by Chad Kunego
“AT EASE!”
Everyone shot her a questioning look as she gestured for them to lower their weapons.
“If he’d really wanted to harm us, you wouldn’t have known it until it was too late.”
“Hey, you wanna tell muscles here to stop squirming before I have to have to cuff him upside his head.”
Smiling in spite of herself, she raised her voice.
“Thunderclap, do as he says. You’re obviously not going anywhere unless he allows it, so just calm down.”
After a few more wiggles, the large man finally gave up and relaxed. After a few more seconds, Rick hopped off, walked over to Thunderclap’s weapon, and picked it up by pressing the flat of his hand against the top of the mace-head. Walking over, he stuck it out, handle first, as a sort of peace offering to the small giant. Turning around, his eyes flashed. Without warning, he appeared directly in front of her. Unlike other speedsters, she wasn’t buffeted by a blast of air from his sudden arrival. Holding his hand out, he smiled at her.
“I know we got off on the wrong foot, so let’s say we start over? Hi, I’m Rick.”
In spite of herself, she reached out and took his hand, shaking it.
“Hello Rick, I’m Kaitlyn. Nice to meet you.”
Releasing his hand, she held her other one up and vaguely waved it at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, uh… Sorry about the sudden ambush and stuff. I’ve been told there’s a bit of ‘oh shit that hurts’ when I do that, but I felt a gesture of good will was in order, seeing as how I’m partly to blame for it being broken in the first place.”
“Fair enough. Care to explain how you did it?”
“Actually, that might take a bit, but seeing as how we have bigger issues to address, let’s say we shelve that discussion for later.”
Dropping her arm, she nodded at him.
“Ok, I’ll hold off on that for now, but don’t think I’m going to forget about it.”
Breaking in to a big grin, he nodded back at her.
“When this shindig is over with, I’ll be more than happy to chit-chat. Now let’s say we get down to business?”
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Rick followed behind Kaitlyn as they strode into the command center. He watched out of the corner of his eye as everyone jumped slightly before watching him with a wary look. Walking over to a bank of monitors, she nodded to the technician.
“How’s are team doing at the site?”
“According to Scattershot, they’ve got a big load of nothing. They can’t seem to find anything at all. Nothing showing up on sensors.”
Rick watched the monitors as the team moved around the area trying to locate the disturbance.
“Is this a live feed?”
The technician looked at Kaitlyn, who nodded, before responding.
“Yes, it’s a live feed.”
“Can you get them up on the radio?”
He glanced at Kaitlyn again, who impatiently waved at him.
Tapping a couple buttons on his panel, Rick heard the connection open. Looking back at Rick, the technician nodded. He looked at Kaitlyn out of the corner of his eye and whispered, “what’s the ice girl’s name?”
“Glaizia.”
Clearing his throat, he raised his voice as he started speaking.
“Uh, Glaizia, can you hear me okay?”
“Who is this and how did you get on this frequency?” she demanded.
“Glaizia, this is HellKat. I’m in the control room with Newton. We’ve come to an understanding, now he’s helping us.”
“So everything’s cool?” she asked. Rick noticed Kaitlyn smiling and realized it was some type of code-phrase they’d come up with in case of trouble.
“Everything is frosty. Thanks for asking.”
Rick watched the giant woman visibly relax, confirming his suspicions. Looking over to Kaitlyn, she waved for him to continue.
“Okay, Glaizia? I have a quick question for you. Does your ice disappear because you stop concentrating on it, or because you stop feeding it negative energy?”
He noticed everyone’s eyes widen from the question, but he ignored it.
“Neither. It’s persistent until I remove it.”
“Good. This is what I want you to do. You see where that one technician is with that weird wand looking thingamajig? What I want you to do is, about two feet above him, to his left at 10 o’clock, four feet away, I want you to generate a four foot diameter ice block for about a half-second. I’m not sure how it’s going to react to your powers, so you need to make sure it’s for no longer than a half-second. Can you do that?”
“On it.”
They all watched her walk over to the area in question and waved the other technicians in the area away. Once they were at a safe distance, she held her hands up. A large block of ice formed in the air. A split-second later, Glaizia let out a loud squeak. Before the ice block vanished, a weird distortion was seen embedded in the ice. Shaking her hands, she looked back over toward the camera.
“That friggin’ hurt. What the hell is it?”
“Damn,” he whispered under his breath.
“What? What is that thing?”
Rick looked over at Kaitlyn. He noticed everyone was now staring at him openly as he responded.
“That, unfortunately, is some type of rupture or void in the fabric of space, best I can figure. I was really hoping her negative energy projection would seal it, but that obviously didn’t happen.”
“Okay, go on…”
“Well, that was kinda it in its entirety. I really didn’t spend a lot of time examining it, but from what I gathered, it’s going to absorb most forms of energy. Whether that’ll make it grow or shrink over time is anyone’s guess at this point. I’m hoping to figure it out when I go kick the shit out of Maelstrom.”
“Well, since you brought it up, now seems to be as good a time as any to switch gears. Glaizia, make sure everyone keeps a safe distance from the anomaly. We’ll get back to you shortly.”
Rick watched the woman nod before the display went black. Looking back to Kaitlyn, he noticed she was staring at him intently. Giving her a questioning look, she responded.
“Maelstrom.”
Letting out a sigh, he leaned back against a console. He’d hoped they wouldn’t prod too much since he was still hoping to deal with them alone. With the look he was getting, he knew it was a foolish hope. Looking up, he nodded.
“Let’s start with this so we don’t rehash stuff. What exactly do you know about Maelstrom?”
“Very little actually. Up until your first clash with the Reaper, we’d never even heard of the group. Even doing a database search turned up very little.”
“Like what?”
Kaitlyn sighed.
“A video of you destroying a government office and a file encrypted with keyword-only clearance. A clearance we have yet to be able to identify or locate who’s authorized to see it.”
A memory of him jumping free of the blast played through his mind again. Holding up his hand, he spent a minute composing himself.
“So it WAS you destroying a government facility, wasn’t it?”
He nodded before responding.
“Yes, it was. For a very good reason, too. You said you had an encrypted file? Can you bring it up?”
She gave him a guarded look before nodding to the technician again.
“Sure, but I’m not sure what good it’s going to do. We don’t have th—”
Rick watched as the prompt came up for the pass-phrase. Leaning over, he began typing rapidly, his fingers a blur.
Under the rose, the enemy is us…
Chapter 19
“How the hell do you know that! Who the hell are you?”
He sighed again, rubbing his temples before continuing.
“Because I wrote the report.”
Kaitlyn dropped into
a chair like she’d just been pole-axed.
“Care to explain that little bombshell?”
“Not really, but I guess I don’t really have a choice if we’re to work together. It’s a long story, so it’s gonna take a bit.”
“Getting kind of tired of hearing that,” she said, massaging the bridge of her nose. “Well, there’s no better time than the present.”
“Okay. All I ask is that ya’ll let me finish before asking questions. It’ll go quicker that way.”
After everyone nodded, he collected his though, deciding where to start.
“About twenty-five years ago, the government put together a secret department to deal with super-powered threats.”
“Stormwatch has only been around twenty-one years,” one of the technicians piped up.
Giving him a dirty look, he started over.
“Twenty-five years ago, a group was put together for policing super-powered crimes, called Skywatch. At the time, it was decided the best course was taking advantage of science and technology to do it since they felt it would be easier to maintain and control. To this effect, they created several teams following two parallel tracks. One track dealt with enhancing regular people genetically while the other track was enhanced cybernetically. I was one of the volunteers who went through genetic manipulation. Reaper was part of the cybernetic path.”
Remembering long forgotten emotions, he started pacing.
“What they didn’t know was that I already had powers of my own before the experiments. I kept them a secret because I was afraid they wouldn’t let me stay in the program. All I wanted to do was serve my country doing what I did best. Looking back on it though, that might explain my current abilities.”
He paused again, absently rubbing the back of his head.
“Well, to make a long story shorter, the treatments worked, but at a high cost. Some of them developed decent powers, like becoming stronger, faster, heightened agility, insane levels of endurance, etcetera. Basically, they suddenly became super-soldiers. Unfortunately, there were also a lot of volunteers who either died or were horribly disfigured.
“Then there’s me. My powers were pretty modest before the procedures, but once they tinkered with my genetic makeup, my powers seemed to be on par with the other subjects, but then they started unfolded exponentially. Before I left, the eggheads that had examined me told me they couldn’t find an upper limit on my abilities and I tend to believe them.”
He cleared his throat, pausing to recall specifics.
“Anyway, just like I wound up being a prodigy on the genetic side, Reaper became one on the cybernetic side. Apparently he’d been hiding a genetic gift as well, one the eggheads called techno-kineticism. It was kinda creepy though. He could interface with technology, almost like a telepath does with people’s minds. His ability to interface with new technology, especially cybernetics, worried them. They thought he might start losing empathy with normal people, but assumed it’d be manageable with the therapy sessions we were required to have.
“Over the next four years, we were instrumental in addressing super-powered threats from around the world. Enough so that they wanted to create a second group. I was one of the members tasked with coming up with a working specification of what I felt was needed in the proposed group that wasn’t already being utilized by our group. I suggested having teams made up of people who already had abilities rather than trying to create people with powers. I figured it made more sense to find mutants rather than take needless risks creating our own. Especially since naturally powered people usually outclassed the volunteers who developed powers through the original program, with me being an obvious exception.”
“Stormwatch,” Kaitlyn whispered.
“Stormwatch,” he confirmed.
“Which brings us up to the video you have. Yes, that was me destroying the facility. That facility was, as far as I knew, the only one used by Skywatch. I’d found out that at some point, several other higher-ups and lead by Reaper, had co-oped Skywatch. They were now calling themselves Maelstrom. Instead of us being a force for good, eliminating threats to our country, they’d started using it as a hit squad for hire. After I confronted Reaper about it, you can see the outcome in that video. It was my way of voicing my displeasure in finding out I’d been used as an assassin to kill individuals who weren’t a threat to the country. I’d left Reaper alive to serve as a warning to the others of his cabal. I wanted him personally to give them the message that if they ever tried to find me, I’d make them regret it. That was eighteen years ago.”
He looked around the room before setting back on Kaitlyn.
“If Reaper was the main reason they turned, then I’m surprised you didn’t kill him.”
A look of sadness crossed his face when he responded.
“I couldn’t…”
She gave him a confused look.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he said, pausing for a moment before continuing.
“He’s my big brother.”
§§§§§§§§§§§§
“Your brother!”
Rick slumped down in a chair before continuing.
“Yeah… Remember when I said they had concerns? Well… they were well-founded. Growing up, he always had a fascination with robots and computers and stuff. The things he could get them to do was pretty amazing. I just thought he was a geek, especially with how skinny he was. I realized now that it was his gift manifesting.
“I, on the other hand, was always more interested in physical stuff. It was kinda weird really. Instead of my big brother protecting me from bullies, I was always the one protecting him. Most people didn’t even know we were brothers, seeing as how different we looked from each other. I think it’s why he became a cyborg. He probably thought it’d give him the chance to be bigger and stronger than me for once.”
“And then your abilities manifested…” replied Kaitlyn.
“More like my abilities exploded. Granted, it took awhile before they did. As far as Hal, er… Reaper, was concerned, he was finally strong enough to be the one to protect me for a change. And he thrived on that feeling I think. After his procedure, I noticed something different about his personality, but didn’t think anything of it until our last mission together.”
“What happened?”
He glanced at the technician before continuing.
“We were caught in an ambush with some third-world warlord who had his own robotic army. We were sent in to take him out of power because he was planning on mass-genocide against one of our allies. An ethnic cleansing I believe is how the report worded it.
“I’m still not sure exactly what happened, but one of the robots had me dead to rights. It’d launched a salvo of micro-missiles at me, but just before they hit, Reaper jumped in front of me. Saved my life. I thought I’d just seen my brother getting killed because I hadn’t been paying attention. That’s when my powers erupted. All of a sudden, I could sense where everything was.”
He paused again, working his jaw to loosen the suddenly clenched muscles.
“Stupidly, I charged at the robot with my bare hands. What I didn’t expect was being able to tear it in half like it was paper. In my rage, I wound up destroying the rest of the robot forces single-handedly, saving my teammates in the process. Somehow, I had eliminated over fifty hardened robots, each more than a match for a tank squadron. I found out later that I’d done it in under a minute.”
He paused, noticing everyone staring at him slack-jawed.
“Thankfully, they’d hardened Reaper’s skull and vital organs, so he actually survived, but I also think that mission was what sent him over the edge as well. Even with all his new strength and abilities, I still had to rescue him.”
Kaitlyn leaned back in her chair and let out a long sigh.
“Wow. That’s a lot of information to take in.”
Rick nodded.
“So you’ve been in hiding for eighteen years?” she asked. Nodding again, she con
tinued.
“If you’ve been underground for that long, do you have any idea why they drew you out now?”
Rick paused before responding.
“I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot. Up until yesterday, I had no clue, but now I’m suspecting a few different reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for one,” he said, ticking off his fingers, “there’s the possibility of him just wanting to kill me, but I don’t think that’s it. Even with that weapon they hit me with yesterday.”
“Why? He’s already made two attempts at it.”
“True, but the first attempt didn’t seem that serious. I’ve fought beside him numerous times. I know how he operates. He also knows how my powers operate. He would have know that everything he used was useless against me.”
Ticking off another finger.
“Two, which is what I’m leaning toward now is that he knew Stormwatch was still in operation. I think he wanted to use me as a distraction while they do something. What exactly, I don’t know. That weapon they hit me with mimics some of the effects of my powers pretty closely.”
Rick watched Kaitlyn mull the idea over in her head.
“You know, it does make some sense. Maelstrom sounds exactly like someone we’d investigate, but with the abilities you displayed, our mission parameters would have dictated coming after you first since, as far as we knew, Reaper wasn’t as big a threat.”
“Right. I don’t know if he expected me to survive the attack yesterday, but he would have expected you to come after me even harder if I had. I doubt he’d have expected me to try and save your team, though. He would’ve assumed I’d be more focused on protecting myself rather than strangers attacking me.”
“Makes sense. So what now?”
“Now we need to figure out either what their plan is or the location of their base. Doing both wouldn’t hurt, either.”
“Okay… So where do we start?”