Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  Kate took off to Paris since today is Friday, she wanted to spend the weekend at home. Teleporters, sheesh. Everyone else is crammed aboard the Emjet headed back this way. They’re only a few minutes behind me.

  “Epic, what’s with the crowd in front of the building?”

  Milton has not made me aware of a disturbance or security breaches. Checking.

  I use the HUD’s zoom feature to check out the crowd. Uh-oh. Signs with, ‘All supers belong in jail’ and ‘no more powers’ are held high. I’d heard of anti-super protests in some of the bigger cities. But Arizona loves the Diamondbacks, I didn’t think they’d make much headway here. Of course, they’re probably bussed in. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who I am and what this building is for. I guess they know now. It isn’t like my identity was ever secret. From the moment I joined the DB’s I had to give Cat-7 my name and I knew the cat would eventually be out of the bag. After I dumped all of Cat-7’s secrets on the web and saved the President, people found out.

  It isn’t like it made me a celebrity. I got a host of requests for interviews and then it all died down when I didn’t respond to any of them. Like Kate said, I haven’t left the lab in a few months, other than to see my folks. I spent more time out of my lab and armor when we recruited the team than I did the three months before.

  As we get closer, I can see building security in their bright red shirts standing impassively between the crowd and the front doors. We have a front like a hotel with a pass through driveway. It makes it easy for people to drop off guests then drive to the underground garage or have the valet do it. Okay, it’s a lot like a hotel. Hotel Mars. I smirk, maybe a revamp of the building logo is needed.

  There really isn’t anywhere for them to stand on the outside gate since we’re right off a state route. They must have waited for a car to go in then ran through to the front doors. At least the pass-through is under the spire and out of the sun. The last thing we want is to have an out-of-towner have sunstroke on our lawn and then be blamed for it.

  “I’m gonna touch down and see what’s going on.”

  Amelia, I do not advise that course of action. Crowds are unpredictable. The only weapon systems we have will severely hurt them.

  “Weapon systems? Epic, clearly they’re upset about something. I’ll land and explain to them what is going on. I’m sure if I just tell them what’s what they’ll understand. Everyone knows about the aliens now. Clearly, we need to be working together.”

  Amelia… have you met people?”

  “This isn’t the Internet where no one is allowed to be wrong and heaven forbid anyone else be right. These are real people, in the flesh. Trust me, it will be fine.”

  I have recorded your last phrase in order to play it back to you next time you are tempted to ignore my advice.

  “Funny. Ease up on the thrust and let’s land slowly.”

  The deep hum of my boots alerts the crowd to me just before I get there. Pulling up, I slow to a hover before setting down. A hush falls over the crowd for a second, all of them look up at me… gripping their signs like weapons? Why?

  “PA on.” The light flashes letting me know. “Hi, I’m Arsenal. Let me answer—” A tomato hits my faceplate.

  “Supers belong in jail,” the thrower yells. The crowd picks up the chant and starts shaking their signs and fists in the air. This makes no sense.

  “Epic scan the crowd, facial recognition. This doesn’t feel right.”

  On it.

  “Please, listen,” I say with the PA up to thirty decibels. That gets their attention. “I’ll happily answer any questions you have.”

  For a second I think they’re gonna take me up on it then the stupid chant starts. What is up with that? I’m being perfectly reasonable here. I wish Kate was here, she’d have them eating out of her palm in about five seconds.

  “I have a question.” A hand shoots up from the middle of the crowd. The crowd instantly silences and parts for a tall man with cold black eyes. I suppress a shudder, I know him. Pedric Matahal. Former head scientist of Category-7. I very much want to rescind my offer and take off right now. But I can’t. I’ll look like I’m hiding something. Best to play the gracious host.

  “How do you justify your actions in Seattle? Elliot Bay is all but uninhabitable now. And Colorado? If it weren’t for the actions of a few brave humans we might never know the truth.”

  “And what is the truth, Mr. Matahal?” I ask. I instantly regret opening my mouth. He’s in front of the crowd now and he turns to them.

  “The truth is you are lying to us. Supers, the government, you’re all liars and thieves. Look at this building behind us? How did you afford it Ms. Lockheart? When you came to work for Cat-7 you had meager earnings… now you are on Forbes top 500… how is that?”

  “I don’t see what one has to do with the other. You were—” he cuts me off with a wave of his hand.

  “Of course you don’t see, you’re not one of the chosen. Either through incompetence or collusion, you have allowed this calamity to fall upon us. People,” he turns to the crowd, “She is the harbinger of the end times. Look at her.”

  I tune him out for a second as he keeps working the crowd. “You were right Epic. But I could have been.”

  You could have been. If people were logical, reasonable beings who listened to facts other than their own.

  “Touche. Scan him. When we met in Cat-7 the man made me feel like he hated everyone and everything but… there’s something… Why is he here now?”

  Scanning. He appears perfectly normal. Crosschecking. Wait one.

  I wait. But I have a feeling I know what Epic is going to say. The crowd is cheering now. When he raises his fist they roar. I send a text message to the lead red shirt, telling him to take his men inside. The people out here are no threat to anyone and I can reroute traffic to our backup underground entrance if need be. If they aren’t out here that will be one less reason for the crowd to confront anyone. My HUD shows his name. O’Brien. If I recall, he’s an ex-SAS man looking for a clean start in the states. Epic did all the hiring and he seemed to have put a lot of different people together who all work like a well-oiled machine.

  O’Brien gives me a nod before tapping the man next to him on the shoulder, he does the same to the fellow next to him and within seconds, without a word, all four men are inside locking the doors. Dang impressive.

  I have the results back. I checked with the national database and then I went international, do you want to know what I found?

  “No.”

  What?

  “I’m joking, Epic, of course, I want to know.” Now the crowd is really going, he’s talking about locking everyone up who has superpowers and funding research that would strip people of their abilities. I need to double check my security protocols. All my research is behind three firewalls and a DMZ with both Milton and Epic running active security. The last ditch is an Arrow strike on the actual servers if they are breached. However, I can’t be too careful. I may be called paranoid, but I think if there were ever a person who was justified, it was me.

  I do not think he is human.

  That hits me like a cold bucket of water. He’s the former Chief Science Officer of Cat-7. He has more background checks performed on him than anyone but the president’s staff. How could they miss that? Which is what I ask Epic.

  Spectre. The AI they had in the space station. He was very good. Better than me at cyber-security because that was his sole directive. He could have made sure the public persona held, especially with Category-Sevens internal access to government networks.

  A thought hit me, “Scan for quantum radiation.” Sure enough, a trace amount shows up. He has a tiny ZPFM on him doing something. Well, that settles it. I will bid him good day and then—

  Pedric turns from roaring crowd who are all chanting for my death at this point and smile, “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” His gleeful smile sends a shiver down my spine and makes me want to punch him in the
face at the same time.

  There is an emergency call coming in from Palo Verde nuclear plant. A mob of super-powered people are overwhelming security. The Presidents team has asked us to intervene.

  “How did he… never mind,” I turn to Pedric and I pump up the decibels to fifty to drown out his crowd, “You may all stay as long as you like. If you require food, water, or medical attention please use the comm panel on the pillar over there,” I point toward the closest of five pillars holding up the covered drive, “and let my people know. They’ve been instructed to provide any and all care you may require. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  He’s still smiling but I can see a chink in his armor. He expected me to get mad or something. Well, I am, but I’m not going to take it out on a crowd of people who are either doing what they believe is right or are unduly influenced. Either way, I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.

  Arms down at my side I kick in the Emdrive and blast off. The high pitched whine of the boots drowns out anything he might have said as I left. “Epic, plot the least time course, let’s bust some barriers. Re-route the jet and notify Kate, we might need her when we arrive. Is anyone else coming?”

  As if we needed another threat to worry about. Of course, if he is alien, then really it’s the same threat.

  The Southwest team is on the way. However, they are using a conventional transport cannot make it there for another one-hour and twenty minutes. We will be there in seven minutes.

  “Well, it’s a nuclear plant, no wonder the President called us. A lot can happen in an hour and a half. Re-route the team, give them a briefing and get me some eyes on the ground. Also, see what you can do about having Mr. Personality arrested. If he is an alien, then he’s working for the bad guys and we need him contained.”

  Affirmative. Brace for acceleration.

  “I feel the need for speed!” The suit shakes as we pass through Mach One, followed by two more in ten seconds. I love this part.

  75

  I’m five minutes ahead of the jet. While it can theoretically go as fast as I can, the hull isn’t made for faster than Mach Three. If I wanted faster I’d have to make it out of the same material I use to construct the suit. And that is just too much Titanium-tungsten carbide flying around for my liking. A private jet is a heck of a lot easier to steal than my suit.

  Five miles out Epic cuts the thrust and we free-fall the remaining distance, coming down from sixty thousand feet in a hurry. I use the two minutes to scan the battlefield. And it is a battlefield. Palo Verde is in the middle of nowhere surrounded by scrub brush and dessert. A seven-foot-tall concrete and chain link fence encloses the small building and the two huge cooling towers. Fifteen hundred feet of open ground exists between the fence and the main building.

  It looks like security has paid in blood for every foot of lost space. Soldiers fall back from a crumbling perimeter, shooting as they go. Epic Identifies them as US Army National Guard. Weekend warriors who train to defend their homes. They were never trained for this. My AI is doing his best to run threat analysis on the twenty or so super-powered attackers. The battle is pure chaos, though. The soldiers on one side firing in controlled bursts as they fall back. Superpowered lunatics on the other going crazy.

  I spot at least two flame generators pouring out heat like they’re prize guests at a Texas Barbecue. A few F3 strong people throwing rocks, ripping cars apart in the parking lot, and generally making a mess. A number more with conventional weapons firing at the soldiers. No speedsters or elementals, which is a nice change.

  “Epic, relay everything to the team. We’re going in.”

  You do not want to wait for backup?”

  “Negative. I don’t want any more of those soldiers dying. We’re going to land west of their location and get the attention of as many bad guys as we can.”

  How do you suggest we do that?

  “Rock and Roll.”

  I kick in the Emdrive and floor it right to the ground, slamming into the packed earth with as much force as an elephant. Using my eyes, I flick through the menu on my HUD until the right selection pops up.

  “It’s an oldie but a goody. Maximum decibels. Full PA,” I wait for the system to flash ready. “Hit it.”

  As the dust clears the first notes of Queen’s We Will Rock You kick out of our sound system. Followed by a half dozen puffs from the grenade launcher as Epic goes active.

  I have their attention now.

  Firebolts scream my way. Epic pings their temp at over a thousand degrees. I return fire with IP Cannons on full power as I run forward. I could fly, but I want them shooting at me with the stray beams and bullets hitting the empty landscape instead of the hunkered down soldiers. The pop pop pop of gunfire echoes in my helmet and I can see bullets falling out of the air as they impact with my kinetic shields.

  A man walks out of the dust in front of me, fire licking at his fingers. He wears a pair of dessert goggles to protect his eyes. The grim set in his jaw tells me he is no joke. I leap to the right a second ahead of a tornado of fire. The sandpaper roar of my IP cannons fills the air as I blast away at him. Most of the metas we face are susceptible to the IP cannons.

  A large tire swirls through the dust and slams into my kinetic shields at three hundred miles an hour. My alarms scream as the shields deflect the tire. The mass and speed of the projectile sends me sliding backward in the sand. They give up entirely when the utility truck crashes down, flattening me into the sand and dirt.

  “Ow.”

  I cough and try and move. The utility truck is noticeably larger than Luke’s. Which makes me think—

  “We should buy Luke a new truck, what do you say?”

  Shift your left arm three feet to the right.

  I follow his instructions and trigger the particle beams. White-hot, hyper-accelerated silicate slices through the metal and plastic, creating a wedge in which my kinetic shields can rip the truck in half.

  “Anyone who surrenders now, won’t be hurt,” I say over the music. “Epic, cut the tunes, we have their attention now.”

  Kate is on scene. She is behind them dealing with the F2’s carrying guns. The Emjet is landing now. I think buying Luke a new vehicle would be a nice gesture after you apologize to him.

  “Nice mess you have here, Arsenal,” Fleet says over the comms.

  “Good to hear you, Tony. There are wounded soldiers on the field. Get them to The Doctor.”

  A line of dust swirls through the air as Tony zips through the fire running at hundreds of miles an hour and turning on a dime. He only has to stop for a couple of heartbeats before his powers envelop a person before he can run with them. Otherwise, the friction from running three-hundred miles an hour would be like the worst full body rug burn ever. Bodies of the fallen vanish one by one.

  “Tessa, stay with Teddy and keep him safe. Glacier, do your thing and contain as many of these fools as you can.”

  A chorus of rogers follow. “Right. Teddy Bear duty, yay.” Tessa’s sarcastic reply comes over the comms.

  “You know I’ve heard that joke before,” The Doctor says.

  “Doesn’t mean it isn’t funny.”

  “Focus people,” I break in.

  Epic pings the fire thrower through the dust, he’s lobbing more fire bolts at the soldiers. I guess he decided I was down. His mistake.

  I start toward him when Kate pops in front of me, hands waving in the other direction. “Amelia, there’s a strong man with low-level invulnerability. He’s the one tossing cars around. You need to deal with him, I’ll take Hothead.”

  I didn’t realize that was his name, but now that she says it Epic has a little ID badge on the HUD showing me his info. I really want to smack Hothead around but she’s right. Reluctantly I kick in the jets for altitude and speed the five hundred feet to the parking lot. Epic opens a small window on the bottom of my HUD showing me Kate’s vitals. It eases the anxiety I feel every time she has to go into battle.

  I upgraded her
suit – well I upgraded everyone’s suit. Nanofibers protect them from temperature changes, micro Kevlar weave gives them durability and protection from damage and finally my special blend of Titanium and tungsten carbide for trauma plates protecting their vitals. They all have AR glasses or goggles that are tied directly into Epic. Micro cameras let him see and hear what they do. I also gave Kate a pair of IP pistols. They’re each powered by a micro ZPFM. The only limit to how much they can shoot is the heat build up in their chassis.

  Epic identifies the man in front of me as Cannonball. He’s not terribly tall, in fact as I land, I realize he is shorter than I am and incredibly squat.

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll run,” he says with a gravely voice.

  “Dude, if I had anything to fear from you, neither of us would be here.” I sound far more confident than I am. Then I realize I am confident. I’ve been doing this for months now and I keep hearing these threats, but that is all they are, just threats.

  “Have it your way,” he says, running toward me. I fire a barrage of IP cannons at him and they slide off his skin. I expected them to, but I had to try. He leaps through the air, curling himself up into a ball—

  The ringing in my ears followed by the impact of the ground startles me. I’m staring up at the blue sky. “What happened?”

  His name is not because he throws cannonballs. He can throw himself like a cannonball. Do not get cocky.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I roll over, scanning for him. He’s fifty feet away coming out of his own roll. The shields protected me from the impact, but they had nowhere to channel the force, hence why I ended up on the ground.

  He starts running at me again. The grenade launcher cycles switching to pods. I wait for him to leap… and fire. The boom echoes in my ears. It isn’t just that he throws himself at me. He creates some kind of micro-velocity envelope like he’s being shot out of a cannon. Epic throws the math on the screen and it looks like he breaks the sound barrier when he shoots himself. Amazing.