Ann huffs. “Aren’t you going to yell at me for excessive force against another person?” She tries to glance at me out of the side of her eye, but it’s too swollen so she turns her whole head.
“Nope.” I close my eyes and relish in the glorious wave of whatever hormone triggers relaxation.
“Nope?”
“I honestly expected worse out of you after that one. She tried to have us killed. I’m not big on being executed. Thanks for the throat chop, by the way. That was sweet.”
She turns her head to look at me again, probably checking my sarcasm. “Oh, well…”
“So is a broken face and a throat chop all she gets after all that?”
“No. I figure when we get back we can alert Vince about her. I’m betting if he drops the dime that the head of the AHA is a woman, that will kick up quite an angry hornet’s nest of dipshits. Seems like racism and sexism generally go hand-in-hand.”
She’s got a point. “What do you think they will do to her?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, she deserves it.”
With my eyes closed, I lean my head against the cool glass of the car.
A hand shakes my chest. “Hey, hey, Quig, you with me?”
“Yeah, yes,” I rub a palm in to my eyes. “Just fucking beat is all.”
“Hey, that was quite the bluff you pulled with those axmen back there. You really do live up to the Cool in your name.”
“Yeah, that’s me. So cool I had to warm up by pissing myself.” I wonder how much of this chat is to keep me conscious. Head trauma victims aren’t supposed to be napping, but sleep would feel so damn good right now.
Ann laughs. “Hey, it worked. We made it out of there.”
“Damn barely. Who knew after all this hero jazz it would be human goons that almost got the drop on us?”
“No kidding.”
The car slows and pulls to the side of the road. Are we here already? That seemed quick. Did I lose some time?
Ann slaps me on the chest. “Come on, Champ. Time to hike our bums back to the plane.”
Another long walk through the woods. Exactly what I need. I open my eyes, happy it’s dark outside. At least the damn sun isn’t blinding me or enraging the headache I have going right now. I get out of the car and stretch. My body feels like it’s about to snap. Every fiber of muscle and every centimeter of tissue in my joints threatens to quit working immediately. They are calling a strike: Too much work for too little wages. They require more sick leave and sustenance if they are to continue their job.
Ann steps out of the car and slings her trusty bag of tricks over her shoulder. Something clicks and a beam of light shines directly in my face, enraging that goddamned headache. I put my hand up to shield my precious eyes.
“Oh, sorry. You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Lead the way, Captain.”
Ann heads down the trail. The return hike doesn’t seem as bad, but trying not to breathe hard only makes me breathe harder. Each inhalation burns my throat. I need to drink some honey or tea or whatever death-metal singers do to keep their voice.
We get back to the plane and haul our beaten, broken asses up the staircase into the cabin.
“Holy shit,” Ulrich says, “what happened to you guys?”
“Ninjas,” I say. “At least fifteen of them were guarding the AHA Mage. It took a lot, but we made it through.”
“Uh-huh.” Ulrich draws the phrase out. I don’t think he’s buying it.
“Just take us back to SHI HQ, okay?” Ann’s voice is strained. I wonder if she’s getting the same adrenaline dump I am right now.
Keeping my eyes open is becoming a real struggle. Breathing hurts. Standing is just shy of excruciating. I need a fucking nap like Dracula at sunrise at the equator on the longest day of the year. Yeah, that bad.
I take my usual seat and Ann takes hers next to me. We both drop our envelopes of Ninon’s letters on the table. I run my hand over the papers. “Should we call this in to Vince?”
“I don’t think so. We’ll be at SHI shortly and we can brief him on everything in person. Plus we can get these to a handwriting analyst and whatever else we need to try to track down where they came from.”
“Do you really think that will help? I highly doubt this person mailed them from their house and there are post office boxes everywhere.”
Ann shrugs. Picks up one of the letters and opens it. “At least we’ll be doing something. We’ve followed this trail too far for it to go cold now.”
I unwrap a letter and skim over it, thinking. The letters are handwritten, not typed, which seems weird. I suppose printers or typewriters or whatever are just as easy to match up as handwriting, maybe easier if it came to it. The letter looks like the first one Dumont received. It explains about the mystery person who wrote it and why they are helping. The end of the note has coordinates to SHI Headquarters.
How did they get that? This is obviously the work of someone from within SHI.
“Hey, Ann, how many people work at SHI?”
“All together or just in the Headquarters?”
“Just in the Hive, or whatever you call it.”
Ann looks up. “Exact number? I couldn’t say. Couple hundred, at least. Techs, scientists, communications, doctors, PR people, everything. SHI has about every job title imaginable. This could be anyone.”
I keep my eyes on the paper, searching for clues. “Nah, not just anyone. Someone with enough clearance to move throughout SHI freely. I think. Someone in DeLaCruz’s department would be the best place to start.”
“I agree. Hey, do your letters have this?” Ann holds the paper in her hands over to me.
“What?”
“Look. Every time there is a capital letter ‘E’ the person wrote two dots over it, I think. I’ve only got two ‘E’s on my page.”
I scan over mine. One capital ‘E’ with two dots over the top. “Odd. What do you make of it?”
“I’m not sure. Some kind of accent mark? It happens too often to be a mistake.”
The door to the cockpit opens. “Guys, you need to see this.” Ulrich doesn’t look back and his shoulders bunch up like he has a death grip on the controls.
Through the front windshield of the plane I can just barely make out lightning striking random places in the air. No storm or wind or rain, just random lightning bolts.
“Lightshow,” Ann says from next to me.
“But what’s Lightshow fighting?”
“I don’t know.”
As the plane gets closer, the platform that makes up the SHI landing pad becomes clear. The deck is bright as daytime with giant lights and the pad is full of people. Blasts of gunfire light up the night. The soldiers shoot in the same direction as the lightning.
A red, white, and blue streak blurs in front of the windshield, missing by inches.
“Was that The Patriot?” I lean closer to the glass following the streak.
“Jim, look.” Ann grabs my shoulder and points down to the deck of the floating Hive.
The deck is shaking. People fall from the edges down to the water below. Some throw life rafts, others keep firing into the sky. The deck shakes harder and seems to lift.
“Hold on,” Ulrich says. He turns his control and the plane banks.
A blast of lightning lights up the sky. For a brief second, I catch a glimpse of a figure floating, arms held out like she’s raising an imaginary object…Or a floating Hive out of the water.
“Ann, she’s lifting it out of the water. What will happen if Tess picks it up and drops it?”
“It’s built to withstand the storms of the sea, but not the power of gravity itself. We have to stop her.” Ann points the direction of the floating figure that has to be Tess. “Ulrich get us as close as you can. Maybe we can get close enough to mute her powers.
Ulrich pulls on his controls and the plane banks harder.
I glance back at the deck. It’s lifted at least ten feet higher out of the water than it was when we took off from here the other day. Some people are still firing guns, but most of the humans have given up the attack. Tiny figures scramble to get below deck while others—probably the smarter ones—throw themselves into the water. If she breaks the Hive in half, everyone inside will die.
Ulrich flips switches and punches buttons. The plane’s momentum slows until we are almost hovering over Tess.
Lightning crashes close to the plane. Miles appears out of thin air, bringing Icestro with him. Icestro forms a solid-looking icicle in his hand and launches it at Tess. The icicle changes course halfway there and flies toward Icestro. He dives to the side, but it’s too late. The frozen spike impales him through the back.
Thirty feet away from Tess. Ann leans close enough to put her face against the glass, willing her powers to work, I’m sure.
Lady Atlas picks up Granite Fist—a solid ball of stone—and throws him at Tess. Tess swipes her hand across the air. Granite Fist changes trajectory in an instant. His arms and legs flail as he crashes in to the windshield of the plane. The glass of the cockpit gives way to his solid form. The front of the plane dips from the added weight.
Ulrich hammers his hand on the dash. “Let go! Get down!” he yells at Granite Fist, but the little rock man is wedged into the front of the plane and can’t get free. “WE’RE GOING DOWN, I CAN’T SAVE IT. EVERYBODY OU—”
He doesn’t get the words out before the plane slams into the Atlantic Ocean. The impact throws me and Ann against the front of the plane.
Water.
Too.
Much.
Water.
It’s all I see. There’s no time to think, no time to grab a last gulp of oxygen.
WATER.
Salt burns my eyes. Carbon dioxide burns my lungs.
I turn to the side. Ulrich is unconscious, strapped to his seat. Ann is working furiously to get him free. She catches me watching and points down at Granite Fist. He’s out cold too. He’s also taking up the majority of our escape route. I push my way up to the cabin door and pull on it. Too much water pressure; it won’t budge.
I work my way back down to the windshield. I put my feet on the glass and my hands against the empty seat and try to push the glass free. No such luck. There isn’t enough force in my body for that kind of thing. Sorry Granite. I adjust my feet so they are against his head and push again. The movement takes every ounce of effort I can muster, but I get the unconscious hero free of the glass.
I dive out the glass after Granite Fist, but he’s as heavy as, well, granite and sinks faster than I can swim. Within five feet of leaving the cockpit, he’s out of my view. The blackness of the water swallows him whole and there’s no way I can catch him. Pressure burns my chest. How long have I been holding my breath? Seconds? Minutes? Years?
Debris and machinery from the Headquarters sink all around me. A hunk of concrete sails past, narrowly missing my head. The time to get topside has come. If lack of air doesn’t kill me, something in this water will. I turn to find Ann pulling Ulrich free of the cockpit. She kicks her legs furiously, trying to pull him up. I swim up below them and hook an arm under Ulrich’s. Together we pull him to the surface.
We crest the water and I suck in a big gulp of half-air, half-seawater. Breathing burns my chest as much as not breathing did underwater. I hack and cough up some of the water back to its rightful home. Next to me, Ann holds Ulrich’s head above the ocean and takes a few gasps of her own. I think she’s going to be all right, but Ulrich is a darker shade of purple and from what I can see, his chest isn’t moving.
Above the water, the world has turned into an even bigger madhouse than before. The sound of gunfire is deafening. Headquarters is at least twenty feet higher out of the water than it was before. Explosions of fire and lightning illuminate the night. Tess is in her same place, arms outstretched like a voodoo doctor raising the dead. All of the ammunition falls short of her location. Whether she’s just out of range or using her powers to stop the bullets, I couldn’t say.
“We have to stop her,” Ann says, head bobbing under water and back again.
“We have to save ourselves first. I don’t know what will happen if she drops that giant structure back in the water, but I can imagine it won’t be good for us down here at sea-level. We need to swim away, get some distance from the wake of whatever happens.”
Ann hooks an arm around Ulrich’s neck and starts backstroking away from SHI and towards the spot where Tess is hovering. I take a couple strokes to keep up with her. “This is not...” my head dips under a wave, “what I meant—” an explosion behind me cuts off my words, “by getting away from the structure.” Another wave breaks over the top of my head and half-drowns me.
She doesn’t say anything, just keeps swimming closer to Tess. The farther from the lights of the base, the creepier this whole thing gets. The water is black and none too calm from all of the fighting. With the illumination of Headquarters at our back, it’s impossible to tell if we are going in the right direction until a burst of lightning gives us Tess’ position.
We stop and tread water directly beneath where Tess hovers in the sky. The fact that she’s still hovering means that we aren’t close enough for Ann’s powers to stop her. I turn back to Headquarters. The whole thing is sticking four stories above the surface of the water.
“You made me do this,” a woman’s voice screams from above us.
I roll to my back and look up. A figure is floating in the air in front of Tess.
“You brought this upon yourselves,” the same voice, Tess’, I think, yells.
A burst of lightning shows the gaudy red, white, and blue Spandex of the only hero who dresses like a comic book. The Patriot’s jaw is set and his eyes are narrowed. He looks like he is attempting to fly forward, but maybe Tess is holding him back somehow. Another burst of light shows his face, blood red with effort. Even from the water I can make out a vain trailing down the side of his forehead.
A wave crashes over top of me. It’s a big one. I’m pushed a few feet beneath the surface of the water and have to swim my way back up. At the top, I grab some more air and reorient myself. I’ve been pushed ten feet away from where I was, but still close enough to see the show above.
The Patriot’s body is contorted in a way that human bodies aren’t supposed to be in. He wails. Miles appears at the surface of the water fifteen feet away from me, he drops Flaura in the water and disappears again before ever getting wet. She thrusts a hand up toward Tess.