Just Cause Universe 3: Day of the Destroyer (13 page)

Faith glanced over at Sundancer. Sparks of barely-restrained fury danced in the young woman’s eyes. “Let me propose a scenario, Agent Simmons. Suppose your all-American farmboy here decided to get a little drunk, which I see was included in the autopsy report, and got a little too free with his hands. He takes Gumm out to his secluded area and forces himself on her. But he doesn’t know she’s a parahuman, and she exacts fatal revenge on him for his act. Does that fit into your world view?”

Simmons sniffed in disdain. “I’m not going to be lectured by a
Playboy
bunny. This is a Federal murder investigation and I won’t have you making a mockery of it.”

“Be that as it may,” growled Lionheart, trying to restore order to the meeting. “She’s your primary suspect. Why is that, and what’s she doing in New York?”

“I’ll take this one,” said Stull. “Her parents were concerned when she never came home after work two days ago, and called the police. By then, Milbrook’s body had been found and we were looking for suspects. We questioned several of Gumm’s friends, but none of them had any idea where she’d gone. We checked local bus and train schedules and found a potential match. Further questioning of the driver and ticket agent in Des Moines confirmed that she bought a one-way ticket to New York City.”

“All right, it certainly sounds like she’s a good suspect,” said Faith. “But here’s the thing. Imp and I interviewed the driver of the bus she was on, and he said she had a bruised eye. Maybe she was acting in self defense.”

Stull made a dismissive wave. “I don’t care. That doesn’t excuse the fact that she used parahuman powers to kill. That much is clear-cut. If she was defending herself, that’s something for the lawyers to determine.”

“That’s why we’re enlisting your help,” said Simmons. “As parahumans yourselves, you may have insights about where she might have gone or who she might have talked to. And if we have to take her down, it would be good to have you for backup.”

“Nobody’s taking anybody down until we know what’s going on,” said Lionheart.

“Maybe if we talked to her friends,” said Sundancer.

“We’ve already interviewed her friends,” grumbled Stull.

“They may be protecting her. You guys do come across as pretty heavy-handed,” said Faith. “I think Sundancer’s right.”

“I can fly you and Sundancer to Dyersville to continue the investigation as you are the two lightest team members currently present,” said the Steel Soldier.

“I can fly myself,” Sundancer said.

“At supersonic speeds, I can travel there in approximately ninety minutes, even burdened with two passengers.”

Faith turned to Lionheart. “It would make sense for us to get some feet on the ground there. Maybe we can find out something that the kids won’t tell the Feds.”

He nodded. “Do it.”

The Steel Soldier whirred into a higher level of activity. “I possess two cases in which you will be protected from wind and friction. They will be cramped, but I understand humans can endure discomfort for certain amounts of time.”

Faith sighed. “Steel, I’m sure glad you’re not a doctor, because if you were, you’d have a lousy bedside manner.”

#

Harlan trudged into Gonsalvo’s shop, pushing his bent bicycle. His stomach churned from the blood he’d swallowed and his ribs ached from repeated kicks.

“
Madre de dios
! What happened to you?” A surprised Gonsalvo dropped the wrench he was holding when he saw Harlan.

“I fell off my bike,” said Harlan. “And then it got hit by a car.”

Gonsalvo looked from the twisted frame of the bike to the bruises on Harlan’s face and shook his head sadly. “The girl from Con Ed left you a note. They got another service call and had to leave.”

Harlan sniffled a little and tasted blood. “I’d have come back sooner if I could.” He took the note and read through it twice to make sure he didn’t miss any hidden meaning. All it said was that Gretchen was sorry she’d missed him. If he’d leave her a pass and his phone number, she’d pick it up later from Gonsalvo and call Harlan to work out a time to visit Just Cause. That way he wouldn’t have to wait around for her.

Harlan closed his eyes. He felt like he was being kicked in the head all over again. Didn’t Gretchen understand how important she was to him? Obviously not. He’d have to take steps to show her, to prove himself to her. First, he’d have to get the Con Ed truck back out to the neighborhood, and he knew exactly what that would take. He folded the note with care and tucked it into a grimy pocket. “Can I use your tools and the Parts Room to fix my bike?” he asked Gonsalvo.

“Go ahead.” The mechanic leaned under the hood of a Datsun. “You need me, I’m out here.”

Harlan wheeled his battered bicycle into the back of the shop. He did not intend to repair it until later. He needed parts from it to make the creation that kept battering the inside of his skull, begging him to build it.

A broken power drill became a handle and trigger mechanism. The rails from adjustable bucket seats transformed into a framework. Harlan cannibalized the battery pack from his bike and installed it where the drill’s original battery had been. His would be much more powerful for this application. He set about wrapping coils of wire around some flat pieces of metal to make magnets.

Filtered sunlight crawled across the Parts Room floor as Harlan’s device took shape. He mounted the magnets in a series along the frame rails and connected them through the trigger to the battery. He thumbed off the safety, pulled the trigger, and was rewarded with a humming sound. The magnetic field made his skin feel funny and his vision blurred for a moment. If he was going to use this device more than a couple times, he’d want to install some shielding around it. But for now, this was a quick, jerry-rigged invention. He’d make it better in later designs.

Harlan took up Gonsalvo’s grinder and a flat metal disc. He shaped it into a crescent moon and sharpened the inner edge to a razor’s thickness. Using solder, he thickened it just behind the blade edge so it’d fly like an airfoil and then tack-welded a length of copper welding rod to the outside. The whole affair looked like a toy magic wand when he was finished.

A few minutes of additional work and he had a small windshield-wiper motor installed as a quick-release clip to hold the blade-wand in place. Time to test his invention. He slid the wand into the device’s barrel where it snapped into place, held tight by the washer motor clip. The crescent-shaped blade airfoil poked out of the snout. He shook the weapon to test it but the wand didn’t fall out. So far, so good. He raised the weapon, sighted down the rails toward a discolored spot on the cinder block wall, released the muzzle catch, and pulled the trigger.

The magnets hummed, his ears popped, and the wand disappeared from Harlan’s view with a sound like paper tearing. A loud bang resounded through the Parts Room as cinder block chips exploded outward.

“Harlan? You all right in there?” called Gonsalvo from out front.

“Yeah. I dropped something.” Harlan lowered his weapon and hurried to look at the wall.

He’d blown a fist-sized hole through the cinderblocks, and dusty sunlight shone through it. The hole sat at the center of a crater the size of a trashcan lid. Harlan gaped in astonishment at the effectiveness of his weapon. A world of possibilities opened up to him as he cradled his new toy like a proud father. He could see so many uses for it, so many things he could do with it to impress Gretchen.

First, he had to get her back into the area. Harlan shuffled some shelves and boxes around to hide the hole in the Parts Room wall as best he could so Gonsalvo wouldn’t notice. He shoved his battered bike far under a table. He had time to make more of the blade-wand projectiles, and ideas for improvements to the gun flooded his brain thick and fast. A strap. A quick reload mechanism. A targeting sight. All those things could wait until later, for he had far more urgent tasks.

Destruction whispered its seductive poetry into his ear.

#

Javier lived in a high-rise apartment in Manhattan. Tommy flew to the building’s roof, which was a maze of flower and vegetable gardens and bird coops. A few of the building’s tenants were on the roof, enjoying the sun and slight breeze of the higher altitude. They stared as the winds deposited Tommy in their midst.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Has Javelin been by here?”

An older man with a salt and pepper beard nodded and spoke with a mild German accent. “I saw him this morning when I was feeding my birds.”

Tommy thanked him, signed a few autographs, and headed down a flight of steps to the elevator lobby. Javier lived two floors down in a large apartment. Tommy had never been inside, but he’d seen enough through the door before to recognize it was a typical bachelor pad.

The door to the apartment hung open several inches.

Tommy’s heart started to pound harder. Had something happened to Javier? Out of his armor, he wasn’t anything more than a man, and crime could strike at any time in New York. Tommy stepped into the apartment, gathering up whirling spheres of air in his hands, just in case. He became aware of a sour stink in the air, like rancid milk. The heat was stifling with no air conditioning. The ceiling fans hung still in the quiet air.

“Javier?” Tommy looked around. The large, overstuffed couch had a large puddle of drying puke spread across a cushion and running onto the shag carpet. A half-empty bottle of Scotch sat on the coffee table amid some lipstick-stained glasses and a mirror to which clung a few random flakes of cocaine. Javier’s armor lay in a haphazard pile in a corner of the room near the minibar.

Tommy glanced into the kitchen area but saw nothing but some cartons of old Chinese food congealing onto the counter. He hurried into the back bedroom area of the apartment, fearing the worst.

He found Javier sprawled across the hall. Foamy, pinkish vomit leaked from his mouth and nose and his complexion had gone ashen underneath his normal olive skin tone.

Tommy cursed and yanked off his gloves to check for life signs. Javier’s pulse was weak and seemed too slow to be safe, and his breathing bordered on catatonic.

Using his fine control of air currents, Tommy raised Javier up on a cushion of air, face down, and tilted so his head was lower than his torso. He used a gentle stream of air pressure to force Javier’s lungs clear, inflating them to push out syrupy hunks of bloodstained phlegm. He wished he could keep Javier breathing, but Tommy didn’t have enough control to maintain Javier’s breath and perform the intricate procedure he was about to attempt. Javier would have to breathe on his own for a few minutes, because the next part would be even more unpleasant. While maintaining the air cushion under his teammate, Tommy forced another stream of air in through Javier’s mouth, pushing it past his throat and esophagus into the man’s stomach. He couldn’t see what he was doing and had to estimate distances. If he guessed wrong, he could rupture an intestine.

Air flowed into Javier’s belly and pushed out the slurry of alcohol, bile, undigested pills, and other foulness onto the rug. The odor made Tommy gag. It took all his strength to keep down his Monte Cristo as he blew Javier into the bathroom. He set the man into the bathtub and stripped him down to his underwear. Under ordinary circumstances, Tommy would have taken a moment to appreciate Javier’s well-defined body, but nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He turned on the shower full blast. Javier jerked a little as the cold stream hit him. He groaned, coughed, and dry-heaved, but he had nothing left to throw up.

Now that the immediate emergency was past, Tommy realized he was boiling mad. “You stupid son of a bitch,” he yelled over the hiss of the shower. “What did you take? How much? You almost died, you shithead!” Tears of fury ran down his cheeks. “This isn’t how we’re supposed to be!” He sank down on the toilet and put his head in his hands. “This isn’t how we’re supposed to be,” he repeated in a whisper.

“T-Tommy?” Javier’s voice barely carried across the bathroom. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“Saving your life, you asshole.”

“’M all wet,” Javier mumbled. “’N’ sleepy.”

Tommy fled the bathroom, unable to look at his teammate. He retreated to the kitchen in search of cleaning supplies. He found some spray cleaner and set about dealing with the stains. Every few minutes he checked on Javier. The man had passed out, but was breathing on his own as the shower beat down on him.

The worst of the vomit cleaned up, Tommy dumped the whole mass of sodden paper towels and linens down the garbage chute. Javier could buy himself new ones. Using his powers, Tommy dried the carpet in seconds, and then collected Javier from the shower. .He stripped Javier’s dripping underwear off and used his powers to blow the man dry.

“Don’ touch me, you fag,” mumbled Javier.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” Tommy wrapped a towel around Javier’s waist. “You’re out of your head.”

Javier retched once but nothing came up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’ feel so good.”

Tommy half-led, half-carried Javier to the bedroom. “You’re lucky to be alive, you asshole.” He laid Javier down on top of the covers.

“Tommy?” Javier shut his eyes. “Thanks. You’re a good friend.” He hiccuped once. “Ev’n for a fag.”

Tommy sighed and called back to headquarters to report in.