H.E.R.O. - Horde (34 page)

I chose a beater truck, drove into town and parked in the lot of a defunct business well away from my home.  I took flight from there toward the meeting place with Rayna.  Travel was faster through the air, not that I was an exceptionally fast flier, but not dealing with traffic or turns cut down the time quite a bit.

I saw the garage below, kept going and dove as I moved away, and then swung back when just above the ground to cut down on any casual viewers watching me fly above the building tops.  If I were going to take care not to let people know where I lived, then at the least I could do it for my hero lady.

 One of the garages was open; Rayna sat in a zero gravity lawn chair playing with her phone.  Each of her three floating eye-creatures - or Bs as she liked to call them - hovered with their main eye focused on a phone of their own.  The other eyes shifted toward me almost instantly.

At a distance, I heard Duff said, "Wing guy der."

Rayna looked up and smiled as I landed in front of her garage.  She put her phone away and stood.

She said, "Phones away, boys.  We're going to go do some work."

Gruff said, "Gruff
always
work.  Want play."

"Gruffster, you got to play all morning until we went to see Psystar."

Duff was floating mostly upside-down, as appeared to be his norm.  I wondered if there was something wrong with him.

Duff slid his phone back into the arm sheath and said, "Duff ready."

Gruff said, "Duff sucks."

Fluff looked at the brown orb and agreed, "Duff sucks."

Rayna gave them a scolding look, "Be nice, boys.  Razorwing is going to fly me, you three follow and come to where I'm at, okay?"

Fluff looked at me with his big eye and bared his teeth more than normal.  "No leave Rayna."

She ruffled his red mowhawk and said, "You have to protect your brothers on the way there.  I'll be fine with Razorwing.  Do you want me to have Kar come with and lead the party?  He'll get a share of the loot, then...."

Fluff quickly said, "No, Kar sucks."

Gruff repeated it after Fluff.

I held back from laughing at them.  It almost seemed like the three stooges in orb form.

I asked, "Are you ready?"

"Good to go."

She shut the garage and walked up to me.  I'd noticed the other fliers tended to hold people against them rather than hold their arms, so I put my arm around her waist, picked her up and flapped hard to take off.

A few hard flaps and we were well above the low buildings.  Rayna pulled out her phone and showed me the direction to the guitarist's home.  I looked back as we flew, the three orbs stuck together in a small pack as they zoomed through the air behind us.  They slowly fell behind as we flew, but Rayna mentioned to continue on.

The guitarist lived on the west side, so it took a while to fly through the skyscraper-laden central part of the city.  Rayna pointed out different things as we flew.

After a while she said, "Wow, this is really different than flying with Psystar."

"How's that?"

"The speed, for one, the first flight she hit the sound barrier in almost no time, although on the trip from the jail back to my place she stayed under it.  Still, some five hundred miles an hour versus what, sixty or seventy miles an hour?  Well, and she smells divine."

"Yes.  I've tried to push my flight speed up, but it seems like I can only get so fast."

"That's too bad, but at least you
can
fly.  That's a lot easier than going across building tops, or driving."

"Right."

"But what's so different is that you have more time to really see the city.  She zooms past things at such a high speed that you don't have time to really look at things."

"Metrocity is interesting place.  It's not as if we're in a super rush.  I'll swing by a few of the beautiful buildings just so you can check them out."

"I don't mean to pry ... well ... maybe I do - but are you married?"

"Married?  No.  Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering how your significant other reacted when you changed."

"I don't have one.  I have a ... good friend - not someone I'm seeing - that I was with when I changed.  She had a bit of a shock.  However, we're not intimate, so the change had no bearing on anything like that.  How about you?"

"I had a boyfriend when I changed - we were both gamers.  He didn't like how strong I'd become.  Once I started making creatures he got a bit freaked out."

"That's unfortunate.  I'm surprised you haven’t found another."

"Well ... I'm a bit worried about someone letting out what I do for a living - or that I have all my buddies in the house.  I'd be pretty upset if someone tried to take them away."

"Buddies?"

"Yeah, like the Bs.  I have other creatures at home too."

"Oh yeah?  Anything interesting?"

"They're all interesting to me.  You're kind of into the medieval thing with your tabard - I've got a gargoyle."

"Are you serious?  A living one?"

"Yeah.  He just sits there and guards ninety-nine percent of the time, though.  It's not like he's a chatterbox."

"That would be awesome, having real gargoyles along the roof of the mansion."

"You have a mansion?"

"Ah.  I have a good sized house."

"Hmm.  You like medieval things, you aren't a member of H.E.R.O., so you don't need the money.  You have a castle, don't you?"

I laughed, "No, I don't have a castle.  I do have a big place, though, with a lot of medieval things inside."

"That would rock.  Stuff like in games?"

"More from books and graphics art, I've heard those lines are blurring more and more."

"They are, I think.  Or at least there's a lot of art made out of game concepts, and vice versa."

"So you created the gargoyle?"

"Yup."

"Do you have a size limit on making a creature?"

"I don't know.  The gargoyle is human sized; he's the largest thing I've tried.  Well, wait, I guess Digger would be larger, but he ran off."

"Digger?"

"Yeah, a tunneling creature.  He makes a seven foot hardened-wall tunnel really good."

"Is it a gargantuan worm?"

"No, he looked more like a giant centipede."

"How giant?"

"About as long as a person is tall."

"So when you say he ran off...."

"He dug a new tunnel and I've not seen him since."

"Did you try following the tunnel?"

"A few hundred yards.  He'd headed toward the main city.  But there's no oxygen if he doesn't make openings connecting to the surface, and without lights I didn't want to keep going."

"Ah.  So there could be a huge centipede just creating tunnels underneath Metrocity?"

"Could be?  There is.  What's going to kill him down there?  Poor thing, his fur is probably all dirty."

"Wait - you made a furred centipede?"

"Sure, most of my creatures are furred.  Why would I want to pet something that isn't furred?"

"Um, okay, I guess I can't argue with that."

"Does the gargoyle feel like stone?"

"Yeah.  You wouldn't know he's not a statue if he didn't move, and he can stay perfectly still for weeks."

"He doesn't need to eat?"

"Not really.  I have him join us for food regularly, but he doesn't really need it."

"That's amazing.  Have you tried making a living statue?"

"What's the difference from a gargoyle?"

"Just appearance, I guess, and perhaps how they tend to stand."

"No, I haven't tried one, but it would be nearly identical to the gargoyle in difficulty and time.  Why, are you hinting that you'd like a nekkid woman statue for your front drive?"

I laughed, "I was thinking for the foyer, but that does sound nice.  Not a nude woman, though - I was thinking more of a knight - or perhaps a fantasy creature defender."

"Really?  You would like a monster or something?"

"Well, it would have to be a creature that could defend the people in the house, so probably not a snake body.  I do kind of like the idea of a knight, just because it's a known defender."

"Hmm."

"I'd pay you."

"I don't know if I like the idea of making creatures and selling them for cash.  It kind of sounds like slavery."

"Let me ask you this, what
could
I do for you that would be worth something like that?"

"What about promising me that if anything ever happens to me you would take in all of my creatures and give them a place to live, watch TV and play computer games?  Well, obviously they need some food too, some of them.  If you've got that big of a place you could devote a few rooms to them...."

"Can I see the creatures you've got?"

"Sure.  You know that I make more on an occasional basis, right?"

"I expected that."

"We're right over the place on my GPS."

"All right.  We going to just land at the front door and ring the bell?"

"How about you drop me from about twenty or thirty feet up, and stay airborne to watch the back door.  If someone bolts, you can nab them.  I'll yell if there is a fight."

I turned and scanned the sky behind us for her small creatures.  I spotted them perhaps half the distance to us from her home.

She said, "What are you looking for?"

"I'm looking at your B's.  They are still in the skyscraper area."

"Yeah, they move maybe half your speed.  I wasn't sure how fast you flew or I'd have left them at home."

"You okay doing this without Fluff?"

"Oh, yeah - especially with you here."

The building was a narrow two-story townhouse in an older section of town.

"All right, ready for the drop?"

"Yup."

I glided down and dropped her around the thirty-foot mark.  She landed gracefully in a crouch.  I began flying in circles to keep an eye on the front and rear entrances to the unit in question as she walked to the front door.

She looked like she ought to be selling cookies or something.  Not that she was a child, but she looked young and cute, and the effect was amplified by the pink and white costume she wore.

She looked relaxed as she rang the doorbell.  One benefit of exceptional hearing was the ability to listen while in the air.  I heard footsteps in the house.  The door opened - a man in jeans and a t-shirt stood in front of her.

She said, "I'm looking for Andre Sumlin."

"Uhh, he's not here right now, but you can dance for me if that's what you're here for."

"I'm an H.E.R.O. agent, on official business.  Do you know where he is at?"

"Yeah - he should be at school.  He goes to the University."

"Which one?"

"Metrocity."

"Do you know his class schedule?"

"Uhh, not exactly.  I know he had a class this afternoon at around 1 P.M."

"What does he take classes in?"

"Some kind of business classes.  He's in a band; they are supposed to help him figure out the money stuff."

"Does he normally come home immediately after school?"

"Usually.  Is he in trouble?"

"We have some questions for him."

"Should I give him a message?"

"No.  I'll be back another time.  Wait - does he have a gig tonight?  His website doesn't show one."

"No, Thursday's off."

"Oh, okay.  Thanks."

Rayna jogged down a ways, leaped up onto a fence and back flipped up onto the roof.  She jogged over near me, so I landed.

She said, "He's not here."

I put my hand up, "I heard it all.  Good ears.  You know he's likely to call the guy up and warn him now, right?"

"Crud.  Wait, hmm."

"What?"

"Psystar goes to school there - she went back to meet with her study group."

"Are you thinking about having her find the guy?"

"Yeah, and while she nabs him we can fly there."

"How about calling H.E.R.O. - do they have access to the student records at the University?"

"No, they would have to call, and possibly fight over warrant issues."

"I might have a solution."

"Oh yeah?"

I pulled out my phone and called my new technical expert, Jim.

He answered.  "Hello, this is Jim."

"Jim, this is Razorwing."

"Awesome!  What's up?"

"Here's a test of your skills - how hard is it for you to find someone's class schedule?"

"Oh, that's easy, got the name?"

"Yeah - it's Andre Sumlin."

"One sec - good thing I'm in the lab, I've got a PC in front of me.  Okay, got it - which day of the week do you want?"

"Today, this afternoon - and you got in that fast."

"Umm, I've had to get in before, I've got a login."

I laughed.  "All right then.  I like you, Jim."

"He had a class from one to three today.  Business Accounting in the Komar business building.  Room 102.  It's an auditorium."

"Great, thank you, Jim."

"Sure thing, this is official stuff?"

"Yes it is - if he's guilty, then you might save a dozen lives tonight." 
Hmm, Lady Celeste did say I wouldn’t face the red orcs again….

"Holy shit, really?  That's awesome."

"Yeah, I've got to take care of this.  Thanks again Jim."

I hung up the phone, looked at Rayna and gave her the information.  She in turn called Psystar.  The fact that she couldn't hear the other end of my conversation, yet I could hear hers clearly made me feel good about being a demonic-looking mutant for a while.

I heard, "Psystar here."

"Hiya Psystar, this is Rayna.  Can you do something for me?"

"Sure."

"The guitarist of the band goes to school at the U of M with you.  He's in a class right now, the Komar building, Room 132.  Any chance you could rush down and arrest him?"

"Err, okay.  I've never done that.  Just go up to him, grab him and say he's under arrest?"

"Pretty much.  You could call a paddy wagon after you have him to bring him to the nearest police station.  I'm going to send you his picture in a text."

"Okay, cool.  This should be interesting."

"Great - thanks much.  Oh, give me a call when you have him, would you?  I'd like to be in on it."