Yesterday's Heroes (Consortium of Chaos Book 1) (53 page)

She gave the wires another yank and
there was a worrisome sizzling sound from the inside the machine.  She ignored
it.

Vaudeville winced as the wire
clippers were poised over a blue wire…  A new voice boomed out. 
“STOP!”

Everyone turned to see Piltdown
running up to the machine.  Behind him, Harlot was pushing Wyatt’s gurney along
with her.  None of them looked at all happy with Stacy’s plan. 

Piltdown hopped up onto the control
platform and stared down in disbelief at the panel.  “Oh no…  Dammit, girl!  What
did
YOU DO!?!  WHAT DID YOU DO!?!”

Stacy winced and backpedaled away
from him until she ran into Gurrier’s legs.  “Me?  Nothing…I…”

Gurrier helped her to her feet and
then stepped in front of her.  He grabbed Piltdown by the front of his leopard
print fur toga, lifted him off his feet and glared down into his face.  “
She
knows what she’s doing…RIGHT?”

Piltdown swallowed and then tried
to pry his garment free from the other man’s grasp.  “Yes, I’m sure she knows
exactly what she’s doing…as long as she’s PLANNING on blowing us all to hell!” 
He looked down at the panel again.  “Blue wire? 
BLUE WIRE!?! 
Why would
it be the BLUE wire?!?  Only a complete IDIOT would think it was the blue wire! 
That’s obviously the…”  He trailed off as he noticed that Hazard was eyeing him
dangerously.  He stammered and tried to retract his statement.  “…an idiot or…a
genius,
who’s smart enough to see that the perfect way to disguise the
trigger, is by switching it with another color wire.  Wow, Stacy.  That was
really clever of you to see past their trick like that.”

She smiled proudly, and Gurrier
helped her down from the machine.

Piltdown looked at the panel
helplessly.  “Jesus…  She pulled all the wires out. 
And
fried the
board.”

Gurrier gave the man a hard slap on
the back.  A little too hard, and the smaller man stumbled forward a step.  Gurrier
gave no indication that he cared.  “Well, I’m sure that will make finding the
right
wire simpler for you then.  They’re much easier to access now,
aren’t they?
 
Don’t you think you should
thank
her for all she’s done to help?”

“Oh yes.  I’m ever so glad she was
here to help me.  Oh, look: the bypass line is burned through too.”  He looked
down at her.  “Thanks, Stacy!  You’ve done it, again!”

She grinned and bobbed her head
with enthusiasm.  “Oh, you’re welcome.”

A
boy was stung by a prickly bush.  He ran home and told his Mother, saying,
"It hurts very much, but I only touched it gently."  "That was
just why it stung you," said his Mother.  "The next time you touch
the plant, grasp it boldly, and it will be soft as silk to your hand." 
The moral of the story?  Whatever you do, do with all your might

It was all coming apart.

Harlot looked around, and not for
the first time in the past hour, she began to feel that there was a very good
chance that they were all going to die here.

Her father had taken a group of
members forward, and was doing God knew what.  Most of the rest of their team
was scattered around in random skirmishes, and more than a few of them were now
dead.  Wyatt was barely hanging on.  A handful of them were currently clustered
around the weather machine, and no one seemed to have
any
idea what to
do next.  Half of them weren’t concentrating, and the other half was rendered
effectively useless by their own crippling personality defects.  This was a
critical time, and the Consortium had no one left.

Harlot pounded a frustrated fist
against the control panel of the machine.  Cory carefully arranged his news
camera for a more interesting angle on the action, then turned back around and
watched her struggle with the controls.  “Damn.”  His voice was filled with
mock regret.  “If only they had made a ‘
Fabricator’
brand doomsday
devise disarming kit.  Then I bet you’d know ALL about this, Harlot.”  He
sighed.  “Of course, you’d probably refuse to take the kit out of its original
box, so…”  He smirked and was about to finish the taunt when he was
interrupted.

There was a flash of light and a
scary looking guy dressed in black stood a short distance away for a moment
before dashing off, and then there was another flash of light, and Consortium
member Rhett Novikov AKA “Retcon” stood a short distance away.  Strangely, he
looked different than he did an hour ago, which meant that this was probably a him
from the future.  He turned and chased after the larger man, who had fled down
an alley carrying something.

Cory blinked at them a moment.  “Okay. 
Weird.  Did anyone else just see that, or did someone slip me LSD again?”

She shook her head.  “Rhett’s got
it.”

She ignored the figures completely;
not even bothering to turn her head as their chase continued.  Retcon’s power
was freaky time-stuff which Harlot didn’t understand.  She was used to this
sort of thing happening when he was around, and it didn’t faze her at all.  It
most likely wasn’t even related to anything that was going on here tonight, and
it was best not to ask, just in case it would create one of those paradox
thingies.  None of her business.

Wyatt put his bruised face in his
palm and glared at his companions as they sat in front of an electronics store
watching the TV in its window.  “Can we please forget about cartoons and focus
on the doomsday device that’s about to go off?”  He sounded very angry.  “Our
family’s out there
dying
and Harlot’s the only one doing anything about
it!  You guys are just sitting here arguing about cartoons!”  He tried to sit
up.  “That’s it…if the rest of you aren’t going to help her, then I’ll have to
do it
myself
.”

She pushed him back onto the
gurney.  “You’re not going anywhere.  You’re staying put.  Doctor’s orders.”

“
Mortician’s
orders,
actually.”  He grumbled, obviously not liking the fact that he was out of the
fight. 

Vaudeville turned to the camera which
Connie the reporter had helpfully left behind when she fled in terror, and put
on a long suffering face.  “You see what I have to put up with?  THIS is why I
was forced to turn to villainy in the first place; being shunned by a cruel
world that doesn’t understand me.  I’m the
victim
here, folks.”

Megaris didn’t bother to look away
from the television in the window of the electronics store.  “I do not like
these ‘Rescue Rodents’ creatures.  Their endless capering grows tiresome.  Why
must they consistently meddle in affairs which are clearly not their own?  This
is the problem with your species; always interfering with your betters.”

Vaudeville raised his hand.  “
Rescue
RANGERS
.  And ummm…we’re not actually mice.  Or chipmunks.”

She turned to pin him with a
suspicious glare.  “I have no way of knowing that, TV Man.  This show records
that all manner of vermin are capable of appearing humanoid when it suits their
purposes.”

Gurrier put his fist through the
television screen.  “Enough TV.  I’m sick of hearing rats sing about cola.”

Piltdown pulled out a red wire and
snipped it.  The noises stopped and he smiled…then his smile faded as the area
was filled with a low frequency hum.  “Oh, hell.”

Stacy beamed.  “HA!  I
TOLD
you
it was the blue one!”  She turned to Gurrier.  “Didn’t I tell him that, Hazz? 
Huh?  Didn’t I?  But Nooooooo, everyone just thought they knew better than the
blonde!”

Gurrier nodded casually, and
glanced up at Harlot and Piltdown.  “She did tell you that, yes.  Several times
as I recall.”  He gave her hard hat a pat.  “Good job, Kid.”

She beamed up at him, and pulled
out her small pink phone.  “Hold, on.  I’m going to take a quick shot of this
and send it to my brothers.  They never trust me with stuff either.  Well, HA!”

Piltdown rose to his feet and
backed away from the machine.  “That’s…that’s impossible…”  He stared down at
the wires a moment longer.  “GODDAMMIT!  You switched the inputs when you put
them back, Stacy!”

Gurrier’s eyes narrowed.  “Oh,
bollocks!
 
Sounds like you’re just trying to pass the blame for YOUR fuckup off on the
Kid! 
Take some responsibility!”

Stacy nodded.  “Yeah!  That’s on
YOU!”  She snapped the pic of Piltdown’s worried face and the blinking doomsday
device, and quickly sent it to her bothers’ cell phones.

Vaudeville watched the lights as
they started blinking faster and an eerie glow began to emanate from beneath
the device.  “Ummmm…should it be doing that?  Because that’s not really
inspiring me with much hope.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t think it should be
doing that.”

A monitor flickered on with a
countdown clock in the corner.  Stacy frowned.  “Why is there always a
countdown clock?  Huh?  Why not just have a…”

Gurrier interrupted.  “A big red
button marked ‘activate’?”

She nodded.  “Well, I better have
another crack at it then, since Piltdown has totally
failed
and doomed
us all.”

The other man was literally
speechless and he made an astonished gasp.  “Me?  But I’m not the one who…”  He
gave an annoyed growl.  “FINE.  You want to take away our last few seconds of
life, be my guest Stacy.  Have at it.  You couldn’t POSSIBLY screw up more than
you already have!”

Stacy started to pull out some more
of the circuit boards when a noise at the end of the street stopped her.  The
group turned to see half a dozen members of the Freedom Squad standing in the
road, obviously preparing to attack them again.

Dammit.

Harlot looked from the heroes, to
her family, and then behind them to the rest of the city.  Her eyes narrowed,
and she turned around to face her team, again.  “We’ve failed at every plan
we’ve ever had.  We haven’t taken over the world despite thirty years of trying
on a daily basis.  As super-villains we were incompetent.  But today
WE’RE
the
ones fighting for what’s right, and we are NOT failing at this. 
We hold
this line
, understand!?!  We are
IT!
  Those nefarious bastards CANNOT
get that machine, so we stop them, and we stop them now.  They don’t stand a
chance if we stand together!”

Vaudeville frowned.  “Isn’t that
the slogan from the old…”

She cut him off.  “Shut up.  If
we’re going to be this city’s protectors, then we’re going to ACT LIKE IT.  We’re
THROUGH losing; today the villains
WIN
!”  She began issuing them their
new marching orders.  “Piltdown and Vaudeville; turn off the timer on that
machine, I don’t care how you do it, but do it NOW.”  She turned to look at Amy
who was currently saying prayers over the dead.  “Amity, go find our missing people. 
Bring them back here, alive or dead.  Enmity, go with her and clear the path;
kill anything in your way that’s wearing a cape.  Take
NO
chances. 
Gurrier, stop the enemy from getting closer to the machine.  They’re about to
attack, and I want you taking the fight to them first.  I don’t care if you
have to throw a building at them to do it, just
get it done
.”  Harlot
frowned.  There were still too many of them.  He wouldn’t be enough on his own.
 She glanced over at Megaris.  No.  No, she’d only use Meg if she had
ABSOLUTELY no other choice.  Asking her for help was the equivalent of pulling
a pin on a hand grenade, and walking out to face your enemy; a suicidal move
designed to kill you both, with no thought to the crater which would left
behind.  Someone would have to help Hazard though.  She did a quick rundown of
potential choices.  “
Someone find me, K…”

Tyrant strolled from an alleyway
behind them.  An energy blast streaked towards him and he swore.  He quickly
turned around; shielding his caged hostage in front of him and catching the
blast with the wide expanse of his back.  The energy crackled over him without
effect.  He turned to yell at his attackers.  “Stop terrorizing my hostage! 
She is an innocent victim! 
MY
innocent victim, and should not be
victimized by anyone but ME! 
Is that understood!?!”

Excellent.  Just the megalomaniacal
homicidal lunatic she was looking for.  She pointed a finger at his chest.  “Tyrant,
our enemies are down there.”  She glanced over at the bodies of several of her
dead friends, and then gestured down the street towards their killers.  “
Make
them bleed
.”

He scowled.  “I don’t take orders
from YOU, girl.”

She met his gaze.  “You just did. 
Go
.”

Stacy squared her jaw as she
watched the group of heroes assembling.  “Nope.  Better let
ME
handle
this.”

Gurrier put his hand down on her
shoulder to stop her.  “I’m going, so I don’t think that’s really necessary…”

She pushed passed him.  “I can take
them!”

He reached out to grab her, again. 
“I’m sure you can, but…you’re our leader, right?  Harlot can’t do it on her
own.  We need you to be making the command decisions and stopping that machine
and…”

She waived a hand.  “Bah!  That’s
boring! 
I’m going!”

He made another grab for her.  “Please
don’t.”

She ran off.

Vaudeville shook his head.  “Good
try though, man.”

Gurrier took off after her. 
Piltdown swore savagely as he jumped down from the machine, and started running
after them.  “WAIT!  COME BACK!  You still have the bypass wire, Stacy! 
I
NEED THAT!”

Tyrant wiped some soot off of his
shoulder; like all of this was a tremendous bother, and he felt very put upon for
being ordered to do his job.  He looked down the street at the heroes for a
long moment, his scowl deepening as he thought about something which he seemed
to find troubling, and then he handed his cage to Vaudeville.  “I am placing my
prisoner’s welfare in YOUR hands, Henries.  Make sure that she does not escape,
and do NOT let her out of there.  Her father has not paid me yet, and so she
will remain my captive.  If her blasted meddlesome fiancé shows up again,
inform
me AT ONCE
.  She is mine and I will NOT lose my prize because of
his
interference or
your
ineptitude.”

Vaudeville blinked down at the
small silver cage as it was shoved into his hands.  “Dude, I don’t want to be a
party to a kidnapping here.  Hell, I got my OWN victims to…”

Tyrant pointed a gauntleted finger
at him.  “You will watch Princess Rayn, keep her in her cell, and guard her safety
with your very life.  You will ensure that
NO HARM BEFALLS HER.
  You
will do this, or I will annihilate every last instance of you from the
multiverse and guarantee that no reality ever spawns your useless form again. 
Am I understood?”

Vaudeville held the cage up to his
face, and squinted at the ball of light inside.  “I’m not really a
pet
kind
of guy, man.  I don’t have to like change its newspaper or anything do I?”

Tyrant grabbed the front of
Vaudeville’s body armor in sudden rage, and hauled him closer to glare into his
eyes.  “You will treat my enslaved captive with the
deference
worthy of
her status as Princess of her people, or it will be
YOU
who I will keep
in the cage.  Am I understood?  She may be a prisoner and my slave, but she is
royalty and
STILL
superior to you in
every conceivable way
.  She
is above you, and you
WILL
show her some
goddamn respect.
”  He
turned to leave.  “And make sure that she isn’t harmed in any way, and that she
DOESN’T ESCAPE!”

The ball of light made a wary,
mournful sound as Tyrant stalked away. 

He pulled out a vicious looking battle
staff weapon from a clasp on his back; a pole with blades resembling a cross
between a sword and an ax on the top and bottom of it.  He spun the staff
several times and then disappeared into the driving rain, his blood red one
shoulder half-cloak blowing in the wind behind him.

Harlot’s eyebrows soared.

Wow.  Okay.  That’d work.

Vaudeville glanced over at the TV
camera.  “Someone’s about to die, folks.”

Wyatt rearranged his head sleepily,
his voice sounding a million miles away thanks to the heavy medication.  “Probably
us.”  He giggled, his voice taking on a sing-song quality.  “
These cookies
are tearing us apart! 
He-he-he-he….
”