That brought a smile to her face. "I’d like that."
PCA
"Where have you been?! Why the hell didn’t you answer your pager?!"
For the flightiest of moments, Michael considered answering with the blunt truth: Well, sir, I was getting laid for the first time in almost two years, and so I turned my pager off so you wouldn’t interrupt me.
Of course, the odds were very strong against Commander Brase taking kindly to that answer. Given the circumstances, he opted to lie instead. "I’m sorry, sir. The batteries must have died during the night. I didn’t realize it until this morning." It wasn’t the greatest lie in the history of prevarication, but it was the best he could think of at the moment.
When Brase spoke next, he was still scowling, but he did lower his voice, so perhaps it wasn’t all that bad a lie after all. "That’s sloppy, Ensign. Very sloppy. You’re lucky that I’m not going to place a formal reprimand on your permanent record."
That would be overkill — Michael knew it, and he suspected that Brase knew it as well. But he figured he should quit while he was ahead. "Thank you, Commander. It won’t happen again."
Brase growled under his breath and headed across the office toward the conference room. "Come on, they bumped the meeting time up, and we don’t want to be late." Michael followed as Brase filled him in, "There were multiple rogue strikes all over the state last night. Davison Electronics was hit again."
That explained why they were so urgent to reach him. His pleasant evening with Christine aside, Michael really did feel an appropriate amount of professional embarrassment. He wouldn’t allow his personal life to interfere with his job again. "What did they hit at Davison’s?"
"We’re not sure," Brase admitted, his tone finally losing (most of) its edge. "There were several explosions at the perimeter which we now believe were decoys. We found acid burns through the wall of one of Davison’s structures. The interior was in disarray, but nothing appears to have been taken."
"Any sign of our vigilante?"
"Possibly. A computer was accessed, but the drive was damaged before any files could be burned to disk. The whole mess looks very much like the result of a paranormal tussle. Paraforensics is still working it over, but they’ve already found a number of scorch marks on the walls that suggest massive electrical discharges. They think that could be the handiwork of your lightning rogue. Jarrah wanted you on the scene," he said meaningfully, "but neither you nor your partner responded."
They had almost reached the conference room door now, but Michael halted. "Mark didn’t respond, either?"
Brase shrugged. "He’s late now. You are the one who was out of form, Ensign. This sort of thing is nothing new for that deadbeat partner of yours."
Not lately, Michael wanted to retort. Not that it would do any good — Shockwave was at the top of Brase’s shit list, and would likely remain there for good, fair or unfair.
What concerned Michael was that Mark really had cleaned up his act recently. It was disappointing ... and then he felt like a hypocrite for thinking so, given the circumstances.
Brase opened the door and gestured him in. "C’mon. We don’t have all day, Ensign."
Inside, the large conference table was shoulder-to-shoulder, and there were more people standing around the room to boot. Sitting at the head of the table, Jarrah glanced over, met Michael’s eyes, and nodded. If the captain was upset about his not answering his pager, it didn’t show. Brase moved to sit at Jarrah’s immediate right. Michael wedged himself in one seat down on Jarrah’s left, which faced him toward the window, something he would normally avoid for a potentially boring meeting.
No time for daydreaming today, he reflected.
As Jarrah spoke with Brase, Michael glanced around the room. Most of the faces were unfamiliar. He did, however, recognize a few of the paranormal agents. He didn’t know their real names offhand, but they all had the same type of codenames that Mark found so silly.
Fader could turn herself and other objects, not invisible, but translucent.
Swift had enhanced speed, but had to move with caution, as his reflexes had not increased to quite the same level as his fast feet. The PCA originally dubbed him "Flash" at his own request, but a call from DC Comics’ lawyers put an end to that.
Apathy could create just that — apathy. If his target were weak-willed, the potential rogue would suddenly not care enough to resist arrest.
Flora was able to animate foliage and vegetation. She once stopped, not a rogue, but a norm rapist as he was fleeing the scene of his interrupted crime. She caused the grass and underbrush to seize his feet and legs and, once he fell, his arms. The man was held fast until the police arrived. Whether or not it was a coincidence that the suspect ended up spending the whole time in a rather nasty strain of poison sumac — made worse by the fact that he’d fled without his pants or underwear — had been the subject of much conjecture (and applause) among the cadets at the Academy.
There were at least five other paranormal agents whom Michael recognized, but wasn’t entirely certain of their codenames or abilities. He was pretty sure that one man’s moniker was "Rend," and that his fingernails, toenails, and teeth were hard as diamond, but he would not have placed money on the knowledge.
He gently shook his head.
These agents represent the best paranormal assistance the PCA has? he thought with despondent wonder. A woman who can hide if she doesn’t move around too much; a clumsy-footed speed-demon, who is actually only twice as fast as some norm track stars; a guy who can bum you out if you’re already slow-witted or just not paying attention; and a woman who can give you a rash in all the wrong places ...
Of course, Michael knew that he wasn’t being entirely fair as he took cynical stock of their abilities — he could just as easily come up with clever and helpful uses for those same barely-Class One powers. Still, he couldn’t help feeling extra gratitude for the disguised goodness in Mark Westmore’s heart that turned him into Shockwave instead of a rogue.
"All right," Jarrah said in his soft voice as the meeting finally came to order. "We all know why we’re here this morning. Those reasons are doubly so after last night’s madness. The opposition is getting more and more organized, and we have to act fast.
"Mister Takayasu has been leading the task force to track down the insurgent, Richard McLane. As of yesterday, Mister Takayasu has been kind enough to narrow the possibilities of McLane’s local hideaways down to three locations. This morning, we have confirmed the accuracy of at least one of those.
"In a mixed-blessing, we transported three suspects whom the ensign had recently arrested to another facility ‘for observation.’ During one of the rogue raids, those suspects were freed ..."
Michael sat up straight. Was he talking about the woman with the silver eyes?
"... but not before they spent a luxurious night in our hospitality. One of these rogues, a woman with the ability to paralyze her victims with a pulse of light from her eyes ..."
He was talking about her! Who else had been broken free last night? What time? Where?
And why is Mark late?
Michael’s gut was tightening. As important as it should have been to him, he could barely focus on the rest of Jarrah’s oration.
"... apparently had a dream or two about her friends’ local hangout. Sarah Baxter — who could not be here with us today, and who only works with the PCA on a case-by-case basis — was able to step into the woman’s sleeping mind and find out all kinds of interesting details. Not only have we confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, McLane’s collusion with multiple rogues, we also learned that he is using a fake recording studio as his current front, the location of which is in the report in front of you. This ‘business’ is under surveillance even as we speak."
"So we know for sure where they are," Brase observed unnecessarily.
Jarrah nodded, then opened his mouth to continue.
Michael couldn’t stand it any longer. "Captain," he
said, slowly rising to his feet, "I’m sorry, but I need to step outside for just a moment."
"Ensign?" Jarrah prompted, his eyebrow raised.
"I need to call my partner, sir."
"Ensign," Brase began, his tone heavy, "I believe you’re on thin enough ice right now without interrupting Captain Jarrah’s presentation—"
"What is that?"
One of the paranormals whom Michael had not known was pointing out the window. Michael, and everyone else, turned to follow his gaze.
An object — bipedal — was flying rather erratically through the air. It dipped and flailed shakily, but it was clearly headed straight for the PCA headquarters.
Brase bolted to his feet and snatched a house phone off the wall. "Emergency! Emergency! We have incoming! North side, airborne! Bring all defenses up to maximum! We have to knock it down before it gets here...!"
Michael moved toward the window, squinting as he tried to see the object— the person better. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like...
Oh, my god!
"Shut them down!" he yelled, turning to a baffled Jarrah and enraged Brase. "Shut down the defenses, now!"
" ‘Shut them down?!’ Takayasu, have you lost your mind—?!"
Michael ignored Brase, focusing his attention on the man in charge. "You’ve got to stand down, sir! That’s my partner! That’s Shockwave!"
Jarrah could have responded in many ways. He could have reprimanded the ensign. He could have pointed out that Mark Westmore did not have the ability to fly. Instead, he turned to Brase and ordered, "Shut down the defenses."
Brase’s eyes threatened to bug out of his head. "Sir—!"
"Now, Mister Brase."
Brase trembled with unvented fury, but he passed along the order.
Meanwhile, Mark was now close enough that Michael had not the slightest doubt that he had been right. But how was Mark flying? He’d find out soon enough.
Mark did not land. He did not slow down. He extended a wavering right hand and knocked the bulletproof glass inward as a single resistant pane. Everyone else scrambled away, but Michael moved forward to help catch his partner as he sailed into the room. Mark’s momentum was too great, and they both fell backward onto the conference table.
"Mark, my god!" Michael gasped. Setting aside his dynamic entrance, Mark looked terrible. He was cut, bruised, and bloody all over. The right side of his face had been gashed open so horribly that Michael could plainly see the working muscles as he spoke.
"Mike!" he blurted through swollen lips. "Mike! There’s danger!"
"Calm down, Mark! What’s going—?"
"No time!"
Mark threw himself against his partner in a full-bodied embrace, which again spilled them onto the table. He wrapped his arms around Michael’s upper body, and even hooked his legs around Michael’s calves — the act might have come across as absurdly lewd had it not been for his near-panic. Mark closed his eyes, concentrating so that his kinetic waves shot out in all directions, essentially forming a crude force field around the two of them.
The shield solidified less than one second before the entire PCA building suddenly blew sky high.
PCA
I killed a man.
Given the circumstances, he hadn’t thought it would bother him so much. Well, that wasn’t exactly true — he hadn’t thought about it at all. He’d simply acted, and not allowed himself to think about the consequences, lest they had frozen him into inaction.
He tried to convince himself that Graham had been a boil on the ass of humanity, but it didn’t help as much as he hoped. The simple fact of the matter was that McLane was the one that he really wanted to execute, and killing Graham instead felt somehow ... excessive, or something. Hypothetically, he could have knocked the man unconscious instead and achieved the same goal of saving Vortex.
Except then he would have eventually woken up, and do you really think he wouldn’t have figured out what happened? Sarah and Tommy might already be dead, or worse, if he’d opened his big mouth about your betrayal, and you know that would have only been a matter of time...
All of which was true. But he still felt as though he’d crossed a line of no return ...
Abruptly, a cheer sounded from somewhere else inside the compound. Upon his return with the injured Edmond and deceased Graham in the wee-hours of the morning, Lincoln had discovered that the recording studio was, after all, far closer to the "villain’s lair" that he had originally expected to find. The studio itself was just what it seemed, but it turned out that there was a whole network of storage warehouses running beneath the length and width of the entire business complex. Through whatever means — probably nefarious — McLane had secured the use of all of them, and now they were all linked together, rather than blocked off for use by the individual businesses overhead. The end result gave McLane’s clan a lot more room to operate than had been immediately obvious.
Lincoln only wished that he’d known about the lower levels when he gave Vortex the address ...
Prompted from his preoccupation by the enlivened applause, Lincoln rose from the corner in which he’d retreated and followed the noise to find out what was going on. As he shuffled down the long central hallway, several rogues passed him by in the loftiest of moods, giving each other high-fives and other equally annoying exchanges. No one seemed interested in stopping to speak to the willful outsider, and Lincoln certainly had no interest in questioning them about it.
As he pivoted to return to his seclusion, his gaze swept past the "communications center," or whatever McLane had dubbed it. It allowed them to keep appraised of the outside world via satellite television and radio, and also monitored the recording studio above. It was also where several computers were set up.
As Lincoln glanced inside, he spotted Edmond, who sat before the security monitors, still nursing his busted nose with a cold compress. Here, at least, was someone whom Lincoln didn’t mind speaking to.
"Hey," he said as he stepped inside.
"Hey," Edmond returned, his voice now sounding stuffy and thick.
"Feeling better?"
"Gettin’ there." Then he added with sincerity, "Thanks again for hauling my butt out of there."
"No problem." He started to add something along the lines of too bad I couldn’t save Graham, but he didn’t want to push his luck. McLane seemed to buy the explanation that Vortex had done Graham in, but everyone knew there was no love lost between the two men. "Do you know what was going on just now?"
"You mean the cheering?"
Lincoln nodded.
"Remember when I told you that we had a lot more C-4? Well, not anymore. We used it — all of it — this morning."
"For what?"
"Blew the regional PCA headquarters all to hell."
Lincoln barely contained a gasp. "You’re joking!"
"Nope. Don’t know which of us got it in there — that place had the best security against paranormals in existence — but it’s nothing but a smoking ruin now ..."
Lincoln faded out for a moment, realizing the depth of what he’d just learned. No more PCA, at least locally, for now. There were only three PCA regional headquarters in the nation! Khalkha and McLane could run rampant now. If it weren’t for Vortex, there wouldn’t be any capable resistance left at all! And surely even Vortex wasn’t up to ...
Then Edmond said something that snapped his attention back.
"... forward to spending time out at the ranch. I think I deserve it, you know? I’ll ask McLane if maybe—"
"Did you say ‘ranch?’ What ranch?"
"Hmm? Oh. McLane owns a ranch out in Riverside."
"Riverside, California?"
"Yeah. It’s a neat little place. Got its own stream, lots of horses. It’d be a nice get-away. Once things slow down, maybe you could join me?"
Lincoln grinned beneath his mask. "Count on it..."
TAKAYASU, SHOCKWAVE, VORTEX, AND POWERHOUSE
The entire PCA building was gone.
/> The surrounding buildings either collapsed or were left in shambles. People were killed by flying debris almost a quarter-mile away. Far more were injured by flying glass. The only saving grace was that the explosion had been so powerful, it had also blown out most of the fires as they tried to start.
I should have died today, Michael thought. From this point forward, I am on borrowed time.
He surveyed the annihilation with surprising calm. He supposed that much of it was from shock — if it weren’t for Mark, there might not be enough left of him to identify with dental records. That sort of information took a while to sink in, he supposed. Then again, if he could survive watching a close friend burn to death inside paranormal napalm ...
Paranormals (Book 1) Page 23