Powers

  She held up her piece and widened her eyes, showing them that all was cool. “Hey,” she carefully stated, “I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m here to stop it, okay? Malachi Crane? Your boss? He knows who I am.”

  One of the goons raised his chin, indicating for the thug to his left to take her into custody. The second goon stepped forward, right hand leaving the machine pistol, reaching out to grab Deena by the arm.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she warned him. “I’m just here to save your boss’s life. And I want to make sure my friend,” Deena continued, pointing to Enki on the floor, “is A-okay. Okay?”

  The building shuddered, and Deena heard a fresh set of squeals emanating from the floors above. Everyone in the garage looked up as dust and plaster rained down from the ceiling. “See?” she explained. “It isn’t me. It isn’t Enki here or any of the cops. Us cops? We’re here to help. But you have a killer on your ha—”

  The first helmeted goon gestured in her direction again, and the second guy advanced once more, placing a gloved hand on Deena’s forearm. Scowling, she grabbed the hand and twisted left, dragging him over her body and onto the hood of a car. Deena flipped her sidearm, butt-first, and slammed it against the helmet, shattering the pane of glass. The goon blinked rapidly as the visor shattered inward, doing his best to avoid shards in his eyes. Deena held a hand to the thug’s throat and snapped up the other, aiming her gun at the other three.

  “I told you assholes, we don’t have time for this. There’s an unregistered Power running amok in your corporate office, hell-bent on icing your esteemed CEO. I suggest you either call for backup and get on up there to get your jollies … as you anti-Powers nut bags love to do … or else drag these cops,” she indicated, gesturing to her colleagues on the floor, “and my friend back up the ramp and head for safety. Either way, your beef isn’t with me.”

  The guard on the car struggled against her grip, both hands wrapped around Deena’s wrist, trying to break her choke hold. He attempted to kick, but she adjusted her stance, twisting away so that his feet struck air. The other three shifted and stared at one another. A private, silent conversation took place before Deena’s eyes, and a moment later, the Human Front goons reached down and started dragging cops up by their armpits. Deena nodded once and then released the fourth guard. He coughed for a bit, massaging his throat, and faced off with the surly little detective. She sneered in his face, and he backed off and then gingerly stepped around her, headed to help Enki to her feet. Deena gave him a hand, wincing slightly as the garage shook violently. The goons traded frightened glances and hurried to drag the beaten policemen out past the gatehouse. Deena ducked her head and faced Enki one more time. She was moaning, low but audible. Deena smiled and then patted her friend on the arm. She picked up Enki’s discarded gun, stood up, and barked instructions at the remaining guard.

  “Get her out of here, back beyond the media, and find someone to set her leg. Have your men establish a barricade or police line until my backup arrives. If you don’t hear police sirens in the next ten minutes, call it in. Got that?”

  The guard nodded to confirm, eyes still blinking rapidly beneath the broken helmet. He gently took Enki in his arms and started up the ramp. Halfway, he turned back and shouted, “How do I call it in?”

  “What’s the matter?” Deena jibed, sprinting for the building entrance. “Can’t spell the word ‘911’?”

  27

  December. Wednesday afternoon. 12:11 P.M.

  A bell rang behind Aaron, and he turned aside, swiveling in time to see Deena barrel out of the elevator, a pistol in both hands. The office receptionist opened fire and Deena flattened herself on the ground, scrambling for cover behind one of the wide leather couches. Aaron pivoted and then pushed away from the ground with a heel, vaulting across the lobby to land on the mahogany desk. Astonished, the receptionist lifted her gun, but Aaron kicked out and broke her wrist, sending the Glock clattering to the floor. The poor woman’s jaw dropped as Aaron kicked again, shattering several teeth and sending her to join the fallen weapon. Leaping, he landed on his feet and transitioned into a sprint, avoiding two bullets that Deena had fired from behind the couch.

  He shouldered through a set of double doors, splintering them in his wake, and stumbled into the wide, marbled hallway of the Human Front’s executive wing. He grabbed a random desk and dragged it to block the doors, ensuring himself a bit of time as Deena worked to get past it. Aaron walked into the hall. Glass doors and windows stretched as far as he could see, sectioned into offices and a partitioned conference room in the middle of the floor. A lone office dominated the far-left wall—this one wasn’t transparent but rather done up with artfully crafted opaque doors, shutting out visitors and staffers alike. Another receptionist sat in front of the office, and when she spied Aaron standing in the hallway, she lifted her telephone and whispered into the handset. Then she dropped it and ran. Smart girl, Aaron thought. She’ll go far.

  Not as far as the rest of the executives, though. Despite their corporate, buttoned-up appearance, many of them put up a decent fight. Aaron waded through a gauntlet of handsome, expertly trained vice presidents armed with bats, crowbars, knives, and guns. Bullets flew, and blades flashed; Aaron ducked and weaved, feeling for the first time like he could flex his muscles. He lashed out and clotheslined three assistants, each armed with deadlylooking swords. He sank his nails into an aluminum file cabinet, crumpling the metal like papier-mâché and then tossed the cabinet at a handful of brass-knuckled interns, sending them through a window to the street below.

  Inwardly, Aaron cursed Deena’s timing. If her plane had been late … if she hadn’t figured it out for another hour, he could have been in and out with minimal damage. But Deena Pilgrim was a damn good detective; that was something he’d always known—what he’d bet on, leaving her the chords as clues. And now he was exposed—not only his face and mission but also his ties to the other murders. He’d left the hood behind, wanting his victim—Crane—to know his murderer, know that he’d been beaten by a Power before dying a failure. And even if Aaron had succeeded, he never would have gotten away. She would have found him, tracked him down, and slapped a drainer around his balls. If not for what he’d done to Waldo, then for what he’d done to Walker and to her heart. Aaron knew there was a possible chance, should he survive, that he was heading to prison. If he knew Crane, however, if he hadn’t underestimated the man, there was a better chance that he wouldn’t make it out the door. No matter what, though, Aaron was finished lying. Finished hiding behind a mask, behind another man’s name. But if she’d been an hour late, if Deena hadn’t put the pieces together so quickly … maybe Aaron Boucher could have done this quietly and disappeared. Just me and my pop, easing into retirement.

  But what kind of life would that be? Hounded by heartbreak, weighed down by the price of betrayal. No, this is better. No masks, no secrets. Open and honest, as every good relationship should be. He headed toward the opaque doors. Moments from now, Crane’s elite guards would breach the fourth floor. Then Aaron would have a fight on his hands, not this ridiculous farce, these fat former militants who did their fighting in the boardroom now instead of on the battlefield.

  He checked a nearby clock. Twelve-ten. Five minutes before the cops or cavalry arrived. Plenty of time to finish it. Plenty of time to kill three men and call it quits.

  Aaron kept walking, stepping over unconscious bodies, heading for suite 4A.

  28

  December. Wednesday afternoon. 12:11 P.M.

  Deena crouched low and held out both revolvers. She was glad that she’d lifted Enki’s. Glad that she’d brought along the extra firepower. She would need it. Sucks, though, that I didn’t take one of the goons’ super-rifles. Or that they didn’t offer to hand me one before choosing the better part of valor and running away. Cowards, she thought. You just can’t buy good fanatical help these days.

  After checking Enki’s vitals, Deena had sprinted into the ele
vator, heading to the fourth floor where she’d met with Crane twice before. She’d hoped the other guards—the ones on the street, or Crane’s personal thugs—and cops on the square below had heard the commotion and were on their way. Just in case, she’d asked the goons to call for backup. Hopefully, they’d listened. For now, unfortunately, Deena was on her own.

  She wormed her way around Aaron’s barricade and carefully leaned out into the executive hallway. The gunfire and fighting had stopped. The hall was empty now apart from shattered glass and broken bodies. Everyone else had fled. She hurried past the fishbowl conference room toward Crane’s private suite. The doors were open, and a faint glow spilled into the corridor. Deena recognized that glow for what it was and realized that if Crane was truly crafty, this fight might already be over.

  She crossed the threshold of the office. The walls were illuminated, thrumming with circuitry and tinged viridian green. It was like standing in a giant, toxic box. Thankfully, Deena knew the only one in any real danger was Aaron Boucher. He leaned heavily against the hardwood desk, gasping for breath, sapped of power. Crane had cunningly fitted his office with hundreds of tiny power drainers, disguised and obscured from sight. They’d been affixed to photo frames and lined the baseboard molding. Minuscule dots, stuck to the floor, now lay revealed and glowed green. But that wasn’t the most unusual sight in the office, not by far.

  Standing behind his desk, safely beneath a sheath of metal and plastic, Malachi Crane preened and grinned like an armored death’s-head pumpkin. A steel-and-plastic helmet cushioned his head, wrapping around his ears, seamlessly fitting into a sheet of bulletproof glass that protected his face. His arms were encased in sturdy alloy gauntlets, both of which ended in a pair of deadly gloves that looked strong enough to crush an elephant’s skull. The rest of the exoskeleton—from pneumatically enhanced greaves to a set of compartments used to house power cells, tools, and supplies—had been designed to inspire awe and fear, finished with a glossy sheen of red and black. The Human Front logo was engraved into the left breast over a solidly built piece of enamel. Deena recognized the suit from photos she’d seen during the gang war. This was his supersuit, she thought. The one he wore to fight the Soldier, Olympia, Zora, and Walker.

  Crane smiled through the helmet, blocky teeth parting to reveal a laughing, dancing tongue. The glass muffled his voice, so he triggered a dial at the base of his neck, turning on a sound system so he could be heard.

  “Welcome, Detective,” Crane gloated. “Didn’t we just have a meeting? I’m afraid that my calendar has been busy as of late. I tend to forget.”

  Deena lifted her revolvers, pointing them at the cyborg-militant’s neck. “Stand down. Give me room to cuff Boucher, and we’ll be out of what’s left of your hair.”

  Crane indulgently waved his hand. “By all means. Oh, and feel free to thank me for the drainers whenever the mood should strike.”

  She moved toward the desk, one gun trained on Crane’s suit, the other on her now-powerless ex-boyfriend. “Don’t expect a card. Come on, Aaron. You’re under arrest.”

  Aaron looked sick; the drainers had clearly gotten to him. His face was pale and waxy, slick with sweat. He struggled to catch his breath, hand clutching the front of his shirt, the other roaming the surface of the desk. Aaron looked up at Deena, eyes bright, teeth bared in a horrible rictus. “Honey…” he stammered, “honey, I … I don’t think this is working out anymore.”

  Deena set her jaw and aimed both guns at Aaron’s head. Her hands shook, but she was ready to shoot. Ready to do what needed to be done. I’m ready, she told herself, turning it into a mantra. I will shoot you.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, where they’ll throw the book at you for poisoning my father, shooting the newborn, and nearly killing my partner.”

  Aaron laughed, and Crane stepped away from the desk, back toward the green-tinged picture window. Deena heard shouts and commotion on the plaza below—Crane’s evacuating staff, no doubt, alerting the media and the authorities. She also heard movement in the hallway—shuffling feet, somebody drawing close. Either one of Crane’s goons or, hopefully, a magically splinted and recovered Enki Sunrise.

  Aaron wiped perspiration from his face with the hand that had been clutching his shirt. “When you put it like that … it’s pretty clear, no? It’s … it’s not you, D-Deen … it’s me.” His free hand, roaming, shot out and clutched something hidden from her view. Crane balked and rushed forward, but before either of them had time to react, Aaron pitched a paperweight across the room and glanced it off Deena’s brow. Her head snapped back as she fired, but the shot went wild, burying itself into the wall.

  Growling, Aaron launched himself over the desk and grabbed for Crane’s throat. He looked fine now—completely normal again, barely affected by the power drainers. A thin seam existed between Crane’s helmet and torso; Aaron snatched a letter opener and jabbed it into the bigot’s neck. The suit’s servos whined as the exoskeleton’s gauntlets reached up to pluck Aaron by the collar as one might a cat or child, lifting him out of the way. Crane used the other gauntlet to rip the opener from his throat, spewing a ragged fount of blood onto the desk and carpet. Aaron freed himself from Crane’s iron grip, and Deena—recovered by now—ordered him to stand down. Still recovering from the drainers, Aaron steadied himself against the desk. Deena started over, ready to slap on the cuffs, but Aaron jabbed a finger in her direction.

  “Stay there, Deena. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Neat trick, if you can manage it,” she retorted. “Not looking too good. Those drainers pack a wallop, I hear.”

  “What, these?” he asked, gesturing around the room. “No … I’m good. It’s like … I feel drunk? Maybe buzzed, because there’s so many of them. But otherwise, I’m golden.” To prove his point, Aaron stood up and sank his fingers into Crane’s desk, splintering the wood and jarring the knickknacks and papers so that they fell onto the floor. With a grunt and heave, he tore the desk in half and lifted both pieces—one in each hand. He smiled, a spasm of exertion or pain flitting across his face, and he smiled at Deena.

  “See? Good as new. Here’s my other secret, Deen. The drainers … energy blasts … anything you throw my way. I just absorb it into my system. I’m superimmune. You can’t stop me.”

  “Is that how you poisoned Waldo? The hep B was on you when you fought, but there was no chance the injector could accidentally hurt you in the scuffle?”

  Aaron’s smile nearly reached his ears. “Not exactly. Actually, I just stuck it in his beer while the two of you were fighting. Then I carved the tag on the door when I went to call the paramedics.”

  Deena raised her gun and fumed. “I fucking knew it.” She fired a shot; Aaron deflected it with half the shattered desk, forcing the bullet to ricochet away and into the bookcase. He turned to Crane and apologetically ducked his head. “Sorry to you both. Not the way I’d hoped this would go down.” He hefted the other piece and flung it at Crane’s exosuit. The cybernetic bigot leaped aside, lashing out with a robotic arm, and the desk glanced against the metal and flipped up and over, smashing through the window and falling to the street below. Crane was shaken, and Aaron took advantage of the moment by gently sliding the other half of the desk at Deena. She stumbled back, bracing for impact; a moment flashed before her eyes, and it was the last moment she’d expected to see.

  Two cops met in an office. Deena, younger, slouched against the wall in a T-shirt cut short to expose her stomach. Walker leaned halfway through the door, bantering with the captain. He’d been saddled with a leftover from a case—a little girl, abandoned and alone.

  “I have cases,” he explained, attempting to pawn the girl off.

  Cross wasn’t deterred. “And that’s why we have day care. Drop her with Babs for the shift, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  Deena looked up, giving the handsome, square-jawed detective a sidelong glance.
“How old is she?”

  “What?” Walker finally noticed her but barely looked her way, focus still on the captain. “I don’t … I don’t know. Six or—how can you tell?”

  “You could ask.”

  Now his eyes slid in her direction. “I’m sorry,” he asked, irritated that she had interrupted the back-and-forth. “Who are—”

  “Oh, I’m Deena Pilgrim. I’ve just been reassigned.”

  “Oh, uh—congrats, I guess.” He seemed confused, slightly distracted. “Pull the short end of the…”

  “Nope,” she said, interrupting him once again. “Requested.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Totally.”

  That seemed to land an impression. His hand still rested on the doorknob, as if unwilling to commit an entrance into the office. “Huh,” he breathed, genuinely surprised.

  Deena wasn’t sure why he would be. “So did you, right?”

  He just stared at her as a beat passed. Then he glanced at the captain. “So what floor is day care?”

  Cross leaned back into his chair, hand lazily gesturing in Deena’s direction. “Third,” he replied. “Take your new partner with you.”