Demon Accords 05.5: Executable (19 page)

We slipped up the side staircase to the second floor.  Castlebury had chosen to create subject
-specific wings in the high school, and so Math and Science took up most of the second floor.  Mr. Porter’s Physics lab and Miss McCarthy’s Chem lab were two of the biggest rooms—and the only two that were linked by an internal door.  I knew for a fact that the connecting door was rarely locked, as Mr. Porter had a hell of a crush on his much-younger coworker.  Along with almost every boy in the school and most of their fathers.  Miss McCarthy was the subject of many a locker room conversation and way more daydreams.  A green-eyed, brown-haired young beauty, it was a wonder that any of the straight male students managed to pass her Chem classes. 

Physics had been a particularly good class for me, and Mr. Porter was one of my favorite teachers.  As a result,
his
classroom technology was always in tip-top shape (and I’m not ashamed at all to say, so was Miss McCarthy’s).  So I happened to know the lock combination to his lab door.  We slipped into the lab and I showed Caeco the connecting door to the Chem area, leaving her to go through on her own while I did a little scavenging in Mr. Porter’s tools.  Once I had found what I needed for my little surprise, I popped into the Chem lab to find Caeco smearing a greasy-looking mess onto a square of aluminum foil.  Behind her, I could see the open door of the Chemicals closet, its lock shattered and bent. 
New college funding idea: enter Caeco in arm wrestling contests.

I poked my head into the closet and grabbed four magnesium bars.  Miss McCarthy, like every other teacher in our school and likely Vermont, was faced with teaching her classes on ever-smaller budgets.  She had resorted to bargain hunting for some of her supplies.  Rather than order expensive magnesium ribbon and powder from a chemical supply company, she’d purchased a small number of magnesium fire starters, the kind you find in the camping and survival section of most sporting goods stores.  Four dollars each, they have a ferrocerium bar for sparking glued to the side of a rectangle of magnesium.  The idea is to scrape off a small amount of magnesium and light it with the sparking rod. 

“What are you doing?” Caeco asked, eyeing the little hacksaw I’d borrowed from the physics lab.  Mr. Porter kept tools for last-minute adjustments to the pumpkin catapults that his Junior class made every year.

“Cutting these in half. Why?”

She reached over and grabbed one of the bars and snapped it almost exactly in half with her hands.  Four seconds later, she’d broken the other three, then went back to wrapping her greasy aluminum foil around a couple of small bottles.

“What did you make for show and tell?” I asked.

“Potassium chlorate mixed with a plasticizer, in this case, Vaseline I found in the teacher’s desk.  Primitive plastic explosive.  The detonator is a piece of sodium inside a glass test tube of oil inside a bigger tube of water.   When I throw it hard, the bottles will both break, the water will mix with the sodium. Boom and then double boom,” she said.

“Wow, you had a different chemistry class than I did.  Miss McCarthy just burned the potassium chlorate with sugar and it made a cool purple flame.”

“Yeah, my teacher blew up a car,” she said with a little grin.  “Ready?  Let’s get onto the roof.”

The door had an alarmed emergency bar, but I had a little mental chat with the alarm and it agreed to stay silent while we exited to the roof.  Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets, soaking us both almost instantly.  I had trouble seeing Caeco’s outline ten feet in front of me, so I stayed close as she moved unerringly to the fire escape.  She squatted down and took a quick peek over the edge before waving me closer. Lightning flashed across the sky, the almost-instant rumble of thunder telling me the storm was right on top of us.  I actually didn’t need the pause between strike and rumble to know how close it was.  My connection to the storm went much deeper. 

“There are two by the door twenty feet to our left.  I’ll occupy them while you come down the ladder.  Make sure to hustle.  The rain helps us stay hidden, but if they have thermal imaging scopes, they may still spot us,” she said, her lips almost touching my ear.  I shivered, not just from the cold rain on my neck, and nodded, slightly preoccupied with the look of her lips and the feeling of power that permeated the night.  Catching my gaze, she double-checked my readiness, then moved back to the roof edge.  After one last look my way, she simply hopped sideways and dropped fifteen feet to the ground.  I grabbed the metal ladder and slid down as fast as I could without breaking my neck.  The metal was water-slick and I was down in no time.  There were two soldiers down, lying in the water and mud, the result of the thuds and grunts I heard during my descent. 

Caeco was relieving them of their sidearms when I got there, her pupils enormously dilated in the gleam of the outside lights. I was panting, adrenaline and ozone equally to blame. We raced for the parking lot, but a shout and several high-intensity lights speared us before we’d gotten ten feet.  Heart pounding in my throat, I nonetheless raised both hands and released the will I had been gathering.  It was odd to finally be free to do what I could.  Keeping my abilities on lockdown my whole life had left me with a burden I hadn’t realized was there until I let it go.  Four of my eight magnesium chunks lit in a burst of welding torch bright and zipped in separate directions, like my own personal shooting stars.  It felt euphoric to let them fly. 

Magnesium burns at over 5000 degrees Fahrenheit and laughs at rain.  My personal comets hit the light bearers and left them preoccupied with blisters and pain.  I laughed, which earned me a concerned look from my partner, who headed for my car.

Before we could reach the Beast, two sets of headlights lit up
the wet asphalt and slick metal of the cars around us.

“
Freeze
,” a megaphone-enhanced voice yelled, but Caeco just ducked behind a car, pulling me down beside her.  She threw one of her aluminum-foil bundles with a hard, sharp snap of her arm.  One of the sets of headlights disappeared in a blossom of light and a shockwave of sound that picked me up and slammed me to the hard pavement. Debris rained down around us. A side mirror bounced once next to me, then fell on my head. My ears were ringing, everything sounding muffled like I had earplugs in.  A snap, snap, snap sounded, the car I leaned against vibrating in time to the snaps. 
They’re shooting at us!  I’m being shot at!

It was all surreal, the storm, the explosions, and now the gunfire, even as rain streamed down around us.  Caeco was watching me between studying her surroundings, and she looked concerned. 
Maybe I’m in shock?
I wondered.

“
Goddammit, cease fire!
” a female voice screamed.  The snapping stopped.

The giant from the gym stepped around the car behind us and grabbed Caeco around the neck.   Lightning flashed: three spears of separate light.  At the first flash, the monster was grabbing the tiny girl. With the next almost-instant flare of light, she was behind him, kicking out his leg, and the last strobe illuminated her compact form wrapped around his head and neck, her body spinning, hands hooked onto, or maybe into, his face.  A sodden snap hit my ears just before the thunderclap from heaven followed the lightning.  The giant timbered to the ground, his body spinning around as Caeco jumped lightly away. Blood streamed black from the clawmarks in his face.  She landed crouched, one hand touching the glistening pavement, the other drawing one of her borrowed handguns from her waistband.  She stood up and turned, pointing the gun at the giant’s body although he was still moving.

“
Pugna congelo caeco!
” the female yelled, closer this time.  Caeco didn’t move; in fact, she seemed to have seized up, her arms trembling. 

“Caeco, come on. Let’s get outta here!” I hissed at her, moving closer.  Her eyes moved to mine, furious, but she didn’t move, gun still pointed at the man on the ground, legs slightly bent in a shooting posture, trembling.  Her eyes widened in frustration, moved to look slightly past me.

I whirled around, coming face to face with the woman reporter, although instead of a microphone, she now held a large pistol.  My feet backed me away from her as she moved forward, smiling grimly.  When she saw the prostrate giant, rage flashed over her features.  She snagged the pistol from Caeco’s hand and struck her across the face with her own outsized gun.  Blood sprayed from the cut that appeared on my friend’s cheek, but she still remained locked in place.

More soldiers appeared in the rain, assault rifle weapon lights blinding me, surrounding me.  The woman drew back her hand to strike Caeco again, but before she could complete her motion, something snapped.  Something deep inside me.  It was over, and they would now kill us.  So let it be.  I let go, and the tension that had been building in me burst free.  A tension that had built with the storm but had been building all my life.

There is a reason I sleep in a steel box that is heavily grounded to the earth, a reason why my aunt sat up with me on nights like this one, keeping me awake during every and any thunderstorm that passed through since puberty.  Because during sleep, my unconscious mind might offer suggestions to the storm.

You see, during weather like this, when the very air is charged with electricity, my body draws it to me, absorbing and storing it.  Everything around me is ionized, heavily polarized—which, as you may know, is exactly what happens before a lightning strike.  But the lightning doesn’t strike me. No. Instead, it tends to strike where I suggest.  My container, the iron rods planted in the open lawn around our buildings or, like now, when I suggested that the three soldiers in front of me and their massive black Humvee might be fine choices.

I’ve heard it said that lightning never strikes twice.  Bullshit.  It struck three times in two seconds.  I automatically closed my eyes, which only slightly diminished the searing light as the water in the air around us exploded into superheated steam and concussive sound.  I held my breath, crouching down, knowing from past experience that the air was too hot to breathe.  Three strobes of light, so close together they were almost one.  The ground shook, tossing cars and people several inches into the air.  My own feet stayed locked to the earth, glued in place by another facet of my Craft.

It’s hard to describe the power of a single bolt of lightning, let alone three.  When I opened my eyes, the soldiers were down, unmoving, undoubtedly dead, and the Humvee sat silent, headlights out, motor silenced, tires popped.  The driver stared at me with shell-shocked eyes.  Motion from the corner of my eye caught my attention.  The reporter, who must be this Miseri, was raising her own disbelieving eyes to me and the destruction around me.  The smell of ozone was almost overpowering, but the wind and rain were quickly scrubbing the air clean.  The storm was just slightly past us, the potential for lightning greatly diminished.

I still had enough personal juice to Tase Agent Miseri, but as soon as I raised my crackling blue hands, she shot me, her outsized gun making an unimpressive pop.  A sting on my chest and a little fluffy yellow burst of color against the green of my sweatshirt.  A dart?  My body started to numb, the sensation radiating from my torso.  I took another step toward her, and the bitch shot me again.  Now it was my turn to seize up, my limbs unresponsive, my body falling to the ground. 

Miseri looked down at me from over the barrel of her gun, eyes still wide with awe but also tight with determination.  Satisfied, she turned back to Caeco and shot my friend once, the yellow dart appearing like magic on her neck.  Then she shoved her over on top of me.  Caeco’s eyes were frantic, angry and … ashamed, as her bleeding face fell toward mine.  I felt the pain of her skull bouncing off mine but couldn’t move at all, even when the blood from her cheek dripped into my open mouth.

Then Miseri leaned down, a hypodermic in each hand, lips compressed in anger.  Another sting, and then quiet and darkness.

“Central, target acquired.  Request nearest Level 8 facility for containment of two subjects, including one energy user.”

“Acknowledged, Agent Miseri.  The nearest facility is in New Hampshire.  Be advised it is Level 10 plus and is
primarily tasked to Project Brutal Asset.”

Level 10 plus?  Miseri had never heard of an AIR research facility rated higher than ten.

“Acknowledged, Central.  Does this facility have an onsite energy user
familiar with containment procedures?”

“Affirmative, Miseri.  Facility Director is Hasta.”

“Acknowledged, Central.  Please advise Director Hasta that I am en route with two subjects,  one an advanced biowarfare prototype, the other an unknown, high-level energy user.”

“
Confirmed, Miseri.  Central out.”

She ended the call and turned to look over her prizes, who were both drugged, restrained on gurneys, and being loaded into a nondescript delivery vehicle.  Agent Clay was also lying on a gurney, his strained and damaged neck held immobile by an oversized neck collar, face torn and shredded by Caeco’s claws.  Clay had, to her knowledge, never failed to persevere in hand-to-hand combat.  Now he was out of commission, taken down by a compact girl who couldn’t weigh over 140 even with her dense bones and muscles.  And the boy… wow! Caeco had found herself some playmate. She looked over the devastation in the parking lot.  One Humvee was fried and three operatives dead by gross electrocution.  They looked like they’d tried to steal the main copper line off an active power station—blackened corpses, almost unidentifiable as human. The second Humvee had a damaged front right wheel, the result of some kind of improvised explosive device, no doubt a product of Caeco’s training. 

AIR called his kind energy users.  Miseri privately knew them by their historical names… witches.  She didn’t know much about them except that AIR had a standing interest in them as well as a working relationship with a few.  She had no idea what the boy was capable of, other than the mayhem he had created here in a few short seconds.

“Let’s wrap this and roll.  Our time is up!” she said to the surviving members of the Gladius team, nodding in the direction of the oncoming sirens.  The storm had passed, and the air felt cool and clean.  With one last look around, she climbed into the transport vehicle and gave the order.