Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (18 page)

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Owen’s mouth hung open as he drew closer to the section of city scarred from battle. Even blocks away he could see the wreckage: shattered glass, overturned cars, huge dents in the ground where large objects had clearly struck. No wonder this was a large-scale evacuation; he was only at the fringes and the place looked like hell. The gang they took down must have been incredibly powerful.

“Dispatch, this is Titan.” He didn’t slow down as he spoke, easily hurdling minor obstacles without so much as missing a step.

“Dispatch recognizes Titan.” She was there, ready as always, just waiting for him to say her name.

“I’m meeting my PEERS team and heading to respond to the evacuation caused by some dickhead Supers and Wild Bucks.”

“So they reported in.” Dispatch wasn’t particularly curt with her reply, or even sarcastic. Like nearly everything she said, it was factual and detached. Strangely, it made her one of the easiest people most Heroes had in their lives to talk to.

“I’m getting first sight on the level of destruction and it’s a damn wreck. What were the Class Assessments on the gang they fought?” Owen jogged by the remains of what had probably been a small storefront, but was now so crushed it was impossible to say for sure.

“The Supers that Wild Bucks faced were ranked as follows: one NTC Class and three Standard Class. Abilities were determined to be: one healer, one advanced mind, and two shifters.”

Owen put his foot down so hard with the next step that he accidently shattered a piece of already broken street. He must have heard her wrong; that was the only viable explanation.

“Dispatch, confirm, did you say an advanced mind and two shifters, all Standard Class, caused this much destruction in their neutralization?”

“Correct.” Her voice held no judgment in its calm, slightly-accented tones, but only because that’s who she was. For someone like Owen, looking at the devastation caused, it was impossible to remain quite so detached.

Owen was getting closer now and beginning notice things like smashed out corners of buildings, ones that had thankfully already been tagged as clear. The big white spray-painted “X” was an easy visual marker, saving him from having to radio in about every leaning structure he came across.

“Dispatch, what was the civilian causality count from this operation?”

“Final tally will not be available until the evacuation is completed.”

“Give me current total.”

“Five confirmed, with three more in critical condition.”

“Thank you, Dispatch.”

Owen nearly panted out those last words, his breath suddenly short for reasons that had nothing to do with physical exertion. Five dead in taking down four Supers who didn’t rate above standard class, not to mention countless dollars in destruction. This wasn’t like with the robots, when everyone was doing the best they could just to neutralize the threat. Three Standards and an NTC, none with particularly rare abilities, should be a breeze for
any
Hero team, regardless of their composition.

Five dead, three hanging on, and God only knew how many people trapped or in danger, waiting to be evacuated. There was no way the DVA wouldn’t be digging into this one, and with good damn reason. Topsy’s team had fucked up royally, and they had to be held accountable for it. As Owen glanced around one more time, surveying the wreckage around him that had once been a neighborhood, he was struck with a single overwhelming sentiment:

The DVA was going to have to get in line behind him.

That would come later. Right now there were people in danger, innocents who had nothing to do with the situation currently threatening their lives. They mattered more than anything, and it was time to finally start using his powers like a Hero.

Titan put on an extra burst of speed, bearing down on the destroyed area with all the unstoppability of a derailed freight train.

32.

               Titan found his team just as Galvanize was returning to them from a small cluster of men also wearing masks and capes. The number of unfamiliar uniforms and intensity of the situation made it impossible to determine who was a Hero and who was a corpie, but Titan realized that for the first time, he honestly didn’t give a shit about the distinction. Everyone was here to help. That was the only thing that mattered.

“Listen up,” Galvanize said, addressing his team with clear, ringing authority. He might be a nice guy, but now was not the time for kindness. Now was the time for straightforward orders and prompt obedience. “Afterthought is currently sweeping for minds of people who are trapped, and Scope is using his senses to find the ones who are unconscious. They’re on point for this recovery and directing all efforts, so if they give you an order, you carry it out. Understood?”

Most of the team nodded, except for Titan, who said, “Yes, sir.” In another situation, one of the others might have ribbed him a bit for the over-enthusiasm, but now each was focused on receiving his or her assignment.

“Hexcellent, you and Huggles are needed to help open up cars with people stuck inside. Switch to Big Henry if the situation demands it, but when you run low on juice, stay with Huggles. We’ve got plenty of heavy lifters but a pair of blades is always handy.” Galvanize pointed the leather-clad girl toward a group gathering near a flipped food truck, and she took off without a word.

“Bubble Bubble, you’re helping with evacuating people from higher floors of unstable buildings. Airborn is coordinating, so go to her and follow her directions. If she finishes her operation, come to me for a new assignment.”

“Absolutely,” Bubble Bubble replied, moving briskly off toward a nearby woman who was hovering a foot or two from the ground.

“Zone, you’re with Titan on rubble-clearing duty, and I’m going to stay with Scope and Afterthought to direct us.”

“But-”

“This is not up for discussion,” Galvanize said, eyes hard as he stared at the muscular young man. After a moment, he spoke again, and this time his voice had softened just a touch. “Zone, we need someone who’s on our radio with them so they can tell us where to dig people out. I’ve only got moderate strength, nothing beyond the human spectrum, and no one who is out there needs my enhancing ability. I know you two don’t get along, but right now I don’t care about your feelings. Real people are out there waiting for us, and if we piss away time on petty bullshit, we might not get to them in time. Do we have a problem?”

“No. . . sir.” Zone didn’t break eye contact with Galvanize, but his shoulders dipped and his chest moved inward as he conceded the battle.

“Good. Move to that building immediately,” Galvanize said, pointing to a five-story brick building with a massive hole in the center. “The insides have been severely damaged, and with the breaks in the exterior as well, we’re not sure how long before the whole thing comes crashing down. Zone, you go to the area directly southeast of it; you’ll recognize it by the giant pile of bricks. We’ve got confirmed people in there who need help. Titan, you’re going into the building itself to grab a few people stuck in tight areas. Is it an issue if the building collapses on you?”

“Not for me, but I’d only be able to shield so many people nearby,” Titan said. Depending on the size of the people in question, he could usually handle anywhere between two and four adults, though tending to that many would make getting out with them nearly impossible.

“Okay, I’ll keep your groups small. Get in there and wait for direction. Move quickly. If the building drops, we’re estimating it will hit a lot of nearby workers on the way down, so Crush is going to implode it once it’s evacuated. Don’t be dumb, but don’t dilly-dally either."

“On it.” Titan headed off toward the building. It felt strangely familiar, drawing close to a place impending collapse. His team might not have spent a lot of time on cleanup, but they made damned sure to clear out everyone put in danger by one of their fights.

The low, simmering anger that Wild Bucks had kindled flared up again. All this damage, and where were those little shits to help? It was possible they’d already been hauled off to DVA questioning, but he doubted it. Powerful as the Department of Variant Human Affairs was, they were still a government agency, and those things were simply not built to run with that much efficiency. No, more likely they were too ashamed to show their faces at this scene. He hoped Topsy was tearing them a new asshole right now. Despite being the guy they called in when they had to take a “scorched earth” approached to a target, Topsy had always been good about keeping the destruction he caused contained. That was a lesson that needed to get passed on to his trainees, and fast.

Titan came around the corner, walking up to the building to find another man standing there, his head tilted in the way common to one listening to an earpiece. He had to be a shifter; he was wearing a skintight costume made of the telltale shimmery fabric designed to accommodate altered forms. It was useful as hell, invented by some tech-genius before Titan’s time. The material was able to stretch to accommodate all manner of sizes, but it was a pain in the ass to get any sort of stain out of. That probably explained why this guy had opted for a black version. He might be able to get at least a few wears out of a single suit of the stuff.

The man glanced over his shoulder as Titan approached. “You’re the other guy?”

“Didn’t know I was, but it seems like I am.”

“Just got updated with new orders from Scope. I’m supposed to secure the bottom floor as best I can while you go up to the higher ones.”

“I’m a pretty heavy guy,” Titan said. If the interior was that damaged then every pound of difference mattered.

“In my shifted form, my weight is measured in tons.”

“Ground floor for you it is.” Titan stuck out his meaty hand in greeting. “I’m Titan, pleasure to work with you.”

The man in black shiny material laughed, even as he shook Titan’s hand. “I already know who you are. My name is Granite; I’m the strongman from Elemental Fury.”

33.

“That a fact? I didn’t recognize you outside your shifted form.” Titan kept a close watch on Granite’s face as they finished the handshake. Teams were complicated entities; in order to function, every member had to be completely loyal to one another. That didn’t mean they had to agree all the time, though. Granite would back Gale in any moves she made against Titan, but that didn’t mean he necessarily harbored any personal animosity toward the older Hero.

“I try not to get photographed in human form, even with the mask. If I can pull it off then retirement will be a lot easier.” Granite released Titan’s hand, his own eyes clearly scrutinizing the other man as well. “Trying to figure out if I dislike you as much as Gale does?”

“Obviously.”

Granite laughed, a deep, booming sound so cheerful that it seemed incongruous against the chaos around them. “Don’t mind Gale. She’s a little tightly wound. In the last few years some high profile Heroes have come out of Brewster, folks who moved up to bigger cities and better merchandising sales. That’s great for them, but the fact that they’ve all come from here means a lot of new or overambitious Heroes have been migrating to our town, trying to use it as a career springboard.”

At last, the pieces of Gale’s behavior fell into place for Titan. When a city had a lot of well-known Heroes coming out of it, it was considered “hot.” Hot cities were a double-edged sword. Not many truly skilled criminal Supers tried to start shit in them for fear of meeting too strong of opposition, but it also drew the sort of Heroes who were desperate to get bigger in the public eye. Those were the Heroes who made dangerous mistakes and took stupid risks, doing things that got innocent people killed. No wonder Gale had been on such a hair trigger about him coming to her town; if she was already dealing with a bunch of upstarts, the last thing she needed was someone with his profile doing the same thing. It would validate their behavior, invigorate them, and lead to even more reckless choices.

“Should I bother telling you that’s not what I’m here to do, or is it wasting my words?” Titan asked.

“I already know that you aren’t in Brewster for anything PR-related,” Granite assured him. “For one thing, you’re fucking Titan. You were back in the public eye as soon as you put the mask on. For another, Brewster is hot right now, but you don’t need hot. You could have walked into any city in the continental USA and been huge. And lastly, I mean, come on. You’re shepherding a team of corpies around. That is not the action of an overly ambitious man.”

“Glad at least someone on your team believes me.”

“More than you might think. Of course, you know that won’t affect anything.”

“Of course,” Titan said. Whether Granite believed him to be an attention-seeking ass was irrelevant. Gale was going to order her team to come at him hard during the ability assessment, and they would all obey. She was their leader, they were on a team, and short of a severe moral conflict with her orders, they would follow her without question. Titan not only understood that, he respected it completely.

“Titan, stand by for entry. You’ve got a third en route.” Galvanize’s voice crackled over the radio in Titan’s ear, more strained than it had sounded when they’d last spoken.