Killing Capes (13 page)

Dwight lifted Lia, taking care with her head. “You, get Ian inside. Be careful with him.”

Midas looked puzzled; perhaps this was the first time he had ever taken an order from a normal. “Why the camper?”

Dwight explained, irritated, “Both of these people likely have concussions, or worse. You can’t just carry them each under one arm to the hospital. Get them inside. You’re going to fly us all to my doctor.” The laws of physics and human anatomy generally didn’t apply to Powers like Midas.

Midas didn’t question any further. He handled Ian as gently as he could manage; it was a bit like watching a professional wrestler handle a kitten. There seemed to be a new vulnerability in Midas: his strength was a liability. He held Ian in his arms outside of the RV as Dwight set Lia down on the filthy mattress at its rear. Dwight began tossing Ian’s equipment out the door; he wasn’t concerned with the state of the machines at this point. If anything, they would be potentially dangerous projectiles once they were airborne.

A few moments later, he pitched the last rig out onto the rocky ledge. The machine exploded into a heap of broken parts as it hit the ground. He’d owe Ian for all the mess this day had been. He’d take payment for it out of Bernard’s face if they ever saw him again. Waving Midas into the camper, he swore he’d get his former partner back for this.

The Cape set his cargo down next to Lia. They were all in terrible shape, but this was the best plan Dwight could manage, given the situation; he’d need to keep an eye on the injured. He pointed back toward the door. “Get to it.”

Though he looked like he had barely the strength to carry Dwight’s frail roommate, Midas didn’t object. “Where are we going?”

“They need medical attention. I have a friend at the east end docks. She’s got a lab there that can handle anything.” Even now, Dwight was sure Ellis had watched the broadcast and would be prepping an array of machines to help Lia. Rummaging through the camper’s cabinets, he found a disused first-aid kit; at least the thin gauze bandage would help stop the steady blood flowing from her head wound.

Midas nodded, and stepped outside. He shouted, “Brace yourself – this is going to be rough!”

From the moment the Power crawled under the camper and stood, the entire world rocked violently under them. Dwight did his best to hold his unconscious partners in place. As they soared up and away from the nature preserve, he was sure that anyone watching the skies was in for a surprise.

Though the drive to the remote forest had taken most of the day, the flight back was substantially shorter; there was an advantage to not needing roads. They set down with a screeching protest from the RV’s suspension. Dwight rushed to the driver’s seat to check their position. Fortunately, Midas set them down a few buildings away from the Doc’s workshop. He turned the key in the ignition, praying that the engine somehow survived the abuse. There was a horrible, grinding choke before the engine caught and started. It wouldn’t be pretty, but the camper would get them the rest of the way.

In his rearview mirror, Dwight saw Midas standing alone in the middle of the road. Once they were a few hundred feet from him, the Power turned away and took off into the sky. Perhaps killing him would have been a mercy compared to having his sins aired in front of all of New Haven. They had broken him – first in body, then in spirit. The untouchable had been destroyed in every way by a normal man. New Haven wouldn’t forget this. Neither would Midas.

He thought of Bernard, still somewhere in the nature preserve. Revenge was a hell of a motivator; having his powers stolen ruined his life. Dwight wondered if Bernard would be satisfied with what he’d achieved today, or if this was just the beginning of something worse. He frankly didn’t care where Bernard went from here. The betrayal made him seethe.

His ability to work for Wulf was based on the concept that these Powers needed to be brought down – that the others had to see their actions had consequences. Sure, Midas’s actions against Bernard were horrible, but the Powers weren’t helpless the way the regular citizens of New Haven were. He didn’t want to get involved in some Cape struggle, and certainly didn’t care about their internal bickering. Wulf would be calling, and Dwight would need a hell of an explanation to get himself out of this.

Pulling up to the rear entrance of Doctor Ellis’s lab, Dwight dashed out, searching for one of the Doc’s hidden cameras. He waved frantically and began shouting. Dwight could only hope she was watching for him; he didn’t have time to carry both of them through her elaborate security system.

“Doc, we need help out here!” His voice was strained, his shouting transformed into a painful cry, “Come on! Please!”

Finally, as he reached the end of his patience, the door swung open. The Doc waved him in, “Get Lia first. Your roommate isn’t hurt – just a colossal wuss.” She had been watching the broadcast of their fight.

He rushed back into the camper and delicately scooped up Lia. Her head wound had soaked through the bandage; the sheets beneath her were stained a bright crimson. He paid no attention as that same blood now saturated his shirt. Dwight carried the psychic outside and into the lab. Even as he walked past her, Ellis was already examining the damage.

“That piece of shit,” she snarled, unwinding the gauze from Lia’s head. “If I ever see Bernard again, I swear I’m going to disintegrate him.” She pointed to the examination table, “Put her there.”

Dwight did as he was told. He set her down like she was made of glass. “I grabbed the pieces of her implant, but I may not have gotten it all.” He pulled the blood-drenched bits of metal from his pocket and placed them beside her on the table.

Ellis shook her head, “I’m not going to be able to use any of that. Dalia’s limiter was a prototype. It’s going to take some time to build a new one for her. Right now, I’m more concerned with the pieces lodged in her skull.”

She wheeled over a small surgical tray lined with pristine tools. Taking the laser scalpel from it, she began working to remove the shrapnel from the catatonic woman’s head. After a few intense minutes, those fingers slid a quarter-sized hunk of steel from Lia’s skull. Ellis gingerly tugged the miniscule wires attaching the device to her patient’s brain. Sighing heavily, she dropped the bloody mechanism in the tray beside her.

While she worked, Dwight went back to the camper to retrieve Ian. With Lia secured, Dwight took a moment to examine his roommate. A bruise had formed on his forehead, likely a trophy from Midas. An RV tipping over on his leg hadn’t helped. Dwight decided to set him up in the medical suite. This had been an unfortunately busy week for the Doc.

Placing Ian on the gurney, he hooked up the vital-reading equipment hanging from the inert machines. At least his roommate had made it out of that mess in better shape than Lia. Dwight returned to Ellis’s side to see if she needed any help with her impromptu brain surgery. To his relief, he was not going to be of any use, and the doctor waved him away.

Dwight watched her work, cursing himself for not seeing through Bernard’s plan. He assumed that the case had come from Wulf, not his partner. If Lia hadn’t stopped him, he’d have killed Midas.

The Doc was finishing up the last few stitches as Dwight came out of his mental fog. Six gore-covered shards lay in the bottom of the silver surgical dish. The port that connected the broken device to her brain looked rough, but salvageable. She breathed another sigh, “She’ll be alright, but I’m going to keep her sedated until I get her new unit up and running.”

“What does it do?” Dwight inquired. He considered for a moment whether Lia would want that question answered.

“It’s a restraining unit. Dalia’s power is too much for the human mind to handle. I was doing some consulting at First Memorial Hospital when I was introduced to her. She had been living in a psychiatric ward for most of her life.” It seemed that Ellis wasn’t concerned with patient confidentiality.

Her tone was reminiscent, “She can’t turn it off normally – the telepathy. Imagine spending your entire life hearing the thoughts of every person within a three-mile radius.” She stroked Lia’s smooth head with a damp sanitary towel, cleaning away the last of the blood.

“It drove her mad. She hadn’t slept peacefully in years, not since her abilities matured at puberty.” The way the Doc touched her, it was almost motherly. Dwight had never seen this side of Ellis before. “I knew what she was the moment I saw her. She was special, but that power is what broke her.”

A quick tap of the nearest monitor brought up a technical readout of the implant. “Her limiter shuts off part of her brain. I developed them as a way to imprison Powers. It was supposed to be a final measure to deal with the ones that just won’t follow society’s rules.” A faint smile crossed her lips, “Kinda like you, I suppose – just without the killing part.”

Dwight didn’t like the comparison.

She pointed to the connection the device made to the gray matter of the simulation, “It can cut off the user’s brain completely, rendering them comatose, or it can get more selective. It also has the potential to restrict higher brain functions, effectively robotizing the mind of whoever it’s in.”

Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked down at Lia’s bound skull and the implant port below. “I thought it would be useful in prisons to keep the truly dangerous under control. I never went through with it. Taking away someone’s free will, removing their ability to think; it’s monstrous.

“In Dalia’s case, we use it to dampen or deactivate her powers completely. It helps her manage her ability so she can stand the real world. She needs it to cut off the barrage of all the mental stimulation she’s surrounded by.” There was a deep sadness in her voice.

“It took a month to get the settings just right so that she was, well, Lia. During the initial tests, she wasn’t much more than a zombie following orders. I left her that way for weeks while I experimented so that she’d at least be able to rest if I told her to.”

She looked ready to break down completely, “I can replace the unit, but getting that balance right is going to take longer than I’m comfortable with.”

Dwight reached across the table and placed a hand on the doctor’s shoulder, “It’s okay, Doc. You’ll get it.” She looked up at him, the regret in her eyes pouring over in streams. “I know Lia would understand. You really care about her; she knows that.”

“Someone has to.” The doctor produced a small handkerchief from her coat pocket and attended to her face. When she recovered her composure, she turned back to Dwight, more concerned with the present needs of her other guest. “You appear to be in some shit, Mr. Knolls. Or would you like me to start calling you by your other name, ‘Mr. Referee?’”

Fuck
. He hadn’t realized when he used that name that the fight was being broadcast. The entire city would be looking for him now. What he needed most was to get in touch with Wulf and explain Bernard’s betrayal. In all likeliness, he had seen the brawl and would be leading a hunting party of Associates.

“I’ll need supplies if I’m going to take care of this.” Dwight was expecting he would also need a miracle to survive both a trip across the city and a visit to Wulf’s office before the Powers caught him. He doubted a phone call would suffice. Dwight would need to get there as quickly as possible, before Wulf had time to think up some “fitting” punishment for him.

And then there was Bernard, formerly known as Goliath. With Ian still out, he would need some information on what his ex-partner was capable of in case he needed to be put down. At the moment, Dwight would be willing to do that job even without a briefcase – a fair trade for all the suffering Bernard had caused with his treacherous addition to Dwight’s workload.

Ellis pointed to the door closest to the recovery room, “That’s the storage closet. Anything in there is likely dangerous and untested. Your very charitable donation covers anything you want to borrow.”

He realized she was referring to the multiple million dollar bids she had received for the footage of Midas and his ex. While that film existed somewhere, the media would never be getting it from him. That had not, however, stopped Ellis from using her A.I. to initiate those held transfers and send them off to her private accounts.

              The inside of the Doc’s storage room could have fulfilled any power-hungry dictator’s deepest fantasies. It was as large as the outer lab, but lined with row upon row of steel shelves filled with innumerable abandoned weapons and gear. Everything from obvious guns and multipurpose tools to unidentifiable gadgets in their resting places as if this was the planet’s largest hyper-tech superstore. Dwight doubted Ellis even knew what half of the inventions did anymore; if she did, with the right motivation, she could probably conquer the city by herself.

              She passed him a black duffel bag, “Take what you like, but be careful. You already ignored my pleas about getting back to work so soon. I can’t stop you, but try not to get yourself killed out there.”

              As he did his shopping, Dwight ran over the list of the Capes most likely to be looking for him. Linda’s current team was the first to mind: Ar-Marie, the power-suited teen genius, would definitely be on the hunt; she had been trying to prove her skills and loyalty to Midas since she had joined the junior league. There were the twins, Jolt and Volt – electricity-based strikers. If he could dodge their initial attacks, the two were notoriously fragile. The Guild had dozens of Capes waiting in reserve; that didn’t even include the retirees, exiles, and recruits who would all be out looking for the Referee.

              And then there was Wulf. Even if Dwight planned to head straight there, he wasn’t going to be able to simply walk into StarPoint. There would be an army of Associates blocking his path, including Rampage.

He thought of Celene, his handler. She could have warned him of Bernard’s lie if he had thought to check in; Dwight had gotten sloppy. He needed to fix this, and then reconsider his methods if he was going to have a future in this business.

              While considering his options, he remembered the phone in his pocket. He had turned it off before their broadcast. With all the chaos, he hadn’t even thought to turn it back on. As he activated it, a flurry of missed messages filled the screen; it seemed his performance had made an impact among the city’s Powers. The three longest were from Linda. There were also two from Ellis; he held out the phone for her to see.

              “I was
trying
to warn you that the feed was still going after Midas arrived,” she shrugged, “How was I supposed to know you practiced proper etiquette and turned your damned phone off when on camera?”

              “And the second one?” he pointed to the file.

              “That one was instructions to bring Dalia here when you finished dealing with Bernard’s ego contest. I believe there are also some parts about what I’d do to you if she didn’t make it.” She slipped her hands into the pockets of her coat. “You should probably just delete that one.”

              He complied; the Doc’s threats tended to be oddly specific and always graphic. Dwight followed the list down, deleting most of the messages from long-forgotten contacts he had made in the course of his work. Finally reaching the earliest received calls, he found the name he feared: Wulf. It was a single call with a short voicemail attached to it. He tapped play, somehow afraid that the man’s voice would find a way to harm him through the tiny speakers.

The message started. At first, there was just slow breathing. After a few tense seconds, he began, “Mr. Knolls, we need to talk about your newfound entrepreneurship. I’ll be sending some Associates to retrieve you. I do apologize if they’re a little…rough.”

              Wulf hung up abruptly. It was as bad as Dwight anticipated. The calm, curt tone of Wulf’s voice conveyed his outrage; it was the intonation he usually held for the moment before he had someone killed – or worse, did the job himself.