Bullets pancaked against her skin and she looked around at the man sitting in the passenger-side window trying to kill her. ‘Aww, give it up, would you? It’s a new suit and you’re never going to hurt me with that thing. Even if you do, the best you’ll get is spinal damage when I drop you.’
The hooded gunman sagged over the roof of the car. ‘Fuck,’ he muttered, ‘crime of the decade and we’re stopped by a stripper.’
Penny considered a bad case of fumble-fingers for a second and then started lowering the car toward the spot where the two cruisers had pulled to the side of the road beside the plaza on the corner. Cops with pistols and shotguns were looking up at her, mildly confused expressions on their faces. Other cars had stopped and there was a crowd gathering, and some of them had cameras and notepads. There were two helicopters swinging around overhead, one of them bearing the recognisable logo of ACPN, the American Crime Prevention Network. They had probably been following the car chase, but she had no idea how the other press people had got there so fast.
‘Where do you want them?’ Penny called down to the cops. The cops looked at each other. ‘I don’t want to hurry you or anything, but this thing is kind of heavy.’
A minute later the cops were surrounding the vehicle and disarming the crooks while Penny floated to the ground to the click of camera shutters. She blinked as she was instantly surrounded by men and women clutching notepads and pocket recording devices.
‘That was amazing, Miss…?’
‘You saved a lot of people today.’
‘You’re new to the hero scene, aren’t you?’
‘That outfit is to die for! Did you design it yourself?’
‘Could we get some pictures…?’
‘Cygnus,’ she said, answering the only question she could immediately hear over the throng. ‘I’m Cygnus.’
‘We haven’t seen you in the skies before.’
‘No, I just got my registration last week and I normally work nights. I just happened to be passing with…’ She looked around, but there was no sign of Ultranova. Letting her take all the credit, well that was nice of him. ‘I was just flying past and I heard the sirens… And a friend of mine designed the costume for me.’ She flicked her hair back over her shoulders and spread her arms, and the sound of cameras was almost deafening.
‘So you’re obviously strong, and bulletproof, and you fly…’
Penny grinned at the woman who had asked the implied question. ‘That about covers it, as far as I know. I do seem to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time, but I’m not sure that’s a power. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check whether the police need anything from me and then I should be going.’
‘Have you anything to say to the people of New Millennium?’ someone tried, going for one last quote.
Penny smiled. ‘Me? No, I’m just doing what I’m supposed to. If you can help you’re supposed to, right?’ Turning, she headed off toward the police cars.
~~~
Andrea sat cross-legged on the floor of her apartment, carefully cleaning her sword. It was old, very old. Someone had made it for a samurai with peculiar, but exquisite, tastes over seven hundred years ago. The blade was straight, double-edged, and used the Soshu Kitae, or Seven Layers, method. A double-edged katana was unheard of; even the ninja had used single-edged swords. Why it had been made and by whom was not known, but there were very few swordsmiths who worked steel that way. It had a name, Yōgo-sha, which she had been told meant ‘Defender.’ It was, if anything was, her prized possession and she took exceptionally good care of it.
Her attention was drawn to the small TV which was on primarily to provide background noise. ACPN was also an adequate method of keeping track of the big crime going on in the city. They usually just reported without adding spin. Right now they were showing footage from a car chase which had started somewhere in north Downtown and now, it seemed, come to an end.
Andrea watched as Cygnus lowered the escape car into a ring of waiting policemen. The girl was certainly strong, and Uzi rounds had a heavier impact than the Ingram bullets. It was impressive. The little press show afterward was just not Twilight’s style, but Andrea had to admit that the blonde came off well, and she looked a bit embarrassed at the attention. Not necessarily a glory hound. Thinking about it, she had wanted them to share the joy at the warehouse. Okay, so Andrea would let the bimboid off this one; it looked like she had been ambushed.
Looking down, Andrea went back to her work.
~~~
The helicopter flew in low dropping to a landing pad on the eastern edge of Andrews Air Force Base. There it disgorged two men in dark suits and sunglasses. One of them carried a large video camera.
They went straight to an unmarked, unremarkable door in one of the nearby structures, opened it, and went inside. It let them onto a short corridor with a pair of elevator doors at the end. Again, nothing remarkable until the doors closed and a panel opened to reveal an iris scanner. Both of them placed their eye in front of it before the car began to move, downward.
Around five storeys down it stopped and the door opened, and the men were faced with two guards armed with assault rifles. Showing their identification got them past that roadblock, and then it was on down the corridor to an office with no identification on it where a tall, slim man, in a dark suit, was waiting for their report.
‘The readings were… particularly strange,’ one of the two men said.
‘Explain strange,’ the man behind the desk requested.
‘She was classed as an A-three, but the power level readings were way too high for that magnitude.’
‘And,’ the second man said, ‘the frequency distribution was all wrong. She’s not a normal Ultra.’
The man behind the desk raised an eyebrow. ‘Exactly what would you call a “normal” Ultra?’
~~~
‘A car!’ June exclaimed, her eyes, once again, on the playback on ACPN. ‘You lifted a fucking car!’
‘I know. I was there.’ Penny was amused, and a little horrified. New Ultras were not that common and tended to make the news. New Ultras that looked like she did… The segment was playing on every hourly news update, with some seriously loving shots of her behind in the costume. And then there was June…
‘And you look awesome in the costume. I mean, every man in the city is going to be flooding their lounge with drool. Most of the women too.’
‘I don’t really think…’
‘Trust me. I bet Bobby’s seen it. I bet he rips your clothes off as soon as you get there.’
‘June!’
‘What? I want to. If he doesn’t I’ll…’ She stopped suddenly and turned around, starting for her room.
Penny frowned at her back. ‘June?’
‘Nothing,’ the brunette replied. ‘I’ll be back… in a second. Yeah, just a second.’
Penny shook her head as June retreated into her room and closed the door. Her housemate was getting distinctly odd lately. Well, it was almost time to go see whether Bobby did rip her clothes off anyway.
~~~
He did not, not immediately anyway.
‘You’ve been making a name for yourself, gatinha,’ Bobby said as she walked into the lounge. ‘Barely a week under your belt and you’re appearing every hour on the television.’
‘I just happened to be there,’ Penny said, ‘and Ultranova was just going to cause more problems if he kept shooting at them, and they were a real safety hazard…’
‘Oh, so you’ve met the great heartbreaker?’
‘He didn’t seem that great.’
Bobby’s lips curled upward slightly. ‘Many a young Ultra has fallen into his bed and found him looking for a new conquest in the morning.’
‘Well, not me. He was trying too hard to be charming. Besides, I’ve got someone else who’s handsome, charming, and probably far better in the sack.’
‘Gatinha! You wound me. Who is this pretender? I will fight him to the death!’
/>
Penny prowled across the carpet, grinning. ‘You know damn well who he is. But if he doesn’t get his act together soon I’m going to start to wonder.’
Reaching up, he pulled her into his lap, his hands stroking over the bare skin of her behind. ‘That,’ he said, ‘we cannot have.’
~~~
Professor Herman Kopf worked calmly and collectedly at his chemistry bench while the voice ranted on through the loudspeakers mounted around the laboratory. His benefactor and student was prone to ranting, especially when things went wrong.
‘Two million dollars! Two million! And some beanpole in a swimsuit blows it all out of the water!’
‘Two million was the upper estimate,’ Kopf pointed out. His accent was German, but was not too thick. He had not been in Germany in a long while and rarely spoke his native tongue.
‘Two million!’ The voice was generally not concerned with small things like reality. ‘I want to know who she is.’
‘Of course.’
‘I want to know who she is, where she works, who her friends are, what her bra size is, and how often she takes a dump!’
Kopf siphoned off some of the liquid he was working on into a syringe and injected it into a white rat. ‘The last one may take more time. I will initiate surveillance.’ The rat gave a squeak and died. Shrugging, Kopf dropped the body into a container marked ‘Biological Waste’ and turned to a computer he was using to do molecular modelling. ‘In the police report on the warehouse arrests she mentioned the Twilight girl. They may be working together.’
There was a grunt. ‘Surveillance only then. That one is useful.’
16th September.
June opened the door to find a woman in a wide-brimmed hat and a long, red coat standing there. The hat brim lifted and June’s eyes widened.
‘Well,’ Red said, ‘invite me in.’
‘Of course!’ June stepped back to allow the Huntress into their apartment. She was rather glad she had tidied up a little earlier in the evening. ‘I wasn’t expecting…’
Red took her hat off, dropping it onto the small kitchen counter at the back of the room. ‘I know, but I managed to get something for Penny, about this brewing gang war. I decided that waiting until Friday was too long. Especially since she’s becoming famous.’
June giggled. ‘You saw that then?’
‘How could I miss it? It was quite a trick and she pulled it off nicely. The press call afterwards was handled well too.’
‘She looked stunning, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, and that will go down well, but she played it with humility.’
‘Well, she’s out on patrol,’ June said as she watched Red unbuttoning her coat. ‘She won’t be back for a couple of hours.’
Red’s coat slipped to the floor, revealing Red, and a pair of heels. ‘Yes,’ she said, smiling, ‘I rather thought that might be the case.’
17th September.
The light in the lounge was dim, but it was on, so Penny figured that June was still up. She slipped in through the balcony window, closed it behind her, turned around, and came to a grinding halt. Her housemate and her friend were lying on the sofa, intertwined and naked. She felt her cheeks reddening and considered making a bolt for her room.
‘At least you didn’t actually catch us at it,’ Red commented in a low voice.
‘Uh… no,’ Penny replied.
June said, ‘Whu nu hu mu?’ Then she opened her eyes and let out a squeak. ‘Penny! You’re back early!’
‘No, dear,’ Red told her. ‘You fell asleep.’
‘You should’ve woken me,’ June grumbled. At least she was blushing too.
Red untangled herself and sat up, apparently unabashed at being nude in front of Penny. Penny would have liked more abashment, if that was a word. She would look it up later. ‘You,’ the Huntress said, pointing at Penny, ‘should consider alternative security arrangements.’
Since the woman obviously wanted to talk, Penny moved into the room and curled herself onto the floor, crossing her long legs in front of her. ‘Uh…?’ As one, Red and June dragged their eyes away from Penny’s legs, which just made her cheeks redder.
‘Change somewhere else. Someone could track you here. You’ve got your face on TV. The reaction’s been good, but I’ve already had a reporter or two sniffing around for information on Cygnus. If someone sees you coming in that window, your cover is blown.’
Penny nodded. ‘I can’t put June in danger. I’ll work something out.’ She glanced at June who was sitting there with an arm over her breasts and her legs crossed, which was insane given that they had both seen each other naked before. June had never seemed bothered in the past.
‘All right,’ Red went on. ‘I got some info back on this gang war, and it couldn’t wait so I came over.’
‘Could have sent it through UltraNet.’
Red grinned. ‘I could, but I had ulterior motives.’ June’s blush deepened. ‘It seems someone has decided to step things up on both sides. The Tonaldos have been recruiting soldiers. The other side has contracted someone to off David Tonaldo. As things stand, his brother, Jonny, would likely take control and, frankly, that would probably make things a lot worse.’
‘I heard he was sadistic.’
‘A mild understatement. He’s neither as bright nor as restrained as David. Things will heat up fast, and chances are that half the syndicate would defect. Jonny’s not well liked and he has no ability to lead his men. The other side would win, real fast, and the whole of the city would be under their thumb.’
‘We still have no idea who this “other side” is?’
Red shook her head. ‘No one knows, or no one’s talking.’
‘What about the assassin?’
‘There I had more luck, though it’s not exactly lucky. The guy’s nickname is “Your Name Here.” He leaves a calling card, a bullet inscribed with the victim’s name. He’s a sniper and a very good one. No one knows who he really is, but we know he’s meticulous. He’ll be planning his hit already. You’re probably going to need help if you’re going to nail him before he gets Tonaldo.’
Penny nodded. ‘I know someone who might be willing to lend a hand, if I can find her.’
Red gave a little shrug. ‘UltraNet is your friend.’
~~~
Andrea did not entirely trust UltraNet. A secure, virtual network hidden under the multiple internets of the world, it was operated by the Union of Ultrahumans with the cooperation of various government agencies. Doctor Ultimate had designed the protocols and she was quite sure that cracking it from the outside was probably impossible, but there had been a few cases of bad guys posing as legitimate members to work on it from the inside, and if those were detected you could bet there were others which were not. It did, however, provide a useful source of information, so she continued to use it; one check per day, just in case there was anything useful on it.
She never got personal messages. It was possible to look people up on the system; there was a mechanism in there for hosting small information pages, even for blogging your activities, though Twilight’s page was the bare minimum and blogging…? Yeah, right. So someone had looked her up and sent her a message. Who the Hell would…?
The answer came just before curiosity got her to the inbox and she considered not bothering with it. On the other hand, she did not think Cygnus would have gone to this much trouble to contact her for no reason and she had seemed oddly well informed. She clicked through and opened the message.
We need to talk. Family business. Pick a place. Cygnus.
Family business? The Tonaldos, of course. The girl had a touch of stealth in her soul at least and she did not seem to entirely trust the network either. It sounded dodgy, but if there was a chance that she had something on the mobsters…
Andrea began typing a reply.
19th September.
There was a chill wind blowing in off the bay as Penny stood on top of the Fairhaven Plaza and waited. Twilight had said nine
and it was quarter past already, and the only reason Penny was still there was that she suspected the black-clad girl was the suspicious type. Yeah, get her there early, make sure she was alone. Maybe a test of patience…
‘Look, I want to get something clear before we get down to business.’ Penny turned on her heel to see the slim form of Twilight standing behind her. How did she do that? In heels! ‘I am not into girls.’
Penny grinned, nonplussed. ‘Okay… Neither am I, but okay.’
Twilight chewed on her lip for a second. The thought had occurred to her that morning that perhaps Cygnus had personal reasons for wanting to meet. After all, Andrea had seen her with Red and the brunette, and it had seemed like they were all staying the night. Maybe Cygnus wanted a girlfriend.
‘Okay… What’s this “family business” you’ve got to discuss?’
‘Are we okay doing this up here?’
‘Anyone gets close, we can see them.’
‘Parabolic microphones? Long lenses?’
Twilight allowed herself a slight smile. ‘Considering all that TV time you were getting, I never figured you for the paranoid type.’
‘You saw that, huh?’
‘Pretty sure everyone in the city saw it, maybe the country.’
‘They kind of ambushed me. I wasn’t even supposed to be doing anything. I was out getting an idea of what the city looks like from high up and…’
‘Sirens, gunfire, you figured you’d better do something about it.’
‘Uh, yeah.’
‘We’re kind of different. I’ve stopped a few drug store robberies on the fly. Mostly I plan things very carefully.’
‘Like at the warehouse.’
‘Yeah, well, I had help. What’s going on?’
‘Like we figured from the guns, there’s a war heating up between the Tonaldos and this other gang.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘Someone’s been hired to assassinate David Tonaldo. A sniper. They call him Your Name Here. I guess all the good names really have gone.’
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