Being called to the Director’s office was never good. Agent Stanson had been around long enough to know that. He was about to be asked to do something extremely important, top secret, or technically illegal. Probably a bit of all three.
He came to the end of the white-walled blue-carpeted hallway that led to the Director’s office. Stacy, the Director’s secretary, was busily sorting files and notes at her desk and generally looking harried and doing her best to ignore the flashing lights on her phone. How a short, 38-year-old brunette woman could look so much like an irritated dragon he’d never understand. Agent Stanson cleared his throat to get her attention.
She looked up at him like he was an insignificant insect that had had the audacity to smear its guts on the bottom of her shoe. Agent Stanson wondered briefly if secretaries got training for that look. “The Director is expecting you, go on in,” she said, and returned immediately to her obviously more important work.
“Thank you,” he said as he passed, though he didn’t expect or get a response. He pushed through the polished oak doors that led to the Director’s office. As he entered the Director was on the phone and held up a finger to indicate Agent Stanson should wait.
Stanson took the time to glance around the Director’s office. The place was a testament to elegant functionality. There were a few paintings on the walls, tastefully historical of course, a leather couch, some filing cabinets, a couple of leather chairs facing the Director’s polished cherry wood desk, and the Director’s own high-backed leather office chair. There were also a couple of dying plants scattered around in order to “liven up” the space, including a small palm tree by the windows. The Seal of the Bureau of Superhuman Affairs was prominent on the carpet, which looked much like the Seal of the NSA only the eagle was replaced with a burning phoenix.
The Director’s appearance didn’t quite match the office. His suit was perfect for the setting, but the man himself looked like a grizzled war vet, which he was. And at nearly sixty years old he was one of the few ordinary humans still working for the BSA.
The Director finished his call saying, “I don’t care if your head gets shoved through a wall, just make sure she’s up and ready to go!” He slammed the phone down and looked to Agent Stanson. “I take it you’re aware of the current clusterfuck.”
Stanson nodded. “If you are referring to the Healer Prime’s assassination, then yes.”
The Director started a document printing. “There are only two logical reasons to assassinate the Healer Prime. One is political, and I’ve already got a few dozen people working on that angle.” He slid the finished document across the desk and Stanson picked it up. “The second reason is so that someone like you can locate the next most powerful healer, likely someone in hiding. If that’s the case then we’re already behind in the game.”
Stanson glanced at the paper in his hand. It was three names and directions to a private airstrip. He recognized two of the names immediately as they were some of the highest rated assets in the National Superhuman Response Team, the policing force of the BSA. He had no idea who the third person was.
“I need you to do a quick reading for healers right now,” said the Director. “Then I can arrange proper clearance for wherever you’ll be heading. Then you’ll go immediately to the airstrip on that document and lead the three people on it to the new Healer Prime for retrieval on behalf of the UN.” He gave Stanson a hard stare. “And you won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Understood, sir.” Stanson kept his reservations to himself. It was becoming disturbing how often civil rights were ignored with regards to those with extremely useful abilities, especially healers. Still, he put such thoughts aside and began to tune his senses to the emanations of healing energies.
As a Sensor, Stanson possessed an ability highly coveted by governments and the powerful. He could detect powers and determine the location of a superhuman individual. As a Class-7 his range covered nearly three-quarters of the planet, though detail dropped off with distance. Within 10 miles he could tell you exactly where each powered individual was, what their power was, what class they were, and if they were actively using their powers he could determine specific details about their power’s operation and limits. Over larger distances it turned into a vague comparative analysis and distance and direction could become muddled if there were multiple emanations of the same type. After about 50 miles he could only sort out the strongest ability of each type as the emanations grew too diffuse. Otherwise there wouldn’t be anyone with powers “in hiding”.
He sorted through the various emanations as he narrowed in. There’s no real way to describe an additional sense to someone who lacks it, the best he could do was to attribute each type of emanation to a “feel”. Healing energies were cool, peaceful, and calming. When he got a lock on the strongest emanation his eyes popped open in surprise.
“Um, sir.” The Director’s full attention was on Stanson. “The emanation is coming from roughly the same area as the Healer Prime’s compound. And if I’m not mistaken, it’s the same emanation I’ve always picked up from that area.”
The Director’s eyes widened. “Do you mean to tell me that a more powerful healer has been using the Healer Prime as a cover?” Stanson nodded. “Fuck!” The Director picked up his phone and started to dial. “Get your ass to that airfield, now!”
Stanson didn’t waste a moment rushing from the building as the Director started shouting into the phone. Under the circumstances it was fortunate that it should take less than an hour to get close enough to the signal to determine a precise location. The Healer Prime had been able to heal damned near anything, with the exception of some of the most severe genetic diseases and a couple of the more aggressive “super” bugs that had shown up in the last 40 years. Stanson had seen footage of the Healer Prime re-growing someone’s entire arm in less than 2 minutes. And apparently his signal had been so far beneath this one that they hadn’t even competed, making it impossible to determine there was a second powerful healer in the area. And Sensors of any real ability were so rare that the chances of one coming close enough to tell were almost non-existent. And he'd never bothered or been ordered to check for Healers when he'd been close enough to the Healer Prime's compound to be able to tell himself.
Whoever this healer was they needed to be found, and fast. The U.S. Government might be an unwelcome task master, but it was better than nearly all of the alternatives.
*****
Tabitha growled at the pounding on the door that had woken her from sleep. It was supposed to be her day off and she’d spent the previous night and a decent portion of the morning having a very good time with Angela before she’d stumbled into her own apartment to sleep. That was less than three hours ago.
“What the fuck is it?!” she shouted at the door.
“Get your ass in gear, Athena!” came a man’s voice from outside the apartment. “We’ve got a Code Red situation and you’ve got a Priority One mission. If your ass isn’t in the transport bay in 5 minutes you’ll be fined $50,000 for every minute you’re late. If you’re not there in 10 minutes I’m sending Alex to fetch you.”
Good old Dave, such a sweet guy. Tabby groaned as she rolled out of bed. The threat of fines wouldn’t have budged her, but threatening to send in her big brother let her know this was really serious.
Despite the rush she was careful to make sure she was awake and in enough control before she got dressed. As the second strongest person on the planet she had to be. Her “uniform” was made of some of the toughest material on Earth, able to survive high-powered explosions without a scratch. It was basically a silvery-white tank top, skin tight black pants, and combat boots. But if she wasn’t careful she’d tear it like tissue paper.
She splashed some water on her face at the bathroom sink and looked at herself in the mirror. She hated how she looked. She was pretty, if androgynous, and she did like her eyes, but she’d always liked blue. No, her problem was her hair and body in general. She had the definition of a world-class body builder with none of the bulk, and her black hair was an upswept 2 inches long. Her hair didn’t grow and it couldn’t be cut, and it wasn’t even really long enough to style. She’d been constantly mistaken for an androgynous boy before puberty set in and she developed breasts. But the damned things were big enough they looked out of place next to her obvious musculature, especially the 8-pack abs.
Of course the worst part was that she looked like a teenager. It wouldn’t be so bad, if she wasn’t almost 35. She could throw a tank over the horizon line but nobody took you seriously when you looked like you were still in high school. Thanks to her appearance one of the douchier members of the NSRT called her “the Perpetual Baby Dyke”. Unfortunately the bastard was a Speedster and she couldn’t catch him, which was probably why he had the balls to say it.
Tabby gave up on her reflection with a sigh and walked out of the bathroom, through her modest bedroom and living room, and out of her apartment. The moment she opened the door her entire baring changed, going from moderate control to absolute control. It was a subtle change and hard to see. It was the difference between trying to navigate a narrow hall without bumping into something, and trying to navigate a narrow hall lined with razors and booby traps.
It was commonly called “the Plight of Hercules”. For a passive Brick, Class-4 was pretty much the upper limit of being able to live normally among non-Bricks. Above that level the “resistance” of normal objects became too low for a Brick to even register. It was easy for a Brick-5 to snap silverware, tear off door handles, and break other people’s bones, all without meaning to because they didn’t realize they were applying too much pressure.
The problem got worse the higher up the chain you went. As a Brick-9 Tabby could walk through reinforced concrete walls and not even notice the difference from air if she wasn’t paying attention. With one casual, careless gesture she could take out a wall or take off someone’s head. So when outside her apartment she had to maintain absolute awareness of her surroundings and absolute control of her movements.
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Her apartment was her sanctuary, though you wouldn’t think so to look at it. There was a queen-sized bed, a nightstand, and a dresser in her bedroom. There was a loveseat and a coffee table in her living room. And there was a small table with two chairs in the kitchen. At a glance you’d think the total value of the things in her apartment was less than $10 grand. The truth was the items in her apartment were worth nearly $200 million.
Aside from being made with some of the strongest synthetic materials on the planet, the supports of all her furniture were coated in Olympium, worth about 100 times the value of platinum. A Genius-type superhuman had created the material almost 30 years ago for a junior-high science fair. Olympium was considered, for all practical purposes, indestructible. Tabitha couldn’t casually damage Olympium, but with a judicious application of strength she could bend and break it, making her one of only four known supers on the planet that could even damage it.
Tabby climbed the stairs to the ground level and made her way to the transport bay. There was an elevator, but the buttons were sensitive and Tabby tried to avoid pressing anything that didn’t have at least half an inch or so of give to it. After about a dozen buttons had been turned into “holes”, it had been “recommended” that she start using the stairs.
The transport bay was a giant parking garage stuffed with black SUVs, armored black SUVs, and APCs. The government wasn’t big on variety. There were three people standing next to one of the black SUVs, two of which she recognized.
Dave was there, dressed as always in his impeccable gray suit. As the NSRT liaison, PR guy, and general team babysitter, he felt he always needed to look his best. The other guy she recognized was Steve, aka Hurricane, a Class-8 Wind Elemental and every PR Department’s wet dream. Undeniably gorgeous and exceptionally charming, there was probably a poster of Hurricane in every teenage girl’s bedroom. Tabitha had actually been present when a woman fainted from excitement when Hurricane walked passed in his skintight, white and gray armored suit. To make matters worse he wasn’t even secretly a narcissistic asshole, he was an authentically nice guy. He irritated Tabby to no end.
She didn’t know who the other guy was, but he looked kind of weasel-y. She was guessing Intelligence Division. As she walked over to join them she figured she was about to find out.
“Athena,” Dave said, and then gestured at the weasel-y man, “this is Agent Strom.” Tabitha nodded to him, high-level passive Bricks did not shake hands. Agent Strom nodded back and Tabby noticed him wince around the eyes as he did so. She knew that wince. It was the “I just stubbed my mental toe trying to read you” wince. So, Strom was a telepath. Tabby didn’t particularly care for telepaths, but since she had Class-5 Psychic Armor they didn’t pose any personal threat to her.
Of course, most people didn’t like telepaths. Even disregarding the horrifying things the more powerful ones could do, telepaths tended to have serious psychological issues, megalomania and god-complexes just being the most obvious. Nearly 40% of all telepaths went “villain”, and another 10% suffered psychotic breaks before they were 20. The remaining 50%, while functional, still tended to have some pretty major mental hang-ups.
Case in point, just looking at Strom, Tabby could tell he was going to be a control freak and a major pain in the ass. When he spoke he just confirmed her opinion. “I’ll be leading this mission,” he said. “You’ll take your direction from me, and we’ll be meeting up with another team member at the airstrip. I expect my orders to be followed to the letter.” He leveled a hard stare right at Athena when he said that, Tabby just stared back at him blandly. “We’re already behind schedule so let’s move out.”
Strom circled around to the passenger door and climbed into the SUV. Dave gave Athena and Hurricane a shrug, said “Be careful”, and walked out of the transport bay. Hurricane gave Tabby a grin and jangled the keys. “I’m drivin’, hop on in.” He opened the back door for Tabby.
As she went to step in she asked, “Just what is our mission, anyway?”
“We’re picking up the new Healer Prime.”
Tabitha scoffed. “So they finally found someone better than old sourpuss, that’s great. But why the hell is that a Priority One mission?” Steve looked at her funny. “What?”
“You seriously don’t know?”
Tabby gave him an exasperated look. “Know what?”
“The Healer Prime was assassinated this morning. It looks like it was the work of a professional known as Gateway. Brass expects we may have to fight to keep, or possibly even reclaim, the new Healer Prime.”
Tabby mouthed a silent “Oh” as she finished climbing into the back of the SUV and Steve shut the door. This was not how she wanted to spend her day off. And killing someone like the Healer Prime just to flush another healer was a big time move, seriously big time. Depending on who was behind it, even she and Hurricane might not be enough.
***************
Ares watched the girl walk into her house. She was tall, maybe even an inch or so taller than him. And the glowing blue hair was certainly distinctive. Ares and his men were one of six teams with Sensors placed equidistant on the Earth to find the new Healer Prime when the old one was assassinated. They’d lucked out that she happened to be not only in their zone, but in New York which was where they were stationed.
Marcos had tracked the healer girl down while she was still at school, but considering the day was almost out they decided to grab her on her way home rather than risk it in such a crowded place. Then Ralph, their techie, pulled all the digital information there was on her and they quickly established Secondary and Tertiary target roles, not that they’d ever needed the Tertiary, but it paid to be professional. He also let them know her house was only a half a block from the school on the other side of the street. At that point they agreed they’d just do a house grab.
He refocused his eyes back into the van and turned to Phil in the seat next to him. “Start running the numbers.” Phil nodded and closed his eyes. Ares touched the sub-vocal mike in his ear. “Everyone get ready, we go in as soon as Phil finishes running the numbers.” A chorus of “yes,sir” came back over the encrypted line.
He turned his attention back to the house, but glanced over at Phil. Ares considered Phil something of a lucky find. Precogs were damned rare, less than 30 on the whole planet and most of them not good for anything more than a few seconds of awareness into the future. Phil was unique in that, instead of seeing generally into the future, if you gave him a set of variables for an event he could tell you the outcomes and probabilities up to two hours out. He couldn’t tell you the “How?”, which could be a pain, but it was still damned useful. So when they’d picked him up they’d taught him everything they could about tactics and battle operations. Now they used him to determine which approach had the highest odds of success.
Suddenly Phil’s eyes popped open in what Ares was pretty sure was surprise, maybe even fear. “Zero,” he whispered.
“What was that?”
He looked Ares straight in the eye. “Zero.” Yes, that was definitely fear he saw. “In every scenario I run we have a 0% chance of success.”
Ares felt his own eyes widen. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me?” Ares himself was a Class-7 Brick and a Class-8 Kinesthetic, and that disregarded the myriad powers of the rest of his team. Short of offensive Class-9s they should be able to handle nearly anything.
Phil shook his head. “No,” he hesitated a moment. “In fact, in nearly all the scenarios I’ve run, there’s a forty to eighty percent chance we all die.”
Ares was incredulous, this was just a healer for Christ’s sake. But he knew better than to question Phil after all this time. Time to double check some info. He touched the ear mike. “Marcos, are you fucking sure this girl’s our healer?”
Marcos’ voice came back over the line. “Yeah I’m sure. The emanations are practically knocking me off my feet at this range. Why?”
“And you’re sure she’s not a Bio-Elemental?”
“I’m not a fucking amateur, boss. I know the difference.”
“What about secondary powers?”
“Sorry boss, we’re too far out. You know my Deep Read is only good to a hundred yards. Why the twenty questions?”
Ares practically hissed into the mike, “Because we’ve got an absolute zero on Primary Target retrieval, that’s why!”
There was a moment of dead silence over the link, and then a chorus of voices proclaiming there was “no way” that could be, some of them quite colorful. After a few moments of this Ares shouted “Quiet!” into the mike. “Marcos, do a walk by, that should get you close enough for a deep read. But don’t stop and keep your thoughts clear, the father’s a telepath.”
“On it, boss.”
They waited while Marcos did his thing. Ares saw him as he rounded the corner of the block and made his way past the girl’s house. He was a plain looking Latino man, if obviously in good shape. As a mercenary, those plain, forgettable features were a definite asset. Because he was watching he saw when Marcos nearly tripped himself as he passed the house. As such he pretty much expected the uncertainty in Marcos’ voice when he came back on the line.
“You were right, boss, something ain’t right here.”
“Spare me the commentary, Marcos, what are her secondary powers?”
“Well, she’s an upper end Brick-4 and she’s armored up the wazoo in every division. I don’t think even The Beast could put a dent in her.”
“That’s all?” This didn’t explain why the girl would be impossible to capture. There had to be something else.
“No.” There was a slight pause. “Sir, there’s something off about the Healer emanations when I do a Deep Read.”
Marcos sounded, almost, distressed. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like the difference between Cold Elementals and Ice Elementals, we Sensors can only tell the difference using a Deep Read. This is the same. She’s definitely a Healer, but she’s something different.” There was another hesitation. “Sir, I can’t tell what that difference is, but something about that emanation scared the crap out of me. And I don’t mean it made me nervous, I mean it somehow reached into my hindbrain and said ‘run for your fucking life’. I damn near bolted like a rabbit. I’m still covered in cold sweat.” Another pause. “Sir, Phil’s right, we go for this girl and we’re all fucking dead.”
Considering Phil’s own assessment, and the fact he’d seen Marcos laughing and taunting a Class-6 Fire Elemental as he dodged heat blasts that could reduce steel to molten slag, he took Marcos’ words very seriously. “Alright, Marcos. Everyone, we’re moving to Secondary Targets, standby.”
He turned to Phil. “Run the numbers.” Ares watched Phil as he closed his eyes and concentrated. He knew he was in for more bad news when Phil punched the dashboard and screamed “Fuck!”
Phil looked at Ares. “The father’s out, too. Before the girl got here we had a 96% chance of a clean grab and a 100% success probability. Now there’s only a 2% chance of success, and in that scenario you escape with the father and the rest of us die covering you. In fact, we have higher odds of dying trying to grab the father than we do if we just go for the girl.”
Ares rubbed his temples. If he were capable of getting stress headaches, he’d have one. What was initially one of the simpler jobs they’d ever taken was quickly turning into one of the most complicated. “And the brother?” he asked.
Phil pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “That one’s a mess. The brother’s at the NSTI, and a Class-7 Fire Elemental to boot. Way I run it we’ve got about a 34% chance of a successful grab and even odds between failure and the death of the target, which is still technically a failure. Any way it goes we’ve got a near 60% chance that at least one of us dies.”
Ares wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel, but he’d just break the damned thing. “Sweet holy fuck, are you telling me we actually have to hit the Tertiary Targets?” Phil nodded. “God damn it!” Ares sighed and asked, “So what are the numbers?”
Phil closed his eyes a moment. “100% on the boy and 92% on the girl. The girl’s a 7-flight and a 4-concealment, so we’ll need Marcos and Al on that one.”
Ares closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Damn. He activated the mike. “Guys, we’re moving on the Tertiary Targets. Phil’s sending the data and team breakdown. Let’s move.” He heard some disbelieving muttering over the line as he started up the van. Phil sent the data over the encrypted link as Ares pulled off into traffic.
He’d been a mercenary since he was 19 years old. He’d been in charge of his own team since he was 22. In the 16 years since, he’d only had to move to Secondary Targets twice on a pick up, and on both occasions because of external interference. Now he’d had to move to the Tertiary Targets on what should have been a milk run. And no one was going to believe it was because a “healer” was too damned dangerous. When he thought of how this would affect his reputation he almost wanted to cry.