Inescapable Arsenal

by Jeffery H. Haskell

  Amelia, the radiation is not at dangerous levels yet, but there is something familiar in the pattern.

  The last time Epic picked up random radiation was also the last time we fought Danger.

  “Apple-man is dead, Epic, he blew himself up three miles above—” and now I have to eat my words. Sitting with his legs crossed and leaning against the cooling tower, is Apple-man, even eating an apple. What the hell is with him and apples? Well, this is easy enough. I can have him in orbit before he explodes.

  “ETA to detonation?”

  If his pattern is consistent, one minute.

  I slam into the ground next to Kate who stands a few feet away from him.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t the Savior of Las Vegas.” He’s sitting on the ground with his back up against the silo.

  “Bitter you didn’t get to kill three million people?”

  He shrugs. “Fish gotta swim. I blow up regardless of whether I get paid or not. I might as well get paid.”

  Interesting. He is implying a build up to nuclear fission is his power.

  “And what? You figure take out as many people as you can?” Kate asks.

  He shrugs again, “Life sucks.” He takes a bite of his apple then speaks with his mouthful, “Then you die. And you will. If you move me one inch.” That is when I notice he’s sitting on something. A pressure plate.

  “Epic, scan it.”

  Scanning… it is a pressure plate of some kind. I have identified c-4 bricks on his person. It is likely to assume if you move him, he will explode.

  “Kate, what do we do?”

  “I’m assuming if we move him those explosives will prematurely detonate him,” she says.

  “Bingo,” he says over a mouthful of apple. “It won’t be a kiloton but you know, enough to send this plant into immediate meltdown.”

  Anger wells up in me and I curl my fists involuntarily. How could he so casually consider this? I take a step forward. Kate puts a restraining hand on my shoulder.

  “How long do we have?” she asks.

  “Less than a minute.”

  She nods, passing me to kneel down next to him. “I’ve got this Amelia. Step back, just in case.”

  “No,” I yell, guessing what she plans. “He’ll explode as soon as you re-materialize. You won’t have time to teleport back.”

  “I know.” She glances over her shoulder at me, her green eyes big and wet. I grab her shoulder and hall her back.

  “I can hit him with an AG pod—”

  Fifteen seconds.

  He’s glowing now, my radar alarms scream at me as they approach dangerous levels.

  “There’s no time, Amelia.”

  “There’s always another way.”

  She vanishes from my grip and re-appears behind me.

  “Not this time.” She looks up into the sky, touches Apple-man and they both vanish.

  “No!” I kick the thrusters in full and charge my electromagnetic shielding to max.

  The sky lights up with a bright flash that polarizes my faceplate.

  Incoming shockwave, brace!

  The armor locks up and bucks as the concussive force blasts past me. I’m already at a thousand feet and based on the strength of the wave I’d guess she teleported maybe ten miles up. Wow. I knew she could do line of sight, it just didn’t occur to me she could go so far in one hop.

  “Epic, full scanners, find her! She survived. I know she did. Find her!”

  The spectrum is all screwed up by the detonation and subsequent release of radiation. If she managed to survive the explosion she might be unconscious and falling. If she didn’t teleport away in time she’s gone. Tears well up in my eyes and my heart thuds. No. I won’t accept that. She lived.

  Amelia, I am sorry but it is unlikely she survived.

  I try the radio but the signal can’t go anywhere because of the interference. “Dammit, Kate,” I scream in my helmet. This isn’t happening. She’s alive dammit. Alive.

  Amelia, I cannot find her.

  Think, Amelia, what would she do? A heartbeat to teleport, less really. Not enough time for her to lock on me or Tigress. So a short-range teleport only… she would have…

  “Epic, full burn, she went up.”

  Amelia, do not get your—

  “Epic, she went up. She teleported up, I know it.” The thrusters whine with power siphoning what they need from the ZPFM. Five thousand feet… ten thousand… Come on Kate… come on! If she made the second port she’d be falling. She wouldn’t be able to teleport anywhere else without carrying over her velocity. She’d be trusting me to catch her. The way I should have trusted her to do this. Dammit, Kate, where are you?

  I’m having trouble seeing, my eyes are clouding up and I can’t read the HUD. “Anything?”

  No… Wait.

  Yes! “Where?”

  It is faint, but I am picking up an intermittent signal that may be her transponder… marking a trail.

  I go full over, almost one-eighty and three miles down to the west. The g-forces elicit a grunt from me and my vision goes black on the edges. My manipulators do most of the work but it still bleeds through.

  Amelia, there is not much time, hurry!

  The airspeed indicator blasts past Mach One as we race gravity. Every second brings us closer and finally her transponder signal comes through clean enough for a lock on. It’s her! Oh, thank you, God. She’s a thousand feet from impact and falling fast. Five seconds…

  Four…

  Three…

  “Full break!” I slam forward in my suit as I throw the thing in reverse. The maneuver slides me through the air under her, I roll over, catch her and floor it, going down and then pulling five g’s to bring us back up. “Come on,” I mutter through my clenched teeth. The ground zooms up at us and if… I grunt as the g’s level off and we’re skimming the ground at three feet. Rolling over again, I put my back between us and the ground and pull up and head back to the plane at a sedate one hundred.

  “Kate?”

  Amelia, her vitals are low.

  It’s then I see. She’s burned black from head to toe. Her beautiful hair is gone and her skin peels off as we go. I scream in my suit, then bite down to keep the bile down.

  “Doctor, I need you on the plane right frigging now. You hear me? Right now!”

  We land next to the stairs for the Jet. Teddy looks up from one of the soldiers where he’s bandaging a wound. “Tommy, you’re in charge. Keep the team here until federal forces arrive. Assist the soldiers as best you can. I’m taking Kate to the hospital.”

  “Go, we got this.” His encouragement helps.

  “What about the rest of the wounded?” Teddy asks.

  “F—” I bite down on my own tongue to not finish that word. “Are any of them going to die in the next two hours?”

  He shakes his head as he runs toward the plane. The engines are powering up sending a spray of dirt and sand into the air. “Then they’ll be fine. Get on.”

  I climb up into the cabin, holding Kate as delicately as I can. I can’t even look at her, she’s so badly burned. I feel like I’m holding a used piece of kindling, not a wonderful human being whom I love.

  “Sickbay,” I shout through clenched jaws. Four of the eight chairs rise up and flatten into beds. The walls switch from the outside view to monitoring vitals. Vitals that are almost nonexistent.

  “Come on, Teddy!” I place her down on the nearest bed as gently as I can. She convulses as I pull my arms away from her. I try to ignore the flesh sticking to my armor.

  “What is the best burn hospital in the country?”

  “Any hospital will do.”

  “Epic, Maricopa County General, full burn.”

  Affirmative.

  The jet leaps up with a lurch, Teddy manages to keep his feet by holding onto the grab bar running along her bed. When we level out and the acceleration ends, he goes to work. His aura improves her vitals, but only a little. I know some of how his power works. He increa
ses a person’s natural healing ability. How much and for what effect is dependent on the individual.

  Teddy busies himself doing everything he can. This is his area of expertise and I let him work. No matter how impotent I feel. I so badly want to help, but I don’t even know where to begin. He takes a pair of scissors and tries to remove what little of her clothes are left.

  “I don’t understand why she’s still alive?” He mumbles to himself when he finishes. Next, he sprays her down with an immobilizing foam with a powerful analgesic. Then he starts injecting her with drugs for pain and infection.

  Every second she lives gives me hope. Dang-it Kate, don’t die on me.

  Five minutes to the hospital.

  Epic’s message flashes on my HUD and I shake myself out of the malaise clouding my thoughts. There will be plenty of time for recriminations later, Amelia. For now, do your thing.

  “Epic, connect to the hospital's mainframe; I want Kate to have the best they can offer, okay?”

  Will do.

  I love Epic, but comforter he isn’t. I know he can’t lie and tell me she’s going to be okay and I need that right now. “Also, call Luke, tell him to get here fast.”

  Affirmative.

  The jet touches down with a bump and no sooner does the door open than a team of orderlies swarm on board to take her. Teddy yells out her vitals and information while conferring with the local doctor his own credentials. Within seconds she’s off and I’m alone on the plane.

  “Epic, send the jet back to HQ, have maintenance clean it up before returning to the team. Make sure they’re in the loop about what’s going on but I want them home, fed and showered before they show up here. Understood?”

  Amelia. Kate is strong. If anyone can beat the odds, it will be her.

  “Thanks, buddy. I hope you’re right. Get me out of this suit, please.”

  A half hour later I’m outside the burn center’s surgery ward, wheeling myself back and forth. I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing and since I do have to sit… practicing wheelies helps distract me. I have a full closet on the jet (thanks to Kate making me) so at least I have clean clothes to wear.

  “Amelia?” Luke's voice bursts over me like water through a dam.

  “Luke!” I whip around and roll right into him, not stopping until my arms are around his waist. Then I’m crying. I hate crying, but I can’t stop. I sob through the story of what happened. How I couldn’t think of a way to save her in time and now she’s in there, dying, and it’s all my fault. All my fault.

  “I’m sorry, Luke. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  He holds me throughout my outpouring. Adding in “It will be okay,” and “You did the best you could,” as words of comfort here and there. Intellectually, I know I did the best I could. Kate is still hurt, possibly dying, and that doesn’t change just because ‘I did the best I could’.

  “Of course I do. I’m sorry too, I should have been more patient. Amelia, you can’t do this alone. You can’t always be the person to fly into the sun. You’re one woman. A strong, beautiful, powerfully, scarily intelligent woman. But one woman all the same. You have to let others help you.”

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak. I really just want to rest here with my head against his chest and his arms around me with his hand running through my hair, telling me she will be okay. That is all I want…

  I blink to life with a start. The waiting room is hyper-real as I startle awake. Luke is here with me, at some point he pulled me out of my chair to rest on him.

  “Luke?”

  “Amelia, you’re awake, here have some coffee.” He hands a Starbucks out to me. I take the cup even though I don’t drink coffee. It smells divine and I try a sip anyway. He put enough sugar, cream, and caramel in the cup to override the bitter coffee flavor. I grimace as I sip it, still too bitter, but it’s better than nothing… however, I eye a Coke machine down at the end of the hallway and make a mental note to swing by later. The warm cup is nice to hold, though. My hands are perpetually cold and having the hot coffee is like having them wrapped in warm gauze.

  “How is she?” I manage to whisper.

  “Better. Teddy came out and said if she can make it through the next twelve hours, she’ll most likely live. That was four hours ago, he hasn’t left her side since.”

  My stomach does flip-flops and though it is good news, we’re not out of the woods yet. Kate’s strong; I just need to keep telling myself that. She’s strong, superhuman, and just too damn pretty to die. A chuckle escapes my lips before I bite down on it.

  “What’s so funny?” Luke cocks his head to the side as he stares at me. It’s… awkward to have him so close trying to talk to me. It’s like he’s looking down at an errant child in his lap.

  “Nothing,” I mutter. No point in trying to explain Firefly to him. Almost six months of dating and we’re not all the way through the original Star Trek yet. Kate would get it, or at least she’d roll her eyes at me. I can almost hear her, “God Amelia, is everything so geeky with you?” That brings a smile to my face. Now we just wait… wait, pray, and hope. Please, God, let Kate be okay.

  Eight hours pass agonizingly slow. Epic hacks the hospital’s network for me so I can see the progress. I thought there would be a flurry of activity in her room. I’m not a huge fan of medical dramas but I’ve watched a few. I guess they’re as wrong about medicine as other shows are about science. Kate is wrapped head to toe in bandages. A tube down her throat helps her breathe, she has four IV’s plugged into her and a ton of monitors. Teddy, bless his soul, sits next to her, his hand on her thigh. He’s sleeping but I know his power works the longer he’s near someone, even if he’s asleep. If she’s alive, he’s the only reason.

  Still, no update. She lives, and that is good… for now. The question is, have I changed anything? When Pythia first told me about all this I laughed. Sure, she had some insight, obviously some power that allowed her to see things, like me needing a straw to drink while I was in the armor…. But… what if she can see the future? What if I have doomed the human race? Then Kate will have almost died for nothing.

  I whip out my smartphone and text Carlos for the tenth time.

  Kate is hurt badly. Thought you would want to know. I need to talk to you. Please message me back. —WheelsMcShooter

  I’m not sure who may be listening and there is no point in putting him in any more danger than needed. Or maybe I need a reminder of the simpler times. When my biggest concern was figuring out how to crack the temperature tolerance on my titanium matrix and beating Carlos in one of our all night Halo marathons.

  The simple life.

  I put the phone away and stare down the hall again. Pythia said there were two paths. But that was months ago. I shake my head, I don’t believe in fate or destiny. Maybe there is such a thing, it isn’t like I know all that is knowable… but… if the future can be seen, then there is no free will. And if there is no free will then what are we doing here? Going through the motions like puppets? I shook my head. No. That couldn’t be true.

  What was true, for good or ill, I’d done this. My team, my responsibility. All here with me waiting to see if Kate makes it. I close my eyes and rub the bridge of my nose.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Tessa asks. Luke is off getting grub for everyone, Fleet is conked out on the couch, and Monica is with her parents. She asked to go and who am I to say no? They’ve been out of town for a week and she wanted to show them the good news.

  “They’re not worth that much,” I tell her.

  “Still, if you want to talk…”

  I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Tessa is a tough-talking, no-nonsense woman. Whoever she might have been before prison, she was a pretty stoic woman now. She wasn’t prone to sharing her emotions or asking others to share theirs. I wish Monica was here. At least then I’d feel like I had a friend. I chuckle at that since Monica has never been overly friendly to me.

  “Thanks, Tessa, I appreciate i
t. I’m just worried.”

  “We all are. Kate’s tough, though, she’ll pull through.”

  I nod. Will she? There’s tough and then there’s only human. And while Kate’s powers make her the pinnacle of human perfection… she isn’t invulnerable or even semi-invulnerable.

  “It keeps coming back to free will. Do we have it?” I can tell my statement catches her off guard. She slips her legs under her, resettling on the chair.

  “No. We don’t,” she finally says.

  I raise an eyebrow at that, she can’t know that, not for sure. “Explain?”

  “Things happen to us and we react. Then, later on, we act, thinking we are making our own choices, but really we’re just reacting to the bad stuff that is already happening. So no, I don’t think we have free will. But I also don’t think there is anything we can do about it.”

  I nod. It’s a surprisingly logical argument from her. Only, I don’t buy it. “The fact that we’re having this conversation proves free will exists. Animals run on instincts. They have no choice in the decisions they make. A wolf sees you running in the woods he will run you down. That’s instinct, pure and simple. We’re not wolves. We get to choose. Maybe we don’t always choose carefully, or maybe we choose wrong time after time thinking we’re choosing right. But we do get the choice.”

  She shrugs at me, “Maybe. All I know is life feels like a sick joke half the time. When my mom called the cops on me for— what happened…” Alarms flashes on her face like she said something she wasn’t supposed to. I let her figure it out without asking. I don’t know all the details of her life, just the stuff since she was eighteen. “I never felt like I could go home. Never felt like I had any choice. I started stealing to stay alive. After that everything just snowballed into eventually running with Vixen and her crowd. What choice did I have as a kid on the run, go to jail?”

  “It happened eventually.” I point out. She scowls at me.