Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (10 page)

Shortly thereafter, Michael received his own package: A new, custom-fitted trench coat, lined with the micro-chainmail. But while Takayasu very much appreciated the gesture, and made sure to voice this appreciation the next time they met in the field, he found the coat too heavy, especially once he added his usual complement of anti-paranormal gadgets to the inner pockets. He tried to make do once or twice, but it just hindered him too much (he had no idea how Vortex ran around head-to-toe in the stuff — not to mention the cape!). They had finally compromised with a bulletproof vest-style lining, so that at least his torso was protected in combat.

Speaking of combat ...

Cutting a hard left, Michael pulled into the parking lot of the three-story apartment complex. Several police cars were controlling the entrance, and they were waved through in a hurry. The press was beginning to arrive as well; the uniformed officers were successful in keeping them at bay, but they were already snapping pictures and shooting video from afar. Civilians were emerging from the complex’s main thoroughfare in trickles and spurts, most of them looking stunned or in tears, and the police were escorting them away.

When Michael stood up from their car, the press photographers started snapping photos like crazy. Mark, looking slick in his crimson suit and knowing it, made a big show of emerging from the backseat.

A second later, the senior police officer, a trim Hispanic man, hustled over to Michael’s side. “Glad to see you.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Mark commented as he rounded the car.

“No, I’m serious,” the officer said to Mark. “I know you guys get jurisdiction flack sometimes, but I’m happy to hand the rogues over to the PCA. This kind of sci-fi crap didn’t exist when I went through the Police Academy.”

Mark accepted that with a nod of appreciation. “Sorry. It’s a nice treat to feel wanted, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“I do indeed. Anything we can do to make your lives easier?”

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Michael said. “Keep the press out, escort the civilians away as they get clear. Leave the rogue himself to us.”

“Like I said, happy to. You guys alone?”

Mark started to answer with a very cocky affirmative. “Hey, man, we’re all the PCA you’re gonna—”

At that moment, a second PCA sedan rolled into the complex parking lot, its engine revving as it sped over to join them.

Michael said to the officer, “No, sir, it looks like we won’t be alone on this one.”

Mark craned his neck to see who had joined them. When he identified the occupants, he grumbled under his breath, “Oh, great ... Golden Boy and Poindexter are here to save the day.”

Powerhouse rose from the passenger seat with a respectful nod to Michael. His partner hopped out from behind the wheel and jogged around to join him.

Powerhouse’s partner was Ensign Pendler, a gawky man around thirty who had a reputation as a bit of a non-action agent who let Powerhouse do most of the work but shared the credit. Michael had no personal hard feelings for Pendler, but nor did he have much respect for him, so he was glad that his own superior rank would leave little question of who would be in charge.

As they came together, Powerhouse also nodded to Shockwave, but Mark gave him the cold shoulder — Lincoln either didn’t recognize it for what it was or, more likely, chose not to. Michael saw it, though, and made a mental note to talk to Mark about it, again.

Mark’s professional jealousy would be a lot worse, Michael knew, if Mark were aware that, once Powerhouse joined the PCA and they realized just how strong he was, the higher-ups — in a personal phone call from the one and only Admiral in the PCA, Admiral Karl Dunham, formerly a General in the U.S. Army — had offered Michael the opportunity to “upgrade his situation” by partnering with Powerhouse. The Admiral had even implied that it might come with yet another early promotion to Lieutenant Commander, even though Michael had already leapfrogged from Ensign to full Lieutenant after the PCA headquarters was destroyed. Michael had expressed his gratitude, but very politely declined the offer and stated his desire to stick with Shockwave (fortunately, this decision did not appear to have resulted in any political fallout, yet; probably because he and Shockwave had continued to kick paranormal ass together).

All of this shot through Michael’s mind in a flash, of course. He was opening his mouth to lay out the game plan when a very loud
crack!
echoed through the thoroughfare, followed almost immediately by a woman’s wailing. Another wave of civilians emerged, rushing for safety, and a short man recognized Shockwave and Powerhouse.

“Cooper!” the man yelled. “You want
Perry
Cooper
! He’s by the pool!”

Michael waved his thanks as he asked the police officer, “Where’s the pool?”

“Straight back.”

“All right. Shockwave, I want you to fly up and over the top of the complex. Engage our friend ‘Cooper’ if you have a clear shot, but either way, get the guy’s attention. Powerhouse, can you jump up to the roof and join him?” Mark was clearly rankled by the suggestion that he needed backup, but Michael ignored him.

Powerhouse judged the distance, then shook his head and said, “I can jump that high easy, but ... I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I might just as easily overshoot and land a mile away. I haven’t had enough practice traveling that way.”

Shockwave smirked at that, and started, “Well, well, well ...” But a dirty look from Michael shut him up before he got any further.

“Don’t apologize, Powerhouse; I appreciate the honesty. You’re with me. Shockwave, go!”

Mark saluted and launched into the air, which prompted scattered applause from the onlookers out past the police line. Michael gestured for Powerhouse to take point as they raced toward the thoroughfare. Pendler had more than enough room to run alongside Michael, but instead (and no to surprise) he brought up the rear.

When Mark cleared the roof, he spotted the pool area immediately, laid out in a standard center courtyard with a cookout area at the far end. The rogue, Cooper, a white guy with more grey in his thinning hair than black, stood hovering in the center of a big fishbowl-looking shield, which was parked on some Hispanic kid’s chest. An older Hispanic woman, probably the kid’s mom judging by her behavior, was pounding on the rogue’s bubble — between her and her kid, Mark couldn’t take a shot at the rogue. Damn.

All right, backup plan: “
Hey! Asshole!
”

The rogue looked up, first toward the railed walkways facing the courtyard, then higher until his eyes widened. As he turned toward Mark, his bubble rotated with him — the kid he was standing on gasped and coughed, his face so red Mark could see it from up here.

Gotta provoke him
.
Gotta get him fixated on me and offa the kid. Then I can use my weight, momentum, and a well-timed shockwave to spike that bubble straight down into the concrete. That oughta trap his rogue ass.

“Hey, asshole!” he repeated, clenching his fists and letting the shockwaves ripple over his knuckles. “You want a fight? I’ll give you one!”

He swooped down in a low arc, hoping the guy would either retreat or come forward to meet his challenge; either way, it would get him off the kid. As soon as he did that, Mark would pull up, get directly over him ...

Aghast and abashed, Mark’s flight plunged at too sharp an angle, and he crashed right into the pool.

Shit, shit,
shit
! With my luck, this’ll be all over the Internet tonight.

Determined to rescue some of his dignity before the others arrived, Mark righted himself and shoved off from the bottom of the pool, his arms spread to create a broad shockwave ahead of him even as he directed some focus to his feet once more.

An impressive wall of water preceded his re-emergence, with roughly half of the pool’s contents emptying as the miniature tidal wave cascaded over Cooper’s bubble, driving the rogue back and away from the kid and his mother even as the water momentarily blinded him.

To Mark’s tremendous relief, he landed on his feet at the side of the pool just as Powerhouse came into view. His pride accounted for, he hurried to the Hispanic pair.

“Please!” the mother pleaded. “Help him! Help my Arturo!”

The kid was barely conscious, and under other circumstances, common sense would dictate that he shouldn’t be moved due to possible internal injuries. But as the water rolled off the rogue’s bubble, they didn’t have a lot of leeway to work with here.

“You gotta go, lady,” Mark said, pulling the moaning kid to his feet.

“He’s hurt!”

“I know, I’m sorry, but you gotta get him out of here
now
, before Bubble Man over there comes to finish him off!”

Thankfully, this sank in, and the woman did her best to help her son move toward the pool area’s far gate as Mark turned to face the rogue.

The timing was too short. The water was clear, Cooper had recovered, and he’d seen his retreating victim. “No, damn it!” he yelled, his voice sounding hollow and muffled from inside his bubble. “No! That punk doesn’t leave!
He graffitied my car!
”

Stepping sideways so that he was perfectly between Cooper and his target, Mark said, “You dumbass! That has got to be—”

Mark didn’t get to finish his taunt, nor was it necessary. Cooper leaned forward, his bubble rolling with him, bearing down on the interloper. Mark fired a one-handed shockwave at him, but while it slowed Cooper down, most of it just slid off to one side of the force field.

Aw, shit
.

Cooper collided with Mark, still with sufficient force to knock him down ...

(
Not in the pool again, not in the pool, not in the pool!
)

... to the edge of the pool. Mark fired a two-fisted shockwave from the ground — the bulk of the energy again slid off the bubble, but it kept enough force to shove the rogue back and away from him.

Swearing and proclaiming Mark to be “just another punk,” Cooper brought his bubble back under his control and wheeled around for another pass while Mark was still down.

And then Powerhouse leaped between them. The big man drew back and punched Cooper’s force field, and for the first time, the entire bubble rippled in reaction; it also elicited a grunt of surprise and discomfort from Cooper himself. But more than anything, it sent Cooper rolling backward at high speed, straight through the metal fence surrounding the pool and toward the base of one of the complex buildings.

“Oh, no,” Michael whispered as he reached down to help Mark to his feet.

“What? Why ‘oh, no’?”

Mark wasn’t seeing the problem: As strong as Powerhouse was, the rogue might go straight through the building! What would that do to the overall structure? How many people were still inside?

But at the last second, Cooper shook his head clear and leaned forward. The bubble started spinning forward even as it traveled backward — its momentum dropped rapidly, and when it struck the building wall, it was only hard enough to crack the stucco.

Takayasu breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived.

Cooper spun forward faster than ever now, kicking up plaster dust as he powered back toward them, yelling his fool head off. Michael and Mark cleared out of his way (and who knew where Pendler had made himself scarce to), but Powerhouse stood his ground and threw another punch. This time, though, he failed to hit the bubble close enough to center, and his blow glanced off to one side, much like Mark’s shockwaves. The rogue knocked him down and rolled right over him — it didn’t hurt him, of course, but Mark enjoyed seeing him knocked on his ass for a change.

As Cooper rounded the other end of the pool area to make another pass, two shock-charges from an ECD-V9 struck the bubble from above. All eyes, including Cooper’s, turned upward to see Ensign Pendler firing over the railing from the second floor as more civilians exited their apartments behind him.

Takayasu glanced down at his own V9, the new sidearm of PCA field agents, which he had drawn as the rogue rolled over Powerhouse, then back at Cooper as a third shock-charge from Pendler glanced harmlessly off the bubble. The Electronic Control Device-V9 had replaced the V7 as their standard stun gun a few months ago — using a new, extremely powerful mini-battery, V9s were similar to “real” guns: No more cables, detachable or otherwise, it fired shock-charge “bullets” that hit the target with the same voltage. Pendler fired twice more as Cooper, indignant and swearing, looped around again.

Mark took aim and fired another two-fisted shockwave at the rogue, but Cooper was moving too fast, spinning too smoothly, and the waves glanced off him in front and behind, taking out an apartment door and window beyond him — a man’s frightened yelp echoed from within.

Mark swore under his breath, then muttered to Michael, “Sorry.”

As Cooper completed his second loop around the courtyard, he veered back into a straight line and smashed into the building beneath Pendler. The entire structure shook, and Pendler had to grab the railing for support.

Holstering his V9, Takayasu considered their options.

Okay, the guy’s breathing, right? So, is the bubble gas-permeable?

Mark was lining up another one-handed shot and Powerhouse made ready to leap across the pool and help his partner.

“Guys, hold back a second ...” Michael pulled a couple of sizable, round ampules from a padded inner pocket of his trench coat and drew back his arm. “Cooper!”

Cooper had been rolling back for another charge into the wall, but he turned at the sound of his name. Michael cut loose, fast-balling the ampules so that they crashed into the bubble right in front of Cooper’s face, breaking open on impact.

But while a few thin wisps of the white-ish vapor they released made it through, most of the gas wafted around the force field. Cooper coughed, then sneezed hard three times. He appeared dizzy for just a moment, then shook his head clear without any further effect.

“Damn ...” Michael muttered, already moving on to his next options.