“Got it, boss!”
“Thank you. Veritas, we’ll speak later.” Blackstone ended the remote conference, turning from the darkened screen. “And thank you, Hope, and Yoshi, for going over this now. Yoshi, could you give me a moment with Hope?”
“Of course.” He stood along with Shell. “One last thing. I’ll pass Shell Defensenet’s profile on Langer, but you should know his tactics weren’t typical. He never attacks frontally, when he can help it, avoids anything like a fair fight. He’ll choose a target and opportunity and go for the sucker-punch, the sneak attack. He likes to knock the fight out of them, then take his time beating the life out of them. He’s very good at picking his time and choosing a battle where he didn’t have the upper hand isn’t his style. It’s obvious he’s not calling the shots, but be careful.”
He gave them both a nod and Hope watched her husband and friend leave. When the door closed behind the kami, Blackstone turned to her.
“Hope, is something else bothering you? Beyond all of this?” A general hand-wave encompassed everything and she squared her shoulders.
“No—I mean, yes but it’s nothing you can help me with. It doesn’t affect the team, not directly.”
He studied her for a long moment. “My door is always open. You know that.”
“I know.” His support warmed her but couldn’t chase away the ice that had sat in her gut since hearing Veritas explain his “realignment.” I’ve been a coward. She made herself stand and give her boss and mentor a reassuring smile. “It’s something I need to take care of on my own.”
But first she had to sleep, she was so tired. Just one night. One night, and then she’d be strong.
Rush was tired.
He’d been speeding from the moment the Dispatch system had crashed until well into the night, almost no breaks, clocking from six to ten seconds-per-second when he wasn’t entirely into frozen hypertime.
Scouting and calling shots for others, dropping freaking zombie soldiers when they got too close to bystanders, getting bystanders out of the way, finding bombs, more observe-and-report as they tried to figure out what the hell was happening. Then moving stuff and people around Chicago, always rushing between seconds.
He’d had more than fifty medical responders up on his bike yesterday, made just as many supply runs, and with his internal clock way ahead of everyone else’s, he’d managed only two three-hour sleeps. He was having to be careful with his balance on his bike, and Crash wasn’t doing much better—he’d had to order the kid to pace himself.
On top of that he was coming down with something and felt both cold and hot, so he was sick and tired and now the stupid FEMA official in front of him would. Not. Shut. Up. Standing in the middle of the relief tent, Dr. Leo Marin, Federal Response Team Leader according to his nametag, jabbed Rush’s chest with a finger and got right up in his face to continue his I-could-explain-why-we-need-those-boxes-now-but-you-could-have-them-here-already speech.
Like Rush was going give up another hour of his life so the dude could have his boxes in two seconds. He ignored the talking mouth and jabbing finger to grab a stray water bottle from the relief tent’s table. It was warm and someone had opened it, but at this point he didn’t give a ripe shit. He rushed drinking it, which gave him a minute of silence while he watched the idiot’s frozen face and made up stories about the huge mole on the side of his nose.
He considered finding a marker and giving the man a mustache, but decided it was a waste of time since Dr. Leo Marin wouldn’t see it until he checked a mirror and he sure as hell wasn’t staying around long enough to see the payoff. Instead he just dropped back into realtime and crushed the empty bottle. It made a satisfying crinkling sound and the man’s face turned purple when he realized Rush had basically tuned him out by speeding.
The man’s eyes bulged. “Do you know who I—”
The crushed water bottle crushed his nose, delivered by Rush’s open-palmed strike.
Quin heard the scream—alto but definitely male—and alerted Dispatch, pulling her stunners without thought as she closed the distance to the FEMA tent in three bouncing bounds. Planted a foot to turn her angle while scanning the open space for threats, she saw—
“It’s Rush!” Shell called out through her earbud, the AI’s warning near-simultaneous with the red blur that crashed into her and the electric snap-snap-snap of the stunners she barely held onto. Rush staggered back from the double hit of electroshock as Quin dropped her recharging stunners and leaped to grapple.
Her hand closed on his wrist before he could blur again and he made the mistake of yanking back—pulling her into him let her wrap her legs around his, snaking her free arm around his waist as they fell. Letting go of his hand to get her other arm around, she grabbed her own wrist, tightened her leg hold, tucked her head into his body to shield her face, and held on through the twisting-slamming-shaking-thumping-hurricane of jerks and blows as one of her closest friends tried to beat her to death to get her off him.
“Crash is coming hold on hold on hold on hold on—” Shell chanted in her ear and then Rush relaxed, flopping to the floor of the tent with a sandman patch stuck to the side of his face.
Well, it was the only spot of bare skin not covered by his costume and helmet. Quin carefully unwound herself, looking up at a shaken Crash. Pale as a ghost, the kid was breathing like he’d run a mile.
“What the hell was that?”
“You saw more than I did.” Her voice shook. Climbing to her feet, she straightened her collar. Vulcan’s carbon-fiber material meant nothing had ripped, but Rush had tried to garrote her with her own costume ruff. He’d also hit her dozens of times in those wild seconds, but he hadn’t been thinking at all; her rubberized body just “bounced” blunt impacts and didn’t need oxygen and he knew it.
“We’ll have to wait for a mask-cam replay. Help me.” They cuffed and hobbled him, leaving her free to check the tent’s only other occupant—a bloody and groaning field-dressed man.
“Sir? Sir. I need you to look at me.” Gently pulling the FEMA official out of his fetal position, she winced sympathetically at the red mess of his face. It looked like Rush had smashed his nose and struck his face at least twice more before going for targets lower down; his agonized curl said at least one hit, possibly the last one, had been to his groin. Dazed eyes met hers, but he was tracking and his breathing didn’t rattle in between whining gasps. Good signs.
She read his tag. “Dr. Marin. We’ll have a paramedic momentarily.” She nodded to Crash and the kid disappeared in a blur. Smoothing the diamond-patterned fabric of her bodysuit, she tugged her ruffled cuffs and picked up her tricorn hat.
“He tried to kill me,” the man burbled, raising hands to his face. Quin made him lower them.
“If he’d tried to kill you, you’d have been dead before you hit the floor. I know, cliché, but true for Rush. He just really worked you over.”
“I’m pressing charges!”
“Of course you are. The police are a little overworked and understrength right now, but we’ll provide them with a full mask-cam recording of the incident to back up your statement—”
Crash reappeared with Lindsay Bell, a first-responder Quin knew quite well. The woman looked nearly as tired as Crash did, but she dropped her case beside the FEMA official and got to work. Five minutes later two ambulances arrived, one for each. Quin rode with Rush, watching him sleep and wondering what had sent her friend berserk.
And how the hell am I going to spin this?
Scott woke up in a hospital bed. Strapped down. The light jabbed his eyes and he blinked, blinked again. What the—
“How are you doing?”
He turned his throbbing head to where Quin sat to the right of the bed. “Not good, obviously. What hap— Oh, oh shit. What— Why—”
She put a hand on his arm. “We don’t know, yet. Chakra’s so out of it from all her work that Blackstone’s letting her sleep. It’s not like you’re dying, you just . . .”
“Beat the shit out of a civilian. Why the hell did I— I can’t— I tried to kill you!”
She laughed harshly. “Look at your hands.” They lay wrapped up in bandages, wrists held in padded bed-restraints. Tugging the straps a bit Scott realized they’d arranged upper-arm restraints as well to keep him from putting too much pressure on his wrists if he fought. She touched his bandages. “You jammed a few fingers and strained your wrist bouncing your fists off me before you tried to choke me. Your cybernetic hand is fine but you impacted the socket pretty hard.”
He searched her undamaged face, wincing at the memory of trying to beat her head in or at least get to her eyes and blind her. He couldn’t see a scratch on her smooth, latex-like skin but he still shivered, feeling nausea rise in his gut. “If there’d been anything sharp around us, I’d have cut you to ribbons before Crash got there! I looked. I—”
“I know. Scott, I know. And it wasn’t you. What were you thinking about, when it started?”
“Nothing that would—” He forced himself to stop, to think, as hard as that seemed to be the way his thoughts skidded all over the place, to tell her what he remembered of those minutes before he’d—oh, God!—beat a man down and tried to kill his friend.
“Okay,” Quin said when he finished. “Okay, Scott. I’m going to bring the doctor in. They said you’re running a slight fever in addition to being sleep-deprived and a bit dehydrated. Is there anything else?”
“Balance. My balance.” Why hadn’t he thought of that? “I’ve had to be careful on my bike, the last couple of hours. I thought it was just fatigue, but I’ve sped for longer before.”
“I’ll make sure they know.” She squeezed his arm. “Wait right here.”
“Funny, Quin, funny.”
“I think so. After all—”
The alarm sounded, piercing, almost painful even through the closed door. “Biohazard alert. Biohazard alert. All medical personnel in the Superhuman Medicine Section are to shelter in place and await instructions. The section is sealed. Biohazard alert. Biohazard alert.”
“Dispatch—” Quin started but Shell preempted her query, tapping the hospital system to answer through the room’s intercom. “The doctor isn’t coming in. Not without prep.”
Scott grunted and Quin patted his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“I am.” Shell talked fast. “In incidents like Rush’s, SOP is to find the source of influence fast and to look for potential commonalities if you don’t know what it is. Rush is running a fever, and he’s presenting neurological symptoms—like balance issues. That points at a biological vector rather than a mental influence vector and as soon as Rush told you I ran a review and analysis on all team members’ mask-cam telemetry. Guess who else is presenting fever and balance issues? Crash. Crash is getting isolated right now.”
“Okay, I understand, but why lock down the whole section?”
“Because where have Rush and Crash been the past two days? All over the target zones. Where have most of the patients in the section been? And a bunch of the medical personnel.”
“But if only Rush and maybe Crash are being affected—”
“Quin! If this is biological, then it’s hitting Rush and Crash now because they’ve been speeding so much they’re both nearly two days ahead of us! So it’s hitting them first, but if it’s widespread then everyone’s going to catch up with them! And may be contagious!”
Quin’s hand on his shoulder tightened spastically as his head pounded, his breath catching in his lungs at the horror of what Hope’s AI friend was telling them.
Quin spelled it out. “You’re saying Rush and Crash may be presenting symptoms of infection, and if they are then every cape, first-responder, and bystander exposed to the attacks may be infected and infectious as well. Get me Blackstone.”
“He’s busy, just told me to tell you that if it’s biological at least you’re absolutely immune. You’re to get sanitized and get back to the Dome. Rush, sorry, and I’m going to stick right here with you until we can shake someone loose. Well, I’m everywhere else, too, but you know what I mean.”
“I gotcha.” He cleared his throat. “Get your bouncy ass moving, Quin. I’ll be alright.”
Her eyes were stricken, but she nodded once and was out the door.
“Okay kid,” he said once the door closed. “Give it to me straight up.”
“Is there anybody you’d like to call? Because I’ll absolutely get them for you.”
“Shit. Is this it for me? And Crash? What didn’t you tell Quin?”
The AI sounded shaky and scared, and damn she might be smart, but the girl she’d been had died young and she sounded it now. “Your symptoms are a possible match for something pretty bad. If it’s that, then this could be it for a lot of people. This could be it for the city.”
“And me flat on my back. Shit.”
Chapter Seven
Omega Watch Alert: possible outbreak of previously known viral condition under unique circumstances, by a hypothetically new means of propagation. If verified, possible Omega Event. Alert Source: Asset Power Chick. Variables: lethality of suspected virus and effectiveness of new propagation method. Response: move relevant DSA and CDC assets to full readiness status, activation pending confirmation.
DSA Alert 215-87559
“Just so you know, this isn’t how I wanted to lose weight.”
Mal had been saving the line for forever, at least since he’d woken up; the drugs made it impossible for him to really track the digital clock on the wall— "Hey. Aw, no.” His girlfriend—and didn’t he have a hard time believing that despite her asking him to the prom just two weeks ago—stared at him, brown eyes wide with appalled shock before she started tearing up. “I’m sorry, Tiff. Too soon?”
“Way to go, Don Juan,” Shell snarked. “Hey Tiff, he’s really not this stupid, I swear. He’s on the good drugs. I told you, he’ll still be able to dance. We can even make him taller. You’ll be able to wear heels.”
Tiffany covered a choking laugh, rolling her bright brown eyes. Mal loved those eyes.
Shell had told them. She’d told him twice, playing omnipresent nurse since he’d woken up. The painkillers really were the good stuff—he kept having to look down at his truncated shape under the sheet to believe it. All he really felt was a ghost of warmth and pressure, but she’d assured him that they’d been able to save his muscles, bones, and nerves down to the knees. They’d even been able to preserve the ligaments so they could achieve “maximum distil stabilization,” whatever that meant, and installed the latest joint-socket so that Vulcan would be able to just slot in the cybernetic legs he was already customizing as soon as the stumps healed.
He’d be faster, stronger. He could join Rush in the cyborg club.
Tiff inhaled and sniffed, wiping tears. “I’m sorry, it’s just that, well, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“Geez, you two are eloquent. Tiffany, he really is going to be fine. Rehab will be a bitch, but he’s not in pain now and it’s not like the old days where we would have just given him a peg leg. It could have been a lot worse, and this is likely Mal’s last fight anyway—he’s hanging up the cape for engineering school, remember?”
“Yeah, Tiff.” Mal fought the grin and lost. “I’m walking away from it all.”
This time her choking laugh came from her gut. She hugged herself tight, but her smile was genuine. “I’m holding you to that. You need to be my boyfriend on campus this fall, that’s the deal.” Mal’s grin widened.
Then the alarm sounded. Tiff clapped her hands to her ears and even Mal winced. Cut off, it was followed by “Biohazard alert. Biohazard alert. All medical personnel in the Superhuman Medicine Section are to shelter in place and await instructions. The section is sealed. Biohazard alert. Biohazard alert.”
“I hope it’s the biggest wrong call I’ve ever made,” Shell said. “Rush went berserk a little earlier—he’s contained now—and physical factors point to a po
ssible biological vector. It may be nothing, and if it’s biological it’s probably not contagious. Probably.”
Mal’s thoughts slid like boots on ice. “What was the vector? The attack?”
“Maybe something in it? I could be wrong.”
“But if you’re not, I was in the same environment. Could I be infected? Could I be contagious?”
Tiff’s eyes went wide as saucers.
“Probably not yet. But Tiffany? You guys were all smoochy-face a minute ago so I’m afraid you’re checked into Hotel Northwest Memorial until we know. Pull up a chair.”
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.
Hope stretched, feeling the luxury of Yoshi’s smooth skin on hers from his chest beneath her cheek to their entwined feet. He snored softly, his breath ruffling her hair.
After leaving Blackstone’s office and visiting Dr. Beth—who’d confirmed she was indeed safe from 8-year-olds—Hope had stopped in the Dome’s chapel to pray and light candles. For guidance, for remembrance, for thanks, for intercession. Saint Michael, defender of man, stand with us in the day of battle. Saint Jude, giver of hope, be with us in our desperate hour. Saint Christopher, bearer of burdens, lift us when we fall. Finally in her rooms again, she’d found Kitsune asleep in their bed and despite everything smiled to see him still wearing his Yoshi-face. If he wasn’t resting in his furry form any more then he was getting better fast. She’d undressed, showered, and slipped into bed with barely a twitch from him when she curled up along his side.
Late in the night she’d woken in the darkness, shivering with memories of cold and despair, shivers that awakened her fox. She’d reached for him, and when he understood what she wanted he’d gathered her in and gently . . . played her. Like a flute, like a loved musical instrument under his hands, his lips, his tongue, until every part of her touched every part of him. He’d told her so often that her pleasure was beautiful to him, and she’d certainly sung. And when her pleasure muted into drowsy contentment he’d tucked her in beside him and held her until she slept again.
Repercussions (Wearing the Cape Book 8) Page 7
