Thad heard a howling wind behind him. He stopped running to turn and look.
Atmosphere stood near the edge of the crater, hands on his waist. He was blowing a mighty wind at the hovering vehicle, which began to drift to the street. When the car had cleared the cavernous hole, Atmosphere stopped blowing. Thad looked at Nymph as she lowered her hands. The car settled back onto the pavement.
"Thad, duck!"
Without questioning Becky, he dipped his head and sunk his knees. Something grazed the top of his helmet, jarring his head slightly, but Becky's warning spared him the brunt of the blow.
"Umpf." It was a man's voice.
"You see," a woman said, speaking with a Russian accent. "That's not dancing. This is."
Thad turned to witness Tatiana, one of Super Inc's most skilled and savage hand-to-hand fighters land a graceful but potent kick in the chest of the man she was fighting.
The man's legs didn't stir, but he bent at the waist as the force of her attack drove his torso back. He wore black jeans and a white t-shirt with the image of a tuxedo front and bow tie.
"That's how we dance at Bolshoi!" Tatiana had finished the sweep of her leg by bringing it in close to her other with a bent knee, raising her arms above her head as she went into a tight spin, balanced on the toe of one of her point shoes, white like her leotard. Her matching lace tutu rose into to form a fluttering disc around her waist.
Thad watched the man robotically ratchet his torso back to an upright position as he heard the man make a buzzing sound, followed by what might've been an attempt to sound like a motor or gears working. "What the heck?"
Tatiana's spin had slowed, but she took a quick step to get closer to the man, then continued her spin, extended one leg each rotation to flutter kick the man in his face.
The first two kicks hit him, but only barely. The third one missed, since the man twisted his torso and head like they were one fixed unit. When Tatiana's leg dropped to touch her supporting ankle, the man rapidly executed a series of small lateral steps, angling each foot at a diagonal. He'd moved within arms reach before Tatiana could do anything about it, then he robotically lifted his elbows and swung his left forearm down to punch her and twisted himself and did the same awkward punching maneuver with his other arm. The first two blows hit Tatiana in her face, but she smoothly bent her body to avoid the rest of the man's barrage of stupid arm attacks.
Thad, seeing Tatiana could handle herself with the robot man, turn his attention to Allison again, expecting her to have move slightly, but still be in the general area he'd seen her before. But she hadn't moved at all. He took off again, determined not to stop until he reached her. As he ran closer, he could see her looking at him, but she appeared frozen, but as far as he could tell, uninjured.
"Allison!" He leapt over a mangled car bumper and ran around a pile of rubble. She stood only twenty feet away, but something hit his ankle and tripped him. He fell onto his right arm and tumbled. He felt the ground scraping the side of his face before he came to a stop.
"Wait." The voice was deep. Thad thought he recognized from the lounge outside the restaurant.
Pushing himself up to his knees, he looked back. "Carrington, right? What the hell did you do that for?"
Thad was more concerned for Allison than with getting an answer from Carrington. He quickly got to his feet and was about to rush the rest of the way over to her, but Carrington told him again to wait, and he said it even more forcefully than before, giving Thad a moment of pause.
"Why?"
Carrington, who was now getting himself up too, pointed down the sidewalk, about twenty feet to the left of Allison. "You see that guy over there?"
Thad looked.
A tall, thin, gray-bearded man was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, facing Allison. He had both hands in front of him, together, forming a rectangle. His knees were slightly bent, and he appeared to be looking through the opening he'd made with his hands. He was looking directly at Allison.
"Who's that?" Thad asked. "What's he doing to her?" He had already guessed the man must be responsible for Allison being apparently unable to move.
Carrington stood and walked over to Thad. "I heard one of the others call him Director."
"Director?" Thad looked at Allison again to make sure she didn't seem in pain. "I need to help her."
Carrington shook his head and put his hand on Thad's shoulder for a moment. "No. At least not that way. I saw what happened. She had just helped a civilian into that building to take cover, then she turned around and started heading back into the mix of things when he stepped in her path down there." Carrington looked Thad in the eyes. "She froze when he put his hands up." He turned back to the bearded man. "If you go over there, there's a good chance you'll just get yourself frozen too."
"Okay, so..."
"We need to take him out," Carrington said.
Thad glanced at the watches on his wrists. "I can do it."
Carrington chuckled. "With those. How? No. It's okay. I'll do it. I can't use my power here. Too many people." He made a fist in front of him. "But I can knock the guy out."
"Fine. Just hurry. We don't know if anything else is happening to her."
Carrington nodded to Thad, then started jogging toward the man on the sidewalk, and picked it up to a run after a second.
Thad glanced between Allison, Carrington, and the bearded man. He hoped Carrington could get to him before the man noticed him coming. Then he spotted someone between the bearded man and Allison. It was a woman. She was kneeling by the footing of the building, below a window of one of the connected shops.
What's she doing? Is she frozen too?
He moved closer to Allison, trying to get a better look at the other woman at the same time, to see if she was doing anything, or even moving. He stopped about ten feet shy of reaching Allison. She was still looking at him.
"It's going to be okay," he said to her. "Carrington's going to take care of the man who's doing this to you. Are you okay?"
She didn't answer.
He knew he just had to hope she was alright. He was tempted to rush to her side, but what Carrington said about the man freezing her when she walked in front of his weird hand gesture made some sort of strange sense to Thad. So, he restrained himself, despite how hard it was to do so.
He glanced to the kneeling woman again.
She moved her head. She's not frozen. Then what is she doing?
He noticed she had her hands on the stone at the base of the building.
He looked to see if Carrington had reached the bearded man yet, but he didn't see Carrington at all.
Where did he go?
Then he saw him on the ground, six feet from the sidewalk to the right of the bearded man. Something was moving in the air above Carrington. Thad couldn't tell what he was seeing at first, then he made out several small somethings erratically shifting around in a little cluster.
A moment later, the movement shifted away from Carrington's motionless, supine body and toward the bearded man on the sidewalk. Thad wasn't sure what he was seeing, but he knew with Carrington down, it was up to him to take the bearded man down, to free Allison from his power. He hoped she would be back to normal then.
He raised his right arm toward the bearded man. "Can I hit him from here, Becky?"
"The distance is not a problem," the A.I. voice in his helmet replied. "Aim is on you, however."
"Great."
"Remember, it's non-lethal. If you do manage to hit him, the best you can hope for is that it will knock him out for a while."
"Right now, that's all I need."
Thad took aim, but hesitated. "No targeting reticle in the HUD?"
"Uh, no. I could put one up there for you if you want, but it wouldn't necessary be accurate."
"Thanks, Franklin."
"Don't talk about Franklin like that," Becky said, sounding irritated.
"Sorry."
She gets sarcasm and he made her loyal to him. Figur
es.
Thad took the shot.
The beam looked like it was going to hit the bearded man, but someone appeared just in front of the man right when Thad gave the thought to shoot to the sensors inside the helmet that would transfer his command into the controls embedded in the device on his wrist.
A woman? What?
Thad dropped his arm and stared down the sidewalk toward his intended target. The man was still standing, but he'd lowered his hands and was looking down at the woman at his feet—the woman Thad had hit with the ray from his wrist weapon.
Thad glanced down the sidewalk, thinking the woman who'd been kneeling halfway between his target and Allison somehow had moved in the way that quickly, but she was still there, kneeling beside the building.
"Thaddeus!" Allison called out to him.
He turned and saw her running toward him, and he ran to meet here. A few feet past the edge of the sidewalk, she came into his embrace. He wrapped one hand around her and squeezed her side with his other arm, which was still holding the web gun.
"I don't know what happened," Allison said. "One second I was helping a few people get inside to safety, and then I turned around to see who else needed help and I couldn't move at all."
Thad nodded over her shoulder toward the bearded man, who was now helping to her feet the woman he'd shot with the stun ray. "He did it."
Allison turned around to look, then both of them heard the woman who'd been kneeling yell back to the bearded man, "Forty more seconds, then it's kablooey! We better get out of here now!"
"What?" Thad looked at the building where the woman had kelt, but he didn't see anything that looked like explosives. "It's going to explode? How?"
"Nevermind how," Allison said. "There's people in there."
Thad looked around and noticed more civilians had gathered around to spectate now that the smoke and dust from the explosion had dissipated and the police and other emergency vehicle had arrived on the scene. "And out here too."
Allison ran toward the building, yelling back to Thad, "Get the people back as far as you can. I'm going to go in and get everyone to go out the back of the building.
Before Thad could say anything to her, Allison's body had dematerialized again and, thanks to the insane rate of speed at which she was moving, she disappeared through the outer wall of the building.
Thad wanted to stop the bearded man and the two women who were now at his side walking farther away from where the woman had knelt touching the building. He had to let them go for now. There were civilians behind him and he need to get them as far back from the building as possible, and fast.
"Becky," Thad said. "Will the crowd control cause any permanent damage?"
"I like the way you're thinking. No. They'll recover. But hurry. Based on what that woman said, by my count, we only have twenty more seconds.
Thad didn't bother to reply. Instead, he held his left arm up and gave the thought to activate the crowd control function on the device on his wrist. When he saw one of the civilians react to the dual sonic-microwave emissions, he moved his arm in a sweeping motion to stir the others gathered too close to move back. Thankfully, the helmet seemed to shield him from the noise and the microwave emission was directional.
A few moments later all the civilians had run to the far side of the crater. Thad noticed Nymph flying on the other side of the hole too. She had her arms out, and Tatiana was floating several feet below her.
"Thad," Becky said, sounding alarmed. "What about us?"
"Oh, crap." He looked back at the building. "Allison? The people inside."
"Wait," Becky said. "Yes. They made it out the back, and they're moving farther away."
"Good." Thad was about to run away from the building too, but he remembered Carrington. He looked to where Carrington had fallen and saw that he was still there. "We can't leave him."
"Yes, of course," Becky said, as Thad ran toward the fallen super. "I'm sorry, Thad. I should've picked him up on my scanners. I guess I was distracted."
"It's okay. I think we still have time." Thad jump a burning tire and made short work of a mound of dirt which had blown from the crater. He got to Carrington just as Atmosphere ran to his side too.
"We need to get him back," Thad said. "Away from that building. It's going to blow."
Atmosphere nodded. "Right. I'll can get him." Atmosphere knelt and scooped Carrington up, then hoisted him over his shoulder. "The people in the building."
"Already cleared," Thad said. "Allison got them to safety."
Atmosphere nodded, then turned and took a step. Thad was right behind him. Both jolted when the heard the massive explosion behind them, in the distance. Thad fell onto his back as he turned to look. The force of the blast shot up through the side of the building, sending fire, smoke, and debris into the air. The shockwave drove through Thad, followed quickly by the heat.
The three of them were far enough from the building to be saved from the explosion itself, but a sea of concrete and glass was a split second from raining down on top of them. Thad knew they couldn't outrun it.
"Atmosphere!"
Atmosphere dropped Carrington onto a pile of dirt and faced the fiery debris field rocketing toward them.
Thad lifted the web gun, aiming it between what remained of the destroyed section of the row of attached shops and the firetruck which had just pulled up close by them.
Atmosphere drew a deep breath, then blew skyward.
Thad said a prayer and pulled the trigger on the gun his best friend had loaned him.
Carrington came to at the same time and, seeing the sky falling onto the three of them, screamed for mercy.
Thad's shot was well-placed. The massive ejection of liquid fanned out and morphed into the ultra-sticky webbing Franklin had told described. Several strands stuck to the side of the semi-demolished building. Others strands hit the firetruck. A few stuck to a lamp post and a tree beside it, both of which Thad hadn't counted on using. All together, the anchors were sufficient to hold the massive, extraordinarily strong web in place, though the firetruck tipped, lifting the tires on one side off the ground for a moment before settling level again.
The hurricane-force wind Atmosphere expelled threw much of the debris back onto the building and extinguish most of the fire raining down.
The larger chunks of concrete, brick, and stone were caught in the web, which ultimately sagged down to within a few inches of Thad, Atmosphere, and Carrington.
They hurried out from under it all, just in case the webbing gave way.
Thad looked around to make sure no one had gotten hurt from the explosion. As best he could tell, everyone had indeed made it to safety in time. He asked Becky to do a scan for Allison, which she did.
"She's on her way back here. Right...there."
"Where?" Thad asked.
"Oh, right. Okay. Follow the arrow on your HUD."
Thad moved his head the direction the arrow was pointing until he saw Allison walking toward him, apparently no worse for the wear.
Thank, God.
"I wish we'd caught them," Nymph said, landing beside the three of them as Tatiana walked over.
"Yeah," Thad said. "Me too."
"Wait." Tatiana stepped in front of Thad. "Aren't you the guy who delivers the mail."
Carrington put his hand on Thad's shoulder. "Not any more. Not if I have anything to say about it."
"Yeah," Atmosphere said. "Get this guy a suit, already."
Allison joined the group, but settled in next to Thad and gave him a long kiss.
"So," Nymph said, breaking the awkward silence. "What happened to the supervillains. Did anybody see where they went?"
"I did," a man said, walking up behind the group.
They all turned to look.
"Name's Sergeant Montgomery. I saw 'em. Four of 'em. But..." He plied his tongue against the inside of his lower lip, then continued, "As for where they went, not sure. How they went...not totally sure about that either." He to
ok a breath. "But here's what I know. The bearded guy, he has the other three standing beside him, right? Then he holds up his hands, like this." Sergeant Montgomery put his palm together. "Then he flung 'em out like this." He demonstrated. "Only thing I heard him say was, 'And, scene.' All four of them disappeared."
"The Director," Thad said.
Tatiana looked at Thad. "What?"
"That's what one of them called him," Allison said. "The Director."
"What do they want?" Nymph asked. "Why did they do this?"
"No idea," Allison said, then looked at Thad and put her arm around him.
Thad looked back at her, then faced the rest of the group. "But we're sure as hell going to find out."
Findings on the Whereabouts of the Supers
Unavailable During the Period of the Supervillain Assault Outside the Headquarters Building:
Alacrity: South America. Mission details classified.
Bull: Left work early, because he had tickets to an MMA fight. Unavailable by phone when staff tried to reach him during the incident.
Bullfrog: With Bull at an unspecified drinking establishment, with plans to attend the MMA fight later in the evening. Unavailable by phone when staff tried to reach him during the incident.
Hydro: Doing contracted work overseas on an irrigation project.
Lady Druid: Took the day off to take her daughter Sylvia to the botanical gardens.
Leprechaun: In the building, but retired. He also stated he didn't have immediate access to his suit.
Lord Suave: Seen leaving with Multiplicity in the company helicopter around lunchtime. Destination unknown. Inquiry pending.
Micron: Stated he was in the building, sitting in his Hot Wheels Corvette, watching a movie on his computer. He said he didn't know the attack was happening outside.
Midnight: Unavailable by phone when staff tried to reach him during the incident. Inquiry pending.
Multiplicity: Seen leaving with Lord Suave in the company helicopter around lunchtime. Destination unknown. Inquiry pending.
Supers Incorporated Page 9
