The Prospects (17 page)

“She’s not breathing,” he said.

Knockout Rose and Pinwheel made it out. Stardancer was about to step outside when steel sheets fell over the doors and windows, including the fire exit.

“No!” Knockout Rose punched the steel sheet with her boxing glove. "Open this!"

“Where’s Cantrip?” said Pinwheel.

“Now the emergency barriers work,” said Alex. He pulled out his phone. “And I have full bars again.”

A loud droning hum drowned out all other sounds from the city.

Alex looked up. Against the skyline he saw a silver cloud with a rough humanoid shape fly far above the streets. It landed on the roof of Griffin Tower and spread out in a swirling mass of tiny robots.

“What the hell is that?” asked Kayleigh.

“The Micro-Sapiens,” said Alex. “A swarm of vicious tiny robots. Harry’s worst creation has come home.”

“Where are the cops?” said Pinwheel.

“You two,” Alex said, “help us.”

“Our friends are stuck in there,” said Knockout Rose.

“Ours are dying out here,” said Goldstreak.

Knockout Rose ripped off her boxing gloves, took Candilyn’s legs and ran down the street with Goldstreak. Pinwheel took Jenny’s hand and followed.

“I see rings around every light,” said Jenny. “My head hurts so much.”

Arbalest gasped, “Alex ….”

Alex lifted him a little higher. “I’ll get you through this.”

“Alex, I …”

“They’ll reattach your arm. Stay strong.”

“Alex, shut up. Listen. There’s a key inside my glove.”

Alex reached for Arbalest’s left hand.

“No, the other one.”

Alex held out the severed forearm. Inside the wrist he found a tiny key with circuits on the teeth.

“After you drop me off, go to three-fifty-seven West Street. The door’s boarded up. Find a way in. There’s a purple arrow behind the counter. Do the opposite of what it says.”

“Stay with me,” Alex said. “You’re talking crazy.”

“Tell Jim my vote for Plan Failsafe is yes.”

“Tell Jim what?”

A siren drowned out Arbalest’s reply. Alex waved down the police car.

“Is that Arbalest?” asked the officer.

Alex flashed his MAB badge. “Hospital.” He put Arbalest and his severed arm in the backseat.

The police car did a U-turn. Alex pulled out his smartphone and called the MAB. A convoy of cars full of agents, vans carrying supplies, and helicopters were on their way to put Griffin Tower under siege by the time he reached the hospital.

Goldstreak leaned against the wall outside the emergency entrance. He had his head buried in his elbow. Blood dripped down his metallic suit.

Alex asked, “How’s Candilyn?”

Goldstreak lowered his arms. Tears made shiny streaks on his cheeks. “Dead on arrival.”

Alex sighed. “Deon, we did the best we could.”

“That’s all you got to say? I couldn’t save her. Your training wasn’t worth shit.”

“Those bullets must have hit her heart. It was more than her healing factor could handle. The best doctors in the world couldn’t …”

“If we can’t save people, why are we doing this?”

“We save who we can.”

Goldstreak ripped off his mask. “Screw it, and screw you.”

“Deon, this happens to all medics. I lost my first patient.”

“But this was Candilyn. She and I, we …”

“I know you two had a fling.”

“Go to hell.” Deon ran away. His golden streak disappeared into the city lights.

Knockout Rose and Pinwheel waited inside the hospital.

“How’s Jenny?” he asked.

“She’s getting a CAT scan,” said Pinwheel.

“I don’t know what to say about the other girl,” said Knockout Rose. “I ran as fast as I could, but the boy in a gold suit kept telling me to go faster.”

“How did your team get involved in this?”

“Sarge took us on patrol through Greenwich Village,” said Knockout Rose.

“You know, Sarge is nothing like he is in the comics,” said Pinwheel.

“He was mean to us.” Knockout Rose squinted. “There’s something familiar about you, agent.”

“Last time we met, I wore an exoskeleton.”

“You’re Agent Exo?”

“Goodbye secret identity,” said Pinwheel. “Someone is out of the phone booth.”

“What happened at Greenwich Village?” asked Alex.

“Well, Sarge said the Shade Blades plotted to rob some galleries,” said Pinwheel. “Our job was to look like we were heroes, but he said that with much more sarcasm and rancor than I can muster.”

“Nothing happened,” said Knockout Rose. “Sarge said it was a bad tip and made us walk all the way back to the tower.”

“We weren’t back long before the Bone Terror attacked,” said Pinwheel. “Poor Rock Jock. He held that beast back as long as he could.”

An orderly pushed Jenny in a wheelchair down the hallway.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I still have a headache, but my brain is fine. How’s Candilyn?”

Alex shook his head.

“Oh, no, is she …”

“Ninjas fight dirty.”

Jenny stood and hugged Alex in silence for a moment. “For all her faults, she was one of us,” she said. “Where’s Trista?”

“She sacrificed herself for you.”

“Vijay?”

“Still in there.”

“Deon?”

“Ran away.”

Jenny broke the embrace. “We’re all that’s left of the Prospects?”

“And we’re all that’s left of the Young Sentinels,” said Pinwheel.

Knockout Rose watched a breaking news report on the television in the waiting room. “The tower is surrounded by MAB agents.”

“I called them,” said Alex. “No one will get in or out.”

“That doesn’t do our friends much good,” said Knockout Rose. “They’re trapped with those monsters.”

“What do we do?” asked Jenny.

Alex looked at the key Arbalest gave him. “Apparently Mister Griffin has something called Plan Failsafe.”

“What’s that?” asked Jenny.

“I have no idea. All I have is an address.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t turn twenty-one for ten days. Until then, I won’t stop trying to be a superhero.”

“Jenny, if we’re still alive in ten days I’ll buy you a beer.”

“I’m coming too,” said Knockout Rose.

“No you’re not,” said Pinwheel as he pinched Knockout Rose’s shoulder. He peeled a strip of red and revealed skin underneath.

She slapped his hand. “What did you do that for?”

“I pinched you because you’re dreaming, Kayleigh. You’re not a superhero, you’re an actress covered in paint.”

“Your suit is paint?” said Jenny.

“Well, it’s thick paint.” She stood with her hands at her side, apparently unconcerned at how everyone was looking her over.

Pinwheel peeled a long strip from Knockout Rose’s hip. “See? That’s the thong line. That and the shoes are all she’s wearing.”

“Stop it, Steve!” She shoved him as he peeled a strip off her arm.

“I just want to bring you back to reality.”

“You mean the reality where you abandon your friends?”

“Is this about us not asking you to go to LA?”

“No, this is about Pete being trapped in Griffin Tower.”

“There’s nothing I can do for him. Getting killed sure won’t help.”

“So you only acted like his friend, like how you act like a campy gay man because our manager wanted a token homosexual?”

The nasal lisp disappeared from the southern accent. “That’s my point. We’re not heroes, we’re phonies. We fight choreographed battles against stuntmen. This, right now, is real. End scene. Break character. We’re done here.”

Alex gestured towards the door. Jenny nodded and followed him.

Knockout Rose shivered. “This neighborhood is scary.”

“It’s no place for a naked girl to be at night.” Pinwheel peeled a strip of paint off her back.

“Stop doing that.”

Alex whispered to Jenny, “I can’t believe they followed us across Manhattan.”

“Agent O’Farrell,” said Knockout Rose, “I’m not going to abandon my friends.”

“Let the real heroes handle this,” said Pinwheel.

“So we should do nothing?”

“Sometimes nothing is the best thing to do.”

“Fine. Go. You and Pete were going to ditch me before this happened. Now you’re going to ditch Pete.”

“We should stay out of the real heroes’ way while they save the day.”

“We need to help any way we can.”

“Oh come on. Remember what Stardancer said when Jenny applied? Do you want to help someone like that?”

Jenny turned around. “What did she say?”

Knockout Rose and Pinwheel looked at each other awkwardly.

“I don’t want to repeat it,” said Pinwheel.

“Tell me.”

“She said you look like someone who eats more Chinese food after getting hungry again an hour later.”

Jenny shook her head and turned back.

“I told her she was rude,” said Knockout Rose.

Pinwheel said, “You also said having Jenny on the team would make you look thinner, which is why you voted for her.”

Jenny spun around, her face tight with anger. The air got cold. Litter and dust rose in the wind.

Alex grab Jenny’s shoulder. “Stop.”

The wind died quickly.

Jenny said, “My teammate died tonight. I don’t need any shit from a couple of morons.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” said Knockout Rose. “I ran as fast as we could to keep up with the boy in gold.”

“Three-fifty-seven West Street.” Alex stopped in front of the recently shattered plywood boards in front of an abandoned graffiti-coated diner. “Whatever’s in here, someone beat us to it.” He drew his pistol.

Jenny swirled her hands and made a small whirlwind. “We’ve come too far to turn back now.”

“Pinwheel,” Alex said, “light.”

“Leave me out of this.”

Alex shook his head, pulled out a keychain LED light, and went inside.

Inside the diner was nothing but a dusty floor with a few pieces of garbage strewn about and a couple of overturned tables.

Knockout Rose crouched. “Footprints. They look like big Army boots.”

Pinwheel moved the light over the trail of footprints. They stopped abruptly at a dustless square behind the counter.

The four of them walked to the square. Jenny created a breeze to blow the dust aside.

Alex ran his fingers along the lines forming a square in the floor.

“What is it?” asked Knockout Rose.

“No idea. Arbalest said something about a purple arrow on the floor.”

Pinwheel made his light brighter as Jenny scattered more dust. Within a second they found the arrow. At the unpointed end was a small hole between the tiles.

Alex reached in his pocket, pulled out the key Arbalest gave him, and stuck it in the hole. An elevator rose from the square.

“This is so cool,” said Pinwheel. “I didn’t know the New York Guardians had a secret hideout.”

“Neither did I,” said Alex, “and they should have told me either as an overseeing MAB agent or a member of the team.”

There was only one button on the elevator.

“Hey,” said Knockout Rose, “can we come too?”

Alex looked at Jenny. She nodded.

Alex took off his hoodie and handed it to Knockout Rose. “Cover yourself.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said.

“I’m not. It’s a small elevator, and we’re making one trip.”

She put the hoodie on and zipped it up.

All four of them squeezed into the elevator. After a quick drop the doors opened again to reveal a gray concrete corridor lit by UV lights.

Jim’s voice echoed down the corridor. “About time you got here, Bart.”

Alex holstered his pistol. “It’s me.”

“What the …? How did you …?”

Alex walked down the corridor followed by the others. It ended in a circular chamber with a round computer table in the middle. Jim, Sergeant Hammer, and Stormhead sat around it.

“What is this place?” asked Alex.

“What happened to Arbalest?” asked Stormhead.

“He’s in the hospital.” Alex held out the key. “He gave me this.”

“Agent, did he relay a message?” asked Sergeant Hammer.

“He said yes to Plan Failsafe.”

Sergeant Hammer snatched the key from Alex’s hands. “That makes it a majority.”

Stormhead frowned. “I still think it’s a horrible idea.”

“What?” asked Alex. “What’s a horrible idea?”

“Hey Sarge,” said Knockout Rose, “why did you abandon us?”

Jim inserted Arbalest’s key into the computer and twisted it. “Stormhead, put in yours.”

“You left us to die,” said Knockout Rose.

Sergeant Hammer said, “Acceptable loss.”

Jim extended an open hand to Stormhead. “Don’t pout. Majority rules. Three to one.”

Stormhead handed another key to Jim.

Jim inserted it into the computer and twisted it.

“My friends are stuck in Griffin Tower with supervillains,” said Knockout Rose.

“What is this place?” asked Alex.

Jim slapped his cane against the concrete wall. “Enough! Everyone shut up. Ten minutes until Plan Failsafe is done. And, what incredible timing, that will be a few seconds after midnight.”

“What’s Plan Failsafe?” asked Alex.

“None of your business,” said Sergeant Hammer. “Get out and take the brats with you.”

“No,” said Stormhead, “he deserves to know.”

“He’s already seen and heard too much,” said Jim. “We either kill him or come clean, and too many people are already going to die tonight. Alex, send the kids upstairs.”

Alex turned to Jenny, Knockout Rose, and Pinwheel. “You heard him. Go upstairs.”

“But our friends …” Knockout Rose said.

Alex put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find a way to rescue them. We’re heroes, that’s what we do.”

Knockout Rose stiffened her lips and nodded.

As the elevator doors closed behind Jenny, Pinwheel, and Knockout Rose, Stormhead grimaced. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

“Let’s start at the beginning,” said Alex. “As your supervising MAB agent, I should have had full knowledge of all the New York Guardian’s facilities. Why am I just now learning about a hidden computer room under an abandoned diner?”

“I built this six years ago, when the government announced all legally recognized superhero teams needed government supervision. You have to understand, a lot of us were worried about the MAB. We thought this was the first step of a government takeover of all metahuman teams.”

“You guys had unlimited freedom before the legal recognition requirement,” said Alex. “All the MAB wanted to do was prevent another situation like the Desert Dukes taking over Albuquerque or the Steelworker wrecking Pittsburgh or any of the other incidents that didn’t get reported, like how the Atlanta’s Stars and Bars were also members of the KKK.”

“The fact is, we don’t trust the government,” said Sergeant Hammer.

“Then why do you have an American flag on your hood?” asked Alex.

“I love the country, not the people who run it. I know the government causes more problems than it solves. So did Charlene. She did black ops.”

“Charlene?”

“That alien virus that makes her invulnerable enough to be Lady Amazing? Caught it during a mission,” said Jim. “When the registration act went through, we New York Guardians publicly endorsed it but privately prepared for a revolution. We built this and a few other hideouts, even a few caches for high-tech weapons.”

“Why?”

“So we could fight back if the government tried to enslave us,” said Stormhead. “In other countries, like Norway, metahumans must join the military.”

“We were ready to fight for our freedom,” said Sergeant Hammer.

“We were ready to make New York a warzone as soon as they fired the first shot. Everything was created and concealed before you stepped foot in Griffin Tower. I mean, we didn’t want some intruder reporting our plans back to Washington.”

“We also decided that, if we had to have an agent, he would be a full member of the team,” said Stormhead. “We thought that such a person would have such
espirit-de-corps
they would not think to look for anything hidden.”

“And that’s why you did the Agent Exo project,” said Alex. “I was so happy to be a superhero I never considered you weren’t being fully honest.”

“We went through a hundred agents to get you,” said Jim. “I had Sarge do the training with the instructions to be as brutal as possible. I figured the only winner would be so driven and single-minded he wouldn’t be the kind to question us.”

“Sarge was definitely brutal,” said Alex. “At least I did the best of the last ten candidates.”

“Actually, you were the worst,” said Sergeant Hammer.

“What?”

“The only test you did the best on was the metahuman law essay,” said Jim. “The other guys did much better in maneuvering and target-shooting.”

“Then how did I get the exoskeleton?”

“Because you were the most likely to fail,” said Sergeant Hammer. “We thought if a few agents died in the course of duty, the government would stop trying to regulate us.”

“It’s true,” said Jim. “That’s why you were the front lines in every battle. It’s also why you had those outer-space and deep-sea missions.”

“You wanted to kill me?”

“We could have killed you at any time,” said Jim. “The exoskeleton has a self-destruct system.”

“We wanted you to die in action,” said Stormhead. “We thought if the government always had to send in new agents, none would last long enough to discover our secrets. But once we got to know you, Alexander, we started to like you.”

Sergeant Hammer sneered. “Speak for yourself.”

“Really, Sarge?” said Alex. “You told one of the Prospects I was one of the finest men you ever met.”

Sarge was nonplussed. “I wiped better than you out of my ass.”

“Sarge aside, the rest of us think you’re a real trooper,” said Jim. “I really didn’t think you were going to beat the Bone Terror when you took him on alone, which is why I ordered no one to help, but you did. That extra medic training you took saved dozens of civilians, which was great publicity for us. Best of all, you didn’t try to take over the team or interfere with our freedom, so our worst fears never came about.”

“Wait,” Alex said. “You ordered my teammates not to save me?”

“I can’t speak for the others, but I feel guilty,” said Stormhead. “We liked the idea of letting an agent die, but we couldn’t go through with letting a real human die. I’m sorry you have to learn about it this way.”

Jim took a swig from a hip flask. “Mistakes were made.”

“I was dedicated to the New York Guardians,” said Alex. “I sacrificed everything to be the best hero I could be for you. Emily is divorcing me because I put myself in danger so often. Was rendering the exoskeleton useless a part of your plan too?”

“No, the Skreaks did that,” said Jim. “Not a part of the plan at all. Neither was firing Sarge from the Prospects. But you were begging me for something to do, and I didn’t want you poking around. I figured if you were in the facility and busy babysitting, you’d be too busy to think.”

“This will all go into my report. I don’t care if you’re locked out of your headquarters, I’ll resign from this assignment tomorrow morning. The New York Guardians will get a new MAB agent, and I will tell him to instigate a full audit of your resources. No more hidden rooms, no more anti-government plans, and no more trying to kill government agents.”

“That is fair,” said Stormhead. “We’ll have little left to hide after Plan Failsafe is done.”

“What is Plan Failsafe?”

Jim looked at the computer. “We may as well tell him, he’ll see it in five minutes anyway. To put it simply, Plan Failsafe is a way of keeping our technology from falling into the wrong hands. We designed it to keep the government out. Each member of the New York Guardians, except you and Harry, because as you know Harry has mental issues, has a key. It takes four keys in this computer to activate it.”

“From here, we started the chemical sequence,” said Stormhead. “A reactor charged with atomic compression particles in the ground floor of Griffin Tower will soon detonate in a nuclear implosion.”

“I think you mean explosion,” said Alex.

“No, he meant implosion,” said Jim. “Instead of going out, the energy from the split atom will go in. The result will be a mini black hole that turns Griffin Tower into a very dense marble.”