Soda Supreme, page 18
She blew out a breath of air. That wasn’t going to work, really. It was one thing for her to not have a hand-held device, since she wasn’t a drug dealer, but she needed to be able to research online, if she was going to keep up in school. The other kids there probably did too. She could afford that kind of thing, but it was a bit much for her to go around handing out computers.
So, as they walked to the lobby, since they had a car waiting, out of the motor pool there, she dialed Alex and paused, feeling hit with a wave of something dark. Before he even picked up.
“Darius here.”
That was terse, for him. He sounded stressed, too.
“Hannah. Is something wrong?”
“The Society has been doing mass arrests for the last ten hours. People who have been in hiding for years, in some cases. Admittedly, some bad people, but not all of them are. I’ve been fielding calls, begging me for help, all day.”
She blinked and then looked over at June.
“Can you get a list of the ones you think have rehabilitated themselves? I can pass that to The Society. The goal is to stop people from hurting others, not increase misery in the world.” She thought that was the idea. It was probably going to start a fight. June gave her a curious look, instead of the curled fist that Vidya was already going with.
So she explained.
“Alex Darius? He’s saying some of the people being picked up aren’t that bad? Or, aren’t still that bad? We might want to look into that. Then, he also said some of them need to be stopped, or at least, I took it that way.” She shrugged.
Both women looked at her then, and Vidya made a face.
“You talk to Alexander Darius regularly?” Her voice wasn’t that loud and she relaxed a good bit, for some reason. “He’s still a super villain.”
Hannah laughed.
“Oh, he probably does a few things that aren’t strictly legal, but are you claiming we don’t? Also, I was just calling him up to see if he wanted to help me get some computers and internet service for some underprivileged kids? The ones helping at the food banks? I’m covering college for them, if they can pull good enough grades to get in, but it’s going to start looking like I’m doing too much, which would be fishy, so, what do you say?”
There was silence for a moment, but only that.
“Certainly? I want to see a written proposal for it, but that sounds like a fine plan. I should have thought of it myself.”
Both women were clearly listening, and June let her head dance side to side.
“I want a written proposal explaining why we should let people go. Make it good, because I don’t run the legal system. I can recommend leniency, for some of your friends, if you have solid reasons. As Hannah said, the goal isn’t to increase misery in the world.”
Alex made a small noise.
“Hmm. Who is that?”
“That was Liberty. From The Society? I don’t have anything more than that. I can tell you though, they didn’t go after a lot of people they have information on, since they seem to have given up anything criminal. In some cases, they aren’t even totally clean. The Society isn’t going after shoplifters, here. So, it might be worth putting your two cents in?”
“I will do that, then, Hannah. Get that write up to me as soon as possible? For the computer outreach idea? I can spare, call it three million on that?”
That sounded about right. At least if they expanded things a bit.
“Good. We’ll have you in to meet some of the new trainees, soon. Some of them have powers. Some play video games...”
“Wonderful. Let me know when, so we can schedule this? Perhaps with your friends from The Society?”
She didn’t get that, until after hanging up, when June snickered.
“That last bit was so we won’t think he’s trying to corrupt the young. I’m not certain that he’s reformed, totally, Hannah.”
She shrugged.
“Of course not. Then, his whole thing is that he thinks people should try to solve their own problems. Not without a hand up or anything, just that we shouldn’t be reliant on people with superpowers for everything. The new crew of people in training is half and half that way. We need more girls. It isn’t well balanced that way, yet. Maybe my sister wants in?” She turned to June. “Same dad, different mothers. She’s... You should claim her, even if she isn’t related to you by blood, to be honest. Nate and Cynthia are clearly the good kids.”
Her grandmother gave her a funny look then.
“Nate is the good one? Isn’t he Solar Storm? He used to be, at least. I looked that up, last night...”
“That, is a very long story, and a very black thing. I’ll tell you on the ride over. The short hand version is that yes, he’s the good child. He was always a hero, even when no one knew it...”
A thing that was, to her, one hundred percent true.
Chapter twelve
Hannah sat, cross legged and very still, on her own sofa. It was very close to being her favorite meditation and work spot. Not that she was doing that at the moment. She watched the room, smiling gently, attempting to see what was about to happen, constantly. There were a lot of people there, for an impromptu meet up for pizza and soda.
Debbie was directly next to her on the left, with Katie on the other side, bracketing her, as if to be protective. Not that anyone was a danger there that night. Not that she knew about. Lashondra was on the floor, with June sitting directly next to her. Chatting, rather amiably.
The room was a contradiction, in many ways. There was a bouncing energy to most of the people there. Megan was actually nervous, for some reason, and it played into the room rather pointedly. It took a while, about fifteen minutes, but Hannah made out some lines moving from her toward both Kate and Devya. It wasn’t as strong as an action about to come, but was, instead, the chance that the woman was going to say something.
Hannah understood the idea, of course.
Softly, not meaning to, she spoke first. Soothing things, before they could be taken the wrong way.
“Megan, how are you doing?” Hannah smiled, softly and looked over at Kate, then gave a wave toward Devya. “Sendra...”
Both women got the idea and looked at her suddenly, going wide eyed. Dr. Sendra, the monster, had tortured Megan Kant to death. They could pretend that it had been something less serious than that, but it truly wasn’t. Magic had been used, in the Never, to bring her back. Reese as well, but the boy, for some reason, seemed to be easier with Kate and probably Devya, than his mother was.
They looked identical to the killer, which wasn’t missed by either of them. Megan went running with Katie and the others though, three or four times a week. Hopefully it was helping her to move past her fear there. At the moment, that didn’t seem to be too much of a thing, however.
Devya winced, and went still, the slightly frantic movements she constantly produced suddenly leaving a virtual hole in the room.
“Oh... Crud. Do you need me to leave, Megan? I forgot about that, for a moment.”
Megan Kant wasn’t really a mentally powerful person, in her own right. Not that Hannah had ever seen. She tended toward the nervous, and while she could be a bit shrill, or even high strung, most of the time she was just kind of shy. That didn’t mean she was a bitch though, so a head shake came almost instantly.
“No, I’m fine. It’s... A bit hard, but I’ll live. You didn’t do anything to me. I know that.” She wiped at her brow, which had beads of sweat on it, even if the room wasn’t all that hot.
Veronica looked at the scene, seeming worried over it. Enough to swallow, and seemed to be considering moving, to do something. Hannah looked at it, using her eyes, which did nothing, of course. She wasn’t actually seeing the future, after all. It wasn’t right to claim that it was a feeling, either. More like waves and lines of movement.
It was, of course, something different. A thing that had always been there, in her awareness, but that she’d never noticed, until she’d started trying to, and spending enough time and energy on the idea for it to become part of what she regularly bothered to perceive. Instead of saying something a bit off or upsetting, Veronica got up from her own spot on the floor, across from Hannah, near Megan, and nodded.
“I should start getting the food? We have pizza. The good kind from Richie’s.”
That meant nothing to Hannah, but it smelled fine. She moved herself, or started to, with Kate slapping her leg, gently. Again, she noticed the movement first, but let it take place, instead of trying to dodge it.
“I have two hands...”
Hannah did too, but she understood the idea. Getting her nasty splint all over other people’s food wasn’t going to play well. She settled again, and nodded.
“Thanks, Kate.” The possible futures in the room simplified then, with several sources of movement, instead of speaking, for nearly a minute. People were quiet, and June turned back to Lashondra, her voice even and a bit older sounding than it had always seemed to Hannah before that moment. Not ancient, but the girl, the old lady, couldn’t pull that off, as far as she’d seen, so far. Still, the woman seemed efficient and adult, in the moment.
“We should share information, if that isn’t rude to suggest? We don’t handle a lot of things that overlap, but it can come up, on occasion. It won’t hurt to have things in the computers.”
Lash nodded.
“That might not be a poor idea at all. This is an interesting set of people, in the room, isn’t it, Hannah? Did you ask us here for a reason?”
She shook her head.
“Only that you’re all cool? Nothing more than that. It... June is my grandmother, it turns out. I just learned about that. My mother never bothered to share that I had family on that side, for some reason.”
The woman, the thin, pale skinned girl seeming individual, grimaced.
“She’s... Well, she styles herself a revolutionary. We had a falling out, about thirty years ago, and haven’t been close at all since. She calls herself...”
The woman stopped talking, seeming annoyed, suddenly.
Lash nodded.
“Solaire? With the Kahn Collective? Zero Two, in that organization.”
The words weren’t angry seeming, but got her glared at, by the small woman.
“Exactly. That estrangement caused me to not be aware of my connections and my grandchildren were harmed, due to that lack. I have some business, with Zero Six. Carter, wasn’t it, Hannah?”
She nodded, holding her mind in a focus state, watching the room around her.
“Johan Carter. We... don’t have time for that, right now. I’ve been looking for a way to get him... Oh... Crap.”
Everyone looked at her, as if she were being rude. That was probably the case, since they hadn’t even gotten to eat their food yet.
“Sorry, a wash of something just covered the room. In about two minutes? I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s going to hit us all, except Terry. Get your phones out.”
It was possible that she was being a freak and that nothing at all was going to take place, but even if she was just her, Veronica, Terry and Kate all pulled their devices, even if she’d just said that Terry wasn’t part of what was going to happen. At least not the first part of it.
“Megan, get on with Chris? Terry, why don’t you call Tyler?” It might make sense for that job to go to his girlfriend, who was, it seemed, living with him now, or at least sleeping over, which sounded serious, to Hannah.
She was about to be busy, however.
Slowly, everyone else pulled their own phones, with Debbie looking at her with some interest. Her white teeth flashed, as she smiled.
“How deep have you been staying?”
It was a question that a lot of people might not understand. Lash got it, and looked at her, a small, ridiculously pink, phone case in her hand. Waiting for an answer.
“As deep as I can hold. I’ve been doing hours of actual work, each day, for the last few. I’m still only getting things about a minute or two out.”
The phones started to ring, with Devya’s going first. She picked it up, instantly.
“Agent Seven.” That was just her code name, which probably meant it was her work phone.
Before she could speak to the room, several of the others had to pick up. Veronica was the first one to call something out.
“Leslie... She has six people in her ER... all dead. They each have the Supreme internal complex in them...”
Hannah closed her eyes, and focused, not really doing more than trying to set her mind to the side. Someone spoke to her, so she paid attention to what was in front of her. It was rough, but she understood the idea, when she moved back, as if floating above the world. Seeing each point, each person, as a dark blob. At least the ones with Dark Soda inside of them. Soda Supreme, as Stan had coined it. It was a better name, she had to admit.
“It seems to be nearly total. Everyone with it inside of them is dead or dying. A few not...”
“Move in on one of those. Why are they alive? Pick the closest one to us, and look at it.”
That, at least from the feeling, was that the man who lived was sitting in a shed. An all metal one.
“The signal can’t get through. It’s electricity. Radio?”
June was on her own device, her words dark.
“Keep a tally. We’ll want to know... Clearly this is a terror attack.” She hung up, and Hannah felt the room focus in her direction, as if the head of The Society was going to have more information than the rest of them, for some reason.
Probably because she simply did.
“We have reports of hundreds of people dead. Just dropping in the street. Anyone who has that new nano computer system inside of them is just going down. We have word that about a quarter of some police departments aren’t responding.”
Terry was repeating things for Tyler, on her phone, no one having tried to call her to let her know about the sudden wave of death in the world. After a moment, she spoke to the room then.
“Police? Why would they have that kind of thing?”
Hannah understood. Really, Terry probably would, the second it was mentioned. Hannah was looking at a slowly growing wave of people dying. Unable to do anything about it. Finally, she shook her head.
“The police... They can’t compete with people who have powers. In the main, they don’t really have to, but they must live half terrified, day to day, worried that someone is going to melt their gun and just kill them, out of hand. So, if they can get powers, even small ones that are dangerous to use, a lot of them might try it. Plus, so far, it’s legal. They aren’t breaking the law, or anything. They weren’t. It was even kind of cheap, from what I’ve heard. A hundred dollars, but you only need to take a few capsules one time for it to work.”
Someone else spoke then. Vidya, she thought.
“About forty percent use steroids, even if they aren’t good for them and are illegal... So, a thing like this... Word is that, if you use it right, it isn’t that dangerous.”
Hannah had to open her eyes, not having noticed that factor, yet.
“It isn’t that dangerous?” She’d seen one man die from using it, but Eugene had been trying to die, at the time.
Vidya, dressed now in a loose cream-colored top, and blue jeans, with rather ratty old shoes, the running kind, nodded.
“We managed to get some Darpa records on their program, at The Society. They decided not to push the operation forward, because it was too dangerous in battle, under high stress conditions. That said, most people had no problems using a lower level of systemic excitement, as long as they started out being in decent cardiovascular shape. It can damage a person, using it, but so does dying, being killed by someone with powers.”
Terry nodded, and repeated the words, into her phone.
She was just about to call for Alistair, since she was inclusive that way, which had the boy talking in her head, just before she could really get the thought to coalesce inside her mind.
~Hannah? We need to have backup in large cities. The smaller places weren’t hit as hard, their cops not using this stuff. Everyplace is suddenly overwhelmed. Most people that have this in them aren’t surviving it. I was looking at Hitoshi, but he just vanished. I just get a wall of white, in his location. Can you find anything on that?~
The real answer was probably no, of course. Alistair was a telepath, so if people died, he couldn’t tell anything about them, but he was super powerful, when it came to the living. On a level that made her own efforts often feel like she was doing almost nothing. Still, she got the idea.
He could be doing a lot more than he was, and she had time, since her place in the whole thing was basically about sitting there, calling people, or eating pizza.
“Got it, Al.” She glanced at Debbie. “Hitoshi is the target. Terry, get with Guardia. She had to work on another case, but this might relate.” Or not. The death of tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands, just in the U.S., might be considered more important than what she’d been working on previous to that. Also, it might not.
Guardia was good in a fight, but she didn’t have magical healing powers. Hannah, on the other hand, kind of did. She could, possibly, save up to ten of the dead people, if Nevernever was going to help get her to the right place.
She closed her eyes, not mentioning that fact.
Sasha might be doing something that would save a life that day, so it could be that whatever she had going on would be more important. In that she might actually be able to do something useful. Unlike Hannah.
What she could do, of course, was, as it turned out, almost nothing.
“I’m just getting a wall of white as well. It’s a bit like static. A pulsing... Hitoshi isn’t... I don’t know what’s happening.”
Debbie was silent for a moment.
