In the end, Michael decided to go with his gut and play a hunch. Something told him that, inside, Mark Westmore was not that bad of a guy. When the power and opportunity to really strike back at the world for any and all perceived transgressions plummeted into his grasp, he chose not to run with it. Oh, he obviously indulged himself to some degree, but, as Shockwave, Mark Westmore could be doing a lot worse than mouthing off and pinching behinds.
How best to win his respect? Michael’s guess was to play his game ... but not from the receiving end. Go in there, match him attitude for attitude. No macho bullshit — Ensign Takayasu was too smart to try matching a Class One with physical prowess — but with whatever Westmore considered wit. Let him know that Michael was on to him ... and furthermore, that he was on his side of the joke.
There’d been a frightening moment in the shower when Michael thought he might have gone too far, but in the end, it all worked out.
"We waitin’ for somethin’?"
Westmore’s words shook Michael from his reflection. "Sorry?"
"Are we waiting for something?" he repeated without his trademark sarcasm. "What are we sittin’ here for?"
"Your favorite lieutenant commander should be here shortly. He’ll be calling us in for our first assignment."
"Brase? Great." Westmore paused, then added, "Why’s Brase giving us a work assignment? Somethin’ big?"
"Something big."
"Got details?"
"Not yet. We’ll get them together."
Westmore grunted at that, playing casual with how impressed he was to actually be kept in the loop. Most paranormal agents, himself as well as the others, were used as little more than cannon-fodder muscle troops. The "real" police work was left for the multitude of norms.
"Takayasu!" Brase called out, revealing that he had been in his office the whole time after all. Michael exchanged a roll of the eyes with his partner, who chuckled in return, and headed over.
Brase, who reminded Michael of Assistant Director Skinner from the old "X-Files" television series — except with more hair — turned his back on them to take his seat, and when he looked up again, he was clearly surprised and annoyed to see them filing in together.
"Ensign Takayasu," the lieutenant commander stated curtly, "this is an assignment break-down. Shockwave’s presence is not required."
Westmore tensed, but before he could open his big mouth, Michael took his seat and responded, "Thank you, sir, but he has no other pressing duties at the moment." He gestured for Westmore to join him, which he did.
Brase stared blankly at that, and the three sat in silence for several moments. When it sank in that Westmore wasn’t going anywhere, Brase’s gaze melted into a scowl. "Very well, Ensign. Are you familiar with Davison Electronics?"
"Yes, sir: Known to the public for its electronic hardware, drafted into service for the PCA not long after—"
"Yes, Ensign, that’s enough," Brase waved him off. "I don’t need the textbook definition. Davison Electronics has been our leading developer of counter-rogue weaponry and equipment. The psi-jammer they beta-tested last year proved its value with over—"
"Yeah, Commander, that’s enough," Westmore interjected, and Michael groaned inside. "We don’t need the textbook definition."
"You secure that attitude, Mister," Brase snapped, his brow furrowing in a dance over his burning eyes.
"Secure yours," Shockwave threw back. "If I’m not mistaken, I quoted you pretty good on what you just said to the ensign here. You don’t like how it sounds, maybe you should watch your own mouth."
"Listen, you white trash prick," Brase growled. "The PCA’s put up with too much of your shit as it is. If you don’t watch it—!"
"What? What did you call me?"
"I called you a trailer park rat, and if you even think of throwing a kinetic wave at me, the defenses in here’ll fry what little brains you’ve got!"
Westmore bolted to his feet, knocking his chair over behind him. "I don’t need a shockwave to tear you a new asshole, motherfu—!"
"Mark!" Michael bellowed at the top of his lungs, bringing Westmore up short more through force of will than by volume. Shockwave stood his ground, trembling with rage and staring death at the commander. "Mark. Sit down." Reluctantly, tautly, Westmore reached back, righted his chair, and sat. "Mark, I appreciate the gesture, but we do need to address lieutenant commanders with a modicum of respect."
Michael expected Westmore to react badly to what could be construed as betrayal, but he just sat there, fuming, breathing heavily through his nose.
"I’m impressed, Ensign Takayasu ..." Brase began.
"And as for you, Lieutenant Commander," Michael turned back, his tone frigid and his eyes as hard as Westmore’s were hot, "I would appreciate it if you treated my partner with the proper appreciation and courtesy, as any decent superior should to a valuable subordinate and agent ... sir."
Brase was dumbstruck. Even Shockwave was too stunned to grin. Brase tried to recover, "Those are awfully big words from an ensign, Mister Takayasu."
"And those were awfully small words from a lieutenant commander, Mister Brase. I suggest you try to leave your military background behind you in your current job, sir. The PCA, whatever its choice of nomenclature, is ultimately a law-enforcement agency, not the Navy." Michael leaned back in his chair, but no part of him relaxed. "Captain Jarrah himself admitted to not knowing a great deal about the official PCA regulations, preferring to handle situations as they come. If you have a problem with me or my partner, we can all relocate to his office right now. I can, however, assure you that as a fresh graduate of the Academy, I am more than passingly familiar with the regulations that are on the books. I promise you, sir, that my partner’s admittedly out-of-line interruption violates far fewer and less critical regs than did your response to him. Now, would you care to take this to the captain, sir, or shall we continue with our assignment break-down?"
By this point, Brase was difficult to read. He was clearly pissed off, but a flurry of other emotions swirled across his face that were harder to identify.
Michael could not have cared less. And they say Shockwave is the company asshole! he fumed.
Westmore, whose grin had definitely found its way to the surface, said softly, "Hey, Michael, maybe I should step outside, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s probably for the—"
"You are my partner, and you’re not going anywhere unless you want to. Do you want to sit in on our briefing?"
"Well ... yeah, kinda."
"Then stay right where you are. We are still having our briefing, aren’t we, Commander?"
Brase answered by pressing on, in a somewhat crisper tone. "We’ve established Davison Electronics’ value to the PCA ..."
Westmore noted that with a "good-point" finger waggled in the air — Michael kicked him as subtly as he could while biting back a smirk.
"One of their leading R & D engineers, Richard McLane, was recently dismissed by the company’s civilian owner, Joseph Davison — the late owner, that is. Davison and most of his family were subsequently murdered. All indications suggest paranormal involvement, quite possibly with McLane’s cooperation, or guidance. His dismissal from the company was reportedly quite tempestuous."
As the confrontation slipped further behind them, Michael focused on the described situation. He could already see where this was going, and why the scuttlebutt had been buzzing over it. It didn’t take a high ESP rating to see the danger in a turncoat with lots of inside information.
"Did this McLane ever work directly with the PCA? In the office, or in the field?"
"No. Strictly technical background, primarily at Davison, but also by referral to other developmental companies from time to time."
"He really did a number on the Davisons?" Westmore asked with genuine interest.
Brase gave him a pissy look, but answered straight-forward, "Destroyed the home, charred most of the bodies to a crisp. Paraforensics suggested a rogue with electrical abil
ities, Class One. The place was basically subjected to multiple lightning strikes."
"Anyone make it out alive?"
"Not on the premises. Davison’s younger son was assaulted a short distance away — he survived. The older son is missing, but there’s little hope that he’ll turn up at this point. The working assumption is that he was simply fried beyond recognition."
"The younger son," Michael asked, "how did he come out?"
"Cuts, bruises, a concussion. Messed up his eyes somehow — had them thinking he’d be blind, but it turned out not to be as bad as they first thought. He’ll be released from the hospital soon."
"Where’d this asshole McLane take off to now?"
Another dirty look before, "McLane’s current whereabouts are unknown. The intelligence division is working on that, and when they finish their jobs, that’s when you two will step in."
Michael nodded. Westmore cracked his knuckles.
"Any specific objectives in dealing with McLane?"
"Other than generally kicking his ass, of course."
By now, Brase’s only reaction to Westmore was a tired sigh. "If possible, bring him in. If not, bring him down, by whatever means necessary."
"Are there any other agents assigned to our team?"
"Just you and Shockwave until we confirm McLane’s collaboration with multiple rogues. If he has more in his arsenal than this ‘lightning man,’ we’ll reassign other paranormal agents as necessary. If this rogue represents the sum of his influence, they’ll be left to you."
"No problem," Westmore boasted. "I doubt we’ll need the help either way."
"Maybe we should visit Davison’s son," Michael suggested, more to his partner than to the commander. "He might have known McLane through his dad, or maybe his dad said something about the altercation. I’d also like to get as clear a picture as possible about the rogue who—"
A buzzer sounded loudly through the outer office, followed almost immediately by a smaller one right on Brase’s desk. "Sorry, Commander," came Captain Jarrah’s soft voice, "I’m going to have to steal your agents for a bit."
"What’s up, Jarrah?" Westmore called out.
"PCA business," Jarrah answered him directly, "the rogue variety. Two suspects, classes unknown. Great American Bank off of Madison Street."
With a short nod, Ensign Takayasu and Shockwave rose to their feet ...
PCA
The security guard fell to the ground. Choking on bodily fluids that rose unnaturally from his throat, the man futilely attempted to hold his exposed innards in their proper place. Before he truly realized that he was dying ... he was dead.
The paranormal standing over him stared down at the man a few seconds longer, oblivious for a time to the screaming chaos around him. To think that, only a few months ago, he’d been as fragile, as helpless, as this norm ... he shuddered to remember. Breathing a grateful curse, he retracted his arm from its six-foot extension to a more proportionate length. The guard’s blood dripped from his talons, trickling a spotted trail back to his feet. He shrugged and turned back to the business at hand.
"Didja get him?" his partner asked.
"Didja have any doubts?" the taloned rogue replied.
"You monsters!" some old woman, a teller, screamed. One of her fellow employees tried frantically to shut her up, but witnessing the guard’s disembowelment had pushed her into hysteria. "You freaks! You’ll go to hell, all of you! God will strike you down—!"
The tall man, the partner of the clawed savage, turned his head just enough to see the screaming woman. A pulse of light flashed upon his forehead, then whisked forward and struck the woman in the chest. Her breasts and rib cage collapsed as she was knocked back into the wall twenty feet behind her. She slumped to the ground, as lifeless as the security guard.
"Does anyone else have an opinion they wanna share?" the tall man called to the room.
Silence answered him.
"About time. Now, who’s gonna show us to the vault?"
PCA
Outside, the ranking police officer breathed a sigh of relief when the first PCA car pulled into the parking lot, then frowned when he realized that it was not the "first" car, but the only car.
"Pardon my lack of gratitude," he called to Michael as the ensign and Westmore emerged from the vehicle, "but are you guys it?"
"We’re all you’re gonna need, my man," Mark grinned, "you know what I’m sayin’?"
The policeman had no reply for that.
Michael pulled the officer closer. "I’m Ensign Michael Takayasu. This is my partner, Shockwave. What’s—"
"An ensign?" the policeman challenged. "Shouldn’t there be someone here a little higher up the food chain? Is this Shockwave fella—"
"I may be an ensign, sir," Michael interrupted in turn, "but I’m the ranking Academy graduate in this district. I assure you, that places me a little ‘higher up’ than the title suggests. Now, what’s the situation?"
The policeman looked him over a second longer, but then shrugged and answered, "Two suspects, both Caucasian males. We would’ve just called the FBI, but these guys showed their freak sides pretty quick."
Westmore chuckled and shook his head, but said nothing.
"Do we know their paranormal abilities?"
"Yeah," the cop replied, gesturing for them to follow. He led them to a van, its open back doors showcasing two black-and-white video monitors. "They zapped or smashed the plain-view cameras, but we’ve got a couple of hidden ones they missed." He snapped his fingers at the cop to one side. "Back up the tape a few minutes ..."
After watching the grizzly demise of the security guard and equally dynamic death of the old teller, Michael commented, "One claw, one force-bolt. Relatively common mutations. We won’t have to wear psi-bands."
"Hey, they can’t all have my flash, kid."
Michael smirked. It felt reassuring to have a paranormal partner as powerful as Shockwave at a time like this, but he still felt relieved that they wouldn’t have to contend with a psionic attack just the same — the protective headbands were an invaluable development, but they were far from one-hundred percent effective against Class Ones. "You want a tazer?" he asked Westmore, drawing back his coat to pat his holster.
The Tazer-V7 was the standard sidearm of PCA field-agents. A far-superior version of its predecessors, it fired a similar pair of electrode paddles. However, once the considerable voltage had been discharged, the thin cables detached from the weapon, priming the next set and allowing multiple volleys, similar to the clip of an automatic pistol. While the tazer lacked the brute force of an old-fashioned revolver, it had been discovered early on that shooting a paranormal wasn’t always the best option. A few years before, a rogue capable of releasing various toxic gases from his mouth had been shot during an attempted casino heist — the man’s blood proved far more lethal than his breath, and several civilians and policemen died before the area could be evacuated.
"Nah," Westmore replied to Michael’s offer. "The Paranormal Effect gave me all the firepower I need."
Michael nodded, then told the officer, "Run some live feed, please, and see if you can find out the exact orientation of the cameras."
The policeman, probably not as used to receiving orders as giving them, grumbled under his breath as he pulled out a cell-phone.
"Okay, old man," Michael said to Westmore, turning an unwavering gaze to the video monitors as they told their tale, "I need to know precisely how accurate your kinetic waves can be ..."
PCA
"Hey! Mick!" the clawed man called from his position at the upper corner of the bank’s front window. "Mick!"
Mick, the tall man, poked his head out of the vault area a moment later. "What?!"
"PCA!"
Mick froze for a moment, then left the back room and their growing pile of money. "How many?!" he asked as he crossed the lobby.
"Don’t know," the clawed man answered, using his extended arms to lower himself to the floor with ease. "Only
one marked car, but they’d already pulled up by the time I spotted ‘em." Leaving the window, he moved to meet his partner. "How’d they get here so fast?"
Mick’s gaze rose to the nooks and crannies of the ceiling. "They must have—"
Mick and the clawed man reached one another. They were standing almost at the center of the room. All the bank employees were on the ground behind the counter, and the various customers lay where they had scattered.
Paranormals (Book 1) Page 10