by J. A. Giunta
Lee pulled free of the IV and blankets, stared down at Tammy’s corpse. He didn’t save her after all. He’d given everything he had, pushed his power as far as he thought it could go, and still it wasn’t enough.
He wasn’t enough.
“It was Ember,” Anna said. It didn’t surprise him she could see the scene, probably from one of the XTU body cameras or even satellite. “Tammy was already dead. Whatever you did to the body, it fell apart when your sister touched it. Will made it clear to me you’re never to do that again.”
Lee let out a snort. He’d almost brought someone back to life and was being chastised for it.
“Do you know where Frank is now?”
Ideas flooded his mind, from what little he knew and had observed. He was narrowing them down, the more he thought each one through.
“He’s headed south on foot,” Anna replied. “We have agents at his home, the hospital and the cemetery where his family is buried.”
“No. He’s not headed there yet,” Lee said. “He’ll try to lose the team first. And where’s the one place we won’t go?”
Spider territory.
He didn’t have to say it out loud. Ten square blocks of abandoned buildings and apartments, the entire neighborhood was now home to a gang of Supers and Affected. It was also a haven for those who refused to work for Cerberus but wouldn’t give up their powers. Every attempt to bring them in had ended in disaster.
“Shit.” He’d never heard Anna curse before. “I’m sending agents to the other side. Unless he plans to hole up there, we’ll catch him when he comes out.”
“Want a lift?” an XTU officer offered.
Lee eyed the armored vehicle in the distance. It would only slow him down, but he didn’t want to tell the officer that.
“I think I can get there faster on foot,” he said, “stay out of traffic. Thanks for the offer, though.”
He got up and began to run south, picking up speed as he went. Even the slowest Affected could hit twenty-five miles per hour. With all the training and pushing himself, it felt like he was over thirty. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up, but as long as his team was in trouble, he’d give it everything he had.
Lee cut between buildings to avoid people and cars. Not every alley was open ended. Some were blocked by ten foot walls. He jumped them like he’d been taught, with a leap at the building on one side and a foot pushing him out and over.
“Tinker is just ahead,” Anna said.
There was an overturned car in the street, no doubt left by Frank to slow the team. Tinker was there, pulling a family from the vehicle. Lee arrived just as Tinker cut free a little girl from her seatbelt with one of the tools he’d made and kept in his belt. He helped her climb out the back window.
When he looked up, he seemed relieved.
“Never thought I’d be glad to see that haircut,” he said. There was blood on his uniform, but it wasn’t his. Lee offered him a hand and brought him to his feet. “You okay?”
“Never better,” Lee said and started to leave. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Hey, wait! The girl and her mother here are hurt.”
Lee hadn’t even noticed. Well, he noticed but didn’t think it was worth tending. He was too focused on the threat getting further away. There was a middle-aged mother and three kids, a girl and two boys. None of them were seriously injured, just minor scrapes and bruises. He set cells to work in them but didn’t think they’d fully heal by the time he was out of range. Still, it would be enough until they could get to a doctor.
“They’ll be fine,” he called back as he ran, headed down an alley between a mini-mart and dry cleaners.
“Go left up ahead,” Anna said. “Follow Laurel six blocks.”
Tinker caught up and glared.
“You could’ve waited for them to heal. We’re not even going the right way. The team’s that way,” he said and pointed west.
“We’re heading him off,” Lee said and turned east. “They won’t follow him into Briarwood. It’s suicide.” Lee leapt over a car going by as they crossed the street and into another alley. “We’ll catch him as he comes out.”
“Why bother?” Tinker asked and slapped the lid down on a dumpster as he ran past. It made a huge crash that sent echoes following after. “Let the Spiders deal with him.”
Anna said, “Next right, up three blocks.”
“Because he killed people,” Lee replied angrily. “We don’t let that slide.” They headed south through the playground of Timber Hills elementary, hopping chain link fences and ignoring the cries of an angry teacher. “He’s hunting us, you know. Supers.”
“Who, Culvers?” Tinker shrugged. “I don’t really care.”
“Left,” Anna said. They’d entered a residential area, rows of middle-class homes and apartments off in the distance. “Then south again at the next street.”
“How can you not care?” Lee asked. Sometimes he felt like he was the only one who understood the choices they were making.
“I mean,” Tinker said, starting to pant with the exertion, “I don’t care what his motives are. He’s a bad guy, I get it. I just don’t give a crap why.”
“There,” Anna said, “the parking structure. He’s headed that way.”
“That’s shortsighted,” Lee said and shook his head. To Anna, he asked, “What about the team?”
She hesitated. “They ran into a problem. Help is on the way.”
There was a gas station across the street with a sizeable convenience store attached. With houses nearby, fast food on both sides of the street, there were lots of people who hadn’t been evacuated and were in danger if a fight between Supers broke out.
“Wait,” Lee said, “to us or the team? What kind of trouble?”
Screams rang out as Culvers appeared running down the sidewalk of Juniper. Shirtless and bloodied, he tossed people and cars aside as he went.
“Briarwood,” Tinker guessed. “They must’ve gone in. Don’t worry. I’m sure your girlfriend’s fine.”
Lee glared down the street, gathering his power. His swarm flared blue all around him.
“Alex isn’t my girlfriend.”
“No kidding, dumbass.” Tinker activated a thick metal bracer on his left arm and pulled some kind of homemade handgun from his belt. “I was talking about Allison. You may test smart,” he said and pulled back on the top of the gun, loading it, “but you’re kind of stupid.”
Frank stopped across the street, had recognized them and grinned.
“You don’t learn,” he shouted at them. He grabbed a car with both hands and threw it at the gas station. It crashed into and past the pumps, and the whole place burst into flames. Over the screaming, he happily called out, “Have fun with that!”
He took off running west down the street as a helijet arrived. The back ramp opened while it hovered twenty feet above the asphalt. One by one, eight people jumped out, landed hard and walked toward them.
“Who the shit are these guys?” Tinker asked, already moving for the gas station. He looked back, surprised, when Lee didn’t follow. “Hey! Snap out of it! I know you don’t give a shit about the little people, but we have to put that fire out, before it burns down the entire block. Let these guys take care of Culvers.”
“Remedy!” the lead Super called, as all eight drew in close. Lee knew who it was the moment they’d landed. “You’re with us,” Breaker said.
“Screw that!” Tinker said. To Lee, he added, “Forget them and Culvers. People need us right here.”
Lee said, “They’re not the mission.” He pointed east, where Frank was getting away. “He is. We don’t have time to put out fires, while the guy making them gets away.” He refused to argue about it and broke into a run. “Let emergency services handle it!”
The Bullet Squad followed after. Tinker cursed and r
an for the gas station.
Lee couldn’t even look at them, the group of killers and victims who’d had their lives stolen. At least three of them were there as a direct result of his actions.
“Get him,” Breaker told one. Barely into his twenties, in the Cerberus black edged with green, the guy leapt into the air with enough force that Lee more felt than saw him leave. “Bruiser will slow him down. Everyone else? Do your thing.”
Bruiser was on Frank in a single jump, landed right on top of him. The two went down into a tumble. Lee and the others were nearly there, when the two began to fight. Frank threw punches like a brawler, while his opponent was clearly trained. Frank probably hit like a freight train but didn’t have the skill or speed to land one. Bruiser used Frank’s own momentum against him, turned missed swings into opportunities to punch at ribs and exposed soft spots.
Lumen was first to join in, firing beams of hard light from her palms. They struck between punches with a precision born of practice and hours spent in training as a team. The moment Bruiser was turned away, light flared from her right hand with the brightness of a dozen suns. Frank cried out, his face blackened and both eyes burned away.
Lee hadn’t seen Samantha since he’d undone her paralysis. Despite the circumstances between them, he was glad she was there fighting on his side.
Frank’s cry echoed in quick succession, hit a high note and exploded. Discord, Lee thought and winced at the memory of being on the receiving end of that attack. Frank’s chest had been ripped open by the blast.
Breaker moved in, both hands together and pushed out. Visible vibrations filled the air between him and Frank. Bruiser quickly tumbled away. Rings rolled one into another and shook Frank violently in place. Blood quavered loose from the gaping wound, but Frank’s chest began to heal regardless.
“Can you paralyze him?” Anna asked. “We need to take him alive.”
Lee was fighting for control, had invaded Frank’s body, but the cells were dying off. Frank’s immune system had already adapted back at the alley, refused to let Lee in. It was now more a battle of wills.
A girl who looked no more than twelve flicked her wrists and moved in. Swords had appeared in her hands, as if snatched from thin air. Short and silvery, with wisps like frost rolling down each blade, they seemed to whistle with every swing. Breaker let fall his attack as she struck Frank across the thigh, middle and neck in rapid swipes.
She spun away, and another took her place. The whole team worked as one, striking in tandem, never getting in each other’s way. It was as if they’d trained to take down single targets and quickly move on to the next.
“You got this,” Breaker said to Lee.
His concentration lost, Lee let out a breath he’d been holding. With no way to paralyze Frank or brute force a change to his anatomy, Lee wasn’t sure what he could do to help stop him.
It was probably for the best. Someone as powerful as Frank couldn’t be contained or controlled, shouldn’t be. He adapted to every attack, gained a limited immunity to every danger. Coupled with strength more than halfway up the chart, the man was a killing machine in the making. While Cerberus no doubt wanted him, Lee didn’t think even a bullet to the brain would keep Frank down for very long.
There was a scream. The one edged in yellow had gotten caught off guard. Frank had managed to catch hold and broke both his arms. Electricity danced up and outward from his hands, up both damaged limbs, as he toppled to the pavement and squirmed in pain.
Without giving it a thought, Lee gathered cells to heal him. They flashed blue overhead, and a small swarm broke free to head his way.
“Not yet,” Breaker told Lee. “Save everything for Culvers. It won’t matter if we can’t take him down. We may have to get creative.”
Was that already his plan? Lee wondered. To kill Frank if they couldn’t subdue and bring him in? Could he even be killed?
Shards of ice swept through the air in a swirl around Frank, tore away at his flesh. Blocks of asphalt rose up to throw him off balance then disappeared back into the street. He caught hold of the girl with swords by the hair as he fell. Frank drew her in closer, angling for her neck.
“You’re mine!” he growled and pulled.
She reached back with a blade and cut the hair from his grasp, stabbed behind her with the other. The halo burns around his eyes were already gone, all his skin fully regenerated, but her blade pierced through an eye before she rolled away.
Frank clutched at the bloody socket.
“Now!” Breaker shouted, and one by one those who were able were on top of Frank. They took firm hold of each limb, while Bruiser locked legs around his neck. Even the road seemed to help, rose up in tendrils around the ankles and wrists. Using his entire body to hold down an arm, Breaker called out to Lee. “It’s now or never, buddy.”
Buddy? Does he remember me?
“Now, please,” Bruiser said, struggling to keep his grip, with Frank writhing beneath them all.
Lee moved in close and knelt, the only idea he had left just rising to the surface.
“Do you have a knife?” he asked the girl.
Her swords were gone, so he assumed she could bring one back to her hand at will. She and the girl with ice powers were fighting to keep a leg down. A single flick of a wrist, and a thick bladed hand knife appeared. Lee took it quickly, so she wouldn’t lose her grip on Frank.
As hard as he could, Lee drove the knife down into the center of Frank’s stomach. It didn’t pierce the skin. With both hands, his entire body, Lee pushed down onto the blade. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make an incision.
Frank laughed, a slow rolling of his middle.
“Lee!” Anna shouted in his ear. “You’re supposed to take him in alive!”
He focused his power, brought every cell to bear on one spot, to weaken the flesh and muscle just beneath. His swarm flared blue over the skin and entered. He felt Frank’s body fighting back. For every ten cells Lee sent against him, only one had any effect. It took billions to break through, all the strength he could gather, to thin and erode an area no bigger than his thumbnail. It was all he really needed.
With a grunt, Lee plunged the knife in.
He looked up at the seven others barely keeping Frank still, at the guy still writhing in pain beside them, at Breaker staring back.
“Do it,” Breaker said.
There was recrimination in his voice, as if to say, You didn’t hesitate when you killed me.
“Don’t,” Anna pleaded in his ear, “Don’t do it.”
Lee had already made up his mind, played through all the scenarios and found no other way.
“I have to,” he told her.
Lee sawed at the wound to make it bigger, pulled the knife out and forced his hand into the breach. He reached all the way inside up to his elbow and, one by one, pulled free both Frank’s hearts. Each still pulsed in his hand, as he tossed the bloody pieces aside.
“Lee, no.” Saddened, Anna drew the sound out. They both knew what it meant. “Why?”
“I had no choice.”
Frank was finally still. The others relaxed and fell back against the street in exhaustion or climbed up off him to unsteady feet. Pained cries reminded Lee that some were wounded. He sat back on his hands, did what he could to help heal, but his power was spent. It was a struggle just to stay awake.
Two helijets soon arrived, their ramps open and waiting. The Bullet Squad headed to the empty one on the left, while the other held his team. They were waiting for him to enter, some of them hurt.
Lee got to his feet and headed over. When he reached the ramps, he saw the faces of his team, his friends, his sister staring back. They knew what he’d done but didn’t know what it truly meant. Not like he did. Breaker stood on the left ramp, his look an open invitation.
“You belong with us,” he said.
Lee snorted.
He probably did belong with them. Probably will. He gave a single nod to Breaker and walked up the ramp to join his team. He took a seat next to Ember and quietly buckled in.
“You okay?” she asked as the helijet lifted off.
She didn’t reach over to touch him. He was spattered in Frank’s blood, his right arm covered in it up to the elbow.
“Nope.” Lee looked to the others seated across the way, to Ember and Allison on his right. All of them were injured in one way or another, cuts and scratches, burns and bruises. “I’d heal you guys,” he said, “but I just don’t have it in me right now. What happened to you anyway?”
Alexandra said, “Let’s just say I found out being scared out of my mind helps me focus my power.” She gave a little laugh, but it came off as nervous with all the tension. “And I was really freaking scared.”
“Three people died,” Kevin said angrily to Lee, “back at that gas station, while you were playing hero. People you could’ve healed. I looked up their names for you, put them on your desktop. Good luck removing it.”
“Back off,” Ember warned him.
Allison looked over at Lee, at his arm. “He wouldn’t have done it,” she said in his defense, “if he didn’t have to.”
“Really?” Kevin asked. “Is that how it went down, Lee? Did you leave innocent people to die because you had to? Did you kill him in self-defense? Or did eight guys hold him down, while you tore his insides out?”
Allison yelled, “Culvers was a monster! He killed that brother and sister and at least seven more in Briarwood. You weren’t there,” she said and glared, as if blaming Kevin for what had happened to them.
“Guys,” Brody said with forced calm and fatigue in his voice, “this isn’t helping anyone.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lee said. “Once we get back, you won’t have to worry about me or my choices.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Ember asked pointedly. Even if she stood by him in front of the others, he could feel her disappointment.