Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly (40 page)

‘I got everything they collected on you. There’s a lot of scientific data and their plan for getting their hands on you, and some other stuff that’s not really your concern.’

Cygnus blinked at her. ‘If it’s about me…’

‘It’s not. It’s about me…’ She turned, her eyes flicking down, and Cygnus followed her gaze to the zombie. Why cover its face and not cover Conrad? Unless…

‘You knew him?’

‘That… That used to be my brother.’

‘You said he died. You said Tonaldo… Oh, you said they never found a body, just a wallet. Blutadler…’

‘Professor Blutadler, or Kopf, or whatever his name is, turned my brother into that walking corpse. Have you seen him?’

‘No. I found Ultra… Ghostfire’s taken care of, but Blutadler sent that to distract you while he got past to some escape pod or something. He left me a message, on the consoles in the observation room.’

‘Damn… Well, I just sent a message to Special Agent Dannon telling him where this place is. Maybe we should go see whether there’s another escape pod.’

Cygnus frowned. ‘Might be better if he didn’t find me until we’ve cleared my name.’ She turned and headed for the door, stepping over Conrad’s body. There was a lot of blood pooling under him and he was going to be lucky if he was found before he bled out. Another corpse, but not of her making, and considering what he had done she was not going to complain about it.

There was a doorway hidden behind some crates at the eastern end of the storeroom. Cygnus turned the wheel and opened it, and they found themselves looking at a corridor that belonged on a submarine. Metal walls, decking rather than flooring. The door they were going through looked like it had been designed to hold back water if needed.

There was another, similar, door at the end, and beyond that was a room which fitted the science fiction bill nicely. On their left was a tube with a heavy, glass door keeping out the greenish water which was filling it.

‘He said he’d be out in the bay before we could catch him,’ Cygnus said. ‘He must have… a submarine?’

Twilight’s teeth clenched as she snarled. ‘I’m going to get that bastard if it’s the last thing I do.’

‘He’s coming back. He said he was coming back for me. I don’t know why. He seemed to think there was something special about me.’

‘Then we’ll be waiting.’ Twilight’s gaze scanned the room and she walked over to another door, opening it and looking in. ‘For now, get your special butt over here. There’s a ladder, going up. Hopefully it’ll take us to the surface.’

‘I hope so. Anywhere has to be better than this.’

~~~

‘Oh thank God!’ June exclaimed as Cygnus and Twilight came in through the balcony window. ‘You just went out and I didn’t know what had happened, and ACPN has been going on about a raid on a meat-packing plant in Churchton, and… Oh my God what’s that stench?!’

Stopping just inside the door, both Ultras began to strip on the spot. ‘The super-secret escape ladder from Ghostfire’s base,’ Twilight said, pausing to pull off her cowl, ‘opened up into the main Churchton sewer.’

‘You’d better get a bucket or something for these,’ Cygnus added. ‘I’m first in the shower.’

‘Fuck that,’ Andrea replied as she shucked off the last vestiges of Twilight. ‘We’re all girls together and I’ve seen you naked before. Besides, we’ll both need someone to scrub our backs.’

Penny sighed. ‘Yeah… June, could you get the scrubbing brush from under the sink? And maybe the bleach?’

Part Six: The New Protector of New Millennium

New Millennium City, MD, 17
^th
December, 2013.

‘We return to our main news story tonight,’ the ACPN presenter said. ‘At midday today it was announced that Ultranova, protector of New Millennium City for the last decade, was killed in action by a previously unheard of villain, Ghostfire.’

‘The story isn’t going to change,’ June pointed out.

Penny adjusted her glasses. ‘I know, but if I keep watching them tell it, maybe I’ll believe it wasn’t me that killed him.’

‘At the same press conference,’ the presenter continued, ‘UID Supervisor Harold Kent announced that Ghostfire himself died in the fight and that the heroine Cygnus was, in fact, framed by Ghostfire. ACPN investigations suggest that Cygnus and her partner, Twilight, were instrumental in ensuring that Ultranova’s sacrifice was not for nothing.’

‘At least you’re getting some of the credit,’ June pointed out.

‘Yeah, well, if Andrea hadn’t taken the evidence to Jacob Dannon yesterday, I’d probably still be in hiding.’

June sighed. ‘She took the information from the office with her too, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah. Now might be a good time to capitalise on your new modelling celebrity.’

The presenter was still going on, despite having given all the information she had given previously.

‘…a major gap in the Ultrahuman protection of the city. It will be a tough act to follow, but experts suggest that Cygnus, now proven innocent, is likely to take over Ultranova’s role as the official protector of New Millennium.’

‘You what?!’ Penny exclaimed.

18
^th
December.

‘Well,’ Twilight said, ‘you did kind of kill the last one. It’s only fair.’

Cygnus glowered at her. ‘Please don’t remind me. I’m still trying to work through that one. If I burst into tears at some point, don’t sweat it.’

‘I’m not sure what the problem is. I left Conrad to bleed to death and I had to cut my own brother’s heart out, and I’m not blubbering.’ The black-clad heroine paused for a second and then added, ‘Anymore.’

‘I just… I keep seeing his face looking up at me over where my fist was buried to the wrist in his ribcage. He looked so surprised.’

‘He was overconfident. If you think no one can beat you, it tends to be a shock when they do, and he killed Bobby.’

‘No, Heartbreaker…’

‘He’s as much to blame as she is, probably more, and you know it.’

‘Yeah… Look, I’ll get over it. I just need some time.’

Twilight gave a nod. ‘Don’t take too long, it’s almost Christmas and Red isn’t going to want you moping around at her party.’

‘Huh, no. And by then I suspect I’ll have more to mope about. I’ll probably be unemployed.’

19
^th
December.

When it happened, even though both Penny and June knew it was coming at some point, the way it happened meant that they did not really have to stretch their acting skills to feign shock.

Penny was at work, as usual, though Mister Leighton had been looking very concerned about her since she had returned and everyone was under orders to avoid over-stressing her. Officially she had had a minor breakdown over her ‘friend’s’ death. Someone had, apparently, neglected to tell the police about her low-stress environment since two armed SWAT officers burst into her room without warning, followed by a tall, dark-haired woman holding a handgun.

The woman checked a notepad. ‘You’re… Penny Worthington?’

‘Uh… that’s right.’

The woman nodded. ‘I’m Detective Warner. Please step away from the computer.’ She produced a sheet of paper from her pocket, handing it to Penny. ‘That is a copy of our warrant to seize all records from this company, both paper and electronic.’

Penny scanned the form. It looked real. Then again, she had been expecting this for days, just not with MP5s. ‘Okay. Uh, were the sub-machine guns really necessary?’

Warner gave her a smile which did not reach her eyes. ‘These men will take you to Justice Square. We’re interviewing all the staff there.’

Penny pushed her chair back and got to her feet. ‘Is it okay if I take my bag? Or do you want to search it first?’

~~~

‘Mister Leighton is upset, of course,’ June said glumly. ‘I think it’s mostly because he didn’t know. He told me he had a few suspicions, mostly about DeWitt. Jonny Tonaldo being on the board…’

‘Not anymore,’ Penny put in. ‘Getting caught red-handed with illegal weapons and a lot of bodies… He’s going away. There is no way his lawyers are getting him out of this one.’

‘True. But Mister Leighton didn’t have a clue about the Ghostfire accounts. Thorpe handled all of them personally.’

‘Which isn’t going to look good for Mister Thorpe.’

‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man, but Leighton and Thorpe will lose its licence, Mister Leighton’s sure of that. He says he has enough money to retire, once his assets are unfrozen.
Most
of the company’s work didn’t involve laundering money for criminals. He should be okay, but…’

‘We’ll all be out of work.’

June nodded. ‘That. Yeah.’ She leaned over, wrapping an arm around Penny’s shoulders and pulling her in for a hug. ‘We’ll be okay. I’ll call my agent, and Dom, after New Year. I bet there’ll be work coming in.’

Penny tried to stop herself tensing, but did not
quite
manage it. June loosened her grip and settled back on the sofa as though nothing had happened. Neither of them was mentioning the elephant in the corner. Cygnus had seduced June, though ‘seduced’ was probably not the right word, and then she had survived and Penny had to deal with it. Thinking of it as something Cygnus had done made it a little easier on both of them. A little.

20
^th
December.

‘Tonaldo will be back to hating our guts,’ Cygnus commented as she watched men and women being loaded into police vans.

‘Yeah,’ Twilight said, grinning maliciously, ‘but that’s how I like it. Plus, I’ve been wanting to take this lab down for a couple of months and he’s been getting off lightly recently.’

‘We got his brother locked up.’

‘Relatively lightly.’ Twilight looked up at the sky. There were two helicopters up there, almost as per normal: the NWCPD one and the ACPN one. There were reporters waiting to talk to them outside the police cordon, and if she was really lucky she would get her partner to handle all of that. Cygnus, she told herself, needed the good publicity at the moment. She frowned. Something else was in the sky, something small… ‘What’s that? Can you make it out?’

Cygnus followed her pointing finger, squinting up into the sky. ‘Uh… Wow, that’s doing its best to remain hidden. Some sort of drone?’

There was a sound, something like tearing fabric, or a very turbulent flow of air through a narrow tube. The air in the middle of the circle of police vehicles rippled, twisting almost as though they were looking at a pool of water. And then two figures stepped out of the distortion before it closed behind them.

One of them was immediately recognisable. She was tall, slim, and beautiful. Her hair was a cascade of shimmering, platinum blonde, her eyes were the clearest blue, and her skin was alabaster. She was dressed in a flowing, white gown, split to the hip, which was her off-duty costume. She was Brightstar, one of the highest-ranking members of the Union of Ultrahumans.

The other took a second longer to register. About the same height as Twilight, he was an average sort of man with average, brown hair cut short. His eyes were hazel and he looked a little skinny. Not obviously heroic material, until you saw the bright spark of intelligence in his eyes, the way he seemed to observe everything, taking it in and filing it for later. He was Hugh Charles Last, Doctor Ultimate, possibly the most intelligent man on the planet and the last time Penny had seen him he had been making a guest appearance on
True Powers
.

It was a little like having royalty turn up to the dinner party you had organised for a few friends.

‘Sorry,’ Ultimate called out. ‘Sorry everyone. Unexpected visit. Urgent need to talk. Thought this was best. Carry on.’

Brightstar, apparently used to her friend’s manner of speaking, smiled at the two girls in front of them. ‘What Hugh is trying to say is that we need to talk to Cygnus.’

‘Uh… oh!’ Cygnus replied. ‘Well… go ahead.’

‘In private,’ Brightstar added.

Cygnus frowned. ‘As I’m sure you know, this is Twilight, my
partner
. I don’t have any secrets from her.’

Ultimate seemed to either not get the slight barb, did not care, or felt that it was fine. ‘Ultranova needs to be… Uh… Where was I?’

Brightstar sighed. Doctor Ultimate’s brain tended to be occupied with at least three things at once,
on top of
what was happening in the world outside his head. He occasionally lost track of a conversation, had two of them at the same time, or repeated words for no obvious reason.

‘You get used to this,’ she said. ‘We need a replacement for Ultranova and we would like you to join the Union to fill his place.’

‘Isn’thawhaIsaid?’ Ultimate stated in a jumble of syllables. He also forgot to slow down his speech to normal human comprehension rates at times too.

‘Almost.’ Brightstar looked pointedly at Cygnus, awaiting an answer.

‘Just like that?’ Cygnus asked.

‘You’re the obvious choice.’

‘Group dynamics,’ Ultimate said. ‘Spread of powers, accepted power levels, and then there’s the obvious really when you think about it.’

Cygnus decided she was not even going to try. ‘What about Twilight?’

‘Oh… I’m not their kind of person,’ Twilight put in. ‘I’ve got my hands full here, and I’m nowhere
near
the magnitude they need.’

It was true that the Union had been formed to handle large-scale events, big threats. They had stopped an asteroid from crashing into Earth, halted wars, handled famines. Twilight was not the kind of hero they needed. That did not mean Brightstar could stand there with a patronising smile on her face…

‘I have my hands full here too,’ Cygnus said. ‘My partner needs my help. The city has just lost its most famous Ultra. It’s an honour, it really is, but I’m going to have to say no.’

Brightstar’s eyes widened for a second. She did a lot of the political work for the Union and she was good at hiding her emotions. There had to be a lot of surprise there.

Ultimate, it seemed, was more nonplussed. ‘Has anyone ever turned us down before?’ he asked without a single diversion or stutter.