“Lucky,” Steve muttered.
“Steve, I don’t think I can do this,” Katherine said. “I don’t think I can keep watching.”
“Yes, you can!” Steve said harshly. “I don’t care what you have to do, close your eyes, think of a happy place, whatever gets you through it. Katherine, I know how brave you are. You aren’t the weak link here.”
By now, Jonah was behind Steve, who was very aware of the presence at his back. The skin on the back of his neck crawled, and he braced himself, waiting for the pain.
“I have this theory,” Jonah said. “I’ve read your file, Rogers. You’re not a superhuman, but you’re enhanced, right? Speed, strength, stamina—all at the absolute top end of human performance. If you were crooked and no one knew who you were, you could win gold medals in any sport you chose, or have more Super Bowl rings than you’ve got fingers.”
“Is there a point to this, Jonah?” Steve asked. “Or do you just like the sound of your own voice?”
“Oh, I have a point. A question to be precise. Did all those enhancements affect your nervous system? I mean, you have those reflexes, so that would suggest so. Does that mean that you feel more strongly than you did before? Because if so,” he paused, “this is really going to hurt.”
He pressed the Taser against Steve’s bare shoulder and pushed the button. Agony lanced through Steve, fire burning along every nerve. His muscles contracted and pain stabbed into every pore. Coherent thought fragmented, shattering on the unyielding sensation of the electricity pouring through him, and time lost any meaning. Finally, thankfully, it stopped, but Steve kept shuddering even after Jonah had pulled the Taser away.
“I guess that answered my question,” Jonah said. “I had another theory. Want to hear it?”
“You’re full of ideas today, aren’t you?” Steve gasped. “It’s like watching MythBusters.”
Jonah ignored Steve’s weak attempt at humor.
“I’m willing to bet that your body can take a lot more punishment than Karl’s before those brain cells start to short circuit,” Jonah said. “That means more pain with less permanent damage, which makes this a lot easier for me.”
“You’ve got all this figured out, haven’t you?”
“Not really,” Jonah said. “I’m just spitballing here. I could be really wrong. The upside for me is that if I am wrong, I won’t be the one who ends up with brain damage.”
This time the pain went on so long that even Steve’s extraordinary constitution was pushed too far. Black bloomed before his eyes, and a rushing filled his ears before he blacked out. When he came to, Jonah was snapping his fingers in front of his eyes. Katherine sobbed in the background.
“Still with us, Rogers?” Jonah asked him. “Or was I wrong, and is that brain completely fried?”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Steve said.
He didn’t really believe his words; he wasn’t sure how much more he could take, but he knew that he had to keep up a brave front for Katherine’s sake. If she gave up the backups, she was as good as dead; it was merely a matter of time. The knowledge that Ex Umbra still needed was the only weapon she had left—once they had enough of her research to satisfy them, she was a loose end waiting to be tied off. Nothing he had seen or heard of Ex Umbra so far had led him to believe that they would hesitate for a single second.
“Okay,” Jonah said. “Happy to oblige.”
The pain burned through Steve. He gritted his teeth, trying not to scream, but finally it was too much. A groan formed into a scream, followed by another. Jonah stopped the current.
“Are you ready to tell her to cooperate? Beg her?” he asked.
“Never.”
The pain started again. Reaching deep inside himself, Steve found something to hang onto—the memory of his transformation, the pain of the serum racing through his body, changing him cell by cell. He remembered how it had burned like fire in his veins, how he had felt it breaking him down before it built him back up again. Compared to that pain, this pain was like someone yelling in a distant room. Or so he told himself.
He must have blacked out again. When the world came back into focus, Jonah was frowning and shaking the Taser. The green lights were off, and all that was left was a blinking red LED.
Steve couldn’t help himself, he laughed.
“You’ve run out of batteries?” he wheezed. “I’m sorry, but you have to admit, that’s pretty funny.”
He could hear Karl laughing too, and soon even Katherine joined in. Only Jonah didn’t smile, and his eyes darted between the three of them. Anger twisted his face and he threw the Taser on the ground, hard. It shattered, and bits of plastic and metal flew everywhere.
“Laugh it up, but I have a dozen more just like that one. We’ll see how funny it is when I get through using all of them on you.” He stormed out of the room, leaving the three companions staring at each other.
“Well, Karl, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t enjoy that very much at all,” Steve said.
Karl spat a mouthful of blood on the floor with an apologetic look.
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Cap?” he asked. “At least it’s never boring right?”
“How can you too be so . . . so . . . flippant?” Katherine demanded. “He’ll be back soon, and what we will do then?”
“Katherine, we know that,” Karl said gently. “Sometimes, all you can do is try not to think about what’s coming next.”
“There’s nothing we can do right now,” Steve said. “But, I’ve been in worse situations than this and come through the other side. We just have to endure and wait for an opportunity. It’ll come; it always does.”
“But you have to stay strong, Katherine,” Karl said. “Steve and I can take this, but we need you to back us, okay?”
She nodded. “I hate this, but if that’s what you want from me, then I’ll try. Okay?”
“That’s all we can ask,” Steve said. While they had been talking, he had been pushing the wreckage of the Taser around with his foot. He grunted with satisfaction as he moved aside a couple of pieces of black plastic to reveal a stiff strand of copper wire. Gripping it between the toes of his boots, he shifted it around, trying to get it into a position to kick it up.
“An idea, Cap?” Karl asked. He had been watching Steve with interest. “A way out maybe?”
“Just a glimmer of hope, but it’s better than nothing.”
Karl nodded. But before Steve could give further thought to how he was going to get the piece of metal into his hands where he could give picking the restraints a go, the door slid open and Jonah came through it. He was pushing a stainless steel table on wheels, and on top of it were eight more Tasers.
“I lied, there weren’t twelve. But, this should do the job.”
He picked one up and pressed a button, smiling as the green LEDs lit up, one by one. He was walking toward Steve when an alarm went off, filling the room with wailing sirens and strobing lights. A woman’s voice echoed from the speakers in the ceiling.
“Security breach. I repeat security breach. All personnel to emergency stations. Code Red. This is not a drill.”
As the captives stared at each other, the message repeated over and over.
Chapter 17
Ex Umbra Headquarters: 1500 hours
Jonah barked orders into his transceiver. The door slid open and the two guards rushed in. Jonah met them at the doorway.
“What’s going on?” Steve heard him ask.
One of the guards said something in a low voice that even Steve couldn’t catch, but a deaf man could have heard Jonah’s reply.
“What?! How many?” He turned and looked the prisoners over. “We need to get the girl out of here. Grab her and bring her with me.”
The guard murmured something else.
“Don’t worry about the other two,
they aren’t going anywhere. We can come back for them once we’ve dealt with this little problem.”
The two guards unfastened Katherine from her chair and dragged her over to Jonah.
“Wait, what are you doing?” She struggled against their grip, but they barely seemed to notice. “Steve! Karl!”
“It’s okay, Katherine,” Steve said. “We’ll come after you as soon we can. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Rogers,” Jonah said. Pulling out a gag, he silenced Katherine’s pleas, and bound her hands in front of her with efficient and clinical speed. He pushed her roughly into the guards’ arms and followed them out the door, slamming it shut, and leaving Karl and Steve alone.
“Now what?” Karl asked.
“Well . . .” Steve rocked his chair back and forth. After a few oscillations, he crashed to the floor. He wriggled toward the wreckage of the Taser, then braced himself. With a convulsive heave, he flexed his abdominal muscles and used the incredible power of his core to flip himself and the chair over so that he could get at the copper wire with his hands. After a bit of fiddling, he had it in his grasp.
“Nice,” Karl said admiringly.
It wasn’t easy with the angle of his hands and the less than optimal lock pick he was using, but in less than five minutes, the restraints clicked open. Steve stood and stretched the kinks out of his muscles, and then got to work freeing Karl. With his own hands loose, it was a much quicker process. Karl staggered slightly when he stood, and Steve caught his arm to stop him from falling.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“My legs feel a bit rubbery, and my body doesn’t seem to want to do what it’s told, but other than that, I’m fine.”
“Are you going to be able to keep up? I hate to be blunt, but we’ll have to move fast.”
“The day a Marine can’t keep up with some Army boy . . . let’s just say I would never be able to show my face at the VFW ever again.”
“Let’s get moving then,” Steve said. “I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I want to get Katherine before anything else can go wrong.”
As if to punctuate his words, there was an explosion followed by the sound of gunfire. Steve and Karl grabbed their shirts and jackets and quickly dressed, then looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon. The only options were the Tasers, and they grabbed a pair each and ran into the corridor. Karl labored slightly, but was as good as his word and kept up with Rogers.
They stopped off at the room that had been the site of Steve’s initial interrogation so he could retrieve his shield, then continued on. As they rounded the corner, two guards almost ran straight into them. Without even needing to speak, Rogers broke right and Karl broke left. There was a crackle of electricity and the smell of ozone, and two bodies fell to the floor with a thump.
“It’s more fun being on this end of it, isn’t it?” Karl asked.
One of the security guards tried to get up on his elbows. Karl leaned down and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him up and forward. The guard’s eyes went wide as electricity arced just under his nose.
“Where’s the girl?” Karl yelled. “Tell me!”
The security guard hesitated for a moment.
“Don’t test me! I’ve had the equivalent of the local power grid pumped through me and I’m not in the mood. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” the man stammered. “He’s taken her to the bunker—it’s three levels below here. There’s a tunnel that leads out of here.”
“And what’s going on in here?” Steve demanded. “What are all the sirens about?”
“I don’t know! Code Red means we have intruders—that’s all I know, I swear!”
“Thank you, you’ve been very helpful,” Karl said, then gave the guard another dose with the Taser. The man jerked once, then passed out.
“Was that necessary?” Steve asked.
“Yes,” Karl said. “We can’t have him following us. And I feel much better now.”
“Fair enough,” Steve said. “I would have been tempted myself. To the elevator?”
“After you.”
As they ran toward the elevator, its doors slid open and a familiar figure stepped out, a white cloak rippling out behind him. When Taskmaster saw Steve stopping short, he paused and pulled the shield off his back.
“Karl, you need to get out of here,” Steve said. “I’ll take care of this, but you need to go after Katherine.”
“Why don’t we just take care of him together? It won’t take long.”
“Just go.”
Even as the words were coming out of Steve’s mouth, Taskmaster was on him. They traded blows faster than Karl’s eyes could follow, shields flicking and clanging off one another, arms blocking vicious strikes. Karl’s jaw dropped.
“Okay, I think I’ll go take care of Katherine.”
Steve threw his attacker over his shoulder, but Taskmaster simply hit the ground rolling, and came to his feet. Steve hadn’t expected anything less, but had achieved what he’d wanted. The hallway was now clear for Karl to dart past them and get to the elevator. He hammered the button to close the door, raising a hand to wish Steve good luck as the doors closed.
“Now, it’s just you and me, Taskmaster.”
“Yes, and this time your little friend isn’t here to save you,” the man replied. “I’ve been looking forward to settling this score. The $2 million is just the icing on the cake.”
“Who’s going to pay you? I thought your paymasters already had her.”
Taskmaster smiled. “There are lots of interested parties out there—word gets around in certain circles, you should know that. It’s a seller’s market. I might even end up getting more than the two million, but I’m more interested in wiping the floor with you. Call it professional pride. While my competitors are occupied with each other, I’m going to make the most of this opportunity.”
He swept back his cloak, revealing the sword at his side. In a single fluid motion, he drew it and brought it whistling down in an overhand strike. Steve caught the sword on his shield, rolling his wrist so that the force of the blow was directed to the side, then stepped inside the man’s reach and punched the inside of Taskmaster’s elbow twice in quick succession, his middle knuckle sticking out. The sharp blows to the bundle of nerves had the desired effect, and Taskmaster’s arm went numb, the sword dropping from his nerveless fingers. Steve kicked the weapon out of reach and threw another punch, this time going for Taskmaster’s throat. But Taskmaster was too quick, and got a block up just in time, then brought his own knee crashing into the big muscle of Steve’s thigh. Rogers staggered back, nearly tripping as his weight came down on the suddenly numb leg. Taskmaster was already at him, twirling into a series of roundhouse kicks, his heel whistling past Steve’s chin again and again as Steve desperately retreated.
He felt the cold steel of the elevator doors at his back, and managed to catch the next kick, grabbing Taskmaster’s foot and twisting so that the other man flipped over in midair. But Steve’s attacker was like a cat, somehow managing to land in a crouch from which he launched himself back at Rogers. Steve took two punishing strikes to the ribs before he could get in one of his own—a vicious jab that split the skin above Taskmaster’s left eye.
They broke apart and stood a moment, chests heaving as they regarded each other warily. Taskmaster brought his arms up and crossed them in front of his chest, rapping them together. With an audible click, a blade shot out from the back of each of his gauntlets, glimmering evilly in the fluorescent lighting.
Steve sighed. “Really? That’s how you want to be?”
Rogers strapped his shield to his left arm, and pulled the two Tasers from his belt. Blue electricity crackled as he brought his hands up. With a wordless roar, Taskmaster attacked, blades flicking out so fast that they were mere blurs of metal. Steve ca
ught some of the slashes on his shield, and deflected others with the reinforced arm braces embedded in the sleeves of his uniform. Inevitably, a few jabs made it through and Steve soon bled from half a dozen shallow cuts, but Taskmaster was unable to land a killing blow. Steve weathered the storm of steel, watching for a gap in his opponent’s defenses, and when it came, he was ready. As Taskmaster lined up a backhand attack, Steve plunged his right hand through opening and pressed the Taser against Taskmaster’s side, triggering the charge.
Taskmaster staggered and fell to one knee. Steve brought his own knee up, crashing it into his enemy’s jaw and sending him tumbling back in a heap. Before Steve could press his advantage, the other man was up, but for the first time Steve saw uncertainty in his eyes, and there was a wariness in his next approach.
Taskmaster stumbled slightly as he closed again with Steve. Rogers took advantage of the momentary lapse to drop into a vicious leg sweep, knocking Taskmaster’s legs out from underneath him and landing him flat on his back. Instead of lying prone, though, Taskmaster flexed his back, giving himself enough momentum to get his feet underneath him. As he straightened his torso back to vertical, Steve’s fist met Taskmaster’s chin and sent him straight back down.
But it still wasn’t enough to stop the man. Using the wall to bring himself to his feet, Taskmaster met Steve’s renewed attack. And now he had begun to memorize the patterns of Steve’s technique, leaving Rogers feeling like he was fighting a mirror image of himself. Every time he threw a punch or a kick, Taskmaster seemed to be waiting for it. Nothing Steve threw at him seemed to surprise him. Again, Steve tried all of the tricks and techniques he had picked up from those he had fought alongside or against, but Taskmaster was the equal of them all.
As the fight continued, Steve could feel the events of the past week catching up with him. He hadn’t fully recovered from his last beating at the hands of this foe, and the torture had only exacerbated things. Now, with each blow, it took him just a little longer to bounce back, and his reaction times were just that little bit slower. It was only a matter of time before the balance of conflict would tip catastrophically in Taskmaster’s favor—unless Steve could come up with something soon.
Marvel's Captain America: Sub Rosa Page 17