"Still no sign of danger," Mecha-Man reported, veering slightly higher and flying through the cloud to emerge into the bright sunshine above. The new jetpack hummed quietly, barely making enough noise to be heard over the traffic sounds from the London streets below. A breath of wind picked up, pushing the cloud to the east, and Mecha-Man adjusted his course to compensate, trying to stay just above it – the only cloud in an otherwise-cloudless sky. Rotor noise sounded from somewhere just south of the Thames, close to St. Thomas' Hospital; the HUD on his helmet highlighted the helicopter in blue, along with its most direct route to the hospital. Quickly, Mecha-Man descended back into the cloud, his visibility dropping to less than a meter. Cautiously, he poked his head below the clouds, frowning.
"Keep looking," Antoine instructed him curtly. There was a pause, and he let out a groan. "Come on!"
"Still not answering your calls?" Mecha-Man asked, double-checking his HUD to find the target's location.
"Just let me know if anything changes," retorted Antoine.
"Well, she's inside," Mecha-Man told him, turning his head slightly. "Last I saw the redhead, she was heading west from the apartment building. I don't see her anymore, though." He rose back into the cloud. "No sign of any… unwanted visitors." A flash on his viewscreen caught his eye, and he let out a breath. "Is the backup battery recharged yet?"
There was a pause. "It is at 94%," Antoine answered. "Why?"
"It's almost time to switch them out."
Antoine let out a low curse. "Has it really been four hours?"
"Affirmative, Boss." Mecha-Man winced. "And I really need a break after spending the last… God only knows how long… in this suit."
"And every minute you are not at your post, there is a risk that we will miss something," Antoine pointed out.
"And if my battery dies while I'm in the air, or I pass out from hunger or thirst, just when she needs my help…"
Antoine sighed heavily. "I will dispatch a drone," he finally agreed. "Remain on station for another five minutes until it arrives. Then you can return for a break."
"It had better not take too much longer than that," Mecha-Man warned him. "I might not have enough juice to get back."
"Already on its way," Antoine assured him.
Mecha-Man nodded to himself and took a deep breath, trying to keep himself calm as he checked the suit's HUD once more. Traffic along the Strand had picked up slightly, with a little more going west than east now – likely toward the pubs and restaurants in that direction. The two of them had been in London for four days already, and he had spent almost every waking moment enclosed in the suit, flying up and down the length of the Thames, hiding in the fog and clouds and continuously scanning the city streets below. By now, he could almost time King's College's class schedule down to the minute, including exactly when the students would leave each building after a given class. A few small groups of people were visible on the university grounds, most appearing to be university students. He saw the traffic patterns in his sleep. And with another day or less, he might know the names of every student living in that apartment building.
Twice he had been to London now, and both times he had spent more time in the suit than out of it.
He tried to stretch his neck, legs, waist, and shoulders as best he could, still hovering within the meager cover of his cloud, and waited for the drone to arrive. Below, a pair of pleasure craft slowly wended their way upstream along the river, passing the London Eye and giving the ships moors alongside it a wide berth. A small green dot appeared on his HUD, indicating the drone's location, and Mecha-Man pinged it for confirmation. Once more, Mecha-Man dipped a hand below the cloud, taking in as much sensor data as he could, before shooting out above the cloud and veering east. Rising higher into the air, he followed the river a couple of blocks before making a sharp turn and dropping into a narrow alleyway just north of the river. Landing with a clunk beside the panel van parked halfway down the alley, he hit a control to release the suit's back hatch, wriggling out and stumbling as he reached the pavement. Antoine had already attached a pair of cords to the suit's body and helmet and started removing the detachable battery pack. Gaston groaned, rolling his neck with a wince.
"There is a bathroom through that door," Antoine told him briskly, turning his focus back to his tablet. "The suit will be ready again in less than five."
Gaston nodded, cautiously pushing the indicated door open. "If you have a sandwich or something, I can be ready by then, too."
"Only a hamburger and water, I'm afraid."
"At this point, I'd take anything."
Within three minutes, Gaston had returned to find Antoine in the process of reattaching the spare battery pack, the other battery already plugged into its charger. Antoine let out a frustrated grunt and smacked the side of the suit. Letting out a breath, Gaston grabbed the pack and wrestled it slightly to one side, rotating it a couple degrees in the process. As the pack slipped into its housing, Antoine slumped against the wall.
"Thank you. I…"
"You don't need to explain anything, Boss," Gaston told him, rummaging around in the back of the van until he found a still-warm paper bag and pulled out a couple cheeseburgers, ripping the wrapper off of one, he took an enormous bite. "After this last week, I'm pretty jumpy, too."
Antoine looked down at his phone, his hand trembling slightly, and sighed heavily. "If she would just answer her phone…"
"You keep saying that maybe we could go if she would talk to you, but you still haven't explained why," Gaston pointed out, downing most of a water bottle in a single gulp.
Antoine seemed not to have heard him. "If anything happens to her…"
Gaston let out a breath, putting a hand on Antoine's shoulder. "I get it – believe me. If it were Richard, there is nothing I wouldn't do." He frowned, his stomach clenching. Richard… He had actually been… excited when this started, though he had barely understood any of what was happening…
"Sorry," Antoine apologized, shaking his head and pushing himself back up to his feet. Turning back to the suit, he started quickly checking all the connections, too fast. "I just – Adine still has not forgiven me for putting us through all of this. And if anything happened to Bridgette…"
"Hey, you don't need to explain anything to me," Gaston assured him, leaning against the brick wall behind him and watching over Antoine's shoulder. "Colette wasn't exactly happy to find out, either, though she's at least been a little understanding." He frowned, his eyes darting up and down the alleyway. "But still – if they knew we were here…"
Antoine hummed darkly, rapping on the suit. "Since they wouldn't do anything, it falls to me…"
And yet I'm the one in the suit, Gaston didn't say. "I'm here, too," he pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes – of course. I apologize." Antoine turned toward him and nodded. "I do appreciate your decision to stick together on this."
"Considering that I wouldn't be here without you and the suit, there's no way I wasn't going to stick with you," Gaston replied. He let out a breath. "Let's just make sure your daughter stays safe."
"Thank you." Antoine glanced back at his tablet, his brows furrowed. "The drone has not picked up any unusual activity – no sign either of Bridgette or the roommate." He shook his head in annoyance. "I wish we had some idea when – or even if – there was a threat."
"Maybe there isn't one," Gaston tried, though without putting any force behind the words.
"Do you really believe that?"
Gaston crawled back inside the suit. "Not even a little bit." With a sigh, he booted the suit back up and quickly ran through the startup sequence, confirming the power levels and ordnance load-out – though he hadn't used any of his missiles or chi-putty since fighting the Tarasque. A quick check of his HUD, and he rocketed up into the air, skimming along just below the skyline to the end of the alley before putting on a sudden burst of speed and shooting straight up into a cloudbank.
The sun had lowered substantially in the sky, casting long shadows across the city stretched out below him. A few more clouds had appeared, these ones lower in altitude – the night could turn wet. Carefully, Mecha-Man flew from cloud to cloud, working his way back toward the King's College campus, and the green dot indicating the drone that was still flying a figure-eight pattern between the Strand Campus and the apartment building across the street. Joining the drone, Mecha-Man shifted to hover, scanning the traffic along the Strand for any familiar vehicles. Foot traffic along the sidewalk had picked up substantially since he left, though he could already see the signs of the late-night slowdown. A group of teenagers kicked around a football on the campus yard; a gaggle of young women stood outside the apartment building, laughing about something for a moment before walking down the Strand to the west. Mecha-Man's mouth set in a thin line as he settled in to wait.
Presently, the drone's battery dropped too low and it returned to the control van. Traffic along the Strand tapered off. The boys who had been playing football dispersed. Finally, most of the group of young women returned, missing two of their number. One of the women pulled out a key card and fumbled to open the door, before another took the key from her and swiped it.
"Have you seen her recently?" asked Antoine.
Mecha-Man glanced back at the HUD and shook his head. "She wasn't part of that group when they left," he reported. "Unless she left while we weren't looking, she's still here…" His voice trailed off, and he turned his head slightly when the suit highlighted a young woman with fiery red hair walking along the Strand from the west. A figure emerged from the shadow of a building as she passed it, turning to walk away from her, back in the direction from which she had come. Reaching the apartment building, the woman covered her mouth and yawned before stepping inside. Moments later, the lights turned on in one of the rooms near the middle of the building, only to turn off shortly thereafter. "I think that was the roommate," Mecha-Man reported. "But other than her… nothing." He frowned. "Are you sure we can't call it for the night?"
Antoine sighed heavily. "Not just yet… We can at least wait another hour."
Mecha-Man nodded, dipping back above the cloud cover for a moment before dropping below on the opposite side of the cloud, twisting around to scan the university campus. The university quad had cleared out somewhat, with only a single figure still lingering near the main university building, pacing between two trees. He was just about to rise back out of view when Mecha-Man's suit focused on that figure, a somewhat younger man wearing a long coat beneath which a pair of brown pants was visible. The man turned to glance toward the building opposite before looking at a point east of it. Suddenly, the man turned his face up, looking directly at Mecha-Man. Mecha-Man furrowed his eyebrows, studying him closer on spotting a brown mask covering his eyes. "Hang on…"
"What do you see?"
Mecha-Man dropped even lower, fully emerging from the cloud cover, and drifted to one side to find a better angle. His eyes widened. "Damnit!" he almost shouted. "It's–"
Alarms reverberated through Mecha-Man's helmet, drowning out the rest of the sentence, and the display turned to flashing red. Instantly, the HUD shifted display, zeroing in on a single point to the west, the roof of a building two blocks away. A streak of orange flame appeared in the center of that point, illuminating a face as a piece emerged from it and lanced out toward him at an angle. Mecha-Man wheeled around to face the threat and scanned the building from which the trail began, spinning in midair as he did so, trying to throw off the projectile's targeting profile. Automatically, the suit prepared to fire chaff.
"What's happening!?"
Mecha-Man's mouth clenched shut, all his attention on the readouts flashing across his screen, none of which made any sense. Twisting around perpendicular to the ground, he pointed one arm-cannon in the direction of the rocket's source, hovering halfway between the clouds and the ground, staring down the rocket and waiting for it to strike.
The rocket, however, flew straight past him, slamming into the apartment building beside him with a whining roar that sucked in all the air and released it in a massive burst. A massive explosion rocked one floor, sending a plume of flame and dust out into the air, driven by a tremendous shockwave that shook the building down to its foundation and shattered windows all along that side of the building. Mecha-Man's HUD flared out, temporarily blinding him before the viewscreen could compensate.
"What the hell!?" shouted Antoine.
Mecha-Man's eyes shot wide open as he stared at the devastation. "I–I think that was Bridgette's floor!"
