Blaze of Glory (7 page)

And the list of dead supers. Oh, the list…

My vision blurred as I scanned down the roll call of friends and enemies, people I had fought beside and against and many who I had never met. The Russians had Night Witch listed as MIA, as the Chinese did with Dragon Lily—no surprise there. They never liked losing, even when it’d been prearranged. The EU at least admitted casualties. And in North America we had lost CanaDragon in Ottawa and all those in New York City.

Including Mike.

The United Nations was having meeting after meeting, everyone chattering about sending out ambassadors and the like. The U.S. President had decided to take a “wait and see” with the ships hovering over Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, among others. All of them waiting to see what the Agency was going to recommend.

The Agency wasn’t international—only North America. Other countries used different names, but the game was the same. Mike had hinted more than once that other nations had their own way of keeping their supers under control, one way or another.

Some even more radical than the plug.

I reached up and back to the scarred tissue. It had itched like a bastard for a month after they put it in, taunting me every time I brushed my hair or hopped in the shower.

“Don’t mess with it.” Mike sat across from me in the cafeteria, nudging my tray with his own.

I glared at him. “Fuck off.”

“Nice mouth for a lady.” He dug into the cream corn with a plastic fork. “You kiss your momma with that?”

“Fuck off, sir.”

The dark chocolate hand advanced on my tray, blocking my attack on what I thought was meatloaf. “Michael Pratt.”

“Yeah.” I ignored his offer, moving around to hack at the slab.

“I’m going to be your Guardian.” The hand retreated to pick up a piece of cornbread. “Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m not.” The meatloaf tasted good, for once. Must have been the spicy tomato sauce.

“Look, you can make this hard or you can make this easy.”

I chuckled, pushing the peas around with my fork. “Wow, like that’s not a cliché.”

Suddenly there was a large hand around my wrist, straining it slightly until I dropped the fork. “Look at me.”

I met his eyes. “Okay, you’re a tough guy. So?” They were startling in their depth, deep blue and soft.

“I like it easy.” The fingers curved around until we were shaking hands. “Mike Pratt,” he repeated, waiting for my response.

“Jo Tanis. But you know that already.” Slowly pulling my fingers free, I picked up the fork and returned to the peas. “So you’re the lucky guy who gets stuck with me.”

“I don’t like to think of it as that,” he whispered in a low voice. “I’d rather be your partner than your enemy.”

“A partner with the power to blow my head off.” I gestured towards the wristband on his left arm, the small keyboard and screen waiting to be used.

“Look, I don’t want to ever have to use this.” Mike raised his hand. “But it’s the rules. For both of us.”

I drew in a deep breath, calming myself and trying to focus the waves circling around us.

“That’s good. Control is good.” He smiled. “For what it’s worth you get to watch me get fitted for a big robot suit.”

My look of astonishment garnered a chuckle from the huge African American. “I didn’t think Guardians could fight.”

“We can, it just depends on if we want to.” He pulled his fingers into a tight fist. “Ex-military, if you’re curious. And I don’t like to be left on the sidelines.”

“Aren’t you a little old to be playing with dolls?” I smirked, seeing the forty-something man flinch.

“Only five years older than you, sweetheart.” His bright white teeth shone in the fluorescent lighting. “And we’re going to save the world.”

I jolted awake, grabbing the edges of the desk with both hands. Only a few minutes had passed during my brief nap.

The screen was still filled with chat screens, code names and phrases scrolling by faster than I could read them. Closing the news feed, I stood as Jessie grunted his way up the steps with a television set, David close behind with another lamp.

“Can’t let you lose your eyesight squinting at a small screen. And you can never have too much light.” He placed the ancient device on the small table by the bed and plugged it in. Jessie wrestled the fifteen-inch color set into a corner, placing it on the floor. As he stood up he groaned, both hands on the small of his back.

“Oh, stifle it. You’re too young to have back problems,” David groused before Jessie could say anything. “Any news?” He turned his attention to me as I moved back onto the couch.

“All bad.” I shook my head. “At least I don’t have to worry about my head popping off anytime soon.” Rubbing the back of my neck, I propped myself up against the cushions. “What’s the word from your friends?”

“Give me a second, ’kay?” He sat in the chair, scanning the different windows as fast as he could switch back and forth between them.

“Okay, the good news is that there are other supers still alive out there—people report seeing them around, ducking in and out of the shadows. Even had a few robberies that can be directly connected to them. Bad news is that they’re not the top teams—mostly the villains and the B-listers, like you.” Jessie glanced at me, a light blush on his cheeks. “No offense intended.”

“None taken.” I nodded. “Only makes sense. They would have sent in the big guns to start with. Mike and I were only called up when it became obvious that Ace wasn’t going to be able to cut it, and they wanted to get as many Guardians as they could to the site to take command.” My voice sounded flat and emotionless. “What’s up with my idea to send out a transmission on our internal link?”

He scratched the back of his head. “Actually, Uncle had the best idea here. Head up to the tower and then wire yourself into one of the antennas and broadcast that way.” He pointed at the screen. “The only problem, frankly, is getting you hooked up. I assume you don’t have a jack in your mouth that’ll connect to the antenna.”

I chuckled. “No, not that I know of.”

“Then come here.” He motioned me closer. “Point at the transmitter.”

I got up from the couch and walked across the room, taking his hand and placing it on my jaw. “Here. You can feel the lump.”

He winced as he felt the small bulge. “Nasty. But I’ve got an idea. Work with me here.” A finger waved in the air. “Your ability is to see and control electromagnetic waves, right?”

I nodded, frowning as Jessie began to smile.

“That transmitter is a bit different than the plug—it only transmits when you want it to, but receives whenever a transmission comes in. Which means that you could, if you tried, probably
see
the specific frequency as it sends out the signal. You probably don’t notice it normally because it’s sort of at the edge of your vision where it’s implanted. You’ll have to use your peripheral vision, or
feel
it if you can.”

“What about the plug?”

“That’s a bit of an issue. I’m going to have to use this frequency generator.” He gestured at a nondescript beige box that had two large black and silver dials on it that reminded me of an old TV set. “And keep running through different frequencies until I get a signal back from your plug.”

I stared at him, resisting the urge to scratch. “Won’t that set it off?”

“No. If it were that sensitive to you just pinging the frequency, you’d be dead by now—any microwave oven or cell phone or wireless laptop could have popped it.” He grinned. “But that’s not how it works. So what we need to do is find the frequency and then we’ll work on blocking it.”

My head was spinning. “And my transmission?”

“Once you have the frequency, what you can do when you get to the top of the tower is roll your power over the radio waves and use them to extend your range. But not for long. It’ll be caught by the networks if you hang on the air. And I don’t think you want this making headline news.”

“Definitely not.” Stifling a yawn, I walked over to the window. “As soon as you get it I have to fly. Literally.”

“Let’s get started then.” Jessie pulled the frequency sweep device over and started playing with the dials.

Several hours later I was standing at the bottom of the CN Tower, shivering in the cool night air. I had left instructions with Jessie to go home and rest up. We had gotten pretty close to locating the actual frequency with the plug, but I had just been too tired to continue—not surprising considering what I had gone through over the past few days. Still, it was a start.

David had busied himself with setting up the small apartment as if I had never left it, running to the local grocery store to stock up on diet soda and bottled water. Now the bar fridge looked like we were preparing for a siege, fresh fruit and veggies jostling for room with granola bars and plenty of bottled water.

The CN Tower, the tallest free-standing building in the world a few decades ago, stood near the big sports stadium and a stone’s throw away from the bars that serve the locals and make a bundle off the fans heading either to the baseball games or tourists heading up to the top of the tower. But there weren’t any games going on tonight and it was almost midnight, too late for most visitors looking for that great view out over to Buffalo on the observation deck.

It was quiet but still dangerous—the restaurant at the top of the tower was sure to be busy, and I didn’t want to advertise that I had come home so soon. I exhaled slowly, pulling gently on the waves that emanated from the concrete in front of me. Flying had become second nature to me, but I had to concentrate otherwise gravity would come back with her full fury at being thwarted.

A brief push off the ground and I was ascending, the backpack Jessie had slid over my shoulders throwing me a bit off-balance at first. It took only a few seconds to make adjustments for the extra weight and I was on my way.

The cool cement flashed by me as I flew up the side of the tower as quickly as possible, trying to keep away from the glass elevator that carried the tourists and the restaurant patrons up. Last thing I needed was to terrify some poor kid or senior citizen out for a nice night on the town.

Fortunately the restaurant was half-empty, and I zipped past the windows so fast that if anyone had seen me they probably would have put it down to an illusion. As I approached the antenna at the top I couldn’t help shaking a bit—this was the break point. Once I sent out that message I’d not only let the other supers know I was still alive but also anyone monitoring the frequency, like the Agency.

It only took a few minutes to hook up Jessie’s jury-rigged box to the control panel, the multicolored wires and fancy computer chips laid out just like he had said they would be. I didn’t ask how he knew that.

“Hello…” My voice faltered for a second, then returned. “This is Jo Tanis, codename Surf. I’m calling any supers who are still alive to come to Toronto, Canada to form a group to…” The cliché stuck in my throat. “I want to get us together to take on these invaders as a single, unified force away from the Agency. Away from the Guardians. Just us.” I glanced at my watch. “I’ll meet you at dusk here at the base of the CN Tower for the next three days. I’ll understand if you decide not to come.” A deep breath. “As my Guardian Mike would say…would have said—time to save the world, kids.”

I snapped the connection, ripping the wires free. Then I sat atop one of the highest free-standing structures in the world, wondering if I could really see Buffalo in the darkness and New York City just beyond. And if I could fly there just on good thoughts and intentions.

It was just before dawn when I settled on the ground in an alleyway not far from the bookstore, landing as much in the shadows as I could. At this time of the morning it was unlikely that anyone would see me, but I wasn’t about to take too many chances. I didn’t want to come out in the open, not just yet, and have people start asking questions that I couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Of course I landed in a puddle of dirty water, soaking what had been a pretty decent pair of sneakers a day or so ago.

“Hey, girlie…” The soft call snapped me around like a rubber band.

A tall man moved out of the darkness, a knife waving back and forth in the dim moonlight. “Give me your wallet.”

I smiled, pulling together the power and concentrating it into the palms of my gloves. “Sure…” The thin hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I reveled in the familiar feeling. “Come on closer and I’ll toss it to you…”

Chapter Six

I resisted the urge to kick the unconscious man in the stomach just because I could. It really wasn’t the hero thing to do. Instead I rolled him onto his side, checked his breathing and emptied his pockets of about fifty dollars. My conscience didn’t give me much grief about taking the money. I still had no identification or cash, and while I wasn’t that worried about being stopped for ID, I was definitely going to need some cash in the future. Jessie and David could only do so much.

Thankfully there was already some pedestrian traffic as I walked out onto Queen Street, looking as inconspicuous as possible. I had taken off my jacket and let my hair fly free. My gloves were stuffed back into my jacket pockets, giving me a bit more freedom with my hands but a little less ability to channel my power.

A thick-set heavy man bumped into me as I strode along the sidewalk. “Sorry.” His words were slurred, though he didn’t smell of alcohol. “Sorry,” he repeated.

“It’s okay.” I inwardly flinched as he lifted his hand towards my arm then dropped it again.

“I’m tired.” He smiled at me, sending a shiver up my spine—the sort you get when you meet the neighborhood’s dirty old man at your open house. “I think I need to get a coffee.” A fat thumb jabbed towards the coffee shop. “Buy me a drink?”

I put on my best “you’ve got to be kidding me” face. “Sorry, buddy, I’ve already got a breakfast date.”

The short, overweight man leaned in closer, his undersized T-shirt exposing a few more inches of hairy skin than I was comfortable with. “I really think you should have a drink with me.”

He stretched out a hand to a paper cup sitting haphazardly on the newspaper box next to us. It melted under his touch, curling into a small flaming pile of cardboard. He slapped it down with his hand, putting it out. “You wanna talk now?”