Killing Capes (14 page)

              Dwight put the phone away and looked up at the Doc, who gave him a skeptical look. “I’m going to need some serious hardware if I’m going to make it to him.”

              “You could just leave. He can’t hurt you if you’re nowhere to be found.” Even as she suggested it, he knew that wasn’t going to work. Wulf had eyes and ears everywhere. The Referee’s bounty would be enough to bring all of the big names out for his head if he ran.

              He continued searching through the racks for things he could use. Most required power sources he wouldn’t be able to carry. The few pieces that he could identify as useful, he tossed in the bag. The Doc grabbed a few more as they went from shelf to shelf, explaining their purpose before stuffing them in. She picked up a short glass jar with a screw-top lid. “This is electrically-charged putty I developed for corporate espionage. Just a gob of the stuff will fry anything you put it on.”

              Dwight nodded, thinking of more uses than opening doors. “You making spy gear now, too?”

              She stood with pride, placing her hands on her hips. “Mr. Knolls, I am a professional. If the client wants to pretend they’re in the intellectual sabotage game, who am I to question?”

              As they reached the end of the shelves, she fished in her pocket for one last thing. She held out the mystery object in her closed fist, waiting for Dwight to reach for it. As he did, she let go, and a set of keys fell into his open palm. He examined them, their grinning skull keychain looking back at him.

              “You’ll need something fast. Take care of my baby, Dwight. She’s getting old, and you can’t afford to replace her, even if you wanted to.” She led the way to the garage he had never seen.

As the overhead lights flickered on, he suddenly understood. Engine parts lay strewn across the floor. No fewer than six cars sat in pieces, disassembled and forgotten. “It was a hobby, one that never panned out,” she said, embarrassed by the state of her garage.

              “Never thought of you as a mechanic, Doc. Seems a little too…normal for you.” He was surprised. Ellis could design a doomsday weapon on her lunch break. She played with forces that could destroy continents, but he assumed that the simplicity of automotive repair was somehow beneath her.

              She led him on through the minefield of clanging metal. Each step, regardless of how careful they were, disturbed something. Finally, they arrived at the back of the shop. Under a single hanging light, a motorcycle sat alone.

“This is Jezebel.” The bike was immaculately detailed; its blue flame decals embossed the beautiful gray exterior. Its engine, highly modified, appeared to be lined with coiled glass.

              Thinking back, he had never seen Ellis outside of her lab. Somehow, it made sense that this machine was her personal ride; he could picture her taking this to the store for groceries and other mundane tasks. Anything else would have felt wrong, un-Ellis-like. “Doc, I think I’m in love.”

              She chuckled, “Despite her name, she’s all mine. I’m trusting she’ll be coming back.” He was happy to see her humor return. Her concern over Lia had taken away all of the woman’s usual zeal.

              Dwight had a seat and instantly felt the weight of the modified motorcycle. He had ridden several bikes during his service years, and a few more in his twenties, but it had been some time – and nothing like this. As he turned the ignition and cranked the throttle, the coils roared to life. The surge of arcing electricity powering the bike whined with barely restrained power.

              Ellis strapped the duffel bag to the back of the seat and headed for the sealed outer door. Pressing an eye against the scanner, the door slowly rose. Even before it finished its ascent, Dwight twisted the throttle and the bike launched through the passage.

              Ahead, he could see the shaft he was racing down quickly coming to an end in a solid wall. He was about to swerve to avoid the fatal collision when the wall parted smoothly down the center. Clearing the hidden exit, he looked back. The Doc’s garage was concealed in a false dumpster against a wall a few buildings away from her warehouse. The entire contraption slid back into place within seconds of his departure. He wondered how many more secrets Ellis had built into her lair, and if the scientist had any limits other than her attention span.

Dwight raced through the night streets toward the city center. His eyes focused briefly on the sidewalks along his route, noting a distinct lack of people. The clear sky and crisp autumn air should have filled downtown with throngs of tourists; had Midas’s defeat been that much of a shock to the city’s sense of security? The cars he darted between were sparse. Streetlight after streetlight flew past the overcharged motorcycle and its rider.

              He was nearly halfway there when a set of five streaks overhead drew his attention. Dwight hoped they would ignore him. The sudden tugging at his clothing told him otherwise. Glancing up, he could see the familiar blue uniform and dark, fluttering hair of his ex. She had him by the back of his jacket. His entire body began to rise. Linda’s superhuman strength lifted him into the air.

              Thinking quickly, Dwight unzipped his coat and let it slide off. She had him a foot above the still-speeding bike, its velocity matching their own. He dropped onto the seat, but it was too difficult for him to regain control. The machine tilted to the left. Dwight desperately tried to correct the angle, pitching the bike to the right. The motorcycle came crashing down on its side.

              Dwight tumbled with it, struggling to protect himself. They both skidded painfully along the pavement. He released his hold on the motorcycle and pushed himself away. Sparks flew over him as the bike continued a hundred feet before coming to a stop against a parked sedan.

He lay still for a few moments, trying to catch his breath. When he rose in the middle of the deserted street, he was amazed to find himself relatively unharmed from the crash. He was sore and covered in scrapes, but nothing felt broken.

He prepared to continue his mad dash to StarPoint, but was interrupted. Linda and four other Capes descended around him. As predicted, Ar-Marie and the twins were with her, but there was another: a man dressed in violet robes. He looked more like a stage performer than a proper Power.

Dwight sighed in frustration. He guessed that the robed Cape was magically gifted. He could never get the hang of arcane types; their abilities were just too weird. A superhuman could be categorized – their powers could be measured and anticipated. Magic was completely random. A mage’s abilities were as flexible as the mind behind them.

They formed a semi-circle around him and the fallen motorcycle, which began smoking in protest of its mistreatment.

Linda pursued him as he limped toward the bike, “Referee, you’re under arrest for vigilantism and murder.” She was playing the authority card first; he could work with that.

              Dwight pulled the key from the dying machine, cutting its power before any more damage could be done to it. “Hi, Linda. Nice to see you, too,” He sat down on the smoking remains of the bike, “How’s Molly doing?”

              The look of frustrated amazement on her face was worth the destruction of the Doc’s prized ride. It took her a second to recover, “This is hardly the place for that conversation. I’m taking you in, Dwight. You’re in a lot of trouble.”

              He laughed, “Tell me about it; I have an important meeting at StarPoint, and you just wrecked my ride.” A small flame ignited from the machine’s augmented engine. He tapped it out with his metallic hand. “This belonged to Ellis, you know? She’s going to have to bill the Guild for it.” He pulled the duffel bag from its mount and began searching through its contents. Though some of the tools had been reduced to pieces by the crash, most seemed intact.

              Linda wasn’t as amused, “There’s not going to be any meeting. You’re coming with us.” She stepped in to subdue her ex, and placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

              He looked to the arm, then directly into her eyes, “I am
so
sorry about this,” he said, engaging the electrified plates of his prosthetic.

He meant that. Hurting Linda had been a hard stopping point in his initial negotiations with Wulf; no matter the circumstances, her name would never appear in a briefcase. At least Lock Heart was known for being resilient.

              His uppercut landed solidly to the center of her abdomen. The plates released their charge, bringing her down. It might have been the surprise of being attacked by Dwight, but she fell to her knees, disabled for a moment while her electrified muscles recovered. He turned to run as she dropped. Leaping over the bike’s wreck, he didn’t look back to see if Linda had been incapacitated by his surprise attack; against anyone else, he’d have checked to see if he’d finished the job. The rest of Linda’s team was immediately after him. They fanned out, trying to cut him off.

As he broke for a nearby alley, Dwight mapped out the path ahead. His internal map of the city was adequate; he could remember all the major roadways and where the subway entrances were. If he could make it to Xavier Street, he could duck into the entrance there and take the black line all the way to StarPoint – it was a fairly big “
if
.” There were three blocks between him and the station, and four pissed off Capes in chase. At any rate, he knew deep down that Wulf would probably have him executed upon his arrival.

              Dwight exited the narrow passageway into the first road as a stream of short-ranged missiles flew over his head and detonated before him. The demonstration was a warning shot. From the size of the blasts, they were concussive rounds; they’d hurt like hell, but wouldn’t kill him. At least they were trying to take him in alive. That was something.

              Ar-Marie’s bright pink, four-armed power armor settled into a holding pattern just above him. The heat from her jets was unbearable from this distance. She flipped on a set of searchlights built into the suit’s shoulders. Dwight raised a hand to shield his eyes from the intense brightness.

“Come on, Referee; make this easy.” She swooped down before he could react, lifting him off the ground by the waist. With her set of free arms, she retrieved a set of sophisticated handcuffs from a holster built into the back of the suit.

He struggled against her, tried to wrestle his way free, but the suit’s hydraulics were too strong. Before the Cape could slip on the restraints, Dwight dug a random object from his bag and held it in front of them both. They each stopped to study the device. It was a small, shiny plate about three inches thick with a single button and the instructions, “AIM AT ENEMY,” printed in block letters. There was also a sticker of a cartoon frowny face holding the sides of its head: the Doc’s way of remembering what the object actually did. Dwight mouthed a silent stream of profanity, praying that it wouldn’t explode.

              Instantly, the loudest noise Dwight had ever experienced echoed through the night, shattering windows and setting off car alarms for hundreds of feet around. Even the teen genius’s compensators weren’t prepared for the level of discord created by the tiny machine. Ar-Marie, stunned by the sheer volume of the sound, stopped her attempt to apply the handcuffs. Out of reflex, she held her free arms to the sides of her head.

With his own metallic limb, Dwight struck the faceplate of his captor’s suit. The blast from the knuckles’ electricity disrupted its systems and allowed him to squirm out of the extra arms. Dwight dropped to the road and landed hard on his back. The sonic reverberator bounced off the asphalt nearby. It burned out shortly after Dwight righted himself and scrambled to his feet.

Despite being on the correct side of the weapon, Dwight still felt its effects. Without any ear protection, his balance was askew as he took off running again into the next alleyway. The suited Cape hung in the air behind him. Ar-Marie may have been saved from the majority of the device’s uproar by her suit’s safeties, but she still needed a few precious seconds to recover.

              Several feet ahead, there was a tall chain-link fence blocking Dwight’s way. He thought of all the Capes he had seen leap something like this with no effort. Realizing the fatigue on his own body, he knew he would never be able to replicate the stunt.

Spinning around, he saw Ar-Marie glide into the alleyway, weapons systems engaged and pointed at him. It seemed the Doc’s little noise maker had done a fantastic job of getting her good and angry. He loved irritated Capes; they were always easier to trick.

The teen engaged her suit’s speakers, “Cute arm tech,
Dwight
.” She said his name as if to mock him, like having a normal name was an insult. “Did your psycho doctor make it for you?”

              He knew there was a long-standing arms race between Ellis and the Guild’s think tank to create the next world-changing technology. Ellis was always ahead, much to the frustration of the Guild’s science division.

“Yeah, and she made
this
with you in mind,” he said, pulling a glass jar from his duffel bag. He unscrewed the cap and grabbed a weighty glob of the gel with his organic hand. Working it into a ball, he was careful not to get any on his cybernetic replacement. “Your suit looks like it needs an upgrade. The Doc said I could probably beat you without any new toys.”

              The insult worked. If there was one thing these technophiles couldn’t stand, it was having their work laughed at. She engaged her thrusters, fists extended as if she intended to dive right through him. As she rapidly closed the distance, Dwight pitched the goo ball into her helmet.

The E.M.P. gel lit up with dispersed electrical energy; it overloaded her circuits, severing her control of the accelerating armor. Her suit continued flying past Dwight, who quickly leapt out of the way. Ar-Marie slammed into the fence, completely tearing it from its mounting. The heap of contorted metal, suit and fence, came to a halt halfway into the street beyond.

              Dwight ran past the crumpled chain-link tangle and the Cape trapped inside, her suit immobilized around her. She reached out with a trembling, unpowered arm, still trying to catch him.

              He made it another half block before a circle of voltaic energy rose from the ground and surrounded him. It formed a glowing dome, caging him in. The solid electric barrier separated into bars as the twins, Volt and Jolt, descended from the sky. They gracefully landed outside of the enclosure and began pacing at opposite sides, like predators circling a meal.

              Dwight was forced to kneel as the cage grew smaller, the bars’ energy reaching out at his flesh. He searched frantically through the bag, looking for something to use against his two assailants.

One of them – Volt, he thought – leaned in close to examine their quarry. “Look, brother, it seems we caught the bounty. Guess we get that upgrade to our quarters?”

The other – Dwight always had trouble telling these two apart – mirrored his sibling’s movements. “Do we have to hand him over in one piece? I’m sure our dear friend would like to get some payback for all the suffering he’s caused her.”

Dwight wasn’t sure if he meant Ar-Marie or Linda at this point. He drew two familiar objects from the pack. The barrier the Capes created left just enough space from the ground to roll the objects out of the cell and under each of the twins.

In unison, they both looked down just in time to see the devices go off. Dwight, at the center of the cage, ducked down on all fours, tightly guarding his head and neck with his arms. The incendiary grenades detonated beneath each of the twins, bathing them in flames. Their uniforms ablaze, the twins’ concentration failed to maintain Dwight’s cell. It collapsed immediately, freeing him while they attended to their personal infernos. Dwight cautiously untucked himself to watch the Capes flailing in terror. Their screams echoed through the streets as hefted the bag over his shoulder.

“You really should stop and roll!” Dwight shouted as he resumed his sprint. He wasn’t sure if they would understand his instructions before the fires claimed their lives.

The next few minutes were free of any obstructions, but all the while Dwight kept an eye toward the sky. He had no way of knowing if Linda or the other Cape were still pursuing him. He spotted the subway entrance as he exited the last alley. Racing to the stairs, he slid on an unexpected patch of ice in front of the top step. His feet flew out from under him, sending him plummeting down the stairs. His shoulder hit the concrete first. The momentum carried him further before he landed again on his elbow. When he finally came to a stop ten steps down on the first landing, he couldn’t move apart from a crippled writhing.

He cursed through gritted teeth. After a few moments of struggling on the concrete, he rolled onto his aching back. Near the entrance, a newly-formed cloud of ashes coalesced into the man in the cloak.

Linda drifted down beside the Cape as he began to pompously walk down the steps. For all his effort, Dwight fell for a stupid magical trap. His bag of gadgets had continued down the steps past him; the only tools he still had were his arm and its hidden last-chance serum. He debated whether to use the drug. With its effects, he’d probably be able to beat them, but he’d never make it to Wulf by the time it wore off.

The Capes kneeled over him. Linda rested a knee over his right elbow, pinning the prosthetic to the ground. “Neat tricks there, Dwight. When did you become a badass?”

“Lots of things change. Like getting hunted by my ex and her cronies,” he tried to let out a choked laugh. The impact of his fall made this impossible.