The paranormal standing over him stared down at the man a few seconds longer, oblivious for a time to the screaming chaos around him. To think that, only a few months ago, he’d been as fragile, as
helpless
, as this norm ... he shuddered to remember. Breathing a grateful curse, he retracted his arm from its six-foot extension to a more proportionate length. The guard’s blood dripped from his talons, trickling a spotted trail back to his feet. He shrugged and turned back to the business at hand.
"Didja get him?" his partner asked.
"Didja have any doubts?" the taloned rogue replied.
"You monsters!" some old woman, a teller, screamed. One of her fellow employees tried frantically to shut her up, but witnessing the guard’s disembowelment had pushed her into hysteria. "You
freaks
! You’ll go to
hell, all
of you! God will strike you down—!"
The tall man, the partner of the clawed savage, turned his head just enough to see the screaming woman. A pulse of light flashed upon his forehead, then whisked forward and struck the woman in the chest. Her breasts and rib cage collapsed as she was knocked back into the wall twenty feet behind her. She slumped to the ground, as lifeless as the security guard.
"Does anyone else have an opinion they wanna share?" the tall man called to the room.
Silence answered him.
"About time. Now, who’s gonna show us to the vault?"
PCA
Outside, the ranking police officer breathed a sigh of relief when the first PCA car pulled into the parking lot, then frowned when he realized that it was not the "first" car, but the
only
car.
"Pardon my lack of gratitude," he called to Michael as the ensign and Westmore emerged from the vehicle, "but are you guys
it
?"
"We’re all you’re gonna need, my man," Mark grinned, "you know what I’m sayin’?"
The policeman had no reply for that.
Michael pulled the officer closer. "I’m Ensign Michael Takayasu. This is my partner, Shockwave. What’s—"
"An
ensign
?" the policeman challenged. "Shouldn’t there be someone here a little higher up the food chain? Is this Shockwave fella—"
"I may be an ensign, sir," Michael interrupted in turn, "but I’m the ranking Academy graduate in this district. I assure you, that places me a little ‘higher up’ than the title suggests. Now, what’s the situation?"
The policeman looked him over a second longer, but then shrugged and answered, "Two suspects, both Caucasian males. We would’ve just called the FBI, but these guys showed their freak sides pretty quick."
Westmore chuckled and shook his head, but said nothing.
"Do we know their paranormal abilities?"
"Yeah," the cop replied, gesturing for them to follow. He led them to a van, its open back doors showcasing two black-and-white video monitors. "They zapped or smashed the plain-view cameras, but we’ve got a couple of hidden ones they missed." He snapped his fingers at the cop to one side. "Back up the tape a few minutes ..."
After watching the grizzly demise of the security guard and equally dynamic death of the old teller, Michael commented, "One claw, one force-bolt. Relatively common mutations. We won’t have to wear psi-bands."
"Hey, they can’t all have
my
flash, kid."
Michael smirked. It felt reassuring to have a paranormal partner as powerful as Shockwave at a time like this, but he still felt relieved that they wouldn’t have to contend with a psionic attack just the same — the protective headbands were an invaluable development, but they were far from one-hundred percent effective against Class Ones. "You want a tazer?" he asked Westmore, drawing back his coat to pat his holster.
The Tazer-V7 was the standard sidearm of PCA field-agents. A far-superior version of its predecessors, it fired a similar pair of electrode paddles. However, once the considerable voltage had been discharged, the thin cables
detached
from the weapon, priming the next set and allowing multiple volleys, similar to the clip of an automatic pistol. While the tazer lacked the brute force of an old-fashioned revolver, it had been discovered early on that
shooting
a paranormal wasn’t always the best option. A few years before, a rogue capable of releasing various toxic gases from his mouth had been shot during an attempted casino heist — the man’s blood proved far more lethal than his breath, and several civilians and policemen died before the area could be evacuated.
"Nah," Westmore replied to Michael’s offer. "The Paranormal Effect gave me all the firepower I need."
Michael nodded, then told the officer, "Run some live feed, please, and see if you can find out the
exact
orientation of the cameras."
The policeman, probably not as used to
receiving
orders as
giving
them, grumbled under his breath as he pulled out a cell-phone.
"Okay, old man," Michael said to Westmore, turning an unwavering gaze to the video monitors as they told their tale, "I need to know
precisely
how accurate your kinetic waves can be ..."
PCA
"Hey! Mick!" the clawed man called from his position at the upper corner of the bank’s front window. "
Mick!
"
Mick, the tall man, poked his head out of the vault area a moment later. "What?!"
"PCA!"
Mick froze for a moment, then left the back room and their growing pile of money. "How many?!" he asked as he crossed the lobby.
"Don’t know," the clawed man answered, using his extended arms to lower himself to the floor with ease. "Only one marked car, but they’d already pulled up by the time I spotted ‘em." Leaving the window, he moved to meet his partner. "How’d
they
get here so fast?"
Mick’s gaze rose to the nooks and crannies of the ceiling. "They must have—"
Mick and the clawed man reached one another. They were standing almost at the center of the room. All the bank employees were on the ground behind the counter, and the various customers lay where they had scattered.
At that moment, there were no hostages within ten yards of the rogues.
There would be no better opportunity, and Michael knew it.
Rogues and norms alike cringed as the side wall burst inward. The debris exploded forward in a steady arc, whizzing past the paranormals close enough to force them to
keep
their heads down for a few extra seconds.
Michael and Shockwave leaped through the hole that the latter had created for them. The police had been ordered to hold back for half-a-minute before following them in — that gave them less than thirty seconds to contain the rogues before the place turned into a shooting gallery.
Shockwave hurtled a supply table, sweeping his arms outward at the zenith of height. The closest hostages were pushed even further away from the commotion by the gentlest kinetic waves he could muster. There would be inevitable complaints of bumps and bruises, maybe even a bone fracture or two ... but at least they would be
alive
.
The tall man recovered first, the glow already shimmering upon his forehead. Michael reached into an inside coat pocket, tumble-rolled forward, and let fly with a small, metallic disc. The disc soared like a frisbee, striking the man solidly on the bridge of his nose and pulverizing the bone and cartilage. The rogue cried out like a child, holding his hands protectively to the bloody pulp that was all that remained at the center of his face. Michael continued his forward motion, kicking the rogue in the solar plexus with both feet. The man’s hands went to his gut now as he gasped for breath.
There was a chance, of course, that he might be able to fire his force-bolts at random even through the pain, and Michael was not prepared to take that risk. He fished into his opposite inside pocket and withdrew another metal device — this one was shaped like a three-quarter headband.
Even as the tall man struggled to open his eyes, Michael slapped the band against his glowing forehead. The instrument snapped tight, and every muscle in the rogue’s body locked up as it fired enough voltage into his brain to scramble all motor control. The man couldn’t keep from urinating on himself, let alone fire his paranormal weapon.
The rogue was neutralized, and Michael had not even drawn his tazer ...
As the P C Agent was kicking Mick, the clawed man moved in behind him. His arms lengthened, the talons hooking as he prepared to rip the Asian’s spine out.
"I don’t think so," Westmore spat as he thumped the rogue in the small of his back with a narrow shockwave. His effort not to kill, however, resulted in the claws whipping around toward
his
throat. He fell backward deliberately as the deadly fingertips missed him by inches. "Whoa!"
"You stupid son-of-a-bitch!" the clawed man raged. He came down at Mark with his other hand, but this time Mark deflected it with a defensive wave. "Why’re
you
doing this?! You knocked down that wall like it was nothin’! You could be
King of the World
!"
Shockwave snorted. "Someone’s seen
Titanic
one too many times." He laughed as he lashed out, this time much harder. The clawed man tried to pull away, but he was too slow. With a harsh
crack
, his jaw both broke and dislocated. "Ooh! That hurt!" Chopping his hands across one another, Mark pinched the man’s right arm between two more waves, bending it at a nasty angle. "Ow! That’s even worse!" One more wave square in the face, and the rogue dropped.
The front door crashed inward, and the police swarmed the premises ... but the danger was over. Shockwave sauntered over to Michael, looking down at the tall rogue.
"Yikes," he commented with an impressed grin. "Not bad, kid."
"Oh, I don’t know," Michael shrugged. "
Davison Electronics
did most of the work."
"Say what?"
Michael indicated the band on the rogue’s head. "That’s the psi-jammer Brase was telling us about.
I’m
the one who beta-tested it, my last semester at the Academy."
"Ah."
"What do you say we repay Joseph Davison by making sure that his murderers don’t get away with it ... and that they don’t come back for his son?" Then he smiled and added, "You know what I’m sayin’?"
Westmore nodded and smiled back. "Sounds good to me."
POWERHOUSE
"Hey, Linc, why didn’t ya tell us about Uncle Richard?"
Lincoln blinked in surprise. He’d been nearing the last step to the third-floor landing — and trying to ignore how the climb had taken
no
effort whatsoever — and was caught off guard when Tommy suddenly spoke. His younger sibling was at the Coke machine, two Sprites already in hand.
"Hey, Tommy. I’m sorry,
who’d
you ask me about?"
"Uncle Richard. Ya never told us about him."
Lincoln stood before him now, absently accepting the offered soda can as his half-brother purchased a third one. " ‘Uncle Richard,’ " he repeated nonchalantly, hiding his growing confusion and concern.
"Yeah. He showed up about an hour ago lookin’ for ya. Him and his two buddies are waitin’ for ya back in the apartment."
It’s the authorities! They found out about Tommy and Sarah!
But the thought was discredited almost before it was formed. If the authorities
had
found out, they wouldn’t bother with any "Uncle Richard" charades.
"Come on, Tommy," Lincoln said, urging the boy forward with a protective hand on his shoulder.
The three men were sitting around Lincoln’s small living room. An older, mostly bald man sat with Sarah on his knee, listening intently as she rambled excitedly through whatever story she’d chosen to tell their guests.