Fall of Heroes (14 page)

15
SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS

B
y early afternoon the next day, lights were coming on across the city. Cell towers and phone lines were strangely affected by the loss of power, however. The city's communication was temporarily cut off.

The Cloak Society was tightening its reins.

“There's a storm coming,” Alex said. He stood at the windows, looking out onto Carla's backyard.

“Normally I'd say you were being a little dramatic, but under the present circumstances I would have to agree,” Gage said.

“No, I mean literally. It looks like it's about to pour.”

The sun was hiding behind dark, heavy clouds. Most of the team was sitting around downstairs. Lone Star was napping in one of the bedrooms. He'd been up most of the night keeping watch over the house and trying to jump-start his powers in some way, to no avail.

“How can they get away with this?” Kyle asked. “I mean, if they were dragging people out of their homes all night . . .”

“They run the media, and they've cut off the only forms of communication most people know about,” Amp said. “People probably think they're isolated incidents.”

“Or they don't care,” Alex said. “I'm guessing the New Rangers can get away with most things if people think it's for the greater good.”

“Besides, it's martial law now. Everything they do is technically legal.”

“We're boxed in. Misty's now our only reliably stealth transportation.”

“I am
not
just some kind of human escape vehicle,” Misty said. “Even if I
am
good at it. Besides, I've been stretching my powers with the eight of us. I don't know if I could handle Lone Star and Lux as well. I know he's not as powerful as he was before he went into the Gloom, but the dude is still, like, five times my size.”

“Lone Star acts like he's completely lost hope,” Kyle said quietly, running a hand through his blond hair.

“He'll be okay,” Alex said. And he believed it.

“So our choices now are basically face the Cloak Society head on or let the city—and then the
country
—fall, right?” Amp asked. “That's a real question, because the way I see it, things are looking pretty crappy for us.”

“We can't even worry about the rest of the country right now, I don't think,” Mallory said. “We just have to focus on stopping Cloak here.”

“We're sailing between Scylla and Charybdis,” Gage said.

“Who and what?” Kyle asked.

“They're from Greek mythology,” Gage answered. “Two sea monsters on either side of a narrow channel of water. In
The Odyssey
, Odysseus has to steer his ship between them, knowing that no matter which side he gets closer to, death awaits. They're really more metaphors than anything else. Odysseus is one of the first epic heroes of literature. I figured that would have been Ranger 101.”

“So what happens?” Kyle asked. He seemed genuinely interested, as if Odysseus's decision might offer a solution for all of them. “Which way does he choose to go?”

“He sails closer to Scylla, since the other path was so dangerous that his entire ship would definitely have been destroyed.”

“He makes it out?”

“Yes. But he still loses half a dozen of his men to the monster.”

“The lesser of two evils,” Bug chimed in as he rubbed the back of a finger over Zip, who perched on his knee.

“That probably would have been a simpler idiom to use, yes,” Gage said. “Sorry to spoil it for you, but the entire crew except for Odysseus ends up dying pretty soon after that anyway, so I wouldn't put
too
much stock in that as an example.”

“It's an apt comparison,” Lux said, coming in from the hallway.

“We were just discussing our options,” Kirbie said. Misty sat beside her on the couch, braiding her blond locks.

“Or lack thereof,” Gage murmured.

“Keep going.” Lux leaned on the back of the couch.

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.

“The eight of you got more done in the last month working together than seems possible,” Lux said. “Seeing all of you fight together yesterday—if I didn't know better, I'd swear you'd been training as a team your whole lives.” She turned her eyes to Alex. “You said they'd be expecting us. We didn't listen. And I don't know what we should do now. So I want to know what
you all
think we should do. Because you made it this far together. Actually, hold on.”

She disappeared into the hallway and returned with Carla and Lone Star, the latter of whom leaned against the wall, bleary-eyed.

“What is it?” he asked through a yawn.

Alex looked around, locking eyes with his teammates. They nodded, or just stared back, or smiled a little, despite what was ahead of them. Alex jumped to his feet.

“What do we know?” he asked.

“They've got a new Umbra Gun,” Gage said.

“The way Lux—sorry—
Novo
spoke on the news, it sounded like they were planning on making a bunch of weapons.”

“It could be a bluff,” Gage said.

“We can't take that chance,” Amp said. “Can you imagine trying to go up against Deputies armed with those things? Even if they didn't end up shooting each other, there's no way we could risk that.”

“Then we need to act. Soon.” Alex closed his eyes, racking his brain. “The Guild of Daggers is helping them with the weapon creation, but they're based out of New York.”

“Wait,” Kyle said. “Could we, I don't know, recruit them and make some sort of deal to get them on
our
side instead?”

“We don't exactly have their phone numbers,” Gage said. “Besides, there's nothing we could offer that the High Council couldn't trump. They're probably as afraid of Cloak as we are. It's too far away for us to stop production, but maybe we can cut Cloak down before they ever get a shipment.”

“
Then
we go after the Guild.” Misty smacked her fist into one of her palms.

“They've lost their way into the Gloom, right?” Kirbie asked. “I mean if we could get the Umbra Gun from them somehow, we could use it
against
them.”

“We'd have to have Photon back on our side first,” Alex said. “That gun's metal. If he's under Shade's control, it's not going anywhere she doesn't want it to be.”

“Can we assume that they can turn it into a bomb like the last one?” Mallory asked.

“Undoubtedly.” Gage nodded. “That's far simpler than the construction of the gun itself.”

“That makes my mother our main target,” Alex said. “She'll have the gun, and she'll be controlling Photon. We'll need to incapacitate her and get him back on our side. That's the goal. We need him.”

“We can't afford to lose people to the Gloom,” Amp said.

“I can keep us shielded.” Alex started pacing back and forth. His mind was racing. “I've deflected Umbra Gun bullets before. She might not even fire. I sent my father into the Gloom when she shot at me in Justice Tower, and they won't want to have anyone melting into the shadows either. We'll just need to break her connection with Photon in some way.”

“A Gasser?” Kyle suggested. “Or we could use one of the Tasers on her.”

Alex shook his head.

“I tried that at the museum. She'll see them coming and dodge, or use Photon to deflect them.”

“Actually, we should rule out all weapons with electronic components,” Gage said. “One electromagnetic pulse and they'll be worthless. Same with communicators. I'm guessing it was Photon who took out the power grid last night, not Volt.”

“I'll do it,” Amp said. And as he spoke, Alex could see him putting things together in his brain, forming a plan. “Like when I faced off with the horde of Legions at the Cloak mansion. A high-frequency tone focused directly on her. She'll hardly be able to think, let alone control someone else.”

“Yes!” Alex cried. “That's perfect.”

“If we can keep her preoccupied,” Gage said, “I'd suggest getting Photon as far away from her as possible. Maybe we can break her hold on him with some distance and a few familiar faces. He seemed to be somewhat conflicted when the Rangers first showed up yesterday.”

“No problem,” Misty said. She flicked her curly red hair back. “As long as he doesn't have, like, metal bones or something, I can get him somewhere else once Shade's distracted.”

“How do we
find
them?” Kirbie asked. “How do we take them by surprise?”

“They'll show up wherever we tell them to,” Alex said. “There's no way Cloak's going to turn down a fight—not when they think they've got us so outpowered. Plus, the city thinks they're unstoppable right now. We just have to challenge them.”

“Television,” Kyle said. “They've been using it against us this whole time. What if we issue them a challenge on TV? For the soul of Sterling City. Everyone will know. It'll spread. Cloak will
have
to show up. We'd just have to get on the air.”

Gage shrugged. “That should be relatively simple.”

“We give them a half-hour notice. Don't let them have time to plan anything.”

“Just like their surprise press conferences,” Kirbie added with a grin. “We use their tactics against them.”

“We need some way to take the Deputies out of the equation,” Amp said, his fingers twitching. “The last thing I want is to be gassed by one of them while I'm focusing on Shade.”

“We need a force of our own,” Alex said.

“Look hard enough and you'll find rebels in even the most utopian setting,” Gage said. “Think about it: Who has a grudge against the New Rangers' private security force?”

“The Sterling City police!” Kyle exclaimed. “Carla already said they weren't happy, right? Can't we get
them
to handle the Deputies?”

“The police commissioner and I go way back,” Lux said. “He's a good man. We can trust him.”

“Do we have any info on him?” Kirbie asked. “Any Cloak relations?”

“He's as clean as they come, as far as I know. We've done thorough background checks on him. If he's under their thumb, I don't know that I would trust
anybody
in the city.”

“We need a way to talk to him alone,” Alex said.

“That's not a problem,” Carla said. “He's working sixteen-
hour days right now. Just visit him sometime after dark, once the curfew's in effect. Most of the force will have been sent home by then, I imagine. The Deputies are the ones enforcing this whole no-one-out-after-dark policy.”

“Headquarters is on the other side of the city, right?” Misty asked. “It's a long way to mist.” She eyed Lone Star. “And you're very heavy. But I can get us in once we're there if it's a small team and someone can tell me where his office is.”

Lone Star stepped forward, raising his hands up. He looked like he was still trying to process the rapid flow of information.

“Whoa, whoa. You all are talking about a head-to-head battle with the Cloak Society—do you have any idea how dangerous that is? We almost didn't defeat them a decade ago and we certainly couldn't yesterday.”

“We also knew how dangerous it was to go into the Gloom and rescue you,” Amp said. “We didn't do that just to call it quits after one setback. I didn't leave my
parents
in that place just to give up when things got rough.”

“Amp, think about this,” Lone Star said.

“We can face them,” Alex said. “We can defeat them. One on one. Power for power.”

“Lux and I don't have powers, though.”

“But you still have arms and legs, right?” Alex asked. His voice rose in volume. Frustration was bubbling up inside him. He had to convince Lone Star that he could still fight, even without his powers. “I've seen the Junior Rangers at work. The fact that they can fight hand-to-hand and bounce around like acrobats means that you must be able to, too.”

The others stared at Alex and Amp. Bug looked shocked that either of them would talk to the leader of the Rangers in such a way. Even in his current state, Lone Star was a man who commanded a certain level of respect and awe.

“It's not your power that defines you,” Alex said, more softly, calming down. “It's your actions. That's something I've had to learn recently.”

“He's right,” Lux said. “We've gotten so used to our powers that we've forgotten they're not what make us Rangers.”

Lone Star turned his head slowly, locking eyes with everyone in the room before nodding.

“I can see now how you managed to do everything you've accomplished so far. But this needs to be planned out. We can't just rush into battle without all our bases covered.”

“Where do we make our stand?” Amp asked.

“To carry on with Lone Star's baseball metaphor, my first reaction is a stadium, but that seems a little
too
formal,” Gage said.

“You guys, isn't it obvious?” Misty asked. She waited for someone to respond, and when they didn't, she rolled her eyes. “Victory Park! It's the perfect place. Kyle will have his pick of plants and trees, and, you know, there's
history
and stuff there.”

“I want to make sure we all know what we're talking about here,” Lone Star said. “This is so dangerous . . . it's something I never wanted you to face as Junior Rangers. Or that
anyone
would have to face, for that matter. I want you to know that there's nothing wrong with backing out of this. If
any
of you don't want to risk this fight, you can stay behind.”

Everyone stared at him. They all knew what he meant. They could be hurt. They might not even make it out of a fight like this. A quiet fell over the room, until the youngest among them finally spoke.