"This is Unit One-Adam-Fifteen, downtown on Mercer and Ross, I need back up," a patrolman shouted into his radio as his partner armed himself with the squad car's shotgun.
"One-Adam-Fifteen, units inbound," the radio replied.
Inside the main lobby, an armored figure blasted his way through the lobby as several victims were lying down with twitching spasms. The armor pulsed with a hellish green light and powerful energies crackled from his gauntlets. "Fools! No one can stand before the power of Chain Reaction!" as he fired another blast of energy.
Outside, a rapidly established cordon was set up as police cars formed a barrier to seal off the area. Civilians fled the area as best they could, with several people sprawled on the streets showing signs of illness. As paramedics arrived to administer aid, SWAT police arrived and began to plan their assault.
"What's the situation Sergeant?" the senior officer asked.
Sergeant John Daniels lowered his binoculars and turned to his CO as the squad assembled. "Looks like we got a glowing powered armored perp inside. Doesn't match any known aliases and hasn't communicated any hostage demands. But word from the paramedics says he's hot with radiation."
"Fuck!" one of the SWAT troopers cursed.
Lieutenant Al Larsen looked over the situation and nodded grimly. His men were equipped and trained to deal with chemical assaults, but not nuclear radiation. The NEST was still in town from the bomb threat a few days ago, but getting them here would probably take too long.
"I've got spikes on the windows around the ground floor," Daniels continued, pulling up a portable bank of television monitors displaying the camera shots of the inside of the building. The pictures were fuzzy but functional, showing the armored figure burning his way through one of the offices with no resistance. "What the hell does he even want? It's not like they have cash in an office building."
"Maybe blackmail or someone has a grievance with the company," Larsen pondered.
"Hell, since when does a metahuman terrorist have to be rational?" another policeman muttered.
"He's coming out!" the radio crackled.
Larsen gestured and pressed his radio closer to his ear. "North side of the building!"
Around the area, dozens of men moved around the area as helicopters raced to the scene. The police watched with dread as the concrete wall began to glow and deform, melting away into slag. Smoke and ash began to rise from the superheated mortar as the armored figure emerged from the dense layer of thick haze.
"I have no grievance with the Police!" Chain Reaction declared. "Flee the area and no one else has to get hurt!"
"Put your hands up and surrender!" the loudspeaker responded as the trigger fingers in the surrounding area tensed up.
"Fool! You had your chance!" Chain Reaction declared as he unleashed a wide area blast of heat and greenish light. Patrol cars erupted with explosions as policemen scrambled for cover. Gunfire erupted as the police did their best to retaliate, only to watch futilely as bullets bounced off the armored villain. Without a backward glance, the villain then launched himself into the air with the sound of rocket boots and sped away.
******
Third period announces itself with a blast of a whistle and the sounds of rubber shoes and bouncing balls. Physical education, in many ways, is my best and worst class of the day. While I like the physical stimulus of getting out of the classroom, at the same time, I'm always hampered by the need to hide my special abilities.Take today for instance: Today it's basketball. Sitting on the far end of the bench, I watch with a mixture of fascination and frustration, trying my level best to maintain normal levels of reflexes and reaction. Once adrenaline gets going though, that's harder than it looks. To the eyes of a super-speedster, a bouncing basketball may as well be a stationary helium balloon. Even if I restricted myself to normal running speed, my reflexes alone would make stealing and dribbling child's play.
Of course, any sense of fairness, not to mention my secret identity would end up in smoke if I did, so the few times I end up getting onto the court, I do my level best to portray myself as a clumsy goof with no athletic talent whatsoever. It's sometimes hard on my ego, but it gets the job done.
The whistle blows again, signaling a timeout. "Jessica, you're up."
The rest of the bench does their level best not to roll their eyes as I enter the lineup. The coach of the day is Pete Banion, who already double-duties between coaching men's basketball and high-school physics. Unfortunately, since he's subbing for Donna Solich, our regular girls' coach, he has no idea that "Jessie can't play." So like any recreational coach who doesn't have a stake in the outcome, he does his best to make sure everyone has some playing time. Even the player whose teammates think is less fit than the waterboy.
Play resumes as I do my best impression of trying my best to guard Linda Orduz, a classmate of mine in the newspaper club. I find myself a little surprised how rough she plays; in class, she's kind of a shy. Maybe she thinks she can score brownie points by pushing me around like the wimp some people think I am.
"Come on Jesse, pass the ball!" my teammate Candice Carodine extols. Candice, or Candy to her friends, is my lab partner in Coach Banion's physics class, arguably the most useful course in school for my metahuman activities. Not many of my classmates appreciate it of course, but knowing the relationship between kinetic energy, velocity, and mass is vital to a superspeedster.
The whistle blows, interrupting our bump-and-grind fest as Coach Banion calls a foul. He's calling it a lot tighter for us girls of course; to the guys, his motto is usually "no blood, no foul." Considering that our men's varsity has gone to State for the last three years, he must know what he's doing.
"Two shots," he declares and bounces the ball to me on the free throw line. The gym fills with the mixed sounds of cheers and jeers from teammates and opponents. I bounce the ball and square my shoulders. OK, I can do this. There's no cheating about shooting a free throw; speed doesn't give much of an edge here.
The shouts dissolve into laughter as the first shot falls well short of the rim. OK, scratch that; speed has nothing to do with shooting free throws. Coach Banion catches the bouncing ball and passes it back to me as the calls of "air ball" began to fill the gym. My teammates gather around me for a moment and try to offer words of encouragement.
"Come on, Jesse, just make this one and we can still pull this out," Brenda Clarke urges. Clarke is a classmate of mine in trigonometry. She's also one of the smartest girls in my class and bailed me out a few times when I've been stuck trying to figure out a complicated supervillain case. More than a few "hypothetical" questions I've asked her have been thinly disguised dilemmas I've had to face when going after a head-scratcher.
"Teamwork people!" Carodine extols to our other teammates. "We've got to work together. If we do that, we can beat anyone."
I concentrate and vow not to let my teammates down. I square up once again and shoot. Unfortunately, I know right away that the shot's too short, based on how it felt when it left my hand. In front of me, the players converge around the paint, anticipating the rebound. The ball clanks against the front of the rim and there's a moment in time that stretches as I watch both teams jockey for position. Slow down, I tell myself, have to move at normal speed. I jump and catch my own rebound, hoping that my rescue of the ball was legitimate and not cheating on my part.
I pass the ball off to Candy, who drains a shot from fifteen feet. Two points. And I get an assist. Oh well, that's a familiar refrain in my life. As long as we pull through together, who am I to argue?
******
"...was the latest word from the Police, who say they still have no clues as to the identity or motivations of the armored figure shown here, who identified himself as 'Chain Reaction'. Authorities warn that anyone who was in the area who shows signs of illness should report immediately to their nearest medical facility to be tested. And finally, to offer some commentary, we're here again with Robert Thomas of the Brotherhood of Man."Thomas nodded in acknowledgement. "Thanks for having me back so soon."
"Last time you were here, we were discussing the issue of the regulation of metahuman abilities. How would that apply here?"
Thomas did his best to suppress a smile. It wasn't every interview he got such an obviously loaded question. "This case is about the most obvious example of why we must have metahuman regulation. We don't know if this is a radioactive meta or some goon wearing an unsafe powered armor suit, but in either case, his very presence is a clear and present danger to everyone around him. When you factor the risk to human lives with the economic damage that's going to be incurred by the need to clean the area up, it's clear that something has to be done."
"The police have issued a statement saying that the radiation was low enough not to present a hazard to most people in the area."
"Let me first say that we at the Brotherhood has nothing but praise for the courage of the police, who risk their lives day in and day out against an ever-increasingly dangerous job. I'm sure that they're doing what they feel is best for the general public by preventing a panic. But the truth of the matter is, regardless of how low a level of radiation this 'Chain Reaction' gives off, his existence sets an even more dangerous precedent. What happens when he shows up again with a little more juice in his suit? Or when some vigilante decides the only way to fight him is to match him with a similar powered suit? Let me be very clear: If we as a society do not get these menaces off our streets and out of our cities, there will be a reckoning. We already have several buildings downtown that are in shambles from these battles. Overseas, there's an entire country that has to rebuild their entire infrastructure from the ground up. If we don't put a stop to this, one day, we may be looking at a disaster on our own soil."
"But we can't regulate people who won't submit to the authorities," the commentator objected. "I mean, sure, folks like Old Glory might be willing to work with the authorities, but you can't expect that people like the Royal Elite are going to do the same."
"Of course not. And for those who refuse to cooperate, especially those armed with powers like Chain Reaction, then society has to treat them the same way they would treat any other criminal armed with weapons of mass destruction: decisively and with conviction."
******
There are some days when having hyperspeed really comes in handy, especially when I'm trying to juggle the responsibilities of a full-time student, a part-time actor and a superhero. On my way out of school, several of my classmates were grumbling about cancelled mall trips and pool parties because of upcoming midterms and a load of homework. Superspeed doesn't cancel my school obligations, but it sure makes them go a lot faster. Ten minutes of concentrated effort and I'm done. Hardly seems fair to my classmates who are likely to take three to five hours, but hey, I'm not asking them to fight supervillains either.With my school commitments done for the day, I head back over to the 42nd police precinct downtown to check on how things are going with the Brotherhood case. When I get there, I immediately see a lot of commotion, above the usual chaos that passes as normal. Between the shouts and an occasion snatch of television coverage I see, I can tell I've missed something big downtown.
"Chain Reaction?" I ask as I watch the news footage. "Sounds like a silly name."
Detective Carter gives me his now-trademarked smirk. "I'm not sure you're in any position to make that claim." He then turns serious, puts his pipe down and mutes the television in his office. "Regardless, his methods are far from silly. According to the Feds, there's a whole section of downtown around the Exxon plaza that's contaminated with radiation."
Just then, Special Agent Gordon comes in and drops a file folder on Carter's desk. "Report from the NEST. They're confirming that the hot zones are confined to the first floor, with a top exposure of 7500 mR, mostly where he blasted his way out of the walls."
"And that translates to..." Carter prompts, saving me from having to ask for the dumbed-down version.
"About 200 dental X-rays," Gordon deadpans as Carter picks up the folder and starts to read. "Nothing lethal, Thank God, but cleanup's gonna be a serious bitch."
"Did he give any reason for attacking? Money?" I ask.
"Not a damned thing as far as we can tell," Gordon explains. "He basically showed up, started blasting the place and took off."
"Distraction?" Carter suggests.
"No other crimes of note at that time. Metahumans don't always need an excuse to tear up downtown..." Gordon turns to be me briefly, "no offense."
I do my best not to be offended since I'm not entirely certain if he's being flippant or serious. Besides, even if he is serious, it's not like there isn't an uncomfortable grain of truth in his comments. "Well, maybe I can find this guy and stop him."
Both men look at me and themselves with mixed expressions. Carter speaks up first. "You may be faster than bullets, but you're not faster than radiation, are you?" he quietly warns.
"Well, no, but his reflexes don't look any faster than human. I should be able to dodge him based on his movements."
Gordon nods with a smug look on his face and smiles. "Well, if we see him, we'll be sure and let you know."
******
Chain Reaction came to a landing just outside the warehouse. The dust and litter on the streets blew up in a cloud as the rockets came to a stop. His armor pulsed with a hellish green light as he looked around for any other people. Finding none, he walked noisily to the loading dock and opened the large door.After he entered, the door slowly came to a close. Inside, a single light illuminated the center of the warehouse full of boxes.
"So you're here," a voice said from the darkness.
"I have arrived!" Chain Reaction thundered dramatically.
"Please Jack," the voice said condescendingly as the Fincher came out of the darkness. "This isn't the Cartoon Network."
Chain Reaction nodded, and unlocked his helmet, revealing a young man with blond hair and cold blue eyes. Steam came shooting out of the cooling tubes as his armor's power source began to cycle down. "Sorry, got carried away. I was just trying to get into the role."
"We're not doing a Hollywood casting call Jack. Keep your mind on the mission."
"Oh I don't know Mr. Fincher," the tall hooded man said as he and an array of men came out of a sliding door as the rest of the complex came to life. "I think Jack's performance adds a certain verisimilitude to the role."
"I suppose," Fincher said. He then turned to Chain Reaction as the rest of the armor finished the shutdown sequence. "Jack, you know the displacement cycle is only certified 94%? That there's a chance you won't make it out?"
Jack nodded with determination. "It's a chance I'm prepared to take. If that's what it takes to bring them down..."
"It hasn't been easy, has it?" the hooded man asked. "Having to watch your family killed by those...people, in one of their meaningless battles they always seem to have?"
"No sir, it hasn't. But they'll rest easy, once the mission's done." After a nod, Jack excused himself as the rest of the crowd gathered the disassembled power armor into crates.
"And the rest of the plan?" the hooded man asked as he turned to Fincher.
"The payload's ready. Our engineers have managed to get it down to about half a cubic meter. It should fit inside his backpack. We just need the location."
"And that will depend on our other operation. Has the call been made?"
"Our man inside the Police has already set things up. If Blur holds to her current pattern, she should be arriving at the arranged location in the next few minutes."
"Excellent..."
******
A familiar crackle in my ear interrupts me on my way back to San Marino. I slow down when I hear my name being called on the police band radio I keep in my headset."...has spotted at Burton Chace Park near the Del Rey Marina. We'll send a squad car to meet you there."
I can't reply because civilians aren't supposed to do so on official police bands, but I head west anyway. I-105N's busy as heck this time of day, especially near LAX, so I do my best on the freeway shoulder, dodging cars on the access ramps as they move like slow barges up a lazy river. The switch to I-405W is marked with a highway sign that forbids pedestrians on the freeway. Oh well, go figure.
As I pass Del Rey Lagoon Park about thirty seconds later, I slow my pace to about 200kph and start looking around. Sure enough, there's a patrol car waiting at the park entrance on Lincoln Blvd. I'm wondering how they got here so fast, or if they waited a long time before calling.
"Hello?" I knock on the car window and look inside to see my buddy Gordon. Why is he in a LAPD black and white? Doesn't the bureau issue their own cars?
"Hey, didn't expect to see you. What brings you out here?"
"What? You guys called me. The police band sent me a message saying they spotted Chain Reaction in the area."
"Message? I didn't send a message," Gordon protested. "Carter told me to meet you here because he said you had a message for me."
Uh-oh, that's not a good sign. "Get ready to call for help. I'll go look around."
I leave him behind in a cloud of dust as I head to the marina. I'm normally not a paranoid person by nature, but in this line of business, you can't ever be too careful. I come to a stop on the pier and look around as recreational sailboats drift in and out of the bay.
Suddenly, a loud snarl erupts behind me. I turn around and see a familiar face coming out of one of the marina's aqueducts. None other than Core; last time I saw him was at Omega's custody hearing. He was captured along with most of the bad guys that day, but it looks like they never made it to Purgatory Prime.
"You're going down, little girl!" he bellows. He swings like a slow moving gate, and just as easy to dodge.
"Not if you don't connect, ugly," I say as I superspeed blink fifteen feet back. Despite my flippant response, I have to gauge this fight carefully. Old Glory and Avatar aren't here to back me up this time so standing toe-to-toe isn't an option. Core's got nearly unlimited strength if he's given the chance to stand still and draw power from the Earth. But fortunately he's not all that bright; he lumbers forward and tries to swing again, only to watch me blink another fifteen feet back.
"Come back here you little..."
That's it, just keep coming. With each step, he loses just a little more strength. As he swings and misses for a third time, I run 300 yards to the nearest dock and grab a coil of rope. Six thousandths of a second later, Core's wrapped head to toe like a hemp mummy.
"You...little..." he snarls as he strains and begins to tear the rope away. Of course I didn't expect it to hold him, but it does slow and frustrate him a little longer. Hopefully, help's on its way if Gordon's on the ball at all.
"To hell with this," Core mutters as he gets back to his feet and turns to the nearest bystander. The girl screams as the cowardly bastard decides to go for easier prey.
"Not so fast," I tell him and pull the girl out of the line of fire and carry her away. "You're safe now."
"But you aren't..." the girl intones as she removes a beret hiding a head of green hair. "Look into my eyes and sleep..."
I berate myself for an instant before my head turns to pudding as her eyes burn into my mind. I drop to my knees, skidding to a painful stop. Fortunately, Mezmera's spell makes me drop her as well, breaking her concentration. Still, I'm frozen and helpless for three full seconds while my brain desperately tries to shake the cobwebs loose. Plenty of time for...
The impact of Core's fist is bone rattling; fortunately he wasn't near his full strength and I was able to roll with his punch or they'd be scraping my remains off the pier. Still, I can't take another blow like that. As I scramble to my feet, I realize that I've got a real fight on my hands. Core, I was pretty sure I could handle, but Mezmera, I've barely heard of and don't have any real idea what her capabilities are. What's more disturbing was how both of them were so conveniently set up to ambush me like they did. That little paranoid voice inside is saying it told me so. Between the ringing of bells in my head, that is.
I brace myself for the follow-up, wondering why the two of them are just standing there, grinning like Cheshire cats. I don't have to wonder for long; behind me, another figure moves. "Got her," a voice shouted triumphantly from behind me, a split second after I was enveloped by a talking sheet of rubber, covering me head to toe. Some kind of rubber man; something you don't see everyday, even in this line of business.
"Don't bother struggling, you're not strong enough to pull me loose," Rebound gloats. "You know that burning sensation in your lungs? That's our money in the bank!"
You want burning, try this, I say to myself as I grab some of the living rubber sheet around me and start rubbing my hands on his body. His amusement lasts for about a three seconds before the hypersonic friction and resulting heat has the desired effect. Why else do you think I have my costume heat-insulated?
"Shit!" Rebound scream as he reflexively recoiled in pain.
I get a good gulp of air as Rebound tries to snake around me like the fire hose from Hell. I manage to step between his coils before he can wrap me up, but now I'm getting worried. Money in the bank? So someone put out a contract on me? OK, sure, I've foiled a few crime syndicates and captured a few villains, but it never occurred to me that someone would go through this much trouble to single me out, especially when there were so many more visible heroes out there.
The moment of thinking passes as Core and Rebound do their best to flank around me. I'm not strong enough to really hurt them directly, and a whirlwind isn't going to affect someone as strong as Core. Still, I can outmaneuver these two all day long.
"Grab her!"
What the hell? I turn around and suddenly six bystanders are joining in the fight, trying their best to grapple me. Mezmera no doubt; her hypnotized victims can't come close to touching me, but if she keeps this up, someone's going to get hurt.
Then, right on cue, Core smashes the ground, sending a ripple of shock waves that knocks cars and people over like dominos. I manage to stay on my feet, but Rebound takes advantage of my momentary distraction to try and wrap me again. At the same time, I finally spot Mezmera standing by the edge of the docks. I can't hear what she's saying, but the affects are immediate and obvious as a dozen other bystanders began to march robot-like on the docks heading out to sea.
I grab one end of a surprised Rebound and sprint towards her with a surge of adrenaline. Caught by surprise, Rebound can only scream as his body is stretched like a rubber band. I have to stop her from using her hypnosis on bystanders or I'm going to be here all day. At the same time, I can't let her make eye contact with me again; once was more than enough. So I circle around her with my living rubber rope, then let go. Rebound's muscles snap reflexively, recoiling back like a rubber band, knocking Mezmera off her feet. That should buy me a few seconds; more than enough time to stop her victims from diving off the pier.
I rush out to the end of the dock with the sea at my back and face the victims, who continue their march. Their eyes are glassy; I have no idea what it's going to take to free them from Mezmera's hypnosis, so I'll have to resort to force until I can come up with something more elegant. I brace myself and start to twirl my arms like a windmill, generating a moderately strong column of wind. My former mentor, the now-retired superspeedster named Zephyr used to use this stunt to save window-washers from falling or to get cats out of trees. Of course, in his prime, he was also several orders of magnitude faster than I am today, so I have to really strain to make this work.
As my wind builds up to gale force and Mezmera's victims began to find themselves being blown back to relative safety, I keep an eye out on the three villains, expecting them to jump on me while I'm busy saving lives. To my surprise, they're standing back together and are just watching, with smiles on their faces. Uh-oh, the paranoid voice inside my head says, and I wait for the other shoe to drop.
I don't have to wait long, but I am caught off-guard by how it drops. Beneath my feet, the dock rips to splinters. With nothing to stand on, my own whirlwind works against me, blowing me into the harbor where I get a glimpse at villain #4. I never fought him before, but I did hear about him during the Ireland War briefings; he calls himself Barracuda and lives up to his moniker by lunging right at me, flashing his razor-sharp teeth. Flailing in mid-air, I can't dodge nor do a damned thing to stop him.
He hits me hard as we both go into the harbor. The cold water shakes me as I feel myself being dragged down like an anchor. Next to me, I can hear what has to be laughter from Barracuda as we descend into the murky depths. My head's still ringing from the pounding and the thought that this might be my last day on Earth. "Teamwork people! We've got to work together. If we do that, we can beat anyone." Right Candy. But teamwork works both ways. That's the last thing that comes to mind just before the water begins to fill my lungs...
To be continued in For One Who Knows the Score
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