Heroes Lost and Found (7 page)

Harris rolled the bottle between his hands. “I watched ’em talk online, some of the old crew babbling about the past. Fighting Tiny Tinman and Fiery Brian, the good old days. I’m rolling through Ohio on the way out west, ask about any supers in the area I could hook up with, network and all that to maybe find a job and a couch to crash on, and Kit drops me a line, says we should hook up.”

“Total coincidence,” Kit interjected. “I was wandering around, trying to figure out what to do with myself. Logged on to the network at a café in Columbus and saw Harris here was gonna be traveling through in a few days.”

“You two ever fight each other?” Mentally I scrolled through past battles I’d seen and fought in.

“Nope, not in my league. But a super’s a super,” Harris replied. “Anyway, so Kit and me get together, have a coffee and start talking, and we decide to head out of the city together. End up here doing
The Odd Couple
thing, ’cept we’re both sort of slobs.”

My head was getting fuzzy, and it wasn’t just from the booze. “Wait. Back up. I’m still trying to figure out how you think Dykovski is this Controller dude.”

Kit scratched his chin. “Surf, I ain’t no idiot. I know Dykovski’s a Guardian, I know he’s got no problem pulling shit out of Agency caves and bunkers to create his brave new world. Don’t take a genius to put two and two together and figure he’s using the name Controller to make himself sound cool.” He spread his mammoth hands. “Can’t think of anyone else who’d be trying to do that. If you’ve got another name to toss at me, do it.”

I stayed silent.

“Okay. So don’t try to play me by saying maybe this guy isn’t Dykovski.” A grin spread. “But you knew that already and was working me for info. Not cool, Surf. Not cool.”

Harris put out his hand, patting down the tension. “She’s okay, Kit. She’s just being careful.”

He nodded and attacked the bottle again before speaking. “I know that. She’s no dumb bunny, she got that team together and all. That’s why I didn’t mind playing along.”

I wasn’t sure where I stood, so I plowed forward. “So Dykovski’s been advertising for supers to join him by offering high-tech toys. He got a few answers, but most of you, having brains, didn’t go for it.”

“Yep,” Kit confirmed. “And when he wasn’t getting a lot of responses, I figure he started hunting. Lie low and lurk in the room, see who’s visiting who where and at what time. People are being careful, but you got the right skills, you find out the information.”

“And he shows up in the right place at the right time to steal their codes.” I pressed the bottle to my forehead. “Agency toy. Pilfered from a cache and used to locate supers and activate their plugs if they don’t go along with his plan. Fight or die, that’s what he did with Rachael.”

The cool chain around my neck felt thick and heavy. We’d been able to thwart Dykovski’s attempts to activate our plugs with individual jammers, each small trinket a lifesaver. It was a smaller version of the type Jessie originally created to jam the Agency’s transmissions. With the destruction of the Agency base and, so we thought, the destruction of all the codes necessary to trigger the plugs, we figured we’d never need one again.

Now we all carried one after Dykovski’s abortive try to scan our plugs and steal the code, to put us under his control. I resisted the urge to reach up and stroke it like a religious medal.

The words sat on my tongue for a second, the urge to tell the two men we’d figured out a defense against Dykovski’s scanning.

Something told me to swallow the words back, keep the secret a bit longer.

Harris chuckled. “Told you she was a smart one.”

“But, again, why call me?” I looked at Harris. “Not that I mind hearing that you’re all happy doing the domestic bliss and all that, but what did you call me here about?”

He giggled. “Kit here has an idea to catch Dykovski.” His eyes lit up. “We’re going to be heroes again. The Protectors, you, me and Kit.”

I swallowed back the temptation to slap him back into reality.

“Yep. He’s going to walk right in here, and we’ll take him out. Get the lead on the evening news, of course,” Kit added.

“Of course,” I replied, keeping my voice just this side of sarcasm. “And why would Dykovski come here to Kensington Grove?”

Harris shifted a bit on the wooden chair, reminding me of a little boy dying to use the bathroom. “’Cause we set it up. I told him I wanted to be one of his thugs, and he’s coming to town to get me. Personal recruitment.”

I rolled the glass across my forehead, stealing every bit of cold I could. It held back the building rage.

Harris continued babbling, oblivious to my less-than-enthusiastic response. “It’s a great plan, Jo. Dykovski comes here, you and the rest of the team follow him home to his base, you help Kit pop his ass, and we all get handed the key to the city. Winner winner, chicken dinner.” He rocked back in the chair with a ridiculously wide smile.

There wasn’t enough beer in the world to hold my tongue on that.

“And you don’t think he saw you in Toronto hanging out with us and figured out you’re part of the team? Or that no one’s ratted you out online, on purpose or accidentally?” I snapped at the older man. “He’s going to show up with a bunch of his thugs, take your code and kill you just to make an example of you. He did it with Blockhead. He killed her to show Rachael he accessed the codes.”

“Linda’s dead?” Harris whispered. His face went deathly pale. He glanced at Kit, the previous exuberance washed away with a slap of reality.

Kit smacked his lips again. “Nothing to worry about, kid. Whether Dykovski makes you or not, he’s still coming here, and we’ll take them out like the morning trash before he even thinks about popping your plug. We planned this without the Protectors and we can do it with or without them.”

“Jo…” The link crackled to life. Hunter interrupted my thoughts as I watched Kit smile and take another drink. “Jo, I’m not going to say he’d be bad to have on the team. But your pulse is hitting the ceiling. What are you thinking?”

I paused, trying to sort out my feelings. We could get Harris a jammer to protect him from Dykovski, maybe an extra one for Kit to make sure. Kit Masters was a formidable Alpha super to have on our side and would give us a lot of credibility among both the supers and civilians who might still think of the Protectors as a bunch of lucky underdogs.

The green-eyed monster reared its head, pointing out I might be a wee bit jealous of Kit Masters showing up.

It went without saying he’d take over the team whether I agreed or not. It’d be a race between the man’s ego and the public demanding an Alpha in charge.

But there was something about the way he tilted his head to one side, something about the way he spoke about Dykovski…

“So you’ve told Dykovski to come here to meet Harris and recruit him for his band of thugs.” I fiddled with the soaked paper label on the beer bottle. “Sort of like Parris Island coming to the Marines.”

“Yes.” Kit reached up and scratched the burnt area. Flakes of skin floated down to the hardwood floor. “From what we gathered online they like to do it that way. Less chance of being found out if they go to the mountain, in other words.”

“And after they leave with Harris, we follow them back to their base and then take them out.” I drew out the last few words, looking for a reaction.

He frowned. The lone eye stared at me, unblinking and cold.

Bingo.

Harris bounced again between the two of us. “Sure. That’s the plan.” His face changed from enthusiastic to confused as he stared at Kit. “Right?”

Kit snorted. “Guess it’s time to tell you about my little change to the plan.” He put his hands together and cracked his knuckles, the bullet shots snapping in my ears. “Dykovski’s coming here either alone or with a few of his thugs so we tag and bag him right here in Kensington Grove. I’m not letting him out of my sights. I’m not letting him get back to his base and go underground like the slimy worm he is. He gets back to his box of goodies, who knows what he’s going to pull up, toss in our way to escape.” He shook his head. “No. Never again.”

The small tinkling alarm bell in the back of my head evolved into Big Ben.

“No, we can’t.” I pointed with the neck of the beer bottle at the window. “There are people out there, civilians. I know Dykovski doesn’t give a shit about them. He was willing to kill them in Vegas to send a message. He won’t have any problem killing them here to delay or distract us.”

“So?” Kit scratched his cheek again. “Not my problem.”

I put the beer bottle down on the table. “It is our problem. We can’t fight in the middle of Kensington Grove. Innocent people will die.”

Kit snorted. “Fuck that shit. No one’s innocent in this, Surf. Not the Agency and sure as hell not the people out there.” He stood up, almost knocking his head on the low ceiling. “They knew we were too good to be true and they didn’t care. They let the Agency continue to trap and enslave us, use and abuse us, and never gave a shit about our lives, our families, the people who cared about us.” His arms swung around, waving at the world outside the small apartment. “They bought the posters and books and action figures and never asked what we really wanted. They never cared as long as we gave them a good show.”

“They didn’t know.” I stepped towards Kit. “The Agency made sure of that. You can’t put them in the middle between Dykovski and us.”

“They’ll do fine.”

“They’ll die.” I looked at Harris. “You really want Bernie to be on the front line? You saw what happened in Las Vegas. You think she’s going to survive that?”

Harris shook his head, addressing Kit. “We gotta take it outside, Kit. Outside the town. You said we’d follow them out, that’s what you said when we set this up.”

The Alpha let out a sharp laugh. “What I said and what’s going to happen are two different things. I’m not going to let Dykovski walk away because there’s a bunch of civvies in the way. I’m not saying to aim for them. But if they get in the way, I’m not going to stop and hold their hand, walk them to the other side of the street and out of the way. I’m not stopping until I’m standing on Dykovski’s cold, dead body. Someone dies, someone dies.” He shrugged. “Do your best, but shit happens.”

“What?” Harris squeaked like a lab mouse. “You didn’t say anything about this. You said you’d watch me go with them and track ’em back to their home, not that we’d brawl in the middle of town like it’s the fucking O.K. Corral.” Sweat streamed down his face. “That’s not what I signed on for.”

Kit got to his feet and walked past Harris, patting the super’s shoulder on the way. “Don’t worry. It’s all gonna be okay.” The condescending tone shattered what little reserve I had left.

“How do you know that? You can’t guarantee that,” I demanded. “I’m not going to let you flatten the town and get people killed because you’ve got a hard-on to kill Dykovski.”

Suddenly Masters was in front of me and my feet were off the ground and I floated in the air, not of my own volition.

The hand gripping my throat tightened, almost cutting off my airway.

“Listen, girlie. I was tagging bad guys when you were still teething on your new powers. I say what goes, I’m the Alpha here. You’re just a dipshit chick who got lucky in the right place at the right time and got the press behind you. This team of yours, they’re second-rate supers pretending to be something they ain’t. I don’t need them to do this job.”

His breath stank of beer and stale potato chips.

My breakfast turned and churned in my stomach, threatening to leave any which way it could.

“I’m going after Dykovski, with or without you.” He glared at Harris. “You said she was pretty easy to get along with. That her team would listen to her, they’d be good with this. The more the merrier, take Dykovski down in a few minutes and neutralize his men.”

“Jo, we’re on our way to the airport,” Hunter barked in my ear. “Get out of there. You can’t take on Kit Masters. He’s way out of your league.”

I looked down at the angry man. “Easy doesn’t mean stupid. That plug must have fried your brain instead of blowing it out.”

He snarled, lips pulling away from bright white teeth that had graced a thousand front pages. “Look, we want the same thing. We want Dykovski off the streets. I don’t see the problem with us working together. Now that you’re here, it’s the best thing you can do. Bring your team in, and we’ll take him out together if they get here in time. Make a big show of it, and we all walk away winners.”

It was getting hard to breathe. His hand was large enough to go around my neck, a most effective noose.

“Kit, put her down.” Harris advanced on him, a sudden strength in his voice. “We’ll talk this out.”

“I’m not calling in my team if you’re going to fight in town. Dykovski isn’t stupid, he’ll make Harris as a decoy,” I wheezed. “If you want to send Harris in, we’ll follow Dykovski back to his base and then take him and his team down. But I won’t help you destroy the town and sacrifice Harris because you want to get this guy.” My words came in short pants. “I want him, I want him almost as bad as you do. But not enough to forfeit innocents.”

“Surf, I can do this with or without you. I’m just inviting you in ’cause Harris said you’re a good girl and I’ve seen what you can do.” He growled. “Never thought I’d have to answer to a B-lister about what I wanted to do. Worse than a Guardian.”