New Markets - 02 (45 page)

Firebane folded her umbrella as we approached her.  She wore the same workout spandex with a flame design as she had on the other day.  At least her uniform wasn't all wet, as mine still was.

I hugged her lightly in greeting, trying not to get her soaked too.  Rael shook her hand.

Firebane asked, "So what are we doing at the hospital?"

I replied, "I came here to show Agent Willman the printouts from the web - oh, damnit.  I forgot them at home."

Rael looked at me, wondering what I'd forgotten.

I said, "The auction website for the supers, I have printouts of it at home."

He said, "Can't we just give them the web address to punch up on a browser?"

"The computer guys didn't sound like that would work, they had to go through some other site to get to it, so a simple search couldn't find it."

"Hmm, well, it's not like it takes you long to fly somewhere and back."

I gave him a forlorn look.  "They'd get soaked, well, I would as well.  I'm kind of getting tired of flying through the rain constantly."

"Yeah, running through it does the same thing."

Firebane said, "Why didn't you guys just drive a car here?"

Rael said, "Well, that's not a very hero-like thing to do, now is it?"

Firebane snorted in reply.  "Okay, be all wet then.  Plus, why wouldn't you just put the papers in a zip-lock baggie?"

Well, that's a good idea.

I sighed, "Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes."  I walked out into the entranceway, looked up at the cloudy sky and made a face at it.  Then I walked out into the rain, stepped up into the air and jabbed my knee up to shoot into the sky.

It only took a minute or so to fly back to my home from Iron Cross.  I ran inside, dried off my arms with a towel, and took out the paperwork from my backpack.

I put them in a plastic bag in the kitchen, sealed it shut, and left the house quickly.  I flew back to the hospital and landed right by the front entrance. 

A woman with a teenage son jumped when I appeared next to them.  My flight down had been concealed by their umbrella.  I stepped up by the building until they entered ahead of me, then I followed.

Rael waited for me in the entranceway.  I noticed that he stood with arms crossed and appeared to be trying to look cool.  Then I noticed the people in the lobby stealing glances at him. 
He’s playing up to the crowd, nice.
  He held out a towel as I walked up to him.  Firebane seemed oblivious to them, and had been staring out the doorway while waiting for me.

I grinned, "Thanks."

"It helps having contacts here."

His memory of Kim came to mind.  I said, "Tell Kim thanks for me the next time you see her."

Once I dried off we walked back to the elevator leading to the secured level.  We took the elevator up and went through the guards checking our ID yet again on the level with the supers.

I found Agent Willman going through some reports on the bed of an unused room near the elevator.  His eyebrow raised at the sight of Firebane.

I set the baggie with the papers on an open part of the bed.  I said, "You'll find this interesting, I think.  It turns out whoever is behind this is running an auction website to sell off the supers being kidnapped."

He quickly opened the bag and looked through the papers.  "How did you get this?"

"I know some computer people, they did some digging for me and found it."

"Well … surprisingly nice work.  So now we know why the kidnappings are happening.  The next question is who."

"Is that enough for your computer people to hunt down and start investigating?"

"I believe so."  He rapidly perused the sheets as we spoke.  After a moment he said, "Did you see this line here?  They are capable of wiping their minds?"

"I saw it.  We're going to try to find them and go after them.  Now we have to worry not only about them getting sold soonish, but they might wipe their minds out of retribution."

He nodded, "I agree."

"Okay then, you do that, we're going to try our own method of finding them.  Even if we free the captives we need to find out who is behind it all, and that website is probably the best lead for that."

He took out his cell phone and snapped pictures of each of the pages as I spoke.  "I'll send these now to my team to get to work on it."

I left the room, noticing that Rael and Firebane just followed me around.  I smiled at the thought.  I stopped at the front desk and asked where the nearest unused room would be on this level.  She pointed at it.  I thanked her and I led my group into it, shutting the door behind us.

I said, "Okay, Firebane, you know the place to the northwest where you found a group of supers?  Can you check in that area again to see if they are still there?"

She nodded.  Her eyes lit up, she glanced for a moment back and forth at Rael and I, then she stared off into space.  Her thoughts told me that she first detected those nearby, and detected me, but not Rael.  As we'd debated before, he must have some form of stealth power.

While waiting for her I said to Rael, "Her look there was about you.  She can detect other supers, but not you for some reason."

"Hmph.  Cool."

"Yeah, well, don't get captured again - she can't find you for us."

"Oh, you're just dripping with confidence in me, Steph, thanks a lot."

"Psystar."

"Oh, yeah.  Sorry."

Firebane said, "No, I'm not detecting any supers there any more.  Again, there aren't a lot of groups of us in the city ... there.  Found a ... wait...."

Firebane's mindview looked odd while she did these searches.  Instead of the normal 'camera through the eyes' appearance I normally had, it was totally replaced with a large black area, with points of light apparently centered around her.  I was unsure how she was able to tell the rough distance to any of them, there weren't any numbers in the blackness.

Finally she spoke, "There a group of them on the move.  They are headed east through the outer part of Metrocity."

Rael said, "Hmm, they must be reacting to my escape from their prison.  I can’t imagine that they’ve had a lot of time to bring in additional forces, so we ought to be able to handle what I faced before.  All we can do is go see if that is them.  If it is, we free them.  If not we leave whoever it is alone."

I nodded.

Rael said, "Where exactly are they now?"

Firebane looked at him, "I don't have an exact distance.  I can tell you roughly, but with them moving they might be gone from that spot quickly."

"Uhh, okay.  How are we going to do this then?"

"It’s still raining a lot.  How about you two ride with me in my car.  We'll try to head them off, when close I'll scan again and we'll know better."

"That'll work."

We left the hospital, huddled under her umbrella on the way to the car - she didn't want us sopping wet in her car.

Rael said, "’star, they've got really heavy guns, not to mention the knockout darts and taser bola.  You'll want to try to be as evasive as you can."

I nodded.  This didn't sound like it was going to be enjoyable in the least.  The fight against the mutants on Monday was bad enough, but going into something where I knew every weapon they had would either knock me out or seriously injure me filled me with apprehension.

Firebane stopped after about fifteen minutes and performed another scan for the supers.  "They are still moving, but are only a mile or so to the east of us.  I'll get us closer and scan again."

She continued driving for a mile, then scanned one more time.  "Sorry guys, they are still moving, and at the same time we are."

I said, "How about we fly?  I can move us much faster in the air."

Firebane sighed, pulled off to the side of the road and stopped the car.  I could tell she didn’t relish the idea of being in the air.  "Okay.  I don't like it, but we need to catch up."

Chapter 26 - Rescue

Third Person Perspective

Once out of the car, Stephanie held Rael and Firebane each around the waist and took flight.  The rain continued to pour down, making it unlikely that even guards would spend much time looking up.

While Stephanie flew the three of them toward the east, Firebane focused on her newfound detection power to find the nearby supers again.  She narrowed down the direction and distance until they flew over a pair of semis moving through the city.  They apparently wanted to appear as normal semis, no other vehicles were with them.

Firebane begged to be set down, she was afraid to get into a fight.  Stephanie reluctantly landed, released her, and hugged her in thanks.  Rael wished she would stay with them, he felt that they could use all the supers available for the upcoming fight.  He thought about Hellshock, but they were already over the semis and needed to act immediately. 

Rael quickly shook Firebane’s hand and thanked her as well.  She began jogging back to her car.

Rael said to Stephanie, "You fly at them from directly above.  You need to cause massive fear, and quickly, or we'll have a crapload of guards using us as a shooting gallery.  I'll run from behind them and cut all the tires on the semis as I run by to disable them.  Maybe we'll even get lucky and topple them over and make a super or two wake up."

Stephanie grabbed Rael around the neck and kissed him.  He responded and smiled at her when done.

Rael said, "Not that I don't want to continue, but now's not the best time for that.  They're moving away."

"One sec, your claws and those tentacle things appear when you are mad.  I'm going to make you really, really mad.  Just take it out on them, okay?"

"Uhh, I don't know about this."

Her eyes glowed with their golden backlight and Rael smelled her pheromones, amplified to a great degree due to their proximity.  He felt an unbelievable rage fill him, and the sole desire to go take it out on the semis and guards.  His fingertips shifted into their claw form, the tentacles sprang out of his shoulders, and the small ridged fins came out of his arms.  Rael felt his teeth lengthen.

He sprinted off toward the semis before Stephanie even had a chance to say, “Go get ‘em.”  Within a mile or so he caught up to them.  As he sped past the rear truck he stabbed every tire on the right side, causing gaping holes in each of them.  It veered off to the right as the cab’s frontmost tire blew out, although the inner set of tires on the trailer prevented it from toppling over.

It only took seconds to catch up to the front semi, and he did the same to that one, though as soon as Rael slashed the tires on the tractor the driver slammed on the brakes rather than allow it to lose control.  The semi skidded to a long stop in the wet street, the trailer slid at an angle to the tractor before coming to a stop.

Stephanie flew up as Rael ran ahead, and then back down at the back of the rear semi.  She landed on the roof of the trailer just above the door.  Closing her eyes, she concentrated on spreading confusion, and soon felt the tingling sensation spread across her body again.

Rael stopped just ahead of the semi.  The driver and his passenger opened their doors and tried shooting at Rael’s shadowy form, but the rain and his black costume made him a hard target to aim at and their shots rang off the street near him, some of the driver’s shots ricocheted off the hood of his own tractor.