“Get packed and get moving,” came Ariadne’s voice over the phone. “Early this morning a car was reported stolen from a parking lot in Ellsworth, Wisconsin, just across the river from you. We flagged it as a suspect vehicle on a hunch and it was found abandoned an hour ago by a police patrol in a neighborhood in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I’m sending you the address.”
“How do we know that the stolen car is linked to our mystery robber?” The question occurred to me even through the haze in my head.
“We don’t.” Ariadne sounded tense. “But we’ve got nothing else to go on and car thefts aren’t exactly a common occurrence in Ellsworth, where the dairy cows outnumber the people twelve to one. Get moving, all right? I’ll check in with you in a few hours; we’re managing a crisis with M-Squad so I may not be quite as quick to respond right now. Stay out of trouble.” There was a click and the phone shut off.
“Ah, words of confidence and encouragement,” I said, lighter than I felt.
We were in the car and moving a few minutes later, leaving the town of Red Wing behind. We rode through downtown, which seemed to be mostly brick buildings, and got on a bridge that stretched across a wide river. On the other side a sign proclaimed that we had entered the state of Wisconsin. If I hadn’t been so hungover, I might have rejoiced at crossing my first state line. As it was, I sat in the back and tried to keep my eyes hidden behind my dark sunglasses.
After a few minutes we cleared the low lying river country and found ourselves zipping down a road with farms on either side. Cattle grazed in the pastures as the sun beat down overhead. One cow was lingering so close to the fence I could see her jaw moving while chewing her cud as we passed.
Towns and fields streaked by as I thought about Zack. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what he was doing right now, facing off against some meta in Detroit. I truly cared for him, which was why I had to let him loose. At least, that’s how I justified it as I stared out the window, watching the endless fields of green go by. I felt like a glutton for pain, like I wanted to clutch the misery close to my heart and let it sit there. It was all for him, I told myself, and somehow that made it hurt all the more.
We took Interstate 94 east to Eau Claire, Kat driving the whole way. She didn’t have the siren roaring for this trip, though she did strategically flick it on a few times when we were caught behind slow moving cars on two lane roads. And once for a tractor.
When we got off the freeway, we followed a main thoroughfare into a stretch of commerce, and then turned onto a side street. It was past noon, and the sun was directly overhead, bright and glaring. Kat kept the car under the speed limit as we followed the GPS to the address Ariadne had sent us. There was a car, an old Dodge, parked on the curb. We came to a stop behind it and I looked around. There was no sign of movement, nothing.
I opened my door and stepped out into the boiling midday heat. The humidity once again gave my skin an immediate sensation of moistness and I felt the beads of sweat start to gather on my forehead. “Never thought I’d wish the sun away,” I muttered under my breath. I caught a chuckle of appreciation from Kat. Scott just grunted.
The three of us approached the Dodge the way we might have approached a corpse; slow, tentative, and with undue caution. “No one inside,” I said. “We’ll need to check the trunk.” I looked around the street once more. The residents of Eau Claire clearly had enough sense to stay in during this awful weather, though a lawn sprinkler was going off a couple doors down.
“You think there’s anything here?” It was Kat that answered. Her blond hair was up in a tight bun today, and her petite frame and dark sunglasses coupled with her black jacket really did make her look like an FBI agent. I felt another tingle of annoyance; the girl could just look good regardless of circumstances.
Scott leaned over the passenger window and reached his hand through. “Glass is broken here.” He pushed a button on the dash and I heard the locks disengaging and the trunk springing open.
I walked to the rear of the car, my hand hovering just over my gun. I edged around the trunk lid and sighed when I looked down. “Nothing. A blanket, a spare tire and a jack.”
“Sounds like all the ingredients for a redneck first date—” Scott said with a smile that was cut short by a sizzling sound. His body jerked, his face drew tight and his sunglasses flew off as he spasmed, a peculiar blue light dancing over him like little bolts of lightning running across his suit.
“Kat, down!” I shouted and barely had time to hit the pavement before a bolt of electricity shot past me and hit the car. I rolled across the lawn and came up with my pistol, a Sig Sauer P250. I loved my meta powers, but they weren’t a hell of a lot of use at range – or against something that shot lightning bolts.
“Too late.” The voice was low and gravelly. I saw Kat lying on the street behind the car, splayed out on the ground with three guys in black tactical vests huddled around her and Scott. Two others stood at either bumper of the car, covering me with weapons of their own, big shiny silver ones that reminded me of the kind the Directorate used to bring down stray metas. Their leader was standing over Kat, an assault rifle in his hands and pointed at me. “Now are you gonna give yourself up or are we gonna be leaving your body to go rancid in the heat?”
Chapter 11
I stared him down, my gun aimed at his comrade who was standing to my right. Assuming they were human, even my meta speed and my skill with the pistol wouldn’t be enough to save me from getting blasted by at least one of them. I took a closer look; their vests were bulky, which told me that they were likely kevlar. I considered trying to aim for their heads instead of center mass, but dismissed it as a bad idea. Aiming for a small target in my first combat shoot seemed like a recipe for failure. Besides, even with a vest the bullets would put a full grown man on the ground in a world of hurt.
“So what are you gonna do?” Their leader spoke again, and I saw the others flick their eyes toward him. “Live or die, your choice.”
“I’m somewhat attached to the former,” I said, keeping my gun trained on the rightmost enemy.
“Then you might wanna put the gun down, real slow.” His voice was rough and used to issuing commands. “Otherwise we’re gonna have to cut that loose, pretty quick.”
On one knee as I was, I couldn’t see Scott or Kat, and I wondered if they were still alive. I had seen what hit them, and I hoped that the weapons they’d been shot with were no more fatal than the Directorate equivalent. “All right,” I said, not really sure if I was going to follow his command or shoot, but knowing I didn’t have much time to make a decision.
“Put the gun on the ground in front of you. Go slow.” There was that command again.
I felt my jaw tighten and I started to inch the gun lower, keeping the bearing on my target. I’d be less accurate firing from this position, but I still felt confident I could put him down. The other two…well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? That was why I was even considering surrendering. I started to say something but I heard the squeal of tires at the end of the street to my left and it took all my training to keep from jerking my head to look in the direction of the noise.
They were not so well trained, and all three of them turned, giving me an opening. I fired a double tap on my target, two quick shots that sent him over backward, gun skittering away. I changed targets quick, drew a bead on the leader and fired twice more. I knew they were bound to be less accurate than my first shots, and one of them went wide, but the other hit him in shoulder and knocked him over. I started to change targets again to the last guy, but he had heard me firing and had drawn a bead on me. I knew I wouldn’t make it in time.
A car slammed into him, bumper smashing him against the stolen car. I watched his body fold at the knees, a scream from him faint in my ears after the echoing of the gunshots nearly deafened me. He was pinned between the cars, legs crushed, and his upper body had fallen into the open trunk. I could hear little cries coming from within; likely the sound of him screaming, but from where I stood it was muffled. I opened my mouth and closed it, trying to restore my hearing after the trauma of firing a gun repeatedly with no ear protection.