In Hero Years... I'm Dead Delux Edition (40 page)

I’ll admit it, my loose flesh tightened.

Spotlights converged on him. He lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. It was his time. He was in his element. It was his bid for immortality, and he was going to grab it with both hands.

Then the stage exploded beneath him.

It wasn’t a big blast. It only knocked him back about ten feet. He landed awkwardly. His left leg collapsed. Definitely broken–not as bad as Blue Ninja’s, but where his leg was supposed to be straight it wasn’t. He made an attempt to get up, then sagged back.

That’s all it took to embolden a bunch of ruffians. They surged onto the stage, jostling each other like hungry puppies fighting for a teat. The second they reached him, the stomping began.

Constitution’s support troops turned their fire on the stage. Their shots knocked thugs flying. It looked for a second as if their superior firepower would win the day. The crowd outnumbered them, but couldn’t touch them, which gave the good guys a decided advantage.

Then a series of explosions rippled through the catwalk. Bolts sheered. Catwalk panels tipped and swung free, scattering cops like seed from a farmer’s hand. Some cops fell into the crowd. Others hit a bare patch of warehouse floor and landed harder than Constitution. A couple of C4 II members dropped as well. Superball bounced high, but missed a grab at a rafter and descended into a crowd.

Mr. Big’s staff had traded their scanners for weapons and started shooting at the cops still clinging to dangling steel. Looked like they were using rubber bullets at first, but rubber doesn’t ricochet that way. The cops were shooting sound, but the thugs were pushing metal. Gang members swarmed up to the catwalk level, going straight at the few cops who’d not fallen.

The tide had turned inside a minute and a half, and the undertow was dragging Capital City’s finest to oblivion.

Constitution and his people had been set up, too. They’d been tipped, then ambushed. Wheels within wheels there–planning worthy of my father. Someone had worked hard to crush C4 II, and I was willing to bet the battle here was only one tiny part of events going down in Capital City.

Data points swirled into a mental blizzard. Order was slowly pulling itself together out of mental chaos, but the external chaos wasn’t helping my concentration. I needed time and space to think. The real Mr. Big just had us all reacting–allowing him to maintain control.

If there was one good thing about being exposed as Mr. Big, it was that none of the gang members came after me. Added bonus, they were picking off cops who were making runs at me. That bought me just enough time to escape.

I shucked my jacket and pulled a small silver sphere the size of a golf-ball from a pouch. I flicked a small switch and heaved the thing at the stage. It bounced once, clicked up off Constitution’s shield and exploded at head height with a loud bang and bright flash. It scattered the gangsters and sent Constitution rolling–a result that confused the forces of law and disorder both.

I popped a grapnel up and caught it on the edge of a hole in the roof. I hit the button on the guide-rod and rocketed up through the firefight. Swinging up onto the flat roof, I released the grapnel and sprinted to the edge. On the way I tore the barcode bracelet off my wrist.

I flipped it over and ran my thumbnail along the back. Small bump. RFID chip. The scanners read a signal from it, marking me. Mr. Big had figured out the likely candidates I’d snag a bracelet from and made sure their bracelets were all tagged specially. Once I was in, he had sensors tracking me. The mask was just window dressing.

Or does it have a chip, too?

I tossed both away.

Exploding bricks peppered me. Without looking back, I dove from the roof. I flipped the grapnel back up into the air. It found purchase on the next warehouse, swinging me away before I hit pavement. At the top of the arc I released, flipped and landed below the edge of that roof.

“You’re not getting away!” Superball sailed high, his arms still flaccid ribbons from his having slingshotted himself toward me. He made a grab, but his arms just flailed. I ducked, then kicked, catching him where his kidneys should have been. That knocked him off course. He bounded off the roof again, heading toward the river. I went the other way.

Good choice. A series of warehouses lined up neatly with nary a wino’s-width separating them. Crossing from one to the other was more a case of running hurdles than it was long-jumping. I went down once, skidding in gravel, then cut southwest and leaped to a smaller building.

I crouched there beneath a pigeon coop. A police helicopter fluttered overhead and a spotlight raked the roof, but wasn’t looking for me. The aircraft continued on toward the big warehouse and hovered. Prowl-cars sped in that direction, sirens screaming. Lights came on throughout the city. People silhouetted themselves in windows, occasionally lit by red and blue flashers, then returned to the world of Murdochs and Superfriends.

Huddled there, the pigeons’ soft cooing a contrast to my harsh breathing, I got my thinking time. It struck me as appropriate to be beneath the coop. I’d been a big pigeon. We all had. Mr. Big had played his hand perfectly.

Mr. Big had set me up to be Mr. Big in Redhawk’s eyes. That’s the only explanation for his reaction at the memorial. And Constitution’s saying the mayor’s opinion of hiring me didn’t matter suggested animosity there. Constitution had been ambushed, which meant Mr. Big had been talking to him and tipped him about the meeting.

So Mr. Big was playing all three of us off against the other. The ambush engaged C4 II, and the sound of distant explosions heralded other attacks. Mr. Big divided. He conquered. He rendered Capital City defenseless.

And his strike at Selene meant I’d not be thinking straight. I’d rushed right into his trap. I figured myself clever because I’d infiltrated his meeting. If I hadn’t done the leg work, he’d have sent me a FedEx package with instructions.

And the way I was thinking, or the lack of thinking, I’d have walked into the trap anyway.

Everything began to slot together. Redhawk
could
be trusted. Likewise Constitution, but he was out of it. If Redhawk could rally the city, he might be able to prevent its utter collapse.

But he’d need help doing that. Mine. And I’d need his help to finish Mr. Big.

With half a plan forming in my brain, I went over the side and rode a line to ground level. The sky flashed twice and the sound of more explosions echoed through the streets. I couldn’t tell direction, but no way it was good.
 

No silver lining in this cloud.

That’s when Vixen nailed me with both feet. I bounced off a brick wall and sprawled in the street. I kept rolling, avoiding her next two attempts to stomp my heart through my spine, or vice versa, then spun to my feet and faced her.

“I’m not the enemy here.”

“You’re insane, just like your father.” She pointed back at the warehouse, part of which appeared to be burning ferociously. “I saw. I know what you are.”

“What I am is a patsy. Same with the Colonel and Redhawk.”

She came at me fast–too fast and too predictable. Her foot flashed out. I blocked, stabbed a stiff-fingered hand into her hamstring, then danced back, giving her room to retreat.

She pulled back for a second, but didn’t rub her leg. “You don’t have me fooled. Not like my mother. Before I left the hospital, she told me not to let you do anything stupid.”

“She’s awake?”

“Yep. Groggy. Doesn’t remember anything, but I know what happened.”

Fury made her fast. A low kick raked a shin. I took it, then blocked the leg sweep with my hip. Vixen tried to spin into a scissors-kick that would snap my right leg. I struck out, driving the heel of my hand into her breastbone. That dropped her clean on her back.

I withdrew out of her range.

She rolled to her feet and raised her fists. “You bastard.”

“We’ve covered that ground before.”

She spat. “You played us all. There were no thugs in the shop. You broke my mother’s arm, then tossed her in the vault yourself. She’d figured things out and you had to eliminate her.”

“You can’t believe that.”

Her eyes tightened. “Only thing that makes sense. If it was to get to you, why not just kill you?”

Something clicked in the back of my head. “It punishes your mother and takes you away from me.”

“I was never yours.”

“But Mr. Big never knew that.”

Vicki danced in and clipped me with a roundhouse kick. I could have stopped it, but the counter would have destroyed her knee. I spun away, my right eye already beginning to swell, then ducked beneath another kick. I blocked a third. Her fourth caught me over the ribs and sent me flying.

I rolled and came up in the middle of the road. The manhole in front of me exploded upward. Kid Icthy shot into the air riding a gush of raw sewage. “I will save you, Vixen!”

He looked heroic for the half second it took her expression to sour, then my heel connected with his chin. He spun through the air and flopped into the gutter. His gills spasmodically opened and closed.

They were the only parts of him moving.

Vixen’s eyes blazed. “You’re going to pay for that, too.”

“Stop it, Vicki! Think, girl, think.”

My daughter snarled and launched herself. She clawed at my face, but I caught her wrists and rolled back. Posting a foot in her stomach, I heaved and let her fly. She’d land hard, but a dozen feet away, which would buy me some time to explain.

At least that was the plan.

Plans never survive contact with the enemy.

Especially when that enemy stands six and a half feet tall and is encased in red and silver, flow-metal armor.

Red Angel, one of the Russian heroes, cradled my daughter in her arms. The armor absorbed the wings back into it. She set Vicki down gently on a bus stop bench, then turned toward me.

The armor had been modeled on experimental battlesuits that covered the retreat from Afghanistan, but considerably updated. Not quite as good as what Terry wore, but still impressive. No visible joints, no muzzles on the forearms, no bulky battery-packs. The flow-metal looked closer to latex body paint, save for the jet-boots, gloves and mirror-faced helmet.

I raised my hands defensively. “Vicki, think. How long has this operation been planned? Six months? A year? More?”

My daughter propped herself up on an elbow. “Maybe you just work fast.”

“How could I set up the Hall of Fame hit before I even knew the Hall existed?”

Red Angel held a hand up, palm-forward. “You will be coming now.” The eerie red glow of a blaster lens emphasized the adamant tone of her digitized voice.

I told her to stuff herself. In Russian. Just to make her feel at home.

The blaster flashed. I dove right. Tarmac bubbled in a wedge behind me.

That would have left a mark.

I had one advantage over her. The armor slowed her down. I could be faster.

You’ll have to be.

I went straight at her and flicked a shock rod out as I came. It caromed off the curb and hit her right shoulder. The needles popped, electricity flowed and the metal rippled just enough to distract her. I spun low and swept her left leg. It was like kicking a sapling, but it worked. She toppled backward and landed with the force of a Buick falling ten stories.

Alas, she didn’t stay down.

Speed is the advantage a baseball has over a bat. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop bats from smashing a lot of balls.
 

From her perspective, I came in like a high, hanging curve ball.

And she got all of me.

I leaped above a kick, then she nailed me with an open palm strike. My breastbone cracked. Worse, I never touched ground. I twisted through the air, then wrapped my spine around a street light. Lightning shot down my legs. Energy unspent, I spun around, flew off and scattered garbage cans.

I came up with a lid. She melted it. Coming hard, she crushed a stoop with a kick. I whirled away, snatched a fist-sized stone and heaved it as hard as I could.

It hit, snapping her head back. Gouged the metal over her forehead, too. She staggered, dropped to a crouch then blasted away.

Her aim was off. She was seeing double, and fired right through the one of me that wasn’t there. A car exploded down the block. She shook her head and tracked me again.

By the time she was ready to shoot, the flow-metal had healed the gouge. Deciding to handle me personally, she drove at me, fists flying. The attacks came quickly, but obviously. Despite her greater bulk and strength, dealing with
this
flurry shouldn’t have been a problem.

Without thinking, I used
aikido
to turn her attacks against her. Grab a limb, move, allow the force of her attack to twist her up. If she kept going, something would shatter or twist off. Human joints aren’t built to take that pressure.

Her armor, on the other hand,
was
. Limbs stiffened, locking into place. All motion stopped, meaning I was hanging on to parts of someone who wanted to break me into small pieces. Moreover, because momentum had stopped, she was no longer fighting against herself. We were back to square one–and I was up close when I really wanted to be in the cheap seats.