Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes (6 page)

Can there be anything more clichéd than a supervillain robbing a bank? Aftershock tried it and fought Atlas in the first ‘superhero vs. supervillain’ fight a day after the Event. He lost. But it still happens, and just about the only time the bad guys win is if they get out before the capes arrive. And only the best or dumbest of them try it in Chicago.

Terry Reinhold,
Citywatch.

“Blackstone wants you in Dispatch
right now
.” Virtual Shell’s face was the first thing my blinking eyes could track. “There’s a bank robbery going down.” For the second time in two days I fast-dressed in the air, more and more thankful for Andrew’s latest—and easiest—design. This time I didn’t destroy a boot.

“Stand down, Astra,” Blackstone said. Not the words I expected to hear upon arriving in Dispatch. “Your feet aren’t on the floor.”

The room hummed, all stations live while Blackstone watched the big screen. Beside me, David swallowed a laugh while he tracked CAI movement at his station.

I forced my feet to get familiar with the carpet. “Sir? What’s happening?”

“Somebody has decided to take advantage of the fact that almost all of our heavies are away south to rob Chicago National.” Blackstone sipped his coffee—coffee!—eyes roaming the icons bordering the screen.

“And why aren’t I— I’m grounded, aren’t I?”

“Indeed, my dear. Until the investigation and review is complete, we aren’t fielding you unless there is nobody else and loss of life is imminent. SaFire has just gone in to perform a forceful recon.”

SaFire’s icon showed the source of the mask-cam view we were seeing. Sound brought us the shriek of the bank’s emergency system, and it looked like nobody was chasing the bank employees exiting the bank around her. This early in the morning there weren’t many of them. We could see one guard, down but no blood.

“David?” Blackstone didn’t look away from the screen. “Teams?”

“West Side Guardians are closest, but SaFire’s the only really robust West-Sider available now. The rest are south.”

The screen lit up with a flash and boom, throwing paper from bank desks. SaFire didn’t stop.

“They’re busy,” Blackstone observed. “Why aren’t they keeping anybody from leaving? No hostages?”

“Professional crew?” David suggested.

Blackstone nodded. “I think you’re right. In which case… Instruct the police to maintain a withdrawn perimeter. This will probably be over by the time they finish—”

A second bang and flash and I almost leapt into the air again as an orange and green fireball filled the screen. The view spun, came to rest pointed at the ceiling.

“So it’s the Repo Men.”

“Yep,” David looked up, checked boxes on one of his touch-screens and I watched profiles come up.

“Who? Shouldn’t I be out there?”

Blackstone looked my way and actually
smiled
. “The Repo Men is the name the media has given this particular team. They’re a four-man heist crew, and the flash you just saw is the signature power of one of the four. It operates like a high-powered stun grenade. Improbably enough, it is effective against Atlas-types at closer range without turning normal victims into trauma-center cases. The good news is that if it is the Repo Men then it should be a zero fatality heist.”

He studied the main screen again, a shadow of a thought wrinkling his brow. Leaning in, he spoke more softly.

“It really is good news, but the FBI’s local anti-terrorist unit has already contacted us with a problem. They’ve been sitting on this bank for months—their sweep of Doctor Pellegrini’s holdings last year turned up a box here under a different name. They won’t tell me what’s in it, but they’ve been hoping to catch a member of the Ascendency coming back for it. So…”

“So why aren’t the Wreckers here?”

“Exactly. The perfect window opens for the Wreckers to be in and out, and instead we get a hired heist crew. Interesting.”

Interesting? Six months after learning the identity of the superhuman terrorist who styled himself The Ascendant we were no closer to learning his ultimate goals. We knew he wanted to encourage more breakthroughs and strengthen manifested breakthroughs. We knew he believed that breakthroughs were a new and superior humanity. We
didn’t
know why he engineered the Detroit prison-break, or why he’d mainly freed younger breakthroughs incarcerated there. And we didn’t know where The Ascendant or any of his followers, known as the Ascendancy,
were
.

Blackstone sipped his coffee like it was no big deal, but I just wound tighter. David seemed to buy his “everyone be cool” pose, but I could hear his teeth grinding together. Was everybody insane?

“So we just
watch
?”

“We just watch. You can be there in less than half a minute if it goes bad, but you’d be the only A Class. So we—”

“Here it comes.” David toggled something on his station and the big screen’s image changed to an exterior shot of the bank. It hadn’t opened for business yet, and it looked like all the employees had gotten out and away from the building—a good thing when the wall exploded.

“What is
that
?” I was floating again, and I realized I’d crossed myself.

A construct of brick, stone, metal, pieces of floor and walls and even desks, lurched through the hole and straightened up. Vaguely human-shaped, it had to be at least fifteen feet tall.

“Dr. Beth calls it a construct projection. Much like the Tin Man’s creations last year, except they make it by crushing together whatever is handy. The media call them wreck-golems.”

It looked like it had bits of bank vault attached, and it lumbered into the street.

“Bystanders?” Blackstone asked.

“Evacuation count has everyone who was supposed to be there out of the bank. Outside…” David flipped through video feeds. It looked like the street had emptied in true Chicago fashion, only cops and capes showing their heads. I spotted K-Strike and Red Robin, other West Side Guardians. The wreck-golem thumped towards the police cordon and Chicago’s finest opened up on it. Pieces began to come off the thing—at least half the police cars had to have racked heavy arms in their trunks, a couple of small shoulder launchers—but it didn’t slow down.

“Blackstone…”

SaFire hit the thing in the back, shooting from the hole in the bank to flatten it.
Yes!
A couple of dispatchers were unprofessional enough to applaud even as a second wreck-golem pulled itself through the hole.

The dragon diving out of the Sun landed on it.

“
Hey what?
” Shell shrieked in my ear. My mouth stayed open.

“Astra, go! Get Kindrake out of there!” Blackstone pointed at the exit hatch in case I’d gone deaf, started yelling into his headset. I was up and out in a rush, my heart in my throat, almost clipping the side of the shaft in my haste.

“
Get Kindrake off her ride and out of the combat zone
.” Blackstone clarified as I flew.
 
“
Terraflore is tough, but she most definitely is not.
”

“On it,” I manage before my parabola ended with the much-too-crowded street. I dropped under the first golem’s reach to spring sideways and sweep Kindrake off her beasty’s back.

“Hey!”

“Did you come to Chicago to die?” I dropped the Goth-girl behind the police line. “Stay here!”

SaFire and Terraflore had the second golem down, and I hammered into the first before it could grab at SaFire. It broke in half and I punched its head off for good measure—it’s not like it had brains, but the psychological rules that governed breakthroughs and went into stuff like this usually meant taking off its head would finish it.

So naturally the pieces
merged
.

“
Just keep yours away from everyone, Astra,”
Blackstone instructed.
“Terraflore and SaFire are keeping the first one pinned
.”

“What. If. There’s. More?” The thing kept mindlessly trying to twist past me, but hitting it focused its attention.

“Then we’ll handle it. Fight your own and stay away from the bank—you saw this crew’s area-denial power and I don’t want you trying them alone.”

Pounding the construct to pieces that stayed pieces took work, and I saved my breath for doing the job. Action happened out of the corner of my eye, and once green and orange “flame” washed over everybody close to the bank, and then the thing gave up. It stopped trying to reform, and a few punches scattered it across the street in a cloud of concrete dust.

When Dispatch gave the “stand down” I resisted the urge to drop to the street and just breathe. Media had to be taping—probably broadcasting live—and yes, a Chicago News drone hovered just up the street. I didn’t look at it.

“Deliveries?” I gasped.

“
Not this time, my dear. Amongst yourselves, you kept everything contained and there are no injuries to move. Say hello to Captain Verres, and come
—”

“
Astra, ignore that last direction
,” The Harlequin broke in. “
Do not leave the area without congratulating Kindrake. If you can, get her to come to the Dome. Understood?
”

I pushed dust-caked hair off my mask, hands still shaking a little from the adrenaline spike and the sick fear when I’d seen Kindrake drop into the fight. “Understood.”

Optics. Spin. Never mind that Kindrake had dropped into the middle of an action without authorization or coordination, or that she’d risked getting smeared into something Chicago News would have to pixelate out of its broadcast footage—the two of us had mixed it up less than forty eight hours ago in a mess that was sure to become the most watched hero-on-hero fight of the year if not ever. My mother’s daughter, I understood perfectly; media perception was everything.

I went to find Kindrake.

“
Hollywood heroes. Just when you think that all the clichés and stereotypes can’t be true, you realize ‘Yup—they are’
.”

“Be nice, Shell. Seven isn’t like that.”

“
Seven is Seven. Why is she
here
, and what’s she doing out without her handlers
?”

Shell had me there—I had no clue, and I was pretty sure that when her people found out she was in Chicago her lawyer’s head would explode. Lawyers plural, a whole firm’s worth. A not-so-nice part of me wanted to be there to watch.

Kindrake knew how to “not notice” the cameras as well as I did, but the smile she showed the police and newsies disappeared when she saw me headed for her. Maybe her scowl was habitual, it certainly went well with her brooding Goth look, but she couldn’t do dark. Knowing Artemis, I knew dark from dramatic posing and the rainbow streaks in Kindrake’s raven hair didn’t help. But she had to coordinate with her flying lizard accessories somehow, I supposed.

The cameras got shots of my smile and her scowl when we shook hands, spinning the game into my court. I leaned in before she could open her mouth.

“Hello again, Kindrake, and welcome to Chicago. Blackstone sends his compliments and extends the hospitality of the Dome.” I nodded to Captain Verres. “Captain. Sorry I can’t stay.”

He knew what to do and played the moment with an easy shrug. “We’ll take it from here. Thanks for coming, Astra.”

“Hey—” Kindrake managed, but I’d already released her hand and floated upward. A last nod and lazy salute so the newsies could see I wasn’t ignoring her, and I sped away.

“
Good job
,” Quin said. “
Now straight home. She might not follow, but she’ll look pretty lame standing there
and this keeps a potentially explosive conversation away from the listening media
.” It said something about how much awkward media experiences I’d survived that she didn’t have to tell me that. Talking with Kindrake in front of the newsies would have been risky as poking a Siberian tiger (well, risky for anyone else,
I
thought the big kitties were cuddly), but publicly ignoring her would have been unthinkable.

“
She’s following
,” Shell observed. “
Terraflore makes a hell of a downdraft taking off
.”

“Okay.” I didn’t look back. “So, what happened there at the end?”

“
There was a third wreck-golem still in the bank, kept all of the other Guardians’ tougher guys from poking their heads too far in. Sprints made a fast run in afterward—that last “flame” blast covered the crew’s blowing an exit into the sewers and they were able to break contact and get gone. Same MO as in Florida except they pick a different departure route each time
.”

“Any idea what was—
 
Never mind, I’m sure Fisher will tell us later. Is Kindrake close behind me?” I’d flown a lot slower than usual, but had no idea how fast a dragon moved along.

“
Right behind you
,” Shell chirped as I descended on the Dome. The bay doors rumbled wider, but there was no way the beasty was going to fit through. Dropping to the floor of the bay, I looked up to see what Kindrake’s solution would be.

“
Wow. Now
that
is cool
.”