Black wing-shaped drones formed a dome around Memorial Square.
A single Hunter could lay down some hurt if it locked onto you. They were quick and agile, made specifically to chase down fleeing metahumans capable of flight. Their fixed guns were forty-eight inch variable-bore ion cannons, colloquially known as meta-lasers or m-lasers, due to their propensity for and proficiency at firing at metahumans. They were, of course, ultratech, and controlled by an AI capable of learning as a chase progressed, so that even if you outpaced it at first, it would be able to predict you and cut you off the longer it followed you.
The scary part was, there was almost never just one, and they were designed to work together. A typical squadron consisted of at least three, and I would give three Hunters an eighty percent chance of catching and downing me if I ran. That, of course, necessitated fighting back, which usually meant more time spent in a single area, which meant more Hunters would be on the way. I’d met villains who had assumed them cannon fodder, and most of them had been captured, killed, or at the very least taught to respect them quickly.
My body had gone cold. It could have been the blood loss, but it was definitely also the sudden fear.
“I—I need to get away,” I stammered, pulling in energy to take off—
—and realizing I could barely gather enough to jump particularly high before I felt the sensation of intense pressure in my skull, the type that promised to mature into a migraine if I tried anything more. I had overworked myself trying to keep up with Paragon, and my power was letting me know it was taking the rest of the night off.
Eyes wide, I looked back at Paragon.
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “You’ll be alright.”
“Can you—” Asking for help felt awful in ways I didn’t have time to unpack, but I swallowed my pride and pushed through. “Can you get me away from here?”
He nodded. “I can.”
I waited. He just stayed kneeling in front of me, doing nothing.
“Um,” I said. “Soon? Soonish? Now, even?”
He considered me, and then unclipped his cape and started folding it as he spoke. “It’s not just the drones, Darkstar. They’ve got ground forces already inbound and a perimeter with anti-air established, slowly tightening. It’s how they operate when they’ve got someone cornered. Now, I could get past all of that, probably, but not carrying you, and you’re in no shape to be carrying yourself. So, for the moment, running is off the table.” He gave the cape one last fold and put it behind my head. “Lean back, get comfortable, and try to relax. It’ll help the nanobots work.”
“So what is the plan?” I asked. “Are you going to fight?”
He snorted. “Yes, I’m going to wipe out an entire battalion of federal law enforcement agents and billions of dollars of ultratech.”
I waited.
He also waited, then sighed. “I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh.”
“Because I’m obviously not going to do that.”
“Sure, but, I don’t really see any other way?” I said. “Fighting and running are pretty much the only ways to deal with SCAR.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I’m going to talk them into letting you go.”
I stared at him.
He waited.
“Was that sarcasm again?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because you can’t talk to SCAR. They don’t talk. And you just had this big spiel about how I was the biggest threat to them on the planet, so I feel like they’ll be super un-inclined to listen.”
“Darkstar, I need you to trust me,” he said. “Can you do that?”
I eyed him. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“You do,” he said. “You always have a choice. Not always a good choice, and sometimes not even a particularly meaningful choice, but you’re the only master of you, and you decide how you think and what you feel. And right now, I need you to trust that I’m on your side. I need you to stay sitting, and I need you to promise you’re not going to try to run or fight no matter how the conversation looks like it’s going. No matter what happens, I promise that you and I will both be walking away from this plaza tonight.” He held a hand out. “Look into my mind. Know that I’m telling you the truth.”
I eyed his hand like it was made of venomous cobras and hissed, “I don’t do that.”
He frowned, and pulled his hand back. “I apologize.”
On the far side of the square, I saw the first SCAR troop transport emerge from a sidestreet. It was a bulky rolling fortress of a vehicle, bristling with turrets and cannons, meant to smash into metahuman combat zones and deposit squadrons of troopers under heavy fire. They were even tougher than they looked, too, reinforced by ultratech alloys and armor plating.
I had a keenly intuitive fight-or-flight response, developed over many years of merciless hounding both pre- and post-high school, and everything in me was telling me I needed to leave, even as my rational brain was agreeing with Paragon. There was no getting away from this. I was caught.
“Okay,” I said, and leaned my head back onto his cape. “Do what you’ve gotta do.”
“Thank you,” he said solemnly.
He stood, turned, and waited, planted squarely between me and the rest of the square. It struck me that, even after becoming a fairly renowned supervillain in the Skip, I had never thought I’d be that close to Paragon’s butt.
Since I do have to be honest, I am now compelled to mention that it was a nice butt. Being a hero was synonymous with being in shape and wearing skintight outfits, and I sort of understood why capes had fallen out of fashion with modern heroes right then. It gave the artists for your comic line a better opportunity for…marketing.
I’ve now spent way too long talking about Paragon’s butt. It’s just what I noticed most right then, possibly because of the sedatives from the Medico. Sorry.
More trucks rolled into the plaza, most of them troop transports, some of them dedicated anti-personnel tanks. They’d come armed for bear, and while it was tempting to be flattered, I knew it was the standard procedure for any planned incursion into the Skip. They wanted anyone who picked a fight with SCAR to know that they were picking a fight with all of SCAR, and even as hated as they were, few would do that willingly.
They rumbled towards us with deafening engines designed to push non-aerodynamic hunks of heavy metal across any terrain. There were dozens of trucks coming from every direction, but they seemed to flow into formation seamlessly. I wondered if they even had human drivers, or if it was the same pathing AI the Hunters used.
They stopped, swerving in front of us in perfect synchronization to present us their rear, where interlocked bay doors waited. The bay doors burst open like they were spring loaded, one falling to the brick to make a ramp for the troops to walk down, and two flinging out to the sides to cover them from those directions. The troopers themselves advanced down the ramp quickly, the first rank bearing red, shaped-energy shields capable of stopping military-grade ballistics fire. They spread into an interlocking semi-circle in front of us, their boots a chaotic war drumroll, and dropped to a knee so that the second rank could have partial cover while holding us in a crossfire.
The SCAR troopers would have looked right at home emerging from an airlock to exchange fire with rebel scum. Their armor was sleek, glossy, black, and segmented. Their headgear vaguely evoked Corinthian helmets, fully covered with a split-t mirrored visor. Each trooper carried an assortment of equipment and weaponry, but their standard service rifle was the TomorrowTech UM-14, a compact plasma railgun capable of thirty minutes of continuous fire without reloading. And yes, I did say minutes, not seconds, which would already be ridiculous for an automatic weapon.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Ironic that Paragon was now looking down a hundred barrels of the same ultratech gun his own family was responsible for developing.
Silence fell, save for the indifferent growling of the transport engines.
“I don’t care to have guns pointed at me,” Paragon said, voice carrying across the plaza despite the fact that he barely raised his voice.
“Well, I do apologize,” said a heavy Texan drawl. “But there’s a dangerous metahuman on the loose, and we here at SCAR value nothing higher than security.”
The line of troopers rippled, and from between them Sheriff Grey emerged from it.
If, for a second, you thought that your futuristic stormtroopers were accompanied by a real life cowgirl, it would be understandable.
She was a tall, grizzled blonde woman in a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, and a brown canvas duster coat with two massive sidearms slung low on her hips. The first thing you’d notice after that was that her sleeves had been torn away, revealing arms that were heavily corded with muscle—literally corded, that is. Instead of flesh, there was metallic cable, interwoven into the approximation of human arms. After that, you’d probably see her shiny SCAR breastplate, and then if you were observant, you’d see that her two guns looked like they’d been stolen from the set of a high-budget space opera movie franchise.
She wasn’t actually a Sheriff—I think she was technically a captain in SCAR—but people had been mockingly calling her that for so long that it had stopped being mocking after a while and just started being what people called her.
The heels of her boots clicked on the ground as she strode directly up to Paragon. He was a fairly tall man himself, but she still had half a head on him.
“Gabby,” Paragon said. I couldn’t see his face, just his…back…but his voice sounded totally polite, effusively jovial, and completely unwelcoming. “What brings you out here this fine evening?”
“Well, Noah,” Sheriff Grey said in a much worse version of the same voice, “our office received word that a wanted fugitive would be in the area, and we thought we might come investigate.” She looked past him and at me with icy, faded blue eyes. “Lo and behold.”
Paragon grunted quizzically. “Odd. I’m pretty good at spotting fugitives, with my hundred years of practice, but I have yet to see any. Could you be more specific?”
Her eyes went flat and she met his eyes again. “Don’t pick this fight, Paragon. We’ve got every right to take this girl.”
“What right would that be, Sheriff?” he asked. “And do be specific. As a trained and certified superhero, I am required to be intimately familiar with the laws and regulations related to my profession. Do you have, say, a warrant?”
“I don’t need, say, a warrant,” she responded, mimicking his admittedly antiquated inflections. “The HERO Act gives any law enforcement officer greatly expanded discretion in determining the appropriate response to metahu—”
“Yes, and as the ranking law enforcement officer present,” he said, “I am exercising my discretion. It’s my determination that you should get back in your silly little tank and go file some requisition forms to replace the resources you’ve wasted on this pointless outing.”
Her cyborg fingers drummed on her sidearms. “I don’t know if you realize this, but our Hunter drones come equipped with these things called ‘cameras.’” She enunciated the last word with insulting clarity. “So as we can see what they see, as is occasionally handy in field operations. And wouldn’t you know it, we saw little miss Carrie here throwing down with all manner of folks, including yourself. Now I’m not sure if, in all the legal trainin’ they do at your fancy school, you ever got around to the phrase ‘probable cause,’ but in any court of law, that would be more than enough to justify an arrest, don’t you agree?”
“I don’t know if you realize this,” he repeated back to her, “but in 2007, Wisconsin legalized mutual combat between two consenting parties, so long as public health and property weren’t unduly at risk. Now, I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Miss Jones is soon to be off to that fancy school of mine herself, and I thought it would be prudent to make sure she received some training before she arrived. Usually we enroll young, promising metahumans in the Junior Heroes program before college, but alas, circumstances robbed her of—”
She cut him off and gestured impatiently to the unconscious villains laid out neatly on the ground beside us. “And are those four going to corroborate that story, Paragon? Were they helping with ‘training?’”
Paragon nodded. “Well if your ‘cameras’ are any good, you should probably have seen them attack Miss Jones here, necessitating her acting in self-defense. I’m sure they’ll be more than willing to tell you all about it when they wake up.” He paused thoughtfully. “Sometime tomorrow, I imagine. I dosed them pretty heavily, so they wouldn’t hurt themselves while they recovered. If there’s any discrepancies, I’m sure we’ll all be able to get together and resolve them to everyone’s satisfaction.”
Silence hung in the air for one long, pregnant moment. I kind of felt bad for the SCAR troopers, who hadn’t so much as twitched. Had to cramp.
Grey broke it stepping forward and lowering her nose to nearly touching his. “Noah, you and your kind are relics of an older, dumber age of childish indulgence and naivety. That age ended with the deaths of millions due to your negligence and narcissistic self-aggrandizement, and now the world has decided it’s time to grow up and put away childish things. Take your silly nicknames and flamboyant costumes and move aside so that the adults can get business done. Get the fuck out of my way.”
“How about,” he said, tone mild, “you and your very serious cowboy hat make me, Sheriff.” He nodded to the soldiers assembled behind her. “You show up with your cadre of evil space marines and try and claim to be adults—you’re just slaves to a different aesthetic. And as much as we all agree that Hugo Boss was certainly a look, it’s a look we left behind for a reason. Believe me, I was there, and I saw the bodies.”
“I bet you did,” she said, lowering her voice to be barely perceptible. “Remind me, what was your original family name? Before Tomorrow, I mean? Before your daddy changed it? Was he embarrassed about something?”
“My father, embarrassed?” he said, chuckled. “Not a single day in his life. I don’t believe he had the capacity. But you know, this entire conversation reminds me of something he told me once. You can tell a lot about someone by the orders they follow, and why. So whose orders do you follow, Sheriff? Where do you think authority is derived from?”
“The people with the most guns,” she said. “And the most willingness to use them.”
“So, violence,” he said. “And violence being the primary product of power. He who can enact the most violence possesses the most power, and therefore the most authority. How about we take a moment to explore the logical endpoint of that philosophy for you.”
He raised his hand, and closed his fist.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a prizefighter. A champion. The pound-for-pound greatest fighter alive, and for that matter, dead. You are at the top of your profession, with more wins than anybody had ever gotten before you. You are, essentially, the most dangerous normal human person alive, and given nutritional and training standards of modern times, probably ever.
Now imagine in your next fight, they put you in a cage with an angry gorilla.
You lose. Unless you’re a metahuman, you aren’t going to beat the gorilla. It doesn’t matter how good you are or how fit you are, the gorilla is going to rip you into pieces and eat your face.
Now imagine that the gorilla casually revealed that it was also a better prizefighter than you.
If you can imagine all of that, you might understand how I felt when I felt the psionic working Paragon enacted at that moment.
He looked like a man in his prime, and physically, he was. But mentally, he was more than a hundred years old, and had spent the overwhelming majority of those years as an on-duty superhero. That meant that he was always on call, always ready to respond, always ready to fight, and doing just that more days than not. Given the nature of his power, he had more experience with metahuman abilities than probably anybody else on the planet.
So, even though he was not psionic, he was better at it than I was. He was better than the redhead who’d been way better than me.
He was Paragon. The peak of the mountain. The ideal hero.
I didn’t see the telekinetic workings, as focused and as skilled as they were. But I felt the psionic waves it made, and saw the results.
In the skies above Memorial Square, every single Hunter drone suddenly and simultaneously crumpled like a tin can, and instead of falling out of the sky, zoomed across it to the center of the plaza, where they smashed together into one massive ball of torn metal. Then they fell out of the sky, and hit the ground with a crash like thunder.
I said earlier he’d taken it easy on me. What I should have said was, he hadn’t actually fought me at all.
The SCAR troopers finally reacted, mostly by instinctively ducking and pointing their guns in that direction like there was something they could shoot. Sheriff Grey spun and watched it all happen, wide-eyed and pale, not with fright, but with rage.
She whirled back to Paragon. “Have you lost your goddamn mind? You think you’re going to get away with this?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Because I know where real authority comes from.”
Then he turned away from her, knelt down, and picked me up in a bridal carry. I made sure to hold on to his cape as he lifted me.
“Stop,” Grey snarled. “Give her to me.”
“Good day, Sheriff,” he said. “Have fun with that paperwork.”
“I’ll shoot you down,” she said.
"Please, do try,” he said. “Open fire on me. You think this girl is a threat to your organization? See where that ends for you.”
Grey stared, and Paragon lifted off.
“Wow,” I said to her as we raised into the air. “This is really embarrassing for you.”
I saw her hand twitch towards the handle of her gun.
We were gone before she could decide if she wanted to draw it or not.
Paragon accelerated quickly into the sky, which I felt in my bones. My broken bones. He laid off when he heard me hiss. We sailed through the highrises of the Skip, the wind somehow barely touching us.
He said, “I probably shouldn’t have done that, but it felt really good.”
“I thought you said you weren’t going to destroy a billion dollars of ultratech.”
“I said I wasn’t going to do that and wipe out a battalion of federal agents.”
I felt myself smiling, which rarely happened unless I did it on purpose. Then I stopped. “The others. The four villains I was fighting. We left them.”
“We did,” he agreed.
I looked up at him.
“Even I can only get away with so much,” he said, quiet.
“It…feels wrong.”
“I agree.” He paused. “Do you have a healer I can take you to? Otherwise, we’re going to have to be even more unwise than we’ve already been tonight.”
I did something I had only done for one other person—Alex.
I told him where I lived with the Liebowitzes, and he turned to fly me home.