Just Cause Universe 3: Day of the Destroyer

by Ian Thomas Healy

  Harlan closed his eyes. He felt like he was being kicked in the head all over again. Didn’t Gretchen understand how important she was to him? Obviously not. He’d have to take steps to show her, to prove himself to her. First, he’d have to get the Con Ed truck back out to the neighborhood, and he knew exactly what that would take. He folded the note with care and tucked it into a grimy pocket. “Can I use your tools and the Parts Room to fix my bike?” he asked Gonsalvo.

  “Go ahead.” The mechanic leaned under the hood of a Datsun. “You need me, I’m out here.”

  Harlan wheeled his battered bicycle into the back of the shop. He did not intend to repair it until later. He needed parts from it to make the creation that kept battering the inside of his skull, begging him to build it.

  A broken power drill became a handle and trigger mechanism. The rails from adjustable bucket seats transformed into a framework. Harlan cannibalized the battery pack from his bike and installed it where the drill’s original battery had been. His would be much more powerful for this application. He set about wrapping coils of wire around some flat pieces of metal to make magnets.

  Filtered sunlight crawled across the Parts Room floor as Harlan’s device took shape. He mounted the magnets in a series along the frame rails and connected them through the trigger to the battery. He thumbed off the safety, pulled the trigger, and was rewarded with a humming sound. The magnetic field made his skin feel funny and his vision blurred for a moment. If he was going to use this device more than a couple times, he’d want to install some shielding around it. But for now, this was a quick, jerry-rigged invention. He’d make it better in later designs.

  Harlan took up Gonsalvo’s grinder and a flat metal disc. He shaped it into a crescent moon and sharpened the inner edge to a razor’s thickness. Using solder, he thickened it just behind the blade edge so it’d fly like an airfoil and then tack-welded a length of copper welding rod to the outside. The whole affair looked like a toy magic wand when he was finished.

  A few minutes of additional work and he had a small windshield-wiper motor installed as a quick-release clip to hold the blade-wand in place. Time to test his invention. He slid the wand into the device’s barrel where it snapped into place, held tight by the washer motor clip. The crescent-shaped blade airfoil poked out of the snout. He shook the weapon to test it but the wand didn’t fall out. So far, so good. He raised the weapon, sighted down the rails toward a discolored spot on the cinder block wall, released the muzzle catch, and pulled the trigger.

  The magnets hummed, his ears popped, and the wand disappeared from Harlan’s view with a sound like paper tearing. A loud bang resounded through the Parts Room as cinder block chips exploded outward.

  “Harlan? You all right in there?” called Gonsalvo from out front.

  “Yeah. I dropped something.” Harlan lowered his weapon and hurried to look at the wall.

  He’d blown a fist-sized hole through the cinderblocks, and dusty sunlight shone through it. The hole sat at the center of a crater the size of a trashcan lid. Harlan gaped in astonishment at the effectiveness of his weapon. A world of possibilities opened up to him as he cradled his new toy like a proud father. He could see so many uses for it, so many things he could do with it to impress Gretchen.

  First, he had to get her back into the area. Harlan shuffled some shelves and boxes around to hide the hole in the Parts Room wall as best he could so Gonsalvo wouldn’t notice. He shoved his battered bike far under a table. He had time to make more of the blade-wand projectiles, and ideas for improvements to the gun flooded his brain thick and fast. A strap. A quick reload mechanism. A targeting sight. All those things could wait until later, for he had far more urgent tasks.

  Destruction whispered its seductive poetry into his ear.

  #

  Javier lived in a high-rise apartment in Manhattan. Tommy flew to the building’s roof, which was a maze of flower and vegetable gardens and bird coops. A few of the building’s tenants were on the roof, enjoying the sun and slight breeze of the higher altitude. They stared as the winds deposited Tommy in their midst.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “Has Javelin been by here?”

  An older man with a salt and pepper beard nodded and spoke with a mild German accent. “I saw him this morning when I was feeding my birds.”

  Tommy thanked him, signed a few autographs, and headed down a flight of steps to the elevator lobby. Javier lived two floors down in a large apartment. Tommy had never been inside, but he’d seen enough through the door before to recognize it was a typical bachelor pad.

  The door to the apartment hung open several inches.

  Tommy’s heart started to pound harder. Had something happened to Javier? Out of his armor, he wasn’t anything more than a man, and crime could strike at any time in New York. Tommy stepped into the apartment, gathering up whirling spheres of air in his hands, just in case. He became aware of a sour stink in the air, like rancid milk. The heat was stifling with no air conditioning. The ceiling fans hung still in the quiet air.

  “Javier?” Tommy looked around. The large, overstuffed couch had a large puddle of drying puke spread across a cushion and running onto the shag carpet. A half-empty bottle of Scotch sat on the coffee table amid some lipstick-stained glasses and a mirror to which clung a few random flakes of cocaine. Javier’s armor lay in a haphazard pile in a corner of the room near the minibar.

  Tommy glanced into the kitchen area but saw nothing but some cartons of old Chinese food congealing onto the counter. He hurried into the back bedroom area of the apartment, fearing the worst.

  He found Javier sprawled across the hall. Foamy, pinkish vomit leaked from his mouth and nose and his complexion had gone ashen underneath his normal olive skin tone.

  Tommy cursed and yanked off his gloves to check for life signs. Javier’s pulse was weak and seemed too slow to be safe, and his breathing bordered on catatonic.

  Using his fine control of air currents, Tommy raised Javier up on a cushion of air, face down, and tilted so his head was lower than his torso. He used a gentle stream of air pressure to force Javier’s lungs clear, inflating them to push out syrupy hunks of bloodstained phlegm. He wished he could keep Javier breathing, but Tommy didn’t have enough control to maintain Javier’s breath and perform the intricate procedure he was about to attempt. Javier would have to breathe on his own for a few minutes, because the next part would be even more unpleasant. While maintaining the air cushion under his teammate, Tommy forced another stream of air in through Javier’s mouth, pushing it past his throat and esophagus into the man’s stomach. He couldn’t see what he was doing and had to estimate distances. If he guessed wrong, he could rupture an intestine.

  Air flowed into Javier’s belly and pushed out the slurry of alcohol, bile, undigested pills, and other foulness onto the rug. The odor made Tommy gag. It took all his strength to keep down his Monte Cristo as he blew Javier into the bathroom. He set the man into the bathtub and stripped him down to his underwear. Under ordinary circumstances, Tommy would have taken a moment to appreciate Javier’s well-defined body, but nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He turned on the shower full blast. Javier jerked a little as the cold stream hit him. He groaned, coughed, and dry-heaved, but he had nothing left to throw up.

  Now that the immediate emergency was past, Tommy realized he was boiling mad. “You stupid son of a bitch,” he yelled over the hiss of the shower. “What did you take? How much? You almost died, you shithead!” Tears of fury ran down his cheeks. “This isn’t how we’re supposed to be!” He sank down on the toilet and put his head in his hands. “This isn’t how we’re supposed to be,” he repeated in a whisper.

  “T-Tommy?” Javier’s voice barely carried across the bathroom. “What’re you doin’ here?”

  “Saving your life, you asshole.”

  “’M all wet,” Javier mumbled. “’N’ sleepy.”

  Tommy fled the bathroom, unable to look at his teammate. He retreated to the kitchen in
search of cleaning supplies. He found some spray cleaner and set about dealing with the stains. Every few minutes he checked on Javier. The man had passed out, but was breathing on his own as the shower beat down on him.

  The worst of the vomit cleaned up, Tommy dumped the whole mass of sodden paper towels and linens down the garbage chute. Javier could buy himself new ones. Using his powers, Tommy dried the carpet in seconds, and then collected Javier from the shower. .He stripped Javier’s dripping underwear off and used his powers to blow the man dry.

  “Don’ touch me, you fag,” mumbled Javier.

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” Tommy wrapped a towel around Javier’s waist. “You’re out of your head.”

  Javier retched once but nothing came up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’ feel so good.”

  Tommy half-led, half-carried Javier to the bedroom. “You’re lucky to be alive, you asshole.” He laid Javier down on top of the covers.

  “Tommy?” Javier shut his eyes. “Thanks. You’re a good friend.” He hiccuped once. “Ev’n for a fag.”

  Tommy sighed and called back to headquarters to report in.

  #

  It’s one thing to talk about the sewers, thought Gretchen, and another to actually be under the city streets with flashlights and rats and God-knows-what flowing past in the trough next to the narrow ledge where she stood. Shane had a junction box open and was checking connections as Gretchen held a flashlight over his shoulder. She kept jumping at noises.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after the fourth time. “It’s just that I’ve never…”

  “It’s okay,” said Shane. “It’s a different world down here.” He grunted as he stretched to check another connection.

  “Is it true that there are alligators down here? Or snakes?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Everybody’s heard that, but I never saw anything worse than some big goddamn rats, cockroaches, and spiders.”

  “Spiders?”

  Shane laughed. “Once in awhile.” He shut the junction box. “Not a damn thing in there. Problem must be in the wiring.”

  He shone his light upward, following electrical conduits up the wall. Cockroaches skittered away from the beam. Then the yellow beam illuminated a furry body with glowing crimson eyes and sharp teeth. The rat perched high up, screamed at him and jumped for his face. ”Whoa!” he yelled and slipped on the slick stone. His circuit tester plunked into the flowing water.

  The power leaped from Gretchen to protect her friend. A muffled thump and a wet sound came from the attacking rat.

  “Shit,” said Shane as he stood up. “I lost my tester. Did you see that fucking rat? I was going to be its Meals on Wheels.” With shaking hands, he lit a cigarette. “Are you okay?”

  Gretchen wasn’t okay; she was shaking like a leaf in a gale and biting her knuckles in dismay, hyperventilating.

  “Gretchen? It’s okay. The rat’s gone. Don’t be upset.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly, as if he didn’t know how to console someone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as tears welled in earnest. “I was so scared and it jumped at you and I didn’t know what else to do because I thought it would kill you down here and then I’d be all alone.” She turned into him, buried her face against his grimy shirt, and sobbed.

  His arms encircled her and he held her as she cried, making hushing sounds and stroking her hair until she calmed down. “Hey, uh, it’s okay. It was just a sewer rat. No harm done.”

  She sniffled. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He paused. “What exactly did you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you didn’t know what else to do, so you must have done something.”

  Wordlessly, she stepped back and swung the flashlight beam down until it centered on a bloody mass of bone, meat, and fur that might have once been a rat.

  “Shit,” said Shane slowly, drawling it out like a Southerner. “What happened to it? It looks like it was torn apart.”

  “It was me,” whispered Gretchen. “It was going to bite you. I stopped it.”

  “How? You didn’t even move.”

  “I made all the air inside it disappear.”

  “The air?”

  She shrugged. “Air in its lungs, its intestines, its stomach.”

  “And you made it all just go away?”

  “Yes. That’s my parapower. I just discovered it.”

  “What’s left when you destroy the air?”

  “Nothing.”

  Shane scratched under the edge of his hard hat. “Nothing? You mean like a vacuum?”

  “I think so.”

  “And that’s what tore the rat apart.” He hunched down to get a better look. “That’s crazy, man. You could really mess someone up if you did that.”

  “Shane, I kind of did.”

  He took a step back. “You what?”

  “He was hurting me. I just wanted him to stop. That was all. I n-never wanted t-to…” Fresh tears tracked clean lines down the grime on her face.

  “Oh, shit. Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “And you’ve been so decent to me when you barely even know me,” said Gretchen.

  Shane smiled at her. “That’s just how I am. And you’ve been good company today.” He looked down at the rat carcass. “And there was this guy. He might have bit me if not for you. That makes you a hero in my book.”

  Gretchen smiled up at him. “Me, a hero?”

  “Sure. Hey, shine that light back up there again.”

  Gretchen did so and gasped as she saw a gnawed rat carcass beside a broken conduit sprouting frayed wiring like rust-colored weeds. Shane crowed with success. “There’s the bastard. I thought I saw something right before that other fellow jumped at me. There’s something about the wire insulation the rats love. They chewed on it until one of them hit the jackpot.”

  “So we can fix it?” asked Gretchen.

  “We sure can.” Shane looked down at her and she up at him for a long moment that she was sorry had to end.

  Chapter Eight

  July 13, 1977, 4:00 PM

  The shriek of the Steel Soldier’s afterburners was only partially muffled by the sealed evacuation stretcher tube in which she rode. When the Soldier rescued injured victims, he had two of the aerodynamic units, which he could lock onto his arms. They were better than a helicopter for rapid transport of victims to the hospital.

  They made for lousy air travel, though. Faith winced at the pounding in her temples from the roar of the jets. She wished she hadn’t been so eager to pursue the investigation lead, but she’d seen how the Feds were handling the case. They’d already made up their minds on what had happened in Dyersville, and moved onto their manhunt in New York. Faith hoped to gain some insight into Gretchen Gumm’s personality and perhaps learn something to find her before the short-sighted and trigger-happy Feds did.

  “How you holding up?” called Faith into her radio.

  Sundancer rode in the tube carried in the Soldier’s opposite arm. The two women were the lightest members of Just Cause, which allowed the Soldier to maximize his thrust. “I’m just great,” she complained. “This was a lovely idea.”

  “It’s better than babysitting Javier,” Faith said.

  ”True. God, I can’t stand that man. And I use the term loosely.”

  “Did you ever, you know, sleep with him?”

  “God, no. There isn’t enough booze in the world for me to give it up to him. Not for lack of effort on his part.”

  Faith laughed. “We’d better make sure Irlene stays away from him. He’ll have her out of that costume faster than even I could do it.”

  That made Sundancer laugh.

  “Did you ever sleep with anyone else on the team?” asked Faith. “There’s not a lot to choose from. Javier’s an asshole. Tommy’s gay. I hope you never slept with Bobby. Steel’s a robot—no offense, buddy.”

  “None taken. This is an interesting conversation,” rumbled
the Soldier over the speakers.

  “Hey, speaking of that,” said Faith, “I don’t mind you listening in, but this is a private conversation, so don’t repeat any of it, all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Which leaves John and Rick,” said Sundancer. “John doesn’t seem to have any libido. Not that he’s my type. But Rick… Yeah, we slept together once. How about you?”

  Faith spluttered. She hadn’t expected to be asked that. “I’m married,” she said at last.

  “That never stopped anyone. I’ve seen how you and Rick look at each other.”

  “We don’t… I mean, we haven’t… I mean, what was he like, in bed?”

  “Furry,” said Sundancer with a giggle. “That tawny fur covers every inch—and I do mean every inch. It’s very soft. And his tongue is raspy, like a cat’s. If he’s careful, it’s lovely.”

  “Oh my.” Faith felt herself blush.

  “He’s pretty aggressive, but I don’t mind that.” Sundancer sounded wistful over the speaker.

  “How come you didn’t stay together?”

  “Oh, Faith, it wouldn’t have worked with us being on the same team, and we both know it. It was fun once, but it’s better in every way that we find our partners elsewhere.”

  “Do you think it’s bad that Bobby and I are married?”

  “No. You guys were together long before you joined Just Cause. Didn’t you meet at Woodstock or something?”

  “Close. We stole his father’s car to go to the concert,” said Faith. “I was fifteen. He was seventeen and the most handsome boy I’d ever seen.”

  “He’s still a fox,” said Sundancer. “Not that I’d ever sleep with him. I respect you more than that.”

  “I estimate our time of arrival in Dyersville to be ten minutes,” reported the Soldier.

  “Thank God,” said Faith. “I need to pee!”

  “Urine will not harm the interior of the stretcher pods,” said the Soldier.

  “You’re not helping, Steel.”