Zephyr II

by Warren Hately

  Three of these I know – and I am hard-pressed to explain their presence: Frost, Gravitas and Thunderbird are in mob employ, or were last time I checked with Sal Doro’s database. Now they line up like the Pittsberg Steelers or something, an offensive line mixing power with enthusiasm. I nod to Frost, who seems to be doing her bit to lower the ambient air temperature. I’m not sure why. And while I catch her eye with a grin, it’s her buddy in the Han Solo gear I remember well from the last time he incapacitated me. Before the Sentinels have even struck a battle order, I swing my two hands together and unleash a torrent of Synergy-inspired sparks on Gravitas. His gravity-bending powers are the first risk and priority, or so I think as I feel a sickening flutter in my chest and the strength goes from my legs and I kneel.

  At least Gravitas is a smoking heap. I fall over as Quietus steps from his teleport behind me and grins, surveying the scene, Mastodon slamming into Raveness and Vulcana ploughing into Frost and they all go clattering. In his quasi-military garb, Quietus looks the most mercenary of them all and that’s without mentioning the serial killer sneer.

  Infernus and Thunderbird are the flyers. Seeker is no match for either as the first villain sends a jet of flame toward her and the second smashes through on an intercept, knocking the white-clad, semi-ghostly figure from the sky. While I’m pleased my co-captain recovers sufficiently to stop herself crashing into the ground, the disorientating and nauseous feelings surging through me otherwise aren’t very encouraging. I watch as the seventh member of the enemy team – a monstrous but otherwise unknown individual with off-green skin, a medieval-looking pair of three-quarter-length brown leather trews and matching wristbands – charges in and batters Mastodon like a rampaging gorilla, fists raining from above, and the ‘Don staggers back with Raveness hissing like a viper beneath him. I’m surprised to see Mastodon and his rival are roughly the same size and I swear the other guy wasn’t that big a moment before, but then I double over and empty the contents of my stomach between my knees.

  “So much for Synergy,” I groan.

  Someone thumps into me as I try to make my way up off all fours. It’s Smidgeon, completely unconscious, eyes rolled up into his head. I hope the guy’s not dead, mostly out of the embarrassment it would cause us in the press.

  The smell of burning Astroturf rouses me fully and I throw a palm full of lightning into the middle of a Frost-Vulcana-Raveness three-way just to even up the odds (now that’s something I’d fork out for on pay-per-view). The big green guy – who I later learn is an escaped mass murderer and former philosophy professor called Bugbear – thumps down beside me and I grab him by the fringe of longish hair growing around his bald spot and half-drag, half-throw him into the line of one of Seeker’s radiant showers. The otherworldly energy causes the dude to scream and go down, undoing whatever ungodly transformation backs up his powers as he turns back into a weedy fifty-six-year-old with a sallow complexion and extremely baggy pants.

  All that said, the fight seems to be going against us.

  In the sky over the jail, the self-described “mystic robot” Brasseye hovers, probably thinking he’s quarterbacking us and instead simply avoiding the heat. Infernus sends fire blasts that scorch Mastodon and Connie and it occurs to me for the first time we are one member down.

  “Where the Hell is Samurai Girl?” I heckle the floating robot.

  “Alicia had band practice,” Brasseye replies.

  “You’re kidding me,” I say.

  It’s hard to project gross disappointment over the sounds of combat, but it seems worth trying.

  “Are you coming down from there or are you filming all this for YouTube?”

  I can practically hear the robot hum, contemplative for a moment, but when he comes down, he really comes down, dropping like a stone and at the last moment bringing his big bronze gauntlets down in a double-handed smash. He strikes the earth with strength I didn’t know he possessed and the artificial ground wobbles like jell-o, a concussive ripple travelling out in concentric waves like a cartoon animation that sees almost everyone except the flying dudes topple over.

  “What the hell was that?” I ask from a few feet off the ground.

  Brasseye shrugs. “It’s what I do, old chap.” He holds his metal fingers up in quote marks and says, “FTW.”

  There is nothing natural about that tremor. When I finally get around to hacking Brasseye’s file (okay, maybe I should say reading his file after hitting Seeker up for it for about two weeks straight) I understand Simon Magus’s friend is a hacker of sorts – the robot hacks reality, using his magickal interface to play with the Classical principles of the universe, at least as we perceive it. This time he’s made solids like water or earthquakes conform to the same physics as ripples on a pond or something like that. Either way, it’s a big circuit breaker in the present mêlée and allows us good guys to regroup.

  Vulcana drags Smidgeon from the fray and not-too-lightly slaps him awake.

  “How’s the arm?” I ask her.

  Connie grunts.

  “It’ll keep.”

  A dozen-or-so prison guards have used the time we bought them to dress in their special powered suits, and they advance in a fringe around us with their Gatling guns at the ready. On the evil side, so to speak, Frost, Gravitas and Bugbear are toast. I still can’t figure out why the Toecutter’s personal henchmen are helping the guys allegedly working for another mob faction, but I guess when you’re dealing with the Eye-ties, confusion and betrayal are par for the course.

  “Give it up, Infernus,” I yell.

  Now free from Quietus’s sickening spell, I can feel the Synergy effect returning, redoubling my strength. I can feel each knuckle crunch as I make a fist and it feels so good, I can imagine standing there all day doing it. Instead, I force myself to pay attention to my own demands.

  “You and me, Zephyr,” the bright red black guy bawls. “You and me!”

  Infernus is practically untouched. I happily leap to it, and we go toe-to-toe with our fists raining down on each other, both carrying the energy effects so that my torso explodes with fire bursts every time he lands a blow, while every time he lands one on me, he eats a few thousand volts in return. After a few protracted seconds of this, I pull a judo move and throw him over my shoulder by the wrist. Unfortunately, Infernus puts his boot into my inner thigh and flips me onto the dirt as well and we go crashing together unsuccessfully into one of the bastion’s tall, reinforced concrete walls. Covered in dust and soot, I sock Infernus in the jaw and he tumbles away, and just as I’m about to act on my advantage, the prison guards open up with their guns and the air explodes with bullets and Infernus bursts into flames of his own design, swoops over his comrades grabbing Raveness and Quietus by the wrists, and they disappear over the wall.

  Zephyr 5.6 “Like A Hammer Of The Gods”

  “AFTER THEM!” I yell and immediately lift into the air and follow the escaping ne’er-do-wells over the prison wall.

  At least Brasseye and Vulcana hasten to follow, leaving the others busy trying to subdue Thunderbird and Frost, who eventually escape their clutches leaving Gravitas and the unconscious philosopher-cum-Bugbear to the authorities.

  Vulcana rebounds with her usual rubbery abandon and Brasseye flits through the air like the visionary steampunk contraption he is, though soon even he fails to keep up with my top speed. Infernus and his surviving posse have some sort of VTOL craft they pile into, parked on the island’s bank, and it lifts off in a roar of sand and steam and soon leaves the others behind.

  So it comes down to just me and the jet hurtling over the city. My money is on Quietus as the pilot, moving the controls smoothly to try and put me off like I’m a guided missile or something rather than a real-life truer-to-kickass superhero. The craft wends and twists its way over the Hudson and then we are belting north, the vaulted architecture of Lloyd-Wright’s fevered imaginings giving way to the four-storey mid-rises of the northern arcologies, the industrial parks, the bustling multi
-tier playgrounds and sports complexes and super-malls, the scum-lined beaches, the decrepitude of Boston, 25-year-old promises and their makers still rotting in Hell, the temporary housing precincts that have become vibrant ethnic suburbs – and then the less-than-vibrant trailer parks, the resumed waterfronts, the ancient New England fishing villages buried beneath development that is Lovecraftian only in its proportions. And still I’m no closer to taking the jet down.

  I doubt it’s their sense of decency, but it isn’t until we’re over the Maine woodlands that some bright spark on board activates the rear .50 cal machineguns and the heavy shells start tinkling from the under-carriage as I dodge and swerve and make good on my desire not to be obliterated by the tail gunner. Several of the big ballistic rounds spark from my chest and arms, not head-on hits, but good enough to rend long grooves in my leather apparel. In response, I overtake the craft, though it immediately switches vector and leaves me to play tag again even as I throw lightning across its flanks hoping to disrupt the electrics within.

  In the end it is ignorance that plays against them. An ignorance of geography.

  I know these realms well, having used them for training runs on and off again throughout my career. As we hit what the baddies probably think of as the Canadian border, I drop back, keeping up the appearance of the pursuit without getting too close.

  At first it’s just us and the unspoilt alpine terrain. If Infernus and his pals have any strategy for shaking me loose, they’re yet to show it, and now it’s looking too late. There’s a slightly neglected-looking two-lane blacktop below us, snaking through the arboreal splendor with nary a moose in sight.

  The lesbian sentries probably can’t believe their luck – or the villains’ stupidity. Whether they tried hailing the aircraft or not, I do not know, nor do I care, but the result is the same once the intruders officially breach No-Man’s Land border. There’s a distant rattle of unexpected surface-to-air heavy machine gun fire and the jet sprouts smoke and bullet holes along one wing. A moment later and a distant missile array swings into action and two sexy incendiary motherfuckers start hissing their way over the landscape toward us.

  With difficulty but no pause, the VTOL craft banks hard to the west and veers across the path of the two missiles, drawing them in as surely as if they had strings attached. Somewhere in all the hilarity I forget to keep sufficient distance and for a few dozen miles it’s my signature rather than theirs that the deadly Soviet tech chooses to follow. I am glad Infernus and the others don’t realize. I race ahead, strafing the strange craft with electrical flash bombs, and the tail guns open up again and manage to destroy one of the pursuing missiles before the other collects the vehicle right in the undercarriage.

  Smoke churns from the jet as the air fills with an impossibly painful whistling noise. As the vehicle careens toward the ground, one of the doors break free and Raveness and Infernus fly out, the red figure clutching his comrade, while Quietus, a teleporter and hence probably already gone, is nowhere in sight.

  I barely pay any attention to the ship once it hits the ground and explodes in flipping majesty, tumbling through a tree-line and carving devastation in its wake. Instead, with Synergy’s bio-fuel bubbling away inside me only slightly diminished, I pin myself to the other flyer’s tail and keep on them until Infernus basically realizes the jig is up. He drops Raveness to tumble and disappear and possibly come to some fatality among the trees, a gesture of loyalty on the big guy’s behalf since he knows its him I want, and I keep on him right to the point where he lands on a country road beside a faded sign warning about local wildlife hazards.

  I inhale the clean air and smile.

  “Gotta thank you, I guess, Toby, for gettin’ me out into the countryside.”

  “Man, you cut it with that Toby shit. I’m Infernus now. I’m the master blaster.”

  “Toby, you’re a masturbator. Even your momma knows that. Why else would she give you such a shitty handjob of a name?”

  Infernus draws most of the air available in through his impressive nostrils. He’s a big man, the dark red complexion looking much more like a pigment today than some trick of the light. With the mask in place, the two sweeping pieces either side of his brow resembling horns more than anything else, and apart from a few scorch marks to the ribs he looks pretty fresh.

  “Nice trick flying right into a foreign surface-to-air assault,” I add. “You’re gonna win a Darwin Award by the time you’re done, boy.”

  “Cut the shit, Zephyr. Let’s rock.”

  At this he gestures, both wrists together, palms open like a rare exotic flower – one that spills burning liquid plasma over everything in sight.

  *

  WITH SYNERGY’S POWER amplification trick still hanging in there, it feels like almost nothing for me to switch into hyperspeed and dodge around Infernus’s attack. Without Quietus here to try and stop my vital organs functioning and Frost distracting me with doubts about whether I might technically be attacking my own unborn child or not, I’m free to manifest my powers to their fullest. The only real danger is starting the mother of all forest fires – but that’s all the more reason to close shop on this fucker quick and good.

  I come in an arc around the flaming attack and my hard looping right emerges from hyperspace to connect with Infernus’s cheekbone like a hammer of the gods. Bones inside his head crack in a symphony of sickness and he goes sprawling across the road and into a tree. I follow up, still strangely half-in and half-out of my accelerated mode, and for every defense the red guy tries to mount, I am simply too fast and too strong. It’s just him and me now and unlike our encounter at Riker’s, and Mys-Tech before that, there’s no chance to emerge from this scenario with illusions intact.

  He is a tough opponent. Tough and strong. But today is my day. I’m the storm god. I feel like goddamn Thor or someone, swinging tight uppercuts and hard jabs that land like thunderbolts, no need to resort to the wider array of my powers. Smoke hisses from my attacks. Black blood gushes from both his nostrils, his mask is askew, and at some point Infernus makes a stupid rush, tries to clasp his burning hands around my shoulders. Instead, I sweep him from the ground, pick him up over my head and twist and spin and hurl him back onto the hard-top where he lands with a heavy groan and goes chillingly still.

  I stagger back toward him, adrenaline and power at war within. Infernus rolls over, spent, only half looking up at me. And when he does, it’s without much more than a divorced resignation, no actual fear beyond the immediate pain and discomfort.

  “You got me . . . fucker. . . .”

  “Tell me why Fuse is so important to you that you’d risk something stupid like this,” I ask.

  “Not Fuse.”

  “Fuse is in White Nine.”

  “Maybe,” Infernus replies, hawking something up and groaning and starting to roll over before thinking the better of it. “Still wasn’t the target.”

  I nudge him with my boot.

  “Who, then?”

  “. . . Crescendo.”

  “You motherfucker,” I say and shake my head slowly.

  He’s just named one of the people in this world who hate me most. Him and my wife.

  “Why him?”

  “He knows things.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fuck you, Zephyr.”

  “Pride’s good, Toby,” I say and look around.

  It’s times like these I wish I smoked. It would help with the pacing of my impending monologue.

  “Let you remind me we’re in the middle of Assfuck, Canada. I am not beyond going all Guantanamo Bay on your ass.”

  Infernus looks at me all put out and shit, reminding me of the troubled youth he once was, stealing cars and other stupid stuff and always having the policeman knocking on his mother’s door.

  “Shit, Zephyr. You’re getting’ lowly.”

  He struggles upright and stands. Quite a lot of his movements seem to be about making sure his dominant features are still in place and he hasn�
�t lost too much blood.

  “I tell you this shit and we’re square, OK?”

  “What, until the next time you decide you want to toast me? I don’t fuckin’ think so, Tobes.”

  “Zephyr, man –”

  “Better idea. How about you tell me what I want to know and I won’t beat you to death with your own leg. Sound good?”

  “Now you just talkin’ tough, white-ass motherfucker.”

  “At least I’m not red, you fucking mutant.”

  “That’s some racist shit, Zephyr.”

  “Give me a break, ‘fernus,” I say and spit onto the tarmac. “You can’t have it both ways.”

  I know this is a major filibuster for him, so I stand back and show I have little interest in his particular skew on the race debate. We stare off for a few seconds and then again Infernus reluctantly shakes his head.

  “Crescendo knows Kingmaker,” he says and snorts a little blood from his nose. “That’s all we were told.”

  “By who?”

  “Man, you want dot-to-dot? It’s an inside job. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

  “But you’re hanging out with Cosa Nostra sluts like Gravitas and Thunderbird.”

  “Make your own connections on that shit, Zephyr.”

  I am certainly right about to do that – right about the same moment there’s a low growl and Raveness hits me hard from the side.

  Zephyr 5.7 “She’s A Strong Girl”

  SHE’S A STRONG girl. We go down together, clattering like store dummies dropped from the back of a truck, off the bitumen, into the trees, coming to a stop at last with my head against the base of a ginormous spruce. Raveness is hyperventilating and might possibly be having an orgasm, at least drinking in her feral countenance, black hair plastered in long strands across her face. I kick her upside her lantern jaw and watch her catapult backward, claws frantic at the trees like a motherfucking cat falling. The noise is much worse. I use the commercial break to get up and dust off my knees, glancing across panting as I note Infernus deciding self-preservation is the better part of valor. He’s half-a-mile into the sky leaving a plasma-heated vapor trail in his wake. I’d give chase, but I have madmen – nay, make that madwomen – enough on my plate.