No Master Plan Here (Madness Runs in the Family) (2 page)

             
“We can think about that in a bit,” Kay said, her voice laced with concern. “Right now you need to rest.” Anansi nodded as the drones laid him down on a mattress on the floor in the next room, propping him up with pillows. “I will start the evacuation protocols.” Anansi nodded, adjusting his glasses again as they had slipped down his nose. He was dazed and not focusing well. Kay sat down on the bed beside him, the hologram causing static to play across his skin as she ran her fingers across his arm. Anansi watched the code coursing down her form like water, feeling the drugs in his system pulling him under. Anansi knew that if he could focus, he could read her thoughts, but he simply couldn't focus. His eyelids became too heavy to keep open anymore and as he plunged into darkness, he murmured “We should go to the beach.”

-~-~-

              “It has been six hours since the supervillain Anansi assassinated Congressman Aaron Lowe and engaged Archangel in a battle that crossed four miles of downtown Airy City and left streets and buildings riddled with craters and destroyed vehicles,” said the silver-haired male anchorman from the evening news. Kay watched the feed live from the network website, processing the feed for further information. Footage played behind the man's head of the fight, selected clips that included multiple grenades thrown and detonating near Archangel, Archangel cratering into the concrete right before the stun grenade went off, Archangel driving Anansi into the stone wall of an upscale office building, and Anansi disappearing in a flash of light. The clips made the fight look quite a bit less humiliating to Archangel than it had actually been.

             
“Congressman Lowe was speaking at a rally in support of his bill pushing further federal regulation of the use of superpowers and identification of individuals with superpowers, along with President Reese and Senate majority leader Wilson. President Reese and Senator Wilson were unharmed by the attack. Anansi has been an outspoken opponent of Congressman Lowe and the Superhuman Security Act on the internet, stating that the act was allowing the federal government unconstitutional access to the lives and livelihoods of those with powers and declared it akin to racial profiling. Anansi has been linked to several other violent and cyber attacks on government offices, individuals, and supporters, to include the brutal assault on Senator Anders last month.

             
“The President issued a statement to the press, calling on Anansi to turn himself in and calling his actions abhorrent, the wrong way to affect democracy. Law enforcement representatives remind the general public that Anansi is considered armed and extremely dangerous, and should you find him, you should-”

             
Kay cut the feed and shifted her attention from the internet to the drones scurrying around the safe house, carrying equipment from the outer rooms into the teleportation chamber and disappearing. For several seconds, the individual drones would vanish from her lists of active equipment, and then would reappear on the sensors of the home base. The evacuation was progressing smoothly, and if anyone within a hundred miles had noticed the power surges caused by the teleportation chamber, there was no electronic talk of it yet.

             
Kay brought up the monitor feed of Anansi's sick room, watching her creator breathing slowly. After he had passed out, the drones had set the bones in his arm and rib cage before encasing them in bandages and giving him an injection of nanites. The tiny robots fed a constant stream of information on Anansi's vitals and ensured that the cerebral swelling from the concussion he had received did not grow to be too severe. So far, so good. It appeared that the reactive armor had done its job, turning what should have been lethal force into injuries. Kay made a note that if Archangel would be faced again, something would have to be made to negate the absolute difference in strength. Anansi was skilled at evasion, but one slip up, one miscalculation, and next time he might not be so lucky to escape with only broken bones.

             
Kay spent an hour going over the results of several research programs in place at the home base, a retrofitted cargo ship currently waiting off the coast of Oregon, several nautical miles into international waters. There were some promising results in an improved muscle weave for the armor that could possibly yield another twenty percent strength output, though that would only bring Anansi to the equivalent of a high Class one in that regard. Possibly a low Class two. Nowhere near the exponential increase required to match Archangel's Class Four strength, but it was something.

             
“Kay?” Anansi called, coming to in the sick room. Kay felt his presence coming alive through the neural link between them, felt the anxiety that he always felt as he woke fading when the connection stabilized. He was always so nervous without her, and it was slightly amusing.

             
Kay manifested her holographic form in the room with him and smiled at him. “I am here, as always. Evacuation is proceeding on schedule. We should move you now, to at least ensure that there is no interference in your evacuation.” Kay sent the progress report to the display on his glasses so that he could see for himself and make his own decision.

             
Anansi nodded, his icy blue eyes tracking back and forth, digesting the information presented. When he finished he took off his glasses and knuckled his eyes. “Alright, let's get me out of here. Strip the base of anything someone might use if they broke in here, hide the generator core when everything we can teleport is through, and let us begin life as exiles.”

             
“Already in progress,” Kay said. She gestured towards the door, which opened with a hiss of pressurized air. “If you will follow me to the teleportation room, we can go to the ship. We should be able to set sail in five minutes.” She began walking, Anansi falling in beside her, and the two walked into the next room. Hundreds of spider drones were carrying equipment, books, and furniture onto the circular pad in the middle of the room, which would flare with white light after a group was fully on it. Once the light dimmed, the drones would be gone and the next group entered the pad.

             
As Kay and Anansi approached, the drones parted without a verbal command, stepping out of the way of their master. When the last group of drones already on the stairs had gone through the teleporter, Anansi stepped forward onto the platform. Kay stood back, her holographic form would only cause interference with the energy transfer. “See you on the other side,” Anansi said with a smile. The platform began to glow beneath him.

             
“See you on the other side,” Kay said as Anansi disappeared into the light.

Chapter 2

             
March 5, 2014

              Off the coast of Oregon, far enough into international waters that it was the only thing within sight all the way to the horizon rested the Sanctuary. At first glance, it appeared to be a cargo ship, and once it had been, but that time was past. The decks were empty of shipping containers, and nobody walked the decks.

             
Anansi stood on the bow of the Sanctuary, the wind blowing through his short brown hair. He shivered, despite wearing a thick brown coat and black pants. He felt as if the wind was cutting right through him. He stared off into the distance in the direction of land. His glasses displayed the shoreline as viewed from a camera on a buoy. He sighed, considering his next move.

             
Behind him, he felt the air crackle as Kay manifested her holographic form behind him. She stood behind him silently, watching him, watching the scene he was watching, and watching all the goings on inside the ship all at the same time. Anansi let her stand there for a little longer before he disabled the feed from the buoy camera and acknowledged her presence.

             
“Evacuation and shutdown of the Sierra Nevada base is complete. We can head to sea at your leisure.” Anansi nodded and pulled up the weather reports for the course he had set. He made a slight adjustment to avoid what appeared to be a forming storm, then transferred the plan to Kay.

             
“Any messages?” he said, still looking towards shore.

             
“One from your older sister from a discreet account. Rose approves of your assassination and says that the congressman was a dick. One from your mother. Carol asks if you will be home for the holidays.” Kay displayed the messages in a corner of Anansi's view in full. Anansi nodded, dismissing the messages and filing them away for later.

             
“No responses for now. I'll do that later. Don't let me forget Mom's.” Kay nodded as Anansi turned around and started walking towards the bridge. He accessed the ships systems, sending wireless commands. The engines set to full forward. The rudder turned, sending the ship's nose out to sea. Anansi walked across the deck and eventually down into the hull. The white walls had cameras spread at even intervals along the catwalks that hung over the length of the expanded cargo area of the hull. The crew areas had been removed to make room for storage rooms and laboratories. Occasionally, Anansi would pass a spider drone scurrying along, but for the most part, the ship was still.

             
He took a turn that led him to a stairwell and followed it up and into his quarters. Bookshelves lined the walls where screens or an oak desk did not. A bed and nightstand took up much of the space in the center of the room. A mental command turned off the lights and the screens, plunging the room into darkness. Anansi walked by the light shed by Kay to his bed, stripping off his clothes as best he could with one arm. Kay stood by the door, watching him, arms crossed over a datapad. “Would you like some sedatives to help you sleep?”

             
“No, I'm fine. It only hurts when I breathe.” Anansi laughed and rolled into bed, hissing at the pain when his shoulder touched the covers. “Actually, yes. Standard dose of Percoset.” He settled into bed as a spider drone scuttled into the room, a tray with a glass of water and two pills held aloft in a pair of legs. It hopped onto the bed without spilling the water, presenting it to Anansi. He took the pills, drank the water, replaced the glass, and the drone scurried away.

             
“Wake me if anything happens. We begin work on fixing the arsenal tomorrow.” Anansi laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Kay winked out and the door shut as she did. Anansi took off his glasses, set them on the nightstand, and let his mind wander until he finally went to sleep.

-~-~-

              April 10, 2014

              “With the attack last month that took the life of Congressman Richard Lowe, the public has asked “Who is Anansi?” and “How was he able to attack such a heavily guarded area?”” The anchorman paused for effect as the camera angle changed. The headline beside his head stated “Dangerous Supers” in white with a black helmet with white circles over the eyes superimposed over a red background. The anchorman's suit looked new and expensive, his hair grey and full, the sort of full that spoke of hair loss prevention.

             
“The investigation on the latter is still ongoing, but the former has been answered.” An image replaced the headline. The details were fuzzy, but what could be seen was a man with brown hair and glasses, wearing a long black coat, pants, and boots, carrying a bag over one shoulder as he approached a security checkpoint.

             
“This image, taken by security cameras set up near the checkpoint into the area backstage of the fateful speech, shows us the face behind the mask of Anansi as he approaches a checkpoint manned by an FBI agent in disguise. He was then led to a room containing five highly trained policemen and two supers chosen from the Airy City Defenders chapter for their competence and skill sets believed to be best suited for disabling the villain without needless damage or ruckus.”

             
The image beside the anchorman's head changed to that of the building in question, showing a hole in the wall and debris scattered out onto the grass.

             
“After containment failed, the entire team disabled in a brutally efficient manner that sent all seven individuals involved to the hospital for broken bones, lacerations, concussions, and shrapnel wounds, Anansi is presumed to have teleported or moved by invisibility underneath the stage, where he planted two explosive charges.

             
“But who is Anansi?

             
“To answer that question, we go back to the photo before the rampage began. Facial recognition software was able to identify the man in the photograph as one Jacob Redpath.” The image changed to a picture of the man in a collared shirt and slacks. The higher quality image shows him smiling, looking young and happy. He stands with a shorter woman, her red hair cropped short to the shoulders, her eyes the same as his, but with an appearance of intensity that his do not have.

             
“Jacob Redpath is the younger brother of Rose Redpath, CEO and founder of Blue Steel, Inc. The two are elder siblings to Tom Redpath, better known as Shockwave, lead singer of Murderous Rampage, Rick Redpath, known as Metallurgy and part of the Los Angeles Quick Repair team, and Lily Redpath, known as Blink, a licensed vigilante out of Baltimore, Maryland. His other siblings, Daisy and Edward, have not publicly displayed any powers.