Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly (16 page)

In short, the Fortress was the only prison in the United States designed specifically to hold Ultrahumans convicted of a crime. In Europe and Australia they dropped them into deep mines, in the Soviet Union they sent them off to gulags in Siberia, but America had gone for the technological solution. It always sounded good on paper.

The problem was the bleeding-edge technology required to run the place. ‘Experimental’ was the name of the game, and that kind of thing went wrong once in a while. The real problems happened, however, when something went wrong and no one noticed.

On the 8
^th
of October, 2013, guards entered one cell to discover that the Neurotronic field had been inactive for several days. The occupant of the cell was called Barry Travis and he had been convicted of multiple murders, but had never been viewed as a significant threat since he could, if required, be taken down by normal weapons. He had the power to create, and resist, enormous amounts of heat, and that was how he had, over the course of several days, made the concrete in the walls brittle enough to smash through, but using his bare hands to do so would likely have hurt. That was why he incinerated five guards and set three other prisoners free to help with his escape.

The report went out through UID channels at midday that Barry Travis, aka Thermite, had escaped the Fortress.

New Millennium City, MD, 11
^th
October 2013.

June had come up with a way for Penny to patrol and then turn up at the Huntress’ Den for some relaxation afterward. The bouncers seemed to appreciate her turning up at the door in her costume with a wrap-around skirt over it and Red had said her outfit was suitable. As she walked through the clubbers the expected looks of general attraction sometimes came with added recognition. She was starting to get a reputation with people in the city.

The bar was crowded, but she found Red and June where she expected them to be, near the end, and apparently they had a visitor. The woman they were talking to was six feet in height, easily, with a distinctly womanly figure. Wide hips and a narrow waist were evident from the back view Penny was getting, as was the cap of blonde hair with a hint of red in the crown. She was dressed in a black leather corset and skirt, and laced and buckled thigh-high boots with six-inch heels.

June spotted Penny walking toward them and her eyes lit up. She waved her friend over hurriedly, and the woman turned to look at the newcomer. The front was more womanly than the back, featuring an incredible pair of breasts barely contained within the corset, which came with mesh inserts to show off more flesh. The woman’s face was strong. She had a firm jaw and sunken cheeks, and blue eyes which almost seemed to glow. And the reason for June’s enthusiasm was suddenly obvious as Penny recognised her.

‘Ah,’ Red said. ‘Cygnus, I don’t think you’ve met Dominika Zuyev, Svetilo. Dom, this is Cygnus, one of the city’s newest heroes.’

‘I have heard of this one,’ Svetilo said. She had a Russian accent, fairly thick. ‘One’ came out as ‘von.’ She stepped forward and offered her hand. ‘The pictures on ACPN do not do you justice. We should get you some publicity stills.’

Penny laughed, but June was nodding quite seriously. ‘That’s not a bad idea. You could do with a good picture for UltraNet, and there’s the public-facing network to think of. You’re going to have fans soon.’

‘Assuming you don’t have them already,’ Svetilo said. ‘The coverage of your exploit with the escape car was… very exciting.’

‘Well… I just…’

‘Flew in after a speeding car, grabbed it while they shot at you, and then lifted it off the ground. That would be impressive for me.’ She lifted her right arm and flexed the muscles; they
were
impressive. ‘You are such a slight thing, slender, delicate.’ The grin she gave Penny was… predatory.

Red had apparently noticed it too. ‘Down, Dom. Cygnus has a boyfriend. You remember Zephyr?’

‘Ah yes, so you are the one who has been keeping Bobby happy recently.’

‘Uh, I guess,’ Penny replied. ‘You and he…?’

‘He taught me a few wrestling moves, yes.’

‘Dom’s staying over tonight,’ June stated, rather enthusiastically. ‘She wants to discuss my modelling career… uh, and stuff.’

Penny raised an eyebrow as Red handed her a glass of wine. The Huntress was smirking. ‘And stuff,’ Penny said. ‘Right.’ The blonde ex-Russian did have a modelling career of her own. She had a hero career as well, though she mainly operated on a call-out basis. The emergency services knew that if they needed a super-strong Ultra, she was available, and a lot of her reputation came from rescue work. That and appearing on the cover of a number of popular men’s lifestyle magazines.

‘Yes,’ Red said, grinning, ‘stuff. Dom and I are all about the stuff. You’re welcome to stay as well. We won’t be using the spare room.’

~~~

Penny sat in front of a laptop Red had put in the spare room without comment before heading off to where June and Svetilo were still sitting in the lounge. Penny had not been sure why until the noises had started and she had realised that she was not going to be getting to sleep too soon.

She had not had a chance to do much more than glance at UltraNet since the business with Tonaldo. There had been no messages from Twilight, but now that she checked her inbox she saw that she did have messages. The system filtered external mail, mail sent by people who were not members, into a ‘Fan Mail’ folder which seemed a little broad. Penny made a note to see whether she could change the filtering rules and opened the folder.

It was something of a mixed bag. There were several messages which basically seemed to be asking whether she was single. A larger proportion were more basic fan messages, congratulating her on the apprehension of the bank robbers and usually stating that she was their new favourite hero. There were also a couple of messages which went into some length about how the author would like to entertain her. She stopped reading the second of those halfway through because between that and the noises from the lounge she was starting to wonder whether she should have taken Svetilo up on the obvious offer.

She flicked over to the alert channels. Some news would take her mind off the wriggling sensation between her legs. It worked when she got to a report from Oklahoma City about a bank robbery in which three people had been burned alive and seventeen more injured. Police had identified the perpetrator as Thermite.

12
^th
October.

‘What happened?’ June said as she walked into the apartment and slumped onto the sofa beside Penny. ‘We missed you when we got up.’

‘And when was that? You look like you got about three hours’ sleep.’

‘Uh… two.’

‘Hey! Are those burn marks on your chest?!’ There was panic in Penny’s voice as she pushed her glasses up her nose to examine the blotches and trails of red skin, and June failed to notice only because she was blushing.

‘No! It’s… Well, not exactly burns. Red has these candles…’

‘Hot wax? You let her drop hot wax on your chest?’

‘I was tied to the bed at the time. Look, what I choose to do in bed with two dominant women is none of your concern, okay?’

Penny looked down. ‘Sorry… But is that lack of sleep talking or did you not really enjoy it and you’re covering?’

This time it was June who looked down. ‘We… went a little past my comfort zone. But Red saw it and slowed it down.’ The last was added a little too quickly.

‘Good. I mean, me and Bobby play with handcuffs sometimes, but…’

‘Well I don’t think that’ll happen again soon. Dom prefers blondes.’

‘Swell,’ Penny grumbled. ‘That makes me feel so much better.’

June looked at her and frowned. ‘Is it my lack of sleep, or did you not get much rest last night either?’

‘Thermite’s out,’ Penny replied flatly.

‘What?! He was in the Fortress. How…?’

‘Doesn’t really matter how. He killed nine people getting out of New Mexico, three more hitting a bank in Oklahoma City.’

‘Shit,’ June breathed. ‘You’re not thinking of going after him?’

‘Yeah, I thought about it, but I don’t know where he is and the UID is better equipped to try to track him.’ She turned to look into June’s eyes. ‘But if that bastard comes here, I’m going to take his head off.’

~~~

‘Thermite? I’ve heard of him, of course, but I never crossed paths with him.’ Bobby tightened his arm around Penny’s shoulders. She had been a little wilder than usual when she had turned up that afternoon, and now she was more subdued, snuggling against him like a lost child looking for warmth.

‘He’s a monster. Sadistic, likes pushing people around and hurting them. What he most likes is setting fire to things. He sets mundane fires. He was convicted of arson first. They didn’t even realise he was an Ultra until he broke out of the local prison. Killed twenty-five people that time. He can generate huge amounts of heat over a large area when he wants. He basically incinerated them.’

‘This does not explain your… rather personal interest in him.’

Penny was silent for a few seconds. Bobby knew enough not to push it. If she wanted to tell him, and he was sure she did, she would do so in her own time.

‘September sixteenth, twenty-oh-nine. I got a phone call from the Monmouth County Sheriff’s office. Thermite had tried to rob a bank the day before, in Red Bank. I was born there. Lived there until I was eighteen, and then I got a job here. I hadn’t seen my parents in two months and this guy was calling me to tell me that I was never going to see them again.’

Her voice broke up on the last word. Bobby pulled her tighter against him and she clung to him for a few seconds before relaxing. ‘I haven’t exactly got over it, y’know? But the pain’s duller now, when it comes. A hero caught him about two weeks after… Anyway, they put him in the Fortress, but he got out and he’s starting up where he left off.’

‘He may not come to this city,’ Bobby said. ‘Has he ever been here before?’

‘Not that I know of. He was caught in Newark. It’s just… If he comes here I’m going to find him. I have to.’

Bobby nodded. ‘Tomorrow we will practise your evasion techniques. Tonight we will take a light meal, because I think you are not especially hungry, and then we will test the limits of your tolerance for pleasure.’ She opened her mouth to say something and he placed a finger over her lips. ‘Tonight we will take your mind off this subject and you will sleep, safe, in my arms. Tomorrow we will worry about this incendiário bastardo.’

Penny looked up at him. ‘Okay,’ she mumbled around his finger.

15
^th
October.

There had been no more news of Thermite on UltraNet or in the press, but there was another doodle in the corner of one of Mister Thorpe’s notes.

It took Penny a while to make any sense of it. Thorpe was not exactly an accomplished artist and his drawing style was cartoonish. He likely drew the little pictures in bits and pieces while making other notes; they had something of a stop-start feel about them.

She thought he had been drawing a ghost. The bed sheet sort rather than something like Casper. She finally decided that it was raising ghostly arms toward the viewer in what was meant to be a scary fashion, but just confused the image. But then, for some reason, he had added flames, or a flame-like, leafy motif, over the thing’s head. A burning ghost? It sounded kind of teenage, punk, rock ’n’ roll; flaming zombies with machine guns sprang to mind. Burning ghost, fire spirit, salamander…

Her head darted around at the first whisper and she quickly put the page down and pushed away from her desk. She was
not
having a repeat of the last note-scattering incident. But it was almost as if the voices knew she was ready for them and decided not to pester her if they could not scare her half to death. There were another few half-heard sounds and then nothing.

Frowning, Penny went back to work transcribing Thorpe’s notes. Another meeting in North Beach, another weird drawing. You had to wonder what was up with that.

~~~

‘You wanted to meet?’ Twilight asked as she stepped out from behind an air-conditioning duct. ‘You have something on Tonaldo?’

Penny shook her head, frowning a little. Twilight was sneaky, but Penny could see in the dark and the black-clad girl had still managed to sneak up on her. ‘I wanted to ask a favour. Sort of a favour.’

Twilight raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

‘I don’t suppose you saw something on UltraNet about that bank robbery in Oklahoma City?’

‘Three dead. A recent escapee from the Fortress named Thermite was responsible.’

‘Yeah. I think he’s coming here and I want him.’

Brown eyes regarded her for a second. ‘You have reason to think he’s coming to New Millennium? I mean, he’s heading the right way, but he could go anywhere from Oklahoma. He’s into fire, maybe he’d like Florida.’

‘It’s a hunch. I’m not asking that you help me nail him, just keep your eyes and ears open. If you find anything, let me know.’

‘You really want this guy,’ Twilight said, more a statement than a question.

‘He…’ Penny stopped. Did she trust this girl with personal information? She knew next to nothing about her. Then again, trust had to start somewhere. ‘He killed my parents. I didn’t have powers when that happened. Now I do.’

‘All right.’ The reply came quickly, without a second’s thought. ‘If I hear anything, I’ll contact you, and I’ll help take him down if I can.’

‘You don’t need…’

‘I’ll help. You’re my partner and this is personal. Besides, the freak’s dangerous as Hell and if he comes here he could burn the city down. If
you
find him first, drop me a message.’ She gave Penny an appraising look and then said, ‘There’s a drug shipment coming in tomorrow night. Fancy taking out some frustration on some of Tonaldo’s people?’

Penny grinned. ‘Sounds like just the party I’d love to crash. Where and when?’

16
^th
October.