by S. J. Delos
I nodded. “Yes, I do. It’s worth your life. It’s worth the life of anyone you’ve ever given a damn about. I’m not joking, either. If you publish that, he will utterly destroy you. He wouldn’t just kill you, he would make you suffer through the torture and death of everyone related to you in any way first.”
A skeptical look crossed his face, as if I were exaggerating the scary factor of the Boogeyman. Surely he couldn’t be that stupid.
“Are you Enhanced?” I looked him over slowly.
He regarded me for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Strength, Class One.”
I nodded. “So, imagine that someone walks up, shakes your hand, then the next thing you know, your powers are gone. Or altered.”
“What do you mean ‘altered’?”
“Maybe your Class One suddenly becomes Class Five, but it also comes with runaway muscle growth that leaves you looking like the Hulk. Or you lose fine motor control, ripping nearly everything, or everyone, you touch apart.” I tilted my head, staring at him. “Or maybe he switches out your strength for uncontrollable Class Four entropy. Then a simple hug turns your teenage daughter into a toothless senior citizen overnight.”
Max blinked a few times, sitting upright. Good, I finally got his attention.
“He can do that?” There was a tremor of fear in his voice. I suspected it was a new experience for the arrogant publisher.
“He can manipulate Enhanced DNA as easily as you can a pile of Play-Doh.”
He tilted his head at me. “Is that how you went from running a hundred miles an hour to floating like an angel over everyone’s head? Did the good Doctor give you a tune-up?”
“No. That was a side-effect from something Power Brain did. When the weapon he was going to use on the east coast exploded next to me, it changed my abilities. Doctor Maniac can do it without much more than a brushing touch.”
“Okay, that is scary. Seriously scary.” He shook his head as he put the picture back into the briefcase. “That information changes things.”
I sighed. “I’m serious, Max. Listen, I don’t like you. Just being honest. But I also don’t want to have to read about your demise in one of the city’s real newspapers.”
He laughed, but the cocky aspect of it was long gone. It was the laugh of someone who wasn’t completely sure he wasn’t looking at an oncoming train. “Okay. Let’s put the exposé of Doctor Maniac on the back burner for a bit, try something else.”
I shook my head. “It’s late, Max,” I said, nodding to the door.
“What about the EAPF?” he asked, looking into my eyes.
I froze. “What about them?”
“Well, lately is seems they’ve been less… supportive, of The Good Guys. Of course, by that, I mean, you, in particular.”
“Oh?” If he was good enough to get a picture of Martin on the sly, maybe he knew more about what was taking place at the EAPF than Kurt did.
“Take the museum, for example. An officer got seriously injured by a criminal, but the rumor floating around is they are trying to pin the blame for it on you. Apparently, the footage of you beating the ever-living shit out of Carbonado just proves how out of control you’ve become.”
I forced a confused expression onto my face. “Do I seem out of control to you?”
He shook his head. “No. However, you do have to admit that if the EAPF decided to publicly accuse you of putting innocents and officers at risk, that could create some major problems. Not just for you and your team, but also for every Enhanced hero in the business.”
I shrugged, attempting to appear neutral. “Not exactly a warm thought. But nothing I can do about it. As you pointed out, the footage is pretty damning, especially if the EAPF is planning to do what you claim.”
“It’s amateurish in quality, but it does seem to convey the narrative being bandied about, doesn’t it?” There was a note of amusement in his voice. “However, you’re right, there really isn’t much you can do to counter their move.” He stood, picking up the briefcase. “However, perhaps I can.”
I jumped up as well. “What are you talking about?” I asked, staring at him. “How are you going to get the EAPF off my back?”
“Trade secret,” he said, smirking. “I’m not making any promises of success, Kayo. Just that I’ll see what I can do.”
“Why?” I didn’t trust him, really. Maximilian King didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d stick his neck out for anyone.
“The real reason? Because you sell papers. Even when you don’t have your regular clothes hanging on by a stitch, people want to see your picture. Read your story.” He smiled that creepy smile again. “I want to make sure profits continue to flow.”
After Max left, I called the rest of the team together, bringing them up to speed on my meeting with the slimy publisher. The only part I left out was the photo of Martin at the cemetery. I didn’t want anyone upset that I didn’t mention it before.
“Maximilian King has been in the business a while,” Greg said. “Stands to reason that he might have confidential contacts inside the EAPF. Contacts with access to information ours don’t.”
“I don’t trust him,” Darla said. “The man’s a scumball.” I could tell her thoughts were focused on the horrible things he and his paper had said about her.
I nodded. “He is. Though I doubt he’ll be able to find out anything we don’t already know. I think he was just looking for a story.”
I didn’t want to admit to them that I had seen something in Maximilian King’s eyes. Something that gave me hope.
CHAPTER 19:
A COLD DAY IN CHARLOTTE
The weekend ended before Greg decided it was safe to send me out into the world again. The moment he declared my release, I threw on my uniform, signed my name to a pair of back-to-back shifts, and took to the skies. The sensation was not too dissimilar than the day I walked out of the Max on parole.
Darla was my partner for the first shift, and we decided to canvas the region from the air. She gave me a little wave, taking off toward the southern part of the city as I headed to the north.
The first three hours of duty were utterly uneventful, but it beat the shit out of being stuck watching another episode of Enhanced Housemates. I was drifting slowly along near Trade Street when Richard’s voice crackled in my ear, informing me that there were reports of an ice-based disturbance in my general vicinity. I acknowledged the transmission, twisting in the air to head toward the location.
I swung a tight turn around an office building, then screeched to a stop. Hovering in the air above the street, I stared at the scene below, not quite believing what I was seeing.
One of the things that had always seemed unusual about Princess Snow was her appearance. Usually, when someone goes Active and gains elemental Enhancements, their bodies undergo a sympathetic change to match their new abilities. Someone who could control heat, for example, might develop flaming-colored hair, red eyes, or a permanently flushed complexion.
However, Princess Snow looked like the stereotypical example of a “California Girl”: sun-bleached blonde hair, lightly tanned skin, and baby blue eyes. Not what you would expect from someone who could freeze a lake solid in less than thirty seconds, she
Unfortunately, she’d run afoul of Doctor Maniac—and his unique methods of interrogation—six months ago. As a result, she was sporting a whole new, far less flattering, look.
Gone were the sun-kissed skin and golden ringlets. Her hair was a short, spiky mess of dark blue that jutted out in dangerously sharp points in every direction. The black bodysuit she wore covered everything except for her hands and face, the flesh that was visible gleamed like polished marble.
From the angle of the cars blocking the avenue, it appeared the chilly villain was involved in a run of the mill traffic accident. Apparently, the resulting road rage had gotten the best of her.
Two vehicles were encased in blocks of solid ice. Frozen patches dotted the street and sidewalk around the scene. There were
even icicles hanging down from a couple of the streetlights. A winter-not-so-wonderland in the middle of October.
She stood in the middle of the street, hands raised before her, busy trying to turn a third car, this one with people inside it, into another ice sculpture. She must have seen me out of the corner of her eye because she stopped her assault on the vehicle, to whirl around in my direction. When she did, I noticed her lips were the same dark blue as her hair and her eyes were solid white.
“You!” she spat, pointing at me. “This is your fault!”
The moment her attention moved onto me, the car’s passengers managed to get one of the doors open. They scrambled away to safety, slipping and sliding on the icy spots. It was refreshing to see civilians who actually used their survival instincts.
I dropped to the ground a couple of yards from her, crossing my arms over my chest. I couldn’t resist giving a little shake of my head before flashing a smirk. “Seriously? How the hell am I responsible for your shitty driving skills?” I nodded my head at her new appearance. “By the way, I love the new look. I never thought of you as a summer.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, her blue-tinted lips curling into a sneer. “There’s that classic Crushette wit. You’re going to pay for what Doctor Maniac did to me. Because of you, he ruined my life!”
“To be honest, your life was already on the path to suckage, Snow. The decision to use your abilities for evil was yours. Turning that around could be your choice as well.”
The ice queen laughed. The sound was hollow and emotionless.
“Oh, look who’s all high and mighty now that she’s a hero. It wasn’t that long ago you were Maniac’s little bitch whore. Just wait until the day he decides to take his crazy out on you.” She pointed at me again. “Let’s see how smug you are after that psycho twists your powers around.”
I almost reminded her that being involved with Daniel’s treachery was what led to Martin torturing her for information on the gene sequencing device. If she had just spilled what she knew, she might have walked away unscathed.
Or not. Martin never liked her anyway, so he still might have fucked with her Enhancement simply out of spite.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for the love of chocolate-glazed donuts, let it go, Elsa,” I said with a grin.
She blinked, tilting her head to the side. “Let it go?”
I nodded, gesturing at the chaos around us. Chaos that was her doing. “Yeah. Get over it. Move on. Go build a snowman or something.” I smiled as wide as I could. “Plus, you might want to think about a new name to go with the new look. How about ‘Aunt Arctica’?”
The insulted woman screamed something unintelligible about my pedigree, then raised both of her hands, snowflakes swirling around them, in my direction.
Invulnerability. When it came to getting shot at with plasma blasts —or getting punched by someone like Colonel Tank— it was a wonderful power. The ability to ignore an attack that would cripple another with barely more than a brief sensation of discomfort was pretty great.
Of course, the protective effect also came into play during non-injury-sustaining incidents. Taking a shower, for example. I usually cranked the temperature up to just about scalding, otherwise, it felt barely lukewarm to me.
The same applied to cold as well. Shorts and a t-shirt in January? Or flying at five thousand feet in a sundress? Sure, I felt some of the chill, but as Sonya pointed out during the scanning session, hypothermia wasn’t a word found in my vocabulary.
When the new and improved Princess Snow aimed her powers in my direction with a furious expression on her face, I figured she deserved the satisfaction of trying to win before I knocked her ass out. Therefore, I didn’t bother to move as the sub-zero energy leapt across the space between us, frosting the ground and creating a mini blizzard in the air.
The attack hit me square in the chest, instantly forming a shell of frozen moisture around my torso and arms as it drove my body backward, forcing the breath out of my lungs. Sheer agony crippled me as I crashed down on the sidewalk.
It burned. It burned as if I’d suddenly decided to take a leisurely dip in Mount Kilauea. My breath caught in my throat; I think my heart stopped for a few seconds. This wasn’t just ice cold. Hell, this wasn’t even the South Pole in the dead of winter while sopping wet cold. It was like being hit with a blast of liquid helium, shocking me into immobility. My mouth opened and closed a few times despite the fact that my teeth were chattering hard enough to echo.
Snow’s lips pulled apart in a grin as she walked toward me. “Well, well. That managed to shut you up, didn’t it? You can thank your ex for that, by the way. When he did all this to me, he also cranked my powers up past eleven.”
I clenched my jaw to stop my molars from rattling loose, as I flexed my arms and chest. The thick layer of ice surrounding me exploded, sending shards zinging around to bounce off the cars and street. I didn’t bother to check to see if any of the pieces struck anyone. I needed to get a safe distance from the frost-wielding villain. Pushing myself to my knees, I launched upward.
“Oh, I think not,” Snow said. Another of those body-numbing blasts hit me before I could climb more than a dozen feet.
A horrible scream leapt from my mouth as the cold seemed to sink down into my bones, making itself at home there. I fell out of the air, landing on my side. I couldn’t feel anything below my neck, my arms and legs refusing to do anything more than shiver.
Princess Snow loomed over me, a malicious grin on her face. “Aw, what’s the matter, Kayo? Feeling the big chill?” She rubbed her hands together, as she tilted her head to the side. “I’m curious. What do you think will happen if I freeze your head into a solid block of ice? Will you die?”
I didn’t respond to her taunt. I was hoping to be able to move again in a few moments. If she would let me have them.
“Did you know I have to live in an icebox now? I might be able to flash freeze anything I want, but my days of lounging poolside are done. Over. I’ll never be normal again.”
I remembered Martin boasting about manipulating Snow’s Enhancement to get the answers he wanted. Standing outside Alexis’ hospital room, he even said something that didn’t really resonate with me until now. “Is she okay? Well, she’ll be fine. As long as she doesn’t spend too much time anywhere the temperature is above freezing.”
“Y-you w-w-want s-sympathy?” I asked, trying to keep her attention on something other than making a Karencicle.
“Not from you, hero.” She shook her head, her hair crackling as it moved. “No, I just wanted you to know what Doctor Maniac did to me. Because of you.”
“It was s-s-stupid of you to not give him what he w-w-wanted. Everyone knows you d-don’t fuck around with D-doctor Maniac.”
I realized that the nothing sensation in my limbs was turning into a painful tingle. As if a zillion bees were stinging me all at once. Five more minutes. Just five more than I would be thawed enough to put a little distance between me and this Jadis wannabe.
She smiled, pointing her finger at me. “Perhaps,” she said. “Tell you what, Crushette, if you apologize for what he did to me, I’ll make this quick. It’ll be just like taking a nap. Permanently.”
I glared up at her. What I wouldn’t have given to have heat vision. I would have melted her into a puddle of slush.
“Two things, Snow,” I said as I prepared for the end. “Fuck and you.” My legs were hurtling less, feeling more. But I knew I was out of time.
She nodded. “I’ll be sure they put that on your tombstone.”
She brought up her other hand, but before the first snowflake could form, a searing yellow beam came down from above. It struck the sidewalk right in front of Snow’s feet. The resulting explosion threw chunks of concrete into the air, sending the icy villain flying backward.
I couldn’t help the smile that formed as Darla dropped down next to me, her hands still crackling with halos of energy.
“Took you long enough,” I said, t
rying to move. “I wasn’t sure if she was going to freeze me or talk me to death.”
My blonde teammate gave me the finger. Then she reached down to place her hand on my chest. A blast of superheated plasma erupted from her hand, pushing joyous warmth into my frozen flesh.
“That’s all I can do at one time, Kayo,” she said as she shut off the beam. “Too much too fast will send your system into shock. Might even kill you.”
I flexed my arms, wincing at the angry prickling still stabbing them. “Look at you being all science nerdy.”
She gave me the finger again, then tapped her ear. “That was Sonya.”
Since I hadn’t heard anything over the com system, I guessed the freeze blast had damaged my earpiece.
“Tell her thanks from me,” I said, managing to roll over.
“Just take it easy for a second,” Darla said. “While I show Frosty the Snow-Bitch what a heat wave looks like.”
Princess Snow, already recovered from the surprise attack, stalked back toward us. Her face was a mask of utter fury, and her fingers had taken on the appearance of ten dagger-sharp icicles.
“Oh, this is wonderful. I get to kill two pains in my ass today,” she snarled as she released a torrent of cold at us.
For a heart-stopping moment, I feared Darla was going to make the same mistake as me: trying to fly out of the path of the attack. Instead, my teammate decided to fight ice with fire.
Darla’s plasma beams met Snow’s frozen blasts, releasing a ton of steam in the air between them. The clouds obscured the villain from her view, but that didn’t stop Omega-Girl from continuing to pour on the heat.
I climbed to my feet, wiggling the toes in my boots to push a little more warmth into them. I still felt like I needed to soak in a hot tub for about a week, but at least I was no longer doing my impression of a slab of frozen beef.
“Kayo,” Darla said, pulling my attention from my chilly body.
The blonde looked over at me, her face pale and sweaty. Her cheeks looked gaunt, her stance slightly askew. For a second, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Then I realized that she was standing in the shadow of the building behind us, burning through every ounce of solar energy stored within her.