Chapter Six

First Mission

 

 

 

Twenty-four more hours passed, and the group decided to go to Kratka Ridge. Before they left, Paul asked her about her impressions of the new crew. “You want me to be honest?” she asked, arching her eyebrows. “I don’t trust them. End of story.”

“I don’t either.”

“Good. Then we’re on the same page,” Angela said, as they sat in her trailer. She picked up the injector, pulled out a small vial of synthetic blood from the fridge and fitted it into place, rolled up her sleeve, and pressed the trigger. Immediately, the fluid shot into her vein. It bulged, and she gave a soft sigh. “That’ll keep me going for a while.”

She rose to her feet. “Let’s go.”

Once at the mountainside, Hija met them and ushered them inside. Peterson seemed delighted at their offer to help. He actually clapped his hands when the four members stood in a row on the training area. “Don’t you have another member?”

Angela shuffled her feet and muttered something about their fifth friend being a little shy around people. The doctor nodded, and he said he understood. In reality, Sandstorm had elected not to go, just as everyone had been piling into the van. I feel like practicing at home, he’d signed. Let me know what happened, please.

His attitude of hanging back had amounted to major buzzkill. Sandstorm tended to be pretty antisocial, although when the chips were down, he always came through.

“We’re here. We’re listening,” Paul told the doctor.

“We’re more than happy to have you,” Peterson said, and he didn’t seem disappointed in the least when he heard the news about the new people not moving in. “I understand. You need your own space. Well, feel free to make yourselves at home here, and come and go as you please.”

More pointedly, he didn’t say a word about the prior visit. Perhaps he didn’t think it important enough to mention, and Paul let the matter drop. Ooze did beckon him over and whispered in his ear, “Since the good doctor’s letting us run around, I think I’ll get some work done.” He gave a wink and disappeared through the back door.

Mason busied himself with working out. He took off his shirt, revealing a brawny, hyper-muscular torso, and he leapt from wall to wall in a series of agility exercises. That done, he turned to shadow boxing and lifting weights, while Catherine took up a position from overhead, flitting back and forth, her eyes ever watchful. Angela excused herself, saying that she wanted to do a little reconnaissance work.

“I need some fresh air,” she said, spearing her counterpart with a glare that meant ‘You still stink in more ways than one. Back off or you get punched again’. Quickly waving goodbye, she took off. CF walked around, gazing at all the equipment, and occasionally dug into his pocket to pull out a snack.

Paul wandered over to the burned-out chambers. His mind flashed back to the time when he’d emerged from one very similar to these, his senses enhanced, his strength and speed tripled and his body forever transformed. As he stared at the chambers, a tap on his waist made him turn around. It was Mudslide. “What are you doing here?” the swamp creation grated.

Surprise, surprise, the mud blob had grown larger, almost double his size and in only a few days. He—or it, it was hard to tell which, but Paul decided to think of the blob as an ‘it’—reared up on quickly fashioned hind legs and stood there with a defiant gesture on its dark face. “You’ve got no business here, pal,” it continued, its attitude surly to the max.

“I was just watching,” Paul answered, instinctively inhaling through his mouth. Up close, this thing’s stench was worse than anything he’d smelled so far. “What’s your excuse?”

“I live here,” replied the blob. “You don’t, and—”

“Ease off,” said a voice from behind them.

Swiveling his body around, Peterson stood there, wiping his brow. It sparkled with unhealthy-looking sweat. One second he looked fine and the next, not. He jerked his thumb behind him, and Mudslide slithered away to sulk in a nearby corner.

Once the blob had gone, the doctor said, “Please accept my apologies. Our newest creation has got issues. When I fashioned him, he was immediately aware of the human status of our other subjects, and he’s a little…envious.”

Funny that the doctor should refer to Mudslide as a male…and Peterson had mentioned human status. “Are Mason and Catherine like me, hybrids?”

“Yes and no,” Peterson said, as he grabbed a seat. “Catherine was created from my stem cells, but Mason wasn’t. His was also a terminal case. He volunteered for this, and the research indicated his condition not only reversed course after the transformation, it disappeared entirely.”

Peterson’s voice took on an impassioned tone. “This is what the research really is all about. It’s got the potential to cure diseases, all diseases. The military applications are limitless, yes, but so are the medical ones.”

Paul swept his hand at the pile of material lying next to the burned-out chambers. “So you’re building a new chamber for yourself?”

A sigh came from the older man. “The four chambers were taken from our previous facility. Bolson designed them. He had the expertise. I can only go on some of what he did, and I admit I’m not the genius he was. I’ve had a lot of failures, and, quite frankly, I’m stumped.” He wiped a thick sheen of sweat from his forehead. “And there is that mortality thing to worry about, so you can call it a selfish reason, if you like. That’s why I asked your friend Ooze in to help me.”

It all sounded suspiciously like betrayal. Sharing secrets with the enemy? Paul didn’t want to believe it. “So…he knows something?” Playing dumb seemed to be part of the plan for now.

“No, he says Bolson didn’t download the knowledge into him. Your watery friend does, however, know a lot about machinery, so he’s shared some of it with us.”

Peterson started to cough and hastily pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go to lie down. Please… Think of this as your home.”

As he walked through the facility to the rear door to disappear behind it, he seemed to hunch over more, almost as if his upper torso was becoming too heavy for his waist-hip structure to support. Odd…

A voice called out, “Hey, new guy, I need a sparring partner!”

It was Mason, and he was waving his hand at the training mat. Paul found this more than a little hard to take. Was this what it had come to, a fight? They’d already had one punch-up that had ended in a draw. Or maybe this was some kind of a test. Whatever… They were supposed to be working together, weren’t they? “Some other time,” he said and started to walk away.

He stopped when he heard Mason snicker. “Yeah, can’t take me. Is that it?”

Baiting him… They were baiting him. Determined to let it go, Paul began to walk away once more when Catherine flitted down beside him and linked her arm with his. She whispered into his ear, her foul breath making him recoil, “You can take him.”

A blast of air shoved her aside. It came from Angela, and she stood two feet away, a look of disdain on her face. “I had enough of doing reconnaissance work. Nothing’s outside, anyway, so I thought I’d come down to take a look.”

She turned to Paul. “Yeah, you can take him.” Shifting her gaze to Catherine, her normally cold blue eyes turned positively wintry. “And you can take your hands somewhere else.”

“Whatever you say,” Catherine sniffed. She stalked off to stand beside Mason, and she massaged the muscles around his neck. He pulled on a pair of gloves and flexed his fingers through them, the leather bulging with every movement.

Angela leaned over and whispered in Paul’s ear, “You got this, right? He’s bigger than you are and probably stronger, so stay outside his reach.”

Easier said than done, Paul thought, as he took off his shirt and put on his own pair of gloves. He remembered the power in the other man’s hands, and he wanted no part of it. But in sparring, you were going to get hit, like it or not. As he entered the circle, he held up his hands to show he had no weapons, the gentleman’s way of fighting. Mason did the same, and grinned. “This is gonna be fun,” he growled.

From his attitude, hunched shoulders which showed off his oversized trapezius muscles and deltoids, it didn’t look like it would be, and Paul, smaller and less muscular, was instantly wary.

The match began with a few feints and some lunges, as both opponents sized each other up. Paul struck first, jabbing quickly with his right. As a natural left-hander, he circled around to his left and used his speed to switch directions, which confused his opponent. Mason lunged as he punched, telegraphing every move. It became an easy matter to hit him, although Paul pulled his punches. This was an exhibition…or so he thought.

In a flash, though, things changed, as Mason moved in fast and opened up with the heavy artillery. He hit hard with heavy body-rocking shots, and Paul backed off and covered up, knowing he’d been suckered in. Out of the corner of his eye, Hija and Catherine were grinning. They were enjoying this.

The beating continued, with Mason doing his best to break something, but his moves eventually got slower and weaker. Paul withstood the storm, saw an opening and flattened Mason with a powerful left hook that left the man’s mouth bloody and his body twitching on the mat. An instant later, though, the blood disappeared. He also had extreme powers of regeneration.

Regeneration or not, Paul was determined to keep this jerk down, and if he had to go another ten rounds, he’d do it. “You want to quit now, or are you hungry for more?” he asked, dancing and bobbing. He was in the zone now, heart beating fast but steadily, anger held in check, triumphant but not cocky…much.

With a snarl, Mason arose, but Catherine held him back and Hija came over to drape his arm around Mason’s shoulder. “You proved yourself out there, man,” he said. “He did, too. Save it for later.”

As they walked off, Angela exulted, “You did great.” She handed him his shirt and whispered, “You were beyond great.”

Paul pulled off his gloves and spat out blood from his mouth. His muscles ached, and even though he healed fast, he still experienced pain. All his triumph had faded. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go, he thought as he pulled on his shirt. “Yeah, I’m just hot stuff,” and he heard the disgust in his voice.

The door at the back opened up and Ooze trundled out with CF at his side. “Well, I was watching you on the monitors they’ve got back there. Since you’re finished imitating Rocky, it’s time to go.” His voice sounded urgent.

As they took their leave, Peterson popped out of the back room long enough to say, “We’ll need you tomorrow. Be at the corner of Madison and Longstreet at midnight. There’s a drug cartel that needs taking down, and we need all hands on deck.”

Paul nodded. “We’ll be there.”

Going up to the surface, he started to say something, but Ooze shushed him. “Later, man, later.”

It all sounded very mysterious, but the water-man pointed at the walls then at his head. The meaning was clear—the walls had ears. Listening devices had probably been installed.

Once in the van, though, safely away from the mountain and heading home, Ooze spoke up, sounding perturbed. “This isn’t going to be a cakewalk. I got a look at the computer while Peterson was in his room. I saw some really disturbing stuff—things like money transfers and emails to government officials—”

“And this means Peterson is lying,” Angela cut in.

“It seems to be that way,” Ooze replied, his eyes focused on the road. “I couldn’t get all of it, so I’ll have to go back to the computer room at their place when I get a chance.”

The only question was how. “Dumb question,” said Paul, thinking hard to come up with a plan and becoming frustrated when nothing came to mind, “but if they know that you know, they’ll be watching you, won’t they?”

“Oh, that’s not a problem. They like me for my expertise. Peterson told me so. He wasn’t lying about that,” Ooze chuckled. “He also thinks his software is uncrackable. Hey, I can crack anything. Besides, they’ve got a couple of extra containment suits in the lab room, and I’ll need a new one soon.”

Curious as to what Ooze would do if Peterson denied him access, Paul asked the question and got the answer. “They’ve got a sink in the computer room, you know. All I need is access to a waterway, and I’m good.”

Silence fell, and back at the trailers, Ooze and CF ambled off to their respective homes. Sandstorm was practicing, but stopped long enough to form a question mark when they arrived. “Mission’s going down tomorrow,” Paul said. “Are you in?”

The sand being wavered a moment then it formed the word yes.

Good. Now they had a chance.

 

* * * *

 

The next night, they left early for the address. “Let me out a few miles before we get there,” said Angela in a tight voice. “I want to scout around.”

Paul said nothing. They’d had a fight a few hours earlier and still hadn’t made up. All because of nothing, he thought, but once Sandstorm had indicated he’d join them, she turned around with a wrathful expression on her face. “You just had to cozy up to that witch, didn’t you?”

What was this all about? “Hey, I didn’t cozy up to anyone,” Paul replied, trying to keep a lid on his temper. “She grabbed me, okay? Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”

“Of her?” sneered Angela, and she kicked at the dirt with her boot. “You have to be crazy.”

“So why mention it?”

There was no reply. Angela walked inside her trailer then slammed the door shut. Paul tried knocking, calling out her name, but only silence greeted him. Pissed off, he went back to his trailer and only came out when he heard Ooze yelling “It’s time! Let’s bounce!”

Now they were moving along merrily in the van, and Angela wore a sullen expression. CF munched on some food, and Sandstorm lay quietly in a heap. Not a word came from anyone until they were about five miles away from the location. The streets were dark, and only a few brave citizens were out at this time of night.

Angela suddenly banged on the wall. “Let me out here,” she called out and Ooze pulled the van over.

She flew out quickly, and they continued on. Paul’s com-link beeped, and Angela’s voice crackled, “Are you reading me?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

“I see where we’re going,” she replied. “It’s a warehouse district. Lots of other warehouses around it, but only one has lights on inside. I didn’t see any civilians.”

“Ask her if there are any armed soldiers and if Peterson’s men are there,” Ooze wanted to know.

Paul relayed the question, and, after a few seconds, the answer came back. “I see about twenty guards, the other witch lady, Mason and Peterson. He’s talking to a police officer. Guy’s in his fifties…lean, gray hair—looks like some big name. He’s got lots of medals on his uniform.”

The man with the medals… It had to be Masters. “Can you hear what they’re saying?”

Silence…then, “No, they’re too far away.” She sounded uncertain. “Something isn’t right.”

“What isn’t?”

The uncertainty mounted in her voice. “I’m not sure…but stay sharp.”

Situations often changed, and sometimes plans had to be improvised. It wasn’t like the crooks were going to cooperate, simply drop their weapons and ask to go to jail. Still…it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. Asking Ooze to stop the van about three blocks away from their target, Paul queried, “Have you got a map?”

Immediately, Ooze formed a map on his containment suit. “The warehouse is here,” he said, pointing to a spot. “There are alleys and piles of steel girders nearby. You can hide there.”

CF nodded. “I got it. I can eat later, right?”

Inwardly sighing, Paul responded with, “Yeah, you can do it later. Keep in touch with the com-links.” He adjusted CF’s link just so before adding, “Take these guys down hard. Then we’ll all eat.”

“Good.” The zombie moved out, followed by Sandstorm. The plan was simple. Sandstorm would go in first and blind the opposition, then CF would take down the foot soldiers. Paul and Angela would mop up the rest with Mason and Catherine’s help. It would take ten…fifteen minutes, tops.

They set out, and after taking up a position across from the warehouse, Paul spotted CF off to this right. He was hiding behind a pile of girders, and to his left, Mason lurked in the shadows of an alleyway two blocks away. Mason spotted him and gave a thumbs-up sign.

“Witch lady’s circling overhead,” Angela’s voice suddenly said. “I still don’t like this.”

“What’s wrong now?”

“The guards, they…don’t walk like guards,” she answered. “I can’t explain it, but—”

“Hang on a second,” Paul said, and signaled for everyone to wait.

He crept out of his hiding position over to where Peterson and the other man waited. Sure enough, it was Masters. When he came into view, the commissioner rubbed his eyes. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when monsters came to life,” he said.

His tone sounded more than condescending—not to mention insulting—but Paul let it pass. This was too important. “What’s the plan?” he asked.

“I’ve told my people to simply observe,” the doctor replied. “It’s your mission.”

Stamp of pseudo-approval received, Paul gave the signal for everyone to move in. The mission went down fast, with Sandstorm throwing up a screen while CF smashed through the defenses. Paul and Angela quickly followed behind.

The thugs kept firing, though, and a couple of bullets hit Paul in the shoulder. He staggered. That stung! It was the first time he’d ever been shot, and the sudden stab of pain brought him to his knees.

A second later, his regenerative abilities kicked in, and with a sense of wonder combined with awe, he watched as his body pushed out the bullets. In a matter of less than ten ticks of the clock later, he felt ready for action, and soon, with the combined help of the team, everyone was either on their knees or out cold.

It seemed to be okay until Mason entered through the window and spotted two hapless associates on the second floor. Their guns had already been confiscated, and they sat on the ground, cowering in fear. “You really don’t know when to quit, do you?” he snarled and proceeded to beat them savagely.

“They’re not armed!” Paul called out. When the other man didn’t back off, he leaped up to the second floor. “They’re down. Let it go.”

Mason whirled around, claws out. “Get your stinkin’ hands away from me! They’re scum. They don’t deserve to live. You see what they’re making here? Drugs,” he spat and swept his arm around the area. “They’re dealing death, so I’m gonna deal out some of my own.”

He made a move as if to go on the offensive, so Paul did the only thing he could do. In a quick move, he grabbed his counterpart in a chokehold and heaved his own body over the railing. They both hit the ground with a resounding crash. Mason got up slowly, fangs now out and slavering at the mouth. “Buddy, you just bought yourself a whole pack of trouble.”

Paul got up, every muscle in his body aching, but pain or not, this would not stand. His temper redlined and his fangs emerged. “Bring it!”

He was about to finish things when the doctor’s voice called out, “Hold it!”

Immediately, Mason backed off and stood at attention. Peterson came over, patting his head with a handkerchief. Two tiny bumps stood out on his forehead and his hunch seemed more pronounced, but in spite of his infirmity, he still spoke with authority. “Paul did the right thing,” he stated. “Apologize and do it now.”

Mason hung his head. “Yeah, okay, I overreacted. Sorry.”

It didn’t sound very sincere, but whatever. The commissioner seemed to be very enthusiastic, though, and he strode over, his face wreathed in a smile. “What I just witnessed was…incredible,” he breathed. “I never thought anyone would ever be able to do anything like this.”

“Believe it,” Peterson replied.

Masters couldn’t wipe the look of amazement off his face. “This is an election year for me, and if we can have this team at our disposal, it’ll give law enforcement a whole new meaning.”

The whole notion of using their powers for political purposes sounded like a conflict of interest. It also sounded hypocritical. The way Paul saw it, a cop’s purpose was to help keep law and order and nothing more. What was up with the election year crap? He wanted to say something, but for the sake of unity, he kept his mouth shut.

“May I suggest that we talk about it privately?” Peterson suggested, as he pointed toward the exit. He turned to Mason. “You’d best be heading back. Catherine, you too,” he said to the vampire girl when she landed silently near him.

He and Masters walked off into the night. For a few seconds, no one said anything, but Mason finally grunted out, “You guys did pretty good out there. Sorry about flying off the handle. You were right.” He stuck out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation, Paul shook it.

“Come back with us,” Catherine rasped and took out a cellphone from the folds of her bodysuit. “I’ll call ahead and tell them you’re coming.”

“Thanks,” Angela said, noticeably breathing in a shallow manner through her mouth. “We’ll be there in an hour.”

Catherine looped her arm around Mason’s waist and effortlessly tugged him into the sky. “I think you made your point,” Paul said.

“Oh, about the stink lady?” replied Angela, breathing normally now. “I’m lucky I don’t have body odor. She makes a garbage pile smell like roses.”

Paul chuckled at the joke, but all the same, something nagged at him. This mission had been too easy. The wounds he’d received had healed up fast, and he’d found out what his body was capable of, more or less.

At the same time, he’d also learned a few things about his new partners, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.