H.E.R.O. - Horde (37 page)

I smiled at her thoughts about a promise of a place to live should she die.  That was good thinking on her part.  I hoped she didn't plan to do anything crazy in the near future.

I said, "Are you going to stay here, then Rayna?  If so then I'll fly Tiriffa back."

"Yup, I'm good.  Thanks for asking though."

"Cool.  Andre – have a good concert tomorrow night.  Play like a rock star, okay?"

He stared at me, “I plan to.  Thanks a lot for finally figuring out that I didn't do anything.”

I pulled Tiriffa tight up against me and pushed off to begin floating upward.  After pulling my eyes away from Tiriffa's large starburst orange iris again I glanced back down at the dragon.  It was an impressive sight.

I sped up; hitting Mach 1 was easy again due to the power boost still in my system.  A few minutes later, we landed at her starship again.

I asked, "Hey, Tiriffa.  Can I see the inside of your ship?"

She replied, "I am sure Captain Trilk won't mind.  Come inside."

I followed her into the small craft.  This starship was downright dinky when compared with the pirate ship K'Vor that many of us had fought right on top of just three days prior.

Once inside I was surprised to see that there was just one cabin - calling it large would be an exaggeration.  There was a row of seats along each wall - enough for five passengers per side, along with the pilot and co-pilot at the front.  The aisle between the seats was sizable, enough to allow movement back and forth without fear of bumping those in the seats.

The four-frontmost passenger seats had computer consoles.  Currently Qarath, who I'd already met, was working at one of them.  Another Gahranii that I'd only seen in mindviews sat in one of the two seats at the front.  The mindviews confirmed that was Captain Trilk.

Both Qarath and Trilk spun in their chairs to see who entered.  Qarath did the attempt at a human wave to me.  I smiled and waved back.

Captain Trilk said something in their native tongue.  It still surprised me to hear people think in a different language and not understand it.  When they pictured something, the meaning came across clear.  When they simply thought the statements, I was lost.

The computer screens were interesting - an image floated just over the actual hard surface.  It appeared as though the captain touched that surface rather than the physical surface underneath.

I asked, "Can I touch one of your screens?"

Tiriffa nodded, walked over to a computer and tapped a number of times.  I heard her think to put it into a lookup system, much as we would an online wiki.

She motioned to the seat.  I smiled at her and sat down.

I looked up at Tiriffa, "What do each of the buttons here do, can you think of them all quickly?"

She glanced at each button and quickly thought of their use.  Once she was done, I pushed at one of the buttons on the floating image.  Surprisingly it had mild resistance to it as I pressed it.

I said, "Oh my gosh, your images have tactile response?"

"Yes."

I'd chosen an animal lookup.  A few more presses and I was looking at an odd, four-legged reptilian type creature.  Tiriffa wondered if I would figure out the ability to swipe on the 'screen' and rotate the image.  I grinned and tried spinning on the animal - the interface made it easy to view any angle or to zoom in and out on it.

I noticed that she thought of the projection button, and when I pressed it, the image came up into the air.  It also allowed me to use my hands to shift the viewing angle and zoom.

I played for a minute or so, but I heard Tiriffa thinking that she would like to get back to her data collection, so I used the menu items she had thought of to exit and stood up.

I said, "Thanks Tiriffa, and you, Captain Trilk.  I'll leave you guys to your research.  Give me a call if you need anything else."

I gave Tiriffa a tight hug and waved to the others.  As I left, I saw the mindviews of the two men turn to each other and speak in their language.  While I didn't know the details, both of their mindviews noted the difference between how I hugged Tiriffa and how Diva hugged her.  I got the sense they thought I liked Tiriffa a lot.

While I didn't know if I could say 'a lot' about it myself, she was nice.  She was always mildly uncomfortable when alone in our human groups, but that would occur with any person out of their element.  She spent so much time analyzing how we moved and the differences between her peoples' reactions to things and ours that we'd actually seen only a little of her true personality.

I realized I still had a good fifteen or more minutes of being amped up, if the late morning experience was a baseline.  I sped to the Metrocity Jail and landed outside.  The guards opened the gates for me without me even asking.

One of them said, "Welcome back, Psystar.  Here to see the super section again?"

I nodded, "Yes please."

"I'll bring you there."

"Make sure to stay seven to ten feet from me, my powers have an aura going on right now - I don't want you getting caught up in them."

He momentarily wondered if I had a weapon or something on me, but a quick glance up and down my body made it instantly clear that I couldn't hide a decent weapon with my tight costume - certainly nothing more dangerous than my inherent powers.

On the way he asked, "Who are you meeting this time?"

"I'm going to try to unlock as many of the red men - or orcs - memory chambers as I can.  None of them can remember anything new because something happened to their minds."

"Oh, wow.  That blows.  Glad we've got someone around like you then."

"Heh, be glad if I'm successful.  It's worth trying, though.  The boys didn't do anything to deserve this."

"They are children?"

"Oh, no.  Just my terminology I guess.  The men, then."

"Why don't you wear a mask?"

"My hair color is a dead giveaway, combine that with being 5'3" and my build and it's pretty easy to recognize me with or without a mask."

"I ... sorry, I didn't mean to think out loud."

"Oh, crap.  No, that's my bad.  That sounded just like you said it to me."

In minutes, we arrived at the super security section.  Chrome met me at the entrance to it and brought me in.

"Hiya Chrome."

"Hey.  What's up?"

"I need to see the cage with the red orcs.  I'm going to try to free their memory chamber - kind of like I did yours last Friday."

"You fell unconscious during that, didn't you?"

"I'm amped up right now.  If I fall over just bring me to a bench or table for a bit, would you?"

"Sure."  She hoped she wouldn't have to out of fear of crushing part of me.

The cage full of red men all stared at me.  I didn't flag as a Goth or mutant to them, so they mostly just growled a bit.  I took a few deep breaths, pulled up one of their mindviews entered it.  I immediately summoned my tentacles and yanked open the door to his memory chamber before the image of the orc rushed at me in the main room.

I grabbed him with my tentacles with my left hand, reached out with a new set at his emotion chamber, closed it and visualized a few large bars locking it closed. 
Better to not be emotional than to simply be a victim to hate and anger all the time.

Then I pushed him further into the main room and pulled myself back through the mindview with the golden tentacles.  As before, I wasn't stunned.

I began getting angry.  This was taking too long.  I grabbed the next one and repeated the scene, but merely knocked back the mental image of the red man rather than waste time grabbing him.

I slammed back the third one as he approached me, but opened the one door and locked the other.  The fourth just pissed me off as he walked closer; I knocked him back so hard he slammed into the far wall.  The fifth I tore the memory door completely off the wall and slammed it into him.  The sixth I practically crushed with the memory door once I’d torn it off its hinges.

I just reached for the memory door in the seventh when I heard a silky woman's voice say, "Calm down."

My anger dissipated, and I was able to deal with the mental image of this man without harming him.  I dealt with his doors and pulled myself out of his mind.

I heard her whisper in my ear again, "Calm down, Psystar."

The last of the anger faded.  I looked around, one of the guard supers stood next to me.

She said, "Are you okay?"

I nodded and took a deep breath, "Thank you.  There's so much anger in here, even with more control it's affecting me, I think."

She said, "I agree.  I'll stick with you.  You have some fantastic perfume on, by the way."

Chrome nodded, "I agree."

"Thanks, it's my pheromones, just heightened like my telepathy right now.  I'd chat more, but my range is already fading, and I'm getting tired.  I need to finish these guys."

I looked back at the cage, four of the red orcs were unconscious on the floor, and three had bloody noses and ears.

She asked, "You didn't fry them, did you?"

"No, I'm freeing them, and locking them off from the hate and anger, at least until we figure something else out for it."

"Oh, that'll be helpful."

"Okay, back to this."

I went back to pulling mindviews up close, freeing their memories and locking the emotions down.  I did one after another after another.  Finally, the strain became too much as my powers weakened and I blacked out....

Chapter 28 - Goth Take-Out

Borgz’ Viewpoint

After my preparations to make the former exoskeleton combat-worthy I emptied the back of my truck completely, put the machine in the back and closed it, and then shifted through the truck, and then into the mannequin in the front seat.

I again wished that I could finish and use the fifteen-foot tall mecha I’d started for the night’s endeavors. 
Man, someday I’m going to be able to tool around like a full mech from a wargame.  It’s really going to kick butt.  Wait, if I can do a mech and a car, can I fly a plane?

I drove to Blacklight.  I'd changed the shirt on the mannequin so it no longer matched the description of the two that walked out of a store earlier in the day.  I also put on a light jacket with a collar that stuck up over the chin.  With a pair of sunglasses and a hat it was hard to see enough of the mannequin's face to pick out that it wasn't human.

I parked in a lot about a block away from the club before shifting into the truck, opened the back door, and then shifted into the exoskeleton.

Okay now, they seem to like putting on an aura of fear and power.  I’ll have to beat down the first one or two I find to make an impression, I think.

Since I knew the side exit best I quickly walked to it and smashed through the new door they had installed.  The door flew into the room.

They'd fixed up the place quickly; it was reasonably busy, with a band playing in the corner to my right.  I remembered the faces of those who had looked over at my mutant comments and those near the pair of ladies.

People began running for the other two exits of the room. 
Come one, come on, where are the muties…. 
I only saw one mutant right off the bat - the big dark man who had initially walked over to us last night.  The band stopped played and ran for the exit off to the right.

I pointed at him and shouted, "You!"  The word boomed over the shouts and screams of the people in the room.

He stared at me for a moment and said, "What the hell?"

I stomped over to him and he bared his fangs at me.  It was different looking down on the big guy now.

I moved to grab him with the left arm while swinging the right.  He blocked my left with his forearm - his arm held, he had to be strong.

His right forearm blocked my punch, but it drove him back several feet.  I began using a continual set of jabs at him - it wasn't as if I got tired any more.

He blocked most of them, and scored a few slices against my arms with the claws.  They cut right through the metal.  It didn't hurt, so I kept up the barrage.

On his next pair of blocks rather than punch, I grabbed his forearm and slammed my other fist into his face.  Then I swung him hard into the wall to the right.  He went through the drywall and the wood framing into the concrete outer wall.

I began slamming him back and forth into the wall until an unusual light shone near the door I'd come through.  A costumed man in dark red and black with a lightning storm on the suit launched a big ball made of electricity at me.

I continued my swing and smashed the mutant against the wall again as the lightning struck me.  It flowed through my body, although it didn't bother me at all.  The mutant fell completely limp.

I figured I'd lure in the hero and went limp as well - acting as though the lightning had shut down some kind of computer brain.  He stood there for a few seconds staring at me - I was glad I didn't have some kind of roaming eyes on the constructs I took over.

He dropped his hands, put them on his hips and smiled.  I recognized him - he was Hellshock - one of the heroes that had been around in the city for years.  He seemed like a nice person on TV.  It was too bad I was going to have to lay the smack down on him.

He walked over and looked around at the exoskeleton.

He said, "I'll be damned, this thing is pretty cool - it even has room for a pilot."

He bent over and reached for the hand holding the unconscious and bloody mutant in it.  I let him open the hand and free the mutant before I grabbed the hero.

He was surprised, to the say the least.  I got him with one arm pinned to his body, and slammed him as hard as I could against the outer wall.  As with the mutant, he went through both the inner wall and the concrete block outer wall.  I pulled him back in and slammed him against an undamaged part of the wall.  This time it knocked him out when I led with his head.

I tossed him off to the side, turned and stomped into the room.  A really ugly monster mutant had come through the right-hand door, where the band fled earlier.