Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1)

by Drew Hayes

  “Okay, I’ll keep your groups small. Get in there and wait for direction. Move quickly. If the building drops, we’re estimating it will hit a lot of nearby workers on the way down, so Crush is going to implode it once it’s evacuated. Don’t be dumb, but don’t dilly-dally either."

  “On it.” Titan headed off toward the building. It felt strangely familiar, drawing close to a place impending collapse. His team might not have spent a lot of time on cleanup, but they made damned sure to clear out everyone put in danger by one of their fights.

  The low, simmering anger that Wild Bucks had kindled flared up again. All this damage, and where were those little shits to help? It was possible they’d already been hauled off to DVA questioning, but he doubted it. Powerful as the Department of Variant Human Affairs was, they were still a government agency, and those things were simply not built to run with that much efficiency. No, more likely they were too ashamed to show their faces at this scene. He hoped Topsy was tearing them a new asshole right now. Despite being the guy they called in when they had to take a “scorched earth” approached to a target, Topsy had always been good about keeping the destruction he caused contained. That was a lesson that needed to get passed on to his trainees, and fast.

  Titan came around the corner, walking up to the building to find another man standing there, his head tilted in the way common to one listening to an earpiece. He had to be a shifter; he was wearing a skintight costume made of the telltale shimmery fabric designed to accommodate altered forms. It was useful as hell, invented by some tech-genius before Titan’s time. The material was able to stretch to accommodate all manner of sizes, but it was a pain in the ass to get any sort of stain out of. That probably explained why this guy had opted for a black version. He might be able to get at least a few wears out of a single suit of the stuff.

  The man glanced over his shoulder as Titan approached. “You’re the other guy?”

  “Didn’t know I was, but it seems like I am.”

  “Just got updated with new orders from Scope. I’m supposed to secure the bottom floor as best I can while you go up to the higher ones.”

  “I’m a pretty heavy guy,” Titan said. If the interior was that damaged then every pound of difference mattered.

  “In my shifted form, my weight is measured in tons.”

  “Ground floor for you it is.” Titan stuck out his meaty hand in greeting. “I’m Titan, pleasure to work with you.”

  The man in black shiny material laughed, even as he shook Titan’s hand. “I already know who you are. My name is Granite; I’m the strongman from Elemental Fury.”

  33.

  “That a fact? I didn’t recognize you outside your shifted form.” Titan kept a close watch on Granite’s face as they finished the handshake. Teams were complicated entities; in order to function, every member had to be completely loyal to one another. That didn’t mean they had to agree all the time, though. Granite would back Gale in any moves she made against Titan, but that didn’t mean he necessarily harbored any personal animosity toward the older Hero.

  “I try not to get photographed in human form, even with the mask. If I can pull it off then retirement will be a lot easier.” Granite released Titan’s hand, his own eyes clearly scrutinizing the other man as well. “Trying to figure out if I dislike you as much as Gale does?”

  “Obviously.”

  Granite laughed, a deep, booming sound so cheerful that it seemed incongruous against the chaos around them. “Don’t mind Gale. She’s a little tightly wound. In the last few years some high profile Heroes have come out of Brewster, folks who moved up to bigger cities and better merchandising sales. That’s great for them, but the fact that they’ve all come from here means a lot of new or overambitious Heroes have been migrating to our town, trying to use it as a career springboard.”

  At last, the pieces of Gale’s behavior fell into place for Titan. When a city had a lot of well-known Heroes coming out of it, it was considered “hot.” Hot cities were a double-edged sword. Not many truly skilled criminal Supers tried to start shit in them for fear of meeting too strong of opposition, but it also drew the sort of Heroes who were desperate to get bigger in the public eye. Those were the Heroes who made dangerous mistakes and took stupid risks, doing things that got innocent people killed. No wonder Gale had been on such a hair trigger about him coming to her town; if she was already dealing with a bunch of upstarts, the last thing she needed was someone with his profile doing the same thing. It would validate their behavior, invigorate them, and lead to even more reckless choices.

  “Should I bother telling you that’s not what I’m here to do, or is it wasting my words?” Titan asked.

  “I already know that you aren’t in Brewster for anything PR-related,” Granite assured him. “For one thing, you’re fucking Titan. You were back in the public eye as soon as you put the mask on. For another, Brewster is hot right now, but you don’t need hot. You could have walked into any city in the continental USA and been huge. And lastly, I mean, come on. You’re shepherding a team of corpies around. That is not the action of an overly ambitious man.”

  “Glad at least someone on your team believes me.”

  “More than you might think. Of course, you know that won’t affect anything.”

  “Of course,” Titan said. Whether Granite believed him to be an attention-seeking ass was irrelevant. Gale was going to order her team to come at him hard during the ability assessment, and they would all obey. She was their leader, they were on a team, and short of a severe moral conflict with her orders, they would follow her without question. Titan not only understood that, he respected it completely.

  “Titan, stand by for entry. You’ve got a third en route.” Galvanize’s voice crackled over the radio in Titan’s ear, more strained than it had sounded when they’d last spoken.

  “Looks like we’re almost clear,” Granite said. He tapped his own ear as he spoke and gave a small nod. “I just got word to shift.”

  Without another word, Granite changed; the suitability of his Hero name became immediately apparent. His dark skin altered, growing lighter but with a distinct gray hue. The outfit on his body sprang and stretched as his form expanded, widening and rising in nearly equal measure. An audible crunching sound, like a tumbling bag of rocks, filled the air as his entire body’s composition altered itself.

  In the span of ten seconds, Titan went from looking at a muscular young man to a nine-foot-tall monster composed entirely of stone. It towered over him; Titan had to look up to see the thing’s face, a strange sensation for a man his size.

  “More familiar?”

  “Much,” Titan replied. He’d studied up on all of Gale’s team ever since she put out the possibility of an ability assessment. Granite was large, strong, and durable, which would have effectively classified him as normal strongman in combat, but his transformation also had a handy side-effect. Granite could reform his stone body easily, even if the individual pieces were shattered. This made him functionally unstoppable by brute means, though he’d previously suffered serious injury at the hands of powerful elementalists. Titan had an idea for how to handle him in the ability assessment, but now that he’d actually met the guy it seemed a cruel method to use.

  “Hey you two, ready to go in?”

  These words came from a tall, willowy woman who floated over to them. She was adorned in a white and blue costume with a cape that fell nearly to her calves. If she was a Hero, then she was the type who didn’t do straightforward combat, because a cape like that would have gotten her killed already. “I’m Aether from Transcendental Justice.”

  “Granite,” the large being of living rock rumbled.

  “Titan,” Titan said. “Granite is supposed to hold the bottom floor while I go up and grab anyone trapped. What assignment are you on?”

  “I’m with you, Titan,” Aether replied. “I can make myself and other people or objects incorporeal, so I’m supposed to help you search and handle the delicate e
xtractions.”

  A wave of relief washed over Titan. He’d been seriously worried about accidently bringing the building down when trying to get to someone. Having a Hero with a light touch would make the extractions dozens of degrees more effective. Whoever was coordinating this effort had a solid head on their shoulders; they were allocating resources in a way that maximized their usefulness. Corpie or Hero, when this was over, Titan meant to shake that person’s hand.

  “Scope sent me over with word that we have survivors on the third and fourth floor confirmed, and Afterthought is scanning the fifth floor as we speak. Granite, your orders stay the same. Titan, I’m on point to survey the area as we go, so hang back a few steps behind me. I’ll make sure the floors in each section can bear your weight. Once I get you up to the third floor, I’ll leave you to extract while I grab people from the fourth. If you hit a situation where you’re not sure you can get someone out without knocking things down, just give me a holler. I’ll be listening.” Despite her lithe frame, Aether’s voice was authoritative and certain as she doled out the orders. Whatever role she filled for her team, Titan had a hunch she did it well.

  “Sounds good,” Granite said.

  “Glad to hear it, because we just got clearance,” Aether announced. “Let’s get in there and save some people.”

  34.

  Titan stepped through the area that had once been the front door of the apartment building, carefully surveying the landscape as he moved. In a situation like this where the building’s stability was in question, someone of his strength could accidently bring the whole thing down with one misstep. The ground floor was, thankfully, almost completely bare, save for the easy-to-spot support columns. So long as he steered clear of those and load-bearing walls, he should manage to get through this rescue mission without causing some collateral destruction of his own.

  There was just enough time for Titan to stop and wonder how Granite was going to get past the small front door before the giant rock-man sauntered calmly through the wall. Aether maintained a gentle but firm grip on his shoulder, releasing her hold once they were completely clear of the entrance. Granite seemed to shimmer for a moment, and the subtle sound of wood groaning beneath his massive feet told everyone he was solid once more.

  “Handy. I don’t know many density changers who can affect others so easily,” Titan said.

  “You still don’t,” Aether replied, floating carefully over to him. “What I do is more akin to shifting us to another plane of existence, one that interacts visually and audibly with ours, but not physically.”

  “Damn.” Titan had been around a long time and had worked with dozens, if not hundreds, of Supers. Aether’s ability wasn’t wholly unique, but something that powerful was strikingly rare. He’d read up on the local Hero teams, including Transcendental Justice, but if there had been anything especially remarkable about their records, he’d missed it. If a woman with this ability was playing second string then Granite may have understated just how hot Brewster was for Heroes at that moment.

  “Damn is right; I am quite incredible,” Aether agreed. “Granite, Scope believes the south wall is currently the weakest, so that’s where you’re needed. Keep your radio on; you may need to change positions as Titan moves around the upper floors.”

  “Oh great. . . as if I don’t get enough of being bossed around from Gale.” Granite’s words were glib, but he still headed over to fulfill his assignment. Titan understood the reaction; sometimes in stressful situations, making bad jokes was a small way to combat the sense of seriousness that often felt overwhelming. It was why so many Heroes ended up quipping through a fight: they were trying to mentally push back the terror and violence so they could function.

  “Titan, you’re with me on the first few floors. They should be stable, but there’s no reason to risk it unnecessarily.” Aether’s hand landed on his shoulder. There was a light tingling sensation, and for a moment Titan’s stomach lifted as though he were at the crest of a rollercoaster’s tracks. Then, as suddenly as it started, the sensation was gone. He was still firmly standing on the floor.

  “That is. . . unexpected,” Aether said. “I didn’t expect you to be a nullifier.”

  “I’m not, but I did fight a guy with phasing powers a few decades back. He could trap people in this dark existence without light, sound, or touch for hours at a time. Bastard managed to sneak up and get me on our first encounter.”

  “Fascinating, but it doesn’t explain why I can’t phase you.”

  “I was getting to that,” Titan said. “Next time I fought him, he got a hand on me and then received the shock of his life when I stayed right there in front of him. The same tricks don’t work on me twice, and I think your power is similar enough to his that my resistance countered it.”

  “Can’t you turn it off? What if you need healing?”

  “My body handles its own healing, and while I can suppress it if I really need to, it takes real focus so it’s an imprecise process. I don’t think either of us wants me slipping back to solid while suspended in the air,” Titan said.

  “A fair point.” Aether floated down to the ground, rippled momentarily, and became solid. “I suppose all we can do is go slowly and let me test the stairs as we move.”

  “That was pretty much my plan from the get-go,” Titan replied.

  The two set off on the careful climb, checking each of the stairs as they went. Luckily, the building had been constructed in a more industrial era, long before cheap cost-cutting measures had given rise to staircases that were barely anchored at each level. Within five minutes they had passed the first two floors and made it to the third without incident. The floor there was less solid than on the lower levels, and a part of the back wall had been blown out, allowing them to see the cleanup going on outside.

  “This is as high as you can go,” Aether told him. “Everything above is too unstable. Scope and Afterthought finished the scan while we were climbing. I’ve got three targets on floor four and one on floor five. You’ve got two here: one in room one-three-two and one in room four-two-one. Got that?”

  “Got it,” Titan might not have had the world’s best memory, but he had long ago mastered the art of quickly memorizing short bursts of information. In the field, it often made the difference between people saved and lives lost.

  “Good. As soon as you’ve got both, get them out and get clear. Crush is in position to implode this building the moment we’re done. The sooner we can bring it down, the better for everyone around it.”

  “What if you need help with all of yours?”

  Aether rolled her eyes in an exaggerated motion. “I can fly through matter, remember? Smart money says I’ll get all four of mine out before you finish your two.”

  “Five bucks?”

  “Fine. First one to have all their people on the ground, safely outside the building, wins,” Aether said.

  The two Heroes shook briefly, then Aether lifted off the ground and floated through the ceiling to the floor above. Titan watched her go, noting the seamless way she phased herself through the various barriers. The woman was clearly hiding some aspects of her abilities, not that Titan blamed her. Even among other Heroes, it was prudent to keep a few bits about one’s power close to the vest. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but Heroes did fall from grace. Fighting someone who knew all of your limits and weaknesses was a worst-case scenario for any Hero.

  Titan started tentatively down the hallway, listening carefully to the groans of the floor for any signs that something was about to give. In a situation like this, Heroes like Aether definitely had the upper hand. Still, there were people depending on him to get to them, so Titan was determined not to go crashing through the floor.

  He hoped.

  35.

  The man in the first apartment was young, single from the looks of the décor, and trapped under a dresser. Titan didn’t even bother knocking as he entered; pleasantries were for people with more time and less at stake. He
shattered the lock and pushed the door open, revealing a panicked young man pinned under heavy furniture. Extricating him was easy; Titan lifted the dresser as though it had as little substance as a banker’s promise. Once the man was free, it became clear that the falling furniture had fractured, if not broken, his leg. This actually made things easier as far as Titan was concerned. Carrying someone was much simpler than trying to have them follow him through an unstable building.

  In the second apartment, Titan and his new passenger found a woman whose refrigerator had tumbled over and blocked the door. With a quick call of caution, Titan slowly pressed the thin wooden door open, sending the sizable fridge sliding across the carpeted floor. He’d just finished moving it when a loud cracking sound filled the air, accompanied moments later by a shudder than ran through the entire building. He barely had time to wonder what had happened before Galvanize’s voice crackled to life on his radio.

  “Titan, Granite just reported that the southern wall came down. From what we can see it’s causing a ripple effect that’s going to send the whole thing crashing. You need to get your people clear immediately.”

  “Was Granite trapped under the collapse? Did Aether finish hers yet?” As he spoke, Titan grabbed the recently-freed woman around her midsection and lifted her up, holding her at his left side just as he was holding the man with the broken leg on his right.

  “Granite is perfectly fine; it would take more than one wall to encumber him. Aether is above you retrieving her final survivor from floor five. Since she’s unaffected by things like falling buildings though, you need to worry about you and yours.”

  Another shudder rocked the building, this one causing the floor at Titan’s feet to buck slightly. The man let out a yelp of terror, while the woman seemed to draw closer to Titan’s massive frame.