Jackhammer, Corrine, Venom, and following his fellows closely, Wildcard stepped inside. An aide, I assumed, snuck in just as the door slid shut. Jackhammer looked pissed, Corrine looked furious, Wildcard's color scheme was subdued but angry, and Venom looked like she'd been crying.
Crap.
"What?"
Jackhammer waved his hand and the door closed with the expected mechanical musical note. "Someone attacked a trainin' center in northern California about an hour ago."
"Kinsey," I said, a slow rage beginning to bubble in my gut. "Son of a bitch."
"We ain't sure yet, but we want to know before we do anythin'."
I knew what he wanted me to say, what he expected of me, and why he expected me to do it. I knew what I wanted to do, what the voice inside me that I'd ignored for so long was screaming at me to do, but I had to hear him say it first. A quick look at Venom only made it worse. "And?"
His lips curled up in a very disgusted grimace. I could tell he almost couldn't bring himself to say what he was about to say to me. "And we need you to look into it."
I nodded. "And?"
"Goddamn it, son! They took Jessie!"
I'd liked Jessie. I hadn't spent enough time with her to form any kind of attachment to her, but the four people standing in front of me were so torn up at the thought of her being hurt, let alone killed, that I couldn't ignore it. I knew what was in store for her if Kinsey had grabbed her, but I also knew that if he had any idea who he had captured he'd keep his darker side in check and use her as a bargaining chip. It was me he was after, not her, but he knew he'd have to backdoor me to get to me.
There were very good reasons why I had tried to go through life with as few attachments and people as possible.
I'd demanded to know everything they knew and had been illuminated quickly on just how little information they had. The ultra-short version of what I got --- which was short to begin with --- was interesting. All the new Guild members and everyone who had refused to attend the memorial had been temporarily transferred to the training facility that had been attacked. The information wasn't made public and the location of the facility wasn't exactly common knowledge, so it sounded to me like either Kinsey got so goddamn lucky he should be playing the lottery or had been tipped off.
For some unknown reason the the in-house defenses weren't armed, so if it hadn't been for a norm staffer dragging himself more than the length of a football field with a belly wound that he still might not survive to fish his Guildphone out of his overnight bag, the whole thing might have gone unnoticed for two more days. Initial reports left forty-three norm staffers dead and at least ten of the Guild members killed as well. The actual count was pending as there weren't enough body parts attached to torsos to make an accurate determination.
Whoever had done it, not that I had any doubts as to the responsible parties, had come in so heavy they must have distorted the local gravity field. They'd been loaded for bear, rhinos, elephants, and probably whales just in case.
But this wasn't big game hunters after a prize. No, this was military. Shock and awe --- overwhelming force to knock and keep an opponent off balance.
Blitzkrieg, the Nazis had called it.
There was no question it was Alpha Zulu. Nobody else with a grudge could have summoned up the firepower with the speed required to have pulled something like this off other than the Confederation, and they'd have been crowing to the stars within five minutes of bugging out.
The only thing I wanted to know was where they'd come from. There might be a clue I could use on-site, so I had to get there ASAP, because the gods alone knew what a regular investigator would do with anything like that.
So I'd swallowed the bile and asked for a jumper.
Not like there was anything else I could really do.
"I don't care who it is, just someone who can get me there in less than five minutes. I want to be there while everything's fresh."
Jackhammer nodded, pulled his Guildphone from a pocket I didn't know he had, and opened it with a flip of his wrist. He stabbed a button I knew I didn't have on mine and spoke into it.
"Attention, attention, anyone who can hear me. This is Jackhammer callin' all jumpers payin' attention. I need one of y'all to get your skinny ass here pronto. This is a priority five, I repeat, priority five request, so whoever gets this first, you pull your cock out of your girlfriend's ass and get here without takin' a shower first."
Well put. "I have one question. That lieutenant who spoke at the memorial..."
"Don't worry. He was drunk and on a plane before Clarence even showed up."
"Good," I said, a minor note of relief clanging around in my head. The last thing I needed was to have pissed off someone with clout in the military. The chances of a junior officer having such clout was miniscule, but naval lieutenants had a nasty habit of becoming lieutenant commanders, commanders, and even captains. Some even reached the admiralty, though if it took that long for revenge something was wrong. "I didn't want any more trouble than I got."
That comment got me a five-second pause and an askance look. "Son, if you don't call beatin' the shit outta Clarence and wreckin' a good chunk of this buildin' trouble, I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about."
The air... bubbled. I felt a pressure against my cheek and in my ear for maybe half a second that began gently and quickly ramped up to painful, bordering on unbearable, and then with a sensation like a cross between a soap bubble popping and a bullet being fired next to my head it stopped. Less than arm's length away from me was a short, moderately chubby (but in all the right ways) woman with dark hair, a face that screamed an ethnicity that would have sent a Nazi reaching for a shotgun, and a tasteful blue jumpsuit that didn't quite hide the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra.
"I got here as fast as I could," she said in a matter-of-fact voice that indicated her familiarity with Jackhammer. "Not only didn't I shower I didn't have time to get more than this on before I jumped, so if this is some kind of gag I'm going to kick your ass before I go back to my husband and our girlfriend to let them finish."
Jackhammer flipped his phone open and stabbed his finger down again. I assumed onto the same button as before.
"Attention. Stand down from the priority five request earlier; Slider is here. Repeat; stand down from priority five request. Resume stage two alert until further notice."
"It really that bad, Jack?" Slider adjusted her breasts through her suit like nobody was there. I pegged her age at about forty-five, maybe fifty.
"It's worse, but I didn't want wind gettin' to the press. You know the Freedman trainin' facility?"
"I spent six months there before the joker you had running recruitment would let me get my card."
"I'll take that as a yes," I said, interrupting as politely as I could. "Can you get there from here?"
"Does a bear shit in the woods? I'm a fucking jumper, you moron. If I've been there I can get back." She didn't even look at me when she spoke. "Who is this loser and why is he here?"
"I'm your cargo," I said a little coldly.
"Says who?" she fired back, wheeling on me with a grace and purpose that made me think of military training.
"Says me," Jackhammer said, reaching over to put a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Says him, too, and if I were you I wouldn't make him mad. He just beat The Justice Fiend into a pulp."
She looked over her shoulder so she could see his face. "You pulling my leg?" Her voice quavered just enough there was no mistaking it.
"He broke his nose and his arm."
"Damn! Alright, I'll take him where he's gotta go. This got anything to do with the alert?" She started rubbing her hands together quickly, like she was trying to warm them up. Faint green sparks flew from her fingertips and I heard what I could only describe as a subtle ripping sound.
"Someone wiped out the entire facility," I said, taking a cue from Jackhammer's face. "I'm going there to see if I can find anything, which is why I need to get t
here now."
"Gotcha. There any danger or can I jump us in anywhere?"
"No danger whatsoever, but I'd rather come in somewhere outside of a building if we can. Preferably as close to the front door as possible."
"Done and done. Give me twenty seconds and I'll be ready."
Jackhammer stepped over to me and bent at the waist so he could whisper in my ear.
"Slider's one of our best and I mean it. Just be careful and don't tell her any more'n you have to, you hear?"
"Not a problem," I said patting his shoulder. "I'll be back as soon as possible."
"Good luck, son."
Slider smiled, grabbed my arm, and without so much as a "hold on" grabbed reality by the balls and twisted.
It wasn't pleasant.
It was difficult to describe the experience. I felt like I was being pulled and like I was being pushed, but most of all I felt like I was standing still. I felt like if I tried to hug the planet I'd find myself shaking hands with myself.
What came through the strongest, though, was the feeling like I was getting pushed through a fine-mesh sieve, sort of like over-cooked spaghetti, only I was reforming on the other side. It seemed to go on forever, but the instant it began it was over.
I fell to my knees and prayed the nausea and heaves weren't going to end with a puddle on the ground.
"Fucking virgins," Slider said sympathetically, pulling a box of cigarettes from a pocket. The smell of tobacco smoke helped ground me as the world tried to spin away.
"Not really," I said, gritting my teeth and breathing slowly. "I just don't react well to moving without moving."
"Whatever."
My stomach began settling in short order, so I was back on my feet in under a minute. Slider had said nothing, but had managed to puff her way through two cigarettes and was working on her third before I'd recovered sufficiently to do more than be glad I hadn't puked.
We'd arrived on a manicured lawn bordering four or five buildings --- I couldn't see if one of them was connected or not to a second one set beside it, but I wouldn't have bet against it --- upwind of the pile of bodies. I was grateful for that. Not that I was unused to the smell of voided bowels and blood, but it wasn't a pleasant experience.
Slider seemed unaffected by the view. I mentally added combat to the list of things she'd experienced, though I wasn't about to bet on it being while she was in the military or after she joined the Guild. It didn't really matter, either.
She flicked butt number three at me and I absently stopped it in midair.
"Don't you know littering is illegal?" I asked, looking for a place to deposit it appropriately.
"Ask me if I care, asshole." She scratched the side of her nose and smiled. "That is a neat trick, though." She straightened her jumpsuit by grabbing the cloth over her breasts and pulling. "It make finding the remote any easier?"
"No. Things have to be moving for me to do anything." I took a deep breath and was rewarded with no further nausea. "Once anything is in motion, though, I can do pretty much what I want with it." I let the butt drift closer to the ground and made it spin in a sideways figure-eight before launching it in a random direction so I didn't have to worry about it anymore.
"Neat. So, why are we here?" She coughed and gave the body pile a quick look. "Don't they have specialists for this kind of shit?"
"I'm sure," I said, trying to get a sense for what was up. There was something here that I had to see. I could feel it in my bones. "Jackhammer felt I was the best man for the job, though."
"You got some kinda sixth sense, then?"
"Not as such, no." There was no wall or fence, but there had to be some kind of security perimeter, some point of entry. "What's the security like here? Just cameras at important places or some kind of motion sensor setup?"
"Damned if I know. I haven't been here in years and I never needed to worry about sneaking out to break curfew." She exhaled a long plume of smoke. "Things might have changed since then anyway, don't you think?"
Right. Scratch that idea. "Of course."
Her presence was distracting me. I could feel her fidgeting behind me and it was throwing me off the proverbial scent.
"Maybe we'd better start off by getting a little dirty," I suggested, looking at the pile of body parts on the other side of the lawn. "I mean, most likely we're going to have to go digging anyway."
"What's this we shit, sunshine? You carrying a mouse in one of those pockets or do you really talk about your dick like it's another person? I'm a taxi on this little trip, nothing more."
I sighed. "If you're the taxi then you're going to be parked outside with the motor running. Right now that outside is just out of arm's reach and my arms are going to be over there. Capisce?"
"Yeah, I got you. Asshole."
"You already called me that," I said over my shoulder, walking away briskly. "If you want to be insulting you'd better be more creative."
"Would you prefer dickhead?" She appeared directly in front of me and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Yes, but it does tend to make me think you have a one-track mind." I stepped around her but didn't turn my head as I passed. "You could have done so much better, like shit-sucker, or even something more family friendly, like moron."
"Why promote you from retard, though?"
I shook my head. "I'm not even going to respond to that one."
She appeared in front of me again. "Aww, but it might be fun."
I stopped short of bowling her over. "Would you rather I called you something?"
She shrugged. "Might break the ice a bit, don't you think?"
I looked at her eyes and it dawned on me that she was nervous. That made a lot of things a lot clearer. "How about chain-smoking hag?"
She laughed. "Hag is a bit low-brow, don't you think?"
"Compared to asshole and dickhead? I think you set the bar pretty low with those two. Sinking lower would require limbo skills I gave up on the first day I got an erection."
She laughed again. "Point."
"Now if you'll excuse me, you fish-reeking sea cow, I need to go see what's left over there that might be useful."
She let me pass without another insult. A few dozen more steps put me close enough to the body pile to see that a few people had been having fun. Of course, it was stretching the word rather a lot to encompass that particular meaning.
I didn't need to get any closer to the bodies to see the bullet holes. Very few of them had given up without a fight, though it looked like some had been surprised when the assault had started. Goddamn it, it wasn't supposed to be that easy to kill supers! That's why the big game hunters were so damned expensive. These weren't run-of-the-mill one-offs, banging it in the back alleys of some third-rate city, these were trained Guild members. They were supposed to be the best the world had to offer.
The breeze picked up enough it started moving the hair on one of the heads near the top.
Whoever had been here had been looking for someone, probably someone specific. I still had no doubts as to Alpha Zulu's involvement, but that wasn't enough.
"This wasn't very well planned," I said suddenly, the idea appearing at my lips fully formed before my brain even knew it was there.
"What makes you say that?" Slider had lit another cigarette. I could see her fingers trembling as she brought the filter to her lips.
"It just feels sloppy. They were in too much of a hurry. Hit hard, hit fast, subdue what you can, and then see if whomever you came for is still alive."
"Yeah?"
"That's why the body pile. One person knew what they were looking for, and every body was brought by for inspection. Damned sloppy."
"Yeah, that's it." Sarcasm dripped off her voice like fat from a suckling pig roasting over a fire.
"It is. I saw it done once, just like that." The memory was intense but controllable. "My CO for that particular mission was under orders to capture the village chief, only we didn't know who it was, and the prick didn't both
er to give us non-lethal loadouts. Ever see what a triple-aught buckshot can do to someone at arm's length? Bastard was picking pieces of the man we were trying to find out of his hair for the next four days." I sighed. "Worst part is the CO was the one who pulled the trigger. He only got to compare faces to the picture he'd been issued at HQ after we'd secured the village. The bodies were laid out in a row and he after he'd ID'd the poor prick we'd been sent there to get, us grunts had to pile the rest of them up and burn them. I'd bet if we checked over there we'd find some kind of accelerant and probably a detonator that didn't go, though I'm surprised we can't smell the gasoline already."
"You sound pretty sure." I could hear the "without a damn thing to go on" that wasn't said. It sounded a lot like some rapid inhalations filtered through a lit cigarette.
"I shouldn't be, but I am. SOP for this kind of mission. Once you're done you burn the bodies to confuse the enemy. Now, if I can just get something to prove that who did it is who I think it is, we'll be set."
"Good luck with that." She pulled yet another cigarette from the pack and lit it. If she smoked that heavily in her off-duty hours I prayed for her lungs.
Okay, I wasn't going to convince her without something like a business card with the name and address of the attackers, but even then I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that she'd say it was a plant.
Whatever. I wasn't there to please her. The only people I had to convince were me, myself, and I.
And Jackhammer, but he already knew who did it, same as me.
The sun was going down, so whatever I was going to do I needed to do fast. Well, faster than I'd been doing it, at any rate. The whole reason I was there was to find something only I could find or interpret correctly, and to get it done as quickly as possible. So far; not having such good results.
So, what did I know? They were rushed. A rush job implied sloppiness, which meant the cleanup wasn't complete. That meant I was more likely to find something incriminating. It would be small because even in a rush job they'd take the big stuff, but the more rushed they were the sloppier their cleanup, and the sloppier their cleanup the bigger the items would be that fall under the heading of "too small to look for". That was a win in my book, but only if I could find it.
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