Not Against Flesh and Blood (The DX Chronicles Book 1)

by Brian Cody

  “And you seem fast enough—not, like, Piekarsky fast_”

  “I’ll take it”, Bryen interjected.

  “But speedy in your own right. Wouldn’t it be easier to run after the truck…you know…on the ground?”

  “Too much traffic; I don’t want to be sighted”, Bryen replied as he looked leftward. He, by then, was parallel with the truck, alongside of and fifty feet above the passenger door. “Hey, the truck—how do we do this without causing a spill?”

  “Don’t you worry, B-money. I’ll stop the truck. You just worry about retrieving the radioactive containers.”

  “Huh.”

  “Hey, I’m just saying, unless you have super strength, it might be a little hard for you to stop a moving vehicle; plus, those guys got guns.”

  “Right; sure”, Bryen replied as he squeezed his fist around his neck but then shook. “Wait”, Bryen muttered as he patted his hand between his shoulder blades. “Crap!”

  “Are you okay? You look like your back’s got an itch”, Shawn remarked.

  “I forgot my sword”, Bryen groaned.

  “You have a sword too?” Shawn howled. “Why does everyone have freakin’ swords? I want a sword!”

  “They’re good for intimidation, and mine helps me direct my shadow when I want to be accurate. I was going to cut through the back of the dumpster, pull my way in, and then use my shadow to disconnect it from the rest of the truck’s body.”

  “Well how are you going to do that?” Shawn asked.

  “I can’t”, Brian replied, “Or I can—I could use my shadow to cut through without my sword, but I’m not confident with my aim. Chances are high I would puncture one of the canisters.”

  ***

  “All right, let’s not do that”, Shawn grunted as he hovered over the road. He inhaled and looked to an intersection half of a mile ahead of the garbage truck. “Yo, B, I have another idea…” he began as he nudged the white bundle from under his arm.

  ***

  “I’m getting no response from the decoy”, the center-left passenger remarked as he slammed the radio onto the dashboard.

  “You think the cops got them?” the center-right passenger inquired. “Maybe we should ditch the radio; we could be relaying our location.”

  “Nah”, the driver replied, “they probably ditched the truck and are concealing the radio to keep from being sighted. Keep calm and stop using it. We’re two miles from city limits and we’ve succeeded in not gaining notice; let’s keep that up, all right?”

  “What’s that!?” the far passenger inquired as he pointed ahead.

  “What’s what?” the driver replied as he traced that passenger’s arm.

  “The sky! Up in the sky!” the center-left passenger exclaimed. “It’s a bird!”

  “It’s a_!”

  “That ain’t no bird”, the driver scoffed as he sighted a white oblong plunging towards the nearing intersection.

  “Unless it’s a dead bird”, the center-right passenger reasoned. “Swerve into the other lane so we don’t have to run it over.”

  “Why? It’s dead”, the far passenger remarked.

  “It’s too big to be a bird”, the driver interjected. “It’s like falling debris from a building or something”, he continued as that shape plunged past the top of a twenty-story roof.

  “It’s a bald eagle”, the center-right passenger remarked, “They can develop an impressive girth.”

  “Not impressive compared to the golden eagle”, the far passenger noted. “You know golden eagles bring down planes in some countries?”

  “Just to get you guys to shut up, I’m swerving into the other lane to avoid your bird.” The driver watched that object impact in the center of the road.

  “It’s a metaphor”, the far passenger muttered.

  “What?” the center-left passenger hummed.

  “For America’s diminished prominence”, the far passenger added.

  “We’re barely in a recession”, the center-left passenger reasoned.

  “Do avian metaphors appear like that in real life?” the center-right passenger inquired.

  “No more s*** about birds!” the driver replied as he angled the truck towards the yellow divider and looked to that shape, then, six hundred yards off. His arms froze, however, and his vehicle straightened as he looked to the fowl’s crater and towards the rising shape of a man, who, from that distance, seemed inhuman, covered in black, then red, and around his shoulders and on his back, a white cloak that fluttered past his feet.

  “Is that a person?” the far passenger inquired. “Did a dude just fall from the sky, and he’s still alive!?”

  “Shoot him!” the driver roared.

  “What?” the center-left passenger inquired.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about him or whatever it is. Shoot him now, and I’ll run him over!”

  “Grab my shirt!” the far passenger ordered as he lifted his rifle, shoved open his door, and stepped onto the running board. As the center-right passenger held him by his shirt, the far passenger motioned his rifle into both hands, spread his legs, aimed, and squeezed.

  “Nope!” Shawn bellowed as he wrapped the side of his rigid, white cape around his left arm. A chiming blaze slammed into Shawn’s cloak; yet, as he stood, the bullets were malleated against it and ricocheted away. “All right”, Shawn grunted as he outstretched and tensed his right. Several dozen sheets of paper poured from his sleeve, spiraled in front of him, and agglutinated into a rough, circular shield, two sheets thick and six feet across. Shawn grabbed the shield with his right and swung it in front of him while flinging back his cape and jogging for the truck. Once more, the bullets were deflected and the paper shield unscathed. He peeked over its side to pinpoint the truck, and, with a clasp of the shield’s edge, he lunged. Then, as he reached his twenty-foot zenith, he lowered the shield and tightened his grip, causing the shield’s perimeter to reorganize into a serrated edge. Shawn wound back his shield as he fell and, with the truck fifty feet off, he let fly.

  The shield spiraled towards the truck in a slender blur, levelled off over the cab, and cleaved through the top of the container. As the shield sliced out of the back end and fragmented, the top six inches of the container flopped upward, caught the wind, and fell to the road. Grinning, Shawn bounded over the truck and then ascended into controlled flight. “B, all yours.”

  “I see that”, Bryen replied before thrusting his phone into his coat pocket, looking to the container’s interior, and pinpointing the six vats tethered to its walls. Bryen stopped running but continued sliding, kicked off of the building, with his arms by his sides, angled towards the road, towards the truck, and towards the container. He flipped and rolled along the floor in the center of the container before jumping and slapping into the front wall with both hands. He paused. Holding his breath and closing his eyes, he listened to the stirrings of the vehicle’s cab—the baffled yelps and stringed swears focused on Sean’s appearance and disappearance. Unnoticed… “Okay”, he muttered as he stood, turned, and seized at the sight of those vats and their insignias. “Crap”, Bryen grunted as he eyed each vat, “crap, cancer, cancer, uranium, cancer.” The truck shook, and Bryen tensed as the vats rumbled.

  “B-money, you don’t have to remind me about how deadly that stuff is. Just do your thing so we can finish this”, Shawn spoke.

  “Yeah, right, sure”, Bryen fired off as he turned towards the front of the vehicle, pressed his gloved hands against the floor, inhaled, and glared. With a gasping hiss, his shadow expanded past his silhouette and engulfed the floor in a smoggy mist. Bryen exhaled and then inhaled again; then, he fisted his left, and a wave passed through and undulated the caliginous shade.

  “So what are you doing? I thought you were gonna cut the back end free?” Shawn called.

  “That’ll jolt the contents; it’ll probably only take one crack for Lynchburg to turn into a disaster area”, Bryen explained as he focused on his trembling shadow and kept his a
rms outstretched. “I’m going to use my shadow to make the parts holding the container to the truck’s body intangible. Then, you’ll appear behind them and make them accelerate. The acceleration, coupled with the loss of friction, will make the container slide out and onto the road in what will hopefully be a smooth landing.”

  “Wait, you never said anything about making stuff intangible!” Shawn called.

  “I don’t do it often”, Bryen replied. “It takes too long, and, like in this case, I have to restart the process when I come upon different material compositions.”

  “Well, how long will it take?” Shawn asked.

  “I’m almost through the container now. Get ready, I have about another twenty seconds to go”, Bryen replied, his shadow concentrating on the container’s perimeter. “Ten seconds”, Bryen called, “five seconds.” He stood, his arms pointed downward, and his shadow calming. “Shawn, do it now.”

  “Already ahead of you!” Shawn exclaimed as he levelled off but yards above the road and fifty feet behind the truck. With a forward thrust of his arms, he doubled his pace to triple-digit speeds.

  “He’s back!” the left passenger exclaimed as he looked in the side-view mirror.

  “I see him!” the driver roared as he slammed the gas pedal. The truck accelerated in a shaking thrust which slid the container back. A loud bang, however, replaced that clangor, and an upward lurch replaced the sliding metal as the back end of the container stopped—throwing Bryen to his knees—and caused the front end, then unbounded, to rise, to catch the wind, and to topple. Shawn seized as he passed the truck’s right side, and, as he glanced to Bryen, and Bryen gaped at the truck’s bed, their thoughts echoed in synchrony.

  I forgot…!

  The back axle! “Shoot!” Shawn blasted as he turned.

  “Crap!” Bryen roared as the container reached and passed a ninety-degree angle. He knelt as the container’s rear cleared the back axle, and he sprinted up the container’s front as it plunged. Leaping, Bryen thrust his right on the container’s front, and flipping, he flung himself ahead of it. Inverted, he looked to the road, the container’s shadow, and his shadow alongside of it. He pointed, and his shadow trembled. He tightened, and his shadow erupted, vomiting six elongated and thorny limbs that latched onto the container with jagged claws, and eased it to the ground.

  With his right arm outstretched, Bryen pointed his left towards the back of his shadow, outspreading it into an ebon sheet which softened the container’s landing and, as Bryen completed his flip, cushioned his touchdown. Sliding once more, Bryen thrust down to retract the limbs and the jet-black sheet into his silhouette. He then about-faced and looked to a then-hovering Shawn.

  “Those were hands!” Shawn bellowed.

  “Go!” Bryen called as he skated up a building.

  “B-money, hands just came out of your shadow!” Shawn howled as he pushed his phone to his ear. “The next time I ask about your powers, you give me more detail!”

  “Shawn, the truck!” Bryen replied as he trailed fifty feet above Shawn.

  “Don’t you worry; I got this”, Shawn proclaimed before returning his phone and accelerating.

  “Here he comes on our left!” the driver exclaimed as he looked to the side view mirror.

  “Roll down your window, and I’ll shoot him!” the center-left passenger replied while lifting his rifle.

  Watching the window lower and the rifle’s barrel creep into the open, Shawn raised his right arm. A cascade of papers fluttered from his sleeve and spiraled around him; then, over the following seconds, those ten score sheets conglobated into a bowling ball and fell into Shawn’s hand. Armed, he reared upright as the rifle was angled towards him, wound back as the trigger was reached, and lobbed. Spiraling and curving, the paper wad dove under the truck’s undercarriage and gored through the driver’s side tires. The truck toppled. Bouncing against the driver’s side, the truck flipped, then spun, then jounced before sliding and stopping in the center of the road. “Shoot at me again, ya little effers”, Shawn murmured as he descended into a jog, ran beside the cab, and nodded at the squirming and still-living shapes contained within.

  “Shawn!”—Shawn spun to Bryen kneeling along the side of the adjacent building while looking up the road. “Cops; let’s go!”

  Shawn turned to the distant flashes of a dozen vehicles speeding into view. He then spun to Bryen, nodded, and, after running down an intersection, skyrocketed.

  ***

  The third garbage truck’s horn blared for a moment before it shot into the intersection and against perpendicular traffic. It rammed, drilling cars aside, shoving them about, and driving others to swerve and to brake. After passing the intersection, the blare of a sedan horning, spinning, and giving chase sounded within the third garbage truck’s cab and within the ears of the first garbage truck’s driver. “Glock”, the driver spoke as he looked to the rearview mirror—to the pursing car—and rolled down the window. The center-right passenger passed a pistol to him, and the driver, holding the wheel with his right, prostrated the gun in his left, aimed, and thrust his arm back, tightened, and squeezed. Though his shoulder jerked with the recoil, he loosed two rounds, the first bouncing against the car’s roof, and the second slamming into the car’s front-right tire. Handicapped, his follower swerved onto the sidewalk and stopped.

  “We still have it; we could give this city a light show”, the far passenger noted.

  “We’ll save it for later”, the driver chuckled as he shifted the side-view mirror, its glare shielding the two pursuers three hundred yards overhead.

  ***

  “What if I just tipped it over?” David suggested as he looked to the truck and held Turrisi by the back of his shirt.

  “That’s a horrible idea”, Turrisi replied.

  “Well, we’ve got to think of something. Everyone else is done”, David replied.

  “That’s the thing”, Turrisi began. “There are no cops around here. We’re downtown; LPD is literally a half a mile south of us, but I haven’t seen a single cruiser. I think the other two trucks getting stopped diverted the police from this area.”

  “So what do we do if I can’t tip it over?” David asked.

  “I have an idea; let me down”, Turrisi replied.

  “But not drop you, right?”

  “I don’t have powers”, Turrisi replied.

  “Just making sure; the government could be trying to make you think you don’t have powers.”

  ***

  “FBI! I need to commandeer your bike!”

  The biker, first glaring at the garbage truck which had swerved through and disheveled the intersection, lifted his visor and turned to Turrisi beside him. “You don’t look like FBI…and how old are you?”

  “Sir, this is a serious situation. The people in that truck are armed and very dangerous”, Turrisi spoke while crossing his arms.

  “How tall are you? Five-six?” the biker asked.

  “I’m sorry?” Turrisi murmured, his jaw sliding from side to side.

  “Isn’t there a height limit for the FBI?” the biker asked.

  “He’s not budging”, Turrisi called across the road. “We’ll have to stick with the van!” The biker turned to his right, and Turrisi wound up. The biker, finding that street corner vacant, turned back, but Turrisi’s fist drilled against his helmet. The biker toppled from his red vehicle, while Turrisi hopped onto it, glared at the elderly man in the SUV behind him, revved the engine, and bolted. Turrisi roared between lanes, jerked to the right, and rushed after the garbage truck a quarter of a mile ahead. “Do you see me from up there?” he asked as he swerved past traffic, his left holding his phone.

  “Hey, you just decked that guy.”

  “He was wearing a helmet; he’s fine”, Turrisi replied. “Be ready to dive. I’m going to blow out the tires. I’ll need you to land long enough to steady the truck when I do. If the perpetrators aren’t incapacitated, I’ll move in and disarm them. Copy?”

 
; “Bridge”, David uttered.

  “What?”

  “The truck’s heading for the Fifth Street Bridge. You’ve got about half a mile before it comes to it. If I were you, I’d try to stop it beforehand.”

  “Copy.” Turrisi pocketed his phone and accelerated. One hundred yards off, the truck swerved into view, nudging a sedan into the guardrail; then speeding towards a pick-up to force it onto the shoulder. Turrisi accelerated further as he rounded a slight corner and found, half a mile off, a suspension bridge just under a quarter-mile in span, with rusting, fallow towers, dull-grey cables, a chalky white road, and a divided median. With the truck within five hundred feet, Turrisi rode along the divider and pressed towards triple-digit speeds.

  ***

  “We’re being followed again”, the far passenger remarked as he focused on the drawing bike.

  “Who?” the driver inquired.

  “Some punk on a bike”, the far passenger replied.

  “Glock”, the driver ordered. As the center-right passenger outstretched the Glock, the driver unbuckled his seatbelt. “Grab the wheel; I don’t want to ruin my shoulder.” The steering wheel was grasped as the driver cocked his weapon and hoisted his torso into the air. As the wind slammed against him, he grasped the top of the cab with his left while aiming the pistol with his right.

  ***

  “Shoot!” Turrisi barked. He swerved leftward as the first shot was loosed, then rightward as the second followed. Jerking aside, he slid into matching traffic, maneuvering around vehicles and accelerating once more, but, as the garbage truck also accelerated and then swerved to maneuver the driver into view, he jolted to the median. The driver squeezed and the windshield to a car behind Turrisi was shattered. Turrisi spun, finding the civilian, though unscathed, spinning to the side of the road. Groaning, Turrisi reached to his side and extracted his own pistol. Flicking the safety with his thumb, then maneuvering his pistol with his pointer, he outstretched his arm. As the driver fired and a round whistled beside him, Turrisi glared at the driver, then glared at his arm, and then focused on his weapon. Turrisi pulled. The driver reached for the trigger as a howl erupted before him and the ejection of propulsive gases flashed from Turrisi, but, before his fingers could tighten, his pistol was yanked from his hand.