by Tom Andry
The armored man looked toward Doe, "And this settles our debt."
"As long as he returns safely."
"I don't guarantee..."
Doe put up a hand, "Yes, yes, I understand. Caveats aside. You hold up your end and I'll consider us even."
I turned to Doe, "Even?"
"I designed some of the systems in his armor and bike."
"Ah."
I stepped over the runners and sat in the seat behind the armored man. There was a sort of padded saddle that kept me from having to scoot up directly behind him; something I guessed would be very uncomfortable at speed. As I sat, two bars extended to the sides of the center horn of the saddle. Obvious handlebars.
"Grab on. There are foot pegs on either side. Use them." His manner was businesslike, but not gruff.
I complied, looking to either side for the pegs before placing my hands on the bars. The moment I did, I felt a tingling in my palms. My reaction was to pull away, but I found I could not. "Umm..."
"Don't worry. It'll be over in a moment."
I looked down and saw the armor plates of the bike starting to extend out and over my legs. They continued all the way up to my hips and onto my torso. In moments, I was cocooned in armor plating. It was pitch black inside the cocoon and all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing.
"Okay," the voice rattled around the cocoon, "do you want to be able to see outside or are you the type that holds his eyes shut during rollercoasters?"
I gulped, "See, please."
"Are you sure? It can get a bit intense."
"Yeah."
My vision cleared as if someone drew the blinds on my faceshield. We were already moving. Where before I was seeing supers and vehicles as colorful streaks, now the streaks were the buildings and other structures. With the return of my vision, the sensation of movement came back, but it was very muted. We dove in and out of traffic with reckless abandon, occasionally bumping off nearby supers and vehicles.
"Oh my," I managed.
I found I could move again and glanced down. I was in a similar suit of armor as John, though my hands were locked in place on the bike. I could still turn side to side and had a pretty wide field of vision. The only odd sensation, other than being incased in armor, was that during John's turns, the armor would move to best balance the bike, no matter what I did.
Walker started talking, "The Super City was conceived by the Bulwark and designed by the man known as Doe as a new, central meeting place for supers. The purpose of the Super City is to give supers a safe haven, a place to go where their identities are safe, where they can practice and hone their skills, and where they can meet with other supers in a judgment-free environment. It's much bigger than we currently need, of course, but we're finding more supers every day."
"Uh...what are you doing?" We dove between two RVs with gun turrets on the sides and tops. I couldn't tell if they were firing at each other or not.
"Just giving you the nickel tour. To help pass the time."
"Shouldn't you be," a super jumped across three lanes of traffic directly across our front glowing wheel thing, "concentrating?" I squawked.
"I am. Where was I? Oh yes. The Super City is twenty-four and a half miles across and generally hovers six and a half miles above the earth. This is by design as it makes the City easily visible, but not so large that it will risk damaging native fauna and crops."
One vehicle in front of us sideswiped another. John had to slam on the brakes and swerve around them.
I gulped, "Seems awfully large to me."
"Perhaps. But the intent was that it would look no larger than twice the size of the moon in the night sky."
"Huh." I looked over my left shoulder. We were passing most vehicles and supers, but not all. Some were still just a blur as they rushed by. I didn't want to think about how fast they were going. "Let me ask you a question," I interrupted Walker's monologue.
"Yes."
"What color USB would you think would be least likely to be attacked?"
"Green, of course. No one wants to piss off a healer."
"Beside them. What color would offer a measure of protection, but not have supers bugging you all the time?"
Walker paused, "If you weren't me? Yellow."
"Yellow, huh?" I glanced down at my arm. "Can I use my hands or what?"
John nodded and my hands released.
I pawed at my wrist until it opened to reveal the USB. The gloves made it difficult, but I started cycling through the colors as Ted had shown me, looking for yellow. "Wait," I paused on some sort of teal, "what do you mean, 'If I weren't you'?"
"Well..." Walker paused, "there's sort of a thing going on right now. A contest if you will."
"I'm not going to like this, am I?"
"It doesn't have anything to do with you. I just had a few too many super rum and cokes one night and bet a few supers that they couldn't stop one of my deliveries."
"A few?"
"A bar full."
"How full?"
"Very...plus, it seems I told them to tell their friends."
"Oh, great." I stopped, thinking. "How long ago was this?"
"Two months."
"And have they succeeded?"
He laughed, "Of course not."
"Well, that's something, I suppose," I continued cycling through the colors. I finally found yellow.
"The entrance is coming up. Are you ready? They won't let you in with a League-coded USB."
"Don't worry about that. Let's go."
We had to slow down to what I would consider only break-neck speed for the main tunnel into Proving Ground. The large, red field loomed over us, blotting out my entire field of view. The tunnel into Proving Ground was easily ten stories high and seventy feet across. Supers and vehicles poured in and out at a furious pace. We were by far the slowest going through.
"Are you sure? If the system rejects you, it could be...messy."
I didn't want to think about what that might mean. Ted had promised me universal access. I had no reason to disbelieve him. It was for his own benefit to give us what he promised. That was the key with Ted and with supers in general; as long as it served their interest, they'd do anything for you. It was when you went against what they wanted that you needed leverage. I had both going for me with Ted.
At least, I hoped.
I swallowed away that nagging doubt at the back of my mind. "Don't worry. I'm sure. Let's go."
Still Walker slowed. We pulled to the side, near the wall, and I noticed that across the mouth of the tunnel was another shimmering field, this one white. We passed through it slowly, Walker questioning me when we got to the other side.
"I'm fine. See, nothing to worry about."
"Huh. Well, I don't know about that. You haven't been inside yet."
There were three more security fields of increasing brightness and opacity. The final one was so bright I had to turn my head. The sidewalls, like the street, were constructed out of seamless steel plates laid out like asphalt. I supposed little else could take the abuse the supers and their vehicles dished out. I knew that the Super State was constantly repairing roads in cities all over the world because of extra wear and tear. And that didn't even take into account buildings, cars, payouts for injured bystanders...
It was unreal. We had passed through the final barrier and had pulled off to the side. Proving Ground was sunken into the Super City by about twenty feet. The wall around the base of the red field was nearly thirty feet high behind us and a somewhat gentle slope led down to the Proving Ground proper. It was a city within a city. Skyscrapers, located in the center of Proving Ground, dotted the red skyline. They were surrounded by buildings of various shapes and sizes, all looking to mimic regular buildings. Hospitals, shopping centers, apartment complexes. There were even subdivisions that could have been plucked from any city in any state...practically any country.
But the outline and general design was where the similarities ended.
&
nbsp; Post-apocalyptic would be a mild descriptor. Supers flew, ran, teleported, and jumped all around. I saw vehicles chasing each other through debris-laden streets. Fiery explosions occurred every few seconds and the damage to buildings and the surroundings was catastrophic. A huge explosion shook the bike so hard my head slammed against the inside of my helmet. As I watched, the tallest of the skyscrapers started to topple, knocking another down with it. Supers rushed to the site, some trying to stop the destruction while others looked to hasten it. One figure attempted to jump up the falling chunks. He didn't make it very far before being knocked from the sky by a huge, falling disc.
"Damn," was all I could manage.
Smoke and dust clouds were everywhere. Fires raged out of control. There was a whole section of town off to the left that was covered in a huge ice dome. Not covered by it - encased. It was as if a glacier had taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in downtown Los Angeles. The mountain of ice was half as tall as the building that had just fallen and came to a steep point. I squinted my eyes and spied a small figure on top.
"What's the deal with the ice guy?"
"Gorgon? Oh, you don't want to mess with him."
"Gorgon? Is that his real name?"
"Yep."
"Like the Medusa thing? He knows that was turning to stone, right? And not actual freezing?"
Walker's sigh sounded like static, "I doubt he even knows Medusa was a woman. Come on, you ready?"
I shrugged, "Ready? What can I do?"
"Make sure your hands are secured and try not to wet yourself. This is probably going to get a bit..."
A dust cloud rolled toward us and out of it stepped a figure. The spandex-clad man was slight, even by tippy standards, with a costume that fit him snuggly enough to show that he had no muscles to speak of. His hair and skin were dusted white from the cloud. His eyes and mouth were covered by a sort of breathing apparatus that looked to be part gas mask, part armor. His entire body was surrounded by a very faint red glow.
"Walkersssss," the voice wafted over us like a noxious cloud. "Sssso glad to sssssee you againsssss."
There was a slight twitch of tension in his shoulders and the cloud solidified into a spike the size of a small tree. It shot toward us as Walker brought the bike into motion. The runners that we had landed on, and that had been at my feet the entire journey into Proving Ground, broke into three different pieces on each side and started orbiting around the bike. The javelin sped toward us as Walker kicked the bike out to the side. One of the runners slammed into the javelin and the two exploded in a flash of light.
"Whoa!" I yelled, the tail of the bike kicking out with the impact, "What the hell was that?"
"Ablative plating. Don't worry; it'll regenerate. But we have to get a move on before the others arrive."
"Others?" I looked behind us and the super in the cloud was speaking into his USB. "Oh."
Walker tore through the half-destroyed city and many ground-bound supers. Most of these supers glowed red like the dust guy, but other colors were evident. Blue and green most often, but there were yellows, oranges, and others. There looked to be variations on some colors as well, hues, but I couldn't guess how anyone could take the time to figure out the exact color in this warzone.
The bike bounced as if we'd run over a three-foot tall speed bump. I looked behind me, and the ground was cracking as if we were being chased by one of those cartoon earthquakes. Suddenly, out of the crack shot a figure surrounded by a sphere of fire. His costume was black, or at least it was in contrast with the sphere of fire, and he soared fifteen feet into the air. His palms shot forward three times, each releasing a comet of flame. He then leaned forward with his arms out and dove back into the ground.
"Don't worry about him," Walker's voice sounded calm. I hoped he actually was, "he can't fly. Just tunnel."
I glanced up at the plating that had caught the three blasts. They were melted almost completely away, "Are we going to make it?" I couldn't keep the fear out of my voice.
Walker laughed, "Of course. Harsh Reality isn't really much of a threat."
"His name is Harsh Reality?" I scoffed.
Walker didn't answer. We continued weaving in and out. Supers popped up here and there, all of them taking shots at us. Walker navigated them all, and I watched as the plating regenerated. Whatever energy the plates absorbed would be used to regrow additional plates. Extra energy was dissipated by deflection and the destruction of the impacted plate. It was an ingenious design, according to Walker, who talked about it at length as I reevaluated my decision to see through the protective armor.
I wasn't sure if Walker was taking the long way to avoid additional confrontations or as part of his tour. The damn guy never shut up. Telling me all about the design of his armor and bike, the safety protocols for the City, and all about the history of the Super State. I didn't listen. I was too busy watching what was going on outside. Walker's bike had a great suspension system, or whatever it was that was keeping me from feeling most of the movement, but when Harsh Reality opened up a sinkhole in front of us and we had to do some sort of rocket-assisted jump over it, I could still feel my stomach in my shoes.
It did give me the opportunity to see just what was going on. Red-glowing supers were beating the stupid out of each other while others, surrounded in a green glow, healed them and sent them back in. Groups of supers glowing different hues of blue were repairing everything from damaged buildings to the cracks that Harsh Reality had opened up. We passed by the glacier and fire-based supers all around were trying to break it down while a huge super, presumably Gorgon, sat on top, laughing manically.
Finally, we arrived. Or, at least, I thought we had. Walker took the bike inside a large building and toward the stairs. We twisted and turned through dozens of flights. My stomach spun with the view, and I eventually had to close my eyes. When I opened them again, we were on some floor that looked, from the windows on the far side of the room, to be very high up.
"Um, no offense. But this doesn't look like any place called Snow."
John didn't respond and continued staring out of the window in front of us.
I followed his gaze, but could see nothing but the red field, "So what are we doing up here? After what I saw happened to that other building, I'm not sure..."
"Shhh..."
I quieted down. Usually, I'd object or at least make some sort of quip, but I honestly didn't want to distract the man.
"Just one question: can this bike fly?"
"No. Why?"
"Because I don't think we're going back down those stairs."
Walker turned and looked behind him. Electricity crackled up the stairs, filling the doorway. "Damn. Looks like it is the hard way."
"Wait? This wasn't the hard way?"
Walker gunned his bike and it shot off like a missile. Once again the bike rocketed forward and up and we catapulted through the window and into open air. I was so surprised, I forgot to scream.
Walker had forgotten to turn off the speaker in my helmet. "Gorgon. Open it."
The responding voice cracked like ice under warm water, "Bite me, Walker. You know the rules."
"I know this." Walker reached down and pulled a sword the size of a small European country out of the side of the bike. It was constructed out of the same armor plating as the bike except it had an edge that glowed so bright it was hard to look at. The sword was so ridiculously oversized that I almost didn't notice that our trajectory was taking us into a crash course with the glacier.
"Open it or I'll open it." John flicked his wrist and the sword's handle angled down as the blade opened into four smaller blades with a large gap between them. The glowing edge switched to inside the gap. Between the four blades, a ball of energy started to form.
"Damn you, Walker. You'll pay for this."
"So you keep telling me."
Near the top of the glacier, a small hole melted away. It was, from where I was sitting, far too small. John slapped the gun
sword on the side of the bike and it stuck with a loud, metallic clang. I could see the armor of the bike start to absorb the gunsword. We entered the hole with Walker's ablative plating slamming into the walls to center us in the chute. After a moment, which probably represented going through twenty feet of solid ice, we exited into air. Walker pulled hard on the bars and the bike slowly righted itself. With a sickening sensation in my stomach, he slowed our descent to a speed that wouldn't turn us into puddles of red. Still, the landing was pretty jarring.
The inside of the glacier was a stark contrast to the outside. There were buildings, but they were mostly constructed out of ice. No, not constructed. Grown. They were small and functional and reminded me of the sort of mining towns you'd see in a Western movie. Walker brought the bike to a crawl and we passed between a number of buildings toward what must have been the center of town. Supers were around, but most wore coats and they glowed yellow.
"Yellow. I thought that meant delivery or something?"
"Non-combatant. Doesn't guarantee you won't be attacked, but it means you aren't looking for a fight. In here, only a madman goes red."
"Oh yeah? Why?"
He looked back at me for the first time since the armor closed around me, "Because it takes someone like me to get in." He pulled the gunsword off the side of the bike and flicked his wrist again. It reconfigured to the oversized sword. He threw the sword in the air and caught it backhanded. With a deft movement, he slid the sword behind him across his back.
I thought about that. I was surrounded by Bulwark-level supers. And since there were illegal dealings going on, probably not the nice type.
My kind of place.
"This is it."
I looked. We were parked in front of a two-story building with the word "Snow" glowing blue on the front above the door. The door was made of transparent ice while the walls, like all the other buildings in town, were more translucent. You could see light and the occasional shadow on the other side, but not details.
Through the doors, I could make out bodies milling around inside. Holding drinks. Sounds of laughter and music floated out the door.
I looked at Walker, "Seriously? A bar? I swear, you supers must visit clichés-are-us when you are setting up your hideouts and fronts."