Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (53 page)

“That’s fine, but why didn’t he just tell me through Dispatch?” Owen asked.

“Because at this range, he thinks the robots can overhear us talking and adapt their strategy based on what we say. Hence my noisy little barrier.” Gale held up her hand and gestured to the swirling storm engulfing them, as if there were any question of what she was talking about.

“Got it. Anything else I need to know?”

“You’ve probably already noticed, but the fucking things are spreading. Dispatch has already had to peel some Heroes off to deal with the ones that left this fight. They’re doing their best, but. . . well, you can count. We can’t leave this scene, obviously, but if you see any trying to escape, do everyone a favor and discourage them.”

“I like to think I can be an excellent demotivator when the occasion demands,” Owen replied.

“Then show them what you’ve got. I need to go find Aether and pass along the message. Remember, go north and stop the rogues on the way.” With that, the tornado suddenly came to an end and Gale was gone, racing through the sky as she searched for the woman darting through solid objects.

With the wind wall removed, Owen could see how the landscape had shifted and that new clusters of robots had gotten near them in the brief window of concealment. Flexing his hands, he set his sight on the nearest ones and bolted toward them, not bothering to try and land properly. His body was a weapon in itself, and he planned to use it as one, leaving a trail of destroyed robots in his mighty wake.

102.

               Hexcellent wasn’t sure why she’d thought things would be better once they were outside the stadium; it had just seemed like the way these sorts of events were supposed to play out. Someone would have a plan, and they’d be rushed off to safety with the other civilians. Getting out of the stadium and then off the fairgrounds were the first steps toward freedom. Except once they made it outside, following the path cut by Wild Bucks and other Heroes who’d shown up to help, their world made even less sense.

At least in the stadium there had been a sort of order, with limited entrances and only so much ground to cover. The moment they stepped outside people began to scatter, which was made all the more troublesome by the fact that there were robots roaming about. It took less than a minute for their tight, well-guarded unit to disintegrate as Heroes, including Kaiju, were forced to peel off to meet charging robots or rescue civilians. She and Bubble Bubble had to flee the sphere on Big Henry’s shoulder, as the large demon simply couldn’t move quickly enough while hauling them to steer clear of the more troublesome spots. As she stepped out into the open again, Hexcellent came to peace with the fact that there was no greater plan in place, or at least not one that involved them. If they wanted saving, they’d have to get themselves out of the fire.

“Time to pick a direction, folks,” she said, pointing to the several streets, all with at least one squad of robots near the entrances. “As I see it, our best bets are to try and get the hell out of Brewster proper, maybe flee to the burbs, or make a run for the Mordent Building. We might not be a lot safer there, but personally I’d like to die in my own bed, if that’s on the table.”

“Mordent is actually very secure,” Galvanize pointed out. “It’s built to withstand all manner of natural disasters, plus the security is top of the line. Granted, that might not stop all of. . . this.” He waved at the robots bounding about and targeting every Super they could find. “But it’s a far sight safer than being on the street.”

“And what about everyone else?” Bubble Bubble asked. The streets were all but choked with civilians who were barreling out of the fairgrounds, no doubt filled with the same naïve hope as Hexcellent that things would be safer once they were outside.

“We’re probably not authorized to fight these things, but given the situation, it would be hard for anyone to argue that we aren’t acting in self-defense,” Galvanize said. “I’m not the only one who’s noticed they only seem to be going after Supers, right?”

“Sort of.” Hexcellent had noticed the pattern to, though she’d seen it slightly differently. “They’re going after people who mark themselves as Supers. SAA athletes, Heroes, and obviously us. I don’t think they somehow invented a scanner to tell humans from Supers; shit, if they had, they could make billions overnight. I think they’re just going off the markings we’ve put on ourselves.”

“She’s right,” Zone said. “They’ll knock normal folks aside, but it’s only the people in costume or uniform that they target.”

“Okay then.” Galvanize surveyed the layout of the chaos before them, his mind whirling as he tried to put together what little information they had and turn it into a plan for survival. “Zone, take off your shirt. Since that’s where most of your ads are, hopefully you can pass for a normal person once it’s gone.”

“Why only me?” Despite the question, Zone had already begun to strip down. Much as he wanted an explanation, he’d been in more than enough dangerous situations with Galvanize to trust his leader’s orders even before he understood them.

“The rest of us have costumes that are too elaborate; we would never fool them,” Galvanize explained. “You’re going to scout ahead, finding us the clearest route and hiding spots so we can make our way back to the Mordent building. If we see any civilians in trouble along the way, we do our best to save them and bring them along. As long as they don’t stand too close to us, they aren’t likely to get targeted.”

“Yeah, but how do we-”

Hexcellent was cut off as a giant, demonic hand slammed itself into her back and pushed her to the ground. Big Henry stepped in where she’d been standing, raising its gauntlet-like hands over its chest moments before a blast of red energy struck. Big Henry let out a massive roar as its flesh began to pucker and sear. To the monster’s credit, it held out for nearly a full ten seconds before the damage became too great and it disintegrated into a cloud of smoke. Ten seconds, paltry though it was in the scheme of the universe, proved to be long enough for a member of the Cincinnati Cyborgs, one of the very Supers they’d gone up against in the tug-of-war, to slam a powerful shoulder into the robot and knock it to pieces.

Big Henry was gone and Hexcellent rose to her feet slowly, gripping the side of her skull, visibly in pain. Summoners took a healthy bit of mental feedback when their creations were destroyed, and the more powerful they were, the more it hurt. Bubble Bubble was already at her teammate’s, her friend’s, side as Hexcellent managed to slowly steady herself.

“I was going to ask how we chat with Zone, since no one brought comms to a charity event, but that fucker robot just solved the problem for us.” Hexcellent held out her hand and Impers appeared on Zone’s now-bare shoulder, trying not to hook its small claws into his tan skin. “Impers will run relay between Zone and us, so that he can always be scouting.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have Huggles on hand?” Zone asked. Big Henry was the best they could ask for, but his destruction meant it would take time and rest before Hexcellent could summon him again.

“Huggles is great, but she’s not subtle. I think the more covert we are, the better,” Hexcellent replied. She leaned on Bubble Bubble, a fresh wave of pain wracking her skull. Though she didn’t tell the others, summoning another creature so soon after losing one intensified the pain. There would be time for beers and bitching later. Right now they needed to survive.

“Okay, I’m going ahead,” Zone told them, jogging east in the direction of the Mordent Building. “I’ll find a way past all the robots guarding the exit streets, you three just try and stay safe until Impers comes back.”

Hexcellent chuckled darkly under her breath, eyes taking in the destruction and bloodshed around them. “I could have created a summon with flying powers big enough to carry us years ago, but noooo, I had to be afraid of heights.”

“We’ll make it back,” Galvanize assured her. “I’m sure the Heroes are already taking control of the situation.”

Confident though he sounded, it was somewhat hard to believe him when the sounds of raining debris drowned out his words.

103.

Something was wrong. Owen couldn’t quite put his finger on what, but as he smashed his way through the intersection stuffed full of robots, ignoring their bites, swipes, and blasts, he could tell that there was an element off about the fight. Another man or a younger version of himself would have shaken the feeling off as nerves or fear, but Owen had been in the fire literally countless times during his tenure as a Hero. He’d made a name for himself by being the one they could drop into any situation, and as a result had gained enough experience to learn the value of trusting his intuition, especially when it so boldly grabbed his attention. If something seemed off about the fight, then it was, even if he couldn’t put it into words quite yet.

It certainly wasn’t that the battle was too easy, at least for the Heroes as a whole. Granted, nothing the robots had seemed able to hurt him, but he was just one man. Containing this many threats required the coordination of dozens of Heroes, many of whom didn’t share his invulnerability.

Owen grabbed a robot with whirling blades for arms and smashed it down over his knee, then stomped it to pieces on the ground. Maybe it was that these seemed easier to kill that the previous times he’d faced them. Then again, before they’d been in limited groups and focused on defense. Now, there were so damn many it was nearly impossible to stretch his arm out without smacking one. Perhaps the tradeoff to creating so many had been that they were lower quality; maybe the person in charge had switched tactics and decided to simply try and overrun the Heroes. That seemed viable, though ill-advised. At the rate things were going, they’d manage this first wave in five more minutes, and by the time the next arrived they would have regrouped and prepared.

A Hero in gray and crimson zipped past Owen, so fast they were an unrecognizable blur, leaving a trail of severed robots behind them. No, it wasn’t his imagination; these were definitely going down easier. But why? Numbers would make things more troublesome and might bring down a few more civilians, but they were far less likely to kill actual Heroes. It felt like he was on the right mental path to solve the mystery, but he had no idea where to go from here. So he focused on moving his body instead, barreling through a set of robots hobbled by the gray and red blur to finish the job.

Roughly a hundred feet away, he saw Gale settling down for a landing near a broken streetlight. Seemed like he was almost to his goal, then. Whatever was hitting him as wrong, it would hopefully get resolved when Jeremiah got a lock on these bastards’ signal. If they could shut down the source, the robots’ plan would be irrelevant. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong, so as he punched his fingers through a mechanical torso and hollowed it out, he decided to check on the lone element he couldn’t directly influence.

“Dispatch, this is Titan. Can I get a location and condition analysis for my PEERS team?”

Even in the middle of this fight, which was no doubt only one incident among many she was dealing with across the country, Dispatch’s reply was instantaneous.

“One moment, Titan, let me see what I can get for you.”

Owen finished coring the robots in his hands and reached for the next nearest one, only to realize it was another Hero in a mechanical suit. He gave a small wave of apology, to which the other Hero responded with a curt nod. It was hard to blame them for being annoyed. There was no way Owen had been the first Hero to see metal and assume it belonged to an enemy. He quickly turned away, grabbing a robot that was taking aim to blast another Hero with an energy beam and placing his hand over the weapon’s muzzle. In seconds, the laser gun had melted to scrap as the beam was unable to escape. Owen quickly dismantled the rest of the bot before it could get its bearings.

“Titan, your team successfully evacuated the fairgrounds under the watch of Kaiju from Wild Bucks. However, once they were out he lost track of them as there were other civilians to protect. Based on satellite imagery, they appear to have slipped away from that concentration of enemies and are currently working their way toward the Mordent Building.”

Owen remembered his first day walking into Mordent, taking stock of the cannons disguised as potted plants and knowing it was only the tip of their security iceberg. “Good. I know we’ve got a lot going on, but if you can, keep an eye on them for me. I want to know when they’re home safe.”

“You will be kept abreast,” Dispatch assured him.

With that as settled as it could be, Owen tore through a half-dozen more robots before finding himself in what was as close to a clearing as he’d seen since the fight started. Gale, Deadlift, Aether, and Jeremiah were all gathered together, polishing off a few mechanical adversaries as he stepped into view. Aether finished hers off last, phasing her arms through its chest and coming out with several components that were, apparently, quite vital to its operation. It was easy to forget just how terrifying phasers could be, given the right talent and training.

“There’s our big fella,” Jeremiah announced. He somehow still looked composed, barely a hair out of place as he whipped the cane-like object in his hand about. With a flick of his wrist it compressed down and he tucked it neatly away in a compartment of his costume. No great shock that a team full of Subtlety Heroes would have fancy high-tech weapons, though from the smoking remains around his feet, it seemed the cane did far more than just make itself portable.