New Markets - 02 (31 page)

With my backpack over my shoulder I thanked the boys one last time and flew home.  It was fortunate that my flight took no thought on my part.  I found I drifted off at an angle several times during the trip home, and had to shake my head to wake up each time.

I threw a load of laundry along with my costume into the washer, and then I sat in the dark in my living room for a while doing yoga and basking in the darkness ... and lack of mindviews cluttering up my vision.

I felt mentally exhausted, and fell asleep on the living room floor in the midst of a stretch.

Chapter 15 – Hit Team

Third Party Perspective

At approximately 3 a.m. the street outside Lance and Rael’s suburban house was quiet.  A large black van slowed to a crawl as the driver let up on the gas.  The driver parked it in the street on the same side as the house, and the occupants listened closely to a voice speaking over their small ear receivers.

A man dressed in black and using a sniper rifle watched through his scope.  “Two targets on thermal.  Both appear to be asleep.  Large target in the southwest corner room, smaller target in the north central room.  We know the large one is a brick, the other we aren’t sure of his classification.”

A second van quietly rolled up behind the first.  The three men in each van were dressed entirely in black, wore tight-fitting black masks, and had night-vision goggles in the up position at the moment.

They checked their variety of weaponry.  All had paintball guns fashioned like submachine guns, needler pistols, small bola-shooting crossbows, several canisters attached to each of their belts, and all carried other more common weapons such as pistols and knives.  One had a machete fashioned out of the sword arm of a mutant.

Their leader pressed a button on his headset and said, “We’ve been warned.  These two are extremely dangerous.  The smaller of the two went down from needler darts and a bola.  Not clear about which knocked him out.  The large one ignored a bola and needler darts – he’s a brick.  When you see him, use the paintball guns, and make sure you wear your gas masks.  By the way, the small one is unbelievably fast, fire ASAP, and keep firing at him until he’s lying on the ground.”

He continued, “The small one can’t be a brick, so use all of your restraints on him once he’s down.  The big one is either unconscious or we aren’t going home.  Got it?”

The two in his van nodded, the three from the second van and the man outside the house whispered their acknowledgement.

He then said, “Team one goes in the front door, we stay quiet unless there is movement.  Team two goes in the back.  Spotter stays outside the house and watches to make sure they stay asleep.  Once we are engaged, if either gets up, spotter feel free to fire through the walls at the smaller one, so long as our men aren’t near him.  Go.”

They quietly exited the vehicles and made their way into positions outside the house.  One man on each door attached a small suction cup to the glass pane of each door and ran a glass cutter around in a circle.  They popped out the circular class piece with well-practiced aptitude.

Rael’s eyes opened.  Something was off and woke him, probably an odd noise.  He lay on his back, straining his ears to hear anything unusual.  In moments he heard the slight creak of the laundry door, and the ever-so-slight creak of rubber on the floor.  Then there was the sound of someone moving quietly in what might be camping gear.

He sat up so his ears would be off the pillow and tilted his head slightly to listen better.  His eyes narrowed as he heard an echo of a voice repeat over numerous tiny speakers, though he couldn’t make out the words.

Then the wall erupted inwards as a large caliber bullet flew toward him, smashing into his chest slightly behind his left triceps.  In a moment he knew a hit team were after Lance and himself, and that Lance tended to waken slowly and would need help.

He flung the sheets off the bed and leapt at the open door.  He felt his claws extend as he pushed off the left side of the door frame and moved toward Lance’s room.

Rael saw several men in the hallway to his left, and heard numerous gas chambers release their charges.  Several needles barely caught him in his back as he burst through Lance’s bedroom door.

One man from each team sped off to the rear and front entrance of the house.

The men kept up a steady stream of fire with their needler pistols as they ran down the hall toward the bedroom.  Rael’s catlike eyes allowed him to see perfectly in the dim night light filtering in from the windows.  Lance was just sitting up in bed, woken by the sound of the sniper rifle round as it had smashed through the wall of the house.

Lance barely caught sight of Rael in the dark room before the claws of the mutant’s right hand tore into Lance’s right thigh.  Rael spun and flung his friend out through the left window into the back yard.  The huge hero spun through the air toward the neighbor’s yard.

Another muffled sniper shot rang out and Rael felt another shot hit him in the lower back.  He wondered how the man was shooting through the walls of the building. 

Rael looked back at the doorway to see two men wearing black appear in the doorway, spraying needle pistol darts into the room at full automatic.

He dove at the smashed window, a few more darts struck his foot just as he left the sight of the attackers.  The man outside the back door of the house fired a bola at Rael.  Rael found himself moving sluggishly, though at the sound of the bola, he glanced toward it and with a jolt found himself suddenly half the distance to the shooter, the bola continuing to fly through the air behind him.  It bounced and crackled as it hit the ground.

Lance landed in the neighbor’s back yard against a tree.  It took him a moment to figure out which direction the action was at, and vaulted back toward his own house.  He wondered what he already missed as he thought about the pain in his thigh.

Rael leapt at the bola shooter while the man raised his own needler pistol.  Before the man could fire the shot, Rael landed with his left foot, and snap kicked with his right.  His foot struck the attacker in the chest, throwing him back ten feet against the house to slowly slide to the ground unconscious.

He shook his head a few times, every movement of his eyes or head caused everything in his vision to move in the opposite direction, leaving trails of light in his vision.  He felt slower by the moment.

Lance landed a short distance outside his own bedroom window.  Two men stood in the window and began shooting at the hero with their paintball rifles just after he landed.  The paint balls splattered against his chest and face, a gooey liquid splattered all over him, releasing a cloud of gas in his face.

He took a deep breath, stepped forward quickly and grabbed the two men, who continued firing the liquid-releasing pellets at him.  He twisted and threw the two of them back into the yard.  They bounced hard – one man’s arm twisted at an odd angle, the other’s leg snapped at the knee.  In moments both lay unconscious.

Rael caught movement ahead of him as one of the men inside the house raised a bola.  He dove off to the side and rolled up onto one knee, but had difficulty preventing himself from rolling over.  Then the bola struck him, and he fell to the grass as the electricity doubled him over.

Lance waved his hands at the gas, but he had already inhaled a lungful, and slowly fell to one knee, then onto his face.

The attacker who struck Rael with the bola pulled out his needler as he approached Rael and shot a string of darts into the hero’s side.

The men who were still conscious gathered around the two heroes and stared down at them.

One said, “Good thing we had the sniper on thermal outside.”  Others nodded.

The commander said, “That made some noise, we need to move.  One A and B, guard the big one.  The rest help me with the small one.”

They bound the mutant’s arms behind his back with a dozen heavy zip ties, and did the same with his ankles.  They picked up Rael as a group, quickly carried him to the first van and laid him on the floor.

The commander then directed one of the second team to drive the other van over the grass immediately next to Lance where they struggled to lift his heavy frame into the van.

One grunted, “Man, I can’t believe that he’s lighter than that chrome chick we got.”

Another nodded, “That metal on her must weigh a lot.”

Once complete, they gathered their unconscious and injured men and drove down the again-quiet street.

Chapter 16 – Wednesday

Stephanie’s Viewpoint

I awoke, and stretched – it took me a moment to realize I was lying on my living room floor.  I remembered that I hadn’t dried the clothes last night and threw them into the dryer before I got ready.

Hmm, stretching is nice, but there’s something exciting about waking up at Rael’s place.  Although … here I get a bit of time without any mental noise, I suppose.  No flirting though, that’s less fun. We get date night tonight with Anne too. 
She was our new police officer friend that Lance appeared interested in. 
Lance ought to be fun to watch.

I took a long hot shower, dried my hair - I realized I'd gotten used to having golden hair in only a few days.  I saw it in so many mindviews all day long; it was quickly becoming the norm for me.

Then I stared at my eyes in the mirror for a bit.  My eyes almost looked ... dead ... right now.  Whenever I'm around others and they looked at me my eyes appeared with the golden backglow at all times, at least to a very slight degree.  When very close to others - such as Kell and the boys last night, the glow was more intense.  I wondered if that was due to me watching their mindviews more closely than I normally do.

I walked into the bedroom to pick out clothes to wear.  I debated whether I’d need my costume under my clothes, then figured that something was bound to happen with the case today.

I set the clothes on the bed, went and took my costume out of the dryer and put that on before putting on a short pleated blue skirt, white t-shirt with a design on it, plus gold bracelets, earrings and a necklace.

I packed my Wednesday set of books in my backpack, along with the appropriate notebooks.  Outside, I took a deep breath, and stepped into the air outside the house.  The air was even thicker today, the cloud cover heavy and I anticipated rain soon. 
I’m surprised we didn’t get any rain yesterday, it’s going to come down heavy today.  Flying in the rain should be fun to try out.

I tried the same tactic as yesterday - flying in fast and hard to prevent people from getting a good look at me or where I would land.  I came in a bit too hard, and smashed into the grass.  I fell to my knees, but otherwise the landing worked fine.  After a quick glance around - a few students were relatively nearby, but didn't appear to have seen me fly down.  My legs stung badly as I stood up.

I grimaced and quickly made for the door to the building.  I walked to the cafeteria for my normal morning routine, passing a few people along the way.  Mindviews and background talking appeared as was normal for the last few days.

Once I was within sight of the cafeteria and saw the quantity of people I suddenly stopped and stared through the glass walls into the large room.  Quite a few people milled about, buying food at the deli area and moving into the large area with tables.

I hit my palm against my forehead. 
Damn, I'm such a dumbass.  How could I forget the problem just two days ago in here?  Ugh.  Megan, where are you when I need you?  So I guess I'm stuck going hungry, hitting a vending machine, or leaving campus for a tiny food place somewhere not far away....

I leaned back against the wall of the hallway and closed my eyes.  I’d just began walking back toward the exit when my personal cell phone rang.  I looked at the name, it was Megan calling.