Copyright © 2017 Jeffery H. Haskell
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No part of this work may be reproduced without the express, written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For permission contact the author at: www.JefferyHHaskell.com
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For Rebekah, Julia, John, and Rivkah…
This is an Ex-Parrot.
Humans are walking, talking contradictions. Utterly predictable right up until they are not.
-Notes on an Electronic Life, by Epic
Incoming fire. Recommend evasive maneuvers.
“You think?” I ask as I throw myself sideways. Turning at high speeds is like slamming into a wall but I manage to stay conscious. The space I occupied a moment before is filled with 20mm cannon fire. A second later two F-22s, tails painted with the Arizona Air Guard emblem, flash by in a streak of fire and fury.
“Let’s see how they climb. Full power to the Emdrive.”
We’re already at fifteen thousand feet about twenty miles north of Tucson Air Guard base, home of the 162d Air Combat wing. A few weeks ago the governor asked if we would be willing to cross train with the other State militias. Fighting actual jets sounded like fun and since they couldn’t hurt me… Also, with the MKI retired after all the acid scoring I needed to do a proper field test of the MKII. I told them to use live weapons. They thought I was joking until I showed them the video of the fifty cals bouncing off my shields. This is our third sortie in four days and I’m loving it. I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but this is the perfect testbed for the Mark II upgrade.
The fighters are coming around. Two are going high to cut you off.
I lock my arms down to stabilize as I blast near straight up.
Their radar is searching.
They won’t find anything.
“Epic, lock on the lead jet with the particle beam and inform his computer when he’s dead.” As soon as my AI comes back with a targeting solution I cut thrust to float for a few seconds. As the g’s dissipate I bring my arm up, wrist down and point it where he tells me. I don’t actually fire. The beam would slice through the pilot’s plane and I don’t have seventy-million dollars to replace it.
Splash one.
Epic is really into all the military jargon and I can’t say I blame him. I’m dogfighting with— the sky lights up in a shower of flame. A shockwave hits and I’m flailing through the air. My shields scream at me for more power and I can hear the ping of debris deflecting off my armor.
“How did we miss that one?”
They took advantage of your momentary lapse in speed to fire a missile at you without locking on. The pilot ‘eyeballed’ it. Detonation was ten feet behind us.
I kick in the Emdrive and I’m shooting through the air. My airspeed approaches six-hundred and the air starts to condense in front of me as I approach the so-called sound barrier.
“Give me their ears, Epic.” A few seconds pass and a green light pop’s on my HUD.
“Okay, boys, you got me. Good hit. Now, let’s see who can hit sixty-thousand feet the fastest.”
The radio distorts his reply, “You heard her, Valkyrie Three—Tally-ho!”
Valkyrie Three and Four surge past about a half mile away. Their tails light a trail in the sky as the engines effortlessly push them past Mach One quickly followed by Mach Two.
“Full burn! Straight up.” My HUD flashes as the parts in my improved systems re-arrange themselves to give me maximum thrust from my new drive. All power from my Zero Point Field Module shunts into the Emdrive and a burst of acceleration elicits a grunt from me. Epic locks me up since we’re on a ballistic trajectory. The whole thing takes three seconds, but in that time the fighters have shot up seven thousand feet. My airspeed indicator highlights for ease of visual reference.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I crossed the sound barrier. I hoped it would be cool. It was just another number on the screen. I’m sure from below it sounds awesome. Three seconds later we hit Mach Two. Next time I do this I need to arrange someone to film it.
“More power!” I really want to beat these guys. Epic flashes the amount of joules he’s already dumping into the Emdrive and even I’m impressed. The drive is fantastic but it was never meant for operating in an atmosphere. The idea was designed for space with no friction and a ten-watt battery recharged by solar winds. With a little tweaking and a few hundred-thousand watts it can push me just about anywhere I want to go.
Mach 3.
I let out a whoop on the radio as I blast by sixty-thousand feet a half second before the jets.
The radio crackles to life with the pilot's voice, “If you ever want to rent one of those out, ma’am, I know about fifty men and women who would love to take it for a spin,” he tells me. He has a nice voice and if I recall correctly, he’s an older fellow and the commander of the wing. A colonel?
“That probably won’t happen Colonel, but if I ever consider it, I think you would be the man for the job.” They squawk their radios as they turn south to head back to base. We’re still doing Mach 3 as we just pass eighty thousand feet. The air is thinning. A plane would be slowed by the thinning air as it would receive less lift under the wings… but since I don’t rely on aerodynamics to maneuver it has the effect of speeding us up due to the lack of resistance.
“What do you say, Epic? Give the Mark II a spin in space? Be the first non-powered human in orbit without a shuttle?
Not today. There is an emergency call coming in from HQ. All hands on deck. A gang of super-powered criminals known as the ‘Riot Boys’ are attacking Phoenix.
“Attacking? Just attacking, not robbing anything?”
It is unclear at this time. They have leveled a small building and are blowing up parked cars. Speed is suggested. Fleet is currently on scene evacuating civilians.
“I guess it’s time to show off the MK II after all. Bring us about, Number One, and send us on our way.”
The trajectory for the course flashes on the HUD as Epic brings us over and kicks in the drive. At our altitude it only takes a few seconds to reach Phoenix.
Wind roars by as we plunge toward the city I’ve called home most of my life. Excitement builds in my gut as we close the distance. I can’t wait to show off my new tech!
“Any update on what they’re doing?”
Yes. While their actions appear to be random they are in fact setting up distractions while a small team infiltrates a jewelry outlet in the Paradise Valley area.
Paradise Valley is right next to Glendale and it is the fanciest neighborhood in the city. Which means plenty of cops on scene and possible arguments over jurisdiction. However, if the bad guys are using superpowers then they’re ours.
Phoenix in September is a lot like Phoenix in June, hot enough to fry an egg on the outside of my armor. Lucky for me, I have climate control. My heart goes out to the rest of the team who don’t. Though Mr. Perfect manages to stay annoyingly sweat free, Kate’s body regulates itself so she’s never out of place, and Fleet just runs everywhere to cool off. Which just leaves Luke, aka Major Force, out in the heat.
He has some luck today, though. The newest member of the Diamondbacks is finally out of state training and should be joining us. Glacier is little more than a kid at seventeen, but with no ability to turn her powers off, and her life endangered by them, the government decided to allow her family to relocate to Phoenix so she could join us. Elementals are fairly rare, and ice is the rarest of all, and it will be nice to have one on our side for once.
“Okay, Epic, before we descend why don’t you give me the recon. Luke will ask for it as soon as we’re on scene anyways.”
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Affirmative.
Part of me is glad the last three months since the monster attack were quiet. I spent a lot of time in the lab working on my three big upgrades. My Emdrive, the computronium spray over my chest piece, and of course my upgraded grenade launcher. The computronium allows Epic to live in the suit, it is a nano thick layer of a gold-titanium alloy capable of forming computer cores. Once I sprayed the suit with it, connected the components and then sealed it with a quarter inch layer of new armor, it allowed me to upload Epic. Faster than his old housing, and more importantly, with me in the suit. This means I can travel at sixty-thousand feet and not lose contact with him.
Data flashes up on my green HUD. Multiple windows open showing me pictures and video. Fleet, fast as always, grabs civilians and whisks them away to the evac zone, an underground parking garage a mile away. Luke, Kate, Mr. Perfect, and Glacier, are on top of the mall staying out of sight until I arrive. Good for Luke. Sometimes he has trouble remembering tactics.
There are nineteen members of the gang in the street and six in the diamond exchange. Epic flashes the rundown on every known member, almost all of them are F3 with variations of ‘fast and strong’. The three we need to watch out for are, Inferno, Crusher, and Fang. Inferno is an elemental of the most common type, flame. Crusher is their strong man, an F4 with mass generation. Ugh, mass is the enemy in a fight. The last, Fang is one of the beast modes. The poor bastards who upon receiving their powers turn into creatures out of nightmares or worse. Sometimes they’re recognizable, other times not. Fang is rather tame, like a wolf crossed with a spider that grew fly wings.
Inferno and Crusher are leading the rampant street destruction team, Fang is in charge of the team infiltrating the exchange. I have Epic flash this news to the Diamondbacks. They all wear augmented reality goggles now, Epic can give them updates, directions, show them info about who they’re fighting, the whole bit. I spared no expense.
“ETA twenty seconds, boss,” I say over the team tacnet.
“Affirmative. Come in stealthy, Domino has a plan,” Luke replies.
“Stealth mode.” The HUD switches from the ubiquitous green to the soft blue as light levels are lowered. I don’t need to worry about sound baffling or thermal energy anymore, the Emdrive puts off neither. Mostly the plates on my armor shift around to a radar friendly configuration. I’m still working on invisibility, but with this and the kinetic emitters rigged for silent running, I’m invisible to radar detection.
I land with a thud on the black tar roof. Heat from the midday sun turns it into a soft goo which sticks to my boots.
“What’s the plan?” I ask. My synthesized voice sounds more robotic than me. I find most people respond better to it than to my natural voice, which isn’t exactly authoritative.
Kate flashes me a smile, “A reverse on our takedown of the Six. Fleet has the whole area clear of civvies, the guys at the diamond exchange are stuck on the vault, which gives us something we don’t normally have,” she finishes with a smile.
“A dress code?” Mr. Perfect asks.
“Lunch?” Fleet adds as he zips up to stand perfectly still in a rush of wind.
“Time,” I say.
“And the prize goes to the armored heroine,” Luke mimes a roaring crowd.
I spy Glacier shaking her head. She’ll get used to it. We’ve been together as a team for almost six months now, and the things we’ve faced have really brought us together.
“I’ll teleport one of them to us, we beat him up, lock him down, and then rinse and repeat until they’re a… more manageable size.”
It’s a good plan.
“Epic switch to stun rounds on the launcher, we’re going to want minimal collateral damage here.”
Affirmative.
Glacier raises an eyebrow at me as the drum on my back cycles. It was my answer to flexibility on the grenades. I can now carry sixteen grenades and as many types as I want. I still load mostly bean bags and pods. Today I’m also loaded with two high-explosives and a flash-bang.
“Okay everyone,” Luke puts his hand out. The smile on his face is worth all the money I’ve put into the suit. When we first met he was so unhappy. But now… not just the team has come together. We spend an awful lot of our off hours together and I can’t help but blush thinking about the hours we whittle away on my couch.
Fleet goes first, then Perfect and Domino, followed by me. We all look to Glacier when her hand doesn’t appear.
“This is stupid,” she says in a curt, teenage voice.
“Yes,” I reply, “It is, but we do it anyway. Now put your hand in.”
She does.
“Remember, stop the bad guys, save people, kick their ass. Diamondbacks,” Domino cheers.
Everyone except for Glacier chants ‘Diamondbacks’. She’ll get the hang of it eventually. Teamwork takes time to build and no one adapts overnight.
We spread out in a circle. Kate wants me to have first shot on the ones with few powers or those who have less… useful powers. Glacier is to my right and I can tell she’s nervous from the way she rolls her shoulders. Not that she has shoulders. Elementals defy science in a way that is beyond the rest of the super people. Poor Glacier is one of the worst. When her powers expressed her entire body transmuted into living ice. I’m standing right next to her and I can see the light filtering through her arms.
“What?” she snaps at me.
I shake my head. Great Amelia, fantastic. Stare at the person who is different.
“Sorry, I was curious as to how cold your surface temperature would have to maintain in the Arizona heat,” I say lamely.
I was, but that wasn’t why I gawked at her. In a way, Glacier is beautiful. It is as if someone carved a statue out of ice and imbued it with life. Her hair, eyes, even her fingernails are all there exactly as they should be, just ice.
“What are you, another scientist? Just stay out of my business.” She waves her hand in my face, “I have enough problems without more poking and prodding.”
“First in three… two…” Kate’s voice interrupts us… or saves me, I’m not sure which.
There is a pop and standing on the roof is Kate with her hands holding onto a man whose eyes couldn’t get any bigger. It takes his brain a half second to process what happened before he drops to his knees and throws his hands up.
“Smart boy,” Luke rumbles as he clamps on the plus-sized manacles.
Luke drags him to the side making room for Fleet. Kate can’t teleport twenty times in a row without exhausting herself. This was the test run. Fleet disappears in a blur and is back a half second later with a guy who looks like he stepped out of an old movie. He’s wearing distressed leather everything, boots, pants, vest and a beard that runs to his exposed beer belly.
He swings a backhand at Fleet, who dodges the blow with ease. Epic fires the bean bag at the thug with enough force to break bones. It hits him square in the gut, sending him doubling over and moaning. Then Luke is there restraining him and it’s done. Two down… seventeen to go.
Three more go by quick. Fleet focuses on the low-powered ones, thanks to his AR goggles he knows who is who. Lucky number seven screws us up.
Fleet appears, dropping someone barely older than me in the circle. The kid is scrawny, baggy clothing, sunken cheekbones, and stringy hair. Perhaps the last three were too easy, but I don’t tag him as fast as I should because he’s a kid.
He opens his mouth to say something, but it comes out a scream. Sonic waves emanate from him in such decibels that even the sound dampeners on my helmet short out. The roof explodes in a shockwave. I’m sailing through the air with a nice view of the Arizona sun and a ringing in my ears that isn’t going away anytime soon.
There is absolutely no way the rest of the Riot boys didn’t hear that.
The kid is flying. Not only that, he has Luke on his knees with his sonic voice. Blood seeps from my man’s ears and the roof under his knees crumples. Up Amelia!
I’m now
thankful I kept Epic as an on-screen presence because I can’t hear a damn thing.
“IP Cannon, full power, narrow beam,” I say hoping Epic can hear me through the cacophony.
Arms forward, palms up, I yell for Epic to fire. It is like being in a silent film; I can’t even hear myself scream just a high pitched ringing in my ears and a hollow tone behind it. The ionic pulse energy strikes out at the teen, catching him in the shoulder. The energy transfer flings him twenty feet away to crash into the quickly disintegrating rooftop.
He isn’t listed as having this power, but he is in the database.
That’s weird, but I don’t have time to ponder it. The remaining thirteen ‘Riot Boys’, which is a stupid name since some of them are girls, are coming for us. I still can’t hear, and if it’s this bad for me I can only imagine how bad it is for everyone else.
“Epic. Thrusters. Give us some altitude, switch to pods and go to automatic fire.”
As we climb I feel the slight vibration of the grenade launcher and see the counter rapidly descend as my computer sidekick fires off the eight AG Pods I have and the four other bean bags leaving me with only the two high explosives and the flashbang.
Out of twelve shots, six incapacitate or remove combatants from the field. All of a sudden they go from thirteen to seven. Lucky number seven, again.
I smile at myself for a job well done. Unfortunately, with the pods exhausted, and half the Riot Boys and Girls (I’ve decided to rename them) floating off into the atmosphere, all I’m left with are my IP cannons, Kinetic Lance, and two very, very deadly options.
Domino and Luke are taking on three of them at once, each punching, jumping, and dodging in a ballet as beautiful as it is deadly. Luke is a marvel of a man. As his adrenaline pumps, he grows in size from an already impressive six-four to six-eight. His mass increases too while inhibiting his nimbleness at all if anything it increases. He dodges blows he can’t possibly see coming and lands counter punches at angles no one can hope to block. He loses his mind though, which is the downside. He runs purely on instinct and anger when he’s like this.
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