Ashes

by Russ Linton

  Jackie heard too. Only she doesn't know the escape is doomed. And she's a sudden blur.

  The room shudders. Loose debris scattered on the floor hops as if tossed across the surface of a drum. I feel a wave of pressure blow past, and I almost revel in the nostalgia of it. The shroud over Dad flutters and I catch a glimpse of the purpled wound in his chest. Mom and I are left stunned in a dust-filled wake.

  Jackie's suddenly on the other side of the room, her hospital gown whipping around her. Yanked violently from the Black Beetle, his tattered scrubs twist in her fist, stretched to threadbare. A trickle of smoke rises where her hand took hold. Ripped out before the armor even shut, he's unconscious, blood trickling from his nose.

  Jackie's panting, her face etched with surprise.

  "I think it worked."

  CHAPTER 50

  "HOLY SHIT!" ERIC EXCLAIMS from the terminal. I check to see if he's wrapped up in what's just happened, but he's been oblivious this entire time. He excitedly points at the screen. "Names, places...this is... This is bad."

  Despite the lapse in friendship, I've known Eric too long to not be concerned. He sounds frantic. Unable to quip, frantic. I close my eyes and draw Mom away from the slab. I'm pushing it closed under her distraught approval when Jackie steps forward and drapes a chain around his neck.

  It looks like a film canister. She eyes me for approval, and I nod. I don't need the details. Our shared experience is deeper than words, or even a psychic bond can convey. Shaking, Mom comes forward and covers Dad's face. The slab pushed in, we close the door.

  Soon we're all crowded at the terminal. As much as I need more time, we can't stand around waiting to be arrested, or worse, getting into a gunfight with a bunch of clueless locals.

  The list of names Eric has uncovered is long. Dozens. They've done more than replicate the process, they've perfected it. We all can only stare in disbelief. Even Mom's anguish has been put aside.

  "So many," she breathes.

  "And there," Eric jabs excitedly at a jumble of pixels. He smacks the top of the monitor several times. "That's either their target location or maybe where they're from."

  "Those might not be far if the Lady is any indication," Jackie says. "She operated around Landigal, protecting her home." Her finger scans the list until it hits a name. "That's her. She went operational months ago."

  The number of names above Jackie's finger are staggering.

  "We can't...we can’t stop all these. What the fuck? This is insane, like world ending proliferation insane." Eric wildly swings his head while navigating the list with sweeping mouse clicks.

  "We've got to do something," Jackie says.

  "She's right. Break this down," I say. I hunted Augments for all the wrong reasons, maybe there is a chance I can do what I said and make things right. "Where's the next one going."

  Eric navigates the list and stumbles across today's date. "San Diego. No name just Marut." His nose crinkles and glasses slip. He's lost in thought as he readjusts them. "Marut. I know that name. Why the hell is that familiar?"

  "And why San Diego?" I ask.

  Mom shuts her eyes and concentrates. Eric undergoes a full body shiver, clawing at his skin as though he's been doused in something foul and slick. "The name. You know him from a chat room."

  "I could've gotten there myself," Eric groans, on the verge of being sick.

  "I needed the link," she says, an odd, inexplicable statement Eric doesn't argue with. Her eyes pop open to reveal the metallic sheen. "He...he feels he's owed something. He's taking his payment out on the naval base, that's why he's in San Diego. He's traveling...flying in the clouds?"

  "Can you take over? Brain pilot him home?" I ask. Mom shakes her head. I'm not sure if she can't or won't. "Then I need to get in the air."

  Hound returns with Ember swaggering at his side. She snaps her fingers and a little spark dances. "You're slipping, Cyrus. Powers already coming back to me." She lets loose a bark of laughter as she spots him curled up on the floor. "Who cold-clocked Mr. Kotter?"

  "Your daughter," I say.

  Jackie doesn't make much of it as she laces up a combat boot. Retrieving her clothes in rapid fashion is the second exercise of the new powers. She tries to play it off but when her mother beams, she can't help but smile.

  "We got a ride. They left their bird on the lawn and Chroma left a mess in the cockpit, but I think it'll fly," says Hound. "She's gonna be a problem we'll have to deal with." He directs this toward Eric, not me.

  Eric avoids Hound's gaze while jamming everything into his bag. We've ripped out the hard drive to take with us. There's simply too much information to waste time sorting through and sifting here. "I'll talk to her. Right now, she isn't answering. But we need to GTFO before India scrambles jets or some shit."

  "We'll have to meet up somewhere." I sweep away a patch of rubble in front of the battle armor and call out for Wormfood to open up. "After I deal with this San Diego thing."

  "I'll help," Jackie says.

  "I, ummm, have a place we can go," Eric says, hopefully. He's mostly concerned about how Mom will react. She hangs her head and nods. With her meager blessing, he gets out a pen and paper. "Here." He scribbles a note as I mount up. I seal the armor in his face.

  "One sec." Systems flicker online. A targeting reticle surrounds Eric, and I snap a still of him and his note. Looks like he's written GPS coordinates on the paper. "Got it. Just drop the note. Ember, if your powers are back, torch this place."

  Jackie checks the metal hatch on the wall then me.

  "Everything. It's got to be destroyed."

  "Who the hell put you in charge?" Hound's question isn't entirely a demand or an accusation. He's testing me, and I need to find the right answer.

  Everyone's stretching their necks to hear what I'm about to say. Hound, Ember, Eric, and now Jackie and, well, even Mom, they're attentive, awaiting orders like in the parking lot or command center at Whispering Pines.

  The elevated platform gives me a view which stands above even the former height of the Crimson Mask. The rigid claw of the neural cage reminds me where I finally found my mother. A dark shadow of my past haunts me through the speakers. This suit has, in every way, become part of what I am. My past, my present, and now my future.

  I've only used the original battle armor a couple times, but I've rebuilt it twice. As sleek and cutting edge as the prototype is, this will always be the Black Beetle. The thing I found myself more fascinated by than fearful of when it came crashing through the wall of our San Francisco home.

  I disengage the voice scrambler.

  "I thought I lost everything when Dad died. But he's with me, always. What he tried to do, I need to try to do better. I'm not asking to be in charge. I'm asking to finish what he started."

  Mom clenches her hands together and presses them to her lips as tears begin to trickle. She's close to full on sobbing again. She isn't looking at me anymore, and I don't' know why. I want to eject and rush to her, but we have to get moving.

  Hound accepts the answer with stolid military efficiency. He's not sucked in by the emotion, or even shows an ounce of jubilation, he just turns to Ember to do what he does best. "Can you make it happen?

  Fire engulfs her hand in a hissing jet, then collapses with an audible thump as the air instantly cools. "Didn't take for as long as the others. Must've been all the healing he had to do at the same time." She raises an eyebrow at me. "Don't think I'll forget that so easy."

  "Spence didn't have anything to do with that," Eric interjects. He seems eager to rush to my defense and wilts as he realizes what he's got to say. "He may have been given some...misinformation."

  Chroma played me, I know it. She's played him, too. Yeah, Eric did some messed up shit, but finally seeing him after all this time, I can't stay mad at him. We all have our fuck up phase, I get it. Mine was colossal, and I don't even know if I deserve forgiveness or a second chance.

  "Save it," I say, not wanting to launch into anoth
er argument. "Ember, I know you can torch the place, but will you? You've got other commitments, right?"

  "I'm due some leave," she says and shrugs. "Commies never paid well anyway. And the last thing I need is more competition out there."

  "You know this isn't a paid position," I say. "We'll need a few new team members to do this right."

  Eric snorts. "You guys want money? Puhleeeze. I'm well past hacking credit card numbers. Top of the Collective food chain, you guys get whatever you need."

  "We'll sort all this out later, at this place of yours."

  "Secret lair," Eric adds.

  "At this secret lair of yours. Right now, I gotta go. I'm the only one who might get halfway across the world in time."

  "Is that a bet?" Jackie's fierce challenge has her not just looking but sounding like her mother.

  I step away to get a head start. As I launch I keep the view tight and zoomed over the hole in the roof. Hound lifts Danger's covered body. Ember stands over Cyrus, debating. From behind her, Jackie gives her a hug. They talk excitedly then embrace one last time before her daughter disappears in a streak, cutting through the air with a wedge of vaporized moisture ahead and a twirling mess of dust and papers in her wake. Ember shakes her head in disbelief and starts to drag Cyrus clear.

  Good. She's not going add the asshole to the fire. Not that I'd blame her.

  Letting the reticle contract and take its place among the hundreds of others, I get a full shot of the area around the lab. A few bodies hang gored and smeared on the roof. Even more surround the front door and litter the parking lot. The mess in the chopper isn't of a mechanical nature. She brought it down, whole, by spreading the pilot on the windscreen.

  Hound's right, we're going to have to deal with Chroma later. Like Jackie, I got desperate. With everything I know, I'm not sure I'd have taken the risk she did. With Danger dying like that, a victim to his own power, I'm not so sure what exactly has control. I can step out of this armor. Them?

  Neither Chroma nor the prototype show on any of the scans, and I don't see any signs of her going on a rampage in downtown Shee...Shree...wherever we are. We'll deal with her, but later. I kick on the afterburners and see if I can catch the newly minted speedster.

  I'M PUSHING THE THEORETICAL limits in the banged-up armor. I finally caught up to Jackie at the coast. She'd stopped to take off her boots, or probably what was left of them, and dip her toes before seeing if what she thought was once a miracle was truly possible. Left far behind, she eventually roared past on a zippered cut through the clear blue water.

  I'm not catching her. She makes that abundantly clear. Then she's up ahead bobbing in the water, spread on her back with one arm held above the gentle waves.

  I take Wormfood in for a pass. She waves. Sunlight glints off a camera lens. The armor is plenty graceful however it doesn't stop on a dime like the prototype. Kinetic, that's the difference. More like one of those World War Two fighters compared to a jet. Enough wind seeps inside the cockpit, enough rattles and shakes, the pilot feels the separation between man and machine. I like that. I need it.

  But there's no way Wormfood floats. I bring him in for a noisy hover. "You okay?"

  She shouts back through an ecstatic grin, and I've got to tweak a few settings to hear. "Am I even going the right way?"

  She's transformed out there on the waves. Her glare of a hard-nosed reporter who’s seen too much has been erased by joy and wonder. Carefree, miles from shore, she's reveling in her newfound powers which, whether she'll admit it or not, I personally know she often dreamed of having. Moments of weakness when you wished you could do what he did. When you mistook power for freedom. I should let her have it.

  "You found the Pacific," I call back.

  "Bay of Bengal," she corrects me. "Didn't have much choice, the Himalayas kinda force you that direction. I took a few wrong turns in New Delhi and Kolkata." She arches her head back to stare at the endless water. "Without all the obstacles, you're toast."

  "Without a GPS, you're going to find yourself in Antarctica before you get to San Diego."

  "Fair enough," she replies. "I'll find some way to go slow enough to follow. Already had to go back once for this," she adds, wagging her camera.

  "Now you're just showing off," I say.

  "Wouldn't you?"

  "Kick on the afterburners, Wormfood. Try to hold your old corpse together."

  "Affirmative."

  CHAPTER 51

  MACH TWO IS A NICE hard structural limit for this bag of bolts. I dialed Wormfood down a notch after losing something over Hawaii. Armor plating, maybe a stabilizer, it seems like maneuverability hasn't been too compromised. Meanwhile, Jackie is running little circles out along the waves to stay afloat and keep me in sight.

  Our trans-Pacific voyage takes all of five hours. The show off could've done it in maybe three. Juiced by her changes, she doesn't show any signs of slowing. If anything, she's gaining energy even as the armor's reserves, and mine, drain.

  "Wormfood, give me a system status."

  "Hull damage moderate." Drake sounds downright accusatory like when he'd read for the voice over, he wanted to make sure the future pilot could hear his displeasure. "Power reserves at twenty-five percent. Data connections, offline."

  "What? You didn't start with your favorites this time? Gimme weapons."

  "Weapons systems depleted. Ballistic ammunition depleted. Rocket pods empty. Gravitational Wave Cannon charged. Offensive action not recommended."

  "Non-lethal?"

  "Non-lethal systems depleted."

  Obviously, Xamse had one plan for Hound and Danger when he kitted out the armor. He probably thought they were too weak to bother with a full arsenal. But Hound always chided Eric's old Auge-mon system for ranking Augment power levels. Said the powers didn't matter so much as who used them and how. I'm not so sure he's a dog I'd want to hunt. And nobody could've ever caught Danger unaware.

  "Non-lethal depleted? How so?"

  "One tranquilizer has been loaded."

  "For fuck's sake." Xamse or maybe Ayana pulled that one. A little joke, or maybe they thought knocking Danger out might work as opposed to hunting him for the kill. "What am I going to do with one dart? And is it loaded to tranq an elephant or a chihuahua?"

  "Dosage unrecorded."

  "Any other good news you'd like to share, sunshine?"

  "Weather alert. Atmospheric disturbance detected."

  We're twenty minutes out from San Diego and the radar pans to show a tight formation on screen. Clouds and rain are hammering an area just outside the Bay and approaching it fast. Every so often the entire storm front disappears completely only to reform miles away. It's almost like this dude is riding the lightning.

  If only I had a way to communicate with my wingman. We'll need to put some new fancy earbuds on our wish list for Eric. I start bleeding off speed, so I don't overshoot California and Jackie zooms ahead.

  "Lock on to her, Wormfood. Try to keep her in visual."

  "Affirmative. Weapons armed."

  "Weapons on my command, jackass!"

  "Affirmative."

  Wormfood continues to provide trajectory data, and I realize how damn lucky Drake was that Hurricane voluntarily turned himself in. There isn't a weapon system on this platform which could hit her. Best bet is the GWC and only if I allowed her to close, time it just right, and don't fucking blink. At those speeds, the disturbance might not be seen and could be the equivalent of running head first into a brick wall.

  Goddamnit. That isn't me. Not anymore. Containment doesn't mean slaughter. Without the rooms at Whispering Pines though, I'm not sure how to make this work.

  Jackie's stopped atop a spit of rock at the base of a sandstone cliff stacked in layers like corrugated cardboard. Enlarged on the HUD, she's signaling, and I adjust course to meet her. There's a crowd in a parking lot at the top, but they're all looking inland, and I can't blame them.

  On the upper portions of the Battle Armor's panoram
ic display, an anvil of cloud stretches above the brownish, gray smog skyline and into the clear, untainted blue above. Lightning traces the outer edge while a golden light burns at the epicenter.

  "Uh yeah. I'd say that's a disturbing disturbance."

  Jets circle the perimeter of the storm in wide arcs. Wormfood eyes the competition hungrily, waiting for permission to prove his dominance in the skies. HUD reticles jitter along beside them reporting range, suggested ordinance, and a host of environmental factors pertinent to blowing shit up.

  Or is that urge inside me? Wanting to tear into the hypocrisy? A bloated war machine pretending to make the world safe while paying off a power-hungry CEO with the body of my father.

  But no sense in taking it out the pilots. I don't think they'll engage me. I doubt Xamse has put out a government hit on me yet. Admitting he'd lost control of his weapon system wouldn't be his style. Hell, they probably still believe I'm their hero. I don't want to think of the things I've done to earn the title.

  I bring Wormfood down on a beach in the shadow of the cliff. Jackie rips across the tide pools to join me, emptying them in explosive plumes which spatter over the rocks. Several colorful fish and a few unidentifiable blobs squirm in the aftermath.

  "Sushi tonight?" I say, waving my lobster hand in their direction.

  Jackie cringes. The sonic explosiveness of her movement rocks the armor briefly, then she's back again, checking the rocks one more time. They've been cleared of the innocents.

  "I've gotta get used to this, you know?"

  "You just made the trip from India to California in under five hours. I think you're plenty up to speed. Har har."

  "No longer than a marathon," she says with a dismissive gesture. "And I feel better than I've ever felt." Could be jealousy speaking, but we need to grill Cyrus about this whole inject-an-Augment thing. The list of side effects probably requires more commercial time than the random benefits. "But I wish I could fly!" She says, peering up at the armor, her face glowing. "I have a feeling we need to get up into the storm. Not sure I'll be much help down here."