CHAPTER 27 - LEOPARD

Rifle at his shoulder, Leopard sighted in one APD officer who was too slow diving out of view, and squeezed the trigger. The officer jerked about, as if caught on invisible strings, and went down. There was no apprehension anymore, no worry—just the atavistic truth of kill or be killed.

It had all gone according to plan. When Taurine and her people had spread through the tower, her pet technopath wreaking havoc, the Animals had breached the secure elevators at the back of the lobby and headed straight down. Monkey had led the way, and Leopard had followed, footwork implacable, rifle at his shoulder.

A second APD officer leaned out, exchanging shots. A bullet took Leopard in the belly, impact rippling out across the armorweave, but Leopard put one of his own in the visor of the shooter’s police helmet, shattering it in a spray of blood and shrapnel.

“Spots!” Monkey shouted, “You hit?”

“I’m good! How’s the door coming?”

“Hold your fucking horses,” Tiger called out, “I’m trying to do this without blowing my arms off here!”

The heavy metal door read CENTRAL COMMAND. If there was any chance of getting access to what Monkey was looking for, it was in there. Tiger was busy setting the phasmite charges. Monkey laughed as he reloaded. It was like they’d gotten through the security by the sheer force of his winning personality.

Leopard might’ve believed it, too, if not for the bodies they’d left in their wake. He’d even shot one of the capes. The one in gold and silver, one arm raised. Might’ve been a show of power or a plea for mercy. Hadn’t been any time to wait or see. Leopard was pretty sure his bullet had taken him in the shoulder, or maybe the head—

“Fire in the hole!” Tiger barked, and pressed the detonator.

Even with his helmet on, the sharp crack set his ears ringing as it blasted the door out of its housing. Monkey and Leopard swept in, rifles up.

“Freeze!” Leopard shouted, to a room of uniformed men and women, standing before terminals, holographic screens, and a vast map of Asclepion.

“No one move!”

“That is what freeze means,” said a woman. She was dark-haired with Asian features. Her bearing and posture were sharper than any cape Leopard could remember seeing—like a soldier. Her dark eyes had the pair of them fixed with a flat glare that Leopard might’ve found intimidating, had he not had a rifle trained on her.

She was wearing the midnight-blue and silver armor of IESA’S SOLAR elite. A chill ran through Leopard. Next to her, stood a shorter woman in black, hooded and wearing boots with substantial thrusters built into the heel.

“Step away from the computers,” Monkey barked.

“That’s a contradictory order,” the woman said. “Which one is it?”

Leopard swallowed. “Monk,” he said, cutting the external feed. “That’s SOLAR. We need to scrub this job right the fuck now.”

“Can’t,” Monkey said, with all the finality of a hammer on a nail. “We’re committed now. It’s one SOLAR cape, and we’ve got her with her pants down—doesn’t even have a helmet on.” Then, to the cape, he said: “Step away.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she said. “I hate this city.” Her codename was stenciled on her breastplate: AEGIS. He noted the sidearm at her waist.

“Hands where I can see ‘em, lady.”

She raised them to her head, palms facing him, with all the casualness of someone who had done this before—perhaps from his side of the equation. Her disdainful facial expression didn't change. “Obey the idiots,” she said to everyone else. “Give them access.” Then she addressed the two of them.

“Put your weapons down. You might think you’re in a position to call the shots here, but that’d just prove you’re two minds of the same moron.”

Monkey grabbed the nearest technician as a human shield and made for the command console.

“Step back,” he said to the two of them. “Walk to the corner, put your hands on your head, and stay there. That way, no one gets hurt.”

“There are eight corners in this room,” Aegis replied, voice dry. “Which one would be the most suitable?”

Monkey pointed. “That one. Furthest away.”

And then she didn’t move, and neither did the cape in black.

“Move,” Leopard said, gesturing with his rifle.

“I’ve lived a long life,” Aegis replied.

Leopard scoped in on her forehead. “She’s stalling for time.”

“You heard me,” Monkey said. “Eyes on the corner, hands on your head, or we’re going to start killing people.”

Aegis’ lips pressed into another frown, but differently than before. It was not an expression of anger or frustration or disappointment, but concern. That was her weakness. Every cape had one.

She nodded. “Do as he says, Revenant.”

And Revenant did. She stepped away from Aegis, and made her way to the far corner. Monkey slammed the face of his human shield against the console. “That’s for wasting my time,” he said. “Spots, keep your gun on the commander—if she does anything, shoot her in the face.”

Monkey set his rifle down and got to work on the database, plugged in a memory stick, fingers working in a frenzy.

“Do you think you’re getting out of here alive?” Aegis asked.

“Shut up,” Leopard snapped.

“I’ll take that as a no. You’re that stupid that you think you’ve won. Have you tried reaching any of your people upstairs?”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll be out of here in minutes.”

“Sure,” Aegis said. “In fucking bodybags.”

In the far corner, Revenant turned. Behind her silver mask, her eyes lit up—bright and gold and terrible, a pair of suns in the crimson void.

“Monkey,” Leopard said, swinging his gun to bear, “we’ve got a problem!”

“I’ve almost got it,” Monkey called back. “Just a few more seconds!”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’m not sure we have any!”

In his periphery, Leopard could just make out Aegis’ smug, satisfied smile. “Oh, there it is. That’s what I was waiting on. The realization that you and your friends are absolutely fucked.” He swung his rifle to bear on the golden-eyed superhero as Aegis ordered, “Revenant, now!”

“Super,” Revenant intoned, voice rising, “nova!”

The blast of light was so bright that it blinded Leopard through his visor and shorted out the systems in his helmet. He forced himself to wrench his eyes open as Revenant leaped into the fray, heading straight for Monkey.

Leopard opened up, but between his half-blind eyes and her blinding speed he wasn’t sure if anything landed, as Monkey wrenched the memory stick out and met her charge, swinging high with the butt of his rifle.

Revenant either expected the blow or dodged past it—Leopard couldn’t tell as he maneuvered for a better angle. He caught a glimpse of her spinning, one arm raised, and—

“Is that a fucking sword?!”

Monkey hit the deck, scrambling to recover, as Revenant’s blade left a golden haze through the space he had just occupied. Leopard shot her in the side, full auto, driving her into the console. “Monkey! Get clear!”

“Yeah,” Monkey snapped, “I fucking know!”

Something clipped Leopard’s helmet, set it ringing. Leopard turned, spraying bullets, and glimpsed Aegis diving for cover. But she was just a woman with a gun, shooting in the dark. Revenant was the real threat. Their armorweave could stop bullets—it wouldn’t be anything against those blades.

Where the fuck had she got a fucking sword?

“I want them disabled, Revenant!” Aegis shouted. “Not destroyed!”

Monkey had gotten clear of Revenant, racing for the exit. “Go! Go!”

Leopard didn’t need to be told a third time. He sprinted for the door, catching a glimpse of Revenant stalking after them with inexorable precision. He turned at the doorway, and held the trigger down until his magazine clicked dry, and then ran for it.

“Tiger!”

She stepped in, pulling a grenade from her vest and ripping the pin free. “Frag out!” She hurled it into the control room and Leopard saw Revenant leap to the left, catch the explosive, and cradle it against her belly.

He didn’t see what happened after that, although he heard the detonation.

Leopard ran towards the elevators, Tiger just behind. Monkey was there, jabbing the call button again and again. “Shit,” he said. “They must’ve got the technopath.”

Leopard bounced on his feet, slamming a fresh magazine home into his rifle. No more breaker rounds—what little good they had done. Tiger took aim down the corridor. “SOLAR, huh? Someone fucked up the intel.”

“We can assign blame once we’re out of here,” Monkey said, jamming a pry bar into the elevator doors. Grunting, he pushed, and the doors slid open. Once the three of them were inside, Monkey let the doors slammed closed.

“Won’t hold them for long,” Monkey said. “Looks like we’re climbing out.” He used the bar as a spear, jabbing at the ceiling hatch until it came free and swung open. He leaped up, grabbed at the edge of the hatch, and pulled himself through. He turned back, held his hand down to help Leopard up and out.

Monkey turned to look up the shaft as Tiger pulled herself out, then pointed to the service ladder. “You first, buddy.”

Leopard looked up into the pitch-black shaft, fighting down the vertigo, as the systems in his helmet finally recovered and brought everything into stark green-gray relief. Then he nodded and started climbing.

He wasn’t sure how long they climbed for. Hand over hand, foot over foot. It all slipped into a steady monotony, so simple as to be almost meditative. The grenade must’ve put Revenant down. No cape was invincible, after all.

“Rooster,” Monkey said. “How’s it looking up there?”

“Lobby’s clear,” he replied.

“Keep it that way. Where’s Taurine?”

“Saw her put Great Barrier through a wall. She’s been making her way up the tower—don’t know why.”

“Is she engaging SOLAR?”

“Wait, did you say SOLAR?”

“Yeah, I did,” Monkey said. “We just kicked them in the teeth.”

“Some of Taurine’s people mentioned an extremely powerful telekinetic—that must be one of them.”

“Have we still got a clear shot to the hangar?”

“For now, yes.”

“Then the plan’s working perfectly.”

They cracked open the ground floor doors and stepped into the lobby. The natural light through the shattered panorama was startling after the gloom of the underground corridors. A pair of APD officers were groaning and gagging and chocking on the far side of the lobby—Rooster’s two latest kills.

“Let’s move,” Monkey said. “Assume that cape is right behind us. Tiger, you’re on point, then Rooster. Spots, you’re bringing up the rear. You see any of those SOLARs—hell, you see anyone—you shoot to kill.”

“Not that I have a problem with grand theft airplane,” Tiger began, “but who’s gonna fly it?”

“We’ll figure it out. Get moving.”

Tiger led the way back into the dark, heading for the landing bay. With every step, Leopard expected two things: that SOLAR would get the lights back on, or that his helmet would pick them out in the dark, somehow having figured out their plan.

Every second where neither of them happened only heightened the feeling that they’d happen in the next.

No one had come this way. Taurine’s people had split off to wreak as much havoc as possible, breaking prisoners out, rampaging through administrative sections, and the supervillain herself had seemingly become set on climbing to the top of the tower. Thank God for stupid cape theatrics, Leopard thought. With Taurine on the warpath, no one was looking for four people, armed or otherwise.

The corridor came to an intersection. Gunfire and violence echoed either side. Tiger raised her hand and stepped through it alone, sweeping her shotgun down each hallway, and then beckoned for everyone else to follow her through.

“The bay should be just up ahead,” Rooster said.

“You sure?” Leopard asked.

“More than you, asshole.”

The door opened into an open-air hangar with the only way out being directly up. From what Leopard could see, the bay wasn’t designed to hold more than two or three craft, and an aeroshuttle in SOLAR colors dominated the bay. Monkey whistled.

It was a sleek, dark blue wedge of a thing. It reminded Leopard of nothing more than a stealth bomber’s smaller, more polite cousin. Hell, the shape was probably for that express purpose, to deflect sensors and mask emissions, to make it that much harder to tell if they were coming. The SOLAR logo, a globe inside a star inside a wreath, was emblazoned on each side of the flying-delta wing.

And the main ramp was down and open.

Monkey and Rooster were already halfway up the ramp. Tiger took a knee at the bottom, shotgun trained on the way they’d just came from. Monkey’s revolver was heavy at Leopard’s hip. Once they were in the air...

“Come on,” Leopard told her, and double-timed it up the ramp. He didn’t hear her footsteps behind him.

Inside, the shuttle was obviously not intended for long trips. It was probably fast enough that, to whoever was riding in it, all trips were short. There were seats for about a dozen people, along with a locker for each. The cockpit lay beyond a door at the front of the craft and Leopard could see Monkey there, poking at the console.

“You can get us out of here?” Leopard asked him.

“System’s already booting up,” Monkey replied. “These things practically fly themselves. I just need a minute to figure out the controls...”

Tiger shouted, “Contact!”

“Be faster than that,” Leopard told him, and made for the ramp.

Revenant came striding through the doorway. Her clothing was ripped and torn, her silver mask charred, but she still moved with that inexorable certainty.

What was it Aegis had said? I want them disabled, not destroyed.

“Shit,” Leopard murmured and then, louder, trying not to let on the not-quite-fear he was feeling: “Incoming!”

Revenant broke into a run, her path as straight and obvious as a laser. Tiger opened up, and Leopard brought his rifle up, adding his firepower to her own. He saw the bullets impact, the puff of smoke and sparks. He saw them hit. He saw them hit.

Through the hail of bullets, the cape showed no sign of slowing down. They might as well have been throwing hailstones at an oncoming boulder, at a meteor. And then she was upon them.

Revenant hit Tiger first, striking her to the ground with a single punch, and then caught her with the angular toe of her boot, sending her sliding across the bay floor and crashing into a cart.

Leopard fumbled for a spare magazine, his last one, fingers shaking.

Aegis’ words ran circles in his head.

You’re absolutely fucked.