Colt watched as the motorcycle drew near. The front tire touched back down, bouncing twice. Colt frowned. The rider had six arms instead of the normal two, and he was holding four handguns with long, silver barrelsâall of them leveled at the Cadillac. “Grandpa, look out!”
There was a series of flashes followed by explosions. The impact from the energy bolts shook the car, and the back end swerved out of control. There was a scorch mark like a starburst on the window, but it didn't shatter. In fact, there wasn't even a crack.
“I've added a few upgrades,” Grandpa said. “The glass is bulletproof.”
Grandpa fought to maintain control as the SUV behind them veered off the road and into the guardrail. Cables snapped and the front end crumpled as steam rose from what was left of the hood.
There was another series of shots. Three flew overhead, but one of them caught Grandpa's bumper. “Hang on!” He slammed his foot against the brake pedal, and the car lurched as they swerved and skidded across the freeway, leaving a slithering trail of rubber in their wake. The seat belt dug into Colt's skin, but without it he would have flown out the front window.
“Looks like your friend found us before Agent Montgomery and his crack staff were able to track him down,” Grandpa said as the motorcycle flew past them in a blur of motion.
The rider, whom they assumed was Krone, applied the brake and turned back around just as Grandpa pressed the gas. The force from the acceleration slammed Colt's head against the seat.
“Sorry about that,” Grandpa said as he reached for a hidden panel in the dashboard. It eased open to reveal a series of gauges, levers, and switches. “Do you see that white one next to the red button? Flip it on.”
Colt did as he was told, and two wide panels opened on either side of the hood just above the front tires. “No way,” Colt said as a pair of Gatling guns emerged. “When did you install those?”
“A week or two before you arrived,” Grandpa said. “Let's just hope they work.”
They raced toward the motorcycle in a deadly game of chicken. Grandpa pushed a white button and the guns blazed to life, smoke billowing from the barrels as bullets shredded the asphalt.
Cars and trucks pulled to the side of the road, their drivers stunned as they watched the quiet stretch of freeway turn into a war zone. Some remained in their vehicles, others got out to get a better lookâand some of them had cameras.
Krone fired. Energy blasts bounced off the grill of the Cadillac, but Grandpa kept driving, the Gatling guns blazing as bullets sprayed the motorcycle. Flames erupted near the gas tank, and the front tire started to wobble. There was an explosion, and Krone flew off the back, arms and legs flailing as the motorcycle skidded across the freeway in a shower of sparks and flame.
Grandpa took his foot off the gas and eased his way to where Krone should have landed. Sirens screamed in the distance.
Colt stepped out of the car, but he couldn't find the Thule assassin anywhere. “That's crazy,” he said, standing in the headlight beams of the Cadillac. “He just disappeared.”
I
t didn't make sense. Krone should have been lying on the asphalt in a tangled heap, either unconscious or worse. At that speed bones would break and organs would be lacerated, if not rearranged, but there was no sign of him anywhere. No skid marks, bloodstains, or even footprints leading off into the desert.
The only explanation Grandpa could come up with was a personal teleporting device. Such things were rare, and highly unstable, but they were supposed to open a gateway that could take someone from one point to another instantaneously. Travel distances were limited, typically to somewhere within a line of sight, but it would have been enough for the Thule assassin to escape.
A stream of patrol cars with flashing lights cut the search short. They got back into the car, but before they took off, Grandpa reached inside the glove box and pulled out a metal orb about the size of a baseball. “It's an EMP grenade.” He spun a dial counterclockwise until there was a click, then he pressed a button, and a blue light started to pulse. “It should scramble any recording device that managed to take our picture without hurting anybody in the process. That way we can stay anonymous.”
“Anonymous?” Colt laughed. “How many people drive a '46 Cadillac Coupe? And then there are the retractable Gatling guns. It's not exactly a good car for sneaking around.”
“Don't worry about that,” Grandpa said as he dropped the grenade out the window. It landed with a tink, bouncing a few times before it came to rest. “We need to get out of the blast radius before it kills our battery.” He threw the car into drive, and the tires spun before the vehicle shot forward to an off ramp that led back into a neighborhood.
Colt watched through the rearview mirror, waiting for the grenade to detonate. There was an explosion of crackling light as energy waves rippled across the freeway like water disturbed by a heavy stone. Headlights dimmed as the pulse fried streetlights, batteries, and anything else that used electrical components.
In the distance the first patrol car entered the electromagnetic field. Its lights flickered and siren sputtered before they went out, then the engine ground to a halt. The same happened to a second patrol car before a third driver slammed on his brakes and rear-ended the first. The first highway patrolman staggered out of his vehicle, his hand moving to the radio transmitter on his lapel.
Grandpa drove home using side streets. He wanted to avoid major intersections where cameras hung from traffic lights, feeding live footage to the watchful eyes of the police department. They were only a few miles from home, and it wasn't long before he pulled into the driveway and cut the lights, keeping the car in idle as Colt got out to open the garage door.
“I don't get it,” he said. “You have an armored car that could take out a tank, but you won't buy a garage door opener?”
“It's good exercise,” Grandpa said as the garage door slid open. He eased the car inside, and Colt shut the door before he flipped on the bank of fluorescent lights that hung from the exposed rafters.
Grandpa got out and inspected the car. Surprisingly, there weren't any dents, much less any dings or scratches. But there were some nasty-looking scorch marks left by the charges that Krone had hit them with. He walked over to an old cabinet and pulled out a rag and a spray bottle filled with some purple liquid, handing both to Colt.
“What's this for?”
“The evidence,” Grandpa said. He hit a button on his wireless remote, and the license plate spun backward, replaced with a brand-new number.
“I didn't know you were this devious.”
“Never mind,” he said. “You have work to do.”
Whatever it was, the compound in the spray bottle was powerful. In only a few minutes the scorch marks came right off without damaging the paint or the chrome on the grill.
“So do you have any more secret weapons stores that you want to tell me about?” Colt asked as he put the cleaning solution away. “Is there some kind of hidden lab under the house, or do you keep all that stuff in a storage facility somewhere?”
“Lock the door, will you?” Grandpa said as he walked back to the house. When he got inside, he hung his keys on the hook and opened the junk drawer, where he rifled through pens and pencils, mismatched batteries, expired coupons, and spools of thread. “Here it is,” he said, pulling out something that looked like a remote control, only it was nearly the size of a paperback novel and had a stubby black antenna on the end. He twisted a dial and a meter sprang to life, bouncing back and forth across the display as the device made an annoying crackling sound.
Colt thought it looked like a handheld version of the metal detectors that old men use to comb beaches in search of spare change. “Are you going to tell me what you're doing, or is it top secret?”
“I'm looking for hidden wires,” Grandpa said as he scanned the countertops, walls, and even the ceiling. “I need to make some calls, and I don't want anyone listening in.”
“How old is that thing?”
“About as old as I am, but it works better than the cheap gadgets they build today.” Grandpa's eyes were focused on the meter as the needle continued to bounce. When he was finished with the kitchen he went through the family room, then down the hall and into the bedrooms. He even checked the guest bathroom.
“Don't forget to look under the plunger,” Colt said as he grabbed a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and walked over to the sofa. The peas were for his head, which was still pounding despite the aspirin Agent Parks had given him. He walked into the living room and picked up the remote control, flipping through the channels until he landed on a news station. The phrase Late Breaking News was splashed across the bottom of the screen as they showed live footage of a freeway that looked like it had been bombed. The asphalt was chewed up, and cars lined the road haphazardly while people milled about in confusion.
“Hey, Grandpa, you're going to want to see this,” Colt called over his shoulder. “It looks like we made the news.”
The door to the office clicked open and Grandpa walked out, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he stood behind his favorite chair. Images continued to flash. They showed the patrol cars piled up, the smoking SUV crumpled against the railing, and a close-up of the motorcycle in the middle of the freeway.
“Despite the devastation, there were no serious injuries, though one driver was treated by emergency workers for minor lacerations,” a reporter said. “Witnesses claim one of the suspects dropped a grenade, releasing a burst of electromagnetic radiation. It effectively destroyed any electrical equipment within the blast radius, which explains all the dead car batteries and streetlights.”
The image on the screen changed to a helicopter with a floodlight that roved across the desert floor as K-9 units searched the area. “Two of the suspects fled in a black two-door sedan, while police continue to search the outlying area for the person who was riding the motorcycle,” the reporter continued. “At this time it is not known if any of the suspects were extraterrestrials.”
“Now what?” Colt said as he turned the volume down.
“I wouldn't worry too much about it,” Grandpa said. “It'll be old news by morning.” He went back to the office without another word, leaving Colt alone with his thoughts and the remote control.
Colt looked out the window, wondering if Krone was watching him from the shadows or if the hit man was hidden from sight trying to recover from his injuries. Even if he managed to teleport away before he hit the pavement, Colt doubted that would have slowed his momentum. He was flying off the back of the motorcycle, which meant when he came out the back end of the portal he probably landed on a cactus or a rock.
He started to close the blinds when a car pulled up to the curb across the street. The driver was human, or at least he looked human, but the thing in the passenger seat was definitely a machine. It was covered in metal plating, and it had a single eye that glowed faintly blue in the darkness.
C
olt rolled his eyes. The driver was none other than Thomas E. Richmond, the same CHAOS agent who had extracted Colt's memories not long after he moved to Arizona. His partner was D3X, an advanced military robotic unit with hands that morphed into plasma cannons. Colt had seen it in action during the skirmish at Trident Industries, where D3X took out Thule warriors as if they were garden gnomes.
“Were you expecting visitors?” Colt asked the question loud enough that Grandpa could hear him through his office door.
“I asked Agent Richmond to keep an eye on the house until things settle down a bit. Why, is his car out front?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Do me a favor and start a pot of coffee, will you?”
“Does that mean you trust him? Becauseâ”
“Just make the coffee.”
Before long, the distinct aroma of coffee grounds permeated the kitchen, and as the water percolated, Colt decided to lie down on the couch. The frozen peas stung his neck, but the cold brought some welcome relief to his pounding headache. He looked at his cell phone on the coffee table and wondered if he should call Lily. She was probably upset, and he was sure that her parents were furious. The problemâat least as far as Colt saw itâwas that if he didn't call to check up on her, it was going to make him look like an even bigger jerk. Resigned to his fate, he reached for the phone, but before he could dial her number, the phone beeped twice. According to the display, it was a text message from Oz.
He was about to open it when a thought popped into his head. There was a good chance that Oz knew something about Operation Nemesis. After all, he was always accessing files that he wasn't supposed to see. So did that mean he knew that his dad had killed all those people? And that he was trying to kill Colt?
Colt tapped the video chat icon and selected Danielle's name. He needed to sort everything out, and it was looking like she was the only person he could trust. When she answered, a video showed up on Colt's display. She was sitting on her bed, and her eyes were red and puffy as her Pomeranian tried to lick her face.