Dashing Devil Omnibus 1: Books 1-3, page 66
It was when the panic would start, if there was going to be a panic.
“Okay, so… it started in her mid-teens.” Tinker sighed.
“You are running out of time for any practice with the propulsion pack,” Tinker continued. “Just play around with it a little. You should find it’s pretty intuitive and will only get more so as you use it. Think about what you want to do, not what you want the pack to do—just as if it is another muscle.”
Boyd shrugged, a slightly awkward motion while using his wings, then thought about going faster. He immediately did, rocketing forward faster than he meant to. It eased right back with another thought though. That gave him a general idea of how to use it.
“Got you on cam,” Royce drawled, at least somewhat willing to help. “That thing’s not going to explode or anything, is it?”
“Excuse me?” Tinker asked, appalled. Her tone made it sound like Royce had just insulted her, her mother, and her favorite puppy all at the same time. “I personally made that propulsion pack. Of course, it is NOT going to explode,” she seethed.
Boyd could hear the capital letters in the negative.
“It will perform exactly as expected… hmmmph!”
Boyd made a mental note not to ask a similar question. If Boyd were honest about it, he would say it hadn’t occurred to him that the pack might explode. Maybe it could have, but he would never voice such concerns to its maker.
“Didn’t mean to offend.” Royce sounded sufficiently cowed.
Boyd was just happy to see Tinker had something she was confident about.
“Hmph!” Tinker harrumphed again. “You didn’t apologize, but I’ll accept it anyway.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Royce said sincerely but with a hint of wry amusement.
Boyd only recognized the wry tone because he knew Royce so well. He doubted Tinker would. She was right about one thing, though—the pack was exceptionally intuitive.
He thought about flying and it applied the right amount of thrust to match his intended speed. While Tinker was giving Royce a light scolding, Boyd figured out how to turn, bank, and roll using the pack. He kept his speed to about what he would normally obtain himself, but not having to flap his wings to maintain that speed made his flight much smoother.
The acceleration eased off when he began to bank into turns then boosted to maintain his speed after them. At one point, he even tried a quick air brake into a one-eighty—successfully, too. It had felt like he was going to tear his wings off with the way he slowed, stopped, then slowly accelerated in the opposite direction. That would leave him wide open in a fight, but he’d done it.
“What do you think?” Tinker asked eventually.
“It’s fantastic. Thank you,” Boyd responded, easing off on his speed but beginning a climb.
“You’re welcome,” Tinker replied, and Boyd was convinced he could hear her blush.
“Fifteen-minute warning,” Royce stated. “Should probably rejoin the team so we can join the mission comms in five… hold on.”
Royce dropped from their channel, reappearing a minute later. “Boyd, why is that kid trying to call you during a Code Yellow? It only got to me because it's flagged as an emergency communication.”
Chapter 33
Boyd had no idea why Connor would be calling him during a Code Yellow, but it better be good—especially with it being marked emergency.
“I don’t know. Can you take it?” Boyd asked.
“I’m not a babysitter, kid,” Royce groused.
Boyd took a moment to enjoy the contradiction of Royce insisting on calling him 'kid' while also insisting he wasn’t a babysitter.
“Put him through to me, then,” Boyd said. “If he’s just scared or something, I’ll get rid of him quick.”
“Fine,” Royce grumped but a moment later a new audio joined Boyd’s comms. It sounded like someone panting as they ran, specifically a child. An adult male voice called out something, but it was muffled, as if far away from the microphone.
“It’s video,” Royce interjected.
Boyd slowed and returned to lazy circling while he raised his wrist so he could see his FDU. The video feed was a blur of shadows and gray concrete for a moment but then he heard a feminine voice hiss, “Here.”
After another moment, Boyd got a look at Connor. More accurately, he got a look at Connor’s split lip as the camera focused on his lower face, chin, and chest.
“Connor?” Boyd asked.
“Mr. Devil?” The young boy gasped quietly, and the camera raised. “Oh, thank the stars! We need help, bad men want to hurt Daisy!”
“Where are you?” Boyd asked, not needing to know more.
“Hiding!” he hissed in a whisper. “They were chasing us. We ran a bunch. I don’t know where we are. I tried to fight them, but they are too big.”
Boyd could see the cold terror in Connor’s eyes. This was a child facing a nightmare for the sake of his older sister. Then he heard a man’s voice in the background, “Find that Changed bitch. Can’t miss this chance, once we are done with her, we can leave her out for the Diamond Claws to clean up.”
They meant to kill Connor’s sister, and most likely Connor, as well. They couldn’t afford to leave a witness, after all.
Boyd tapped the button to mute his voice from Connor's line. “Royce, get me his location.”
“You can’t leave your post, kid,” Royce said, regret in his tone.
“Fuck that, Royce. Get me his location—now!” Boyd growled.
This was what Heroes were for. He had fifteen minutes before the flock of overgrown birds got here. That was more than enough time to deal with some Un-Powered criminals and get back to his post. It may not have been part of the mission he’d been assigned, but it would be unheroic to allow a murder to occur when he could prevent it.
At the same time, it wasn’t exactly heroic to abandon his post during an emergency situation. His years of training told him he needed to stay where he was. What he was doing now was much more important than any personal tie or obligation. His training told him that Connor and his sister were just two more civilians, meaning he should save them if he could, but not if it meant disobeying his orders.
Boyd wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t care. He should care, though… he knew he should. The Authority’s rules and orders existed for reasons bigger than himself. They had kept humanity alive on a very hostile planet for a thousand years, after all. At this moment, though, Boyd was filled with a drive bigger than that.
In some small sense, Connor was one of his. A friend.
Someone wanted to hurt his friend and Boyd would not allow that. “Now, Royce,” he growled when his handler wasn’t immediately forthcoming.
“My hands are tied, kid. I can’t.” Royce groused, emphasizing ‘my’ and ‘I’.
Boyd caught on right away. “Tinker, help me out, please,” Boyd’s voice rumbled, but he didn’t growl at Tinker the way he might at Royce.
“On your FDU,” Tinker replied almost before he was done asking.
Boyd looked down at his FDU and saw a blinking blue dot only two blocks away from him in an alley behind where four tall buildings met. The propulsion pack acted on his instinctive need to get there quickly, unfortunately sending him in the wrong direction. Boyd corrected his flight with a sharp turn to get back on the right track.
He didn’t take the time to tell Connor he was on the way—mostly because he was over the alley in the time it would have taken to explain. After performing another near-wing-ripping air brake, Boyd began to fall into the alley, wings outstretched to slow and give him time to scan the ground below. He spotted a glint of sparkling color hidden between two containers, likely garbage cans waiting for a truck or civilly employed Powered to remove them.
Zeroing in on it, he saw a small young woman, who was most likely Connor’s sister, Daisy. She was huddled over Connor, who she had pushed back deeper into the small alcove created by the containers.
Three men with improvised weapons were stalking down the alley towards them. They were maybe five yards away from the siblings. With how brightly colored Daisy was, there was no way they would miss the siblings if they walked past the cans.
Boyd used his wings to guide his drop and came down between the men and their prey. He landed with a thud on bent knees but left his sword and shield stowed in their respective places.
“Fuck!” one of the men yelled, jumping back a couple of paces.
“Holy shit,” another gasped. “It’s the Devil!”
“Hello, gentlemen,” Boyd rumbled as he raised to his feet and set his shoulders.
At seven and a half feet tall he towered over the three men. To add to his intimidation factor, he left his wings partially open, making him look even bigger. “Did you not hear the Code Yellow alarm? I must ask you to head immediately to the nearest shelter.”
He tried to defuse the situation, despite the large part of him that wanted to teach these men a lesson. Boyd was a Hero, though. He worked for The Authority. Assaulting civilians without cause was inexcusable.
“Oh, of course, of course,” the third man replied. He was now the one in the front and between the other two. Based on the body language of the group, this was their leader. He carried the only real weapon among them, an expensive blade about six inches long.
Boyd could hear the faint telltale hum that identified it as a Vibro-blade. Such blades vibrated at high enough frequencies to allow them to pierce even a Powered’s resistance. They wouldn’t touch Silvie or the Diamond Claws, but if it was a higher-end model, it would cut Boyd. This one looked expensive enough to qualify as high-end.
The presence of the blade had Boyd reassessing the thugs. They were all well-dressed, wearing expensive pants and blazers that spoke of affluence. All three wore pure white, which seemed an odd choice to Boyd, seeing how one carried the vibro-blade, another a piece of pipe, and the third a fist-sized chunk of stone. If they made use of any of their weapons, it would almost certainly ruin their pure white and spotless aesthetic.
The leader continued to talk, walking towards Boyd with the blade still drawn. There was a glint in his eyes that Boyd didn’t much like. “We just saw a young woman with a boy run down the alley and we wanted to make sure they made it to a shelter. You understand, right? We are just being good Samaritans.”
“I don’t have eyes on you, kid. What’s going on?” Royce asked in his ear.
“I have a drone on the way,” Tinker added.
Boyd made a show of looking over his shoulder and scanning the empty alley behind him. He heard the shuffling steps the leader took as he tried to close the distance between them. Boyd turned to look at the man, who was now only five feet away with a raised eyebrow. While he was making an amateur attempts at hiding it, it was clear he intended to attack Boyd. His two followers had also moved forward, but look nervous—like they would rather bolt.
“I will look for them. By law, you are required to make your way to the nearest shelter. Go now or I will have to report you,” he said.
Boyd continued his attempts to defuse the situation. He wasn’t scared of the knife—while it might cut him, its wielder didn’t know what he was doing. Boyd wasn’t sure why the man seemed so intent on attacking him. He almost wanted him to, but braining a civilian never trended well for Heroes, even if it was in self-defense.
The leader’s eyes blazed with intense hate before he called out, “We have a chance to be raised in his eyes! Kill the Corruptor!” Then he charged forward, pulling his arm back in what could only be called the dumbest knife-fighting tactic Boyd had ever seen.
Who charged in with his knife raised over his head and behind him?
“Uh… what?” Boyd was bewildered as he stepped back out of range of the wild slash of the Vibro-blade. “Corruptor?”
“You!” the leader screamed with another wild slash. His two cronies seemed less willing to engage Boyd, spreading out and moving forward but not closing to attack.
“Your filth cannot be allowed to taint real Heroes!” The leader continued with his poorly aimed and executed slashes of his knife. “Die, you Changed scum!”
Boyd sighed, he didn’t have time for this. This guy was just spewing the rhetoric of the more extreme Fundamentalist beliefs. Boyd knew he would never trend well with the Fundamentalists, but to be attacked by one of their civilians felt a bit extreme.
On the next slash, Boyd easily caught the man by the wrist that held the blade. He bent it back while the man cried out in pain, careful only to strain the ligaments without breaking the man’s bones until the knife dropped to the ground. The vibrations stopped the moment it left his hand and it clattered to the ground just like an ordinary knife.
Once the blade was safely out of his grasp, Boyd lifted and tosses the leader by his arm into his crony with the stone. The two fell in a tangle of limbs. The one with the pipe dropped it as he rushed over to help them up.
“Royce, I need you to identify the three men in the alley with me,” Boyd said into his comms as the third man helped his friends up. “File charges for assaulting a Hero and attempted assault of two civilians—one of whom is a minor—against all three.”
“Ah, kid. They aren't showing on the scanners,” Royce said after a moment.
The three men were back on their feet, glaring at Boyd.
“They don’t have identifiers?” Boyd was taken back, everyone had identifying chips that The Authority could access embedded sub-dermally.
“Don’t know what to tell ya...” Royce sounded confused, as well.
“Drone is on-site, I will get their faces,” Tinker added.
A bright pink dinner plate-sized drone floated silently down from above. It was disk-shaped, around the size of two plates stacked on top of each other, the top plate being face down.
The men were back on their feet. The leader’s eyes still filled with blazing hatred for Boyd, but his two friends look terrified. The leader's eyes scanned to take in the drone, his knife on the ground by Boyd’s feet, and Boyd himself.
Boyd could see the calculations running in them,
“This isn’t over!” The leader screamed. “Me or one of my brothers will put you in the ground where you belong!” He then turned and ran back down the alley, his followers right behind him.
Boyd always thought it was funny how many bad guys said something wasn’t over in stories, right before running away. It was amusing to see it happen in real life.
Boyd waited until they turned the corner and were out of sight before stooping to pick up the Vibro-blade. “Hey Tinker, does that drone have an arm on it or something that can carry this back to The Tower?” he asked, lifting the deactivated blade. “It is evidence. With any luck, the fool has a bio-lock on it that we can use to identify the owner.”
“Of course,” Tinker replied.
A panel on the bottom of the pink drone opened to reveal a little mechanical arm with a grabber at the end extending from it. Boyd held the knife up to it and the drone expertly grabbed it from him.
“I’ll get this back to my lab and run an analysis,” Tinker promised.
“Hold on, please record a statement as well,” Boyd rumbled before the drone could fly away.
“Connor, it’s okay to come out now,” Boyd called out in his friendliest, most reassuring voice. It was a struggle to make his voice civilian-friendly, but it was a skill he practiced regularly.
Boyd turned just in time to see Connor carefully peek out from around the large, sealed metal containers they’d taken shelter between. “You came?” he asked with a slight tremble to his voice.
His eyes glistened with tears, though Boyd couldn’t tell if they were tears or relief, tears of fear, or tears of anger—likely a combination of all three.
“Of course I came. We’re friends, remember?” Boyd used his friendliest smile, hoping that their previous encounter would make his demonic appearance a little less scary in the dim alley. “If you call for help, I’ll always be there as quick as I can.”
Connor stepped out fully into the alley. “I didn’t think you meant it. Thank you!”
Boyd noted he was a lot cleaner than he’d been the day before. Connor was also dressed to match Boyd’s colors, in a black light jacket over a crimson shirt with pale off-white pants. The black lined up with his outer wings and horns, and the crimson was a near miss for his inner wings, tail, hands, and feet. The off-white was a shade or two away from the rest of his skin.
“Wow!” Connor cheered, “Your suit is so cool!”
Boyd noticed the top of a head poking out from around the container Connor had been hiding behind. It darted back before he could see more than a flash of very bright and colorful hair. He returned his gaze to a very excited Connor.
The boy’s fear from the terrifying moments that had happened just before were completely forgotten.
It made Boyd smile, taking it as a sign of a generally happy childhood—one free of responsibility and pressure. He needed to know more about what happened, even though he hated spoiling the child's good mood.
“Can you tell me what happened Connor?” he asked.
Chapter 34
As Boyd had feared, the question made the excitement on the boy’s face falter as he answered. “I don’t really know. We were on our way to meet you for Daisy’s interview. Then the view screens all changed to The Authority’s warning about Diamond Claws, so we went to the closest shelter and joined the line. We were halfway in the line for the shelter when three men started yelling about not sharing a shelter with a Changed.”
He scowled. “The NPOs were all busy at the front of the line. But when an old man said we didn’t have segregated shelters here in Glorith City, that made the men real mad. They started screaming a bunch of nasty stuff. Then one of them hit the old man who was trying to protect Daisy and she said we should run.”
