Soon I Will Be Invincible (18 page)

Find the artifact and we find Impossible and put him out of commission. Elphin and Mystic seem right at home with this new development, but for me it’s a complete unknown. Mutants and machines and aliens may be weird, but they’re still science. You can deal with them without upsetting anyone’s belief systems too badly. But I fundamentally don’t belong in the same room with something Guinevere is supposed to have touched.

I pace in my room awhile, then out in the corridors, data unfolding across my vision—maps, spreadsheets, case files, dates of last sighting, and lots of numbers, estimates of their capabilities, supernatural auras spelled out in ergs and kilowatts. A couple are grayed out, presumed lost or destroyed; a few others are colored red or blue, indicating curses, or, in a few cases, sentience. I let my machine brain assimilate it all—it’s better at it, and the knowledge will be there when I need it.

Blackwolf is waiting for the elevator, kitted out for one of his nighttime patrols, canisters of nerve gas or whatever slung from his belt. We haven’t really spoken since the funeral.

“Hi, Fatale. I have a couple of things I need you to crunch the numbers on later.”

“Fine. I mean, that’s fine, but…I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About CoreFire. All of this. I wish there was something I could do.” I stumble over it, even though I’d been rehearsing it a moment earlier.

I reach out to touch his shoulder but then stop. He’s Blackwolf, after all. Scourge of crime. The stylized wolf mask looks back, snarling like always.

“You didn’t know him,” he says, looking away.

“I’m sorry,” I say after a moment.

“I appreciate it, but…you didn’t know CoreFire.”

“I know. And I know I can’t really know what you’re going through, but…” But what?

“It’s really okay,” he says, which is about the worst thing possible, and I actually start to get angry.

“No, it’s not okay. Look, I’m not Galatea. I’m not a robot, is that clear? In spite of what everyone seems to think. I’m your teammate.”

“I…No.” Blackwolf’s voice is frigid, angry.

“No, what?” I wait for him to go on.

“What I meant was, CoreFire was a jerk.”

The elevator doors open and he steps inside.

“Blackwolf, I…”

“It’s okay. Leave it,” he mutters as the doors close between us.

I go upstairs to the Crisis Room and go back through CoreFire’s records. Somehow, it can’t be as simple as this. I think about what Lily said, that maybe it isn’t Doctor Impossible. In fact, if there’s anything we know about Doctor Impossible, it’s that he hasn’t had any luck against CoreFire. From that perspective, he’s practically the last person on Earth you could suspect.

CoreFire emerged from a laboratory accident with his full slate of powers; accident unrepeatable, of course. Problem is, you could accuse practically any villain out there of wanting him out of the picture. And, just as problematic, none of them had a way of doing it. If you look up his powers, you get “invincible,” a word that occurs a spare handful of times among over fifteen hundred cataloged metahumans. Granted, there’s an asterisk there for the iridium, but that approach hasn’t led us anywhere so far.

Invincible. It’s what everyone wants to claim they are. Not just tough, but downright invulnerable. Damsel is, nearly, and Lily’s about equal, but either of them would fall after enough pounding. It’s happened before. I’m well armored, but where I’m not metal I’m an ordinary woman.

They’ve got practically everything ever written about him. No way to go through it all, even for a machine like me. I run a computer search for the word—who else in the powers database qualifies for that ultimate accolade? Only one—the Pharaoh, a one-joke supervillain with a silly hat. I go back to CoreFire’s file, looking again for anything unusual. The man was so damned uncomplicated. That bland, big-chinned countenance. Life had dealt him such a good hand, you couldn’t even suspect him of cheating.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NEVER SURRENDER

         I sit in a coffee shop in my funeral suit, my briefcase at my side. A risk to be out here, but information security is one of my fortes. My face isn’t well known, and I’ve got my trusty sunglasses. No one knows my name. I watch the pedestrians go by—old people, homeless people, other people in suits, people with jobs. Paper cups and candy wrappers, and the sidewalk spotted with old chewing gum. It just seems unbelievable.

I close my eyes, for a moment. There are days when you just don’t feel all that evil.

“Hey. Um. Honey? I think that guy over there is Doctor Impossible.”

Shit.

This is how a superfight starts. Everybody has them, and you have to be ready. For a lot of people, these fights are the main thing, the main point of the exercise. Smashing things—this is what their powers are for. It’s what I built the staff for, but to tell the truth I’m more about the science. If the science goes right, no one should ever get near me.

I stand up too quickly, knocking over the latte in front of me. It’s nearly full, and the sound it makes as it slops over the table edge and onto the floor is unnaturally distinct. A little of it splashes onto my new slacks.

Blackwolf is standing in the doorway and staring right at me, talking rapidly into the communicator on his wrist, keeping one eye on me. A few civilians near me are picking up on what’s happening. Shit shit shit. Obviously he knows who I am now. This will mean the Champions, and here I am, out of uniform. Lucky day, for them. I’m going to get pounded. These are the times when I wish I could fly.

“Who was the first person to hit you?” That was one of Steve the therapist’s questions. But I don’t know who he was. I was on my way out of a bank, calling for my escape helicopter; then I was picking myself up half a block away, and the side of my head was numb. Looking back, I saw where I’d skidded across the snowy sidewalk, hit the edge of a pillar on the front of the bank, broken off a section of the marble plate. My ears were ringing a little. Passersby were pointing; my cape was torn and muddy along one side. I’d gotten punched.

He was coming toward me, joking to somebody over the shortwave, getting ready to wrap this one up. A weekend hero in a home-brew exoskeleton cased in dirty yellow industrial plastic. The hydraulics whined as he trotted forward, a fancy long-barreled rifle slung across his back.

He stopped when he saw me getting up off the sidewalk. I can’t describe the next few seconds too well because I don’t remember much except that I was on him before he got the rifle up, and then he was flying backward through the bank window and into the lobby. Thinking back I must have already hit him a few times, because I could smell insulation burning, and the armor was having trouble righting itself. I’m strong, remember.

He tried for a roundhouse and connected a little, but he obviously didn’t have full power. I could see his eyes and a bit of his face through the plastic helmet. He knew he was out of his depth. I knew it, too.

I braced a hand on his shoulder, got a few fingers under the rim of his helmet, and tore it off. He looked about forty-five years old, dark brown hair and a mustache, some firefighter on his weekend hobby. He looked terrified, and angry. I could hear sirens, but I stayed on him, held him down with one foot while I tore the armor off him piece by piece, taking my time, feeling the straps part, tearing wires out. So this is a hero, I thought. I told him what I thought of the workmanship on his armor, because I could tell he had built it himself, and then I left.

But that guy was an amateur, a fading sports hero with an engineering degree. These are the Champions, or what’s left of them. They’re world-class. They have communicators and a headquarters and VTOL jets. I wish Psychic Prime were here, and sober. Or Lily. Lily was so good at this part. Well, I’m a professional, too, or so the newspapers claim. I grab a napkin out of the dispenser and keep it over my nose and mouth while the civilians clear out. Always protect your identity.

No need to stand on ceremony. I snatch a mug from the table next to me, and with no windup throw it as hard as I can at Blackwolf’s head. He sees it coming, of course, and it shatters harmlessly on the wall next to him. At least it gets him out of the doorway.

Christ. Okay. They must have been nearby, beating up on a small-timer, maybe, or just out shopping for more leotards. Police are probably already stopping traffic for them, setting the stage for my demolition. I have sixty seconds at most. I’m trying not to panic. Villains are supposed to be able to improvise. For a mask, I stick the napkin to my face with a roll of tape from behind the counter, then kick out a clear area in the middle of the tables.

It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m wearing part of my costume under my clothes, and I’ve got my emergency kit. I open the briefcase, take out the Power Staff, and begin to piece it together. Zeta-powered of course—twenty-five years old, and still the best power source you can carry in one hand.

I peer outside. At least this isn’t the whole team, just a few of the core members. And they aren’t really a team at all anymore, although I haven’t been following the soap-opera details. They fan out on the sidewalk in an arc, just like in their old publicity photos.

Blackwolf, “the Ultimate Crime Fighter,” twirling one of his throwing knives. Damsel, “First Lady of Power,” hovering three feet off the pavement. She’ll be trouble. Feral, “Savage Streetfighter,” barely keeping formation. Elphin, “Warrior Princess,” imperturbable as ever, hefting her silly spear. Where did they get her, again? Rainbow Triumph, “Teen Idol with an Attitude.” Christ.

But there’s something a little off about it. They haven’t been a team for quite a while, and to my professional eye they look…ragged. Damsel and Blackwolf used to fight next to each other, but they’ve put Feral between them in the formation. Feral seems even more manic than usual.

Beatable? Maybe.

Damsel borrows a megaphone from one of the cops. “Doctor Impossible! Is that you?”

“Who dares!?”

“You know us, Doctor Impossible. We’re the Champions.” Rainbow says something to her. “The New Champions.”

“Fine. It’s me.”

“You’re an escaped felon. We’re giving you a chance to surrender quietly. This doesn’t have to be a fight.”

This sort of offer is a mere formality for a man with a Power Staffand a napkin taped to his face, and she knows it. I’m sweating, wishing I had my helmet. I promised myself once that I wouldn’t go down in street clothes.

“You didn’t think prison would stop me, did you? I’m back, and I’m going to take over the world.”

“It’s five against one, Doctor Impossible. Same odds as last time. Final offer.”

I could bring up CoreFire, but I won’t. They’re shorthanded and they know it. I’ll get out of this, and I’m destined to rule this world.

“Come on in.”

A brief pause ensues, a twitchy moment, like the beginning of a gunfight. It’s always chancy, facing down one of these people. No matter who it is, you’re going to be dealing with the end product of a long, improbable story, of a person so strange and powerful that he or she broke the rules of what is ordinarily possible. Whoever you’re facing is guaranteed to be special—an Olympic wrestler, a radioactive freak, the fated son of somebody. They’re winners. Taking a red arrow or a sea horse or the letter
G
as their symbol, they sally forth to make your life difficult.

Rainbow Triumph steps forward. One of my most popular enemies, posing in all her teen-idol glory.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I begin.

“You’re under arrest.” She says it like a bossy eighth grader, like “You’re in my seat.”

Blackwolf mutters, “By the numbers, people.” He’s got that twitchy autistic look he gets in a fight, his odd neurology hyperaccelerating, problem solving in real time.

But they’ve forgotten how fast I am. My wrist flickers, one of my sonic grenades. The heroes scatter. Damsel leaps to shield her ex-husband, but Feral is a sitting duck. It goes off with a boom, shattering windows down the block, setting off car alarms for a quarter mile. Feral flies like an oversized plush toy and I can count him out for about a minute. He’ll be angry when he gets up. Dust rolls over everything.

And then Rainbow Triumph socks me in the stomach, and I fold up like a paper bag. She’s the daughter of one of Gentech’s top executives, and they’ve been working on her for years, ever since she was seven years old and they found out she had a degenerative bone disease. An experimental treatment saved her life, but the price was that she became, over time, a permanent inmate of their research and development division. After the first round of implants went in, they kept layering in new technology, more every year. Then the marketing department got its hands on her.

They’ve been grooming her as a superhero since she was eleven, starting her on search and rescue work, then moving up to crime fighting. She looks great on the news videos, but when you stand up close to her, you can see there isn’t much human tissue left. I took a blood sample once when I was holding her hostage, just to see. It looked wrong, more orange than red, and it stank.

Say what you will about Gentech and its publicity practices, that girl can hit, and those fins on the sides of her gloves are razor-sharp. Stupidly, I’d been watching the show outside, and now a teenage girl is going to beat me senseless. She hits me again and I fall down. She doesn’t weigh much, but she has this trick of bracing herself against the ground to get leverage. So much for the world’s smartest man. I scramble around for a second under a table.

She comes on in a fighting stance, gorgeous wing chun stuff, her face set, with those scary eyes unblinking. She moves like speeded-up stop-motion animation. I’m strong, but let’s face it, I’m not the fighter she is, not toe-to-toe. It’s just not my métier. I pick up a chair and toss it at her, but she catches it, twists it out of my hand, and smashes it against the floor. I swing again, stagger her, but she pulls off an admirable spin kick to my chin. The world tumbles, and then I feel pavement against my back. I’m sliding out into the street, legs in the air. A news helicopter overhead is catching the whole thing.

Who’s next? Feral’s coming to in a furry heap of brick dust and broken glass. I wobble to my feet, staff in hand, barely in time to meet Feral’s rush, an enormous man with the head of a tiger. He’s over seven feet tall, prodigiously strong, like a pickup truck with claws. He’s never killed anyone that I know of, but he’s not particularly careful not to. He’s ended careers before, plenty of them. I’ve never had him in the lab, so I never found out if he was a hyperevolved feline, or a gene graft, or a particularly nasty piece of veterinary surgery.

I step up to Feral and swing two-handed with the staff, catching him full in the face. It feels like I’m hitting a concrete wall with a baseball bat. His counterpunch bowls me over. I fly ten feet before grinding to a stop on the asphalt. I change tactics, the Power Staff sprays sleeping gas, and Feral staggers, falls.

If you haven’t been this close to superhumans, you don’t understand what it’s like to fight them. Even when you’ve got powers yourself, the predominant impression is one of shock. The forces moving around you are out of human scale, and your nervous system doesn’t know how to deal with it. It’s like being in a car accident, over and over again. You never feel the pain until later.

Everything slows down. Lightning flickers overhead, then thunder. On one knee, I raise the staff just in time to absorb it. Damsel. The Power Staff’s now in its fully powered state, force field humming and vibrating in one hand. Someone’s in the shadows. Lily? Mister Mystic? I don’t have time to think about it. Out in the street, it’s going to be sheer murder.

Who’s next? Damsel charges out of the smoke. I tear a parking meter from the sidewalk, wield it, keeping the Power Staff in the off hand. I keep her at bay and sort of manage to jab her in the eye. She takes another pass and I swing it at her. I’m faster, but she parries it with a forearm. She grabs me one-handed—I can feel the new suit tear as we swing around and into a brick wall. I’m staggering forward like a drunk, one sleeve hanging off my jacket, and she swoops in at me, but I sidestep and manage to plant a wad of plastique on the small of her back. She’s clawing for it when it goes off, sending her backward in a long arc the length of a football field, over the shops and parked cars, to land with a distant crunch and tinkle of glass. Who’s next?