Project Northwoods (54 page)

“Fine,” she growled. She peered over the side of the computer at Hurikane, the hero apparently standing guard while Arbiter went to smash his way through the security shutter. She had to draw him away from the shutter, unless she wanted the hero to coat the Panopticon in villainous insides.

Catalina inhaled deeply, then ran out from behind cover. Hurikane heard her approach, turned and immediately shot his hand out. She felt a gale of wind push into her, shoving her backward. “Help!” he shouted as she managed to gain traction and march toward him. His other hand came up, and the gust became almost intolerable, partially blinding her.

She brought her pistol up toward his vague direction and fired, catching the hero once in his shoulder. He went down with the force of the bullet, unable to rise before Catalina leapt into the air and brought her knees down on his chest. She heard bones break on impact, and his eyes rolled back into his head as he gurgled. A figure appeared in the doorway, and she shot twice, blowing holes in the unidentified man’s chest. He went down as she stood and ran, entering the hallway as she holstered her pistol.

A woman with bright red feathers on her outfit moved to intercept her. Catalina rammed her out of the way, sending the hero spinning into the wall. She needed to get her rifle and get out of there. Her heart was thundering as she made it to her gun, quickly picking it up as she skidded to a stop. She hadn’t even finished breaking her forward momentum as she double-backed toward the western shutter.

The feathered heroine from earlier had pursued her, now running past the shutter and toward the mobster. Catalina swung her rifle into the woman’s face, sending her toppling from the blow. She slung the rifle across her back and reached to her earpiece. The thunderous approach of Arbiter’s footsteps made her panic as she turned to the source, his reflection in the glass ominously approaching. The dazed heroine in front of her groaned. Catalina grabbed her off the floor, hefting her one-handed as her free hand withdrew her pistol from its holster.

Feathers tickled her face as she dragged the woman to the shutter. “What’s your name, heroine?”

“Paradise,” came the choked reply.

Arbiter roared into view, then stopped abruptly at the sight of Catalina jamming the gun into the woman’s temple. “Catalina, stop…” he growled.

“Could you hold on?” she asked. “I have to make a call.”

She was floating, and had been floating, for an eternity. Below her, an endless sea of naked bodies clambered over each other, reaching up to her. They were eyeless, genderless, featureless, save the gaping holes in their heads, the blackened gaps fixated entirely on her. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs paralyzed as she watched the things below. Occasionally, a familiar face would bubble to the surface, gasping for breath before the faceless pulled them down.

With a low growl, the figures conglomerated on themselves, piling on top of each other. It wasn’t like before… they were building. Each figure squirmed into place and locked rigid as the pillar of creatures grew closer. One, with a slavering facial gap lined with teeth, clawed its way up its fellows and reached the top. It stretched, extending a flabby claw up her exposed face…

Then, darkness.

Morgan’s head was pounding much, much harder than she ever thought it could. It felt like her brain had suddenly become aggressive and begun gnawing its way out of her skull. All she could think about was that eighties movie where that poor dog had some kind of alien in it and split apart before it started to attack the other trapped canines.

She hadn’t watched television for a month afterwards.

“Everyone fall back to the main lobby, do you copy? Escaping with as many inmates as possible is now our top priority. Fall back to the main lobby!” a man’s voice dreamily wafted through the haze of pain, echoing like he was at one end of a cavern and she at the other. Something rumbled, aggravating her head.

When the pain receded enough, she ventured to open her eyes. The moment she did, light was a belligerent blur, forcing her lids shut again. Her head thumped angrily at her as she inhaled deeply, trying to figure out where she was. The last thing she could remember was being in the Heroes’ Guild… she needed to find Zombress for… whatever reason.

Then, she remembered: the goon, the fight on the rooftops, the fireball… being told that the mobster was too far gone to save, and then passing out.

The world spun, physically this time, and she felt long, slender fingers on her face. They were cool to the touch, but relaxing. They seemed to spread a painkiller through her skin on contact, enabling her to carefully, shakily, open her eyes with a flutter.

Zombress looked at her, concerned. Morgan’s movement seemed to relieve her, and she offered a small smile which her eyes certainly did not reflect. “Glad to see you’re still with us,” she said, her voice an odd combination of soothing and unsettling.

“Where am I?” Morgan asked, shoving herself up the chair she found herself in. The world beyond Zombress’s face was resolving into banks of monitors, flickering television screens, and metal. A man in the distance was rushing to a set of computer banks as a woman darted out of sight.

“You’ve been in a sleep chamber,” Zombress started.

“What? Why?” Morgan’s attention snapped back to her. Her heart beat against her rib cage, once more aggravating her head. “I didn’t kill him! It was an accident!”

“I know, Miss Severson,” Zombress said with a degree of annoyance as, somewhere in whatever building they were in, an explosion roared quietly. “But others do not.”

Morgan pushed herself off the chair, and Zombress relinquished her position so that she could shakily go… somewhere. “I’m not going to be held like a villain for something I didn’t do.”

“Aquaria…”

“Shut up!”
Did I honestly just tell the only Tier Five Bestowed on the eastern seaboard to shut up?
She looked back at Zombress, hoping that she at least looked defiant instead of as embarrassed as she felt. The woman stared at her without flinching, apparently expecting this reaction. “Take me to the heroes.”

“You’ve been out for weeks…”

“Take me to the heroes!” she shouted. “Desert Ranger will believe me… my mother will believe me. I don’t…” Zombress’s face softened. “What?” She didn’t answer. “What is going on?”

Cold eyes remained locked on hers. “Desert Ranger is dead.”

“W-what?” Her legs buckled, but she was able to recover by leaning on a nearby computer bank.

“That night… when the world changed…”

Morgan wasn’t listening. She simply, quietly, shook her head. After a moment, she looked up at Zombress. “Am I your prisoner, now? Is that it?”

“Catalina, thank villainy!” the man yelled, apparently to no one. He jogged past Morgan to a shutter with his hand to his ear. The woman followed the same path, looking at the leaning girl as she did so. “We were getting ready to leave without you,” he said.

The shutter raised and Morgan turned toward the noise. A woman in a pinstripe suit that she recognized immediately as Catalina Capone quickly dragged in a feathered heroine that she knew was Paradise, one of her mother’s poker friends. Standing further back was Arbiter, joined by numerous other heroes, all looking very angry.

“… Her name, Arbiter?” Catalina taunted. “If she’s so important, like every upstanding hero, you should know her name.” The laugh in her voice was nauseating, like it was a game where someone’s life just happened to be the prize.

“Let her go, Capone!” Arbiter bellowed. His eyes flicked from the hostage to Morgan and back again, his gaze briefly burning an imaginary hole in her. “Was that your reason for this? A rescue mission?”

“Actually, we invited ourselves over for dinner. You’re terrible hosts, you know that?” She pressed the muzzle of the gun into Paradise’s temple. “You won’t even introduce us to your family!”

“Please…” Paradise whispered in a cough. “I have children…”

“Catalina, let her go,” the man behind her was backing away as Catalina cleared under the shutter. “You have my word…”

“There’s no need for this,” the woman warned in her Russian accent.

The mobster gave the woman a sideways glance. “Oh, come on now, Talia…” Catalina chuckled and returned to her stare down. “… You know I hate for people to die without a name.”

“T’anna!” Morgan shouted. “Her name is T’anna!”

Catalina made a noise like a disappointed whimper. “That takes all the fun out of it,” she said. The mobster shoved her human shield toward Arbiter and raised her gun. Arbiter swatted Paradise aside as Catalina opened fire, the bullets intended for the heroine now ripping into Arbiter’s arms and chest plate. He didn’t move as his ability tore through her, Catalina screeching in agony and collapsing as her male compatriot did something to bring the shutter down between the heroes and villains. “I can’t breathe!” she yelled as Talia grabbed her and dragged her toward the elevator. “Kill me, fuck, kill me please!”

Morgan couldn’t help but shake, stunned and terrified. She felt the cold prickle of Zombress’s hands on her shoulders. “We need to go.”

“To the elevator! Now!” the man yelled. He brought his hand up to his earpiece. “Good, Mollie. I’m on my way.” He ran up the ramp as powerful blows warped and deformed the shutter behind him.

Talia had propped the elevator doors open with an unused monitor. She dragged the still writhing Catalina in as Zombress led Morgan into the car. The man, cradling a closed laptop computer as an open backpack dangled from his shoulder, sprinted toward the elevator as a loud crash announced the shutter ripping free from its supports.

“Arthur, hurry up!” Talia shouted, kicking the monitor from its position. The elevator doors butted against her arm before she slid back into the car, the doors now free to close. Arbiter slammed his way up the ramp and, without even gauging the situation, sprinted toward them, much faster than Arthur could move.

The doors were half shut when Arthur jumped sideways through it, landing in a jumbled heap in the corner. Arbiter’s face appeared in the closing crack before his hand jammed through the opening. Talia yelled in shock as Arthur screamed in horror.

Zombress grabbed the elevator doors and shoved them aside. Before Arbiter could react, she shoved him back far enough to get a clear shot at his head. She somersaulted in a backflip, sending her heel right against his chin as her white dress flowed elegantly around her. The momentum carried her back into the elevator as Arbiter went crashing away. Talia grabbed Catalina’s pistol and shoved Zombress aside as she fired at the ceiling above the rushing crowd of heroes swarming up from the ramp.

Zombress slammed her hand onto the elevator close button, the doors sliding shut unabated this time, as she winced, rubbing her jawline. “You okay?” Talia asked.

“You should see the other guy,” Zombress said with a wry smile.

“Oh, sure…” Catalina said, finally able to rise. “Don’t worry about me.” She snagged the pistol from Talia, dropping the expended magazine to the floor. “Or the scream queen over there,” she said with a nod toward Arthur.

“I didn’t scream,” he muttered as the mobster reloaded her gun. He quietly shoved the computer in his backpack.

“You were going to kill her,” Morgan said, still not sure what was going on. Catalina looked at her, annoyed. “What were you thinking?”

Catalina took a step toward her. “I was responding to the fact that your kind decided to declare it open-villain season, you stupid twat.” With a violent jerk, she chambered a round in her pistol. “Believe me, there were two ways that was going to play out, either me dead or someone else.” She holstered her sidearm and unslung the rifle from her back. “And I like breathing too much to die at the hands of someone like Arbiter.”

Morgan wedged herself in the corner under the mobster’s gaze. There was something unwholesome about her, even beyond the war-zone rationale of what was going on. The second those elevator doors opened, she’d make a break for it… head for wherever there was a hero. She knew she’d feel safer with others like her instead of feeling like… whatever it was they were using her for.

Catalina brought her hand up to her ear. “Sounds like some electrical hero is giving our guys a hard time in C-Wing.” Morgan’s heart leapt at the mention. There were dozens of Bestowed with the ability to manipulate electricity… but maybe…

“I don’t care,” Arthur hissed. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“And how exactly would you propose that, Art?” Catalina growled. “We were supposed to be crashing this party, not running from it. There’s not enough vehicles out there to get everyone out.”

“We take who we can, then,” Talia said.

Zombress cleared her throat. “If we can get the others to the main gate, I can distract the heroes long enough for them to possibly get away on foot.”

“Everyone who dies here tonight is on your hands, Arthur,” Catalina snapped.

“But
you
don’t
have
to kill anyone.” Morgan’s eyes were fixed on the floor, so she didn’t notice when Catalina gave her a vicious glare. “That’s your choice.”