2017-

Lynette Harkness stood on the roof of her apartment building in her training suit. She

looked at the massive cloud hovering over the island of Manhattan. She must have

lost her mind to think she could make a difference in the chaos that had overtaken the

city.

She must be crazy. Her dad would give her a lecture about trying to jump ahead,

when she was still trying to crawl. She frowned behind her face concealing mask.

This was an all hands emergency. She couldn’t just sit it out when people needed her.

She’d work things out with her dad later.

Her danger indicator flashed on the inside of her mask every time she moved her

head. It indicated the cloud was the biggest source of danger in white digital clock

numbers. Smaller numbers flashed in that direction, but twelve o’clock flashed more

often than the others.

A scream drifted up from one of the alleys around her building. The visor dropped a

crosshair in the direction of the scream’s owner. She ran to the edge of the roof and

jumped to the next building.

Lynette’s boots were designed to hook into any surface she stood on and support her

weight as much as possible. Running across roofs became safer when you could run

up and down walls.

She paused at the edge of the roof and looked down. A woman was being menaced

by a tree in armor. The thing held a spear with a flaming blade in two of its limb-like

hands. A man was down on the alley floor.

Lynette took a breath. She had an enemy of unknown capability. He was a threat to

civilians. Protecting the woman was first. Then she had to deal with the wounded

man. That way they both could survive the night.

“Net gun, right arm.” The array in her right gauntlet changed with a click. “Line gun,

left arm.”

Lynette raised her right arm. A crosshair appeared on her target. She clenched her

hand. A diamond-shaped projectile unfurled into a spider’s web. It wrapped around

the target and glued him to the wall behind him. He started sawing at the strands with

his spear’s blade.

She couldn’t let him do that.

She raised the other arm and shot another of the diamonds across the alley. The

missile extended a line of rope behind it as it smashed against the wall opposite her

to form an anchor. She dropped down from her perch, letting the line retract slowly

so she wouldn’t hit the alley floor.

She dropped down on the soldier with both feet extended. Her suit gave her limited

superstrength. She would never be able to hit as hard as the Mark, but she had enough

to ruin someone’s day. He cracked under the impact, but he didn’t stop trying to get

out of the net.

Lynette grabbed the shaft of the spear. She yanked it out of his grasp. Then she swung

it like a baseball bat against the monster’s head. That took some of the fight out of

him.

“He stabbed Paul.” The woman went to her husband. “I can’t believe it.”

Lynette had some first aid, but it wasn’t enough in this situation. She listened and the

guy was still breathing. That had to be something.

Her danger indicator lit up. She turned her head as a spear flew by her. Apparently

the one guy she put down had a bunch of friends. She didn’t know if the training suit

could take a direct hit, and didn’t want to find out.

“Full Auto Net Guns,” Lynette pointed her gauntlets at the crowd. Suddenly the air

was full of projectiles as she shot at whatever was in her crosshairs first. The webs

glued the hostile soldiers together in a pack. They went down, struggling to free

themselves from their bonds.

Lynette turned on her radio. “Man down on the eight hundred block of East 40th

street. I need an ambulance and a van to haul away prisoners.”

“Lynette?” The voice of her dad came through loud and clear. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, Dad.” Lynette shrugged at the woman. “I have a stabbing victim. I need

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him picked up.”

“All right.” Her dad didn’t sound like it was all right. “Help is on the way. Stay out

of this. Go home.”

“I can’t, Dad.” Lynette frowned as her danger indicator started feeding her numbers.

“It looks like they are sending in troops right where I am. I am going to have to

protect civilians in the way.”

“You are so grounded.” Harkness muted his end for a second. “All right. I asked a

friend to bail you out. Then I want you to go home until I get home.”

“I will be glad to do that.” Lynette had no intention of going home. The city had to

be protected, and she had her training suit. She could protect herself.

“Got to go, Dad.” Lynette cut the radio off. More of the enemy soldiers were flooding

into the alley from the far end. Her crosshair lit up as they crossed her field of vision.

It was time to get to work.

She sent more net bullets at them as they marched toward her. Some tried to cut the

nets as they expanded. That just wrapped the net around their arms holding them

together as the web contracted.

The reloading warning kicked on below the danger indicator. She had used up too

much ammunition on these foot soldiers. She had to go hand to hand until the

shooters came back online.

She looked around. The woman she was protecting had picked up a brick that had

been on the ground. She stood over the stabbed man. If the aliens were going to kill

her husband, it was going to be over her dead body.

Lynette hoped she didn’t get stabbed to match him.

The first soldier through the pile went for the stab to the face that she anticipated. She

grabbed the body of the spear, yanked him into a kick in the face. She reversed the

spear and stabbed him in the lower leg with it. Then she pulled, spun and broke the

spear across his cylindrical head.

The shaft caught fire on the broken end. She flung it at the next soldier as he climbed

over his trapped fellows.

Lynette used a wall to get over her next two attackers, and attack a third. She

delivered a kick that vibrated her leg. She needed to stick to using weapons against

these goons.

She dodged several spear points, using the walls to keep out of reach of

counterattack. She could see they were frustrated at her holding them up in a little

alley while the rest of their mob did whatever it could. Some of the netted ones had

been trapped with their spear blades next to their skins. That couldn’t be pleasant for

them.

The reloading icon switched to ready. She smiled beneath her mask. Now she could

take care of business.

“Single Shot Net Guns,” Lynette ordered her weapons control. The crosshair lit up

green everywhere she looked. She had nothing but targets below her.

She began plastering targets to keep them away from the couple at the other end of

the alley. She only had one more reload. She had to make every shot count.

Her shooting filled the alley with cocooned bodies. The language they used sounded

like gibberish, but it was easy to tell what they were saying from the tone. They were

saying ‘Fudge’, but not really. She could live with that.

The tree soldiers’ big brother dropped in the street. Glass shattered on impact. He

looked around with eyes of flame in his wooden head. He half-turned to raise an arm

to point at the mouth of the alley.

“That can’t be good.” Lynette ran down to where the couple were. She had to get

them out of the way. She realized she should have done that sooner. It didn’t matter

how wounded the husband was, she should have gotten them out of the way before

she had trapped the army.

She might have killed them with her mistake.

The giant’s hand opened up to reveal fire inside his arm. He smiled as he summoned

his attack forward. Killing prey was the best feeling the Queen allowed.

“Line gun, right arm.” Lynette fired the projectile as she grabbed the man off the

ground. She flung him over her shoulder as she grabbed the woman and held her with

her arm. The line retracted as she ran at the tank.

She leaped into the air, running along the tank’s wooden body, before swinging

across the street. She didn’t think she was going to get the three of them to safety in

time. All it had to do was turn and fire as she swung across the open space.

A streak of lightning descended from the sky. It became a woman in yellow, hovering

between the weapon arm and the intended target. The tank fired at her instead. She

knocked the shot back with an open hand.

“I don’t have time to play around with you, big boy.” Lightning blasted through the

tank, shattering it into flinders. “I got things to do.”

“The Mark’s Lightning?” Lynette balanced her burden as she stood on the wall above

the street. “You’re Dad’s friend?”

“The impression I got was you’re not supposed to be wearing that outfit in public.”

Lightning smiled. “Your dad was a little bit irritated.”

“Could you take these people to the hospital?” Lynette held out the two people she

fought to keep safe. “I would like to finish my patrol before Dad gets home to ground

me.”

“There’s no patrol.” Lightning took the couple in her arms. “You go home, missy.”

She flew off in a bolt of lightning, taking the intended victims with her.

“I, the Queen of Genn, the Sister of the Destroyer, the Mother of the Myriad, the Sun

of a Million Lands, pronounce sentence on this miserable place for the crime of

accepting my rebellious daughter as one of your own.” A giant burning tree held up

the Mark in her grasp as she stepped out of the cloud over the city. She stood on a

parapet of stone. An image covered the world so everyone could see what was going

to happen. “You will all be exterminated just like this hero who tried to stop me.”

Lynette felt tears cloud her eyes as the Mark burned away in front of everyone in the

city. She took a moment to compose herself.

She wanted to be a heroine like her father and mother. She had even more reason to

carry on the family business now.