Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (11 page)

“Titan, are you able to take assignments?”

He didn’t jump in surprise at Dispatch’s voice humming in his ear this time; maybe he would get the hang of this again sooner than he thought. By plugging his earpiece in that morning, he’d put himself on the grid of Heroes without going officially active. While he didn’t anticipate a need so great they had to rally coverage, it was still his obligation to be prepared for such things.

Owen pulled a cell phone from his pocket and stuck it to his ear before he spoke. No need to make people worry that the enormous, muscle-bound man was also having a psychotic break. “I’m working as a Hero Liaison right now, so I’m not taking assignments unless there’s a severe shortage or tremendous threat. Then I’ll do my part.”

A slight pause came before Dispatch's reply. “Status recorded. There is a disturbance some distance from you. It is escalating, but the responding Heroes are establishing control. Should you be needed, teleportation will be arranged. If you hear nothing from me in the next fifteen minutes, consider the issue resolved.”

“Gotcha. What is this situation, anyway?”

“Mechanical constructs with capable weaponry and high levels of adaptability. Appeared and began wreaking property damage roughly ten minutes ago in the south-western area of the city. Elemental Fury has now arrived on the scene and diminished their numbers by forty percent. Likelihood of your needed intervention is dropping, but stay ready.”

“Of course.”

Owen put the phone away since their conversation had momentarily ended. Dispatch wasn’t really gone; she never stopped being right there. She was simply not talking, at least to him. If Elemental Fury, Gale’s team, was as good as their reputation then he probably wouldn’t be needed. Even knowing that, Owen looked around to find the most likely route of entrance for a teleporter to take. In a real battle, nothing was ever certain, no matter how good the Heroes were.

Hexcellent looked up from her crowd and flashed him a pained oh-god-how-much-longer-do-I have-to-do-this grin. He responded with a small wave, doing all he could to tamp down the sudden spike of pre-battle anxiety rising in his gut.

18.

               When Dispatch’s voice crackled in Owen’s ear, they were outside the mall, only a few yards from the town car that would whisk them away to their next location.

“Titan, you have hostile constructs closing on your location. Elemental Fury led the counterattack to wipe out the first wave, but a second appeared and scattered in various directions. One cluster is on a path that will intersect with your location in less than five minutes. Can you respond?”

Owen had stopped walking when he heard Dispatch speak, causing Hexcellent to shoot him a look of confusion. He held up one finger, gave a small shrug of apology, then replied to Dispatch.

“I can. One the Supers from my PEERS team is with me; do we have time to get her clear?”

“Negative. The constructs caused several accidents, leading to traffic congestion on every applicable route to safety. We have responders working on clearing roads, but until they’re done, getting in a car will put her at higher risk.”

“Excuse me, did you just ask if I could ‘get clear’?” Hexcellent said, narrowing her eyes and sticking a hand on her hip. “If something’s going down, I’m one of the people helping, remember, dipshit?”

“We’ve got robots or something like it less than five minutes away. If they come, it’s possible they’ll go after you, and I don’t want to get you in trouble for engaging in combat,” Owen explained. “Unfortunately the roads are jammed, so you’re stuck here.”

“Well, that sucks. But they’re coming to us, right?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“Then if I get attacked I can respond in self-defense. Just because we can’t start shit doesn’t mean we can’t end it when some other douchenozzle does.” A wry, daring smile lit up her face at the prospect of sanctioned battle. Owen again found himself wondering why a woman like this hadn’t found her way into the HCP. It was a curiosity that would have to be sated another time.

“All right, I’m ready to respond and I’ve got a PEERS with me to help with the civilians. What can you tell me about these things?” He turned away from Hexcellent, not because he thought his words would in any way be muffled, but rather as a polite way of indicating that he wasn’t speaking to her. Dispatch didn’t require any such indicators; she always knew what was external conversation and what was meant for her. It was one of the many strange, yet useful, aspects of the mysterious voice.

“You have four heading toward your location. They have strength and resilience on par with a Standard Class strongman, laser weaponry on par with a Standard Class blaster, and reaction speed at elevated-human levels.”

“If that’s all there is then I don’t see why they caused such trouble,” Owen prodded.

“They also show adaptability to tactics, learning from the mistakes of others. Given your skillset, I do not foresee it being an issue. The other unique capability of these constructs is that they show minor regeneration. Disabled units would reenter combat after being left alone for some time. They cannot heal beyond complete dismemberment or destruction, however.”

Owen stretched out his arms, tensing every muscle from his shoulder to his fingers. After a moment, he rose up on his toes, adding his legs to the procedure. He felt the mild strain in his tendons, and for an instant he was intimately aware of every fiber of muscle in his massive body. Ever-so-slowly, he released the stretch, pulling his arms back in and lowering down on his feet. It should only be a minute or so now.

“Hit them hard, hit them fast, and don’t stop until they are scrap. That it?”

“That will neutralize the threat. We have others trying to gain information out of their wreckage and systems, but I’m aware your talents lie in other directions. They have continued on their current course and will be breaking into your line of sight momentarily.”

With a squint of his eyes, Owen could make out the shimmering shapes of four sizable humanoids running toward him. They were big, probably a little taller than he was. Not that it would help them. He pulled back his left leg and judged the distance. It had been a while since he’d pulled this trick; Owen hoped he hadn’t lost the touch.

“Am I finally going to see the legendary Titan let loose on some motherfuckers?” Hexcellent’s tone was light but she’d positioned herself several feet behind him. Her attention was split, eyes darting between her teammate and the mall entrance where shoppers were already beginning to line up and point.

“I’ll do my best to put on a good show, but to be honest, this is probably going to be a pretty boring fight. Stay ready, though; if any of them get past me, you’ll have to draw attention from the humans.”

“Big Henry ain’t exactly a subtle sumnabitch, if you hadn’t noticed,” Hexcellent replied. She hadn’t summoned any of her demons yet, but Owen had seen how quickly she could pull them. It was the right call; bringing them out might panic the civilians. Best to let him settle things quickly.

With a nod to Hexcellent and a minor grunt born more out of habit than effort, Owen pushed against the concrete with enough power that it cracked under his boots. The force of the jump sent him sailing forward in an arc more long than high, carrying him across the parking lot to where four metal behemoths were just arriving on the asphalt.

Whether by luck or skill, Owen hit his mark dead-on, landing only a few feet away from the cluster of constructs. The concrete sprayed them as he effortlessly tore through it upon landing. Before any of them had a chance to register him as a threat, Owen sprang. He darted up to the two on the left and slammed a hand into the torso of each. Flexing his fingers, he easily shredded their armored facades and gripped the firm inner workings that kept them moving.

His guess had been close on their size; each was nearly half a foot taller than he was. Despite this, he showed no apparent effort as he lifted the two constructs off the ground, spread his arms, and then clapped them together like two high-tech tambourines. Sparks and shards of metal rained down on Owen, who ignored it all just as he’d been ignoring the flailing blows that the two bots had been pelting him with since he arrived. He pulled them apart and banged them together again, and again, and again. After the fourth strike there was barely enough left to hold, let alone smash, so he dropped the remains of his first victims and turned to the other two.

This was the first time Owen got a good look at them, as he’d deformed the ones he held too quickly to get a mental picture. Each one possessed a small, dome-like head, as though someone had spray-painted a bowl and turned it upside down. They had awkward, triangular torsos and forearms that were vastly oversized and out of proportion. That anomaly explained itself quickly, as the one on his right raised its hands and fired red beams at Owen’s chest.

He’d forgotten Dispatch’s warning about the lasers. Owen dashed forward to the one attacking him, ignoring the slightly-singed smell of roasting costume, and grabbed it by one of its triangular shoulders. If the robot had the capability of feeling surprise, it certainly didn’t get an opportunity to do so. With his other hand snaring its waist, Owen ripped the metal warrior in half as easily as one would tear serrated paper. Just for good measure, he quickly tore it into a few more pieces before scattering the remains about with a whip of his arm.

Spinning on his heel, he found the last one shuffling on its feet. Dispatch had said these things learned and were adaptable. It was probably trying to compute a strategy to overcome him.

“Good luck with that,” Owen chuckled. The robot stopped shuffling for the barest of instants, and Owen pounced.

It was too bad, really. He had wanted to put on a better first exhibition for his new teammate.

19.

               “Are you completely invulnerable or some shit?”

Hexcellent had been largely silent after they had calmed the civilians and let a DVA cleanup team grab the robot scrap. She’d mostly just been skimming her phone and throwing occasional, furtive glances his way until they had hopped into the town car waiting to take them to their next destination.

“No one is truly invulnerable,” Owen told her. How many times had he used those words? Not only to fans or interviewers, but to upcoming Supers who hadn’t yet learned how important a lesson that was.

“Yeah, you say that, but those robo-douches were whaling on you the whole time you had them, and one hit you full-force with lasers that could tear through concrete and steel. That seems pretty invulnerable to me.”

“I never said I wasn’t tough; that’s part of my power. Invulnerable implies beyond all means of injury, and no one has that ability. No matter who you are, no matter how strong your power, we all have a weakness.” Owen paused for a moment and considered her words. “Wait, how do you know what their lasers could do?”

Hexcellent waved her phone, which was really no more than a big screen, in his face. “It’s all over the web. Those things did a shitload of damage before Heroes got there, and even then managed to put a few out of the fight. You went through them like Thai food through Zone.”

Owen scrunched his brow in response.

“Oh, right, you haven’t been here for Pan-Asian cuisine night. Just be glad we all have our own bathrooms. Also, the point was that you fucking wrecked them.”

“I had the benefit of knowledge on my side. The others went in blind, but I got to know what they could and couldn’t do. That let me tackle them efficiently, without having to worry about them secretly being explosive or having enough firepower to bring me down. First response is always the hardest, most dangerous work,” Owen explained.

“Yeah, I get it, humility, politeness, and blah blah blah. Did they at least get all of those things?”

“They did.” When Owen had told Dispatch about bringing his down, she’d updated him on the rest of the threat. The second wave had been smaller and less organized than the first; by the time a crew was picking up the remains of his fight, the rest had already been terminated.

“What do you think they wanted, anyway? To rob the food court?”

“Honestly, I think they were a test run,” Owen replied.

“Wait, that was a fucking beta trial?”

“It’s my theory.” Owen glanced out the window, marveling at how quickly they’d gotten the messes cleaned up and traffic flowing. “Those things were strong, but they had some serious design flaws. Add in the lack of a clear objective, and it points to someone seeing how his first batch of bots stacked up against the town’s Heroes. You’d be surprised how many tech-genius Supers use the exact same opening gambit.”

“Oooh, or what if the robots sprang to life and got away from him? They surged out of the laboratory, hell-bent on destruction of the human world. Titan, you may have just helped stop the robot-apocalypse.” Hexcellent reached over and patted him on the head, stretching her long arms to their limit. “Good boy.”

“You just pretty much drift along in your own world, don’t you?”

“I’m a quasi-celebrity. I think we can both agree that’s my right.” Hexcellent stopped patting as the town car whispered up to a curb. Before she could reach the handle, the door swung open and a hand literally covered in tattoos reached in. It delicately took Hexcellent’s hand and helped pull her out of the vehicle as Owen emerged on his own side.