By the time he was close enough to enter, it was already closing itself again.
Felix slipped inside as it clanged shut behind him, the massive locks engaging and closing them in.
Andrea Prime, Kit, and Miu were present in the room, as well as the command center crew.
“What the hell is going on?” Felix asked, moving to his “captain’s chair” in the room. It was center stage in the middle of the massive wall display of cameras, feeds, and information.
“They bombed the building,” Andrea said, coming up beside him. “Twice. No deaths, but a lot of wounded. Felicia’s machines are patching them up so they’ll live, but… you’ll need to spend points to get them back to full capacity.”
Felix grunted at that. “Of course. It’s part of my duty to them. Did we engage our Telemedics?”
Kit came up to stand on his left. “We did. They worked splendidly. We had a full triage and medical evacuation within twenty seconds of the blast. They’re the reason we have no casualties.”
“Perfect.”
The Telemedics had been a late-night thought of his own.
He had kept giving superpowers to those who already had them. He’d never stopped to think about giving powers to those who had none.
Putting out a call to those who, one, wanted to be on the medical staff, and two, wanted to receive a superpower to do that job, they’d gotten a large number of volunteers.
Each volunteer had been granted the power of teleportation for themselves and whoever they were touching. Then he’d given them a miscellaneous power, as he’d called it. They were all given the gift of a full education in medicine in the span of an hour.
As much of an education as you could get going through medical school, that is.
It was a strange superpower to give out, the knowledge of medicine and health.
Pretty much like a damn skill book out of a video game. A superpower granted by virtue of what was contained between the covers.
No one complained about suddenly being the equivalent of a medical doctor from it.
Finally, each was given a power cell from Lily and told to activate it when they were in danger. It would activate a shield for about thirty seconds that would keep them from harm.
They weren’t issued weapons, though, as their primary function was to get in and get out.
And thus the Telemedic team was born. A group of twenty men and women given superpowers specifically to operate in a single function.
They’d practiced extensively but had had no actual experience until today.
“What else do I need to know?” Felix asked. Several of the cameras at the entrance and the front lobby were down.
“They’ve taken up position and are sieging us. There’s been nothing on any police, fireman, or government frequencies. Lily is pretty sure a blackout has been purchased, as she can’t even reach her contacts.” Kit closed up her tablet and tucked it under her arm.
“I see. Who’s leading the defense?”
“Ioana and Lily. They’re working on shoring up defenses as well as probing at the attackers.
“Some of the Telemedics are taking it on themselves to snag wounded enemy combatants. They’re being dropped off with… with Andrea’s guests.”
“Guests?” Felix asked, turning his head to Andrea.
“My Death Others. They all came in today. We’re going to reabsorb them back into ourselves. Welcome them home. They’ve been gone a long while. Some died, but most lived.”
“Death Others,” Kit said, not really understanding.
“I had to fill an Other up with all of our deaths. And then send them out into the world. So many deaths piled up hurt us. We had to do it more frequently when we worked.”
“Right. I take it your Death Others greet these wounded enemies with smiles and cookies?” Felix asked.
“They’re… questioning them. Ask them to sign an Indentured contract. Then feed them into the sausage machine if they decline. Alive.”
“Oh. They sound like they’d be great to have a game of Risk with. Let’s go have a chat with them when this is over.”
“When this is over?” Kit inquired.
“It’s not like we didn’t plan for this.” Felix tapped the communication button on his display next to his chair. Then he hit the dropdown list and selected the R&D lab. “Mr. White, Felicia. I need the Wardens.”
“Sending them up as soon as we’re able. We put them through a series of trials earlier and they’re still charging,” came back the response. He wasn’t sure who it was, but it didn’t matter.
Felix held in a sigh. He didn’t need the Wardens right now, but he wanted to use them.
“Wardens?” Miu asked from directly behind him.
“Wardens. I’d… tell you what they are, but why spoil the surprise?
“You were welcome to come with me when I was doing the department goal setting and those damned individual development plans the other week. This all came up then.”
“I had enough of those tasks when we went through my own department.” Miu had been nonplussed with the corporate mandates he kept laying out.
“Andrea?”
“Mmm?” asked the Beastkin, turning her head to him.
“I could really go for some pancakes. Did you get that tiny kitchen set up in here?”
“Pancakes!” shouted the Beastkin, who scampered off to a corner.
“You spoil her,” Kit muttered.
“That I do.”
Chapter 24 - Escalation -
The smell of pancakes cooking filled the room as everyone watched the screens.
His people held the security hall as it was intended to be used. A narrow choke point with overlapping fields of fire.
The enemy had taken the lobby and were attempting to do the same thing further in. Except that there was no cover, and there were murder holes from reinforced security boxes that lined the lobby.
It left their would-be attackers just barely inside the lobby, and his own people at the end of the security hall, and in the kill rooms.
Occasionally, one side or the other would put some lead down the security hallway or through the lobby.
“They’ve already lost twenty or so people. Most of those were in the initial push,” said one of the techs at a terminal. “We’ve got about forty wounded.
“All satellite locations have reported in and are in their bunkers. Everyone is accounted for.”
“Outstanding,” Felix said around a grin. Leaning forward over his display, he pulled up the overhead map and centered it over the security hall.
“They’ve disabled all the cameras they can reach, so we’ve got nothing on the outside. Initial reports are that there is only minor damage outside of the lobby, though.” The tech who was speaking fed an overlay to the map Felix was looking at, marking off broken cameras, problems, and assumed positions.
“That was where the bombs went off? The lobby?” Felix looked up to the monitors on the wall. The lobby was charred, smoking, and full of fragments of people and objects.
“Both of them. Yes, sir.” The tech dropped the conversation and turned to the tech closest to him and started up a different conversation.
Something blurred across the video feed in the lobby. That same blur burst down the security hall.
Then stopped dead in its tracks in the center of the staging area at the end of the security hall.
It was a man in a dark spandex suit. He’d been picked up off the ground and was suspended in midair.
He rotated slowly in one direction as his legs pumped furiously at the air.
One of Felicia’s tricks, he guessed. He wasn’t sure what it was set up for, but it seemed as if its goal was to take whoever stepped on it and hold them in the air for a time.
One of the ceiling tiles shifted and a two-inch-long rod stuck out from the crack. It segmented itself and then extended rapidly, plunging a circular tip into the man’s back.
Electricity crackled from the en
d of it, discharging straight into the man.
His mouth sprang open soundlessly as the room flickered and flashed.
“Do you want the audio feed, sir?” asked one of the techs.
“To what, hear him scream? No thanks, I’m not that twisted.”
The electrical current cut off as abruptly as it started. The man hung limply, the only sign of life his eyes rolling around wildly in his head.
Retracting into itself, the segmented electric rod disappeared.
The floor rippled now, a number of floor plates sliding around. Then the man fell. He vanished into the open ground and was no more.
“I kinda feel like a Bond villain. I just need a cat sitting in my lap. I could scratch their ears while I chuckle at the fact that a superhero just fell into a damn pit trap.
“This is so cliché, it hurts,” Felix said, shaking his head.
“Clichés tend to be founded in reality.” Kit sighed and opened up a different screen on one of the unused monitors. “I believe Miu told you this previously, did she not?”
On that monitor was the appropriately named sausage room. It was only accessible by the main elevator, and it was rather deep down. If he had to guess, Felicia had put it roughly a hundred floors below.
Surprised he didn’t go splat when he reached the bottom.
The man who had fallen through the floor was being strung up by his arms and legs by darkly dressed Andreas.
The Death Others.
They worked efficiently, coldly. A man in a chair was being questioned, while a different woman was sitting in front of a desk with what could only be an Indentured contract in front of her.
A cart was brought in by a normal Other, dressed in the standard Legion uniform the Others had adopted.
Moving quickly to the sausage machine, she started pulling down the long ropes of what used to be a human.
Once the cart was loaded up, she happily waved at the Death Others, and left.
The woman at the table signed the form and then laid her head down on the desk and started crying.
“Lovely. Yep, Bond villain.”
Andrea happily dropped a plate of pancakes into his lap and handed him a fork. “Pancakes!”
Tanker appeared in the lobby, running dreadfully slow.
“Looks like the speedster was the one who was supposed to soften things up.” Kit tapped at her tablet and focused one of the cameras on Tanker.
He trundled along as bullets slammed into him continuously. Even Tanker couldn’t take that kind of punishment without injury. His arms came up to protect his face as he stomped along.
Bouncing off a wall, he stumbled into the security hall and kept moving. When he came out into the open area that the speedster had been trapped in, Tanker veered off to the left blindly.
“Oh, he missed the pit trap.” Felix took a mouthful of pancakes and watched as Tanker closed in on a barricade full of his people.
A squad of supers stepped out of the barricade and surrounded Tanker.
Off to one side of the camera, Felix could see Lily and Ioana supervising.
Must be trying to give the newbies a taste of actual combat. Considering the Telemedics, it’s not a terrible idea.
A woman with a thin sword stepped forward and blasted a lightning-fast thrust into Tanker’s side.
The sword skittered across his skin, drawing a line of blood but nothing else. The swordswoman danced away as Tanker’s arms came out, trying to grab her.
One of her partners stepped in and unleashed a flurry of kicks into Tanker’s knees and thighs.
As soon as the big, nigh invulnerable hero turned, Eva’s brother Evan stepped up and laid his hands on Tanker’s back.
Lightning coursed through the hero at a level that could probably power an entire city.
Tanker arched his back, his body stiffening under the onslaught.
Evan kept using the man as a grounding wire before he finally took two steps back, falling to one knee.
Lily waved a hand at the young man and he was dragged backward out of the combat area by a burst of rune script.
Tanker started to fall over, his body still locked in an upright position from the shock. Then he somehow managed to take a few stumbling steps backwards.
The swordswoman stepped in again, her blade dancing out into Tanker’s face. Once, twice, thrice.
Then she was gone again before Tanker could react.
Turning, Tanker started to flee towards the security hall.
Apparently, that was a signal, as Ioana and Lily stepped in at that point.
Lily smashed Tanker to the ground with an explosive concussion. Ioana casually walked up to the man and started kicking him in the head repeatedly.
Ten kicks in and Tanker’s arms fell to his sides, unmoving.
Ioana visibly sighed and then looked off camera and gestured at someone. As she walked away from the unconscious man, Felix waited to see what would happen next.
“It’s like watching a movie.” Felix happily finished off one of his pancakes and dug into the next.
The floor around Tanker flowed, and carried him to the center of the room. Much like the previous attacker, Tanker fell down the hole and vanished.
Looking to the other screen, Felix waited. He really wanted to see what happened when they arrived.
After several seconds, Tanker was there, suspended in midair. Felix couldn’t see how he’d arrived, but he assumed there was a hole in the ceiling.
Huh. So, the same way in which the first was caught is the way they don’t go splat.
Two Death Others walked up and began discussing the man. Even now, he was waking up. On top of being as strong as he was, he apparently had a rapid healing factor.
Kit sucked in a sudden breath.
Felix’s eyes jumped back to the main screen.
The swordswoman was down on the ground writhing. Lightning arced from one limb to the other. Blood poured from her eyes, ears, and nose. Her teeth were locked together as she convulsed.
Smoke even wafted up from her body as if she were being cooked.
Lily and Ioana were both nearby but could do nothing, and looked on as she shook.
Focusing on the woman, Felix called up her ownership window and the idea of fixing her.
Name:
Victoria Volante
Power: Sword Mastery
Alias: Vicky, Swift Blade
Secondary Power: Expanded Senses
Physical Status:
Fatal Heart Attack, Electrocution, third degree burns
Mental Status:
Shock
Positive Statuses:
None
Negative Statuses:
Dying
Strength:
56
Upgrade?(560)
Dexterity:
88
Upgrade?(880)
Agility:
79
Upgrade?(790)
Stamina:
47
Upgrade?(470)
Wisdom:
58
Upgrade?(580)
Intelligence:
51
Upgrade?(510)
Luck:
45
Upgrade?(450)
Primary Power:
61
Upgrade?(6,100)
Secondary Power:
33
Upgrade?(3,300)
Status Correction: Fatal Heart Attack -> Healed
Correct Status? (15,000 points)
Seems cheap. Is it because a heart attack could be treated by a defibrillator?
Felix shrugged and waited for the lightning to dissipate. The moment it did, he hit the accept button to correct her status, then thumbed the communications button for the security hall.
“Get her up and moving. I don’t want to fix her again if I don’t have to.” Felix let go of the button.
Everyone in the security hall jumped at the sudden use of the communication system.
The martial ar
tist snagged Victoria and dragged her off into cover. The swordswoman, for her part, was still in shock, or so Felix guessed.
Not every day your heart explodes and gets instantly repaired.
As soon as she was behind cover, everyone refocused their efforts on the hallway.
Victoria lay there behind the shielding, staring up at the ceiling.
Not being able to spare her any more of his time, Felix turned back to the other displays.
His people waited calmly. Patiently. There was no reason to go charging out of the lobby and into whatever they’d prepared on the street. Everything they needed had been placed underground. Only the security hall and lobby were above.
The rest of the building was shipping, receiving, and an elaborate fake of a headquarters building.
Leaning back in his chair, Felix set the fork down on his plate. “Fantastic as always, Andrea.”
The mercenary clapped her hands together happily. “Thank you, dear!”
Snatching the plate from his lap, she skipped away gleefully.
“I guess now we wait for their next move. They’ve lost two elite agents, a group of lesser agents, and gained nothing. I can’t imagine the police can ignore this forever. We don’t have to go out there, but they do have to get in here if they want whatever they came for.
“Probably my head.” Felix folded his hands in his lap.
Curiously, Victoria remained lying where she’d been dragged, staring up at the ceiling.
An hour passed, with the occasional burst of gunfire from the lobby, but nothing changed. At some point, there would be a push or a retreat. It all came down to the opponent’s belief in themselves.
“This is boring,” Andrea said plaintively. “Can we play a game?”
“What game did you have in mind?” Felix asked. He was only barely paying attention to the screens. His people were unlikely to be hurt in any way, shape, or form.
The Wardens were hanging off to the side in a neutral, non-powered state, waiting for the call to be used.
“I dunno. What about a card game? That’d be fun.
“Lily wanted me to ask you to play a game the other day, but I think she was trying to trick me,” Andrea grumped, her fingers playing with a button on her jacket.
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