Team Omega (34 page)

Desperately, he threw himself at the window and crashed through it into the bright sunlight, falling nearly five metres to the ground.  Somehow, he managed to twist in the air so he landed without injuring himself, only to realise that the crowds of people nearby hadn't even noticed his appearance.  The Redeemer’s telepathic net had sunk its hooks deep into their minds, preventing them from seeing anything out of the ordinary.  A moment later, he felt her mind attempting to lock onto his thoughts.  She wouldn't settle for just holding him in her grasp this time; she’d either take complete control or shut him down completely.  And then no one would be able to warn the United States...

Silly
, The Redeemer said, directly into his mind.  The contempt in her thoughts struck right into his soul.  She was mad; no, worse than mad.  The Redeemer knew exactly what she was doing.  But surely a telepath would understand that what she was doing was wrong.  Even the most basic telepath was empathic, aware of the fear and guilt that affected normal humans when they encountered a telepath.  But some telepaths gloried in the fear they caused.

The Redeemer’s thoughts hardened. 
What do you think you can tell them that they don’t already know
?

Mimic stumbled to his feet, only to lose control of his legs moments later and crash back to the ground.  One hand fumbled for the pistol at his belt, moving it up towards his forehead; he couldn't tell if it was his own determination to escape being turned into a puppet or if she was pushing him into committing suicide.  He tried to fight the depression overcoming him, but it was too strong, too focused.  He’d failed everyone and now he was going to become a puppet, unless he killed himself before she caught him...

The gun barrel felt reassuringly solid against his teeth as he pressed it into his mouth, and then pulled the trigger.  There was a moment of horrified despair, a moment of chilling realisation that he’d been manipulated...and then there was nothing.

***

Matt stared in disbelief as Mimic put the pistol in his mouth and blew his brains out.  No one else seemed to have noticed the shot, let alone the dying chameleon in front of them, a sure sign of telepathic interference.  A moment later, he realised that he was also the only one who could see the Redeemer as she hovered over Mimic’s corpse.  He might be shielded from her telepathy—it had been how he’d been able to get so close to the mansion—but if she turned and looked at him, he’d be seen for sure. 

Luck was with him.  She never turned around.  Instead, the Redeemer waited until a couple of men with body bags arrived to take Mimic’s remains to the mass graves outside the city, and then floated back through the window, into the mansion.  Matt wanted to slip up to the men and take the body from them, but the Redeemer had obviously meddled with their minds and any interference might draw her attention.  Shaking his head, he replayed what he had seen and sensed in the moment since Mimic had plummeted out of a window and hit the ground.  He wasn't the personality type to consider suicide—anyone who had completed BUD/S wasn't inclined to give up and die—and
that
suggested the Redeemer had murdered him, even though his hand had been the murder weapon.  There had been a telepath, a decade ago, who had been driven mad by sensing the moment when a person died and turned into a serial killer.  Had The Redeemer joined him in madness?

Shaking his head, Matt slipped away from the mansion and back to the hotel.  The United States had to be warned of this new danger.  Hope was bad enough, but if the Redeemer was mad...God alone knew what would happen.  Telepathic madness tended to be contagious, the telepath accidentally infecting other nearby minds with memes that created madness or death.  It was one of the many reasons why telepaths were so strictly controlled...

And if Hope really did intend to invade the United States, a mad telepath would be a formidable weapon. 

Chapter Thirty-Four

“I really don’t like this, sir.”

General Kratman nodded, unsurprised, as America paced his office.  Part of the reason he'd kept his job through three administrations and a dozen incidents that would have terminated anyone else’s career was because he never let anything bother him.  Other officials would have found the presence of so many superhumans intimidating, but the General had seen death and terror in the secret wars that had followed Vietnam and no longer allowed fear to influence his life.  Besides, he’d given plenty of orders to men who could have killed him, particularly as he’d grown older.  It had been a long time since he'd led men on a mission.

America was the public face of the SDI, a superhuman wearing an all-covering spandex costume made from an American flag.  What
wasn't
known to the general public was that there had been no less than
five
different superhumans playing the role of America, including two who had died in the line of duty.  The precise details of the SDI’s organisation were kept highly classified, not least because the General knew that the SDI was badly outnumbered by the rest of the superhuman population.  It wouldn't do to allow untrained superhumans to think that they could beat the team that, if worst came to worst, served as a final sanction on their behaviour. 

The public lapped up whatever information was fed to them through tame reporters with gusto, but most of it was nonsense intended to hide the truth and convince them that the SDI could be trusted to do its duty.  In reality, the General feared that the system of taking the most powerful superhumans they could find and offering them whatever they wanted to serve as part of the SDI was badly flawed.  Some superhumans had issues that made them ill-suited to work in a military organisation, no matter how powerful they were.  A handful wound up in the covert team, fighting the underground battles to keep the United States safe; others were watched and, if necessary, eliminated.  The General would have preferred to work with boosted SOF operatives who had passed psych tests intended to weed out those who couldn't be trusted with enough power to bring down a city, but no one had come up with a safe procedure for granting superpowers.

“I can't say that I’m very comfortable with it either,” the General said, finally.  America had objected, politely but firmly, to the plan to assassinate Hope.  America knew, of course, that Hope’s plan had weaknesses even before he left Libya in chaos, but someone attempting to assassinate a Level 5 superhuman had to worry him.  It didn’t help that no one had been warned about it before the assassin had made her attempt—and failed.  “But do we have any other choice?”

There was no question of putting anyone but the most intensely committed superhumans in the America costume.  The current America had been a lucky find, a man who sparked midway through Boot Camp and turned into a Level 5 superhuman.  He had some military training before entering the SDI’s training facilities, self-discipline that most superhumans couldn't hope to match and a level of patriotism that meant he could be trusted with delicate missions.  But he was also something of an idealist; the General had quietly vetoed him having any access to the covert team because he wouldn't understand what they did in the name of their country.  And that decision might have come back to haunt him.

“I think that they have taken on far more than they can handle,” America said, finally.  The superhumans in the SDI had intensely debated Hope’s actions since he’d invaded the Congo and crushed the warlords.  None of them felt any pity for the warlords, but they were in the best place to know that superhuman abilities had limitations—and that Hope was operating without any of the restrictions they knew and accepted.  “But I'm not sure that that justifies trying to kill him.”

“We cannot allow them to run riot over the world, operating according to their notion of right or wrong,” the General said, finally.  “What else could we have done?  Sent the SDI in to battle them in the middle of Kinshasa?”

America snorted at the comment.  Superhuman conflicts were never
quiet
.  A brawl between the SDI and the Saviours in the midst of a city, even one already shattered by civil war, would have been disastrous.  The collateral damage would have been enough to make anyone blanch.  And the SDI would have been badly outnumbered.  They might have won—they were used to working as a team, something that most superhumans were not—but they would have left a ruined city behind them.  America’s reputation would have plummeted; it might have been kinder to launch a massive nuclear strike against the city. 

“I know what you mean,” he said, finally.  “I just feel...
dirty
.”

The General nodded in understanding.  “The real world is a messy fucking place,” he said, standing up and looking out the window at the New York skyline.  New York was the world’s superhuman capital, by any definition of the term, and so the SDI had had to base itself just outside the city.  “The comics make it look so simple.”

They shared an ironic chuckle.  Comic books had been declining ever since real superhumans had appeared, although some of the older characters still had their legions of devoted fans.  There was even a theory that said that some of the fans had believed in superhumans—and heroes—so intensely that they’d brought them into existence.  The General knew that Level X superhumans had weird powers, ones that defied normal understanding, but he rather doubted that there was any truth to that theory.  Besides, what came first; the Level X superhuman or a world that hosted them?

No one would have thought that the SDI’s base was actually a military base; the previous Director of Operations had outfitted the tower with luxury carpeting and large bedrooms for each of the superhumans, and the General had never had the heart to replace them with something more Spartan.  Besides, his predecessor had been the victim when political leaders had managed to duck the blame for a problem they had helped to cause, his career sacrificed to the mob.  He followed America down to the lounge—the briefing room, as he called it—and nodded to the other members of the overt team.  If Hope did carry out his threat, they would be in the forefront of America’s defence.

There was a flash of light, and a girl materialised in the lounge.  The General reached for his weapon as the other superhumans jumped to their feet, unused to having their capital invaded by anyone, particularly reporters.  He stared as the girl suddenly started to glow, realising in horror just who she was and what she was doing, but it was too late.  America picked him up and shoved him into the gravity chute, a moment before the girl exploded into blinding light...

***

“
Jesus
!”

The United States Global Observation Command was a relatively new creation, the child of political leaders demanding that something be done to monitor superhuman activity and the technological push created by superhumans helping to establish space stations and orbital facilities around the Earth.  Most of the previous monitoring stations and their systems had been folded into USGOC, which had assumed responsibility for watching for nuclear tests, superhumans sparking into life, and foreign activity in orbit.  The men watching from the Cheyenne Mountain facility were trained to track superhumans who emitted tiny bursts of radiation.  As it was, the flash from New York was so powerful that it burned out a number of the sensors watching from high overhead.

“Report,” the supervisor demanded.  Most of the time spent in the fortress was boring, even if it
was
the cornerstone of the United States defence network.  But when the sensors picked up a nuclear detonation, boredom was replaced by sheer terror.  “What happened?”

“Micro-nuclear detonation in New York City,” the operator said.  The blinded satellites were already useless, but there were contingency plans to direct other satellites to take their place.  Besides, they also had access to the live take from less sensitive satellites that had survived the blast.  “Sir...it’s right over the SDI building.”

The supervisor didn't hesitate.  Picking up the phone, he called the Pentagon.  “This is a FLASH message,” he said.  “I say again, this is a FLASH message.  We have a confirmed nuclear detonation in New York.”

“It seems to have been a very odd blast,” the operator commented.  By now, the alert would be racing through the system, warning everyone who might have to deal with the residue left by a nuclear blast.  “Very tiny—I’m not sure that it damaged anywhere outside the SDI facility.”

The supervisor winced.  “Anyone who saw it will still be blind,” he said.  “And what the hell does it mean?”

***

Chester had been briefing the President when the alerts sounded and the Secret Service agents rushed into the Oval Office.  The President was quickly grabbed, taken down a shaft that led under the White House and into a bunker intended to protect the President from anything up to and including a nuclear detonation right above the White House.  Secondary agents took care of Chester, leading him to a secondary shaft as the White House staff was hastily evacuated to the bunkers.  God alone knew what was happening outside—no one else seemed to know—but Chester would have bet his salary that it had something to do with Hope.  The superhuman wasn't known for standing on his hands after issuing a threat.

The protective agents finally let go of him once they reached the bunker, where a group of armed Marines checked their credentials before allowing them into the innermost core, the secure room that protected the President.  It was supposed to be capable of standing up to any superhuman, but no one had actually been willing to sanction the expense in testing the whole system with a real superhuman.  Chester saw the President at the far end of the room, surrounded by a pair of military aides responsible for communicating with the Pentagon and NORAD, and walked towards him.  There was an ominous red light pulsing over New York.

“I have word from the ground,” one of the aides was saying.  “The blast was definitely confined to the SDI building, which appears to have been largely destroyed.  New York medics are rushing to the scene now, but the National Guardsmen with radiation counters have been delayed because of panic in the streets.”

The President looked to have aged fifty years overnight.  “The SDI,” he said, as the horrific meaning sank in.  “Are they...are they alive?”

“Unknown,” the aide said.  “But the blast was nuclear in force, if not in scope; we have to assume the worst.  Everyone in the building might be dead.”

Chester felt sick, even though he'd lived with the realities of a superhuman world for longer than he cared to contemplate.  The SDI had been America’s first line of defence against a superhuman threat, be it the Protectorate of Iraq or the Latin American alliance that was effectively aimed at the United States.  They’d always assumed that the Russians and the Chinese had been building up their own superhuman forces as well.  But if the overt team—and most of the covert team—were dead, America’s defences had already been crippled. 

“New report,” one of the aides snapped.  “Hostile superhumans have appeared near the building!  They’re ordering the police back and threatening deadly force if they refuse to comply.”

“I thought that New York was meant to be the City of the Superhero,” the President said, grimly.  “Can't the Mayor rustle up a posse to deal with the intruders?”

“I think it may take some time to get organised,” Chester said.  He’d warned about the dangers of allowing so many superhumans to live openly in New York, but no one had listened.  No, they’d listened; they’d just ignored him.  “And I don’t know how much time we have left.  We need to get the President out of here.”

***

The General slowly came back to himself, feeling a dull pain throughout his entire body.  His first attempt to move proved that his legs had been broken in the fall, just after the detonation had cut power to the emergency chute. 
The planners did a good job, after all,
he thought numbly, but it hadn't been enough to save the SDI.  He’d just have to hope that someone managed to rescue him before he bled to death. 

His ears were still ringing, but he heard the sound as someone—or
something
—started to move the pile of rubble that had landed on top of the chute’s cage.  He started to reach for the gun he always wore on his belt, only to discover that his fingers weren't working properly.  Blood leaked from his wrist, suggesting that he’d broken that, too—or perhaps his arm.  He gritted his teeth, trying to remember the mental disciplines he’d had hammered into his head during SOF training, but no amount of discipline could overcome what had happened to his arm.  There was a final rattle from outside and bright sunlight stabbed into the cage, almost blinding him.  He closed his eyes as someone jumped down beside him and then opened them, coming face to face with one of Triple A’s bodies.  The German-born super-soldier would have been able to overcome him even if he hadn't been badly wounded.