Killing Capes (Book 2): Leaving New Haven Read online

  The fearless scientist rose from her seat, setting the bag on the chair. She approached the desk as Wulf regained his menacing composure. Wulf had, as he liked to remind visitors, choked the life out of far mightier beings at this distance.

  She leaned in, “I could ask Lia to disable your powers again and have some real fun, or we could just skip all that. I’m sure you have a lot of pathetic revenge to plan.”

  Wulf paused, staring into the woman’s resolute gaze, considering his next words. “Fine,” he threw his hands up, “you win. Your former companion is no longer on this planet.”

  The words felt like a death sentence to Dwight. “Say again?” he said, stunned by the finality of them.

  “I mean that after I grew bored with torturing him – and I will say that took several weeks – I sent him to the worst place I know of. There is a prison where people don’t come back, where we put the ones who can’t or won’t be ruled and who you, Mr. Knolls, cannot kill.”

  Wulf produced a pad of paper from one of his drawers. “Mr. Fuller arrived approximately six weeks after his feeble little coup, with the instructions to make him wish you had dispatched him. I imagine with the description of his powers I provided, they’ve found all sorts of entertaining things to do with him,” Wulf grinned, no doubt revisiting his own sadistic fantasies.

  Ellis was taking the revelation far better than Dwight, “So how do we get there?” She asked, setting the gun on the table.

  “Oh, I’ll happily send you after your insolent display here. When people go there, they never return. You’ll see.” The malice in his voice transferred to his arm as he began writing on the paper.

  The Doc – in all her five-foot glory – gave no indication of intimidation by the furious immortal. “That’s fine. I’m guessing you won’t be inviting us for tea next week?”

  With only a toothy grin, Wulf flung the pad across the desk. From where he stood, Dwight could see a set of coordinates. The doctor took the single sheet and tucked it into her lab coat, leaving the rest on the table beside her weapon. She turned, gesturing for her two companions to follow.

  Still shocked at her poise in the face of New Haven’s monstrous ruler, Dwight did as he was told, grabbing the Doc’s bag as he went. By the time the three reached the double doors leading out of Wulf’s office, the villain snatched up the pistol and trained it at the back of the woman who had just humiliated him.

  “That will be the last mistake you make, doctor,” Wulf threatened, waiting for a response. “You have no idea who you’ve crossed; there are beings in this world far worse than me.”

  The woman cast a casual glance over her shoulder as she continued to leave, “Uh huh,” she said dismissively. “You go right ahead.”

  Wulf gnashed his teeth, thrusting the gun forward as if to stab at her as he pulled the trigger. Alice’s soft, feminine voice spoke from the firearm, “User not recognized.”

  Instead of firing, the weapon explosively self-destructed in his hand. The blast hurled Wulf backward across the room. His burning body slammed into one of his armored suits, scattering polished silver plating across the office’s dark floor. The three left without bothering to check on him, confident that the undying Mr. Wulf would remain just so.

  As they stepped out of the building, back into the late afternoon air of the spacious parkway, Lia released her psychic hold on the employees of StarPoint. The two still-standing bouncers dropped like marionettes whose strings were suddenly cut. All three groaned while their minds regained control of their bodies. Ellis disabled the security system on her custom ride as she descended the steps, the field dissipating before any of them were close enough to be harmed by the barrier.

  Once again leaping over the door and into her seat, the Doc engaged the machine’s engine. Before the guards crawled to their feet, the car was gone, seamlessly rejoining the flow of traffic into the city.

  The speeding car veered between two looming delivery trucks as, to the horror of both of her passengers, the Doc removed her hands from the steering wheel. Dwight lunged to grab it, but found his hands promptly slapped away by the driver. Anticipating certain death, he weighed his chances of survival if he threw himself out of the moving vehicle.

  “Oh, knock it off,” she scolded him, fishing the paper from her coat, “This thing can drive itself.” As she spoke, the wheel started moving, navigating them through the crowded highway while maintaining their reckless pace. “Alice,” she called.

  The AI’s face appeared on the dashboard-mounted screen, “Yes, Doctor?”

  “Cancel all of my plans for the next…three days, and book a private flight to these coordinates.” Ellis gave the AI Bernard’s location while dragging the duffle bag from the rear seat into her lap. She hastily dug through the black container, oblivious to the traffic whipping past them.

  Alice’s image blinked slowly as she processed the multiple requests, her image disrupted by her diverted resources. “I imagine you would like something capable of a water landing, based on the location?”

  As the Doctor and her simulation did their work, Dwight felt a vibration in his pocket. He took out the phone, expecting some grotesquely detailed threats from his employer. Instead, an outdated picture of his ex-wife lit up the tiny display.

  He took the call, unsure of what to expect, “Hello?” he asked.

  “Dwight, what the fuck happened?” Linda wasn’t bothering with pleasantries.

  “You’ll have to be a lot more specific than that. Quite a bit has ‘fucking happened’ in the last few days; I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Ian came by a few minutes ago with Molly. Is everything okay? He looked like he’d been through hell.” For once, she sounded genuinely concerned with someone else’s safety.

  He sighed, “Some people attacked the apartment. I’m hurt, but handling it. He’s probably dealing with it in his own way; let him. I’ll sort it out when I’m all better.”

  There was a long silence, “What happened? I may have overheard something at work.”

  He didn’t want to describe the details of his drug-fueled slaughter of three young Guild recruits in his living room. “There was some blowback from my last job. A few angry Powers came looking for revenge. It didn’t go well for either side.”

  “Damn it,” she said quietly, “Dwight, I think I heard Adams talking with his creepy friend just before the Guild tower was attacked. I don’t think they knew I was outside, or they thought they were being vague. Christ, just once I’d like to find a job in this town that isn’t for some murderous egomaniac.”

  It made sense; Dwight had turned down the next rising kingpin of New Haven just a few days earlier. It probably hadn’t taken much to convince the punks to escape from their trainers and find their way to his apartment. He briefly thought of Cyrra, the one that hadn’t come after him. Maybe if he survived this, he’d check on her; perhaps the Doc could use an apprentice experienced with artificial intelligences. If nothing else, the reunion with his creator would piss off Nemo.

  Dwight’s attention returned to the call, “Nothing to do about it now. I’m handling it. Do me a favor and call Ian; he’s going to need some help with the mess in the apartment.”

  “Mess?” Linda asked.

  The Doctor cut in, “Ignore that,” she put her hand over the receiver, “I already sent some people who specialize in that sort of thing.”

  Dwight shuddered, remembering the state of his apartment, “Okay, fine, but please do me a favor and take him out; get his mind off what happened.”

  “Dwight…” she sounded hesitant.

  “I’ll owe you. Look, get a few friends who haven’t been in the tabloids, show up in your uniforms, and buy him a meal. He’ll be in fanboy heaven.”

  Linda was quiet while she considered his request, “Alright, I can do that. Be safe.” It may have been the nicest thing his ex had said to him in months. She hung up.

  Lia, who had been quietly focusing on their vehicle’s erratic driving, c
himed in, “Don’t you think costumed superheroes showing up hours after three of their trainees were massacred will send the wrong message?”

  Dwight thought on this, “I see your point.”

  Nine

  Dwight vomited the noxious fluid for the third time. The private transport jostled again with the constant turbulence. He’d barely eaten since awakening in the Doc’s lab. The chemicals swimming in his blood stream, disagreeable as they were, sustained his dying body. Lia patted him on the back while he kneeled over the steel bucket they’d found in the massive interior of the cargo plane. Their initial search had turned up a plastic one, but the corrosive contents of his stomach melted through it.

  Across the hold, seated on a wooden container labeled “Consumable,” Ellis tracked their progress on her tablet. Alice gave her creator regular updates stolen from the Guild’s database about their destination.

  Dwight spit into the bucket, the green fluid forming a long, slimy strand from his mouth. “I hope you don’t think I can pay you for all this: the arm, the exoskeleton, the clothes, the gun you used to shoot my boss, the plane – not to mention your time and effort,” he said apologetically.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve been sending invoices to StarPoint and the Guild for years with incomprehensibly vague requests for payment. As long as I keep each number under five figures, they seem to pay it without question.” She showed him an astronomical number on the tablet’s screen, “They’ve been covering your care since Ian knocked on my lab door.”

  Dwight knew he would never see that much money in a hundred lifetimes. Its total equaled the gross domestic product of several small countries. He threw up again in the rapidly-filling bucket.

  “Where are we heading?” Lia asked, leaving Dwight to his illness.

  Ellis switched the view on her device to a map; she held it up for both of her partners to see. Currently, they were nearly an hour from the edge of civilization over the Southern Ocean. “Somewhere no one would come looking. I suspect, if this place was intentionally created, no one wanted it to be accidentally found.”

  Dwight looked around at the multitude of crates surrounding them. “Are they going to let us land?” he managed between lurches of his traumatized stomach.

  “This plane was already chartered for the trip. We were lucky that Alice tracked its destination before she booked us a different one through an actual travel company. From the labels on the cargo, I’m going to assume that we’re stowing away on a supply run.”

  “Wait – so we don’t have any kind of permission to be here?” Dwight felt himself getting sick again.

  She shrugged, “It’s a black-site prison controlled by a mysterious global conspiracy; they weren’t going to let us walk in and take Bernard.”

  “I may have that covered,” Lia offered. “Let me get a look at the layout, and I should be able to do the rest.”

  “Lovely,” Dwight managed before he violently heaved into the pail. He fell backward against one of the containers before checking the cartridge in his prosthetic limb. The gauge, as he’d feared, read empty. He ejected the spent cylinder and replaced it with the second. As the chemical began flowing through the limb, he calculated his remaining doses aloud.

  “Alright, it’s been twelve hours since you loaded the last cartridge. At the constant low feed, we’ve got enough left for a day and a half,” he reasoned. “Doc, how long will it take you to finish the antidote once you have Bernard’s blood?”

  Ellis answered by removing a complicated system of stainless steel, glass beakers, and tubes from her duffle bag. The setup wasn’t her neatest work. “It’s ready to go the second I have a clean sample. Just insert the blood here and the rig will do the rest. It should have your cure processed in under five minutes.”

  The trickle of serum began to do its job, clearing his sickness and substituting his exhaustion for mere crippling fatigue. He stood up and joined Lia, watching the endless expanse of arctic water pass below them.

  Their destination was a small island just off the coast of the ice shelf; within a few hours, the plane was circling its blackened, jagged shores. Polar tides crashed against the tiny rock, spraying huge waves of icy water against the walls of the complex. The four buildings looked like a timeworn fort from some distant war, rather than a modern prison for dangerous Powers. Their runway, a barely-lit stretch to the south of the stone walls, was buffeted by snow as their plane touched down and screeched to a halt.

  Peering through the windows, Dwight could see the hellish arctic storm engulfing the base. The jet-black flag attached to the rooftop pole of the largest building blew straight in the powerful freezing gale.

  “We’re not ready for this,” Lia commented to no one in particular, holding her sides for warmth. Her thin leather jacket was no match for the arctic gusts. The same could be said of the Doc’s lab coat and Dwight’s new outfit.

  “Well, freezing to death isn’t the worst way to go,” Ellis said, smiling brightly. “If we run, we may be able to make it to the closest building before anyone loses a finger.”

  Dwight stepped away, checking the labels on the various crates that filled the plane. He silently prayed one of the shipments contained some warmer clothes. “If you give me just a minute, I may have an idea.”

  Unfortunately, Dwight’s search was cut short. A series of yellow warning lights switched on as the cargo door began to descend, bringing with it a blast of freezing wind. The draft cut through the three travelers, instantly chilling their unprotected skin.

  The Doc clasped at her fluttering, torn coat, pulling its ineffective material over what bare flesh she could. “No time for plan B then?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Run!” Lia shouted, making a break for the lowering ramp. The moment she cleared the protective barrier of the aircraft’s hull, a gust of wind tore into her, nearly knocking the woman from her feet. For once, it seemed Lia’s oversized footwear was proving useful.

  They hurried as best they could through the blizzard, following the snow-swept path to the closest building. The nightmarish weather had at least one unexpected benefit: not a single person, normal or otherwise, left the safety of the compound to meet the arrival.

  Dwight panted hard in the freezing air, the cold metal of the harness burning against his skin. Even with the enhancement serum dripping in his veins, his devastated muscles weren’t up to the task of fighting the unrelenting storm. About fifty haggard steps from the craft, he found himself over a patch of slick ice. His feet slipped out from under him. He fell hard onto his chest on the runway. The Doctor and Lia didn’t notice his fall and kept running, their hands raised to protect their faces as they forced their way onward. In seconds, they disappeared into the obscuring snow. He tried to call for help, but the biting cold of the air prevented him from shouting over the howling winds.

  Bernard’s image leaned over him, his mocking laughter loud and clear in blatant disregard of the deafening conditions. “Aww, is this ‘ow it ends for ya: A corpse-sicle ou’ in the middle o’ nowhere?” He crouched over his shivering ex-partner. “I could ‘elps ya, if ya wanted. Jus’ use me blood. Save ya’self.” Were he real, Bernard’s sleeveless outfit would have been even more outrageously unprepared for the arctic conditions. Instead, the hallucination seemed oblivious to the cold.

  As much as Dwight hated to admit it, the phantom was right: he’d die if he didn’t move quickly. With a thought, he increased the flow of the life-preserving chemical in his bloodstream. The rush of energy pushed him forward, back onto his hands and knees against the oppressive wind. Under normal circumstances, the full dose he’d triggered would have granted him incredible strength, regeneration, and even flight. Now, it was simply enough that he was able to fight the effects of the bitter cold and weight of his ruined muscles. He fought his way to his feet, pressing toward the looming building a few hundred feet from where he had fallen.

  His stinging eyes searched frantically through the whiteout storm, trying
desperately to find an entrance to the unembellished structure. In his mind, he heard Lia call out to him, “Follow the lights! You’re almost there!”

  He looked around blindly, the wind biting his face, trying to figure out what she meant. Finally, he looked up and found the string of beacon lights around the exterior of the building. Guided by the tiny bulbs, he came to an alcove sunk into the concrete. Ducking into the opening, he found himself suddenly free of the whipping gusts he had struggled so hard to navigate. In the distance, the glowing interior from an open entrance illuminated the passage. He stumbled down the hall, using the frigid wall for support.

  He collapsed the moment he crossed the threshold of the doorway. Even the bare floor of the entry felt warm compared to the skin on his face. Lia slammed the heavy steel door closed, locking out the storm as the last few flakes of snow settled on the floor before melting away. They were all panting from the journey, taking in the sweet heated air. Though it wasn’t anywhere near what would be considered acceptable for comfort, the reprieve from outside felt like paradise.

  A quick search of the room produced three bulky cold-weather jackets. The doctor threw one over Dwight, who was still kneeling on the floor long after the other two resumed their mission. He could already feel the enhancements of the serum fading and the aftereffects taking hold. Propping himself up against the inner wall, he wrapped the coat over his shoulders. His body sagged to the floor despite his efforts to remain standing.

  “Doc,” he called, then waited for her to come down to him, “I need another cartridge. I had to use a whole one to make it inside.” He opened the compartment in his arm and showed her the gauge.

  Ellis removed the empty tube, “You moron, that was supposed to last another eight hours.” She angrily threw the metallic object across the room. “Now you’ve only got a day before all of this is for nothing.”

  “It was that or freeze on the runway. Die out there or die later – doesn’t seem like much of a choice.” He leaned his head against the cool surface. “Now, can I please have another cartridge before I get sick again?”