Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  Gallows closed a drawer in the kitchen counter turned workbench. Most of the counter was taken up by a complicated glass apparatus that was percolating away. In the small clear space at the end sat a single injector pen containing blue fluid. Gallows was decked out in heavy gloves, a rubberized apron, goggles, and a respirator mask. He tipped his head towards Freddy and spread his hands. "Were those gunshots relevant.?"

  "What have you got for me, Hangman?" Freddy asked, ignoring the question.

  Gallows clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, Iteration Thirteen appears to be more stable than Iteration Seven, and is not expressing any of the obvious side effects from the failed iterations."

  "Good," Freddy said, snatching the injector pen off the countertop. Once he'd jabbed the needle into the meat of his arm and sunk the plunger, Gallows shook his head.

  "That was not Iteration Thirteen, I moved that into the drawer," Gallows said. He reached out and lifted the pistol from Freddy's slackening fingers, tucking it into his back pocket. "That was a mixture of Succinylcholine and Windex. I was still working on a procedure to get you to dose yourself." Gallows caught Freddy as his legs gave out. He dragged the limp form into the apartment's bathroom and dumped him into the tub. "That was probably a massive overdose, but given your history, I'm not entirely convinced it will be sufficient to kill you." Gallows retrieved two plastic jugs not unlike white gas cans in appearance. "I should thank you, though. You have taught me a great deal. Before, I thought I could improve the lot of our people by simply equalizing outcomes. Now I see that I have to remove negative influences that will get in the way of advancement. Influences like you."

  Gallows unscrewed the caps on the first jug. "You may recall my pesticide was highly effective at removing cockroaches. It should prove equally effective at removing larger pests. I do apologize, as I understand Succinylcholine does not have any anesthetic or soporific effects. The pain should be temporary." Tipping the jug into the tub, Gallows poured the gallons of caustic fluid over Freddy. The fumes and hissing of an energetic chemical reaction bubbled up from the interior of the tub. As he opened up the second jug and began to pour, there was an almost musical crash from the front door.

  Gallows looked over his shoulder at the figure in stylized Roman armor that strode in. He was leading with an outstretched arm, and held his right bracer in place with his left hand. The molded mask didn't betray Errol's reaction to the sight of Gallows pouring fuming chemicals onto a rapidly disintegrating body in the tub. Gallows stood, frozen, as the last few gallons glugged from the jug.

  "Who are you?"

  "The residents here have taken to calling me Hangman," Gallows said.

  "What are you doing," Errol asked, horror creeping into his voice.

  "Pest control," Gallows said amid the roiling, noxious fumes.

  Gallows dropped the empty container. It made a "bong" sound when it hit the floor. For a moment, the only sound in the stripped-down apartment was the sizzle of dissolving flesh. Unsure of how long Errol's shock would last, Gallows strolled casually towards the armored youth. For the first few steps, Errol's gaze was locked on the tub and the burning caustic soup within. When Gallows stepped inside his reach, Errol's attention snapped to the chemist. Gallows swatted Errol's right arm aside and tried to ram the chrome pistol into the gap at Errol's neck. Errol caught Gallows' wrist and twisted it aside before he could manage the contact shot he'd been aiming for.

  Struggling in each other's grasp, the two stumbled towards the door. Without anything holding it in place, Errol's bracer slipped to the floor, dragging Lazar's phone with it. The phone's screen shattered on impact. Errol wriggled his right arm free and used it to push the other man against an empty span of countertop. He continued to twist Gallows' arm until the fingers loosened and the handgun thunked to the floor.

  With his free hand, Gallows reached over the far edge of the counter and pulled open the drawer there. Seeing Gallows manipulating something inside the drawer, Errol reached to take it from him. There was a sharp pain and a clicking sound. Errol jerked his arm back. An empty injector pen hung from his hand by the needle stuck in the middle of his palm.

  "Well, crap," Gallows said.

  Loosing an incoherent cry, Errol tipped the chemist over the counter, deliberately smashing him through the apparatus of glass, rubber hosing and esoteric precursor chemicals. Gallows fell to the stained tile floor in a shower of shattered flasks, chemical droplets and blood. Errol ripped the bent needle from his palm and staggered from the apartment.

  Gallows watched a trickle of pale blue fluid running down his arm and mixing with the blood where a particularly jagged shard was embedded in his flesh. It was part of the output from the apparatus. More of Iteration Thirteen. He plucked the jagged shard out and tossed it aside. His mind ran through the array of precursors and intermediate compounds in an attempt to recall their lethal doses and the proper procedures for exposure. His mind and eyes snapped back to the line of pale blue. The question wasn't just what the chemicals would do in isolation, but how they would interact with the Lucid Blue that had seeped into his system.

  A shuffling noise distracted Gallows as an albino mouse the size of a large dog crept up to him. In its teeth, it held a first aid kit. Gallows chuckled humorlessly. "You have gotten smart, haven't you?" he said between pained breaths. He took the kit from the overgrown mouse. "You're going to need a name."

  Ed's eyes went wide as Errol staggered into the hallway and collapsed just shy of the pool of blood. He looked down at the blood-soaked hands with which he was applying pressure to Lazar's gunshot wound, then back to where Errol lay. "What happened to you?" he called, his voice edging on panic.

  "Hangman... injected..." Errol slumped and fell silent.

  A crash rang from the far end of the balcony as Rance hurled Kevan through a door.

  Ed shook his head, fighting to clear his thoughts. "What am I supposed to do?"

  "Something else," Lazar said, his pained voice coming in short gasps. "Pressure isn't cutting it. If we keep this up, I'm just going to bleed out before help arrives."

  "Don't say that!"

  "Does anyone even know we're here?"

  "Stop saying things like that!" Ed said, all but screaming.

  "I'm not... I'm not telling you to give up," Lazar said. "There is still something you can try."

  "What's left?"

  "Biokinesis."

  "Oh come on. Even if that machine weren't wrong, I'd have no idea what I was doing."

  "Look at me," Lazar said, "I have more blood outside of me than in. What harm could it do to try?" While an exaggeration of the extent of his blood loss, the crimson pool in which Lazar lay, and Ed knelt, had grown ominously large. Ed bit his lower lip. He didn't have too many friends, and Lazar didn't even have the strength left to lift his head from the blood-slicked concrete.

  Ed closed his eyes. If the machine was right, the power was mental, and he needed to find the right focus. He started with simple visualization, picturing the wound and seeing it closing in his mind. But that did nothing. He grumbled to himself. What if he was right and the machine was wrong? Then Lazar was dead. The cold math said that the rate of blood loss over the amount of time before he could get aid added up to too much bleeding. Ed shook his head and refocused. The telekinesis had come naturally, almost unconsciously.

  Telekinesis, biokinesis, flight. One of those three didn't fit with the others. Or did it? Ed's eyes popped open. His flying wasn't an aberrant secondary ability, it was an outgrowth of the other two closely-related powers. Since he could only telekinetically shift small masses, that would imply it was more closely linked to whatever biokinetic ability he had.

  Ed shifted his mental focus again. This time, Lazar cried out in pain. Ed could feel movement in the wound cavity below his hands. He gritted his teeth against the heart-wren
ching scream of pain and kept his attention on what he was doing. Lazar weakly spasmed, then slumped to the floor.

  Pulling his hands from Lazar's midsection, Ed examined the wound. An ugly, pink knot of scar tissue plugged the hole. It didn't look like a long-term fix, given the deep dent in which it sat. But the bleeding had stopped. Ed tried to rise, but found himself too weak to do so. He fell against the wall and slid down into the blood puddle. Lazar had passed out, but the slow rise and fall of his chest said that he was still alive.

  Crawling over to Errol, Ed rolled him onto his back. He was still out cold. There was no sign of the sonic lance, or Lazar's phone. But he did find Errol's phone. It looked like the cheapest model on the market four years ago. Ed flipped it open and tried to decide who was the best person to call.

  Rance had been aiming for the stairs themselves when he threw Kevan, but the gravity belt was still on, so the human projectile struck helmet-first into the door at the top of the stairs. The door splintered and Kevan tumbled onto the roof. The tower was roughly square, with a similarly-shaped air shaft running down its center. The roof had not originally been intended for occupants to use, but there had been no effort to enforce that. The four original stairwell entrances were hidden amidst a shanty-town-esque assemblage of corrugated metal, plywood, tarps, and random furniture. A structure not unlike battlements made from cargo palettes and roofing tin ringed the perimeter. Spent syringes and injector pens lay discarded among the detritus.

  Kevan scrabbled away from the stairwell as Rance stormed up it. Pain unlike anything he'd felt since being freed from the Ygnaza wracked Kevan's body. He couldn't see out of his left eye, and prayed it was merely swollen shut. He wasn't sure if he could even remove the helmet with the gross deformation it had undergone from the wrench-hit. Every so often, shattered plastic fragments from the filter grille fell into his mouth and he had to spit them away. From the way they were wet when they hit his face again later, he was certain it was the same few rattling around inside the helmet. Worse, it felt like the oversized mechanic had just gotten his second wind.

  Kevan rolled away from a stomping boot to collide with a table made from an oil drum and a basketball backstop. Kevan flung the backstop at Rance. The larger man swatted it aside, snapping the particle board with a sweep of his arm. It proved to be an insufficient distraction as Rance sidestepped his charge and brought his wrench down on the back of Kevan's head. Kevan was driven into the roof as the bronze rang from the blow. Crawling through loose stones and debris, Kevan tried to eke out some distance from the giant. He failed.

  Grabbing Kevan by the ankle, Rance swung him into the concrete casing over the stairwell exit. Kevan caught the lip of the edifice and hung there, the reduced gravitational effect making the awkward pose easier. Rance raised an eyebrow, twisting the scar on his face. As Rance tugged Kevan free, the young man tapped on the rocket control. Rance cried out as a jet of flame washed over his arm and let go. Kevan hurtled off into one of the ramshackle structures before he could cut the rocket motors. Rising to unsteady feet, Kevan watched Rance beat out the flames that had caught on his clothing. A scowl creased Rance's features as he turned his gaze to the wobbling figure in red.

  "Is that all you've got left?" Rance asked, advancing.

  Kevan's gaze tipped skyward before returning to level. "Yes," he said. "I'm spent." The proto-smirk bending its way onto Rance's lips scurried off as Kevan continued. "But she's not." Rance turned in time to catch an elbow drop to the face as a dragon-winged figure in blue and white dropped from the sky. Ever the bulwark, Rance remained standing, despite staggering back. Stamp planted her feet on the roof and retracted her wings. Rance wiped a bit of blood from his nostril with his thumb.

  "Figures," Rance said.

  "Now, are we going to have to go through the whole business of beating you down, or are you going to give up?" Stamp asked.

  "How many of your buddies did you bring along?" Rance asked.

  "Just one," Stamp said as a clamp of golden light snapped closed around Rance. "But together, you ain't got a shot at beating us."

  With a triumphal shout, Rance shattered the psychic construct and spread his arms wide among the glittering shards. "A pair of second stringers? You think the two of you have got what it takes to take me down?" A moment's hesitation passed through Stamp's expression. Rance seized the momentary distraction to dash down the stairs.

  Stamp blinked in confusion. "Hey!" Shaking it off, she raced down the stairwell after him. She skidded to a halt at the sight of the bodies. They lay scattered along the balcony, unmoving. Most were in gang colors, save those in and around the pool of blood at the far end. A second glance showed the gang members to be merely unconscious. Stamp approached the blood puddle. One of the three looked up and gave a humorless chuckle.

  "You're in their colors," Ed said.

  Stamp keyed on her earpiece. "Miss Pain, we need a medical evacuation on the top floor, and probably a lot of backup."

  "How'd you get here?" Ed asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I haven't even called for help." His fingers still hovered by the keypad of Errol's phone, trying to figure out what number to dial.

  "No, Wolfjack called for help ten minutes ago and Shiva said your trackers were here."

  Part 16

  The conference room looked familiar to Ed. After a moment, it dawned on him that it was the same place he'd been ten days previously when the program had started. Kevan sat in the same seat he had before, holding an ice pack to his face. "How bad is it?"

  "Which, my face or the situation?" Kevan asked.

  "Your face."

  "They said keep it iced to keep the swelling down and take over-the-counter pain meds as needed. Apparently nothing's broken."

  Ed fell silent and paced around the room fruitlessly until the door opened and Razordemon stepped in.

  "Sit down."

  Ed did so. Razordemon took a seat across from him.

  "The police have your statements. They do not believe there will be additional criminal charges from this fiasco."

  "What about Birdstrike and Flynn?" Ed asked.

  Razordemon glanced up. After a moment, he spoke. "Mister Howard is still in surgery. We won't know how he fared until after they have finished. Mister Rickard had not regained consciousness, though he is apparently stable. The question we are here to discuss is the fate of the Junior Redemptioners program and its current participants."

  "Does this mean we're going back to jail?" Kevan asked. "Because that seems harsh given what we actually did."

  "Go on. I would love to hear your point of view."

  "I didn't go and decide to ditch the team to go to Riverside, I got blindsided while trying to figure out how to turn around," Kevan said.

  "Yes, you got dragged there against your will," Razordemon said. "But what about the others." his gaze turned back to Ed.

  "We couldn't just abandon him. He's one of us," Ed said.

  "You abandoned Wolfjack readily enough. Did any of you even check to see if he'd been hurt?"

  Ed shrank in his seat, casting a nervous glance from side to side.

  "For the record, he's fine."

  "Okay, we screwed up," Ed said. "My mind was on the guy spinning out of control through the city and how he doesn't know how to fly at the best of times. I didn't even think about the possibility that the guy who was supposed to be teaching us about heroics might be hurt."

  "Why did you not try to extricate yourselves through the way you'd gotten into the building before you got too heavily engaged?" Razordemon asked.

  "Because we were 'heavily engaged' from the moment I crashed into the building," Kevan said. "I know a gang tough might not rate much to you, but there were six of them on me, and three had guns. There wasn't a whole lot of time for thinking, so I defen
ded myself."

  "Except you didn't," Razordemon said. "Unless both of you lied to the police."

  "I don't know how to fight a normal person and not break them," Kevan said. "When the other guys showed up, the fight was on, so I engaged the big guy."

  "I see. And the delay before any of you called for help?"