Chapter 11
"You know, Ash," Henry said into his Bluetooth as he calibrated a stun-grenade, "I can see why your mom likes this whatever-you-call-it. No jitters."
Well, no physical jitters, at least. He saw no reason to tell her that, after a few minutes, the drug had made him so nervous he'd needed to pop a valium just to be able to function. It was not something he would want to take again if he could avoid it, but the lack of the kind of tremors that accompanied most stimulants was still impressive.
"Way better than caffeine," she agreed. "But every drug has its drawbacks. Not sure I want to know what it is on something that works this well."
"Big Guy says he looked it up on the internet. Worst side-effect is some gnarly rash. Other than that, looks like nothing worse than headache and occasional nausea."
"Guess that explains why I've been having to chew Excedrin since I took it."
"Oh, Ash, you want to watch that," Henry warned. "You know you're supposed to limit caffeine intake with your blood-pressure."
"Yeah, and you aren't supposed to take stimulants with your anxiety. Yet here we both are."
He sighed. "Any luck recruiting anyone to help?"
"Most of the people I've talked to are scared to move against the Cabal. Just a couple of folders have signed on so far, but they should be pretty useful for infiltration."
"Oh, very nice. And Tibet is sending us three remote viewers."
"Now that ought to come in handy. Any of the other holdouts confirm?"
"Mexico City's sending us Santiago and Cruz, but Reyes and Vargas flat-out refused to leave their Sanctuary unguarded."
"Fair enough. We could have used Vargas, but Santiago's a better fighter than Reyes. Who else?"
"Braxton and Addison from London. Lloyd, Chan, and Xiang from Hong Kong. Reddy, Patel, and Hazra from Mumbai."
"Sounds good. There are some formidable fighters on that list. How many does that bring us up to?"
"Including you, me, and Magnus, twenty-six. Twenty-three if you take the remote viewers out of the equation."
"Which we'd better. They can wait outside with the getaway drivers, direct the teams from there. Hey! Better still, maybe they can narrow down Will's location so we don't have to stage three separate raids."
"Every remote viewer at our disposal is working on it already. By the time things start coming together, we should at least have established whether the facilities in question are actually Cabal."
"Good thinking, Henry. I can't believe none of us thought of it before."
"Yeah, well none of us have exactly been at our best here, Ash. Rome and London both agree that it's probably a good idea to have our remote viewers try to peg down all Cabal facilities. Pending orders from your Mom, of course. Right now, they're all giving their attention to Will and Cabal members in and around the city."
"Great. Okay, I'm heading down into the tunnels and you know what my cell reception is like down there, so I'll call you again later."
"Deal, Ash. Stay safe."
"You're starting to sound like my Mom, man," she laughed before hanging up.
"Yeah, well, your mom has a point about the kinds of danger you like getting yourself into," he muttered to the empty room.
Sighing, he picked up another stun grenade and got back to work.
0101010
"Well, haven't all of you accomplished a great deal while I was asleep," Magnus remarked, entering Henry's lab.
"Afternoon, Boss. Feeling better?" he asked, peering up at her over the top of the sonic canon. Every surface of his lab was littered with equipment and weapons, with more scattered in piles on the floor around him.
"Much, thank you. However, I warn you against attempting another coup, no matter how bloodless." She picked up a pair of goggles, examining them thoughtfully.
"Oh, those. Just finished them last week. They alternate between night-vision and thermal with the flip of a switch, and the thermal mode is sensitive enough to detect temperature variations through three sheets of drywall. Haven't had a chance to field-test them yet, so I'm not sure how useful that'll be…"
"We should probably leave behind the experimental equipment and rely on what we know works," she told him, picking up a small clear plastic cube with some kind of little mechanism inside.
"You got it," he agreed. "Oh, careful with that. It's a flash-charge that could leave us both blind for the next three days."
"Oh, yes. I seem to recall that Ng used these to good effect in the caves of Belize?"
"Sure did. They should cause a fair amount of pain and disorientation even to surface-dwellers." He handed her a pair of what looked like tinted safety-goggles. "The only wavelength of light they block is the one the flash-charges use, so there's no visual impairment from them."
She slid them on and noted that he was right; there was no visible change to the lighting in the room. She took them off again, nodding her approval.
"It's a wise innovation. Certainly more reliable than having to mentally track the time left to activation and then remember to close your eyes."
"Yeah, well, it seemed good enough at the time. It wasn't my fault some of the other Sanctuaries have heavies who couldn't count to ten without getting distracted."
"No one's blaming you, Henry," she assured him, patting his shoulder. "What do we have in terms of devices intended to disable or render unconscious? I want this carried out with a minimum of bloodshed."
"Fair enough." He picked up a plastic gun-like device. "Problem with a conventional taser is its limited range. This circumvents that by eliminating the need for lead-wires. The electrodes hold their charge until they hit something, then discharge it into the target. Also, I used shaped pulses instead of the traditionally-shaped barbs, which means this'll also take down a guy wearing any body armor graded for less than an M2."
She raised an eyebrow, impressed. "And this has been tested?"
"Oh, yeah. Over ninety percent effective in controlled simulations. Ashley's used them twice in the field and not had a problem. Problem is, I haven't had a chance to build anything other than the one prototype."
"One is better than none."
He nodded. "The Big Guy also has about a dozen regular tasers and about twenty stun-guns, and six hundred tranquilizer rounds. Plus some of those coming in from other locations are bringing their own ordnance."
"Very good. Ashley's had luck with the modified taster in the past, so we'll let her use it this time."
"I'll make a note." He held up another device, a black plastic cube. "I know you said nothing that hasn't been proven in the field, but I think we should really consider using these."
"Is that your EMP generator?"
"Guaranteed to wipe the hard drive of every computer in a two-block radius. I figure, they've had Will almost a week, they must have some dirt on his abnormality. Plus, you know, even if they don't, it'll still be fun."
She smiled. "Wonderful idea, Henry. And I must say how proud I am of the way you and Ashley have conducted yourself throughout this crisis." She smiled at him, squeezing his shoulder.
"Yeah, well…" He shrugged, giving her a shy smile.
"I'll let you get back to work," she offered. "If you require anything, let me know. I'll be in the armory."
"You got it, Boss."
She smiled to herself as she walked from Henry's office to the main armory. Henry and Ashley had both grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, turning from the children she had loved and coddled into independent adults who also happened to be skilled and valuable allies. She could not have wished more from either of them.
Now all they had to do was get Will back in one piece and her strange little family would be together once more. As daunting as the idea of taking on the Cabal was, her faith in Henry and Ashley made her confident that they would succeed in their goal.
"There you are," she greeted Bigfoot as she entered the armory. "Tasers all charged?"