Project Northwoods (2 page)

As the shockwave of the mortar strikes dissipated, Arbiter cautiously lowered the arm shielding him from debris. His pulse quickened in panic as he scanned the clouds of powdered structures: up the street, disastrously close to the machine, a teenage girl had run out to the side of a fallen… what looked like a costumed heroine. The girl’s cries, unheeded by the corpse, did not go unnoticed by Arbiter and, to his horror, the behemoth. With a casual motion, it extended an arm toward her. Its hand bent down, and several long shafts of metal extended from where the wrist met its arm.

The girl looked up and stared. “Move, child!” Arbiter roared, voice hoarse from war cries and shouts to his fellow heroes. She didn’t react, and before Arbiter could move, he saw the first flash from the machine guns. “No!”

A green burst erupted from behind the slowly-settling cloud of detritus. Even as Arbiter reached to grab the up-ended police cruiser behind him, the emerald blur reached the girl and, without stopping, picked her up and carried her away. As the tracer rounds tore up dead flesh and concrete alike, Arbiter flung the car toward the machine guns, a valiant effort that, made on its own, would have been wasted.

Not to be denied his kill, the director of the machine responded quickly, tracking the rescuer and the girl with terrifying accuracy.

The blur was almost to Arbiter when the rounds met with the airborne vehicle, tearing through it and igniting the contents of the gas tank. Thick black smoke obscured the air as the wreck fell to the ground. Now the speedster had slammed into Arbiter, lifting him off his feet moments before the bullets hit their mark.

Arbiter had only just caught his breath when he realized he had been dragged into an alley by the unknown rescuer. “Hey-Arbiter-if-you’re-gonna-try-to-be-the-hero-you-gotta-be-quicker-than-that,” the rapid voice of the Emerald Dash lilted.

Arbiter shoved himself away from the villain and thrust a finger into the green fabric covering Dash’s chest. “Do not touch me, scum.” He fought off an urge to wipe his hands off on his cape to convey his disgust. The petty thief seemed completely unfazed, running his free hand through his shaggy blond hair.

“Whoa-buddy-scum-don’t-save-girls-when-you’re-too-busy-hurling-cars-to-bother,” he smirked as he let the girl down off his shoulder. In a flourish of movement he adjusted his identity-obscuring goggles.

“Mom!” The redheaded girl leapt for the alley entrance in the moment he had been distracted by his own preening.

“Whoa-there-girly,” the Emerald Dash cried out as he sprinted after her and snagged her wrist in one blurry movement. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but she ain’t comin’ back.” His voice had been rendered raspy by the effort it took to speak at half-speed.

“But… why?” Tears streamed down her freckled cheeks. “She didn’t hurt anyone.”

Dash looked like he was about to say something, but stumbled over the words. Two explosions dully thundered in the distance, followed soon by several pops. Sirens started wailing, no doubt from both fire engines and reinforcements to the decimated police battalions alternating between ferrying other neutrals to safety and trying to stop the attack. Arbiter realized, suddenly, that Dash was looking at him for assistance.

“If your mother was a hero, young lady, she shall be remembered for her valiant sacrifice,” Arbiter said coldly as he moved back toward the street.

Emerald Dash looked appalled as he threw his hands up in disbelief. “What-is-your-problem?” he sniped as the girl heaved into hysterics.

“Wh-what?” the girl cried. “Sh-she wasn’t a hero!” At this, Arbiter looked at her, studying her features. With a sneer, he recognized some family resemblance.

“Delia the Thief, I presume?” he coldly asked. The girl nodded, choking back tears.

After a pause, he grunted. “You’d do well to stay away from her example.” He turned again, sparing himself the sight of the girl, shocked, falling to her knees in grief.

In a moment, the Emerald Dash caught Arbiter and slammed him into the wall. Larger than the lithe villain, Arbiter snarled at the audacity. “Caesar’s-ghost-man-the-girl…” The smaller man took a calming breath. “The girl just saw her mother murdered.”

“Let me go,” the hero growled.

Dash hissed and flinched. Undeterred, he put his elbow on Arbiter’s throat. “You’re a damn hero, and you treat a girl like that?” As a thick red blotch spread on Dash’s own neck, he released the larger man. “That thing out there is killing everybody, Arse Biter,” he shouted as he pointed to the street. A police cruiser sped past the alley entrance.

“Are you upset that your importance has dropped?” Arbiter shoved him back. “Worry not. You’ll be back to the top of the garbage heap soon enough.” With a flourish of the remnants of his cape, he left the alley.

Vaguely, he could make out the girl’s cries: “Kill it, Arbiter!
Kill it!
”

He emerged onto the street and walked toward the metal beast as it grabbed a Bestowed from the sky and squeezed. With a flick of its wrist, it sent the body careening into a group of police officers. Just up the road from Arbiter, a heroine clad in grey and heavily modified tactical armor, One Shot, struggled to her feet. He ran forward and hefted her upright.

“Thanks,” she said, ripping what remained of her ski-mask off and releasing her short-cropped red hair. Her heavier gear had sustained numerous burns and cuts, while the lighter sections were almost entirely torn away. A grazing bullet wound on her leg streamed blood, and road rash had shredded her normally beautiful face. “Nothing we’re doing is even slowing it down.” Debris, embedded in her ashen flesh, glittered in the sunlight. She gestured to a medical kit on her belt. “Could you help?”

Arbiter nodded and tended to her numerous wounds. “The armor… it deflects everything, kinetic or otherwise.”

With a feral cry, a distant Bestowed leapt from a nearby building and started gliding around the menace. Amber energy charged along his hands before spraying at the thing’s head. Gracefully, the machine swatted him higher into the air, hunched over, and fired one of the flak towers. The hero dissolved into red mist in an instant, the thunderous report of the cannon echoing as, in another motion, a fist slammed into the earth, smashing a cluster of Bestowed.

“Can you reach the pilot?” One Shot winced as Arbiter yanked a shard of glass out of her hand.

He shook his head as he wrapped her hands in gauze. “As long as it’s in that thing… no matter how hard it hits…” His voice trailed off with his thoughts.

“What could it want?” The moment Arbiter finished, she adjusted the sniper rifle on her back, grunting at the pain.

“Did-you-think-that-maybe-all-it-wants-is-to-kill-every-last-human-being-on-the-planet?” Emerald Dash had appeared next to her. She looked at him, gave the slightest hint of a smile, then returned to looking at the hulking monstrosity. Arbiter felt bile rise in his throat at the sight of the traditional enemies speaking. She had been the perfect hero to dispose of him – as a military tracker during the war, it wouldn’t matter how fast her quarry was… he’d tire sooner or later.

“Doubtful,” Arbiter muttered as he squinted back at the now-hunching machine. “It could have been more thorough than this, caused greater damage faster… it is sowing chaos, fear…”

With an ear-splitting, static discharge, a pulse of energy was released from the metal monster. It bowled neutrals over and upended a few Bestowed, though Arbiter, One Shot, and the Emerald Dash stood their ground. The air seemed to grow heavy for a moment, then a sound rumbled forth… a melody… no, an anthem.

“Impossible…” One Shot shook her head in disbelief.

“No-damn-way-is-that…”

Arbiter took a step forward. “
Deutschland Über Alles
.” His fists clenched in fury. He screamed out, “Desecrator!”

“Do not sully my name!” The sudden, thunderous roar shook the street. The machine groaned under the reverberations as the one the Allies knew as Desecrator continued: “Der Ritter is not some base monster! I am one of the few true Germans, driven to restore honor to his führer!”

“The führer is dead, whatever you wish to be called.” Arbiter stepped forward, pointing. “Germany is at peace with the United States, and has come to understand…”

“Traitors!” The behemoth rocked, stirred by the resentment in the voice of its master. With a metallic squeal, the metal warrior rose to its full height. “There can be no understanding between the pure and the vile! Only those who ally with the Teutons could ever hope to stay our hand!”

“What’s-your-end-game-here-Arbiter? Piss-him-off-even-more-so-he-nukes-the-whole-city?”

One Shot shook her head and stepped beside Arbiter. “Give yourself up. You’re one against thousands of American Bestowed, villain and hero alike,” she shouted. Had she turned to see it, she would have caught Emerald Dash’s lopsided grin.

“I have killed hundreds already.” Something whirred and clicked audibly on the massive metal construct. “Your greatest hero hides behind a criminal before my eyes!”

Arbiter strode closer toward the walking tank, fists clenched. “Your führer’s twisted vision ends here!”

“Is that so? I offer a different proposition: either the Teutons shall rule…” The arms of the battle suit rose in a ‘V’ moments before the cannons twisted and locked more rounds into their chambers. “… Or the world shall burn!” With a dozen
whumps
 of compressed air and the crack of shells leaving their casings, rockets and bombs shot skyward, then spiraled downward, straight toward where they stood. “
Heil Hitler!
” The Nazi’s laughter reverberated, filling them, trembling inside their chests.

“What-do-we-do-what-do-we-do?”

One Shot stared up as the missiles grew closer. “He’s going to do this until there’s no resistance…”

Arbiter ran toward Desecrator, then leapt. In a moment, he grabbed one, two of the rockets and flung them at the machine. He managed a third and threw it as he was slammed in the back by Emerald Dash carrying One Shot. The other rockets detonated behind them, fiery blasts ripping up the street. The concussion wave crashed over them, burning at their clothes and skin. Then, they were on the ground, rolling. Arbiter heard something snap and Dash let out a whimper.

One Shot was the first to move, rolling Arbiter off of Emerald Dash. “Dash, Dash? Get up!”

“I don’t think that’s happening, Shottie.”

“Don’t call me that. Get up!” She looked down at his leg and grimaced at the bone sticking roughly out of the elastic suit.

He ripped off his mask. One eye was smashed in while the other glinted like gold under a swelling lid. “Call me crazy,” he looked at her, drunk with pain, “but I’m fairly sure that there bone is supposed to stay in me.”

Arbiter walked toward Desecrator’s suit. It had been partially knocked down, three sparking, blackened holes in its chest. The damage seemed superficial, but the pilot had to know now that he could be harmed, however slight it may be. The Nazi also had to deal with the knowledge that his own ordnance could be used against him.

 “Desecrator!” Arbiter shouted, his voice clear despite the pain. “You are no match for Arbiter, Lord of Justice!” He neared the prone and creaking hulk, his fingers twitching in anticipation of tearing the last of Hitler’s famed Eagle’s Talon out of his monstrosity. The Eagle’s Talon, Bestowed Nazis so dedicated to eradicating all humanity deemed unworthy, un-Teutonic, that they managed to preserve the War for months. Decimating soldiers, turning Berlin into a crucible of fire and steel, remaining steadfast to their cause in the face of nuclear fire…

A whir of motion caught Arbiter off-guard in his anticipation as a rock was hurled at the hero, smashing him to the ground. The arm which had thrown the boulder planted itself down and supported the giant as it rose. The static burst penetrated the air, but murkier than before. “I. Am. Not. Desecrator!” A metal foot rose in the air. Arbiter looked up as the heel seemed preserved forever above him. “You will fear Der Ritter!”

The foot slammed down, covering Arbiter in its shadow for a moment. In the instant before what should have been agony, a blinding light washed over him. Shimmering into reality beside him, a dark grey costume flickered into existence. Red and blue gloves were held aloft, projecting a shield of translucent white light which sparked underneath the colossal heel. The masked face turned to Arbiter, and over a speaker, a familiar, high and raspy voice called out, “Are you okay, boy?” He nodded in response. The masked figure knelt low, the light shield flexing downward with his movements. “There’s nothing to fear…” he shouted, the speaker in his suit crackling at the increased volume. With a mighty heave, he stood upward, casting off the foot and sending Desecrator to the ground. “… But fear itself!”

The Nazi slammed his walking weapon upright. “The great murderer returns! You dare show yourself to me after what you’ve done?” he bellowed.

As though at the will of its owner, the mask of Photon split vertically and pulled back with a snap to reveal the face of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, war-weary and aged beyond his Bestowed time. “I never wished to kill him. He was to be tried for crimes…”

“What crimes?” The mech hunched low in an effort to intimidate the super hero. “For trying to perfect humanity? I see no crime!”

Photon remained unfazed. “That is just one aspect where we differ.”

“Regardless, it is so good of you to come to me, FDR.” Desecrator rose the machine to its full height, pointing an arm at him. “It saves me the trouble of digging you out of whatever hole you had crawled into.”

“Photon…” Arbiter got to his feet and moved closer to his fellow hero. “You can’t possibly… you’re too old for this fight…”

“Arbiter…” he began calmly as the metal mask re-connected over his face. “I’m finishing what I started twenty years ago.” Photon’s hand flexed. In a burst of light, a beam of energy solidified in his grip. The beast’s machine guns opened fire, and the hero’s free hand shot out, forming another barrier of light energy. The bullets splattered off of it, the rounds falling shriveled and useless to the shattered pavement. A crack, and a shard of the shield fell to the ground with the tinkling of glass before fading from existence.