Stolen, page 4
“Special effects can do amazing things these days,” Kat Forrest said, pale, watching, horrified, her eyes mostly on her son Harry. Her lips smacked weakly, and she waited – we all did – for anything more.
The video cut out; it was over.
“Yeah...that wasn't a special effect,” Reed said, his arms folded in front of him. “That was the Chinese deciding to lay down some more bait and eliminate the most dangerous player Sienna could free.”
“There was no one else like him in the world,” I whispered as J.J. ran back the video on the screen unasked, and I saw Akiyama's brains fly back into his head. “Without him...I can't turn back time in the event of a disaster like Minneapolis.”
“Did he have any family?” Reed asked.
“He had a wife and child that died in the...well, in the past,” I said, closing my eyes. He'd bent time around that moment, keeping them both alive in near-suspended animation in the faint hope that someone might be able to save them. He'd held them that way, in spite of pain, in spite of impossibility – time wasn't meant to be held back, even in such a limited fashion – until time started to break.
Hopefully...he was with them again now.
“It could have been me,” Scott said, Scarlet Sahara clutched to his side. Our safe houses were like clown cars, so many of us crammed into it. So many, and so few I felt like I knew well. This was just one of them; there were five others with my friends, and friends of those friends – it was a constellation of safe houses, really. Scarlet bumped him. “Could have been us,” he amended.
“Or me,” Eilish said in that Irish accent, her strawberry blond hair bound back in a messy ponytail. She was staring at the screen pensively, chewing a fingernail. “If Sienna hadn't saved me from those Chinese kidnappers in Colorado.”
“Damn,” Alannah said, into the silence that followed, “that shit was dark right there.”
“It's always darkest,” I said, “just before I set fire to someone.”
“...Whut?” Augustus asked.
But I had already stalked off. I didn't want to watch the video any more, and I had no answers.
China had moved from hunting my friends and allies into executing them.
And to this...I still had no answers.
Just a burning desire to burn them to ash.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Then
“...So he blasted me, and then he fled the scene,” I said, rubbing the lack-of-a-lump where I'd plowed into the post office box outside Stanley Croftsburg's hideout. A Silver City detective by the name of Leissa Humphries was taking my statement with a sour look on her face. She didn't want me here, I didn't want to be here – you'd think with this much in common we'd have gotten along, but you'd be wrong. “I did a quick flight pass, but no sign of him in a car, nor on foot, nor did he turn up in my search of the building.” I finished rubbing the once-dent in my skull, now restored to flawless – or as close to flawless as you could get on my lumpy body – and removed my hand. “So he's in the wind.”
“Fan-effing-tastic,” Humphries said, jotting down something with great lack-of-enthusiasm on her notepad. I read the scrawl upside down and it said, A drunken hobo could have handled this better. Which I resented; a drunken hobo would have caught the blast to the face and lost the face. Maybe Humphries had something against drunken hobos; or maybe she was predicting my future as a drunken near-hobo. Either way, it seemed harsh, I did not appreciate it, and our working relationship was about to take a turn to reflect that.
“I wish you could have been there,” I said, feeling the burn in my face, and my guts. “Could have seen what this guy did. Firsthand, really – or face-first, maybe. Hey, I know – next time I run across him, you and I'll go together. You lead, I'll follow, y'know, bat clean-up. I'm sure if a drunken hobo could handle this better than me, you, clearly a superior being, could handle it better than the hobo. Why, you could probably capture him without breaking a sweat.”
She stared at me, the sullen look melting off her face, as tends to happen when one has been caught out writing dumb shit one had not intended to have read aloud to the class. “No. No, it's fine – I'm sure–”
“Done deal,” I said, cuffing her on the shoulder in a friendly way, but hard enough to stagger her. “Next time – you lead the way, you superstar you. I know you can handle it. I trust you. I've got your number, I'll call you. Just wait by your phone, and we'll get this wrapped up together.”
“I – I don't see how I can be of help,” she stammered once she regained her balance.
“You'll be a huge help,” I said, already walking away. “You'll be the linchpin of the operation. You know, take the initial hit, then while you're writhing, headless, like a chicken that's just been slaughtered, I can pursue without having to worry about regrowing an arm. You'll see – you're gonna be a huge help. Can't do it without you.”
“Regrowing a what?” she called after me. “I can't regrow anything.”
“You'll be fine,” I called back. “I mean, maybe. Don't worry about it, it's all in the line of duty.” I turned away as I floated over the police tape on the main street, almost bumping into Camera Douche, who was standing there with his phone, filming me once again. “You, on the other hand, are not going to be fine, because unless you get that thing out of my face, you'll be receiving an unscheduled colonoscopy, footage to be revealed once they recover that thing from your ass.”
“My last video went viral!” he said, way too chipper for a man who'd just received a credible threat to have his phone shoved up his ass. “I'm livestreaming right now, and we've got thousands of viewers! Say hi to the people!”
I stared at the phone with my iciest glare. “You fine folks are about to get a hell of a show. Count how many polyps you see for the benefit of this poor idiot, will you? He ought to get something positive out of the pain he's about to experience.”
“Ms. Nealon!” someone shouted, and I turned to find Detective Humpries hurrying over to me, breathless, “We had a report of a car weaving on US-180 westbound.” She paused, bending over, putting both hands on her knees to rest.
“So call the uniforms to go ticket them for reckless driving,” I said with a frown, “I'm about to make my bones as a proctologist over here.”
“No, no, you don't understand.” Humphries shook her head. “A purple beam got shot out of the car at another car – sent it into the ditch.”
“My proctology residency is going to have to wait,” I said, and immediately flew into the air, turning west, toward Arizona. I had a dangerous criminal to catch.
CHAPTER NINE
Now
The basement of our building was a dry, white tile swimming pool that looked like it hadn't held water since the closing days of the Cold War. I stood in the middle of it, staring up at the ruin of what had once been a diving board, and felt...
Like I was in over my head. Way over my head.
“I'm sorry.” Reed's voice echoed against the tiles, and with a whoosh of air he was suddenly beside me, shoes squeaking on tile. He lingered there and put a hand on my shoulder, giving me a squeeze. “I'm so sorry, Sienna.”
“You were right,” I said, putting a hand on his wrist and giving him a squeeze, careful not to go skin-to-skin. It was one of the most annoying things about being a succubus, always having to be conscious of when other people touched me. “It's a war, and I am not ready for casualties.” I sighed, took a breath, and stared up at the ceiling. “But they're coming. Regardless of whether I'm ready, the Chinese are, and they're coming.”
“It's not impossible, you know,” Reed said, letting go of my shoulder and coming alongside me. “To win, I mean.”
I chortled, but it was a dry, dark humor. “There's a billion-four of them and a few hundred of us. If it's not impossible–”
“It's not,” Reed said softly. “Not for you. We're just lacking for ideas, that's all.”
“You said it before, and it was true,” I said. “They know every play we have. Every power we can unleash. Every bit of tech. Unless we want to drop bombs on civilian populations – become real terrorists, Reed – and I don't, by the way – I don't know how we win this.”
“Yeah,” Reed sighed, “I don't either. But there's a way. Somewhere. Somehow. We just can't see it yet. Look, if they're ready for our powers...we just need new ones to hit 'em with. Something to bring the element of surprise back into the equation, throw off their planning.”
I stroked my chin. “Yes. But it can't just be one power, Reed. This is the problem. With the Skill Tree Unlocker buttoned up so tight–”
“There's got to be an easier term for that,” Reed said with a faint smile. You couldn't find that serum anywhere. The Chinese may have been helping the cartels to empower every drug addict in the country, but they seemed very careful not to give them the overweening strength that came from having multiple powers, or a super-boosted power. Made me wonder what their game was – other than causing us trouble.
“My point is, powers don't just grow on trees,” I said, “and if you're right – not saying you are, exactly, because that would hurt me, physically – that we need an army...well, finding a ton of superpowered metas all in one place that are willing to come fight with us...” I let my voice drift off.
“You aren't thinking of New Asgard, are you?” Reed asked. “Because Persephone said 'no,' already, that they have to remain neutral and hidden or whatever–”
“Yes, but...she'll say no. Again.” That had been a vexing conversation. Try as I may, I hadn't been able to get my great-grandmother to pack up the people of her town and hide somewhere else. “Can't leave,” she'd said, shaking her head. In fairness, Lethe, River, and Hades, had all told me not to bother. “You need my help for something, sweetheart, I'm in,” she'd said, “but I can't leave this place. Not for too long, anyway. Surely not for months or years or however long this war lasts.”
And when I'd asked her – in impolite terms encompassing the length and breadth of my frustration with being a stubbornly intransigent butthead, my great-grandmother, the original Queen of Life, the Underworld, and whatever, she'd smiled, patted me on the knee, and said, in that broad Texas accent, “Don't you have enough on your plate right now?”
I did. I really did. Oblivious of Reed, who was standing there expectantly, I muttered, “Where can I find a metric buttload of metas willing to raise hell and cause damage to the Chinese without stooping to recruiting cartel armies or scraping every NarcAnon meeting from Anaheim to Savannah...?”
The answer hit me like a punch to the skull, and I almost had to sit down.
“What?” Reed asked. “You've got that look on your face, like you either just had a breakthrough, or someone kicked you in the brown eye.”
“Maybe both,” I said. “Because I just thought of a place where there's a whole lotta metahumans with powers who are plenty willing to fight...” I grimaced. “...I'm just not sure if they're willing to fight for me...since most of them have already fought against me.”
Reed's soul just sank. “You cannot be serious.”
“Yep,” I said, and I was already on the move, stalking through the halls to the plastic-coated transit room, where Taxi was waiting, reading one of those Middle Eastern cooking magazines of his. When I entered, he looked up expectantly. Taciturn guy, this one. “Taxi...I need you to check the status of USGF Ravenport.” Somehow, in spite of my nerves, I felt...resolved. Like I'd made a decision. “I want to make a trip to the new Cube.”
“Sienna,” Reed said, “the people you're talking about – they're locked up for a reason. They're criminals. Many of them have tried to kill us, with varying levels of malice and success, over the last several years. How the hell are you going to persuade them to help you now, when you know you're dragging them into a damned-certain trap?”
“Pretty simple,” I said, watching Taxi create a portal just large enough to peer through. “I'm not going to give them any other options.”
CHAPTER TEN
“You're going to form a Suicide Squad,” Reed said, shaking his head, as Taxi started to open a portal. Not a big one; just wide enough to peer through, as a blast of seriously processed air blew through, stirring the plastic hangings all around the transit room.
“Well, I'm not going to sell it to them that way,” I said, “but...yeah.”
Taxi peered through the almost-pinhole into USGF Ravenport. I had no idea where Ravenport was; almost no one did, and I was hoping that extended to the Chinese government, and enough levels of our government that they hadn't ferreted it out yet. When we'd made our grand exodus from the CIA, before destroying the building in the most blazing-est of glories, J.J. had uploaded a computer virus into the US government servers that had crashed their entire system, erasing everything from federal payroll to the Bureau of Prisons files.
Hopefully, that massive knowledge loss included the top-secret location of the federal prison for metahumans. It had certainly been among the most closely guarded secrets, given I'd been CIA Director and hadn't been briefed on its location.
Taxi looked back at us, nodded, and then started to widen the portal. When it was broad enough, I stepped through, Reed behind me, into the confined world of America's metahuman prison.
We found ourselves standing in a newly composed prison cell block, with a concrete courtyard at its center. The air held an extremely filtered scent, like fresh air was just a dream and a memory. In the center of the massive cell block, I could hear a rising tide of cacophony coming from around me as the prisoners began to react to the most interesting thing that had happened to them in some time, apparently.
“Agent Nealon,” said the nearest guard with a nod of respect. “You want me to call down the warden?”
“Hold on that,” I said, eyeing him suspiciously. He wasn't making any sudden movements, didn't seem to be angry, or surprised, or upset at my appearance. “Do you live on the premises here? Or do you go home at night?”
He smiled, giving me a very patronizing, “Are you crazy?” sort of look. “Guards live on the premises, ma'am. It's required, part of the contract when we sign up. Tour of duty here is two years, with no furloughs.” He puffed out his chest a little bit. “I'm the most senior guard class, my time's about up in about nine months. Figure I'll maybe re-sign, because of the bonus. One more tour, I'll be able to retire on half-pay and do a whole lotta nothing for the rest of my life.”
“Interesting,” Reed muttered. Because it was; four years of work and then able to retire? That sounded suspiciously lucrative. “So you haven't been home in over a year?”
The guard shook his head. “No visits home, no contact. Once you're here, you're here. That's the deal. Keeps us focused.”
“So no one has come from the outside world?” I asked. “No new guard classes?”
“Not for a couple months now,” he said, raising his eyebrows slightly. “Figured maybe you were falling down on the job.” He grinned, which swiftly vanished. “Why? Something going on out there we should know about?”
“Call the warden down,” I said, then turned away from him. “I need to have a chat with him.” Looking around the cells, I saw...so many familiar faces. Strolling to the perimeter cells, I stopped first next to the most familiar of faces. “How's it going, June?”
“Like shit.” A lean, athletic girl with freckles and strawberry blond hair stared back at me. June Randall. Once upon a time, she'd been the textbook definition of toxic. Still was, in a literal sense; her powers were creating toxic purple gas. “You're not looking so hot, either, Nealon. Maybe I should be asking you what's up.”
“My blood pressure and the aggregate threat level of the world,” I said.
“Uh huh,” June said, clenching the bars with her long fingers. “Any chance I'm gonna get out of here anytime soon?”
“I'm actually about to talk to the warden about that very thing,” I said as I looked past her to a woman with no arms. “How are you holding up, Drusilla?”
A terribly pale, raven-haired girl named Drusilla Cross stared back at me; she looked generally terrible, especially considering I'd taken one of her arms in Los Angeles the first time we met and the other in Minneapolis, just before she would have nuked the city. “Fine,” was all she said, though she didn't look particularly bitter as she said it. Just...tired. Of all the people in this place, she was the one I probably felt worst for. She'd never meant to kill anyone, but her power was nuclear radiation, and she couldn't control it for shit.
“I'm fit as a fiddle, Nealon, before you even ask.” Someone peered at me, head partially thrust between the bars of the next cell over, Welsh accent like a verbal plague unleashed upon my ears. Her long brown hair was lank, but her spunky attitude wasn't at all affected. Tara Hays; I could feel Reed cringe behind me. “Ready to ride for mayhem if you need some of that, or peace if you're letting out for good behavior.”
“When have you ever been peaceful, Hays?” She'd been responsible for kidnapping my brother while attempting a museum heist masked by a hurricane in Houston. When I'd stirred up a hornet's nest with the cartels, she'd switched sides quickly, doing her absolute best to ingratiate herself to me. That and her easy charm had saved her life. Most people who kidnapped my brother would have ended up wearing their own entrails as a coat. Not Hays. I liked her for some reason. Reed, needless to say, did not feel the same.
“First time for everything, isn't there?” Hays asked, grinning. “Besides, you're not much in the market for peace, Nealon, so I figure if you ever have need of my services, it's not going to be for skills at Tiddlywinks.”
“No, it'd be for your right hook, for sure,” I said, strolling past her to the next cell.
“Mon chére,” Fortune Renard – or Stefan Baudin – said. Not nearly as handsome as he'd looked when he'd had a Rakshasa friend papering over his facial imperfections, he still wore a broad grin and a few days' worth of stubble. I sauntered closer, and he dropped his voice. “Have you, perchance, checked in with my mother lately?”
