That was why I had deliberately let Mechano blast me with his energy beam, to give me the chance to absorb the additional energy I needed to escape. It was like Metahuman judo, using my opponent’s strength against him. I’d cut it closer than I’d meant to, though, in letting Mechano pierce my shielding. Everything on me felt burnt, even my insides. I felt like a charred steak.
I would have to assess my injuries later. This was not over. All three Sentinels could fly. They would be on me like flies on rotten meat in moments if I didn’t do something to stop them.
I had not used all the energy absorbed from Mechano in making my escape. A substantial amount of it remained, making my body tingle and crackle with barely contained energy. I bent over in the air, clenched my fists, and aimed them down toward the hole far below in the mansion’s roof I had just burst out of. I unleashed the energy the cells of my body had absorbed from Mechano. It surged forth from inside me like water from countless breached dams. I channeled it through my arms, down through my fists, and out of my body. A massive bolt of energy, glowing white-yellow, burst out of me like a fired artillery shell. It hit the roof of the mansion. It exploded like a thunderclap. For an instant, night turned into day. It blinded me. The shocked wave from the blast hit me, knocking the wind out of me. It sent me tumbling through the air.
Once I righted myself, I looked down at the damage I had caused. There was now a massive gaping hole, smoking and jagged, in the roof of the mansion. There was more empty space than roof, now. Though I couldn’t see how far down the damage extended, I could see that I had punched through at least the first few floors of the structure. As I watched, part of the mansion caved in on itself, like a collapsing house of cards.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, shocked and awed by what I had done. Though I had intended to do it, meaning to do something and looking at that something were entirely two different things. Despite all of what the three Sentinels had done to me, that did not change the fact Sentinels Mansion was a symbolic, almost sacred building. I felt like I had just set fire to the White House.
My nose dripped. I reached up with a shaking hand and wiped the wetness away. Blood. The sight of it brought on a sudden wave of vertigo, weakness, and pain. Between Mechano’s attack and regurgitating all that energy in one big blast, I felt like a runner who’d been hit by a car at the end of a marathon. I needed a nap, a painkiller, and a pretty nurse to tend to me. I wouldn’t have turned my nose up at an ugly one either.
Maybe later. Right now, I needed to get out of here. I was under no illusion that the Sentinels had not survived my attack on the mansion. They had survived far worse in the past. I had just wanted to slow them down.
I started flying south back toward the city as fast as my throbbing mind and aching body would let me. Sentinels Mansion faded into darkness behind me. Though it hurt my head to do it, I send telekinetic pulses out around me, like an airplane in a combat zone checking for missiles. I was not being followed. Maybe dropping part of the mansion on the Sentinels’ murderous heads had done the trick.
I needed to get into touch with Isaac. I had my cell phone with me, tucked into one of my suit’s unobtrusive pockets. I didn’t dare use it. The only thing I knew about cell phone technology was how to spell it, but monitoring cell phone calls struck me as being something it would be child’s play for someone like Mechano to do. Besides, maybe my phone had gotten fried in Mechano’s attack after he pierced my force field.
I activated my wrist communicator instead. Isaac and I had a long-standing agreement to always answer our communicators. Even so, it seemed like forever before he answered his.
“Yo,” came his sleepy voice. “This had better be good. I was having a dream about the cheerleaders for the Astor City Supernovas. Just me and a bunch of bouncing pom-poms.”
“I just left Sentinels Mansion. They attacked me.”
“They did what?!” The sleepiness was gone from his voice.
“I can’t come home.” My tongue felt thick. I was having a hard time speaking. My lips were painfully cracked. Blood trickled into my mouth. “They’ll come looking for me. You and Smoke too, probably. You and Bertrand need to get out of the house now. Call Neha and tell her to make herself scarce.” I was having a hard time focusing. A building loomed up in front of me, taking me by surprise. I swerved to avoid it.
“What in the world have you done?”
“Not winning friends and influencing people, that’s for sure.” I swerved again, narrowly missing another building. “Gotta go. These buildings are cagey. They keep tryin’ to crash into me.” I shut off the communicator, cutting Isaac off.
My brain felt increasingly sluggish. My eyelids felt heavier and heavier, desperately wanting to close. It was as clear as the bleeding nose on my face I needed medical attention. I couldn’t go to a hospital though. In addition to risking exposing my secret identity by passing out in an emergency room, more importantly, I had little doubt Mechano would monitor the area hospitals’ computer systems for new admissions that fit my description. If I had his technological savvy and resources, that was what I’d do. Surely his sensors had picked up that he had injured me before I made good on my escape.
Getting help at a hospital was out. If I survived the night, I’d be sure to befriend a doctor who was not afraid of murderous Heroes and who made house calls. It was a shame I hadn’t already done it. Hindsight really was twenty-twenty.
I needed to hole up somewhere. I was in no condition to go another round with the Sentinels. Even at my best they outmatched me, and I was not at my best. I needed to hide, regroup, recover, and plan my next move. But where could I go? Home and hospitals were out. So was work. The Sentinels surely would look for me there. Besides, I did not want to endanger the workers in Star Tower. I could go to Amazing Man’s mansion in Chevy Chase, but there was no way I’d make the flight all the way down there. I was having a hard enough time getting back to Astor City without slamming into something.
Where could I go where the Sentinels would not look for me?
The answer came to me like a thrown lifeline:
Truman.
The Sentinels had not known that I knew I was the Omega. Maybe they also didn’t know I had hired Truman. Plus, Truman was a Hero who had dealt with the Sentinels before. If there was anyone I could go to who could help me deal with them, it was him.
It was the wee hours of the morning. Unless he was working a case, surely Truman was at home asleep instead of in his office. Truman mentioned he owned a condo not far from his office, but I had no idea where it was.
His office it was, then.
I altered my trajectory, making my way toward Paper Street. If it weren’t for the fact I knew the streets of Astor City like the back of my hand thanks to my night patrols, I doubted I would be able to navigate there in the condition I was in. Fortunately, I could make my way there, though I was only faintly consciously aware of doing so.
Before I knew it, Truman’s mid-rise office building came into sight. I focused on it like a drowning man dog-paddling toward a life preserver. Normally, if I needed to get into Truman’s office after hours, I would have landed on the sidewalk, walked to the front door, used my powers to defeat any security systems and locks I encountered, and then strolled into Truman’s office like I owned the place.
This was not normally. I was in no condition to do all that. If I landed on the sidewalk, I was likely to pass out there.
I took as careful aim as my lethargic mind would let me. I fuzzily gathered my personal shield around me. I shot forward.
I crashed through Truman’s third floor window like a thrown baseball. Glass exploded and fell around me. I hit the top of Truman’s desk with a crash. Items went flying. I caromed off the desk like a bounced ball. I smashed into the wall on the other side of the room, and then hit the floor. I rolled until I came to rest on the threadbare carpet against Truman’s couch.
The floor was hard. What carpeting remained smelled, of age and years of fo
ot traffic. There was a nice comfy couch right above me. I wanted to get up and onto it, but couldn’t seem to will my body to do it. I couldn’t breathe. I apparently had knocked the wind out of myself, having dropped my shield at some point after smashing through the window. Other than the city’s lights coming in through the broken window, the room was dark.
“Dude, you suck at landings,” came a raspy voice. It wasn’t until later I realized it was mine. A breeze from the broken window blew papers from Truman’s desk and onto me. A few grew dark with my blood. I would have brushed the papers off, but they seemed too far away. Besides, I was too distracted by the pool of inky blackness expanding in front of my eyes. It beckoned me invitingly. “First Iceburn throws you through a window in Adams Morgan, then Mad Dog blasts you through one, now this. What in the world do you have against doors?”
No one answered. Rude.
The floor seemed far more comfortable with each passing second. Who needed a bed and sheets with a high thread count when you had a nice, comfy floor to relax on?
The pool of darkness descended like a blanket, enveloping me whole.
CHAPTER 20
I opened my eyes. I immediately regretted it.
The room was bright. The light gouged painfully at me, like a dagger slashing through my eyes into my brain. I squinted. Squinting made it better. The slashing dagger shrunk to a jabbing needle. Progress. Having your eyes wide open was overrated anyway. No intrepid hero I had ever heard of looked at the world with wide-eyed innocence. Besides, if squinting worked for Clint Eastwood, surely it would work for me. Maybe I would look more like a badass this way.
Even if I looked more formidable squinting, my badass ass felt bad. It felt as though I had gone five rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime with my arms tied behind my back. I wondered if I looked as bad as I felt. It would be hard to look worse.
Blurred images swam hazily in front of me, slowly coming into focus. The first thing I saw was Isaac’s unmasked face, looking down at me with obvious concern.
“The bomb that exploded in my face before the Trials, our fight during the Trials, and now this,” I whispered hoarsely. “How come every time I pass out, I wake up to see you?”
“You’re just lucky, I guess,” Isaac said.
Isaac’s face was fuzzy. I blinked hard, trying to bring it into sharper focus. “I thought earlier I’d settle for an ugly nurse, but this is a bridge too far,” I croaked. I had what felt like a combination of a flu and a hangover. I felt weak and awful. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. Give it to me straight, Nurse Ratched: Will the patient survive?”
Isaac didn’t even crack a smile. “Maybe if he gets a brain transplant. What possessed you to confront the Sentinels all by yourself?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“And now?”
I struggled to sit up. My head threatened to slide off my neck and bounce off the floor like a rotten melon. I willed it to stay in place. My Clint-like squinting likely scared it into submission.
“Now it seems like less than a good idea,” I rasped. Now that I was sitting up, all I wanted was to just lie back down.
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said in a while.” Isaac grinned. Relief was evident on his face. “Maybe you don’t need that brain transplant after all.”
My surroundings fitfully came into focus. We were in Truman’s office. The door was closed. I was on his couch. The only source of light was the overhead fluorescents. The window I had flown through was now covered with a panel of particleboard, making it impossible for me to tell if it was night or day.
Truman was behind his desk with his feet up and a paperback book in his hand. It was an Agatha Christie mystery. Was he scrounging for tips? Truman closed the book on a thick finger and looked at me as I focused on him.
“Sorry about the window,” I said. “I couldn’t think of where else to go.” My voice sounded marginally stronger.
“It’s the ladies in the office across the street you really should be apologizing to. Now they can’t look over here and see me flexing. Their lost eye candy notwithstanding, it’s no big deal. Worse things have happened in this office. Windows can be replaced.” He looked me up and down critically. “You, on the other hand, can’t be. You look like you lost a wrestling match with a hot stove.”
I looked down at myself. I was out of my Kinetic costume and dressed in only a tee shirt and loose athletic shorts. They appeared to be mine. My skin was red, as if I had spent far too long in the sun, with all the pain and itchiness that accompanied a bad sunburn. My skin was blistered in a few spots. The blisters all were where my Kinetic costume hadn’t covered me. Evidently it had afforded me some protection from Mechano’s energy blast after my force field failed.
“You tripped an alarm at Truman’s house when you flew through his window,” Isaac said. Obviously the two had gotten past the “pleased to meet you, I’m a Hero too” stage while I was unconscious since Isaac was walking around unmasked. “He got here shortly before I did. I tracked you here from the GPS on your communicator. Truman had a doctor friend of his come check you out. I packed some clothes for both of us before leaving home, and changed you out of your costume so the doctor wouldn’t suspect you’re a Hero. Aside from radiation burns, pain, and you exponentially increasing your chances of getting cancer down the road, the doctor said you’ll be fine in a couple of weeks. He also advised that whatever you had done to get you into this condition, stop doing it.”
My brain played conga drums against my skull. “Sound advice,” I said. Like a bad dream resurfacing, I thought of the Sentinels. They likely were scouring the world, looking for me right now. I’d have to figure out how to deal with them. It was like a Cub Scout thinking he’d have to figure out a way to deal with the United States Marines. “Though I can’t make any promises. Are Bertrand and Ne—I mean Smoke—safe?” The fact Truman knew Isaac and my secret identities didn’t mean I should put Neha’s on blast too. Though I thought Truman could be trusted, I had no right to share her secret identity without permission.
“Bertrand I put up in a hotel for a while,” Isaac said. “I paid cash for it so it couldn’t be traced to me. I gave him a song and dance about how you pissed off a criminal with your work at the Times, so it wouldn’t be safe for us at the house for a while. Neha I can’t get ahold of. I’ve left messages for her, though.”
I felt a surge of apprehension about Neha. I tried to suppress it. She was the smartest of all of us. She can take care of herself, I told myself. Still, I wished she were here. I wished I had made up with her before now.
“Also, when I got here and saw the condition you were in, I got in touch with your supervisor at the Times and called in sick for you.” Isaac hesitated. A slight smile played around his lips. “I think he got the impression I’m your boyfriend, so if you’ve got your eye on a cutie at work, you’re probably out of luck.”
“Why would he have gotten that impression?”
“Probably because I told the guy ‘I’m Theo’s boyfriend.’ It had amused me at the time. Besides, I owed you one for calling me a tattletale a few days ago.”
“Thanks a lot. With friends like you, who needs the Sentinels?” I said. I stretched out my arms and legs. I winced. In addition to the pain, everything was stiff. “How long have I been out?”
“Over a day and a half,” Isaac said. “Doctor Hastings gave you a light sedative to help you sleep. He wanted to give you something even stronger, but I knew you’d want me to tell him no. If the news is any indication, we’ve got too much on our plate for you to be doing a Rip Van Winkle impersonation right now.”
“The news? What do you mean?”
“Truman, can I borrow your phone? Since I’m a known associate of Lobster Lad over there, mine is off with the battery unplugged. I did the same with your phone, Theo. I didn’t want someone to ping our phones’ GPS to figure out where we are.” Despite his jocular facade, Isaac was no dummy.
Truman
handed his smartphone over. Isaac sat down next to me. He used the phone’s browser to go to UWant Video. He went to one of the trending videos. It was from one of the cable news channels and titled “Hero or Menace?” The tinny sound of the video from the phone’s small speaker soon filled Truman’s office:
“The Sentinels, who many consider the greatest Heroes in the world, are dealing with the fallout from an attack on their headquarters right outside of Astor City, Maryland early this morning. Sentinels Mansion is internationally recognized as a symbol of the heroic spirit,” said a Vixen News anchor. Blonde, busty, and perfectly made up and coiffed with pearly white teeth, she looked like a sex doll come to life. Her sultry look was designed to make the network’s mostly grey-haired audience go weak in the knees and hard in the penis. She sat behind a transparent desk. The camera afforded a perfect view of her crossed, tanned, high-heeled legs. If her neckline were a teensy bit deeper and her skirt a tiny bit shorter, she would look like she was about to mount one of the poles at Areola 51. She said, “The attack on Sentinels Mansion came, not from a Rogue as might be expected, but rather, one of the Sentinels’ fellow licensed Heroes. This footage was captured by the security cameras on the grounds of Sentinels Mansion.”
The woman’s perfectly symmetrical features were replaced by a video of me in costume, floating high up in the dark sky over Sentinels Mansion. The video showed me shooting my energy blast into the mansion, the resulting terrific explosion, part of the mansion collapsing, and then me flying away. The video shut off, replaced with a still close-up of my masked face from the video. The voice of the anchor said, “Both the Sentinels and the Heroes’ Guild have confirmed that the Metahuman who perpetrated the attack is Kinetic, a licensed Hero who has been active in Astor City the past several months. Three of the Sentinels were in Peru contending with the supervillain Puma at the request of the United Nations at the time of the attack. Millennium, Mechano, and Seer, the remaining three Sentinels, were inside of the mansion when the attack came. No one was injured. Kinetic’s attack did cause millions of dollars in damage, however, in addition to destroying priceless artifacts housed in the mansion. Both the Sentinels and the investigative arm of the Heroes’ Guild are searching for Kinetic for committing what the Sentinels are calling ‘an inexplicable and senseless terrorist attack.’ Here is Sentinels’ chairwoman Seer, making a statement a short while ago from the world-famous Situation Room.”
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