The Empowered, page 41
Metal fell with a loud bang. It must have been the durasteel shutters dropping into place.
I ran down the stairs. Keisha stood in the center of the huge living room, eyes closed, arms up, just like a few minutes ago outside, only this time her eyes and face were scrunched up and she grunted, like she was straining to push a boulder uphill.
“That you, Mat?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Shit. They are trying to break the door down with a ram. I’m working on keeping the metal strong, but it ain’t easy.”
Connor hunched down by the window.
No sign of Nefarious or Ashula. They had been upstairs.
Overclock blurred down the stairs.
“Boss wants you upstairs, Vine.” Speed Guy glared at me. “Top floor. Now!”
“Fine.” This was becoming a shambles damn quick.
I ran back up. Halfway there, an explosion rocked the house, and I heard crashing down below.
Someone wanted us bad.
I got to my feet and charged the rest of the way to the top floor. Just as I reached it, something crashed against the roof. A pine tree screamed in my mind.
They were dropping trees on the roof.
“Over here.” Nefarious called. He wore the Amplifier. The Amplifier that I had brought out from the ruins of the Sequoia building, back when Mutter and I fought to the death. He held a high-tech bow of all things, looking like some sort of cartoon superhero, with the quiver on his back.
“I’m going to raise the shutter. Stand beyond my left shoulder. I will need you to manipulate trees.”
They said Nefarious could control probabilities. I couldn’t wrap my mind around that, but if he could, the Amplifier would give him incredible power.
“Couldn’t you just make the enemy’s guns explode, or the helicopters crash? If you can give people bad luck.”
“There is a price for using the Amplifier, Mat. Not just the toll it takes on your body, but the limits to which you stretch your power.”
I noticed then he was trembling like a coiled spring, trying to keep himself under control. With his power amplified, could he just target enemies, or would we all find our luck had suddenly gone south?
He smiled. “You understand.”
I nodded. “Where’s Ashula?”
“On the second floor with Simon, ready to make things dark if it gets to that point.”
He pressed a switch on the wall and the shutter rose up. I looked over his left shoulder. Overhead, a helicopter flew by, the side door open, and a couple of goons in body armor pointed guns at us.
Nefarious fired two arrows, each hitting its target, the eye of a goon. One man fell back inside the copter, while the other rolled off the edge and fell.
And then a whiplike vine with serrated edges hit the window, shattering the glass. I reached out. Unlife.
That meant we had Emerald Biologic security hitting us with their nightmare weapons. I caught a glimpse of something that looked like an armored cactus tramping down below, and a whiff of that foul poison the Venus fly trap monster things had spewed back in Colombia.
Sorry, old one, I told an ancient pine tree fifty feet away. I pushed my consciousness into it, down the bole, through the wood until I reached the roots, and started the rot, pushed harder. Damn it. It wasn’t going to be fast enough.
I clenched my jaw. Damn Ellis and his private army.
The tree shuddered and toppled toward the house. I leaned out the window sill as Nefarious fired arrows past me at security troops in green-black armor.
The dying pine crashed into an armored walking cactus thing, crushing it.
I reached into the woods and fast grew sword ferns, toughening them, making their edges sharper, cutting at the armored figures, but nothing. The super-tough sword ferns glanced off the armor.
Another helicopter rose up over the trees. A chain gun mounted beneath the helicopter rotated toward us. I hauled Nefarious down with me as armor piercing bullets stitched across the wall behind where we’d been a second before.
“Grow a tree up,” Nefarious shouted in my ear, over the clatter of the chain gun. He put a strong hand on my shoulder. “I can help you get to the right spot. The rotors.”
Crazy, but we weren’t going anywhere if I didn’t. I urged a tree up. The rotor sound suddenly became rending metal. The chain gun fire stopped
There was a whine of descending helicopter, and then a hellish crash, followed by the whoosh of a fire starting. We both scrambled to our feet and ran for the stairs.
The building shuddered. We hit the second floor and ran into pitch darkness.
Ashula.
“Lady Night!” Nefarious called out.
There was the sound of something scuttling toward us. I reached out with my power, and felt that static hiss of unlife, pushed hard. The thing froze, twitched, then I lost the thread, and the clattering of crab-like alien legs resumed.
I pushed myself back into the thing, my frustration becoming hot anger, and I twisted. The thing’s hissing became a scalding shriek. I clapped my hands to my head, staggered into a wall.
Suddenly there was light. The thing lay on its back, dead. It looked like a cross between a crab and a thorn bush. My head pounded—I had pushed my power to the point it felt like I had a jackhammer working on the inside of my skull.
There was now a hole in the far wall. The door in the hallway was to the room where Sullivan was being held. Nefarious and I ran to the door. It was chewed open. Sullivan lay on the blood-spattered bed, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling, a bloody hole chewed through his chest to his heart. The pulpy remains had stopped spraying blood. More blood splashed against the wall. A corpse was on the floor in a pool of blood, a man in that green-black armor. His throat had been cut.
“I was unable to save Sullivan.” We turned. Ashula leaned against the door frame.
Nefarious took two big strides up to her, and hugged her close. They kissed.
I looked down at the dead goon. Pulled his helmet off. He wore a headset underneath. I put the headset on.
Instant chaos in my ear. “Squads 2 and 3 are down! Choppers 1 and 2 are down!”
“The boss is going to be pissed,” someone said.
“Sitreps only,” a voice filled with authority barked. “What is the status of bioweapon platforms?”
“Howler ready to be deployed. Mobiles 1 and 4 destroyed. 2 and 3 damaged.”
Sounds like their day was almost as crappy as ours. But then the authoritative voice spoke again. “Deploy the behemoth.”
“But sir, orders were to only use that as a last resort.”
“Do it!” Authority voice barked the command.
“Yes, sir!”
Nefarious and Ashula were still hugging.
“Hate to break in, but the goons are bringing up heavy artillery,” I told them.
They pulled away from each other, slowly. Nefarious glanced at me. “Headset—clever thinking, Vine.”
I gave him what passed for my imploring look. “Thanks, but could you just please call me Mat?”
A smile quirked at one corner of his mouth. A sudden flash on what he might have looked like when he was a young sanctioned Empowered saving the world for the Hero Council. “Certainly, Mat.”
We ran downstairs. Smoke filled the living room. The front doors had been ripped open. There was an acid stink in the air. More smoke billowed into the house. I coughed.
Something huge loomed in the smoke. One of the armored cactus plant-things, walking on thousands of centipede-like legs came at me
“Shit!” I pushed at it with my power, but killing the last monstrosity had nearly drained me and my power couldn’t even get inside the thing. I looked around for Nefarious and Ashula. There was no sign of them. I backpedaled into a wall. The cactus-monster thrashed toward me.
Suddenly, a masked woman in gray appeared beside the thing, slashed at it with a familiar-looking sword. The creature shrieked as the sword sliced off one of its limbs. It jerked and went after the woman, who somersaulted into the smoke. The thing followed, disappearing after her.
The masked woman, the hallucination I’d seen in Colombia, here? Ooze from the severed limb burned the floor. My hallucination seemed all too freaking real now.
Something huge smashed against the back of the house.
I ran into a big restaurant-sized kitchen. I grabbed a pair of carving knives from a rack and ducked around a fancy island with granite tile and into a huge dining room. My skin itched—another Empowered was in this room. Keisha stood up from the floor. Her face was contorted.
“Mat, I can’t hold it much longer. Whatever the hell that thing is outside, it’s going to break fucking durasteel. And the building’s supports, I can’t keep them up much longer.”
I swallowed, coughed. “Then, don’t.”
She looked at me like she thought I was insane. Not for the first time.
“You want to die?”
“Of course not. But that thing outside is going to be through the back in about a minute and the front room is an inferno.” I couldn’t sense other Empowereds. It was just us.
“There has to be an escape tunnel.”
She cocked her head. “You’re nuts, Mat. Why?”
“Because I can’t find Nefarious and Ashula, and they only could have come this way, or headed below, since the stairs are a wreck.” I grabbed her hand. “Keep concentrating! I’ll guide you.” Her skin was hot, and slick with sweat. I tugged her after me. She looked like she wanted to yell at me, but she kept her mouth shut and held up her other hand, gesturing.
Her neck muscles were knotted. She probably had a killer headache, too.
Smoke poured out of the living room, black inky stuff. I ducked back into the kitchen, frantically looked around for any bolt hole, any place Nefarious might have had an escape tunnel entrance hidden.
The building kept shuddering like a giant drum as the huge behemoth kept ramming the back.
The kitchen had a big industrial sized fridge, two ovens, three pantry closets. The first one was filled with canned stuff. The second with all insta-meals. Nice to know even the Inner Circle had to eat those sometime.
The third one wouldn’t open.
I tapped the door. “Can you get this lock open?”
Keisha grimaced. “If I do, things are going to go to hell.”
“Do it.”
She suddenly relaxed. A boom thundered from the dining room, and wood splintered. Voices from the back of the house. “Fan out!”
The door in front of us popped open. Narrow stairs ran down to a basement tunnel. “Get down there!” I yelled at Keisha.
I turned and urged the potted palm to grow into a mass of limbs and leaves. Helmeted figures appeared behind it. I jumped onto the stairs and ran to catch up with Keisha.
“Pull the house down. Now!”
She reached up, closed her eyes in concentration. The floor and walls of the basement began trembling. “You’d better hope Mister Scourge used reinforced concrete, or else this is goodbye,” she groused.
I yanked her down beside me as the lights flickered and went out.
The crashing sound went on and on and on.
21
The tunnel ran for what felt like miles, but was probably just a couple of hundred yards. I pushed open the exit hatch, which turned out to be under a fallen pine tree.
No sign of Nefarious or Ashula.
“They ditched us,” Keisha said, breathing hard.
Smoke drifted past. We could hear the building burning behind us, but couldn’t see it through the smoke.
I coughed from the smoke. “Looks like it,” I said. The tough Inner Circle had dumped us, just like that. We faced a long walk off the mountain, through the woods, with night coming on. Keisha staggered ahead of me. My necklace began trembling.
“Hold up,” I told Keisha.
We both squatted down. I put my hand on the necklace.
“Mat!” She actually sounded worried.
“We’re still alive, Ashula,” I whispered. “No thanks to you. You left us behind.”
“We tried to get back into the house, but had to fall back, and then it collapsed.”
“Weren’t you near the tunnel?”
“No. And how did you know about it?”
They didn’t escape through the tunnel. No wonder.
“A lucky guess. We found the entrance. Keisha brought the house down behind us.” I gave Keisha a thumbs up. I spoke loud enough she could hear my side of the conversation. She managed enough energy to stick her tongue out at me.
“Where are you now?” I asked Ashula.
“Parked on a logging road. Helicopters have been out looking for us.”
So, no help that way.
“Okay, we’ll get back in touch, later,” I said.
“Good luck,” Ashula said.
Easy for her to say, she’d taken all the luck with her. I pushed the necklace back inside my shirt.
“Gotta find our own way, don’t we?” Keisha pulled herself up. “Figures.” It sucked, but we didn’t have any choice. “I’ll find us our own ride,” she said.
Our ride turned out to be a pickup truck parked at an all-night restaurant in what passed for a town. Keisha hotwired it.
“I’m driving this time,” she said.
I shrugged. “Have fun.”
We drove into Portland. We left the truck at a big truck stop and walked a few blocks until we found a motel. Keisha lurked outside while I checked in.
We ended up with a corner room on the second floor, overlooking a lot full of junked cars and weeds. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I’d hear the weeds, but I was numb to all that.
I fell on the bed closest to the window. Keisha took the other one.
“God, I could sleep for a week,” I said. I kicked off my boots, laid back on my bed. Even with the curtains closed and the room lights off, the neon and mercury vapor lights outside gave the room in an ugly glow. Damn, I just wanted to sleep. I closed my eyes.
“Mat.” Keisha didn’t sound sleepy at all.
“What?” I said, eyes still closed. We both needed to sleep after nearly getting killed. My nightmares were going to have nightmares after today.
“Let’s leave.”
I opened my eyes, rolled over to face her. She sat on the edge of her bed, the neon glow from the motel sign reflecting off her dark skin.
I groaned. “We gotta sleep somewhere.”
“No, Mat, I mean let’s leave all this crazy.”
I rubbed my eyes, sat up. “You mean, just take off. Leave everything and everyone behind.”
She looked like she wanted to spit. “We don’t know jackshit.”
She had a point. “Mushrooms,” I said.
“Damn straight. What about Connor or Simon? Did they make it? Or did they die?”
Simon was the survivor type, but Connor, the kid could be compost by now. He’d been a nasty little twerp when we first met. His attitude had had no where to go but up, and it had. He’d done his share. But he was still new to being Empowered.
“Sucks that we don’t know,” I said. Guilt settled into me. Why hadn’t I asked Ashula? “Should have asked Ashula when I had the chance.”
Keisha’s laugh was bitter. “Yeah, like she’d have said anything, even if she knew. They didn’t tell us about the fucking escape tunnel. If you hadn’t figured it out, we’d be extra crispy barbecue about now.”
Leave. Man, just up and leaving sounded awesome. No more Scourge with its obsession with overthrowing the Hero Council. No more Zhukova riding my ass.
No more getting attacked by assholes.
“I’d love to leave.”
Hope rose in Keisha’s face. Damn it. I hated to break it to her, but I couldn’t go anywhere.
“But I can’t.”
“Why not? Shit, girl, let’s just fucking leave.”
“How long before the Hero Council catches up with us?”
She snorted. “We can keep clear of those idiots.”
“What about the horror show?”
She stared at me.
“Come on, Keisha, you saw those things. And you saw the children. We’ve gotta stop Ellis and his nightmares.”
“How, for god’s sake?” She was practically shouting.
I glared at her. “The same way as always—we take it to them.”
“How? What plan? Something Nefarious and Ashula promised you? Screw them, they didn’t stick around.”
“They didn’t know we weren’t dead. Why stick around when those things were everywhere, backed up by armored goons with nasty guns?”
She stopped, stared at her hands. “I’m tired of us getting nearly killed every other day. This is nuts. It’s no way to live.”
It wasn’t. But I had to see it through. She’d probably try and kill me if she knew why I had stuck it out for this long, but that wasn’t the reason right now.
I sat beside her. “We have to do this, we have to try and stop Ellis from turning the world into his labs.”
“Yeah, it would suck to have to deal with killer plant things all the time.”
She laughed, a sad laugh, and I joined in.
What else could we do but laugh?
Yeah, I had nightmares about armored cacti and devil-thorn-bush crab monsters. I woke up from a bad one at 2 a.m. Keisha was sound asleep.
I suddenly felt the urge to call Winterfield. I don’t know why. It was nuts. I should wait, but I couldn’t.
I crept outside, closing the door softly behind me. There was a payphone in the parking lot. Kinda put me in plain sight if Keisha woke up and noticed I wasn’t in the room, but it was close by.
I went through the damn phone protocol.
He answered, sounding like he’d been expecting me. Did the guy ever sleep?
“Glad you finally decided to check-in, Brandt.”
“Glad to talk with you, too.” Jerk.
“Give me the cliff notes version of what you’ve been up to.” he said.
“Things went to shit today,” I said. “Mister Money Bags Corporate Vice President had a superhero guard.” Winterfield was silent. “The temp agency I work for decided to look into things, and got hit. TWICE.”
