There were seven attack zones now, the four newest at widespread points around the city. “Shell, have they stopped coming?”
“No new attack zones, but they’re spreading out! Morrigan and Artemis are holding their zone—so’s Iron Jack and Kukkuu! I’m providing suppression fire for The Harlequin but my magazines are almost dry and even hopping rooftops I’m about out of lift! You and Malmsturm each have your own, but two zones aren’t covered at all except by Sifu’s visits! But the cavalry’s coming!”
“They’d better be quick or there won’t be anything left to save!”
“Don’t worry, they’re—woops! They’re here! Northwest!”
“Astra!” A new voice called through her earbud. “Your friend patched us into your network—we’re taking point! Power Chick, call assignments!”
Hope nearly floated higher from sheer relief, recognizing the fellow Atlas-Type streaking down the sky towards the burning Quarter. “Thank you, Nike! Shell, who’s here?”
“The full Rotterdam Guard! Sidestep brought them in through Hypertime—he’s dropping everyone but Nike in their zones! We’ve got— New incursion in west zone!”
Hope dropped without thought, angling down and south to meet the attack she’d been waiting for.
Jacky dropped out of mist to shoot two zombies in the back of the neck—she’d found severing the spinal column with lead worked just fine for one-shot kills on the things—and danced back into mist to come down behind another bunch. The insane spear-wielding barbarian chick who’d joined them did her own lethal dance, thrusting and swinging her lightning-charged spear to slice and stab her way through GZS concentrations. Jacky could see blood where the dreadlocked redhead had taken a few hits closing on them, but she ignored her wounds in her killing rage.
Jacky’s stolen AK clicked empty and she rose back into mist to find and acquire another. A damn machete would be as useful right now—
A helmeted dude in an armored bodysuit appeared out of nowhere—speedster-delivery, she’d bet. He raised his arms and an invisible wave swept green zombies into the air to sprawl bouncing upon the street.
“Good afternoon, fräulein!” the man laughed through her earbud. “We haf come to save your day!”
“Took you long enough!”
“It did! Now to work!” Another dramatic sweep picked up abandoned cars and threw them into advancing GZSs. Jacky suddenly had no close targets.
“Yeah, that’ll work. Can you—”
“Incoming!” Shell called out and Jacky rose into mist without thought as bullets tore through the air she rode and Wunderkind went down in a spray of red.
“Multiple new incursions—Beatdown, Fastball, Lash, Hellix, Bullet!” Shell read off names and Hope’s blood froze. She knew every name—they’d been on a general warrant since the Ascendant and the Wreckers had broken them out of Detroit Supermax two years ago.
“Call targets, paper-scissors-rock!”
“They’ve called them first!”
Hope cratered the street feet-first, launching sideways to snatch Morrigan into the air and away from the red-armored man in front of them ripping fire from both sides of the street and funneling it into twisting vortexes. She couldn’t see Jacky.
“Wunderkind’s down! Bullet!”
Bullet. Always hit who he aimed at. Hellix. Nasty pyrokinetic. The others? Fight the ones in front of you. Dropping Morrigan on an unlit rooftop, she yelled “Stay down!” and arced around.
“New incursion—Big Bad Guy!”
Hope twisted in flight to put her face to the sky but the numbing weight of cold hit before she even spotted him diving out of the smoke-filled sky, heard the nightmarish chorus. “They glided past, they glided fast like travelers through a—”
NOT! THIS! TIME! Hope’s hand flew to her uniform pocket, retrieving Ozma’s little gift, and then a round, smooth sphere lodged inside her cheek and fire filled her. It wasn’t Hellix’s.
Is this how Megaton feels when his fire fills him up? The thought was barely a whisper through the roaring in her head drowning out the chorus as she climbed to meet her nemesis. She’d never seen a flier that massive that still wore human shape, the scarred armor shrouding a monster of a man at least seven feet tall. The sword bigger than her came around as she twisted, smashing Malleus into his great shield on her way past. It barely moved, but then she was above him and swinging down.
NOT! THIS! TIME! Repeated blows and then she caught his return swing against Ajax’s maul, tumbling away before she could recover and drop below a swing that sliced hairs from her wig. “Hope! Lead him down!” Shell yelled in her ear and she let her drop turn into a fall.
“Where’s Nike?”
“Nike’s on Beatdown! Wunderkind, Sidestep, The Harlequin, your dad are down!”
Dad! The distant shock of her nemesis’ shield against her body as he rammed her hard loosened her grip on Malleus and her descent turned into a tumble. She couldn’t get out from under him as his sword swung up—
The crash of pain to her hand as Malleus split drove every other sensation from her body. Not again.
A tiny jewel-toned hummingbird buzzed past her and turned into Yoshi, hanging in freefall between her and the monster with a single small something in his hand. He pulled the trigger and her vision disappeared in an eye-searing flash and shock of pressure.
“Kitsune!” She blinked desperately. Falling! We’re both falling! She didn’t even know where the ground was. Her vision cleared and it still fell above them, cold and chorus battering at the fading heat inside her. “They glided past, they glided fast—”
The scream of divine fury that pounded her ears and drove through her bones blew the cold away as the lighting-spear thrown by Morrigan, avatar of the Goddess of Battle, imbedded itself in her nemesis’ chest.
Hope didn’t feel her meeting with the street.
Chapter Seventeen
“Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skillful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the art of War. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.”
Carl von Clausewitz, On War.
“You know, this is getting old.”
Hope opened her eyes to see Shell standing over her in the virtual flesh, shiny-chrome Galatea right behind her. She lay still long enough to do an ouch-check. Everything hurt. Again. But nothing was screaming agony or numb nothingness where ouches should be. “Well, remember what you used to say.”
“If you want a kitten, ask for a pony?”
“No.”
“Unless you’re caught it didn’t happen?”
“No.”
“Pain heals but winning lasts forever?”
“That’s the one.” She sat up, scanning the destroyed street. “Since the quantum-neural link’s working, I guess they’re gone?”
“All except the last GZSs. We’re handling those.”
Hope braced herself. “Who’ve we lost?”
“Not counting Brussels’ whole Guard team? Wunderkind. Quin and your dad got taken out by Lash—all the toughness in the world doesn’t do much against a neuro-psychic attack—but that’s something you bounce back from. I don’t know about Malmsturm’s condition but he’s still hopping around blowing out fires so I guess he’s good. All the villains popped away after BBG pulled Morrigan’s spear out of his chest and disappeared again. Princess Kukkuu of the Magical Kingdom of Fairy Funland and Morrigan are helping the Rotterdam Guard and the rest of us with the cleanup.”
Hope could hear the distant snap-snap-snap of autofire. It didn’t sound like there was much of it. She still climbed to her feet. An armored hand steadied her. “Kitsune?”
“Gone again. Take it easy. We’ve got this and you know smacking the street probably concussed you again, right? How’s the hand?”
It
throbbed sharply and didn’t like it when she tried to make a fist, but something else grabbed her attention. “Where’s the pearl?”
Galatea held up a hand. “I fished it out of your throat, which, yuck. You half-swallowed it when you hit. It worked?”
“Astra,” an unfamiliar voice spoke in her ear. “Are you mobile?” “Nike,” Shell mouthed.
“I can stand so I can fly.”
“A central aid station’s been erected outside the Royal Palace. If you can proceed there, you can be looked at.”
“Right. Where’s Wunderkind? I’ll bring him with me.”
“Your girl can tell you, I can’t. And thank you.”
Hope nodded pointlessly, looking around. “Wunderkind?” Shell popped a red icon up and leaving Galatea she flew one street over from where she’d fallen. Wunderkind lay close to a drift of fallen zombies. “It was some kind of anti-armor Verne-tech round and Bullet never misses. Well, never missed. Jacky got him and he popped out before the rest, it might have been an automatic return function on his jump node ’cause I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”
“Good.” Hope scanned the street. A hotel a couple of buildings away had been hit by something, probably a stray rocket, and the large EU flag that had flown from high on its façade had fallen to the rubble-strewn road. She retrieved it and used it to decently wrap Wunderkind before gathering him up and lifting off.
Above it looked even worse and, no longer in tactical-mode, Hope couldn’t ignore the horror of what she saw. Chicago had been bad but at least their attackers hadn’t used one of the Gungnirs on it. The heart of Brussels— Maybe it hadn’t been a nuke, but except for the radiation it might as well have been. One of the EU’s centers of government was simply gone, a crater surrounded by shattered buildings. Smoke and dust choked the air, blanketing the stricken city.
“We weren’t the main target,” she said numbly. And this wasn’t winning.
“Hell, no. The EU took over three times as many hits, and our capital didn’t eat a strike. They didn’t get softened up with street-bombs first, but their zombie horde was five times bigger. The strike on us was just a primer.”
“That’s what Shelly said?”
“Shelly used a lot more swear words. Get down, you’re about to fall down.”
“At least this time I’m bringing myself in.”
“And that’s an achievement.”
Hope came down in Brussels Park. Tents were already rising, men and women rushing about yelling into walkie-talkies. It looked like Brussels had a better secondary communications-system than Chicago—but then Chicago wasn’t a major capital and hadn’t been prepped for military-grade cyberattacks. EU Military vehicles rolled by, headed for the shooting and the crater.
An EMT ran to meet her, reaching for what she carried, and Hope shook her head. “He’s gone.”
The man cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said in accented English. “But I do need to verify.” Hope nodded and laid her passenger down. Pulling back the blue cloth, she revealed the chest wound and, after a moment’s clumsy fumbling, removed his helmet.
Wunderkind looked . . . surprised. She closed his eyes.
The EMT wrote out a tag and handed it to her. “Take him over there,” he pointed down a lane of the park. “With the tag. Your hand will have to wait, I am sorry.”
“Don’t be, pain heals and I’m not staying here.” She recovered Wunderkind and rose, feeling steadier. “Thank you.” She lifted off, leaving the man talking into his radio, and went where she’d been told. There weren’t many bodies laid out there, yet, but there was plenty of space for the rows to grow and multiply. She was too familiar with such spaces. Leaving Wunderkind and his tag, she took off again.
“Hope . . .”
“I know, Shell. I lost consciousness with no explanation, and I’ve got a busted hand now—but I’ve got a left arm and work to do at the impact site.” She was too familiar with downed structures, too. There’d be mostly bodies to find, but also survivors waiting. She could hurt and be human later, there was work to do.
“Astra,” Blackstone said gently. “We need to talk.”
“I’m kind of busy, sir.” She one-handed a chunk of shattered road out of the hole, widening it further. Workers slid down past her and into the dark, moving into the collapsed section of Metro line beneath the Quarter.
“It’s been an hour since you recovered someone alive, Shell tells me Brussel’s own emergency services and local military units are crawling over the impact site with echo-locator equipment and flown-in superhuman assets, and you’re dead on your feet. Stop. Moving. That’s an order.”
“Everybody’s okay. Dad and Quin have bounced back and are helping, Artemis and Sifu weren’t even scratched—”
“I have everyone’s condition from Shell! And I also have her report of yours. You’re done.”
Hope took out her earbud.
Nike tapped her shoulder and Hope looked back. Andrew would really appreciate her costume. White and gold bodysuit, laurel-leaf design to her belt and the headband wreathing her cropped dark hair. And if she was thinking about what Andrew’s Designs would give a thumbs-up, she was more tired than she thought. The woman’s expression didn’t say a thing when Hope dropped the pipe she’d shouldered into the scrap pile, but she thrust an open bottle in her face. “Drink it down.”
Hope took it and looked it over. Clear glass and liquid, narrow bottle. She made sure she had a firm but not hard grip on the neck—her control had been slipping—tipped it back and took a long, long pull before the taste kicked her. “Oh my— What is this?”
“Tsikoudia. Grape brandy, sixty-five percent alcohol, stronger than ouzo. Weak people cut it with water. And you’re finished today if you’re willing to guzzle a strange drink given you by a stranger.”
“I’m used to— I have a friend who comes up with weird stuff all the time. Magic restoratives and stuff. And I know you.”
“We’ve never met, I’m a stranger. Finish it and we’re going to talk.”
Why not? Hope shrugged and followed instructions. It didn’t taste any better the second time, but that wasn’t the point, was it? “Also, I’ve got an invisible friend who would’ve screamed in my ear if she didn’t know what you were doing.”
“Power Chick, the cyberkinetic American? She can see that much?”
Hope almost choked on her last swallow. “Shel— You’ve met Power Chick?”
“She introduced herself. I’d be worried that an American cape could hack Guard signal security so easily, but I have other things on my mind. Walk with me.” A firm hand on her shoulder turned Hope away from her work. Hope let herself be turned. Nike, A Class Atlas-Type, EU military veteran. Nope, she wasn’t going to fight it. Besides, the drink left her feeling warm. Instant alcohol poisoning to anybody normal, a light soporific for me. Cheers.
“Got any more?” Please let me rest.
“I can point you to a Greek café afterward if you wish.” The woman studied her and Hope didn’t care.
“I failed.”
“I know. You were also apparently very stupid. Your Blackstone told me how you came to Brussels. That you were nearly killed two days ago. And that you won’t stop helping.”
“I can’t stop— I can’t stop.”
“Because then you’ll think. You’ll remember. You’ll imagine every way you could have not failed. And you’ll know success was impossible, that you did nothing but risk your people. And save some lives in the slaughter.”
Her stomach curdled and she was going to vomit. She swallowed twice. “Not enough. How many dead?”
“Initial estimates are soft, but put it somewhere at ten times what you experienced in the attack on your country. Much of our government. I won’t tell you that every life you saved is a world of its own, you already know that. You’d trade your life just for one and consider it fair.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you. Come this way. I’ve been assured that yo
u’ve walked your new concussion off if you had one, and three more bottles will give even you sleep without dreams. We hurt, but we heal fast enough. We have to.”
Scanning the latest Ouroboros data-dumps, Shelly realized she was blinking excessively.
Caffeine has a half-life in the blood of two to ten hours. Eight cups of Turkish coffee, average two hundred milligrams of caffeine, I think I’ve exceeded my safe dose of four hundred milligrams a day. Headache? Check. Fever? Maybe, not going to check. Irritability? Absolutely. Increased thirst? Drinking water like a fish. No chest pains or irregular or fast heartbeat yet, anyway, but I can’t type for crap now. Dammit.
Reaching carefully, she picked up her last cup, now cold but singing to her invitingly, and dumped it in her trash can. Arun raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Mental efficiency at least thirty percent down, more like sixty.
Nobody around her looked any better. Vivian kept tearing up and Shelly didn’t know if it was from extreme fatigue or anguish over the numbers she was dealing with. Leiman’s thin face was pasty with tints of blue. Kelly’s dark unlined face framed eyes that burned like what he read was the enemy. Only the general looked remotely lively, and his default smile had long lost to grim lines.
Shelly desperately wished that Ibrahim had stayed in Littleton instead of returning to his mission in the world. She’d have called Holybrook Rest and begged him to come visit their offices, security clearance be damned. They all needed his aura of peace now.
She looked up at a sigh. The general straightened, squaring his shoulders. “Alright, everybody. I think we’ve come to the end of our power to function. From the top, give us what you know and then we’re going to sleep for ten hours. I’m calling on Medical to make sure it’s sleep even if it requires drugs, so this is your last chance at input for a while. Dr. Hall?”
Repercussions (Wearing the Cape Book 8) Page 16
