chAPTER 7

After wandering aimlessly around town for an hour without any results, I began to lose hope on even finding the anti-Conduits, much less convincing them to work with me. I checked in with Mendoza every once in a while, but she had little intel for me, and nothing that could lead me to where these guys set up shop.

Finally, I hit a stroke of luck when I found a group of them marching a civilian along the road. Drawing the Amp, I jumped down to where they were stood straight in their path. "Going somewhere?" I asked, trying a less confrontational route.

They responded by training their weapons on me. "You," the leader of the pack spat out. "You're the Conduit. The one from Empire City."

"Yeah," I replied. "That's me."

A few moments passed, both me and the hostage-takers staring each other down, waiting for the other to make the first move. I retracted the Amp and placed it back in its sling, hoping to dissuade them from attacking and possibly killing their captive. The move caught them by surprise, and they lowered their weapons ever so slightly... just long enough to be enveloped by red and black smoke, just before being laid out by Nix.

After all of the captors were down, I frowned at Nix. "So much for talking them down," I said pointedly.

"What's the fun in that?" she replied.

Rolling my eyes but smiling slightly, I stepped over to one of the guys and grabbed his collar. "Where's your boss?" I demanded.

"Go to hell, Conduit freak!" he yelled, spitting into my face. Annoyed, I stepped on his chest, not bothering to be gentle, and restrained his hands and feet to the ground.

"Plan B?" Nix asked.

I shook my head. "These guys are our best bet at finding the head of the leader. If we find him, we can convince him to work with us."

Nix shook her head. "You always did try to be the peaceful hero-man."

I chuckled slightly. "You got a better idea?" I asked.

"Yeah. We find this sucker, kick his ass, then let him decide if he wants to work for us, or feel a foot in his stomach."

I grimaced at the image, but she had a point. The leader of this ragtag group was no friend of Conduits, that was for damn sure. What was to say he listened to us in the first place, much less helped us? I decided not to decide just yet. Instead, I focused on finding another group of the pro-humans.

A few blocks later, we found them. "Alright," I said quietly. "Now let's try to get some information before we-." I didn't get the chance to finish, as Nix was already in the thick of the group knocking heads together. I sighed. "Good to be back in the swing of things," I commented before jumping off the roof and joining the brawl.

Upon seeing me, some of the anti-Conduits' first move was to train their fire on me, which I rolled out of the way of before brandishing the Amp and let out a blast to the group, which Nix had just engulfed in her fiery tar. Most of the group was writhing on the ground. One guy was able to stand, though he had a bad limp. I grabbed his shirt and held a charged arm near his face. "Who's running this little side-show, huh?" I asked.

"Damn it!" he muttered, frustrated at being captured. "Just kill me and get it over with!"

I smiled humorlessly and dropped him, letting him fall on his ass. "I ain't gonna kill ya," I replied. "In fact, I won't even hurt you any more than I have. But I can't promise anything with my friend over there." I pointed to Nix. "She doesn't really like to listen, and she really doesn't like when people target others just because they're different." I saw him gulp and decided if scared him enough. "Tell me where to find whoever you work for, and we'll be gone before you know it."

The anti-Conduit thug sighed, fear still gripping him. "The docks," he said finally. "At the west end of the city."

I nodded and, keeping my promise, walked away. To my surprise, Nix caught up with me without attacking the downed grunt. "Figured you'd at least scare him a little more," I said.

Nix shrugged. "Dude's already pissin' his pants," she replied. "He ain't gettin' any lower."

I nodded and tethered up to another roof, Nix teleporting to keep up. We moved quietly, hoping to keep away from the other anti-Conduits, until we reached the west docks. The place was swarming with them. "Wait here, Nix," I said. Before she could protest, I continued. "I'm gonna try talking them down first. If that doesn't work, bring the heat." Nix thought for a moment before nodding. Taking a breath, I dropped down and walked through the front gate.

Instantly, three dozen guns were trained on me. Before anyone could pull the trigger, a voice yelled out, "Wait!"

The guns lowered slightly, startled at the sudden speaking out against killing a Conduit. A moment later, an old man with a crutch and a wrapped up foot hobbled into view. Poor bastard. Must've broke his ankle when I blasted him over the railing of his little stage. He continued to walk to me, slowly, eyeing me suspiciously. "Cole. MacGrath," he said quietly. "The Demon of Empire City."

"The so-called Demon," I corrected. "You've got me at a disadvantage."

"And I'd like to keep it that way. However, you deserve at least a little knowledge." He touched his forehead like an imaginary hat. "Name's Jeremiah. Jeremiah Slade."

"Well, Slade. Looks like the cards are a bit more even now."

My comment was returned with a crude smile. After a moment, the leader spoke again. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't have my men shoot you right here and now."

"Because you want them all in one piece," I replied flatly.

His grin grew. "You underestimate us, Mr. MacGrath. We are more capable than you think. And we are more than willing to die for our cause."

"Killing innocent people?" I spat out.

"Innocent?!" Slade spat back angrily. "Innocent?! There is nothing innocent about you bastards! Nothing!" He began pacing, which could have been funny if he hadn't seemed so threatening. Mendoza was right. These guys had literally nothing to lose. To be honest, their... devotion to stopping Conduits unnerved me. They weren't afraid of me. They would never be afraid of me. But they never caught me at most powerful, either. This guy claimed they'd die for their cause? That's exactly what they'd do.

"Stabbing a woman with a blast shard's got nothing to do with Conduits," I said, trying to change tactics. "She wasn't even a Conduit, for god's sake! She had the plague, just like many of you here!"

Slade rounded on me. "And who gave them that plague, Conduit?!" I was taken aback by how much he knew. Of course, it wasn't all that hard to figure out, once you really thought about it. I'd spent so much time trying to get out of Empire City, I never stopped to think about where the plague might have come from.

"I'm not here to dwell on the past," I said harshly. "There's something out there far worse than me."

Slade seemed to know what I was talking about. "It'll die, too."

"Not without help," I replied.

Slade laughed humorlessly. "Let me guess: you want me to fall in line behind you while you perform your "heroics" and stop the monster that's terrorizing us all." He hobbled closer and lowered his voice. "It'll be a cold day in hell before I work for you, Conduit."

"I'm not asking for you to work for me," I replied. "I'm asking for your help. The Beast is only going to go down if we throw everything we have at it."

Slade looked at me for a moment, as though he was weighing his options. Finally, he smiled again, a vicious, sarcastic smile. "I'll think it over," he said before turning and walking away. I turned to leave, motioning to Nix the all-clear. "Hey, MacGrath," I heard Slade yell. I turned to see him smirking at me. "I've thought about it," he said. Then he yelled to he troops. "Humanity! Open fire!"

Instantly, three dozen assault rifles went off, and I had to run behind a crate as the bullets ricocheted all around me. Suddenly, the were screams from within the compound. I peaked my head out to see Nix teleporting from one dead grunt to an alive one. Taking a chance from this distraction, I jumped from cover and fired lightning bolts at the upper levels of enemies. Reinforcements came from where Slade had gone off to, and I knew we were heavily outnumbered. "Nix!" I yelled into my earpiece. "Double time! Let's move it!"

As Nix replied something inaudible, I fired more bolts and a few rockets into the crowd. Too bad my energy storage was running low. I could've thrown a vortex, a lightning storm...

It hit me. The new power. The lightning strike. Concentrating, I tried to remember what the echo had shown me. I'd only used it once, so I hadn't had a lot of practice with it, but after a moment, I three a strike at a group, hitting one of them directly and shocking a few more, whether because they were close enough to be in the effect radius, or they were far enough away to see their buddies get fried.

With the effect of the one lightning strike, I threw more, hoping to dissuade them from their onslaught. One by one, more of Slade's "Humanity" group fell, until there were fewer than ten in the compound. That bought us our window, and Nix and I ran from the docks, leaving "Humanity" to deal with their mess.

So much for making friends.