Team Omega

Christopher Nuttall

Team Omega Cover Blurb

The next war will be a superhuman war.

Superhumans!  They fly through the skies like gods; superhumans, men and women who have gained extraordinary powers.  Some are celebrities, some rule entire countries, some just try to lead normal lives … and some are criminals.

Jackson McDonald, USMC, fought and killed a superhuman who threatened to tear Camp Pendleton apart.  His reward is to be invited to join Team Omega, an elite black-ops military unit tasked with dealing with rogue superhumans.

But one superhuman has plans.  He will save the world, even if it doesn’t want to be saved…

And no matter who tries to stop him.

Author’s Introduction

“That’s the whole point of [superhumans], isn't it?  Something complicated; you make it simple, something you can hit, or else you just ignore it.  You stay as far as possible from the real world - which, let’s face it, can be a messy fucking place.”

-Billy Butcher; The Boys: Get Some (Garth Ennis)

There is something of a funny story behind how this book came to be written.

When I was at university, I discovered Stormwatch - a comic that had been newly taken over by Warren Ellis - and fell in love.  Stormwatch was a far darker take on both superhumans and the effect they would have on the world.  Their replacement by The Authority only cemented the concept for me.  As Mark Miller’s opening lines, when he took over the comic, stated, what happens when superheroes go after the real bastards?

Think about it.  Superman and Batman fight supervillains and costumed kooks - this was before Injustice: Gods Amongst Us.   (I actually wrote the first draft of this before Injustice came out.)  They don’t, as a general rule, go after dictators, real-life criminals and suchlike.  The Authority’s take was largely revolutionary at the time, at least to me.  Unfortunately, it didn't last.

And then a new Stormwatch series came out.  This one, entitled Stormwatch: Team Achilles, was an even better concept.  A team of elite soldiers, without any effective superpowers, would tackle superhumans who were genuine threats, rather than leave them to other superhumans.  I loved the series, particularly when they took on and bested the Authority; I won’t say it didn't have its flaws, but I enjoyed it.  The news that the Authority was actually going to be taking over the United States - Coup D’état - struck me as an excellent storyline.  There could not fail, I thought, to be a genuine test of both teams ...

Naturally, it fell flat.  The almighty reset button was hit and nothing actually changed.

But what would happen, I asked myself, if real superhumans took on real bastards?  What would this do to them?  And who would oppose them?

This book was the result.  Enjoy!

On other news, you can download a semi-prequel of this story - Superhuman: Dead America - for free from the ‘free books’ section on my site.

Chapter One

“At ease, Marine.”

Chester Harrison looked up at the young man in front of him and raised his eyebrows.  “Is that as relaxed as you get, young man?”

“Yes, sir,” Lance Corporal Jackson McDonald said.

He was young and fit, with his hair shaved close to his scalp.  Chester knew that the USMC had considered him one of their most promising enlisted men, with a promotion to Sergeant delayed only by his habit of picking fights and insubordination when not on active duty.  Looking at him, Chester felt unfit, almost overweight.  The life of a desk jockey, even a desk in the Pentagon, wasn't the same as a person on active duty.

“I need to know what happened at Camp Pendleton,” Chester said.  He’d read the reports, including the one McDonald had written himself, but he needed to hear it from the man’s own lips.  “What happened on that day?”

“It’s in my report, sir,” McDonald said, stiffly.  He hadn't enjoyed writing the report, any more than his superiors had enjoyed reading it.  Nineteen Marines dead and five more on the critical list...and no one even knew why.  “You can read it all there.”

“I need to hear it from you,” Chester said, softly.  “What happened that day?”

“What happened?”  For the first time, McDonald showed a trace of emotion.  Horror...and remembered fear.  “What happened was a goddamned nightmare.”

***

Sergeant Bass considered himself to be the very model of a Marine Corps Sergeant—and that included disciplining the young men in his platoon.  Jackson was rowdy, all day every day, and Bass took it as a personal challenge.  After an argument in the barracks that went straight to a fight, Bass had sent Jackson out on a punishment detail- they needed sandbags. Two thousand of them, to be precise. Jackson could secure them on his own, but if there weren't two thousand sandbags filled to standard, stacked nice and neat, he'd be back at it tomorrow. And the day after. Probably the day after that, too.

All day long, Jackson had cursed his luck, hating how he'd been seconded over to the Recruit Training Battalion at Pendleton.  What he would give to be back in the field. In six years, he'd done four deployments there, and thoroughly enjoyed it every time. Why couldn't he just be sent out to a Marine unit on actual operations? Being in the field was what he lived for, not coaching recruits on how to shoot the M-16A2.

He heard the explosion just as he came over the hill towards the parade deck, headed back to the barracks.  It looked as if someone had smuggled a bomb into the Camp, perhaps one of the Mexican terrorist groups that kept threatening the integrity of the US border.  He ran towards the sound of the blast, forgetting his anger at the Sergeant in the fear that one of his brothers might be injured.  Alarms were going off everywhere as he ran into one of the PT compounds used for recruits—and saw a man tearing through Marines as if they were made of paper.

Two Marines, armed with M-16s, were trying to gun the intruder down, but the bullets were merely bouncing off his skin.  Jackson realised, with a thrill of horror, that he was looking at his first superhuman.  He'd heard about them, of course, yet he’d never seen one before.  But any fascination was washed away by the grim awareness that the intruder had already killed a dozen Marines and seemed intent on murdering dozens more.

The superhuman roared as bullets hit his eye—it was clear that he could feel pain, even if the bullets couldn't penetrate his skin—and lunged at the two guards.  He caught one of them, picked him up and threw him through the air towards a helicopter that was flying over the camp.  The hapless Marine missed the helicopter and fell somewhere towards LA.  His buddy backed off hastily, only to be caught and physically ripped apart.  Jackson saw blood splashing on the ground and realised, in horror, that he would be the next victim...

***

“I put it all together without realising it,” he admitted.  Chester listened carefully as he outlined the story.  “Maybe he was strong enough to pick up a tank and maybe he was tough enough to survive a bullet striking his body, but he still needed to breathe.”

***

Yelling wouldn't get the bastard's attention, but a mattock to the dome piece?  That would work just fine.  Jackson threw it overhand, watching it sail through the air end over end till it slammed point first directly into the back of the asshole’s head.  Slowly, he turned until he saw a Marine in dirt-and-sweat stained utilities, shovel by his side.

Seeing that he had the super's attention, Jackson raised the middle finger on either hand. Then he ran, trusting that the superhuman wouldn't hesitate to give chase.  The man didn't seem to have any form of super-speed, thankfully; he just lunged after Jackson with a loping stride that suggested that he knew that he was invincible.  No one would be able to stop him even if they caught him.

Gritting his teeth, Jackson looked back and saw that he'd put some distance between himself and his pursuer. Thank you, Staff Sergeant Fischer, for making us run up and down all these damned hills with those damned mortars. We might not be the smartest Marines, but we'll damned well outmaneuver anybody.

Up ahead, the low, squat building was awaiting Jackson.  He ran through the open door, then slammed it closed behind him, as if he were trying to hide inside.

A few minutes later, the superhuman burst into the chamber, lungs sucking down air in great noisy drafts. Three miles across broken road was never easy on the untrained.   The superhuman looked around, puzzled: where had his quarry disappeared to?

The door behind him slammed shut. He whirled around, finding a quartet of grenades lying on the ground. The superhuman smiled, waiting for the inevitable blast.

Jackson stood outside the door, holding a gas mask in one hand while he kept a sharp eye on his watch.  Part of his training during the thirteen weeks of boot camp had involved the vaunted Gas Chamber. The recruits would enter, suited up in MOPP gear, do several minutes of calisthenics and then break the seal while Drill Instructors demanded their name, platoon and all manner of Marine Corps knowledge. All in all, a miserable, god-awful experience.

He smiled, darkly.  He hoped the superhuman was enjoying it as much as the recruits.

Thirty-seven seconds, he thought.  Plenty of time to suck down a shitload of pain.

Picking up a fire extinguisher, he stepped into the chamber. It felt like combat all over again, a chemical cocktail of dopamine and adrenaline pumping through his body. The superhuman had fallen to the ground, twitching and coughing as if he were still trying to throw up everything in his stomach.  His hands were tearing at his face, trying to claw the irritants away.  It was pointless.

Quite calmly, Jackson pushed the extinguisher into the man’s mouth and pulled the trigger.

Two minutes later, it was all over.

***

“Your report stated that you made the decision to kill him without consulting anyone,” Chester said, when McDonald reached the end of his story.  “Do you think that that was a wise decision?”

“I think that there was no way he could be secured and taken away before he recovered from the gas,” McDonald said, flatly.  “And he had killed a number of Marines.  The only thing I could do was kill him before he recovered and ripped my head off, sir.”

Chester could almost read the Marine’s mind.  He had been the person on the spot, the sole person to figure out a way to end the crisis before it claimed more innocent lives...and yet he was being second-guessed by some Washington deskbound bureaucrat who wouldn't know an M-16 from a broomstick.

But there would be repercussions from this incident, even though no one had—as yet—figured out who the superhuman had been, or why he had had a grudge against the United States Marine Corps.  The CIA, FBI, SDI and Interpol had all drawn a blank.  It was quite possible that the superhuman had been nothing more than an unregistered superhuman, but it was equally possible that the attack on Camp Pendleton could be the first shot in the long-feared superhuman war.  Superhumans had upset the balance of power between the world’s nations ever since they had first appeared.

“You’re not in trouble, Marine,” he said, as reassuringly as he could.  But he wasn’t really there to be reassuring.  “You kept your head when others panicked and you took down a superhuman opponent.  Not everyone can make the same claim.”

He smiled at McDonald’s reaction.  Superhumans weren't invincible, but they did tend to intimidate the hell out of people.  The police preferred to back off and call for the military if there was even a hint that a superhuman was involved, while calls for mass registrations of superhumans had failed because there were fears that superhumans would turn on the government.  Some could live normal lives, passing for mundane humans.  Others were physical freaks, marked as superhuman whatever they did.  Far too many of them had been driven into the underworld by suspicion and bigotry.  Chester regretted that, as much as he regretted anything, but it didn't keep him from having to deal with the consequences.

“Your platoon has been scattered by the attack,” he continued.  “I would like to offer you a transfer to my unit...”

McDonald gaped at him.  “Your unit, sir?”

“My unit,” Chester confirmed.  He looked like a Washington paper-pusher; hell, he was a Washington paper-pusher.  But he served as the director of a unit that was probably more important than any other in the era of the superhuman.  “Your superiors have consented to your immediate transfer, assuming you want to take up the position.”

“I see,” McDonald said.  He was too young to hide his scepticism.  “And what exactly does this unit do?”

Chester smiled.  “We kill superhumans,” he said.  “Interested?”

"You've got my attention, sir," McDonald replied.

Chester explained, as best as he could.  “Superhumans show an alarming series of personality traits—almost disorders—after they become superhuman.  These tend to fall into several different categories. Some believe that they are heroes and have a right to save people, some become instant assholes and decide that they have the right to take what they want, some just want to hide from their powers...and some want revenge on people who tormented them before they became superhuman.  It is comparatively rare to find a superhuman who can be considered suitable for the military—and most of those who are tend to be among the lesser powers.

“This gives us a major problem.  We have had superhumans turn divorce courts into murder chambers, superhuman heroes who injure or kill criminals they catch while on patrol and plenty of villains whose only concern is getting all the money and women they want in the world.  And then there are the superhumans serving in foreign countries as part of their defence forces.  I assume you’ve heard some of the rumours about Iraq.”

McDonald nodded.  The Protector of Iraq, himself a superhuman, had created a superhuman force to defend the country’s borders.  They were allowed to indulge themselves in almost any way they wanted, provided they served the Protector’s country.  Some of the rumours flooding out of Iraq were downright terrifying.

And Iraq wasn't even the worst problem in the world.

“Fighting a superhuman opponent doesn't have to be a death sentence—but you know that already,” Chester concluded.  “Team Omega’s task is to monitor the world’s superhumans and, should it be necessary, take them down one by one.  Should you agree to join, you’ll serve as part of a small force of elite soldiers and intelligence operatives, working from the shadows to keep the world safe for humanity.  You won’t get credit for your work, but you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re doing something that no one else can do.”

He smiled at McDonald’s stunned expression.  “Your superiors have already approved a week’s leave for you,” he added.  “You have that long to decide what you want to do.”

“I have questions,” McDonald said, slowly.

“I can't answer them, not until you’re all the way in,” Chester said.  “Team Omega does not—officially—exist.  The government fears what will happen when the superhuman community becomes aware of its existence.  It is possible they will react against the government as a whole.”

He shrugged and stood up, holding out a hand.  “Thank you for coming to see me,” he said, as if McDonald hadn't been ordered to attend.  “Should you decide to join us, your superiors will give you your final set of orders.”

***

One week after that first fateful meeting, Jackson found himself reporting to a small military building located within Andrews Air Force Base.  It looked rather more like one of the makeshift FOBs he'd staged patrols out of in Latin America instead of a proper office space, complete with bunkers sporting auto-cannons behind layers of concrete, earth barriers and sand bags.  Security was tight, he noted with approval; the guards checked his ID at two separate checkpoints before they allowed him to drive into the parking lot.  The interior of the base was fenced, too, making it difficult for a body to move from section to section without the right ID.

Someone was being careful. Very careful.

He pushed through the door to the admin building and stepped inside.  The secretary behind the desk smiled as she looked him over.  “ID and retina scan, please.”

The machine chirped as Jackson looked into it, and then she stood.

"Please follow me." She led him down the hall to an open hatch and called to someone inside.  "Sir, that Marine’s here."

"Have him report in," came a clipped voice.

Jackson pounded on the pine board nailed up beside the hatch frame.

"Enter."

Jackson stepped in, rapidly appraising the office's inhabitants. Eight men in black coveralls with the insignia of their service branch were seated on a long bench. He marched to the center of the room, heels coming together swiftly, right hand rising to the corner of his eyebrow in a salute.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

"Good afternoon," the uniformed man replied. "Stand at ease."

Jackson spread his feet, hands dropping into the small of his back. He was on unfamiliar ground here, and it was best to stay stiff until he knew the terrain.

"Lance Corporal, you know why you're here," one of the men said in a colorless voice. "What you don't know is these gentlemen, and what their purpose is."

"Most units conduct initiation via a purpose-driven schoolhouse and training that forces people to fail. We don't need to test physical acumen. Every man in Omega is a graduate of those schools. Rather, we need to know your mental capacity and discipline. Between the eight of us here there's a combined 117 years military service. Delta, Seals, Recon, even Air Force PJs. Gentlemen, you may begin."

"Lance Corporal, it says here..."

Four hours after he entered the office, Jackson was dismissed. He’d passed, though it had not been without some reservation on the part of one or two officers. But he could live with that. He sat down in the anteroom, waiting. Presently a door opened, admitting a dark-skinned man who had been one of his questioners, wearing a pair of plain black coveralls.

“I’m Lane,” the man said, holding out a hand.  “Just Lane.  Any jokes about my daughter marrying Clark Kent will not be appreciated.”

Jackson had to smile.  “Jackson McDonald, Marine Corps.”

“Not any longer,” Lane said.  “You’re Team Omega now, and don’t you forget it.  We’re a little bit more relaxed than most military organisations, but if I catch you giving me less than your all, you’ll regret it.  I’m Field Team Leader for Team One.  Any questions?”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said, carefully.  “How many teams are there?”

“Four,” Lane said.  He turned and headed towards a door, leading Jackson into a long corridor decorated with photographs of famous superhumans.  “Four teams, plus the researchers who dig up most of the shit we use against the capes, the intelligence group who spy on the capes and the admin workers who do the paperwork.  All four teams are expected to be combat ready at all times; Team One and Two are based here, Team Three and Four over on the west coast somewhere.  Right now, Two is on QRA and One is standing down.”

He snorted.  “In the event of Two being scrambled, One will come to full alert and you—until you are cleared to work with us—will go to your room and stay there until we let you out.  Once you’ve been checked out on the equipment, you will be training with us until we decide that you’re fit to join officially.  We’ll probably still be a little leery of you until you actually see action, but don’t take it personally.”

“I’ve been a Nugget before sir,” Jackson said.  It happened in all military units; the new guy was regarded with some suspicion until he proved himself.  Smart commanders kept it firmly under control.  Less capable commanders sometimes let it get out of hand.  “I know the score.”

“Glad to hear it,” Lane said.  He pushed through a swing door and into a briefing room.  “As Chester probably explained to you, our mission is to identify, monitor and eliminate dangerous superhumans.  Principally, we deal with the psychopaths, the rogues and the dangerous criminals.  Some of the bastards are pretty much celebrities and we have to be careful about how we deal with them.  If you have any belief in the value of a fair fight, I suggest that you get it out of your system right now.”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.

“That’s Lane to you,” Lane said, firmly.  “We don’t stand on ceremony here—besides, I work for a living.  Luckily, I only have to use PowerPoint when a new guy comes along.”

He picked up a remote control and waved Jackson to a chair.  “Team One consists of nine active members, three support staff.  You’ll be pleased to know that we insist that our field support staff are riflemen first, a concept we shamelessly stole from the Marines.  There’s no such thing as a standard weapons' load for us, so you’ll be trained and checked out on everything.  We’ll also expect you to spend some of your spare time studying for additional MOS certificates, as we want as many disciplines as possible on the field teams.”

Jackson nodded.  It sounded as though he would be busy.  Good.

“You’ll get a proper briefing on the Rules of Engagement later, but suffice it to say that we exist somewhere in the grey area between police SWAT teams and the Delta Force guys who would back them up if they ran into trouble they couldn't handle.   Those who know a little about us think we’re a federal SWAT team linked to the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, so we attempt to abide by the same rules they do.  However, when dealing with a superhuman opponent, it is generally wiser to apply maximum force and worry about the legalities later.  We would prefer to avoid an incident that would cause embarrassing questions to be raised.

“However, I expect total professionalism from my people at all times,” he added.  “Use the vague ROE as an excuse to fuck up and you’ll wish the superhuman had killed you by the time I’m through with you.  Understand?”

“Yes, Lane,” Jackson said.  It felt strange referring to a superior officer by his first name.  “Don’t fuck up.”

Lane snorted.  “Team Omega’s overall director is Chester Harrison, the man who first interviewed you.  We have an agreement: I run Team One to suit myself in exchange for making sure that we win all of our encounters with capes, while he covers our political ass and reports directly to the President.  It was I who approved your provisional transfer to Team Omega.  Do you have a problem with that?”

“No,” Jackson said.  It seemed to make sense—and it was more rational than some of the other arrangements for military-civil relationships.  “We report directly to the President?”

“You report to me, I report to Chester, Chester reports to the President,” Lane said.  He looked down at the floor and then back up at Jackson.  “I won’t lie to you, son.  There’s a good chance that you will end up dead or crippled within five years.  And you will be held to a very high standard.  We fuck up—hundreds of lives can be lost.  If you want to back out...”

“Fuck that,” Jackson said.  “It sounds like a challenge.”

“You have no idea,” Lane said.  “If you’ll come along...it’s time to start putting you through your paces.”

Chapter Two

Team One’s barracks were strikingly large for such a small group of soldiers, although half of the space had been converted into a storage locker for weapons, first aid and a handful of devices that Jackson didn't recognise.  The centre of the barracks consisted of a handful of chairs, a computer projector and a stack of drink cans—all non-alcoholic, Jackson was pleased to note.  He’d been on overseas bases where the locals had been drunk or drugged up and felt safer out in bandit country.

“This is Sergeant Johannes von Shrakenberg,” Lane said, nodding to the largest man in the room.  “The Sergeant is second-in-command of Team One; he’d be a Chief like me by now if he hadn't refused to quit being an enlisted schmuck.”

Jackson felt his eyes widen as he looked at the Sergeant.  Von Shrakenberg’s physical appearance was freakish, almost inhuman.  Everything below his chest was normal, but his shoulders were massive, with muscles on top of muscles.  It took Jackson a moment to realise that he was looking at a Boerbel, one of the humans who had been modified by Dr. Death before the South African regime had collapsed into civil war.  He couldn't understand how the Sergeant’s legs could support his massive chest, or why his skin seemed to vary from white to black.

“You’re a Boerbel,” he said, shocked.  “I thought you were all gone.”

“Dr. Death never managed to get his experiments quite right,” the Sergeant explained as he shook Jackson’s hand.  His handshake was tightly controlled, suggesting an inhuman strength that was more than just the result of Special Forces exercises.  “I was nine when the bastard put me under the knife and spliced organs from some dead black superhuman into my chest.  As you can see”—he waved a hand at his face—“the experiments didn't work properly.  My skin changed colour and my shoulders just kept growing.”

He grinned, nastily.  “It wasn't until I was rescued by Delta that I came to the United States, and then they weren't sure what to do with me.  So I went into the Army, and eventually ended up riding herd on freaks like me.”

Jackson found himself unable to say anything.  He’d heard about the experiments, but he’d never seen any of the results, not in person.

Von Shrakenberg ignored his hesitation and bellowed for the remainder of Team One to stop slacking and come meet the fucking new guy.  Several ambled over from the direction of the firing range, carrying all sorts of weapons.  They all looked quietly competent.

Jackson couldn’t help feeling quietly relieved.  Some of the allied SF units he’d dealt with in the past had thought themselves kings of the world.

“Welcome to the first day of hell,” von Shrakenberg informed him, as Team One studied him.  “We are going to test you right up to your limits—and if you pass, you will be welcomed into Team One.  If you fail, the rats will have your body.  The lads will be helping to test you, so don’t show them any weakness.”

He grinned.  Jackson winced.  SF training was deliberately made as hard as possible to sort out the operators from the wannabes.

Team One looked at him, while Jackson fought to keep his face expressionless.  SF units rarely welcomed newcomers until they had proven themselves.  Jackson knew that Team One would put him through his paces until they were sure that they could depend upon him.  It wasn't exactly hazing, not like some recruits were hazed in boot camp, but something they needed to do in order to make sure Jackson was right for them.

“Isn't it lucky that we have some downtime?”  von Shrakenberg said to his men.  His expression changed from pleasant to furious with alarming speed.  “Why are you lollygagging around here?  Get in the Shooting House!”

He beckoned Jackson to follow him and marched down to the firing range.  It was larger than the one Jackson had used at Camp Pendleton, with a handful of holographic simulators to generate moving targets for the soldiers.  Military operations in urban terrain—street-fighting, in other words—had become more common even before the first superhumans had appeared to muddy the waters and make the global situation even more complicated than it had been before.  He shuddered as he remembered the superhuman who had struck Camp Pendleton, and realised, once again, just how capable Team Omega had to be.  They monitored and—if necessary—killed superhumans.

“This is the M-22,” von Shrakenberg said as he pulled a gun off the rack.  He held it up in one hand, locking the bolt to the rear as he did so, running a finger into the feed chamber to ensure that it was empty before he handed it to Jackson.  “This is our primary weapon for use against caped freaks. It’s chambered in .375 Remington Ultra Magnum.”

Jackson looked up the spout before tapping the release and sending the bolt home.  The M-22 was heavier than its predecessor, he noted as he studied the weapon with professional interest.  It was larger than an M-16, with a complex-looking scope mounted on the top rail.  The weapon looked too complicated for the field—military tech was never as reliable as the manufacturers claimed—almost like it had come out of a science-fiction movie.

The Sergeant tapped a recessed switch on the side and the gun’s magazine dropped out.

“You will notice that the weapon’s great failing is that it cannot fire standard ammo from an M-16 or another assault rifle,” he informed Jackson.  “Instead, we fire a variety of different projectiles that are produced for our specific needs.”

He reached behind the counter and produced a briefcase, which, when opened, revealed a number of colour-coded magazines.  “Green shells are basically comparable to normal ammunition, except they carry a heavier punch when they hit a body; try not to use them if you have to snipe someone standing in the middle of a crowd of human shields.  We modified the rounds developed by Delta if we do have to snipe at someone like that, but with superhumans you cannot assume that standard ammunition will do the trick.”

Jackson nodded.  The intruder at Camp Pendleton had shrugged off bullets.  If he hadn't needed to breathe, Jackson would have ended up dead.

“Yellow shells are...well, we call them rocket shells, but you’ll get a briefing on the science later,” the Sergeant continued.  “Suffice it to say that they move at terrifying speed and over an astonishing distance.  We’ve sometimes had to use them to take down speedsters and believe me, they work.

“Red shells are penetrator rounds, intended to blast through the toughest of skin.  I’ve seen them punch through the armour on a tank, so don’t take these babies lightly.  Some Level 4 freaks have been taken down with penetrator rounds.”  He grinned.  “I don’t think I need to warn you that using them in a crowded room can be disastrous.  Much of what we do requires careful planning beforehand.”  He looked up at Jackson, as if he was inviting comment.

“Yes, Sergeant,” Jackson said, feeling a little overwhelmed and trying not to show it.  “What happens if the plans go wrong?”

“Then we have to improvise,” von Shrakenberg said.  “You should be good at that, after what you did at Camp Pendleton.”

Jackson cursed himself mentally.  Of course von Shrakenberg would know what he'd done at Camp Pendleton; he would have been fully briefed long before Jackson ever made it to Team One’s barracks.  A SF unit’s internal structure was flatter than the regular army’s hierarchy and von Shrakenberg had probably played a role in the discussions that had resulted in Jackson being invited to try out for Team One.

“I see,” he said.  “How often do we have to improvise?”

“As often as necessary,” von Shrakenberg said.  “I’m afraid we get very little actual downtime in this organisation.  None of the lads are married or have social attachments outside the group.  You can probably imagine why we stick to that policy, even if the headshrinkers do claim that married men are more grounded in reality.”

Jackson nodded.  They dealt with superhumans, who could be dangerously unpredictable and immune to conventional weapons.  Each mission could leave one—or all—of the team crippled, or dead.  A single mischance could doom the entire operation.  It was better that Team One’s members left no one behind when they died, even if it did isolate them from the world.

The Sergeant pulled a fourth and fifth magazine out of the case.  “Black rounds are designed to explode within the target’s body,” he told Jackson.  “They are technically illegal across the world, but with superhumans you need to inflict a shitload of trauma very quickly and most SF units have quietly agreed to let that rule fall by the wayside.  Try not to use them too close to the media as the President would have to answer questions if anyone figured out what we were doing.  Luckily, the media’s collective ignorance is so great that they think a person’s head exploding is natural when they get shot.”

He chuckled.  “White rounds...they’re chancy, so the lads prefer not to use them if possible.  They’re designed to inject a powerful sedative into a target’s body, knocking him out very quickly.  Do not rely on them.  Superhumans can have quick-healing as well as other powers, particularly the Level 4 and 5 freaks.  We only really use them if we need the target alive and we always have other snipers standing by with black or red rounds, just in case the sedative fails.”

Carefully, he pulled another M-22 off the rack and slotted one of the magazines into the gun, which came to life in his hands.  “You have one of the finest sniper scopes developed by Uncle Sam in your hands,” he said, as he activated the firing range and pointed the rifle towards the targets in the distance.  Most of them, Jackson noted, were human figures wearing capes.  “In theory”—he grinned; practice rarely worked out as well as theory said it should—“you can hit a flying target in absolute darkness.  Switching to auto will have the gun firing the moment it sees a target—again, don’t use it without direct orders from the boss.  It’s not totally reliable.”

Jackson winced.  The thought of a gun that picked its own targets and fired without any input from its wielder was chilling.  “Now,” von Shrakenberg said, as he took aim.  “Let’s see how good you are with a rifle.”

***

Jackson was exhausted when the Sergeant brought him to a small room and motioned for him to go inside, on his own.  Apart from the shooting exercises, where the Sergeant had taken a sinister delight in pointing out all of his failings while trying to shoot an unfamiliar weapon, they’d gone for a run and a scramble through an assault course that had clearly been designed by a sadist.  Jackson was no stranger to danger—he’d seen combat, after all—but the assault course had been completely unsafe.  A fall would probably have broken bones as well as disqualifying him for inclusion in Team Omega.

“Go,” the Sergeant said.  He hadn't dropped any hints about this part of the qualification process.  “I’ll wait outside.”

Don’t you have something better to do?  Jackson thought.  He wasn't stupid enough to ask out loud.  Drill Instructors were a fact of life in boot camp, but he couldn't ever remember a sergeant who also served as second-in-command being an instructor.  But then, von Shrakenberg probably had absolute confidence in his men not to goof off while they were practicing in the Shooting House.  Soldiers didn't make the transition to SF unless they were dedicated and disciplined. That and the average rank in the squad was E-6, which meant most of the stupidity had already been knocked out of them.

He pushed at the door and it swung open, revealing a lighted room.  There was a desk, two chairs and little else, apart from a water dispenser on one side of the room.  Behind the desk, a man sat with his fingertips pressed together, watching Jackson with an expression of cool disapproval.  He didn't look military, but looks could be deceiving.

“Be seated,” he said, shortly.  He had a fussy voice that reminded Jackson of the counsellor he’d had to see in High School.  The bastard had been totally unable to realise that the only way to deal with bullies was to turn on them and break their noses.  “My name is Grimes.  You may call me sir.”

Jackson swallowed the response that came to mind.  “Yes, sir,” he said, and waited.

Grimes made a show of shuffling a sheaf of papers he produced from his briefcase.  “You are tasked to take out”—he made a face at the words—“a Level X superhuman who resides in the Beverly Hills Apartment Complex, San Francisco.  The man generally lives alone, but is known to have enthralled women and brought them to his apartment from time to time.  For various reasons, notably his connection to other superhumans, you must leave no trail—assume that the FBI will be hunting you and act accordingly.

“It is imperative,” Grimes added, “that he be taken out before he realises what is happening to him.  How would you carry out the operation?”

Jackson needed time to think, but he had a feeling that time was critical.  Level X superhumans weren't super-strong, nor could they fly; they possessed abilities that meddled with reality itself.  As such, they were incredibly dangerous, even to their fellow superhumans.  He'd never heard of a Level X superhuman choosing to live away from the rest of the superhuman community, but there were superhumans who preferred not to enter the world of caped superheroes and masked villains.  Or fight for their country as part of the Superhuman Defence Initiative.

“Level X,” he repeated.  “Just what powers does he possess?”

Grimes looked at him, dispassionately.  “I have given you everything you need,” he said, impassively.  Jackson could sense the disdain behind his words.  “How do you intend to take out the superhuman?”

“Assuming that he leaves his apartment, snipe him down from a distance using explosive rounds,” Jackson said, finally.  Level X superhumans were rarely invulnerable, thankfully.  There was a story about a town that had been warped into a nightmare by a Level X superhuman some years ago.  The townsfolk had never really recovered from the event, even after their town had been liberated.  “If not...quietly evacuate the entire apartment and then destroy it.”

Grimes slapped the table, his expression shifting from disdain to anger in a split-second.  “You stupid son-of-a-bitch,” he bellowed.  “The man you just killed was the lover of your commanding officer’s wife!  Don’t you think before you jump into action?”

Jackson fought down the urge to land a punch between the bastard’s eyes.  The hell of it was that Grimes was right, at least to some extent.  He should have asked more questions; he’d just assumed that it was a test to see how he would carry out the assassination.  Assassinating a Level X superhuman was a more plausible operation than assassinating any other superhuman, with the added bonus that no one would be able to prove any differently once the superhuman was dead.  Level X superhumans had no enhanced muscles or other detectable traits.  And yet he resented how the test had been carried out.  Perhaps it was also an exercise in self-control.

“I take your point,” he said, finally.  “Look before I leap.”

“And before you carry out an unauthorised operation within the United States,” Grimes added, unpleasantly.  “Don’t you know that the military can only be deployed here for a series of specific contingencies?”

Which did, Jackson knew, include dealing with a rogue superhuman.  But Grimes probably wouldn't be impressed by that point.  The test, if it was a test, was rigged to see how he would react to each question.  Grimes, he suspected, wasn't the real judge.  That would be the operatives of Team Omega.

“So,” Grimes said, “after a moment.  You have a sister?”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.

There was a long pause as Grimes waited for him to say something else, before looking down at the papers on the desk.  “Quite a pretty girl, your sister,” Grimes observed.  “Just about to enter college on a scholarship from Harvard.  Not too bad for a girl from a lower middle-class family.”

He looked at Jackson.  “What would you do for your sister?”

Jackson looked back at him, evenly.  Gayle had been a pain in the ass when she'd been young, but they’d come to a truce as they both grew older and matured.  He’d once had to convince a prospective boyfriend to look elsewhere, only to discover that Gayle was quite prepared to do the same to his girlfriends.  She wasn't the sort of person to take such an insult lying down.

“Whatever I had to,” he said, evenly.

Grimes shrugged.  “There’s a Level 5 superhuman who has taken over a building on campus and is holding several students as hostages,” he said.  Jackson remembered some of the students who had demonstrated against the Marines at Camp Pendleton and wondered if that would be a small loss.  “Those hostages include your sister, but your CO doesn't know it.  Would you tell him that you have a personal stake in the operation?”

Jackson fought down his anger, once again.  A Level 5 superhuman was powerful enough to knock down the entire university.  Taking one out required advanced weapons and a great deal of luck.  The crossfire might kill all of the hostages and destroy Harvard before the superhuman either escaped— as most Level 5 superhumans could fly—or was brought down by Team Omega.  It would only become more complicated if other superhumans showed up to help...

“I would have to,” he admitted.  Rescuing hostages was a tricky business, even at the best of times.  “And I’d be withdrawn from the team until the mission was completed.”

Grimes nodded.  “You may return to the Sergeant,” he said.  There was no clue in his face about just how well Jackson had done on the test.  “Thank you for your time.”

His head spinning, Jackson left the office.

“Welcome back,” von Shrakenberg said.  He grinned, evilly.  “You’re just in time for another run around the track.”

Chapter Three

“All right, ladies, the shit has just hit the fan,” Lane said.  He looked calm and focused, despite the situation.  The nine men of Team One – counting Jackson—stood ready for action.  They’d donned body armour, checked out their weapons and completed their good luck rituals.  “We're going into action in one hour precisely.”

Jackson kept his face expressionless.  It was a drill.  He knew it was a drill.  But they had to treat it as if it was a real deployment.  There could be no slacking, even on drills.

His gaze swept over the group.  Unlike the others, he hadn't expressed any doubts about Jackson, the Fucking New Guy.  But then, they’d all been running him ragged over the last week, pushing him right to the limit.  Team Omega operators were supposed to remember a colossal amount of trivia on superhumans as well as keeping up with their exercises, both physical and mental.  A FNG had no place among them until he had either proven himself or died heroically.

“As you may have heard,” Lane continued, “Dilbert Corporation has been threatened by the Green Warriors, a radical band of ecoterrorists who believe that Dilbert has been taking the lead in paying bribes to factions in the Congo who can secure the mines and allow the corporation to make vast profits over the last five years.  Today, the Warriors finally put their money where their mouth is and assaulted Dilbert HQ in New York.  The assault was surprisingly well-planned and they managed to capture over five hundred office drones and cubicle monkeys, along with the chairmen of the board.  They released a handful of hostages who needed urgent medical attention, using them to convey their demands to the Mayor.”

One of the operators stuck up a hand.  “What do they actually want?”

“They gave us a list of demands,” Lane said.  “For the release of the hostages, they want new curbs on pollution and an end to corporate interference in Africa, as well as release and a full pardon for any of their members who are currently being someone’s bitch in prison.  And themselves as well, I assume.  They’re not going to get any of that, and they have to know it.  It will make them very dangerous.”

Jackson couldn't disagree.  Unless the terrorists had someone who could teleport on their side, they weren't going to get out without running the gauntlet of police, National Guardsmen and soldiers assembled outside the captured building.  They had to know that they were trapped, unless they intended to use the hostages to buy them time to escape.

There was a pause as the team studied the maps.  “New York’s SWAT team, assisted by the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, launched an assault two hours ago,” Lane concluded.  “They were comprehensively defeated by a handful of superhumans involved with the Green Warriors, resulting in thirty dead and seventeen wounded.  The terrorists have since informed the Mayor that if he doesn't give in to their demands within five hours, the remaining hostages will be butchered.  You’ll be pleased to know that some of the hostages are quite important, with powerful friends who have urged the Mayor to do whatever it takes to free them...even if it means bending over for the terrorists.  The President has authorised Team Omega to intervene.”

Sergeant von Shrakenberg took over.  “Our mission is to recover the hostages, eliminate the terrorists and recover the building, preferably intact.”  There were some chuckles from the team.  All of the reports Jackson had read suggested that Team Omega’s operations tended to get messy.  “As you can see, the building is isolated from its fellows, leaving us with only a handful of possible assault routes.  Landing on the roof has been dismissed as the terrorists have at least one flyer among their number.”

Jackson listened as the Lane went through what little was known about the terrorists, particularly the superhumans among them.  “Five appear to have enhanced strength and durability, little else,” the Sergeant agreed.  “One appears to be a flyer; probably Level 3 as she didn't join the fighting against the SWAT team.  The other two appear to be mutants with enhanced speed and strength.  I don’t need to remind you that mutants can be very deadly enemies.”

Lane nodded, drawing their attention back to the holographic schematic of the building.  “As far as we can tell, most of the hostages have been placed in the underground vault here,” he said, tapping the schematic.  “Unfortunately, someone has taken out the security cameras so we can’t be sure, but it makes tactical sense.  However, a number of hostages have been taken to the upper floors of the building, where they are being...interrogated by the terrorists.  The main body of the terrorist force appears to be on the first and second floors, allowing them to keep the hostages penned in and respond to a second attack from the NYPD.

“Snipers will deploy here, where they will take out every terrorist within sight as soon as I issue the order to move.  Team Alpha will scale the building here”—he pointed to the rear of the building, which was decorated in a fashion that should leave plenty of handholds for the operators to climb—“while Team Beta launches a covering assault against the main entrance.  Ideally, we should catch the terrorists between two fires; if not, Team Beta will liberate the hostages and pull them out while Team Alpha goes up.  I don’t have to remind you all, I hope, to be damn careful with the hostages.  In a building that big, it would be easy for someone to be slipped into the hostages as a ringer.”

Jackson nodded, sweat trickling down the back of his neck.  Hostage rescue missions were always dangerous, all the more so when terrorists could be hiding among the hostages, ready to murder them if they looked to be losing.  The briefing material on the Green Warriors had reminded him, as if he hadn't already known, that they were fanatical defenders of the planet.  Each murdered human only made it easier for Mother Nature to breathe.  They’d just have to cuff the hostages until they could all be positively identified.  It wasn't going to be pleasant.

And if I screw up, he thought grimly, I may be sent back home.

“New Guy, you’re Team Alpha, with me,” the Sergeant said.  Jackson had expected Lane to lead the assault in person, but Team Beta would be going right into the teeth of enemy fire, the most dangerous part of the mission.  Once the terrorists realised that they’d been cut off from the hostages, they’d come boiling downstairs like angry wasps intent on stinging the intruders to death.  “Move out!”

***

Jackson had seen Shooting Houses before, back during his original MOUT training, but the Shooting House belonging to Team Omega was something else.  Combined with holographic projectors buried within the stonework, it presented a near-perfect rendition of a building held by a hostile force.  It was chillingly realistic.

The Sergeant led them towards their jumping-off position, eyes sweeping for any sign of enemy scouts who might alert the main body.  Some superhumans could turn invisible, after all.  The rear of the building loomed up in the distance, with a single superhuman standing guard.  It didn't look as though he could fly.

His earpiece buzzed.  “Ten seconds,” Lane’s voice said.  Jackson braced himself, focusing on the matter at hand.  It was his first real exercise with Team One and he was determined not to fuck up.  “And go!”

The snipers fired as one, the superhuman standing guard tumbling to the ground with a massive hole in his throat.  Even if he was tough enough to survive that, he wouldn't be in a position to interfere after cracking his head on the concrete.  Jackson followed von Shrakenberg to the rear of the building and started to scramble up, while the snipers picked off any terrorists stupid enough to show their faces.  The entire building shook as Beta Team detonated the breaching charge in the lobby, blowing a handful of terrorists into the next world, just before the Sergeant tossed a grenade through a third-floor window and followed it into the building.  Two terrorists had been caught by the blast and wounded too badly to offer resistance; the third was midway through lifting his rifle when a single shot from von Shrakenberg took him in the head and sent him crashing to the floor.

Jackson took point as the remaining two operatives followed them in, heading to the stairwells where the terrorists should appear if they weren't distracted by Beta Team.  They got to the third floor and came immediately under fire; two masked men appeared, both spraying bullets at the soldiers.  Jackson gunned them down without hesitation.  The other two operatives threw grenades down the stairwell to panic the remaining terrorists as Jackson’s HUD updated; Beta Force was in the house and clearing its way to the basement.

“Alpha Team, go up,” Lane’s voice ordered.  “Beta Team can handle these bastards.”

Sergeant von Shrakenberg took the lead as Alpha Team ran up the stairs, checking each floor as they moved.  Most of the terrorists in watch positions had been taken out by the snipers, but a handful remained alive, including two who tried to surrender.  The operatives searched them roughly, cuffed them and then left them where they lay.  They’d be able to pick them up after the fighting was over and the building was secure.  Besides, Jackson wouldn't shed any tears for them if their comrades killed them before they could be interrogated.  They’d lost all right to be treated as human beings the moment they took civilians as hostages.

A burst of gunfire greeted them as they reached the tenth floor, forcing Jackson to crawl on his hands and knees after the Sergeant, who barely slowed down.  Maybe his enhanced form had some advantages, Jackson decided, although he couldn't see just how von Shrakenberg would get up if someone managed to knock him over.  The gunfire grew louder, mingled with sobbing from the hostages, both male and female.  They might have been corporate CEOs, with more money in the bank than Jackson could ever dream of earning as a soldier, but they didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

“Standoff,” von Shrakenberg muttered.  The terrorists had a near-perfect position, apart from the fact that they couldn't get out without being shot down.  Alpha Team would be sure to take hits as they threw themselves into the room and their body armour wouldn't be able to handle everything.  “New Guy—take that corridor and see if you can catch them in a covering fire.”

Jackson nodded in acknowledgement and crawled westwards until he could stand up without being seen.  His father had often grumbled about working as a corporate drone, pointing out that the managers loved to spy on their employees while remaining hidden behind semi-transparent glass.  Now, their offices had become prisons, allowing the terrorists to hold them with minimal effort while they concentrated the main body of their force against the rescue teams.  Jackson found a crack in the wall and peered through it, wincing as he saw five terrorists—including two mutants.  The superhumans who could no longer pass for human were more inclined to violence; why not, when civilised society shunned them?  One of the mutants sniffed loudly and turned to look at Jackson, even though there was no way that he could have seen him.  Jackson threw himself to the ground as bullets tore through the cheap plaster walls separating him from the terrorists.  They offered no protection at all.

“Five terrorists, including two mutants,” he subvocalised, as the bullets drew closer.  He crawled away as fast as he could.  “I don’t know how, but they saw me!”

“Nice going, new guy,” someone muttered.

The Sergeant ignored him.  “Go,” he snapped.  Jackson heard the sound of M-22’s firing as the three operatives took advantage of the distraction to charge into the room, taking down the terrorists before they could react.  “Move...”

Jackson felt someone grasp the back of his uniform.  A strong arm picked him up and threw him down the corridor, slamming him into the wall at the far end.  The body armour took most of the blow, but it was still jarring as hell; Jackson managed to turn around, only to see the mutant growl as it charged towards him.  Up close, it was very hard to tell that it had been born human.  It looked rather more like a werewolf might, if caught in transition between human and wolf forms.

He managed to draw his knife as the werewolf caught him, ready to bite into his helmet with sharp canine teeth.  The helmet should have protected him, but there was no point in taking chances.  Desperately, Jackson knifed the mutant in the heart and was rewarded with a howl so loud it almost deafened him.  Then the mutant staggered backwards, glaring at him with disconcertingly human eyes.  Jackson had just enough space to draw his pistol and shoot the werewolf through the head.  They weren't silver bullets, but they were enough to put the creature to sleep permanently.

Glancing from side to side, Jackson walked back to where his M-22 had fallen and picked it up, checking that the weapon hadn't been seriously damaged.  Everything looked fine, although he wouldn't know for sure until he tried to use some of the advanced functions.  The M-22 was designed to be robust, but it had taken one hell of a bang when he’d been thrown away as easily as a Marine would throw a grenade.  It was a shocking reminder that superhumans rewrote the laws of combat just by existing.

“I’m clear,” he said, hoping like hell that the communications system hadn't been broken.  His goggles had picked up a nasty scratch that was interfering with the HUD display.  “One mutant down; I say again, one mutant down.”

“Noted,” the Sergeant said, dryly.  “Come and relieve one-seven.”

Jackson lowered his weapon before walking into the offices, knowing that it was alarmingly easy for friendly fire to kill operatives in the confines of close-quarter battle.  The last thing he needed was to be mistaken for a terrorist and gunned down by one of the members of his own team.  Inside, one terrorist had been captured and secured by the operators, who had also secured the small group of CEOs and secretaries.  They all looked too stunned to argue about their treatment, but Jackson doubted that would last.  There were plenty of civilians who would complain, afterwards, about how the military had dealt with them.

One-seven—Basil Adamson, who’d introduced himself as a hard-entry specialist—was guarding the terrorist prisoner by keeping one foot on his neck and his gun pointed at the terrorist’s head.  It seemed a little excessive, but after fighting the mutant, Jackson knew better than to assume that any of the terrorists were ever truly secure.  They’d have to wait to do a full body-scan before they knew for sure that the prisoners were human—or superhuman.

The building shook as gunfire echoed through the atmosphere.  “We have to keep the former hostages here for the moment,” the Sergeant said, calmly.  “One-nine; keep an eye on the prisoner while the remainder of us go to assist Beta Team.”

Jackson blinked.  “You’re leaving me here on my own?”

“You think you can't handle ten zip-cuffed men and women?” the Sergeant demanded.  “There are no terrorists above the third floor, so all you have to do is mind him until we call and relieve you.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Jackson said, silently grateful that the mask kept the embarrassment from his face.  Assuming, of course, that the Sergeant was right when he said that there were no terrorists anywhere near him.  Team One just wasn't large enough to sweep the building properly, even without splitting into three teams.  “I can handle it.”

The Sergeant nodded and led the other two men out of the room, leaving Jackson alone with the former hostages—and the prisoner.  As far as he could tell, the terrorist was completely stunned, unable to move—or too terrified to move.  Terrorists were really grown-up bullies, he knew; they never picked on people who could actually fight back.  The CEOs looked scared, apart from one who seemed angrier than anything else.  How dare the Green Warriors assault his headquarters and take him prisoner?

Or perhaps he was a terrorist.  Their HUDs had been programmed with the names and faces of everyone who should be in the building, but the facial recognition software was nowhere near as clever as the geeks who’d designed it seemed to think.  Judging from some of the reports Jackson had read, it had been known to identify people as outsiders—and therefore suspected terrorists—even when those people had a perfect right to be in the building.  He had to keep an eye on everyone, not easy when his earpiece was filled with chatter from the rest of the team, fighting to subdue or kill the remaining terrorists.  They clearly didn't trust him enough to let him join the fighting downstairs.

Something fell outside.  Jackson lifted his gun automatically, taking his foot away from the terrorist and advancing towards the shattered ruin that had once been the door.  There was nothing outside, even when he used the sensors on the gun to probe for invisible men.  Something had probably just been dislodged by the explosions shaking the building and had finally fallen to the ground.  He cursed his own paranoia, just before he heard a snap from behind him.  Something had just broken...

He spun around in time to see the terrorist jumping to his feet and coming right at him.  Somehow, he'd broken the zip-tie holding his arms behind his back...shit, he had to be stronger than ten regular men!  Jackson had seen the cuffs when they were first introduced and they got tighter the more someone struggled.  He was still trying to raise his gun when the terrorist became a blur.  He felt more than saw a crushing blow to the side of his head...and then he plunged into darkness.

Chapter Four

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” a female voice said.  Jackson opened his eyes and saw a dark-skinned woman bending over him, pushing something against his chest.  “You took quite a nasty bump.  How are you feeling?”

Jackson rubbed his aching head.  “Uncomfortable,” he said.  He hadn't been hit like that since...since he’d been taught basic unarmed combat at boot camp.  “Did you get the number of the tank that ran over me?”

“I keep telling Chester that these exercises are too realistic,” the doctor said.  “It’s hard enough to patch you guys back together when you go out to fight.”

Jackson sat up, feeling his head spinning.  “I’m Doctor Jones,” she added.  “If you suffer any form of problem in the next two days, come back and see me at once.  Don’t hide it, because it will spring up at the worst possible moment and cost you your life.  Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Jackson said.  He’d never had very much patience for being mothered, even though Doctor Jones looked better than the average military doctor.  Besides, she would certainly be checked out on weapons and expected to use them if necessary.  “I’ll let you know.”

“Good,” Doctor Jones said.  “Now I believe that your Sergeant is waiting for you outside...”

Jackson made sure he could walk steadily before opening the door and stepping into the corridor.  Sergeant von Shrakenberg was waiting for him, one eye showing the traces of a bruise that had probably been inflicted during the training simulation.  Apart from that, he looked irritatingly healthy.  Jackson wondered if his enhanced metabolism gave him an enhanced healing factor of his own, but there was no way to know.  Each of Dr. Death’s enhanced humans had been different—and most of them had gone insane very quickly.  They were still causing trouble in the shithole the Congo had become.

“Ah,” the Sergeant said, putting aside the magazine he’d been pretending to read.  “Got tired of lollygagging, have you?”

Jackson resisted the temptation to say something that would probably get his ass kicked out of the military.  “I only just woke up, Sergeant,” he said.  Something clicked in his mind.  “You set me up, didn't you?”

“Of course,” von Shrakenberg said.  He didn't sound apologetic.  “You have to understand, you have to really feel what it’s like to take on a superhuman.  Without that, you get lazy and then you make mistakes.”

They walked out into the bright sunlight and across to the barracks.  “Doctor Jones is one of the few experts in superhuman psychology on this planet,” he added, as they walked.  “Her other speciality is trauma medicine, so if you get seriously wounded she will be the one patching you together.  Don’t get on her bad side.  I’ve seen her bring soldiers with terrible wounds back from the brink of death.”

He scowled, just for a moment.  “The rate of soldiers from this outfit taking a medical discharge is far too high.  Every so often, some jerk in the Pentagon realises that we’re losing ten to twenty percent of our manpower that way and throws a fit, probably thinking that the CO tortures recruits for fun.  He has to be calmed down before he starts doing something stupid, like taking it to the press.”

Jackson nodded.  Medical discharges weren't uncommon, but losing even one person from Team One’s manpower would mean that they were down by ten percent.  Most army units were much larger; perversely, they could lose more men than Team Omega and wind up looking better.  He said nothing as they reached the barracks and marched right into the centre of the room.

“Take a chair,” von Shrakenberg instructed, as he bellowed for the other soldiers.  “It's time to start the most dreaded communist invention of all.  The self-criticism session.”

He waited until the rest of the troop had sat down, and tapped the table to begin.  “So tell me, Lance Corporal McDonald, just what went wrong yesterday?”

Jackson blinked.  He’d slept overnight in the medical ward?  “I took my eyes off the bad guy,” he said, finally.  It had been the first mistake, although in hindsight he couldn't see how he could have acted any differently.  If there had been someone outside, they could have tossed a grenade into the room before he could react and murdered all of the hostages.  “I didn't realise that he was a superhuman...”

“You weren't meant to,” von Shrakenberg admitted.  His tone didn't soften.  “Let that be a lesson to you.  Every time we are involved, superhumans are also involved.  You can never be sure of what the freaks can do, ever.  Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Jackson said.

“If that had been a real situation, you would have died there and then,” von Shrakenberg continued.  “You would have died; you would have lost the hostages...and there wouldn't have been enough of your head left for us to identify you afterwards.  It wouldn't have been the first closed-casket we’ve had to send home, and it probably wouldn't be the last.”

He tapped the table again.  “The CO has been called to Langley for a briefing, so I will be handling the session,” he said, addressing the room at large.  “What did we do wrong in that session?”

Jackson sat back and listened as the whole exercise was hashed out from beginning to end, with every factor studied carefully.  They’d won, but it could easily have turned into a bloody disaster—and nineteen of the holographic hostages had died in the crossfire.  It was true that no one could guarantee that a hostage rescue mission would succeed bloodlessly, yet a loss rate like that would probably lead to questions being asked in high places.  Some of his friends who had joined the Navy SEALs had noted that politicians seemed to shy away from anything remotely controversial, even if the United States came out ahead.  SEALs had killed pirates near Africa, only to be threatened with criminal charges.

“Overall, we need to work on our espionage systems,” von Shrakenberg concluded.  “We missed a number of terrorist positions because we were too reliant on what the NYPD pulled from the building’s security net before they took down all of the cameras.  It’s always a risk to use micro-technology near superhumans because their senses can be very acute, but in future we may not have a choice.”

“We were a bit pushed for time,” Specialist Chris French pointed out.  As a sniper, he’d been shooting through windows and taking out all the terrorists who showed themselves before Alpha Team burst onto the tenth floor.  “If we’d had time to wait, we could probably have scoped out the building better before we moved.”

“Says the guy who didn't have to charge through the doors,” Basil said.  “We don’t always have the luxury of time.”

The Sergeant glared at them both and then addressed the room at large.  “Downtime is coming to an end in three days,” he said.  “By then, we need to sharpen up our game and make sure that Jackson here is fully integrated into the team.  Tomorrow, we will return to the shooting house and make damn sure we do better.  Next time, it could be real.”

He stood up.  “You all know what is at stake.  We cannot afford to fuck up in public.  Those of you who bothered to check the background of the simulation would have noted that the media were there, covering the crisis.  One single misstep on camera, and the shit would really hit the fan.

“Johnny, Thomas, I want a word with you two about the proper way to secure hostages,” he concluded.  “Everyone else—assemble at 1700 for briefing; until then, you’re on your own.  Except you, Jackson.  You have an appointment with the legal team.”

Jackson stared at him.  “We have a legal team?”

“Fiends in human form,” Basil assured him.  “Try not to annoy them or they will eat your soul.”

***

Professor Brian Hayworth wasn't military; indeed, Jackson was fairly sure that he hadn't seen a less-likely military officer in his entire career.  He was short, with a long beard and a vaguely pink shirt that would have aroused suspicions of homosexuality if worn by a career military officer.  But he knew his stuff and, after insisting that Jackson take a cup of coffee and a piece of cake from Britain, he started to outline the legal basis behind Team Omega.

“Superhumans fall into two basic physical categories,” he said.  “One category can pass for human, the other—the mutated humans—are largely incapable of existing within normal society as they are the objects of fear and hatred.  They remind us that we might not have been so lucky in our lives and bodies; it doesn't help that any number of religious denominations have decided that mutants are the spawn of the devil.  Most of them turn to crime or terrorism because it is their only way of getting back at a society that hates them.”

He shrugged.  “However, the really dangerous problems can come from those who pass for human,” he continued.  “Some of them have become superheroes; others try to avoid registration or just choose to live their lives as normally as possible.  It really doesn't help that many of the public superheroes have agreements with the big corporations.  They have legal support they can call upon if they get into trouble with the law.”

“Wonderful,” Jackson said, sarcastically.

Hayworth nodded and continued.  “The principle legal tool in our arsenal is SARA—the Superhuman Activity Regulatory Act.  Under SARA, any superhuman who seeks to live a public life must be registered and undergo some degree of training before being effectively deputized into national service.  Those who choose to live normal lives do not have to register, but there are those who refuse to register for one reason or another while still using their powers publicly and they have to be hunted down.  SARA also covers the deliberate creation of superhumans, although it isn't always easy to tell if a superhuman developed naturally or was created by an injection of mutagenic DNA, surgical enhancement or something along those lines.”

Jackson remembered the Sergeant and held up his hand.  “What happens if the superhuman is created against his will?”

“It rarely happens,” the Professor said.  “When it does, the superhuman is generally invited to register—or live a normal life.  If he or she did seek enhancement, they could be charged under SARA and jailed indefinitely.”

He cleared his throat.  “SARA also allows the government to secure superhumans whose power makes them a danger to everyone around them,” he continued.  “Those also fall into two categories: those who have no control over their powers are treated fairly well, even if they are isolated from normal society, while those who are criminally insane are treated as high-risk criminals and stored in the Pit.”

Jackson frowned.  “The Pit?”

“A prison for superhumans,” Hayworth explained.  “It’s designed to hold them permanently.”

“Looking back at registered superheroes, they are supposed to obey the dictum of minimum necessary force—but it isn't always easy to tell what the minimum necessary level of force is.  For example, Horsley v. SDI suggests that the superhuman on the spot is the judge of what level of force is required, but Torrance v. SDI suggests that the courts have an oversight role.  Both of those cases are included in the briefing notes you are required to read, I am afraid.

“There are also other legal issues around police relations with superhumans.  Those who are legally deputized to the police force itself don’t often have problems, but the ones who are more generally assigned don’t tend to wait around for paperwork to be completed—which can cause legal problems down the line...”

“I’ve never understood that,” Jackson admitted.  “If there is a flaw in procedure, that doesn't mean that the guilty man is actually innocent...does it?”

“Unfortunately, our litigious society now insists that the police have to document everything,” the Professor said.  “If there happens to be a gap in the chain of custody, for example, a wily defence lawyer can probably call the validity of all the evidence into question.  Or...if a superhero captures a rapist in the act and breaks both of his legs, his lawyer could argue that the rapist had been abused while in custody and use it to manipulate the DA into dropping the charges.  It is extremely difficult to legally hold a superhuman responsible for such...overreactions, so the blame tends to fall on the police force involved.”

“Because they’re scared of provoking a reaction from the superhuman community,” Jackson said, slowly.  He had known about superhumans and superheroes, of course, but he hadn't realised just how much latitude they were granted by mundane society.  Some people had shied away from him when they realised that he was a Marine; how much worse would the reaction be, he asked himself, if superhumans were involved?

“And because the bigger names have powerful corporate backers,” the Professor added.  “Whatever the...justice of any case, very few people could bring a suit to bear against a superhuman with access to such deep pockets.  Certain superhumans even have connections with powerful political figures.  It’s much easier to drop the case than risk drawing attention from those quarters.”

“Why?”  Jackson asked.  “Why do we even tolerate this situation?”

The Professor shrugged.  “Different reasons for different people,” he said.  “Some believe in the legend of Superman, Batman and others who upheld the ideals of law when the government, police and military were hopelessly incompetent.  Groupies, basically.  Others think that provoking trouble between humanity and the superhumans will eventually lead to outright war, one we might lose.  And still others want the United States to maintain the lead in superhuman power—Iraq’s taken over most of the Middle East, Latin America has its own force intent on keeping the Gringos out and Bangladesh is turning into a superpower.  The next war will be a superhuman war.”

“Shit,” Jackson said.

“I wouldn't argue with that,” the Professor said, mischievously.  “I also wouldn't argue about the legal problems involved in your operations, which are really quite alarming.  You might wind up taking down a superhero who hides a great deal of trouble under his cape.”

Jackson stared at his fingers.  “Why doesn't everyone know about this?”

“Much of the information I gave you is in the public domain,” the Professor said.  “Draw your own conclusions.”

“They don’t want to know,” Jackson said.

“Of course not,” the Professor said.  “And even if they did...take a look at the President.  His approval ratings are never very high at the best of times.  What would happen to him if he was to open up a full investigation into superhuman activity, perhaps even strengthened SARA?  His ratings would plummet, his enemies would see their chance at an impeachment...and absolutely nothing would be done.  After the oil shock when Saudi Arabia collapsed into chaos, you’d think they’d learn...”

“But they didn't,” Jackson said.

“That’s why Team Omega exists,” the Professor said, quietly.  “Your task is to keep a lid on this situation in the hopes it won’t blow up in humanity’s collective face.  I don’t envy you.”

***

“Superhumans fall into three categories,” Professor Blunt said.  Unlike Professor Hayworth, he was military, a former Ranger who had joined Team Omega and had been crippled in a nasty confrontation with a pair of criminal mutants.  “There are those who are registered and catalogued, or seen in operation—the known knowns, if you like.  Vice President Rumsfeld devised the term five years ago, and it stuck.”

Jackson nodded.  Everyone seemed to have different categories for superhumans.

“Then there are those who are not registered and catalogued, but are known to be superhuman—the known unknowns,” Blunt continued.  “We know they’re superhuman, yet we don’t know for sure what powers they have—we end up treating them with extreme care because we are moving blind.  It’s better to use extreme force than risk having an outraged superhuman crush you like a bug.

“Finally, there are the unknown unknowns—we don’t know they’re superhumans, and sometimes they don’t know it, either, until their powers spark.  Most of the time, when we get called in to clean up someone else’s mess, it's when a superhuman or two were involved, but those on the spot didn't know it.”  Jackson nodded, remembering what had happened to New York’s SWAT team in the simulation.  “You cannot take anything for granted, ever.”

He grinned, revealing a mouth that was missing several front teeth.  “Beyond that, superhumans are classed as being levels one to five—with ‘X’ for the inexplicable powers.  Level 1 superhumans aren't too difficult to deal with; level 4 and 5...we as a society are just hoping they’re good people.  Dealing with them is extremely difficult and can be very costly.”

Jackson nodded, slowly.  Blunt had been crippled in one such operation—and five of his teammates had lost their lives.

“Superhumanity is practically becoming its own subculture,” Blunt continued.  “You’ve seen the black subculture...superhumanity is becoming something similar, with its own way of doing things.  Some of the surveillance tapes are remarkable; the so-called superhero teams all tend to fall into the same pattern, no matter what the original intent of the team’s founder was.  The stronger superhumans lead; the weaker ones follow.  I don’t think we can count on a Batman to keep them all in line.”

“It's illegal to dress up as a superhuman unless you actually have powers,” Jackson said, quietly.  There had been a number of incidents where mundane humans wearing costumes had been killed because the superhuman who had confronted them hadn't known to hold back.  “Kids are so disappointed at Halloween...”

Blunt ignored him.  “I’m writing a book on it, which I doubt the boss will ever allow me to publish,” he concluded.  “I think there will be an explosion, sooner or later, and there will be a major confrontation between us and the superhumans.  Team Omega’s real purpose is to prepare the tactics for the coming war.  God help us.”

Chapter Five

He could hear the screams.

Hope floated high over the Congo, staring down at the darkened countryside.  No normal human could have sensed the endless torment of the population as the civil war raged on and on, but Hope’s ears could hear a pin drop from half a world away.  Down below, he heard men groaning in pain, women sobbing and children screaming as they suffered.  There was so much pain and suffering that he could barely pick out individual sounds

The Congo had been bad enough before superhumans had floated north from what remained of South Africa to add to the chaos.  Now, no less than twelve other nations were meddling openly in the remains of the state the Belgians had created, while the population tore and rent at what remained of the fabric of their nation.  Conflicts were fought over tribal differences, religion, even superhumans versus normal humans.  The death toll was terrifyingly high; hundreds of thousands had been forced to flee into refugee camps, breeding grounds for starvation and disease.

A woman screamed just loud enough to attract his attention.  Eyes that could peer through anything short of a sheet of lead plating watched as she was chased by one of the victorious soldiers from a tiny battle that had taken a village from its previous overlords.  They had probably told the population they’d been liberated, but the locals wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  By the time the soldiers left, there wouldn't be an untouched girl left in the village, while the men and boys would have been conscripted into the army and taken off to fight the war.  Children barely old enough to think would be handed weapons and pushed into the front lines; lacking any adult perspective, they would be ruthless and brutal on a scale unmatched by anyone short of the Nazis or Japanese from the Second World War.  And they hadn’t had superhumans to help them commit an endless stream of atrocities.

He couldn't let it happen.  Not any longer.

Hope moved before he’d quite realised what he intended to do.  A Level 5 superhuman could move at supersonic speed; he was on the would-be rapist before he had any idea that he was under attack.  One hand caught the man by the neck and hauled him into the air, carrying him miles above the countryside before letting go and allowing the rapist to plunge to his death.

Good.  The man had deserved it.

Hope knew that he shouldn't feel such satisfaction at watching anyone die, but he couldn't help it.  He was tired of poor women being brutalized because of this endless war.  And while he couldn't save everyone, he was glad he'd saved this one.

It had all seemed so simple when he’d sparked and come into his powers.  He’d registered, of course, and accepted the training that the government offered.  It had been easy to fight crime with his powers, even when dealing with supervillains, but he never seemed to make anything better for the world.  No one really understood what it meant to have superpowered senses, to see and hear far more than the normal humans who thronged the planet.  He’d saved a thousand people from death by hearing their desperate struggles from miles away, but how could he not hear those in countries tormented by war, oppression and suffering?  Eventually, he’d walked away from the SDI because it was set up to defend the United States alone.  Hope wanted—needed—to do something on a grander scale.

He flew higher, until he could see all of the Congo from his position.  Dozens of little warlords, some superhuman, struggled for supremacy, while the populations they supposedly served simply struggled to survive.  There was nothing the outside world could do—or, rather, there was nothing the outside world would do.  Hope had no illusions about the power gathered by the SDI, or the European or Russian superhuman teams.  They could have pacified the entire country in a week, but actually fixing the problems tormenting the Congo would take a long-term commitment—and no outside country would make such a commitment.  The African countries surrounding the Congo were all involved in the endless war.  He looked northwards until he saw the unit of Libyan troops that had been dispatched by their leader to ensure that the outcome of the civil war favoured his proxies.  The task had been impossible; the troops had rapidly become as savage as the rest of the armies fighting for dominance.  Hope couldn't look away from the mass graves where they’d buried their victims after they’d had their fun.

The outside aid workers were just as bad.  Some fed all sides indiscriminately and kept the war going long past when it should've ended.  Others abused the population themselves, even helping one side round up the others for extermination.   It hadn’t been that long since one side had launched an attack on a refugee camp, one the victims had thought was safe.  They’d looted, raped and burned at will, even murdering the Western do-gooders who had thought that organising a refugee camp was the right thing to do.

And no one had done anything about it.

Hope clenched his fists, trying to shut out the noise, but it was impossible.  Men were screaming in pain as they died; women were being raped and murdered; children were howling for their missing parents...it never got any better.  Nor could he block his senses for long.  His ears repaired themselves automatically; he'd once torn them off, only to have them regenerate within a day.  Rage boiled through him as he found himself looking down at Kinshasa, the capital city of the Congo.  Right now, it was a city in the grip of a tyranny worse than anything Berlin or Moscow had ever known, a tyranny enforced by a superhuman who had declared himself Emperor of the Congo.  His writ didn't run for more than a few miles outside the city, but that didn't stop him from keeping the entire population under strict control.  They couldn't hope to rebel.

They called Hope a hero.  The American population loved his blond good looks, his muscles on his muscles and willingness to risk his life to save people and make the world a better place.  If only they’d realised that, for all of his crime-fighting, he’d done nothing to save the population of the Congo and a dozen other failed states.  He hadn't even managed to clean up Hell’s Kitchen or any of the other inner cities across the United States.  Hope had removed a hundred drug lords, henchmen spraying him with bullets that just bounced off his impregnable skin, but what had really changed?  He could remove a drug lord each day, but a new one would be in power within hours.

The irony chilled him.  If the CIA was to be believed, the first known superhuman had appeared in Africa—and yet Africa was still a mess.  Superpowers had only made a bad situation worse.

No more, he swore to himself.  No more.

He smiled as he felt another presence near him, turning to see the Redeemer as she floated above the tormented land.  No one really knew what the Redeemer looked like; she appeared differently to each person who saw her, a minor use of her extremely powerful mental talents.  Hope saw her as a woman on the verge of middle age, combining youth and wisdom in her smile.  He had no idea what others saw when they looked at her.

“Such a tormented land.” The Redeemer sighed as she looked at him.  Her talents were, if anything, more prone to being distracted by the suffering below than his own.  Hope had long since come to terms with the fact that she was so telepathically powerful that she could read his mind without ever intending to.  “They sent me to inform you that they are ready.”

Hope nodded.  Enough was enough.  It was time that superhumanity lived up to its potential for making the world a better place.  And if that meant that a number of petty tyrants and their attack dogs in human form had to die, it was a worthwhile price for saving so many lives.  He looked down, once again, at the Congo and shuddered inwardly.  So many people were dying, trapped in an endless hell...something had to be done.  Something would be done.

The Redeemer shrugged.  “They’ll try to stop us, you know.”

“I know,” Hope said.  She’d read his thoughts again.  The world would not enjoy discovering that superhumanity had taken steps they were unwilling to take themselves.  “But we have no choice.”

He touched the communicator built into his belt.  One of the early superhumans had been a genius, so intelligent that he made Einstein look like a moron.   He’d died early, but before he’d fallen he’d invented computers that were lightning-fast, communications devices that couldn't be jammed or censored and thousands of other devices that would have reshaped the world, if they’d ever been released on the open market.  Various governments had tied the patents up in litigation, just to make sure that the existing balance of power wasn't threatened.  Opportunism like that, back when he'd been a good soldier, had convinced Hope that it was time to leave the SDI.

“Gateway,” he said, “bring us home.”

There was a flash of light. They both vanished.

***

The Saviours had wanted to make it clear that they were beholden to no country when they went public, so choosing a place for their headquarters had required some careful negotiation. They finally built their headquarters in Antarctica, very close to the South Pole.  It wasn't a perfect solution, but it had won them some plaudits for keeping illegal mining away from the final untouched continent.  Besides, explaining why they owned Antarctica would have been tricky for several governments.

Hope winced as he materialised in Gateway’s room, feeling the urge to be sick once again.  Gateway was barely sixteen years old, but her talent—instant teleportation, as well as the ability to open gates from place to place—was too useful to be discounted.  Besides, if she had stayed in America, she would have been snapped up by the SDI and put to work protecting the country—and advancing the country’s interests.  She was far more useful as one of the Saviours, even if her talent did make people feel sick.

The Redeemer looked over at Gateway in mock annoyance.  “You didn't have to bring us here,” she said, with a thin smile that suggested she knew very well why Gateway had brought them to her rooms.  Her crush on Hope was as obvious as it was embarrassing.  “You could have brought us to the main room.”

Gateway flushed, her face suddenly bright red.  She looked up to The Redeemer, everyone did.  “I just wanted to see you alone,” she said, seemingly unaware of the double-meaning in her words.  “I...there’s a lot of people out there.”

“I know,” Hope said.  It was difficult to convince superhumans to work together, particularly ones who considered themselves to be the equals—or superiors—of every other superhuman.  Eventually, it had been the Redeemer who had convinced most of them to come and hear his speech.  “Thank you for the chance to compose myself before I faced them.”

Gateway smiled, clearly relieved.  “You’re welcome, boss,” she said.  “Knock them dead.”

Hope concealed his smile as he walked out of the girl’s quarters and into the main room.  They’d built it large enough to house a jumbo jet—and all of the space was occupied by superhumans, most of them wearing gaudy costumes that showed their underwear on the outside of their pants.  Hope was old enough to remember the jokes from the first era of superhuman activity, before the glow had worn off.  Behind them, a handful of mutants lurked, watching through inhuman eyes as the ones who had won the genetic lottery showed off in front of their peers.  These mutants were a part of Hope’s plan.

He cleared his throat as he floated into the air, looking down at the crowd.  They’d been very careful regarding whom they’d invited, aiming for the semi-independent teams rather than the government-sponsored teams like the SDI or the British Lions.  Even if they rejected his proposal completely, they wouldn't betray him to the world governments ahead of time.  Besides, few of them would want the Saviours as their enemies.

“I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you here today,” he said.  As he’d intended, the line drew their attention and broke the ice.  A handful of chuckles ran through the air.  “And I suppose that some of you have wondered why you were chosen for such great power.  What makes you so much better than anyone else?”

He smiled at their puzzled faces.  No one really knew where superpowers came from, although experiments by Nazi Germany—or American and Russian scientists during the Cold War—were the favoured theories.  But all attempts to create superhumans tended to create beings with flaws, ones that could be exploited.  A natural superhuman was far more stable than an engineered creation.

Of course, those in this room weren't the only ones with superpowers.  There were supervillains, who stole, raped and murdered on a far larger scale than any mundane crooks.  And there were the covert operatives for a hundred governments...and the independent actors, ranging from the mercenary to the downright weird.  Hope had been slightly relieved to discover that the Fashion Witch had turned down the invitation to the meeting.  Hope might have been a Level 5 superhuman, but the woman scared the pants off him.

“I believe that we were put on this Earth to make it better,” he said.  He’d said it before, in a dozen venues—and in front of the cameras, back when the Saviours had first introduced themselves to the world.  “Think about it; we have the power to do so much, power that shortcuts ordinary technology and could save millions of lives.  We were the ones who lifted a space station into orbit and established a network of bases on the moon.  And many of us work on a smaller scale.  How many of you have rescued people who were doomed, if a superhuman hadn't been around to save them?”

He paused, remembering the woman he’d saved.  He hoped she’d made it home alive - and remained safe until his people arrived.

“It is time to take it to the next logical position,” he said.  “For the past fifteen years, the Congo has been trapped in a nightmare.  We have the power to end that nightmare once and for all, by destroying all of the different factions and permitting the people of the Congo to breathe freely.  How can we save individuals facing certain death and not save entire populations from their tormentors?

“It is the intention of the Saviours to remove by force the evil governments, rebel groups and outside forces in the Congo.  I ask you all to join us.  We are intimidating, but an entire army of superhumans—natural superhumans—would be far more threatening to the outsiders.  If they retreat and stop supplying the various factions, they would be far less dangerous.

“We will enforce the rule of law over the state—and disarm the different factions.  We will provide help that will get the population back on their feet, rather than keeping them helplessly dependent for the rest of their lives.  We will provide training and support to build a police force and an army that can prevent rebels from destroying the country once again—or outsiders interfering to steal the country’s mineral resources.  And it will provide a harbour for those of us who feel unwanted by mundane society.  We will create a whole new shining city on the hill, an example for the human race—and a warning to all tyrants that the old laws no longer operate.  Who will join me?”

He watched their reactions.  Some were idealistic, inclined to help; others were more cautious, or bound to various corporations that might not approve of them launching an altruistic invasion of the Congo.  It was strange to think that he might have fallen like that, if he hadn't been too idealistic for his own good as a young man.  Working for the SDI had been an eye-opener into the ways of the world that would never be shared by any of the corporate whores.

JQ Public was the first to speak out loud.  “You’re talking about a massive commitment,” he said.  For someone who was normally as idealistic as Hope himself, he sounded reluctant to join him in the operation.  “And operating on a far larger scale than anyone else.  What happens if the rebel factions refuse to disarm?”

“We disarm them by force,” Hope said, flatly.

“And what,” JQ Public added, “if the population refuses your gifts?”

Hope had an answer for that one, back when they’d discussed all the ways the meeting could go.  “I do not believe that the Africans are unable to accept democracy, to say nothing of the other gifts we will bring.  They will see what we can offer and accept it freely.  We’re not interested in exploiting them, nor are we interested in taking what little they have—including their bodies.  We are merely there to help them rebuild, to make their lives worth living.  They will not refuse our gifts.”

The discussion raged for hours.  Hope had no illusions about the size of the task ahead of them.  The more power on their side, the better.

Eventually, somewhat to Hope’s relief, forty-two superhumans agreed to join the Saviours, at least for the duration of the intervention in the Congo.  A number of the mutants noted that they would have to consult with their fellows before they could make any decisions, but at least some of them would probably join.  Some might have looked inhuman, yet they could be deadly fighters.

“We move in a week,” he concluded as the meeting broke up.  Gateway would transport them all back home.  “Thank you all for listening.”

Chapter Six

Jackson fell back as his opponent jabbed at him, and then threw a haymaker at his chin, missing by scant millimetres.  He lifted his fist to retaliate, just as the Sergeant’s voice could be heard down the corridor, bellowing for Team One to get off their asses and join him in the briefing room.  It was a little unfair—Team One spent most of their time exercising– but he was getting used to the Sergeant by now.  And, after a month and a half of constant exercises and alerts that went nowhere, the members of Team One were starting to accept him as one of them.

“Saved by the bell,” Ron Friedman said, mockingly.  A specialist in close-quarter combat, Ron had qualifications and awards that Jackson had never seen before, even among the Force Recon Marines he’d met.  “If the Sergeant hadn't called for us, you would have had your ass kicked.”

“You wish,” Jackson said, as he grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat away.  Actually, he suspected that Ron was right.  He was far more experienced at hand-to-hand combat—and was a vicious little bastard to boot.  “Maybe this would have been my lucky day.”

Ron snorted.  “Better get moving,” he said, as he picked up a bottle of water and drank it quickly.  “The Sergeant doesn't like it when we’re late.”

Entering the briefing compartment, Jackson was surprised to see Professor Blunt—and a middle-aged man wearing an old suit and fedora standing beside Lane, talking to him too quietly for the soldiers to hear.  A Fed, Jackson guessed, as he took his seat, one that had been brought in just for him.  All SF units had their own little rituals; Team Omega’s included sending the seats that belonged to operatives killed in the line of duty to the nearest bar, which happened to be tended by a former Delta Force commando.  Apparently, it had been the last wish of the first operative to be killed in action—and had then become a tradition.

“Be seated,” Lane said, briskly.  There had been a dozen alerts since Jackson had joined Team One, but none of them had led to any action.  This one felt different.  “This is Harvard Coombs of the DEA.  He’s here to brief you on a prospective mission.”

Jackson took his seat and pulled a notebook out of his pocket, ready to take notes.  It was better to have a reminder of whatever they were told, just in case his memory failed him at a crucial moment.  Besides, it showed the outsider that he was actually paying attention.  The last briefer had been so nervous around them that she’d stuttered through the briefing and then gone off for a quick drink.  At least it beat the ones from Washington who expected everyone to bow and scrape because their distant relative happened to be the President’s personal pool boy or something like that.

“Good afternoon,” Coombs said.  He launched straight into the briefing without attempting to flatter or put down the soldiers.  “For the past six months, the Drug Enforcement Agency has been attempting to break open a distribution ring bringing various hard drugs from Latin America up into the United States.  This distribution ring appears to operate on a national scale and includes an alarming number of cut-outs, men and women who can be abandoned to face the law without threatening the big bosses who control the network.  Most of them, naturally, don’t have the slightest idea of the true scale of the operation; very few of those caught realised that it stretched outside their hometown.”

He hesitated, clearly unsure of how much they already knew.  “It isn't common to have a network that operates largely independently of the more...restricted networks in towns and cities,” he continued.  “Crime lords tend to resent someone poking into their territory and generally take steps to throw the intruders out, something that is generally ignored because the criminals are threatening or killing other criminals.  This network, however, seems to be tolerated—as near as we can tell, it is tolerated because it isn't actually competing for business.”

Jackson nodded, very slowly.  Drug distribution might have been illegal in much of the United States, but it operated along similar lines to any legal distribution network.  One drug dealer could set the prices as he liked; a dozen would have to lower their prices to compete with their fellows, a situation that benefited the addicts, but not the drug lords.  The criminal masterminds—although mastermind wasn't a term he would use for most criminals—would either attempt to bring all drug dealers under their control, forcing them to sell at the same rates, or eliminate the competition.  Just like a regular nine to five job, with the added danger of being shot, knifed or arrested by the police.

“I don’t understand,” Ron said, thoughtfully.  “If they’re not selling their drugs, how the fuck are they making money?”

Coombs nodded.  “That was the question that bedevilled the analysts back home,” he said.  “Their first thought was that the network simply supplied users in the Midwest, away from the border with Mexico where shipping drugs across can be quite risky, but it didn't seem to be linked with any of the known distribution networks in the area.  There’s no profit to be had from smuggling drugs into Canada through the United States.  It kept nagging away at us until we finally managed to catch a middle-ranking fish in the organisation.  Carlos Hernandez, in exchange for a reduction in his sentence, had quite a story to tell.

“He claimed that the network operated out of Columbia, the drug capital of Latin America, and brought nothing but the finest grades of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, scopolamine and ultimate up into the United States.  I understand that ultimate is of particular concern to you.”

“Yes,” Lane said, shortly.

Coombs hesitated, and then returned to the briefing.  “When pressed about the destination of the drug pipeline, Carlos was reluctant to talk, but finally admitted the truth.  The drug pipeline leads straight to the Young Stars Foundation—and the Young Stars themselves.  We probed the links in the chain Carlos claimed to be linked to and discovered enough circumstantial evidence to support his claim.  Just how far it reaches, unfortunately, is debatable; my Director requested support from the SDI before we moved any further and General Kratman pointed him to Mr. Harrison.”

“Thank you,” Lane said.  “We will discuss the plan for a joint operation later, once my team is fully-briefed and ready for deployment.”

Coombs nodded and headed out the door.  The Sergeant checked that it was sealed before returning to his seat, while Lane nodded to Professor Blunt, who stood up and took the stand.

“Some of you know this already, but it never hurts to go over the material again,” he said, flatly.  Jackson, who knew very little about the Young Stars, started taking notes again.  “There are only five super team organisations in the world that recruit from teenagers and even children, as there are no shortage of concerns about the ability of children to handle combat situations, even with their...remarkable power levels.  Such teams have always been closely supervised, and two of them have even operated as training camps for later SDI operatives.  However, the Young Stars have largely evaded government control and supervision.”

His gaze swept the room.  “According to their website, the Young Stars were founded to provide a home and a purpose for homeless kids with superhuman powers,” he continued.  “In reality, the situation is quite different.  The Young Stars were formed around a handful of teenagers, including the son of one of the richest men in the United States.  As a charitable foundation, they are largely spared the onus of paying taxes and are permitted to make large donations to charitable causes, often without any oversight at all.  They are tolerated largely because they are registered superhumans and because they don’t really engage in actual crime-fighting or other superhuman activities.  On the face of it, they are glorified celebrities, people famous for who they are rather than what they do.”

“Kind of like Paris Hilton,” Ron muttered.  “Do they make porno movies too?”

“Probably,” Jackson muttered back.

“Pay attention,” Professor Blunt snapped.  He’d been an operative and wasn't about to be scared by them.  “The Young Stars have a core membership of six superhumans and about a dozen allies who are not technically members, but do associate with the core group.  Some of them have independent careers of their own that don’t really bring in the cash, so they make appearances with the Young Stars from time to time that serve as a fucking licence to print money.  Bear that in mind at all times.  Each of the Young Stars is a millionaire at the very least, even though most of their money goes into charitable causes.  It’s difficult to trace where the money goes, but I have a suspicion that a large amount goes into campaign donations for various Senators and Congressmen.  Anyone proposing a bill to ban young super teams from operating has had it shot down before it ever reached the floor.

He picked up a remote and activated the PowerPoint projector.  “Their leader is Youngster himself, the kid of the rich man who created the Young Stars franchise.  Officially, he’s nineteen; old enough to be reasonably mature, but young enough to serve as an idol for the children.  He’s been nineteen for a while now; his birth certificate may have mysteriously vanished, yet there is enough evidence left to confirm that he is at least twenty-five years old.  His lawyers issue a storm of legal threats every time someone questions his age, so don’t count on it being breaking news any time soon.”

Jackson blinked in surprise.  No one had realised Youngster had been officially nineteen for at least six years?

“On the record, he’s as sweet and wholesome as your mother’s apple pie,” he continued.  “Off the record, he’s got a reputation for being a bit of an asshole.  He has slept with countless super-groupies, many of whom may have been younger than sixteen when he fucked them.  Even if he was nineteen, he would still be a pervert, but there won’t be legal trouble, because he has a small army of lawyers on his side.

He shrugged.  “No steady girlfriend, no mother...and a father who sees him as a source of money.  That sort of shit is always a recipe for trouble.”

Jackson nodded.  Youngster didn't seem very nice, but most of the super teams he’d been studying tended to have skeletons in their closets.  At least one super team had broken up after discovering that its founder had very bad intentions...too late to stop him from using them to rob a bank and escape with the cash.

“His power level is generally rated as a low Level 4,” the Professor added.  “Most of them probably relate to gravity in some way; he can fly, has a limited form of invulnerability and is formidably strong.  On the other hand, he does need to breathe”—he winked at Jackson—“and has a handful of other weaknesses, all of which will be covered in the detailed briefing notes.

“Next up is Sparky.”  He clicked the remote, using the projector to show an image of a Latino girl showing off her cleavage, Jackson sucked in his breath and heard some of the others doing the same.  “She actually is eighteen years old, but like Youngster she has a bit of a reputation behind the scenes.  Unlike him, there are plenty of teenagers and even young men willing to brag online that she picked them up after a show and took them to bed, where they spent the entire night with her.  You won’t be surprised to discover that she’s done nude shoots for Playboy in-between her activities with the Young Stars.  Her powers all involve manipulating electric power; she has a very limited flight ability that doesn't seem to be anything like as flexible as a normal flyer.”

“And you can go look up the pictures of her online later,” the Sergeant injected.  There were some chuckles from the team.  “And if we do have to fight her, don’t hold back.  Any freak is dangerous, even the sexy ones.”

Professor Blunt cleared his throat.  “Nova and Brute have been teamed up by the Young Stars as a message about the importance of racial harmony,” he said.  Jackson had to smile; Nova was a tall African-American, while Brute was at least as large as the Sergeant—and looked older than twenty years old.  “They detest each other, although no one is quite sure why; they never share a room or a flight if they can help it.  There’s probably quite a story in there somewhere if we knew what it was.  Maybe they just pretend so that people don’t think that they’re secretly lovers or something stupid like that.

“Nova’s main powers involve manipulating fire and superheated plasma, including using it to fly and shield his body.  Although he’s rated as a Level 3, do not turn your back on him; the best tactic we’ve been able to devise involves burning away the atmosphere near him to put out his fires.  Alternatively, hose him down and hope for the best.  If worst comes to worst, rely on your body armour to take the heat, jump in close and knock him out.  A sniper could probably kill him if he wasn’t shielding himself.

“Brute is extremely strong and tough—and little else.  He’s probably the least remarkable member of the group, although he is surprisingly popular with some parts of the female demographic.  He actually is seventeen years old, but looks older because of his enhanced muscles; again, his greatest weakness is that he needs to breathe.  Alternate tactics are included in the briefing notes.

“Siren”—the picture flicked to an Asian girl, probably of Japanese origin, wearing a more modest outfit than her teammate—“is the weakest of the group.  Her only real power is the ability to project sonic screams at a target, screams that have been known to weaken buildings and destroy objects.  She also may have some form of manipulation capability within her voice, although reports contradict one another and it may be nothing more than a case of her waving her chest under someone’s eyes.  Her power is directional, so strike from the rear before she sees you coming.  And don’t be misled by her appearance.  She may look sweet and innocent, but she’s a freak.  Give her a chance and she will take your head off.

“Finally, we have Gamma Dude,” he concluded.  The image changed to a young man wearing a protective suit that reminded Jackson of the MOPP suits they’d been trained to use in combat, if necessary.  “Under SARA, Gamma Dude should actually be in a facility out in Nevada away from the civilian population, but the Young Stars have managed to tie up the courts in legal and constitutional issues.  His main power is projecting clouds of radiation at any given target; in fact, he is a pretty constant radiation emitter.”

His expression darkened.  “From what we have been able to deduce, his power eventually killed his entire family.  Not deliberately, but they spent their days in the company of a walking, talking radioactive isotope.  By the time they died, they had absorbed more radiation than the poor bastards who lived near Chernobyl.  If they’d lived in a city, the effects would have been disastrous; luckily, they lived out in the countryside.  Gamma Dude fled into the mountains and...well, we don’t know exactly what happened then, but the next time he appeared he was one of the Young Stars.

“The best defensive tactic you have is to avoid puncturing his suit.  Our best guess is that he has acquired a degree of control over his powers, but breaking the suit will expose you even if he doesn't want to actually fight.  There are some analysts who think the suit isn't designed to actually blast people with radiation and the films of him in action are faked—do not take that for granted.  The Young Stars would have to be insane to bring him anywhere near a crowd if there was the slightest chance he might give them radiation poisoning—hell, they’d have to be insane to live near him.  But we don't know for sure.  Keep that in mind.”

Jackson shook his head and leaned over to Ron.  “We have to fight these guys?”

“Yep,” Ron said.

Lane stood up.  “Thank you, Professor,” he said.  Unlike the DEA officer, Blunt got to attend the remainder of the briefing.  “At the moment, we will be operating in support of the DEA—ideally, no one on the outside will ever know that we were there.  According to the stool pigeon, there will be a meeting where the Young Stars will pick up the drugs—and pay the courier thousands of dollars.  The DEA will move in and attempt to arrest everyone involved.”

His voice tightened.  “You’ve heard the briefing.  If they attempt to fight, the DEA will be completely outmatched.  We will have to put them down as quickly as possible—take them alive if we can, kill them if not.  And Gamma Dude adds a problem I’d sooner not have to face.  We may need MOPP suits and radiation detection gear—and we can’t fight in the MOPP suits.  Team Three may be moved to support us if necessary.

“The Young Stars are based near Chicago,” he concluded.  “Gather your equipment and supplies, then read the briefing notes carefully.  The flight departs at 1900 precisely; be ready.”

Jackson nodded as the team was dismissed.  It all seemed incredible, the intersection of the mundane human world with that of the superhuman, but it was real.  And it wouldn't be the worst thing that so-called heroes had done, not if the files were accurate.  Team One had been tested in fire before and lost good personnel to rogue superhumans.

“I meant to ask,” he said, as he followed Ron back to the barracks.  “I can understand the other drugs, but what is ultimate?”

Ron snorted.  “It gives you superpowers,” he said, dryly.  “Not for very long, but long enough to do some damage.  And if they want it...what does it say about them?”

Chapter Seven

“Is everyone in place?”  Hope asked.  They stood on a hill, close enough to Kinshasa to move quickly, but distant enough to remain undetected.  “And ready to go?”

The Redeemer nodded.  She was using her telepathy to keep the various groups in touch.  It was remotely possible that excessive use of their communicators would be detected by one or more of the factions—or, more likely, their foreign backers—and so Hope had insisted that they rely on telepathy.  The factions would be unable to stop them, he was certain, but there was no point in making the death toll any higher than it needed to be.

“They’re ready,” she said.  Most of his force had been dispersed over the Congo, ready to take out the faction leadership groups and smash the most dangerous fighting units.  The remainder were already building a prison camp for the survivors, once they'd completed their first strikes; they’d be held as prisoners until they could be redeemed or charged by the International Criminal Court for murder, war crimes and attempted genocide.  “They just await your command.”

“Good,” Hope said.  Ahead of him, he could see lights from Kinshasa—fires burning to give the population what little heat they could.  Most of them were starving; the men with guns had taken almost all of the food, along with the best of the women.  Kinshasa had once been a remarkable city, he’d been told.  It could hardly have been worse than it was now, a derelict city with a ruthless strongman in charge who allowed his thugs to torment the local population at will.  “Tell them...to make a change.”

He leapt into the air and lanced up, over Kinshasa.  From above, the city looked strange, almost as though a dozen eras had intermingled in one vast whole.  Great towering skyscrapers pressed against slums and huts from a bygone age, all showing the signs of damage inflicted by war.  The skyscrapers had been built in an era of optimism; now, with the war still underway, they were broken and ruined husks of themselves, inhabited only by squatters who had nowhere else to go.  One day soon, he realised, they would collapse into rubble and kill everyone who had relied on them for shelter.

They’d considered launching their operation in broad daylight, but some of the more tactical thinkers had pointed out that it would be easier to take the leadership out when they were in bed, reading.  It felt vaguely unfair to strike in the dark, as if they had something to hide, yet the leaders deserved no consideration.  Their battles over the Congo had doomed their people to endless war.  He opened his ears to the dying city and used them to strengthen his determination.  Those who preyed on their fellow humans had to be destroyed.

He took a moment to look at his objective.  The strongman’s fortress was the only new building in Kinshasa, for who would build when war might destroy their investment in a single moment?  It was a towering construction, hardly the sign of a ruler who loved and trusted his people.  The men who guarded it had a fancy name in one of the many African tongues, but they all boiled down to thugs.  Between them, they had committed every war crime in the book except genocide—and that hadn’t been for lack of trying.  Hope had no way of calculating how many had died since the Congo had fallen into chaos, but it had definitely come close to genocide.

A waste, Hope thought.  To waste so many resources on one building when there are people starving ...

He crashed into the building at five times the speed of sound, relying on his invulnerability to shield himself as he searched for the strongman.  He ignored the falling rubble as he concentrated on his objective.  If the Redeemer’s telepathic probes had been accurate, the master bedroom was located in the basement and had at least three different tunnels to allow the warlord to escape.  But there was no way any human could move fast enough to escape a superhuman.

Especially not a superhuman like Hope.

He crashed into the basement and smiled as the strongman—a bitterly-scared black man—produced an AK-47 from under his pillow.  He couldn't resist hesitating just long enough for the strongman to press the trigger and spray him with bullets, which all bounced off his skin.

The strongman stared at him in horror, and pulled something else from under the sheets.  A young girl, barely entering her teenage years, screamed in pain as he clutched her neck, babbling in a language that Hope didn't understand.  The meaning was clear, though; the girl would die if Hope didn't leave.

Instead, Hope generated a beam of light from his eyes and used it to slice the man’s arm from his body.  He screamed, staring at the ruins of his arm, then gasped something in yet another language.  Before the warlord could use his other arm to grab the girl again, Hope was on him, pulling the strongman into the air.  He cried and begged for mercy, like all other bullies Hope had dealt with over the years, but it was too late.  Hope casually crushed the strongman’s neck and watched the life drain out of him.

The girl had stopped screaming; instead, she stared at him, eyes wide with fear.  Hope couldn't blame her.  She’d been taken from her home, forced into the bed of a far older man—and raped.  Someone so young...even consensual sex would have hurt her, if she’d known what she was consenting to.

Hope smiled at her and picked up the tattered remains of a nightdress from the floor, but stopped once he realised that it was covered in blood.  Instead, he found a gaudy uniform from the cupboard and passed her the jacket.  It was too large for her chest, but it would provide some protection as Hope picked her up and launched himself towards the creaking ceiling.  The building was on the verge of collapsing inward.  She cried out—either in fear or in delight—as Hope dodged his way through the rubble and up into the sky.  Behind him, the remains of the building crashed into the basement and came to a halt, burying the strongman’s body under the rubble.  It would have to be recovered later, just to convince the population that the bastard was dead.

Hope smiled as the strongman’s goons started to stare at him, before lifting their weapons and taking aim.  It was easy to take one breath and blow them all away like ninepins, leaving them to crash into buildings and drop their weapons on the ground.  He would have preferred to engage them directly, but while he was invulnerable, the girl was nothing of the sort.  There was no way of knowing if she understood English, but he tried to get the message across anyway.

“I’ll find your family,” he promised.  The girl didn't seem to understand.  “And then you can go home and enjoy the new day.”

Far below, Kinshasa was in chaos.  The superhuman army had attacked the barracks, where the young conscripts were locked up after a hard day’s training in how to be a brutal asshole, and destroyed the more trusted soldiers keeping the conscripts under guard.  Some of them had fled into the darkened city, while others—too fearful to move—just remained where they were, fearing a world without the strongman as much as they feared one with him.  It would take time, Hope reminded himself, for them to realise there was no longer anything to fear.  And then they could start rebuilding their country....

I see you picked up a friend, the Redeemer’s voice said, in his mind.  She’s rather attached to you already.

Hope flushed at the teasing tone in her thoughts.  “Never mind that,” he said aloud, vocalising for his own benefit.  “How is the rest of the country?”

Looking good, the Redeemer sent back.  Only real problem is a troop of tanks to the north.  I’m afraid that their leader wasn't among those killed and he’s ordering an immediate attack on the city.  He thinks that the man you killed was behind the attack.  Oh, and he has a superhuman with him.

“Understood,” Hope said.  He grinned at the girl before flying to where the Redeemer waited, with a handful of mutants to provide protection if she needed it.  Coordinating an entire invasion was taking a great deal out of her.  “I have a present for you.”

“She doesn't want to leave you,” the Redeemer said.  Her face was tired and worn, but she managed a smile for Hope.  She placed her fingers against the child’s forehead, drawing on her powers.  “Just sleep now, my dear.  When you wake up, you will be at the dawn of a whole new world.”

Hope smiled as the girl’s eyes closed and she went to sleep.  “I could wipe her memory of everything that foul beast did to her,” the Redeemer offered.  “And then one of the healers could fix her up so she doesn’t carry the scars...”

“Let her choose,” Hope said.  He’d never been comfortable with anything that reassembled mind control.  “And now, if you will excuse me...”

He rocketed into the sky and twisted through the air, looking down towards the rebel position to the north of Kinshasa.  It had been attacked once, but the speedster who’d hit the base hadn’t bothered to confirm that he'd actually killed the rebel leader.  Hope made a mental note to reprimand the idiot before he caught sight of the tanks advancing towards the city.  They were old tanks, originally from Russia, but they would inflict a great deal of damage if they got into firing range.  The tankers clearly didn't know just what they were facing, or they would never have risked exposing themselves.  Tanks were no match for a superhuman who knew what he was doing...

But they had a superhuman with them.  Hope dropped down out of the sky, right in front of the lead tank.  Before the driver could do anything more than gape at him, he caught hold of the tank, picked it up and threw it effortlessly towards the next tank.  The two vehicles collided and skidded to a halt, forcing the remaining tanks to spread out to avoid running into their fellows.  Their drivers caught sight of Hope standing there, his eyes burning with red fire as he prepared his heat vision for action; he heard the crews being ordered to bail out.  Hope systematically started to melt the tanks, crippling their ability to move, but left the crews alone providing they did not attack him.

And then, as he looked up, a single humanoid form jumped towards him and took a wicked swing at his head.

“A monster from Dr. Death,” Hope said.

He gritted his teeth, torn between sympathy and rage.  Like many others, the creature was a misshapen parody of a superhuman.  It was a surprise to find one serving in a largely black army—and serving a black commander—but maybe this particular Boerbel had grown out of trite racism and the other stupidities practiced by the Apartheid regime.  Or maybe he was just addicted to drugs, women or children.  Or mad.  Every time he thought that he had plumbed the full depths of horror in the Congo, he found something even darker.

It wasn't easy to keep his voice level, but he tried.  “You have to know that you can’t beat me...”

The creature ignored him and took another swing at his chest.  This time, Hope didn't move fast enough; the fist slammed into him with the impact of a pair of locomotives running flat out.  He was picked up and thrown through the air, crashing in a patch of ground that had been torn up during a previous battle.  There were bodies scattered everywhere, some only partly buried; apparently they’d been abandoned and left for the vultures.

No wonder there was so much disease running through the Congo, Hope thought bitterly.  The locals couldn't even bury their dead without some bastard taking pot-shots at them.

Hope pulled himself to his feet and lunged forward.  The maddened creature lifted its fists again, but Hope moved too fast to be deterred.  He slammed his fist into the creature’s head; it staggered back.  Dr. Death’s creations had never been capable of standing up to a real superhuman for long, but this one didn't seem to have any of the usual weaknesses.  Not that it really mattered; it couldn't fly, so it couldn't escape.  Hope brought his fists down again and again, until he felt the creature’s head start to weaken.  A final punch smashed through its skull and killed it instantly.

Hope studied the corpse for a long moment, just in case its stolen abilities had included a healing factor of any kind, before deciding that it was unlikely that anything could recover from a shattered skull.

He looked up at the tankers, only to discover that they were running for their lives.  They didn't seem to have anywhere to go, but at least they’d left the tanks and their weapons behind, perhaps assuming that Hope wouldn't bother to follow them if they no longer carried the ability to hurt others.  In the Congo, where having a weapon turned someone into a big man, they had been dangerous.  But without their weapons...

They could be redeemed, he thought, given time.

But for the moment, they were very much a secondary concern.  He watched them go, then turned his attention to the tanks, smashing through their armour, breaking their gun barrels and finally setting off the ammunition before someone could come by and recover it to continue the fighting.  Once it was gone, he launched himself back into the air and flew over to Kinshasa.  The city was in chaos, but most of the strongman’s goons had been rounded up or killed by the invading army.  They couldn't hope to hide from the most powerful telepath in the world.

The scale of what they’d done staggered him.  They’d taken out a dozen factions—or at least their leadership—within minutes of jumping into action, scattering the various forces that might have continued the war.  Better yet, most of the foreign backers were now running for their lives, providing they’d survived the battle.

Of course, there were still thousands of foot soldiers out there, but they’d be leaderless...and most of them hadn't wanted to be in the various armies in the first place.  What did it matter if they wanted to go home?  As long as they learned to live in peace with their neighbours, Hope found it impossible to care.

He found the Redeemer in Kinshasa, setting up their headquarters in what had once been a mansion belonging to the colony’s governor before Belgium had pulled out and abandoned the Congo to chaos.  It was something he intended to take up with their government, now that the factions had been scattered.  Belgium bore some responsibility for this mess, so they should help provide medical and humanitarian aid to ease the transition from a war zone to normality.  And then he could hold the remaining international aid agencies to account.  They could provide proper support now that there was a superhuman army keeping the peace.

Hell, it wasn't as if the Congo couldn't support itself.  The only problem was the endless war—which was now over, thank goodness.

“Most of the reports are in,” the Redeemer told him.  She looked tired and drained; by now, surely they could switch back to their normal communicators.  “We have won, for now.  Every faction has been scattered and their leadership has been destroyed.  Some superhumans are currently unaccounted for, but I’ll find them eventually.”

“I’m sure you will,” Hope agreed.  South Africa hadn't been the only place to expel its superhumans to the Congo.  Quite a few had been sent from the North with orders never to come back.  “I think that you ought to get some rest.”

The Redeemer shook her head.  “Too much to do,” she said, as she looked over towards the early glimmers of dawn.  “This city is going to be waking up soon, and by then we have to have our people in place to ensure that it doesn't fall into chaos.  And then we have to start distributing the foodstuffs Gateway is going to be bringing in from America...”

“There are others to do that,” Hope told her.  She really did look tired.  “You need to rest.”

“Not until you face the media,” The Redeemer said.  “I should be with you—we should all be with you.”

Hope nodded, reluctantly.  “Everyone else is needed elsewhere,” he said.  Without the mutants, they probably wouldn't have had the superpower to deal with all of the major factions overnight.  It was odd to think of limits, but he had no choice.  “You can come with me.”

***

Bright sunlight shone on Kinshasa as the media gathered outside the mansion.  The city was surprisingly quiet, apart from the women going to find water and food for their families—a task that appeared to be reserved for females only.  Hope made a mental note to find the parents of the child he'd rescued and braced himself as the reporters set up their cameras and started filming.  Most of them were young or very old, including a couple of idealists who had been covering the war ever since it had begun.  One of them, if the reporters were to be believed, had been beaten and raped by the last faction to occupy the city—and even though she could have left, she’d stayed to witness the dawning of a bright new day.

“Thank you all for coming,” Hope said.  The reporters stared at him.  They would have seen his golden outfit and cape on television, but he liked to think he looked more impressive in person.  “As you can see, there’s been a change in government in the Congo—all of the Congo.  We have taken out every faction and imposed peace.  It is our intention to put an end to the struggling in this country and allow its citizens to embrace democracy and freedom.

“There will be those who argue that we have no right to intervene.  I say that we had the right because no one else could or would have acted without regard to national interests.  We are not beholden to anyone, and our operations here are only intended to benefit the locals...”

Chapter Eight

Chester Harrison had been hoping for a good night’s sleep.  He’d spent two days reassuring nervous old women at the DEA that Team Omega could handle any crisis and another day coordinating with the SDI in case he was wrong about the crisis being controllable before he’d staggered home to his Washington apartment and snuggled into bed with his wife.  Naturally, his cell phone had rung at three in the morning.

“This is Chester,” he growled.  At least his wife hadn't woken up.  “What’s happening?”

“We just received an emergency call from the White House,” his assistant said.  “You’re ordered to report to the President as quickly as possible.  There was no more information.”

“Fuck me,” Chester muttered.  A summons in the middle of the night was never good news.  “Are they sending a car?”

“Yes, sir,” his assistant said.  “It should be with you shortly.”

Chester pulled himself out of bed, dressed quickly and walked downstairs to pick up his emergency bag.  There should have been time to have a cup of strong coffee, but the car pulled up outside the house just as the kettle started to boil.  Chester cursed under his breath, took a can of cold coffee out of the fridge and walked to the car.  His wife would wake up to discover him gone.  As soon as he was inside the car, he flipped open his palmtop and wrote her a quick email.  She knew very little about what he did for a living, but she would know that if he was called, he had to respond.

Washington never really slept, but thankfully there was little traffic on the roads as the federal car raced towards the White House.  Chester still remembered one emergency call when he’d been trapped in traffic and a helicopter had been sent to pick him up.  At least the Washington Press Corps hadn't managed to work out who he was, not really.  Team Omega’s security could have been compromised if they’d asked why a lowly paper-pusher such as him had been summoned so urgently to meet with President MacDougal.  He finished swilling his coffee as the car entered the underground garage below the White House. Two Secret Service agents met him and hustled him inside.

The White House was the most secure building in the world that wasn't an outright fortress.  Chester had been in government service long enough to remember the debate about moving the seat of government to Cheyenne Mountain or somewhere else that might be able to resist a Level 5 superhuman for more than a few seconds, but the sitting President—Dole, if he recalled correctly—had vetoed it.  The President could not give the impression of cowering in a bunker while the rest of the world was exposed to superhuman threats.  Instead, they’d built new layers of security around the White House, including a force field, a handful of augmented agents—and a sensory.  Chester felt the slight touch as the sensory checked that he was who he claimed to be—an imposter was a very real threat in a world where some superhumans could shape-shift—and then withdraw.  Most people didn't realise that a sensory was part of the White House’s security, which wasn't a bad thing.  It would only have upset and alienated them.

“Mr. Harrison,” a voice said.  Monica, the President’s personal assistant, had been waiting for him on the other side of the security station.  “They’re meeting in the Situation Room; I’m to escort you there.”

Chester nodded.  Monica was old enough to be his mother and had been in government service since before there were any superhumans.  What she didn't know about getting things done wasn’t important—and she knew enough about the Washington denizens to give a handful of them sleepless nights.  Most people liked young and sexy assistants; the President was smart enough to know better.  But then, the First Lady was also a very tough woman.

The White House was linked to an underground network that very few people outside government even suspected existed, let alone the extent of the chambers under the city.  It had originally been devised as a defence against nuclear bombs and had naturally turned into a defence against superhumans when they first came into existence.  The President and his Cabinet had the private use of a number of chambers, including a Situation Room that was TEMPEST-level secure, immune to physical, electronic and mental probes.  Or so they all hoped.  One problem that had bedevilled security officers long before the first superhuman had appeared was that as security technology advanced, the technology to fool and defeat it advanced as well.

Visitors were not allowed aides in the Situation Room, which forced him to pour his own cup of black coffee and sit down beside General Kratman, the Director of the Superhuman Defence Initiative.  They were rivals in Washington, competing for scarce funds, but they managed to maintain a cordial working relationship, not too surprising considering they were generally called upon to help each other out.  Kratman hadn't seemed too approving of Chester’s role until he’d realised that Chester merely issued directives and provided political cover; the trained soldiers who led each operation team handled the actual deployments.  They knew what they were doing—and Chester didn't.  It had been a long time since he’d resented that simple fact.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Monica said, “the President of the United States.”

Chester rose to his feet as President MacDougal entered, followed by a handful of political and intelligence directors.  The President looked tired—someone had given the order to wake him up early—and worn.  Being President in a world where the most powerful men and women weren't accountable to anyone, even the SDI, was an unpleasant task.  There were days when Chester wondered why anyone wanted the job.

“Be seated,” the President said, curtly.  Monica passed him a cup of coffee and then took up a position at the corner of the room.  “Jasper?”

Jasper Stillwell, the National Security Advisor, stood up and walked to the head of the table, picking up the remote that would allow him to activate the room’s compartmentalised presentation system.  He was a tall man with a long history of involvement in covert operations and intelligence analysis, who knew where the bodies were buried.  There were times when Chester envied the man’s unflappable nature—and times when he wondered if Jasper wasn't a superhuman himself.  But then, he wasn't serving openly as a superhuman, so he wouldn't have needed to register.

“About one hour ago, we received an urgent broadcast from operatives within the Congo,” he said.  Chester lifted an eyebrow in surprise.  What could have happened in the blood-soaked country that could have summoned him—and the President—out of bed?  “Put bluntly, the Congo has been invaded by an outside force and most of the various political factions have been scattered or destroyed.”  He hesitated for a long moment.  “The outside force was a small army of superhumans.”

Chester stared at him.  Diplomats in the United Nations had been pushing for a large-scale intervention in the Congo long before superhumans fleeing South Africa had made it much worse, but none of the talks had ever gotten off the ground.  The UN might have done more than urge developed nations to intervene, yet none of them trusted their rivals not to take advantage of the opportunity to claim the Congo’s mineral wealth for themselves.

Besides, the Congo simply wasn't important.  The closest superpower was Iraq, and they had their own problems with Iran.

General Kratman remained focused, somehow fresh and rested despite the early morning hour.  “Who carried out this operation?”

“According to media broadcasts, the operation was spearheaded by the Saviours,” Stillwell said.  Chester cursed.  He’d hoped that the Saviours would fall apart or abandon their idealistic dreams, not actually intervene in a foreign country.  “They were joined by over forty other superhumans and several dozen mutants.  Between them, they crushed the various factions with remarkable speed—none were capable of coping with a superhuman assault.  The sun rising over the Congo right now is a sun rising on a country ruled by superhumans.”

“Jesus,” someone muttered, from behind him.  “What are they saying about it?”

“Hope—their leader—broadcast to the world half an hour ago,” Stillwell said.  “It's still being rebroadcast on CNN and Fox News.  As you can see...”

He tapped the remote and the main screen came to life, replaying Hope’s message to the world.  Chester listened carefully as the superhuman—still clad in the golden outfit he’d worn when he’d been part of the SDI—spoke, outlining what they’d done in the Congo and what they intended to do in the future.  They wanted emergency shipments of food, medical supplies and equipment—and ordered all nearby nations to inter refugees from any of the factions who found themselves in their territory.  There were no threats attached to the message, but after what they’d done to the Congo he doubted that anyone would try to stand up to them.

“They’ve been allowing reporters to roam freely through the capital city,” Stillwell explained.  “They’ve taken pictures of everything, from the heads of the factions stuck up on poles where the palace used to be to the people thronging the streets and cheering the superhumans.  Most of the local police force has been eliminated or taken off somewhere; the mutants are providing the only real policing in the city.  I think they’re already running short of manpower.”

“You can count on it,” General Kratman said, flatly.  “Taking territory is one thing, holding it is quite another.  I think the remains of the factions will start to reform underground.”

“They have made a public offer to all mutants; they will be allowed to live freely in the Congo if they help keep the peace long enough for a new government to be formed,” Stillwell said.  “I suspect that they may also be able to convince other superhumans to join them...”

The President held up a hand.  “That isn't the issue at the moment,” he said, coldly.  “The issue is what—if anything—we do about it?”

Jack Marlowe, the Director of the CIA, had his own question.  “And why were we caught by surprise?”

Chester and General Kratman exchanged glances.  “Our intelligence within the Saviours has never been good,” Chester admitted.  Keeping an eye on the capes was a responsibility shared between Team Omega and the SDI.  At least they managed to work together better than the FBI and CIA.  “Unless we managed to turn one of the superhumans themselves, we would have to rely on second-hand information and innuendo.  Matters are more complicated with the Saviours as one of them—the Redeemer—is a Level X superhuman with telepathic powers.  She would sniff out any spy we sent before he could make his first report.

“We do have some allies within the mutant community, but as a rule they're generally not very willing to help us,” he added.  The Federal Government had been reluctant to uphold the civil rights of mutants when there was so much fear surrounding them.  It wasn't particularly fair—few mutants rated more than Level 2—but fear and hatred had never been fair, or logical.  Besides, it was safer to pick on mutants than superhumans like Hope.  “And again, any of them who had been summoned to join the operation would have been scanned.  They would have isolated or rejected any spy.”

“Telepaths make life so much harder,” Marlowe agreed, reluctantly.  The CIA was still reeling from losing a network of operatives in China after the Chinese had used telepaths to root them out and execute them on live television.  “So...what do we do about it?”

General Kratman spoke into the silence.  “You know as well as I do that superhumans have been developing a...racial identity of their own,” he said.  “They’ve moved from being government agents and operatives to actually operating as independent agents—superheroes, in other words.  And now they have stepped completely out of line and taken out an independent state.  We have to assume that this will lead to further acts against rogue states—or, worse, against the more developed states.”

Gayle Hepburn, the Secretary of State, leaned forward.  “But the Congo was a shithole before they arrived and slaughtered the oppressors,” she said, softly.  “You know as well as I do that the State Department compiled voluminous files on atrocities being committed in the Congo, an endless list of war crimes and offences committed against helpless civilians.  We did nothing to stop the warlords from continuing to struggle for supreme power and we did nothing to prevent their neighbours from keeping the fire going—we didn't even do anything to prevent the exodus of superhumans from South Africa into the Congo!  There are no moral grounds for opposing their invasion of the Congo, none whatsoever.  And I think that the vast bulk of the American population would agree with me.”

“I’m not saying that the Congo warlords didn't deserve to have their heads torn off and stuck on spikes,” General Kratman said.  Chester nodded beside him.  “The problem is that they might go on and overthrow another country’s government, and then another.  They have become a rogue force acting without any guidance from a national authority.”

“Just because we invaded Nazi Germany doesn't mean that we also invaded Great Britain,” Gayle countered.  “We cannot jump to the conclusion that they mean us harm because they did great harm to the Congo’s leadership...”

“The government is power with responsibility,” Chester said, quietly.  “I know; half the population would say that the Federal Government wasn't responsible at all.  But the fact is that the Government of the United States, or even the Government of China, has a certain responsibility to its population.  A rogue state feels no responsibility towards its people, but the dictators do feel responsible for maintaining their own power base.

“The Saviours have no such limitations.  They judged the Congo themselves, without considering the international effects of their actions, and then attacked.  Where will they go next?  There is no shortage of suffering in this world.  Will they attack North Korea, or will they attack China...or will they buy into the claim that the United States is the source of all evil and attack Washington?  These people have no responsibility.  Their actions are therefore unpredictable—and dangerous.”

The President slapped the table.  “Those concerns have been noted,” he said.  “The question remains, however; what do we do now?”

“I shall speak to Secretary-General Jefferson and ask him to convene an immediate meeting of the Security Council,” Gayle said.  “God knows that the General Assembly will already be buzzing, but maybe we can moderate them into trying to help rather than hinder.  After that...we have supplies we can spare to help them, maybe that’s what we should do.”

“You want to help them?”  Kratman demanded.  “The real question is, do we recognise their government as being the legitimate government of the Congo!”

“They certainly fit the standard definition,” Chester pointed out.  “They hold territory and all opposition is too scattered to fight back.  We can recognise them as an occupying power until they manage to form a proper government to run the country.”

“Assuming they ever do,” Kratman said.  He looked over at the President.  “Mr. President, I understand that there is an argument for helping them—and the poor folks in the Congo.  I wouldn't raise the slightest objection to sending humanitarian aid to the state; the Saviours might at least be able to distribute it properly.  But if we recognise them as an occupying power, or even as a government, we legitimise any other superhuman power grabs.   What happens if that bunch of religious creeps from Pakistan manages to take over the government?  They would become an instant superpower and a potential threat.”

“The Saviours are already a superpower,” Gayle said, softly.  “What happens if they manage to gain more allies—not just mutants, but other high-ranking superhumans?”

The President looked at Chester.  “Your recommendation, Mr. Harrison?”

Chester hesitated.  “For the moment, we have to accept that they rule the Congo and we cannot dislodge them—at least not without further devastating the area,” he said, slowly.  “But Tom is right; we cannot accept their action without opening up a whole new can of worms, one that might explode in our faces.  I would suggest agreeing to send humanitarian aid—the charities will start doing that without our encouragement—but refusing any form of formal recognition until the Congo has a proper government and the Saviours go back to their clubhouse at the South Pole.”

“I wouldn't count on the charities doing anything useful,” Kratman muttered.  “They always do well by doing good.”

“We can also flood the area with reporters to see just how well the Saviours manage to operate when they’re trying to hold territory, rather than just smashing through anything in their way,” Chester added.  “It might help discourage others from trying the same thing if the Congo collapses into chaos despite their presence.”

“Possibly,” the President agreed.  “Are there any other recommendations?”

“The opposite,” Gayle said.  “The world has changed, whatever we think about it.  We should seriously consider supporting them to the hilt--”

“Which will convince other nations that we are behind them,” Kratman snapped.  “Do we really want the blame for crushing the Congo’s government and occupying the country?”

“Hope is American,” Chester pointed out.  “We will get much of the blame anyway.”

“It can't be helped,” the President said.  “We will send humanitarian aid while watching closely.  And General?  Draw up a plan to evict them from the Congo if necessary.  We need to be ready for anything.”

Chester scowled, inwardly.  Superhumanity had finally come into its own—and God alone knew what would happen next.  Human history suggested that it wouldn't end very well.

Chapter Nine

“Can you believe this shit?”

Jackson looked up from where he was peering through a window down onto the grimy streets of downtown Chicago.  The area had once been peaceful and prosperous, but changes in the economy had driven the industries out of the city and most of the population had followed, leaving the streets to the poor, the gangsters and the drug lords.  Jackson wondered what would have happened to him if he’d grown up in such a hopeless area, where boys were killed off in gang fights and girls became whores almost as soon as they started their first period.  It took a special kind of personality to climb out of the gutter, and most of those personalities moved away as soon as they could.

Basil thumped the portable television in irritation.  “A bunch of capes decide to knock over an entire country and what do we do?  Nothing!”

“Not the mission,” Jackson said.  He’d been surprised that the Young Stars—assuming that the DEA was right—had chosen such an isolated area for their drug deals, but perhaps there was a certain kind of logic to it.  Doing something closer to their hangout would have been asking for trouble; besides, the area was effectively neutral ground between two different gangs.  “It’s only been a day.  Give them a chance.”

“That’s why we were created,” Basil informed him, rolling off the pile of blankets they used as a sleeping pad.  “Sooner or later, one of those caped assholes is going to think that they’re God and we’d better all bow down to him.  I think we’d better get ready to fight them.”

“Tell that to the Sergeant,” Jackson said, tiredly.  “And if you blow this mission, he won’t ever forgive you.”

He scowled down through the dirty window onto the streets below.  This part of the city had once accommodated warehouses, but they were abandoned now, slowly decaying into rubble.  Someone had looted everything that had been left behind and then left the doors open, mocking the civilised society that had abandoned its poor to the gutter.  Everywhere they looked, there were traces of drug users and worse in the area.  The rooms of the office block they’d taken over as a watchtower were littered with needles and empty injector tabs.  Some of them were probably contaminated with AIDS or worse, they’d been warned; since then, they’d brushed them to one side and hoped for the best.

The latest update from the DEA had stated that the drug courier was going to arrive just before evening, when the sun began to set.  Jackson wondered why they hadn't bothered to arrest the courier on his way up from Texas to Chicago, but it wasn't his decision to make.  By then, they had to be ready for the Young Stars—assuming they bothered to show.  The media had been driven into a frenzy by the events in the Congo and the Young Stars were no doubt being pressured for statements that could be taken out of context by the media.  Lane had noted that their backers were probably ordering them to say nothing until they decided what they wanted them to say, but teenagers weren't noted for restraint.  The only reason they believed the Young Stars would still show up to meet with the drug courier was that they were addicts, and they needed those drugs.

He’d never had a chance to use surveillance gear before joining Team Omega and he’d been surprised—and a little horrified—when he’d realised just how much information the gear could pick up.  Tiny sensors had been scattered around the area, each one linked to the computer gear in their hideout through an almost invisible cable.  The spooks who were part of the support staff had admitted that they would have preferred to use microburst transmissions, but with superhumans involved it was possible that they might hear the transmissions and escape before it was too late.  Superhumans screwed up everything, they’d grumbled; they’d been saying it long before the Congo invasion.

One of the consoles bleeped.  “I’ve got movement,” he said, as several teenagers came into view.  They clearly weren't the Young Stars, almost certainly gang members from one of the groups or refugees from their wrath.  Or, more alarmingly, they might have been scouts sent ahead to ensure that the area was clear.  “What do you make of that?”

Basil knelt down beside him.  “Looks like one of those politically-correct multi-ethnic gangs you don’t see outside bad television and worse comics,” he said.  “And look at those outfits, dude.  Those kids are working for the drug lords or I’ll eat my gun.”

Jackson had to agree.  The lead kid was a tall black teenager with glasses and an afro.  Beside him, there was a Goth girl, a pair of blonde white kids who might almost have been brother and sister, with a mutant and a little girl bringing up the rear.  Their clothes were expensive, far too expensive.  Basil was right, he decided; they looked too rich and healthy to be native to the area, particularly the Goth girl.  Someone like her would have been pimped out by now, along with the blonde girl.  Hell, maybe the boys would have been added to the brothels too.  They catered to everyone.

“That one could be a problem,” Basil said, grimly.  Behind the teens, there was a single mutant gambolling along; it resembled a cross between a man and a lizard.  It seemed to be acting as an animal—there were plenty of stories of mutants growing up isolated and becoming more animal than human—but Jackson saw the pattern in its movements.  The blasted creature was sniffing for signs of trouble.  “How well do you think we covered our tracks?”

“Well enough, I hope,” Jackson muttered back.  He keyed his communicator and gave the CO a quick update.  If the kids down there spotted them, they might have to fight their way out; the mission would definitely be blown.  “You think someone could just pick off that lizard guy before he got up here?”

“Chris is on sniper duty,” Basil said.  “He could probably pick them all off before they came in to this building.”

“But that would blow us,” Jackson said.  He settled back and watched grimly as the teenagers came closer, walking up to the warehouse below them.  It didn't look particularly safe, but that wouldn't have deterred him as a child—and it didn't deter the scouts either.  “That little girl should be in foster care.”

“I was in foster care,” Basil said.  Jackson blinked.  The operatives rarely shared stories of their past, even of their careers before joining Team Omega.  They knew he had been a Marine—and he was fairly sure that he’d picked out Rangers and Delta Force from among the other operatives—but most of them obscured their past.  “My dad died when I was a baby and my mother just couldn’t cope, so they said she had to give me up.  Even the worst of parents couldn't have treated me as badly as the foster family did—and no one seemed to listen to my complaints.  Eventually, I left them and never looked back.”

He shrugged.  “And here will be worse,” he added.  “That kid might be safer on the streets, at least until she reaches her teens.  After that...”

“All bets are off,” Jackson agreed.  He cursed under his breath as the teenagers seemed to stop outside their building, looking across at the burned-out vehicles someone had stripped and then shoved into one corner.  As a child, he would probably have played with the remains until his parents dragged him home and lectured him on the dangers of touching burnt rubble.  “I think we may have a problem.”

Basil picked up his M-22 and loaded it with standard rounds.  “If we have to fight, take out the mutant with guns and then kick their asses hand-to-hand,” he ordered, calmly.  “They’re just kids.  I don’t want to have to explain to the Sergeant why I killed kids.”

“Understood,” Jackson said.  The teenagers were probably drug addicts working for the local drug lord; it would certainly explain the fancy clothes.  That didn't mean that they deserved to die.  “I think...”

He grinned suddenly as the teenagers moved away.  “They’re going,” he said, in some relief.  “One is pulling out a box of pills.”

“Watch them carefully; leave the rest of the surveillance to me,” Basil ordered.  “If that’s anything but ultimate, we shouldn't have a problem.  Ultimate, however...”

Jackson winced at the thought.  He'd found out more about ultimate now; it was actually distilled from superhuman blood and for a few minutes it gave someone the powers of a superhuman.  Not a very powerful one, true, rarely over Level 2, but enough to make a drugged-up fighter a deadly enemy.  He'd read through all the files, including some that covered attempts to create enhanced soldiers before SARA had made all such experiments illegal.  Repeated use of the drug eventually burned out the body and left the user either comatose or dead.  Some had even died when their wounds had caught up with them after the drug faded from their bloodstream.

“They’re taking pills as they go,” he said, slowly.  “Do you think that’s something dangerous?”

“No way to know,” Basil said.  He keyed his communicator.  “Papa-Mike, this is OP; teens coming your way, watch them until they’re gone.”

“Understood, OP,” the response crackled back.  “Gee...that girl just walked over a sensor.  You think we can get a peek up her skirt?”

“As you were,” the Sergeant’s voice snapped.  “Besides, she’s probably jailbait.”

Jackson watched the teens leave and then looked back at the warehouse.  “How much longer do we have to wait?”

“Another hour, if the DEA was on the money,” Basil said.  His voice twisted into a bad impression of Yoda.  “You’ll have to start learning patience if you want to be a Jedi, young Skywalker.”

“And stop lusting after my own sister,” Jackson countered.  They shared a chuckle.  “Do you think that Lucas will ever produce the first prequel in the movie series?”

“I very much doubt it,” Basil said.  “These days, no one wants to see movies about superhumans—even Jedi Knights.  The last Superman movie was a total flop.”

Jackson nodded.  He hadn't been a big fan of comic books as a child, but then the golden age of comics was long over.  Who wanted to read about Superman when you could look out of a window and see a superhuman flying past?  Besides, real superhumans were edgy, even those who were patriotic and fought crime on behalf of Uncle Sam.  Superman had been escapist fantasy in a world that had never had to face superhumans in real life.  The only comic book hero who had remained popular outside the fringe was Batman—and he was a regular human, just like Team Omega.

“They were going to call us the Batmen,” Basil said, after Jackson had voiced his thoughts.  “And then someone pointed out that it might get the Pentagon tied up in legal shit, so they dumped the idea.  They wanted us to take out a superhuman who dressed up as Superman two years ago, before someone at DC decided that it would make them look like bastards in the eyes of the public.  The guy wearing the costume saved plenty of lives before they decided that perhaps they should sue him.”

“I...see,” Jackson said.  “And I have to be familiar with all this shit?”

“Study it in your off-hours,” Basil told him.  “And try to have a chat with Grimes about it—I know, you don’t like him and no one else likes him very much either.  But he does have some interesting insights into how some superheroes can cross the line into outright criminality and force us to take them down.”

Jackson nodded, reluctantly.  He’d learned to dislike psychologists before coming face to face with Grimes, who was a perfect example of the worst of the breed.

“He had a theory about professional limits,” Basil continued, absently.  “You see, it isn't uncommon for teachers to fuck their students, doctors to fuck their patients and policemen to fuck their prisoners.  It should be very uncommon, but it isn’t.  Grimes suggested that everyone needed to keep a mental barrier between themselves and someone....vulnerable, but that that barrier was always porous.  The more involved they became, the more they broke the barriers and turned into monsters.  And many of them remained convinced that they were doing the right thing even as they were hauled off into jail for underage sex.

“Superhumans see things on a much bigger scale than us.  Someone like the Sergeant isn't too far ahead of us; he’s strong and tough, but little else.  But someone like Hope or America or that Russian with the unpronounceable name?  They are so powerful that every failure is a kind of little death for them.  Their powers make them feel so involved that they cannot look away.  How well would you cope if you knew that the little girl across the road was being beaten every night by her mother and abused by her father?”

“Not well,” Jackson said.  He would have killed the parents, if he had known, and to hell with the consequences.  “I couldn’t leave her there.”

Basil shrugged.  “I knew a Green Beret who knew a SEAL who knew a Delta who served in Lebanon before the capes arrived to make our lives more complicated,” he added.  “He said that one of the Deltas had seen a man beating his wife while trying to take out a pair of enemy snipers and shot him.  They’d watched the whole area so closely that they lost all detachment and decided to interfere.  I don’t know what happened—I don’t even know if it really happened—but it’s something to bear in mind.”

Jackson considered it as he poured them both a cup of coffee.  “We might be better off with someone like that,” he said, finally.  “Someone who was too detached might just turn out like a communist planner, ordering the world to suit his own personal theory of the universe.  At least Hope cares.”

“It is possible to care too much,” Basil said, taking the coffee and drinking it in one gulp.  “Anyway, you get a quick rest.  We only have an hour left before the shit hits the fan.”

Jackson nodded, lay down on the bedroll and closed his eyes.  When he opened them again, darkness was falling over the city and Basil was wearing a pair of night-vision goggles.  He picked up his own goggles and tested them, smiling at just how easily he could use them to see in the dark.  Rumour had it that they’d been designed after a superhuman criminal—the Cat—had been captured while trying to steal the British Crown Jewels, but he didn't know for sure.  It had been enough of a surprise to discover that Team Omega was sometimes sent out on loan to other NATO countries.

“DEA says that the courier just left his hotel and is on the way,” Basil said, very quietly.  “Our watcher at the hangout hasn't seen any movement from the capes, but they may have a way out without our noticing them.  We have to assume that the shit is about to hit the fan.”

Jackson nodded as he checked his weapons, equipment and body armour.  By now, after six weeks of intensive training, it was second nature to him, even with the specific devices developed for Team Omega and unseen outside the unit.  The surveillance gear was claiming that the area was completely abandoned, with no one there apart from the OP, but he knew better than to take it for granted.  All of the later exercises had included random failures in the equipment just to keep them on their toes.

His earpiece buzzed.  “Alpha Team reports ready,” Lane said.  “Beta Team?”

“Beta-One ready,” Basil said.  “Beta-Two?”

“Ready,” Ron said.  “Are the DEA armed to the teeth or do we have to cover them as well?”

“Armed, they say,” the Sergeant said.  “If the shit hits the fan, they have orders to duck and get the hell out of the way.”

Jackson caught himself breathing heavily and concentrated on calming himself down, feeling the sweat running down his spine.  The seconds ticked away slowly until a black van entered the monitor showing the live feed from one of the sensors.  A tag affixed to the van by the DEA positively identified it as the van belonging to the courier.  He parked in the centre of the square, climbed out of the vehicle and looked around, carefully.  According to the DEA, he had no enhanced senses and no training that might have allowed him to spot something out of place, but someone who grew up amid violence might have developed purely human senses to their highest level.

“Doesn't seem to see us,” Basil subvocalised.  No one could have heard him with normal hearing, but a superhuman?  Jackson braced himself as a second van appeared.  “And here come the buyers.”

Jackson had expected—without really realising it—that the Young Stars would wear their costumes in public.  But they didn’t; instead, they wore normal civilian clothes and showed nothing that might suggest the presence of superhuman abilities.  Youngster himself was easy to identify, carrying himself with a posture that suggested a greater maturity than the average teenager.  Jackson reminded himself that he was almost certainly older than nineteen and resolved to keep an eye on him.  Behind Youngster, he saw a black man—Nova, almost certainly—and an Asian girl, presumably Siren.   It was hard to be sure about Nova because all of his publicity posters showed him as nothing more than a humanoid fireball.

“They didn't bring all of them,” he commented, very quietly.

“Be grateful,” Basil muttered back.  Quiet updates were flashed between the team members as the superhuman teenagers went forward to meet their supplier.  “Here we go...”

The DEA agents appeared from where they’d taken up position and advanced into the light.  “THIS IS A DRUG BUST,” one of them bellowed through a loudspeaker.  “PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR...”

Nova flared to light.  A second later, fireballs were raging out towards the DEA agents.

Chapter Ten

Patience didn't come naturally to Hope, but he forced himself to wait for the aircraft to land.

He could fly around the entire world in the space of a few hours if he ignored little details like air traffic controllers and regimes that thought they had the right to dictate to everyone else.  It had always galled him that others travelled slower than he did, particularly when they had had the chance to make use of a teleporter and declined it.  By the time the aircraft had landed, his patience was at an end.

Kinshasa International Airport was the largest airport in the Congo, but it had barely been maintained since the civil war began.  He ground his teeth as the staff pushed a stepladder up to the aircraft.  At least it didn't have to run a gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire any longer.  They’d just have to repair the airport and improve it as quickly as possible.  Aircraft were the only way to bring in outside supplies quickly, because the Congo’s road network was littered with IEDs and other unpleasant surprises.

He sucked in his breath as Bill Jefferson, Secretary-General of the United Nations, appeared at the top of the ladder and glanced around in surprise.  His staff had tried to insist that the handful of reporters in the city cover his arrival, but Hope had refused to allow them to interview Jefferson until he had dealt with the more urgent matter of humanitarian aid for the Congo.  If he’d wanted to stroke the ego of powerful political leaders, he would have stayed in the SDI and demonstrated his powers to a succession of American Presidents.

Bill Jefferson had once been called the greatest President America had never had, if the DNC had been convinced to push him forward against Bush in 1988.  But Bush’s campaign had been blown out of the water by the Slaughter Affair and the DNC had preferred to put forward Michael Dukakis rather than the younger Bill Jefferson.  His appointment as Secretary-General had been a surprise to many, but Hope hadn’t been too surprised; the Secretary-General’s only real power was the ability to talk to everyone and Jefferson had always been good at building one-on-one relationships.  Besides, compared to the previous Secretary-General, who’d taken vast bribes from Saudi Arabia and Iran, he was clean and surprisingly popular.  A report that he might have had sex with an intern had been lost in the press of other events sweeping the globe.

“Welcome to Kinshasa, sir,” Hope said, as Jefferson reached the bottom of the ladder.  He had travelled light, part of Hope’s mind noted; there were only five aides in the aircraft, along with a pair of security officers who were probably superhuman.  Neither of them seemed unduly worried when looking at Hope.  “I apologise for the small greeting, but we have much to discuss.”

Some politicians he’d met would have stood on their dignity and insisted on being greeted by vast and cheering crowds; Jefferson, at least, didn't seem to have that particular weakness.  “I quite agree,” he said, smoothly.  “I assume that you have a conference room ready to go?”

Hope nodded and led the way across the tarmac, into what remained of the airport’s reception facility.  He’d had to pay in dollars to convince the locals to clean it up and check that it was reasonably safe, evicting a number of poisonous snakes that had made their homes in the building over the years.  Hope was sure the conference room was grubby compared to the ones Jefferson was used to using, with a single fan to provide cool air for Westerners, but at least he’d be reasonably comfortable.  It wasn't as if Kinshasa had a proper hotel for wealthy politicians.

“There is a great deal of concern over what you have done,” Jefferson said, without preamble.  Chances were that the Security Council or the General Assembly would have handed him his marching orders before he even left New York, assuming that they’d been able to come to some kind of consensus.  Quite why anyone expected the UN to do anything was beyond Hope.  “You chose to overthrow a government and take a country by force.”

Hope had expected that charge.  It still stung.  “If I can direct you to the report of the United Nations Special Representative to the Congo, published last year, you will note that your own personal choice for representative stated that there was no overall government in the Congo, just a bunch of warlords who were fighting it out while crushing the natives below their feet,” he said.  “Or I could direct you to Amnesty International’s report, which urged the UN to reconsider the proposal for direct foreign intervention as the only way to prevent genocide.”

His voice hardened.  “Or I could take you outside and show you one of the mass graves,” he added, sharply.  He picked up a folder from the desk and passed it over to Jefferson.  “We exhumed two of them and took photographs.  Take a look, and then tell me that we did the wrong thing.”

The photographs were sickening.  One pit had over seventy men, ranging from teenagers to elderly gentlemen who should have been reflecting on their lives, who had been tied and then shot by one of the factions.  The other pit held a smaller number of women, most who'd been raped before they had been executed.  There was no way to know who had committed the atrocities or what they’d hoped to gain from them.  The nearest village had been a death zone for years, abandoned by everyone.  Maybe there were survivors in the refugee camps who would be able to return home, now that it was safe.  Or maybe it would just be reclaimed by Mother Nature and lost below the foliage, now that there were no rogue loggers cutting into the rainforest.

“I do not dispute the atrocities committed by the warlords,” Jefferson said, heavily.  At base, he was a decent man—and the photographs would have horrified anyone, at least anyone who wasn’t an outright sadist.  Perhaps Adolf Hitler had done worse, but the Holocaust hadn’t been filmed with digital cameras and broadcast for the world to see.  “But the concerns of the General Assembly cannot be put aside so easily.”

Hope stared at him.  “Are you saying that they will refuse to send any help to the Congo?”

“I'm not saying that,” Jefferson said.  “I’m saying that they have concerns they want to address.”

“I see,” Hope said, finally.  It was easy to hear Jefferson’s heartbeat, racing much faster than it should.  He was nervous, and conflicted.  But who wouldn't be when caught between the devil and the deep blue sea?  “How do they wish their...concerns to be addressed?”

“They want you to open the Congo up to international governance until the population can form a government of their own,” Jefferson said, carefully, “and they want you to guarantee that you will not repeat this somewhere else.”

“I have yet to see any evidence that the UN is remotely capable of handling such a challenge,” Hope said, finally.  The UN had been a large part of the problems confronting multi-ethnic states like the Congo ever since the end of the Cold War.  “Do you intend to put an army into the Congo, one with the ability to prevent the warlords from regrouping, or do they merely intend to stand by and watch as helpless civilians are slaughtered?  Or do you intend to allow half of the international aid to be looted or used to feed the men with guns while the population starves?”

“You have killed most of the men with guns,” Jefferson pointed out.

“There will be others,” Hope said, flatly.  “Tell me: will you send troops willing to uphold the rule of law, or will you get distracted by side issues of no great importance?  Will you stamp on uncivilised practices or will you condone them because you do not want to appear insensitive to religion?  Will you stay the course, or will you pull out the moment one of your soldiers breaks a nail?”

“The details have not yet been worked out,” Jefferson said, his face flushing.  “I...”

“You mean they won’t be worked out,” Hope said, flatly.  Jefferson wasn't a bad person, but he wouldn't be calling the shots.  It would take years to iron out the details of a multinational force, during which time the Congo would sink back into chaos and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians would die.  “And with states like Pakistan and Libya calling the shots, I dare say that they will do whatever it takes to convince the UN not to help.  They really don’t want us pointed at them, right?”

“You have upset the world,” Jefferson said, calmly.  “Did you expect that there wouldn't be a reaction?”

“Politicians always put themselves first,” Hope said, bitterly.  He’d hoped for better from the UN, even though he knew more than most about its failures in the Congo.  “I don’t know why it surprises me.”

He shook his head.  “You can tell the states you allow to serve on your Human Rights Council, despite committing more abuses of human rights than half the warlords we killed last night, that we will continue our mission until the entire human race can breathe free,” he said, firmly.  “I suggest that they start liberalising themselves until their populations no longer need to suffer at the hands of their rulers.  The only governments that can be considered just are the ones that recognise the right of the people to choose their own rulers.”

“They won’t like that,” Jefferson said.

“I don’t give a shit about what they like or don’t like,” Hope snapped.  “Pakistan allowed a girl to be burned to death because she was raped; Libya gunned down a hundred protesters only four months ago because they wanted to live freely.  They are in no position to lecture us on what is right and wrong.  Do you understand me?  I will not tolerate people who torment their own people to lecture us while the blood is dripping from their hands.”

No normal political leader could have said that, not when they needed to try to keep channels open between the democratic nations and those that spit in the eye of democracy.  But Hope was accountable to no one, save his fellow Saviours.  He could move against them at will and he would, once the Congo had been stabilised.  Superhumanity would make the world better—and those who got in the way would be smashed.  They’d had their chance.

Jefferson’s heartbeat seemed to falter, just for a second.  It was a shame that the Redeemer wasn't nearby to read his thoughts, but he had probably had enough experience with telepaths to tell when one was probing into his mind.  Telepathic scanning without permission was a crime all around the world, save in nations that operated secret police forces.  Hope didn't intend for the Congo to wind up like that.

“Right,” he said, forcing himself to calm down.  “How much humanitarian aid are you prepared to forward to the Congo?  My people will ensure that it reaches people who actually need it.”

“My staff are still searching for commitments,” Jefferson said.  One of his few successes as Secretary-General had been streamlining the programs for using non-governmental organisations as bearers of aid.  Too many of them operated on the principle that they needed to keep people in need to remain needed, but at least they could spring into action quicker than any government.  “The NGOs are ready to start sending in aid provided that you guarantee their security.  There weren't many volunteers to actually travel here in the first place...”

Hope nodded impatiently.  Foreign aid workers were supposed to be neutral.  That idealism had lasted until they realised just what sort of hellhole they’d entered.  Some of them had found themselves being pushed around by men with guns, others had been forced to leave the country or had suffered accidents that were really murders.  At least one body in the mass grave they’d uncovered hadn't been African.  They’d have to test her DNA to find out where to send her remains.

“We can provide security,” he said, confidently.  Four hours ago, a team of men with guns had started ordering the civilians back to their homes.  They hadn’t lasted longer than five minutes before they’d been scooped up and dragged to the internment camp.  “But we need governmental aid as well as civilian support...”

“The governments are still arguing over the precise response to your actions,” Jefferson admitted.  “Some are willing to extend aid, but they are not willing to legitimise your actions because it could create a dangerous precedent...”

“I note that Iraq was taken over by a superhuman in 1991,” Hope pointed out.  It hadn't worked out too badly for the Iraqis.  The Protector of Iraq might have built on Saddam’s foundations, but Iraq now dominated the Middle East and had solved the omnipresent Israel-Palestine dispute.  And ever since a Saudi terrorist leader had been executed in Baghdad, Islamic terrorism had been much less of a problem outside the Middle East and Pakistan.  “The precedent existed a long time before I founded the Saviours.”

“He was still Iraqi,” Jefferson countered.  “You have effectively invaded and occupied another country.  Yes, there were plenty of good reasons to wish the warlords ill, but that doesn't prevent what you did from shaking up the world.  If you think that governments are not going to experience some qualms over what you did, you’re going to be very disappointed.”

Hope gathered himself, fighting down the frustration that threatened to overwhelm him.  Couldn't they see that he was trying to make a better world?  He’d already done the hard part, the dangerous part, and yet they were refusing to help!  How could they refuse when so many people desperately needed the help of the developed world?

He gritted his teeth together as he pulled himself to his feet.  “Tell the General Assembly that there are people here who need help,” he said, tightly.  “Tell them that there isn't much time to act before people start to die.  Tell them that this is their chance to make up for their decision to either abandon the Congo or to meddle in it without caring about those caught up in the fighting.  Tell them that I personally will hold them to account for every last piece of aid they refuse to send.”

“They’ll interpret that as a threat,” Jefferson pointed out.  Hope could hear his heartbeat, yet he sounded perfectly calm.  The consummate politician—and a plague on the human race, just like all the others who tried to put their own interests ahead of those of the world.  “It won’t make them agree any faster.”

“There’s enough superpower in the Saviours alone to devastate any country in the world,” Hope said.  “Tell them to think about that if they start thinking about getting in our way.”

He stalked out of the room, leaving Jefferson sitting at the table.  God alone knew what he’d do; probably get back on his plane and start calling New York.  Hope found it hard to care; Jefferson might have been a decent man, with decent intentions, but he couldn't hear the screaming.  And he couldn't see the men and women who could now walk to the market without fear of being robbed, raped or murdered by the secret police.  He threw himself into the air and looked down on the city below.  No one was carrying a gun, not even the weaker mutants.  The new government didn't care about what whose grandma did to whose granddad; they merely intended to keep the peace.

“I think I messed it up,” he said, as he landed on the mansion’s roof.  The Redeemer stood there, staring down at the city below.  There were a handful of enemy soldiers remaining in hiding and her telepathy was the key to hunting them down.  “They may not be sending much aid.”

He felt her presence at the back of his mind before she answered.  “Maybe Jefferson can talk them into it anyway,” she said, wryly.  “We always knew that it wouldn't be easy.”

She shook her head.  “But you know what?  Right now, there is more hope in the city than ever before,” she added.  “Whatever the UN says, whatever Jefferson manages to do, you will always have that as your legacy.”

Hope settled down beside her and looked over the city.  “By the by, the staff we hired found Fazia’s family,” she said.  “I thought that you would like to take her back personally.”

“The girl I saved,” Hope said.  He’d saved countless lives, over the years, but he’d never come to grips with the root cause of all of humanity’s problems.  “You think I should?”

“I think that it might be a reminder of why we’re here,” the Redeemer said.  “Besides, her mind was very informative.  Her mother makes a great rice and curry mix.”

Hope winced.  “Do you have to go poking in people’s minds?”

“I can't really help it,” the Redeemer said.  She smiled up at him; it wasn't a nice expression.  “You complain about hearing the screams?  I experience everything they go through before they die.  If I hadn't managed to learn how to control it, I would have died myself.  Your dream of making a better world is all I have left.”

She stood up and kissed him on the cheek.  “Take the girl home,” she said.  “I’ll still be here when you get back.”

Chapter Eleven

“Shit,” Jackson said.  Down below, the DEA agents were being burned alive as Nova’s flame swept through the air.  “Captain?”

“Get downstairs, now,” Lane snapped.  “Beta Team—go!”

Jackson ran for the stairwell and down the stairs.  Behind him, a terrible scream rang through the air, followed by the sound of breaking glass.  Siren had screamed at the DEA agents, shattering every last piece of glass in the area.  The sound reverberated through his head even though he hadn't been too close to the girl.  He’d read her file and even had some experience with sonic weapons, but he hadn't realised just how formidable a weapon it could be until the shit hit the fan.

“Snipers, get ready to take them if you have a clear shot,” Lane ordered.  “Nova is going supernova; watch him and Youngster...”

They burst out of the office block as flames started to lick at the walls of the nearby warehouse.  The terrible smell of burning flesh greeted them as the DEA agents burned, while Nova washed fire over the ground and their bodies.  There was no sign of the drug courier, but there were enough burning bodies for Jackson to guess that Nova had killed him along with the good guys.  It would have made sense; if they managed to escape and break contact completely, there wouldn't be anything left leading back to the Young Stars.

Four pressure grenades landed near Nova, detonating with a dull thump.  For a moment, his flames were literally blown out, leaving him standing there almost naked.  Jackson stared at him before realising that the clothes he’d worn for the drug pickup weren't as fireproof as the silly costume he wore on his public appearances.  Nova staggered, probably stunned by so many pressure waves detonating near him, and hit the ground, just as Siren started to scream again.  Jackson threw himself at her before she could turn around and slammed her to the ground.  Apart from her scream, she was little more than a mundane human.  It felt wrong to knock down a girl, particularly one so young, but there was no choice.  Her scream could rattle his brains permanently if it struck him directly.

A hand caught him, picked him up effortlessly and threw him through the air.  Youngster himself had recovered from his shock and rounded on the two soldiers.  Perhaps he would have finished Jackson off, if the snipers hadn't opened fire on him with explosive rounds, forcing him to jump back even though they bounced off his skin.  He didn't have any real combat training, Jackson reminded himself, as he crashed into the side of a wall; being attacked so suddenly would have shocked him.  Even so, at least seven DEA agents were dead and Team One was taking a pounding.

“Siren’s down,” he said, as he pulled himself to his feet.  Youngster had thrown caution to the winds and flown into the sky, only to be targeted by a modified Stinger missile.  Jackson had used one in the simulations and had been surprised to discover that they could track superhuman targets almost perfectly, although they had been known to lose their target lock and go after people on the ground.  The missile impacted and sent Youngster tumbling to the ground on the other side of the warehouse.  Invulnerable or not, that had to shake hell out of him.

“Beta Team, recover Youngster,” Lane ordered.  “Is Nova still out of it?”

There was a sudden wash of fire from where Nova had fallen.  “No,” Jackson said.  Where was Basil?  He had a nasty feeling that Nova had targeted him and burned him to a crisp.  “Nova is back up and running.”

He checked his weapons and ran back towards the fire.  Basil was lying on the ground, badly burned by superhuman fire.  Nova was standing just behind him, lifting one finger to point at Jackson, giving him plenty of time to twist against the burst of fire. The idiot was posing!  Trapped, almost certainly about to lose everything he had to charges of murder, resisting arrest and drug smuggling, he was taking time to pose.  Jackson felt a sudden flash of hot anger as his body armour took most of the fire and deflected it, allowing him to keep running forward until he crashed right into Nova.  Whatever made his skin immune to the effects of his own fire, according to the briefing, didn't give him actual invulnerability.  Jackson slammed his fist into Nova’s face, followed by a savage punch to the gut.  The superhuman staggered to the ground and then went out like a light.  His fires followed seconds later.

“Jesus,” Jackson said.

He looked down at his body armour and winced as he realised that part of it had simply melted. If he’d realised that that was happening, he might not have jumped at Nova with such enthusiasm.  But then, there hadn't been any other choice.  He pushed the thought aside and knelt down beside Basil.  The operator was still alive, but it was difficult to tell just how badly he’d been burned.

“Alpha-Three is down and requires immediate medical attention,” he said. “I say again; Alpha-Three is down and requires immediate medical attention.”

“Understood, Alpha-Four,” Lane said.  “Medical team is on their way.”

There was a thunderous crash from the direction of the warehouse, where Youngster had fallen.  Jackson looked over in alarm and hesitated, unsure of what to do.  He wanted to stay with Basil—and secure the two prisoners—but if Beta Team was in trouble, it was his duty to assist them.  The Sergeant would have called him if they needed help, wouldn't he?  Jackson kept one hand on his weapon as he removed the restraints from his belt and slipped them onto the two prisoners.  For Nova, there was also an injection of a drug that should limit his ability to access and use his powers.  Jackson had been warned that the drug wasn't completely effective and that it could never be trusted.  At least Siren was simpler to handle; he pushed a blob of plastic dough into her mouth, providing an effective gag.

“Alpha-Four, you have incoming...”

The warehouse wall shattered as Youngster powered his way right through it.  Jackson was diving for cover before his mind had quite realised what was happening.  Even with all the training he’d done since joining Team Omega it wasn't easy to really grasp the true power of an enraged superhuman, or just how difficult it could be to collar one bent on escape.  Youngster saw the two prisoners and turned in the air, coming right at Jackson before he could escape...

“Hit him with the sonic projector,” the Sergeant ordered.  Youngster twisted, one hand flying up to cover his ears, before shooting off along the ground.  “New guy—you all right?”

“Yes,” Jackson managed.  A moment later and his head would have been bouncing off the ground.  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

“You can stand between me and the Captain,” von Shrakenberg said.  He was nursing a nasty bruise on his forehead, a blow that would undoubtedly have killed him if he had been a normal operative.  “The bastard has escaped and we’re left holding the bag.”

Jackson nodded as he pulled himself to his feet and looked around.  The area hadn't been a very nice area before the fight, but now it was in ruins.  Nova’s flames had ignited buildings that should have been condemned long ago, leaving them burning steadily towards the ground, while the warehouse looked to be on the verge of collapse.  A dozen bodies lay on the ground and a handful of others were being carted away by the medical teams.  Jackson hoped that meant that some of the DEA agents had survived, but if the flames had been hot enough to melt his body armour they would probably have killed anyone without protection.  The courier and his van had been burned to ashes...he looked over at Nova and shook his head.  Up close, without the costume, he looked like any other teenager on the wrong side of the tracks, sinking into a life of crime without ever really trying to make something of himself.  And yet he’d had enough power to nearly wipe out an entire DEA team and threaten the most versatile combat unit in the military.

“I thought the snipers were meant to engage him if he powered up,” he said, carefully removing the melted body armour.  There were spares in the van, parked some distance from the actual rendezvous point.  “Why didn't they take the shot?”

“They did,” Lane’s voice said from behind him.  The Captain looked grim.  “The bastard’s flames protected him from the shells.  We might have underestimated just how powerful he actually was.”

He didn't sound as if he was assigning blame, which was something of a relief.  One of the senior officers Jackson had served under had had a nasty habit of blaming his men when something went wrong, even though it was normally something unpredictable, just one of those incidents that always showed up when military units carried out exercises in real life.  Murphy always had his say...and nothing ever went quite according to plan.  And to think that most Marine operations had been launched against normal humans, rather than superhumans...

“Chicago PD started screaming at the DEA as soon as the shit hit the fan,” he added.  “They want to handle the investigation themselves—never mind that it was the DEA’s baby from the start.”

“They’ll change their mind as soon as they figure out just who was involved in this,” von Shrakenberg observed, cynically.  “Are they going to send the fire department over here to put out the fires or do they expect the whole area to be burned to the ground?”

“The fire department wants an escort from the cops before they come here,” Lane said.  Jackson wasn't too surprised.  Judging from the briefing notes, the entire area had been completely abandoned by the forces of law and order.  “They’re still arguing; we need to pull out before they come up with an agreement and send help.  Coombs and the DEA can assert themselves here; we may have a worse problem on our hands.”

“Youngster,” von Shrakenberg said.  It wasn't a question.  “Did the sensors manage to track him?”

“Right up until the moment he flew outside their range,” Lane said.  “I’ve got a call in to the local Air Force office; maybe they tracked him, but you know how hard it is to pick out a superhuman target on a radar screen.”

He looked over at Jackson.  “Your first real mission,” he said.  “What did you think of it?”

Jackson found himself lost for words.  A firefight between Marines and enemy soldiers was understandable, even when it started with a sneak attack and there was a period of chaos before the Marines got their shit together and started coordinating a response.  This...had been different.  They’d done everything right, as far as he could tell, and they’d still failed to catch all three of the superhumans.  No wonder there was so much fear gripping the government after the events in the Congo, at least if the internet was to be believed.  An army of superhumans could inflict horrific damage before they were defeated, if they were defeated.

“Jesus,” he said, finally.

Lane laughed, not unkindly.  “Sergeant, ensure that our two suspects are transported to the holding facility before they wake up,” he ordered.  “Have the medics drug them, if necessary; we don’t want one of them trying to break out before we have them in a proper cell.  Team Three is on the way; we’ll need backup if we have to storm the hangout directly.”

“That will be impossible to keep out of the public eye,” von Shrakenberg observed.  Some commanding officers would have seen it as a criticism.  “They have tame reporters watching them at all times.”

“I know,” Lane said.  They exchanged a long glance.  Perhaps the corporate sponsors would happily throw Youngster, Nova and Siren to the wolves in exchange for allowing the Young Stars to continue to operate; perhaps they were all involved and they were ready to start a fight to keep themselves out of jail.  Given what had happened when they resisted arrest, Jackson couldn't see how even the most expensive lawyer in the world could keep them from a long jail sentence at the very least.  The DEA would be pressing for the death penalty.  “But we may have no choice.”

He walked off, leaving von Shrakenberg to start rounding up the rest of the team.  “Keep one eye on the prisoners at all times,” he barked, once the support staff had loaded the two prisoners onto stretchers and started to carry them towards the unmarked vans that had appeared at the edge of the road.  “Assume these people are armed and dangerous; keep your eyes on their faces, not on her tits.  That goes double for you, David.”

There were some chuckles.  Jackson didn't know his teammates as well as he wanted to, but he did know that David had an enviable reputation for success with the ladies.  His teammates made fun of it mercilessly.  David rolled his eyes, muttering just loudly enough to be heard, and then hefted his rifle as they reached the vans.

“Great,” he muttered.  “Now comes the interrogation.”

Jackson looked over at him.  “Interrogation?”

“Wait and see,” David said.  “Wait and see.”

The drive to the FOB—as Jackson couldn't help but think of it—lasted only twenty minutes, but seemed to take forever.  He found himself starting at every little sound, wondering if the next thing he would see would be a superhuman tearing up the van to get at the prisoners inside.  Nova had a long IV line running from a bag a medic had set up, with enough sedative—they’d been assured—to put an elephant to sleep for hours.  Beside him, Siren didn't seem to have recovered from the blow that had knocked her out.  They kept their eyes on her anyway, just in case.  It was a relief when they reached the building and could hand their prisoners over to a specialised team from the local FBI office.

“One last thing to do before we get some sleep,” von Shrakenberg barked, once the prisoners had been taken away.  “We have to write a report of everything that happened, so get into the interrogation chambers and answer all the questions as fully and completely as you can.  Try not to hit any of them; their superiors make a terrible fuss.”

Jackson joined in the chuckles as he followed the others to the interrogation chambers.  He hadn't been in an FBI interrogation room before and he was surprised at how nice it looked, compared to the ones he’d seen in bad movies.  But those movies about the SOF soldiers had rarely been accurate either.  There was a coffee machine in one corner and a pair of FBI agents facing him, one a tall handsome male and the other a shorter red-headed woman.  By the way they leaned together, they were probably lovers.

“Thank you for coming,” the woman said.  She had a sharp voice that reminded Jackson of his mother, back when she’d systematically dissected any excuses Jackson had offered for bad behaviour.  “I must inform you that everything said in this room will be recorded and possibly entered in testimony should the case go to court.  As you are not actually a suspect, you do not have the right to a lawyer, but in the event of charges being brought against you this testimony may be struck from the record.  Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Jackson said, shortly.  He was puzzled.  What was the point of this exercise?  “Why are we doing this?”

The FBI agents exchanged glances.  “Your...unit was involved in a criminal investigation that resulted in the deaths of seventeen DEA agents”—Jackson winced; some of the burned must have passed away before the medics could get them to hospital—“and the capture of two very prominent superhumans.  It is vitally important that we ensure that there are no weaknesses in the case that can be used against us by the defence lawyers—and believe me, the defence lawyers will pick away at everything until they find something that can be used to throw out the prosecution case.”

Jackson nodded.  That made a certain kind of sense.  He still couldn't see how the Young Stars could avoid some very bad publicity and jail terms for at least three of them, but he’d read about unscrupulous defence lawyers in the past.  Even if the case against them was watertight, they could stretch it out as long as possible and claim huge legal fees.

“Right,” the man said.  “From the beginning, then.  How did you become involved in the operation against the Young Stars?”

Jackson studied him for a long moment, unsure of what to say.  No one had warned him that there would be an interrogation, even though in hindsight it was obvious.  And he wasn't sure just what he was cleared to say to them.  Team Omega was a cross between a military unit and a police SWAT team, but it had been made clear to him in no uncertain terms that Team Omega was intended to remain black.  If that meant a local SWAT unit or the FBI taking the credit for their operations, it was an acceptable price to pay.

“We are cleared for everything,” the woman said.  Jackson rather doubted it.  “But if you wish, we will start from the moment the operation began.  What happened when the Young Stars arrived at the rendezvous point?”

Jackson was still unsure of himself, but he started to outline everything that had happened since the moment the DEA agents had moved in for the arrest.  They did have a need to know, even if it reflected badly on the DEA.  And if it helped put three dangerous superhumans in jail, the story needed to be told.

Chapter Twelve

“There’s been no word from them?”

“Nothing at all,” Lane said.  “I believe that they did warn their tame reporters that their archenemies were going to attack their hangout, but nothing else.  Most of the bastards fled like cowards.”

“It’s easy to be brave when someone isn’t pointing a gun at you,” Chester said.  Having to leave Washington at such short notice was irritating, particularly with the mess in the Congo requiring his input, but someone fairly senior had to deal with the Young Stars—and their corporate backers.  “Did Youngster return to the hangout?”

He gazed over the road towards the hangout, the headquarters of the Young Stars.  According to Roark Design Incorporated, who had designed and built the building for the superhero team, it was meant to reflect the forward-thinking nature of the founding members.  It was a towering monstrosity of metal and glass, its surface glimmering brightly in the morning sun, surrounded by a sculptured garden that provided plenty of space for the Young Stars to exercise.  Roark, it was rumoured, was a superhuman himself; the designs his company had provided to the FBI looked suspiciously incomplete.  Lane had raised the issue that the interior design was actually modular and might be very different, if Team Omega had to storm the building.

“We believe so,” Lane admitted.  They exchanged a long look.  Chester was a civilian, gifted Team Omega by a President who hadn't wanted any fallout from their operations to fall on him personally, but he felt the loss of each and every soldier who died on active duty.  “The FBI had monitors watching their lawyers and they were...called in at 0500 this morning.”

“I bet they loved that,” Chester said.  He’d started life as a lawyer before becoming one of President Cheney’s more trusted aides.  President MacDougall had kept him on after the 2012 election, either because he had a good reputation or because he hadn't wanted to risk appointing one of his own nominees to the spot.  “But they’ve said nothing?”

“Nothing at all,” Lane said, patiently.  “But I’m afraid that the local coppers have been saying quite a bit.”

Chester nodded, tiredly.  The DEA had made the decision to refrain from informing the local police of their operation, suspecting that some of the policemen had been compromised and would warn the Young Stars of the operation if they realised that they were the targets.  They didn't even have to be corrupt to issue the warning, not when the Young Stars brought a great deal of money to the city.  Chicago simply didn't have the resources to cut the Young Stars loose without a fight.  By now, rumours would probably have reached the Senators in Washington.

Politically, it was already turning into a disaster.  A long public trial was in no one’s interests, but that was precisely what they'd get if the truth became public before they dealt with the Young Stars.  The two superhumans in jail had been questioned by the FBI, but they’d clammed up almost at once, demanding lawyers and their single phone call.  At Chester’s request, the FBI was stalling, yet it wouldn't be long before they had to either formally charge them or let them go.

“I’m not surprised,” he said.  “Are you ready to take them if necessary?”

Lane scowled.  “I have Team One and Team Three here, ready for action,” he said, “but there’s at least four superhumans in there, including Gamma Dude and Youngster.  If half of what we have been told about Gamma Dude is correct...  The SDI’s overt team has been placed on alert, but if we have to call them in we can say goodbye to keeping this manageable.”

“We’d better try to deal first, at least,” Chester agreed.  He glanced down at his suit, brushed a piece of dust off it, and picked up his briefcase.  “Standard procedure, Captain.  If you don’t hear from me in thirty minutes assume the worst and storm the building.”

“Good luck, sir,” Lane said.  “We’ll be ready.”

Chester walked across the road and up to the building’s gates, looking up at the futuristic design Roark had worked into the metal.  It was futuristic in more than one way; someone without an authorised DNA code would find it impossible to get in without permission.  There were other security measures built into the walls, Chester had been told, and several devices intended to stop flying superhumans from landing inside the grounds.  No one knew for sure if they worked or not.

He tapped the bell and smiled into the camera.  “My name is Chester,” he said, holding up an ID card from the SDI.  General Kratman would have been darkly amused to know that Chester was taking the SDI’s name in vain—but then, if matters got really out of control, his team would have to deal with the fallout.  “I think we should talk, don’t you?”

The gate clicked open at once, allowing him to walk inside.  Refusing to allow himself to rush, he strolled up the road towards the main doors, pausing to glance around at the swimming pool and other luxuries scattered throughout the gardens.  With so much wealth, most of which they received simply for being themselves, their involvement with drugs made no sense to him.  They didn't have any need to blot out an unhappy life doomed to eternal poverty, nothing that might have seemed a good excuse to take drugs.  But then, maybe they had so much that they just had to push the limits.

He tapped on the door and it opened, revealing a tall butler wearing a traditional black outfit and a supercilious sneer.  Chester had had enough experience in politics to tell that the man was deeply worried under the mask he wore for visitors.  He might not have been able to tell that Team Omega was preparing to storm the building he occupied—Lane and his men were good at avoiding attention—but he knew that something had gone badly wrong.  Chester gave him a smile and had the pleasure of seeing the man step backwards before he recovered himself.  The files on him suggested that he was loyal to his pay check, too loyal.  He couldn't be bribed into turning into a source for the SDI.

“Mr. Mallory and Mr. Prince will see you in the library,” he said, in an English accent too pronounced to be real.  Chester had heard that there was a fashion for English butlers, but he’d never believed it.  But if faking an accent was the difference between a good salary and an excellent salary, he saw no reason why people wouldn't try to fake it.  “They have been waiting for you.”

Waiting to see what hammer falls on their heads first, Chester thought, as he allowed the butler to lead him through the building.  Inside, it was every teen’s paradise; there were electronic games, toys and pornography everywhere.  The files had stated that there were any number of girls who weren't superhuman, but were in semi-permanent residence as lovers for the male superheroes.  There was no sign of anyone, apart from a dark-skinned girl watching from a stairwell as he walked past.  Sparky, he identified her; one of the Young Stars.  She looked as if she didn't quite understand what was going on.

Unsurprisingly, the library proved to have very few actual books.  The shelves were crammed with video cassettes and DVDs, including a number that were outright pornography.  They ranged from simple pictures and videos of naked girls to Japanese videos that had shocked him the first time he’d seen them.  How could anyone find pleasure in watching a girl, willing or not, being raped and tortured by a man?  But superhumans pushed the limits in so many ways; there was no reason why they shouldn't indulge themselves with dark porn.  It just worried him to see teenagers exploring such material.

But if they have complete freedom to explore conventional pleasures, he thought darkly, they would soon grow bored and start looking for more extreme titillation.

Mr. Mallory was older than his son, with grey hair fighting valiantly to hide a growing bald spot on his head; Mr. Prince was younger, with a smile that was patiently insincere and a handshake that made Chester want to count his fingers after he’d shook hands with him.  No honest man had a handshake as honest as that; Mr. Prince had quite an FBI file, starting with his involvement in defending a Mafia boss who had been arrested five years ago.  He was the most expensive defence lawyer in Chicago.

“Thank you for coming,” Mallory said.  He sounded relieved; whatever he’d had in mind when he created the Young Stars—and Chester had no idea what that was—it probably hadn't included a trial that had his son as the star attraction.  “Can we get you a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Chester said.  He noticed with some amusement that none of the superhumans were in the room.  The grown-ups were probably going to decide their fate without their input.  “With your permission, I will get right to the point.”

He opened his briefcase and dropped a packet of photographs onto the table.  They were actually still pictures from the sensors that had recorded the entire incident, but he saw no reason to mention that there was video footage as well.  Or, for that matter, the chain of evidence the DEA had painstakingly constructed to link the Young Stars to a drug pipeline that reached all the way to Columbia.

“There’s no evidence that those...people are the Young Stars,” Prince said, quickly.  “It is a well-known legal point that shape-shifters may cause someone to be accused, but...”

Chester looked at him.  How much had Youngster told them?  “We have Nova and Siren in custody,” he said, calmly.  “I’m afraid we took blood samples and compared them to the records taken when they registered as superheroes.  There is no way that a shape-shifter could have impersonated them.”

He smiled, mockingly.  Shape-shifters had caused the FBI some nasty moments in the past, but few could carry off an impersonation for very long.  They certainly couldn't fool the friends and family of the person they were trying to impersonate, if only because they lacked the background knowledge of their victim.  Besides, their blood chemistry didn't really change and a simple blood test would expose the impersonator, even if they didn't return to their mundane form upon being knocked out.  It really was a weak defence.

“We also have enough evidence to prove that Youngster was also at the scene, successfully managing to resist arrest,” he added, allowing his voice to harden.  “I have here”—he pulled it out of his briefcase—“a federal warrant for Youngster’s arrest, as well as any other of the Young Stars who prove to be involved in peddling drugs.  How much time do you want to waste denying the obvious?”

Prince changed tack without hesitation.  “While my clients are prepared to admit that they have been taking drugs that are, technically, illegal, you have a very weak case for prosecuting them on that charge.  Certainly, they haven’t acted like Slaughter...”

Chester had heard worse bullshit in Washington, but he judged it the right time to show some anger.  “The drug charge has become irrelevant,” he snapped.  “The charges facing Youngster—and Nova and Siren—have become resisting arrest and murdering law enforcement officials going about their business.  You may feel that in taking drugs they are no different from any other celebrities, and you may well be right, but how many other superstars have killed upwards of seventeen officers?”

He looked at Mallory, ignoring Prince.  “Let me place my cards on the table,” he said.  “Your son and at least two of his friends have committed murder.  There is enough solid evidence to link them to the scene to prevent your expensive friend here”—he nodded to Prince—“from managing to convince a tame judge that they are innocent.  We have pictures, DNA evidence and witness testimony.  There is no way they are getting off this charge.”

Mallory looked down at the pictures, shaking his head.  Chester could understand his opinion—he wouldn't have been too happy if his son had been charged with jaywalking, let alone murder—but in the end it didn't matter.  The only real questions were just how badly the Young Stars would be tarred with this brush, and how much of his fortune he could salvage from the disaster.  How long would the Young Stars be able to keep making money if half of their membership was in prison?

“It would seem so,” he agreed, finally.  “What do you want us to do?”

Chester made a show of checking his watch.  “I have authorisation to deal,” he said.  “If—and I say if—you cooperate, we can work to prevent a media circus that will destroy whatever remains of the Young Stars.  But if you don’t...”

“Threatening my client opens you up to all sorts of charges,” Prince said, quickly.  “I could have you charged with harassment and...”

“Of course you could,” Chester said, pleasantly.  “But tell me; would that make any difference to the outcome here?”

“That will do, Edmund,” Mallory said, tiredly.  He looked at Chester.  “What are your terms?”

Chester carefully didn't smile.  “First, you hand Youngster over to us,” he said.  “Second, if any other Young Stars were involved in the drugs pipeline, they are to be handed over as well.  You can put out whatever bullshit story you like to justify their disappearance from public view, maybe tell the press that they had to go back to their home planet or something like that.  I don’t really care how you choose to lie to the media.

“In reality, they will be charged with murder and drug smuggling in front of a secret court...”

“That is unconstitutional,” Prince snapped.  “All court proceedings have to be in...”

“The full glare of publicity?”  Chester asked, wryly.  “If you wish to defend them, you may do so; we’re not going to deny them the right of representation if they wish it.  But if you want to keep this scandal under control, you have to cooperate with us.”

He looked back at Mallory.  “If found guilty—or if they choose to plead guilty—they will face a sentence of up to and including life imprisonment,” he added.  “The whole matter will be kept secret until after everyone involved is dead.  You’ll get to keep what remains of the Young Stars up and running...”

There would be more than that, he knew.  The SDI needed insight into how the different superhuman groups related to one another, insight that was notoriously difficult to obtain because superhumans rarely banded openly with mundane humans.  Someone on the team could be turned into a source with a little pressure, but only if the entire affair remained secret.  There would be rumours, of course, yet Chester had faith in their ability to bury the truth.  The only people who would push for a public trial were the DEA and they could be talked out of it.

Keeping his face expressionless, he poured on the pressure.  “Time is running out,” he added.  “My people will serve the warrant—and if Youngster resists, he will be facing the SDI rather than mundane police officers.  Powerful as he is, can he stand up to America or Thunder?”

“No,” Mallory said, grimly.  “Very well; I concede your point.  I will send my son to you and...”

His voice tailed off.  “You might want to make it clear to him that he has nowhere to go,” Chester added, coldly.  “Just in case he has the bright idea of trying to run...there is nowhere that will take him in.  Even the rogue superhumans in the Congo will refuse to deal with him.”

“I will talk to him,” Mallory said.  He staggered to his feet, as if he’d grown older in the space of a few minutes.  His dream had become a nightmare—but then, what had he expected?  Teenagers with the power of superhumans, melded with a complete lack of restraints?  It was a disaster waiting to happen.  “At least he will be alive, right?  I can visit him?”

“You can visit him,” Chester confirmed, gravely.  “Just don’t take the lawyer with you if you do.”

***

“It’s a shitty deal,” Lane said, afterwards.  Youngster had given himself up without a fight, although he’d been chained up and locked in a sealed van just in case he intended to escape halfway to the airport.  “We should be shutting down the entire operation.”

“We might be doing just that,” Chester said.  He wiped his brow, feeling a sudden tiredness now that the mission was over.  “God alone knows how many of the young punks are involved with the smuggling operation.  Maybe all of them.”

Lane snorted.  “But we can't put them on trial,” he said.  “Washington would prefer to avoid a confrontation with the superhuman community.”

Chester nodded.  There were upwards of seven thousand superhumans in the world, depending upon who was doing the counting.  If the Young Stars were put on trial in an open courtroom, it would become a media circus and their lawyers would raise the question of if they were receiving a harsher sentence because of their superhuman celebrity status.  The last thing anyone wanted was an open confrontation between superhumans who felt that they were getting picked on and the rest of the world.

“They’ll be in jail, and then they’ll be in the Pit,” he said.  “They won’t get away with it, we’ll just...ensure that they are punished without anyone knowing what happened.  Justice will be served and we won’t have to worry about a crisis.”

“I wish I was so confident,” Lane said.  “What do you think the Young Stars will tell their fellow superhumans?”

Chester shrugged.  “What can they tell them?  That they took drugs, that they were involved in smuggling drugs, that they killed to keep the secret and failed spectacularly?”

He smiled and started to walk towards the van.  “The only ones who will listen to them after that are the anarchists,” he added, “and they hate us anyway.”

Chapter Thirteen

“That’s the last pallet for the moment,” Gateway said.  She’d opened a portal between Kinshasa and New York, where a number of charities had prepared emergency supplies for the Congo.  It wasn't as well-organised as Hope would have liked, but it would have to do until the governments got their act together and started sending some proper help.  “Enough to last us a week?”

She started to collapse and would have hit the dirt if Hope hadn't caught her.  “Maybe,” he said.  He didn't have the heart to tell her that the supplies they’d shoved through the portal were barely enough to feed half the city for a day.  But the medical supplies should last longer, he hoped.  The sight of children with everything from scurvy to poorly-set broken bones was heartbreaking.  “I think you’d better get some rest.”

“I’m not tired,” Gateway protested.  Her yawn rather spoilt her pretence and Hope laughed, not unkindly.  “I just need to lie down for a few minutes and then...”

“I’ll take you back to the mansion,” Hope said firmly, “and put you to bed.  Get at least a few hours sleep before you open the next portal.  The effort is killing you.”

He picked her up and lifted her through the air towards the mansion.  He didn't really need a comfortable bed—and insects couldn't bite through his skin—but the superhumans who lacked his invulnerability had insisted on air conditioning, comfy blankets and insect repellent.  At least they were being more reasonable than the representative from a world-wide charity who had arrived in the city yesterday.  He had expected luxury: excellent food, a chance to make statements in front of the growing army of reporters and authority, even though he knew next to nothing about the actual situation on the ground.  What sort of mind believed that the people who had been there from the beginning knew less than someone with a fancy degree and absolutely no practical experience?

Kinshasa was slowly coming back to life, although the engineers who had emerged once they’d seen the heads on poles had warned that it might take months or years to repair the city’s infrastructure.  Between successive warlords and periods of anarchy, the city had been battered; almost no one had been trying to maintain either water or power supplies.  The generators were primitive and in bad repair, while the water filtration system had broken down completely and fresh water was unsafe to drink.  At least the women knew to boil it before drinking, using heat to kill the bacteria that spread disease.  But some of them had even been arrested for hoarding water.

The rest of the country wasn't in a better position, really.  They’d crushed or scattered the various factions and sent the foreign outsiders running for their lives, but as far as he could tell, no one was interested in cooperation.  The hatred had struck so deeply into the country that farmers were refusing to sell food to the cities if the cities held people from different tribes, while engineers were refusing to work to benefit people other than their own tribes.  It was madness—they were all in the same boat—and yet they seemed inclined to try to sink it without the warlords.  And the few farmers who had survived were simply unable to produce enough food without expanding their farms, because many of the other farmsteads had been devastated by the fighting.  It would take years to get them all up and running.

He dropped down outside the mansion and gently pushed Gateway towards the entrance, hoping to get away before the reporters spotted him.  They’d been reluctant to get their hands dirty until he’d made it clear that there would be no interviews unless they helped, yet it was difficult to keep track of who had put in a stint helping to distribute food or repair power lines—or disable the IEDs scattered throughout the countryside.  The ones away from people could be detonated safety by a superhuman, but the ones attached to what vital infrastructure was left had to be disarmed.  There was just so much to do...hadn’t the world seemed simpler before he’d decided to try to fix some of the problems at the source?

“Hope,” a voice called.  Hope sighed inwardly and smiled as the reporters ran towards him.  Some of them fancied themselves superhero groupies, but others were sceptical that the Saviours could accomplish anything in the Congo.  Never mind that the country had had two days of near-complete peace; they still suspected that Hope’s project would fall apart in the next two months.  “Can we have a statement for the evening news...?”

One of the problems with superhuman ears, Hope had learned early on, was that it was difficult to focus on any given person if they were all chattering away like birds.  “Please,” he said, holding up his hands, “one at a time.  I cannot answer you all at once.”

He waited while the reporters jostled among themselves to establish a pecking order, with representatives from CNN finally getting into the lead.  They had probably been filming him since he’d landed, transmitting their pictures back to the United States, where they would be most likely taken out of context and shown to the news, depending upon one’s political bias.  He resisted the temptation to sigh out loud and studied the reporter with interest.  At least she was pretty enough to be worth looking at.

“The United Nations issued a statement condemning your invasion of the Congo, without a single major power dissenting,” she said.  “Do you have a response for the United Nations?”

Hope scowled.  He’d hoped there would be some support, from Iraq at the very least, but there had been nothing.  Not that that was too surprising.  There weren't many states willing to grant even conditional legitimacy to an outside invasion force that overthrew a government, even if that government had barely been in control of a tenth of the country.

“My response is this,” he said, flatly.  “I refuse to listen to the hectoring of an organisation that has so signally failed to bring either hope or justice to the failed states of the world.  I refuse to respect an organisation that has either been unable to prevent genocide or has been an active accomplice to mass slaughter.  The issues at stake are not those of national pride or self-determination, but of protecting threatened populations from abuse, rape and slaughter.  I will not wait for talking politicians to talk and talk until the problem goes away when everyone is dead.  I will take action.

“The UN may condemn as it pleases.  I will not consider myself bound by their declarations and self-interested warnings.  It is my intention to ensure that the Congo—and every other failed state—is put on a firm footing towards the rule of law, democracy and prosperity.  And if the UN does more than issue condemnations, I will consider it a threat and act accordingly.”

There was a brief shuffling among the reporters and then someone else came forward.  “Hope, Senator Terns has stated in a public interview that he has started proceedings to have you stripped of your American citizenship in response to your actions,” he said.  “How do you feel about that?”

“Well, I renounced my American citizenship when I founded the Saviours,” Hope said, dryly.  It had been quite a media issue at the time, made more complicated by accusations that he kept a secret identity in the United States that allowed him to present himself as an average citizen and take a rest from the superhero life.  “In that sense, Senator Terns is wasting his time—but I do concede that it is his time to waste.  God forbid he actually did something useful, like representing the people who sent him to Washington.”

There were some titters from the reporters.  “But on a different note, I am ashamed of my country for allowing the war in this country to go on for so long.  We claim to support freedom and justice, but America chose to hold its nose and deal with factions that committed all kinds of atrocities against the population of the Congo.  It is my intention to ensure that those crimes are exposed to the world and the CIA operatives involved are put on trial before the International Criminal Court.”

The FOX reporter seemed shocked.  “But America isn't a signatory to the ICC...”

“This isn't an issue of legal fiddling,” Hope said, sharply.  “This is an issue of the CIA’s collusion in rape, murder and genocide.  I will not allow legal quibbles to stand in the way of justice for the dead.”

He scowled at them and noted, with some private amusement, that they took a step back at his expression.  Some of the reporters had helped uncover the fifth mass grave they’d found near the city, crammed with men, women and children whose only crime had been being born into the wrong tribe.  They’d been sure to report on what they’d seen, but it hadn't helped loosen the international purse strings.  Most governments were unwilling to send anything beyond very limited help, or wanted to ensure that all future contracts were made with government-selected corporations.

“There are those who will interpret that as a threat,” the FOX reporter said.  “Can you threaten entire counties...?”

Hope felt his temper rising.  “Look around you,” he said, coldly.  “Look at the condition of this city, look at the faces of the population, look at the mass graves we’ve found, or the wounded we are trying to treat in makeshift hospitals.  I don't see how anyone with the power to intervene, to stop a genocide fully comparable to the Holocaust, could refuse to do so.  It is time for the world to realise that such suffering is unnecessary and that it can be stopped!  I will stop it and I will punish the guilty—and the guilty include those who could have done something, but chose not to intervene.”

He would have continued if his communicator hadn't buzzed.  “We'll finish this interview later,” he told them, and flew up into the air.  “This is Hope.”

“I think you’ll want to see this,” Warrior Girl said.  There was something in her voice that he didn't like at all.  “Come and find us now.”

Hope hesitated, and then flew out over the city, enhanced senses searching for the ultrasonic pulses emitted by their communicators.  Warrior Girl was right on the edge of the city, standing near the shantytowns that had been constructed by thousands of desperate refugees from the countryside seeking an illusionary safety in Kinshasa.  Even to a normal human, the stench of human wastes was unavoidable; Mainframe might have plans to produce methane from human and animal shit, but it would take time to clean up the mess and actually start building liveable houses for the population.  Some of them had been farmers before they’d been driven off the land and Hope expected that they could be resettled back in the countryside once the remaining bandits had been eliminated.

The searchers had actually found a number of bodies in the slums and dragged them off to a mass grave.  Hope had wanted to register them all in the hopes of having their families located, but there had been little time before they'd started to fester.  Besides, a number of bodies wore the uniforms of the strongman’s secret police.  Now, though, there was another body, right on the edge of the city.  Hope dropped down in front of Warrior Girl, who gently turned the body’s head to face him.  It was unmistakable.

“I...I took her home,” he stuttered.  He’d pulled the girl out of the strongman’s bed and had returned her to her parents.  Now she was dead, half her skull caved in by...it looked like something comparable to a baseball bat.  Hope had seen horrors and terrors most humans couldn't even begin to imagine, but this...how could anyone do it to such a sweet innocent girl?  “What happened to her?”

Warrior Girl had started life as a feminist and still believed that her powers came from the Goddess, rather than God, human science or alien genetic material.  Normally, Hope found it as good a theory as any other, although there were superhumans who were outright sexists and worse.  Warrior Girl was tall, inhumanly thin with long white hair, and normally had a bright sunny smile that never failed to lighten the weight on his heart.  She wasn't smiling now.

“I analysed the DNA on her body,” Mainframe said.  He was the original knight in shining armour, wearing a techno-enhanced suit that blurred into his body and gave him an affinity with computers unmatched by any merely mundane hacker.  His suit was more than just a personal tank.  “The evidence is unmistakable.  She was murdered by her own father and brother.”

Hope stared at the featureless helm Mainframe wore to hide his features.  Without the suit, he looked more like a cyborg than anything else, but he was still human.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Mainframe said.  Hope could hear the cold anger in his voice.  “The girl was beaten bloody and then murdered.  This was not a chance killing, Hope.  They deliberately set out to kill her and succeeded.”

Hope looked down at the body, fighting down the urge to be sick.  “I took her home,” he repeated.  “Why did they kill her?”

“You’d have to ask the Redeemer to scan them to find out,” Warrior Girl said.  “You want my guess?  They knew that she was taken away to have sex with the leader—and I bet you didn't bother to make it clear to them that she wasn't violated.  And even if you did, they probably didn't believe you.  Everyone would know that she’d been raped, that she wasn't a virgin, and her value on the marriage market would fall to nothing.”

Her voice softened.  “And she was dishonoured...”

Hope had learned self-control from the moment he had first discovered his powers.  Nothing would ruin human-superhuman relationships quicker than a Level 5 superhuman losing his temper and wrecking half a city.  Restraint had been worked into his very soul until it was almost a liability in facing other superhumans.  And yet he found it almost impossible to avoid losing control and burning down the slums.  He could burn them all out, the good and the bad, the decent and the inhuman, eliminate them all once and for all...

“Find them,” he growled.  There were no courts in Kinshasa, or the rest of the Congo.  But he had the Redeemer, the most powerful telepath in the world, to prove their guilt.  And whatever they had had in mind, he would show them that he wouldn’t tolerate such behaviour.  A public execution was the least they deserved after what they had done.  He’d saved lives before, but he’d never wondered if people would have been better off if he’d left them to die.  “Find them and bring them to the mansion.”

“Understood,” Mainframe said.  There was a pause.  “What if anyone tries to stop us?”

“Don’t let them,” Hope snarled.  Anyone who could defend a family that chose to execute its daughter because they believed that she had been dishonoured didn't deserve to live.  “If anyone gets in your way, kill them.”

Boiling rage obscured Hope’s last comment as he threw himself into the air, staring down at the city and countryside below him.  An honour killing...the whole custom was so abominable that he hadn't taken it seriously.  But he’d grown up in a civilised country, a country so civilised that it accepted other countries as civilised, even if they were manifestly nothing of the kind.  He opened his senses, listening for sounds that might indicate another honour killing, or one of the missing superhumans.  A fight would allow him to burn off his rage...

...But there was nothing.  Merely people trying to rebuild their shattered lives now that the warlords had been killed and their armies scattered.  Some of the Saviours were out hunting bandits, or clearing the roads of booby traps; others were trying to help Kinshasa stand on its feet again.  But how could they help people so depraved, so lost to humanity, that they killed their own kind?  He clenched his fists in bitter rage.  Someone had to take a stand against it, someone unaffected by the cultural relativism that had gripped so many universities and commentators in the Western world.  Someone had to stand up and say what was right.

Hope believed, firmly, in individual rights.  What did it matter to him what someone did, so long as they refrained from hurting others?  It had been one of the issues that had led him to leave the SDI’s team and renounce his American citizenship, because he believed that the ideals of America didn't allow for petty scrabbling over gay marriage or abortion—or, for that matter, if mutants were truly human or something else.

But an honour killing...?  Even if the girl had been something more than an unwilling participant in her own rape—a rape that had never happened, because Hope had saved her before it was too late—it wouldn't have justified her death.  How could anyone act in such a fashion?

It didn't matter that their society justified it.  It didn't matter that their economic situation demanded it.  It didn't matter that they believed that it was the only thing they could do.  It was wrong, wrong, flat-out wrong...a lesson Hope would teach them before they finally died a death so horrible that it might deter others from killing their own children.

How could they save lives if the people were not worth saving?

He looked down at the country below him and wondered, for the first time, just how far he would have to go to save the world.

Chapter Fourteen

“You didn't fuck up, I suppose.”

Jackson smiled.  Team One had relaxed completely after he’d proved himself, welcoming him into their brotherhood.  The latest report said that Basil would make a full recovery and probably return to duty within a month, thankfully.  Team Omega had access to the best medical facilities and even a couple of Level 1 superhumans with healing powers, access they constantly pushed to the limit.

“Thank you, Ron,” he said, tiredly.  The flight back to their base had been uncomfortable, to say the least.  “What do we do now?”

The Sergeant smiled.  “You’ll be pleased to know that we go over what we did time and time again until we have isolated all of our mistakes,” he said.  He nodded to the small group as he started to reply the footage.  “Where did we go wrong?”

“It wasn't the best of locations for a pitched battle with three superhumans,” Ron said, after a moment.  “But we didn't exactly choose it on our own.”

“No, sadly,” von Shrakenberg agreed.  “The courier wanted somewhere nicely isolated and he succeeded remarkably well.  If we’d picked the spot ourselves, do you think that it would have gone any better?”

“We might have managed to take them down quicker, before Basil was hurt,” Thomas said.  Jackson didn't know him so well; he tended to be less talkative than the other operatives, none of who were exactly chatterboxes.  “Maybe we should have asked the DEA to take a backseat and let us operate directly.”

“They did want to make the drug bust,” Ron reminded him.  “If the Young Stars had just surrendered, instead of trying to fight, they would have had a stunning success to their credit, rather than seventeen dead agents.”

The Sergeant cleared his throat.  “The problem is that there is an ideal situation and there is reality,” he said, ruefully.  “In an ideal world, the situation would be perfect and we would be ready to deal with anything.  Reality...tends to be a messy fucking place.  How else did we screw up?”

“We underestimated Nova’s ability to use flaming plasma to shield himself,” Chris French said.  The sniper leaned forward.  “I took four shots at him, any one of which should have killed him.  Instead, the bullets were vaporised or deflected by the plasma...”

“Or you missed,” Ron suggested, snidely.

“I took down an enemy commander from a far greater distance, under far worse conditions,” Chris said, refusing to rise to the bait.  “Nova was a much clearer target and he was practically standing still, even when he was firing fireballs at the DEA agents.  I should have hit him, and I would have if he hadn't been shielding himself.  We may need to produce tougher rounds for sniper rifles.”

“Unfortunately, we’re reaching the limits of what current technology can do,” von Shrakenberg said.  Some of the rounds Chris and the other snipers used were illegal, at least when used against normal humans.  Jackson had never quite understood the problem.  “I’ll put a request in to R&D, but you know what they’re like...”

“They never understand that we need to use their wonderful creations outside a lab,” Chris said, sourly.  “I thought they were working on something else to give us an advantage.”

“So I’m told,” von Shrakenberg said.  “But it’s fucking difficult to tell the difference between working hard and jerking off in the labs.”

He tapped the table and smiled, unpleasantly.  “We could have deployed quicker and we should have,” he said.  “Or at least that is what the politicians are going to say, should this entire mess become public.  Unfortunately, our deployment speed was based on the location and enemies who had boosted or extra senses—by deploying closer, we might have tipped them off ahead of time.  Any comments?”

“We were pretty close,” Jackson pointed out.  “Yes, we could have moved in once the Young Stars had entered the engagement zone, but that might have risked warning them that we were there.”

“All too true,” the Sergeant agreed.  He looked around the table.  “Jackson was good enough to knock out Nova before he could set the entire area ablaze, even if it did cost him some body armour.  A few more seconds and his chest would have melted into a puddle.  But we failed to catch Youngster himself.  Where did we go wrong?”

“He moved too quickly,” Ron said.  “We tried to snare him with gas grenades, but he flew away before the gas could bring him down.  Even when we tried to catch him in a confined space...”

“...He just went through the wall,” the Sergeant agreed.  “The labs swear blind that they’re working on something that should put a crimp in such escape plans, but so far they haven’t produced any workable hardware.  We’re going to have to work on that in the exercises.  The geeks are already running up a new program that will allow us to re-fight the battle time and time again until we’ve drained all the lessons we can from it.”

He looked over at Jackson.  “One problem: you should have secured the two prisoners before you saw to Basil.  I understand the impulse to take care of your teammate first, but if either of them had woken up ahead of time, it would have been disastrous.  You can’t count on these freaks remaining down even after you clobber them in the head.”

Jackson took a breath, but said nothing.  In cold blood, the Sergeant was right; he should have seen to the prisoners before seeing to Basil.  But he’d never left a teammate to die when he could have saved him, and he hadn't wanted to start.  Team Omega had to be ruthless in a way that the Marines refused to allow themselves.  What sort of team could hold together for long if its members rated one another as expendable?

“Once we had the prisoners, everything proceeded reasonably well,” von Shrakenberg said, returning to the subject at hand.  “Thankfully, it appears that we will not be called upon to testify in court about what happened; the recordings made by the FBI should suffice.  However, as that cannot be taken for granted, try not to get dead before the Young Stars face a secret court.”

Jackson blinked in surprise.  “They’re not going to try them publicly?”

“Probably not,” von Shrakenberg admitted.  “The bastards are just too popular and powerful for us to put in front of a jury, even with so many dead.  It stinks like Limburger, but it’s just a reality of our world.”

He shook his head.  “Welcome to the New World Disorder, New Guy,” he added.  “Speaking of which, allow me to be the first to formally welcome you to Team Omega.  The lads can take you out drinking tonight.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Chris said, quickly.  “You really should come along.”

“I have new exercises to design,” von Shrakenberg said.  Jackson was surprised; even the most dedicated Marines had a life outside the Corps.  But then, von Shrakenberg looked like a mutant and would stand out in a crowd.  He probably wouldn't want public attention.  “Anyone who isn't sober tomorrow morning will be spending the day trying to nurse a hangover while exercising in the chamber.”

He chuckled.  “I am informed that there will be a public interview on SUPER-SPAN at 1500, so you may wish to watch it,” he added.  “Get your gear stowed away, sort out what you will need for your next deployment—and then you have liberty.  Just make damn sure that you carry your beeper at all times.  Dismissed!”

Jackson stood up with the others and walked to the barracks.  The deployment bag he’d taken with him to Chicago still lay where he’d dumped it upon return; he opened it up, removed the clothes inside and started to replace them.  A spare uniform, an outfit that would allow him to pass for a civilian—and a set of light body armour.  Below the clothes, there was a pair of loaded pistols and five different grenades.  Team Omega insisted that its operatives be prepared for deployment at all times, not something Jackson could fault.  He picked up the wallet and checked it, making sure that the ID cards were still there.  If he had to fly civilian, something he’d been warned might have to happen from time to time, he had permission to carry weapons in the cabin.  Apparently, one Team Omega operative had even stopped a hijacking by shooting the terrorists before they could secure the aircraft.

“Well done,” Chris said, sticking his head into Jackson’s compartment.  There was no such thing as privacy in the barracks, something that Jackson—coming from a poor family—had found easier to accept than some of his fellow recruits, years ago.  “Basil credits you with saving his life.”

Jackson nodded, his treacherous memory replaying the brief struggle with Nova.  A few seconds either way and they would both have died.  Superhumans were just too dangerous to be allowed to operate without supervision, and some form of control.  The whole concept of using them as superheroes seemed insane, all the more so when he looked at the files and saw just how many superheroes had gone off the rails.  And yet, apart from the SDI and Team Omega, there didn't seem to be any way to control them.

The Soviet Union had been even less prepared for the superhumans than the United States—and their first superhuman had emerged in Poland.  They’d never expected to see a Pole who was so strong that he could tear through tanks with his bare hands, or so tough that he could shrug off bullets and grenades, or so fast that he could jump from one end of the country to the other quicker than a speeding rocket.  Poland had wanted to be free—and the Poles had fought, led by their new champion.  In the end, the Russians had had to use a tactical nuclear weapon to take him out, along with most of Warsaw.  No one in Eastern Europe would ever forgive them for what they had done to people whose only crime had been wanting to be free.

Now, Jackson knew, there were weapons that might have worked against such a superhuman without so much collateral damage, but they’d never truly been tested in the field.  The United States had been luckier; the first superhumans who had emerged into the glow of publicity had been patriotic, willing to fight for their country.  By the time Slaughter and Jim Crow had emerged, the superheroes had been firmly established.  And then the SDI had started building them up into a formidable force.

And if the CIA hadn't had the bright idea of using Slaughter as a living weapon, all of the American superheroes might have remained under firm control.

Jackson was as patriotic as anyone else; he loved his country enough to lay down his life in its defence.  But even the most ardent patriot would hesitate when confronted with the evidence of what the CIA had done.  Slaughter would have been dangerous even if he hadn't been a superhuman, a sociopathic murderer with no concept of right or wrong.  He hadn't cared about the cops, or about the bloody trail he was leaving across the country; why should he when there was no one who could stop him?  It had taken a superhuman to put him in jail—and then the CIA had offered him his freedom, in exchange for serving his country.  How many people had died at his hands in Latin America?  No wonder Latin America was so vocally against the United States these days.  The CIA had unleashed a rogue superhuman on innocent villagers who had only been trying to stay alive.

He finished packing his bag, stowed it within easy reach and changed into civilian clothes.  Operators got more latitude than regular soldiers, including permission to wear civilian clothes on base if necessary.  Besides, he’d been warned that Team Omega rarely wore uniforms outside the base, something that helped to prevent inconvenient questions.

“If they ask you what unit you’re in,” von Shrakenberg had said, “just wink and ignore the question.  Better they think you’re a poser than start uncovering our existence.”

I could just claim to be on leave from the Marines, Jackson had thought, in response.  That would be better than being publically mocked.

Pocketing his ID and checking the pistol in its concealed holster, Jackson walked out of the barracks and back to the briefing room.  Ron and Thomas were already there, playing a game of cards that seemed to involve each of them accusing the other of cheating at regular intervals.  Jackson had already played poker with Thomas and learned to his dismay that he was not only a very skilful player, but he was armed with a dozen different ways to cheat.  He would have lost a great deal of money if they’d been playing for anything more serious than old bottle tops.

“Just about time for the interview,” Ron said, without looking up.  “Want to add your money to the pool that says it will be a full confession?”

“People like them never confess,” Jackson said, shaking his head.  “They’ll probably try to find some way to wiggle out of it.”

He turned on the television and flicked through the channels to SUPER-SPAN.  His father had never allowed them to have a television while he’d been a child, something he had bitched about at the time, but understood now that he was an adult.  There were so many channels putting out mindless pap that his brains would have turned to mush before he entered puberty.  So much entertainment couldn't be good for a person’s development.

“...Ends our series of Behind the Mask, the lives of superheroes when they’re not on duty,” the announcer said.  She looked too good to be true, but her voice was sharp and thoroughly unpleasant.  “Next week, we will bring you Sharing the Love, an expose of superhero love affairs and how they can interfere with their duties.  We will also bring you an interview with Gyno-Star on how modern superheroes are doing their bit to fight sexism and gender discrimination wherever they find it.”

“She was targeted five months ago, but the operation never got off the ground,” Ron said, looking up from his cards.  “It turned out that the accusations against her were false, put forward by her enemies in the corporate world.  And then they discovered that she and her friends were selling hair-removing collars for a while and she became their darling.”

He chuckled.  “I never believe anything I see on television,” he added.  “Just you wait and see.”

The screen cleared, showing a picture of the Young Stars headquarters.  “We take you live to the hangout, where Sparky will address us about recent developments in her team.”

Chris wolf-whistled as Sparky appeared on the screen.  “It is with deep regret that I must inform you that in a battle with the Frightful Five, Youngster, Nova and Siren were badly injured,” she said.  Jackson blinked in surprise.  The Frightful Five?  “All three of them will be spending the next few months in a private hospital catering to superhumans, where hopefully they will make a full recovery.”

Her voice saddened.  “But they have all expressed a desire to retire from the superhero world and find themselves,” she continued.  Jackson heard Thomas bite down a laugh behind him.  “They do not intend to make any more public appearances in their costumes, but will slip away quietly into the mundane world.  Those of us who intend to continue the fight for truth and justice wish them the very best, and request that you gentlemen of the media allow them the privacy they need.  Should they choose to return to our fold, we will welcome them.

“For the moment, we have fresh new talent under consideration as replacements for those who are departing,” she concluded.  “I will introduce those who pass the tests to you later, once we have decided who is fit to join us.  Until then, please be assured that we will continue fighting for truth and justice—and the hope of every youngster in the world.”

The screen changed back to the presenter in the studio.  “Well, that was a surprise announcement from the Young Stars,” she said.  “I think that...”

“Bullshit, of course,” von Shrakenberg said.  Jackson hadn't even heard him coming into the room behind them.  “The three of them will be tried and then sentenced to spend years in the Pit, perhaps even a lifetime.  Their friends are doing what they can to salvage the situation, even if that means lying to the media.  Is anyone really surprised?”

Jackson shook his head.

“Just remember, most of the public superhumans are celebrities,” von Shrakenberg added.  “We do what we can to keep them under control, but we are always limited by the fact that most of the sheep out there love their superhumans.  Allowing the Young Stars a chance to construct a fake reality is the only way to keep the world from focusing on the differences between superhumans and normal humans.”

He looked around the world.  “For what it’s worth, you all did well, but it can never be acknowledged.  But then, you knew that when you joined up.  Go have your liberty—and be grateful that the three murdering superhumans are behind bars.”

Jackson followed Ron and the others as they headed out of the building towards the parked van.  Team Omega seemed to spend half of its time in unmarked vans, something that had puzzled him until he realised that there were so many vans on the street that one more wouldn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.  None of the vans could stand up to a proper military vehicle, but none of them needed anything more than the ability to move unnoticed.

“Time to go,” Ron said.  “You haven’t been to the Operator yet, have you?”

“No,” Jackson said.

“Then it’s time you started,” Ron said.  He grinned at Chris, who had taken the driver’s seat.  “Move out!”

Chapter Fifteen

Twenty minutes later, Ron tapped Jackson’s shoulder. “Welcome to the Operator.  You see anything interesting here?”

Jackson saw a small house, no bigger than the one he’d grown up in, surrounded by a reasonably neat garden.  It seemed just like any suburban neighbourhood in America.  There was no sign of a bar or anything that might cater to soldiers on liberty.

“No,” he said, slowly.  “What am I missing?”

“Follow me,” Ron said, as he climbed out of the van.  “There’s a tradition that no one comes here unless they're an operator and completed their first mission.  Even a major fuck-up like Desert One would count.”

He strode up towards the house’s door and knocked firmly, moving his hand in a pattern across the panelled wood.  There was a pause and then the door opened automatically, letting out an echo of quiet music as the team filed into a small room that reminded Jackson of an airlock interior, just like the one in Camp Pendleton’s gas chamber.  The music grew louder as the door closed and the second door opened, revealing that the house’s interior had been converted into a bar.  Jackson stopped in surprise as he saw nearly thirty men grouped around a counter or reclining in soft chairs—and, in one case, a hammock.

“Every operator is welcome here—Delta, Force Recon, SEALs...everyone, as long as they’ve completed a mission.” Ron took him by the arm and guided him over to the counter.  “The guy who runs this place used to be an operator himself, one of the very first Rangers...he was actually involved in the creation of Delta, believe it or not.  He figured that every operator needed a place to get drunk and relax without his superiors breathing down his neck and accusing him of slacking off.  So when he retired, he opened this place.”

Jackson stared around, feeling oddly intimidated in such company.  He had intended to try out for Force Recon as soon as he could, but fate and Team Omega had intervened before he managed to get himself on the list of candidates.  It hadn't occurred to him in several weeks just how far he’d jumped forward when he’d joined Team Omega—but then, he had killed a superhuman in single combat.  If you weren't cheating, as an old Drill Instructor had once said, you weren't trying.  Team Omega’s main recruitment criteria seemed to be someone who knew that superhumans weren't invincible.

He caught sight of a pair of women wearing professional suits, and blinked in surprise.  There were no female operators, as far as he knew; women rarely had the ability to complete the rigorous selection process that was a requirement for joining any SOF.  Outside of fiction, there were no female Force Recon Marines—and he doubted that the selection criteria were any less rigorous for any of the other teams.

“They worked with the Rangers from time to time and earned their scars,” Ron explained, when Jackson asked.  “Maybe not formal operators, but they carried themselves well when they were tested—that chick over there is a better EOD officer than anyone else I’ve ever met.  You don’t want to know what happened when she was tested to the limit and passed.”

The bartender placed two pints of beer in front of them and stuck out a hand.  “Danny Boy,” he said, with a grin.  “Welcome to the Operator.”

Jackson blinked at him.  Danny Boy had been a legend among the early teams, right from the start.  From what he’d heard—and he assumed that the tale had grown in the telling—Danny Boy’s first attempt to join Delta Force had been foiled when he’d been caught cheating by convincing a civilian motorcyclist to give him a lift to the next waypoint.  He’d completed his second attempt well enough to convince the selectors to overlook his first—and last—offence.

“Thank you,” Jackson said.  He found himself looking at the series of decorations on the wall.  There were a handful of Viking shields, a giant broadsword and several Civil War-era rifles, all topped by a mounted tiger head, positioned on a shield of wood.  “What the hell is that?”

“That’s a reminder of the thing with the tiger,” Danny Boy said.  He winked.  “It's something a British SAS officer brought over after he’d been booted out of the country.  By now, there are so many rumours about it that the truth would probably be a disappointment.”

“I heard that he let a government official get eaten by a tiger,” Ron said.  Jackson shook his head in disbelief.  “Not the standard failure that gets someone kicked out of the teams.”

“The version I heard was that they shot the tiger on operations in India, but some complete fucker in the Department of Political Correctness ordered him to resign or face a court martial,” Danny Boy said.  He twisted his voice into a snooty upper-class English accent.    “Tigers are an endangered species, don’t you know?  And now there’s one less to roam around the country and eat helpless peasants for tea.”

“That sounds depressingly plausible,” Ron admitted.  “It isn't quite that bad over here, but did you hear of the SEAL who got in trouble for refusing to write out an environmental impact statement for an antipiracy operation near the Horn of Africa?”

Jackson shook his head and started to listen as other operators gravitated to the bar, each one putting forward a different story of operations against the enemies of the United States—and their own version of the thing with the tiger.  It had never occurred to him that the operator community would want to brag to one another about their successes, successes that were either classified or too unbelievable for the civilians to understand.  All of them were cleared for such discussions, Ron informed him after he asked, and it provided a neat backchannel for sharing information that senior officers might prefer to keep to themselves.

“If you ever meet a Major York, don’t let him handle the tactical planning,” one of the operators put in.  “He must have watched a few bad movies, because he had a plan that involved us rappelling into the sea and then swimming four miles to the nearest cliff face, whereupon we would climb up and travel cross-country another five miles before we found the enemy, kidnapped him and dragged the bastard back with us until we were picked up by a navy boat.  It had so many things wrong with it that the only way I agreed to carry it out was if he came with us.”

Ron laughed.  “And did he?”

“Of course not,” the operator said.  “It turned out that he had orders not to risk his precious skin.  So we decided that we would use one of the quieter helicopters, drop down on his headquarters from high overhead and then carry him out the same way.  Worked like a dream—he had plenty of defences around his house, but he didn't think that we could come in from high overhead.”

He shook his head.  “A week later, someone had taken over his territory and ordered a truck bombing of the nearest American base,” he added.  “The bastards in that shithole of a country would keep carrying on until they were all dead, or until everyone else was dead.  We should have just nuked it from orbit.”

“There's always innocents caught up in a combat zone,” Ron said, dryly.  “How many of them deserved to die?”

The talk moved to other operations, including some that had been carried out behind the Iron Curtain.  Jackson listened, unsure if half of the stories were true or if the operators were just messing with him.  A story about a group of SEALs who travelled overland into Russia hoping to find Americans who had been captured in Vietnam sounded unbelievable, as did the barely-masked suggestions that someone high up in the CIA or State Department had quietly foiled similar operations so that they could certify that there were no remaining American prisoners in enemy hands.  They’d started to loathe and mistrust the CIA long before the Slaughter Incident.

He poked Ron during a lull in the conversation and asked him.  “It's hard to tell,” Ron admitted.  “One thing that you won’t really understand until you see it for yourself is that pretty much any government consists of multiple factions with different objectives and priorities.  Washington is so large and unfocused that it’s quite possible for the Pentagon to be concentrating on winning the war while the State Department undercuts them by dealing with the enemy leadership as equals.  And the CIA...it feels, not without justification, that all of its successes go unremarked and its failures get blown out of proportion.  Any CIA officer in the field will be considering how best to cover his ass as well as how to make the CIA look good.

“They say that shit runs downhill,” he added.  “Believe me, the handful of CIA operatives on the ground are the ones who get the blame for any fuck-ups, often because their superiors didn't allocate enough resources or refused to listen to the people with their fingers on the local pulse.  So they refuse to expose themselves, with the net result that the operators are often held up or have their operations cancelled...”

He picked up Jackson’s glass and waved to the bartender.  “More beer over here,” he called, loudly.  “This rookie isn't drunk yet.”

The evening wore on slowly, with more tales and some covert exchanges of information that seemed to centre mainly on superior officers.  Team Omega seemed to enjoy almost no turnover since it had been founded, at least among the civilians who provided the upper levels of direction, but that was unusual.  Many of the teams had stories about losing good commanders, while the bad ones stayed around long enough to stink up the building with their shit before they left, just because they wanted their careers to include a mention of special operations.  Jackson quietly memorised the names of a dozen senior officers who should be watched carefully, and a handful who meant well, but didn't really know what they were doing.  At least most of the latter had the sense to listen to their NCOs.

He glanced at his watch and was surprised to find out they’d spent upwards of five hours in the strange bar.  Night was falling, and they hadn't even had dinner yet.

Ron laughed when he pointed it out and led the way into a separate room, where there were a handful of tables and a young barmaid ready to take their order.  Jackson had to smile when he saw the menu; there were no politically correct choices for any of the operatives.  He could order anything from a massive burger to a T-bone steak.  There were no prices marked at all.

“Everything is free to an operator,” Ron explained quietly.  “This place is funded out of various unit budgets; everyone makes a small contribution and it gets lost in the accounting.  Some clever unit accountant noted that the bar was actually a net gain—or had it pointed out to him—and helped to cover it up.  Or that’s what I was told, at least.  I wouldn't have put it past some of the sneakier officers to push for the bar and pretend they know nothing about it.”

Jackson blinked.  “Does Captain Lane know about this place?”

“He was an operator, too,” Ron reminded him.  Jackson flushed at his own mistake.  The Sergeant might have led the team into action in most of their exercises, and the operation against the Young Stars, but there was no question about Lane carrying his own weight.  From the records, Jackson suspected that Lane had been lucky; he hadn't taken any serious injuries on any of their operations.  “Of course the Captain knows about this place.  He’s even been a visitor here after he got promoted.”

He pointed to a sign along one of the walls, reading NO RANK IN THIS BUILDING.  “He spends too much of his time dealing with the politics of our operation, which is why we see less of him than we might prefer, but he keeps his finger on the pulse,” he added.  “You can trust him to go to bat for you if you get into trouble—and to flay the skin off your bones of you managed to fuck up too dramatically.  I remember a time when he convinced the Highway Patrol to back off...”

Jackson listened as he launched into a long story involving Team One, a handful of female swimming champions from Sweden and a bunch of thugs who had catcalled at the women when their vehicle broke down, stranding them in the middle of nowhere.  Perhaps it would have gotten nastier if Team One hadn't arrived, just in time to subdue the half-drunk thugs and leave them bound and gagged on the side of the road.  Jackson wasn't sure that he believed half of it, particularly Ron’s claim that one of the women had sucked him off while he drove to the nearest town.

“In all the excitement, we forgot to call the police or someone to go pick the bastards up,” Ron concluded.  “The next we heard about it was a phone call from the Highway Patrol demanding that we explain ourselves.  It turned out that the bastards had been found by a passer-by, who called the police...  Who would have thought that they would manage to notice the plate number on the van?”

“Right,” Jackson said.  A team of highly-trained operatives had forgotten their prisoners?  It wouldn't have been likely even if they hadn't been trained to deal with prisoners who possessed superhuman abilities.  “And what did the Captain have to say about it?”

“No liberty for the next month,” Ron said, ruefully.  “You could just tell that he was trying not to laugh as he pronounced sentence.”

The food arrived, along with a different waitress wearing a tight outfit.  “Don’t look too closely,” Ron advised, as soon as the waitress had gone.  “Her father has more friends in the teams than anyone else, and they’d be happy to help him thump anyone who looked at his daughter sideways.  Apparently she’s safer here than in college.”

He shrugged.  “I once saw a woman who had been brought up by an operative and his bunch of friends,” he added.  “Deadliest woman I ever saw, but pretty—just like a black widow spider.  I think she went to work for the CIA as a covert operative.  Rumour has it that she killed a terrorist leader after inveigling her way into his bed.”

“Compared to some of the tales I heard tonight,” Jackson said as he took a bite of his burger, “that one sounds almost believable.”

Ron tapped the side of his nose.  “The stories are all true,” he said.  “Well, apart from the lies.  And the ones where they changed a few details to protect the guilty.  And the ones they just made up to explain why they’d spent several months sitting on their butts in a far-off country.  And the ones...”

“I get it,” Jackson said, quickly.  “I notice you didn't tell many stories...”

“I wanted you to listen,” Ron said.  “You’re one of us now—an operator.  Whatever you were before you joined, you’re Team Omega now.  You get much more latitude, but you also get to handle the consequences if you fuck up.  It would be far too easy to get someone killed on this job.”

He shook his head.  “Eat, drink and be merry,” he added.  “Do you want to go find a brothel?”

Jackson stared at him.  “You're kidding me,” he said.  There were brothels near all military bases, whatever the law said, but he’d never had someone just up and offer to take him to one.  “Seriously?”

“Only sometimes,” Ron said.  He used a knife to cut open part of his steak and then drenched it in sauce.  Jackson took a sniff and made a face.  “Like the Sergeant said, we can do whatever we like on liberty as long as we come home reasonably sober—and without the police chasing us.”

Jackson was still mulling it over as he finished his burger and fries.  It had been the best he’d tasted, certainly better than any of the fast food chains he’d visited, but then he had been eating base food for the past six weeks.  The food wasn’t too bad, he had to admit, yet it didn't compare to real food.

Ron was right, he realised.  The entire team knew that it could be their last day on Earth; tomorrow, they might find themselves facing a deadly superhuman.  They could do everything right and still lose.  Even the other teams, the ones who carried out missions that were never officially acknowledged, didn't operate on such terms.  Their enemies were normal humans, flesh and blood.

A stranger approached Ron’s table and nodded.  “We may be going to Africa in the next few days,” he said.  Jackson looked at him, but couldn't identify his unit.  “Do you have any tips?”

“Yeah,” Ron said, thoughtfully.  He winked at Jackson, and then looked back at the visitor.  “Don’t annoy the ones running the Congo right now.”

Jackson frowned.  The media had been full of the reports from the Congo, with opinions ranging from relief and gratitude to outright hostility.  He could see their point; if a bunch of superhumans could take over one nation, what was to stop them taking over another?  Team Omega might have to fight those guys...even with the new weapons and some gadgets that he’d been briefed upon, it wouldn't be easy.  The Saviours were practically a superpower in their own right.

Shaking his head, he called for another beer.  It wasn't something he wanted to think about sober.  Eat, drink and be merry indeed...for tomorrow they might die.

Chapter Sixteen

Hope forced himself to wait two days before facing the family.  It felt like the hardest thing he had ever done.  The mocking thought of his own failure haunted him even as he helped transport supplies over the country or hunted down bandits plaguing what remained of the Congo’s road network.  How could he have been so stupid?

Because you thought that everyone was as good as you, the mocking voice in his head said.  You thought that all they needed was a little push, but it was much more complex than that, wasn't it?

The strongman had set up a courtroom, but as far as Hope could tell he’d never actually used it.  It was quite possible that one of his predecessors had created it, because the room was dusty and almost untouched, odd for a building in Kinshasa.  Perhaps it had acquired a bad reputation before the warlords had defined “guilty” as “anyone we don’t like.”  Hope was a firm believer in the rule of law, which was enshrined in courtrooms, but there were times when he wanted to move ahead regardless of the letter of the law.  He’d certainly broken a number of laws when his forces had invaded the Congo.

He sat down as the family were shoved into the courtroom by four mutants.  From what he’d heard—what he’d been unable to avoid hearing—the family had been too badly shocked to put up any resistance, something that to his mind just signified their guilt.  How could they have done that to their own daughter if they hadn't believed it was right?  But it was wrong, as wrong as anything the warlords had done to their people and their country. Hope intended to ensure that the entire population understood that it would not be tolerated.

The father was a dark man, with a long beard and torn clothes.  Unsurprisingly, he’d been too poor to buy anything better.  He stared at Hope, his face torn between defiance and fear; his two sons, both teenagers, seemed more inclined to defiance.  The culture they’d been raised in put more stock in boy children than girl children, something that still haunted Africa and much of East Asia.  Only Bangladesh had had remarkable success in breaking down the old gender differences—and that was only because the country was effectively run by a team of superhumans, including several women.

Hope looked at the girl’s mother and shivered.  She couldn't be much older than forty, perhaps a great deal younger, yet she looked old enough to be a great-grandma.  People were married young in the Congo, assuming that they could find a suitable bride; perhaps she was actually thirty, maybe having children as soon as she’d had her first period.  The men would have cowered at home, hiding from the press-gangs and secret police, while sending the women out to get food and water.

Not for the first time, Hope wondered just how an entire population could be brutalised into submission.  If they’d risen up together, the warlord would have been defeated long before Hope and the Saviours had arrived.  But they’d been too cowardly to fight for their freedom, while murdering a single girl had been far too easy.

The Redeemer appeared from a side door, staring at the family.  “They all did it,” she said, quietly.  “The mother held her while the men beat her, and then killed her.  They truly feared for their reputation among their fellows, for it was all they had left.  And so they killed her and dumped her body outside the slums.”

Hope would have been happy—if happy was the right word—with that alone, but the Redeemer reached into their minds and brought out the memories, telepathically channelling them to Hope.  He looked into the father’s mind and saw a mixture of helplessness and a frantic determination to control what he could; he saw the self-obsession of his young sons and shuddered at how quickly they’d accepted the need to kill their sister.  It was the only way to maintain the family’s honour, they’d believed, and perhaps the only way to ensure that they would ever be able to marry in turn.  Hope fought down the urge to be sick as he stared at the family, unwilling to look into the mother’s mind.  He didn't want to know what lurked inside her soul.

He cleared his throat.  The various media stations who had sent representatives to the Congo had all accepted his offer to witness the proceedings.  He’d promised them something to remember, something to broadcast over the entire country—and the world.  There was a surprising number of radio and television sets in the Congo, despite the warlords hating the very thought of the population hearing the BBC or Voice of America.  And there were more computers, hand-powered radios and even televisions being distributed now.

“You see before you a family that murdered their only daughter,” he said, softly.  “We have looked into their minds and sifted out the truth.  They believed that their daughter had been dishonoured by her brief imprisonment, that she had lost her virginity to an act of violence, yet they were wrong.  Her virginity was intact.

“Even if they had been right, it would just not have justified murdering their child, their flesh and blood.  No state that calls itself civilised can allow itself to tolerate such actions.  No law that exists to protect the weak from the strong can accept such excuses for their actions.  They believed that they were in the right, yet they sinned against human decency itself.”

He felt his temper rising and fought hard to control it.  “If they were put in a court, with the money and power to hire a lawyer, the core issue would be buried under a mountain of bullshit,” he stated, his voice growing louder.  “The lawyer would demand to know what right we had to object to aspects of their culture.  He would insist that it was racist to suggest that all cultures, that all actions, should be held to the same standards.  A media that fawns on dictators while lashing out at democracy would pick up such a narrative and run with it, completely obscuring the truth.  The truth is that they murdered their only daughter because they believed that she had sinned.

“But even if they had been right, how would it have been her fault?  She did not ask to be swept off the streets by the secret police, to be carted away to the bed of a man who brutalised his people; it was not her fault that his goons had marked her for rape.  The core of criminal investigation is to draw a difference between mischance and deliberate malice, between one person’s fault and another person’s fault.  They claim that in being raped, she committed a sin—but how can she have committed a sin when she did not choose to be raped?

“The heart of the rule of law is holding everyone accountable to the same standards.  If someone is poor and weak, they should get the same protections as someone who is rich and powerful.  There is one law for everyone, not different laws for different people.  The system is far from perfect, but it does not—it cannot—accept a different culture as an excuse for breaking the law.  To do so is to invite chaos.

“We have looked into their minds.  This was no accident.  This was no chain of unfortunate events that looked like a conspiracy to paranoid investigators with the benefit of hindsight.  This was a deliberate, premeditated act of murder, committed against a helpless girl by her own family.  There is no question of their guilt, only of their sentence.

“There are those who would argue that they didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong, that their culture insisted that it was right.  It is not an argument we can accept, not without fatally undermining the rule of law we intend to bring to this country—and to the rest of the world.  Murder is still murder—and none of the petty evasions they might offer can be allowed to obscure that fact.  They didn't strike her down in anger; they planned the murder—and even now, they refuse to understand that they did wrong.

“We have imprisoned people in this country for being part of the forces that were oppressing the people.  In time, we will sift through them and separate those who were reluctant participants from those who participated gleefully, ensuring that the latter never have a chance to return to the Congo and threaten the population.  But this is a very different crime.  It demands a strong response, one that will make it clear that such actions will not be tolerated.  There is no sentence we can offer but death.”

He stood up and walked steadily towards the prisoners.  The father understood a little English, enough to cringe back as Hope advanced.  It wasn't enough to save him as Hope reached out, took his head in both hands, and crushed it like a grape.  Blood, brain tissue and fragments of bone fell everywhere.  He caught the older son and hesitated, just for a second, before snapping his neck like a twig.  The boy was already contaminated so badly that there was no way that he could ever be redeemed.  He picked up the youngest son, feeling a glimmer of disgust at how someone so young could be turned into a monster, and crushed his skull with one hand.  The mother’s screams died away as Hope put his fist right through her chest.  Whatever the role of women in their particular subset of the Congo’s fractured tribes and religions, she horrified him almost as much as her husband.  She had done nothing to speak up for her only daughter.

Blood was dripping off his hands as he looked back at the cameras.  “We killed everyone involved in the murder,” he said.  The Redeemer had scanned them thoroughly before allowing them into the courtroom, ensuring that they had wiped out the entire conspiracy.  “If this happens again, we will kill everyone involved in the next murder—and the next, and the next, until they realise that there is no way that they can escape justice.  The rules apply to everyone, be they helpless young girls or powerful warlords and religious leaders who think they’re above justice.  There will be no mercy for those who murder in the Congo.”

He took one final look at the bodies and walked out, ignoring the shouted questions from the reporters.  They were quieter than usual, he noted with some amusement; they hadn’t really expected to watch him kill the murderers with his bare hands.  But they’d ensure that the news spread around the world.  Perhaps it would help unlock some of the purse strings that were holding up aid to the Congo.  In hindsight, they should have made more preparations...

Cursing, he shook his head as he walked out of the building and leapt into the air.  Hindsight was always clearer than foresight—perhaps he should have studied the problem more carefully before committing himself and his team—but he was stuck with the problem that he had created.  They couldn't just pull out and abandon the Congo, not at the first hiccup; besides, things were getting better.  It just wasn’t happening as quickly as he’d hoped.

There was a river, not too far away from the city.  Hope landed beside it and carefully washed his hands, knowing that the blood would never leave his soul.  It hadn't been the first time he’d killed—he’d killed long before forming the Saviours—but it was different, somehow.  He’d killed to make a statement, a statement that would shake the world.  Perhaps, just perhaps, it would change it.

But how far could he go to save the world?

The question kept echoing through his mind.  There was no disputing the fact that the world was poorly organised.  Someone who saw the big picture could do a better job of organising it than petty national governments who held up aid shipments merely to force concessions out of those who desperately needed help.  But the big picture was imprecise; he’d seen all of the Congo without considering the patchwork of tribes and religions that blurred together to form one nation.  The Belgians hadn't known either, when they’d drawn the lines, or perhaps they simply hadn't cared.  Divide and rule worked as long as the divider had no intention of leaving the country to try to fend for itself.  It was almost perverse to realise that Belgium had been a worse master than any of the other colonial powers, save only for Imperial Germany.  The Kaiser’s government had committed the first true Holocaust, long before Hitler had been anything other than a penniless would-be student.  But was that really the first?

He looked down into the water and found no answers.

***

“That recording was broadcast all over the world,” Jasper Stillwell said.  The National Security Advisor had a reputation, but that didn't stop him looking a little sick at the sight of skulls being crushed by superhuman hands.  “By now, I doubt there’s a person in the world who hasn't heard of it.”

“So Hope killed a family of murderers,” Senator Hamlin said.  He was one of the President’s more controversial advisers, not least because he always played devil’s advocate.  “I fail to see a problem here.”

“The entire world just saw him execute people whose guilt had not been legally proven,” General Kratman pointed out, dryly.  “Whatever the truth of the matter, he decided to kill them without a trial.”

Chester smiled at their expressions.  “Sam Colt would be turning in his grave,” he said.  “All of his work has been wasted.”

The President looked at him, sharply.  “What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” Chester said.  “We’ve known that superhumans exist since 1979, even if we didn't see an American superhuman until 1980.  It was an event as powerful in our collective zeitgeist as the development of the atomic bomb, or the discovery of the Holocaust.  And yet we as a society have taken a very blinkered view of our superhumans.  We like it when they save cats from trees and small children from drowning; we try to avoid thinking about the power they wield, the power that could be turned so easily against us.  So we tell ourselves that most of them are smart enough to realise that they get a better deal by working with us rather than against us, and use the cooperative ones to keep a lid on those less inclined to be cooperative.

“But now, superhumans have stepped forward and started to act independently of the world’s governments,” he continued.  “And suddenly we realise that there’s no longer any security in the world.  It hits us right in the face—there’s no security, and only luck and improvised measures have prevented us from realising it sooner.  What is the President of the United States in a world that includes walking, talking atomic bombs?

“Sam Colt put the power to kill in the hands of the average person.  He made men equal in a very fundamental way.  No one needs real training to handle a pistol, where it took years to become an armour-clad bully boy from the Dark Ages.  Hell, our country was founded on the belief that men have the right to own guns that can be used, if necessary, against the government.  But now...what good is a pistol against a man who can shoot laser beams from his eyes or disarm an army before they can blink?  No hiding place, no security...and our country has been hiding from that fact for the last thirty years.  Time has run out.”

“We have created our own superhuman teams,” General Kratman pointed out.  “The SDI has passed all the psychological tests that we devised for them...”

“Tests that are badly flawed,” Chester argued in return.  It had been a sore spot between the SDI and Team Omega ever since the latter had been created.  “As individuals, a human’s ability to cause damage is very limited.  Those who become highly-trained military operatives are built up slowly, each one tested and retested before they are allowed to advance further.  But superhumans?  We don’t really account for their powers in our tests.  How can we account for a person who spent his life in helpless rage suddenly being gifted the power to change the world?

“Hope cares—and our best psychologists say that he will continue to care,” he said.  “But he’s going to discover that healing a country, particularly one as war-torn as the Congo, will be incredibly hard.  He may still succeed, but our people believe that he will become heavily frustrated along the way, maybe even more violent.  Patience has never been one of his characteristics, not when he could merely hit his problems to make them go away.”

“All of a sudden,” Marlowe observed, “you seem to put a lot of faith in your psychologists.”

“The Congo and the Saviours are going to become a powder keg,” Chester warned, ignoring Marlowe’s snide remark.  “I think we have to be braced for trouble—and do what we can to assist them in repairing the country.  Besides, it would be popular.”

“Not with Congress,” the President growled.  “They’re still insisting on a stern warning that further invasions will not be tolerated, a warning backed up by force if necessary.”

“Look at it this way,” Chester said.  “How would we react if some Podunk little microstate issued a warning to us?”

“They have,” General Kratman said.  “And we do nothing.”

“Because we have to worry about keeping the world stable,” Chester said.  “Hope does not share our concerns.  And why should he?  In his mixture of idealism and ruthlessness, he will punch the world if it doesn't give him the help he thinks he needs.  This situation will likely grow a great deal worse in the very near future.”

Chapter Seventeen

Von Shrakenberg opened the door and stepped through, sliding on ear protection as he did. A fringe benefit of the budget Team Omega enjoyed was a properly set-up range.  It might not be as advanced as the Shooting House, but it let the troops practice regularly.  He waved to Gunner Bell, a Chief Warrant Officer, who nodded and turned away from watching the monitors.

“Looking for somebody, Shrake?”

“Heard my jarhead is down here, sir.”

“You mean Gasman?”  Bell asked.

“Yeah, him,”

“He's down on lane twelve,” Bell said.  He nodded towards a screen on the display.  “About to shoot right now.”

Von Shrakenberg nodded coolly, then watched the live feed as the targets presented themselves to Jackson.  Jackson’s left hand blurred, snatching the weapon out of the holster on his hip. The pistol bucked in his hands repeatedly before he brought it down, right hand coming up with a speed loader. The empty casings fell to the ground in a clatter, even as the new clip slid into place, before the cylinder snapped back and he holstered the weapon.

Bell nodded in quiet approval.  “8.2 seconds, with a cross-body draw.”

“Nice for a bar trick,” Von Shrakenberg grunted.  “But he won’t be accurate for shit.”

“Heh,” Bell said.  He reached into his pocket and produced two crisp hundred dollar bills.  “Usual rules?”

“Deal.”

The two men stepped out of the booth and walked down to lane twelve.  Jackson was standing there, eying his target thoughtfully.  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, without turning his attention from the target.  “I think I pulled my left hand between the fourth and fifth shots.”

Bell smirked, then produced a silver dollar from his uniform blouse, placing it over the neat grouping of holes. All five fell within the dollar, though the fifth was right on the edge.

“A damned good grouping,” he said.

“Still missing a shot,” Von Shrakenberg muttered.

“The chamber only holds five,” Jackson said, holding up the revolver.

Bell snickered.  Von Shrakenberg glared at him, then fished two bills out of his wallet and paid up, glaring at Jackson all the time.

“Thank you,” Bell said, his smirk growing wider.

Von Shrakenberg gave him a nasty look, then shrugged.  “How long has he been doing this?”

“Since Chicago,” Bell said.  “Asked me some questions, then started experimenting and moved on up from there.”

Von Shrakenberg nodded, then looked at Jackson.  “You feel comfortable carrying it?  Concealed?”

“Yes and yes, Sergeant,” Jackson said.

“You have completed the close-protection course?”

***

Jackson took a breath.  Von Shrakenberg wasn't asking for fun.

“Yes,” he said.  Team Omega’s close-protection course involved defending principals from superhumans—and was very pessimistic.  They could do everything right and still see the person they were supposed to defend having his head torn off.  “I can forward you the records if you wish...”

“Don’t ever think that we don't watch you carefully,” the Sergeant growled.  “You will remember Mr. Harrison, of course.  He will be going into the city later this day and you will be going with him, temporarily seconded to him as driver and bodyguard.  We have some reason to believe that he may be going somewhere dangerous.”

Jackson blinked in surprise.  “Why me?”

“Because you need to broaden your experience, and because we need to keep one of the few good political ass-kissers safe,” the Sergeant said, tightly.  “Draw one of the civilian cars from the garage, check everything from the gas to the emergency supplies, and then wait for his arrival.  Consider yourself on detached duty unless we need to deploy Team One.”

Jackson nodded.  Team One was currently on the rest and exercise part of the deployment cycle, while Team Three and Team Four were ready to respond to any superhuman crisis across the nation.  It had sometimes struck him that they were badly overstretched if they had to respond to more than one crisis at once, but the Sergeant had pointed out that politics mandated against giving anti-superhuman training to police SWAT teams, even if they desperately needed it.

“Yes, sir,” he said.  “Ah...civilian clothes?”

“Make sure you look smart and respectable, but not military,” the Sergeant ordered.  “The garage is expecting you.  Go.”

Jackson tossed him a salute and walked out of the building, towards the compound storing a handful of civilian vehicles.  Team One normally used anonymous vans, but there was a small number of cars for covert operations, all modified in the FBI’s motor pool before being forwarded to Team Omega.  Jackson picked one of the larger cars at random—he had no idea what Harrison might want as his personal vehicle—and ran through the basic checks.  The FBI had supercharged the engine, worked additional armour and bulletproof glass into the bodywork and adjusted the licence plates so they could be altered at the touch of a button.  Jackson had to admit that they’d been very ingenious, but a single Level 4 superhuman could probably tear the vehicle apart with ease.  Superhumans made a mockery out of most protective vehicles, even tanks.  Rumour had it that the President’s personal transport actually was something not too dissimilar to a tank.

He picked up the keys, drove the car over to the main block, and parked it while he walked inside to change.  The Sergeant had stipulated looking smart, so he donned a basic business suit, one with a roomy enough jacket to conceal a pistol, his knife and a handful of other devices issued to all Team Omega operatives.  Something else that had never occurred to him before becoming an operator was how best to disguise himself.  Team Omega’s training courses included passing for a civilian, a foreign soldier or even a low-powered superhuman.  His sister, who had had dreams of going to Hollywood and learning how to act, would have loved pretending to be something she wasn't.  Jackson himself wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

And we walk around like slobs, he thought, wryly.  The Drill Instructors would cry if they saw us.

Mr. Harrison appeared twenty minutes later, from the direction of the base’s administration block.  Jackson wondered how he’d gotten onto the base before dismissing the whole question as silly.  The man who was the link between Team Omega and the President presumably had the clearance to walk onto any military base he chose, even Area 51.  He smiled at the thought.  There were rumours that Area 51 had been involved in genetic experimentation that had produced the first superhumans, working from alien DNA recovered from the UFO that had crashed at Roswell.  It was as good a theory as any other; no one, even thirty years after the first superhuman had appeared in Africa, had managed to explain what created superhumans, or why.  There were even crazier theories out on the internet.

“Pleased to meet you again,” Harrison said, as Jackson escorted him out to the car.  “Are you enjoying your time with Team Omega?”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.  He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.  “Where exactly are we going?”

“Downtown New York,” Harrison said.  He reached into his wallet and passed Jackson a card with an address written on it.  “Try to forget that you saw that address afterwards.  It is something of a state secret.”

Jackson nodded, inwardly convinced that made no sense.  A CIA safe house, perhaps, or something belonging to the SDI?  New York was pretty much the superhuman capital of the world, even if the entire city had nearly exploded in violence a couple of years ago.  No one was quite sure what had happened—Jackson had only heard rumours, none of them very convincing—but the love affair between New York and superheroes had cooled noticeably.

He drove out of the base and onto the road that led towards New York.  It would take at least four hours to reach the city, perhaps longer if they ran into heavy traffic.  They did have authority to pose as policemen if necessary, using the federal plates the FBI had added to the car, but that might have attracted attention.  Besides, no one had said anything about them being in a hurry.  If Harrison had wanted to be there quicker, he could have taken a military aircraft and flown to the city.

Harrison spent most of the trip reading papers he'd taken from his briefcase.  Jackson hoped they weren't top secret documents, as they would cause a major problem if they were lost and found by a random civilian.  He'd been warned in no uncertain terms that briefing papers were not to be taken off-base without special permission; when they were taken off-base, they were to be secured carefully.  It was a great deal safer to use USB sticks that the NSA had designed to be inaccessible to anything but government-issue computers.

Jackson glanced at him from time to time, before looking back at the road.  Traffic was worse close to New York, the roads heavily congested; the car slowed almost to a crawl.  There was no reason to believe they were being hunted, but some of the scenarios Team Omega had worked through in the Shooting House ran through his head.  Slowing a targeted car was often the first step in an ambush.

“You’ve had nearly seven weeks on the job now,” Harrison said, suddenly.  “What do you think of Team Omega?”

Jackson hesitated, remembering the Sergeant’s droll warning.  Anything they said or did would be recorded—and probably used against them by Grimes and his fellow psychologists, when they weren't drawing up useless psychological profiles on dangerous superhumans.  But Harrison was, technically, a superior officer and deserved an answer.

“I enjoy it,” he said.  He wouldn't have become a Marine if he hadn't wanted to test himself—and Team Omega took that to a whole new level.  Besides, they were kept so busy that he didn't have time to get into trouble.  “It’s very challenging—and sometimes it’s disconcerting.”

Harrison smiled.  “Disconcerting?”

Jackson had never been a great wordsmith.  Now he found himself struggling to put it into words.  “It’s a military operation, but at times it seems to be...odd,” he said.  “Like we’re a cross between a military and police unit; spies and cops as well as soldiers.  And most of our enemies don’t really look like enemies.”

“That’s been a problem before,” Harrison said.  Jackson looked at him, wondering just how long Team Omega had been in existence.  The files seemed to go back almost ten years, but some of the earlier files had been scrubbed, with all time and date information removed.  It was hard to tell, yet reading between the lines he suspected that whoever had fought those battles hadn't really been part of Team Omega.  “Just keep reminding yourself that most of them can take your head off with a single punch.”

Jackson chuckled - Von Shrakenberg had said the same thing - and then shook his head.  “How did you get involved in Team Omega?”

Harrison laughed.  “You mean how did a civilian like me wind up in charge of a very military operation?”

Jackson flushed bright red.  There were commanders who would have reacted very badly to any hint of questioning from their subordinates.

Harrison shrugged.  “President Cheney needed someone who could keep it out of the media—and someone who could take the blame if everything went wrong.  You know how the average person regards superheroes.  One hint of an operation intended to kill superheroes, and the President’s political ratings would fall sharply.”

Jackson nodded.  It made sense—and seemed to fit in with the cutthroat nature of Washington politics.  Superheroes were big business, even ones as unpleasant as the Young Stars; their licensed merchandise probably accounted for a sizable chunk of the country’s GNP.  Charging a superhero with a crime would be like trying to charge Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley, with the added problem that their friends and allies were walking atomic bombs.  From the files he’d read, it was obvious that the local police preferred not to charge any superhero unless there was clear proof, enough to satisfy anyone.  And even then, they tended to be absurdly solicitous of their famous prisoners.

Superheroes seemed to have a lifestyle that the Emperor Nero would envy, as far as he could tell.  The most powerful and famous were millionaires, with everything they could want at hand whenever they wanted it.  Some were surrounded by young female groupies who were willing to do anything for them; at least one, according to the surveillance reports Jackson had seen, slept with a different girl each night.  Jackson wasn't sure if he disliked that because he envied it, or because the superhero took advantage of young girls and then pushed them out of his life.  It was a minor miracle that he hadn't been hit with hundreds of paternity suits.

“I see,” he said, finally.  New York’s streets were as crammed with traffic as ever, forcing the car to a crawl as they finally reached their destination.  It didn't look a very pleasant place for children to grow up, although it did look better than the place where they’d fought the Young Stars.  There were a handful of children sitting along the road, watching aimlessly as traffic rolled past.  “I’ll have to escort you up the stairs.”

“Don’t come into the apartment,” Harrison said, flatly.  “The person I have to see doesn't like company.”

Jackson nodded as he climbed out of the car and opened the rear door. Harrison scrambled out, taking care to ensure that his briefcase was out of sight under the driving seat.  A handful of teenagers seemed to be taking an interest in them, cat-calling rudely, until Jackson allowed them to see the gun in his shoulder holster.  They backed off sharply, clearly unwilling to risk their lives for the sake of whatever their would-be victims might have in their wallets.  Jackson rolled his eyes as they departed.  A good six months in boot camp might turn them into something more useful than street thugs.

“We're not too far from Hell’s Kitchen,” Harrison said, as he pressed a buzzer on the side of the apartment.  It had been vandalised by someone, probably one of the younger teens, but it was still serviceable.  “Every so often, they talk about renovating the area, but it always comes to nothing.  The city is damn near bankrupt.”

The door opened and they stepped inside.  Jackson wrinkled his nose at the stench of urine; Harrison didn't seem to notice.  “Once we get upstairs, you have to wait outside,” Harrison added.  “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

***

The exterior of the apartment was as grubby and filthy as the rest of the building.  Inside, it was warm and cosy, decorated in a Persian style that suggested that the occupant had wealth to spare.  Chester had often wondered why she chose to live in such a place when she was easily wealthy enough to move to Yonkers or somewhere else without so many criminals, but perhaps the answer was simple; she didn’t have the nerve to move.  Not that it mattered; her friends included people who were more than willing to use deadly force to protect her from harm.

Layla Ibrahim was a slight dark-skinned girl, her hair hidden under a black headscarf that made her look like a mourning widow.  Chester knew that she had been abandoned by her family after her superhuman talent—an affinity for computers and technology that made her an inductive genius—had manifested; luckily, the SDI had been willing to take her in and help her learn to focus her gift.  She would probably have remained in the covert team if she hadn't developed a form of anthropophobia that made it harder for her to cope with having other people nearby.  Instead, she hid herself away in her apartment and worked for pay.

“Thank you for seeing me,” Chester said, as he took a seat at the other end of the room.  He’d been around recent rape victims who were less skittish.  One of her hands was linked directly into a series of computers that had been taken apart and merged together, forming a whole that was greater than the sum of their parts.  “I won’t keep you long.”

Layla’s voice was very soft, still accented with her father’s native Iran.  “I know that you won’t,” she said.  “I trusted you enough to invite you here.”

Chester nodded.  “You have better sources than almost anyone else,” he said.  “How is the superhuman community reacting to the Saviours?”

There was a pause as Layla considered her answer.  “Mixed feelings,” she said.  “Some of them think that the Saviours are right; they did have the power to change what was happening in the Third World, and they did nothing.  And some of them have always liked the concept of...well, of might making right.  Quite a few of the ones who were uncommitted at the start have decided to join Hope and his band—and hundreds of mutants have already signed up.”

“Yeah,” Chester said, sourly.  Mutants got the worst of both worlds; they were unable to pass for human, while rarely being powerful enough to be useful to the SDI.  Small wonder that most of them were alienated from human society.  Even superhuman teams rarely considered them human, leaving them even more isolated.  Hope would have any number of loyal followers if he did manage to build his new paradise.  “Who has taken a stand against it?”

“JQ Public is the most prominent dissenter,” Layla admitted.  “Outside of the national teams, at least.  The problem is that it is very difficult to argue that the warlords should have been left in power, or that the...family Hope killed on live TV didn’t deserve their fate.  Even the ones who are shocked at what he did can't argue that he overreacted.”

“When all you have is super-strength, every problem looks like something you can hit,” Chester said.

Layla nodded.

Chester knew that re-educating the Congo would have taken a lifetime even without having to worry about anything else.  The CIA claimed that there would be resistance to the Saviours—all the more after Hope had told them their cultural quirks would no longer be tolerated.  Chester wasn't inclined to trust the CIA, but he found it hard to argue with their analysis.

“What is he doing to recruit others?”

“Just asking,” Layla said.  “A handful of unregistered superhumans have already gone through Gateway’s portals to the Congo, along with tons of medical and food supplies.  New York has clearly decided to support the Saviours even if Washington is still a little unsure of where it will end.  Anyone who wants to go is welcome, it seems.  They’ve even accepted a bunch of normal human volunteers to serve as doctors or security guards.”

Chester smiled.  “How is he paying for them?”

“He isn’t exactly short of cash,” Layla pointed out.  “Sales of his action figures—Angry Hope, Contemplative Hope, Determined Hope—have never been higher.  Some of his money has been routed through Kyrgyzstan—and you know what that means.  Long-term, he’ll have to start selling the Congo’s mineral resources to continue to pay for outside help, at least until the governments agree to help out.  You’d think that they’d get off their butts and actually help.”

“It’s not that easy,” Chester said.  It was true; between the different factions in Congress who distrusted the Saviours, or international aid, or even the Secretary-General himself...it would probably take years to agree on how to help the Congo.  By then, the situation would have resolved itself one way or the other.

“You hope,” Layla said.  She picked a USB stick off the nearest table and passed it to him.  “That’s the data you requested, almost everything you wanted.  Some things...they don’t put in computers, just because of people like me.”

She hesitated.  “And Chester?”

Chester lifted an eyebrow, waiting.

“You warn Washington that Hope isn’t going to give up,” she added.  “He’s an idealist with the power to knock over mountains.  He isn't going to let your politicians prevent him saving the world.”

Chapter Eighteen

“I suppose that you have a good explanation for this?”

Jackson glared at the teenager, who stared back at him with a mixture of defiance and fear.  He’d been throwing eggs at the car when Jackson had come out of the building and caught him before he could run away.  Maybe he did come from a poor family, but his clothes were fashionable—and expensive.  He’d probably been egging the car for fun, not expecting to have to face the car’s owner face-to-face.

“I...”  He started to reach for the knife in his belt.

Jackson caught his hand and twisted it, then deftly removed the knife and anything else that could be used as a weapon.  “I could drag you over to the police station, or I could kick the shit out of you,” he snapped.  Wanton vandalism got on his nerves.  “What should I do, I wonder?”

The boy started to whimper about the police and his rights.

Jackson ignored the whimpering.  “I could see to it that you got thrown into jail,” he hissed.  “I could send you there—fresh meat like you would be very welcome in the pen.  You’d find yourself being called Shirley by your cellmates and spend the evenings bent over while they rape your ass, time and time again.  And the guards won’t do anything to help you.  They’ll probably join in themselves.”

He allowed his voice to harden.  “Or I could simply break both your legs and one of your arms,” he added.  “Would that teach you a lesson about picking on strangers?”

Ignoring the boy’s protests, he removed his jacket and used it as a rag to remove the egg from the car, before walking around it to ensure that there was no other damage.  It looked as if someone had tried to puncture one of the tires, but they’d been produced to military specifications; a mere penknife wasn't going to be enough to damage them.  He snapped the knife in two anyway and shoved the boy away from him, watching as the kid picked himself up and ran for his life.  Someone like that would graduate from idle mischief to serious crime and wind up spending more time in prison than out of it.

He looked up at Harrison, who didn’t seem to be perturbed by the violence.  That was odd, in someone who appeared to be nothing more than a Washington bureaucrat.  There were layers to Mr. Harrison that were kept well-hidden.  Shaking his head, he walked around the car, inspected the door and—just out of habit—checked for any surprises under the vehicle.  There was no reason to think that someone would have stuck a bomb under the car—and it was armoured enough to stand up to a small IED—but safety came first.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said, as he opened the door for Mr. Harrison and then climbed into the driver’s seat.  “Where do you want to go now?”

“A different address,” Harrison said, and passed over another card.  This one was a more upmarket address inside a gated community in upstate New York.  It would probably take at least an hour to get there, maybe longer if the traffic had become any worse.  “There’s no real hurry, I think.  No need to keep a specific appointment.”

Jackson nodded and started the engine, steering the car away from the sidewalk.  A quick burst of water onto the bodywork washed away the remainder of the egg, but he’d have to be sure to take the car to be cleaned before returning to base.  The guy who ran the motor pool would bitch like a motherfucker if the vehicle returned smelling of rotten egg, even if he hadn't complained when Team Three had returned with a van that had had its roof torn off by an angry superhuman.  REMFs could be so strange at times.

He was still smiling at the thought when he saw a superhuman fly overhead.  Grabbing his pistol, he held one hand over the emergency pager before the superhuman flashed into the distance and vanished amid New York’s skyscrapers.  Of course; there were more superhumans in New York than anywhere else, with the possible exception of the Congo.

“Maybe nothing to worry about,” he said, to Harrison.  “We could go back to the base...”

“I would prefer to complete everything I have to do in New York in a day,” Harrison said.  Jackson couldn't tell if it was bravado, a sense that there was no real reason to fear—or absolute confidence in the operator protecting him.  And he could be wrong.  “Take us to the next address.”

***

Sparky—who liked to try to forget that she’d once been called Esmeralda Rodriguez—scowled as the taxi pulled to a halt in front of the gated community.  The instructions she had been given admitted no ambiguity, or choice; she was to report to a certain address precisely on time, or face the consequences.  What remained of the Young Stars, she'd been warned by their corporate backers, would depend on just how well she pleased their new masters.  Whatever they wanted, they’d said, she had to give them.

The taxi driver hadn't recognised her, but then that wasn't too surprising.  Sparky was a girl in a tight-fitting outfight who shimmered with electric light; Esmeralda was rather more subdued, wearing loose-fitting clothes and a golden cross around her neck, just like the good Catholic girl she’d been brought up to be.  The fact that her parents were shocked and ashamed of her lifestyle with the Young Stars—let alone the faked nude photographs that had made their way around the internet for the last two years—ensured that she rarely put her costume aside and pretended to be a normal girl.  But this time she had been told to come dressed as a civilian.  At least no one would take any notice of her...

Esmeralda held up the card she’d been given to the guard at the gate; he inspected it, then allowed her to walk inside the compound.  She felt his eyes on her as she walked away.  It was surprisingly large inside the compound, with a handful of apartment blocks for those wealthy enough to want security, but too poor to afford a proper house of their own.  Or perhaps they just liked the idea of being protected by a private security force.  She found the apartment the card pointed her to and pushed the buzzer; unsurprisingly, the door clicked open almost at once.  Fighting down the kind of fear she’d felt the first time they’d faced a supervillain—a fight that had been carefully choreographed for media consumption—she stepped inside and walked to the first apartment door.  It opened.

She braced herself.  Whatever happened, she’d been warned time and time again, she had to go through with it.  The survival of the Young Stars themselves depended upon it.

Inside, a single man sat on a chair, studying her.  Esmeralda had faced male attention from the day she’d first started to grow into a woman, but this was different.  The man—he looked oddly familiar—wasn't interested in her sexually, or even in her personally.  He seemed to be more interested in what use he could make of her than anything else.  It chilled her to the bone.

“Sit,” he said, flatly.  Esmeralda realised suddenly where she’d seen him before.  He’d been the man who had visited the hangout, the day three of her teammates had vanished without explanation.  The story she’d been told to give to the press was nothing more than pap for their consumption, but no one had ever told her the truth.  “I assume they told you why you were told to come here?”

“No, sir,” Esmeralda said.  Sparky would have stood up to him, but Esmeralda was too scared to be Sparky any longer.  Money wasn’t everything, she reminded herself; besides, she could retire from the superhero life and live for decades on what she’d salted away.  “They just told me to come to this address.”

The man looked...mildly annoyed.  “You will have been told that you have to comply,” he said, flatly.  It wasn't a question.  “The Young Stars owe society a great deal—and society is calling in the debt.  We have a specific task for an idealistic young woman such as yourself.”

Esmeralda studied him for a long moment.  She lacked the senses that higher-ranking superhumans possessed, so she couldn’t tell if his calm posture was anything more than an act, but he certainly sounded confident.  It would have been easy to draw electricity from the overhead lighting and fry him to a crisp, yet she knew that that would have consequences.  The corporate backers hadn't just sounded angry, even if she didn't know why they were angry; they’d sounded scared.

“Right,” she said, finally.  “What do you want me to do?”

A hundred possible scenarios had run through her mind, but he still managed to surprise her.  “You may have heard about the events in the Congo,” he said.

Esmeralda scowled at him, wondering if she was being mocked.  Even a person without super-hearing would have heard about the Congo, and about the superhuman army that had crushed a dozen warlords and their armies without breaking a sweat.

But the man had gone on.  “You may also have heard that Hope is recruiting other superhumans to his banner, to assist him in repairing the Congo.”

“Yes,” Esmeralda said, flatly.  What did that have to do with her?  The Young Stars had never been anything other than a corporate-sponsored team, enjoying the high life while making public appearances and putting their likenesses on everything from lunch boxes to shirts and jackets.  Avoiding controversy had always been their guiding principle; they’d rejected both Lord Gaydar and Little Sappho because of their alternative lifestyles.  Sure, they were registered superheroes, but they didn't fight crime...

“We need someone within his organisation to spy on him, discover his intentions and report back to us,” the man said.  “You will be granted a leave of absence from the Young Stars and join the superhumans supporting the Saviours.  Each week, you will be expected to report in to us...”

Esmeralda fought to control her anger.  “What...what makes you think you can force me to spy on a genuine hero?”

“I suppose we could say that he’s rather more than yet another celebrity posturing in front of the cameras while millions die of starvation, or disease, or because they were unlucky enough to be caught up in the middle of a war,” the man said.  “Tell me something, truthfully.  In all of your time with the Young Stars, have you ever done anything remotely heroic?”

The honest answer to that was no, Esmeralda realised, even though they had called themselves superheroes.  They’d never fought crime, or done anything more than mouth platitudes while raking in the cash.  And yet...she respected Hope for doing something, even if he had more power than all of the rest of the Young Stars put together.  They could have done something like that if they’d thought of it, or if they’d been willing to throw away their lives and money while attempting to make the world a better place.

He smiled at her, almost as if he could read her thoughts.  “You don’t know what happened to your three teammates,” he said, dryly.  “They were caught in the act of murdering seventeen federal agents in the middle of a drug bust.  Right now, they are in jail—and the Young Stars will be tainted forever if it gets out.  You can do this for us, or you can find yourself charged as an accessory to murder while your corporate sponsors drop you like a hot rock.”

“No,” Esmeralda said, shocked.  She’d known that Youngster and Nova took drugs, Youngster because he was bored with what he could do legally and Nova because he wanted to maintain his bad-boy image, but she’d never realised they would stoop to murder.  And Siren had been head-over-heels in love with Youngster; she would have done anything for him, even helped to obtain drugs for the rest of the team.  But murder?  They weren't even allowed to exercise all the rights registered superheroes were allowed under SARA.  “That can’t be true.”

“I can show you video if you like,” the man said.  He tilted his head, studying her thoughtfully.  “What’s it to be?  A single mission for us?  Or a long stay in prison, during which the Young Stars are completely disgraced and simply vanish?  Your choice.”

“And after this is done, I suppose I’ll never hear from you again?”  Esmeralda asked, flatly.  “You won’t keep holding this over my head?”

“I don’t think that you would be helpful anywhere else,” the man said.  “If you do manage to save the Young Stars, we would appreciate regular reports on what you’re doing...but if you choose to return to civilian life, we won’t force you to continue to work for us.  You will have done enough to wipe the slate clean.”

“By spying on Hope,” Esmeralda said.  She thought as quickly as she could, but there didn't seem to be any way out of the trap.  The government—and she had no doubt that the man was working for the government, not now—would have records of what had happened; they’d be able to prove it and destroy the Young Stars once and for all.  Everyone who had once backed them—the corporations, the media, the teenage groups that considered them heroes—would unite in their horror at what the Young Stars had done, distancing themselves from the blame.  “How long do you want me to stay there?”

“As long as it takes,” the man said.  He picked up a black briefcase from the floor and passed it to her.  “There’s a set of communications gear in the case that should be undetectable, even to one as...sensitive as Hope.  Use it when you have something for us; otherwise, do whatever he tells you and help to repair the battered country.  You may even discover that doing something actually helpful is good for the soul.”

Esmeralda took the briefcase.  “Very well,” she said, “but after it is over, no more.  I’m sure that blackmail wouldn't make you look very good either.”

“No,” the man agreed.  “Good luck.”

***

Chester watched the girl go, shaking his head at her strange combination of naivety and worldliness.  But then, she had had to grow up in a hurry.  Chester knew that most of the corporate backers were already cutting their losses, carefully severing all the links between themselves and the Young Stars.  It was surprising that the media hadn't started to wonder if something wasn't actually wrong, although few people inquired too closely into how superhero teams received their funding.  How long would it be before they had to start being careful of just what they spent on maintaining their image?

He pushed the thought aside as he picked up his briefcase and opened it, glancing down at the file the psychologists had produced for Sparky.  It was difficult to trust psych files when there were so many unexplored variables surrounding superhumans, but they did seem to have done a good job.  Someone with that kind of background would accept drug abuse as normal, even if she didn't participate herself.  Chester wouldn't have risked taking mood-altering drugs if he had the power to create a lightning storm that would be lethal to anyone within fifty meters, but young superhumans were rarely so careful.  The first breed of superheroes had been very careful with their powers.  Later generations seemed more inclined to show off than anything else.

Shutting the briefcase, he stood up and walked towards the second door.  The entire apartment block was owned and operated by the CIA, who also provided security for the real families living in the other blocks.  Their presence helped to disguise the CIA’s interest in the gated compound—and besides, they loved the professional security.  Chester was among the few who knew that Red River was a CIA front company that provided mercenaries to the rest of the world, among other things.  But they weren't suited to dealing with superhumans.

Using Sparky as a spy bothered him, even though most of his morality had faded in the years since he'd come to realise the problem superhumans presented to the entire planet.  She was young—and reasonably innocent for her age; he was doing her no favours by sending her to the Congo.  And Hope had one of the world’s most powerful telepaths on his side.  He might have been an idealist who disliked the idea of mental rape, but somehow Chester doubted that he would prevent the Redeemer from scanning all the new recruits.  They’d expect to see a spy, and they would find Sparky.

But that didn't matter.

He stepped into the next room and nodded to the single occupant.  “You heard all that?”

Mathew Tracker, Tracker to the SDI’s covert operations team, nodded.  “I don’t think she believed you,” he said.  Tracker’s abilities were a form of super-perception, giving him remarkable insight into the world around him even though he lacked more formidable superpowers.  It was next to impossible to lie to him, or beat him at poker.  “But she will do as you order.”

“And you’ll go in with her,” Chester said.  One of the other uses of Tracker’s power was a form of telepathic security net.  He could present a false front to the Redeemer and she wouldn't notice unless she got suspicious and dug too deep.  “While she draws their attention...”

Tracker had been involved with the near-disaster in New York.  “I do the mission,” he said.  “And God help us if Hope takes exception to it.”

Chester nodded.  “May God help us,” he agreed.  “Or else we would be screwed.”

Chapter Nineteen

There was a rap at the door. Lane looked up from his paperwork. It was Polly.  She didn’t look happy.

“What can I do for you, Polly?”

“Who would you say is your best gunslinger?”

Lane scrunched up his brow for a moment, before tapping a button on his desk. “You got a moment, Shrake?”

“Just a sec.”

A moment later, the Sergeant appeared in the doorway. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Miss Polly would like to know… who is our best gunslinger?”

“Oh?”

Polly cleared her throat.  “Remember how I said several months ago that I might have opened Pandora's Box?”

Both men nodded sagely. That had been an unpleasant conversation. Even General Kratman had come out of the room pale as a ghost. Anything that scared that man meant it was truly bad.

"I've come up with a prototype,” Polly told them.  “And I need a tester.”  She set the case down on the desk, spun tumblers, lifted the lid carefully.

Lane whistled in appreciation.

Von Shrakenberg's eyes widened noticeably before he found his voice.  “Jackson. He’s the best with revolvers.”

He briefly related the incident at the range.  When he was finished, Lane was smiling.

“Make it so, Sergeant,” he ordered.  “Polly, the most, absolute most you are to tell Jackson at all, is that you need a tester for a new revolver. It can fire regular rounds, can't it?”

“Yes,” Polly said, “but I have no idea how bad the recoil …”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lane said.  “Jackson’s a big boy.  He’ll adapt.”

Polly nodded, then closed the case and walked out the door.

Von Shrakenberg closed the door behind her, then let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Take a seat, Sergeant,” Lane said, clinging to formality.

“I do believe I shall, sir,” Von Shrakenberg said, equally formally.

“I really hope she is kidding,” Lane said.

“She rarely is, sir.”

“I know,” Lane said.  “That’s what scares me.”

He leaned back in his chair, trying to relax.  “You think he’s ready for it?”

“Jackson looks like a troublemaker on paper, but that was the environment, sir,” Von Shrakenberg said.  “He’s a good troop.”

“Explain.”

“He takes himself and his work seriously,” Von Shrakenberg said.  “He has problems with anyone who doesn’t prove himself as dedicated as he is.  Every Article 15 he has involves someone who hasn’t been deployed like he has.  He’d have been promoted years ago if he managed to hold his temper.  As it was, he’s certainly pushed the limits of outright insubordination right to breaking point.”

Lane frowned.  “Remember the OPD General Kratman put his lieutenants through?”

“Vaguely, sir,” Von Shrakenberg said.

“Call Commander Sergeant Major Macintosh and tell him you need a copy of the program,” Lane said.  “He’ll give it to you.  Start implementing that with Jackson.”

“Yes, sir.”

***

“Learning curve is steep on this one, so stay focused,” Sergeant von Shrakenberg said, once the team had assembled in the briefing compartment.  “Jackson—you were in New York a week ago; how much local knowledge did you pick up?”

“Enough to decide that the last ten Mayors had to have been insane to invite so many superhumans to their city,” Jackson said, after a moment.  “And I memorised a couple of maps...”

The Sergeant snorted, then turned to face Lane.  “Sir?”

“Team One will be deploying to New York this afternoon,” Lane said.  He tapped a remote and a projector lit up.  “Some of you already know this, but it never hurts to go through it again.  We have an unregistered superpowered vigilante operating in New York.”

He clicked the switch and an image of a middle-aged black man appeared on the screen.  “This gentleman used to be a registered hero in New York and a national hero, formally a member of the SDI’s overt team,” he said.  “You won’t recognise him from the publicity shots because he always wore a mask.  After he retired from the SDI, he acted as protector of Hell’s Kitchen; by day, he tried to bring young kids out of the ghetto and by night, he stopped drug smugglers and gangsters from operating on his patch.  But he was murdered under mysterious circumstances two years ago.

“It wasn’t too long before the gangs started to push their way back into Hell’s Kitchen,” he continued.  “The school this guy had convinced the city to establish became a hellhole, while the gym he funded with his own money was burned to the ground.  Some of the smarter kids and their parents got out of the area, some by joining the military, but most of the rest never stood a chance.  The murder rate in Hell’s Kitchen quadrupled over the last two years, mostly junior gang members and prostitutes who tried to bargain with the wrong people.  In other words, Hell’s Kitchen reverted to type.

“The NYPD did nothing about the situation, for political reasons.  Someone else, however, has been doing something, as you can see.”

He tapped the remote. A set of mutilated bodies appeared on the screen.  They were used to horror, but this was extreme even when superhumans were involved.

“The NYPD were directed to this scene by a tipster and took the bodies back to the lab,” Lane said, ignoring the shocked reactions from some of his men.  “They confirmed that a single man inflicted those injuries with superhuman strength—arms were torn off, instead of being cut with a blade.  The NYPD were still flapping about it when they discovered the second set of bodies, and the third.  It seems that the killer started with minor criminals and worked his way up to the local drug lords.  And those were just the major incidents.

“It isn't anyone we already know,” he continued.  “None of the registered superheroes operate in that area—and even if they did, they’d know better than to kill humans who couldn't stop them.  No, what we’re dealing with is an unregistered superhuman who thinks that he can clean up Hell’s Kitchen by murdering all the scum in the area.”

Ron stuck up a hand.  “Maybe it’s just me,” he said, “but this guy seems to be killing people who thoroughly deserve it.  Shouldn't we be giving him a round of applause?”

Lane fixed him with a sharp glare.  “We don’t know anything about this guy’s personal life, or his stability, or anything else we would need to register an active superhero,” he said, flatly.  “We do know that he has no problems with killing people—how do we know what will happen the next time he feels like killing someone and there aren't any criminals around?”

His gaze swept the room.  “The whole idea of superhero registration is to provide a framework for allowing superheroes to operate while upholding the rule of law,” he continued.  “This guy isn't bringing the crooks into the police station or anything else that might allow the police to charge them properly; he’s simply killing them.  If nothing else, it will be easy for the relatives to scream wrongful killing, if not outright murder.  Finally, perhaps most importantly, if we close our eyes to this, we will simply encourage others to do the same thing.

“This guy isn't going after supervillains, as far as we can tell; all of his victims have been normal humans.  There’s no legal grounds for extreme force, let alone killing the criminals rather than bringing them into the nearest police station.  And New York probably wouldn't hesitate to deputise another superhuman and allow him to work in Hell’s Kitchen.  Buying a gun is damn near impossible, but if you happen to be a dangerous superhuman New York will happily register you.  No, this guy is deliberately operating while refusing to register—and that makes him a criminal.  We have to take this guy down.”

Jackson nodded.  He’d skimmed through the superhuman laws in New York while waiting for Harrison to finish his second meeting and he'd been shocked at how lax they were.  Registry was supposed to be a federal responsibility, but New York handled it directly and rarely carried out any background checks.  Their status as the city of superheroes demanded that they attract as many superheroes to the city as possible and to hell with public safety.

“There's a second issue,” Lane added, grimly.  “For the moment, the media hasn't gotten wind of this guy’s existence, but someone will probably leak from the NYPD sooner or later.  Once that happens, the Mayor might have to ask one of his tame superheroes to deal with the problem, which might mean a superhuman battle in Hell’s Kitchen.  We need to put this guy in the bag before a large chunk of New York gets destroyed.”

He passed the remote to the Sergeant and smiled, humourlessly.  “Flight is at 1600, directly to our operating base outside New York,” he concluded.  “Until then, our tame eggheads have some gadgets for us.  Study them carefully; they might save your life.”

***

Jackson had seen Polly Hayworth from a distance, but he’d never had a chance to speak to the former CIA officer until now.  She was blonde and alarmingly bubbly—and a genius with technology.  From what he’d been told, she was one of the few technical experts who refused to allow the mysteries of superhuman biology to defeat her and worked constantly to devise new devices that allowed humans to stand up to superhumans.  Some of her work had produced the M-22, although no one would tell him what had happened to the first twenty-one designs.  He suspected that they had either not worked at all or hadn't worked outside the lab.

“From all the evidence, your target is probably a Level 3; he has strength, probably increased toughness if not outright invulnerability and maybe enhanced senses,” Polly said.  Team One was standing in front of a long worktable, with her on the other side smiling at them.  “We’ve always had some problems identifying the subtler forms of superpower, but this guy has good reason to be confident.  Pretty much everyone he’s killed has had a rap sheet as long as my arm.”

She smiled at them, brightly.  “So I think there’s a good case for him having super-hearing and probably super-sight,” she continued.  “Problem with that is he will probably be vaguely aware of anything even slightly wrong in Hell’s Kitchen, including a bunch of musky soldiers from out of state.  You pop up in the area, and he will either avoid you or assume that you’re assassins sent after him.  Either one isn't good.  There’s no sign that he can fly, or project energy, but he’s still deadly.”

Jackson nodded as she picked an armband off the table and held it up in front of them.  “The Whisper,” she said, as proudly as if she was showing off her newborn child.  “There’s a great deal of technobabble behind it, which you can read in the files if you like, but the idea is that they counteract your heartbeat and basically render you completely silent.  No superhero will be able to hear you coming as long as you’re careful—and quiet.  Use subvocal communicators only and hope that your target isn't sensitive to electromagnetic pulses.”

Ron frowned as he studied the device.  “What happens if we speak normally?”

“Your target will probably hear you,” Polly said.  She put the device down and leaned forward, still smiling.  “It doesn't compensate so well for anything trending towards normal hearing, so keep your utterances subvocal.  And if you decide to go out in the open, you may need to leave the devices switched off.  Someone might notice a man without a heartbeat.”

Jackson scowled.  “How do they process all that information?”

“Good question,” Polly said.  “Let me know if you ever find out the answer.”

She took one of the devices and passed it to him.  “More practically, it depends on the superhuman in question,” she added.  “Some have had real problems dealing with a torrent of noise as their ears suddenly became superhumanly sensitive.  Others...others seem to treat it as a subconscious processing problem, a little like 'woman’s intuition'.”

She rolled her eyes as the men chuckled.  “I’m serious.  They put the information together without realising what they’re doing, let alone how they’re doing it.  All they get is the right answer, something they can’t justify to sceptical men.”

It sounded like nonsense, but Jackson had come to appreciate the powers of observation he’d honed in the Shooting House.  The tiniest detail out of place could mark anything from an emplaced IED to an ambush right up ahead.  It had been drummed into his head that anything could be important, even a faint change in the local environment, a hint of someone breathing hard...or even a smell reaching his nose.  Everything had to be treated with great suspicion until they decided it could be safely dismissed.

“In addition...this guy probably needs to breathe,” she continued.  “How many of you used to play paintball when it was first introduced?”

“We have the Shooting House,” Chris pointed out.  “We don’t need to play paintball to get our kicks.”

“And we’d pick up bad habits,” Ron added.  “Inflatable plastic walls do not provide good cover when your enemies are packing AK-47s, or superpowers.”

Polly laughed.  “This is the X-23,” she said, producing a larger version of the M-22 from under her table.  “You’ll notice that the ammunition magazine has been removed and replaced with a paintball container.  Unlike regular paintball, this liquid is sticky as hell; get him in the mouth and he’ll find it damn near impossible to breathe.  It’s also faintly radioactive”—she laughed as they stepped back—“so it can be tracked for several days by a UAV—and believe me, even a Level 5 superhuman would have problems removing it.”

Ron carefully picked up the weapon and examined it.  “The last paintball gun I saw was pretty inaccurate,” he said, dryly.  “I’d hate to depend on them in combat.”

“I’ve modified the shooter; instead of using a gas burst, it uses a magnetic accelerator,” Polly said.  “I suggest that you don't clown around with it because the paintballs will be moving with colossal force.  Anyone who gets hit with a paintball will take more than a painful bruise.  You can probably use them to stick your target to the floor if necessary.  I’ve also designed sticky grenades that should give you an added advantage, but someone with enough power could probably pull away half of the sidewalk before you managed to choke him to death.  Watch yourselves.”

They went through the weapons drill quickly and efficiently.  The X-23 seemed to work as Polly had insisted, although there were only three of them ready for deployment and the Sergeant informed them that they would be taking their normal weapons as well, just in case the new weapons didn't work as advertised.  Each of them was outfitted with a Whisper device, one configured to their individual bodies.  It was harder to test those without actually putting them into operation, something that would have to wait until they reached New York.  The sensors couldn't hear them, but no one knew for sure just how capable the most powerful superhuman senses actually were.

“I could get to like these,” Ron said, after test-firing a sticky grenade.  “You think they could be used against rioting assholes in the streets?”

“I think the lawyers would have a field day afterwards,” Chris countered.  “But imagine using them as a hose, aimed at their legs.  All of a sudden, they get gummed up and they can't escape, no matter what they do.”

He looked over at Polly, suddenly.  “Is there anything we can use to free someone, if we got the wrong person?”

“I’m providing you with bottles of solvent,” Polly informed him.  She smirked at the disconcerted operator.  “I was wondering who was going to ask that first.”

She chuckled as she walked back to her desk.  “In the event of you running out of solvent, an application of hot water will weaken the sticky glue, allowing someone to pull themselves free of the muck,” she added.  “I’d suggest being very careful as the temperatures you would need are alarmingly close to boiling.  Melt the glue on their feet and then cut away their clothing rather than trying to clean it.  I wouldn't want to have to explain savage burns to the lawyers afterwards.”

The next two hours passed slowly. Too slowly.  Jackson spent it studying the maps of New York, in particular the layout of Hell’s Kitchen, as well as its history.  They’d wanted to rebuild it years ago, according to the files, but New York had too many other problems to make the investment in time and commitment it would need to clean up Hell’s Kitchen.  Besides, reading between the lines, Jackson had a theory that some of the city councillors were deliberately stalling.  He couldn't think of any logical reason why, which puzzled him.  One could normally count on politicians to do whatever was in their own best interest, even if it was diametrically opposite to whatever their electorate wanted from them.  Perhaps they were buying drugs from the drug lords.

He flicked through the next set of files and shook his head.  There were no fewer than nine hundred registered superhumans in New York and probably a number who made no public use of their power.  Quite a few of them seemed to be going to the Congo, including some of the most popular superheroes in the world.  He couldn't tell if that was a bad thing or not.

Looking at the demographics, Jackson noticed that something interesting seemed to be happening to New York.  It was difficult to be sure, but the population seemed to be dropping and Wall Street was becoming a place that allowed stockbrokers and investment consultants to work from home.  Could it be that the incident two years ago, whatever it had been, had convinced the mundane population to start fleeing New York?

“Quite possibly,” Ron said, when he mentioned it to him.  “People love superheroes, but they don’t necessarily want them right next door.  Everyone knows that all superheroes have supervillains who might come and fight them, or perhaps one of those fights between superhumans intent on settling the question of which of them is stronger.  Cape alpha male bullshit—and God help anyone caught in the line of fire.”

“That makes no sense,” Jackson protested.  “If New York is losing its population...”

“Think about it,” Ron said, cynically.  “A few Mayors have maintained themselves in power by sucking up to the capes and their corporate backers.  They have the money they need to put themselves in the spotlight, promote their record as friendly to superheroes...and anyone who says otherwise finds out that they can't compete against Big Money.  One day, New York will probably wake up to discover that everyone who can afford to go has gone, but until then they probably won’t notice.”

Before he could say another word, but the Sergeant bellowed for everyone to get into formation.  Jackson picked up his rifle—both rifles—and his bag before following Ron outside, lining up with the rest of Team One.  It was military routine of a sort that Team One rarely had to show, a droll reminder of who and what they were before they donned civilian clothes and went out in disguise.  He found himself hoping that the mission proceeded without incident, although he knew that that was not going to happen.  The moment they encountered the superhuman vigilante, the situation was going to become ugly very fast.

“Are you all ready?” the Sergeant asked.  God alone knew what would happen if anyone said no.  They’d been told that they had to make their preparations first and then relax, assuming there was any time to relax.  “Good.  Follow me.”

Despite being on the base for nearly two months, Jackson hadn't seen much of it outside the compound assigned to Team Omega.  It looked smaller than Camp Pendleton, with a handful of different units scattered around a series of buildings, most probably as classified as Team Omega.  It crossed his mind to wonder if there were more anti-superhuman teams out there—Team Omega seemed undermanned considering the magnitude of its task—before pushing the thought aside.  They might have been encouraged to ask questions, but not about other black ops launched from their base.

The aircraft—a modified civilian jet—was waiting for them on the tarmac.  Jackson winced as he stepped in and scented the unmistakable scent of a military aircraft, the smell of too many hot and sweaty bodies in close proximity.  Even with only ten operatives and a handful of supporting staff, it was still going to be an unpleasant flight.  At least it wouldn't be very long.

He sat down and closed his eyes.  There would be little time for sleep in New York.

Chapter Twenty

“This is Hell’s Kitchen,” Officer Murdock said, as he unfurled a map in front of Team One.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Ron muttered.  He hadn't enjoyed the flight at all and made it clear to anyone listening.  “I’m glad to see that New York’s Finest are still on the case...”

“Pay attention,” Murdock snapped.  At least he didn’t seem intimidated by the operators, but then New York was crammed with superhumans.  “There are four major gangs in New York; all of them have ties to operations in Hell’s Kitchen.”

He pointed to the first part of the map.  “Everything keeps changing, so we’re not entirely sure which part of the territory belongs to which gang on a daily basis, but this is the best we have,” he said.  “First up is Los Gringos.  Despite the name, they’re mainly a Hispanic gang with ties to drug smuggling chains leading all the way to Mexico; we’ve put a number of junior druggies in jail, but the DA has been dragging his feet on measures intended to round up the senior leadership.

“Second, we have Fuck This Shit, or FTS for short,” he continued.  “They’re principally black, even to the point of excluding mixed-race children; they tend to move between trying to support the black community and dragging it down by selling them drugs.  The bastards get some good press because they can be relied upon to make a noisy protest every time there is even the slightest hint of racism, but don’t mistake them for good guys.  Their motive is effective control of the black community, even if it means keeping them in the gutter and threatening anyone who dares to consider forming relationships with anyone from outside their community.  They’ve also been up in arms since the murders started, gentlemen, as they’ve taken the most losses.

“Third, we have the Blades; they consider themselves the counterpoint to FTS.  They’re smaller than either the Gringos or FTS, but they make up for it by being extremely violent and multi-ethnic.  And they have ties to more organised crime groups such as the Mafia, which makes them more connected to the underground than you might think.  We’ve been trying to prove a case against their leadership for months, but they have been clever enough to bury most of their tracks.

“Fourth, and finally, we have the Forgotten,” he concluded.  “They’re almost completely a mutant group, led by a handful of mutants with serious powers.  Their general belief is that normal society has rejected them; they have to look out for themselves, because no one else is going to do it for them.  Most of their members cannot pass for human, but some of them are actually human, almost certainly mundane humans.  We don’t know why they joined up with the Forgotten; they could be family members, drug addicts or just runaway children.  At least the Forgotten don’t involve themselves in prostitution, at least outside the weirdest kind.”

Jackson snorted.  Superhumans had added new vices to a world that already had too many of them.  Some offered rough sex, others the thrill of sleeping with someone who looked like a famous movie star...and a handful offered the chance to sleep with someone who didn't look human.  And that was just the tip of the iceberg.  There were people who wanted to be controlled by telepaths, or molested by super-strong people, or...he’d been told even those were far from the weirdest vice out there.  He hadn't wanted to believe what the files had told him about the Fashion Witch.

“None of these gangs are nice people,” Murdock warned.  “At best, they’re a protection racket, preying on the people they claim to defend.  At worst, they’re thieves, rapists, pimps and murderers.  Each of the gangs operates brothels where the girls are virtually slaves, keeping them under control with a mixture of threats and drugs.  Nine times out of ten, when kids run away in New York they fall into the grip of the gangs.  And then...the lucky ones become foot soldiers, the thugs on the street who peddle their drugs in between fighting the other gangs; the unlucky ones become fresh meat in the brothels.”

“I have a question,” Chris said.  “Why doesn't the NYPD shut them all down completely?”

Murdock started to laugh, bitterly.  “Do you have all afternoon to hear the answer?  Let’s see; the Mayor and his cronies don’t like the thought of pressuring ethnic gangs because it might make them seem racist.  Removing the gang’s leadership would just make others rise up and take their place.  We don’t have the manpower to patrol Hell’s Kitchen and the other poor parts of the city thoroughly enough to keep the gangs from reclaiming their territory.  It’s difficult to prove anything against the more senior members of the gangs...”

He shook his head.  “Which answer would you like?”

“The old insurgency problem,” the Sergeant said.  “Thank you for your briefing, Officer Murdock.”

Murdock nodded.  “I understand that you want to hunt down the Midnight Killer,” he said, slowly.  “Understand something: there is little support among anyone for stopping him.  Watch your backs.”

Jackson was still mulling over what he'd meant as Team One prepared for the operation.  All military uniforms were discarded and replaced with civilian clothes that should allow them to blend in with the inhabitants of Hell’s Kitchen and the nearby parts of New York.  He’d already been near the area once—it was easy to pick out the address he’d visited—but they’d need to explore the rest of the district.  Official estimates stated there might be more than a million people living within the affected zone, a figure that Jackson had questioned, only to discover that upwards of eight million people lived within the entire city.  It didn't help that Hell’s Kitchen was a natural starting point for illegal immigrants from China, Africa and Latin America.

“Remember,” the sergeant warned, “we’re not here to deal with the gangs, no matter how much they deserve it.  Our sole priority is finding the rogue superhuman and bringing him down.  I know...it’s a shitty part of the city and someone really ought to bring the Teams in to clean it up, but we can't allow ourselves to be distracted.”

The streets around them grew poorer as they drove towards Hell’s Kitchen.  They’d picked up more federal vans from the local FBI, but what started out as common vehicles rapidly started to stand out as they finally located the building they intended to use as a FOB.  It had been part of one of the more determined attempts to renovate the district, but now it just looked as broken and decayed as any other building in Hell’s Kitchen.  No one would invest in renovating it when it would just become a target for the gangs.  The team searched the building, uprooted a handful of homeless people who had turned the basement into a shelter, and then started to clear out a couple of rooms.  If anything, it was worse than the last building they’d used as a base.  Every room stank and there was little they could do about it, apart from ignoring it as best as they could.

“It could be worse,” Ron said, cheerfully.  “I remember having to crawl through a fucking sewer to get to my target once, and some asshole took a dump on my head.  I should have shoved a grenade up the pipe and blown him into little pieces.”

“Talk about a bathroom disaster,” Chris countered.  “Why the hell didn't you?”

“I had only one grenade and I needed it for myself,” Ron admitted.  He shook his head.  “I thought schools in New York would teach basic hygiene if nothing else.”

Jackson snorted.  “I went to one of those government-funded schools,” he admitted.  “All I learned from it was that the teachers were stupid and the knowledge they tried to force into our heads ranged from politically correct to useless.  Every second week there would be a new craze for educating us kids...and we’d get even less learning done.  And that wasn't in an area anything like as bad as this.”

“At least they didn't manage to convince you that the military was evil and there would be no wars if the military didn't exist,” the Sergeant grunted.  “Just go listen to the peaceniks in a high-class university sometime.  One idiot even had the idea that superhumans would put an end to war, an idea that was first mentioned when the Gatling Gun was invented.  And we’re still fighting each other.”

Lane cleared his throat.  “Alpha Team will remain here; Beta Team will be on the streets and Delta Team will be on the roof,” he ordered, calmly.  “We’ll try to build up a picture of likely targets for our rogue superhuman and then try to set an ambush.”

“We could try to stage a fake crime to get his attention,” Thomas suggested.  “Maybe get one of the girls up here and stage a rape.  Who else is likely to intervene in this shithole?”

“It may come to that,” Lane said, “but for the moment we need to see if we can pick out a likely place for him to attack.  We know what he likes to target, at least.”

***

The next two days moved very slowly.  Jackson watched as Team One built up its awareness of its surroundings, while making contact with locals who might be able to provide information the team would find useful.  A handful of fathers were quite happy to help out, in exchange for enough money to move themselves and their families out of Hell’s Kitchen before their children grew old enough to be sucked into the gang lifestyle.  Jackson couldn't fault their determination to escape, or the skill shown by some of the team in convincing them that they could help.  Team Omega had a huge budget, and some of it could easily be gifted to those who had been helpful.

“It's an honour thing,” Ron explained, when they were finally allowed to swap places with Beta Team and go exploring.  The map they’d built up of the surrounding area allowed them to walk along the borders between gang territories.  “Someone helps you; you help them—and in the future, more people help you because you have a reputation for helping those who help you.  Our government really should have learned that lesson by now.”

Jackson nodded, ruefully.  “I thought we were meant to be a secret operation,” he pointed out, dryly.  “Should we be giving people our names?”

“Oh, they think we’re a police team,” Ron reminded him.  “It’ll do the NYPD some good, although their superiors probably won't be happy if they ever found out.  They’ll get more paperwork when others decide to offer their services to the cops.”

He shook his head as he glanced down an alleyway.  A dozen girls stood there, smoking, while they tried to look attractive to the handful of men on the streets.  Jackson felt his gorge rise as he saw the signs of drug abuse—needle marks all over their skin—and looked away, wondering how desperate anyone would have to be to pay the girls a handful of dollars for a quick blowjob.  Their pimps would take most of the money and beat the girls if they didn't bring home enough, although looking at them Jackson couldn't see how they brought in any money.  But they were the lowest of the low, the girls who had burned themselves out completely.  Those who still looked attractive were taken out of Hell’s Kitchen and forced to walk the streets in more prosperous parts of the city, or sent to certain addresses by recruitment agencies.  There was a pipeline of sex, drugs and other criminal activities leading from the worst parts of the city to the brightest, giving the unluckiest of women the chance to glimpse a better life, just before she serviced the men who had called for her.  And she wouldn't even see any of the cash herself...

Jackson felt sick as they walked away, carefully looking away from a pair of tattooed boys on the other side of the road.  They carried knifes and probably weapons, despite New York’s strict laws controlling gun purchases and distribution, but Jackson had no doubt that he could have taken them both in a fight.  The gang soldiers—as they considered themselves—were already hopeless and poor, paid bare dollars by their superiors for risking their lives.  There was no shortage of idiots willing to fight for the gangs, brutalised to the point where mindless violence would be their sole reason for existence.  A chance to go through boot camp might make proper soldiers of them—or Marines—but Jackson doubted it.  The military ethos was based around delivering precisely-focused and targeted violence, not indiscriminately slapping away at anything that annoyed them.  Those boys probably lost whatever restraint they had as soon as they joined the gangs.

“They’re not trying to mug us,” he muttered.  “Is there a reason they’re leaving us alone?”

Ron snorted.  “They’re cowards, dude,” he said.  “Here we are, two fit and healthy men...they’re not going to start a fight with us because the odds look even.  If they really wanted to mug us, they’d go call up some friends and try to get ten-to-one odds before they jumped.  These guys get their kicks beating up helpless women and keeping the streets terrified.”

He shrugged.  “Besides, they don’t know who we are,” he added.  “These gangs have ties with other criminal organisations.  For all they know, we could be from the Mafia—and you know how the Mafia responds to challenges to its power.  The last thing their superiors would want is to have the Mafia mad at them...”

Their earpieces buzzed before he could say anything else.  “Report back to base,” the Sergeant’s voice said.  “We have had a breakthrough.”

“Let’s hope so,” Ron said.  “The last time we set up a fake crime scene to lure someone into the net nearly led to outright disaster.”

Jackson, who had read that story in the files, nodded slowly.  “I meant to ask you something,” he said, suddenly.  “Back at the bar, there were all those tall tales...”

“All true,” Ron assured him, solemnly.

“...But you didn't add any of your own,” Jackson said.  “Why didn't you tell them anything?”

Ron said nothing for a long moment, almost long enough that Jackson wondered if he would say anything at all.  “You know that operators keep one another posted, even if the story isn't supposed to go anywhere outside the compartmentalised team,” he said.  “Oh, nothing that might compromise an ongoing operation, but certainly enough to make sure that someone outside the team knows about it.  I’ll tell you why we do that when you get old enough.”

He laughed at Jackson’s scowl.  “Think about it.  How long did you spend in camp being yelled at by Drill Instructors before you became a Marine?  And how much did you actually know, how much had you actually experienced, the day you could call yourself a Marine?”

Jackson nodded, slowly.

“The operators have spent years in the military honing their skills,” Ron continued.  “Doesn’t matter if they started out in the Army, or the Air Force, or the Navy—they fought hard to gain the right to call themselves operators.  There have been training courses where the entire input never completed the course.  They are the best of the best...the ones who won’t quit, no matter the cost.”

He snorted.  “How pleased do you think they are when they hear about superhumans with enough power to make them little more than insects?”

Jackson considered it as they returned to the safe house and joined the others around a map of the local area pinned to the wall.  “One of our sources volunteered the news that there will be a meeting between Los Gringos and two of the surviving leaders of FTS tonight,” the Sergeant said.  “Apparently, the losses FTS has taken have weakened them to the point where their enemies see a chance to move in and take their territory—never mind the fact that they have all been targeted by our mystery friend.  The two leaders will basically pledge themselves to Los Gringos and become subordinates, rather than be wiped out in a gang war.  There will be enough money and drugs thrown around to guarantee that most of their subordinates stay loyal.”

“Not for long,” Chris predicted, cheerfully.  Criminal it might be, but the drug trade had a great deal in common with any other business.  There were only a limited number of buyers—it didn't help that drug addicts had a high mortality rate—and the more competition there was, the worse for individual sellers.  The gangs had been competing with one another like any legal business, with the added ability to actually fight their enemies directly.  It wasn't good for the leaders—fighting tended to risk losing profits, and lives—but the thugs on the street loved it.  They got more profit that way.  “Sooner or later, one of them will realise that they’ve betrayed their race and start a civil war.”

“Not our problem,” Lane said.  He sounded more amused than unhappy about the fighting.  “Our friend is likely to be there; killing the leaders at a truce meeting will probably start an all-out gang war.  So we’re going to be there, too.”

His finger traced the positions on the map.  “We’ll deploy around the area with the new weapons—but keep the old weapons, just in case,” he added.  It wasn't a necessary order, Jackson knew; they’d all keep the old weapons until they knew how the new ones performed.  “When our friend arrives, we move in and take him.  Any questions?”

“Yes,” Ron said.  “What about the gang soldiers?  They’re bound to have men there to defend their leaders.”

“If they get in the way, eliminate them,” Lane ordered.  There were no objections.  “If they run, let them go.  They’re not our problem.”

Chapter Twenty-One

This, Jackson thought, is fucking eerie.

Moving through hostile territory was a classic military skill, one hammered into his head at Camp Pendleton and then honed in Team Omega’s Shooting House.  The enemy controlled the terrain, forcing the good guys to keep their heads down, avoid contact and make their way to friendly territory.  He’d read stories of pilots who’d done just that in the Second World War, along with stories of deep-penetration raids in Vietnam and operations in Korea back when North Korea’s attack had caught the United States by surprise.  But he’d never imagined having to do anything like it in the United States itself.  The whole concept of American territory being invaded and occupied was absurd.

They sneaked through Hell’s Kitchen as night fell, keeping their distance from any strangers on the streets.  Most of the population seemed to hide inside as soon as night fell, leaving the streets to the gangs; even the prostitutes slipped into their brothels and caught what sleep they could before the sun rose and they had to be back on the streets.  The handful of people they saw were all gang members, patrolling their territory...utterly unaware that eleven men were sneaking past them.  They might have called themselves soldiers, but half of them were so drugged up that the entire 1st Marine Division could have marched past them in full fighting order and they probably wouldn't have noticed.  Jackson wondered what his Drill Instructor would have said about anyone taking drugs while on duty, and suspected that facing an outraged superhuman would have been safer.

He checked the bracelet he wore as they moved closer to the gangland meeting point.  According to the live feed from an orbital satellite, it was a crumbling Italian restaurant that had seen better days—and probably dated all the way back to Prohibition, when the Mafia had taken the opportunity to expand into a global criminal network.  Jackson rolled his eyes at the thought; by banning something just about every American wanted, the government had given organised crime one hell of a shot in the arm.  There was an uncomfortable comparison to be made to the drug trade, although at least that was somewhat less dangerous than Prohibition.  Maybe if they taxed drugs instead of banning them, the DEA would have much better luck tracking down drug smugglers.  At the very least, it would put them out of business.

The number of watching gang members grew larger as they approached their destination.  There were several different ways to escape the restaurant on foot, they'd noted as they went over the data, probably explaining why the gang leaders had chosen it as their meeting point.  It wouldn't have mattered; if Team One had been on an assassination mission, they could have taken out everyone and slipped away in the confusion.  Perhaps striking down gang lords would help keep the scum under control, but Murdock had probably been right.  Get rid of one leader, and another would take his place the following day.

“Take your positions,” Lane ordered, subvocally.  They’d practiced endlessly with the subvocal communicators, both to keep their voices below a whisper and to ensure that they didn't accidentally make unwanted comments over the network.  “Beta Team; inform me as soon as you’re in position.”

There was a blocked alleyway behind the restaurant, one that the guards seemed to have overlooked despite the piles of rubbish and human waste dumped there.  It didn't seem to have occurred to them that someone could scramble up a pipe on the other side and climb down—and that someone didn't really need military training.  Jackson smiled as he lowered himself into the rubbish and carefully slid into the shadows, relying on his uniform to hide him from any brief checks by the guards.  The light-absorbing material would make him virtually invisible in the darkness.  Ron joined him a second later and took up a position behind a dumpster.  They’d be ready to assist Beta Team the moment the superhuman showed himself—assuming, of course, that he did show himself.

“I have an eyeball on two of the FTS bastards,” Chris said.  The snipers had slipped up onto the rooftops, as per the plan; insanely, the gang members didn't seem to have considered the dangers of people hiding on the roofs.  There were professional assassins who used similar tricks to get close to their targets.  “I think they’re coming in now.”

“Good,” Lane said, softly.  “Keep watching them...”

“Got the Los Gringos dudes on the other side,” David added.  The other sniper had taken up a position directly opposite Chris, ready to pour fire down onto the superhuman from two directions.  “My, this must be serious.  I’ve got their number two guy in my sights.”

Jackson smiled to himself.  If nothing else, the sensors some of the team had scattered about should provide proof that New York could use to charge the gangsters with involvement in criminal activities.  Or would the DA object on the grounds that the evidence didn't have any fingerprints on it?  He listened as the gangsters exchanged insincere greetings and entered the building, vanishing out of sight.  Absently, he wondered how good the food was. It would probably be excellent, if it was patronised by gang leaders.  If someone had the nerve to stay in the middle, in what neutral ground there was between the four gangs, they would be able to make a killing.  Probably literally...

“Some of the soldiers are getting a little antsy,” Chris reported, twenty minutes later.  “None are actually fighting, but they seem to be worried for some reason.”

“No honour among thieves,” Lane observed.  “Is there any reason they’re antsy?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” Chris said, slowly.  “Maybe it’s a racial thing?”

“Could be,” David said.  “My lot is doing it too—and they’re running extra patrols of the side streets.  We may need to move if they come in closer...”

“Keep us informed,” Lane said.  “Can you get anything from inside the building?”

Jackson winced, inwardly.  They’d planned on the assumption that they might be discovered, but if they had to fight their way out they’d almost certainly blow the operation, as well as leave a large number of bodies behind that would have to be explained to the NYPD.  Maybe Team Omega’s superiors would cover the whole thing up and blame it on the gangs.

“Negative,” Druid said.  He’d been charged with monitoring the gang lords, something that had been made more difficult by the fact that they’d been unable to get bugs into the building.  “They have the place sealed up tight.  Even bouncing a laser off the window doesn't get me anything.”

Jackson tried to relax as time crawled by.  No military force could remain on alert forever, no matter what politicians or the media claimed.  Team Omega had plenty of experience with stake-outs, but even they tended to lose their edge as the hours wore on.  How long did it take to hammer out an agreement between gangsters?  Or had the negotiations broken down in violence, with everyone outside unaware of the shooting?  There was no way to know...

...Something was wrong.  He lifted his head, uneasily aware that something had changed, but unable to pinpoint it.  Ron seemed to be having the same problem; they shared a puzzled glance...just before something rocketed past them at astonishing speed.  Ron was knocked to the side as it passed, running directly towards the restaurant.  Jackson hit the emergency switch as the backwash struck him, pushing him against the wall.  How the hell had the superhuman done that?  Had he simply jumped the blockade, or...?

There was a thunderous crash from the restaurant. The superhuman had apparently crashed right through the glass windows and into the building.  Jackson heard guns being fired as the gangsters attempted to defend themselves, only to be outmatched by the superhuman.  He pulled himself to his feet, the sense of wrongness still nagging at him as he checked on Ron.

Then he saw it.  The shadows were moving.

It was so strange that he stared at it for a long moment, finally realising that parts of the shadow were darker than the rest of the alleyway.  It seemed almost intelligent...and then it reached out to him.

Jackson stumbled back, fear howling at the corner of his mind.  Normal superhumans were understandable; this was...utterly outside his experience, or anyone’s experience.  Something alarmingly solid caught his leg and yanked him forward; he crashed to the ground.  Before he could regain his equilibrium, he was dragged forward.

He fired into the shadow, but nothing happened.  The bullets weren't even bouncing off away; it was as if they were being lost in the shadow.  He could die, trying to grapple with an insubstantial enemy ...

Then a thought struck him. He pulled a flare off his belt, just as the shadow seemed to grow teeth and fangs right out of Alien.  There seemed to be a thousand mouths lurking, ready to devour him once he was pulled inside. He unhooked the flare and threw it into the shadow, praying he was right.  He put his hands over his goggles as the flare detonated.  Even through his hands, the whole area suddenly seemed as bright as day.

There was a scream, one torn from a young female throat, and the pressure on his leg suddenly vanished.  He staggered back, his goggles adjusting rapidly to the light, and saw a slight humanoid form prostrate on the ground.  The burst of light seemed to have crippled her in some way; he pulled himself to his feet and staggered over towards her.  She was young, her skin so black that it seemed darker than the night itself.  It wasn't normal at all...Jackson stared at her tormented face and realised that she was barely on the verge of becoming a teenager.  She couldn't be any older than ten.

He keyed his communicator, cursing himself for his oversight.  “Sir, there’s two of them,” he said, grimly.  “One of them appears to be a young girl, with powers”—he hesitated; it sounded silly, even in a world where the insane was commonplace—“with powers over shadow.  She may be a teleporter as well; that’s how the superhuman got in without being detected.”

The girl seemed too young to be dangerous, but he remembered the mouths within the shadow and knew that he could take no chances.  He pressed a capture tap against her neck and injected her with something that should keep her unconscious until they could get her into a secure room, if there was any way to keep someone like her secure.  It was extremely difficult to keep teleporters prisoner; the only way anyone had found to hold them permanently was to implant a tracking device in their skulls.  Once she was completely out of it, he secured her arms with a plastic tie and stood up.  She would have to remain there until they could pick her up and leave the area.

“Captain, the gang soldiers are coming in,” Chris said, over the communicator link.  “I think they know something’s wrong.”

Lane didn't hesitate.  “Take them out,” he ordered.  Jackson could hear the sounds of the snipers opening fire, mowing down the gangsters before they realised that they were under attack.  “Beta Team: go!”

The former restaurant was coming apart at the seams.  A body was thrown through a window—Jackson recognised, barely, one of the people in the NYPD’s files—and crashed to the ground as Beta Team raced forward, taking up positions around the restaurant.  A moment later, the top of the building started to cave in as flames started to appear at the rear of the building.  The kitchen staff must have been hit badly, Jackson decided, as he checked on Ron.  His friend was already waking up.  The armour had taken the brunt of the impact as he’d been knocked into the wall.

“I’m fine,” he grunted, as Jackson helped him to his feet.  He caught sight of the girl and stared.  “Who the fuck is she?”

“Our friend’s mystery partner,” Jackson said.  The vigilantes had planned well, he had to admit; they’d come in from a direction the gangsters had known was blocked and sealed.  Team One had used it as a position for the same reason.  “Keep an eye on her.  She nearly dragged me into the land of shadows.”

The restaurant finally collapsed as the superhuman jumped up and right through the ceiling, landing in front of Beta Team.  He was a tall black man, with a more normal skin tone than his partner, with the same exaggerated muscles as von Shrakenberg.  Judging by his tight-fitting outfit, he was a natural superhuman rather than someone who’d escaped from an underground lab and turned to crime-fighting.  The later Batman movies had a great deal to answer for.

“Put your hands on your head,” Lane snapped, from his position.  The superhuman didn't move.  “You are under arrest for violating the Superhuman Activity Regulatory Act and...”

The superhuman threw himself into the air and came down on the edge of the alleyway.  Beta Team opened fire at once, catching him with the paintballs that the engineers had devised.  Jackson watched as the superhuman started to move faster, trying to scrape off the glue before it hardened enough to capture him.  He saw the girl lying at the end of the alley and stared in horror, before rounding on Jackson and Ron.  Jackson braced himself as the superhuman hurled himself forward, only to be caught by the glue on his legs.  He stumbled to the ground, and struggled frantically for several minutes before the glue finally hardened enough to hold him prisoner.

“Let me go,” he said, finally.  At least he didn't seem to have any eyebeams or any other way of projecting energy towards moving targets.  “I need to help her...”

Lane came up as Beta Team fixed restraints on the superhuman and prepared him for transport.  “As I was saying, you're under arrest for violating SARA; in particular the ban on unregistered superhuman activity.  You will also be charged with vigilantism and several dozen cases of assault and murder.  Do you understand me?”

The superhuman stared at him.  Up close, it struck Jackson just how young he was, almost certainly not old enough to drink or vote.  Oddly, he looked more decent than most of the people in Hell’s Kitchen, decent enough to make Jackson wonder if he lived somewhere outside the area.  But why would someone from outside care about cleaning up Hell’s Kitchen?

The intercom buzzed.  “Boss, we have major trouble,” Chris warned.  “I think the gangs are going to war.  There are several groups fighting along the border lines...”

“Get the vans in here,” Lane ordered.  He looked down at the superhuman.  “Do you understand what I’ve told you?  You...”

“And your sister,” Jackson injected.  Apart from the skin tone, the girl looked remarkably similar to the boy.

“And your sister,” Lane said, “will be charged under SARA by the SDI.  I am obliged to warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you at your trial.”

The superhuman shook his head, but said nothing.  He didn't even break his silence when the vans arrived; he was loaded into the lead van, still covered in glue.  His sister was loaded into the second van, where the medics checked her and warned the team not to inject her with anything else for at least two hours.  Capture drugs were intended for adults, not girls.  An overdose could kill her.

Jackson listened as the gang fighting grew worse.  All of the gangs seemed to believe that the others had set out to exterminate them, forcing each gang to launch desperate attacks against its closest enemy targets.  Crack houses and brothels were attacked and burned, homes of known gang members were raided and great hordes of teenage kids hurled themselves into battle with a fanatical determination that shocked Jackson to the core.  Knowing that it was their fault, at least partly, didn't help.  The NYPD would have a great many angry things to say to Team Omega once the fighting died down.

“Look on the bright side,” Ron offered, as Chris finished filling them in with what he’d seen from the rooftops.  “The gangs will weaken themselves so badly that the NYPD can move in and take the rest off the streets.”

“If there’s anything left of Hell’s Kitchen by the time they’re finished,” Chris countered.  “The bastards seem to have pulled in plenty of illegal weapons; I saw one of them carrying an RPG from somewhere, and a shitload of grenades.”

“Probably from Mexico,” Ron said.  “Who else would be interested in supplying Los Gringos with guns?”

Jackson couldn't disagree.  After the Slaughter Incident, Latin America’s hatred of the United States had reached new heights.  It was the only thing binding a team of superhumans and a series of increasingly unpleasant governments together; he couldn't see any reason why the Mexicans wouldn't want to cultivate Hispanic gangs in the United States.  If it did come down to war, the United States would be hampered by insurgencies in its cities.

“We’ll take our prisoners to the nearest strongpoint and secure them there, and then catch a flight back to base,” the Sergeant said.  “The NYPD won’t want us around any longer.”

“Ungrateful bastards,” Ron complained.  “We did what they didn't have the nerve to do for themselves.”

“And we’ve triggered a major gang war,” Lane said.  “They have good reason not to be happy.  Far too many innocents will die in the crossfire.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“All right,” Hope said, quietly.  “What the fuck happened here?”

He stared at a jeep that had been shipped over from an American NGO through one of Gateway’s portals and put to work supporting the growing number of foreign aid workers in the Congo.  There were three bodies in the vehicle, all with their heads smashed open and their bodies badly damaged from when the jeep had crashed off the road and into a ditch.  Apart from the hovering birds high overhead, the bodies appeared to have been untouched.

“They were assassinated,” Mimic said.  He'd been a Navy SEAL before his powers manifested and, after a brief period when the CIA had tried to use him as a secret agent, had joined the Saviours.  “Someone wanted to make damn sure they were dead.”

He nodded towards the headless corpses.  “It isn't that easy to take a person’s head off with a single shot,” he said.  “Outside of the movies, it almost never happens.  Whoever did this wanted to make damn sure that the targets didn't survive, particularly her.”

Hope followed his logic.  Two of the passengers had been NGO agents checking out what the Congo needed from the international aid community, but the third had been a Level 2 superhuman charged with protecting them from bandits.  She had had the power to shoot fireballs everywhere with stunning speed and accuracy; the person who had killed her had managed to do it before she’d even known that she was under attack.  Maybe there had been three shooters.  All three of them had been killed before the vehicle crashed into a ditch.

“Could be,” Mimic said.  He looked into the distance.  “Plenty of places for a sniper to hide; give him the right equipment and he wouldn't be noticed for weeks, at least until a suitable target came along.  This is going to make it harder to get recruits from overseas.”

Hope gritted his teeth, but he couldn't disagree.  It was bad enough that various countries had loudly protested his decision to kill a murderous family—and on live TV, no less—but losing a pair of aid workers would make it harder to convince others to help.  At the very least, they would have to use more superhumans to provide protection, which would take them away from other duties.

“Tell you something,” Mimic added.  “Whoever did this was a professional.”

He looked up at Hope as he jumped away from the car and back onto the dirt track that passed for a road.  “Most of the bandits are men who managed to escape when we crushed the warlords,” he said.  “They don’t have anything left to them but fighting; they certainly don’t want to actually work for a living.  Some of them know nothing else.  But they were never professional, even professional killers.  Part of the reason the wars here went on so long is that none of the sides had the ability to push the others hard enough to actually beat them.”

“And the outside nations kept pouring fuel on the fire,” Hope said, crossly.  “What are you suggesting?”

“This wasn't a random hit,” Mimic said.  “Whoever did this was armed to take out a Level 2 superhuman, using explosive bullets to make sure that she died the moment she was hit.  And they had the patience to wait until the right target showed itself and then took out all three of the people in the jeep, one after the other.  And I bet you dinner in New York’s finest all-you-can-stuff-your-face-with buffet that we won’t find anything that will lead us back to the assassin.”

“No bet,” Hope said.  Mimic was an expert—and besides, what he was saying made sense.  “So if this guy was a professional, who sent him here?”

“Could be anyone you’ve hacked off by overthrowing the warlords and declaring an end to the civil war,” Mimic said.  “Let's see...just about every world government doesn't want that precedent to stand, or to spread.  Most of them have assassins on the payroll.  I’d probably put Libya or Iran or China—and perhaps North Korea—on the top of the list, but don’t count out America, Europe or Russia.  And then there’s the international aid community.  You’ve upset a great many apple carts by actually holding them to account for failing to do anything about the Congo, or actually supporting the warlords at the expense of their victims...”

Hope blinked in surprise.  “They wouldn't hire assassins to come after me...”

“I wouldn't bet against it,” Mimic countered.  “Don’t think about the ones who have actually come here to help, think about their bosses, the ones who make themselves rich while doing very little to actually help the poor.  Pretty much all of the large international aid charities are effectively businesses, squeezing out as much money as they can from the First World and making sure that their senior executives get large salaries.  They spend so much on promotion and so little on actually helping...

“And then there’s the societies that think that honour killing is perfectly acceptable and hate you for suggesting otherwise,” he continued.  “And don’t forget the religious and racial links across borders in Africa.  They all have a damn good reason for wanting to...convince you to fuck off back home and abandon your idealistic stunt here.  If they can't fight you personally, they’ll go after your supporting staff.”

“I will not give up,” Hope said, angrily.  “Why...why are people so stupid?”

“It’s the oldest story of all,” Mimic said.  “Follow the money.  Here you are, offering genuine change, genuine improvement...of course they’re going to knock you down.  My...what would happen if you actually turned the Congo into a working democracy?  It would spread with astonishing speed right across Africa.  The entire world will be turned on its head.”

“Hope!”

Hope looked around as Hypersonic fell out of the air and landed beside him.  “I just swept the area,” she said.  “I found no trace of our mystery sniper.”

“You should have taken the bet,” Mimic observed.  “We’ll need a doctor to be sure, but by my guess these people were dead for at least five hours before we realised that they were missing and started to search for them.  Five hours...he could be halfway to Japan or America by now.”

“Assuming he got a flight out,” Hope said.  “We could check all of the airports.”

“There isn't anyone checking passengers over here,” Mimic reminded him.  “Hell, he jumps on a flight to Pretoria or Nigeria, gets off there and onto an international jet...he could be anywhere by now.  I’ll check the area, just to be sure, but I wouldn’t hold out any hope.  Ten gets you twenty that the bastard is long gone by now.”

“A professional assassin,” Hope mused.  “Who would send him after us?”

“I heard rumours,” Hypersonic said.  She was Russian, a deserter from Department 14, the Russian counterpart to the SDI.  Hope had been told that she’d left after the Soviet Union fell apart and she’d seen the ugly underside of post-Soviet Russia, but he had no idea what she’d been doing for the ten years before she’d joined the Saviours.  “I spoke to Vas two days ago.  You remember Vas?”

Hope chuckled, remembering his first encounter between the Russian superhuman and himself, years ago.  Vas was a big beefy man, a former career soldier in the Red Army who had become a superhuman and joined the Red Banners, the first Russian super team.  Unlike Hypersonic, once the Soviet Union had come to an end he’d stayed in Moscow, tending a bar and producing undrinkable vodka that he insisted cured everything from poison to AIDS.  Hope had been told that it was actually made from brake fluid and he believed it.  The stuff would put hairs on a dead man’s chest.

“He still keeps his ear to the ground, so he hears rumours,” Hypersonic continued, as they walked away from the wrecked vehicle.  “You know how the community loves to chatter about what they’re doing.  Vas said that there were rumours that many of the bigger nations were putting together an operation against us—against you, specifically.  There was even a rumour that the United States had agreed to forgive a chunk of Russia’s debts in exchange for Russian cooperation.”

“That’s insane,” Hope said.  “They’d never...”

He looked back at the wrecked jeep and wondered.  Russia—the Soviet Union, technically—had ordered a nuclear device deployed against an unnamed Polish superhuman.  In response, most of the world had cut all trade ties with Russia, collapsing the Russian economy at the worst possible moment.  Food riots had torn through nearly every Russian city after shipments of grain from the United States were suspended, threatening to tear Russia apart.  A series of army and nationalist coups hadn't made the situation any better; eventually, the Soviet Union had fragmented into chaos.  Even now, Russia was still recovering—a pariah among nations.  No one would forgive them for killing so many innocents and destroying a historic city just to get rid of a single man.

“Principles be damned,” Hypersonic said.  “The Russian Government would do anything to get those trade sanctions off their backs; hell, they can't pay for everything just by selling guns to keep wars going.  Iran and North Korea can't put in enough money to keep the country going and Iraq’s buying American and European these days.  And they were probably involved in selling guns to the warlords here too.  They’ll want revenge for that, if nothing else.”

Hope considered it, slowly.  The SDI had had dreams of serving their country; they’d all been patriots, even the creepy bastards in the covert operations team.  But he’d known that they’d been used as part of American foreign policy, a foreign policy that seemed to change daily and drift dangerously across the world.  He’d left, at least in part, because he could no longer stomach the hypocrisy that pervaded the SDI.  They had done nothing for the world—and very little even for America.

“I shall hope you’re wrong,” he said, finally.  If the American Government, or even part of the American intelligence community had been involved in the assassination, he didn't know what he would do about it.  “What are we going to do with the bodies?”

“Take them back to Kinshasa, see what Jackie wanted done with her body in the event of death while operating with us,” Mimic said.  “We’ll have to deliver the other bodies back to their families, even though it will upset people.  We can't hide the bodies and pretend that they were never found.”

“Why not?”  Hypersonic asked.  “Their superiors are quite happy to lie to the people they push to donate money...”

“Because we promised ourselves, and the world, that we would be beacons of light in a world of corruption, national interests and economic shambles,” Hope said, sharply.  “We will not lie to the world merely because it is convenient.  That’s the first step towards corruption and the eventual collapse of our program.  We must be honest even when it is painful.”

He looked over at Mimic.  “Call Gateway; ask her to open up a portal here,” he ordered.  “Once the portal is open, take the vehicle and the bodies through to the hospital; the doctors can have a look at them before we release them back to the next-of-kin.”  He hesitated.  “Did Jackie actually have any next-of-kin?”

“She was married to another superhero, the Dancing Bug,” Mimic supplied.  “She didn't see the value in our project and remained in California while her wife came to join us.  We can call her directly and ask her if she wants to pick up the body.”

Hope nodded, slowly.  “Good,” he said.  He knew he should deal with it personally, but instead there was something else he needed to do.  “I’m going to check the area.”

He launched himself into the air and looked down at the scene from high overhead, carefully tracing the exact spot where the driver had been shot and lost control of the car.  It was difficult to be sure, but he was fairly sure that he’d been right.  He knew enough about military-grade sniper rifles, even ones that had been adapted to take down targets with inhuman powers of resistance, to know that the sniper could have been hiding anywhere up to three kilometres from the target, although unless there had been significant improvements in sniper technology it was likely that the sniper had been a great deal closer.  The damage inflicted on the target’s head made it impossible to guess at the direction the shot had come from, although he had his theories.  There was more cover behind them than in front of them.

Carefully, he opened up his senses, looking and listening for anything out of the ordinary.  Noise assailed him at once, everything from the heartbeats of Mimic and Hypersonic to the sounds of animals moving through the undergrowth.  He was privately surprised that there were any animals at all, with so many people hungry, but the local wildlife was good at hiding.  And some of it was outright poisonous.  One of the more sadistic warlords had kept a prison where spider venom was used to paralyse prisoners, preventing them from walking out of the open door.  Pushing the thought aside, Hope studied the scene, looking for...something that would lead him to his target.

But there was nothing.  His senses, among the sharpest in the world, could find nothing.  No one, apart from a highly-trained professional, could hide so well.  Hope knew of superhumans who had tracked down criminals through listening for a specific heartbeat, but he’d never mastered the skill himself.  As an SDI operative he had had other priorities and as the leader of the Saviours he’d had bigger fish to fry.  Five hours...Mimic was right.  Five hours, and the assassin could be halfway around the world.  Unless...

The Saviours were hardly the only superhuman team in the world.  Some of them worked directly for governments; the SDI, Department 14, MI-13, the Tricolours...there was no reason why one of those groups couldn't have slipped one of their own superhumans into the Congo, with orders to disrupt Hope’s efforts at rebuilding the country into a decent place to live.  It made no sense to him, but he’d long since abandoned any faith he had in government leaders being good people.  They were cynical bureaucrats whose first reaction to anything new was to attempt to squash it, followed rapidly by attempting to co-opt it into the system.  It was how they’d reacted to superhumans, after all.  The greatest force for change ever produced and they wanted to drag it down to the level of bad celebrities and covert operations.  How long would it be until they increased the pressure on the Congo?

A voice popped into his mind before he could search any further.  Hope, the Redeemer thought at him, there’s something here that you need to see.

Shaping his thoughts back at her was difficult, but he’d mastered it years ago.  I’ve had enough surprises, he thought.  How important is this one?

Very important, she said.  Come back here now.

Hope took one last look at the countryside and then pushed himself towards Kinshasa.  The city smelled better these days, if only because the former soldiers had been forced to help clear up the city by dragging the wastes outside and dumping them into a device Mainframe had put together out of spare parts.  Everything that could be used for the good of the population was recycled, while the remainder was buried in one of the massive pits the labourers had dug.  Half of them had been worried that they were digging their own graves, but they had no reason to worry.  Hope and his team intended to make them work for their freedom rather than simply killing them outright.  Any who had been guilty of really serious crimes had already been removed and eliminated.

Killed, he reminded himself, as he dropped towards the mansion.  You ordered them killed, remember?

The Redeemer was sitting on the edge of the roof, looking down at the city below.  It was on the tip of Hope’s tongue to remind her about snipers, before he dismissed the thought.  The Redeemer was so talented that she could pick up a hostile thought from anyone who was taking aim at her.  Besides, they didn't want to suggest to anyone that they were afraid.

“I scanned the newcomers as they came into the city,” she said, without preamble.  She already knew how he felt about telepathic scans.  “Some are nervous, some are...fans and at least one of them is a spy.”

Hope looked at her.  After everything else that had happened, he wouldn't have been surprised to hear it.  “I see,” he said, finally.  A spy...and one of his people dead.  It couldn’t be a coincidence.  “Who? And why?”

“Sparky,” The Redeemer said.  “Once one of the Young Stars...now, a reluctant spy for the SDI.  Apparently they got into a little trouble with the authorities and Sparky is working for them in exchange for...having the records sealed, I guess.  She isn't quite sure herself.”

Hope looked down at the city.  He hadn’t liked the Young Stars from the start, if only because they represented the worst of the so-called superheroes.  They didn't even act as registered superheroes, protecting the population from criminals and corrupt officials.  Instead, they were famous merely for being who they were...

...But if one of them had become a spy.

“How dare they?” he whispered.  “How dare they force a young girl to become a spy?”

“Rather easily, I would expect,” the Redeemer said.  She frowned, thoughtfully.  “But why would they send a spy when they know that I’m here?  Their spy didn't last five minutes before I detected her.”

Hope shrugged.  “It doesn't matter,” he said.  “All that matters is making it clear that I will not tolerate such interference in the Congo’s...redemption.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“What a shitty world.”

Chester stood in front of the containment room, looking in at the superhuman teenager.  The capture glue had been removed, to be replaced by restraints that should hold anyone up to a Level 5 superhuman.  Any resistance would result in gas being pumped into the chamber, weakening the superhuman to the point where he could be carted away by mundane soldiers.

“I'm afraid so,” Lane said, grimly.  “Do they know who these...kids are?”

Chester nodded.  In hindsight, the answer had been all too clear.  “Yes,” he said, shortly.  “I know who they are.”

Lane gave him a sharp look.  “The boy’s almost certainly Level 3 if not Level 4,” he said.  “The medics can’t understand anything about the girl, starting with her unnatural skin colour.  They would have classed her as a mutant if it wasn't for the fact she had very definite powers...an affinity for shadow, if you believe that crap.”

“I wonder how much she had to roll to get that,” Chester said, lightly.  The joke fell flat.  “Level X, definitely; a teleporter as well as a shadow manipulator.  If we’d known they were superhumans...”

“We bagged them,” Lane reminded him.  “Who are they?”

“Sins of the past returning to haunt us,” Chester said.  It had been two years since the SDI had last checked on the children, during which time they’d developed powers and a cause.  “I need to talk to them.”

“So does the New York DA,” Lane said.  “I can't tell if he wants to have them charged with mass murder or give them the keys to the city.”

“The SDI has jurisdiction in such cases,” Chester reminded him.  He looked at the boy and shook his head.  “Fifteen years old, and already responsible for at least seventy deaths.  And bringing his sister in on the act, too.”

He shook his head.  “I’m going in there,” he said.  “Keep an eye on us through the glass. Stand by to activate the gas if it goes horrifically wrong.”

The door hissed open when he touched his fingers to the sensor, allowing him to step into the small cell.  It felt smaller than he remembered, but then most of the space was taken up by the secure chair.  He leaned against the wall and studied the young man, realising just how much he resembled his father.  The SDI had definitely dropped the ball on this one, although there had been little choice.  Their mother had wanted the kids to grow up without being pressured by the SDI to follow in their father’s footsteps and the General had accepted her argument.  But then, she was supposed to inform the SDI if the kids developed superhuman powers.

“Good morning,” he said, as he took the other seat and sat down facing the kid.  “Jack Lofting, isn't it?”

Jack started.  “How did you...?”

“I knew your father,” Chester said, flatly.  “You seem to have inherited some of his powers.”

The premier American superhero was America, a Level 5 superhuman who wore a costume made out of an American flag.  He was loved across America as the very symbol of American power, a true hero who served Uncle Sam and his people.  What the public didn't know was that there had been several different superhumans playing the role of America, including Marvin Lofting, Jack’s father.  But Marvin had retired, then died, the first victim of a plot to trigger a superhuman war.  The truth had been suppressed and those responsible for the plot quietly eliminated.  Very few people knew the complete story.

Marvin had been Level 5, but he’d married an ordinary woman and had two children.  No one understood how superhuman genetics worked, yet it seemed clear that the father had passed on some of his gifts to his children.  The real question was if the abilities had been diluted because their mother had been an ordinary human, or if Jack would develop more powers as he grew older.  And then his sister, who had abilities that were completely inexplicable.  What twist of the genetic lottery accounted for her?

“Tell me something,” he added, after a moment.  “Do you think that your father would have approved of such...vigilantism?”

“My father wanted to clean up the area,” Jack said, after a moment.  An older man might have kept his mouth shut after demanding a lawyer, thankfully.  Bringing in a lawyer would have tied Chester’s hands to some degree.  “Do you know how hard it can be for a brother in this world?  My father made everything better, and then he died.  And then they burned down his gym and took back the streets.”

Chester did understand.  When racial features were used as the basis for separating groups of people, those who tried to transcend racism were often shunned by their own kind.  Jack would have faced immense pressure to join the rest of the black population in the FTS, fighting the other gangs and probably dying on the streets before he reached his twentieth birthday.  His mother could have taken him and his sister away—Chester didn't understand why she hadn’t—but instead they’d been forced to watch as their father’s legacy was destroyed, crumbling back into the poison peddled by the gangs.

“No one did anything to stop them,” Jack continued, heedless of his own danger.  “I was so weak!  I couldn’t stand up for anyone until my powers developed.  And Jane’s powers...together, we were unstoppable.  We started to clean up the area until you intervened and stopped us.”

“I think your father knew to build as well as destroy,” Chester said, flatly.  “Between us, we seem to have triggered off a four-sided gang war in Hell’s Kitchen.  The last I heard, the NYPD had finally been forced into action, sealing off the streets and carting gangsters off to jail.  They may have to release them if nothing can be proven, but...”

“Vermin,” Jack snarled.  “Let them all die.”

Chester shrugged.  “They may learn a lesson from spending a few days in a holding pen,” he said, although he doubted it.  A few weeks would have helped many of the gangsters to break their drug additions, but the DA would probably not stand for it.  “Tell me something: everyone you killed...do you know that they were replaced pretty damn quickly?”

Jack glared at him.  “And I would kill their replacements too, until they got the idea,” he said, angrily.  “Do you really want to stop me?”

“There are few situations when an average citizen can and should take the law into their own hands,” Chester said.  “If you had stuck to rescuing people who were being attacked, it is unlikely that the SDI would have taken a very grim view of the situation.  But killing people you suspected of being gang leaders...”

“They were gang leaders,” Jack insisted.  “Don’t you think I was careful enough to listen to the streets?”

Chester sighed.  “Maybe you should have wondered who was telling you that, and why,” he said.  He was a professional paranoid, after all.  One of the gangsters could have been using Jack to eliminate his competition.  “Maybe you did the right thing; maybe you didn’t.  The problem is that you also broke the law, not just in using excessive force against those gangsters, but in operating as a superhuman without being registered.  Your father was registered...”

“My father died because of his idealism,” Jack said.  He didn't know the full story.  “Those gangsters bragged about how they managed to kill him.”

“They didn't kill him,” Chester said.  “Tell me about your sister.”

Jack stared at him.  “What have you done to her?”

“We’ve drugged her to keep her harmless,” Chester said.  “Apart from that, we would have some problems charging a thirteen-year-old girl with anything.  What sort of powers does she have?”

“Figure them out for yourselves, government man,” Jack sneered.  “Why should I help you when you did nothing to help me?  Or Hell’s Kitchen?”

“I’m trying my goddamned best,” Chester snapped.  “I am doing my best to ensure that you and your sister don't spend the rest of your lives in the Pit, or face the executioner for at least seventy counts of murder.  Right now, I am the best friend you have.”

He took a breath.  “You’re a superhuman,” he reminded the young man.  “Minor or not, that puts you in a very dangerous category.  You won’t see your home again until you are freed from the Pit, which could be over sixty years from now.  Or you could be executed on the grounds that you are just too dangerous to be allowed to live.  Help me help you.”

Jack said nothing for a long moment.  “When she turned thirteen, her skin darkened,” he said, slowly.  “Mom didn't know what to do about it; lots of kids started to pick on her for being too black.  She used to run into the shadows and vanish and...They all called her a freak.  I didn't realise what she was until she ran out of the shadows in my room.  She had crossed nearly a mile in a split-second.”

“A teleporter who works through shadow,” Chester mused.  Teleporters weren’t unknown—and Gateway of the Saviours could open portals from place to place—but the report suggested something more.  “What else can she do?”

Jack hesitated.  “It sounds really stupid now,” he admitted.  “She said that there was shadow inside the shadow and she could command it, pull it out into the light and use it as a weapon.  Between us, I thought that we were unstoppable—and she hated missing our father too.”

Chester had to smile.  “You should see some of the theories the SDI’s support branch invents,” he said, dryly.  “Most of them would have been comic book writers in another reality.  Pulling shadow from a dark dimension isn't even the weirdest theory on the books.”

He shook his head.  “How many did she kill?”

“None of them,” Jack admitted.  “I killed them all.”

“You just used her to get through the guards and into striking position,” Chester said.  It hadn't been a bad plan at all, even though it had run into a roadblock in the form of Team Omega.  “Tell me something.  Have you killed anyone who wasn’t a gangster, someone who didn't already have blood on their hands?”

“No,” Jack insisted.  Chester silently cursed his own decision to send Matt Tracker to the Congo.  A living lie detector would have come in very useful.  “I didn’t even kill Horace when he tried to bully me and the weaker kids.”

“That makes a change,” Chester said. “And your sister never killed anyone...”

He smiled.  Superpowers appeared when someone with the right potential was under immense stress, something that included being bullied at school.  At least a dozen powerful superhumans had emerged that way, tearing their tormentors apart without ever quite realising what was happening to them.  Chester had no sympathy for bullies—bullies were generally cowards, too afraid to pick on someone their own size—but the newly-empowered superhumans had major mental problems that made them dangerous to the world.

He studied Jack’s face for a long moment.  “You could be useful to the SDI,” he said.  His sister could be even more useful, but he didn't want Jack to realise that—at least not immediately.  “Your father once served in the SDI; it taught him the discipline and awareness he needed to start cleaning up the streets.  And he made contacts who provided help and a certain degree of political cover when he got to work.

“Right now, you have two choices,” he added.  He needed Jack to understand; minor or not, he was in a great deal of trouble.  “The first one is that you and your sister join the SDI and train to become proper superheroes, serving your country and your people.  If you refuse to join the SDI, it is quite likely that New York will wish to put you on trial for mass murder—and the SDI for unregistered superhuman activity.  It will be a very long time before you taste freedom again.”

It might be never, Chester knew.  The average human, even a complete psychopath, couldn't do much damage, even if he had a gun and the willingness to use it.  But a superhuman could bring down half the city in the space of a few minutes—and taking him down might require weapons that inflicted even more property damage.  The Russians had had to destroy Warsaw in order to kill a single superhuman.  Unleashing the SDI might cause even more damage to New York.  If the court found the two kids too dangerous to live, with no chance of redemption, they would be executed.  And, unlike ordinary criminals, there would be no long drawn-out process of appeal.

Jack looked at him, thoughtfully.  “Was this how you met my father?”

Chester shook his head.  “Your father was already a hero when I met him,” he said.  “And he joined willingly.”

He didn't add that Marvin Lofting should have been buried with full honours, but his wife had insisted on a small ceremony to prevent people from realising who she’d married.  The media would have been all over her if they’d discovered the truth.  People were fascinated with superhuman marriages and they would have asked all kinds of embarrassing questions.  No one in their right mind wanted that sort of attention.

He allowed his expression to harden.  “Understand something. We know who you are, and we can track you.  If you and your sister try to vanish into the shadows, we’ll know where you are and we will track you down.  And next time it will be the SDI chasing you instead of us.”

They preferred not to use the SDI against rogue superhumans because of the risks of property damage, to say nothing of bad publicity, but Jack wouldn't know that.  Besides, he would probably find the SDI more intimidating.

“This is your one chance to move ahead with your record wiped clean,” Chester said, coldly.  “You chose to take the law into your own hands and murder upwards of seventy people because you believed them to be guilty.  We cannot tolerate such actions or the very foundations of our society will crumble.  Do you understand me?”

He looked into Jack’s eyes.  After a long moment, Jack nodded.

“Very good,” Chester said.  “The SDI will be along in twenty minutes to take you and your sister to their base.  Once you are there, they will start training you—and teaching your sister how to hone her powers.  And then you will have a chance to follow in your father’s footsteps...”

“Sir,” Jack said, slowly, “did my father really die?”

Chester blinked in surprise.  “Why do you ask?”

“Half of my classmates don’t have fathers,” Jack said.  “Their mothers brought them up alone; the father left them when they were kids, or they don’t even know who their father was.  Some said that my father had left, too...”

“I’m afraid not,” Chester said.  “I saw the body.  Your father is definitely dead.”

“But some of the comics say that superhumans can come back from the dead,” Jack objected.  Chester wondered just how long he’d been hoping that his father was alive, instead of a dead man he could never quite match.  “Can’t he have returned to life...?”

“This is the real world,” Chester said, gently.  “Some superhumans can take a staggering amount of damage and their healing powers keep them alive, others are almost invulnerable...but when they’re dead, they’re dead.  Your father was dead and no one, not even a Level 5 superhuman, can come back from that.”

There was at least one semi-exception to that rule, but Zombie had been the result of illegal experimentation by Dr. Death in South Africa.  His body was dying, held in check only by his immense will and a powerful healing factor...and his mind was retarded.  He wasn’t a very powerful superhuman, but almost no one could bear to be near him for long.  Talking with him was like talking to a mentally disturbed adult, one who could turn dangerous at any moment.

“I'm sorry,” he said.  “Best of luck with your new career.”  He walked out of the holding cell and nodded at Lane.

“Shitty world,” Lane said.  “That kid kills upwards of seventy gangsters and we offer him a chance that half the kids in America would sell their own grandmothers to have.  And his mother ... bitch should have contacted us at once, the moment they developed powers.”

Chester shrugged.  He understood - but no one could undo the past.  The kids’ mother would have to be dealt with, somehow, yet the real problem was cleaning up the mess.  Retribution could wait.

“It’s that or put him so far underground that he will never see sunlight again,” he said.  Besides, the SDI was always on the lookout for more superhuman talent—and Jane Lofting, once she was a little older, would make a fine recruit for the covert team.  They needed all the superpower they could get with Hope running amok in the Congo.  “Besides...it isn't as if we’re recruiting Slaughter, or Jim Crow.”

“The CIA did recruit Slaughter,” Lane reminded him.  “Shitty world.”

He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and opened them, absently.  “They said that my predecessor was eventually given a medical discharge for nearly drinking himself to death,” he added.  “I know exactly how he felt.”

Chester nodded.  “We ride tigers,” he said, ruefully.  Jack hadn’t seemed menacing, not in the prison cell.  But who knew how he’d develop in the future?  A frightened and angry pair of children could easily become monsters.  “And the problem with riding the tiger isn't actually riding it, it’s getting off afterwards.”

“My sister took the kids to see Oh-No at the zoo,” Lane said.  “They made riding on a tiger’s back look easy.”

“Of course it was,” Chester said.  Oh-No was a shape-shifter who loved entertaining kids, to the point where he pretended to be a tiger in the zoo.  The SDI had tried to recruit him, only to discover that he wasn't interested in covert operations.  “He wasn't a real tiger.”

“The kids couldn't tell the difference,” Lane said.  His voice hardened, becoming a warning.  “Are you so sure that you can?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Esmeralda Rodriguez—Sparky—hadn't been sure what to expect when she emerged from the portal into Kinshasa. All she’d known about the Congo came from publicity leaflets that had been handed out during an appearance the Young Stars had made for charity.  As for Kinshasa itself, she'd thought it likely to be a city in ruins, with countless poor people struggling to survive, or perhaps a necropolis like Warsaw after the Russians dropped the bomb.

Instead, the city seemed to be coming back to life, with thousands of natives selling goods in the markets and foreigners buzzing everywhere.  Some of them were clearly aid workers; others were reporters or idealists, coming to see what Hope had made of the war-torn country.  Her senses picked out electric lines, providing power to a city that had been virtually powerless for years.  Most of the lines were poorly placed and would need to be replaced sooner rather than later, but they were helping to push the country back towards minimal living standards.

The Congo’s currency had been worthless for years, yet judging by the throng surrounding the market something had been worked out to help the people buy food while hopefully not destroying local farmers.  In a year, assuming that the country didn't collapse back into chaos, Esmeralda suspected that the country would be more than capable of feeding itself.  And she noticed a mutant lecturing a crowd of reporters on the obscene waste caused by the civil war; the reporters listened attentively and actually took notes as to how local farms would be back up to scratch within a few months, ensuring they no longer needed to import food from overseas.

They’d wanted her to spy, but as she looked around she realised that she had no idea where to begin.  She’d reported to the recruitment centre that put superhumans—and a handful of volunteer soldiers from around the world—to work, only to be told that she’d be called when they had something suitable.  It honestly hadn’t occurred to her just how limited her power was outside a First World city.  Absent electric wires to draw power from, she was limited to what little electric power ran through her body.  Enough to shock, perhaps, but not enough to fight.

But then, the Young Stars had never been expected to fight.

There were superhumans flying in the sky, more than anywhere, even New York.  A handful were clearly providing security, watching the population from overhead, ready to intervene if something went wrong.  Others were carrying massive loads from the portal station to the rest of the country, flying humanitarian aid from all over the world.  The governments might have been reluctant to have anything to do with Hope’s grand plan to save the Congo, but many ordinary people were doing everything they could to assist.  It almost made her proud, but she was guilty for what she’d agreed to do.  But what could she tell the government that would convince them to forget what the other Young Stars had done?

A hand tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around and saw one of the mutants.  This one looked rather like a walking skeleton, with a bare covering of skin and flesh over his bones.  Esmeralda had taken part in events intended to raise money for the mutants, but they had always made her uncomfortable, if only because a single twist of the genetic lottery could have had her turn out like that.  The mutants were cousins to the superhumans, yet the superhumans preferred to forget they existed.  But Hope had reached out a hand and invited the mutants to join him.

“You are invited to meet Hope himself,” the mutant said.  Esmeralda stared at him—and at the way the crowd fell back, unwilling to get too close to the walking skeleton.  Now she saw it, she noticed that some of the locals didn't seem too enamoured of the superhumans flying overhead.  “Please, will you come with me?”

Esmeralda nodded, wondering if it was something to do with the Young Stars.  They might have been completely useless for working in the Congo, but their celebrity status might help to convince American public opinion to support the Saviours.  Hope presumably didn't know that three of the team were in jail and the rest operated on a shoestring; in truth, Esmeralda wasn't sure if she even wanted to re-form the team.  She could leave, couldn't she?  It wasn't as if she didn't have enough money in the bank to live the rest of her life in idle luxury...

Hope had set up his headquarters in what looked like an old mansion from Dixie, but unlike the former owner he had thrown it open to the public.  Superhumans, reporters and mutants thronged around, trying to build up a picture of the Congo so they could begin assigning resources to fix the most serious problems.  One screen showed trouble in the east, towards Rwanda; a handful of superhumans were already on the way to deal with it.  Esmeralda couldn’t help but stare as she was escorted into the mansion and up to the top floor.  The building seemed to be brimming with life.

“In there,” the mutant said.

Esmeralda watched him walk away and turned to enter the door.  Inside, there was a small office—a handful of paintings had clearly been removed from the walls and stacked in one corner—and two people waited for her.  Hope was instantly recognisable; his golden costume shined brightly, while the second person looked...attractive.  Esmeralda had always preferred boys to girls, but the second person seemed to slide right past her defences and into her heart.  She seemed perfect, too perfect.  And then she realised just who she was looking at.

“I shouldn't worry about it,” the Redeemer said.  Even her voice was perfect—or was she telepathically projecting to Esmeralda’s mind?  “I have that effect on everyone.”

Esmeralda bit down the comment that came to mind.  “Why don’t you show people your true face?” she asked.  As far as she knew, there wasn't even a picture of the Redeemer anywhere in the world.  But then, telepathic illusions couldn't fool cameras.  “And why am I here?”

“You’re a spy,” Hope said, flatly.  Esmeralda wanted to deny it, but knew it would be futile.  The Redeemer had probably ferreted her out the moment she’d entered the Congo.  “I know, they forced you into serving them.  Not the worst they’ve ever done, I assure you.”

Esmeralda wilted, feeling violated.  The Redeemer could have scanned her entire mind and she wouldn't have even noticed.  Everything she knew, everything she’d thought—from the crush she’d had on an older superhuman to her first unsatisfactory experiment with a boy—was now public knowledge.  Everyone knew...

“They don't,” the Redeemer said, gently.  “I only told Hope what he needed to know.”

“I need you to pass on a message,” Hope said, flatly.  “Earlier this morning, a sniper killed three of my people—and now you arrive, a spy with very vague instructions.  The two events have to be connected.  I suspect that you were intended to report back to them about our reaction to the sniper’s attack.  Does that make sense to you?”

Esmeralda didn't know what he was talking about.

“She doesn't know,” the Redeemer said.  “They were criminally negligent sending her here without a proper briefing—or indoctrination.  It isn't as if they’re short of superhumans willing to do anything for America.”

“I will send you back to New York the next time Gateway opens a portal,” Hope said, calmly.  “When you’re there, you can contact your supervisor and pass on the message.  I want the sniper and his support team handed over to face trial by telepathy.  If the sniper is not handed over, there will be unpleasant consequences.  You might also wish to inform him that the governmental refusal to supply aid is having dire effects on the Congo and I cannot allow it to go on for much longer.  And yes, that is a threat.”

Esmeralda shook her head.  “I can't pass that message on...”

“Yes, you can,” Hope said.  There was no give in his voice at all.  “They sent you here as a spy.  Hopefully, sending you back will convince them of the futility of trying to undermine us.  We are determined to save the world, no matter who gets in our way.”

He nodded towards the door, which opened to reveal a pair of mutants.  “Take Sparky back to Gateway and send her through the portal to New York when it opens,” he ordered.  “And if she wishes to return afterwards, she is more than welcome.”

Esmeralda said nothing as the mutants escorted her back outside, towards the open space that Gateway used for her portals.  What else could she do?

***

Matt Tracker hadn't been too surprised when he’d felt the gentle telepathic probe touching his mind.  Most telepaths were natural voyeurs, assuming that they managed to assert enough control over their talents to avoid having to spend their entire lives in a mental institution; he hadn't seen any reason to assume that the Redeemer was any different.  The files on her might have been thick, yet most of the information was pure conjecture.  No one knew much about her, starting with where she’d been born.  That wasn't too unusual among superhumans, who could often cross borders at will, but the Redeemer was an odd case.

The papers the SDI had provided established him as a journalist for The Truth, an online newspaper blog that had a growing reputation for providing unbiased articles instead of the slanted news produced by the mainstream media.  For someone who was effectively a walking lie detector, it was an easy cover to maintain; just ask questions and note when someone was lying.  Even then, it could be informative; the lies someone chose to tell could tell a listener what they were trying to hide.

Kinshasa struck him as soon as he walked out of the portal area.  Unlike the more powerful superhumans, Matt’s powers were completely sensory; he’d spent the first two years of his life as a superhuman in a mental hospital until he’d learned to cope with the barrage of information that had threatened to overwhelm him.  It didn't seem fair that superhumans like Hope or America could have stable relationships when he was too aware of his surroundings to miss the moment when a girlfriend wondered just what the hell she was doing, but the universe had never been fair.  Besides, he could walk through the city and pick up the vibes to a far greater extent than any other superhuman.

His first impression was that the city was on the mend; his second was that it was largely illusionary.  That wasn't too much of a surprise; Hope and his team simply hadn’t been in the Congo for more than a couple of weeks.  They’d had time to start fixing some of the most dangerous problems—and removing the warlords would have helped the locals start recovering all on their own—but many of the problems they faced were simply too large to be fixed quickly.  An influx of doctors from the First World had started new programs for saving children from the worst killers, yet they’d started to run out of supplies.  Matt rolled his eyes as he walked on, listening to one of the doctors complain to a nurse.  Hadn't it occurred to them to build up a stockpile of medical supplies before they’d moved in?

He pushed the thought aside as he walked out of the city centre and down towards the poorer parts of town.  People chattered away in several different languages, but Matt had always been good with languages, if only because he’d often been able to see a person’s intended message behind their words.  Some of them seemed to love the newcomers, something that didn't surprise Matt too much; others seemed to hate and resent them.  Hope hadn't just saved them from a man who had practically enslaved them; he’d told them that their old way of living would no longer be tolerated.  Those who had been powerful—big fish in a very small pond, always subject to waves washing over the rocks and changing everything—wanted to keep their power.  Tribal leaders knew they needed to keep the tribal system operating if they wanted to remain powerful; religious leaders didn't want to preach tolerance when tolerance meant an end to their power.  It didn't help, he realised fairly quickly, that a number of women had left, in several cases taking their children with them.  The old society would have hunted them down and brought them back.  Now...

Matt found it hard to disapprove of what Hope had done.  The women in the Congo had always been on the receiving end of the worst violence—and not just from the warlords.  Their husbands had beaten them, taking out their helplessness and frustration on their wives, who were expected to do nothing, but take the beating and give thanks to God that it wasn't worse.  But women weren't semi-intelligent creatures who could do nothing, apart from cooking, cleaning and breeding the next generation of children.  The smarter ones had realised they could leave...and they’d done so.  Hope’s allies could settle them on the other side of the Congo or even outside the country, preventing their husbands and fathers from ever tracking them down.  They couldn't even seek to terrify the ones who had remained after the superhumans had killed a handful of husbands and fathers for beating their wives and daughters.  Matt sensed their feelings and realised they felt emasculated.

The cold dispassionate part of his mind didn't care how they felt.  Anyone who needed to beat on his wife to feel like a man was a monster, plain and simple.  Hope was right; there was no justification for such criminal acts, and the only way to get the message across to people so set in their ways was to make it clear that there would be disastrous consequences.

But at the same time, the sullenness infecting Kinshasa would make it harder for Hope to galvanise the population into reclaiming their country and their pride in themselves.  Perhaps it would come to an end in a year, once it was clear that the country was feeding itself and that the warlords would never be allowed to return, but it was equally possible that the Congo would fragment.  Who would take over once the foreigners returned home?

He kept walking, absorbing as much as he could from the surroundings.  Some were planning a revolution, although Matt doubted that they would do more than hurt a few people before Hope and the Saviours took them apart.  Unlike him, they couldn't hide their thoughts from a telepath.  But it would add to Hope’s frustration as he failed to produce the quick change he wanted—needed—to prove that he was right.  Matt wasn't so convinced.   The world was a more complex place than most superhumans realised, if only because most humans didn't have superhuman powers.  Fixing what was wrong with the world would take decades—and the Saviours didn't have the time to make it work.

His walk eventually took him to the prison camp, established at the edge of the city.  Some watchdogs had questioned the living conditions of the men who were held in the camp, something they’d rarely done for the prisoners of the warlords in the Congo, but Matt couldn't see anything particularly wrong with their treatment.  They might have been prisoners, fed on limited rations, but they weren't being tortured to death.  Some had even volunteered to help work on recovery projects aimed at rebuilding the country.  But then, the worst of the prisoners had long since been removed and executed.  Matt knew that the rest of the world was still reeling over the invasion, let alone the executions.  What government could consider itself secure if a handful of rogue superhumans could overthrow a foreign government and make it stick?

The reporters had been housed in one of the safer skyscrapers rather than being allowed to bring their trailers and living supplies through the portals.  This had probably accounted for a number of the angrier stories in the media; Matt had yet to meet a reporter who didn't consider himself a very important person.  Still, it was something he approved of; it would do them good to have a taste of what life in Kinshasa had been like for the average person, before Hope had brought a taste of a better life to the local population.  But how many of them would accept it?

His laptop had been left where he’d placed it, untouched by anyone.  There were no bugs in the room, nothing to keep an eye on the reporters—but then, Hope was a true idealist.  He wouldn't spy on the reporters, merely trust them to report the news without fear or favour.  Others in his team would know better, yet what could they do?  Hope was the driving heart of their team.

Flipping open the laptop, he started to write his report—and the story for the blog.  Most of the story would praise Hope, but he doubted that anyone would be pleased to read the report.  Hope was sitting on top of an unexploded bomb...and when it exploded, his frustration would rise to dangerously high levels.  Matt had seen the chaos caused by one Level 5 superhuman in the past and didn't want to see it again.  It might be time to deal with Hope before it was too late.

In the distance, he heard an explosion, followed by gunshots.  It was easy to tell that someone had been experimenting with bombs—and IEDs.  What else would they do, given time?

And how would Hope react?

Chapter Twenty-Five

“You ready to go?” Ron called, as he rapped on the panelling beside Jackson’s bunk.  “Chris is already in the car.”

“Just coming,” Jackson said.  He’d donned civilian clothes after the AAR and concealed his pistol under his shirt.  “I thought we were going to the Operator.  Why the big hurry?”

“I managed to get us something better than the Operator,” Ron said, with a cheerful leer.  “Just you wait and see.”

Jackson rolled his eyes.  Ron seemed to have appointed himself as Jackson’s mentor, a relationship that wasn't too uncommon in the world of special operations.  The new guy entered a unit that had traditions and habits that had existed ever since it was formed, something that new guys had to learn to accept and understand as quickly as possible.  But there were times when it was irritating as hell.

Picking up his bag, he strolled out of the barracks and down to the car Chris had drawn from the motor pool.  Just like the others, it had been worked over by federal technicians before being released to Team Omega; it was armoured, effectively bullet-proof and capable of outracing a Lamborghini.  It might not be able to outrun a superhuman with speed powers, but it would give him a run for his money.

“Come on,” Chris called, as soon as he saw him.  “Time’s running out.”

“Might have to use the siren,” Ron suggested, as Jackson climbed into the rear seat.  The upgrades hadn't included the seats, which were more uncomfortable than the civilian design, although they’d probably cost more.  “Do you think the CO would be pissed if the Washington PD asked a number of harsh questions?”

Jackson shrugged as Chris drove the car out of the gate and headed towards Washington, DC.  The streets were already full of traffic, with a number of cars heading in the same direction as themselves.  Ron and Chris seemed to take it as a given.  There were only a limited number of ways to drive into Washington, after all.  It wasn't as if they could just fly over the city and land wherever they were going.

“All right,” he said, as Ron placed the emergency light on the roof and activated the siren, “where the hell are we going?”

Chris looked over at Ron.  “You didn't tell him?”

Ron activated the siren and it began to howl.  Mercifully, the car was soundproof.  “I meant to tell him,” Ron countered, as Chris took them onto the emergency lane and gunned the engine.  “But, you know...I wanted to keep it as a surprise.”

“Fuck that,” Chris said.  “You do realise that the Sergeant will kill all three of us if the cops make a complaint?”

“You know as well as I do that we have federal plates on this thing,” Ron said, mischievously.  “What the fuck are they going to do?  Say boo to the FBI?  Or the ATF?  Or the DEA?  They won’t know about us.”

Chris snorted.  “I think you watched too many of the wrong films when you were a kid.” He sneered.  “Tell him where we’re going while I try to get us there in time for the first act.”

Ron twisted around until he was looking at Jackson.  “Do you have any clues where we’re going?”

Jackson shook his head in some irritation.  “A baseball game?”

“Better even than that,” Ron said.  He paused, meditatively.  “Do you remember the superhuman we caught playing football?  Bastard was completely invulnerable; he just kept going no matter how many others tried to drag him to a stop.  He would probably have gotten away with it if it wasn't for us meddling kids.”

Jackson gave him a sharp look.  After stunning the young girl in New York, he didn't want jokes about meddling kids.  It was bad enough knowing that the girl would probably have killed him if he hadn't improvised a counter to her powers—and her brother would have killed him if he hadn't been covered in sticky glue.  No wonder Team Omega existed with so few questions from their political superiors.  They had to deal with kids who could take a person’s head off with a single blow.

“Get to the point,” Chris ordered.  “We don’t have all day.”

Ron grinned, and then pasted a fake leer on his face.  “Have you ever heard of Dreamy Girl?”

The name did ring a bell in Jackson’s mind.  One of his fellow recruits had gone on and on about her, along with a number of other pornographic stars.  The Drill Instructors mercilessly confiscated porn from recruits, but once they could call themselves Marines they’d been allowed to keep some in their barracks.

“I think I may have heard the name,” he said, slowly.  “What about her?”

“She’s a rather odd superhuman,” Ron said.  “Level 1, probably; her only real power doesn't even seem to be under conscious control.  Anyone who looks at her sees her as the girl of their dreams—doesn't matter who they are, or what they like; they see her as the girl of their dreams.  As you can imagine, some bastard music agent snapped her up like a shot and put her on the stage.  Her singing is roughly comparable to cats howling in the middle of the night, but no one actually goes to hear her sing.”

“I heard that sales of her albums are pretty low,” Chris agreed.  “Someone with a little talent for singing could get plenty of sales, but all she really has to sell is her body—and you can't put that on a CD.  You know she isn't even allowed to appear on television, let alone the radio?  Cameras and video recorders are banned from her concerts.  They don’t want her real face splashed all over the internet.”

“Actually, there is no shortage of pictures of her,” Ron said.  “They just happen to be different.”

Jackson frowned, puzzled.  “How does her talent actually work?”

“God knows,” Ron said.  “If she was a powerful telepath, she could probably broadcast an idealised image of herself into every mind, but she doesn't seem to be telepathic at all.”

“And even the really powerful telepaths would have problems beaming separate images into thousands of minds at the same time,” Chris injected.  “Most telepaths who like to hide their real faces shun the spotlight.  Dreamy Girl...she loves the spotlight.  She’d probably do more if her agents weren’t so concerned about preventing cameras and suchlike.”

Chris turned off the road and headed towards the stadium.  “I suggest that you turn off the siren,” he said.  “We have the expensive tickets, so we can go inside without having to wait like those morons.”

Jackson followed his gaze.  A long line of cars, mostly driven and occupied by men, were waiting to pass through the terminal.  Signs were posted everywhere, reminding the guests that cameras and video recorders were banned and that anyone caught with a camera inside the main building would be fined ten thousand dollars.  Jackson wasn't sure if that was remotely legal, but he made a mental note to keep his camera phone out of sight.  They weren't allowed to switch them off, let alone leave them in lockers.  The call to return to base could come at any moment.

They drove through the executive lane and there was a brief argument with the security officers, before they were waved through towards the parking lot.  Jackson climbed out of the car and removed the emergency light as soon as it came to a halt, pushing it back inside for Ron to hide in the glove compartment.  The other two joined him outside and stretched before heading towards the VIP entrance.  Jackson half-expected them to be confronted by reporters, but there was almost no one there save for an attractive girl who opened the door for them.

“I meant to ask,” he said.  “If even floor-level tickets for this show are fucking expensive, how did you get your hands on them?”

“Dreamy Girl gives a handful to the SDI for every show and they trickle down to us,” Ron said.  “She isn't the only one; plenty of people would like to have experienced personnel around in case of disaster.  They don’t mention it to the media, so our costumed friends get some privacy—if they want to come.  Not bad work if you can get it.”

Jackson had been to stadiums before—his father had been crazy about watching football, no matter who was playing—but he’d never been inside a fancy suite.  It seemed insane to him; there were comfy chairs, an open bar with expensive drinks from all around the world and even a staff of trained experts willing to provide everything from a massage to something a little more exotic.  The other seats in the stadium were cramped and probably smelly, but they were for the true fans.  Just who would have the money to rent an executive box?

“Plenty of rich assholes,” Ron said, when Jackson asked.  “Look over there; that’s one of the richest movie producers in Hollywood.  He doesn't know us, so he keeps glancing towards our box, trying to decide if we’re someone he can network with.”

Jackson had to smile.  “You mean, he thinks we’re rich assholes too?”

“Assholes, definitely,” Chris muttered.  “Do you remember the training scenario we have for this sort of building?”

Jackson shuddered.  They'd run through it a dozen times and the best result they’d had was losing half of the citizens trapped inside, along with half of the team.  Hostage rescue was always a complicated problem—it sucked to be a hostage when the bullets were flying—and trying to storm a massive building could be immensely costly, even when the terrorists were mere humans.  Superhumans could bring down the entire building in seconds.

“Sit back and enjoy the show,” Ron advised.  “You’re off-duty now, remember?”

The announcer started to talk, mentioning all the people who had contributed money to a fund drive for the Congo, before the roar of the crowd drowned him out.  Jackson had to laugh; no one had come to hear about the latest cause of the month, not when they wanted to see Dreamy Girl.  The announcer eventually gave up and left the stage, while the spotlights started to focus on the exact centre of the wooden structure.  There was a brilliant flash of light, a puff of smoke...and a woman wearing an all-encompassing robe appeared, as if from nowhere.  A teleporter...or simple sleight-of-hand?  There was no way to know.

Dreamy Girl stepped forward as the music started to play, pulling her robe away from her face in a single compulsive moment.  Jackson couldn't help himself; he stared, feeling her catching and holding his attention.  Dreamy Girl was perfect, a tall young redhead, wearing just enough to hint at her body without revealing everything.  He had to remind himself that he was looking at an illusion, that Ron and Chris were seeing something different; Dreamy Girl was terrifyingly attractive.  It was easy to see just how her talent could be abused, if she’d wanted to be a criminal—or, perhaps, the single most expensive prostitute in the world.

He closed his eyes as she started to sing.  Instantly, her voice roared into his ears.  The words were silly and her voice was too high to be attractive; if she hadn't had her remarkable gift, she would have been laughed off the stage.  Opening his eyes, it no longer seemed to matter that she couldn't sing to save her life.  She caught his attention and held it, almost hypnotically.  He looked at Ron and Chris and saw the same mixture of admiration and horror on their faces.  None of them were very comfortable with anything that affected them so strongly.  In a world where there were mind controllers and drugs that could influence a person’s behaviour, Dreamy Girl might have been the most dangerous of all.

“I got a man waiting for me,

“Somewhere over the deep blue sea,

“But I ain’t going to wait for he,

“Not when there are so many who come to want me...”

Jackson opened his eyes again and scowled.  The singing was only getting worse—and he wanted to meet whoever had written her songs, just so he could punch him in the nose.  He had never claimed to be a music critic, but half of the verses didn't scan and the other half contradicted themselves.  At one point, she pledged herself to be faithful to her man—and, later on, she told herself that there were many other men she could enjoy while waiting for her man to come home.  It was the worst nightmare of servicemen who were deployed overseas—not that there was much of that, these days—their wives cheating on them while they were gone.  Military service wrecked as many marriages as it made.

“Just plug up your ears and watch her,” Ron advised.  “I could turn the sound off if you want.”

Jackson had to laugh as the beat abruptly changed to a rap song.  He hadn't like rap even before he’d spent two days spying on gangsters in Hell’s Kitchen, most of whom enjoyed what the Sergeant called Angry Young Thug Shit.  It said something about Dreamy Girl's singing that she was actually worse than the gangster rap artists, although what did they have in common with the people in Hell’s Kitchen?

“Woke up in the morning, want to stay in bed,

“Stumbled into the shower, splashed water on my head,

“Had some milk and cereal, really damn quick,

“Got to go to work, for the boss he is a prick,

“Headed out to the bus, missed it of course,

“Thinking why Washington buses aren't driven by a horse,

“Got into work at nine minutes past ten...”

Ron hit the switch and the noise vanished.  “I think that that’s enough of that,” he said.  “We didn't come here to listen to the singing.”

“A good thing too,” Chris agreed.  “Look at her instead.”

Jackson sighed as he watched Dreamy Girl.  Without the music, she was somehow much more attractive, slinking over the stage as if she belonged there.  Her face wasn't entirely clear, yet he knew deep in his soul that it was what he wanted to see.  She danced and twisted and he found himself following every curve of her body...

“That’s enough, I think,” Ron said.  Jackson jumped.  Dreamy Girl was just finishing her final set, yet...he’d been hypnotised.  “You have to watch these bitches, man.  They can do strange things to your mind.”

Jackson felt dizzy, rubbing his forehead as if the sensation would never completely fade.  When he looked up, Dreamy Girl was gone, leaving only a yearning that would never be fulfilled.  Maybe drug addicts felt the same way, spending their last cent on drugs and then stealing from their friends and family to get their fix.  It was disgusting, and yet it was also something so powerful that the weak-willed wouldn't be able to resist.  Dreamy Girl’s concerts were pricy—a glance at the ticket revealed that it had cost nearly a thousand dollars—but they were always sold out.  It was easy to see why.

“Time to go home,” Ron said.  Jackson glanced at his watch and cursed.  He’d lost two hours, somehow.  Who knew what had happened when he’d been in a light trance?  “Don’t worry, man.  She really isn’t what she seems.”

Jackson scowled.  “Do you know what she looks like?”

“I heard a rumour that her real appearance isn't very pretty at all,” Ron admitted.  “It came from one of the guys in the SDI, so I guess it’s reliable.  She has to be registered to work the way she does, although it would be an interesting legal case if she refused.  If she really has no control over her own power...”

He chattered on as they recovered the car and drove home to the base.  Jackson tuned him out as much as possible, trying to sort out his own feelings.  He didn't know her, and had only seen her from a distance, and yet she’d left a mark on his soul.  The confused emotions were still running 'round and 'round his head when they entered the base and were ordered to proceed to the briefing room.  Apart from them and Lane, there was no one else in the compartment.

“I just had a call,” Lane said.  “I need to know...”

“It was my fault,” Ron said, quickly.  “I ordered them into doing it.”

Lane’s eyes narrowed.  “Into kidnapping a boy from the Dreamy Girl concert?”

Ron blinked at him.  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“I just received a phone call from the FBI,” Lane said, with a glare that promised that he’d investigate their other misdeeds later.  “A young boy disappeared after the concert; he didn't come home with his friends and, as far as anyone can tell, he didn't even join them when they left the stadium.  Did you see anything out of the ordinary when you were there?”

“Just Dreamy Girl herself,” Ron said.  Jackson forced himself to sharpen up, even though he felt worse than the first day he’d drank himself into a stupor.  “Someone took him from the stadium?”

“It's possible,” Lane said.  He looked at Jackson.  “The FBI is taking the lead on this one, but with a superhuman angle it’s possible that the SDI or Omega will be pulled into the investigation.  Go get some sleep; I’ll sound the buzzer if we’re called into action.”

Jackson puzzled over it as they found their way to their bunks.  “Someone missing from the concert?”

“Maybe someone too obsessed to leave with the others,” Ron said, “maybe someone taken against his will.  Get some sleep.  If the Captain calls us, we have to be ready.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The report about North Korea was about as useful as Chester had expected.

North Korea was the single most isolated country in the world.  Very little came into the country and even less came out, including people.  The North Koreans did have a superhuman program of their own—superhumans were cheaper than nukes, even if they did think for themselves—but very little was known about it.  There had been a defector who had brought some information on two of the four known superhumans, yet the information was very limited.  Chester had a private suspicion that the North Koreans were far behind everyone else in superhumans, but there was no way to know for sure.  Japan and South Korea were paranoid over the prospect of North Korean superhumans smashing though the DMZ and heading south.  They had their own superhumans on the border watching the North.

He put the report aside as General Kratman sat down next to him, waiting to see the President.  The entire meeting had been arranged at short notice, unfortunately while the President was due to meet a group of Boy Scouts who had won a competition to meet the most powerful mundane human in the world.  There was no way the President would cut that short, or the media would pick up on it and wonder what had been so urgent as to force the President’s hand.  Who knew what conclusions they might draw...?

“I saw Marvin’s kids,” the General said, without preamble.  “The girl is likely to be very useful in the future.”

“One would hope so,” Chester agreed.  The gang fighting in New York had died down with two of the four gangs effectively destroyed and the remaining two splitting the territory between them.  He’d hoped that they’d destroy themselves completely, but as long as there was a demand for illegal drugs, someone would fill it.  “And the boy?”

“Has potential,” the General said.  “A shitload of anger in his head, though.  The shrinks think that he really needs a nice holiday somewhere warm so he can recover from everything he did.”

“I thought we weren't listening to shrinks,” Chester said, with some amusement.  “It was bad enough with Jay Argon—now I have to listen to Grimes every two weeks on why Omega is a danger to society.”

The General laughed, and then sobered.  “Poor kid.  Having all that on his shoulders at fifteen years old.  His mother just wanted them to be normal.”

“So she tried to keep them away from us,” Chester said.

“And the boy goes out trying to be a man,” the General said. “And kills seventy-odd people in hopes of living up to his father.”

“We’ve done worse in our time,” Chester reminded him, dryly.  “At least all of his targets deserved to die.  How many of ours deserved it?  You and I covered up Marvin’s death because we wanted to hide what happened to him in the hopes of finding another way to do it.  And have we had any luck?”

He shook his head.  The human race had only two confirmed ways to kill Level 5 superhumans; nuclear weapons...or the powers of a rogue superhuman who had developed the ability to turn superhuman powers off.  But that superhuman was dead, and no one with similar talents had ever been discovered.  Given the nature of his powers, it was quite possible that a dozen similar superhumans were walking around with no idea what they could do.

“There’s the untested stuff the techs came up with,” the General said.  “Thinking about Hope, are you?”

“I’m afraid so,” Chester said.  “Affairs in the Congo have taken a turn for the worse.”

The President’s aide appeared before he could elaborate and invited them both into the Oval Office.  Inside, the President looked tired and worn after his long chat with the Boy Scouts—but then, the job wore anyone down.  Almost every President had grey hair when they left the office.

“Thank you for waiting,” the President said.  It wouldn't be the first time that politics had interfered with government business.  “I take it that there have been developments?”

“You could say that,” Chester said.  “Mr. President, we sent a pair of agents into the Congo to attempt to determine just what the situation was on the ground.  One of those agents was intended as the decoy for the other as Hope has a powerful telepath on his staff.  That agent was returned to the United States only three hours ago.”

The President nodded.  Telepathy touched on very deep phobias in the human mind, the fear of losing all that remained of one’s privacy.  The government had moved with remarkable speed to determine that telepathic evidence could not be admitted in court, at least without the consent of the accused, and to ban telepathic scanning without permission.  It was difficult to prevent telepaths from flexing their powers—many telepaths ended up in mental hospitals because they couldn't control their powers—but at least it made it harder for telepaths to blackmail people.  There had been any number of politicians keen to make telepathic blackmail as hard as possible.  Anyone would think that they had something to hide.

“Unfortunately, the agent—Sparky of the Young Stars—brought us a message from Hope,” Chester continued.  “He wants a sniper handed over to him—or else.”

The President frowned.  “What sniper?”

“The second agent shed some light on that affair,” Chester added.  “Which is lucky, or we wouldn't have the slightest idea what Hope was talking about.  Several days ago, a sniper killed one of Hope’s superhumans and a pair of aid workers—and then vanished before they could track him down.  Hope’s general theory appears to be that the United States sent the sniper.”

“I see,” the President said.  His voice hardened.  “And did we send the sniper?”

“It was not authorised or carried out by either Team Omega or the SDI,” the General said.  “I have asked around in the community and no one else appears to have authorised the operation without referring it to the White House.  It is possible that someone in the CIA authorised it without permission—it wouldn't be the first time the CIA did something without taking it to the White House—but none of my contacts know about it.”

“Try convincing the leftists of that,” the President muttered.  Enough of the CIA’s failures and misdeeds had come to light to leave the world convinced that the CIA would do anything for Uncle Sam.  All of the CIA’s successes were classified and never made the news.  “And if we didn't do it, who did?”

Chester snorted.  “It would be easier to come up with a list of countries who aren’t suspects,” he admitted.  “First, every country neighbouring the Congo has reason to fear and resent Hope’s success; they’d have good reason to want to derail it.  Second, there are the regional powers that aren't exactly democratic; Libya, Egypt, even Iraq.  And thirdly there are the greater powers; Europe, China, Russia...and us.”

“Don’t forget the various terrorist groups,” the General added.  “Some of them found safety in the Congo after Saudi folded in on itself and Iraq took over.  They consider themselves the defenders of Islam, and Hope has already made it clear that Islam won’t enjoy any special status in the Congo.  The bastards still have links to Iran and Pakistan—hell, the Pakistanis could have provided the sniper on loan from their army.  They need support among the terrorists for their endless confrontation with India.”

“Wonderful,” the President said.  “And with all of those suspects, he blames us?”

“We have been under a great deal of pressure to do something about the situation,” Chester said.  “Hope is American, a third of his team is American...the Russians and Chinese have already been muttering about Hope’s former SDI status and wondering if we unleashed him deliberately.  And you know how paranoid Europe is these days.  The last thing they want to deal with is another superhuman state to the south.”

“Of all the paranoid conspiracy theories,” the General said.  “How the hell do we gain if Hope smashes the Congo’s warlords?”

The President chuckled, humourlessly.  “Do you know how many rare minerals and suchlike are in the Congo, waiting to be exploited?  I do, because I had a delegation from a dozen mining companies demanding that I do something about Hope—apparently, he’s already decided that none of the contracts the warlords signed will be honoured.  Which isn't too bad from our point of view—the bribes threatened to overwhelm the profits—but it may have international implications.  Do you know that a certain European country had an agreement with one of the warlords to supply him with a military-grade ATC system?”

He shook his head.  “And if they decide that the Congo will not be paying its debts, the international banking system would take a hit,” he added.  “It could get worse if the rest of the continent follows suit.”

The General smiled.  “Maybe that would be the best thing for them.  It might teach bankers a lesson about loaning to countries without the rule of law.”

“In an ideal world, I’d agree with you,” the President said.  “But so much money suddenly vanishing would destabilise several banks here—and probably do the same to Europe.  A large-scale banking crash is the last thing we need.”

He shook his head.  “But that isn't the issue here,” he said, flatly.  “The point is that we have been issued an ultimatum in all but name.  Hand over the sniper...except we can’t hand over the sniper because we don’t have the sniper.  So what do we do?”

Chester hesitated.  “The best thing to do would probably be to tell him the truth,” he said, finally.  “We didn’t send the sniper; we can go through all the intelligence reports from the last two weeks and see if we can pick up any clues as to who did send the sniper.”

“Which is all well and good,” the General said, “assuming that Hope believes us.  What happens if he thinks we did it and we’re just lying to him?”

“He said he wanted the sniper for trial by telepathy,” Chester said, slowly.  “But if we don’t have the sniper...”

The General snorted.  “And which official were you going to hand over to have their mind read to prove that we didn't send the sniper?  All that would really prove is that that official doesn't know anything about us sending the sniper.  Even if the President goes himself, a paranoid mind could wonder if the CIA carried out the operation and simply forgot to tell the President.  And Hope has enough experience of the darker side of operations to know that that is quite possible.”

“And if we don’t,” Chester said, “then what?”

He looked at the President.  “Right now, according to my operative on the ground, there’s upwards of two hundred superhumans working with Hope in the Congo.  That’s a small army in its own right, with enough power to overwhelm even the SDI if it came down to a pitched battle.  Right now, Hope is the most powerful person in the world, and he’s mad at us personally.  This isn't the time to...assume that we can carry on, business as usual.  Hope has proven that he’s willing to knock over an entire nation.  I think we have to assume that he’d be willing to strike at us.”

“And if he did,” the General said dryly, “he’d also hit the NGOs who are providing him with food and medical supplies for the Congo.  To say nothing of the countless volunteers who signed up to help purchase the supplies, drive them to New York and ship them through the portals in Central Park.  Striking at us would be shooting himself in the foot.”

Chester shrugged.  “Would he realise that?”

He shook his head.  “I have the report from our...sensitive agent on the ground.  He only saw Hope from a distance, but reported that Hope was angry and frustrated.  Hope had this grand plan and its being dragged down by petty nationalistic bickering and small-minded men.  I think we have to assume the worst and act as conciliatory as possible.”

The President pushed his fingertips together.  “Assuming the worst,” he said, “could we take Hope and his core group out before they came for us?”

Chester and the General exchanged glances.  “It would depend on what level of force you’re prepared to authorise,” the General said, finally.  “We could unleash the latest tactical nuclear weapons on the Congo; they were designed to deal with rogue superhumans if all else failed.  But we would have to get the weapon close to Hope to ensure success—and he is well-protected, as well as being tougher than a Shiva tank.  And he moves around, all over the country.  We could launch a mass nuclear strike over the Congo, but we’d kill pretty much everyone in the entire nation.  Even if they didn't die in the blasts, they’d die when the remaining infrastructure was utterly destroyed.”

He hesitated.  “And we’d probably need to use ground-bursts,” he added.  “Even with modern weapons, there would be a great deal of radioactive contamination in the air afterwards.  I don’t want to think about what it would do to the rest of Africa.”

The President looked sick.  “I cannot sanction the deaths of so many people,” he said.  “I saw the contingency plans, but...we can't do that.”

Chester knew exactly how he felt.  Team Omega wasn't the only brainchild of President Cheney, not by a long shot.  Some of the contingency plans called for using nuclear weapons in American cities, accepting the deaths of millions of Americans in exchange for bringing down a rogue superhuman.  The media had almost completely ignored that aspect of the planning, thankfully.  Others hadn't; the growing survivalist trend might just have been fuelled by the fact that cities could turn into war zones without warning.

But what would history say about an American President who launched a nuclear attack on his own cities?  A madman, a traitor worse than Benedict Arnold...or a hard man making a hard choice?

“There are other possibilities,” Chester said, “but most of them are riskier.  If they exploded in our face, and they might, they’d make the Slaughter Incident seem like a damp firecracker.”

The President looked down at his fingers.  “What would happen to the Saviours if Hope were to die?”

The General smiled, thinly.  “The shrinks say that it’s Hope who provides the vision,” he said.  “The general theory is that they’d come apart if he died.  God knows there’s always one alpha dog holding superhuman teams together; if he died, there would probably be a struggle for leadership...they’d certainly not be able to hold on to the other superhumans who have joined their cause.”

Chester hesitated.  “And what if they’re wrong?”

“I think we have to accept the fact that Hope is out of control,” the General said, sharply.  “I know...all of those warlords deserved to die horribly.  But he’s become paranoid and is starting to threaten us, to add to the problems he’s causing for the rest of the world.  He’s a good person and he means well, but he’s turning into an absolute dictator.  We have to deal with him now.”

The President nodded, very slowly.  “You will determine a way to kill Hope and use it, without involving anyone outside your organisation,” he said.  Reaching into one of his drawers, he pulled out a sheet of paper and started to write.  “I will order you to do so directly, so no one else can be blamed if it goes wrong.  Even so, I want you to cover your tracks thoroughly.  If possible, whatever you do should not be linked to us.”

He finished writing and passed the General a sheet of paper.  Years ago, Congress had prohibited the President from ordering assassinations.  But after the problems in Mexico and Latin America had started to spread north, the law had been quietly relaxed.  The President could order someone killed if he took personal responsibility for it.  Chester understood why the President was doing it, and accepted the logic, but he couldn't help feeling that they were crossing a line.  Hope had far too many superhumans under his command...

...But what would happen if his frustration caused him to lash out at someone else?

“It might work in our favour if it did,” the General said.  “Letting the world know that we have a way to kill such a powerful superhuman without the collateral damage...”

The President nodded towards the windows, looking out over the White House lawn—and the protesters beyond the gates.  “Right now, large parts of this country believe that Hope is a hero for actually doing something about the suffering in the Third World,” he said.  “They are out there, demanding that Congress pull their thumbs out of their asses and vote to send humanitarian aid to Hope and the Saviours.  Hope seems like the golden guardian of good to them, a true hero who is actually doing good.”

“They used to cheer Ho Chi Minh and Castro,” the General said, dryly.  “They always swallowed the shit the Soviet Union pumped out and ignored the actual facts.  Even after Warsaw, they still believed in the Worker’s Paradise.  What does the opinion of such ignorant people matter to us?”

“They’re ignorant people with votes,” the President said.  “I know, I think, how Hope feels.  This office confers power, but it also confers limitations.  I could do so much short-term good if I abandoned the limits, yet in doing so I would wreck the office and drag it through the mud.  Hope doesn't have those concerns...”

“I’ve ordered nine assassinations since I took the oath of office,” he added.  “This one is the first one I regret ordering, even though it is the most significant.  General...don’t fuck up.”

“No, Mr. President,” the General said.  “I won’t let anything go wrong.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Parker Lewis,” Lane said.  A picture appeared on the display.  “Fourteen years old, born in Washington; father’s a soldier with the 3rd Infantry Division.  Parents are separated, but apparently the father does play a large role in his son’s life when not on deployment.  Or so we’ve been told.  I’d prefer not to inform the father until we have confirmation one way or the other.”

Jackson nodded.  Back on deployment, he’d seen a fellow Marine lose his edge through worrying about his wife, who had been injured by a drunken driver.  It sounded cruel, but if the kid could be found alive and well, the father wouldn’t go through hell worrying about him.

“Earlier today, the kid went to a Dreamy Girl concert—the same concert that three of our own attended,” Lane continued.  He managed to sound disapproving even though he’d probably authorised their leave.  “Lucky bastard looks older than I did when I was his age, so he didn't have many problems getting in with a fake ID.  The FBI looked at the ones produced by his friends, and they confirm that they weren't bad fakes.  Someone is going to get into deep shit because of it.”

“How lucky for them,” Jackson said, dryly.  Two hours of sleep had left him feeling better, although he’d had weird dreams that he couldn't quite remember.  “I thought the lower age limit on these things was eighteen.”

“That's what the ID cards said,” Lane commented.  “It didn't help that most of the group he was with were actually genuinely eighteen or older...”

He shook his head.  “Not that that matters to us,” he added.  “Fake ID cards aren't our problem.  The real problem is that Parker’s disappearance isn't the first one connected to a Dreamy Girl concert.”

The screen changed at his command.  “Dylan King,” he said.  A young black man appeared on the display.  “Fourteen years old; attended a Dreamy Girl concert in Atlanta—and didn't come home that night.  Local police investigated, but found nothing—Dylan ended up marked as a runaway, one of the thousands of other kids who leave their homes every year and generally come to a bad end.  No history of drug abuse, incidentally; his mother was one of the ones who pulled herself out of the ghetto by her fingernails.  Dylan had great prospects and no reason to run from his home.

“Davy Wheat,” he said, changing the picture again.  “Fifteen years old; vanished at a Dreamy Girl concert in San Francisco.  Unlike the other two, Davy did have an arrest record; the cops picked him up twice for hotwiring cars and taking them out for a spin.  He also tested positive for drug use, but they didn’t use that against him.  The cops didn't take much interest in his disappearance as there was no evidence of foul play and Davy probably did have a motive for running away from home.  Mother is a drunken bitch, according to the police reports; father unknown, probably one of the men who fluttered around her when she was younger and prettier.

“And finally, Gavin Sato,” he concluded.  “He actually vanished two days after the concert in San Francisco, so he may not actually be connected to the case at all, but the cops dug up the reference and included it in their database.  Unlike Davy, he had a good home and a reasonably good family life; no clear reason for running away that anyone can see.”

He put down the remote and turned to face his team.  “Some of you have already had experience in criminal investigations, when our work blurs into theirs,” he said.  “Others of you are new to this, but it can be just as important as actually taking down rogue superhumans.  We’ll be working with the SDI on this one, but the person they would normally send to investigate is indisposed.”

His face twisted into a grin.  “Brainstorming time,” he said.  “What do all these kids have in common?”

“They’re young,” Ron said, thoughtfully.  “And they were all underage when they attended the concert.  Are we actually sure that they vanished there?”

“It's difficult to be completely certain, but witness testimonies and camera networks certainly suggest as much,” Lane said.  “The FBI wanted to pull the records from the stadium’s security network, only to be told that part of the agreement with Dreamy Girl and her agents stated that they weren't to operate any cameras within the building.  We do have some footage from outside the buildings, but it’s incomplete.”

“And one of them vanished two days later,” Jackson said.  He remembered one of the exercises he’d been given when he first joined Team Omega.  All he’d had to do was put together a jigsaw, but he had had no idea what the completed picture looked like—and some pieces didn't actually belong to the original jigsaw.  Criminal investigation wasn't too different; the fourth missing boy might be unconnected to the overall puzzle.

Something clicked in his mind.  “Three of the four were good boys, weren't they?”  He said.  “They didn't drink or smoke or do drugs—the fourth did take drugs and might have been still taking them, even after his arrest.”

“Very good,” Lane said.  “Now...what does it actually mean?”

Jackson shook his head.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I don’t suppose...they were all handsome enough to attract her attention?”

“It would be career suicide if she started preying on her underage fans,” Chris countered.  “Besides, she wouldn't find it difficult to pull in perfectly legal eighteen-year-old kids with baby faces.  Most paedophiles go for preteen or early teen children.”

“If you call it preying,” Thomas said.  “I don’t know about you, but if Madonna had asked me into her private rooms when I was fifteen, I wouldn't have said no.”

“And Madonna would still have been in deep shit when it came out,” Lane said, sharply.  “I know...pop stars and superhumans do have the chance to seduce almost anyone they want from their fans, but none of these people have ever returned home.  Underage or not, they are gone and people want answers.  What happened to them and what, if anything, does Dreamy Girl have to do with it?”

Jackson hesitated, and then spoke up.  “She...put me into a trance, of sorts,” he admitted.  There were some sniggers from the rest of the team.  “Couldn’t she have done that to her younger fans and programmed them to wait behind when the rest of the audience had gone?”

“It’s possible,” Von Shrakenberg agreed.  “I suppose having so much blood rushing to your dick would help anyone hypnotise you.”

There were more chuckles as Jackson flushed angrily.

“But so far the effect has been isolated to three, perhaps four teenage kids,” Lane added.  “A telepath could presumably pick them out of a crowd, but very few telepaths would want to go into the stadium anyway.  Nothing about this makes sense; what few patterns we have been able to see are too vague to be any actual use.”

He looked around the room, his gaze alighting on each and every one of the team.  “Dreamy Girl is scheduled to take two days of rest, then she will give another concert.  That one will presumably have a handful of underage kids, all of whom are at risk from whatever the fuck is going on.  The FBI has passed the buck to the SDI, and the SDI has passed it down to us.  We need to know what happens to those kids before the next concert—and another kid disappears.  Any questions?”

“Just one,” Ron said.  “What authority do we have to go poking around?”

“The FBI waved their case under a tame judge’s nose and got a warrant to search the stadium and Dreamy Girl’s vehicles,” Lane said.  “I suggest that any of you who don’t feel that you can be completely professional about this let me know, and I’ll leave you behind on kitchen duty.  Dreamy Girl’s agents will probably make a fuss, but luckily the FBI will take the heat.  Special Agent Anderson will be attached to us and she will deal with the agents.”

“Great,” Chris muttered.  “The ball-crusher herself.”

“She’ll be busting their balls while we try to dig up evidence one way or the other,” Lane said.  “We leave in thirty minutes, so grab your weapons and equipment and assemble outside the barracks.  Move.”

***

Special Agent Dana Anderson was a strikingly tall woman with short red hair, wearing a suit that had been professionally tailored to show off her assets to best advantage.  She reminded Jackson of his mother, a woman who never took any shit from anyone.  A brief glance into the files had informed him that the Special Agent had an impressive conviction rate, mainly investigating international and corporate espionage in the United States.  The link to intelligence work probably explained why the FBI had chosen her as the link between them and Team Omega.

“Rumour has it that she’s a lesbian,” Chris muttered, as Lane and Dana talked just out of earshot.  “She doesn't have any time for men—or for the whinging feminists who think that they’re owed an easy ride just because they have tits instead of dicks.  Don’t try to make a pass, or the medics will have to stitch your balls back on.”

“Alpha Team will accompany me,” Lane said, raising his voice so they could hear him.  “Beta Team will search the public areas of the stadium; Gamma Team will remain on backup duty.  If someone calls, break out the heavy weapons and come to our aid.”

“Understood, sir,” the Sergeant said.

He led Beta Team off towards the public entrance, leaving Lane and Dana to walk towards the private section.  It was on the other side of the building to the executive entrance they’d used when they’d been simple tourists, but Jackson supposed that that wasn't a surprise.  The stars had a reputation for being difficult, forcing their managers to provide every luxury item they felt they’d earned.  Some of the stories Jackson had heard suggested that managers had been forced to hire prostitutes for their stars, as well as everything else.  Dreamy Girl probably wasn't any different, even if she was a superhuman.  The Young Stars had had their own obsession with sex and illegal drugs, after all.

A single man met them at the entrance, wearing a slicked-down suit and too much oil in his hair.  He started to speak, but Dana cut in and overrode him effortlessly.

“I have authority to search this stadium and your property for Parker Lewis, who has been missing since this afternoon after entering this building,” she said, bluntly.  She held up the warrant and waved it under his nose.  “While you are at liberty to file a complaint with the FBI, you are not at liberty to prevent us from entering and searching the building.  I must warn you that any attempt to do so will result in your arrest, followed by charges of interfering with a federal investigation.  The charges will stand even if the search reveals no trace of Parker Lewis.”

The man smiled, too brightly.  “We have absolutely nothing to hide,” he said, after a moment.  “I must just ask you to keep the noise down.  Miss Reynar is currently resting after being seen by so many people.  It puts quite a strain on her body and soul.”

“I’m sure it does,” Dana said, “but I’m afraid I cannot allow such concerns to impede my search.  There is a missing child at stake here.”

“I must also inform you that we will seek recompense from the FBI for any damage to our properly caused by your searchers,” the man added, “and...”

“Thank you,” Dana said, cutting him off and walking past him into the stadium.  “I understand from the plans that this front office is empty when there isn't a game on?”

“Why...yes, that’s correct,” the man said.  “Why do you want to know?”

“I want you to call everyone in the building here, so they can wait in this room until the search is completed,” Dana said, glancing into the empty room.  Jackson couldn't see anything worth noticing apart from a pair of baseball posters someone had stuck on the bare walls.  “And everyone includes Miss Reynar.”

“My client has special permission from the SDI to remain secluded apart from when she is on the stage,” the manager blustered.  “I think...”

“That doesn't cover criminal investigation,” Dana said, coldly.  “Call them all in, or we’ll be forced to arrest everyone in the building to prevent them from impeding an investigation.”

They locked eyes for a long moment, and then the manager looked away.  “Very well,” he said.  “I’ll call them.”

Jackson had been taught that maintaining a single soldier in the front lines required at least three or four people in the rear areas, but it seemed that maintaining a celebrity required at least forty people.  Apart from the manager and a pair of bodyguards, who eyed the soldiers as if they wanted to start a fight, they were all women, ranging from a personal trainer to a woman who was described as Dreamy Girl’s close personal friend.  The look she gave some of Alpha Team suggested that she wasn't really interested in women.  Jackson followed orders, took a list of names for Dana to cross-check against the files, and kept his eyes on their faces.  Quite a few of their training simulations had involved the use of nude women as a distraction.

Dreamy Girl herself wore a garment that shrouded her entire body in a shapeless piece of cloth.  Dana made noises about forcing her to take it off, but didn't push it; Jackson couldn't tell if she was sympathetic to Dreamy Girl’s requests, grimly aware that exposing her would distract everyone, or merely unwilling to risk the lawsuits.  It wasn't as if Dreamy Girl was a penniless civilian who could be pushed around safely.  She sat in one corner of the room and completely ignored everyone else, even her so-called close, personal friend.  That worthy just kept making eyes at the soldiers.

“Chris, you and I will remain here,” Lane said.  “Dana, Ron, and Jackson will start searching the private compartment.  Keep in touch and don’t hesitate to sing out if you find anything.”

Jackson nodded and followed Ron and Dana through the doors into the private section, looking around for signs of luxury—or criminal activity.  The interior reminded him of a rather tacky hotel, although it was in better taste than the pictures he'd seen of the interior of the Young Stars hangout.  A large painting of Babe Ruth dominated the corridor, surrounded by images of lesser baseball players and a handful of rock stars.  He hadn't known that the Beatles had played in Washington until he saw pictures of them entertaining the President.

“There aren't enough of us,” Ron said.  “It will take hours to search this building properly.”

“We should have the rest of your team once they’ve finished with the public part of the stadium,” Dana said, calmly.  She didn't seem intimidated or wowed by the operators, but it was quite possible that her superiors hadn't told her everything about Team Omega.  “This search will mark down areas for later attention, if we manage to get a complete FBI team out here.”

Jackson and Ron exchanged glanced as Dana stopped in front of a large pair of doors decorated with golden stars.  “Locked,” she said.  Before Jackson could say anything, she produced a lock pick from her pocket and fiddled with the lock, which clicked open a moment later.  None of the operators could have done it any quicker.  “Let’s see what she has in her private rooms.”

The smell struck them as soon as they opened the door.  It took Jackson several moments to place it as the smell of junk food, emanating from a pile of pizza and burger wrappers on one of the large tables.  The room didn't seem to have any air conditioning at all, let alone a window allowing the occupant to look out over Washington, or into the stadium.  Jackson was used to barracks intended for hundreds of soldiers, but even he would have found the suite a little claustrophobic.  The other rooms were crammed with bags of clothes, and a single golden mirror.

Ron posed in front of it with a grin.  “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the...”

“I have it on good authority that you’re too ugly for anything other than pity sex,” Jackson said, dryly.  “Why would someone like her need a mirror?”

“Perhaps because she needs to know what she looks like,” Dana said.  She scowled at the pair of them.  “I suggest that we concentrate on searching this place and leaving the clowning until later.  We can't legally hold them for very long; it isn't as if they’re under arrest.”

“And the lawyers would have a field day,” Ron agreed.  He picked up a bra and studied it thoughtfully.  “How many bras does the woman have?”

Jackson followed his gaze.  Several bags appeared to be crammed with bras; if that was all they held, Dreamy Girl had to have over a thousand bras in the room.  It wasn't the only thing she had in vast quantities; there were panties, shirts and nightgowns in thousands of different colours and styles.  One brand name leapt out at him, a fantastically expensive designer brand that charged upwards of five hundred dollars for a mere purse.

“Men,” Dana said, with some irritation.  “Did you notice anything interesting about the shirts?”

“No,” Jackson said, slowly.

Dana picked one up and held it in front of her chest.  “It’s big,” Ron said, slowly.  “Much bigger than you need.”

“Quite,” Dana agreed.  “And the bras are huge too.  And so is the garment she was wearing when she came to wait with her staff.  Tell me...what do you think she really looks like?”

Jackson tried to envisage the woman who would need such a huge shirt.  The mental picture wasn't pretty.

“Fat,” Dana said.  She put on an expression that suggested insufferable superiority.  “And there you are, drooling over an illusion.”

She paused, looking down into the bathroom.  “And what the hell is this?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jackson had expected the bathroom to be luxurious, but he hadn't realised just how big it would be.  There was a shower, a bathtub large enough for three people and a sink, as well as a selection of towels, shampoos and designer hairsprays from a dozen different brands.  Dana ignored the luxury, moving straight to the bathtub and peering at the plug.  It was surrounded by black ashes.

“Interesting,” she said, pulling on a rubber glove and picking up a tiny sample of the ash.  “I wonder what this is...”

“Cigarette ash?” Jackson hazarded.  “The anti-smoking mafia might have convinced the owners to ban smoking within the stadium.”

“You think that would have stopped them from allowing her to smoke?”  Dana asked, dryly.  “Dreamy Girl brought them millions; they’d be happy giving her pretty much anything she wanted in exchange.  Look at all the concessions they made to her privacy.  They wouldn't do that for any random stranger off the streets.”

Jackson nodded, slowly.  “So what’s the ash?”

“I have no idea,” Dana said.  She sniffed it thoughtfully.  “Doesn't smell of fire, almost as if whatever caused the ash wasn’t a real fire...”

Her face darkened suddenly.  “Smell it,” she said, extending her fingers towards Ron.  “Doesn’t it smell familiar?”

Ron shuddered.  “Burning human flesh,” he said, darkly.  Burnt flesh wasn't uncommon on military operations—and there were superhumans who used fire as a weapon.  Several operators had left Team Omega because they were too badly burned to continue to serve.  “Someone burned a human body in the bathtub.”

“Maybe,” Dana said.  She picked up her cell phone and looked down at it.  “I’m not a forensic expert—we’ll have to call someone in to look at the ashes and do a DNA test—but the tub isn't even scorched.  The fire happened somewhere else and they tried to wash the ashes down the bathtub into the sewers.”

“Fuck,” Jackson said, grimly.  Parker Lewis had been fourteen years old, with his entire life ahead of him.  Now...if this was Parker Lewis, they were looking at his remains.  “What the hell did Dreamy Girl do to him?”

“I would hesitate to speculate,” Dana said.  She clicked her cell phone and called the FBI’s office.  “This is Anderson; I need a forensic team out here now.”

Jackson listened as she rattled out a description of what she was seeing, including snapping photographs with a modified digital camera of the crime scene.  The FBI would start analysing them even before the forensic team arrived to start dissecting the entire suite piece by piece.  Ron stepped back and nodded for Jackson to follow him back into the main room, looking over at the remains of someone’s feast.  It was possible that Dreamy Girl had ordered the food to cover the smell of burned ashes.  They hadn't smelled anything until they’d found the ash themselves.

“Damn it,” Dana said, as she finished her call.  “Should have had the team on standby, or brought them with me, but the Director was worried about the political implications.  That smarmy bastard back there shelled out a vast amount of money in a city where everything is up for sale; we start prodding too hard at Dreamy Girl, we get roped in by our superiors and crucified by the media.”

“I need to inform the Captain,” Ron said.  Jackson cursed himself.  He should have thought of that too.  “And then...do we arrest Dreamy Girl on suspicion of murder?”

“I should have convinced the FBI to give me that all-female team I wanted,” Dana said, without answering the question.  “One look at her unveiled and you’ll be too distracted to arrest anyone.”

She shook her head.  “The forensic team should be here in twenty minutes,” she added.  “Call your Captain, but don't let the suspects know that you’ve found anything.  I assume you have a procedure for that?”

Ron nodded and activated his communicator.  “Oscar-Blue-Sierra,” he said, a term meaningless to anyone outside Team Omega.  “Confirm, over.”

There was a pause as Lane sought privacy.  “Confirmed,” his voice said in their earpieces.  “Go ahead.”

“We have evidence of at least one body destroyed, perhaps by extra-normal means,” Ron said.  “Dreamy Girl may have become the number one suspect in the disappearance of Parker Lewis and the others.  Code Black; I say again, Code Black.  The forensic team is on its way to attempt to ID the dead body...”

“I’ll call in the others,” Lane said.  “Remain with Agent Anderson and don’t allow anyone to contaminate the crime scene.”

Jackson nodded to himself.  At least Dreamy Girl didn't have any abilities apart from her ability to look like the most desirable woman in the world.  Or, he reminded himself sharply, they thought she had no other superpowers.   What if she had something else, something that allowed her to break down a dead body into ash?  Jackson couldn't imagine how that power and her semi-telepathic power went together, but so little was understood about the genetic lottery that produced superhumans—and mutants.  For all they knew, the seemingly-harmless woman was deadly dangerous.

Gamma Team was armed, but it would take time for them to get into position and back up the Captain if necessary.  Besides, there was a legal issue here; Dreamy Girl was rich enough to afford the best lawyers in Washington, people who could take an inch of doubt in the prosecution’s case and widen it enough to convince a jury that she was actually innocent, or the helpless victim of circumstances.  He was still mulling it over when a team of FBI agents arrived, chased them out of the suite, and started to examine the remains.

“Got an ID,” their leader said, ten minutes later.  “I downloaded the DNA record of the boy’s father from the Pentagon database and ran it against this one.  There’s no doubt that the dead body was related to Major Lewis, almost definitely his son.”

Jackson frowned.  “Almost definitely?”

“DNA testing is a little more finicky than anyone likes to admit,” the agent said.  “Particularly when the crime scene has already been badly contaminated—and this one has.  It could be his son, or his brother...anything past that is highly unlikely.  I’ll need to get a copy of the mother’s DNA to confirm that it was her son who died here.”

“But we have enough to proceed,” Dana said.  “We know that Parker Lewis died here, right in Dreamy Girl’s bedroom.  I think it's time we arrested them, read them their rights and carted them off to holding cells.  The SDI will probably want Dreamy Girl, but we can start by taking her statement—if she has anything to say.”

She stood up.  “I need to speak to Captain Lane and then deal with her,” she added.  “Make sure you file copies of everything offsite.  We don’t want to lose our prey now we’ve caught her.”

Jackson and Ron followed her back through the corridors to where Lane was waiting, along with the Sergeant and two armed and armoured men from the backup team.  It was an uncomfortable reminder that they were only wearing light body armour so that they didn't look too military.  The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team used military-grade gear, he reminded himself, promising to bring it up during the AAR.  They shouldn't have had to use weaker body armour when they could have posed as HRT operatives.

“I’ll make the arrest,” Dana said, once she’d briefly outlined what they’d discovered.  “If it hits the fan, you need to put her down as hard as possible.”

“I think we may need to try to get people out of the room first,” Lane reminded her, dryly.  “We don’t want civilians in the area if we can afford it.”

“They’re all under arrest,” Dana said, flushing slightly.  She wouldn't be used to superhuman violence, even if she did have a good arrest record.  “Can you handle that?”

“Just tell them that we need to speak to them separately,” Lane suggested.  Behind Dana, Ron winked at Jackson, who fought to keep a straight expression.  “And then we can move in on Dreamy Girl herself.”

Jackson could envisage hundreds of things that could go wrong—he’d worked through dozens of simulations where hostages and innocent bystanders died because someone made a rookie mistake—but surprisingly most of Dreamy Girl’s support staff agreed to be interviewed without a fight.  They walked out of the room, where the FBI formally arrested them and read their rights, before handcuffing them and marching them outside to a prisoner transport.  At least they’d be out of the firing line if something went badly wrong.  In the end, only the bodyguards and the manager remained with her.  They’d refused to leave.

He followed Dana into the room, one hand on his pistol and the other on his baton.  “Miss Reynar, I must inform you that you are under arrest on suspicion of multiple murder,” Dana said, kneeling down in front of the shrouded Dreamy Girl.  “You have...”

“This is outrageous,” the manager interrupted.  “You cannot arrest my client...”

“You are also under arrest,” Dana said, interrupting him in turn.  “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law.  You have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “Do you understand these rights I have just read to you?”

Dreamy Girl said nothing.  “I have to ask,” Dana said, sharply.  “Do you understand...?”

A hand shot out of Dreamy Girl’s cloak and latched onto Dana’s hand.  She started to struggle and then started to scream.  Jackson lunged forward, unsure of what was happening, until he saw Dana’s arm growing old and wrinkled.  Her bright red hair was turning grey so quickly that he could see it.  Desperately, he pulled out his baton and brought it down on Dreamy Girl’s hand.  There was a crack as her wrist broke and Dana staggered backwards, hitting the floor with a sickening thud.

Dreamy Girl seemed to look up...and then slammed a punch right into Jackson’s chest.  The impact threw him backwards, dropping his baton as he stumbled and fell on his ass.  Hadn't he just broken her wrist?  Why wasn’t she screaming in pain?

Dreamy Girl moved to her feet with stunning speed, her cloak falling away to reveal her face.  It seemed to be shimmering, as if Jackson had been too badly stunned to see the illusion properly. One of the FBI agents stumbled forward, but Dreamy Girl caught his arm, her fingers touching his bare skin; a moment later, his entire body disintegrated into dust and ashes.  The stench of burning human flesh filled the air.

“Take her,” Lane ordered.  “Now!”

Gamma Team moved in, surrounding Dreamy Girl and hammering away at her with their batons.  She lashed out twice, nearly beheading Lane with a single clawed hand, before finally falling to the ground.  Gamma Team hit her several more times just to be sure, before pulling back in horror.  Jackson stumbled to his feet and joined them, staring at the stunned girl.

The girl he'd seen on the stage—the illusionary girl—had been everything he'd ever wanted.  But the girl in front of him now was chillingly different; she was so huge that she was almost misshapen.  His sister had complained about being fat.  Dreamy Girl was so large that Jackson couldn't see how she had walked on her own two feet.  She had to be at least six hundred pounds.  In some ways, her misshapen body reminded him of the Sergeant’s body, but he’d been the result of Dr. Death’s meddling with superhuman genetics.  Dreamy Girl was almost certainly a mutant.

“Medic,” Ron bellowed, calling their attention back to Dana.  He was hovering over her, trying to find a pulse.  “Get a medic over here, now!”

Jackson stared as two of the FBI’s medics ran in to tend their special agent.  Dana looked as if she had aged fifty years overnight, whimpering slightly as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened to her.  There had been no long slow passage into old age, but the sudden theft of years she should have enjoyed before growing old.  What the hell had Dreamy Girl done?

A sudden sob broke the air as the manager seemed to snap out of his shock.  Lane nodded to Gamma Team; they picked him up and cuffed him, before marching him out of the room to the FBI’s vans.  The SDI would probably want Dreamy Girl—according to the medics, she would probably recover completely—but the manager would go to the FBI.  God alone knew what would happen to him.  Whatever else he’d done, he’d certainly helped conceal Dreamy Girl’s crimes.

“The FBI can handle it from here,” Lane said, softly.  There was something in his voice that bothered Jackson, a grim awareness that they’d fucked up.  But there had been no clue about Dreamy Girl’s real abilities.  “Sergeant, take the team back to barracks.  We’ll hold the AAR tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant said.  Lane would probably have to stay long enough to explain what had happened to the FBI.  Someone else would probably have to explain to the owners of the stadium that Dreamy Girl wouldn't be giving any more concerts—and they might be liable for the death of Parker Lewis...and for whatever had happened to Agent Anderson.  “Come on, lads.  Move it.”

***

It was a more pensive team that met in the briefing compartment for the AAR the following day.  “The FBI say that Agent Anderson seems to be stuck as an elderly woman,” Lane said, without preamble.  “There are some superhuman healers who may be able to do something for her, but the doctors aren't particularly hopeful.  It seems likely that she won’t be able to continue her work with the FBI.”

There was a long pause.  “It might be more ammunition for the Congressmen who want to rewrite SARA,” the Sergeant offered.  “They might give us more authority to intervene earlier...”

“If Dreamy Girl hadn't been a registered superhuman, we would never have been called in,” Lane said, shortly.  “More to the point, do you want a situation where we are required to poke our noses into every registered superhuman’s business?”

He tapped the table before anyone could say a word.  “The manager confessed once he was safely away from her,” he continued.  “You can read a copy of the transcript if you like, but the short version of the story is that Rita Reynar was born with mutant characteristics that became more pronounced as she grew older.  If her powers hadn't kicked in at around the same time, I suspect that she would have been forced to go to one of the establishments for mutants who can't really fit into normal society.  Instead, she hid her true nature as best she could, only to discover that the only way to maintain her powers was to drain life energy from innocent victims.  By then, she was well past caring about a society that would have rejected her if it had seen her true face.”

“Sounds like some of the problems with Dr. Death’s early creations,” the Sergeant offered.  “Could she have been someone’s deliberate experiment?”

“The SDI is looking into that, but so far they haven’t found anything that would suggest that her appearance was anything more than random chance,” Lane said.  “In her career, she apparently discovered that young boys from good backgrounds—no drinking, no drugs—produced the greatest amounts of life energy, so she became a vampire.  Davy Wheat was apparently picked up by mistake, hence the decision to risk snatching another boy from San Francisco.  Hiding the remains was no problem as once all of the life energy was gone, the body crumbled into dust and ashes.”

“A freaking vampire,” Ron said, to no one in particular.  “Makes you wonder why so many people admire them.”

Jackson raised a hand.  “What’s going to happen to her?”

“The SDI has taken her into custody and placed her in a cell that will keep her isolated until we can determine if she’s fit to stand trial,” Lane said.  “Luckily, that decision doesn't have anything to do with us.  Some of this will leak out now that her second concert has been cancelled and the media will start howling their outrage.   The FBI will get all the credit, of course.”

There were some chuckles at that from the team.  “At best, she was a Level 2 superhuman when boosted with life energy, but bagging her could have gone a great deal worse,” Lane added.  “Once we've had some downtime, we’re going to have to add someone like her to the training scenarios.  Every time we relax, something bad happens and the shit hits the fan.”

He shrugged.  “Get some rest,” he ordered.  “You’re on leave for the next two days, so enjoy yourself—and remember, anyone who isn't fit for duty on Thursday will be cleaning the toilets across the entire base.  The budget’s too thin to afford proper cleaners.”

“If we were allowed to hire them,” Ron said.  Jackson joined in the chuckles.  The base was secure; no one was allowed to enter without permission from the base CO, who often had to check with the specific unit concerned before granting permission.  Reporters and other bottom-feeders were not permitted onto the base under any circumstances.  “Sir, request permission to borrow a vehicle and leave the base.”

“Keep your beepers with you,” Lane said.  “Just make sure you get some rest.  Word has come down from on high that we may be deployed outside the country soon.  We need to be ready for that if it actually happens.”

Jackson nodded.  The Marines had been put on alert dozens of times while he’d been a PFC, but only a couple of alerts had led to an actual deployment.  It had been enough to frustrate every Jarhead who had to take each separate alert seriously.

“And we all did well yesterday,” Lane added.  “Dismissed!”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“And who, exactly, is this?”

Hope studied the man thoughtfully.  He looked vaguely Arabic, although that meant nothing in a melting pot like Africa.  Mixed-race children were far from unknown, even though many tribes and religions spent half their time fighting each other.  He wore no uniform, but he looked like a soldier—and he had been caught in the act of smuggling weapons into the Congo.  There was no point in pretending that he was anything other than an enemy agent.

“We caught him up north,” Mimic said.  The former SEAL sounded pleased with himself.  “We dropped off that donation of cell phones across the area and one of the people called in a tip.  He was there, distributing arms to local tribesmen when we caught him.”

Hope looked at the Redeemer.  “Scan him,” he ordered.  “Who is he, and what is he doing here?”

The Redeemer closed her eyes for a long moment as the man cowered away from her.  “He’s from Libya,” she said, finally.  “One of their secret policemen, someone who worked with one of the Congo factions in the past.  His orders were to arm the tribes we disarmed and use them to destabilise the country.  He would have succeeded if someone hadn't decided they liked us more than they liked him.”

Hope nodded.  Somehow, he wasn’t surprised.  “Was he the one who shot our people?”

“I don’t think so,” the Redeemer said.  “He’s had some training in shielding his mind from telepathic probes, but not enough to hide from me.  I don’t think he’s really anything apart from a smile, plenty of weapons and bad intentions.  And the weapons came from a multinational set of arms dealers.”

“Most of them were trash,” Mimic put in.  “All ex-Soviet gear: AK-47s, primitive RPGs, some landmines and even a handful of odd weapons I think were intended to deal with early superhumans.  At least, I can't think of any other use for them.  But Russian weapons are reliable.  He wouldn't have any difficulty teaching his students how to use them.”

Hope frowned.  “And ammunition?”

“They were going to establish a supply line from Libya,” the Redeemer said.  “Once they had built up an insurgent force, they intended to use the supply of ammunition as a way of keeping it under control.  They’ve been bitten already by terrorist groups who took their weapons and then attacked the West without bothering to follow orders from Libya.  This group was intended to remain firmly under their thumb.”

Hope shook his head.  “And the chances are that Libya isn't the only nation that’s trying to meddle in our affairs,” he said.  The American spy, the mystery sniper...the Americans claimed not to have sent him, but he wasn't sure if he believed them.  “We have to send a very clear message that this sort of interference will not be tolerated.”

He tapped his communicator as he stood up.  “All Saviours, meet me in the mansion in twenty minutes,” he ordered.  “See what else you can pull from his head, then dump him in the prison camp.  We can deal with him later, once we’ve dealt with his master.”

Mimic looked up, surprised.  “You intend to attack Libya?”

“I intend to send a very clear message,” Hope said.  “Time is running out for states that think they can murder their own people and threaten the rest of the world without interference.  And this guy could have killed some of us as well as the people we swore to defend.  I’m not going to let that pass without a response.”

***

Flying superhumans had caused a problem for air traffic controllers almost as soon as their existence was confirmed.  Superhumans were hard to track on radar, even using the most sensitive military-grade equipment, and many of them could fly faster than the average fighter jet.  So perhaps it wasn't surprising that Libya’s air defence network completely missed Hope’s arrival, at least until he reached Tripoli and hovered in the air long enough for the radar network to get a clear look at him.  It wouldn't be long before they scrambled jets and tried to force him to the ground.

Tripoli looked surprisingly prosperous for a state ruled by an evil dictator, but Hope had no difficulty hearing the suffering of the men and women in a dozen state prisons.  Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had ordered merciless repression of anyone who dared to think about a world without him, even after he’d lost his patrons in the Soviet Union.  It was easy to check out the dozen different palaces he’d built around the city, playing a shell game with assassins who would have to attack the right palace to be sure of killing their target.  Years ago, before the dawn of the superhuman era, America had launched punitive strikes against Libya that had come within a hair’s breadth of killing the dictator.  It would have been far more of a lesson to rogue dictators if they’d killed the bastard.

He heard the aircraft coming long before they made visual contact with him.  None of them were particularly advanced, and he was mildly surprised that they could still fly.  Libya wasn’t known for intensive pilot and engineer training, if only because pilots had a nasty tendency to fly north to Europe and defect.  The primitive MIGs wouldn’t have survived a dogfight with modern American or European aircraft, let alone a single superhuman.  It galled Hope that the West had chosen to ignore the suffering on their southern border, but it no longer mattered.  He would remove the Colonel and give the world a lesson in how to deal with people like him.

The MIGs flew past him and Hope waved, mockingly, before diving towards the first palace.  He crashed through it at superhuman speed, tearing through the walls as if they were made of paper and bringing down the palace in his wake.  The building remained intact just long enough for Hope to be sure that the Colonel wasn't there, collapsing into a heap of rubble just after he threw himself back into the air.  He saw a number of soldiers on the grounds staring in horror at him, only a handful having the presence of mind to lift their weapons and fire on him—not that it would do any good.  Hope ignored them and the aircraft as he flashed over to the next palace, and the next.

He found his target in the fourth palace.

Up close, there was nothing particularly spectacular about a man who held an entire country in bondage.  He was older than Hope had expected and tending to fat, disguised by carefully-tailored uniforms that hid his growing paunch.  Maybe he was vain, or perhaps it was an unusual display of sensitivity to the feelings of his subjects.  Many of them had barely enough to eat.  If the key to maintaining control was to avoid making one’s subjects feel that they had nothing to lose, Hope wondered, did he fear how they would react if they saw his expanding waistline?

An arm caught him and pulled him backwards, slamming him into a wall.  A stream of women threw themselves on him—and at least one of them was definitely a superhuman.

Hope propelled himself back, shaking off several of the mundane bodyguards, and caught sight of the superhuman coming towards him.  Now that he was ready for her, he avoided her punch and slammed a fist into her chin that threw her through the roof and out into the city.  If she could fly, she would be back within seconds, but as he shook off the remaining bodyguards there was no sign of her.  Hope shook his head and advanced on the Colonel, who started to cry, begging and pleading for his life.  Unsurprised—like all dictators, the man was a bully at heart—Hope caught the Colonel and carried him up into the air.

Below him, Tripoli was in chaos.  The remaining Saviours had arrived and started to attack every building that supported the regime.  Army barracks, secret police headquarters and jails were under attack, with the prisoners released before the prisons were brought down in rubble.  Air bases and even Libya’s tiny navy would be wrecked before the day was out, leaving the dictator’s entire enforcement machine in ruins.  Maybe the Libyans would rise up and claim their freedom, now that the forces holding them down had been removed, or maybe the regime would re-establish itself under one of the dictator’s henchmen.  Hope promised himself that he would return if the latter happened, unless the new dictator moved steadily towards democracy.  After all the frustrations of the previous weeks, it felt good to go back into action.

The Redeemer and a handful of reporters had established themselves at an old Italian base that the regime hadn’t considered worth modernising.  Its only occupants had been scorpions and spiders when the team had arrived, but the reporters had set up their cameras in a disused hanger, ready for the show.  Hope dropped the former dictator on the ground and watched as the man tried to scramble to his feet before the Redeemer reached out and touched his mind.  There were no telepaths in Libya, as far as anyone knew, and it was unlikely that a man as set in his ways as the dictator could shield his thoughts.  And who knew what else he knew about his country?

“Plenty of illegal weapons...dear me, he has been a naughty boy,” the Redeemer said.  “I’m broadcasting the coordinates to Mainframe and Mimic; they can deal with the nuclear weapons production facility.  They’ve also got a small stockpile of chemical weapons in a base to the south of Tripoli, enough to massacre a few hundred thousand people.  That place needs to be shut down carefully.”

“Order Supernova to deal with it,” Hope suggested.  She could vaporise the entire plant in a near-nuclear blast of heat, enough to destroy any chemical or biological weapons that the regime might have created.  The dictator had spent years denying that he had any such weapons, but no one had believed a word he’d said.  No wonder, when he had no reason to fear that anyone would force him to surrender his weapons or face the consequences.  “Make sure that she takes a few others as backup.  She isn't ready to fight openly.”

The Redeemer nodded as she continued ploughing through the Colonel’s head.  “Plenty of other secrets, but he doesn't seem to know about the sniper,” she added.  “He’s been consulting with Russia and China about what to do about us—both of them have been encouraging him to meddle.  It could be that someone under him ordered the sniper into the Congo and never bothered to tell him.”

“I doubt that he left anyone with that much initiative alive,” Hope said, dryly.  “Did you get everything from him?”

“Yes,” the Redeemer said.  She touched her forehead.  “A very sick mind in a sickening body.  Do you know that he used to watch torture and became aroused by it?”

Hope wasn't too surprised.  It happened along the edges of the superhuman community, men and women who could do pretty much anything became bored with ordinary pastimes and turned to the more perverted forms of entertainment.  If one happened to have the power of life and death over an entire country, why not start brutalising them for your pleasure?

The thought wasn't reassuring. Hope himself had claimed power over the Congo.  What he said went...did that mean he would end up like the Colonel?

“I doubt it,” the Redeemer said, intruding on his thoughts.  Hope shot her a sharp glance; he didn't like having his mind read and he knew no one who did.  “You set out to help people and to eventually return the Congo to their governance.  This...pervert set out to take power for himself and succeeded rather neatly.  And he didn't even want to get off the tiger in the end.”

Hope nodded as he picked up the Colonel and carried him into the hanger, where television crews were waiting.  By now, the world would have heard that something had happened in Tripoli, although they probably wouldn't know what, if only because the dictator hadn't encouraged a free press.  Hope had glanced at a Libyan newspaper once; the first five pages had been nothing more than praise of the dictator, his family and his regime.  It was worse than the superhero-hating editor back in New York, who claimed that SARA wasn't tough enough and that all superhumans should be monitored closely.  His editorials against the Congo operation were a delight to read.

“This is Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the former ruler of Libya,” Hope said, once the cameras were rolling.  “He kept his own people in bondage, he created a terrifying arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, and killed or imprisoned all who dared speak out against him, and the outside world did nothing effective to remove him.  But the Colonel was not satisfied with that; he planned an assault on the Congo that would have plunged the state back into civil war and crushed the hopes of those we liberated from the warlords.

“The Colonel’s mind was scanned thoroughly.  There is no doubt of his complicity in his attack on the Congo, or in the creation of the weapons of mass destruction, or of his support for international terrorists who have killed hundreds of people over the last thirty years.  For his crimes, there can be nothing less than the ultimate penalty.  We call upon you all to witness what happens to tyrants now, what will happen to others if they don’t start working towards democracy.  Watch.”

And he crushed the Colonel’s head like a grape.

***

“Jesus Christ,” the President said.

“That’s one way of looking at it,” the General said.  “I’m afraid that Hope is very definitely out of control.”

“Tell me about it,” the Secretary of State said.  Gayle Hepburn looked tired and worn.  “I've been hearing from the Europeans; they’re going absolutely ballistic over Hope’s destruction of the Libyan regime.  No one will mourn for the dictator, but they don’t want another influx of refugees crossing the sea to Italy.  Apparently, Italy has already started deploying its navy to turn back refugees and Spain and France are expected to join them within two days.”

She shook her head.  “There’s also an emergency motion being drawn up for the UN condemning Hope’s actions, mainly by Russia and China.  It wouldn't be that much of a problem, apart from the minor detail that the various European powers are likely to join it this time.  Europe’s been paranoid ever since Warsaw; God alone knows what’s going to happen if the chaos in Libya spreads across and into Europe.”

General Kratman nodded.  “I'm afraid the reports from Libya are quite clear,” he said, grimly.  “Hope destroyed much of the regime’s enforcement arms, but he didn't even start putting anything in place to replace them.  The Congo saw a very clear presence from Hope and his superhumans right from the start; Libya is back to tribal militias and what army units escaped destruction in the operation.  I think we’re looking at an outright civil war within the next few days.”

“So I’m told,” the President said, softly.  “What the hell is he thinking?”

“He’s thinking that Libya organised an attack on the Congo, on the uneasy peace he created where warlords once killed thousands of innocent people for fun,” Chester said, quietly.  The last report from Matt Tracker had come in just after Hope and his allies departed for Libya.  By then, the news had already started to hit Washington.  “We only have his word for it, but under the circumstances it hardly matters.  Hope just shattered another government and killed their dictator on live TV.”

“That will only add to the chaos,” the General put in.  “When a state is run by a dictator, there is always a...personality cult built up around the dictator, helping to convince his population that he’s invincible and any attempt to bring him down is doomed to inevitable failure.  The news is never uncensored, so even if there's trouble in one part of the country it doesn't necessarily spread to the rest of the state.  But now everyone with a television will have seen the Colonel’s death, right in front of their eyes.  They will know that the Colonel is dead.”

He shook his head.  “I’d be surprised if the civil war hasn't started by tomorrow,” he concluded.  “All it proves is that we need to be ready to deal with Hope as soon as possible.”

Chester nodded.  Not everyone in the room was cleared to know that an assassination attempt was already underway, but by now the President would probably be having second thoughts.  What if they were wrong about the Saviours fragmenting without Hope?  And how would the rest of the superhuman community react if the United States was blamed for Hope's death?

“With your permission, I will put the SDI on full alert,” the General said.  “I suggest that we also start calling up the reserves and preparing for outright war.  We have to make it clear to the world that we will not stand for this.”

“It isn't fair,” Gayle commented.  “How can we reasonably complain about the regimes he’s chosen to target?”

“We can't, but he’s replaced them with chaos,” the General said.  “Do you think that the oppressed masses of Libya, given a chance at freedom, are going to forgive and forget everything that was done to them by their former dictator?  Of course not; they’re going to want a little revenge.  And so Hope’s well-meaning action has opened the doorway to genocide on a scale fully matching the genocide in the Congo.  I think we’ll be very lucky if only a few million humans die.  And what will Hope do then?”

Chapter Thirty

“You know, this place was meant to be unreachable,” a voice said from behind him.  “How did you get up here?”

Chester refused to allow himself to panic, even though he was on top of a mountain that was incredibly difficult to climb, at least for an ordinary human being.  A superhuman like the one he’d come to see would have no problems flying onto the mountain peak and entering the small hut that had been built into the rock.

“I called in a favour from Jumper,” he said, shortly.  The view really was stunning.  “She told me that you were...”

“Friends with benefits,” Michael Lee said, wryly.  “I should never have allowed her to visit the Fireman’s Rest, but it gets lonely up here sometimes.”

Chester nodded.  “You’re looking well, for someone who has spent most of the decade sitting up here,” he said.  “Did you ever manage to write the sequel to your memoirs?”

Lee shrugged.  “I have writer’s block,” he admitted.  “It was easy talking about Slaughter and just how enraged I was when I discovered...well, you know.  But writing in more general terms?  I write a couple of pages, and then I throw them away as trash.”

He shook his head.  “You’d better come inside,” he said.  “I make a mean cup of coffee, if I say so myself.”

Chester followed him into the small hut and was surprised to see that it was reasonably comfortable, large enough for a dozen people to share without becoming too cramped.  A single small generator humming in the background provided power for a cooker and the lamps hanging from the ceiling, as well as a computer and television.  The wastepaper bin was surrounded by crumbled pieces of paper that had been thrown there with great force.

“This isn't a social call,” Chester admitted, as Lee passed him a cup of coffee.  “I’m afraid I have serious business to discuss.”

“I thought as much,” Lee said, dryly.  “You do realise that I have no intention of returning to the SDI?”

Chester nodded, slowly.  “I know,” he said.  Lee’s memoirs had made shocking reading for an American public that preferred to believe that the government was always above reproach.  As the first true superhero, the man who had saved countless lives in New York and across the globe, his word carried weight.  The CIA’s reputation certainly hadn’t survived what Lee had told the world.  “But things may be getting out of hand.”

Lee sipped his own coffee, thoughtfully.  “Hope,” he said.  It wasn't a question.  “I do hear the news from time to time.”

“He’s...convinced that he can smash his way to forcing the world to behave,” Chester said, flatly.  Lee had once been cleared for everything, but now...Chester hadn't bothered to ask permission to talk with him, knowing that it might not be granted.  “Two days ago, his force raided Libya, killed the dictator and left the country in chaos.  Right now, they’re killing each other over petty disputes or fleeing the country into a Europe that isn't proving welcoming.”

“Hope always was something of an idealist,” Lee said, after a moment.  “I only knew him for a brief while, but he kept saying that we had the power to change the world for the better and that we should use that power.  He probably got his powers too early...he that is not a socialist at twenty, as the saying goes.”

Chester nodded.  He who was not a socialist at twenty, according to someone whose name he couldn't recall, had no heart.  But if they were still a socialist at thirty, they had no brain.

“You have to understand how maddening it was, at times, not to intervene,” Lee admitted, slowly.  “I knew that there were more sins in this world than I could handle.  And yet...what would happen after I intervened?  Even when I meddled on a small scale, the results weren't always what I wanted to happen.”

Chester lifted an eyebrow.

“I killed a woman who was abusing her children,” Lee elaborated, grimly.  “The children still loved her, and they hated me.  I believe they joined Pure Humanity in the end.”

He shook his head.  “Hope has bitten off more than he can chew,” he said, flatly.  “I don’t dispute that something had to be done about the Congo, but salvaging as much as possible from the wreckage would be a very long term project.  He should have asked for help from us before launching his operation.”

“Help won’t be forthcoming,” Chester said.  “Whatever Hope had in mind when he launched his operation, he upset the balance of the world.  And then hitting Libya only convinced others that he was a threat that had to be stopped.”

Lee nodded, thoughtfully.  “Have you thought about defying the rest of the world and sending aid to the Congo anyway?”

“Congress wouldn't stand for it,” Chester said.  “Right now, lobbyists from a dozen corporations are busy convincing Congressmen that if they don’t prevent aid from being sent without certain preconditions being met, they won’t get any more campaign contributions for the 2016 elections.  And then there’s the religious nuts who think that superhumans made deals with the devil, or are devils...and then there are the people who think that it’s all part of a superhuman plot to take over the world.  Even if the President burns all of his remaining political capital, it's unlikely that Congress will accept it.”

He shook his head.  “Besides, you know how antsy the public is about taking casualties in foreign wars,” he added.  “One dead soldier, and they will start demanding that we pull out before someone else breaks a fingernail.”

“I always thought that that was just the elites,” Lee said.  “The average American would understand, if the justification for the operation was put clearly and the soldiers properly equipped for their role.”

“I think that Bill Jefferson is trying to put together a consensus in the UN that would allow some peacekeepers to be sent,” Chester said, “but that won’t move unless Hope agrees to the preconditions.  And I doubt that he will.”

“He never saw the value of compromise,” Lee agreed.  “What sort of preconditions do they have in mind?”

“Contracts were signed with the warlords for mining in the Congo,” Chester said.  Lee was shaking his head before he finished.  “They want those contracts honoured, without having to pay another round of massive bribes.”

“I can’t see Hope going for that one,” Lee said.  “He’d want to make sure that the people sitting on top of the mineral mountain received a major share in the profits—and make sure that they actually get invested effectively.  Pity he doesn't have a major vice of his own, or there’d be a lever someone could use to convince him to change his mind.”

Chester shrugged.  “Our best psychologists say that Hope is likely to lash out, time and time again,” he said.  “We may need your help.”

Lee looked at him for a long moment.  “You know as well as I do why I left the world behind,” he said.  “Even if the SDI wanted me back, I’m not sure that I would want to go back.  Besides, there’s another Fireman now.”

“You were the first real superhero,” Chester said.  “We may need someone with your stature to stand up and tell Hope to stop.”

“Right,” Lee said.  “Do you believe that Hope will listen to me?”

Chester didn't know for sure, but there weren't many other ideas.  Lee had been the second superhuman discovered, the first to spark in America.  As a former fireman in New York, he’d donned a bright costume, christened himself Fireman and set out to save as many lives as he could.  Later, he'd joined and led the first American superhuman team, one of the few teams that had truly lived up to its claims.

And then the CIA had unleashed Slaughter on Latin America, and Lee’s faith in his government had been irreparably shattered.

He’d flown south, located Slaughter, and beaten him to death in full view of the watching TV cameras.  Afterwards, he’d told the newsmen everything he knew, starting with the fact that Slaughter should have been inside a specially-designed prison for superhuman criminals.  But the CIA had offered him his freedom in exchange for working for them, an offer that Slaughter had been in no position to refuse.  He’d left a trail of murder, rape and destruction as he’d walked south, daring the locals to stop him.  In the end, Fireman had had to stop him permanently.

The CIA had been gutted in the aftermath of the debacle.  Congress, desperate to avoid any traces of the blame falling on them, had savaged the CIA.  The analysts who’d come up with the whole plan were sacked, tried, and put in prison, but it hadn't been enough to repair the CIA’s reputation.  It was a minor miracle that it hadn't been disbanded completely and replaced by something new; even so, the SDI had taken responsibility for superhuman affairs from the CIA and gone on to do a better job.  And Fireman, having resigned from the team, had vanished into the countryside and never been seen in public again.

“I think that there aren't many people who can convince his followers to listen,” Chester said, quietly.  “This is getting out of hand.”

“One of my relatives was black,” Lee said.  Chester blinked at the odd statement, but said nothing, content to wait for Lee to come to the point.  “She had family over in Sudan, family who were at risk from the chaos gripping the country.  I remember her telling us tales of a girl who had burned down her entire village when they tried to kill her for some imaginary offence.  No one believed a word of it.

“And then I fell off a building that had caught fire and discovered that I could fly,” Lee added.  He chuckled, humourlessly.  “They used to think that fire triggered superhuman abilities, somehow.  There were a dozen organisations that used flamethrowers in the hopes of triggering an inner superhero.  And hundreds of people got burned; I don’t think they created a single superhuman.”

Chester nodded.  The companies that promised to put someone in a position where they were bound to spark into superhumanity were still in existence, their methods growing ever more sophisticated as their knowledge improved.  But, outside of Dr. Death’s research program in South Africa—which killed two-thirds of its victims, not counting the superhumans who had to die to give up their organs—no one had come up with a genuine process for bestowing superhumanity.  It was a matter of luck rather than anything else, although genetics must play a part.  Marvin Lofting had had kids, and they had developed powers of their own.

Lee smiled, coldly.  “The world changed the moment people started developing superhuman abilities,” he said.  “I think we spent the last thirty years closing our eyes to that single fact, you know.  We put superhumans in teams intended to bind them to Uncle Sam—the other nations did the same with their own—in the hopes of avoiding the simple fact that controlling superhumans was easier said than done.  Are they still compromising justice to deal with rogue superhumans?”

“I’m afraid so,” Chester admitted.  Secret courts were hardly constitutional.  But if the Young Stars had wanted a public fight, it would have torn open the facade of control surrounding superhumanity.  And no one knew what would happen after that.  “You know as well as I do that there isn't any choice.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Lee said, ruefully.  “I did...

“And then they used Slaughter as a Person of Mass Destruction,” he added, a moment later.  “Can we really trust those who work in the shadows, who classify everything they do and use threats, force and bribes to hide it when it surfaces into the open?  I used to believe in my country, right or wrong, but how can I believe when my country authorises such acts and then hides them from the population?  When does protecting National Security become covering up misdeeds and outright mistakes?”

Chester shook his head.  “I don’t blame you for being bitter,” he said, finally.  “And I would understand if you refused to return to the SDI as a full-time operative.  But we need your help with the Hope situation.”

“And there’s Hope, hiding nothing,” Lee said, almost as if he hadn't heard a word.  “He kills the Colonel on live television just to make the point that he isn't hiding anything.  Even when he fucks up, it’s public.  Does that make him inherently more trustworthy than a government that hides everything from the taxpayers, the people it is supposed to be accountable to?”

Chester sighed.  “Do you think that the general public would be happier knowing everything I know?  Really?”

Lee lifted one eyebrow, inviting him to continue.

“Maybe we should start with the fact that any Level 5 superhuman who decides to be a bad boy is going to do a hell of a lot of damage before he gets stopped, if he gets stopped,” Chester said.  “Do you think that the general public would be happier knowing that?  Or that the only ways we have to stop him involve using another superhuman, which can cause earth tremors that can be picked up around the world as well as massive property damage, or a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our cities?  Maybe we should tell the public that they’re all rated as expendable if a Level 5 decides to hide among them.  I’m sure that wouldn't lead to rioting in the streets.

“Or we could point out that we don’t have a good way of checking for telepathy unless the telepath decides to cooperate,” he added.  “You remember as well as I do the hearings Congress had when telepathy was first proven to exist.  I was there when you argued that telepaths should be held to the same standards as other superhumans, even though their powers were far more...intrusive than any other superhuman ability.  There may be laws against telepathic blackmail, but actually proving that it took place isn't easy.  And a newly-sparked telepath may read every mind in the area before gaining control of his powers, if he ever does gain control of his powers.

“Or maybe we should talk about the monsters in the Pit?  There’s the madman with superhuman strength who killed nearly a hundred black folks because he was convinced that they were all suffering under the Curse of Ham.  Or the woman who could manipulate ice and killed the three wealthy men she’d married before we finally figured out how to prove that the fatal seizures they’d suffered were anything but natural.  What about the telepath who is so powerful that people are nothing more than puppets to him, and so mad that he doesn't even understand the difference between reality and his imagination?  Or the person who can seed himself into another person’s mind and take over his body?  Or the woman whose body is a living incubator for disease, diseases that don’t even have a cure?  I’m sure the general public would be happier knowing that they exist.  And for everyone we know about, there are some we don’t.  We still don’t know who was responsible for manipulating a number of bank employees into opening up a safe and handing over the cash, before vanishing into the shadows.  Would you like to tell the general public that, too...?

“And then there’s the super-soldiers the Soviet Union trained who went underground when Russia started to collapse into a pariah state.  We don’t know where half of them ended up, but it wasn't anywhere good.  Or we could tell them about the super powered fundamentalist who tore up Saudi Arabia because the House of Saud weren't fanatical enough for him.  Or we could mention the slight fact that Iraq has been serving as a clearing house for an alarming number of mutants and also controls a large chunk of the Earth’s oil reserves...”

Lee held up a hand.  “You’ve made your point,” he said.  “Although I do think that there’s a difference between not telling people important facts and lying to cover up your own failings.”

Chester smiled.  “Our successes are never public because that’s how we know they’re successes,” he said, ruefully.  He glanced at his watch.  “I’d love to stay and talk about old times, but I need to know where you stand.”

Lee considered it.  “Where I stand is where I always stood: superhumans are human too, not something different from the rest of the human race.  If you want me to stand up and tell Hope that he’s going too far, I will.  I don’t think he will listen to me.”

“It has to be tried,” Chester said.  “Sooner or later, someone is going to try something against him, and then the shit will really hit the fan.”

“You mean that the government will try something,” Lee said.  He wouldn't have been fooled by Chester’s casual tone.  “I remember those games from when I wore the spandex.  Just remind the government, from me, that an idealist can cause more damage than someone willing to work for what he wants who has the patience to do it properly.”

Chester nodded, walked outside and tapped his cell phone, calling for Jumper to come pick him up.  There were several others he wanted to visit before time ran out.  By now, the assassin should be in place, ready to deal with Hope.  And if it failed...?

He’d been working for the government ever since he'd graduated from college, first as an intelligence spook and then as a caretaker for Team Omega.  And yet he’d never felt as if they were losing control before, even when dealing with Level 5 superhumans.  But Hope had changed all of the rules.

Who knew where the pieces would fall if things went badly wrong?

Chapter Thirty-One

“Are you telling us that the world will see many more such interventions?”

“Yes,” Hope said, as patiently as he could.  The attack on Tripoli and the death of one of the world’s most notorious dictators had brought a new flood of reporters into the Congo, all intent on demanding answers about what he intended to do next.  And some of the questions they asked were utterly insane.  “This is a very bad time to brutalise your own people, spread terrorism beyond your borders and generally repress everyone who disagrees with you.”

He stared down at the reporters.  “I intend to ensure that this project works and that the people of the Congo have a chance to build new lives for themselves without interference from outside,” he continued.  “I led the strike against Libya in response to discovering that Libya had been shipping money, weapons and supplies into the Congo to make life unpleasant for the local population.  The evidence we extracted from their agent’s head proved that the decision to meddle came directly from the Colonel himself.  I executed the Colonel to make it clear that such interference would not be tolerated.”

Another reporter jumped up, waving her hand in the air.  “Ah, Mr. Hope...in an interview yesterday morning, Jennifer Horton claimed that your intervention had actually prevented the distribution of aid to Africa, as well as raising the spectre of Libya also requiring such assistance,” she said.  “How would you respond to her statement?”

It took Hope several minutes to remember who Jennifer Horton actually was.  An English-born pop star with a gift for self-publicity, she had become the public face of a number of charities that did what they could to help the poor in the Third World.  Hope would have been more impressed if they’d actually seen any return consummate with the vast sums of donated money they’d poured into the continent.  As far as he could tell, they would have done better if they’d spent the money on mercenaries and used them to overthrow a few of the warlords who prevented food distribution to the needy masses.  She’d spent more time lobbying governments to do something to help than Hope himself, but she’d had far less return on her investment.  It probably didn't matter as long as she claimed her huge salary and her managers collected their kickbacks from the warlords.

“With all respect to Miss Horton,” he said, sharply, “I must note that we have achieved more in three weeks than she has achieved in ten years.  If she wishes to assist more people than she has in the past, she can help us streamline aid into the Congo and out into the other needy states.  We don’t take bribes and we don’t brutalise aid workers who refuse to supply warlords with weapons and vehicles.”

A third reporter jumped in before the last one could ask a follow-up question.  “The United Nations has formally condemned your attack on Libya as an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state,” he said.  “Do you have any response to the UN?”

Hope would have liked to have a few words with Jefferson about it, but the Secretary-General hadn’t called him since the Libya operation.  “I hardly think that an international organisation that numbers the former Libyan Government among its defenders of human rights is in any position to preach to us,” he said, coldly.  “We are here to save lives, to remove bad governments and to allow democracy to flourish.  If non-democratic governments find us threatening...they should.  We will deal with them in due course.

“Throughout history, democratic governments have been forced to make deals with the devil and work with non-democratic states.  The West worked with the Soviet Union during the Second World War, and then with a whole array of undemocratic warlords during the long struggle to contain the Soviet Union.  Such measures were demanded by the cold demands of politics; they held their nose and worked with people who allowed the West to get the blame for their harsh repression of their own constituents.  It was argued that there was no choice; if the West didn't support the dictators, the dictators would fall and their countries would turn red.  And, after the end of the Cold War, there was no willingness to pay the price for bringing down those dictators.

“But now we exist to spearhead their removal,” he concluded.  “We can invade rogue states, destroy their weapons programs that threaten the safety of the entire world and clear the way for international aid.  Dictators no longer need to be tolerated, or coddled; we can finally ensure that the entire human race sees the blessings of democracy.  And that is what we intend to do.  To those nations nervous about supporting us, fearful of blowback from the rogue regimes, I say this.  There will be no better chance to ensure safety for their people in the future.  Democracies do not go to war with democracies.  An era of peace and prosperity awaits us if we reach out our hands and take it.  There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.”

***

“Nice monologue,” the Redeemer said, thirty minutes later.  “I think you even convinced a couple of them.”

Hope scowled at her.  “Why are so many people so...parochial?”

“How many people can see the world the way you do?” the Redeemer asked, dryly.  “How many of them can fly above the mundane world and look down from a great height?  Like it or not, we are not all created equal.  You can afford to shrug off concerns that would tear down their entire lives.”

She smiled, leaning closer to him.  “I could change their minds for you...”

Hope hesitated.  “No,” he said, finally.  The thought of the Redeemer turning the reporters into his cheerleaders had a certain appeal, but it would be wrong.  Besides, the signs of telepathic tampering on such a scale were easy to notice, if someone thought to look for them.  “I don’t think that that will be necessary.”

“I’m starting to wonder,” the Redeemer admitted.  “While you were out there looking good for the cameras”—she winked at him—“and very good you looked, too, I was out looking for corrupt officials.  You know that some of the locals have started to believe us when we promised to remove those who demanded bribes in exchange for doing something?”

Hope nodded.  Running the Congo would have been harder without what remained of the government’s bureaucracy.  Unsurprisingly, most of the paper-pushers had switched sides whenever it seemed convenient, offering to assist the new warlord to extract the largest amount of graft from the helpless population.  By Hope’s count, some smaller villages had owed thousands of dollars in taxes to a dozen different warlords.  Anyone who wanted to set up a business of any kind had to cross the local bureaucrat’s hand with silver, as well as paying bribes to the secret police and to anyone else with a little power.

“Guess how many I found?” the Redeemer asked.  She kept speaking before Hope could answer.  “I scanned over fifty people who were named and shamed by their victims, and forty-five of the complaints were genuine.  Forty-five!  Between them, they extorted money, land and even a pair of daughters from their victims!  A couple of them even wanted to claim first dibs on a girl’s virginity in exchange for a marriage licence.”

“Jesus,” Hope said.  How could anyone run a country where local enterprise, even local life, was stifled by bureaucracy?  No wonder the foreign aid workers hadn't managed to get much done; some of their money would have vanished into the bureaucracy’s pockets, while they’d be directed towards the people who paid the biggest bribes, instead of people who genuinely needed help.  “How deep does it go?”

The Redeemer snorted.  “One of the people named was the chief of a committee in one of the disputed zones,” she said.  “Between them, four warlords had uprooted everyone from their homes and installed their favourites, only to see their favourites driven out in turn when the tide turned and they were pushed back by their enemies.  Right now, every single house in the area has at least four different people claiming ownership, all of whom are linked to tribes who will be very unhappy if they don’t get their papers.  The committee is meant to settle the issue once and for all, but they take bribes from everyone—and he who has the biggest bribe wins the case.

“So I sent the entire senior leadership to the camps, but the ones left behind were just salivating at the mouth, thinking of all the bribe money that could go to them instead.  God knows that there isn't any solution that will satisfy anyone, yet those bastards aren't going to make it any easier.  I could just reach inside their minds and they would behave...”

Hope shook his head.  “We can't start doing that,” he said.

The Redeemer ignored him.  “All over the world, governments are making decisions that are good for the government, not good for the people,” she said.  “We could do a much better job, Hope.  I could walk into a government building and force them to confess to all their crimes, or make the bureaucracy actually function properly, rather than slowing things up at every opportunity.  Even the best-run countries in the world have huge imbalances between rich and poor.  We could change that forever.

“Think about it,” she insisted.  “There are troops that could help us stabilise the Congo, Libya and a dozen other nations that really need saving from their own leaders.  Those troops would have to obey us if we took over and started issuing orders, rather than having to kowtow to governments to convince them to unlock the purse strings.  What about engineers, or builders, or doctors, people who could make a real difference.  We could have them sent here to actually do some good.  And we could bring in people who didn't have any local ties to disqualify them from actually settling disputes between tribal factions here...”

“Nice monologue,” Hope said, dryly.  “Don’t you think we have enough problems with just the Congo?”

“But if we had the rest of the world, we could use those resources to solve the problems here,” the Redeemer said.  “Think about it.”

“I will,” Hope promised.  He stood up.  “And for once, I need a rest.”

“Take a shower too,” the Redeemer advised.  “The stench of those reporters is clinging to you.”

Hope was still laughing when he entered his room.  He carefully removed his costume before climbing into the shower.  Fixing the city’s water supplies had been one of their first priorities, if only because the aid volunteers would insist upon proper sanitation facilities—and it was good for public health, too.  Before the Saviours arrived, the sewers had been wrecked and great piles of garbage had piled up all over the city.  Between the workers, who had cleaned and repaired the sewers, and the involuntary labourers who used to be part of the warlord’s army, they had actually made a start on improving the city.  There was a long way to go before it matched a First World city, but it was on the mend.

Water washed down over his chest and he sighed, relaxing as best as he could.  His superhuman body didn't seem to suffer from aches and pains, unlike a mundane body, but he could be mentally tired even if he could physically go on forever.  Back when he’d been with the SDI, some of the doctors who’d poked and prodded at the superhumans had wondered if they still needed sleep because their minds still thought of themselves as merely human, yet Hope found that hard to believe.  A mundane human couldn't have planned and executed an operation intended to take over and rebuild an entire continent.

Something...moved at the corner of his eye.  Hope spun around, moving so fast that his arm clipped the side of the sink and sent it crashing to the floor, but saw nothing.  A cold tingle ran down the back of his spine as he gathered himself and stepped back into the bedroom, searching for...something.  And yet there was nothing there.  His eyes weren't as sharp—or as wide-ranging—as those of some other superhumans, but...something was wrong.  He closed his eyes, concentrating on his hearing.  An invisible person would still need to breathe, or move if they wanted to get close to him...

He felt something reach out towards his head.  Hope lashed out, only to see a ghostly illusion standing next to him.  A girl, her wide eyes staring at his naked body...her hand intersected with his arm, and Hope screamed in pain.  He hadn't felt pain since he’d fought one of the other Level 5 superhumans during an SDI exercise, but now his arm felt as if it had been broken.  His entire body seemed to be shuddering in pain, even when the girl moved back.  Just for a moment, Hope was convinced that he was seeing things; he seemed to be able to look right through the girl.  His eyes flared with heat, setting the room alight, but passed harmlessly through her ghostly body.  She reached for him again and he managed to stumble back, trying to walk or fly...but his mind refusing to work properly.

What was happening to him?

He screamed again as her fingers brushed his chest.  It felt as if his heart was about to explode and tear his body apart.

He lashed out with all his strength, and his hand connected with...something. The girl toppled backwards.  He still couldn't see her face.

He pulled himself to his feet.  Sweat ran down his skin, and he felt a sheer terror of a kind he hadn't felt since he'd realised that he was superhuman, that bullets and bombs would merely bounce off his body.  The girl seemed stunned; he reached for her, only to have his hands pass harmlessly through her leg as if she were a ghost.  Or immaterial.  One of her arms was crooked, knocked out of shape by his blow.  She was lucky that he hadn't torn it right off.

She turned as the door crashed open, revealing Mainframe and the Redeemer.  The girl started to dive down through the floor, only to stop dead and float between floors.  A moment later, she drifted back up again, her eyes glazed in a fashion that Hope recognised.  The Redeemer had taken control of her mind before she could escape.  He watched, shaking in pain, as the girl stopped in the air and returned to solid form.

“I’ve switched off her conscious mind,” the Redeemer said, harshly.  “She had an unusual defence; I think that if her arm hadn't been damaged I wouldn't have been able to get a grip on her thoughts.  Take her down to the cells while I deal with Hope.”

Mainframe nodded, leaving them alone in Hope’s room.  Hope stared down at his chest, where the pain told him that his invulnerable skin should have been torn open and his blood leaking down to the floor.  He’d been in training when a superhuman had been torn open by another superhuman and died, in spite of all the doctors could do for him, because it was impossible to stitch up steel-hard skin.  It was funny how a strength could suddenly become a weakness.  And yet his arm wasn't broken, and his skin wasn't torn.

And if she had managed to do that to my head, he thought, numbly, I would have died.

“She shifted in and out of phase,” the Redeemer said.  One hand touched Hope’s cheek, very lightly.  “I keep a mental eye on you, but I didn't have the slightest idea that she was there until I sensed your pain.  No wonder she slipped right through my telepathic net; her mind was always out of tune with my gentle probes.  And as long as she remained out of phase, she was effectively invisible.”

“Better than invisible,” Hope said.  “She didn't even move the air until she returned to solid form...what happened to me?”

The Redeemer hesitated.  “Two things can’t exist in the same place simultaneously,” she said, thoughtfully.  “My guess is that her touching you created a psychic shock that crippled you, at least for a few minutes.  If she had rammed her hands through your brain it would probably have stopped working.”

Hope pulled himself to his feet.  He’d never felt so weak, not even in the half-remembered days before he’d become a superhuman.  Summoning the concentration for flight, even a couple of inches above the ground, seemed almost impossible.  The thought of losing his powers made him panic, a moment before his head bumped against the ceiling.  He might have to relearn everything right from the start.

“Take it easy for the next couple of days,” the Redeemer advised.

Hope laughed, rather sardonically.

“I’m afraid there’s more bad news,” she said.

“Tell me,” Hope said, sharply.

“Her mind was unusual, but once I got control I managed to pull information out of it,” the Redeemer explained.  “Some of it was nonsense—I think her nature scrambles her mind a little—but there was enough left for me to discover who she is and who sent her.  She’s a covert operative from the SDI.”

Hope stared at her.  He’d only ever been part of the overt team, the one that made all the public appearances; the covert team had been kept under deep security.  It was quite possible that he’d never met someone from the covert team in his entire career, at least until now.

“And I’m afraid she received part of her mission brief from the same person who briefed Sparky,” the Redeemer added.  She smiled bitterly as Hope felt growing horror.  “He told her that it came specifically from the President.  This wasn't a rogue mission, Hope.  She wanted to kill you for the United States of America.  That was an act of war.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“You know,” Jackson said, “I don’t think this person is doing anything.”

Ron shrugged.  They’d been assigned to make a random check on an unregistered superhuman living in Maryland, something that Jackson suspected to be of questionable legality.  According to the files, Jennifer Ennis had saved a man’s life in a fire five years ago and had marked herself down for government attention ever since.  As far as he could tell, she was just a random housewife who worked as a piano teacher to pay the bills.  The only exciting thing they’d seen had been a sixteen-year-old girl storming out of her house, followed by her embarrassed mother.  Apparently, the mother really wanted the daughter to learn to play the piano and the daughter had other ideas.

“It looks that way,” Ron agreed.  Jackson had been promised downtime, but Team Omega didn't have any real downtime, apart from a handful of days leave between operations.  “But we’re not just doing this because we want to spy on people.”

Jackson lifted an eyebrow.  It was easy to understand why superhumans such as the Young Stars or the vigilantes               in New York had to be monitored, policed and—if necessary—terminated, but it was harder to follow why they needed to spend time spying on an innocent woman.  Nothing in the file suggested that she had a habit of donning a skin-tight uniform when darkness fell and setting out to purge the neighbourhood of evil.  As far as he could tell, her husband and children didn't even know that she was superhuman.

“Inside her body, there are superhuman organs,” Ron said, very quietly.  “Someone like Dr. Death could come along and kidnap her, then cut out her organs to implant in someone else—and that person might not be as benevolent as the Sergeant.  All such experimentation is banned, but what does that matter when nations are seeking an advantage over other nations?”

He shrugged.  “So we maintain a regular watch on unregistered superhumans for their own safety,” he added.  “You may feel that we’re doing the wrong thing, but there isn't much choice.  Do you remember the days when the first superhumans started to appear?”

“I wasn't even born then,” Jackson growled.  At twenty-six, he was very much the youngest member of Team One.  He’d grown up in a world where superhumans were real, an accepted part of the landscape, rather than characters in comic books and movies.  But, unlike so many others, he’d never really entertained a dream of donning a cape and setting out to fight crime or serve his country in the SDI.  “And you know that perfectly well.”

“They were talking about putting superhumans in camps, or setting aside private towns for them—and mutants,” Ron said.  “Humanity doesn’t respond well when it discovers something new to separate one group of people from another.  I remember a Senator making a statement about requiring all superhumans to be sterilised—apparently, he believed that superhumans represented a whole new species and that they had to be prevented from breeding for the safety of the human race.  Those who thought that superhumans were just the next step on the evolutionary chain opposed it because they believed that more and more superhumans would appear, to the point where we would effectively slaughter the entire human race.”

Jackson nodded, slowly.  America had been lucky, in many ways; other states had had real problems controlling their superhumans.  Some had brainwashed or purged every superhuman they encountered; others had collapsed into civil wars that were often spearheaded by rogue superhumans.  It was a minor miracle that there had only been one Dr. Death, although Team Omega’s files suggested that that was far from certain.  There were plenty of unanswered questions about what the Russians or the Chinese had done in their sealed science cities, away from prying eyes.

“So we do what we can to deal with the ones who pose a real threat and leave those who don’t pose a threat to live normal lives, if that is what they want,” Ron concluded.  “It isn't a perfect solution, but there’s no such thing outside comic books and the imagination.”  He shrugged.  “Don’t you find the debate important, Corporal?”

Jackson snorted.  After he’d completed three missions, Lane had surprised him by announcing an immediate promotion to Corporal.  Jackson, who had given up all hopes of promotion while he’d been in the Marine Corps, had stammered out an acceptance while the rest of Team One laughed, although he’d quickly discovered that rank didn't mean as much to the teams as it did to the more hierarchical Marine Corps.  But it did mean additional pay and benefits, something that would be important when he retired or returned to the Marines.  If he ever did...he knew that several operatives had served until they died in the line of duty and, in truth, he didn't want to go back to the Corps.  Team Omega satisfied his need for action, for doing something, even if there was the risk of crippling injury, or death.  The thought made him smile, ruefully.  No one who wanted a safe life joined the Marine Corps.

“I think I’ll have to wait until I get promoted to General before I can have a say in the debate,” he said.  He didn't really know which way to jump.  Superhumans were dangerous, particularly the ones who operated outside the law or had no real training before they moved into public view.  But just because some superhumans were dangerous was no excuse for treating all superhumans as potential enemies.  “Don’t you have an opinion...?”

Their communicators buzzed before Ron could answer.  “The girls are dancing hot tonight,” they said, and fell silent.

Ron blanched.  “Come on,” he snapped, turning and leading the way back towards where they’d parked the van.  “Hurry!”

Jackson didn't argue.  Team Omega used a series of apparently-meaningless code words and phrases to pass instructions to operatives in the field without arousing enemy suspicion, assuming that the enemy could pick up on American transmissions.  Any mention of girls dancing, he’d been told, meant that they had to drop everything and return to base at once, whatever the situation.  From what the Sergeant had said while he’d been briefing Jackson on the codes, they weren't even used in drills.  Using one of the codes meant that there was a real emergency.

“Put the light on the roof,” Ron ordered, as he climbed into the van and started the engine.  A quick tap of a switch altered the licence plates, turning the van into a federal vehicle, complete with siren and permission to disregard the laws of the road.  “Get inside—see what you can pull off the net.”

Jackson nodded as he scrambled into the van and closed the door.  Ron gunned the engine and drove off before Jackson even had a chance to sit down properly; once he was settled, he removed the secure laptop from the hidden compartment and opened it up.  Team Omega had top-priority access to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, but he’d used it enough to know that certain events weren't often uploaded onto the network until the political leadership and senior Generals had a chance to look at it first.  Team Omega was unusual in that it shared intelligence with its entire complement of officers and operatives; the remainder of the military and intelligence community preferred to keep intelligence to itself.  Even the Slaughter Affair and the CIA’s massive failures in Latin America hadn't changed the system.

“There’s a full alert underway,” he said, grimly.  There were few facts, as yet, but all military personnel had been ordered to report to their bases.  Judging by some of the notes flickering through the network, civilian air traffic was being ordered to ground itself as quickly as possible, while the civilian police forces were being advised to call up their own personnel.  It looked as if someone was expecting a war.  “This can’t be happening.”

“Wait till we get to the base,” Ron advised.  The civilian vehicles outside the van didn't seem to have any idea that a crisis was underway.  Once the public realised what was going on, there would be panic as hundreds of thousands of people tried to flee the cities.  But what the hell was going on?  “The Captain will brief us there.”

***

“Our assassin miscarried,” General Kratman said, flatly.

Chester winced.  He'd known that the operation was chancy—Level 5 superhumans were deadly dangerous, almost immune to conventional weapons—but he’d had more faith in the SDI than that.  Failure meant that Hope had a good reason to be pissed off at the entire United States, not just the SDI.  In hindsight, ordering the operation had been a dreadful mistake; he had no doubt that politicians were already planning their stories to convince the world that it had just been another rogue operation conducted by the intelligence community.  After the Slaughter Affair, such a defence would be plausible, at least.  He just doubted that Hope would accept the explanation.

“What happened?”

“Matt wasn't sure,” the General admitted.  “Even though he’s stealthy as hell, he doesn't have any personal cloaking abilities and if he'd gone too close to Hope’s headquarters the bastard might have heard his heartbeat or breathing or something like that.  All he could say was that Hope had been hurt, but managed to survive—and the assassin was captured.  I think we must prepare for the worst.”

“Dear God,” Chester said.  “Didn't you prepare her for mental interrogation?”

“We prepared her to deal with any normal telepath,” the General said.  “The problem is that all mental defences are somewhat...unreliable.  Given enough time and force, they break—and we have to assume that the Redeemer will have broken through the defences by now.  They’ll know that the assassin was one of the covert operatives, and who gave her the orders to attempt to assassinate Hope.”

Chester winced.  At the very least, the United States was about to have a severe public relations problem.  Large parts of the population saw Hope as a hero, as the man who had finally decided to do something about hopeless states that needed help before they could stand up on their own two feet.  Never mind the fact that sufficient pressure from those parts of the population could have convinced the government to intervene openly, sending troops into the Congo to quell the warlords and put an end to the fighting; they saw Hope as the man who had cut through the maze of corrupt UN representatives and charities that took donated money and did nothing to actually help the poor...right now, his standing was higher than the President’s.  The polls had made it clear that Hope was regarded as an honest man, the superhero who would always be brave, noble and true...while the government was regarded with suspicion.  It didn't help that a number of Senators, pushed by lobbyists working for mining companies, had blocked any governmental assistance from America to the liberated Congo.

And you will be a target too, a small voice whispered at the back of his head.

“Damn,” he said, quietly.

Chester knew better—but then, he had access to files that the average person didn't even suspect existed.  Superhumans were very human at heart; they had the same problems as any normal human, only on a grander scale.  Chester had known that Hope had believed that he could bend the world to his will; no, that he should show the way and the rest of the world would willingly follow.  But in choosing to cut through the Gordian knot, Hope had overlooked the complexity of the issues he proposed to challenge—and how his actions would be seen by the rest of the world.  Hope would have been far more than human if he hadn't become increasingly frustrated and angry at the lack of any real help, or immediate success.  Patience wasn't a trait in a man who could fly around the entire world in under an hour.

“I convinced Continental Command to put the military on alert,” the General said, grimly.  “I think we must expect retaliation in some form.  The President will have to be moved from the White House to a secure location—if anywhere can truly be called secure in a world of superhumans.  Even without retaliation...”

Chester made a face.  The American public was either worshipful or extremely cynical about public figures.  Carter had been worshipped...and then hated after Iran had made the United States look weak and impotent.  Reagan had done a great deal to restore the prestige of the United States, only to see it come crashing down when the Slaughter Affair called his administration into question and torpedoed his Vice President’s attempt to succeed him as President.  Superhumans, on the other hand, had the backing of countless years of comic books; the true heroes were regarded as heroes, even if they had feet of clay.  Superman, Batman, Captain America and Spiderman had a great deal to answer for, Chester had often thought, because in the end they lived in idealised worlds.  The real world was a messy place.

“You’re right,” he said, grimly.  “We have to assume the worst.”

Hope had over five hundred superhumans and mutants working for him in the Congo, an unprecedented gathering of superhuman power.  Most of them weren't powerful enough to cause real trouble on their own, but the core Saviours group was definitely a real threat—and they had enough support to outnumber the SDI.  Team Omega hadn’t been designed to deal with a full-scale superhuman war, yet if the SDI lost the fight, they’d be the only ones left.  The rest of the military was even less prepared to fight so many superhumans...

They’d gambled—and they’d lost.

“You need to convince the President to speak to the nation,” Chester said, quietly.  If worst came to worst, he would have to convince the President to let him and the General fall on their swords, if it would save the rest of the country.  The President was surprisingly loyal to his closest allies and advisors, but that wasn't a virtue right now.  “I’ll come with you to the White House.”

He hesitated.  “How is the SDI handling it?”

“Most of them don’t know,” the General admitted.  “I need to go to New York, to the base.  You have to go to the President.”

Chester nodded.  “Good luck, General,” he said.  “God help us all.”

***

“All right, what’s up?”

The base was a whirlwind of activity.  Officers and men from a dozen different units were running around like headless chickens, while helicopters and aircraft were buzzing overhead, either delivering men to the base or taking them to their deployment posts.  Jackson had never seen the base so active, even during the deployment to Chicago—and it wasn't just Team Omega.  Every unit on the base seemed to be going to war.

Ron stopped outside the barracks and pressed his hand against a fingerprint sensor, angrily vouching for Jackson when the machine queried his identity.  As soon as the door unlocked, he walked inside, right into the chaos.  Jackson followed him and nearly stopped in surprise.  Team One had been on downtime, but Team Two and Team Four were scrambling out for deployment and Team Three was already gone.  He ducked as someone threw a helmet from the supply lockers to one of the operatives, packing at frantic speed.  No one seemed to know what was going on.

“Team Two will take up positions at Gamma Point,” Captain Langley was saying, as they walked into the briefing room.  Jackson didn't know Langley very well—he commanded Team Two, which rarely served beside Team One—but he was clearly very concerned about whatever was going on.  “We’ll leave in ten minutes and check in once we’re there.”

The Sergeant spied Ron and Jackson before they could announce themselves.  “Get your gear,” the Sergeant barked.  “I want you to be ready to move out in twenty!”

Jackson saluted and ran for his locker.  Thankfully, they had standing orders to have a bag packed and ready to go at all hours.  He swung the bag over his shoulder, picked up a selection of pistols and grenades, as well as some of the newer surprises from the techs who designed their weapons, and headed out to the mustering point.  The rest of Team One was rapidly gathering there.

“Hey,” someone yelled.  “There’s a broadcast on TV—you have to see it!”

Jackson followed the others into the briefing room and looked at the main screen, which had been switched to CNN.  A golden face had appeared on it, staring right into the camera and out at the watching population.  The stream of information running along the bottom of the screen confirmed that the message was going out on all news channels, while entertainment channels were suggesting to their viewers that they switched to the news immediately.

Hope—he was instantly recognisable—looked grim, but determined.  Jackson felt a shiver running down his spine before the superhuman uttered a single word.  All of their scenarios for dealing with a superhuman of such power ended with at least half the team dead.

“It was my hope,” Hope said, “that I could set an example that would lead the rest of the world to work to solve the problems gripping the Third World.  Instead, Western Governments have not only refused to help, they have actively sabotaged my operations and ensured that the suffering of the Congo—and the rest of the continent—became prolonged.  This culminated with an assassination attempt aimed at me personally by the American Superhuman Defence Initiative.  The assassin was interrogated telepathically by two telepaths working for the United Nations and they confirm that she was ordered to kill me personally.

“The American Government has failed in its duty to uphold the values of the United States.  It has allowed mining corporations to prevent any help from being dispatched from America, despite the fact that those corporations paid vast bribes to the warlords and happily raped the Congo while its inhabitants suffered.  Instead of helping to prevent such disasters from happening, the government stood by and did nothing while people suffered—it even allowed the CIA to arm some of the warlord factions in the hopes of ending up with a friendly government that would, no doubt, allow the corporations to continue to rape the Congo while people died.  The American Government did not even stand up for the Americans caught up in the fighting, or punish those responsible for their deaths.

“It is the duty of every American to hold their government to account,” he concluded.  “I therefore give notice that I intend to remove the current government and replace it with one that will better represent the people and respond to the crisis points in the world.  We do not wish to harm civilian and military personnel, but be warned.  Any resistance will be harshly crushed.”

His image vanished from the screen.  Jackson stared, unable to believe what he’d heard.  The world had just changed—and not for the better.  Everyone else seemed just as stunned.

“We’re at war,” Lane said, his voice cutting through the shock.  “Get ready to move, now!”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Have you lost your mind?”

Hope turned to face Mimic as the superhuman appeared out of the shadows, his naked skin shifting colour to blend in with his surroundings.  It was a remarkable effect, one that had helped him to assassinate a number of Libya’s higher-ranking officials during the intervention.  Even Hope’s senses couldn't see him from a distance.

“You just went and declared war on the entire United States,” Mimic snapped.  He’d never been scared of Hope, or unwilling to criticise him if he felt it was necessary.  “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”

Hope stared back at him, unable to escape the twinges of pain that kept running through his body where the ghost girl had touched him.  Pain wasn't something he was used to experiencing, not pain that seemed to defy all of the mental discipline he’d learned from the SDI.  It even seemed to be invulnerable to the painkillers he’d downed after rejecting the Redeemer’s offer of a mental block.  But then, he couldn't really get drunk—why would he assume that painkillers would work, either?

“They tried to kill me,” he said, sharply.  “And they blocked all international aid that might have helped us save the country...”

Mimic took a breath.  “And what the fuck did you expect?  Damn it—I know you can be naïve, but this is absurd!  You invade Libya, you wreck the government and the military and everything else holding the country together...and then you retreat, having caused a disaster nearly as bad as the one you stopped in the Congo!  Did you even bother to follow the reports from Libya?  There are a dozen factions fighting for control, several religious factions that want to impose strict fundamentalist law on everyone and a massive exodus of everyone who can afford it to Europe, or Algeria, or even Egypt!  And all of that is because of you!”

Hope rounded on him, angrily.  “I don’t recall you saying anything against the retaliatory raid on Libya,” he said, coldly.  “Or about invading the Congo.”

Mimic stared back at him, unblinkingly.  “I spent ten years working as a SEAL and finding myself unable to actually do anything to help the civilians caught up in war zones,” he said.  “I was forced to watch as civilians were brutalised, raped, murdered, or pressed into the service of one warlord or another, unable to lift a finger to save them!  And not because I couldn't do anything, but because my hands were tied by politicians who never saw the suffering from their comfortable offices in Washington.  I saw children die of diseases we could have cured, if they’d let us intervene; I saw husbands beating their wives we could have killed, but no—we weren't allowed to intervene.  I joined you because you promised a chance to end suffering on such a scale.”

He paused, visibly getting a hold on himself.

“You couldn't have made the Congo much worse, no matter what you did,” he added.  “You took out the warlords, you established control and you started to work on fixing the many problems tearing the state apart.  You even took a step towards establishing civilised rules of life when you punished those fuckers who carried out an honour killing—as if such bastards had honour to defend!  And even though governments were concerned by what you did, they weren't about to try to prevent you from saving the Congo.  Besides, they even benefited from having a better trading partner in the area.

“But then you shattered Libya, and you didn't even start trying to put the pieces back together, leaving the rest of the world to deal with your shit,” he yelled.  “Did you think that it would be just Libya’s leadership that would suffer at your hands?  Or did you think that it would only be the Libyans who wound up dealing with the chaos you left behind?  The world is a fragile fucking place, and you’re hammering on it with no regard at all for the long term effects of your actions.  Don’t be so fucking surprised when it decides to hammer back!”

Hope controlled his temper with an effort.  “What does all of that actually matter?”

He hurried to speak before the former SEAL could say anything.  “I heard so many excuses for not doing anything, ever since I was a kid,” he said.  “We can’t save them all, so why save any?  It would be too costly to intervene.  The nation we liberated from the warlords would turn on us for freeing them and rise up against us.  International opinion would consider us imperialists for liberating and occupying an oppressed country, even if we intended to leave in ten years!  It doesn't get any better at home.  We can’t provide a real safety net for the poor, those who are poor because of circumstances beyond their control, because it would be exploited!  Or we can't deal with the gangs in the inner cities because they’re partly ethnic gangs and we would be accused of racism!

“We have the power to intervene, and that gives us a moral responsibility to help those less fortunate than ourselves.  How can we look ourselves in the eye when children starve because the food has been stolen by a corrupt government?”

“That isn't the issue,” Mimic said, sharply enough to make Hope wince.  “You just declared war on the United States.”

“The American government is broken,” Hope snapped back.  “It needs to be removed so that American resources can start helping the world...”

“If the population of America wants the government removed, they can remove it through elections,” Mimic said, keeping his voice level with an effort.  “You’re talking about launching an act of war against the most powerful country in the world.  The system isn’t broken—but it will break when you strike.  And then America will follow Libya into chaos.”

He took a breath.  “You have every right to be angry at what they tried to do to you,” he said, in a more conciliatory tone.  “You could complain, reasonably, and demand restitution.  You’d probably get the President burning all the political capital he has to get the aid bill through Congress just to ensure that the truth behind this matter doesn't come out.  Or you could take it public and manipulate public opinion so you get what you want.  Remember what happened to Bush after the Slaughter Affair?  Do you think that President MacDougal will last any longer?

“And you don’t have a right to complain, or to act directly against the government, because you renounced your American citizenship!  You cannot change your mind and claim to be an American because it puts a facade of legality on an act of war!”

Hope gritted his teeth.  “None of that bullshit changes the facts,” he said, coldly.  “Do you really think that the average American citizen has a hope in hell of changing his government’s course?”

“I believe that large numbers of American citizens can and will change their government’s course,” Mimic hissed.  “But you just decided to declare war!  Even the citizens who might have supported you, you know—the ones who contributed vast amounts of aid over the last few weeks—will have second thoughts.  They may dislike Washington, but it’s still their government.  About the only support you’ll get will come from those fans who admire and worship superheroes—and those kooks who call themselves anti-government militias.”

He lowered his voice.  “Hope, this is crazy,” he concluded.  “Any good you’ve done in the Congo, and you have done a great deal of good, will be undone by this act of madness.  The best you can hope for is that America manages to pull itself back together after the strike—you cannot hope to control such a large country long enough to actually put its resources to work.  It didn't work for the Soviet Union, and it won’t work for you.”

Hope shook his head.  “I've had enough of dealing with politicians who won’t do anything to help people who need help,” he said, coldly.  “If they won’t help of their own free will, I will force them to help.  I will give the entire world a chance to live in peace, a chance for everyone to have enough to eat and to live their lives as they choose...”

“Then you can do it without me,” Mimic said.  He pulled his communicator wristband off his wrist and dropped it in Hope’s hand.  “Goodbye.”

Hope watched him go, staring down at the wristband in his hand.  He'd believed that Mimic was committed, that they were all committed, but he’d just left.  But the Saviours weren’t one of the teams that existed only for public appearances and nothing else.  He couldn't keep someone in the team when they wanted to quit.  Slowly, he turned and walked up to the planning room.  He had a superhuman with a dangerous mission to brief.

***

Mimic had never developed any hyper-senses, nothing comparable to Hope’s enhanced ears or the Redeemer’s telepathy, but he had spent years since passing BUD/S and becoming a SEAL developing his combat senses.  It was difficult to explain—and his sparking into a superhuman didn't seem to have made it any clearer—yet he knew when something was wrong.  He sensed it the moment he walked into one of the former warlord’s halls, with bright windows overlooking the rear garden, and found himself alone.

And yet something was badly wrong.  He hesitated, reaching for the weapons he carried at his belt, while slipping over to the wall and blending in with the erotic painting one of the warlord’s men had painted for him.  Mimic could pass unnoticed in a crowded room, if necessary, but this room was empty—and the nagging sense that something was badly wrong was still howling at him.  What was he even doing in the room?

He knew the answer before she appeared at the far end of the room.  To him, the Redeemer had always seemed a fellow chameleon, her skin changing colour to blend in with her surroundings.  As a telepath, she had a trick that allowed her to effectively duplicate Mimic’s talents, simply through broadcasting orders to watching minds to ignore her.  And now she’d manipulated him into coming into an empty room.  Outrage boiled through his mind as she strode forward, breaking the thin web of control she’d woven around him.  But there was no point in blending into the surrounding walls when she could just pick up on his thoughts and localise them.

She could read his mind, but he'd always found it easier to verbalise his thoughts.  “Why?”

The Redeemer looked at him, her mind touching his lightly.  “Because it has to be done,” she said, flatly.  Mimic had wondered—and knew he wasn't alone in wondering—if The Redeemer and Hope were lovers.  Hope had been voted the world’s sexist man by a dozen different female magazines—not that he read those, of course—and The Redeemer presumably looked like Hope’s ideal woman to him.  “Someone has to deal with the growing problems in the world before they overwhelm the human race.”

Mimic felt cold, almost frozen with terror.  “You manipulated him,” he said, flatly.  He’d wondered how the assassin had gotten through the Redeemer’s telepathic nets, and then miscarried.  Anyone who could do the former had to be good enough to strike a killing blow as soon as she revealed herself.  Hell, given her powers, she should have been able to knife Hope in the back of the head before he even knew that she was there.  Had the Redeemer allowed her through, yet prevented her from completing her mission.  “Why?”

“Because it has to be done,” the Redeemer said, again.  Mimic hadn't felt terror before, not even during the infamous diving exercises that defeated half of the prospective SEAL recruits at BUD/S.  And yet he was scared now...she had to be manipulating his emotions, using them against him, but he couldn't escape the fear.  “Someone needs to save the world from itself.”

“And all the while, you play your games,” Mimic said.  He’d heard whispers of a telepath so powerful that he'd built himself a harem where the girls were nothing more than extensions of his will.  The SDI hadn’t been able to deal with him, but luckily his power didn't extend to controlling mechanical objects.  A single missile, fired from outside his range, had ended his life—and that of the girls under his control.  There had been no other choice, the SDI had said, and they’d been right.  “What do you want?  A world where everyone is your puppet?”

“Don’t be stupid,” the Redeemer said.  Her grip on his mind seemed to intensify, almost as if he were trapped in his own body.  “I want something much more important than that.”

She shook her head.  “But you won’t understand,” she added.  “You were planning to go back through the portals and warn the American government.  And I’m afraid I cannot allow that.”

You couldn't strategise against a telepath, Mimic knew.  The moment you came up with a plan, the telepath would know it.  But if one acted on instinct...he triggered a mental discipline he hadn't wanted to use since leaving the SEALs and broke free of her control, throwing a powerful punch right towards her face.  It could have killed her, but instead his fist passed through empty air.  The Redeemer was too smart to be caught by such a trick; she'd hidden under a telepathic illusion and projected a false image to absorb the weight of his anger.  She could be anywhere in the room, or within the mansion.  There was no point in looking for her.

Desperately, he threw himself at the window and crashed through it into the bright sunlight, falling nearly five metres to the ground.  Somehow, he managed to twist in the air so he landed without injuring himself, only to realise that the crowds of people nearby hadn't even noticed his appearance.  The Redeemer’s telepathic net had sunk its hooks deep into their minds, preventing them from seeing anything out of the ordinary.  A moment later, he felt her mind attempting to lock onto his thoughts.  She wouldn't settle for just holding him in her grasp this time; she’d either take complete control or shut him down completely.  And then no one would be able to warn the United States...

Silly, The Redeemer said, directly into his mind.  The contempt in her thoughts struck right into his soul.  She was mad; no, worse than mad.  The Redeemer knew exactly what she was doing.  But surely a telepath would understand that what she was doing was wrong.  Even the most basic telepath was empathic, aware of the fear and guilt that affected normal humans when they encountered a telepath.  But some telepaths gloried in the fear they caused.

The Redeemer’s thoughts hardened.  What do you think you can tell them that they don’t already know?

Mimic stumbled to his feet, only to lose control of his legs moments later and crash back to the ground.  One hand fumbled for the pistol at his belt, moving it up towards his forehead; he couldn't tell if it was his own determination to escape being turned into a puppet or if she was pushing him into committing suicide.  He tried to fight the depression overcoming him, but it was too strong, too focused.  He’d failed everyone and now he was going to become a puppet, unless he killed himself before she caught him...

The gun barrel felt reassuringly solid against his teeth as he pressed it into his mouth, and then pulled the trigger.  There was a moment of horrified despair, a moment of chilling realisation that he’d been manipulated...and then there was nothing.

***

Matt stared in disbelief as Mimic put the pistol in his mouth and blew his brains out.  No one else seemed to have noticed the shot, let alone the dying chameleon in front of them, a sure sign of telepathic interference.  A moment later, he realised that he was also the only one who could see the Redeemer as she hovered over Mimic’s corpse.  He might be shielded from her telepathy—it had been how he’d been able to get so close to the mansion—but if she turned and looked at him, he’d be seen for sure.

Luck was with him.  She never turned around.  Instead, the Redeemer waited until a couple of men with body bags arrived to take Mimic’s remains to the mass graves outside the city, and then floated back through the window, into the mansion.  Matt wanted to slip up to the men and take the body from them, but the Redeemer had obviously meddled with their minds and any interference might draw her attention.  Shaking his head, he replayed what he had seen and sensed in the moment since Mimic had plummeted out of a window and hit the ground.  He wasn't the personality type to consider suicide—anyone who had completed BUD/S wasn't inclined to give up and die—and that suggested the Redeemer had murdered him, even though his hand had been the murder weapon.  There had been a telepath, a decade ago, who had been driven mad by sensing the moment when a person died and turned into a serial killer.  Had The Redeemer joined him in madness?

Shaking his head, Matt slipped away from the mansion and back to the hotel.  The United States had to be warned of this new danger.  Hope was bad enough, but if the Redeemer was mad...God alone knew what would happen.  Telepathic madness tended to be contagious, the telepath accidentally infecting other nearby minds with memes that created madness or death.  It was one of the many reasons why telepaths were so strictly controlled...

And if Hope really did intend to invade the United States, a mad telepath would be a formidable weapon.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“I really don’t like this, sir.”

General Kratman nodded, unsurprised, as America paced his office.  Part of the reason he'd kept his job through three administrations and a dozen incidents that would have terminated anyone else’s career was because he never let anything bother him.  Other officials would have found the presence of so many superhumans intimidating, but the General had seen death and terror in the secret wars that had followed Vietnam and no longer allowed fear to influence his life.  Besides, he’d given plenty of orders to men who could have killed him, particularly as he’d grown older.  It had been a long time since he'd led men on a mission.

America was the public face of the SDI, a superhuman wearing an all-covering spandex costume made from an American flag.  What wasn't known to the general public was that there had been no less than five different superhumans playing the role of America, including two who had died in the line of duty.  The precise details of the SDI’s organisation were kept highly classified, not least because the General knew that the SDI was badly outnumbered by the rest of the superhuman population.  It wouldn't do to allow untrained superhumans to think that they could beat the team that, if worst came to worst, served as a final sanction on their behaviour.

The public lapped up whatever information was fed to them through tame reporters with gusto, but most of it was nonsense intended to hide the truth and convince them that the SDI could be trusted to do its duty.  In reality, the General feared that the system of taking the most powerful superhumans they could find and offering them whatever they wanted to serve as part of the SDI was badly flawed.  Some superhumans had issues that made them ill-suited to work in a military organisation, no matter how powerful they were.  A handful wound up in the covert team, fighting the underground battles to keep the United States safe; others were watched and, if necessary, eliminated.  The General would have preferred to work with boosted SOF operatives who had passed psych tests intended to weed out those who couldn't be trusted with enough power to bring down a city, but no one had come up with a safe procedure for granting superpowers.

“I can't say that I’m very comfortable with it either,” the General said, finally.  America had objected, politely but firmly, to the plan to assassinate Hope.  America knew, of course, that Hope’s plan had weaknesses even before he left Libya in chaos, but someone attempting to assassinate a Level 5 superhuman had to worry him.  It didn’t help that no one had been warned about it before the assassin had made her attempt—and failed.  “But do we have any other choice?”

There was no question of putting anyone but the most intensely committed superhumans in the America costume.  The current America had been a lucky find, a man who sparked midway through Boot Camp and turned into a Level 5 superhuman.  He had some military training before entering the SDI’s training facilities, self-discipline that most superhumans couldn't hope to match and a level of patriotism that meant he could be trusted with delicate missions.  But he was also something of an idealist; the General had quietly vetoed him having any access to the covert team because he wouldn't understand what they did in the name of their country.  And that decision might have come back to haunt him.

“I think that they have taken on far more than they can handle,” America said, finally.  The superhumans in the SDI had intensely debated Hope’s actions since he’d invaded the Congo and crushed the warlords.  None of them felt any pity for the warlords, but they were in the best place to know that superhuman abilities had limitations—and that Hope was operating without any of the restrictions they knew and accepted.  “But I'm not sure that that justifies trying to kill him.”

“We cannot allow them to run riot over the world, operating according to their notion of right or wrong,” the General said, finally.  “What else could we have done?  Sent the SDI in to battle them in the middle of Kinshasa?”

America snorted at the comment.  Superhuman conflicts were never quiet.  A brawl between the SDI and the Saviours in the midst of a city, even one already shattered by civil war, would have been disastrous.  The collateral damage would have been enough to make anyone blanch.  And the SDI would have been badly outnumbered.  They might have won—they were used to working as a team, something that most superhumans were not—but they would have left a ruined city behind them.  America’s reputation would have plummeted; it might have been kinder to launch a massive nuclear strike against the city.

“I know what you mean,” he said, finally.  “I just feel...dirty.”

The General nodded in understanding.  “The real world is a messy fucking place,” he said, standing up and looking out the window at the New York skyline.  New York was the world’s superhuman capital, by any definition of the term, and so the SDI had had to base itself just outside the city.  “The comics make it look so simple.”

They shared an ironic chuckle.  Comic books had been declining ever since real superhumans had appeared, although some of the older characters still had their legions of devoted fans.  There was even a theory that said that some of the fans had believed in superhumans—and heroes—so intensely that they’d brought them into existence.  The General knew that Level X superhumans had weird powers, ones that defied normal understanding, but he rather doubted that there was any truth to that theory.  Besides, what came first; the Level X superhuman or a world that hosted them?

No one would have thought that the SDI’s base was actually a military base; the previous Director of Operations had outfitted the tower with luxury carpeting and large bedrooms for each of the superhumans, and the General had never had the heart to replace them with something more Spartan.  Besides, his predecessor had been the victim when political leaders had managed to duck the blame for a problem they had helped to cause, his career sacrificed to the mob.  He followed America down to the lounge—the briefing room, as he called it—and nodded to the other members of the overt team.  If Hope did carry out his threat, they would be in the forefront of America’s defence.

There was a flash of light, and a girl materialised in the lounge.  The General reached for his weapon as the other superhumans jumped to their feet, unused to having their capital invaded by anyone, particularly reporters.  He stared as the girl suddenly started to glow, realising in horror just who she was and what she was doing, but it was too late.  America picked him up and shoved him into the gravity chute, a moment before the girl exploded into blinding light...

***

“Jesus!”

The United States Global Observation Command was a relatively new creation, the child of political leaders demanding that something be done to monitor superhuman activity and the technological push created by superhumans helping to establish space stations and orbital facilities around the Earth.  Most of the previous monitoring stations and their systems had been folded into USGOC, which had assumed responsibility for watching for nuclear tests, superhumans sparking into life, and foreign activity in orbit.  The men watching from the Cheyenne Mountain facility were trained to track superhumans who emitted tiny bursts of radiation.  As it was, the flash from New York was so powerful that it burned out a number of the sensors watching from high overhead.

“Report,” the supervisor demanded.  Most of the time spent in the fortress was boring, even if it was the cornerstone of the United States defence network.  But when the sensors picked up a nuclear detonation, boredom was replaced by sheer terror.  “What happened?”

“Micro-nuclear detonation in New York City,” the operator said.  The blinded satellites were already useless, but there were contingency plans to direct other satellites to take their place.  Besides, they also had access to the live take from less sensitive satellites that had survived the blast.  “Sir...it’s right over the SDI building.”

The supervisor didn't hesitate.  Picking up the phone, he called the Pentagon.  “This is a FLASH message,” he said.  “I say again, this is a FLASH message.  We have a confirmed nuclear detonation in New York.”

“It seems to have been a very odd blast,” the operator commented.  By now, the alert would be racing through the system, warning everyone who might have to deal with the residue left by a nuclear blast.  “Very tiny—I’m not sure that it damaged anywhere outside the SDI facility.”

The supervisor winced.  “Anyone who saw it will still be blind,” he said.  “And what the hell does it mean?”

***

Chester had been briefing the President when the alerts sounded and the Secret Service agents rushed into the Oval Office.  The President was quickly grabbed, taken down a shaft that led under the White House and into a bunker intended to protect the President from anything up to and including a nuclear detonation right above the White House.  Secondary agents took care of Chester, leading him to a secondary shaft as the White House staff was hastily evacuated to the bunkers.  God alone knew what was happening outside—no one else seemed to know—but Chester would have bet his salary that it had something to do with Hope.  The superhuman wasn't known for standing on his hands after issuing a threat.

The protective agents finally let go of him once they reached the bunker, where a group of armed Marines checked their credentials before allowing them into the innermost core, the secure room that protected the President.  It was supposed to be capable of standing up to any superhuman, but no one had actually been willing to sanction the expense in testing the whole system with a real superhuman.  Chester saw the President at the far end of the room, surrounded by a pair of military aides responsible for communicating with the Pentagon and NORAD, and walked towards him.  There was an ominous red light pulsing over New York.

“I have word from the ground,” one of the aides was saying.  “The blast was definitely confined to the SDI building, which appears to have been largely destroyed.  New York medics are rushing to the scene now, but the National Guardsmen with radiation counters have been delayed because of panic in the streets.”

The President looked to have aged fifty years overnight.  “The SDI,” he said, as the horrific meaning sank in.  “Are they...are they alive?”

“Unknown,” the aide said.  “But the blast was nuclear in force, if not in scope; we have to assume the worst.  Everyone in the building might be dead.”

Chester felt sick, even though he'd lived with the realities of a superhuman world for longer than he cared to contemplate.  The SDI had been America’s first line of defence against a superhuman threat, be it the Protectorate of Iraq or the Latin American alliance that was effectively aimed at the United States.  They’d always assumed that the Russians and the Chinese had been building up their own superhuman forces as well.  But if the overt team—and most of the covert team—were dead, America’s defences had already been crippled.

“New report,” one of the aides snapped.  “Hostile superhumans have appeared near the building!  They’re ordering the police back and threatening deadly force if they refuse to comply.”

“I thought that New York was meant to be the City of the Superhero,” the President said, grimly.  “Can't the Mayor rustle up a posse to deal with the intruders?”

“I think it may take some time to get organised,” Chester said.  He’d warned about the dangers of allowing so many superhumans to live openly in New York, but no one had listened.  No, they’d listened; they’d just ignored him.  “And I don’t know how much time we have left.  We need to get the President out of here.”

***

The General slowly came back to himself, feeling a dull pain throughout his entire body.  His first attempt to move proved that his legs had been broken in the fall, just after the detonation had cut power to the emergency chute.  The planners did a good job, after all, he thought numbly, but it hadn't been enough to save the SDI.  He’d just have to hope that someone managed to rescue him before he bled to death.

His ears were still ringing, but he heard the sound as someone—or something—started to move the pile of rubble that had landed on top of the chute’s cage.  He started to reach for the gun he always wore on his belt, only to discover that his fingers weren't working properly.  Blood leaked from his wrist, suggesting that he’d broken that, too—or perhaps his arm.  He gritted his teeth, trying to remember the mental disciplines he’d had hammered into his head during SOF training, but no amount of discipline could overcome what had happened to his arm.  There was a final rattle from outside and bright sunlight stabbed into the cage, almost blinding him.  He closed his eyes as someone jumped down beside him and then opened them, coming face to face with one of Triple A’s bodies.  The German-born super-soldier would have been able to overcome him even if he hadn't been badly wounded.

“Tell her we got him,” Triple A said.  His other two bodies appeared—his main power was splitting himself into three people, who thought and acted as one—and started to pick up the General, despite his injuries.  “The General himself, right here.”

The General cursed as a second person appeared beside him, someone who looked perfect, too good to be true.  His tongue started to feel for the suicide pill, but it was already too late.

***

“We need to leave the base,” the Sergeant said.  “Captain, we’re sitting ducks here.”

Jackson heard them as he checked and rechecked his weapons.  Team One had been supposed to be on the helicopters thirty minutes ago, but the aircraft hadn't shown up.  Part of the national command network appeared to have been taken down, while the TV kept screaming hysterical reports of nuclear war and fighting right across the nation.  None of the reports seemed to make any sense.  Some claimed that Washington had been destroyed, others that they’d heard directly from the President, who had apparently stayed in the White House.  Jackson had no problem understanding that the media would often broadcast rumour as fact, but it was clear that something had gone badly wrong.

“I don’t disagree,” Lane said.  There was a moment when he looked down at the blank laptop, and then stood up.  “Grab your weapons; we’ll move out of the base to...”

An explosion cut off his words, followed by a thunderclap that seemed to strike the entire base.  Team One was on their feet instantly, holding their weapons at the ready, but they had no idea what was going on.  The siren started to howl outside, warning that the base was under attack!  Jackson had never heard the siren sounded for real inside the United States.

“Ron, Jackson, escort Lane to the final room,” the Sergeant ordered.  Jackson blinked in surprise, but started to obey.  “Everyone else, follow them and...”

The building shook as someone crashed right through the door, landing in front of the soldiers and coming towards them.  None of them hesitated; they opened fire and blew the mutant apart with their weapons.  But others would be on the way, Jackson knew, and from the sounds outside it was unlikely that there would be any help from the rest of the base.  Another mutant appeared at the broken door, snarling at them with a disconcertingly human face.  A close-quarter grenade exploded under the creature, and it was blown into bloody chunks.  And then a third superhuman appeared.  Bullets just bounced off this one...

“Go,” the Sergeant ordered.  “Now!”

“There's no point in trying to run,” the superhuman said.  He sounded almost...bored.  “I can take you all, and...”

“Go,” the Sergeant repeated.  He lunged forward, lifting his oversized fist.  Absurdly, the superhuman didn't even bother to duck; he practically invited the Sergeant to hit his chin with his fist.  An ordinary human might not have been able to hurt him, but the Sergeant had been enhanced...his fist slammed into the superhuman's jaw and smashed him right out of the barracks.  “Go, I said!”

Jackson caught hold of Lane and dragged him down the corridor as the superhuman flashed back, only to be caught and held by the Sergeant.  The files on enhanced humans had made alarming reading; very few were any match for a genuine superhuman.  He cursed himself for running as the Sergeant held off their enemy, trading blows with a person who could kill them all without breaking a sweat.  How long could he hold out...?

The final room sprang open, revealing a device he'd only been briefed on after being promoted.  If superhumans could teleport, a number of scientists had wondered, surely the trick could be duplicated.  They’d come up with an experimental model that worked—mostly—but was considered too risky to use in anything other than the direst emergency.  The Sergeant had evidently decided that this counted.  Jackson slapped his hand down on the activation panel as they stumbled onto the pad and braced themselves...

He cursed as the door smashed open, the sergeant’s body flying through and crashing to the ground. Jackson watched in horror.  His chest and fists had been superhuman, but his legs had been those of an ordinary man.  The superhuman advanced towards them, blood trickling from his nose.  He wanted revenge...

...The teleporter activated and whisked them away, just in time.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“An enhanced human,” Hope said.  The first reports had come back, reporting success.  “I thought there were treaties against producing enhanced humans.”

“I doubt that this one was an American creation,” Mainframe reported.  “Judging from the peculiar mix of racial traits, I’d say that he came from South Africa rather than the United States.  I don’t think any of Dr. Death’s creatures could be blamed for what he made them.”

Hope shrugged.  The South African Diaspora had scattered the former apartheid regime’s enforcers everywhere, so there was no reason why one of them couldn't go to America and join the United States military.  He would probably have been a child at the time, ensuring that there was no blood on his hands—at least until he’d joined Team Omega.  Hope wasn’t unduly surprised to discover that there was a team designed to kill superhumans—he would have done the same in their place—but it was disquieting to realise just how much success they’d had over the years.

But they were broken and scattered, and the American military establishment was about to go down hard.  What trouble could they cause in the future?

Dismissing the thought, he turned to look at his forces as they gathered in the park.  Thirty-seven superhumans, all Level 3 or higher, were ready to invade Washington.  The advance teams had crippled the forces the United States could direct against them, successfully destroying much of the SDI and the mysterious Team Omega; now it was time to end it before the Americans regrouped and started launching nuclear weapons at the Congo.

“Let’s go,” he said, quietly.  “Open the gate.”

Gateway nodded. A shimmering portal appeared in front of Hope.  He led the way through the light and into Washington, appearing in front of the White House itself.  Smaller teams would target the Pentagon, Congress and the Senate, and the handful of military installations around the city, paying particular attention to Langley and Fort Meade.  He had hoped, without any real expectation that he would be lucky, that the Americans would have decided to surrender without fighting any further, but a hail of fire from Marines stationed around the White House convinced him otherwise.  He gritted his teeth as he flew up into the air, seeing a pair of attack helicopters moving in on an intercept vector; how many lives was the American government prepared to throw away, merely to maintain themselves in power?

A Hellfire missile slammed into him and sent him tumbling towards the ground before he managed to recover control and throw himself at the nearest helicopter, smashing right through the metal and leaving the wreckage falling to the ground behind him.  The second helicopter danced back, firing at him and the advancing superhumans.  Hope attempted to ram it, but it cut power and dropped like a stone instead.  He felt a moment of admiration for the pilot before catching the spinning blades and pulling them away from the helicopter.  The main body of the craft plummeted towards the ground and crashed into the White House lawn.

Poor bastards, Hope thought coldly.  But they chose the wrong side.

Fighting spread throughout the core of Washington as the Marines fought savagely against the incoming superhumans, joined by policemen and a core of what looked like security guards from corporate headquarters.  Hope ordered the superhumans to concentrate on the fighters alone, warning them to avoid the fleeing civilians as best as possible.  He would have preferred to round up everyone who worked in the Pentagon and the other buildings and hold them, at least until he knew who he’d captured, but the last thing he wanted was for civilians to be caught in the crossfire and killed.  It wasn't as if the defenders could stop him.

Shaking his head, he turned towards the White House and rocketed towards the main door.  A handful of Marines had turned it into a small fortress, using machine guns and rockets to hold off the other superhumans. But that wouldn't work against him; Hope smashed right through the barricade at superhuman speed.  One of the Marines tackled him directly, something that shocked him until he realised that the Marine intended to detonate all of his grenades right on top of him.  The golden spandex he wore was torn by the blast, but it couldn't penetrate his skin.  He watched as the remains of the Marine fell to the ground and shook his head, sadly.  First the pilot, and now this.

The American government didn't deserve such men working for them.

He tapped his communicator as the fighting grew louder.  “Mainframe?”

“I’m into the secure communications network,” Mainframe reported.  His computer skills were second to none—and besides, they’d pulled some of the codes they needed out of General Kratman’s head.  “I can shut down most of the systems now, but I don’t know if that’s all of them.  The President might still be able to launch a nuclear strike.”

“Shut them down,” Hope ordered.  “And then take over the Emergency Broadcast System and issue our warning.”

The American Government hadn't issued any warning to the civilians, although Hope doubted that that was actual malice.  They simply hadn't had time between the first attacks and the invasion of Washington, DC itself.  But someone would have to warn the civilians of the dangers facing them...

“Understood,” Mainframe said.  “I’m afraid that I cannot locate the President, either.”

“Not to worry,” Hope said, as he started to walk through the White House.  It had been seven years since he’d entered the building, when President Cheney had given him a medal for saving lives in Florida after a hurricane, but he forgot nothing.  Inside, the building was almost completely deserted, apart from a handful of people he heard cowering inside the West Wing.  He doubted they included the President, so he ignored them and kept walking towards the Oval Office.  “I’m sure we’ll find him soon.”

***

“Mr. President, we need to move!”

The reports from the surface were terrifying.  A handful of Marines were still holding out, but it didn't look as though they’d be able to stop Hope from tearing his way into the White House or anywhere else.  The Pentagon had already fallen, while Congress’s guards reported that they were stuck inside the building, unable to evacuate the Congressmen who had remained in Washington to debate recent events.

Chester took a gun from one of the Secret Servicemen and helped the President to his feet, pulling him towards an access tunnel that led even deeper underground.  The President seemed stunned, unable to believe what was happening; his companion, the USAF Major carrying the Nuclear Football briefcase, was staring around wildly, his hands clutching the football as though it was a newborn baby.  Chester had considered advising the President to launch a nuclear strike, but where could they have targeted and been certain of taking out Hope himself?  Washington itself, with the American citizens all around it?

“We’ve lost the direct links to NORAD,” one of the computer operators shouted.  “The system is being shut down from the inside.  Even emergency channels are going down.”

“Damn him,” Chester muttered.  One of the Saviours had an unwholesome link with technology, giving him the ability to insert his mind into computer links.  He wouldn't have any trouble shutting them down once he managed to get inside, using his uncanny insight into how computers operated to bypass passwords and other security precautions.  “Seal this level, then prepare to purge these computers.”

The access tunnel led down to one of Washington’s best-kept secrets, the underground link to a classified military installation outside Washington, DC.  A small car awaited the President and his staff, ready to whisk him away down the tunnel and away from the disaster gripping the capital.  One of the Secret Servicemen ran over to the controls, tapping commands into a system that had never been used for its intended purpose—until now.  The hatch at the end of the room hissed open, revealing a darkened tunnel as the President and his escorts climbed into the car, ready to flee the city.  Chester felt a shudder running through the ground and shivered, wondering just what Hope was doing above them.  Someone as powerful as Hope wouldn't have any difficulty in finding the secret tunnels, assuming he knew to look for them.  And Hope had been trained by the SDI.

“Security checks out,” the driver said.  The vehicle hummed to life, just as another shudder ran through the complex.  “I’ve sent a ping ahead of us to warn them to prepare to evacuate the President as soon as we arrive.”

Chester nodded.  Hope would presumably find the tunnel and follow it, which would lead him directly to the military base.  Sadly, the planners hadn't anticipated an armed invasion of Washington when they’d drawn up the emergency procedures.  But once they were there, they could get the President into a small aeroplane or a ground vehicle and get him away from the scene.  What they’d do then was an open question, but at least the President would be safe.

The vehicle jerked and sprang to life, heading towards the tunnel.  Chester moved his lips in silent prayer as the darkness swallowed them, the hatch swinging shut behind the car.

Maybe, just maybe, they would make it in time.

***

The Oval Office was almost exactly as Hope remembered it, apart from the mound of papers scattered on the floor, suggesting that its occupant had left in a hurry.  Hope looked around, reluctant to damage the room any more than necessary, looking for the secret panel he knew had to be somewhere in the room.  No competent protection service—and the Secret Service was among the best in the world—would have wanted the President to have an office that didn't include a secret way out; all he had to do was find it.  One part of the wall seemed less ornate than the rest, suggesting that someone had wanted to keep it clear.  Hope reached out, tore at the plaster and metal that made up the wall, and saw the shaft leading down into the underground complex.  Smiling, he dropped down and landed in front of a solid metal door.

Bracing himself, he hit it with all his strength.  Astonishingly, the hatch only moved a few inches, despite the force of his blow.  Someone had designed a very good system, he told himself as he hit it again and again, eventually knocking it down to reveal an underground control centre.  But it hadn’t been good enough.

A handful of soldiers fired on him the moment he emerged, their bullets bouncing off his chest and ricocheting around the room.  Hope ignored them as he looked for the President, but there was no sign of him.  He’d come into this room, and then...

...Gone down the next shaft, he realised, as he walked towards the hatch.  The soldiers and the operators they were supposed to defend ran out of ammunition, but Hope ignored them as he wrenched open the second hatch and dropped into the lower levels of the complex.  It wasn't as if they could do anything to stop him without communications, now that Mainframe had taken down most of the communications network.  The rest of the Saviours would round them up soon enough.

The next room confused him, at first, until he spotted the hatch at the far wall.   Someone had effectively set up an underground station under the White House and hidden a vehicle for the President to use to make his escape.  He tapped the controls thoughtfully, only to discover that someone had wiped the programming routines from the system, probably to impede pursuit.  Hope shrugged, walked over to the hatch, and started to press it carefully, before throwing caution to the winds and hammering on the metal until it broke.  Inside, the tunnel was dark and cold, but in the distance he could hear a vehicle humming with life.  They couldn't hide from a superhuman in the darkness.

Hope flew down the tunnel, catching up with the President’s car effortlessly.  One of the Secret Service agents turned, saw him and opened fire with a pistol, hitting Hope eight times out of nine.  The bullets simply bounced off his invulnerable skin and he lunged forward, ready to grab the President...

...And the Secret Serviceman hit him hard enough to send him crashing back down the tunnel.  Momentarily stunned, Hope got up and saw the agent standing between him and the President’s car, ready to fight to hold him off.  A superhuman, he realised numbly, hidden in plain sight right next to the President as the final line of defence.  He cursed himself for not anticipating the other superhuman’s presence, and then hurled himself at the agent.  If he’d been Level 5, he would probably have been in the SDI rather than being assigned to the President.  Hope hit him with enough force to shake a mountain and saw the agent stagger backwards, before striking back himself with superhuman strength.  Not a flyer then, part of Hope’s mind noted; probably nothing more than strength and near-invulnerable skin.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, as he caught the agent’s hands and held them.  For a moment, they were evenly matched, pushing at each other with terrifying force.  “The President is a war criminal, and...”

The agent ignored him, yanking one hand free and slamming his fist into Hope’s nose.  It hurt more than Hope had expected, suggesting that this agent had had some measure of military training, unusual in superhumans outside the SDI.  But then, he had been assigned to protect the President, and had probably gone through the SDI’s training course before completing the Secret Service’s own course.  Or maybe it had been the other way around.  A person could spark into superhumanity at any time.

Hope felt his eyes ignite with fire as he focused on the agent’s face.  The fire wouldn't harm him directly, but it would burn up the oxygen in the air, making it harder for him to breathe.  Hope slammed into the agent as he staggered, gasping for breath, hitting him again and again until he was beaten into submission.  He wasn't dead, but he was out of the picture for the moment.  One of the others could pick him up as soon as Hope had caught the President and his companions.  Hurling himself down the corridor, he soon caught up with the President’s car.

***

Chester lifted the pistol as Hope came into view, hoping that the hidden superhuman would have torn a gash in Hope’s invulnerable skin.  But there was nothing, no sign of any wound apart from a slight discolouring around his nose.  Chester hesitated—and then Hope yanked the pistol right out of his hand, crushed it and caught hold of the car.  There was a terrifying screech as it came to a halt.  A moment later, Hope picked up the driver with one hand and effortlessly tossed him out of the vehicle.

“Mr. President,” Hope said.  His voice was rich and warm, but there was an edge in it that Chester didn't like.  Superhumans walked closer to madness than ordinary humans and Hope was clearly frayed, if not mad already.  How would he react when he discovered that his grand plan had gone completely off the rails?  “You are under arrest.”

He looked at Chester.  “And I know you from Sparky’s memories,” he added.  “You’re under arrest, too.”

Before Chester could say anything, Hope picked up the entire car and carried it back down towards the White House.  A pair of superhumans greeted their leader as he emerged from the tunnel; Hope directed them to secure the people he’d left behind as he helped the President out of the car and pushed him towards the shaft.  Chester could still hear a handful of shots in the distance, but it certainly seemed that Hope had taken the White House and all of central Washington.  But taking the nation’s capital wouldn't subdue the United States.  There were Americans who would raise a glass in Hope’s honour if he destroyed Washington, seeing it as the source of all the trouble that blighted the United States, before going back to the war.  And there were plenty of superhumans who wouldn't go along with Hope...

And my wife will be caught in the middle, he thought, numbly. But all he could do was pray she survived.

The White House hadn't been designed as a prison, but the superhumans had taken over the Ballroom and converted it into a temporary holding pen.  Two mutants searched Chester roughly, removing everything from his cell phone to the pencil and notebook he always carried in his pocket, before forcing him into the ballroom to wait with the other captives.  Most of them were White House staff, although there were a couple of wounded Marines and one of the President’s military aides.  They had been given basic medical treatment, but they needed to go to a hospital.  Somehow, he doubted that the superhumans would provide transport until Washington was firmly under control.

He’d had nightmares about a superhuman coup once he’d been given political control of Team Omega.  One reason he’d fought so hard for the team’s independence—and its wide remit—was fear of what would happen if superhumans ever banded together into a single force...but that hadn’t been necessary, had it?  Hope had taken the White House with only a tiny percentage of the world’s superhuman population...and Chester was helpless to do anything, even contact Team Omega.  Even if he could...it would only risk betraying them to the enemy.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to be patient.  There would be an opportunity to escape sooner or later - he hoped - and then he could make contact with others who might join the fight.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The briefing on the teleporter had warned that using it was a disconcerting experience.  It hadn't said that it would leave anyone who used it throwing up everything they’d eaten as soon as they arrived, or that they would spend what felt like hours suspended between reality and unreality.

Jackson staggered the moment the field released him and threw up, dry-heaving as soon as he emptied his stomach.  All of the others did much the same thing, leaving the team practically helpless if a superhuman arrived and caught them before they recovered.

He pulled himself upright, clutched his chest, and looked around.  They had materialised in a basement illuminated only by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, a basement containing nothing but weapons.  There were crates of ammunition, grenades and even antitank rockets, enough to fight a small war.  Behind them, he saw a handful of specialised weapons designed for Team Omega.  There was even a pair of whispers for their operations.

Lane staggered towards a wooden ladder heading up to a hatch and climbed up, one hand holding his pistol as the other pushed the hatch open.  Bright sunlight streamed from the windows, but no one opposed him as he climbed out of the basement.  Jackson followed him, feeling slightly shaky as he struggled up the ladder, and out into a lounge.  It looked like an average house, as far as he could tell; there were no signs that it belonged to anyone other than a stockbroker or insurance salesman.  The list of books along the far wall suggested someone more interested in historical fiction than military life.

“These windows are tinted,” Lane said.  He sounded weak—and badly shocked.  His Sergeant had died winning them time to escape.  The relationship between a Captain and Sergeant had to be good for the team to prosper—and they’d served together for nearly seven years.  Losing him had to hurt badly.  “Come on up; it should be fine.”

Jackson followed him into the kitchen and saw that someone had stocked it with enough food to feed an army.  His stomach growled at him and so he picked up some cereal and milk, followed by a loaf of bread and preserved meat.  He passed it back to Ron and then started to fill the kettle with water for coffee.  The team needed to eat before they all collapsed from hunger, having emptied their stomachs down in the basement.  Besides, it didn't look as if they were in immediate danger.

“Captain,” Ron said slowly, “what is this place?”

“Some dot-com millionaire built it before his company crashed and burned in 2005,” Lane said, absently.  “A front company made him an offer for the house and lands, allowing us to turn it into a classified deployment base that is completely off the books.  The capes can dig through all the military files they like; they won’t find any trace of this place.”

He smiled, rather humourlessly.  “We then hid some equipment underground in the basement, just in case we needed to deploy quickly and we couldn't go back to the base to pick up our equipment.  The only people who ever knew about this particular base were me and the Sergeant.  Even the people in the front company didn't know what we wanted it for—they probably suspected that it was going to be turned into another CIA safe house for debriefing defectors or returning agents.”

Jackson nodded.  “Do the other teams have their own refuges in case of disaster?”

“I assume so,” Lane said.  “It's one of the details we don’t share with each other.  This base being compromised won’t betray the other bases.”

He looked over at Ron.  “There’s a computer in the next room,” he told them.  “Get online and see what you can pull from the military network.  Jackson—turn on the television in the lounge and see if you can find a reliable news channel.  We need intelligence before we do anything.”

Jackson nodded, picked up the boiling kettle, the coffee powder, and the mugs, and walked into the lounge.  There was a massive widescreen television neatly mounted on one wall, a television that had been the best available in 2005.  He clicked it on and started to surf through the channels, only to discover that few of them knew anything beyond wild rumours and innuendo.

“...Reports from Washington, DC speak of a pitched battle between soldiers and superhumans,” one reporter said.  She sounded as if she was on the verge of panic.  “The Washington police have been keeping us away from the core of Washington, but we have interviewed refugees, and they speak of fighting in the streets...”

He changed the channel.  “...The Emergency Broadcast System has issued a warning for all civilians to stay in their homes,” a male reporter said.  He sounded worried, very worried.  “Reports are coming in of fighting at a dozen military bases; our attempts to raise the Pentagon to get official word from the military have gone unanswered...

“...Bring you this footage of the downing of a military helicopter over Washington,” a third reporter announced.  Jackson watched in horror as a blurred streak, about the size of a man, struck a helicopter and blew it into flaming debris.  The streak flashed away from the wreck, heading towards the next helicopter before the video abruptly cut out.  “Abby Winters was on the scene with a video phone, and she was lucky enough to record that footage before being ordered to leave by the police.  We go now to Doug Simpson, our superhuman affairs analyst, for his take on the scene.”

Doug was an older man, with his hair turning white.  “Well, it’s obvious that the presumed missile that took out the helicopter was actually a superhuman,” he said.  “Enhancing the footage hasn't produced anything useful, but in the light of Hope’s threats against the United States, we must assume that the Saviours have attacked Washington and our major military bases.”

“Thank you,” the reporter said.  “The real question is, what do they want?”

Jackson changed the channel again.  “...Governors of a dozen states have ordered everyone in the National Guard to report for duty at once,” a female reporter said.  “With communications so badly fragmented, we have been asked to pass on the instruction to report for duty.  This also applies to policemen, firemen and FEMA employees.  If you happen to be a FEMA volunteer, you are asked to report to your nearest station at once...”

“It isn't much better on the internet,” Ron said, as Jackson turned down the volume.  “A great deal of speculation, plenty of reports of superhumans invading Washington—and little hard data.  The military network is badly fragmented.  All I could pull out of the system was the instruction to report for duty—and our base has been hopelessly compromised.”

He looked over at Lane.  “How the hell did they even know we existed?”

Lane shrugged.  “They caught someone who knew about us in New York?  Someone telepathically picked up on the information and just kept it to themselves until they needed it?  Or maybe one of the people we interacted with picked up enough information to betray us when the Saviours arrive.  One of their sympathisers might have been in the SDI covert team...”

“We have to do something,” Chris said.  “Captain, we could suit up and get to Washington...”

“Might be tricky,” Ron observed.  “According to the internet, the National Guard and the State Police are closing all the main roads.  If we went directly to Washington, we might have to use our ID cards—and that might tip off the bastards that we’re coming for them.”

“There's a small army of superhumans on the ground,” Lane said, quietly.  “And we have next to nothing in the way of proper intelligence to plan our operations.  Going to Washington now will merely get us all killed.”

“So you’ve turned into a coward,” Chris snapped.  “Goddamn it, sir; we swore oaths!”

Lane looked at him, icily.  “I have no intention of abandoning the fight,” he said, sharply, “or leaving the country in the hands of an unelected group of morons who think that superhumans have the right to rule because they have power.  But I am not going to throw away your lives for nothing.  We think, we plan, we act—we don’t run in like some brightly-coloured idiot in a gaudy costume who thinks that superpowers make him invulnerable.”

The television changed to a picture of the White House before he could continue.  “Captain,” Jackson said, quietly, “I think we ought to listen to this.”

He turned up the volume as the damage to the White House became clearer.  The building was surprisingly intact, but the front windows had been shattered by the fighting and there were bodies and debris everywhere.  Jackson felt a pang as he realised that many of the bodies were Marines, presumably from the quick reaction force at the nearby Marine Barracks.  The camera panned over a handful of faces, but he recognised none of them.  Beyond the bodies, there were a number of vehicles that had joined the fight, including a pair of modified tanks.  The superhumans had smashed them as ruthlessly as they’d smashed the Marines and Secret Service agents who had tried to block their path.

“We have been asked to broadcast a statement from the White House,” the female reporter said.  Jackson remembered bull sessions in the barracks when the Marines had speculated that Lara Croft had to be the product of computer manipulation, if only because no one could have breasts that large and walk without toppling over.  Evidently, the Marine recruits had been wrong—unless CNN was splicing her image over that of the actual reporter.  “Right now, we’re looking at a scene from hell.”

There should have been an American flag flying over the White House, but it was gone.  As the reporters advanced, more details came into view: the damage to other buildings, the hundreds of scattered bodies, and the mutants prowling around the White House lawn.

Jackson shuddered as the reporters finally entered the Press Room; he might not have voted for MacDougal, but he was the President, appointed by the will of the American people.  How dare Hope and his allies, including a number of Americans, wage war on him and his country?  Whatever the President had done, assuming that Hope’s statement was accurate, it didn't justify invading the country, or killing so many good men.  He felt a low rumble of anger as the camera focused on the podium at the front of the room.  The seal of the President had been removed from the wooden stand.

Hope appeared from one corner of the room, somehow managing to loom larger than life in his golden suit.  A handful of other superhumans appeared behind him, but they remained in the shadows, their faces hidden.  Hope took the podium and smiled at the assembled reporters.  There were people who had voted him the sexiest man in the world, with the sexiest smile of all time, but Jackson couldn't help thinking that it was a condescending expression.  Hope wasn't some minor criminal with superhuman powers or someone who was out for personal power, but someone who really believed that he knew what was best for everyone.  In some ways, Jackson would have preferred a power-mad supervillain.  He would have some restraints on his power.

“I know that many of you are frightened about what has happened in Washington today,” Hope said.  His voice was charming, but Jackson could still hear the patronising tone behind the charm.  He knew that many were frightened indeed! “You have heard rumours on the internet, each one more alarming than the last, and you have heard speculation from reporters and talking heads without any facts.  They drove each other into hysteria, and that hysteria has spread across the country.

“The American Government failed in its duty to the people, and it failed in its duty to the world,” Hope continued.  “Many of you demanded that your government send help to the Congo, where the aid might finally have been effective, but the government refused.  It refused because corporate lobbyists demanded that Congress attach unacceptable conditions to each aid shipment, and because your President didn't have the moral courage to stand up to those who would warp democracy for their own ends.  Many of you wanted the government to tread a sane course between extremes, between the left and the right, but your government failed to deliver what you wanted.  Interests, personal and private, religious and corporate, forced the government to fail to give you what you wanted.  It failed even to give you what you needed!

“We have removed the corrupt American government from power; we have arrested the President and many Congressmen and Senators.  It is our intention to put them on trial, with infallible telepathic evidence to establish their guilt or innocence, and then judge them as their cases merit.  We will clean up the government, remove corrupt officials, and ensure that such a situation can never happen again.  And then we will surrender control to a newly-elected government and return to our work in the less-fortunate parts of the world.

“I was raised to believe in an America that was a shining example to all the other nations, a great symbol of what humans could achieve if they weren't burdened by the past, if they were allowed near-complete freedom to live their personal lives as they saw fit, an example that other nations would eventually seek to emulate.  As I grew older, I realised that our government was often betraying the ideals of its founders and actually making life worse for people around the world.  Those facts were known to the population, but the government didn't care.  Who could remove them from power?”

I thought he was no longer American, Jackson thought, cynically.

“We have removed them from power,” Hope concluded.  “I ask you all to trust us and let us solve the problems that have bedevilled the country for the last fifty years.  There are those who would lash out at us because of patriotism, or because of ignorance, or because they benefited from the previous administration.  To those, I say only one thing.  Don’t.”

He walked off the stage, followed by his fellow superhumans.  The reporter started to twitter into the camera about The Meaning Of It All, just before Lane turned down the volume and stood up, standing in front of the television.  His voice, when he spoke, was grim and determined.

“The Saviours have taken control of our country,” he said, sharply.  “They may manage to force the civil administration—all the state governments and law enforcement agencies—to remain at work, or the government may simply melt away, to be replaced by chaos.  We are already seeing an exodus from the cities; I suspect that it will get a great deal worse in the very near future.  Our country has been occupied by an enemy force and all of the old certainties no longer exist.

“I won’t hide the facts from you.  The military is scattered and we have very little communication with other units, even the other elements of Team Omega.  We may be alone in this fight, unable to coordinate our activities with others who will fight for American freedom; we may have no more supplies than what we hid away in this basement for the day when we might have to operate as an underground force.  This situation could easily see us all killed without any hope of defeating our enemy.

“But I swore an oath to uphold the United States, and that oath hasn't been rescinded just because the country has been occupied.  I won’t run away; I can't.  I’m in this until we force the Saviours to leave our country and never return, or until they kill me for resisting their rule.  You all swore similar oaths, but we never really considered that the country could fall to foreign occupation and that we might wind up alone, fighting an insurgency in our own backyard.

“If any of you want to walk away,” he concluded, “this is your chance.  There’s no dishonour or disgrace in walking away, not now.  I won’t fight this war with anyone who isn't wholly committed to fighting until we win or we die while trying to remove the enemy from our country.  You have the skills to blend into the civilian population or make it to Canada or even Mexico, if you want to run further.  But if you choose to fight now, you are committed to the fight until we win or die.”

There was a long pause.

Chris broke it.  “I didn’t vote for the President,” he said, “And I’ve been in this job long enough to know that there is a gap between our ideals and what we have to do to maintain the United States.  Maybe the President is an utter scumbag and his administration are all crooks, but that doesn't give Hope the right to remove them by force.  The military didn't have to remove Nixon by force; it didn't have to prevent Reagan from pushing Bush into the White House, even after the population had rejected him.  I don’t see Hope’s actions as any different, or any less wrong.

“And besides, the Sergeant would come back and kick our asses if we let him die for nothing.”

He stood up and saluted.  “I’m in, Captain,” he said.  “Anyone else want to follow us until death?”

One by one, the rest of the team rose to their feet.

“Thank you,” Lane said, finally.  Jackson wondered if he saw a tear in the Captain’s eye.  It was probably just a trick of the light.  “We need intelligence to act, so our first priority will be gathering that intelligence—and then we will show Hope that he cannot beat the United States of America just by capturing the White House.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The British Embassy in Washington, DC had been spared the effects of Hope’s invasion, Matt was relieved to see.  There had been no logical reason for Hope to attack the embassies—it would annoy the rest of the world, as if there weren't enough reasons to worry about Hope after his attack on Libya—but Matt suspected that Hope wasn't being guided by logic and reason.  The Redeemer had pushed him into attacking Washington for reasons of her own, he’d decided, and killed someone who might have been able to talk him out of it.  None of that boded well for the Saviours.

There were several armed British soldiers outside the embassy, glancing at the plumes of smoke rising over Washington nervously as they held their weapons at the ready.  Matt couldn't recall if their presence on the streets was legal or not, but it hardly mattered under the circumstances.  The embassy might be besieged with former administration officials wanting out before Hope caught up with them.  And parts of Washington had dissolved into chaos despite the vast police presence on the streets.  God alone knew what would happen if the police decided to disband in the wake of the invasion.  Matt doubted that the city would survive outright riots suppressed by superhumans.

A trio of mutants appeared on the other side of the road and Matt watched them warily as they walked upwards towards the White House.  Hope’s decision to recruit mutants—to effectively grant them full civil rights—had paid off for him, if only because few other countries granted mutants any rights.  They couldn't pass for pureblood humans, even if they did have superpowers, and few considered them part of normal society.  Hope might have a few tens of thousands of additional recruits once his government bedded down.

He stepped up to the soldiers and produced his SDI pass.  “I need to see the MI-13 representative,” he said.  The SDI and MI-13 had worked closely together in the past and there should have been an agent in the embassy for quick communications, but who knew what would happen now that America was at war?  “If he is not available, the MI-6 representative or the Ambassador.”

The soldiers checked his ID card carefully before waving him to a security booth.  Matt endured the search before being told to wait until someone from inside the embassy came to meet him.  The five minutes he waited were among the longest of his life, until a young woman wearing a Muslim headscarf—and carrying a sword on her back, for some reason—finally greeted him and invited him into the embassy’s secure rooms.  Matt was relieved to see that Dale Knight was still MI-13’s main operative in the United States.  They’d met before during happier times.

“Matt,” he said, with evident relief.  “It’s good to see that you’re alive.”

“And you, too,” Matt said, truthfully.  “I was afraid that the Saviours might have ordered you out of the country before I got here.”

“So far, they’ve said nothing,” Knight said.  He looked up at Matt.  “What the hell are they thinking?”

“I think they think they can do whatever the hell they like,” Matt said, tiredly.  He wanted to tell Knight everything, but he’d have to report it to London and the Saviours might pick up the message.  “Have you heard anything from New York?”

Knight’s eyes opened wide.  “The SDI building was completely destroyed,” he said, grimly.  “At last report, the entire SDI overt team were wiped out—they’d apparently been on standby in case the Saviours retaliated for the assassination attempt on Hope.  I’ve heard nothing since then, even through more...covert channels.”

Matt winced.  He’d liked the General—and now the man was probably dead.  Or, if he’d fallen into the Redeemer’s hands, probably worse than dead.  “Thank you for letting me know,” he said, grimly.  “I know it’s only been an hour or so, but what’s London’s take on this whole affair?”

“Last time I heard, the European Union Security Council was meeting in emergency session,” Knight admitted.  “Ever since Warsaw, the EU has been paranoid about superhuman attack—and what they might need to do to defend the continent.  London is apparently terrified about what will happen when—if—America’s nuclear arsenal falls into Hope’s hands.  Do you know anything about that?”

“Nothing,” Matt said, shortly.  If Hope had captured the President, the Vice President would take over—assuming that everything worked as planned.  But no contingency plan had really accounted for superhuman powerhouses.  The collapse of the military network implied that the Vice President might not be able to order the missiles launched, assuming that he was prepared to fire on Washington, DC.  “Is there any chance of help from the European Union?”

“Nothing has been decided yet,” Knight said.  “After what happened to Libya, and to the United States, there is probably going to be a certain reluctance to challenge the Saviours openly.  A lot depends on just how quickly Hope secures control of the country...”

Matt smiled.  “Do you want someone like Hope in permanent control of the United States?”

“No, but we didn't want someone like that nutty Colonel in permanent control of Libya either,” Knight pointed out.  “The cost of unseating him was always judged to be too high, by you as well as us.  And the cost of unseating Hope might be even higher.”

He hesitated.  “I can pass on your words to Sir Brian,” he added.  “He might agree to provide covert assistance to an insurgency.”

Matt shrugged.  Knight didn't really believe what he was saying, which wasn't a great surprise.  Hope’s reaction to Libya’s moves against the Congo had been a massive overreaction—the same could be said for his actions in America—and no one in the rest of the world wanted him coming after them next.  But it might not matter.  It was easy to wonder if the Redeemer had her own plans to take control of the world, using Hope as her weapon.  Just how deeply had she sunk her claws into his mind?  There was no way to know.

“I need to borrow one of your covert phones,” he said.  “Apart from that, I think I’d better make my way out of Washington.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Knight agreed.  “Just be careful.  We always suspected that Fort Meade was reading our emails—and now Hope has the NSA under his control.  Watch your back.”

***

The walk out of Washington had been nightmarish.  Matt had stolen a cycle and ridden it most of the way, only to run into a police barricade on the road leading out of the city.  There were thousands of civilians near the policemen, shouting curses at the cops and demanding that they let them flee Washington before the mad superhumans came to kill them all, but the cops refused to budge.  A very nasty riot was in the making, Matt decided, as he snuck through the barricade before the police started to use water cannons and tear gas on the maddened crowd.

Once outside the barricades, it was depressingly easy to steal a car and drive towards New York.  The roads seemed to be empty, although Matt suspected that that would change very quickly if the police lines broke or they decided to just stay home.  He flipped through the radio, hoping to hear good news, but most of it consisted of chat show hosts speculating endlessly about what would happen in the future.  Some of the callers were completely insane, ranting about the End of Days, while others seemed to believe that Hope could hardly do worse than the previous government.  Matt rolled his eyes at the concept as he drove onwards, finally reaching New York.  His SDI ID managed to get him through the barricades this time, thankfully.

New York seemed to be in chaos too, with shops being emptied of vital supplies by civilians who seemed to have only the faintest idea of what was going on.  The NYPD were on the streets in force, but not enough to stop riots from breaking out in a dozen different locations and threatening to spread across the entire city.  Large queues had formed outside the banks, people waiting to withdraw their savings; the radio claimed that the Saviours had already shut down most of the banks, intending to try the bankers for crimes against the economy.  It seemed that that, thankfully, was untrue; the situation would almost certainly be a good deal worse if people were denied access to their money.

But it might not matter anyway.  If the currency plummeted in the wake of Hope’s invasion of Washington, the population might not be able to buy food and other necessities.  What would happen then?

He abandoned the car near the police lines around the SDI building, only to discover that a smaller group of Hope’s allies had taken up position and were searching the rubble for the remains of the overt team.  Matt felt cold anger flare through him and wanted to run at them, to tear them apart for what they had done, but his talents didn't lend themselves to fighting such powerful superhumans.  He did have tricks that might beat one of them, yet the others would tear him apart before he could take down a second.

Not too far away, New York’s other superhumans had gathered near Central Park.  Matt wasn't impressed with most of them, even if they did have a remarkable amount of raw power.  None of them had served in the SDI, and most had never fought another superhuman.  So far, an uneasy truce appeared to be holding; Hope’s reputation was bad enough to cow even a mob of powerful superhumans.  Matt had no idea how long that would last, or what the New Yorkers could do if they decided to fight, but they needed a leader.  They needed someone they could all respect.  And those of them who knew Matt knew him as nothing more than an investigator for the General.

The streets seemed more crowded as he walked towards Hell’s Kitchen, keeping one hand on the pistol in his pocket.  New Yorkers were shouting angrily at each other as their cars became gridlocked, law and order breaking down despite the best efforts of the NYPD.  Everyone wanted to be somewhere else, preferably away from the city and the anticipated superhuman clash.  It was almost a relief when he reached Layla’s apartment and walked up the stairs.  She wouldn't have left the city until it was falling down around her.

“Matt,” she said, as he opened the door.  “You should have called ahead.”

Matt shrugged.  “The cell phone network appears to be dying,” he said.  “Do you know anything about that?”

“Someone has pushed themselves into the network,” Layla said.  Her face seemed almost bloodless.  “Do you know that I have never met anyone with similar talents to myself?”

“No,” Matt said.  Could Layla have found someone she could greet as an equal?  “What’s happening to the network?”

Layla smiled, thinly.  “Someone has taken over the main router nodes in the country,” she said.  “The internet, the cell phone network, even the secure data network used by the military.  All communications are being routed through that person’s mind, allowing him to scan for anything that might alarm the Saviours.  This person must exist partly in informational space, just like myself.  There’s no other way it could be done.”

“I’ll pretend I understood that,” Matt said, shortly.  Layla let out a chuckle.  “Are you saying that we cannot trust the networks?”

“Not at all,” Layla said, flatly.  “Right now, someone is scrutinising every single message going through the internet.  You send a message to one of your friends, and that person will see it.”

Matt shook his head.  “That isn't possible,” he said.  “There are billions of emails sent every day...”

“You can if you happen to be a superhuman with a brain that works partly in informational space,” Layla said.  “I plug myself into these machines”—she waved a hand at the mishmash of computers around her—“and I extend my mind into the space inhabited by computers—my mind works faster in there.  I could do what he does easily.”

“So we cannot depend on the networks,” Matt said, slowly.  “I assume that the SDI database is down, or gone?”

Layla smiled, coyly.  “Well, the main database has been taken out,” she said, and waited.

Matt took the bait.  “And what about the other databases?”

“Well,” Layla said, with a droll smile, “it just so happens that I used to copy everything from the SDI database into these computers.  Everything that was in them up until the moment they were destroyed is in here.”

“Right,” Matt said.  “And did the General know about this?”

“I thought it best not to tell him,” Layla admitted.  “It would only have upset him.”

Matt started to laugh.

She cleared her throat.  “What do you want to know?”

“We need someone to serve as a leader when we take back our country,” Matt said, flatly.  “How many SDI superhumans are left alive?”

“I’m afraid that isn't clear,” Layla said.  “You’re alive, of course, but many of the others will have gone underground to wait until they can get back in touch with legitimate authority.  Besides, you don’t need a covert operative, do you?  You need a superhero.”

“Hope killed America and the others,” Matt said, sharply.  There had been more than one America, but three of them had now died in the line of duty.  “We need a real warrior...”

“We have one,” Layla said.  She swung one of the screens around for him to see.  “You may have heard of this guy.  Everyone has heard of this guy.”

Matt saw who she meant and had to smile.  “Fireman himself,” he said.  “Do you think he’ll come back to us?”

“I hope so,” Layla admitted.  It wasn't like her to doubt anything.  “I don’t think there’s anyone with his status left in the United States, certainly not from the first superhuman era.  There’s Invincible, but he’s British.  You think that the United Kingdom would agree to loan him to us for a few months?”

Matt shook his head.  “Do you have a way of contacting him without being detected by your counterpart?”

“I believe so,” Layla said.  “It's a system of innocuous code words that won’t mean anything to anyone without the key.  And they were never stored outside the SDI database, which was destroyed rather than captured.  Do you want to take the risk?”

Matt hesitated, and then nodded.  “It will take too long to reach him without it,” he agreed.  “Send the message.”

Layla tapped her computer for a few moments.  “Something else,” she said.  “Mr. Harrison left a note behind, to be opened in the event of something happening to him.  I suggest you take it and read it.”

***

Night was falling over upstate New York as Matt parked his second stolen car by an abandoned farmhouse.  According to Layla’s scan through the records, the owners had skipped town after losing their money on the stock market; the lawyers had kept the property in limbo until the new owners were identified, a task made harder by the sheer morass of transactions the former owners had created to hide their tracks.  Matt had no difficulty in hiding the car where it wouldn't be seen from the road.

He waited close to the farmhouse, and tried to relax.  He had always loved the countryside, even though it threatened to overwhelm his senses with the sheer pulse of life running through the world.  It was natural, not man-made.  He’d always intended to retire to the country after resigning from the SDI.

He sensed the gust of air left behind by a Level 5 superhuman before the man dropped out of the sky, landing next to Matt’s hiding place.  Oddly, his mouth felt dry; the man he was looking at was a legend, even in the superhuman world.  Fireman had been the first true superhero, and also the best.  But then, he hadn't sold out to the corporations and PR groups that had created nightmares like the Young Stars or the Butch Boys.

“Fireman,” he said, almost stammering.  “It’s an honour to meet you.”

“Just call me Michael,” Fireman said.  “My name is Michael Lee.  Fireman is just the tag the reporters gave me when they got over their shock at seeing a man fly.”

Up close, he was impressive, wearing a set of jeans and a shirt that was somehow more remarkable than Hope’s golden spandex.  Like Hope, he was larger than life, with an impression of muscles on his muscles, but unlike Hope he had never lost touch with the mundane world.  “The General is dead, then?”

“We assume so,” Matt said.  “And Mr. Harrison is missing, presumed dead.”

“Hope has gone insane,” Lee said, flatly.  “I assume you have a plan to take him out?”

“I’m working on it,” Matt admitted.  “Michael...I need—the country needs—someone who can serve as the public leadership of the resistance.  We need you.”

“I thought that it might come to this,” Lee said, slowly.  “I said I never wanted to return to wearing the American uniform.”

He shook his head.  “But the choice is between leaving Hope in a position to devastate the world, or fighting him.  I don’t think that we have much choice; I don't have much choice.”  His gaze sharpened.  “How much of the SDI survived?”

“As far as I know, just me and a couple of others,” Matt admitted.  He didn’t dare say too much, not with the Redeemer still in commission.  “There will probably be other survivors, but they’re underground.  And if they use the internet, the Saviours will probably be able to track them down before we can warn them.”

He hesitated.  “But there may be somewhere else we can go,” he added.  “And with you, we might be able to get the New Yorkers to join us.”

“And then see if we can take out the Saviours without destroying Washington in the crossfire,” Lee said.  He grinned, brightly.  “Let's be about it then, shall we?”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“They destroyed it?  They destroyed it all?” Hope asked, incredulously.

“I’m afraid so,” Mainframe said.  “They must have had a long-term contingency plan for something happening to the United States.  The Pit had a nuke buried underneath, and they set it off the moment they realised that there wouldn't be any help from outside.”

Hope cursed.  The Pit, the most secure prison in the world, had been designed for imprisoning superhumans too dangerous to be allowed to roam free.  Some of them deserved death and he wouldn't have hesitated to kill them if they’d crossed his path, but others were effectively political prisoners, locked up for refusing to comply with SARA.  He had intended to sort through the prisoners, execute those who deserved to die and use the remainder as an example of the positive changes he intended to bring to the United States, but now they were all dead.

“General Kratman used to say that the next war would be a superhuman war,” he said, slowly.  Back when superhumans had first appeared, no one had realised just how many there would be within twenty years.  The American Government had preserved as many supervillains as it could, just in case it needed them.  Hope would have thought that the Slaughter Incident would have taught them better, but they’d still kept the superhumans in the Pit.  Not that it mattered any longer.  “Did we lose anyone?”

“They blew it up just after we approached the base,” Mainframe said.  “No one died, but maybe we should have used Gateway to get into the prison first.”

Hope shook his head.  Gateway could create portals to places she’d been, or places she’d seen pictures of, but not to places she didn't know at all.  There were no images of the Pit’s interior available to the American population, something Hope suspected was intended to prevent them from protesting the treatment of the prisoners.  Or maybe not; some of the prisoners were superhuman serial killers, rapists, or even thieves who had been damn near unstoppable without the SDI.  The American population would probably cheer their execution.

“Never mind,” he said, finally.  It had been a setback, but not one he intended to dwell upon.  “What’s happening in the country at large?”

Mainframe hesitated.  “A great deal of civil disobedience,” he admitted.  “Whatever we may have hoped for from the United States, it may be a long time before we get it.  People aren't showing up for work, companies and corporations are not cooperating with us...and large segments of the military are still out there.  And we haven't tracked down the Vice President or the nuclear launch codes.”

Hope scowled.  “I thought you had access to their entire military network?”

“The submarines that carry nuclear missiles aren’t linked to the network,” Mainframe reminded him.  “And some of their bases are completely isolated from the military network as well.  They had enough problems with merely human hackers to understand the value of computer security before we came along—and I bet that the SDI had someone like me to prove just how vulnerable the system actually was.”  He snorted.  “Plenty of civilians don’t realise it, Hope.  They’re still sending messages stating their outrage in the clear.”

He shook his head.  “We need to move ahead with the trials.  Once we prove just what rotten fucks the government counted among its numbers, maybe things will get better.  But right now, the economy is dropping like a stone and that’s going to spread pretty damn quickly.  We have to fix this problem before it becomes impossible to halt.”

Hope nodded, remembering the brief—edgy—meeting he’d had with the British Ambassador, who was speaking for the United Nations Security Council after Bill Jefferson had been arrested by the Saviours.  The Ambassador had warned him there was no way that the Security Council could recognise him as the new American leader, not after the chaos the Saviours had already caused in Libya.  They might not do anything to remove Hope from the country—the Redeemer had confirmed they were still trying to decide what to do—but there wouldn't be any help from overseas.

The nightmare was that the Russians or the Chinese might launch a massive nuclear attack, in the hopes of wiping out the Saviours before they could come for the rest of the world.  In that case, Hope believed that they could intercept most of the missiles before they landed and destroy them—ICBMs hadn't been designed to target individual superhumans—but it was quite possible that a number would get through and slaughter vast numbers of Americans.  Or the remains of the American government might fire on Washington themselves, accepting the deaths of millions of their own citizens to destroy Hope and the Saviours.

Hope had once found it hard to believe that anyone could be so callous.  He’d learned hard lessons since.

“Keep working on it,” he ordered.  Mainframe nodded.  “Let me know if you can locate any particular dissenters.  Maybe we can convince them that this is all for the good of the country.”

“You’ve struck at one of America’s most cherished offices,” Mainframe said.  “You removed the President by force.  I think it will be a long time before the majority of the country realises that this was all for the best.”

Hope nodded.  “And bring me Mr. Harrison,” he added.  “I want to speak with him.”

***

Chester had endured an uncomfortable night in the White House Ballroom, sleeping on a blanket and eating basic rations provided by the Saviours.  At least they’d taken the wounded away to a proper hospital, something that suggested that they’d already consolidated their control over the entire country.  The pre-Hope contingency plans had evidently proven to be badly inadequate for the crisis they’d finally faced, leaving Chester to wonder if they’d acted wisely or foolishly.  Would it have been smarter to round up the SDI and as many superhumans as they could, and use them to force Hope to stay in the Congo?

He was still mulling over the possibilities when a pair of mutants beckoned for him to follow them.  Resistance was obviously futile, so Chester stood up and allowed them to lead him out of the ballroom, up the stairs and into the Oval Office.  He felt a pang as he saw the destroyed wall, revealing the President’s emergency exit, and the plaster and metal scattered on the floor.  The Saviours had clearly decided that they had better things to do with their time than repair the damage they’d inflicted on the White House.

Hope was seated behind the President’s desk, reading through a series of reports that had probably been produced by what remained of the civilian bureaucracy.  If Hope was smart, he’d probably try to keep the bureaucrats and policemen working for him, or running the country would become pretty much impossible.  But Americans rarely liked government officials at the best of times; and now, those officials would be working for an enemy occupying the White House.  They’d feel perfectly justified in shooting any IRS agents they happened to encounter over the next few months.

“Mr. Harrison,” Hope said.  He sounded tired.  The SDI had taught him to be charismatic, but the lessons had clearly been forgotten over the last few hours.  But then, Hope still needed to sleep and he’d probably gotten little rest since he’d invaded the United States.  “Why are you immune to telepathic probes?”

Chester had to smile.  “That’s your first question?”

“I intended to have your mind probed for information,” Hope said.  He sounded more irked than angry, but it was difficult to be certain.  Any Level 5 superhuman would have good control of himself, or he might lose control of his powers.  “But the Redeemer says that your mind is a complete blank.  Why?”

“You know what they say about bureaucrats being brainless,” Chester said, dryly.  Needling Hope into killing him might be the best possible solution.  He had few illusions about his ability to resist torture.  “I have no brains to read.”

Hope merely lifted an eyebrow.  “You were the one who sent Sparky to the Congo,” he said, flatly.  “I saw your face in her mind.  And the General believed you to be the main...coordinator of superhuman affairs, including some that were never placed under the SDI.  Why are you immune to telepathic probes?”

Chester sighed.  “There’s a process that grants a person the ability to...shield his thoughts,” he said, finally.  Given enough time, Mainframe would probably pull the details out of Langley’s database—or the SDI’s, if they’d managed to capture it intact.  “I was one of the lucky few who had the treatment.”

“I don’t believe you,” Hope said, flatly.  “If there was a way to shield thoughts from being picked up by a telepath, everyone in the government would have used it—but the Redeemer doesn't have any problem reading the President’s mind.  Why were you the only one given the treatment?”

“The treatment has a very low survival rate,” Chester admitted.  “The odds of surviving such complex brain surgery are roughly one in ten.  I had my treatment done before the doctors realised just how unlikely it was that anyone would survive—as far as I know, only three people had the treatment and survived.  President Cheney later ordered a halt to all further testing, at least until technology advanced to the point where we could provide the treatment to someone with a reasonable chance of survival.”

“Which explains why the next President kept you around,” Hope said, slowly.  “I’m surprised that Cheney didn't order the treatments to be continued on condemned criminals, in the hopes of making it safer.”

“Cheney wasn't the monster the media made him out to be,” Chester said, dryly.  “The sad truth behind the American Presidency is that while you’re in office, you’re the worst President the country ever had.  Everything that goes wrong is your fault, even if it started under your predecessor or came out of nowhere—and your approval ratings will reflect that.  And then, once you retire, people will actually miss you because your successor will seem even worse.”

He snorted.  “I suppose the same could be said for you.  How long do you intend to sit in that chair and call yourself the President?”

“Once the country is sorted out, I intend to hold elections and then retire,” Hope said, flatly.  “I didn't want to do this.”

“But it was inevitable once you started hammering away at the world,” Chester said, darkly.  Maybe he could talk Hope into leaving the United States.  “Don’t you see that your actions, no matter how justified they individually seem, are spreading chaos from nation to nation?”

Hope looked back at him, coldly.  “You know just how much these ears hear?”  He tapped his right ear with one gloved hand.  “I hear the cries of children who starve because they don’t have enough to eat, while giant warehouses in their country store food for delivery to rich foreigners who pay more than the locals.  I hear the moans of men who die on battlefields fought out for petty reasons.  I hear the screams of women as they are abused and raped by the fighters who invade their villages, or their husbands as they take out their helplessness on their wives.  I hear the sobs of people jailed for daring to oppose the governments.  I hear the sounds of leaders indulging themselves while their country starves because they simply don’t care about their people.  How could I hear all that and do nothing?”

“You might have managed to save the Congo,” Chester said, seriously, “but what were you thinking when you lashed out at Libya?  You didn't just kill their terrorist of a leader; you smashed their entire government and military edifice.  Now the country is in chaos, and refugees are fleeing everywhere.  The CIA picked up reports of ethnic cleansing as Libya fell back on the old tribal structure and religious violence as the lunatics banished from Iraq started inciting sects to fight their opponents in the name of God!

“It’s a fragile world out there, Hope.  Don’t be too surprised when it starts to push back.”

“You tried to kill me,” Hope said.  “I know that you sent the assassin into the Congo with orders to kill me.”

Chester sensed the wounded pride hiding under his tone and almost smiled, grimly.  It was personal.  For all his claim of being detached from the world, to be able to do the right thing without fear or favour, he had taken the assassination attempt personally.

“It’s a fragile world,” he repeated.  “We acted in the hopes of preventing you from spreading more chaos—what were you thinking when you promised to remove every non-democratic country in the world?”

“My popularity ratings in the United States are higher than the President’s,” Hope said.  “Did you make a democratic decision to have me killed?”

“Are they higher now than they were before you decided to launch the invasion?”  Chester asked, wryly.  “No, we made the decision without consulting the public.”

He shook his head, tiredly.  “You want to know something about the average American citizen?  Joe and Jane Public have a view of the world that is very far from the truth.  The government is there to take care of them, the world is America’s oyster, and they don’t really need to care about the bigger picture.  Those who dislike the government come up with grand theories that explain its failures; corporate interference, bribery and corruption, political correctness, transnational elites replacing local governments, the vast right/left-wing conspiracy...

“The truth is that the government isn't all-powerful, and it certainly isn’t all-knowing,” he pointed out.  Was there anything he could say that could get through to Hope?  “But no one wants to believe that the government can be incompetent, so they prefer to believe that there was some secret reason for the government to fail rather than admit it might not be all-powerful.  Instead, we have the results of endless compromises, of endless attempts to come up with new legislation to deal with new problems—and then people who don’t like the results bitch and moan, so we get a new series of compromises.  And none of them are any better than the ones they had before.  They just annoy different people.”

Chester looked up at Hope, willing him to understand.  “You have superpowers,” he said, “and when you have superpowers, when you consider yourself a hero, the entire world looks like a problem you can hit.  But the real world is a messy place, and you destabilised the fragile balance of power when you proved yourself to be out of control.  If you care, even slightly, about the country and the world, walk away now.  You cannot save the world by naked force.”

Hope looked back at him.  “Bullshit,” he said, flatly.  “Naked force is the only thing the warlords respect.  No amount of pleading and whining from the international community stopped the fighting in the Congo; hell, nations that played the lead role in whining about how bad the warlords were being were also the ones supplying them with weapons, just to keep the area nicely destabilised.  They respect force, and so I showed them greater force.”

“This isn't going to work,” Chester said, insistently.  “You have to stop before it is too late.”

He saw fire in Hope’s eyes and braced himself, expecting every second to be his last, but instead Hope controlled himself.  “Your people destroyed the Pit,” he said.  Chester allowed himself a moment of relief.  Some of the superhumans in the Pit were deadly dangerous.  The thought of allowing them to rampage free was terrifying.  “They killed upwards of three hundred superhumans, including several whose only crime was defying SARA and trying to help people.”

Chester swallowed his anger with an effort.  “You don’t think that most of the superheroes who have signed SARA help people?”

“I think that they don’t do enough,” Hope said.  “I will put you on trial for your actions, before the American people.  And the evidence presented will be enough to convince them that I did the right thing in removing the American government from power.”

“If you say so,” Chester said.  Hope had crossed the line into fanaticism.  He’d have to be stopped—but Chester was no longer in a position to organise resistance.  The only thing he could do was hope that there was enough of Team Omega and the SDI left to fight back before America shattered under the occupation.  “Tell me something, please.  Did all of the Saviours go along with you without question?”

“Mimic quit,” Hope admitted.  He sounded rather rueful, unsurprisingly.  Mimic had had a through military training before sparking and becoming superhuman.  “He told me that it would end in tears.  I thought he had gone to warn you about my plans.”

Chester’s eyes narrowed.  “He never reached us,” he said.  “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing,” Hope said.  He studied Chester for a long moment.  “Your pulse rate suggests that you are being truthful.  What happened to him?”

“Maybe you should find out,” Chester said.  Mimic had been a SEAL.  There was no way that he would have gone along with the plan to invade America, particularly after Libya had collapsed into chaos.  “Because he would have had the ability to contact us and warn us that you were planning something—and we never heard anything.  Not a single word.”

He expected the mutants to lead him back to the Ballroom, but instead they led him to one of the White House bedrooms.  They were intended for officials who worked too late and couldn’t go home, or military officers who had to sleep at the White House during times of crisis; they were certainly comfortable enough for Chester.  Team Omega—wherever they were—would have called them too luxurious for comfort.

Shaking his head, he sat down on the bed and tried to meditate.  The door was locked—he’d tested after the mutants had left—and there was no other way out of the room.  He didn’t dare ask if he could call his wife.  There was nothing he could do, but wait.

And pray.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The protest march had started at Central Park, walking up the blocked roads, and shouting loudly for Hope to leave the United States.  Jackson had seen a handful of protest marches before, but this one was the largest he’d ever seen; all of New York appeared to be out on the streets, demanding an end to the superhuman government.  Given that it had only been two days since Washington had been taken by the Saviours, someone had clearly been working overtime to organise the march.  It was even escorted by a large number of police and soldiers from the National Guard, making their own feelings clear.  This was one march that wasn't going to turn into a riot.

“He can hear them in Washington,” Lane said, as they started to walk away from the march.  A handful of would-be pickpockets had been caught by the NYPD and were being searched and arrested down a side-street, although no one quite knew what would happen to them in Hope’s new world order.  “And this isn't the only march being organised today.  I wonder how he will react.”

Jackson nodded.  The Soviet Union had responded harshly to any protest movement that appeared in the satellite states, long before the Polish superhuman had sparked and moved to evict the Russians from Poland.  China had crushed protest movements using armed soldiers and policemen—even superhumans.  The United States needed to be a little more careful—public opinion counted in the United States of America—and besides, it wasn't as if the protesters were marching against a repressive government.  But that might have changed.  Who knew how Hope would respond to a protest march demanding that he left the country?

He caught sight of a superhuman flashing through the air above him and looked up, only to see the superhuman vanishing into the distance.  New York’s vast number of superhumans seemed to be doing nothing, either out of fear for their lives—Hope was powerful, and he had powerful allies—or because they sympathised with Hope.  Lane had pointed out that Team Omega would have been grateful for the SDI’s existence, but the SDI’s overt team had all passed carefully-designed psych tests to prove that they were reliable.  But the SDI was gone and the other superheroes were far from trustworthy.

There were almost no moving cars on the road today.  From what they’d picked up on the internet, the Teamsters—the Trucker’s Union—had called a wildcat strike; most of them were refusing to work until Hope and his superhuman goons were out of the country.  There were strategic food stockpiles in all major cities—superhuman battles sometimes wrecked parts of the interstates—but the sudden shortage of consumer goods would cause its own problems.  And there were no new deliveries of gas from the oil refineries due to the ongoing Teamsters' strike.  Every car that didn't have one of the Halo batteries developed in the years since Iraq occupied the Saudi oil wells would be marooned as soon as it ran out of gas.  The NYPD had advised civilians to remain at home, or to walk if they needed to leave their homes for any reason at all—such as joining the protest march.

Parts of New York looked to be collapsing into chaos as they walked towards Hell’s Kitchen.  The gang warfare that had broken out in the wake of their mission against two unregistered superhumans had, thankfully, broken the power of two of the gangs, but the others were still fighting it out for supremacy.  It didn't help that the mutant gang was linked with the occupation, unfairly as far as anyone could tell.  But incidents of violence against mutants and lower-ranking superhumans had been on the rise ever since Washington had fallen.  They might wind up joining Hope out of self-defence.

He hesitated as they reached an older apartment block, the place he had visited with Harrison before the shit had really hit the fan.  “Captain,” he said, “are you sure about this?”

Getting back in touch with the rest of Team Omega had been relatively easy, even without the internet.  There had been contingency plans for rendezvous points that allowed the different teams to link up without compromising their boltholes—and, thankfully, most of the support staff had left the base before the superhumans attacked, allowing them to reach their own boltholes before the Saviours tracked them down.  But linking up with what remained of the SDI had its own risks.  There was still no explanation as to how the Saviours had known about Team Omega, right down to the location of its base.  Jackson doubted that it was a coincidence.  The attack had been very precisely targeted.

“Counting all of the support staff, there’s only ninety-seven of us,” Lane pointed out, sharply.  And that was misleading, for only thirty-six were trained SOF soldiers.  Team Omega did share the Marine philosophy that every man was a rifleman first, but none of the supporting staff matched the operators.  How could they, when they were technical and intelligence experts rather than soldiers?  “We need allies, and we have to be damn careful about where we look for them.”

Jackson couldn't disagree.  In many ways, Hope’s invasion had been relatively bloodless, certainly the cheapest invasion and occupation in recorded history.  But that meant that most of the military had survived, and they weren't inclined to accept defeat so casually.  Weapons and equipment had been removed from military bases and hidden, while large numbers of soldiers, sailors and airmen had gone underground, intent on carrying on the fight.  There were even reports passed through the internet of brief engagements between insurgents and the Saviours, although none of them had been very specific.  Jackson suspected that didn't bode well.  Outside of specialist teams with special weaponry, it was very hard to take out a high-level superhuman.

The Vice President was still out there somewhere, but he was clearly cut off from the military network that would have allowed him to coordinate a response.  As long as he remained free, it was a victory—of sorts—but he was also helpless to do anything about the chaos.  There were even more nightmarish possibilities being discussed online, including the suggestion that Russia or China would take the opportunity to nuke the United States back to the Stone Age—or that the United States would use its submarines to fire on its own cities.  No wonder so many people wanted to flee the urban areas; they feared the worst.  Even during the War of 1812, when Washington had been burned by the British, the country had never been so completely humiliated and broken.  There was a great deal of anger out on the streets.

Lane tapped once on the door. It was opened by a man Jackson didn't recognise, a tall, bland man who looked as if he could fade into the background easily.  There was a brief pause as they exchanged recognition codes, and then he led them upstairs into the small apartment.  Inside, there was an older man Jackson vaguely recognised, a dark-skinned girl sitting to the rear, as if she was afraid of them—and Polly Hayworth, the former CIA agent who had transferred to Team Omega.  Lane recognised the older man at once and held out his hand; the strange man shook it carefully.

Jackson prodded his memory and a very old name finally surfaced.  Fireman himself.  He must have said something, because the next thing he knew, the man was shaking his hand.

“Call me Michael,” he said, shaking Jackson’s hand with a care that belied his hidden strength.  Everyone knew that Fireman was Level 5, even though the rating system hadn't been worked out until after he had retired from the superhero life.  “I always feel vaguely silly when someone calls me Fireman.”

“A good attitude to have,” the other man agreed.  “Matt Tracker, SDI Covert Team.  And I assume you already know Polly.”

“We’ve met,” Lane said, dryly.  Polly smiled at him.  “Is this room secure?”

It was the dark-skinned girl who answered.  “It should be secure against everything apart from telepathic probes,” she said.  “Unfortunately, building a Mind Static Device capable of blanketing more than a few millimetres is technically impossible, at least with the current level of tech.  It doesn't make them useless, but it does limit how they can be used.”

“So Hope can't hear us plotting,” Lane said.  “We’ll just have to hope that he isn't having his telepath follow us mentally.”

“Telepaths aren’t gods,” Polly pointed out.  “Unless the Redeemer had good reason to suspect us—and came reasonably close to us—she couldn’t pick up on us unless we got very unlucky.”

Jackson found the whole discussion uncomfortable.  They’d been given basic training on shielding their minds against telepathic probes—or at least knowing when their minds had been read—but the training cadre had warned them that a powerful telepath could eventually hammer their minds into submission, no matter how hard they resisted.  On the other hand, telepaths rarely enjoyed other powers; someone who could hold out for a few minutes would have an excellent chance to knock out or kill the telepath before their minds broke under the strain.  And it was quite possible that they would suffer brain damage and die before any useful information could be extracted from their minds.

Michael Lee—Fireman—opened the discussion.  “I—we—have spoken to several other superhumans and convinced them to join us,” he said.  “However, assembling a force capable of matching Hope’s in raw power might be difficult.  It is possible that MI-13, the Tricolours, or the G-14 will assist, but right now everyone is shit-scared of Hope.”

“And besides, if we have a brawl in the streets outside the White House, we’ll bring most of Washington down in the crossfire,” Tracker pointed out.  Jackson couldn't tell what powers he had, but if he’d been in the covert team he had to be formidable.  “Ideally, we want to have the battle somewhere away from the civilians.”

“Perhaps we should move towards the Congo,” Polly said.  “Force Hope to chase us there...”

“He might refuse to take the bait,” Lee said.  He hesitated.  “We could transport a tactical nuke into the White House...”

“Might be tricky,” Tracker said.  “That telepathic bitch will have her nets out, sweeping for any intrusion into the White House and the surrounding area.  They’ll know the moment we appear—they might even know what we’re carrying.  The only person we had who could have circumvented the telepathic net is currently a prisoner in the Congo.”

“Besides, there would be an unacceptable number of civilian casualties,” Lane said, flatly.  “I don’t intend to destroy the United States in order to save it.”

“I don't think we’re going to get out of this without a great deal of damage,” Tracker said, equally flatly.  “Hope isn't going to give up without a fight, not when he’s so...convinced that he’s doing the right thing.  But there is a possible weak spot.”

He outlined, briefly, what he’d seen in the Congo.

“Mimic’s dead?”  Lane said, in some surprise.  “I knew him when he was a SEAL.”

“Yes,” Tracker said, bluntly.  “The Redeemer killed him.  And given how furtive she was about disposing of his body, I think Hope doesn't know what happened to him.”

“The Redeemer,” Lane said, slowly.  “A powerful mentalist, known to have both telepathic and telekinetic powers...what else do we know about her?”

“Very little,” Polly admitted.  “The SDI opened a file on her when she first made her appearance, but very little hard information was ever recovered.  We don't know where she was born, when she sparked and what happened to shape her mind.  The first recorded sighting of her was back when Hope started the Saviours, just after he left the SDI.”

“But she was a telepath,” Lane mused.  “She could have come from America and never bothered to register herself.”

“Or she could have come from Russia, China, or even Iraq,” Polly pointed out.  “Unlike Dreamy Girl, cameras don’t see the real her.  Those pictures of her taken without her knowledge show a vaguely humanoid blur, and that’s it.  What if she’s a deep-cover agent from Russia intent on bringing down the United States?  Or China; they’ve been worried that we’re moving ahead of them in the superhuman stakes, now that superhumans are the new nukes.  This could be their play to cripple us and give them time to take over.”

“Except the Chinese are even more dependent upon the world economy than we are,” Lane countered.  “The Chinese would have to be insane to try, even if they weren't discovered and we didn't retaliate against China itself.  It’s much more likely that she’s a free agent, operating on an agenda of her own.”

“Which raises a simple question,” Lee said.  “What does she want?”

“Some telepaths have been driven mad by their powers,” the dark-skinned girl said, into the silence.  “They couldn't master their powers or erect mental shields, so they were constantly bombarded by outside thoughts until it drove them mad.  Others were corrupted by their powers, using their insights into a person’s thoughts for fun and profit.  And the more powerful ones, the ones with the ability to control others...they often give in to temptation.”

Jackson nodded.  Someone who suddenly developed powerful telepathic powers in high school would be unable to resist the temptation to nudge his tormentors into hurting themselves, or to influence the hottest girls in the school to climb into his bed.  Why not?  Jackson had been a stronger kid than many of the others and high school hadn't been a barrel of laughs for him—how much worse would it have been for those without the strength to stand up for themselves?  It wasn't just telepathy that posed a problem, either.  In 1995, a tormented nerd had sparked and torn through his tormentors—and then much of the rest of the school.  He’d had to be put down by the SDI.

“Maybe she just wants to play games,” Lee growled.  “But we need to take her out as quickly as possible.”

“That might be tricky,” Tracker said.  “You can bet your life that she will have tightened up her telepathic net to prevent other assassins getting close to her, or Hope.  Maybe, just maybe, she allowed the first assassin to have her shot at Hope, but I don’t think that we can count on it again.”

“I thought that you were immune to telepathy,” Lane said.  “You certainly entered the Congo without detection.”

“She knew I was there, she just didn't pick up on my thoughts,” Tracker clarified.  “If she senses me entering her telepathic net, she’ll react even if she can’t read my mind.  And my shields have never been tested against a truly powerful telepath intent on ripping out my secrets.”

Jackson leaned forward.  “Couldn't we teleport in?”

“The teleporter we had at the base was set to purge itself and then self-destruct after we jumped out to safety,” Lane said, sourly.  “As far as I know, there isn't another one outside Langley or Fort Meade.  They cost more than a dozen jet fighters apiece and they’re vulnerable to jamming.  Even if we had one, we couldn't rely on it completely.”

Lee smiled, suddenly.  “But I think I know where we can get a teleporter,” he said, with a wink.  “Matt and I will follow up on that—if we’re lucky, we can find something that might help.”

“I can put together a dozen Mind Static Devices from the stores in the safe house,” Polly put in.  “The problem is that they may not be entirely reliable.  Some people react badly to the devices—we’re not quite sure why.”

“Maybe they’re telepaths who haven’t sparked yet,” Lane suggested.

“I react badly to them, too,” Tracker put in.  “The SDI used to think that, but all the attempts to force the volunteers to spark failed.  Whatever causes superhumans to appear seems to be beyond our understanding.”

Jackson nodded in agreement.

“I think that my force can draw Hope out of Washington, and get him somewhere we can use as a killing ground, if necessary,” Lee said, after a moment.  “That leaves you”—he nodded to Lane—“with the task of getting into the White House and eliminating the Redeemer.  If we’re lucky, that will break whatever control she has over Hope.”

Polly hesitated, and then spoke.  “And if we’re not lucky?”

“There are...weapons,” Lane said, reluctantly.  “Weapons designed for use against powerful superhumans without actually needing to blow up an entire city with a nuke.”

“A small tactical nuke wouldn't cause that much damage to Washington,” the dark-skinned girl said.

“But it would obliterate a large chunk of America’s history,” Lee said.  “The White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate...I know we all bitch and moan about the government, and some people we elect into power aren’t fit to be elected as a dogcatcher, but we would be blowing up our own history.  That’s the way Hope thinks; smash the old and assume that the new will emerge from nowhere.  We have to think about the future.”

He grinned, suddenly.  “Not that it really matters that much.  The odds are stacked against us.  We may do nothing more than die bravely, leaving Hope and his army to run roughshod over the Earth.”

“The other powers will go nuclear,” Tracker predicted.  “America will be destroyed.”

“Then we’d better win, hadn’t we?”  Lee said.  “We dare not lose.”

Chapter Forty

“Hardly anything is flying tonight,” Lee muttered, as they coasted over Virginia.  “I can't feel anything larger than a bird nearby.”

Matt nodded, unsurprised.  The airline industry had taken a major hit after Hope invaded Washington; air travel just didn't feel safe when superhumans could simply smash through the plane, passengers falling to their deaths.  Besides, the police were still trying to prevent a mass exodus from the cities, and most of the airlines had been ordered to keep their aircraft on the ground.

He clung to Lee as he dropped, finally landing outside a large building isolated from the rest of the country.  The SDI had decided to conceal the facility from the rest of the country, if only because it would make a magnet for protesters opposed to the very concept of turning superhumans into police or soldiers.  Most people, if they bothered to think about it at all, assumed that training was carried out in New York, where the rest of the SDI was based.  They never looked for the other institute—and it was just possible that Hope had missed it, too.  After all, it hadn't even been opened until after he’d left the SDI.

“No sign of trouble,” Lee said, as they dropped towards the ground.  “You think the staff and students will have run for it?”

“I hope not,” Matt said.  They landed, allowing him to let go of Lee’s neck and drop to the ground.  “Most of them don’t have anywhere to go.”

He walked up towards the gates and pressed his hand against a sensor embedded in the walls.  Like most SDI installations, there were hidden defences placed around the training centre, ones intended to deter supervillains from attacking the next generation of SDI operatives.  It was a completely isolated system—Mainframe shouldn't be able to get into the facility’s computers—and it was possible that it wouldn't recognise him.  General Kratman had sent him here a couple of times, but he’d needed clearance for both of them.  Luck was with him; the gates clicked open, allowing them to walk up towards the building.

Years ago, back during the first era of superhumans, a New Age researcher had claimed that superhumans were actually Indigo Children, and that she could predict which children would eventually spark into true superhumans.  She’d enjoyed a remarkable level of success for a decade, until it had become clear that none of the Indigo Children she had identified had sparked into a superhuman.  Indeed, the school she’d founded for the children had charged awesome fees, and left the children with almost no preparation for modern life.  Matt had never met her, so he didn't know if she believed the crap she’d peddled or not, but by the time disillusionment was settling in, some of her subordinates had embezzled a vast amount of money from the school’s trust funds.  The remainder had been taken by the lawyers, leaving the school empty until the SDI had bought it for a song and—perversely—finally allowed it to serve as a training centre for superhumans.

The main doors opened, revealing a man who looked alarmingly like a gorilla, right down to a hairy face and bad attitude.  Mutants were rare in the SDI, as they could rarely operate in public without being noticed, but the Doorman had worked in the training centre as long as it had operated.  He was tough enough to intimidate almost all of the students, yet surprisingly gentle, the closest thing the SDI had to a drill instructor.  Behind him, the balding Jennifer Brown—the headmistress of the school—looked worried.  What news they’d had from the outside world wouldn't be very good.

“Fireman,” she exclaimed, as soon as she saw Lee.  “Long time, no see!”

“Jenny,” Lee said, with a brilliant smile of his own.  They’d served together in the first incarnation of the SDI, as well as the first super team in existence, before Jennifer’s powers had been badly weakened by a supervillain pounding his fist into her head multiple times, nearly killing her.  “I did invite you to visit me.”

“And I have responsibilities here,” Jenny said.  She looked over at Matt.  “I assume that this has something to do with Hope?”

“I'm afraid so,” Matt said.  “What have you told the students?”

“Can’t hide anything from them,” Jenny said.  It was true; her students included three teenagers with superhuman hearing and one with a limited form of touch-telepathy.  “I told them that losing New York wouldn't bring down the SDI, and that someone would come to give us orders.  They’re scared, Lee.  Perhaps a few words from Fireman would help to settle them down.”

“I can try,” Lee rumbled, “but we need to talk to the Lofting kids first.  Where are they now?”

Jenny smiled.  “The girl should be in her room, fast asleep; the boy should be with her, but he’s actually been courting Daisy for the past five days.  And they think that we haven’t noticed.”

“We were all young once,” Lee agreed, gravely.  They shared a smile.  “How well do they take after their father?”

“Alarmingly well, in some ways,” Jenny said.  “I think they have the heroic urge down pat, it’s the restraints and limits that they’re having problems grasping.  Charles had been counselling both of them—after all, he lost his legs because he acted without thinking—but the kids don't always listen to him.  Marvin gained his powers much later in life.”

Matt nodded.  It was rare for children below twelve to develop superhuman powers; in fact, there had only been two confirmed cases and they’d both been in South Africa, when Dr. Death had been experimenting with the superhuman organs he’d pulled from black superhumans, after slowly killing them first.  Teens, on the other hand, were alarmingly common—and often, great power didn't lead to great responsibility.  Some teens were simply too wild to be allowed to run free with superhuman powers.  Poor Marvin’s kids had been on a path that would have eventually led them to the Pit or death if they hadn't been caught in time to save them.

“Call them,” he said.  “We need to have words with them.”

The visiting room was intended for parents, should they wish to visit their children who had developed superpowers and had chosen to join the SDI.  Not all parents wanted to visit their children, sadly; often, the moment when the kid had sparked was traumatic for both parents and children alike.  Other parents wanted to live the life of superhero parents, pushing their kids into a starring career in the Young Stars or a similar group, and resented their children for choosing to join the SDI instead.  The room was designed to leave them with a good impression of the training program, with bright photographs of the students in uniform and the superheroes they became after they graduated.  Not all of them were marked, Matt couldn't hope noticing.  Those who went into the covert team rarely wore spandex and capes while they fought for America.

He looked up as Jack and Jane Lofting were escorted into the visiting room.  Jane looked tired—and faintly disturbing to his enhanced senses, as if her skin was concealing something much more than merely human.  Jack, two years older than her, had definitely been making progress on his courtship; judging from the faint aroma surrounding him, he’d made it to second base at least.  He still looked like a virgin, but now he had reason to hope that he’d make it through that rite of passage sooner rather than later.  Matt hadn't been much older than him when he’d sparked, and his powers had sent him crashing into a mental hospital for two years.

In many ways, Matt would have preferred to work with Jack alone—but it was Jane that he needed.  The young girl was so black that her skin seemed to be made out of darkness itself, an aspect—he suspected—of her powers.  Layla had downloaded him the report, yet the SDI’s researchers hadn't been able to deduce much about her in the short time between her capture and Hope’s invasion of the United States.  Their best guess was that she was intimately connected to shadows, allowing her to create deadly shadows to kill and move from shadow to shadow, rather like a teleporter.  Once she knew how to use her powers properly, she’d be almost unstoppable at night.

“You’re Fireman,” Jack said, looking at Lee.  His face was wide with awe and hero-worship.  “Did you know my father?”

“Your father saved my life once,” Lee said, smiling.  “And I had the pleasure of watching when he put on the mask for the first time.  Things were simpler then.”

“You weren't at the funeral,” Jack said.  “Why didn't you come to say goodbye when he left us?”

Matt winced at the accusation in his tone.  “I couldn't go, not without bringing the media jackals with me,” Lee said.  He hesitated.  “I wish your father was still alive.  The country needs him.”

Jack looked at him.  “You intend to fight Hope.”

Lee nodded.

“What’s wrong with what he’s doing?” Jack asked.

Lee sighed.  “Having superhuman powers doesn't make someone more than human,” he said, picking his words carefully.  “They only confer might—not the wisdom to use it properly.  In the long run, Hope will create—at best—a dictatorship where his laws are the only ones to follow, a dictatorship enforced by telepathy and naked force.  What happens if Hope decides that—for example—video games are bad for children, and orders them all destroyed?  Who is going to be able to tell him no?”

“Your father understood that smashing enemies wasn't enough,” Matt added.  “He could kill a thousand drug dealers and a thousand more would spring up the day afterwards, so he worked to improve the area he lived in by offering new opportunities for children who would otherwise have gravitated to the gangs or prostitution.  When he died, the area fell back into the hands of the gangs.  Hope is threatening to do that to the entire country, without even trying to offer people another path.”

Jack looked down at the floor.  They did have one advantage; Jack had worshipped his father—and his father had worked for the SDI before retiring to raise his children and clean up Hell’s Kitchen.  But the young were often susceptible to idealism, particularly the raw idealism displayed by Hope.  In a very real sense, Hope had defied the elders of the world to clean up the Congo and the young had responded to that, heedless of the danger.  They wanted to do something now.  And even though Hope had moved from idealism to blind rage...would Jack be capable of understanding it?

“My father wouldn't have wanted to hurt the country,” Jack said, softly.  “I think...I think...”

He looked up, suddenly.  “What do you want with me?”

“I need you to join my team,” Lee said.  He hesitated.  “And I need Jane to do something else, something more complex.”

“She’s too young,” Jack said, automatically.  “You can't put her in the line of battle...”

Matt was tempted to point out that Jack had made use of her talents as soon as they’d developed, but held his tongue.  Lee would have a far better chance of reaching the teenager.

“She isn't going to be in the line of battle,” Lee said, soothingly.  “We need her teleporting talents, not anything else.”

“The shadows scare me,” Jane said, suddenly.  There was something plaintive in her voice, as if she’d seen something that no young girl should have to see.  “I can feel things moving in the shadows, watching me from the darkness.”  She ran her hands down her nightdress.  “One day, I will walk into the shadows and never come back.”

Jack reached out to take his sister’s hand.  “I won’t let them have you,” he said, firmly.  “You can always come back to me.”

“I know,” Jane said.  Matt had no brothers or sisters, but he was touched by what they shared, even if it risked their plan failing.  “What do you want me to do?”

Matt hesitated; Lee spoke over him.  “We need you to take some people somewhere,” he said.  “I can't tell you where, because one of our enemies is a telepath.  We just need you ready to go when the time comes.”

“And me?”  Jack said.  “Do I go with her?”

“I think you’d be more useful fighting in the open,” Lee said, after a moment.  “We're going to need everyone we can convince to join us.  Not everyone is as patriotic as your father.”

“He always used to curse the superstars,” Jack said.  “He said that they never did anything useful, never saved lives or caught criminals; they just made money from being lucky enough to become superhumans.”

“He was right,” Matt said, with the private thought that the whole superhuman celebrity buzz had helped to keep superhumans from causing trouble.  Who would want to be a supervillain if they made more money from photographs, autographs and carefully-orchestrated charity appearances?  The General hadn’t been keen on the whole idea, but there were some people who just weren’t suited to a life of public service.  Besides, they made a great deal of money for the government to tax.  “But Hope has become more than a superstar—he’s become a threat to the entire world.”

“One we have to stop,” Lee said.  Matt knew that Lee had his doubts, but nothing showed in Lee's voice.  “Will the two of you come with us?”

“Yes,” Jack said.  He paused.  “How many of the students are you going to take with you?”

Matt had to smile.  Jack might have been an unregistered vigilante, but he was far from stupid.  “As many as will come with us,” Lee said.  “The time has come for them to join the fight.”

***

“These things are experimental,” Polly said, in the tech bolthole “We intended to produce a more refined model for general issue, but...”

Jackson took the device she offered him, got a feel for its weight and mass, and studied it thoughtfully.  It looked rather like a grappling gun, like the ones they’d practiced using to scale buildings in a hurry.  The projectile, however, looked nastier than the grappling hooks that dug into walls and locked solid.

“What does it do?” he asked.

“Several things,” Polly said.  “First, the line is”—she hesitated—“I’ll spare you the technobabble.  Suffice it to say that the line is pretty much unbreakable, even by a Level 5 superhuman with something else on his mind.  You could hang on while he flies off into orbit if you wanted...”

“Which wouldn't be very smart,” Jackson interrupted.  “What do we do with it?”

Polly grinned.  “You slap this onto him,” she said, passing him a black, disc-shaped object barely larger than a CD.  “You know that some superhumans have to have brains that work differently from the average human?”

Jackson nodded.  Telepaths had a sixth sense, but most higher-level superhumans had enhanced versions of the mundane five senses, forcing them to work to control them so as to avoid being overloaded with unwanted information.  Maybe Hope hadn't been able to control his powers properly, he thought, rather sourly.  He’d certainly proven that he couldn't avoid hearing the sounds of people in pain.

“This device is basically an updated Screamer,” she told him.  “The standard Screamer produces a great deal of noise to scare the shit out of anyone who doesn't expect to hear it.  You’ve used them in hostage rescue simulations.  This one not only broadcasts a deafening racket, it produces a racket on levels that the average human simply can't hear.  In theory, it will even force superhumans to feel overwhelming emotions, maybe even physical pain.”

“Like a dog whistle,” Jackson said.  “And what does it do to them?”

“We never got around to testing it,” Polly admitted.  “The SDI promised us that America or one of the other Level 5 superhumans would agree to play target, but we didn't manage to get it done in time for this crisis.  Simulations suggest everything from their minds shutting down in self-defence to a few moments of panic—I suggest you use it carefully.  And make sure that you wear your earpieces, too—you may not be able to hear all of the racket, but it will still be very disorienting.”

She stood up and paced around the room.  “You have the laser—it won’t be much good against invulnerable skin, but someone with a force field that lets in the light is in for a nasty surprise,” she added.  “And you have the atomic bullet—and the monofilament knives.  We’ve updated the capture glue—Hope doesn’t need to breathe, but even he will have problems struggling against it.  And we have...”

Jackson blinked at her hesitation.  “What?”

“This,” Polly said, picking up what looked like an oversized pistol.  Someone had inscribed DANGER—DO NOT USE UNLESS SHIT MEETS FAN along the barrel.  “We were working on this before the Congo crisis and...well, it’s kind of frightening, actually.  Ever since Warsaw, we have been working on ways to hit a moving target with a vast amount of energy as quickly as possible.  Nukes are ineffective unless they go off very close to the targeted superhuman.  This...you hit him, Hope dies.”

“Then...”  Jackson hesitated.  There was actual fear in her voice.  He’d never seen Polly scared of anything before, not even slightly nervous.  “What’s so bad about it?”

“It came out of research into nanotech, monofilaments and other tricks we could use against superhumans,” Polly said.  “There’s a chance, perhaps a very good chance, that using it in Washington could blow up half the city.  I’ll send the notes back with you to your Captain—he can make the final call.”

She hesitated.  “One way or another, that genie cannot be let out of the bottle unless there is no other choice,” she said, grimly.  “It will change the world.”

Chapter Forty-One

The White House felt different now, even to Hope.  It had once pulsed with life, the walls heavy with secrets that shaped and reshaped the world.  Now, it was almost empty, apart from the handful of superhumans who occupied the rooms and the former President, locked in his bedroom with his wife.  There was something almost sad about its fall, something that touched him even though he knew that he’d had no choice; once, he’d revered the office of President, before he’d discovered that Presidents were mere mortals.  But they could still have lived up to the promise of America.  George Washington hadn't had superpowers, nor had Lincoln or even FDR.

He found himself in a corridor looking up at portraits of past Presidents, which seemed to be scowling in disapproval at him.  Adams seemed horrified that someone could have forced his way into power; Nixon’s face seemed to conceal amusement, even though he’d played a dubious role himself.  But all of them had had limits to their power.  Hope had none.

He knew that that gave him a responsibility to the rest of the population.  Great power brought a moral obligation to use that power in the service of humanity...in a way, he'd been a superhuman for so long that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be a mundane human.

But Mimic hadn't forgotten, part of his mind nagged at him, and the enigmatic Mr. Harrison had never been more than human.  And they’d both tried to warn him that he was going too far.  He was doing everything for the benefit of humanity, not out of a selfish desire for power, and yet no one else seemed to realise it.  Outside the core group of Saviours, there were people questioning the wisdom of what he’d done—and plenty of civil disobedience outside Washington.  Hope would have liked to blame it all on the state governments, which were just as corrupt and tainted as the federal government had been, but there was just too much evidence that that wasn't the case.  America was slowly grinding to a halt, and no application of superpower seemed able to stop the decline.

And where was Mimic?  He’d asked Gateway, and she’d told him that Mimic hadn't passed through one of her portals.  The former SEAL could have asked a flyer for a lift to an airport outside the Congo, or simply taken one of the vehicles and driven out of the country, but that wouldn't have been as quick as using a portal.  And if he’d really intended to warn the United States of Hope’s plan to invade, why not use the quickest way to Washington?  Gateway wouldn't have known that Mimic intended to betray his leader...

He looked up at Reagan’s portrait and wondered what the former President had thought when he’d uncovered the Slaughter Affair.  His own Vice President—and the man he’d nominated for President in the 1988 election—had been responsible for a scheme that had damaged the fortunes of the Republican Party, threatening its grip on power.  Not that anything had really changed—both parties were too solidly entrenched to be broken so easily—but Reagan had to have felt betrayed.

Mimic had betrayed Hope. But where was he?

“Hope,” a voice called.  The Redeemer floated down the corridor behind him, her presence sending a flash of excitement running through his body and soul.  “I thought you were going to hold the trials?”

Hope shrugged.  “They can wait,” he said.  “I need to think.”

He wasn't in the mood to oversee the trials—and it wasn't as if they needed him either.  Washington’s power elite had created laws to protect their secrets from telepaths, but there was nothing actually backing the laws apart from the SDI.  Mr. Harrison might be lucky enough to have an unreadable mind; the mass of Senators and Congressmen weren’t so lucky.  Hope’s telepaths had already uncovered a surprisingly large number of secrets that might be considered criminal—no, that would be considered criminal, if carried out by someone outside the government.  Lobbyists bribing the government to pass specific laws, insider trading, even sexual misconduct and a murder...they had all been torn from their minds and paraded on live TV.  Few Americans trusted their government without reservation, not after Nixon had dragged the presidency through the mud, but they hadn't known the specifics, not until now.

“Thinking is what I do best,” the Redeemer said as she dropped to the ground beside him.  Up close, she was tiny, barely coming up to his shoulder blades.  “What do you need to think about?”

“Mimic,” Hope said.  “He tried to tell us that we were going too far.  Do you think he was right?”

“I’ve never heard you doubt yourself before,” the Redeemer said, dryly.  “You always knew that superpower had to be used in the service of humanity.”

Hope tapped his ears.  “Outside, just beyond the gates, there’s a crowd of protesters who want me out of the White House,” he said.  “They don’t care about the dangers of challenging superhumans; they just want to be rid of me.  I can hear their passion as they demand the return of the President and an end to my reign.”

“They don’t see the bigger picture,” the Redeemer said.  Her voice softened.  “There are always winners and losers, just as there were winners and losers in the Congo before you intervened.  Very few people are capable of seeing what’s beyond their noses—and what needs to be done for the good of all humanity.”

She shrugged.  “And those protests are not as spontaneous as you believe,” she added, sardonically.  “Some of the organisers used to work for Congressmen—they helped get their candidates elected into Congress, where they became as corrupt as the rascals they threw out.  Maybe most of the protesters think they’re doing the right thing, that they are standing up for their right to rule themselves, but they’re being manipulated by the same people who always manipulated them.

“Give them a hot-button issue, and then watch the sparks fly.  Abortion is murder—no, it’s a woman’s right to choose—no, it’s murder...  Guns are deadly, ban guns; gun ownership is an essential right and must be defended at all costs.  Religion is important, yet there should be freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion.  And all crafty political leaders ride the storms they whip up into office, whereupon they become just like any other politician.”

“You sound very passionate about the subject,” Hope teased.

“I learned to read minds when I was very young,” the Redeemer admitted.  “Do you know just how many people are slow and stupid?  Even the ones who look impressive on the outside are so...banal on the inside.  So few dare to dream big, even those who go into Congress.  One lobbyist was successful simply because he arranged for Senators to have dates with pretty girls.  And he wasn't even doing something great!  All he wanted was to keep an unnecessary government subsidy flowing smoothly.”

She shook her head.  “Most people are sheep.  Give them an idea and it jams in their heads, until no amount of logic and reason can extract it.  All those people who say that abortion is murder simply cannot think that there might be a situation when abortion is justified, even necessary.  And if one of their number did make that mental leap, they’d turn on him as a heretic.  The same goes for the other side.  They’re so hung up on a woman’s right to choose that they don’t allow themselves to think that abortion means ending an innocent life before it has a chance to grow into something worthwhile.  The thought that the other side might have a point is alien to both of them.

“Out there, there are hundreds of protesters who think that what you’re doing is wrong, because someone with a working brain and their own political bias has convinced them that you’re in the wrong.  They don’t see that the problems gripping this country—the problems gripping the world—defy the simple answers they want.  It needs a man with a vision and the power to push that vision through into reality to save the world.  And when you leave, having cleaned out the government, they will thank you for it.”

“I hope you're right,” Hope said.  He looked at her, suddenly.  “What happened to Mimic?”

The Redeemer’s expression didn't change.  “I believe he walked off into the Congo,” she said, smoothly.  “I wasn't keeping an eye on him after he decided to leave.”

Hope smiled.  “I thought you kept a mental eye on everyone,” he said.  “And I hope that means that you’re not watching me in the toilet.”

“I have better things to do with my time than play voyeur,” the Redeemer said, sternly.  “And I do have limits, as you are well aware.  I keep a link to you because without you, this whole project would fall apart, but I can't keep a link to everyone.”

“Pity,” Hope said.  “Maybe I should go find Mimic.”

“I don't think he wants to be found,” the Redeemer said.  “I think that he left because he couldn't carry on with you, but didn't go back to America because part of him knew that you were in the right and he didn't want to oppose you.  The best thing you can do for him is leave him alone until he comes back—besides, it isn't as if we don’t need him in the Congo.”

He’d ordered most of his army of mutants to return to the Congo after they’d found themselves targeted by the more rebellious segments of the American population.  With a handful of the more powerful superhumans to back them up, they could keep the Congo peaceful, work on the planned road network to start distributing food and encourage economic growth while building themselves a new homeland as well.  It wasn't fair that the mutants were being targeted, but humanity had never responded kindly to people being different.

“If he’s still there,” Hope said.  “I hope you’re right.”

“Forget about him,” the Redeemer urged.  “He’ll come crawling back once he is prepared to admit that you are right—until then, forget him and leave him in the past.”

She smiled, brilliantly.  “And besides, you have the trials to attend,” she nudged him.  “You have to be there to convince people that you mean business.”

The White House Press Room had been hastily redesigned to serve as a makeshift courtroom for the arrested Senators and Congressmen.  One of the superhumans with power over wood and trees had created a wooden dock, topped with iron spikes, for the accused to stand in while the superhumans debated his fate.  It looked like something from the Victorian Era.  The whole process was a great deal cruder than any other courtroom that would be used to charge the rich, powerful and famous, but it should work.  Telepaths made it easier to separate the guilty from the innocent.

Hope took his seat as a handful of reporters flowed into the room to sit in the benches that had been set up for them.  A number of reporters had refused to return after his first speech to the American population, but there was no shortage of replacements. Besides, he’d agreed that every television and internet channel would have access to the live footage from the cameras.  Hope had wanted to broadcast the trials over every channel, overriding the endless barrage of entertainment broadcast to couch potatoes, but Mainframe had talked him out of it.  Upsetting so many people might just lead to more rioting in the streets.

There was no jury, but then there was no need for a jury—or for lawyers.  A single telepath could separate truth from lies, rather than have a lawyer doing his best to muddy the waters.  And, more usefully, they could tell what someone had actually been feeling at the time; if he’d been governed by deliberate malice, desperation, or if the whole affair had been nothing more than a tragic accident.  Hope had learned during his training that there was a difference between objective and subjective truth.  Now, telepaths could bring both truths to light and allow him to decide if the subjective truth justified the objective truth.

“Bring in the first prisoner,” he said, picking up the tablet PC Mainframe had prepared for him.  “Show him to the dock.”

The first prisoner had been chosen carefully, even though his crimes happened after Hope’s takeover of the United States.  He’d drifted into the press room just after the first speech, made his way to Hope, and offered the superhuman a vast bribe in exchange for various services.  At least he’d had more imagination than most of the other prisoners—or the average supervillain, for that matter—but Hope had been outraged that someone would try to bribe him.  He’d put the lobbyist into the prison camp personally and insisted on trying him first.

Warrior Girl read the charges.  “Casey Wong, you stand accused of attempting to corrupt the new government of America by bribing some of its operatives,” she said.  Hope hadn't been the only one Wong had tried to bribe.  “Telepathic evidence has confirmed that you intended to manipulate your victims until they did as you wanted, including wrecking your employer’s competitors in business.  Do you have anything you wish to say in your defence?”

Wong had nerve, Hope had to admit.  “What I did was nothing more than what everyone did, before you took over the country,” he said.  “Lobbyists have been seeking to convince politicians to support them ever since the day Washington was founded, in exchange for campaign contributions.  You say that these are bribes; I say they’re the cost of doing business.”

He sat down and waited.

“You are quite right; what you did is no different to every other lobbyist in Washington,” Hope said.   At least this case was fairly simple.  “However, it is our intention to stamp such practices out, root and branch.  The fact that you realised that you could go further in your competition-crushing practices than anyone else doesn't mitigate your guilt.  I sentence you to ten years hard labour in a work camp in the Congo.”

There was a pause while Triple A removed the prisoner before the reporters started muttering into their microphones, recording their commentary for the news.  Hope could hear them; some were desperately twisting their words to avoid having to condemn what he’d done, while others were bluntly informing the public of what it all meant.

No one was very comfortable with telepathic evidence, least of all the people who had no mental defences, but it did cut through the bullshit.  Besides, the Redeemer had once told him that most people had deep, dark secrets that were actually pretty tame.  Who really cared what porn they watched when they were home alone?

The next prisoner was someone Hope would have preferred to keep until later, but he had already been the target of an FBI investigation that had been derailed when Hope and the Saviours took over the United States.  Congressman Patrick Kent had been involved in a murky sex and murder scandal that had blown up in his hometown, with accusations that Kent had hired someone to murder a prostitute who had been demanding blackmail money in exchange for keeping her mouth closed.  It was all based on rumours, but Kent’s political enemies were pushing it hard, intent on bringing him down.  And while American law didn't allow telepathic evidence to be used against a suspect—at least not without the suspect’s permission—Hope had no such compunctions.

“Congressman Kent, your mind was scanned concerning the charges brought against you by the FBI, as well as others,” Warrior Girl said.  The Redeemer had had to dig deep to pull out the information.  Kent wasn’t a telepath, but his mind was a morass, almost a natural defence against telepathy.  “You had sex with Angela Murray on nine occasions while you were a freshman Congressman.  Once she realised that she could blackmail you, you decided to order her death, a murder which was carried out by Wade Terns, a known assassin for hire and a suspect in several cases before his untimely death last year.  You are unquestionably guilty of murder, sexual misconduct and corruption.  Quite apart from paying for the murder of a prostitute, you also took bribes, worked to pervert the course of justice, and accepted a very large commission from an aircraft corporation to buy a jet the USAF didn't want in order to save them from bankruptcy.”

She smiled.  “Do you have anything you wish to say in your defence?”

“Telepathic evidence is not admissible in a court of law,” Kent said, finally.  He sounded punch-drunk, although no one had touched him since he’d been pushed into the prison camp.  “You cannot charge me on those grounds...”

Hope shook his head.  “I’m afraid we can, and we will,” he said.  “You were elected to a position of trust by the American public, and you betrayed that trust.  In order to ensure that others considering similar courses are deterred, I sentence you to death.  The sentence will be carried out this afternoon.  In fact...”

He broke off as his communicator started to buzz.  “Hope, we have a problem,” Mainframe said.  His voice was sharp, angry.  “The main prison camp is under attack!”

Hope cursed.  “I understand,” he said.  The camp was guarded by mutants, not enough to stand off a major attack by soldiers who wanted to carry on an insurgency against Hope and the Saviours.  He’d need to reinforce them as quickly as possible.  “Call the others.  I’m on my way.”

Chapter Forty-Two

“They could have made a better mousetrap,” Matt muttered.  The Saviours had taken over a stadium on the outskirts of Washington and turned it into a makeshift prison camp.  Inside, his senses picked up hundreds of people, all captured as they attempted to flee Washington.  Most of them had worked in Washington before they were captured and the Saviours hadn't managed to get around to processing them yet.  The Saviours hadn't even bothered to tell their families that they were prisoners, leaving their nearest and dearest to fear the worst.  “I make fifteen mutants on guard duty, and one actual superhuman.”

“Hypersonic,” Lee muttered back.  “Using to be in Department 14.  Flies fast enough to cause problems for anything she hits.”

He looked back at his small group of superhumans.  “We get in, we take out the guards, and then we free the prisoners,” he reminded them.  “Hope and the Saviours will be on us very quickly, so we fight long enough for the prisoners to escape. Then we break contact.”

And hope that the rest of the plan goes as we want, Matt added, in the privacy of his own thoughts.  The Saviours were dangerous opponents; fanatical enough to risk their lives in battle, smart enough to understand that battles weren’t as important as winning the war.  And Hope could be on them in seconds if he flew straight from the White House.  The televised trials proved that he was there, thankfully.  Team Omega would have its chance to get inside the building without having to contend with a Level 5 superhuman.

Lee drifted up into the air and grinned.  “Go,” he ordered, and flashed towards the prison camp.  Hypersonic had been sitting on the roof, gazing at the prisoners; her face betrayed no trace of the turmoil inside her mind.  Lee hit her before she could react, slamming a fist in her face; it smashed right through her skull.  Her invulnerability depended upon her flight and she hadn't even been moving when Lee had hit her.  Lee dropped the Russian flyer’s body on the ground and started to work on the main gates.

He always tried to avoid killing people, Matt thought, as he ran down and followed the others towards the mutants.  They were screaming for help as they passed out weapons and prepared to fight—and some of them would have powers of their own.  One mutant belched a ball of fire towards Jack Lofting, who jumped up and over the fireball.  Jack landed in front of his opponent and slammed a fist into his chest.

Lee was still working on the gates.  Someone had used heat vision to weld them shut, preventing the prisoners from escaping.  It took a minute or two, but Lee wasn't about to be denied.  He tore the gates open and threw the debris at the final mutant, who collapsed under the impact.

“Everyone out,” Lee barked.  “Run into Washington and go back to your homes.  Run!”

The first prisoners started to emerge from the stadium.  They were a curious mixture of male and female, wearing clothes that had started to stink in the three days they’d been kept prisoner.  The stadium was useless as an emergency prison in the long term because it just wasn't large enough to provide sanitary facilities for so many people.  No doubt the prisoners had been on the verge of panic, only kept in check by the presence of the mutants.

Matt stepped back as the trickle of prisoners turned into a flood.  Washington was a large city, and the prisoners were only human, but most would probably be able to hide in the crowds.  Maybe they’d need a bath or a shower first, he told himself, as the prisoners started to run, some heading away from the city.  Someone like Hope could probably sniff them out, given time.

“Portal,” Lee snapped.  “Here they come!”

Matt saw a man and a woman emerge from a glowing square of light, the woman carrying a pair of swords in her hands.  Warrior Girl looked just as he remembered from the last time they’d met, although she hadn't called herself Warrior Girl then.  The last Warrior Girl had been murdered in the same killing spree that had claimed the life of Marvin Lofting—but then, she would never have stood for Hope claiming the right to rule over the United States.  Her replacement was less of a hypocrite, but more of a danger.

“You,” the man shouted.  His body seemed to shimmer before he split into three identical beings, each one carrying a fighting stick and a shield.  “I knew you weren't a simple reporter.”

Matt braced himself as Triple A advanced on him.  The superhuman was strong and fast, although nowhere near as powerful as Hope or Lee.  But one mind covering three bodies gave him the ability to perfectly coordinate his—their—attacks, as well as other advantages that weren’t so useful in a combat zone.  And he had his weaknesses.  Matt produced his own fighting stick from his trench coat and carefully extended his senses to touch Triple A.  As always, the multi-bodied superhuman confused him; unlike others, his three bodies were completely identical.  He smiled as Triple A lifted his sticks.  All he had to do was accept that the superhuman was in three places at once, and work with it.

“I don’t know what you are,” Triple A said, “but you have to know that you are not going to get away with this.  Surrender now, and we will be merciful.”

“You don’t have to talk like someone out of a comic book,” Matt said.  He sensed Triple A’s flush and built on it.  “What is it with superhumans these days?  They spark—and then they start talking like Superman, or Batman.  Why can't they just be themselves?”

Triple A hissed and sprung forward.  Against anyone else, it would have been decisive, but Matt read his movement and jumped forward.  For a brief moment, Triple A was vulnerable.

Matt brought his stick up into the middle body’s groin.  Maybe Triple A could share pain out over his three bodies, limiting its effects, but it wouldn't be enough to stop a stick in the groin from being extremely painful.

All three bodies screamed, giving Matt a chance to deliver a knockout blow to the left body.  It tumbled to the ground just as the third body slammed his stick into Matt’s back.  Matt gasped in pain, brought up his foot and kicked back, right into the third body’s knee.  His target staggered, overwhelmed by the pain, giving Matt an opportunity to knock him out, too.

The middle body, still groaning in pain, rolled aimlessly on the ground.  Matt finished the job by knocking him out too, something that had probably been a relief by then.  Triple A’s greatest strength was also a weakness, providing pain kept surging from body to body.

He heard a yell.  Jack struggled to fight Warrior Girl, who had deployed her unbreakable lasso to catch Jack’s feet from under him and knocked him to the ground.  Matt wasn't too surprised; Warrior Girl had had plenty of experience fighting other superhumans, and Jack had almost none.  The training sessions hadn't touched superhuman combat yet.  Ideally, Jack wouldn't have seen combat for another year or two, even if he was Marvin’s son.  Bringing him along would have been a poor decision if they hadn't been so desperate for manpower.

Picking up one of Triple A’s shields, Matt walked over to Warrior Girl and struck at her back.  She heard him coming, of course, and swung one of her swords to block him.  Matt danced back as she took her foot off Jack’s neck and slashed out with her other sword, forcing him to catch the blow on his shield.  Up close, he could see the lust for combat that had followed her into superhumanity and her icy determination to do whatever seemed best for women.  In the Congo, she had been Hope’s merciless enforcer of the rights of women—and if she’d stayed there, few would have opposed her.

“Give up,” he said, as he blocked her next swing.  She'd practiced against tougher opponents than him, but they hadn't had his ability to read her and know what she was planning almost before she knew it herself.  But she moved with such speed, her blades slamming into the shield time and time again, that it was hard to keep up with her.  “You can't win this...”

High overhead, he heard a thunderclap.  Hope had arrived.

***

Hope barrelled through the air towards the makeshift prison, trying to sharpen his eyes to see what lay ahead.  There were prisoners running for their lives, a handful of superhumans already engaging Triple A and Warrior Girl—and a pair of mutant bodies on the ground.  He couldn't see Hypersonic, but the signs weren't good.  Her powers might not have protected her if she’d been caught by surprise.

Something moved below him.  Before he could react, a fist slammed into his chest, a fist driven by power equal to his own.  Hope was flung straight up, high enough that he could see the curve of the Earth and stars overhead.  His chest seemed to hurt worse than it had when the superpowered assassin had tried to kill him, even though nothing was broken.  The only time he’d felt anything comparable was back when he’d been in the SDI, honing his powers against America—and America was dead.

The other superhuman appeared below him. Hope dodged, letting go of his grip on the air and allowing gravity to pull him down.  His opponent wore no costume, nothing to signify who he was or who he represented, but Hope had no difficulty recognising his face.  Fireman, one of the first superheroes—and one of the few who might be an equal match for Hope.  He struck out, automatically, only to have Fireman catch the blow and use its momentum to send Hope speeding towards the ground.

Of course—Fireman had beaten Slaughter to death.  He'd forgotten more about superhuman combat than Hope had ever learned.

They closed together, each trying to land a blow.  Hope felt stunned as blow after blow landed, each one shaking his body even if it didn't tear through the skin.  Fireman seemed unaffected by his blows, but that had to be an illusion.  Hope had hit him hard enough to shatter a building; maybe he was weakening, or maybe he was just imagining it.  Fireman’s clothes were shredding as Hope tore them apart, yet his body seemed untouched.  And he kept raining blows on Hope.

“This is madness,” Hope managed to say, as they fell low enough for their voices to carry.  “You have to stop this!”

“You are a spoiled brat with no concept of limitations,” Fireman said, sharply.  There was no give in his voice at all, no sense that he might not be able to stop Hope from completing his mission.  “Did you ever stop to think about what you were doing—or did it just seem logical and right to you?”

Hope slammed a fist into Fireman’s face, sending him plummeting several kilometres towards the ground.  He would have liked to stay where he was and admire the continents below, but Fireman was too dangerous an opponent to give him time to recover.  Hope plunged after him, only to be caught and forced down himself in his opponent’s unyielding grip.

For a moment, their powers were in direct competition, their fall accelerating well past the speed of sound. There was only a second’s warning before they crashed into the ground hard enough to set off an earthquake.

Fireman lost his grip on Hope as they crashed, which was the only thing that allowed Hope to catch himself and return to the skies.  They’d smashed in Nevada, alarmingly close to Las Vegas.  The world-famous resort city, crammed with casinos and partly owned by the mob, was shaking under the impact of the earthquake they'd created.  He could hear the sounds of people screaming as buildings toppled and great fissures opened up in the roads; gas pipes broke and blew up, sending streams of fire billowing into the sky.

The ground shook below.  He jumped back just before Fireman burst out of the ground and slammed a fist into his jaw.  Hope went flying, vaguely aware of smashing through a small ghost town abandoned since the days of the gold rush.  Then Fireman was on him again, each blow sending shockwaves running through the ground.

Their battle seemed pointless, yet it was the only way to stop either of them.  They’d managed to secure most of the tactical nukes before they could be dispersed into the hands of the insurgents who refused to give him a chance to save the world...

“Damn you,” Hope managed.  He wasn't physically tried, but mentally tired, unwilling to continue the fight.  In the distance, large plumes of smoke were billowing up from Las Vegas.  “We don’t have to do this!”

“Then leave this country,” Fireman said.  Hope couldn’t tell if he was winded too, or if he was just pausing long enough to try to talk Hope into surrender.  “The power you lucked into didn't make you king of the world!”

“You knew how badly your government had been corrupted,” Hope shouted back at him.  Their argument would be heard for miles, even by mundane humans without enhanced senses, but he no longer cared.  “You stopped them from using Slaughter as a weapon.  Why aren't you with me on this?”

“Because you’re a fucking idiot,” Fireman said.  “You say you want to restore freedom, but you’re going about it in the wrong fucking way.  What gives you the right to make the rules?  It isn't freedom if people don’t have any say in the rules that govern them—and superpowers don’t make you all-powerful.  You’d already made plenty of mistakes before you decided to invade the United States.  Do you have any idea how much suffering your actions are going to cause right across the world?”

He took a breath.  “Ordering something to happen doesn't make it happen!” he thundered.  “You need to build up networks to replace the ones you destroyed, but instead you're merely trying to rule by decree.  Didn't the chaos that gripped Libya suggest the danger of your course?  You smashed everything that held the country together, and now they have a civil war, a religious war, and a refugee crisis wrapped into one.  Why didn't you just stay in the Congo instead of panicking everyone?”

“The government tried to kill me,” Hope snapped back.  “I...”

“Now we hear it,” Fireman said.  His voice grew tighter, digging into Hope’s soul.  “The injured pride.  The sense that the world should follow you because you know best, because only you can make the decisions that matter...the sense that the conflict is personal, but not because you made it personal.  You can smash, Hope, but can you build?”

He stepped closer, his voice pressing against Hope’s conscience.  “I know how you felt, the first time you looked on the world from high overhead.  I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of believing that there are simple answers to everything, that merely removing the bad men will make everything better, but the world is far more complex than that.  Did you even bother to plan out what you were going to do in the Congo properly, or did you just think that everyone would follow you as soon as you removed the warlords?”

Hope stared at him, his mind churning with stunned puzzlement.

“Tell me something,” Fireman pressed.  “What happened to Mimic?”

“I...he quit,” Hope said.  The question worried him.  There was something about Mimic that he should remember.  “I think he went off to live in the Congo alone...”

“He died,” Fireman said.  “The Redeemer killed him.  Perhaps you should ask yourself why you never bothered to think about your grand plan of invading the United States.  How much of that plan came out of your brain, and how much was quietly shaped by the most powerful telepath in the world?”

“No,” Hope said, desperately.  His mind seemed to be spinning out of control.  He hadn't thought about Mimic until Mr. Harrison had raised the question—and then, once he’d spoken to the Redeemer, he hadn't thought about Mimic again.  But the man had betrayed him; he’d renounced his plan to save the world...surely he should have dwelled on the matter later, in private.  But he’d forgotten...

“It isn't so easy to control a person’s mind by force, not for the long term,” Fireman said, softly.  “But if you’re a powerful telepath, you can plant seeds and watch as they germinate in a person’s mind, convincing him that he’s come up with the idea for himself.  How could a person tell the difference between his own thoughts and those of a telepath?  No one could tell the difference, unless they thought about every little detail...”

Hope lashed out at him in panic, driven by a force he didn't understand.  Fireman was knocked back towards Las Vegas, leaving Hope to pull himself together and fly back to Washington, his mind still spinning.  What, if anything, had she done to him?  How much had she shaped his mind?

But it had all been his idea, hadn't it?

He still recalled the day when he'd first realised how much suffering there was in the world.  The Redeemer hadn't been with him then.  And he remembered when he’d left the SDI.  The Redeemer hadn't been with him then, either.  But after...?

Desperately, he called on all the speed he could muster.  The battle with Fireman had sapped his strength more than he’d realised, but he needed to be back in Washington.  And then?

For the first time in far too long, he realised, he had absolutely no idea what to do next.

Chapter Forty-Three

“Everyone ready?”

Jackson nodded.  He’d donned his body armour, picked up his M-22 rifle and hooked as many grenades into his belt as he could comfortably carry.  CS gas had worked before and it might work again; besides, Team Omega’s specialist grenades looked like standard HE models from a regular army base.  A superhuman might get a nasty surprise when the grenade exploded in his face and he wound up breathing the gas.

“According to our observers, Hope, Triple A and Warrior Girl have left the White House,” Lane continued.  “We must assume that the remainder of the Saviours are still present within the building.  It seems logical that they will have taken over the Oval Office as their headquarters, but we cannot rely on that.  We may have to search the entire building to find them.”

“I’ve uploaded floor diagrams of the White House into your goggles,” Polly said.  “We haven’t been able to get into the White House’s security system from here, so we haven’t been able to update them to account for any recent...changes.  We must assume that they are completely under enemy control.”

Lane nodded.  “Team One will attempt to locate and eliminate the Redeemer,” he said.  “Teams Two and Three will cause a distraction by engaging the superhumans on the lower levels and outside the building.   Team Four will use the Cybermen to provide support to the other teams if necessary.”

Jackson glanced around the warehouse, looking up at the grim armoured combat suits.  From what he’d heard, the Cybermen had been designed to give a normal human a fighting chance against an upper-level superhuman, as well as eventually replacing tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles.  Unfortunately, the models assigned to Team Four were the early test models designed by Polly and her fellow designers, ones that hadn't had all the bugs worked out of them yet.  It was a law of military affairs that the technology never functioned in the field as well as it did in the lab, and the Cybermen were no different.  Besides, they weren't exactly subtle, and Team Omega was supposed to be unnoticed by the general population.

On the other hand, they were armed to the teeth, carrying their own inbuilt sensors and warning systems to help defend their wearer against superhuman attack that were surprisingly tough.  They might just give the superhumans pause before they tried to recover the White House and destroy the puny humans who had dared to attack them.  Team Omega might need their firepower before the day was through.

Lane had taken the specialist pistol for himself after reading through Polly’s notes.  Jackson remembered Lane's cursing, all right…Jackson hadn't been able to follow the technical details, but if they had managed to scare the Captain, that pistol wasn't something Jackson wanted to touch.

The Sergeant would probably have given good advice, if he hadn't been killed in the attack on Team Omega’s base.  Jackson missed him more than he cared to say.  Ron had been bumped up to Sergeant to replace him, at least for the attack on the White House, but they were dangerously undermanned.  Captain Yates had suggested bringing in some other SOF soldiers from other units that had managed to escape the Saviours, but Lane had vetoed the idea.  The other SOF forces weren't trained to handle superhumans.

“Activate your whispers and mind static now,” Lane ordered.  They’d tested the devices earlier, but no one was happy about having to use them.  Two of Team Three had had to be withdrawn from the attack plan after having bad reactions to the mind static.  “Sound off—now.”

Jackson pushed the switch.  He grimaced as he felt a pressure falling over his mind, like a headache that was too light to cure with painkillers.  Everyone felt the same effect, but some felt it worse than others.  Apparently, no one could read their minds while the mind static was blowing through their heads.  In the long term, the devices caused headaches and eventual cerebral trauma.  They’d just have to win before they ran out of time.  A moment later, he activated his whisper—hiding the sound of their heartbeats—and the earpieces.  They would remain in touch through subvocal contact.

“All right,” Lane said, once they had all sounded off.  He looked over at Jane Lofting, looking alarmingly out of place among the grim-faced military men.  Some of the soldiers had started to flirt with her before Ron, trying to live up to the previous sergeant’s reputation for being a hard-ass, had reminded them that she was only thirteen and therefore jailbait.  Besides, she did have poorly-understood superhuman powers.  “Can you take us to the White House?”

Jane had spent the last hour studying pictures of the White House’s ballroom, which had apparently been emptied of prisoners over the last day or two.  “I think so,” she said.  Her skin, already impossibly black, seemed to darken even more, as if she was nothing more than a walking shadow.  “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Lane said.  If he felt any qualms at using a thirteen-year-old girl as a tactical asset, his face didn't show it.  “Now.”

The shadows in the room seemed to grow and merge with Jane’s body, and then wash forward towards the team.  Jackson had a moment to realise that he was standing in absolute darkness—a moment that seemed to last forever, with eerie voices echoing all the while—before the shadows faded, revealing the White House’s ballroom.  It stank to high heaven, despite the best efforts of a team of mutants to clean up the residue of several hundred people held in the room against their will.

The mutants had no time to react before the Cybermen knocked them down and crashed through the windows onto the White House lawn.  With Mainframe infesting the building’s near-impregnable security systems, there was no point in trying to be subtle.

“Sergeant, take Alpha Team up the stairs,” Lane snapped.  “Beta Team, with me; Gamma Team, take your positions and report in as soon as you are ready.”

Jackson heard fighting outside as he hurried up the back stairs towards the Oval Office.  The Saviours had evidently abandoned their plans to carry on with the kangaroo courts in Hope’s absence, moving out onto the lawn to see if they could support their leader—running right into the Cybermen.  Jackson tracked the battle through his earpiece as the teams assaulted the Saviours, using some of their experimental weaponry on them.

“I have no visual on Warrior Girl, Triple A, Hypersonic, or Hope,” one of the Cybermen reported.  Jackson nodded in relief.  The pre-mission intelligence briefing could have been wrong.  “Lightning is...”

His words broke off.  “Shit,” one of the other Cybermen reported.  “She just went straight through him!”

“Blow her away,” a third snapped.  The sound of firing grew louder.  “Sir, she just ran into the building!”

The lights around them dimmed as they reached the first floor.  They blew away a pair of mutant soldiers who had been running towards the sound of the guns.

Hope should have trained them better, Jackson thought. He picked off a mutant that was trying to retreat.  They didn't know that running towards the loudest noise wasn't the brightest idea in military history.

A moment later, a brilliant flash of light seemed to run through the ceiling.  It manifested into the form of a glowing woman, with rage in her eyes.  The briefing had warned that she was a grownup version of Sparky from the Young Stars, with enough oomph to draw electric power from the Cybermen and turn it into a weapon.  At least the Cybermen had been rigged to make it difficult for her to draw power from all of them at once.

“Lightning,” Ron barked.  In her energy form, most of their weapons simply wouldn't touch her at all.  “Return to human form and get down on the floor, now!”

Lightning lifted a hand and fired a burst of light towards him, forcing him to stagger backwards as the lightning crackled over his chest.

Jackson ducked as a second blast of lightning went over his head, and dived for the fire extinguisher he’d seen hidden away in a corner.  He'd often cursed the health and safety bureaucrats, particularly when they insisted on new safety regulations during exercises, but for once he blessed them.  Chris went flying backwards as she hit him, just before Jackson brought the fire extinguisher up and sprayed her with water.

Lightning’s form blazed with blinding white light as she shorted out, returned to human form, and crashed to the ground.  Without the lightning protecting her, she was a remarkably young girl; Jackson pushed the thought aside as he injected her with a capture drug and cuffed her arms and legs.  As an afterthought, he dumped her in the nearest office after finding something that could serve as a gag.

“I feel like someone hit me with a brick,” Chris growled, as he staggered to his feet.  “Damn lucky that the fucking grenades didn't detonate when she hit me.”

“You probably used your last piece of luck there,” Ron agreed.  He’d torn away the front of his webbing, along with the body armour that was supposed to protect his chest.  What remained of the armour was a molten, useless mess.  He started to report in as they resumed their path towards the Oval Office.  “We just stunned Lightning. No other contacts; I say again, no other contacts.”

“Communications with Tracker report that Triple A and Warrior Girl are both down,” Polly reported.  She was pulling double-duty as coordinator and tech expert, although they assumed that Mainframe would force his way into their system and eventually shut it down.  At that point, they’d be reduced to a handful of individual teams fighting their own little wars.  “Hope and Fireman have vanished into the distance.”

Jackson winced.  Both Level 5 superhumans were capable of hypersonic flight; they could be anywhere on Earth by now, fighting it out for supremacy.  Someone would probably be able to track it on earthquake monitoring systems, assuming that the global network was still active.  The SDI had controlled it from New York, but the SDI had been effectively destroyed.  There was no way to know who had emerged the winner until the winner arrived in Washington.

“Keep tracking anything that flies through the skies,” Lane ordered.  “Gamma Team?”

“We have multiple mutants and flyers heading for the White House,” David confirmed.  The snipers had assumed their positions around the building by now, ready to provide covering fire for the assault force.  “We are engaging with lethal force.”

Ron held up a hand as they reached a sealed door.  According to their HUDs, there was a secure office just prior to the Oval Office, one that normally belonged to the President’s private secretary.  The security systems were still defeating the best efforts of Layla to hack into them, even though Team Two had managed to link a modified router into the system, so there was no way to know what awaited them.  Ron crept forward, attached an explosive charge to the door, and jumped back.  The rest of them took cover.  The shaped charge detonated, blowing the door off its hinges and sending debris into the room.

A moment later, a hail of blue blasts of light blew out of the room, attempting to track and kill the assault team.

“We have a visual on Mainframe,” Jackson said, as the cyborg superhuman came into view.  Unlike the Cybermen, Mainframe’s talents allowed him to link directly into his armoured suit, creating a nightmare right out of science-fiction.  His suit looked like a mutated cross between a metal octopus and one of the egg-shaped bad guy’s machines from Sonic the Hedgehog.  The thought made him smile just before metal tentacles lashed out, one latching onto Chris’s leg and pulling him out of cover.  “He’s armoured and ready for trouble.”

Chris unhooked a grenade from his belt and threw it at Mainframe, who batted it away without concern.  There was a flash as the grenade detonated under the nearby desk, shattering a work of art almost as old as the White House, but Mainframe was not seriously affected.  A second tentacle grabbed Chris’s leg as Jackson and Ron held their fire, unable to shoot without risking Chris’s life.  The issue nearly became moot an instant later as Mainframe lifted Chris up, almost tearing him in half.  He screamed in pain ...

“I control the vertical, I control the horizontal,” Mainframe said.  “I control this entire building; I control the security systems that were designed to protect the President of the United States.  And your attempts to hack the system or insert a virus into my mind are futile.  I designed the living software used to run this building.  Do you think it has any terrors for me?”

Jackson pushed his rage aside, thinking hard.  The reports they’d pulled out of Washington had been vague, but none had reported the security systems actually engaging the oncoming superhumans.  Rumour had it that Mainframe’s alter ego was a highly-successful computer genius with a string of patents to his name.  If one of them had been used to help protect the President, no wonder the system had collapsed so quickly.

“Your assault on this building has less than a ten percent chance of success,” Mainframe continued.  “I am already coordinating the oncoming superhumans with the armed drones I recovered from the nearby USAF base.  Your snipers will be removed by Hellfire missiles fired from the drones, followed by your armoured suits.  I am everywhere in the system.”

“Yeah, right,” Chris said, as he reached for his belt.  “I think you talk too much.”

“No,” Ron shouted, too late.  “Don’t...”

Chris detonated all the grenades in his belt at once, blowing his body to pieces and knocking Mainframe back on his heels.  The blast shook Jackson badly, even hiding behind a piece of debris from Hope’s first attack on the White House, but he managed to pull himself to his feet and sprint into the office.  Mainframe’s suit had been cracked by the blast; inside, Jackson saw a face intermeshed with metal tendrils leading into the brain.  The sight was sickening as the face turned to look at him, almost unrecognisable under the damage inflicted by Chris’s sacrifice.  But he could place the face.

“Ian Micah,” he said, in surprise.  The rumours hadn't been too far wrong after all.  Ian Micah was a wealthy philanthropist who had a reputation for charity work, including opening several foundations that had been intimately involved in helping the Congo, once Hope had removed the warlords.  There had been no suggestion that Micah had been a superhuman, but if he operated largely outside the country—no one knew for sure where Mainframe had been born—there wouldn't have been any demand to make him register.  “Why...?”

The tendrils seemed to come to life, repairing the suit with astonishing speed.  Jackson didn't hesitate; he fired two shots right into Micah’s head, using heavy penetrators.

Micah’s head shattered, leaving nothing but bloody remains.  His suit emitted a sound that was alarmingly like a cry of pain before it collapsed.  Micah’s powers must have pervaded the suit, and without them, the suit couldn't function.

“Mainframe is down,” he said, keying his earpiece.  There would be time to mourn the dead later.  “I say again, Mainframe is down.”

“Good work,” Ron said, coming up behind him.  A piece of debris had sliced into his chest, leaving blood trickling down his uniform.  Jackson cursed his own blindness; he hadn't even realised that Ron hadn't been following him until after Mainframe had died.  “And now...”

He nodded towards the Oval Office.  The bright Washington sunlight burn through the windows, casting eerie shadows as the two soldiers advanced, ready to charge through the open door into the room.  Ron held up a hand, signalling that they’d move on three...

“You may as well come in, gentlemen,” a voice called from inside.  Jackson felt the mind static suddenly grow stronger, just for a second.  “There’s nothing to stop you.”

Jackson motioned for Ron to cover him before he stepped into the Oval Office.  A woman was sitting behind the President’s desk, a woman so small and slight it seemed unbelievable that she could pose any threat to him.  At first sight, she seemed oriental, perhaps Japanese or Chinese, but her skin was a light green colour and her eyes a bright yellow.  The air around her seemed to be shimmering faintly, as if there was a heat haze in the room.

“I am the Redeemer,” she said, quietly.  There was something about her that reminded Jackson of Dreamy Girl, but where Dreamy Girl had been driven by her powers to feast on human energy, the Redeemer seemed much more calculating.  “I understand that you have come to kill me?”

Jackson’s surprise must have shown on his face, because she smiled.  “One of your friends down there got into a brawl with a mutant, who tore off the device protecting him from my probes,” she explained.  “I know everything about you and your team.”

“And yet you can't touch us,” Ron said.  He lifted his rifle and fired; Jackson followed a second later.  The shots ran into the haze and simply stopped.  Even the explosive rounds failed to penetrate her shield.  “What...?”

“It would have been foolish of me to wait here for you without protection,” the Redeemer said, dryly.  She was laughing at them behind her eyes.  “I may not be able to touch your mind, but I can still use telekinetic power to hold your shots at bay.”

Jackson studied her for a long moment.  Physically, she was almost nothing, but he had a feeling that she could simply use her powers to rip their brains apart if they made a threatening move.  Or she could collapse the floor below their feet, or bring down the ceiling on their heads.  He remembered the CS gas and started to reach for the grenade before stopping himself.  It was possible that something would happen to distract her...

“Why?”  Ron asked.  “It’s pretty clear that you manipulated everyone involved in this...affair.  Hope, his fellow Saviours...maybe even the first people who opposed you.  Why?”

The Redeemer smiled.  “Why not?”

Their earpieces buzzed before Ron could say another word.  “Incoming,” someone screamed.  “Incoming!”

The Redeemer looked up, surprised.  “But...no!”

A moment later, the entire White House shook so violently that it almost collapsed.

Chapter Forty-Four

The White House was under attack from within—and without.

Hope noticed that the attackers had taken up position around and near the White House, some firing at his people as they tried to retake the building, others clearly trying to get out of the line of fire.  A handful were even wearing suits like Mainframe’s, with enough firepower to even the odds against some lower-level superhumans.  Hope ignored them, even as a handful of missiles were fired in his direction, and crashed into the White House.  The Redeemer was sitting in the Oval Office, staring at a pair of soldiers.

He stared at her as he came to a halt, feeling the building shaking around him.  She looked as beautiful and innocent as ever, but how much of that was her manipulating his mind?  How much of what he’d done had been her idea?  His mind kept going over it time and time again; he was sure that he’d had the idea for the Saviours before he met her, but what if she’d planted the idea in his mind long before they’d ever formally met?  Telepaths were far from all-powerful, yet she’d practically told him herself how easy it was to slip an idea into a person’s mind.  What if she’d done it to him right from the start?

Fireman had thought that he’d been doing the wrong thing—and had carefully planned their encounter so that they’d fight without The Redeemer’s interference.  Hope saw it all now; they’d been outthought by their enemies, by one of the most experienced superhumans in the world.   Five of the core group of Saviours were dead or captured; one more was in a questionable position...even though Hope was still alive and free, his dream of a better world might have come to an end.  How could he save his dream when he no longer knew if it was his dream?

“Hope,” the Redeemer said.  Her voice was as soft and seductive as ever, but there was something about it that rang wrong to Hope now.  Fireman had said that she’d killed Mimic and the other superhuman had clearly believed his every word; it wasn't easy to lie to a Level 5 superhuman.  Hope had embraced honesty because he knew that a lie would be detected sooner rather than later, even if it did surprise the media.  “These two would like to kill me...”

Hope felt his temper snap.  “You killed Mimic,” he snapped.  Ever since he had sparked, he had forced himself to keep his powers under rigid control; now, he felt his control fray for the first time since his panic had pushed him into superhumanity.  “And you lied to me!”

He should have been able to detect a lie.  In hindsight, the story he’d been told was a tissue of lies.  Mimic would never have simply walked away from the Saviours, not someone with such a powerful sense of right and wrong.  He would have gone to the United States and warned the SDI, putting the world’s best-trained fighting team up against the Saviours when they invaded Washington.  Instead, the SDI had been caught by surprise and wiped out.  And yet he had believed every word he’d been told.

“I did what was necessary,” the Redeemer said, unflinchingly.  Hope admired her calm...but was that another sign of telepathic tampering?  His mind kept spinning, trying to separate out his thoughts from the ones she’d put into his head.  “I kept your dream alive.”

“By killing one of my friends?”

“By removing someone who would have stood in your way,” the Redeemer said, calmly.  “I knew that you had to save the world, so I merely ensured that your path to...world power would be clear.”

Hope refused to look into her eyes.  “And you pushed me into becoming more and more extreme,” he said.  It had been the Redeemer who had urged him forward, time and time again.  But how much of what he’d heard in the Congo had been real?  Had she made the girl’s family kill her to give him another reason to meddle?  “Why?  How much of the decision to invade Washington was mine?”

“It had to be taken,” the Redeemer said.  “Did you think that the world would leave you alone?  You thought that you could save the world piece by piece, but those who drag the human race down would have found other ways to hurt and kill you.  I had to push you forward for your own good.”

Hope’s voice became a howl.  “Why?”

“Because the human race needs you,” the Redeemer said.  “Look at the world, Hope; look at it!  Everywhere, right across the globe, people are trapped in hells made by their leaders.  Their lives are reshaped and destroyed by those with the power to influence them.  They spend more time admiring celebrities than they do building a better world.  Everyone is so damn banal because their leaders keep them that way—and their leaders are no better.  Each nation competes with other nations and wastes resources in that competition that could be used to improve the human condition.

“Everyone is told, time and time again, that they are special, that they have rights and entitlements that set them against everyone else.  In the homes of religion, they are told that they follow the one true path and everyone else is a shameless infidel, so lost to God that they wilfully refuse to follow the one true path.  And then they are told that women are always subordinate to men, or that dying in a holy war grants one immediate access to heaven—and none of them see that their enemies are just like them.  Or that mutants are still human, even if they look like animals.  Or that superhumans, for all their powers, are still very human!

“Even when they try to help the less fortunate, they screw it up because they don’t see the less fortunate as human!  You saw the debris left behind by the international aid workers in the Congo and the rest of Africa; you know it happened because someone in power didn't really bother to think that the Africans were human.  They got the help the outsiders thought they needed, not what they actually needed.  Every single human being is trapped inside their own skull, a misshapen entity warped and twisted because it can no longer relax and trust anyone.  They tear themselves apart over issues that are actually of no concern to them.

“They need you, Hope.  They need someone who they can trust to reshape their world for them.  You have the vision and the power to create a better world.  I just pushed you in that direction.  And I killed Mimic because he would have betrayed you, just like Judas...”

***

Jackson had jumped back the moment Hope crashed through the wall, expecting the superhuman to tear him apart before Jackson could fire on him.  Instead, Hope had confronted the Redeemer. Jackson had taken advantage of the pause to grab his modified weapons.  He couldn't hear anything from outside, which could be either good or bad.  Team Omega might have defeated the superhumans, or it might have been wiped out.

The Redeemer seemed colder, more calculating, than Hope seemed to realise.  Jackson’s mind static device was protecting him from any telepathic influence woven into her words, but Hope was almost certainly receiving the full brunt of her powers.  Assuming, of course, that she could influence him and maintain her shield.  Jackson had realised that she could have torn off the devices protecting them and hit them with her powers, converting them into her loyal slaves...and the fact she hadn't suggested that she couldn't do two things at once.

Her monologue seemed to be drawing to a close.  Hope seemed to stare at her in disbelief.  His face seemed twisted with pain, almost as if he didn't know what to do, as if all of the paths he saw were equally dark and futile—completely hopeless, in fact.

Jackson had seen enough of the world to know that the Redeemer had a point: selfishness and self-interest did prevent the human race from cleaning up its own shit.  But, on the other hand, would rule by a self-appointed superhuman be any better?  One man, no matter how clever, couldn’t handle everything by himself.  Maybe Hope had been right to intervene in the Congo—it had been the classic definition of a hopeless country—but elsewhere?

He glanced at Ron, and then stepped forward.  “Do you think that you can rule the whole world?”

The Redeemer glared at him.  “You and your team exist to kill people because they are different from you, because they have powers that make you afraid,” she hissed.  “Stay out of this!”

“I live in this world,” Jackson said.  He looked at Hope, realising—for the first time—just how large the superhuman was, looming far larger than life.  There was something about him that suggested descent from a higher plane, where life was simpler.  “Doesn't that give me a right to have an opinion?”

Hope seemed to nod.

“You look at the big picture from where you’re standing,” Jackson said, wishing he’d paid more attention when his teachers had tried to teach the kids how to debate.  “You see the problems that threaten the human race; the hatred and mistrust, the imbalance of power, the political leaders who abuse their positions...and you’re not wrong to hate it.  You’re far from alone in hating it.  But you can't see the small picture, and it’s that which will bring down your dream.

“People are individuals,” he stressed to them.  “Some will go along with you because they’re scared of you, but that won’t produce a healthy world.  The Soviet Union was dying even before it blew up Warsaw to kill a superhuman leading a revolt against Russian rule.  Others will resist you, or do the minimum necessary to get by, or simply refuse to help at all.

“What are you going to do to maintain your utopia?  Have telepaths scan the minds of everyone who is even vaguely suspect?  Or will you eventually start ordering telepaths to turn people into puppets, creating a world of insects where they all serve the King?”

He looked at Hope, willing him to believe.  “The price of your utopia is eternal slavery,” he concluded.  “You will—you must—enslave the entire human race to succeed.  And even if those slaves are well cared for, they will still be slaves.  They won’t have the freedom to push the limits and develop themselves as far as they can go.  How much of what the human race created, perhaps even superhumans themselves, would have come into existence in a dark world of slavery?”

“I...” Hope stammered.

“He’s lying to you,” the Redeemer interrupted.  Jackson felt a sudden tug on the side of his head, where he’d positioned the Mind Static device.  He lifted his rifle, praying that she would be exposed and vulnerable, just before he felt something slide into his mind.  The Redeemer’s stream of thoughts felt like poison in his skull, burning through his thoughts and replacing them with her own; he dropped his weapon as she took control of him.  “And...”

***

Hope lunged forward, throwing himself right at the Redeemer.  Madness howled at the corner of his mind as she started, trying to get out of his way or take control of him and deflect him from his course, but it was already too late.  For a moment, the illusion covering her flickered and vanished, revealing a green-skinned girl with bright eyes, before his hand smashed right through her skull.  His mind seemed to clear suddenly as the pressure, a pressure he hadn't even been aware of a second before, vanished, leaving him hopelessly aware of how far he’d fallen.

He’d wondered—even hoped, on some level—that she’d controlled him from the beginning, that he bore no responsibility for the madness he’d unleashed.  But as her control faded, he saw clearly how she’d influenced him—and it had started a long time after he’d founded the Saviours.  He had wanted to change the world, he had planned the invasion of the Congo to start saving people from their own governments...it had all been him.  The Redeemer had merely pushed him into lashing out at Libya and America after they had meddled with his grand dream.

Mimic’s last words seemed to mock him. Fireman’s grim expression as they’d battled near Las Vegas danced through his skull.  He'd thought that he was doing the right thing, but instead he had been a child lashing out with overwhelming power.  And the Redeemer had prodded him onwards.  Perhaps she had wanted a world of slavery, a world where no one dared commit a crime—no, worse than that; a world where the thoughts that led to criminal actions simply didn't exist.  She would have quietly ruled in his name as the entire world was tamed...unless the other powers gave in to panic and nuked the United States back to bedrock...

And it was all his fault.

***

Hope smashed his way up, crashed through the ceiling and through the hidden armour under the White House’s exterior.  Jackson was knocked to the ground again, just as the entire building shook violently.  Ron collapsed, blood pouring from the wound in his chest, just before Hope seemed to smash through the entire building.  The superhuman seemed to have gone completely mad.  Jackson heard him howling over the noise of falling buildings, just before his earpiece crackled with a warning.  Hope was lashing out blindly at both sides in Washington, tearing apart soldiers and his own forces with equal abandon.  Some of the early reports on superhumans like Fireman had called them forces of nature, beings so powerful that they might as well be gods.  Hope’s rampage was that of an angry—or maddened—god tearing apart the world.

Jackson saw a skyscraper in the distance shake and then start to collapse as Hope smashed through it, just as Hope flashed back to lash out at the White House again.

Damn it, he thought, as the White House shuddered once again.  The end could not be long delayed.  The floor was shaking madly as the supports gave way, just before it collapsed completely.  Jackson grabbed Ron and held on for dear life as the armour plate under the carpeted floor settled down on top of a pile of rubble, praying that no one had been trapped under the floor when it collapsed.  How do we fight something like that?

There was nothing from his earpiece.  Team Omega had either been wiped out, or forced to abandon their positions and pull back.  There was a terrifying crash of thunder as Hope stopped dead, right over the White House, his face twisted with madness and rage.  He was hovering right over the hole he’d made in the roof.  Jackson, desperately, reached for the grappling hook launcher and pointed it at the hovering superhuman.  Hope didn't even seem to see him as he hooked the jangler to the hook and fired, latching it on to Hope’s head.  A moment later, the jangler activated.

Hope’s ears were extra-sensitive, Polly had pointed out; it should be possible to overwhelm them with so much noise that the superhuman couldn't think.  Jackson could hear some of the noise as Hope struggled with it, trying desperately to cover his ears and flying haphazardly towards the ground, crashing into it hard enough to smash the jangler.  A second later, Hope flew out of the newly-created hole in the ground and came right towards Jackson.

“Get back,” Ron grunted, as he opened fire with his rifle.  They’d loaded up with penetrator rounds, intended to punch through invulnerable skin, but they just bounced off Hope as he lashed out at Ron and punched him with his full strength.  The ground shook like an earthquake, the force of the blow picking Jackson up and throwing him several meters into another pile of rubble.  He grunted as the impact stunned him, long enough for Hope to resume his mad campaign of destruction.  Ron had simply disintegrated under the blow.

Somehow, Jackson managed to stagger to his feet as Hope howled in the sky overhead, his rage shattering windows and echoing out over the city.  Some people would probably have been permanently deafened by his anger.  But there was no way to stop him...he looked around, desperately, and saw a body just outside one of the fallen pillars.  Lane had been trying to get into firing position, but he'd been caught by a piece of debris instead.  He'd been killed instantly.  But there was no time to mourn.

Jackson was the only member of Team Omega left to try to stop Hope.

The device Polly had produced, the device that had scared her so much, lay beside him, still intact.  Jackson staggered over to where his Captain had fallen and picked up the device, running through the arming sequence.  No one had been clear as to what would happen if the device functioned as designed, but Polly had admitted that the blast was likely to cause terrific damage.  And yet, Hope already seemed hell-bent on destroying Washington...it couldn't get any worse.  What would happen if he decided to destroy the entire planet?

Lifting his revolver, Jackson took aim at Hope and fired all five shots at him.  At that distance, hitting someone with a handgun was a matter of luck rather than skill, but it got Hope’s attention.  The superhuman twisted in the air, his face still mad with rage, and swooped towards Jackson.

Jackson grabbed the X-22 and braced himself.  He forced himself to wait for a clear shot; once he had one, he fired.  A single bullet stuck Hope’s head.

Got you, you bastard, Jackson thought.

The superhuman screamed as a white glow seemed to permeate his skull, and he slammed into the ground.  A moment later, the entire area shook violently, shockwaves rolling over Washington and shattering buildings.

Then an unearthly silence fell.

Jackson had only a moment to realise that he’d succeeded, that Hope was dead, before the darkness overwhelmed him.  He collapsed into unconsciousness.

Chapter Forty-Five

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” a voice said.  “How are you feeling?”

Jackson slowly managed to form words as he opened his eyes.  “Basil?”

“None other,” Basil said.  “You’re in a military hospital somewhere in Virginia.  How are you feeling?”

“Dizzy,” Jackson said, as he started to sit up.  “What happened?”

“Emergency medical teams found you in the rubble of the White House, alarmingly close to the blast zone,” Basil said.  He still walked with a limp, Jackson noted.  “You and the snipers were the only survivors from the deployed team.”

Jackson stared at him.  He’d known that Ron and Chris and Captain Lane were dead, but the others?  Some of them should have been hidden from Hope’s rampage—but then, it was quite possible that Hope had shattered the buildings they were using for shelter.  God alone knew how many people had been killed in the final moments of absolute chaos.

A thought struck him.  “And the President?”

“Dead,” Basil said, grimly.  “Most of the captives in the White House died when Hope brought the building down on their heads.  A couple survived, including Mr. Harrison—I believe he wants to debrief you when you’re feeling better.  The Vice President came out of hiding and was sworn in by a local judge—the entire Supreme Court is dead, too.  It’ll take us years to recover from the damage Hope inflicted.”

He smiled.  “Fireman survived, although Hope did manage to stun him in the battle,” he added.  “He rounded up a few dozen superhumans to help with clearing the wreckage and pulling survivors out before they died.”

“I wondered what had happened to him,” Jackson said, shaking his head.  Carefully, he stood up, feeling a twinge of dizziness.  “What’s going to happen now?”

“God knows,” Basil said.  “Team Omega has been effectively annihilated.  All four Captains are dead—along with the Sergeants.  I don’t know if the team can be effectively rebuilt...”

“It will have to be rebuilt,” Jackson said.  “What happens if the next mad superhuman is an out-and-out bastard?”

Basil nodded.  “Where were you the day Kennedy was shot?”

“I was an egg in my mother’s tummy,” Jackson said, dryly.  “I wasn't even born when Kennedy was shot.”

“I suppose not,” Basil said.  “Was your mother born when Pearl Harbour was bombed?”

Jackson glared at him.  “Is there a point to this?”

“Yes,” Basil said.  “Everyone thinks of those events as ones that changed the world.  We have people dating their lives from before and after Pearl Harbour was bombed, or President Kennedy was shot.  Even if we weren't directly involved, we knew that the world had changed.  Right now, the world changed after Hope attacked Washington DC—things are never going to be the same again.”

“I see,” Jackson said, slowly.

“Superhumans changed the world, but we were slow to realise just how much they changed the world,” Basil said.  “I don't think that we wanted to think about it.  The first set of superhumans were either heroes or outright villains; Fireman and Slaughter, for example.  After that, things became more complex, and we worked out ways to control and neutralise most of the superhumans—the Young Stars might have been drug addicts, but they weren’t a threat to society.  Even the ones like Dreamy Girl weren't a real danger.

“But now, the self-delusion has been torn away and we’re left to admit that with superhumans like Hope, we’re reduced to praying that they’re good guys.  And even the good guys might have their own ideas about how to save the world, save the human race...and so now everything is changed, once again.  What happens if we can’t find a certain method of taking out those superhumans when they pose a problem?”

“We die,” Jackson said, finally.

“Rule of the strong,” Basil said.  “Back in the days of knights and castles, a strong man with a strong castle and a force of loyal henchmen could control vast swathes of territory and be damn near impossible to dislodge.  The poor, suffering peasants couldn't do anything but obey; even if they wanted to fight back, they didn't have any real weapons.  It wasn't until gunpowder and cannons made castles vulnerable that that era came to an end, yet even Sam Colt couldn't equalise the entire world.  Places like Libya existed and inside revolt seemed impossible.  And now we’re back to the days of knights and castles...

“In hindsight, maybe we should have panicked more when Fireman and the others first appeared.”

He shook his head.  “Most of the government being dead means that there will have to be emergency elections.  And most of the people who are standing up and running are doing so on anti-superhuman platforms.  I don’t think we’re going to like the way they’ll take the country, or the world.”

Jackson frowned.  “But we do have technology,” he pointed out.  “Maybe we’ll find a technological answer.”

“Maybe,” Basil said.  “But right now, technology isn’t providing a complete answer.  What happens to the world if we never find a solution?”

***

Chester had been luckier than he cared to admit.  Hope, for whatever reason, had ordered him held in a sealed room in the White House.  That room had been knocked down along with the building, but it had protected Chester long enough for him to crawl out.  After he’d been recovered by one of the emergency teams, he’d been flown to meet with the Vice President and assist him in regaining control over the country.  It wouldn't be an easy task.

“I want you to take control of what remains of the SDI,” the Vice President had said.  It would be easier said than done, now that General Kratman was in a coma.  The overt team was dead, and much of the covert team had gone underground.  Some of them might take the opportunity to vanish completely.  “We need to develop new superhuman defences as quickly as possible.”

New York had shown a remarkable outpouring of sympathy for the dead superhumans of the SDI, now that Hope and the Saviours had been destroyed.  The remains of the SDI building were surrounded by citizens maintaining a silent vigil, while those who had worshipped superhumans right from the start were claiming that the SDI had merely been pushed into another universe and would one day return to Earth.  Chester would have liked to believe that that was true, but that was a comic book answer.  The real world didn't have superhumans, no matter how powerful, coming back from the dead.  Only one superhuman could make anything like that claim and he was, technically, a zombie animated by his own will.

The rest of the world had offered what help they could, although Chester knew it wouldn't be anything like enough to make a big difference.  Reports from Russia and China suggested that they had been on the verge of launching a joint nuclear strike on Washington when Team Omega had fought its final battle against Hope and the Saviours.  A few more days and Washington would have been destroyed, if Hope hadn't intercepted the nukes in flight.  Who knew what would have happened then?  The only thing that had forced them to hesitate was the fear of what Hope would do.  Perhaps they would have suffered the same fate as Libya—but then, they had tactical nukes too.  It would have devastated part of the world.

He looked up as Michael Lee entered the secure room, looking somewhat the worse for wear.  Las Vegas had been devastated by the battle between Fireman and Hope, a battle that hadn't even been fought to a bloody conclusion.  Level 5 superhumans could inflict terrifying amounts of damage on the surrounding area when they fought.  Hope had managed to stun Fireman, knocking him out of the fight.  What would have happened if he’d managed to kill Fireman didn't bear thinking about.

“I’m glad you survived,” Fireman said.  “Your wife?”

“Alive and well,” Chester said.  He waved a hand at the stack of paperwork.  “I may even get to see her in a year or two.”

Fireman chuckled.  Chester motioned him to a seat.

“I understand that you’re going to the Congo,” he said, as Fireman took a seat.  “Are you sure you want to go there?”

“Someone has to ride herd on what remains of the Saviours—and the mutants—there,” Fireman said.  “Besides, without a strong American presence in the Congo, someone else is going to undo all of Hope’s good work.”

There was another reason to send Fireman out there, with the kind of support that should—perhaps—have been offered to Hope when he first invaded the Congo.  The American public had been badly shocked by the superhuman attack; they’d believed, not without reason, that most superhumans were nothing more than celebrities.  Hope had shown that they were really godlike beings with few restraints—and the Redeemer had shown that even the most decent of them could be manipulated by telepaths.  At least that little detail hadn't leaked out, and if Chester had his way it never would.  There was enough anti-telepath hysteria already.

But keeping Fireman in the Congo might—might—prevent the anti-superhuman candidates from opening a new Pandora’s Box.  The United States had inherited most of Dr. Death’s records after the collapse of South Africa, and some of them had suggested ways to inhibit or destroy superhuman powers.  And yet Chester knew enough to be sickened by what the racist bastard had done to develop his treatments.  One incident had led to the indirect sterilisation of over fifteen thousand black women in South Africa, while another had committed  genocide on every black superhuman born in the country.  Chester was one of the very few people who knew what had happened to Dr. Death after his capture by American Special Forces—and that was something he never wanted to address.  What would happen, in the future, if that particular box was opened again?

“I hope you’re right,” Chester said.  In the end, the Congo was expendable.  All that mattered was keeping a lid on the next crisis before it blew up in their faces.  The next superhuman who wanted to take world power might be more careful.  “Good luck.”

***

Jackson knocked at the door, opening it when he heard the instruction from inside.  Mr. Harrison was seated at a desk, working his way through a stack of paperwork and looking harassed.  His normal support staff had been killed or scattered when Hope had invaded Washington, and most of the ones who had reported in weren't cleared for the Greenbrier Bunker.  Jackson himself had been surprised to discover that the bunker existed; from what he’d heard, it had been created as a fall back in the event of Russian nuclear attack.  It had kept the Vice President safe, if disconnected from the grid...

“Captain McDonald,” Harrison said.  “Take a seat, please.”

Jackson blinked in surprise.  “Captain?  I’m a Corporal.”

“You’ve been promoted,” Harrison said, gruffly.  “We’ll go over the pay and benefits later.”

“What's on your mind, sir?”

“Would you be willing to stay with Omega?”

“We're rebuilding the teams?”

“We are,” Harrison confirmed.  “The federal mandate I've been given allows for the rebuilding, plus creation of two more platoons.”

Jackson frowned.  “That’s nice.”

“Captain,” Harrison said. “You’re the last reasonably healthy survivor of Team Omega. I need you to take command of rebuilding the team.”

Jackson couldn't fault his logic.  Almost all of the active team was dead, apart from Basil and himself—and Basil would never return to full operator status.  None of the support staff were qualified to lead the team, even though they had survived almost completely intact.  And the other SOF operators in the United States had no experience of working with Team Omega or fighting superhumans, although some of them had fought Hope’s forces during the brief period when he’d ruled the country.  Maybe there would be a healthy pool of potential recruits for him to draw on.

But they would all be older and more experienced than himself ... except in taking on superhumans.  And that was the point, wasn't it?

“There are other issues,” Harrison continued.  “Our funding has been increased—the President wants us to proceed with the Cybermen program and the Borg program.  DARPA has a whole list of possible ways to augment a soldier and upgrade him into something that might be able to stand against a superhuman in open combat, but some of them have a very high fatality rate.  Every time they tried to strengthen a person’s bones for combat, the test subject died.  I need someone in that seat who knows that superhumans can be beaten, without enhancing soldiers and risking their lives in the process.  We don’t need a program that effectively wipes out our entire cadre for Team Omega.”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.  The responsibility scared him—in some ways, it was more responsibility than Captain Lane had ever enjoyed.  He’d had the impression that the four Captains compared notes frequently, but he’d be alone.  Any other Captain would be junior to him.  “I’ll do my best.”

“I’m counting on you,” Harrison said, bluntly.  “The SDI has been devastated.  It won’t be long before someone with unfriendly ambitions realises that we’re critically weak in superhuman manpower; maybe we'll see another attempted coup, maybe something with more limited objectives.  We’re going to need your team in place to cope with it before the shit hits the fan—and it will, Captain.  The world was turned upside down when Hope struck Washington and the shockwaves will take a long time to fade.”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.  He couldn't disagree.  “How much freedom do I have?”

“As much as I gave Captain Lane and the others,” Harrison said.  “Just remember that you have to lead Team Omega into combat next time.  And try to learn some diplomatic skills.  You need them.”

Jackson nodded.  He didn’t feel up to the challenge; being a fire team leader in the Marine Corps was different from serving as a field team leader in any Special Operations Force, but Harrison was right.  There was no one else, unless he could find some retirees.  Even a former First Sergeant would be helpful.

“I understand,” he said.  He hesitated.  There was something that had been bugging him.  “What are we going to do with the captured Saviours?”

Harrison frowned.  Gateway, Triple A and Warrior Girl had been taken alive; Lightning had been captured, but she had been crushed to a bloody pulp when the White House fell in.  Mainframe, Mimic, Hypersonic, the Redeemer and Hope were all confirmed dead.  Darkness and Flash Freeze had remained in the Congo and vanished shortly after Hope’s defeat and death.  Like the enhanced humans who had escaped South Africa, they’d probably add to the chaos gripping the continent in the future.  A number of lesser superhumans had also been captured or gone on the run, along with a handful of mutants.

“They may have been influenced by the Redeemer too,” Harrison said, “but the new administration isn't going to take that into account, not after everything else that’s happened in the last few days.  I understand that the leaders will be tried for terrorism—treason, too, for those who were born Americans.  Fireman suggested that the mutants could be exiled to the Congo and put to work there in the work gangs Hope founded to punish the former warlord supporters.  It may be the best possible solution.”

He shook his head.  “The world changed and we didn't really admit it to ourselves,” he said, flatly.  “We cannot let that happen again.”

Jackson nodded, but he knew that it wouldn't be easy.

“We won’t,” he said, finally.  “Because for all their power, they’re still human.  And that means that we can beat them.”

The End

Afterword

“That’s the whole point of [superhumans], isn't it?  Something complicated; you make it simple, something you can hit, or else you just ignore it.  You stay as far as possible from the real world - which, let’s face it, can be a messy fucking place.”

-Billy Butcher; The Boys: Get Some (Garth Ennis).

Most superhero stories are instantly forgettable.

I think, to be honest, that that is a limitation of the genre.  The typical superheroes - Superman, Batman, Captain America, Iron Man - are heroes.  They rarely come to grips with realistic problems and, when they do, it tends to lead to some of the worst writing in comic book history.  Their stories show them punching something, as Garth Ennis noted in The Boys, to make a problem go away.  The real world doesn’t work that way.

DC and Marvel are particularly bad offenders because their mainstream comic books attempt to create an impression of superhumans in our world.  Superman and Batman meet real-world presidents, for example, and super-advanced technology co-exists with a world that isn't that very different from our own.  The failure to actually look at the concept of superhumans and how they might affect the world around them leads to stories such as Panic In The Sky and Our Worlds At War, which have a number of similarities (they both focus on an alien invasion) and yet are largely forgettable.  No matter what happens - Superman goes red and blue, Batman is accused of murder and becomes a hunted fugitive - their world never changes.

This became particularly absurd in the argument, after 9/11, of how the comic books should acknowledge the destruction of the Twin Towers.  To us, 9/11 was a horrific mass murder, a major terrorist attack; to the denizens of DC and Marvel, it’s merely another Tuesday.  The aforementioned stories above both featured far more damage, on a global scale, than the 9/11 plotters could hope to inflict in their wildest dreams.  And yet, 9/11 is still held up in both universes as a particularly horrific attack.

But what really undermines the mainstream comic book stories is the refusal to have superhumans genuinely change things, for better or worse.  Mark Miller sent The Authority to liberate a Third World hellhole from the clutches of an oppressive dictator, yet refused to focus on the aftermath.  (They later found a silver bullet in the form of a semi-reformed supervillain, who was sent to clean up the mess.)  One might as well cheer on American forces that liberated Iraq, yet ignore the bloody struggle to stabilise the country afterwards.

This is, in many ways, the core problem with most comic book stories.  Having spent time and effort on settling up a universe, writers are reluctant to knock it down.  (And, at the same time, a radical change will often upset long-term readers - Spiderman’s One More Day/Brand New Day, for example - without adding more readers.)  Superman doesn't save the world from itself, Batman doesn't snap the Joker’s neck ... because either one would fundamentally alter the comic book universe.  There are very few moments of genuinely lasting change within both DC and Marvel (even Jason Todd came back to life).  And that is why most comic books are instantly forgettable.

In the real world, things are different.

There is a fundamental difficulty between ‘equal opportunities’ and ‘equal outcomes.’  As an indie book writer, I am in competition with every other indie writer for the coveted number one slot on Amazon.  We all have the same shot at it - may the best writer win!  But only one of us can hold the place at any single time.  There’s no such thing as an equal outcome; writers are ranked according to sales and only one of us can be at the top.

This is true across many fields of achievement.  A person who wishes to be a top violinist must work to master the instrument; they must practice, practice and practice.  Everyone can be given the opportunity to learn, but not everyone will make use of it.  There is no guarantee that giving two people the same opportunity will lead to the same outcome.  Child One may stick with the violin into adulthood and go on to play in concerts; Child Two may decide very quickly that he/she doesn't want to be a violinist and find something else to try.

I was brought up to believe, and still do, that we are all born equal, with equal potential for good and ill.  Our lives are determined by what use we make of the opportunities presented to us as we grow older.

But when superhumans are involved, everything changes.

Batman is the peak of human perfection; he’s strong, intelligent and frighteningly good at picking the weak spot to strike.  Given time to think and plan, he’s almost completely unbeatable (one of the few JLA stories I recall had him besting a trio of White Martians though deduction and careful planning.)  You could easily imagine Batman serving as a Navy SEAL, if things had been a little different.  But he isn't a match for Superman.  He’d get swatted aside casually if Superman really wanted to kill him.

(One of the few comic book series I actually remember is Irredeemable, where the two Batman-counterparts get killed very quickly.  One of them, in particular, is a genuinely brilliant deconstruction of the Badass Normal trope.)

If humans are born equal, what does it do to society if superhumans genuinely exist?

Call me a cynic if you like, but I don’t think it would be a very pleasant world.  A superman-type character could make himself the ruler of a nation and no one could stop him.  Or, on a smaller scale, a mind-controlling superhuman could build himself a harem or mentally dominate an entire city and, again, no one could stop him.  What does it mean for humanity if a bullied schoolboy develops superpowers and tears apart an entire school, killing thousands of innocent children?  And what happens if no one can bring him to account for his crimes?

Humans have a tendency to develop tribal attachments.  Why wouldn't superhumans have the same problem?  They may have powers, but they’re still human.  It probably would not take long for superhumans to start banding together - and tribes can easily become echo chambers, where contradictory ideas are rarely tolerated.  Some superhumans will consider themselves ... well, saviours; others will think of themselves as superior to the mere mortals under their feet and able to do whatever they like to people who cannot fight back.  Why not?  If mundane humans can engage in schoolyard bullying even as they grow into adulthood, why not superhumans?

As a character, Superman is simply too mature to be believable.

And so, as I noted in the foreword, I set out to ask myself what sort of world might be shaped by superhumans - and how would the world respond?

I hope you enjoyed the story.  If you liked it, please feel free to leave a review.

Christopher G. Nuttall

Edinburgh, 2015.

The World of Team Omega

The first (known) superhuman appeared in Sudan, in 1979.  According to the reports (which were not believed at the time) the superhuman was a young female who was to be burned to death by her family for an unspecified offence.  She somehow took control of the flames and used them to incinerate her village before vanishing into the vast continent.  None of the stories sounded plausible until 1980, when a New York fireman fell from a burning building and sparked into a superhuman.  Several others, including a Polish dissident, sparked later in the same year.

It was not long before they started having an effect on world politics.  The Polish superhuman ended up leading a revolt against Russian dominance, something that was bitterly resented by the Polish population (and the rest of Eastern Europe).  This superhuman, powerful enough to tear through tanks with his bare hands and bring down aircraft with his gaze, was eventually killed by a heavy nuclear bomb (the Russians vastly overestimated the required blast) that devastated Warsaw.  Russia became a pariah internationally as the Soviet Union eventually disintegrated into chaos.  The appearance of the first Russian superhuman came too late to save the USSR.

Other sparking events continued to reshape the world.  The Falklands War created the first British superhuman, Invincible, and the Iraq-Iran War produced an Iraqi superhuman, although he remained largely undercover until much later, when he overthrew Saddam and took control of Iraq.  The United States attempted to remain in the lead by forming the first superhero team, headed by Fireman, which would be heavily involved in tackling the first supervillains to appear in the world.  These included Slaughter, a serial killer, and Jim Crow, a racist with a pathological hatred of non-white people.

It was not long before research into superpowers started in earnest.  Foremost among them was Dr. Wouter Basson of South Africa, who became known as Dr. Death.  He experimented on captured black superhumans, eventually pioneering a technique for transferring superhuman organs from a superhuman into a normal human, granting some form of superhuman abilities.  While these techniques rarely produced anything that could compete with a natural-born superhuman, they did give the Apartheid regime an answer to increasing black unrest.  Dr. Death followed up this success by creating drugs that could inhibit superpowers, as well as a retrovirus that he claimed would eliminate the superhuman gene altogether from the black population.  Field tests of this virus achieved nothing more than the mass sterilisation of countless black women.

Others had their own ideas.  Looking for a low-cost way to destabilise communist gains in Latin America, the CIA set about recruiting from the handful of captured supervillains in American custody.  Slaughter was sent into Latin America with orders to spread terror, but the serial killer slipped his leash and went rogue.  By the time the outside world learned what had happened, several years later, he was responsible for thousands of deaths.

1986 saw widespread changes in the law as America struggled to adapt to the existence of superhumans.  The first parts of what would eventually become SARA were written into law, insisting that active superhumans register with the government and—more controversially—banning the practice of dressing up as a superhuman without actually possessing superpowers.  On a lighter note, DC Comics won a lawsuit against ‘Superman’—a superhuman who wore a Superman costume—and managed to convince another superhuman to act as a mascot for the company.  Finally, the first version of the SDI was brought into existence by President Reagan.

The first Superhuman Era came to an end in 1987-88 when Slaughter’s activities in Latin America became public knowledge.  Fireman, then the leader of the ‘Americans,’ left his post to track down Slaughter and publicly beat him to death, following up with a press conference that placed the blame for the rampage on the current Administration.  Vice President George H.W. Bush, formerly Director of the CIA, took most of the blame, torpedoing his chance of succeeding President Reagan.  Fireman quit government service altogether and vanished somewhere into flyover country.

This led to a series of tectonic shifts in global politics.  Most notably was an alliance between Latin American superhumans against the United States, who served as the front men for an anti-American alliance that eventually included every Latin American state.  In Iraq, Saddam was overthrown by a superhuman in the wake of the disastrous Iraq-Iran War, who proceeded to put Iraq on a more stable footing for the future.  Almost every country in the world saw superhuman activity, some managing to cope with it successfully, others almost losing control of their affairs to superhumans.

President Cheney’s election in 1992 can be fairly said to start the second Superhuman Era.  Cheney oversaw the strengthening of the SDI, the creation of what would eventually become Team Omega and the creation of a legal environment that worked to channel superhuman energies in more productive directions.  Many superhumans would become celebrities, famed for being superhuman rather than anything else, with corporate backing that ensured that they got a wonderful life in exchange for toeing the line.  Superhumans more willing to enter government service were directed towards the SDI, or a handful of ‘black’ units that took advantage of superhuman abilities.  Given the fact that there were roughly 5000 superhumans in the world at the time, it served to prevent a greater upheaval.  Other nations were less lucky.

1995-1996 saw the final collapse of South Africa, isolated after news of Dr. Death’s experiments became public.  Thousands of whites fled the country as South Africa fell apart, while hundreds of superhumans went north, hiding themselves in sub-Saharan Africa.  Dr. Death himself was taken into custody by an American SF unit and eventually vanished under mysterious circumstances.

It was merely the first wave of chaos that threatened to tear the world’s fragile balance of power asunder.  Russia started making its first steps back onto the world stage, backing the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and providing arms and equipment to Latin America.  Saudi Arabia finally collapsed into chaos and was largely annexed by Iraq.  America and Iran started mending fences that would lead to a reluctant alliance to maintain the balance of power in the Middle East.   Bangladesh, of all places, became a major regional power.  China started reforming, only to be threatened by demands for more reform from its underclass.

Disaster nearly fell in 2009, on the verge of a United Nations Conference on the African Situation.  Put simply, a superhuman with a unique power—the ability to turn off superpowers possessed by others—was pushed into involvement with a plot to trigger a superhuman crisis that would reshape politics in the United States for years to come.  The power-drainer would kill several victims, including Marvin Lofting (America II), before finally being stopped by Matt Tracker of the SDI.  Much of the truth of the affair was covered up by the SDI, which resumed its search for a second superhuman with similar powers.  The UN conference failed, unfortunately, paving the way for Hope’s creation of the Saviours.

There is no clear consensus on the origin of superhuman powers.  Theories range from Nazi experiments back in World War Two to the unlocking of previously-dormant potential in the human genetic code, or meddling by aliens or other advanced entities.  There is also no way to predict who will become a superhuman, or what powers they will develop.  All that can be said with any confidence is that the transformation normally occurs when the victim is pushed right to the limit.

Generally, superhumans are classed according to strength and resilience, ranging from Level 1 to Level 5.  The handful of superhumans with powers that seem to defy the standard scale are classed as Level X and regarded (rightly) as extremely dangerous.  Mostly, superhumans are classed by the SDI when they register and undergo training to prepare themselves for a superhuman life.

The Superhuman Activity Regulatory Act (SARA) provides the legal background to superhuman registration and control.  Superhumans who wish to use their powers in a public setting are required to register and undergo formal training, which can lead to a career as a public servant and deputized police officer.  Those who have higher-level powers are generally encouraged to join the SDI.  Superhumans who wish to remain unregistered are expected to refrain from using their powers in a public setting, a rule that has been harshly criticized by, among others, the ACLU, on the grounds that it discriminates against superhumans.

Table of Contents

Team Omega Cover Blurb

Author’s Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-OneThis

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

C

Afterword

The World of Team Omega