Crashed on the floor when I moved in
This little bungalow with some strange new friends
-Vanessa Carlton, "White Houses"
Alex Cole finds himself in on the second island, the Warrens. He also finds himself surrounded by the Watch, who have guns drawn from safely out of range. Cole is weakened and drained, and doubts he can get all of them.
A piece of rebar comes out of nowhere and spears one of the soldiers clean through the chest.
Turns out that both Cole and the Watch are being attacked by, well, homeless men. Homeless men who can use strange powers to turn junk into weapons. And, really, they're after Cole. The Watch is just in the way.
While the Watch engage, Cole sneaks away. He finds a place to hole up, an abandoned hardware store.
The guy who owned the place is lying inside. He took a blast shard to the chest. Well, through.
After he calls Zeke and learns how to secure the joint, the place is secure. Only Alex can enter.
Zeke explains that the Warrens used to be a company town created by a guy called Erasmus Warren. When he died, the company assets were split roughly between his son and his reclusive German business partner, Aldrick Hueber. A ways down the line, the son's descendant, Alden McMullen, formed Gentek. Meanwhile, Hueber's descendant, the equally-reclusive Howard Kessler, is in charge of the Kessler group of companies, which has their fingers in just about every pie. KG sometimes works with Gentek, sometimes against it.
The Kessler group is so mysterious they don't even have a corporate motto.
"I mean," Zeke says, "who does that?"
Cole finds an engineer who helps him lower the bridge. He has to defend the location against the strange homeless people. They're called Dust Men, or "Dusties", for short. Act with a quasi-religious fervor, want to keep their little kingdom isolated.
They mutter and scream about "blessed weapons", have worse aim than the Reapers or soldiers, and prefer shotguns and close-range ambushes. Rely much on magnetic 'scrap' shotguns and throwables, like molotovs and IEDs. When they do fire regular guns, the bullets hurt more, and Cole can detect a strange energy field. And some of them have strange magnetic powers.
Zeke looks at the Dustie rebar, but as far as can tell, it's just normal rebar.
Something's Conduit in the city of Empire.
Also, they're more likely to get civilians killed. The Reapers, by contrast, focused on their targets.
Cole escorts a hospital bus from the first island to the hospital in the Warrens, while the Dusties shoot at it.
Cole's contact is a limping, unshaven, grumpy doctor with permanent stubble and a cane, named Greg, which the was still a topical reference back in 2011. He was on vacation, and needed a specialist to look at his motorbike, so he crossed from Jersey. He says "So you're the terrorist?" Alex tenses. "I thought you'd be taller."
The Dust men start attacking the bus. Greg goes "Hey, Sparky! I think they're shooting at you!"
Cole says "Yeah, I kinda figured that out!"
"No, I mean you, specifically! They're not attacking the bus!" Cole tests the theory; Greg's right. After they actually get the bus across the bridge, the Dusties start attacking the bus itself too. "The Voice of Alden says to prune the weeds!"
When they reach the hospital, a strange man, clearly some sort of leader of the Dust Men, picks up the bus and throws it onto the roof of the hospital, then leaves.
Several people fall out during this. Most die. Team Cole races to save who they can from the roof and the now-destroyed parts of the hospital.
Zeke took a picture of the strange man, who the Dusties kept calling "Alden", and he quickly figures out that the dude is Alden McMullen.
When Alden lifted the bus, Greg fell out and crawled to the bench.
"This is the second-worst vacation I've ever had."
Alex asks "What was the first?"
"It involved a midget and a sombero, and that's all I can say without the State Department getting mad at me." Beat. "Seen my cane?"
The 49th precinct tries to arrest Alden, the King of Rags and Tatters. Cole ignores the guy hanging from a lampost for stealing food. It's not that he wants the guy lynched, but he doesn't have any time.
Cole fights his way into Alden's shantytown, which used to be a park. He does pretty well for himself until he meets the Armoured Conduits and Golem Conduits. He does manage to vamp a Golem operator, and get Electro-lift.
In the process of getting his tail handed to him, Cole realizes one of the Dusties is only pretending to fire. His safety isn't even off. And he's not ritually mutilated like the others. He says he was conscripted.
Also, Cole and Moya note the tower Alden's building.
Since he got beat, Zeke and Cole decide to form a ragtag band of Conduit misfits. Cole also finds some blast shards attached to a Kessler blood sample, along with a file about it. Thing is, the file was last checked out before the blast. Someone left it there for Cole.
Mikey's transfer to the Watch is finalized, and she meets another woman named Cara Rosetti. She also meets the quartermaster, and quips "So...is there some sort of catalogue I can flip through?"
-/-
So all you fill the streets it's appealing to see
You wont get out the county, 'cos you're bad and free
-Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc."
The Dusties arm up a bus and try to shoot their way out of the city. Moya finds a quiet corner to call Cole. Randall isn't quite considering the nuclear option, but he's still considering a very...decisive response if the bus escapes. Moya tells Cole to stop it. Or else.
Cole stops it.
-/-
Alex sneaks into a base, formally a Gentek satellite facility, after 1W abandons it. Finds evidence a Kessler subsidiary is working on some sort of simulated muscle and actuators. Also, they secretly bought Gentek at some point. Very recently. Just before or after the blast, whichever is creepier
-/-
The cops need Alex to help them take down a Reaper base back on the first island, the Neon. They set up in a high-school chem lab.
"Except for the part where I'm a wanted man," Cole says.
"What, like the Mayor is going to fire us?" the commanding officer says.
Zeke snorts. "Y'all'll be heroes just for sticking around."
But they do ask Cole not to use his visible electric powers. Just his, y'know, super-strength and healing and martial arts. And if he puts on rubber gloves, a ski mask, and a vest, he looks just like a cop.
After they're done, Zeke wonders, again, where Cole got the Jason Bourne skills from.
-/-
Alex and Zeke work with the police and a slowly growing ragtag bunch of conduit misfits to assemble a force to take on Alden McMullen, his "Dust Men" and his mysterious tower.
Alden's forces have mysterious pieces of metal in their heads. Our heroes eventually realize Alden can alter the magnetic fields in people's brains to a) give them powers, b) cause hallucinations, and c) become slavishly loyal to him. Of course, unless you're in his inner-circle, you just get the old-fashioned indoctrination.
Depsite Alex's alleged, y'know, terrorism, and the Voice of Empire insisting it's all an act, his reputation slowly increases with the cops as he helps them with the Dust Men. And thus, with the public.
A recurring theme for this arc is 'collateral damage'. Since he's working with the cops, Cole has to deal with the consequences of his actions more instead of running back to base when the job's done. He tries to be more selective, but circumstances force his hand.
For example, he goes to recruit an intelligence agent ("intelligence officer", the spy insists) with a metal arm that's totally not a ripoff of the guy from Dark Sector. Even though it can throw a three-pointed spinning thingy. Totes not a ripoff.
The spy - I mean, officer - is working out of a hotel, spying on the Dusties. The hotel also has a bunch of families squatting in it, some of them people who couldn't commute off the islands after the attack. When the Dusties ambush Cole and the not-spy, they don't care about the innocent people they hurt.
And there's the time he gets ambushed and half-exploded by maybe even just angry citizens calling for "help". They kill/main the cops he's with, dismiss them as collateral damage. There's a homeless guy nearby, trying to keep his head down. He looks scared. Cole reaches out to him-
And sucks his energy. Leaves him comatose and catatonic. He's disabled for a minute or two by the memories, and the ambushers close in for the kill.
Miiistake.
Trish even chews him out for the damage he's doing. He, hurt and defensive, snipes back and leaves.
The Watch sees this, and has the bright idea to offer a bounty on Cole. Or, more accurately, to remind the public about the bounty. He is the most wanted man in America, after all.
So now the cops are getting crap for supporting him - and not all of them do support him - lots of the public is gunning for him, and he still has to figure out what's up with the Dust Men.
What's up is the giant tower, despite the military's best efforts to bomb it, shell it, and sneak specops soldiers into it. Alden can somehow create a shield to deflect impacts, and the soldiers keep being spotted. And why does he keep kidnapping engineers, like the guy who helped Cole lower the bridge between the first two islands?
Back at the military base, Captain Cross and General Randall discuss what their superiors are saying. Apparently, the brass is seriously considering unleashing the "D-Codes". Or, if that doesn't work, "going hot". Cross insists going nuclear would be just as much a defeat as whatever Alden is up to. Randall agrees, personally, but 'ours is not to reason why'.
Moya tells Cole Washington is a 'tad concerned'.
More character development scenes with Mikey.
While Cole is lounging somewhere or having character moments with Team Cole, someone bursts in.
"The Dust Men kidnapped Zeke!"
Alex sighs. "...Of course they did."
-/-
We happy few, we band of brothers
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.
- William Shakespeare,' "Henry V'"
-/-
Alden leaves Zeke in a room with plans, tells him he needs Zeke to fix something. Zeke is impressed by the sheer charisma emanating from the man, makes a few quips about tetanus from all the rusty metal. And also, y'know, refuses to help. Alden plans to brainwash him, but something interrupts him. Something like Alex knock-knocking on Alden's front door with a whole lot of his new friends.
That would about do it.
At one part in the arc, Alex learned THUNDER DROP, which is the ability to create a shockwave when falling from a great height. He figured out it's not actually about falling, it's about momentum. Such as, say, having someone drive him until they reached high speeds, and then catapulting him forward, at Alden's tower.
That would about do it.
(Zeke built the catapult as part of their plans to assault the Tower. Someone - it might not be Zeke, but someone - wrote "The Colepault" on the side.)
As Team Cole climbs the (now damaged) Tower, Zeke breaks out and finds/fashions a radio. Says the Tower is actually a giant mind-control antenna. Alden's old-fashioned indoctrination wasn't so old-fashioned after all; he can push on people's minds if they're in range, and when he uses it on more people, it becomes more effective.
Alden be praised.
And if Alden can finish and activate the tower - which he's very close to doing even without Zeke - he might be able to brainwash the entire island. Maybe the whole city. With that many people, he can just overrun the military. Heck, some of the converts would i the military. They would all speak nothing but the word of Alden.
Did you notice the Tower of Babel references? Large tower, language, Christian religious influences? You might not have noticed, because the story is just so gosh-darn subtle.
Moya hears this, says Cole just kicked a hornet's nest. The brass is scrambling the bombers now. This is now a timed mission.
Cole fights his way up to the penthouse, so to speak, and confronts Alden. Alden has a seemingly endless horde of fanatics - including suicide bombers - to throw at Cole.
Alden keeps changing golem "forms". Elephant. Bird. Dog. Turtle And so on. Sometimes he summons smaller versions. And as he fights Cole, he shapes the environment around them to his will. He rants about how he was cast out of his own company by Kessler.
He wandered the streets, homeless and mad, until he was "elevated" by the Blast. The Watch caught him and turned him over to Gentek for study. Until Alex sprung him. Nice job breaking it, hero.
The theme of the transformations here is "things Alden saw as a child." The animals he uses are his childhood toys. Or maybe he's just an indecisive furry.
He also likes to pull up sheets of metal and poles, in order to ground Alex's electric attacks.
The fanatics slow down, and eventually stop. Turns out Team Cole has been 'backstage', blocking off the cultists. And now they emerge to help Cole with Alden.
Alden's last form is an idealized human male. Like Michelangelo's David, or Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, or something by one of the other two Ninja Turtles. A giant, walking, scrap statue.
And when Team Cole beats the stuffing out of him and pulls him out of it, he's a shriveled, weak, pathetic old man.
He pulls out a pistol, and tries to shoot himself. Alex uses his precision-slowdown-sniper power to shoot the gun out of his hand.
Alex could vamp him. Could just suck out his energy, maybe get some new powers. And more importantly, he'd get his memory. He'd learn what Alden learned.
Or he could just knock him out and walk away.
He chooses "knockout".
The spy suggests shooting Alden out of hand. Cole says "we're going to take him to the cops."
"The cops."
"Yes."
"In their police station."
"Yes."
"With the cells made of metal."
"Ye- Oh."
Alex gets Moya to call off the strike, since Alden is in custody. They fashion a white flag, and wait for the black helicopter to show up. Much to Zeke's delight-slash-fear.
Off the chopper steps Captain Cross, and he shakes Cole's hand, and thanks him. He's exactly Cole's height. Reminds Cole that Cole is wanted, but says they can let it slide. This time.
And off they go.
Zeke wonders what the government is going to do with Alden. Cole doesn't know. And he's too tired to care. End chapter.
Cross arrives at base after dropping off Alden...somewhere. General Randall wants to know where. Cross says he doesn't have to answer him. In fact, he doesn't have to answer tohim, either. He's assuming operational command of all operational military operations related to the situation, by order of the President.
Randall can either get in line, or get off.
He chooses 'get off'.
As the Watchmen escort Randall to the brig, Cross turns to Moya...
And smiles at her.
She's terrified.
Team Cole prepare to move on to the third island, Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the Watch is getting rowdy cleaning up the holdout Dusties, and runs Cole ragged with their newfound, shaky alliance. At one point, one of them says into a radio that he doesn't "feel comfortable with this, sir. I mean, they're innocents-" And Cross cuts him off with "That's an order, Private."
Presently, Cole is faced with a scenario, which the Watch needed time to set up. On one building, Trish, dangling from a chain attached to a crane. On the other, a handful of doctors, some of them from Gentek, potentially with valuable info, in the same situation. Above them both, big, conspicuous bombs. If he blasts one bomb, the other goes off and drops people to their death.
Clock's ticking.
Cole does some introspection. He climbs up to Trish, and ties her to the gantry behind the bombs with a fire hose. So even if the bombs go off, she'll be safe. Theoretically. She says she's sorry, Cole tells her to shut up.
He climbs to the roof, makes a running leap, and uses Precision shot. Time slows down, and he blasts both bombs simultaneously. Then he lands on the opposite building, and smiles. He did it!
And then the bombs on the bases of the cranes, the ones he didn't notice because they were deliberately hidden, all go off.
Cole gets to watch as Trish dies.
By the time he gets to her, she's fading fast. She tries to say something, but there's too much damage. He can't even heal her.
While he's holding her, he notes, absurdly, that her roots are blonde again. "Baby, baby, you didn't do anything wrong. Baby? C'mon Trish, quit playing. Baby, wake up. Please, Trish, wake up."
Over the radio, Captain Cross says "I'm sorry that had to happen, Alex."
The word, the single word, tears its way from his Alex's lips, ragged and hoarse. "Why?"
"Sometimes if you try to save everyone, you can't save anyone. Sometimes you need to roll the hard six."
Cross, over and out.
Cole gently lays Trish's body down, and stares at nothing in particular. Wishes all of the Watch had one neck and he had his hands around it, especially Cross.
Her roots are blonde again.
Something hot, very hot builds in him, he screams his rage to the heavens.
And the heavens scream right back.
A bolt of lightning comes out of a clear blue sky and strikes the ground. Not one of Cole's normal shocks, no, this is the real thing, full-sized and complete with thunderclap. Windows shatter, dogs bark.
Cole lets it impact, lets the shock pass over him, then keys his radio. "Cross? I know you're listening."
Silence.
"I'm going to kill you."
END ARC 2