Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “Hm. Did they do that from across the damned world?” Passerini asked, leaning to put his knuckles on the table. “From … Minnesota, right? That’s where they are?”

  Graves shrugged, but there was a glittering in his eyes. “I doubt it.”

  Passerini frowned. That didn’t seem like a full answer, but it got to the core of the question. “Where are they, then?”

  “No idea, sir,” Graves said. “But close, I’d assume.”

  Passerini eyed the screen. “You think she’s got people in Revelen? Unrelated to her grandfather?”

  “Great-grandfather,” Graves said. “And it doesn’t seem out of the question, based on what we know of her … associates.”

  “Sounded like you were about to call them something else,” Passerini said, mulling that.

  Colonel Graves shifted where he stood then smiled. “Well … you have to admit, between this and that Scotland business, which sounded … immensely hairy … they seem willing to follow her anywhere.”

  “Loyalty,” Passerini said, nodding. “That’s admirable. But lots of dangerous people have inspired loyalty, colonel. Seems like this Sienna Nealon is no exception.”

  “She’s definitely dangerous,” Graves said, a little too quickly. “But it would seem to me … on the surface anyway … there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Unless you believe everything the FBI says about her?” The look he gave Passerini was full of significance.

  Passerini stared at Graves. It was tough to tell whether the colonel had been briefed in on what had happened in January, when the FBI had appropriated the Department of Defense’s top metahuman asset and tried to use him as a battering ram to crush Sienna Nealon. That had left Passerini in the unenviable position of trying to free Colonel Warren Quincy from police custody in Minneapolis after some sort of fracas at a computer server facility. “You seem to be quite the fisherman, Colonel Graves.”

  “Well, I always have my ear to the ground, sir,” Graves said, turning his attention back to his console.

  “Oh, yeah?” Passerini stood with his arms on the back of his chair, squeezing the faux leather. Pleather? Hard to say. Passerini wasn’t much of an interior decorating guy. “What do you hear coming now, Graves?”

  “Trouble,” Graves said, pausing from his tapping at the keyboard. Damn, he was fast. “Lots and lots of trouble. The Theodore Roosevelt carrier group will be in position by tomorrow night, sir. And Ramstein is launching the last flight of Raptors now. They’ll tank over Poland and be in position within hours.”

  “Spooling up,” Passerini said, with a taut feeling in his stomach. This was the first war he’d ever quarterbacked, and it was moving way too fast for his liking. With a glance at his watch, he wondered how long it would be before the first contacts. Not long, if he gave the order. Soon, he’d have to call the president, which was not something he was looking forward to. Better to postpone that a few minutes, hope the situation changed. Because there was no part of what was coming that looked like an advantage to Passerini.

  But then, if there was someone who did see an advantage in a brewing war … Passerini would not have wanted to know that grim, nasty son of a bitch.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Dave Kory

  “There’s gonna be a war,” Dave singsonged under his breath as he typed, readying the headline for his piece on the alleyway thing that they’d all just watched live. Sure, the whole country had apparently seen it, but now they needed context and a chance to revisit and reframe the experience. An explainer article was just the thing to help them emotionally process the event.

  Plus flashforce.net would soak up the clicks in the process. If Dave could have made it a listicle, with its myriad clicks, he would have, but the “Thirteen Times Sienna Nealon Murdered the Hell Out of People,” currently up on the home page would probably fill that quotient.

  “Hey, boss,” someone said, and Dave kept typing. “TVs are flickering again. I think we’re about to get—”

  “DO NOT ADJUST YOUR TELEVISION SETS. THE FOLLOWING IS BEING BROUGHT TO YOU LIVE FROM THE NATION OF REVELEN.”

  “Whoa,” Dave said, spinning in his chair as the picture resolved, fuzzily, into something like a traffic camera shot. There were army trucks rolling by on the street, and Dave just stared. Why would they interrupt everything for this—

  “Hey, look,” Sylvia Hunt said, pointing at the screen. “On that rooftop.”

  Dave stared. There was definitely something moving on the roof. A human figure, kinda tiny, getting slowly to its feet—

  “Ermagerd,” Holly Weber said, “that’s her.”

  A little buzz ran through the office, and Dave shook his head. “Okay, okay. Who’s got the live feed updates on this?”

  “Yo,” Steve Fills said and dove into work on his laptop.

  “We’re looking for story ideas, people,” Dave said, smiling, staring at the live feed. “Remember—clicks. Traffic. Get people in, addict them to the narrative because it fulfills some need in them, and they’ll keep coming back.” He snapped his fingers and focused all his attention on the TV. “Let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Lethe

  “You shouldn’t have left this to Krall,” Lethe said, arms folded in front of her. They were standing in the Situation Room, and the reports were flooding in.

  Also flooding: the storm drains. Thanks to Krall.

  “Yes, I should go out there myself and lead a manhunt while we ratchet up to war with the most powerful nation the world has ever known,” Hades said, smarting off without thinking as he stared at the map table. He sent her a sly smile without moving much. “That would be the best use of my time, you think?”

  “Well, you were never much of a strategic thinker, so … yeah, probably,” Lethe said.

  “We can’t all claim as much battlefield experience as you, my daughter,” Hades said. “Which reminds me—I finally saw Wonder Woman while you were gone.”

  “And?” Lethe asked, impatience gnawing at her to get back to the discussion at hand.

  “She reminded me of you, with the World War I business,” Hades said. “And the idealism.”

  “I lost my idealism a long time ago,” Lethe said, arms wrapping more tightly around her ribcage.

  “I am not so sure of that,” Hades said, straightening his back and rising off the table to face her. “What is your objection to sending Krall to handle this business with Sienna?”

  “Krall is going to do her level best to kill Sienna,” Lethe said. “That is my objection.”

  Hades blinked a couple times. “Of course she is. You didn’t think I knew this when I sent her? You think I am blind in my advancing age?”

  Lethe did some blinking of her own. “You knew Krall was going out there to kill her … and you sent her anyway? After my only granddaughter? Nearly the last of your line?”

  Hades just shrugged with one shoulder, as though this topic were not worthy of two shoulders of shrug. “Did you think the time of testing was over merely because she was here?”

  “Yes,” Lethe said, “I assumed that if you made her crown princess, the testing was over.”

  “Well, it is not,” Hades said.

  “That’s damned cold.”

  “Why?” Hades asked, seeming genuinely perplexed. “I gave her every advantage. She refused the serum. Had she taken it, this would all be trivial, yes? Perhaps she will learn from this experience. Or … Krall will kill her.” He turned back to the table and leaned down. “I think I am getting to the age where I might need reading glasses. Can you see what this says? I can’t tell if it’s a smudge or I’m actually going blind.” He moved his finger over the table. “Oh. Hah. It’s a smudge. Whew.”

  “I didn’t want your serum, either,” Lethe said. Rage was simmering behind her eyes, but she was very adept at keeping her feelings to herself by now.

  “Yes, well, perhaps you, too, will regret that decision before the end,” Hades said without giving her so m
uch as a look. “She will be fine. Or she won’t. Her loyalties are suspect.” He flicked a glance at Lethe, then toward a monitor that showed a display of Bredoccia. “A night on the town … that’s what young people like to do with their time, isn’t it?” He grinned. “See the sights? Have adventures? Why, she’s practically in her element now. Probably much less uncomfortable than she was hanging out up here with aging relatives. It’s almost like home for her now, hm?”

  Lethe ground her teeth and looked away. “You can be a real bastard sometimes, Dad.”

  “Frequently, yes,” Hades said. “I think a night in the doghouse, being hunted … it will be good for her.” He waved a hand toward the Bredoccia skyline. “A tour of the city under her own power. Perhaps she will see the Dauntless Tower up close, hm? See the crowning jewel of what we have achieved here. And at dawn, we will see which of them returns. Her or Krall.”

  Lethe just stared at him for a long moment. “Are you still testing me? My loyalties?”

  Hades cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do I need to?”

  “You keep this shit up, you just might.” She turned her back on him as he turned, seemingly without care for what had just transpired, and went back to studying his maps.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Sienna

  It was like being back home again, complete with being chased by people who wanted to kill me.

  Ah, Revelen. This was how I’d always figured it would be coming here. So nice to have things play to my expectations.

  Not.

  I flexed everything as I got to my feet on the rooftop, taking my sweet time. My body was reading out damage reports with every ache and pain, and they were extensive if not heavy. Lots of minor things—a tweaked neck, a muscle pain in my right thigh and right butt cheek (from landing on them, I assumed).

  Nothing major. Yay.

  Downside: I didn’t have any weapons. And an unarmed Sienna was an unhappy Sienna. Especially when she was being pursued by metas. I flexed my right hand. That hurt, too. Either I’d dragged it along the tunnel edge or landed on it, probably the latter because it felt more like bone pain or bruising and there was no evidence of scrapes or lacerations.

  “Another exciting day in the life of Sienna Nealon,” I said, looking around. The skyline of Revelen was everywhere around me, from the several-story apartment buildings that dotted what looked like the majority of the old town to the sprawling new high-rises that were starting to take over a significant chunk of the real estate in downtown. “Why doesn’t anyone ever run a profile on me that talks about the glamorous life of a superhero?” I flexed my back, which was tight and achy, probably from the rough landing. “Oh, right. Because it sucks to be me.”

  I looked around a little more. Staying still wasn’t going to do me any good, not for very long at least. With an entire army on my trail, I was pretty well destined to have to leave here soon.

  The problem was, which way should I even go? Without some drive to go in a specific direction, I could just as easily lay down right here and what the hell difference would it make?

  I cracked my back. Was this what getting old felt like? All these aches and pains?

  Nah. This was just what being Sienna felt like.

  A whine in the distance caused me to perk my ears up. It sounded strange, mechanical. I couldn’t place the sound, though it was vaguely familiar. I frowned, concentrating. It was either quiet or distant, and I couldn’t decide which.

  The question was answered for me a moment later as a quad-copter drone popped up above the edge of the rooftop across the street, four rotors buzzing and a little camera glinting at me in the street lights.

  “Aw, hell,” I said, turning to make a break for it as it shot toward me. Not even a doubt if it had seen me; its unerring path in my direction made me certain it had.

  I broke into a run, heading across the rooftop. I was in the old town, with its level rooftops spreading out in front of me for a mile or so. I could maybe out-deke this thing until I found something appropriately heavy to throw at it. Knock it out of the sky, then I’d be down to worrying about hiding again—

  Another drone erupted from the alley ahead, and I halted my forward momentum with a slide that ended with me catching myself by the fingertips before going completely over the side.

  Okay. That direction was out.

  I looked right, set to surge that way. It also presented flat rooftops, with just a little variation. I could parkour, I could run, I could jump, maybe escape that way—

  A few shapes appeared in the distance, over the rooftops, and for a second I mistook them for drones.

  Nope.

  They were flying soldiers with rifles.

  “Sonofa,” I said, all the air bursting out in a hopeless sigh. “I have had about enough of this Übermensch army shit.”

  Only one direction left to run. I turned my head and started to go that way, emitting another mental sigh as I did so.

  Downtown.

  I was heading downtown.

  And the rooftops I could safely jump were going to run out in the not too distant future, leaving me with an unenviable choice.

  Surrender, leaving myself to the tender mercies of General Krall and, perhaps, if I survived those, eventually, my grandmother and great-grandfather, and whatever that entailed.

  Or maybe a leap somewhere ahead that there was no way I was going to be able to make, followed by a fall that I might not be able to survive.

  “Yep,” I muttered, leaping from the edge of my rooftop to the next, clearing it with ease in spite of a six-foot differential in heights—not in my favor. “This is why they don’t make a glamorous ‘day in the life’ documentary on me.” I pumped my arms and legs, taking my speed up to full as the sweat started to roll unasked down my forehead, sprinting through the warm, Revelen night. “I’ve never had a glamorous damned day in my life.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  “The only easy day was yesterday.” That was the motto of the Navy SEALs, and I kept repeating that thought because damn if it didn’t hold the ring of truth. Except yesterday wasn’t so easy, either, because I’d gotten my ass handed to me by General Krall, the spider-monkey. And if we were looking to the day before, well, that had been one where I’d woken up in a prison hospital in America after a different ass-kicking—

  Actually, looking back … yeah, there hadn’t really been any easy days for a while.

  I leapt another rooftop, the gradual rise as we got closer to downtown becoming a growing worry. The next roof ahead looked like it was across an avenue and at least a story higher. I gauged it at a ten-foot change in altitude after a fifty-foot jump. With a six-story drop if I missed it.

  No pressure.

  “I really, really miss you, Gavrikov,” I said as I took a deep breath and leapt for my life, legs pinwheeling in empty air as though I could run without a surface.

  I hit the side of the building like a bug on a windshield, fingers clawing at the lip that surrounded the rooftop. I managed to gain purchase, but the impact of my body against the wall jarred me. Thankfully not enough to make me relinquish my grip, but the second of falling panic definitely reminded me that a) I was alive and b) that whole alive thing? A very tenuous proposition.

  Clamping my fingers down on the edge, I used my feet to do the heavy climbing, leaping in a flip as though the edge of the rooftop were a gymnastics bar. I came down in a roll and didn’t stop to reflect on the terrible, terrible life choices that had led me to being chased across an Eastern European rooftop by drones and flying supermen with guns. Because it was self-evident that said choices were indeed terrible if they’d led me here.

  I alighted my gaze on the rooftop ahead. It was a two-story hop up, at least a twenty-foot vertical climb from the one I was on. Getting closer, legs pumping as they carried me toward the growing chasm, it started to look as though whatever cross-street was below was some sort of freeway, the gulf of air between the buildings enormous.

  I looked left, then
right. The flyers were closing on me, rifles in hand. There had to be a good dozen of them just in view on those sides. A couple were smiling. They had the lay of the land before, had realized what I was running myself into.

  A dead end. Or just me being dead, and thus, the end.

  “Motherf—” I grunted, kicking my speed up to absolute maximum. My legs were pinwheeling with constant fury, and I didn’t think that I could have run any faster if Death itself was nipping at my heels. Which … technically was now sort of true, if only by proxy, since his ass had likely stayed at the castle, the bastard. He could have at least had the basic courtesy to hunt me down and kill me himself.

  No. Maybe he hadn’t intended the killing part. I could believe—rather easily—that Krall was taking the initiative on this. The alternative was believing that the last family I had on this planet, other than Reed, was trying to murder the shit out of me.

  Then again, given what my mother did when I was a kid … maybe that wasn’t so hard of a leap. Unlike what waited ahead of me.

  The gaping chasm loomed ahead, the next building rising high as if to taunt me. You can’t make it, it seemed to say, adding in the Neener neener neener! that kids use to taunt when something was particularly vicious or out of reach. Okay, maybe it didn’t do that, but I added it myself in my head because—this gap.

  Yeah. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to make this jump. And even if I did, a building or two ahead was a fifteen- or twenty-story residential tower that was all glass surfaces. And me without my Spider-man powers. (No, I never had Spider-man powers, it’s a joke, come on, keep up.)

  Couldn’t go left. Couldn’t go right. Couldn’t go back.

  Forward and up was going to result in me going forward and down, hard, so …

  Might as well go forward and down, but softly.