by Drew Hayes
A loud creaking interrupted him, and the floor below them began to splinter.
“What the hell?” This came from the woman, who was staring daggers at her partner.
“I didn’t burn any extra, I swear! It must have already been about to collapse,” he yelled back at her.
Moments later, everyone was screaming, as the floor below them gave way and all four people found themselves tumbling through the air. Larry had just enough time to reflect on how much bullshit it was that he was going to die in school, of all places, before the man in gray grabbed him in a tight hug and spun around in mid-air.
They slammed into the fire-rotted wood, the guy holding Larry taking the brunt of the impact on his back. Sadly, their trip wasn’t over, though, as this floor immediately gave way as well, sending them hurtling down fifteen feet to the ground floor. Larry felt his whole body tense for landing, in spite of knowing perfectly well that he was supposed to stay loose in a crash situation. His body refused to listen to his brain, however, and he grit his teeth as the marble floor came rushing up at him. At the last moment, he lost his nerve and slammed his eyes shut.
To his shock, when they hit the ground, he felt nothing. No splat, no pain, not even a slight push from the sudden stop. Peeling his eyes open slowly, he found himself staring into the smiling face of the man who’d been holding him.
“You have no idea how glad I am that that worked,” the stranger said, releasing his hold on Larry.
“Actually, I think—shit, Bubbles!” In his momentary flood of relief, he’d forgotten that she was in danger too. Jerking his head upward, he found his best friend floating down, along with the short girl in gray.
“Sorry, it’s hard for me to lift people and myself, so we had to go slower.” The girl set Bubbles down, who immediately ran forward and squeezed Larry in a hug with all her might.
“I understand this is stressful and terrifying, but you need to come with us quickly,” said the guy. “We’re going to take you somewhere safe, and the entrance is only one building away. The sooner we get you there, the sooner you can relax.”
“Let’s go.” Larry gently pushed Bubbles away, who immediately leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
“L-Ray, do you think we can trust these people?”
“They just saved both our lives. Besides, we always knew there were Heroes-in-training at Lander. I just never expected to see them out and about like this.”
“To be fair, this is a surprise to us as well,” said the mystery girl. “But we should move now. The closest goon squad is still far enough away that we can get you underground before they arrive.”
“Underground?” Bubbles asked.
“I’ll explain as we go,” the masked man offered. “So long as we start moving now.”
The four hurried out of the building and into the warm night air. Larry could see the glow of more fires, as well as several more burning spots in the building they were leaving. It was all so impossible, so surreal, and he had a solid hunch that it wasn’t going to get less crazy anytime soon.
“Hey, mind if I ask what you meant back there? About being glad it worked?”
“Oh, that.” The man in gray turned back and gave a somewhat sheepish smile. “I’ve never tried to absorb the kinetic energy from a fall before. It made sense in theory, but this was the first chance I had to put it to use.”
Larry’s eyes widened, and he quickened his pace. The last thing we wanted was to be around for any more of a Super’s test sessions.
240.
The knock on the door was light, but firm. It opened immediately, revealing a slender young man whom Nathaniel had seen scurrying about since he first met with Crispin. Unlike the others, he didn’t treat the old gentleman with a fearful reticence; he marched right in and began to address him.
“Reporting an update: our Team A task forces have fallen below the sixty percent threshold. As you instructed, Team B has been gathered, and is awaiting you outside.”
“Thank you, Sherman.” Crispin rose from his chair and gave a slight wave of apology to Nathaniel. “Looks like it’s time to commence the second phase of our project. Once I finish with them, we can get you properly prepared for your reunion.”
Crispin and Sherman left the room, heading into a softly lit, white tiled hallway. As they passed a corkboard hanging on the wall—pinned full of flyers for upcoming campus events and various businesses—Sherman began to speak once more.
“There is also another matter, one I didn’t want to bring up in front of your guest. Iyanna reported two disturbances in her energy dome. She was able to heal them quickly, but it’s possible someone either escaped or got in.”
“Between Iyanna’s dome, Gretchen’s spatial anchoring, and Woodrow’s talent for stopping electronic communication, I highly doubt the Heroes have been able to figure out the situation and mount a proper response. Especially not with the gifts I gave them. Which reminds me, when are we due for the next refreshing?”
“Ten minutes and nineteen seconds from now,” Sherman replied briskly. His dark shoes make a light clicking sound as they walked down the hall, a harbinger of his impending arrival.
“Excellent. We should consider the possibility that one or two Heroes might have been lucky enough to be near and saw the dome, even if the official call isn’t out yet. Bring Gretchen to an adjacent room, just in case we need her to halt suddenly.”
“Consider it done.” Sherman stopped and pushed open a door, one that revealed a large classroom that was almost deserted. Its only inhabitants were five people—three men and two women—who ranged broadly in age and race. The only thread connecting them, in fact, was the pin each person wore. It bore the symbol of a sunrise over a city, with the letters “SOP” etched into the metal below. As soon as they laid eyes on Crispin, each stood straight at attention, scarcely daring to breathe.
“Please, relax, all of you,” Crispin said, patting the nearest one on the shoulder as he came through the door. “I know you wish to be respectful, but it is I who am honored to be in your presence. You five are some of the most dedicated brothers and sisters our movement has ever known. Each of you was handed tremendous power, and you refused to let society strip that gift away from you, which took courage. Even more impressive, you didn’t give in to the temptation of money and fame in exchange for acting as a hunting dog against your own kin. And that, my friends, took integrity.”
Crispin walked along in front of them, studying the faces of each one. They’d had names once, but those had already been purged from Crispin’s records. There were not people anymore. They were better. They were warriors in the battle for freedom, and he etched every feature they possessed into his mind so he would remember them as such.
“Too many others have not shared your integrity. They have become tools used by the humans to subjugate the species they immediately recognized as their betters. Today, we strike our first blow back against those tools. Today, we remind Heroes and humans alike that we are many, we are strong, and we will not be put down. While our other team is hunting for the entrance to their hidden rat hole, you are to be given a different task. A noble mission. Beyond these walls, right now, are many of Lander’s future Heroes, and you should crush them as best you can, but they are not your targets. Tonight, our goal is to kill something far more powerful than a handful of half-trained children. Tonight, we slay the image of the unstoppable HCP staff. Find the professors and the dean, and kill them. If the morning sun rises on even a single corpse from Lander’s staff, all of our sacrifice will have been worth it. The others out there, scared of the monster the media has made of the HCP, will see that it is not immortal. It can bleed. It can die.”
Crispin stepped to the front of the room so he could look each of his five recruits square in their eyes. “The gift I am about to give you is precious. It is one I bestow carefully and with great intent. Never do I hand it out for personal gain or attainment. It is a tool for our cause, the only thing a simple man
like me can possibly offer. Know then, that when you leave here with it, you are truly my chosen ones. The hopes of every Son of Progress rests on your shoulders. Make great use of my gift, for I’m afraid that it will only be with you for so long.”
“About half an hour,” Sherman added. Poetic language and inspirational speeches were great, but he felt it best if the team actually knew how long they had to work with.
“Yes, my dear friend speaks the truth. About half an hour to do your work in. By then, the Heroes will have discovered something is wrong, and our job becomes nigh impossible. Be swift, be brutal, and be precise. Even with my gift, Lander’s staff will not go down easily. You must put all you have into this battle, and if you die, I pray you do so with the glory of success shining in your heart as you pass. Truly, that is a death all of us can only hope for.”
Crispin stepped forward and put his hands on the cheeks of a dark-skinned young man with high cheekbones. Fire burned in the man’s eyes, a passion for the cause he’d given his life over to. There was no doubt in Crispin’s mind that this man, that all of his chosen five, would fight to their last breath to see his orders fulfilled. His smile deepened at that thought, and he could scarcely wait to have them out the door.
Lander had done well at knocking off his pawns so far. It was time to see how they handled the knights.
241.
A loud snap was all the warning they had. Nothing more than a sound like the roided-out cracking of a branch and suddenly, there was a beam plummeting toward them from the ceiling. The three women grabbed each other; there was fire on either side, and no place they could run for safety. So, in their final moments on earth, they acted on instinct. Humans, for all their vices and virtues, were herd animals deep down. When faced with impending death, these people each found that the only inclination which remained in their hearts was to reach out to one another, trying to impart just a small bit of comfort before a horrible finale. It was futile, of course, but it was also what made humanity such a rare and beautiful creature.
The young man who leapt forward was not human, not truly, but he was also acting on instinct. Before their eyes, he slammed his palms into the burning beam, causing it to shatter on the outer ends. Splinters and cinders spun about like flurries in a snowstorm, yet the women remained unharmed. This strange young man wearing all gray, including a face-covering mask, had stopped the section that would have turned them to paste. And he’d done it with his bare hands.
“Come on! The rest of this area is going to give out soon.” He turned away and chucked the section of burning beam still in his hands off to the side. As he faced away from them, one of the women noticed what looked like a baseball bat strapped to his back. She began to giggle, softly but continuously, as the insanity of the evening finally pushed the limits of what her sanity could bear. Sudden bombings, fires, even a man stopping a huge section of wood meant to kill them, she had somehow handled. But the idea that their savior had been on his way from the batting cages? That was the straw that caused her mind to sag, just as the beam had only moments before.
Her friends tugged at her, yet she stayed planted on the floor. At least, she thought she did. Suddenly, the world wasn’t only heat, smoke, and flickering flames. Darkness spilled out before her eyes, and the soft wind of a late-spring night caressed her burned cheeks. She blinked, unable to comprehend the shift that had taken place, and noticed the man with the bat was carrying her in his meaty arms. They came to another man in gray, this one with hands that glowed a soothing orange color. There were more students gathered around him, and in the air overhead, a blonde woman circled about before dropping back to the ground.
“Obi Wan just left; he said there were no more people trapped that he could find,” said the woman who had been floating through the air moments before.
“Good Lord, we have got to do better when we actually pick our code names,” said the man who was slowly setting her down.
“It’ll be a nice summer project,” the man with glowing orange hands agreed. “Are there any nearby patrol units?”
“None that I could see,” said the formerly floating woman. “We’ve got a pretty big group though. Probably best to drop them off before we go looking for more.”
“You two handle that,” said the man who’d held a beam off her. “I’ll go find Obi and see if he’s located more people yet. Our class is short on people who are fireproof, so I need to stay on rescue duty.”
“That’s fine. Between her flight and my shields, we shouldn’t have any issue getting these folks to safety,” said the man with glowing orange hands.
“Yeah, you get back in the game, Slugger,” agreed the blonde woman, already rising slightly off the ground.
A loud groan escaped the biggest one’s mouth. “Tonight, and only tonight, is the one time I let a name that dumb fly.”
* * *
Nick wiped the blood from his hands on a towel he’d taken out of his metal briefcase. It didn’t come off well—only strong scrubbing and powerful soap would get that job done right. This was merely a temporary measure, so that everything he touched wasn’t slippery as he continued his quest to find where the hell Nathaniel was.
By this point, he was certain that none of the mercenaries knew anything. They’d been hired, plain and simple, and kept in the dark as much as possible. Even coming to campus, they’d been directed by phone and transported in separate groups. It was a smart play and showed a lot of planning, more than Nathaniel was possibly capable of. Nick had been cutting his old nemesis a lot of slack based on the skill in his recent game, but now, he had to face the truth that Nathaniel wasn’t his real opponent. The orange-eyed bastard had become the puppet for someone else, someone with actual cunning and skills.
The towel, now stained red, was folded up and tucked back into the briefcase. Nick stepped over the corpse still wearing its same dark combat armor, and paused. If he was playing someone smarter than Nathaniel, then his best bet was to assume they were as smart as he was. Nick looked out into the night and thought hard about the situation at hand. If he were the one plotting this game, where would he station himself?
One of the un-bombed buildings was the obvious first clue, though who knew how many would stay un-bombed by the end of the night? It was a shell game; sticking a pea under a cup, shuffling them around, and making the customer guess which one the pea was under. Only, in this case, looking under a cup ran the risk of finding a sudden explosion.
Nick paused his steps as that analogy tripped something in his mind. A shell game . . . the good ones were built around speedy hands, misdirection, and subtlety. But the best ones . . . those were the ones where the shuffler slipped the pea into his hand without being seen. No matter which cup you looked under, you were wrong. Because the first assumption you’d started with, a pea being under a cup, was flawed.
He turned his gaze to the Business building, the first one to be bombed. It had hit one of the lower floors, and the flames were slowly climbing upward. Whoever was doing this had planned out every step so far. They’d locked down communications, dropped a dome over the campus, and probably added a few safeguards Nick didn’t even know about. Why not bring along a Super with a knack for keeping fire at bay? After the initial evacuation, the Business building was the last place anyone, human or Super, was going to go.
Hiding right in plain sight. They’d bombed the building where they wanted to set up shop. It was ingenious, assuming Nick was right. As he lifted his briefcase and began to move across campus, he had a feeling he was. It just fit so well, right along with the rest of this person’s plan. Of course, if they’d been able to think this far ahead, there was another factor Nick had to consider.
They knew he would figure it out, and would be waiting for him to arrive.
* * *
Orange light dimmed as the last of the mercenary team slipped into unconsciousness. The energy tendrils faded away, and the young man in gray turned to find his next obstacle. To his shock, it w
as already there, wearing a tattered red coat as it gazed down at him with familiar eyes.
“Please tell me you borrowed that properly this time.”
“Of course. We were in a pinch; I had pick of the powers.” Thomas’s voice sounded strange in the night air, being moved by a mouth unfamiliar with all its nuances. “But this is a good one, and easy to use without a whole lot of practice. More on topic though, what the hell are you doing here?”
“What little I can,” the man said. From behind him, a much smaller form emerged. It greeted Thomas’s body with an uncertain wave.
“Much as I want to charge in here, I can’t. The questions it would raise, the connections people might make . . . we’re so close, and it isn’t my right to sacrifice everything based on my own beliefs. Still, I had to do something. Shift down. We’re going to give them a helping hand.”
“How much help?” Thomas’s voice warped and stretched mid-sentence as the vocal cords creating the words changed into that of another person. Despite the gray mask covering his face, many of the student population could still have picked out the familiar form of Adam Riley.
“I’ll be working unseen, tweaking whatever I can, but we need someone more overt. Luckily, I have just the candidate in mind.”
242.
Zero slammed a fist through the feeble padding offered by his opponent’s armor. Even without his own suit’s augmentations, Zero could have made short work of the small squad. He was thankful for every second of advantage it did provide though. Time was both their greatest asset and enemy at the moment. True, every second lost meant more time for innocents to die, but it also brought the inevitable moment of victory closer.
The Hero Certification Program had been given an almost impossible task when it came to securing their facilities. How does one account for defending against every type of power they knew about? Even worse, what about all the ones yet to be seen? It had quickly been established that a truly impregnable defense was impossible unless they were willing to keep dozens of specialized Supers on hand at all times. What they could do, however, was implement safeguards on top of safeguards. The possibility of losing communication during an attack was one of the first issues they tackled. The solution was a simple one: a server in the DVA pinged each HCP on multiple communication networks once per hour. If any of them failed to connect, it tried redundancies. If those failed too, an immediate distress call was put into place. It had caused some costly misunderstandings more than once, but the system was never altered. One necessary situation justified ten thousand fuck-ups.