The paralegals and their thirty pounds were transported through the air by Myishi Whisper Copters, a combination helicopter and glider with vertical liftoff capability and rigid glider wings. Not to mention, enough armament to obliterate anything stupid enough to point more than a finger at it.
The paralegals had several methods of entry in their manual, but their all-time favorite was
ghostlike
. They liked their quarry to wake up in a cellophane wrap, with no idea how he got there. No fatalities. Less paperwork.
Abracadabra Street was no great challenge for a squadron that had broken into several foreign banks, two crime lords’ strongholds, and a private kindergarten. They simply rappelled down the walls, set radio jammers to cancel out the motion sensors, and adhered large squares of glass solvent to the windows.
When the squadron leader gave the command, the paralegals passed a current through the solvent squares and suckered the windows out of their panes. The entire procedure was covered by the building’s heavy curtains.
Two dozen paralegals entered the premises through various entrances, and set their goggles for body heat. When the command was given they split into four groups and went after their specified targets.
In truth, many of the paralegals felt slightly disappointed. They had heard a lot about the vigilante Stefan Bashkir, and were hoping he would make a real fight of it. But it looked as though this would be done the easy way. Nobody would resist them here. It didn’t even look like anyone was awake.
Cosmo opened his eyes to find three Myishi paralegals in his cubicle. One was jacking a cartridge into his rod. Cosmo took a deep breath to inflate his chest.
“You’ve done this before,” said the paralegal, pulling the trigger.
* * *
Mona, always a light sleeper, actually made it out of the bed before they got her. Amazingly, for a girl with no formal combat training, she managed to incapacitate two paralegals before the third tagged her with a Shocker. They waited until she had stopped shaking to hit her with a cellophane slug.
Stefan heard the struggle in Mona’s cubicle. He burst through his own cubicle door, straight into the arms of half a dozen paralegals. Several more were packing up the Supernaturalists’ weaponry and computers. For the first time in his life, Stefan Bashkir went without a fight.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said, lacing his fingers behind his head. “We are working with Myishi. Just contact President Faustino at the R&D department. I’m telling you, this is all a mistake.”
A paralegal wrapped him at close range. “That’s what they all say,” he said.
Ditto was lying awake on his cot, fully clothed. His duffel bag sat on the floor, ready for the morning.
“Pazza delivery?” he said to the first paralegal through the door.
“No one likes a smart-ass,” said the man, and wrapped him.
Myishi Research and Development Facility, Mayor Ray Shine Industrial Park, Satellite City
The Myishi paralegals read the Supernaturalists their rights, then winched them up to a waiting Whisper Copter on the roof. They took a ten-minute hop north to the Ray Shine Industrial Park, landing on a helipad on the roof of a Myishi facility. Cosmo’s favorite vat man was waiting for them beside the plasti-glass vat in the building’s detention area.
“Hiya, sweetie,” he said, attaching the suction cup to Cosmo’s head. “I had a feeling we’d be seeing each other again. They flew me over here especially for this job. I’m on double overtime.”
The Supernaturalists were tossed unceremoniously into the vat of yellow acid, dangling from a series of suction cups. The sedative in the cellophane had seeped into their systems by then, so they offered no resistance, relaxing in their liquid prison. The acid solution immediately went to work on the cellophane wraps, eating through the virus coating. It was a slow process and it would be at least an hour before they had any mobility. Until that time, they had no choice but to hang there and think nice thoughts. Any struggle would only tighten the cellophane’s grip on their chests.
Once the vat man had finished tying off the last Supernaturalist, he made a call on the building intercom. Within minutes, Ellen Faustino arrived, flanked by two bodyguards. When she saw the Supernaturalists suspended in the vat, she actually slapped the vat man on the chest.
“What do you think you are doing?” she demanded. “These people are supposed to be dead! All I wanted to see was four bodies to be sure they were dead. These are clearly very much alive.”
Inside the vat, Faustino’s words cut through Stefan’s daze.
Dead!
There must be a mistake. What was happening here? Why would Professor Faustino want them dead? Ellen Faustino wouldn’t want anybody dead. She was a scientist.
The vat man didn’t exactly bow, but he came close. “Sorry, President Faustino. Nobody told me. I’ll lower them immediately. In twelve hours there’ll be nothing left but molecules.”
Stefan tried to speak, but his breath barely rippled the cellophane. He thrashed weakly in the acid vat, but the wrap held him tightly.
“So you’re awake, Stefan,” said Faustino, resting her palms against the plasti-glass.
Stefan’s mouth couldn’t ask why, so his eyes did it for him.
“Are you confused?” asked Faustino. “Don’t you understand what’s happening here?”
They were all listening, fighting the sedative.
“It’s as I told you, Stefan, you were working for me. All of you. The Supernaturalists were cutting corners that I couldn’t. Getting jobs done that would take me months to get clearance for. And I don’t have that kind of time.”
She paused in her narrative, ordering the vat man to the other side of the facility.
“This is top-secret stuff,” she explained. “If he hears any more, I’ll have to kill him, and good vat men are hard to find. Things were going fine until you developed a conscience. You found Un-spec four, just as I knew you would, and you set off the energy pulse. If I had tried to do either of those sneaky things, I would surely have been found out.”
Stefan didn’t feel very sneaky at the moment. He felt gullible and naive.
“It could have been perfect; the Supernaturalists knock out the Parasites, and my team collects them. I would have developed a clean power source and saved the Satellite. But now, suddenly, after three years, the obsessed Stefan Bashkir changes his mind and doesn’t want to fight Parasites anymore. Now the Supernaturalists are no longer assets, they are loose ends. And we all know what happens to loose ends. They get cut. In a few hours there will be no trace of you or your little group. I even had my boys confiscate your equipment from Abracadabra Street. There won’t be so much as a computer file or a fingerprint left by the time I’m finished.”
Stefan swung his lower body at the tank wall, but his rubber-soled boots bounced harmlessly off the plasti-glass.
Faustino laughed. “Still the same little Stefan. Fighting all the way. Just like your mother.” She leaned closer to the tank. “There are two more things you should know, just to punish you for slowing down my plan. First, your teammate is correct. Of course Un-spec four do not suck life force. Only an obsessive like you could believe that. We conducted tests on lab rats. Several rats were injured. Those kept in an underwater environment, away from Un-spec four, survived no longer than the ones helped by the Parasites. We also conducted human trials, on . . . ah . . . volunteers. The results were the same. Intervention by Un-spec four actually lowered the subjects’ stress levels. They take pain only. To cap it all off, their energy emissions actually seem to be repairing the ozone layer. That bit about them destabilizing the Satellite was just another lie to get you hooked. If it makes you feel any better, the Pulse did not kill them. Energy cannot be destroyed—basic science. The Pulse does seem to have rendered them sterile, so levels will quickly drop to normal.”
Cosmo felt his eyelids droop. Stay awake, he told himself. Or you may never wake again. Beside him, Mona was already unconscious. But Stefan’s eyes grew brighter by the minute. Hate kept him going, as it had for three years.
“You’re really going to love this second piece of information, Stefan,” continued Faustino. “If you ever bothered to check my academy record, Stefan, you might have seen that several other cadets suffered near-death experiences.”
Faustino watched Stefan intently, waiting for him to get it. Suddenly he did, jerking violently inside his cellophane cocoon.
Ellen clapped her hands. “Well done. The penny drops. That’s right, Stefan. I was already working for Myishi, even back then, and you were part of an experiment. I became a Spotter through a genuine accident, but you were created. I realized how Spotters were made, and decided to make a few more. Did you never think it strange that the ambulance just happened to be around the corner? All arranged. Eventually I would have recruited you to my group, but you quit the force and started up a little group of your own. It was unfortunate about your mother, but it is against regulations to carry passengers in a police cruiser, so you have only yourself to blame.”
Stefan stopped struggling abruptly, hanging from his suction cup. Bitter tears coursed down his cheeks, pooling inside the cellophane.
“Aw,” crooned Faustino. “Have I broken your spirit? What a shame.”
She snapped her fingers, summoning the vat man. “Dunk them,” she ordered. “I don’t want as much as a back tooth left to trace them back to R&D.”
“No problem, Madam President,” said the man. “Consider them out of your life.” He climbed the steps to the suction-cup winches, freeing the ratchets on each one. The cogs spun freely, submerging the Supernaturalists’ heads in the giant vat of acidic compound.
“Nicely done,” said Ellen Faustino. “Expect a little bonus in your paycheck.”
“Thank you, Madam President, always a pleasure.”
But the vat man was talking to himself; Ellen Faustino was already gone. There was work to be done, and she did not have a few hours to watch Supernaturalists dissolve in acid.
Of course, dissolving was the least of the Supernaturalists’ problems. They would suffocate long before the acidic compound could get to work on their skin and bone. The cellophane had relaxed its grip slightly, but not enough to allow them to climb out of the vat. By the time their limbs were free, any pockets of air trapped in the cellophane would have long since leaked out.
Cosmo struggled against sleep. The rest of the group had already succumbed to the cellophane’s sedative. He could only guess that his own system was building a resistance to the chemical because he had been wrapped three times now.
Think, he told himself. It’s up to you. There must be a good idea in your head somewhere. There must be something in that patched-up head . . .Wait a minute. Something in his head.
A memory flashed across Cosmo’s vision. In the warehouse, after his accident. Mona had said something to him:
Lucky for you Ditto had a couple of robotix plates lying around. He used one to patch your fractured skull. Those robotix plates are made of the same material used to armor assault tanks. When
your skin heals up, Ditto says you’ll be able to head-butt your way through a brick wall.
The robotix plate.
Cosmo wiggled his way across to the vat wall, drawing his head back as far as possible. Struggling against sleep, breathlessness, and thick liquid, he butted the plasti-glass with all his strength. The tank wall flexed slightly, and a bolt of pain shot through Cosmo’s forehead.
The vat man wandered over curiously. “Hey, sweetie,” he said grinning. “Are you trying to escape? I’m afraid skin and bone are not going to do it.” He rapped on the tank. “Plastiglass. Nothing short of an assault tank is going to get you out of here.”
Of course, Cosmo didn’t hear any of that. All he could hear was the shrill whine of his own headache. There was no option but to try once more. Gritting his teeth, he butted the plasti-glass again. When the pain receded, he noticed a tiny crack in the tank.
“Stop that,” said the vat man, rubbing the crack with his thumb. “I have to clean this thing.”
One more, thought Cosmo. I have breath for one more.
Cosmo pulled back his head, and with the all the strength in his head, neck, chest, and spine, butted the plasti-glass in precisely the same spot. A clang reverberated around the vat walls.
The crack widened, spreading to the outside of the tank.
One drop. Just one drop.
“Give it up, kiddo,” chortled vat man. “Just go to sleep. Make it easy on yourself.”
The crack spread some more, like the web of a silver orb-weaving spider. A single drop of yellow acid wormed through the gap, eating into the untreated interior of the plasti-glass pane.
Vat man frowned. “How did you—”
The plasti-glass blew. It probably took the cracks a few seconds to decimate the front of the tank, but it seemed instantaneous. The vat man’s jaw had just enough time to drop open in disbelief before his mouth was filled to overflow with acidic compound. Several thousand gallons of acid followed the first spurt, careering across the facility floor into various corners. The Supernaturalists and their harnesses were borne along with the deluge, dashed onto the tiles like fish in a fish box.
The vat man fared worst. He met the liquid hammer blow head-on, not to mention several sections of plasti-glass that battered him halfway up an adjacent wall. He slid back down to the submerged floor, a lump already rising on his head.
I may as well go to sleep now, thought Cosmo. Everybody else has.
Of course, the Supernaturalists were not in the clear yet, hampered, as they were, by unconsciousness and cellophane wraps. At any moment another member of Myishi personnel could stroll into the vat department and discover the disaster, or security could switch on the monitor and realize that things were far from dandy in the basement. But at least the Supernaturalists were alive for the moment, something no betting man would have put money on.
Minutes passed slowly, ticking by to the tune of yellow grunge dripping from the shattered vat. As time moved on, the acid did its work, slowly eating through the cellophane wraps. Forty minutes it took, but finally Stefan was free. As untainted air flushed the sedative from his lungs, consciousness returned. He punched his way free of the final cellophane strands, like a butterfly shaking off its cocoon. He struggled to his knees, coughing up an acrid mixture of cellophane and acidic liquid. Slowly his dreams were replaced by recent memories.
“Faustino,” he breathed, gingerly releasing the vacuum cup on his head.
Ditto was next to wake. “What did I tell you? Who’s the traitor now?”
Stefan ripped the remaining cellophane from the Bartoli baby’s frame. “Seems like all my friends are lying to me these days.”
Ditto cleared his lungs loudly. “The ambulance that picked you up. You have to believe me. I didn’t know.”
Stefan patted his shoulder. “Of course you didn’t. She used all of us.”
Bashkir pulled Mona from beneath a plasti-glass pane. “How did we get out of there anyway?” he asked. “I thought we were dead for sure.”
Ditto turned Cosmo over. A sliver of metal was visible through the torn skin of his forehead. “Believe it or not, I think the rookie saved us again. He used his head.”
Ditto placed a hand on Cosmo’s forehead. A slight silver shimmering played around the contact.
“I can take some of his pain, for a while. The healing, he’ll have to do on his own.”
Stefan sat Mona up. “You should have told me, Ditto.”
“You’re right, I should have. But now that you do know, what are you going to do about it?”
Stefan pulled a capsule of smelling salts from the medi-kit on his belt. He snapped it under Mona’s nostrils. “I’m going to find out why Ellie Faustino is collecting Parasites.”
Mona woke up shouting. “No way,
Mamá
!” she cried. “No way am I going to wear that dress!”
Stefan picked her up, laying her on a surgical table. “Okay, Mona. It’s okay. You’re with friends.”
Mona squinted suspiciously. “No dresses?”
“No. No dresses. Just relax. Try not to move.”
Mona’s face was decidedly green. “Okay if I throw up?”
“Be my guest,” said Stefan, taking two steps back.
Cosmo flapped on the floor like a fish, fighting off a nightmare enemy.
“The kid has been through a lot in the past few weeks,” said Ditto.
Stefan hoisted Cosmo onto another surgical table. “After tonight, it’s over. Normal lives all around.”
Ditto shook ropes of melted cellophane and acidic compound from his hands. “Really? Where have I heard that before?”
* * *
The vat man was not overly eager to share any information, but one look at the Supernaturalists’ faces weakened his resolve.
“I don’t even work here full-time. Sometimes I do some special work for President Faustino. Off the books, you understand.”
“I understand,” said Stefan. “We were very nearly off the books ourselves.”