Extraction

EXTRACTION

I looked towards the door where the guard with the rocket launcher stood, getting ready to make a dash by him. He obviously sensed what I was up to, because
–
as I shifted into super speed again
–
I saw his finger start to clench on the trigger.

I took a calculated risk then, telekinetically giving his hand a little nudge. With any luck, people would think it was the recoil that made him fire so wildly. Regardless, when the trigger was pulled, the rocket headed towards Megaton, not me.

I’m not sure what I expected to see. Maybe Megaton was going to duck and take cover. Maybe he was going to simply sidestep the rocket. Maybe he was going to do what I did before and throw something in its path to intercept it. What I did not expect, however, was what actually happened.

As the rocket came towards him, Megaton reached out his hand and caught it. He held it in his hand as its propulsion jet seemed to expend its fuel and sputter out.

To say I was impressed would have been an understatement. What he did next, however, awed and astounded me.

As the flames at the end of the rocket died, Megaton must have had a premonition of what was going to happen, because he suddenly looked from the rocket to the guards with him, then back to the rocket. Then he tucked the rocket to his midsection, wrapping his arms around it and enfolding it like a running back protecting a football. There was a muffled sound, like a giant statue coughing, as the rocket exploded and a concussive burst of air shot out from the area of the big super’s abdomen in various directions, as he couldn’t completely contain the blast. Then he stood up, unhurt and looking angry…

Kid Sensation Novels

Sensation: A Superhero Novel

Mutation (A Kid Sensation Novel)

The Warden Series

Warden (Book 1: Wendigo Fever)

Warden (Book 2: Lure of the Lamia)

Short Stories

Extraction: A Kid Sensation Story

EXTRACTION

A Kid Sensation Story

By

Kevin Hardman

This book is a work of fiction contrived by the author, and is not meant to reflect any actual or specific person, place, action, incident or event. Any resemblance to incidents, events, actions, locales or persons, living or dead, factual or fictional, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Kevin Hardman.

Cover Design by Isikol

This book is published by I&H Recherche Publishing.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address I&H Recherche Publishing, P.O. Box 1586, Cypress, TX 77410.

ISBN:
978-1-937666-15-6

Printed in the U.S.A.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the following for their help and support with this book: GOD, first and foremost (as always) who has continually blessed me in more ways than I can count; and my
family, which has always served as a source of strength
.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

PART II

PART III

Part I

When I told my girlfriend Electra about my impending criminal activities, I didn’t get quite the reaction I expected.

“I’m in,” she said, with almost no hesitation. A natural beauty with straight, dark hair, she obviously had no problem being decisive.

The response was the same from my best friend, Smokescreen.

“You can’t leave me out,” Smokey said. As an empath, I sensed that he felt almost cheerful about it, (even though I typically ignore the feelings of those around me).

We were sitting around the dining room table at Smokey’s house at the time
–
a cozy, two-story affair in a mostly middle-class neighborhood. His parents were having a date night, and since he was the only kid still living at home, we had the place to ourselves. That made it perfect for letting them know what I intended to do. (I had briefly considered telling them a few days earlier at my house, but I lived with two world-class telepaths. Although my mother and grandfather usually don’t read other people’s thoughts, I was afraid that
–
after I told them what I was planning
–
Electra and Smokey might be so distressed that their thoughts would be an open invitation to any psychic in shouting distance.)

Apparently, I needn’t have worried, because both were clearly on board with what I was planning, although that was never my intention.

“Look,” I said to both of them. “My telling you wasn’t an invitation to tag along. I told you so that someone would know what had happened to me if this thing goes sideways.”

“Well, you said it was the same guys who tried to kill us at the Academy,” Smokey responded. “So I’m interested in a little payback.”

The Academy was (emphasis on
was
) our school
–
a training ground for future superheroes. Just a few weeks earlier, an allegedly rogue government agent named Schaefer infected the students there with a potentially lethal virus that also affected their powers. Long story short, the Academy ended up being destroyed
–
to put it mildly
–
but most of the students survived. My friend Adam Atom wasn’t so lucky, and I curled my fist in anger just thinking about it.

“I understand how you feel, but this isn’t a vendetta we’re talking about,” I said, voicing words contrary to what I actually felt. “It’s a rescue operation
–
an extraction.”

In essence, the organization that Schaefer had worked for was not only still in operation, but possibly the most powerful government agency on the planet. They had previously attempted to literally snatch me off the street, and they might have been successful but for some help I received from a ten-year-old psychic girl named Rudi. She and her brother Josh were being held by that same organization, as part of a black ops program called “Chamomile,” but I had sworn to Rudi that I would get them out. The time had come to make good on that promise.

“But what if you get caught, Jim?” Electra asked. “Then I’m stuck waiting forty years for you to come up for parole.”

“You’d wait for me?” I asked with a sly smile.

Electra groaned. “Just show us the blueprints and schematics again.”

I laid the requested documents out on the table, holding a couple of them down telekinetically when it seemed like they wanted to roll back up like the tube they had come in. They referred to the secret facility where Rudi and her brother were being held. Every page was stamped with phrases like “Classified,” “Top Secret,” and “Eyes Only” in huge, glaring letters. There was also some small print on the bottom of each that said something about fines and prison for misuse, as well as wrongful possession and retention, but I saw no need to make mention of that.

“Are you sure this is where they’re being held?” Smokey asked.

“I’d stake my life on it,” I answered.

I’d gotten the documents from Braintrust, a friend whose expertise was knowledge and information. If BT said that this was the place, then this was the place.

The blueprints for the Chamomile facility actually showed two layouts. One was for a huge fifty-thousand-square-foot building sitting out in the middle of nowhere
–
a dry, arid region of the country that was mostly desert. The second diagram was for an adjoining structure, three times as big and located one hundred and fifty feet underground. Per the blueprints, the only way to traverse the space from one building to the other was a single connecting elevator. (And naturally, the area we needed to access was in the subterranean building.)

“I know you guys want to help,” I said, “but I’ve got this one under control.”

“Okay, genius,” Electra said, crossing her arms, “what’s your plan?”

“Since I know where the facility is, I can just phase in through the walls like a ghost, zip around from room to room at super speed until I find Rudi and Josh, then teleport out of there.”

“And two hours later the Men in Black will be knocking on your door,” she said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“I’m looking at the schematics for the electrical systems,” she said, “and I see wiring for cameras, among other things.”

“So?”

“So what do you think happens when they look at what the video captured and see you teleport out of there? Or if someone just reports that they saw you do it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they’ll say a teleporter popped in and popped out.”

“And would you agree that teleporting’s a rare ability?” she asked.

“One of the rarest.”

“So when they look for who did this, they narrow it down to teleporters, which is already a short list. You also mentioned super speed and phasing. How many teleporters also have both of those abilities?”

I didn’t bother answering. I put my face in my hands and grunted in frustration. Basically, I was the only super
–
at least the only one I knew of
–
with a power set that included the talents Electra had pointed out (not to mention a whole lot more). Having a smorgasbord of powers is what had helped me get slapped with the name “Kid Sensation.”

“So basically,” Smokey added, “if you go in with an open kimono, flashing everything you’ve got, they’ll narrow the pool of potential culprits down pretty quick.”

“So what?” I snapped. “Even if they do know it’s me, I’ve got diplomatic immunity. I’m untouchable.”

“And this is the type of thing that can get you stripped of that immunity,” Electra retorted. “Blatant, overt, and intentional commission of a crime.”

Actually, she was only half-right. Typically, when a diplomat committed a crime, immunity could be
waived
by the nation of origin, but it couldn’t be
stripped
by the host country. In my case, my diplomatic status was the result of my maternal grandmother being an alien princess. She had originally been designated a diplomat from her planet, but she had returned back home when my mother was still an infant. Now
–
through the machinations of friends and family
–
I somehow found myself burdened with the official title of diplomat from my grandmother’s home world
–
never mind the fact that I was born and reared on Earth, and have never even seen (or communicated with anyone from) the planet I nominally represented.

In essence, since there was no one from my grandmother’s planet who outranked me here on Earth, the only person who could strip me of my immunity was (drumroll, please)…
me
. Still, I understood and acknowledged Electra’s point.

“So what do you suggest?” I asked.

“You pick a single solitary power to use –
not
teleportation
–
when we go into this place,” she responded.

“When we
three
go, that is,” Smokey added.

*****

We spent the next hour studying the
schematics, which revealed several potential points of ingress and egress regarding the facility – some of which were less popular than others. For instance, Electra put the kibosh of the idea of utilizing the sewer lines.

“I’ll feel filthy for weeks afterwards,” she stated, “regardless of how things turn out.”

In the end, we’d settled on utilizing the air vents. According to the schematics, the underground structure had numerous ventilation shafts that broke the surface at various, widespread points.

“There’s at least two dozen vents spread out over an area of at least a couple of square miles,” Smokey noted. “Why so many?”

“Even buildings on the surface need HVAC systems,” I said. “Air handlers, cooling towers, etc. – in order to get high-quality air. These guys have a huge facility, so big it has its own power plant, and three-fourths of it is completely underground. They need massive amounts of airflow, which means a lot of air vents.”

Smokey nodded his head in agreement, and I smiled to myself. It may have sounded as though I knew what I was talking about, but I was essentially regurgitating stuff BT had told me when he’d gone over the blueprints and schematics with me.

“So we just pick a vent and go in?” Electra asked.

“Not exactly,” I said. I pointed to a specific area on the drawing. “This is the vent that we want to go in. It connects to the shaft that terminates the closest to the living quarters, which is our destination.”

“So if you’re not supposed to be teleporting us, how do we get to that vent?” Smokey asked.

“They can’t monitor every square inch of the desert,” I answered. “It’s impractical. Assuming everybody’s okay with it, I believe we’re safe with me teleporting us to within about a mile of the shaft. I think that’s far enough out that there aren’t likely to be any cameras watching us come and go. Plus, they’ve got some kind of motion sensor that picks up anything that gets much closer than that.”

“Oh, so you saw that on the schematics, too?” Electra asked.

“Uh, no.” I grimaced. “I may have triggered it when I went to check the place out last week.”

“What???!!!” Electra asked, aghast.

“I was planning a rescue mission!” I said defensively. “I couldn’t teleport in because I’d never been there before. So I popped up as close as possible – a few hundred miles away – and zipped over at super speed.”

“And you got within about a mile and then an alarm went off?” Smokey asked.

“It sounded more like an air raid siren, but yeah,” I said. “I tried approaching from three different directions and it was the same every time.”

Electra put her face in her hands and practically screamed in frustration. “How did I get such an idiot for a boyfriend?”

“It’s fine,” I insisted. “I was in and out so fast that they probably thought it was a glitch or a bug.”

“Once is a glitch or a bug,” she said. “Three times is someone testing your perimeter. Your security.”

I blinked, somewhat in shock. This is the kind of thing I should have recognized on my own. I’d been so intent on keeping my promise to Rudi that I hadn’t been giving any serious thought to strategy, tactics, etc. – despite all the training I’d been given.

“Speaking of security,” Smokey said, trying to get back on task, “what are we talking about here?”

His question snapped me out of my reverie. “Uh…the whole area’s a no-fly zone, so presumably they have radar.”

“Which explains why you hoofed it over there instead of flying,” he said.

I nodded. “There are a total of forty-five security guards working three shifts, so fifteen guards per shift. At any given time, twelve of them are on duty in the subsurface facility.”

“Twelve guards,” Smokey said in contemplation. “Seems kind of lightweight.”

“There’s also at least two supers,” I added.

“Of course,” Smokey said, before adding sarcastically, “Why wouldn’t there be?”

“Any idea who the supers might be?” Electra asked.