One of the girls must have been his sister. Twenty-Seven could tell by the chiseled jaw they were siblings. Half her head was shaved while the rest of her magenta hair fell onto the side, covering one eye. Similar to her brother, she wore little clothing. A simple band of cloth hid her breasts and her short spandex shorts seemed to elongate legs leading into black chunky boots. Of the three, she looked the most ready to kick ass.
The last girl seemed reserved compared to the others. She wore a skirt that reached past her knees, slit up to the waist on each side giving her full range of motion. Her sleeveless blouse hugged her body, giving her a modest appearance. A hijab covering her head, mixed with her dark complexion made Twenty-Seven think she must be Middle Eastern.
“Who are they?” asked Victor.
The angel turned to her companions. “God has provided us with emissaries.”
Twenty-Seven gasped as a bright light filled the room. The man caused lightning to jump from his body to his arms. One of the girl’s arms started to glow a bold blue.
“Children,” Twenty-Seven whispered in awe.
***
“You’re just another freak,” said a large black man. “Your stint with the Paladins is over.”
A group of young military men began whooping and hollering at the statement. Jasmine stood in the middle of the group and turned to stare at her provoker. “Got the balls to back that up, Vlad?”
He stood, pulled off his utility vest, and peeled his black t-shirt over his head. “More balls than you can handle,” he said, walking closer to her.
The common room, not large, was mostly empty except for a couch on one end and several crates they used as seating. They didn’t spend much time in their bunk area. Her team was known for going to the field every opportunity they could; what little downtime they had, they spent at the bar. They were the best and they drank like they were the best.
Jasmine stood in the middle of her six-man squad. She had been addressing rookie when Vlad had interrupted her. The man was dangerously thick, his muscles flexing without effort. “Stand down, soldier.”
“Ain’t even fucking human,” Vlad spit back at her. He had been her second in command for nearly six months. She didn’t like him. He was less a soldier and more of a bloodthirsty killer. His reason for being in the field had no honor; he simply wanted to add to his body count.
The crowd got quiet at the statement. “Only reason you outrank us is because we need you in front to take bullets for us,” he said. It always came back to this. She’d had arguments with him before about being a Child of Nostradamus. He saw her as weak. She saw him as jealous.
Before he could open his mouth again she brought her fist up and clocked him across the jaw. His head barely moved from the impact. He reached up and wiped blood from his lip. He spit on the floor and clenched his fists tightly. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
He brought up his knee. She jumped back before it made contact. His muscles were beginning to bulge more than normal. She had no doubt he was activating his enhancements. There was no way he could match her physically without the technology making him more than human.
She snarled at him. “I’m not human? I’ve got more original parts than you.”
He lunged, trying to strike her in the nose. She knocked his fist out wide, amazed at how quickly his enhancements were increasing his strength. She could feel the tension in his arm, the muscles beginning to speed up. She reached behind his neck and brought him down onto her knee as hard as she could. It was only a matter of seconds before his response time outmatched hers.
He staggered backward. “What? No powers? Think you can take me any other way?” She had respected him despite his bloodthirsty tendencies. He had listened to orders like a good soldier, but she knew this day was inevitable. She had no sympathies and certainly no respect for a soldier creating dissent amongst the ranks.
She didn’t need to activate her powers for a typical fight. Thankfully being a Child of Nostradamus came with natural boosts to her abilities. Her speed, her reflexes, and her stamina were twice that of any man, and her resiliency to pain and damage far exceeded that of any human.
She focused as her assailant lunged with another fist. She grabbed it and sidestepped him until they were back to back. She reached over her shoulder, clasping her hands around his head. Leaning forward, she launched him onto the ground. She thrust her fist down at the man’s skull. He rolled out of the way, and her knuckles smashed the pavement, leaving small cracks. She hissed from the impact of the blow as the bone in her hand resisted turning to powder.
He spun around, using his legs to kick her feet out from under her. The crowd had begun to roar. It wasn’t abnormal for sparring matches to take place in the common area. There were more dried puddles of blood on the floor than could be counted. The crowd didn’t understand the unsaid tension being hashed out between the two powerhouses.
He was on top of her, reaching around her neck, squeezing down on her windpipe. “No powers, huh? Want to die a martyr?”
She punched him in the throat, causing him to lean backward while straddling her torso. She reached up with her legs and hooking them around his neck, pulling him back to the ground. She punched hard at his groin and felt his entire body tense up from the blow.
Jasmine untangled herself from Vlad and stood up. She didn’t flinch, staring down the rest of her squad. It was bad enough she wasn’t human in their eyes, but occasionally that was overshadowed by the fact she had breasts. She had grown accustomed to being one of the guys and reminding them she was in charge. “Anybody else want to give it a try?”
The man on the floor swung at her, connecting with her stomach. The air rushed out of her lungs. She pushed him back onto the ground and stood behind him with her hands on his neck. She locked eyes with the new kid as she tightened her grip on Vlad. “The punishment for insubordination?”
Sims stood up, realizing this was more than a friendly sparring match. He held out his hand, trying to talk her down. “Don’t do it, sir.”
She didn’t blink as the fear began to register on the fresh meat’s face. “I will not have it on my team.” She spun Vlad’s neck. The crack echoed throughout the room as his body jerked one last time. She panted as it fell to the ground. It was him or her, and with each battle against her captors, she felt her humanity slip away.
Sims pulled out a gun from his hip and pointed it at Jasmine. She held Vlad’s dog tags in her hand as she stared down the barrel. The metal felt inviting, calling to her abilities. As the soldier pulled the trigger she focused on the steel of the dog tags.
Pain rippled through her body, almost forcing her to scream aloud. She felt the bullet touch her skin and impale on itself, never penetrating her hide.
She didn’t hesitate as she walked over to Sims and put her hand around his neck. “Insubordination is puni—”
An electric current coursed through her skull, searing her insides. It felt as if a red-hot poker was burning behind her eyes. Her stomach began to turn at the agony. She puked on the ground while curling up in a ball.
“Jasmine,” came another man’s voice. “What is the reason for a dead soldier in my facility?”
Sims looked at the man in a business suit. “Vlad challenged her. She took him down.”
“I see,” said the man. “And you felt the need to fire upon a superior officer?”
“She killed him,” he said. “Of course I’m going to defend one of my own. She snapped his neck like it was nothing.”
The man in the suit cleared his throat. “She is one of you. This is not humans versus powers, this is us versus the world. Do you read me, Sims?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Report to lockup. We’ll see how thirty days in solitary treats you.”
Sims nodded without question, more fearful of the man in the suit than anything he could encounter in lockup. The businessman eyed the next soldier in line. “See to it that the rest of your platoon is ready for departure.
Some of you are in dire need of skin grafts. Make sure everybody has been cleared by the Body Shop.”
“Yes, sir,” they replied in unison with a salute.
Jasmine grit her teeth at the mention of the monster-maker’s lab. Once upon a time, it had been a resource to save wounded soldiers and repair damage from the field. Over time they had taken a more aggressive approach, removing limbs and replacing them with “enhancements.” The soldiers in her squad were some of the most heavily modified people on the planet. Muscles were laced with nanotechnology increasing strength and speed. Parts of their brains were modified with circuitry and chipboards, allowing them to react quicker, access the military networks, and process data at uncanny speeds. She couldn’t help but look at most of them and see there were barely souls contained in the electronic husks.
The suit walked closer. He kneeled next to her on the floor, smiling at her grimace. “Jasmine,” he said with a flat tone, “you’re coming with me. Something has come to our attention.”
She coughed as she got onto her hands and knees. She took a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts. The pain radiating from the base of her skull made it impossible for her to turn off her abilities. For the moment she was trapped inside her metallic skin.
“Yes, sir,” she hacked, spitting onto the ground.
The man waited for her to pull herself to her feet. She was several inches shorter than him, but he understood he did nothing to intimidate her. He reached out and touched her cheek, pressing hard enough it should have hurt. He ran his hand along her neck, giving her throat a push as well. She tried to hide her disgust at him treating her like an oddity, but she understood he was a scientist and consumed with the Children of Nostradamus.
“You are quite remarkable.”
She didn’t reply to his musings. She was busy trying to control her breathing and forget the searing pain that had rendered her a pile of mush on the ground. She didn’t blink as he poked at her.
“I would have so much fun with you in my lab, Jasmine.”
“I’m sure you would,” she hissed, making sure her annoyance was obvious.
He reached into his breast pocket and took out his pocket square. He held it out for her. “Perhaps another time. Right now, the general would like to meet with you. We have something that we need to review. It could be a rogue Class I.”
Her eyebrow rose while she wiped her face clean. A pyro and now a Class I? She couldn’t hide her surprise. She turned back to the man lying on the floor in a heap. She examined the rest of her squad, still standing at attention, to see if anybody was giving her wayward glances. She respected them as much as she could. She didn’t like this arrangement, but if she was going to do it, she was going to do it right.
She followed the man down the hall. Despite his business suit, she knew him as the head researcher in the Body Shop, a subsidiary of the Genesis Division. The Genesis Division oversaw all aspects of super humans. From researching them, to detaining them, to finding ways to fight them, it was the marriage of the military and a civilian company trying to right the wrongs of the world.
He stopped walking but didn’t turn to address her face to face. “Still feeling pain while you transform?”
She knew it wasn’t concern; it was scientific curiosity. “Yes.”
“I’m sure we could find a way to enhance your abilities. Perhaps dampen your pain receptors. I’m sure we could also find a way to speed up your transformation.”
“No,” she said flatly. “I won’t be a cyborg.”
He turned. The smile across his face disturbed her more than if he was angry. “What humanity do you have to lose, Jasmine?” he asked, walking down the hall. “You’re not even human.”
She bit her tongue as she followed the man. She hated him, loathed his very being, but she knew not to piss him off. He had no problem flipping the switch and frying her brain. To him, she was nothing more than a genetic abnormality to study.
She stopped for a moment to see through a set of glass doors leading into the Body Shop. She shivered as she saw the technicians poking at one of the soldiers. She valued her humanity too much to undergo modifications. She watched as a shirtless man held up his mechanical hand and flexed his fingers. She could see the look of power flash across his face.
Years ago the Body Shop had been part of a relief fund giving wounded veterans access to artificial limbs. When the charity was taken over by a private company and partnered with the Genesis Division, the program jumped leaps and bounds. Limbs became computerized, leading to nanotechnology being infused into parts of the body. The rich and powerful began to treat them like minor body modifications.
When the military involved themselves, the focus turned from helping wounded veterans to preventing them from being wounded. Now it was common for eyes and eardrums to be augmented to make a better soldier. Military who rose through the ranks became frequent visitors of the Body Shop, enhancing their muscles and replacing entire limbs.
Jasmine shivered at the thought.
Through several more corridors, they reached the war room. There were a dozen techs sitting at computers surrounding a massive table in the middle of the room. Every tech paused at her entrance. She may be in charge of the squadron, but nobody let her forget she wasn’t one of them.
“Jasmine,” came the general’s booming voice, “we have a job for you.” She watched the large man’s face as she walked closer to the massive table. In the entire complex, only the portly man was capable of intimidating her. His sheer size was impressive. Coming in just shy of seven feet, he must have weighed somewhere near four hundred pounds. He was not somebody who blended into a crowd. She had watched him school veteran soldiers on the mats before. He might be large, but he was muscular and in control of his body. If she hadn’t known better, she might mistake him for a Child of Nostradamus.
“Reporting, sir,” she said, clicking her heels together and saluting.
“Jasmine,” he said with a tone that instantly told her the severity of the situation. “Your squad has a job.”
“Details, sir?”
He waved his hand over the table and half a dozen screens appeared, hovering in midair. She reached out and pulled one closer to her. “What am I seeing?”
“A Corps Soldier was killed last night, shot by his own gun.”
“Suicide?”
“Somebody else shot him.”
“Sir, our guns are genetically programmed…”
“I know,” he said, gritting his teeth. “If this case wasn’t peculiar, you wouldn’t be standing here.”
She closed her mouth, worried she was already on the verge of aggravating the massive man.
She stayed quiet, waiting for the general to give her a better clue of what they were dealing with. He flipped his wrist and a screen began playing back a low-quality video. From the angle of the film, she knew it was taken with the soldier’s ocular implants. “His implant recorded this.”
She watched as the soldier’s gun pointed at a man wearing an inhibitor collar. The gun projected a narrow laser and dropped the Child. Before she could make out anything more, the implant seemed to go on the fritz and the video feed became static.
“That was a powered,” she stated.
“Registered,” he said. “Jed Zappens, barely a Class III. His powers involved auditory mimicking. There is no way he could have stopped a Corps soldier.”
“The other man?”
The general looked at her with a serious expression. “We believe he is a Class I threat. Unfortunately we can’t give you many more details than that. His powers could involve telekinesis or spatial relocation,” he said.
Jasmine examined the static image. She had been a member of the Corps for years and she could count on one hand how many Class I’s they had encountered. She saw a glimpse of panic on the perp’s face and wondered if it had been an accident.
She stiffened her muscles and eyed the general. “What do we know of him?”
“I�
��m downloading all available information to you now. You’ll be heading out to the Danger Zone to intercept him.”
“The Danger Zone?”
The general gave a stifled laugh. “He kills a Corps soldier and then he takes the only bus from New York to the Danger Zone. Either something is about to go down, or we have one seriously stupid shit on our hands.”
Jasmine checked the image of the kid again. He could only be in his twenties, and barely so. He looked like any other young man, nothing special sticking out other than the hint of a tattoo creeping up his neck. “We’re on it, sir.”
“Jasmine.” She raised her eyebrow at him. “We will be providing two synthetics to accompany you into the Danger Zone along with your squad. Your squad undertook a beating earlier. I will be making sure the Body Shop outfits them with some new enhancements.”
She wondered why the extra firepower. While she was considered to be in charge of the squad, she oftentimes felt they were there to watch her as well. At any moment, if the general ordered it, they would turn on her. She knew that even at the top of the food chain, she was still less than them.
“Jasmine.” He stopped her. “One more thing. We put you in charge of this squad because you’re ruthless and effective at your command. But have no doubts, you’re a powered, and killing humans is not condoned.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Do you have the situation under control?”
“It’s five by five, sir,” she said. “Had to take care of some obedience issues.”
“Good,” he said. “You’re a valuable asset, but do not question that I will terminate you if you become a liability.”
She grit her teeth and nodded.
She put her hand over the table and watched the meter of his wristband fill as it began downloading all the information. Time for the final question. “Apprehend or terminate, sir?”
Nighthawks (Children of Nostradamus Book 1) Page 9