In Hero Years... I'm Dead Delux Edition (37 page)

Being thorough, that was my undoing.

I never heard them come in over the sound of the flushing.

I snapped off the lights and emerged into the darkened apartment. The second it took for my eyes to adjust was one second too long. The bigger guy threw one of my shock-rods, catching me in the gut. It discharged, tightening every muscle in my body and shoving glass splinters through every nerve.

I hit the floor harder than a dead fish hitting the deck. The man came over, pumped another jolt through me, then grabbed me by the wrist. His compatriot–could have been a woman–grunted and grabbed my legs. They smashed my shoulder into a door jamb, then dumped me on the elevator floor.

We went down to the workshop. She dragged me out by my feet, letting my head bump over the place where the elevator missed the floor by an inch. The big guy hauled me up and strapped me into a metal chair that had been welded to a hand-truck. I didn’t like that at all.

She held the shock-rod at my neck. Her companion shined my work lamp full in my face. When Mr. Big walked in, all I caught was the silhouette of a trench-coat with the collar up and a fedora pulled low.

He began with a sinister laugh. “And I had hoped for more from you. Your reputation has preceded you. It was exaggerated.”

He began to pace. Other than a vague sense of his height and general build, I got nothing.

“Cat got your tongue? Good. I don’t want you talking, just listening. Listen good.” He stood right behind the light, his arms folded tightly. “You’re a troublemaker. So am I. Takes one to know one, and I know you. You think you’re smart enough to figure things out. You aren’t. You’re way out of your league here, and will do well to remember that. You should
want
to remember that, too. We’ll even give you incentive to remember.”

He snapped his fingers. His minion wheeled me into the shop.

“Take a good look.”

Selene hung there in the vault right next to Puma’s uniform. Her hair was mussed badly, makeup smeared, dress torn. She was bleeding from a split lip and her left arm hung wrong.

At least she was still breathing.

I’d regained enough control of my body to make fists, but the straps held. “What do you want?”

“You’re out of this, understand?”

“I understand. I’m out. Completely. Gone. Never knew I was here.”

“Good, just what I wanted to hear.”

“Now let her out.”

“No.” Mr. Big hit the vacuum button with his elbow. The motor started chugging. “Next time it will be her daughter.”

“No. No!” I struggled against the straps. One began to tear. “You can’t do that.”

“I can. I have.” He laughed again. “And there ain’t a damned thing you can do about it.”

That’s when the woman zapped me with the shock-rod. My body jerked. The strap parted more, but not enough. Then she kicked the hand-truck and it went over.

And I lay there, helpless and drooling, as the last of the air hissed out of the vault.

Chapter Thirty-four

There is no Hell like being trapped in a body that doesn’t work. My left wrist was almost free. I could see it. The strap was nearly torn through. My watch’s second hand swept along serenely. I willed it to slow down. I tried to believe it was abnormally fast, but I’d just rebuilt the workings.

It was dead on time.

And Selene was dying.

I told myself to struggle. I gave in to panic, hoping adrenaline would pump life into leaden limbs. My heart pounded. Fingers trembled. It was nothing, but I took hope in it. My ring finger curled in just ever so slightly. Then the opinion finger and the pointer. I fought to make a fist and failed.

But time sped on. Thirty seconds had elapsed. Selene would be unconscious. Brain damage would start. Irreversible brain damage. She’d be like me, trapped in a body that no longer functioned. Three minutes, five, maybe six, and the damage would kill her.

I made a fist. I held it. Muscles in my forearm bunched. I tried to pull back, but my biceps defied me. Somewhere from within I groaned and snarled and whimpered, the sounds all mixing inarticulately and hopelessly. I tried to rock the chair, but couldn’t do that. It might as well have been granite and the leather straps steel.

A thousand different plans raced through my mind. The uTiliPod in my pocket, if I could get to it and punch up a call with my nose… If I could tap out Morse code on the floor. If I could make time stop and go backward. Each plan was more ridiculous than the previous, yet desperation made each seem viable.

Then my forearm jerked. Weakly, but it moved. My head moved, too, closer. I rotated my hand and opened my fist. If I could take my fingers in my teeth, I could pull. If I could get my mouth down there, I could gnaw the restraint. I could do something, maybe.

A minute and a half of struggle and the restraint parted. Then my arm lay there, free but exhausted, pins and needles playing all through it. Slowly I dragged it to my chest. Fumbling, I opened the buckle on the strap there, then my waist. I freed my right hand, flexed it, then worked on my legs.

Two and a half minutes.

My legs remained dead. I raised myself on my arms, then lunged. A foot closer to the vault. Another one, smashing my chin into the floor. I reached out, damning myself for not having carpet. I could have sunk my fingers into the pile and dragged myself along. My fingernails couldn’t hold in the wooden floor joints. Up again, lunging, this time getting a knee under me.

I was almost there. Dread crept up my spine. I looked back toward the workshop. I expected Mr. Big to emerge from the shadows to kick my hands from beneath me. I waited for his cruel laughter. His mocking laughter. The heel of his boot smashing my hand against the vault door before I could open it.

But all the while I worked my way closer. I got up to my knees and hit the green button. I spun the wheel. It clicked. I tugged. The door didn’t move. The vacuum held it shut!

Three and a half minutes.

I screamed through clenched teeth. I threw my entire body back. I prayed to the gods of physics. My mass had to be enough to break the seal. It had to.

My hands slipped. I fell, landed flat, smacked my head. I saw stars. Bit my tongue, tasted blood.

I lay there for a second, tried to roll up. I couldn’t, but I had to. An elbow, levering myself up. Rolling to a hip, then to my knees. Catching myself on my other hand, then crawling. Dragging myself around and extending a foot. I braced it against the door jamb and I pulled again. Pulled for all I was worth.

Air hissed. The door cracked, just a bit, just a thumb’s-width. It wanted to close again, but I held it, clinging to it like a drowning man to a spar. I hung on for as long as I could, then slipped to the floor again. My chest heaved.

Four minutes, ten seconds.

Too late. Too late. I knew it was too late. I rolled over again and forced myself up. I hooked a heel against the door and tugged it open, then came up on my knees. She’d be hanging there, all blue, her eyes shot through and bloody with petechial hemorrhaging. I’d have to summon the strength to pull her down and try to breath life into her. I’d have to.

I staggered to my feet and supported myself on the door.

There she hung. Limp and lifeless. Her eyes closed. Her face swollen. Her arm still broken.
 

But her flesh wasn’t blue.

Her chest expanded and contracted with breath. With life.

If not for my hold on the door, I’d have been on my knees again. “Oh, clever girl.”

Third pouch, the one Puma had worn at the small of his back. His rebreather. The bronze mask even had whiskers and a black button nose. It had saved her life.

The EMTs got there quickly, administered oxygen and bundled Selene off to Haste Memorial. I traveled in the ambulance, calling Vicki and Grant as we went. They each agreed to meet us at the hospital. In the emergency ward the staff stabilized her, set her arm, and then sent her up to the Intensive Care Unit as a precaution. While preliminary tests found no indications of brain damage, they wanted to hold her overnight for observation and do a full neurological work-up the next day.

Vicki consented to all that and sat with her mother. Not being next of kin, not being anything, I was consigned to the waiting room. The look Vicki gave me when she came in said I was back to jerkface status, or worse.

And that was okay. Her opinion and mine were unanimous.

Colonel Constitution arrived with Kid Icthy and a short, fat elasto-stretcher who called himself Superball. The two of them wore C4 II uniforms, with the blue star moved to the right shoulder. Constitution spoke with the head nurse, nodded once, then came over to me.

“Castigan. You, me, the Doctor’s Lounge. Secure it, boys.”

I’m not sure why I went with him. I guess I was just in shock and very suggestible. He probably knew that, or sensed it, more like. He pulled me into the small room and directed me to a black vinyl couch that had long since molded itself to sleeping residents’ bodies. He took up the middle of the room, towering over me, his tricorn hat firmly in place and his shield on his back.

“Nurse says she should be okay. We’ll get these guys.”

I nodded. I understood. “You want to take my statement now?”

“No need.”

Maybe I didn’t understand. “You already got them?”

“Nope.”

“But…”

“When I said ‘we’ I meant you and me.” He smiled. Generously even, a bit of bemusement curling his lips. “I talked to my grandfather. He never liked you.”

“I hear that a lot.”

“But he said you were a scrapper. For a guy who…”

“… who was just a Felix?”

“Yeah, just a Felix, he said you were good. Needed some seasoning, and he saw to it that you got it. Never liked you, but wouldn’t be worried if you had his back.”

Okay, so the original Colonel Constitution is senile.
I frowned. “I’m still in the dark here.”

“It’s simple.” Constitution began to pace. “There’s a war coming. Good versus evil, the whole deal. It’s the big one, the one you fought to hold at bay. And I’m lining up all the forces of good to oppose things. I’m getting good troops. Vixen just signed on.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I was talking with her when you called. She’d agreed because she realized something had to be done.” He turned toward the window and the illuminated skyline. “This city is at a tipping point. The Hall of Fame, Little Asia, the Haste murder, they’re all pearls on a string. Some folks don’t want to see the string, but I do. I mean, I don’t want it to exist, but I know it does. And it’s my job to see to it that the string doesn’t break the city. I have great troops to aid me, but I need more. I need you.”

I blinked. “You’re joking.”

“No joke. Look, all these kids, they’re good, they’re strong, but they don’t have seasoning. I’ve got lots of privates, I need some sergeants. I need squad leaders who can direct them.”

“Direct them doing what?”

“More of what we’re doing right now. Our sweeps have been rounding up gang members. The jails are stuffed. We’ve had to convert the Armory into a temporary holding facility. It’s a great leap forward, a successful surge, but I need more if I’m going to stabilize this city.”

He turned, his eyes alive and focused elsewhere. “When my grandfather started out, this was a city you could be proud of. People were polite. They didn’t litter. They had respect. They believed in God and country and duty and made sacrifices for the good of all. We can be that way again. With your help, we will be.”

“What does the mayor think of this little plan?”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s a lame duck. It isn’t his city anymore. He doesn’t have the stones to save it.”

“Looked like he had stones in Little Asia.”

“He’s good at little problems. This is too big for him.” Constitution jerked a thumb toward where Selene lay. “The guys who did that are a symptom, and he’s ignoring the disease. I’m going to cure it, and I want you on my team.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Oh, yes, we’ll win.”