SECRET IDENTITY (9 page)

The smaller percussion roiled like a pot boiling over,
filling the dome shape with smoke and steam. It was smaller explosion, and
although it was not as bad as the first one, it was still capable of causing a
lot of damage. He didn’t want to take any chances.

Lorne glanced up to see the police and detectives who had
gone inside had made it out safely. Plus, another news truck had joined the
others. His actions were being filmed.
The Defender in action.
No doubt
it would be replayed countless times, ad nauseam, in the days to come.

He glanced over at the parking lot where he knew Brenda had
left her car. The vehicle was still there, but she wasn’t. Panic set in.
Oh,
shit, Brenda! Don’t tell me you went inside the building!

A movement behind the trunk of a shattered tree several
yards away caught his eye. Lorne let out the breath he’d been holding and
willed his galloping heart to slow down. She had ducked behind the tree for
safety, out of the line of fire.

Once the smoke began to dissipate, Lorne lowered his defensive
shield until it snuffed out the remaining fire. Explosions could be contained,
but they couldn’t be avoided. The laws of physics were indisputable. As long as
he let the force expend itself first, the rest would be a cake walk.

Nice going,
Luke praised.

Honest praise. Lorne wondered if he had surprised the guy.

I needed to get above the explosion and make sure I had
it all within my reach.

Either way, nice going. Can you go back in?

Yeah. Let me cover myself.

He rewrapped himself within his own powers, like a natural HAZMAT
suit, and descended back into the building. The eerie feeling he’d gotten a
second before the blast was gone, but he remained on the lookout. If another
such event happened, he would be protected, but that wouldn’t mean everyone else
would be. He had to be alert to another possible dangerous reaction.

That second blast could have taken out any clues there
were regarding the first,
he informed his brother.

Still, keep looking. You never know,
Luke answered.

His decision to use his abilities to defend others, rather
than to use them as a covert weapon, was what had helped him decide to go
public. That, and the urging of his two brothers, who said their father would
have wanted one of his sons to take over his legacy, the same way Logan had
taken over for their grandfather. And their grandfather from their
great-grandfather. And so on.

The world needed a defender of good, they’d argued. A
Defender of Good.

The choice of his pseudonym was a given.

Brenda’s worried.

I don’t doubt it.

You know, you really should give her an interview.

Lorne chuckled as he hovered above the smoking ruins.
And
then what, Luke?

She’s very interested in you.

Tell me something I don’t know. She’s interested in The
Defender, not Lorne Palmer.

But she loves you as Lorne.

Just like she loves you and Lee. We’re family.

I agree, but you’re not getting the vibes I’m getting.
The Defender is pushing her buttons. You should have felt the spike I got when
that little whatever-it-was went off.

Lorne knew he had a silly grin on his face at that moment,
but he didn’t care.

Let’s leave Brenda out of this so I can concentrate on
the factory. I’m not getting anything now.

Forget that little room. Go back to the main site of the
original explosion.

Mentally nodding, Lorne eased back into the main area. The
place smelled of scorched wood and metal. Taking a deeper breath, Lorne tried
to decipher anything that seemed suspicious. What he hit upon was entirely new
to him, and therefore possibly dangerous.

Luke?

Way ahead of you, bro. Let me check my records first to
be sure.

To be sure? That was the first time Lorne had heard his
brother comment about needing to do a bit of research.

What? The great Mr. Mental doesn’t know everything?

Screw you, Lorne. At least once I learn something, I don’t
forget it. Give me some more feedback on that scent so I can be certain.

Closing his eyes, Lorne concentrated on the elusive, barely
perceptible smell.
It’s oily. Almost like something’s rotten or decomposing,
but with a metallic whang.

Okay! Got it! You’re smelling unguindene.

The protective powers wrapping around him would keep out any
dangerous microbes or organisms which could harm him, but the scents could
still penetrate it. And this scent had “Warning!” written all over it.
Requesting
a definition of ‘unguindene’.

The byproduct of acetal-diphilate prorestilyme,
bicamphorate sulfide, and biphuromethanene.

Easy for you to say. How about some one syllable words,
bro?

You just found the smoking gun. Literally.

That’s it?

We need a sample to test and tag as evidence.

What am I looking for, then?

If you can smell it, then trace amounts are still present.
Hold on. Let me check on something real quick.

He had reached the epicenter of the original blast. The
heart of the factory.

Are the rumors true? Did they really use this place to
research toxins for chemical warfare?
His next thought was for Brenda’s
welfare. He had never tested his abilities to any great extent, and he was
pretty certain he could protect her from just about any chemical compound, manmade
or natural. The trick would be to get to her in time before any of it reached
her.

Not that I’m aware of. But Dobbling was instrumental in
trying to come up with more methods of chemical combustion. My guess is,
whoever set this thing up knew that, and planted just enough of a conducive
element in the mixture to upset the balance. When you find a shiny, light blue
residue, you’ve hit paydirt.

Lorne honed in on the scent, tracking it like a human
bloodhound. Pushing aside burnt and demolished pieces of furniture and metal,
he found a pile of ash and smoldering waste lying on the floor. Twisted bits of
wire stuck out of the pile. He waved his hand over the ash, scattering it, and
revealing more slivers of wire. Something made the wires shimmer, as if a light
had passed over them.

Luke?

I’m here. That shimmer? It’s
unguindene
residue.

Paydirt?

Yeah. Be reeeal careful.

What’s it going to do? Blow up on me?
He was
joking…sort of. Just in case, though, he double-surrounded the pieces of wire
in an extra-strong force field, and lifted it out of the pile of rubble. It
looked like he was holding what used to be a mesh trash basket. But because the
receptacle had been made of interwoven bits of metal instead of being solid,
the explosion had not disintegrated it completely.

Uhh, it might. That stuff is more volatile than nitroglycerine.

Lorne blinked.
Then what in the hell is it doing in this
lab? It’s not produced here, is it?

One of the chemicals which form its base are produced
here. But all three elements have to be combined in a specific order for it to
go blooey. I’m going out on a limb here and saying that someone put some of one
of those elements inside the trash can, then made sure the can was near a
storage area containing the other two chemicals.

Then found a way to combine the three, to create the
explosion.

And now, because the area is dotted with minute bits of
unguindene, smaller blasts could pop off at any time. You’re standing in a
potential minefield, Lorne.

Was that little volcano earlier brought on by some of
that unexploded unguindene?

Chances are, yes. Something you might have pushed
against, or moved, and it fell on a bit of the residue. Accidental contact.
There’s no telling. A good sneeze could set it off.

Or a strong breeze. A rainstorm. Clumsy investigators.
Lorne
looked around.
Then this whole area needs to be evacuated, and the entire
place razed.

A chuckle vibrated inside his head.
This looks like a job
for The Defender!

Go suck an egg, Luke.

Very slowly, Lorne lifted out of the building with the
coated bits of metal held in stasis within his power. The only safe place he
could take it would be to the containment center where the bomb squad of the
local police force was located. There he could place it in a bombproof locker,
where the experts could study it in relative safety. It was a good forty-minute
drive by car, but Lorne could get there in a fraction of the time.

As he rose higher in the sky, he glanced down to see the
cameras still rolling. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t call out to Brenda to
tell her where he was going, as the vibrations from his voice could set off
another explosion. No, first things first. Duty above all.

Duty above all.
It had been his daddy’s credo, and
Lorne was determined to make sure the Palmer legacy lived on.

Chapter 10

Event

“Another minor blast has ripped through the Dobbling
Chemicals factory, mere days after an initial explosion literally shredded this
building to pieces. The Defender was brought back in by the Fullerton Police
Department, to help them investigate the cause of the intial blast.

“However, a few minutes ago, while our new superhero was
inside the remains of the factory, another explosion occurred, forcing The
Defender to erect what appeared to be a protective force field over the blast
site.

“Once the blast was contained, he went back into the factory
again. Unconfirmed reports suggest the cause of the first explosion, and this
second one, may not have been accidental. As you can see behind me, the area is
littered with debris, some of which is still smoking. Onlookers and news crews
have been asked by the Fullerton Fire Department to remain behind the barrier
tape for their own protection.

“It appears The Defender has emerged again from the factory,
and he’s carrying what appears to be a container of sorts.

“Please stay tuned. We will report more on this as it develops.
This is Brian Witherspoon, WNN, reporting from Fullerton.”

Brenda stood within earshot of the news crew as everyone
stared up at The Defender flying away from the demolished factory. At this
distance, she could see he was carrying something smallish in his hands, but
she couldn’t quite make it out.

Where’s he going?
“Is he holding something?”

“Yeah,” the reporter replied. “It looks like a container of
sorts. It’s hard to tell. It looks like it’s wrapped in something.”

The cameraman zoomed in with the lens, but he was too slow.
The Defender shot eastward. “Damn.”

Yeah. Damn.
Brenda continued to feel like one of
those bobble-head dolls. Her body remained in one place, but her brain still
rattled around inside her skull from the unexpected eruption that had sent them
all running.

All but her. For some reason, she knew they weren’t in any
danger. That, somehow, The Defender would protect them. After all, wasn’t that
his purpose? To keep them out of danger? Still, instinct had told her to run
for cover, and she’d sought out the nearest large thing she could hide behind—a
tree.

She turned to see the news crew hurrying back to their van.
She hustled to catch up. Her job now was to discover the cause of the blast,
and who was behind it. Which was why she figured that tagging along with the
news media might be her best bet to finding out anything. “Any idea where he’s
going?” she managed to ask before they slammed the door in her face.

“Looks like he’s heading for the police station,” the
reporter called out the passenger side window as the cameraman gunned the
engine. The news van screeched its tires as it peeled out of the parking lot.
Brenda turned and ran for her own car.

As intersections raced by her window, Brenda tried to get a
grip on the feeling nibbling at her subconscious. There was a lot more going on
at the factory than what she or the news media was being told. Of course, if
this thing was a lot deeper than it looked, the authorities were going to keep
as much of it under the blanket as they could, so as not to lose whatever punch
they had when it came down to prosecuting someone.

She smiled. She was well aware of the tricks cops pulled to
draw the news hounds off of the immediate trail. Yet, for some reason, she
couldn’t get rid of the notion that The Defender was calling all the shots at
this point in time.

The news crew careened into the police parking lot where two
lone cruisers were parked, with Brenda right behind them. As the two men jumped
out their van, and headed into the police station, she remained sitting behind
the wheel.

Something was wrong. It felt all wrong. “This isn’t right.
He can’t be here. Not
here
here.” But there was no denying the fact that
she and the others had seen The Defender fly off in this direction with some
evidence.

She chewed on her tongue for a few seconds as she continued
to look around. The police station was smack in the middle of downtown, near
the main square where many businesses were located. Across the street was City
Hall, and the next block over was the city jail.

The Defender had just protected them from another, smaller,
unexpected explosion, and soon after left with visible evidence. Would he take
it straight to the police? Common sense told her yes.

It looks like it’s wrapped in something.