Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. (23 page)

“There are other dangers,” she said. And suddenly she was
Mom
.

Her eyes flew wide when my left hand closed around her neck and squeezed gently. “
Hope…
” Shelly whispered, barely heard over the blood pounding in my ears.

“I know I look like Barbie’s kid sister,” I said softly, cold and hard as Artemis. “But I can squeeze until you pass out, and if you don’t change this freaking second I’m going to see what you look like unconscious.” I stopped talking, amazed I wasn’t screaming out the rush of sick rage gathering in my chest. Smile gone, she jerked a constricted nod and changed back into the half-Asian girl.

I forced myself to relax, loosening my grip till she gasped.

“You’re crazy!”

“And you just threatened my mother. Try again.”

“No! No! I didn’t mean anything by it!” Her voice shook, and suddenly I felt queasy. Cold, I dropped my hand. She took a gulping breath, backing up as far as the elevator car allowed.

“I just wanted to… it was stupid.”

“No kidding. Blackstone.”

She rubbed her throat. “He’s met me, but not this face. I passed him some information on the Outfit before I dropped by the bank last week. Look, they’re after
me
now—somehow they’re able to find me. But I can tell you all about them, who they’re working for, if you’ll protect me.”

I looked up at the ceiling. “Blackstone?”

“
Indeed, my dear
.” He sounded quite pleased. “
I’m aware of the incident to which she’s referring, and by all means we need to speak.”
I heard the pop as the shaft unsealed, and we started to rise. Then the lights turned red and siren-wails split the air.

“
SECURITY BREACH IN DOME ATRIUM; INITIATING FULL LOCKDOWN AND EVACUATION.”

It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

Astra,
Notes From a Life
.

Multiple shocks announced the
re-closing
of the shaft above us as hatches sealed each level.
No, No, No!
The elevator doors opened onto the empty residence level, and I practically threw
Kitsune
out into the hall and the arms of a startled Willis as I mashed the ground-floor button.

“
Damnit
, let me up!”

“
Astra
,” Lei
Zi
called in my ear. “
You are to secure
Kitsune
, exit through ET-3, then engage as you see fit. Understood
?”

“Secure, Exit ET-3, engage, got it!”

“I can secure our guest, miss,” Willis offered. “You’ll be needing this?” He handed me a mob-kit and I laughed.

“Thanks Willis!” I called back as I
flew
down the hall. Right, left, right, pop hall-panel and crack hatch, down the tunnel and then straight up, ignoring the rungs. I grabbed the latch and twisted, blowing the seals, and popped out and onto the avenue just around the corner from the portico doors.

Tourists fled in all directions and protest-signs littered the ground. A loose terrier bounded across the grass, barking hysterically. At least I didn’t see any bodies, and I found Gabe and his partner in the portico. His partner couldn’t sit up, but Gabe had pulled himself to his knees.
No blood
. Picking Gabe up, I gently set him down, protesting, on grass fifty feet back around the Dome, then did the same for his partner. If things went our way, I didn’t want anyone blocking the exit.

“Astra at the main doors!” I reported. “Outside is clear, going in!”

“
Roger, Astra,
” Blackstone replied. “
Lei
Zi
, Rush, Seven, The Harlequin, Riptide, Artemis, Galatea engaging. Watch your tags
.”

Tags? I shrugged, and flew through the doors.

A storm of bullets met me and I dropped for the floor, trying to see through the smoke. Here there were bodies—our armored team, two of Platoon—crumpled behind their station, torn and burned. No civilians, thank God. The shooters, in black jumpsuits and hooded facemasks, poured auto-fire on me like it would do more than sting. Every one of them had a spectral green tag floating beside him, reading
Flash Mob:
Redux
-type, temp-clones; swing away.

Tags. “Shelly!” I laughed; she always hijacked my senses to make herself real through our neural link—now she was using the ability to give me a heads-up tactical display.

“
Tagging them as I call them
!” she sang out through my
earbug
. “
Green means engage now, blue active, red stay away!
Kinda
busy!
”

“Thanks!”

I launched myself into the gunmen, swinging. They went down like dominoes, the hard-hit ones vanishing as they hit the wet floor. The smoke and steam made it hard to count, but I guessed a couple-dozen and there didn’t seem to be more popping up. Some ignored me, shooting downrange away from me, and at the far end of my vision I saw Rush’s blur—two sets: odd, but he had to be pulling civilians.

I kept swinging until all of Flash Mob was gone, then headed further in.

And smacked right into the floor. I lifted my head off cracked marble paving, guts heaving, too dizzy to focus
.
What the hell?

“It’s about time.” Another black-masked figure rose from behind the shattered reception desk—this one red-tagged
Warp: remote attack, vertigo-nausea; fragile.

Red-tagged.
Thanks for the warning, Shell.

“Don’t fight it,” he said. “And we won’t need to be hard on you.”

“This is easy?” I wanted to vomit, couldn’t.

“Easier. You’re not who we’re here for.”

“Good to know,” I gasped, pulling a flash-bang grenade from my pack.

“Bright light,” I whispered, counting on Shell to pass the warning as I pulled the pin and threw myself at the desk.

BANG!

I landed as the stun grenade flashed a million candela in my hand and beat the air with 150 decibels, blinding and disorienting. Even
my
ears rang, and my hand stung, but I grabbed for Warp as I fell off the edge of the battered desk. I missed, but Artemis came out of the mist and shot him with both of her
elasers
,
crack
crack
.

Her leather
catsuit
was sliced up, straps and buckles dangling, and somewhere she’d lost her skull-mask, but she was
laughing
. She helped me sit up, found the glue-tape in my kit, and started wrapping while my stomach settled and the world stopped spinning.

“You okay?” she asked. I nodded, wincing as she used a couple of strips to securely blindfold Warp; removing it would take away hair. She patted his shoulder cheerfully. “He can’t attack what he can’t see. Move your tiny ass—the tough guys are further in.”

“Right.” My vertigo fading fast, I launched myself towards the back of the atrium. “Positions?” I queried, and Shelly passed it on.

“
We’re dealing with Tin Man and some kind of clay thing outside of Dispatch
,” Lei
Zi
responded calmly. “
Blackstone reports penetration of the main elevator shaft by an Atlas-type. Take it
.”

“Main elevators, on it!” I confirmed. Titanium hatches, and someone was
penetrating
? I ignored the sizzling snap of Lei
Zi’s
bolts off to my left, almost drowned by the wailing alarms, and found the elevator bay. The security doors had slammed down, sealing the bay the instant the alarms had tripped, but they’d been ripped aside.

Someone had forced the doors to the center elevator open, exposing the shaft. The emergency lights had cut out, filling the shaft with darkness, but I could see someone down there; his body-heat lighting him up in the black. The floating green tag read
X: Atlas-type, unknown class
. Ringing strikes echoed up the shaft as he hammered on the first hatch.

Anyone that could go through the security doors could take what I dished out: I looked back into the Atrium, then stepped into the shaft and dropped feet-first, helping gravity speed me along. My impact burst the first hatch and flattened us against the second, but the villain I’d landed on recovered faster and
heaved
, smashing me against the shaft wall. Steel-reinforced ferroconcrete refused to yield, and my half-healed ribs screamed.

“Stay down!” he snarled. “I’m not here for you!”

“I heard!” I bounced back up, bringing my head down to smash his masked face.

He howled but he grappled me, grip like steel clamps, arms like cables. “Bitch! You can’t win!” Unable to break his hold, I flew us into the wall behind him, hammered him with repeated short knee-kicks to his gut and chest, smashed him in the throat with my elbow when he let go. I was screaming.

“
Can’t
? I trained with
Ajax
, you moron! Get! Out! Of! My! House!” He swung us into the opposite wall, but my elbow crushed his nose and now
he
screamed, launching us straight up. I tried to spin us, but he got me above him and when we hit the top of the shaft my world exploded. I let go.

Fifty feet down to the second hatch, and it rang like a gong when I hit.
Move!
I told myself, but I wasn’t listening. One breath. Two. Nothing. The world slowly came back, but he was gone. I sat up, only to whimper and grab my side while the world spun some more.

“Lei
Zi
?” I took a breath and tried again, louder.

“
Status?
” She sounded mildly interested—like I’d interrupted a card-game.

“The shaft is clear. Do you need me?”

The Dome shook and the overpressure blast popped my ears. “
Negative
,” she said. “
Stand down
.”

“
Yippie
,” I whispered, dropping back. The cool titanium felt wonderful.

Flying didn’t hurt, so I didn’t stay down long. Back up the shaft, the Atrium was a wreck; water covered the floor—Riptide had been busy—and burning bits of Tin Man’s latest
mecha
-man creation lay about, smoking and steaming.
 
The final concussive explosion had ripped apart the inner wall separating the Atrium from the office section, but it looked like the museum doors were intact. The smell of scorched metal and burned flesh hung in the air, and I found Tom, dead at his post; somehow I’d missed him when I fell over the reception desk. Since he was one of Platoon, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Lei
Zi
put me on perimeter-watch as the Dome’s alarms went silent, giving way to the rising whoops of landing emergency vehicles. I went outside to check on Gabe and his partner, waving the EMTs in as they unloaded their gear and came running. Steel Drake and Bolt, two Chicago Guardians and the guys who‘d airlifted the pair of ambulances, trotted up to me.

“You look hammered, A,” Drake said bluntly. “What can we do?”

I hesitated, looking around. “Could you check the park? But stand by for airlift.” When I’d taken
Kitsune
downstairs the Atrium hadn’t been empty—as fast as Rush had moved, there had to be civilian casualties inside. He fired off a salute and they flew up and around. I found Gabe and Officer Ryan where I’d left them, white as sheets and painfully bent from retching spasms, and helped them up. Together we took up positions at the portico doors and watched the incoming tide of emergency vehicles, city police, and
newsies
.