|
|
Chapter 193 – Honeymoon PeriodAlex was totally surprised when she got home. Nothing had happened. The Collective hadn’t launched an attack anywhere. No new monsters had started roaming somebody’s countryside or rampaging through someone’s city. Everything was quiet.
Alex’s mom and dad were really glad to see her, but they firmly told her, “Today we’re moving Shar’s things out of your room and moving Annie’s things back in.” Alex almost burst into tears just hearing that.
But she put her own stuff away and put her dirty clothes in the laundry and that stuff, and then she picked out the Shar-things she totally could not live without. Piki the Pikachu went back to her bed. ‘Forbidden Island’ went into the game stuff in the living room cabinets. The Kari Strong books all went onto Alex’s shelves.
“Where’s Terawatt Barbie? And where are Shar’s overalls?”
Her dad patted her on the shoulder. “Now, don’t be angry …”
Her mom explained, “Some of Shar’s little friends and their moms came by while you were gone, and they wanted some things to remember her by. I thought it would be a good thing to let Sophie have Shar’s overalls, and Maria wanted a couple of Shar’s hats, and Dennis wanted the picture of him and Shar, and … well, Danny wanted Shar’s church dresses.”
Alex’s first reaction was to get really mad and throw a tantrum, but she didn’t. Sophie totally needed some non-girly things in her life, and wearing Shar’s overalls would be good for her. Dennis totally deserved to have that picture of him and Shar, because it wasn’t fair that your first girlfriend in third grade got killed before you even got to fourth grade. And Danny … “What did Danny’s mom say about that?”
Alex’s dad looked a little uncomfortable. “She’s been taking Danny to a child psychologist, and she and her husband are pretty worried about him, but it looks like … they’re going to have to be pretty worried about her. The child psychologist wants to keep seeing Danny, but it looks like they have a little girl who just needs some medical help.”
Her mom added, “Danny and Maria split up Shar’s Barbie stuff, but Danny took home Terawatt Barbie and her secret identities. They agreed that protecting Terawatt’s identity from bad people was more important than both of them getting exactly half of the stuff. And Danny said he was changing his name from Danielle to Tera because Terawatt’s his hero. Her hero. This stuff is confusing.”
Alex had to blink back some tears again. But she helped her mom put Shar’s remaining clothes and toys and books in shopping bags to take to Goodwill the next day. Shar’s sheets went back into the hall linen closet in case they ever had a need for bedsheets for someone young. And Alex moved most of Shar’s DVDs down to the living room, but she put “The Iron Giant” in the Goodwill bags because she totally could not face seeing that ever again.
Then they moved Annie’s things back to the closet and bookshelf and dresser. Not that there was much to move, because Annie had almost all her clothes out of the house by then. Really, there were mainly a few shelves of books and a couple of framed pictures of the family and some stuff Annie didn’t wear anymore and Annie’s box of awards and plaques like her science fair awards, and her high school diploma, and the little clay trophy Alex made for her back in elementary school that she hadn’t realized Annie still had.
Alex looked around the room that was now Shar-less and hugged Piki and told herself that someday it wouldn’t hurt so much. She told herself it would all get better from here on out.
After all, it could hardly get any worse.
* * *
“Vince Carter?”
He glared at the guard. “Yeah. What’s the problem this time?”
“You’re being transferred to a SuperMax prison in another state. Someone ticketed you as being a Danielle Atron target.”
He snorted. That bitch? She couldn’t be bothered with him after she fired his ass just because he couldn’t track down that Mystery Kid when all the help she gave him was saddling him with Dave ‘Biggest Moron Ever’ Watt. Then she couldn’t be bothered with him after she got superpowers. Then she couldn’t be bothered with him after she busted out of prison and sicked a couple of supervillains on Paradise Valley. There was no way she was targeting him now. Still, he had a prison full of enemies here, and not enough allies, so ditching this hole was no loss. He muttered, “Let’s move.”
He was escorted to the warden’s office, where they slapped transport chains on him and walked him out to a heavily-armored transport bus. It looked like there was a driver, two guards, and just him. Hey, it could be worse. It could be him and twenty of those fucking skinheads. Or him and twenty of those gangstas who thought they were so bad.
He got onto the bus, even if the chains between his ankles weren’t really long enough to step up onto the bus steps. He sat where the two guards pointed, and let them lock him to the seat. He just sat back and enjoyed the view as he got to drive out of that shithole. Oh, he knew he was heading for another shithole that was maybe even worse. But he figured he had at least a day out of prison, even if they stuck him on a plane to wherever he was going.
After about twenty minutes, the guards stepped over and unlocked him from the seat. One sat down across the aisle from him and handed him the keys to his transport chains. The other guard sat down behind him and said, “Mister Carter, how’d you like to be head of security again?”
He didn’t trust these guys an inch, but he knew something big was going down. “What do you want? Who are you?”
“You would probably know us as ‘The Empire’ if you’ve been watching TV. Miss Atron recommended you for a task we need doing. You’ll have a team of five mercenaries and whatever gear you request, within reason.”
He figured he was smack in the middle of the smartest prison break in history, and someone was doing it for him. He just asked, “What’s my target?”
“The home of George Mack. Do you know where that is?”
“If that prick is still in the same house, hell yeah. What’s my tasking?”
“We want everyone in the house captured and brought to a safehouse in the Bay Area. And Miss Atron has reason to believe that anyone in the house might have GC-161 powers by now, so it won’t be easy.”
He smirked. “Sure it will. All I’ll need is one good-sized tank of sedative gas, and gas masks for me and my team. Plus a couple of vans and some gurneys. And some tranquilizer to dose ’em with while they’re out so they’ll stay out.” He’d been thinking about capturing that fucking Mystery Kid for a long time. He had this all worked out.
“We’ve already got the gas and the injectables along with a bunch of other things, because Atron’s working with Maggie Walsh, and Walsh … Well, she’s a hell of a lot smarter than me.”
Well, it sounded like Walsh was even ahead of him, and he’d been thinking about it for years. He checked, “What’s my payment, how competent are the mercs you’re giving me, and where do we go afterward?”
* * *
Clare Tobias was just reading in her cell when the alarms went off and she heard the gunfire. Then a couple of explosions. There were several different types of assault weapons and machine guns being fired, and she made a deduction about that. So she closed her book. She yanked the pillowcase off her pillow and dumped the book in, along with everything on her shelf: her hairbrush and toothbrush and books and the two decks of cards.
Then she stepped away from the cell door and waited. It took about twelve minutes before the gunfire and explosions finally ceased. It was another five minutes before the cell door swung open to reveal an Orphan in a tactical vest and carrying yet another AK-47. She gave him a false smile. “What kept you?” She took the guy’s sidearm but hung onto the pillowcase in her off hand as she hurried down the hall along with the guy.
* * *
Jack woke up when a certain sexy someone started nibbling on his ear. He peeked at the clock radio on the nightstand. Three fifteen in the morning. “Are you trying to kill me, woman?” he pretended to complain.
Willow giggled and kissed him hungrily. “Well, it is our honeymoon, and you haven’t made me scream in …” She looked over at the clock. “… two hours and forty-six minutes.”
He kissed her. “Well, you know I’m really old, and I might require a lot of prompting and —”
The clock winked out.
He put one finger across her lips and sat up to take a look around. The light in the bathroom was suddenly out, too, and he’d left it on. That was really not promising. He scrambled out of the bed and into the front room. He could see by looking at the crack at the bottom of the door that the lights were out in the hallway.
He ducked back in and fumbled in the dark for his shirt and pants as he whispered in her ear, “I think we’re under attack. No noise. Check the phones. Then I want you to grab some clothes and make an escape over the balcony. After I check that we don’t have troops rappelling down on us.”
They were on the fifth floor, in one of the honeymoon suites of the hotel. Belize had taller hotels than this one, but Willow wanted to stick with the Marriott because of her little plastic card. Granted, this honeymoon suite was pretty spectacular.
Jack jammed his feet into his shoes as he zipped his fly and buttoned his shirt. Then he moved as silently as he could to the sliding glass door. He peered around the curtains from the side, so he wasn’t giving a potential killer an easy target. But there was no one on the balcony.
He slid the door open as silently as he could, and he looked up. No one rappelling down. The balconies were staggered, so if anyone wanted to rappel onto his balcony they’d have to start from the balcony four floors up, and he’d be able to spot that even at night.
He didn’t have a lot of hope that no one was moving in on the front door of the suite, even if he did have the deadbolt lock thrown. Someone with the right keys could still get that open.
He checked carefully, making sure not to give some sniper an easy target. But there didn’t seem to be anyone on the ground keeping watch on his position. The entire building appeared to be dark, while buildings on either side were still lit up.
Willow showed up at his shoulder. In the darkness, all he could tell was she had a t-shirt and shorts on. She gave him a worried look and whispered, “I tried dialing for help but the hotel phone’s dead, and there’s a jammer for cellphones. Nada on your little sat phone, too.”
“Totally surprised on that,” he whispered back. “Look, there’s no way I can jump from here to the next balcony down. From the railing to that balcony floor’s maybe sixteen feet down and fifteen feet over, onto concrete. But you can do it.”
She hissed, “I’m not leaving you!”
He gave her a one-armed hug. “Good. But if you get down there fast enough, I can knot together bedsheets and throw one end to you to tie off on the far side of that balcony railing, and I can hand-over-hand it down to you. Then we bust that glass door and cut through some unsuspecting people’s vacation room so we can take an unguarded hallway out of here.”
“Okay. But you’re also gonna need the extra sheets in the front closet for the couch.”
“That’s my Willow.” He ducked back into the bedroom and yanked the sheets off the bed. He needed to roll them up and knot them securely so they’d hold his weight, or else he’d have one really painful fall onto a concrete patio.
He got the first sheet rolled and ready when the front door whipped open and — by the sound of it — two trained operatives moved expertly into the front room.
Son of a bitch! He decided he had no shot at getting away, but he could give Willow enough time. He yanked the standing pole lamp free from the wall plug and moved to the door leading to the front room. He figured they’d probably kick it open as hard as they could, so he stood on the side of the doorframe with the latch instead of the hinges.
The door got kicked open just as he expected, and two heavily armed bodies dived into the room, one going to each side. He hammered the close one with the base of the standing lamp, and the other guy got a shot off.
Something hit him right in the stomach. A trank dart instead of a bullet. That was either really good or really bad. But he already knew there was a big bounty on him if he was alive.
He used the pole lamp to parry the guy’s trank rifle. He snapped the lamp base upward and caught the guy right under the jaw. He could hear the guy’s jaw slam shut and the guy fell over backward.
But the guy’s rifle went off again, and the guy got a luck shot right into Jack’s leg. That was two trank darts. He knew he didn’t have much time left.
He heaved the first guy’s body up and pushed him through the doorway. Two trank darts fired off and made the guy even less conscious.
Jack dived through the doorway and came up swinging with the pole lamp. The third guy leapt backward out of the way and fell over a chair. The fourth guy was lurking around the corner of the kitchenette and hit Jack with a taser.
The intense pain dropped him to the floor, and —
Willow hit pretty hard when she landed on the balcony, but she managed not to crash into the concrete balcony wall and she didn’t hit her head on the steel guard rail.
But the sliding glass door was already wide open, and the curtains were pulled open. And there were two quiet phut! sounds before she even realized there were people lurking in there in the darkness.
“Ouch!” She looked down and found there were two darts sticking out of her. One was in her thigh and one was right in the boob! That hurt!
Well, if they thought she was down and helpless, they had another think coming. Jack had been teaching her self-defense, and she wasn’t self-defenseless anymore!
She yanked out the darts and scrambled to her feet as three big guys in body armor moved forward.
Shit.
She slammed the sliding glass door in their faces, jumped up onto the railing, and leapt for the next balcony down. That landing hurt, but not as much as the first one. She went for the next balcony down, but some butthead shot her in the back with another trank dart.
She still made the leap, even if she didn’t quite stick the landing. She crashed to her hands and knees, but she scrambled up and leapt from the second floor balcony down to the big concrete patio the hotel had on its beachfront side. She was feeling a little wobbly, but she sprinted across the patio for the corner of the building.
She made it around the corner and ran right into two more attackers. One got her with something that felt like she’d been zapped by Terawatt, and everything went black.
* * *
Bruce Paine was not having a good day. One of his European subsidiaries just lost out on a multi-billion Euro sealed-bid contract to the Christakos Conglomerate, and the difference in the bids was a ridiculous one hundred twenty thousand Euros. The difference between the total bids wasn’t one percent; it was six percent of one percent of one percent, which was ridiculously small. Either Christakos was employing some very good industrial spies or they had bought most of the people who awarded the contract.
Either way, he needed to take action. Right now, he was trying to get the bids investigated by the proper authorities. If that failed, he didn’t want to use the Batman, because that would tie Batman directly to the dealings of Paine Industries. He thought Julie was about ready to play sidekick, but she certainly wasn’t ready to go solo, especially if Terawatt’s information was correct and they might be facing a supervillain right out of another Batman’s life.
He wasn’t one hundred percent thrilled with his superhero contacts, either. Granted, he was quite pleased with how the Pulitzer Prize ceremonies had gone. Meeting Terawatt out of uniform like that had been … reassuring. Tracking down her other photojournalism work had been even more reassuring, because it showed that she was serious about taking pictures other than ‘selfies’. And she was either a gentle, kind girl or else the greatest actress since Sarah Bernhardt. But he had figured out three ways to take down Terawatt, even if one of them required the help of Tsurara, who was far more likely to side with Terawatt than the Batman.
Still, he didn’t have a handle on Tsurara either, even if Paine Japan had offered to help with the heating and power systems in the ‘spacesuit’ she had worn to Pyre’s funeral. And he still didn’t have enough details on Pyre’s death, although he was certain O’Neill’s people were fudging some of their data: no one needed someone of Dr. Samantha Carter’s brainpower to collect dust samples. He still didn’t know what Carter was capable of, either, even if she must have developed some sort of powers or the doctors at Walter Reed wouldn’t have over-reacted so massively. And he still wasn’t sure if he had a way to stop Ultraman, even if he had worked out the boy’s identity, and thus the identity of the scientist who had given him the powers, and therefore the methodology behind the power initiation. After all, B.M. Jeffcoate still published in biophysics journals.
And he still wasn’t sure about Jack O’Neill. Marrying Willow Rosenberg could be a caring act of love and consideration. Or it could be one of the most cynical, ruthless things Bruce could think of. Everything Bruce had been able to dig up indicated that O’Neill was a maverick who enjoyed bursting the bubbles of the pompous and incompetent. But that did not sound like someone who could work his way up the line and get promoted to general at his age, despite all those medals. If anyone besides the ‘Evil Empire’ was currently building a team of supers so that he could take over the world, Jack O’Neill fit the criteria better than anyone except Terawatt herself. And Willow Rosenberg. And possibly one Bruce Paine, Orphan and billionaire.
Also annoying on the superhero front was Julie. She had a costume, even if she didn’t know that he knew she had finished it. She had completed the fundamental training Bruce had insisted on. She even had sweet-talked Alfred into helping her soup up and equip a motorcycle that would be ready for a test drive around town in another week. But he didn’t want her out on the mean streets. He worried about her.
He was still concerned with Azure Crush, too. It had taken some subtle manipulations to get her to New York City for that episode of Saturday Night live, but at that point, monitoring her had been simple. She made no effort to hide anything. Rather, she had gone out of her way to be a tourist and fangirl. She had acted like a twenty-year-old on her first trip to New York City, and had even wasted a huge amount of time making sure to get every single regular cast member’s autograph, like she wasn’t significantly better known than anyone on SNL. And Azure Crush was not that great an actress. But ‘Az’ still represented a serious threat, given her past anger management issues. He had made sure that he had four different ways to stop her.
Having ways to take down Terawatt also meant that he had ways to take down Danielle Atron. He thought it was obvious that Atron had sought asylum with Maggie Walsh and her Orphans, and they had apparently agreed to accept her. That probably meant that he could end up facing other Orphans with their own superpowers one of these days, so he was working on preparing for that eventuality. He was not looking forward to that. Not after he had studied the film footage available from Korea and India.
Meanwhile, he had an extremely boring meeting to attend with representatives from several other international database corporations on computer and network security. Frankly, he would have been happier if they had sent their top security experts instead. Or hired some big-name computer security consultants for the meeting. Even if Willow Rosenberg was on her honeymoon. And he still didn’t trust her. And virtually every computer security guru on the planet did trust her.
He kept looking straight ahead, but he had just caught a glimpse of a gray panel truck that said Franco’s Gourmet Pizzas on the side. Franco’s delivered in this area, but not in panel trucks like that. And he was sure it had driven past him once already.
His mind raced as he thought through a score of possible scenarios. But this block and the next had at least seven potential locales for a daylight robbery that would have enough profit to bother with getaway vans and extra drivers. This wasn’t going to be a holdup of the Starbucks that was across the street and a hundred feet behind him. And it need not be a simple robbery. Not in this town.
It wasn’t going to be a simple firebombing or any felony like that. No, this was clearly a crime that was requiring timing and probably teamwork. It could be murder or kidnapping, or a piece of a complicated espionage job, or industrial espionage, or even a complex con job. He could think of a number of possibilities, and he couldn’t do anything about it while he was ordinary Bruce Paine in broad daylight.
He kept a surreptitious eye on the truck as it turned the corner ahead of him. Then he slipped into the limo. “Did you notice the Franco’s truck?”
“Yes, Master Bruce,” Alfred dryly replied. “After the third time it drove past, I took the liberty of linking to your computers, and that license plate is registered to a rental car company. I have not yet attempted to get into said company’s database to determine who rented it, or even if it is listed as having been rented.”
He let Alfred drive through the streets, while he considered his options. Bruce Paine was supposed to go to a meeting now. Ditching the meeting just when Batman makes his first daylight appearance could be … notable. Making an opportunity to plant a bug on the truck could be complicated when he was rather distinctive: even in this part of New York, not every man wore a five-thousand-dollar suit.
“And it appears the truck and one other vehicle are maintaining a two-car tail on us.”
He unconsciously slid into Batman’s bass registers. “So the truck may have been driving around waiting to spot me. If they’re after Bruce Paine, then that simplifies matters.”
“How so, sir?”
He admitted, “Batman doesn’t need to make a sudden appearance while Bruce Paine notably misses an important meeting. Instead, we can wait and see what they’re up to.”
“And if it’s a hit bought by Christakos?”
He scowled. “Unlikely, given that the truck had at least two easy opportunities on the street already. But kidnapping and armed robbery are possibilities.”
Alfred cleared his throat delicately. “Ahem. It might also be connected with The Collective, the Breslynn Orphanage, or that leech Joseph Frady.”
He didn’t say anything, but he had already considered all three of those options, as well as five others. He had ruled out Falcone, but not the man’s son or daughter. All the smart locals would know that Franco’s Pizza used small, maneuverable sub-compacts or else motorcycles in this part of town, so it was most likely an outsider or else a stupid local. And Bruce Paine had been pushing the state and city leaders for crime prevention bills and funding, so he assumed it was inevitable that eventually some crime boss would take that personally.
He gave Alfred careful instructions just before Alfred let him out under the covered entryway. A staffer opened the door for him and directed him to the meeting room on the seventeenth floor, while another staffer brought him a latte that was better prepared than he had expected.
The supposed one-hour meeting lasted over three hours. It was obvious to him that certain people were not masters of time management, and he could hardly take over the meeting, given who was present and whose conference rooms the meeting was in. Since the meeting was already ridiculously long and the meeting ‘organizers’ were not mapping out effective plans for the next meetings or for work to be accomplished before the next meeting, he had no qualms about worrying the entire room when ‘final thoughts’ were brought up. He asked, “Since we’re seeing computer attacks that our IT people say are from P$ychon4ut himself, what’s being done to address his standard methods?” He left while the room was still in an uproar.
Alfred was waiting patiently. “As expected, when I parked the limo in the interior parking garage, the truck and its associate, a bronze four-door Toyota from the same rental agency, took up stations nearby. There are at least two men in the truck and one in the car. The only one I managed to observe is a suspiciously handsome man of Latin ancestry who clearly works out a great deal. Another occupant of the truck is quite large, given that he has made the truck jostle as he moved within.”
That made it Orphans. Or at least one Orphan and his minions. And possible backup plans that had yet to make an appearance. That at least defined the problem a little better.
He and Alfred stepped into the freight elevator, and he picked the control lock on it. Then he took the elevator down to the eighth floor, where there was an empty suite of offices that the building owners were actively trying to find occupants for. It was simple to find unused offices like this in New York City, because building owners now used far more tools than a single realtor, and anyone could find these empty offices on a dozen different internet sites.
Alfred expertly opened the office door with his own lockpicks, and they walked inside. Alfred led him to an inner office, where a large rolling suitcase had been opened. He swiftly changed into Batman and moved out of the offices once he checked that the hall was clear.
He moved down the emergency stairs to the fifth floor parking garage, where the limo was sitting. Then he slipped into the shadows to get closer to the vehicles.
He took his time and skirted through the darkest parts of the garage, looking for hidden threats and backup plans from the enemy. He found two local killers-for-hire, ‘Shank’ Griswold and ‘Mouse’ Harrison, lurking in a muscle car one level down, ready to zoom up and use the AK-47s they were holding, probably when the radio on the dash summoned them.
He moved up in the driver’s blind spot and put one of his new batarangs into the front left tire. It deflated quickly enough that the two thugs noticed. Shank hopped out to check his tires, and Batman moved before the thug could spot the weapon lodged in the whitewall. He threw another batarang so the heavy central core caught Shank in the back of the head. At the same time, he dashed forward and leapt feet-first into the car through the open door. He caught Mouse by surprise, too. If his feet didn’t take out Mouse, the thug’s head bouncing off the window certainly did.
He took both weapons, recovered his batarangs, and moved back to the threesome lying in wait for Bruce Paine.
The first one was a definite Orphan lurking behind an SUV and keeping a close eye on the regular elevators. It was a very good vantage spot. It gave the man easy cover, excellent views of the elevators Bruce Paine would use, and an easy way to get behind Bruce to render him unconscious or just perform a snatch-and-grab. It was simple enough to move into position and take him down with a batarang.
But the Orphan dropped a heavy gas canister, and it rang loudly on the concrete floor of the parking garage. That would no doubt alert the others.
And here came Orphan number two. The guy was handsome in a Hispanic way, and clearly worked out, particularly his upper body. And he was toting a large wooden baseball bat.
More problematically, the guy was wearing night vision goggles, so he had undoubtedly spotted the Batman already. Batman studied the goggles. Unfortunately, they weren’t the type that were vulnerable to a sudden flash of light. Batman moved in a spin and used the movement to launch a batarang at his foe.
The guy shifted quickly and knocked the batarang out of the air with one swift swing of the bat. “And it’s over the left field fence!”
Batman threw another batarang at the guy’s head and simultaneously fired his bat-grapple at his foe’s ankles.
The guy knocked the batarang off into the darkness and started to yell, “Two in–…” But the grapple snagged the guy’s ankles and Batman used one swift tug to dump the guy on his head.
“Fuck!” the guy yelled. “Waylon!”
Batman assumed that was a call for the last of the threesome. He used a taekwondo move to kick the bat out of the guy’s hands, and he followed that with an elbow strike to the head. Then he ran silently toward the panel truck, hoping to get there before the third foe had a chance to move out and deploy.
The rear doors of the truck swung open. With an ugly screech, the far door was ripped free. A massive man leapt out.
At least Batman assumed it was a man. Even in the darkness there was no disguising the humanoid shape and movements. But there was also no disguising that the ‘man’ was covered in green scales.
The threat spotted Batman and slung the truck door at him like it was a frisbee.
* * *
Buffy Summers couldn’t stop smiling. This was the best day ever! Freddie had popped the question last night, and she had thought it over for about a trillionth of a second before squealing “Yes!”
So now they were going to go shopping for an engagement ring. They could have gone to Rodeo Drive, but Freddie wanted to go where his dad had bought the diamond ring for his mom. And Goodkind Jewelers was a big name in diamonds and other gemstones, so Buffy wasn’t worried about getting stiffed on the ring. And Buffy’s favorite ice skating rink was down on the first floor, so Freddie had promised to skate with her a little if she didn’t take all day selecting a ring.
She looked down from the third-floor railing, and she suddenly spotted them. Two Orphans. And they were staring right at her.
She wasn’t stupid. She could figure out what they were. Normal people weren’t that good-looking, and hotties like that didn’t need to stalk reality TV starlets. They spotted her spotting them, and they ran for the stairs on either side of her, while one spoke into his shirt sleeve. She’d seen enough action movies to know what that meant.
There were other guys down there. Well, at least one more guy.
They were bracketing her. They were cutting her off and coming for her, and they were signaling other guys to move in on her from other directions.
She knew right then that she was doomed. Totally of the screwed.