by Jobe, David
“Like a bunch of drunken hillbillies.” Grimms’ assessment came with a tone of concern. “Most look alright, but I think if things go south, they might decide to get involved. Hold on, I see a couple of guys wearing those same watches. Oh yeah, their crew cuts and combat boots. Well, that’s not out of the ordinary really, but the expensive high-tech smartwatches are. Sir...” Grimm trailed off on the mic as he sounded as if he were going to speak with them.
“Guys,” Allison’s voice broke through. “The soldiers upfront are starting to move forward. I think it’s about to jump off.”
A rock sailed out from the protestors group, arching up and over until it dropped and nailed a woman in the side of the face. She went down screaming, blood starting to well up between the fingers that held her face. Another rock sailed out from the protestors and landed with eerie precision against a soldier’s chest. The rock bounced off harmlessly, but the soldier’s stepped up, readying their weapons to open fire.
“Allison. Go for the guns first!” Lanton surged through the crowd that had decided to go everywhere and nowhere all at once. Pulling his pistol, he tried to push aside people to get into range of the gunmen as they stepped into a practiced formation.
The nearest soldier tilted his aim, zeroing in on Lanton. The gun flashed three times. As it did, his watch vanished.
Lanton felt the fuzziness that he had come to understand was him phasing out. The bullets passed through his chest and hit someone behind him. Screams erupted behind him and seemed to become contagious. Lanton raised his own pistol and fired. The bullet ricocheted off the man’s cheekbone.
The soldier gave him a wicked smile.
“This one has Brian’s ability. Expect them all to have it, or an ability.” Lanton focused his aim a bit better and fired twice. The first bullet bounced off the soldier’s jaw, but the second found the left eye socket.
The soldier went down in a pile at the back of the loading dock platform.
The soldier next to him noticed that his watch had just vanished and decided to open up on the crowd before him. The shots rang out in rapid succession, and each bounced off a shield that had been placed around a young woman who might have been the one floating before. The guard’s head whipped back, his right eye gone in a puff of red smoke.
“Focus on the watches and guns, Allison!”
“That wasn’t me! That came from the hill opposite the protestors.”
Lanton risked a glance over his shoulder at the hill, but all he could see was a woman sitting on a blanket having a picnic, which struck Lanton has crazy. He spun his head back around, ready to engage the next soldier. He raised his gun and found that he was the only person moving. Everyone around him stood frozen in place, a garden of terror-stricken statues. Lanton felt his shoulder slump. “Not this shit again.” He began to look around, looking for two grey beasts lopping for him. Instead, he heard the shrill protest of a metal door as the center loading dock door rolled open.
From the shadows of the open dock door, a large figure emerged. Clad head to toe in black tactical gear, the man had to be a good seven feet. His face was covered by one of those masks you might buy for paintballing, though Lanton suspected it was custom made. A white wolf’s face had been painted on it, making the eyes of the mask large and imposing. He focused straight on Lanton, pushing aside a still soldier as he stomped to the edge of the loading dock bay. “Detective,” an amplified voice announced.
Lanton raised his gun and fired. The bullet hit the man just above the eye, marring some of the paint, but otherwise bouncing off.
The man laughed through whatever speaker system he had in his suit. “Completely bulletproof. Unlike you.” He raised the gun and fired.
The bullet struck Lanton in the shoulder, spraying blood out behind him. “How?”
“The boss figured you would show up. He also figured your little trick might not work as well in stopped time. Nowhere for you to time jump. Just me and you, and little pup here.” He patted his gun. “After I’m done with you, I’ll take my time on the rest of your misfit team.” As he marched closer, Lanton found the man was wearing a nametag on his armor. One word in white. “Wolfe.”
Lanton shook his head. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Wolfe laughed, the hollow feeling amplified by the electronic aspect of it. “The Boss brought me back. Though he made some modifications.” He raised his imposing gun again.
Chapter Forty-Three
The Big Bad Wolfe
Wolfe went to raise his gun again.
Lanton began to unload his own, emptying the magazine in a manner of seconds. His aim had not been to hit Wolfe himself, though at least four of the shots fired pinged off his chest leaving very little evidence of their passing. Three others found their mark, in some respects, hitting the imposing assault rifle the man was carrying. The first bullet cracked the stock, but the other two hit the functional part of the gun.
Wolfe fired, and the first shot whizzed by Lanton’s left ear hitting a larger man that took it without a word of complaint. After that, the gun made a rapid clicking noise until Wolfe threw the weapon away in disgust. He drew a long knife that had been sheathed along his back. The blade had to be at least a foot of serrated steel. “Just means I get to do this all personal like.” He began marching toward Lanton, waving the blade back and forth.
His own gun now nothing more than a paperweight, he tucked it back into its holster and began to run. He couldn’t outrun the modified Wolfe, but sticking around inside the crowd was putting these other people in danger. Wolfe wouldn’t have any compunction about hitting anyone else. It occurred to him that he might be able to run to get Allison’s rifle. He wondered if Wolfe’s new armor would be impervious to that kind of firepower. He looked up the hill and knew there would be no way to get there in time. He could hear the heavy footsteps of Wolfe gaining ground on him with each long stride. Lanton had just made it out past the crowd when the footsteps resounded right behind him. Lanton turned, ready to try and defend himself. Wolfe punched him in the chest hard enough to send him flying. He landed against the bottom of the hill, knowing that some of his ribs had to be broken. He tasted blood in his mouth. His breath came out in wheezes now. He looked back the way he came and saw he had traveled a good ten feet. Wolfe must be running something similar to what Brian has, at least the extra strength aspect of it.
Wolfe pulled his extended arm back in slow motion as if reveling in the feeling. A low laughter emanated from him. He began to stride across the gap he had created, lifting the blade above his head with both hands. He began to yell as he got near, jumping at the end to drive the blade down.
Lanton managed to scoot the top half of his body to the right, but not enough to avoid the blade. It slammed down into the same shoulder he had been shot, the blade going through him and digging into the ground behind him. The pain was unbearable; as was the knowledge that even if he lived, someone was going to have to pull that serrated blade out. Death sounded a great deal more promising than that. Lanton pulled his taser from his belt and jabbed the two prongs up into the man’s jaw. They clicked against a metal framework of the man’s neck-guard. Lanton readied himself for the pain that would come next and held the trigger for as long as he could. Since Wolfe’s armor was made of interconnected metal pieces, and he now sat astride Lanton, Lanton became the grounder for the electricity.
They both screamed in unison, twitching as volt after volt slammed through both of them. The blade dug a larger hole in Lanton as he convulsed. Sparks began to cascade down around Lanton from Wolfe’s suit. Pieces of his suit exploded outward, revealing fried wiring underneath. The mask that covered Wolfe’s face gave off a sizzling noise before it ejected itself off of him, hitting Lanton in the nose before tumbling into the grass.
Wolfe’s face stared down at him, or rather, what was left of his face. The right side looked like a plaster molding of the man’s old face, stitched together at intersection points. His one eye glared at Lanton
with pain and hatred. The other part of his face looked like a 3d rendering of it in metal and wiring. His right eye twitched in its metal socket, spasming with each volt that passed through it. The man’s whole mouth was intact, but as his jaw quivered with the electricity, Lanton could see the back of his throat had been augmented with electronics. Lanton wondered how much of this suit was actually Wolfe himself.
Wolfe staggered back, breaking connection with Lanton and the taser. He had left the knife sticking out of Lanton; something Lanton gave silent thanks for. Wolfe stood five feet from him, twitching for a few moments as the last of the shocks passed through his system. Then a slow smile began to stretch across his face. “Clever, but not enough.”
Lanton stared at the man, trying his best to stay awake. Stay alive. “Do you hear that?”
Wolfe’s eyes widened as he did. The screaming and panic had returned. Whatever device Wolfe had used to stop time had shut off from the electricity overload. He turned to look back at the crowd and was slammed into by Brian running full steam. They landed in a heap down the parking lot closer to the port-o-potties, Brian on top. Brian pounded the cybernetic villain with his fists, blood and small metal parts flying.
Lanton laid his head back on the wet grass, ready to die. He found himself looking up at Julian. “Time to get you to a hospital, boss.”
Lanton shook his head. “You try to move me, and this stupid sword of his will cut me to ribbons.”
Julian smiled, though there was sadness in his eyes. “This isn’t my first go at this kind of thing. I planned on leaving it here. Unless of course, you want it as a souvenir?
Lanton just shook his head. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again he found himself in a hospital emergency waiting room, nurses rushing to help him. He had started to grow cold, and he knew what that meant. “Tell Eleanor…” he tried to say. His head rolled to the side, and he saw her, limp in the arms of a large woman with a dragon tattoo on the side of her head. The woman was carrying her with the little girl in tow. She was screaming something that he couldn’t hear. “Oh god, no. Please. Not her.”
Julian leaned down, tears in his eyes. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
Lanton’s last thought was he knew Julian was lying.
Chapter Forty-Four
Knight Takes Pawns
The Knight moved away from the group, heading closer to the base of the hill the protestors had decided to camp at. He could hear them shouting unoriginal insults down at the people. What surprised Drew was the wide variety of people that were yelling. To him, it looked as if every race was represented, as well as most of the ages. Drew did notice that there were fewer teenagers. Odds are they were somewhere looking to score their own can of energy drink in the hopes that it would contain the virus.
The Knight watched as Grimm moved to talk to a few people who had pulled up a beat up Ford truck up to the top of the hill and had set up lawn chairs all around them. As he watched, he could see that two people mingled with the crowd, but didn’t quite seem to belong. Something about the way they held themselves made Drew think that the men were just pretending to be a part of the group. As he watched, one of the men picked up a large rock and launched it into the crowd. A shrill scream erupted behind him. The Knight started up the lawn as another person launched a rock.
Grimm turned to a third person who had a rock in hand, Grimm’s own hand hanging above his gun like this was some wild west movie. “Don’t you do it,” he cautioned the man holding the rock.
The man’s arm pulled back ready to launch the softball sized rock into the crowd below.
Grimm pulled his gun in one solid motion, pointing the weapon at the man. With his other hand, he threw it out before him in the stop gesture while shouting, “Freeze!”
A thin white cloud the size of a basketball exploded from Grimm’s extended hand, shooting across the space to slam the rock holder in the chest. When it did, icy tendrils shot out from the impact point, lancing over the man until he stood there locked in place by what struck Drew as a clinging octopus of ice. The man’s rock tumbled to the ground as he stared wide-eyed at Grimm.
Grimm, in turn, stared down in wonder at his hand. His mouth moved as if he tried to formulate a plan. After a few tense moments, he finally said, “son of a..”
“Grimm,” The Knight said. “There’s more.” His stone finger pointed out toward a mass of people walking up the roadway carrying rocks.
Grimm looked from the Knight to the advancing crowd. Then down at the people below. His shoulders slumped as he looked at the Knight. “Go protect them down there. I’ll take care of the lynch mob.”
The Knight gave a formal salute. Grimm responded by raising a single finger.
Drew chuckled at home but turned the creation toward the screaming crowd below.
The Knight began his decent again, rushing toward the men at the docks with guns. Drew doubted he would do any good trying to talk freaked-out people into fleeing the scene unless he bellowed at them. He was much more in his element doing damage to the bad guys. As the Knight stomped through the crowd, careful to avoid stepping on anyone, a small band of men swung around the loading dock ramps. Each held what looked like automatic guns in their hands. Drew adjusted his creation’s course, assuming that the other ‘good guys’ would have something in play for the gunmen they had seen at the top of the hill, but would not know about these new men.
Picking up speed, he began to lumber toward the men, a stone juggernaut of bellowing rage. The scream that erupted from him startled the first man, so much so that he never managed to raise his weapon before the Knight backhanded the man, still running forward. The first gunmen flew to the side, hitting the wall of the loading platform with his bottom half, the top half flailing over before gravity took over and the whole man slid to a groaning pile on the ground.
The Knight ran at the second man, finding a barrel pointed at his face as he did. The gun erupted in quick succession, the bullets slamming into and being ricocheted off in varying directions. The Knight slammed his massive fist into the man’s chest, sending him flying into the man behind him. Both went down in a tangle of guns and arms.
“Nevermind him!” someone shouted. “Aim for the other Altered.”
Guns changed direction, leveling out toward the crowd off to his left. Drew knew that even if he started charging through them like a mad bull, they would get off hundreds of rounds before he could. Instead, he threw his creations arms out before him, palms open to the crowd. Trying to use his creation as a conduit he pushed his incredible will into the ground between the gunmen and the scrambling crowd. It was a desperate move. He had never tried to control a creation through another creation, but he didn’t have time to withdraw his mind from this one and seek out that ground again. The process would have been longer than the charging. Then he had to add that he wasn’t building a golem. He wasn’t even sure that this would work. Screaming at home, his hands white-knuckled on the edge of the chair, he pushed outward as if trying to expel his soul.
The asphalt in front of the soldiers, between them and the crowd, shook with one violent upheaval. The black road erupted upward and at an angle, the pieces flying in sharp debris at the gunmen. Though all were hit, only a few took enough of a chunk to knock them down or back. The others dodged the debris and returned to aiming. Only now, between them stood a dirt wall about eight feet high as just as thick. Later they would show an aerial view of the dirt wall and see that it resembled the shape of a man’s arm trying to ward off an attack.
The Knight staggered as armed men turned on him.
At home, Drew fell out of his chair, landing hard on his knees. His face felt wet. When he put his hand to his lip, it came away bloody. “I pushed too hard,” he told an empty house. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t work for him. “I’m going to die here.” He started to crawl toward the front door, hoping he would be able to make it to the door before he passed out. He tried to reach out to his creation, but
just trying to cast his mind outside his head made him dizzy. He resolved to hope his creation kept with what he had originally programmed it, protecting Mac’s girl. He knew she would be the key to keeping the whole world from ending.
He managed to make it to the door, but on his hands and knees, he couldn’t seem to reach high enough to grasp the door. Try as he might, he ended up just pawing at the door a few inches from the brass handle that mocked him from above.
He flopped down on the floor, unable to keep himself up from the exertion. “I’m going to die right here.” He lay his head on the soft carpet, staring at the sentry between him and freedom. The stupid wooden door sat there without a word, unmoving and unrelenting. His eyes searched the surface, looking for anything he could find that might help. Then his eyes fell on the frame of the door. The frame itself was made of wood, but the surrounding material was made of stone and mortar. He stared at it for a long moment before trying to shrug. “I’ll die if I don’t.” He pushed his will at the side of the wall that the door that held the knob. The stone gave a low groan, dust particles falling down from the ridges between the stones. For a moment the whole house sat eerily quiet. One stone fell inward. A second stone followed. After a loud parade of noises, the side of the wall held a hole the side of a trashcan lid. “That should get someone’s attention.” He laid his head back, wiping more blood from under his nose.
