by Alana Melos
“Who’s she?” I asked. “And why are you hanging out with Lee? He’s bad news. Unprofessional.”
Ger snickered at that, and Rebekah gave us both a wounded look. “They’re my friends,” she said. “Lee and Mariko… oops, I mean Haika. That’s her code name.”
I gave Rebekah a skeptical look. “If they’re willing to help, then that’s all to the good.” With that, she beamed once more.
“I’m going to go cool out with them,” she said. “I think Haika knows some of the people here already, but Lee doesn’t. He’s not really a big, uhm, hero person.”
“Not if he’s willing to vandalize a cop shop,” I pointed out. He’d helped briefly in our last escapade.
Rebekah waved her hand in a dismissive gesture, “He just likes disorder, I think. Bye!” With the last friendly chirp, she bounced over to the two of them. From this distance, I couldn’t hear what was said, but Haika seemed to greet her warmly, pardon the pun, and Lee with some kind of big exclamation. I watched her for a minute before I realized she was without Alistair, and I hadn’t had the chance to ask her about him.
“Dammit,” I swore.
“What?” Rory asked, looking at the pack of cigarettes he dug out of his pocket. He stared at them, as if trying to remember why he smoked.
“Nothing,” I said. But we’d lost a big gun there if Alistair didn’t show. Schooling my face to neutrality, I tried not to think about the powerhouse. He had… no, screw that. He should have been out here, trying. He didn’t have the right to hold back, not when my city was in danger of being eradicated off the face of the world.
“It’s nothing,” Gerard said, probably picking up on my thoughts. “It looks like we’ve quite the assortment here, and quite a few powerhouses.”
“Let’s hope it’ll be enough,” I said, the words feeling foreign in my mouth. I didn’t ‘hope’ for things. They either were or they weren’t. If something needed to be done, I made it happen. Yet this was so large. If things were quiet, a person could hear Pangea growing. Groans and creaks filled the dead air as the vines slithered along their target, swallowing the city building by building. So much had been destroyed already. Earlier in the day when I’d dropped by the pack’s HQ to check in and see if they’d contribute as Rebekah had made no headway with them, it stood alone amongst wreckage, left alone only because a part of it had wanted it to be. It would be the last building left standing if things kept on this way.
“I need to talk to Imperius,” I said, excusing myself. Making my way over to the hero, I observed for a moment before interrupting. He stood there, a serious mien on his strong face. A map of the city had been rolled out on a car hood. Pangea’s outline had been written in red ink. Looking at it like this, it was horrifying. Right now, we were on the edge of the plant zone, which crept ever closer. It had taken over three fourths of the city. That much area… even with civilian help, I looked around at the perhaps hundred or so people gathered here. Was this going to be enough?
“I thought you were going to bring more white hats to play,” I observed, letting scorn enter my voice.
At my words, the crowd around Imperius looked up. Septimus smiled, the relief at seeing me well evident. Imperius didn’t look like he cared one way or another. “Was my offer not good enough for your criminal friends?”
I shrugged, “They don’t trust white hats. Be thankful this many showed up.”
“Come here,” he said. “This is what we’ve got so far.”
I muscled in next to him, choking my revulsion back at being this close to a white hat and not putting them down. “I’m listening.”
“You’re going to be the coordinator for the criminals,” he said, somehow managing to impart doubt in my ability to lead and snide disdain for the crooks in just a few words. “The chemical, if it works as you said it does, will need to be sprayed over a large area. There’s been announcements on the news, television, radio, and the internet, to stand ready. At half past nine, whether we’ve gotten it sprayed or not, citizens will be trying to free their homes of Pangea. There’s simply too much area for us to cover, even if we had three times the number.”
“Right,” I said, nodding in agreement. At least he wasn’t stupid, and he was using his popularity to help achieve our goal. I rather liked the idea of making the people who lived here fight for their city. They should.
“We’ve identified many of the major veins of Pangea,” he said, drawing my attention to the map. He swept a finger in a half-circle near the crash site, indicating several large blue lines radiating out from the forest. “We believe if we cut these off, the majority of the branches will die in one fell swoop. It has the added bonus of being mostly unpopulated to minimize the loss of life.”
“Cut the big branch off instead of all the small ones,” I repeated. “Makes sense.”
“There will be resistance,” he went on. “I believe you’ve seen the mutated beasts before. Expect transformed people to be among the resistance, by now.” He heaved a sigh, and looked at me, his purple eyes blazing. “Try not to kill them.”
“On that, I make no promises,” I said.
“I didn’t think you would, but pass it along, anyway,” he said. “I have maps made. We’ll go in small forces of three to four, depending on powers and ability. We have to move as fast as possible, so people will either need to have travel powers on their own, or be paired with someone who can carry them.”
“I’ll split them up,” I agreed.
“One last thing,” he said. “Obviously, I won’t be able to keep track of everyone. I meant what I said about running. If someone runs, the deal is off. In order to track movement and keep people honest, I have devices for each person who wants to take me up on the offer. It’ll send data back to a central location. Until the threat is defeated, each criminal will need to carry one.”
When my face darkened, Septimus spoke up quickly. “I trust you, and you’re honest,” he said. “You have a reputation for being honest. Not everyone does, and some crooks here… they have a pretty vicious record.”
“As much as I hate to admit it, you have a point,” I conceded, grating the words out between my teeth. “They’re not going to like it.”
“They need to keep it on them or the deal’s off,” Imperius replied, unruffled by my aggression. “Just until the threat is taken care of, then they can destroy them.”
“What information does it track, exactly?” I asked.
“Just location,” Imperius assured me.
“All the same,” I said as I held out my hand, “hand them over so I can have someone with the know-how look them over.”
Some woman I didn’t know handed me a plain canvas bag full of the little devices. They weren’t much bigger than a child’s fingernail. Not exactly a lot of room to have tech in it, but everything was so small nowadays you couldn’t know for sure.
“Anything else?” I asked, and waited a few heartbeats. When no answer was forthcoming, I nodded, “We’re going to be moving out pretty quick then.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Tim said. “We’ve got the dispersal devices here. I’ll run a quick lesson on how to use them, but it’s pretty simple. Anyone should be able to figure it out.”
I glanced across the parking lot where Lethal was attempting to impress someone I didn’t know with one of his assassination stories. The guy was studiously ignoring him, though the scrawny guy didn’t notice and kept chattering on. “You’d be surprised,” I commented.
We walked together more into the crowd of heroes. They were already splitting up into assigned teams, while the crooks goofed off, impatient for the action. “Here it is,” Tim said, hauling up a round canister with a nozzle.
“It’s a fire extinguisher,” I observed, any amusement I had at the situation gone. “Of course people know how to use it.” At least, I would hope so since it was a point and pull the level kind of basic even small kids understood.
“I told you it was simple,” he said, chuckling a lit
tle. “There’s no safety or tab you have to push up to activate it. It’s point, and pull the trigger. It shoots out over a fairly wide area, in a cloud. They put something in it so you’ll be able to see what you’re affecting, rather than just having the invisible vapor and guessing.”
“At least that’s useful,” I said. “Here, gimme that.” With my free hand I took the disperser. “Time to get organized.”
“Hey, Caprice?” Tim asked just as I turned away. I huffed a sigh and turned back to him, arching a brow and waiting, impatient as the rest of my fellows. “Thanks for doing this.”
“I’m not doing it for thanks,” I said. “No one fucks with my city.”
“You fuck with the city,” he said.
I let go of the disperser, letting it hover there thanks to my teke. With my now free hand I jabbed a finger at him and snarled, “I don’t, and anyone who says I do lies. I pull jobs, sure, and I kill people, but they’re not the city. I don’t do anything that will hurt it.”
He held his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it,” he protested. “I just thought you were doing a good thing, and wanted to tell you so.”
“It’s not good,” I grumbled. “It’s practical.”
“Whatever you say.” I heard a smile in his voice, and narrowed my eyes at him, but his expression remained neutral.
Without anything else left to say, I went back to the various criminals gathered. A few had taken off, but that was to be expected. I set the disperser down, and levered myself up in the air a few feet, so I was hovering above the crowd by just a little bit.
“Listen up,” I shouted, then waited for the crowd to settle down and look at me. When they didn’t, I shouted even louder, “Hey, shut the fuck up, assholes!”
At that, the crowd quieted after a small wave of laughter. No one ever said organizing so many crooked individuals was easy. The whole idea about super villain teams was just that: an idea. Every once in awhile, someone got the idea to try it again, but there were so many alpha personalities amongst us black hats it never worked well for long.
Now that I had their attention, I went over the requirements, stressing that anyone who ran would lose the benefits of the deal, and about the tracker. I asked for a volunteer to examine it, and a slim blond haired man in glasses and a light grey trench pushed forward. “I’ll have a look,” he said with a weird not-quite-British accent as he reached into his coat and pulled out a small tool kit.
I handed it over, and then went on with detailing the plan. By this time, Septimus had run over a map to me, and I hovered that in the air beside me. We needed at least a dozen teams of two to five people apiece, but at least two. One had to watch the other’s back as they dispersed the chemical.
“It looks alright,” the not-quite-British accented man said. “It’s just a GPS tracker, that’s all. I didn’t see anything suspicious.” He handed it back to me, and I shook my head.
“Might as well keep it,” I replied. “If you have anyone you want to partner up with, now’s the time, folks, and move over to the right side. Solo people on the left. We’ll match people up in teams.”
With that, I lowered myself and the map, folding it up and tucking it away in a pocket. I was going to need it in just a minute. I handed the bag over to glasses, “Here, hand these out. Make sure everyone has one.”
“Richard,” he said. “Richard Erasmus.”
“I don’t care what your name is,” I snapped. “Just hand them out.”
The pale guy looked offended, but snatched the bag out of my hand and went to do as he was bid. “Who was that ass?” Rory asked from behind me.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Some tech guy, probably. Doesn’t matter. Stick with me, Wolf. Let’s get these people sorted out.”
It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, simply because only about half of them had powers which allowed for speedy travel… and who could carry other people along with them. That limited the choices considerably. We ended up with a lot of trios. As for myself, I kept Rory with me, and Rebekah. Both of them were more hand to hand--though vicious hand to hand--rather than blasting or cutting, so they’d more than likely end up watching my back as I cut with my teke. That was the theory anyway. Plus, I didn’t know what other black hats would think about the plant wolf and the former Nazi. It was better to keep them close by, just in case. Regulus took his assignment with strangers with grace, though I knew he wasn’t happy by the look in his eye. I think he thought he was going to be with me. Fuck that.
After that, it was a snap to assign the teams to the major branches. We had enough teams for our ‘half’ of the city that we were able to double up on some. With the admonishments not to act until the proper time and if they finished early to move on to the next one to help the next team out, the black hats took off. I glanced over to the other side of the lot. While they were more organized, we moved faster. There were still stragglers over there waiting for team assignments. I smirked to myself, feeling pleased that I had taken charge so well. It suited me.
That being said, I grabbed Wolf and the Siren and we flew to our location. I’d been so busy that I hadn’t seen the latest growth over and through the city, save for the one quick peek. It was much thicker than before. If people hadn’t been vigilant prior to this latest round of growth, their neighborhoods were completely subsumed by Pangea. If they had been? They still had a fighting chance keeping their doors and windows clear, but just a chance.
We landed on top of a pretty tall building, which was covered with vines, branches, leaves, and stank like cabbage. Wrinkling my nose up, I looked at Rory, “Anything you can do about this?”
He thought it over for a moment, then gestured at the vegetation. It moved away, clearing a spot for us to stand by the lip of the building, but that was all. The spot was maybe twenty feet across compared to what he’d done before.
“That’s all,” he said, huffing a little. “She doesn’t want to move.”
“What do you mean she?” Rebekah asked, her blue eyes wide. “You mean the plant? It’s a she?”
“I need to change,” Rory said, stripping down. Rebekah blushed and averted her eyes, looking out at the massive growth and trying to identify the root branch we were looking for. I watched him, not quite leering. We had another ten minutes or so before the signal, so I set the dispersal machine down and stretched.
When the fur burst from his skin, I couldn’t help but to watch him transform in fascination. I wished my ‘pathy was online so I could feel the change with him, but I remembered well what it had been like. Was it still the same for him, that boundless rage? Or was it different now? Focused on animals and simians only? Regardless, the method of his shifting had changed. No longer did he consume his own skin. Instead, the fur burst directly from him like a movie werewolf. It grew thick and lush as his bones cracked, reshaping themselves. The vines erupted from his arms and chest as well, circling around him before settling into his skin, embedding themselves so thick you’d have to remove chunks of him to get rid of them. His teeth didn’t fall out, but warped and changed. It was so alien compared to before. Maybe the pack had been right in kicking him out… he was different. This showed the differences weren’t just skin deep. Pangea had changed the way he was, what he was, on a genetic, psychic, and possibly metaphysical level.
Done, the tall plant wolf stood there. He growled, baring his teeth at me. I tensed. Now that he’d changed back, was he still on board? The wolf scented the air, and huffed at me. “You fearr,” he growled. “I know what you wish done, though the Motherr will not like it.”
“As long as you’re OK with it,” I said, pulling out my phone and glancing at the time. Just a few more minutes.
“It is foolish,” he began, but Rebekah interrupted.
“Hey, look, what’s that?” she said. When I looked her direction, she’d done her mystic what’s-it to change into her work clothing, complete with her night vision goggles down and gas mask up.<
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“What are you pointing at?” I asked as I moved over to peer the general direction she indicated. “I can’t see in the dark, you know.”
“There’s movement,” she said. “Things are… I don’t know. Bubbling.”
“Bubbling?” That was an adjective I wouldn’t have used for a plant.
“She has sensed something is wrrong,” Wolf stated, his deep, heavy voice reverberating softly in the air. “She is taking steps.”
“Crap,” I said, glancing at my phone again before securing it. “We’re early, but I think we’ve got to move. You found a likely location for the main branch?”
“Yah,” the Nacht Sirene said, moving her pointing finger a little over. “It’s close to where I saw the movement.”
“Ready to go?” I asked of the both of them. The Siren nodded, and I imagined she smiled broadly under the mask. Wolf rolled his shoulders in an uncaring shrug.
“Wherre you go, I follow,” he said, stating it as fact.
“Ramblers, let’s get rambling,” I said and grabbed both of them telekinetically. The flight was short and sweet as Sirene led me to a likely landing point. There weren’t any lights here, nor had there been for years. Much of the rest of the city matched it now, as Pangea left darkness in its wake. Cell phone reception had gone to shit all over in addition to sporadic power. Mine wasn’t the greatest here, but at least it still worked well enough to send and receive text messages. Any calls would likely drop.
Steeling myself, I landed us in the spot she indicated and let go of them. The ground pulsed with heat and energy, throbbing underfoot. It was uneven and rough in texture, almost like I was standing on….