Sunday morning
It was their last day of ‘freedom’, at least until the following weekend. Colin had arrived back at the school late the previous night to find an invitation from Chris to watch a film together the following morning.
Chris had booked the school’s AV lounge so they could watch the film on the big screen and enjoy the spectacle of the rest of the inmate pupil’s returning to Claremont Academy before the new term started the next day. Gus would be unable to attend as he had another of his extracurricular training activities scheduled Down Below at the same time and wouldn’t be around until later.
They had just started to watch the opening sequence of the latest blockbuster that Chris had downloaded, when there had been some sort of momentary interruption on the screen. It was as though they had blinked and..? The computer was in the process of rebooting itself and all they could see now were the end credits scrolling up the screen. Had they fallen asleep and missed the whole film?
That was when they heard the sound of an extremely upset female voice coming from outside the teacher’s bungalows. They immediately rushed over to one of the corner windows and saw ‘Mama’ Hutchins kneeling on the grass outside and holding something, an injured cat they thought, as she screamed that Cassie had gone missing, had anyone seen her. She was completely out of her mind with worry.
Chris knew that with both Princess and Outrage still away on holiday, Mrs Hutchins had agreed to let Cassie play with Amalia and her cat outside while she did some work in preparation for her class. They’d passed them both playing when they had arrived at the main building a few minutes before – or, looking at the clock on the wall, a couple of hours earlier.
‘Mama’ saw them at the window and shouted up that she’d just come outside to find Amalia and Cassie missing and her cat, Mau, lying in front of the teacher bungalows badly injured. Had they seen her? Instinctively, Colin ran across to the opposite corner of the room and looked out at the car park. He was joined a second later by Chris.
From the corner of their eye, they could just see a small, diminutive figure flying above an unmarked armoured security vehicle driving towards the open school gates. Chris recognised the vehicle at once, he’d arrived at the school in a similar vehicle – armoured transport as used by AEGIS, though why Cassie was flying after the van and trying to throw her toys at it was anyone’s guess. Her teddy bear, followed seconds later by a Sindy doll, bounced off the back door of the van as she tried to keep up with the vehicle speeding away.
Apart from ‘Mama’ back on the lawn, there were no teachers available as far as they could tell. They scrambled for their earpieces and switched them on. All they got was static; it was as if all the internal comms were down, at least for the moment. If they went back to the other window and tried to tell Mrs Hutchins what was happening, the van would get away, with Cassie apparently in pursuit. Was Amalia inside? It was only a couple of miles to the motorway, and Cassie seemed determined to follow it. Despite her youth, she was flying extremely fast.
The van approached the school gates, which unusually were wide open, and Camille does not appear to be in the gatehouse. Chris made a decision, even though he knew he could get in a hell of a lot of trouble if he was wrong. He unleashed a laser blast through the glass of the window (hoping that the glass would not diffract the beam) at the rear tyre of the moving van. He had time for one shot; he aimed and fired. It almost worked, it left a streak of rubber on the road surface where it heated up and removed the tyres’ tread while scorching some tarmac. The van sped out the gate. Colin considered trying to glide after it, but they were on the ground floor. That’s when they noticed that a couple of the sixth form had arrived by mopeds which they had parked by the gates and it looked as though they still had the keys in them. Even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be hard to hot-wire.
While they would be unlikely to overtake the van, they will allow them to follow the vehicle’s direction and of course, Cassie’s was still very visible in the sky. Without a moment’s hesitation, Cadet quickly stripped down to his costume, opened the window and vaulted out, running towards the nearest bike.
He was beaten there by a rematerialising and now costumed Firewall, who was jumping on the other moped and putting on the helmet the owner had kindly left behind. They briefly considered telling someone what they were doing, but would ‘Mama’ really stop worrying if she knew that they were on the case? Where were all the teachers anyway? Okay it was both a Sunday and still the holidays but there were usually at least a couple of staff around even if it was just the ground crew.
Colin put on the other helmet as they switched on their engines and sped off as fast as their mopeds could manage, hoping that the van would be restricted by the speed limit at least until it got to the motorway slip road.
The van surprised them. Not that AEGIS would visit the school; they were likely dropping off a new special curriculum student, but that they would do something to so upset Cassie that she’d chase after them and leave the school grounds.
Regardless, they had to try to follow the flying toddler who was faster than they’d expected, keeping up with the van despite her ‘swim-like’ airborne motions. They never had found out what the child’s powers consisted of beyond her ability to fly. Despite the distance, they could still hear her shouting at the van. One of her powers had to be sonic, surely?
With their comms apparently ‘dead’ Cadet shouted up as loud as he could towards Cassie, hoping that perhaps she might have super-hearing as well; “Where’s Amalia, is she in the van?” If she heard, she didn’t respond. Firewall immediately erected his force barrier round himself, just in case.
As they sped past the school’s Reception Block and on to the dual carriageway, watching the now distant figure flying in front of them, Colin, no he reminded himself in costume he was Cadet, weaved in and out of the traffic trying to gain a bit of distance as he prepared his wrist-mounted grapple. If he could just manage to get it attached onto the rear bumper of the van, perhaps he could freewheel and let the vehicle pull him along? He fired it just as another car pulled over between the van and him. His grapple hit that vehicle instead, but thankfully did not grab as it turned off at the next junction. Damn! He rewound in the cable and reset it as he followed the speeding up van once more.
It was thankfully obvious what direction they were heading because of Cassie’s presence in the sky. Then they heard their comms reactivate. They assumed it had to have been a localised disruption that had blocked transmission until now, but when they tried to contact the school again, there was still no response.
Firewall remembered that when he had been checking out his latest comms unit, he’d discovered that part of the Baby Monitor Protocol built in to the Training Wheels program also had what it called the Playpen; a perimeter alert that sounded if the recipient of the comms unit left the school grounds without notification. Could Ms Kitty have had hers activated? What about Cassie? Could they have put something on her just in case? There was no way to tell, but he hoped so, especially given their inability to contact the school themselves and tell them what was happening.
Then over their earpieces, they heard a cautious voice, “Hello? Hello, is anyone there?” It was a very young, somewhat familiar voice despite its hysterical edge. Somehow, Cassie had hold of an earpiece. It squawked several times as she tried to activate it. Going by the roar of the wind, she must be holding it in her hand rather than it being in her ear.
“Hi Cassie, we’re here, we’re following behind” said Firewall, hoping she could hear him over the sound of the wind rushing by. It must have worked as she began screaming, “there were very nasty men in metal suits” another long-drawn-out squawk then, “They’d hurt the pussy an’ hurt Mizz Kitty an’ threw her in the van an’ then they took one of the bad boys as well…” There was another long intelligible and squawking-filled couple of seconds, which was followed by a “But I stop ‘em so no-one else…” there was a long-drawn-out squawk then, “…including ME!!”
“That’s good Cassie, keep talking. Where did you get the earpiece from anyway?”
There was silence for a several more seconds, then again they heard Cassie saying, “It was Mizz Kitty’s I’s picked it up when they made her sleepy.” Then something they couldn’t make out, immediately followed by the sound of a loud explosion over their earpieces. Then they heard her voice again over the sound of a second explosion, “the van is going boom-boom an’ they’re stopping near the big road were they building with lots of big toys…”
There was a lot more crashing sounds coming over the comms, Cassie sounded very upset and was screaming something incoherent when the earpieces went silent. They tried several times to recontact her as they headed towards the on-ramp. They’d lost sight of her as the van had apparently speeded up when it entered onto the motorway, but too little time had elapsed for them to be too far away. Wonder what had happened though to make the van go ‘boom-boom’?
There was an off-ramp only a couple of miles down the motorway, and they had started building some sort of shopping precinct there as well. Should they risk driving their mopeds illegally down the motorway, or try to get there by staying on secondary roads? The motorway would be faster and more direct and, of course, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Police saw them and gave chase. Perhaps they should just try driving up the hard shoulder?
They decided to break the law and risk it, after all, Chris was already driving without a licence and neither of them had valid insurance. They sped as fast as they could down the motorway, trying not to be conspicuous until they again could see Cassie, this time just hovering above a construction site close to the next junction off the motorway.
They took the turn-off and headed towards the building site, down a dirt track until they could see the metal skeleton of the precinct and in the centre of the structure was the van lying at an angle, its rear and sides had been blown out as though from an explosion inside it.
Cassie was hovering above a panel wall, dropping a variety of heavy objects down on something behind the massive panels. To add to the confusion, there was a second figure, his arms outstretched, floating in the air in front of the wall just above a cement mixer truck. This overweight figure looked familiar but it still took them a couple of seconds to realise that it was a fellow student, one of Ces’s hanger-on’s and the person Camille had pulled up for anti-Meta comments only the day before. It was Lawrence Smalls. For someone so vehemently hostile to Meta-humans, he was obviously one himself, and his powers seemed to be manifesting some form of gravitational field because all the metalwork and surrounding vehicles were being dragged slowly towards him. He was definitely not in control, but something made them think this was not an initial breakthrough in process. There was no sign of people in metal suits, though. As they watched, the vehicles all began to drag faster and faster across the ground towards the floating figure, and the metal panels behind him started to buckle.
Cadet and Firewall elected to head down the side road and bypass the van and Lawrence for the moment and see if they could identify what Cassie was throwing objects at, behind the wall.
Firewall muttered as they drove towards a crane its arm arched over the side road, “I never liked that Lawrence you know, I also don’t think he’s an innocent in all this, he’s causing what I think is some form of gravitational disturbance. He also didn’t seem to be in total control of his powers, maybe I should Taser him?”
He was hovering about 20 feet in the air, and Cassie was floating twice that high. Firewall and Cadet parked the mopeds up by several Portakabins and edged forward until they saw at least four figures in Aegis Armour taking aim at both Cassie and Lawrence.
Looking across at the blown out van, they could see that Kitty was still inside, unconscious, though there was no other obvious signs of injury. They looked again at the AEGIS guards. They were spread around the site behind the panelled wall, the two nearest were out in the open, but the other two were hiding behind some piled up girders.
Cassie flew down, picked up a cement mixer from in front of the wall and attempted to throw it. It bounced off the outside of the wall; narrowly missed hitting Lawrence in the process. She might be strong but her aim was still that of a child even if she was capable of lifting a 300 kg object. Her attempt was ‘rewarded’ when a couple of the guards tried to open fire on her from below. Thankfully, the shots missed.
Cadet ran towards the upright scaffolding that formed the building’s framework and unleashed several flash bombs at the nearest armoured figures. Their suits were equipped against just such an attack, but one of them was caught unprepared, and it left him partially blinded and staggering. Whether any of the others were similarly affected, it was hard to say. The flash also affected everyone else nearby. Caught without warning, Firewall found himself almost blinded as well, thankfully, he’d recognised what Cadet was doing and had closed his eyes in time. Damn, they needed to make sure to warn each other before they unleashed anything that might affect the home team as well. Even Cassie and Lawrence were caught in the unexpected flash. Cassie crossing back over the wall dropped a metal beam to the ground as a result and Lawrence cried out at being temporarily blinded, his gravitational distortion got worse as several objects below crashed into each other.
Meanwhile, Firewall blinked off the flashing in his eyes and unleashed an energy burst at the armoured figures. He hoped he could get them all at once, even if they had some cover.
The nearest two guards were left staggered even as their suits tried to compensate for the attacks, so they were unprepared when Cassie suddenly threw a battery-powered nail gun she’d found at their feet. The impact caused the gun to start firing about a dozen nails in random directions, including back up towards Cassie, though thankfully they missed. At least a couple of the nails impacted on the guards suits, but failed to penetrate. It was a great distraction, though, even if one of the nails shot passed Firewall’s head.
A blinding headache instantaneously hit Firewall and Cadet (and apparently Cassie going by her sudden crying) as someone activated some sort of brainwave inhibitor. Cadet and Firewall though had previously faced Rhan in training and knew how to counter the mind-numbing effects of the attack. They dropped back undercover, shook off the effect and went to attack again. Then Firewall felt a laser-guided Taser hit against his barrier and penetrate through, leaving him shocked and staggered by the blast.
Meanwhile, Lawrence was finding that several of the nearest trucks and power generators had begun to float up and fly around him, the metal bodywork crumpling as he did so. It seemed that he was getting stronger and more powerful the more he used his powers.
Firewall tried to shake off the effects of the Taser as a small cylinder was suddenly launched towards them. They dived behind some concrete blocks as they realised that it contained tear gas. Firewall stumbled to pull out his rebreather and activated it, as Cadet tried to hold his breath and struggle to access his own rebreather.
Thankfully, the gas was apparently heavier than air and didn’t rise high enough to affect either Cassie or Lawrence, but the two guards at the rear had again started to unleash several shots at Cassie even as she appeared to ‘realise’ that objects could come to her without her having to go fetch them from below. The bullets cascaded off a floating small cement mixer and a large portable CD player that she brought into orbit around her before she hammered them down on them from above. Her aim was better when she didn’t actually try and throw them. They slammed into the girders and the roof of a bulldozer a couple of them had been cowering by.
The wall was now almost blown out by the effect of Lawrence’s gravity field on the other side.
Cadet ran towards his moped, started it, skidded in between the upright girders and flew across the open patch of the site, doing a wheelie. He flipped the bike up and on top of the pile of girders and drove past the two guards nearby. As he flew off the far end of the girders, he did a backflip somersault to avoid being hit by return fire while in flight. It slammed into the ground and slid across the ground as he rolled off it in mid-air expanding his Bo Staff and as he landed in a crouch, he swung it at the back of his opponents’ knees, knocking him to the ground before stamping the tip against the helmet several times before stepping back.
Firewall, despite still being affected by the flash, followed Cadet in towards the cover of the upright girders and unleashed a multi-attack on all of those still standing – The first attack missed the guard closest to him but the next clearly hit the guard beside him, frying his circuitry and knocking him unconscious. The next shot was a last second effort, before taking cover himself and missed but forced the guard to keep his head down.
Above them, Cassie must have seen something as she suddenly dropped her latest acquisitions, a dozen converter packs, and flew towards the kidnappers’ wrecked van. As she tried to fly past Lawrence he began to scream as though he’d been hit though the swirling gravitational vortex and winds that now surrounded him, Cassie struggled to get past. She eventually succeeded and headed inside to comfort Kitty. At least she was no longer in the line of fire, though given the lack of control Lawrence was displaying, she was not yet out of danger.
The guard at the front replied to his attack by unleashing an energy blast at Firewall, which spattered off the girder he was hiding behind. That was followed a second later by another tear gas cylinder, this time aimed at face height. His rebreather was still working but the damage from being hit by the cylinder would do serious injury even with a helmet on. Firewall dodged as it bounced off the girder, he grabbed it and tossed it towards the buckling wall.
Then the gravity wave hit as that section of the wall collapsed completely and they found themselves enduring an alternating gravity field pulling at them from multiple directions at once. Firewall clung to the girder, but Cadet was forced to roll with it until he could grab hold of a pile of scaffolding, leaving him bruised as he slammed into it. Momentarily the armoured figures found themselves pinned and battered as their suits struggled to compensate for the fluctuation in gravity. The rearmost armoured figure still managed to unleash a Taser attack at Cadet, who thankfully managed to dodge.
He responded by attacking the downed figure nearest to him, striking out several times against their helmet and neck, leaving his victim’s armour leaking some form of hydraulic fluid from the neck joints which shut down the suit, trapping and leaving him unable to respond. Firewall fired off a blast at the next, nearest figure, who was already partly immobilised. The blast hit and knocked him unconscious. He also managed to fire off another blast at the relatively undamaged figure by the bulldozer, knocking him to the ground dazed. A blast rang out, hitting against his barrier causing him to spin round but didn’t penetrate his shield.
Above them, trucks and cabins ripped from the ground had begun circling Lawrence. It was only later that they wondered why the van containing the unconscious Kitty and young Cassie remained on the ground when everything around them was circling the gravity well above.
Cadet had two possible targets, the immobilised guard at his feet or the armoured figure that had just fired at Firewall. He ran forward, somersaulting as he did so to make himself a harder target to hit, his foot impacted on the rear guard’s helmet as his Bo Staff spun round his waist and he again took the legs out from under his target. The figure collapsed backwards as he landed with one foot on his victim’s neck.
The only still conscious attackers were both on the ground, so Firewall elected to try to deal with the floating Lawrence, hoping he could render him unconscious before the gravity intensity created some form of unstoppable singularity.
Lawrence was partially shielded by the circling and crushed remains of the building site. Firewall took careful aim, focused and unleashed a Taser blast at the hovering figure. The blast hit, leaving him stunned, though still floating in mid-air. Several objects collided and smashed together as the wave of gravity fluctuated badly.
Still lying on the ground, the two still functional armoured figures were unable to respond in time – Cadet took his target out with several repeated blows to the helmet from his Bo Staff. Whilst the blows didn’t penetrate the armour of the helmet, the constant attack did render its occupant unconscious.
Firewall also administered a coup de grâce on the last remaining conscious opponent and took out the suit’s servomechanisms with a blast, immobilising him inside the suit. Cadet walked over and removed his helmet. The man inside was dazed and seemed to be looking through him.
Kneeling down on the immobilised body, he started to interrogate him, “What did you think you were doing?” he asked. The trapped person inside was acting as though he was just waking out of a bad dream, “I was following instructions!” “What instructions?” Cadet asked again.
He tried to look vaguely in the direction of the blown out van and muttered, “It came through the van’s computer link, I HAD to follow its instructions…” It was obvious that he was not in his right mind as they tried to get him to reveal where he was going and why. As the seconds rolled on, with each answer vaguer than the last, it became clear that he (and presumably his workmates) knew nothing. They had been hypnotised and did exactly what they had been told, without any conscious thought. Firewall thought it had to be some form of “bloody A.I.” that was responsible, as Cadet tried to convince the slowly returning officer that he no longer needed to comply with whatever instructions their computer had told him to do. He was reacting as expected, totally confused and struggling to make sense of his current circumstances.
They still had to figure out what to do with the floating ‘black hole’ that was Lawrence. As they watched, they saw in the sky coming towards them and the wrecked van (with Kitty and Cassie still inside) was an ominous, black Grav-Carrier.
Firewall rushed back and grabbed ‘his’ moped and headed round towards the damaged van. Inside he could see Cassie shaking at Amalia’s shoulders, trying to wake her, though it was obvious, even from where he was, that she had been drugged. Cassie was getting very distressed, as she couldn’t understand why her friend Kitty wouldn’t wake up.
But was it the same person (or even an A.I. as Firewall suspected) that had tried to kidnap them in the fun fair?
The black, anonymous Grav-Carrier hovered ominously, as though waiting for something to happen. “Time to leave” thought Firewall as he ignored the pulsating gravity wave still emanating from the stunned and still suspended Lawrence and rushed inside the damaged van to see what he could do about the unconscious Kitty and the very agitated Cassie. He checked Amalia’s pulse; it was weak but steady. They must have pumped her full of knockout drugs to render her into this condition. With the vehicle outside still not declaring whether it was friend or foe, there was no time to administer any form of medical assistance.
He gestured to his bike standing on its kickstand outside, knowing it was only a matter of minutes if that before Lawrence started to gravitationally influence the bike off the ground, “Cassie, do you fancy playing ambulances. Ah, could you make Amalia float alongside us in the same way as you made the other objects float?” the child nodded. “That’s what we are going to do. I’m going to drive the ambulance on my bike and you will sit behind me and keep our patient, Amalia, nice and level, flat and horizontal alongside us…” Cassie tilted her head to one side and asked, “What is hozzizon-tall?”
Firewall sighed; he really didn’t have a lot of experience of interacting with toddlers. “Level, flat, not jerk her around too much. Like as though she was on a stretcher.” That resulted in a “What is a stretcher?” “Think of a bed, can you keep her flat as though she was lying on a bed?” This time, Cassie nodded enthusiastically. He picked up Kitty and told Cassie that if she was to hold on tight to his back he would give her a ride on the bike outside but they wouldn’t leave Amalia, Kitty behind. He’d need Cassie to bring her along as well.
Cassie nodded, though she still looked upset, and pointed up through the torn roof of the van at Lawrence drifting in the air above and said, “but what about him? Do we take him as well?”
Firewall asked, “Do you think you could?” She seemed hesitant. No surprising, he got the impression her telekinetic abilities were completely untested and she really didn’t know the extent of her powers.
They dived through the torn out (or had that been blown out by Lawrence?) side of the security van and ran hand-in-hand with Cassie towards his bike, Amalia quivering in mid-air behind them. He was suddenly not so sure Cassie would be able to keep her as safe as he’d like and regardless of what they thought of him they also had to try and rescue Lawrence. “Leave no person behind” had become a sort of personal motto of his.
Sighing deeply, he signalled for Cadet to ride over and join them. He almost laughed as he rode into view, unlike his own borrowed moped which while dusty was still in relatively pristine condition, Cadet’s ‘borrow’ had a few dents where he’d just allowed it to crash-land. He nodded to his friend and turned to Cassie, kneeling down to her height and explained, “This nice man is Cadet and he is going to take Amalia, Kitty, on his bike and keep her safe.” Cadet nodded and, holding the unconscious girl, he remounted his bike (he really needed to get one of these for himself or maybe something a bit faster and robust?) with Kitty cradled in front of him. Meanwhile, Firewall was again explaining that he would ride with Kitty holding really tight behind him, but this time could she snag the “sleepy fat boy above” and fly him with us like a big balloon? It was his hope that Lawrence’s own gravitational soaring would ensure that, even if Cassie stopped concentrating, that he wouldn’t suddenly slam into the ground but just float until they went back and got him. “It was either that or he borrowed Cadet’s grapple and towed him like a blimp…”
He smiled, given his feelings towards the older boy perhaps that wasn’t such a bad idea, though it would automatically ‘out’ him to anyone who saw them and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that to anyone, not even a cowardly, racist bully like Lawrence.
Everyone ready, they looked across at the floating sinister carrier as the rear hatch opened and a familiar bald, bejewelled figure in a purple suit lent out and shouted down, “Did you get her?” It was Mr Vince, the teacher-stroke-thug from the fairground and the Pryde Institute of villainy and malfeasance. That confirmed that the guards had been hypnotised by their screens and cemented the connection between that and the school, in their minds at least.
“Okay, time to leave.” Cadet cradled his unconscious passenger on his lap, revved his engine and shot up the side of the earth banking, did a 90 degree twist in mid-air to enable his bike to land facing towards the road that led to the motorway, though that would mean trying to swerve round the carrier. Here goes nothing, thought Firewall as he made sure Cassie was holding on tight. She was and appeared to be concentrating really hard with her tongue poking out the side of her mouth.
He smiled and followed Cadet out of the building site, up the embankment and landed having copied Cadet’s aerial moves exactly. Smiling (and self-congratulating himself), he looked back and saw that Cassie was still telekinetically towing the now reawakening Lawrence. As he got closer to the carrier he shouted up to Mr Vince, “Yeah we got her!” and both of them waved at him, as they got closer to the carrier.
Firewall panicked as Lawrence suddenly unleashed an uncontrolled grav-burst as a pulse of pure gravitons emanated out from him. The energy almost pulled Cassie off the bike and jerked his neck back before blowing out his rear tyre. There was a loud pop as it began to deflate. It scared his passenger, who released her ‘hold’ on Lawrence and he surged up into the sky again.
Damn! He bent over and used a spark of his electricity to micro-weld the tear before the tyre deflated completely. The repair would hold, but there was no way he would be able to drive at speed or pull any stunts without the whole tyre shredding. “Hey, Evel Knievel get back here, I’ve blown a tyre!” As he watched, an Amazonian woman in a very unprotective costume jumped the twenty or so feet from the Grav-Carrier’s hatch and landed on her feet. Then “Hang on, Ultimate!” It was a familiar, almost taunting male voice as the oversized guy with the ponytail they’d met at the Fair did a similar leap and landed beside her.
Up above, Vince was joined in the open doorway by a young boy, 14 or so at most, wearing only trousers and an open white, red and blue leather jacket across a muscular torso. Cadet smiled, he was pretty sure his costume was not meant to be patriotic like his own even if he’d had no say in the design… Thank you Commander for that! Still, he understood that his own costume was intended as a symbol and as such could be a powerful subconscious weapon.
As the guy with the ponytail and the muscular female began to run across the ground towards them, he focused and threw a gas pellet straight at them. As soon as it landed at their feet, it cracked open and combined with the surrounding air into a powerful breathing suppressant, which should, he hoped, render them unconscious. It caught the female, Ultimate, off-guard and she struggled to breath as the gas started to tighten her throat muscles and reduce her oxygen intake. The male wasn’t caught so easily and had held his breath and jumped clear.
Firewall followed it up with energy blasts at all of them as he tried to shield Cassie and hope that the reawakened Lawrence didn’t do anything stupid. The first blast hit Ultimate in the stomach. It did less damage than he’d expected or hoped, but she did show signs of bruising, and the attack had caused her to breathe in even more of Cadet’s gas. The second shot hit the dude with the ‘tail, but again only seemed to bruise him. What was it with the PITT and their muscle-bound students and their immunity to physical attacks? He knew one person who had no such advantage, though; he unleashed a couple more blasts at Vince and the boy in the carrier. The blast at Vince got a definite reaction. It hit him in the chest, initiating a high-pitched scream as he collapsed back inside the vehicle. The boy managed to hide behind the sliding hatch, and the blast aimed at him splattered across the metal door instead.
Apex unleashed a thunderclap in their direction, which the earthen works between them appeared to absorb. Ultimate stopped her steady advance and cradling her right arm in the elbow of the left unleashed a blast of solid light straight at Firewall and his passenger cowering behind him. The pulse splattered against his barrier leaving Firewall unaffected but enough energy flowed round his shields to hit Cassie.
She let out a scream in pain, and she responded by letting Lawrence go, allowing him to suddenly drift closer to the ground. Instead of recapturing her ‘balloon boy’, Cassie gestured and a cement mixer that was nearby suddenly lifted off the ground flew across the ground and slammed into Ultimate’s head and body, causing it to dent in as it impacted with a bone breaking thud. However, the female remained standing, though the blow had obviously dazed her. It was a serious reminder to never get on the bad side of Cassie in case she had a tantrum!
Suddenly, the shadow of the boy in the hovering vessel moved independently of the boy and leapt out of the craft. Landing, it advanced on Firewall, striking out with its dark, ethereal claws against his barrier. He forced himself to not dodge, allowing his barrier to absorb the blows instead. That way, he stood between Cassie and the darkness, blocking her from even seeing the shadow creature that was attacking them. He responded to the attack with a laser attack. It had suddenly got very biblical, light against dark, in defence of the innocent (he was pretty sure Cassie would count as innocent even if he might not).
The proton burst sliced through the shadow creature as it dissipated into smoky non-existence. Not stopping, he refocused the beam towards the craft it had come from, slicing through the hatch and into Shadow-boy who’d been hiding behind it. The Carrier tilted so that the boy fell back inside the compartment, and so the shielded underbelly of the craft was now protecting its passengers.
Result!
Meanwhile, Cadet had skidded his bike to a halt and, carefully placing Ms Kitty in the shelter of a nearby Portakabin, realised it was time for the Calvary. He revved up the engine and shot across the hard-core, spraying chips behind him as he rode straight at the male intruder with his so annoying ponytail. A sudden desire to count coup and cut that bloody ponytail off was balanced against the fact that if he got too close, the guy could literally tear him in two. He aimed the bike at his target’s chest and somersaulted off it at the very last second, allowing the bike to slam into Apex. The weight of the bike, multiplied by its speed, knocked him to the ground and left him staggered. The bike’s front wheel tore the skin off his chest, leaving a bloody if superficial mess. Unfortunately, it also meant the bike was completely written off in the endeavour.
Seeing the event unfold, Firewall mumbled, “looks like we’re walking back to school!” Cadet smiled and took off his helmet, tossed it at his opponent’s face, breaking his nose. He stepped back into a stance and, expanded his staff, gestured with his hand in a ‘come hither’ motion he’d seen on an old martial arts film once.
Apex rushed straight at him in an all-out attack, all thoughts of strategy forgotten in his anger to get revenge. He swung his massive fists at Cadet’s head, a blow that if it had connected would have taken his head clean off. Cadet merely ducked the blow and leapt so both of his feet connected against the bloody chest, using it as a springboard to flip back and away from his attacker.
Then he saw it. Lawrence’s latest gravity wave had caused a number of hand tools to start orbiting him, apparently in the hope that it would act as some sort of barrier or artificial asteroid field protecting its centre of gravity – him.
Cassie had seen a familiar ‘toy’ in the swirling chaos and elected to ‘throw it at the bad people’ – the portable nail gun was dragged from orbit and landed with a clatter in front of Apex and Ultimate, activating as it hit the ground and spun it round in an uncontrolled manner. Large, 3-inch nails peppered the area, narrowly missing herself and her two ‘guardians’ though not Lawrence who was forced to block a squadron of incoming nails with a panicky uncontrolled gravity wave that caused him to fall heavily (and painfully) to the ground as a result. His cry of pain however did not match Apex’s as several nails pierced his super tough skin and the unexpected pain caused him to fall unconscious.
The nails that hit Ultimate however simply ricocheted off. She ‘replied’ with another blast of energy at Firewall, but he managed to avoid it while shielding Cassie. He saw another of the shadow creatures leap from the carrier and rush straight at Cadet. It struck out with its claws as Cadet danced around the slashes. He backflipped out of the way and found himself standing between Ultimate and her apparently unconscious partner. Cadet elected to make sure Apex was not faking it and really was unconscious by unleashing several staff hits to his temple. He stepped back, turned and went immediately into stance as an outraged ‘Amazon’ rushed towards him.
To Cadet and Firewall’s relief, instead of continuing the fight she grabbed the bleeding and bruised body of the muscle-bound male and turning, ran back towards the Grav-Carrier leaping onboard with her ‘package’ as it proceeded to leave the area at speed. The shadow creature dissipated as the craft zoomed away.
Firewall collapsed to the ground and dropped his barrier as Cassie ran across to check on Ms Kitty. Behind them, Lawrence still lay in a heap on the ground, bruised and utterly exhausted but not seriously hurt. His gravitational powers dissipated, for the moment at least.
“Let’s go home” muttered Firewall as he looked at his own stolen bike – he might need to borrow from Gus again to pay for the repairs, then he saw the wreck that was all that was left of Cadet’s and headed over to the vans parked in front of the construction site. He would have to hot-wire one to get everyone back to the school, and hoped the school would have sympathy on his actions given the extenuating circumstances.
As he ‘prepared’ their transport back to the school, Cadet checked that the four guards were no longer hypnotised and were not seriously injured by their encounter with Cassie or themselves. He gathered them all together then sent in an anonymous report of an accident at the construction site involving an AEGIS security transport and requesting assistance.
They were now all conscious and talking amongst themselves, trying to figure what had happened. The last thing they remembered was seeing a weird fractal pattern on their computer screen as they were about to leave the academy, having dropped off a new pupil. The next thing they remember was waking up having obviously been in a fight, but with no idea where they were or how they got there – and what the hell had happened to their transport?
Cadet smiled and got out of there, jumping in beside Firewall (who had only ever driven in computer games) and the belted-in-every-possible-way Cassie as they headed off via the back roads for the school in their ‘borrowed’ van. He really didn’t want to explain to the school about the stolen and now wrecked bikes they had elected to leave behind.
As they drove back, Cadet leaned over and, looking in the back, saw that Lawrence was petrified that they were about to out him as a Meta. Cadet asked the question and was told the school already knew but had agreed to keep it confidential and he really had no desire to play superhero. Tears began rolling down his chubby face as he explained that he had acted the way he did to fit in and not be bullied again, that he doesn’t want anyone else to know that he was a ‘mutie’.
Cadet looked at Firewall, then “Look, we’ll promise that no one will hear about your abilities and secret from us provided you stop picking on those younger than you and especially the female students and stop calling other Metas names. I don’t care who you hang out with…” “I do” pipped up Firewall trying desperately to change gear without damaging the gearbox. Cadet smiled and shushed him. “Look, just don’t pick on other people, okay. I don’t suppose we could get you to train so that you could control your powers better..?” he watched the look of terror cross his face that he knew meant never. “Okay, so provided the school’s happy you’re not a risk and you stop picking on others, regardless of whom you hang out with…” he turned and glowered at Firewall before he could say anything, “we’ll promise to keep your secret. Won’t we Cassie?”
She nodded, totally unaware of what they had been talking about. It had been a trick she’d learnt with adults, if they ask you something, just nod. If they continue to ask it, then shake your head – one or the other response always worked. She settled in for a snooze, as car journeys always make her sleepy. Today had been a big day, and she was sure her Ma and Nan would be asking her several more head-shakey questions of her own once she got back home.
Back at school, they were met in the parking area by a pack of worried adults comprising Camille, Mr Andrews, Nurse Joy and a totally stressed out Mrs Hutchins. Thankfully, they were more concerned about checking that Cassie and Lawrence were okay than in punishing them, even as a now excited Cassie headed back hand-in-hand with her crying grandmother as she explained her very exciting and fun day out.
The school nurse immediately ushered Lawrence and the now awake but still weak Amalia off to the sickbay after handing the boy an ornate belt to put on. He looked relieved as she explained they’d found it lying in the car park after his misadventure.
Camille quickly hustled them inside the gatehouse so they could change back into civvies that Mr Andrews had collected for them as he explained that the school had been subject to an attack, causing everyone on or near a computer screen or TV to become hypnotised.
This time they had been instructed to sleep while they had apparently enticed the equally hypnotised AEGIS crew, using their on-board computer, to kidnap Ms Kitty. They’d already been cleared to enter the school grounds to drop off a new special curriculum pupil.
Seems Lawrence Smalls was just a lucky encounter. The controller must have seen him crossing the grounds using the vehicle’s security cameras and realised who he was. He refused to say any more, but it was enough to spark a memory in Cadet. There had been an incident with a youth with gravitational powers at Greenwich over a year and a half ago, just as he’d started his apprenticeship with London Watch. A couple of people had died if he remembered correctly before the Watch had managed to capture and neutralise the kid. He’d assumed he’d been jailed, but perhaps not.
Meanwhile, Mr Andrews was explaining that the staff had known that Lawrence was a Meta but as he had no desire to learn how to use his abilities, someone called Gismo (he’d been a gadgeteer attached to the Protectors) had built him a neutraliser belt to regulate his powers.
Mr Andrews went quiet for a minute then explained that the computer attack had gained access to all aspects of the school including Down Below, the hostile takeover of their systems had resulted in a serious problem and Mr Summers would like to see them both for a debrief and to see if they might be able to help.
Cadet had one last task to do before then. He found his mobile in with his clothes and called his and Moses’ Guardian, the retired hero Commander, and asked for his assistance in repairing or replacing the mopeds they’d, ah, borrowed. Oh, and in passing, was there any chance of him buying a 125cc trail bike for himself?
Several days later
Colin and Chris smiled. It had not been easy to access Lawrence’s police records and if he was being honest, Colin had not been totally happy with the ethics of retrieving someone’s juvenile records without their permission, but curiosity won out and Chris could be quite persuasive.
It seemed that Lawrence had always been big for his age, and this had become even more of a problem as he grew up. By the time he was 15, he was already over 14 stone, and having the surname of Smalls hadn’t helped. As a result, he’d been a victim of bullying for most of his life. His power activated after Lawrence was caught in a collapsing building in London, which killed several other people and left him trapped under the rubble. He levitated himself free and ran away before anyone arrived.
Lawrence secretly used his newly acquired powers to get his own back on his bullies at Lewisham Comprehensive by levitating pens, books and phones away or making jackets and bags initially heavy then releasing them when their owners started to use their strength causing them to fly across the room (helped by his gravity powers). Then someone, the records didn’t seem to know who exactly, had secretly threatened to expose him, claiming that it had been his power activating that had caused the building to collapse and resulted in the death of the other people. His anonymous blackmailer then threatened to expose him and have him arrested for manslaughter unless he did what he was told.
The Watch had encountered him as he was trying to escape, having stolen Meta DNA samples from a security van. They had captured him, but the case had been subsequently dropped when his story about being coerced was confirmed. He was cleared of all charges, but according to the records he was forcibly enrolled at Walford DSFC. He couldn’t really imagine Lawrence coping well at Military school, but how had he subsequently ended up enrolled at Claremont Academy Facility, he wondered? The last note recorded in the files was about Gismo providing him with a limiter belt to allow Lawrence to control the excesses of his power.
AEGIS – Authority for Enforcement, Gaols and Intervention Services
Walford DSFC – Walford Defence Sixth Form College
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 