Suppressant was a drug the US government had developed in order to deal with metahumans. It suppressed the powers of any metahuman for a period of hours once they’d been injected. Regular use would render a meta like me pretty thoroughly human. Which was a scary thought for a meta. I’d been under its influence once, a few years ago, when a group of Russian mercenaries hired to break someone out of the prison I guarded for the US government had stumbled on the wise idea of disempowering Sienna Nealon before they tried to rip something away from me.
It contained echoes of what was happening now. Those Russian mercs hadn’t known what hit them when I’d proceeded to kill every single one of their asses without any powers at hand. I’d gone full Die Hard, and shown the world that the powers didn’t make the woman.
This, though, was a little different situation. When that had happened, I’d had guns, explosives…what the military called “force equalizers.” Here, Rose had superpowers and I had my own two hands and feet. She had super strength, speed, dexterity…I had those, heightened, but no match for hers, I suspected. I’d been working out, sure, but she could probably draw on strength enough to lift mountains while I topped out at—well, I actually didn’t know where I topped out with just my own succubus powers. I wasn’t going to be Crossfitting with mountains, though.
But if I could hit her with a dose of Suppressant…she’d be human, and I’d be superhuman. My meta power would probably override hers, then, which meant I could maybe drain my souls back without having to worry about her ripping the life out of me. I could give her a taste of her own bitter, shit-tasting medicine.
I took a steadying breath. I was kneeling about a hundred yards inside the treeline that overlooked the airfield. It was quiet. The grass strip looked like it had been freshly mowed, and I wondered if they’d done it in order to accommodate my plane, which would hopefully be arriving soonish.
Getting my hands on some Suppressant wouldn’t be overly hard. Every police force in the US was ordering it nowadays, now that metahumans had gone epidemic in America. Finding someone selling a dart gun and doses of Suppressant was probably going to be worlds easier than actually delivering it to Rose, which would involve sneaking up on her like she was a wascawy wabbit and tranqing her when she wasn’t looking.
Now I had a plan, at least. Get Suppressant, dose the bitch, take back what was mine. Easy peasy. Sort of. I wished I had had this brainstorm earlier; I could have had Fritz send some along to this meet. It probably wasn’t quite as prevalent in the EU territories, given that they weren’t yet having the meta problems the US was, but there had to be some on hand in order to make sure their ban on our kind was enforceable. Because as far as I knew, they didn’t have a meta team of their own to deal with flare-ups.
I stared out at the green airstrip, long grass waving between the edge of the woods and where it waited. I doubted my ride was going to be a Gulfstream or something similar, not at this tiny airstrip. Not if they knew what they were doing. They’d need to bring in a prop plane, something that wouldn’t have a jet engine to suck up foreign object debris. Something like…
A Cessna buzzed in the distance, making its approach. I had a feeling they didn’t get a ton of traffic here, but it was hardly a guarantee that this was my plane. If it was, though, I was looking forward to getting my hands on a gun, if only for the reassuring sense that if Rose showed her face, I’d be able to pop a dozen rounds in it from long range. Seeing her grimace in pain would be so joyful right now.
The plane swayed in the cross-breeze, the winds rustling the trees around me as I crept closer and closer to the edge of the woods. I didn’t know who exactly I was looking for, but I knew that they’d find a way to make it known that they were here to meet me. I suspected I’d need to approach them, play it cool, start a conversation. If they didn’t evince surprise at the sight of me, they were probably my crew.
The Cessna bumped as it landed, but hugged the ground, the nose tip prop spinning so quickly I couldn’t see terribly well through it. I could tell it was a guy at the controls, though, and the way the plane bounced made me think it was carrying some decent weight on those axles considering he was the only one in there. That could have meant he had my hardware, or it could have meant he had a crate of heroin in the back. Either or.
It taxied to a stop and rolled toward the tower and administration building—the only building on site, really—and when it finished, he waved over a guy who was standing there, waiting. They spoke, briefly, and the pilot wandered off toward the admin building while the airfield employee went and got a hose and started to fill up the plane. I watched as the guy spent some time fueling it up, then put away the hose securely. The bunkers for the fuel must have been under the ground, because there were only a couple hangars and they were both open, and definitely not meant for big planes.
I had a plan. (Actually, I had a few plans, including an escape one, but hopefully that wouldn’t become necessary.) When the pilot came back out, I was going to watch his actions for a few minutes before I approached. The fact that he’d disappeared right into the admin building—a squat, one-story building no bigger than a small house that was connected to their stubby tower—didn’t necessarily mean anything. He could have really needed to pee after a long flight. He probably had to pay for the fuel and landing fees and whatever other ancillary charges there might be to land at a field like this.
If he left the admin building and immediately started to take off in his plane, he probably wasn’t my ride. If, on the other hand, he lingered around…
Well, then I’d make my approach.
The sound of the trees rustling above and behind me in the wind was a nice symphony. I looked for signs of trouble, but I wasn’t seeing any. Other than the guy who fueled up the Cessna, there didn’t seem to be anyone here. Someone was up in the tower, maybe—it was hard to tell because there was a fierce glare on the windows—but it was pretty close to the ground, maybe a story or two up at most. The admin building could have hidden some people in it, but not that many. It was safe to say there wasn’t a regiment of troops secretly hiding in its confines, but it would have been able to house a SWAT team or the like fairly easily.
Doubly good reason to watch the pilot carefully when he came back out. If he was being pressed by Scottish cops right now, he’d probably show some sign of it if he emerged. Of course, I didn’t think they were here, but I hadn’t thought Rose was conning me, either. Now that I’d found my judgment suspect once, I’d be second-and third-guessing myself every time, at least for a while, because that girl had rendered a harsh lesson unto me.
Just when I was starting to wonder if maybe the pilot had died in there and nobody had bothered to call an ambulance, he came bopping back out, just like normal. Or what I thought was probably normal for him. There was no hitch in his giddyap, no sign that he was more nervous or worried than when he’d come in. I finally got a decent look at him. He had olive skin, wore dark sunglasses (probably unnecessary given the weather), had black hair that was well styled, and was dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, with the tail untucked—very casual, his loafers black and shining against the green grass as he made his way back to the plane.