“You’re going to have catch me first,” I fire up the jets and fly backward trying to keep the beams on her as I move. She leaps at me. I don’t have time to react and a distant part of my brain wonders why I didn’t think this was a possibility? She crashes into me, her massive weight overrides the jets and we slam against the concrete outside. Using her knees she pins me to the ground. I didn’t even see her move, not really.
“What was that about catching you?” She laughs as she reaches down to grab my helmet.
A bolt of lightning arcs through the air to light the night in a single frozen moment. She glances up and I do too as a familiar spear falls through the air at impossible speed slamming into the ground point first.
Protector lands in a thump, the shockwave of his arrival splashes debris in every direction. The spear leaps to his hand and he holds it out to her, point first. He’s every bit as impressive as the first time I saw him.
“Surrender, Karen, I won’t ask a second time.”
“Your parlor tricks might scare the newbs, Sydney, but I ain’t afraid of you.” She slams my head into the ground to make a point before standing and stomping on my chest.
I roll out of the way, coughing painfully as I do so.
“Epic, did you get a signal out?”
Negative, I have not successfully restored communications.
Pythia, then. I guess she decided to side with me over her visions.
Based on their level of strength I suggest you move before they collide.
“Good point,” I say, launching into the air. A list of systems flash yellow and crimson with damage. IP Cannons are offline, I’m down to one Particle Beam, no grenades, and no sword. There are still thousands of warbots to deal with. I’d EMP them but clearly, they’re shielded.
A crack like thunder explodes bellow me and a massive shockwave blasts through the air. Behemoth halls herself back and slams into his shield again. Protector actually slides backward from the blow. The ground around their feet pulverizes as do the nearest vehicles.
“Epic? He can take her, right?”
I do not have enough data to predict the outcome reliably. There are other things we could do. Other leaders who need our help.
“I know, but Sydney is here because of me. All of this is because of me. Maybe what Pythia saw was me forcing Ericsson's hand and thus ending in annihilation.”
Possibly.
“My point is—he’s here because of me and if he loses then it’s my fault. We’ve got to help him!”
How? All of our weapons have been ineffective. Even a direct hit from an Arrow is unlikely to even render her unconscious.
I fire off my one working particle beam into the melee of swirling fists and spears. I nail her shoulder with no visible effect. I’m not even sure she feels it. “Set the beam to pulse, at least that way I can use it longer.”
Too bad I can’t get her to swallow a ZPFM. Her fist clangs off Protector’s shield and he swipes at her with his spear. The point slashes her skin and I see blood dripping off the bronze tip.
“Epic! The spear can hurt her.”
So could your sword, but not enough.
Her hand flashes out at a chunk of rubble and she hurls it at me. At the same time Protector shield checks her to the ground. I dodge the concrete and Rebar projectile and land a few yards from them, my one working particle beam pointing at her.
“Give up, Karen, your cause is lost. Once we locate your master, he will be too.” Protector has her pinned with his spear hovering over her abdomen.
This is better than I hoped for. If he can force her surrender then we can find out—
She grabs the spear and yanks it toward her. The point penetrates her stomach but the motion forces Protector off balance and he falls toward her. Faster than I can shout a warning she slams her hands together over his ears with the force of a thunderclap.
Sydney, The Protector, the one hero I admired growing up, stumbles off of her barely keeping his feet as he sways from side to side before falling to his knees then face first against the ground. He takes one last breath… then his heart stops.
My vision dims and I can hardly breathe. All I can hear is my heart pounding.
Blood pours from his ears, pooling on the ground around his face. Behemoth laughs as she stands. The spear’s tip still wedged in her side. She yanks at it but the arrow-shaped weapon is wedged into her ribs and she roars in rage when it won’t dislodge.
“You’re next,” she growls, holding the still embed spear up, she charges. In shock, I don’t react quick enough and she hits me—hard.
The HUD scrambles as the armor impacts the ground. Alarms scream at me as the kilo-pascals rise beyond tolerance. The ZPFM output highlights as it shoots through the roof dumping power into the kinetic shields just to keep me alive.
I can see Sydney, lying face down in his own blood. He was so nice and selfless. He didn’t deserve to die. Not the man who took me into space for the first time. Not the man who gave people, gave me, hope.
Over the alarms, I scream at Behemoth. I don’t think she can hear me, I’m not even sure my PA is working. I reach for the spear, trying to grab it as she jerks around sending the short shaft flying wildly. It’s inside her a good six inches at least.
“Your armor is tough but you can’t take this forever.” She lifts her foot up to curb stomp me and I manage to find a handful of haft.
“Behemoth, I may not be able to kill you, but you can’t fly.”
She pauses, looking down at me then to the haft in my hand.
In my mind, with all my will I scream—Take me to the moon.
With as much strength as I have left I shove the spear forward. Whether it’s Pythia or the grace of God, the spear takes over from there. Behemoth screams as the magical weapon leaps up to the sky, carrying her with it faster than I can track. In the blink of an eye, she’s gone. I don’t know if she needs to breathe or not, but I sure as hell hope she does.
I fall back to the ground. I’m done. All I can see is poor Sydney as the world turns black.
58
Amelia, wake up. Communications have been restored and reinforcements are inbound.
“Wake up?” my voice slurs and my mouth feels like cotton candy. The sky is still dark. Sort of. I can’t see out of the right side of my faceplate.
“Epic, why can’t I see?”
Some of the optical sensors in the suit have sustained damage. They will need to be replaced.
“Fantastic,” I mutter. Everything hurts. A groan escapes as I roll over.
The Protector. I can’t believe she killed him. He’s still there, kneeling face down almost as if he were praying, but he isn’t. His words come back to me, he said if he were ever to die, she would find a new one. That’s a cold comfort for the man who gave his life to help me.
“Amelia?”
Luke’s deep voice and the concern that one word carries is sweet relief to my pain wracked body.
“Luke? Where are you?” The air pops and he’s next to me, his big hands helping me up. There’s a rapid series of pops as Kate brings the whole team with the exception of Pierre.
“Mr. Perfect is still in his magically induced coma,” Luke says.
“Were you able to get through to the Arizona AG?” I ask Kate. Epic is running through a checklist of damaged components while we talk and I try not to be distracted by the laundry list of repairs needed. He’s bypassing what he can but it isn’t pretty.
I need some form of self-repair. Nanites maybe? But how could I have them repair the exoskeleton? Maybe some form of temporary—
“…the bottom line is he believes us, but with the mass attack there isn’t a lot he can do.”
I shake my head to focus. I missed what she said but I caught the gist of it.
“Fleet, inside the White House, are a couple of agents, make sure the President is secure and let them know Behemoth is gone,” I tell the speedster.
“On it.” He vanishes in an eddy of dust.
“Glacier,” she turns to me and I can see some micro-fractures in her ice from the fires nearby. Thank goodness Luke leaped in front of her. “These warbots are using plasma weapons. High energy gas super accelerated until it is a few thousand degrees. I want you and Tony—”
He re-appears in a blur. “They say the President is secure. Without the threat of Behemoth, they’re confident they can take it from here.”
“Great. Fleet, take Glacier and you two are on fire duty. These weapons are a menace and with the rampaging warbots and other supers those fires are going to quickly get out of control.”
“Arsenal, you’re bleeding,” Glacier says pointing at my waist. I look down as best I can, not easy to do in the armor. My hand comes away bloody but I realize it isn’t mine. It’s hers.
“Not mine, but thanks, get on it.”
She nods. Tony picks her up and disappears in a blur.
“What about us?” Kate asks.
“Somewhere out here there are more supers on Ericsson’s side. Epic is compiling a list based on the data that we have. There are several spots that need help. Mostly FBI and Homeland agents who aren’t powered trying to protect people from super-powered assets. We’re going to be their backup.”
“Sounds good. Amelia, Kate filled me in on what’s going on with Ericsson. I know why you didn’t share and I want you to know I understand.” He puts his arms around me and pulls me close. Even though I can’t feel him through the suit I sink into his hug.
“You do? I was so worried…” All my emotions bubble up and my vision blurs worse than it already was. I can’t cry! No way to wipe my face but damn if I didn’t need to hear this.
“I’m a Marine, silly, tactics and operational security I understand.”
I hold on to him a few more seconds then I can let go. We part hesitantly, oh how do I wish I could take the armor off.
I have taken over dispatching pretty much every emergency service on the Eastern Seaboard. With the main lines down I have tasked Artemis to scan for the hot spots. I have also hacked NSA’s Keyhole and have three of them relaying info to emergency responders. 911 dispatchers from across the country are coming online as I send the signals to them and use the satellites to guide first responders. Their first priority is the civilians.
“Wow, well done. I guess there is no putting the genie back in the bottle after this?”
Unlikely. Perhaps having saved the President from a gruesome death will be enough to earn you a pardon?
“Let’s hope. Where we going?”
The Prime Minister of England is in Baltimore and is under the biggest threat. We can be there in two minutes.
“Okay, here is the plan—”
59
Forty-eight hours later and my bruises have bruises. Between Epic’s early warning and our timely intervention, we managed to save every world leader and keep the civilian casualties to a minimum. If this was Ericsson’s big push, then he failed miserably. The word is out, not just on him, but every super, hero or villain, that sided with him or was mind-controlled by him.
The only loose end is I still have no idea where he is or how to find him and even if I did, I don’t know if I could convince him to undo the damage he did to my parents.
The good news is, in the two solid days of fighting and rescuing, my truck arrived. Currently, I’m resting on the couch drinking a Coke while watching Epic’s automated machinery do the repairs on my suit.
We’re parked outside the hotel where the team is sleeping. The city is still working on restoring power to the area so I opted to stay in the rig where I have electricity and all the TV I could want.
The HD cam on the back shows Luke about to knock on the door when Epic triggers it open.
“You can’t sneak up on an AI,” I yell around the corner. The couch is in the front just behind the lab and the door is all the way in the back.
“I wasn’t trying to sneak up. I just thought you would like some pizza.”
“Oh boy, do I!” I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to eat. The smell of pepperoni and cheese sets my stomach growling. I’d run over to him and wolf it down if I could. I excitedly pat the seat next to me, “Come on!”
He leaps in the truck with one smooth motion and trots over. “I’d like to think you’d be this happy to see me even if I didn’t bring the pizza.”
I open the box, it isn’t Bianco’s but even bad pizza is good pizza.
“My Dad always said, ‘don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to’.”
“Sounds like a smart man, I can’t wait to meet him.”
I swallow the first bite of cheesy goodness and let my body fully understand that it now has access to food.
“Well,” I say around a second mouthful, “You might. I don’t know. I just… They still have no idea they even have a daughter. How am I supposed to deal with that? There are two people, they look, talk, act exactly like I remember my parents. They just have no idea who I am. What do I do?”
He slides in next to me, carefully lifting my legs to rest on his lap. “I wish I could tell you, really. You’re very smart though, if you haven’t noticed, I think you’ll do fine.”
I stick my tongue out at him, “You’re no help at all.”
“I’m willing to listen if you want to bounce ideas off my thick skull.”
“Other than finding Ericsson and making him undo what he’s done? I have no idea.”
“Amelia, the whole world knows who was behind this, everyone is looking for him. I’m sure he will turn up.”
It was true, Epic provided every law enforcement agency on the planet with all the evidence we had on exactly what Ericsson had done. How he could change bodies and fool telepaths was still a big question.
Luke absently massages my foot while he speaks, “It’s too bad the warbots didn’t have some kind of signal you could hack- what?”
I’m an idiot. “Epic!”
Processing.
“During the fight, the warbots responded to our actions. Not just in self-defense but they had tactics and initiative. I thought they were just well programmed, but what if they did have a signal, hidden in the noise where no one would hear it?”
“Wouldn’t it have been destroyed when the EMP went off?”
I shake my head and throw back the rest of the Coke, “Nope. They’re shielded. All the EMP would do is remove all the noise.”
“How does that help us now?”
It helps us because during the fight I used Artemis to record every signal as well as act as a communications hub. An examination of the logs shows radio waves at one-hundred and forty-five megahertz.
“Where did they come from?”
The signal originated… in orbit.
“So he has a satellite like me? And why does that freq sound familiar?”
It is the frequency NASA uses to speak to the ISS Hub.
“Could he be using the space station as a relay?”
I glance at poor Luke, his eyes have glazed over. He quietly eats a slice of pizza waiting for me to make my ‘aha’ sound. I don’t know if I can. If he’s using the Space Station as a relay he could be anywhere on Earth.
I do not think so. I am not seeing any other transmissions. It would be safe to assume that if he were planning something then he would assume victory. At which point no one would be left to challenge him.
“Are you saying he’s on the space station?”
Affirmative.
Luke clears his throat to get my attention, “How can you know he’s up there?”
“Epic? What do you know?”
More than I have time to recount?
“That is what I get for programming you with a sense of humor. I mean, how do we prove he’s up there?”
I am not sure we can. But it would not hurt to go up and take a look, would it?
“No, it wouldn’t.”
“Go up? Into space? You can do that?”
Luke looks genuinely shocked and a little awed.
“Can and have.”
“I don’t suppose you can take me with you?” he asks.
“Sadly, no, but I can’t go until the repairs are complete which means we can spend the night here…”
“I…” He pauses as understanding dawns on him and his face turns an adorable shade of red.
“Come over here and kiss me,” I tell him.
He does.
60
Amelia, we need a full lab and a few more weeks to have the armor at one-hundred percent. I do not recommend this course of action.
“I know, but I want my parents back, Epic. We know where he is right now. If he comes back to Earth I may never find him.”
I hate arguing with a computer. They’re almost always right. However, I have to do this and do it right frigging now. The readout on the monitor tells me all the reasons I shouldn’t. The left particle beam is still offline, the optics on the right aren’t repaired, I’ll need to fabricate a new helmet, and my grenade launcher is offline. This leaves me with propulsion, sensors, life support, and about thirty-percent of my weapons including my sword. I had the scare of my life until I found it buried under a half vaporized AFV.
“Right now he’s off-balance, his plans for who knows how long have come undone. If we strike we have the upper hand.”
I am with you, as always. I just do not advise it.
“And that is why we’re not telling anyone because they wouldn’t advise it either. But this is about my parents, Epic, if there’s even a small chance I can make this work then we have to take it.”
Understood.
That’s something, I guess. I wheel over to the spot marked on the floor. The pull bar comes down to lift me out of my chair. With all the damage to the suit I couldn’t put it back in the chair configuration, leaving me with the old-fashioned way.
“Epic, initiate!”
Ten minutes later we are soaring straight up past the first three sound barriers. I wish this were more exhilarating. Instead, all I feel is a hollow pit in my stomach. I really hope I’m not making a mistake here.
Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 32