by Nick Svolos
As they left, Ben continued, “OK, I think our best bet is to find the team. Even with the cops, we won’t be able to do much against these guys. Steve, can you start going floor by floor and see who you can find?”
The technician went to work. After a couple of minutes, he got a hit. “Ultiman and SpeedDamon are in the briefing room. Looks like both are in stasis bubbles.” He tapped a few commands into his keyboard, “I can’t release them. My overrides aren’t going through.”
My spirits rose. If we could get Ultiman back in the game, this would be over pretty quick. “Where’s the briefing room?”
“Forty-first floor.”
“Which means we get zapped coming out of the stairwell, right?” I frowned.
Ben confirmed my statement with a nod. He turned back to the tech. “OK, let’s keep checking. There’s gotta be someone we can get to. Check the residence floors. Maybe someone was trapped while they were sleeping.”
While Steve went about the process of overriding the sensors on each of the residence floor, I asked Ben, “Which floors are those?”
“Each of the team members has their own floor. Twenty-nine through thirty-seven,” he replied. He looked at me and added, “Herculene’s on thirty-one.”
I filed the information away. “Thanks.”
Steve continued to work through the floors. “Here we go. Suave is trapped in his quarters on the thirty-fourth floor. Looks like he’s in bed. Probably got caught in his sleep. The system keeps stunning him every time he starts to come around.”
Ben looked over Steve’s shoulder, “Anything on Mentalia’s floor?”
“No, it looks empty,” Steve said at last.
“She might still be in there. Herculene told me how the security systems don’t look in the bathrooms,” I said. “As for Herculene, I’d be willing to bet she’s in Archangel’s room. She seemed pretty bent on destroying it when she left.”
“Easy enough to check,” Steve said. After a few seconds he confirmed my guess, “Yup, there she is. She must have put up a fight, she’s in a stasis field. Whoa, look at that power spike. She’s still fighting it.”
I smiled with pride. That’s my girl.
Ben said, “OK, we know where they are. How do we get them out?”
I had an idea on that. “Archangel controls the weapon systems through all the stairwells and elevators, and Archdemon controls them on the floors themselves, right?” Steve nodded and I continued, “Alright, so our goal should be to get them into the stairwell.”
Steve caught the ball and ran with it. “The weapon systems will still attack them. I’ll restore the profiles from a backup, and Archangel should recognize them. If you get them to a stairwell, or even the elevator shaft, we’re golden.”
Ben thought it through and added, “That still leaves the problem of us getting in and breaking them out of Archdemon’s control. Can we move them while they’re in a stasis field?”
Steve shook his head. “No, the field is basically a static electricity construct. They surround the subject’s body and make it impossible to move. That’s why Suave isn’t in one. He could use his blast powers if he was awake, maybe break out through a window or something, so the system’s keeping him unconscious. If your powers are strength or speed-based, the stasis field works great. Anyhow, if you tried to touch them, you’d just get electrocuted. The voltage is pretty high, and it gets higher the more they fight against it.”
I asked, “OK, so what about grounding it out, or shielding them somehow?”
“Grounding could work. There’s a lot of charge in the field, though. It could damage them. You probably want to put a resistor in the circuit. I’m afraid I don’t really know for sure. The physics are beyond what I learned in school. As for shielding, you could rig something up, if you had time. Like cover them with some sort of conductive material and ground it so the charge just goes straight to ground. Might even short the projector out,” he said hopefully.
Ben nodded, “There are maintenance areas up on ten and down in the basement. Might be something we can use. That’s our best bet. OK, we need about a hundred feet of cable, a big hunk of metal and a resistor. We’ll try ten first.”
“Don’t forget to get some sort of protection for yourselves, too. Otherwise, you’ll be the resistor,” the tech added. “Oh, and there should be some walkie-talkies up there. I’ll need to know when you’re ready to try it.”
“Good call. OK, let’s go,” Ben said, turning towards the stairwell.
As we started into motion, the building shuddered and a tremendous crunching sound echoed up the stairwells. Shouts and gunfire soon followed. Seconds later, we heard the faint sound of a big drill from somewhere far above us, the vibrations carried to us through the Towers structure. Fist and Glowstikk had arrived, and the pair above us was drilling their way down. Our time had run out. Omega’s final attack had begun.
XIII
The team didn’t waste any time. Ben shouted a command to the man guarding the stairwell, “Get down to the cops and find out what’s going on! Try to lure the Omegas into the stairwell. Let Archangel deal with them!”
The guard spun and sped down the stairwell. The rest of us filed in and took the stairs two at a time to the tenth floor. Ben’s team led the way and we were soon scavenging the maintenance floor. We got lucky and found what we needed pretty quickly, a spool of cable on a rolling cart, clamps to attach the cable ends, long insulated gloves, a selection of big resistors, and even a rolling scaffold that we could use to hold a large steel plate we found. One of the men found the walkie-talkies, handed them out to the little squad and left to run the last one down to Steve in the IT center.
The only problem, we realized to our chagrin, was that all this stuff was heavy. “There’s no way we’re going to get all this up the stairs,” one of the men observed.
“Yeah.” Ben looked at the maintenance elevator, and activated the walkie-talkie. “Steve, you there? Over.”
“Yup.” The IT guy’s voice sounded clear as it came through the tiny speaker.
“See if you can get Archangel to give us access to the maintenance elevators. This stuff’s too heavy to take up the stairs. Over.”
“Roger.” There was a short pause. “Looks like she’s way ahead of us,” Steve said as elevator doors opened. We quickly loaded the gear. I found myself standing closest to the bank of buttons and was about to hit Herculene’s floor.
Ben stopped me. “Hit thirty-five. Mentalia’s our priority.” I did as instructed, even though I didn’t like it, and Ben explained, “She can use her powers to extract Ultiman and SpeedDamon. They’re right under the flight deck, and Mechanista will break through that floor any minute. We gotta get our guys off that floor before she does. Herc can’t help us with that.”
He was right. I was letting my personal feelings get in the way, and I chastised myself for my lack of objectivity.
While the elevator carried us up, we quickly hashed out a plan to get Mentalia off her floor. Ben called down to the IT guy and got him to grant my badge access to all of the Tower’s floors. He said to me, “Since you insist on following us around, consider yourself drafted. Welcome to Angel Security.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You guys got a good medical plan?”
“Only the best. Let’s try not to need it.”
The elevator doors opened and we heard Mentalia shouting. “Is someone there?” Her voice was muffled, coming from somewhere in her bedroom area.
Ben cried out, “Mentalia, we’re coming for you. Just sit tight for a minute.”
“Ben, is that you?” she called back. “What the hell is going on?”
“Tell you in a minute, baby. Just hang on.”
Ben used the radio to tell Steve we were ready to go, and as soon as he confirmed the sensors were offline, we set about our work. With the ever-present threat of the Tower’s defenses coming back online and stunning us into oblivion, we were pretty motivated.
We put our plan into a
ction. One man took the end of the cable and attached it in line with a resistor to the steel banister in the stairwell. Another took the cable cart and begin unspooling it while Ben and I wheeled the scaffold with its makeshift steel roof into the apartment.
Mentalia’s quarters were pretty nice. Tastefully decorated, like it was furnished by the same guys who do the Ikea catalog. There was a large sitting area with a big flatscreen TV right off the elevator. We had to stop to shove a couch out of the way, but made it to the bedroom door only to find that our scaffold wouldn’t fit through it. I tested the wall, but it was too thick to break through in the time we had.
Improvising, Ben grabbed the end of the cable and started into the bedroom. I pulled off my heavy insulated gloves and handed them to Ben. “For her feet,” I told him. He nodded and went to the bathroom in the back. I started wheeling the scaffolding back to the elevator. I heard a sharp burst of static discharge from the bedroom, and Ben and Mentalia soon emerged. The small hero looked almost comical in her silk pajamas, shuffling in the thick gloves insulating her feet and her hair frizzed out from the static charge the building was directing at her, but they both made it back to the elevator without incident. The other two members of the team hauled the cable set up back into the elevator behind them.
Mentalia breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Thanks guys,” as the elevator doors began to close. “Someone want to bring me up to speed?” In clipped tones, Ben started to give her a sitrep.
I stopped the doors with my hand and interrupted. “Just a second. You’re not gonna need this stuff upstairs, are you?”
Ben caught my unspoken train of thought, “No. You going back down?”
“Yeah. I figure I can get Suave and Herculene while you spring the guys upstairs.” I added, “If Mechanista breaks through, I’ll just be in the way.”
Ben nodded. “Good idea.” He radioed Steve to update him on the plan, and we re-worked our process to move Mentalia and the rest of the team to an adjoining elevator. One of the guards tossed me his gloves and walkie-talkie as they left.
“Good luck,” he called.
I wished him the same and hit the button for the twenty-fourth floor. On the ride down, I rearranged the gear so I could efficiently get it out and into place. It was going to be tricky doing this by myself with only one good hand, and I wanted to hedge my bets. I didn’t expect a problem with the scaffolding on Archangel’s floor if it was as big as Steve described, so I at least had that going for me. I attached one end of the cable to it—to save me some time—and slid into the gloves.
The doors opened, I pressed the emergency stop and I got a look at the room Archangel occupied. I couldn’t tell if I was in the Angel Tower in Los Angeles or on the engineering deck of the Starship Enterprise. An array of four gigantic round towers took up the center of the floor, each standing almost four stories tall. Their surfaces were encased in a mixture of chrome, black plastic and blinking lights. Around the perimeter were arrays of smaller server towers and workstations like the ones in the IT center. The mingled sounds of heavy computing equipment and air conditioners filled the room. At one of the workstations sat the immobile form of Herculene. She glowed with crackling static electricity, and I could see from the movements of her muscles that she was still struggling.
I called Steve and told him I was ready to go. As soon as he gave me the all-clear, I was in motion. I rolled the scaffolding next to Herculene, trailing the cable behind. I reminded myself not to block the beam yet because I still needed to attach the ground. Herculene’s face was contorted in rage, pain and effort. She saw me out of the corner of her eye, and I heard her mutter through clenched teeth, “Reuben, what are you doing here?”
“Getting you out. Just give me a few seconds to work, and I’ll explain everything, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, I went back and started unspooling the rest of the cable. I heard Steve saying something over the radio, but I couldn’t spare the time to listen. The radio wasn’t loud enough to carry over the din of Archangel’s cavernous quarters, and I needed my one good hand free to wrestle the cable into place.
I wheeled the cable cart over to the stairwell next to the elevator. As I prepared to connect the cable to ground, I heard booming, heavy footsteps coming down the stairs above me. I looked up to see Unstoppabull crashing down towards me, about ten stories up. He was taking the stairs one flight at a time and would be upon me in seconds. I stepped back before he could see me and finished connecting the cable. I went back to Herculene, pushed the scaffolding into place above her. Sparks flew from the scaffolding and cable, but it all held together and Herculene was released from the stasis field. I tore off my gloves and handed them to Herculene. “Unstoppabull’s coming. Put these on, and roll this thing over behind something big. We can’t let him see what we’re doing.”
“Reuben, no. I’ll handle him,” she protested.
“Not under this thing, you can’t. If you step out, you’re back in the stasis field and we’re screwed. If he disconnects the ground or knocks this rig over, same thing. I’ve got a plan.” I lied, I didn’t have anything approaching a plan. “Trust me. If you see a chance to make a break for the elevator, do it. I’ll be right behind you. It’s safe there.”
Herculene looked apprehensive, but did as I asked, rolling the scaffolding over behind one of the enormous computer towers. I looked around for some kind of edge. I only had a few seconds before Unstoppabull reached the door, and not much longer than that before the sensors came back on-line and the building’s defenses took me down. I saw what I needed, back along the far wall, and I ran over and placed my back to it just as a loud crash announced the arrival of my dance partner.
“Hiya, Unstoppabull!” I said with a friendly wave. “Fancy meeting you here.”
The monster saw me through the stairwell’s doorway, and a grin spread across his bestial face. “The newspaper man. Good, I get to kill two birds with one stone.” His voice was low, deep and rumbling, like the sound of an avalanche. He was too big to fit through the door, so he simply crashed through, shaking chunks of plaster and aluminum framing from his horns as he stepped into the room on thick, brutish hooves. He arose to his full height, over seven feet tall, and shrugged bits of building material out of his dense, brown-black fur. Imagine the biggest, meanest bull you ever saw, give him opposable thumbs, a loincloth and the ability to walk upright, and you won’t be far off.
“Well, kill this one first,” I said. “I’m the impatient type.”
The minotaur smiled and wagged a finger, “Ah, ah, ah,” he said in a sing-song rumble, “First things first. Where’s Herculene? Me and her got unfinished business.”
I shrugged. “Nobody here but us chickens. Guess you’ll just have to make do with me. What’s the matter, bully-boy? Don’t think you can take me?” I hopped up and down a little, moving my feet like a boxer and throwing a couple of jabs at the air. The monster just laughed and started looking around the room.
He wasn’t rising to the bait. I decided to up the ante. “Don’t tell me I got you cowed.” The bull’s head spun toward me, rage in his eyes.
“Nobody talks to me like that!” he growled menacingly. Perfect.
I laughed at him and put my hands to my head, extending the index finger of each hand, “Me so horny!”
He growled deep in his chest and started toward me. He needed just one more push.
“Don’t do anything rash, now,” I chuckled, “You’ve got a lot at steak.”
That did it. He lowered his head to the level of my chest, and charged me. His footsteps echoed through the chamber and I felt the vibration of each running hoof chewing into the raised floor.
Sucker.
For good measure, I raised my left arm across my body and shouted, “Ha, Toro!” With a roar of rage, the minotaur hurled himself at me, fully committed to impaling and crushing me against the wall. I tucked and rolled out of the way, and as he crashed into the bank of circuit breakers I was standing in front of, I h
oped the last thing he saw was the label on the box, with its bright red oval that read “Danger” and “13,200 Volts” printed in black and white beneath it.
His horns pierced the wall and pinned his head in place as his giant body stiffened and convulsed as the electricity charged through it. Sparks flew everywhere, his hair and flesh began to burn, and the stench spread throughout the area. The lights dimmed and a nearby bank of servers sparked and went dead. I scrambled off to a safe distance. I heard the squeak of the scaffold’s wheels as Herculene came out from behind the tower to take in the sight. “Holy cow,” she cracked.
I didn’t respond. I knew I was almost out of time, so started running for the elevator. I almost made it, but I was still several feet from the open doors when I heard Archangel’s voice exclaim, “Warning, unauthorized person detected.” I dove for the elevator as a hatch in the wall opened and an ear-piercing whine joined the other noises in the room. The stunner caught me in the leg, and I felt it go numb as electricity coursed through me. I landed in the elevator, and the whine ceased. My leg was numb. I tried to move it, but it was paralyzed. Herculene hurried close behind me, and I slid to one side so she could wheel the scaffold inside.
“Reuben, are you alright?” she asked as she struggled out of the scaffolding. She knelt beside me and started checking for injuries.
“I’m fine. It just caught me in the leg. That’s not permanent or anything, is it?”
She smiled with relief and sank back against the elevator wall next to me. “No, the effect wears off after a minute or two.” She reached over and took my hand. “I can’t believe what you just did.”