Maggie: Has a real fight

One interesting fact about esper abilities: they came as complete packages. So, while Leroy might not have any collision avoiding senses, he did have the ability to run the equations of motion with reflexive ease, thus allowing him to control his flight, and to know how much to accelerate or brake, and in what direction, to allow him to achieve a certain velocity and direction of movement. Maggie also had this particular complement to her ability, since she too could fly. In fact, she had even more extensive calculating abilities that allowed her to control her magnetic fields in all sorts of ways. Her reflexes were augmented as well. High-energy magnetic fields could move or distort very rapidly, but her brain had the capability of keeping up with the processes. And, through constant practice, these reflexes were automatic.

Consequently, when she walked around the corner and her magnetic senses detected a rapid build-up of magnetic energies right in front of her, she reacted immediately with her own magnetic forces, pushing the foreign magnetic fields away and putting up her own magnetic shield. She even had the spare capacity to extend the shield to cover Teylon, right behind her. However, the other parts of her brain that controlled her normal thinking processes were not quite so fast. Accordingly, she was greatly surprised when her magnetic reflexes sprang into action, and even more surprised when there was a big bang and a flash of light. Her shields, at maximum power, rang with the violence of the impact of the explosion, but held.

Teylon, face blank from surprise, stepped right in close behind Maggie.

The dust raised by the explosion rapidly dissipated, revealing an expanse of road in front of her that was black and smoking, with little glowing red bits scattered about.

What the hell was that!

She took a very rapid glance back, to see Teylon immediately behind her, and no signs of the other four.

I hope to hell they stay in that side alley.

She looked forward, to see, twenty metres away, two figures standing on the road. Two female figures.

Did they attack me...?

The taller lady proved beyond a doubt that she did, by making a slight hand gesture as she launched another attack. It was visible as a pink fireball, travelling very rapidly across the intervening distance. This time Maggie intercepted it with her magnetic forces a comfortable five metres away. Her shields rang from the forces involved, but easily held.

They're trying to kill us? For God's sake why?

The lady appeared to be about to launch another.

That stupid bitch!

Maggie's temper flared up and she went into offensive mode. She launched a rapid series of attacks, aiming to hit the walls on either side of the woman, and the street just in front of them. Each attack was intercepted half way by a glowing pink fireball. The roadway between them was initially torn up with craters forming, then under the continual heating of the explosions parts of it began to melt, glowing red puddles of molten rock beginning to form.

Maggie took a moment to recover, only to have to defend off a rapid series of attacks launched at her. The roadway began to look like a series of lakes, except instead of being filled with nice cool water, they were filled with red hot lava.

Bloody hell! She can intercept attacks faster than me, so none of mine get anywhere near her. But she doesn't appear to have any shielding, so while her attacks might get close to me, I can protect myself from them.

She fired off another series of attacks, with less power this time, but more of them. While the lady was defending herself against them, Maggie took another very brief look back. Teylon was still there, looking completely befuddled. And still no signs of the others.

Then she had to defend herself from more attacks. The buildings either side began to show heat and impact damage, small rivulets of lava were now flowing on the street. She managed to get a few words to Teylon.

"Jump on my back, I'm going to fly!"

I'll go across the road, keep going down that alley way. Hopefully it will lead them away from the others. And, bloody hell, Teylon is heavy. Fortunately my legs don't have to take the weight.

Still throwing off magnetic force missiles, she slid sideways, across the street and into the alleyway, and continued down it a few metres.

Only to have to defend herself from another pink fireball that went straight through the building!

Maggie, shocked and surprised, nevertheless managed to block it. The building was left with a gaping hole through it, and it's internal structure started collapsing into it.

Eek! She can track me without even seeing me!

She zoomed upwards, to the second story of the building. Only to be met by another fireball which Maggie had to defend against.

If I don't watch out, this building will collapse on us, trapping us in this alley, if not crushing us.

And, firing through a building seems to only slow her down a little. But I'm at a severe disadvantage, I can't return anything. I should get back into the open, but do I fly away from the others, or go back?

Just then, Teylon started speaking for the first time since the battle was commenced.

"Maggie! I have a phone call from Adalace! She and Sarsaparilla have been lifted onto two different roofs and can see those ladies. There's three of them, and one is continually pointing in our direction. She says to move back to where you started, so that she and Sarsaparilla can see of us."

Maggie moved back, and down to street level.

Remain low, so that those attackers never have a need to look at the rooflines.

She got no attacks while she was scooting back:

So, she's going to hit me has hard as possible when I reappear, hey?

Accordingly, as soon as Maggie came out on the street, she fired a dozen fast attacks, while letting her shields take the damage of the attacks coming at her. Which was almost a mistake, since the incoming attacks stressed her shields to the maximum.

Shit, I'm going to have to make sure to intercept each incoming.

Which she did. There was another rapid interchange of explosions.

Doesn't this lady ever give up?

I should fly away, get out of her range - Shit! that leaves the other four in her range. Leroy will presumably escape, and he could carry one other, but that still leaves two behind - Shit!

At this she saw the third lady. She was much closer than the others were, ducking behind a convenient wall.

What's she doing! Oh.

Maggie's magnetic senses suddenly detected a lot of steel, mostly reinforcing rod, beginning to move above her. A rapid glance up.

The entire street level side of the building appears to have crumbled away, and is letting the second story drop out. And onto us.

In desperation, she moved forward as fast as possible, leaving the collapse behind her. She launched a barrage of attacks against the first lady, and blocked her return attacks. Fortunately, the return attacks seemed to be angled so as not to get too close to the third lady, and Maggie was able to take advantage of that. The third lady had concealed herself behind a concrete wall.

That's not going to help you!

Shields making a continual clanging ringing noise, and firing off as many attacks as possible, Maggie got close enough to the concealed woman, so as to interfere with the first lady's attacks. Whose attacks were obviously angled not to endanger her own people.

If I go around the wall and confront that her, I might get the building above me collapsed onto me. Fortunately I don't need to do that!

She was close enough. While simultaneously flying and holding up Teylon, running her shields and launching low power attacks, she reached out through the wall with her magnetic senses - and blinded the lady. Immediately after Maggie landed on the ground - fortunately the roadway right here was untouched - and fired a few more shots.

There was a flash of movement, and Leroy, two metres up, holding Erasyl in his arms, zipped past the two ladies, banked hard, returned and landed two metres away from them. At the exact same time, the lady stopped attacking. Maggie could detect no more of those incoming fireballs.

You know, I sure do appreciate Erasyl's presence. Sometimes.

There was silence. Erasyl jumped down and stood, facing the two ladies. In his hand was a length of steel rod, a metre long. He held it up and ready for attack. Leroy also had an iron bar, he was hovering out of reach above their heads. The two ladies looked shocked. Erasyl started to speak:

"Everyone, don't move and..."

Only he was interrupted. There was someone screaming. Everyone looked around, and realised that the lady who had been hiding behind the wall had stumbled out. She was waving her hands around and shouting.

"I'm blind, I can't see!"

In sheer panic, she started to run back to the other two ladies, but her direction was off. She was actually running diagonally across the road, heading for one of the biggest pools of lava. Both Maggie and Leroy startled and began reacting. But their reactions were slow, after all Maggie had been under life threatening continual attacks and they were both still in attack and defence mode. Instead, Teylon, who had already gotten off Maggie's back, suddenly started running towards the blinded woman.

She, in her haphazard running, had now reached the edge of the lava lake. Two metres wide, glowing reddish orange, probably only centimetres deep. Right between the lady and the two others. She was one-step away from ploughing into it, when Teylon, sprinting at high speed, slammed into her, picked her up and vaunted over the lava.

Now, if this had been on Earth: No way Jose. They would have both fallen into the molten metal and rock. But, this was Mars. Teylon now only weighed 38% of what he used to back on Earth, and he had exercised every day and had kept his original Earth muscle strength. So he was able to grab the lady and keep going, across the two metre lava, and land on the other side. Although his boot did touch a bit of lava on its way down. He stumbled, staggered a few steps, and found himself right in front of the first lady, the one who had been trying her hardest to kill him.

So he handed over the lady he was carrying, stood back, whipped off his jumper and beat frantically at his boot, extinguishing the flames. Eventually he managed to get the boot off.

The silence returned. One lady holding another, with the third lady looking on. All looking surprised and confused. Maggie, carefully skirting the puddles of molten lava, walked up, and Leroy went and fetched Sarsaparilla and Adalace and returned with them one at a time. The five teenagers ended up in a circle around the three women, with Teylon in the rough middle. By now, Adalace was also carrying a length of bent rebar. Its end was glowing orange. Adalace looked like she would actually use it, too.

"What's happening? What's happening!" said the lady who had been blinded.

"Don't worry, it will wear off very soon." said Maggie.

Not having anything better to do, they all waited. The blinded lady regained her vision, and, blinking furiously and shading her eyes from the sun, she was set down.

"Hum, perhaps you can tell us why you were trying to kill me and my companion?" said Teylon, after an awkward silence.

"Because we thought that you and that bloke were part of the same team we had been commissioned to kill, of course." said the lady. She had a look that said she was thoroughly pissed off with the proceedings, and was only hanging around because she had no choice in the matter.

"Bloke? I am a girl, you idiot!" said Maggie.

The lady seemed to take at good, close up look at Maggie for the first time.

"Oh, my bad, so you are. You're pretty flat chested, you know. If one of those other two girls had been with you, I would have realised my mistake immediately and wouldn't have attacked you quite so fast."

"First you try to kill us, then you insult my physique!" said Maggie. By now, there were bits of rebar and steel fragments hovering menacingly around in the air.

"Oh, relax. I'm just making an observation. Personally I think you're fine the way you are."

While Magger spluttered in trying to come up with an answer to this one, Teylon interrupted.

"I say," he said, a voice of reasonableness, "can we get onto the more important question? Like, why are you going around killing people, apparently only men, and who commissioned you to do this?"

The lady rolled her eyes in exasperation. The one that Teylon had saved looked on with barely constrained anger and hostility, with a touch of confusion. The other had a mostly blank face, but she did not seem very friendly either.

"Somebody high up in the Martian society tells us what to do. In this case it was to kill five men who were making and selling White Angel."

"Err, no kidding." said Teylon.

A complex, six way glance between Teylon and the teenagers. Then more silence. Finally:

"But, we could still have ended up dead!" said Maggie, driven to exasperation by the turn of events.

"Oh, really, I've already apologised for that. And it turned out well in the end. So, can we just go now? We need to track down the last man in that group, you know. Oh, and by the way, this dome is supposed to be off bounds to tourists."

The teenagers looked a little guilty at this. Of course, Teylon did not show anything.

"I think we should call the police." said Leroy.

"Fine, that's fine with us. It's what we would have done after we finished, anyway."

"That's ridiculous! You mean the police will just let you waltz away, after killing a bunch of men?" said Teylon.

"Yes. As I said, we were asked by some official to deal with them. I mean, how do you think such criminals are dealt with, anyway?"

"Well, by the police arresting them, and then they being trialled in court?" said Teylon.

"Hmm, you're an immigrant from Earth, aren't you?" said the lady, "For the real bad cases, they don't bother with that rigmarole."

Teylon looked at Adalace. Who looked back, somewhat shamefacedly.

"I believe it's possibly true, when it comes to justice, things are sometimes - fast tracked, you could say. Not that anyone ever says so out loud. At least not officially. Although if you read the social media, there is an enormous amount of discussion about it. A lot of it contradictory. In fact, I suppose I can say, I really don't know what is going on."

Adalace trailed off into silence. The other teenagers looked uneasy.

"Well, I glad we gotten that out of the way." said the lady, "And, right, you're Maggie the Magneto, aren't you?"

"Ah, yes?"

"Pretty nifty work with your defence. I'm surprised you could fight me off with such a generalised ability. But, really, you always aimed to miss me, didn't you?"

"Yeah, sorry, well..."

Maggie listened to her own words, stopped, and then started again, with considerably more force.

"Of a course I was aiming to miss! I don't want to become a cold blooded killer like you are! And what are you complaining for? After all, you are still alive!"

"Thanks for that. But, none the less, I'm not really impressed, you know. If someone's trying to kill you, it is no time to hold back."

At this point, the lady had to step back, since Maggie had levitated a dozen pieces of scrap steel that had been strewn across the street.

"Temper, temper!" said the lady.

Also at this point, there was the sound of running footsteps. Around a corner came a man. He did not see them since he was looking over his shoulder. He was staggering as he ran, one of his arms appeared to have been badly damaged as he was holding it with the other, parts of his clothing looked singed, and he was breathing heavily and sweating.

"Oh, shit! I lost my direction!" he said, as he finally saw the group ahead. He stopped in confusion.

"That's the one we missed!" said the lady. She made a slight gesture with her hand.

"Shit, how about turning my ability back on!" she said. She made a reasonable guess, and looked at Erasyl. Who looked at Teylon. Who scratched his head, but soon came to an acceptable course of action.

"Leroy, can you fly over and grab him and bring him to us? He appears to be exhausted, so shouldn't put up much of a fight."

Leroy was agreeable. He gave his steel bar to Teylon, and did just as he was asked to.

"So," said Teylon to the man, "According to this lady, you lot were making that drug called White Angel?"

He looked indignant. "No we were not! We were just using this dome to, err, hang out and to search for things to sell! Then those bitches came and slaughtered my companions!"

"Tsck - Tsck" said the lady, still looking annoyed, "You should mind your language in front of school age kids."

Teylon found nine sets of eyes on him. He looked back; he was still struggling with what do make of the situation.

Finally: "Why not try judging him?" said Sarsaparilla.

So Teylon looked at the man. Teylon's face had a momentarily blank, introspective look -

That's Teylon reading the man's soul, isn't it?

And then there as a flash of horror on Teylon's face. Followed by a scream from the man, and then his body collapsed onto the ground.

"Oh" said Sarsaparilla.

"He deserved it." said Teylon.

"Hey, you lot can kill, after all!" said the lady.

"It's not like that at all!" said Maggie, "Err, is it, Teylon?"

"I dunno, I haven't worked that one out, yet." said Teylon.

"I can be fair, shall I share with you one fifth of the bounty?" said the lady.

"Ah, no thanks, I'm independently wealthy." said Teylon.

"Half your luck. And, how does someone as old as you get to have an ability, anyway?"

"I'm not old! And, it's not exactly an esp ability. It's something different."

"Oh, OK. Can we go now?"

Teylon, thoroughly sick and tired of the situation, decided it was good idea to get out of their company.

"Yeah, sure, OK, we'll just let you go. Erasyl, how long before they get their abilities back?"

"About five minutes after they get out of range."

"Wait!" said the lady who had been rescued by Teylon.

"I can't work out who carried me. They jumped over that puddle of lava, didn't they?"

"Yes, Devina. This bloke, what's his name..."

"I'm Teylon."

"Sprinted like hell and caught you just as you were going to plant your face into that lava. He almost burnt his foot in the process. So, I almost forgot, I give our thanks to you."

"Don't mention it." said Teylon.

Devina looked puzzled. She also looked as if she could not stand the thought of actually acknowledging Teylon's existence. She mumbled something, and eventually produced an audible "Thanks."

Teylon nodded to her.

The three ladies turned and walked away. Maggie stood in front of her group and watched intently, ready for any reprisals. Nothing happened.

"Now what do we bloody well do?" said Maggie.

Stolen story; please report.

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 Sarawatch: Has a call out

Sarawatch was sitting at the front desk of the Neighbour Watch office, and any passerby would have assumed she was doing some official business at the computer terminal. In actual fact, she was reading an old Agatha Christie detective story 'Evil Under the Sun'. She was getting to the grand denouement when her phone rang.

It was from Adalace. It took Sarawatch ten minutes of listening to Adalace's incoherent description of what had happened, with a lot of questions, to finally get a grip on what had happened.

"Stay at your vehicle and I will get the police there!" was her final comment to Adalace.

Sarawatch may have be kicked out of the police force, but she still had some connections. And these connections knew her story and none of them blamed her for what had happened. Accordingly, she was able to wrangle a lift with the police when they scrambled to get together a task force and to arrange transport. Since surface vehicles were too slow for this sort of job, they went by sub-orbital rocket. Sixty-five minutes later, she crawled through the airlock tunnel from the ship to the dome's airlock #5.

The other police kept going to pick up the bodies and to check out the illegal drug lab. Sarawatch stayed behind, with Teylon and co.

"So, let me get this straight, you illegally went off in a surface vehicle without an adult licensed driver, you hacked the GPS system to spoof your location, you enter a proscribed abandoned dome, you were planning to pinch an item from said dome, you have a massive fire fight with someone else and destroyed a lot of property, and Teylon does his party trick and ends up with another dead man to explain. Have I missed anything?"

They were sitting in the vehicle, with Leroy sitting in mid air since Sarawatch had claimed the sixth seat.

Five teenagers shifted uncomfortably in their chairs (in Leroy's case it was an imaginary chair) and looked guilty. Teylon was the only one who looked comfortable.

"No, I think that is about it, your honour." said Teylon, "Of course, as the adult here, I accept full responsibility for any wrong doing and am perfectly willing to accept any punishment that may accrue. Obviously I lead these innocent teenagers astray, and will do my best to present that case to any legal courts."

Sarawatch rolled her eyes.

Ain't he a real smooth operator. But at least he is prepared to accept responsibility.

"Cut the crap, Mr Teflon Rat. We all know it was Adalace's idea and every last one of you teenagers was fully aboard with this - this enterprise."

"But, what do you know; I'm no longer in the police force, so I don't have to do a thing about you. Actually, if you hadn't run into those psycho killer ladies, nobody would have cared much, anyway."

The teenagers relaxed a bit at this.

"But won't the real police still take action against us?" asked Adalace.

"Who knows? The fact that you got mixed up with an officially sanctioned hit adds a certain amount of complexity to the situation."

"Yeah, and what do you know about these so called 'officially sanctioned hits'? said Teylon, beginning to look agitated. His voice had a certain edge to it.

"Ah, yes. Of course, during my police career I encountered a few of these extralegal cases. I have been called out to pick up the body of someone who had obviously been shot by a rifle, and ordered to send it to the morgue and then not take the case any further. I was also on the team that cleaned up after a bikie shoot out, and again no further official actions were taken. And I have heard about two more cases of illegal drug labs being busted, with the deaths of all guilty parties."

"And, and, you just took this as normal?" said Teylon, sounding just a little indignant.

"Well, that's how it has always been. At least as far as I knew. I mean, what basis did I have to query such actions? This is Mars, we live in an extremely hostile environment, we all have to cooperate in every last thing just to stay alive. Unlike Earth, where, say, you don't have to worry much about the quality of the air. Or worry about where every last piece of garbage goes. I just went with the flow. Until that girl was shot in front of me, and then they covered up the story totally. Up until that point I thought our system was passable."

Since none of the teenagers had heard of this, Sarawatch was forced to spend ten minutes giving them a quick description.

"So that's why you became a Watch Officer." said Adalace, "I did wonder."

"And who exactly are these people that give out these orders?" said Teylon.

"Haven't a clue. Nobody I know does."

"Jeeze, the situation is ripe for corruption. I'm amazed that the general public doesn't appear to have noticed, as of yet." said Teylon.

"Well, I guess because the system mostly works. After all, we are all here on Mars, and are alive and well and mostly free to live our lives as we see fit." said Sarawatch.

After some reflection, she added "Apart from that girl, of course. She never got a chance."

After more thought "Which, I guess, means that the system isn't working, doesn't it?"

Silence.

"Well, I'm beginning to get some idea of what I'm supposed to be doing here." said Teylon.

After a while, the police returned. Some of them were carrying body bags. Five of them. They were stored in a nearby building. A couple of police officers, including Sarawatch, stayed behind while the rest returned by the sub-orbital rocket.

One of the police officers walked over to the group.

"Hello, my name is Napoleon, and, if you mind, I would like to get your statements."

"I think I had better confiscate those GPS units, young lady." he said after talking to Adalace.

Adalace meekly acquiesced.

Apart from that, no further demands were laid upon them, except for the reasonable sounding request not to do any more exploring of the dome. The police officers went off do some more crime scene investigation, leaving Teylon and the teenagers alone, with Sarawatch still sitting with them.

"I'm getting a little scared." said Sarsaparilla, "What if they, whoever they are, decide to do one of those extralegal retaliations against one of us?"

Adalace, who had been sitting next to her, shuffled her chair over, and put her hand onto Sarsaparilla's shoulder.

"I, err, I think we're OK. I mean, Sarawatch isn't going to let anything happen, is she?"

Sarawatch smiled and tried to look confident.

Shit, there is nothing I can do if they do decide to do anything, is there?

No one else looked confident. They sat around, fidgeting and looking anxious.

So Teylon got out his deck of cards.

"Right, you lot, instead of sitting around and driving yourselves crazy, let's play cards. And, this time, I am going to cheat. Every time someone catches me in the act, they get some of my points. OK?"

The sun was getting low in the sky when the officers reappeared. At roughly the same time as the surface vehicle containing some more police officers arrived at the dome's airlock.

"OK, kids, let's wrap up our game. It looks like..."

Teylon consulted the scorecard.

"I'm ahead with 3.6 billion, and Maggie is a distant second with 1.2 billion, followed by Sarawatch with 1.1 billion, and the others didn't do very well at all. And, I cheated thirteen times, but you only managed to catch me twice. So, it looks like I'm the winner."

Sputtering from some teenagers.

"You must be cheating!" said Sarsaparilla.

"Of course. As I said, thirteen times."

"No, I mean, you can't have cheated that well, with us continually watching! Err, but you still cheated to get so far ahead. Ah, forget it."

With a self-satisfied smirk on his face, he pocketed his cards.

The police officer, the one whose name was Napoleon, came over.

"If I may have a word with Sarawatch?"

Certainly, you may! I'm glad some of my friends from my police days still regard me as a friend.

They had a talk, and then returned to the group.

"Well, the authorities have instructed us to say they have no further interest in you. But they do request that you leave the dome tomorrow morning."

"Also, those ever-so-nice ladies appear to have long gone." said Sarawatch.

The police officers went off to load the body bags into their vehicle and to do whatever else they needed to do at the crime scene. The teenagers, much relieved, had tea. They invited Sarawatch to join them.

Nobody felt like talking much, they were all still busy processing what had happened. Eventually Sarsaparilla spoke up.

"I say, perhaps Teylon and us teenagers can all have a gathering at my place the evening after the day we return? My next door neighbour has a kitten, and I can borrow it, just to please Teylon."

She looked at Sarawatch with some hesitation.

"That's fine, I'm happy to be left out." said Sarawatch.

She so wants to get more time with Adalace. Won't be long before they are meeting all by themselves!

The others agreed to Sarsaparilla's proposal, without any fuss. Feeling exhausted, they then all went to bed, after seeing Sarawatch off to rejoin her police companions.

Francesca: Having a discussion

The three Girls in Pink were back at their shared accommodation, having a drink while sitting around their kitchen table. They had been discussing the events of their last hit.

Should I bring this up, or not? Hmm, I guess I have to, it is bugging me.

"Say, Devina, I don't mean to criticise you or anything, but I have a certain concern..." said Francesca.

"Ah, yes?" said Devina, noticeably withdrawing within herself, and apart from an initial glance, not looking at Francesca.

"Well, your part in our operation was perfectly OK, and, well, since after all we were killing those men, a certain amount of suffering on their part is unavoidable... But, you know, I feel if we are going to rub someone out, we might as well do it as quickly and cleanly as possible."

"Y-yes?"

"And, both I and Tamara feel that you tend to relish their suffering a bit too much. Like that last bloke, who was actually finished off by Teylon. I can't really avoid the impression that you could have gotten him straight away, but instead you timed the collapsing walls so as to injure him, so as to give him time to realise what was going to happen to him. Ah, correct?"

Devina clenched her fists in her lap.

"So? He was a man. A despicable man, profiting from the suffering of others. So what does it matter that his death was prolonged?"

She almost whispered this, her face tight and inexpressive.

Sigh, her father must have been a real bastard. A really really bad one.

"I know we're going around killing them, but I like to think that we maintain at least some standards. That we only kill those who really deserve it, and that we make it as quick as possible."

"Yes, I agree." said Tamara, "They deserve it, but I don't want us to act like a bunch of psychopaths."

"Oh, OK." said Devina. Reluctantly.

Francesca nodded her head, and they broke up to go to their separate rooms.

She lay on her bed and started at the ceiling.

She ran her fingers over the left side of her face, feeling the hard skin, and the feelings of pins and needles that was always present whenever something touched her face on that side.

She remembered derisive laughter. Male laughter. A memory she kept on recalling all the time.

How I hated them. And that one in particular, he deserved what he got.

But, for once, she had a new thought.

It has been eight years. Time is passing. Am I, perhaps, getting over all of that?

I wonder if I'm getting tired of killing.