“I wouldn't mind a better place to take my breaks. It's better than sitting in the alley behind a restaurant, like I had to at my last job. I used to smoke, so we had to go back there.”
“Congrats on quitting.”
“I don't know if it's any better being hooked on coffee,” she said. “So what do you do?”
“I don't have any powers,” I said.
“Ha! I meant for a living.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm a researcher. Of supras actually, probably why I said that.”
“What do you research about supras?” she asked.
“Just historical stuff,” I said. “Histories, things they did. I'm thinking about writing a book, as soon as I research anything worth writing about. It's pretty slow going. And I don't have any crucial insight, so I've basically got nothing. Not even a title.”
“I'm sure you'll get there,” she said.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I work in a coffee shop.”
“I knew that.”
“Of course.”
“What else do you do? For fun?”
“Just stuff,” she said. “Regular stuff. Hiking. Going to the beach. Rock climbing. I mean, I only did that once, but I think it's something I could get into.”
“You go to school?”
“Just finished undergrad. Med school next.”
“Coffee business is strong if that doesn't work out.”
“It's not bad. You know Calliope? She has an office in the building. Kind of cool to see her around like it's no big deal.”
“Yeah, that is pretty cool,” I said.
“I don't get to see a lot of celebrities. I mean, every now and then Sentinel will fly past or whatever, but that's all.”
“That's probably a good thing. Better than being mixed up in a crime or a supra-battle.”
“I supposed,” she said. “I have to get back to work. Maybe I'll see you around.”
“Yeah, probably. I drink a lot of coffee.” I walked her back to the coffee shop.
“See ya,” she said and waved. I went up to my apartment.
My phone buzzed with incoming texts. I ignored them. I ended up falling asleep on the couch and having a weird dream. I woke up when Jen came in.
“I knocked,” she said. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just needed a nap.”
“The guys want to go out to the range and they want to bring you along, and they want me to bring the armor.”
“You can't move it now,” I said.
“I'll step out in the middle of the night.”
“How did you get it in here?”
“I brought it to the alley, came in and opened the patio door. Went back down and jumped it up here.”
“So you're going to run it out to the range?”
“No, Cal is going to rent a truck. We'll get it early hours and drive out to the range.”
“I'm concerned that the range is the perfect place to ambush heroes and that a bunch of supravillains will swoop in and kill us all. Or law enforcement.”
“I'm fairly certain we can handle cops,” Jen said.
“That's not a problem, I said. “The problem is that you can't fight cops the same way that you can fight bad guys, unless you're planning on killing a bunch of cops.”
“Worst case, we all teleport out of there, and I leave the armor behind.”
“Maybe Cal can make it a jump spot, the way he uses the coins,” I said. “Then you can jump back and get it later.”
“Yeah, maybe. You can ask him on the way to the range.”
“Why would I go?”
“Why wouldn't you?”
“Because I don't have powers.”
“You're part of the team. You're going.”
“I'm not cool with the accusations Fiver was throwing out.”
“I think you read that wrong, he was just having a little fun,” she said. “Come on out with us tomorrow. They won't bring it up again.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I'll come by around 4am,” she said. “Set an alarm.” She handed me my key.
“Nah, keep it. In case I sleep in.”
She put the key in her pocket.
“I'll see you tomorrow, then.”
July 2, 2021
I was up at 3:30. I let Jen in at 4. She got into the armor, and jumped down to the street in it where Cal was waiting in a small moving truck. The suit wasn't quiet, with the hiss of hydraulics and the thud as she reached the street, but it wasn't ungraceful for it's size. Cal shut the truck door as soon as Jen jumped down from the back. It only took her about two seconds to get in and out of the armor.
I shut the balcony door and ran downstairs. They made me sit in the middle of the trucks bench seat.
“This is totally not cool,” I noted. Cal started up and pulled away from the curb, shifting into 2nd gear. There wasn't a lot of room between the gearshift and my leg.
“This is dangerously close to sexual harassment,” I said.
“That's why I'm not sitting there,” Jen said.
“You both flatter yourselves,” Cal said. “But if you want to drive…”
“No, but can we get coffee soon?”
“Yeah, there's a place open early on the way.”
The trip took a little over five hours, with coffee and bathroom breaks. We ended up between Sequoia and Death Valley. The abandoned town stood alone in the desert at the end of a rarely used road.
Fiver and Simon were waiting, eating burgers on the hood of plain sedan.
“I expected something flashier than a Buick,” I said.
Cal parked right next to them.
We piled out.
“You guys going to be getting into costume?” I asked.
“Nah,” Fiver said. He was in shorts and a t-shirt, with a floppy hat. When he finished eating, he lathered himself in sunscreen.
“You need to put that on like a half hour before you go into the sun,” I said.
“This is my second coat. Going to be a hundred out here today, and you may have noticed I'm slightly paler than the rest of you.” He finished his lathering. “All right, let's do this.”
“Who's first?” Cal said.
“You and me versus Fiver and Catchpenny,” Simon said.
“Okay, we're home team,” Fiver said. “Nothing lethal.”
“I've got paint loads in all my guns,” Cal said.
Fiver headed into the town. Jen went into the back of the truck and came out in the Catchpenny armor. She followed Fiver behind some buildings.
“So check this out,” Cal said. He pulled out a grenade.
“Jesus!”
“It's tear gas.”
“Won't they just run away from it?”
Cal held up a wedge of wood. “Not after I shut all the doors on them and pin them inside.”
He winked and disappeared. I couldn't see everything that happened, but I got the story after each fight. Simon located Fiver and Catchpenny. Cal teleported to the building they were in, quickly pushing the wedges into the doors to hold them tightly in place. Once done, he pulled the pin on the tear gas canister, let it start to spill out, then teleported inside the building and left the tear gas behind. Just as he did, Fiver came smashing out through a window, and Simon unleashed his mental attacks. Fiver ran for cover. Cal cut him off and shot at him. Fiver somehow dodged the incoming paint rounds, and Cal teleported away.
Out of sight, Fiver was safe from Simon's attacks. Catchpenny charged. Cal intervened, appearing next to Simon and shooting at Catchpenny, but she ignored the paint and charged. Cal teleported away with Simon. Jen's voice came out, slightly altered and magnified.
“We going to call that a tie?”
They reset, and much of the training went the same way. No one could hit Fiver but Simon. Cal would try to get Fiver into the open. Simon could also hurt Catchpenny through her armor, but she could stay in the buildings. The close quarters didn't favor Simon, so he stayed clear. Cal kept trying t
o surprise Fiver, but he also could see him coming. Even when they switched sides, the story remained the same. Everyone could avoid Catchpenny, except for Simon, but he could put enough distance between him and her that she'd be vulnerable if she approached him. No one could hurt Catchpenny through the armor.
They went round and round, until about noon, resting often and talking tactics between rounds. By noon, it was well over a hundred. Simon had packed the trunk of his car with two coolers full of Gatorade and water. Jen was the only one not sweating; the armor was cooled by its life support systems.
“It recycles O2 as well,” Jen said. “I can stay underwater for as long as I need, which can be a long time, it doesn't move very well submerged.”
“What happens when the batteries run out?”
“It recharges as it moves, and it's mostly human powered. The system only works to enhance your movement.”
“How can it recharge when you move?” Simon asked.
“Basically, think about it like a windmill on a car, the faster the car moves the more energy it creates.”
“But there is a huge loss of energy in converting it from wind to electricity.”
“Yeah, and windmills make energy even when they're not moving. And you can put up as many windmills as you want to take advantage of the same wind, right? More solar panels don't limit the energy you collect. The energy for power armor basically works the same way. Human energy plus recycled energy equals total energy. Basically the person inside is the battery. I still get tired running and punching and getting hit and jostled inside.”
The leap in technology that the armor represented was doubtlessly amazing, but I still liked the net gun best.
At noon, we all crashed. Cal set up hammocks in the buildings, and we drove the cars in the middle of the town to keep them close and a little hidden. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep in the heat but it compounded the early morning exhaustion. Cal shook me awake.
“What time is it?”
“Five. We're about to have another go.” He handed me a Gatorade and I drank the whole 32 ounces.
Fiver was applying sunscreen despite sunset being around the corner. Shadows were already getting long around the ghost town. Jen was showing off the armor.
“Thermal is great at night after the temperature drops, but useless out here right now.”
“How does the grenade launcher work?” Simon asked.
“All the weapon controls are triggers. My dad wanted them to be able to work without power, so they're purely mechanical. The 40mm is pretty straight forward. Thumb trigger is used to turn the cylinder. You only have 6 rounds pre loaded. So if I had access to different types of rounds, I could click past them to get to the smoke and vice versa.”
“Not bad,” Simon said. “I think we can get some HE and smoke. Smoke may be more useful. HE is great out here, but in the city you'd do a lot of collateral damage. Smoke lets you shape the battlespace. It buys time for all of you to maneuver, and you can still track people through the smoke, right?”
“Yeah, on the thermals.”
“We've got to get your flamethrower working.”
“I'm less concerned with that than I am changing out the drill. The chainsaw is great, but the drill is meant for tunneling through walls. There's too many things underground to make it an effective way to travel, and can you imagine me tearing a hole into the street to escape?”
“You'd be hated by everyone in traffic for the next month while it gets fixed.”
“It's also a reminder of why my dad built the armor.”
“Tunneling into Fort Knox. It's Bond-villain stuff,” Simon said.
“It was pretty stupid. He could have made a ton of money doing underwater cable repair, or helping to anchor oilrigs to the ocean floor, but no. Steal a bunch of money you'll never be able to spend. As soon as I can get rid of it, it's gone.”
“What are you going to replace it with?”
“I don't know,” she said. “I'll have to wait for Fiver to find a robot-guy.”
“And I will,” Fiver said. “It's what I do.”
“Are we going do this again?” Cal asked.
“Let's do some coordinated training,” Fiver said. “Everyone on the same side. Practicing entering and exiting a building while under attack. Simon and Tom can be the bad guys.”
Cal outfitted us with rifles, helmets, and masks. He offered me a puffy jacket. Simon took one, so I did too. It was mother hot.
“Look, these are real firearms with live rounds. They're paint rounds, but up close they could be lethal, and will definitely hurt. Don't shoot anyone at point blank range. Except Fiver. And I guess Catchpenny. Don't shoot me at point blank range. Don't shoot each other or yourselves.”
“You know I know nothing about guns, right?” I said.
“Simon will run you through the basics for now. Three extra mags, 30 rounds each.” There was web gear to go with the rest. The extra magazines went into the pouches on the gear. We got a head start and headed out to find a building to occupy. Simon walked me through Guns 101 while we walked through the town. There were only about 20 buildings, most two stories, most lining a single street. At the end of the street was an intersection with a couple houses on each side. Simon picked a building and I followed him in. He lit two flares and set them so they wouldn't catch anything on fire, but they would still be out of sight.
“We'll go across the street, second story,” Simon said. He led the way to a room overlooking a street where the decoy heat signatures were.
“Sweet ambush,” I said. “But if Jen picks up that heat, won't she see us up here, too?”
“I'm counting on it,” Simon said. “The ambush isn't in the street, it's in the room. We'll have our backs to the wall near the street. When Cal pops in, we'll shoot him. You have that half of the room, I have this half. We'll still try to shoot him on the other guy's half, but I don't want you focused on the whole room, just half. We've got maybe a second to drop Cal, maybe two before he figures out we're waiting and leaves.”
“What about Fiver?”
“Just keep shooting at him if you see him. If he's dodging he can't run at us as fast and I'll try to knock him out with a mind bolt.”
“Why don't you knock Cal out with a mind bolt?” I asked.
“Cal I can shoot. Fiver I can't.”
It didn't take long. Cal appeared with Fiver who immediately dropped on the ground. Big splotches of red paint appeared on Cal as Simon shot him twice in the chest. He kept shooting as Fiver rolled, twisted and eventually stood up from the ground. I joined in, hitting only the walls and floor. I saw Fiver wince, then charge Simon. He stumbled as he dodged. I kept shooting, but had to move because he was maneuvering towards Simon and my angle was lacking.
Once within reach, Fiver disarmed Simon and then snatched my rifle as well. Then he collapsed.
“Nice,” Cal said.
Fiver came to within a few seconds.
“What the fuck, man! I thought you were supposed to be terrorists or something, not supras,” Fiver said.
“You thought wrong,” Simon said.
“I don't even mind the mind bolts, see what I did there?” Fiver said. “It's just that when you drop me I can bang my head on the way down. I might bang my teeth on a curb or something. Or get a concussion.”
“It might be possible that you can get brain damage from the mid bolts,” Simon said. “I mean, we don't know.”
Fiver nodded. “Maybe we should contain ourselves to things that leave bruises.”
Everyone agreed.
“Also, we need to get a radio for Catchpenny, because she's sitting outside missing the entire fight,” Cal said.
Everyone agreed to this as well, except for Jen who remained outside in the armor.
We carried on practicing, breaking from tactical after an hour so Cal could walk me through how to actually shoot and aim. He set up targets and collected the remaining paint rounds, then brought out a metal box of bullets and magaz
ines.
“You've got to load it if you want to shoot it,” he said. We went to work pressing bullets into the tops of magazines. My hands were aching after filling five.
Jen exited Catchpenny and loaded magazines as well. Cal gave us a full safety brief about pointing our weapons downrange at all times, not touching the trigger until we were going to shoot, all the basics. He also handed me big earmuffs for hearing protection, something that I wished I had when we were shooting in the building. Simon and Cal had little earplugs they wore. Simon and Fiver moved the cars to aim their lights at the targets. We shot as the sun dropped behind us, reloaded and shot some more. Simon joined in, but Fiver did not, choosing to spend his time watching the sunset away from us.
“He doesn't like to shoot?” I asked Cal.
“He likes it just fine, he's just not doing it now.”
“I'm sort of surprised to see him staring at the sunset.”
“Why? It's a beautiful sunset,” said Cal, before turning back to the range and snapping off a dozen shots.
We were finishing up as the last bit of color was fading from the sky.
“Incoming!” Fiver yelled. “Mask up!”
“What? What?” I said.
“Just put this on,” Simon said. He handed me the facemask we used for protection when we practiced. It covered my face, but left my eyes visible through the clear plastic. Jen disappeared into her armor. Simon ran for a building. Cal pulled on a mask, while Fiver pulled on a hoodie. He'd changed into jeans earlier. His mask, like Cal's, was a plain black ski mask.
A bolt of red from the west landed with a thunderous boom and posed dramatically on one knee. He stood up in his red costume, looking up slowly as he did. Sentinel stood about 20 yards away, still imposing. He was about 6'6, a tower of muscles that rippled as he strolled forward. He was the archetype, the embodiment of the comic superhero fantasy. He could fly, had super-strength, and was nigh invulnerable, though not nearly as invulnerable as the heroes of comic books. This was real life, after all. Sentinel also wasn't comic book pretty. He'd been around forever, and looked like it. He hadn't lost the muscle, but time had beat up his face. He'd been blessed with hair into his old age, but it was grey and thinning. I don't know that I would call him distinguished, but maybe women would.
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