A thought occurs to me. I sit back for a second and chew on it rather than saying it out loud.
I can read you like a proverbial book, Amelia. You have thought of something.
I shrug. “Maybe. Maybe... Epic, what if... well, what if they aren’t better at computers than you? Or a better engineer than me? What if they have a superpower, or a series of superpowers that lets them do this stuff,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Copy my work, hack Artemis, that sort of thing. Some kind of affinity for computers or something? What do you think?”
It would make infinitely more sense for there to be a reason outside of natural science for them to be able to do these things. We do know that the more specialized the power is, the rarer it is. There are more strongmen than acrobats. More acrobats than elementals, more elementals than speedsters, etc. All filtered by their level of power. Less F5s than F4s that sort of thing.
“Let’s assume he or she has superpowers doing this. Start searching the database for anyone who—”
Done. Calhoon Mathew Strungel.
“What? No way. Is it that easy?”
You are correct. Mr. Strungel is listed as deceased. He disappeared shortly after we left to fight the Th’un... Amelia, he worked for Rafael as a contractor. He had access and he has superpowers related to computers, though the database is not specific on precisely what they are.
“Awesome. Let’s put out our version of an APB— start looking for him, the Armory, Luke, and Tempus. We’re going to start checking problems off our list if I have to use a nuke to do it.”
163
After a good morning’s sleep, and a half dozen cheesy eggs and some toast, I’m up in Carlos’ room waiting for him to wake up. During the night I had a breakthrough about Luke. It’s too early to tell if it’s something I can do, but until I have more info it will have to keep me satisfied. Then I got the call from Teddy that Carlos was going to wake up soon. It’s like he’s a magician or something, Teddy can tell the precise moment someone will wake up, or heal, or anything medically.
The entire team is in the room—they had to turn the AC off because Monica was in her elemental form and whenever she’s around the temp drops a good twenty degrees. Tony and Lux hang back, holding hands and looking on. TK is her usual nonchalant self, leaning against the wall checking messages on her phone. For someone who “doesn’t care” she’s stayed with the team a surprisingly long time.
Kate is next to me, dressed to the nines with an added digit in hotness. She seems hellbent on impressing Carlos, which is so weird. Shouldn’t he be the one trying to win her? It’s like the world has reversed itself. Tempus mentioned something about their future and a part of me wonders if I should have taken him up on his offer. Time travel is a tricky beast. Would knowing the future make it happen—or prevent it from happening? In life there are many instances of trying to avoid an outcome, only to have your efforts to prevent it make it happen. Is there temporal irony? Would knowing Kate and Carlos ended up together keep me from acting like I normally would, thus removing me from making a crucial decision that would have caused them to be together, which would result in them not being together?
I shake my head, no, it’s better not to know. Though it all begs the question of how his powers work. Why does he need a kinetic manipulator? I’ll have to make a note to ask him next time I see him. So many questions, very few answers.
“He’s waking up,” Teddy proclaims.
Poor Carlos. Teddy removed his armor the day before, so now my best friend is in a hospital gown, his hair matted in a hundred different directions and a week’s worth of stubble on his face.
His eyes flutter open and for a second he focuses on Teddy, then Kate, and his whole body relaxes. A lazy smile spreads across his face and he whispers something. Teddy hands him a glass of water which he sucks down eagerly.
“You all are standing around like you weren’t expecting me to wake up... should I be worried?” he asks with a grin.
“Carlos,” I say with as much seriousness as I can muster. I roll forward-looking him in the eye as I go, “we’re all here to support you in this trying time...”
“Trying? I’m fine. I know I got knocked around a bit but I figured the armor would... Amelia, what are you saying?” Worry flashes across his face as he struggles to sit up.
“Teddy did his best, but he just couldn’t save your face, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,” I say, glancing down at my hands.
“I need a mirror,” he says looking frantically around the room. Kate holds out a compact for him and he snatches it up, unfolding it and touching his face looking for wounds. “I don’t see anything...”
“Like I said, he couldn’t save it. You’re as ugly as ever.”
“Oh, it’s on, Niña.” He tosses the compact at me and I jerk aside. Kate snaps the compact out of the air before putting it in her pocket. The rest of the room laughs as Carlos leans back, tension flowing out of his broad shoulders.
“It’s my favorite concealer,” she says with a shrug. Everyone laughs again as Carlos pulls himself up to a full sitting position.
We spend a few minutes filling him in on what happened. He saved a couple of dozen people, all of whom sent him flowers, cards, cookies, and a ton of other stuff for the week he was out. His room looks more like a florist shop than a hospital.
After a few minutes, the team filters out one at a time, saying goodbye as they go. All except Kate and me. Once Teddy gives him a clean bill of health the Doctor leaves too.
“What happened?” Carlos asks.
I fill him in on the details I left out of the team briefing. As far as everyone else knows, a super hacked the satellite in an effort to take us out. I decided the possibility of time travel might be too much for some people and that little piece of info is between me and my two friends.
“Damn, Amelia. When you make enemies, you don’t go small,” Carlos says.
“You know what I say, go big or go home.”
“Let’s break it down,” Kate says. “You’ve got the press blaming you for everything. We’ve got a super with tech powers, the Armory, and a time traveler. Where are we at with them?”
“Epic?”
Mr. Strungel purchased an abandoned missile silo in the Rocky Mountains. Once I knew who he was I was able to cross reference his location with the trace from the hack. As for the media, I think they are stirring the pot for ratings. There is an anti-superhero attitude in the US, but... it is not nearly as bad as they think. They make money off of fear.
“What about Tempus?” Kate asks.
I have nothing. Mr. Parker is exceptional at hiding his tracks. I have facial recognition running everywhere I have access to a camera, but so far— nothing. He will have to return to us, though, if he wishes to use the tech he stole.
Carlos pulls the sheets off and shifts his legs over the side of the bed. With a deep breath, he hops onto the cold floor, wincing as he steps over to his clothes.
“You couldn’t have given me socks?” he asks as he pulls jeans on under his gown. Once they are on he sheds his robe and reaches for his shirt. The room is suddenly uncomfortably warm. Carlos isn’t much taller than me, but he’s all solid muscles now. I turn my chair away and look at the ceiling while he dresses. Kate does not.
I smack her leg and she looks down at me, her cheeks a bright red. Carlos doesn’t seem to notice as he pulls on his t-shirt, sits down, and puts on his sneakers.
“So what’s the plan?” he asks without looking at me.
“Well...” I drag it out a little, giving Kate time to recover. “Let’s pull in the rest of the team and we’ll go over it with them. I think we can keep Frank Parker out of it for now, but everything else they deserve to know. Especially if we’re going to take down the Armory.”
“About frigging time, I’ve wanted a piece of those guys since they hurt you,” Carlos says, smacking a fist into his palm.
164
Thanksgiving is coming up and I really wan
t Luke home for it. Not only because of how good he is at cooking a turkey, but because I miss having normal. Dating Luke has been my little island of ordinary. In a matter of two years, I went from being a girl looking for her parents to one of the most well-known superheroes in the world. Even with all that going on, going out on dates, staying up late watching movies and eating pizza grounded me in a way I didn’t know I needed—until it was gone.
Sadly, nothing I’m doing at the moment is bringing me closer to having him back. The only bright spot here is that when Thanksgiving rolls around I will have my parents with me. I wonder what they will think of November in Phoenix? All those years in Boston then Seattle might make them have unreasonable expectations—like it will rain or something.
I shake those thoughts away and focus on my current situation. The Rocky Mountains loom up ahead. I crossed the Colorado border a few minutes ago and I’m flying as low as I can, with full stealth mode active in my new MK VII armor. Once we had more info, tracing Calhoon became a whole lot easier. He may be either a genius or a super-powered computer behemoth, but he bought property in his own name, including a decommissioned nuclear silo. Maybe he thought no one would ever figure out who he was? I don’t know.
He may not be here, but I would suggest caution all the same. He has proven to be extremely cunning. He worked with Rafael, designed the Armory, and most likely, built the giant robots that plagued the US while we were gone,
“True, but he lacks imagination. All that tech he stole and what did he do with it? He robbed banks.”
Do not fall into the trap of assuming you know his motives. Until we learn differently, let us assume he is a worthy opponent.
“Amelia, I’m monitoring your vital signs from the jet—please try to take it easy on your leg. I shouldn’t have to tell you the danger you’re putting yourself in by using your armor,” Teddy says over the comms.
“Yet, you are.” I point out.
“That says more about you than me,” he retorts.
“Fine, fine. I’ll be careful. We have to move on this, though. They have been one step ahead of us since we ran into them in Phoenix. I want them off my radar in a bad way.”
He doesn’t respond, and I don’t blame him for cautioning me. I do take a lot of risks, but I only get one life, one shot to do it right. If I don’t do this now I may never get another chance at them. The world is quiet, Carlos is available, the team is up above me in the stealth jet—if we can lure them out into a confrontation we can take them all down and be done with it.
I spot the radio tower that marks the beginning of the land Strungel purchased before his death. The silo itself is a mile past this point. The mountains shoot up a half mile in the distance. Tree’s cover the landscape all the way up and around. It’s so unlike Phoenix I almost feel like I’m on an alien planet.
I flip over, turning north, eyes scanning for the hatch, then I see it. Nestled at the base of a steep climb, the hatch sticks out despite years of neglect. I land with a thump on the roof.
“Epic?”
Scanning. I am picking up RF signals. There is undoubtedly an active wireless network of some kind here.
While he does his thing I compare the hatch to the blueprints we downloaded from the DoD. According to them, there is an access stairwell and elevator fifty feet to the north... there it is. I hop off the hatch into the dirt and walk over. The MK VII is a little twitchy as I walk, my movements a little too sharp, I’m gonna have to dial back the interface a tad when we get back. I’ve never felt more protected though. If the Armory is here, they’re in for a big surprise.
Even still, a tremor of fear runs through me, or maybe it’s anxiety. The last time I faced them they nearly killed me. I open and close my hands trying to calm myself.
Amelia, the hatch is opening.
I spin around as the hatch slides open on near-silent rails. No way it’s not maintained. The lift inside, designed to raise and lower the missile in and out of the silo, lifts up the six armored figures I haven’t seen since they tried to kill me. They rise up slowly, like a boy band coming up into a concert. Except, I’m not cheering. My heart’s pounding my chest and I’m waiting for Teddy to call and berate me for taking such a risk.
The last time we fought they nearly killed me. They had countermeasures for to all of my defenses, a way to bypass my shields, immunity to my best weapons, and they were stronger than me. Not so now. The MK VII is purpose-built, designed from the ground up to kick their butts.
So that is what I’m going to do.
“You must have a death wish,” Alpha One says as he pulls the two-handed sledgehammer from his back.
“I’m going to give you all this one chance; surrender, tell me where to find Strungel, and you might get out of this in one piece,” I say over the PA.
“We kicked your ass before. You think you’re going to win now? Take a look around you. It’s six-to-one. We know your little buddies are off in New York fighting some big bad supervillain. You’re out here all alone and you’re going to die. Today.”
If they could see in my helmet I’d give the game away. Smirking almost always gives the game away. One of the things I noticed since I returned from my extended nap was that every time I was in trouble, some huge event was taking place that demanded my allies attention. Specifically, Carlos. Almost like someone was trying to take him out of play. Well, this time I’m one step ahead of them—with a little help from Epic and a fake news broadcast.
I’m guessing that me knowing the name of their boss caught them off guard. Three looks to One sharply. The others stiffen as if they weren’t expecting it. Well, they aren’t going to expect what happens next.
One waves his hand at the rest of his team. “Just because she knows, doesn’t mean she knows anything else.” He clearly says that for my benefit since they can communicate without making any noise. They start to fan out, pulling their weapons as they go.
“Have it your way,” I say out loud. To Epic, “BFG, please.”
Affirmative.
I may not have a lot of the alloy from the aliens, but I learned lessons from them. The BFG is my mass driver rifle, railgun, whatever you want to call it. I reach behind me and pull the two-foot block off my lower back and as I bring it forward the parts expand so by the time I’m shouldering it, the rifle is fully extended and ready to fire.
Two leaps in front of me, shield up and glowing. She hits the ground and the EMP weapon detonates, sending out a wave of disruptive electromagnetic energy. This time I’m ready. This suit has four different ZPFMs, each one powering its own subsystem. I have one for the metallic ink coating covering the suit, and the built-in Faraday cage heats up as it disperses the massive shockwave of EMP energy around me. The ink glitters like diamonds in the sunlight. I had them in my old suit, but they were passive. In the MK VII, they have their own ZPFM to defend against EMPs and other EMI.
“Oh no,” I say in an over exaggerated voice, “She upgraded.” The targeting reticule lines-up right on her shield and I pull the trigger. Supercapacitors in the rifle charge in a heartbeat then disperse the energy to the EM coils in the rifle’s barrel. It isn’t 30 megajoules, but it’s enough to spit fire out the barrel as the ten-millimeter piece of nickel-iron wrapped around a tungsten core shoots out toward her at five thousand feet per second. Which is about one and half times faster than a Phalanx defense gun on an aircraft carrier.
Two jerks back as the energy impacts her shield, the nickel-iron explodes but the tungsten core goes right through her shield, then through her side. She flies backward as the round exits her back with a good portion of her insides. She lands in a lump and doesn’t move. I can’t imagine she’s not dead, but she’s the one who decided to kill people, not me. Any guilt I might feel is erased by the bodies strewn about the street from when they detonated the transformer across from Starbucks.
“Son of a bitch! Sienna!” Three screams. He runs at me with his spear held high. I don’t have time to shift my aim. I drop
the rifle and leap into the air. While I can take a lot of damage in the new suit, I don’t want to risk it with his spear, or One’s hammer, or any of the other weapons they have. Emdrives whine as they carry me clear of the ground.
A second later the rumble of jet engines fills the sky as they all lift off after me. “Epic, tank missile.”
On it.
The double-barreled grenade launcher on my back reconfigures, both barrels coming together to form a single large bore capable of firing our kinetic kill weapon. It’s essentially another mas driver, but like my rifle, not nearly as big and dangerous as the SDF-1. At the same time, I’m not fighting alien ships, I don’t need a ship killer.
I spin around, facing them as they come after me. When I fought them before, I made the mistake of trying to show them up. I should have gone all out the second we engaged but I wanted to prove I was tougher than them. Now I just want to win.
“Target the one with the net and fire.”
Five armored figures fly up after me, leaving trails of fire behind them as they accelerate. They can probably break the speed of sound. How quaint. However, I’m not trying to get away, just force them to fight me on my terms, not theirs.
Target acquired. Amelia, there is a high probability this will kill him.
I sigh. Taking a life should never be easy, but what am I to do? If I don’t stop them here and now, every life they take after this is on me. I have enough innocent blood on my hands. A little guilty blood will hardly be noticed.
“I know, buddy. Fire.”
Eight inches of osmium encased tungsten erupts from my shoulder mount, leaving a trail of fire and blinding yellow light. The armored figure known as Six never even knew what hit him. At three-thousand miles per hour the arrow impacts him before his nerves even have time to tell his brain he’s in trouble. His armor explodes from the massive release of kinetic energy, showering the area behind him with flames and debris. Any organic remains would be fried to a crisp if not flat out vaporized into component carbons.
Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 88