H.E.R.O. - Horde (36 page)

"I guess so; I'm standing right by it now."

"You are?  Is it a paragon?"

"A paragon?  I don't know what that is."

"I will tell you on the way if you would be willing to pick me up and bring me to it."

"Sure - I have a feeling I'll be there really fast, my own powers are enhanced right now.  What are your GPS coordinates?"

She gave them to me; I hung up and looked at the direction and rough distance.  Then I stepped up into the air and jabbed my left knee up.  I blasted up into the sky like a rocket.  I almost instantly broke the sound barrier and continued accelerating.

I curved to the southwest and pushed my speed as much as I could.  The cityscape rushed past amazingly fast, and it only took a few minutes to reach the outskirts of Metrocity where the starship sat.

I'd seen it in Diva and Tiriffa's mindviews a few times, but it was interesting to see a second starship in person.  I hoped I would have time later on to come back and look around it, since the last starship I was on I couldn't even stay conscious.

I slowed down right on cue, even though my leg movements lagged behind the massive speed I flew at.  I set the point I landed at as the start point, set the University as the end point and did a distance calculation.  It turned out I was breaking Mach 5.  From the slight amount of wind shear I'd have never known but for the movement of the ground under me.

Tiriffa ran over from the ship and did her humorous wave imitation and smile.  I grinned and said hello, pulled her against me and repeated the rocket flight back to school.  I stared into her oversized orange iris while we were nose to nose.  They were fascinating.

During the flight she said, "You are quite soft."

I blinked at her in surprise, "Huh?"

"Your body.  It is soft, quite unlike Diva's hard body."

"I thought you knew about the different types of supers."

"I am aware of them, but studying something on a system is sometimes quite different from touching and experiencing it."

"Oh, yeah, I agree with that.  That's why we have lab classes in addition to the book courses, to get some hands on experience."

"The Dark is difficult to test in person.  We still have a challenging time detecting powers at a normal scale when compared with a paragon's."

"You mentioned that before, what's a paragon?"

"A being gifted with great power by the Dark.  They are able to do far more than a normal being."

"So someone who is truly super powerful would be a paragon to you?"

"Yes.  I would take out my scanner and test you again, but you were registering as a paragon earlier when Diva brought me to you."

"Cool.  You might pick up Razorwing and Rayna both as paragons when we land then."

The bright energy was easy to see even from a mile away when in the sky.  We came in unbelievably fast, so I slowed us down well in the air to ensure we didn't slam into the ground.  It would really suck to be the one responsible for squishing one of our alien friends, especially when I had no idea if she healed as fast as I did.

We touched down just to the left of Rayna again.  Tiriffa immediately pulled out her tablet-like device and began working on it.  Many, many more students had come out to witness the event between the buildings, with hundreds more crowding the windows in each of the buildings facing the grounds.

The dragon was almost solid now - the light no longer shone from within, and the scales were beginning to reflect light.  I looked at Rayna, she was breathing fast as she stared at her creation.  Her mind's eye was still totally focused on the details of the creature - I realized that she was classifying things like the ability to speak, think clearly, the desire to protect and the ability to breathe a stunning gas as well as light it on fire if desired.  She wanted it to be a noble, caring creature.  She'd already thought about the claws being stronger than titanium and scales to match.

If her body were capable of sweating, I was positive that she'd have been soaked.  I saw from many mindviews that both of our eyes were glowing like bright flashlights from behind the eye, our iris barely visible in the bright light.  Her eyes glowed with a white light, whereas mine glowed golden.

Within another minute or two, the dragon was completely solid.  It appeared frozen, much like a statue for a few seconds, and it suddenly shook with a ripple as it flexed all of its muscles from the neck down to the tail tip.  It created an amazing shimmering effect in the afternoon light as the armored body plates shifted position slightly in a wave.

The wings extended and retracted a few times, and it took a deep breath.  I realized now that it didn't really have a snake shape to it.  The center third of the body was larger, like a reptile's.  The tail ended in an armored tri-fin shape, almost like an airplane tail.

It turned its head directly toward Rayna and smiled.  I hadn't paid attention to whether Kar - her little dragon - was capable of smiling, but this large creature certainly was.

When the dragon moved, the large crowd had a simultaneous intake of breath.  I glanced at Rayna; she was bent over with her hands on her knees.  I debated moving closer, but didn't want her jumping on me again – at least not in front of a crowd of people.  I wasn't certain why Razorwing and Tiriffa didn't react much to my pheromones, but that wasn't a good place to get into a grope-fest.

The dragon stepped closer and Rayna looked up and smiled.

She panted and said, "Hey, baby."

It replied, "Hey, Rayna."

She glanced over at me, "Hey Psystar, you said I should make a new friend to ride?  How's this?"

I replied, "A thirty foot long armored dragon?  Yeah, I guess this will do.  You won't have to worry about someone stealing or smashing your ride, either."

The dragon leaned forward to put its several-foot-long head near Rayna.  She ran her hand over its snout.

She said, "You're beautiful."

Razorwing stepped up to it and said, "Greetings, I'm Razorwing."

The dragon glanced at him and then back at Rayna.  "I need a name."

She said, "Not yet, baby.  We'll get you a name.  There are a lot of people here, we should move."

I looked at Andre, who like everyone else stood immobile while staring at the dragon.

Razorwing looked at me and said, "I'll carry the suspect, you bring Tiriffa?"

I nodded.  "Come on, Tiriffa.  Rayna, can you ride him?  Is it a boy?"

Rayna said, "Yeah, well, in mentality at least.  You want to give flight a try, big guy?  How about you watch Razorwing first and then follow?"

The dragon nodded, "I will do so."

I said, "Umm, Rayna, if you fly with me you'll be all over me."

She looked at me, "Hmm, yeah.  You smell ... hmm ... delicious?  I'll try on his back.  Notice how the scales are formed?  It's made for a few riders."

I looked, sure enough, there were several spots nicely shaped to sit in, and even allowed one to hold the scale in front for support.

She kissed him on the nose and asked, "Mind if I ride on your back?"

"It would be my honor."

She easily climbed up, although the dragon was only a few feet higher than a tall horse.  The long tail, neck and wings made it appear larger than it was.

Razorwing picked up Andre under his arms, flapped hard and flew into the sky.  I stepped up a few times once I pressed up against Tiriffa to hover near him.

The dragon tested a few flaps of its wings before it reared up on its hind legs and matched Razorwing's movement.  In a moment, it gained altitude and joined us in the air.  In both of the winged fliers' cases, they kept moving around horizontally and flapping.

I realized Rayna's three Bs had been hovering well above the ground where she had made the dragon.  As we began flying, they hovered along after us in an attempt to keep up.

We flew to a large building top a few miles away and landed.    We stood in a group on the rooftop.  I gave the others an extra five feet of space to prevent issues with the pheromones.  Rayna's Bs appeared a minute or two later and took their normal positions, with Duff upside-down above her left shoulder, Gruff near her right, and Fluff floating just off her right hip.

I could tell from their mindviews that they didn't like being separated from her like that.  I brought each mindview up close to get a good sense from them, but none had any jealousy about a new creature being in their midst - only a desire to be near her.

The dragon had a mindview as well; it appeared fully capable of thinking.  I thought it was somewhere between Kar's intelligence and the B's if I read him right.  It certainly didn't have the advanced deduction and reasoning that Kar had.  It made me wonder if she made the little dragon simply as a gaming partner.  The big one was a bit more like her gargoyle, and seemed perfectly willing to just stand and wait for her.

Razorwing said, "All right, so we know what your power is.  Now what did you have to do with the red orcs?"

"Bub, I really don't know what you're talking about."

I said, "He's being honest.  Andre, think back to last night at the concert.  You have a certain guitar part that you play where you're the lead."

"I think I know where you're going with it.  The one where we seem to lose our crowd lately?  We're debating dropping that song after groups left during it the last few nights.  Sucks too, I thought it was great, man, there’s nothing like an ass-kicking riff."

Rayna said, "Actually, it does sound great.  It'd be a rough one to play Guitar Hero to."

"You've been to our gigs?"

"No, well, I've seen part of one.  Ugh, umm ... I caught a little of one, okay?"

Razorwing said, "Back to the point - you said people left during it?"

I said, "Hold on."

I grabbed Andre's mindview with his memory and slapped it on everyone else's on the rooftop.  Those I had from the building below I ignored.

After they watched for a few minutes I released the memory and pushed the mindviews back out to the sphere of them I had up.

Rayna said, "Well ... that sucks ... groups of tables all just up and left?"

Andre nodded, "Yeah, I'm assuming one of you is some kind of mind reader?  I didn't do anything, quit blaming me."

Razorwing said, "And more...."

Hmm, I wonder what Razorwing's megapower is right now.  Do mutants even
have
an outright power in general?  Hmm.

I asked, "Andre, did you notice anyone going around to those tables, like they might have been selling drugs or anything?"

"Not that stood out to me."

I said, "Wait a second - you hype others up, right?  Hype, supe, boost, amp...?"

"Yeah."

"You seemed pretty hyped up during the solo.  Is it possible that your own power activated during it?"

"No idea on that one.  I'm totally focused on the song at the time."

"Yeah, that's what I felt as well.  It's why I had to ask.  You guys, if he does kick off his power when he's that into a song, what if someone in the crowd did it by accident?"

Razorwing said, "Wait a second - you are thinking someone made a batch of crazy, murderous orcs and sent them off to kill Goth mutants by
accident
?"

"It was a thought."

Rayna said, "Twice.  Two nights in a row it happened."

Razorwing said, "Once I could see, twice ... no."

Andre said, "Goths suck ass."

Razorwing looked at him, "Why would you say that?"

"Because they do.  Bunch of emo adults."

"That's pretty naive thinking.  I've met a bunch of them, and wouldn't say any are overly emotional."

"Bah."

"That might be part of the problem.  Andre - does your entire band hate Goths?"

"Duh ... yeah.  If you'd listen to our music you'd know that.  Rog captures the thought nicely with some of our songs he's made."

"Okay, maybe that's where the attitude is coming from."

I said, "Well, this gives us some possibly good information, but the band isn't doing anything illegal.  Andre - you said your entire band is debating canceling that song?"

"Yeah, we don't want to lose followers."

"He's sincere; I don't think that whatever happened was caused by another member of the band."

Rayna said, "Tiriffa, you said earlier today that Psystar had additional Dark receptors in her body?"

Tiriffa's ears shifted forward slightly and she said, "That is correct."

"If a chemical contained some of the meteorite that causes the change into supers, could it activate and cause mutation from a power like Andre's?"

"You are debating the possibility of a chemical reaction with his power versus a gifted being causing the change into those red creatures?"

"Exactly."

"Without testing I cannot be certain.  I believe that certain types of radiation cause the meteor substance to radiate with the Dark.  We do not yet know if it is an energy pulse or also a matter stream containing the Dark receptors.  If it is the latter, then his gift may act as a form of radiation."

Rayna asked, "Umm ... that was a yes?"

"Yes."

"So we still can't guarantee it's a chemical versus a super.  Okay, I guess we're back to doing recon.  Only we can't do it tonight because the band doesn't play."

Razorwing said, "I'll be going to Blacklight anyway.  I want to see the reaction of those attacked."

Andre made a 'pfff' sound.  "Blacklight - that's one of the emo clubs."

I said, "Where are you playing tomorrow night, Andre?"

"Bang Time, start at 9 P.M."

“Play your song again, it’s not causing people to leave, someone else is making part of your crowd leave on you – we can try to find whoever is doing it and get rid of them so your fans stay.”

“Awesome.  I’ll make sure we do.”

"Great, now we know where to be, I think.  Razorwing, would you fly him back to the University?  My range is still way up on everything, he'll be all over me with my pheromones."

Razorwing nodded, "Sure.  I'll see you two tomorrow night then.  Oh, Rayna - think about that statue...."

She smiled, "Oh - that should be fairly easy.  I'll do it now and have the big guy bring it back to my garage.  Just remember what I asked."