Seven Wonders (2 page)

efying the laws of physics, gifted with access to the Slipstream, that nth dimensional plane beyond the ken of modern science that bestows speed and flight! There are none who can outrace the silver speedster
LINEAR!

E

xiled from Mount Olympus – the sole survivor of the Hellenic Pantheon! Carrying the Hammer of the Gods with which he creates his magical weapons, this Architect of Power is
HEPHAESTUS!

R

obotic… yet alive! Forged from a mysterious alloy known only to his creator Hephaestus, no foe dare challenge the Supra-Maximal Attack-Response Titan, the giant machine-man
SMART!

S

trange is the cold light she wields from the unfathomable depths of space-time, that esoteric energy that illuminates her mighty powerstaff! Mystery surrounds this visitor from another world, for she is
THE DRAGON STAR!

"Thanks, Mary, and good morning San Ventura for Thursday the fourth. I'm Sarah Nova and here's a recap of your top headlines this morning.

  "Astronomers at the South Cal Catadioptric Observatory say that this year's Draconid meteor shower will be the biggest and brightest on record, with up to five thousand meteors an hour predicted to hit the skies over the West Coast at the shower's peak. With just seven weeks to go, the hills of North Beach are expected to be even more crowded this year as spectators vie for the best vantage point, with officials advising people to get there early. Traffic restrictions will be in place on the North Beach suspension bridge and City Hall has called in extra buses to run on the free shuttle route.

  "Shares in Conroy Industries are set to open this morning at a record high after late trading yesterday pushed stock above the $1,000 mark. The price represents the highest ever achieved by the San Ventura technology company, which is the county's leading employer, and puts Conroy Industries' market capitalization nearly $10 billion ahead of Apple Inc., its closest competitor in terms of value. Conroy Industries' performance stands in sharp contrast to other tech firms, which are…"

CHAPTER ONE

It wasn't until the following week that Tony realized he could fly.

  He knew it was coming, of course. Well,
hoped
it was coming. Hell, the last week had been one wild ride, so it was inevitable – he dared to suggest – that the most glorious, most
enjoyable
of all superpowers would hit sooner or later. Typically, of course, it had been later, the last of his powers to manifest. But who was complaining? Tony could fly, game over.

  Sure, he could freeze a can of beer with a glance and light the gas hob on his stove with a flick of the wrist. He could chop firewood up at his old man's lodge in the hills with his bare hands. He also thought, maybe, that if the skin of his hand was like the steel blade of an axe, perhaps he was bulletproof as well. That would sure be handy in a city as dangerous as San Ventura, but hardly the kind of superpower you could just test, unless you were the kind of guy who got a kick out of Russian roulette.

  A city as dangerous as San Ventura. The Shining City, right? Uh… yeah, right. Tony shifted his weight, trying – failing – to get more comfortable in the awkward squat in which he found himself on a warm Thursday morning. He wobbled, momentarily losing his center of gravity, but couldn't risk moving his hands from the back of his head. But, under the black, empty gaze of the gun barrel that very quickly appeared in his face, he found his balance again and remained quite, quite still. Unspeaking, but apparently satisfied, the gunslinger pulled the barrel of his Kalashnikov upwards and walked on, the wet creak of his leather combat boots loud from Tony's low position near the floor of the bank.

  Tony really hated Thursdays. And didn't this one just take the cake.

  With the thug's back moving away, Tony glanced around. A few desperate eyes were on him, wide and white, furious that he'd attracted the attention of one of the raiders, but relieved in a shaky kind of way that he hadn't got them all shot. Tony wasn't sure if an apologetic smile was appropriate, so decided not to bother and returned his attention to the cheap carpet tiles in front of him. A distraction came anyway as the leader of the robbers threw a few more heated words out of the window at the cops gathered in the street outside.

  Robbers? The word stuck in Tony's mind. Fuck that.
Robbers
? What the fuck kind of robbers walked around with AK-47s, or whatever the hell their guns were? They were big guns; automatic assault rifles, with the distinctive curved magazines that only weapons bought on the Kazakhstani black market had. As far as Tony was concerned, the name "AK-47" applied to all that kind of shit. It was a bad, bad scene.

  Which meant they weren't bank robbers. Bank robbers wore black jeans, and balaclavas, or maybe pantyhose (over their heads, anyway). Bank robbers ran in, maybe three or four, waving handguns and shouting at everyone to
get the fuck down
and
fill this fucking bag, bitch,
and
nobody fucking move
. And a few kicks and punches later, out the door, leaving old ladies to cry and bank clerks to comfort each other while the police carefully crunch on the scattered candy of broken glass spilt from what's left of the front doors.

  Machine guns, combat boots − hell, combat
uniforms −
weren't the purview of bank robbers. These guys were pros.

  No, thought Tony. Even more than that. Organized, disciplined, efficient. There had been no shouting, no running. A dozen men, black-booted, black-suited, each identical and anonymous behind something approaching a paintball mask crossed with a respirator. They came in silence and calmly took up what must have been pre-assigned positions, before their leader clicked something on the side of his mask and told everyone to crouch on the ground with their hands on their heads. Two of his men broke off and brought the bank manager from his back office, and the leader began politely asking a series of questions.

  It was surreal, dreamlike, which at first gave an illusion of safety. It was only when the cramp started to bite that reality began to crystallize.

  So not robbers, professionals.
Soldiers,
masked and uniformed. In San Ventura. Soldiers? No,
henchmen
. Which meant…

  
Shit
. The one day I go to the bank, the one day I go to the bank in, like, a whole
year
, and I walk right into a classic piece of San Ventura villainy. Because henchmen and AK-47s and raiding a quiet bank with overwhelming firepower meant just one thing.

  The Cowl.

  "Your threats are noted, officer, as is your lack of understanding and situational awareness. Discussion terminated."

  The leader turned away from the window and walked behind the main counters, through the now-open security door, around to the main lobby where his eleven soldiers stood over two dozen civilians. One AK-47 for every two members of the public. Tony felt sick.

  The bank manager wasn't talking. Normally, Tony would have seen him as a proud man, defiant to the end, captain-going-down-with-theship kind of loyalty – if he was watching this on
World's Most Awesome
Bank Robbery Shoot-outs 7
. He could imagine the manager's smoking, bullet-ridden body being stretchered out at the end of a day-long siege, with mugshot and eulogy in Friday morning's
San Ventura Ledger-Leader
, with quite possibly a civic funeral the next week complete with police honor guard and respectful mayor in attendance. The mayor would later give one of his all-too-regular press conferences decrying the Cowl and swearing justice would be served, and the citizens of San Ventura would shake their heads and turn off their televisions and lament the dark times that had fallen on the Shining City.

  But right now, the bank manager was just being a dick. It's just a bank, it's just money, Tony thought. The anger and frustration rose as he watched the Cowl's mercenary orbit the bank manager like a panther looking for an opening.
Stop being such an asshole
. Tony's lips almost shaped the words, willing the bank manager to suck it up and open the safe. Give them the money.

  Except… money? It wasn't money. Couldn't have been money. The Cowl's resources were legendary, his ill-gotten wealth rumored to be as close to infinite as any human being could ever hope to approach. The last thing he needed was cash. Diamonds, perhaps? Jewels, or gold? Because all supervillains liked to dive into a vault of treasure and swim around like Scrooge McDuck, right? No. There must have been something else, something locked in a safety deposit box in the vault. Something small, but important; important enough for the Cowl to take it by force, something important enough for the bank manager to risk his life and the lives of his staff and customers, even in the face of a dozen machine guns from central Asia.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." The bank manager lifted his chin and pushed his dated, square-framed glasses up his nose a little. A small, defiant act.

  "Oh, I think you do, Mr Ballard," said the leader. "Sure, it's well hidden here. Who would expect such a small, average branch of an average bank to hold such a priceless artifact. But that's the whole point, isn't it? That's why the Seven Wonders entrusted you with it. Locking it in their own citadel would prove, eventually, to be too much of a temptation, even for them. So, the solution is to lose it somewhere in the city − what, they gave it to you, then Bluebell did a mindwipe on everyone, so even they had no idea where or even
what
it was? Everyone, except you, Mr Ballard."

  Mr Ballard said nothing. But he wasn't a professional, not like the mercenary. As the leader spoke in an odd, almost synthesized voice that echoed from underneath his respirator, a hundred emotions flickered over Mr Ballard's face. Satisfaction turned to doubt turned to fear. Even Tony could see that the mercenary was right on the button.

  "Interesting, Mr Ballard." The leader walked away, casually. After a moment of nothing at all, he gestured slightly with a gauntleted hand. Instantly his eleven men prodded each of the two hostages in their charge with their guns, indicating for them to stand.

  Each trio – mercenary plus two hostages – was separated from the next by a couple of feet, the whole group arranged in a neat semicircle in front of the counters. To Tony's left, a young woman, homely and mid-twenties but with that odd thinness that suggested eighteen with three kids, began to cry. With her hands still behind her head, her face turned red and the tears flowed freely, dripping onto the carpet tiles. Tony looked away, focusing instead on the mercenary leader.

  Tony had superstrength, he had freeze-breath. He had superspeed. The only thing he wasn't quite sure of was whether hands of steel translated into torso of Kevlar. And even if it did, what about the other twenty-three hostages? Perhaps he was faster than a bullet, but he wasn't really sure – how fast did a bullet fly, anyway? Fast enough not to be visible in flight, but Tony had seen his own reflection in the water yesterday as he'd skipped from one side of the bay to the other. But faster than the high-velocity shells spat by the heavy-duty weaponry carried by these guys? Too much of a risk. Hold back, bide your time. Jeannie's training was sure going to come in useful, he knew that now.

  The leader seemed to be watching the hostages, although it was hard to tell; the wraparound visor of his mask meant that his head only had to turn very slightly to give any indication that he was looking for something. For
someone
− picking a target.

  "You see, Mr Ballard," the leader continued, turning back to the bank manager, "the method I'm about to employ may well be a cliché. In fact, I guarantee you'll have seen it plenty of times on the television. Do you watch much television, Mr Ballard?

  "Anyway, it's simple, but effective. You have twenty-four chances to get the answer to my next question correct."

  Mr Ballard didn't move, but he started breaking a hell of a sweat. Tony felt his anger melt, replaced instead with indignation. The Seven Wonders, he thought. I bet those bastards never told you this might happen.

  There was a crack − not a gunshot, but an organic splitting, like a young branch bent off a new tree. One of the hostages − a nondescript man in an ordinary gray suit, the color of which matched his neatly parted hair, mid-priced black leather slip-ons from a mall shoe shop on his feet − twisted, ever so slightly, arching his back almost like he was stretching out a stiff muscle. Then he dropped, knees folding up and his body telescoping almost vertically down beside his paired hostage.