by Russ Linton
Out in the real world, I’ve been on a break from hardware. I wanted to focus on biology, neurology, psychology, and the mechanics of life. A semester of serious research, outside class mostly, on the esoteric problem of mind and body. I’d nearly reverted to my bunker days in the process. Free from the Icehole, technically, but limited to the GMU campus, I was a nocturnal scavenger of snack machines and knowledge. Dorm room, class, and library were my only habitats. Any further out, and I felt the world growing loose around the edges, big enough to swallow me whole.
I pause with a freshly pulled circuit board in one hand. Drafted, printed, mapped out, I know exactly where the routes lead. All my research on thoughts, neural pathways, and how the brain stores information is gibberish by comparison. Human minds, or even a once-human mind, force a drift into the realm of speculation and guesswork.
But I'd made a promise to Mom. That promise had become my life.
Emily had to step in as big sister. She dragged me out of what she called a self-destructive cycle and helped me land a job in the lab. She'd originally insisted in something off-campus, but we compromised. Time passed. Wounds scabbed over. I'm bad about picking those, but she was insistent. A year and a half in, I could've sworn she was right.
That could've been the partial memory wipe talking. Could be I gave up. Maybe Mom wasn't really gone forever. I stop working, a cable dangling from my fingertips.
"Shit," Eric says from the captain's chair.
"What?" I cast about, confused. "Need me to reconnect this one?"
"Naw, you're good." His tone changes. Friendly Eric gone, Augment dispatcher Eric steps up to the plate. "Base to Charlie Mike, base to Charlie Mike, we've got a code yellow."
I push off the floor and make my way to Eric's side. He's working keys as if he's rocking a world class DOTA match. Screens are cycling faster than I can keep up and the holo-globe springs to life. There, a wire mesh spins and then expands. A red triangle blinks beside a large body of water. All I can tell is that it's outside the continental U.S. My transcript has dozens of schools, all American, all public, which made it hard to see the rest of the world beyond my blinding freedom.
"Where?"
Eric swivels his head enough to glare over his glasses, hands working feverishly without sight to guide them. He whips toward the screens as I show my palms.
Dad's voice comes in, loud and clear. "10-20 on the new situation?"
My exact question. He's asking for a location in radio jargon.
I find the display for the remote camera. Dad isn't in the picture, so I'm guessing we're peering through his body cam. Ember's there, scanning the foliage. She stops to incinerate a dense clump of broad-leafed plants. Hound's got his nose to the wind, and he cuts her an annoyed glance.
"Crimea, Black Sea," replies Eric.
"Threat level?" Dad asks.
Images swim by, and the local news stations in eastern Europe provide initial reports alongside streaming feeds from social media accounts. Two screens display digital dossiers which I recognize as the same database Eric nurtured and guarded in his parents' basement. An Augment watch list hosted somewhere on the dark side of the 'net. The GUI looks upgraded including a few new colors and symbols.
Eric's face puckers in concentration as he struggles with Dad's threat level question. The Augment dossiers currently on screen have names I vaguely recognize. Another monitor shows troops in camo and balaclavas wielding assault rifles while they mill about outside a building. No shots being fired, the troops flank a white sheet spray painted with a red hammer and sickle.
"Charlie Mike to base, repeat, what is the threat level?" Dad again. He's swiveling too, all three of the Augments scanning endless jungle. Hound whirls toward the opposite direction and crouches. Dad and Ember follow suit.
"Charlie Mike," starts Eric, sounding unsure. "Two contacts. Purple Circle. Blue Circle. Situation...fluid?"
Something seems familiar about that color code, something I should be able to translate instantly.
"Copy, two bogeys, circle, Crimea," Dad responds, not exactly in a whisper, but quiet. Hound gestures with a series of hand signals and the camera nods up and down.
"10-4." Eric pounds the keys. "News reporting local unrest. No casualty figures yet. You want coordinates?"
Interference bursts over the intercom. All of the greenery, each individual leaf sucks toward the camera. Ember's blazing skin sputters. Hound topples to the side. A whitish sphere trailing a cloud of vapor barrels onto the screen, and the camera goes black.
Eric's on his feet. He expands the dead tactical feed across all the monitors.
"Base to Charlie Mike. Base to Crimson Mask! Ember? Hound?"
Silence.
We're both at the edge of the console, Eric working up another button mashing frenzy. "Crimson, respond or I'm gonna call in a fucking drone strike."
"Negative. Suspect in custody, returning to base. Get me everything you can on the new threat."
Eric melts into the captain's chair. "10-4."
This. This is something I don't miss. Being away at college, I'd escaped the daily routine of wondering when Dad's super powers might finally fail him. An anxiety Mom always hid, but which I could always sense and always had to try and compensate for. We'd convince ourselves we weren't scared and that we could go on with our lives. Regular, boring lives basking in the shadow of super-charged insanity.
"Drone strikes?" I say. "You have drones?"
"If anybody has drones, I can have drones." Eric rolls his head toward me, leaving his body limp. "It's the U.S. government we're talking about. Third rate contractors can compromise their shit."
He goes back to work, and I consider him for a long moment, unsure if that anxious energy of mine didn't dissipate too soon.
I WATCH THE SECURITY feed as Dad muscles Destructo down the halls of Whispering Pines. He's got the human cannonball by the arms, his hands clamped right under the shoulders. Smart play. If this guy went for one of his speed bursts, chances are he'd leave his limbs behind.
"He's like Hurricane?" I ask.
"Son, ain't nobody like 'Cane," grumbles Hound. He's joined us in the command center along with Ember. Eric is chatting her up, and she's playing along with mild enthusiasm.
"Sure, I just meant he's fast, a speedster."
"I suppose," replies Hound as he takes a seat on the console and earns a disapproving head shake from Eric.
"No, he's completely different." Eric decides to provide us with his expert analysis and shoos Hound off the console. A flick of his fingers and Destructo's dossier pops up. One ugly mugshot. Guy could've been the subject matter expert for Breaking Bad with his low forehead, scarred cheeks and a perpetual mask of confusion. "Dude can manage crazy fast speeds but only short bursts. The condensed air that gets forced ahead of him slows him down and packs a punch. Brute force, Orange. He's strictly Diamond class. Hurricane was Star class."
Circle. Diamond. Star. That's where I've seen these symbols.
"You're fucking kidding me," I say.
Eric's eyes flit back and forth. "No?"
"Pokémon? Seriously?"
A quick twitch and Eric closes the dossier, pretending to be absorbed in the screens. His hands are moving, and he's closing windows only to re-open them. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Your threat scheme. It's based on Pokémon."
He can only shrug helplessly. "There could be similarities. Hey, don't we have a briefing soon?"
Ember catches on, and the upturned corner of her mouth smolders more than her skin. She places a hand on Eric's shoulder. "What am I?"
He stiffens. There's a choked silence while he clears his throat. "Fire, Star err...Red, Star," he stammers. "Red for Fire. Star for rare."
"Star Fire," I say with a smirk. "That could almost be an Augment name. Maybe you should change yours."
Ember backs away and lets Eric off the hook. "I prefer Ember. Coals are always more dangerous than the fire. Blow a little, a
nd they're burning again."
Not that I was even trying to flirt with little Ms. Easybake, but I feel my cheeks burning. She's let us both know she's way out of our league. Hound smiles with an ease that suggests he's seen all this play out before. It strikes me how completely out of place Eric is here. He serves a vital purpose, sure, but to them, he's closer to the team mascot.
Gotta admit, Ember's cute in a punk sorta way. Though I'm not sure I'd risk the whole flesh-melting break up. Chemical-orange mohawk sprouting above a deceptively delicate face that screams "I'm up to no good and you won't do a damn thing about it." Her Asian features play perfectly into Eric's manga fantasies.
But she's an Augment for Christ's sake. She's, what, over forty and looks twenty-five. Hound's closing on a hundred and Hurricane would've been older. The silver hair, the wrinkled skin, that all caught up eventually, but physically, even 'Cane, with his one leg and that damn inhaler, was a force. Did they ever die of natural causes? Did the lives they were forced to lead ever allow that?
To have somewhere else to look, I take a cue from Eric. Dad passes through the hallways, crossing from monitor to monitor. Danger follows along behind. Quiet, but with a sense of pent up energy, I get that guy more than the other "heroes" here even if we haven't had a chance to talk. They drop Destructo in a cell and make the return trip to the comcen.
I wonder what kind of a hit Dad took from the carnie? It's too hard to see any injuries on the monitors. I lean closer to inspect. By the time Dad enters the room with Danger, I've almost forgotten he's right here, and I'm not watching this all play out on the local news.
"Good work, guys," Dad says. He manages a nod for me. "Spencer."
He'd been all excited about me coming to help until I told him to lock up the mental patient. Here I am worried about him while he's out catching man-sized bullets. Only thing he seems to be nursing is a grudge.
"Eric, briefing," I bark. Hound performs a quiet assessment.
"Right!" Eric loads up the screens and starts to parse over them. "While you guys were out we had a little bit of an uprising in Crimea. Looked local. Political. I know we don't do politics, so I set it to the side." Two more dossiers with black and white photos take center screen. "Until these guys popped up."
One female, the other male, both of them decked out in Soviet uniforms. Their postures are rigid, and they're staring at the exact same point off camera as though it were the designated place for all the People to focus. Eric's threat system marks the corner: a pink circle for the girl, a blue circle for the guy. Fairy energy and water if I have to hazard a guess.
"I'll be damned. Comrades Cosmonaut and Sudak," huffs Hound. "Somebody's dusting off the Cold War shelf."
Dad regards Hound before returning his focus to the screens. "What do you think, Hound? Any connection to the current government?"
"Hell, nothing they'll admit, that's for sure."
Eric's on it. He surfs through a few links, more documents. "As of now, I've got no direct link to Russia. This is strictly off the radar...but..."
"What?" I ask, dragged in despite myself.
"But there's this." He opens a file, all in Russian, and my bunker days take another collective hit. A wave of the mouse brings up a translation. "An old deal from when the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia has been leasing some space in Crimea where they left a few naval yards behind. That deal expires in a year. Maybe they don't want to re-negotiate?"
Dad crosses his arms, and he and Hound stare intently at the screens, side by side. Ember has found a chair by the wall and is letting blue and orange flame coat her fingernails. Danger slouches in the shadows.
"Weren't they brought here from Killcreek?" I ask.
Eric nods and opens another screen with more recent photos taken in the lobby. The two Russians look haggard, beat down. The girl has gone from a smooth skinned beauty with her hair pinned under a precisely tilted hat to a woman with the puckered mouth of a smoker. Her soft curls are gone. Hair, gone. A metal plate graces her skull, and her eyes sag but she's still staring at the same regulation point in space as in the old photo.
The guy's seen better days, too. He's also sporting a shaved head, though I don't see any hardware. His eyes are muddy brown and bloodshot and his neck—
"Are those gills?" I ask.
"Yep," says Hound. "Sudak. Simple power for a simple task, to make a better special operations force."
"He talk to fish or anything?"
"What the hell would you want to do that for, kid?" asks Hound.
I shrug. "I don't know. You just figure he'd get something else out of the deal."
"Talk to fish," Hound mutters. "You can joke all ya want. Small powers can make a big difference," he says and taps his nose. "Can't underestimate any of 'em. Circles, stars, whatever the hell nonsense, they're all Augments."
"What about her?" asks Dad.
"Cosmonaut was a training instructor for astronauts, that's what she was. First person in a space program." The respect in Hound's voice makes me second guess Eric's system. "She could make small objects weightless."
"Telekinesis?" I ask.
Eric is quick to explain. "Yeah but of the bullshit type. I'd have given her brown energy if it existed. She's limited to stage magician tricks. We're talking circle, lowest rarity, way below the upper tier."
"Upper tier?" I've already asked though I think I know the answer.
"Sure. White Stars like Crimson Mask here. Or Charlotte." Eric catches my discomfort and quickly continues. "I've only ever seen one other White Star."
"Who would that be?"
Eric hits a key and uses a camera outside to scan the tree line. He zooms in on a shimmering wisp until Aurora fills the screen.
Dad's still deep in thought, his attention elsewhere. Nobody else seems aware of the exchange between Eric and me. They're all waiting to hear the Crimson Mask's decision except Danger, who impatiently taps his foot. When Dad finally moves, the room comes to life. Hound straightens. Ember extinguishes her pedicure. Eric peels away from his keyboard.
"We go. Round up the Augments and let the local authorities, NATO, whoever else wants to get involved, sort out the uprising."
"You realize how this is gonna look?" Hound brings his fluffy eyebrows together.
"Fully aware," says Dad. He sweeps over the team and stops at Danger. "What's wrong? We clear?"
"Maybe I should go on this one. Help you guys out."
"No, you stay here," says Dad, his gaze landing on me for a split second. "In case there's trouble now that we've got another cell to mind."
Danger jerks away from the wall. Wound up tension finally breaks, and he uncoils. "You wonder why everyone else left? You keeping people on a leash, they don't like that."
"Soldier..." Hound growls, but Dad raises a hand.
Eyes white with anger, Danger punches through the doors and into the hall. Yeah, now I'm sure I completely get this guy.
Dad watches him leave and quickly reasserts command. "Eric, give me the coordinates. Ember, you're with me. Hound, take a breather."
"You sure you don't want me to go?" asks Hound. "These guys are old school. Could be trouble."
"We'll be fine. Aurora will jump us there. We'll round them up and bring them back here to cool off."
"And if there's a clear link to the Reds?" asks Hound. "What then?"
"Then we're on our own, and they aren't," Dad replies.
Chapter 8
A DEEP RUMBLE EMANATES from every corner of the room, above and below, rattling alongside the squawks and chirps of the command center. My stack of circuit boards topples and skitters along the floor. When it stops, I sit and watch, waiting for another wave and eyeing the hallway door frame. After a few years living in San Francisco, I've heard all the advice when it comes to earthquakes. Your best bet is just to get the fuck out of the building.
Eric jumps up, and peers around the front of the console.
"Fault lines around here?" I shrug.
He s
hakes his head. "There used to be this Augment, remember?"
"Fat Man?"
"That's the one. Devastating dude. Force Zero. Nobody left like him though."
The ground shudders once more, and the nerve center demands its minder's attention with a harsh beep. Eric disappears, and I hop off the floor to join him.
"Hound, what's up?" Eric calls out.
The grizzled veteran's reply is only made more hoarse by the tinny distortion of the speaker. "Prisoner gettin' rowdy. Nothing to worry about."
I mash Eric's hand onto the transmit button. "Which prisoner?"
The look of "really?" on Eric's face fades quickly as my question hits home. "Yeah Hound, which one?"
"Destructo."
Eric's already reaching for more controls and has Destructo's cell on screen.
"Y'all better let me outta here. C'mon now!" He paces the cell, restless. Blue jeans and a camo shirt with the sleeves ripped off, he's got no shoes and one arm is covered in tattoos. Shouting, though he doesn't sound pissed. Once at the back wall, he turns toward the door and crouches, a linebacker headed in for a blitz. A white smear replaces him.
Again, the floor shakes as he impacts the door. From this angle, I don't see any damage.
"Can he get out of there?"
Busy at the controls, Eric waves off my concern. "We've got him in cell seven. It'll hold an orange diamond. Titanium alloy doors and walls. There's even some earthquake-proofing techniques to transfer the force of each impact into the bedrock. That's probably what we're feeling." Another blow to the cell door and more tremors follow. "But I gotta hand it to him, he's packing a bigger punch than I figured he could."
The preparations are not only impressive, they're extensive. "Hard to believe all this was kept secret for that long."
"Even before Killcreek, they needed a place for their weapons to cool off." Eric air quotes the final phrase which I heard Dad used earlier.
"A time out corner for the toddlers who'd crawled out of Cronus' skull," I mutter.