Page 24 of Just Cause

  * * *

  In the three weeks since Guatemala, Sally’s bruising faded and she felt more or less back to her normal self. She and Jason spent a lot of time together since the incident. In fact, she spent more time in his room than she did in hers, which provided Jack and Sondra no end of amusement.

  Sondra broke the news to her. “You’re on the team full-time, as of tomorrow morning if you want it,” she said over a cup of the tar she called coffee. It was unseasonably warm and she and Sally sat outside and enjoyed the spring-like temperatures and sunshine.

  “You mean, officially?” Sally asked.

  “The Director gave approval to waive your internship, based on your exemplary record to date.”

  Sally gave a bitter laugh. “Exemplary record. I let Destroyer get away. Again.”

  “Lots of people have ‘let’ Destroyer get away. He’s not an easy catch. However, in twenty-odd years, nobody’s peeled him out of his armor the way you did. He probably has a replacement suit, of course—he’s smart enough to do that—but if he doesn’t, it could be years before we see him again. And like the rest of us,” Sondra smiled, “he’s not getting any younger either.”

  “I never thought of it like that.” Sally sipped on a mocha latte Jack had made especially for her.

  “That’s what makes you such a great addition, Sally. You do what you must, every time without fail, and afterward you question whether you could have done it better. Constant self-improvement is the mark of a true hero.”

  Sally turned away so Sondra wouldn’t see her blush.

  “So do you want to go through with it?” Sondra swallowed down the last dregs of her drink and shook out her wings.

  “Yeah. I really do,” said Sally. “All my life, I wanted to be in Just Cause.”

  “Can’t say I blame you, especially with your heritage. Which brings up another point,” Sondra leaned back to turn her face toward the sun. “You do have a lot of history in your family. Your induction to the team is going to be a media event.”

  “A media event?” The phrase made her feel queasy.

  “Don’t worry,” Sondra patted her arm. “Jack’s handling it.”

  Pure terror washed through Sally’s mind. “Jack’s handling it?” She put her head in her hands. “I’m so not ready for this.”

  She was appointed in the auditorium where Just Cause had press conferences. When she peeked out from backstage at the packed audience, she almost bolted. She had thought there might be some of the heroes from other teams, plus her mother and grandmother. Instead, she stared out into a packed gallery, replete with journalists, heroes both current and retired, and what looked like the entire Hero Academy student population.

  “I can’t do this,” she whispered to Sondra, who waited backstage with her.

  “Why . . . got a little stage fright?” Sondra stepped around behind her and squeezed her shoulder muscles with strong hands.

  “I just can’t. I get nervous . . . sick to my stomach.”

  “Hey, if you gotta hurl,” said Harris, who managed the sound and lighting from a console nearby, “try and avoid the costume, you know? That stuff is a bitch to clean.”

  Sally broke into helpless giggles. She clamped both hands over her mouth to keep from braying laughter. Onstage, Juice finished his speech of introduction and the audience began applauding.

  “That’s your cue, sweetheart,” said Harris.

  Sondra kissed her cheek. “You’ll be fine, now get moving, girlfriend.” She gave Sally an encouraging slap on the behind.

  Sally took a hesitant step onto the stage proper, and the cheering rose to a feverish pitch. Despite the glare of the lights, she could see many familiar faces in the crowd. She drew strength from one in particular, a face with a sincere grin and a stubbly chin. Next to him sat Jack, who gave her a proud smile. She caught his eye and he winked and made kissy-lips at her. It almost made her break out in giggles again and she looked away from him lest she lose control of herself.

  Sally blinked under the spotlights as a hundred television cameras stared at her with glassy eyes.

  Juice gave her a lot of glowing praise about her abilities and how capable she’d proven herself in such a short time. He said there was no question in his mind that someone of her exemplary caliber belonged as a member of the greatest superhero team in the world. She raised her right hand and repeated the Just Cause Oath of Service, during which a thousand flashbulbs popped from the audience. She managed to survive it without making any mistakes or cracking up, keeping her eyes locked on a spot on Juice’s chest.

  When he finished leading her through the pledge, he shook her hand, followed by MetalBlade and the Homeland Security Director. Thunderous applause filled the room. The roaring in her ears almost prevented her from hearing Juice announce her officially as Just Cause’s newest member and ask her to say a few words to the audience.

  Her perceptions shifted into high gear from her fear. She took several deep breaths to try to will herself back into normal time with everyone else. The podium seemed miles away, and the stage exit invitingly close. With a supreme force of effort, she turned and stepped up to the microphone.

  “Uh,” she began, and hated herself for the weak beginning. “It’s a real honor to have been selected to be a part of Just Cause. I’m glad to have the opportunity to do my part . . .”

  Suddenly she ran out of things to say and made the mistake of glancing at Jack. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue at her.

  “And I want to . . . I want to . . .” Think, dammit! she yelled in her mind. Inspiration struck like a bolt of lightning. Academy Awards, she thought. Just thank some people and get the hell off the stage. “I want to thank my teammates for believing in me. I want to thank my mom and grandma for inspiring and teaching me to become who I am today. I want to thank the Hero Academy for training me, and the Lucky Seven for letting me train with them too.” Running too long now. “This is . . . what I wanted to do my whole life. I promise not to let you down. Thank you all.” More applause and cheers erupted as she walked off the stage.

  The rest of the day seemed like a whirlwind even to a speedster like her. She met more people than she could possibly hope to remember. She answered hundreds or maybe thousands of questions from journalists representing everything from local newspapers to national tabloids and all media in between.

  After what seemed like hours, she got a few precious minutes alone with Jason. “Welcome to the family, officially.” He kissed her.

  “Mmm . . .” she said. “I think I’m going to like it here.”

  “I’ve got something for you.”

  “Oh?”

  From his pocket, he removed a package wrapped in scarlet paper and tied with a bright yellow bow.

  “What’s this?”

  He grinned. “Open it.”

  She tore open the paper. Inside she found her missing horseshoe. She held it up in wonder. “Where did you find it?”

  “It was in the wreckage of the Destroyer suit. I found it before the military confiscated the remains. I figured you’d want it back. I hear they’re good luck, horseshoes.”

  Sally smiled. “I’ve heard that too. Thanks, Jason.” She kissed him again.

  “Do you want to get out of here?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that for hours.”

  “Good. Change to your civvies and meet me at my truck and we’ll see about sneaking away.”

  “Where are we going?” She got delicious shivers at the idea of going anywhere with him.

  “Where else?” He laughed. “For pie at Lazzarino’s.”

  She laughed and kissed him again. “Pie sounds lovely,” and she ran off to change.

  Appendices

  -Those Who Came Before

  Stories From the History of Just Cause

  -Roll Call

  Teams past and present of the Just Cause Universe

  Those Who Came Before:

  The Freakshow

 
I remember clearly looking down the great hall and thinking to myself what a waste of Aryan blood; one hundred men—one hundred of the best soldiers in the Reich who had volunteered to die for the Fatherland. Each was strapped to a gurney, elevated forty-five degrees. At the end of the hall was Messer’s Device. It crouched like some great, hulking beast, barely containing the energies within its carefully-crafted skin.

  Messer gave his usual speech—that the men had been selected for their bravery and their loyalty to Germany for a special treatment that would make them into the supermen they were destined to become. His speech was always the same. I had heard it so many times I could have repeated it word for word; so many times he had sent a group of good soldiers like these to their death.

  God in Heaven, how could we have known this time he would have been right?

  -Dr. Felix Dietrich, 1942

  February, 1942

  Aufstein, Germany

  The way the castle lights dimmed and flickered worried Jim Scott. The American soldier watched the two-hundred-year-old castle through his field glasses, as he sprawled across a high rock ledge that overlooked the castle. Scott could have been a poster child for the Aryan ideal, had he not been a loyal son of America—six foot four, built like a farmhand, with a strong jaw and a shock of dirty blond hair that had grown out considerably since the arrival of his team in Germany. Officially, their team’s code name was Project Circus, but everybody from General Eisenhower on down just called them The Freakshow.

  “Goddamn Krauts don’t know a goddamn thing about wiring,” grumbled Johnny Stills next to him. He fumbled for his canteen, which Scott knew was full of cheap Swiss vodka. Stills was small, almost rat-like in his appearance and intensity. He was dark-eyed and furtive in his movements.

  A few battery-powered lights flickered to life below. “Now’s our chance,” said Scott. “While they’re restoring power.”

  Stills nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of a grimy hand. “Move out,” he whisper-shouted behind him. Two more dogfaces emerged from the low evergreens. William Hester and Ray Downs. Hester was twenty-four, making him the oldest of the group, and wore glasses, earning him the nickname Professor. Downs was the youngest, barely eighteen. His overlarge ears made him seem even younger. If it hadn’t been for his parahuman ability, Scott would have refused to take him on a mission. It was like having your younger brother along on a date. The four men had infiltrated Germany nearly three weeks earlier with help from the French Resistance and had been making their careful way to Aufstein, where Allied Command said the Nazis were working on some secret weapon.

  “Did you guys hear that?” Downs tapped his ear as he attached a rope around a sturdy rock outcropping.

  “What do you think, moron?” Stills sneered at him, making no effort to connect his own rope.

  “Stow that noise, Corporal,” said Scott. “We’re going to have a hard enough time of this without you announcing our presence to the entire Third Reich. What’d you hear, Sounder?”

  Downs shrugged. “Dunno, Sergeant. Sounded like they turned on a big dynamo.”

  “Couldn’t have been,” said Hester. “A dynamo makes power, not drains it. Why’d they lose their lights?”

  Stills muttered something under his breath that sounded something like “whyncha go ask ‘em, shithead?”

  Scott ignored his headstrong second-in-command. In spite of Stills’ abrasive personality, he was a brilliant tactician and made excellent use of his particular skills. “You guys ready for descent?”

  Hester and Downs answered in the affirmative. Downs even sounded eager. They hadn’t seen any real action since France, and that seemed like an eternity ago, and more than once, Downs had complained about all the damn sneaking around. “It ain’t fair. I want to kill me some krauts,” he’d say, fingering his knife.

  Scott turned to Stills. “Corporal, secure our landing site. And do it quietly.”

  Stills drew his bowie knife and saluted. “Yes sir,” he said, and vanished off the rock with a soft puff of inrushing air.

  Stills was what Allied Command called an exceptional talent. They all were. Scott had been the first, found by a displaced French researcher named Georges Devereaux. Scott was strong enough to toss a jeep across a parking lot and tough enough to take a fifty-caliber bullet in the chest without even blinking, much less bleeding. He could also fly for almost a mile at a time, something that was more than a leap but less than actual flight. Devereaux had found Scott, thanks to his odd ability to see parahuman abilities in others, and brought him to see some men in the Army. They liked what they saw and immediately enrolled him in Basic. Then they went back to Devereaux and asked if he could find a few more like Scott, whom they code-named Strongman.

  John Henry Stills was next. He was a teleport, able to move anywhere he could see without traversing the space between points. He simply vanished from one spot and instantly reappeared in his destination. He was a master knife-wielder, having been working in his father’s slaughterhouse. Scott had seen him slice a kraut to bloody ribbons in seconds, flashing all around him faster than could be seen. The army code-named him Flicker, which he hated. But they let him get away with his antics because he was a parahuman, and there were only four in all the American forces, plus the wild card of Georges Devereaux.

  William Hester could imbue objects he could hold in his hand with kinetic energy and then release them with enough force to rupture tank armor. In spite of his tremendous combat ability, Hester was mostly an intellectual. The soft-spoken, bespectacled man was more likely to be found with his nose buried in a book during down time, instead of chasing women or gambling like normal soldiers. On paper, he was called Meteor, but to everyone else he was just Professor.

  Raymond Downs had lied about his age to get into the army. He wanted desperately to be a soldier and to fight the Axis, joining when he was only fifteen. Four months later his mother had come to pick him up from Fort Bening just before he was scheduled to ship out. Downs had nearly died from the sheer embarrassment of it. Two months later he was back when his family doctor couldn’t explain why Downs could hear things that were too quiet, too far, and too high-pitched for anyone else. The Army doctors determined his abilities far surpassed normal, and he received a special dispensation to join and a codename, Sounder.

  When the Army brass had showed their abilities to Albert Einstein, he said, “that’s exceptional.” The Army being what it was, the four men were referred to as “exceptional talents” from then on. They had been trained for every possible situation the G-men could devise. Eventually Roosevelt had ordered them deployed and they parachuted into France with a few thousand other dogfaces.

  They’d had some success aiding the French Resistance by using their special abilities to complete missions that would have otherwise required ten times as many men. Their standard mode of operation was for Sounder to provide the intelligence via sound cues, then Flicker would secure the site, and finally Strongman and Meteor would go to work. Emplaced machinegun nests were no challenge to the four of them, and they could take out a convoy in a matter of seconds. This particular mission was going to require some different tactics. Their objective was gathering information about the project the Nazis had set up in Aufstein Castle.

  Scott hadn’t been told, officially, what Army Intelligence thought was going on in the castle. Unofficially, he’d been told that the krauts were trying to make their own exceptional talents. Allied Command was very interested in their experiments. Project Circus was to gather as much information about the process as they could, and then permanently disrupt operations. Scott was all in favor of the mission. The idea of an army filled with soldiers like himself marching across the face of Europe gave him nightmares.

  He checked his watch. Two minutes had passed since Stills had vanished and he hadn’t reappeared. If the area hadn’t been secured, he would have popped back to report. He nodded at Hester and Downs, who began quietly rappelling down the rock face. Scott watched thei
r progress, checking the castle for any sign they’d been seen. The castle was still mostly dark. Whatever the krauts had set off was drawing plenty of power. Hester and Downs got down to the ground and took up covering positions with their rifles. There was no sign of Stills, but Scott knew he’d be around somewhere. He took one last glance at the castle, then stepped off the side of the rock, letting himself fall.

  Flying took a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Scott always visualized himself parachuting when he fell. He’d actually been tested from heights of over two hundred feet and always landed safely. Well, not always. He could still twist an ankle or something else painful and inconveniencing. At least he didn’t have to worry about being shot on the way down, as had happened to so many of the other soldiers. He always tried imagining he was an airplane when he launched himself into the air. After about a mile, his brain couldn’t seem to handle the impossibility of his motion, and he fell, which was just as unnerving as flying. The doctors thought that they could hypnotize him so he’d be able to fly for longer periods of time, but Scott wasn’t about to let them do that.

  He reached the ground and unlimbered his own rifle. He heard a soft popping sound and a sudden breeze on his cheek announced Stills had teleported back to them. The smaller man’s knife was bloodstained and his grin was shocking and bright in the dark.

  “Two sentries in this section,” he said. “Both accounted for.” He wiped his knife on an evergreen and tucked it back in his sheath.

  By now, Scott was familiar with Stills’ bloodthirsty tendencies, and tried not to let it bother him. “How many other sentries on patrol?”

  “I counted six. Three pairs of two.”

  “Sounder?”

  The youngest soldier closed his eyes, concentrating on the sounds nobody else could hear. “Confirmed,” he said in a moment. He chuckled quietly. “Two of ‘em are drunk.”

  “Okay, here’s the plan . . .” Scott began, but before he could continue a loud explosion ripped upward from the middle of the castle, sending cobbles and tiles flying.

  “Shit,” whispered Stills. “Think that’s good for us or bad for us?”

  An alarm began to wail, sounding very much like the air raid sirens in London. The four men instinctively looked to the skies, half afraid they would see a flight of B-17s on approach.

  “Hey, look!” Hester pointed toward the castle. People were fleeing from the main entrance. Some of them were clearly soldiers, but others were in civilian garb or wearing white lab coats. They fought with each other as they grabbed motorcycles, trucks, or whatever vehicles were available. Engines sputtered to life and headlights illuminated the large cloud of dust that was raised from the explosion.

  Within moments, the surge of people leaving the castle subsided. “Krauts might have done our job for us.” Scott motioned to the others. “Let’s move in. Stay sharp.”

  A ruddy glow in the smoke over the castle roof was a mute testament to a fire still burning inside. The Americans approached cautiously, rifles at the ready. The darkness seemed thick and oppressive as they reached the road, a muddy mess from the quick evacuation of the German vehicles.

  The main gate into the castle hung open.

  Advancing in pairs, they leapfrogged each other all the way to the castle wall. The stone was conducting a slight amount of heat. Scott figured that the interior must be like a blast furnace if the walls were already warm.

  “Sounder, you hear anything inside?”

  The young man removed his helmet, clapped a hand over one ear, and pressed the other against the wall, eyes shut, listening intently. “Big fire, glass breaking from the heat, something making a shrieking sound, maybe a steam valve? Shit, footsteps!” He pushed himself back from the wall and fumbled for his helmet.

  Stills drew his knife. Scott pulled his pistol from his holster; it would be more useful in close quarters than his M-1. They waited on either side of the doorway. A figure staggered out. Stills’ knife descended sharply and stopped short when Scott blocked his strike with the barrel of his pistol.

  “What the hell, Sergeant?” Stills looked shocked.

  “Look at him, Stills. He’s no threat.”

  It was true. The man was badly burned. His clothes were mostly burned away except for the metal parts, which had cooked into the ruin of his skin. He tripped and fell, landing face down in the mud.

  Scott had seen men burned by flamethrowers before, but this was worse than anything he’d ever witnessed. Bile rose in the back of his throat. Behind him, Downs vomited against the side of the castle. The man’s limbs trembled as if he was cold, but it was surely from the massive nerve damage he’d sustained. Choking back the bad taste in his mouth, Scott reached out a boot and flipped the man over. Carbonized flesh flaked off him in layers. The man’s face was gone, charred bone peeking through the cooked muscle. Incredibly, he was still breathing and whispering something through his burned lips and tongue.

  “Hester,” ordered Scott through clenched teeth. Hester was the only one who spoke German. The Professor spat to one side and kneeled down next to the man, disgust leaching from his pores.

  “He keeps saying übermensch, over and over,” said Hester after a moment, getting back to his feet.

  “What’s that mean?” Downs wiped his mouth. His face had gone as pale as the moon.

  “Super man,” Hester answered. Mercifully, the man stopped moving as his injuries overcame him.

  Scott felt all the strength drain out of his legs. “Holy Christ. What if they did it?”

  Stills’ lip curled in disdain. He was undoubtedly still upset about Scott stopping him, since he believed the only good kraut was a dead kraut, no matter the circumstances. “Did what?”

  “Made someone like us,” said Hester.

  “Bullshit! How could you make a parahuman?” Stills shoved his knife back into its sheath.

  “Nobody knows how we got our powers,” said Scott. “I didn’t really know about mine until I hit eighteen. You found out about yours by accident, Stills, and Downs didn’t get his until after Basic Training. The Nazis have scientists; maybe they figured something out.”

  The four men were silent for a moment as each considered the possibility of a Nazi parahuman.

  “Okay, let’s move in,” said Scott finally.

  “What, in there?” Stills was adamant. “No way.”

  “That’s an order, Corporal. Salvage any documents you can find.”

  Rifles drawn, they moved into the castle.

  The entryway was filled with smoke. A smoldering Nazi flag hung in the middle of the hall. Somewhere ahead, they could all hear the sounds of a fire.

  “How come it ain’t burning out here?” Downs asked.

  “Stone don’t burn, kid,” said Stills.

  They passed through another doorway into a courtyard. There was the remains of a building in the middle of the courtyard where the explosion must have occurred. Some of the cobblestones around the ruin glowed white hot. The force of the explosion seemed to have blown out most of the fire, leaving behind only the charred inflammables in its wake.

  “It does if it gets hot enough.” Hester coughed through the acrid fumes in the air. “I never heard of anything making this kind of heat except a volcano.”

  Shattered Klieg lights and warped scaffolding surrounded the courtyard. Scott looked around intently. Up on the castle wall was a steel and glass booth that was in just the spot he would have picked for an observation gallery. The glass was melted and blackened.

  “Stills, can you get up there to check that out?”

  “Affirmative.” Stills winked out of the courtyard and appeared up on the wall. Rifle out, he kicked open the door and peered inside. In a moment, he called out from the doorway. “Sergeant, you better get up here!”

  Scott took as deep a breath as he could in the smoky air and concentrated. His feet left the ground and he flew up to the top of the wall. A reek of charred flesh emerged from the booth. Scott swallowed hard, then
stepped into the enclosure.

  Everything in the room from window height and up had been charred black. Ash eddied in the air currents. Two people had been seated in chairs, presumably to watch the events unfolding in the courtyard below. Their legs and lower bodies were relatively unharmed, but from the waist up, they were essentially unrecognizable lumps of charcoal.

  “What is this?” Scott asked, disturbed at the strangeness the scene entailed.

  “Some kinda observation tower. I figure there might be some notes or something here, but I didn’t want to touch nothin’ without your approval first.” Stills glanced at the two smoking corpses. “Shitty way to go. Must have been one hell of a burst to cook ‘em like that!”

  Scott clicked on his electric torch and began searching for anything he could take with him back to Allied Command. A shelf of notebooks might have been promising, but they had been turned into lattices of ash that disintegrated when he touched them. He began rooting through drawers in a low file cabinet. Nothing. No notes, no binders, nothing to show but death.

  “Sergeant!” Downs’ voice was urgent from down in the courtyard.

  Scott leaned out of the observation booth door. “What, Sounder?”

  “Heartbeat, sir, and it isn’t one of ours.”

  A sudden rush of air and ash behind Scott informed him that Stills had just teleported out. Sure enough, he appeared an instant later next to Downs, already drawing his knife.

  Scott vaulted the edge of the wall and dropped the twenty feet to the courtyard. For a trained paratrooper, even one who could fly, it was like any other landing. Hester had his pistol out and was slowly circling, like a hawk preparing to strike. His left hand clutched a fist-sized chunk of rock that vibrated with barely- -contained kinetic energy.

  “Where is it, Ray?” Scott grasped his own pistol at the ready.

  Downs turned around slowly, using his ears like a radar set. “Through there.” He pointed to the stone building in the center of the courtyard. It was long, stretching nearly two-thirds of the length of the courtyard itself. A large portion of the roof had been immolated in the explosion. “Sounds like he’s inside a metal box by the echo of it.”

  “Maybe he can tell us what happened,” said Hester in a hoarse, choking voice.

  “Move in,” said Scott. “And watch yourselves. It’s still damn hot in here.”

  The four men advanced to the building. The entry doors had been blown off their hinges and lay smoldering on the courtyard cobbles. Two by two, they entered the building.

  Inside was a long, low-ceilinged hall. Strange metal implements lined each wall at regular intervals, twisted into unrecognizable shapes by the heat. Small metal boxes were bolted down by each sculpture. Scott approached one cautiously and flipped open the catch with the tip of his rifle. Inside it was a smoke-stained German army uniform. He looked back down the hall, trying to picture it before the accident.

  “Beds. These were beds.” Hester stepped up next to him. “That’s why the footlockers are here.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Was it a hospital?”

  Hester looked grim. “Not a chance. This looks like a lab of some sort. These poor guys were subjects.” They glanced down and saw charred bone fragments amid the ash remains of flesh and bedding.

  “Sarge, in there.” Downs motioned to a bank of heavy clothing lockers against one wall. He and Stills stepped up to them. The young man closed his eyes, listening intently next to each door. He stopped at the third locker, opened his eyes, and nodded. Stills took up a position on one side of the door, Downs the other. Scott and Hester raised their weapons, preparing for the worst. Stills nodded and raised his fingers in a silent count. One . . . two . . . three!

  Downs yanked open the door and a man pitched forward onto the charred floor. He coughed and choked, rolling onto his side. A rope of mucus and blood trailed from his mouth. His skin had an odd, waxy sheen to it. With horror, Scott realized his eyes had been burned out; their remains leaked down his cheeks.

  In his hands, he was clutching a notebook.

  “This him?” Scott asked. Downs nodded, eyes wide. “Professor, check him out and confiscate that book. Downs, Stills, check the rest of the lockers, including the footlockers.”

  Hester dropped to his knees and started to pull the notebook away from the man. The man started and closed a desperate hand around Hester’s wrist, babbling something in German. Hester kept his cool and asked the man a question. The man stuttered as if he was drugged.

  “Give him some morhpine,” said Scott. “Maybe it’ll help us get some answers from him.”

  As the drug kicked in, the man became somewhat more lucid. He spoke rapid-fire German, as if he was trying to get all of his thoughts out before he perished from whatever it was that was eating him up inside. Hester took frantic notes in the man’s notebook. Most of the man’s speech was so jumbled and incoherent that he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

  Stills and Downs returned from their search to report. “One hundred footlockers. One was empty, and there was no sign of a body beside it.” Stills glanced around the room.

  The man on the floor began to laugh. Not just laughing, thought Scott with horror, but cackling like an insane witch in a motion picture. His whooping laugh degenerated into a thick, bubbly cough that spurted bloody mucus from his mouth and nostrils. Hester recoiled from the grotesque droplets.

  “Yah . . . yah . . . one lived!” The man spoke in heavily-accented English.

  “You speak English?” Scott stepped forward.

  “Ya . . . a little.” The man’s laughter fell into a hacking cough.

  “What do you mean, one lived?” Stills eyes narrowed.

  “The experiment . . . it was . . . success! Thousands die so that one may live. Heil Hitler! We have created . . . your superman!”

  “What the hell does he mean by that?” Downs shouted.

  “I think that’s obvious, kid,” said Hester.

  “No! He’s . . . he’s sick or something. Look at him. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.” Downs’ face grew dark beneath the soot stains.

  “At ease, Private,” growled Scott.

  “We’re supposed to be the only ones. They told us we were the only ones!” Downs raised his rifle as if it were a club.

  “Stills,” said Scott. The teleport popped from his spot to reappear directly behind Downs. He yanked the rifle from the boy’s hands. When Downs spun around in fury, Stills cuffed him hard across the face, sending him sprawling. “Stills, stand down,” Scott bawled in his best drill-sergeant’s voice.

  Downs didn’t rise from where he had landed in a heap. His voice was racked by sobs. “We’re supposed to be the only ones,” he repeated as he gasped for air.

  Scott stalked over to the boy. “We don’t have time for this. On your feet, soldier! Atten-SHUN!”

  Months of conditioned reflexes kicked in and Downs jumped up, ramrod straight, tears tracking clean streaks down his sooty face. “Sorry, sir.” He gulped and wiped his nose, and then paused, listening. “Does anyone else hear that?”

  The other three soldiers looked around warily, weapons raised. “Hear what?” Scott snapped at him.

  “That sort of humming, whistling sound. Kind of like before a steam valve busts.”

  Another cackling laugh emerged from the forgotten man on the floor. His flesh seemed to be moving from waxy to almost liquid, like it wasn’t sticking to his bones anymore. “Ya . . . Messer’s Device . . . it will pulse again . . . all will perish.”

  Hester started as if he’d been goosed. “Device?”

  “What’s pulse?” Downs looked frightened.

  “It’s bad, whatever it is.” said Scott. “Stills, take that journal. If anything happens, you get clear with it.”

  “But Sergeant—”

  “That’s an order, Corporal. Move out, boys, asses and elbows!”

  The four men ran for it, back down the hall and through the entryway. They cleared the castle wall and w
ere pelting across the mud for the evergreen forest across the road when a light as bright as day erupted from the castle behind them.

  Scott had a sensation of being as transparent as glass, followed by a twisting, wrenching pain. His mind whirled madly as it tried to reconcile the fact that he had just been teleported. Acute vertigo hit him like a right hook and he fell hard onto a rocky surface, retching from the dizziness and the awful sensation.

  That’s when he heard the screaming. He tried to focus his spinning eyes. A fiery orange and red blur resolved itself into the largest explosion he had ever seen. The castle had been flung apart by the force of it, and the evergreens had been knocked flat, burning so fast they exploded as the water within their trunks flashed into steam. He realized he was up on the high mountain that overlooked the castle, or what was left of it. He shivered violently, although from the cold or the altitude or the sudden shift in location he couldn’t tell.

  The screaming continued and Scott saw Stills writhing on the ground in agony. His left arm was missing halfway through his bicep, as neat as if someone had lopped it off with a band saw. Blood poured out of the stump.

  Scott forced himself up to his knees, fumbling for his pack and for the morphine. The world spun around him as he found the emergency kit. He flopped down next to Stills, whose screams had softened to animalistic moans. He ripped off the sleeve of his fatigues and fashioned a tourniquet around Stills’ arm. Even in the darkness, with the angry glow of the fire below, the man had gone deathly pale.

  Stills had lost so much blood; Scott was afraid that the morphine would kill him, but he wasn’t a medic and wouldn’t trust himself to alter a dose. In a few minutes the narcotic took hold of Stills and his whimpering subsided.

  Scott hunkered down next to him to wait until morning. Neither of them was in any shape to travel, and if Stills was going to die, it would happen in the next few hours. There was no sign of Hester or Downs. Scott was certain they had died down below in front of the castle. The heat from the explosion had been so strong that where there had been mud was now cracked earth with a glossy sheen over it. The forest had been leveled, and what hadn’t been blown to splinters was burning away.

  He had a fair idea of what happened. When the device pulsed, it had blown up, like an overheated boiler. In the fraction of a second after the burst, Stills had reached out to Scott, who happened to be right next to him, and teleported them both up the mountainside.

  Stills was able to move more mass than himself, since he could teleport with a full pack, but he’d never attempted to move another whole person. His body must have rebelled at the attempt and left part of itself behind. Scott felt fortunate to be all in one piece and to not have any parts of the local landscape impaled through him. Teleporting to an unseen location was one of Stills’ great fears; he was afraid of materializing in the same space occupied by another object. Army doctors had no idea what would happen if he did.

  Scott knew that no matter what else happened, he had to get that notebook back to the Allies. He had to tell them what they’d learned at Aufstein, that the Nazis were trying to create their own parahumans.

  And he had to tell them that they’d succeeded.

  Those Who Came Before:

  Arrowheads

  There were so many doors open for me then. I was young, rich, smart, good-looking, and I lived in New York City—the greatest place anyone who was anyone should live. I could have done anything I wanted to.

  What I chose to do was put on a mask and fight crime with American Justice.

  -Adrian Crowley aka Dr. Danger,

  Dangerous: The Autobiography of Dr. Danger, 1964

  August, 1949

  New York City, New York

  Adrian Crowley crouched in the shadows of the rooftop overlooking the warehouse. He was a tall man, cresting six feet, with an athlete’s build honed from thousands of hours on his private archery range. The tool of his trade rested across his back, a curved piece of yew that hung from custom clips on the back of his quiver.

  His costume was piratical in nature; flowing white cotton shirt, dark blue pants tucked into folded-down boots, a dark red sash and a matching kerchief tied around his head, incorporating into it a mask that hid his eyes.

  He called himself Dr. Danger; he just liked the sound of it.

  He fiddled with a small Geiger counter that he’d removed from a pouch on the side of his quiver. Tiny clicks emerged from it at an elevated rate. He frowned behind his mask and adjusted the dials, but it continued to report that radiation levels were significantly higher than they should have been around the warehouse. It looked like the information from his source was correct. He’d checked the warehouse from three different angles and each time the Geiger counter clicked like a tap-dancing flea circus.

  The sound of an engine made him shrink back into the shadows. He replaced the counter into his pouch and watched over the edge of the adjacent building. A long, low Hudson slid around the corner, lights off, engine rumbling just above an idle. Two guys got out of the back seat, wearing trench coats and fedoras. Moonlight glinted off the Thompson submachine guns each man held. They looked around, furtive and suspicious, daring anyone to challenge their superior firepower. Then, apparently satisfied, one of them raised an electric torch and flashed it down the alleyway in three quick bursts.

  Headlights appeared around the corner and a step-van rolled into the alley, its badly-tuned engine raising a cloud of black smoke. The other man walked past the front of the Hudson to the delivery door of the warehouse and rapped on it with the butt of the gun in a short, syncopated pattern.

  In a moment, light streamed into the alley as the door raised against the squeaky protest of poorly- -lubricated bearings. The Hudson glided into the well-lit interior of the warehouse, followed by the belching van. Adrian watched as the door was lowered, leaving the alley once again bathed in darkness. He hadn’t realized until the door opened that the windows of the warehouse had been either covered or painted. Stupid and careless, he thought to himself. Never assume anything. He’d been playing at superhero for almost a year and still felt like a wet-behind- -the-ears novice. It had been a lark, the diversion of a bored rich boy who’d inherited his wealth from war profiteering, who’d been slowly dying of terminal boredom until discovering his uncanny knack for archery.

  Who’d decided to become a superhero, like those of American Justice. Unlike them, he didn’t have amazing parahuman abilities to bring foes to justice. But they didn’t have his archery skills, or his arsenal of special arrows.

  With a seasoned eye for gauging distances, he estimated how far away the warehouse was from his vantage point. Alleys in the industrial part of town were deceptively wide; much more so than they looked. To misjudge distance here was to invite a tumble to the pavement or worse. With enough room for the Hudson to have opened both doors and the men to walk past them, he figured it was ten feet across.

  Unfortunately the two sentries remained below, slouching in the alley and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. They would have to be dealt with before he could safely leap across the gap, or else they would raise the alarm. He drew one of the ball-tipped arrows, finding it by the shape of the fletching. He machined the special tips on a lathe in his workshop. Instead of a sharp point, this particular type of trick arrow was tipped with a blunt steel bearing the size of a golf ball. They were heavy and ungainly projectiles, and not very accurate over distance. On the other hand, they were useful for knocking opponents down and out, instead of killing them outright.

  Adrian had never killed a man, and didn’t intend to start. The political climate following World War II had been mostly permissive toward vigilantes, especially with the formation of American Justice by parahuman veterans of the War. South of the old Mason-Dixon line, though, vigilantes were lynching colored folks and burning down churches. Because of that, someone was going to make it illegal sooner or later. Adrian hoped to stave off that time as long as possible, and leaving the bad guys alive
and hurt but contrite looked pretty good to the general public.

  And a good public image was imperative to a guy who dressed up like a pirate with a bow and lurked around the rooftops of New York City.

  He lifted the bow off its clips, its familiar weight comforting in its presence. He measured the distance to the men below at about a two-thirds pull. A ball-tip could knock a man out with a nasty bump on the head, or it could crack his skull. It was a fine line, but he’d spent many hours perfecting his techniques. He took careful aim at the first man’s head, using the glowing tip of his cigarette as a reference point.

  He released the first arrow. In a blurred economy of motion, he drew a second ball-tip just as the first one struck. As the man dropped like a rag doll, Adrian pulled back on the string a second time. The other sentry was just starting to react to the sudden fall of his partner when he was likewise struck, the impact knocking his hat off into a puddle.

  The only sounds from the entire encounter had been the thuds of the ball-tips striking scalps, the crumpling sounds of the men falling, and the clink as the deflected ball-tips bounced to the pavement. Adrian listened intently for a few minutes, making sure that no suspicions had been raised. Eventually, satisfied that he could safely cross the intervening distance to his target warehouse, he took a few running steps and leaped across the alley. Bow in hand, he advanced across the warehouse roof, looking for a way into the building itself. There was a sudden puff of breeze that ruffled the sleeves of his shirt. He stopped, sensing danger.

  A long blade slid across his throat.

  “Don’t move, archer, and lose the bow.” Breath redolent with garlic washed past Adrian’s face.

  “Easy there, chief. You’ll get no trouble from me.” Adrian relaxed himself, preparing to unleash a flurry of kicks upon his attacker. He dropped the bow carefully, glancing down at the blade across his neck. There was something odd about its shape and position. The arm holding the blade was far too short, and even in the shadows, it was plain that the blade was the length of a sword. With a start, he realized that the man was not holding the blade, but that it replaced his arm altogether.

  There was only one man Adrian knew about that had a sword for an arm. “Flicker, I’m one of the good guys. We’re on the same side.”

  “Let him go, John,” came a voice from somewhere above them. Adrian looked up and saw a man hovering casually in the air, ten feet above them. He knew it was Strongman, of course, but it was still quite a shock to see him flying unsupported. Strongman wore a tight-fitting bronze-colored reflective body suit with red accents, cape, and hood. He’d once explained in an interview that the bright colors made him a better target, and since he was bulletproof, he’d rather that the bad guys shot at him than at his teammates.

  The blade was removed from Adrian’s throat—not by it being pulled away, but by suddenly vanishing in a puff of air. Flicker reappeared several feet away. He wore a dark body suit, made out of a material that trapped the light. Where Strongman was bright, Flicker was darkness incarnate. Even the blade that extended from the stump of his upper arm was made out of non-reflecting Damascus steel. His face was also masked.

  Adrian stooped down to pick up his bow, checking it for damage. He’d built it to be as hardy as possible, because one never knew when a bow would need to be used as a club in close quarters, but it was always good to check.

  “You’re gonna believe him just like that?” Flicker grumbled behind his mask.

  “Perhaps,” said Strongman as he dropped to the ground as gently as if he’d been lowered on a crane. “But before you kill him, I’d like to find out more about him.” He turned his attention to Adrian. “We’ve read about you in the papers. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  “You always make your introductions like this?”

  “Please forgive John,” said Strongman. “He’s never been especially trusting.”

  Flicker swung his sword blade back and forth. “Yeah, well, he’s wearing a mask, isn’t he? He’s obviously got somethin’ to hide!”

  “So do we,” said Strongman.

  “Nobody wants to look at radiation scars, Jim. The pirate over there looks like he hasn’t even ever cut himself shaving.”

  “The mask is to protect my identity.” Adrian felt sheepish. He’d thought that his first meeting with American Justice would be more . . . heroic. “Unlike the two of you, I have a private life that I’d rather not complicate with my nighttime activities.”

  “He’s got a point there, John,” came a new, feminine voice. Adrian looked and saw the other three members of American Justice standing by the edge of the warehouse roof. The three newcomers were veterans of the war, like Flicker and Strongman, but they had fought against the Japanese in the Pacific.

  Colt, the woman who had spoken, was pretty behind her short haircut and pilot’s goggles. She wore a dark red leather jacket over a stylized ballet leotard and tights. Her heavy black jump boots had thick, knobby soles, and a pair of horseshoes were incongruously slung at her waist. Adrian knew that she could run as fast as a speeding car and her other reactions were similarly accelerated.

  Beside Colt was Flashpoint, the colored man. He could generate powerfully bright bursts of light to blind and confuse opponents. He wore goggles like Colt, but his were smoked. His costume was a set of light gray coveralls with numerous pouches affixed to it. A pair of automatic pistols was strapped to his waist in well-oiled leather holsters.

  At their feet sat a wolf, tongue lolling out past razor-sharp teeth. The wolf was called Gray, and was a real-life werewolf. Adrian couldn’t remember for sure, but he thought that the alter ego of Gray was an Indian from one of the southern reservations.

  “All right, we’ll concede your identity . . . for now,” said Strongman. “What are you doing here tonight, Dr. Danger?”

  “Working on a tip,” said Adrian. “Someone’s buying uranium, and there’s a group selling it downstairs in this building.”

  Colt gasped and glanced toward Strongman. Adrian was sure that either he had shocked her with his revelation, or confirmed a suspicion.

  “And you were going to just bust in and start shooting arrows at them?” Flicker sounded disgusted.

  “Something like that,” said Adrian. “Last I checked, smuggling was still illegal. I don’t like the idea of somebody else building an atomic bomb. It’s bad enough that the Russians have one now.”

  “So you’ve been working the seller’s angle?” Strongman asked him.

  Adrian nodded. “It’s a branch of the Mob. I don’t know where they got the uranium . . .”

  “Nevada,” said Colt.

  “We’ve been working on this case for a few months now,” said Strongman. “But from the buyer’s angle. We know who’s been trying to obtain the ore, and we think we know why. We just found out the transaction is going to happen here, tonight.”

  “Hell, Jim, why don’t you tell him everything?” Flicker scraped the point of the sword across the warehouse roof.

  “You know what your problem is, Stills? You don’t trust anybody.” Flashpoint spoke for the first time, his voice deep and mellow like a French horn.

  “That’s right, I don’t. And it’s kept me alive this long!” Flicker teleported suddenly right in front of Flashpoint, who started but refrained from further provocation.

  “That’s enough, John. If we’re going to fight amongst ourselves, we might as well let the Nazis win.” Strongman glided in between the two of them, gently pushing Flicker away from the black man.

  “Nazis?” Adrian asked. “I thought that show was over a few years ago.”

  “The buyers are a group of Nazi officers that escaped prosecution and relocated to South America. Specifically, Brazil,” said Strongman. “I don’t think I have to tell you why they’re purchasing uranium.”

  “To build an atomic bomb,” said Adrian, his voice grim. “So they can use it on us.”

  “Or a reactor,” said Flashpoint.

  ??
?What’s a reactor?” The term was unfamiliar to Adrian.

  “It’s a device that creates power through a controlled atomic reaction. We encountered a prototype in Germany. It’s why we wear masks.” Strongman’s voice took on a note of sadness.

  “All right. So we’ve got the Mob selling uranium to the Nazis. Sounds tailor-made for people like us.” Adrian twanged his bowstring for emphasis.

  “Us, maybe.” Flicker’s voice took on a nastier quality than it had before, something Adrian wouldn’t have believed possible. “Nobody said nothin’ about you.”

  Strongman sighed. “Well I’m saying it now, or do I have to make it an order, Corporal?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” grunted the black-garbed man.

  “They brought a truck in a few minutes ago,” said Adrian. “The whole building’s already reading hot on my counter. If they’re going to do the deal tonight, it’s probably going down soon, if not now. Any idea how the Nazis are going to move out the ore?”

  “I’m sure they’ll use a boat. They just need time to load it and make their getaway.” Colt was quivering like her namesake, anticipating battle.

  “All right then, what’s the plan and how can I help?” Adrian asked.

  “He’s the tactician,” Strongman pointed to Flashpoint.

  “Three-pronged attack,” said the colored man. “Strongman goes in through the roof. His objective is to draw fire and cause mayhem. Flicker ‘ports in and handles outlying sentries. Colt and Gray work the guys on the floor, herding them away from the ore towards me, where I can incapacitate them. You . . .” He pointed to Adrian. “Hang around in the rafters and take opportunity shots. Make sure nobody gets away with any ore. Our primary objective is to keep the ore from leaving the warehouse, not to pursue the bad guys. Questions?”

  Adrian glanced around at the others. They seemed confident in the plan, apparently trusting Flashpoint’s ability to formulate strategies.

  “Move out,” said Strongman. “John, you and Dr. Danger are with me. The rest of you have two minutes to get to your positions, then we enter the building.” Colt, Flashpoint, and the wolf slipped away, heading down the fire escape toward the alley below.

  “How are you going to go through the roof?” Adrian asked Strongman.

  “Just smash through it, I suppose. It can’t be that sturdy. It’s just a big box. Why?”

  Adrian pulled an explosive arrow from his quiver, putting it to the string. “This is loaded with gelignite. The impact on the head will detonate it. It ought to weaken the roof considerably.”

  “A grenade, huh? Maybe you ain’t so bad after all.” Flicker’s eyes glinted behind his mask. “Where do you buy ‘em?”

  “Make them myself,” said Adrian. “Where do you want it, Strongman?”

  The bronze-costumed man flew into the air, drifting toward the center of the warehouse roof. “Think you can hit right here?”

  Adrian smiled. “Give me a ten second countdown.”

  Strongman pulled back his sleeve and checked a slim wristwatch. “Okay. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .” Strongman rose higher into the air, inverting himself in preparation for smashing through the warehouse roof.

  At four seconds, Adrian released the arrow. It arced up into the night sky. Four seconds later, it dropped and struck the precise spot that Strongman had marked. The explosive charge shook the roof of the building and a burst of flame and smoke rent the sky.

  Strongman lunged downward, heedless of the fiery cloud of the explosion, hitting the roof like a missile. The rooftop, overstressed and weakened by the gelignite arrow, split open like an overripe fruit, sending a cloud of dust and debris high into the sky. Flicker chuckled behind his mask. “Nicely done, Doc. That’ll get their attention for sure.” He teleported to the edge of the gaping hole, looking inside for his first target, then gave a whoop of pure joy and vanished.

  Adrian was already running for the edge of the hole as he heard gunfire erupt inside the building. Inside the base of his quiver was a coiled silk rope and a grappling hook. Spying a metal pole protruding from the roof, he looped the hook around it and lowered himself into the hole.

  Below him, he saw Colt and Gray running amid a large group of men, all armed, who were trying unsuccessfully to hit any of the heroes. There was no sign of Flicker or Flashpoint, but Strongman had just picked up a shipping crate and was preparing to hurl it at a group of men peppering him with their Tommy guns. Glancing around, Adrian saw a wide horizontal beam that should fit his needs. He kicked his legs, swinging on the rope, hoping that it wouldn’t tear on the jagged edges of the ripped roof.

  As Strongman threw the heavy shipping crate, sending the men flying, Adrian released the rope and flew across the intervening space to catch himself on the beam. In a moment he had clambered up to straddle it. He unlimbered his bow again, seeing a bright flash like a magnesium flare out of the corner of his vision. Blinking away the spots, he began looking for opportune targets.

  The first arrow he fired was a ball-tip at a man carrying one of the ugly-but-efficient German submachine guns. The man was stitching bullets across the floor toward Gray, who was mauling another gunman’s hand. The ball-tip smashed into the man’s wrist, shattering it and causing him to drop the gun. He let out a yell audible even over the sounds of guns and combat. A second ball-tip silenced him, catching him across the temple.

  Colt dashed underneath him, holding her horseshoes like they were boxing gloves. A 60-MPH punch sent a gunman flying in an explosion of tooth fragments. Adrian sent a shower of arrows in her wake, now using pointed arrows to pierce the arms and legs of the gunmen. A new, heavy chatter filled the air as two men raised an air-cooled belt-fed machine gun from the trunk of the Hudson and fired at Strongman. The heavy caliber bullets didn’t penetrate his flesh, but their kinetic impacts knocked him into a support beam for the warehouse. Already overstressed by the weakened roof, the beam buckled and Adrian’s perch bent almost ninety degrees, dropping him toward the floor.

  He knew he was going to land badly. The floor below was covered with splintered shipping crates and debris from Strongman’s actions. He tried to twist himself in midair, the way he’d been taught by a French acrobat. A dark red blur smashed into him as he fell, the impact knocking him flying laterally to smash into a stack of cardboard boxes. The empty boxes absorbed much of the force of his landing. He shook his head to clear it as he realized that Colt was lying on top of him. She had deflected his fall into the boxes. She was breathing heavily, her face flushed. Their eyes locked and in that moment, Adrian was hooked.

  Her hand, trembling slightly, brushed against his cheek and the edge of his mask, as if she would gently lift it away from his face. Thoughts of preserving his identity were far away in Adrian’s mind, and it felt like time itself had ground to a halt.

  The feeling only lasted for a fraction of a second, though, because a stream of fifty-caliber bullets tore through the boxes. Adrian jumped one way and Colt the other to get clear. He spotted his bow where it had fallen and dove for it, yanking one of the Japanese frog-crotch arrows from his quiver. The man firing the machine gun by the Hudson had a terrible grin on his face as he swept the barrel this way and that, driving Strongman back into the warehouse walls. In one smooth, sweeping motion, Adrian grasped his bow, drew the arrow back, and let fly.

  The forked arrow sliced neatly through the belt feed of the machine gun and in a moment the thunderous fire halted. That gave Gray and Flashpoint an opening. The wolf leaped across the Hudson, his claws scrabbling on the shiny black paint, and came down hard on the man who’d been feeding the chain to the machine gun. The man’s scream turned into a gurgle as Gray clamped his jaws down on the man’s throat, tearing it out as neatly as a sculptor removing a lump of clay. The man who’d been firing the gun staggered as a dark third eye appeared in the center of his forehead. He crumpled to the floor. Beyond him, Flashpoint lowered one of his smoking pistols and winked at Adrian.

  For a brief moment, all gunfi
re in the warehouse stopped and Adrian thought that perhaps they’d won. Suddenly four figures in gray overcoats and helmets rushed in from the dockside entrance. Almost in unison, they each tossed a handled grenade in a carefully-planned dispersal pattern. Two of them impacted right where Strongman was digging his way out from under a collapsed wall. The resulting explosion demolished the remains of that corner of the warehouse, burying him under several tons of debris.

  The four newcomers raised their rifles, advancing into the warehouse, which was starting to burn from the various detonations. A black blur appeared among them, swinging a bloodstained sword. A surprised head parted from its shoulders in a spray of blood. The other three reacted with impressive speed, firing toward the teleport. Adrian thought he saw Flicker stagger even as he teleported away.

  Flashpoint popped off three flashes in rapid succession, bringing his pistols to bear on the three remaining overcoats. Gray yelped as a burning crate exploded, scattering fiery splinters across his coat. Even though he had to be seeing nothing but spots from Flashpoint’s powers, one of the men snapped his rifle around and fired at the sound of the wolf.

  Adrian, realizing at last that this engagement would require him to cross the line he’d set for himself, drew a broad-tipped hunting arrow and put it through the throat of one of the three men. The remaining two fired back, taking cover behind a forklift.

  Colt was frantically trying to pull flaming debris away from the pile that had trapped Strongman. Even though he couldn’t be hurt by the crushing weight, he could still be burned or suffocated. She was moving faster than she ever had before.

  “Danger, help Gray!” Flashpoint called as he crouched behind a packing case and reloaded his pistols.

  Adrian looked around and saw the wolf was pulling Flicker across the floor by his good arm, a trail of blood streaks in his wake. He lunged for the wounded man, helping to get him behind some cover just as the two overcoats opened up again.

  “Who the hell are those guys?” Adrian shouted over the din.

  “SS,” coughed Flicker, pulling his mask off. Adrian started with revulsion, realizing why the man wore a mask. His face was terribly scarred, as if he’d been burned. Blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. “Got a . . . real good look . . . at the guy I cut.”

  “SS?”

  “Yeah . . . Schutzstaffel . . . I really hate . . . those assholes.” Flicker grimaced from the pain of his wounds. He’d been shot in the torso and abdomen. “Can’t feel . . . my legs.”

  Colt appeared beside them, her costume blackened and smoke still rising from it in places. “I can’t get him out! I can’t even tell if he’s alive under there!”

  More gunfire came from the SS troopers, providing cover for four other men to grab a pair of heavy strongboxes and head for the dockside entrance. The entire front wall of the warehouse was burning.

  “That’s the uranium!” Flashpoint shouted.

  A voice outside the warehouse urged the men to hurry in German.

  “They’ve got to have a boat,” said Adrian. “If they get to it, we’ll never stop them. We need a diversion so we can get past those troopers!”

  Flicker coughed, spattering blood flecks. “I can . . . still do that . . .”

  “No!” cried Colt as the teleport vanished.

  He reappeared in midair, several feet over the Schutzstaffel who were firing from behind the forklift. He tumbled down on top of them like a giant rag doll, swinging his sword at them as he fell.

  Adrian was already up and running, reaching for another hunting tip. Gray was even faster, closing on the men carrying the strongboxes. Behind them, Flashpoint used his powers again to try and blind anyone trying to draw a bead on them.

  The two SS troopers made short work of Flicker. They raised their rifles again, preparing to fire at Adrian and Gray. Suddenly Colt whipped past from behind them. As she dashed past Adrian she hung something on the arrow he was about to release.

  Arming pins.

  The troopers blew up.

  A furry gray body staggered away from the explosion to collapse on the warehouse floor. The wolf transformed partway into a man but then froze before completion. A pool of blood spread out beneath him. “Gray!” cried Colt. “I didn’t see him there!”

  “He’s gone,” said Adrian. “I’m sorry.”

  “No time for that now,” said Flashpoint. “Get after the uranium. Don’t wait for me.” Adrian realized that the colored man had been shot and was holding a bloody rag against his leg.

  Adrian wanted to say something, but had no idea what. At first, he thought it was his ears ringing from the explosion, but then he was certain that he heard the sound of an engine from the dock. He ran out of the burning warehouse and saw a motorboat pulling away from the dock with six men on board. He ran to the edge of the dock and released his arrow. A man on the boat tumbled into the water and didn’t surface again.

  Adrian drew back, fired, and sent another Nazi off to sleep with the fishes. Then he lowered his bow before firing any more arrows. “Out of range,” he said to Colt as she ran up beside him. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Only temporarily,” said Colt. She pointed to where a small motor launch was moored. In a blur of motion she had the boat untied. Adrian slid into the seat behind the wheel. He thumbed the starter as Colt jumped into the other seat. The engine coughed twice, then rumbled to life. Adrian thrust the throttle all the way forward and locked it into place. The powerful motor roared and the boat’s prow lifted out of the water as it accelerated away from the dock.

  Even though it was late at night, there were still enough lights along the docks reflecting in the water that Adrian could see the path carved by the other boat. “Where do you think they’re going?” He shouted over the din of the boat’s engine.

  “They’ve got to have a bigger ship out there somewhere. Something that will get them back to Brazil.”

  An idea occurred to Adrian. “Take the wheel a moment.” Colt slipped in front of him, allowing him to pick up his bow. He reached into his quiver for one of his experimental arrows. He always carried three or four of them, different projects he was developing.

  The arrow he drew forth had a pair of strange bulging packages wrapped around the shaft. He dragged the tip of the arrow along the boat’s gunwale, igniting the phosphorous powder that in turn touched off the fuse. Before the fuse burned down to the flare, he pulled the bowstring back to his cheek and shot the arrow high into the night sky.

  The flare package lit as the arrow ascended, burning magnesium powder to make a bright, white light. So far so good, thought Adrian. As the arrow reached the zenith of its arc, the secondary fuse burned through and the fireproof chute deployed itself. The flare arrow wafted down in the sea breeze, dropping like a star falling in slow motion.

  “Nice,” said Colt. “What else have you got stashed in that quiver?”

  “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work,” Adrian said. Ahead, he could see the other speedboat heading for a tall, dark pillar.

  Colt took one of her hands off the boat’s wheel and pushed her pilot’s goggles up onto her forehead. She squinted into the distance at the other boat’s destination. “What is that?”

  “Buoy?”

  Colt shook her head. “No light on it.”

  The other boat slowed and pulled alongside the pillar. The water around it began to bubble and foam as it rose. A narrow, dark hull popped onto the surface, water draining away through dark openings.

  A U-boat.

  As the men on the other boat began to climb aboard the U-boat’s deck, hauling the uranium-filled strongboxes with them, other men flowed out of what Adrian now realized was the conning tower. Some of them assisted the unloading of the boat, while the others unlocked the deck gun and swung it around toward them.

  Colt spun the wheel hard and the boat heaved around a tight corner, nearly swamping itself as the gunners opened up. Adrian nearly fell overboard from the maneuver, only just managing to catch a
tie bar. Heavy shells blasted fountains of water into the air, barely missing their boat.

  “I’m not really equipped to take on a submarine.” Adrian struggled back to the front of the boat. “What’s the plan?”

  “Plan?” Colt flashed him a brilliant smile. “You’re the Eagle Scout. I’m just the cabbie.” She whipped the boat around in another tight turn to avoid a trail of shell impacts.

  “Okay, let me think for a second.”

  “No pressure, Doc. They’re only shooting at us.”

  Adrian drew another explosive-tipped arrow from the quiver, which was now the lightest it had ever been in a single foray. “Well, I can do something about the shooting, at least. Can you get us to within fifty yards?”

  “I better get one hell of a tip for this,” said Colt. “Traffic is murder this time of night.” She bounced the boat over a slow breaker and pointed the prow directly at the U-boat. The shells from the deck gun impacted closer and closer.

  The shot would be impossible to aim using any type of conventional technique. The speed and rocking motion of the boat were too much. Fortunately, Adrian didn’t aim so much as he fired instinctively. He always seemed to know exactly the right time, the right direction, and the right amount of pull for a given shot. He knew without conscious thought when to take the shot.

  When the moment was right, he fired. The gelignite-filled arrow hit the U-boat’s deck right where the deck gun was bolted down. The explosion blew the gun right off into the water, along with the gunners manning it. Nevertheless, in the short time it took for that shot, the other soldiers managed to get the strongboxes inside the vessel.

  Adrian was about to say something to Colt but the words stuck in his throat. A Nazi officer was floating in midair, his body limned with a glow of pale energy that was visible even in the light of the flare. He glared at them with the contempt of someone confronting a nest of insects. The feeling of sheer power that came from the man was sobering. Adrian dropped an arrow from nerveless fingers; it splashed into the bilge.

  The officer looked down at two wounded men on the deck, his face devoid of emotion. He raised his hands in an obscene parody of Christ. Raw energy flowed from his hands, incinerating the men and blasting seawater into steam. Satisfied that there was nobody left to be questioned by American authorities or superheroes, the officer landed upon the deck of the U-boat and stepped inside the conning tower.

  The U-boat began to submerge. Colt throttled down. Adrian lowered his bow. The flare arrow finally hit the water and fizzled out into darkness in a few moments. He dropped into the seat next to her.

  “They win this time. We’ll have to find out what they’re going to do with the uranium and get it back.”

  Colt nodded. “Jim said that his unit had investigated the creation of a Nazi parahuman back in the war.”

  “You think that was him?”

  “God, I hope so. Otherwise it means there’s more than one.” Her hands were shaking.

  “Are you all right?” Adrian took her hands in his.

  She nodded. “Combat shakes. I get them every time.” A weak smile crossed her face, now lit only by moonlight. “By the way, I’m Judy.”

  Adrian returned her smile. “Adrian.”

  Those Who Came Before:

  Dust to Dust

  Thou turnest man to destruction; again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men.

  -The Order for The Burial of the Dead,

  The Book of Common Prayer, 1928

  September, 1985

  Kansas City, Kansas

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” said the preacher. “Go in peace, and God bless you all.”

  In turn, they each took a handful of dirt and dropped it on the grave containing Thomas Whitman, also known as Stormcloud, but Faith would only ever think of him as Tornado, the soft-spoken boy with the rockstar golden hair and serene smile. It wasn’t until after the Blackout of ‘77 that he’d left behind his sky-blue and white costume for one that was hooded and dark, that matched the moodiness of his new identity and the swirling black clouds in his heart.

  AIDS might have waited until 1985 to take his body, but his soul had died years earlier.

  Faith Thompson was uncomfortable thanks to the unusually hot day for September. She was six months pregnant and nine months retired from Just Cause. Bobby, her husband, stood with her, gently stroking her back. He had retired from active superhero duties years earlier, but had taken on the job of Team Administrator, and divided his time between following Faith’s pregnancy and keeping Just Cause operating smoothly.

  All living Just Cause members and alumni had come to the funeral. From the original American Justice team of the late ‘40s came Adrian and Judy Crowley, Faith’s parents, still fit even into their sixties. Lady Athena, who had grown even more elegant over time, stood with the Crowleys, her luscious black curls having long since gone gray underneath the burgundy of her hood. The only other living founder of Just Cause, known more by his heroic guise of Kid Crash than his birth name of Elliott Hines, was no longer the happy-go-lucky underage hero who’d charmed his way into America’s hearts. He’d had double bypass surgery, and the whispers among the parahuman community was that his prognosis for long-term survival was, at best, poor. The White Knight had died in a car crash in ’64, and Isaiah Mohammed, who’d never felt like he truly belonged among all the white parahumans of American Justice and Just Cause, had died just two years ago, angry at society all the way to the end when a stroke felled him in front of his typewriter.

  All members from the Just Cause of the Sixties and Seventies had come as well. John Stone had forsworn his normal fedora for a pair of oversized dark glasses and a jacket bigger than anyone could buy from a Big and Tall men’s clothing store. Lionheart, still looking heroic despite several years of retirement, filled out a dark suit and tie. He was starting to develop a paunch but his mane was as full as ever, framing his face like a tawny halo. He wouldn’t meet Faith’s gaze; there was too much history between the two of them. Beside her, Bobby glared at the lionish man and said nothing. Likewise, too much history.

  The active members of Just Cause wore their costumes out of respect for the dead. They had known Tornado the longest, and his death had hit them the hardest of anyone. The Steel Soldier stood along with Imp, Javelin, and Sundancer, looking as somber as possible for a robot.

  Three generations of the Devereaux family had crossed the Atlantic to be there. Although Georges, the man with whom it had all began, had died thirty years ago, his son Lane, granddaughter Grace, and great-grandson Jean-Michel had all arrived only that morning. Lane had taken his father’s fortune, amassed an even greater fortune, and used it to become the benefactor to the team. Grace was one of the world’s foremost experts on parahuman physiology, and her Institute of Parahuman Medicine in Paris was at the forefront of all research. Jean-Michel was ten, and looked like he’d rather be anywhere but at a funeral.

  The current Just Cause team stood together across the grave. Sundancer’s younger sister, Estella, was a tactical genius and the leader of the team. Ten years younger than her sister, she’d taken the name Sunstorm as a tribute. Beside her were Foxfire, the Timekeeper, Danger, and Fast Break. The newest, youngest members of the team were Juice and Crackerjack. They were still in college, and were strictly part-timers.

  It was the largest collection of parahumans the world had ever seen, all there to pay their final respects to the quiet, friendly man they had all known as Tornado. He had died from advanced pneumonia, although they all knew that it was the compromising of his immune system that had allowed him to contract the deadly illness in the first place. AIDS was the watchword of the day, and despite Thomas Whitman’s sexual proclivities, it was still a terrible shock to all who knew him when he was forced to retire as diseases began wearing him down.

  Nobody knew how long he’d had AIDS, or even from whom he’d contracted it. In his final weeks, he’d worked to try and track down those men with whom he’d had
relations, to warn them lest they might continue to spread the infection. In the end, not one of them had come forward to see him, or even contacted him. Thomas had died surrounded by only his teammates, who certainly loved him far more than any of his lovers had.

  The group began to break up, somber and quiet, each hero lost in his or her own thoughts at the graveside.

  Lady Athena hugged Faith carefully as Adrian and Judy looked on with a mixture of sadness and pride. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Faith. You too, Bobby.”

  Faith wiped her eyes. “I just wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

  Lady Athena’s own eyes were bright under her hood. “Your daughter will be a beautiful baby, and will be a great hero in her lifetime. This I know.”

  “Thank you,” Faith whispered.

  “Take care of yourself, Bobby.” Lady Athena’s gaze strayed to Bobby and seemed to grow troubled.

  He nodded and put his arm around his wife. “I will. Can you join us for dinner tonight?”

  “Of course.”

  Faith’s parents walked away with Athena, quiet and introspective. It was an unwritten rule that superheroes died doing their duty, like Flicker and Strongman. Dying young was a privilege of the parahuman condition, and they had somehow avoided feeling death’s sting. It was like living on borrowed time, her mother had told her, so they cherished every minute knowing it might be their last.

  “Would you bring the car around please, love?” Faith asked Bobby. “I need to sit down for a minute.” He walked away and she found a bench and eased herself down onto it, wishing she had a pillow to sit upon.

  “How are you feeling?” Estella Echevarria walked up with her older sister a pace behind. Her costume sparkled with warm colors in the bright sunshine of the early afternoon.

  “Like a blimp with legs,” said Faith, absently stroking her belly and feeling her daughter kick. Her superspeed powers had vanished literally the moment she conceived. She had been in a panic, for they had never forsaken her before. She flew to Paris on the first available flight to visit Grace at her clinic, sick the entire way. Grace had come to the clinic at three in the morning and run a battery of tests. She hadn’t been able to explain why Faith’s powers had suddenly stopped working, but when Faith described the symptoms of her illness, Grace ran one more test. The discovery that she was pregnant was so startling to Faith that she’d fainted and spent three days in bed under Grace’s watchful eyes. She asked Grace if her powers would come back. Grace couldn’t say. Perhaps it was her body’s way of protecting the unborn baby. All they could do is wait and see. Grace prescribed a strict diet and exercise regimen which Faith had given up her fifth day home and replaced with walks in Central Park and lots of tin roof sundae ice cream.

  “I envy you so much,” said Sundancer. “Bringing a new life into the world.”

  “You could have a baby if you wanted one, stupid,” said Estella.

  “Shut up already, pest.”

  Faith sighed, wishing she could take a really deep breath. “I’ve missed you guys. I miss Headquarters. I even miss your staff meetings,” she said to Estella.

  “Hey, they aren’t that bad. Are they?”

  “Oh yeah, they suck,” said Sundancer.

  “How are the new guys working out?”

  “Well, James is pure business. No fun in that boy at all. Jack’s his complete opposite. And, oh, is he a fox!” Sundancer shivered. “Too bad I’m old enough to be his, uh, stepmother.”

  “It beats me why they’re such good friends. It’s like the Odd Couple or something,” Estella laughed.

  Bobby pulled up in the Skylark and put it into Park, letting it idle while he got out and opened Faith’s door for her. “Ooo, how gallant,” Sundancer said. Bobby’s brow furrowed suddenly in an expression that Faith recognized meant he’d heard something.

  “Bobby?” She asked, worried. He swung his head slightly from side to side, zeroing in on the source of whatever he was hearing. He turned around suddenly and looked up. Faith followed his gaze, as did Sundancer and Estella.

  A plane was falling on them.

  It was some kind of private jet. Its engines were off and the only sound was the air whipping past its hull as it fell in a corkscrewing tumble. Faith would later replay the scene over and over in her mind, torturing herself and wondering if she could have done anything. It seemed like everything was happening in slow motion, but even her advanced perception abilities had vanished with the pregnancy. Several people were running in their direction, but they, too, seemed to be hardly moving at all.

  Faith’s instincts were to run to Bobby, but she struggled to even get up off the bench. Estella wrapped her arms around Faith and pulled, flying as hard as she could to get clear. Sundancer and Fast Break both lunged for Bobby as the plane came down, hitting the ground hard only a few feet from the Buick.

  A puff of warm air blew past Faith. Estella’s powers protected her from heat and she was able to extend the envelope to cover Faith as well. Pieces of the jet and the demolished car whirled outward in every direction, jagged razors of scorched metal. Faith saw a chunk of wing neatly decapitate Danger as he ran. His body took several more staggering steps before falling to the ground. Something long and sharp hit Lionheart in his abdomen and knocked him flying back into a gravestone, which shattered.

  Estella set Faith down about thirty yards away from the crash site. “I can’t carry you any further,” she said, panting with the exertion, “but you should be safe enough here. Are you all right?”

  Faith nodded. She felt a sharp twinge in her abdomen that might have been a contraction. Where was Bobby?

  Estella’s body became consumed in flames as she activated all her powers and truly became Sunstorm. She flew off like a phoenix, heading for the burning wreckage with a vengeance. She drew the flames away from the plane, pulling them through the air into her own fire.

  Faith gasped as another contraction rocked her. No, it’s too soon! In a few seconds it was over, and then Grace Devereaux was kneeling down next to her, holding her hand and calming her. Faith could see Lane towering above, standing protectively over them. Unwilling to leave his daughter, he dug in his pocket, considering, then handed his keys to Jean-Michel.

  “Apportez l’auto,” he said.

  “Mais, Grand-père . . .” the boy began nervously.

  Lane smiled at the boy, sadness in his eyes from the events that had transpired. “Je vous fais confiance.” I trust you. Jean-Michel gulped and ran toward the distant car, keys held in front of him like a holy talisman.

  The other heroes tore apart the plane with frantic intensity as they searched for the missing. Danger was in two pieces, obviously dead. “I can’t find a pulse!” Crackerjack shouted. He was hunched over Lionheart. Imp was shrinking pieces of the plane while Juice tossed them aside.

  Faith suffered through another contraction, squeezing Grace’s hand, seeking strength. She tried to remember her breathing techniques, but she and Bobby weren’t due to go to Lamaze classes until next month. Where was Bobby?

  Sunstorm gave a roar of dismay, the sound of a plasma jet slicing through sheet metal, as she found her sister amid the wreckage. She gathered up the body in arms aflame and lifted her as easily as if she were a child. Sundancer’s arms and legs dangled in a way that would be impossible if she were still living.

  “There!” Imp cried, and pointed at a piece of wreckage, shrinking it to the size of a postage stamp. Juice pushed another piece aside and came upon the remains of poor Fast Break, who had tried to knock Bobby clear of the plane only to be crushed by one of the engines. Somehow, though, he was still alive. He gasped in agony through the shattered remains of his crash helmet.

  Juice shouted, “Timekeeper, get him into stasis!”

  The Timekeeper stepped up and created a bubble of frozen time around Fast Break.

  Where was Bobby?

  They found him underneath the tail. Fast Break had nearly succeeded in saving Faith
’s husband. He was alive, but only barely with a critical head wound.

  “Bag him up, Timekeeper,” said Juice.

  “Already on it.” Another bubble of frozen time formed around Bobby. There was still hope.

  Faith heard sirens faintly, and her next contraction wasn’t so severe. “Help’s on its way,” said Grace, as the Timekeeper put another stasis bubble around Bobby.

  “Where the hell is the pilot?” Juice shouted. He’d torn open the remains of the canopy. “There’s nobody in here!”

  A high-pitched whistling sound rose over the confusion. Foxfire was the first to get it. “It’s a trap! Incoming!” An object was diving from on high, and it was moving fast, a pair of contrails streaking in its wake.

  Steel Soldier’s eye lenses whirred as it focused on the intruder. “Battlesuit. Unknown configuration. Hostile intent assumed. Intercepting.” The Soldier snapped on its wings and blue alcohol flames shot out, incinerating a hedge. The robotic hero blasted into the sky like a missile. Half a second later, Sunstorm and Javelin followed suit.

  Imp shrank Bobby and Fast Break down to doll size within their stasis bubbles, then she and the Timekeeper hurried to get them to safety inside a nearby mausoleum.

  Foxfire had no obvious powers. Like the original Dr. Danger, she depended largely on athletic prowess and technological assistance to battle for Just Cause. Instead of arrows, her specialty was explosives and demolition. She followed the others into the mausoleum, pulling her first aid kit out.

  Another contraction hit Faith, and she winced with the pain. Not yet, she told her unborn daughter. You’re not finished. She faintly heard the sound of an engine and a car braked uncertainly behind her. She craned her head around to see Jean-Michel peeking over the rim of the steering wheel of a Cadillac. Lane ordered him to help Grace with Faith, then slid behind the wheel.

  Between the wiry ten-year-old and his mother, they managed to get the ungainly Faith into the passenger seat of the Caddy. Grace and her son climbed into the back and Lane put the car in gear.

  “No,” said Faith, choking on her own tears. “We can’t leave. The others might need us.”

  “We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” said Grace. “I don’t have anything with me to get your contractions stopped, and it’s too soon for the baby to be born.”

  “Absolutely not!” Faith clenched her teeth, willing her body to obey her. “I won’t leave without Bobby.”

  “All right,” Grace said. “But I’m timing your contractions. If they get any closer together, I don’t care what you want, we’re leaving.”

  The armored figure dropping from the sky fired braking rockets and slowed. Sunstorm, Javelin, and the Steel Soldier surrounded it. The angular armor was a uniform dark blue and looked like something out of an imported Japanese cartoon show. The head turned slightly, examining the Just Cause heroes surrounding it.

  “Do not move,” the Steel Soldier said. “We have you surrounded. State your business.” The fifteen-foot-high battlesuit raised a hand and spat a bright globule of energy at the Soldier. The Soldier attempted to dodge but the globule expanded and enveloped the robot in a nimbus of sparks. “Skzzrrt . . .” The Steel Soldier’s voice failed as the halo of energy condensed into an actinic point in its torso.

  Then the Soldier exploded. Pieces of arms and legs flew in all directions. Irreplaceable components burned and shattered.

  “Stupid machine,” said a digitized voice from the battlesuit. “I never should have fixed it in the first place.”

  It was Harlan Washington, the Destroyer.

  “Oh, no!” Faith groaned.

  Javelin shouted, “Cook him!” He and Sunstorm cut loose with full power. A curved shield unfolded from each of Destroyer’s arms. Sunstorm’s flame splashed across one, harmlessly deflected into the sky. The other shield blocked Javelin’s energy bolts, simply trapping them in whatever material from which it was made.

  There was a flash of smoke and flame from a unit mounted on Destroyer’s shoulder. Twelve miniature missiles, each no longer than a foot, arced out, zeroing in on Javelin. He yelped in surprise and dove for the ground as the missiles turned to follow like a horde of angry bees. He bounced off a heavy gravestone, sparks flying from his burnished armor. The missiles struck the gravestone and exploded, sending granite splinters flying in all directions.

  Destroyer trained his hand-cannon on Sunstorm. “I’ve got nothing against you. This is personal between me and them. Leave now.”

  Sunstorm growled and sent a bright stream of plasma hotter than the sun at Destroyer’s weapon hand. “Personal? I’ll show you personal!” Metal bubbled and ran like melting butter. “You killed my sister, you son of a bitch!”

  “Your problem, hero. Here’s another.” Something sharp and shining lanced out from Destroyer’s damaged arm, struck Sunstorm in her chest, and poked out of her back. It was a wickedly barbed spear.

  Sunstorm looked down at it in surprise. She raised her head slowly, red flames flashing in her eyes. “You stupid asshole. You might as well try to spear a campfire.” To illustrate her point, she simply moved aside, letting the spear slide out of her flaming side.

  It gave Destroyer pause, and he dropped out of the sky like a stone before she could light him up with another plasma stream. Powerful shock absorbers took the impact of the heavy battlesuit striking the ground. The suit’s feet sank a few inches into the dirt.

  Juice crouched down by one of the lampposts along the path, tore open the electrical access plate, and grabbed hold of the wiring. The lights flashed and then burned out in a tinkling of broken glass as he drained electricity from the surrounding grid to fuel his own abilities.

  Javelin picked himself up from amid a pile of granite pieces. He stood gingerly, bleeding from several deep gouges. His left arm hung useless and broken.

  Imp flew in front of Destroyer, scolding him like an angry hummingbird. “Harlan, just what do you think you’re doing?”

  Destroyer batted a hand at her that would have turned her into paste if it had connected. “Just a little payback, dear sister. I spent five years in hell because of you people.”

  “Juvie hall,” called Javelin. “And you earned it, you little bastard. They shoulda locked you up for good.”

  A multi-barreled gun lifted out of Destroyer’s undamaged arm and fired, barrels spinning in a blur. Jack leaped in front of Javelin, who was caught unawares. The stream of bullets drove him back and both men went tumbling over the rubble. Javelin hollered as his broken arm twisted.

  Juice came crashing in, wrenching the gun loose in a shriek of overstressed metal. “I’m going to tear your ass right out of there,” he shouted. “And when I’m done with you, you’ll wish you were back in juvie!” He sank his fingers into the armor plating and tore a piece free.

  “Watch it, Juice, he’s clever,” Imp warned, but not in time. A puff of white gas shot out of a hidden nozzle into Juice’s face. The dark-skinned man coughed once, then his eyes rolled up and he dropped heavily to the ground.

  “Get clear, Irlene!” Sunstorm opened up, raining flames down on Destroyer as if she had opened the very gates of Hell.

  Destroyer staggered under the onslaught, trying to hold the shield up. With his other hand, he yanked a gravestone out of the ground and hurled it at Sunstorm. The heavy missile splashed right through her and melted into slag. Her body reformed once again. “I’m coming after you next time, you bitch!”

  “There won’t be any next time. You’ll burn before I’m done with you.” Sunstorm’s flame was so bright it was actually painful to look at, casting new shadows in the daylight. Jack dragged Juice clear, clothes smoking from the nearness to the inferno Sunstorm had unleashed.

  Something exploded in the battlesuit, causing everyone to look away. Faith saw something rising very fast out of the torso, riding a pillar of flame that paled in comparison to Sunstorm’s. As she watched, stubby wings snapped out of it and it accelerated at an unbelievable pace. Sunstorm made a hal
f-hearted attempt to pursue, but it was much faster than her and she was exhausted from the amount of energy she’d expended. She sank to the grass, shaking and spent.

  In the distance, Faith heard all the sirens in the world approaching. She felt faint and realized she’d been holding her breath. Unable to take a deep breath because of her daughter pressing against her diaphragm, she panted a little and spots appeared in her vision. It occurred to her faintly that she hadn’t had any more contractions. Grace was massaging her wrists.

  Bobby.

  “It’ll be all right,” Grace kept saying, like a soothing litany. “Bobby’s in stasis.”

  “Eight years,” Faith murmured, watching numbly as emergency vehicles began pouring into the cemetery.

  Grace asked, “What did you say?”

  “Eight years,” said Faith. “He’s been nursing that grudge against us for eight years. We can’t fight that kind of hatred. We can only hope to survive it.”

  Roll Call

  The Teams of the Just Cause Universe

  Project Circus

  Project Circus, known colloquially as The Freakshow, was formed in the summer of 1940 by the U.S. Army in conjunction with a French researcher, Dr. Georges Devereaux. It was a team of special operatives designed to exploit the first documented American parahumans. In 1941, the four exceptional talents—Strongman, Flicker, Meteor, and Sounder—were sent to operate in the European theater and were instrumental in helping the French Resistance.

  Meteor and Sounder were killed in action in 1942 with the destruction of Aufstein Castle, and Strongman and Flicker were seriously injured. Project Circus was officially disbanded later that same year.

  Project Shetland

  Project Shetland, also known as The Dog and Pony Show, was formed in late 1941 by Georges Devereaux after he discovered additional American parahumans: Colt, Gray, and Flashpoint. If Project Circus was a low-profile operation, Project Shetland was practically invisible. With a membership that included a woman, a black man, and an American Indian, the team was very unpopular and was given missions of little consequence in the Pacific Theater. Despite the lack of support, Project Shetland functioned very well and succeeded brilliantly in every assigned mission.

  Project Shetland was officially disbanded in 1943.

  American Justice

  American Justice was founded in 1946 by the surviving members of Projects Circus and Shetland. Having served their country across two oceans, the heroes turned their attention to America’s growing crime problems. In 1949, Flicker and Gray were killed battling Nazi agents and mobsters in New York. Later that year, Dr. Danger joined American Justice. Strongman was seriously injured in 1951 and later died from his injuries.

  Between 1950 and 1953, three more heroes joined American Justice: Lady Athena, Kid Crash, and the White Knight. In 1953, Georges Devereaux was called before the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. When he refused to disclose the secret identities of the unknown members of American Justice, the team was blacklisted. In response to the actions of the committee, Devereaux moved to Paris; the White Knight returned to his home in the South, and Flashpoint retired from the team to study alongside of Malcolm X. Colt retired from active hero duties to marry Dr. Danger and have a baby.

  American Justice officially disbanded in 1953 and reformed as Just Cause in 1954.

  Just Cause

  Just Cause formed as a covert team in 1954, consisting of Lady Athena, Dr. Danger, and Kid Crash. Dr. Danger led the group for ten years, retiring in 1964. New members joined during this period, including John Stone, Lionheart, Danger (Dr. Danger’s handpicked successor), and Tornado. In 1964, Lady Athena assumed command of the team. During her tenure, Just Cause made the slow transformation from covert operations to gaining public approval and sanction.

  Eventually the laws enacted in the Fifties were repealed, due largely to the actions of Georges Devereaux and Adrian Crowley (Dr. Danger) and metahumans were no longer considered a criminal class. Although Georges died in 1955, his son Lane took up the cause and continued to fight for metahuman rights. An equal rights bill for metahumans was passed in 1969.

  Lady Athena retired in 1971, leaving Lionheart in command of the team. Danger left Just Cause to operate as a solo vigilante. Kid Crash retired in 1974. Tornado remained active. New members joined including Sundancer, the robotic Steel Soldier, Imp, Pony Girl, Audio, and the Javelin. In 1974, Just Cause relocated to a new headquarters in Two World Trade Center. By the mid-70s, Just Cause had become a true “supergroup” and were celebrated by the press and their fans alike. In 1977, Just Cause battled Destroyer for the first time.

  By the 80s, Just Cause had become its own corporation. The new commander, Sunstorm, was Sundancer’s younger sister. Danger returned to Just Cause after his solo stint in 1983. New members joined the group: Foxfire, the Timekeeper, Fast Break, Juice, and Crackerjack. John Stone and Lionheart retired in 1979. Tornado died of complications relating to AIDS in 1985. His funeral was attacked by Destroyer and several Just Cause heroes were killed including Sundancer, Danger, Lionheart, Audio, and Fast Break. The Steel Soldier was destroyed as well.

  By the 90s, Just Cause expanded into two separate teams with large memberships. The organization had become the single most powerful collection of paraahumans ever assembled. They battled such groups as the Zodiac and the New Malice Group, but were essentially unchallenged in their success and authority.

  In 2001, Just Cause headquarters were destroyed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Several members of Just Cause perished in the attack: Timekeeper, Javelin, Foxfire, and Imp were all killed.

  The surviving members of Just Cause—Juice, Doublecharge, Desert Eagle, Crackerjack, Glimmer, and Forcestar—relocated temporarily to the JCST headquarters before moving out to a new facility built in Denver, Colorado. A presidential order made Just Cause an official part of the newly-created Department of Homeland Security.

  In 2002, Just Cause added its first graduate of the Hero Academy: Mastiff. In 2004, Mustang Sally, the daughter of Pony Girl and granddaughter of Colt, was added to the roster.

  Forcestar and Glimmer were both killed in action in Guatemala in 2004.

  Children of the Atom

  The Children of the Atom was a team of young metahumans that formed in 1960, inspired by the growing popularity of Just Cause. The Children of the Atom were never as well-organized as the larger group, and had many stops and starts with varying memberships. Two heroes that remained in CotA through all its various incarnations were the Neutralizer and Photon.

  The Children of the Atom disbanded in 1972.

  Just Cause Second Team

  Just Cause’s Second Team was formed in 1995. The team roster consisted of MetalBlade, Icebreaker, Superconductor, Alloy, and Mosaic. Hero Academy graduate Orbital joined the team in 2002. The Second Team is based in Richmond, Virginia.

  The Lucky Seven

  The Lucky Seven is the oldest active independent team in the country, having been in existence with the same roster since 1990. They are led by Spark, who has no parahuman powers and uses his athletic prowess and electric gadgets to meet parahumans on even footing. The rest of the team consists of Bullet, Juliet, Tremor, Stratocaster, and Carousel. Trix was killed in Guatemala in 2004. They have not yet replaced him. The Seven are based in Chicago, Illinois.

  The New Guard

  The New Guard began operating in 1999. Based in Los Angeles, the young team has seen a lot of action in the short time since they came into existence. Their leader, Javelin, is the niece of the first Javelin. The rest of the team—Seahawk, Chrome, Ogre, and Blueshift—follow her in their exploits.

 

  Divine Right

  Divine Right consists of six heroes who believe their powers are gifts from God. They took their names from books of the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Esther, and Ruth. Interestingly enough, not one of them has tested positive for the gene linked to parahuman abilities. They are based in Atlanta, Georgia
and have operated since 2000.

  Young Guns

  The Young Guns are a team formed by the 2003 class of Hero Academy graduates (except for Mustang Sally and Orb, who joined Just Cause, and Vapor, who left active superhero work after graduation). They operate in New York City. The roster consists of Bombshell, Surfboy, Johnny Go, and Toxic.

 

  The Hero Academy

  The Hero Academy was established in 2000 as a place for young parahumans to receive training in the use of their abilities as well as providing a moral and ethical foundation for them. It is a fully-accredited high school, and students can continue on to achieve an additional two years of post-high school education. Since Just Cause became an official part of the government in 2002, graduates of the Hero Academy are now licensed as Federal law enforcement officers.

  The principal and several faculty members are retired heroes, including Sunstorm, John Stone, and Photon.

  Deep Six

  Deep Six is the prison facility established by Just Cause in 1994. Located six kilometers under the ground in Montana, it is capable of holding up to two hundred parahumans in solitary or group confinement. The warden, Neutralizer, used to be part of the Children of the Atom. There were thirty-seven prisoners being held in various levels of security in 2004.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ian Thomas Healy dabbles in many different genres. He’s a ten-time participant and winner of National Novel Writing Month and is also the creator of the Writing Better Action Through Cinematic Techniques workshop, which helps writers to improve their action scenes.

  When not writing, which is rare, he enjoys watching hockey, reading comic books (and serious books, too), and living in the great state of Colorado, which he shares with his wife, children, house-pets, and approximately five million other people.

  Ian is on Twitter as @ianthealy

  Ian is on Facebook as Author Ian Thomas Healy

  www.ianthealy.com

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  ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

  Jeff Hebert is the creator of the HeroMachine online character portrait creator. He splits time between Austin, Texas and Durango, Colorado pursuing his lifetime dream of drawing super-heroes all day while not wearing pants.

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