The sniper presses the metal stock into his shoulder and peers through the scope, expertly placing the narrow red crosshairs on the center of Paige’s forehead. “I have a visual on the target. She’s a sitting duck. Hold the heli steady because I’m taking the shot.”
Mason pulls the trigger and releases a single round, travelling at more than three thousand feet per second.
Nothing happens.
Or so it would appear.
From Mason’s point of view a fraction of a second had passed, and the bullet disappeared into the horizon, completely missing his target. But if he could have seen the bullet traveling in slow motion, he would have seen it leave the barrel of the gun, spiral towards the rooftop, and then begin to melt. Inches before it would have made contact with Paige it became a puddle of silver liquid, dripping harmlessly to the marble tiles of her rooftop patio.
“What in the blue hell?” Mason shouts, reloading his rifle with a loud ratchet. “There must be some heavy wind shears because there is no way I missed at this range. I’m taking a second shot, so hold her steady this time.”
“Don’t blame your shitty aim on me, Mason. I’m holding her steady. If you’d just—” The pilot is cut off by a loud groan reverberating through the helicopter. It’s the unmistakable sound of buckling metal. “Something is wrong here,” the pilot screams as he rapidly flicks switches and tries to restore power. The lights on the dash flicker and die. The copter pitches forward on its axis. “We’re losing altitude!”
Hands spread wide, Paige swings them together with a thunderous clap. The energy she’d collected in her palms explodes into shimmering purple stardust. She sees the already plummeting helicopter compress, crushed into a jagged metallic ball like discarded tinfoil. It disappears into an alley, away from the busy street. She hears the heavy clang of steel meeting asphalt, followed by the blast.
She leans forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the wreckage below. “Whoa…” she whispers, jaw hanging slack. “That was literally the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
A bullet whizzes past, narrowly missing her ear. Paige is so fascinated with her handiwork she momentarily forgets about the two remaining helicopters hovering over the neighboring building. More snipers. Another shot rings out and she extends her palm. The bullet stops in mid-flight just inches from her hand, its inertia slowed to a crawl as if it’s stuck in a wad of ballistics gel. She plucks the hovering shell from mid-air, frowns at it and tosses it over her shoulder. Two balls of white-hot electricity form in the center of her palms, and with a guttural scream she claps them once again. A purple pulse bursts from her fingertips, rippling through the air like a tidal wave, cresting and crashing over the helicopters. The magnetic force sends them spiraling towards each other, twisting sideways. Rotating blades chop into each other’s cockpits before they’re engulfed in flame.
As the pieces of charred metal rain from the sky she falls to a knee, heavy eyelids fluttering closed.
Chapter Twenty-Six – Vanguard
New York City
August 26, 2011
8:32 am, Eastern Daylight Time
The service elevator doors pull open, sending a shaft of fluorescent light into the damp concrete hallway. The winding corridor is used for maintenance and leads to the west entrance of the building; a nondescript grey metal door that hasn’t yet been breached, at least according to the live security feed streaming to Brodie’s cell phone.
Cole and Jens follow him through the passage, stopping before they reach the exit.
“Time to get your game face on,” Brodie says, clapping Cole on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he sighs, staring down at the syringe. “Guess so.”
“Well go for it,” Jens says with a grin and far too much excitement, the anticipation causing him to bounce from one foot to the other. “Do it, man. Hulk out.”
He rolls the injector back and forth between his fingers, watching the cobalt liquid slosh inside the glass vial. This is it, he thinks. I inject myself with Plan B and I’ll become someone else. Muse turned him into a monster, numbing his conscience, and if this is even half as powerful as Brodie claims it is…
“Bro,” Brodie says, though not in a friendly way. The word comes out sounding much more like ‘asshole’. “This is the plan,” he shouts, pointing sharply at the syringe. “If you don’t do your part of the plan, the plan pretty much falls apart. Then it ceases to be a plan.”
“Are you okay with doing this?” Jens asks, his excitement giving way to concern.
“Yes, he is,” Brodie cuts in. “See this? It’s the pointy end. It goes into your vein.”
He makes the pokey-pokey motion towards his arm.
Cole’s eyes flick to Jens.
“Hey, man, if there’s another way…”
“There isn’t,” Brodie says, his glare slicing through Jens like a laser. “He needs to inject himself and he needs to do it now, because if he doesn’t, we are all totally and utterly fu—”
Brodie’s rant is cut short by the sound of the empty syringe clattering to the concrete floor. Cole manifests, faster and more powerfully than before: shoulders broadening, chest expanding, arms nearly tripling in width. His tattered black tank top struggles to remain intact, the fabric audibly tearing as he reaches his full size. And it’s not just his size that’s changed. This time he’s hyper-aware of every cell in his body; he feels the blood pumping hot through his veins, coursing in tides like molten lava, ready to erupt in a swell of unbridled violence. He looks down at his arm and flexes, spellbound by his transformation.
“Holy shit,” Jens whispers, now flattened against the wall, as if trapped in the narrow hallway with a caged lion. “I’m never betting against you again.”
“Finally,” Brodie says, far less impressed. He motions towards the door. “This way, guys. We only have a couple minutes before this all goes down and I have to be out front. Let’s goooo…” As they approach the exit he pulls a small hand-held device from his pocket and touches the screen, illuminating it with a bright green keypad.
They hear a chime at their backs, the sound echoing through the long corridor. It’s the service elevator. The doors have pulled open. Someone is coming.
“We have to move,” Jens says breathlessly.
“Whoa, just hold up,” Brodie says, raising a hand. “Let me just check if I can tap a security cam for the west exit and see what’s going on in the street.” Before the word ‘street’ escapes his lips, Jens has already pressed open the steel door, stepping outside into the bright morning sunlight.
“No!” Cole screams, sprinting out the door, clasping Jens by his arm, flinging him back into the safety of the hallway. It’s too late. A sniper, positioned on a nearby rooftop, has squeezed the trigger.
Before the sound of the gunshot even registers a bullet pierces Cole’s chest, dead-center, and bursts through his spine, embedding deep into the brick wall behind him. A spatter of crimson freckles Jens’ ash-white face.
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Intromit
New York City
August 26, 2011
8:35 am, Eastern Daylight Time
She hears the elevator’s ping, muffled voices, and the clatter of heavy boots on the tiles just outside her penthouse door. They’re here. A dozen, by the sound of it – maybe more. A gruff voice barks instructions and the clatter subsides.
She has just seconds now. Ten, maybe. Fifteen if she’s lucky. Dia’s nerves are jittered and raw; fingers trembling, lips going numb. But her mind begins to level off. A calmness takes hold when a voice from her past reminds her of who she is, and what she’s capable of.
The muffled commands from the hall are more audible now. Coming with a nervous energy and more authority.
It’s a countdown from three.
Two.
One.
Now!
A thunderous crack resonates through her penthouse when an object (a battering ram, she assumes) impacts her thick metal door with a solid
whump. A second crushing blow snaps it from its hinges, dropping it into the corridor. A swarm of heavily-armed soldiers wearing helmets and body armor flood her living room, guns drawn, forming a semi-circle around her with military precision.
A few more rush off to the kitchen where Heinreich is bound and gagged. “Sir!” someone shouts. “We’ve got a hostage in here. He’s alive.”
Dia’s feet remain planted. She can’t see the SWAT team’s facial expressions through their dark tinted visors, but their body language is a portrait of shock and awe. Some of them even lower their guns at the sight of her standing perfectly still, eyes glowing, hands crackling with electricity, fingertips billowing plumes of swirling blue smoke. Welcome to the club, she thinks. Superhumans are real. Deal with it.
The team leader raises his weapon a little higher, planting the metal stock firmly into his shoulder. His thumb flicks the safety latch. “Dia Davenport!” he barks out, his stilted commands sounding more rehearsed than authentic. “Place your hands on your head, and turn around.” He shakes the tip of his assault rifle towards the floor. “And get down on your knees, now!”
Dia cocks an eyebrow at the suggestion. “Are you at least going to buy me a drink first?”
“Ma’am,” he shouts, louder this time but with less certainty. “I just gave you an order! Turn around, place your hands on your head, and…” he pauses for an awkward moment, before adding, “…and stop making your hands glow.”
She whirls on her toes in a pirouette and faces the back wall, her fingers trailing blue smoke behind them. She’s facing the door that opens to the spiraling staircase – the exit that leads to the roof. Dia reaches up and places her hands on top of her head, loosely lacing her fingers together. She needs to create the illusion of compliance, if only for a moment.
Dia draws in a deep breath and whispers under her breath. “Shit...here goes my security deposit.”
She curls her fingers into claws and tears them across time and space, slicing open the fabric of reality. The gaping hole burns bright, like a blast of unfiltered sunshine. Even the tinted visors can’t provide enough protection from the initial glare and the soldiers shout out, turning their heads.
She lunges to side-step the opening and sprints towards the exit.
A tsunami explodes from the rift. A six-foot funnel of water explodes, blasting the SWAT team backwards. A dozen soldiers stumble to regain their footing but the power of the tide sends them careening into the hallway, bouncing, rolling, limbs slamming off the walls and floor. The portal floods the penthouse like a massive broken fire hydrant; the stream is relentless and seems to only gain momentum with each passing moment.
As the waterfall continues to blast from the opening, Dia rushes up the staircase and out to the rooftop terrace, barring the door behind her. Not a single soldier will survive the flood, Dia realizes in that moment, and neither will Heinreich. The skin flickers at the corner of her lips at the notion. She suppresses the urge to smile.
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Moiety
New York City
August 26, 2011
8:35 am, Eastern Daylight Time
Cole reels and backpedals, his back slamming the brick wall behind him. His eyes are glassy, fogged over, pupils blown. He glances down at the gaping hole in his chest, a dark cinnamon river flowing down his stomach in thick rivulets, pooling on the concrete beneath his running shoes. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to end, he thinks, struck with a twisting pang of regret.
His ears ring. The piercing noise comes in long throbbing waves. Through the pulse he hears Jens’ voice, screaming out apologies that he doesn’t need to make. Another gunshot rings out in the distance. The wail of police sirens fill his head. And suddenly the world falls silent and all he can hear is the sound his own heart, beating slower with each feeble pump, the intervals between beats coming slower and slower. And then they fade.
He’s surrounded by darkness now. Limbo, maybe? Though he’s still aware; acutely, almost hyper-aware, actually – even moreso than when he was alive. And that’s what Cole wants to be at this very moment: alive. It’s warm and comforting and painless where he is, without even an inkling of self-doubt creeping into his consciousness. Why couldn’t it have been like this before? he wonders. What was preventing him from feeling even the most infinitesimal part of this sensation while he was still in the driver’s seat of his own physical body? Was something preventing it? An uncontrollable external force? Or had it been, all along, a byproduct of his incessant inner monologue: the nagging, scathing voices of pessimism that drowned out his every positive emotion; the silent assassins of self-realization that are never quite visible but perpetually surround him, like motes drifting in front of a window pane, undetectable until you focus and sharpen your vision.
He’s comfortable now, but he’s already restless. He doesn’t want to be in a celestial paradise floating among the clouds, or whatever follows this warm and comforting darkness. He burns to be back on Earth, in the thick of the fight, pressing forward, not giving an inch.
He wills his eyes to open and commands his legs to extend and support his weight. A moment later he’s standing, glancing back into the open doorway, his heartbeat pumping like a piston, so violently he feels it might break his ribcage. Brodie and Jens look on as if they’re seeing a ghost.
The pain is gone. He grabs a fistful of his tank top and rips it away, using the remains of tattered fabric to wipe the blood from his chest. It clears away to reveal the perfect, unblemished skin beneath.
Another shot rings out and a bullet pierces his shoulder. The wound closes before his eyes. He glances across the street to a bakery where snipers are perched atop a low-rise building, taking aim. He’s no longer afraid of being shot. He’s just pissed.
“I’ve got this,” he assures Brodie and Jens without turning back, marching across the street.
“Drop him!” a voice calls out from the bakery’s roof.
Three more shots ring out, piercing Cole’s shoulder, forearm and thigh. The bullets impact with a tiny crimson plume, and his skin closes around the entrance wounds as he pressed forward.
A densely packed line of vehicles are parked across the street, cars and cabs and motorcycles, some with their doors still open; they’d been abandoned when the SWAT team descended on the block. He grabs the front tire of a Harley Davidson, his grip powerful enough to lift it by digging his fingernails into the rubber tire. He drags it into the street and begins to rotate. One circle after another, spinning like an Olympic hammer thrower until he lets the bike go. It takes flight. The motorcycle boomerangs through the air, across the street and into the third-story of the building, exploding with a burst of fire and metal. The building begins to collapse and the snipers tumble through the cascading mortar, crashing into the sidewalk below.
Jens and Brodie peek from around the edge of the door, fingers curled over the edge. Cole nods and waves them out.
They shuffle towards the north end of the building and peer around the corner, where they’d expected to see a small battalion of law enforcement. What awaits them is an army. More police cars, SWAT vans and armored transports than Cole thought New York had at its disposal litter the street in front of the condo.
This is our window, Cole thinks. There’s a feverish type of pandemonium rippling through the scene: billowing smoke, a fire blazing in the remains of the bakery, medics screaming instructions as they tend to snipers half-buried in mortal and glass; it’s the perfect time to strike. Hesitate a moment longer and the army will have regrouped.
Cole glances back at Brodie. “Where do you need to set up?”
“Right about there.” He gestures towards the busiest part of the narrow two-lane street, where no less than twenty vehicles are blocking traffic, and twice as many soldiers.
“What are you going to do now?” Jens asks, his voice quaking.
“I’m going to clear some space.”
When Cole races into view, screaming, shirtless, spatter
ed in his own blood, the scene freezes into a chaotic diorama: he sees peacekeepers with their mouths agape, some wailing like terrified children; a much more composed SWAT team leveling their weapons to open fire, and a hailstorm of lead bursting from their barrels; and an armored van, no more than a few strides away, positioned, he envisions, like a pigskin leather football mounted on a tee. He kicks it. The van takes flight, spiraling sideways, casting the army into a menacing shadow. They scatter. It makes an impact, slamming into police cars, bursting into flames, exploding, blasting charred bodies away. Anyone left standing escapes on foot, or dives into the nearest functional vehicle before making their escape.
Cole approaches the entrance and kicks a nearby fire hydrant off the sidewalk, releasing a geyser of water onto the remains of the burning vehicles.
“Brodie!” Cole calls out. “Is this enough room to set up?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Dauntless
New York City
August 26, 2011
8:41 am, Eastern Daylight Time
“How did things go?” Dia jogs across the rooftop patio, her luminous blond hair fading to black, glowing eyes reverting to their natural dark brown.
Paige offers a weak smile. “Like swatting a fly. I don’t know how Brodie does it every time, but I’m already addicted to this stuff. Forget Muse, I’m hitting Plan B from now on. How did the portal go?”
“Like a hot knife through butter. One tear and it was Niagara Falls. It’s flooding fast though…we’re running out of time.”
They position themselves on the edge of the building side by side, inching their feet precariously towards the ledge. Everything is a haze from this height, and their view is obstructed by the billowing smoke from decimated vans and police cruisers; the clouds of charcoal belching skyward are dense and impervious to the yellow morning sunlight. As the rising pillars sway they see a vague outline of overturned cars being doused with a geyser of water from what looks like a broken fire hydrant.
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