Boomerang and Rhino.

I mentioned earlier, we're all drinking buddies, and Aleksei is one of the few people on this planet I'd call a friend. Fred comes close, but he's got a self-preservation streak that's left me hanging a few too many times.

Fred Myers, aka Boomerang, used to be a major league pitcher, and a damned good one too. Spent his entire childhood in Alice Springs, Australia, training and practicing and building up that arm of his. Once he got to the big time, though, he started taking bribes to throw games, and once the bigwigs got wind of it, they drummed him right out. Normally, that would have been the last the world heard of Fred Myers...save for the Secret Empire showing up and making him an offer.

Now, most villains have something happen to them that elevates them from "normal" to "super." Take Doctor Octopus (never, ever, EVER call him "Doc," by the way). He gets four metal arms fused to his body and becomes a master criminal. Or a guy like Hydro-Man, who can turn his entire body into water, the liquid equivalent of the Human Torch. And in the case of Rhino, he had a super suit bonded directly to his skin that turned him into a walking M-1 tank.

Guys like Boomerang, though...that's all natural. He never drank a serum, or got hit by lightning, or got a blood infusion from an irradiated cousin. He trained his ass off for years to get as good as he did at throwing a baseball. The Secret Empire recognized this, and said "hey, you want to come work for us? We think you can do something with that talent you've spent years building up." And Fred did.

I think that's why I get along with Fred, even if we've cut and run on each other throughout our criminal careers. Hey, I won't lie, I've left him twisting in the wind once or twice. But, like him, I did everything myself to become a villain. I built my gloves, I designed my suit, and I did it all by myself, the technical equivalent to spending your childhood throwing a baseball through a hollowed-out soup can. For all of Fred's flaws, he's a planner, someone who takes the time to think things out and not just break down the damn wall to rob a bank. I definitely respect that.

So the Empire outfits Fred with a stupid looking costume (the blue-and-purple motif I could stand, but adding those big boomerangs...then again, I ran around with a quilt for a good chunk of my career) and a whole bunch of neat toys. He has his standard boomerang, which can give you a damn nasty bump on your head. Then he got his razorangs, boomerangs with edges so sharp, they'll give you a nasty wound INSIDE your head, as the sap on the bus found out. Screamerangs. Gasarangs. Bladerangs...think a flying buzzsaw. And shatterangs, with enough explosive force to knock over an SUV. Remember how I said earlier that most people hear 'Boomerang' and think of a kid's toy? Doctor Octopus has four cybernetic arms fused to him that can throw around a Mack truck. Electro can shoot lightning bolts from his hands and not break a sweat.

Boomerang? He...throws stuff?

That normally lasts until they see him in action, using his jet boots (supplied by Justin Hammer, who also upgraded his weapons and keeps him stocked. They also fixed that damn suit of his to not look so stupid) to fly through the air and nail people from 30 yards away, putting one of his "toys" dead smack between the eyes.

It's impressive.

Of course, you want impressive, watch Rhino at work. Give him a head of steam and he'll knock an SUV clear into New Jersey.

Aleksei was a poor Russian immigrant who came to America alone, no skills, no family here stateside, nothing. Naturally a big guy, when one of the Eastern European syndicates needed a collection agent, or a bouncer, or just someone to beat the crap out of someone, Aleksei was the guy they went to see. He wasn't too bad at it, either, which is probably why that same group signed him up for their attempt to create their own "Super Soldier," a Captain America for the syndicate. They took Aleksei and bonded this superstrong polymer to his skin. I don't know the exact specifics (I'm an engineer, damn it, not a polymer scientist) but it gave him super strength, speed, and stamina. The horns on top of his suit were an afterthought, but they're sharp enough to cut through enhanced steel. He acted at the mob's enforcer for a long time, until he crossed paths with the Hulk and got his ass kicked by the jolly green giant. That would have been the end of it, but just like the Secret Empire found Boomerang, the Leader found Aleksei. Next thing you know, Rhino's stronger, faster, quicker, and going toe-to-toe with the Hulk...and holding his own. They've crossed paths several times since, and while the Hulk always wins, he has to know, somewhere in his brain, that he's been in a hell of a fight.

Rhino's big, he's fast...and he's not too bright.

Now, anyone calls him "retarded" and I'll level-four them right in the balls. But let's be honest, my friend ain't joining MENSA anytime soon. The Leader bombarded him with gamma radiation and, making him damn near invulnerable...and he also runs into things head-first. Don't ask him to figure out the sine/cosine of an angle.

He loves to break things, and he's always for hire to anyone who'll pay him. For all that, Aleksei's a gentle soul and treats people with kindness. I saw him smash through an entire mansion of Italian goons to rescue the daughter of a Serbian mob boss, and he (and me. Two-man job, but he did all the heavy lifting) wrecked the place. Thugs thrown every which way, three walls knocked down, and I'm damn sure the guy owning the place had it bulldozed and rebuilt from scratch. The mafia princess, though, he kept apologizing to her for the noise as I'm blasting away anyone getting close to us, and when he turned the girl back over to her father, Aleksei sat there and waved goodbye as they drove away. Tonight, he was late to the Bar With No Name because he had to stop at a little Russian bakery to pick up a birthday cake for me. Two days prior, he and Wonder Man had smashed up a good bit of Hell's Kitchen during a brawl, and tonight he shows up with a cake.

Fred? Always looking for the angles, the perfect place to put a curveball. The man went in dutch on a stolen box of steaks for my birthday, for Christ's sake.

And these are the guys I'm stuck while the world goes to hell.

X

Marie and I made it to Houston Street without any major problems. This part of Lower Manhattan was pretty clear of those things...

Zombies.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and throw out the 'z' word now. Zombies. The walking dead. I'll go into detail in a minute, but in case you haven't figured it out by now, all over the world, the dead were getting back up and going after the living. For now, that's all you need to know.

Anyway, we had a couple blocks to go from 10th Avenue to Houston Street. There was a few of those things shambling around the streets, but none of them got close enough for me to worry about. Four nights had given me a solid grasp on when to use my gloves and when to just pass on by the other side. Marie was pretty brave about the whole deal. Once we started going across 9th, she was trotting along with me instead of being pulled along. I heard her gasp a few times when she saw a zombie, but I just kept her hand squeezed in my glove and made sure we were moving forward. She didn't pester me with questions, or ask me where we were going, or otherwise do anything but keep her head down and her mouth shut.

ConEdison had kept the power on during the "epidemic," as the news kept calling it. So as I glanced toward the Battery, I could see a lot of the taller buildings still had their lights on. Nobody was home down that way, however. The commercial district around Ground Zero had emptied that first night, with everyone fighting to get home to their families and loved ones even though the government had told everyone, initially, to stay behind closed and locked doors no matter where they were. Yeah, that worked. The phrase "mad panic" would barely describe what happened all across the Big Apple. The commercial and industrial districts, which I did my best to stick to, were mostly abandoned. Any time anything crisis-like happened in New York City, the place erupted as people tried to grab whatever they could. Iron Man and Captain America throwing down in Brooklyn had led to people grabbing Blu-Ray players, cell phones, laptops here in Manhattan. When the Hulk showed up and started tearing apart Manhattan, I made a relative fortune selling the emergency food and water in my hide out to a couple of Lehman Brothers bankers.

Now, though...the first night, people had packed the streets, and the networks showed stores getting gutted in between showing people getting gutted. By the second night, the zombies were snacking on the looters. After that, only the really desperate or fucking crazy stepped outside.

Aside from the burning building back on 10th, and a few car crashes, this part of Manhattan could have passed for any typical night. The normal sounds of traffic and sirens, though, had been replaced with the occasional burst of gunfire, with concentrated staccatos coming from Midtown, probably from the S.H.I.E.L.D. cordons that were set up around Central Park, the biggest (and from what I had heard, one of the few left functioning) rescue station in the city.

So why wasn't my ass heading up that way?

Because, from the TV, there were thousands of those ghouls pushing against the barricades surrounding the park

No way in hell was I going to try to lead everyone through those things. What I was doing was keeping everyone safe, secure, and non-infected, and I wasn't going to change horse in mid-stream.

There were a few fallen bodies scattered around Houston Street Station. Most of them showed signs of blunt trauma directly to the head, with big red splotches staining the pavement and sidewalks. Messy as anything, but when Rhino stomps that big foot directly onto their craniums, it put those things down for good. The steps leading down were clear of the ghouls. I turned to Marie at the top of the steps, and pointed downwards. She gave me a puzzled look, stealing a glance towards the underground station. "Rescue station down there?"

I shook my head. "No...a friend of mine will take you to one. He's waiting for us."

"In the metro? But those..."

Before she could continue, a moan came from nearby. I didn't take the time to figure out where, what, and why, I just grabbed Marie by the hand. "Move," I said in a harsh, quiet register, "the longer we're up here, the more likely those things will find us." I pulled her along, almost causing her to lose her balance. Two flights of steps led to the pedestrian area. The cash machine in the corner had been ripped open, and the messaging system was running the same message it had for the past three nights. "ALL STATIONS ARE CLOSED. NO TRAINS ARE RUNNING AT THIS TIME." Scattered on the floor was a mass of twenty dollars bills, bus transfers, and several briefcases and purses.

We both heard the moan again, accompanied by a shuffling noise. Whatever was up there was making its way towards the top of the steps. I looked over at Marie, who was staring back at me with widened eyes. She wasn't shaking, but she knew what was up there, and what it might mean if it saw us.

I put a finger to my mask before gently guiding her away from the steps. The tunnel leading to the station platforms was too far away. If we made a run for it, there was a chance that whatever was up there could hear us, and might decide to come investigate. And there was also a chance it might see us, which meant that it would decide to investigate, and probably bring a whole bunch of friends with it...

There was a little niche, between two Metrocard machines. I pointed to it and told Marie, "hide. Go!" She moved a second later then I had ordered, but she made her way over. I winced at every slap her shoes made against the tile floor. Myself, I moved to the steps again, pressing against the wall at the bottom. Out of the sight of the steps. But in line of the sight to the rounded security mirror that was placed on the side of the stairwell, perfectly situated for commuters to see if any nefarious types were camping out. I pressed flat against the wall, back first, and stood rock still. The shuffling was easily audible, and it wasn't more then a few seconds before the shuffler shuffled into view. I couldn't make out too many details via the convex mirror, but by the way it limped, and slowly turned in place, anyone would know it was a zombie.

And it was looking for me. Or Marie. Or any other living human being.