Summus Proelium

Touching as Ryder’s concern was, I couldn’t wait around for help. Still, as I’d promised him, I made sure to call the others on my way to the lab. I didn’t talk for long, simply telling Fred when he answered the phone to call everyone else and send them to the address I was giving them because the place that was making the cure was under attack by an unknown force. Probably the people who had been working with Pittman, and his remaining Biolems honestly, but we couldn’t be completely sure about that. The point was, bad guys were trying to get into the building where the cure was being made and we had to get there right now. He immediately promised to pass that along and rally the troops. Then he told me to be careful, and not to be stupid.

Part of me felt bad about calling in Paige and Sierra when they were supposed to be taking a break to process everything. But we needed them right now. And I knew they would never forgive me if I left them out of this. Especially if anything went wrong.

Speaking of not leaving people out, I also sent messages to everyone else I could think of right then, from the Minority to Ten Towers to the cops, even to the Ministry just in case they didn't know already. I didn't care about explaining how I knew it was going on, how I knew where this place was, or any of that. The only thing that mattered was getting everyone there before these assholes, whoever they were, managed to fuck up the cure.

I was using the heads-up GPS in my helmet to navigate to this place since I had never been there before. It wasn't anywhere near the Conservator's building, or any of the major hospitals. It was some sort of nondescript office structure that didn't advertise itself as some sort of advanced medical or science lab in any way. Which was probably the point. After all, they had to assume that other people would try to interrupt the creation of the cure for one reason or another. Keeping it quiet made sense. Even if that did leave the question of how these people found it. On the other hand, Ryder had managed to, so it clearly wasn't impossible.

The entire time I was heading that way, rocketing my way across the rooftops using every trick I could to coax more speed out of my powers, I just kept passing over the worst case scenarios. What if they destroyed all records of the cure? What if they killed the people who knew the most about the technical aspects of making it? What if they took the cure and did something terrible to it? If this was a cure to Sleeptalk, did that mean they could corrupt it and infect everyone with a version of that? I had no idea how that sort of thing worked, but my brain sure was good at thinking up potential doom and gloom scenarios.

In the past, the other thing I would have been doing on my way over there was to start covering myself with paint for the upcoming situation. But I had learned better by now. I always kept my costume, inside and out, covered in paint so I wouldn't have to do it on the fly. It was a mix of actual designs and random splotches of color. I had realized that it was stupid to wait until I was in the middle of a fight or on my way to one before setting up my paint. This way, even from the very moment I had left Ryder back there (hell, even before I'd shown up at that place), I'd been as ready as I could be for anything.

So, the only thing I had to do on that front, as I was racing toward that lab, was touch up my prepared paint a little bit. I would have preferred to know more about what I was walking into (or rather, running into at full speed), especially if there were any Touched involved, so I could adjust accordingly. Fortunately, Ryder had promised to keep watching them on those cameras to let me know if anything like that presented itself, or if he could figure out anything else useful about them.

The others checked in when I was about three-quarters of the way there, letting me know they would be there as soon as possible. While, of course, adding their own requests that I not do anything too stupidly dangerous in the meantime.

That, of course, was silly. Of course I wasn't going to do anything excessively dangerous. On the other hand, considering that this was about stopping people from screwing up the cure for my parents and all those other infected people, my bar for what was excessive was pretty damn high right then. I disconnected the call before any comparisons between where my bar and theirs were could be made.

Just before I made it there, Ryder sent me a quick message saying that there seemed to be three unknown Touched in that parking lot. One in a dark green suit and tie who could absorb kinetic energy and send it back out as shockwaves, another wearing a set of heavy blue body armor who could manipulate concrete and wood, and a third in a long gray raincoat who seemed to be able to control rats and mice. Also, apparently those people had back-up who were delaying the arrival of cops and Star-Touched alike, by intercepting them several blocks away in either direction. Both the Minority and Ten Towers had been delayed that way, and the other groups had their own problems. Just like before when Amanda had been attacked, there were only so many active Star-Touched and such in the city. They were being kept occupied with other situations. Even if I did want to scream that nothing else mattered the way this did, the innocent people being threatened in those situations probably would have disagreed. The logical part of me understood that. The other part wanted to rant and yell a bit.

And then there wasn't time to think about any of that anymore. And I had kept myself distracted through the entire trip, moving on autopilot with a focus purely on getting there as quickly as possible. But now I was there. I landed on the building across the street from the place in question. Unfortunately, I barely had a chance to take in the briefest sight of people down in the parking lot before Eits sent a huge bolded warning right across my helmet heads-up GPS that read ‘DUCK NOW!’

Well, obviously, I did. Without a single question, I hit the roof, flattening myself against it. A second later, several loud cracks filled the air as snipers shot at where I had just been. There was a slightly raised brick wall around the edge of the roof, and I had dropped behind it. I heard a couple more shots bounce off that wall right next to my head. These guys were serious. They had been watching for anyone. Hell, for all I knew, they had watched my approach. They obviously had spotters if they had intercepted those other groups so effectively, duh.

Laying there on my back as another shot ricocheted off the wall just beside my head, I took a second to collect myself. In that time, Ryder put a semi transparent sketch of the surrounding area on my display. There were marks showing where the snipers were set up on the other buildings, including notes beside them about what floor and window they were shooting from if they weren't on the roof. He was letting me know what I was dealing with, and really living up to his full Touched name of Eye In The Sky. This was exactly the sort of thing he did for La Casa. At least, when he wasn't breaking through computer systems and hacking alarms.

The rest of my team probably would have preferred that I keep my head down and wait for them to show. But I couldn't do that. Those people down there could break through the doors of the lab any minute. Ryder had made it clear that he didn't know how much longer the defenses could hold. Obviously, the lab had been heavily protected and secured, hence why it was taking the force so long to actually break in. But that couldn't last forever.

No, I definitely needed to do something now. It didn't matter that there were so many people down there. It didn't matter that they were clearly equipped and prepared to assault this defended position. It didn't matter that there were three new (or at least unidentified) Touched down there. And it sure as hell didn't matter that they knew I was here and where I was. All of that was important, obviously. But in the end, what mattered was that they were going to hurt the people in that building, and do something bad to the cure that was supposed to help my parents, Irelyn, Trivial, and all those others. Whatever their actual intentions, they were a threat to my family, and to this city getting back on its feet. They were a threat to all of that. And no matter how dangerous it was, no matter how much I didn't know about the situation, I couldn’t just sit here. There was no way of knowing if the others would show up in time. I had to stop them, right now.

On the other hand, I didn't need to be stupid about this. Especially since Ryder sent me a message saying that he had done a quick search based on what he was looking at, and was pretty sure these sniper rifles were the sort that could probably punch through my orange protection. Which may or may not have been true, but really wasn't worth testing the hard way.

So, the first thing I did was paint the roof under myself pink. Part of me felt bad about the damage I was going to do to this place, but I pushed that out of my mind before breaking through that pink paint. As I dropped, I quickly oriented myself to land on my feet on the floor below. This place was another office building, and I was standing next to what was clearly a dentists’ chair. Two guys, one who was clearly the dentist himself and the other who had been getting his teeth cleaned, were crouched in terror on the other side of the room. They had heard all the fighting outside, especially the gunshots hitting the wall above their heads. I could see the phones in their hands as they both kept trying to call 911. Seeing me there, they started to cry out, before looking relieved when they recognized who I was. And boy was that still a strange feeling, to see a couple grown men look at me like that, as though they trusted me to protect them. Even now, after several months of this, I still felt a strange sensation in my stomach at that.

Blurting a quick word of caution for them to stay down, I used green wings on my arms to speed myself up a bit as I ran for the door. Once I was in the hallway, I took the nearby stairs down another level, simply hopping over the railing before dropping to the next landing. Eits had set up a command word for me to turn the map he gave me on and off. I checked it once more, making sure I had the right level. Then I ran through the nearest office door. This one looked like a therapist's place, which was just great. The receptionist and several clients were cowering together behind her desk, and I shouted for them to stay down as well while running straight at the window ahead of me. When I was four steps away, I hit it with pink paint. When I was three steps away, I hit the floor just in front of it with blue-green paint. When I was two steps away, I activated orange paint on myself. And when I was one step away, I jumped on that painted floor while extending my hands to hit either side of the window with shots of red to match my gloves. I was instantly sent rocketing through that window like a cannonball. The snipers, who were still trying to shoot me on the roof, were taken by surprise when I came through that window a couple floors down from where they expected me to be.

My aim was just right, thanks to the map that Ryder had provided. There was a guy with a rifle leaning out of the window right across from this one. He was aiming up at where I had been, and when he caught a glimpse of me coming straight at him from his own level, he tried to adjust too late. I crashed into him at full speed, knocking him back into the building he had been leaning out of and onto his back with a surprised grunt. Before he could recover, I kicked the rifle out of his hands before punching him in the face twice in rapid succession with a bit of purple-augmented strength. While he was dazed, I used pink paint on the floor and shoved his hands through it before holding them there as the paint wore off so he would be trapped in place. Which, of course, made him curse up a storm. Not that I cared. I was already leaving.

The rest of the snipers had obviously figured out where I was, considering the bullets that were now being directed at the window I had just crashed through. That time, I went straight up, using black-pink on the ceiling over my head to turn that spot liquid so it would fall away, leaving a hole for me to jump through. But I couldn't risk losing them for long. I needed to get these guys to change their aim to keep shooting at me, so those innocent people down there wouldn't catch a stray bullet.

As I reached the next floor, Ryder sent a new message, letting me know that the guy who had been on this roof was on his way down to intercept. Well, we couldn't have that. Instead of continuing up through the next ceiling as I had been planning, I red-painted myself down to the end of the corridor I had found myself in. There was a stairwell entrance there, and I was able to crouch against the wall just above it. Ryder sent a countdown, letting me know exactly when the guy would be arriving. I couldn't hear anything at all, which either meant he was really good at moving silently, or he had Touched-Tech help. Probably both, to be honest. But either way, I would have had no idea he was there without that help from Eits. Which made several times in very short order that he had played this role to help me deal with a problem. I really did owe him a really big fruit basket or something. While thinking about that, I sent a circle of red against the nearby wall to get ready.

Thanks to Ryder, I was ready the instant this next guy came through that door. He was holding some sort of submachine gun, having apparently abandoned his sniper rifle for it. The weapon was held out in front of him as he silently came through the door, looking in every direction. Every direction except one, that was. He forgot to look up.

Extending both hands, I used one to hit the barrel of his gun with red paint. My other hand rapped against the top of the helmet he was wearing. These guys looked like they were cosplaying as swat troops with stuff they had picked from the army surplus store.

The guy looked up while simultaneously trying to grab for his gun as it was ripped out his hand and sent flying. But I tackled him to the ground. Before he even understood what was happening, I had his hands and knees trapped in the floor. That was two of the snipers down, and two more to go. Which didn't exactly help with those guys who were trying to break into the lab, but at least I was making progress. And help would be here soon.

And that thought, naturally, was the cue for two new messages to come through. Because I clearly hadn't learned better than to let myself feel optimistic yet.

The first message was from Paige, letting me know that they had been intercepted by yet another group. Because of course these people had had even more troops waiting to ambush reinforcements. Seriously, who the hell were they, and who were they working for? Was all this really just people connected to Pittman, or was it something else? The others were fighting their way through, but it would take a minute.

But it was the next message that was far worse. Unlike the one from Paige, it wasn't a text. Instead, it was an actual call from Ryder. Whatever was going on, he wanted to tell me himself in audio. That made me even more nervous, but I accepted the call and spoke simply. “What happened?”

“First, La Casa’s on the way,” he informed me in a quick voice. “Blackjack doesn't want this cure to get screwed up any more than you do. So we're on your side. But they won't get here in time. Those people down there aren't trying to break into the building anymore, Paintball.” He hesitated very slightly, and I could hear the grimace and worry in his voice. “It looks like they're setting up explosive charges all around it. They're not breaching charges. They're the sort that are meant to bring down the whole building.”

I was already pushing myself back up to sprint down the hall, shooting a line of red paint toward the submachine gun to yank it into my hand while blurting, “You mean--”

“Yeah,” he confirmed without me needing to even finish the sentence, “if you don't get out there and stop them right now, they're going to blow up that entire building.

“Then the cure, and everyone in there, will be gone.”