by S. J. Delos
A slow clap from Martin set my teeth on edge and the pleased smirk on his face made me want to hurt him. “Bravo, my love. You were paying attention in class.”
“Where was the transgenic portion come into it?” Greg asked.
Martin smiled. “There are a handful of Enhanced who have an Activation factor that is more … fluid, if you will. They might originally express their powers in one manner, but their abilities could spontaneously change the way they function. Or they might even change Enhancements altogether.” His eyes swung over to mine and his smile widened.
I didn’t like where this spiel was going, but couldn’t stop myself from chasing the White Rabbit down the hole. “What type of biological sample would Daniel need?”
Martin shrugged. “Anything with a significant amount of DNA in it. Hair might work. Skin would be better.” His eyes sparkled as his gaze drifted up to just above my eyes. “Blood, however, would be the best.”
“Blood …” I reached up slowly and felt the bandage on my forehead. Tank’s voice came back to the front of my mind—“supposed to make you bleed”—and the image of Daniel standing in this very hallway, holding a stained hospital towel exploded into HiDef brilliance. I blinked and looked at Greg. “Oh, shit.”
“You didn’t let him get a sample of your blood, did you?” Martin asked and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I taught you better than that.”
Greg’s head turned in my direction. “You’re a transgenic Enhanced?”
Martin looked at me and smiled. “I knew she was something special from the very first moment I met her.” He reached out to attempt to stroke my cheek the way he’d done countless times through the years.
I slapped his hand away and looked at Greg. “We have to get back to the tower and stop Daniel.”
“The rest of the team is there now,” he said. Then he reached up and tapped on his ear several times. I didn’t like the worried look he threw my way. “My comm’s not working,” he said as his eyes met mine. And for the first time, I saw Mister Manpower, beacon of all that is powerful and good, show fear.
I tried mine. “The system’s down. Shit, if Darla and Richard told him that Doctor Maniac was here …”
“Then he probably suspects we’ve been told about his treachery.”
He gave me a nod and stepped back, giving us a free path to the stairwell. “See you soon, my love. Good luck with your wayward associate.”
Greg and I ran down the stairs as fast as we could. I slammed into the door without so much as pausing. Sarah was leaning against the side of Martin’s car, staring up at the sky, when we burst through the door. She jumped and a fiery halo formed around her head. She glanced past us to the empty doorway and her orange eyes flared brightly.
I held up my hand and jerked my thumb back over my shoulder. “He’s fine. No one touched him.” I turned to Greg and grabbed him into a scooping hold. “We don’t have time to get there at your pace. Hold on.” I took off sprinting down the sidewalk towards our headquarters, praying that Martin was wrong.
And that—if he was right—we weren’t too late.
It had taken Richard approximately four minutes to fly the hovercraft from the Paulus Building to the Commerce District. Queens Memorial was another two miles further from the tower. Carrying Greg in my arms, I managed to get us from the rear of the hospital to the front door of our headquarters in less than three.
Greg tapped my arm as we shot up the sidewalk towards the front doors. “Karen, slow down! Slow down!” he yelled.
I pulled back and dug in my boots, skidding to a stop right before we blew past the entrance. He climbed out of my arms and put his hand on the handle, looking back at me.
“We don’t know anything other than communications are out.” He frowned, fixing me with a stare. “So let’s not start off by punching anyone’s head off.”
I nodded my head. “I’ll do my best, okay?”
Inside, the eerie stillness set my nerves on edge. We walked over to the desk in the center of the room and found Joelle unconscious on the floor behind it. Her six arms were splayed around her body, as if she’d been knocked backwards as she’d been knocked out. Greg knelt beside her and placed two fingers against her neck.
“Steady pulse,” he said as he looked up at me. “Whoever did this went out of their way to make sure she wasn’t hurt.”
“We know who did this, Greg.” I pointed at the camera on the wall nearby. “And I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts, he’s watching us right now.”
“If you’re right, he’s going to pay dearly,” Greg said as he stood up and marched over to the elevator, not giving the camera a second look. His determined jaw would have been blasted in high def on the monitors upstairs. If Daniel had any sense at all, the look would have frightened him. It was the expression of a man on a mission to hurt someone.
I think we were both stunned when the elevator doors slid open with a ding. It was as if we were being invited up to witness the sinister plot firsthand. I arched a brow at the older hero and tilted my head towards the lift’s opening.
“Trap?” I asked.
He nodded. “Definitely.” Then he stepped inside and crossed his arms over his chest.
I followed and the doors of the car slid closed and the sensation of being pulled up to a bad place swam through me. Daniel was crazy-smart. And probably crazy-crazy to boot. If he had actually acquired the ability to alter an Enhanced genome, the amount of chaos he could create was unfathomable. Martin had always shown restraint, for the most part, in the application of his powers. A few positive tweaks for a job well done. Or a negative adjustment, if punishment was in order.
On the whole, however, he limited the use of his skills to those in our organization.
“If the world knew that an ability like mine existed,” he once told me as we lay in bed, “they would stop at nothing to find me and force me to do the unthinkable.” When I’d inquired to what that might be, he’d simply said, “The extinction of our kind, love. No more Enhanced.”
Now a former hero had that power at his fingertips. God only knew what he planned to do.
We stepped out into a foyer that looked exactly like it did earlier that morning. If there’d been a fight upon Awesome and Darla’s return to the tower, it hadn’t taken place here. I shuffled in front of Greg and glanced back over my shoulder.
“Let me go first,” I said. “Invulnerability and all that.”
Greg shook his head. “I’m the commanding member of the team, you know.”
“Okay. Then command me to take the lead.”
“Or else?” Despite the seriousness of the moment, I could see a hint of amusement in his eyes.
I shrugged and turned back to the doorway leading further into the building. “Then you can write me up for insubordination and … uh … take away my television privileges or something.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “Regardless, I’m going first.”
“We come out of this in one piece, I’ll worry about punishing you later.” He followed along behind me, stepping slowly and cautiously. I wondered if it felt as weird to be sneaking around our home for him as it did for me. I’d just gotten used to having someplace I didn’t have to be constantly on my guard. And here is was, looking for an enemy in the same place I hung my cape. Metaphorically speaking.
We found Rocket in the entertainment room.
The flyer was on his back in the middle of a heavily scorched rug. He was awake, but I doubted very seriously that he was aware. His eyes were wide to the point of comical and his lips trembled along with chattering teeth I could hear from five feet away. His arms were pulled tight against his chest, hands clasped together. His entire torso shook violently—8.9 on the Richter scale at least. But it was the sight of his legs that made me cover my mouth and gasp.
Behind me, Greg swallowed loud enough to be audible and whispered. “Damn. Robert …”
Rocket’s legs were a mess. The pants of his uniform, specific
ally designed to allow the quantum flame that provided him with thrust to pass through, sported charred holes in several places. The flesh peeking out was black, red, or pink, depending on where you looked. Most of his burns seemed to be second degree, but a few were well into third.
I waved my hand in front of his face, but Rocket’s eyes never stopped staring sightlessly ahead. The shivering and the loss of cognizance in his surroundings told me all I needed to know. I glanced at Greg. “He’s in shock.”
The hero nodded. “He needs medical attention as soon as possible,” Manpower said with a grimace. “Problem is, just about every ambulance is going to still be working the battle scene.”
I pointed to the quilt on the back of the sofa. “Wrap him in that and take him to the hospital. Flag down a cab or something.”
Greg shook his head. “You should do it. I’ll continue searching.” When I opened my mouth to argue, he held up one hand. “That’s an order, Karen. You help Robert and I’ll stop Daniel. And there’s nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise.”
“Greg, Daniel did this with the sequencer,” I said as I gestured at Rocket’s legs. “He turned Robert’s own power against him.”
Manpower nodded. “Which is why I’d feel better if you were safe.”
I shook my head. “I have a better chance of getting closer Daniel than you,” I whispered. When he gave me that teacher’s stare, I returned it with a dead-serious look of my own. “He’s in love with me. Did you know that? Or, if not love, then he’s got one big-ass crush.”
“And you think those feelings will keep him from using the sequencer on you?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Or might make him hesitate. A little opening is all I need.” I arched a brow at him. “Still think it’s a better idea that you stay and I go?”
“Yes.” He sighed. Then he slipped his arms under the injured flyer. “Though I have to admit you might have the advantage.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I’d actually won an argument with Mister Manpower. “I promise to be careful. While you’re out, you might want to call the EAPF and tell them the sitch.” I glanced towards the door leading into the briefing room and stood up. “I’m going to go knock some sense into someone.”
“Be careful. Richard and Darla may be here somewhere. If you find them and they’re badly hurt …”
“I’ll grab them and cut out,” I said. “Better to save a life now and thrash the bad guy later.”
Greg smiled and stood up with Rocket in his arms. “That’s thinking like a hero. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He tried to sound confident, but I think we both suspected that whatever happened would be over long before he returned.
I crept into the briefing room and glanced around. The monitors on the wall were showing only static and the lights on the communications panel were dark. Not surprising. Daniel had been the guru in charge of all our technical toys. He’d probably disabled them the moment he got back with my blood in his hands.
A moaning sound from the kitchen caught my attention and I padded as quietly as a nine-hundred pound girl could and peered through the door’s porthole. It took me a moment, but eventually I spotted Richard sitting on the floor in the far corner of the room. I pulled open the door and walked slowly over to him. What I saw made me weak in the knees.
I stood there, watching silently, as one of the most self-assured men—to the point of being an incredible ass most times—in the world hugged himself and rocked back and forth. I looked around the room quickly to make sure no one else was around and then stepped closer. He was turned away from me, mumbling the same phrase over and over. So softly I couldn’t quite make it out.
“Richard?” I asked as I reached out to put my hand gently on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
His head whipped around to stare at me, eyes bloodshot and wide. The eyes of a mad man. One side of his face was bruised, his lip was split open, and there was a chunk of hair missing from just above his left ear. When his arms unwrapped themselves and his hands became visible, I noticed the dark brown strands still held tightly in one fist.
“Hate,” he spat as he scrambled to his feet. “Hate. Hate. Hate.” Then the fist holding the hair came up and slammed into his nose. The self-inflicted blow staggered him a step or two backwards, and twin streams of blood began to pour from his nostrils. I stood there immobile, stunned, as he punched himself again, this time right in the eye.
“Richard, stop!” I yelled and grabbed his wrists, holding his arms still.
When I made contact, a wave of loathing rolled over me and sank into my mind. It pricked and itched and pushed against my emotions, causing my bile to rise into my throat. Holding him was like being forced to touch something slimy, as if I’d put my hands on some unknown creature from the depths of my nightmares. Looking at him made me want to break him into pieces. I despised him. Abhorred him. The urge to hurt him grew greater with every second.
It took all my willpower to grit my teeth together and shove him away.
He stumbled backwards and hit the wall, sliding down to flop onto his side. He continued his mantra of resent, and—away from its influence—I realized what had happened. Daniel had used the device to remove Rocket’s immunity to his own power. But Richard’s power had been perverted.
His charisma field, which had made him well-liked and utterly convincing, was now an instrument for self-hatred. He had attacked himself—and nearly been attacked by me—because now, he was completely loathsome. The coercive power in it had also been cranked up several notches. It had caught me up in its influence along with him and I’d nearly injured him.
I glanced at the man on the floor. “I can’t leave you alone like this, boss. You might try to jump out the window or slit your wrists.” I walked over to one of the monitors, grabbed the data cables hanging out of the back, and yanked them free.
By the time I got back to Richard, he was banging his head repeatedly on the tile floor. I tied his arms tightly against his body as fast as I could—the dislike came back quickly—, and rolled him into a corner in the carpeted area. Then I bent a couple of dining chairs into a makeshift cage and secured the Good Guy’s leader so he couldn’t hurt himself any longer.
“Hang tight, Chief,” I said softly before I stalked off towards the stairs leading down to Daniel’s lab, determined to put an end to his betrayal.
When I approached the reinforced dura-steel door, I was positive I would have to break the damned thing down. I mean, I didn’t expect the evil mastermind to actually open the door and let me waltz right in to confront him.
Except, that’s exactly what happened.
I straightened my spine, put on my Saving-the-Day face, and strode into the laboratory as if I had every right to be there. Apparently I wasn’t the only person who felt that way. Leaning against one of the testing chambers just inside the room was the skinny, bright-green costumed form of Turbu-Lance. The Legion of Bedlam member grinned at me like he was privy to some secret joke. One that, most likely, I wouldn’t find funny.
“Hello, Lance,” I said. “If you have the slightest bit of common sense, and I may be overestimating your intelligence here, you’ll shuffle off and go do crime elsewhere.” I smiled as widely as I could. “I suggest another city.”
“Now, Karen,” Daniel said stepping into view. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to my guest.” He had changed out of the gray and blue uniform he’d worn to the hospital and into a solid black bodysuit that looked as if it were made out of some type of reinforced Kevlar. He stopped a few feet away and waved at me as if we were on a date.
“So, are you going to explain what this is all about?” I planted my hands on my hips, fingers spread wide. Showing my fists would have only put him on the defensive. “Or should I just chalk it up to you being crazy?”
He chuckled and pulled a stool over to sit on. “I’m impressed with the way you handled Richard. I thought you would just knock him out. Of course, once he woke up he would resume
hurting himself.” His tongue made a clicking sound and I had a wonderful, fleeting daydream of ripping it from his mouth and shoving it up his nose.
I kept Lance in the corner of my vision as I looked at Daniel. “You used the bio-sequencer to alter the parameters of his charisma field. And you turned Robert into a Slip.” I shook my head and sighed. “Why? I mean, I get that you’re all evil and shit. But why do that to them?”
“Are you really asking me that?” He laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Of course, you’ve only been here a few weeks. You haven’t really had the chance to get to know your teammates all that well.”
I snorted. “And some, I guess, I didn’t really know at all.”
Daniel chuckled and pointed up at the ceiling. “Robert wasn’t ever going to believe you’d reformed or forgive you for knocking him out. He blames you for his fiancée dumping him.”
“What?”
“After that incident, he became a laughing stock. Our old group, Defense Incorporated, picked on him relentlessly. Apparently, his girl got tired of him taking his frustrations out on her, and she left him.” He shook his head. “Richard recruited him for the Good Guys out of pity. He shouldn’t have bothered, the man is too much of a wuss to be a real hero.”
“Facing Colossal would have been scary for anyone,” I countered. I might have been mad that Robert had refused to come to my aid, which had led Alexis to rush into the fight. However, the flyer wouldn’t have been much help against the behemoth.
“Don’t you dare defend him,” Daniel spat. “He sure as hell wouldn’t stand up for you.”
“And Richard? The man’s virtually harmless.”
“Harmless? Karen, the guy is a misogynistic asshole. He used his power to become disgustingly wealthy and to convince women who wouldn’t normally give him the time of day into sleeping with him. It’s just a half-step below mind control.” His smile took on a coldness I’d never guessed possible. “Now he hates himself as much as the rest of us do.”
I took a step towards Daniel. Lance shot a quick look over at his employer and then moved to stand between us. For a second, I was actually shocked he thought I couldn’t just walk through him. I cocked my head to the side, giving the villain a bemused smirk. “Really?”