Young Sentinels (Wearing the Cape)

by Marion G. Harmon

  Except the civilians weren’t evacuating, and I stopped at the east doors. I’d seen lots of crowds at games and rallies, and there had to be at least a couple hundred sign-waving protesters crowding the Columbus Drive side of the grounds. Mostly Humanity Firsters, they weren’t staying off the grass and were doing a fist-pumping organized chant over the wailing alarms. I tapped my helmet, still uncomfortable with the whole earbug and Dispatch thing. With the helmet-cam, it was like having an invisible coach riding my shoulder.

  “Dispatch, the crowd isn’t moving. Some dude with a megaphone is trying to out-shout the sirens.” He was doing a pretty good job too — something about masked thugs of the criminal state, and it even rhymed.

  I got a long pause, then Astra responded. “Confirmed, Megaton. Do not engage with the crowd in any way. You’re getting backup.” Great. I could always get above the crowd, but didn’t want to waste juice flying — it could be a long day, and the last Green Man fight had nearly tapped me out before we won. And what was Astra doing in the captain’s chair? Wasn’t that like Ensign Chekov commanding the Enterprise?

  She was a nice kid, real nice, but we were so hosed.

  Boots thumping in step broke the crowd noise and six black-armored and seriously armed security guards formed a line behind me in the door, assault rifles held to their chests and pointed down.

  “Megaton?” Helmet One said (really, he had a big white ‘1’ on his black helmet). “John Sikes. The lady tells us we’re to keep you clear.” They split, three to each side and I followed without thinking as they trooped out. The chant broke, the protest leader standing frozen at the sight of my faceless Stormtroopers of the Evil Empire, and Sikes stepped aside to snag his megaphone.

  “Attention, citizens of Chicago. This area has been declared in a state of civil emergency, and in accordance with city ordinance you are required to vacate the area for your safety. Failure to do so may result in prosecution for interfering with city safety personnel, and the city and its employed contractors will not be liable for injury or loss of life. Have a nice day.”

  He tossed the megaphone back to the still-frozen dude and we moved out, pushing forward through the stunned crowd to the edge where I could see across Columbus Drive. I looked towards the fountain, but couldn’t see it through the trees. My palms were slick inside my gloves and I tried to breathe evenly.

  “This isn’t your first dance, kid,” Sikes said without looking at me. “You’ll be fine.” The others bracketed me in a box formation, facing out to the crowd.

  I swallowed. “I didn’t have time to think about it, before.”

  “Yup, that’s the sucky part. Relax, you’ll meet your dance partner soon enough.”

  Astra

  “The crowd is not dispersing, ma’am.”

  The screens confirmed Sikes’ assessment; the crowd was rhythmically working itself up again, nervously ignoring Megaton and his team. I’d completely forgotten about the protesters, stupid since there was always at least a dozen out there on any given morning.

  I kept my voice steady. “Thank you, John, and they’re not your problem. We’re keeping the doors open, and when the green reaches Columbia Drive, you are to fall back into the Dome with any protesters who decide to take cover. You are not to try to herd the crowd but may assist at your discretion. Understood?”

  “Fall back, no civilian direction, yes, ma’am.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose, counting. The headset David had handed me carried every open team link, dialed down to background conversation, and I felt like Megaton; I wanted to be out there, doing, so bad that I realized I was trying to fly — and wasn’t even feeling any lighter.

  “Park evacuation?” I asked David.

  “Nearly complete, our speedsters are good.”

  “Harbor?”

  “There aren’t a lot of boaters this late in the year. Tsuris blew most of the boats up against the harbor walls and the other fliers have cleared almost everyone.”

  Clear faster. I didn’t say it.

  “David, please ask Ozma to proceed to the atrium and be ready to take our protesters in hand. Shelly — Galatea –are you ready to go?”

  “I’m in the launch bay, locked and loaded.” Despite everything, I had to smile. For once, she sounded serious, like this wasn’t an adventure. On the screen, Green Man’s heat signature edged into red. Any second now...

  “Here he comes!” Shelly announced redundantly as the red wave exploded out of the harbor.

  Chapter Thirty One: Grendel

  “At 8:00 this morning, Detroit Supermax went silent. Director Kayle is mobilizing all local DSA assets to the prison, and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods are evacuating. The Detroit Guardians have entered the prison, as have the Chicago Sentinels. Detroit’s deputy mayor has issued a statement calling for calm. ‘We do not know anything about the situation inside, but at this time the Mayor has called for the mobilization of the DPD’s SWAT units to the prison and authorized the use of deadly force to contain any breakouts.’ All citizens are advised to remain off the streets and indoors.”

  MCTV public broadcast.

  * * *

  I was supposed to be the point of the freaking spear. I pushed us through the collapsed section in less than a minute, Variforce propping up the junk I left behind me, and then I ran, feet pounding the floor. Rush blurred ahead of me.

  More guards were down in the equipment bay, blast-holes, targets — Dozer mixing it with Watchman, Riptide and Artemis dueling it out with Balz’ whirling sphere cloud, Rush whipping through a crowd of laughing identical skinheads armed from some busted-open armory, more orange suits, some up, some down. Nearly all of them stopped to look at me.

  Okay boys and girls, let’s get acquainted.

  I crouched, pulled up a wall-shaking roar that dropped into infrasound depths to shake their nerves and share that feeling of existential dread that unheard sound beats can give, pounded the floor with my fists, and charged. It’s all in your presentation — some Hillwood students refused to spar against me at all after I opened with that, but I could deliver, too.

  A few spheres smashed off me on my way through, and I hit Dozer like a train. Bonus, the wall behind the big guy was reinforced — concrete flew but the inner web of supporting bars held. His breath whistled out of him.

  “Behind him!” Nox shrilled in my ear, shaken about but still on target. “The door! The door!” I grabbed Dozer’s belt and the fancy blinking restraining collar that obviously wasn’t doing its job and used him to batter down the closed hatch behind him. I had to swing him twice, but he didn’t make it hard.

  This is the guy that beat on Astra?

  I followed Dozer through the buckled hatch, tossed him across the room at Twist. The Wrecker caught him in his snaking cables, dropped him while I whipped my head around as far as I could, checking the smaller space.

  The room was a lot smaller than the equipment bay, with lower ceilings, and it was full of a railed steel platform with a steel chair in the middle. Twist wasn’t alone. Behind him were two more armored Wreckers, one sitting in the chair, along with an old man — Dr. Pellegrini — and a bunch of orange-suited juvies. What the hell?

  “Him!” Nox whispered harshly. He couldn’t point, but I’d sort it out later. I roared again, shaking the room, charged — and froze, feeling like my whole body had gone to sleep.

  What the hell?

  Astra

  “Rate of advance?” My mouth had gone completely dry, but it still worked.

  David looked up. “The Green Man will reach the Dome in under two minutes.”

  “Is everyone in the park and harbor out of the hot zone?” Or what we thought was the hot zone, anyway.

  “No. Maybe three minutes.” I had no idea how he got that, but he’d been watching the screens for years — he’d probably tracked so many superhuman fights and emergencies he could feel the flow before reading a single stat.

  I cleared my throat. “Di
spatch, Mr. Sikes. Mr. Sikes, time to invite everyone in, we close the doors in two minutes. Dispatch, Megaton. Megaton, you’re going to need to hold the green back from the Dome for at least one minute. Understood?”

  “One minute, got it.”

  “Thank you. Shelly?”

  “Yes, oh fearless leader?”

  “Time to get in position, Shell. Good luck.”

  “Here we come to save the day, right?”

  “Always.” I hope.

  On the main screen, her icon separated from the Dome, arcing towards the bay. I looked down at the screen in front of me; David had dedicated half of it to a display of the CPD’s mobilization and bystander evacuation.

  After spring’s godzilla attack, the city had fast-tracked a review of its emergency procedures; this time was a lot different.

  Superintendent Redmond had designated everything from Randolph to Roosevelt and from the lake to the Chicago River an evacuation zone. All traffic lights in the zone went to “exit” mode to stop all unauthorized incoming traffic and expedite outgoing traffic, and lights in the surrounding buffer zone redirected traffic away. Sirens on all street corners alerted pedestrians and announced the size of the zone. Radio, TV, even automatic cell-texts did the same as the emergency system seized control of the communications grid.

  It wouldn’t empty the Loop. Five minutes was hardly enough time for that and not everyone could leave, but thousands would get out safe or get into shelters and the CPD would have more room to move.

  “Look at that,” David said, almost reverently.

  The superintendent had obviously been thinking hard about the other Green Man attacks and Lake Michigan. David traced what looked like a pre-positioned string of chemical tanks, running along the entrenched train tracks that ran north to south just west of the Dome. The sunken tracks separated Michigan Avenue from Grant Park, and we could see they’d opened the tanks.

  “They’re going to — ”

  “Yep.” David nodded approval as the tanks lit off and the spilling stuff turned the deep track bed into a burning moat. “And look.” Where David tapped the screen I could see tanker trucks standing by on all the street overpasses, Jackson, Congress, Balboa, further out, with hoses ready. I crossed myself while David chuckled.

  “Smart man,” he said approvingly. “It might work. At least long enough. We need one minute, if we’ve got it.”

  One minute, and I couldn’t do anything. And I shouldn’t, I wouldn’t... “Dispatch, Mrs. Corrigan please.”

  Since Mom wasn’t part of the Dispatch circuit, I got a dial tone and two rings first, then “Hope? Where are you? How are you?”

  I closed my eyes. “In the Dome, safe.” Maybe. “Cook County Hospital is — Are you going to be able to move Toby?”

  “Your father is carrying him out with me now,” she said over the background chaos. I exhaled; they were on the other side of the river, they had plenty of time. I pictured Dad, gone Iron Jack and carrying Toby through the halls, bed and all. He would if he had to.

  “Thanks, Mom.” I glanced at David; he was intensely fascinated by whatever he saw on his screens. “Give everyone my love, I’ve got to go.”

  “I know, sweetheart. Be safe now.”

  On the main screen, the wave of green hit Columbus.

  Megaton

  I heard it before I saw it, a rolling storm of cracking, popping bangs louder than gunshots as the Green Man ripped across the park walks and through Buckingham Fountain. When the wall of green hit the yellowing trees across Columbus the screaming started. Stiles had pulled back, and now the protesters who’d decided we were bluffing panicked as erupting trees and vines threw concrete into the air like leaves in front of a blower. I made sure they were all behind me, pulled the heat up through my bones, and waited as pressure built under my skin.

  “Astra?”

  “Yes?”

  “So, what’s the downside to being a superhero?”

  “Fanfic.” I’d never heard her swear, but the way she said it sounded filthy. I laughed and let it all go, roaring out of me in a wide fan of heat and boiling light and sound.

  Grendel

  Freaking hell. One of the anonymous Wreckers had tightened up, almost mimicking my stance; I’d forgotten about Redback, but it looked like the Wreckers had brought him. Pellegrini’d gone white when I came through the hatch — at least I’d scared the son of a bitch — and now he relaxed, smiling.

  “Step lively, everyone,” he said to the kids with them. Juvies? He’d broken into Detroit Supermax to get a bunch of kids?

  They scrambled onto the platform, watching me, and I couldn’t move. There was no resistance — there wasn’t anything. Pellegrini watched me with interest, like I was an experiment he found fascinating. He was the Ascendant, the LO Stadium Killer, he had to be, and I. Couldn’t. Move.

  “Thank you for returning Eric,” Pellegrini said as Twist deposited the big guy on the platform. The old man smiled almost regretfully. “And I‘m sorry we can’t take you with us; certainly, you are one my grandest achievements. It’s a pity your brothers and sisters proved so unstable — ”

  Nox launched himself from my shoulder, a blur in the air turning into solid and pissed-off doll. Pellegrini had time to reflexively flinch before Nox was on him, swarming up his suit-front. I felt a warm, fragrant wind that could only be Chakra pass through me from head to toe, driving out the numbness as she set me free.

  Redback’s eyes widened as I leaped, and then my claws were around his neck and I threw him to the floor, bounced him twice, heaved him at Twist, and lunged for the platform.

  “Get us out of here!” Twist shouted while Pellegrini screamed and clutched at Nox as the doll went for his face. Silver light flared and Nox dropped to the platform, Pellegrini kicked him away as Twist wrapped his cables around Redback and then the room went weird, like I was looking at a funhouse infinity illusion. The platform rocketed away without moving an inch, and then it was gone like it had never been there at all.

  Astra

  “Sikes is keeping the doors open,” David observed.

  “I shouldn’t have told him when to close up.” Another mistake, and I made myself not cringe; a Platoon, John Sikes had been to hundreds more of these dances than I had. “Give Galatea permission to launch the instant the hot zone is clear, and please get me Superintendent Redmond.” David had seen more dances, too, and I was trying to micromanage.

  “Galatea launches at discretion, get Big Red. On it, boss.”

  I watched the screens. Megaton was holding the green on Columbia and away from the Dome, and with such a wide arc of advance, the tide sweeping around the edges of his defense was flowing slowly enough that it looked like all the supporting capes would be able to get the last of the civilians out of the park as long as they had somewhere to run to.

  “I’ve got the superintendent, boss. No video this time.”

  “Thank you. Hello, sir. We are going to attempt a solution to the Green Man momentarily. However, the park is still being evacuated; will you be able to keep the overpasses open?”

  “We have designated escape lanes, Astra, but will close them when the Green Man reaches the tracks. The CAI teams are standing by in support.”

  I nodded, remembered he couldn’t see me. “Thank you. We’ll — ” The thermal overlay on the main screen went white. The Dome sat on stabilizers and we still felt the shock. “Goodbye!” Seriously? Goodbye?

  Around me, the background noise of a dozen exchanges cut as we all watched the screens. The images came back, but a white cloud completely obscured the aerial view of the harbor. The Dome view showed the wall of green had frozen all along the arc of Megaton’s burn and the grounds west of us.

  “Shelly?”

  “Still here, dropped the full load on him. We’ll know in a ... oh come on!”

  The green tide stirred into motion again, and I felt dizzy as my skin went cold. Failed. We’d failed.

  Okay, we blew it. So deal.

>   “Dispatch, Ozma. Ozma, please assist Sikes and Tom to lead all guests downstairs. David, please send all nonessential personnel below as well.” The whole Dome was tough, but the lower levels could be sealed to ride out a nuclear strike. I tuned out the scraping and shuffling as half of the dispatchers handed off their tasks to CPD counterparts downtown and left their stations. My mind spun through useless options while my mouth switched to autopilot.

  “Dispatch, all fliers to continue clearing the park and assist surrounding evac. Dispatch, Megaton. Megaton, how long can you hold the Green Man off the Dome?”

  What could we do that we weren’t doing? Could the CPD hold the line? What was I missing?

  Megaton sounded like he’d been doing sprints. “I have no freaking idea. What happened?” David reconfigured the screen in front of me.

  “The blast wasn’t hot enough,” I said, voice steady. “Heat density fell just short of the threshold needed to cook the soup.”

  “We’ve got nothing else? How much heat do you need? I think I can bring it.”

  I blinked.

  Chapter Thirty Two: Megaton

  A lot of people have asked “How could you do that?” Well, I was pissed off and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Malcolm Scott, aka Megaton.

  * * *

  You’d think I’d started speaking in Martian. Astra made me repeat myself — and I didn’t sound less crazy the second time — then told me to stand by. Yeah, like I was going anywhere; I felt like one big high-pressure hose, drawing whatever it was from wherever it came from to turn the ground in front of me into Hell’s furnace. Tuning it hotter meant I wasn’t just blasting the freaking mutant green wave back, I was throwing its burning bits into the green behind the front as I tracked my blasts up and down the line.

  But I was already starting to feel hollowed out, whatever that meant.