May God be with you, Andrey prayed for the first time in what was years.
He knew this was not an ordinary fire. The walls of flame blazed, immune to the steady deluge of water streaming from the firefighters’ hoses. No, these flames were fueled by something more than the scorched earth beneath them.
His hands clenched, gripping the desk hard. He only knew one person who had such complete control over fire.
Nusku.
“So you’re a villain now, you son of a bitch?” he muttered, red-hot anger blurring his vision.
His rage momentarily distracted him from the news anchor’s voice, now playing through his ear bud. “…villains seized control of the outlying southwestern part of the town around three o’clock this afternoon,” the man said in emotionless Russian.
Villains. More than one, Andrey noted with a sinking stomach.
“The affected area includes a number of dachas and small homes inhabited by a couple hundred residents,” the newscaster continued. “According to a number of trapped townspeople able to communicate from within their homes, the villains haven’t committed any more murders. However, they continue to threaten to burn anyone who attempts to flee from their homes.”
Any more murders?
Andrey’s heartbeat thundered in his chest. Trubino was a small, insignificant town. There was only one plausible reason why villains would target it. To get to him.
“Iris. Give me more on the murders,” he commanded, eyes glued to the screen.
“Replaying broadcast from Radio Channel Two, 3:45 p.m.”
The screen turned black again as a female radio announcer’s voice blared in his ear. “An estimated twenty burned bodies were left in a deliberate pattern in a field near the temple of St. Sergius,” the announcer said in measured Russian. “Because a number of hostile Evolved blocked off access since the episode began, none of the victims have been identified or retrieved.”
Deliberate pattern. Was it a message to me?
“Iris. Anything more on the pattern of the bodies?” he demanded.
The female news anchor’s voice was cut off. “Replaying broadcast from Radio Channel Two, 3:49 p.m.,” the AI replied.
A different announcer’s voice resumed. “No information has been released on the configuration of the bodies. Eyewitnesses reported downed army helicopters who had previously gone across the flame barrier. The details remain unknown, the Ministry of Defense has neither confirmed nor denied these reports.”
Andrey’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he sifted through online news articles, but nothing revealed reliable information about the pattern in which the victims had been left. Instead they repeated the same information released by the Russian media sources, with two helpful additions. The fire barrier appeared about two hours ago, and the only villain identified so far was Nusku. Two other Evolved spotted with him were not yet named, though it was reported one was a woman.
Andrey sank into his office chair, running his hands through his short curls. Nusku’s involvement stung. He was a fellow Russian who earned his post-transition living by uploading his artistic fire stunt videos. When Andrey gave the first television interview after his transition, Nusku sat beside him and shook his hand while wishing him a bright future. They had both laughed at the innuendo.
Andrey slammed a fist into the desk. Why in hell would you turn against your own people?
He took a moment to focus and breathe. When his hands stopped tingling from holding back his powers, he pulled the helmet over his head. “Iris. Connect me to Rune.”
I’m keeping my promise, Christina.
He clicked on his mailbox while the dial tone rang in his ear and found an e-mail from Rune, sent less than an hour ago. It contained only two words.
Call me.
The Swedish hero’s throaty baritone answered promptly. “Andrey.”
“Yes, it’s me. I assume this is about the news from Russia?”
As if a switch had been flipped, Rune sounded exhausted. “The news in Russia. The news in Congo. The news in Romania, Singapore, Jordan, St. Lucia, and Turkey.”
Andrey checked his watch. It wasn’t even five in the morning in Mexico yet.
Before I went to sleep, it was Egypt and Somalia. And now you’re telling me the whole world has gone to hell?
He rubbed his face in dismay. “Look, the situation in Trubino—”
“I assume you’re about to ask me for help like everyone else is doing. Trust me, we’ve already got a lot on our plate,” Rune interrupted.
“Does that mean your teleporter is back in action?” Andrey asked, thinking of the quickest way to get back-up to Russia.
“We’re expecting Checkmate to get the official all-clear any minute now. They’re sending us to Romania first. There’s a Visionary who needs to stop driving unpopular politicians insane.”
Andrey was only half listening. He didn’t expect Rune to go against the European Union’s orders for the sake of helping him out first, which was bound to get them in trouble. The Latinos or the Wardens might have joined him, but their teams lacked the teleporter to get them there.
You might be fast, Christina, but you can’t run to Russia, he thought, recalling his promise to go to her for help when he needed it.
There wasn’t any other option than to go alone. He acknowledged Rune’s warning, but he knew that he would never be able to forgive himself if he sat around and did nothing while his hometown was terrorized. The thought of being ‘the hero who didn’t show’ sickened him to the core. All of Russia would watch the sky today, anxious to see him.
A man without an identity is a man without soul. Those used to be his father’s words.
“I know what you’re thinking, Andrey,” Rune said, angry. “What’s wrong with people? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with people. Powers, and an asshole in Brazil telling them they’re gods. It’s mind poison.”
Andrey remembered his brief interview with Preacher. Had only two weeks passed since that day? It was hard to believe.
Rune went on with his rant. “There are those who are in it for the money but there are also dumb-as-fuck guys on power trips while the Covenant twiddles their thumbs waiting for orders from the UNEOA.”
“It’s not what the Covenant wants to be doing, believe me.” Andrey fell silent for a moment. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll figure out how to deal with Nusku.”
There was a pause. “Don’t take this the wrong way, man, but are you sure you should even go?” the Swedish hero asked. “You’re not fire retardant or bulletproof. And did you forget someone wanted you dead only two days ago? I’m sure this is related. Save the world another day, man.”
While my hometown burns? No.
“I can make it work,” Andrey insisted. “I only need to figure out how.”
“Can you hang on a sec?” There was rustling on the other end of the line, followed by low mumbling before Rune was back on the line. “Look, Andrey, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Aura checked your photograph a minute ago.”
“And?” Andrey prompted, bracing himself for the answer.
“Your aura’s darker than black. If you go there, you’re dead meat.”
Andrey swallowed his doubts. “Help me out, Rune. Come to Russia with me. I’ll assist you in Romania afterward.”
“We can’t. I wish we could, but the decision was already made. Like I said, we’re off to Romania. I’m sorry, but those are official orders.”
Andrey’s fingers clenched into fists on his knees. Why did I even bother asking?
“Don’t give them what they want,” Rune pleaded. “I know I’m probably wasting my breath here, but don’t go to Trubino. If you do, you’ll play right into their hands.”
Andrey pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. I can make it work, he thought in an attempt to convince himself. Aura warned me that I was going to die once before and I’m still breathing, aren’t I?
“That may be, but they’ve already killed
twenty people,” he said instead. “I think they’re sending me a message and if I don’t figure out what the message is, all those people have died in vain.” He pushed the end call button and threw the phone on the desk without waiting for Rune’s reply. There was nothing left to say, and he couldn’t afford to waste another minute.
A moment later he was in full costume. He didn’t want to risk any locals confusing him with one of the villains if he arrived in his civilian clothes. Almost as an afterthought, he added a leather jacket for additional heat protection over the flimsy neoprene. After tucking Gentleman’s phone into one of the jacket’s sleeve pockets, he beamed himself into the early morning sky, trusting the blinding Mexican sunrise to conceal his trailing beam of light.
“Iris,” he said into his helmet once he reached altitude. “Secure the home station. If I don’t contact you within twelve hours, execute the requiem protocol.”
“Understood, Andrey,” the AI replied, impassive. “Good luck.”
7.7 Beacon
Above Trubino, Russia
Friday, the 15th of June, 2012
5:26 p.m.
There was fire, but no smoke.
Smoke required something in order to burn. In this case, the flames looked as though they fueled themselves. The charred expanse of ground they covered had been depleted of anything burnable hours ago.
Radiant hung in the air high above the flame barrier surrounding his hometown, surveying the situation from a bird’s-eye view. Even eighty feet from the barrier, the heat from the flames engulfed him as the atmosphere around him shimmered with heat waves.
Nusku, the creator of the fiery barricade, was nowhere in sight. Radiant suspected the newly turned villain was hiding somewhere nearby. Last he checked, the Evoker’s range didn’t exceed fifty feet, and the flames wouldn’t sustain themselves without the villain’s powers to feed them.
Since Radiant didn’t want to stay in one place for long, he made a quick jump to the other side of the burning barricade. He estimated the flame wall encased an area the size of half a city block, about twice the area of Nusku’s known range. The Evoker must have spent the better part of an hour by driving around town to enclose this many buildings within his ring of fire.
If the villains were active in the area for so long, the police and the Russian Army must have intervened.
Radiant thought about that as he came to a stop above a cluster of modest, brightly painted dachas. Except for the few dwellings that touched the flame barrier, none of the town’s buildings had burned. The heat left the trees and surrounding meadow limp and listless, but not scorched. As he hovered above the peaked shingled roofs, he saw how much the situation escalated in the time since the news video was made public. The Russian military vehicles were now smashed and immobile, as though they had been crushed by a gigantic fist.
When Radiant dropped closer, he saw that the vehicles’ top-mounted guns were broken or bent to the point of uselessness. Their wheels were bound with huge metal chains, even larger than the ones warships used for their anchors.
Is Nusku working with a Metalokinetic? He asked himself. He didn’t have time to wonder who it was. His mind was too occupied by the absence of the soldiers who had operated the mangled tanks. As he searched for clues, his attention shifted to the dark stain on the ground in front of the nearest tank. At first it looked to be an oil leak, but he soon realized it was the blackened shape of a humanoid charred into the ground.
His stomach lurched with nausea. One of Russia’s finest, reduced to ash. Was he about to discover his aunt and cousin in a similar condition? He averted his gaze only to discover more man-shaped outlines, each in a different position before their fiery death.
Damn you, Nusku. Why did you do this?
Radiant stared at the sky, flexing his fingers until he was able to pull his mind back to the present. Determined to get to the bottom of this, he beamed himself to a new position more than a hundred feet beyond the flaming barricade and shielded behind the squat stone tower of the St. Sergius Orthodox Cathedral. From here he had a clear visual of the field which was mentioned in the news.
And the bodies on it.
Despite the angry thrum of his heartbeat in his ears, he forced himself to give the bodies of his fellow townspeople the attention they deserved. There wasn’t enough left of them for identification. The sizes and shapes of the bodies there indicated slain men, women, and children. There wasn’t any way for him to tell whether he was looking at his aunt or cousin, but he knew these people as his neighbors before Nusku’s power reduced them to charred, unrecognizable remains.
The bodies confirmed his suspicions. The villains had sent him a message, written clear as day in the field below him. The charred bodies had been arranged to form a single word in the Cyrillic alphabet: coward.
Radiant beamed himself three hundred feet up to where the air was cooler. He hung there for a few seconds, allowing his pulse to slow while he focused his thoughts. Once the red haze cleared from his mind, he trusted himself to prove Aura’s prediction wrong. He knew he had to keep moving. If the message had been left for him, and he couldn’t think of any other reason why it was there, that meant the villains expected him. Predictability would be the end of him. As a first step, he had to figure out where Nusku was hiding and who was with him.
Radiant caught a flash of movement next to one of the cottages beside the flame barrier. He beamed himself in that direction, and a millisecond later he was behind a woodshed. He didn’t see anyone except a frightened cat with the dancing flames in the background. Their loud crackle was the only sound in the otherwise eerie silence that engulfed the town.
He was about to relocate when he heard a muffled murmur from the wood-sided dacha right beside him. Villains? Or hostages?
On the off chance there were innocent townspeople held against their will in the dacha, he had to investigate. He crossed the yard to the small house as a soundless flash of light, materializing next to the window. Before he could see what was on the other side of the windowpane, there was a shout of alarm and a sudden gleam of metal.
A firearm.
He transformed into a beam of light, shooting himself away from whomever was taking aim at him, and the bang of a large-caliber shot filled his ears a second later. The sound of shattering glass was followed by a baby’s thin, pitiful wails.
As he looked at the house he left behind a moment ago, he couldn’t help but suspect that a startled local had made the shot rather than a villain or a hired hitman. Villains or hitmen wouldn’t expose themselves by firing a sloppy shot at him. No, they were too aware of his deadly lasers to draw his attention while they were trapped in a ramshackle cottage.
Definitely a skittish local. But who could blame him? Radiant glanced at the firewall burning less than three hundred feet from him.
Clenching his jaw, he charged his powers to relocate himself again. An instant later he hovered above a different house, scanning the town for any sign of Nusku. He couldn’t help but let his eyes stray in the direction of the field with the scorched bodies and the condemning word they spelled.
Another gunshot thundered through the air followed by the ping of a ricocheting bullet off his helmet. The force of the projectile jerked his head to the side, but the absence of pain indicated he was otherwise unharmed. His experienced ears identified the weapon as a sniper rifle.
Definitely not a scared local this time. The average Russian didn’t keep military-grade guns stashed in their home.
He beamed himself to a new position to assess the threat. This second shot originated from a different direction than the first. A quick scan of the buildings revealed the offending rifleman, dressed in a camouflage jacket and cargo pants, on a rooftop a hundred feet away. Definitely a hired hitman this time. The man was preparing his next shot in an attempt to get it off before his target spotted him.
You’re too slow.
Radiant raised a hand to aim at the shape behind the glinting rifle barrel
. He released his energy as a pencil-thin red laser, causing the man’s upper body to explode in a spray of overheated flesh and blood. What remained of his corpse tumbled, dropping off the edge of the roof. Ever vigilant, Radiant beamed himself a hundred feet to the northwest to materialize above a red shingled roof. He landed on it with a dull thud, sending one of the shingles skittering to the ground. A gray stone chimney offered cover as he scanned the rooftops around the area where the sniper had hidden.
A good place to wait, he conceded.
A pair of figures on the neighboring roof drew his attention. They appeared to be naked people with an unnatural red skin tone, but without any weapons or equipment.
He didn’t take the time for a better look. As he beamed himself back into the air, one of the figures lit with a fiery glow. He materialized sixty feet away in time to see a ball of fire fly through the air on what would have been a collision course with his previous position. Since he was no longer there, the fireball soared past the town and landed in a field beyond the flaming barricade.
What the….
Radiant stared at the two reddish figures on the roof. They hadn’t changed position, moved, or made any sound, and appeared as lifeless as mannequins. Perhaps he wasn’t looking at people. Were they projections?
But who can create illusions like these?
He racked his brains in search of an Evolved with a matching powerset, but couldn’t think of anyone who specialized in creating naked, immobile parodies of people who gave off blasts of fire with cut-throat precision. Nusku was a master of fire, not puppetry.
If Skyfire could see me now, she’d laugh her ass off.
Radiant doubted the EU’s fire manipulator had anything to do with this, but she would probably find the idea of his death by incineration amusing.
He beamed himself behind the roof where the two humanoid figures were perched. They remained impossibly still. Now that he was close to them, their skin looked like raw meat. Their forms were more or less humanlike though their proportions were a little off as if an amateur sculptor had shaped them from clay. They sat by the edge of the roof, looking out over the small town from lidless, yellowish eye clumps.
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