Super

by Karen Diem

  Although her lips pressed together into a line, Wyn’s words were gentle, even soothing as she turned back to their friend. “Don’t worry, I don’t need to be carried. I can do the zip line thing. Stealth is not among my accomplishments.”

  Running a hand through her hair, Zita reworked the scenario. “Wyn, we’re six stories up here. Weight training isn’t your thing, so we don’t know how well you can hold your own weight at speed for several seconds. Plus, one chain means one trip. Andy can hold the chain to cross, and you can ride him piggyback. Pull up your legs before you hit that ledge, Andy. You can put our clothes between you.” Internally, she crowed at avoiding direct references to Wyn’s sad, wimpy arms.

  The pretty brunette folded her arms across her chest. “You know, I can hear you thinking about my sad, wimpy arms.”

  Zita rolled her eyes. No privacy. “Ay, then stop listening. I tried. So, consensus is the zip line. Andy, loop it like this around the rope, then Wyn will need to climb on your back. Push off once she’s secure. Fique tranquilo, you got this.” She demonstrated with the chain, picturing each step in her head, and then the slide across and landing.

  Wyn nodded first, showing she had been eavesdropping again.

  Andy contemplated the zip line and copied her motion with the chain. “What about you?” he asked at last. “If we use the chain, how will you get across?” His brown eyes met her own.

  The fire alarm went off below their feet. Indistinct shouting began in the stairwell. She swore in English and Spanish. When those seemed insufficient, she swore in Chinese. “I’ll swing across after you. I do midair rope stuff all the time,” she answered. If I can maintain human shape all the way across, then it won’t be too hard. If I can’t, well, the cops will have an interesting time figuring out how a farmyard animal got up here.

  With a sharp inhale, the other woman said Zita’s name. Anything else she would have said was lost with the crack of a gun nearby. All three escapees ducked and looked for the source.

  “There! On the other building!” Andy said, looking at the other quarantine building, chain forgotten in his hands. The women followed his gaze.

  The helicopter blades revved in a furious whir of sound as gunmen boarded the vehicle, pushing a blond woman in a blue jumpsuit ahead of them. A man in dark suit struggled to his feet at the base of the vehicle. As it lifted, one man leaned out and stopped the wounded man’s efforts with a quick burst of gunfire. The shots ignited gunfire below again. The shooter hanging out of the helicopter fired—suppressing fire—and then his head turned toward the three huddled on the roof. His weapon followed his line of sight as the helicopter moved north, passing over them. It hovered next to the building, the gunman facing the roof.

  Zita grabbed Andy and pressed the chain into his hands. “Go go go!” she ordered. He draped the chain over the line and crouched. Her other friend climbed on.

  “Perhaps,” Wyn began, clinging like a barnacle.

  Zita felt her form begin to shimmer, even as the gunman raised his weapon. Not now! I need to be human! “Later!” she shouted, pushing them off the ledge.

  Wyn screamed.

  A line of bullets spat around her, and Zita twisted and turned desperately trying to avoid them. She gripped the edge in stunned disbelief that they had missed.

  Andy flinched as the bullet spray continued to him. Tears appeared in jagged lines on his clothing, and bullets ricocheted. Blood stained his chest. One or more struck the building opposite, and the line shook as the cement ledge started crumbling.

  The ledge broke, and the line holding her friends disappeared just as they were about to reach the other side. Zita inhaled sharply.

  Wyn went silent.

  “They can’t be dead. No lo creo. I won’t believe it.” Zita shook her head.

  A low thrum began, joined by the rumble of falling stone and shattering brick. Thunder cracked. Her position did not allow her to see down, so Zita brought herself to her hands and knees, steeling herself to look. The world shook around her, and she shuddered, digging her nails into the surface of the roof so hard that even her callused hands complained. Wyn’s shriek reverberated in her head. Wait, that actually sounds like her. Pushing away the terrible dread, Zita forced herself to peer over the edge.

  She reared back, twisting to fall upon her hands and feet, scuttling away from the edge, as a colossal bird struggled up from between the buildings. That looks like a golden eagle. If you fed one mutant nuclear steroids to make its eyes glow, increased size to equal a jet, and added an aura to blur details! Considerate of it to try not to demolish those buildings, even if it’s more work that way; cities do so much better if giant creatures avoid smashing them to bits.

  Color changed, and the world warped again. As she obeyed wordless instincts, Zita launched off the rooftop, gliding on a warm updraft. Her blue hospital gown fell away to the rooftop. She stretched her own normal golden eagle wings. Flying was even better than she had dreamed; it required so much work, even if instinct handled part of it! Veering out of the way of the larger bird, she circled the rooftop.

  When the gigantic creature was free of the buildings, it winged upward, the back draft hurling her winged form downward.

  Zita yelped again as she rolled along the rooftop, losing feathers. She plummeted off, flapping her wings frantically to stop her fall. The keen eyes of her current form picked out a blur of long brown hair and legs in a blue jumpsuit hanging from one claw before the other avian disappeared with a sonic boom. For her not to have felt it, it had to have gotten very high up. She hadn’t paid enough attention in school to figure out the distance. As she fluffed and settled her feathers into a better flight configuration, she hopped towards the edge of the building again. Andy and Wyn, she reminded herself, hope for the impossible blooming.

  Something exploded behind her, and then boomed again, louder and more resonant. With a yelp, she flew up, following half-felt instincts to dip, roll, and avoid the pieces thrown by the explosion over the rooftop. While some of the wreckage rattled like metal as it struck the roof surface, other pieces burned. Zita struck at the air with her wings furiously, landing on the paint-splattered ledge of the building opposite. Her mind refused to dwell on one smoldering chunk of debris, shaped like a leg in a flaming boot, even though it landed on her discarded hospital gown.

  A woman in high heels and an artistically tattered bikini hovered in midair on the other side of the building where the helicopter had been. While one hand was upraised, the other hand held a limp man as if he were a handbag. One of her legs was bent, toes touching the opposite knee, while the other pointed downward, like a ballerina pirouetting. She turned her head, and Zita’s eagle vision cataloged her face. Dramatic closing presentation, she critiqued, absently preening to get the flight feathers into a better position. The glowing golden nimbus shouts out her position and makes her easier to target at a distance. How did she escape an explosion without getting dirty? Her mind finished identification.

  Seriously? Caroline? Zita gave a disgusted, high-pitched yelp.

  Oblivious to or uncaring about the dismayed eagle, Caroline flew higher, and then dove downward, behind the building.

  In disgust, another feeble yip escaped Zita. The pounding thrum of helicopters took her attention for a moment; a few helicopters approached, but her sharp vision picked out the media logos on the sides of the vehicles. No help from them. At least they are focusing more on Caroline’s side of the building. Ay, I have more important things to do than watch her perform. Por fa, don’t let Wyn and Andy be dead, she prayed. Zita made herself look down.

  No splatter marks, she noted, confirming a suspicion. Relief welled. I’m not the only shape changer, then. Evil black smoke curled from a few of the building’s windows, and a quartet of dark-clothed men burst out the side door. Two blue-clad people stumbled between them; after a second, she identified Jerome and his girlfriend. One invader stopped and strung chain around the handles of the door. Zita’s stomach curdled at th
e idea of locking people in a building with smoke streaming from it. She launched herself and looped closer. The gunmen hauled their prisoners toward a white vehicle, where a driver waved from a window. A few men crouched beside the vans. Their guns pointed at the remains of the police perimeter as they argued, but the words eluded her hearing.

  Zita took a deep breath and waited for the gunmen to get close enough that the van would provide cover. Think fast, Jerome. You’re going to get as much assistance as I can give. If we’re lucky, you can help those people inside. After tucking her wings in tight, she dove at the men and their hostages. She raked one invader and snapped at another, frantically beating her wings to bring herself up again. Hands battered at her before she gained enough altitude to look again. When she soared out of their reach, she cheered, although her avian lungs translated it into a peeping sound.

  “Go!” Jerome bellowed to his girlfriend. He threw a furious haymaker at the man holding her, and the man went down in a spray of blood.

  The woman ran, her legs eating up the distance.

  One of the remaining men shot at Zita, his aim wild. After peppering the air with invectives, the invaders separated. “Fuck! Shoot the pigeon!” ordered the one who held a hand to a face where blood dripped from talon marks.

  Bloody Face, she dubbed him. If her bird form could have snorted, she would have at the poor avian identification.

  The shooter, blood dripping from the arm she had bitten, turned and aimed for the fleeing woman. “Let’s cut our losses and take off without the bonus,” he snarled. The two remaining men, including Bloody Face, went for Jerome.

  Jerome tackled one.

  The invaders by the vehicles shot at the police line, giving them cover.

  Zita stooped, aiming for the shooter with the injured arm. She hit him hard, clawing his shoulder.

  The Kevlar vest he wore prevented any serious injury, but her strike diverted the majority of the bullets and sent him sprawling. As the gun fired, the woman shrieked and split into three identical women, one of whom went down under the bullets. The other two clones continued in opposite directions, dodged the invader’s vehicles, and disappeared behind the police lines. The barking of big dogs mingled with more gunfire as Zita tried to gain altitude again, and she fell as feathers turned to fur in midair.

  Twisting, she landed on her paws, albeit painfully. She struggled to remain standing and turned to look. Her vision had diminished, colors fading and blurring to dulled shades of brown and gray, with bites of blue and yellow. However, her nose burned with sensation: the acrid sweetness of gunmetal, carbon, fire, and blood overriding a glorious myriad of other scents. Sounds amplified, the continuing gunfire a painful punch with each shot. She flicked her ears; people shouting inside the building were now perceptible. The corpse of the lawyer woman’s clone was gone, without even any blood left behind. Jerome was rising from his tackle victim, who smelled like carrion. The shooter, Torn Kevlar Man, got to his feet, and other attacker, Bloody Face, seemed to be waiting for a shot. She growled, the deep sound drawing the invaders’ attention before they could go after Jerome.

  “Sky rats and now a police dog? What’s next, police horses or flying monkeys?” Bloody Face exclaimed. Torn Kevlar raised his weapon in her direction.

  A whine escaped, as a change built, but she remained in dog form. She slunk to the side, shadowing them, as her mind whirled and searched for an angle that would afford her as much cover as possible.

  A pinging sound went off from each of the black-clad men. Bloody Face looked at his watch. “Five minutes to operation time limit. Retreat,” he barked.

  Both backed away. His substantial shoulders moving up and down as he panted, Jerome made a move to follow them.

  Glancing at the building, the stairwell windows appeared black all the way up the side of the building. Shit! Nearly falling when she put her weight on one of her front paws, Zita limped to her friend. She barked, ran in front of Jerome, and then raced toward the chained door.

  The hulking black man snarled. “Stop it, Lassie!” he ordered, striding after the fleeing men.

  She repeated the action, barking as loudly as she could.

  Torn Kevlar paused and then ran for the middle van.

  Come on, if you can make mad money, you can figure out people will die in that fire, she urged him in another barking pass. This time he looked at her as she ran past, and she knew when he spotted the windows and the smoke. The sting in her nose intensified.

  When he figured it out, Jerome swore, and then ran toward the door.

  Her tail wagged, an autonomic function. Determined to be a distraction, if nothing else, Zita shambled toward the white vans. When Torn Kevlar raised his gun at Jerome after reaching the safety of one vehicle, she lunged at him. While she had intended to make it a feint, he fell back a few steps and aimed at her. His aim was terrible, though, since her hobbling dodges avoided all the bullets.

  She charged and bit him, knocking him off balance. Struggling to free his arm from her, he fell hard against the van, his head hitting with a clunk. He slumped, his breathing declaring him unconscious rather than dead, and she released his arm. The man with the gory face had climbed inside and locked the van doors. Zita snarled at him while she assessed other targets interested in Jerome’s activities.

  The van engine roared to life and tried to back over her. She threw herself out of the way, putting another vehicle between herself and the vindictive driver. He hit the brakes and swerved, but collided with the other van. Imprecations in multiple languages colored the air.

  Did you not notice that you ran over your buddy’s leg when you made a try for me? Bro, you aren’t making friends. She circled further away from the vans.

  The collision had distracted two vans of invaders, but it could not last. She flicked her ears and kept a wary eye on the white vehicles as she retreated.

  Most of the gunfire had died down. People littered the ground by the cop cars, but all the vans had men in or by them. Three patrol cars and random black suit men versus three white panel vans with at least four scum, each with assault weapons… The poor cops! Bloody Face began backing up his van to disengage it from the other one.

  Zita pricked an ear at a strident shriek from within the building and turned back to the door when Jerome cursed. He reversed direction, sprinting full out from the still-chained door, which was an odd brownish-black in the center.

  Then the world exploded. The door and Jerome flew through the air. Zita yelped and fell as the edges of the blast of force and heat hit her, sending her crashing to the pavement. Metal and glass projectiles spewed out.

  The pungency of the explosion hurt her nose and blurred scents together. The back of her head shrieked with pain, and her canine instincts identified burnt dog hair in the mix of colossal stench. Her ears felt odd, and the constant noise she had tried to ignore was muffled. A dull pain traveled down her throat and into her chest with every inhalation. So not doing this lying down. She staggered to her feet, coughing black phlegm and shaking with effort.

  A vaguely human shape, where fiery eyes burned dark in a face and body of flame, emerged from the doorway. Shoulders hunched, fists clenched, the figure strode forward, attention riveted on something before it.

  Zita looked and regretted it.

  Bloody Face’s van had been in a direct line with the doorway and had partially melted. The driver was… He was probably the black and white meaty char hanging out the window with the liquefied metal covering half of him. The grisly skull looked like it was screaming. Her stomach churned, and she gagged. Her chest protested the violent movement. She fought the urge to be sick or fall.

  The remaining invaders by the cars had noticed the flamboyant exit. A few of them, including the one who had been aiming for her, raised their guns. On the end furthest from her, one clever soul drove away on the sidewalk, scraping the side of the van on a tree to escape. He left behind two swearing gunmen. Being neither flameproof nor bulletproof, Zita lur
ched out of the line of fire, limping around little smoldering heaps, searching for Jerome.

  The flames flared higher as the fiery person screamed and pointed. A mouth moved, but the words were unintelligible.

  Some of the invaders opened fire.

  Her stomach roiling, Zita turned away when three gunmen spontaneously combusted. The other invaders scrambled into the remaining van and drove away. She forced herself to breathe deeper, and disregard until later what she smelt or what the pain accompanying the inhalation meant. Jerome, she thought, I have to help him before I run off. Dios, am I steering all of my friends in the wrong directions today? Her tail crept between her legs of its own accord. She searched, glancing frequently at the flaming being to ensure no further fire was incoming. Her breath wheezed in and out.

  The creature put its hands on its hips, an oddly feminine gesture in the robust, androgynous shape. Like an almost-naked avenging spirit, Aideen emerged from the coruscating flames with fury painting her face. The woman shook out her shoulders, and the flames settled down, sinking into her skin with one or two last caresses. Most of her pale skin was visible as only her standard-issue bra and panties had survived.

  Bet it’s even flashier without dog vision. Does she know Caroline’s already running around in her underwear, and the golden girl has better undies?

  The anger faded from her face, and Aideen scanned the area. She moved past the three piles of twitching, smoking corpses without paying them any particular attention, and sank to her knees by a shape near a police car. Rising with a gun in her hand, she went and searched the police car. She spoke into something, and then pulled on a police jacket. Aideen leaned out of the vehicle and cupped her hands around her mouth. She shouted and took a ready pose by the car, holding a handgun. Someone by the cars was moaning, crying, or both.

  A loud wheeze caught her attention; once she realized it was not her, a large shape on the ground resolved into a person, half under the remains of the metal door. She shambled over as fast she could. Horror made her mind stutter to a stop. Although the heated metal made her vision darken with pain, she shouldered it off the person underneath. Jerome was face down on the pavement underneath, arms and legs spread wide. Raw, oozing spots that alternated with smoother black and white charred areas covered his back, with his jumpsuit singed, missing, or melted onto him. Bone shone in intermittent bursts along the length of his spine, and his body below the neck seemed to be either oozing or fried. He gasped for air again, loud enough for even her damaged ears to recognize it. His head was unmarked, healthy hair and skin in contrast to the ruin of his back. Zita stared at him, biting back nausea. The invaders were gone. She had to get help for him.