Now I know who my acid-man is
, Steve thought.
He’s target Number One
.
The big guy — who, unlike the other two, was wearing a ski mask — whispered something, and the acid-man responded, "I’m burning into the floor. Making us a dugout. We’ll be able to drop in and wait for him to give away his position. Since he can’t see us any better than we can see him—"
Steve was right beside them now, and though he knew it was a risk to give away his position before he struck, he couldn’t resist the urge to give them a little Batman-esque scare. Smiling to himself, he said aloud, "I wouldn’t be too sure of that."
The big guy jumped, but the acid-man only looked up. Having taken all the chances he was prepared to give himself, Steve kicked him right between the eyes. His head snapped back sharply, he moaned, and then slumped into the very hole he’d just begun.
"
Got
you!
" the redhead roared, firing a lightning bolt from each hand, heedless of whether or not he might hit either of his companions. They again missed their target, but one of the bolts struck a large pile of computer printouts on a different table, which instantly caught fire. The flames spread quickly to the table itself, and suddenly it wasn’t so dark.
Now Steve realized that he was visible, and
way
too close to the big guy. Jumping back several steps, he targeted the redhead with a repellent vortex wave, throwing him up and back several yards before he crashed to the floor, moaning, groaning, and cursing the whole way.
That’s not good enough
, Steve thought.
He’s still conscious, and I don’t know
what
this big guy can do yet. I don’t want to kill them if I don’t have to, but I can’t give the redhead a chance to fire off another one of those lightning bolts—
Then it hit him: Lightning bolts.
"
Lightning
," he said aloud ... and now he finally realized just
who
it was he was fighting. Trembling with rage, his lips drawn back into a fierce snarl, he rushed toward the man who murdered his entire family, leaping over the bench like it wasn’t even there.
He’d fantasized about this possibility, but he’d also kept his expectations in check. After all, it was possible — even likely — that he would never, ever find the man who had so completely upended his life. Blinded him, orphaned him, even turned him into a cyborg, however indirectly. And now he was
here
, and one stream of his lasers would cut the bastard’s head right off of his body.
Except somehow, in spite of his rage and the man’s consummate vulnerability, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.
Doesn’t matter
, he rationalized as he rushed toward the bastard.
Quick death would be too good for him, anyway. I want to do it
myself
!
The rogue had gotten back to his feet, but he was lurching, his sense of balance still off. He raised his hands, firing several smaller lightning bolts.
Steve zigged and zagged but kept advancing — one of the bolts clipped his cape, but he was beyond caring about the danger of this mad dash.
When he reached the rogue, he ducked one last attack, then straightened and elbowed the bastard in the left temple as hard as he could. Shaken, stunned, and desperate, the rogue abandoned his paranormal abilities and actually took an uncoordinated swing at him — which was perfectly fine with Steve. Grinning maliciously, he blocked the attack, rolled his arm around the rogue’s, and then twisted sharply away. The murdering son of a bitch screamed as his elbow bent in the wrong direction, but Steve wasn’t done with him yet. He continued to turn, pulling the rogue over his hip by his already-injured arm. He flipped the man all the way over and slammed him down onto the hard floor with gratifying force, flat on his back — the man’s breath exploded from his lungs and his eyes bulged in their sockets.
"Son of a
bitch
!" Steve barked, kicking him in the face. "
You killed them
all!
"
But it still wasn’t enough, and he leaped upon the man, raining blow after blow upon him. Every hit spurred him on to the next, and that small, barely objective part of him warned that he might end up killing the man after all if he didn’t stop soon.
Good!
he retorted at the unwanted voice of reason. But part of the problem was that, as he begrudgingly recalled, Ensign Takayasu had explained that paranormals with control over electricity and lighting were a relatively common occurrence. As much as he wanted,
needed
, satisfaction, it slowly began to dawn on him that maybe this
wasn’t
the same man who massacred his life. Oh, he was one of the bad guys for sure — there was no doubting that — but what if ...
In the next instant, something hit him in the back so hard he almost blacked out. He rolled forward and back up to his feet, but it was only his years of training taking over — his conscious thoughts were scattered and disjointed, until he found himself facing the big guy with the ski mask once more. A darting glance to the side also revealed just what had hit him.
What, did he break the bench in half and
throw
it at me?
he wondered. His hind ribs protested his movements, but his breath came back more rapidly than he would have thought possible.
Thank God I had the double-protection from the cape. I’ll have to point this out to Ardette when I’m through.
And he had no doubt that he would be through shortly. The lightning man shouldn’t be moving anytime soon — ditto for the corrosive man. And now that he had the big guy in his sights — literally — he was ready to finish this.
The funny thing was, this last opponent clearly had no concept of his predicament. He stepped forward and blustered in a tough-guy voice, "Listen, why don’t you just
stand down
, Mister? I don’t want to hurt you—"
Whatever
, Steve smirked, and kicked on the vortex wave. Rather than slam him with a repellent wave as he had the lightning man, he cut loose with the standard variety. He would simply squeeze this guy into unconsciousness, then take the time to decide, once and for all, just what he really wanted to do with ...
To Steve’s amazement, the rogue froze for a second, then slowly advanced upon him. After the whole bench thing, he figured that this guy was a super-strong paranormal, but he didn’t expect him to be
this
strong.
Fine. If that’s the way he wants it. We’ll just see how much he can take.
Focusing his concentration, Steve
pushed
the vortex wave to a higher intensity. He’d dabbled with increasing both his laser and the vortex during his training with Alan and Ardette, but this would be his first true field test. The rogue was obviously affected — the strain showed in his eyes, the tendons and veins stood out in his neck, and his muscles bulged under his black shirt ...
But
still
he came, ever slowly but surely.
Steve’s breath started coming faster in a way that the physical exertion with the lightning man had failed to induce. He felt ... well, as absurd as it almost was, he sort of felt as though he were having a difficult bowel movement — except the labor was focused in his head and lungs rather than his lower regions. His pulse thudded in his temples and he gritted his teeth together.
I guess we’ll just have to see who lasts the longest
...
But it didn’t come to that. A flash of light that would have blinded his natural eyes streaked toward him and struck him in the chest, almost perfectly in the center of his vortex emblem. The charge seared through his body, making his muscles lock up like granite before dancing into a million tiny spasms. He saw a supernova that originated
behind
his mechanical eyes, and his lungs burned. His heart skipped a beat ...
... and then he was flat on his back, far more disoriented than he had been from the bench-blow, and virtually unable to move. The same instincts from before tried to force him back up, but this time his limbs decided they just weren’t going to cooperate.
As he lay there, his eyelids fluttering, he heard the redhead’s voice. "Be damned. Still alive, and
conscious
. Tough sonuvabitch. Not for long. Thanks for holdin’em, Powerhouse."
I should have killed you when I had the chance!
Steve cursed inwardly, more at himself than at the rogue.
I didn’t even get to finish off this "Powerhouse" character, damn it!
Steve heard the shuffling of feet and managed to roll his head in that direction. The rogue was there, grinning at him. He tried desperately to fire his lasers straight through the guy’s face, but after the combined strain of his suped-up vortex wave and taking a lightning bolt to the sternum, he just couldn’t coerce the necessary juice — the fact that his eyelids wouldn’t stop flapping probably played a role in that failure as well. He couldn’t even catch his breath, let alone fire one of his weapons.
I’m about to die
.
The futility of it all filled him with impotent anger. Here he had survived this man’s initial onslaught upon his family, only to die by the same bastard’s whim a couple of months later? Alan might even suggest that he’d brought this on himself with his silly desire to play—
No
. He did
not
regret his decision. However it had turned out, he truly believed that he’d had the right idea, a
good
idea. He could only pray that perhaps somehow, someway, some paranormal out there would also read Jeffrey Lawrence’s essay, or something like it, and come to the same conclusion as he had. He’d given it his best shot — for the first, and last, time in his life, he’d aspired to something meaningful and larger than himself, and he was
proud
of what he’d tried to do.
He stared up at the rogue, who was slowly raising his hand to emit the deathblow, and thought,
Do your worst, you son of a bitch. I’m ready.
Suddenly, Steve heard a loud
crunch
that could not have been confused with a lightning bolt by any stretch of the imagination. The rogue’s eyes bulged in his head, but not in shock — the life had already gone out of them. His neck swelled and his mouth gaped and he lifted onto his tiptoes. Then he collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, and behind him stood the big guy, "Powerhouse," his outstretched fist slowly lowering to his side.
Did ... did Powerhouse just
kill
him? For
me
?!
Steve shook his head — maybe his brains had been fried worse than he realized. This Powerhouse was threatening him and marching straight into his vortex wave not thirty seconds before. Why would
he
come to his rescue?
Powerhouse stared down at Steve a moment longer ... then reached up and removed his ski mask. For a melodramatic moment, Steve half-expected to recognize the face, that surely he would know his rescuer. But it was no one Steve knew — dark-complected Caucasian, dark hair, dark eyes ... just an ordinary face, but one filled with angst.
"They’ve been calling me ‘Powerhouse,’ " the man said, "but my real name is Lincoln Roberts."
Whoa
, Steve thought.
Did I miss something? What’s
this
all about?
"I’m being forced to work for a man named Richard McLane," Lincoln Roberts explained, and he immediately had Steve’s attention. In spite of his adrenaline rush of hatred upon identifying the lightning man, Steve was still fully aware that it was
McLane
who gave the orders. "He holds the life of my baby brother and sister in his filthy claws. I didn’t think I had a choice — until now." Moving forward, Lincoln offered Steve his hand.
Steve gaped at the hand, then glanced up into the man’s eyes. In that instant, he understood everything. What he saw in Lincoln Roberts’ eyes was something akin to
hero worship
. Lincoln had the star-struck look of a small boy meeting his idol — athlete, actor, astronaut, whatever — for the first time. That look might have confused the hell out of Steve if it hadn’t dawned on him that, with at least this one man, he’d already accomplished what he’d set out to do. Lincoln wasn’t seeing Steve Davison, he was seeing the costume, the emblem, the mask ... he was seeing
Vortex
.