Project Northwoods

by Jonathan Charles Bruce

  Steven cursed his brother’s natural charm as he felt his face turn slightly red. “Just fine.” For villains’ sake, he hoped that he was coming across as charming and not as an arrogant douche. “I mean, right now, we have a second chance, you know?” She looked back at the mass of people, oblivious to their stopping. “We can fix everything that has gone wrong.” Unsure of what to do, he gently grabbed her shoulders, causing her to stare directly into his eyes. “No mothers, no boyfriends. Just…” He couldn’t think of a good word that didn’t sound like it belonged in a romantic comedy starring a bashful Englishman and the persistent eye contact certainly wasn’t helping matters. So he went with his first impulse. “Us.”

  Morgan looked at him, her eyes darting about his face. “No.” She worked her way out of his grip and folded her arms again. She stared at the ground and shuffled after the others.

  Steven grunted in annoyance. “If this were a horror movie, your tits would be out by now,” he muttered to himself. He took one step toward her when someone blew by him in a flash, snatched Morgan, and absconded with her in a different direction. “Shit!”

  Before he knew what happened, he was in pursuit, running after the blur which seemed to grow steadily smaller. He charged headlong into the brush, feeling low-hanging branches bite into his cheeks. His gun was in his hands, prepped and ready to…

  He ran into someone’s outstretched arm, clotheslining himself.

  From the forest floor, Steven coughed, feeling like his throat was irreparably crushed. Zombress, looking a bit disheveled, poked her head into his dazed field of vision. “Sorry. Didn’t want you to get scared and open fire.”

  “Could… have… asked…” was all he managed. His head lolled to the side, and he was able to see that Morgan had pressed herself against the tree. He flopped to his stomach, heaving himself upwards onto his knees. “What was that about?”

  “It’s a good question,” Morgan grumbled.

  Zombress was clearly unhappy with the lack of reverence the two were displaying. “All the villains are walking into a trap. All I managed was to buy us more time to escape.”

  Steven grabbed the gun from off the ground. “We have to go back.” He was on his feet now, rubbing his throat with his free hand.

  Zombress nodded in the other direction. “You’re welcome to it.”

  “What do you mean?” Steven turned to look at her. “You’re abandoning us?”

  Nothing to denote emotion crossed the Queen of the Dead’s face. “‘Us’ referred to Morgan and myself. You are free to return to the others and put up a fight.”

  “What makes you think I’m going with you?” Morgan asked impatiently. “As far as I’m aware, this whole thing is not my problem.”

  “Oh, no?” Zombress faced her, her greater height intimidating the momentarily aggressive Morgan. “And what was your mother trying to do? Why were you there in the first place?”

  “I don’t have to be a hero,” Morgan snapped. Steven was taken aback. Why was a hero here? But… oh, shit… her mother wasn’t a jilted competitor for a boyfriend after all. “I can go back to being normal, dull me.”

  Zombress shook her head. “You know that’s not a choice you can make.”

  Off in the distance, a light snapped on overhead. Even at that stretch, the search drone’s beacon was blinding. Screams were diluted to distant murmurs, but there was no gunfire, merely panicked yelling. It would be only a matter of time before they were all rounded up and returned to their cells.

  Steven wasn’t happy about it, but he grabbed onto Morgan’s arm. “Look, I don’t like it either, but we have to go with Zombress.” He looked at villain, and she gave a semi-approving nod. “Hero or no, if we stay here, we’re either dead or in prison. And I don’t look good in black and white stripes.” Steven suddenly felt both women’s eyes scan him up and down. “Horizontal, not vertical…” he explained. Their gaze continued to bore into him. “Can we go?” he pleaded.

  “Fine.” Morgan said, once more shaking off his gaze. “But only because I can’t stand the dreams in those machines.”

  “No one can,” Zombress said before she took off running. Morgan and Steven followed , their footsteps lost within the maze of trees.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  OVERTIME

  June 29th, 2011

  Early Morning

  THE AMBULANCE SHOOK AND SQUEAKED with increasing insistence from the multiple stress fractures. Combined with the carbon scoring from the fireballs and rockets, the rickety death-trap appeared to be on its way to the scrap yard. It didn’t help matters that the gaping, door-less hole in the back whistled as the icy breeze made the inside much colder than the meager heater could abate. Nevertheless, it lumbered along at the minimum speed, moving around the occasional early-bird commuter with a polite turn signal and a gentle merge.

  Allison proved herself to be a capable and courteous driver, much to Arthur’s surprise. She even helpfully flashed another driver who had neglected to turn on their headlights as they merged onto the opposite highway. Her tuneless whistling was the bizarre capstone of the evening, punctuated by the occasional moan from Mat as Talia worked to mend the bullet hole that had penetrated the muscle above his left hip. He had been lucky it was an armor piercing round and not anti-personnel; the full-metal jacket had ripped cleanly through.

  Arthur opened his eyes for the first time in a while. The road became clear after he blinked away some blurriness, the buildings along the side becoming more defined and larger than when he had first tried to sleep. He was tired and sore, one part of his body begging for mercy while the other chastised him for caring about his own needs when others had been injured and killed.

  Like Tim.

  He wanted to cry, to mourn the loss of his close… only… friend. But nothing came. Arthur felt hollow, heartless even, for the way he had been thrown aside, saved, in an action that cost another’s life. While his eyes were closed, he tried to justify it, say that it had been Tim’s decision, Tim’s action, Tim’s choice to knock him out and stay behind for people he didn’t know.

  Rationalization only went so far. Arthur could try to believe he would have stayed behind to give Tim support, to fight and bleed and die. When it came down to it, though, he would have been the first to run. Tim would have told him to get away, and he would have taken off into the night, joining those nameless villains that Tim would die to protect.

  What kind of bullshit is that anyway? To fight and die to protect a bunch of nobodies? How could Tim do that to me, of all people, his best friend, let alone his family who had always supported his dream, and Ariana…

  Damn it.

  Ariana. Beautiful, angry Ariana. No doubt awakening from the attack and immediately wondering where her boyfriend was. Back at the Fortress? On his way? And he would have to tell her… tell her everything… answer the questions he couldn’t even face himself… just offer a meek ‘I don’t know’ to the woman who already despised him.

  His stomach twisted into knots. A tear, hot but small, welled up in his eye as he squeezed it shut as tight as he could. The drop didn’t fully form, catching in his eye lashes, and leaving him unable to feel some kind of emotional release. He kicked at the floor, balling his fists into knots and feeling his short fingernails dig into the skin of his palms. Wishing they could just break the skin, he knotted up his body and turned to the side. “Damn it, Tim…”

  Allison gently tapped him on the shoulder. “The bridge is right up ahead,” she said simply. “You hear that, kids?” she called to the rear compartment. “We’re almost to grandma’s!” He turned to look at her as she bounced happily to an unheard song in her head. The woman must have noticed he was watching. She cast a sly glance his way before pointing through the windshield ahead. “See? There’s a maintenance tunnel down there.”

  Arthur followed her finger. Sure enough, the road continued in a level plane over a culvert, a set of stairs providing access to the lower area. He wasn’t entirely sure
where they were, but he recognized the distant hints of tall buildings. It didn’t have the smell of the inner city, but it was as close as they were probably willing to get.

  Talia poked her head out of the back as she rested her arms on the back of the seats. “So, what do we do now?” she asked no one in particular. Arthur went back to staring out the window. In some ways, he wished for the struggle for life and death again. It took his mind off of what was growing to be a colossal failure of a night. He felt Talia’s hand grip his shoulder and give a squeeze before she retreated back into the rear compartment.

  Something clanked loudly on the ground behind them. James sort of laughed. “We lost the muffler.”

  Catalina nervously laughed. “Wasn’t doing a very good job, anyway.” No one said anything for a moment. “Look, Art, what I said before…”

  He cut her off with a brisk, “Save it.”

  Another pause. Arthur preferred it that way. He could pretend they were paying respect for the dead.

  James cleared his throat. “I’m in the mood for Mexican. Anyone else?” The others gave an appreciative chuckle. Even Mat’s newly gruffed-up voice joined in. Allison turned and smiled at Arthur, who did not return the gesture.

  The mob boss turned back toward the road, then lurched forward in her seat. “What the…”

  Arthur turned, watching a crouched man stand upright in front of them. Allison slammed on the brakes and pulled the wheel sharply to the right, narrowly avoiding crashing into the figure. With a certainty he wished wasn’t there, he recognized the shape in the briefest of moments it was illuminated in the headlights: Arbiter.

  The ambulance sailed past him, the stationary hero skirting by on Allison’s side. A crunch of metal and yelps of surprise bled into the spinning world, top becoming bottom becoming top again. Time slowed as the buildings around them circled. Arthur realized that Arbiter must have simply punched the vehicle into the air. Momentum carried it up, spinning like a toy thrown off a table. And when the buildings disappeared and the gravelly sides of the culvert appeared, Arthur figured they were as good as dead.

  Crunching to the earth would have been jarring and painful had they landed right-side up to begin with. The passenger side smashed down first before the ambulance bounced and rolled in the air, then crashed to a stop once more on its side. The sound of shrieking metal finally dissipated, replaced by a shrill silence abated only by the blood pounding in Arthur’s ears.Hanging upside-down, strapped into the seat, Arthur was positive that he was dead. Testing his theory, he was partially relieved when his head obeyed his command to look over at Allison. The mob boss looked like a corpse until she twitched as though responding to something in her sleep. His hands fumbled with his safety belt and found the latch. To his growing irritation, the clasp was unresponsive. He shifted, finding purchase below him. The thing yielded and slapped him in the face as it retracted. He fell onto his shoulder, the rest of his body slumping to a stop on the roof-come-floor. Every part of him hurt in ways he didn’t think possible as he shifted himself upright.

  As far as he could tell, the rest of the party was dead, unconscious, or occupied, leaving him to handle Allison. Kneeling awkwardly from his position, he undid her seat belt as she muttered something unintelligible to him. Once loose, he looked out the windshield, the impact having finally done enough damage to rip it loose from its bearings. Gathering up the mobster was much more difficult than he expected, the dead weight much less responsive to his effort than a conscious person would be. After some monumental effort and a strained back, he had Allison in his arms as he leaned against the windshield and, with his legs on the driver’s seat, pushed at it.

  The safety glass popped out of its home after minimal effort, partially shattering into tiny, harmless pieces when it hit the ground. Arthur landed immediately afterward, the gravel biting into the back of his head. He stood upright, staggering as he did so, and dragged Allison upright and leaned her against the side of the hood.

  “Did I get drunk or did I get drunk?” she muttered. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at Arthur before rolling them. “Please tell me I didn’t sleep with you.”

  He stood up and took a step toward the back of the ambulance, wincing with pain as he put his weight on his right foot. Guessing he must have twisted his ankle, he continued to limp toward the back when Catalina stepped out, dragging Mat behind her. For someone who had dislocated her shoulder recently, she could certainly keep going. She looked up at Arthur as Mat twisted in her hands, pulling himself upright. “What was that about?” she asked.

  “Arbiter,” he said, hoping the one-word explanation would cover it. He glanced over the culvert, taking in the two sets of railroad tracks the ambulance had mercifully landed between before seeing the maintenance door Allison had mentioned. He motioned toward it. “Get to the underground access.”

  Catalina nodded in compliance as he went to the rear of the vehicle and knelt. Talia was crumpled on the floor, James looked like he was resting against the back wall with his head in an awkward position. Arthur bit his lip and crawled inside. He touched Talia’s leg and shook it. “Talia? Talia!” She didn’t respond. He crawled up to her head and pressed his fingers into her neck. Feeling the strong heartbeat still pounding away was a relief, made even greater when he heard James grunt and move.

  “I am never taking this taxi service again,” James mumbled. From his prone position, he lolled his head toward Arthur, meeting his gaze. “What happened?”

  “Help me get her out of here,” Arthur said, ignoring the question.

  James got up, conveying his pain the entire time with a variety of grunts. Arthur took the opportunity to recover his backpack from one of the compartments formerly occupied by weaponry. He slipped the pack on, moved toward James, and nodded as they took positions beside Talia. They lifted her up slowly and carefully moved her outside. “She really shouldn’t be moved,” James said disapprovingly as his feet made first contact with the gravel. “It could be bad for her.”

  “And the car accident wasn’t?” Arthur retorted, annoyed.

  “Just saying. Spinal injuries…”

  “I know, James,” Arthur snapped.

  Someone landed beside them. In a moment of supreme horror, Arthur knew who it was. With a casual flick of Arbiter’s hand, he was launched up and away from Talia, landing hard on his shoulder and rolling onto his face near a set of train tracks. “Arthur!” someone yelled. Allison?

  As he was rising Allison skidded toward him, facing Arbiter with her sidearm drawn. James leapt at the hero with the force of a bullet, bowling him over. As James fell, he started screaming, curling into a ball and wailing as Arbiter rose from the ground. Talia was regaining consciousness, shaking her head as Arbiter strode toward her and, in one quick motion, snapped her up one-handed. He held her aloft by her shoulder.

  “Drop her, Arbiter!” Allison warned.

  Arbiter didn’t even deign to respond to her. “Catalina Capone!” The voice rebounded fiercely off the nearby buildings and walls of the culvert. “Where are the other vermin hiding?”

  “Which vermin is that, then?” Catalina shouted. Arthur looked over to her, the woman far enough away to have to shout but close enough to be in danger of Arbiter’s leap. Mat hung limply from her shoulder, half deadweight and half lumbering body.

  Arbiter sneered. “Don’t play games!” He tromped back to James and hefted his body into the air with his free hand. His new charge whimpered loudly. “Give me Zombress and the traitor!”

  Catalina scoffed. “If I knew where she was, I’d be there now.”

  “Let them go!” Arthur shouted. He tried sprinting toward Arbiter but was dragged to the ground by Allison.

  “You can’t fight him, Art! He’ll kill you!” Allison was speaking the truth, but in his rage he still struggled against her.

  Arbiter turned to look down at Arthur, before looking back at Catalina. “Consider this a reprieve, Capone. Rest assured I will find the others and brin
g them to justice.” He hunched over. “Your days are numbered!” He leapt, prisoners in tow. It lacked the subtle artistry of James’s leap, but made up for it with thundering power as he landed with a crash on the overpass. Arbiter jumped again, out of sight, no doubt toward an unseen and nearing contingent of heroes.

  “Damn it!” Arthur shouted, kicking free of Allison. He scrambled to his feet and kicked at the gravel dramatically. “Damn it!” He was screaming now, the rest of the world drowned out. “Damn it!” The gravel dug into his knees brutally, but treated his knuckles worse as he rained down repeated blows against the unyielding pebbles. “Damn it!”

  Hands grabbed at him, but he shirked out of their grasp, resuming punching at the ground. Now two hands were on him, a third, and a fourth. Six hands pulled at him as he fought to continue tearing at the earth, ripping into the one thing that wouldn’t put up a fight.

  In the split second it took for Ariana to realize she was conscious, she panicked. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dim lighting, giving her the impression that she had been rendered blind. Her ears, too, weren’t working immediately, instead offering a high-pitched hum which seemed to diminish in time. The lack of sensation made her bolt upright, desperate to have some command over her body and convince herself she hadn’t died. She made it to the point where she was perpendicular to the bed before pain wracked her head, forcing her eyes shut as spears of agony jabbed at her stomach.

  Lurching to one side seemed like the right thing to do in case she vomited. Although the threat was present, after a few dry heaves, she felt comfortable enough to open her eyes again. She was facing the floor, the rest of her on a makeshift hospital bed. Pushing herself slowly up, her eyes flickered around the room and along the rows of cots, maybe eighteen or twenty total. Only seven beds were occupied, including hers. Three former inmates and two mobsters slept fitfully, one muttering about his brothers. The last was an idle body, covered with a sheet, red splotches marring the white fabric in numerous places.