It’s back on me; I guess I pissed it off enough. I turn south and start leading it away. The massive thing turns on its axis and starts chewing up ground as it comes after me.
Amelia, there is a temperature build up inside it.
I glance at our velocity—seventy-five, just enough to stay airborne and keep this thing interested.
“Fire a pod straight up.”
Puff.
“Full burn, maximum thrust. We need to hit Mach one.” The roar of my jets threatens to shake me apart. I grab the pod as we pass it and stick it to my chest.
“We’re clear of the blast zone,” Force says.
“Awesome. Luke, if I don’t make it—thanks.”
The world turns into a massive globe of light. My HUD sparks and vanishes. A wall of force a hundred times stronger than a tsunami hits me. I’m thrown in a million different directions at once.
“Lock up,” I manage to yell.
Epic obeys a moment before I would have broken something. The vertical G's are too much. Blackness creeps in from the sides, dimming my vision an inch at a time until all I see is black.
35
“Amelia.” I can hear someone calling my name but I can’t see anything. Where am I? The world is nothing but blackness and silence. Except for this one insistent voice shouting my name. Louder and louder until my head hurts from the yelling.
“Quiet,” I manage to mutter.
Then it all came back. I hear someone groaning and then I realize it’s me.
“Did we win?” I ask the shouting voice.
“You did it, Amelia, you did it.”
A single line of light pierces my vision and I realize why everything is dark; my faceplate is covered in grime and the single line of light is Luke doing his best to wipe the gunk from it.
I move my arms to test them, they seem to work.
“Epic?”
Nothing.
“Epic?”
I can’t keep the edge of panic out of my voice. I can make out Luke’s smiling face as he finishes scrubbing the gunk off.
“I can’t connect to Epic,” I tell him.
He cocks his head to the side, glances down at my armor.
“You have some exterior damage, a crap ton of pitting and scorch marks. Maybe your power cells have been damaged?”
Power. I must have generated a crazy powerful EMP. Even shielded I bet it took down some systems.
On cue, my faceplate lights up. Lines and lines of data scroll past my screen as Epic runs a full diagnostic scan. When the last line flashes by, my HUD blinks rapidly several times before resolving to the familiar green glow.
Sorry, Amelia. I had to shut down a microsecond before the EMP hit and I did not have time to explain.
“I can’t see your face. Is everything okay?” Luke asks me.
“Everything’s great. Epic is back.”
“Are you okay?”
All systems are functional, albeit in low power mode. I’m afraid the suit isn’t combat ready. Though, sustained flight is possible.
“Awesome.”
With Luke’s help, I shakily pull myself up to a standing position. He wraps his big arms around me and I find myself wishing I could take the armor off so he could hold me.
“God, Amelia, I thought I lost you.”
There is something disconcerting about a man his size shaking with tears in his eyes. I do my best to return the hug.
“It’s okay, Luke, I’m fine. Really.”
We stay that way for a few minutes before the rest of the team shows up. Domino and Mr. Perfect appear out of thin air and Fleet arrives in a blur. I’ve never been so happy to see people in my whole life. I can’t stop the tears as we all hug.
“Son of a gun, we did it,” Fleet says.
I want this moment to go on forever. My heart sings from the proximity of my friends. Kate flashes me a huge smile as she glances at Luke, who hasn’t looked away from me since I stood up.
“Okay, Diamondbacks, let’s go home,” Luke finally says.
“Who’s hungry? Because I say we take over an Outback and party like it’s 1999,” Mr. Perfect says with his cocksure smile.
“My treat,” I add, “but I need about a hundred hours of sleep.”
“Amen to that,” Kate chimes in.
Epilogue
I had to let Epic take the wheel for the trip home. Exhaustion seeped into me and somewhere over southern Arizona I fell asleep. It was a short-lived nap, however. Alarms buzzed, alerting me to ignite my retros to slow down. Epic can lock the suit up and even steer it a little, but not control it outright.
I groan as I lift my arms; they feel like lead weights. The thrusters hit and spin me around. The boot jets kick in and slow me down enough to only crunch the gravel on the roof the of the HQ when I hit. I stagger, more than walk, the few feet to the elevator. I would have used my private entrance but I’m too tired to aim and would likely have hit the wall, not the window.
The team is still a half hour away when the armor comes off. I’m drenched in sweat from the work. The outside of my armor is blackened and pitted from both the acid and the explosion. I can fix the paint job—the pitting though… it might be time to move to the MKII.
I can’t think about it, though. Too tired. I strip off my interface suit and groan as I flop on the bed. A shower would do wonders but I am too tired to care.
I gaze up at the ceiling willing sleep to take me, but there is an incessant buzzing keeping me from going over. I hit the bed in frustration.
“What?”
I glance at the nearest TV screen. Epic has it lit up with a picture of a bunker of some kind.
I have found your parents.
Shock washes over me. He’s found them? Now? How? What… I don’t know what to do.
They are in Boston. The latest data dump from our backdoor shows them arriving there fourteen years ago. I know where they are Amelia… They are alive.
Those three little words lifted my spirits to new heights.
The adventure continues in… UNSTOPPABLE ARSENAL! Keep turning the page to read the excerpt!
Part II
Unstoppable Arsenal
Full Metal Superhero: Book 2
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Real world locations are used and in some cases fictionalized.
Jeffery H. Haskell
Visit my website at www.jefferyhhaskell.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: Oct 2017
Molten Graphics
For Rebekah, Julia, John, and Rivkah…
This is an Ex-Parrot.
36
Humans are walking, talking contradictions. Utterly predictable right up until they are not.
-Notes on an Electronic Life, by Epic
Incoming fire. Recommend evasive maneuvers.
“You think?” I ask as I throw myself sideways. Turning at high speeds is like slamming into a wall but I manage to stay conscious. The space I occupied a moment before is filled with 20mm cannon fire. A second later two F-22s, tails painted with the Arizona Air Guard emblem, flash by in a streak of fire and fury.
“Let’s see how they climb. Full power to the Emdrive.”
We’re already at fifteen thousand feet about twenty miles north of Tucson Air Guard base, home of the 162d Air Combat wing. A few weeks ago the governor asked if we would be willing to cross train with the other State militias. Fighting actual jets sounded
like fun and since they couldn’t hurt me… Also, with the MKI retired after all the acid scoring I needed to do a proper field test of the MKII. I told them to use live weapons. They thought I was joking until I showed them the video of the fifty cals bouncing off my shields. This is our third sortie in four days and I’m loving it. I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but this is the perfect testbed for the Mark II upgrade.
The fighters are coming around. Two are going high to cut you off.
I lock my arms down to stabilize as I blast near straight up.
Their radar is searching.
They won’t find anything.
“Epic, lock on the lead jet with the particle beam and inform his computer when he’s dead.” As soon as my AI comes back with a targeting solution I cut thrust to float for a few seconds. As the g’s dissipate I bring my arm up, wrist down and point it where he tells me. I don’t actually fire. The beam would slice through the pilot’s plane and I don’t have seventy-million dollars to replace it.
Splash one.
Epic is really into all the military jargon and I can’t say I blame him. I’m dogfighting with— the sky lights up in a shower of flame. A shockwave hits and I’m flailing through the air. My shields scream at me for more power and I can hear the ping of debris deflecting off my armor.
“How did we miss that one?”
They took advantage of your momentary lapse in speed to fire a missile at you without locking on. The pilot ‘eyeballed’ it. Detonation was ten feet behind us.
I kick in the Emdrive and I’m shooting through the air. My airspeed approaches six-hundred and the air starts to condense in front of me as I approach the so-called sound barrier.
“Give me their ears, Epic.” A few seconds pass and a green light pop’s on my HUD.
“Okay, boys, you got me. Good hit. Now, let’s see who can hit sixty-thousand feet the fastest.”
The radio distorts his reply, “You heard her, Valkyrie Three—Tally-ho!”
Valkyrie Three and Four surge past about a half mile away. Their tails light a trail in the sky as the engines effortlessly push them past Mach One quickly followed by Mach Two.
“Full burn! Straight up.” My HUD flashes as the parts in my improved systems re-arrange themselves to give me maximum thrust from my new drive. All power from my Zero Point Field Module shunts into the Emdrive and a burst of acceleration elicits a grunt from me. Epic locks me up since we’re on a ballistic trajectory. The whole thing takes three seconds, but in that time the fighters have shot up seven thousand feet. My airspeed indicator highlights for ease of visual reference.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I crossed the sound barrier. I hoped it would be cool. It was just another number on the screen. I’m sure from below it sounds awesome. Three seconds later we hit Mach Two. Next time I do this I need to arrange someone to film it.
“More power!” I really want to beat these guys. Epic flashes the amount of joules he’s already dumping into the Emdrive and even I’m impressed. The drive is fantastic but it was never meant for operating in an atmosphere. The idea was designed for space with no friction and a ten-watt battery recharged by solar winds. With a little tweaking and a few hundred-thousand watts it can push me just about anywhere I want to go.
Mach 3.
I let out a whoop on the radio as I blast by sixty-thousand feet a half second before the jets.
The radio crackles to life with the pilot's voice, “If you ever want to rent one of those out, ma’am, I know about fifty men and women who would love to take it for a spin,” he tells me. He has a nice voice and if I recall correctly, he’s an older fellow and the commander of the wing. A colonel?
“That probably won’t happen Colonel, but if I ever consider it, I think you would be the man for the job.” They squawk their radios as they turn south to head back to base. We’re still doing Mach 3 as we just pass eighty thousand feet. The air is thinning. A plane would be slowed by the thinning air as it would receive less lift under the wings… but since I don’t rely on aerodynamics to maneuver it has the effect of speeding us up due to the lack of resistance.
“What do you say, Epic? Give the Mark II a spin in space? Be the first non-powered human in orbit without a shuttle?
Not today. There is an emergency call coming in from HQ. All hands on deck. A gang of super-powered criminals known as the ‘Riot Boys’ are attacking Phoenix.
“Attacking? Just attacking, not robbing anything?”
It is unclear at this time. They have leveled a small building and are blowing up parked cars. Speed is suggested. Fleet is currently on scene evacuating civilians.
“I guess it’s time to show off the MK II after all. Bring us about, Number One, and send us on our way.”
The trajectory for the course flashes on the HUD as Epic brings us over and kicks in the drive. At our altitude it only takes a few seconds to reach Phoenix.
Wind roars by as we plunge toward the city I’ve called home most of my life. Excitement builds in my gut as we close the distance. I can’t wait to show off my new tech!
“Any update on what they’re doing?”
Yes. While their actions appear to be random they are in fact setting up distractions while a small team infiltrates a jewelry outlet in the Paradise Valley area.
Paradise Valley is right next to Glendale and it is the fanciest neighborhood in the city. Which means plenty of cops on scene and possible arguments over jurisdiction. However, if the bad guys are using superpowers then they’re ours.
37
Phoenix in September is a lot like Phoenix in June, hot enough to fry an egg on the outside of my armor. Lucky for me, I have climate control. My heart goes out to the rest of the team who don’t. Though Mr. Perfect manages to stay annoyingly sweat free, Kate’s body regulates itself so she’s never out of place, and Fleet just runs everywhere to cool off. Which just leaves Luke, aka Major Force, out in the heat.
He has some luck today, though. The newest member of the Diamondbacks is finally out of state training and should be joining us. Glacier is little more than a kid at seventeen, but with no ability to turn her powers off, and her life endangered by them, the government decided to allow her family to relocate to Phoenix so she could join us. Elementals are fairly rare, and ice is the rarest of all, and it will be nice to have one on our side for once.
“Okay, Epic, before we descend why don’t you give me the recon. Luke will ask for it as soon as we’re on scene anyways.”
Affirmative.
Part of me is glad the last three months since the monster attack were quiet. I spent a lot of time in the lab working on my three big upgrades. My Emdrive, the computronium spray over my chest piece, and of course my upgraded grenade launcher. The computronium allows Epic to live in the suit, it is a nano thick layer of a gold-titanium alloy capable of forming computer cores. Once I sprayed the suit with it, connected the components and then sealed it with a quarter inch layer of new armor, it allowed me to upload Epic. Faster than his old housing, and more importantly, with me in the suit. This means I can travel at sixty-thousand feet and not lose contact with him.
Data flashes up on my green HUD. Multiple windows open showing me pictures and video. Fleet, fast as always, grabs civilians and whisks them away to the evac zone, an underground parking garage a mile away. Luke, Kate, Mr. Perfect, and Glacier, are on top of the mall staying out of sight until I arrive. Good for Luke. Sometimes he has trouble remembering tactics.
There are nineteen members of the gang in the street and six in the diamond exchange. Epic flashes the rundown on every known member, almost all of them are F3 with variations of ‘fast and strong’. The three we need to watch out for are, Inferno, Crusher, and Fang. Inferno is an elemental of the most common type, flame. Crusher is their strong man, an F4 with mass generation. Ugh, mass is the enemy in a fight. The last, Fang is one of the beast modes. The poor bastards who upon receiving their powers turn into creatures out of nightmares or worse. Sometimes t
hey’re recognizable, other times not. Fang is rather tame, like a wolf crossed with a spider that grew fly wings.
Inferno and Crusher are leading the rampant street destruction team, Fang is in charge of the team infiltrating the exchange. I have Epic flash this news to the Diamondbacks. They all wear augmented reality goggles now, Epic can give them updates, directions, show them info about who they’re fighting, the whole bit. I spared no expense.
“ETA twenty seconds, boss,” I say over the team tacnet.
“Affirmative. Come in stealthy, Domino has a plan,” Luke replies.
“Stealth mode.” The HUD switches from the ubiquitous green to the soft blue as light levels are lowered. I don’t need to worry about sound baffling or thermal energy anymore, the Emdrive puts off neither. Mostly the plates on my armor shift around to a radar friendly configuration. I’m still working on invisibility, but with this and the kinetic emitters rigged for silent running, I’m invisible to radar detection.
I land with a thud on the black tar roof. Heat from the midday sun turns it into a soft goo which sticks to my boots.
“What’s the plan?” I ask. My synthesized voice sounds more robotic than me. I find most people respond better to it than to my natural voice, which isn’t exactly authoritative.
Kate flashes me a smile, “A reverse on our takedown of the Six. Fleet has the whole area clear of civvies, the guys at the diamond exchange are stuck on the vault, which gives us something we don’t normally have,” she finishes with a smile.
“A dress code?” Mr. Perfect asks.
“Lunch?” Fleet adds as he zips up to stand perfectly still in a rush of wind.
Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 19