Chapter 37
Gavin got what was probably the easiest task: get everybody in the school to the destroyed vortex gate. Of course, there were sub-tasks involved, which included getting the faculty and staff out of the nullifiers, getting the rest of the students organized, etc. Still, he was able to get started on his job at least an hour before the rest of us as we made our plans to infiltrate Manny’s Garage.
Needless to say, I couldn’t teleport us there. Other than what I had glimpsed from inside the vortex, I had never seen the place. Moreover, we didn’t know what kind of reception would be awaiting us. That said, I could get us fairly close.
We had a map of the garage’s location, so I knew the direction we needed to head in. I looked that way and telescoped my vision. A residential area came into view; I teleported us to the backyard of a small house there. Looking again in the proper direction, I could now see Manny’s Garage. It sat in an area around other skilled trades such as plumbing and electrical shops, on a street that ran north-south.
Outside of Manny’s, I noticed quite a number of armed guards milling around. I watched for a few minutes, but didn’t see any patrols. In fact, the guards appeared downright disengaged, as if they were merely biding time. They obviously knew they were leaving and were probably anxious to do so. No one wanted to wander too far and get stranded (and Schaefer didn’t strike me as a no-man-left-behind type of guy).
I didn’t see any of the bigwigs – Pace, Aldiss, Estrella, or Schaefer. That meant that they were probably inside. I teleported us to the back side of an ancient, crumbling warehouse a few blocks away from the garage.
Everyone knew their roles. Kane and Gossamer were to draw off as many of the guards as possible. Li and I would then slip inside, where he would alter the vortex coordinates (although he felt he could also handle Pace, Aldiss, and Schaefer, if necessary). My job was to engage Estrella; with her suite of powers, I was the only one who could.
Gossamer and Kane wished us luck, then took off towards the north end of the warehouse. Li and I went in the other direction. Then we crept over furtively, block by block, towards the garage. Stealth probably wasn’t necessary, however; the guards I’d seen earlier didn’t even have anyone on watch. (They probably thought we had no way to find them.)
After a few minutes, we found ourselves on the south-facing wall of a building that sat on the same street as Manny’s Garage. Peeking around the corner, I saw the guards in pretty much the same position as before. I checked my watch; we had about two minutes to kill – enough time for a little recon.
“Wait here,” I said to Li. I went invisible, then flew down the street to the garage. Phasing in through the window, I saw a huge workspace - at least twenty thousand square feet in size. There were a number of cars parked willy-nilly throughout the place, a few other vehicles under tarps, and a station wagon hoisted up on a hydraulic lift. A large industrial magnet hung down from the ceiling at the south end of the roof. Finally, there was a long row of windows - running almost the length of the building - with the words “MANNY’S GARAGE” painted on them in large letters. (I took a certain amount of pride in noting that some of the glass was broken out of the windows, including the top portion of the R in the word “garage.”)
The vortex gate was set up against one of the walls, next to a copious amount of hi-tech machinery. A group of three men who I assumed to be technicians were checking the equipment, apparently prepping the gate for activation. A small crowd of about a dozen men and women in lab coats - clearly the CDC team - stood near the middle of the room, chatting amiably and trying to stay out of the way of the technicians. Near the back of the room were a couple of supervisor offices, one of which had a glass window (presumably to let the boss keep an eye on things in the shop). Pace, Estrella, Aldiss, and Schaefer were in there now.
Schaefer was sitting behind the only desk in the room, speaking while fiddling around inside a briefcase in front of him. The others stood, facing him. I flew over and phased through the wall, staying above the room’s occupants.
“-derstand what your problem is,” Schaefer was saying. “Dead is dead.”
“I wanted to do it myself!” shouted Estrella, white light pulsing angrily around her.
“So did I,” said Schaefer, “but you don’t see me crying about it.”
I didn’t need three guesses to figure out who they were talking about.
“Look,” Pace said to Estrella, playing peacemaker, “you wanted Kid Sensation dead, and he’ll be dead. And by being part of this, you’re bringing it about. In that sense, you are killing him.”
Estrella wasn’t buying it. “There’s no satisfaction in this! I wanted to look into his eyes when it happened. I wanted him to know that it was me, that I was the cause of his death. But this? We’re running away like rats!”
“Rats survive,” said Pace. “And we can’t afford to be here any longer. It might even be too late right now.”
Aldiss went a little pale at that. Estrella merely stormed out of the room.
“Done,” announced Schaefer. He turned to Aldiss. “Now, Doctor, are you sure there’s no way to override the fifteen-minute delay?”
Aldiss shook his head. “No, the tech who handled that portion was Morton. He built in the delay just in case the person pushing the button changed his mind.”
“Change my mind about killing supers?” Schaefer asked rhetorically. “Unlikely. Supers killed my family.” He stared off into space for a second before continuing. “Anyway, where’s Morton now?”
“I believe you had him shot,” said Aldiss.
Schaefer looked at Pace, who confirmed. “You did.”
“Hmmm…tough break,” said Schaefer, looking unbothered. Then he stood up. “Well, gentlemen, we have a quarter of an hour to get off this rock.” Then he left the room, leaving the open briefcase on the desk.
Pace started to follow, but Aldiss grabbed his arm.
“He’s insane,” said Aldiss. “You do know that?”
“People could say the same of you, Doctor,” replied Pace, smiling. “Especially in light of this monster virus you designed.”
“I was only trying to explore the boundaries of science. He’s beyond that. His need for revenge almost got us killed!”
“You mean Adam Atom? Yes, he probably did go overboard on that kid, exciting his metagene like that. But if that kind of thing bothers you, maybe - in addition to a delay before full activation - you guys should also have equipped the control module with an abort option. Oh wait - Morton was working on that when Schaefer had him shot. Too bad; without an abort switch, once the button is pressed, it can’t be stopped. The metagene of every infected super will go haywire soon.”
I almost screamed. I swooped down and looked at the open briefcase Schaefer had left on the desk. There was a complex computer device inside, with a monitor and keyboard. The screen displayed a countdown.
13:44
13:43
13:42
Even worse, there was a flashing message that stated “Kill Switch Overridden.” In short, the kill switch couldn’t be activated, and - based on Pace’s statements - there was no way to abort the countdown.
“Please!” Aldiss was saying. “You’ve been the voice of reason this entire mission. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To keep that madman under control. That’s why you’re the one who usually does all the talking, because anyone hearing him speak would know he’s crazy inside two minutes!”
“Doctor, I like you,” Pace said, placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, “but you should be very aware of the acoustics when you raise your voice like that. You never know who might hear you.”
If possible, Aldiss became paler than before. I teleported back to Li.
“Were you able to learn anything?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re further up the creek than we thought.”
I explained to him about the countdown. He just nodded, without saying anything. Then we stood silently,
waiting for the signal.
Come on…come on.
Suddenly, there was a sound like a muffled explosion from the north end of the street - presumably the distraction created by Kane and Gossamer. The guards all came to attention, weapons ready. Then one of the guards went down with a grunt, and the rest opened fire towards that end of the street, shooting indiscriminately. That was my cue.
I shapeshifted into Schaefer and appeared behind the rearmost guard in the group. I clearly wasn’t dressed as Schaefer was, but people tend to notice the face and not the clothes. I hoped that was true in this case as I tapped the guard on the shoulder. Startled, he stopped firing, but I saw recognition in his eyes when he looked at me.
“What are you waiting for???!!” I screamed, spewing spittle in his face. “Go after them!!!”
“Yes, sir!” the guard acknowledged, wiping his face. Then he screamed and went charging towards the north end of the street.
“All of you!” I shouted, and several more guards turned to look at me. “Go! Go! Go!”
A few seconds later, they were all running down the street, firing.
I looked behind me, where Li had stepped out from hiding. Knowing that we were on a tight time schedule, I took a chance and teleported us both to the office inside the garage. My hunch had been right; everyone was racing over to the side of the garage facing the street to find out what all the commotion was about, letting us arrive unnoticed. I pushed Li down out of sight and turned invisible.
“That’s just great,” I muttered sarcastically. “They’re not leaving! I was hoping they’d all run outside but most are just looking out the windows.”
“Perhaps you could provide some incentive,” Li said. I looked at him to see what he was talking about and saw him holding out a handgun in my direction.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, reaching to take the gun.
“I removed it from one of the guards you found me with in the stairwell earlier.”
“Way to think ahead,” I said. “Get ready; here we go.”
I teleported Li down by the vortex equipment, then became visible and stepped out of the office. Everyone’s back was to me. I screamed and began firing over the heads of the crowd, into the windows of the garage.
I only fired a couple of shots, but the sound was deafening in the enclosed space. People began screaming and running for the exits - including Pace and Aldiss – as glass rained down around them. The only person who stood their ground was Estrella, light shimmering around her. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t seen Schaefer, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
“There’s my date,” Estrella said, grinning mischievously. “I was afraid you were going to stand me up.”
From where she was positioned, I didn’t think Estrella could see Li (there was a tarp-covered vehicle shielding him from her view) and I needed to keep it that way. I shifted into super speed and charged her.
Unlike our previous encounter, there was no one here to predict my moves or make her insubstantial. I caught her in the midsection with my shoulder, then slammed her into a wall.
At super speed, I rarely ever hit anything with my bare hand; it’s a good way to end up with broken bones. Some speedsters don’t care, though; they’re so hopped up on adrenaline that they don’t feel the pain, and their metabolisms are so high that they heal almost immediately. I didn’t feel like testing that theory, and I was in no position to deal with a broken hand, so – while it may not sound gallant – I pistol-whipped Estrella with the gun I was still holding. Then again. And a third time.
Before I could get a fourth turn at bat, she vanished. She had obviously teleported, and my first thought was to check on Li. I’d barely turned my head in his direction when a crushing weight fell on me. Estrella had teleported above me.
Her weight bore me down to the ground, where she cupped my head in her hands, lifted and then smashed it against the concrete floor. I immediately saw stars, feeling as if someone had just put my skull in a car compactor. I tore a page out of her playbook and teleported.
I didn’t go far, just a few feet away. I needed to keep her preoccupied so that Li could finish. I raised the gun and fired as she turned in my direction. The light around her body intensified and the bullets seemed to dissolve. At the same time, I became violently ill. I clutched my stomach, doubled over, and threw up.
I was still heaving when Estrella appeared beside me. She kneed me in the face, a move that sent me soaring backwards before landing hard enough to knock the wind out of me and crack my skull on the floor again. Two things happened almost simultaneously then.
First, a jagged red line appeared in the air behind Estrella. I recognized it as the spatial scar I’d first seen in my dorm room. Then Gossamer and Kane stepped through it.
At the same time, I heard gunfire coming from Li’s direction. I painfully lifted my head from the floor and looked in his direction. Schaefer was there, holding what appeared to be a shotgun. He fired, sending Li staggering back in my direction. A second shot knocked him off his feet. From where I was, it appeared that the shots had severely damaged Li’s stomach and the left side of his face. Li didn’t move.
I struggled to my hands and knees, head spinning. When I tried to rise, nausea hit me like a tsunami and I collapsed back down. At this point, Gossamer and Kane were taking on Estrella. Gossamer had her daggers crossed in front of her, forming her shield as Estrella fired a laser at her. Kane, standing diagonal to Estrella, fired a sphere of light at her, but she teleported, appearing next to him. She gripped his wrists, and suddenly the air was filled with Kane’s anguished screams and the smell of cooking flesh. Then she flung him to the side like a toy, sending him crashing into the door of a nearby SUV. Kane flopped over onto the ground like a dead chicken and didn’t move.
Over by Li, Schaefer was reloading, muttering something about “freaking robot.” Unexpectedly, Li moved. His arm swung in a wide arc, sweeping Schaefer’s legs out from under him. Schaefer hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. Li stood up, wires and circuitry exposed, then bent over, grabbed Schaefer by the shirt, and flung him into the wall. Schaefer hit hard enough to crack the plaster, then fell down to the floor, out of sight, behind one of the cars. Li went back to work on the vortex equipment.
Near me, Gossamer was fighting Estrella, trying to get at her with her daggers, but it was a lost cause. She knew she couldn’t win, but she fought anyway. She spared a second to give me a concerned glance, and that’s when I realized that Gossamer wasn’t trying to win. She was simply trying to buy time. For me. Because I was the only one who could really face Estrella. With that in mind, I focused - trying to take control of all my bodily functions to combat the nausea, despite my throbbing head - and struggled to my feet.
Estrella teleported behind Gossamer, firing lasers at the elf’s hands. Gossamer’s daggers went flying. Estrella gripped Gossamer by her hair, twisting the latter’s head until they were almost face to face.
Oddly enough, I was still holding the gun. I hadn’t fully conquered the nausea, but I raised the weapon and fired. I couldn’t tell if any hit Estrella, but she just laughed.
“Don’t you get it?” she asked, chuckling. “I’m a star, like the sun! You can’t kill a star!”
Her words triggered something in my brain, something I tried to remember – a conversation of some sort. Without warning, it came to me. I forgot about my nausea and concentrated on a new train of thought.
Estrella turned her attention back to Gossamer. “As for you, girlfriend, you hit me in the face with my own laser before. And I just happen to believe in an eye for an eye…”
Estrella pointed a finger at the right side of Gossamer’s face and made a downstroke motion. Gossamer screamed, her body convulsing almost spasmodically.
“And now the other one,” Estrella said. She raised her hand, then stopped. She looked in my direction with a curious expression, then let go of Gossamer (who collapsed to the floor) and placed a hand to her ches
t, gasping. I kept concentrating, staying focused since my plan seemed to be working. Forgotten, Gossamer crawled slowly across the floor towards Kane, who was just coming to.
Estrella raised a trembling hand at me. “What are you doing???!!!” she screamed. She fired a laser at me, but her hand was shaking so badly that she missed. (Which is a good thing, because I was focusing so hard that I forgot to become insubstantial.)
“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop it!!!”
My phasing power actually had several components. I could make things insubstantial, so they could pass through solid objects like ghosts; I could also return them to their normal state. In addition, I could make physical objects more substantial – increasing their weight and density beyond what was natural for them. I had never done the latter with anything or anyone other than myself, but I was doing it now to Estrella. If BT’s theory was right, she could be made to collapse under her own weight and density – two elements which I was now increasing substantially.
Estrella lifted her head up and let out an ear-splitting, undulating scream that shattered the remaining glass in the window. Then she vanished.
Gossamer and Kane were now huddled together. Gossamer sported an unsightly wound that went from just above the middle of her right eyebrow, across her eye, and almost straight down to the middle of her cheek. I couldn’t see her eye itself – the lid seemed soldered shut – but it could not be good. Kane’s wrists looked ugly and charred, like barbecue left on the grill too long.
The sound of a ricochet near my feet made me instinctively crouch. It had come from near the vortex equipment. When I looked in that direction, I saw Schaefer – bloodied and with a crazed look in his eye – on the far side of Li, firing an assault rifle wildly.
“Get out!” I shouted at Gossamer and Kane, who had just gotten to their feet. They didn’t wait to be told twice. Gossamer raised a glowing hand and her daggers flew to her, and then they scrambled out the door.
Down by Li, I saw the vortex gate light up. Any second now, if Li knew what he was doing, the vortex tunnel at the Academy should open. We had to leave.
The Kid Sensation Series Box Set Page 35