Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes Page 12

“How? I mean, how should I approach him?”

  “Don’t you CAI capes drill for that? Assume he will be completely freaking hostile to any approach and take any opening move you want that gets him from Point A to Point B without giving him time to argue about it.”

  “So grab him, get him out of town, then subdue him?”

  “Yes ma’am. Bringing him in alive is optional but preferred. He is a deserter, armed, and extremely dangerous and technically invading another country, but base will want intel from him. Like why the hell he’s in Guantánamo.”

  I wanted that, too. Part of me was burning up with curiosity—Captain Lauer had sidestepped that question in his too-brief briefing. I made positive noises while wiping my palms on my shorts and measuring my breath; not nerves, really, just my usual physiological reactions to an anticipated fight. I doubted I’d ever get over them and, looking around, I realized they were shared. Corbin puffed his e-cig methodically. Stein focused over my head. Balini and Tsen checked their armsracks. The truck stopped again.

  “This is the team stop,” Corbin said, handing me an earbug and watching me adjust it. “We’ll set up away from the road. When your piece tells us you’re moving towards us, we’ll light up a flare. Good luck.” They locked down their helmets and dropped out the back of the truck bed, the camo-layers of their suits going live to blend them into the brush as they trooped away. I climbed forward into the front passenger’s seat.

  The lance corporal behind the wheel looked at me, tapped a screen between the seats. The image showed an aerial shot of the road with four green icons moving away from it and the centered icon of the truck. Ahead of us, a red icon blinked warningly in the center of town. I nodded and divided my attention between the screen and the road as she drove.

  Guantánamo City wasn’t what I’d been expecting, but then I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, really. The Serene Republic was less than two years old, but it was changing fast.

  Maybe I’d pictured a worn and run down Central American slum town. This wasn’t it. Only a handful of buildings were higher than two stories, and the style was old—with their vertical fronts and balconies they reminded me of New Orleans’ French Quarter homes and businesses—but the roofing was solid and most buildings were well patched and brightened by fresh coats of paint in bold palettes. Flowers were everywhere, in boxes and hanging pots. And it wasn’t just dressing up old stuff for show; we passed a ring of new construction on the way in. The narrow streets were a bit rough but getting resurfaced. At least half of the pedestrians strolling the streets or lounging under shading café awnings in the afternoon heat looked American or European.

  “Tourists, developers, studio people,” my driver, Lance Corporal Stevens, answered my unasked question. “Visitors from the base.”

  “Okay.” I decided not to worry about seeing a familiar face—other than Brick’s of course. If things went smooth, I’d be out of here fast enough it wouldn’t be a problem.

  Stevens pulled half up on the low curb and stopped, engine idling. “Here.” She handed me a broad brimmed hat, suitable for casual window-shopping under the Cuban sun. Wide shades came with it, and didn’t clash too badly with my shorts and shirt. Nice. Maybe I’d look like an incognito movie star. When I put them on, she pointed up the street.

  “He’s two streets up, outside the Café Cubano. The only Hawaiian shirt in sight. Ready?”

  “Seriously? I never am.” I hoped my smile said I didn’t mean it, and I slid out of the truck before she could say anything else. She drove away, grinding old gears. I stood still until the exhaust cloud faded into the heated air, then started walking. Casual now…

  “Don’t react,” Shell whispered, a disembodied voice beside my ear. I yelled and almost tripped. She faded in like Marley’s ghost, rolling her eyes as I recovered from my stumble.

  “C’mon, really?” she groused. “Should I use a ring-tone? You popped out from the quantum-signaling shield you’ve been hiding under a few miles back. FYI, Jacky has disappeared from the Dome. Just thought you should know.”

  I whipped out my cellphone and pretended to answer it. “Don’t do that. Anything else you need to tell me?”

  “Fisher finally got the warrant and got the bank to cough up its records, so he knows that the broken-into deposit box belonged to our good friend Doctor Pellegrini? The Ascendant? The secret and now really really wanted cult leader of the Ascendancy, the guy whose crimes he investigated last year?”

  I closed my eyes. “And how mad is he at the FBI—never mind.” I liked Fisher, and the way Shell was going on he had to be seriously pissed. “Shell, I’m a little busy. How much did you see out here? Forget it, just access everything after our phone conversation.”

  My usual sense-memory download had to have updated the moment distance from the Navy base’s shielding let our quantum-link reestablish; she reviewed it in a second and her eyes got wide. “Brick? Crap on a cracker, Hope. What is he doing here? And all you’ve got for backup is four tin-men a couple of miles down the road?”

  “How hard can it be? Whatever training they gave him in the Army, he’s still a B Class.” I started walking again.

  “Okay…what can I do?”

  “Be my wingman? Please?”

  “You’ve got it—now go kick his ass. I’ll save pictures.”

  I couldn’t help laughing, suddenly feeling loose and ready. “Right. Bye.” She actually mimed hanging up, fading back out as I crossed to the next corner.

  I could see my target and I focused on walking towards him without looking. He sat at a sidewalk table, not sweating at all while fellow drinkers fanned themselves; anyone who knew what to look for would have wondered if he was a breakthrough just by how the heat wasn’t touching him. He leered at the waitress refreshing his drink, grabbing her butt as she twisted out of his reach, and now I recognized him from memory.

  He laughed as she scooted away, shrugged and chugged his drink, and then he was checking me over, the kind of look that made me want to put on more clothes. I looked down and kept walking, angling to pass between his table and the curb.

  And he grabbed me. For a heartbeat I froze, unable to believe it as he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and tugged with a “Hey little girl, have a drink with me.” Then I spun around, facing and behind him to grab his wrist. My twisting motion pulled his arm back and forced him to let go, and I launched.

  “Shit!” was all he got out as he flailed and we climbed. I angled us back the way I’d come, flying south and praying he was too drunk to— He pulled himself up one-handed and I flinched and let go to keep him from grabbing me again. And realized what I’d done. When I dove for him he battered me aside, laughing, and I only succeeded in pushing him to smack down in the street instead of into a house.

  Which didn’t slow him down at all. He took the fall with a roll and bounced to his feet, laughing harder.

  “And who are you, little girl?”

  We were still in town and I couldn’t have screwed up worse—my plan to come back at him from behind and lift him in an underarm headlock had disappeared the instant he’d grabbed me and now people were going to get hurt unless I finished it quick.

  I forced myself to touch down. “I’m Astra.”

  “Well f—” His grin widened and the leer was back. “I’ve imagined this forever. Happy birthday to me.” He clapped his hands and exploded.

  Blinding light, thunder, a wave of overpressure that shattered windows, and as I blinked to clear my eyes Shell was yelling in my ear.

  “Hope! He’s got dragon armor! Up!”

  I leaped skyward reflexively. “He’s got what?”

  “Dragon armor! A Verne-tech and sorcery fusion made in freaking China!”

  My watering eyes cleared. Brick stood inside a scorched ring, dressed in what looked like ancient Chinese armor with horribly modern weapon frames attached.

  I wiped my eyes. “This cannot be happening!”

  “Yeah? Do you think if you tell him
that, he’ll go away?”

  Guantánamo City wasn’t Chicago and had no civilian-response system for superhuman fights, but obviously its citizens knew what to do; the people out braving the afternoon sun scattered—one or two stopping only long enough to grab kids not yet smart enough to run instead of stand and watch.

  And that was a good idea. “Shell, can dragon armor fly?”

  “Short distances! It—”

  That was all I needed. I took off, dropping lower and not opening up my speed. If he’d just follow…

  “Incoming!” Shell screamed before I realized what the roaring blast behind me meant. I couldn’t even count the flashes and tumbled from the sky in blind, deaf, spinning vertigo.

  “Flash-bangs!” I heard Shell over the ringing in my ears only because she was in my head.

  “Really?” I’d been flashed before but those had been police grade flash-bangs; this… my eyes weren’t clearing, the ringing tinnitus in my ears deafened me, and the vertigo-triggered nausea made me want to vomit. This was military grade dialed up to eleven. “Where is Brick I can’t see him!”

  “And I can? I’m using your eyes! I’m calling in your escorts!”

  I could at least feel the shattered concrete under me, managed to roll over and get up off my elbows. I found out where Brick was when he kicked me in the groin, lifting me off the ground to land in a helpless sprawl.

  “Hope!”

  When Brick kicked me over onto my back I rolled with it and launched for the sky I could finally see. Now I heard him, his laugh punching through the tinnitus.

  “Leaving? The party’s just started!” The little rocket that caught me this time was a straight-up explosive—the first mistake he’d made. It threw me sideways but hurt less than his kicks.

  “Shell, the team! Which way?”

  She obligingly flared a virtual targeting icon in my still-spotty eyes and I twisted around to get distance between us and everybody else.

  “Fly faster!”

  “When I can see!”

  “What’s to see? Fly up! What was that?” A ripping sound signaled the arrival of Lieutenant Corbin and his team, a stream of metalstorm rounds leading the way. I heard Brick shout behind me as the rounds punched into him, and the crash turned me around. I almost laughed in relief. The nearest building was at least two hundred yards away; our engagement zone had moved out of town.

  “Stay down!” Lieutenant Corbin shouted in my earbug as he bounded by me. He ate thirty feet with each leaping step, the others right behind. My tearing eyes worked well enough again and I watched as his team fanned out to each side, laying down fire. Corbin fired his own arm-mounted chain gun in controlled bursts, the tracer-marked sabotted rounds flashing away to explode off Brick’s fancy armor.

  “Medical status?”

  “I can still fight! What can Brick do?”

  “I saw that dragon armor crap in China—it’s like putting a bull in battle armor and giving it an infinite supply of ammunition. Not high-tech, but it doesn’t have to be. Shit!”

  Brick lit up explosively and snaking flame trails from multiple launches reached out to Corporal Stein’s hulking form.

  “Screen and move!” All four of them ejected canisters throwing up clouds of smoke, kept firing.

  “Wow,” Shell said, fading in beside me.

  “Uh-huh,” I agreed weakly. My super-duper vision meant I could still see them as shining heat sources, moving like a choreographed dance with the partners a hundred yards apart. Under the light wind the smoke stretched into bands, spreading to cover the zone. Then Brick moved, a single superhuman leap that came down on Lance Corporal Tsen.

  I screamed. The shooting stopped as Shell yelled “Go go go!” and I did too late. Brick hit Tsen hard enough to crumple his chest armor and throw him fifty feet to crash into the brush. He’s dead he’s dead he’s dead. I smashed into Brick without slowing, off-center and spinning him. He didn’t fall.

  He recovered laughing, leering at me under his open-faced helmet.

  “Having fun Astra? Ready for a good time? They can watch!” He dodged my lunge and kicked me in the gut just below my breastplate, his armored boot driving the air out of me and freezing my diaphragm. This time I rode the shock, doubling around his foot and grabbing it, pulling it as I spun us away on the force of his kick.

  Brick roared as my spin flipped him, boots up to slam him head down. Now my superior strength paid off—locking his leg, I twisted for leverage and stomped on his closest arm just above the elbow. It snapped with a sickening crack and he screamed.

  “Are you still having fun?” I twisted his leg down, pushing like I was trying to drill him into the ground, brought my knee down on the pit of his opposite shoulder and felt the pop and rip of tendons as the ball and socket of his shoulder joint separated. He screamed again.

  A final flip planted him on his face and I dropped on his back, fists together for a hammer. And froze, breathing like a winded sprinter. Brick screamed with each twitch, boots kicking the ground, and I wanted to hit him again and again and again.

  “I trained with Atlas and Ajax you idiot,” I panted. “I can take a beating from Watchman and you think you can play with me?”

  A pair of armored legs stepped into my sight and I looked up. Lieutenant Corbin stood by Brick’s head.

  “Ma’am, if you have issues to work out, we can always leave and come back.”

  “No. I’m good.” Really not; rising nausea was replacing fading adrenaline. My breathing hitched. “Corporal—Corporal Tsen?”

  “Feeling no pain,” the dead corporal laughed in my earbug. “Good drugs.”

  “You’re not going to believe it, Hope!” Virtual Shell stood laughing over Tsen’s crumpled form. “They’re all Ajax-types! C Class, but strong enough to pack a couple of tons of armor and gear around and tough enough to take a hit and not squish inside their cans.”

  “Oh. That’s—that’s good. Brick’s your prisoner, Lieutenant. Excuse me?”

  I managed to get off of him and stagger a few yards before I threw up. Repeatedly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hate is the worst emotion. When you hate someone, you can’t think rationally about them. You can’t forget about them. They burn in your soul like acid thorns.”

  Hope Corrigan (Attributed)

  * * *

  The lingering flash-bang vertigo, the kicks I felt only now, the memory of Brick’s bones snapping under my feet kept me doubled over and heaving while the team closed in to take care of Brick and Tsen. I wondered how much penance Father Nolan was going to assign for the sin of wrath when I made my next confession. Maybe he’d consider my wanting to keep vomiting till my soul felt clean to be penance served.

  Shell gave me a minute, staying respectful of my condition until I sat back on my heels.

  “Hope? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I hope not. Shell? If I ever say something as stupid as ‘How hard can it be?’ again I want you to slap me with the biggest brick you can find.”

  “Okeydokey!”

  “So, what are you thinking?”

  “I see London, I see France, I see Astra’s underpants?”

  I looked down at myself and started laughing. Brick’s second missile had pretty much shredded and burned off my kicky summer outfit; the only thing saving my modesty was the virtually indestructible underwear Vulcan made for me out of his polymorphic molecule goo. He’d spun the stuff into a weave as strong as carbon fiber, fireproof and soft as cotton, and Shell called them my Unmentionable Indestructibles. Which still left me in my underwear, but my white and blue sports briefs and bra—complete with white Astra star crest—covered enough to be worn in the gym. Yes, my life was interesting enough that I wore indestructible underwear. If I was ever caught dead, I’d at least be a modest corpse.

  Finished giggling, I spit and wiped my mouth and went to help.

  Stevens had arrived, driving off the road to get to us, and Stein and Balini had kits
out. Balini used a tool to crack Tsen’s chest armor and Stein unhitched his helmet while Tsen swore at them. Lieutenant Corbin looked up from where he worked on Brick.

  “Three minutes to lift, can you give me a hand?”

  I nodded shakily and he handed me a brace. Brick’s armor had disappeared sometime while I’d been heaving, and Corbin had put titanium hobbles on him. Now he showed me how to slide the brace on. Brick screamed again when Corbin planted his foot and pulled to set his shoulder for the brace, managed to keep it in when we set his broken arm and put the field sleeve on it. My hands shook and I was dizzy again before we were through.

  “Good job,” Corbin said encouragingly. “You going to be okay?”

  “Eventually?” Dirt and bits of brush swirled under the beat of arriving extraction helicopters, giving me an excuse to wipe my eyes.

  “Then let’s load everyone up and go get a drink.”

  The extraction teams got us off the ground in less than a minute after landing, moving like we were in a hot zone about to receive fire. Only Corporal Stevens stayed to drive the truck back to base, and they left her one copter as an escort. I didn’t even try to fly, just squeezed in beside Balini. I rode out, I could ride back in.

  They flew us to the naval base, passing over the Garage and the empty valley it sat in. By the time we landed I was steady again, even brushing off the remains of my outfit. A medic had dabbed a few bleeding scratches but I’d been only lightly scorched. Sore from my ribs down, tender in places I didn’t want to think about, I’d still gotten off lucky. When our rides touched down with the softest of bumps, we reversed the process and Tsen and Brick disappeared, whisked away.

  “Tsen’s going to be fine, ma’am,” Corbin said as we watched them go. “Cracked sternum, ribs, he’ll be getting loving attention from a nurse he’s been hot on for a week.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “Ma’am—”

  “Home to Littleton, I mean. I’m not Navy, I’m not a Marine, I’m going to go shower and put some clothes on and play with a little girl. Tell whoever that I’ll write up an after-action report tonight.”