A patrol car was parked diagonally one across the road blocking the highway. It's lights flashing in the descending night time gloom. A second car had come to a halt, it's progress was interrupted by the impromptu roadblock.
An officer, from the Provincial division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stood beside the driver. He was dressed in blues, with a dark cap.
"Give me a break." The American said shaking his head.
"What's your business Sir?" The cop asked. He had the man's passport, and drivers license, giving the documents a once over.
"Like it says on my Press Card – Perry White, Journalist. Is it a crime for guy to try get to where he is going?"
"Where is that exactly?"
"Err thataway." Perry pointed down the road. Covering his vague answer with a smile.
"As you can see Sir, we've had to close the road."
"For why exactly - I mean what's going on?"
The Cop didn't answer. He wore that polite smile, the kind that says I'm watching you, it isn't personal, it's just my job to be suspicious. "Seems you've come a long way, and from where - let's see, ah, New York, to here, for why?"
Perry shrugged. It was his turn to look nonplussed. "Sorry force of habit. I'm not here on business, truth be told, but to experience your famous Canadian hospitality and your wide-open spaces."
The Officer frowned. "So you're telling me that you know nothing about the incident?"
"What incident?" Perry asked. It was a honest question.
"Okay." The Officer relaxed and returned Perry's documents. "Since you're a visitor to our fair land, I'll tell you what the local news guys already know. There's reports of a shooter, one of yours, taking potshots at passing vehicles."
"An American you mean?" Perry played it cool.
"Ah-huh." The Cop nodded. "He and the wife settled here a few years back. Bought himself a good piece of land settled into farming it. Folk says a nice guy by all accounts."
"This farmer, has he hurt anybody?"
"Not that I've heard. An O-Tel truck was hit, but as you can see this fortunately isn't one of the busiest of roads."
Perry had carried out enough interviews in his life to know when the other guy was done talking.
"Well thanks Officer for your help, I appreciate you telling me why my err little outing has been cut short."
"Sorry Sir for any inconvenience, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay."
Perry nodded his appreciation while waving his hand. Back in his car, he pulled around and drove a short distance until he could no longer see or be seen by the Patrol Car.
Reaching to the passenger seat he opened a black attaché case, sliding both clips left and right, and then in a circular motion. The top of the case sprung open revealing a hidden compartment containing a hidden receiver. Picking up the handset he placed a secure call.
"Charles, this is Perry. Looks like I'm too late. It's already started."
-8-
James rode his motorcycle into a hail of bullets. The shooters were not amateurs. The line of fire was accurate and targeted - at him. He and the boy had left the Kent farm passing two O-Tel trucks parked by the side of the road. James pegged the first van as an observation vehicle. The latter appeared unattended. It was a bad sign.
James sniffed the air and Reilly copied him as he so often did. The scent that assailed the hairy biker's nostrils set his teeth on edge. He gunned the throttle and the Hog surged forwards.
The assassins were tucked in hiding, camouflaged behind cover. Shrubs and trees that bordered the road. It was an ambush. James figured his best bet was to push it, drove hard and fast through the shooters and out the other side.
The smell of gunpowder and blood was in the air, his blood.
Bullets slammed into them both, yet despite this Reilly remained quiet. Silent he hung onto the bike, barely breathing, as if he didn't need too. The kid had a cool head and shoulders, James wondered what he was thinking.
He guessed. "This is a hell of a way Kid to find out that your bullet-proof."
As they rolled through the kill zone a small voice whispered. "You're not."
Shots now came from behind them.
"My old bones like lead." James replied. "You'll see."
Bullets slammed into the back of the bike, puncturing the panniers and shredding Reilly's backpack. Clothes peeped through the tares.
"Come on old girl." James spat. The Hog roared, and the sound of gunshots dwindled.
They almost made it, but there was one last operative waiting. He'd run further down the road. Several hundred yards from the main team.
A shell shredded his front tyre, the bike lurched, James pitched over into a slide. Reilly rolled free.
"Run boy!" James shouted as pushed the motorcycle clear hopping quick to one foot shaking the other leg. The twisted limb cracked and fell straight within the ripped bloody jeans. Bullets popped out of his flesh like stones squeezed from a cherry. James raised his hands, knuckles forward, as if ready to box his way out of trouble. Trouble came in the shape of a black clad assassin.
"Wilson you might wear a mask to hide the ugly mug of yours, but you can't hide the smell."
"And here I was thinking I had been smart by standing downwind of you."
"Yeah, well it wasn't enough." James growled. "Are you going to waste more bullets" He asked. "Or are you going to do this old school?"
Wilson laughed, the sound muffled by his mask. He threw down the assault rifle. "I think I was out anyway." He drew a Katana from a scabbard hung across his back. "Time to terminate you James."
"You reckon bub." Olsen snarled and leapt. "Snikt" Claws erupted from his hands, three bony barbs one protruding between each knuckle.
Wilson caught James with cutting up thrust, but not before Oslen's six lengthy claws ripped through the assassins shoulders and chest. Slicing through the black body armour, the Kevlar was just enough to prevent James from eviscerating Wilson.
Olsen smashed his head down with such force that bone cracked. His face discoloured, blood spurted. Wilson was still moving, but now he staggered. The Terminator's sword slid through James' chest seeking his heart. But his legs gave way. Both men went down. Wilson screamed in rage, and carried the shorter man over his head. Sword scraping and taking hold against bone, until weight and momentum pulled the blade free, dropping Olsen face down on the asphalt.
Wilson staggered to his feet, leaning on his sword. "Going to take your head." He gargled.
"Take this." James said as he lashed out with his right rolling away from the blade as it fell. His left hand held his insides in place, with the other he used his claws. James slashed at Wilson's femoral artery. Opening three cuts all the way to the bone of the assassins leg. Using his claws against the other man's femur for purchase James pulled himself upright, as best he could, while forcing Wilson to the road. Olsen stamped on his opponent's head breaking the assassins' Kevlar helmet and cracking the pavement with his skull.
"That's for my motorcycle bub."
James sniffed the air. He he heard a woman's scream. He heard the boy run. Olsen swore, the curse rasped across his lips, leaving speckles of blood. James spat red flem, and holding himself together, one set of claws acting as an impromptu suture, he half ran, half stumbled, back towards the Kent farm.
All the while sniffing, tasting the air.
Grimacing James pulled his claws free from the already binding wound. Blood loss at all but stopped. His rate of accelerated healing was unparalleled, at least among Earth-men.
With each agonising step, each lengthening stride, Olsen moved faster, his gait less awkward. He broke into a run and then sprint closing the distance between the road and the house, his booted feet pounding the fields underfoot as he took the most direct course diagonally back to the farmyard.
As he leapt the familiar creosote tainted wooden fence and equally familiar scent reached him.
"Creed." He growled.
Silver Fox drove along a dirt track with no thought given to mechanical sympathy.
Her passenger winced. "Last time I had a ride like this I was running from the Russians in Afghanistan."
Richard Parker was a former captain in the United States Army Special Forces. Early thirties a handsome but married according to his file; a CIA operative.
"So, you know what you're getting yourself into?" She asked him.
"Your driving or the mission?" Parker asked hanging onto the grab handles, his knuckles white.
The Jeep Cherokee bounced and lurched as she accelerated across the uneven surface. The SUV groaned and complained but that she pressed on even harder. She had reconnoitred this track during her earliest visits to the Kent farm. It enabled her to avoid the main road and unwanted attention.
"What has Nick told you?" Silver Fox asked.
"My orders were to visit Vancouver. From there call on an old friend of my brother who lives in out in the sticks."
"Then you know why Fury asked you to do this."
"Plausible deniability." Richard said. "My family connection. "My older brother served with the target's father, a farmer called Jonathan Kent. Fury sent me to help you with this extraction because my being here is explicable. Canada is friendly but still a foreign power " Parker stated. "Or at least that was to be my cover story, but I get activated early. You know the rest, we meet up and I give you the keys to my truck."
She said. "My car wouldn't have made it this far."
"No kidding." Richard said.
Silver Fox had driven hard and fast from Vancouver shaving precious minutes off the usual one-hour journey time.
"I assume something has changed in the mean time?" Richard suggested.
"Yes yes you could say that." She confirmed.
"Okay -so what do I need to know?"
"How old is your boy?"
Richard frowned. "Peter, he's just six months old – I assume you know that Ms Fox - I'm guessing you've read my file. Why Bring my son into this?"
"Our target for extraction is called Reilly. He is seven years old. You know that much. What you don't know is that I've known this kid since he was no older than your Peter. That I've spent those years making sure he's been stable living in a loving home, nurtured and protected from all this for as long as it was possible to do so. I'm telling you this so you understand that I'm personally invested in the outcome of this mission."
Parker nodded. "Okay I appreciate the heads up, but tell me if this kid is so important why doesn't the Agency arrange to have the this family taken into protective custody? Because right now this smacks of an inter-agency spat."
Silver Fox nodded. "Back in the 1940's shortly after World War II President Truman created a special and very secret oversight committee codename Majestic Twelve. The Roswell incident had convinced him that the United States of America must protect itself against the great unknowns; the mutant, the supernatural, and the extraterrestrial threats. Drawing its members from the key players in the industrial military complex, the presidential order placed number of top-secret programs under the remit of this committee. Since the late sixties Lionel Luthor has held the chair of Majestic Twelve."
"And you work for Luthor Corp?"
"Specifically I work for Weapon X. One of MJ12's legacy projects. I needed to be in close proximity to Lionel to get a good read on this thoughts."
"You're a telepath." Parked concluded.
Fury has chosen well, Silver Fox thought, this agent is taking all this in his stride. He's a brave man this Richard Parker. "I'm glad that it doesn't bother you." She said.
Parker shrugged. "You're not the first Stargate operative I've worked with."
The Stargate Project was the CIA's clandestine Extra Sensory Perception division.
She continued saying. "Lionel isn't easy to read. We knew he was getting ready to move, but I wasn't able to determine exactly when."
"And that when is now." Richard said. "What kind of opposition can we expect?"
"The best Mercenaries a Billionaire government backed socio-path can buy."
Parker nodded, hiding his appropriate fear as a professional must do. "Just a walk in the park then."
She pointed over the wheel at a line of trees and a wire fence. "That's the boundary of the Kent farm."
"What do they know?"
"They're on board. This operation was brought forward when Jonathan Kent contacted me in code."
Parker nodded.
"Jonathan is ex-military, as you know. May is a housewife. However the good news is we have a deep cover, very special agent embedded with the Kent's. With luck he's already got the boy out, that was his default mission if everything went south all of a sudden."
"I get it." Parker replied. "We're plan b."
She nodded. "Something like that."
Abandoning the truck Silver Fox silently pointed out the perimeter of Lionel's hidden surveillance grid using hand signals. Taking the lead she used her unique extrasensory perception to pick a safe path through the buzz of electronic field created by the web of sensors and cameras. Parker followed her, staying on her six, as ordered. They weaved through the woodland that bordered the gentle rise that overlooked the Kent farm.
She signalled him to wait as they crouched under cover looking down at the yellow painted farmhouse. Below a parked O-Tel, it's headlights on full beam lit up the farm yard, disgorged a black clad assault team.
"I think the chickens have already flown the coop." She whispered with a smile.
Reilly hid by the side of the road. He saw James transformation. He knew Olsen was special, and about his remarkable superhuman senses; he possessed his own. It was something he had shared with his uncle growing up. Reilly Kent had also seen what lay hidden beneath Jimmy's chunky forearms. Even so it was another thing entirely to watch the bone claws extend, cutting through the flesh of the man's hands; to hear James growl like a beast, and to watch that beast pounce.
For a moment Kent considered joining the fray. Especially as James face planted the road, gravely wounded. However Reilly found his attention pulled away from the brutal battle between the sword wielding assassin, the self-styled terminator, and his but-not-really uncle. It wasn't the sound of the approaching boots on the ground that alarmed him. It stood to reason the other shooters, the Terminators team, would be coming this way.
Rather it was his mother's scream. May's distant cry carried across the fields, and reached his super-sensitive ears.
Kent ran harder than it ever done before, eating the distance cross-country, fast across the cropped terrain, faster than a Cheetah could bound over the African Savannah.
"Don't you dare hurt him." May cried out.
An O-Tel van lit up the farm yard, armed men, equipped like those who had ambushed James and him minutes before, were spread out in pairs, surrounding the house and out buildings. Kent concentrated. The yellow painted exterior walls disappeared. Walls were no barrier to him, among his earliest memories was the wonder of seeing what lay inside their cows swelling bellies, watching these calves grow and then be born.
Kent used this super sight to peer into the interior of his home.
Jonathan's face was twisted in pain and his Pa was turning blue. He faced May Kent, immobilised. A broad hand had grabbed him from behind, long fingers squeezing at his throat. Lifting the older farmer bodily off the floor so his toes barely touched the ground.
The kitchen door opened. On of the soldiers stepped inside. "Perimeter secured Captain Creed."
"Hold your positions." The big man ordered. "I've got this." The soldier paused, glancing around before nodding and closing the door behind him.
Creed was dressed more casually than his men, a long duster coat, and a wide brimmed hat sat atop of mane of blond hair that tumbled around Creed's shoulders, while a stubble beard framed his thin lips. Grinning, he dangled Jonathan Kent in front of his wife like puppet, and as he laughed Creed flashed predatory teeth characterised by oversized canines.
He towered over May, he was easily six foot six. "Where is the boy?" The blond man demanded.
Kent was a few hundred metres from the farmhouse, but seconds away and closing.
"Coming." He hissed.
"Where is he?" Creed asked again. A single nail extended cat like from his forefinger of the hand wrapped around Jonathan Kent's neck, it continued to slide, extending a couple of inches of curved claw scraping his Pa's skin until it drew blood.
Creed was special too. Now Reilly Kent could see into him, he saw the viscous claws hidden in both his hands and feet, along with the extra layers of dense muscle and heavy bone.
The first Creed's troops knew of Reilly Kent's arrival was a resounding crash. Bringing their guns to bear at the sound, they turned to see that a boy sized hole had been punched through the house directly into the kitchen.
Inside Kent slammed into his Pa's captor. He hit the large man's arm striking up at the elbow.
The joint popped, and broke. Jonathan Kent slipped from the Creed's grasp and fell to the floor gasping for breath.
Meanwhile the large man staggered backwards. He roared in pain and anger. Colliding with the plate rack and dresser bringing May's best crockery crashing down around him.
"Shouldn't have done that kid." Creed spat.
There was a cracking noise, the burly blond man flexed his broken arm. His face was a mask of pain, but the limb straightened.
Reilly could see the torn muscle and ligament knitting together, healing as he watched.
"Boy I know how to hurt you." Creed told him.
"Don't." May cried out.
"Lionel said you might prove awkward. Said you might learn some bad habits from your Pa. So he gave me a little something to slow you down."
Reilly didn't really follow what Creed was saying, but he knew a threat when he heard one.
With that Creed threw the kitchen table at May. Reilly responded instinctively, putting himself between the makeshift weapon and his adoptive mother, blocking the attack and sending this piece of furniture careering to one side. Smashing through the open plan space to the living room bouncing over the couch and into into the fireplace.
It was plenty of time for the inhumanly fast assailant to reach into his pocket and breakout what looked like a shiny tin can. Which cracked open in his hand revealing its contents to be a luminescent green crystalline pebble.
His attacker smiled as he witnessed the promised effect. Reilly collapsed to his knees, shaking, breathing hard, racked with nausea. Suddenly he felt pain. So this is what it is like to hurt was his first thought. His second thought was a memory, this was not the first time he had experienced this pain.
His assailant held up the green pebble betwixt his taloned thumb and forefinger. "It's like an on off switch." Creed laughed. Striding closer he squatted down bringing the pebble within inches of the boys face. Kent sank into a foetal position.
Images began to fill his mind. Confusing memories.
"Please stop!" May gasped. "Please don't do this."
"You heard her." Jonathan shouted. He was pointing a service revolver at the big man. Retrieved from it's hiding place under the sink.
Reilly could hear Creed laughing. The room was spinning for him as the big man placed the glowing green pebble next to him on the floor. Standing up Creed turned and stepped towards Jonathan Kent.
The service revolver barked. Click, repeat, bang, click, repeat, bang. So it went on until the gun just clicked. Creed's hat fell to the floor, his face bled from two wounds, his chest from four. He didn't bleed for long however, as the wounds healed and closed.
Creed reached out and grabbed his Pa by the throat, this time he squeezed quick and hard. With a twist of his wrist Creed snapped the farmers neck. Jonathan Kent slumped to the floor of his kitchen, his feet and legs jerking and twitching in in his last death throes.
May Kent screamed. It was a long desperate agonised cry. She swayed grabbed counter-top for support, then she picked up a broom. Shaking it she said. "You bastard, I'll kill you." His mother screamed.
Creed smiled as if the thought of her attacking him was delicious. Then he turned his back on her as much to say he didn't give a damn. Creed laughed too, as he watched Reilly Kent struggle to his knees with tears of grief streaming down his cheeks.
"Angry boy?" He asked. Leaning forward saying. "That's it kid, use the rage, let it take you, let it feed you, ignore the hurt, push through the pain. I'm I'm here waiting for you, waiting for your best shot." Creed even beckoned with his clawed fingers, saying come to me.
Inside Reilly Kent something snapped, anger burned in the young boys agonised mind. he was consumed with righteous vengeance. Creed had killed his Pa.
He let out a cry. Even in his weakened state, the high pitched boyish scream, shook the house and shattered glass.
"Jaw Hell?" Creed responded. "What the f..."
Creed didn't get a chance to finish what he was saying. Two things happened in short succession. May Kent lashed out with the broom, but not at Creed, rather she used the brush like a hockey stick, sending the pebble flying out of the hole in the kitchen wall. It sailed outside into the dark of night.
He felt the change, it was like Creed had said to him moments before, but this time the switch was flicked back on.
Red light burst from his eyes, two beams of hot searing energy. One bisected Creed's skull cutting through his right eye, exiting the other side demolishing that side of his face, and taking out the upper quarter of his skull. Cauterising the wound as it did so, leaving a black and bloodless hole and filling the room with the smell of burnt meat. The second beam struck the internal wall directly behind Creed, burning through the entire property. Along its course a series of fires began.
Outside the sound of automatic gun fire thundered and flashed in the night air.
Richard Parker saw the shadowy figure leap the fence, moving so quickly as to be little more than a blur he fell on top of two armed men, they went down hard, and they didn't get up again.
The silent killer leapt forward once more, this time through hostile fire, he didn't slow, or even stumble, instead the shooting stopped, and two more men fell.
Parker guessed this must be the deep cover for very well for the special agent embedded with the Kents.
"Let's go." Silver Fox told him. They came out shooting.
There was no question the Native American had a full compliment of field skills in addition to her special abilities. She aimed her gun into the shadows, bringing down a hidden enemy.
"You have eyes in the back of your head." He gasped as they made it too the Farmhouse steps.
"I have eyes everywhere." She replied.
There was the sound of a stifled scream from the barn.
"James will finish up out here." Silver Fox said.
"James is good." Richard noted.
"Yes, he's the best at what he does." She replied, then kicking open the back door, she pointed her automatic through the opening. A split second later she was shooting.
Richard aimed at her target.
Silver Fox screamed. "Victor Creed!" It was a shout laced with anger and clear loathing.
He didn't fire. Silver Fox was shooting at a dead man.
Parker reassessed that assumption. Creed had lost a section of his skull. Currently his partner was unloading the best part a clip into his vital organs. All that said he was moving of his own volition, turning to them, a horrid rumbling came from out his mouth that hung open dribbling.
"Get the target." Silver Fox shouted at him. Pausing for a second or so to reload a new clip with practised speed.
Richard saw the Kent boy was with his mother, over by the stove, their arms wrapped around each other. There was a crackle from the opposite wall, a black charred hole was growing as a translucent flame flickered hungrily. Through the open plan lay out he saw the Kitchen table was at an angle into the fireplace.
"Mrs Kent, I need you to come with me." He said.
"You're with Silvie?" May croaked.
"I'm with Ms Fox. We have a vehicle at the boundary of your property." He told them. "Can you make it that far."
"I can carry her." The Kent boy replied.
Before Richard could answer he heard a roar.
Victor Creed had risen, he was on all fours, crouched like an animal, the sounds emanating from his mouth between his over long canines reinforced the bestial impression. His head was still broken – only not as broken as it had been.
Richard processed this observation, he determined why Silver Fox had been shooting at the apparently dead man. He didn't stay dead.
Reilly Kent pushed past Parker. Richard tried to hold him, but the boy shrugged him off as if Parker were the child. "Take my Ma out of here." He demanded.
"I.." Richard began to protest.
"Now." Said the Kent boy. His eye's glowing red.
Creed leapt at Silver Fox, and the boy leapt at Creed.
Parker grabbed hold of May and dragged her through the living room towards the front door. Her eyes were red with tears, and her breath panicked. Across from them the boy and Victor Creed had disappeared through the internal wall of the house, the smaller locked onto the larger, collectively a violent wrecking ball of scrapping muscle. Silver Fox picked herself up out of the dust and broken dry wall. Parker beckoned to her. Fox didn't need telling twice. Around them the entire house shook as Creed and the Kent boy tumbled outside and into the dark.
Parker ran clear from the front door. He watched amazed as the Kent boy punched Victor Creed. The large man staggered back into the beams of the O-Tel's Vans headlights, phased by the force of the child's blow. His skull wound had closed around his burnt out socket, into a mass of red scar tissue, which was already bristling with stubby blond hairs. His claws lashed out, back and forth. Reilly Kent's clothes were already ribbons, but in the panel van lights, Richard saw his small frame was uncut. The speed and ferocity of the fight was mind blowing, as the child rained punches into the huge near three hundred pound man. Creed's boots ripped apart by his extending talons, which scrambled for grip ploughing into the ground.
Only a few seconds had passed. Parker struggled to follow their motion. Creed perhaps by instinct, or long ingrained martial training had the edge, his movements were more controlled despite the appearance of bestial rage, while the child fought without reason and total abandon.
Kent's eyes flashed red, and raw fire bit at Creed's chest, setting him alight, there was flame, Creed roared in pain. Parker in that moment realised how Creed had received his deep head wound, but this time the damage to Creed was more superficial. Richard reasoned this second incredible optical blast from the child must have been weaker than the first, and he guessed the boy was tiring. His instincts proved correct when Creed seized hold of Kent in his clawed hands. Creed rolled forward in a cat like pounce, drove both his feet into the boy. The bigger man propelled the child with his legs into the windscreen and hood of the parked panel van, there was crash of breaking glass and bang as metal deformed and twisted.
Reilly Kent disappeared into the crushed vehicle. Its headlights dimmed, one failed.
Creed rolled to his feet and savoured the moment, but not for long. There was still the other operative in play. The man Silver Fox had called James.
Beside him May called out to her son. Richard held her back, as James hit Victor Creed. Parker saw his claws. like six bony daggers sink into the bigger man time and time again. Creed's berserker rage had been met in kind, and it appeared very personal.
In the distance there was the sound of sirens. Richard looked out across the fields to the main road and saw the red and blue flashing lights of emergency responders. Only minutes and less away.
"Cops." He said, bringing Silver Fox's attention to the approaching vehicles.
She called out to James. "Logan."
Richard didn't know if it was his name, or a codeword. James looked up from his work. He was red from head to foot in the other man's blood. Creed was butchered on the ground, sliced and diced. It was impossible Parker thought for the big man to be alive, but given what he'd already seen, Richard did not discount the possibility.
From the panel van came the sound of metal being bent aside.
Parker was beyond surprise now. He watched Reilly Kent emerge, his eyes glowed red again, in the uncanny way Parker had seen earlier in the Kitchen. The Kent house had meanwhile been wrecked, and the fire had taken a complete hold. Flames were fast consuming the once pretty yellow painted home.
The Kent boy saw the bloody pulp that had been Victor Creed, in the light of his burning home, and his shoulders slumped. It was like watching a balloon deflate.
"Uncle Jimmy..?" He said to the man called James. His voice cracking.
Bloodied, his claws gone, James nodded. "I know buddy. I'm sorry, your Pa was a good man."
May ran and embraced her boy. There were tears, but all the while the sirens were growing closer.
Richard assessed the situation. He turned to Silver Fox.
"Get them out of here." He said, pointing to James, May and her son. "I'll stay here and distract the the Local Law Enforcement."
She looked at him. "Thank you Richard Parker."
"Shut up and hit me with something, and make it look good." He said.
So she did.