Chapter Thirty Seven
When preparing an ambush, estimate the strength of your target. Then overprepare. Never bring “just enough to handle it.”
Lei Zi, On Superhuman Combat: Strategy and Tactics.
* * *
I screamed like a girl. Someday Dispatch is going to release The Greatest Screams of Astra the Girl Wonder on ViewTube. When Seven
hit the brakes, I kicked the unlatched doors open and threw Fisher out onto the hood of the tail-car.
“Team One, Villain-X is awake!” I shouted in my earbug. A grinding crash up ahead preempted my concern. Peeking over the top of
the paddywagon, I watched a truly huge armored robot unfold from inside a truck-trailer shell. Straightening, it stood at least
three stories tall.
“Astra?” Seven responded. “I think you should focus on our guest.”
In the wagon, Villain-X popped his Blacklock titanium restraints like they were ordinary policeman’s cuffs and started working on
the cage. Watching his brightening infrared signature, I started giggling. “Guys? He’s been repossessed.”
“Understood,” Lei Zi said dryly. “He’s your job, Astra; we have more incoming.”
“So are we,” Galatea sang out. The yellow flare of her jet-boots lit the dark sky as she dropped from the DSA helicopter. Above
her, I could see the gold sparkle of Variforce’s field morphing into hang-glider wings as he descended more slowly.
“Flash Mob, fifteen, maybe twenty dupes closing on our position,” Platoon reported. “Two unidentified villains.”
“Platoon, defense perimeter,” Lei Zi called. “Seven and Quin inside. Variforce and Iron Jack on Tin Man. Galatea, reserve.”
Automatic fire erupted as our ten-man Platoon bailed out of the escort vehicles and opened up on Flash Mob’s psychotic screaming
dupes. A bone-grinding scream ripped the air. “New villains identified,” Platoon said. “Shriek: focused sonic attack. Swarm:
micro-particle cloud form, toxic attack.”
“Astra? Update?” Lei Zi asked. Titanium bars screamed in protest as Villain-X twisted them. He laughed at me.
“Villain-X will be in the open momentarily,” I said, gripping Malleus (Latin for hammer; Shell’s insistent suggestion, and I
couldn’t think of a better name for Ajax’ weapon).
“Do what you can.”
Both the restraints and the cage had been rated for Villain-X’s known strength; his demon-possessed strength was a different
story, but we hadn’t counted on Hecate’s demons repossessing him remotely. What else could go wrong?
The air filled with rotting carrion stench as a flesh-shrouded, iron clawed Devourer twisted into existence above the street.
“Oh, come on!”
Lei Zi saw it. “Galatea, target the demon—light it up! Team Two, you are clear to go!”
Galatea’s missile-launch filled the air with smoking trails, but Villain-X occupied my attention as the stressed bars gave up and
he lunged out of the wagon. I swung and knocked him to the street. He bounced up and ducked under my back-swing, still laughing.
Using my swing for spin, I kicked him in the head.
It didn’t slow him down, but he grabbed me from the front. Big mistake—his brains had to be cooking. I threw us down, shattered
pavement flying as I landed on him and thrust with my knees. He let go as I pinned him against the street, screamed, and swung.
The crunch ran up my arm and he went limp, boneless. Dead? I couldn’t hear a heartbeat over the avalanching explosions and auto-
fire, but at least he was out. Launching myself, I scanned the field. Dad pounded on the giant robot’s legs while Variforce,
surrounded by glowing layers of articulated force-field armor, scaled the thing to shatter plates with a force-field jackhammer.
Lei Zi threw ball-lightning at Flash Mob, and everyone else seemed on it. For a micro-second, I worried about what Team Two was
facing. Focus.
“I’m clear!” I called.
Then Shriek’s sonic attack howled and Variforce’ golden armor disintegrated, ground away. “Down to six,” Platoon announced as
he fell back. Flash Mob’s duplicates attacked like killing was the most fun they could have in their brief existences. Shredded
by Galatea’s missiles, the Devourer wailed but didn’t stop as it reached for Fisher. He stood in the street, calmly firing back
with no effect. Could a projection kill a projection? Up the street, The Harlequin disappeared inside a human-shaped particle
cloud. A second scream pounded the DSA car Lei Zi crouched behind.
“Report, Astra,” Dispatch cut in. “Lei Zi is down; do we have a Charley Foxtrot?”
Charley Foxtrot; the polite term for what the military called an engagement screwed up beyond all recognition.
“I—” How should I know? What could I do?
“… Charley Foxtrot!” I confirmed, diving for the Devourer. We needed Team Two.
“Charley Foxtrot,” Dispatch said. “Stand by for Team Two redeploy—”
“Wait!” I shouted. Four figures dressed in blue fatigues appeared on the street in a flare of light. One leaped into the air,
and another threw a ball of crackling energy—at Shriek. The flyer rammed into Tin Man.
“Abort Foxtrot!” I shouted. “Seven, help Quin. Iron Jack, support Variforce—”
“My field is stabilizing,” Variforce cut in.
“Iron Jack, stay on Tin Man! Variforce, with me! Galatea, backup Platoon. Fisher! Run!”
I hit the Devourer with the paddywagon.
Penetration missiles hadn’t done much, but ten tons of armored truck pinned it to the street and its ululating scream pounded my
ears. The fuel tank ruptured, drowning its rotten stink in gas fumes. Variforce dropped down beside me, riding a jet turbine of
shaped golden fields.
“Can you restrain it?” I yelled, watching it struggle to pull itself out from under the truck.
He laughed. “No worries.” His fields folded, expanded, became a web that wound about the thing, a net that ignored its slicing
claws to bind its uncountable limbs and gas-soaked skin shrouds. Out of its reach, Fisher stopped to watch. He lit up, took a deep
draw, and flipped the cig, end over end, onto the writhing creature. The flash of combustive explosion fluttered my cape.
The wash of heat brought me to my senses. Why was everyone listening to me?
“Astra,” The Harlequin reported. “Swarm couldn’t penetrate my rubberized skin. Seven froze his cloud with a field
extinguisher.”
“Great! What do I do?”
“Keep directing—you’re the only one who can see the whole fight!”
I looked around frantically. Paper to scissors to rock… “Seven, engage Flash Mob. Quin, please help Lei Zi. Variform, keep the
Devourer down.”
“Got it!” “Roger!” “On it!” came back. With the help of those four unknowns, we were winning.
Then Villain-X hit me again.
* * *
So, not dead, I thought fuzzily. I’d lost Mallius somewhere, and floated in the free-fall feeling of flying a perfect ballistic
arc. I opened my eyes when we accelerated, and found myself staring into Villain-X’s maniacal grin. The skin on his face had
started to darken and crack, nothing human looked back at me, and he Wouldn’t. Stop. Laughing.
I looked “up,” realized we were racing for the ground, pushed back, and then pulled, spinning us around our mutual center of
rotation an instant before my world disappeared again.
I opened my eyes again and blinked away concrete and plaster dust. Predawn light filtered down to show me a showroom floor crowded
with shiny new boats.
Joy. I hope they’re insured.
Nerve-shredding laughter erupted beneath me. Villain-X opened his eyes, portals into Hell, and screamed at me.
Heavily insured.
Somehow my mask had stayed on, and Lei Zi’s weak voice filtered through the screaming.
“Astra. What is your condition?”
“Busy!” I yelled. “He’s getting stronger!”
“Get elevation, make sure he follows you.”
“That won’t be a problem!” I hit him with the smashed engine-block beside his head. Repeatedly, while he lay there and screamed
at me. My nerve broke when he reached for me, and I flew—not bothering to find our entrance-hole in my panic. Shaking bits of
roofing off of me, I climbed.
He climbed faster.
No no no no no—
He grabbed my ankle, and Galatea’s penetrator missiles lit him up, the blast throwing me across the sky. Shaking it off, I
circled back around to track Villain-X as he fell, a falling star burning bright.
“Astra! Catch!” Variforce called, and Mallius arced towards me, turning end over end. I reached out as it smacked into my hand,
and threw myself down maul-first, following Villain-X’s fall and racing gravity to the ground. He cratered the street and then I
hit him, the double shockwave throwing chunks of street and bouncing whole vehicles into the air. I absorbed the shock with
perfect form and, rolling to my feet, leaped out of the hole. Beside me, the DSA tail-car came down in the middle of the Devourer
’s burning remains.
“Geez, kid.” Fisher climbed to his feet. “Did you get him?”
“I—I don’t know,” I gasped, watching the smoking hole.
I kept hold of my maul when he screamed out of the pit to hit me again. He headed for sky and took me with him, wrapping his arms
around my waist. I should have been screaming; instead I shortened my grip and swung Malleus again and again.
“What! Does! It! Take! To! Kill! You?”
It took that, apparently—he let go and fell into the spreading flames of ground zero. I hovered, trying to breathe, and waited
for him to get up. When he didn’t, I landed and forced myself to pull him out of the fire. And stared; he was cooling and the
woogy sense of magic was gone.
“Team Two reported!” Shelly called. “Hecate is dead!”
“Astra, report,” Lei Zi said.
“I—I’m… Villain-X is down,” I stammered, not believing it. The giggles came bubbling up. “I—I think he’s been
dispossessed.”
“Astra, repeat please?”
“C-can’t!” My knees hit the street as I hugged myself, laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. Fisher looked on tolerantly as the
world blurred with laughter tears, and when he lit up again I almost passed out.