Full Metal Superhero (Book 6): Explosive Arsenal

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  When it’s all done, the gate opens beneath me and I drop through again into the same space I was in less than a minute before. I hit the ground with a teeth-jarring quake.

  “Yo, Galactic Squire, get some.” Rockem Sockem is eight feet tall, outfitted with kinetic springs loaded with as much stored energy as I could squeeze into the suit. They vibrate with tension. They take thirty seconds to recharge, but my first two punches will hit like a train. I got the idea from watching Tia fight in Buenos Aires.

  I run toward him, the different parts of the suit have Emdrives assisting in their movement. Epic makes the whole thing work: since a couple of dozen individual parts have to move together in concert, I could never manually drive this thing without him.

  “Just because you changed your suit, doesn’t make you anything more than a ninety-pound weakling,” he says, bringing up his shield to take my blows. Kate vanishes in a pop as she goes on to deal with Multiplex and the various threats he represents.

  I smile as he stands there to take it. The only problem with his strategy is he thinks I’m going to hit his shield. Just before I get to him, I pop the jets and leap up. Kinetic manipulators kick in, giving me an ‘attraction’ to the ground. Springs fire and I unleash a punch capable of leveling a small mountain—right on the center of his face as he looks up with his mouth open.

  The blow flattens his features, bones break, and his eyeballs bulge and the last I see of him is his broken teeth flying across the ground as I sail past. I land on the other side, spinning around with a two-step that nearly throws me off balance. I’m pretty sure I leveled him, but I don’t want to get a sword through the back.

  He falls flat on his back, sword and shield scattering to either side of him.

  “And for the record, I weigh one-forty.”

  I don’t wait for him to respond, it would be a long wait. His vitals are consistent with an unconscious person. I give him a quick glance as I jog by, his body shaking with each of my footfalls in this heavy suit. His shattered face rolls to one side, tongue hanging out through broken teeth and mashed lips. Well, he deserved it. I don’t know if he was considered good looking before, but he certainly won’t be now!

  Like a shot, all the Multiplexes run for the fields in thirty different directions. Kate takes off to the north, Carlos heads south, throwing his spear as he leaps over a car. The magic weapon strikes a Multiplex in the back, sending him flailing to the ground. This suit has my standard array of weapons; I let the grenade launcher sing its anthem. Pod after pod sticks to the Multiplexes, sending them floating up into the sky.

  As one they all start laughing. A creepy almost hysterical laugh... and then all the clones vanish. A shower of pods fall from the sky, their simple program terminating the effect as they detect they’re no longer attached to a target. It leaves us with a street full of broken cars, a handful of AG pods and only one prisoner to show for it.

  Carlos lands with a thud next to me, followed by Kate popping into existence.

  “Thanks, Amelia, I don’t think we would have avoided casualties without you,” he says with a smile. “I like the new look, very gorilla of you.”

  I smile inside the suit. “It’s for dealing with muscle-bound oafs granted more power than they know what to do with,” I say, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

  He mocks a hurt look. “I’m not sure if I should be offended or worried,” he replies rubbing his shoulder.

  “A little from column A, a little from column B,” I reply with a ‘fifty-fifty’ hand motions. “Epic is uploading the footage to the new Superhumans Crime division of the FBI. You two mind filling in the gaps for me?” I ask.

  Part of the reform that happened while I was away: with fewer super-teams, but those teams granted expanded law-enforcement responsibilities, they disbanded the DMHA. Which was probably a good idea since they were partly responsible for Ericsson’s rise to power.

  Which makes me wonder how the rest of the world deals with it. The UN turned a blind eye to the Red Wizard, despite the CIA clearly knowing he was a threat. Of course, no one did anything about it until it was too late. I still can’t believe he thought he would get away with pinning all his destruction on me. And then, when that didn’t turn out the way he wanted, he sacrificed himself upon the altar of mass murderer to ‘prove’ superhumans were bad. I can’t quite wrap my head around that level of belief. I’d call it crazy, but so-called crazy people are irrational. That’s pretty much the definition of crazy. He wasn’t irrational, just evil and wrong.

  Kate interrupts my deep thoughts. “Carlos and I are tracking a new villain, or at least I think he’s new. It’s hard to tell since he may...” she glances over at Carlos giving him a questioning look.

  “She won’t believe you,” he answers with a shrug.

  “Wait,” I say holding my hands up. “Start over from the beginning.”

  “This might take a while. Kate, wanna take us somewhere more private?” Carlos asks Kate while putting his hand on her shoulder. Wow, I hadn’t realized they were that friendly. The old Carlos would never, ever, touch Kate in such a casual way.

  She looks past me to the coming law-enforcement agencies. “It’s okay,” I say, interpreting her look. “Epic is talking to them right now. I think the local chief of police is having some trouble thinking of him as an AI; he keeps calling him, Mr. Epic.”

  The chief thinks it is my superhero name. Though I would prefer ‘Captain Epic.’ I need a costume for my digital manifestation. Maybe something patriotic.

  “Epic, you’re patriotic?” Kate asks.

  I am an American. I was born here, was I not? America has a great many beautiful things about it which are not erased by her apparent flaws and turbulent history. I do not think it would have been possible for Amelia to create me in any other country.

  “It’s just... You seem so willing to break the laws when Amelia needs you too,” Carlos adds.

  The country and the government are not the same things.

  “Out of the mouth of babes,” Kate says with a chuckle. “How about the Spire? Fleet is there so I can ‘port to him,” Kate says.

  “Sounds good. I could use a Coke,” I tell her.

  Thirty minutes and one freaked out Fleet later—since we ported on top of him as he was coming out of the bathroom—we’re chilling in the break room. I’m back in my chair wearing a pair of tight-fitting yoga pants. Loose pants and a wheelchair don’t mix. Along with that, I have a blue turtleneck sweater on that Kate bought me for my birthday. I don’t even want to know how much it cost. Kate’s rocking a pair of leather pants and a spaghetti string tank top with the red cross logo and a caption that says, “This won’t hurt a bit.” I have to say… she’s hot. From her perfectly manicured shoulder-length black hair down to her three-inch heeled biker boots. I was pretty stunned when I rolled in to see her dressed so overtly sexy. Usually, she goes for a much more subdued look. Carlos is rocking a pair of faded denim jeans and a white t-shirt that hugs his stupid muscles like it was painted on.

  They’re sitting closer together than is probably polite, talking to each other in hushed whispers. The rest of the large room is mostly empty since it’s mid-morning and no one is really on break yet. I wave to a couple of the maintenance staff as I roll by; they’re all smiles.

  “Hi, Clark, Kara, nice to see you,” I say. I think they're impressed I know their names.

  I roll up to my friends and put my elbows on my knees and give them my best “What’s going on here,” look. To my surprise, Kate frowns at me. Of all the people who could claim an exemption if I teased them about their love life. Kate isn’t even on the list.

  “We were just comparing notes about this morning,” Carlos says, leaning back into his chair. Interesting.

  “Epic, do we know what they stole?” I ask.

  This corner of the break room, like virtually everywhere else in the Spire, has a monitor. Even if I wasn’t wearing my special glasses that projected his text onto my eyes lik
e it was floating in the air in front of me, I could look to the monitor and see what he says.

  Without cracking the NASA or DARPA encryption, we can only rely on the official news… that claims it was a new kind of communications satellite. I doubt the veracity of their statement.

  “Yeah me too, especially considering who we’re looking for,” Kate says.

  “I’m assuming you’re not tracking Luke, or you would tell me, right?” I say. Just the thought of him makes my heart leap into my throat. Where would he go? Where did that dang gem come from?

  “No, hon, of course not. If I had any clue as to Luke’s location, you would be the first person I told.” Kate reaches over with her organic arm, putting a comforting hand on my forearm and easing my anxiety with her whammy.

  “Thanks,” I shoot her a smile. “Tell me about this mystery villain you’re chasing. If it isn’t Luke, or the Armory, who is it?”

  Carlos glances at Kate, then me. “I know you have your doubts about how I became this way,” he says gesturing to himself.

  Right. Carlos was taken back in time by Pythia, the now deceased construct or avatar of the ancient Greek God, Apollo. That sentence alone is enough to send my scientific brain to the asylum. I plaster a smile on my face and nod, doing my very best to put aside my rational mind and accept what my friend says.

  “I wouldn’t call them doubts,” I say with my fake smile.

  Kate straight up snorts in disbelief. “And I wouldn’t call Carlos hot,” she laughs… then puts her hand to her mouth as if she could pull the words back. Her face turns a shade of red I don’t think I’ve ever seen. I cock an eyebrow and tilt my head with a real smile now. She turns away, coughing as she reaches for her Coke.

  “Right, uh,” Carlos stammers. “Anyway, the person we’re tracking, we call him Tempus.”

  “Tempus? It’s Latin for ‘time,’ isn’t it?” I say.

  “Head of the class,” Carlos says with a smile. “We call him that because... well...” He trails off as if unable to bring himself to say it.

  “He can time travel,” Kate says, finally recovered from her faux pas.

  I stare at them for a second. My mind tries to wrap itself around what she said. Time travel? I have a million questions at once and they all pour out.

  “Wait,” Carlos says holding his hand up. “You practically accused me of being mentally unstable when I told you I went back in time, but now you’re just willing to accept this?” I don’t think the pain on his face is faked; I think he’s genuinely upset and hurt.

  “Uh, Carlos, I’ve had time to digest what you’ve said and while I can’t prove how you did it... I can’t disprove it...”

  He leans back giving me the eye as he folds his tree trunk-sized arms across his even bigger chest. It’s the same move he does when I beat him at Halo using trickery and deception. Of course, he sees right through me.

  I shrug helplessly. I don’t know what to say. A person with powers that allow them to time travel seems infinitely more plausible than a Greek god.

  “Right. Settle down you two. Carlos, you know who Amelia is, and you had to know the moment you showed up in ancient Greece to join Alexander’s army, she was never going to one-hundred percent accept what you went through...” Kate, ever the peacemaker, steps in and quells him before it gets too bad. Carlos and I don’t usually fight, but there are a couple of things we dance around. This is one of them.

  “See, you should just—”

  “And you, Amelia, you are his best friend. You should accept what he says without question,” she says, laying into me.

  Ow. That hurts. The truth often does.

  “Sorry, amigo,” I say, with suitably downcast eyes. I really do feel like a turd now. I should believe him. It’s just... accepting that Greek gods were real goes against everything I stand for.

  “Nah, no worries, Niña. I did know you weren’t going to be able to accept it. I just... I thought Pythia would be around forever, you know? I haven’t really handled her death well. I was barely the Protector for a month when she did... what she did. I’m rudderless now. I don’t know what to do or if I’m even living up to my potential. Which is why we're hunting down rumors of this time traveling villain.”

  “I’m confused, what do Pythia and this guy have to do with one another,” I ask. Kate looks at Carlos, who looks back at her. An unspoken communication passes between them, and finally, Kate looks at me and speaks.

  “We want to go back in time and bring the Pythia from 500AD forward to our era.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but it hangs open for a good ten seconds before I finally find my words. “Oh... is that all?”

  “Thomas Anthony Shaw, for your meritorious duty and unflinching bravery in the face of overwhelming danger on the seventh of September of this year, the Great State of Arizona, awards you the Arizona Distinguished Service Medal.”

  I hate ceremonies in general; I really hate the award ones. They feel like they’re more for the people awarding the medals than those receiving them. At least today I’m in the crowd instead of my armor. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty weird considering the rest of the team is up on stage. When I asked them, the event coordinator told me, “This is for the team that was in Seattle last month.” Which made sense—but Kate is up there, and she was with me in Buenos Aires when the incident happened. I shrug; something to ask her about later.

  We’re at Civic Space Park in the amphitheater they usually use for concerts. At least a thousand people are here, including the mayor of Phoenix and the state Attorney General—who’s up on stage pinning Tony’s medal on him.

  Not that the medal isn’t well deserved. While Kate and I were fighting for our lives in Argentina, the team was in Washington trying to stop Mt. Rainier from wiping out the Pacific Northwest. Fleet, in particular, was invaluable. With his speed he saved thousands, not only sending out a warning by knocking on everyone’s doors, but by carrying people out of harm's way.

  The crowd erupts in cheers around me as the team bows. While Kate didn’t get a medal, she’s up on stage with them in their ceremonial costumes. Lux is practically jumping up and down next to me, clapping her hands far harder together than anyone else. As soon as the ceremony ends she takes off like a shot, up through the air and down in front of Tony, wrapping him in a hug followed by a kiss that’s probably a little more passionate than appropriate for the venue.

  I really hate crowds, so I wait for the people to thin before I try to make an exit. The team makes their way off the stage, mingling with the audience, shaking hands, and posing for pictures with parents and children alike.

  I pull up my left sleeve, revealing my wrist computer. This quantum computer built into the thick nanofiber bracer that covers my forearm isn’t as powerful as the quantum computers I have back at the Spire, or the computronium computers I have sprayed on my base armor. It does the job, though.

  I take a quick pic of the team and shoot it off to Tia with a message saying, “Wish you were here.”

  “Amelia Lockheart?” a man asks from behind me.

  I spin my chair as I go to answer. “That’s me—”

  A bucket of cold, red paint splashes against my face and chest, blinding me for a second as I sputter, trying to clear the gunk from my eyes.

  “That’s for all the innocent people you murdered with your abominable tech, you bitch!” Something else hits me in the face. I can’t see because of the paint, and the smell is just awful. It takes me a second before I realize he spit on me. “Who gives you the right to play god? The Th’un you killed, the Argentinians, when will it be enough for you?”

  I can’t answer because I’m too busy trying to keep from breathing in the paint fumes and fighting the panic in my heart. He’s just a protester, but I can’t believe he’s protesting the death of the Th’un... I mean of all the things I’ve done I’d think that one was pretty cut and dry. Before I can formulate a response, Kate appears next to me, already moving as she shoves
the man away from me. I’ve got enough of the paint out of my eyes to see a blurry image of him pinwheeling backward before landing dramatically on his rear-end.

  “Assault! Police! Assault! You all saw it!” he yells at the top of his lungs. “You’re all witnesses.”

  “Your effing lucky all I did was shove you,” Kate growls. Someone hands me a towel so I can clear my vision. Once the paint is out of my eyes, I can see properly. There are three people, a girl and two guys, their shirts are painted with Justice for the Th’un in rainbow colored paint.

  The one who threw the red paint on me is on the ground, feigning pain as he continues to yell for the police. One of the girls holds up a picture of Rafael, with the word MURDERED written on it with a Sharpie.

  Kate starts yelling at them; she’s so angry the little vein in her neck pops out and her face starts to turn red. Fleet, who handed me the towel, goes into super speed mode cleaning off the paint.

  Light flares from behind me, casting us all in dark shadows. Lux appears above the downed kid, her blonde hair so bright it looks like wings of light floating behind her. She speaks in her ethereal voice that defies physics. “Amelia Lockheart saved my world, saved my people. Tens of millions of Lux are alive today because of her sacrifice and her actions. You are not fit to question her motives.”

  The protesters go silent for a moment, only a moment though, before the girl yells back. “We only have the word of an alien for that. Go home,” she screams. The girl leaps forward throwing a tomato at Lux. My angelic friend vaporizes it in a show of force that isn’t lost on the crowd.

  The irony of people protesting the death of aliens and then dismissing the word of an alien as to why they are wrong isn’t lost on me.

  “Kate,” I say trying to get her attention. She’s busy pointing her finger at the paint thrower and laying into him like an elementary school teacher.