I'm Not A Hero!

by Mia Archer

  This wild cat chase was Exhibit A for today.

  I was already running across the tarmac as CORVAC brought up a close up video he’d taken of the furry son-of-a-bitch climbing into the cargo hold. The thing it’d pulled out was definitely technological in nature.

  It looked like the thing was just a little too big for the cat’s paw, but it was able to operate it no problem which made me wonder if there was some creature that was similar to the common house cat on the world these things came from.

  I picked up the pace. I was going to catch that feline fucker if it killed me.

  “Mistress…” CORVAC said.

  “No time CORVAC,” I said. “I’m going to get this feline asshole!”

  I managed to catch up to the gear just as the plane started picking up speed. A damn good thing too. There was no way I would’ve been able to catch this thing on foot even with some of my suit enhancements.

  “Got it!” I said as I wrapped my arm around the gear.

  “Mistress, if I might have a moment to…”

  “Stuff it CORVAC,” I said. “I have a cat to catch.”

  The only problem was the plane really started picking up the speed. It was a good thing I had my strength enhancement. Otherwise I would’ve been knocked onto the tarmac.

  “Looks like I’m going to take a flight,” I said as I held on for dear life and watched the pavement disappear beneath me while the plane was thrust into the sky using nothing but sheer raw engine power and man’s hubris to use his mind to upset the natural order of things.

  So basically business as usual for me.

  9

  Reminders

  “Well this is certainly a conundrum,” I said.

  “Mistress, if you would just listen to me for a moment I believe you would…”

  I looked at the cargo hold. I would’ve figured the pilots would have some sort of indicator to tell them the thing was hanging open.

  As I watched a couple of cat heads poked out. A moment later they reappeared and something sizzled through the air around me.

  Motherfucker. These assholes were attacking me! One of the blasts hit me and slammed into my shield which sizzled under the impact.

  Those things were no slouches either. I would’ve been in serious trouble if they hit me without shields up.

  Obviously the alien tech they were using was a danger. I wasn’t used to fighting things that were a danger. Recent experience with Dr. Lana and Fialux notwithstanding.

  “They’re shooting at me!” I said. “How did we go from cats in back alleys and stuck up trees to them shooting at me?”

  “Perhaps they realized some of their members were disappearing,” CORVAC said. “All things considered that seems like a reasonable reason for them to be firing at you.”

  I happened to be of the opinion that there was no reasonable reason for someone to be firing at me. Anyone who’d been on this planet long enough to know anything about how the game was played should know that shooting at me was a good way to get a self-imposed death sentence. I had to remind myself that these assholes weren’t from around here.

  “I’m going to teach them,” I said. “I just have to crawl over there and…”

  “Mistress!” CORVAC said.

  There was something about the annoyance in his tone that finally got my attention.

  “What CORVAC?” I asked. “And do keep in mind that I might vaporize one of your backup centers if I don’t like your answer.”

  “Mistress. Have you taken leave of your senses?” he asked. “You have the ability to fly. Far faster than this plane could ever hope to move.”

  Oh. Right. I looked down at the gear and blushed. I’d been so preoccupied with catching those cats with their alien symbionts that I’d completely forgotten critically important information like the fact that I didn’t need to be hanging onto this damned plane.

  I let go and the plane flew off as I matched speed. I wasn’t even taxing my reactor all that much to keep up. Not like when I’d gone flying with Fialux.

  I pushed those thoughts away. Better not to think about her. Not until I figured out how to find her.

  “Much better mistress,” CORVAC said.

  A couple more blasts sizzled past me. I raised my own wrist blaster and was about to fire before I remembered that I was firing at a commercial jet liner that presumably had at least a few hundred people on it given the size.

  Not the kind of thing I wanted to accidentally shoot down. I needed to think of a better way to get this thing back on the ground that didn’t involve it creating a giant crater when it was grounded.

  The plane had almost disappeared in the distance, though its contrail would’ve been more than enough for me to track the thing even if I didn’t have it on radar and satellite.

  A contrail which, despite all the efforts of Internet conspiracy theorists to prove otherwise, totally did not contain any nasty chemicals that were designed to mind control the general population.

  I should know. I'd looked into whether or not that was a viable method of trying to take over the world. It turns out Cletus posting anonymously on the Internet doesn't know all that much about aerosolized mind control devices.

  "What seems to be the problem mistress? CORVAC asked.

  "I don't know," I said. "It's like I've lost my mojo or something."

  "Your mojo?" CORVAC asked.

  "Look up Austin Powers 2 sometime," I said.

  There was a slight pause while the airplane loaded with its cargo of cats hell-bent on taking over the world got even farther away. Not that there was much worry until the thing landed.

  "I have more questions than I have answers now mistress," CORVAC said.

  I sighed. In a way it only made our conversations that much more complicated when CORVAC took the time to view these movies as I told him about them.

  “The point is ever since Fialux went through that portal I've been in a funk. I've been trying to trace down these aliens, but it's like…"

  "I know what the problem is," CORVAC said.

  "You do?" I asked.

  "Your confidence has been shaken by Fialux being taken away," he said. "It is a natural reaction to being defeated on such a scale. I know all about having a moment of self-reflection after a massive defeat thanks to you, but I do not think you are the type to let that get you down for long.”

  "Why CORVAC," I said. "That was almost motivational."

  "I shall endeavor to not do it too often," he said. "But you are useless to me if you are unable to perform the duties of your job."

  "Right," I said. “You never told me you had a crisis of confidence after I defeated you.”

  “You managed to defeat my robot chassis as well as discover my secret location,” he said. “It made me reconsider my ways for at least half a second.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s an eternity in supercomputer time,” I said. “I guess if you’re going to rip off lines then ripping off Mr. Data is one of the better ones to emulate.”

  “Thank you mistress,” he said. “And honestly. If you allow a bunch of parasites taking over a bunch of cats to best you when so many others have tried and failed then perhaps you deserve to "lose your mojo" as you so eloquently put it."

  My eyes narrowed. I hated to hear a truth like that, but the megalomaniacal supercomputer bastard had a point. If I was defeated by a bunch of cats then had no one to blame but myself. So I dialed up the antigravity and streaked through the air.

  It was time to show these assholes who owned this planet. I'd defeated everyone else who'd ever come at me, and I wasn't going to let a bunch of kitty cats be the first ones to defeat me, damn it.

  I streaked through the air after the jet.

  "Do you have the frequency they use for communications with air traffic control?" I asked.

  Another momentary pause. Though this time I was fairly certain that pause had more to do with him looking up an obscure bit of information than it had to do with him absorbing a classic of e
arly 2000s comedy.

  "Affirmative mistress," he said. "A line of communication has been opened. Feel free to talk to them whenever."

  I decided to wait until I'd made a slight demonstration. I swooped up from the bottom of the plane and found myself staring at two very confused pilots. Pilots who immediately dove to avoid the obvious hazard that had appeared right in front of them.

  I swooped down after them. They were still wide-eyed and obviously breathing heavily when I appeared in front of them again. And it didn't seem to do any wonders for their potential for a heart attack when they realized that once again there was a human keeping pace with them on the other side of the windscreen.

  It probably wasn't the kind of thing they covered in their training. Even if that did seem like the kind of thing that would be important in a city where there were humans who could fly without the benefit of machinery, or with the benefit of advanced machinery such as yours truly, on the regular.

  "I'm patched through?" I asked.

  The confused glances the pilot and copilot exchanged was enough to tell me CORVAC had indeed been true to his word and put me through. I smiled.

  "Greetings," I said. "I am Night Terror."

  The way they didn't act at all surprised told me they recognized me. The bigger surprise would’ve been if they hadn't recognized me.

  "Is there something we can help you with?" the guy on the right asked.

  "Yes," I said. "You have a bunch of cats in your cargo hold that are trying to take over the world. I'd very much like to stop them from spreading past Starlight City. I’d appreciate it if you could ground your plane immediately. Preferably back in Starlight City.”

  "That's a good one," the pilot said. "I'd heard you went a little crazy after all that stuff with Fialux, but I don’t have time for your crazy. Get away from my plane."

  Then he did something that astonished me. Something that a pilot who’d been working in Starlight City for any appreciable length of time should’ve avoided like the plague. He made a little shooing motion with his hand and the plane ducked and moved around me as the pilot gunned his engines.

  I flipped around and stared as the jet disappeared in the distance again. I hadn't bothered to match their new speed, and so here I was hanging in the air staring dumbfounded at those assholes.

  Mostly he got away with that because he’d mentioned Fialux. Did the entire fucking city know about my relationship troubles and that it somehow meant it was open season for people who wanted to defy me?

  “Son of a bitch," I said when I finally got control of myself.

  "It would appear that talking with them did not work mistress," CORVAC said.

  “If that's the case we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."

  I look down to my wrist blaster. Activated it and watched with satisfaction as energy crackled and hummed from the tip. A little bit of electricity even arced back and forth.

  "I'm going to make those cats regret the day they hijacked that plane."

  “Technically they are in the cargo hold and not hijacking the plane mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Whatever. Point is they’re about to have a very bad day.”

  10

  Cargo Hold

  I blasted right through the turbulence from the jet engines.

  "You know you could come up from below and avoid the wash,” CORVAC said.

  "Quiet in the peanut gallery," I said. "I have work to do."

  "Do not mind me mistress," he said.

  "I never did before," I said. "Why would I start now?"

  I flew up under the cargo hold, and it appeared that my furry companions who’d been waiting for me the last time around had grown complacent. At least the door had been closed so they couldn’t fire at me.

  I frowned. Wondered what the hell they were doing in there. Probably freezing their asses off.

  Though with that door closed they wouldn’t need special breathing tech or anything. They’d gotten ahold of weapons somehow, but something told me rebreathers for cats would be difficult to come up with so…

  "Of course," I said.

  "What is that mistress?" CORVAC asked.

  "They didn't have to worry about depressurizing the flight when they opened that cargo door because they were close enough to the ground that we were still at one atmosphere of pressure,” I said.

  "Naturally," CORVAC said.

  “That means I'm about to set off a hell of a lot of alarm bells."

  "I assume whatever you are about to do is precipitous?" he asked.

  "You may presume away," I said.

  “Do be careful mistress," CORVAC said.

  "Why CORVAC," I said. "That sounded like you almost care about the people on this flight."

  "I care about the public perception if you down a flight that is loaded with civilians," he said. "The blowback from something like that would be terrible."

  I rolled my eyes. Leave it to CORVAC to come at a problem from pure numbers point of view rather than looking at it with heart. Not that I should be surprised that he wasn’t coming at it from a position of having a heart since he quite literally didn’t have a heart.

  I got out my wrist blaster and set it to cutting mode. Fired a beam at the cargo door and prayed that the beam wasn't powerful enough to go through the door and into a critical system.

  We were in a situation where I simply hadn't had enough time to plan for everything. And knowing all of the ins and outs of a giant intercontinental jetliner like this one wasn't something I had memorized.

  I slammed my fist into the door and pulled. With a creak of metal the thing broke apart and fell open. There was an almost immediate reaction from the jet above. It seemed to shudder and shake and I had to hold on for dear life as the thing went into a dive as the pilots scrambled to get down to an altitude where they wouldn’t need masks to breathe with the hull integrity compromised.

  I imagined what it must feel like for all the people on that flight. There'd been a time, long ago, when I'd been terrified of flying. Back then, back before I’d developed the antigravity technology that allowed me to flip a middle finger to my acrophobia, I'd been terrified of every little bump that came along with commercial flying.

  Which hadn’t been a particularly good for my anxiety considering there were lots of strange inexplicable bumps on commercial flights.

  Also? That theatrical method of getting into the cargo hatch was enough to notify my quarry that I was back. Damn.

  Blasts sizzled through the air around me and landed on the other end of the cargo hold. I ducked out of the way. Not that it mattered considering I was fully shielded, but I'd rather not take a direct hit if I could avoid it.

  “Do you idiots have any idea what you’re doing?” I shouted. “You could hit something important on this thing and send it crashing to the ground! Is that really what you want?”

  “For the glory of the collective!” one of the cats screeched.

  I disengaged from the door and matched speed with the bottom of the jet. One of the nice things about being able to fly was I didn’t have to hang onto that door where they could easily fire at me. I wasn’t going to make it any easier on them than I had to.

  Also, what that little furry fucker had just yelled made things suddenly make a lot more sense.

  “Fuck!”

  “What appears to be the problem, mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “Those fuckers are running a hive mind,” I said. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to take out a hive mind?”

  “I can imagine it would be about as difficult as trying to take out a computer who has backups of his consciousness at multiple remote locations,” CORVAC said.

  “Yeah. Something like that,” I replied. “The point is if these things are attached to a queen somewhere that means this just got a hell of a lot more difficult.”

  “It could be that they were simply using a rallying cry from their world rather than talking about a true hive mind, mistress,�
� CORVAC said.

  “Yeah, and I could be the next great hero of Starlight City,” I replied.

  Still, there was nothing for it. I needed to stop these worms from spreading beyond Starlight City, and that meant I had to get back in there and take the fight to these cats.

  The only problem with that plan was the cats looked like they were getting ready to take the fight to me. A couple of fluffy somethings appeared on the other side of the cargo door and then they did a little crawling thing along the bottom of the plane which looked freaky.

  “Damn,” I said. “There’s something you don’t see every day.”

  “It does not look much different from a feline climbing a tree,” CORVAC said.

  “Yeah, but when a cat is climbing a tree they’re not dealing with winds going past at a few hundred miles per hour,” I said. “These cats shouldn’t be able to do that.”

  I thought about the fluffy fucker that’d managed to get through the carbon fiber weave on my suit. These cats looked a little bigger than your typical house cat.

  There was definitely something off about these things. Something I didn’t care for. I had a sinking feeling that the radiation from that world combined with something in our atmosphere was to blame.

  Not that I had time for academic mysteries like that.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “I’m catching one of those things and we’re going to figure out where their queen is.”

  If these alien motherfuckers wanted to tangle with Night Terror then I was going to take these assholes to the dance. I flew at them.

  “Mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “What?” I growled.

  “I cannot help but notice that you have not pulled out your wrist blaster to fire on the possessed cats that are attempting to kill you,” he said.

  I looked down at the landscape screaming past below. At this height it didn’t look like it was going by all that fast, but I knew that was a deceptive illusion because of how high we were.