Red Light Hero

by Kory Shen

  Violet charged.

  CHAPTER 35

  Whip peered at the battle from the shadows of the city night. The blonde man wore his usual uniform, but today he had discarded the mask. He wanted everyone to know who was responsible for their punishment.

  She was here. The one who had abandoned them and left the others to be slaughtered by Sire.

  Whip had guessed what HumiliT had planned, and even what Sire had planned. He was quick like that. He had always been.

  After escaping Sire, he had obsessed over punishing HumiliT. This was the perfect chance. If he caught more alphas in his trap, even better. Whip scanned the battle. It looked like almost all of them were here. Tonight was his lucky night.

  He hated alphas. He hated them all now. After he used the remnants of his powers tonight, he wouldn't be an alpha anymore. Not that it would matter. This would be the end.

  Whip slung a black backpack off his shoulders and unzipped it. He reached inside and pulled out the first portal node. It was a small, metallic cube, the size of a grenade. The Maker had explained that he needed to arrange as many as he could in a circle around the target area, then activate the nexus receiver. He would build a makeshift satellite dish of sorts to focus the universe-rending forces onto a small area.

  Before he lost his equipment to the alphas, the Maker had planned to arrange a careful trap and lure the alphas there. With Whip's speed, he could lay the trap anywhere, anytime.

  Whip examined the surroundings. There were plenty of buildings, street signs, cars, and other attachment points around the battlefield.

  It was perfect.

  CHAPTER 36

  Red cubes appeared and exploded in the air around Electrophile. Electrophile's body was no longer covered with electrical discharges. Instead, the air surrounding him was thick and hazy.

  Alan had tried to manifest a projection inside Electrophile's body. It would be a simple and easy kill. Electrophile was somehow blocking his projections with the smog-like defense, though, as if he could stop Alan's willpower itself. Was it Stalker's powers? Or a combination of Stalker and Shocker?

  Electrophile cried out as a cube appeared in his forearm. Alan had somehow slipped one past his defenses. There was a surge of electricity around the area as Electrophile screamed, and something exploded. Electrophile grabbed his arm, but there was no blood. He removed his hand from the wound, revealing the blackened flesh of a cauterized wound.

  "You fucker. I'm going to kill you!" Electrophile screamed.

  If Alan kept this up, he could win. He knew it. So did Electrophile. As long as his projection powers didn't run out, that is. He needed to speed things along. What about a distraction? He stepped closer, lowering himself into an attacking stance as he continued the projection attacks. One quick punch. That should be enough to distract Electrophile, and then he needed one cube in the heart to finish this. It would be fast and humane.

  He took another step, but movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention. The movement had been fast, too fast to be human. Was it Streaker? No, she was still out on the ground.

  He flicked his eyes over to HumiliT. It wasn't her. Who else had super speed? Sire? Godmother? No, that was ridiculous.

  Electrophile had been facing the right way to see the fast intruder, but he hadn't said anything. Was the unknown runner working with Electrophile? Or was his vision too slow to spot him?

  There. He glimpsed the runner clearly now. It was a blonde man in a gray uniform. He knew him. Whip.

  "HumiliT!" Alan screamed. He didn't know if she had heard him. "Whip's here! He's doing something!"

  He didn't know what Whip was doing, but it couldn't be good. He slowed his attacks on Electrophile and searched for Whip. His split attention earned him another searing blast of electricity to his chest.

  Suddenly, Whip appeared in the middle of the street. "HumiliT!" he screamed. "This is for you. And the rest of you fuckers, too."

  The combatants stopped to stare at the newcomer.

  "What's going on?" Electrophile asked. "Didn't Sire take care of you leftovers?"

  Maiden scowled. She flickered, then reappeared in her original location, holding a gory piece of Whip's chest in her hand. She tossed something over her shoulder that hit the pavement with a wet sound.

  Whip stared at the hole in his chest in horror. He toppled over, still clutching something in his hands.

  All around the alphas, bright blue beams fired and converged on the object in Whip's dead hands.

  Alan wasn't going to wait to see what it was. He spotted the source of the nearest beam and ran over to crush it with his hands. He raced to the next source, then the next. He saw HumiliT following his lead. They managed to destroy half of the devices, but it was too late. A loud crack erupted from the center of the remaining beams, and when Alan looked backwards, the beams had disappeared. Instead, a four-foot long blue gash appeared brightly glowing in the night air above Whip's corpse. It was as if the air itself had been torn open.

  "The fuck?" Electrophile sent a blast at the strange object. HumiliT was across from Electrophile, so she shifted to her left to avoid the attack, but the bolt of electricity disappeared into the gash, leaving no trace behind. Electrophile channeled a full second of electricity into the strange blue gash, but all of it disappeared again.

  Alan had reached Violet's side. "What is that?"

  Violet shook her head. "I'm not sure. It looks incomplete, like you stopped most of—"

  Loud animal-like screams split the night air.

  "Shit!" HumiliT yelled. "Something's coming out."

  The alphas watched in horror as a human figure emerged. It was a naked man, except his skin was a sickly gray and he was half the height of a human. The small, gray creature turned his head to take in his surroundings. Then he raised his head to the sky and made a loud keening sound. Another creature, the same as the first, emerged from the blue gash. Then, another. And another.

  "The Maker!" Violet hissed. "This has to be his work."

  "The technonerd? Didn't the others deal with him a week or two ago?" Alan asked. The other alphas were still watching the gray creatures wearily. "What the hell are those?"

  "I'm not sure. Was he the one claiming to come from another universe?"

  Shocker had heard them talking. "Looks like the old man may not have been so crazy after all."

  "What do we do?" Escort asked.

  Electrophile laughed. "Kill them." He shot an electrical blast at the first gray creature. The creature screamed, then went quiet as its body thudded to the ground. The other creatures screamed, too. Then, they attacked.

  Without warning, Electrophile sent a giant wave of electricity to clear out the area. Ten more creatures screamed and fell over, writhing in pain. "Nothing more than a nuisance," Electrophile said.

  A chorus of screams, loud enough to make the more vulnerable alphas cover their ears in pain, emerged from the blue gash to answer the cries of their hurt brethren. Gray creatures poured out of what Alan now realized was a portal. Tens quickly became hundreds.

  The creatures leapt first at Electrophile. He blasted groups of the gray creatures away, but they kept pouring out of the portal. Shocker joined him to keep the creatures at bay.

  "Give me a hand, will you?" he snapped at Maiden.

  "Nothing more than a nuisance?" Maiden asked in reply, but she raised her hands and sent a shower of white orbs into the gray bodies. Alan watched the last remnants of Pearl's power in solemn silence.

  "Alan!" Violet shook him. "That's some kind of portal. We have to close it!" HumiliT had joined them too.

  "This is beyond me," HumiliT said.

  "We can close it!" a female shouted. It was Stalker. She was standing behind Electrophile with a pistol in her hand. She fired shots at the gray creatures as she spoke. "It's an electromagnetic construct. I can squeeze it shut," the opening became slightly smaller.

  Electrophile turned around and cuffed Stalker. "Leave it." He backed away f
rom the portal.

  There were hundreds of the gray creatures. A group turned away from Electrophile and attacked Alan instead. He kicked the first one away with a strength-enhanced blow, and the gray body burst into pieces of gray muscle and a pale yellow ichor. Gross. Alan grimaced and kicked another one away.

  Some of the creatures turned and ran deeper into the city.

  "Shit!" HumiliT raced after the furthest one, catching up to it and pulling it apart into two halves.

  "We have to close the portal!" Violet yelled. "We don't know how many can cross. They could overrun the city."

  Maiden stopped attacking the gray creatures. "No, Electrophile's right. We leave it." She reappeared standing on top of a short building. Next to her was Idol. Escort appeared on her other side.

  Alan and HumiliT kicked and punched the creatures. Violet swung her blade-tipped fists. There were too many of them.

  The first screams came from the apartment complex down the road. Then, screams emerged from another worn down building on the other side of the street. House lights turned on. In the distance, more screams rang out.

  HumiliT shouted at Maiden. "Innocent people are dying!" She turned to Electrophile. "Help us stop them. Close the portal, damn it!"

  Electrophile created a wall of electricity to keep the gray creatures from attacking himself and his betas. Stalker had dragged Streaker's presumably unconscious body over to them.

  "Let them die," Maiden said from her overlooking position. "The Strip is filled with disgusting filth, the dredges of society. They don't deserve to live."

  Electrophile nodded. "We can order an airstrike once the creatures have spread enough. Toss in another Black Death Protocol. Kill two birds with one stone." Electrophile laughed. "Carpet bombing The Strip. I want to see Godmother's face when that happens."

  Alan stared at Electrophile in disbelief. "Aren't you guys heroes at all?" He heard more shouts. People tumbled into the streets, running wildly. A few stopped to stare at the alphas. "How can you act like this?"

  In the meantime, HumiliT killed a gray creature that had been breaking the windows of a home. Then, she picked up two teenagers who were watching the scene from the side of the road. She dashed off and came back without the teenagers.

  Electrophile grinned. "Everyone here will be dead soon. It doesn't matter." As if to underscore his point, a pack of the gray creatures pounced on one of the bystanders gaping at the alphas.

  "Shit!" Alan took two steps towards the screaming man, but it was too late. The gray creatures had torn their victim apart. He turned away as one of the creatures lifted its head, blood dripping from its mouth.

  "Save them, hero!" Maiden taunted Alan. She stood proudly on the roof, watching the scene below with disdain. "You know nothing about being an alpha."

  "Can we call for help?" Alan asked Violet.

  "I can't reach Godmother," Violet said. "Electrophile's still blocking all signals in or out. Can you use Stalker's powers to get through?" She threw a gray creature off her and pierced another one on her right fist's blade.

  "Maybe. I don't really know how to use them." He reached out with his mind. He could sense the network signals, but there was a thick heaviness. He pushed against the heaviness in one spot, and the signals grew stronger.

  Electrophile glanced over at him. "Stalker! Take over the media blackout. I don't want any communications going in or out."

  More and more people were awake. Some ran, but others lingered on the edge of the scene, watching the chaos. Despite the risk to their lives, more than one person had their phone out, trying to record the scene.

  "The coverage area's too wide," Stalker said. "I can't block all the cameras."

  "It doesn't matter." Electrophile dismissed her concern with a wave. "They'll be dead soon. Just block the transmissions."

  Alan couldn't believe them. "So you're only a hero when people watch? Even if people are dying?" Alan clenched his fists. "You could stop the portal and save them all!"

  He understood why HumiliT had been willing to leave. Even now, she was off in the distance, trying to save people, unlike this piece of shit. They deserved to be exposed. The world needed to know what the alphas were truly like. If The Strip was to die, he would make the price steep. He would hurt the alphas in their most vulnerable place.

  With his body, he hammered more gray creatures away. It was almost reflexive now, a mechanical action, with his super strength and endurance. Instead, he focused on his Stalker powers. He reached out, and the heaviness pushed down on him once more. He pushed back. The heaviness receded.

  "He's disrupting the media blackout!" Stalker warned.

  Alan felt the phones around him, their algorithms sending futile packets into the network, the connections severed by Stalker. He reached out and pierced holes in the heaviness. In his mind, he felt individual devices reconnect. Data began streaming in both directions.

  "Electrophile!" Stalker screamed.

  The heaviness suddenly increased, blocking the connections. Alan staggered backwards from the forcefulness of the response.

  "No fucking way," Electrophile growled.

  Damn, he had almost done it. He checked his wrist band. STK 13. That hadn't taken too much. He reached out again and pushed against the heaviness blocking signal. Electrophile and Stalker pushed back. Alan strained for another several seconds, but they were too strong. STK 12. Maybe if he combined his speed power? Would that make him more effective? It would probably burn out his Stalker viral load, though.

  "Alan." It was Violet. "The portal."

  Alan scowled. "The world needs to see what these fuckers are truly like."

  "Alan!" Violet tugged on his arm. "People are dying! We need to close the portal!"

  "I'm going to try to break through. I can use my speed—" The sound of a revving car engine cut off Alan's words.

  Their car was accelerating straight toward the portal, picking up more and more speed. The driver's seat was empty with no visible driver. That had to be Cover Girl. The car must have been doing over eighty miles per hour when it crashed into a mass of gray bodies, shoving them back into the portal. The car's momentum drove the first several feet of its front hood into the portal.

  For a moment, the flood of creatures stopped coming out of the plugged portal. Then, metal creaked and glass shattered as the car was pushed back out. A flood of new gray bodies swarmed the car. The creatures demolished the obstacle, tearing doors off hinges and shredding tires. More creatures poured out of the portal like they had before.

  "Cover Girl," Alan whispered.

  They had to close the portal. Violet was right. So was Cover Girl.

  CHAPTER 37

  Cover Girl watched the mass of gray creatures tear apart the car. She knew it had been a long shot, only buying them a few moments. That's all she could do.

  Unlike the other alphas, Alan wasn't wearing a mask anymore. The shock on his face turned to grief even as he fought off another cluster of gray creatures with the woman Violet at his side. Violet was a good match for him. They moved in sync as they fought, covering the other's mistakes, communicating. They were too inexperienced to realize it, but they were a true prime and beta. Not like the other alphas.

  Her eyes watered as she watched the pair. Seeing the two of them convinced her even more that she was making the right decision. She could never be like that with Alan. Her past as an alpha was too twisted and broken. Someone like HumiliT could thrive in any situation. Not her, though.

  The deception had worked. She had jammed the gas pedal and steered the car from its roof, reaching into the open window. Maybe the others would figure it out, but it would be too late by then. This was her chance to do what she always wanted to do. Disappear.

  Back as Maiden's prisoner, she had thought giving up her alpha powers would be unbearable. But after rejoining Alan, she realized that she wasn't addicted to her alpha powers so much as the ability to run away from her problems. To make everything go away. To cloak hersel
f in the safety of nothingness.

  The thrill of the hunt, of fighting — she only enjoyed these as long as she could disappear at a moment's notice. She fought when she wanted and disappeared when she wanted. Now, she wanted to disappear from the alpha business. Forever. She had made up her mind.

  Cover Girl tried to ignore the guilty feeling nagging at her conscience. They had come to the Institute for her, and she was abandoning them in return. There wasn't much she could do, though. Her specialty was covert operations, not riot control or even head-to-head alpha fighting. She suspected that Maiden was sitting out the battle on the rooftop for very much the same reason, although Maiden would never admit it.

  Maiden. Cover Girl could still do one last thing. Cover Girl was hiding the old-fashioned way, no longer invisible, on the edge of the battlefield. She held Streaker's dropped blaster in her hand. She aimed it at Maiden from behind and fired. It was a long shot, but her aim was perfect. By a stroke of luck, Maiden shifted, and the shot only grazed her shoulder. Maiden looked around in alarm, then disappeared with her remaining beta circle. She knew Maiden. Maiden would retreat.

  That was it. Cover Girl's last act.

  "Alan," she whispered. It had been a fling. A mistake that had cost her everything but had shown her the path to freedom.

  She would become a nobody. She would disappear from it all.

  CHAPTER 38

  Alan checked his band. STK 10. His Stalker powers wouldn't last much longer. He shouldn't have wasted them earlier. He took a deep breath and reached for the portal.

  In his mind's eye, the portal didn't look like an irregular gash. Instead, it appeared as a single point of intense, bright light. He pushed on the light, but it didn't move. He tried pouring himself into the light instead. That worked. The light grew dimmer. It was taking all of his concentration, though, to focus himself into that small mental target. The light grew brighter again as he paused to deal with several gray creatures. Shit.