-ooo-
Recoil
Part 5-3: Combat Rescue
Taylor
I awoke to pain. Lots and lots of pain. Acrid smoke stung my nostrils and lungs, and I heard crackling flames. "Wake up, ma'am!" Kinsey yelled in my ear. "We have to move! Now-now-now!"
"Urgh," I mumbled. The smoke irritated my throat and I tried to cough. The vague pain that I'd been feeling previously turned into an excruciating explosion of jagged pain throughout my abdomen.
He's right, Lisa told me. The chopper's due to explode in … two minutes and forty-three seconds. Now open your damn eyes and undo your seat harness so Kinsey can rescue you. It's his turn, after all.
There was something odd about that, but I couldn't focus on it. I forced my eyes open and regretted it; the smoke attacked them at once, making them sting and tear up. We'd trained for this; I blinked away the tears and found the seat harness release. It hurt to move my arm, but I activated the release anyway; the straps fell away.
Kinsey caught me as I slid sideways out of my seat. The smoke made me cough again, and I bit back a groan as the pain lanced through me again. That wasn't a bruise, or even a cracked sternum; I wondered how badly I was really hurt.
-ooo-
The classroom was clean and white and pristine, in direct contrast to the interior of the helicopter. In the back of my mind, I could feel myself being manhandled by Kinsey, lying on his back and holding me to his chest as he pushed himself along with his boots.
At the front of the classroom, Lisa stepped up to a large round metal plate set in the floor. She wore a white lab coat and a pair of absurdly cute librarian glasses. With a click, a hologram was projected upward from the plate. It was of me, in living colour. Blood was splattered over my uniform here and there; as the hologram slowly rotated, I could see rents and tears in my clothing.
Okay, I said dubiously. That doesn't look good.
"It's not," she told me. Picking up a remote, she clicked a button. The uniform was gone in an instant, showing the wound in my abdomen. Another click stripped away the skin, then major muscle groups. "As you can see, the broken off strut punched through your vest a little under your breastbone, skimmed past your heart, pierced your right lung, and came up hard against your ribcage."
So it's still in me. I tried to come to terms with that. Am I gonna die?
"It will kill you eventually if you're not treated, yes," she confirmed. "But right now, it's preventing too much blood loss. Also, you have a broken leg and a badly wrenched shoulder. But even if you could walk, I'd advise you not to. Flexing your torso as little as possible is also a good idea."
Yeah, got that, I murmured dryly. Two more questions. What shape's Kinsey in, and how am I able to talk to you? I'm awake.
"Last question first, you're only semi-conscious," Lisa corrected me. "You're right on the edge, and it's kind of important, so I'm making more of an effort than normal." She pushed up her glasses with a finger. "And Kinsey has a broken arm, but otherwise he's just banged about a bit. Walsh bought it when Sunstrike shot us down, and the pilots were killed in the crash."
Fuck, I muttered. Options?
-ooo-
I could feel myself being jostled more, with agony lancing through my torso with each jolt. The classroom began to fade away, replaced by reality. Kinsey was getting to his feet, assisted by Hanran. Rodriguez was bending over me.
"Chopper's gonna blow," I mumbled.
"What? What was that?" He raised his head. "She's awake again."
I steeled myself and spoke more loudly, wincing at the pain. "Chopper's gonna explode. Now. Cover."
Hanran looked around. "What was that about the chopper?"
"She says it's going to explode."
Kinsey was on his feet by now. "If the Captain says it's going to explode, we need to move. Now."
In two long strides, he was beside me, lifting me carefully with his one good arm. Wordlessly, Rodriguez assisted him from the other side. I didn't know how much of the two minutes and forty-three seconds we had left, but I did my best to assist. Unfortunately, my best wasn't very good at that moment.
We had only just made it around the corner of the nearest building before the helicopter did indeed explode, the fuel taking any ordnance with it when it went. The detonation was impressive, even from behind cover; Hanran stumbled and went to his knees, along with Rodriguez. The only reason that I didn't follow them was that Kinsey was supporting me. The building next to us boomed and shuddered dramatically, while flaming debris flew past, just yards away.
Hanran was just getting to his feet when Kinsey shoved me into the arms of the FBI man. I clutched feebly at Hanran, not wanting to find out how much a fall would exacerbate my injuries, while trying to figure out what Kinsey was up to. However, I wasn't kept in suspense for long; while my ears were still ringing too badly to hear the rasp of Kinsey's hand-cannon clearing its holster, I would have had to be profoundly deaf to not hear it being fired at close range.
He fired three times; I managed to get my head around far enough to see a man fall, and another spin back behind cover. A third already lay unmoving in the dirt.
"There'll be more," he stated grimly. "We need an exit plan, and we need it fast. Captain?"
Brutally, I shoved down my whirling thoughts, the dizziness, the pain. I had studied the layout enough from the air that I knew where we were in the compound. Unfortunately, this spelled out for me exactly how screwed we really were.
"Too far from the gate," I managed in a breathy rasp, trying not to cough. "Be picked off before we get halfway there. Surrender makes us hostages or shot on sight." I raised my uninjured arm and pointed at a building. "The prisoners are in there. We secure that and execute Plan Bravo."
"Yes, ma'am." Kinsey handed off his pistol to Hanran and scooped me up with his one good arm. "Can you shoot, ma'am?"
I edged my one good arm down to where my Glock was holstered and pulled the pistol out. It only hurt a little, rather than a whole lot. I nodded, holding the small pistol in my lap. "I can, Sergeant."
"Wait, we're going to assault that building?" Rodriguez was obviously unhappy with the plan. "We don't know who's in it."
"We do know who's out here," Kinsey told him flatly. "Our current position is untenable. The Captain's given an order. I'm following it. Hanran?"
Hanran hefted the heavy pistol in two hands. He'd been out of the field too long, I figured. Too long driving a desk. He didn't look in the least bit happy. But at least he had no quit in him. The look he gave Kinsey held more than a little fear, but it also held determination. "I'm with you."
"Good. Let's go."
Kinsey obviously had an idea of how bad my injuries were; he didn't run across the intervening distance, but instead covered it with long loping strides. I was still jolted, with sharp spikes of pain slashing across my nervous system, but my brain didn't white-out with the pain. At least, not quite. Hanran followed close behind, watching our flanks with the massive pistol held two-handed and low; Rodriguez hesitated for a long moment, then ran to catch up.
As he reached the door to the building, Kinsey didn't hesitate; he swivelled on one foot and delivered a massive kick with the other. The door burst open and he kept going straight in, moving more sideways than forwards. He was looking backward over his shoulder to see what Hanran and Rodriguez were doing, while trusting me to clear the room.
There were three men with guns, a teenage girl wearing a yellow and black jacket and holding a metal spear, and two men lying on the floor. One, huge and bulky, was ominously still. The second one was barely out of his teens, and wore a white T-shirt and pants with yellow and black stripes.
I had hold of the pistol, but my angle was awkward. While I could take out one of the guards, the other two would open fire and I wouldn't be able to target them easily. And I didn't know what the kid in yellow and black would do, so I'd have to neutralise him fast as well.
The rifles came up. "Hey, soldier boy," one of the guards said. "Turn around slow or get shot."
Kinsey did exactly as he was told, bringing the other two targets into my line of fire. I raised my head and brought up the pistol at the same time.
Four targets, close range, unmoving. I had shot perfect scores on targets, X-ring hits every time, at several times this distance. The few times I'd had to use weapons in the field, in anger, I'd hit what I'd aimed at.
Back then, of course, I hadn't felt like every square inch of me had been pulped by a baseball bat. And I'd been the one to catch them by surprise.
All of this passed through my mind in an instant, even as I opened fire. Left to right, servicing targets with never more than a passing qualm that I was ending human lives here. Firing just as fast as I could, the little pistol's tiny felt-recoil still managing to jar me painfully, one shot per target. But the long hours on the target range were paying off; they made fast, accurate shooting into something as nearly instinctive as handling millions of bugs had once been for me.
Kinsey was obviously unarmed; they had started to lower their rifles. This, and the fact that they didn't have military readiness drilled into them, was what doomed them. I killed two of them, with picture-perfect shots to the bridge of the nose, before the third even began to react. I shot him before his rifle was halfway toward horizontal, then swung my sight picture on to the kid on the floor, already beginning to take up pressure on the trigger.
"No!" shouted the girl with the spear. She was just in time; an instant later, and I would have taken up final pressure and the boy would have died. For a long moment, I strongly considered firing anyway; he was an unknown quantity, a bad thing to have in the same room as us. But then it occurred to me that the girl was wearing a jacket far too large for her, that it was a match for his costume. He gave it to her. There's more going on here than I know about. I raised the pistol.
Hanran and Rodriguez stumbled into the room behind us; without needing to be told, they slammed the door shut and began dragging a heavy chair in front of it. Good. We need to secure the building.
"Dios mio," the boy on the floor said in tones of awe. "Who are you people?"
"Captain Snow, PRT. This is Sergeant Kinsey." I gave him a closer look. From the girl's attitude toward him, and his attitude toward us, I mentally assigned him a nominal tag of 'potential friendly'. Of course, a little reinforcement of that attitude never hurts. I want him in no doubt that we're ten feet tall and bulletproof. "Congratulations. You're rescued."
Emily
Lieutenant Emily Piggot, of the Parahuman Response Teams, stepped up to the entrance of the command tent. One of the two guards on duty there moved to bar her way. "No entry," he said flatly. "Orders."
Emily measured him with her eyes. "I need to get in there right now," she stated. "Do you know why I need to get in there right now?" Without giving him a chance to answer, she forged on. "Because our command and control just went down behind enemy lines, and I don't see anyone going in there to get them out."
From within the tent, she could hear raised voices. "We have orders," repeated the guard.
Emily stared him in the eye. "You hear what they're doing in there? They're arguing instead of doing something useful." Turning, she gestured toward the compound in the distance. "And meanwhile, in there, one of the finest military minds of our generation is at the mercy of a bunch of racist redneck rapists."
Her words hung in the air for a long moment. The guards began to look uncomfortable. Finally, the other one cleared his throat. "I, uh, I can escort you in, ma'am," he offered.
"Good," she said. "You do that." Without waiting for an answer, she moved past him and into the tent.
Within wasn't quite the chaos she expected, but it was almost as bad. Five people were arguing around the map table. Or rather, four people were arguing and the fifth was being shouted down. Around the periphery, junior officers attended to their superiors, but their expressions were telling. It wasn't going well.
All heads turned as she entered. One of the men, wearing a National Guard uniform, stepped forward. "What the hell?" he demanded. "I gave orders -"
"Sir!" Emily went to attention and saluted. Automatically, he returned it. "Sir, I'm here to ask a question. What's the status of the rescue mission?"
"That's above your pay grade, lieutenant -"
Stepping forward, she got right in his face. "The hell it is, captain," she hissed. "We have seven people down behind enemy lines, and you REMFs are arguing over who's in charge, so you can present your own pet plan for saving the day."
All eyes widened at the pejorative term; the captain began to turn red. "Now listen here -"
"No, you listen." Emily knew that her military career was more or less over, but she spoke over him anyway. "The more you fucking argue, the more chance that your commanding officers are being slaughtered not one mile from here. Now, pick a plan." She picked out the one PRT captain by eye. "Sir. Does your plan involve going in there and kicking ass till we get our people back?"
The captain raised his head. "Yes, lieutenant, it does."
"Good." She pointed at him and spoke to the rest of the officers in the tent. "I like his plan. He's in charge."
The National Guard captain raised his voice. "Lieutenant, you're out of order. Corporal, arrest the -"
Emily had had enough. As the corporal put his hand on her shoulder, she turned and drove her elbow back as hard as she could, catching him on the point of the jaw. Caught by surprise, he collapsed; as he did so, she took his rifle from him. The clatter of the soldier falling to the floor was louder than the clack-clack as Emily pulled back the bolt of the rifle and chambered a round, but the latter was what got their attention.
"One. More. Time." Her voice was low but deadly. She kept the muzzle of the rifle down, pointed at the floor, but the implicit threat was still clear. "The PRT is taking lead on this." She nodded to the PRT captain. "Sir. Your plan?"
He looked back at her with an unreadable expression, then seemed to come to a decision. "Yes." Raising his voice he called out. "Guard!"
Emily tensed as the second guard pushed his way into the tent. The man's eyes widened as he took in the man on the floor, who was just now starting to groan his way back to coherence. He began to raise his rifle.
"Never mind that," the PRT captain snapped. "Gather the troops. We've got a lot to do, and not much time to do it in." He glanced at Emily. "Lieutenant. Will you peacefully surrender yourself to my custody?"
Emily shifted the rifle to her left hand and came to attention; her salute was parade-ground perfect. "Sir."
Taylor
As Hanran pulled the shutters closed, I gestured with the pistol toward the corridor that led out of the room. "What's down there? Another entry point?"
"Uh, yes," blurted the girl. She pointed at the rifles that the guards had been holding. "Uh, can I -"
For a moment, I wasn't sure what she wanted, then I twigged. Going by the spear, she was able to manipulate metal by touch. She wants the gun for its metal. "Sure, but just one." Neither Kinsey nor I was able to use one at the moment, but Hanran and Rodriguez were still able-bodied.
Both men were staring at me. "What do we do now?" asked Rodriguez. "We're trapped in here."
"First thing," Hanran told him. "We secure the entry points. Give me a hand with that chair."
The girl shook her head. "I got this." She discarded her spear and picked up the closest rifle by its barrel. Instinctively I winced and went to correct her weapon handling technique, but before I could speak, the rifle seemed to melt. The metal flowed up around her hands, covering them like gloves and spreading into the sleeves of the jacket. Letting the wooden stock and the cartridges fall to the floor, she turned and headed for the corridor entrance.
Why didn't she use the bullets as well? But that was something I'd have to find out later. "Hanran," I said. "Go with her."
Despite the fact that he technically outranked me, he obeyed at once. Rodriguez picked up one of the other two rifles, but didn't seem to be sure of what to do with it. I looked at him. "You okay, sir?"
The question seemed to come as a surprise. "I don't know," he admitted. "I was so sure we could talk this down to a peaceful conclusion."
I grimaced. "Never underestimate the power of a fanatic to make a situation worse."
"But what can we do?" he asked, perhaps rhetorically. "You and the Sergeant are hurt. We're not -"
Kari
Kari glanced back at the grey-haired man called Hanran. "You're a bit old to be a soldier. And you're not wearing a uniform."
He had a nice smile, she decided. Like a favourite uncle. "I'm not a soldier. FBI. We're here to get you out."
She decided that his statement was more in the 'hopeful' range than anything to rely on. "Is that a bullet-proof vest? Does it have metal in it?"
"Yes it is," he replied. "But no, it – get down!"
Raising the big pistol he was still carrying in two hands, he aimed it at her. No – at the door. Letting out a squeak of terror, she fell to her knees, clamping her hands over her head. The gun went off twice, the flash blinding her and the report setting her ears to ringing. As if in slow motion, she saw the shiny brass cartridge-cases bouncing on the floor near Hanran's feet.
When she looked around, there were two ragged holes in the sturdy door, which was standing just a little bit open. Hanran strode past her and shoved it shut, then leaned against it. "Hey."
She shook her head, trying to dispel the ringing.
"Hey! Girl! What's your name?"
She blinked at him. "Me?"
"Yes, you. What's your name?"
"Uh, Kari?"
"Well, uh-Kari, I think it's time for you to do whatever you were going to do with that metal."
"Oh. Right." She got to her feet. Pushing her hands against the edge of the door, she made the metal flow off of her, drilling into the wood, bridging the gap. In moments, the door was as solidly shut as it would ever be.
"Is everything all right down there, sir?" It was the burly soldier, the one called Sergeant Kinsey.
"We're fine, but they know we're in here now," Hanran called back. He turned to Kari. "That's a very useful trick with the metal. Know where you can get some more?"
She didn't even have to think about it. "Yes."
Lange
Hadrian Lange looked up from the hand-drawn map detailing the defences of the compound, his eyebrows drawing down. "Say that again?"
"Th-that chopper that crashed," stammered the militia man, holding a bloodied hand to his shoulder. His right arm hung uselessly at his side. "Some of 'em got out. They're in the Breeding House. We went to go in there, they shot at us through the door. Clive's dead." His backwoods accent made the word sound like 'daid'. "My brother's dead."
"Say the word and I'll go take care of them." Sunstrike's tone was vicious.
"No." Lange shook his head. "We need you to keep their flyers and choppers honest." He turned to the wounded militia man. "Ben. Take a dozen men and get that building back. Take Seth, too. You might need his door-buster charges."
Ben rolled his eyes. "Why do we have to use those damn things? He always makes 'em too powerful."
Lange took a step toward him. "Because I said so." The look in his deep-set eyes promised dire retribution if his words were not obeyed; Ben flinched, but hesitated before leaving.
"What?" Lange's voice was even more dangerous.
"Uh, what about the breeders?"
The rawboned man spent barely a second thinking about it. "Try not to kill 'em, but if it happens, it happens. If they're loose and fighting back, kill 'em all the same."
"Right. Right." Ben made his escape.
Lange turned his attention back to the map. "All right then. Does anyone have any new information on what they have out there?"
Taylor
"Fuck," muttered Rodriguez. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. We're in the shit now."
"We've been in the shit since the chopper went down," I reminded him, being careful to breathe shallowly. "The depth has varied, is all."
"If we gave ourselves up -" he began.
Kinsey interrupted him. "No," he growled. "Not happening."
"But we could negotiate -"
"Being in the power of these people is not a good negotiating position," I told him flatly.
"Well, right now, we're not in a great position either," he reminded me. "How are we going to hold them off? There's only four of us, you and the Sergeant are the only ones with current military training, and you're both injured!"
"Six," offered the kid. He'd sat up, but no more than that. Now that I looked at him more carefully, I realised that there was something wrong with his hands. "There are six of us."
"Six, then," Rodriguez muttered. "Two parahumans, four normals, two injured. Against everything that's out there. Those are shit odds."
"Getting better all the time, I'd say," declared Hanran, emerging from the corridor. The person who came out next wasn't the girl with the metal manipulation. Oh wait, of course. This is where the prisoners were being held. I was seriously annoyed with myself for forgetting that, however temporarily. Of course, I'd had several other things on my mind, but the welfare of the girls being held here should have been higher on the agenda.
The woman who exited the corridor behind Hanran had to stand at least seven feet tall; she had long brown hair that hung in limp rat-tails. One hand was being used to hold a stained sheet around her body. I recognised her from the dossier I had perused; her name was Joanna or Joanne. From the description, she held a medium to high Brute rating, or she would have if the PRT was assigning those to non-villains yet. I could well believe it; I was taller than most women and more than a few men of my acquaintance, and she beat me out by at least a foot. In bulk, she made Kinsey look almost puny, which was a very impressive feat.
For a moment, she looked taken aback, given the four corpses on the floor. Then she strode up to the big stone-skinned guy – I still wasn't sure what had killed him, save that there was blood coming from the ears, and his eyes were a gory mess – and kicked him, very hard, in the head. The corpse was shunted sideways, turning almost ninety degrees, from the force of the kick. I thought I heard bone snap, and I was pretty sure it wasn't hers.
"What the fuck?" Rodriguez turned from where he'd been peering out through a gap in the shutters and brought the rifle up instinctively. "Who the hell are you?"
"Stand down," I ordered the both of them. "Rodriguez, she was a prisoner. Joanna …?"
"Joanne," she corrected me. Her voice wasn't as deep as I'd thought it might be. "They fucking fed me a knockout drop to get me here. Chained me to a metal bed. This fucker …" She shuddered. "I swore if I ever got loose, I'd never let them take me alive again."
"I won't let them take you at all," I promised her. "We're here to get you out, and that's what's going to happen."
"Big words," she muttered. "Two old guys, a couple of hurt soldiers, and some punk in stripey pants. How you gonna pull that off?"
I answered her question with one of my own. "Are you bullet-proof?"
"What the hell sort of question is that?" She pointed at herself. "How the fuck do you find that out without using a gun? Shoot yourself and then find out, sorry, you're not really bullet-proof after all, it just felt like you should be?"
She had a point. I had only found out that my spider-silk armour was good against pistols the hard way, and even then I had initially thought that Coil had really shot me. It certainly wasn't an experiment I was going to try willingly.
On the other hand, she was certainly very strong, and also rather durable, given that she'd kicked him with her bare foot and not shown any signs of pain. The beginnings of a plan began to unfold in my head.
"Understood," I replied. "Captain Snow, PRT. This is Sergeant Kinsey, that's Rodriguez of the ATF, and I didn't catch your name, kid."
The boy looked up at me. He was holding his hands loosely in his lap; they were starting to swell and turn blotchy. "Aguijón. It means 'bee-sting', or 'stinger'." His voice was strained; I figured that whatever had happened to his hands had to be painful.
"Bee-sting, huh?" Despite my own problems, I found it hard not to smile. An insect-themed cape … what are the odds? "Do you control bugs?"
"No." He raised his hand fractionally. A couple of tiny yellow and black objects about the size of the tip of my little finger appeared from his hand. "I make these." The 'bees' orbited him a few times, then ended their journey by smacking into the floorboards, where they seemed to do a little bit of damage.
"Shit, you're one of them." Joanne was across the room in about three strides. "I heard your name a few times. You're gonna die, asshole." Her hand went around his throat and she effortlessly lifted him clear off the ground in one move.
"No!" I shouted, but she ignored me. Her hand began to close; I could see his face purpling. I doubted that my Glock would make an impression on her, and Rodriguez seemed to be frozen to the spot. I could kind of understand this; if she was bullet-proof, then shooting at her would be a really bad move. But I couldn't just let her murder Aguijón, especially if he was innocent of what she was implying, which the other girl's behaviour seemed to indicate. "Joanne! Stop!"
She paused, looking over her shoulder at me. "You don't have the right to tell me to stop. You don't know what this asshole's done."
"Has he done it to you?" I didn't know the answer, but I could guess at it. Please let me be right.
"No," she admitted reluctantly, "but I know he's been in with Kari a lot. He makes her cry. Well, no more." She turned her attention back to Aguijón. "Be glad I'm gonna make it quick."
"He never touched me!"
The metal-manipulator's voice came from the corridor. She was carrying another girl in her arms; I could see grimy bandages around the girl's ankles. I didn't have time to wonder about that as Kari – as I presumed her name to be – stepped aside to let the other girls out of the corridor. No-one else was lame, although they were all wearing bed-sheets as makeshift clothing.
Two had bandages over their eyes, and were being led by two others. The last had a kind of smoky-grey appearance, becoming almost translucent as she stepped into the main room. Her sheet, where she had it wrapped tightly around herself, took on some of this quality. The Stranger, I'd say. Apart from the smoky girl, they all looked relatively normal, if one discounted the bandages, the unwashed hair, and the bruises both faded and fresh.
However, Kari – as I surmised her name to be – wasn't wearing a sheet. Nor was she wearing Aguijón's jacket. What she was wearing looked to be about half a ton of steel. Or at least, there was a human-shaped steel statue in the corridor. Kari had to be wearing it or controlling it; either way suited me just fine. It also, not coincidentally, took care of step one of the plan. Get some metal to the girl.
"What the fuck?" asked Joanne. "Are you honestly defending this piece of slime?"
Kari carefully set down her burden and stepped forward. The floorboards creaked alarmingly, but held; I guessed that if they hadn't given way under the stone-skinned Brute, they wouldn't give way under Kari's new accoutrement. "He never touched me. Let him go." I figured that she was trying for a firm tone, but didn't seem to know how. I might have to give her pointers in that. However, it wasn't really necessary; wearing an entire Renfaire's worth of steel plate gave her words a certain amount of weight. So to speak.
I was beginning to get concerned about Aguijón's chances of survival. Joanne hadn't let him down or relaxed her grip, and his face was a really worrying shade of puce. "Let him down," I told her. "Don't kill him until you can prove he did something. Do you really want to murder an innocent man?"
Joanne ground her teeth together. "None of these bastards are innocent," she gritted. "He's here, isn't he? Guilty by association."
I never saw the metal tentacle lash out, but it wrapped around Joanne's arm and yanked hard. Startled, Joanne lurched backward, losing her grip on Aguijón's throat. He fell to the floor, hacking and choking as he tried to inhale much-needed air. Well, that answers the question about how good she is with her power.
"He didn't touch me." This time, her delivery was much better. The inches-thick metal tentacle that had sprouted from her right shoulder was still wrapped around Joanne's forearm.
Joanne grabbed the tentacle and yanked on it, hard. Caught off guard, Kari stumbled forward, even as she instinctively grew metal spars that braced against the floor, preventing her from falling headlong. Keeping her grip, Joanne heaved harder, but this time, Kari was ready for her. The metal stretched, the length of tentacle whipping back around to rejoin with the main mass. Joanne was unready for this, just as she was caught by surprise when the metal reformed to encase her hands and forearms.
In that moment of silence, we all heard the sound of someone outside fumbling with the door.
Ben
The seven men sidled up to the Breeding House as stealthily as they could. Ben's shoulder was swathed in bloodstained bandages, the arm supported by a rough sling. Seth's crew was around at the far end, where the door to the corridor let out. The plan was to set the bombs on the doors, then drop back and let the timers tick down.
Each of the six men with Ben was armed and ready for action; once they burst in, the stunned intruders would be easy pickings. Ben carried the home-made breaching charge in his one good hand. As hampered as he was, he didn't trust it with any of the other men.
"Dang it," muttered one of the others, Travis by name. "They closed the dang shutters."
Ben didn't qualify that with a reply, both because he didn't think it deserved one and because it was what he would've done. Though I woulda knocked a few slats out so I could see properly.
"Why don't we jes' start shootin'?" asked Jesse, the youngest of the men that Ben had picked. "Our bullets'll go right on through."
"An' right on out th' other side," Ben muttered. "'Less you wanna explain ta Mr Lange how you was shootin' at our own men?"
It was unfair, Ben decided. The people inside didn't have to worry about hitting friendlies. Him and his buddies did. But he was gonna get revenge for Clive anyways. That was for certain sure.
With a gesture, he quieted their voices. Moving even more carefully, he eased up alongside the steps rather than put a foot on them. They had a bad habit of squeaking loudly at the best of times. This was not the best of times.
Reaching across, he hefted the door-buster in his good hand, trying to hang it off of the door handle. His arm shook with the strain as he did his best to flip the loop of cord over the handle. And then the inevitable happened; the breaching charge rubbed against the door, making a distinctive scraping sound.
Ben froze; for a long moment, he waited for the shout of alarm from within. But none came. He started to move again …
Taylor
Kinsey turned; I raised my pistol, although I couldn't see anything to shoot at. In any case, I wasn't optimistic at the chances of the bullet punching through the heavy timber doors. Hanran took a step forward, Kinsey's pistol in his hands. I winced, knowing exactly how loud that thing was at close quarters. He fired three times, spacing the shots across the door. There were yells and screams from outside.
As if by unspokent agreement, Kari released Joanne's hands, sending a spike of steel across the room. It jammed into the floor in front of the door, then spread upward, drilling into the wood for purchase. When she pulled the metal tentacle back, she left behind a solid-looking bracket holding the door well and truly closed.
"In case you hadn't realised," I began. The rest of my speech would have been a fairly predictable we're all in this together, so for fuck's sake don't fight between yourselves, but I never got to finish it. A giant hand picked us all up and threw us against the wall instead. The last thing I was consciously aware of was Kinsey twisting in midair, trying to take the impact in my place. I felt a red-hot tearing inside me, and passed out.
Kinsey
Sergeant James McMartin Kinsey slowly recovered his wits. He was half-lying against the wall, still cradling Captain Snow with his good arm. Explosives, he realised dully. They set a charge on the far end of the building while decoying us at this end. Used too much. His head throbbed atrociously, and he wasn't sure if he could move.
Looking down at the Captain, he cursed weakly; the bloodstain on her abdomen was wider than it had been before, and the blood looked fresher. Worse, her head was lolling to one side, while a trickle of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth. Her chest still rose and fell though, so she was still alive. I don't know for how much longer, though. Especially if we can't get her to medical attention.
Setting his jaw, he tried to struggle to his feet, but failed. There was something wrong with his legs, or maybe his back. He took a deep breath, which hurt – busted ribs, probably – and looked around, taking stock. Hanran was down; Kinsey eyed the bloodstain spreading across the man's chest and grimaced. He was a good man, for a Feeb. Rodriguez, on the other hand, was just now climbing to his feet, shaking his head.
Who else? Kinsey turned his head, trying to ignore the sharp pain that resulted. People were down, he could see. The Mexican cape was groggily sitting up, along with a couple of the girls. Others were ominously still.
As the ringing in his ears eased off a little, he could hear shouts, screams and the sound of gunfire. A bullet smacked into the wall not altogether far from his head, and he looked around. He could see right down the corridor to … smoke and dust. End of the building's gone. Fuck. Surprised we're alive. Why aren't they in here already?
His head cleared a little more, and he realised that the really big woman and the metallokinetic were both gone. Must be holding them back. I need … I need … His initial instinct to be out there and causing trouble for the bad guys waned as he recalled Captain Snow's injuries. I need to stay here and make sure she gets medical attention. Besides, he wasn't sure what sort of difference he could make, right now.
The girl with the bandages on her ankles crawled across to him. She seemed to move almost in stop-motion; it took her no more than a second to cross the room, but she seemed to blur between distinct points on the way. He wasn't sure whether it was a power that she was manifesting or a symptom of how badly he was hurt. "Mister, uh, whoever you are?" Her voice was high, desperate. "Are you okay?"
"No." It came out as a cough. That hurt, too. "Help the others."
As she crawled away, the Captain stirred next to him. He had thought she was well and truly out of it, but her eyes half-opened, then closed again. She began mumbling to herself. This was a not uncommon habit of hers when asleep or nearly so, and he decided to take it as a good sign.
-ooo-
I lay in a hospital bed. The ward was bright and sunny, with a huge picture window at the far end of the room. Outside, the sun shone down on gorgeously manicured greenery, with an explosion of brilliantly-coloured flowers in every garden bed. On the bedside table, there was a get-well card alongside a Manila folder and what looked like a cordless computer game controller. Lisa bustled about, wearing a nurse outfit, fluffing up my pillow and then straightening the sheets that lay over me.
What the hell happened?
"Bomb," she explained succinctly. "A bunch of them put a breaching charge on the door at the far end of the building. It more or less blew the end wall off."
Christ. Good thing we got everyone out of those rooms.
"Yes," she replied seriously. "There was another one they were putting on the door at our end, but Hanran shot the guy with the bomb and one of his buddies. The rest retreated."
Uh, how is everyone?
She picked up the folder and leafed through it. "Well, let's see … Hanran has a splinter through his throat. He will die very shortly. We don't have the medical equipment to help him. One of the girls has suffered serious internal injuries as well. The others are in reasonable condition, considering. Kinsey was injured further, trying to get between you and the wall. He succeeded, by the way, but he will need hospital time before he's back on his feet. The Mexican kid is a bit bruised but fine, and so is Rodriguez." She paused to lift up a note. "Oh, yeah. Meant to tell you before. Rodriguez is the reason they got the drop on us."
What the fuck? I sat upright. You're shitting me. Rodriguez is a mole?
"Steady down," she advised me. "You're not well. No, he's not a mole. He's just … sympathetic to their cause. When we settled on this plan, he contacted Lange, in the hope that knowing what he was facing would cause Lange to give up before anyone got hurt."
But Lange decided to double down, I muttered. Because fanatics are so easy to talk into giving up.
"Yeah," she agreed. "Whoop – something's happening." Snatching up the controller, she clicked a button; the picture window blinked and I realised that it was actually a wall-sized TV screen. The image that came up next was a tad blurry, with fuzzy eyelashes at top and bottom.
Is this what I can see?
"Yup," she muttered tensely. "Kinsey heard what you said about Rodriguez."
Oh, shit.
"Yeah, oh shit." Lisa pressed a button on the controller and moved it, and I saw my hand move into view on the screen. It was holding my pistol.
Wait, are you -
-ooo-
Kinsey
For someone who had been working in law enforcement for years, Rodriguez seemed to have absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. Clutching the rifle, he knelt beside Hanran for a moment before shaking his head and standing again. Moving nervously and jerkily, he went over to the door, then leaned around to look down the corridor.
"Rodriguez." Kinsey forced himself to speak louder than he really wanted to. "Help me sit up. Get my pistol." If this was going to come down to the Alamo, then he was going to go out facing the enemy with an empty gun. We're even in the right state for it.
The ATF man came over. "We never should have come here," he muttered. "What are we really doing here?"
Losing his nerve. Fuck that. I've got to snap him out of it.
But just as Kinsey drew a breath – this one hurt, too – the Captain seemed to rouse slightly. "You're shitting me," she murmured. "Rodriguez is a mole?"
Those four words clicked into his head. Rodriguez is a mole? All of the unanswered questions, all of the little hints regarding the ATF man's behaviour, came together into one picture. The motherfucker sold us out.
Never for even a split second did Kinsey imagine that what Captain Snow had said came from some fever dream. He had known her for far too long; she was blessed, as far as he could tell, with a level of intuition that bordered on the supernatural. Give her material to work with, and she would settle down into a waking doze; when she awoke, she had the answers, to a level of detail that left lesser men baffled.
So when she said those four words, he believed them implicitly. However, he realised too late that Rodriguez had heard them as well. Looking up into the ATF agent's eyes, Kinsey saw the dawning realisation.
"She's delirious," Rodriguez blurted. "Babbling. Doesn't know what she's talking about."
Save the Captain, save the Captain. "Yeah, you're right," Kinsey grunted painfully.
It was as if a switch had been flipped behind the man's eyes. "Bullshit," muttered Rodriguez. "You can't lie worth a damn."
"Not too late to give yourself up," Kinsey tried desperately. His good arm was trapped under Captain Snow's unconscious body. He couldn't try for her pistol, or even make a grab for the traitorous ATF man.
"It was too late a long time ago," Rodriguez stated. The rifle began to swing toward Kinsey. "They're right, you know. The Behemoth is the first sign. The world is ending, and I can't let -"
He jerked back and screamed as a swarm of yellow-and-black objects surrounded him, punching tiny holes in his flesh. Abruptly, he jerked the rifle around, aiming at the Mexican kid. Even with the swarm on him, there was nothing Kinsey could do.
The flat crack of the Captain's pistol came as a total surprise. Blood sprayed from the side of Rodriguez' head; the ATF man fell sideways, his weapon unfired. Kinsey stared down at Captain Snow, who looked back with a bright gaze. She winked slowly at him once, then her eyes closed once more. The small pistol slipped from her hand and went clunk on the floor.
-ooo-
- playing my body like a computer game?
"What if I am?" Lisa grinned as she manipulated the controller; on the screen, my hand rose with the pistol in it, aiming at Rodriguez. The little yellow and black objects were attacking him, but they would not stop the ATF man from shooting Aguijón.
Until Lisa pressed the fire button and put a bullet through the side of Rodriguez' head. Rodriguez fell; Lisa did something with the controller that turned the viewpoint to look up at Kinsey's surprised expression. Part of the screen went dark, then the whole thing blanked out.
Wait, did you just wink at him?
"Mayyybe." Lisa's grin was out in full force now.
Gimme that thing. You are not responsible enough to be in charge of it. I made a grab for the controller.
Laughing, she evaded me, holding it up out of my reach. "Sorry. You're unconscious now. It won't do anything."
You winked at him. Why did you wink at him?
Her grin morphed into a smirk. "Because it's funny. You seriously need to flirt with him more often. You might surprise each other."
I gave up reaching for the remote, and shook my head. No. We are not opening that can of worms again.
Rolling her eyes, she huffed a sigh. "Fine. Be boring."
Thank you, I will. Are Kinsey and I going to make it?
"Yeah." She nodded. "If I'd known Piggot was half this badass back in the day, I would've been more respectful to her."
I raised an eyebrow. No, you wouldn't.
She chuckled. "You're right. I wouldn't. But I would've thought about it."
-ooo-
Kinsey
Captain Snow was still breathing, so Kinsey turned his attention toward Aguijón, who still had his hand outstretched, the yellow and black 'bees' orbiting him.
"Good going, kid," he grunted. "Well done."
Aguijón began to answer, but the gunfire outside increased in intensity. Kinsey thought he heard explosions as well. He raised his head, listening.
"What's happening?" asked the Mexican kid. A couple of the girls, conscious but with the good sense to keep their heads down, also looked to Kinsey for the answer.
"Sounds like the cavalry's on the way," he grunted. "Someone help me sit up, and get my gun. We just have to hold out till they get here."
One of the girls, a brunette who may have been pretty under other circumstances, nodded. Getting up from where she'd been huddling under an upturned chair, she stumbled over to where his pistol lay next to Hanran's outstretched hand. Picking it up, she brought it to him, then crouched down next to him.
"Are we going to die?" she asked, as the noise of battle outside increased yet again. With a grunt, she helped him to sit up against the wall, the Captain cradled on his lap. He gratefully took the pistol in hand.
"Not if I can help it. Now, take cover." He aimed the pistol at the open corridor for a moment, then rested it on his knee. "Kid, watch the other door. See anything that's not wearing a uniform, blitz it."
Aguijón nodded shakily. "Si, jefe."
Kinsey listened to the gunfire and other noises, trying to gauge the way the fight was going. He was all too aware that he only had a few rounds left, but he was damn sure that he'd make every one count.
And then came the noise he'd been anticipating and dreading; a scrambling noise, followed by heavy boots coming down the corridor. He raised the pistol again. I'll get one chance at this …
Emily
Subtlety was out the window. Riflemen raked the windows and top of the wall as Emily led her squad forward. The PRT captain had accepted her request to lead the assault, and the other officers had not objected; she strongly suspected that if she were killed in the fighting, they would not be overly unhappy.
The captain had had a word with her before the assault. Normally you'd be under guard by now, he'd said. But we're sadly lacking in troopers with your kind of initiative and current counter-terrorism training. So I'm letting you lead the assault. But you'd better not fuck it up, Piggot, or we're both out of a career.
She had looked him square in the eye. They've got my friend. I'm not going to fuck this up. Sir. She had saluted; he had returned it. There was no more to be said.
"Positions!" she yelled, and the squad split in half, going to a crouch and covering their faces with their arms. Behind them, a soldier levelled an RPG – where they'd scrounged that from, she wasn't sure – and let fly. The projectile lanced forward between the two halves of the squad, striking the front gate of the compound. Its explosive charge, designed to make a mess of the average armoured vehicle, wrought havoc with the wooden barrier.
Even before the dust and smoke had cleared – some of the bits and pieces were still pattering to the ground – Emily screamed the command to advance. Hefting her rifle, she was up and running, heading for the now-gaping hole in the enemy's defences.
A figure loomed in the cloud of smoke; she snapped a shot, and it fell away. She jumped over the debris that formed half the gate, fired at another defender, then took cover as a storm of fire came back at her. Pulling a grenade from her belt, she hurled it in the general direction of where most of the fire seemed to be coming from. By the time it landed and exploded, her squad had joined her, and were adding their fire to hers.
The beachhead had been established, but she had to keep pushing in. Her squad was just the tip of the spear; if they were going to take this place, if they were going to save Taylor, then they had to move fast. The last thing Emily wanted to deal with was to see Taylor with a gun to her head.
I'll kill every one of these motherfuckers first.
"Fire Team Alpha, to the left," she snapped. "Fire Team Bravo, to the right. Fire Team Charlie, with me, down the middle. Push them back, keep them on the back foot. Go!"
As the fire teams opened up, she came out of cover, running hard across the open ground. Her squad followed her, firing on the run at the indistinct forms shooting back at them. They're defending their home. Tough. I'm here to get my friend out.
A bullet tugged at her sleeve, and another ricocheted off of her helmet with an impact that made her head ring. But she made it to the building she wanted to get to, then spun back around with her rifle aimed around the corner to give covering fire. Another grenade lobbed downrange seemed to deal with a couple more of the defenders, and then the rest of her squad had made it to cover as well.
Not all of them were there; she counted two sprawled forms, out in the open. Neither one seemed to be moving. Fuck. It was the first time that people had died under her command. Intellectually, she knew that it wouldn't be the last time, probably not even today, unless she was killed first.
This was a situation that she had been told would happen someday. Officer training went over it in detail; what to expect, how to deal with it. I just never expected it to happen to me.
"Lieutenant?" That was Jerome, her sergeant. A good man. Steady.
She took a deep breath, turned to look them each in the eye. "Let's make this count."
Jerome smiled faintly. From what she recalled, he was ex-Marines. "Oorah, Lieutenant."
She nodded very slightly in reply. "All right. Place we want is this way." She led the way to the other side of the building. It was almost peaceful here, if one ignored the steady crackle of gunfire and the occasional explosion. In the next street over, surrounded by the wreckage of a couple of buildings, was the burnt-out remains of a helicopter. Ignoring the charred remains she could see still sitting in the cockpit, she pointed past it. "That building over there is the one we want. It's where Captain Snow and Sergeant Kinsey would've taken cover. It's where the prisoners are being kept."
Jerome leaned past her to look. "It's been targeted already. The other end's been damaged."
"Not by us," Emily noted. "Makes it more likely they're in there. Okay, squad -"
Rifle fire sounded close by. Corporal Scarelli went down without a sound, while Private Kenworth screamed as a round went through his leg. Emily dropped to a crouch, aimed past her squad members at the tangoes who had just rounded a building twenty yards away. "Go-go-go!" she yelled, opening fire.
Jerome obeyed at once, leading the way past the downed chopper toward the objective. Bullets whipped and whizzed past Emily, but she was beyond fear or hesitation. The loss of Chadwick and Kelso and Scarelli had been a rite of passage for her; an unpleasant one, but necessary all the same. People died in battle; to accept that, to be aware and yet not be paralysed by it, was an essential part of the makeup of a soldier. She fired, coldly and methodically, each round a kill-shot. Centre mass. Centre mass. Centre mass. Five shots, five down.
And then she heard the screams. It wasn't Kenworth; he was gritting his teeth as he reached for a medical pack. This was from back around the corner.
Dropping the magazine, she slotted another one in as she turned toward the source of the noise. Leaning around the corner, she saw.
Atop the wall, in the distance, was a bright star in the shape of a man. A beam of sun-bright light, emanating from this man, was playing over the remains of her squad – Jerome, Leacock, Forge, Norris, fuuuuuck!
Around the man himself was a halo of darkness, almost as if he were sucking the light from the air around him. Emily neither knew nor cared; his powers could have come from him performing lewd acts with livestock for all she was concerned. This was now personal. Bringing her rifle to her eye, she took aim. Her sight picture formed up. She took up first pressure on the trigger.
At the last moment, he seemed to realise that she was there. A beam of light licked out, hit the wooden building. It caught fire – but she shot first. Three shots, at the same point. Not a head shot. Against an unarmoured opponent, always go for centre mass.
The beam of light cut out. A moment later, the halo of darkness cut out, the corresponding light dissipating. The man fell; where to, she didn't care. Pretty sure that was Sunstrike. Good riddance.
"Kenworth?" she asked over her shoulder, not looking.
"Nearly got the bleeding stopped, lieutenant," he replied, pain in his voice.
"Good man." Stepping back, she crouched beside him. "Feel up to walking?"
He tightened the bandage around his leg. "If I have to, I'll run, ma'am."
She felt a swell of pride. Barely old enough to shave, he was already doing his best to project the machismo of a professional soldier. Reaching out, she took his hand and hefted him to his feet, standing as she did so. He grunted as the weight went on to his wounded leg; she slid her shoulder under his. While he was a little taller than her, she was far more solid, and easily able to support his weight. "Ready?"
"Ready, ma'am."
"Good. Take this." She offered him her pistol, butt first. He took it awkwardly in his left hand. As a right-handed shooter, she knew that his accuracy would be terrible, but if he could put enough rounds downrange, it wouldn't matter.
As she moved forward, he did his best not to slow her down, hopping on his right leg and stepping firmly with his left. They moved out past the corner of the still-burning building. Jerome and the rest of her squad lay where Sunstrike had hit them with his light-beam power. They hadn't even seen it coming. Kenworth looked down at them and swallowed.
"Take a good look," she advised him. "That sort of shit is what happens when you drop your guard against a parahuman even once. So be damn sure to shoot first."
He nodded. "Ma'am." Convulsively, he tightened his grip on the pistol.
The blown-open end of the building was the easiest point of entry; carefully, Emily climbed up, then hefted Kenworth up while he covered her back. They moved down the corridor, Emily all too aware of the noise of their boots on the wooden floorboards. The doors were askew; each showed a room without windows, furnished only with a bed. She was almost certain she knew what the beds had been used for.Whatever we do to them, it won't be nearly bad enough.
The end of the corridor was just up ahead. She moved more cautiously …
Lange
"This can't be happening." Hadrian Lange muttered the words to himself as he hurried down the passageway.
Once the attackers breached the gates, he had known that the end result was inevitable. The government could muster an effectively unending number of assault troops; the only way to win was to convince them that it wasn't worth the cost of attacking. When the helicopter had come down inside the walls and the incompetent fools under him had not immediately seized the survivors for use as hostages, they had sealed the doom of the Brotherhood of the Fallen.
He still didn't even know exactly why the governmental forces had chosen to target him, just that they had. It wasn't as if the Brotherhood was high-profile; he had worked very hard toward anonymity for the group and what they stood for.
But now, however they had gotten on to him, it was all crumbling down around his shoulders. His followers were fanatical enough to keep fighting in his absence. All he needed was a few more minutes, then he would be able to set the timer and then make use of the well-concealed escape tunnel. Hadrian Lange would disappear forever; he had enough contacts to garner a new identity, make a new start. Find more people to rally behind him. There were always more fools.
Pulling a key from an inside pocket, he unlocked the door to his office. After locking it again behind him, he dropped two heavy bars into purpose-made brackets it to make absolutely sure that he wasn't disturbed. Taking a large briefcase from beside his desk, he turned to the safe that squatted in the corner of the room. With the ease of long practice, he spun the dial, first one way and then the other. The safe opened noiselessly on well-oiled hinges, revealing that which he would much rather not have to leave behind.
First, the money. Stack after stack of cash ended up in the briefcase, representing enough in the way of liquid assets to tide him over until he could rebuild the Brotherhood of the Fallen.
On the next shelf down were documents which revealed far too much about him and his secrets. I should have burned them years ago. But into the briefcase they went as well. Closing the case, he snapped the latches shut.
One more thing to do. On the lowest shelf of the safe was a flat square plastic box with a safety switch and a red button. Pressing the button would start the timer on a large amount of explosive set under the compound itself. When it went off, it probably wouldn't kill all of the intruders, but it would make identification of the dead very difficult; thus, he would get his revenge for this setback and cover his tracks.
He reached for the remote.
Emily
Something had obviously been going on in the large room at the end of the building. Close to the end of the corridor, Emily could see a large grey-skinned man, lying on his back. He appeared to have no eyes. Further in, a pair of legs was visible.
Prudently, she paused before revealing herself. "PRT! Drop your weapons!" I have to assume whoever's in there is hostile until proven otherwise.
"PRT!" The voice was barely a croak. "Sergeant James Kinsey!" He rattled off his service number.
"Kinsey, it's Lieutenant Piggot," Emily replied. "Is Captain Snow there?"
"Here, but unconscious, ma'am. We've got wounded."
Dammit. It could still be a trick. She remembered meeting the burly Sergeant, but she didn't know his voice well enough, or his service number. "Sergeant. Captain Snow's friend. The one who can shoot. What's his name?"
She fancied she heard amusement in his tone, as pained as it was. "He's a she, ma'am, and her name's Gladys Knott. I hear she waxed your ass but good."
The surname was unfamiliar, but the rest was correct. She still recalled her jaw-dropping amazement as a goddamn schoolteacher outshot her, target after target. "Coming out, Sergeant. Don't shoot."
Together with Kenworth, she stepped forward, to see even more carnage than she expected. Five dead men, six if she counted the obvious parahuman. Both Hanran and Rodriguez were down, she noted absently. Six girls, two unconscious. Fuck. And Kinsey …
The burly Sergeant was propped up against the far wall, his pistol in his hand. Cradled against his body was Taylor. They were both bloodstained, scorched and obviously injured; she looked the more beat-up of the pair, but not by much. "She's alive?"
He nodded. "Yeah, but we need medics, bad." From the sound of his voice, Taylor wasn't the only one.
"Roger that, Sergeant." Outside, the firing was almost done. She activated her radio. "Fire Team Charlie Actual calling Fire Base One. Objective achieved. Six, I say again, six hostages secured. Casualties, I say again, casualties. Medical assistance required urgentmost. Do you copy, over?"
It took a long moment for the reply to come back. "Message received, Fire Team Charlie Actual. Medvac incoming alpha-sierra-alpha-papa. Hold tight. Fire Base One, out."
"Fire Team Charlie Actual, that's a roger. Out." Emily looked over at Kinsey. "Congratulations, Sergeant. You did it."
Kinsey's smile, though pained, was genuine. "The Captain did the hard work, ma'am. I was just along for the ride."
Lange
The door to the office burst open in a cloud of splinters. Lange spun around, coming to his feet, the remote forgotten. An imposing figure, made no less so by the sheet wrapped around her, stalked into the room. The bars, top and bottom, snapped like dry twigs, impeding her advance not in the slightest.
"You … fucking … little … shit," snarled Joanne. "I'm gonna take you apart like a fucking Christmas turkey."
He looked up at her, curling his lip. As he opened his mouth to speak, she lunged forward, only to stumble and collapse to the floor. An agonised shriek left her lips as she writhed, her back arching off the ground.
"You're nothing," he said. "I can kill you here and now, and you can't do -"
Too late, he looked up to see the metallic statue standing in the doorway. Metal leaped out from her, wrapping around him, pinioning his arms and legs. Worse, the metal also covered his eyes, holding his head tightly. Line of sight to the brutish woman was broken; his power over her ended. He could hear her getting to her feet.
"You were saying?" she asked. "Nice save, Kari. Thanks."
"I, uh, no problem," a softer voice answered. "What do we do with him now?"
"There's money in the briefcase," he said swiftly. "Let me go and it's all yours."
The big woman laughed harshly. "You drugged me. You chained me down to a fucking bed. You let Smasher do what he wanted to me. And you think money will get you out of this?"
"All right then," he replied. "I surrender. Hand me over to the police."
Kari
"No." Joanne's voice was flat. "No. You don't get out of this so easily."
"Uh, we do have him prisoner," Kari objected, but her heart really wasn't in it.
"And the moment his eyes are uncovered, he can cause pain just by looking at someone." Joanne shook her head. "And what he's done. What he was going to do to you. You're just going to let him walk after all that?"
She was right. Kari could remember, all too clearly, her terror in that small stuffy room, with the rawboned man looming over her, undoing his belt. What could have happened … I owe Roberto so very much.
"I …" she began, but Lange spoke over her.
"You will do nothing," he snapped. "You will let me go. You will both let me go. I will walk out of here, and you will do nothing to stop me."
Far from being hypnotic, his voice was grating on the ears. But Kari felt it influencing her, deep inside. He's right. I have to let him go.
Joanne swayed. "Kari, you have to let him go … no!" Her eyes came into focus for just a moment. "No, shit, his voice, his voice!"
But it was too late. Kari was already letting the metal slide off of him. The moment his eyes were free, they focused their burning gaze upon Joanne; she screamed once more as she hunched over. But then she straightened again, agony etched in her every feature, every inch of movement a battle against almost insurmountable odds.
"No," she grated. Lunging forward, she clamped her hand over his mouth.
That insidious voice stilled, Kari took her opportunity. This was a man who had caused Joanne to be violated many times. The other girls had suffered just the same fate. Much the same would have happened to her, but for a kind Mexican boy who chose not to bend to peer pressure.
He was going to break me in. How many of the others did he do that to?
Her resolve hardened. The metal rod sharpened, punching into his abdomen, branching out into a thousand needle-sharp points, metal reaching into every part of his body. His back arched as he screamed past Joanne's gagging hand. And then it burst outward, turning him into a silvery pincushion from the inside.
Joanne released him. His eyes stared back at them, but there was no power in his gaze any more. He gasped once, twice, three times, like a landed fish, and then he stopped breathing. His head lolled sideways.
Slowly, Kari withdrew the metal from him, the spikes retreating into his flesh and withdrawing along the entry points. When the last of it slid out of the wound in his abdomen, he fell bonelessly to the floor.
"Oh shit," Kari choked. "I killed him. I really killed him."
Joanne put an arm around her shoulders. "Yeah, but he really deserved it," she assured the younger girl. "Thanks. You saved my ass back there."
"You saved both of us," Kari replied, then watched in confusion as Joanne took hold of the heavy desk and hefted it. "What are you doing?"
"Confusing the hell out of whoever does the post-mortem," Joanne grunted. With an effort, she brought the end of the desk down on the supine corpse, several times in a row. Drawers fell from the desk and their contents scattered over the floor, but Joanne didn't stop until Lange was more or less unrecognisable as a human being. With a thud, she dropped the desk on top of the mangled body. "Okay, now we can go."
Without a backward glance, they both walked from the office.
End of Part 5-3
Author's Note: REMF = Rear Echelon Mother-Fucker. An officer who never goes to the front lines, but issues orders that screw things up and get soldiers killed.