Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  Kate smirks. “Usually?”

  His affable smile slips for a second before it’s replaced by a grin. “Touché.” He motions to the chairs across from him for Kate to sit. I wheel up next to her. “Can I get you anything to drink? Your flight from the US had to have taken a long time.”

  “Not as long as you might think,” I say. “I’m good. I would like to get down to business if you don’t mind. You’re not the only person I need to talk to about this.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me. “And what might that be?”

  “Your organization was in charge of stealing—”

  “Lawfully seizing,” he interrupts.

  “I’ve heard it both ways.” I suppress the rage welling up in me to try and stay calm. “—Stealing technology from my lab. Regardless of who gave you permission, it wasn’t yours to take. Now, I am fully able to abide by the laws of the UN, as much as it irritates me, but I want to know where my armor is, and I want it back. Right now. My original designs were not based on any alien technology nor was any alien tech used in the creation of them.”

  He leans back, surveying me with new interest. Looking back and forth between us he smiles politely.

  “I run a large organization, miss. I can’t personally keep track of everything. I can tell you this; no one will ever find the alien technology the UN asked me to hide. Not ever. So… if your armor ended up with it, then no one will ever find that either.”

  “Are you seriously trying to tell us there isn’t a log or record of some kind about what you buried?” Kate asks.

  “Buried? We didn’t bury anything, Miss Petrenelli. Or is it agent? I can’t recall if you still work for the CIA?” His grin makes me want to suit up and smash him in the face.

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer. Please explain to Miss Lockheart how it is possible that no one will ever find her armor…? Considering we fought five people suited in her designs not a week ago.” She leans back, crossing her arms as she peers at him. She seems far more annoyed than me, and I can’t tell why.

  “I assume,” he says to me, “that since you are with her, you know who I am?”

  I nod. “You’re a mage of some kind. Like Mr. Perfect. Except your team went crazy or something and you quit.”

  His face turns dark and his eyes cold. “Quite. I was known as The Red Wizard. Each of my group was capable of different magical feats. And yes,” he looks at me, “regardless of what you believe, magic does exist. I am a master conjurer. However, not only can I conjure things, I can banish them as well. And that is what I did. I banished all the alien technology to another dimension where it cannot harm us… or ever be found.”

  I feel my eyes going wide as disbelief roars through me along with my blood. “You banished it? Forever? Are you freaking stupid?” I can’t help myself. The sudden realization hits me like a hammer. I’m never going to get access to animetal again. Even if Lux brought me some, the government would just seize it and turn it over to this madman. I could have done so much good with it. Not to mention, he’s clearly lying about my armor.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I think my friend—” Kate starts to say.

  I wave at Kate. “I can speak for myself. I said, ‘are you stupid?’ Do you know the good I could have done with that tech? All the people I could have helped?”

  He edges forward on his seat, anger plain on his face. “You people. You think you are gods, don’t you? Well, I should know, we thought the same thing. Tell me, Miss Lockheart, when will it be enough? How much power must you have before you feel like you’re powerful enough?”

  I open my mouth to answer but he cuts me off.

  “The answer is never. It’s never enough. No matter how noble your ideals are now, eventually you would grow tired of the constant fight against corrupt governments, evil men with powers, and just ordinary criminals. How long before you, or someone like you, decides to take over for the ‘good of humanity.’ Just like Ericsson.”

  Kate puts her hand on my arm, warning me. I don’t care. He thinks I’m like Ericsson?

  “I stopped Ericsson. As well as the Th’un he was so caught up in believing were going to conquer us. How dare you accuse me of being like him,” I say to him, stifling my anger by clawing the arms of my chair.

  “So you say. But there will always be more. I’ve seen it, Ms. Lockheart. All of you are one bad day away from being tyrants,” he says, running his hand over his beard as he stands. “After all, we only have your word that you’re not Ericsson.”

  “I’m not Ericsson,” I growl as Kate takes the handles on my chair and starts pushing me toward the door.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” I hear him say.

  135

  We’re out on the street heading back to the Ford before I manage to string two words together. They’re not family friendly words either.

  “Amelia, such language,” Kate says to me. She’s trying to calm me down—it isn’t working. I’m half in shock. How could he possibly think I’m like Ericsson? How could I be? Ericsson was an evil son-of-a-gun who wanted to rule the world. He used the pretense of it being the only way to stop the Th’un as his excuse. Even without the Th’un, though… he would’ve tried to do what he did. Men like him always do.

  Kate’s speaking to me and I haven’t heard half of what she said.

  “I’m sorry, start over?”

  Our official guide is ten steps in front of us, trying to pretend that she isn’t listening while keeping an eye out for possible dangers.

  “I said, I couldn’t read him, not like I normally do,” she says.

  Red alerts go off in my brain. I’ve kept the secret of how Kate’s powers work to myself and the hospital that helps victims of telepaths. Of course, the government stole that tech too. They weren’t able to duplicate it entirely without access to micro-ZPFMs but they figured out how to battery power it.

  “Damn, if he has jamming tech…”

  “No, it wasn’t that. Not like when I turn on my necklace or even the tech you use to secure your lab, it was more like… I couldn’t read him. There was a wall stopping me. Of course, I can still guess through body language and oth—”

  Kate starts to turn, bringing up her cybernetic arm a heartbeat before a volleyball-sized projectile slams into her. The force of the impact lifts her off her feet, tossing her head over teakettle for a hundred feet.

  I whip my head around as my chair rockets forward. Kate pushed off on me as she flew away. I slam my hands down on the wheels, rubbing the skin off my palms, just as I am about to hit Tia.

  That’s when I see it. A massive dump truck bearing down on me. The engine roars as it shifts up through gears. Like a deer in headlights, I can’t move. My brain screams at my body to flee, to activate my armor, but even if I did, it wouldn’t arrive in time.

  Tia leaps between me and the truck. She twists, bringing her hand up over her ear and pushing her shoulder out to the truck. Dumb girl; her instincts are going to get her killed. Except the concrete cracks under her feet and the very air around her sags with weight.

  Forty-tons of steel and iron going fifty miles an hour smash into the five-foot-four girl who just gave her life to buy me one extra second to contemplate my own death…

  Except she didn’t. The truck explodes in a shower of pieces as if it hit a concrete wedge. Metal and iron rend as it shears in half, the husk of the truck passing on either side of us, spraying oil and gas everywhere. It finally slides to a stop in a smoking heap. I look up at Tia; the clothes on her right side are ruined, covered in oil and shredded. Underneath her police uniform, she’s wearing some kind of one-piece bathing suit that survived the impact. My brain goes into overdrive trying to explain how she did what she did.

  “Is your friend okay?” she asks.

  I shake my head. Focus Amelia! “Kate?” I call out. There’s a pop of displaced air between Tia and me. Kate springs into existence and slaps her hand down on both of our shoulders. She looks up and sudden
ly…

  Tia falls to her knees retching. Poor girl, Kate’s teleportation can be jarring to the inner ear. Spinning around to get my bearings, I see we are on a flat roof a half mile from where we were attacked. Oily black smoke rises from the scene of the crash, marking the spot where I almost died. My heart won’t stop pounding.

  “Amelia, are you okay?” Kate asks as she kneels beside me.

  I shake my head unsteadily. My hands won’t stop shaking and I grip the wheels on my chair to keep them steady. “I skinned my palms trying to stop, I think.”

  Kate moves around in front of me, taking my palms in hers to examine them.

  “Meu Deus… and I thought flying sucked,” Tia says, standing up to wipe her mouth with the back of her ruined sleeve.

  “It’s a good thing she didn’t do it five or six times—that really screws with you. Especially if there is an elevation change,” I tell her.

  Tia grimaces. “No, I wouldn’t like to experience that.” She does a three-sixty, scanning the nearby roofs for threats, presumably not finding any.

  “Thank you, Tia, for saving my life. I thought… it doesn’t matter. Thank you,” I tell her.

  “It was my pleasure. What purpose could there be to have these gifts if not to use them? And what greater purpose than to protect life?”

  “Is that why you are a police officer?” I ask her. She nods. Kate pulls a roll of gauze from a first aid kit she keeps in her pockets. Followed by a tiny can of spray disinfectant.

  “This is going to hurt… a lot.” I start to tell her to do it when she does. My teeth snap shut. Man, that stings. I look up at Tia to take my mind off it while she applies the gauze to my burned palms and fingers.

  “How much can you increase your mass?” I ask her.

  She raises an eyebrow, pulling her head back just a bit. “How on Earth could you know that?”

  “Tia, you are looking at the smartest person on the planet, hands down,” Kate says pointing a finger at me.

  My face heats up and I look down. Words don’t come to me from the embarrassment, and yeah, the pride. My heart just stopped pounding and now it is going again. Kate looks up at me. “Oh, quit it. You know how I feel about you. I speak only the truth.”

  “You really did make your armor then? Everyone down here thinks it’s your power, like Magnetron or Dome-Head.” Tia says. She walks over to the door that leads to the building below and shakes the handle. It’s locked.

  I groan. “Those guys are just elementals, like Glacier on our team or Santa Maria up in Mexico. It’s just their element is metal. They shape it around them. In Magnetron’s case, he added a few things to the armor because he’s a tinkerer, but he’s no engineer.”

  “Professional jealousy?” Kate asks and lets go of my hands. “All done.”

  “Pshaw. More like defending my chosen profession.” I check out my hands—I can move my fingers without too much pain. Healing this is going to suck; I’m going to have to use voice recognition for any typing I want to do. “Epic, get the Emjet ready to fly. We need to get the heck out of here.”

  “Your friend?” Tia asks.

  “He’s more than a friend,” I tell her. Of course, I say that and am still waiting for his reply. I glance at Kate. “Your glasses?”

  While Kate checks her connection, I pull the sleeve up on my left arm and tap the thin bracer I wear now. It isn’t just for the armor delivery—it is also a micro-computer with wireless capability. It doesn’t have a sat link or anything—I rely on my cell phone for that. A mistake I won’t make again. Hope dies in me when it tells me “no connection.”

  Kate reaches into a pocket and puts her glasses on. I’m already wearing mine. They may have broken when they tried to run me over with a dump truck. Whoever “they” are. But I know the answer she’s going to give before she does.

  Kate shakes her head. “No connection.”

  “To what?” Tia runs a hand through her hair in an attempt to remove as much of the oil and grease as she can.

  “Dangit.” I smack my chair before I remember. I wince from the pain in my palms.

  “I’m confused. What is going on?” Tia asks.

  “One second Tia. Epic, please respond.” Silence. “Epic.” It’s then I notice the noise, like a sea of people all speaking at once. The three of us make our way around the rooftop equipment to the edge. Down below, a mass of people fills the streets, holding up their cell phones to the sky.

  “You see, this is the kind of crap that makes me paranoid,” I grumble. I had to take Epic out of the armor; no more armor, no more computronium. I can’t put him in the new armor because I can’t take it with me everywhere anymore. So now he’s stuck on a quantum computer back in Arizona… and I’m here. With no communications. No way to call him for help. And no armor.

  “Ah crap,” I mutter.

  “What?” Kate asks.

  “My armor. The delivery system. I can’t bring it to me without connecting to the computer back at The Spire. I figured since we had our own comm satellite this wouldn’t be a problem. Without my animetal armor, I can’t carry Epic around with me… we’re cut off. Even if we could get back to the airport, I can’t fly the Emjet without him.”

  “Sonofa…” Kate mutters as she turns to scan the roofs again.

  “Tia, are you safe here? I mean if we leave will you be okay? Or do you need to come with us?”

  Confusion crosses her face and she wrinkles her button nose. “I should be fine. But where will you go? You don’t know the city, do you?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” I say with a grin. “But Kate here can teleport across the world. Once we’re back in Paris I can contact Epic and have him recall the jet. Or can you teleport to Luke?”

  Kate smiles. “I can go wherever we need to. Luke is in Arizona, that will be the fastest. Tia, it was a genuine pleasure,” Kate says, walking over and shaking the shorter woman’s hand.

  “Mine too. If you come down here again, please look me up.”

  “For sure,” I say with a smile. “Okay, Kate, let’s get out of here. It won’t be long until it’s dark and I would like to leave before someone shoots a missile at us.”

  Kate stands behind me, both hands on my shoulders for a second. Then another. And a third.

  “Shit,” she whispers.

  136

  Buenos Aires is a lot like most big cities. A very recognizable downtown core, but once away from the area it looks like just about every other city. Tall, wide buildings next to squat ones. Some new, some old. Apartment buildings. The closer to the city the nicer, and as we move farther away from downtown, they go from steel and concrete to wood and stone.

  Tia leads us across rooftops. I’m slung on Kate’s back like a backpack. I’d be pissed about the indignity of it if I wasn’t extremely concerned about our safety. We briefly considered making for the rental vehicle but decided against it, even if it meant leaving all of Kate’s offensive weapons behind. If they knew where to hit us, and knew how to shut off Kate’s powers, odds are they would know where the SUV was and ambush us.

  “Over there, you see the red one?” Tia asks. Kate nods. She starts running. I knew she was strong, but I had no idea she could run so fast either. Her feet pound the rooftops in a staccato that would make a jackhammer jealous. She hits the lip and leaps. We sail through the air and I squeeze my eyes shut, terrified of what comes next.

  She hits the roof, sliding to a stop in a pile of crushed roofing tiles. I open my eyes and peek back. Fifty feet, easy. Fifty! Tia sails across much slower. Apparently, she can increase or decrease her mass and density. It only takes her a few seconds to increase it to the point of unbreakable. However, decreasing it seems to take a lot out of her. She floats to a stop, dropping to the roof next to us.

  Kate puts me down on an AC duct while we figure out what to do next. From the position of the sun hanging low against the horizon, we don’t have much time before dark. Which leave’s us in a pickle.

  “Any idea why I
can’t teleport?” she asks me. There’s a hopeful look in her eyes, but I seriously have no idea. I shake my head.

  “If they were using my tech, none of your powers would work, except for your pheromones.” I’m seriously confused here.

  “It’s Rafael, right?” Kate asks. “It’s an awfully big coincidence if it isn’t. We leave his office and someone tries to kill us. Then there’s a city-wide communications blackout, followed by my powers mysteriously crapping out,” Kate says.

  I nod. “No, it has to be him. Tia?”

  “Si?”

  “I hate to sound like a typical American, but believe me when I say I would ask this question of any police officer in any country if we were in the same boat … but… can you trust your people?”

  She sighs. “I would really love to say we are just and true and every officer follows the oath of their badge, but I cannot. I also can’t tell you which ones we could trust and which ones we couldn’t. It wasn’t long ago that hundreds of officers were fired or jailed for corruption. With the way the economy is, it’s hard to watch your family starve.”

  “Well,” I tell her with a smile. “If it makes you feel better. I doubt I would get a different answer in LA or New York. Any city with a sufficiently large population is going to face corruption challenges in politics and law enforcement. I’m just glad you were assigned to us.”

  She shakes her head. “I volunteered.”

  Now I’m a bit taken back. “Why?”

  “My mother was in Greece when the Th’un invaded. Had they made landfall, she’d likely be dead. I wanted to say thank you,” she says with a coy smile while looking down at her feet. I match her embarrassment. Far too much back-patting for this situation.

  “Okay, if we’re all done, we have a problem coming. I can hear sirens and they sound like they’re coming this way.” Kate points north as she speaks.