Edmond glanced at the center monitor, looked away, and then sharply back again. It displayed the front entrance to the recording studio. He leaned forward for a closer look, his eyes wide.
Then he stabbed his finger onto the speaker system. "Emergency! Emergency! Powerhouse is coming back in, and he’s carrying wounded ...!"
PCA
The lazy security guard jumped to his feet as Powerhouse stumbled through the front doors. He had Waid over his shoulder, the elastic Karen was an amorphous blob in his arms, and his jogging suit was splattered with blood — the way he was staggering, it seemed that the blood might actually belong to Powerhouse himself.
"Help ..." Powerhouse mumbled weakly before falling to his knees. Waid tumbled to one side and did not move. "Help ... Karen needs help, right now ..."
"Oh, jeez!" the guard gasped, snatching up the phone on his desk. "Get Doctor Seymour, right away! The group’s back, and they’re all hurt!"
In no time at all — the guard had no way of knowing that Edmond had already sounded the alarm — Philip Seymour emerged from the back of the studio. He had his medical bag with him, and he began looking back and forth to see who required treatment first.
"Karen ..." Powerhouse slurred persistently. "Help her ..." He was on all fours now, having laid the lumpy heap that was Karen onto the floor. He kept his right hand squarely on her chest, however.
Philip kneeled in front of them. "Let go, Powerhouse," he ordered coldly. "I need to examine her."
"Can’t ..." Powerhouse insisted. "She’s been cut open ... I’m literally holding her together ..."
"Oh, man," the guard muttered, covering his mouth.
"I see," Philip responded. He looked her over as best he could. Whatever had happened to her, she’d really lost her shape — she was barely bipedal at this point, let alone humanoid. Still, he would have expected to see blood...
"Seymour," Powerhouse said, a little more clearly. Philip thought the masked rogue was addressing him until he continued, "Energy vampire. Works by touch. The guard induces overwhelming nausea..."
Philip’s eyes narrowed in confusion and suspicion. "Powerhouse, what are you blathering about—?"
"Hey," the guard suddenly interjected, "why is Waid all trussed up?"
Philip glanced over at Waid. He’d missed it before, but now he saw that she was blindfolded and handcuffed. "What the—?!"
Powerhouse finally moved his hand, and Karen unrolled like a blanket. Takayasu sat up and slapped a psi-jammer onto the doctor’s forehead. Philip jolted and trembled as the device pummeled his neural pathways. Shakily, through sheer force of will, he reached out, trying desperately to grab either the traitor or the P C Agent who should have already been dead by now twice over. If he could touch either one of them, just for a second, he might be able to ...
Philip Seymour collapsed. As he lost consciousness, he wondered idly if he would ever get the respect and deification that he rightfully deserved ...
Takayasu was already rolling to his feet and drawing his tazer, but he didn’t move quite fast enough. He was suddenly engulfed with the worst sickness he’d ever experienced in his life. He wanted to throw up, but he was so ill that his body wouldn’t even cooperate that far. And this was how he felt while wearing a protective psi-band — he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have no defense whatsoever.
Luckily, for the ensign, the guard was still so dazed by the sudden change of events that he hadn’t yet comprehended Powerhouse’s role. Lincoln backhanded the guard lightly, but the man would still be later diagnosed with a serious concussion.
The front door opened again. Four P C Agents threw protective wrappings over the four unconscious rogues — protection both for and from the injured — and quickly dragged them from the premises.
"Thanks," Takayasu said as the awful nausea finally passed. "How do we get down below?"
"There’s a freight elevator all the way to the back. And some stairs."
"Any way you can get us down there faster?"
"You got it."
Powerhouse slammed both fists through the floor. He ripped upward, widening the hole, then gathered Takayasu up in his arms. The ensign did not argue. Powerhouse stepped over the edge and dropped to the storage space directly below.
"Cover us," Takayasu told him. He crouched, allowing the big man to bend over him protectively. Takayasu then ordered into his radio, "We’re ready, Shockwave ..."
PCA
".... bring the house down," both Shockwave and Vortex heard.
"Here it comes," Shockwave warned, then tossed the radio aside. He and Vortex emerged, side by side, from the parked van. "Clear!" Shockwave called out, although he knew that the twenty or so P C Agents were already tucked away in anticipation.
"You ready?" Shockwave asked Vortex.
The vigilante nodded. "You go right, I’ll go left."
Without another word, the two men lashed out — Shockwave with his kinetic energy, Vortex with a repulsion wave. They aimed wide and gave it everything they had. The entire business complex — which had been completely evacuated not even five minutes ago — was swiftly demolished.
"Well," Shockwave mused when they ceased fire, "I suppose that’s a little payback."
"Want to go in for some more?" Vortex asked.
"I like the way you think," Shockwave answered with a smile before calling out, "Cover every exit! They’ll have to dig themselves out, people, but if any of them make it, fry’em!"
Of course, it remained to be seen whether some of those rogues could be fried with the weapons and equipment they’d been able to gather. But that was just another reason why he and Vortex were joining Takayasu and Powerhouse below — to clean up shop.
PCA
Giving the devils their due, McLane’s people reacted quickly. Their initial panic at suddenly being trapped beneath tons of rubble didn’t last as long as Michael had hoped. He and Powerhouse dusted themselves off and moved inward, but before they’d even departed the first room, two rogues were on them. Neither hesitated even for an instant, and neither seemed surprised by Powerhouse’s treachery. One of them had a huge, gaping mouth of shark-like teeth, and the other had leathery skin like an alligator. Michael’s tazer tagged the reptile-man in the lower torso, but his thick hide protected him.
Lincoln intercepted piranha-face just before he reached the ensign. His hideous incisors clamped down on Lincoln’s forearm with so much force that they almost drew blood from even his nigh-invulnerable flesh — almost. Lincoln braced his opposing hand against the rogue’s chest and wrenched his arm free, cracking and breaking the man’s huge teeth in all directions. But, like a shark, there was another row ready to take their place. Lincoln didn’t want to kill anyone else if he could avoid it, but if the man didn’t back down, what choice would he have?
The hole in the ceiling that Powerhouse had created suddenly cleared once more, and Vortex and Shockwave dropped through. Steve landed with practiced skill and precision — Shockwave slowed his decent with his new pseudo-flight trick. Steve saw that Takayasu was barely holding a reptile-looking man at bay with a steel truncheon, while Powerhouse had his hands full with a nasty biter. Like Powerhouse, Steve wanted to avoid causing more harm than absolutely necessary. At least, until they found McLane — the jury was still out on that one. Moving toward Takayasu, Steve jumped in from the side, landing a solid kick to the reptile’s head. The rogue recovered, but Steve did not let up. He kicked, jabbed, kneed, and finally just hauled off with an old-fashioned roundhouse to the nose. The man stumbled back, at last dazed, and Takayasu hit him again with the tazer, this time in the throat — down he went.
Mark felt exhilarated, adrenaline shoving his previous fatigue and pain to the wayside. He was feeling less charitable than Powerhouse and Vortex, and so finished off the big-toothed guy with a pair of shockwaves to the face and torso — if the bastard didn’t mind having his large teeth detached, then maybe he’d pay closer attention to some broken ribs
. The shot worked, and the four found themselves standing alone.
"Everyone all right?" Michael asked. When he was answered with a circle of nods, he waved everyone forward. "We need to spread out. I don’t mind losing a few of these rogues, but McLane cannot escape."
"The layout isn’t too complicated," Lincoln reminded them, "but it’s long and has lots of doors. We’re almost dead center of the place. What sucks is that I’ve seen McLane hang out at both ends of the complex."
"Great," Steve muttered. "Whoever finds him first better give me a yell or I’ll be royally pissed."
"I hear ya," Mark agreed. "If this Kaliki-whatshisname that Powerhouse mentioned is here, we’ll need to back each other up."
"Move out, people!" Michael urged impatiently, rushing for the open door. "Shockwave, you’re with me." He leaped through the doorway, diving to the opposite crevice on the offhand chance that a rogue or two were waiting in ambush.
It was a smart move. It turned out to be only a single rogue, but she was enough. Jets of flame emerged from the woman’s fingertips, brushing across Michael’s back before he rolled to the floor and inadvertently, but luckily, snuffed the smolder out before it could fully catch. Michael’s eyes bugged out and his heart was suddenly racing — fire! He might be slowly coming to grips with Jason’s death, but the sight of this woman spouting fire towards him suddenly brought him to a panic. All the long months of anguish from his skin-grafts rushed back to him — he ducked away from the woman’s next attack, but the concept of shooting back at her had temporarily fled his mind.
The fire rogue could shoot from both hands simultaneously, and so she also hit Steve as he followed Takayasu from the room. Steve wasn’t exactly fond of fire, but he kept his head enough to wrap his cape around himself the instant he realized what was happening. The heat was uncomfortable, but the double-protection of micro-chainmail was more than enough to handle the assault. He lashed out with his foot and caught her in the stomach, but she’d already been backing up, so it barely winded her.
Again, Mark was the aggressive one, and his protectiveness of Mike made him even more so. He was right behind Vortex, and when the bitch tried to turn her fire trick on him, he made a deliberate show of laughing at her. A casual shockwave pushed the fire back like it had hit a physical wall. In a way, it had — the fire moved up and around as though it had burned a path to a solid dam. Mark then sent that dam racing forward to give the woman a full-body slam, from head to toe. She flew backward like she’d been hit by a city bus — when she didn’t move or make a sound afterward, Mark shed no tears.
Lincoln bent over the trembling ensign. "You okay, man?" He remembered how scary fire could be, to a normal person, but he was still surprised by the P C Agent’s reaction — until now, Takayasu had struck him as a pillar of confidence and control. Now the Asian man looked like he might wet his britches.
"I-I’m okay," Michael said, allowing Powerhouse to pull him to his feet. "I ... I just had a bad experience once." He held up his hands for Powerhouse’s inspection — unlike most other people, the big man apparently had not yet noticed the scars. "I’ll be all right. We need to—"
It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Piercing, disorienting, excruciating. But it wasn’t a sound — it was in their minds. The newest rogue had slipped up behind the ensign and the traitor while they were talking and hit all four of them at once. The sniveling little man sneered as he watched Powerhouse and Shockwave cry out and fall, grasping at their heads as though they could possibly reach the ache he was causing ...
Then the little man’s smirk dropped when he saw that the Oriental guy and costumed freak did not go down. They were obviously feeling it, but not enough, not nearly enough. When the little rogue took another look at the ensign’s headband, he had an idea of what was happening. He rushed forward, hoping to snatch away the protective device—
Michael and Steve moved as one. Each bent at the waist, each lashed out with a foot. The little man took a shoe on one side of his face and a boot on the other.
Another rogue bites the dust.
"Not bad," Steve commented. "Kick-boxing?"
"Leftover Tae Kwon Do," Michael answered, "and Academy training. Mark? Powerhouse?"
Mark was already climbing to his feet, and he was looking more pissed than ever. Powerhouse took longer to recover, but Vortex was helping him. "Come on," Mark snarled, "we’re wasting time." Without waiting to see if Mike would follow, he turned and moved down their designated side of the hall, absently blasting another rogue who emerged from a side room before the bastard could even show what the hell his powers were.
PCA
Lincoln steadied himself against Vortex a few seconds before standing fully on his own. Perhaps he’d been too harsh when judging Takayasu’s fear of the flames. He thought he’d remembered the threat of physical pain, but it was now clear that he’d become quite spoiled in his invulnerability. If Vortex and Takayasu hadn’t been able to take the rogue down so quickly, he didn’t know what he would have done.
"Powerhouse?" came a tentative voice.
Vortex whirled, but Lincoln recognized who it was and called out for the vigilante to hold his fire. "Yeah, it’s me, Edmond."
The acid rogue carefully emerged from the computer room. "Can I surrender to you?"
Lincoln blinked, not quite shocked, but close. "You know I’m here with the PCA?"
"I saw everything that happened upstairs," Edmond told him, keeping a very wary eye on Vortex but speaking to his masked friend. "And I always knew you weren’t cut out for this, Lincoln. You weren’t meant to be a rogue. I guess I wasn’t, either."
Lincoln smiled, and touched the man affectionately on the arm. "Yeah. I, uh ... I’m placing you under Citizen’s Arrest. You can, um, wait here in the computer room until we come back. Understood?"
"Understood," Edmond agreed with a returned smile. "I would offer to help you guys, but ..." He touched his broken nose gently and cast a meaningful glance at Vortex, who refused to look apologetic. "... I know I’m not cracked up for this paranormal combat stuff, either."
"That’s okay," Lincoln said. "Just wait here."
"Hold it," Steve interrupted. He stepped into the doorway of the "computer room," as Powerhouse had put it, and surveyed the many machines therein. "Is this McLane’s data storage facility?" he asked the acid rogue.
"I believe so," the man answered promptly. "We’ve mainly been using it to watch the businesses above and to monitor information coming in from the news and other pirated sources. But I know those computers have a lot of hard drive space, and that cabinet over there is loaded with CDs and DVDs. I can’t be sure, but I think this is a lot of stuff McLane was working on when he was still employed over at Davison— Ack!"
Edmond yelped because Steve was suddenly lashing out with his lasers. His black mask hid the near-raving fury on his face as he sliced apart every single piece of equipment and storage compartment in the room. He kept it up so long that he felt his eyes pulling energy from his body to maintain the flow, but he didn’t care. He would not allow any piece of his father’s company to remain in that murdering bastard’s possession.
Finally, he relaxed, and the obliteration ceased. Some of the computers were smoldering, but none had actually caught fire. The monitors were smoking quite a bit, but that was all.
"I’ll, uh," Edmond said carefully and quietly, "I’ll just ... sit over here and wait for you to come back, Lincoln." Steering as clear of the crazy vigilante as he could, Edmond sat down in the corner.
PCA
Some rogues were starting to get away — Michael and Shockwave had caught three scrambling to the surface so far. They got two of them, but the third had some kind of slick, glass-looking skin that caused Michael’s tazer to slide right off. He hoped that the agents above would nab that one successfully, but again, he would let them all get away if it meant capturing McLane, and perhaps this Khalkha fellow.
Mark was checking a room to the right, so Micha
el threw open the door to the left. A blonde woman cowered inside, ducking ridiculously behind a small swivel chair. Michael leveled his tazer at her ...
His jaw dropped open. He stared at her, unable to comprehend what he was seeing, or, perhaps, not wanting to. "Christine ...?" he gasped, a barely audible whisper.
Christine slowly stood from behind the chair. He wished to God that she were cuffed or chained or fettered, but she was not — she was not bound in any way. Their eyes met, and she knew better than to even try to lie. In that instant, Michael knew that she was here of her own free will.
I told her about the synod, he realized. Or, at least, I confirmed it for her. And later I told her that I had Mark with me at the apartment. McLane should have believed that Mark was dead at that point, but they sent two of the same rogues to deal with him. With us. She tried to get me to stay home from work, and then at the apartment she told me "Goodbye" so heavily ...
Paranormals (Book 1) Page 26