Heroic: The Golden Age
Author: Evan Currie
Date: 2021-06-07 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Superheroes
Description: Five years ago, the world changed forever. We were discovered. No once noticed. We were invaded. No one realized. We fought back. No one... cared. In the last moments before defeat, our enemy deployed a bioweapon, spreading an invisible pandemic to the winds. The world just wanted to go back to normal. A third of the population have the genetic code needed to activate the Quantum Virus. Billions of people, waiting to wake up one morning with powers. Abilities. Enhancements beyond that of mortal men. The aliens bet on us destroying ourselves in the ensuing madness, but not all humans revel in d

Heroic

The Golden Age

Manhattan, NYC

The explosion rocked the air through the city, shattering glass and causing people to cover as the smarter people in the streets ran for cover. This was New York, however, and most weren’t that smart by far.

Devin Meeran, fourteen years old, was at the head of the group that rushed forward with their cell phones out to catch the fight on video, each hoping to go viral by being the first to get decent images of what was sure to be huge news by that night.

“It’s The Commodore!” Devin yelled, excited as he recognized the distinctive costume of the well known superhuman that was flying above them, exchanging blows with someone he couldn’t tell at a glance.

The Commodore was perhaps the best known of the Lions, an American organization of superhuman heroes. They’d originally tried to call themselves ‘superheroes’, but had instantly been sued for trademark infringement. Only heroes working for Disney and their Distinguished Competition were legally permitted to use that term.

Unfortunately, Devin thought, all their ‘heroes’ were the sort who looked good but couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag if you hosed it down first.

The Commodore was Devin’s favorite of the heroes in the country. The military themed hero was a classic flying brick type. It wasn’t the most interesting of power types, but the man himself was always the first in the middle of any fight and he was always the last one out. He was most people’s favorite, honestly, at least anyone younger than twenty or so.

Old guys over twenty would always look disappointed at Devin when he said that The Commodore was the greatest, shake their heads, and tell him about The Marine.

Sure, Devin figured the Marine was cool and all. He was the one who inspired most of the modern heroes, so much so that over eighty percent of the current active superhumans on the hero side had a military theme, and almost none of the bad guys would dare to use a similar theme because one of the Stolen Valor group would hunt them down, with prejudice.

But the Commodore was way better. He was still out there, after all. No one had seen The Marine since the day the world changed.

Devin watched over the ridge of his phone as The Commodore cocked back for a powerful punch, throwing it with enough speed that another crack of the sound barrier breaking washed over them. The other flyer took the hit heavily, being blown back with enough force to send him slamming into the next building over.

Reinforced glass kept him from blowing right through, but several panes cracked with thick spiderweb cracks as he was lodged there briefly.

Devin thumbed the zoom in button quickly, getting as close in on the unknown villain as he could. The image was shaky, but he thought he had a few good frames before the man pulled himself out of the broken glass and launched back into the air.

It looked like the fight was going to continue for a moment, but then the arrival of several other members of the Lions caused a rethink.

People cheered as the villain turned and ran for it, with The Commodore in hot pursuit.

Devin just sighed, disappointed that it was over as he stopped the video and bent over his phone to make sure it got uploaded to his channel.

“That’s a hundred thousand hits guaranteed,” He cheered quietly to himself as he turned back down the street and headed for home.

It wasn’t often he was able to scoop most of the other Super Watchers, and he fully intended to enjoy the hell out of the bragging rights.

Might even be able to get a better camera with the ad income off this one, he thought cheerfully.

Websites tracking superhuman spottings had become the most popular form of entertainment in the world over the last five years, with billions of people clicking through links and videos constantly, looking for the latest updates on their favorites.

Devin’s channel was a modest one, but he did live in New York, which gave him a lot of chances to photograph not only the local superhumans but also the many visiting ones who were known to come for business or tourist reasons. Despite that, though, he couldn’t compete with those who did Spotting full time.

Checking the time on his phone, Devin swore softly and broke into a run.

He was going to be late for school if he missed his train.

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan Office

Casey Jackson, ‘The Commodore’, sighed as he came in for a landing at the Lion’s regional headquarters in Manhattan. Based in the top floor of a building they’d never be able to afford without the subsidy the organization got from the Federal Government, the local Lions were the public face of the national Law Enforcement Office for Superhuman Crimes.

“He get away?”

Casey looked over at the woman in the business suit who was walking out of the roof access door, nodding tiredly.

“He was a fast one,” Casey said, forgoing his Commodore persona and letting his weariness out. “Outpaced me by twenty percent at least, once he cut loose. We’ll need a faster flyer to bring him down, or maybe support from the Air National Guard.”

“He’s not that important, yet,” the woman, Karen Jord, snorted.

She was slightly overweight, with a pinched and unpleasant look that faded once she started to speak. Her charisma was enough to overpower what poor initial impression she might give, which was one reason she’d gotten the position she had in the office.

Casey just nodded, knowing that the superhuman who’d escaped was a pretty low-profile target.

Currently only identified by the codename Magpie, he was a thief and little more. With no injuries to his name, there was little to no chance that the Governor would authorize an air-to-air interception with a National Guard F-16.

“Understood,” he said as he stepped inside and pulled off his helmet.

The military issue Kevlar helmet always irritated his skin, somehow, no matter what he wore to soften the impact. Unfortunately, the public relations department had gotten his boss to agree that he needed a military theme to go with the name they saddled him with. The modern Kevlar helmet was painted blue, reminiscent of World War 2 navy helmets, setting the tone for his entire look.

Casey couldn’t stand the damn thing, and the goggles were a close second on his hit list, but they came with the paycheck, so he put up with it. Both were dumped unceremoniously into a chair as he walked into the LEO lounge, followed quickly by himself flopping onto the couch.

Wish the Marine had worn something other than his damn issue gear. Not like he, or I, need the stuff anyway.

Karen followed in behind him, making her way over to the window.

“How bad was property damage?” She asked mildly.

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve seen some reports, but nothing official.”

Casey shrugged, “Not too bad, I don’t think. Some broken windows… I had to hit him pretty hard before he even noticed, broke the sound barrier.”

“You were told to hold back on moving that fast over the city, Casey,” she said, exasperated. “They’re going to dock our budget over that!”

“He wasn’t going down!”

“Magpie is just a thief,” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t shake buildings until the windows shatter over a thief. God, Casey.”

The tired superhuman just waved mildly in her direction.

“Got it, Karen, got it.”

“You always say that,” she sighed, picking up a tablet. “Well, at least the public perception is good. Lots of videos of Magpie running off with you in pursuit. That’s playing well, especially since no one really knows him well enough to point out that he’s never hurt anyone. Just be careful if you’re dealing with anyone better known, we have a budget to keep here and equipment from Blue Solar costs more than the rest of our budget combined.”

Casey nodded again.

That much he was well aware of.

Most of their protective gear and all of the advanced technology used by the LEOs to subdue superhumans, and keep them under control when in custody, came from Blue Solar. The Company had been big before The Event, but now they were the tech firm. They supplied gear to every superhuman containment office on the planet, as well as built and supplied gear to the Space Service.

Blue Solar had more money and influence than some first world nations, but they were the only game in town for some equipment, so they got to set their pricing he supposed.

“I’ll be as careful as I can,” He said as some of the other Lions began to filter in.

“Thank you,” Karen told him, sounding genuinely grateful.

She then looked around the room to the rest of the local Lions, “If everyone is ready? Excellent, then we’ll begin the daily debrief.”

*****

Stewie High School, South Manhattan

Novah Isabella Islay, she far preferred to be called Isa, clutched her book to her chest as she walked into the intimidating building. It was her first day at Stewie, a school that was well known for its academic rigors and the successes of the students who emerged from within. One of New York’s accelerated academic institutions, Stewie had a reputation, one she wasn’t certain she could live up to.

Isa had been accepted into the school on the basis of her grades, a blessing since her family wasn’t well enough off to send her to an equitable private school and she hadn’t had particularly good experiences in public school.

This will be different, she told herself, willing herself not to flinch at the memory of her last semester. She really hadn’t managed to fit in well there, and while she supposed it could have been worse, she wouldn’t regret leaving it behind. Looking up at the new building, and everything it symbolized to her, she felt hopeful on top of the nerves.

Isa started making her way up the steps and into the hall. She’d already been through orientation, so she knew what direction to head as the first bell sounded. Even with that, though, she was still a little turned around and was almost late as she finally spotted her homeroom.

Hurrying toward the door, Isa started through just as another student rushing without looking up from his phone plowed right into her and the pair of them hit the floor sprawling painfully.

Isa flushed as she heard the laughter, scrambling to find her book as she pointedly didn’t look up to see the faces she knew would be laughing at her.

“Mister Meeran! What have you been told about running in the school, to say nothing of reading off your phone at the same time?!”

The teacher’s voice was sharp, and Isa could hear a mumbled apologies from behind her.

“Are you alright Miss…?”

Isa looked up to see the teacher looking down at her, hand extended.

“Islay, Ma’am.”

“Ah yes, Novah Islay correct?”

“I prefer Isa, Ma’am… it’s my middle name.”

“Isa, then, and call me Miss Turpin,” The blond woman said as Isa took her hand and she helped her up. “I apologize for Mr. Meeran, and I’m certain he will be apologizing for himself, yes?”

She shot the boy a dark look that had him cringing.

“Right, uh… sorry, Isa? Why Isa, Nova is an awesome name!”

Isa rolled her eyes. She could already tell that he’d spelled it wrong in his head. “Novah, with an h at the end. My mom likes trendy names, but I prefer normal.”

“Uh… right. Sorry.” He shuffled, before blinking suddenly, “Oh, I’m sorry again. For, you know. I’m Devin.”

“Just be careful where you’re running in the future, please?” Isa pleaded. She could feel bruises forming and really didn’t want that to be a normal sort of thing.

“Uh… right, sure.”

“Both of you to your seats,” Turpin said, pointing to a couple seats in different places in the class.

Devin jumped and grabbed the closest quickly, leaving Isa to sit at the desk near the window that overlooked the Hudson River. She settled her books into place, getting her pen and tablet out, and looked out the window to avoid seeing if anyone in the class was staring at her.

She needn’t have worried. Everyone had already gotten over the explosive nature of her introduction and were all looking forward when the teacher started to speak and she herself was forced to pay attention. Isa breathed a sigh of relief, starting to get into the subject matter as the teacher began to talk about the latest studies of the nature of superhumans as a way to introduce the lecture on the importance of physics.

Isa let most of the words pass over her, only listening enough to keep up. Physics was her best class, and she knew all the reasons why it was important and how it connected to the superhuman phenomena. Hearing for the thousandth time, or so, was getting a little old, however.

*****

Devin took his seat flushing as he snuck another look at his phone, checking the hits he had on the video.

He was up to forty-three thousand hits already!

He was going to break a hundred thousand easily at this rate. It was his best post ever!

He barely paid any attention to the teacher as she droned on, talking about all the stuff he’d heard a million times about how the superhuman phenomena was tied directly to quantum mechanics and the deep physics of the universe.

Well duh. I know all this. He rolled his eyes. Devin had even written a paper on it. His dad worked for Blue Solar, helping develop new technologies based on superhuman examples.

Oh well, it gives me more time to check my views and responses.

The Spotter Site he frequented had gone wild for his posts, and he’d managed to beat out videos from other spotters by a fair margin. Most of the other people at the fight had just been recording for themselves, he supposed, or uploaded to streaming sites without cross posting the link to the right places.

That was the mark of a professional, after all.

Everyone was trying to identify the new guy fighting The Commodore at the moment, but it wasn’t like the man had any sort of real uniform or costume or anything. He seemed to be flying around in jeans and leather jacket with a balaclava covering his face, which was hardly distinctive. That left people with a lot of possibilities and no real answers.

He still scrolled the discussion threads and offered his own guesses, mostly just to participate. Without any real clear look, it could have been anybody after all.

Once the teacher got into the actual class, he pushed the phone aside a bit and started paying closer attention.

All he wanted to be doing, though, was joining the others on the site as they tried to find out who it was that had just duked it out with The Commodore and, apparently, gotten away with it.

Life was so unfair sometimes.

*****

UN Space Service HQ, Manhattan NYC

Emily Pierce, Director of the UNSS, winced as she watched the newsreel of the latest superhuman fight right there in New York. Damages were low, but they were still adding up across the planet.

People are idiots.

She didn’t understand how so many people could ignore what they’d all seen back on that day, five years ago.

Sure, not everyone had access to all the intelligence she did, but the whole damn world had seen Hale, The Marine, take down the alien ship or whatever it was. Everyone had seen that same ship over the superhuman crisis in Hong Kong.

Wasn’t it obvious that there was an outside threat that they had to focus on?

But no, instead of new superhumans appearing damn near every single day, people were more focused on which ones they liked best, which ones were the most powerful, who would win a fight with who… and they were all ignoring the building damage to infrastructure that the world desperately needed.

At least Mr. Trenton understands.

Despite an early boost from world governments, Emily was well aware that without Wesley Trenton and Blue Solar, there wouldn’t be a United Nations Space Service at this point. As soon as public attention shifted, the funding dried up and there just wasn’t enough profit potential in the short term to bring in most corporate sponsors.

Trenton, however, was a driven man.

Emily had the pleasure of meeting him fairly regularly as part of her job, and occasionally being invited to various parties and such both for recreation and networking. The man was focused on getting into space in a way that few others she’d ever met could even begin to match, and not in a small way.

He was pushing his company to develop technologies that she would have sworn were impossible just a few years earlier, but in the post-superhuman world the word impossible just didn’t seem real anymore, which was a bad thing far more than a good one it seemed.

Unfortunately, it felt too often that they were fighting a losing war.

The alien ship, or whatever it was, had left Earth with a lasting gift in its final moments. A retroviral version of the CRISPR modification it had experimented on people with, one that drifted through the atmosphere indefinitely, infecting people so quickly that by the time a year had passed it was becoming difficult to find anyone who didn’t have some trace of the retrovirus in their body.

For most, it was just one more harmless microbial addition to their systems.

However, in a small portion of humans the retrovirus would take hold, and in a small portion again it would activate suddenly.

Exact causes of said activation were still being debated, but it was clear that adrenaline played a part, as did certain other hormones, genes, and god alone knew what other factors.

If you fit all the requirements, however, the results were clear.

One day, often after a life-threatening event, you became a superhuman.

The exact number of people who had that potential wasn’t known, and even the exact numbers of those who activated were more than a little fuzzy.

The obvious powers tended to be noticed quickly, as they had back when the Marine and the others in the first group activated. Powers that let a man fly, or throw cars around like baseballs, well those were noticeable.

Powers that changed how someone perceived the world, whether through their actual senses, or through manipulation of their brain chemistry in some way, those were hard to spot. Often victims didn’t even know they’d changed in the first place, and many could be walking around having activated yet not knowing it.

For those who did figure it out, for whatever reason, life was never the same again.

She’d seen the numbers, and just the reported numbers indicated as many as a hundred thousand superhumans active in the world at the moment, with more awakening every day. Worse, as they awoke, they tended to be more inclined to violence than normal people.

So, chaos ensued, and more people awakened.

The initial spread was slow, because while the viral infection was widespread, the secondary activation was not. Slow though it may have been, however, it was building.

Eventually, she was certain that every person who could awaken would awaken.

Emily genuinely feared for the world long before reaching that point, however. The damage even just a few superhuman criminals could cause was rivaling that of a dedicated military assault force.

Multiplied by a hundred thousand and climbing?

Some days, Emily wondered if they’d actually won on that day, five years ago… or if the alien ship had succeeded in killing them after all.

Killing us slowly, by inches.

She closed her eyes tiredly.

Is this what Hale broke himself to buy for us?

It was just such a damned waste.

*****

Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas

It was a private room. Security on the entire floor was tight but the room itself was secured by biometric systems that would only admit a total of eight people in the world. Two Marines stood guard on either side of the door, both of them volunteers who had cycled through the twenty-four-hour protection detail over the last five years.

The pair nodded to the woman who walked up to them, her somber face a familiar one, as she was one of the eight the door would open for.

“Mrs. Hale.” The senior Marine nodded respectfully as he stepped slightly to one side.

“Hello Curtis,” Debra Hale smiled wanly, “I didn’t know you were back.”

“Just cycled back into the world,” He said. “I was in the sandbox for a tour. Volunteered again as soon as I arrived stateside.”

“Thank you for that,” Debra said warmly. “Alex would be happy you were here, I have no doubts.”

“Semper Fi, Ma’am.”

She nodded seriously as she stepped up to the biometrics and let the system get a read on her eyes, height, and face. The door buzzed simply and clicked open an inch, leaving her to reach out to push the door inward.

“Have a good visit, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, Curtis.”

Debra closed the door behind her as she glanced around the room.

Alex wasn’t hooked up to any machines, other than the monitoring systems. They’d tried life support systems at first, but none of them were needed. His body was fine, he just… wasn’t in it anymore. A glance at the machines told her that they had noticed her arrival and had unplugged the EKG system. The flat line always left her… distressed.

“Hello Alex,” She said as she slipped into the seat beside the bed. “I know it’s been a few days, and I’m sorry…”

*****

“Shut it off, Lieutenant.”

“Sir?”

Brigadier Cardia, the man in charge of the medical facility, just repeated himself. “I said shut it off. Turn the recorder back on after she leaves. A wife has a right to privacy with her husband.”

“Yes sir, sorry.”

Debra Hale’s voice flicked off, leaving the room in silence. Few knew it, but the Brooke Army facility had become the primary care facility for superhuman cases in the United States, particularly high- profile ones in the employ of the United States Government.

While Hale had never quite re-enlisted, there was no question that he’d been serving his country right to the last. He was also the reason why the facility was the go-to location for superhuman medical care, as he had been the first full time patient.

No one knew how he’d lasted as long as he had during that final fight of his, but it was clear that when it was over, he’d ended too. Whatever he had to give, Hale gave it then.

Cardia had never met the man, but he both honored and pitied him, but more so his wife.

Poor bastard’s never going to wake up. Almost a shame he married a woman who understands fidelity, because she’s never going to move on while he’s breathing.

He’d seen it all in his career. Nothing really hit him deep anymore, but, well… some people just deserved better.

*****

Chapter One

Stewie High, Manhattan, NYC

Devin eagerly pulled his phone out, ignoring his lunch as he thumbed into his account.

“Yes!” He called, jumping up.

Eyes turning to look at him caused Devin to sink onto the cafeteria stool and bury his head in his phone again, trying to ignore everyone looking at him.

“What the hell, dude?”

“Sorry, Jay,” Devin said. “It’s just… here, check it out!”

He turned his phone over, letting his best friend see the screen. Jay stared for a bit, not seeing it until suddenly he did.

“Whoa, is that three hundred thousand hits?”

“Three hundred and twenty-eight thousand four hundred and… twelve,” Devin grinned, glancing back down at the screen as he took it back. “And counting, from the morning.”

“What the hell did you post?”

Devin looked around. “I took the long way from home, was going to grab some new collectables up at Ray’s when the fight with The Commodore and the new guy happened.”

“You got film of that?” Jay asked eagerly, leaning forward as he fished out his own phone. “I’ve got to see it.”

Devin let his friend find the link himself. It wasn’t hard to find since they knew each other’s channels of course. He was more interested in checking the spotter site to see if anyone had figured out who The Commodore had been fighting.

“Huh,” He said after a bit.

“What is it?” Jay asked, looking up.

“Oh, you know Jabberwock, on the spotter sites?”

“Yeah, he has good leaks all the time.”

Devin nodded. “He says that someone in the Lions support staff leaked that the other guy in the fight was someone they’re calling ‘Magpie’. Just a Lions code name, but it’s better than we had.”

“That’s a strange name.”

“I guess he’s a flying thief?” Devin shrugged. “Not a lot of detail, but maybe it’s just a randomly assigned code name. You know how the Lions can be, all military and stuff.”

“Yeah, they’ve used some weird names in the past,” Jay chuckled. “Well, at least you can update the title of the video, right?”

“Right,” Devin got to it. “I’ll fix the SEO words too. If we get the guy’s real name, or whatever he wants to be called, I can update again.”

The whole superhuman deal was really complicated, since a lot of them didn’t want to use real names. Devin wasn’t sure how much of that was purely based on comic book tradition and how much was because most of the superhumans who really started to make names for themselves tended to make a lot of enemies in the process… didn’t really matter which side of the law they were on.

“What are you two geeks doing?” A voice called over their shoulder, making both Jay and Devin flinch.

Arms reached out to wrap around their necks, pulling them in tight in a grip neither could escape as the speaker laughed and looked at the screens of their phones.

“Oh, come on, Dev, are you still wasting time on the stupid spotter sites?” Mike Kinney asked, rolling his eyes as he tightened his grip, ignoring their struggles. “Pathetic guys, just pathetic.”

The bigger guy let the smaller pair go, dropping into the seat between them as he casually swiped some food from Devin’s plate. Devin glared at him, but only shook his head.

“What are you after, Mike?”

“Oh, nothing much, just heard you swept a cute girl off her feet earlier and thought I’d get the story,” Mike grinned crookedly at him.

Devin groaned as even Jay laughed at him, burying his head in his chest.

“I was distracted, alright?”

“Must have been, I heard you knocked the poor girl halfway across the classroom.”

“It was just too…” Devin winced, his voice dropping. “Halfway to the teacher’s desk.”

Mike snorted, “Do I need to give you the talk, little buddy? Cause that’s not how you hit on a girl.”

“Shut up!”

*****

Isa heard a familiar voice yelling across the cafeteria and looked up from her tray to see where the boy who’d knocked her down was sitting with a couple other guys. She couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but that was fine. She tapped on her tablet and opened it up to the research page she’d been reading.

Stewie High was a serious college prep school. They took less than a thousand of the best students in the city each year and put them to an intensive push with the intent of making sure they were ready for any college in the country.

Isa had her sights set on Harvard by preference, where some exciting work was being done by some of her idols, and she hoped to be able to work with them as part of her graduate course.

“Hey, new girl, right?”

Isa blinked, looking up uncertainly.

“Um, yes?” She asked more than said.

The girl speaking to her was not the sort she ever expected to be giving her any time or attention.

“Cool,” The blond said, smiling brilliantly. “I’m Ashley, pleased to meet you!”

“Uh, Isa.”

Ashley had long blond hair, natural as far as Isa could tell, and wore the school’s colors along with a lettered sweater. She bounced, literally bounced, as she sat down with a cheerful smile.

“Wanted to check in and see how your first day was going,” Ashely said. “I heard that Devin barreled into you. You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good, Devin isn’t a bad sort, but he’s completely spaced out a lot of the time,” Ashely said, leaning in. “He’s a really big super geek, you know?”

“He’s a super geek?”

Ashely frowned, “No, not like he’s super geeky. I mean he’s a SUPER Geek, you know the superhumans?”

“Ah, oh, he’s a Spotter?” Isa asked, glancing over.

Ashely leaned back, eyes widening, “Oh are you one too?”

“What? No!” Isa waved her hands, “I just studied a lot of the physics. That’s what I’m aiming for after I graduate here, I want to be a researcher. These days, the cutting edge of physics study is all about super humans.”

“Right, right, I guess that makes sense.” Ashely shrugged. “I’m going into medicine, but right now I’m part of the cheerleader team and sort of the school welcoming committee. Have to get those extracurriculars, you know?”

“I… do?”

Ashely looked at her seriously, “Isa, your grades will be the first thing they look at when you put in to a good school, but it won’t be the last. Extra curriculars show them that you’re a ‘well rounded individual.”

Isa blinked, “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything,” Ashley laughed. “But they look for it anyway. Me, I think they want to see that you can handle academics and other stuff without cracking.”

“Oh. Am I supposed to… be a cheerleader?” Isa thought, horrified at the notion.

Ashley laughed again, shaking her head, “No, there’s lots of things you can do. Join a club, help a charity, anything really. You’ve got time, it’s your first year here, right?”

Isa nodded.

“I’m in third year,” Ashley said. “You’ll get a handle on it. Anyway, I have to go, just wanted to welcome you to Stewie, you know? Have a great day.”

“Uh… thanks?” Isa said as the blond bounced away.

She shook her head, more than a little confused.

Nothing like that had ever happened at public school. People were, at best, indifferent to her. She wasn’t part of any of the cliques and mostly everyone just ignored her existence. Her first day here was… eventful?

Yeah.

Yeah, she decided after a moment’s thought. Eventful covered it.

At least people here are… nice?

Something like that.

Now, however, she realized that she would have to do some research into extra-curricular activities.

I wonder if they’re really as important as Ashley made it sound?

Oh well. Research was something she was good at.

*****

Manhattan

“So, the Lions intercepted you?”

The man nodded, his expression neutral, “The alarm information provided was not sufficient. One of the triggers, at least one, wasn’t in the material I was provided.”

“Unfortunate.”

Harrison Bergfeld sat down heavily, annoyed by the situation.

“More than unfortunate,” He said tiredly. “Now they’ll have the entire building on lockdown.”

“Indeed,” The other man said from the computer where he was looking out over a video conferencing window. “I’m afraid that we’ll have to let this one pass for the moment.”

Harrison frowned, “I thought the piece was vital?”

“It is, however, the security will be, as you say, too high for quite some time. As much as I am loathe to admit this,” The man on the screen said, “Perhaps we should consider the other option.”

Harrison sat back, frowning. “Hitting Blue Solar is not something to consider lightly. We can’t have bad intelligence on their security, not with Blue Solar. I’d be lucky if only the Lions showed up.”

“I am aware. Still, I will begin pre-planning and information gathering,” The man on the screen said. “We will revisit this once I have a better idea of what the target looks like.”

Harrison nodded, “Very well.”

“I’ll in touch.”

The screen went dark, and Harrison closed the laptop with a soft click.

He sighed wearily, but knew that issues were part and parcel of the life. He’d been something of a second story man before his life had changed, and didn’t really know many other ways to live. He’d heard the name the Lions had assigned him, Magpie, and found it amusing. He didn’t know if they intended it to be insulting, but he personally found it rather fitting.

He did, in fact, like his shiny things, and relieving others of their shinies was one of life’s true pleasures.

It didn’t come without setbacks, however.

Getting into a slug fest with The Commodore was certainly one of those.

It’s a good thing that glorified sanitation engineer has all the speed of an old willie’s jeep, and little of the practicality.

Harrison rubbed his jaw for a moment, wincing as the bruise made itself felt.

He does have a mean left hook, though.

Casually he flipped the laptop open again, flicking through the windows until he found the one on the spotter website and played the video again. It was hard to watch himself get slammed into a window, but he did get some deep satisfaction out of having escaped the local Lions team.

He was a thief, after all. Escaping the authorities was a priority second only to getting away with the thing he stole. This time he didn’t manage the first, but it felt good to have the world see him do the second.

It was almost like a game.

Harrison frowned, though, considering the immediate future.

Blue Solar was not a company anyone messed with lightly. Over the last five years they’d upped their defensive game beyond all measure, having become one of the leading experts on the phenomena, and somehow having managed to turn a lot of what they’d learned into technology that anyone could use.

Blue Solar security was no joke.

Hope the Contractor can get good information, because if he doesn’t this will be one short game, and I don’t like to lose.

*****

Stewie High, Manhattan

The bell rang, and the students quickly closed their books and shut down their tablets as they eagerly looked forward to heading out for the day.

Isa had enjoyed the first day at the new school. It had been vastly different than she’d been used to, and that was exactly what she wanted.

Mostly she’d been left alone, but it didn’t feel like she was being ignored exactly. Ashley had greeted her even, and that was good right?

Isa hoped she wasn’t expecting too much or being too hopeful. School had never been a challenge to her, but it hadn’t been a bright point in her life either. This felt… different.

“Oh hey… Isa, right?”

Isa paused, surprised at being greeted yet another time. She turned to see the boy who’d bowled her over approaching and nodded.

“Sorry again,” He said, “Was my bad. I was reading off my phone.”

“It’s ok… Devin, I think?”

He nodded, “Yeah. You heading home?”

Isa nodded, “Yeah. I have to catch the train.”

“Yeah, me too. Where are you heading?” He said, before back pedalling, “I mean, if I can ask and all?”

“Just… uptown. Washington Heights.”

“Oh wow, I’m heading that way too,” He told her. “I’m getting off at Columbia, but you want to go that far together?”

Isa shrugged, uncertain for a moment before deciding on a whim.

“Sure.”

“Great!” Devin grinned. “Let me grab my stuff. We should be able to catch the next train easily.”

*****

Walking toward the subway station, Devon snuck a look aside at the girl walking along with him.

Novah, that was the only name he was ever going to think of her as… it was too cool, after all, to just ignore… was a dark-haired girl, slim bordering on skinny, with a fairly average face, he thought. Not bad looking by any means, Devin supposed, just not the sort that really stood out.

She clutched her books and tablet to her chest, didn’t carry a backpack… which was odd, he thought. He supposed she just didn’t bother carrying enough to lug that much stuff.

“So,” He said awkwardly as they started down the steps into the subway, “how was your first day?”

“Other than being knocked over before homeroom?” She asked, glancing aside at him.

Devin felt himself flush.

“Yeah… aside from that,” He got out. “Sorry again.”

“It was fine, and don’t worry about it,” Novah told him with a tiny bit of a smile. “The day got better afterwards.”

“Right… yeah,” He looked away to hide the flush, rubbing the back of his head where he could feel a sweat itch building under his hair.

Novah sighed, “Why are you heading to Columbia? Parents there?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m just going close. You know the Blue Solar building?”

Novah nodded, eyes lighting up. “Yeah, of course.”

“My dad works there. He works in the high energy division, they have a partnership with Columbia,” Devin explained.

“That’s… awesome.” Novah breathed out. “I… I kinda want to work for Blue Solar after I get my degree.”

“Oh? Yeah, I guess it’s pretty cool. I’m more into software,” Devin admitted. “I’ve even coded a few apps of my own, mostly for the Spotters. Some of them have decent download stats.”

“Oh? That’s cool, I guess… I don’t know much about coding,” Novah told him. She nervously tapped her tablet. “I just got this tablet, and I was using my family computer before that.”

Devin’s eyes flicked down, the tablet she was clutching at wasn’t new by any means. He could see the sort of fingerprint fog that built up over months after first opening it, and the model didn’t look like anything he’d seen lately.

“Oh, well it can be fun,” He said. “If you’re into that sort of thing.”

She nodded nervously as the train approached and slowed. The pair of them got on quickly, taking a couple seats, and settled in as the doors closed and they took off.

“If you want,” Devin started to offer hesitantly. “I mean, I could see if my dad could arrange a tour? I know they give them all the time.”

Novah glanced over at him sharply, eyes definitely lit up. She looked very different in that moment, startling him.

“Do you think he could?”

“Maybe. I can check?”

“Please.”

“Sure, no problem. So, we know now I’m a coder geek, what’s your thing?” He asked, smiling hesitantly.

“Going to be a physics major,” she said after a moment. “I’ve been fascinated in the subject since Wesley Trenton gave his speech after the Event.”

“Wow, well you’re at Stew, so you probably have the grades,” Devin said. “But that’s a hell of a goal. I’ll be happy to just make a living off my apps, between you and me.”

“Is there much money in that?” Novah asked, looking honestly curious.

“Oh sure, even free apps can make decent money with ads, and you’d be surprised how much you can make with the right idea at the right time,” Devin said eagerly, always willing to talk about his favorite subject. “Some of mine have tens of thousands of downloads, so I make decent money every month. Its better than an allowance…”

He frowned, though, before reluctantly admitting, “But I have a ways to go before it’s enough to be money I could call a living. Still, it’s really good for a kid in high school.”

“That is pretty cool,” She said, seeming impressed. “That would be really nice.”

“Yeah, it can be. I’m working on a new app for Spotters, uh um…” He hesitated. “You know what spotters are, right?”

Novah nodded, “Yeah, the people who geek out over superhuman sightings, right?”

“Yeah, exactly. I’ve been working on a geo-tagging app for tracking sightings,” He said. “I’m not the only one, and there’s a couple on the market already, but they’re not very good. It’s a race now to see who can make the app that all the spotters adopt, you know?”

“So, you have to come up with the best app?” She asked, “That makes sense, right?”

“You’d think, but surprisingly no,” Devin said with a self-deprecating shrug. “It’s more like a race to get the first app out that’s good enough. Once you get enough people invested in it, then it becomes a lot harder for a new app to take over.”

“Oh. Huh, didn’t think about it like that.”

“Welcome to the world of app coding,” Devin shrugged. “Knowing when to say it’s enough is almost an art form. But mine is almost done, so I’m hopeful. We’ll see.”

“Well… good luck?” She offered uncertainly.

“Thanks,” Devin said, looking up as the intercom announced their arrival. “Looks like my stop. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah… yeah. Tomorrow.”

“Bye!”

*****

Isa watched the boy get off the train, wondering at the way her day at gone. She’d expected to spend it mostly just doing classwork alone - that seemed to be how her life went after all. Instead, she got bowled over by a boy who wasn’t looking where he was going, then approached and welcomed to the school by a cheerleader, and now had maybe made a friend of the boy who’d knocked her over in the first place?

Life is… strange.

Still, it was looking up. As the train started off again, Isa hoped that Devin was serious about asking his dad about getting her a tour of the Blue Solar facilities. That was a huge deal to her, and not one that she expected to come her way anytime soon.

Maybe my luck is getting better?

That thought… felt pretty good.

*****

Chapter Two

LEO HQ, Manhattan Office

“Commodore, Welcome.”

Casey nodded as he stepped into the office, glancing around. “Ma’am.”

“Take a seat,” Officer Jord told him, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk.

The superhuman nodded, gingerly moving the seat around so he could sit down. Carefully.

That was a big deal. He’d broken a lot chairs after he’d first activated his abilities. A lot of other things too, if he were honest. Lots of things that he managed to hide from people even, but chairs were come of the worse. It was a hazard of the change in his nature, sadly. Superhuman strength and speed were great in a fight, but they were often the literal worst in every other aspect of life.

This one was reinforced, though, and it gave him no problems as he settled into it.

“We got the report back on Magpie’s target, or what we think was his target,” Jord said with a frown that marred her features as she read off the screen in front of her. “An experimental high energy projection system.”

“A weapon?”

“No,” She shook her head. “Something about hard light projection. Nothing practical at this point as far as we can tell, still very experimental. It’s based, of course, on studies of a superhuman’s abilities…”

“Which one?”

“Let’s see… real name is classified, of course. Code name White Knight, so probably one of ours,” She said. “Able to create force fields used for defense and offense.”

“Were they able to replicate it?”

“Not as effectively, but they’re on the track,” she confirmed. “Seems someone wanted the tech. I think Magpie is a contractor, he’s working for someone.”

Commodore nodded, “That makes sense. Are we upping security on the company?”

“We are, and so are they,” she confirmed. “We’re trying to be subtle about it, hopefully draw him into a trap and get him once and for all.”

Commodore grimaced at the reminder that he’d lost the man the previous day.

“Yes Ma’am.”

“I have a schedule for you, times we think he’ll be most likely to take another shot,” Jord offered, “If you want a rematch.”

“Very much, Ma’am.”

“Good, I’ll send it to your account. You may as well go make whatever preparations you need, I’m afraid you’ll probably be busy for a while.” She told him.

Commodore rose to his feet, “Thank you.”

She nodded and he left, leaving Karen Jord to watch after the departing superhuman until the door eased shut behind him. Commodore was an eager sort, though more enamoured with his image than she would prefer from someone with as much raw power as the young man had. Still, since his image was carefully crafted to be that of an ideal soldier, she could work with it easily enough.

If only every superhuman were so easy to deal with.

Unfortunately, most were far from that indeed.

The American government had been creating new laws concerning superhuman abilities almost as fast as superhumans themselves were turning up. There would be big announcements in the near future, if the rumblings she had heard were right, likely things that a lot of people wouldn’t like.

Some court cases had already defined powerful precedent, and Karen was well aware that the system didn’t actually revolve around law. It revolved around precedent.

Laws could be interpreted to mean almost anything one wanted. It was in the nature of the English language, unfortunately. If anyone ever told you that a phrase in English meant only one thing, they were either lying, stupid, or high as a kite. The language was incredibly organic, with countless meanings buried in each word, let alone entire phrases.

Precedent was what counted.

Once you did something and the law didn’t say anything about it, you had a powerful tool on your side to let you keep doing it. Similarly, once the courts ruled on something, said ruling would be quoted unto the end of time itself.

Several legal precedents concerning superhumans and their abilities were set early on, and Karen was far from convinced that they would end in anything resembling like a good outcome.

Welcome to government work.

*****

Empire State Building, Manhattan

Harrison leaned against the spire of the iconic building, staying out of sight of the tourists looking out on the city below them all as he casually sat mostly out of their line of site, legs dangling out over open space.

Since he’d activated his abilities in the wake of The Event, this was one of his favorite things to do. Find a nice high location in whatever city he was visiting and just sit there for a while, overlooking everything and everyone so far below.

He never would have done it before, despite not having a true fear of heights he’d certainly had a healthy respect for the results of falling from them. Discovering the ability to fly however, was an eye opener in ways that just couldn’t be described to those who couldn’t follow him into the skies.

The Blue Solar building was quite a ways uptown from where he was, but he could see their distinctive neon blue glowing faintly as the shadows grew longer in the fading light of day.

He was an experienced thief. It was a skillset he’d developed early in his misspent youth, and one he’d gotten much better at since he’d activated his power set.

Who knew having a pissed off client throw you off a building would be a lifetime plus?

Harrison had been only marginally less surprised than said client, particularly given that he’d flown back up on nothing but pure instinct before tossing the bastard off the same building in turn.

His former client hadn’t gained any abilities from his rapid descent and sudden stop.

That was just as well, since Harrison would have then had to get his hands bloody, and honestly that wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed.

His thoughts were interrupted by his cell phone vibrating quietly in his pocket. He pulled the cheap device out and flipped it open.

“Harrison.”

“We have a source inside the building.”

“That sounds promising. How well placed?”

“Security, new hire.”

Harrison grimaced slightly. That was a plus and a minus, to be frank. Security would traditionally have access to more parts of the building than almost anyone else, at nearly any level, but a new hire wouldn’t even have had the time to properly accustom themselves to the systems they were cleared to access, let alone learn about all the stuff they weren’t.

“We need better,” He said firmly.

“Working on it. I’ll send you what we have, use it to get started.”

Harrison sighed, but there was little else he could really do.

“You’ve got it. I’ll grab it off the cloud account when I get back to my place. Anything else?”

“Nothing of import. Don’t rile up the local LEOs, Harrison.”

“Who me?”

“I can hear the wind blowing. Where are you? Freedom Tower?”

“Empire State.”

“Just don’t get yourself on the news, alright?”

“Relax. No one saw me fly up here, and it’ll be dark soon.”

“Just… don’t, alright?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Harrison rolled his eyes and snapped the phone shut. He didn’t feel like dealing with bullshit just then. There were other things he could be focusing on.

Like the absolutely epic view as the lights of the big city began to come to life as the sun settled to its rest.

*****

Islay Household, Washington Heights

“How was school?”

“It was good, Mom. What about work?” Isa asked her mother as she sat down to dinner.

“Same as always, dear,” Her mother, Cindy Islay, smiled tiredly.

Sucked, but no point complaining, Isa filled in wearily.

Her mom worked at a local warehouse, filling orders for people across the state. It was a decent job, good enough pay, but rarely a comfortable one and the hours could be grueling. Since Isa’s father had died, it was what they had.

That was why Isa had worked so hard to get into Stewie High.

The state and city covered the tuition for the top students, so all her mom had to worry about was the cost of food and the train and a subway pass was cheap enough.

“Make any new friends?”

Isa screwed up her face in response to that one, honestly not knowing how to answer that.

“Um… maybe?”

“Maybe?” her mother asked, her tone teasing.

“Well, I did meet a boy and a girl who were friendly,” Isa allowed.

“A boy now? Do tell…”

“Mom! Not like that,” Isa rolled her eyes. “He rammed right into me cause he wasn’t watching where he was going… but he did apologize and offered to see if his dad could get me a tour of Blue Solar.”

“Ok, that’s a little more than I expected, I’ll admit. He ran you over?” Her mom asked, looking amusingly perplexed. Or perhaps perplexedly amused? Isa wasn’t sure.

“Sent me sprawling right there in the classroom,” Isa sighed, rubbing the bruise on her thigh. “Wasn’t the best start of a day I’ve had, but it did get better.”

“It must have,” her mother smiled. “And the girl?”

“Cheerleader, welcoming committee type I guess?” Isa shrugged. “I don’t know. She seemed nice, but was probably just checking out the new girl. She did tell me that I should think about extra curricular activities, though. Colleges like them.”

“I believe someone else may have told you that a few times in the past,” Her mother responded dryly.

Isa sighed, “Yes Mom.”

“Don’t you yes mom me in that tone,” Cindy laughed at her. “Do you have homework tonight?”

“Not on the first day, I guess.”

“Good, you can help clean up then.”

Isa just sighed heavily, getting more laughter from her mother in the process.

*****

After dinner and cleaning up, Isa retreated to her room where she opened up her tablet and tapped through to the browser. It was already open to a site with peer reviewed papers detailing what different people thought about the new understandings of physics brought into the world by the superhuman phenomenon.

She could admit, to herself if to no one else, that she’d been more than a little obsessed with the topic over the last five years. Her reasons might not be the healthiest, but they’d given her a path to a future she wanted to pursue and that mattered more to her than anything else other than her mom at this point in her life.

Deciding quantum events via observational manipulation.

“Ugh.”

Some of the paper titles were incredibly pretentious, to her mind. Whoever wrote that may as well have just said ‘Quantum Mechanics as Magic in the real world.’

It wasn’t that she didn’t think they might not have a point, exactly. Superhuman abilities defied a lot of the understood generalities of physics as they applied to the world, and universe, at large. They really only made sense on the quantum level, but there shouldn’t be any mechanism by which those effects could translate up to the macro universe.

What Isa hated was the idea inherent in the title, however, that the researchers were giving up on properly explaining it.

Quantum Observation was just another phrase for Magic, and that was just another phrase for no one had any damn clue.

That was something she objected to. Even though she was only fourteen Isa didn’t believe for a second that there wasn’t an explanation out there, waiting to be discovered. That was the difference between science and magic, not giving up the search for that explanation.

She put the annoying title aside, however, and settled in to read the paper. Doing just this was one of the happier things she had to herself over the last several years, and she had no intention of giving up that island of solace even if her life was starting to get better.

*****

Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

“Hey dad, how was the day?” Devin asked as he paused at the door of the lab, looking in.

Rushing around school was one thing, but his dad would almost literally skin him alive if he tried that crap in the lab, even if this was one of the computer labs used for simulations and not the high energy one that they did the actual experiments in.

Daniel Meeran blinked, surprised at hearing a voice.

“Huh? Oh, hello Devin. It has been a normal one, what time is it?”

Devin snorted, “It’s getting late. I’ve been here for hours, playing games in the break room. You were down in the other lab, right?”

“Yes, yes I was. We’re working on an important development.”

“You always are, Dad. Almost ready to go home?” Devin asked.

“Soon,” Daniel said, waving absently. “I want to finish these simulations and start the next sequence beforr we close up for the night.”

“That’s cool. Ok if I use a computer?”

“That one over there isn’t in use,” Daniel waved. “Don’t…”

“Use any of your apps, I know the drill Dad.”

With his father focusing on the simulations, Devin opened up the coding suites that could be accessed from any Blue Solar terminals. They were considerably better than anything on the market, and one of the few perks of being allowed to hang out in the building while waiting on his dad were the times he could get access to the coding libraries that the big corporation made available to all employees.

Within minutes he was deeply embroiled in the virtual world of coding, working on his Spotting app with the library of geo-tagging scripts available on the Blue Solar server. He was so deep that when his father tapped him on the shoulder almost an hour later, he felt like barely any time had passed at all.

“Time to go, son.”

“Right, just let me save my work here,” Devin said as he clicked through and began closing things down.  “Oh, hey, dad?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you arrange a tour of the labs here for someone?”

“I suppose I could, why?”

“I kinda bumped into a girl today…”

Daniel looked over at his son, a glint of amusement in his eyes, “I hardly think that the lab is a good place for a first date, Devin.”

“Dad!” Devin flushed. “I should probably say… I rammed into a girl today…”

Daniel pinched his nose, “Devin… what have I told you about watching where you’re going? I do hope you apologized, at least?”

“Of course I did, Dad. Anyway, turns out she’s planning on being a physics major when she goes to college, and I figured it might help the apology a bit?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Daniel said, amusedly and with a roll of his eyes.

“Thanks Dad.”

*****

Manhattan

“This morning was a significant setback. We hired him to avoid this sort of situation.”

Three men were seated in an opulent room, bottles of fine whiskey lining one wall, cigar humidors another, the seats they occupied were leather upholstered and the lighting was subdued. None of them, however, were either drinking or smoking as they spoke seriously.

“I understand that, however the complications were… not on the contractor’s side.” The second man said, sounding like he was pulling out his own teeth at the admission. “Our information concerning the security arrangements proved to be… faulty.”

“I see,” The first said. “And our contact on the inside?”

“We’ve not heard from him yet.”

“If he has no satisfactory response, then he is clearly not an honest actor in this. If he won’t stay bought, then he’s of no use to any of us.”

The three exchanged looks before they all nodded in agreement.

“I’ll find out his excuses,” The third said. “If I don’t think they’re good enough, he will meet with an unfortunate accident.”

“Very good,” The first said. “I am presuming that the backup plan is moving along then?”

“Yes, it is of higher risk, of course, and less likelihood of success, but we’ve begun gathering information from the Blue Solar building in town.”

“Excellent. Offer… backup to the contractor,” The first said, holding up a hand when the second speaker was about to object, “Yes, I am aware that he prefers to work alone, but this is an unusual circumstance. Distractions, at the very least, would be valuable I think.”

“I’ll bring it up. If he should accept, to what degree are we willing to commit?”

The first fell silent, considering that. Finally, he spoke.

“Full commitment. We require that technology, our organization is losing the street war as it stands. Either we balance the forces in play within this city, or we lose New York.”

He looked around, “Gentlemen, this Family has been operating in New York for my entire life. My Father’s life. My Grandfather’s life. My Great Grandfather ran with Lansky. I am not going to let some Russian pieces of shit chase me out of my city! I don’t care what motherfucking superpowers they have. Am I being clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good.” The first smiled suddenly. “Now, with business concluded. Might I offer drinks? Cigars?”

*****

Harrison examined the files that had been sent to him with some interest.

The Family had gotten details on Blue Solar with very short notice, which was impressive. The obvious holes in their available information, however, was not. There was no way he would be willing to make a move on the conglomerate based on this information.

At best it would be another route, either with the Lions again, or with Blue Solar security themselves. Quite likely, both.

He closed the computer and made his way to the balcony of the small apartment he’d gotten on a short-term rental. It was nice enough, overlooking the park even.

Once more, in the distance, this time across the part and still a little North of him, he could see the electric blue glow from the Blue Solar building.

Well, I didn’t start this sort of work because I liked things boring.

The next few days would certainly not be boring, that much he could say with confidence.

Harrison raised his half full glass of beer in the general direction of the blue glow.

“Good luck, and may the best man win.”

I always do, sooner or later.

*****

Chapter Three

Manhattan

The world had changed that day.

The day powers came off the pages of comic books and into the real world.

Her world had taken a little longer to catch up, but when she gained her abilities, it was like black and white became color. Like she had been deaf, but could suddenly hear. It had been enlightening, invigorating, eye opening.

The thing was, there weren’t a lot of things you could do with powers.

It was strange. You’d think that suddenly being super fast or strong or whatever little quirk you got would give you some real advantage. Maybe it would have in a sane world, or an insane one. She didn’t know.

In the real world, however, it didn’t seem like it really mattered.

Not unless you wanted to be a criminal.

Legally, powers were a very grey area. A few superhumans got jobs doing the typical mundane stuff you might imagine. She’d heard about a kid a few years older than her, out in Texas, who was doing part time work as a delivery boy. He’d started with pizzas if you could believe it, but it was pretty short order before one of the big delivery services snapped him up for moving high priority packages around the state and, more recently, the country once he turned eighteen.

Kid was a speedster, apparently, or maybe some kind of teleporter. She didn’t really know. He was fast as hell, though, that was for sure.

A few super powered types got themselves a job with Disney, Warner Brothers, and other big companies. They mostly got paid to show off, pretend to be the characters from the comic books and generally put on shows for the big crowds. It was good money, supposedly, and easy work if you had the right powers.

For herself, well it wasn’t quite so easy.

When she’d gained her abilities, she followed a pattern that she had since learned was quite common among the younger superhumans around the world, at least in the Western Nations. She’d put together a costume and thought to go out stopping crime.

Ugh.

It was so embarrassing to think about.

Truth was even as bad as the world seemed to be, there just actually wasn’t that much street crime to stop. Without a radio and connection to a police network, at least, your odds of finding an actual criminal out on the streets doing something illegal were somewhere on par with winning the lotto it seemed. She spent a few nights, jumping building to building, looking for any sort of thing she could stop before one of the Lions had caught up to her.

After that things moved along quickly.

She was too young to join up with the Lions, not that her parents would have allowed it. She didn’t tell the government superhuman her name or anything, but they’d arranged to meet up on occasion and just move through the city to see if there was anything that they could do.

She’d been strong and fast enough that they were able to save some lives from car accidents, pull people from three burning buildings, and even stop a mugging they’d happened on completely by accident. She learned a lot from the Lion, a woman who went by the public persona Boudicca, and wasn’t that a name that she’d had to look up when she got home.

Boudicca was reassigned not long after - that happened a lot to the government superhumans apparently. Lot of fires to put out that they were used for, because while normal crime had been on the decline for a long time, superhuman crime was another story entirely.

She paused in her traversal of the city, coming out of her thoughts as she spotted a familiar form approaching her from East Thirty Second. She waited for him to get closer, stretching a little as she settled and let her muscles loosen up.

“Freerunner,” The Commodore said politely as he came to a stop just off the edge of the building. “Good to see you again.”

“Always a pleasure, Commodore. What brings you out tonight?” Freerunner asked politely as she casually approached along the edge, completely confident in her sense of balance.

The LEO hero shrugged, “I was showing the flag in the area and someone called in a report about a superhuman rooftop jumping, figured it was you but better to check it out.”

Freerunner chuckled nervously, “Sorry about that.”

“It’s not a problem,” The man in military-esque garb shrugged as he floated just off the side of the building she had stopped on. “Anything interesting tonight?”

She shook her head, “Nothing to speak of. Streets are quiet, and you’re the first superhuman I’ve seen tonight.”

Commodore nodded, unsurprised.

It was a big city. The odds of finding a crime in progress or a superhuman causing trouble weren’t exactly high unless someone was making a big mess. The media had very strange perceptions of what it mean to gain superpowers, with TV and movies already capitalizing on the new facet of life, expounding endlessly on the romantic notion of being a hero.

He approved, in a vague sort of way, because so many newly minted superhumans tended not to be the nicest sort of people, unfortunately. The quantum virus was tied to genetic traits that tended to cause people to be more violent than the average… and the average was quite bad enough, in his opinion. It was, however, rather disappointing for many younger people who activated their abilities and wanted to go out and live the fantasy.

Life was different than reality, of course.

“Well, take care, there has been an upswing in superhuman violence,” Commodore told her, “We’re expecting more here in New York in the near future.”

Freerunner nodded, unsurprised. She watched the news, after all.

“This connected to the fight earlier?”

Commodore grimaced, “Possibly, but hard to say. Magpie is a thief, he’s not commonly one to engage in violence.”

“Magpie? Really?” She chuckled, amused.

Commodore smiled slightly, “I think that some elements in the LEO community have an interesting sense of humor. We don’t know his name, so he was assigned a casefile and a code name. He’s a thief, likes shiny things.”

“Of course,” She nodded. While it was still amusing it was also pretty much how she got her name.

Some superhumans didn’t bother with trying to conceal who they were, but most seemed unwilling to let their neighbors know that the guy or gal next door could fold them in half with a glance, or whatever abilities they had. The media and law enforcement tended to use code names a lot, though the media would drop the real name in a heartbeat if they got a hold of it. LEOs only did that if a warrant was signed, and not always then.

“At any rate,” Commodore went on as he floated here, “Magpie isn’t currently considered a threat, directly at least. He’s a brick in motion, like me, but he prefers to keep his activities limited to theft. High end and high-profile items, usually, so we suspect he’s a contractor. A professional won’t try to draw any undue attention, it’s bad for business. If you see him, call it in, but don’t try for a take down, alright?”

Freerunner nodded, “That’s fine. I’m not really interested in tangling with a flying brick anyway, no offence. Last thing I want is to be punted into orbit.”

“None taken,” Commodore chuckled, “Anyway, I have a patrol to do, places to be seen. You know the drill.”

“Have at it, Com,” Freerunner saluted the flying man as he drifted away, then turned and accelerated out over the city.

Well, that was interesting.

The Commodore was New York’s most visible superhuman law enforcement element. That meant that when the city expected issues in the near future, or had them in the recent past, he tended to be trotted out to show the flag, as the man himself had said. That wasn’t for her, she didn’t need that noise. Mostly, she just loved to run the city… in the freerunning sense of things.

I suppose that’s it for the night, if Commodore is out flying around people will be keeping their heads down.

She turned and started to head back across the city, easily hitting forty and fifty miles per hour as she leapt from building to building, across streets with ease, running up the sides of taller buildings and landing in rolls on the roofs of lower ones.

In barely ten minutes she’d made it several miles away from where she’d met Commodore and dropped to the balcony of an apartment in a nice section of lower Manhattan, near the edge of Little Italy.

Once inside, Freerunner pulled off her hoody and goggles, dropping onto her bed as she looked up at the ceiling.

Ashley Karrigan sighed, already bored again.

She’d not slept since she gained her abilities, and there was only so much streaming tv one could watch.

She looked over at the clock.

Only five more hours before school.

Damn it.

*****

The city may not sleep, but approaching three am even New York did a fair imitation, at least when compared to the normal hustle and bustle.

Casey had finished his patrol quite some time earlier. Soon he’d turn in for the night and get some much-needed rest. For the moment, though, he was enjoying one of the true positives of his powers.

Floating over the sleeping city, just enjoying the lights from below.

No reporters, no super criminals, no fans asking for autographs, selfies, and good lord some of the other things they wanted.

Not that there weren’t the occasional requests he wasn’t at all against fulfilling and indulging in. He was a single young man in, literally, the prime of his life.

He scanned the city slowly, not seeing any smoke that might indicate a fire, and while there were sirens wafting up to him, he didn’t see anything that hinted they were focused on anything the local PD or Emergency Services couldn’t handle.

Well, that’s it for the night, I guess.

He began dropping. It was time to head for home.

*****

Harrison watched as the dark form of the Commodore dropped out of the sky, presumably heading for wherever he called home to get some sleep.

Or maybe he sleeps in the Lion’s headquarters?

It didn’t matter. The man was out of the sky and that was all he cared about for now as he put his phone away with a flick of his thumb to turn off the screen.

It really was remarkable, just how much information was out there if you knew were to look.

Super Spotters dot com had a decent little app that let you tag any superhumans in their system and it would give you a neat little alert whenever they were spotted, often with some fanboy bragging about how he’d just spotted so and so hanging around such and such.

It was one reason he preferred to keep a lower profile, and didn’t wear anything that might be considered distinctive. The love some had for their ‘costumes’ was clearly linked deeply to the pop culture impact of superhero comics and movies, but it really seemed to him that the practice was truly a questionable one. While there were some tangible advantages he could see, making it easy for people to track you was just plain dumb, especially for someone like himself who worked on the grey side of the law, if he were being generous.

The app actually had him listed under no less than three different profiles, with another two he thought were also referring to him, though he wasn’t sure about those. That was how Harrison wanted to keep things. Being a thief meant that good public relations was no public relations.

With the Commodore well out of the way, he flew west, across the island. He stayed low, just above the tops of the buildings. Any lower and he might buzz someone’s bedroom window, any higher and he’d have a good chance to be found by some idiot out looking for… well, he didn’t what really. Owls or something he supposed.

People were irritating at the best of times, people who wandered around a metropolitan city, at night, with goddamn night vision cameras really pissed him off.

The modern world was a bane to thieves and superhumans alike.

Who knew?

Harrison crossed Central Park at high speed, skimming treetops as he kept his eye on the blue electric glow of the Blue Solar building. He circled the target, coming to rest on one of the Columbia campus buildings, close enough to get a good look at the external security as he brought up his high-end camera with night vision attachment and began taking pictures.

Regular patrols, looks like standard security though. Nothing particularly tricky there.

Blue Solar wasn’t a company to mess around with - he knew that better than most. But not even they could be at full alert twenty-four seven. Their best gear was military grade, and governments tended to look down on companies fielding that sort of thing, in the open at least.

The first line would be the rent-a-cops, which would be simplicity itself to pass. After them, he’d have to deal with the electronic security.

There, the corporation hadn’t skimped according to the file he’d gotten from his client.

Full coverage CCTV, night vision, motion detection, radiation detection, tremblers on the ground all around the building, LIDAR covering the skies. He couldn’t come in from above, or below, but neither system covered the mid-range approach. Everything from ground level to roughly two hundred and fifty feet was open, according to the file.

Bullshit.

They had something covering that approach, there was no doubt whatsoever. The question became, what? LIDAR and RADAR were worthless below a certain altitude in the city, just too many obstructions. The heat radiating off the pavement alone was such that LIDAR was nearly worthless even a couple hundred plus feet up.

RADAR wouldn’t do much to spot a person at the best of times, not in a city with as many pigeons and the like as New York.

Harrison was betting on motion detection from a secondary CCTV array, run through a proprietary algorithm. He’d never heard of one that could handle the hustle and bustle of a city without constant false positives, but if anyone could do it, it would be Blue Solar.

He finished taking his pictures, then flew on to another vantage point while keeping below the rooftops, continuing to snap away from position to position with the high-power lens.

Blue Solar wasn’t the only source of high-end image analysis.

He knew some people who’d be able to make a lot from a few pics.

Job done for the night, Harrison flew off, moving away from the building and staying low until he was well clear, then climbing and circling back to his temporary apartment. The wind rushed past his face as he flew through the night over the city, mind awhirl with plans.

*****

JFK International

Wesley Trenton stepped off the private plane, looking idly around the field with some moderate interest.

JFK was, of course, busy as it always was. Most of the hustle and bustle was quite some distance from him, however, and so he started walking the short distance to where the black SUV was already waiting.

“Mr. Trenton, Sir, welcome to New York,” The driver said, holding the door open for him as he got in.

“Thank you, Marcus. How have things been with the family?”

“All good, Sir, thank you for asking.” Marcus Holt said with a polite smile as he closed the door. He walked around and got into the driver’s side of the running vehicle, glancing back over his shoulder, “The hotel sir?”

“No, take me to my building,” Trenton said, the hotel was for more public visits, when he was aiming to impress. “I have work to do. I’ll sleep in the apartments there.”

“Yes sir,” Marcus said before he shifted into drive and headed for the exit from the field.

As they pulled onto the freeway, Wesley looked up with some interest, “How have things been locally, Marcus?”

“Sir?” Marcus seemed confused briefly before he went on, “Can’t say as it’s been all that different than usual?”

“I heard there was a superhuman incident this morning.”

“Ah, yes, The Commodore mixed it up with some no-name, I believe,” Marcus responded. “Can’t say what it was over. The unknown fled when the rest of the Lions showed up.”

Wesley nodded silently, considering that.

He’d heard more or less the same, but hadn’t been able to get any more details out of his contacts thus far. American superhuman law enforcement had become insular in the years since the incident. His company had access to a lot of data, but not everything, and as the American LEOs gained more power and influence they were also learning to guard what they knew jealously.

Irritating.

It left him with holes in his intelligence network, something that he’d been trying to prevent for the last five years.

People infuriated the billionaire, in ways that he couldn’t properly express if he were being completely honest about it. He’d seen the threat the world was under, and it wasn’t some minor thing like a natural disaster that might only kill millions or billions. The entire Superhuman Event was, to his mind, nothing less than an act of war by parties completely unknown but obviously and completely capable of genocide.

It was an act that had already killed hundreds of thousands of people, just spread out enough that most people didn’t think it was a big deal.

The quantum-virus had directly killed a few thousand that had been confirmed, probably a few tens of thousands that had slipped by without being noticed. The sheer chaos that erupted from those who survived it, however, was the true problem.

Humans who could ignore the rule of law.

On the surface that was potentially bad enough, but once you dug deeper it became obvious that this was not merely some random sprinkling of infected.

No, the virus was tied directly to several genetic markers noted to be connected to a higher likelihood of violence.

Wesley was no particular adherent to the concepts of eugenics. He firmly believed that nurture had as much to do with one’s life choices as nature did, but he wasn’t one to ignore the fact that genetics clearly did play some role as well. The virus targeted those in that genetic category, the sort who were more likely to lash out, to be violent.

Then it gave them the power to do so.

It was no less an attack on the planet and humanity than it would be to simply airdrop weapons of mass destruction to fundamentalist organizations before sitting back to enjoy the show.

Worldwide, the rule of law was slipping.

It wasn’t gone yet, that was certain. In some places it had strengthened, even, but that too was a symptom of the chaos to come in his mind. China had exercised an iron fist. China’s Dragon had become the face of their rule in many ways, their superhuman forces had made no bones of hammering down any resistance with brutal efficacy.

There was a worldwide weapons race, only the weapons were people.

There was a storm coming, and no one was ready for it.

*****

Manhattan

“The families are making a move, I believe.”

Across the room from the speaker, another man snorted in derision as he poured himself a drink.

“The families are archaic organizations, brother. They are of no import.”

The speaker nodded, “This is true, but they could make our lives difficult for a time. It would be better, I think, to ensure that this was not possible.”

The two men were alone in a penthouse that overlooked the city, brightly lit, and filled with polished marble and glass. The man with the drink was a shorter sort, squat and powerful looking, with a craggy face that held little visible humor. He looked back at the man he called brother and shrugged, “If you believe this is best, so be it.”

“Thank you, Vaska.”

“What are they planning, do we know?”

The first speaker frowned. He was a taller man, broad across the chest, with a gut that many would think to be fat at first glance. More to their pity if they wound up in a position to disprove that notion, because he could, and had, crushed stones in his bare hands even before he’d been empowered.

“They have employed a thief. He worked for us, our organization, once. Used the name Dimitri at the time. False, of course.”

Vaska snorted, setting his drink down. “Of course. Can we hire him to turn on them?”

“No, he is a professional. Once he takes your money, he delivers.”

“Ah, few of those in the world these days,” Vaska sighed. “Kill him then?”

“Difficult. He was on the news this morning, discovered by the one the Americans called Commodore.”

“That was him? Yes, I suppose I can see the difficulty,” Vaska allowed. “Very well then, what do you suggest?”

“They have targeted technology that could be… a problem for us. It would be better if they not acquired it. The authorities have established a… trap at the one he struck at today, expecting him to try again. However, it is not the only source for similar technology at this time. There is another project in the city.”

Vaska considered that, “And where is this other project?”

The first man sighed deeply, “At Blue Solar.”

*****

Chapter Four

Isa spent the next few days in a tizzy. School was new and so much better than she was used to, with better access to information than she’d ever managed on her own thanks to a much faster internet connection she could access with her, admittedly, older tablet. Classes were interesting, though advanced placement did mean that she couldn’t spend as much of her focus on her personal interests, but that wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

Devin had come through. He’d told her the next day that he’d checked with his father about a tour, and she crossed her fingers for three more days before he told her that a time had been set if she could make it.

Hah. If.

As though she wouldn’t give her right arm for a chance like that.

So, she was floating on cloud nine for most of the week, with a time set for Friday afternoon, and the week of course just seemed to be crawling by.

Between classes and such, she was watching the current events, particularly anything to do with the superhuman news. While she wasn’t quite the fan that Devin seemed to be, the subject was one that she followed with avid attention.

The country had seen several incidents over the past few days, with several happening out west and having been handled by the Rangers, a pair of superhuman lawmen who’d been active since the very beginning, over five years ago. They weren’t as well known as the Marine, but only because they stuck to their region for the most part and didn’t go flying around the planet fighting aliens or whatever that thing had been.

Nothing much had happened on the East Coast, though, and New York had been oddly quiet since the little fight between the unknown and the Commodore.

Nothing too strange, though. Even New York didn’t have constant superhuman incidents of course.

*****

Devin barely listened to the teacher drone on, instead tapping out commands on his tablet as he dropped library code into his app with the drag and drop interface, then modded it with short changes made to suit his needs. He wanted to get the new app compiled and uploaded for users on the Spotter site before his competition got their new version out.

With the geo-tagging library he’d borrowed from Blue Solar, Devin was confident that his version would be the better one available when it launched. With a little luck, users would recognize that for themselves and he’d be able to get a lead on the competition.

He actually had the competing app open on his tablet at the moment, watching as people reported the location of superhumans within the New York/New Jersey area. There were currently five superhuman sightings showing up, all of them Lions.

You know, I think most of the spottings reported on that app have been the LEOs. I wonder why?

He shrugged it off, it didn’t really matter. Others would show up sooner or later, he had little doubt. Besides, the Lions were probably easier to recognize, as they wore uniforms and tended to be pretty obvious about their movements.

With a couple more adjustments, he set his new app to compile and returned his attention to the class and what the teacher was saying, for what little it mattered.

*****

The bell rang, but most of the students were already in motion before the first tone sang out. Superpowers might be amazing things, but any teacher at any high school could tell you that they had nothing on a student’s desire to be out of the school by the most efficient means possible.

Isa, though, found herself buffeted too often by others rushing to escape the teacher’s clutches, and so had already developed a habit of taking the last few minutes of class to write out some notes for her homework, occasionally even finishing an assignment if she could, and then taking her time packing up once the rush had passed.

This time she was surprised to see that Devin was also calmly sitting at his desk as she began clearing her things. She finished packing her things up and started for the door, only to be surprised when he hadn’t yet moved. Curious, she walked over and cocked her head over his shoulder.

“Coding? Is that what you were doing all class?”

Devin nearly jumped out of his seat, and his skin with it.

“Don’t do that!” He clutched at his chest.

“Sorry, but I wasn’t sneaking up on you,” Isa defended herself. “You’re just not paying attention.”

“Right, right. Sorry.” Devin blew out a deep breath, “What did you ask?”

“I asked if you were coding all class?” She repeated herself. “You’ll get in trouble if you keep that up.”

“Eh,” He waved off the concern. “The teachers know I’ve already done the work.”

Isa rolled her eyes, “If you say so. What are you working on now, the same app?”

He nodded, “I’m almost done, just have some final polish to do and it’ll be ready to go online.”

“That’s cool,” Isa said. “What’s it called?”

“I don’t have a name yet, just been calling it super spotter in my code,” Devin admitted. “I’ll come up with something catchy before I publish it.”

“Super Spotter sounds good,” She shrugged. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Way too generic, plus I don’t like the whole ‘SS’ thing, given that we have actual Nazis crawling out from under their rocks again in different spots around the planet,” Devin sighed. “Naming is hard.”

Isa rolled her eyes, “If you say so.”

She hesitated a bit, before speaking again, “Are we… are we still good for the tour?”

Devin looked puzzled, “Of course. Why? You can still make it right?”

She nodded quickly, “Of course! I just, you know, wanted to be sure.”

“My dad has it all set up,” He assured her. “We just have to catch the train up to the Blue Solar building and he’ll take it from there.”

Isa was relieved. She’d been half expecting something to happen to prevent the tour from happening. That was the way things usually seemed to go in her life, though her mom told her that she was imagining things. Maybe she was, but she wasn’t convinced though.

“Anyway,” Devin went on, packing up his tablet and the coding interface. “There’s no need to rush, but we can get going whenever you’re ready.”

“I’ve been ready for this for a long time, Devin,” She said eagerly.

“Well, let’s go then.”

*****

Ashley was handing out flyers for the upcoming Cheerleading competition to anyone who was passing, part of her extra curricular responsibilities. She was also recruiting for the drama club, and had a hand in a few other student clubs.

Not having to sleep kinda sucked sometimes, but it did give her time to get a lot done.

She was passing off another flyer when she spotted the new girl again.

She’d seen her a couple times over the past week, of course, but hadn’t had time to check up on her. Ashley hoped she was fitting in well, though it seemed she was since she was walking along with Devin.

Ashley smirked slightly, her lip turning up on one side to reveal a dimple she normally tried to hide. Devin was one of the few kids in the school that she was honestly cautious about. She didn’t want her abilities to come out into the open, as that would massively complicate every aspect of her life so much more than it already was.

Most kids talked about how cool it would be to have powers, how awesome it would be, and… in some ways? They weren’t wrong. But once you became a known superhuman? That could straight up ruin your life.

Ashley had seen it happen.

So, anyone who could distract Stewie’s resident Super geek was alright by her.

Still, I wonder if it’s just a friend thing or if there’s something more heating up there?

The romantic in her was rooting for the second option, but from what she’d seen of the new girl and what she new of Devin, she was figuring the first was the more likely of the two.

That boy is such a social dweeb, even if he is a nice enough guy. He’ll probably be a millionaire by the time he graduates though.

The thought of how that little tidbit would cause her fellow cheerleaders to change their tunes about the boy amused Ashley to no end, but it meant relatively little to her. Money was easy when you never got tired or needed to sleep, even without certain other advantages she could leverage. Since she’d developed her abilities, well money stopped being a concern for a number of reasons.

She continued to pass out her flyers, keeping an eye on the pair until they were off school grounds and heading toward the subway.

Then she put her focus back to the job. She had a lot to get finished before she could go for a run later. Her friends all wondered how she could be so upbeat about the most mundane of tasks, but really her secret wasn’t one they could truly appreciate unfortunately.

After all, the drudgery of high school was truly offset and rendered quite meaningless when you had all of Manhattan as your jungle gym by night.

*****

The plan was as ready as it would ever be, Harrison supposed.

Normally he preferred a much higher percent chance of success, but going up against Blue Solar’s security was a tough call at the best of times, let alone as a rush job.

Not how I normally prefer to do things, but once the job is accepted… ah well.

He supposed he should really have known better, all things considered. Accepting work for hire from the local ‘Families’ wasn’t, perhaps, the best choice.

Too bad the money was so good. I suppose that should have been a tip off.

*****

“The contractor is moving forward this evening.”

“Good. And the help we arranged?”

The first speaker looked uncomfortable, “He… refused their services, I’m afraid.”

“That is… troubling. Did he say why?”

“Merely that he prefers to work alone.”

The second man sighed heavily, “This is too important to leave to the whims of an overconfident contractor. I want our people on hand, just in case there is an issue. If he can do the job on his own, that is all to the better of course, but if something occurs…”

“Understood. I will see to it personally, however…”

“Yes?”

“We have a few soldiers who are no longer quite normal, you understand?”

“I do… you’re suggesting that we use them… I see…”

The man looked pensive, unhappy with the option, but finally he nodded.

“Yes. As distasteful as this might be, I believe we have no choice.”

He sighed deeply, but refrained from any of the harsher language that was demanding to be used to describe his thoughts on the issue. The use of these… superhumans was very nearly anathema to the Families, among the older generation at least. The younger, more bold and bloody-minded of the families were different, but for the moment the edict passed down from the heads of the families held.

Giving this order would mean breaking that edict.

“Assign a few of the… superhuman soldiers to the job, but keep them under control. They are to do nothing unless the contractor fails, is that clear?”

“Yes, crystal.”

*****

Isa looked up at the Blue Solar building with an expression that was a mixture of eagerness, awe, and trepidation. Over the last few years, Blue Solar had quietly advanced to become one of the top earning corporations on the planet, but more importantly they also provided governments, military, and civilian markets with some of the most advanced technology available.

They were company that everyone else was struggling to catch up with, the standard by which everyone was judged.

For Isa, Wesley Trenton was her inspiration, a billionaire visionary who had taken the global leadership position after the attacks over Hong Kong and Germany. He stood above even most nations’ leadership, pushing for a united response in the face of the attacks, often clashing with nationalistic leaders… even the President of the United States by times.

“Come on,” Devin said. “Dad should have arranged a visitor pass for you at the front desk.”

Isa shook herself from her reverie and nodded as she quietly followed along. She could hear the slight click of her shoes echo off the marble walls as she walked, the room seemed so quiet. She realized that she could see people talking, not that far from her, but for some reason their voices were barely a murmur.

Wow. Is that some sort of active sound canceling, or just amazing acoustics?

She didn’t get too long to puzzle over that question, however, as they reached the desk in just a couple seconds.

“Hey there Dev, heading in to see your dad? And who’s this? Girlfriend?”

The man at the desk smiled at them both, and Isa could feel her face heat up.

“No! Come on, Jeff, don’t do that to me,” Devin almost sounded like he wasn’t whining a bit, but only almost. Isa ignored it, as she was trying not to whine at the man herself.

“Sorry, sorry,” The guard laughed. “I think I saw a note about her…”

He flipped through a tablet’s screen with casual flicks of his fingers until he found the note he was looking for.

“Ah, Novah is it? Sweet name,” He told her, turning to pull out a drawer where he flipped through a stack of badges. “Here we are, one visitor’s pass.”

Isa accepted it with a soft ‘thank you’ that was barely audible.

Jeff laughed softly, winking at Devin.

“She’s cute. Make a move, Dev, or someone else will snap this one up.”

Devin groaned, but just tugged at Isa’s shoulder.

“Come on, this way, before the comedian here gets any more ideas for dad jokes.”

As she was gratefully letting Devin lead her away, Isa saw Jeff clutch at his heart.

“Dad jokes? That’s just mean, Dev!”

They went around the corner, and Devin stabbed at an elevator button in some irritation.

“Sorry about him,” He said while they waited for the elevator to come down. “He thinks he’s funny.”

“It’s…” She took a deep breath, “It’s ok. I get it, my mom gets like that.”

“Oh lord, please don’t bring up moms, mine would… No,” Devin shook his head, “Nope. Nope. Not going there.”

*****

Wesley Trenton looked over the data on the tablet he was holding, cautiously pleased with the current project’s progress. The local branch had some of the world’s finest experts in the fields of Quantum Photonics, supplemented by the deep scan data that Blue Solar had managed to acquire from both its study of Superhuman subjects and its own, very secret, projects in creating superhumans itself.

The photonic project the local branch was almost finished with was perhaps one of the most versatile technologies he had yet seen to result from the Superhuman phenomenon.

The ability to project tactile holographic imagery had applications across nearly every field he could imagine, and would certainly revolutionize everything from interfaces to military armor and stealth design.

“This is excellent work, Thomas,” He said approvingly. “I’m very impressed with the progress you’ve made thus far.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Thomas Meeran said, a little bit of relief filtering into his voice despite his best efforts. “Still, we have to overcome to power restraints if this is going to meet your project requirements.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Trenton sighed slightly. “The initial power demand is quite significant. However, it doesn’t take much to maintain…”

“Only if the image is static and not interacted with,” Meeran frowned, nodding to the tablet, “Check the appendices, section D I believe?”

Wesley flicked his fingers a couple times before he found the section and read if more closely, “Ah, I see. That is disappointing. No hard light forcefields for soldiers in the field, I see.”

“I’m afraid not, not without another breakthrough… either in power generation or maximizing the efficiency of this technology,” Meeran sighed.

“That… is disappointing,” Wesley said with reluctant acceptance as he examined the numbers. “Even our best power generation won’t keep up with this for that sort of application… how will it handle soft interaction?”

“Touch based contact has a minimal power cost, but it’s still noticeable. No mobile phones with holographic interfaces, I’m afraid, but for home computers, and certainly for research systems? Very feasible.”

“Excellent, plus I believe the military will still shell out for the stealth capabilities it allows,” Wesley said, getting a nod from Thomas. “Perhaps not quite what we had hoped, but then what ever is in the real world? Still a very good bit of…”

A chime interrupted him, and the pair turned to see the elevator open up to reveal a pair of teenagers. Thomas Meeran flushed red, unconsciously palming his face as he suddenly remembered his promise to his son.

“Apologies Sir, I forgot that I arranged for a tour this evening,” He said. “My son has a friend who is going into Quantum Physics after she graduates from Stewie. I’ll let them know that I have to cancel…”

“Nonsense,” Wesley waved him off, “We’ve all but finished reviewing this project, and while there’s more to be done, I’d have insisted on a break anyway. Besides, it’s always good to see the people who might be the future of the field, if not the company. Call them in.”

“Yes Sir,” Thomas said, shaking his head as he waved to the pair of kids.

The came in through the glass doors, hesitant as they looked upon the (in)famous man standing there at his side.

“Devin… and Novah I believe?” He asked.

“I prefer Isa, it’s my middle name,” Isa said softly, eyes not leaving Mr. Trenton.

“Isa then,” Thomas smiled genially, “I’d like both of you to meet Mr. Trenton, the CEO of Blue Solar.”

*****

Chapter Five

Private Club, NYC

“It will be tonight.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, we have men close to the families who have confirmed that they moved some of their… superhuman assets in case they were needed.”

The way the man said the word ‘superhuman’ made it quite clear that he considered the men in place to be unworthy of the phrase, which was not something that surprised Vaska. The Families were still stuck in their old ways, and the use of superhumans was something that they yet disdained to do.

That, Vaska had no doubt, would be their end.

“Let us ensure that they do not acquire what it is that they seek,” He said after a moment’s thought. “If Blue Solar’s defenses are not sufficient to the task, then perhaps we should ensure that the attempt by this contractor falls prey to… an accident?”

His man nodded, “Perhaps if we… distracted the local Lions with some incidents in other parts of the city?”

Vaska considered that briefly before nodding.

“Yes… the timing is short, but I believe we can scrounge up sufficient threats to get them properly distracted. I will make the calls,” He promised.

“Then I will arrange for a proper reception at Blue Solar.”

“Perfect.”

Vaska poured them both a drink, passing over the single shot to his companion.

“Za Vstrechu, my friend.”

“Za Vstrechu,” the other man said with a smile as they both downed the clear liquid.

*****

Blue Solar HQ

Isa was floating on cloud nine, half certain she’d died and gone to heaven, half worried she was in hell and the boom was about to drop and reveal it all to be a trap or cruel prank. Either way, for the moment she was determined to learn everything she possibly could from the man who ran Blue Solar, because this was a once in a lifetime chance, and something that she knew she would never get another chance at.

The presence of Wesley Trenton had even managed to distract her, briefly, from the ongoing projects they were touring.

Briefly.

After she got her head back in the proper space, Isa proceeded to pepper both Mr. Trenton and Mr. Meeran with every question she could come up with, plus a few that even managed to surprise her.

The answers she received caused her eyes to glaze over briefly as she thought them through, then quickly cleared just so that she could ask another.

*****

Wesley found himself initially taken back by the intense questioning he got from the young girl, both by how focused she appeared to be on every question she asked, but also by the sheer energetic furor of them. He likely would have gotten annoyed at that, except that once he answered a few of them he realized that she actually understood the basics… and sometimes a bit more than… of what they were showing her.

Interesting. I was being facetious when I called the kids the future of the field, but this one might just live up to that.

He’d never been a patient man with kids. Didn’t have any of his own, and didn’t really have any intentions in that direction either. Someone would eventually take over his company, but that person would be selected either by the investors or by his holding corporation, depending on whether he ever elected to divest himself of his controlling share.

He honestly wouldn’t trust a child of his to take over anyway, since he had seen too many children of wealth that were too far removed from the competence of their parentage. Wesley knew he was something of an egoist, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could do a better job at raising kids than many of his peers who actually cared to at least try.

He’d rather give his company to shareholders to run into the ground than have his own child do it and drag his name down with it.

As he’d previously noted, he was a narcissist, and he knew it.

Wesley tuned back into the conversation as Thomas was answering the latest question, this one about how they measured quantum vectors to accomplish many of their technical miracles.

“Of course, we still have to factor in the issues that Heisenberg’s principle outlines,” Thomas was saying. “However, while it is impossible to completely measure quantum phenomena, we normally don’t need to. Quite often it is sufficient to know the spin, or trajectory, or location. We don’t generally need all three.”

“Quite,” Wesley cut in with a smile. “In that, the quantum stratum actually works with us in many of our endeavors, as it will tend to self organize if given the right impetus. The difficulty is more along the line of properly anticipating the level of entropy we’re likely to encounter…”

He saw Thomas wince slightly, and wondered at it until he saw the look on the boy’s face. Thomas’ son was entirely lost. Too far. This is why I have PR assistants to handle things like this.

“But wouldn’t calculating entropy naturally result in disrupting the rest of your calculations for the system?” Isa asked, frowning as she seemed deep in thought.

Wesley raised an eyebrow, “If we were calculating it by analyzing the system direction, indeed it would. Can you think of a way we could do it without measuring the system directly?”

Isa paused, frowning as she thought her way through the problem, hitting one dead end after another with every method she could imagine.

“I suppose…” She paused, shaking her head. “No. What if… no, that won’t work… I…”

She floundered, and Wesley found himself amused by the frustration she was clearly showing.

Finally, she just shook her head, “I give up. I mean, all I can think of is guessing and that’s… just…”

Wesley saw her trail off as she looked at him, and knew that she was putting it together just from the shocked look on his own face.

“You guess?”

“We guess,” He confirmed with a smile. “And I must admit, that is some very good thinking, young lady. I’ve had PHDs in here who weren’t able to figure that out, and when we told them they outright refused to believe it. Some of them still think we have some super secret quantum measuring tool.”

“You don’t?” She asked, seemingly just making sure.

“We don’t,” Wesley said, amused. “Though I have to say, if we did it wouldn’t be terribly super secret if I admitted to having it, would it?”

Isa blinked, then had to admit, “I suppose not.”

“Why don’t we go to the Analysis Labs next?” Meeran suggested, gesturing in another direction.

“Of course,” Wesley nodded. “I’ve been meaning to visit anyway. Lead on, Thomas.”

Isa had to visible restrain herself from jumping in place, much to the amusement of the two adults present, but the group started down the hall toward the secured section of the building.

*****

Harrison silently looked down on the Blue Solar building, drifting slightly with the wind as he waited to see if there was any sign that they had seen him.

The sun was setting, and he was floating well above the building using a contrast adjusting outer layer over the normal gear he used on a job. Some of it, ironically perhaps, made by Blue Solar themselves. The contrast adjusting outerwear was lined with millions of LEDs, and using a camera the outer layer would light up to match the contrast of the sky above him. It was almost as good as straight up invisibility at a distance, even modern cameras were hard pressed to pick out the differences.

Under that he wore a layer of RADAR absorbing material (RAM), and then a heat blocking layer that was already causing him to sweat even as he just floated there.

Overkill?

Possibly, but against Blue Solar, he wasn’t going to be taking any chances.

A chirp over his headset was the signal he needed. The contact within the building had confirmed that there hadn’t been any sign that he’d been spotted. That would, hopefully, mean that he hadn’t triggered any of their systems despite being relatively close to the building.

Nothing to it then, time to put this show into action.

He leaned into the wind, accelerating slowly toward the building, moving at a snail’s pace compared to what he was capable of just in case the security included any fancy sort of motion detection system. Those looked for differences between one measurement and the next, and had to have fairly large variances coded in otherwise they’d turn up false positives like rain from a thundercloud. Accelerating slowly enough would get him in under that detection threshold.

Hopefully.

*****

“How long do we have to do this?”

“Shut up, Eddy. We barely got here, and we’ll stay until we’re told to leave.”

Eddy groaned, slumping in place.

“Why are we listening to those old fucks?” He complained. “I can shoot lightning out my ass if I want, I could fry the whole damn…”

“Shut. Up.”

Eddy looked up to see his companion holding up a single finger and glaring at him over it.

“Sorry, Pauly.”

Pauly sighed, “It’s alright, just don’t talk like that out in the open, Eddy. The families are no joke, even if you do think that the bosses are a bunch of ‘old fucks’. Hell, they are old fucks, but they’re smart and dangerous old fucks, and you better remember it. They’ve been handling shit in this city for a hundred years, don’t underestimate them.”

“Alright, alright. I get it, but you know I’m right too,” Eddy grumbled. “They never had to deal with people like us for that hundred years.”

“You think you’ll survive a .45 calibre lobotomy, Eddy? Because they can arrange it,” Pauly growled. “Or maybe you wake up in the trunk of a car sitting in the crusher, or maybe…”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry, I get it.”

Pauly sighed, but let it go. Edward, or Eddy, was a friend and they went back quite a ways, but the younger man wasn’t the brightest penny in the pile, so to speak. Paul had grown up with the families, through his father who had been an associate of one family most of his life. Never a made man, but as close as one got without making that final step.

Paul had been much the same, running numbers since he was thirteen, occasional muscle work, nothing big as a rule but enough to stay close and be taken care of by his father’s associates. His powers had come along when he was older, a couple years ago when he was caught too close to a fight between the Lions and some two-bit superhumans who never managed to earn a name before they were put down.

He’d almost been crushed when the building he was in was torn right out from under him by one of the superhuman fucks. Everyone else had died, but Paul… didn’t.

He looked at his hand, flexing his fingers and clenching into a fist.

That had not been a good day.

Eddy’s story was similar enough that he understood the other man’s desire for release, whether to fight or just to go home. Sitting here, at someone else’s beck and call, just felt wrong.

“It’s alright, Eddy,” He said finally. “Don’t worry about it. Just relax, I’ll let you know when we can leave.”

“Alright, Pauly, you’re the best.”

*****

“Is this the place?”

The speaker was a tall, heavy set man, exposed skin covered in tattoos of varying quality from the quite well done, to the sort you only got in rather unpleasant locations.

“Da. Vaska was quite clear. This is the building.”

The second man was smaller, trim, and clean cut and shaven with no hint of art anywhere on his exposed flesh. His white suit seemed out of place where they were standing, in an alleyway across from the Blue Solar building, behind a local restaurant that had been quite generous with the portions they’d tossed in the dumpster after the supper rush.

The group had been forced to chase away several vagrants from their daily meal, and the second man was still scuffing the residue from one such ‘dinner’ off his shoe.

Fucking bum. Filthy animals.

“I do not see him, Kevan.”

“Look up.” Kevan Istha said, nodding casually in the air.

“Huh? I still don’t see anything.”

Kevan sighed, pointing carefully, his finger moving slowly as he traced a line in the air. His compatriots carefully followed his gesture and their eyes widened as they saw a shadow briefly eclipse the lights of the building.

“Ohhh… I see him now, Da? Should we go?”

“Not yet. Let him get a little deeper in the building first.”

*****

Making entry to the building itself was child’s play. For all their vaunted security, Blue Solar used fairly standard electronic locks and sensors on the windows, at least on the upper floors. That wasn’t entirely unreasonable, the big money would always go to the most vulnerable points of entry after all. However, when you’re a flyer, everywhere was a vulnerable point of entry.

Inside, he had to be a lot more careful.

The interior security was designed, installed, and maintained by Blue Solar themselves. That meant he didn’t have blueprints, specifications, or much in the way of even installation layouts. He did have a good idea, he hoped, of their capabilities however and, as with the windows, there were vulnerabilities in the system.

There had to be, realistically. Perfect security might be possible, but it would be a living hell for the people working in the building, and would badly impede the efficiency of the work being done.

No corporation could put up with that level of hassle.

Even if the employees didn’t openly revolt, the level by which it would reduce productivity would have management tearing the system out with their own bare hands within a week.

Harrison smirked as he sidestepped the motion detection system, making his way to the door and from there checking the hallway.

It was empty, which was part of the plan. The building wasn’t shut down for the night yet, and so the security system wasn’t fully turned on… but most people had gone home, and that would reduce the human factor considerably. He should be only a few hundred feet from the first stop on his little shopping trip, a lab that was somewhat higher security than the office he’d entered through and, for that reason, was buried inside the building with no exterior window access.

He let himself out into the corridor and skimmed rapidly down the hall, heading for the lab.

*****

The analysis labs weren’t quite clean rooms, but they were close. Before they could go in, Isa could feel the air blow in her face from the positive pressure within.

“That’s to keep dust out,” Thomas said. “The gear in here is sensitive, of course.”

Isa nodded absently, eyes falling on the equipment that lined the walls.

She could see two mass spectrometers, at least one of which was a multi-tandem model with Quantum computing capacity.

“Doesn’t that one cost, like, a million bucks?” She asked, pointing at it.

“Billion, with a B,” Wesley told her. “If you account for research costs, spread over every one of those built. There are only half a dozen in the world, five of which are in my buildings.”

“And the sixth?”

“We’re not permitted to talk about where the sixth is,” Wesley chuckled. “Contractual requirements.”

“ok…” She said quietly.

“We use it to analyze the effects of various superhuman powers,” He said, “which you likely are aware tend to manifest as quantum effects.”

Isa nodded, that was fairly well known at this point. Many companies were researching that subject, of course, and since the advent of the first superhumans Quantum research was one of the hottest growth subjects in the world.

“Is it true that every superpower is basically the same?”

“At a fundamental level, yes,” Wesley said. “For all practical purposes, every superhuman is a sub-atomic telekinetic… the means in which that telekinetic manipulation manifests on the macro scale, however, varies amazingly from one person to another.”

He looked at the machine with an odd look in his eyes, “These machines have allowed us to do things that just six years ago would have been considered entirely impossible, realm of science fiction.”

Now, however, Devin was apparently all ears.

“You used those to map the quantum effects of DNA from the first superhumans, right?” Devin blurted. “I read about that…”

“Actually, back then we were using far inferior equipment,” Wesley said with a slightly bitter tone. “If we had this, we could have fielded effective countermeasures much sooner, and maybe accomplished something more during the last fight rather than be forced to rely entirely on the Marine.”

“Did you ever sequence his DNA?” Devin asked eagerly.

Wesley sighed, “No. We were never accorded access to the Marine’s DNA. However, since then we’ve been able to analyze the DNA of several others with similar powers, including New York’s own Commodore.”

“Can the Commodore carry an SR-71 from Germany to the Mediterranean and set it down on an aircraft carrier?” Devin asked, eyes wide enough to be dinner plates. “I didn’t think he was that strong?”

Wesley stared for a moment, before Thomas stepped in.

“We’ve never fully established how strong the Commodore is,” Thomas said. “However, he is one of the upper-tier Superhumans in the United States at the moment.”

“Yeah, but is he as strong as…”

“Devin.”

Devin shut up upon hearing his father’s tone.

“Sorry.”

“Nonsense, my boy,” Wesley said softly, looking over to Devin. “It is a bit of a touchy subject I’m afraid. The Marine was an impressive specimen, one that the US Military has guarded quite jealously.”

He looked over the equipment, “We learned a great deal from early Superhuman DNA sequencing, and it would have been a great boon if we could have sequenced his genetics before he was squirreled away wherever the military have him stashed. Unfortunately, that was not to…”

Wesley was cut off as an alarm sounded, and he paused and looked around.

“What’s that?” Isa asked.

“That is a security alarm,” Thomas said absently. “Do we have more protesters out front?”

“No,” Wesley shook his head. “That is an interior intrusion. Someone is in the building.”

“That’s impossible…”

“I’ve learned over the past half decade that nothing is impossible,” Wesley frowned. “And fewer things are improbable than one might think. Come, let’s get the children to a secure area and contact security to see what’s going on.”

A rumble in the distance, sending a noticeable shaking through the building that they could feel in the floor.

“Quickly, I believe,” Wesley said firmly, ushering them out of the room in a hurrying motion.

*****

Harrison started swearing under his breath when he heard the alarm go off.

He would have sworn that he hadn’t tripped any security systems, but apparently the contact’s man on the inside had missed something.

Lovely. This is going to get messy, I’ll bet.

There was little point in messing around trying to be quiet, he supposed.

Harrison kicked the door in front of him open, checking quickly to see that the corridor was empty, then made his way to the lab he’d been looking for. It was just down to the end of the hall, and he spotted the warning signs immediately, not to mention all the digital security.

Ignoring the signs, he focused on the security station, slipping his interface system from his pocket as he evaluated what he was seeing.

Standard interface, biometric and code lock system, high end of course.

It wouldn’t be a problem, he decided as he slid the interface strip into the security station and fired up his computer.

Powers were a funny thing, Harrison knew.

The LEOs had him pegged as a flying brick, which was only partially accurate. The general description for flying strong men, and women, had become general parlance since the Marine made it the most famous power type in the world. Well, arguably comic books had beat him to that particular honor a while earlier, but the Marine definitely brought it to the forefront of popular culture in a new sort of way. However, while such powers were the most public and prevalent as far as most could tell, Harrison had come to realize when his power manifested after that long fall, attributes like flying bricks were merely the most obvious of manifestation.

Since he’d become a superhuman, he’d seen teleporters, speedsters, men who could juggle laser blasts, and women who could twist any soul around their little finger with nothing more than a breathy word.

Ok, maybe that last bit wasn’t superhuman, Harrison thought with mild amusement as he rapidly ran through the encryption protecting the station.

The point was, of course, that while the more obvious powers were noticed immediately, that did not make them either the most effective or the most dangerous.

The security station beeped, turning green as he finished cracking its protections, and Harrison heard the door hiss as it unsealed.

Point in fact.

He hurried to the lab, letting himself in and closing the door carefully behind himself.

*****

The two men herded the youths ahead of them as they ran for the security offices, which should be the safest section of the building.

Wesley had his phone out, and was sharply demanding information as they hurriedly walked through the halls, but it seemed there was a paucity on that commodity at the moment. Frustrated, he hung up the phone and looked to the others.

“Security doesn’t know what’s going on, but there was some kind of attack on the front of the building. At the moment they think it was a Superhuman incident,” He sighed.

“Cool!” Devin said excitedly.

“Devin!” His father upbraided him, lightly clapping the back of his head. “Not cool. Especially not while we’re in the building!”

“Sorry Dad,” The chastened boy winced, rubbing the back of his head.

Thomas just rolled his eyes and signed, too used to his son’s attitude by this point.

“Come along,” Wesley put a hand on Isa’s shoulder, guiding her on ahead, “The security room is just up ahead, and they’re expecting us.”

She didn’t respond, just nodded slightly fearfully as she followed his gesture.

They made it to the security room shortly after, which Isa was surprised to find was really just an office space as best she could tell. There were a couple people in one of the inner officers across the open bullpen area, and that was where they quickly went. In there, things looked more to her expectations, with rows of displays showing cameras from all over the building, but the two people there were just wearing normal officer wear rather than the tactical gear she’d been thinking of.

“Mike, give us a report,” Thomas said quickly, nodding to the guard.

The guard nodded back in a friendly manner to Thomas, then his eyes widened as he saw Wesley beside him, and he stiffened.

“Sir. We’re still looking for the threat, but something caused an explosion on the fourth floor, at the front of the building. No sign of any known explosive showed up on our sniffers, however.”

“Superhuman source then,” Wesley grimaced.

“Likely, but we could be looking at military grade Semtex without commercial additives,” The man said. “That has a lower profile, doesn’t show up on the sniffers as easily. We’d have to get in there with the high-end kit to be sure.”

“Unlikely,” Wesley said. “But agreed, it’s possible. For the moment, however, assume a superhuman source.”

“Yes sir. Should I call in the LEOs directly then?”

“You haven’t already?” Wesley asked, one eyebrow raising.

“Direct calls out to the local FBI office, NYPD, and the Marshalls office,” Mike said. “In theory they should have looped the LEOs in by now, but…”

“Call them.”

“Yes Sir.”

Wesley turned his focus to the displays, eyes seeking evidence of what was happening.

*****

Chapter Six

Outside Blue Solar HQ, NYC

Kevan chortled, an amused sound that seemed odd coming from a man his size, eyes on the rubble descending to the streets from the tall building.

His buddy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the socket, never had been even more what happened, but now more than ever the brain train didn’t stop regularly at his stop, so to speak. Mikail made up for it, however, with a spectacular display of power when he cut loose.

The reinforced structure of the Blue Solar building had held up better than he’d expected, but that was a relative term. There was a chunk torn out of the third-floor façade, opening the interior up to the city air, and the night to the sound of the building’s alarms going off like mad.

“Good work, Mikail,” He praised the other man, getting a happy grin in return. “Hit the other side, just to send home the message, then we’ll get away before the LEOs show up.”

If they had to, Kevan had no doubt that they could tangle with the local cops. NYPD weren’t going to mess with a superhuman threat, not after the last time. They had procedures to fall back and just generally keep people out of the area of an attack like that. The Feds, they might pose a problem, but only if they brought in serious hardware.

The LEOs, however, would lead with their own superhumans, and that was a threat that he wouldn’t ignore.

Tangling with the likes of the Commodore would, at the very least, slow them down and weaken them. The flying twit might even be able to take them down with a little luck, and that was quite emphatically against his orders.

If possible, he and Mikail were not to leave even a whisper of a trace of their presence.

“Da, Kevan.”

Mikail happily shifted his attention and brought his hands up, face a rigor of focus as he slowly clenched his fingers into a skeletal grip like he was trying to crush something no one else could see. The flesh turned white, hands shaking from the stress, and then suddenly whatever was resisting his grip seemed to vanish as his hands clenched into fists.

A crack of destroyed steel and concrete filled the air like thunder, and another rain of debris began falling from the damaged building across from them.

“Ok, let us go to the meeting point,” Kevan said. “We will watch and see to it that the contractor fails in his task.”

“Yes Kevan.”

*****

Blue Solar Security Room

The building rumbled again, causing everyone to grab onto something in case the shaking got worse. When it didn’t, everyone relaxed marginally as Wesley leaned in and glared at the displays.

“That’s not Semtex,” He growled, nodding to the screen where a section of the building had just collapsed in on itself.

“No sir, definite superhuman code,” The guard said. “Some kind of blast type, I think? Do we have any trace on the source?”

The security man’s partner shook his head, “The damage just came out of nowhere.”

“Check the building’s accelerometers,” Wesley ordered. “Look for anomalies during the destruction event.”

“Yes sir.”

It didn’t take long for that to turn something up.

“You called it, Mr. Trenton,” The security chief nodded. “Every accelerometer in the building briefly vectored right at the center of the disturbance just before it collapsed.”

“Gravity manipulation then,” Wesley grumbled. “Or close enough for government work. Warn the guys out there. We don’t know for sure what the limits are but at the very least that could pulp any person caught in the effect.”

“Right you are, sir.”

Wesley straightened up, expression thoughtful.

“I can’t imagine some random superhuman deciding it would be fun to blow potholes in my building, not without some cause,” He grumbled, mostly to himself. “What is internal security looking like?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary beyond the obvious alarms from the destroyed sections,” The security man said. “No red flags on any labs or storage areas.”

Thomas frowned, leaning in, “Do we have anyone working late tonight?”

“We always have some people late, Sir.”

“I mean in the labs.”

“No, nothing on the books.”

Thomas tapped a display, “Third floor secure lab was accessed just after the first attack. No alarm, which means they had an access code, but…”

“But no one should be there,” Wesley nodded grimly. “Send a team. No, wait… three teams.”

“Yes sir.”

*****

Sargent Vance paused outside the doors to the lab, sneaking a peak around the corner before turning back to the other teams setting up behind him.

“Looks clear,” He said. “But we know someone is inside, one entry code, no exit. Intruder is unauthorized, and since we’re dealing with a Code S in the building, we have to assume we’re dealing with a superhuman, so don’t take any chances.”

The men nodded, checking their weapons.

Normally they’d be leading with tasers, but with the building operating under Code S rules, the tasers were staying in their holsters. UMP .45s were the tool of the moment instead, with a couple grenade launchers for punctuation if the fight got hot.

Vance held up a hand, two fingers up and gestures. Two men broke from the squads and drew cannisters from their belts.

He glanced at them, making sure they were ready, then reached out to palm open the doors with his security override.

“Go.”

The pair underhanded the cannisters into the lab, then quickly fell back.

“Fireteam one, take the lead.”

*****

Harrison was slipping the tech and pilfered files into his pack when the door hissed open, the slight rush of air from the pressurized room kicking up a breeze as it flowed out through the portal. He looked over, a chill running down his spine that had nothing to do with the breeze.

That was faster than I expected.

He heard the clinking of the metal on the floor just as he finished snapping the flap shut on the pack and ducked behind a counter as he slipped the straps of the bag over his shoulder and clasped his hands over his ears while shutting his eyes.

It helped.

The brilliant flashes of light from the concussion grenades still left spots floating in front on his vision, and his ears were still ringing from the reports of the explosives, but he wasn’t disoriented as he rose back to his feet and turned toward the open door.

He knew he had only moments, but he didn’t rush. Harrison stepped around the counters that held all manner of computer and research gear, walking calmly toward the door. He heard footsteps in the hall, coming forward quickly. He reached the doors just as the muzzle of a submachine gun poked through.

Grabbing the barrel was the work of an instant, and Harrison yanked hard. The weapon went off as the force of his pull caused the shooter to involuntarily yank the trigger, hosing down the room with .45 caliber rounds even as the man behind the gun was pulled off his feet and into the lab. Harrison casually slapped him out of the air, sending him sprawling to the ground where he rolled slowly away, groaning in pain.

“Intruder in the lab!”

No shit, really? Harrison thought with some amusement.

Still the warning seemed to have galvanized the fireteam into some sort of action, from what he could hear. He elected to not give them a chance to prep for what was about to happen next.

*****

Vance swore as the man was yanked into the room, feet completely leaving the ground as the UMP rattled off a series of shots.

“Class S!” He shouted, bringing his weapon up to his shoulder from the low ready position, finger slipping into the guard in a single smooth motion.

The blur that emerged from the lab still managed to catch him by surprise, a thud and the sound of expelled air announcing that another of the men with him was down and hard. Vance did his best to track the target, but by the time he’d brought his weapon on target, the figure had already moved.

He swore under his breath, flinching and ducking out of the way as one of the other’s weapons chattered from behind him.

Please, Lord, do not let me go out because some jackass shot me in the back by accident.

In the next moments the hallways turned into a nightmare of .45 calibre reports echoing off the walls, bodies hitting the floor, and the damned eerie sound of the class S moving through the air with a whooshing sound like nothing Vance had ever heard before in his life. All he could see in that mess was a blur punctuated by occasional moments when the man stopped in place to take out one of the others, but before he could bring his UMP to bear, the target would be off again.

“He’s too fast! Gas the hallway!” Vance ordered.

The blur materialized right in front of him, head cocked in annoyance as he stared at Vance.

“That’s not exactly sporting,” The Class S told him chidingly.

“Oh Sh-…” Vance started to say as he tried to step back, hoping to clear room to bring the UMP to bear, but before he could finish the rest of what he was going to say he felt a fist tunnel into his guts, folding him in two. His breath exploded from his lungs, every muscle in his gut straining against themselves as they tried vainly to suck in oxygen.

*****

Harrison let the squad leader drop as he heard the dull chunk sound of the forty-millimeter launchers sending gas cannisters into the hall.

That was annoying, mostly because it meant he’d have to keep moving. He wasn’t immune to gas, but as long as he stayed ahead of the cloud, or at least not in it for very long, it wouldn’t matter a lot.

Blue Solar had good security, as he’d been well aware of even before choosing to attempt the job in the building, but this was a little annoying.

Who dispatches three squads to check up on a break in? let alone equips them with grenade launchers?

He sighed. It was definitely time to get the hell out of here.

He rushed past the rear squad, hearing them calling for backup and alerting the rest of the building to his presence.

Definitely time to get out of here.

*****

Security Room

“Damn it,” Wesley swore as he heard the calls coming in from the teams he’d sent in. “Get me a scan of his face and run it through every database we’ve got.”

“Problem there, Sir,” The man at the console scowled. “He’s wearing a scrambler. It’s messing with the cameras. We can’t get a solid look at him.”

Wesley growled, but after a moment to confirm it for himself, he had to admit that there wasn’t anything that could be done. Digital scramblers were still relatively rare, but they were clearly gaining in popularity in some circles. Basic ones used infrared lights to mess with CCTV cameras, but whatever this guy was using was beyond those. It would have to be to defeat Blue Solar cameras.

“Send the photos anyway,” He ordered. “Ask for anyone who might recognize this guy to have a look.”

“Yes, Mr. Trenton.”

Digital scramblers weren’t as useful against the naked eye, though they still provided some protection against recognition, if only because the projection gear tended to cover features by default.

It was the only card he had to play at the moment, however, when it came to identifying the intruder.

“What was being worked on in that lab?” Wesley asked, moving on to the next obvious question that had to be dealt with.

“That’s Doctor Kay’s lab,” Thomas offered. “I believe he was working on a hard light system. I’ll need to check to determine how far along he was, but I believe it may have been in the late prototype phase.”

“Damn it. That’s likely what he was after,” Wesley grumbled. “Have to assume he got it too. Ok, Thomas, dig up everything you have on that tech. I want to know everything.”

“Yes sir,” Thomas said, already working on his tablet.

“Meanwhile,” Wesley turned back to the security men. “Get me an ETA on LEO response. We’re going to need them.”

“Yes Sir.”

*****

Devin’s eyes were alight as he looked rapidly between the conversations going on in the room with them and his personal tablet computer.

“What are you doing?” Nova asked him in a soft voice, her own eyes not straying often from where Mr. Trenton was giving orders.

“Launching my App,” He said. “This is just too good an opportunity to let pass.”

That caught her attention, and she looked straight at him.

“What?”

“Launching my app.”

Novah just stared at him for a long moment before finally finding her voice.

“You must be joking.”

“No,” He looked at her like she was the crazy one. “Do you have any idea how big a deal an attack on Blue Solar is? If my App is covering it first, that’ll be a HUGE boost.”

“Don’t you have to… I don’t know, finish it first?”

“Pft,” He waved that off. “I’ve been in Alpha for weeks, and was just about to go to Beta anyway. This will be just an open beta instead of the closed one I’d planned. I’ll have to work harder over the next couple weeks to smooth out any bugs, but it’ll totally be worth it.”

“Incredible.”

He glanced up at her, confused. The word sounded like a good thing, but her tone wasn’t exactly what he’d call impressed sounding.

Whatever, Devin thought, getting back to work. He’d maybe try to figure her out later. Maybe. For the moment he sent off the last updates to his app, then flipped the flag over to open to put it up on the store. Once he confirmed that it was live, Devin wasted no time sending out messages to every group he followed.

-          DevSup2010

Hey guys, just launched my new App, Meta-Lert and I’m launching it with a BOOM in the most literal definition possible. First to report the latest Superhuman Incident here in New York, an actual ATTACK on Blue Solar itself by currently unknown Superhumans! Photos and updates to follow on Meta-Lert! Download link here!

*****

Isa scowled, unable to quite resist rolling her eyes at the antics of the boy. Honestly, rushing to put his app online at a time like this?

Still, that was his concern, and possibly his father’s, not hers. She kept her attention focused solidly on the security area where Mr. Trenton was overseeing the response to the situation. The entire situation was everything she’d been studying about for almost the past year.

Unconsciously, Isa inched forward so she could see and hear better.

Wesley Trenton was angry, his neck and face tense as he planted fists on the desk in front of him, eyes glowering into the screens arrayed on the wall. Reports were filling the air as the security radios were chattering incessantly, tense but surprisingly calm voices on the other side giving their reports.

“Code S heading south in corridor, third floor. Moving fast.”

“Roger that. Team four, moving to intercept.”

Trenton reached forward and hit a key in front of him, “Team Four, thia is Wesley Trenton. Do not intercept at close range. Stand off, hit him with everything you can from as far as you can.”

“Roger that, Mr. Trenton.”

Isa noted that order, surprised at the urgency in Mr. Trenton’s tone. He sounded honestly worried about his employees, which surprised her. She’d gone with her dad to work a few times, and honestly had the impression that his boss wouldn’t notice or care if the building just collapsed around them as long as the daily goals were met.

She rather preferred Trenton.

*****

Harrison sighed as he watched the security team move into position, cutting off his direct route out of the building.

They’re fast. Damn fast.

He knew that Blue Solar was good, that was beyond doubt, but they were moving so much faster than even he’d expected, not to mention the gear they were equipped with was surpassing Mil-Spec by a good margin as well.

Harrison evaluated his options, finding that they were few indeed, but had to make a call. If he tried to barrel through the team that was cutting him off, best case was that he’d likely kill a few of them. That wasn’t something he wanted to do for a number of reasons. Killing was the resort of stupid people and the desperate.

He’d been desperate once in his life, but he’d never intentionally been stupid.

That left only one other option.

Harrison sighed.

This is going hurt.

He looked at the wall to his right, then accelerated hard into it, smashing through the concrete in a cloud of dust and shrapnel.

*****

Chapter 7

MetAlert App

DevinSup (A) Posted Sunday, 11, September 2033 9:52AM

Welcome to MetAlert, the new premium App for reporting on Superhuman sightings, worldwide. Please take a moment to examine the features of the app, but please remember that this is an advanced Beta release ahead of the intended schedule due to extenuating circumstances. (Check out the official first post here)

Enjoy the app, please forward any suggestions to the appropriate channel.

Thank you.

----

MetAlert Update Complete

Welcome, Chris Champion, to MetAlert Version .84

The date is Friday, the 23rd of September, 2033

You have two new notifications.

----

New Notification – Hey Guys! From DevinSup (A)

Hey guys, welcome to the very early beta of MetAlert, the new Super Spotter app for everyone. Suggestion for new features can be posted in the support forums. Please tag your new spots in the appropriate geolocation groups. Read the TOS, and enjoy the app!

----

New Notification – Holy shit! From DevinSup (A) - #NewYork #BlueSolar

Holy shit, guys! You need to check this out! Blue Solar headquarters here in Manhattan is under attack! I kid you not! Blue Solar CEO, @WesTrenton is in the house and directing building security personally, check out the attached video and pics. You can see the damage to the building through the security feed in the video! I’ll post more as I can grab videos and pics. If you’re in the area tag your spots to this post!

New Post: User WarDaemon

WarDaemon here. I saw the alert and decided that I don't know the nature of this attack. Without more information I don't feel right engaging on either side.  I'll just patrol the perimeter and ensure the fighting doesn't spill out on the civilian population. The last thing our first responders need to deal with is a bunch of rubberneckers getting caught in the crossfire.

New Post: User SupeFan99

@WarDaemon - Obvious troll is obvious. First post on a new app says he's a superhuman? I call BS. Video looks nuts, though. Blue Solar janitors are going to have one hell of a mess to clean up in the morning. Hey, this is NYC, right? Is the Commodore there yet? Do agree, asking people to go take videos just so you can tag them here is stupid, @DevinSup. Keep people away from the fighting. I swear, it's like some people think a cameraphone makes them invulnerable or something.

New Post: User WarDaemon

@SupeFan99 Ask your mom if I'm superhuman. I trolled her last night!

New Post: User Lotus

#NewYork, #BlueSolar

-I am already seeing police moving on this, trying to get closer for a good angle before they close the area down. Mr. WarDaemon here got part of this…maybe?

-Can’t do much about the debris already pushing out. Dust everywhere. Going to be careful, I know my ass ain't invulnerable like some.

~Location 2 blocks from #BlueSolarHQ

New Post: User DevinSup (A)

Seriously guys? The building I'm in is shaking around me and you're telling me what I'm doing wrong and making momma jokes? I hate the internet. @Lotus glad to hear about the cops. @WesTrenton called in the LEOS, so watch the skies. No one has any idea who the Supe in the building is, but he's literally busting through walls like a wrecking ball. Forget the janitors, contractors are going to make a MINT off this.

New Post: User Lotus

@DevinSup @WesTrenton

-Wilco on air support. From how close we are to some of the pads for em, we might get lucky sooner rather than later. Dunno how much help they will be if they can’t get eyes on the ground and close to the action though. I am closer now. From the angle of your vids, I am to your 3 o’clock now.

-Damn sounds like a warzone in there.

New Post: User JaimePack

Crappy video. Seems fake to me. Cheap way to drum up downloads for a second-rate app. One star rating, see you guys back on Super Spotter.

New Post: User BlackAdder

Someone is dumb enough to take on #BlueSolar? That's like trying to knock over Fort Knox with a pocketknife, I don't care what powers you've got. This nobody is toast. If Blue Solar doesn't roast his balls, the LEOS will. Go Commodore!

New Post: User Misha242

Y'all are a bunch of adrenaline chasing glory hounds! Let the Pros handle this mess and get out while you can! "that one perfect shot" means nothing if you are dead!

New Post: User Monitor

Well, I hope everyone not involved in the combat stays safe. Remember, shooting video can often mean that someone can shoot you for real.

Lucky that I am in a quieter area.

New Post: User Kuce

Did any other #BlueSolar location get hit?

*****

Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

“Yes!” Devin cheered quietly as he checked the surge of users downloading and signing up for his app, barely paying any attention to the mess going on around him.

Isa ignored him, more interested in craning her neck to see over Mr. Trenton’s shoulder as the CEO worked with his security people to try and figure out the source of the threat within, and apparently without, the building.

Security forces were calling in from multiple spots as best she could tell, but only one group seemed to be inside the building. They were chasing someone who had just started busting through the concrete walls in what looked like a path to the exterior wall, maybe? It wasn’t the shortest path, she could see from the security displays, but it was a straight line, so it seemed like he was trying to get away without fighting.

“Code S is escaping through the walls, we’re pursuing!”

“What was in that lab?” Wesley asked, looking over to Thomas, who was scrolling through a list on his tablet.

“Class three C projects and below.”

“Do not engage,” Trenton said as he reached over to press the speak button, cutting into the security team’s channel. “If he’s willing to go without hurting anyone, let him. We’ll get photos and find him later, on our terms.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Trenton.”

Wesley straightened up, sighing discontentedly. “Alright, now what’s going on outside?”

“We’re not sure, sir. It must have been… a distraction?” The security chief said, though he didn’t sound convinced.

“The Code S slips into the building undetected and they opt to blow chunks out of the building to distract us from something we didn’t even know was happening?” Wesley asked, scoffing, “Pull the other one, chief.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t really add up. Screwup?”

“Maybe, or maybe we’re missing something,” Wesley said. “I want photos of everyone around the building at the time of the attack. Run them through everything, every database, ever agency from NYPD to Interpol.”

“Yes sir. Sir, Code S is to the exterior wall.”

“Let him go,” Wesley ordered again. “There wasn’t anything in that lab worth the damage we’re going to have to fix already, let alone what is likely to happen if we try to engage him now. Any word on the LEOs?”

“Minutes out, Sir.”

“When seconds count, yeah, figures.”

“That’s it, he’s breached the outer wall… he’s away, flyer from the looks of it.”

Wesley nodded, unsurprised. A large portion of superhuman power sets appeared to include flight. He wasn’t sure why, but some were already hypothesizing that it had to do with an inborn desire in most people. He didn’t know. All he was sure of was that it was a pain in the ass when it came to containing Code S individuals.

They had the target on high-definition cameras, framed as he was by a hole in the side of the building, and every second of it was getting mirrored to Blue Solar’s cloud storage. Wesley leaned in, watching as a light from the streets below played across the hole in the wall, silhouetting the superhuman briefly as he launched himself out into the space above the street…

Only to be smashed hard by a blast from below and thrown back into the building, one floor above where he’d exited.

Wesley jerked back, surprised.

“Was that the LEOs?” He asked, since he was pretty certain that the NYPD didn’t have that kind of firepower, unless he was severely out of the loop.

“Negative, Sir. The Commodore is still three minutes out, no one else is close,” the security man said, sounding bewildered himself.

“Well, someone just slapped him down, was it us?” Wesley looked around.

No one answered.

“It was someone,” Wesley insisted. “Who was it!?”

“Oh!”

Everyone turned, confused, to look at the origin of the shout only to find that Devin was jumping around while staring at his phone.

“Devin,” his father growled. “Behave your…”

“I’ve got video!” Devin cut his father off.

“What…”

“From outside, I have video!”

Isa was the first to understand, and grimaced as she spoke up. “You mean people are actually responding to your app?”

“App? What App?” Wesley asked, honestly appearing befuddled.

“Metalert, I just put it up for download and cross posted on every Super Spotter website I could,” Devin said. “There’s a user just down the block taking video.”

“Metalert, you say?” Wesley tapped the security chief’s shoulder and nodded, setting the man to quickly searching the web.

“Yeah, I’ve got a thousand users already and it’s blowing up!”

Thomas Meeran just gave a long-suffering sigh, not commenting as the security chief brought up the app on the main computer and signed up, grabbing the video links, and throwing them across to the big screens.

“Those… are not superhumans I recognize,” Wesley said a moment later. “Anyone?”

“No, they’re not on any of our watchlists,” Thomas confirmed. “Devin, do you know them?”

“I don’t think so,” Devin admitted. “They’re not any of the public names, definitely not LEOs.”

“New superhumans?” Isa offered. “Trying to be heroes?”

Wesley frowned, “Perhaps, but they’re reckless if they are. That blast could have taken down a section of the building, hurt or killed anyone below, to say nothing of anyone inside.”

“Running facial recognition, they’re not wearing disruptors,” The Security Chief growled as they watched the Code S emerge once more from within the building, looking rather put out by his impromptu reversal of flight direction.

Gunfire erupted from below, tearing into the building and forcing the Code S to quickly duck back into cover.

“Well, they’re not with him,” the security chief grumbled. “And they’re not cops… what in the hell is going on?”

*****

What in the hell is going on!?

The shooters on the street weren’t with Blue Solar, that much Harrison was sure of. Blue Solar didn’t hire idiots, for one, or bad shots for another.

He fished his phone out, hitting the autodial. It went through on the first ring.

“Hey kid, what’s up?”

“I’m pinned down in the Blue Solar building,” He growled, “Not by security. People outside are keeping me from leaving. Who did the clients TELL?”

“Slow down, kid. What are you talking about?”

“Armed men, superhuman blasters, god knows what else.” He said as he darted down the hall, heading for the side of the building. “I’ve got the goods, but someone besides Blue Solar wants to keep me in this building.”

“You need to get out of there,” the voice urged. “We’ll figure out what and who later.”

“You really think I’m not on that right now?” Harrison snorted, reaching a window, and sneaking a look out it. “Looks like men on all sides, armed to the teeth. You listening to police reports?”

“Yeah, NYPD has a cordon around the building, but they’ve been ordered to hold back by the LEOs. The Commodore is inbound.”

“I can lose him, not a problem,” Harrison promised. “But without knowing what the hell is going on, I can’t trust our clients enough to deliver. Find. Out.”

“I will. Now get out of there.”

Harrison hung up, pocketing the phone without response as he looked down the length of a corridor to the window at the far end.

Alright, fine. Let’s do this messy.

He broke into a sprint.

*****

Security Room

“Oh. Oh.”

Trenton twisted around at those words from his security chief, “What is it?”

“Trouble, boss. Facial recognition just got hits on some of the mooks on the street.”

“And? Don’t make me drag it out of you.”

“Sorry, sir. It’s just… we’ve got hits on Federal and NYPD databases,” The chief said. “We’ve got shooters on the street from both the Russian Mob and the local families.”

Trenton just stared, “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“I wish, Sir.”

“Oh god,” The Billionaire groaned. “Please tell me that we’re not caught in the crossfire of some goddamned idiotic MOB WAR!?”

“Can’t say that with any certainty, Boss. Sorry.”

Trenton closed his eyes, silently cursing humanity with everything he had. For five god damned years he’d been trying to build up the technology to help protect the planet from a threat that had tried to destroy them, and for five years he’d watched fools do everything they could to fight against his efforts.

Don’t they understand? If we don’t face this together, we don’t stand a chance.

They’d come so close to annihilation the last time, he was sure. If not for the Marine, and a sacrifice that Trenton marked as one of the most important actions in human history, the destroyed probe would have ended them.

A common foe should have resulted in humanity pulling together, some sort of consensus about where to take things.

Hell, maybe it even would have if the Marine hadn’t wound up overextending and nearly killing himself in the last moments of the fight. Trenton didn’t know, though he was becoming more and more cynical about it with every passing year.

There had been a moment there, a brief slice of time, when he thought that maybe, just maybe, the future was bright. Governments had started shaking things up, money was pouring into new projects, and it looked like a real space program was going to kick off again with an eye to getting out there and finding out what the hell had happened.

Then the next round of elections came along.

Spending is too high, the opposition claimed. There’s no benefit in it. Why pour money into the infinite pit of space?

Never mind all the spinoff patents and new products worth trillions to the world economy. Blue Solar alone had added over a trillion dollars per year over the last five years to the economy across eighteen different countries, directly, and more than he’d bothered to count indirectly. It was a new gold rush… and that was the problem.

Everyone suddenly wanted their cut.

Including a bunch of crime lords so stuck in the last millennium that they actually think their petty empires mean something.

“Please tell me that NYPD and the local LEOs are responding,” Trenton sighed tiredly.

It was all so damned pointless.

“Yes sir. NYPD has been establishing a cordon, first, waiting on LEO response. The Commodore is three minutes out now. They want backup before they even try dealing with the superhuman threat.”

Trenton nodded wearily.

He couldn’t really blame them for that, as much as he’d like to. New York was definitely in a ‘once bitten, twice shy’ frame of mind when it came to superhuman threats. They didn’t just try to cover their heads and pretend it didn’t exist, unlike a few places in the world, but they didn’t rush in with guns blazing either.

The bewildering variety of ways that the virus could express in human subjects was enough to make it near to impossible to properly predict what sort of threat you were facing and whether you’d need body armor, or a tank. Cops had learned the hard way to try and get superhuman backup of their own before they took on any obvious threats.

“Tell security to focus on keeping the building safe,” He ordered after a moment. “What’s going on out in the streets isn’t our concern.”

And the cops weren’t the only ones who’d learned that lesson, He sighed to himself.

*****

Skies over NYC

Casey threw himself into the air, still tightening down the chin strap on his helmet as he started to rise up over the well-lit city below.

Why is it that this stuff only seems to happen right in the middle of a good sleep?

It would be nice if he ran into this sort of trouble while actually out on patrol and looking for it, once in a while, but he supposed that was too much to ask.

“Commodore up,” He said into his radio. “Vectoring toward Blue Solar now. Sitrep?”

“Limited intel available, Commodore,” Karen’s voice came back almost immediately, sounding bright and alert like she’d not just been woken up too.

He really hated that about her.

“Multiple groups, identities unknown, have laid siege to Blue Solar, and building security report that they have an unknown intruder, Code S, in the building.”

Well, that’s just great. Superhumans with organized backup now, and willing to shoot up a major city street while messing with Blue Solar? This is an escalation we didn’t need.

“Roger that,” He said aloud. “Police response?”

“Cordoning off the area, waiting on backup from us.”

Makes sense. “Anyone other than me responding?”

“You’re first out. Unfortunately, we don’t have any other people in Manhattan right now. Couple over in Jersey are suiting up, but they’ll be at least ten minutes behind you. I’ve got a call from Stolen Valor. They have a man in the city who’s offering help if you need it.”

“They do?” Commodore asked as he accelerated through the night sky, watching the streets and lights below him blur. That’s a bit of a surprise.

Stolen Valor was a team comprised entirely of former military, many of whom were known to have served with The Marine when he was active duty himself. They’d worked with him during his heyday, and afterwards had continued to do what they could for a while.

They have really gotten their shit together when they ran into another superhuman who was aping the Marine’s uniform and trying to be a vigilante, stopping crimes and the like. Maybe if he’d been any good at it, they might have considered it an homage, but the idiot wound up killing a bunch of people while wearing Marine Corps insignia.

There hadn’t been much left of him to lock up once they got through with him, and Stolen Valor had been born.

Since then, they mostly worked with the military while doing their own little side gigs aimed at taking down anyone stupid enough to use military uniforms, medals, and other paraphernalia while committing superhuman crimes.

It was unusual for them to want to get involved in something like this, unless there was more to this than he’d heard yet.

“The offer came from the man himself, not the group,” Karen told him. “It’sVerte, just so you know.”

Casey grimaced under his goggles and balaclava. Verte was a useful guy to have on your side, but he’d worked with him at arms length a time or two already and the man was a pain in the ass.

“Thank him and see if he can be ready, just in case,” Casey said, swallowing his reluctance concerning the individual. All of Stolen Valor were reliable in a fight and he might just need the help. “Almost there, going silent.”

“Roger, Commodore. Good luck, and good hunting.”

*****

Mikail swore as he was forced to duck behind a car, a hail of bullets tearing up the car, the street, and everything else around him.

“Are you alright!?” Kevan called from where he’d jumped behind the cover of a building.

“Da! Fucking old farts cannot shoot worth a shit!”

That was, perhaps, slightly overstating things. The bullets that had torn through the car had mostly missed him. Mostly. The few that did hit were currently floating in the wavering blue field he generated as a part of the effect that had changed him.

Mikail gestured with his right hand, separated the crushed bullets and pieces of car from one another before crushing them all back together into a single ball. He then ducked his head out to get a view of the street.

Stupid Italian fucks, He thought rolling his eyes as he found one of them, basically standing out in the open waiting to be shot.

Ok, he was taking cover behind a car as well, but Mikail knew for a fact that was just stupid unless you happened to have an edge, as did he.

Casually, he gestured, and the bundled mass of metal and composites accelerated away from him, crashing through the sound barrier halfway to the target. It was still accelerating when it slammed into the back panel of the car, punched through the trunk and out the other side, and cut the spaghetti fucker in half.

“One down!” Mikail called.

“So, I see,” Kevan responded dryly. “making a mess for the cops to clean up, are we?”

Mikail rolled his eyes, “Do you have a problem with that, my friend?”

“No, not particularly,” Kevan admitted. “Just establishing the rules, I suppose.

“There are rules!?”

That didn’t sound right to Mikail, that didn’t sound right at all.

*****

Blue Solar HQ, Security Room

Thomas grabbed up the phone from his son’s hands, scowling at him, “Devin, you’re not going to tell everyone that there’s a gang war kicking off just because you heard it in here, do you understand me?”

“But dad! My app!”

“Is being very helpful right now, thank you,” Wesley said over his father’s shoulder. “But you do need to learn that nature of privileged information, kid.”

“I thought transparency is supposed to be best,” Devin objected, pouted obviously.

Even Issa rolled her eyes at that.

“Yes, and information wants to be free,” Trenton said sarcastically, shaking his head. “There are many reasons why neither are true, but I’ll just give you one…”

“Oh?”

“If you reveal secrets belonging to Blue Solar,” Trenton said, leveling a cold look at the boy, “Not only would you never be permitted back inside any building own, but you also risk your father’s job and quite a nasty, and expensive, lawsuit.”

Devin flinched, jerking back.

“Oh,” He said lamely.

“I’ll overlook what you shared already, particularly given that it was already arguably public information, mostly, and the resulting response has been very helpful,” Trenton said. “But, especially during an event like this, you need to think about what you put out there. What if the shooters had a copy of your app?”

“I… uh… didn’t think about that,” Devin admitted.

“Start thinking, Devin,” Thomas stepped in, her voice and visage stern as he held up the phone, “This is very impressive software, and the response is equally so, but lives are at risk.”

“Indeed,” Trenton said before turning back to the screens. “However, that is, I believe, all the time we have to educating you, young man.”

“What?” Devin blinked at the shift. “Not that I want to get yelled at more, but why?”

“The Commodore has arrived.”

*****

Chapter 8

Outside Blue Solar HQ

Casey hit the ground, hard, shattering asphalt and concrete as he did, raising a cloud of dust and debris around himself in the process. He could, and normally would, have come in a lot softer. The city got a little pissy about him breaking up the streets, after all, but in this case, with all the gunfire chaotically tearing up the place, he opted for some theatrics.

You could have been deaf and blind and not been able to miss his entrance, and that was exactly what he was aiming for as almost all the guns were quickly turned on him rather than being aimed at God alone knew who or what.

He ripped up a piece of the street and whipped it at a car that had two gunmen sheltering behind it, smashing the side door in with the impact and driving the car into the shooters with enough force to knock them back. After that he quickly accelerated from his position and did a short hop over the car to land between them.

He supposed that he should be doing the whole friendly banter and quip thing, and he would even try if the cameras were on him, but that wasn’t really something that came naturally and no one who mattered was looking so he dispensed with it as he grabbed their guns and squeezed.

Composite plastics shattered and metal groaned as it was turned into a mold of the inside of his hand in an instant, then he tossed the weapons aside before glaring at the pair who were trying to crawl away from him. Scooping them up, he forcibly crammed them into the car through the side windows, then squeezed the doors until they fused shut.

“Stay put,” He ordered before launching himself into the air and getting turned around to try and figure out where the Superhuman threat was.

The first reports put one in the building, but later said that there were men on the…

A chunk of asphalt breaking the sound barrier and slamming into him from below was the first warning that maybe he’d overlooked someone on the streets. It broke into pieces across his chest, throwing him back and disrupting his focus, so he arced away before dropping hard onto the street, leaving a new indentation but nothing shattered in either the street or his bones.

Ouch.

Casey got to his feet, grimacing. He’d really felt that and would prefer not to feel it again.

“Commodore, Commodore, are you alright!?”

Casey grimaced, Karen’s voice startling him a little, “How did you know I got hit?”

“It’s streaming live over a new app that just launched called Meta-lert,” Karen responded. “It’s all over the internet now, but the live streams are focused there apparently. Five different angles so far.”

Great. Just fucking great.

“I’m fine, just caught me by surprise. Now where the hell…”

“Shooter is hiding behind the dumpster just west of your position.”

Casey blinked, “Live streaming?”

“Live streaming. Turns out morons with cell phones and no sense of self preservation can be useful as well as annoying.”

“Huh.”

He really didn’t have anything else to say to that, really. He’d not had much experience with them being anything other than annoying.

“Alright then, I’ll get back to you shortly,” Casey said, turning to glare at the dumpster in question.

He blurred into action, flying essentially though his feet remained almost in contact with the ground, and slammed into the dumpster with enough force to send a loud clang echoing through the street. His fists punched into the steel as he braced himself and lifted, heaving the whole fully loaded dumpster up over his head.

A man was scrambling back away from him, surprise but no real fear on his face. Casey took that as a sign that he was likely dealing with another superhuman, since any normal with even the slightest sense of sanity would be crapping their pants right about then.

“Move and your tomb is going to be two tons of steel and New York’s finest garbage,” He snarled.

“Eban V Rot,” The man snarled at him, in Russian or some other Eastern European language Casey thought from the sounds of it, before continuing in English. “Get fucked you flying flag.”

Casey nearly followed through on his threat right then. He didn’t much like being told off at any time, let alone by someone who’d just tried to kill him, but two words kept him from taking immediate action.

Live streams.

He didn’t need that level of bullshit public attention on his ass, no matter how much this asshole likely deserved it. Instead, Casey tossed the dumpster up and over the man, making him cringe as it smashed down on the other side of him, then strode in and yanked him up by the coat.

“You’re under arrest, or you’re getting a toe tag,” Casey snapped in his face. “You pick.”

The man slowly lifted his hands, smiling easily at him. “I surrender, Tovarich.”

Casey snorted, dropping him on his ass, and at least getting a grunt of pain of at least annoyance out of the man.

“Hands behind your back, cross them at the wrist. Legs together, cross your ankles.”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

Karen Jord let out a breath she’d not been aware she was holding, glad that the Commodore had held back.

He was far from the most volatile of Superhumans she’d come to deal with, but none of them were exactly the most stable bunch in the world, not of the ones that had appeared after the Event at least. Several of those from before, like the Marine and his compatriots, had acquired their abilities from what was now known to be alien experimentation. The aliens were working out what they could do with the human body, learning the ropes so to speak.

The Q-Virus that had been spread through the global Jetstream prior to the destruction of the alien ship, however, was the ultimate result of their experimentation and they’d gone a long way to targeting very specific sorts of individuals. First by tailoring it to the one third of the population that had the so-called “warrior gene”, a genetic sequence that was tied to higher-than-average propensity toward violence, but then further narrowing it by apparently requiring the influx of a cocktail of fight or flight hormones among other likely, but yet undiscovered, tinkering.

The results were that those superhumans who gained their abilities from the virus, unlike those who had been experimented on, tended to be more often the sorts who sought out violent situations.

Karen was well aware that the Commodore was one of those, being one of very few who had access to his classified dossier.

So, she was rather happy he was containing his urges, particular in front of live streaming cameras.

*****

Blue Solar HQ, Security Room

“The Commodore is on scene, Sir.”

Trenton breathed out, relieved despite himself. He had little love for superhumans in general, no matter what good some of them might have been able to accomplish. While they were still human to his mind, they were infected bioweapons as well. Even ones like the Commodore tended to be a little too violent, a little too destructive, for what they had to do and for a man who was trying his damndest to build a future in which the human race didn’t have to fear extinction, anything that set him back put him very much on edge.

That said, he was still happy to see the LEOs responding.

“What about our infiltrator?” He demanded.

“Lost track of him, but he seemed to be heading up a stairwell last time we had a confirmed sighting.”

Trenton considered that, “Likely heading for the roof.”

“Should I have security intercept him?”

“No. Let him go. Hell, unlock the doors, I want him out of my building.”

“Yes sir.”

*****

Blue Solar HQ, Stairwell

Harrison flew up the side stairwell, heading for the roof. He was hoping that whoever was laying siege to the building wouldn’t spot him if he used the building itself as cover for his escape.

When he found out who the hell leaked information about his target, though, he was going to do some damage.

The families are going on my blacklist, at the very least. If they can’t police their own damn people and keep their mouths shut, I’m not working for them ever again.

He was still grumbling and swearing under his breath as he reached a security door he’d have to breach before he could get to the roof and prepared to breach it when the lock buzzed abruptly, and the locking light went from red to green. Taken aback, Harrison stared for a long moment before he hesitantly reached out to test the door, only to find that it was, indeed, open.

Is this a trap?

He let himself through it, head swiveling carefully to take in everything he could see. A Blue Solar uniformed security guard was visible down the hall opposite from the way to the roof, but he just waved at him and pointed to the roof.

This has got to be a trap.

He didn’t have many options though so, very much against his better judgement, Harrison hesitantly went over to the roof access door. It was unlocked as well, so he let himself through and gently lifted off the ground, drifting upward over the stairs to the roof.

There was no sign of anyone in the stairwell, nor on the roof when he let himself uneasily out.

I… think they just wanted me out of there? Seriously?

He supposed he shouldn’t complain, but honestly, he’d have preferred it if they’d just left the doors locked and let him break his way out. This felt too much like he should be worried about the other boot coming down.

Regardless, he supposed that he needed to keep moving.

Harrison checked in all directions before he lifted off the roof and headed straight up.

He was a hundred or more feet off the roof when movement in the dark sky above him caught his eye. Harrison started to move automatically, but when the movement suddenly exploded in light and he saw a human sized figure flashing straight down at it, accelerating incredibly, he only had time to let out a curse when he was struck hard enough that he was pretty sure his grandparents felt it.

The blow blasted him back, reversing his course as he suddenly smashed into the rooftop of the Blue Solar building, blowing a hole clear through it without barely any slowing.

*****

“Mikail,” Kevan said from where he was now floating above the building. “I have turned the target back.”

Kevan knew he couldn’t hang around much longer. When he exercised his full power as he just had it tended to be spectacular and impossible to miss. In a short time, he would have to deal with the local LEO forces, at the very least, not to mention whatever Blue Solar might field.

Without any response from Mikail, however, he started to worry.

“Mikail! Where are you? Mikail!?”

*****

Blue Solar HQ, Security Office

The building abruptly shook as though struck by a bomb, leaving everyone in the room grabbing on to whatever they could that might steady themselves.

“What in the hell was that?” Trenton demanded, rushing over to the security monitors.

“Someone hit our infiltrator when they tried to fly off the roof… hard,” The security chief said, disbelieving. “We’ve got reports that we went through at least four floors on his way down.”

Even Trenton winced at that.

“Ouch,” He said aloud. “Any identification on the attacker?”

“Flyer, glows… when he strikes at least, looks to be hanging out up there for now.”

“Great. Ok, inform the LEOs, make sure our security teams do not antagonize him,” Trenton ordered. “At least not until we get them some heavier weapons from the armory.”

“Not a problem, Sir. After that smack, no one wants to be the next one in the ring with him.”

*****

Issa stared, trying to absorb everything that was happening around her while also doing her best not to get in anyone’s way. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt like she had once when she was younger and nearly slipped off the side of a cape, like everything she had was screaming at her, but she couldn’t make out the words.

She wouldn’t go so far as to say that her life passed before her eyes, but if it had there sadly hadn’t been much of it, which she supposed made since given she was pretty young.

Longing for anything to distract her from the darker and scarier thoughts that were filtering through her head, Issa leaned in so she could see the screens better. It was better than curling up in the corner and crying, or she figured it had to be at least.

The Commodore was featured prominently on several, out in front of the building as he dealt with the fighting there. Gunmen were shooting at him, but he seemed more irritated by them than anything, and was quickly dispatching them and leaving them on the ground amidst piles of their own broken weapons. She had to admit, it was really impressive how fast and hard he was taking them down without seeming to kill anyone.

There weren’t many screens functioning from inside the building at the moment, at least not in the area where the unknown superhuman had crashed. She supposed that made sense, given how hard he’d had to have struck, it probably had wiped out some of the power and hardlines that the cameras transmitted over, if not the cameras themselves.

They did have mobile ones, being carried around by security, moving into those regions though, and she focused on those.

The floors were smoky, or dusty, she couldn’t tell which, and the men were moving really slowly as they tried to find where the man had crashed. Issa found herself hoping he wasn’t too badly hurt despite him being the bad guy. Perhaps she was being naïve, but it didn’t feel like anyone should get sucked punched like that when they were just leaving the area.

How far down did he go anyway?

*****

Holden McDonald cursed as he peered through the dust, edging forward through the room he’d been directed to. They were on the seventy eighth floor of an eighty-story building, looking for a superhuman who’d just been punched through the floors above, and somehow it wasn’t the strangest thing he’d dealt with in the last month.

“Chief, I’m at the location, are you receiving?”

“Got you on the feed, affirmative.”

“Good,” Holden muttered, looking at the broken panels in the ceiling as he moved closer. “Because I don’t know if I would believe this shit without video evidence. Look at that damn hole.”

“The ceiling is all very impressive, I’m sure, but is the target on your floor?”

“Yeah, nope. Not even close, I’m thinking.” Holden replied as he edged over to the hole in the floor and peered down.

Water from a burst fire suppression system pipe was spraying all over the place, making it impossible for him to see even the floor below, but he didn’t see any sign of the damage lessening from the ceiling.

“Shit. Alright, pull back to a security room. I’ll call you if I have a task for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, story of my life,” Holden snorted as he flicked off the VOX controller on the speaker before starting back. “I don’t even want to think about how hard that poor bastard got nailed. Pretty sure bones are more likely to liquify than go through that much steel.”

The world had gone completely ass up in the last five years, but at least he was getting to see new things regularly and be paid pretty well for it.

Always important to look on the bright side of things. That was Holden’s motto.

*****

Harrison groaned from where he lay, the grinding of ceramic tiles in his ears as he shifted around.

He was soaked, he realized, water falling down across his face while he could smell the odor of sheetrock in the air. Coughing, he painfully waved his hand in front of his face, trying to fan the dust away as he sat up.

What the hell hit me?

He remembered lifting off the roof of the building and, briefly, wondered if it had been some trick by the Blue Solar people to ambush him when he was out in the open, but that didn’t add up at all. While they’d been suspiciously helpful and willing to let him leave the building unmolested, he didn’t think they’d have hit him in a way that blasted him back into the building. More likely they’d have tried to punt him into the river before that, or just taken a shot at blowing his head off with a sniper rifle. Not that he expected that would have done them much good.

No, he doubted very much that Blue Solar had ambushed him.

That leaves whoever the hell the clients leaked the job to. I hate working for amateurs.

The Families in New York were heavily infiltrated, he knew that well enough, but hadn’t expected it to be a huge deal since he worked alone and on his own schedule, mostly. If not for the Commodore’s interference earlier in the week, he’d already have delivered, been paid, and likely be on a beach in Bermuda or something by now.

Instead, he was covered in sheetrock dust, soaked, and every bone in his body hurt.

He honestly couldn’t really blame the Commodore - the prick was just doing his job really. So, Harrison was happy to lay the blame on the Families who’d hired him, yet somehow couldn’t keep their damn mouths shut.

This job doesn’t pay even close to enough.

*****

Street Outside Blue Solar Building

Casey stood in the middle of the street, basically daring anyone to get frisky with him. Those that hadn’t been willing to surrender instantly were on the ground in varying states of pain, but he was pretty sure they’d all live long enough to get to a prison infirmary.

“Karen,” He said into his radio, “Streets are clear, tell the cops that the superhuman on the ground has been handled.”

“Good news, but you’ve got a problem. Look up.”

Casey blinked, twisting to look above him, but couldn’t see anything through the light pollution from the building itself.

“Can’t see anything, lights are in my way. Threat?”

“Superhuman, fliers. One unknown, one tentatively identified as Magpie,” Karen told him.

Casey smiled a little. He was really kind of looking forward to a rematch with Magpie.

“Magpie is not the priority.”

Well, that sucks, Casey thought, losing the smile. “The unknown?”

“Attacked Magpie while he was escaping the building, struck with sufficient force to smash Magpie down through no less that five floors at last count,” Karen told him dryly. “Internal Blue Solar Security teams are looking for him. You get to deal with the other, current code name… Polaris.”

“The North Star?” Casey asked, lifting off the ground and beginning to accelerate upwards.

“Yeah, you can’t miss him.”

“Right. Ok, I’m passing the fiftieth floor now. I should be clear of these damn neon blue lights in a couple seconds. Let you know what I see.”

“Roger that, good hunting.”

“Thanks,” Casey responded, pushing faster as he climbed up past the enormous neon blue ‘Blue Solar’ sign and into the sky above the building.

Well, I see what they slapped the code name Polaris on this one, He thought as the glowing figure came into sight. “I’ve got him. Holding position above the building. What do you think, hero wannabe?”

That was a serious issue that police organizations the world over were starting to have to deal with. People didn’t gain power without wanting to use it, whether that power be monetary, education, or quantum-based bullshit viruses. Some used the change to steal, others to kill. Those were bad enough, but a growing issue that was in some ways even more serious was those who thought that they’d be the next Marine, or whatever super crime fighter they’d seen in movies.

Superhuman vigilantes were becoming a serious problem, mostly because the law was having all kinds of kittens over how to deal with them.

“Unknown. You get to find that out. If it is, give him a little talk on restraint, if you would,” Karen answered. “If there’d been anyone below that fall, Blue Solar’s janitorial staff probably would have quit en masse.”

Casey snorted, “Wilco. Ok, he’s spotted me. Hold on while I get closer.”

“Be careful.”

“Roger that.”

Casey extended his hands, holding them out to either side to show that he wasn’t coming in for a fight. This was the part of the job that he really kind of disliked. Approaching a new Superhuman was touchy at the best of times, even if you thought they were probably friendly, the whole not knowing if they could melt your brain by farting in your general direction made it hard to make friends.

“Hold up there, I’m just checking to see what’s up,” He said as he slowed to a stop, maybe thirty meters or so away from the floating glow light. “This is police restricted airspace right now, and you’re interfering with a crime scene.”

The figure turned to look at him, or he thought he did. It was honestly impossible to make out any features behind the glowing. Casey held his position, waiting for a response.

“If this is a crime scene,” the flying glow stick told him, speaking in a Russian accent, “Go ahead and arrest the thief I struck. Then I will depart.”

“Alright,” Casey said slowly. “People are looking for him now. You out here to help the police then?”

The glowstick laughed.

“I am here for my own reasons. Do not attack me, and I will not attack you.”

Casey was getting a bad feeling about the guy, but for the moment he really didn’t have many options he could take.

“That’s fine then, but uh,” He nodded his head down to the hole in the roof of the building below. “You might want to hold back a little from now on. You could have killed someone like that.”

“That’s not my concern.”

Definitely a bad feeling.

“Commodore, we can get any scan of his features, can you describe him?”

Casey twisted his lips, turning his head slightly away as he lowered his voice, “Yeah, it’s a glow stick with a Russian accent. Move that we update his codename from Polaris to Chernobyl.”

“We’re not labeling an unknown and possibly friendly superhuman after the greatest nuclear disaster in history, Commodore.”

“You’re such a Karen, Karen.”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

Karen Jord managed to keep from swearing at her subordinate, but only just. While talking to the Commodore over the radio, she had livestream feeds up from varying sources on the web as well as a direct link to the Blue Solar external security cameras.

“We might have a problem with Polaris,” She said. “Confirm he has a Russian accent.”

“Oh yeah,” The Commodore responded. “Right out of a bad eighties action flick.”

“Shit.”

“What am I missing?” He asked softly.

“We have facial hits from the shootout, Mob soldiers on one side, Russian mob on the other.” Karen said. “Polaris might be a superhuman hitter for the Russians.”

“Well aren’t you a little bundle of joy this evening. Alright, I’ll put a little more pressure, see if I can get him to pull out of here. Can’t arrest him on a maybe, after all.”

“Good luck.”

Karen muted her microphone so she could work more quickly without sending false communications. The facial recognition hits were still coming in, but it was clear that something big was boiling over behind the scenes and she didn’t like the looks of any of it.

The last thing anyone in this city needs is a mob way powered by super powered idiots.

New York was a tough town, she knew well, and had seen more than its fair share of hell over the years, but she didn’t want to see what would happen if something like this broke out in a city of almost ten million people.

Three million possible candidates for the superhuman virus, just waiting for the right mix of adrenaline and fight or flight hormones to turn into more fuel for the fire. If we handle this wrong, we could trip a geometric progression of infection that’ll turn New York into a charnel pit.

*****

Above Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

“I’m going to have to ask you to pull back from the immediate airspace,” Casey said, bringing his hands down from their placating position. “Police and LEO responders will handle the situation from here. If you remain, I’ll be forced to detain you.”

Polaris seemed to look at him again, though it was hard to tell with the glowing thing making it all but impossible to see any features.

“I will leave when the thief is in custody,” Polaris said. “Not before.”

Casey shifted his stance, which was odd to think of considering he was floating more than standing, but he squared his shoulders and lifted up a little above Polaris, taking the high ground.

“Last chance, please leave restricted airspace or face the consequences.”

“No, my friend, I do not think I will be the one facing consequences,” Polaris turned smoothly, and quickly. “You had your chance.”

Casey barely had time to bring his hands up in defense as the superhuman suddenly flared brighter and accelerated straight at him at blinding speeds.

The blow threw him back, his arms radiating pain as Casey got his rearward flight under control somewhere over the building across the street. He rubbed his sore forearms briefly, throwing a glare back across the space between them before he launched himself right back.

“You’re playing in the big leagues now,” He yelled, pulling his fist back for a return blow. “You should have left quietly!”

The air shook as he connected.

*****

Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

Wesley Trenton winced as the sound of distant thunder matched with what he was seeing on the external feeds.

“Oh god, two overpowered meatheads are trying to club each other to death above my building,” He groaned. “This is going to cost a fortune to repair.”

“We might have an ID on the light bulb, sir.”

“We might?” Trenton blinked. He was pretty certain that there wasn’t any superhuman with that specific tell in the database, he rather thought he’d have remembered it. “Who?”

“One of the Russian mooks, Sir. A Kevan Pitrov. Russian mob affiliations, suspect in three murders, half a dozen investigations between here and St Petersburg, no convictions.” The Chief replied. “Interpol thinks he’s got contacts in the Russian government, mostly because he’s former GRU and worked with the old KG Used to Be.”

“Lovely. Any idea when he contracted the activated virus?” Trenton asked with a weary sigh.

“Nothing that pops out, but someone like that? Once they got it in their system, it was just a matter of time before it activated,” The security chief replied.

There was truth in that, Trenton knew. That was the beauty that even he had to acknowledge in the viral spread. It spread almost perfectly, within just three or four years. Everyone on the planet was a carrier as far as the best testing could determine. He supposed that there might be some uninfected people somewhere out there, but at this point in time it had been well over a year since his teams had found one.

Once infected, the virus basically grew dormant. It didn’t do anything, didn’t attract attention from the immune system, didn’t make any chances at all. That was how it spread so perfectly. No symptoms, an effectively infinite gestations period… by the time anyone knew what was happening it was too late to quarantine and, while isolating oneself might protect you from infection, sooner or later everyone had to come back into society somehow.

Approximately one third of the population had the gene sequences that the virus would bind to, but even in those people it did nothing.

Not until it was activated by a surge of fight of flight hormones.

A big surge, too. Someone jumping out and yelling boo wouldn’t do it.

The elegance of it struck him. First, they infected everyone. But rather than using a nasty virulent bug that killed people, which would make the survivors harder to kill in a similar way again, it only activated among people who wound up in life-or-death situations.

The most likely people to wind up in that kind of situation, were violent offenders in the first place.

Exactly the worst sort of person to suddenly be granted superhuman abilities, unless you were a  maniacal alien monster who, for reasons of your own, wanted to sew a little chaos, maybe cripple human society with ever increasing levels of violence.

There were billions of potential superhumans out there already, and the worst of them were already starting to tear the world apart.

“Sniper team has reported to the roof, Sir, they want to know if they should take a shot?”

Trenton grimaced, “Negative.”

He’d love to say yes, blow the damn fool’s head off, but he’d seen enough of the Superhuman changes to know that anyone who could physically hit that hard had to be protected from a similar level of force delivered back at them.

Shooting him would, at best, just piss him off.

“Sniper team standing down.”

Trenton nodded, “Let the Commodore handle this one.”

*****

Chapter 9

Sky over Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

Casey dodged a punch that looked set to give him some flight time unaided by his powers, backhanding the flier as it overextended, and sending him flopping through the air, briefly on an uncontrolled arc through space.

“Give it up,” He ordered again, knowing it was probably useless, but it sounded better if he asked for the bad guys to surrender once in a while. “You can’t win this.”

“Shut up, you pig,” Polaris snarled, getting his bearings again and turning on Casey’s position. “I have seen you in action many times. I am strong and faster.”

“Maybe,” Casey said with a simple shrug. “But I’m better trained.”

“This is a new world! No one is trained to deal with what we can bring down upon this city!” Polaris yelled across at him. “You have no idea.”

Casey tilted his head, unamused and really a little bored at the rant.

“Seriously?” He asked, “I mean, full points for the rant and all, but I’ve heard better from junkies who thought they could fly before superhumans started popping up. Didn’t end well for them either.”

Casey was only partially paying attention to the conversation, as his radio had chirped to life in his ear, with Karen’s voice coming in sharply.

“Stolen Valor has contacted me, Verte is almost to your location. Just hold his attention a little while longer.”

“Got it,” He said quietly before refocusing and raising his voice, “You know we could just land, grab a cup of joe, talk this out like civilized people?”

“Are you an imbecile? I told you already, I am not leaving until the thief is dealt with.”

“Yeah, about that,” Casey gestured, signaling confusion, “What’s your beef with him anyway? I mean, I want to kick his ass myself, but punching him through a building just seems a little extreme for punishing a thief, you know?”

“That is not any of your concern.”

“Gonna have to agree to disagree with you on that one, buddy,” Casey told him, shaking his head. “Going to have to take you in.”

“What prison could hold me?”

“That’s not the question you want to answer,” Casey said darkly.

The superhuman they called Polaris seemed to sneer at him, though Casey could not see his face.

“Oh, what is the question then?”

“What am I going to have to do to you to ensure that a prison can hold you?”

In the silence after that question, Casey lunged forward and struck.

*****

Issa stared in shock at the video of the fight above the building. She’d never seen anything like it even on the news. They’d had to go to the widest lens settings in order to capture the fighting. The pair of fliers were moving so fast that anything more zoomed in would have lost them repeatedly, but thanks to the right light pouring off the first one, they could still keep track of the action.

For whatever reason, the fighting had paused briefly. Issa didn’t know if they were talking or taunting one another, or just catching their breath, but for as long as it lasted the pair both floated relatively stationary long enough for Mr. Trenton to focus one of the screens in on each other them.

The Commodore looked like he’d come right out of the pages of a comic book, floating there in the air with a determined look that was evident in the square of his jaw as he faced down the threat. The other one was much harder to get any sort of a read on, due to the light, but Mr. Trenton had darkened the filter a lot on the camera and finally his face was mostly sort of visible.

He looked… normal.

Angry, but not like a maniac at all, or at least not her image of one.

Issa leaned in, trying to see some sign of what she was sure had to be there. A hint of his psychosis in the eyes, a manic grin, anything.

There wasn’t any of that.

It was just an angry man, fighting the city’s top superhuman law enforcement officer… for no reason anyone could determine.

It didn’t make any sense, not even slightly.

She was… disappointed?

Yes, Issa thought, that’s the word.

Disappointed.

Then the brief intermission was over, and the pair launched back into action. They moved so fast that everyone was forced to shift their focus back to the wide view, in which the pair were just dots on the screen really. The brilliant white dot represented the bad guy, while the Commodore was more of a shadow that occasionally presented as a pale blue dot when the light struck him just right.

The dots lanced in at one another, slamming into each other with force that shook the cameras on their mounts and could be felt and heard even deep inside the building.

Issa flinched every time that booming thunder penetrated to her ears, unable to quite believe that it was the results of what she was seeing on the screen.

It all seemed so… pointless.

*****

Harrison leaned on a damaged doorframe as he stumbled out of the room he’d crashed into, head still reeling.

That prick packs a punch.

He had no idea who hit him, just that it was a lightbulb with an attitude problem, and for whatever reason had a grudge against him leaving the Blue Solar building. For now, that was all he had, and really it was all he needed. Someone wanted him to fail the job he’d taken.

Nothing new about that, if he were honest about things.

He was a contract thief. If there wasn’t some sort of significant opposition to him stealing whatever it was he was sent to steal, well there wouldn’t be much reason to pay him to steal it, now would there?

The lightbulb that punched like a freight train? Ok, that part was new.

Movement from ahead caused him to push off the door frame and get himself ready for a fight, however. He looked up to see Security for Blue Solar taking up covering positions ahead of him, but they didn’t seem like they were looking to start another little showdown, which was behavior he was more than happy to encourage.

“Located the target,” Harrison could hear the lead security man speak into his radio. “He made it down to the seventy third floor.”

Seventy third? Isn’t this an eighty-floor building? Damn.

That did explain the headache he was starting to feel.

“Roger that, Sir.”

Harrison tensed as the security team moved back slightly, their weapons moving down to a low ready that wasn’t quiet pointed at him.

“Mr. Trenton would very much appreciate it if you left his building and did not return,” The security man said loudly and clearly over the distance between them.

Harrison snorted, “Tried that. Didn’t work out so well for me the last time.”

“The Commodore has arrived and is currently keeping Mr. Lightbright busy,” The security man countered. “You have until they finish to get the hell off Mr. Trenton’s property.”

Harrison was tempted to demand to know what the ‘or else’ implied by that statement might be, but he stopped himself before the words came out. Taunting the opposition, especially when they were actively getting out of your way, was just stupid.

Instead, he just nodded, rubbing the back of his head.

“I’ll see about doing just that then,” He said, a distant thunder catching his ears and making him look up.

Well, there wasn’t any thunder showers in the forecast tonight, so I’m guessing that’s the fighting going on. Not going out the roof this time, that’s for sure. Whoever they are, they probably put lookouts on every side. I’ve tried to go out the front and then out the roof, neither worked out so well. What’s next?

He sighed, taking a chance, “I don’t suppose any of you know the best way out right now?”

The security team looked at him with such incredulous faces that he actually had to grin just a little, particularly when one of them couldn’t help but blurt out his reaction.

“Are you fucking shitting me?”

*****

Airspace over Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

Casey could feel a bruise forming along his jaw, and he wasn’t completely certain, but he thought that he might even have broken it on the lightbulb’s last punch.

Ow. Haven’t felt that in a while. Could have done with going longer before feeling it again too.

He and Polaris had been exchanging blows back and forth for a few… seconds? Minutes? Honestly, Casey had lost track of time in the fight and didn’t have the attention to spare. It had been a long time, for a fight, but he knew on an intellectual level that no time at all had likely passed.

Polaris was tough, and strong, that much had been clear from the get-go. But Casey was getting more of an idea just how true that statement was as the slugfest dragged on. It was, in fact, clear that he couldn’t be certain of a win if he kept this up. Somehow, Polaris seemed to tie his strength into the brightness of the light he was putting out, which was both confusing and irritating.

Confusing, because thus far Polaris wasn’t dimming at all, at least not overall. He had a variable output that seemed to crank up right before he made an attack, and dimmed down afterwards, but there wasn’t any sign that he was running out of light in the tank, so to speak.

It was irritating because it meant that every single time the lightbulb powered up for a punch, Casey had to look away or be blinded. That was getting on his fucking nerves.

Need to see about getting polarized filters on my goggles, I guess. Maybe automatic filters like a welder’s mask?

He shook off the musing as the light started to pulse brightly again. It was a bit of a two-edged blade, he supposed. He had to look away just before an attack came in, which sucked, but Polaris couldn’t exactly take him by surprise either.

Polaris surged in as Casey deliberately looked to the right while continuing to track the blazing light in her peripheral vision, opening up a tempting hole in his defense that Polaris jumped on just as he’d hoped.

Casey swung up his own arm as he pivoted, catching the extended limb in an arm-bar as he spun around, dragging Polaris with him to redirect the energy of his attack into a downward spiral. Casey locked his opponent’s arm into place with his left hand while his right arm curled around Polaris’ shoulder and his hand got a grip on the back of the other superhuman’s head.

“Going down,” He growled, pushing his own energy into redirecting the flight as driving them both into a spiraling descent.

With control of Polaris’ head, Casey guided the man into the ledge of the Blue Solar building, face first. Between the flesh and the stonework, the stone gave first in an explosive shattering mess. Casey just kept driving downward.

They smashed through the Blue Solar sign, finally turning that garishly ugly neon blue light off, much to Casey’s relief, then along side the building itself, drawing out a furrow of destroyed concrete and glass as he kept grinding Polaris’ face through it all.

Roughly halfway down the building, they struck a flagpole, snapping it off cleanly but the slight jarring was enough to twist Casey just slightly out of position and Polaris surged back, breaking his hold and twisting into a face-to face-grapple that caused them to spin out of control as they continued their descent.

Smashing through the overhang on the first floor, the Commodore and Polaris slammed into the concrete sideway, sending a shower of dust and shards flying out in all directions. The glass doors shattered from the concussion wave of their impact, and Casey could vaguely hear a car alarm go off and wondered how the hell there was any car within range that was still intact or without its alarm already having gone off ages ago.

He didn’t have time to think about that much, though, as he and Polaris were flipping around on the ground, each trying to gain the upper hand as they went for one another’s throat, eyes, face, and more. Casey had to roll slightly to avoid a super powered knee to the balls, something he wasn’t sure would actually hurt him but he sure as hell did not want to learn about the hard way, before he returned the favor with a jab of his fingers held in a dagger’s point right to Polaris’ sternum.

That got a reaction at least. The air rushing out of his opponent’s lungs gave him hope that he might be able to end the fight quickly from that point on.

Polaris’ responding uppercut blow catching him under the jaw served notice that he might had been a tad optimistic on that count. He felt the ground leaving him as he was thrown back, intersecting with the Blue Solar lobby doors, and crashing through what was left of them before plowing through the floating ceiling and into the reinforced steel and concrete above.

He came to a halt, halfway through to the next floor up, and rather shocked by the power that had been put into a blow with relatively little leverage. Casey pulled himself out of the furrow he’d dug, his helmet toppling from his head, the strap destroyed and two large dents in the Kevlar pot clearly visible as it bounced along the floor of the lobby below.

Dropping from the ceiling, Casey twisted around as he looked for Polaris, only to catch a reflected burst of light from behind him just before he was struck again, this time in the back, and driven right back up into the ceiling, through it, and into the floor above.

*****

Security Office, Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

Issa reached out involuntarily, grabbing onto a nearby desk to steady herself as the building shook much more seriously of a sudden.

“W… what was that?” She asked, looking around. “That’s not them punching each other still, is it?”

She didn’t get an answer right away, Mr. Trenton and the others were too busy trying to figure the question themselves as they flipped through the camera feeds, looking for the answer.

“Lot of feeds are down from the lobby, sir, but it looks like the fight has moved inside.”

Wesley Trenton cursed under his breath.

“Ok,” He said, “We need to signal an evacuation of the building. I know it’ll be dangerous, but with those two muscle heads taking out load bearing walls, something is going to give, and we can’t take a chance that it’ll be my building.”

“Yes sir.”

The security chief hit an alarm switch and grabbed a microphone.

“Blue Solar employees are advised to head to your closest evacuation point and leave the building immediately. NYPD have secured the exterior of the building, but there are two Code S individuals fighting inside and we cannot guarantee structural integrity will hold. If you believe that your closest evacuation point is blocked by the fight, proceed to the nearest alternate in the opposite direction of the fight.”

The security man dropped the mic and let his hand off the alarm button, letting the evacuation alarms sound all through the building.

Issa and Devin found themselves being shuffled out of the security room, hurrying for the closest window with a fire descender rig attached.

“Stay calm,” Wesley Trenton said, his voice not raised even slightly. “It’ll all be fine.”

Issa nodded, focusing very hard on not hyperventilating as she gulped down air. The hallways outside the security room were dark now, with only emergency lighting showing the way, curling plumes of dust of smoke moving through the light beams made it all the creepier to move through.

Every time a distant boom sounded, or the building shook, Issa jumped a little despite trying desperately to calm herself, but even with all of that they made good progress toward the front of the building.

The streets outside the building were lit up as normal, she could see through the windows, though the flashing blue lights from below were new. She couldn’t hear sirens, but did assume that they were out there.

Trenton got to the window and helped the security chief pull the descender rig from an alcove beside it.

“These were designed in case of fire,” He said as he pulled a line and harness out. “Thomas, you go first, we’ll send the kids down after for you to catch.”

Meeran nodded, “Yes Sir. Devin, you do exactly what Mr. Trenton tells you, am I clear?”

“Yes dad.”

“That goes for you too, Issa,” Thomas said as he stepped into the harness. “It’ll all be fine. Just relax, follow instructions, and you’ll be home in no time.”

“I… I understand sir.”

Once he was strapped in, Wesley pulled the latches holding the window shut, setting off another alarm nearby, and kicked the big window open. It swung out on heavy hinges, pinning somehow to the wall when it contacted it, leaving a big person size opening in the side of the building.

An extending boom slid out next, with the descender line clipped to it, and Thomas leaned out as far as he could before he just… stepped out into the air and dropped out of site.

“Dad!”

Devin rushed forward, but was held back by the security chief.

“Easy boy, he’s fine. The descender rig is kicking in, hear it?”

Issa listened intently and found that she could, indeed, hear a whine of something that sounded like it was slowing down. Trenton leaned out with a hand on the boom, looking down.

“Ok, he’s down. Give him a second to get out of the rig… alright, retract it.”

The whine was there again, this time speeding up Issa noted, as the cable was pulled back and the rig was reset.

“Devin, you’re next.”

Devin didn’t look particularly enthused as they strapped him into the harness, but he went along with it right up until the security chief pushed him out the window, holding him by one hand as he hung there under the boom.

“Hey, hey! Don’t let go… don’t let GOOOO!”

His scream as he dropped made Issa jump, but a second later and she could hear the whine of the rig slowing his fall.

“Two down. Iss, is it?” Trenton asked, getting a jerky nod form her. “You’re next.”

She swallowed, but nodded again as she heard the line winding back up.

I can do this. I can do this… how hard can it be? I just need to fall, right?

Ok, that was the wrong line of thought to follow, she realized a moment too late. Still, she didn’t have any choice, or none that didn’t make things worse at least, so she just stepped into place and let them put the harness on her.

“That’s a good girl,” The security chief said, being a lot less rough with her than he had with Devin. “Have to hang you out over the drop now. Don’t want you swinging, or you might clip a window sill on the way down. That would hurt.”

Issa just nodded. Her face white and arms corded with tension as she clutched to his arm while being leaned out over the drop.

“Easy… Alright, down you go!”

He actually grinned at her as he let go.

Issa screamed as she fell away from the window, eyes wide with shock and disbelief as she watched Mr. Trenton and the Security chief fly away from her so much faster than she’d have every believed possible.

She kept screaming when she was abruptly hammered by something that jerked her sideways and then felt the harness bit hard into her legs and hips as she came to a sudden halt and the world teetered wildly around her.

******

Chapter 10

Blue Solar HQ, Manhattan

The Commodore grunted as he took a blow to the midsection that threw him back, bursting through an interior wall and destroying three desks before he slowed his flight and blasted back in the same direction.

The fight was becoming a rinse and repeat of the same few moves over and over, he found, with neither he, nor Polaris, truly being able to gain the upper hand.

The Russian superhuman was also a flying brick, an appellation for the general power set that Casey himself had. It was one of the more relatively common power types out there, with almost as many theories about why it was so common as there were superhumans listed with it.

Casey didn’t really know why anyone cared. It was likely more common because it was an incredibly powerful and versatile power set. Beyond that, who gave a damn? However, it was a pain when you were dealing with another Superhuman with the same powerset at similar power levels.

Unlike two baseline humans duking it out, flying bricks tended to have some pretty hefty defenses and healing abilities. Combine that with advanced stamina capacity, and… well, fights started to drag out annoyingly long, or that was his experience at least.

Polaris had an interesting twist on his power set, mind you, with the light angle. Casey wasn’t sure what the glow was all about, but it was unique to Polaris, that much was certain. It would make it easy to pin specific crimes on the other Superhuman, unlike Magpie as a counter example.

Right now, however, Casey found himself trying to go for submission grappling holds more than anything else. Punches were just wasting time and energy, and he was already going to get an earful from Karen once this was over and the damage was counted up.

Twisting around a lunch from Polaris, Casey got the Russian in a half nelson, slowly managing to get his fingers locked behind the man’s head and using the leverage to force his neck to bend forward.

“Just… Give… It… Up…” He gritted out, frustrated by the continued struggling.

He knew that with a little more force, if he could manage it, he would put enough pressure on the arteries to hopefully cause Polaris to black out from lack of blood to the brain.

Assuming his powers don’t adjust for that somehow.

Unlikely, but he’d seen enough to know that unlikely and impossible weren’t even in the same neighborhood any longer, if they ever had been.

Polaris snarled, swearing at him in what he assumed was Russian, struggling fiercely while Casey fought to maintain control. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he felt the man slump a little and begin to crumple under him. Casey kept up the pressure, but followed him to the ground, breathing a sigh of relief that the move had worked.

He was almost convinced enough to loosen his grip on the Russian when suddenly he felt the body stiffen and snap straight, kicking his feet into the floor.

Thrown into the air, both of them flew across the room at high speed, and Casey only realized at the last moment that Polaris was throwing his flight power into speeding them up instead of attempting to slow them down.

They smashed through walls, tearing up the building with no hint of slowing until suddenly Casey felt bricks explode off his back and they burst out into the open air of the streets below. Vaguely he heard someone screaming, but he didn’t have time to do anything more than hold on and try to keep Polaris under as much control as possible.

Putting more power into his grip, he pushed the man’s head down harder, more than willing at this point to risk breaking his neck if he didn’t stop, adamantly keeping his grip even as they smashed into the building off on a side street almost half a block from Blue Solar.

He groaned softly, feeling the bruising on his back.

I am going to feel that tomorrow.

*****

Issa screamed.

And she screamed, and kept screaming, as she swung wildly to and fro from the descender line. She’d stopped falling, but that didn’t seem like the good thing it was supposed to be because she had clearly stopped too far above the street.

More stories than she’d like to count below her, she could see the Meerans looking up at her and pointing, probably yelling too but she couldn’t hear anything over someone’s screaming.

Right. That’s me.

That thought caused her to abruptly stop, her moth snapping closed with a click as she clung tightly to the descender line and looked up.

Mr. Trenton and his Security chief were there, trying to do something to the line, but she couldn’t hear them either. It wasn’t screaming this time, but a wailing of wind in her ears.

Issa just wanted to be on the ground.

Safely on the ground.

Not on the ground in the way she was very much afraid she was going to wind up on the ground.

She clenched her eyes shut, her mind gibbering as she heard and felt her heart pounding in her ears and chest.

I want to throw up.

Someone was yelling something at her, but she couldn’t hear any of it over the rush of blood in her head. She just kept screaming in her own mind, over and over.

Stop! Just stop. Please, I just want this all to stop? Why is this happening!?

A sharp snapping sound, almost like the twang of a guitar string only so many times louder cut through the air and Issa opened her eyes to see the wire she was clutching to suddenly go slack in her hands. She stared for a moment, wondering what was happening.

Then Issa began to fall.

*****

Harrison was generally having a pretty shitty day.

He was used to things going wrong on a job, that happened. You didn’t hire a high-end thief because what you wanted to steal was easy to get at, after all. However, being slugged through multiple floors of a high-rise office building was a new low for him, and the fact that he had to get the building’s own security teams to lead him to a safe exit, well that was just embarrassing.

He was trying to take it in good humor, all things considered, but the smirks from the security team were honestly starting to get under his skin.

Just a bit.

“Front should be clear,” The squad leader told him as they reached the open workplace area that overlooked the street. “Commodore took down the mob mooks shooting it up, and one idiot superhuman in the process. Cops have been cleaning up the street since.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Harrison sighed. “And I’m sorry for the mess, you guys. Just supposed to be a job, not an action movie set piece. No one was even supposed to know I was here, let alone be waiting to ambush me.”

The security team laughed at him, again.

“Don’t know who you’re working for, but it’s a fair bet that they’re linked to one side or the other of the mess going on outside,” The squad leader told him. “Boss wants you out of here, so we’re showing you the way. Don’t worry about the mess, just do us a favor, don’t come back.”

Harrison looked them over evenly, “You’ve got my word. Anyone offers a job on this building, or let’s say Blue Solar Manhattan, since I’m not sure the building is going to survive those two idiots banging around, I’ll turn them down flat. Owe you guys that much at least. Anywhere else, well a man’s gotta eat.”

“Get out of here,” the squad leader pointed before falling into a stunned silence.

Harrison turned to look and froze in place.

What the hell?

There was a screaming little girl swinging by the window, looking very unhappy to be where she was. The building shook from another blast, and while they tracked the girl, they all saw her jump in place as the building moved while she was very briefly in freefall, jerking her around.

They didn’t hear the snap of the cable breaking, but one moment she was clutching at a thing steel ribbon and the next… it was gone.

Harrison actually caught the snap of it flying right past her as the tension released, and saw the look of confusion and shock in her eyes as she started to fall. Her screen made it through the miraculously somehow still intact glass.

“Shit!”

He lunged forward, going airborne in an instant as he crashed through the glass and blasted out over the street. The girl had already dropped below the floor he was exiting, and he immediately turned into a hard dive in the hopes of catching up with her.

Now he could hear her screaming, but Harrison didn’t bother trying to get her to stop. He was pretty sure he’d be making like a little girl in her situation too…

Probably with a squeakier voice.

“I’m coming!” He did call out, reaching forward as he saw the ground rushing up at them.

Briefly he thought about how to catch her, tossing the idea of grabbing her outstretched hands since he didn’t want to accidentally yank her arms off while stopping. He pushed harder, passing her quickly before flipping end for end to get his feet under him and looked up in time for her to landed right in his arms.

With only meters left to go, Harrison grimaced as he put on the brakes… hard.

They came to a stop just above the ground, the girl curled up in his arms as he looked down at her in shock.

“Holy shit,” He swore, not quite believing what had just happened. “I can’t believe that worked! I thought I was going to crush every bone in your body when we stopped.”

She looked up at him, face pale and sickly, her mouth opening as she spoke in wavering tones.

“You fly by forming a telekinetic field around you and telling your body where it wants to go, atom by atom. Inertia doesn’t affect you, or anyone you hold close… I think I’m going to be sick.”

“I’m not going to pretend I understand any of that except for the last part,” Harrison told her, gently turning her head away from his chest. “Try not to throw up on me, even if everything I have already needs serious dry cleaning.”

“Kay,” She said miserably, heaving as she ejected her lunch or whatever else she’d eaten to the ground.

People were rushing them as he gently set her down, Harrison noting that several of them had phones out, presumably taking video. He patted her shoulders, “Sorry kid I’ve got to go.”

“What? Why?” She blurted as he lifted off. “Thank you!”

He just waved back, accelerating hard as he banked off away from the building and headed out into the city night.

Poor kid. Hope she’ll be alright.

*****

Casey grimaced as he kept up the pressure, the struggles from Polaris becoming less and less as he forced the man into as tight a ball as he could manage, blocking blood flow through the arteries until the man went limp, and then continuing on for some time after to make sure he was down and stayed down.

Finally, he let him tumble to the ground before slumping against the shattered wall at his back and taking a moment to get his breath.

Damn that was a hell of a fight, He thought with a tired, but satisfied, smile. Haven’t had one like that in a while.

He heard a groaning sound from across the street and winced as a big chunk of the Blue Solar building gave way and fell to the ground.

Oh fuck. Karen is going to be such a pain in my ass after this.

*****

Wesley Trenton carefully climbed over the rubble in front of his building, making his way immediately to the young girl who’d been caught in the middle of the mess.

“Miss, are you alright?” He asked as he got up to her.

She nodded, looking pale but color was starting to flow back into her cheeks.

“I was saved by someone. He flew,” she told him, eyes sparkling.

Thomas Meeran edged in, leaning over to speak softly. “It was our thief, Sir.”

“Really?” Wesley asked, more relieved than anything. “Well then I can’t say I’m regretting telling security to just get him out of my building…”

He paused, turning to look back at the crumbling façade of the office building, and sighed audibly. “Well, not that it really helped much. Thomas?”

“Yes sir?”

“Find me a new building in the city, please,” Wesley said. “I’ll call the insurance company and start leaning on them, but no matter what it’ll be months before we see anything from them. Even with the superhuman rider on our policy, they’re going to try and weasel out of it.”

“Yes sir,” Thomas said, both acknowledging the order and agreeing with the statement at the same time. “I’ll get on it tonight.”

“Tomorrow, Thomas. Tomorrow,” Wesley waved, “See to your son tonight. What a mess.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Wesley just waved the man off as he wandered away from the group, surveying the damage and mumbling in annoyed tones under his breath.

It was an expensive night, no matter what the insurance company finally paid out. That much he was certain of.

*****

Two Blocks South of Blue Solar HQ

The man called Verte stood on the rooftop of a convenient building, shaking his head as he surveyed the damage. He was annoyed at having missed the fight, but more so at what he was seeing, drawing out his phone and thumbing through the menus to make a quick call.

“Stolen Valor,” The voice on the other side sounded far too cheerful for his taste.

“It’sVerte, Rosie,” He said. “I was too late. Looks like the Commodore took care of it, but it got messy.”

“Unfortunate, but not a real shock. Are you on scene?”

“No, mon chere,” Verte smiled. “A couple blocks down. I would have to skip the police cordon to get much closer, and without the fight going on, there isn’t much reason to annoy the NYPD like that.”

“Agreed. I’ll let the LEOs know, but head on home. If you show your face, it’ll mean paperwork for both of us.”

“And ain’t no one got time for that, mon chere. See you later.”

“I’ll see you,Verte.”

Tee ended the call, but drew a small lens from his pocket and snapped it over the phone, giving him a quarter decent telephoto on his phone camera. Using it he snapped pictures of everyone at the scene, then closed down his phone and tossed the lenses and phone back into his pocket.

“Shame,” He said. “Looks like it was a fun scrap. Still, too many civies in the mix for it to really be worth the hassle. Hope no one got too badly hurt.”

He laughed softly as he turned around and started walking to the far side of the building.

“Was a nice building too. Wonder what they’ll replace it with?” He wondered aloud before stepping off the ledge and dropping straight down to the sidewalk eighteen stories below.

*****

First responders had Issa covered in a thick wool blanket when her mother arrived, fairly bursting to get through the cordon as the police kept her back until they could properly identify her and then get her through the crowd that had gathered.

She rushed across and grabbed Issa up into a hug.

“Oh my god, Novah, are you already!?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Isa said, though she was still shaking slightly under the blanket. “And call me Isa, you know I prefer it.”

“I’m your mother, and I’m terrified for you right now. I’ll call you by your first name and you’ll like it,” Cindy Islay told her daughter sternly before cracking slightly, a sob coming out of her mouth before she swallowed and looked around at the chaos around them. “My god, Novah, what happened?”

“I’m not really sure anyone knows yet, mom,” Isa said tiredly. “It started with a thief we think.”

“A… thief?” Cindy looked and sounded confused as she looked around.

How did a thief, of all things, result in what looked like a terrorist bombing or something happening?

“Corporate espionage, I am afraid.”

She turned, frowning as she saw a man in a very nice, if rather dirty, suit approaching.

“I’m sorry, and you are?” She asked, confused.

“Mom, this is Mr. Trenton,” Isa said quickly. “Mr. Trenton, this is my mother, Cindy Islay.”

“A pleasure,” Mr. Trenton said. “And please, call me Wesley.”

“Wesley… Trenton,” Cindy’s eyes widened. “Oh. Sir. I…”

“For tonight, Ms.… Mrs.…?” He trailed off.

“Ms.,” She said. “But call me Cindy, please.”

“Cindy then,” Wesley said. “For tonight I’m just the man you can be angry at, given it was my building that was attacked while your daughter was there.”

“Someone stole for you! Or tried?” Isa protested. “Mom, it’s totally not his fault. It just… yeah, it kinda went weird.”

“This is not weird, Novah,” Cindy grumbled. “This is insane.”

“On that, we agree completely.” Wesley shot an annoyed look over to where the Commodore was currently speaking with reporters. “A bit of corporate espionage is annoying, but it’s no cause for this level of destruction.”

He sighed, “Sadly, I doubt we’ll get the whole story anytime soon, if ever. I just know that there is a good deal more to it, not whatever that may be.”

He shook his head, “At any rate, please take my card. If there’s anything I can help you with don’t hesitate to call. I expect my lawyers will be calling you sometime shortly in hopes of avoiding any possible lawsuits as well.”

Cindy accepted the card hesitantly, but nodded slowly. “My daughter appears to be alright, Mr. Trenton, so I’m sure there won’t be any issues there.”

Trenton chuckled, “Oh don’t make it that easy on them, Cindy. I’ll make sure that young Issa here is offered a scholarship or something, but feel free to turn the screws on the lawyers a bit if you can.”

He sighed, looking around, “Believe me, you won’t be the only ones, and young Issa here deserves it more than most of these vultures will. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have rather a lot of work to do tonight.”

“Of course, thank you Mr. Trenton.”

“Wesley, Cindy, do try to remember it,” He said with a smile before he turned and left.

Cindy Islay looked down at her daughter. “Come along. Let’s get you home and in bed… maybe after a hot bath. You look positively peaked.”

“I’m not feeling great,” Issa admitted.

“Somehow I’m not surprised. Let’s be going.”

Issa nodded, letting herself be led away through the police lines by her mother. A hot bath and bed sounded SO good right about then.

*****

Chapter 11

LEO HQ, Manhattan

“You destroyed the Blue Solar Manhattan headquarters building.”

Karen Jord’s voice was flat, completely devoid of intonation that could be used to determine her emotional state, but Casey had little issue divining that all the same.

“Now, Karen, I didn’t bring the fight inside. He punched me through the front doors,” He defended himself. “What happened inside was purely me defending myself.”

She hit a button, playing a clip of him slamming Polaris down the side of the building, through the Blue Solar sign, and then through the overhang in front of the doors. Casey watched it for a moment, just able to keep from flinching as he did.

“Perhaps that was a little on the destructive side, I’ll admit…”

“A little?” She interrupted him before her lips twisted up, “No, you know what, do go on. I am intensely curious as to how deep you plan on digging yourself.”

The man known as the Commodore slumped, sighing, “How bad is it?”

“It could be much worse,” She growled. “But it’s pretty bad. We’re spinning the damage as being caused by local organized crime families, but that’s bringing the FBI into this investigation… thanks so much for that headache. It has the virtue of being mostly true. Luckily, casualties were light, and mostly contained to the Blue Solar building itself. It was late already, and by the time you started wrecking the joint, most of the remaining workers had managed to evacuate.”

She hit another button, showing an image of a superhuman saving a girl from falling down the side of the building.

“You might owe Mr. Magpie a favor, though.”

Casey glared at the screen, “Are we sure it was him?”

“Mr. Trenton confirmed that this is the Code S reported within the building, and while we can’t get facial recognition, the disrupter he’s using matches the one that Magpie is known to employ… so, yeah, it was him.”

“Ugh.” Casey grumbled. “Well I suppose he’s not all bad, for a thief.”

“Better than the organized crime threats, at least,” Karen agreed. “For the moment we’re going to be de-prioritizing Magpie. Unless he’s pulling another job in the city, or doing something stupidly high profile, don’t bother chasing him. We’ve got more important fish to fry.”

Casey sighed, rather irritated that he seemingly wouldn’t be getting another shot at the annoyance who’d easily escaped him earlier in the week, but he knew that Jord wasn’t kidding about more important fish.

“Word on the street is starting to bubble over,” She went on. “We’ve got three drive-bys since last night, all at known or suspected Russian Mafia locations, and one car bomb took out a Capo of the Families. They’re starting retaliatory strikes, and it’s almost certainly going to escalate.”

“What do we do about it?”

“Not a damn thing, that’s what we do,” Karen snapped. “You, in particular, stay the hell out of this. Let the FBI and the NYPD take the lead. If you go throwing cars around and bringing more buildings down, we’ll never be able to spin last night into anything but a PR disaster. As long as there are no superhumans involved in the fighting, it’s not our turf.”

Casey grimaced, but nodded slowly.

“And if superhumans do get involved?” He asked after a moment.

“Then God help this city, because if a simple tussle between you and Polaris resulted in the Blue Solar building being an insurance write off, I don’t ever want to see what happens in a superhuman gang war.”

*****

Private Club, Manhattan

“Those Russian fuckers got Michael, Sir. We cannot let that slide.”

“I know.” The older man said from his place at the head of the table. “But we need to be careful. Last night was not a good night for us. The Feds are looking close at everyone involved now, and they’re starting to sniff around our… legitimate businesses.”

“We can deal with the Feds. Buy them off, if they don’t want to play nice, then we bump them off.”

“Are you insane?” A third voice snapped, drawing attention. “We start bumping off feds and it’s over. Forget RICO, they’ll Guantanamo our asses.”

“I will… overlook the exclamation, Frederick,” The old man said softly. “But be careful. Respect here, it is not something you should be… casual about. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. I’m… sorry,” Frederick responded. “But the Feds, they won’t take that lying down, especially not after last night.”

“We can deal with the Feds,” The first speaker said. “Sir, I know we’ve been reluctant to do this… but it may be time to start fighting fire… with fire.”

The old man sighed, but nodded slowly.

“I agree.” He said slowly, “It is… distasteful, but I see no options.”

“You cannot be serious, those… freaks will…”

“Our enemies are not so morally upstanding as you want to be, we don’t have any choice!”

“The feds are going to bury us all.”

The old man sighed, “Perhaps… but better the Feds than the Russians. It is decided.”

*****

Islay Home

Cindy looked in on her daughter, not for the first time since the previous night.

Despite being given a clean bill of health after her little adventure, if one could call it that, she had come down with the flu or something by the morning. Cindy had called in sick and kept Novah home from school. She probably would have done that anyway. To be honest, the girl likely needed the time, but it would have been nicer for both of them if they could have taken the day for something relaxing instead of dealing with a flu.

Novah had been sick all night, in and out of sleep, and unable to keep anything down once it all kicked in. Cindy just hoped she could stop throwing up even water, or they’d be taking a visit to the ER before the afternoon and her medical insurance wasn’t exactly great.

She slowly fingered the card Mr. Trenton had given her. She didn’t want to impose on the man. Everything Novah had told her, and she’d heard from the police briefly, said that he’d done everything he could to get everyone out safely, but if worst came to worse, she would.

*****

Issa turned over in bed again, a fever chill running through her as she closed her eyes to keep from feeling nauseous at everything she was seeing.

It was like the whole world stopped being… real… all of a sudden. When she looked at the old Toy Story lamp on her bedside, it was like it was trying to… argue with itself? She didn’t know, but she could see it flying, and falling through the dresser, and jumping to the side… to every side… all at the same time, yet also just… sitting there like it was supposed to.

Part of her wondered if she’d been exposed to something in the incident the night before, some weird drug that was making her hallucinate things in the strangest way.

Like, she could feel herself falling right through her bed, as though it wasn’t even there almost. Only almost though, because she could feel the blankets as they passed through her, the light brush of them against her internal organs making her shiver again from the fever as she checked, just to be sure that there wasn’t somehow actual blood on them.

Just a dream from the fever, she thought, slumping back from her sudden tension. The sensation of falling through the bed had caused her to suddenly snap out her limbs to try and stop her descent, only to find that she was, of course, right where she was supposed to be.

As if I could actually pass through the mattress like that, she thought sickly, groaning as she started to roll over… then froze, unable to move as her mind suddenly jumped down that line of thought.

Passing through solid objects. Requires defeating the magnetic force that stops our atoms from interpenetrating, while maintain the same force in order to keep the atoms of one object from linking up with the atoms in the other. The solution is to individually ferry each atom from one side to the other. Simple in theory, requires intense processing power for practical application. Supercomputer network could do it.

She shook her head, blinking. She didn’t have a supercomputer network even if she wasn’t just dealing with fever dreams, so that was a pretty stupid waste of time to think about.

Building a quantum computing system. Requires sub-atomic logic gates. Construction via observational manipulation of quarks into a simulation of…

Issa grimaced, covering her mouth as she wanted to throw up again.

The weird thoughts and images she was seeing really weren’t helping her illness.

I just want to go to sleep.

Sleep can be induced by mnemonic pattern application to coax the mind and body to relax. Repeated mantras combined with deep breathing and a slight nudge to the body’s hormone production…

At that point, she was desperate enough to try anything, so Issa followed the insane train of thought, taking each step in turn as she had envisioned them.

In forty-eight seconds, she was sleeping deeply.

Three minutes later, her mother checked in on her and breathed a sigh of relief to see that the fifteen-year-old was much less pale and seemed to be more comfortable than she had been the last time she checked in.

It was probably just a flu bug, Cindy supposed. All the excitement last night just left her vulnerable, I guess.

Quietly, she closed the door to her daughter’s room and went back to the paperwork she’d taken home from work. She might as well get some of that done, while she was at loose ends.

*****

Penthouse Condo, Overlooking Central Park

“Well, I’m sure it could have been worse,” Wesley thought as he looked over the preliminary report of the damage. “Not sure how, mind you, but it probably could have been.”

The building was going to have to come down, and probably via an emergency destruction at that. More costs he’d have to have his lawyers fight with the insurance companies about, he supposed. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue. His building had everything all paid up of course, but Superhuman damage was becoming more and more of an issue for the insurance industry, and so they’d taken to even trying to fight accounts like Blue Solar, mostly out of desperation.

Probably won’t be able to get Superhuman insurance much longer, Trenton supposed. In a lot of ways, he was surprised that the larger companies still offered it now.

In the USA, most superhuman incidents were still largely focused on the mid and South west. Texas, surrounding states, and Mexico had born the brunt of the initial events that resulted in the Marine’s ascendency to world recognized superhuman, and the propensity of events still tended to focus there.

New York and LA came in second, but both cities were catching up fast due to a far denser population.

Ultimately, Trenton expected that the coasts would overtake the early lead in superhuman incidents within a few more years, at which point things would get very bad, rather quickly, if someone didn’t get a handle on things. The nature of the quantum virus was such that the more incidents happened, the more the virus would be activated.

Certainly, as more victims were activated rather than aggressors, he expected to see a balance of power shift from where it was currently to something more approximating the population as a total… at the moment, the nature of how the virus activated in people still led more to already violent people being activated. As those people began to expand their violence outward, then their victims would quickly become the largest portion of newly activated carriers.

After that… well, honestly, he didn’t know.

None of Blue Solar’s computer models were confident of the outcomes either. They’d tried to get decent predictive numbers, but the virus just threw everything up in the air.

Traditionally, predicting what a person might do was hard, bordering on impossible, without in depth psychological data on the individual in question. Predicting large groups, however? That got easier and easier the larger the group you were dealing with.

Want to know how the country would vote in an upcoming election? Nothing easier to predict.

Want to know how any given state would vote, on the other hand? Might as well ask a magic eight ball unless you were looking at states that were so far on one side or the other that there really wasn’t any question.

Oddly, if you wanted to know how specific counties would vote it became easy again, but that was due to manipulation of voting districts, so Trenton didn’t count that bullshit.\

The same held true for most human behavior. It was incredibly easy to predict the masses, but smaller groups were the big problem. And, at the moment, Superhumans were still an incredibly small group.

The world, five years ago, had been a remarkably peaceful place.

Despite what most people believed, in fact, it had likely been the most peaceful the human race had ever been in recorded history, at least on a per capita basis. Crime had been at an all time low, having been steadily declining since the mid-1990s, and while everyone talked about this war and that war, the truth was that those were practically skirmishes compared to the wars of decades earlier.

Trenton and Blue Solar had invested a fortune in new tracking technologies intended to monitor those very data points, however, and he knew that the peak of human peace had now come and gone.

They were on the downhill trend now, and he didn’t see any way to keep it from getting worse.

Forget entirely about making it better, in fact, just keeping it from getting worse faster seemed impossible.

Trenton wasn’t a fan of Superhumans. He’d seen the destruction they could wreak. The first thing he’d done once they found out the nature of the virus was run a DNA build of his own blood, making sure that he wasn’t one of the potential carriers. He’d never been so relieved when it came back that he was in the two thirds of the population currently immune to the virus.

That current bit was what worried him, more than anything though, because he knew better than most what the real danger of any virus was.

It wasn’t the current effects you needed to be afraid of. Any given virus… no matter how bad… was something that could be dealt with once you understood it. The problem was that a viral pandemic was like a reverse lottery… there was a one in a billion chance of anyone catching a mutation that was truly monstrous, but if enough people bought tickets… someone was going to ‘win’.

And, unlike the lottery, they’re sure to share their winnings with the rest of us.

Trenton knew better than most what was coming and, while even he didn’t claim to see the future despite all the money he’d poured into doing just that, he knew too well that what they were seeing today was just the beginning.

Forget the mob war, the real wars are coming. Humans versus Superhumans… and then whoever survives that gets to deal with the bastards who did this to us in the first place.

All the people who’d sacrificed so much already, and were still sacrificing, and none of it was worth damn as far as he could tell.

It was enough to make him want to just give it all up, find a hole in some mountain somewhere, and just try to ride it out.

If he didn’t know that this was caused by outside forces, and wasn’t so sure that they would be back someday, Trenton might even do just that. The problem was, if forces beyond Earth’s atmosphere were coming to wipe humanity out, he didn’t think a mountain stronghold was going to cut it.

So, he was backed into a corner. No matter what, Trenton was determined that if he was going out, he would go out swinging because there really wasn’t any other acceptable thing to do. He knew that he wasn’t alone, the government saw what was coming too… they’d even tried to convince people of it.

Unfortunately, that had backfired.

He should have seen it coming, he really should… or someone should have, he supposed. Trenton hadn’t realized just how badly everyone was programmed to automatically distrust the government. Even having seen the threat, the second that governments began talking about it as if it were real, a terrifyingly significant portion of the population started screaming about how it was all a conspiracy.

Worse… those who weren’t screaming, well some of them… too many of them… were listening to them.

Trenton didn’t have a solution to the problem, he honestly didn’t. That was actually unusual for him. The problems that he usually encountered and found himself trying to address, in the past he’d always had a path if not a direct solution.

Now? All he knew was that he refused to let cultural idiocy drag the whole planet down.

Which would sound better if he had a plan, of course.

*****

Chapter 12

Stewie High, Lower Manhatten

Ashley Karrigan blinked as she approached the school, noticing a familiar figure standing in the road outside the front doors looking a little dazed. She quickly hurried over and grabbed the girl by the arm, pulling her off the road before one of the drivers behind her remembered he was in New York and just went over her.

“Hey,” She said, “You’re… uh… Nova, right?”

“Issa,” The girl, Issa apparently, replied, “I prefer Issa.”

“Right,” Ashely snapped her fingers. “Sorry about that. You ok? You were looking a little out of it there in the, you know, middle of the street.”

“What? Oh,” Issa said, twisting to look behind her. “Wow, I must be more out of it than I thought. I came down with something a few days ago, thought I was over it. I feel good, but I’m kinda dazed sometimes still.”

“Are you sure you should be in class?” Ashely asked, a little concerned.

The girl didn’t look bad or anything, but zoning out in the middle of the street wasn’t exactly conducive to her ongoing health even if she were physically good right then.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Issa insisted. “I just, it’s been a long, strange, and kinda freaky week.”

Ashley shot her a look, “Are you saying the rumors are true?”

Issa looked confused, and a touch apprehensive, “What rumors?”

“I think it was Devin, couple days ago, started talking about being at the Blue Solar building during the attack,” Ashely said, guiding Issa into the school with a hand protectively on her shoulder. “I think he said you were there too?”

“Oh,” Issa grimaced, “Yeah, I was. Devin arranged it to apologize for running into me, and it’s… it’s Blue Solar! I wasn’t going to turn that down.”

“So, it wasn’t a date?” Ashley asked, smirking.

Issa snorted, “He’s more interested in his App than actual Superhumans assaulting the building he’s in. Dating is years away for that boy.”

Ashley rolled her eyes, “Boys.”

Then she looked at Issa seriously, “But you’re ok, right?”

“Yeah…” Issa said as they walked in through the doors, entering the school. “I’m not going to lie, I know I screamed my head off at least a few times, and I’m pretty sure I might, maybe, have thrown up on a Superhuman who saved me…”

“No way,” Ashley laughed involuntarily. “What did he say?”

“I don’t remember,” Issa said honestly. “It was all a haze by that point. Anyway, after it all I got home, and I think all the excitement opened me up to a flu bug or something. I was kinda feverish for a couple days. But I’m better now!”

“Wow, you had an adventure then,” Ashely shook her head. “Well, staying in bed for the last couple days is probably for the best.”

“Why, what happened?”

Ashley frowned, “Not checking the news?”

“Not for the last couple days, no.”

“Well, the fight at Blue Solar was apparently the first shots in a gang war. Police have been running all over the island and the burrows, trying to get ahead of it,” Ashley told her. “The Families and the Russians are mixing it up.”

“Oh crap.”

“That’s not the worst part,” Ashley said, her face growing grimmer than was her normal outlook. “Both of them have recruited Superhumans into the fight. It’s looking like it might get pretty bad out there.”

Issa grimaced, that sounded horrible to her, no question. She was about to respond, but the class alarm sounded, and she jumped, startled a bit.

“I’ve got to get to homeroom,” She said, waving. “See you later.”

“See you, Issa. Be careful zoning out, alright?” Ashley waved back.

“I will! Thanks!”

*****

Later, in class, Issa was listening to her math teacher talk through the simplified explanation for calculating ballistic trajectories, her mind mostly on what she’d been told earlier. She had managed to get a little time on Youtube and some other media sites with her phone before class started and, if anything, it sounded like Ashley might have been understating the situation.

Several drive-by shootings had gone down, raiding places the press believed belonged to both the Russians and the Italian families, as well as at least three car bombings as of the morning. That didn’t count the superhuman fights, with new empowered people showing up out of nowhere to join one side or the other.

There were even non-aligned powered people getting involved, which made for four sides fighting in this gang war, assuming you counted the non-aligned people as a side of their own, though that was being optimistic as best she could tell.

The cops and the LEOs were working together, which included the FBI at least, and several other agencies from the federal government from what she’d been able to gather. That meant that their Superhumans, like the Commodore and his team, who’d now been recalled to Manhattan proper from where they’d been across the state, were in the thick of things.

The Russians and Italians had new superhumans, no names yet, initiating fights.

And then the independents, which included several she’d never heard of but a few she did. Stolen Valor had gotten in the mix, somehow. She wasn’t really clear on what brought them in, and a local superhuman who’d not done a lot called Freerunner had been seen getting involved as well.

If it continued, she didn’t know what was going to happen to the city.

“Miss Islay!”

“What?” Issa bolted upright, eyes wide.

Everyone laughed, aside from the teach who was just glaring in her direction.

“Now that you’re back with us,” He grumbled. “Solve the problem on the board.”

She glanced at the board, blinked twice, then responded, “X equals the square root eleven, Sir.”

He paused, looking at the board briefly before looking back, “Indeed. Perhaps I should apologize, I thought you weren’t paying attention.”

She nodded slowly, blinking more as she thought about what she’d just said. She didn’t even remember reading the board, but she knew the answer?

What?

*****

Ashley had to work hard to hide how tired she was as she sat in class, keeping her spine straight and listening to every word the teacher was saying.

She was not up for this, even with the changes she’d undergone that reduced her need for sleep. Somehow the gang war hadn’t just intensified, but it had started to spread to other gangs. She’d really undersold the story while speaking with Issa because she didn’t want to scare the girl, or appear too knowledgeable about the situation. It would be a little out of character for a cheerleader to take an interest in that sort of thing, honestly.

She’d actually gotten into three fights with other empowered people over the last couple days, and two of them actually involved people trying to kill her!

Powered humans were coming out of the woodwork… or the cement work, she supposed, it being New York and all.

Who knew that all it would take was a gang war to bring people out to the party, she thought sarcastically.

The Commodore had recalled his team, and now the entire New York State LEO team were all based on Manhattan for the first time in ages. Normally that would be considered overkill, because New York wasn’t that kind of crazy, but things had definitely changed.

On the up side, she’d actually run into a couple members of Stolen Valor, which was like… Major fangirl time. Rosie and Lana were just amazing, and the rest weren’t too shabby either. They had been on the East Coast chasing down some minor doofus running around pretending to be a SEAL while robbing banks. Major braindead dumbass case right there, since everyone knew that Stolen Valor didn’t put up with that shit, like, at all.

Even if you were a former member of the military, they’d put you down hard for wearing the uniform while committing crimes. If you were a wannabe in the first place?

Well, they had a habit of just humiliating the ever-loving hell out of those guys and then putting them down, hard.

Stolen Valor had some of the most hilarious videos on Youtube she’d ever seen.

That wasn’t all they did, though. It was just their hobby when they had down time apparently, which was something she did not realize. Ashley didn’t think most people realized just how much they did besides their more obvious stuff, which was probably the point she guessed.

Tee and Rosie were in town, and apparently the others were coming as soon as they wrapped up business wherever they were. Verte was a hilarious, and horrible, flirt… which was all kinds of creepy in a hilarious way, given she was pretty sure he was older than her dad and she was in high school, but he didn’t seem to actually mean it, so she was letting it pass as much as she could.

Rosie hitting him for it, constantly, was kind of funny though.

The teacher shot her a glare that caused her to sigh and pointedly take more notes as the lecture when on.

It was so hard to concentrate when you were tired, and it was so boring.

Mind you, everything would be boring after the last few days she’d had.

I wanted more excitement, she sighed. Should have been careful what I wished for.

*****

Queens, NYC

Tee leaned back against the wall as he looked down on the crime scene below him. The last thing he wanted to do was get involved with the police at this point, so he left it to them.

Best he could tell it was another drive-by.

That sucked, because those were impossible to stop. By the time you even heard about them, they were already over, but he’d come running anyway hoping to be able to do something.

Didn’t look like that was going to work out, though.

“You see anything?”

Tee didn’t look up as the Commodore lowered himself from the sky, floating to rest a short distance away. He didn’t really have anything against the guy, but it did annoy Verte that he was a clear and blatant rip-off intended to cash in on Hale’s Marine persona.

Alex didn’t put on the gear as a costume, he put it on because it was who he was.

Tee had to remind himself that the ‘Commodore’ was a persona built by the government, and not a personal choice of the man under the gear to try and steal from his friend’s history.

“Nope,” He said, popping the ‘p’. “Got here too late, my friend.”

“Damn, I was hoping you happened to be close enough to get something… anything.”

Tee understood that frustration. He’d felt it many times in his life, and the honest emotion from the Commodore was one of the reasons he was able to tolerate the costume and chalk it up to being a ‘homage’ to Alex, rather than a rip-off.

“Looks like the Italians got hit this time, if I’m any judge,” He offered. “Police have some witnesses, but they suck. No surprises there.”

The Commodore snorted, “Anyone who saw enough to recognize what they were seeing also saw enough to know they better keep their mouths shut.”

“Yup,” Verte popped the ‘p’ again. “The Families might try to project all warm and cuddly feelings these days, being upstanding businessmen and pillars of the community, but the Russians? They’ll turn up in your bedroom at three a.m. with a plastic bag and a tire iron.”

“Don’t undersell the families either. They might not be doing the cement overshoes as much as they used to, but they’re not above arranging a little ‘mugging gone bad’,” The Commodore told him. “Not if they feel the need.”

Tee nodded, “So we can expect the cops to get nothing on this. Do we care, though? Don’t think there were any enhanced involved.”

“Well then it’s not my business, at least,” The Commodore said sourly. “I’ve got clear marching orders - unless it involves a superhuman or it’s going down right in front me, I’m to leave it to the cops and the feds.”

“I’ve got a bit more leeway,” Verte admitted. “But honestly, I’m not cut out for this shit. If they happen to cross my beam, I’ll reach out and put them down from the next postal code over. But a detective I ain’t.”

The Commodore nodded, “Well, anyway. I’ve got to go. I’m still doing patrols, showing the flag. the LEOs want me visible and peaceful after the other night.”

Tee laughed, waving him off, “Tearing down a perfectly good billion-dollar building will do that, my friend.”

The Commodore scowled back at him as he started to lift off, but apparently thought better of commenting. Verte just chuckled some more as the military-themed superhuman turned and accelerated away.

Tee had been in the Green Berets while he was in, and he’d spent a lot of time showing other people how to do violent things without getting caught by the big boys. It wasn’t exactly the same as he was seeing here, but there were parallels that were close enough.

The Italians were old school, thugs mostly. Vicious under all that fake businessman bullshit, but thugs. The Russians, they were a little different. They had their thugs, certainly, and he was pretty sure that most of the violence was being perpetrated by that group.

None of it had the mark of a professional, not on the ground anyway.

However, he was reading the reports that were making it to the Federal Level. Working with the military and with federal agencies had some benefits, after all. The Russian strikes, they were well thought out and preplanned.

If he had to bet, and betting was in his soul, Verte would be willing to put it all on the line saying that the Russians were running a plan that had been written up weeks, or months ago. Maybe years in some cases. The Italians, they were hitting targets of opportunity, getting lucky sometimes, but just as often just bumping off some mid level thug.

Unless something changed soon, he was figuring that the Russians would own the New York underground within a week, two at the outside. The worst of the fighting would die down then, and it would drop from the media’s eye.

Too bad that’s when shit starts getting really bad.

He and Rosie were in town, and they’d offered to help, but frankly he didn’t know what they could do.

Wade in to save the Italians?

That didn’t sound all that great to this Louisiana boy, no two ways about it. Thing is, leaving the Russians free to consolidate the Families’ holdings was definitely worse.

He needed to speak with Lana, Verte decided. She had always been the rational thinker on the ground, and with Alex down… well, she was the closest they had to a leader.

Tee turned and walked toward the wall behind him, vanishing as he stepped into the shadow, leaving only a faint line of footprints that ended at a solid wall to show that he’d even been there.

*****

UN Space Service HQ, Manhattan NYC

Emily Pierce looked out the wall length windows at the city below.

It was surprising, honestly, that it looked so normal.

She made sure to keep apprized of the latest in superhuman information, despite her change in position. She knew that the power enhanced individuals were variables in her plans that were all out of proportion to their actual numbers, and if she wanted to push the UN program through to its next phase, she had to be certain that they didn’t get in her way.

Unfortunately, they were most definitely getting in her way.

New York is three days from following eastern Europe into a spiral that we might not be able to recover from, if someone doesn’t get a handle on this.

Five years ago, any superhuman events were world news. In the time since, however, a lot of the interest had faded. That was both good, and bad. People not looking too closely at the mess that was going on in Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, among many others… that had its benefits. But it also meant that when this mess exploded across the media, people were going to start digging, and they’d find a lot of numbers that no one wanted them to find, not yet. Not until there was a clear plan to deal with it all.

The gang war in New York could easily turn the entire planet on its head, and Emily didn’t have a damn clue how to get ahead of it.

The Russians have to be importing their thugs, including the enhanced ones, she thought, reaching for her computer.

With a few strokes of the keys, she sent off emails that would, via roundabout ways, get into the inboxes of officials in INS. They had powers, of the legal sort, that would make most agencies weep with jealousy, not that most people had any idea just how pervasive their powers really were.

It was time they started using those here in New York a little more, she decided.

Maybe we can cut off the supply of Russian superhumans to the locals. Anything to slow this down.

She wasn’t going to hold her breath, however.

*****

Chapter 13

Issa boarded her train, school had been… odd, she thought. The answers to a lot of the questions had somehow been easier. Mostly in math class, but some of her science courses had been similar too. Physics especially, she’d found, though she had similar sensations in Chemistry but would wind up incredibly frustrated, like she knew the answer but didn’t know how to explain it to anyone.

She yawned as the train left the station, leaning back in her seat. She was really tired and figured that it must be from the flu bug she’d caught, still sapping her energy even though she felt fine otherwise. As the train sped up the line, she got out her phone and started going over the news.

The situation in the city wasn’t looking good, she had to admit. Normally, it wasn’t something she would pay much attention to. Crime reports weren’t exactly light reading for her after all, but now that she’d been there at the start of… whatever it was, and nearly died no less, she found that she had a, probably, unhealthy interest.

Almost died.

The thought made her shudder a little, as she could still remember the sensation of falling like it had just happened. Her stomach lurching up into her throat, arms just… floating out to either side, lifted by the wind as it tore past her.

It was funny, though she couldn’t remember a lot of what happened, but those sensations were there like they were on demand for some reason.

Issa glanced out the window as the city swept past, blinking as she noted that they were moving forty-five point three nine two kilometers per hour and it seemed like the city would see rain shortly.

That caused her to pause and frown.

Wait, the forecast didn’t call for rain today, why would I think… hang on. Did I really just decide we were travelling at forty-five point three nine two kilometers per hour? Where the heck did that come from?

She frowned, confused, glancing out the window again and noting that the speed had edged up to point three. Looking closer, she found that she suddenly had an absolute certainty of the speed of the cars she could see moving out there on the streets. The Train was moving along one of the elevated sections of track, giving her so many things she could look at. And now that she was thinking about it, Issa realized that she was seeing so much more than she used to.

It’s all so clear.

Not just her vision, though that was clearer too, but everything else.

Issa looked down at her hand, taking in the way the muscles moved under the skin, the chemical reaction as fuel was burned at the source to provide motion, the motion of the blood through her flesh.

She blinked, taken aback by those thoughts, then looked hard at her hand again.

How in the…?

She couldn’t see through her skin, thank God, but somehow, she was still seeing all of those other things just the same. It didn’t make any sense to her, none of it did. She laid a hand on her stomach, feeling ill.

I… I have to still be sick, Issa decided. It’s just some weird kind of hallucination or something.

Stoically, she endured the rest of the trip to her neighborhood, then quickly but quietly got off the train. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she walked with deliberate motions back to the apartment building she lived in, trying desperate to ignore all the information that suddenly seemed too eager to present itself to her.

Air currents, how buildings and cars affected them. A bird sweeping through the air, it’s eyes fantastically adjusted to see magnetic fields via a sub-atomic reaction at the back of its cornea. Far above them a Boeing 737 was taking off from JFK, one of its engines vibrating in a way that she didn’t think was good when she compared it to the others.

All of that, and more, assaulted her senses as she rushed into the apartment, throwing the deadbolt behind her, and headed straight for her room.

Issa threw herself into bed, pulling a pillow over head, trying to shut it all out.

What is wrong with me?

It wouldn’t go away, she found. She could see the vectors of the blood cells moving through her eyelids and, far more disturbingly, the angular velocity of the mites on her pillow.

Ew!

Throwing the pillow away, Issa sat up and planted her feet on the floor, leaning over to take deep breaths.

It didn’t take her much thinking to realize that either this wasn’t a hallucination, or she was a lot sicker than she’d even thought possible.

It all felt too real, though.

I think it is real, she had a sinking feeling as that crossed her mind. What if she wasn’t crazy? Would I be able to tell if I were?

That line of thought led to nowhere good, Issa decided.

Have to assume it’s real, right? Assuming I’m crazy gets me nowhere. So, what if it’s real? What is it?

There was really only one answer to that.

She knew a lot about the Superhuman phenomenon. She’d read about everything she could get her hands on that had been published in the real journals. If this was part of that, though, it was an expression of the abilities she’d never heard of.

Issa frowned.

Hey, wait… almost all the test cases I read about were the same ones, over and over. That’s odd.

Science didn’t work like that. No one kept using the same test cases over and over, not when there were as many accessible cases out there as there had to be. Issa, steadfastedly ignoring the information that was assailing her about everything she looked at, planted herself at her desk and woke up her laptop.

She pulled the case studies she’d read so avidly before, all part of her research into what she was certain was the next great field of study in human science, and quickly skimmed through all of them. Over an hour later, she leaned back in her chair and found herself staring at the computer, mentally ignoring what she could tell about the way it worked on focusing on what she’d just read.

That can’t be right…

The studies all seemed to be focused on the same half dozen or so Superhumans, all with very similar abilities too. Certainly, enhanced strength, speed, and flight did appear to be a common version of the abilities from what she could tell, but even from watching the news she knew that wasn’t the only one out there.

Where are the studies that include that guy in Germany who can tear open portals? Or anything about the Dragon of Hong Kong?

Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t really figure out what it was. If it were a coverup of some type, it was pretty clearly a bad one. She could name half a dozen high profile cases that didn’t fit the types she’d read about in the studies, which seemed to preclude the idea that they were being hushed up somehow.

Were they only able to get limited volunteers?

That made more sense, but even so, she should have seen at least some speculatory articles in the journals she read.

Issa branched out, moving away from the scientific journals, and quickly found her way into the less science and more… well, she was going to call it ‘science adjacent’ parts of the internet, but only because she didn’t want to start by insulting people from the get-go.

On a whim, she downloaded and installed Devin’s app, made a new account, and started looking around the forums there.

Matalert, she found, was a bizarrely varied group of people. Some of them seemed to know what they were talking about, while some were pretty clearly insane. Most just looked to be people who had opinions and wanted to share them, which… ok, sure, that was fine she guessed.

She did find a lot of discussions there about the other types of Superhuman expressions. However, and within a few short minutes, Issa found herself sucked down a rabbit hole that left her just… completely and disconcertingly confused, yet somehow… less lost at the same time?

It was weird. That was all she could think to describe it. Weird.

On a whim she created a new post and dropped in a question before closing out the app and going back to her bed.

She was feeling better, she realized. It seemed like focusing on something caused all the extraneous information to be pushed aside. That was good.

Issa was laying down with her eyes closed when her mom got home and checked in her.

“Are you feeling alright, honey?”

“Yeah, Mom,” She answered, biting at her lip. “I’m… I’m ok, just a little tired.”

“Well don’t push too hard, you were pretty sick. It’ll take some time to get fully back on your feet.”

“I know, mom.”

Issa winced as her mother left. She didn’t want to lie to her mom, but she really wanted to figure this out before she tried explaining it. It was really hard to explain to someone that you were seeing things without sounding pretty crazy, and it wasn’t like she could fly or something to prove it.

I… I don’t think I can, at least.

That… bore more thinking on.

*****

Empire State Building, Manhattan

Harrison was sitting along the outside of the building, well above the visitor’s platform. If he looked way out over the edge, he knew he’d be able to see them but, frankly, he didn’t care to.

It was time to get out of New York, that much was clear. His clients had paid him for the delivery of the tech, as agreed, but them kicking off a gang war with the Russians over the job wasn’t in the plans. Normally he wouldn’t care too much if a couple groups of assholes wanted to kill one another, well in the end it would result in less assholes to bother everyone else. Win, win, as they say.

Once they started mixing enhanced thugs into the mix, though, things got stupid so much faster than he’d have predicted.

Drive-bys were stupid on their own level, of course, and car bombs were arguably worse, but some of the bullshit that was hitting the news now?

Definitely time to get the fuck out of this city.

He pulled out his phone, hitting the speed dial.

“Hey, it’s me. Yeah, I’m done in New York… I’m thinking maybe the Caymans? Somewhere sunny, nice beaches, pretty ladies in skimpy bathing suits. Set it up.”

“Can do, but there’s another offer in the city if you’re up for it.”

“Are you nuts? The Russians and the Italians are both losing their shit. I want as far away from this nuthouse as I can get.”

“That’s fair. The offer isn’t from either of them, however. It’s interesting.”

Harrison hesitated.

It was stupid, he knew it was stupid, but he also kinda had to know.

“Interesting… how?”

“Offer was filed by a pseudonym that I was able to easily crack. It belongs to Wesley Trenton.”

Harrison blinked.

It was stupider than I thought it would be, and wow is that saying something.

“Blue Solar sent me an offer? You’re kidding.”

“Not Blue Solar, Trenton personally.”

“It’s a trap, it has to be a trap.”

Wesley Trenton was one of the, if not THE, richest men on the planet. He wouldn’t be making an offer to the man who just robbed him unless it was a trap.

“Possible, but unlikely. This account is one he uses for deniable operations, not anything really secret. That’s why it was even possible to track back and identify him. It’s your call, however.”

Harrison didn’t like it, but that was a point. His brain was screaming at him to just get the hell out of the city, but at the same time he had to admit, he was really curious.

“Set up a meeting,” He said. “I’ll take my chances.”

“I’ll set it up.”

“Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

Harrison shut down his phone and dropped the little brick into his pocket as he once more looked out over the city. The sun was starting to drop in the west and the city lights were starting to paint a picture that literally couldn’t be seen anywhere else on the planet.

I guess the beach can wait, this is pretty good for now.

*****

Islay Home

Issa got back on her computer as soon as she felt a little better, eyes tired but her brain was refusing to let her rest any longer. She was burning with questions, but had no real way to answer any of them. Nothing she’d read about other superhumans…

I… I’m a superhuman. Oh wow.

That thought made her a little giddy, honestly. She’d never really expected it to happen to her - her interest had always been more on the academic side. Understand how powers existed, and learn to emulate them with tools, the way Mr. Trenton was doing things. That was how she felt people needed to do things, because not everyone could become empowered.

Uh… She faltered, her tapping on the keyboard dying out. They… can’t, right?

With that thought redirecting her search, she went back and reviewed all the papers and quickly found that no one had an answer to that question.

No. Wait. That’s not right…

Issa went back through the published papers for a third time and realized something really important, or maybe important. She wasn’t sure, but it felt important.

It wasn’t that no one had an answer, not at all. She couldn’t find anyone who asked the question in the first place.

That’s not possible. Someone had to have asked it. Why aren’t there any papers about it?

Everything she could find was talking about the mechanism that powers expressed as, but there wasn’t anything in there at all about where powers came from. That just didn’t make any sense at all. She knew that Blue Solar was working on that, Mr. Trenton had basically said as much.

Ok, maybe Blue Solar researchers can’t talk about it, its probably corporate policy, She figured. That made sense, after all. Big corporations tended to try to protect proprietary data, but what about the schools?

She quickly decided that she just didn’t have enough information to come to any conclusions. There was something going on, that much was clear. A coverup, maybe, or something else… but…

What is it?

Frustrated, Issa pushed away from her computer and picked up a spinner her mom had bought her as a gift for getting into Stewie. It wasn’t much, but after the laptop and other required materials, she knew that they just didn’t have much to spare, and it was kind of cool, so she was happy to have it. It was a model that lit up as it spun, the motion generating power to run the little LEDs in the spinner’s ‘wings’.

With the lights drawing patterns in the air above her fingers, Issa quickly became lost in the data she could ‘see’ generated by the simple little device. Angular momentum, potential chemical energy in her fingers converted into kinetic energy in the device. The electrons being pushed into action by the motion of the magnetic field inside the device… and the photons they released from the LEDs leaving patterns in the air.

It was fascinating on multiple levels, and Issa kept spinning and spinning it over and over, sometimes focusing on the patterns her limited eyes could see due to latent images from the moving LEDS, and sometimes focusing instead on the actual photons as they left the device, moving so fast that they only appeared as data in the aftermath to her.

Subconsciously, she reached out and… poked one of the LEDs.

That was the best way she could imagine of describing what she’d done, but when she had finished, she noted that the patterns had changed.

The LED wasn’t producing photons anymore.

Issa stared, bewildered for a moment until she suddenly realized that somehow, she’d changed its frequency. She could still read the data her mind was interpreting, and the light wasn’t broken at all, it was sending out tiny pulses in the X-Ray band.

I can… change things?

*****

Trenton Penthouse, off Central Park

“Your contact has indicated that the person of interest is willing to meet, Sir.”

Wesley nodded, looking up from where he was working on a personal project.

“Excellent. Set something up that’s acceptable to both sides, Jackson.” He ordered. “Whatever security concessions they want, within reason of course.”

“Of course, Sir.”

He had hoped that the thief would be willing to talk, but had given it perhaps a fifty-fifty shot of happening. Normally, he expected, it would be a bad habit to meet up with a powerful man you’d just stolen from. Wesley was hoping that ordering security to let the man leave unmolested would buy him enough curiosity to get to the meeting.

He wanted to know a lot of things about the man in question. Wesley was fairly certain the man was an international thief known by several names, including the codename ‘Magpie’ to the local LEOs. He had quite a list of other aliases, but Magpie would do well enough.

“Computer, run the simulation again.” He ordered.

The computer obediently started up yet again, with the slightly modified numbers he’d thrown into it. Wesley had been an engineer and researcher himself before he started his company, good enough to patent several pieces of gear still in use by several governments worldwide… though only those allied to Great Britain were paying him for the privilege.

In his early days, he’d very much wanted to put a rocket in space. He did it, eventually, but his early dreams of exploring the solar system and, dare he dream, beyond were shattered quite quickly. The costs were, quite literally, astronomical, and while he had a personal fortune arguable second to none on the entire planet… even he didn’t have enough money to maintain his own space program.

That meant government contracts. Thankfully, governments were always pleased to spend money that didn’t belong to them, and few of them had any real idea of the value of what they were actually buying. In exchange for flying supplies to low earth orbit for NASA, The EU Space Agency, and even China and Russia, on occasion, he made enough money to undercut competitors in the field while putting up private commercial equipment.

It made excellent money for his company, and himself… and it wasn’t even a scratch on what it would take to get to the moon regularly, or beyond.

And that was the rub.

No matter his personal fortune, Trenton couldn’t afford to run a space agency purely on the grounds of doing research, and if he tried that with his company, his investors would get together and burn him. Literally, he knew several of the major ones personally and they’d threatened exactly that.

Making money wasn’t optional for a public company like Blue Solar. It was, in fact, one of the very few things that could cause a CEO like himself, even as a majority shareholder, to lose his position. Do something that the shareholders believed was a money losing move, and even he could be ousted from his own company.

And now he found himself in a position where he needed to get into space, beyond the moon. FAR beyond the moon, in fact. The probe had come from somewhere, and the Earth needed an early detection system put into place as soon as possible, before more could arrive.

The rate of human advancement, however, had slowed to a crawl in certain fields. Rocketry was a sophisticated but unfortunately mature field. The Tyranny of the rocket equations were absolute.

Before the events five years ago, Trenton had actually resigned himself to running government science launches in between his commercial satellite delivery, while squeezing in whatever he could for his own projects in the cracks that were left. He knew he’d not be able to get all that more advanced in his lifetime, but he could push it forward and let someone else take the reigns when the time came.

That future was now a luxury he could not longer afford.

There was a silver lining to the storm cloud, however. The Marine had shown it to him first. It was something that most people didn’t even realize when they saw that a man could fly, but he saw it.

The Marine flew using a reactionless method.

No fuel spewed out the man’s arse, no big wings or propellers moved him through the air. Trenton had spent weeks studying every piece of video of the man flying, looking for any sign of ionic wind or similar thrust. Nothing.

The Marine’s very existence proved that reactionless flight was a possibility.

He wasn’t too proud to admit that he had actually drooled over the video a few times, but that was when he’d reached his first roadblock. Not the last, by any means, but the first and one of the largest. The Marine, after he’d pushed himself to the breaking point to destroy the probe and save the men in the Blackbird, had collapsed.

No one knew, or was speaking, about what happened to him after that. No death announcement was made… but the Marine had never again appeared in public. Several other flying people had shown up in the news, of course, but most of them were either spoken for very quickly by government contracts that Trenton was… advised very strongly not to attempt to get them to break, or had vanished from the limelight into whatever shadows existed for people of their skills.

Of the rest, he’d managed to get some people to test and had learned a great deal, but unfortunately one of the things he learned was that the flight mechanism for every superhuman appeared to be fundamentally, even chaotically different.

He needed more subjects, as many more as he could find, and this Magpie had a very familiar looking power set.

Maybe this time I’ll get lucky.

*****

Chapter 14

Rooftops over Manhattan

Freerunner grinned as she leapt across the street, cars and people dozens of stories below her as she flew through the open air before coming to a landing on the far side and rolling across the rooftop, coming right back to her feet without losing hardly any forward momentum.

She loved getting around the city this way - it had been a dream she’d had since watching the old superhero movies they made when she was a child. They’d fallen out of favor for a bit, but one of the side effects of superhumans popping up was that those classics were enjoying a popular resurgence and it looked like both Marvel and DC were going to start rebooting their popular brands shortly.

She was looking forward to a new version of Spiderman. The last one had really felt less like the independent hero she felt he should have been and more like a reboot for his older mentor character whom she had no interest in at all.

Ashley hoped they do him right this time, but she’d settle for good enough and be happy, especially since she could do this now.

Leaping across another street, she was momentarily distracted by a distant rolling thunder that didn’t sound quite natural to her. It was from a little ways off to her right and up to the Northern side of the island.

Might as well check it out, she thought as she landed. Taking a moment to get the lay of the rooftops, Ashley mapped out her route in her head before she started off again. Freerunning across the rooftops of a city like New York was an intense experience, and she wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it did require a certain level of planning if she wanted to avoid cratering the sidewalk and maybe wiping out some poor guy on the ground.

She might live, she hadn’t tested that for obvious reasons, but anyone she landed on would have the worst, and last, day of their lives.

Since avoiding that was a good thing, Ashley tried to carefully work out her route in her head before any major running was done, especially over unfamiliar terrain.

The sound, which she was pretty sure was an explosion, had come from the Park area, give or take a few blocks. If it were in the park, she knew she’d have to drop down to ground level to approach it, but Ashley doubted that it would be. There wasn’t really all that much to blow up in the park as a rule.

A couple blocks from the west side of the Park, she spotted the smoke rising up into the sky and zeroed in on that.

She skidded to a stop atop an older asphalt covered roof. The building had probably been there for nearly a hundred years, but it seemed to be well kept up. She slowed to a walk and made her way over to the far edge, craning out a bit to look down.

Yup. Burning car. Looks like another car bomb, Ashley noted. I wonder who bought it this time?

She had seen three of the bombings in person by this point and while she was far from jaded, it was becoming a new normal in the city, which was something she didn’t much like the thought of. For now, though, she determined to drop down and check for anyone who might be hurt.

Using the fire escape, she quickly dropped and slid down to the ground level, landing on an old dumpster after a final two-story drop. The plastic dented under her feet, but held up enough for her to jump down to the sidewalk and make her way toward the burning car, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be hurt.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed up the LEOs.

“New York Superhuman Law Enforcement Office, how may I direct your call?”

“This is Freerunner,” Ashley said curtly. “I’m at a car bombing near the park a little ways from the Broadway.”

“We have police responding to that call now, do you see anyone else in the area?”

“No,” Ashley shook her head, though the person on the phone wouldn’t be able to see it. “It’s really quiet here. Like, way too quiet for this time of night. Don’t even see any looky loos in the area.”

“Be careful, if spectators aren’t in the area, they may know something you don’t,” The operator told her.

“All about that,” Ashley replied. “Can’t close enough to see if anyone was in the car, but there’s no bodies on the street.”

“Very well, police are less than a block away.”

“Yeah, I can hear their sirens.”

“They’ve been advised that you are in the area, but don’t get in their way or interfere with the crime scene, Freerunner.”

“I know the game, don’t worry. Just dropped in to see if anyone was hurt and needed help,” she said. “Not touched anything, not going to.”

“Good.”

“Cops are here,” Ashley said, looking up as a couple black and whites with their lights flashing rolled in, with sirens indicating more were coming.

“Stay on the line, but stay out of their way.”

“Yeah, yeah, got it.” Ashley waved to one of the cops as he got out of the car, but stepped back from the burning vehicle, putting her back to the wall of the closest building.

“You Freerunner?” The cop asked, walking up with one hand on his pistol.

“That’s me.”

“See anything?” He asked, “besides the burning car?”

“Just the smoke in the distance,” Ashley told him, “Dropped down and there wasn’t a single person on the whole damn street. It’s creepy weird.”

The cop paused, frowning, and looked up and down the street himself.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Hey sarge!”

“What?” An older cop called over from where he was looking over the wreck. “Got something?”

“Don’t know, but there’s nobody out here but us and Freerunner here.”

“Nobody?” The Sargeant looked up over the hood of the burning car. “You sure… There’s always someone taking pictures to post this shit on the net.”

“Look for yourself,” The cop said, turning around and walking back. “Anyone in the car?”

“No, it’s empty.”

“Why the hell would anyone blow up an empty car?”

For some reason those were the words that put a chill down Ashley’s spine. Or maybe something else did it and it just happened at that specific moment, but in either case she felt herself stiffen and drop into a crouch as she got the sudden urge to run.

“Because they wanted someone here, checking the car out,” She called, head snapping around as the old Sergeant cursed and went for his gun in a flash.

The sudden explosion of noise that tore through the street damn near deafened her as Ashley threw herself to one side, tackling the younger cop to the ground as a hail of bullets ripped brick and mortar to shards and dust. They rolled along the sidewalk, the cop cursing as he struggled to get his sidearm out of the holster, but Ashley wasn’t giving him any time to do that as she was trying to get them both to somewhere, anywhere, that had cover and protection.

“Freerunner! Freerunner!” The voice sounded distant and tiny from the phone where it had landed on the ground. “Are you alright!?”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

The phone rang just as she was leaving the office, and Karen Jord just groaned as she slumped in place for a moment before turning around to answer it.

“Jord,” She growled into the phone.

“Ma’am, there’s an incident in play. It involves a known superhuman, code named Freerunner.”

Karen grimaced, but didn’t bother wasting more time with questions. “I’ll be right down.”

She hung up the phone and tossed her briefcase back onto the couch in her office on her way out the door. Karen had a bad feeling she’d be sleeping on that again before the night was out. They wouldn’t have called her in on anything minor.

The operations room was one floor down from her office, and filled with all the impressive gear one might expect. At the moment she found herself looking at a map of the city with an obvious hotspot lit up near where Broadway and the Park intersected.

“Alright, speak to me,” She ordered, grabbing a chair at the table, and dragging a tablet over to her.

“Freerunner noticed a car bomb go off and went to investigate,” The operations officer said. “She called it in and we liaised with NYPD who were also on their way. That was when Freerunner noticed that there wasn’t anyone else on the street.”

“No one?” Karen asked, “Seriously, no one came out to take pictures?”

“No one. It was an ambush, and it seems like they were targeting the police.”

“Shit.” Karen swore. “Ok, do we have anyone head out?”

“The Commodore is off duty for the night, but we were able to get Shackle moving in that direction.”

“Shackle isn’t ready to deal with something like this,” Karen shook her head, “Don’t we have anyone else?”

“Not in range, Ma’am.”

“What about Stolen Valor?”

“We don’t know.”

Karen scowled, grabbing her phone, and quickly punched in a direct line.

“Hey mon-petite, you know I told you not to call me here.”

“Shut up,Verte. We have a problem.”

“It’s always business with you, never a chat, or an invite to a wild night of…”

“Tee, I will hunt you down, and I will shoot you in the ass if you don’t shut up now. You know I will.”

The former Green Beret sighed on the other end of the phone, “Very well, what is it, Madame Jord?”

“We have an incident involving a Superhuman at,” She looked up, snapping her fingers.

“West 61st street,” the operations officer supplied.

“West 61st,” She repeated, “Near the Park.”

“Got it. I can be there in a few moments,” Verte said. “Situation?”

“Independent Superhuman spotted what looked like a car bomb go off and investigated. She called it in, cops arrived. Looks to be an ambush aimed at the NYPD.”

“Merde. On my way.”

“Tee!” Karen snapped, before her voice softened a little. “Freerunner, the Superhuman? She’s a kid.”

“Got it. Talk later.”

The line went dead, and she tossed her phone casually down on the table before rubbing her nose and forehead.

“This is a concerning escalation,” Karen said after a moment. “If this is either of our current problem children, and they’re ramping up to go after the police, we have to assume that whoever this is, is ready to play for keeps on pretty much every level.”

The people in the room nodded. Going after the police was generally not done. Oh, if a cop got in their business, neither of these gangs were above shootouts or even just flat-out execution killing the officers. Setting up an ambush, however, to intentionally draw the police into the situation, that was something else entirely.

Karen was hoping that it would be unrelated to the current gang war going on, though she knew that was a pipe dream at best. Still, it was possible that it was something else, somehow.

“Do we have any indication of superhuman support on the ambushers side?” She asked, looking around.

“No, Ma’am.”

“Well, there’s that at least.”

*****

West 61st and Central

Ashley managed to get herself and the police officer behind the corner of a building as bullets rent the air and ground around them with a vengeance. She actually had been shot at before, but never by fully automatic weapons.

It was not as fun as the movies made it seem.

“Are you ok?” She gasped out to the patrol officer.

“I think that’s supposed to be my line,” The officer said, finally managing to draw his service weapon, “but I think I’m good. Thanks.”

“Had to get my butt out of there anyway, figured it would be impolite not to bring you along,” She grinned at him.

He was pushing himself up against the cement wall behind him, bracing his wall on it as bullets continued to whine off the wall and cement sidewalk.

“Works for me,” He said. “Name’s Ryan. You’re the one the LEOs call Freerunner, right?”

“Yeah, sorry for not sharing the real name, but I don’t want to wind up on the front page,” Ashley rolled her eyes. “Being famous might be nice for somethings, but I’ve seen what happens to people with powers who get in the media.”

Ryan grunted, but nodded. Everyone had.

There were exceptions, of course, but Superhumans who had their identity broadcast tended to end badly, one way or another. Constant badgering by the media or the public until they lost their temper could easily wind up with someone dead and the Superhuman jailed or, more often, on the run. That resulted in even more incidents as idiot bounty hunters or overeager police tried to make names for themselves.

Even if they succeeded, the best case usually involved fatalities.

“Fair enough,” Ryan replied, risking a quick look around the corner. “Sarge! Hey Sarge, you ok out there!?”

Without an answer, Ryan swallowed as he brought his beretta up to his chest.

“I don’t suppose you’re bulletproof?” He asked, only half joking.

“Never tested it, and would really prefer not to have it tested the hard way,” Ashley responded.

“Yeah, can’t blame you for that.”

She risked a peak herself, a snarl of bullets making her duck back quickly.

“Looks like they’re setup in that parking garage across the way,” she said. “I must have come in right over their heads and just missed them.”

“I doubt they were out in the open.”

“True, I guess, still sucks.” She grimaced.

“Just stay under cover, backup will be rolling out and should be here fast.”

*****

World Parking Garage, 61st St

“The police are rolling SWAT as we speak, but it will take them time to get here.”

“Good, have we seen motion from the LEOs?”

“Not yet, but we do not know where all of their people are located, so they can be missed.”

The leader of the group nodded, a little disgruntled by that fact but he’d expected it all the same. They’d chosen their timing carefully, but in a city the size of New York, there were a great many variables at play that could not be entirely accounted for.

One of them was down there on the street below, hiding just behind the office and apartment building across the street.

They didn’t know her name, the government probably did but those records were highly classified. What they did know was her code name.

Freerunner.

A local, non-affiliated, superhuman. He’d had to access her file quickly when she showed up, because she wasn’t important enough to have been included in the pre-mission briefing, but once she was in the middle of their operation… that clearly changed.

Freerunner was a child, unfortunately. That wouldn’t change how they ran the operation, but he could feel some regret for getting caught in the middle of things. She had, like many before her and certainly many after, decided to try being a “superhero” when she gained powers. It had not gone especially poorly, but mostly uneventfully from what her file indicated. She’d not gotten into legal issues, at least, which was better than most.

Ultimately it seemed that while she’d largely given up on the idea, she still did regular patrols of the island, with a surprisingly large area in which she might be spotted. She was clearly from Manhattan, likely the lower western part from the spottings, or at least that was where she started her patrols from.

If she were smart, he supposed she might ride the subway to a regular area and start from there, but she was a kid, so he doubted she was smart.

Ultimately, however, she was not considered to be much of a threat and her presence in the center of the ambush was actually a positive sign for his team.

“Watch the skies,” He ordered. “But make certain that you keep the police pinned down.”

“You’ve got it, boss.”

*****

Roof of Chace Bank Building, West 61st

Tee stepped out of the shadows, his feet crunching on asphalt as he walked. A glance around got his bearings. The city was lit up like the city that never slept. It was a pretty sight, especially to his enhanced gaze, but now wasn’t the time for sightseeing.

He made his way over to the edge, looking down at the street below.

The burning car was a good sign he was at the right location, as were the two patrol cars that looked like they’d just been driven through Falusia on a bad day.

Someone unloaded a lot of firepower down there, He noted as he dropped to one knee and reached into a shadow that was cast by the ledge of the building in front of him, pulling out a pair of night vision binocs.

With those, he ran a quick scan of the area on light amplification mode, quickly locating the cop and who he assumed was the friendly Superhuman.

Well, Verte. She does look young. Too young for this crap.

He flipped the binocs over to thermal, sweeping the other side of the road.

Well, hello there, assholes, those are nice machine guns you have… hot stuff, I might even say.

They were on the third floor of the parking garage, the glow from the barrels of the light and medium machine guns, if he were to make a guess, standing out against the dull glow of the background heat.

“This isVerte,” he said into his radio. “Targets located in the World Parking Garage, third floor, North side. I am seeing… let’s say some squad assault weapons and possibly some moderately heavy support guns. M-60 maybe. Can’t be sure from this distance.”

“That’s bad enough,” Karen Jord’s voice responded. “Police are rolling SWAT as we speak, and Shackles should be responding shortly. Do you have eyes on the police or Freerunner?”

“One cop and one little lady are hiding out behind the building across from me,” Verte responded. “I don’t see any other police, however.”

“Goddamn it. There should be three more officers on site,Verte.”

“Affirmative. I’ll find them. Verte out.”

He closed the channel and started sweeping the street more closely with the thermal. The hat from the burning car made that difficult anywhere near the wreck, unfortunately, as did the similar heat from the two cop cars, which made him pause.

Cars don’t normally explode when you shoot them, He noted idly, yet the two cop cars were definitely burning merrily away. Curious.

There were ways to make it happen, of course, including just firing a metric shit ton of bullets into them. Something like a minigun could make a tree explode into flames if you were serious enough. He doubted that was what he was seeing, however.

Explosives? Probably.

Some light thermite or some other sort of thermal charge, maybe thirty or forty-millimeter launchers. He didn’t see them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

If there were bodies anywhere near the cars, he wouldn’t find them on thermal, and that went double if they were dead.

Tee slipped the binoculars back into the shadows, then drew out a Macmillan Tac-338 in their place, unfolding the bipod and settling the weapon on the ledge. The scope covers flipped up, he sat down on the asphalt roof, bracing the rifle on the bipod and his knee, and got a good look at the scene through the more powerful optics.

Shooters are not fucking around. That’s a former GRU team, Spetsnaz trained, no question. NYPD is not going to like the reception they’re going to get if they roll in here hot, Verte noted idly, sweeping the scope across the hostile positions. He could see spotters on the roof of the garage, almost directly opposite him, and crunched down a bit more though he doubted they could see him. He’d tested his enhancements pretty thoroughly and even if they had infrared, which he assumed they did, he knew it wouldn’t show up.

Additionally, while they had the massive air conditioning vents of the building behind them from his position, he had the ones on the bank building as partial cover.

Hmm… they’re not looking down at the streets. They’re scanning the skies, he noticed.

There were a number of reasons they might be doing that, of course. Police helicopters were a big one, of course, and if they were worried about LEO response, they would have to be watching for the Commodore.

Still, it had him a little curious.

“This isVerte,” he said into his tactical radio. “Enemy unit is Russian.”

“Are you sure?” Karen Jord’s voice was sharp and deeply concerned.

Tee snorted, “I’ve trained with, and fought against, the people who trained these pricks. I’m sure. They’re Spetsnaz trained, almost certainly former GRU. They’re working to a plan, and I will eat my fucking rifle if that plan is just shooting up a bunch of flatfoots.”

He could hear Karen swearing, a little ways from her radio, and guessed that she’d half muffled her mic but not quite enough. It brought a smile to his face.

“That’s very disturbing, I don’t imagine I have to tell you why.”

Tee snorted, “If they’re willing to start setting ambushes for police response, that’s one hell of an escalation. Best tell SWAT that they’re rolling into a warzone, though, in potential at least. I guarantee that these boys have more than some LMGs backing them up. From the looks of the police vehicles, I’d guess thirty-millimeter launchers, at a minimum.”

“Well, isn’t that just peachy. Alright, we’ll forward that on. Did you spot the remaining police?”

Tee sighed, “No sign… but if they were in their cars, or even too close…”

“Understood. Shackle is almost on site, but I’m ordering her to hold back. She’s not going to be able to do much up against that kind of firepower.”

“Agreed,” Verte said. “Can you patch me over with SWAT? I’m in a decent position with cover and a 338 magnum, can provide support as needed.”

“Roger that. For your information, I’m waking up the Commodore.”

“Seems reasonable, but be aware, they have spotters watching the skies.”

“Of course, they do. I’ll pass it along, look… last thing, we tried to keep this quiet, but it leaked out. Someone called the press, so expect a lot of noise in the area sometime soon, no matter what we do.”

“Got it, thanks for the update. Verte out.”

The press. Great, just what we need in this mess, especially since we don’t know what the hell these idiots want in the first place.

Local news would put choppers in the air, he was certain. The police would try to keep them back, and mostly succeed, but there was only so far you could do that without a blanket order keeping unapproved flights out of city airspace entirely, and he didn’t see that happening.

Not until someone shoots a press chopper down, at least.

Reasonably, that wasn’t likely to happen. While the team across from him clearly had pretty heavy gear, it wasn’t anti-aircraft grade.

Sighing at all the things that could go wrong, Verte settled in to do what he did best.

Wait.

*****

Freerunner cast a wistful glance out to where her phone was laying on the pavement, wishing she had kept a grip on it. Might need to consider a second phone, not like burners are that expensive, I guess.

Ryan was talking on his radio, being relayed by dispatch to a SWAT team that was already moving from what she could hear. It sounded like they were rounding up a small army before they tried to do anything, which seemed like a good idea to say the least.

He dropped his hand from the mic, laying his head back in annoyance.

“SWAT is rolling,” He said, completely unnecessarily, “But they’re a ways out yet. Too many things to wind up, and someone called in that these assholes have grenade launchers and snipers…”

“Oh, isn’t that great,” Ashely grumbled sarcastically.

“It means SWAT won’t even try to get in here until they’ve got more people ready. A negotiator is being called in, but they doubt that he’ll have much to do, and air support is already heating up. That’s the good news,” He said, “Want the bad news?”

“Why not? Let’s make the night complete.”

“The press got wind of it, and there’s already video streaming on some damn app called Metalert.”

“Video? From where?”

Ryan looked at her sourly, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “Take a guess.”

She tilted her head, looking incredulously out past the corner of the building.

“What kind of idiots livestream their own crime?”

“Happens more than you’d think,” Ryan told her, “But not usually with a team this well prepared. They’re making a statement, no doubt about that.”

“Yeah, and that statement is that they want to kill us.”

*****

Chapter 15

Islay Home

Issa was still puzzling over the spinner, idly altering each of the LEDs experimentally, and seeing what she could make them do. It wasn’t a lot, but shifting the frequency of their output was easy enough. She just hoped that the X-Rays weren’t too much. She’d hate to get cancer or something because she was playing around like that, but from what she could tell from some research, the little LEDs she was changing didn’t have anywhere near the power to be harmful… at the very least, the output they had seemed incredibly low.

It did, however, confuse her because she was pretty sure that creating photons wasn’t the same as making X-Rays? Well, obviously it wasn’t the same, but she didn’t think they were even similar. It bugged her enough that she had to go online and look up information about X-Rays just so the annoying doubt would stop.

Hmm… Photons are particles, but light is also a wave. X-Rays seem to just be waves? Is that right? Huh… according to this X-Rays are photons created in the electron cloud of an atom… so I guess it’s not as weird as I thought that the LED could be changed to produce them. I bet it’s still pretty weird though.

Issa closed down the research site and opened up a new window, intending to go looking for something else when she noticed the top headline on the portal site and blinked before looking closer.

Car bombing at the Park? Live?

She clicked through on impulse, a morbid curiosity about the events that had begun to unfold after the incident at Blue Solar spurring her on.

The video was really good, she noticed, better than she’d expected. The metadata in the corner showed that it was being streamed in 8K, which she hadn’t even known was a thing. None of her equipment could show anything that high, so she was getting the 1080p version, which was plenty good enough.

There were three cars burning on the image, and two of them were Cop cars!

What in the heck is going on? She stared, shocked, racking her brain to try and remember if anyone had bombed the police recently, but she couldn’t think of anything like that.

She had a discomforting feeling about that, knowing with certainty that it was a really bad thing that it happened, and not just for the police in the cars.

Oh, jeez, I hope they got out.

She had to wonder where all the other police were, though. Surely, they weren’t just going to leave it like this?

Huh. This is streaming from Metalert… that’s insane.

Issa grabbed her phone, dialing Devin’s number.

“Devin, it’s Issa. Is your app actually streaming this car bombing thing live?”

“Hey Issa, yeah, isn’t it great?”

Issa groaned as quietly as she could manage, rubbing her temples.

Of course, he thinks it’s great.

“Devin, who is streaming it?”

“Oh, it’s just a new user… um, let’s see,” Devin said as he tapped something on his computer. “Looks like they just registered today, ugh… Newuser48A911Z. Seriously? Some people have no imaginations.”

Issa blinked, “You’re sure that’s the name they registered?”

“Yeah, it’s just a random username assigned to guests until they create their own account, whoever this is just didn’t change it.”

“Devin, they’re streaming a crime scene where someone attacked the police, with an 8K camera and enough bandwidth to push it out live… and they’re using a completely anonymous user name. Think about that, would you?”

There was silence from the other side of the line.

“Oh, uh… you think that the bombers are using my app to, what? Livestream their crime? How stupid is that?”

“It’s really stupid, unless it’s not,” She snapped sarcastically. “This isn’t something you do without a plan.”

“What should I do?” Devin asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Call the police and ask them? I don’t know,” Issa said before a thought struck her. “Wait…”

“What?”

“Why are they using your app?” She asked, confused.

“What’s wrong with my app?” Devin sounded hurt as he asked that.

“A lot, probably, but that’s not what I mean,” She snorted. “You run an app called Metalert, intended to track Superhumans, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Do you see any superhumans in the video?”

“No, but what does… Ohhh….” Devin went silent.

“Call the LEOs, Devin… but get your dad, first.”

“Right, yeah, ok. I’ll talk to you later.”

Issa sighed as she hung up. He was a nice enough boy, she supposed, but good lord he was thick sometimes. She turned back to the video, though, unable to bring herself to shut it down. She was really wondering what they were streaming on Devin’s App for.

I bet something big is going to happen.

*****

I wish something would happen already!

Ashely was frustrated by the situation. She really didn’t like being pinned down like this. She wanted to move, to run! The city was her playground, not these bastards’ shooting range! She gauged the possibilities of being able to get out of the area, but they weren’t great, not even on her own if she were willing to leave Ryan behind.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it,” Ryan’s voice startled her. She hadn’t realized that she was being that obvious.

“I was just wondering if I could make it down the line there, and out to 62nd,” She admitted with a light flush.

“Doubtful, unless you can outrun, or tank, a bullet,” he told her firmly. “As soon as you leave the cover of this gate, they’ll have a clear shot at you for pretty much a whole block before you can get back under cover. There’s no way they don’t have snipers, and even if they didn’t, machine guns can cover that range without any issue. Don’t even think about it, Freerunner. Wait for backup.”

Ashley sighed.

“This sucks.”

Ryan looked at her blankly for a moment before snorting in laughter.

“Stop laughing at me, it’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not,” He agreed, still laughing. “But you are. What are you anyway? Fifteen?”

“Sixteen,” she said, affronted.

“Kid, you should be home in bed.”

Ashley wasn’t going to argue with him on that, not exactly, “I don’t sleep a lot, not since… well, this.”

She extended her arms and shrugged.

“Not sleeping is a power?” He asked, looking disturbed. “That sounds like torture to me. Anyway, I can’t say I’m glad you’re out here and all, but I’m thankful for it at the same time. Pretty sure they had my number.”

Ashley grumbled, “What are they after anyway? This is nuts. They can’t be expecting to get away with this, can they?”

“I don’t know what crazy people think, if I did, I’d be a detective instead of a patrolman.”

*****

LEO Hq, Manhattan

“Ms. Jord, the Commodore reports that he is now en-route to the conflict. He’ll be there in under five minutes.”

Karen nodded, “Good news. Inform SWAT that they can expect superhuman support when they roll in.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The whole situation stank, but there was very little she could do about it with the limited information she had available. Nothing about any of it made sense, and that one told her that she was missing key, need to know, critical information.

“What the hell are they thinking? They can’t expect to get away with this, can they?” Karen grumbled to herself as she watched the stream.

It was insane is what it was. Full counter terrorist protocols were swinging into action even while she was sitting there, and within the hour the whole city would be locked down tighter than a drum. She didn’t care how good their training was, no one could escape that kind of security lockdown.

If they were dealing with crazy people, well that would make sense. Crazies didn’t care about escaping, they were crazy. But if Verte was right, and as much as she found that particular Crazy annoying as hell to deal with, he wasn’t likely to be wrong on something like this, then they weren’t dealing with crazies… and if this group was as professional as she was worried they were, their plan hadn’t even begun.

“Ma’am… there’s a call on the hotline you might want to take…”

“From who?”

“A young… man,” Her assistant said tentatively. “Claiming to own the streaming app currently being used for this. He wants to know if he should be doing anything to help?”

Karen blinked.

Now that was a change. Usually, it took court orders and a mandate from God to get media sites to do anything, and this one was calling her up and asking what they could do?

Huh.

“Put him through,” she said after some thought.

“Here you are,” Her assistant handed her a phone without even looking at it.

Karen rolled her eyes at the young woman, “Mind readers can join the LEOs, Maxine.”

“Just know you well, Ma’am.”

“Get out of here,” Karen grumbled, hitting the hold button on the phone, and putting it to her ear. “This is Karen Jord, LEO Administrator.”

“Uh… yeah, hi?”

She sighed, instantly realizing that this was going to be one of those conversations.

“Who am I speaking with?” She asked, nudging it along.

“Oh, um, right. I’m Devin Meeran. My Dad is here too…”

“Thomas Meeran, Ma’am,” Another voice said.

“Mr. and Ms. Meeran then, I understand that you own the App the terrorists are streaming on?”

“I coded it, Yes Ma’am.”

Karen judged the boy’s age to be early to mid teens. Good lord, his balls haven’t even dropped, and I’m supposed to deal with him concerning a terrorist situation. I swear technology gets dumber every year.

“Might I ask why you called?” She enquired, honestly curious.

“Uh, well a friend pointed out that… well, that is, Novah called me up when she saw it was streaming on my site and she was pretty… well, insistent that I call someone.”

“I see.”

Karen didn’t see, at all, but she was dealing with, apparently, two teenagers now, albeit one of them indirectly.

“Did she say why?”

Talking to this kid is like pulling teeth, I wish he’d get to the point.

“She, that is Novah,” Devin said. “First said I should call the police and see what they wanted me to do, but then she realized something, and it seemed kind of important.”

Just get on with it!

“Oh?” Karen said aloud, “What might that have been?”

“Well, Ma’am, you see my app? It’s called Metalert, right?”

“Yes, I can see the logo on the stream.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I wrote it for Spotters, and that’s my entire user base, really.”

“Spotters?”

That sounded familiar.

“Super Spotters, Ma’am.”

Ahh, yes. Those idiots.

“I see, which is why you called the LEOs,” Karen said, getting a handle on the reasoning finally. “Well, I thank you for your offer of help, and if we can think of anything you can do we’ll let you know. Normally we wouldn’t want this sort of thing streaming out in real time, so…”

“Uh, no, not that… I mean, yes, but no…”

His interruption sent a spike of irritation through her, but she clamped down on it hard. She wasn’t going to start snapping at a kid because he was annoying. If she started doing that, there were a lot of more deserving adults who’d be in line to catch hell from her before this kid was.

“What is it then?”

“Well, Ma’am, Metalert is for superhuman spotters, right?”

“You said that, yes.”

“Have you seen any superhumans on the video, Ma’am?”

Well, yes, I have actually, though I don’t think anyone else has recognized Freerunner.

“No,” She lied, “But why would…”

She paused, suddenly flashing to what he meant by that.

Assuming they didn’t expect Freerunner, and I highly doubt they did, they must have set all this up long ago. Why use a Spotter App… unless…

“I need to put you on hold,” She said sharply. “Please stay on the line.”

Without waiting for a response, she hit the hold button and stood up.

“Everyone, eyes on me!” She snapped, “The NYPD isn’t the target, we are. Get me the Commodore on the line, now!”

*****

Casey easily spotted the curling smoke rising as he approached the target area. Even in the night it stood out against the city’s lights. NYPD SWAT was rolling not far behind him, and they’d hit the target at pretty close to the same time, with him slightly in the lead to give the terrorists something to be distracted by when it all went down.

He accelerated into the area of operations, staying just under the speed of sound but moving fast enough that he’d given little to no warning of his attack as he came in other the level of the buildings, from the Northeast along Broadway.

His radio buzzed in his ear just as he committed, popping up over the rooftops less than a block from the parking garage and dropped down right into the middle of the spotters the terrorists had placed there.

“Little busy here,” He snarled, grabbing one of the spotters by the back of the neck and yanking him off his feet, tossing him back into the air conditioning unit before moving on to the next.

“It’s a trap, Casey, for you!”

“What?” Casey blinked, pausing only to chop the legs out from another man, dropping him in a heartbeat. “What are you talking about? They wouldn’t be that crazy, these are just thugs with guns.”

“Casey, they’re trained former Spetsnaz! They have a plan. Get out of there!”

“NYPD is rolling in now,” Casey snarled, he could hear the sirens. “If I drop out of here, they’re going to be slaughtered!”

“Goddamnit, Casey, the cops are bait.”

Casey shook his head, “Relax, Karen, I’ve got this.”

*****

World Parking Garage, Third Floor

“He’s on the roof.”

The leader of the group nodded, “Less blatant than expected. He came in under the rooftops to get that close without being spotted much farther out.”

“Our spotters on the roof have been removed from play,” The second man said. “However, we have eyes on him from multiple other locations.”

“Very well, execute the first salvo.”

“Yes sir.”

*****

Chace Bank Building, Rooftop

Tee whistled softly with some appreciation for the blitz the Commodore had dropped onto the rooftop spotters, taking them out almost fast enough that he’d missed it entirely. One blink at the wrong time and the show would have been all over just like that.

Tee shifted his targeting with the Macmillan, focusing on the shooters in the lower floors now that the Commodore had taken out the spotters on the roof.

Let’s see what you’ve been up to my little pretties, he thought as he dropped the crosshairs over the small, yet heavily armed, group within the parking structure.

They weren’t looking especially panicked that New York’s finest LEO had just dropped in on their heads with the clear intent of busting in some skulls, but with what he knew of this group just from looking at then, he’d have been shocked if they were.

Tee made an adjustment on his scope, dropping the range down two notches on the knob. They were closer than he was used to shooting at, which probably wouldn’t have made much difference all things considered, but he was a professional, so he wanted his shots to go precisely where he pointed them.

He slid the bolt forward, loading the cartridge he’d had waiting, and locked it in place before dropping his finger down to caress the trigger.

“Tee to all points,” He whispered into his radio, “Am about to go active…”

“Tee,” Karen Jord’s sharp voice startled him, “It’s a trap, for the Commodore.”

Tee stiffened, “How sure?”

“Pretty damn sure.”

He didn’t ask how they knew, it didn’t matter. Verte pulled his eye off the scope, widening his view, and started scanning the environment. It made sense, he decided as he looked, targeting the police was pretty stupid, all things considered. It was a high risk, low return operation. Killing a few cops might make for headlines, which was how terrorists would think, but in a city like New York, all that it really meant was that you got every cop in the city and a hell of a lot of new ones importing from other places really, really, pissed at you.

For a terrorist, that was a win.

It wasn’t something he expected from former GRU soldiers, however, no matter what kind of scum they’d become.

The Commodore, however…?

Now we’re talking high risk but high reward, Verte thought grimly.

Taking out New York’s premier Superhuman was doing more than sending a message. It was crippling the city’s ability to respond to the superhuman threats the Russians were importing, it was warning everyone else that no one was out of their reach. It was establishing military dominance.

THAT sounds a lot more like the GRU bastards I’ve met over the years.

At night, in a city like New York, the whole environment was a sniper’s dream. Noises were everywhere, and there was no sun to glint off your scope. Millions of people to vanish into when the job was done. Verte felt a chill run down his spine.

They were all in a kill box, but he didn’t know where the hell the lines of fire even were… or what they were.

The first shot hit the Commodore over a second and a half before Verte heard the rolling thunder.

*****

Islay Home

Issa watched, unable to look away as the video streaming changed. It now seemed to show the roof of a building. She instantly recognized the figure centered in the shot, everyone in the city knew the Commodore.

He was standing. Floating just a few inches off the ground, there were armed… or formerly armed men lying around him, but he looked every bit the hero that he was purported to be on any of the media she’d ever seen. She felt the thrill of seeing him inaction, but at the same time there was a foreboding that suddenly struck her as well.

She shrieked as his iconic blue helmet shattered on screen, a halo of dark spatter surrounding his head as he was twisted around and driven down to the roof, falling to one knee.

Issa stared, her mind working on different levels, one part shocked and uncomprehending while a different part filled in the velocity and kinetic impact of the bullet that had just hit the Commodore. A second and a half later she heard the sound of distant thunder over her speakers and her brain whispered to her.

Eighteen hundred yards away.

Issa didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it for a fact just the same.

“Novah! What’s wrong?” Cindy rushed into her room, looking worried.

Issa turned to look at her mother, unaware that she had tears running down her cheeks.

“Someone shot the Commodore, mom. It’s streaming live.”

*****

Chace Bank Rooftop

Tee pivoted his rifle on the bipod, already thumbing the range up several notches, moving the zero out to eighteen hundred yards as he started looking for positions the enemy sniper could have fired from.

Unfortunately, he was rather spoiled for options. Within that range there were buildings in a wide arc along the vector he estimated the shot had come from, and if they’d been prepping this for as long as he suspected they must have, he’d put money down on the sniper shooting from an interior nest. An apartment or office, probably with a cut-out in the window that would be incredibly difficult to spot in any circumstances, let alone at night and under pressure.

“Tee here,” He said over his radio as he looked, “Sniper threat. Commodore took a hit, guessing it was a fifty from the sound…”

He glanced over, noticing that the superhuman LEO was getting back to his feet.

“Commodore is still active, but he definitely felt that one.”

Tee had no idea just how bulletproof the Commodore was. For obvious reasons the New York LEOs jealously guarded specifics much the way his team did. Operational security made things safer for everyone, but it could be a pain when you had allies not in the know trying to figure out the best course of action.

For now, he decided that the best he could do was try to find the sniper, at least for the moment.

He had to make some guesses, using his own instincts and experiences and little else to guide him. The shot had come in at a slight downward angle, that eliminated a lot of potential buildings, the parking garage was a big one and the Commodore had been in flight a little above the roof. He had to guess at the angle it came in from, parallel to the ground, but he could eliminate some of the more extreme angles to either side.

That left him with a dozen buildings in his sweep, at least, with maybe six to ten floors each he had to check.

Need to narrow this down.

There weren’t a lot of ways he could do that, unfortunately, and the only one he had any reasonable chance of…

There!

The flash was visible in the night, even suppressed as it was by the window the shot had been taken through. Verte guessed that the concussion from the first shot had blown out the glass, even though they’d almost certainly fired through a cut out. That left the second shot open to being spotted.

He dropped his cheek to the pad on his rifle and looked through the scope, dropping the crosshairs on the darkened spot on the building, where there was no glass to reflect the city’s lights. Inside, he could just make out a hint of a reflection from the enemy’s optics.

His finger barely moved the trigger when the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge roared, ejecting the round through the barrel of his rifle and into a ballistic arc that took just over a second and a half to cross the distances involved. He rode the recoil, hand working the bolt automatically, but his mind stayed on the target through the entire action.

His rifle was loaded and ready for a second shot before the first landed, and through the scope Verte saw a glint of almost sparks fly off in different directions, and something in the darkness sort of… slump. He waited for a count of two before lifting his eye from the scope to look back to the parking garage.

“Shot out. Sniper down.”

The Commodore was moving again, he saw, one hand wiping something from his eyes while the other clutched at his shoulder, but he looked intact for the most part and mobile. That was saying a lot more than most people could who’d been hit by two rounds fifty BMG, or possibly 12.7mm.

*****

World Parking Garage, Third Floor

“We lost our sniper, Commander.”

“What? How?”

“The NYPD must have moved snipers of their own into position without us noticing,” the messenger said. “It is the only thing I can think of.”

“Damn. I did not think they would be able to respond so quickly, or quietly for that matter.” The leader grumbled. “Doesn’t affect our end. Proceed according to the plan.”

“Yes sir.”

The leader let out a breath as he examined the feed over his laptop. The blood on the Commodore’s face told him all he needed to know about the mission and the target.

You can bleed, you can die… and we can kill you.

*****

Rooftop, World Parking Garage

Casey was a little dazed as he slipped around, getting behind cover as best he could manage.

Getting shot hurt a lot more than he remembered from testing, though they had only tested small arms with an emphasis on small. He could feel the warmth of the blood from his head wound running down his neck, and his shoulder seemed bruised more than broken, which left him thinking that he’d probably got away with fairly minimal injuries.

“Commodore.”

“I’m here,” He gritted out. “For the record, I agree that them targeting me might be a bit of an issue.”

“So nice of you to come around on that,” Karen’s voice was dry. “The sniper that shot you is down. Verte is providing support, but don’t assume that was all they had.”

“Right,” He nodded, blinking his eyes a few times. “Now if only I can get the ringing out of my ear.”

“You just tanked a fifty-caliber round to the head, you’re lucky you still have ears to ring.”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

“Main group of targets is on the third level of the building, but we don’t know what sort of support you’ve got. NYPD SWAT is rolling in regardless. They’re going to try and get the officer and Freerunner out. Shackles will be on the roof with you shortly, she’ll take care of securing your takedowns.”

“Got it. I’ll head for the third floor then.”

“Be careful, Casey,” Karen stressed. “These people are not thugs, no matter who they’re working for. They’re dangerous.”

“That’s the job.”

He dropped the call and pushed himself straight, wiping the blood away again. He healed faster than normal, so the worst of the bleeding was already slowing, but it was a head wound and those were just pains in that regard. He walked over to the edge of the building, glancing around only briefly, before stepping off and dropping straight down.

Ready or not, here I come.

*****

Chapter 16

Meeran Household

Devin stared at the phone that had been quiet since he’d been put on hold, “What do I do, dad?”

Thomas wasn’t in much better shape, frankly, and all he could do was shrug.

“Honestly, all you can do now is wait. See what, if anything, they want you to do.”

“Dad, someone just shot the Commodore in the head on my App! That’s nuts!”

“It’s a live stream, Devin. When you allow live video, it’s hard to control what people will see,” Thomas sighed wearily. “I expect that you’ll need to at least censor any saved recordings that show up. Can you set that up?”

Devin blinked, but nodded. “Yeah, I can do that easy.”

He quickly tagged the file and activated a flag in the software.

“What was that?”

“I made the video invisible. You can still see the stream but you can’t rewind or download it. It won’t stop some people with capture software, but it’ll slow it down a little. I’d kill the stream entirely but…”

“No, bad idea, son. If you do that, then you cut the LEOs off from it too, and they’re using it as much as the criminals are.”

Devin stared at the computer very seriously for a long moment, “I need to rethink how I coded this app, don’t I?”

“That might be a good idea, yes.”

The pair sat in silence, waiting for the LEO administrator to get back to them, both knowing that she was an incredibly busy woman all of a sudden.”

*****

Chace Bank Building, Rooftop

Tee was really a fan of playing counter-sniper. It was a job that required fast thinking, quick moves, and split-second moments between success and failure. He was a patient man, despite his outward appearance, willing, even eager, to wait days to get the perfect shot. Having to draw the vector in his head and make the call in less than a second, well he could do it, but it felt rushed… and he hated being rushed.

It also made it hard to maintain his position. Once you took a shot or two if someone was out there looking for you, you were boned.

That used to be a big problem he had with the Counter Sniper role.

Not so much these days, Verte thought as he flapped the bipod down and slid the rifle away into the shadows beneath the ledge before he got to his feet and walked back into the big air conditioning rigs behind him, vanishing entirely between one step and the next.

*****

Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Rooftop

Tee stepped out of the shadows of a very different set of almost identical air conditioning towers, feet crunching on the asphalt covering as he dropped to one knee and reached back into the shadows to draw out his scout binoculars. He could hear the sirens still, but he was a block and bit away from the parking garage, on a taller building entirely.

Tee froze as he heard a sound that didn’t belong, however, and eased slowly back to his feet while remaining in a crouch. Slowly he edged around to the Northern side of the roof until he spotted the source of the sound.

Well, hello there, Verte thought with some amusement but also more than a slight rush of chills down his spine.

He crept over as the pair of prone people spoke over their own radio, in Russian. It was either coded or, possibly, a dialect he wasn’t really familiar with, but he didn’t really need to know what they were saying. Verte waited for them to finish whatever it was they were reporting before he moved.

When he saw the speaker set his radio down, Verte acted.

A boot planted hard on the neck of the spotter ended his threat instantly, the audible crack making that entirely clear, then Verte dropped on the sniper as his knife slid clear of the scabbered.

The Russian was fast, Verte would give him that, but lying prone with a rifle in your arm put you at an immense disadvantage when dealing with a man standing over you holding a knife. Verte planted a foot on the rifle as he dropped, keeping the sniper from rolling it around, then just let gravity and his blade do the rest.

The shooter tried to block with his arm, take the blow there so he’d at least live to fight, butVerte’s blade was just over a foot long and razor sharp. He speared it right through the shooter’s forearm and down into his throat, held it there for a moment before twisting it harshly and yanking back.

Tee ignored the gurgling sound and blood flow, stepping over the bodies and taking a knee at the edge of the roof.

“Tee here,” he said into the radio as he surveyed the area, looking to see if he could spot any other of the enemy nests. “Second sniper and spotter down. I’ve relocated to the roof of the Time-Warner Center.”

“Roger that,Verte. SWAT has been advised.” Karen’s voice came back. “The Commodore reports that he’s going after the group in the parking garage.”

“Understood. He’s out of my sight now,” Verte confirmed. “How are SWAT doing?”

“They’re rolling in with armored vehicles now.”

*****

Street Level, West 61st

Freerunner twitched as she heard a deep rumbling sound, twisting her head around nervously.

“Diesel engine, big one,” Ryan said, reaching for his radio. “Dispatch, this is Perrin, have news for me?”

“Roger Officer Perrin, SWAT is rolling on your position now. Be ready to pull out.”

“Been ready for a while, Dispatch, thanks.” Ryan said, leaving the mic hanging on his lapel. He looked over to Freerunner, “Time to go.”

“Never more ready, I hate being cooped up,” she said, eager to get up and get moving.

Ryan risked a look up over the concrete gate they were hiding behind, and quickly spotted the Lenco Bearcat as it skidded to a stop. He tapped Freerunner on the shoulder as they both surged to their feet.

A SWAT officer burst out the big back door of the armored vehicle, leveling an M-4 up at the parking garage, firing bursts into the third floor where the reported spotting had been while two others ran over.

“Are you ok?” One yelled over the shots, grabbing Ryan by the shoulder as the other grabbed Freerunner.

“We’re good!” Ryan nodded.

“Alright, then move your butts!”

They were hustled fast into the vehicle, all but thrown into the back at the feet of a half dozen other armored SWAT officers who just grabbed them and dragged them deeper as the three who had jumped out nor jumped back in and banged on the side.

“Move! Move! Move!”

In less than thirty seconds they’d gone from stop to start, the SWAT Bearcat rumbling away from the parking garage as it headed for Broadway as fast as the big turbo diesel would push it.

*****

World Parking Garage

“I can take them.”

“Let them go,” The leader said. “They’ve served their purpose. We are not here to kill children for no reason.”

The first speaker nodded, stepping back from the window, and lowering the RPG-7 he had shouldered.

“Be ready, the target will be here shortly.”

“Yes sir.”

Words spoken were like prophecy, it seemed, as the large windows blew in a second later and the distinctive blue camo uniform worn by the Commodore faded in from the greys that had been more visible in the shadows outside. The LEO landed on the floor of the parking garage, eyes blazing as blood was dried up along his forehead, cheek, and neck.

“You seem to be looking for me,” He growled.

“Da,” The leader said genially. “It is very nice of you to join us.”

“How could I refuse the invitation?” The Commodore asked, stalking forward.

“You could not, of course.”

The Commodore reached up, rubbing some more of the blood from his face. “You know, I used to watch all sorts of superhero films and there’s something from one that I’ve always wanted to know if it were physically possible. I really want to thank you all for volunteering.”

The leader raised an eyebrow, “You’re welcome, of course, if you feel you can. Might I ask what you want to test?”

“Have any of you ever seen the prison scene from Hancock?” The Commodore asked, cracking his knuckles.

*****

Meeran Home

“Yes! Go get em Commodore!” Devin cheered.

His father, on the other hand, grimaced as he remembered the scene in question.

“This might need to be censored,” he said, paling slightly.

“Huh? Why?”

“I’ll show you the movie he’s talking about sometime, son, but trust me, that was a threat.”

Devin frowned, trying to remember, but honestly, he’d not watched many older superhero films. They were really kinda bad, and the new stuff was always so much better anyway. He brushed it off, currently more intent on the scene playing out on the live stream.

Thomas, however, was now frowning again.

“How many cameras are they using for this feed?” He wondered aloud. “This is… what? The third view?”

“More than that, but I think it is the third… call it ‘scene’ they set,” Devin confirmed, checking the metadata from the feed. “They’re good cameras too. 8k, live streaming through the Tower’s hardline feed. I wonder if they hacked it?”

“Probably just rented an office there,” Thomas said. “That would give them access to come and go, and Crown Tower has a lot of open rental space at the moment from what I understand.”

“Well, it’s all being sent to a cloud site before being redirected to my app,” Devin said, checking some other things. “I’m guessing that they’re archiving a lot of this for future use too.”

Thomas nodded, unsurprised. “Can you trace it?”

“Not past the cloud,” Devin shook his head. “They’re using a Russian server for that.”

“Not much chance of getting their provider to turn over the data then, not in any kind of timely manner at least.”

Thomas was glad this wasn’t his mess… well, not anymore than it was because his son owned the app that was currently in use, at least.

Damn it, it is my mess, isn’t it?

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

Karen sat, silent and unmoving, as she stared at the feed. She’d been in this position more often in her life than she wanted to remember, but it was never any easier to watch men fighting for their lives while you were stuck on the other end of a video screen, unable to do anything of import to help them.

“I want every frame of this examined,” She ordered. “There’s too much work here to be anything but a professional job. Professionals leave signatures. Find them. I want to know every person involved, I want their names, I want their addresses, and I want their heads on pikes outside this building!”

That last bit got her some startled looks, but she didn’t give a damn. Someone was fucking playing with fire out there, and she was going to make good goddamn well certain that they got burned for it.

The Commodore, Casey, was looking as rough as she’d ever seen him. Normally his enhancements made it pretty hard for anything he was likely to run into out there to cause him any significant harm. She hadn’t done the studies into how the quantum virus enhanced people, of course, nor even really read all of them. They were written by some serious brains, and their language reflected that.

She was up to date on the summaries, however, and have personally called in more than one of the brains to get them to explain themselves to her like she was a kindergartener.

It wasn’t a pleasant thing for anyone involved, but it got the job done.

The Commodore’s enhancements were basically a personal telekinetic field, which was in sync with the reports on The Marine from the original superhuman tests done five years earlier. How strong Casey’s field was by comparison, she didn’t know, but it was more than strong enough to stand up to the kinetic force from small arms, even fired in rapid succession.

A heavy anti-material rifle or, likely an accurized version of same, was obviously enough to defeat the field partially, but Casey was still moving.

He was also pretty pissed, if she were any judge, not that she blamed him.

She desperately wanted to call him to tell him to watch himself, given that he was being streamed and all, but he’d already been told that a couple times and didn’t seem to care, so she wasn’t going to distract him at the moment. Karen just hoped that he didn’t do anything too extreme.

She could brush over a lot, given that he’d just taken a shot to the head from a sniper and several cops were already dead, but a certain level of brutality would always play badly, no matter what the provocation.

Don’t lose your cool, Casey. Put them down, hard, but clean.

*****

“Fire!”

Casey scanned the room, spotting the men who stepped into view quickly, and moved to avoid the shots but he was in a contained space and there was just limited place to move to. A chatter of automatic weapons filled the parking level, the boom just tearing up the air as Kalashnikov rifles erupted into rapid fire.

The 7.62mm rounds were like a heavy rain compared to the heavier rifle that had been used on him earlier, and they were a rain he could weather. Putting an arm up to cover his eyes, Casey began striding forward, intent on getting to the leader of this little bullshit mess and making good on his threat.

“Igor!”

Casey caught a glimpse of movement as Igor, he presumed, stepped out into the open and leveled something else at him.

He heard the whoosh before he could quite register what it was, and half turned just in time to see the RPG round hiss through the air and catch him right in the mid section.

Rocket Propelled Grenades used shaped charges to focus the explosive warhead into the target, creating a high energy plume of plasma that cut like a small cylinder of the sun burning through armor like it was butter. The Commodore’s field interacted differently with the plasma than it had the physical bullet from earlier, but while it could not slice a hole through his chest, the energy had to go somewhere.

Casey was lifted clean off his feet as the detonation pushed all the air out of the parking level, hammering everything and everyone with massive overpressure, and he was thrown back with vicious force, right through the shattered windows and out onto West 61st St.

Dazed, Casey felt the pavement slam into his back and, being weakened enough, he fought to draw breath as the oxygen was pushed from his lungs. Eyes wide with the shock of it, he kept trying to suck in air as he saw movement between the spots in his eyes, people appearing in the space where windows used to be above him.

How are any of them still alive?

Casey felt his stomach twist as, one by one, the strike team casually jumped from the third story window, slamming into the sideway below, and then turned to start walking in his direction.

“Well, Mr. Commodore,” The leader said mockingly, “You are right, there will be a movie re-enacted here tonight, but I am very sorry that it will not be the one you hoped for. I was thinking, perhaps, something less comedic and more… tragic. Da?”

*****

Time Warner Towers

“Tee, are you there?”

“I’m here, what is it?” Verte asked, hearing the tension in the voice on the other end. Karen was a hard lady, but she knew how to talk over the radio, she’d learned it from a career of doing that. She knew that no one liked hearing the radio dispatcher panic, so when he heard that tension in her, Verte knew it was serious.

“The team inside the building appear to be power enhanced,” She said, “They ambushed the Commodore with a rocket, survived the blast, and have now followed him out onto West 61st.”

Tee frowned, checking from where he was positioned, “I don’t have a visual, the tower is blocking me. I’m going to change positions, will get back to you.”

“Thank you.”

Tee stashed his gear in the shadow of the ledge, then rose up and stepped back over the two bodies on his way back to the air conditioning blowers.

Those two aren’t enhanced, He decided after a bit of thought. Must have been planning on something like that from the start, only brought people who could survive the explosives in that close.

That showed more than planning, it showed forethought and intent. They didn’t just setup an ambush to bring in the Commodore, they had a plan to deal with him, probably several. The rifle shot was a test round, Verte decided. Sure, they’d have been happy if it worked, but judging from the fact that they were live streaming all of this, he somehow didn’t think they actually wanted it to.

They were escalating, moving up the force projection list, trying to see what it would take to put the Commodore down for the count.

I really don’t like competent enemies. This is why I always liked terrorists, they’re stupid and you don’t feel bad about grinding them into paste.

He stepped through the shadows again, this time emerging silently on a building across the street, in the shadow of Crown Tower, where he froze briefly in shock.

*****

Casey looked around the group briefly, stretching out his neck slightly until he heard a bit of a pop in the tendons.

“Ah, that feels better,” he said, putting his right fist into his left palm. “Had a terrible kink in my neck all day, I think you knocked it loose.”

“How droll,” The leader sneered at him. “Fitting that you want to go out on a joke, considering that’s all you ever were. Isn’t that right, Mr. Jackson?”

Casey felt his body chill as he froze in place, eyes wide as he took in what the man had just said.

“Oh yes, I know who you are… and who you were,” the Russian laughed. “I’m surprised that some of your allies allow you to wear that… costume. You never served a day in your life, and your civilian record is… well, I was going to say interesting, but frankly pathetic would be more accurate.”

Casey growled, fists tightening until his skin was stretched white along his knuckles.

“I made my share of mistakes,” He admitted. “Had more than my share of brushes with the law, on the wrong side. When this happened to me, someone made me an offer. Make good on what I had been given, turn my life around. I took it. What did you do? Go hunting through the Russian army records until you found all the scumbags from your old units who’d been empowered so you could hire them?”

“Oh hardly,” The leader smiled widely, shifting his focus to look somewhere other than Casey, confusing him. “No, I went looking for old friends who… fit a certain profile. Then, I made them what they are today… is that not right, comrades?”

The other man chuckled openly, and Casey blinked as he put the story together.

“You…” He stopped himself, not wanting to say it aloud.

“I know how to create Superhumans? Why yes, yes, I do. And I’m recruiting,” The leader said. “I’m so very pleased you could be part of my little promotional video, Mr. Jackson.”

Shit.

******

LEO Hq, Manhattan

“Shit! So that’s what this is all about,” Karen snapped, grabbing for the phone. “Karen Jord here. Put me through to the Deputy Director. Now.”

It took only a few seconds, “Sir, yes, Jord. I apologize for interrupting you at home, but we have a serious problem. Are you aware of the events in New York? Well, you’ll want to get up to date. This has national security implications. The gang war here has spun up into international terrorism, at the very least. Arguably, given how deep the Russian Mob has penetrated the government over there, it could be argued that this is an invasion by a foreign power… No, I wouldn’t say that in public Sir, just pointing out the worst-case interpretation.”

She waited, nodding, “Yes sir. We do need to get on this, but the problem is that I don’t know that I have the power here to do anything about it. The lead element of the opposing force has indicated that he’s been engaged in a campaign to create superhuman soldiers under his command… No, I have no reason to doubt him at the moment, given he has at least a dozen of them at his side right now.”

There was brief yelling on the other side of that, which caused her to flinch and moved the phone from her ear, but it wasn’t directed at her precisely and at least she now knew that the Deputy Director was taking it seriously.

“Yes Sir, I would advise strongly that you loop Homeland in on this, assuming they don’t already know. Unfortunately, we can’t contain it Sir, the Russians made sure of that, they’re live streaming it. We can try to shut it down, but you know the internet. Once it’s out, it’s out, and they certainly have the master copies anyway.”

She sighed, “I’ll get the NSA to try, but don’t expect much. Very well, I’ll contact you later. Bye Sir.”

The phone hit the table as she rose up, “Ok, we need the cordon of that area pushed back, at least two more blocks,” Jord ordered. “Anything even goes near Crown Tower gets turned back, am I understood?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Someone call the Jersey Office,” She snapped. “As well as Boston and DC. We need any superhuman we can get. This is going to get ugly.”

*****

Chapter 17

Islay Home

Issa stared at the screen, her mother alongside her. Neither of them could manage to turn away.

“He… he was staring right at the camera when he said that, wasn’t he?” Issa said more than asked. She knew that the leader of this… whatever it was. She suspected that the government would classify it as a terrorist act, not that they’d be far wrong, though from the strictest of rule lawyering definitions she didn’t think it actually matched up.

Issa blinked, where did THAT thought come from?

She found that she’d been having odd thoughts all day, getting stronger the more she tried to figure out how she’d changed since the attack on the Blue Solar building. One of the changes was, well it wasn’t perfect recall exactly as best she could tell at least. It was more along the lines of perfect retrieval?

If she wanted a memory, she could grab it at will and review it in perfect detail, but thankfully it wasn’t like her whole life was crammed into her head on some kind of constant playback. If she didn’t want to remember something, it stayed the hell away.

Thank God.

She was only fifteen, but there were already more than enough memories she didn’t ever want to think of again, let alone revisit in better clarity than her original run through them.

It had some uses, however, including bringing up the information she’d once read for class about the way the government legally defined terrorist acts. She had the verbatim definition almost literally scrolled across her mind, with various points and addendums being collated and linked in.

If she wasn’t so shocked and enthralled by the events on the screen, Issa figured she’d have been completely geeking out over that ability. NONE of the articles she’d read had even mentioned anything like this when they talked about superhuman abilities.

They were all, flying this, and super strength that… She thought. Ok, flying would be the ultimate, but this is WAY better than punching people harder.

It took a wrenching expenditure of will for Issa to refocus herself on the video as her mind tried to go off on another tangent, calculating ways she could arrange to punch people harder, if she wanted.

Actually, that’s kind of interesting… is that an exo-skele… no, focus Iz. Focus.

The Commodore was facing off against… Issa frowned. Eleven. The number jumped into her head. Eleven ambushers, and they were looking altogether too pleased with the situation for her comfort.

Doesn’t he have any help?

*****

Rooftop

Tee took a knee by the ledge and reached into the shadow to withdraw his rifle, opting for his Barret M82 instead of the .338 Lapua Magnum. Checking the breach quickly before rapping the underside of the magazine to seat it properly and working the bolt to chamber a round, Verte dropped the chunky bipod onto the ledge and curled his left arm over the butt as he snugged it in tight to his shoulder.

“This isVerte, I’m in position,” he said, getting a cheek weld and sight picture through the scope as he clicked down the thumb wheel to drop the range to effectively point blank for the rifle. “Have a shot.”

“HoldVerte, until they attack, or we clear you to fire,” Karen said quickly. “Let them blabber their plans.”

“Roger that. Enemy is monologuing, roger.”

Tee just managed to hold back a snort as he said that, but it was a close thing. He had actually seen a few people do just that in the past, and remembered the times that Hale had dealt with idiots who tried that on him.

If the enemy decided to monologue, it was often a good idea to just let them do it. Especially if you were a super powered individual who’d just taken a bit of a beating and had an enhanced regenerative metabolism. So, he kept his finger straight along the guard as he dropped the cross hairs over the targets below, one by one, trying to determine the priority target.

He wasn’t certain that his bullets would do any better than the enemy’s had against the Commodore, of course, but they would be distracting if nothing else.

*****

West 61st St

“All of this, just to recruit more low life scum to your little party?” Casey demanded, rolling his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You, Mr. Jackson, are one to talk about low lives. I’ve seen your record.”

“Perhaps you have, and maybe I did make mistakes, but when I got a second chance, I stepped up. Made changes. What have you done besides bring misery to everyone around you?” Casey asked, eyes sweeping the group. “I have a pretty good idea what you would have had to do, you know.”

“Is it not worth it?” The leader asked, lifting slightly into the air. “What would you have paid before your change, to get that second chance?”

I need to shut this guy up, Casey was realizing. Letting him talk had seemed like a good idea, but this wasn’t information that people should have, not like this. Not now.

“I don’t know, a lot of people I’ve run into didn’t think it was worth the end they eventually came to,” he said aloud. “There’s no happy ending in this, not for any of you.”

“On that, we will have to disagree,” The leader laughed, a little manically to Casey’s mind. “It is a brave new world, Mr. Jackson. The strong will rule the weak, as nature intended.”

“Nature has nothing to do with your psychotic bullshit.”

The leader leveled a glare at him, “Spare me the name calling, it is beneath your station.”

“Sorry, lunatic,” Casey said dryly. “But you haven’t given me a name to use, dumbass, so I’m filling in on the fly. How am I doing?”

“Very… irritatingly.”

“Perfect, that’s pretty much what I was going for, dipshit.”

“Fine. You want this to be a thug’s battle? I’m fine with that.”

Casey tensed, spotting a signal as the man’s hands flickered, but he had no idea what it meant. He found out a moment later when a beam of roiling plasma slammed into him from the side, throwing him off his feet and across the street into the wall of the Crown Tower.

*****

Rooftop

“Talking’s over, going active.” Verte said tersely as he swept the heavy rifle across to target the shooter.

The crosshairs dropped onto the target, the range from the roof to the street below was only a couple hundred meters, close enough to be point blank for the Barret. He braced, leaning into the rifle a bit, letting the bipod take up some of the weight, and curled his finger around the trigger before giving it a fairly solid squeeze.

The Barret roared, an angry dragon in the night, spitting fire and brimstone through the chill New York air.

The heavy SLAP round he’d opted to lead with reached out and bitch-slapped his target in an instant, dropping the superhuman blaster in a halo of blood and gore that told Verte the target was down, barring some kind of insane healing… which, he knew wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, but was opting not to dwell on.

“Shot out. Hit. Next target.”

He pivoted, bringing the rifle about just enough to catch the next sucker out in the open. The Barret roared again, sending another 360-grain tungsten penetrator on its way. This target staggered, but didn’t drop, so Verte hit again, and then a third time for good measure.

“Shots out. Hit. Next target.”

He was sweeping to another man, the group on the ground now having gotten the message that there was something to be worried about, and had to track the target as he ran for cover. Before Verte could get a clear shot, however, a whining sound like a bee in his ear rent the air around him and he felt a hammer blow to his shoulder.

Tee twisted, going down, the pain flaring up and down his arm as he lost the grip on the rifle, and it clattered to the rooftop beside him.

“Sniper!” He called, rolling under the lip of the ledge.

Pain flaring through his shoulder, Verte reached up and curled his fingers into a cut as he pushed them into the shadow cast on him, through his shoulder, and withdrew them with a deformed round rattling softly in his grip.

Seven Sixty-Two, surprised it didn’t go through and through, He noted idly, hearing more shots rolling across the night.

“Valor Two, SWAT. Sniper down.”

“Thank you,” Verte said, heaving himself up to a sitting position as he dragged the Barret in closer. He noticed a gouge in the stock from the bullet hitting that before it hit him. And that would explain why it didn’t just go through.

Getting shot sucks, even with a healing factor.

He could feel his shoulder starting to knit back together, but didn’t have time to wait. He jammed the stock of the big rifle up in there, ignoring the pain as he leaned it over the roof again.

Where are you bastards?

*****

Casey sucked in air painfully, his lungs objecting to the scorching heat they’d just been exposed to just as his muscles were none too happy about being hammered into the side of a building. He shook his head, climbing to his feet as he heard approaching footsteps.

“Get him before he recovers, the sniper is down.”

Sniper? Casey shook his head, trying to clear it.Verte. Right, those were the secondary booms, probably.

He didn’t have time to wonder how that had worked out, and only hoped that Verte had survived, but if they were calling that the sniper was down, well it wasn’t a good sign. Casey got himself to his feet, feeling a lot less steady than he was used to.

Crumbling chunks of cement fell to the ground as he moved, jostling them loose from the hole he’d made when he hit the building. He brushed some of the dust off, more an autonomic reflex than anything he’d put thought into as he stepped out of the hole.

A rush of motion from the side caused him to twist, putting up his arms to catch the blow that was coming. He blocked an overhead axe handle blow, catching the man’s hands at the wrists. The force imparted was still enough to send him staggering back, but Casey kept his footing nonetheless, and managed to brace enough to start pushing back.

He saw the second blow coming out of the corner of his eye, but couldn’t adjust fast enough as the fist hammered into his kidneys with enough force to lift him off the ground.

Casey grunted, teeth baring as he pushed the first attacker to the side, letting him stumble a bit while Casey’s left hand flashed out and grabbed the second, yanking him into range. He was bringing up a knee with enough power to shatter concrete, but before it landed a kick rocked his head around, sending Casey to the ground in a sprawl.

“So valiant, so brave,” The Russian accented voice of the leader of the group said mockingly, his voice then smoothing out, becoming serious, “So stupid.”

Casey struggled to his hands and knees, only to catch a boot to the face that sent him twisting around. He landed hard on his back, hands grasping out at the ground. When his grip closed around a chunk of cement, Casey whipped it off without hesitating, catching a closing attacker in the face with enough force to lay him out flat on his back and eliciting laughter from the others around.

“Idiot.” The leader said, clearly amused by the events, but irritated just the same. “Get up!”

“Sorry, Boss,” The man Casey had pegged mumbled out, climbing back to his feet.

The leader was about to say something else when the man who’d just gotten to his feet abruptly dropped like a puppet with his strings cut, the rolling boom following almost instantly.

Everyone dove for cover in different directions.

“Someone kill that fucking sniper!”

Thank you,Verte, Casey thought grimly as he got to moving as well, trying to put some distance between him and the Russian criminals.

*****

Rooftop

Tee gritted his teeth against the pain, his knitting shoulder not able to keep up with the massive recoil of the rifle he’d chosen for the job, but refused to let up as he turned and fired again. The enemy were moving now, but at this range and angle that wasn’t buying them much recourse from the powerful weapon.

It didn’t take them long to figure out where he was, however, and he spotted a pair of the Russians lifting off the ground and accelerating in his direction.

Adding a third dimension to the game they were playing was a bit much for the Barret to handle. The chunky rifle was a little bit too big for that, and while he was easily enough able to manage sweeping it along the two-dimensional plane of the street below, Verte quickly found that trying to bring the heavy rifle up fast enough to catch a flyer was just a little bit out of his current capabilities.

“American, you made a big mistake getting involved in this,” One of them snarled at him as he passed the rooftop and arced overhead, putting some height on his side.

Tee ignored him, letting the rifle drop to the roof as he drew his sidearm.

In the forces, he’d always been issued a standard M9 but over the run of his career he’d both been able to requisition and to use field ‘requisitioning’ to acquire a pretty wide array of sidearms. He knew that the boss swore by the up-powered 5.7mm Magnum rounds in the new offerings from FN Herstal over the years, but he had always been more old school.

The Colt 1911, in its original configuration, had been around for what was soon to be closing on a hundred and fifty years, and had been in service pretty much that entire period. Verte liked having a bit more ammo on tap than an original 1911 could offer, however, so he used a Para-Ordinance variation with fourteen .45 caliber rounds in the magazine, plus one in the pipe if you were the sort to carry loaded.

Tee carried loaded.

The Para-Ordinance cleared the Kydex sheath on his hip as he twisted away from his rifle, the forty-five roaring right into the face of the second flyer who was trying to surprise him from the side while he was distracted by the first.

Surprise, not surprised, asshole.

The forty-five didn’t seem to do much actual damage, judging from the lack of blood, but the Russian wasn’t overly pleased with the heavy slugs slapping him around either, so Verte took that for a win as he continued twisting in space.

Over the years since the first event had changed him and the others, most of the group that now called themselves Stolen Valor, in part to honor Hale and his sacrifice, had learned a lot about their abilities. Initially, while they all knew they’d changed, only a few had shown obvious abilities that could be easily used.

Hale was the original flying brick, The Marine. His powers were obvious and in no way subtle, putting him out at the front of Superhuman culture the world over. Not all of them had been such. Initially, Verte himself knew that he’d gained an ability to heal properly, but it wasn’t for almost a year before he learned that shadows were his bitch.

He dove across the rooftop, flyer right on his ass, and vanished into the shadow of the AC cooling tower. The flyer, unable to stop or, perhaps, just confused by his disappearance, slammed right into the tower, wiping out AC for the building most likely, in a messy crash that echoed across the night.

“Where did he go?” The first snarled, twisting around in the air as he searched.

“Right here,” Verte said, stepping out of the shadow on the other side of the tower, Para-ordinance in his hand as he started emptying the magazine.

*****

Casey lifted his feet off the ground a bit, gaining full mobility from his powers as he cast about, looking for the targets.

Many of them had some ability to move, obviously. Like himself, they were able to accelerate out of proportion to their normal interaction with the environment. For him it was flight, but Casey didn’t think that was quite how most of this group managed it.

How did the Russian mob get this many powers enhanced people into the country? Especially if they have military background as Karen suggested?

He didn’t have a clue, unfortunately, but it was going to bug the hell out of him now.

He spotted one of them where the thug, or soldier, had gone to ground and flashed over in a burst of acceleration that left a pop of displaced air behind him. Not quite fast enough to break the sound barrier, but he wasn’t slouching around either.

Casey grabbed the man by the shoulder, yanking him up and ignoring the pop and cry of pain that happened under his grip. He was done with the kid glove routine, not that it would have been require with these assholes anyway.

“You’re under arrest,” He growled, tossing the man back across the street and into the wall of the Crown Tower, where he hit with a slapping sound more than a thud before peeling off the wall and hitting the ground. Since he wasn’t moving, Casey moved on to the next, “You’re all under arrest. Surrender peacefully, and this doesn’t have to get any worse for you.”

“Your overconfidence is amusing, Mr. Jackson.”

Casey turned, bringing the leader of the group into sight again.

“This city has seen it all, you and yours are just one more group of pissants trying to pretend you’re more than you are,” he said. “What was your plan anyway? Kill me and everyone in this city bows down to you? I may be overconfident, but there’s a line between that and delusional, and you are so far past that line that you’re over the horizon and trying to loop back around from the other side.”

“I suppose we will see, won’t we?”

Casey brought his fists up as he lifted off the ground, accelerating toward the target as fast as he could. The leader just remained in place, arms wide as he welcome the Commodore in.

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

“Casey you idiot, don’t bum rush this asshole, he has a plan!”

“We believe that the Commodore lost his radio earlier, Ma’am.”

“I know that. I also yell at my TV screen,” She snapped. “Do you want to make something of it?”

“No Ma’am.”

Karen spun back to the fight, cursing under her breath as she saw that Casey had already hit the leader while she’d been looking away. She was surprised to see that the Russian was bent over and looked like the hit had taken something out of him. For a moment she flirted with the idea that he’d just underestimated Casey’s strength.

He wouldn’t have been the first, not by a long shot. She had seen the numbers, as highly classified as they were. The Commodore was a serious powerhouse, capable of lifting heavy duty cargo containers, fully laden, and flying them across significant distances.

He wasn’t on par with the Marine, which was the comparison that was always begging to be made, but it was nothing that any human wanted to have being weaponized against them.

The Russian’s face, however, told the story. Despite the hit, and the pain from it, there was still a hint of victory there as Casey drove him down into the ground.

“Goddamn, Casey, get the hell out of there. We can take these bastards apart piecemeal if we have to, don’t try to fight them all at once…”

Unfortunately, there was no one to hear her.

*****

Islay Home

Issa felt a cheer swell up in her as she watched the Commodore drive the bad guy to the ground. She knew it was overly simplistic terminology, and it sounded childish to just say bad guy, but he’d been up there monologuing!

That was a bad guy, through and through.

She felt her mother hug her, the optimism flowing through both of them in the moment was palpable, but that… not voice, but similar, that had taken up residence in the back of her head was already whispering something.

Quantum vectors were realigned. The area has become intertwined.

Issa frowned.

What the hell does that mean?

*****

Casey planted his hand over the Russian’s throat, holding the man to the ground as he knelt over him and looked around.

“Any of your friends who don’t want to see you about a head shorter, better surrender right the hell now.”

The Russian laughed under the grip, “Oh really? Would you truly do it, I wonder?”

Casey tightened his grip, eyes boring a hole into the Russian as he glared down at him. “In a heartbeat. This ain’t the comic books. You just orchestrated the murder of multiple police and citizens of my city. I’m offering to take you in alive as a courtesy to the people who’ll have to clean up the mess if I don’t. Do not mistake that for weakness.”

“Oh, I wasn’t,” The Russian choked out, still smiling. “The weakness I saw was in your eyes. A violent man, pretending to be Just and righteous.”

“You don’t know me.”

“No, and now… no one ever will,” The Russian said, snapping his fingers.

Casey glanced down sharply, confused. He felt something change, but couldn’t identify it. He maintained his grip, eyes coming up, looking for what had suddenly sent a shiver down his spine. There was nothing to see, however, and he began to think that he had just been mistaken.

The bolt of lighting from a clear sky served notice that he should have paid attention to his instincts.

Casey screamed as the interminably long bolt burned through him, seeming to go on and on forever. After several long seconds, minutes, hours… he didn’t know, he felt himself flying through the air into a slide across the street.

Everything was blurry and he couldn’t seem to get his limbs to move properly as he twitched on the ground.

Casey blinked, staring up at the lights and the black sky beyond as they wavered in and out of focus. After time, he had no idea how long, he saw the Russian step into view above him.

“Be proud,” The Russian told him. “You were marginally more of a challenge than I counted on…”

Casey tried to speak, but his jaw wouldn’t function.

“Of course, that might be due to your backup, but it is so hard to plan for such things,” The Russian shrugged as he drew a large revolver from under his jacket. “Now… let us see if your vaunted protection is still intact, shall we?”

Casey stared down the barrel of the gun, mind ordering his body to move… any movement, but only twitches would come out.

He saw a flash, but didn’t hear anything as it all went dark.

*****

Islay Home

Issa heard a scream, but didn’t know if it was herself or her mother. She had her hands clamped over her mouth, unable to believe what she’d just seen, but in the back of her mind she could calculate the vectors of every pieces of flesh, shard of bone, and drop of blood… to say nothing of the brain matter.

It was real.

“Oh my god,” Her mother managed to gasp out, reaching over to envelop Issa in her arms to hide the scene on the screen from her, several seconds too late by far.

What she’d just watched couldn’t be unseen.

“That poor man, oh my lord…” Her mother said over and over. “That poor, poor man.”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

The arm of Karen’s chair snapped off in her grip, causing her to toss the cheap plastic and rubber trash away as she got up and kicked the now ruined chair off as well.

Casey had been a pain in her ass, constantly damaging things he shouldn’t, sometimes hurting people more than he should, but he’d been trying… and succeeding at being the face of the LEO organization in New York.

More than that, he’d been her officer.

On the screen she could see the Russians withdraw almost immediately, leaving the cameras and the feed running. A flicker in the shadows showed a man in black appear on street level, dropping a large rifle to the ground as he rushed over and knelt down by Casey’s body.

Karen felt her stomach lurch as he slumped before reaching up to tap his ear.

“Tee here. Commodore down.”

Karen grimaced, but nodded, “Understood,Verte. NYPD will be on scene as soon as we confirm that the Russian superhumans have left. Can you do that?”

The figure on the screen straightened up, visibly nodding.

“I’ll confirm it. Karen… I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” she said, killing the radio link with a punch of her finger.

*****

Chapter 19

In the morning, New York woke to a shock as the video from the late streaming feed was everywhere. It was on the news channels, it was trending on every social media outlet, they were talking about it on radio and podcasts, and even news sources from other regions and nations were talking about it.

New York’s Commodore had been one of the top figures in Superhuman Law Enforcement for several years, steadily gaining acclaim with every major bust of a superhuman threat he made. New York had a significant claim to fame among some groups merely by proclaiming itself the home of ‘The Commodore’.

He had been criticized over the years for ‘riding on the coattails’ of the Marine, but if that had been true in the beginning, he and the New York LEOs had made their reputations on their own actions in the time since. His had been so powerful a reputation, in fact, that New York City had been comfortable assigning many of their other heavy hitter agents to different cities or even on extended operations out of state.

That was changing, fast.

The call had gone out during the night, and by morning, politicians were rushing to fall over one another assuring the public that the city’s Superhumans were coming home to deal with the current threat and to avenge their fallen.

For most, that was enough of a response to the tragedy, for the moment at least.

It wasn’t enough for everyone, however.

*****

Blue Solar Rooftop

Wesley Trenton sighed as he looked over the damage to his building. The whole place had not yet been officially condemned, but he was reasonably sure that was just due to the sheer shock of the damage and fighting in the first place.

His lawyers had managed to get the insurance company to cough up, their adjuster had not been pleased when he’d come out to check the building.

As he’d expected, however, they’d terminated the insurance contract after the agreement had been made, and while he was still looking, there were no others he knew of offering insurance that covered Superhuman caused damage.

This is going to require a bit of a rethink, He supposed.

“Ahem.”

Wesley looked back from the damage to where his assistant was uncomfortably standing, “What is it, Adrien?”

“Your appointment has arrived, Sir.”

Wesley noticed that the younger man was pointing and looked in the direction, up and over the street below, to where the hovering man was waiting.

“So, I see, thank you,” Wesley responded, waving the man down.

The superhuman identified by the local LEOs as “Magpie” eased into a slow drift that brought him over and down to the rooftop.

“Welcome to Blue Solar,” Wesley said, grimacing a bit as he waved at the hole in the roof behind him. “Or what used to be Blue Solar New York, I suppose.”

“I suppose I should apologize for that,” Magpie said. “The damage was not my intent.”

Wesley waved him off, “Corporate espionage usually doesn’t result in a gang war breaking out and rampaging across a city, I know.”

Magpie winced, “Yes. I saw the news this morning.”

“You and three quarters of the planet, I suspect,” Wesley said. “I was not particularly fond of The Commodore, or Mr. Jackson I suppose. He was all too often little more than a thug in uniform, even if he was aimed in the right direction… but it was my impression that he was trying to be more. That I will always admire.”

Magpie nodded slowly. “I can’t say I knew him more than being chased by him a time or two. He never caught me, of course, so it was a rather limited relationship.”

Wesley looked out over the city, his expression sober, “I suppose you’re wondering why I contacted you.”

“It was a puzzling development. I even wondered if it was a trap,” Magpie admitted.

“If I wanted to trap you, I wouldn’t do it quite so blatantly, nor under an account that can be traced to myself.”

“That was what I decided, yes,” Magpie said simply.

“I would like to pay you for a gene sample.”

“So I can be tracked more easily? No thank you.”

Wesley shook his head, “No. I would anonymize any data relating directly to your identity, no law enforcement or government access to the database. This isn’t about your… career, Mr. Magpie, unless you have another name you’d prefer?”

Magpie looked at him sidelong, “Magpie is fine. Look, Mr. Trenton, I don’t see anyway you could assure me…”

He trailed off, falling silent as he looked out over the city laid out before them.

Trenton waited, not saying a word.

“Why.”

“Why what?” Trenton asked.

“Why do you want my DNA? The truth, Mr. Trenton.”

It was now Wesley Trenton’s time to fall silent as the man beside him waited for him to break the quiet.

“Do you know what happened five years ago?” He asked, countering the question seemingly with one of his own.

Magpie blinked, “The Marine and the Alien ship, or whatever it was?”

“No, that was merely the apex,” Trenton snorted softly. “The attacks, first in Texas, then in Hong Kong… and, finally, over Europe, resulting in the destruction of the alien construction into Polish territory. I wonder, do you understand the impact of what happened?”

“Of course,” Magpie said. “That was the precursor to the Superhuman incidents that began to spread out across the world since then.”

“No. That’s a result, it’s not the impact.”

“I don’t know what you’re looking for, Mr. Trenton.”

Wesley looked frustrated, “We were attacked Mr. Magpie. We know that aliens exist, because they tried to kill us… maybe they even succeeded.”

Magpie looked confused, “We’re still here, last I checked?”

“We are, but we’ve been infected,” Trenton said. “The human race now has a disease, a virus, that arguably is lethal to a third of the population up front… but instead of killing those people outright, it turns them into walking, flying, weapons of mass destruction.”

Magpie looked over at him sharply, “Now wait a…”

“No. I’ve waited too long already, we’ve all waited too long,” Trenton pointed out, gesturing to encompass the city. “What happened last night, it wasn’t the first time. What do you know about Tsabong?”

“Never heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised, not many people have. Three years ago, a gang of superhumans moved in and claimed the city for their own,” Trenton said grimly. “When the Botswana military objected, the fighting took eight days. When it was over, Tsabong wasn’t there anymore. Just over ten thousand dead. Three of them were superhumans. Just. Three.”

“Some African township isn’t New York City,” Magpie objected.

“No it isn’t, but these aren’t a couple tribesmen and a reject from the South African military either… but that’s not my point, is it?”

Magpie shook his head slowly, his expression grim, “You don’t even think we’re human anymore, do you?”

“What I think is irrelevant,” Trenton countered. “What I know is that, human or not, you’re going to bring chaos to a system that was already teetering on the brink. I’m not certain that humanity was going to survive itself before all this, but whatever else has happened I’m damn sure that our odds have gone down. That’s why I want your genome, Magpie. Because I’m trying like hell to find a path through this.”

“By what, tailoring a virus to wipe out superhumans?”

“Wouldn’t work, we considered it,” Trenton shrugged, openly admitting that he’d done a fair bit of consideration at that. “Increased regenerative rates and an immune system boost are a common part of the package. Besides which, even if it would work, you’d have to be functionally insane to have the capacity to construct something like that and the sheer idiocy to release it. Inevitable mutations would make it like a reverse lotto… Pandemics are like that, you know… eventually, no matter how unlikely the mutation, if enough people keep buying tickets, someone is going to ‘win’.”

“Then what? Why?”

“Because we need information. Facts, man. We need to know what the hell that thing has done to people,” Trenton snapped, turning on Magpie. “What it’s done to you. How much of it purely genetic, how much is something else. Those are questions we’ll never answer until we can get enough samples to start building a pattern from.”

The billionaire sighed, shaking his head. “Look. Six figures, it’s yours for a sample of your genome, donated anonymously. No law enforcement ever gets to see it. I’ll even put that in a contract with an eight-figure penalty clause.”

“Ten million if you’re lying to me and I go to prison, huh?” Magpie chuckled.

“Nine figures.”

“You’re serious.”

“The human race is at stake. I’ve never been more serious.”

Magpie nodded slowly, “I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think too long. You wouldn’t believe how many computer hours it takes to individually crunch genomes when you’re hunting for something this small.”

Magpie lifted off the rooftop, “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Trenton.”

Wesley watched the man fly off briefly, before he turned around and walked back to the rooftop access.

“Did you get it?” He asked as another man stepped out of the doorway with a camera in hand.

“I got it,” The man said, holding up the old SLR rig. “His disruptor shouldn’t be much use against film stock, but we’ll see when I get it developed.”

“Good. If it turns out, scan the photo, and run his ID through every database. Just don’t let anyone know who or why you’re running it.”

“You’ve got it, Sir.”

Wesley let the security man leave as he turned back to the city.

The human race is on the brink of extinction. Either we kill ourselves, or they eventually come do it for us. I refuse to go out that way. I don’t care what it takes.

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

Karen felt like she hadn’t slept in a week, but it was really more like three days by this point. She closed down an app, a task completed, and opened another.

The news was alternating between screaming about the events of the other night, while waxing lyrical about the Commodore and what he had brought to the city, but they were already days behind the story.

She had reports open of the Russian movements within the city underground, and things there were not looking good.

In the aftermath of the ambush against the Commodore, they’d launched an outright blitz against the families. Despite the Mob pulling several previously unknown Superhumans out of somewhere, and she was incredibly pissed that they’d not been aware that the families had those buried somewhere in their organization, the trained tactics the Russians brought to the game had been decisive.

Collateral damage had been excessive, with an entire block in Queens, and a chunk of Hell’s Kitchen now looking at a complete rebuild, the gang war seemed to be over.

That would be all fine and dandy if the Russians hadn’t dealt us into the game the way they did.

The state and Federal LEOs wouldn’t have been able to ignore the fighting, but the priorities would have been relatively low. Now? Now she was two hours from the Governor calling in the National Guard and turning the city into a police state.

Worse, she couldn’t even really argue against it.

The Russians, they still hadn’t really identified themselves in any way, but the press and internet had picked up on the accent of the sole speaker with ease, had not been content to sit on their laurels. The execution of Casey had been their coming out party, but it wasn’t the last they did by any means.

Three more police officers had been ambushed and, when Shackles showed up to provide help, she’d been killed by a sniper.

Now, the LEOs were officially forbidden from responding to a Police in Distress call until proper backup had been rolled out, which went entirely against the whole gooddamned point!

I need to calm down, Karen grimaced. She could feel her blood pressure going through the proverbial roof.

The last few days hadn’t been particularly good for her health, and she doubted very much that it was going to be getting any better.

The Russians had them on the run, playing the press and the politicians against them. On the one hand, it was clear that a response had to be made, but until everyone decided on what form that was going to take, the powers that be were now absolutely terrified of any more high-profile deaths.

Meanwhile, the Russians are digging in. Making themselves that much harder to yank out. They need to stop treating these bastards like terrorists or thugs. They’re neither. They have training, powers, and a plan.

She shook her head.

This was not going to end well, that much was certain.

*****

Dimitri Veron smiled as he shut down the live feed from the news networks.

“Everything is going as expected.”

Ivan Demoscene grumbled a little at that, “We lost more people than we calculated.”

“Losses were always a possibility,” Dimitri frowned. “We could not factor on the help they had. The sniper was not SWAT.”

“He was Stolen Valor.”

“What?” Dimitri turned to greet the man walking in. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Aleksi Drugof answered, “It has been reported in some minor news channels, and confirmed by the LEOs themselves.Verte, of Stolen Valor, was the man on the video who inspected the body after we left.”

“Bozshe Moi!” Dimitri swore, standing up and angrily pacing. “Had I known that I would have turned around and put bullets into him as well. A missed opportunity. Damn it.”

“Stolen Valor has announced that they will be conducting a press conference in the coming days,” Aleksi said. “And that they will be lending their support to the New York LEOs.”

Dimitri smirked at that news, “Well it may be slightly more difficult, but at least it is not an opportunity to waste. Very well, the Italians have been properly… chastised for their foolishness. The local police are reacting as we’d hoped. Aleksi, what of recruiting?”

“You have four more candidates in the city, culled from the gangs,” Aleksi said, holding up a hand. “Not soldiers, however.”

“Thugs are useful as well,” Dimitri waved off that easily. “You know the drill then. Shower them with promises, money… or just beat them over the head if needed… but get them into the basement. Orson will handle the rest.”

“Of course.”

Finding candidates who could have the virus activated was as simple as a home genetics test, easily accomplished in the modern era. Activating the virus, on the other hand, that posed a slight issue… however it was only a relatively slight one for most.

The viral chains came to life when exposed to a peculiar set of hormones. Adrenaline being one of the key players in the game, but only one of several. For people who lived violent lives, like soldiers and some of the thugs working for the crime syndicates from back home, it took a… little more effort to get the juices flowing just right.

Orson Gragin had been an interrogator for the GRU in his day, and a damned fine one. He was a man who could make you feel pain such that you believed death itself had forever abandoned you… or he could make you think you were staring right into its eyes as it bore down to claim you. Even trained soldiers who had taken and aced all the anti-interrogation classes there were, could not hold up against him for long. Everyone broke.

Now, however, when Orson broke a man… he was going to help the man grow so much stronger.

It’s a pity that he doesn’t have the necessary genetic tag, Dimitri thought regretfully. I would very much love to see what he would activate with.

The world was unfair, he supposed. Criminal thugs would have opportunities that a far better man than they ever could be would never taste of. All because of a trick of genetics.

The gods laugh as men plan, Dimitri supposed.

There was work to do, so he put those thoughts aside and got moving.

The coming days would be… fun.

*****

UN Space Service HQ, Manhattan

Emily Pierce was fit to tear her own hair out. The situation on the ground in the city was entirely beyond any remote definition of the word ‘acceptable’. Unfortunately, with her new position came new limitations on her actions.

The United Nations Space Service was technically an international organization, which meant that they couldn’t take action anywhere on Earth without an invitation from the host government, or orders from the UN Security Council. At the moment, neither were forthcoming.

The Russian mob’s actions in New York were a major escalation in terms of world affairs, however, and that was what had her focus for the moment. She, and her department, were all furiously working on counters intended to be put into action to prevent this sort of thing from happening elsewhere.

Whether they would be permitted to actually implement their plans, that was another thing entirely.

For the moment, however, she set aside those plans and looked over the progress that had been made over the last few years. She tried to spend a little while each day just admiring what they’d accomplished, if only to remind herself that there were victories amid all the bad news that seemed to come with the position.

The gleaming hull of one of their space launch vehicles was visible on a security feed she had from the secure Hangar at Canaveral. Several times larger than the old shuttle, and built to be entirely reusable with a twelve hour turnaround time from landing to liftoff, the Vista Class shuttle was the first step in properly claiming space around the Earth and laying down a defense.

Just a first step, though. So many more steps to go.

She turned away from the image of the shuttle and looked back on the news that was on a seemingly interminable repeat.

One step forward, two dragging heels back.

That just seemed to be the way for the human race, didn’t it?

*****

Office Building, Manhattan

“Oh, hell no, mon Cherie,” Verte held up his hands in objection, “You never said no nothing about me talking to the press. I’m just a simple Cajun boy, they’ll eat me alive.”

Rosie just shot the Green Berets a dry look, not even bothering to roll her eyes at that statement.

“Not buying it?” He asked, his tone a little hopeful.

“Sure, why not? I’ll buy it. Have a nice bridge in Brooklyn for me too, by any chance?”

“Well, now that you mention it…”

“Tee, you’re doing the press conference. You were the one on site. You’re the one they want to hear from,” Rosie cut him off. “Stop trying to wiggle out of it.”

“Ah, but I wiggle so nicely,” He winked at her.

Rosie did roll her eyes this time, “Not as nicely as you think, trust me.”

“Ach, a shot to the heart,” He clutched at his chest.

“I wouldn’t shoot you in the heart,Verte, you don’t have one. If I have to shoot you,” She gave him a pointed look, “I’ll aim about eighteen inches lower. Seems to be what you think with anyway.”

“You are a mean lady, Rosie,” Verte actually pouted at her before becoming more serious. “Shouldn’t Lana be doing this? She’s better with them than I am, and you know it.”

“She’s busy, dealing with a problem in New Mexico with Ogre. For now, it’s us here.”

Tee nodded reluctantly, “Well I suppose I am the more photogenic of the two of us. It’s a terribly responsibility, being so damned good looking…”

“Out! Get out!”

He laughed at her, leaving just ahead of the book she whipped in his direction.

Rosie again rolled her eyes, watching the door close in his wake. Verte was an incredibly annoying individual sometimes. Thankfully, it was a trait he normally saved for his enemies.

The National guard request has been made official, she thought, looking back to the papers in front of her, along with an official request from the governor for Stolen Valor to support them and the local officials in bringing the criminal terrorists to justice.

She couldn’t say that she hadn’t been expecting it, though Rosie was mildly surprised by how quickly the orders had rolled out. Only mildly, though, because while it would normally take all but a concerted effort by God to get the governor to call in both the National Guard and help from technically outside elements, she couldn’t blame him in this case.

The pressure on his office had to be immense, all things considered.

This is going to get ugly before it gets any better, that much is clear.

*****

Chapter 20

Lower West Side, Manhattan

Issa was making her way in towards school. The death of the Commodore had resulted in schools being cancelled all across the city for a few days, mostly because officials were worried that more violence was going to erupt and they didn’t want kids out in the middle of it, either going to school or returning from it, when it happened.

While some violence had certainly happened, though, it had shockingly remained heavily contained.

Thirteen more police had been killed in ambushes. No one was entirely certain if it was the work of the Russians or other people were taking advantage of their work to settle their own grudges. Either way, police presence in the city had somehow managed to both increase and decrease significantly at the same time.

Cops went nowhere alone, or even in small groups, so they were seen considerably less often. When they did show up, however, police convoys with armored vehicles and no less than fifteen to twenty officers were now the norm.

It left Issa feeling kind of queasy the first time she saw it, her guts roiling at the sight for reasons she had to really think through to even begin to understand. Her mother had other words for it, few of them were nice, but while no one seemed to like what was going on… no one had any better suggestions either.

The attacks were happening on the news every day now, it seemed, but they’d become somehow… less shocking in a very short amount of time.

Somehow, after the Commodore was killed to blatantly and publicly, it seemed like anything else had become a lesser event. She didn’t understand it, and didn’t want to either, but Issa had other distractions that just would not leave her be. She couldn’t get what she was seeing out of her head, the world had changed for her even more than it seemed to have for everyone else.

Cross wind gusting to thirteen meters per second. Tighten my grip on my bag.

The wind whistled through, tugging at her clothing and bag, but she had already put thought into action and braced for the chill wind. It was September, most of the days were still warm, but an occasional breeze was heralding the coming winter.

Temperatures will be mild compared to normal seasonal shifts, which means more snow than usual. Christmas will be beautiful.

Issa shook her head, pushing the thoughts away. She couldn’t escape them anymore, everything she looked at or thought about had some secret to share with her. Mostly things that were common sense, of a sort, but there were strange things too.

Like how a lot of the sub-atomic particles in… everything… were doing weird stuff, like, constantly.

Her own body, part of it was trying to fly, like all the time.

She might have put that down to having gained these strange abilities, but as far as she could tell so was everyone else!

It was a small percentage, of course, but it was there. Other particles in people’s bodies were like excited puppies, bouncing around and trying to tunnel through things, only to be chastised and yanked back by the rest.

It was the strangest thing she could imagine, times eleven, and it just kept getting stranger.

Her phone was an absolutely bizarre masterpiece of conflicting sub-atomic particles, in fact. The processor was such a mess that she wasn’t even sure how it worked.

No, that wasn’t quite true. She knew how it worked. She was just stunned that it did.

The logic gates were a mess, with almost half the particles seemingly wanting to do random things instead of what they were designed to do. Yet, somehow again, the remaining particles seemed to… outvote them?

It was like that everywhere, too. It seemed like the entire universe, as best she could tell, was a democracy. If a majority of particles in your body decided you had to listen to gravity, you listened to gravity. But there were these constant dissenting votes in everything, everywhere, trying to go off and do their own thing.

Issa wasn’t sure if she should be glad that they didn’t, or somehow sad. She was hardly an expert, after all, but she doubted that life would have much of a chance if every particle just ran off willy nilly doing its own thing. But she couldn’t help but wonder if the particles that got slapped down were sad at the chains the majority opinion forced on them.

It was probably a silly thought, she knew, subatomic particles didn’t have thoughts and feelings… right?

Right?

Her brain didn’t have an answer for that, which was a first in recent days. Issa sighed as she walked up the steps to Stewie and headed for her locker. Classes were going to be long, she expected. Everyone needed to get caught up on what they’d missed and while she’d done the reading, she knew from experience that she would be one of the few.

*****

She hated being right.

Issa listened slightly as the teacher was forced to back up and restart the reading assignment from the beginning. She mentally matched him word for word for over a chapter before realizing that she remembered the reading perfectly, like it was there in front of her.

What is it doing to me?

She’d never had that kind of memory before, and it was creeping her out a bit now that she was thinking about it and reviewing old memories that were coming up with even a whim of a thought.

Oh. Ew! No, I don’t want to remember that!

Issa flinched, remembering the smells in particular of her birthday… that is to say, her actual day or birth, was not pleasant.

There were some serious downsides to a perfect memory.

Not the least of which was the fact that her memory was now telling her that, before, she had often misremembered events. She remembered arguing with people about things that happened, remembered being so sure that she was right, and they were wrong.

What was strangest, though, was that most of the time… both of them were wrong. The actual events hadn’t been like either she or the people she’d been arguing with actually remembered. She could now remember having multiple memories of the same event too, as if she had woken up one day and for some reason decided to remember key events differently… and then did it again later.

Issa covered her face in her hands, her head was pounding.

“Miss Islay.”

When did this headache start?

“Miss Islay!”

“Huh? What?” Issa snapped up, blinking as the class laughed.

“I asked if you’re alright,” The teacher said, voice softer.

“Just…a headache, Sir,” Issa said, “I’m fine.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes sir.”

“Very well,” he said. “If it gets worse, go to the nurse and see if she’ll give you a Tylenol.”

“Yes, Sir, thank you.”

“No,” The teacher looked back around the class, “Since we’ve finally managed to catch up on the reading, I have a short quiz for all of you.”

The classes groans seemed to bring a smile to the teachers face, but Issa’s brain whispered in her ear.

He’s faking amusement. Annoyed, frustrated… worried. Does not want to be here today.

She didn’t blame him, nor was he alone in that. Issa just nodded absently and accepted the quiz as it was passed down, the got to work.

*****

After class, Issa returned her attention to her phone. The device was honestly perplexing to her when she examined the inner workings. It could do things that were riding so close to the edge of impossible, at least as far as she could tell, that it was mesmerizing.

The logic gates in the processors were nearly riding the edge of stability on the quantum side of things, and from her reading she thought that was related to the size of the manufacturing dies that made the processor itself. She wasn’t sure, but she doubted that they would be able to go much smaller before the entire system failed.

Which probably explained why chips had begun to pack dual, quad, and more cores instead of aiming for faster and faster processing, now that she thought about it.

I wonder…

Issa hesitantly poked at her phone with her abilities, finding it easy to alter the quantum substrate and stop the phone from, essentially, arguing with itself. After a few minutes she leaned back, satisfied with her work. Where the phone had been constantly on the edge of operation before, now everything was smoothing functioning as a well-oiled machine.

She thumbed her phone to life and slowly started testing it out.

At first, she was disappointed, actually. The apps all basically worked the way they had worked before. Maybe a little smoother, but not so much that she could say for sure. It wasn’t until she opened up a SETI@Home folding app and let it run that things started to show differently.

That can’t be right…

She looked at the numbers, then quickly ran some searches before she sat back in a stunned moment.

Her three generation’s old phone was running math for SETI at levels that implied a small Beowulf cluster, not a mobile phone.

She stared for a time, mind awash in the new information. Not only could she make changes to tech, but she could massively improve it.

I need to see what else I can do.

*****

The first thing Issa did when she got home after school was get on the internet and log into one of the local maker’s community boards. She needed more materials but didn’t have the money to go out and buy stuff, but she had hung out with some people into building all sorts of things on shoestring budgets before she’d earned the scholarship to Stewie.

There’s a makerspace not far from here, but I don’t need equipment yet… I need supplies. What about dumpster diving?

A lot of the community, of course, guarded their personal scavenging spots carefully, but not everyone was so protective. Issa quickly found a few local places that were known to throw out the sorts of things she was looking for, and after checking the time she grabbed a light jacket and was out the door.

An electronics repair shop was first. Closing time was coming up, so Issa headed that way at a brisk pace. She got there just after closing and crossed her fingers as she got to the dumpster out back, shoving the heavy lid up and heaving herself into place so she could look inside.

Thankfully, there was nothing disgusting. Mostly just a lot of paper and boxes that she had to move around. About halfway to the bottom, though, she hit paydirt. A cardboard box with old electronics, including a laptop with a cracked screen, a set of wireless headphones, three cell phones… one of them was newer than her own… and a bunch of random stuff she assumed was from someone’s PC build.

Grabbing the box, Issa retreated back home with her treasure in hand.

Once securely back in her room, she did a quick inventory of the items and started with the new phone. An attempt to power it on showed why it had been tossed out. The screen was a garbled mess, with no hope of repair. A look online confirmed what she suspected. The model was noted to being extremely expensive to replace the screen.

Issa left it on, making the changes to the processor she’d made to her own, and grabbed a cable to connect it to her laptop. With some work she quickly had a screen patch up and working, and after installing some new apps on the device she confirmed her work on her own phone. Once the processor wasn’t fighting itself, speeds went up exponentially.

Ok, I’m going my laptop next.

The processor there was even worse than the ones on the phone, she realized quickly. The tightly packed logic gates of the system were barely able to function as best she could tell, and it was costing things. She ran a benchmark before changing anything, however, sending the numbers to the printer, then went in and started nudging the sub-atomic particles around until they acquiesced to her demands that they play nice.

Ok… now let’s see what we have… Issa thought as she ran the benchmarks again.

A few minutes later she was staring in shock at numbers that frankly, made no sense. They were just too fast.

Going to have to test this… but, first… the graphics processor.

The same optimization was done there, and when she was done Issa had an idea how to properly test it… and, maybe more importantly, make herself some money in the process.

She downloaded a crypto-miner program onto the laptop, then nudged her phones to work in concert with the main computer, and set them running.

If I’m right, I’ll be able to mine coins for a fraction the cost of anyone using anything remotely comparable to what I can do. And it’ll be all but untraceable too.

Issa’s mind was awash in new ideas as her little cluster computer began crunching numbers merrily from where she’d placed them on her desk.

As far as superpowers went, she wasn’t sure she’d hit the jackpot yet, but compared to some of the stories out there, she was far from unhappy with how it had turned out.

Now if I can only figure out how to stop these headaches.

*****

By the time her mother came home from work, she’d finished checking over the other bits of treasure she’d salvaged from the dumpster. One phone was a total loss - it looked like someone had managed to put a nail through the screen and into the battery. What happened after that made her hope that they hadn’t been keeping it in their pocket at the time.

Or maybe it saved them from the nail? Either way, the burns wouldn’t be fun I’m betting.

The other phone had been repaired, plugged into a power supply since the battery was DOA, and optimized so that it could work with her remaining gear.

After that she’d started looking over the rest of what she had. Issa set the headphones aside, they were a nice Bluetooth set that even had active noise cancellation from what she was reading online, but the internal battery was in pretty bad shape so she wasn’t sure if she could use them for much. The rest was an oddball assortment of older graphics cards and the like, which she was pretty sure she could work with… but she didn’t have anything to plug them into, and building her own PC hadn’t been something she had done before.

Money being what it was, she’d been lucky to get her used laptop for school.

“Supper will be ready in a half hour, Novah!”

“Got it mom! I’m just working on some stuff for school,” She responded, lying through her teeth but Issa assuaged any guilt by telling herself that it was educational.

A ding sound from her laptop caused her to look over, frown, then double check.

Huh. It solved the hash test. That…

Her eyes widened.

That’s a lot of money, actually.

The current payout for being the first to solve the mathematical proof on the bitcoin run was 3 and a quarter bitcoin. At current prices, which Novah had to look up and then check twice because she was choking after the first glance, she had just shy of half a million dollars.

She spent the next several minutes tearing through all the documentation she could find on bitcoin mining, only to have barely scratched the surface when the laptop dinged again precisely ten minutes after the first. Issa looked slowly over, eyes wide.

Her encrypted wallet now contained six and a half bitcoins.

The only way that could be happening is if my machine is solving the problem so fast no one else is even coming close.

She was a physics fan, and while she liked to consider herself decently competent with computers… she knew when she was over her head. For the moment, Issa took her rig offline, and stopped the work it was doing. Nearly a million dollars in twenty minutes was enough for the moment, because while the whole cryptocurrency thing was supposed to be untraceable and all that, there was no way that she wouldn’t be raising some red flags if she kept that up.

Assuming I didn’t already…

Looking at her wallet, Issa made a few quick trades, dumping a couple bitcoin for smaller value cryptocurrencies before she disconnected everything entirely from the internet and sat back to think about what had just happened.

Well, I could move to some country with no income tax and be a billionaire for a living, she thought with some amusement. Or I could use this to model how superhuman powers really work. Huh… I wonder how it compares to Mr. Trenton’s supercomputer.

*****

Issa joined her mother at the table for supper a short while later, the possibilities still running around in her mind, but she found that she was quickly distracted by the somber look on her mother’s face.

“What’s wrong, mom?”

Cindy Islay shook her head, “I was just watching the news while preparing supper, dear.”

“What happened?” Issa glanced toward the TV automatically, noticing that it was turned off.

“It doesn’t matter, enjoy your meal.” Cindy said with a forced smile.

Issa nodded slowly, eating as she had been told, but couldn’t help but keep sneaking glances at the TV throughout. After they’d finished, she helped her mother clean up as was their habit, but snuck away back to her room as quickly as she could do so.

Only she wasn’t sneaking back to check on her projects, she went immediately to the computer and got on the net, checking the headlines quickly.

Her heart felt cold as she spotted the headline.

New York City LEO executed outside home, Children watched in horror

Oh god. What happened?

*****

Chapter 21

Glen Cove, Long Island

Karen Jord stomped up the walkway, brushing past the NYPD officer who was there to keep the press and looky-loos away.

This is the third LEO we’ve lost since the… since Casey. This isn’t a leak, it’s a goddamned flood.

“Director Jord,” The Detective nodded as she approached. “Sorry about your Agent.”

“How are his family?”

“Shook up.”

Karen snorted. That was certainly an understatement of epic proportions, that told her nothing at all. She let it pass, though, because what else could he say?

“What happened?”

“Sniper, not sure how far out,” The detective admitted. “We’re canvasing, looking for people who might have heard the shot, might have seen something, but he’s long gone by now… even if he’s not of them.”

Karen also opted to ignore the slight twist put on the word ‘them’. A lot of people had no love for Superhumans, particularly in New York. A lot of people had died the first time one of them decided to visit the city. A lot more would have died if not for the Marine, but people were quick to forget things like that sometimes.

“Understood. Stolen Valor has offered the support of their people, and one of theirs is a Sniper Specialist, Special Forces trained. He’ll be taking the lead on this from our end,” she said. “Would appreciate your cooperation, and we’ll of course share intel with the NYPD as it develops.”

“Not my call, but the captain says that you LEOs get to make the calls on these cases, so that’s fine. I’ll tell my people.”

“Thank you.” Karen nodded, genuinely grateful. She did not need to be fighting an interdepartmental pissing match on top of everything else at the moment.

“Yeah well,” He went on, “Not like any of this is going to be in either of our hands for much longer. Governor signed the order fifteen minutes ago. National Guard is gearing up as we’re standing here, or so I hear.”

“That’s what I hear as well. Can’t say I won’t be grateful for the firepower, but I doubt it’ll be that easy,” Karen said tiredly.

“Yeah, I have my doubts on that part myself,” The detective said, flipping his notepad shut. “I’ll leave this to your care, Ma’am. Nothing more I can do here anyway, need to find where the shot came from.”

“It came from a building about thirteen hundred yards East, Detective.”

Both Karen and the Detective nearly jumped out of the skin.

“Jesus Christ Verte!” Karen swore, “Don’t DO that!”

The Special Forces veteran shrugged, “Sorry. Here.”

The detective hesitantly reached out to accept a small baggy being offered to him, “What’s this?”

“Shell casing. Seven Sixty-Two by Fifty-Four,” Verte said, “Old school KGB. Not particularly common in the states.”

“Dragunov?” Karen asked.

“That would be my guess.” Verte said. “I’m assuming they imported their weapons, but it’s not impossible they picked one up on the collector’s market.”

“If they did, we might be able to trace it,” Karen said, looking over to the detective. “Soviet era rifle, check and see if it matches anything in the records.”

The NYPD detective nodded, “I’ll run the slug too, but I doubt we’ll get much off that. It went right through the target, dug into the cement porch step. Not much left to analyze.”

“Anything you can get,” Karen said.

“I’ll get it done.”

“Thank you.”

She took a breath, looking up to the house. “I’ll speak with you both later. I need to go talk to Marsha and the kids.”

The two men nodded as she walked past, watching her head up the steps.

“Hate it when I have to do that,” The detective sighed.

“I never have. Hope I never have to,” Verte said, grimacing. “Unfortunately, I’ve probably been the cause of more than a few similar conversations. Did not need that thought on my mind right now, Detective.”

The detective nodded, then nearly jumped again as Verte turned and stepped into the shadow of the house, vanishing from sight entirely from one second to the next.

“Jumping Jesus, those freaks give me the willies.

*****

National Guard Depot, Staten Island

“Grab your gear and get your ass in a seat,” Master Sergeant Kurtz snapped as he walked through the chaos of the roll out, grabbing lagging soldiers and pushing them toward where they were supposed to be.

The order to move a division into Manhattan hadn’t exactly been a surprise, per say, but it they didn’t have the warning that it would have been nice to get either. Of course, when things went in the crapper, you rarely did get the warning you’d wish for.

Terrorists laying siege to an American city was a new one on him, Kurtz could freely admit, and he’d honestly believed he’d seen everything. Maybe he even had, too, up until five years ago at least. Now it was a brave new world, filled with super powered nuts doing things that no sane universe would allow… and those were the good guys. The bad guys, well they were something else entirely.

His crew was as ready as they could be, though, and despite his snapping at them, Kurts was satisfied with the speed the rollout was proceeding at. The first wave was packed up and loaded, MRAPs and Hummers, reinforced by STRIKERS were the order of the day. He would prefer to be using JLTVs over the outdated HMMVs, but those hadn’t fully trickled down to the Guard Units as of yet and he didn’t expect to be running into all that many IEDs on this run anyway.

Maybe worse things, but probably not IEDs.

Once everyone was loaded up, Kurtz climbed into the lead hummer and nodded to the captain.

“Ready to roll, Sir.”

“Very good, Sergeant. Take us out.”

Kurts reached out the window and pounded on the door, “You heard the Cap. Let’s roll!”

The National Guard Unit was moving out less than thirty minutes after the order had come through from the governor. By nightfall, New York, and especially Manhattan, would be under Martial Law.

*****

Columbia Street, Waterfront District

The wind was whistling in his ears as Kirov Sansa perched on the rooftop, scanning the Belt Parkway with high powered glasses. It didn’t take long before he spotted what he had come to see.

“Anton, they are on the move,” he said, making the call with a disposable phone.

“Good, you know what we need to know.”

“I am on it, do not worry.”

Kirov kept an eye on the military convoy as it crossed over from Staten Island, following the parkway up to the split. They needed to know which direction the guard units were going to take onto the Island, and that was his job.

When the turned to stay on the parkway heading north, he made the call again.

“The bridge.”

“Excellent. Thank you.”

Kirov didn’t bother answering. He pulled the battery and the sim card from the phone, tossing the electronics over the edge of the building before crushing the card under foot. His job was done for the night.

*****

Brooklyn Bridge

Traffic was light on the bridge, even given the hour, but Kurtz supposed that he shouldn’t be too surprised. The city, while not exactly lifeless, wasn’t reacting well to the sudden surge of attacks and the death of the LEOs, the Commodore especially. A lot of people seemed to feel like they’d already lost, and while there was still a fair bit of defiance from what he could see, it was a cautious sort.

This wasn’t going to be a fun assignment, that much was certain. Kurtz had served with the regular forces most of his career before he got out. Taking the Guard position was mostly just to give him an excuse to keep a toe in and play with some cool toys on the weekend. He’d seen what it was like when you were trying to secure peace in a city that didn’t want you there, and while he was sure that most people would be grateful for some security… He wasn’t expecting the thought to be universal, nor did he exactly blame people for being almost as suspicious of the Guard as they were of the criminals in this case.

American cities didn’t traditionally much like armed forces rolling in and pretending to be police. The longer it went on, the worse it would get too. The best thing anyone could do would be to bring in a few strike teams and roll the Russians up once and for all. Collateral would probably be bad, but in the long term he was fairly certain the damage would be worse trying to soft hand the situation.

“Hey Sarge.”

Kurtz looked over from his musing, “What is it Corporal?”

“Up ahead.”

He followed the driver’s gaze and frowned. Traffic coming their way had stopped entirely, and he could see men standing out in the middle of the bridge.

Not good.

He half turned, “Captain, I think we’ve got trouble on the bridge.”

Captain Manners leaned forward, frowning, “Tangos, you think, Sergeant?”

“Not sure, but isn’t likely to be anyone else, Sir.”

“True.” Manners’ eyes narrowed before he came to a decision. “Our operational orders are fairly clear. Until they’ve been conclusively identified, we have to treat them with kid gloves. Call a halt.”

“Yes sir.”

Kurtz didn’t like it, but the ROE for dealing with civilians inside American borders were clear, as the captain said. The second one of them turned hostile, the gloves were off, but until then…

“All vehicles, halt.” He ordered, nodding over to the corporal.

The Hummer slid to a stop, the convoy doing the same behind them.

Kurtz cracked the door and planted a boot on the bridge as he kept the armored door between him and the probable tangos. He pulled the M-4 from its bracket, but kept it covered by the door.

“You’re blocking the bridge,” He called, not yelling but not speaking quietly by any means. “Disperse now.”

*****

Dimitri Veron chuckled at the order.

“Does he truly believe that will work?” Silvia Korrander whispered behind him.

“Of course not,” Ivan responded. “He has orders.”

“He is an idiot.”

“Orders can make a fool of the wisest man,” Dimitri said casually as he stepped forward and raised his voice. “I am very much afraid that I cannot do as you ask. I am afraid that we are not allowing the military into the city at this time.”

The consternation on the faces of the Americans was really rather amusing, he had to admit. Whatever they’d expected him to say, that hadn’t been it.

“Buddy, you’ve lost your damn…”

The… Sergeant, if Dimitri was reading his insignia correctly was cut off by someone inside, and it was no surprise to see the door open on the other side and an officer emerge.

“Very few people have the right to tell the Guard where they cannot go during a declared emergency, friend,” The Captain, Dimitri was fairly certain, said. “And you are not one of them. You are being detained under suspicion of terrorist activities. Surrender peaceably or we will engage you.”

“Please, I invite it,” Dimitri spread his hands.

Weapons appeared quickly, the Sergeant bracing a Carbine against the door he was sheltering behind as the captain drew a sidearm. Another military truck rolled up, this one with one of the Browning M-2s mounted on the cab, and a STRIKER APC circled around to bring its cannon into play.

It was a very impressive show of force, in all honesty.

Pity for them.

“Silvia.”

The platinum blond nodded and started walking forward, past their line and into the open.

“Cease your approach!”

She came to a stop, her head tilting slightly to one side as she looked at the men and guns that were now trained on her.

“Lay down on the road, cross your ankles and place your hands above your head!”

“I think not,” Silvia said before she opened her mouth and screamed.

*****

The sound from the woman’s scream seemed to vibrate the bridge itself, echoing from all sides endlessly to those who heard it.

Kurtz felt the world go dark around him, a red tint coloring everything. He heard screaming, and something clawed at his face. His skin tore from the abuse before he realized that it was his own hands doing the damage.

He screamed in his mind, falling to his knees, blood pouring from his eyes, ears, and the self- inflicted wounds. He felt, more than heard, the clatter of his M-4 falling to his knees as he pitched over onto all fours.

The captain was screaming something from the other side of the Hummer, but he didn’t know what, couldn’t make any of it out. A single shot rang out, and through the red haze of his distorted eyesight he saw the corporal pitch forward as his brains were splattered over the steering wheel and dash.

Kurts looked across the vehicle. The captain was standing there with his M9 smoking and a wild look on his face, made all the worse by the streaks of blood running down his cheeks.

The pistol moved in his direction as he scooped up the M4, hand closing on the grip instinctually as he brought it to bear.

As his carbine jumped in his grip, Kurtz could vaguely hear the sounds of automatic fire renting the air in all directions.

*****

Dimitri nodded in satisfaction as the National Guard column turned itself into a smoking wreck with nothing more than a scream from Valeri’s throat. He turned casually, looking into the camera he had streaming the whole thing.

“Manhattan is under our control. Send more police or military and we’ll do this again,” he said simply. “Sneak them in past us, and we’ll do this to them in the middle of the city. I will allow you to imagine the results that would have. Other than that, I wish to assure everyone that Manhattan is open for business as usual. We are businessmen, not terrorists. We have no care for Wall Street or your fancy buildings. We now own the underworld of this city, however, and we will destroy anyone who tries to challenge that claim. That is all.”

He made a motion and the red light on the camera flicked off.

“Clear, boss.”

Dimitri nodded, “Pack it up. Time to leave and let the proper authorities clean up their mess here.”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

Karen stared stonily at the frozen image of the Russian on the screen in front of her.

“That arrogant piece of…”

“Shut up,” She hissed, silencing the speaker. “Has the governor seen this yet?”

“He was briefed as soon as we found the stream, Ma’am.”

Karen grimaced, “And?”

“He’s considering options.”

She snorted.

Options. What options does he think he has? We can’t let them use that ability in the city… even in a relatively empty area, it would be disastrous. Hundreds going mad and killing themselves and others… what if that crazy bitch screams in Times Square?

“Get him on the phone,” She snapped, before reconsidering, “No. Get me the President.”

“Ma’am?”

She ignored the consternation in the secretary’s voice.

“You heard me. We’re going to need a Presidential Order on this, backed by Congress as soon as possible. Otherwise, we may as well cede this city to the Russians, and that’s not happening on my watch.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

She grabbed up her own phone while her secretary was working on getting her a line to the White House, dialing from memory.

“Tee, it’s Jord,” she said. “Did you see it?”

“You might say that Karen,”Verte’s voice was serious, entirely unlike the man. “What do you need?”

“I need a bullet in that bitch’s head. Before she does that somewhere with more civilians.”

“Understood,” It wasn’t the voice of Stolen Valor’s irreverent Verte that answered her with that single word, it was the voice of the Green Beret he was before he retired. “I’ll need all intelligence you can get me on the Russian’s locations.”

“What I have, you’ll have,” She promised.

“Then consider it done.”

*****

Chapter 22

Islay Home

Issa was staring in shock at the screen, unable to quite believe what she was seeing. The news was screaming about it on every channel, but they had edited the feed considerable. Even Devin had apparently flagged the video for deletion, but reuploads were all over the internet.

She hadn’t been able to keep her curiosity at bay, and so she went and found an unedited version… and regretted it immediately after watching it.

She… screamed and they just killed each other?

What kind of sense did that make?

Mind control? Whatever it was, it wasn’t the sound… otherwise everyone who watched this video would have done the… same.

Issa felt sick, realizing just how bad it could have been. The video had tens of millions of hits, just on Metalert, and it was everywhere. If the woman’s scream had been entirely sound based, she would have decimated the population of the country, if not the world, by this point.

The sound must be carrying another component? Not a virus, it transmitted too fast. A Quantum element? She’s manipulating the mind with her scream the way I manipulate sub-atomic action with my mind? Will? Whatever, that has to be how she did it.

As she thought her way through the component of the attack in her head, Issa realized that the threat at the end of the video was the whole point of what they’d done. If she were to scream in the city, at a sport’s arena or something, it would kill thousands or more.

Issa frowned, eyes falling to the junk she’d gathered up the day before.

I need… help.

Hesitantly she reached for her phone and the card she’d gotten from Mr. Trenton.

Dialing the number quickly, Issa waited impatiently as she was pushed through an automated system, quickly getting an actual person on the line.

“Blue Solar Corporation, how may I direct your call?”

“I… I need to speak with Mr. Trenton.”

“I’m afraid that Mr. Trenton is not available at the moment. May I say who called?”

“It’s Issa Islay,” Issa said, “But it’s important. Please let me speak with him, he told me that he…”

“I’m sorry, Miss Islay,” The woman said. “Mr. Trenton is no longer in the city, and I’m not at liberty to divulge his travel plans. If you would care to leave a message, I will ensure that it reaches his office.”

“I… No, thank you.” Issa hung up.

So much for getting help.

She looked across the mess in her room, from the computer and phones to the junk cluttering up the floor around her desk.

There had to be something she could do.

What was the point of gaining superpowers in the first place if you still wound up helpless afterwards?

*****

Karrigan Household

Ashley was glaring at the screen with hatred almost literally dripping from her.

Since the night of the ambush, she’d been watching the news with a growing rage, angry with herself for having left with the SWAT team, leaving the Commodore behind to die. It didn’t help that she couldn’t imagine what exactly it was she could have done to save him, just that she should have done something.

The Russians… the news said that they had been members of the Mob, but no one was certain if they were still part of the Russian organization or working on their own… had the entire city in an uproar, tearing itself apart. Some people were clawing to get out, others were bunkering down and hiding out at home in the hopes that it all went away somehow.

Prices were already going up on essentials. Her dad was complaining about the price of staple items at the grocery, and all the empty shelves.

The hoarding wasn’t helped by the fact that the news was reporting a lot of transport drivers were refusing deliveries into the city, and those that were coming in were charging through the nose for the job.

Ashley wrapped her right fist in her left palm, tightening it up as she furiously tried to imagine something she could do about the situation, but nothing wanted to come to mind.

The Russians just had so many lethal abilities between them, and they were willing to use all of them it seemed. She didn’t like that, not at all. The level of power certain super humans could bring to the field was… immense. The Commodore had stressed how important holding back was, the damage that could be done to the city by going all out…

Well, that didn’t work out so well for him, did it?

*****

Empire State Building

Harrison once more found himself in a place that had become a familiar location to him, somewhere he could think.

Trenton’s offer was weighing on his mind. In the wake of the Commodore’s death, he’d been fully prepared to tell the billionaire to shove his offer up his ass and be done with it. The man made his skin crawl through that charming and, admittedly, reasonably façade.

He’d as much as admitted that he’d honestly considered simply trying to wipe out every superhuman on the planet, but had given up on the idea not because it was abhorrent, but because it was too risky for everyone else.

Then the bridge.

Now, Harrison was having a hard time finding disagreement with the man.

The idea that there was a power like that out there, that could make men into monsters. He’d heard stories, of course. There were whispers of abilities of that nature, but this was undeniable.

Harrison was a thief, and he’d even been a killer in the past. He was not, however, a murderer or a monster. Not to his own thoughts, at least, though he supposed some others might disagree. What the Russians had done on that bridge was beyond a simple power play. Actually, on its own, he was inclined to consider it fair game.

The National Guard had tried to deal themselves into a war between two underworld groups. Granted, the Russians had targeted the police, which certainly blurred the lines by a hell of a lot, but in the end the Guard were combatants, and thus there was some semblance of justification to what happened.

He didn’t like it, but he could see it.

The threat, however, of deploying that power in the city itself?

That was beyond the pale, even if they never did such a thing. There was no cause to bring civilians into things, people who were just trying to live their lives didn’t deserve to be forced to live in fear due to the whims of a few psychopaths.

The idea of giving Trenton his DNA, however, was still anathema to him.

The man is up to something, and while it may not be as bad as some, I’d lay good money it’s not good either.

Harrison was self aware enough to know that he didn’t much like Billionaires’ just by default, however, and that might be coloring his opinion. People didn’t get that rich without screwing over a lot of little guys along the way. Millionaires? Sure, you could become a millionaire through hard, honest, work… but you didn’t become a millionaire a thousand times over honestly.

However, he didn’t know if he could turn his back on this situation either.

I helped kick it off…

However unintentionally, and obliquely, Harrison knew he was responsible for, at least, the timing of the war. It likely would have happened anyway, almost certainly would have happened actually, but like it or not, he had been the trigger even if he hadn’t loaded the round or cocked the gun.

That left him in an uncomfortable spot, unfortunately. The LEOs were strapped for manpower, but they also had enough on him to recognize him if he tried to contact and work with them. He didn’t trust Trenton as far as he could throw the man’s bank vaults… and the only other game in town on the side of sanity was Stolen Valor…

And if that isn’t using the word sanity loosely, I don’t know what is.

On the other side?

A psychopathic group of Russians who, if he were to take their boasting seriously, were running a Superhuman factory program… that worked.

It’s the devil and the deep blue sea, alright.

Harrison sighed.

I really should have gone to Bermuda.

*****

Meeran Home

Devin’s phone rang, startling him actually.

No one calls me.

He looked at it like it was a time bomb, primed to go off, before reluctantly reaching out to grab it. Everyone he knew who might want to talk to him would text or reach out over the forums. He picked up the phone, intent originally on just silencing it since the only calls he ever got were from telemarketers and people with surveys.

The number caught his eye, though, since it wasn’t blocked, and it was actually in his address book.

Why is Novah calling me?

Devin answered the call, “Hello?”

“Uh… hey, Devin…”

“Novah, what’s up? Uh… why didn’t you just send a DM?”

“I need to talk… but it’s kind of private,” Novah said over the line.

“Okay…” He drew the word out, “So, talk I guess?”

“Not over the phone. I…”

Devin waited, confused, but the silence over the line drew out until he felt he had to speak again.

“It’s late for me to go out, Novah…”

“No, I get it. Tomorrow, maybe?”

Devin nodded absently, not thinking about the fact that he was on the phone, “Alright. I can do that… after school… no, they cancelled everything. I think they’re putting a curfew on. I don’t know if we can get out…”

“It’s important.”

There was something in her voice that made him hesitate.

“The subway is out, buses aren’t running, and I can’t ask my dad for a drive…” Devin said, thinking his way through the problem. “Where do you live?”

“Washington Heights…”

Devin blinked, “That’s too far… I’m on the Upper East Side. It’ll take hours to walk that far.”

“I… I think I can get to you. Meet in… in the Park?” Novah suggested.

“The Park? I can get there. Where to?”

“Huddlestone Arch. In the morning,” Novah said, “Ten ok?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you then.”

Devin nodded again, still forgetting he was on the phone. “Ok, bye?”

“Good night, Devin.”

He hung up the phone, but stared at it for a while. A girl calling him in the evening and asking to meet up with him was rather out of his experience. He kinda wanted to think it was romantic, but Devin wasn’t silly enough for that. He considered Novah a friendly acquaintance, but didn’t fool himself into thinking it was something more.

But what on earth could she be needing to speak in person about? Especially now?

He, like many others his age, was glad that school had been cancelled as it had, though in his case it was because he was dealing with legal and systemic issues concerning his app. Metalert was a hit, a huge hit. It was now easily one of the top super spotter apps in the world, albeit with a heavy focus one New York users thanks to the first post and the ongoing use of it to stream the criminal’s actions.

That was a major pain in the ass.

It put him in a complicated position, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. He was now in touch with the local police, including the LEOs, but that didn’t put him entirely in the clear since he had actual known criminals using his App. The police didn’t want to drive the Russians into using other sources, possibly the Dark Web, since that would just make it harder for them to find out about the little incidents in the planning… but legally if he didn’t do something, he was probably in a lot of hot water once things calmed down and someone decided to sue him.

The law wasn’t going to be hassling him, but civil suits were apparently a completely different problem.

I just wanted to make a cool app! Why am I having to deal with this crap?

*****

Islay Home

Issa stared at the blank screen of the phone she’d just set down.

Why did I do that?

She hadn’t thought that through at all, the idea of calling Devin and asking him for help just popped into her head and she just… did it? But what could he do, really? She knew that Mr. Trenton could help, after all. He was rich and…

She frowned… Well, I’m no billionaire, but I can make money with my power… and Devin is no slouch either.

She’d seen the estimates on what his App was bringing in, and it was a lot. Not that she was entirely sure how money would help, really.

Devin is a programmer, though, and… She looked over at her laptop and the phones beside it. It would be good to have someone to optimize the applications running on those systems.

Most of all, though, she needed help figuring out what to do.

Could Devin do that?

Issa didn’t know, but she didn’t know who else to talk to. If she talked to her mother, Issa was pretty sure she’d be more worried about literally everything than helpful, and her mom had enough to worry about.

Maybe I’m crazy, but… I need to talk to someone.

*****

FL-35 Over the Atlantic

Wesley Trenton sighed as he leaned back in the seat of his private jet.

His board of directors had been quite intent on him leaving the city once the incident from the bridge had been made public. He couldn’t blame them, he supposed, but threatening to sue to have him removed from his position was not something he was going to put up with.

Dealing with investors was a pain, one of the necessary evils of a company the size of Blue Solar, but one that he had long gotten used to juggling fairly well. He was a majority shareholder, which made most of the annoyances relatively easy to deal with. As long as he wasn’t doing anything truly outlandish, he could tell the stockholders to go shove their concerns… but that didn’t mean he was completely autonomous, unfortunately.

If they could make a case that he was risking the company with his decisions, they could make a case to the courts to have him removed.

Sticking around in a city that was currently under a superhuman terrorist threat that could apparently induce insanity was enough, according to even his lawyers, to make that case.

So, he was on a plane, heading for London.

He hated it.

What was happening in New York was both his worse case scenario, and an opportunity that he couldn’t believe had dropped into his lap.

The Russian gang was essentially holding one of the greatest cities on the planet hostage, and they were getting away with it. That was going to grab a lot of attention, international attention. He didn’t know what they thought they were doing, or what their goal was, but he did know what he could get out of this.

If I play this right, I can get carte blanche from world governments to develop the technology we’ll need to be ready for what’s coming.

Blue Solar was positioned to dominate the markets already, but that was only the means to an end. The stakes were too high, he couldn’t afford to let a single opportunity slip past him. It was going to be a long flight, and he had a lot of calls to make.

*****

It was not the first time in its history that all eyes in the world were turned to New York, but for those who lived there the sensation of being the nearly literal center of the world was never a pleasant sensation.

The city was, in many ways, THE city of the world, and everyone who lived there was more than happy to remind everyone of that fact at every opportunity.

Most of the time, that fact was bragging rights unlike anything else one could easily imagine… for the times when it brought them the attention of the sorts of psychopaths they were now dealing with, unfortunately, it became a source of unbelievable pain.

The world was now watching them again, looking to see how… or if… they would manage to surmount this challenge.

For New Yorkers, caught in the middle of the horror, many could just ask themselves how many times this could happen before their city finally surrendered.

*****

Chapter 23

Manhattan

“Dimitri.”

The Russian gangster turned to the mention of his name, nodding to the speaker as they approached. “Ivan. What is it?”

“The Governor is holding a meeting to decide what to do about us,” Ivan said with a sardonic smile. “It’s all rather secret, of course.”

“Of course.” Dimitri chuckled. “I’ll be looking forward to finding out what he decides.”

“We should know by three this afternoon. The meeting is at two.”

“Two, you say?” Dimitri considered that, “What would you think about giving our dear governor a little… push?”

“It may have the desired effect. Do we have a target?” Ivan asked, considering the question.

Dimitri scratched at his chin, thinking about it, “None that I would rate as truly spectacular, but there are always options.”

“Should we include Valeri?”

“No,” Dimitri shook his head, “Save her for when they test us.”

Ivan nodded, not even bothering to comment on the fact that Dimitri had said ‘when’ and not ‘if’. It was beyond any doubt that the police and authorities would push them hard enough to cross the conditions set out in their little threat. Bringing in Valeri before that time would likely be counter productive, he agreed.

“I agree,” he said. “Something flashy… but not overly provocative, then?”

“Yes. I believe so.”

“We know the identities of a few more of the local police that were in the pocket of the Italians.”

Dimitri thought about it, then slowly smiled, “Perfect. See to it.”

“It will be a genuine please.”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

Karen growled as she slammed her fist down beside her phone, her fury wasted on the inanimate device since the call had already been disconnected. She didn’t know what they expected her to do. She didn’t have anymore Superhumans to throw into this fight, and they were denying her any reinforcements until the Governor had made his decision as to the current situation.

That left her with two members of Stolen Valor lending their support, and a handful of normal agents, all to support the besieged police of a city of nearly ten million people.

The NYPD are willing, but every time they stick their heads out, the Russians snap them off. We can’t keep wasting good cops or there won’t be any of them left before long.

The Russians had shown, quite clearly, that if they were given the opportunity to claim the initiative, then conventional forces were worse than useless against them. If they could find them, then perhaps that could be countered, but they were proving plenty effective at keeping their location hidden.

Just how many superhumans do they have anyway?

Like many others, she had noted the little line dropped by the Russian in the midst of their fight with the Commodore. The implication that they were actively creating superhumans was troubling. It wasn’t a new idea, hell she’d be shocked if there weren’t elements in damn near every government already working on doing exactly the same thing.

The conditions required to activate the virus were reasonably well known, after all. A third of the population met the genetic requirements. The situational requirements were far from difficult to create, though they could be tricky to do so safely, let alone ethically.

Somehow, I doubt the Russians care much for safety, or ethics.

Doing so reliably, without killing or permanently damaging your subjects was still a delicate problem so far as she was aware. The required hormone cocktail was easy enough to induce, in theory, but different people required different doses to be effective… and professionally trained soldiers were the sort of people who were conditioned not to react quite so naturally to the threat of danger.

That meant that it took even more to activate the virus in an experienced and disciplined soldier than it did in a child, or normal civilian. Pushing them hard enough to activate the virus was almost as likely to kill them as it was to do anything else.

Every indication she’d seen was that the level of waste in inducing an activation was very nearly prohibitive at best.

The worst-case scenarios weren’t ones she wanted to think about.

*****

Washington Heights

What was I thinking?

Issa wasn’t sure, to be honest. The Park was a long way away, a good solid walk under normal conditions, but with the city as tightly wound as it currently was, that distance was as though it had expanded many times. Anyone who saw her on the street would wonder what she was doing out in the open, and eventually someone would start asking questions.

The police would undoubtedly stop to check on her. There wasn’t an official lockdown, not yet anyway, but an unaccompanied minor would certainly attract attention. She hoped that Devin could make it, but at least he was closer.

She had learned a few things through experimenting, though, and had some ideas.

Her mother had gone out to work, the city was still working after all despite everything. It was impossible to shut down something this size. The enhanced presence of security was what would give her the most problems. As Devin had noted, the subway now had more security than ever, and they’d stop and turn back unaccompanied minors for their own safety.

Same on the few busses that were still running.

The irony of it all was that not one bit of the new security would do jack all if the Russians turned up. It was just a pain for normal citizens.

Rationally, she knew that was the point of course. Keeping as many people home as possible lowered the risk of people getting caught in the middle of whatever might happen if and when it happened, but it still chafed. People were already talking about organizing protests online, something that Issa had no idea how it would play out once their theory about freedoms met the real-world events.

It might be exactly what the Russians wanted, after all, and they may encourage the behavior by explicitly avoiding those events… or by causing problems elsewhere while they were going on.

Or they might be looking for a really big gathering to drop that woman into the middle of.

Issa shuddered at the idea of that scream in the middle of a crowd of thousands.

Best case there was horrific, and the worst case…

She didn’t want to think about it.

Throwing on her jacket and grabbing a couple things, Issa quietly let herself out of the apartment and made her way down to the street level. It was a long way to the park, so she’d better get started.

*****

Central Park

Devin shifted nervously as he saw someone walking past, but they didn’t look his way, so he just stayed out of sight as he waited.

Why did I agree to this?

It had to be the craziest thing he’d ever done, which… thinking about it, kinda made him sad. Sneaking out of his place in broad daylight to go to the park didn’t exactly sound like a wild and crazy time.

Though, I suppose that adding a psychotic superhuman gang to the mix does up the rating a few notches, He thought wryly.

The Arch was a good choice to meet, he decided. It was easy enough to stay out of sight near it, and the Park was quiet anyway despite the relatively nice day they were experiencing. That didn’t mean he was particularly comfortable, but it was better than it could be.

I hope Novah is ok. It’s a long way down here from there.

He pulled out his phone, checking the time quickly, and forced himself to relax. There was still time before she would be late, and he knew that even if she were a little late it would probably be because she underestimated the time it would take to get to him.

Everything had gotten so crazy since the night at Blue Solar, Devin could barely believe it. When he saw the event happening that night, he’d just thought about launching his app and saw the hits he could gather from the inevitable notoriety of the whole situation.

He’d never imagined that it would spiral out into a nightmare of escalating violence that gripped the entire city the way it had.

His App, Metalert, was now competing with the top Superhuman Media Sites in the world. Only SuperSpotter and the Chinese run PowerWatch, or Shǒubiǎo Lìliàng, were in the same league and with Metalert being used by the Russians here in New York, more and more people were signing up to get first access to whatever insanity they pushed out next.

He’d always wanted his apps to be popular, but for his success to be riding on the death of the Commodore…

That wasn’t ashes he tasted in his mouth. it was something a lot fouler.

Devin was so lost in his own thoughts that he nearly jumped out of his own skin when a hand dropped onto his shoulder.

“Hey.”

*****

Crossing the city had been both easier and harder than Issa had expected.

Easier because literally nobody was looking up. It was eerie, like everyone had been beaten or whipped or something. They looked defeated, scared. She understood the fear, she felt it herself, but defeated?

The Russian gang members were monsters, there was no question of that, but they were just people… powers or no. They would be beaten in the end - Issa was sure of that. It was only a matter of time before it happened.

Still, even with that, the lack of anonymity that the crowds used to provide made moving around harder in many ways.

More than once, she’d been forced to turn and walk into… or pretend to walk into… a building when she saw a police cruiser slowly drive past.

The cops were barely any better than anyone else, though, she noticed with a creeping feeling of worry. She’d spotted several cars on her way to the park and almost all of them had two cops in the front, both looking like they would prefer to be anywhere but where they were. She watched them drive past some people tagging a building, pointedly not even looking in the direction of the taggers, and that was when Issa really got a feel for how bad the situation had become.

They’re terrified.

She wasn’t used to that. Issa supposed that, on some level, she’d known that the police got scared from time to time, she’d just never thought about it. Now it was getting right in her face, and she couldn’t ignore it. It wasn’t that she blamed them, not really, but it shook her to realize it consciously.

She got to the park a little ahead of schedule and quickly made her way to the Arch.

Devin wasn’t anywhere in sight, so she kept looking until she found him standing in the shadow of the stonework and walked over. She dropped a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” she said, completely unready for the reaction she got.

Devin screamed, jumping, and spinning as he clutched at his chest and stared wildly at her. She fell back a step, hands coming up to defend her on instinct more than any planning, but he didn’t attack. After a long moment of taking deep breaths, Devin glared at her.

“Don’t DO that!”

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were so twitchy,” Issa huffed, patting at the center of her own chest as she tried to will her heartbeat to go down.

She was immediately distracted by the fact that it did just that, dropping from a panicky pounding to a slow, but strong staccato beat.

I… I can change myself?

That was big. She thought.

It’s big… isn’t it?

Issa was trying to puzzle that out when she was interrupted by Devin.

“So, what’s going on that you dragged me out here?”

“Huh? Oh… right,” Issa shook her head. “It’s just… look, something’s happened.”

“Well yeah, a lot of things have happened,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Have you been watching the news? The city has gone nuts.”

“No, not… well, yeah, sort of that, but this is something else.”

Devin stared for a moment before he nodded, “Ok… so, well what is it?”

Issa hesitated, now that she was facing him, she felt a surge of insecurities and fear making her reconsider her decision.

No. I didn’t walk all the way here to chicken out. I need someone to talk to, Mr. Trenton is gone, Mom would freak, and there’s no one else right now… ugh. That’s depressing.

Issa had never had a lot of luck with friends. It wasn’t to say she didn’t have any exactly, but none of them were the sort that she’d take this kind of problem to with any hope of them keeping the secret… not that she’d expect to get much help from them either, even if she did.

Alright… let’s do this.

“Devin…” She nervously licked her lips. “I… I’m…”

“Are… are you asking me out?” Devin blurted.

“What? No!” Issa snapped, eyes wide. “I’m a Superhuman! Why would you think…”

“Wait, what?”

Issa threw up her hands, “Gah! I said it, alright, I got powers. I guess it was the night at Blue Solar, but I didn’t know right away. Got really sick for a couple days after, and then… things just started. Did you really think I was trying to ask you out?”

“No, not really,” He admitted. “But I was having a real hard time trying to figure out what you needed to talk to me in person was, all things considered, you know? Asking me out was the least crazy idea I could come up with… and it was way less crazy than you telling me you had super powers.”

She scowled, bringing up a finger to gesture at him before she paused, “I… huh. Ok, point to you for that. I’m really not looking to date right now, but asking you out wouldn’t be remotely as crazy as what’s really happening.”

“Thanks,” He said dryly. “But let’s refocus. Are you sure? What can you do? Wait… why tell me?”

“In order? Yes. I’m not completely sure yet, and I tried to call Mr. Trenton first, but he left the city.”

Devin stared for a moment, “I’m your second choice after a billionaire who’s dedicated entire chunks of his company to researching this very subject? Novah, I don’t know if I’m honored or if you’re crazy… but ok, what do you mean you aren’t completely sure yet?”

Issa frowned, “I can… change things. I changed my phone.”

*****

Devin frowned, looking at the phone Novah was holding up. He recognized the general model. It was three or four generations old, and it hadn’t been top of the line when it was released. A middle level phone, not really intended to be anything other, but he couldn’t see any changes to it.

“What do you mean, changed it?” He asked finally.

She sighed, thumbing the screen lock off and calling up an app quickly.

“Here,” she said, handing it to him.

Devin noted that it was a benchmarking app, one he knew fairly well. He glanced at it briefly, about to ask another question when the numbers he’d just seen sunk in and he looked back down as quickly as he could.

This isn’t possible.

“This isn’t possible.”

“That’s what I thought,” Novah told him. “But I confirmed it with my laptop before, and after, I changed that.”

“You did this to a laptop? What did you get out of it?”

“Not quite as big a change,” She admitted. “My laptop is older, and the chip wasn’t fighting itself as much.”

“What? Fighting itself?” Devin was confused. Why would it be fighting itself?

“I don’t know how else to explain it,” she said. “I can see… a representation of sub-atomic actions. The newer the processors I’ve seen, the more… conflicted they seem to be. Like they’re riding right on the edge of stability. I can nudge the variables to make them more stable… more… harmonic maybe?”

“Huh… that, kinda makes sense.” He mumbled, still staring at the benchmarking app. “Modern processors are really tightly packed. It’s a limit in the silicone. Any smaller and the transistors interfere with one another. Have you tested this?”

“Yeah, kinda sorta,” She said. “I had my laptop mine bitcoin last night. It solved the equations twice in a row, putting in the right answer ahead of everyone else.”

Devin choked.

“What? That’s…” His mind whirled. He had mined crypto more than a few times himself. He knew how it worked. To solve the equation that fast was more than just speeding up the processor, unless she’d managed even more than he was seeing in the numbers in front of him. Just spamming solutions at insane speeds wouldn’t beat every other crypto miner on the planet twice in a row like that.

He paused, thinking furiously, “I don’t even know what that is. Ok, you can juice up computers… for the record, you’re totally doing mine, please?”

She nodded absently, “Sure, but…”

“But?”

“It’s not just computers. When you jumped and scared me earlier… I told myself to calm down, and… I kinda did. My heart slowed on command.”

“Cool,” He breathed out. “That means you can probably affect a lot more stuff. You need to practice… experiment.”

“Easier said than done… or, I mean it’s pretty easy to do, but it feels… dangerous?” Novah told him, sounding uncertain. “I mean, these abilities people have… they’re really bad, some of them. What if I do something like that?”

“Yeah…” Devin could see where she was coming from. Some of his excitement died down as he started thinking it through. “Ok, let’s start with what you know already… why did you want to talk to me?”

“Well, you know more about computers and programming, right? I mean, since I can affect those, I figured…”

“That I could help out with it, yeah that makes sense.” Devin nodded. “Ok… can you change my phone?”

Issa nodded, extending her hand for it. Devin started to hand his phone over before hesitating and looking nervous.

“It’s not going to wipe it or anything, is it?”

“No.”

“Good. Oh… um,” He looked around. “You don’t have to look at what’s on it do you?”

“What? Why?” Issa asked before shaking her head, “No never mind, I don’t want to know. I’m not looking at the software at all, just altering the hardware… I think.”

“Ok…” He handed it over, still reluctant, but too curious not to.

Issa looked at the phone, recognizing that it was a top-of-the-line model, one of the best currently available by a long shot and easily worth ten of hers. She sighed, feeling a spike of jealousy before remembering that she could easily buy one now if she wanted. Pushing those thoughts out of the way, she poured her focus into the phone, telling the components to stop fighting themselves and play properly. It took a little longer, she noticed. The processor in particular was being really stubborn, but finally she got it finished.

“Here,” She handed it back.

“That’s… it?” Devin was confused, really.

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know? Lightning?”

“Wouldn’t that wipe your phone?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Ok, I guess.” Devin said as he navigated through the apps. It did seem snappier than usual, he noticed as he quickly found a benchmarking app and got it installed. In a few minutes he let out a low whistle. “Oh wow. Yeah, I can work with this. Ok, I’ll see what I can do to optimize some apps for you. What do you want exactly?”

Issa shrugged, a little embarrassed really. “I don’t know? I just figured out I could do it… I don’t know what to do with it?”

“Sure, I guess I can see that,” He said, “Ok, I’ll see what I can get running.”

“Just, don’t do anything crazy online, ok?” She asked, “someone might notice.”

“Right… yeah, I’ll stay connected through a VPN… I know a couple that are pretty hard to break,” He grinned, “and anyone who notices the unusual load will just think it’s a bot net working on something.”

“Thanks.”

“No, thank you.” Devin stressed, “This is amazingly cool, Novah.”

“Could you please not call me that,” She sighed, “It’s really annoying.”

“But… but… it’s an awesome name!” He whined a little. “Who wouldn’t want a cool name like that?”

“Me. I’m Issa,” she said firmly.

“Fine.” He sulked, “I’ll try and remember, Issa. Do you think you can do my laptop sometime too?”

“Yeah, should be easy,” She said, “I kinda need to find more stuff to modify anyway. You know any places I could find some junk stuff like that?”

“I’ve got tons,” He shrugged. “My dad brings home stuff that the company is phasing out all the time. I mean, it’s last generation for them, but…”

“But for Blue Solar that’s still pretty amazing… you sure you don’t mind giving me some to play around with?”

“Not if you don’t mind zapping some of it for me too,” Devin said, grinning. “I’ve been going out of my mind with all this crap going on.”

“Tell me about it,” She sighed, slumping back against the rock of the archway. “School is canceled, everything is locked down, and there are literal Super Villains taking over the city! I mean, what the hell, right?”

“Yeah…” Devin sighed. “I mean, since the Commodore…”

He shook his head, “He was my favorite hero.”

“Oh hey, Sorry. Honestly, I’m kind of partial to the guy who saved me from becoming sidewalk pizza,” Issa admitted. “But I get it.”

“Wasn’t he a bad guy?” Devin asked.

“He saved my life,” She said dryly. “As long as he’s not flying around burning down orphanages with the kids still inside or something like that, he’s a hero in my book.”

“That’s fair,” Devin admitted after some thought.

“So glad you approve.”

Devin just shrugged, expression turning serious, “What are you going to do?”

That was a question that Issa had been asking herself more and more as she came to grips with the fact that she’d gained powers… abilities… whatever they wanted to call them.

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Not going to go out and become a hero?” He asked, his expression just a little too serious for her to think he was entirely joking.

“Devin, you saw what they’ve done to the people who joined the LEOs… I’m, no…” She shook her head.

“Yeah,” He sighed, “Things got real dark, didn’t they?”

“Yeah.”

*****

Chapter 24

Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan

“I’m getting real tired of this,” Patrolman Jones grumbled from behind the wheel of the car. “What happened to all the backup we had a few days ago?”

“It got reallocated when the National Guard got shanked on the bridge,” Sergeant Crory said from beside him, “And you know it. Just focus on driving, don’t grab any attention, and we’ll be back at the station in twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Jones eased the car around a corner, eyes flicking up and down the street in search of threats while he tried not to move his head and be obvious about it.

The Russians had done a number on patrols across the island, and the smart money was that they were far from finished. He didn’t want to get their attention anymore than anyone else did these days. If they could off the Commodore like that, what they could do to him didn’t bear thinking on.

“Shit,” He swore. “And it seemed like such a good idea to take the Italian’s money.”

“Shut up.”

“What? It’s just us here, and the sound isn’t recording.”

“If you’ll speak about it here, then you’ll speak about it somewhere else, maybe when the sound is recording. Shut up,” Crory snapped, glaring at him.

“Fine, fine,” Jones grumbled as they eased up to the next corner. “Well, at least the traffic is light.”

That was a truth they’d come to realize. New York was the city that didn’t sleep, the Big Apple, and a bunch of other things… so when the Russians had started moving, honestly most New Yorkers had taken it in stride. They’d survived everything else the world had thrown at them. This bullshit was nothing new.

That changed when the Nation Guard convoy was taken out.

It wasn’t really the loss of the convoy so much, or Jones didn’t think it was anyway. More about how they went out. He had no love for the soldier boys in general, even the ones who joined the force tended to piss him off.

Smug bastards…

But pissed off or not, no one should go out that way… bleeding from the eyes and gunning down their buddies?

That was some twisted shit.

“Hey, watch where you’re going.”

Jones snapped out of his reverie in time to come to a stop before hitting the lights. A van was crossing the intersection ahead of them and they watched it with interest as it was one of the few things moving in the area besides them.

The hairs on his hackles went straight up when the van started slowing, and a chill ran right down his spine as it stopped right in front of them.

“Get us out of…!”

Crory’s scream was cut off as the sliding door in the panel van slid open and the last thing either of them saw was a blur launch itself from the vehicle and slammed right into them. Everything went sideways in a spin, and then black.

*****

Dimitri nodded in approval as the new recruit finished folding the police car up into a steel taco, with the cops still inside. He didn’t know if they were alive or not, but it didn’t matter much. They wouldn’t be for long at any rate.

“Finish it,” He ordered out the window from the passenger’s seat.

“Dah.” The recruit nodded, heaving the former car up over his head and simply throwing it up the street.

He was walking back to the van before the car landed in the distance.

“Get us back to base,” Dimitri said as the recruit got into the van, sliding the door shut as they moved away. “Did you get all that?”

“Yes sir. Streamed it live, recording high quality for editing,” their tech specialist smiled.

“Perfect,” Dimitri smiled, half turning around to look at the new recruit. “Well done… Nesti. We’ll call you Nesti.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Nesti, Dimitri thought. It was a little cliché, but it suited, and they were well known to be Russian. Every Russian gang needed a bear, right?

*****

New York State Governor’s Office, Albany NY

“Jake, you better have news for me,” Alan Calwell, the governor of the state, growled as he sat down at the large table, looking around at the gathered people. “Because this situation is tearing us all a bunch of new holes that are only going to get bigger if we don’t get this figured out.”

“We have several more units of the Guard ready to roll in, sir, but until the threat of that woman is dealt with, it wouldn’t likely end well if we tried,” Jake Stillson, his chief aide answered. “The issue is both in finding them, and in putting enough firepower into the field, fast enough, to end the threat before she can… do whatever the hell it was she did to that Guard column to a big chunk of people in the city.”

“Goddamn it, we need more that that.” Alan growled. “What did Homeland say?”

“They’re putting together a strike force with their own superhuman LEOs,” Jake told him, “But they have the same limitation. We need to know where they are, otherwise, they’ll be able to retaliate.”

Alan huffed angrily, though he knew well that there wasn’t anything else he could bring to the table either. The Russians had the advantage for the moment in that they had what was, effectively, a strategic weapon that shut down everything he could bring into play.

“Move our Guard forces in to surround Manhattan, but don’t cross over,” He ordered. “I want the Air National Guard on standby, and get me the White House.”

“Sir?”

“I’m going to see if we can get the President to officially waive Posse Comitatus,” Alan said frankly. Though technically he wasn’t sure if it actually applied in this case, it would cover their bases if the President was willing to make that official.

Better than moving anyway and fighting it through to SCOTUS in the aftermath, but if that was what it took, he was willing to sign of on that too, if the President insisted.

“I’ll put in the call as soon as we’re done here.”

Alan nodded wearily, starting to get up from the table when the door was shoved open.

“Governor, Sir! They just streamed again.”

“Oh god damn it,” Alan swore, “What now?”

“It’s not good,” His secretary said, grimacing.

I already put that much together.

He steeled himself, not gestured, “Link it in here.”

“Yes sir.”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

Karen slumped in her seat as she watched the video. The Russians had just introduced a new player, unless she was much mistaken. He wasn’t anything earth shaking exactly, but being able to fold a police cruiser in half and punt it a quarter mile down the street wasn’t anything to sneer at either.

“Tee just reported in, Ma’am,” her secretary said stiffly from the door. “They were gone before he arrived on scene.”

“Unsurprising,” Karen said, setting her pen down. “Do we have anything on the traffic cameras?”

“We lost them in a blind spot near the Intrepid Museum, Ma’am.”

“Blind spot?”

“Yes Ma’am. It wasn’t there yesterday.”

“Of course, it wasn’t. Thank you, Eric.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

They knew the city too well, and they’d planned the operation out carefully, that much was obvious. The Russian mob had been a power in the city for a couple decades, being more vicious than the established but older Italian families.

She’d been reviewing their files, something that hadn’t come up much in the couple years since she’d accepted the posting. Until now, neither they nor the Families had been running any overt Superhumans and hadn’t been under her jurisdiction. If any of her people happened upon them doing business they could intervene, but the general SOP was to turn it over to the NYPD for the most part.

The Russians had moved in during the 90s, after the Wall fell in Germany, mostly as hired muscle and small independents at first. The Italians, while fancying themselves more civilized and actually being far more legitimate in nature, really hadn’t competed with them at first. It had been the Russians versus the Columbians that tore up the streets in the peak of violence back in the mid-90s.

Eventually, the Russians won and became more established. They still tended to run businesses that the Italians didn’t care for, though. Drugs, human trafficking, various other nasty sundries that the more ‘civilized’ criminals looked down on in public, while quietly partaking of in private.

Now, however, it seemed like they wanted it all… but… it didn’t really make a lot of sense to her either.

This action, it couldn’t last.

The United States Government sure as hell wasn’t going to cede New York City to a crime family, no matter their nationality or level of threat.

She wasn’t sure what the action was going to be, the fact that she was in the city made her a security risk apparently. The Federal Government wasn’t talking to her, and the State Government either was doing the same or honestly didn’t have a clue what was going on.

And I wouldn’t care to make bets on which of the two it is either.

Unfortunately, that left her alone to try and deal with things while ten million people waited on the Federal Government to get their thumbs out of their ass and do something.

Karen glared openly at a large map of Manhattan pinned to the wall.

Where the hell are you?

*****

Stolen Valor Offices, Manhattan

Where are you bastards?

Tee was sick of this. Hunting the Russians in New York was becoming a major pain in the ass, mostly due to a copious amount of potential targets and a surpassingly thin availability if hard intelligence.

He’d tried to catch up to them in Hell’s Kitchen as soon as the stream went live, but they’d been gone before he arrived. The police in the destroyed cruiser had likely died in the initial attack, but if they hadn’t then the landing ended it reasonably quickly, which was better than the Guard got at least.

He stepped out of the shadows and into a familiar building, eyes falling on the slim woman sitting in the middle of the room.

“Hey Rosie.”

“Tee.”

The Hispanic lady didn’t turn around as she remained focused on the computer system in front of her. Her hands didn’t move the mouse as the screen panned through the maps at lightning speeds, sometimes shifting to live footage from the streets.

“Anything?”

“Not a damn thing.”

No stranger would have heard the frustration in the woman’s voice, but Verte had worked with Ramirez for too long to even pretend to miss it.

“They made a blind spot in the network, sometime over night,” She went on. “Drove the van into the blind spot… and never came out.”

“So, they’re still in there somewhere?” He asked, eyes drifting to the screen.

“Not as far as anyone can tell,” She said. “NYPD searched, I searched… Probably the Feds have searched it too, but they’re not reporting anything. The van just vanished.”

Verte nodded, not that he understood what happened but that he understood what he was being told. “Don’t know about the local cops or the feds, but if you searched the area and say it’s not there, I believe you.”

Rosie snorted, “Really? Because I’m not sure I do. The van has to be somewhere, unless they’ve got a portal maker or a teleporter on hand.”

“Well, if they do then they could be literally anywhere,” Verte said, “But let’s not buy more trouble than we absolutely have to just yet.”

She half turned, finally looking at him, “What do you have in mind?”

“I’m just going to go there and do my Cajun tracking thing, Cher,” Verte said, leaning into his affectation of an accent. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“You know I hate it when you talk like that you… and he’s gone.” Rosie sighed as Verte vanished into the shadows. “Somehow that man manages to actually become more annoying every single time we talk. I swear, I’m going to shoot him one of these days.”

*****

Intrepid Sea and Air Museum, NYC

Verte emerged from the shadows on the east side of the Intrepid’s ‘island’ command tower, the sun having passed its apex and begun the long descent into night. He took a moment to look around the old aircraft carrier with some interest, including the various aircraft resting on its deck.

“Never really got a chance to play on these much,” He spoke to himself as he started walking across the deck to the East, hopping over the cable that marked the areas that were off limits to the visitors of the Museum. It seemed that the caretakers hadn’t shown up for the day, so there was no one to yell at him as he casually hopped up to flick the rotor of the Super Cobra with his fingers before walking on to where the SR-71 was parked.

Ducking under the titanium fuselage of the aircraft, Verte continued to the edge of the carrier’s flight deck and dropped himself down, sitting with his legs dangling over the side as he examined the area.

Now, let’s see here. First, they disabled the street cameras in the area… it’s a business sector, so with everything shut down for the moment there wouldn’t be anyone around with cameras… and if there were, much lower odds of the police finding them anyway. No one is stupid enough to piss off the Russians right now, after all.

That didn’t leave a lot of options for hiding a van in the area from the police, to be honest.

He peered over the side, looking down to the harbor water below, but with the sun still high in the sky he could see the bottom easily enough, and there was no way the cops would miss something quite that obvious Vert decided.

So where would I hide a van? Or would I just get rid of it?

Explosions and fire would get rid of a van easily enough, but those were noticeable. Once you factored powers into things, however, the numbers changed. Verte looked up, making a quick decision, and then slipped off the edge of the carrier deck. As he started to fall toward the water below, he grabbed the chain of the security fence and swing back into the ship, and the ship’s shadow.

*****

Stolen Valor Offices, Manhattan

“Found it.”

“Jesus Christ, Verte!” Rosie near jumped out of her chair that time, bringing a smile to his face. He didn’t manage to surprise her very often. Something must have distracted her. “Don’t do that!”

“Until the next time,” He promised. “I found the van.”

“Where?” She demanded.

“They left it on the roof of a building across the street from the Intrepid,” Verte told her. “Police probably didn’t even think of it, since it wasn’t a parking garage.”

“But with a Superhuman on board who can punt cars across the city, that’s not so hard to do,” Rosie sighed. “Damn it, I should have thought of that.”

“No cameras up there either,” He shrugged, “I checked.”

“Did you take…”

Verte smiled as he handed over his camera. “Of course, I did.”

“Good. I’ll look into this, but in the meantime, I found something too.” Rosie said. “There’s been some unusual computer hits in the city.”

“Oh? The Russians?”

“Maybe, some of it anyway. I don’t know about all of it,” she said, shaking her head. “Someone fired up a hell of a supercomputer cluster here in the city, though. They ran it for less than thirty minutes, mined two bitcoin solutions, and logged it off.”

“That… is an odd use of a supercomputer, isn’t it?” Verte asked, not actually certain.

“One this powerful? Hell yes. We’re talking about a hundred-million-dollar rig, Verte, maybe more.” Rosie said firmly. “Using it to mine bitcoin is… it’s insane, no one builds a rig that powerful just to mine crypto. If you spend the money to build the rig, you have a real need for the cycles.”

“So maybe the Russians are up to something…”

“That’s just it, unlike the signals I’ve tentatively identified as possibly the Russians, this one wasn’t really even trying to hide itself in the usual way. No encryption, no real attempt at spoofing their address… nothing really out of the ordinary at all…”

“Except for the fact that it was a hundred-million-dollar computer system,” Verte said dryly.

“Except that, yes.”

“Where are they then?”

“I don’t know,” Rosie sighed, “They weren’t online long enough for me to notice and track them at the time, and they logged in through a free ISP that services large chunks of the city and cycles their users through dynamic IP addresses.”

“English, mon cher.”

“Is that what you call that pidgin you speak?” Rosie shot him a dark look that got her nothing more than a grin in return. She sighed, “I can’t tell you who’s account it was without hacking the ISP, and even then, it would probably be a mobile user with a fake username.”

“You think they faked their account information?”

“Who would fire up a system that expensive without putting it on a dedicated fiber line unless they were hiding something?” Rosie countered, rolling her eyes. “If they went to that level of trouble, no way they’d use their own name on the account. Probably didn’t even use an account of their own, fake or otherwise, it would be easy to hack someone else’s with that kind of power.”

“If you say so, Cher.”

*****

Chapter 25

Islay Home

Issa had made it back without incident, though the rest of the city hadn’t been so lucky she found out quickly enough upon checking the news feeds.

Another police ambush… it’s crazy out there.

The crazy part, though, was how calm the city was. Things had felt eerie walking back from the Park. It wasn’t that there were no people, the city wasn’t a ghost town of course. With as many people as there were in the area, that wouldn’t be eerie… it would be a sign of the apocalypse.

No, there were lots of people on the streets, mostly walking rather than driving… which was pretty freaky in itself. She hadn’t seen them herself, but apparently several communities had taken advantage of the drop in traffic to basically launch impromptu street parties.

Crazy.

People were quiet in most of the city, though, going about their business as best they could, trying not to garner much attention.

She’d decided to focus on her own issues more than the news, though, and shut down the feeds to her system so she could work without distractions.

Her abilities were… odd.

She didn’t have any other words for them, unfortunately. They didn’t fit any of the things she was reading about how superhuman powers functioned. Which was really rather concerning, given that it was her body she was worried about.

Is something wrong with me? Am I in danger? Nothing online mentioned anything about superhumans getting sick when they get their powers either, maybe I’m… unstable or something?

It took a deep dive into Metalert’s forums before she found something that actually made her think that she was less freaky than she believed.

****

Metalert V.82

VinDemon @Vincent091

-          Is it just me or are we seeing some really strange superhumans lately? I mean, the Marine, the Commodore, even the fast kid who does deliveries out West, they all had pretty normal powers, right? I mean, for a certain definition of normal and all. What the hell is up with Screamer anyway? How is that a power?

MorningStar @Lucy666

-          Really? We’re going with screamer for her name? She took out a whole army column by herself, give the lady some respect.

BlueLine911 @JackMason

-          Screw you @Lucy666! She doesn’t deserve jack or shit after what she did. Call the little bitch crybaby and be done with it.

VinDemon @Vincent091

-          Let’s keep the insults down, please. I’m serious about this, what the hell is up with her power? Scream until people’s eyes and ears bleed and they lose their freaking minds? How does that work with what we know?

BlitzBomb @SturmFrauer

-          German here. We’ve got a couple Neo-Nazi types running around with powers. One can apparently open portals while the other can boost normals while mind controlling them maybe? Not really clear on that part. They were actually part of the big fight over here five years ago, but don’t get a lot of international attention. So not all powers are like the classic comic book characters.

Mako99 @ChristineKinder

-          Don’t forget China’s Dragon. Guy turns into a giant Chinese mythical dragon made of FIRE. I don’t know what the rules are for superhuman abilities, but I’m pretty sure they’re more than “get stronger, hit things.”

*****

Huh. I forgot about the Dragon. How did I forget about a Dragon?

In fairness, Issa supposed it wasn’t that hard to do, given that China didn’t exactly advertise the problems they had internally, and China’s Dragon was officially listed as deployed for internal security from Superhuman threats when she checked his wiki page.

Still, it was clear that there were different powers out there, ones that didn’t show up in the media as much as the rest. That started her wondering about just how powers worked really, but Issa didn’t think she’d really figure that out anytime soon.

She sighed, grabbing for a sheaf of papers from school, still having homework despite the cancellation. There was talk of getting everyone online, like they’d done a few years ago during a Pandemic, but that hadn’t been organized properly yet, so she was left trying to stay up to date mostly on her own.

“Ow!”

She snatched her finger back from the pages, sucking on it quickly before checking to find that she did, indeed, have a nasty papercut.

Why do those things hurt so much more than a real cut damn it?

Nursing her ‘wound’, Issa went on with her homework for several minutes before she suddenly froze and looked down at her still sore finger.

“Well…” She said slowly, “I guess I’m not any tougher than I was before. No getting shot at for me, that’s for sure.”

If she had any powers that protected her from injury, like the damage the big names could take, she certainly couldn’t spot them, and that brought up some serious real-world concerns all of a sudden.

Maybe armor? Wait… why am I thinking like I’m going to go out and get into fights? I’m not joining LEO, and this isn’t a comic book.

She made herself calm down. Her abilities were interesting, incredibly cool really, but that didn’t mean she was going to go out and try playing at being a hero or something. The last thing she wanted to mess around with were the sorts of vicious people that the Russians had brought into New York.

She was a physics girl, not some thug beating on people.

Still… figuring out some kind of protection wouldn’t exactly be a dumb move, would it?

*****

Naval Base, Norfolk VA

“Alright everyone, listen up,” The Navy Master Chief said simply as he walked into the room, bringing quiet to the low murmur that had pervaded it before.

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. Everyone in the room knew what they were there for, and knew when it was time to put away the bullshit and get to work.

“Presidential order just came down, suspending Posse Comitatus for the duration of this operation,” The Chief said. “For those of you rules lawyers in the group, I know that Posse Comitatus doesn’t strictly apply to the Navy, so I’ve also got paperwork from the Office of the Navy suspending our regulations to similar effect, so keep your ‘well actually’ bullshit to yourselves. The upshot is that we’re covered, legally, for the actions outlined in the operation, just in case any of the Tangoes happen to the American Citizens. The reason all this took so damn long is because no one is quite certain which laws come into play at the moment, so the powers that be effectively shotgunned them all down for us.”

The Chief wasn’t kidding when he said that no one knew exactly which laws were actually in play. The nature of the crimes was still being debated by the legal side of things. Slapping a terrorist label on them made a lot of the paperwork vanish, but not all of it by any means, and in some ways made things even more complicated since the operation might be deployed against terrorists, but it was also in a major American City that was filled with citizens.

Honestly, the Chief fully expected that the law on this Op wouldn’t be entirely ironed out until the Op was many years in the can… but that wasn’t his problem. Jag and the Office of the Navy could deal with whatever stink congress put up. He’d probably be retired before they figured it all out anyway, and he wasn’t all that close to retirement.

“Alright,” He went on, “With that out of the way, I know you’ve all done the reading, so we’re only doing a fast recap. As of almost two weeks ago, a group of criminals linked to organized crime engaged in a little war, centered primarily on the island of Manhattan. Ultimately, the side linked with the Russian Mob took the win, with members more than a few in this room might remember.”

The men in the room nodded, the murmurs starting up again.

They’d seen photos of the men involved in the fighting with the Commodore, and more than a few of them recognized a face or two. Russian special forces and their Intelligence counterparts were a first-tier threat, no matter how you played the game, and underestimating any of them would lead to bad things. Add in superpowers, and not one person in the room felt good about the situation.

“What’s the play?” A man at the front asked.

“Ideally, we get confirmation of their location, put a bullet in the bitch,” The Chief said. “And then roll in and sweep up the rest. It’ll be dirty, no question, but we’re not going to have time to run this Op properly, it’s going to be a snap kick operation. Get used to that right now.”

While obvious, it made none of the men in the room happy to hear it said out loud.

DevGru had spent six months training constantly before they’d been cleared for the op that took down Bin Laden. They’d built a replica of his compound, raiding over and over again until they knew every single corner like it was their own home. More than their own home for many.

A snap kick operation into the middle of New York? That was just asking for trouble, and every one of them there knew it.

No one said anything, however, because they were all aware that everyone knew it and bringing it up wasn’t going to help the situation in the slightest.

“Do we have intel on the bitch in question?”

The Chief shook his head, “Negative. They’re keeping her in reserve. She’s their strategic asset. They know that as long as they have her, we need to tread carefully. Don’t expect to see her until they’re ready to make another point.”

“Putting a bullet in her is a bit of a problem, then, Chief.”

“Agreed. Which is why we’ll be inserting via the river, and not by boat.” The Chief keyed up a new slide, showing a SDV attached to a Virginia Class boat. “We’ll park the SDVs at the bottom of the river and swim in to the city. From there, our job is to position as the advance strike team. As soon as we have actionable intelligence, we take out the enemy’s strategic asset and support the main elements as they roll into the city. Questions?”

The SEALs looked at each other and back at the Chief, shaking their heads.

It wasn’t that they didn’t have questions exactly, more that they knew that the answers they needed just weren’t available yet.

They would deal with the situation as it played out, because that was the hand they’d been dealt.

“Alright, everyone grab your kit and meet up on the tarmac in an hour,” The Chief ordered. “We’ll be relaying via Helo to the submarines. Hoorah!”

“HOORAH!”

*****

Meeran Household

Thomas found it quiet when he got back from work. The labs had to be shifted to new locations while the insurance teams evaluated the building. The word was that they were all but fully decided on demolishing the ruined building, with only the final word from the executives at the insurance company still being waited on.

That had nothing to do with him for the next little while, however, as he’d been out renting lab space through the city and getting the equipment moved out of the building as safely as possible while the inspectors were determining the ultimate end for Blue Solar NYC’s headquarters.

“Devin, I’m home!” He called out, unsurprised that his son wasn’t in sight.

As expected, Devin popped his head out of the bedroom down the hall, “Hey dad, just working on some computer stuff.”

“That’s fine. I’m thinking about ordering in takeout. Want anything in particular?”

“Whatever you order is fine, dad!”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. That was a little unusual for his son. Usually, Devin could be downright overbearing when it came to food orders.

Must be some project.

Thomas just hoped it wasn’t as… earth shaking as the Metalert App. He was still getting some heat from his co-workers over that one, since it was clear that the boy had used proprietary Blue Solar code libraries to finish it out. Luckily, Mr. Trenton hadn’t taken offense and had granted the boy ownership of the app after getting a few bits of legal disclaimers signed off on.

Of course, if I had my way, I’d sign off ownership in it in a hurry too.

He sighed. It wasn’t that the App was bad in anyway, it was just a legal pain in the ass. Thankfully, the local law enforcement had been willing to lend some of their support to Devin in exchange for immediate access to the streaming sources being posted. That kept him out of court right off the bat, since a law enforcement agency was asking for access to his data, and he was granting it, then he couldn’t be reasonably sued to remove that data without them suing the Justice Department.

That didn’t stop a few people from trying, but thankfully the LEOs had stepped in and shut those suits down hard. Thomas just didn’t know what would happen once the situation with the Russians was over.

He ordered Thai food for the night and after he’d hung up, Thomas headed over to his son’s room and stuck his head in. Almost immediately he frowned.

“Devin…” He drawled out slowly.

“Yeah, dad?”

“Why are you mirroring your phone to your TV and using it instead of just using your PC?”

The instant Devin looked over at him, Thomas knew something was up and his son was about to lie through his teeth.

“Devin, don’t even try it.” He warned.

Devin’s jaw shut with a click of teeth, the boy looking guilty as sin.

“I don’t know what you’ve done, but whatever it is it can’t be all that bad,” Thomas sighed.

“It’s not bad, Dad, I swear… I just… I promised someone I’d keep it a secret.”

Thomas frowned, “Is it illegal?”

“No… um… I don’t think so?” Devin looked confused for a moment, obviously racking his brain.

Well, not obviously illegal at least, Thomas supposed. “Immoral then?”

“No sir.”

He sighed, “Very well. Keep your secret until it crosses one of those lines. If it does, then you talk to me immediately.”

“Yes sir,” Devin said instantly, looking relieved. “Thanks dad.”

“Don’t thank me for something I have no idea about,” Thomas said grumpily as he stepped back out of the room. “I’ll call you when the food gets here.”

“Thanks.”

*****

Devin waited to be sure that his father had gotten back to the living room before he returned his focus to the modified cell phone. Whatever Issa had managed to do made it able to run numbers beyond anything he’d ever imagined owning. He was using it to crunch some equations for his app at the moment, while running it through its paces to get a better idea of what it could do.

All of that had to go through a custom VPN, though, and just to make it safer he wasn’t running it on the home network either but using a free wi-fi signal from down the block.

He’d had no idea that superpowers could even do things like this, and didn’t actually think anyone had any idea that they could. He’d scoured the old super spotter boards, as well as his own Metalert threads, but there wasn’t even a hint of the like as best he could tell.

That either meant that Issa was someone, and something, completely new…

Or there are others like her out there… and they’re keeping their heads down.

That was a bit of a frightening concept, not just because of what he’d seen she could do, but because of what her powers implied were possible. The world had been focused on the obvious enhancements shared by the heroes, and villains, who caught the attention of the media. Now, though, he had proof positive that the less obvious powers might just be far more dangerous.

At least Issa seems to be a good guy, could be worse, I guess.

That left him with a bit of a curiosity, though…. And it was one that was itching at the back of his brain, unwilling to go away.

If there are others like her out there, what are they up to? I wonder… can… how would I go about finding someone like Issa?

He started thinking about it briefly, then opened up his code library and pulled out some of the code from Blue Solar again. His dad had been furious when he found out that Devin had used that code in the first place, but Mr. Trenton had practically laughed it off.

Neither had asked if he’d made copies.

Oh well, I just won’t tell them about this.

He pulled a code module for facial recognition and linked it with a Social Media Spider, then opened up the console and started in on a module of his own.

Computer cycle usage… let’s see if anyone has fired up any really potent computer systems lately, and where they are first, then we’ll start scouring for research topics and posts.

Devin shook his head. To do what he was thinking would take a supercomputer… He glanced at his phone. Good thing I have one, huh?

*****

Manhattan

“The Federal government has opted to take over.”

Dimitri nodded as Ivan approached, “Unsurprising. By sea or by air?”

“Sea, from the intel we’ve been able to gather.”

“SEALs then,” Dimitri said. “Pity, I was hoping for the Rangers. Would have been more sporting.”

Ivan rolled his eyes, “The SEAL’s are quite enough, comrade.”

“Indeed, they are going to be the more difficult to track down, unless we were able to acquire their insertion plans?” Dimitri asked, without putting much hope on it.

“I’m afraid not,” Ivan said. “Our infiltration is in the political sphere, there were just too many potential military options to infiltrate.”

“Da, I know.”

A sad side effect of their limited manpower, superhuman abilities notwithstanding. They had to pick strategic positions to infiltrate, and that meant going as high as they could, to get a better overview of the situation. Unfortunately, tactical plans were often made far below those positions, and that meant that they were cut out of the loop for those.

“No matter. We know what they’ll do. Without solid intel on our position, they’ll infiltrate teams into strategic response zones across the Island,” Dimitri said, walking over to where a tourists map of Manhatten had been nailed to the wall. “They’ll wait for us to show ourselves, then move to eliminate Valerie before she can scream.”

Ivan nodded, crossing the room to check the map as well, “It would be nice to know where those strategic positions are.”

“Indeed, but we will deal with it as it comes.”

“Never a doubt. Any mission, any time, any place.”

*****

Chapter 26

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

“Ugh. Come on, Verte, this is disgusting,” Rosie griped as she walked past the table where the former Green Beret was chowing down on a particularly rank curry, the smell of which was somehow managing to both clear and clog her breathing.

“Philistine,” Verte said between mouthfuls.

Rosie sighed, pushing some of the takeout containers out of the way so she could sit at a clear space at the table. She had a nice salad, eggs, chicken, and refried beans for her dinner and didn’t want any of it contaminated by the sludge Verte was shoveling into his mouth.

“I know you Snake Eaters have a rep for being able to digest anything, but that smells like it is probably digesting you, Verte.”

He just shrugged, “Never had a problem before, doubt there’s anything on the planet my belly can’t tackle now.”

There was probably some truth to that, she supposed. The changes they’d gone through, while being far more than physical, had given each of them enhanced physical strengths. Excellent health was a biproduct, it seemed. Even old Sarge was now healthier than he’d been twenty years ago.

Still weathered like an overcooked steak, but healthier somehow.

“Anything new out there?” Verte asked.

“Still trying to crack the Russians’ network,” she said tiredly. “They’re using an obscenely high bit rate encryption, and I’m pretty certain it’s cycling through predetermined codes as well. By the time I could crack one… They’d have long moved on from it.”

“What about just getting their locations?”

“No joy there either,” Rosie shook her head. “They’re using custom VPNs, bouncing the source of their signal all over the world. The only reason I’m confident it’s them in the first place is that they can’t entirely hide the fact that their signals both start, and end, here in New York. No, we’re stuck waiting for them to make the next move, I’m afraid.”

“Name of the game,” Verte said without any concern.

“For you, maybe. I’m a Marine. I’m only supposed to get called in when it absolutely, positively, must be destroyed overnight. This waiting shit is for those goofy green hats of yours.”

“Careful, Mon Cherie,” Verte told her with a smirk. “We wouldn’t want to go comparing hats and jars, now would we?”

“A bucket has some uses in the field at least. You ever try to carry water in that head diaper of yours?”

The look he shot her kept Rosie nice and warm as she returned to her meal.

*****

The city had been keeping its head down for days at this point, waiting for the next shoe to drop. No one seemed to know when, or what, that would be, but everyone knew it was coming. Even so, by the third day of what the media had been calling the Siege of New York, life was slowly returning to the city.

People could only hide out for so long before their desire to move overrode whatever sense they had, and three days seemed to be the limit for the first wave of people willing to stick their necks in the noose in order to be free of their apartments and Netflix.

Regardless, the city began to breath again as people filled the streets against the advice of the city’s administration.

*****

Observation Nest, 520 Park Avenue

“People are idiots.”

Captain Ray Jillian rolled his eyes, “PO, if this is the first time you’ve come up with that thought, you’ve not been in the Teams for very long.”

“Sorry, sir,” Petty Officer Manhauser grumbled. “It’s just… there’s a threat in the city the equivalent of a WMD and I swear to God those idiots down there just went into a strip club at eleven in the morning.”

“Would it have been better if they’d gone later in the day?” Jillian asked, bemused by the statement.

“I dunno, can’t say I’ve ever been to one that early in the day,” Manhauser shrugged. “Maybe?”

“You’ve never been to a strip club in the morning?” Jillian asked, eyebrow cocking. “Are you sure you’re a SEAL?”

“I was usually too hungover to care the days when my classmates went,” Manhauser said honestly. “Always felt like a nighttime activity to me.”

Jillian rolled his eyes, “Whatever. See anything useful?”

“Like super powered Russian special forces? Can’t say that I do,” Manhauser said wryly. “You know, a few decades ago, that sentence would have scared the crap out of people. Today and suddenly it’s like super powered Russians aren’t a big enough threat to worry about.”

“Just keep your eyes out. It’s their move now.”

*****

LEOs HQ, Manhattan

Karen stood at the window of her office, looking out over the city, and thinking that it felt too damn normal for what she knew was going on out there.

The Feds were up to something - she knew that for a fact. But she wasn’t in the loop for whatever the hell it was. That meant that she and her agents would have to react to whatever the plan was as it went down and basically just hope that they didn’t get in the way of anyone who mattered.

This is not how to run an operation.

She understood why it was going down the way it was, but she still felt like they were idiots. There was a high-level leak, that was beyond question, so security was a given… but launching a military operation into the middle of Manhattan without full operational communication was just asking for Murphy to show.

Karen just hoped that the old Irish bastard wasn’t playing favorites this time.

Because sure as hell, that Irish fuck is going to make a showing.

*****

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

A low whistle filled the office as Rosie kicked off the wall and rolled across the floor to a second computer, eyes wide as she examined the screen.

“What is it?” Verte asked from where he was lounging on the handy couch.

“Players in the city,” she said. “Multiple players. I’ve got spikes in encrypted traffic all across the city… and I think whoever fired up that super computer did it again.”

“Can you track him?” Verte sat up, now getting interested.

“Negative. They’re behind a VPN now, custom build from the looks of it, not commercial.” She frowned, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a Blue Solar build.”

“Makes sense, Chere, why not them?”

“It’s too crude, and it’s not on a fiber line. Just a public ISP. Weird.”

“Ignore it for now,” Verte advised. “What about the encrypted signals?”

“VOIP protocols,” Rosie confirmed. “Lots of them. At least two groups, maybe more… This group looks like Navy encryption, and this one is the likely Russians I’ve been tracking.”

“Squids?” Verte raised an eyebrow.

“SEALs, I’d guess. Several squads, based on the situation I’m just going to call it and say that the Feds sent in DEVGRU.”

“Tee would be in heaven, maybe I should see if I can get some autographs for him?” Verte asked, a smile plying at his lips.

“I’d pay to see you ask. The looks on their faces would be worth it alone.” She chuckled, before growing serious. “What do you think?”

“I think someone made a very bad mistake,” Verte said slowly. “They’re treating these like they’re normal terrorists… They’re not. DEVGRU could handle anything less than this… at least eighty percent of the time, even on a snap kick. Give them time to plan, and they could take out far more normals without a single civilian casualty… but these are not normals, and we don’t even have a full list of their powered members. Too many variables.”

Rosie nodded, that was pretty much her analysis of the situation too.

In fairness, she doubted that the Navy analysis was any different. It was a shitty situation, and there were no good options that she could tell.

“Better to take action,” She said. “Even if it’s wrong, at least you’re doing something.”

Verte rolled his eyes, “That is the sort of thinking that leads to fighting a pointless war for thirty years instead of just sending in the experts to do the job properly.”

“There are no experts for this, Verte.”

He looked at her with a flat expression, “Chere, what do you think we are?”

*****

Islay Home

Issa was rushing around, getting ready to leave. She had been up late the night before, trying to figure out how to make her clothing tougher but it was actually a pretty hard thing to pull off. She found herself even less sure about how her abilities worked after more experimentation, in fact.

Making computers faster was quite easy. Just keeping the quantum states working in agreement with one another was enough for that, it didn’t even take much work to do. However, when she tried to make the same change with other materials she got… consuming results.

Some clothes seemed to turn to… stone? For want of a better word, Issa supposed that would be as good a word as ever. Somehow, she’d gotten the sub atomic particles of the material to agree that it wasn’t flexible.

Interesting? Very much so, in fact. Useful? Not remotely.

So, after several other bizarre failures, which included what she could only describe as a ‘gummy’ skirt, which had implications she didn’t want to think about at the moment, among several other changes, Issa had decided that trying to ‘improve’ her clothing wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon.

Her mom was out for work again when Issa let herself out of the apartment and made her way quietly down to the streets so she could head for her meeting with Devin.

He’d sent a message saying that he had something to show her, and Issa was excited about what could be done with the one useful change she’d been able to enact with her power so far.

Well… one of two, she supposed, as she boosted herself a bit in preparation for a swift down toward the Park.

*****

Meeran Home

Devin was happily humming to himself as he gathered up what he’d finished the night before. The code he was working on would take a lot more refinement before he was ready to use it, but he had enough to make for a proof of concept at least.

With Blue Solar’s software library, there was so much he could do that would just be out of the realms of possibility otherwise, but even then, he was limited by his access. He could use their code to make a crawler that gathered data from public social media, for example, but he’d have to shell out serious money for full access to the various social media databases out there.

The last he’d heard it was somewhere in the neighborhood of ten dollars per verified user, which didn’t sound like much until you started thinking about how many verified users you were talking about on any of the major sites.

Still, even without that he’d gotten some interesting hits, even a couple that he thought they might be able to verify.

Don’t forget my laptop, hope I can talk her into giving it a boost too, He thought as he stuffed his backpack full of stuff.

He couldn’t believe that he personally knew a Superhuman! It was insane, right? He’d never thought that would happen, not even with all the time he’d spent on Spotter apps and following the city’s community.

A community that was a lot smaller now, a thought that brought down Devin’s mood pretty quickly.

Never thought I’d see the Commodore go out like that, or at all, really.

The Commodore had seemed untouchable, like a hero from the old comics before everything changed and powers became real. Devin had been forced to rethink a lot of what he believed once that had happened.

He already missed the days when he thought the heroes were untouchable.

*****

Manhattan

“They arrived over night.”

Dimitri nodded, “Do we have locations?”

“No,” Ivan said, “Only confirmation from our sources that they were deployed overnight. The SEALs are here, but they’ve compartmentalized their intelligence.”

“Radio tracking?”

“No hits on military frequencies,” Ivan shook his head. “Best guess right now is that they’re using short range systems, probably military grade net connections. Encrypted Voice over IP.”

“Same as we are.”

“Yes Sir.”

That didn’t surprise Dimitri much, if he was to think about it. Inside a major city with good infrastructure, someone using military grade radios would stand out. Better to just use some heavily encrypted gear that fits in with the background radiation. That was what drove his group when they were kitting out for the operation, and similar limitations would result in similar solutions for the Navy men.

“We will need to draw them out then,” Dimitri decided as he stood in front of the map and traced a finger across it. “Hit a target and bring them to us.”

“Yes, Sir.”

There were many targets to consider. It was a big city even with the current limitations on their area of operation. Not as many as there might have been a few weeks earlier, of course, but still more than enough for his purposes.

“Most businesses have reopened, yes?” He asked idly.

“They have, though there are still some difficulties getting supplies into the city. Many drivers are refusing to cross the bridges and tunnels after our showing against the Guard.”

Dimitri was unsurprised by that despite the fact that he’d specifically ordered that legitimate transport was to be allowed through, unmolested by anyone. His teams had actually stopped a couple of hijacking attempts by enterprising criminals who’d believed they could take advantage of the situation for their own ends.

It was the last enterprise they would engage in, but he saluted their initiative all the same.

What is the Americanism? Ah, yes… shit for brains, but good initiative.

Disruptions to the city were necessary, but they still represented a loss in revenue both for the people and his own organization. A minor issue, considering the stakes he was playing for, but he was concerned for the future more than the immediate gains.

“Very well, I do not want to draw the wrong sort of attention just yet,” He said, lips twitching with amusement as he did. “So we will continue to avoid the businesses themselves. Get me a schedule for the police and LEOs, as well as any Federal or State enforcement still active on the island.”

Ivan nodded and quickly left, leaving Dimitri to examine the map and wonder where the SEALs would be?

It would make it all much easier if he could work that out before hand, of course, but he supposed that it did make the game more challenging in the absence of such intelligence. It wasn’t like he was terribly worried about them gaining the upper hand anyway. Even had they deployed several entire SEAL Teams, he was confident he could handle what they brought to the table.

The Americans had largely publicized most of their Superhuman Law Enforcement, and of those that they didn’t send out to seduce the Media, the effective ones such as Stolen Valor had been deployed against various issues over the past five years. He had files on all of them, and they knew next to nothing about his own available assets.

It was a recipe for a bad time to be law enforcement in New York, and a harbinger of things to come.

*****

Central Park North

Devin spotted Issa as she approached, waving to her, and getting a wave back quickly.

At least this time she didn’t scare the life out of me, He thought, thankful for that even as it struck him as funny.

“What are you grinning at?” Issa asked as she reached him.

“Nothing, really. Did you figure out anything new?”

“Sort of, but nothing really useful,” She said. “I can apparently make changes to materials, but it’s not really been terribly useful so far.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he said, pulling out his laptop as he sank into a bench and gestured to the place beside him. “Check this out.”

Issa took a seat, leaning over to see what he was gesturing to. “What is it?”

“I compiled a rough crawler with facial recognition and set it loose,” Devin said. “I wanted to really test your changes to my phone.”

“Facial recognition? Who were you looking for?”

Devin shrugged, “I put in screen caps of the guys who killed the Commodore.”

Issa looked at him in shock, eyes wide and skin paling, “That’s… That doesn’t sound safe, Devin.”

“I ran everything from behind a VPN that I custom compiled, it bounces my IP across a bot-net I took control of last year…” He said before slamming his mouth shut.

“You did what?”

“They tried to hack my grandma’s computer and steal ten k from her,” Devin defended himself. “Taking over their little trojan network was the least I was going to do to them.”

It was also the most he’d been able to do, since the actual scam was being run out of an Eastern European country with some rather lax laws concerning wire fraud and the like, and basically no laws at all that really applied to the Internet.

Devin was still pretty pissed off that he’d not been able to get any of them arrested.

“Look,” He said. “I don’t like scammers, ok? I joined up with a group that fights them before I turned thirteen.”

Issa grinned at him, “A regular superhero, aren’t you?”

Devin flushed a little, “Oh come on, don’t make fun.”

“I’ll decide if I’m making fun of you when I find out if you’re any good at it,” Issa countered, nodding to the screen. “Alright, what did you find?”

“Well, the one they’re calling Screamer on Metalert doesn’t show up recently, but she did have a social media account on a Russian server a couple years ago,” he said, clicking on a file. “Their entire database was compromised in a high profile hack, so I was able to crawl the list and grab it. Meet Valeri Zuyen.”

Issa glanced over the information there and couldn’t help but be impressed. There was a great deal of information there.

“This says she was Russian Army?” Issa asked, pointing.

“That’s right, discharged almost ten years ago.”

“Cool. What about the others?”

“Had more luck with some of them,” Devin said. “They’ve actually shown up in recent hits, but the data is a lot more limited. Here, this one is Dimitri Veron. According to the data I was able to scrub, he’s also former Russian military… just not sure what branch. What’s really interesting, however, are these.”

Issa peered closer, “Hey are those pictures taken…”

“Around the city, yeah,” He confirmed. “These have been posted to public profiles over the last week or two, with this guy in the background. He’s been busy.”

“Yeah,” Issa breathed out. “He’s shown up all over the city.”

“Mostly starting a few months ago,” Devin said. “The meta data in the pictures gives a nice little timeline. I guess he was checking out the city, getting the lay of the land and stuff?”

“Probably,” She shrugged. “What about since the attack?”

“A lot less to work with there,” Devin sighed. “Lots of social media posts, but more of it was inside, people showing off different media trends. Not much tourist photos.”

“So, nothing?”

“Well, not quite,” Devin said. “He showed up in the background of a twerking compilation yesterday, believe it or not.”

Issa shot him a disbelieving gaze, but decided against commenting, “Where to?”

“Not that far, actually,” Devin said, gesturing down the park. “He was south of the park a bit… here.”

She looked at the map, leaning in, “What’s there?”

“It’s New York, there’s a lot of stuff there,” Devin said. “Let’s see… some apartment buildings, bunch of stores… hey, there’s a Staples… um… the 17th precinct is stationed nearby, and oh…”

“Oh?”

“Homeland Security Offices.”

“Oh.” Issa said slowly. “That… makes sense.”

“Since the public transport is running again, I was thinking about heading down there myself,” Devin said. “I want to see if I can spot anything. Want to come along?”

“That seems dangerous,” Issa responded instantly.

“Oh, come on, they’re keeping quiet, right? Just want to see if they’re in the area is all,” Devin said, shrugging. “Probably not see anyone at all.”

“Sure, but…” Issa hesitated.

“It’ll be fine. Come on.”

*****

Chapter 27

NYPD 17th Precinct, Manhattan

Detective Marise Sanducky sighed as she finished up the paperwork from the morning shift, closing the folder, and leaned back in her chair.

The past few days had been some of the most bizarre in her career. In many ways, the city was as quiet as she’d ever seen it, in terms of crime as well as in general.

Even the criminals are keeping their heads down.

She just wished it didn’t come at the price that had been paid, and was being paid.

Closing up the file on the computer as well, she saved everything and closed out to the desktop before getting up from her seat.

“Going somewhere, Marise?”

“Just need a breath of air, Lieutenant,” She said. “Closed up my paperwork for the morning.”

“I have no doubt,” Lieutenant Gordon Shen laughed softly. “I’m not riding herd on you, Marise, just curious.”

She nodded, understanding, “Just a break. My shift is almost over anyway.”

“Yeah, probably could kick off a little early if you wanted,” Gordon said, looking out the window. “It’s been quiet.”

“Too damn quiet. You know it won’t last,” She countered.

“Yeah, I know.”

The city wasn’t peaceful, it wasn’t that kind of quiet. It was that eerie calm that you got before a really bad blow was moving in. Everyone could feel it, at least in the station, she wasn’t so sure about out on the streets. Most people had to know that the boom was going to drop eventually, but that still left a lot of fools out there on the streets.

Sometimes she didn’t know why she bothered, but it was a living.

Marise remembered her early career, wanting to make a difference, be part of the ‘thin blue line’. Before everything that came with it started grinding her down. Covering for the inept and the corrupt, because if she didn’t, she knew she’d call for backup one day and it would be just a little too late. Dealing with the unreasonable bullshit from both the politicians and the citizens, neither of whom had any idea what the job was like.

Somewhere along the line it stopped being her dream career and just became another job, with all the bullshit that every job deals with plus people trying to kill her once in a while.

“Just going to grab a little air, I can wait out the shift, Lieutenant.” She said, waving slightly as she grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler.

“Your call, Detective.” He responded, heading back for his office.

Marise walked out of the bullpen, past the desk sergeant who nodded at her before going right back to dealing with the small line of people waiting to talk to him. The line had certainly been much longer, but it was still fairly respectable considering how quiet the city had been.

Most of them are probably complaining about stuff we have nothing to do with, though. She shook her head. People always seemed to believe the cops were there to deal with every little issue they found fault with in their lives.

Outside, she took a breath of the city air. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the stuffy, barely air conditioned, interior of the precinct station. She rather wished she smoked, it would be nice to have something to do, but a cold drink would do. She twisted the cap off with her thumb, sending the plastic top spinning off to clatter across the sidewalk before taking a deep pull of the bottle and sighing with satisfaction as the cold liquid ran down her throat and chilled her from within.

A van coming to a stop in the corner of her eye caused her to stop and turn, frowning as she noted that the van was stopped in the intersection just up the way. A squeal behind her made her turn around to see two more vans block the intersection in the other direction, and the hairs along the nape of Marise’s neck went up.

The bottle dropped from her hand as she turned and leaned into a sprint back up the stairs, “We’ve got problems!”

*****

Dimitri chuckled in amusement as he watched only a single person in the entire street react to the arrival of his people. He assumed it was a cop, but in plainclothes he wasn’t completely certain.

Not that it matters.

“Ivan, the police station.”

“Yes boss.”

Ivan took a step closer, bringing his hands up as a ball of plasma appeared between them. He let it build for a moment, getting the blast primed to just where he wanted it, and then flung his hands forward to loose it across the city street.

The turbulent ball of plasma, internal temperature of over four thousand degrees, flashed across the intervening space, and slammed into the front steps to the precinct before exploding. A roiling mass of air sent curls of flame and smoke out in all directions as the Russians finished dismounting their vans and began walking in.

As the smoke cleared, mostly, they could see the shattered remains of the door of the 17th Precinct Station, corpses laying on the stairs and moaning bodies laid out within the station.

Someone screamed, Dimitri noting it mostly because it was amusingly a scream of rage rather than fear or pain, and shots rang out. He felt a bullet pluck at his shirt, and two more thud into his chest, before he cocked his head to one side.

“Really?” He asked dryly. “Stubborn fools.”

More gun fire was starting up, but he ignored it. “You know what to do everyone. Enjoy.”

The gang members around him grinned ferally, some cracking their knuckles while most just laughed, as they started forward.

Dimitri left them to it, unconcerned with the outcome for the moment.

“Ivan,” he said, half turning back. “Monitor the situation, steer the response in the direction we want.”

“Yes boss.”

*****

Marise hissed at the pain in her arm as she unloaded her sidearm into the approaching figures, none of them seeming to give any level of care whatsoever as she did. She was pretty sure her arm was fractured, if not an outright break, and if she didn’t have burns, it would be a miracle, but for the moment she really didn’t feel much of either.

The recoil from her Smith was about the only source of pain at the moment, which is why she figured her arm was broken. The rest of her had that fuzzy feeling of way too much adrenaline and endorphins being pumped into her, which told her that she was probably in pretty bad shape. She never felt so good as when she had just done something really nasty to herself. The last time she’d been shot, she hadn’t even noticed until after the firefight was over. Two full reloads before she noticed the round that she’d taken in the gut, just below the coverage of her slim fit vest.

That was how she felt right then, as she dropped the spent mag and pulled a reload from her belt, slapping it in before thumbing the slide release and chambering another round.

“They’re not stopping!”

The desk sergeant had pulled a Mossberg from under the desk and joined her, the echoing boom of the shotgun a welcome addition to the noise she was hearing, but for the fact that it wasn’t doing much more good than her forty five.

“Drop back,” She rasped out. “Don’t let them get through the door.”

“Right,” The Sergeant said, shifting his grip on the Mossberg to one hand as he leaned down to grab her by the back of the collar.

“Leave me be!”

“Not happening, Detective!”

“Damn you, Hagan,” She snarled, aiming back through the door as he dragged her away, firing off two more rounds as one of the attackers showed his face. Much to her pleasure, that seemed to make him flinch at least since he vanished a moment later, though without the splash of blood she’d hoped to see.

Hagan dragged her ass back to the heavy front desk, leaving her with her back against the wall as she kept her weapon trained on the open door. Others were rushing in from the back, thankfully with heavier weapons than the forty-five or even the shotgun.

“Three vans of assailants,” She called. “Has to be the Russians, expect superhuman resistance! Bring up heavier artillery!”

A loud crack from the door caused her to refocus her attention there, just in time to see the remaining shards of the door get literally kicked in as a big man was framed there, a grin on his face.

“Shoot him!”

Marise didn’t know who ordered it, but everyone fired, including herself. The man didn’t even flinch as he drove in, only acknowledging the fire by raising one arm to keep rounds out of his eyes as best she could tell. Her pistol racked back on an empty chamber, and she dropped the mag automatically.

Her last magazine was in her fist already, she didn’t even remember pulling it from her belt, and slid smoothly into the pistole grip a moment later.

The slide rammed forward, loading a round from the magazine as she hit the slide release. The whole process took perhaps three seconds, maybe a hair longer since she wasn’t really in top form at the moment, but not much more.

Before she’d finished, a big fist closed around her hand, blocking the slide from finishing its motion.

“Being shot… stings.”

Marise swallowed as she looked up at the big man, how did he cross the room so fast?

Screams were filtering through her perception. The haze of the adrenaline rush was wearing off and her hyper focused attention was beginning to widen again. Marise saw the Sergeant, his body hanging back over the chair he normally sat at, no sign of motion aside from the slowly turning in place as the chair rotated.

The shooting was already over, she noticed.

Marise looked back to the big guy, who was looking at her with a disturbingly crazed look on his face.

His fist was the last thing she saw.

*****

The man only known as Drago straightened up, flicking his hand to brush off the blood and stray bits of flesh that cling to him, and looked around.

The police precinct was in full alarm, but there weren’t any more cops rushing forward to try and stop them at the door. That was a pity, to his mind, since he hated cops and would be plenty pleased to have a chance to kill a few more of them.

Oh well, He shrugged. Should be enough left inside. I get to play with them a bit first is all.

“Drago!”

“What?” He snarled, turning to the speaker.

“Remember the operation, this is just a distraction.”

Drago snarled, “I remember. Just a little time inside?”

“No. I’ll deal with the inside, “Karl Visich ordered, pointing back to the door.

“Alright.” Drago grumbled, stalking out like a beaten puppy.

Behind him, Visich rolled his eyes and turned back to the doors that entered into the rest of the station. “Piotr?”

“Yes?” A smaller man said, approaching silently from behind.

“You know what to do.”

“You may want to exit the building,” Piotr suggested mildly.

“Do it.” Visich said, walking out.

Piotr smiled, eyes gleaming as he examined the building around him briefly. Making finger guns with both hands, he laughed as he fired off bright blasts of something that tore holes in the walls and floors. When he was done, he turned around and calmly walked out the door as a low groaning sound grew in volume until a deafening crack rent the air and the building began to fall inward.

Outside he didn’t stop as his fellows looked over at him.

“We may want to put a little more distance,” he said as the glass shattered behind him, another floor of the building collapsing. “I really don’t know if it’ll properly collapse or maybe start to tilt. It will be amusing to watch, but from a distance, yes?”

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed. “Everyone into the van. We have another target to hit to keep things moving along.”

*****

Observation Nest, 520 Park Avenue

“Well shit.”

Jillian shook himself fully alert, looking over sharply, “What is it, Manhauser?”

“Just got a report of an attack, they made their move Sir.”

“Where?”

“18th Precinct. It’s East of here, little south.”

“Don’t suppose we have line of sight?”

“No such luck, Sir.”

Jillian sighed, “Alright. Anyone closer?”

“No, we’re the closest.”

That made the decision simple, ultimately, but of course there was the elephant in the room.

“You know, of course,” Manhauser decided to bring it up. “That this is almost certainly a trap.”

“We knew that was the most likely outcome before we entered the city, sailor,” Jillian said, grabbing up his gear. “Get the squad ready. It may be a trap, but it’s also our only chance to take out the target and end this destructive standoff once and for all.”

“Hoorah, Sir.”

*****

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

A chime caused Rosie to slide back across the room, eyes sharp as she leaned into her computer.

“It’s going down,” she said after a moment.

“Where?” Verte asked simply.

“Seventeenth Precinct, it’s across town…”

“I know it,” Verte said. “First thing I did was spot all the police and federal law enforcement buildings. I’ll just hop over and…”

“Hold!”

Verte froze, only his eyes flicking back, “What is it?”

“Don’t shadow walk to the Precinct.”

“Why not, Chere?”

“It’s not exactly there anymore.”

Verte turned back fully, eyes wide, “What?”

“They destroyed it. Go in close, but be careful, they’re not pulling punches.”

“Fair enough,” Verte growled, stepping into the shadow, and vanishing, his last words hanging in the air as he vanished. “Neither am I.”

*****

LEO HQ, Manhattan

“Everyone kit up!” Karen ordered as she grabbed a vest and a rifle. “I don’t give a shit what your job is, if you’ve ever had tactical training, I want you in a vest and swinging a rifle in five!”

The NYPD was screaming for backup, not that she blamed them, and every cop, fed, and state authority on the Island was currently scrambling to get off their ass to help provide it. It was a trap, of course, and everyone damn well knew it, but no one had any better ideas than to walk right into the teeth of it, because anything else meant leaving a bunch of cops and civilians to the nonexistent mercies of the gang.

It’s been over a decade since I carried one of these, she thought as she checked her M-416C Carbine, making sure that it didn’t have one in the chamber yet after seating the mag.

They didn’t have a lot of time, which was likely the point of the attack of course, keeping them from thinking and planning.

What the hell are they hoping to accomplish? Attacking a police precinct is an escalation they’ve been avoiding so far. It has to be to draw someone out, but who? Us? No, they know where we are, if they wanted us dead, they’d just come do it directly.

She wasn’t a fool. Karen was well aware that there were others in the game.

The Italians were pretty much shut down, and the other criminal elements in the city were hardly what she’d call organized… nor would they really care about the Russians hitting the police. That meant the attack was there to draw out someone else.

Stolen Valor, perhaps… though this is extreme for that… or, the Russians know something I don’t about what factions are currently active in the city.

That was the likely answer, and it really meant only one thing. The Feds had moved in despite the warning from the Russians on the bridge, and this was retaliation… and to draw them out.

If so, then Valeri will be on site. They need to make good on their threat, or they blow their credibility.

That was bad.

She picked up her radio, “Jord to all points… Code Victor. Say again, Code Victor. Copy.”

*****

Over the Streets, Heading East

Freerunner was pushing hard, leaping rooftop to rooftop as she headed across the island. The police radio had all but exploded a few minutes earlier, and the news she’d been waiting for had finally happened. The Russians who’d killed the Commodore were making a move against the NYPD.

Her face was carved in stone as she leapt easily across a four-lane avenue, landing on the next building over with an easy roll that brought her back to her feet with almost no lost speed.

Ashley had gotten over her early ‘hero’ delusions, thought the dreams had died hard on the reality of how things worked, but that didn’t mean she was going to let people get away with the stuff that the Russians had done.

The Commodore was a dick sometimes, she’d be the first to admit, but he’d really helped her through the changes when she’d first gained her abilities.

I should have stayed there, helped in that fight. I’m sorry.

Freerunner ran on.

*****

Chapter 28

Lexington and 53rd St Station

“Man, it’s good to have everything running again,” Devin said as they re-emerged above ground.

Issa nodded in agreement. Getting around the city without public transit sucked, and that was if you even had a personal vehicle. If you didn’t, like her, it was all but impossible. She kinda liked the neighborhood she was living in, but it was surprising how quickly it began to feel small and limiting.

They stepped out onto the street and walked south to the intersection, ignoring the sounds of the city around them.

“You don’t actually think we’re going to find anything, do you?” Issa asked idly as they waited for the light to change. “I mean it has to be a million to one chance.”

“Probably,” Devin agreed cheerfully. “Honestly, I’m just feeling cramped and figured it would be a fun outing.”

“Hunting murderous criminals is a… fun outing…”

“Didn’t you ever read Hardy Boys growing up?”

“I was more into Nancy Drew, but neither of them hunted murderers that I recall,” She countered dryly. “To say nothing of terrorists.”

“Well, you have a point there, I guess, but come on… it’s perfectly…”

He was cut off by a distant rumbling sound that was joined by a crack that seemed to shake the air.

“Whoa, crap, is that thunder? Is it going to rain?” Devin asked, looking up.

Issa was staring ahead of them, “Devin…”

“I don’t see any clouds…”

“Devin!”

“Huh,” Devin turned to look the other way, “Man, that’s weird…”

“Devin!” Issa grabbed him and pulled him aside, pushed up against the building behind them, as a mob of people rushed past.

“What the hell?” Devin blinked, shocked. “Have they lost their minds?”

“It probably has something to do with that,” Issa pointed.

He followed her finger and swallowed as he saw a plume of dark sword rising up over the buildings ahead of them.

“Oh. Oh, shit.”

“I think we need to be going the other way, like everyone else,” Issa insisted, tugging at his shoulder.

“But… but we could see what’s going on!”

“Devin, I swear to god,” She threatened as she pulled him away.

“Oh fine,” He sulked, submitting to the pull as they joined the crowd heading North and away from the source of the smoke.

*****

The sound of an explosion greeted him as Verte stepped out of the shadow of a building, feet crunching against the grit on the cement rooftop. He took a moment to look around, spotting the smoke column where the police precinct had been quickly but that hadn’t been the direction the explosion came from.

There.

A second plume, not far from the first was starting to rise and he had to think for a moment to work out what street it was on.

What’s over there?

Verte drew out his phone and pulled up the maps, zooming in to the rough area around the second plume.

Ah. Homeland Security. They’re really going all out. I wonder…

He reached into the shadow, pulling out a pair of binoculars, and began scanning the streets.

There were people streaming out of nearby buildings, adding more bodies to the screaming masses below. He could see them now, running away from the explosions at the Homeland building and being turned North from the Precinct.

Finding the Russians in this mess is going to be a pain. Likely the idea, of course.

He didn’t even think of going for a rifle yet. There just wasn’t enough for him to be able to make any sort of proper call as to whether there was a good shot or not in that mess below.

Firefighters were responding already. Unsurprising, the NYFD had a station in the same literal building as the 17th Precinct, but it was clear that they hadn’t gotten everything, or likely everyone, out when the collapse started.

In the distance he could hear sirens wailing, and knew that for everyone he could hear there had to be dozens more drowned out by the cacophony.

“Damn it,” Verte swore, hitting a quick dial number on his phone.

“What do you need, Verte?” Rosie asked calmly over the line.

“I’m looking at a grade A Charlie Foxtrot, the likes of which I’ve never seen short of someone making the mistake of trusting a report from Military Intelligence,” he said, shaking his head.

“That bad, huh?” She asked dryly. “I’ve got some of it on screens here, but…”

“But what?”

“There’s a suspicious number of blanks in the coverage over the CCD network,” She said. “I’m trying to fill it in with webcameras online, but there’s still a lot of blind spots in your area, Verte.”

“Color me shocked, Chere,” Verte responded. “I’ve got hundreds of people, at least, running North from the incident location. Likely just as many on the other side running South.”

“I can confirm that much, same to the East and West, though to a lesser degree.”

Verte was about to respond when another explosion caused him to twist and look for the source.

“Have another blast, looks like it’s west of the Precinct.”

“Got it on CCTV, looks like around St Bartholomew’s. The crowd running that way have turned North.”

“They blew up a church?” Verte asked, shocked.

That was well outside the past rules of engagement the Russians had stuck to. He wasn’t fool enough to think that they were going to play by any rules, really, but Verte had been sure that they were playing a longer game with the popular opinion of the people in the city. Hitting a church would completely undo all of that.

“Negative on the church, looks like it was something on a nearby street.”

Verte let out a breath of relief, relaxing marginally. The Russians were bad enough as it was. He didn’t want to see what they would do if they lost their minds and entirely threw out whatever rulebook they were currently playing by. It was going to be hard enough to contain them as it was, but groups with no rules and strategic weaponry were bad news by every metric.

“Got a hit. Looks like a running… gun fight? I’m not sure, reports of shooting along Lexington… and more on 2nd Avenue, both heading North.”

“Who’s involved? NYPD? The Feds? Our Flippered friends?” Verte asked, confused as he jogged across the building to get eyes on Lexington.

“I… I don’t think so?” Rosie sounded confused, which didn’t bode well for his ability to figure out what was going on. “No traffic on the NYPD channels, nothing from Homeland, FBI… and if the encrypted VOIP calls were the SEALs, I think they’re still moving to intercept.”

Verte frowned, What the hell is going on?

“Got one of the Vans, moving North on Lex,” He said. “Yeah, they’re shooting… I don’t see anyone shooting… back. Oh no.”

“Verte?” Rosie’s tone shifted, growing concerned, “What is it?”

“It’s a decoy. They’re driving the crowd North.”

“Driving them to what?”

“A kill box.” Verte said, turning on his heel and running straight into the nearest shadow at a full sprint.

*****

“Squad three reports they’re coming in from the North. Four is having to detour around the destruction from the south,” Manhouser said as Jillian examined a map in the back of the black Ford SUV while they raced across town.

“The rest,” Jillian asked, without looking up.

“Too far out to arrive on time.”

“Damn.”

Three squads close enough for a fast response. He hoped it would be enough.

They had intel fed from the city’s own CCTV network as well as the NYPD dispatch system, and were using it to guide themselves into a position to intercept the van that was currently involved in a shootout with persons unknown.

“We can’t show ourselves until we confirm the target,” He stressed. “Make sure the other squads acknowledge that.”

“Yes sir.”

Jillian looked over to the printout of the primary target, the woman… superhuman… Valeri. She was the Russians’ strategic weapon. If they could remove her from the board, then there would not longer be anything holding back the full force of the federal government.

Every sniper in the city had her picture and a kill on sight order for the woman, and orders to report the kill back immediately.

Her death was, in fact, the only goal for every member of the Teams in the city at the moment. It was not, he didn’t believe, a situation that had ever happened in the past. No many people got what was, effectively, an entire SEAL team assigned to punch their ticket.

A phrase over the police band caught his attention and he quickly confirmed it on his map and with the Intel weenies observing from Norfolk.

“Pull up here,” He ordered as they approached Park Avenue on East 55th St.

“Yes Sir,” The Seaman behind the wheel said, skidding the black SUV to a stop along side the road, one wheel up on the sidewalk next to a Ferrari dealership.

Jillian grabbed his Barret and kicked the door open, pulling the big gun after him. He popped the bipod down, planting the big gun on the hood of the Ford, and took the cap off the scope as he looked down the length of the street to the East.

“Got two vans, three, no four blocks up.” he said. “They’re blocking the intersection. Men… armed men are getting out. Manhauser, spot for me.”

“Yes sir.” Manhauser said automatically, grabbing a powerful pair of binoculars. “Range… 600 yards.”

“Roger that,” Jillian said, making an adjustment on his rifle. “Need a target.”

“Hoorah, Sir… none yet, only male tangos. Can’t see into the vans.”

“Shit. Roger that. Alright, holding position. Signal the other teams to see if they can get better vantage on the subjects.”

“Hoorah, Cap.”

*****

Issa could feel herself wanting to panic as the crush of the mob pushed her along, only barely keeping herself from losing it by using her own abilities to keep her heart rate and breathing from spiking out of control.

“This is crazy!” Devin called from where he was being pulled along side her, his sleeve trapped in her iron grip. “Everyone’s lost their minds!”

“They’re scared, so am I,” Issa snapped. “Just don’t trip and fall!”

They were being pushed along 2nd avenue by the mob, gun shots echoing from the direction of 1st and she occasionally thought she could hear more from the other side as well. There was fighting going on all around them, it seemed, and a massive explosion, or several, from behind.

The crowd slowed around them, pushing back as they kept trying to move forward, but Issa and Devin continued to push forward as best they could until they found themselves in a suddenly less densely packed area where people were milling about nervously.

“What’s going on?” Devin asked, confused. “Aren’t we running?”

“No one wants to run into the guns, Devin.”

“Guns? What guns?” Devin asked excitedly, looking around. “I don’t see… oh. Oh no.”

Issa could agree with that, possibly the first thing he’d said in a while that she did agree with.

Oh no indeed.

They were standing in an open intersection, with vans blocking the street ahead, and armed men standing in plain view of everyone, staring back at the nervous crowd with passive, or sometimes disturbing, expressions.

Issa looked to either side, but there were vans on both streets, blocking their route while more and more people were pushing up behind, forcing them forward into the middle of the road and intersection.

This is going to be bad.

*****

Dimitri smiled thinly as he looked over the crowd, amused at how easy it had been, relatively speaking he supposed, to herd them all like the sheep they were. A little noise here, a threat of danger there… a few dead sheep dogs, or wolves wearing the appropriate disguise, and they did everything exactly as he calculated.

“Ivan,” he said, reaching out.

Ivan dropped a megaphone into his hand, and Dimitri checked that it was on before he casually brought it up to his mouth.

“People of New York,” he said, his voice reverberating in the air. “Welcome to this little… party I’ve decided to throw. I am so very pleased that you could make it. I believe you all are aware of who I am, yes?”

He didn’t bother waiting for an answer. Frankly, he didn’t care if anyone in the crowd had the slightest idea what was going on, or why. They weren’t the recipients of his message; they were the message itself.

“I informed your federal and state government what would happen if they opted to send any more forces into my territory. They ignored me. Unfortunately for you, that means that I am now going to make good on my threat,” He sneered as he spoke, enjoying the slow dawning of comprehension and terror on some of their faces. “Valeri.”

The SUV door popped open as the crowd grew even more frightened, the woman in black from their nightmares after the last video had streamed stepped into sight and came forward. She took the lead, the other gang members falling back behind her as the crowd tried to push back and away from her but couldn’t escape due to the pressure of the masses behind them.

In the crowd a few people slipped and fell, bones breaking as they were trampled almost instantly, the screams of pain joining those of terror.

*****

Issa paled, freezing for a moment before she fought for enough room to unsling her backpack.

“What are you doing?”

“I… I have something,” She hissed, “Something I came up with. I just need to get to it… maybe it’ll help, I don’t know.”

Devin looked between her and the crowd and then the gang members. The woman had stopped, and she looked like she was taking a deep breath.

“Not to rush you, but if you’re going to do something, maybe you could do it now? Like, right now?” He said hurriedly.

“I’m trying!”

Issa grabbed at the stuff in her pack, hands closing around the object she sought and started to pull it out.

Before she could, the woman started to scream, and everything went to hell.

*****

Verte dropped to one knee on the rooftop, planting his Macmillan Tactical 338 on the edge of the building, swinging the rifle into place as he skimmed the situation and focused on the central target.

“Target located, tentatively confirmed as Valeri,” he said over his radio.

“Take the shot, Verte,” Rosie urged immediately. “She’s too dangerous.”

“Distance to target… three hundred, thirty yards,” He said, thumb rolling the wheel back, “adjusting zero.”

He dropped the cross hairs over the target, watched her chest swell as she sucked in the air, “Taking the shot.”

He wrapped his finger around the trigger, starting to squeeze, then froze as the target suddenly vanished from his scope in a violent motion, a rolling thunder echoing off the buildings around him.

“Someone else took the shot,” He said. “Target down.”

“Is she dead?”

“Cannot confirm. Hold.”

He swept the scope to find the target again, the woman was on the ground and he swept the length of her body.

“Verte, we need to know, is. She. Dead?”

*****

Chapter 28

Park Avenue and East 55th

“Shot out,” Jillian said.

“Target down,” Manhauser responded.

“Confirm the kill,” the captain said, shifting his aim, “Moving to the next target.”

“Roger that, Cap.”

Jillian shifted his aim, centering the crosshairs on the next closest Russian to his target, but was immediately struck by the fact that the man hadn’t seemed to react to the first shot despite there having been more than enough time for at least some sort of a dive for cover.

“Cap… problem.”

“What is it, PO?”

“Your target isn’t there.”

“What?” Jillian lifted his cheek from the buttstock of the rifle, shooting Manhauser a sharp look before he abruptly put his eye back up to the scope and rescanned the site.

The Russian was still standing there, looking in their direction now, with an amused look on his face. Jillian ignored him for the moment, quickly sweeping the ground, looking for the target he’d put down. She was nowhere to be seen.

“What the F-?”

His sightline through thew scope abruptly went black and he jerked back, looking up over the scope to see the woman he’d shot squatting over his rifle having appeared from nowhere.

“My, such big strapping men, taking a shot a little old me,” he said mockingly as the squad around him pivoted to engage her without a thought.

The chatter of the team’s Carbines rending the air was deafening, but Jillian didn’t have time to even notice as the woman jumped upright and lashed out with a boot that clipped him under the chin. He felt a tooth crack as his head was knocked back, sending him sprawling as his vision briefly blurred from the pain.

He saw the blur in motion, more chattering from the guns tearing up the area around him, as he went for his sidearm and blinked away the tears in his eyes to clear his vision. His .45 filled his fist as he tracked the woman and opened fire, emptying the entire magazine to no effect. He couldn’t even tell if he’d missed, or she’d just ignored his attempt entire.

“Izvinite, boys, but I am very much taken,” She laughed at them. “Still, it was good for you to shoot your shot, yes?”

She grabbed Manhauser by the throat, hefting him over her head, before slamming him back down onto the ground with a crackle of bone. Blood spurted from his mouth as she pushed off, leaving him twitching on the ground behind her, snapping a kick into Seaman Furst’s sternum that Jillian could hear over the ringing in his ears.

The Seaman slammed into the SUV before slumping slowly down to the street while the woman plucked up his M417C and casually dropped the magazine from it as she grabbed one from the seaman’s tactical vest and loaded it.

“Now I shoot my shots, yes? Yes.”

Jillian swore, dropping the empty mag as he loaded the next one in a single smooth motion, his eyes tracking the muzzle of the carbine as it swung in his direction. He saw a squad mate lunge across the SUV, landing a perfect spear tackle into her, only to practically fold himself in half as he scorpioned against her unyielding body.

The M417C finished its swing as the slide on his .45 slid forward, chambering a round. Jillian squeezed the trigger, watching the rounds as they embedded in the woman’s black tactical BDUs, swearing mentally the whole time before the carbine flashed once and he saw nothing else.

*****

Rooftop

“Shit! No!”

Freerunner launched herself off the rooftop, sliding along the edge as she hooked a fire escape ladder and swung around to guide her flight out across the street. She landed her target perfectly, planting both feet right in the bitch’s face with more than enough force to break any normal person’s legs, let alone their neck, from the impact.

Her hit was enough to throw the woman back as she kicked off, flipping over backwards, and landing on her feet by the downed men.

Freerunner dropped to one knee, checking the closest briefly, but she didn’t need any medical knowledge to know that the hole in his head wasn’t something he was going to be walking off, and the other two in her line of sight weren’t much better.

She looked up at the woman who was getting back to her feet, looking surprised.

“You, I do not know, but now that you’re here, it hardly seems to matter.”

Freerunner glared, “The Commodore was a friend of mine. He was a dick sometimes, but he still helped me. You and your buddies don’t get to walk away from what you did.”

The woman smiled, “Oh, how cute. The child thinks she matters.”

“I’ll show you who matters,” Freerunner growled, launching herself forward again, planting her hands on the roof of the SUV as she leapt over it, swinging her feet around to deliver another kick.

The woman stepped back, letting the kick pass, then surged forward to intercept the attack mid-jump. Ashley twisted in place, redirecting her motion, and pushed off the SUV as the strike hammered into the roof, legs spinning her around above the attack before she brought down a knee into the woman’s spine.

“You’re bullet proof, I get it,” She growled as she got a fistful of hair from the back of the woman’s head and used it to control her opponent, slamming her forward into the jeep, “but I can literally jump across streets and absorb a landing from a hundred-foot free fall. Bullets are nothing.”

The glass in the SUV shattered from the impacts as, despite her bravado, Ashely found it difficult to keep control of her opponent. She spotted a couple of the survivors scrambling to their feet and trying to bring weapons to bear on her and the target.

“Get out of here!” Freerunner snapped. “I can’t hold her off forever!”

*****

Verte swore under his breath as he re-evaluated the situation on the ground.

“Target was not neutralized,” he said over his radio. “Target was a decoy.”

“Confirmed decoy, Verte. I’m telling the others. Can you find the actual target?” Rosie asked.

“Not yet, target does not appear to be in the main group.”

He wasn’t sure he could swear to that either, actually, but that was the closest Verte was willing to come to a commitment on what he was seeing. The Russian gang members below were herding the crowd in, no sign of superhuman abilities were visible yet but they had more than enough guns on hand to make that a moot point entirely.

He pivoted his rifle, trying to find the priority target, while weighing the decision in front of him on multiple levels.

If he didn’t engage, the Russians were possibly going to kick off a massacre, but if he did then he would give away his position and lose any shot at the strategic target entirely.

Verte dropped his crosshairs over the apparent leader of the gang below, but let his finger slip off the trigger. It wouldn’t do any good to fire on that man, he knew, so there was no point in wasting the ammo.

“Verte, focus on the priority. Find Valeri,” Rosie urged. “We need to eliminate their strategic asset.”

Verte sighed, moving the crosshairs away from the leader, “Roger that. Returning to search for the asset.”

Valeri was too dangerous an asset to leave in enemy hands, he knew it, everyone knew it. That was the whole point of the decoy earlier, of course.

“LEOs coming in from the north, and more Navy from the South and the East if I’m right about the encryption. Find her, Verte. Find her now.”

“She’s not in the open.”

*****

Dimitri smiled to himself as he noted the intervention of the Superhuman asset against his agent. The young woman had managed to save at least two of the law enforcement or military personnel he’d set his decoy to eliminate, but that was a minor detail compared to confirming the presence of yet another of New York’s superhumans within his operational area.

Freerunner, I believe is the code name used. Real name… Ashley something or other, He recalled.

She was already on their list. Her name had been in the files stolen from the Federal computers, and he’d have gotten around to her eventually, though the priority had been lower since she seemed mostly happy to just run around the city like a child at play. Showing up here just saved him the trouble.

“Sir,” Ivan stepped in, “It appears that the LEO forces have mobilized, they should be coming in from the north shortly.”

“Excellent. Anything else?”

“Not at present, but it is safe to say that anyone else in the city is likely on their way.”

Dimitri nodded.

Of course, they were.

*****

Issa swallowed as she watched the armed men around them, nervously wondering if there was anything she could actually do.

“Was that… screamer?” Devin asked, confused.

“I don’t think so, but maybe?” Issa wasn’t sure herself. The woman they thought was Screamer had hit the ground pretty hard, only to vanish a moment later like she’d never been.

More gunfire had sounded off down the block, but there were too many people milling around for her to see much in that direction.

Just figures. I get supe powers and they’re useless when I’m in real trouble… Issa’s fingers played over the device that she’d pulled from her backpack earlier, both relieved and irritated that she hadn’t had a chance to try it out.

“You think they’re going to shoot us?” Devin worked up the courage to ask as he fiddled with his cell phone.

“No, I think they’re…” Issa frowned as she looked over at him. “Are you seriously posting stuff on your app? Really?”

“What? This is internet gold!”

Issa rubbed her face, mumbling, “Why is it my only friend at the new school is a complete idiot?”

He looked at her, expression hurt, “That’s a little uncalled for, don’t you think? What should I be doing?”

She sighed, he had a bit of a point there she supposed, but it still felt like a dumbass move to be making. Still, it was his dumbass move, she supposed.

“I think they’re waiting for something,” she said, opting to ignore his actions for the moment.

“Waiting for what?”

“I don’t know.” She said, “But it probably has to do with the woman… what was it you called her? Screamer?”

“That’s what she’s called on Metalert,” Devin shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s an official name yet.”

Issa nodded, unsurprised. The Russians didn’t seem to care much about establishing identities, which made sense she guessed, them being criminals and terrorists. She blinked, a thought striking her.

“Hey, Devin?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you still have that facial recognition app?” She asked.

“Sure, why?” He questioned before his expression cleared up, “Oh. Oh! Uh, yeah, I do. And…”

He looked around slowly, noting all the camera phones being held up.

“That’s a lot of video streams, if I can find them.”

“Look,” Issa hissed the order.

*****

“Slow us down.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

The black SUV eased slightly as the LEO convoy approached the position of the reported standoff, and Karen Jord checked with her intelligence again.

The Intel side of Stolen Valor was linked into their system, feeding data from Verte’s position as well as the New York CCTV cameras and, apparently from a bunch of web cams and live streams the Russians were running, and even some from within the crowd.

Some people were honestly befuddling to her. Armed men were threatening them, and their response was to take out their phones and start recording?

I mean, it’s not the worst they could be doing, she had to admit to herself, but it’s one of the most bizarre.

The standoff was a couple blocks ahead of them now, and the LEO convoy was rolling for a stop with just a block separating them from the Russians. She signaled the halt as they reached the last intersection before the Russian position and dismounted almost before the SUV rolled to a complete stop, taking care to keep the armored car between herself the Russians.

For all the good it’ll do if things get out of hand, Karen supposed. Still, procedure was procedure after all.

The black SUVs were barricading the street, armored men pouring out and filling up the street with their presence. Karen set her carbine on the hood of the SUV and grabbed a megaphone. She expected that the chance of them actually talking was somewhere between a cold day in hell and an honest politician, but procedures demanded certain responses no matter what.

“Get everyone in place,” She told her tactical commander. “This won’t be ending well.”

“Yes Ma’am,” He nodded. “We’ll do our duty.”

“Never a doubt in my mind,” Karen responded.

And if we weren’t looking at goddamned superpowers in the real world, that would even work.

*****

“No joy, Rosie,” Verte said as he again swept the Russian positions. “Target is not visible.”

“Probably still in one of the SUVs,” Rosie replied. “I don’t have her on the feeds either. I’m running facial recognition, but there’s a lot of data to filter through. I’ll tell you the second I’ve got a hit.”

“No doubts, chere, none at all.” Verte settled into his little sniper perch.

He wasn’t going to jump the gun. The SEAL had shown him that was not a good idea and for all his faults, Verte liked to believe that he could learn from other’s mistakes. So, he settled in, making himself as comfortable as he could manage as he kept his Macmillan rifle in position and ready to take the shot in an instant once he had a cleared target.

The situation on the ground was growing problematic to say the least. The Russians had herded hundreds of people into an intersection, possibly more, and every law enforcement official on the whole damn island was likely here or on their way by this point.

Which is likely enough to be the point, Verte thought darkly.

Everyone was rushing into an operational area in which there was a live, literally, and figuratively, strategic weapon in play. That was not a smart move, he could say from experience, but politically it was almost impossible not to rush in. Too many civilians were at risk now, and the whole world was watching.

If they held back and the civilians were killed, the blow to public perception would be a disaster of almost literally unspeakable proportions.

Of course, if the enemy won the play and wiped out a significant fraction of the LEO and Police response forces on Manhattan, it would still be a pretty epic blow to public perception on top the physical losses. The main difference was that if there were a lot of dead cops, that would play as a lot of heroic martyrs.

Recruitment would go through the roof, and in the long run Verte expected the government would come out on top.

Not that most of the people rushing in are thinking about that, He thought with a mixed melancholy and pride.

Most of the responders weren’t thinking about anything more than trying to save as many civilians as they could.

I wish we could draw our martyrs from the politicians and publicists running the numbers instead of the good folk rushing in to help. Never works that way though.

*****

Dimitri took stock of the situation with a great deal of satisfaction.

Everything had come together nicely, for the most part exactly as he’d hoped. There were still a few faces outstanding that he wasn’t aware of their location, but he suspected at least some of them were inside the little kill box he’d arranged, even if he didn’t see them.

Stolen Valor wouldn’t miss this for the world, He knew for a fact. That little group of former soldiers turned superhumans had, in many ways, inspired his actions whether they knew it or not.

Their actions had grabbed his attention when the virus activated itself in him, the work they did had been impressive despite its waste of potential. He’d seen immediately the potential in what some properly trained people with the sorts of abilities the virus conveyed could do.

And he wanted that potential in his hands.

*****

Chapter 29

Intersection

Devin got the search running as quickly as he could, then went about adding every feed to the system that he could, just as quickly as he could. In a short time, he had his phone crunching through every stream he could locate, which was something like twenty odd, leaning hard on the changes Issa had pushed into his mobile in order to get the data crunched as quickly as possible.

“Ok, I have it looking,” he said as quietly as he could manage, leaning in to Issa’s side. “Not sure how long it’ll take.”

“Can you use my phone?” She asked, holding it up.

“Uh… yeah…” He said slowly, “Yeah, I can. One second… Ok, tap your phone to mine.”

Issa did, and quickly accepted the request for pairing, letting Devin do the rest.

“Don’t go far. We’re saturating the wireless connection, but it’s the best we can do in a pinch,” Devin said. “I’m downloading the app to your phone, and then I’ll split the work between them.”

“Alright,” Issa nervously looked from one armed group to another, the men in black had moved to pin them entirely in. “I really don’t like this.”

Devin snorted slightly, “Sorry, don’t mean to laugh, but seriously… what’s to like?”

She tipped her head. He wasn’t wrong there to be sure.

The situation was about as bad as it got, but for some reason she couldn’t quite get as scared as she thought she should be. She’d been more afraid during the whole situation at Blue Solar weeks ago, even if you didn’t count the fall at the end, than she was now. If anything, she felt… excited.

That struck Issa as downright strange. She’d never been a fan of scary things, even movies and rides weren’t on her list of things to do for fun. Now, in the last month or so, she’d been in two life or death situations and, both times, had been less afraid than the last time she tried to watch a horror movie.

Is there something wrong with me?

She wondered if it was the virus, some effect that changed how people in ways beyond the superhuman abilities it conferred. Issa didn’t know, and supposed that she didn’t have time at the moment to really think about it.

Later, she promised herself, before it struck her as odd that she felt so certain that she would have a later to think on it.

*****

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

“Whoa.”

Rosie had to do a double take as an alert distracted her from the current situation.

“What is it?” Verte asked tersely over their line.

“That unknown supercomputing cluster just fired up again,” She said, surprised. “And it’s running hotter than the last time.”

“This isn’t really the time for that,” Verte responded, sounding annoyed.

Rosie bit her lip, staring at the data.

He was right, of course. They had other concerns on their plate at the moment, but her abilities were just screaming at her to find out more about the system. Quickly she tapped in a command before refocusing her attention back on the situation.

“Yeah, I know, just setting some stuff to run in the background, maybe be able to get more information later,” She said. “Still looking for…”

She stopped, a chime sounding, “What the hell…?”

“Rosie? Busy here.”

“Verte, the computing cluster? It’s running off a public internet feed in your area.”

Verte’s silence on the other side of the line spoke volumes.

“What is it doing?” He asked.

“How the hell should I know? I don’t have access to it, I can just tell it’s there by the sheer volume of data it’s pulling down.”

“Well which data?” He pressed.

“Hang on…” She sent out a few commands, then a crawler, and finally opted to sic her own bot-net on the situation. “Huh. It’s processing streaming feeds from the situation. Someone’s looking for something, I’d guess.”

*****

Rooftop

Verte scowled. He didn’t like unknown variables clustering up and already clustered foxtrot, but he was getting used to not getting a vote on such matters.

“So, it’s in this area and running some sort of search through streaming videos of the situation? Was it always in this area?”

“No,” Rosie told him firmly. “I can’t be completely certain of where it was, but I’m pretty sure that each time it’s been fired up it was in a new position… and now that I’m thinking about that, that makes no sense. These systems aren’t portable, Verte. They’re the size of small buildings… semi-trailers at least.”

Verte did a quick scan, “Nothing like that on these streets, Rose.”

“I’m looking for power draws in the area, but it’s a background search because we have other priorities still.”

“Agreed,” He said, “Still no joy on the target.”

“They have a plan, Verte, and so far, I wouldn’t bet against everyone’s actions to date playing right into it.”

Verte nodded grimly, “I know. We don’t have a choice, however. Stay on it.”

“You know it. Be careful, Stephen.”

“Always.”

“Liar.”

*****

Streets

Dimitri checked the situation, still well satisfied with how the events were running.

New York would shortly be his, for a time at least. He knew well enough that it would be impossible to hold the city. The American government couldn’t allow that and not court absolute chaos in other places, so they would, of course, throw everything they had at him eventually. His people were good, but they could not hope to hold a fixed position against a force that powerful who also held the initiative and mobility.

However, holding the city wasn’t really part of the plan. Just taking it would be enough for his purposes. There were a great deal of other cities in the world whose governments held far less power or interest, and the money, power, and influence involved in taking those for specific clients would be far greater than anything he, or all his people combined, could hope to expend in a hundred lifetimes.

And if we can make it here, we can make it anywhere, Dimitri thought with some amusement.

His teams were tightening up, drawing the forces in. The LEOs were already starting their cautious advance, while he could see that Neko was drawing Freerunner and the remaining government agents alive at that location along with her.

Almost time, He nodded, hand slipping into his pocket, pulling out his phone and sending a quick alert.

“Everyone is almost within range,” he said, half turning to Ivan. “Get ready.”

“Yes boss.”

*****

Issa was getting a bad feeling as she watched the apparent leader of the Russians do something on his phone before whispering something to the guy by his side. Whatever was about to happen, she was guessing it wasn’t a good thing. Her fingers clenched around the device in her hand as she began looking around nervously.

“Issa!”

“What?” She started, looking sharply at Devin, who was suddenly very much in her personal space.

She took a step back, but he pressed close again, his voice low as he looked around with genuine fright in his eyes.

“She’s here!” He hissed.

“Who? What? Screamer?” Issa blinked, shocked.

“Yes!” He swallowed.

“Here where?” Issa looked around at all the gang members, standing armed around them.

“Not out there, here, here. She’s here.”

Issa stared, uncomprehending for a moment before it clicked.

“She’s… in the crowd?”

Devin nodded, face blanched white.

“Where?” Issa demanded, looking around carefully.

“I’m not sure, it’s hard to tell exactly,” He admitted. “But she’s wearing a large red scarf covering her head and shoulders.”

She looked over as he showed her the captured photo on his phone, staring for a moment, but had to admit that she couldn’t actually tell for sure that she was looking at the right person.

“Are we sure that’s her?” Issa asked, slowly looking around the crowd.

“The computer is.”

“Alright, then find her,” Issa said, starting to search.

“Are you crazy? She’s screamer. She opens her mouth, and we claw our own eyes out or something!” He stammered out.

“Find her.” Issa ordered, pushing past him as she started looking.

“Yeah, uh… right.”

Issa started hunting through the crowd, pushing her way between people as she looked for the superhuman who had singlehandedly murdered an entire National Guard convoy with a single scream. It passed through her mind that she was out of what was currently passing for her mind to be doing that instead of literally anything else, but she refused to listen to it.

She remembered falling, that night, and the sudden enveloping security of arms grabbing her up in a tight embrace before she could slam into the street. She even remembered the look on her savior’s face when she stammered out a thanks.

You needed help, and I was able to. I was happy to help, kid.

Such a simple response, but she still felt chills when she thought of it.

Now, other people needed help. She didn’t know, yet, if she were able, but she was going to try.

*****

Devin stared, stunned as Issa pushed off through the crowd, looking for the scariest Superhuman he’d ever heard of, and he couldn’t believe how brave that was. He just wanted to be anywhere but here, and if not for the guns, he was pretty sure he’d have run for cover, dragging her along with him if at all possible.

It wasn’t though, so he started looking for Screamer, half heartedly it was true, but still looking.

Then he remembered something and froze for a second before he grabbed his phone and started sending messages.

*****

Karen Jord swore under her breath as her phone buzzed. She’d set it to silent, but certain numbers still were able to get an alert through. Annoyed, she fished it out and checked the sender.

Isn’t that the kid with the Superhuman app? Karen frowned, irritated. She had put him on the alert list during the last event, but apparently forgot to take him off of it when it was over. She brought her thumb down to swipe the alert away, but paused. It’s got to be about this situation. Let’s see what he has to say.

She tapped on the message, opening it up, and was greeted by a full screen photo rather than the text message she’d expected. She frowned, looked closer at the woman in the photo, then flipped back to look at the subject line.

Screamer is in the crowd?

Pieces began falling into place like magic.

“Shit.” She swore, fist coming up.

Her teams halted automatically, the team leader leaning her way.

“What is it, boss?”

“The target is hiding in the crowd,” She said. “That’s why we haven’t spotted her.”

The team leader swore up a storm as he too understood the implications, “We don’t have anyone covering the crowd.”

“We don’t, but Stolen Valor does.” Karen hit the quick dial option, bringing the phone up to her ear.

“Stolen Valor, Director Jord.”

“Screamer is in the crowd,” She snapped, ignoring the niceties. “Say again, Screamer is in the crowd.”

“Shit,” The woman on the other side swore. “Are you sure?”

“It’s a tip, but I have a photo with it.”

“Send it, please.”

“Done.”

“I’ll alert Vert.”

“Thank you,” Jord said sweating as she began judging the distance to the crowd from where she was. The line went dead, but she had other things to worry about at the moment, and every single one of them took precedence.

“What do we do, Boss?”

“Hold position,” she said, gesturing to either side.

The men on the teams split up, taking cover in alleys between the buildings while Karen tried to decide what to do next.

If we withdraw, the Russians might jump the gun. We need to keep them from doing anything stupid until we can eliminate screamer.

That pretty much meant doing exactly what the Russians expected and wanted from them, but not doing so much of it that they got what they wanted.

Hello impossible tight rope, nice to see you again.

*****

“Verte. Problem.”

“What is it, Rosie?” Verte asked as he again swept the Russian positions, looking for any changes.

“Screamer is in play. She’s in the crowd.”

Every curse word Verte had ever heard in his life tried to make it out of his throat at the same time, resulting in a strangled sound that probably shouldn’t ever be made by human vocal chords. He knew the play instantly, and was cursing himself up and down the building he was standing on for not seeing it earlier.

It’s a trojan play. Goddamn it, why didn’t I see it?

The crowd was packed, milling around enough to make it nearly impossible to find anyone specific in the crowd through a scope, but he was damn well going to try.

“Photo coming through,” Rosie advised him just before his phone buzzed silently.

Verte dropped it on the edge of the roof by his rifle, and quickly opened up the notification. The woman on the screen was wearing a large red scarf, which made it easier maybe, he hoped.

“On it,” he said as he started to get about the business of pointing a high powered rifle at mostly innocent people, trying to filter through and find the snake in the grass.

*****

Issa continued to push her way through the crowd, eyes sweeping for anyone wearing red first. She spotted and discounted three quite quickly, two were guys and the other was a kid, no older than Issa herself, looking scared and clinging to who Issa assumed was her mother. She kept going, moving past them getting a little more desperate with each possible match she found and then discarded.

She has to be here somewhere…

The crowd was scared, milling around nervously, getting pushed back by the armed men anytime they got too close to the side streets. Everyone was caught up in the intersection, with no where to go, and they were all terrified.

Almost all.

Issa’s eyes landed on another woman in a red scarf, this time it weas covering her head, and she didn’t look like she was terrified. She looked… Issa wasn’t sure. Bored? Eager? Both?

It’s her.

She felt it, deep in her gut. Issa had no doubt that she was looking at the one the internet had labeled as screamer. Against every instinct in her body, Issa started pushing her way through the crowd, aiming to get closer.

*****

Dimitri didn’t like that the LEOs had stopped. He wasn’t sure why and that was the problem. He much preferred to know why his enemies made the choices they did. There was no visible reason for them to stop partway up the street as they had, though perhaps they didn’t need a specific reason either.

They should still be in range… it’s fine. They’re just being cautious, but it’s too little and far too late.

“Boss,” Ivan got his attention. “We have three more military teams closing from different directions.”

“Excellent. Are they in range?”

“Just crossed in.”

Dimitri nodded. It didn’t matter what the LEOs were up to, they were bonuses. It was the military assets he needed in his little trap in order to deliver the right punch to the public perception of the situation. He tapped Ivan on the shoulder, “Get ready.”

Ivan nodded curtly and adjusted the buds in his ears, flashing an ok sign as he walked away.

Dimitri keyed in the final signal as he noted that Neko had drawn Freerunner closer.

Perfect.

The warning went out over their network, first to everyone else, and then after a few moments the final order went to Valeri.

It was time.

*****

Issa felt a chill run down her spine as she got closer to the woman, and she saw the woman glance down at the cell phone in her hand before she smiled.

It wasn’t a nice smile.

Issa swallowed, surging to get closer as her brain told her to get away from the danger as quickly as possible, but she knew that there was no way she could get out of range.

In her hand was what she’d cobbled together after seeing Screamer in action, and the results, on the last stream. She turned it on, and prayed as the woman drew in a deep breath and started to scream.

*****

Chapter 30

Rooftop

“Commotion in the crowd,” Verte reported automatically as he swung his rifle to track.

People were moving away from someone, and as he focused, he could tell that it was Screamer. She was wearing the red scarf he had been looking for, and everyone was giving her a lot of room except for another woman.

No, too young. Teenager maybe.

Verte blinked as he looked through the scope, “She’s screaming.”

“Fuck. Get out of there, Verte, you might be in range!”

“Rosie… she’s screaming, but nothing is happening.”

“What?” Rosie sounded confused. “I’m looking for the feeds now.”

“Good luck.” Verte said, uncertain as to what he should be doing himself. Take the shot? Is it really her, or another decoy? What the hell is going on?

*****

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

Rosie had fifteen streams up all running at the same time, and it only took a moment to pick one of the several that were focused on Screamer. She put it up on the big screen, bringing up the sound. Through the panicked screaming she could see another… girl? It looked like a girl from the back, standing close to the target, saying something.

Rosie ran it through an enhancement filter, scrubbing as much of the background noise as she could.

“… you like it? I made it for you.”

Made what? Rosie frowned, searching the imagery.

“It’s an active noise cancelling speaker, I had to tear up a nice pair of headphones for it,” The girl said. “But I think it was worth it. Don’t you?”

Rosie just got even more confused.

There was no active noise cancelling system on the planet that could possibly work in those conditions, let alone as targeted as this seemed to be… but whatever it really was, it was working.

“Verte, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I think the girl there has neutralized the target.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know.”

*****

Street

Dimitri actually leaned in, expecting the explosion of violence and relishing the anticipation of it.

Valeri was one of the more insidious people he’d ever known, and that was before her abilities had been activated by the virus. Trained as a saboteur, she had once managed to topple a national government entirely on her own, simply by finding her way into the right man’s bedroom and whispering in his ear.

With her abilities, well even Dimitri adamantly refused to be anywhere near her without appropriate hearing protection.

After sending the order, however, there was no explosion of violence despite a brief surge of clear panic within the crowd that had him puzzled. He tapped Ivan on the shoulder, gesturing to the crowd. His right-hand man nodded and waved over a couple other of his soldiers and they cautiously made their way forward.

The crowd initially didn’t even notice their approach, the people’s focus was centered inward, at something deeper in the mass of confused and fearful civilians.

A few barked orders and brandishing of the guns was enough to get them to part, of course. Dimitri was almost disappointed that no one needed to be shot, but he had little doubt that he would get his fill of violence for the day in short order.

*****

Issa was using her abilities to suppress the urge to run, to panic, to violently throw up, as she faced the confused woman.

“How did you do this?” The woman asked, her voice barely audible over the interference of the device in Issa’s hand.

“Doesn’t really matter right now,” Issa said, her voice lifting. “You just tried to kill everyone in his crowd. Not in this city, lady.”

“You are a child!” Screamer, well, screamed really, though her voice was barely a rasp no matter how much she raised it. “I will kill you, smash your device and…”

A fist from the side snapped Screamer’s head to one side so hard that Issa winced, wondering if her neck had been broken. A very large and burly man was standing there, glaring down at the unconscious woman for a moment before looking over to Issa.

“You ok, kid?”

“I’m good,” Issa said, flashing him a grin. “Nice shot.”

“It’s like you said, not in this city. One of the guardsmen was a cousin of mine,” The man said. “Not close, but still family.”

Issa nodded, taking a knee by the body as she killed the interference in her little noise canceller. She pulled the scarf off the woman so she could see her face and check her pulse.

“She’s alive,” Issa said.

“Not sure that’s a good thing,” The man said as the crowd began to murmur.

A series of cries of alarm caused them both to turn, the crowd was quickly parting ahead of a trio of advancing gunmen coming their direction.

Issa felt that sharp spike of fear again before she used her abilities to push it away, rising to her feet with the red scarf in hand. She twirled the fabric around her head and shoulders, crossing it across her mouth like a mask as she used her abilities to convince the quantum strata of the fabric that it wanted to be hard, unyielding, and incredibly tough. There were way too many guns heading her direction for her to be happy without some protection.

She barely finished as the guns were focused on her, the lead man yelling.

“Get away from her!”

Issa swallowed, unsure whether she should run or stay put. It didn’t matter in the end, since the man gave her no chance to decide before his weapon barked.

She felt the bullet slap into the scarf, barely transmitting any impact at all as it flattened entirely before bouncing back and dropping to the ground.

The men stared at her in shock, briefly confused by what to do, then the leader snapped an order.

“Kill her!”

As he moved to open fire, a single shot echoed through the streets and he was jerked back and hit the ground as everyone froze, looking around in confusion.

*****

Rooftop

Verte followed the target as he hit the ground, looking for injuries, but found none to speak of despite having just taken a .338 Lapua Magnum to the forehead.

He really had an issue with certain Superhuman abilities.

A sniper round to the head should always be the ultimate trump card, damn it.

He didn’t waste time bitching, even in his head, however, and calmly shifted to the next target. The crosshairs barely settled before he was squeezing the trigger, the round exploding out from the rifle and reaching across the intervening space to touch the target.

This one went down the way he was supposed to, a nice hole in the head making his point as the body crumpled in place rather than being thrown back.

Verte was already moving on to the third man.

“One target down. One superhuman in the crowd. Strategic asset is neutralized for the moment. Get everyone moving!”

“Roger that, Verte. I’ve called in the cavalry. Batsignal is white smoke. Say again, batsignal is white smoke.”

“Wilco,” Verte said, stroking the trigger for a third time before he reached for a smoke cannister from his kit.

He popped the trigger and tossed it away, letting the smoke billow out to mark the position and send out a signal that no one could miss.

He honestly didn’t have any idea what had just happened, but somehow events had taken a turn no one had expected and for once they were a turn in their favor. He was absolutely not going to let that chance go without grabbing at it with both hands.

Next target…

*****

Issa blinked as the two men went down, hard, her mind filling in the details as she focused mostly on not throwing up. One of them was getting back up, and the look he was aiming in her direction made her want to turn and run, but she knew there wasn’t anywhere she could realistically run to.

“I’m going to kill you for that, bitch.”

He thinks I shot him? What?

“It wasn’t…” She managed to get out before he practically blurred, launching himself off the ground and flying at her almost faster than she could track.

She felt the impact from his fist on the makeshift armor she’d turned the stolen scarf into, and was shocked more by how little force had been transmitted through to her, the force of the hit barely making her take a step back.

“Hey! Stop… wait! Cut that-!”

Every time she tried to speak, he hit her again and again, pushing her back step by step, leaving her staggered but unharmed in the process. Finally, he stopped, leaving her to take a breath of relief… that did not last long.

“I do not know how you have managed to create armor like that, but I am willing to bet it does not cover everywhere… and if you need such armor, you likely are more vulnerable elsewhere. This will hurt, child.”

Issa paled as he drew back to punch her and reacted on instinct. She lunged in and snapped a kick right up between the uprights, connecting solidly between his legs. He squeaked, moving to protect his privates, whether out of real pain or instinct she had no idea. Issa just grabbed him by the sleeve of his military style two piece and reached into the material to convince it that it wanted to be exactly like the scarf she’d stolen.

Hard, unyielding, solid.

“What?” He croaked, suddenly unable to move.

Issa stepped past him, slapping him on the first part she could reach that served her purpose, which happened to be his ass. A moment later his pants were just as tough and durable, and unyielding, as his jacket and her scarf.

“Kill… you…” He groaned, toppling over onto the ground, face hitting first with a crunching sound that made Issa wince.

Did not mean to do that. Still, he’s a tough boy with superpowers, right? He’ll be fine.

“Are… you ok, kid?”

Issa looked up. The man who’d stepped in and knocked out Screamer was looking at her with concern. She forced a smile, then realized that the scarf, or shawl, or whatever it was she’d taken and changed covered half her face.

“I’m good, is everyone else?”

“I think everyone is ok,” The man said, eyes focusing on the cursing Russian behind her. “Uh… what did you do to him?”

“Him? Not a thing,” She said. “His clothes are a really excellent armor, though. Not much flexibility in them, though.”

The man looked like he was torn between being befuddled and amused.

“You’re one of them, then? I mean, what do they call it, super humans, not terrorists?” He asked awkwardly.

“Guess so,” Issa shrugged, though it barely showed under the shoulder covering of the scarf. “Honestly, I’m pretty new to this.”

“You did good, I think.”

“Thanks.”

“Is… I mean, uh,” Devin startled her, rushing over, “Nova! That was awesome!”

“Nova?” The man asked, that bemused look on his face.

“Right, it’s her superhero name, see?” Devin filled in eagerly while Issa just wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

“Ah, that works.” The man chuckled.

“Oh god,” Issa groaned. “Just kill me now.”

“Careful what you wish for, Nova,” The man said, growing serious as he looked around, “There’s still a few here looking to do just that.”

Shots filling the air suddenly punctuated that statement as the crowd screamed and dove for the ground. Only Issa, who was still clamping down on her instinctive responses using her abilities, remained on her feet as she found herself staring at several angry gunmen with large looking weapons pointed right at her.

Maybe letting my instincts take over once in a while would be a good thing? Crap.

*****

Dimitri had no idea what had gone wrong, but he found himself with a serious problem to deal with even as it began obviously snowballing into bigger and bigger issues.

Valeri was down, as was Ivan… somehow… and it seemed that someone had sent out the message that it was time to mount a full assault. He couldn’t express how frustrated that made him feel in the moment, but he wasn’t willing to give up the play just yet. Any good plan always had backups, after all.

First, though, who is this?

A young girl was still standing among the cowering crowds, drawing all of his attention straight to her.

Likely an unknown superhuman, then, He supposed. It was possible that she was just crazy or stupid, of course, but standing there with a face covering made it likely that she was more than she seemed.

“Now, who might you be?” He asked aloud, stepping forward while sending a subtle signal to his forces.

She seemed to hesitate before answering, a hint of… distaste? In her voice as she did.

“Call me Nova.”

One of those types, He thought with a mental roll of his eyes. “How very… comic book of you, my dear.”

“Not my choice,” She grumbled, shooting a glare in a direction he didn’t quite catch. “Friends can be a pain.”

“Too true,” Dimitri chuckled, despite himself, as he re-evaluated his impression of her. “I prefer comrades, myself.”

“Uh… that’s the same thing, isn’t it?” She asked, genuinely confused.

“Not at all, but you’re young. If you live, you’ll learn,” he told her. “If.”

Her stance shifted subtly in response to the threat, but it was odd. Not like she was ready to attack, but not like she was going to flee either. Dimitri couldn’t get a read on her, despite decades of experience doing just that with all manner of people across the world.

“You’re not going to win,” she told him, with an admirably slight level of fear quivering her voice. “This is my home… and Our city. You can’t have it.”

“Child, you have no idea what you’re dealing with.” Dimitri dropped the smiling pretense, that part of the conversation was over. He brought up his power, feeling it building in the air. With exaggerated showmanship, he slowly lifted his hand, bringing his fingers together, and then… snapped.

The crack of the lightning bolt split the air, shaking the world or so it felt, in the next moment.

*****

Issa felt it as he drew in his power.

The vectors became aligned, and the area was intertwined.

She still didn’t know what it meant, not exactly, but she knew instinctively what it would mean. As the flash of light blinded everyone in the area, she reached out with her ability and shifted the vectors.

A bolt of lightning struck down from the clear sky above, exploding in the air above her, crackling down in a cage around her as she controlled the vectors that surrounded her, keeping the power in motion around her.

Looking out through the lightning shield, she saw the startled look on the Russian’s face as he took a step back in surprise.

“I watched when you did this to the Commodore,” she said, her voice reverberating as it came out from the cage of electrical power. “Overpowering his abilities so that you could use that pistol on your side to kill him. Murdering him.”

She took a step forward, causing people on the ground to scramble quickly out of her way.

“Did you really think you could win this fight?” She asked. “Here? This city has been bombed by enemies, foreign and domestic alike, many times in the past. We’ve survived every single one of them.”

People were looking up around her, everyone was listening, but Issa didn’t really notice any of it. She was focused entirely on the Russians, their abilities, and their weapons.

“You had to know that we would survive you too… or are you really that stupid?”

*****

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

“Who the hell is that girl?” Rosie asked, the feed taking up the entire bank of monitors as she listened in.

“Not a clue, Chere, but I like her style,” Verte said over the link, sounding amused.

“You would,” Rosie rolled her eyes, “She’s just gone straight to the top of the internet’s watch list, just so you know. I think there might be some tribesmen in the Amazon who aren’t watching this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Verte snorted, “It’s Hale all over again. Hope she can shoulder the weight, because I would not want level of attention. Not for all the money on the planet.”

“You and me both. Don’t let her do the entire job, Verte. I know you army types aren’t chair force lazy, but sometimes you make me wonder…”

“Low blow, Chere. We’ll be having a little chat when I get back,” Verte told her with a dark humor in his tone.

“Woe is me,” Rosie said dryly. “However, will my poor little Marine self keep from shaking in fear of you wanting to chat? Oh, wait, that’s not fear, I just turned the massage function of my chair on by mistake.”

“And you’re seriously comparing me to the Chair Force, Rosie?” Verte laughed, disconnecting before she could respond.

Point to you, Stephen, Rosie tipped her head, sighing as she turned back to the screens and became serious again.

The action, it seemed, was heating up.

*****

Dimitri blinked at the question. Honestly, he’d not expected to be challenged in such a way.

“Child, no matter your abilities, you are no threat to my plans.”

She looked at him as though he were the foolish one, head cocked to one side and her expression incredulous.

“If the police and the government can’t end you, we will,” she said firmly.

“We? I suppose you mean the worthless rabble cowering behind you?” Dimitri smirked.

“Cowering? You mean like the ordinary man who knocked your screaming girlfriend out with one punch?” She asked, his lightning crackling around her as she continued to walk forward. “Sure, cowering rabble like that.”

Dimitri’s eyes flicked to either side as he watched the people getting up behind her. This was not how it was supposed to happen, but in some ways, it was a better outcome he decided. It was easy to make people cower, but she wasn’t wrong either. Leave a single opening, and someone would make them rise up, and the power of a mob of thousands was something even trained military needed to be wary of.

Letting them get their hopes up before crushing them a few more times, though, had a way of taking the fight out of anyone.

He couldn’t really complain, because he could not have scripted it better himself.

“You really think you’re going to win this?” He asked, smiling.

“Me? Maybe, maybe not,” She shrugged, refusing to back down. “But you are going to lose.”

“Idiot child. You learn a few things when you live the life I have, and one of those things… is to always have a backup plan.” He said, speaking not so much to the child in front of him as to the crowd and the people watching. “Aleksi, if you would?”

The door to the SUV opened and Aleksi Drugof planted a foot on the pavement, slipping out of the van as he pushed his way out through the Russian mafia soldiers.

“Aleksi… kill the child.”

Aleksi didn’t respond, he just moved. His motion wasn’t fast, exactly, so much as somehow both teleportation and yet… not. He crossed the space between the Russian lines and where the girl was standing instantly, yet didn’t leave his original position, appearing both inside her makeshift lightning shield in a flicker of pseudo motion while casually joining Dimitri by his side.

“As you wish.”

*****

Chapter 31

Street

Issa flinched back in shock as the man appeared in front of her, part of her mind insisting that he both was and was not there.

The blow that struck her makeshift armor was evidence that he most certainly was, and more than enough force transmitted to send her sprawling before she almost felt more than heard a whine of something flying by her head and digging into the ground. In that moment, the Superhuman who’d been introduced as ‘Aleksi’ vanished like someone had turned off a light and her senses were insisting that there was only one of him, in one place, right back where he had been all along.

What in the hell was that?

Issa’s head was ringing from the blow, but her armored scarf, as ludicrous as that was to say, had taken the worst of the impact and kept her from harm.

She straightened out, blinking as her senses once more screamed at her that the same person was again in two places at once, yet not in either, but also only one of the two… all at the same time.

“That’s impossible,” She mumbled, flinching as the man again appeared in front of her, swinging viciously at her before another whining sound, followed by a crack in the distance that she noted this time, filled her ears and he once again vanished. What the hell is going on?

Everything she knew about powers, which she would be the first to admit was limited, suggested that they developed from some sort of control over the quantum nature of the universe. Her own abilities lay in adjusting the curves of quantum behavior, making whatever it was she was affecting behave in the way she wanted.

Mr. Trenton said that every power he had studied appeared to be the results of a similar idea, so this guy is probably doing the same sort of thing, but what precisely?

Her senses screamed again, and she threw herself to one side as the man appeared in front of her again, already swinging. The same whining sound, followed by a crack, filled her ears and she finally understood what it was she was hearing.

Someone is shooting him… but who? No, that doesn’t matter. Issa berated herself, What matters is that it’s happening, and it seems to… cancel this one’s power.

Her study in physics mapped out in front of her then, like she could see into the past and reread all of her books on the subject in an instant.

Issa felt herself calm, a smile forming as she got it.

“Heisenberg.” She said, loudly.

*****

Rooftop

Verte gritted his teeth as he shot the Russian for the third time, watching him blink out of existence again like he’d never been there in the first place.

Immunity to a headshot is such horseshit.

His phone buzzed and he tapped it automatically, opening the line again.

“Verte,” he said.

“Head’s up, I think the girl figured something out. Streaming video of her has her, I think smiling? And she called him ‘Heisenberg’.”

“She knows his name?”

“I think she’s referring to the physicist, actually,” Rosie said dryly.

Right, Verte conceded. That would make more sense.

“You understand that?”

“No, but she seems to.”

“She’s a teenager, Rosie, don’t bet all our lives on a teenager.”

“She’s on the ground, dealing with the problem. She has better field knowledge than we do right now.”

Verte gritted his teeth. He really did not like the fact that she was correct about that.

*****

Street

“Excuse me?” Dimitri blinked, holding up a hand to put a brief pause on the attack.

“I said, Heisenberg,” the girl told him. “Or perhaps you might prefer Schrodinger?”

“You are speaking nonsense, stalling for time.”

“The second? A bit,” She admitted. “But not the first. Your friend there, he’s an incarnation of that pair’s more well-known theories. He sets up a pair of waveforms, on the quantum level. In one, he stays right by your side… in the second, he attacks. As long as the waveforms remain intact, he’s effectively in both places, and neither, at the same time.”

Dimitri paused, eyeing her more seriously, “Now that is a very impressive bit of deduction. Who are you?”

“You don’t really think I’m going to answer that, do you?”

“No, but it was worth asking.” Dimitri dropped his hand, gesturing to the rest of his men. “Someone please, kill this child.”

*****

Rooftop

“She’s brilliant.”

“Sorry, Chere, did you understand any of that?”

“I did. Hold on.”

Verte sighed as the line went quiet, but remained open. He really hated being put on hold, especially in the middle of a fight.

The girl’s explanation sort of made sense to him. He was more or less familiar with the theories she’d been talking about, he believed.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Schrodinger’s Cat Experiment, I believe.

It was an interesting explanation, but it didn’t explain why Rosie was so excited about it. It sounded like something more of value to the eggheads in the labs to him, but Verte was well aware that Rosie wasn’t that at all.

Oh, she had the brains for lab work, but she was tactically minded. It was what made her good at her job in the Marines. Now he just had to wait to figure out what she had heard that he hadn’t, he supposed.

“Back.”

“How nice, Chere. I don’t suppose you have anything, because it is not looking good down there.” He said as he shifted the rifle slightly, dropping the crosshairs on one of the advancing thugs with an SMG in his fists.

“Verte, I need you to shoot the teleporter again,” Rosie said.

“I’ve shot him three times, he doesn’t die easily I am afraid, Chere.”

“Trust me. On my mark, exactly.”

“You’ve got it, Chere.”

*****

Street

Issa swallowed as the thugs began advancing on her, the lightning she was still holding crackling menacingly in response. They hesitated, but started moving forward again at the urging of the Russian.

One of them got over his hesitation quickly, his weapon barking once, and Issa flinched automatically… but no hint of impact came. She blinked, looking a little lost as the thug seemed in a similar state of mind.

Another fired at her, and this time she caught a flicker of something being caught by the lightning field, turning almost instantly to vapor and dispersing nearly as quick. Issa still shifted away from it, uncertain what was happening exactly, but fairly confident that breathing vaporized lead or other heavy metals probably wasn’t in her best interests.

“You should just leave,” she said, refocusing on the leader, praying he would listen because she had no idea what the hell she was doing.

He just laughed, “Child, you are not going to stop me. I have come too far, and paid too much, to let some sniveling little infant stand in my way. I will admit, I am impressed by your thinking, and your powers are not feeble either, however. I pay rather well…”

“You have got to be kidding,” She scoffed, disbelieving. “I may be a kid, but I’m not that young. After this? Where will you hide?”

“Any number of nations would be happy to provide a secure place for me to establish a proper place of operations.”

“Psh-yeah,” She waved, snorting, “Until the government offers them enough ‘foreign aid’ to open up a temporary corridor in their air defences. I watch the news, you know.”

“You assume that we will need to hide, child,” He growled, leaning forward unconsciously.

Issa just rolled her eyes, “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? Securing your hiding place here? Otherwise, why do all this? You’re already hiding, even a kid could see that.”

“Enough. Aleksi, KILL her.”

Issa stiffened as the teleporter slash duplicator drew his sidearm, apparently finished with trying to beat her into submission. She tensed, ready to jump as soon as he appeared but in the moment that he did she again heard a whizzing through the air, only this time it was accompanied by a wet smacking sound and the spatter of liquid on the street.

She flinched back from the body that dropped at her feet, eyes wide as she saw another body drop in place beside the Russian leader, blood pouring from a wound in its scalp.

The Russian said something that she suspected was not for polite company, jumping away from the body as she took a slower but equally firm step from the one at her feet.

“What in the cold hells…?”

“Someone collapsed your friend’s waveform, in both places at once.” She stated, a little numb from the experience. “Clever of them, really.”

*****

Dimitri scowled, eyes searching beyond the crowd.

He knew that there were snipers out there, but for the most part honestly didn’t care. He was effectively impervious to bullets as were the men he considered valuable with him.

Aleksi had been one of that number, however.

Not only had the child figured out Aleksi’s ability, but someone was paying close enough attention to the streams that they were able to take that information and turn it into something useful.

That is not acceptable.

The child had to die, before she spouted any other intelligence on what she saw, just in case someone could make similar use of it against him. It was, however, a valuable bit of insight into the abilities the enhanced wielded, and possible counter measures.

He would need to research more on the subject she had brought up, to see if it applied more widely than merely to Aleksi’s enhancements.

Time to call in the reserves, I suppose.

He didn’t like it, in a general sort of way it was better to accomplish the task with a minimum of exposure needed for the effect he was seeking, but they were at an impasse now. Valeri was down, which already put a severe crimp in his plans for the day. They could be recovered, of a sort, but only if he maintained control of his strategic asset.

And eliminated, at least, a majority of the forces arrayed against him.

He hit a single icon on his phone.

“Dimitri.”

“Kevan, you are clear to engage. The girl in front of me is your primary target.”

“Very well.”

*****

Rooftop

“Ok, I give up, what the hell was that?” Verte said as he watched the target hit the ground.

The target that previous shots hadn’t even seemed to strike, no matter how certain he was that he hadn’t missed.

“The girl gave me the hint. His little trick put him in a superpositioned state,” Rosie said.

“Right, sure. Makes sense.”

Rosie snorted, “the TLDR is that he was in both places at once, and neither. Whenever you shot him, he just collapsed the waveform you fired on.”

“So, we needed to shoot him in both places. SEAL sniper?”

“SEAL sniper,” She agreed. “Coordinating was the hard part.”

“Well, I’m not going to argue with the results, but… Oh shit!”

“Verte? Verte! What is it?”

Verte barely managed to duck into the shadow he himself was casting before the energy blast tore the rooftop he was on to shreds.

*****

Street

Issa ducked instinctively as the sound of an explosion above them made her spin in a half crouch, looking up to see chunks of cement, glass, and other rubble falling through the air from the roof of a nearby building.

People were screaming as the shrapnel rained down, striking some, but there was nowhere to go with all the armed men surrounding them.

Above the explosion, Issa spotted a gleaming figure in the air and remembered him from the night at Blue Solar, and his attack on the thief who had been trying to escape the building. Then, she’d wondered if he might be one of the good guys, if a little over eager in the application of power.

By the end of the night, she’d put those thoughts to rest, of course. It had been clear that he was just one more of the criminals assaulting the area, though she hadn’t known who exactly he worked for.

Guess I know now, huh?

Her eyes widened as a pulse of power lit up the sky and she felt the beam as it left him, crashing down into the crowd.

“No!”

Her scream was accompanied by a twist of her hand as she reached up, sending the captured lightning from the earlier attack out into a shield that covered the crowd. She felt the power of the blast slam into her shield and winced as it splashed over their heads, people screaming as they ducked down, most of them clearly expecting to die.

Issa felt herself fall to her knees, but ignored the pain lancing through her legs as she expended her energy, and the lightning, and held off the attack.

Exhausted, her arms fell limp to her sides. For a long moment, all she heard was the pounding of her heart in her ears, but slowly she heard another sound building. A slow staccato sound.

Clapping.

One person, slowly clapping.

She didn’t need to look up to know who it was, or that the sound was as filled with sarcasm as she’d ever managed at her very best (or worst) with her mother.

“Oh, you are a fun one,” The Russian leader chortled. “But you clearly don’t have much stamina, do you? Children do tire so easily… of course, they recover quickly too. Best not allow that, I believe. Kevan, finish it.”

Issa struggled to lift her head up, she was reaching deep for anything she had left, but the last one had taken everything she had and the stolen power of the lightning from earlier. She didn’t think she could stop the blast on her own strength, maybe not even while fresh.

Redirect it, maybe?

Desperate, she felt out the changes in the strata of the universe as the blast was powered up, but it wasn’t like the lightning. The power was being generated from the flyer himself, pulling energy from the zero-point vacuum itself, somehow. She couldn’t even begin to see the mechanism, as much as she’d have loved to understand it, but she could tell that she wouldn’t be able to hijack the power in the same way she had the lightning.

She could feel the blast forming, and just as it was about to be loosed… another shift in the local field startled her.

It startled the flying criminal too, it seemed, as something slammed into him from above and the side, and he was blown down into an empty section of street with enough power to crater the pavement.

In his place was someone Issa recognized.

The Magpie was looking down at the man he’d just decked, a furious look on his face.

“That is one I owed you, you sucker punching bastard.”

*****

“Move! Move! Move!”

Karen was pushing her men forward, charging the last half block as the Russians were momentarily stunned by the shifting fortunes. She didn’t know who’d just hammered their flying blaster, but she didn’t exactly care either. Her Carbine was in her hands, and her body was seriously complaining about the level of activity she was demanding of it, but she didn’t care about that either.

I seriously need to get back into fighting form if I’m keeping this job, she thought grimly as she paused only briefly to shoulder the carbine and fire a short burst into the first of the Russians to notice their assault.

“Ma’am,” Her team leader was staying at her side as the others moved on ahead, “Would really prefer it if you didn’t run into any hails of bullets, Ma’am.”

“Easily solved, just shoot them before they can unleash any hails of bullets, Tom.”

He grimaced, but didn’t have much more he could say about that.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

She smirked at the clear distaste in his voice, “Relax Tom. My replacement has the job well in hand.”

“Ma’am, I am your replacement.”

“Your point?” She asked, genuinely amused as she continued to move toward the fight, not letting him distract her.

“I’m not a masochist and I don’t want your job!”

*****

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

“SEALs are moving in from all sides, Verte. Local LEOs charging, and we have several previously unknown, or barely known, superhumans joining the fray.” Rosie advised over the communications lines.

“I see it,” Verte responded, and she could hear metallic sounds in the background as he set up his rifle. “All units, be advised, sniper providing support.”

“Relaying that. Good hunting.”

“Always, Chere. See you soon.”

Rosie shifted away, leaving the Army man to his task while she continued coordinating with the rest.

The sudden shifts in fortune had finally been enough, it seemed, to drive the Russian lines into disarray. The SEALs were hammering the gunmen on each street, while the Superhumans were centering the fight while protecting the civilians caught in the middle.

Unfortunately, the chaos was affecting much of the streaming sources, either directly or indirectly, and her intelligence feed was becoming far less trustworthy with each passing moment.

One, however, was actually remaining shockingly useful. What was strange, though, was the fact that it wasn’t a streaming feed, strictly speaking.

Who… actually, forget who… How in the name of all that’s holy is someone streaming a live edit of the fight from what looks like every single feed, only grabbing the interesting bits, and doing it in realtime!?

*****

Chapter 32

Street

Devin was cowering in a corner, sheltering as much as he could in a narrow section of a building behind the corner windows, furiously working on his cell phone. He had an AI editor running, grabbing all the feeds he could see and automatically clipping and re-splicing them into something a little more… cinematic.

It was really all he could do, making sure that the best images of the heroes… both powered and unpowered, and the best images of the bad guys… were seen by everyone.

Devin couldn’t believe what the phone modified by Issa… no, by Nova, could do. It was absolutely destroying everything he threw at it, and practically challenging him to try again with something harder.

Photo recognition was already being posted of all the bad guys, straight to Metalert with examples of their powers, if they had any, or just their affiliations if they didn’t.

Superpowers meant supervillains, to his mind, and super villains meant minions.

Devin smirked nastily as he put the last of the gunmen up, with the title ‘minion’ after their names, if they had them, or just by their picture if they didn’t. If he could come up with a less complimentary name for them, he’d change it later he decided.

Toadies might work? I do like the sound of it…

*****

Dimitri scowled as the streets were drowned in the sounds of automatic fire, occasionally being punctuated by the more powerful blows and blasts from superhuman combatants.

This… did not go to plan.

The girl, he decided, was the catalyst somehow. She’d been able to neutralize Valeri, or he thought it was her at least. It was so hard to be certain.

For the moment, it didn’t matter. Other priorities were in effect.

Like getting the fuck out of here.

As with all of his plans, Dimitri had an escape path just in case.

Ivan was secured, somehow, also the work of the girl. Neko was being occupied by Freerunner, and Kevan was currently on the losing side of a fight with… Honestly, he didn’t know who that was. There weren’t any other flying bricks, as the Americans called them, in the city that he knew of aside from…

The thief. Blast it, why would he get involved?

Dimitri didn’t care right then. He’d worry about revenge later. He drew in his power and brought down another bolt of lightning, keeping it far away from the girl this time in case she was to replicate her earlier feat.

Instead, he blasted the prepared explosives and smoke cannisters with a jumping chain of bolts.

The screaming redoubled in the block as everything vanished in a cloud of smoke and the jarring blast wave of the detonation.

Long before it all cleared, Dimitri Veron would be long gone.

*****

Freerunner planted both boots into the chest of her opponent and kicked out with the strength that allowed her to easily leap hundreds of feet horizontally, and stick a landing just as far down.

The woman was blown off her feet as Freerunner flipped back over and landed easily on the balls of her feet, ready to charge forward again.

The two military guys she’d saved from the earlier attack were staying with her, surprisingly, as she kept moving toward the fighting, but all three of them hit the ground hard when the shockwave slammed into them, smoke pouring across the street.

She had flashes of a building coming down, but one of the military guys calmed that with a yell.

“Flashbangs and smoke! Lot of them, keep low and press forward!”

She didn’t think he was talking to her, but she decided to go with it anyway.

The three of them stayed close as they finished fighting their way to the intersection, short bursts from the military guys’ weapons dropping a Russian who’d stumbled out of the smoke, waving his rifle around.

“Navy SEALs! Down, down, down!”

Freerunner spun around, shocked as more men charged out of the smoke, ready to fight.

“Easy!” One of the military guys yelled back, “Aegis, Tyr, Zeus!”

“Red, Silver, Blue.”

Freerunner blinked, confused as the men relaxed, though the newcomers still had their weapons half aimed at her.

“Easy, she’s with us,” One of the military guys said.

That, it seemed, was enough. The guns shifted, aiming back the way they should, at least in her opinion.

“Hey,” One guy said softly to her. “Thanks for the save.”

Freerunner panted a little, the fight really having been more than she’d expected. “No problem. You guys… Seals?”

“That’s us,” He nodded, “I’m Petty Officer MacMillan.”

“Freerunner, I guess,” she said, nodding to him. “At least as far as it goes while there are cameras watching.”

He snorted, “Don’t blame you there. Strictly speaking, I probably shouldn’t be sharing my name in this situation either. Crazy terrorist psychos.”

She nodded absently, noting that the smoke was clearing.

There were men on the ground, a lot of them, with guns kicked all over the street. Civilians were staying down, or she hoped they were cause a lot of them were on the ground and not moving a lot while armed men in similar dress to the military guys were walking among them.

“We’re going to need medics in here,” someone yelled.

Freerunner blinked as she suddenly heard what seemed like every siren in New York lighting off at once, in the distance. She could even see flashing lights several blocks down in every direction she looked, and it seemed they were all moving in fast.

She was suddenly glad of her goggles and the rudimentary disguise her equipment gave her. She had a bad feeling that everyone, and she meant everyone, was going to be seeing this mess shortly… if they weren’t already.

My parents are going to kill me if they find out!

*****

Karen slowed to a walk as her men finished securing the thugs around the barricade they had assaulted. She could see men from the SEALs, she assumed, doing the same at the other barricades as she surveyed the position to ensure that the fighting was over… or at least one its way to being so.

It wasn’t a route, she decided. They’d lost good men in the assault, and the civilian injury count was likely to be severe. She just knew that it could have been far worse.

Frowning she kicked over a body of one of the Russians, checking him out briefly before moving on.

“Someone find the bastard who set this all up,” She ordered. “I want his head on a platter!”

Sadly, that want would go unfilled.

*****

It took hours to get everyone counted up, and even then, Karen found that more slipped through the cracks than she’d have liked.

The woman of the hour, the mysterious girl in red, simply wasn’t there.

Or, if she was, they had nothing to say it was her.

They found the scarf, laying over the still unconscious form of the woman known online as Screamer. Karen decided to leave that name appended to her file, it fit, and it was humiliating enough to feed her personal desire for petty revenge. It didn’t fulfill it, but it was a good start.

Magpie had been there, apparently, and fighting on the side of law and order shockingly.

Unsurprisingly, he’d flown the coop once the fighting was under control.

Karen grudgingly made note of that in his file, it would play well for him in the future if he needed some clemency from courts in the States… and maybe a few allied countries. Freerunner, she was known to the LEOs, so once they got her statement, Karen had her driven home.

There were enough issues for to deal with than to worry about the security of a minor who shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but had saved quite a few lives by being a stupid teenager. It was better than most of her peers would manage, Karen supposed.

After all that, however, and with the clean up in the hands of the proper authorities, she found herself at something of a loss.

The leader, Dimitri Veron, had managed to slip the noose.

Somehow.

She shouldn’t be surprised, Karen supposed. He was a trained operative, someone who knew better than to assume success, even if he expected it. He’d have planned out an escape route, and he’d obviously been able to execute it properly.

His face would be the top of every Interpol and Anti-Terrorist hit list in the Western World before the end of the night, however, she would personally see to that.

That just left the paperwork, and wrangling with the State and Federal Authorities for new Superhumans to fill out her department.

It was going to be a long night, and an even longer month… at least.

Sometimes she honestly hated her job.

*****

Stolen Valor HQ, Manhattan

Rosie didn’t turn around as Verte stepped out of the shadow behind her.

“He got away,” she said as she felt the strong arms wrap around her from behind.

“We will find him, Chere,” Verte said wearily. “What do you have on the unknowns?”

“The flyer at the end was a thief, known as Magpie to the LEOs,” she said, leaning her head back against his shoulder. “The girl? No idea. There was another girl, Freerunner, also known to the LEOs. But there was someone else too.”

“Oh?” He asked softly.

“A hacker maybe? Someone with that supercomputing cluster was on our side, feeding intel out through that Meta-lert app,” she said, frustrated. “There’s something very odd about that.”

“How so? Someone with a change like yourself could do it…”

“While mobile? No way,” She said, “I’m good, but I need the systems here to be effective. I don’t know… but I hope to meet them sometime. We have a name on the girl, though.”

“Oh? I thought the LEOs had nothing?”

“They don’t. Meta-lert, however, has a profile page for her. She’s called Nova.”

*****

Epilogue

Islay Household

Issa really wanted to kill Devin.

Ok, maybe not kill him, but beat him so that he felt it at least.

The little piece of…

She still couldn’t believe that he’d saddled her with some idiotic superhero name… and worse, it was her own name!

I’m going to get found out, I know it. This is nuts.

Luckily, she had some time before she needed to worry about dealing with classes and other students. The fighting had resulted in school being canceled for the next week. Hopefully, most of it would have blown over by then.

It left her with a decision, though. Something she honestly wasn’t sure what to do about. She hadn’t intended to get caught up in fighting like that, and had nearly been killed… in part because the bad guys were just seriously powerful, but a lot of it had been just because she hadn’t been ready.

That will not happen again.

Issa looked down at the armor she’d made, this time using internet instructional videos to make sure that it could move with her before she’d made the changes to render it all by invulnerable.

She had… ideas.

So many ideas.

The powers she’d seen in action… she had caught glimpses of each, of how they changed the rules of the universe in the same way she did, but with so many varied effects.

Issa wasn’t sure if she could replicate all of them, but she was pretty sure she could get some of them to work… and she knew she had tricks no one else had shown yet.

She prayed that there would not be a next time, but if there was…

Nova would be ready.

END