"I know you have... feelings for her." It pained Drake to say that. "So do I. But this isn't about us. It's about her, what she needs right now. I don't have powers. You do. You need to lead the strike team against Steele."
Darren scowled and clenched his fist, then released it. "You'd better get her back."
"I will. We need to be careful. Darren, your powers won't be enough to take Steele down, not with what he's become, but you can distract him from a distance, which is more than any of us can do. Even if I had my powers, unless I could crack his mind, I wouldn't be able to do that. So create a big enough diversion, for long enough, that he stays engaged."
Each member of the skilled team possessed useful para-powers, and all were armed with weapons and vials of the drug that would eliminate Steele's powers.
"Greg, Gary, Mary, Norm—keep your eyes open for a chance to strike. If we can disarm him, we can take him down." Drake made eye contact with each person in the helicopter. "This can work, guys. It has to. Sam and Ana need it to. But it's bigger than that, even. What Steele is doing will not only end the lives of a lot of people, but will result in a world that will never accept paranormals for what we are. He's already killed, used and abused so many children in his quest for power. We can't let him succeed. I don't know what he's planning with an inactive volcano and the world's attention, but let's not find out, okay?"
Norm lowered the helicopter to prepare for a landing. "We're all going to die."
Drake slapped him on the back. "Way to keep it positive, dude."
They couldn't land on Diamond Head directly, for risk of Steele pulling them out of the sky, and they couldn't get too close, since the U.S. military had created a perimeter around the volcano to keep civilians from getting in—their way of 'maintaining control' of the situation.
Yeah, that's clearly working so well.
The two teams split up to accomplish their missions. Darren and his group would use Mary to seduce their way in and challenge Steele directly, while Drake and Robyn snuck in from behind to power-up and save Sam and Ana.
Though the military had done their best to evacuate the area, locals still pressed in to see what was going on. Some watched the live footage on their iPads and iPhones even as they tried to catch a glimpse of the madman live in action.
Robyn and Drake closed in on the scene, pushing people away to get close. As they approached, a homeless man dressed in rags snuck under the caution tape and made a run for it.
Two soldiers in camo tackled the guy to the ground and dragged him away.
Was he trying to join Steele to get access to power? Drake looked around and realized a lot of the people he'd assumed were locals looked very poor and lost, beaten down by society. Steele offered them hope and power, so of course they'd come to collect.
Robyn transformed into a solider and pushed through the tape, holding Drake by the arm.
One of the soldiers on duty stopped them. "What are you doing, bringing him in?"
Robyn, looking like a soldier herself, shrugged. "Orders from top. I heard he's got some information."
The soldier used his radio to ask his commanding officer, but no one responded. "They're probably in a meeting. Okay, go on. Any damn information sounds good right about now."
The tension drained from Drake as Robyn smiled and escorted him deeper into the military camp. Tents, soldiers and tanks littered the area adjacent to the tuff cone that created the symmetrical crater. Doing any of this without power gave Drake a serious headache. He'd spent his whole life able to walk in and out of anything with the use of his para-powers, and being vulnerable when so much was at stake scared the crap out of him.
All the soldiers stared at a new element added to the U.S. Monument—a giant stone wall made from jagged rock pulled up from the earth by the Grunts that Steele had created. Another barrier, and they still had a forty-five-minute hike up the crater.
Robyn, still in soldier gear, whispered to Drake. "How are we going to get there?"
He shook his head. There hadn't been time to wait for IPI to coordinate with the upper echelon of the government in order to give non-agents clearance. Not to mention the fact that the U.S. military didn't actually know about IPI, at least not officially, and certainly not the ground crew. IPI's agents in charge had been Simmons and Morrison, and one was in jail and the other dead. They were scrambling to get their shit together, just like everyone else.
Drake and his teams were on their own. "We need a distraction or...." He motioned to a heavily armored vehicle. "Or something distracting. Get in."
They climbed in the truck, with Robyn in the driver's seat, since she still looked like a solider. "What's next?"
"We drive straight at the wall."
She dropped her hands from the steering wheel and one covered her stomach.
Drake hoped she wasn't going to be sick on him.
"Are you crazy?"
"A little. When your baby gets kidnapped, it does tend to make you nuts."