Soda Supreme, page 29
The voice that hovered in the air sounded thoughtful, if a bit soft.
“I should work on the other subject first? Lara? Then, if it goes well, I can help this man a few hours after that. We’ll need to do a brain scan first. Can you handle that? I mean, I know that you can, but do you have the needed equipment?”
“At home. I’ll have that sent to you in less than an hour. You’re already heading this way?”
“I am. Is... Do we need to hide this?” He seemed honestly frightened by the idea.
Hannah didn’t know why, however.
“Neary? This is Hannah. This is a sanctioned action, as much as is possible on this world. His own organization is allowing it, knowing what you plan. Oh, can you erase the memories of his crimes and what he did for his people? Not everything, but so that no one can use that against anyone else, later?”
She didn’t know if that was truly possible at all.
Neary sounded relieved.
“So the memories of his actions won’t harm him, for the rest of his life? Thank you, Hannah. I was planning to do that, but didn’t know... It would be cruel to make him a good person and to leave him with that knowledge. You know, we were told how hard you all are, as people, but so far you don’t seem that different than many of us, out here in the cosmos. I... Not to be rude, but I need to do some work, for a time. Kron, can you get those readings?”
“Directly.”
There was a sense of something disconnecting. It really was a bit like magic, if sort of rough, around the edges.
Chris didn’t speak, or explain, simply walking out of the room. Hannah stayed, and listened to the nude old man whine and complain. June finally spoke, her voice rough, as if fighting tears.
“Is this enough? This is hardly retribution for what he did. Nate...”
It was a real point. She pulled her phone, then tapped the right name and passed it to June.
She frowned, and glared a bit at Hannah.
“Nate? It’s June, your grandmother? So... We have Johan Carter in a cell, in the basement of The Society. Hannah has arranged for his personality to be altered forever and Zero One is here, to see that it happens. We... If you want him dead, I’ll make that happen.” She sounded vicious then, in those words. Dark and as if being a hero wasn’t her real place in the world at all.
Hannah shrugged.
“Or we can torture him. Or, if you want, we can have all the evil taken out of him leaving only a good person where he once stood. Still him, but not damaged and evil.”
June nodded into her hand.
“You may. I’ll meet you in the lobby? Your friends, as well.”
She simply left, but handed the phone back, first. John Booth, or whatever his new name was, smiled at her, a bit.
“They come to kill him, do you think?”
“Not a clue. I don’t even know who all will be coming.” Some of Nate’s friends might murder the man, she knew. She was tempted to do it herself. Honestly, the only reason she didn’t was because she sort of wanted to see if someone like him could actually be fixed at all.
If so, and they could get hold of that kind of trick, they might be able to help a lot of people. Possibly before they even did anything too bad. Even if they had to work in secret, it might be worth it, on occasion.
When Nate got there, he didn’t have his team with him at all. It was a group of guys, three of them, and instead of fetish gear or torture tools, they had cameras. Sound equipment, as well. Nate was dressed in normal clothing, and while he seemed less than perfectly pleased, he didn’t seem cowed or scared of the naked old man. His erection had faded long ago.
Probably when the Viagra had worn off.
“Johan... I’ve come to watch you be removed from the world. I used to want you dead... Still, this will be better. You, the old you, will be gone and the new you will take your place. He’ll have everything you own. Some other, better person will own the yachts, the land... All the slaves will be let go, I imagine. All the money will be his... and you know what, Johan? Do you know what the best part of it will be for me?”
The man growled, and then hit the glass, actually punching it hard enough to split the skin on his hand.
“No, you little faggot, what? You’re going to rape me when I’m too weak to fight any longer? You’re going to kill me? You’ll take all I earned for yourself?”
Her little brother, a grown man, a person with super human abilities, simply shook his head then.
“No. The best part will be knowing that you’re never going to hurt anyone else, ever again.”
Hannah was impressed with the psychological damage that one did. Carter ran around, screamed himself hoarse and kept hitting the walls and glass hard enough to injure himself. After an hour or two of this, he calmed down. Just as Chris took a call from Neary.
“I’m in Earth orbit. How do I locate the first young lady? Lara?”
Hannah had that one, so nodded at Red Cape.
“Have him land at your place, and I’ll go and take him around? I can be there... In about a minute, I think?”
Neary laughed.
“Well, I can’t land that fast. Not safely, while cloaked. It will take me about ten minutes. Should we call your friend first, in case she’s changed her mind? I’m asking a lot of her, after all.”
Hannah wasn’t going to give her a way out, or at least hadn’t been planning on it, but she nodded, then spoke out loud, not certain if Neary could see her or not.
Really, even if he could, he might not know what nodding meant. Probably, since the man was good with Earth things. He was also an alien, so she needed to be careful that way.
“I’ll call now. I’ll meet you at Kyron and Megan’s, regardless. Ten minutes.”
Then, in front of everyone, she called Lara. The girl sounded tired and annoyed, but didn’t say anything too bad.
“I feel like crap. When is that guy coming?”
“About ten minutes? He wanted me to ask if you’re still in for this? I told him you would be, but he’s super nice. Single too, I think?” She looked at Superion, who smiled and nodded. “Confirmed on that, so you know, glow up a bit, before he gets there?”
That was mean of her, but Lara groaned and sounded like she was moving.
“Fine. I hope this works. See you in a bit?”
“I’ll be there, to hold your hand and all that.” She wasn’t running the machinery, after all.
Whatever that was.
Johan was entertaining, if a bit repetitive, and when she started to leave, both June and Chris wanted to come along. Nate looked torn.
“Lara isn’t a close friend of mine, but we’ve met...” He clearly felt bad about the idea. John smiled and gave him a small, half bow.
“It would be better not to distract her, then? We’ll send our best regards, with your sister, instead? I know that I wish her the best in this. Please pass that for me, Hannah?”
Nate said something similar. Then Johan screamed, rather incoherently, in rage.
Hannah was bothered by it, more than she wanted to admit, but pretended to ignore him and, one at a time, took the others first to get Neary, then to see Lara. Then, because the girl had friends, she called Kate and went to get Terry, herself.
Lara had bothered to put makeup on and met them in the living room of her apartment. Still looking hard used, but not upsettingly so. The room was clean, or mainly so. There was enough clutter to show that no one had been in to see to things for the last day. Probably because Lara hadn’t left the place.
Neary didn’t make her wait for relief, using technology that looked like almost nothing. No more than some hand signs in the air. Things that connected to his clothing, in a strange, almost impossible seeming, fashion.
Then, over the course of moments, the woman not only had no more drugs in her system, or damage from them, but also didn’t want them any longer at all. Then, in about the same time frame, she was suddenly nice. Not shy or timid, just... Really sweet. It was very different, but seemed to resonate with being real.
Hannah had to admit, she was impressed.
“Now, let’s see to Johan Carter?”
That one would, she didn’t doubt, be a lot harder. On everyone.
Chapter nineteen
Thankfully, for Hannah at least, Chris and June helped take Johan away someplace. It wasn’t to go back to the Khan Collective, but the man didn’t seem to want that at all. His memory of a lot of the specific crimes he’d committed were gone, or so Neary had told them. At the same time, in order to function in the world, some of the data in the old man’s evil head had to be left in place.
He broke down crying, almost instantly. It was pitiful to look at, as his clear eyes and slightly less lined face seemed to be speaking of something that no one had expected from the man, even after being fixed. It was horror. The alien tech had healed him, and taken away the evil in his heart, almost totally...
It wasn’t enough to let him have peace. Even Nate, looking hard at the man’s back until he was taken away, just shuddered a bit. As if he were crying, except that he wasn’t.
“I really don’t want to have to feel sorry for him.”
She nodded, getting that for herself. The man, Johan, had been responsible for her being kidnapped at least twice. He’d sent a hit squad after her once, as well. The Red Trio. Super humans, who weren’t normally into murder, but who had felt forced into taking that kind of action, at the time. They’d failed, thankfully, but it didn’t take the fact that she hated the man away. Worse, the evil piece of trash had raped her brother. From what she understood, Nate had been forced to do that kind of thing himself, raping others. Then, at least a few times, had been forced to murder them and eat their flesh.
In order to keep his sister alive.
Hannah started to shake a bit, though, thinking about what she’d just seen. No one there was going to get the idea, of course. At least she doubted that. Nate patted her on the shoulder, as if she were scared, or maybe simply angry. It wasn’t either of those things, of course.
No, she was shaking, because of what she’d done. After a bit, a few people still standing there, in front of the now empty cell, with Neary having already taken a treatment himself, so he wouldn’t have nightmares about what he’d seen that day, she sighed.
“I kidnapped him. It... I know it’s stupid and that this was more like arresting him, when no one else could, but... I’m not able to deal with that very well.”
Half of The Society was in the room, and they, to a person, seemed to think she was being soft or possibly a little silly. Which was mean of them, and lacked understanding, but was still better than them thinking she was evil for what she’d done. She felt that way, so it was good that the others there didn’t.
Neary went wide eyed, and brought a device around. The same one that had been pointed at Carter, moments before, in fact.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t think about how you’d feel, having had to do that... Here... I can remove the memory of it. It will just, let me set this...”
She was about to shake her head, when Stan, standing across the room, shook his and spoke, softly.
“No. I know you mean well, but this is a thing she has to carry. It... I don’t know why she’s having this reaction, to be honest. It was a good take down. She brought him to the government, first thing, too. Then... Well, I don’t know that I would have let him go, but she got him fixed up, instead of sent to prison.” The massive man, struggling to put his thoughts into words, shrugged. “No one here thinks she did anything wrong, and they shouldn’t. The thing is, if she feels that it was wrong, then she needs to either deal with that, or to learn to handle her feelings. Do you have anything for that? To help her do either of those things?”
Neary stepped back, even if the man, Stan, wasn’t being menacing at all. He was vast though, and the veins on his neck and bare arms pulsed visibly, which was kind of intimidating, even if his deep voice had been soft and considering.
Even if the alien was brave, it was in a different way than anyone there could see. At least if his brother wasn’t in the room.
She nodded.
“I’ll be fine. It... I’ve been kidnapped so many times that doing it myself, even like this, is just... terrifying, for me. It’s becoming the worst thing I can imagine.” Her ability to make things up was better than that, so she waved at everyone then, suddenly. “Well, you know what I mean. I’m going to have this kind of response, for a while, if I do things like this. I don’t feel that way about you, John...”
She thought about that for a moment, the man giving her a small smile.
“That would be due to the fact that you were, to your own mind, only providing transportation? Speaking of which, could I be returned, to you think? Unless, of course, these others here plan to stop me from leaving? In that case...” He went still, and seemed to relax, rather deeply.
Readying himself for war, it seemed.
Jacob looked around and nodded.
“Not today? Please stop breaking laws? Thank you.”
That might have been funny, but Hannah got the basic idea, so nodded. Even if she was still a bit tense, herself.
“I can do that. Let me... This will take a bit.” That wasn’t wrong.
In fact, probably due to the tension, it took her about fifteen minutes. She was faster coming back, after taking the man directly to his office, which was, from the feel of the place, in the South Pacific. Hannah came back to the area outside the cell, and was prepared for someone to take her aside and go over the crimes she’d committed that day, even if she hadn’t been considering that beforehand.
Vidya waved to her, and called out, softly.
“We have paperwork to do on this. Come with me? I’ll help you with it.” That had everyone else heading out, though several of them waved for Nate to follow them, for some reason. She had to go to the fifteenth floor however, where there were offices. Apparently one for everyone. Vidya Pool had her own office, one on the corner of the building, with two sets of windows. It wasn’t vast, but it was nicely decorated. Once there, the costumed lady shut the door, and waved for her to sit.
Then, after getting behind her nice, rather large, wooden desk, in her comfortable seeming black padded chair, the woman grinned.
“That was... Incredible! You had some trouble at the end? Get over that, and we can take... All the bad guys. Directly into a holding cell, just... pop! Do you think you can get Hitoshi that way?”
She shook her head, having actually thought about that one already.
“Nope. He’s been walking around inside a shield. What we could do, maybe, is put people ahead of and around him, then have them go in, not using anything psychic in nature? I have no clue what kind of defenses he’ll have.”
The good-looking woman started to nod. After a bit, she was almost bouncing in her seat.
“Like at that school? We stage everyone around him, and hit all at once? Teleport into place. We can get Devy and Kate, maybe? You can do that, too? That... was pretty slow, earlier.”
She wanted to be upset at the woman, for noticing, but sighed and shook her head.
“It was. I can do, maybe one a minute? I’m not fast, like Katherine is. I need to practice more, but, you know, I’ve had these powers for, what, a day and a half now?”
There was a gentle nod. Her expression spoke of sympathy, even.
“So, you need another twelve hours to get that up to speed? Understood. We should see if The Underdogs and The High Command want in on the takedown. Hitoshi isn’t powerful. He’s smart though, and underestimating him would be a mistake. Here, let’s fill out the forms for this last thing. Johan Carter?”
“Zero Six, Khan Collective. I transferred him from his hidden base, directly into the cell. I didn’t have extradition papers.”
That got a laugh.
“Funny, but teleportation doesn’t count, in taking a person like that. Mainly because no one else can really do it, like that. No one made any rules against it, because... Why would they bother? So, we can do this until those rules are put in place, and... Really, no one is going to freak out about bad guys being taken like this. We can probably do this for decades, with barely a blip on the radar for most countries.”
That made a bit of sense, so she smiled, still feeling a bit rough. Worried about what she’d just done.
It took about twenty minutes to fill out all the needed paperwork, but it was all done for her, with only a few signatures needed. That was odd, since Vidya insisted Hannah was the arresting officer, for some reason, even if she didn’t work there.
The woman tapped her keyboard and then finished with a small flourish.
“And... Done. That part isn’t too bad here. Then, we don’t have to go to court very often, so it isn’t needed for that reason, just so we can index everything and explain it later, if it comes up in meetings. Now, you probably need a break. I’ll start on this Hitoshi thing?” She looked away and finally shrugged.
“That... Supreme, the Dark Soda stuff? It killed over two million people. That’s just here, in the States. We can’t even burn the bodies fast enough. It’s the worst act of terrorism ever performed, anywhere in the world. We need to break this open and do it fast, if we can. I don’t want to break you, at the same time. Can you do the work on it? It isn’t your job, but...”
Taking a moment, Hannah just pulled her phone. She was exhausted, and going to sleep before they did anything, but it wasn’t that late in the day, yet. Dialing, she had Lashondra on the device inside four rings.”
“Hello?”
“Lash? We have a mission. Can you bring in The Underdogs? This is... Big. As in, everyone who can help should be asked. At The Society building, at six tomorrow morning. Maybe sooner.”
There was only silence.
“I need more than that.”
“Understood. Al?” Then she hung up.
