Chapter One:
Before The Storm
Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libbey, Cody Martin and Dennis Lee
Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Callsign Eisenfaust
I Minus 24:00:00 and Counting
Eisenfaust hunkered in the shadows of an alleyway outside a bar. At the end of the block, a stark white wall terminated the nighttime darkness like a false horizon, surrounding a brightly lit tower with windows as slender as a man’s arm: the Echo Security Facility, one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the United States of America.
He had survived the plane crash—as Germany’s greatest pilot, he knew how to ditch a plane—but he hadn’t counted on the flimsiness of twenty-first century aircraft; his broken arm throbbed, not quite healed yet.
Better than the fate his pursuers had encountered in the Andes. He almost wished he was back in the jungle stronghold, just long enough to mock the Commandant who had stolen his beautiful Valkyria from him.
Ah, Effi. Your betrayal cut deep.
He would not fall prey to the foolishness that won Valkyria. Eisenfaust had fought for the Fatherland, for his fellow Deutschlander, for the freedom his people deserved. But this…this was madness.
And in keeping with his nom de guerre, he’d crush it under his fist. But he needed allies, and he needed time to plan.
Slowly, he made his way down the dim street to the Echo compound. These American Ubermenschen would surely be surprised by the identity of their uninvited guest.
The guard at the gate eyed him. “The campus is closed, sir.”
“I wish to speak to your commanding officer,” Eisenfaust said. “Fetch him at once.”
“Ah…right. You’ll have to come back tomorrow. We open at nine a.m.”
“I have no intention of waiting.” Eisenfaust scowled at the enlisted man. “Your commander—bring him.”
A second guard stepped out of the booth, wary of the increasing tension in the air. “We can’t do that, sir. Please step away from the gate.”
Eisenfaust cursed under his breath. Even the Allied Aces had shown him more deference than these flunkies. He pointed at the security tower. “That is my destination. If you cannot assist me, step aside.”
Both guards reached for their sidearms. Moving with the inhuman speed that made him Germany’s greatest aerial ace, he swatted the guns out of their hands before they could level them in his direction. The two men gasped.
With his good arm, he flattened the first guard with a blow to the chin. “I will find him myself!” he exclaimed furiously. The second guard knelt to seize his gun; Eisenfaust booted the man in the side, hurling him back into the booth.
With a contemptuous sniff, he kicked the guns aside and walked to the door of the detention facility.
In wartime Eisenfaust would never have been so careless as to simply leave the guards unconscious, but his goal was not to kill these men. He was here to make his presence known. Eisenfaust opened the glass doors, approving of their weight; the bulletproof glass was two inches thick and obscured the lobby.
“Stop right there, mister.” The speaker was a fine example of American manhood: tall, wide-shouldered, a face with mongrel features, topped with a swath of light brown hair. His black Echo uniform sported epaulets decorated with the Stars and Stripes. A thick metal gauntlet on his right hand glowed with plasma energy—and was directed at Eisenfaust.
“Gute nacht, my friend. I am told you have rooms for rent.”
A score of Echo guards with rifles lined up behind the meta. “We have plenty of room for punks who smack our people around. Don’t make me use force.”
“Good. I was hoping to speak to someone with authority.” He drew himself up into a salute. “I wish to turn myself in.”
“Now that was easy.” The meta motioned the guards forward, who circled Eisenfaust. “Take him in, boys. Watch those hands.”
Eisenfaust gestured to his broken arm. “You have nothing to fear from me, young man. I am a colleague of your father’s.” A guard handcuffed his wrists, eliciting a wince of pain.
“I doubt that. Pop died over twenty years ago, and I don’t think he ever managed to buddy up to a German after the war.”
A tinge of doubt crossed Eisenfaust’s mind. “I…I am sorry to hear this. He was a fine warrior, the best I ever faced.”
“Huh?” The metahuman looked at him closely. “Now you’re messing with me. You can’t be a day over thirty.”
“You are correct, in a sense.” The shackles clanked as he offered his hand. “I am Oberst Heinrich Eisenhauer of the Uberluftwaffe of the Third Reich.” He paused, enjoying the look on the young man’s face. “Your father, Yankee Doodle, knew me as Eisenfaust.”
The meta looked from the hand to Eisenfaust’s face. “Bull,” he said at last. “He died fighting the Allied Aces. In 1945.”
“Then your father told you about me. Clearly you carry on his legacy.”
A succession of expressions passed over the American’s face so quickly that anyone lacking Eisenfaust’s metahuman perceptions would not have registered anything but a frown: first surprise, then reflection, then the cold, strategic calculation of a man used to secrets. His bluff bravado returned in less than a heartbeat.
“As Yankee Pride, yeah. And we’re a little too savvy to let some Nazi fetishist get his rocks off by pretending to be a dead Nazi war criminal. Did you leave Hitler’s brain in your Panzer tank out front?” Yankee Pride backed off as Echo guards seized Eisenfaust’s arms, wrenching his broken arm. “Put him in a holding cell under suicide watch until we can ID this wingnut.”
The guards began to drag Eisenfaust down the hallway towards the cell block. He called out: “Ask your mother! Or Liberty Torch! Or Worker’s Champion! They knew me. They feared me! They will recognize me!”
“Save it for the shrink, Fritz.” Yankee Pride replied. He tapped at controls on his gauntlet, gesturing oddly at Eisenfaust for a moment.
Eisenfaust calmed himself. He assumed the Americans would be suspicious of a man claiming to be one of their country’s greatest foes. He would overcome their doubts.
“You’re taking me to a cell?” he asked a guard. “Is it secure?”
“No one’s ever gotten out of Echo,” the man sneered.
“That’s admirable.” Eisenfaust gave the man a prophetic smile. “But it’s who will try to get in that concerns me.”
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA: Callsign Belladonna Blue
I Minus 6:37:22 and Counting
The name on her badge said “Bella Dawn Parker,” but Bella’s Las Vegas Fire Department callsign was “Blues.” Not because she sang them, but because she was blue—blue-haired, blue-skinned, a metahuman.
Metahumans didn’t stand out in a city like Lost Wages, where you could stand waiting for the bus next to a Russian acrobat, a seven-foot-tall transvestite in Cleopatra drag, a guy with an albino anaconda wrapped around his shoulders, and five Elvii, and all anyone wanted to talk about was the Rebels’ football scores.
She was the rookie in Station 7 of the Las Vegas Fire Department, alternate driver of Rescue 2, Paramedic Parker, EMT-4, the highest EMT rank there was, and not so coincidentally a registered OpOne with Echo Rescue.
There’d been a huge dump fire earlier that had taken hours to put out and had occasioned a three-station roll-out, so everyone was starving. They all rolled back about 2 a.m., oh-dark-hundred, and it was her turn to cook, which mean they were getting spaghetti, easy to reheat. Rarely did anyone in a firehouse get to finish a sit-down meal.
She lounged back and watched the guys trundle in, mostly still wet from showers. They still stank a little of burnt rubber.
“Hey, Blues?” One of the other rookies looked over at her as he was dishing himself out red sauce. “How’d you get to be EMT-4 so fast? You’re only what—19? 20?”
“I slept with the instructor,” she smirked. “Naw, it’s actually a lot less dirty than that. I started taking the EMT courses while I was still in school. They needed me at ball games and stuff, and they wanted me legal. I got the jumpstart ’cause Echo Rescue tapped me for the touch-healing when I was twelve.”
“Damn, there goes my bet…”
New York, New York, USA: Callsign John Murdock
I Minus 6:22:17 and Counting
John Murdock sat on a bench in an out-of-the-way corner of Central Park with his face buried in his hands, laden down with a feeling that could only be described as “soul-weary,” assuming there were such things as souls. Since he’d found this spot, he’d never seen anyone else use it. Possibly because it was a frequent target for pigeons. With his eyes closed, he tried to shut out the happy ruckus of ordinary folks having a cheap good time.
In the middle distance, he could hear a street preacher sounding off. And then, from somewhere behind him, the sirens of three cop cars wailed as they gave chase. He’d stopped looking for somewhere to hide whenever he heard sirens about a year ago, but the sound still made his nerves twitch.
Whoever they were chasing wasn’t giving up without a fight.
Probably there was no one in this park who could hear what he was picking up: the sounds of gunshots under the sirens. Single shots, all semi-auto. Handguns, then.
Then he picked up something else. Microjets, tearing through the concrete canyons, on a vector that would converge with that of the sirens.
Echo jet pack. Whatever the perps had done, it had to be bad to earn them metahuman attention. Tough luck, chumps. Cavalry is comin’. He leaned back, sighing heavily. Like you’re one to talk, chump. Every time he heard something like this, ten years of training to protect the innocent warred with five years of paranoia, but as ever, survival instinct and the paranoia won. The sounds ended with no way of telling the outcome—other than that the meta with the jets had clearly triumphed, since they spun down a minute after the shots ended.
He shook his head. Things, little things, really hit home for him when it was bright and sunny out, like it was today. There were days when he wondered why he had ever been born. They were happening a lot more often lately, and this was one of them. And “never been born” all too easily morphed into “better off dead.” He was close, close to that point of no return, but he’d kept on living so far and damned if he was going to give up now. Sheer stubbornness maybe, or just the bargain-basement revenge of outliving the bastards that had put him in this position in the first place.
He stood up, tired of feeling sorry for himself. He started walking away from the park, skirting on the periphery of the tree line, and kept going for several blocks, letting his mind go blank. Funny how people thought of New York as a terribly dangerous place to live. In fact, it was more like a series of vertical villages: people knew each other, went to the same little snack shops, bought milk at the same bodegas. The fact that he didn’t belong in any of those little enclaves, made the gloom wrap around his soul even tighter.
Eventually, he found a bar; a real Irish neighborhood joint that must have been there for a century, the sort of place that firefighters and steel workers went to after putting in their shifts. Alcohol wasn’t really a cure, but it sure worked wonders for the short term. Six a.m. might be early to start drinking by most people’s standards but nobody in this bar was keeping track.
But he wasn’t going to get any trouble here as long as he didn’t start any himself. At six feet even and 200 pounds, he wasn’t huge, not by the standards nowadays, where you saw Echo metas that were the size of park statues, but he wasn’t a pip-squeak either.
Mostly, though, it was the way he moved and held himself that made trouble avoid him, recognizing him for a fellow predator.
Inside the door, he looked up. There was a patina of hard use and age on everything. He strode up to the bar, spying a whiteboard listing the drink prices. Cheap. It was the first bit of good news he’d had all day. Money was running out. It went fast in this town, even when you were sleeping rough and making do with the showers at the Salvation Army. Be time to find a job soon, under-the-counter pay, shady construction work, janitor…he hoped he wouldn’t have to go on the gray side of the law. Still, he figured that he had enough to get drunk with, and maybe even some money left over for half of a decent meal. Or one full meal at a soup kitchen and a real bed at a flophouse.
John sat down hard on the wooden stool, resting his elbows on the worn counter in front of him. The barkeep was busy having a conversation with a middle-aged couple at the right end of the bar. John knew what the barkeep saw: a customer maybe, but one that wasn’t going to spend a lot of money, even by the standards of this place. Clothing nondescript. Jean jacket, white shirt, and cargo pants; clean, but they had seen too many hard wearings and washings. His brown hair, a little too long and uneven, hadn’t seen a barber for a long time. Compact muscles and expressionless gray-green eyes, like two cold pebbles, also said he might be trouble, as did the callused knuckles. Fingerless gloves. Fistfighters tended to wear those. John rapped his knuckles against the counter a few times until the bartender tore himself away; he was an older man, with shock-white hair and a day-old stubble shading his chin. “What’ll it be?” he asked, his tone shaded with impatience as well as wariness.
John looked up wearily, meeting the bartender’s eyes, and shoved a ten spot toward him. “Whatever’s the house special.”
“House rye, dollar a shot, coming up.” The barkeep really was in a hurry to get back to the conversation. He shoved a half-full bottle—John’s eagle eye measured the contents as just about ten shots’ worth—and a shot glass across the counter at John, and turned back to the couple. He resumed his banter, stopping short to eye John up. “We’ll be having you pay as you go, too.”
Echo Headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Callsign Eisenfaust
I Minus 02:32:15 and Counting
By day, the Echo detention facility hummed with energy. Metahuman prisoners could not be afforded the same liberties as conventional convicts: no exercise yard, no recreation room, no library. Even the classic prison pose, leaning against the bars with hands useless and dangling, was denied them. The reinforced steel doors contained grills that afforded a limited view of the corridor.
Some deemed it cruel. Most considered it necessary due to the unique nature of the metahumans. Ordinary criminals could be disarmed, metas couldn’t. Metapowers were, by law, lethal weapons that had to be registered with local law enforcement and the government.
Eisenfaust paced his cell. After his death-defying escape from the clutches of the Thule Society, confinement was maddening. These imprisoned men and women were scum, and to be interred with them, even by choice, grated on his nerves.
The grill at the foot of his door slid open to admit a tray with his lunch. “Guard,” he said. “I have waited for your commanders to speak to me for far too long. Where is Yankee Pride?”
“Out doing his job,” the guard answered abruptly.
“Why has he not contacted me? I told him I have critical information, a matter of national security.” Hand pressed against the door, he perversely longed for the typical iron bars of a jail.
“Sure you do.”
The guard tapped a button with his foot. The serving grill slid shut with a final clatter. He stepped back behind the food cart.
“You’re all in terrible danger,” Eisenfaust said, his voice becoming strident with urgency. “Please, you cannot ignore this threat for long.”
The guard sighed. He leaned against the door. “Listen, pal,” he said. “If it’ll shut you up, I can tell you this: they’re sending an Echo Support detective down here to interview you after lunch. Save it for her, okay?”
Without another word the man wheeled out of sight. Eisenfaust stepped back, mind racing. A detective? Hardly an official, but at least someone who was trusted to report on matters of consequence.
He felt momentarily giddy. “Danke,” he called down the hall.
“Dankay? What kinda nonsense you spouting?” The rough voice came from the cell directly across his. The face behind the grill was black; blacker than a human should be.
“Deutsch, mein freund. German. It means ‘thanks.’ ”
“You ain’t been here long if you’re thanking the COs,” the black shape said. “You probably think you’re in here by mistake.”
“Nein. I asked to be here.”
The voice laughed, a coarse bark. “Didn’t know stupidity was illegal.”
Eisenfaust scowled. “I suppose you’re incarcerated for rudeness.”
Again, the staccato laugh. “Not me. Robbery with metahuman powers. Aggravated assault. Resisting arrest.”
“You’re lucky Echo is so permissive. I’d have killed you on the spot.”
“Oh ho ho, big man. You’re scaring me. What’re you in for?”
Eisenfaust thought for a moment. “I killed one hundred and twelve men that I know of.”
Silence fell upon the corridor around them.
“Yeah?” The black shape moved away from the grill, his voice smaller.
“Yes. Shooting. Bombing. By plane, by pistol…two with a knife. One with my bare hands.” All necessary deaths in wartime, he told himself, though in this den of thieves he took some relish in trumping their claims. No criminal can exceed the sins of a man at war.
“Damn.”
“So in my eyes, you’re all mere amateurs. Worse, your crimes were committed for selfish reasons. I fought for my country.”
Every ear seemed to be turned to their conversation. Eisenfaust flushed. His story wasn’t for these lowlifes; only Echo and their metas were his peers, regardless of what cause they served.
A high-pitched voice sang out from his right: “He shut you up good, Slycke!”
“Go to hell,” Slycke rumbled. “My daddy served in ’Nam. Killed him a dozen gooks and brought back their fingers on a string. This guy ain’t no different, except…” His voiced trailed off. “Who’d you serve under?”
“Haven’t you guessed?” Eisenfaust paused for effect. “Adolf Hitler.”
The corridor erupted with angry shouting. The guards came through in squads, banging on the cell doors with energized prods and calling for order. Eisenfaust took his meal to his seat and smiled as he picked at the cornbread and ham. Soon he’d meet with the detective and give her enough tidbits to earn him an audience with the master of the house.
Alex Tesla.
Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Callsign Victoria Victrix
I Minus 02:23:56 and Counting
Victoria Victrix Nagy stood in her cozy living room, surrounded by the sandalwood scent of her candles, by the armor of her shelves of books and music and movies, and stared at the closed door of her apartment, gathering her strength and her courage. She was about to do battle, as she did about every two weeks, and the fight was going to require every resource she could muster. She checked, once again, to make sure that her protections were in place, that she was covered from chin to toes with not so much as a millimeter of skin exposed. The battle she faced was inside herself, and she faced it every time she had to leave her apartment.
And it wasn’t getting any easier for standing there.
She took a shuddering breath, felt her throat closing, her heart racing, heard the blood pounding in her ears. And the fear, the terrible, blinding, paralyzing fear spread through her, making her knees weak, her hands shake.
But there was no choice. She had to eat. It was time to do the grocery shopping, panic attacks or no panic attacks.
<Come on Vic,> she heard her cat, her familiar Greymalkin, say in her mind. <You can do this. Do it for me. I’m out of tuna, and the kibbles are almost gone.>
That did it. That broke the hold for a moment, as Grey had probably figured it would.
“Selfish beast,” she said aloud, with a shaky laugh.
<What did you expect? I’m a cat, not Mahatma Gandhi.>
On the strength of that laugh, she got to the door, and opened it. There was no one in the hallway, with its worn brown carpet and forty-watt lighting. It was people that triggered her panic attacks, not places.
She chose her time and day carefully. It was early afternoon, the day of the All-Star game. Those people who were not at the game, or the pregame events, or thronging to glamorous parties in hopes of getting a glimpse or even an autograph of some movie star, or on the streets hawking cheesy giant foam hands and sun visors, were either at work, or at home. No one sane went anywhere, unless you could do so without resorting to any major streets or, god forbid, the Interstates. The traffic reports said that within a mile of some of the Star Parties it was taking an hour to go three blocks. The grocery stores would be deserted. Earlier this morning there would have been a last-minute run on the staples of the day: beer, hot dogs and buns, beer, ice, beer, soda and beer. Now, bored employees would be bowling in the empty aisles with frozen turkeys. Fortunately, the neighborhood of Peachtree Park would be spared most of the horror of the day. It was a blue-collar, working-class neighborhood, but the workers had, for the most part, long since retired to their thirties-era bungalows. There wouldn’t be many barbecues here today; the residents were inside to watch the game, sensibly isolated from the unseasonable heat (ninety degrees in February!) and the bugs, and especially from the “Georgia State Bird,” the mosquito. So the streets should be as deserted as if it was four a.m. on a Sunday.
She made it down the hall to the elevator, an ancient model complete with brass grill inner doors. She pushed the button for the first floor, and the old cage shuddered and made its slow descent. There was no one in the lobby. Her sneaker-shod feet made barely a whisper against the worn-out gray linoleum as she crossed the lobby and let herself out through the front door.
The parking lot was full. This was, after all, a fifteen-story-tall apartment building constructed in an era when people took buses and streetcars to work. The parking lot was always full, and those few residents who didn’t own a car could command a nice little monthly fee for the use of their assigned space. Vickie’s was as far from the building as physically possible, because the super knew that she only moved her little econobox when she absolutely had to.
It looked as if there wouldn’t be much in the way of cloud cover today, and cars would turn into ovens, even with the air conditioning on. It was only around nine a.m., but this was going to take her…a while. Her little light blue, nondescript basic-mobile was parked under a giant live oak, which could be a nuisance in acorn season, but its shade was nice now. She could actually hold the steering wheel without using oven mitts.
Once in the car, she let out a sigh of relief, and waited for the trembling in her arms to stop. The first hurdle was cleared.
Actually driving was not a problem, even when there were other cars on the street. It wasn’t rational, but her gut regarded the car as a safe little shell, and the panic eased back to jitters as she negotiated the narrow, thirties-era streets. Peachtree Park wasn’t a trendy neighborhood, and it certainly had seen better days, but it wasn’t a slum. Cracking and peeling paint, and aging roofs, stood in contrast to the immaculate yards.
At the border of Peachtree Park and the next neighborhood of Four Corners, things were changing. There was an Interstate exit that fed Four Corners. There had been demolition and rebuilding in the fifties, then the seventies, and now again. Here was the chain grocery Vickie made her pilgrimage of fear to whenever the supplies got too low. As she rounded the corner, she prayed that she would find the parking lot empty.
It was, and again she breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing there but five identical semi-truck trailers—odd, but…
Well, it was the day of the All-Star game, and it was entirely possible the drivers had realized they were never going to get anywhere today and had rendezvoused here to watch the TVs in the cabs and have an impromptu party of their own.
This was the least of her worries. In a moment, she would park the car. She would have to get out of the car, and walk to the entrance of the grocery. Only a few feet but—there would be people there. People who would stare at her, the way they had looked at her—after. With revulsion. With loathing. With hatred—
Get a grip. This is now, not then. They’re just people. People here for groceries, nothing more.
But her palms were sweating now, and her short hair was damp with sweat, her mouth was dry, and as she turned off the ignition, her hands and arms were shaking and she had to force herself to reach for the door handle, then to pop the door open. She was hot and cold by turns, her stomach so knotted that she was getting sick and regretting that cup of coffee and morning toast…
It would probably take her two hours to convince herself to leave the car.
Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Callsign Red Djinni
I Minus 01:58:27 and Counting
In a perfect world—well, in my perfect world—things would still be chaotic. I know I’m in the minority here. If you’re one of those people who strive for that great secure job with regular cash showers in your ten-acre estate, I’m sorry, I just don’t get you. I can’t think of any place more boring than the common perception of paradise. To have everything you want when you want it, when would you ever feel your blood rushing through your veins with the bit caught in your teeth, riding the razor’s edge with a wind of flames at your back, or any other dozen clichés for the extreme life?
See, I need the rush, but I wouldn’t say I’m a thrill-seeker. It’s a trait that gets a lot of people killed. I’ve seen it happen, believe me. Heh, I once knew this crazy bastard called Gash. Big guy! Loved movies with midgets, dainty blondes he could pick up with one arm, and he had this weird thing for…badgers.
Don’t ask.
But what Gash loved most was speed. He’d get into anything with propulsion just to see how fast he could go. This one time, he got some booster rockets, right? Don’t ask me how, but he did, and then he…
Wait, sorry. That’s a long story, and the stuff about the badgers will haunt you.
So…thrill-seeking. I don’t think it applies, not to me, not entirely anyway. Risking your neck for nothing more than thrills can get real old real fast. There has to be more, there has to be…well, yeah, there has to be women. And pardon me for saying it, as women make up a good part of why I’m alive, but even that’s not enough. Fame? Yes, that works for some. Money? Definite bonuses there.
Beating the other guy? Oh man, nothing gets it done like competition.
So that’s where you’ll find me—high risk, high stakes. It brings out the Masters and I am a Master, if I do say so myself. I never got caught, not until that day. And I don’t even think that day counts. I know, a Master doesn’t let his surroundings or the situation get to him. He stays on the job, he keeps focus, and he wins his prize. But you have to understand, that day was the worst day. Ever.
Who am I? Red Djinni at your service. Chameleon, acrobat, mercenary and lover.
Let me paint you a mental picture. Three men and a woman get out of a dark, sporty sedan. Something has their attention. They are watching a group of masked idiots with guns running into a bank.
Notice the four people are wincing.
They’re not wincing in fear. Together, these four have run gauntlets of jagged metal rain and poison gas. Combat, while avoided when possible, is second nature to them. The last time they were here in Atlanta, they were forced into an open-street battle with an OpTwo and her flunkies. It cost them months because it forced a retreat into the labyrinths of America’s metahuman underground.
They’re not wincing in disbelief. The idea of robbers holding up a bank in broad daylight, and in one of the most Echo-populated cities in the world, might seem absurd—but let’s remember something. In every demographic, from world leaders to the criminal element, you’re going to find some really stupid people.
So no, not fear and not disbelief. These people are wincing in anger. For about a month now they’d been planning a job of their own. A heist like this in Atlanta had to be done carefully. You had to get in, grab the goods, get out, and get away without anyone even knowing you were there. If so much as a brief physical description got out, Echo would be on you within a day, a week, tops. Say what you want about the showmanship and flash of Echo agents, they were damned good at their jobs. Countermeasures had to be taken. This crew had learned that lesson once the hard way. To do this job, they had to be invisible.
And that’s where I come in. If you haven’t already guessed, I’m one of the four. Not the short man drowning in muscles, and not the man who’s as thin as a rail and sporting a long beak nose, and obviously not the gorgeous brunette with legs that go up to her neck. I’m the elderly driver with the withered, beaten-down-by-life expression, with the beer gut hanging over a cheap imitation-leather belt, and sporting a worn polyester security guard uniform bearing a cracked plastic name tag for a “Walter Semsdale.” Not what you expected, huh? Well, that’s the point. If you know how, you can be invisible in plain sight.
We had planned and trained and waited for the day of the All-Star game, the day that the majority of security forces in the city would be concentrated on the other end of town. We had charted rapid routes of escape, memorized the full layout of the bank, and more importantly, of the secret bunker underneath where items of immeasurable wealth and importance were often kept. Simply nicknamed the Vault, this was the most secure facility in the city after the main Echo headquarters, hidden beneath a façade of a medium security investment group and banking outlet, and we knew the place cold now. We had studied this job from every angle, and we realized it could only be done one way, just the one, if we were going to get out with no fuss.
This had to be an inside job.
Like most high-security places, the design is to keep people out and not so much in. Study any blueprint of a vault or fortress and you’ll see it. A group starting at the heart of the place can work their way out, disabling alarms, taking out cameras and incapacitating armed resistance with just a little coordination. But the worst-case scenario, whether you’re heading in or out, is an alarm being triggered. Once the entire place is up in arms, the odds of surviving, let alone reaching your prize, are slim. Hey, I love a challenge, but I hate suicidal runs. The object is to live to tell the tale, you know? So we needed an inside man, but the last thing we needed was another person to siphon off a split of the take.
Enter Walter Semsdale.
Walter’s one of the senior security staff at the Vault, and while he doesn’t hold top-level clearance, he can walk in through the front door, descend from the public bank above and into the Vault’s inner sanctum. He has access to the main monitor room. He’s also a 49-year-old divorcé who suffers from regular bouts of gout, indigestion, and epic levels of halitosis. His sense of humor matches his diligence to personal hygiene. I know all this because I just spent the last two weeks getting to know Walter at his favorite watering hole. Didn’t take much. A few stories about loose women, buying the first few rounds, and I became Walter’s new best friend. I even got to like him a little. Pathos, I guess. Walter is a world-class loser, and I tend to root for the underdogs. Studying Walter—his mannerisms, his own bawdy stories and taking in one whore joke after another—I found him an easy mask. Walter proved to be one of the simpler people I’ve studied to impersonate. Probably the hardest part of this job was learning to grow Walter’s face. He has that look of a beagle, with folds that droop from his eyes and mouth like his skin is trying to escape. Growing that much skin is a pretty tedious task, even for me…
Guess I should have mentioned it before. I’m a meta. Don’t need to get into all the details right now, but let’s just say I’m closer to my skin than anyone else alive.
So…Walter. Right now we’ve got Walter strung up in his home. I’m wearing his uniform, sporting his less-than-dapper looks and I gotta tell you, this fake beer gut I’ve got strapped on is hotter than hell.
The inside job is the easiest, the safest and the stealthiest job you can perform. Still, when your mark is a fortress like the Vault it requires a lot of time and energy to plan out. So when we watched these rank amateurs, toting some cheap-ass, dime-store-bought hardware, rush into the bank, we knew what would happen next. They would get the people cowering on the floor, they would take out what superficial security there was in the bankfront, and by doing this, they would trigger the alarm that would put the whole facility, including the Vault, on alert. The Walter guise was now useless. I wouldn’t be able to get where I needed to, to knock out surveillance and communications, and while we had contingency plans, the one thing we absolutely needed was for me to get in undetected. A whole month of preparation, wiped out just like that.
Still got that picture of the four of us, mouths open, watching our plans go up in flames? Good, hold onto it for a second, it gets kind of funny.
I’ve had maybe four perfect jobs in my life. The rest can range from “we’re twenty seconds behind schedule” to “where did that OpTwo come from?” In each case, we’ve dealt with it. At times, I admit we’ve been damned lucky. But this…this was beyond a mere glitch. This was every god in the heavens looking down and saying “we’re sorry, but today we will make you our bitches.”
The beak-nosed man is Duff Sanction, probably my best and oldest friend. In this game, you need people you can trust, and Duff has pulled more jobs with me than anyone else. He is simply the best safecracker and demolitionist I have ever met. Oddly enough, he’s also a craftsman who makes the most delicate works of crystal and glass. So yes, here we have a man who has the patience and meticulous touch of an artist, but loves to blow things up for his day job. He has an odd, hot-and-cold temper to match. A moment before, I’m sure he had been calculating oxygen balance percentages and composition priorities in his head. These sorts of jobs often called for on-the-fly explosions. Unbelievably, Duff preferred to make some bombs on the spot. To do that, you need to think fast and with complete certainty, two feats that require a level head. On the other hand, when his temper did go off, the results could be spectacular. I once watched him collapse a building using forty sticks of dynamite, rigged in under ten minutes, really!
It was awesome, and all over a pet peeve.
Wait, sorry. That’s a long story. Let’s just say that those pigeons will never poop on anyone ever again.
By comparison, I’d say Duff took this setback rather well. He wasn’t blowing anything up, just smashing his fist repetitively against the side of the car.
“When I catch up to these jerk-offs, I’m going to make them choose between deep-throating TNT or getting bunged up with nitro enemas!”
He’s so gosh-darned cute when he’s angry.
The leggy brunette leaning against the car is Jon Bead. It might look like she’s nodding enthusiastically with Duff’s harsh and colorful words, but really she’s just trying not to scream. Too bad, this girl is a great screamer. No, I’m not going to tell you what that means, you already know. Jon is our artillery unit. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve just stood back and let her go to work. A one-woman army when situations get tight, you want someone like Jon on a rooftop providing cover fire.
The short, muscular man sporting the tan duster and lighting a cigarette is Jack. That’s the only name he seems to have, and we gave it to him. Jack and I handle information gathering, and we both plan the jobs, but in the field he calls the shots. I’ve never seen him angry, or frustrated, or even crack a smile. He’s ice, and always knows what to do. God knows how many of our jobs have needed some weird exotic skillset, and wouldn’t you know it, Jack always seemed to have the know-how. Hence his nickname: Jack of all Trades.
“Back in the car.” Jack’s voice was as gruff as he was short. “Red, drive us around, we’ll find some cover and park. Once there we’ll suit up.”
I wasn’t looking. I was still watching the bank, but I could feel Jon and Duff stare at Jack in disbelief. He was proposing to hit the Vault head on, not by the easier route of guile through the bank front, but a full frontal assault on the heavily guarded rear-access blast doors, the one thing all of our scheming and preparation had worked to avoid. Maximum security, and even if the place wasn’t now on high alert, getting in would be tantamount to a defiant act of suicide.
“He’s right,” I remember saying, cutting off any protests they would have. All of them reasonable, I might add. But this time, we had dug ourselves in as deep as we could go. “We’re committed; we have to do this. Get in the damned car.”
A pause, with just a moment of temerity, but all Duff did was mutter and climb back into the rear seat. Jon did the same, but she did it with sass. It had taken them a moment, but it was dawning on them. Jack and I were not asking them to go all Butch and Sundance. We were proceeding with the only course of action that allowed a hope of survival.
You see, we were on Mr. Tonda’s dime.
You’ve heard of Tonda, you must have. He’d gotten so successful as a crime kingpin that his name had escaped the whispered, frightened tones of the underground and into modern pop culture. There were songs written about him, and at the time the latest craze in TV villains were barely concealed imitations of his rumored existence. Most consider him an urban myth, but trust me, he’s real. Echo knew about him too, but this man had managed to stay out of their reach for over a decade. He was just that good. If you happened to be good enough to land a job for him, your reputation was made. He had his favorites and didn’t hire new blood that often. Still, every once in a while, one of his favorites would screw the pooch, and Tonda’s got this zero-tolerance policy. You don’t mess up. Fail and you’re dead. It was just that simple: one of the secrets to his success. Fail in a spectacular fashion and he would see you live just a little bit longer. You just wouldn’t want to. Keep in mind, his assassins and torturers were under the zero-tolerance policy too.
I was the one who pushed for this job. Working for Tonda was only for those at the top of their game. I had been working for this for ten years, and I knew we were good, maybe even the best. Still, it took a lot of fast talking to get Jack and the others to agree to it. Tonda’s rep is about as unsavory as you can get. We approached Tonda, and that wasn’t easy either, I can tell you. He seemed impressed that we had found him, and landed us this job.
So here we were. The brass ring had been dangling in front of us for a month, and wouldn’t you know it, just as our fingers were almost on it, the ring had grown some pretty scary looking teeth.
I shared a brief look with Jack. “Told ya,” was all he said. So much for fun. The game had turned into the ultimate contest, our lives on the line, and with little hope for success.
“All right,” I said, guiding the sedan around the facility. “Let’s get to work.”
Moscow, Russia: Callsign Red Saviour
I Minus 01:18:05 and Counting
Drenched in the crimson rays of a setting sun, the crowd of Muscovites roared for blood in Red Square. Militsya in riot gear corralled the protesters. The largest of the signs they hoisted into the warm evening air were legible to the sharp eyes of Natalya Nikolaevna Shostakovich from the window in the hallway of Block 14, the Presidium.
we don’t need a saviour, one read. Spasskaya for “Saviour” was written and underlined in the red of the Soviet flag.
The Spasskaya Gate, Saviour’s Gate into the Kremlin, had been shut to the crowd, a sign that the militsya expected trouble. That was because Ivor Triganov was popular, and Natalya Shostakovich, Red Saviour…was not.
Ivor Triganov was a glorified thug, a rich oligarch who flaunted his wealth, yet contributied to charities and cavorted with celebrities while his empire played fast and loose with the tissue-thin laws of the new capitalist economy.
Triganov armored himself with lawyers and powerful friends. When Natalya kicked down his door, he only laughed at her as though she were the evening’s entertainment.
“Come to beg for opera tickets, Red Saviour?” He asked with a smirk, making his fellow partygoers titter like characters at a Tolstoy ball. “I would offer you balcony, but I think you’d prefer my private box. Wouldn’t you, my dear?”
A broken arm and bloody nose later, Triganov had stopped laughing. His eyes promised equally bloody revenge, in his own way. Now the smoke of two packs’ worth of her Proletarskie cigarettes wafted in the hallway outside the council chamber where Director Yvegeniy Murov and the rest of the leadership of the FSO—the Federal Protective Service—grilled the militsya detective who accompanied her on the bust.
“You’re like an American rock star,” a deep voice said behind her. “Your fans await you.”
She didn’t turn around. Supernaut had removed his immense helmet. He stood too close to her. The man was seven feet tall without the bulky scarlet armor that made him into a giant walking flamethrower. Natalya was used to being taller than most men she met; with Supernaut she was reminded of her childhood…and the bullies she used to plot revenge on.
Turning only enough to blow smoke at his face, she said: “Shut up, Vassily Georgiyevich.” Supernaut narrowed his scarred eyes.
“Da, leave your Commissar alone.” Molotok—the Hammer—nearly two feet shorter than the giant, chimed in as he walked up at Red Saviour’s left. He craned his neck to meet the huge man’s gaze. “Right now the last thing she needs is your insubordination.”
“Fine. Horosho. I’ll just keep my mouth shut until a vacancy in CCCP leadership appears.” He smirked at Molotok. “That mob is as ready to kick out the Communists as I am.”
Red Saviour waved off Molotok’s angry retort. “Enough, tovarisch. If you ignore him, he wanders off to find somewhere else to boast.”
The Moscow contingent of the CCCP—Super-Sobratiye Sovetskikh Revolutzionerov, or Super-Brotherhood of Soviet Revolutionaries—had come out in force to support her during this hearing to determine her future as Commissar. Her father, the original Red Saviour, had led the team in the 1950’s during the early stages of the Cold War. Everyone had thought that the beautiful, charismatic daughter of the famous war hero would surely lead the CCCP back into the hearts and minds of the Russian people.
Yet her tenure had been a litany of one public relations disaster after another. Breathless news stories of the lovely new Commissar were supplanted by news bulletins of brutal raids on drug labs, accusations of backroom interrogations, and finally the arrest of the popular billionaire Triganov. Many hard-liners lauded her heavy-handed methods; many more politicians cried out for censure. Some questioned the need for a metahuman branch of the Federal Protective Service at all.
Their garish dress uniforms could not have looked more out of place in the elegant neoclassical corridors of the Presidium. Supernaut resembled a red fire engine tipped onto its end; Molotok contrasted him with a crisp black suit with red piping. Petrograd’s armor had been styled after the MiG fighter plane; trapped inside it because of the clumsy machinations of 1940’s Soviet superscience, he sat like an awkward, isolated teen on a divan. Soviette, as elegant as ever, read from a children’s book to the stony Chug, who came up to her shoulder but seemed to fill the space with his squat bulk.
Legs crossed in a lotus position, Natalya’s friend and mentor Fei Li, whose callsign was Meng Dao Ye—People’s Blade—seemed at ease in the alien environment. The diminutive Chinese girl housed the two-thousand-year-old spirit of a legendary general, Shen Xue, and wielded his deadly sword as well. The serene smile on her face diffused some of Natalya’s anxiety. Beyond her the rest waited, in varying poses of unease.
My troops, Red Saviour thought. My people. Have I lost their respect as well? They do not look me in the eye.
As she gazed at the anxious members of CCCP, those furthest down the corridor sprang to attention, saluting a new arrival. Boryets himself: Worker’s Champion, Hero of the Russian People.
He’d marched in the October Revolution, fought in the Great Patriotic War, counseled Lenin, enforced Stalin’s directives, founded CCCP itself, and watched the birth and death of the Soviet Union. “Natalya Nikolaevna,” he said, discarding her honorific. “I have been summoned to appear before the FSO to deliver my opinion on your competency. Is this how you repay my advocacy?”
Years receded as she braced against his withering glare. She was a child again, intimidated beyond words by “Uncle Boryets.”
She straightened her back. “Did you read my report?”
“Of course. You write with the impatience of a schoolgirl. Perhaps if you took more than five minutes to explain your evidence against Triganov, the council wouldn’t jump to assumptions.”
“They jump when Batov says jump,” she said, glancing back at the protesters.
“They jump”—anger clouded his already dour countenance—“when you rampage through the countryside like a Cossack!”
Natalya winced. Her fearlessness dwindled in the face of this man, as always. “Comrade, Triganov looted government funds for his own purposes! I followed the trail of bribes right to his front door. My contacts—”
“Your contacts are not material witnesses. We are no longer Soviets, you foolish girl.”
She flushed. “But, sir, if I’d waited for—”
He cut her off with a curt wave. “Save it for the Director.” He turned away to look out the window at the square full of angry Muscovites.
The double doors of the council chamber swung open. Lieutenant Cestimir Romanov ducked his head unconsciously as he slumped out of the chamber, followed by several of the council. He shook his head, avoiding her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, pushing past her.
“Sorry for what?” she said to his retreating back.
“He is sorry for telling us the truth,” a voice dripping with assurance said at her side. Arkady Levich Korovin, Undersecretary of Intelligence for FSO, favored Red Saviour with a patronizing smile. “Your friend tried to paint as pretty a picture as he could of your antics, but facts are facts.”
“Triganov is a criminal,” she said. “That is a fact.”
“Perhaps, but the facts can interfere with the truth.” Korovin was a few inches shorter than Natalya, but he spoke with a confidence won from years of bureaucratic battles. “We’re taking a brief recess. May I have a word with you?” Without waiting for a response, he lightly took her by the arm and guided her to a foyer away from the gathered metas.
“I have little stomach for this nonsense, Arkady Levich. I am a soldier, not a politician. How many speeches must I tolerate?”
Korovin sighed, still holding her arm. “How did we become so antagonistic towards each other? We both serve the FSO, Natalya Nikolaevna. Our duties are clear-cut.”
“Your duty is to boss around a staff of train conductors to evacuate Kremlin officials,” she said with scorn. “CCCP shouldn’t even be under your purview.”
“We shouldn’t argue, my friend.” He paused, daring her to question the familiarity. “You and I both know Triganov belongs in prison.”
“Da!” Red Saviour grinned at him. “Finally, someone sees reason.”
“But this is not 1980. We are no longer a totalitarian state. Triganov is a powerful—and very popular—figure in Russia right now. We must tread very carefully with the likes of him.”
“You can smooth out the ruffled feathers, Arkady Levich. Talk to Molotok. He has many friends in GRU.”
“I will of course do my best. But how will we save you?”
“I need no saving. I am doing my job.” She pursed her lips. “The council will lecture me about due process then let me go.”
“Not this time.” Korovin moved closer. “You’ve stepped on too many toes. Triganov has allies throughout the government, and they’re all screaming for blood. The council may sacrifice you to save CCCP.”
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
I Minus 00:32:15 and Counting
Detective Ramona Ferrari and the girls hushed when Mercurye strolled into the Echo cafeteria. “He walks like he really is a god,” Sheryl the researcher whispered with a smirk—but Ramona’s thoughts were strictly in the gutter. How could they not be? Staring at his broad shoulders and muscular chest—on display because he notoriously spurned shirts—one would have guessed him to be taller than his actual height. Blond curls peeked out from under a winged helmet straight out of an FTD florist logo. To complete the picture, a steel caduceus hung from his hand. His pants, however, were standard issue Echo nanoweave, as was the Echo caseless-round pistol strapped around his waist.
Way, way, way out of my league, even if he wasn’t a meta, Ramona lamented.
“Mmm, those pecs,” Sheryl said, licking her lips. Ramona and the others giggled. Ramona relished her weekly lunches with her friends on the Echo campus. Although they stared and giggled like schoolgirls, their jobs were anything but whimsical. Sheryl studied psychopathic behavior among metahumans. Denise worked in the infirmary, though her skillset would have placed her in any emergency room in the country. Midori worked in weapons tech.
To accommodate all their schedules, they met in midafternoon. Many lunches ended prematurely when a cell phone rang.
“If my husband knew how many of these metas were studs, he’d make me resign,” Midori said.
“And lose that paycheck?” Denise snorted. “Not likely. Just buy him a cape and a mask for a ‘fantasy night.’ ” The table erupted in laughter, drawing a glance from Mercurye himself. That got them laughing even harder.
“Oh, Jesus,” Sheryl said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I needed that. So, Ramona: got any good cases right now?”
“Hmm.” Ramona poured more sugar in her coffee. “We just wrapped up that kidnapping case, the three kids. Turns out the perp was just a kook in a mask. I had Shahkti set up to drill him, but Atlanta PD took over.” She shrugged.
“Well, she missed having to fill out hundred-page reports about the incident, to steer clear of the Extreme Force law.” Sheryl made a face. “Then again, she could just tie him up in spider webbing…splat!” The other girls snickered.
“Webbing?” Ramona furrowed her brow. “She can do that?”
Sheryl waved her arms like a giant bug. “Probably. Doesn’t she creep you out?”
“Her extra arms? You get used to it.” Ramona thought back to the cases she’d worked with the four-armed Indian metahuman. “What’s creepy is how dour she is. Does she even know how to smile?”
A man wearing a pair of elaborate metal gauntlets and stars-and-stripes epaulets entered the cafeteria. Yankee Pride spotted Ramona’s table and strode towards them purposefully. Ramona stared at him blankly for a moment, then her stomach lurched. She’d forgotten the prisoner interview he’d scheduled. She scrambled to dig through her briefcase for the paperwork.
“Ladies,” he drawled, inclining his head with a polite smile. The son of war heroes Yankee Doodle and Dixie Belle was said to power his energy gauntlet through a reservoir of internal energy. Somehow he didn’t have the aura of intimidation that most metahumans gave off unintentionally.
“Well hello, tall, dark and patriotic,” she said, still fishing for the paperwork. “I was just reviewing the file on that perp…”
“Were you?” He grinned at her.
She came up empty-handed. “No. I spaced it.”
Yankee Pride pulled up a chair to the table. “We have a minute now. You gonna eat that pickle?” He pointed to Midori’s plate. She chuckled and pushed it towards him.
Ramona brought her briefcase up to her lap to leaf through the papers. The file was buried by reports, dossiers, faxes and notepads.
“ ‘Heinrich Eisenhauer.’ Any relation to Dwight D.? I’m kidding.”
“He referred to himself as ‘Eisenfaust.’ German for ‘The Iron Fist.’ ” He shrugged. “I looked it up in Pop’s old papers, then online. Plenty of material on this guy from the historical sites.”
Ramona found the printout of the online article. “Nice detective work. What do you need me for?”
“Look at the dates, Detective.”
She bristled for a moment until she realized he used her title with respect, not sarcasm. “Hey.” She blinked at the printout. “This says he died over the Atlantic. The Bermuda Triangle.”
“Fighting the Allied Aces, right. Which makes our friend over in the security facility a liar or a science fiction novel come to life.”
“Occam’s Razor,” she said, making a cutting motion with one hand. “The simplest explanation is probably the best.”
“Sure, but the man’s a meta. I watched the security tapes. He moves like greased lightning.” Yankee Pride favored the women at the table with a meaningful look. “That changes everything.”
“You bet,” Sheryl said, nodding gravely. “Can I see?”
Ramona handed her the file. Sheryl moved her lips silently as she read the dossier, incident report and Yankee Pride’s research. Her shoulders hunched as if she were trying to force herself into the pages.
“He certainly believes he’s Eisenfaust,” she said in a small voice. The rest of the table leaned forward to hear her. “Bring a shrink.”
“Already reserved a slot in Doc Bootstrap’s schedule.” Yankee Pride winked at her. “Good to know I can still research.”
“Oh, please.” She returned the file to him, but he passed it right to Ramona.
“She’s got a little reading to do. Thirty minutes, Detective.” The seriousness returned to his demeanor. Did he think Ramona would find something he and Sheryl had missed?
Ramona sighed. “I’ll be ready,” she said, giving in to her own weaknesses and lighting up another cigarette, despite the cafeteria signs.
* * *
“He was my great-uncle,” Alex Tesla said with infinite patience. “My father knew him as a teenager.”
Framed by the gigantic plasma TV screen, the CEO of Computrex had reverted to giggling adolescence. “He knew Nikola Tesla? Are the stories true? He was building a death ray for the Army?”
“Uncle—er, Great-Uncle Tesla experimented on a wide variety of inventions, peaceful and otherwise. Some do lend themselves to lurid speculation. The Pentagon never provided him funding for any of his wartime projects.”
The man was undaunted. “So there is a Tesla death ray?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” The CEO, a mousy man with an ill-advised goatee grown to hide a double chin, lit up in excitement. “Does Echo have the prototype?”
“I’m teasing you, Mr. Faber. Echo Industries focuses on the peaceful applications of my great-uncle’s work in broadcast energy.” He smiled into the video camera. “Wouldn’t you say there are enough weapons in the world already?”
“I suppose.” Faber was unappeased. “What about antigravity? They say that—”
“Trust me, if we had antigravity technology, you and I would not be discussing broadcast power sourcing to server farms. I’d be selling flying cars and floating cities to Arab sheiks.”
Faber laughed thinly at the quip. Reality never fails to disappoint, Tesla thought.
Yet ever since Echo was founded in the 1950’s by his father, Andro Tesla, Echo had used their metahuman law enforcement contractors—what amounted to a private army—to maintain public goodwill towards the alternate energy source that had made Nikola Tesla famous.
When Alex took over in the 1980’s, he hoped that the oil shortages would spur acceptance of broadcast energy for automobiles. Yet the oil companies would not be beaten easily; their network of purchased politicians pushed laws to limit the uses of broadcast energy sources “pending further study.”
Ultimately the legend surrounding Nikola Tesla caught the imagination of technology industry entrepreneurs who sought any shortcut to market saturation. Restrictions were loosened, awkward young multimillionaires like Gerald Faber requested meetings with Alex, and inroads were made.
“In all seriousness, though, you might be interested in our Industry Leader Retreats, which we offer to our best customers. A week touring Echo facilities, viewing the latest research, meeting the operatives—”
“I can hang out with the superpowered metas?”
Alex hoped his smile hid the hunter’s sense of triumph he felt. “The Echo Ops are common at any Echo campus. You’ll surely become accustomed to them, as we have.”
“What’s that cost?” Faber’s faced loomed in the plasma screen, eager as an amateur porn actor.
“It’s provided as a courtesy to our elite customers. Why don’t we review the prospectus—”
A gentle buzz tickled his wrist in an alternating sequence of short and long bursts. He jerked erect.
“Mr. Faber, I fear something has come up that requires my immediate attention.” He paused. “Something urgent involving our Atlanta metas. Can we continue this conversation at your earliest convenience?”
Without waiting for a confirmation, he waved his assistant forward. Planner in hand, the young man took Alex’s seat as he raced out of the room.
Alex all but ran back to his office. Kim held up a sheaf of faxes and letters but he cut her off with a gesture. “Hold my calls,” he said, disappearing into his office. He ignored his desk, walking up to the bookcase and tugging at Bullfinch’s Mythology. The book tilted forward with a click. The bookcase swung into the wall to reveal a narrow, dark, spiral staircase. He gripped the rail as he vaulted down the stairs three at a time, descending ten stories and down into the ground.
The small room at the foot of the stairs was lit only by the glow emanating from the panels of sleek machinery attached to the walls. In the center of the room, four coils mounted on posts sparked and hummed. Before the square they formed was a wooden chair; a helmet bristling with wires and antennae hung from the seatback.
Alex flipped a few switches: the coils came to life, coruscating electricity between them, a four-cornered Tesla coil of a design unknown to the outside world. The tangy taste of ozone permeated the dank room.
Alex scooted the chair back a foot and sat. The helmet flattened his electrically excited hair. When he closed a circuit on the helmet, the intermittent shapes filled the air and took on a recognizable form.
“I’m here, Uncle,” Alex said.
His soul contained in a matrix of neutrons, the entity that had been Nikola Tesla took a moment to process the visual data fed him by the machines in the tiny, hidden room. A speaker converted electrical impulses into sound.
“Alex. We must talk, you and I, about your guest, this Eisenfaust.”
* * *
The bookcase opened and shut behind him. Head bowed, Alex mused on his great-uncle’s words. For Nikola to call so abruptly could only mean that the man—if he could still be called that—regarded the matter of Eisenfaust with enormous concern. He needed to talk to Yankee Pride, whose suspicions had been triggered enough to send a message to Metis, to Uncle Tesla—
“Oops, chief. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Alex started. Doc Bootstrap stood by his desk, arranging a set of syringes, as casual as a bartender.
Alex glanced back at the bookcase. “I thought I’d locked the office door.”
“You did. Kim let me in.” Doc Bootstrap nodded at the closed door. “Nice bookcase. When do I get one?”
“Ah…” Alex hesitated. “Executive washroom. Leftover from my father’s time.” He waved a hand in front of his nose. “You don’t want to go in there right now.”
Doc held a syringe up to the light. “I hoped to catch you before I had to sit in on the Eisenfaust interview.” An odd expression crossed the man’s face—half worry, half triumph.
“Eisenfaust. Yes. Um…Yankee Pride gave me a quick rundown. What do you think? Is he the real thing?”
Doc Bootstrap shrugged. “Are you asking me if a man who disappeared in 1945 can waltz into our laps as if sixty years hadn’t passed?”
“I guess,” Alex said, chuckling.
The psychiatrist patted his syringes. “We’ll find out his side of the story in a few minutes. I can tell you this, though.” A grin widened on his face until it was a rictus.
He lunged forward and jabbed the syringe into Alex’s neck.
Alex staggered back. He hadn’t even seen the man move. Numbness spread from the injection through his throat, so that he couldn’t speak. His hands clawed at the syringe; he fell across his desk. Paperwork fluttered to the floor.
Doc Bootstrap loomed over him. The room began to spin, and it seemed to Alex that the doctor’s features softened as though his bones shifted.
“You hold our old friend, the real Eisenfaust, in your pathetic cellblock, Amerikaner.” Doc Bootstrap’s accent had shifted from a gruff Midwestern twang to a clipped Germanic. “I could kill him myself, but it is not my place. My superiors will be here shortly to exact revenge on the traitor.” He patted Alex’s cheek. “Nor will I kill you. Better for you to live as we burn your little army and your city in a ring of cleansing fire. The Thule Society wants you to live on to experience your humiliation in the eyes of the world.”
The doctor rolled up his syringes. “Now, I have an appointment to keep. I would ask Kim to look in on you, but I had to snap her neck to get your key.”
He rolled up his sleeve. A small metal device on his arm blinked red and green. Doc Bootstrap pressed it: the red vanished, leaving the green light.
“We’ll meet again, Alex Tesla. I can become anyone, male or female. Your mother, your lover, your best friend, your doctor. You’ll never know it’s me until you feel my breath on your neck. I love—absolutely love—that moment of realization. It is the thing I treasure most in this world. You will live long enough to see my face change. Then, and only then, will the Doppelgaenger take your life.”
Alex’s eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped over.