by S. J. Delos
The side of her jaw clenched visibly, but she pushed a smile on her face for Henry. “Good. I’ll be waiting on your call.” Then she looked at me, narrowing her eyes. “Good-bye, Kayo.” There was a metric ton of spite crammed into that single word.
“Good-bye, Amanda,” I said, giving the angry agent a little two-fingered salute.
The glare that beamed out of her eyes could have scared Colossal.
“What is it with you men?” I asked, pulling open a metal door that hung on nearly rusted-through hinges.
Major Freedom stepped across the threshold, head sweeping back and forth in anticipation of an ambush. Then he glanced over his shoulder at me, frowning. “Since I’m not sure what you’re talking about, exactly, I’m just going to respond with a ‘huh?’.”
After informing the rest of the Brigade of our plans, we flew from Chicago in search of the abandoned factory where EAPF’s intelligence team suspected the Harbingers were hiding. However, given that there were nearly a hundred such locations in the city of Gary, it took us almost an hour of slow passes over the city to finally locate the correct one.
Or so we hoped.
“I mean, with the selective observation. You can spot a problem in a piece of equipment or an enemy’s hidden weapon in about a millisecond, but when it comes to noticing how someone feels about you, especially in a romantic way, you’re all as blind as the Mole Master.” I shook my head, following him in.
The cavernous assembly area was populated with huge pieces of machinery. The units had been idle for so long that they were covered in rust, moss, and an inch of unidentifiable grime. The sunlight streaming in from the gaping holes in the ceiling was filled with swirling flecks of mold and dust. The air of the place contained a strange odor, like a freshly opened old tomb.
After this little excursion, I was going to need to take a shower. With bleach.
Major Freedom, apparently having decided that floating above the grease-stained floor was preferable to walking across it, turned in the air to look at me. The frown on his face deepened as he placed his hand on the center of his chest.
“Okay,” he said with some hesitation. “I think I get what you’re trying to say here. While I’m really very flattered, Karen, I think we should keep things on a strictly professional level between us.”
I opened my mouth to gape at him while he continued talking.
“It’s not that you’re unattractive. You’re really very beautiful. However, I’m a lot older than you. Plus, I’ve learned that relationships between teammates, even temporary ones, doesn’t usually work out in the end. I think it’s just best to avoid any unnecessary complications.” He smiled. “I’m sure you understand.”
I held up my hands, rolling my eyes. I didn’t really want to laugh at him because no one should make fun of their idols. But his crazy leap to the wrong conclusion was hilarious.
“Not me, dude.,” I said, pointing to the west. “I’m talking about Amanda. She’s the one with the thirst for some Major Freedom.”
His brow scrunched up in confusion. “Wait… Amanda? You mean, as Agent Parker? She’s interested in me?”
“Holy shit, dude. Seriously? You really didn’t know? How could you not see it? She was practically giving you googly eyes back at the Tower. My god, what’s the poor girl got to do to get you to notice, grab your ass or something?”
His face turned a bright red, then he twisted away from me to look through the window of one of the offices built into the wall. “I did notice… sort of. But every time I’ve tried to take our conversations in that direction, she would suddenly have to leave. Or hang up. Or had an incoming call.” He sighed. “I thought she was just trying to give me a hint to not go there.”
I laughed, floating up to the factory’s second level. The network of catwalks and platforms running high above the floor would have given the supervisors an excellent view of the progress below.
“I don’t have an explanation for that. But I can tell you she’s definitely interested. When you told her we would be investigating this place together, she was completely unhappy about it. I think she thinks I’m trying to horn in on her… oh, hello!”
“Hello?” He echoed, then flew up to join me. “Find something?”
I pointed at the footprints flowing back and forth along the metal walkway, running from the door at the far end with an “Exit” sign over it to the entrance of the last office on the other side. Dropping down to the platform, I examined the prints. The impressions weren’t detailed enough to perform any real forensics, not that I would have known what to do if they were.
However, it didn’t take a CSI team to know that it was more than a single individual who’d been trekking through the dilapidated building recently. All of whom were in boots of multiple sizes.
Major Freedom landed beside me. “This place has been busy. Not too long ago, either.” He glanced at me. “Rambunctious teenagers looking for a hangout spot? Or The Harbingers?”
I glanced around the walkway, then leaned over the railing, studying the floor. The only thing looking back up at me was the grime and the footprints I had made. I turned back to Henry.
“Definitely not rambunctious teenagers looking to party.” I pointed, twirling my finger in a circle at the whole room. “No beer cans. No cigarette butts. No graffiti. I doubt the type of kids who would break into a place like this to have a good time would be this careful to not leave traces.”
“I agree. Let’s check out the offices up here. See if there are any clues to what the bad guys are up to. Or where they might be now.”
I shook my head, smirking up at him. “Clues? Who do you think you are, Batman?”“I might not be dark and brooding, but I have done my share of sleuthing. Plus, I do look good in black.” He pointed at the nearest door. “I’ll take that one.” Then he nodded at the other office. “You take that one… Supergirl.”
I cast an annoyed glare at him. “Why is it always her people compare me to? Why can’t it be Ms. Marvel or Wonder Woman? There are plenty of fictional female superheroes besides the little blonde Kryptonian.”
Freedom laughed. “Maybe you just give off that vibe. Or maybe it’s the blue.” He opened the door and went into the dim office.
I stuck out my tongue at his back, then walked over to the office I’d been assigned and stepped inside, looking around. I didn’t have to be a disciple of the Dark Knight to realize the room had been occupied recently. The only furniture in the room were two desks pushed against the wall furthest from the door, leaving an open space in the middle of the carpeted floor. The patterns made in the dust layer looked a lot like someone—maybe more than one someone—had put down a makeshift bed.
I knew firsthand the struggle of needing a place to crash while preparing to pull a job. It wasn’t always possible for Martin to put me up in a nice hotel, or even a seedy one, when he sent me out to do his bidding. A redhead who weighed almost half a ton tended to stand out anywhere. Even more so when her face has been plastered all over the news.
Of course, I always managed better accommodations than a shithole slime pit of a factory.
Moving around the room, I noticed a wadded-up piece of paper near the back legs of one of the desks. It had fallen down behind the heavy wooden furniture and would have been invisible against the similarly-colored wall if not for the angle of the beam of sunlight coming in through the open doorway.
I stepped over to the desk, groaning when my boot squished into something nasty sounding. A second later, a horrid smell drifted up to my nose. I refused to look down to confirm that I’d found someone’s parting gift. Resisting the desire to hurl, I grabbed the top of the desk in my hands, picked it up, and set it down on top of its partner.
The paper was a crude sketch of floor plan, but not of the factory. One side of the building was labeled “Ashland”, the other “Roosevelt”. I took a wild guess that those were street names. The map of the inside of the building itself was composed of several corridors, doo
rs, and rooms without labels. The centermost square on the diagram was marked as “vault” and sported a big black X in it.
I didn’t know which was the more astounding: that the morons actually left behind valuable evidence regarding their heist, or that Major Freedom had guessed that they would.
“Find anything?” Henry’s voice broke the eerie stillness.
I screamed, nearly stepping back into the stinky mess on the carpet again. I whirled around, stabbing my finger at him. “Holy shit! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I shook my head, then brushed past him, out of the cesspool aroma of the enclosed room and into the musty molding scent of the open factory.
“Sorry, Karen,” he said as he came out to join me on the catwalk. “I wasn’t trying to showcase my ninja skills. Besides, I never would have guessed that the woman who’d once been the fearsome Crushette could be so easily startled.”
“Well, being in prison and taking up the banner of justice has probably dulled my edge a little.” I handed him the piece of paper. “So, I found these plans in there. Looks like the Harbingers are working on grabbing something from this building.”
“It’s not like them to run a smash-and-grab. They’re more of the murder-mayhem-chaos type of criminals.”
I shrugged. “If they’re low on funds, maybe they took a job for someone. I mean, it’s not unheard of. Any idea where that place is? Looks like the corner of a pair of streets.”
He nodded. “Ashland and Roosevelt. That’s near the Medical District.” He reached up and pressed the communication device affixed to the front of his uniform. “Cassandra, I need a location name.”
“Go ahead,” came the reply into both our ears.
“Can you tell me what’s located at the corner of Ashland and Roosevelt?”
I stepped a few feet away, listening to the conversation as I scraped the gunk off the toe of my boot. The footwear was going to need a proper sterilization once I got back to the Tower.
“Let’s see,” Cass said. “There’s a church on one corner. An apartment complex opposite that on one side of Roosevelt. Across the street, there’s a bank and an office building.”
Freedom shook his head. “A bank, really?” He glanced over at me. “Don’t you find it ridiculous that a gang of super-villains would be robbing a bank?”
I shrugged. “I ran across the same thing a week ago.”
“That would explain the vault on the map, though.”
“But not the layout of the rooms,” I countered. “Banks usually have more open floor plans since they deal with a large number of customers.” I looked at the circle on Freedom’s chest. “Cassandra, who owns the office building?”
“Hold on a sec. Hmm, the owner is … the Delgado Corporation.”
I sighed, shaking my head. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Henry arched a brow. “Something wrong?”
“Is it still called a coincidence on the fourth time?
CHAPTER 26:
HARBINGER HOEDOWN
When Major Freedom and I stepped back out into the fresh air—well, fresher than inside the warehouse—I turned to look at him.
“What’s the play?” I asked. “Do we let Delgado know that the Harbingers are coming for something they’ve got? Or are we going to stake out the area and wait for the bad guys to show?”
He looked down at me with a little grin. “What would The Good Guys do?”
“Honestly? We usually show up after the villains have started their thing,” I said with a little shrug. “These days we tend to be more reactive and less proactive. If we come across someone before they’ve started trouble, it’s usually by accident.”
“Seriously?” He asked, almost as if he thought I was joking.
“Yep.”
“What about the EAPF intelligence reports? Why doesn’t your tactician use them to determine the probability that a crime is about to happen?”
“Yeah,” I said, frowning. “Not sure if you’re up to speed, but our tactician masterminded the theft of a dangerous weapon, used it on most of the team, then attempted to rain down destruction on the Eastern Seaboard.”
“I’m well aware of what Power Brain did,” he said. “But it’s been six months, surely you’ve recruited another strategist. I’m not sure what we’d do without Contriver. I may make the calls, but she’s the one who comes up with the plays.”
“Luminosity’s got the tinkering aspect covered. But we’re still short someone to do battle plans and on-the-fly analyses.”
Soon after joining, Sonya attempted to use Daniel’s tele-sphere to coordinate our fight with a group called Undertow. The effort of managing multiple data streams while keeping real-time track of everything taking place all at once had put her out of commission for a few days with a nosebleed and a massive migraine. Only certain types of mentally Enhanced individuals could strategize and organize a protracted battle.
“Well, we’ll head back to the Tower first,” he said. “The solution might be as simple as asking Delgado to give us the item the Harbingers are after for safe keeping until they can be apprehended.”
Of course, that was when the com units in our costumes barked into life.
“Major, Kayo,” came Contriver’s soft Midwestern lilt. “We’ve got multiple ECARS lighting up the board.”
“E-cars?” I asked, looking at Hank. “Electronic Cars?”
“Sorry, Kayo,” Contriver answered. “It stands for Enhanced Criminal Activity Reports. Jumbo Jack and The Quakenator have been reported rampaging through Wrigleyville. O’Hare security just called to say Turquoise Tornado landed in the middle of Runway 17 and is ripping up the tarmac. Lastly, Gamma Master is attacking Marquette Park.”
“All at once?” Freedom asked, giving me a confused stare.
“Shit,” I said. “They’re going after whatever’s at Delgado right now. The other incidents are them trying to spread us out.”
Contriver confirmed my suspicions. “There is a ninety-four-point six percent probability that Kayo is correct. The Harbingers have spread their attacks far enough apart that they will reduce our effectiveness as a team by… sixty-seven point oh-five percent.”
“Are you just making up these numbers?” I asked the tactician. “Or are you really doing the math in your head?”
“Actually,” came an amused response. “I’m reading them off my screen. I wrote the software specifically so I wouldn’t have to do the calculations mentally.”
“Contriver,” Major Freedom said as he drifted up off the pavement. “Send Macro-Max and Miss Amazing to Wrigley. Have Gravatix take care of Tornado. Astounding Guy and Laserette can handle Gamma Master.” He looked down at me. “Kayo and I will head to the Delgado Building.”
“Copy that,” she said. “Shall I send Cassandra and John to join you?”
“Affirmative.”
I floated up after Major Freedom. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t stop from grinning. It was one thing to actually get to do some sleuthing with the hero, but a chance at actually kicking some butt right alongside him? That was like getting invited to jam on stage with your favorite band.
I punched my fist into my hand. “Let’s bust some bad guy heads.”
Major Freedom couldn’t fly much faster than a hundred-and-fifty miles per hour, so I painfully kept my own speed at a level that matched his. At that pace, it took us nearly fifteen minutes to get from Gary to the site of the Delgado Corporation’s Chicago office.
When we arrived on the scene, I spotted a woman who hovered in the air in front of the building, firing plasma blasts from her hands at Silver Scarab and Superior Man. Cassandra had assumed her metal form, but wisely used a destroyed vehicle as a shield from the female villain.
John, however, jumped up from behind a concrete planter in an attempt to take her out with some eye beams. The moment he broke cover, he got slammed head over heels by a crimson blast coming from the hands of the guy in the black scrubs standing on the steps o
f the building.
The flier glanced up as we neared, the expression on her face slipping from amused to scared. Without even bothering to yell a warning to her cohort, she took off, soaring over the top of the office building as if suddenly remembering a previous appointment.
Hank thrust his arms out in front of him, giving chase.
“I’ve got Starlight,” he yelled. “You get Doctor Destructor.”
He took off, chasing the enemy flier as she vanished behind a building. I almost wished him luck, but a high-energy discharge slammed into my back before I could, sending me sailing through the air to slam face-first into a billboard advertising low-cost mortgages.
I peeled myself off the drawing of a lovely Cape Cod just in time to avoid another attack. The concussive energy tore a hole through the wood, steel, and paper, missing me by inches. I turned around to see Doctor Destructor looking up at me.
When he raised his arm again, I shot upward, looped around the billboard, zoomed through the support legs, to come at him in a much lower approach than he expected. By the time he realized his mistake, I was already on top of him.
A bright red beam came out of his hand, clipping me on the left shoulder. The attack turned my flight into a mid-air tumble as I attempted to right myself.
Unfortunately for the villain, while I might have been out of control, I was still on my original trajectory.
He tried to spin around and flee. I don’t think he managed more than a single step before I slammed into him, bowling him over onto the ground. I landed just past him, and did two rolls, sliding to a stop.
I jumped back up to my feet, ready for another concussive energy wave. However, the good doctor remained still where he lay. Prodding him with the toe of my boot brought forth a soft groan from the bad guy, but his eyes stayed closed.
“The Doctor is out,” I said, bending down to grab his wrists.
Dragging the bad guy’s unconscious form to the sidewalk, I propped him against the side of a mailbox before grabbing one of the street signs in my hands. I pulled the steel tube from the concrete it was embedded, and wrapped the metal beam around Doctor Destructor’s arms, pinning them to his sides.