“Hi, this is Firebane. I’m at the building you mentioned.”
“Okay, we’ll be down in a sec.”
“Sounds good, I’ll wait in the entrance.”
I hung up and did a quick injury check. My arm was tender, but otherwise seemed normal. My fingers and wrist had their normal range of movement. My leg appeared fully healed … I couldn’t even tell I’d been injured there. The chest was sore, but I could breathe fairly well, so it was close enough to deal with.
I slowly stood up. The others watched me closely as I did so. Hellshock appeared to do so out of interest, Kim looked concerned.
Once I was standing I said, “The body’s working.”
Kim said, “Do you need me for anything?”
I smiled at her, “I appreciate you being here. I think I’ll be fine at this point.”
“Okay. I’m going to head home then – be careful out there. Let me know if you get your friends back.”
“Will do. Thanks again, Kim – you’ve got a good heart.”
Hellshock said, “Thank you for coming, Kim.”
“Sure thing.”
We walked down to the entrance area. A few people remained who worked in the building to watch us walk out.
We arrived at the lobby on the first floor in a minute, and found Firebane waiting there for us. She shook hands with each of us. Then Kim bid us good night again and left the building.
Firebane looked at me, “So, uhh, it didn’t go well?”
I glanced at my costume. Between my blood and probably the blood of some guards, plus the dust from going through the walls of the building made me look very battle worn.
I shook my head, “Can you find Psystar? She’s something like five or seven miles in the air, about four miles north of us.”
“Sure.” Her eyes lit up with a white backglow and her eyes stared off into the distance.
Hellshock said, “She a telepath?”
I shook my head, “No, she can sense supers.”
“Wow, really? I didn’t realize there was a way to detect us. That’s a bit frightening.”
“I dunno, it’s pretty useful now – and she was the one that let us find the semis with the kidnapped supers.”
“Lot of good that did you.”
“Yeah, yeah. I was just so eager to go get them. I figured they’d just have the human guards, those wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Well, they
weren’t
such a big deal. I took out all of them at the front semi.”
“You’ll give me a call before hitting them the next time? I don’t care what time of day or night, just call me.”
“Cool, thanks Hellshock.”
“Glad to be there. I’d rather be there for my fellow H.E.R.O.s than not.”
“Same here, you need support, call me or my friends.”
The glow faded from Firebane’s eyes and she said, “Yeah, there’s a super in the sky about eight miles up and three or four miles north of us. By the way, I can’t detect either of you, that seems strange.”
I nodded, “Thank you, and no idea, maybe we both have some kind of stealth. So we think she’s up there, what’s she doing? If she were okay she’d answer her phone.”
Hellshock said, “Did she fight this metal brick lady?”
“I don’t know. The last thing I recall of her is that she ticked me off and I ran off toward the front semi.”
Firebane said, “You two fought before, err, fighting the bad guys?”
“No, she used her pheromones on me to make me mad. She didn’t give me much time to argue, she just did it.”
“Is that like her?”
I looked up in the air for a few seconds. “Yeah, it is. She’s a bit impulsive at times. If she figured I’d fight better mad then it doesn’t surprise me that she’d try that.”
Hellshock said, “I hate fighting telepaths, they get in your head.”
I raised an eyebrow and looked at him, and then shook my head.
Firebane said, “So what now? Do I need to find the victims again?”
I said, “Well, I’d prefer to get Psystar first, but if you are detecting her she must be alive, and if she’s hurt she’ll heal as well, just slower. Was she alone?”
“Yeah, I didn’t detect any other supers with her.”
“Ok, good. We can focus on getting everyone back then. I’m going to check with Captain McCain about finding a brick to go with us. You don’t know any, do you Hellshock?”
“I know several, but none that will come sooner than others. I like Zonk and Gatecrasher though, both are cool. Have you kept McCain up to date on all this?”
“Uhh, no.”
“Why don’t you do that, and while you are talking with him have him contact a brick to join us if any are available. You might want to ask about a flier as well to get to Psystar.”
“Good idea. I’ll head there. What are your plans, Firebane?”
“I need to get home and make dinner.”
“Ah, good idea, I need to get some food as well. Okay then, how about I go get food on the way to H.E.R.O. HQ, talk to Captain McCain, and contact you guys later tonight then? Maybe I should contact Agent Willman as well.”
Hellshock nodded, “That works for me.”
Firebane agreed, “Sure thing, although if it runs into tomorrow, I do have to work, and you’ll have to wait until lunch for me to detect them.”
Hellshock shook his head, “Huh? These are people who have been kidnapped, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. I don’t like it either – but I can’t just ignore my job. You guys are willing to go do any heroing type work out there and make money on it. I don’t want to get into any fights, and I need my job.”
I held up my hand, it was obvious to me that Hellshock was becoming irate. “We’ll work around it.”
Not that I’m happy about such a dumb reason, but it won’t do us any good to piss her off and have her not want to help when we need it….
Hellshock said, “Okay then. Have a good one until later, guys. I’ll be ready for a call.”
I nodded, “Thanks again.”
“Sure thing.” He nodded to Firebane and walked out into the rain.
Firebane said, “Good luck on finding a brick then. I’ll see you later on.”
I nodded and followed her out into the rain.
Chapter 28 – H.E.R.O. HQ
Rael’s Perspective
The rain hadn’t let up much in the last two hours. I stretched out my leg before beginning the run to the northeast of Metrocity. It felt good at this point. I supposed it would be getting darker to most people, although it looked bright as day to me due to my catlike eyes.
I began jogging, or at least what felt like jogging to me. I found I was passing most cars on even the 35 MPH streets. My lungs hurt slightly at the beginning of the run, but the pain faded away after five or ten minutes.
I stopped at a tiny deli along the way that had no patrons visible from the outside window. I felt like I could eat a horse. The lady behind the counter was friendly, although she gave me strange looks. I suppose having a mask does that, especially without a gigantic buddy with you in bright yellow and red to draw the stares.
I quickly scarfed down several sandwiches and a cup of water before heading back outside. It took another ten minutes of jogging to reach the headquarters. There were very few cars in the parking lot.
Hmm, the place doesn’t close in the evening, does it?
I jogged up the steps and entered the grand entrance. It was fully lit inside, and the receptionist desk was attended by a man sporting a polo shirt embroidered with H.E.R.O. HQ on it.
I stepped up to him and said, “Hey, I’m here to see Captain McCain.”
“He’s not in at the moment. Is this about an active case?”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure if he knows about the case or not. There are supers being kidnapped, I’m working on recovering them. I kind of need his help at this point.”
The man looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “Let me message him to see if he’d rather have one of the night agents work on it for him.”
“Okay.”
He typed a few lines into his computer, and I began pacing on the marble floor.
Hmm, he didn’t even ask to see my ID.
When I could be sure he wasn’t still sending the message, I asked, “Hey, you didn’t even ask to see my ID?”
“I know all the active H.E.R.O.s by heart, I really didn’t need to see your ID.”
“Oh. Very cool.”
“Sorry about that, did you want me to ask to see your ID?”
I laughed, “No, I was just wondering.”
Rock on, the chest pain is entirely gone now.
“Captain McCain is coming back into the office to see you.”
“Really? He probably could have just called.”
“He’s something of a workaholic. Feel free to grab some coffee or something from the waiting area over here. He ought to be here in perhaps 10 minutes.”
I started walking toward the waiting area, then turned back and asked, “If I take down a super villain, and call in a super paddy wagon to bring them in, are they brought back here?”
“No. They would be brought to the Metrocity Jail. It has cells made for people with unusual powers.”
“Ah. So what all happens in this building then?”
“The Captain, Lieutenant, and the agents have offices here, plus some support staff who review evidence and follow up on events to ensure that we’re following procedures. The administrative group is here as well – they handle accounting and such. Oh, and the I.T. team for the computer stuff. Plus, human resources and public relations.”
“Wow, there are a lot of people involved.”
“I agree.”
“Thanks.” I walked over to the waiting area and poured myself a water. It almost struck me as odd to be thirsty after running for a half hour through the rain. I waited for a while, sipping the water and looking around the entrance room.
I heard the outer doors open, and saw Captain McCain enter. He wore business pants and a white shirt with a blue tie. His badge hung from his belt. His shoulders and hair were wet from the rain.
I walked over to him and shook his hand. “Evening, Captain McCain.”
He replied, “Good evening. Fill me in on the way to my office.”
I moved alongside him and told him about my escape earlier in the day, along with our failed attempt to rescue the supers in the semis in the late afternoon.
He remarked, “It wouldn’t have hurt to at least message me that your team was going to take on the kidnappers. The last I’d heard about it was when Psystar stopped in this morning with Firebane.”
I shrugged, “We were dealing with it, since we hadn’t finished I didn’t think to call it in.”
“For this type of thing it would be good to stay informed. This morning the ladies didn’t mention that Firebane could detect supers.”