Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel (47 page)

Then she came out of the shadow and grabbed hold of the vertical handrail with both hands. The wind started buffeting her immediately. The iciness of the metal handrail cut through her gloves, straight to the bone. She dug her toes into a tiny gap in the outer surface, praying she wouldn’t lose her grip. Her teeth chattered.

Trying to still the screaming in her head and the butterflies going berserk in her stomach, she peered through the window, trying to see if anyone was inside. Clear. It looked like some sort of sleeping cabin, with rows of bunk beds crammed close together in the tiny room. This would have to do.

It took all of her courage to let go of the rail with one hand. Awkwardly, she broke open her gun and fed a live round into the cylinder. She snapped the revolver closed, pressed it against the glass, and turned her face away.
Here goes nothing.
She squeezed the trigger. The glass shattered.

Cringing at the noise, she used the butt of her gun to clear the jagged shards sticking out of the frame, then she holstered her gun and looped her leg over the window. Using her arm to steady herself, she adjusted her balance and fell ungracefully onto the floor of the barracks room. She figured she deserved a moment to get her breath back. She reloaded, checked her hat was still in place, and exhaled sharply.

All right, time to move
. Still shaking, she got to her feet and made her way to the heavy door on the other side of the cabin. She put her ear to it. No shouts of alarm. With a bit of luck, the sound of the airship engines had covered the noise she was making. One way to find out.

She pulled the heavy door open and ducked back into cover. Nothing came flying at her, so she peeked out. A narrow corridor ran perpendicular, with a spiral staircase directly opposite. She considered for a moment, chewing her lip, and then made for the staircase.

The air smelled vaguely of oil and metal. Her boots clattered lightly on the metal steps. She emerged into another corridor. She was facing towards the bow. If Quanta was on the airship, he’d be watching the battle. He wouldn’t be able to resist. She made for the bridge.

She held her gun ahead of her as she moved in a silent crouch. She glimpsed starlight from the wide glass windows in the room at the end of the corridor. Beeps and hums punctuated the rumble of the engines, covering the sound of her steps.

This was it. It was time. Heart hammering, she stepped onto the bridge.

“What…?” A skinny man in a blood-red bodysuit stared at her with wide eyes from his position at the door. She fired once, and he dropped like a stone.

She swept to the right, using a bank of control panels and flashing lights for cover. The dark skyline spread out before her through the viewing windows on the far side of the bridge. For a moment, she thought the thing sitting in the centre of the room surrounded by monitors and keyboards was a corpse. She could see his bones jutting against the brown leather of his skin.

But then his head rolled slowly towards her, and his husky breath quickened. The pilot. Just the pilot. But where was…?

She sensed the flash of light coming from behind her. Too slow, too late. Pain exploded through her cheek and she went down hard. Blood filled her mouth. She spat it against the inside of her mask and tried to shake away the fog in her head. The next blow hit her in the gut. No pain this time, but the air fled her lungs and she gasped for breath.

Fight back fight back fight back.

She rolled. Half a second later, a lance of light struck the ground where she’d been lying. Her goggles were slightly askew, but somehow she’d kept hold of her gun. With the flick of a switch, the gun hissed, switching to the shield-breaker rounds. She squeezed the trigger twice, firing half-blind at the blazing figure of white. The rounds left green streaks and the taste of copper in the air.

The shield-breaker rounds struck Quanta and sent him reeling back.
I hit him!
He staggered, his shield of light cracking. His eyes went wide as he sank to one knee. She wanted to kiss Gabby.
She’d done it. Jesus Christ, it worked!

Then the crack in his shield began to fade. He put his hand on a railing and pushed himself back to his feet. He stumbled back a few steps. And he smiled.

Her heart felt like it was made of stone. Nothing stopped him. Nothing.
No, don’t think like that.
It had bought her breathing room. She rolled again and stumbled to her feet, using a bank of display monitors for support. Quanta watched her, his fingers touching the points where her shield-breaker rounds had struck. The golden shield had reformed completely, as solid as ever.

There had to be something she could do. She looked at the lights set into the bridge’s ceiling. Too many to take out, and besides, Quanta was so bright it might kill her to go to shadow. He was watching her now, his teeth as white as his suit, his golden blade in his hand at his side.

She touched the shoulder of her trench coat and found a scorched hole in the seam separating the sleeve from the torso. Bloody hell. Too close.

“I can recommend a tailor for that,” Quanta said. “To be frank, you could probably do with a whole new costume. The trench coat look’s a bit nineteen thirties, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me if I don’t take fashion advice from a guy who looks like he took a dip in a bucket of white paint on the way to a business meeting.” She swallowed some of the blood in her mouth and tried to straighten without wincing.

She aimed the gun from her hip, but the wheezing husk of a pilot and the rows of control panels didn’t allow her a clean shot.
Not that it would stop him permanently.
Still, maybe it could buy her a few seconds if she needed it. The red-suited man twitched on the floor in the corner.

Quanta moved with a dangerous grace, never putting himself in the open but closing in again. “Have you seen the admirable job Sam is doing? My people tell me he’s got nearly a thousand people under his control now. I’ve been listening to your police on the radio scanners. You should hear the panic in their voices.”

She had to get him in the open. “You’ve got the city hostage. No one’s going to be able to beat you now. Contact the AAU. They’ll have no choice but to give you what you want.”

“What I want?” There was something strained in his eyes, something desperate.

She stepped closer to the pilot and the huge windows that looked out over the burning city. “You can make them give metahumans their rights back. You’ve beaten them, Morgan.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You still don’t understand, do you? This isn’t about legislation.” He chuckled, the light of his sword throwing shadows onto his face. It made him look old. “Is that really what you think happened? You think the most powerful people in the world accepted kill-switches and poverty because of
legislation
?”

The skeletal pilot watched her as she edged closer, his eyes glowing faintly green.

Morgan pointed his sword at the window. “Those laws are still in place, and look what I and a couple of dozen metas have done. The superhero wasn’t beaten by authority or force. He was beaten by public opinion. They broke his will. And the superhero, more than anyone, is a creature of will. It’s what drives us. It’s what drove me and you to meet here today. It’s what I mean to give back to metahumans. We’re the exceptions, Niobe. The few who bent but didn’t break.”

“You look pretty broken to me,” she said.

He prowled closer. “Maybe you’re right. But I know what makes a man into a hero. And it’s not superpowers. It’s belief. It’s knowing what needs to be done.”

She lurched forwards and grabbed the pilot by his folds of skin. “Stop.” She pressed her gun against the hairless head. “Can you fly this thing, Morgan? Or if I knock out your friend here, will we all go down like the damn
Hindenburg
?”

“We’ll hit the city,” Quanta said. “You don’t want that, do you?”

“What city? Looks to me like you burned it down. Maybe I can’t save Sam, but I can screw with you pretty good.”

He smiled. “I’ll give you one thing. You’ve got spirit.”

She blinked, and he was in the air.
So fast. Everyone’s faster than me.
His blade grew longer and narrower in his hands. The spear of an angel. Her finger started to squeeze the trigger.

The spear of light pierced her gun hand. The metal of her revolver turned to liquid in an instant, splashing across her coat, melting through to the skin beneath. Fire and ice and jagged knives bit into her hand. Her vision blurred. She screamed like she’d never screamed before.

The bridge went black for a moment. When she came to, she was on her back, acid mixing with the blood in her throat. Her stomach spasmed, and she rolled to the side and retched. But the burning in her throat was nothing compared to the pain in her hand. She glanced down at her right arm and then looked away again before another wave of nausea could take her. Her hand was a mangled mess of blood and bone and blackened flesh with the fabric of her glove burned into it. She thought she was missing fingers. She wasn’t willing to check.

A foot landed on her chest, and her shallow breaths became difficult. Her eyes watered. She’d lost her hat. She spotted her gun—or what was left of it—ten feet away.

Quanta wasn’t smiling anymore. His mouth was a tight line, his forehead knitted with wrinkles. “You fought hard, Spook. There’s no shame in that. You and the Carpenter, you were true heroes.” He shook his head sadly. “You shouldn’t have had to do this alone. Your people let you down.”

She blinked away the cloudiness and looked up at Quanta. She could see the smoke from the burning city rising behind him, and beyond that, the dot of Sam and his mind-control strings, lit up by spotlights. She’d lost. The torture going on in her hand didn’t stop, but her mind felt strangely clear. She’d never been this clear.

“Since this is just a show,” she rasped, “I don’t suppose you want to accept your victory and let me live?”

“I would if I could,” he said. The night glittered behind him. “But I can’t pretend to be a supervillain. I have to actually be one. You understand.” He brought the blade down to hover above her mouth. “I’ll sever the brainstem. It’ll be quick.”

Silver and fire flashed outside.

“Then you’d better hurry,” she said.

The viewing windows exploded in a rain of glass. The night air whipped Morgan’s hair. There was a whirring scream. And then a hail of lead burst through the bridge. Sparks flew from the control panels and smoke filled the air.

Quanta’s foot left her chest. She was too busy covering her face with her good hand to see where he’d gone.
Move, damn it!
She scrambled back, using her legs to push herself along the floor while she clutched her ruined hand to her chest. The hail of gunfire stopped, and Niobe looked up. The most beautiful sight of her life filled the shattered viewing windows.

The figure looked like a glorious medieval knight, the huge, bulky armour polished like silver. Twin streams of fire poured from the back of the armour, keeping the figure afloat. A chaingun was slung under the right arm, still spinning down, and a massive cannon was mounted on the left shoulder. The helmet bore huge black eyes and antennae that swept back, like some sort of insect.

Niobe could hardly breathe. It was the Silver Scarab.

“Gabby,” she whispered.

Quanta leapt from a cloud of smoke, blade flashing, straight towards the armoured figure. As strong as the armour was, Niobe knew it couldn’t take a strike from that blade. Her stomach clenched.

The chaingun screamed again, the sound pounding at her ears in the confined space. A storm of bullets sparked off Quanta’s shield. He crashed to the floor in mid-jump. He went to one knee, his teeth gritted and bared.

The whole airship shuddered when the Silver Scarab landed inside the bridge. The rocket-pack cut out, and without stopping the relentless fire, she launched herself at the supercriminal on actuator-powered legs.

“No!” Quanta shouted. He forced himself forwards against the torrent of bullets.

The cannon on Gabby’s shoulder let out an electric boom. A spike flew across the room, crashing into Quanta, lodging in the golden shield. Green lightning arced down the cable that connected the spike to Gabby’s cannon and spread across the surface of Quanta’s shield. His eyes widened as the muscles in his neck pulled his jaw down into a silent scream. The golden shield rippled and splashed off him like it had been made of water.

Niobe’s ears rang. Quanta went down on his hands and knees, blood streaming from his ears.

Quanta clutching his head, grunting. His whole body convulsed, legs straining, veins bulging at his temple.
The brain tumour
. Was he having a seizure?

“Pills,” Quanta moaned through gritted teeth. “P…pills.”

With slow, stomping steps, the Silver Scarab closed the distance between her and Quanta. With all the energy she could muster, Niobe got up and shuffled towards the defeated supervillain.

The convulsions stopped in an instant, and Quanta’s hands flashed. Something small and white slipped from his sleeve into his palm. He flicked it at Gabby.

“No!” Niobe dived, stretching out her left hand. Her fingers wrapped around the smooth object. She hit the floor, fire shooting through her as her mangled arm stopped her fall. Adrenaline surged, and she fought back unconsciousness. Through bloodshot eyes and snarling teeth, Quanta grinned at her.

Throw it!

She hurled the object out the shattered viewing windows. A second later, a quiet pop split the night, along with a splash of fire and blue lightning.

“Nice catch, hero,” Quanta said, still grinning.

Gabby’s huge metal arm swung above her and slammed into Quanta’s head. The grin didn’t leave his face as he fell to the side, eyes rolling back in his head. Niobe slumped down on the ground and allowed herself to breathe.

The Silver Scarab stepped around her and rolled the supercriminal onto his stomach, pulled his arms behind his back with her bulky power-armoured hands, and slapped a set of energy cuffs on him, similar to the type Met Div used. She put another pair on his ankles and then pulled what looked like a crown from a compartment on her leg. She shoved the device over Quanta’s hair and touched a button on her wrist. The crown began to glow with blue light.