Project Northwoods (63 page)

She leapt off the top of the tree to the next, then again. She couldn’t risk dropping to the ground just yet. She had to find a way to get back to the others before…

“This is Gamma unit,” the earpiece chattered. “Recon reports villains are nearing destination.”

“Copy that, Gamma unit,” the squad leader growled as Zombress leapt from the tree tops and dove through the branches. “They are unaware of your presence.” She hit the ground in a roll, snapped upright, and was running at full speed in the time of a single breath. It would be foolish of her to directly confront the Enforcers now. They would easily subdue her in her weakened state and any other heroes would just make it faster. She couldn’t afford to be recaptured.

Neither can Morgan.

If she was lucky, she could find Morgan and escape. It appeared to be the only way to salvage the situation.

Steven kept looking over his shoulder through the woods, trying not to seem panicked. But it had been so long since Zombress disappeared to cut off pursuit. She was a scary lady, and her continued presence had made him uneasy. But now that she was gone and the implied protection having vanished with her, he had never felt more naked. Even the gun slung on his shoulder felt more like dead weight than a means of defense.

It was… unpleasant.

The girl next to him was named Morgan, from what he had eavesdropped. She trudged, arms folded and silent, in a plodding march. Her eyes were unfocused and darting as her mouth moved to something under her breath. Steven couldn’t help but question his dedication to the cause of villainy when so many people on his side just freaked him right the fuck out.

Then again, the procession ahead of him was a pretty upbeat affair. Having had no attackers since they had left the Fortress, most seemed in good spirits. A few had slunk into the night, but the group was still almost wholly intact. It was heartwarming, in a way.

“She tried to kill me,” Morgan said, suddenly shocking him back from his dream state.

He looked at her. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”

It was her turn to look at him. “My mom tried to kill me.” She went back to staring at nothing. “It can’t get much more personal.”

Steven sucked air in through his teeth. He tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. “That sucks,” was the best he could do.

And it was a poor choice of words. Morgan laughed and shook her head in annoyance. “Poet, aren’t you?”

He ran a hand over his face, trying to brush off his brief contraction of foot-in-mouth disease. “Why?”

“Why, what?”

He tried to play it cool, imagining what his brother Mat would say. “Why, in the midst of all that, did your mother go after you?” He chuckled. “Didja steal her boyfriend?”

She looked away, then coughed unconvincingly. “Yeah, actually. Kind of embarrassing.” Morgan casually brushed her hair out of her face.

Part of him immediately wanted to stop the conversation and run, screaming, into the darkness. But she was cute, he hadn’t been close to getting laid in months, and there was something about family issues that made him want to play the hero… if one could forgive the odious term. “She was probably just jealous.”

She arched her eyebrows for a moment. “Doubtful.” He stopped her and tried to look as smolderingly intense as possible. She cocked an eyebrow this time and stared. “You feeling okay?” she asked.

Steven cursed his brother’s natural charm as he felt his face turn slightly red. “Just fine.” For villains’ sake, he hoped that he was coming across as charming and not as an arrogant douche. “I mean, right now, we have a second chance, you know?” She looked back at the mass of people, oblivious to their stopping. “We can fix everything that has gone wrong.” Unsure of what to do, he gently grabbed her shoulders, causing her to stare directly into his eyes. “No mothers, no boyfriends. Just…” He couldn’t think of a good word that didn’t sound like it belonged in a romantic comedy starring a bashful Englishman and the persistent eye contact certainly wasn’t helping matters. So he went with his first impulse. “Us.”

Morgan looked at him, her eyes darting about his face. “No.” She worked her way out of his grip and folded her arms again. She stared at the ground and shuffled after the others.

Steven grunted in annoyance. “If this were a horror movie, your tits would be out by now,” he muttered to himself. He took one step toward her when someone blew by him in a flash, snatched Morgan, and absconded with her in a different direction. “Shit!”

Before he knew what happened, he was in pursuit, running after the blur which seemed to grow steadily smaller. He charged headlong into the brush, feeling low-hanging branches bite into his cheeks. His gun was in his hands, prepped and ready to…

He ran into someone’s outstretched arm, clotheslining himself.

From the forest floor, Steven coughed, feeling like his throat was irreparably crushed. Zombress, looking a bit disheveled, poked her head into his dazed field of vision. “Sorry. Didn’t want you to get scared and open fire.”

“Could… have… asked…” was all he managed. His head lolled to the side, and he was able to see that Morgan had pressed herself against the tree. He flopped to his stomach, heaving himself upwards onto his knees. “What was that about?”

“It’s a good question,” Morgan grumbled.

Zombress was clearly unhappy with the lack of reverence the two were displaying. “All the villains are walking into a trap. All I managed was to buy us more time to escape.”

Steven grabbed the gun from off the ground. “We have to go back.” He was on his feet now, rubbing his throat with his free hand.

Zombress nodded in the other direction. “You’re welcome to it.”

“What do you mean?” Steven turned to look at her. “You’re abandoning us?”

Nothing to denote emotion crossed the Queen of the Dead’s face. “‘Us’ referred to Morgan and myself. You are free to return to the others and put up a fight.”

“What makes you think I’m going with you?” Morgan asked impatiently. “As far as I’m aware, this whole thing is not my problem.”

“Oh, no?” Zombress faced her, her greater height intimidating the momentarily aggressive Morgan. “And what was your mother trying to do? Why were you there in the first place?”

“I don’t have to be a hero,” Morgan snapped. Steven was taken aback. Why was a hero here? But…
oh, shit
… her mother wasn’t a jilted competitor for a boyfriend after all. “I can go back to being normal, dull me.”

Zombress shook her head. “You know that’s not a choice you can make.”

Off in the distance, a light snapped on overhead. Even at that stretch, the search drone’s beacon was blinding. Screams were diluted to distant murmurs, but there was no gunfire, merely panicked yelling. It would be only a matter of time before they were all rounded up and returned to their cells.

Steven wasn’t happy about it, but he grabbed onto Morgan’s arm. “Look, I don’t like it either, but we have to go with Zombress.” He looked at villain, and she gave a semi-approving nod. “Hero or no, if we stay here, we’re either dead or in prison. And I don’t look good in black and white stripes.” Steven suddenly felt both women’s eyes scan him up and down. “Horizontal, not vertical…” he explained. Their gaze continued to bore into him. “Can we go?” he pleaded.

“Fine.” Morgan said, once more shaking off his gaze. “But only because I can’t stand the dreams in those machines.”

“No one can,” Zombress said before she took off running. Morgan and Steven followed , their footsteps lost within the maze of trees.

OVERTIME

June 29
th
, 2011

Early Morning

THE AMBULANCE SHOOK AND SQUEAKED
with increasing insistence from the multiple stress fractures. Combined with the carbon scoring from the fireballs and rockets, the rickety death-trap appeared to be on its way to the scrap yard. It didn’t help matters that the gaping, door-less hole in the back whistled as the icy breeze made the inside much colder than the meager heater could abate. Nevertheless, it lumbered along at the minimum speed, moving around the occasional early-bird commuter with a polite turn signal and a gentle merge.

Allison proved herself to be a capable and courteous driver, much to Arthur’s surprise. She even helpfully flashed another driver who had neglected to turn on their headlights as they merged onto the opposite highway. Her tuneless whistling was the bizarre capstone of the evening, punctuated by the occasional moan from Mat as Talia worked to mend the bullet hole that had penetrated the muscle above his left hip. He had been lucky it was an armor piercing round and not anti-personnel; the full-metal jacket had ripped cleanly through.

Arthur opened his eyes for the first time in a while. The road became clear after he blinked away some blurriness, the buildings along the side becoming more defined and larger than when he had first tried to sleep. He was tired and sore, one part of his body begging for mercy while the other chastised him for caring about his own needs when others had been injured and killed.

Like Tim.

He wanted to cry, to mourn the loss of his close… only… friend. But nothing came. Arthur felt hollow, heartless even, for the way he had been thrown aside, saved, in an action that cost another’s life. While his eyes were closed, he tried to justify it, say that it had been Tim’s decision, Tim’s action, Tim’s choice to knock him out and stay behind for people he didn’t know.

Rationalization only went so far. Arthur could try to believe he would have stayed behind to give Tim support, to fight and bleed and die. When it came down to it, though, he would have been the first to run. Tim would have told him to get away, and he would have taken off into the night, joining those nameless villains that Tim would die to protect.

What kind of bullshit is that anyway? To fight and die to protect a bunch of nobodies? How could Tim do that to me, of all people, his best friend, let alone his family who had always supported his dream, and Ariana…

Damn it
.

Ariana. Beautiful, angry Ariana. No doubt awakening from the attack and immediately wondering where her boyfriend was. Back at the Fortress? On his way? And he would have to tell her… tell her everything… answer the questions he couldn’t even face himself… just offer a meek ‘I don’t know’ to the woman who already despised him.

His stomach twisted into knots. A tear, hot but small, welled up in his eye as he squeezed it shut as tight as he could. The drop didn’t fully form, catching in his eye lashes, and leaving him unable to feel some kind of emotional release. He kicked at the floor, balling his fists into knots and feeling his short fingernails dig into the skin of his palms. Wishing they could just break the skin, he knotted up his body and turned to the side. “Damn it, Tim…”

Allison gently tapped him on the shoulder. “The bridge is right up ahead,” she said simply. “You hear that, kids?” she called to the rear compartment. “We’re almost to grandma’s!” He turned to look at her as she bounced happily to an unheard song in her head. The woman must have noticed he was watching. She cast a sly glance his way before pointing through the windshield ahead. “See? There’s a maintenance tunnel down there.”

Arthur followed her finger. Sure enough, the road continued in a level plane over a culvert, a set of stairs providing access to the lower area. He wasn’t entirely sure where they were, but he recognized the distant hints of tall buildings. It didn’t have the smell of the inner city, but it was as close as they were probably willing to get.

Talia poked her head out of the back as she rested her arms on the back of the seats. “So, what do we do now?” she asked no one in particular. Arthur went back to staring out the window. In some ways, he wished for the struggle for life and death again. It took his mind off of what was growing to be a colossal failure of a night. He felt Talia’s hand grip his shoulder and give a squeeze before she retreated back into the rear compartment.

Something clanked loudly on the ground behind them. James sort of laughed. “We lost the muffler.”