by Peter Clines
One of the last two, a specialist with TRUMAN on his jacket, looked all around. “Where’d the woman go?”
“What woman?” The other soldier, labeled FRANKLIN, had been one of the last to disembark.
“With the black cape. Where’d she go? She was right here before the captain deployed.”
All six of them scanned the area around the helicopter. There was ten feet of open space in every direction. Where the woman had been standing, on the far side of Freedom’s impact crater, there was twice that distance to the nearest piece of cover. And most of that cover had been destroyed when the captain had punched the guy claiming to be the Mighty Dragon.
One of the civilian guards, a beefy man with dreadlocks, chuckled. He kept his hands on his head and raised his voice so they could hear him across the distance. “You guys might as well give up now,” he said.
“Keep it quiet,” snapped one of the soldiers watching him. “I’ll tape your mouth if I have to.”
He laughed again. “You guys are so seriously out of your league here.”
The five soldiers exchanged a quick set of looks. Then they looked at each other again. “Hey,” said Franklin, “where the hell did Mike go?”
At Four, Zzzap searched the air for information. Telemetry danced around him from all five helicopters, and here and there a terse command from the troops on the ground. He knew their call sign was Unbreakable and it sounded like another squad from the same platoon was getting ready to deploy. On the Mount’s frequencies the Melrose gate had gone silent, but many of the spotters on the wall stepped on each other in their rush to report in. The soldiers had taken the Melrose guards prisoner. Three people reported gunfire but weren’t sure from what or at who. And they’d seen St. George carry someone into the air and start to wrestle with him.
He sent a pulse out to Stealth. He knew it reached her cowl radio, but she didn’t respond. Which meant she was fighting the other soldiers. It shouldn’t be too hard for her. If he’d gotten the numbers right, there were six or seven on the ground and maybe that many more getting ready to deploy. A ridiculously small amount, from his limited experience with the military. The sun was almost up but there were still a ton of shadows. With home-court advantage, Stealth would probably have the soldiers disarmed and hogtied before the—
Zzzap had an ugly thought. There was no reason for it, but a lot of things made sense if he was right. Maybe whoever gave this platoon of soldiers their call sign was as big a movie fan as he was. Which would explain why they didn’t need to put that many soldiers on the ground. And why one of them was trading punches with St. George.
Keep an eye on things here, he said to no one in particular. I think they might need some extra help out there.
St. George tried to shake the larger man loose, but Freedom’s grip couldn’t be broken. He kicked the huge soldier in the wrist again but it didn’t seem to have any effect. The hero finally dove down toward 12th Street in the middle of the North-by-Northwest residential area. He pulled up at the last minute and slammed the other man against the ground, confident it wasn’t a lethal tactic. At this point he wondered if it would even slow the soldier down.
Freedom tumbled across the pavement and rolled to his feet next to the capsized truck that blocked the North Gower gate. His helmet skittered loose across the street. He drew his oversized sidearm and squeezed off four thundering bursts at St. George. Over a dozen slugs hit like punches. They pattered off the hero’s chest and shoulder and chimed on the ground with the spent shells from the pistol.
St. George glanced over his shoulder, but it looked like most of the stray rounds had just taken chunks out of Thirty-One’s outer wall. “Look,” he said, “isn’t this a little clichéd? I’m one of the good guys. I’m pretty sure you’re one of the good guys. Let’s pull our heads out of our asses before either side does something stu—”
The four guards from Gower gate lunged forward with pikes and weapons drawn. One of them howled a battle cry. A pike got close to Freedom and he grabbed it by the end and snapped the tip off. He blasted the ground by their feet. “Drop your weapons,” he bellowed.
The guards smiled. One pointed behind him.
He turned and St. George’s fist cracked across his jaw. The soldier shook it off and a second punch knocked him back against the truck. He swung a roundhouse with his free hand but the hero leaped away and up.
Freedom holstered his weapon and charged across the pavement. He leaped up and tackled St. George in midair. The hero’s concentration faltered and they slammed into the ground.
The huge soldier drove three quick punches into St. George’s face with the distinct sound of large stones being slammed together. Each one drove the smaller man’s skull down into the pavement until the surface cracked. “You will stand down, sir,” said Freedom. “I’m not going to tell you ag—”
St. George slammed his palm up. Hard. It caught Freedom in the breastbone and knocked him a dozen feet into the air. The soldier hit the ground running and threw himself back at the hero before he could finish getting to his feet. The two slid across the road and into the side of Thirty.
Freedom brought his knee up and St. George folded over with an all-too-human pain. The huge man drove his fist into the hero’s gut twice, then grabbed his collar and threw him back out into the street. St. George coughed out some smoke and a few tongues of flame.
At which point the gate guards opened fire.
A dozen rounds struck Freedom in the back. He turned and caught a dozen more in the chest and arms. He lunged forward, far too fast for a man his size, and three of the guards had been disarmed and knocked down before the fourth had time to re-aim. The soldier took another burst to the chest before snapping the edge of his palm against the guard’s temple. The man dropped like an empty set of clothes.
St. George grabbed Freedom by the neck and hurled him away from the gate. The soldier was charging forward again before the hero could finish turning. They traded blows that echoed in the tall canyons of North-by-Northwest. Then Freedom blocked a roundhouse punch and slammed his fist up into St. George’s gut. The impact sent him sailing into the air. He soared up and over the spiked top of the Gower gate.
He landed outside the Mount.
“Son of a bitch,” muttered St. George as the exes swarmed over him.
Stealth’s arm swung around and delivered a fast strike to Specialist Truman’s throat before she dragged him between the potted shrubs. One blow to paralyze the voice box and give her time to incapacitate him. The man let out a faint hiss of air. It was a weak noise under ideal conditions. With the Black Hawk’s rotors still making a last few circles in the air, he was effectively silenced.
The soldiers were each carrying an M240B as a standard weapon and a complete set of body armor with no apparent effort. It indicated great strength, bordering on superhuman. It was more time-consuming, but she delivered a series of strikes across Truman’s body. Biceps, armpits, pectorals. Each one hit a nerve cluster, the end result being two arms numb from the shoulders down.
When he still rolled up and grabbed for her she realized how dense his muscle tissue must be. She frowned beneath her featureless mask and drove a punch into his forehead, right where his eyebrows met. He dropped.
Nine seconds to stop one man. Too long. The others had noticed he was missing. She heard one of them call out for him. A change in tactics was required. The soldiers had already demonstrated one weak point. It was somewhat distasteful, but she would have to exploit it.
She jumped up, kicked off the concrete planter, and flipped through the hedges.
On an average day, there were anywhere from a hundred to two hundred ex-humans milling around on the street outside the Gower gate. A decent amount of noise could draw another hundred on top of that. St. George put the mob of exes he’d fallen into at about one-fifty with another hundred or so close by.
They fell on him with hungry teeth that broke on his skin. Withered lips and fingers worked their way ov
er his arms and shoulders and legs. The only good thing about two years of the undead in Los Angeles was most of them had dried out by now.
He pushed down against gravity and rose up through the mob, carrying half a dozen chattering exes with him. They dropped off as he rotated in the air, some of them knocking down other dead things as they fell. He turned back to the Mount and the first rounds hit him.
The drum-fed monster that Freedom carried spat out ten rounds in a two-second burst, and each one hit like one of his punches. The soldier had leaped to the top of the white truck that blocked the gate. “Please stand down, sir,” he called out. “I don’t enjoy doing this.”
St. George faltered in the air as a second burst caught him in the chest. He dipped low enough for thin fingers to grab at his boots again.
Freedom lined up a third shot when he heard the air sizzle behind him and saw how dark his shadow had gotten. He spun and fired off another burst. There was a hiss as the rounds vaporized inches from Zzzap. The captain wasted some more ammunition. There was a hollow clang from his oversized pistol.
Well, said the wraith. He held his hand up. The air in front of his palm twisted and rippled from the heat. That was all pretty impressive until the part where you got here.
“You would be Zzzap, correct, sir?”
Thank God someone knows me. I’m sick and tired of being mistaken for Stealth.
“Give it a rest,” said St. George. He shook off the last ex and drifted over to hang a few yards above the soldier. Smoke was billowing out his nostrils and between his teeth. “So, feel like having that calm talk, now?”
The huge officer looked at each of the heroes in turn and then dropped his oversized pistol. It clattered on the roof of the truck as he raised his hands. “I choose to decline at this time, sir,” he said.
What about name, rank, and all that stuff?
“Captain Freedom, sir,” he said. “Alpha 456th Unbreakables, first U.S. Army super-soldier company.”
There was a long pause.
Oh, that is too cool, said Zzzap.
The woman in black came over the hedge. She spun in the air and her cloak spread like a huge set of wings. It blotted out the sky as she came down at Franklin and the squad’s sergeant, Monroe. Their weapons came up and twin bursts ripped into the darkness. Her descent didn’t shift in the slightest and shadows raced on the ground below her. The sergeant fired another burst as Franklin dove to the side. She came down on the sergeant. He fought for a moment, a thrashing shape beneath the cloak, and then he tossed the fabric aside.
“Nothing,” said Monroe. “Just her cape. She’s gone.”
“She was there,” said Franklin. “We saw her.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said the man in the suit. He was still in the helicopter’s crew compartment.
“Not now, sir,” said Monroe. “We’ve got a hostile in the area.”
“Yeah,” said the man. “I’m very aware of that at the moment.”
The sergeant shot a look over his shoulder. John was sitting very still. His arms were at his sides and his head was tilted back. Monroe gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the shadows inside the Black Hawk and saw the harness straps pulled tight across the man’s arms and body. His collar and tie sat funny, and another second of light-adjustment let the sergeant pick out the black chrome bar pressed against the man’s throat.
Monroe blinked. It had only been a few seconds since he turned his head, but now he could see the very feminine shadow behind John. She gave a slight dip of her head, an acknowledgment he’d spotted her. Then she pulled herself closer to the man named John. On either side of the helicopter soldiers raised their weapons.
“The M240B has a prodigious rate of fire,” she said in a clear voice. “Seven hundred fifty rounds per minute at its lowest setting. It is not a weapon designed for pinpoint accuracy, however. Firing into an enclosed space will almost guarantee you hit your civilian advisor.”
The weapons stayed up.
No one moved.
“You know what I think?” said the man in the suit. “I think we should all take a moment here and relax. Wouldn’t that be good? Let’s all stop and calm down for a moment before this gets any more out of hand.”
A HUGE CROWD gathered a little before noon to watch the second Black Hawk land in the Pickford lot on the other side of the Melrose gate. Thousands of people packed the streets and rooftops. A few of them glared at the helicopter as it settled down and the wind whipped up clouds of dirt and dust, but most of them stared in amazement. Some applauded.
St. George and Stealth stood on 3rd Street with the crowds behind them. She had slipped back into her cloak and the bullet holes vanished in its folds and gathers. Every now and then a shaft of light would slip through one of the dime-sized holes and St. George would feel his jaw tighten.
Barry sat in his wheelchair next to them. He’d powered down as a concession to Freedom’s people shouldering their weapons. Danielle lurked behind the chair. She’d given up on anyone helping her with the armor and stood with her head bowed and her arms crossed.
Freedom was a few yards away with his soldiers standing at ease behind him in a loose circle around their helicopter. The man in the suit was inside the circle. They’d insisted on separating him until they could have more troops on the ground.
The Black Hawk had barely settled when a second group of soldiers leaped out and loped across the pavement. Each of them carried the same oversized rifle with the bulky ammo box. They formed their own loose circle around their helicopter.
“Supporting units,” said Stealth. “Each positioned to keep us in line of sight.”
A woman with a collection of chevrons on her jacket gave a set of hand signals across the way to Freedom. He looked back at the man in the suit and gave a nod. The young man called John whispered a few words to the captain, and then made his way across the space to the heroes. Freedom followed a few paces behind. The man in the suit beamed a broad smile. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”
“Sure,” said St. George.
“The Mighty Dragon,” said the young man. “This is a real honor. Wow.” His smile got broader. “Can I shake your hand?”
St. George was caught off guard. He held his hand out without thinking and the man pumped it five or six times. People cheered and applauded. “I’m going by St. George these days.”
The smile shifted. “St. George,” he echoed. “Clever. I like it. And you must be Stealth,” the suit continued. He stepped past St. George to stand before the cloaked woman. “You’re just as formidable as I’ve always heard. I’d love to shake your hand, too, if that’s okay? No hard feelings?”
It was so unexpected; she held her hand out. There were more cheers and applause.
“It’s just amazing,” he continued. “You’ve saved so many people. People talk about superheroes and you think about fighting monsters and supervillains and stuff. You don’t think about things like this.”
“I’m sorry,” interrupted St. George. “I didn’t catch your name.”
The young man’s smile faltered and in that instant the hero realized the man in the suit was probably older than he was. “Sorry,” he said. “Caught up in the moment. This is just … It’s so rare we find survivors, let alone such a huge group with, well, people like you.” He straightened his tie. “I’m John Smith. Department of Homeland Security, seconded to DARPA and working with Project Krypton as … well …” He shrugged. “These days I just try to help out wherever I can, like most people.”
He took a few steps back until he stood near the soldiers. “Good job, Captain Freedom,” he said. “You and your people did great considering the opposition. I’ll make sure the colonel and Dr. Sorensen know.”
The huge officer gave a sharp dip of his head. “Thank you, sir.”
“St. George, Stealth,” said Smith, turning back to the heroes, “I believe you’ve already met our super-forces commander.”
“Captain Freedom,” said St. George
with a smile. He rubbed his jaw and held out his hand. “So that’s the best name they could come up with, huh?”
“Captain John Carter Freedom, sir,” he said. He took the hand, gripped it hard, and gave a single shake.
“Ahhh. Sorry.”
The crowd, not hearing any of it, applauded again.
Smith broke up the awkward moment with more babbling. It was like nervous hero worship. “You can imagine our surprise,” he said to St. George, “when our sentries looked west on the Fourth of July and saw fireworks out over Los Angeles. Sixty miles over, as far as we could tell.”
“Yeah, I bet that was a bit of a shock.”
“Of course, we sent out a Predator to investigate,” he continued. “It was a little more disturbing when it stopped sending back telemetry and started pounding out ‘Radio Nowhere’ by Bruce Springsteen.”
Barry cleared his throat. “Told you it’d be memorable,” he said to St. George.
“That was you?” said Smith. “You’re Zzzap, yes?”
“Yes.”
The suit pumped Barry’s hand three or four times. “This is just such a great day. People are going to be going crazy back at Yuma when we report in. I mean, we had some wild hopes of what we might find out here in Los Angeles but …”
Smith stopped talking. Even the crowd sensed it and grew quiet. He stared at Danielle, his mouth open.
After a moment she registered the silence and raised her head to see what was going on. She glanced around, shrunk when she saw everyone staring, and finally noticed the man in front of her. She blinked and opened her eyes wide.
“John?”
He lunged past the wheelchair and hugged her. “We thought you were dead,” he said. “Everyone thought you died years ago.”