ll let your team handle it. Oh, wait,” Matt says, “your team doesn’t have access to a supersonic airship, does it?”

  “Don’t listen to him, Dennis, he’s just busting your chops.”

  “Tell him to save some of that chop-busting for the Landsharks,” Skyblazer says.

  Matt rolls his eyes. “The Landsharks,” he mutters.

  “Careful who you criticize for their name choices, Captain Trenchcoat.”

  “Point taken, buddy.”

  The name is laughably awful, but the Landsharks themselves definitely are not. They popped up several weeks ago in New York when they hit the first in a series of companies specializing in high-end technology — robotics and cybernetics, mostly. About a half hour ago, they wreaked havoc at a firm in Manchester that’s developing prosthetics for domestic and farm animals. Skyblazer’s team, the Wardens, responded, but they were unable to prevent the Landsharks from escaping with a box truck full of components — a fact Matt will no doubt rub in Rando’s face the next time we see her. Such professionals, those two.

  Anyway, the Landsharks are a team of genetically and cybernetically enhanced men and women who, as the name suggests, adopted a shark motif. They all wear suits made of highly flexible body armor, but their individual abilities vary. Bull is stocky and super-strong. Thresher wields a barbed steel whip. Goblin wears a helmet with a spike jutting from the forehead, which is scary-looking but not very practical. Mako, a low-grade speedster, wears arm-length gauntlets covered in barbs and blades that will shred flesh if you let her get close enough. Great White is big, strong, fast for his size, and has cybernetic jaw implants that can tear — and, ew, has torn — huge chunks out of people. They also travel in the company of assorted gun-toting henchpeople they call, no kidding, their Remoras. Talk about beating a concept to death.

  “Hey, just got the word from the staties,” Skyblazer says. “The highway’s been blocked off for five miles ahead of the Landsharks. We’re clear to intercept.”

  “Copy that. I’m swinging around now. Hold your course and we’ll rendezvous in thirty.”

  “Copy that.”

  A few thousand feet below us, Route 93 stretches across the face of New Hampshire as a dark line devoid of motion, except for one little dot hauling ass down a straightaway. I bring the Pelican Mark II around in a wide arc until we’re chasing the dot. Skyblazer comes up on my left, the summer sun gleaming off his helmet’s visor.

  “Dennis. Nice to see you again, circumstances notwithstanding,” I say.

  “Hi, Dennis!” Missy chirps.

  “What up, Sky-man?” Stuart whoops over the comm.

  “Hey, guys. What’s the play, Psyche?” Skyblazer says.

  “We’re going in low. Follow us in but stay to the rear of the truck. I’m going to buzz them and try to drive them off the road. If that doesn’t work, you take out their tires. The staties gave us room to play so we might as well use it. Once we’re on the ground, it’s over to Matt.”

  “The Remoras have ranged weapons so we lay them out first,” Matt says, “then we take down the ‘sharks. They may be new on the scene but they’ve done some damage, so take them seriously.”

  “Sounds good. Ready to go when you are,” Skyblazer says.

  “Superbeast, Kunoichi, hold tight,” I say. “We’re going in hot.”

  “Do it to it,” Stuart says.

  I lean on the yoke. The Pelican tilts as we drop. We quickly gain ground on the Landsharks, and I’m not even pushing supersonic speed — not yet. I save that until we’re maybe fifty yards behind the truck, a vehicle too large to be called a proper box truck but too small to qualify as a semi. I hold off for as long as I dare and then gun the engine. The maglev system’s soft hum escalates to a low bass rumble. My timing is perfect; we break the sound barrier right as we pass over the truck with maybe thirty feet separating us. The sonic boom is enough to rattle anyone, but I’m inclined to do as much damage as possible before we set boots on the ground, so I swing the Pelican around and skim the highway, making a barrier of the airship.

  The plan works. Whoever’s behind the wheel panics, and the truck swerves to avoid a collision. It roars past and ricochets off a guardrail. The truck slides sideways across the asphalt before flipping onto its side. Its momentum carries it a few yards more, sparks spraying up to create a glittering wake in its path.

  “Target is down,” I report, mostly for the benefit of my passengers in the hold.

  I’d love to launch a cluster of scramblers at the truck and let them do the dirty work, but I haven’t begun weapons training. I’m not about to go pressing buttons when I’m not one hundred percent sure what they do, so we get to handle this the old-fashioned way: up close and personal. I set the Pelican down so gently I barely feel the wheels settling on the ground. Edison would be proud.

  “Go!” Matt says.

  We pile out of the Pelican as Skyblazer takes position above the truck, concussion blasters at the ready. Matt trains his new thunder gloves on the vehicle. He gestures to Stuart, who circles around to the left, then to Skyblazer, who floats around to the back of the trailer. Missy crouches at my feet, her body tense. For several anxious seconds, nothing happens.

  “It can’t be this easy,” I say.

  It isn’t. One of the trailer doors falls open with a clang, and the grayish-black form of Mako streaks away. Missy bolts after her. Skyblazer tries to assist and sprays focused concussion blasts where Mako was rather than where she will be. He hasn’t learned how to lead his target, which is rookie mistake number one. Number two is that he takes his eyes off the trailer and doesn’t see the trio of Remoras taking position to shoot hi
m out of the sky. I take care of that problem quickly enough, throwing a telekinetic ram into the Remoras that sends them flying like bowling pins.

  Our advantage is short-lived. Bull crashes through the cab’s windshield and charges straight at us. Thresher and Great White bail out of the trailer along with two more Remoras.

  “Skyblazer, ignore Mako and get clear!” Matt says. “Let Kunoichi handle her!”

  “What? Why?” Skyblazer says, looking around instead of doing what he’s told to. Dennis is a good guy, but he lacks our experience — and he’s not part of our team, which means he doesn’t know how to function within our specific dynamic. In this situation, he’s more of a liability than an asset.

  “I said MOVE!” Matt barks. He barrels toward the Remoras while I snag Skyblazer with my telekinesis and pull him out of harm’s way. The Remoras open fire at empty sky. Matt pumps a series of rapid concussion blasts into the Remoras, flattening them. Thresher swings his whip at Matt, intending to shear his head off. Matt ducks, dives, rolls, springs back to his feet, pivots, and shoots Thresher in the small of the back. The blast throws Thresher face-first to the asphalt.

  Meanwhile, Stuart executes a crushing hit-and-run on Bull. Stuart comes in low, as if for a tackle, but instead of simply meeting force with force, he snares Bull in a bear hug, lifts him off his feet, and slams him into the cab. The impact drives the entire truck back several feet. Bull slumps to the ground. Stuart then sets his sights on Great White. I give him a helping hand — or brain, as it were — in the form of a telekinetic ram to the gut. Great White bends in half, wheezing. He never sees Stuart’s fist coming.

  None of us see the Landsharks’ ace in the hole coming.

  The trailer’s roof splits with an earsplitting scream of rending steel, and a woman — I think it’s a woman — crashes into the thick of the fight like Godzilla taking a power walk through Tokyo. She’s easily as tall and as wide as Joe Quentin, and her body swells with bulky muscle. Her face is a mashed-in nightmare, the centerpiece of which is a gaping pit of a mouth that bristles with triangular teeth.

  “If I had to guess?” Matt says. “Megalodon.”

  “You know you want to say it, dude,” Stuart says.

  Matt indulges himself. “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

  “A lot bigger,” I say as Megalodon sweeps her soulless black orb eyes over us, looking for her first victim.

  Her gaze turns abruptly skyward, right before a searing bolt of pure white light hits her in the chest. The blast flings her back. She skitters across the asphalt before coming to rest in the median, down but not quite out.

  All eyes turn toward the source of the blast, toward the figure smiling down at us. Her uniform matches that of the glowing figure hovering behind her, a strange being with low, reptilian ridges that trace his cheekbones and the rise of his brow. She shines as brightly as the sun, but somehow it doesn’t hurt my eyes to look at her. Her hair is longer than when I last saw her, and she’s shed that stubborn layer of youthful baby fat to reveal gently defined cheekbones. She looks — not older, but more mature, maybe. Despite all the differences, I’d know her anywhere.

  “I can’t leave you people alone for five minutes, can I?” Carrie says.

  “They started it,” Matt says without missing a beat.

  “A’watoch chag ymor, agla?” Carrie’s companion says.

  “No thanks, commander,” Carrie says. “We’ve got this.”

  Carrie throws another blast into Megalodon that kicks off the second act of the battle. Carrie meshes with us as smoothly as she ever did, as if she never left. We instinctively shift in and out of each other’s way, clearing sight lines for an attack before moving back to a defensive stance. One of us sets a target up, someone else knocks it down. One by one, the Landsharks fall. They never stood a chance.

  The Hero Squad is back.

  “Y’dagof, agla?” Carrie’s friend says, touching down nearby.

  “Maybe a little,” Carrie says with a smirk. She turns back toward me, her smile turning sheepish. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I say. That’s all I get out before my throat constricts and the tears start. I wrap my arms around her in a desperate hug. I need to feel her to confirm she’s real, that this isn’t some cruel dream.

  It isn’t. It’s really her. It’s my Carrie.

  I release her grudgingly, and only because everyone else wants their turn. Matt is last in line. He lifts his mask and shakes his head at Carrie, who responds with an extended but chaste kiss smack on the lips before pulling him into a hug.

  “What was that for?” he asks.

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “You better.”

  “Oh, believe me,” she says, “I have one hell of a story to tell you.”

  “I assume that’s Lightstorm,” Skyblazer says to me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s Lightstorm.”

  “And she’s...been in outer space? Is that right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s trippy.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Carrie suddenly pulls away and stares at Matt, her mouth agape. “You’re taller,” she says, looking up at him. “Why are you taller? When did you get taller?” The shock turns to dismay. “How long have I been gone?”

  Matt makes a face and sucks air through his teeth. Carrie spins in a drunken circle, only now realizing that there’s no snow on the ground and that the heat is just short of blistering.

  “Carrie.” I lay a hand on her shoulder, physically bracing her for what I have to tell her. “It’s August. You’ve been gone for eight months.”

  EPILOGUE

  People do not knock on his door often. Every once in a while a postal worker will need a signature on a package or some kid in an athletic uniform will come by soliciting donations for his team, but generally, people leave him alone. He prefers it that way.

  The irony isn’t lost on him.

  But whenever someone does come calling, an eruption of searing panic, like a firebomb detonating in his chest, always follows the knock. He received his first visitor four days after moving in. He was convinced she was an assassin sent to wipe him off the face of the planet, not a little girl from next door asking if she could retrieve her ball from his backyard. The general paranoia has subsided somewhat, but that initial moment of primal terror remains as strong as ever.

  He checks the weight at his hip, the gun they gave him as part of his relocation package, and peers through the peephole. The man on the other side is wholly unremarkable: tall, white, thirty-ish at best, tidy hair, sunglasses, an off-the-rack black suit. He wears the look of a government agent quite comfortably.

  The heavy-duty security chain is in place. The gun is loaded.

  He unlocks the door and cracks it open.

  “Mr. Meade, good morning. John White, US Marshals Service,” the man says with a polite but joyless smile. He flips open his badge holder and holds it up, giving the man known to his neighbors as Archie Meade — if they know even that much about him — ample time to examine the badge and the ID card.

  “Mr. White. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m afraid we have a problem, Mr. Meade. There was a serious security breach last night and we believe your cover may have been compromised.”

  “Compromised? How?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know that part, sir. I was simply informed of the situation and dispatched to make contact with you. Are you all right? Has anyone tried to contact you? Have you received any phone calls from someone claiming to have dialed the wrong number?”

  “What? No. No, nothing like — compromised? You people promised me I’d be safe!”

  “I know, sir, and I’m very sorry for this inconvenience.”

  “Inconvenience?!”

  “We’ve set up a temporary safe house for you while we address the issue,” Mr. White says in his best reassuring tone. “You should pack some essentials — a few days’ worth of clothing, toiletries...”r />
  “You people are unbelievable.” The chain comes off, and goes back on as soon as White steps inside. “I trusted you.”

  “Well, there’s your mistake.”

  “And coming here was yours,” Archimedes says, thumbing the safety into the off position. “I’ve been in your systems, you know. All of them. Did you think I didn’t know what you looked like under that facemask?”

  The Foreman turns, slowly, his hands out and open, and he gives Archimedes a smile. “I hadn’t considered it, no. I’d say I underestimated you but we both know that’s not the case. Archie Meade? Who came up with that one? You? If we’d known you were going to be so obvious, we wouldn’t have bothered hacking the WITSEC system trying to find you.”

  “You shouldn’t have tried to find me. You should have left me alone.”

  “After you compromised one of our research facilities?” The Foreman shakes his head. “Not an option.”

  “I sacrificed one small base. The Protectorate doesn’t know how big your operation is and I didn’t tell them. They think they’ve shut you down.”

  “They thought that when they took out our Boston base, too. We have to assume they’re looking for us now. That means we have to step up our timeline rather aggressively, and if we’re going to make that work, we need you back in the fold.”

  “Like you said — not an option.”

  The gun is out of his hand before he finishes the sentence. The Foreman turns the weapon on its owner, training it at waist level.

  “Gut shots aren’t immediately fatal but they do hurt like hell,” the Foreman warns.

  “Please. Don’t do this,” Archimedes says, his hands rising of their own volition to plead on his behalf. “I just want to be left alone.”

  “You had several months of peace and quiet. You’re rested, you’re refreshed, now it’s time to get back to work — and we could use your unique talents now more than ever. You see, when the super-hero community decided to drop their secret identities, they handed us a ton of intel on a silver platter, freeing our people up to pursue other projects. We’ve re-tasked our hackers to focus almost exclusively on our civilian prospects but we only have so many people, and time is not on our side anymore. You’d accelerate our efforts by several months, perhaps a few years.”