Ramona crossed the room to where Easy Listener sobbed on the floor. The metahuman’s enhanced hearing made him utterly vulnerable to the shock wave–generating armor of Silent Knight. A pang of guilt rose up in her.
“It’s all right.” She got an arm under him and propped him up. He clung to her like a frightened child. “It’s over now.”
The buzz of her cell sent a fresh wave of quivers through the crippled old man. She dug it out of her jacket pocket to silence it—and blinked. The number was familiar, terribly familiar.
“We just wanted to be left alone,” Easy Listener whimpered. “We wouldn’t hurt anyone. You didn’t have to bring an army.”
Army? “Just us, old-timer.”
He shook his head. “So many troops to arrest an old man. It’s not fair.”
“I told you, there’s only—” Ramona stopped. There was something horribly wrong. Why hadn’t Pensive confirmed her orders? And the persistent caller, who kept calling back, avoiding voice mail…
She gasped and flipped the cell phone open to answer. “Benjamin!”
There was nothing neutral about Benjamin Franklin Hotline’s voice. “I told you to be there before six.”
“We were. Slycke’s right here, under arrest.”
“Ramona.” He spoke her name with disturbing urgency. “That wasn’t the reason.” He paused. “You’re not my only client.”
“What do you mean?”
“I—get out of there right now. I can’t tell you more without violating client confidentiality.”
Ramona looked up at the tableau of the secured metacrooks and the wounded Silent Knight. “Who’s out there, Benjamin?”
“Just go. Use the back door.” The line went dead.
“Damn.” The comm line was silent as well, hissing like it had on the day of the invasion.
Flak gave her a concerned look over Musclehead’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Not sure.” She turned to Easy Listener. “What do you hear?”
“Ringing…” He shook his head to clear it. “And footsteps, dozens. An engine, unfamiliar. Someone being strangled. Guns—rifles. Machines.” Easy Listener paled further. “They’re not Echo, are they?”
“No,” Ramona said. “I don’t think so.”
“They’re speaking…it’s German. I can’t understand what they’re saying.”
“I can guess.” She retrieved her sidearm and slapped in a fresh cartridge. “We’re already acquainted.”
Southwind gave a laugh. “Speak of the devil! I was in the mood for some payback. What should I do with Mr. Exxon Valdez here?”
“Put me down,” Slycke snarled.
“Hold onto him. That intel is still our primary objective.”
But Southwind shook his head. “Can’t do that and defend you.”
Easy Listener had climbed back into his chair. “They’re advancing. They’re on my porch! Oh, Lord, protect us…”
The Nazis had the building surrounded. Benjamin Franklin Hotline told her to use the back door. Was it too late?
Ramona knelt by Silent Knight and Belladonna. “Can he move?”
“Not really,” the healer said. “Not without support, which would require Flak or Southwind.”
“Then we leave him.” The words sounded foreign as soon as she spoke them. “To cover our retreat.”
“Retreat?” Flak had released Musclehead, who rubbed his arms. “You’re joking, right?”
“No. Think of this as a football game with Slycke as the ball. Our team’s goal is to get him to safety, no matter what it takes.”
“We should stand and fight,” Belladonna said.
“Damn straight,” Flak said. “We got the firepower.”
“I want blood. They have to pay.” Southwind said.
Ramona stood and faced them all. Her spine tingled. “No. I give the orders. We run. Now.”
A buzz issued from Silent Knight’s speaker grill. “Orders confirmed. I will provide covering fire.” The mechanical quality of the synthesized voice didn’t hide the finality in the statement. “Commence retreat at Detective Ferrari’s command.”
Belladonna clenched her fists. “This isn’t right. My patient—”
The building shuddered from an impact on the roof. Plaster dust shook down from the ceiling. “No more time. Let’s go.”
“What about these clowns?” Flak gestured at Musclehead and the cuffed Twinkletoes, who still sat with his legs outstretched.
Ramona aimed her gun and fired two rounds. Twinkletoes flinched. The bullets shattered the chain of the handcuffs.
“Evacuate them. Southwind, keep Slycke secure.”
“Ain’t no more need for that,” Slycke said. “Jus’ lemme go, I’ll run plenty fast on my own.”
Ramona ignored him. “Which way to the back door?”
Twinkletoes was on his feet and standing at the far door in an instant. “Over here.”
“Carry the old man as far as you can when we break through their lines,” Ramona told him.
Southwind raised a hand. “Wait a second, ma’am. I can fly us out of here in a snap.”
“And when a stray shot hits you? We drop out of the sky and splat. No, we need to move on our own feet.”
Easy Listener cried out and covered his head. Ramona jerked around to watch him. What had he heard?
“Down!” Flak shouted.
The ceiling over the old man and Twinkletoes collapsed. Beams slammed into the floor, and drywall fell in sheets, released from decades of failing support. A metallic claw the size of a man forced its way through the rubble and grasped the metahuman speedster. Talons the length of a man’s arm pierced his chest. He died without being able to scream.
The wall nearest Ramona caved inwards. A huge, gleaming metal shape wedged through the opening, weaving from side to side. Though the lines were stylized and sleek, there was no question that the shape took the form of an eagle’s head. Between its bulbous glass eyes, a swastika stood out in relief.
The robotic eagle fixed both eyes on Slycke.
The Echo metahumans wasted no time. Flak leapt forward to throw his arms around the eagle’s head. The eagle dashed him against the floor and ceiling, but Flak’s skin had the tensile strength of steel, and the thrashing took far more toll on the house. The eagle plunged into the room and headed straight for Slycke, still suspended in the air.
Belladonna seized Ramona’s arm. “Let’s go, let’s go!” They ran across the center of the room, ducking as the second, airborne eagle tore through the rest of ceiling with a blood-curdling, half-organic hunting call. Its wingtips battered the rafters; antigravity engines glowed orange along the length of its pinions. Ramona swerved to avoid the buffeting wing and stumbled. A claw, already coated with Twinkletoes’ blood, reached out for her.
Thunder resounded in the room. Silent Knight’s armor had been absorbing all the sound in the room to convert it to concussive energy. The cacophony from the destruction of the ceiling gave him a spike in power, and he released it at the eagle. Shards of metal feathers exploded from its chest, showering Ramona. Instinctively she covered her head with her arms—but with only a nanoweave vest to protect her, the shrapnel tore through her jacket and into her arms.
Belladonna dragged her to the wall, just under the shuttered window; she tore open the seams of Ramona’s sleeves to reveal bloody flesh. Belladonna plucked out the largest of the fragments as Ramona gasped in pain. Then warmth flooded from the healer’s fingers into Ramona’s arms.
“Can you move your arms?”
“I think so.”
Slycke’s cries cut through the cacophony of collapsing ceilings. The gunmetal eagle dragged Flak along as it snapped at Slycke as though he were bait hanging from a hook. Southwind yanked him back and forth to keep him from being sliced in half.
The blue girl’s face was resolute. “That thing is going to kill our target. You were right about the intel.”
Ramona shook her head, dislodging tears of pain. �
�That was all talk. I never meant for anyone to die just so I could question him.”
Belladonna grabbed her arm. “Listen—I can read minds, too. I’m not as good as Pensive, but I can do it if I can get a hand on Slycke.”
“It’s—”
“Not my job as DCO. I know. But do we have a choice?” Belladonna’s eyes pleaded with her and demanded at the same time.
A rapid-fire popping, followed by the whine of bullets, increased the noise level of the room. Ramona and Belladonna flattened themselves on the ground.
Slycke was a sitting duck.
“It’s now or never!” Belladonna shouted.
Ramona reloaded her sidearm. “Go! Go!”
Belladonna bunched her legs under her and ran forward like a dog, using her hands to keep her balance as she hunched over to avoid the volley of bullets from outside. Where the bullets hit the wall, they kicked up dust and splinters; where they hit the eagles, they ricocheted into the floor—or into the occupants. She saw Easy Listener jerking from multiple impacts.
Ramona squeezed the trigger, sending armor-piercing caseless rounds into the tail of the eagle blocking Belladonna’s way. The eagle spun, wings sweeping the floor, forcing Belladonna to leap into the air to avoid a devastating swat.
A bullet caught Bella in the thigh. Flipping end over end, she clattered to the floor in a tangle of blue and black.
“Damn it!” Ramona kept firing at the eagle as it advanced on her. The beak opened as if to shriek—and the “tongue” dropped down to reveal a gun barrel. Its focusing tip glowed a wicked azure.
The back door. Ramona was close to it. She dove into the opening as the familiar, teeth-grating whine of the Nazi force beam presaged a blue eruption of energy. The wall where she had been exploded outwards, and behind it, sections of floor, foundation and yard outside.
The robotic eagle’s beak clacked and a spent capacitor casing ejected. The gun revved up for another blast.
She got a glimpse of what lurked behind her in the yard: two dozen men in red-and-black uniforms, with white-faced gas masks and coal-black sloping helmets. They fired their rifles into the side of the house.
There was nowhere to go.
The eagle’s eye lenses whirred and zoomed in on her, and the monster opened its beak to expose the energy cannon. Desperately, Ramona fired at the blue glow, over and over, as fast as she could. The bullets embedded themselves in the eagle’s beak—but for the few that found their way right down the collimator of the force cannon and into the capacitor housing beside it.
In a flash of blue light, the eagle’s head swelled and burst; the thing crumbled into the shattered floor with a titanic crash.
Ramona saw Belladonna’s head peek over the debris. She was crawling towards Slycke. Ramona tried to move in her direction, but the eagle’s energy bolt had opened a hole in the wall that gave the assembled soldiers out front a clear view of the room. Bullets raked across the floor between Ramona and her comrades. She tried to make herself as small as possible and reloaded her gun with her last magazine of armor-piercing rounds.
Flak and Musclehead pounded on the remaining eagle. Foot soldiers poured in from the back door. Those in the vanguard took shots at the two strongmen. The bullets bounced off Flak’s invulnerable hide, but Musclehead had no such protection. He cried out as the rounds embedded themselves in his meaty body, mostly in his left side.
The eagle reared up and lunged at him. Caught off guard, he could not dodge the razor-sharp metal beak. It sliced into his shoulder and arm and hauled him into the air. Flak beat uselessly on the robot’s neck. In all this chaos, Southwind still held fast to Slycke. His huge black eyes flicked back and forth from target to target. Ramona knew his powers were curtailed by her orders. Meanwhile, as he kept Slycke from harm, he also kept him out of Belladonna’s reach.
Ramona reached out with her sidearm and fired blindly. The foot soldiers’ cries of surprise and pain were muffled by their gas masks. Those behind her targets returned fire, chewing holes in the drywall as she ducked aside.
The wreckage of the robotic eagle rose into the air. Ramona cursed, appalled. A sick feeling welled up from her stomach: she was going to die.
But the eagle had not come back to life. Instead, it floated towards Belladonna and Slycke.
Ramona felt a tug on her leg. An invisible pull horrifically dragged her out towards the center of the room—into the line of fire.
“Rey, no!”
Gunfire ripped up the floor a yard from her foot. She dropped her sidearm to scrabble at the floorboards. But the force was implacable, irresistible.
A low sound rumbled inside her, gained power, roared into life. The sound was all-encompassing, overwhelming. Silent Knight stood, hands extended, and broadcast a shock wave into the air of the room itself. Bullets lost their trajectories and skittered across the floor, harmless.
Southwind’s pull on her increased. She slid under the eagle and rose up until she floated aside Slycke and Belladonna.
A shadow passed over them: the headless eagle enfolded them in its wings.
The space it created was no larger than the backseat of a sedan, so Slycke’s effluvia and Belladonna’s blood smeared them all. Belladonna, however, ignored her wound and wrapped her hands around Slycke. He struggled against her until his eyes rolled up into his head.
“Get him,” Ramona whispered.
Belladonna’s hands roved over his face, almost in an intimate embrace until one of her hands slipped off Slycke’s coating entirely. She kept her pressure light, maintaining contact without gripping. Her face screwed up in concentration and her eyes shut tight.
“He’s fighting me,” she shouted over the roar. “It’s not on his surface level, either. He really wasn’t paying attention.”
“He’s expendable. Do what you have to!”
Belladonna cracked her neck, took a deep breath, and bowed her head. Slycke began to jerk as if he had touched a power line. A high-pitched, inhuman wail rose up from his throat.
“Come on, you sick son of a bitch.” Belladonna’s entire body had tensed up. “Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
The healer shook her head as if to clear it. “He’s—I got it, by God, I got it.”
As if on cue, Southwind released his hold on Slycke, and the metahuman’s limp form dropped out of their telekinetically sustained shelter. Silent Knight and Flak took his place. The wings of the robot eagle constricted, and the tail as well, shutting out the light. The four of them pressed together as Southwind released them in order to compress the eagle into a hollow ball of impenetrable metal. The patter of bullets resumed; the soldiers were firing at the former robot eagle.
Belladonna sagged against Ramona. Her blue skin had gone pale. “What’s he doing?”
“Something big. Hang on.” Flak enveloped Ramona in his arms, Silent Knight did the same for Belladonna.
The ball fell to the floor, then lurched over as a deafening ripping sound enveloped them. The interior of their makeshift shelter was hardly smooth; the metal feathers jabbed at them as they bounced on the inside, like an amusement park ride designed by a sadist. Ramona pressed her head into Flak’s chest and let his back and her nanoweave vest absorb the impacts as the ball twirled through the air.
For a pregnant moment, they hung in midair, not from telekinetic force, but in free fall. Then they hit the ground, hard. Flak’s head smashed into the eagle’s wing and he grunted against an impact that would have split Ramona’s skull open.
The ball rolled to a stop against an obstruction. Flak released her. “You all right?”
“Hell of a ride. Thanks.”
Flak wedged his hands where the two wings met and flexed. Slowly, painfully, the metal bent, and an opening large enough for them to pass through was created. They emerged into sunlight dappled by the green leaves of the oak tree that had stopped their tumble. In the distance, crashes and gunfire resounded. Ramona shielded her eyes from the sun to get a look at the mansion o
nce occupied by the late Easy Men.
It was virtually scoured from the earth. Any recognizable structure from two-thirds of it was gone. Beams and roofing and wiring were twisting away, only to be slammed together, like fistfuls of modeling clay in the hands of a petulant child and torn apart again.
And then the remaining wing of the mansion rose into the air, and came crashing down atop the rest, compressing it all down to a height of mere feet. A spindly figure hovered in the air above it: Southwind, freed of his obligation to protect Slycke or the rest of the team. He had turned the mansion into a weapon, and left nothing to doubt or mercy. Blue energy beams lashed out at him from the trees nearby, but he was in full battle rage now, the pain of the loss of his lover channeled into unholy destruction.
A blast of displaced wind washed over them.
“Good God,” Ramona said. “I doubt Southwind left any survivors, but the after-action team should be on its way. I had no idea he was capable of that.”
Flak helped Belladonna to her feet. “He may not be. That expenditure could kill him. I don’t think he cares.”
“I hope it was worth it.” Ramona met Belladonna’s eyes. “Well? Is it?”
The blue girl looked immeasurably old in that moment. What Belladonna had seen in the vile depths of Walter Slycke’s mind, Ramona could only guess. She put a comforting hand on the girl’s arm.
Belladonna hung her head. “I don’t know. It’s—it’s weird, a non sequitur. Maybe you know more than I do.”
“It’s all we have, right now.” She squeezed. “Thank you.”
“All in a day’s work for a DCO.” Belladonna managed a wry almost-smile.
The blades of the Echo helicopter beat the air above them. As columns of dust kicked up around them, Ramona let herself close her eyes and think about nothing at all.
Interlude:
Bottom feeders.
You get them in every disaster. We got them now, in spades, the “smart guys” that make a very high profit off the misery of others. The PMCs were some of those. Private military companies were basically highly organized, heavily funded mercenaries with as much money sunk in their legal, PR and packaging departments as they had in their bullets and fatigues. The aftermath of the Invasion created a feeding frenzy among them. They took contracts, they heavily recruited to fill those contracts, and anyplace where the law was not there to step hard on them immediately, they took the law into their own hands and became judge, jury and on-the-spot executioner. The ones who’d bought politicians ahead of time got the fattest gigs first, but everyone in the biz got a slice of the terror pie. Life on the ground was great for a merc. They had systems worked out where as long as your CO filed the right papers, you could shoot, confiscate, or “secure” whatever you wanted. PMCs became the elite looters of the aftermath, “securing” valuables and supplies, and guarding them in the most luxurious “command posts” they could take over, like million-dollar condos. Their highest-paid members were the guys who wrote the after-action reports, spun to always make it the other guy’s fault. On the ground, people knew. But up where the money was, far from shunning them, anyone that had anything to lose and wasn’t thinking about scruples lined up to hire them. Frightened people do that, and then they have the illusion that everything is all right again.
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