“No.”
Fiona narrowed her eyes.
“I mean, yeah,” he said, bowing his head.
She looked down between his legs. “Cold in here, huh, big fella?”
“Yeah.”
It was, actually. The concrete trapped the morning’s coolness, or they were pumping air in there on purpose to torment the poor guy.
“Well, I’m letting you out and letting you live on one condition. You tell your boys that they had better protect that girl in the other room and her family. If you don’t, if I hear anything has happened to any of them, I’ll come back here and do to you all what I’ve done to those racist assholes in the other room.” Fiona peered right down into his eyes. “You feel me?”
“Yeah, yeah, I feel ya,” he grunted.
Fiona burned away his cuffs.
She retreated back into the den where Kimberly was still curled into the corner. “Come on, honey. It’s time to get you to your sister.”
Fiona led her outside, where a few folks had now gathered. It seemed her arrival had drawn some attention, after all. “All right, I need you not to move a muscle, okay?”
Kimberly nervously nodded her head.
“Don’t be afraid, this will just last a second.” Fiona squinted and reconsidered. “Maybe it’s best you just close your eyes. Don’t move a muscle,” she repeated. Her hands flew up and she opened her palms wide. Beams of light shot out and a wide field of light surrounded Kimberly on all sides.
Flash!
“Okay, you can open them now.”
They were standing in the middle of the Palace at Lake Tahoe.
It had taken exactly one second.
Kimberley was completely thrown, not sure what she was seeing.
But her sister, Kristen, saw her immediately, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. She squealed her sister’s name and rushed toward her, and in the same moment that Kimberly realized who it was, Kristen had her in a bear hug.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Kristen cried, smiling at Fiona through her tears. “How bad are you hurt?” Kristen asked her sister, releasing her from the death grip, trying to see where all the blood was coming from.
“No, it’s not my blood.”
‘Whose blood is it?” came an accusatory question from behind them.
Becky.
“They resisted,” said Fiona, defiantly.
“Nice,” Arcadia laughed and held up a high five to Fiona, who returned it as carefully as she could, still glowing in her own power. She didn’t want to rip her friend’s arm off, after all. Especially with Becky watching.
“This is not a game, girls.”
Arcadia shot Becky a look that said she was the biggest prude on the planet and that she just didn’t get it. There was also a bit of fuck off in the look.
“Can we not do this here?” Fiona said, nodding toward the two weeping sisters.
Becky’s eyes shot past Fiona, and it was in that very instant that something tweaked Fiona’s consciousness. It was like a memory that flashed for a second, or an image from a dream recalled and then forgotten just as fast.
Fiona shook her head.
Had she heard something? She listened, but Becky was squawking. She squinted, tried to concentrate. Something was wrong, but what the hell was it?
“Fiona!” Becky finally barked. And the girl peered up at her, confusion clearly mapped across her face. “Are you okay, honey?” Becky said in a softer tone, recognizing a look on Fiona’s face she’d seen before..
“Yeah, uh, what were you saying?”
Becky motioned behind her and Fiona turned. “They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
It was Fred Elders, mayor of South Lake Tahoe, flanked by two state troopers from the CHP. “Ms. Fletcher,” Elders said as politely as he could, but his impatience was clear in his voice, “I can’t hold off any longer. The city council voted to take legal action if you don’t move this encampment. Now, you’re on city property here, and this commune, or whatever you call it, is chasing away all the tourists.”
“What do you call those,” Fiona asked him, motioning to the thousands camped out below them.
“They don’t spend any money. It’s hurting our bottom line. Our town lives and dies on tourist dollars, and if I can’t get you to move, then the state’s gonna have to do it. Now, you don’t want that kind of trouble.”
One of the state troopers beside Elders nodded, “Nope, you sure don’t.”
But Fiona wasn’t listening. The sound was back. Or was it a memory? She still couldn’t tell. But something was wrong. And as she concentrated on what it was, a solitary chill of light and energy ran down her spine. A feeling of complete and total dread like she had never felt washed over her.
She lifted her burning eyes to Elders. And the old man wilted. The power that radiated off the girl was immense. It grabbed every molecule in the air and suffocated them.
“Uh . . .okay, now. We can talk about this. I’m not threatening you, now. You know that, right? We just want to talk, that’s all.”
“Something’s wrong,” Fiona said finally, looking past Elders, past the troopers.
“Oh, no,” Becky said. “I hate it when she says that.”
* * *
Lieutenant Commander Veronica Soto was locked on.
“I have missile lock and am preparing to fire on target . . .now.” She said over her throat mike.
Her B-12 Stealth fighter was blasting across the California Central Valley.
She flipped up the cover on the launch console and pressed the red button.
“Roger that, Commander,” came back the reply from Edwards AFB.
Below her, the missile bay doors opened and the GBU-65/B dropped from its holders. The weapon ignited and shot through the sky, seeking out its target ahead.
Veronica checked her lipstick in the small mirror she had attached to her dashboard instrument panel and smiled. Perfect. “Bird’s away.”
The missile zoomed ahead at breathtaking speed. It disappeared over the horizon. Veronica watched it on her radar.
“Two minutes to impact,” she told the boys at Edwards.
* * *
Fiona flashed away.
She reappeared a quarter of a mile away and a thousand feet above the encampment. She still wasn’t sure what she was looking for. But the feel of it was wrong, threatening. She scanned the sky. Nothing.
She scanned the lake. Calm and normal.
Her awareness of the luminescent spectrum wasn’t all knowing. She could sense things, feel them. But on a broad scale. The details were elusive. She wondered if she would get better over time, or if like sight and hearing, it simply was what it was.
Her eyes probed skyward again. Then she saw it. Moving fast, unmistakable. The missile had to be as long as a city bus. Impossibly long for something moving so fast. As it got closer, Fiona could see it was as long as two city buses.
The Council was trying to kill her!
As if.
Her mind flashed to Becky. A lump burned in her throat as she thought of her hurt. No, that was not going to happen.
She teleported right in front of the missile. The bomb itself was only about the size of a person. Its vicious fire trail was what had made it appear to be so long. Fiona had never seen such a weapon up close and in action.
She lifted both arms, brought her hands together, and blasted the missile with the most powerful beam of energy she could muster. She would take no chances. She wanted to incinerate the thing, midair.
She didn’t.
Below, Becky, Arcadia, Elders, and the others had run out to see what the commotion was. When Fiona had teleported, some in the throng had spotted her floating far above them in the clear California sky. That started a rumble in the crowd as everyone looked up. Then they saw the smoke trail of the missile. The rumble of the crowd grew into a roar.
The brilliant beam of light shot out from Fiona’s hands. From the ground, the beam’s flash was like a long
mirror reflecting sunlight for split second, high above.
The flash came first.
It was like the sun exploding across the sky.
Then sound. A deep, ominous BOOM. They could feel it in the pits of their chests.
For Fiona, it consumed her world. Fire, heat, and unbridled energy swirled around her. For the first time in her life as the Fire Fly she had met a conventional weapon that could hurt her.
The shockwave blasted her across the sky. The bomb hadn’t burned up like she’d expected. It had exploded right in her face. The fire and heat was but a mere irritation, but the shockwave hit her full force She had not been prepared for it, and as she reeled, she knew that the only chance she had of saving Becky, of saving the others, was to absorb the explosive power of the detonation.
It all happened in the course of single second. Fiona blasted her energy across the sky, creating a massive shield against the deadly energy. But the blast was simply colossal. It pushed her even as she absorbed it into her body. There was simply too much of it. She closed her eyes and pushed back. And to her absolute horror she realized that she was falling not just out of the sky but out of consciousness.
Fiona splashed into the waters of the lake, sending an almighty gout of water and foam high into the air.
The shockwave hit next. She had lost consciousness only for a second. And she flew out of the waves as water geysered again—at the speed of light. She held out her palms and built the massive wall of energy for a second time. She literally held the power of the blast in the palms of her hands. She pushed with all her might away from the shore, away from the Palace and her throngs of followers. Away from Becky and Arcadia and the Connors girls. The energy of the blast shot off in the other direction. And then, as a reflex, she teleported back to the Palace. And collapsed.
* * *
Darkness. She dreamed of darkness. Stars spread out above her, and the great glorious colors of the Milky Way galaxy beckoned her. She wanted to follow them, to go to them. To seek them out and discover the secrets of the universe. It seemed that all she had to do was will it and she would be there.
But a voice was breaking the black. A voice she knew. A voice she loved. A voice she needed to return to.
Fiona opened her eyes. And she heard Becky scream her name once more. But her head was throbbing and all she could hear was an awful hiss. Fiona shook her head, tried to get the water out of her ears or whatever was making the god-awful noise.
Fiona spun to her feet—and realized that she was in human form. And completely naked in front of the Connors girls, Arcadia, and worst of all, old man Elders and the two troopers. The mayor had the good sense to look away. But the troopers were getting an eyeful. Wonderful.
She transformed back into the Fire Fly. And scowled at the troopers.
The sound was still ringing in her ears.
“Fiona, the wave!” Becky yelled at her, pointing to the lake.
“Ms. Fletcher, please, you have to stop it.”
“What—” Fiona turned to look out toward the lake and saw what they were talking about.
The hissing sound. An enormous wave had pulled the water on their side of Tahoe way out, and now what could only be described as a massive tsunami was headed toward the other side. Toward South Lake Tahoe. She’d protected her little enclave, but now the wave threatened the very people who wanted to take her home from her.
Fiona scoffed. “I’m not such an irritation now, huh?”
“Fiona!” Becky breathed like a scandalized mother.
Fiona raised her chin. “Drop your opposition.”
The mayor’s face turned red, and he stammered and stumbled on his words.
“Fiona!” Becky was shouting now as she watched the wave. It was approaching the first set of boats. In only moments they would be capsized.
“There’s no time! Please!” Elders begged.
“Not so tough now, huh?” shot Arcadia.
Becky seethed at her. The girl would do or say anything to get in Fiona’s good favor!
“Okay, anything you want, just please save my city!”
“See, that wasn’t so hard.” Fiona teased.
Flash! She was gone.
Fiona materialized just behind the wave—and watched in horror as it swallowed a sailboat with three on board. A luxury yacht was swept up by the monster wave next. The big boat fought against the swell and finally tipped. Rolling under the wave, it smashed into the bubbling water. Tiny figures fell, slipped from the deck, as it turned, and Fiona watched as they tumbled into freefall.
She saw a girl no older than herself, blonde hair, string bikini. Probably very pretty. Screaming, fighting to get inside, as if that would save her. She slipped and rolled down the deck, slammed against the yacht’s guardrails, and went limp, only to go spinning head over heels into the deadly, monstrous surf. The ship and it occupants were consumed by the roiling waters. There was nothing Fiona could do for them. There just wasn’t time. She had to stop the wave from striking the shore and the inlet where a whole host of boats lay helpless in the gigantic wave’s path.
She shot out a massive wall of energy in front of the wave, and like water sloshing in a bathtub, the great wall of water hit the barrier of energy with an all-powerful BOOM! Water wrenched backwards with a pounding, colossal roar.
Great. But now it was headed back toward the encampment. Fiona raised another wall behind her as the great wave passed through her now ethereal form. Why didn’t I think to turn to light-form when the missile blasted?
The water sloshed against the back wall and headed again toward South Lake Tahoe, but some of the water began to slosh in other directions as well. Fiona raised two more walls, boxing the water in from all sides.
It took twenty long minutes before the water calmed enough for Fiona to dissolve the energy walls. But when she did, she was miles away. Because . . .
She had gone to seek revenge.
* * *
Veronica Soto never saw it coming. One second she was sitting in her cockpit watching as the impact spread across the target area and wondering why the signal was coming back so goofy. It was a direct hit and yet the reverberations seemed to be going psycho.
The next second, the world exploded.
The lieutenant found herself in freefall. She’d blacked out. Her whole body was numb. When her brain finally registered what was happening—that she was falling, from 30,000 feet, toward the Earth—that’s when she noticed the blood.
Her arms, her legs, she still had them, but they were ripped to shreds. Those shreds flipped and flopped and rippled in the wind as she fell. She should have been in agony, but she felt nothing.
She peered down at the ground below her as she spun. The great Sierra Nevada mountain range rising to meet her. And she realized that the ground was coming up far too fast. She’d had no time to hit the ejection seat. She hoped she still had a chute in her suit. She hoped it wasn’t ripped to shreds like the rest of her.
* * *
Fiona watched as the stealth fighter exploded in front of her. The fireball was tremendous. She could have just burned the jet into oblivion, but instead she had blasted the engines and waited to see what would happen. She thought the plane would just fall from the sky.
And when it did she was going to incinerate the parachute of the pilot and let he or she plummet to the Earth. That seemed like it would be sufficient payback. Payback is a bitch. And she was feeling very bitchy at the moment.
When, contrary to what she had been expecting, the aircraft had exploded and flung the pilot free, Fiona had let out a whoop and a laugh that she had almost felt guilty for.
Almost.
* * *
The lieutenant hit the ejection button on her suit with the bloody clump of flesh that used to be her right arm and hand.
The chute opened.
But she kept falling. The chute was ripped and some part of the mechanism wasn’t working right. It took it a full fifteen seconds to fully unfurl an
d even when it did, the rips in the fabric were limiting its effectiveness. Her descent was twice as fast as it should have been.
Veronica Soto fell to the Earth. When she hit, she bounced. Blood splattered into the air. Limbs, already torn and burnt, shattered. Her body lay twisted unnaturally in the green forest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Bent and curved in ways no human body should be. A pool of red gathering around it.
* * *
Back in Tahoe, Becky pondered what it meant for a teenage girl to be given superpowers. Why is it so many stories and myths revolve around just that idea? Hormones raging through them, moral judgments not yet fully formed.
At that very moment, Fiona materialized in front of her. She simply walked past her, glowing in her powerful Fire Fly form, head down, not making eye contact. Becky knew where she would go. The savior of mankind was going to go play a video game.
In fact, she already had.
Becky gave her several moments and then followed her in. She was surprised to find Fiona in the den, sitting alone on the couch in human form. The fading light of the afternoon sun was bleeding through the window. She had changed into sweats. She just sat there in the half light.
She’d not touched the video game console.
“There are still a lot of people out there,” Becky said, finally.
“I know.” Fiona peered up at her and then glanced away out the window. “I’m tired. I can’t help them all.”
“It’s hard to fight the good fight, isn’t it?”
Fiona kept on staring. Finally she took a deep breath. “What is the good fight?”
Becky smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I’m good though, right?” Fiona’s eyes were wide now, child-like. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she was only eighteen years old. Becky always found it jarring when she was reminded of just how young Fiona really was.
Becky smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
“I mean, if I do things they’re good, right? By definition, because I’m doing them for the right reasons.”
Becky shook her head. “I don’t know, honey. Maybe right is just right, wrong is just wrong. It doesn’t matter who does them or why.”
Fiona sat there a long time and Becky finally strolled over and sat next to her. They held hands and were quiet until the sun faded behind the trees.
The Good Fight Page 12