by Ben Mason
There wasn’t one. No one in all his decades of crime made the cut. And the new crop with people like Heat Streak populating their ranks had no chance.
Part of proper villainy, Christoph had always told himself, was about facing against the heroes and ignoring the normals. Making sure showdowns happened far away from downtown areas. Making sure powers weren’t used against the helpless. After all, what was the point of harming the average citizen? Even the wealthy didn’t have that much money on them. That left the banks and military installations (and corrupt governments, those were good as well). And if a villain needed to threaten the average citizen to make an escape, then he shouldn’t have gotten into the business in the first place. You either had the ability to get away or you didn’t. Betting on random factors like moving hostages was both vile and idiotic.
“I’m not sure,” Christoph said, his mouth dry. “I don’t know anymore.” A small plume of fog kicked up in his stomach and he ignored it. Suddenly, he felt very tired and old.
“So what was your name?” John asked. It was obvious he was trying to take his mind off the subject.
“Gravitas.”
“Wait. Gravitas? As in the Gravitas. Holy crap, Walt. I mean Chris. I grew up reading about you in Powered magazine.”
Despite the circumstances, a tiny ember of pride flickered in his chest. “Go on.”
“You were one of the baddest dudes around. I even dressed like you when I went to my senior prom.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, with Amy Rochenmeyer. She liked the suit, too.” From the look on John’s face, Christoph guessed she liked it being on the floor more than on his figure, but he didn’t say anything.
Snapping out of his nostalgia, John moved a little closer, his hand farther away from the grip of his gun. “They said you were honorable.”
“I am. And I promise you, John, I’ll die before I let your little girl die.”
“I’ll keep you to that,” John said. They shook hands, and for the first time since he had contacted Murakawa, Christoph felt clean.
A gust of air pushed against their backs. Siv touched her feet to the floor. There was concern written all over her face. “I found out about the helmet.”
“And?” John said, stepping closer.
“It’s bad. The helmet either blocks a person from a telepath’s mind, or it allows the telepath to take over another’s mind. Whoever took Julie doesn’t want to kill Dominic. They want to use him.”
Christoph saw his friend’s faces fall in shock and fear. He wondered what they were thinking, imagining. Because all he could think of was Avros, his ruined wings wrapped in steel as a giant island hung floating above the sea.
Chapter 20
The Crimson Kite’s Diamond Wedge cut across the city, over the lightning rods and aircraft warning lights of Selenium’s tallest buildings. Its glowing red interior was cramped and gave Christoph a headache. It was more nightclub than functional crime-fighting tool.
“Crim’s going to be furious if we damage this in any way,” Siv said as she manned the controls.
“Here’s hoping we get that lucky,” Christoph said as he scanned the streets. It had taken a minute or two to convince Siv that while legally they had no right to the vehicle, it was all in the pursuit of justice.
Justice. Even thinking the word put a bad taste in his mouth.
He had thought about unlocking the door of his mind, hoping Dominic was too angry to check his thoughts, and decided against it. If the boy knew they were airborne, then he was liable to hide beyond their means. He had made a few such jokes, trying to keep his mind from thoughts of failure and Julie’s current situation. No matter how far the doctor had fallen, Christoph refused to believe he would hurt a little girl. He had never once crossed the line of using unwilling human test subjects in any of his experiments, even going so far as to eliminate competition who did.
“John, are you sure he’s still alive?” Siv asked.
“Positive,” John said as he studied the navigation screen. “The prototype cauterizes the wound after it makes it. No way he’s bled out.”
“Excellent,” Christoph lied. Nothing about his current circumstances was excellent or even good. The fog was returning, little by little, like the steam of a teapot or the heat from a sewer grate. It matched how he felt. He had spent years sure that his villainy had as much honor as heroism (if a little less regard for property rights). Now he had to wonder if he had ever been a supervillain or merely a thief with extraordinary capabilities.
“At least we have that going for us. It’s been half an hour and we haven’t found him. He could be anywhere in the city,” John said. His eyes were red from staring at the screen. And crying. Each minute threatened to push him over the edge.
As they dipped and spun, cutting corners and moving lower to the ground in places where they needed an actual eye on the territory, Christoph felt Siv’s anxiousness start to mount. She felt responsible. Giving up a villain for a child and then failing to get both. How did it play on her emotions? Not well, he guessed.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Christoph tried to think. Where had Dominic gone when things got hot between them? There were haunts and places for lower-level supers who hadn’t made the headlines or done jail time. None of them were useful and most of them were gone. The Docks were eliminated because there was nowhere to hide well. Not from radar or heat signals. And what about the last robot? If it was still tracking him, then none of his haunts were worth considering. There had to be one place safer, more secure…
His eyes shot open.
“He’s gone to the Moonbeam.”
“Are you sure?” Siv asked over her shoulder.
“What’s the Moonbeam?” John said.
“It’s the one place in all of Selenium out of sight of the government and the Watchers that scrambles tracking devices and listening equipment. Dominic used to meet the businessmen and politicians he was bribing there,” he said to John.
“CEOs and statesmen? And they call you guys evil.”
“Please. The term is legally impaired.”
Siv scoffed at that.
Building up his courage Christoph decided now was the time. The time to ask and come clean. They were walking into danger and, if Murakawa had abandoned all principles, near-certain death. They needed to know. They had the right.
“Siv, John, a moment of your time.”
They turned to face him.
As he tried to think of a good opening defense, the Wedge swung left and smashed against the side of a building, slamming Christoph in his seat (thankfully he considered seatbelts more common sense than law worth breaking). His body groaned with pain. “What—”
The Wedge’s back flipped up and started the craft’s descent into a tailspin as they neared the ground. They came within inches of the asphalt before Siv pulled up, scraping the top off a blue sedan and turning it into a hoodless convertible.
“There’s something behind us,” John said.
Christoph switched the video to rearview. There behind them was a larger model of Murakawa’s sleek jet, coming closer, a laser sight hanging from a beam cannon. He had run out of borrowed time. The doctor was coming to finish what he had started that morning.
And it looked like he was going to succeed.
“Hold on,” Siv called, banking hard left. The Wedge swung sideways between two large bank headquarters, the paint scraping off the hull as sparks flew. The jet didn’t bother to follow. It let out a few shots scorching the mortar, blocking the way back.
“Who is that?” John asked.
“Dominic’s old boss,” Siv said. “I don’t think they care as much about us staying alive. John, can you find out if we have any weapons on this thing?”
“Roger,” he said scanning the different buttons and toggles, switching some at random.
“Chris,” Siv said, the green of her eyes glowing despite the lighting, “Can you lighten our load a little? I need to shake this thi
ng if we’re ever going to have a fighting chance. We’ve got to get up or over it.”
“I’m barely able to keep myself together and you’re asking me to work on several tons of steel?”
“Yes,” she said. “You owe me. This is a shit first date.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “And my apologies to the lady.”
The truth was the fog had been coming in more after the attack started. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the fog (and whatever lay behind it, he could lie no more) was excited. He just wasn’t sure if it was for his victory or his death. There was a chance it was both. Placing his hands on the console he tried to forget Murakawa’s jet, forget his anger and the Kimbles and Siv. Forget he was back in Selenium and near death.
He forgot he was Gravitas.
He sank, deep into the darkness where he had gone a few times before when he had been caught and tortured by a militant organization bent on using him to establish a new government for the people (the people who happened to miraculously believe in the militants’ interests and no others). The place he had gone when he had been a reluctant guest of the government for ten years with no chance of parole.
I need more power, he demanded of it. He was not going to beg and for some reason, despite his courteous manners, he didn’t ask either. He had the feeling this…thing didn’t respond well to polite inquiries.
The fog drifted around him lazily, swirling, enjoying the struggle.
Fine. Let me die. I’m sure you have someone else picked out to take my place.
The fog’s response was surprising. It quivered, then swirled in a tighter circle, lashing out around him, each strike a hair’s breadth off. He had touched on a sensitive subject.
From far off there was a rumble and explosions. Siv’s voice drifted down the words getting lost along the way.
It’s your choice. Let me die and take your chances or don’t.
The fog tightened around him, covering up to his chest and then loomed over him like the mouth of a large wave.
Next time.
He didn’t want there to be a next time, was willing to die to avoid it, but right then he was willing to agree. Fine.
The fog slammed down and his powers flooded around the controls as he peeled back the Wedge’s weight. “Get ready, Siv. It’s about to get faster,” he called out. Studying the console, he saw sparks flying from cracked screens, hanging wires (thankfully not cracked open), and warning lights with none of the annoying sirens so many vehicle makers were insistent on including.
The Wedge was turning hard lefts and rights, zigzagging as the black jet grew closer, each time moving a little faster. “About time,” Siv said. “I was wondering if you’d gone to sleep on us.”
“Me? Well, the gentle rocking was getting me drowsy, I admit.”
“That’s it. All supers are officially crazy,” John said. He had changed seats at some point and was running down what must have been the last of his options. “Found it.”
A scream mixed between a falcon call and scraping metal tore out, along with long gashes of red lasers. It figured. It took a fool like the Crimson Kite to take invisible lasers and make them easier to dodge. If they survived this (and even with his ego, Christoph had to admit the odds weren’t in their favor), he was going to ram this ship’s weapons system past the seat of Kite’s most likely red spandex and beyond.
“We can’t shake him,” Siv said. “I’m heading for the Exchange.”
“You’re kidding,” Christoph said.
John didn’t to respond. He started praying as fast as possible.
It took a second to see the sprawling mass of the Exchange, the West Coast’s response to Wall Street. The difference was the large network of buildings creating a halo around the squat, blocky building in the center and the mass of tubes that took shuttles to and from the buildings. There had been a crackdown in the last few years, Christoph had read, of young people flying homemade aircrafts in between the gaps, trying to cut as close as possible without dying. Running the tubes, they called it.
He called it lunacy.
The tubes were near indestructible; the people running into them were not.
“It’s the only way,” Siv said. And then she accelerated forward and into the sprawl of tubes. For a second they all held their breaths. The shadows played over them like the leaves of a technological jungle. Siv turned the controls in stiff, jerky movements. It took all his concentration for Christoph to not focus on the ship. Any change in mass, even a gram, was likely to make them spin out of control and slam into a building.
If they were lucky. With a building their corpses might be identifiable.
Flicking his eyes to the screen, Christoph saw the jet had tried to follow them and failed. The thing was too large. It kept dipping in and out of sight from above, trying to land shots and keep the Wedge in focus.
“It’s right on top of us,” John said. “I can’t get a shot off either. It’s too fast.”
“Yeah,” Siv said. “It is. All right, gentlemen, pick a god and pray.”
Laughing, she twisted the controls down and swung up at a straight fifteen degree angle, right toward Murakawa’s jet. The behemoth started to angle its cannon, then, realizing what was happening, tried to move away too late.
The pointed tip of the Wedge ripped the cannon off its joint and dented the right wing, forcing the jet into a tailspin as it arced away from the Exchange and closer to the sea and the docks. If they were lucky, it would crash.
The problem was (judging from the flashing red and white warning signs) they were about to crash, too. Right in the middle of the Exchange. As the nose of the Wedge tipped forward, they began their descent straight into a waiting mass of tubes.
Chapter 21
It was going to be a quick death. That was the reason Christoph kept holding their mass light. While burning to death in a flaming wreck of debris meant not having a body to claim as far as exits went, he found it a worthy one. The one weight on his mind, the one regret, was John was going to die as well. He and Siv had chosen the life. His neighbor had not.
As they started their fall, Siv undid her seatbelt, pulling her shield onto her arm. “Are we still light, Chris?”
“As a feather and holding.”
A green glow washed over the cabin, purging all of the red light (improving the decor) as they fell. Gripping the console, trying to stay steady, Siv smashed her shield into the floor of the Wedge, forcing the ship to angle itself away from the tubes.
Sort of.
The angle was a close one and as they grew closer, Siv hit her shield against the ground again, tearing open a hole large enough for two people. “Chris?”
“Ladies and fathers first,” Christoph said, meaning every word.
“John, let’s bail.
“For yours is the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Our father who art in heaven…” he said as he unbuckled his seatbelt. Siv pulled him close in what was affectionately known as “civilian rescue second base” and tore out of the new opening and away, leaving Christoph in the damaged hull alone.
He took a moment to compose himself. Every villain in their career faced this possibility. It wasn’t a profession where retirement was meant literally very often. Most died either from disease or heart failure or giant laser death-beam explosions (because many of them were surprisingly volatile. Another reason to never threaten civilian populations). If this was to be his end so be it. At least John and Siv were able to escape.
Keeping the craft light, he saw the tubes come closer and closer. It was going to be close. It took every nerve in his body not to release his power. His mind and body screamed at him under the pressure. Sitting up straight, trying not to shake, he held firm. There was no one to see him die, but he was going to make sure it was a good end all the same.
The Wedge’s tip hit one of the outermost tubes and scraped a large arc to the outside, banging against it once like a pebble and falling outside the halo of buil
dings.
“Well thank you,” Christoph said to the sky and whoever was up there at the moment. Then the street came into view, as did someone’s lovely blue minivan. It was shiny and new and the Wedge was headed straight for it.
And now came the second trial. Return the mass to normal too soon and he was liable to be crushed to death. Return it too late and every bone in his body was going to break to pieces. It was going to have to be the space between heartbeats.
Keeping his fingers on the console, Christoph waited until the edge of the right side of the wedge scraped the bike rack on top and then let go. The aircraft flattened the family car a second later. His teeth clacked together with so much force he thought he was going to need dentures and his body flared up in pain. He didn’t want to think about his cracked ribs.
But he was alive.
He took a few ragged breaths. They were filled with blood and smoke ready to burn his lungs to ash and they were the sweetest he’d ever taken since the last time he had almost died. Part of the addiction to either being a hero or villain was the rush. The brush against death. He had done it dozens of times and it never got any less invigorating.
A groan came from the metal above him and a dent appeared above him, then a small hole. Fingers prodded it before tearing off bits of metal and then Siv’s face, her pale blond hair damp from the stress and exertion, came into view. The last maneuver had been incredibly precise and it looked to have drained most of the energy out of her. But she had pulled it off. Not only fighting off Murakawa’s ship but saving John’s life as well.
It would have taken a few drinks for Christoph (gentleman that he was) to admit it was a massive turn-on.
“I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it,” she said. She leapt down into the ship.
“Dear Siv, if you would be so kind, my seatbelt seems to be stuck and—”
Leaning forward, she kissed him like she had forty years ago. The mood was terrible (as was the lighting), neither of them looked or smelled their freshest, and it was even better than when they had both been young. All the years of waiting and he was back to being a young man . Breaking off the kiss, they smiled at each other. Probably like idiots.