The Empowered, page 39
The hangar door rolled up. Three huge dump trucks roared out onto the tarmac. One went behind the plane while the others boxed it in from the front.
“Gotcha!” I whispered.
Darkness came down over everything as Ashula brought the night early. As she did, the dump trucks raised their beds and sent tons of earth onto the tarmac.
The drivers’ doors on the dump trucks opened, and the hired wheelmen jumped down and sprinted away. Normals, paid do to a job, and they’d done it.
I reached out with my power into the earth, finding the seeds there and urging them to grow, burst forth from the soil. Vines stretched out and quickly covered the Learjet’s wings, pulling clods of earth up with them and getting sucked into the jet engines.
It was a long shot that the engines would die just because of dirt being sucked into them, along with some plant matter, but die they did, because we had someone who could increase the odds.
Nefarious.
I sent a vine, thick and ropey, along the plane’s fuselage until it reached the door, then had it snake into the inset handle, and pull. The odds were so long, but the door opened.
Someone stood there, someone in powered armor that gleamed silver in the darkness Ashula had created. The figure leapt out, landed by the nose, walked under the dump truck in front of the plane. The huge truck flipped backward, landing with a crash that shook my bones.
My breath froze. The armored figure—that was Dynamo, Karl Cooper.
The Karl Cooper I’d met back in the Support dungeon, the Karl Cooper who had been at the Sequoia building in Seattle when Mutter summoned a monster cyclone. The Karl Cooper who led the First Team. The handsome young hero, successor to the Drake twins, who went by an old fashioned Empowered nickname.
What was he doing here, aboard Emerald Biologic’s private jet?
Damn it. He threatened to stop our play to get information.
Cooper jumped on top of the overturned truck, strode to the Learjet. Security in body armor boiled out of the jet, jumping over to the truck. They were armed with rifles that were all angles. Stunners? Or something else.
I ordered the vines to grow and ensnare the guards. One guard went down tangled in vines, but the others aimed their rifles at the plants. The weapons’ muzzles glowed. Agony stabbed my brain as the vines screamed in my mind and shriveled.
I shook myself, sent my awareness into more seeds and grew them into fresh vines, but the guards killed those, too.
“They are using maser weapons,” Nefarious said in my ear over the comm. “Create more vines, but wait before sending them.”
“Acknowledged.” Bile filled my throat. My head felt like someone had hit it about ten times with ball-peen hammer. Cooper jumped from the jet, holding someone in his arms.
One guess. It was the VP of Ops for Emerald Biologic. Our target.
Dynamo was a bodyguard. And guards using some sort of energy rifle that only sanctioned normals were allowed, like UN peace keepers or Support security troops. All to protect Emerald Biologic.
All things a private company wasn’t supposed to have.
Something streaked up the overturned truck bed’s underside, flames covering his body.
Our speedster in the hole. I didn’t know his name, but he wore a fire retardant suit, flames from friction with the air covering it. He streaked past the guards from behind. The first toppled over, then the next and then next. Crowbar? Had to be.
Even so, at the speed and in the near dark, hitting them at just the right spot would be incredible luck. Unless you had Nefarious screwing with probability.
Silver flashed in the dark. Cooper must be jumping with the corporate goon.
I closed my eyes, losing myself in the contact with the vines, which were now a tangled carpet covering the tarmac.
There. A half ton of armor and men had landed.
Grow. Tighten. Close.
Vines grappled against metal. A vibrating, humming knife slashed the vines, but I grew more. Impossibly, the knife slipped from Cooper’s hand and clattered off into the darkness, brushing past my vines.
Nefarious again.
The vines tightened, and the two men were encased in green, living chains.
I opened my eyes and sprinted across the tarmac, Ashula running beside me, and Speed Guy working with a pry bar thing at the seam below Cooper’s helmet. Pop, it flew off.
Zap! Nefarious, in a chauffeur’s outfit, aimed his stunner at the bald guy in business casual.
A second zap! I uncoiled the vines, shrinking them and the two unconscious men slumped down. Speed Guy’s hands were blurs as he pried at the armor. Seconds later the armor was off, split in two, opening like a clam shell. I helped Nefarious pull the unconscious Karl out. He wore his Hero Council blue form-fitting jumpsuit.
Nefarious’s jaw tightened. Proof that Emerald Biologic had support from the Hero Council, or at least a faction. It hit me. What if Zhukova and Winterfield wanted me to think they were the good guys, and the other faction needed to be taken down? After all, they knew how angry I was at Ellis’s “horror show.” What if I were being played like a fiddle for their own ends? Pissed off as I was, I’d be the perfect sucker for their play.
Ashula snapped police cuffs on Cooper and the corporate goon. Her eyes glittered dangerously as she looked the two of them over. We hauled them into the limo, dumping the armor in the trunk, and then all piled inside, with Nefarious behind the wheel, and drove away from the airstrip. No one said anything.
We drove an hour to a garage on the east bank of the Willamette, in the dirty, greasy industrial area. The garage was under a bridge, next to an old office building.
We entered through a connecting door, like rats going into a maze, and then took a flight of stairs down to a basement level. Both the Scourge and Support loved holes in the ground. I must have looked surprised because Ashula smiled when we reached the basement level.
“Hidden in plain sight wasn’t what you expected, was it, Mat?”
I carried the corporate goon over my shoulder, while Speed Guy had Cooper in a fireman’s carry. Nefarious walked ahead of us, toward a closed door.
“No, it wasn’t. I figured we’d head out to the country, to some secret hideaway.”
Nefarious looked back from the door, smiled. It made him suddenly seem ten years younger. “A fine play on words. This is more convenient, and since we already had it, provided us with easy access.”
He unlocked the door with a key. I half-expected him to wave his wrist over a door pad to unlock the door, but there was no pad, and the door swung inside, rather than slide into the wall.
We walked into a room with old tiled walls, and big tables in the center. It looked like where you’d go to murder someone.
“Used to be a rum runners warehouse,” Nefarious said.
“Looks more like a slaughterhouse.”
There were open doors leading off the big room to small rooms that looked like cells.
They strapped Karl into a high-backed chair in one of the small rooms off the big room. “We try to plan for every contingency,” Ashula said.
These two were giving me a major case of the creeps. Plan for every contingency. Like torture, because it sure as hell looked like they were getting set to torture Karl.
Tools, pliers, screwdrivers, and a power drill hung on the wall. What looked like dentist stuff hung on the opposite wall, and there was a sink on the wall behind the high-backed chair they strapped Karl into.
I watched from the doorway, fighting to be stone-faced. What did I expect? Nefarious and Ashula weren’t about to mess around. This was deadly business.
My stomach was in knots as Nefarious and Speed Guy turned out the light and locked Karl in. We went up the stairs to the first level, and through a set of musty offices to a different set of stairs. We headed up three floors and into another maze of offices, until, finally, we reached a corner one.
No plants of course. This place had a layer of dust over everything. It had been closed up for a long time. The air was musty, dry. Made my eyes itch.
Corporate guy groaned. The sedative Ashula had given him was wearing off.
Nefarious turned, smiled again. This time there was no humor in his smile. He looked like a cat eyeballing a mouse. “Good timing,” he said to Ashula.
She smiled sweetly at him. My stomach churned.
There were obviously things going on between them, the way she brightened whenever he smiled at her, the way he always stood a bit taller whenever she talked to him. Too bad torturing people was part of their relationship.
Nefarious pointed at the big executive chair in the corner office, sitting on a plexiglass mat over very old style carpet, with a window behind it, blinds closed.
“You sure this is a good place to put him, with that window there?” I asked them.
“Don’t concern yourself,” Ashula said. She walked over and raised the blind.
I flinched, expecting street lighting to shine in. Instead, a faded poster of some desert island with palm trees covered what looked like a brick wall. The poster’s edges were curled.
“Leave it up. We want our guest to feel at ease,” Nefarious said.
I shuddered. That sounded like the sort of thing that asshole Mutter would have said.
Corporate goon groaned. He was a little guy, bald, with a sharp-looking suit, open-collared silk shirt, pressed wool slacks, and Gucci's. He wore a very expensive looking watch.
I leaned against the wall by the door, while Speed Guy left the room to go be on guard duty in the basement, keeping an eye on Karl.
Nefarious put the chauffeur’s hat on the fake wood desk that had been pushed to one side of the office. Ashula knelt in front of the Emerald Biologic VP and patted his hand until his eyes opened.
“Where—oh my god.” His head whipped around. He looked like a panicked owl.
“Hello, Mister Sullivan,” Nefarious said. “Duncan Sullivan, vice-president in charge of operations for Emerald Biologic.”
Sweat beaded on Sullivan’s forehead.
Nefarious glanced at Ashula. “We haven’t even begun and already he is sweating.”
“Perhaps he’s worried,” she said.
I ground my teeth. These two seemed to be enjoying this too much.
“How do you kn-know my name?” Sullivan stammered.
Nefarious held out an ID card. “Of course we would check your wallet and pockets.”
Sullivan paled.
Nefarious leaned down, face suddenly grave. “That’s right, Mister Sullivan, we also have your data chip.” He held up a little square of some sort of crystal. “This is the latest in biologic data storage. Living crystals.”
“We have analyzed the contents,” Ashula added.
Sullivan shook his head. “No way. You can’t have.”
Nefarious tilted his head. “Oh, but we have, Mister Sullivan.”
“That’s impossible. You don’t have the tech.”
Sullivan seemed so certain, despite his fear, that I wondered if Nefarious wasn’t bluffing.
“But of course we need to talk with you.”
He pulled out leather straps, tied Sullivan’s hands to the arm rests, and then gagged his mouth with a handkerchief.
“Just not yet,” Nefarious added. He motioned to Ashula and me and the three of us left Sullivan bound and gagged. Nefarious shut off the light as we left.
“Do you really know what’s on that crystal data chip thing?” I asked once the door was closed.
“I suspect a lot of sensitive data.”
“But you haven’t analyzed it yet-how could you?”
“We will analyze it. I have an expert coming.” He walked to the center of the maze of office cubbies. “We’ll need to clean this area up.”
“That’s going to take a while.” From looming torture to janitorial work, this was a fun bunch.
“We will have help. You’re going to contact your cell and get them here at once.”
Well, Keisha finally got what she wanted. To see the Inner Circle at work.
They came a half hour after I called, pulling into the garage next door, where I waited for them. It was dry and cold today, and I wished I had asked Keisha to bring my wool coat, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Sullivan upstairs and Karl Cooper in the basement. I hadn’t signed up for torture, but of course Nefarious would want to get information any way he could. Or would he? Maybe it was another bluff. If he really was Daniel Drake, once known as Halo, who could put the odds in your favor, then maybe there was still a hero inside.
A hero. That was a joke. I didn’t see any heroes anymore. Certainly there weren’t any in the Scourge, and the “Hero” Council seemed as ruthless as the Scourge.
The van pulled in, Keisha behind the wheel.
I raised an eyebrow at Simon as he came out the back of the van, carrying the bag I asked him to bring.
“She insisted,” he said.
Keisha came round the front of the van. “I wanted to drive for a change. I’m tired of other people calling the shots.”
“Well, don’t get used to it,” I told her. “We’re not in charge here.”
“I noticed.”
I led them through the connecting doors to the old office building, and upstairs to the cubby farm.
“Nice place you have here,” Keisha groused as we headed up the stairs. “Where are the ghosts?”
Connor just craned his neck, taking it all in, while Simon kept quiet and watched, like usual. We reached the cubby farm. Nefarious had changed out of the chauffeur’s uniform and wore a black commando style jumpsuit like Ashula.
Keisha shut up when she saw him. Even Simon’s eyes widened.
Connor looked at Keisha and Simon’s wide eyes, then to me. “Who is that guy?” he asked.
Teenagers. Ancient history to Connor.
“One of the people in charge,” I said.
“Thank you for coming,” Nefarious said. “I am Nefarious.” Ashula came to his side.
“And this is Lady Night.”
Keisha hissed at me. “And you say Empowered names are old-fashioned.”
She could bite me.
“You must be the Steel Witch,” Ashula said to Keisha, who grinned at me.
“Whipcrack, good to see you again,” Ashula said to Simon. Whipcrack? Simon didn’t even have the grace to act embarrassed, just nodded. She smiled at Connor. “Nice to meet you at last, Zapper.” Connor blushed.
Zapper. Figured.
Nefarious looked at each member of my cell. “You have uncovered some nightmares,” he said. He nodded at me. “Vine pushed us to investigate, and for good reason.”
I wished he wouldn’t call me Vine. But I can see now that Ashula and Drake had a thing about Empowered names, so of course they were going to dredge up my old one.
“We are in the process of extracting information,” Nefarious continued. “Once we have that, we’ll be able to plan a course of action to deal with Emerald Biologic.”
Despite the looming threat of torture our captives faced, my heart rose.
Action against Emerald Biologic at last.
But the first thing we did was spend a few hours cleaning the place up. Ashula disappeared, returning later with food—insta-meals. We ate. When we had finished, Nefarious asked us to gather round, like a camp leader.
“We need to be quick about this,” he told us. “I may need each of you to assist me in gathering information from our captives.”
“What the hell?” Keisha blurted. “You mean torture?”
He raised his eyebrows. “No, I mean information extraction. There is a difference.”
Keisha’s face went hard. “Not from here there isn’t.”
“Ms. McMillian, if you refuse, I won’t force you. We’ll keep you on guard duty.”
Nefarious went to Connor. “Zapper, can we count on you to assist?”
Connor nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Kiss up. What happened to not having a clue as to who Nefarious was? Connor was one of those followers who went with whoever was in charge.
Nefarious didn’t ask Simon. Whipcrack. My guess was because Simon would do what he was ordered to do. Nefarious didn’t ask me either. Guess I fell into the “loyal” follower category now. Zhukova would be so pleased if she knew.
So, Keisha got sent down to the ground floor, to sit in a chair and play security guard, comming us if someone showed up.
I went in with Nefarious and Connor to talk with Sullivan, who looked like he needed to pee and was probably starving by now.
“Mister Sullivan,” Nefarious said, coming around to stand behind the chair the guy was tied to. “I need to know about Emerald Green.”
Emerald Green. What was that?
Sullivan must know, because he tried to push away from Nefarious, but the straps were too tight. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Of course you do. It’s your company’s new developmental lab. The next phase, I believe your internal company memos called it.”
Sullivan looked shocked, confirming what Nefarious said must, at least somewhat, be true. “Never heard of it.” Sweat covered his forehead now, and a dark stain spread across the crotch of those spendy wool slacks he wore.
“The dude peed himself,” Connor blurted.
“People can when under extreme stress and feeling extreme fear,” Nefarious said. “Mister Sullivan, do we really have to resort to more direct, painful means to get you to tell us?”
I held my breath. Sullivan had to do the smart thing here.
But before he could answer, Nefarious turned to Connor. “Zapper. A shock to the groin, if you would.”
Connor didn’t hesitate.
Sullivan screamed and twisted in the straps.
“Painful, but it’s only the beginning.”
Sullivan squeezed his eyes shut. The room stank of sweat and urine.
“Okay, okay!” Sullivan gasped. “Emerald Green is located in the Rocky Mountains, sixteen miles from Colorado Springs. It’s where we are developing new biotechnologies.”
“Mister Sullivan, a toddler could make that conclusion. What sort of technologies?”
A long silence followed. Sullivan didn’t answer. Nefarious sighed.
