Chapter Nine

  The reports were boring, but it didn’t take long to read through it. The densest part of things was at the fifth city and attack. The rest of them were teleport in, ask a single question, then give instructions and teleport out. I think I’d already mentioned I was a pretty fast reader, so it didn’t take long to get through it and type in a few comments of my own impressions before signing off on it.

  At the moment we were back at the FBI complex, in a glassed-in office with a few desks, and I was getting pretty hungry but there were still updates and things to discuss.

  Leanne said, “Let’s take a moment to go over the other aspects of the operation before we call it a day. Good and bad news. We have three of his network devices and were able to disarm the explosive package in the self-destruct. The rest of the devices were gone, and the cell phones shut off before they could be tracked down. He must’ve done it right after the attack. Still, we got a few, and we were able to determine from the network he was in eighty-six cities, not eighty-nine. That estimate is based on eighty-eight devices in total including the one that was destroyed last week. Eighty-six cities, one being on him at all times to keep in contact, and one being at their base. So tomorrow we should find one additional false positive in the last forty.

  “On the bad side, the network hasn’t been hacked yet, just probed for a device count and ports in use. The A.I. on the other side is very good to hold off Hoover. So, we have no idea where the devices are actually located, just the numbers, which means we have to hit all forty cities to find which one is the false positive. It also means we have no idea where the A.I. or Branson’s base of operations are located. Unfortunately, it’s also likely if Hoover does start to make progress, and corner’s the A.I., they’ll destroy the switching base station for the network before we get any useful data. They know we’re looking after all. I’m not sure why they haven’t done it already, to be honest.”

  Probably just to be spiteful, dangling hope only to snatch it away, and the criminal A.I. is probably enjoying the challenge of going head to head with the FBI A.I. I agreed with her, they’d destroy the quantum switch as soon as Hoover gained the upper hand.

  Hoover appeared, “The A.I. is trying to counter hack me, not just hold me off. I suspect if I gain the upper hand, they will destroy the base unit as you suggested, but such a network system bought from a criminal mad scientist would be exceedingly expensive. In the millions. I suspect it’s their hope to gain remote control over one of my probes, so they can destroy the two we have in custody and keep the rest which they’ve secured from our grasp.”

  Okay, maybe that too, but I suspect both A.I.s were enjoying the contest.

  Leanne nodded, then continued the debrief, “On the good side again, over half the victims we took into protective custody have already been deprogrammed, and the rest should be done by tomorrow morning. We’re currently getting a list of all the defendants and cases they tampered with by altering memories. While we can’t retry those cases, as they’re closed and can’t be put under double jeopardy, we will be able to investigate them for any other applicable charges.

  “The victims will need counseling of course, before they go back to work, but they will recover.”

  Mark said, “Sounds like our best chance to find their headquarters is monitoring the cities for quantum teleport scans. There seems to be no point in the hacking battle.”

  Hoover shrugged, “If I can catch the A.I. flatfooted when I make my move, it’s possible I’ll get a few gigabytes of data in the split second before she can destroy the quantum switch. Doubtful, but there is a chance, so it’s worth pursuing.”

  Leanne nodded, “That gets to my last point. All the cities have randomized their patrolling drones already, so if Anna was correct then it’s just a matter of time. Even if a drone doesn’t spot him, we’ll be checking up on any illicit teleports taking place in those cities.”

  That’s good, but as I said before, will only be effective if both sides of the teleport are detected. It was impossible to trace a teleport. So, both the departure and arrival locations needed to be under a scanning field simultaneously to pinpoint their base. We just didn’t have the capability to scan the whole country simultaneously, much less the world. Heck, it must’ve taken a ghastly number of government resources assigned just to cover eighty-nine cities, something only a federal agency or the military could handle. Even with local assistance from the hero teams in those cities.

  She looked at me, “Beyond that, outside of the case I mean. Your preventative suggestion yesterday just might be taken seriously. I’ve been unofficially informed there’s already movement on the idea of restricting escort duties to non-projective telepath personnel to permanently close that gap in the system. It’ll just take time to get through all the red tape in the various states to make it a law, but it will happen. Within the year… probably.”

  There must’ve been some political reason they couldn’t make the law on a federal level. Besides the legislative branch being slower than molasses, I mean.

  I chuckled at her implied estimate of how fast the legislative process was, even at the state level.

  “That’s good news.”

  She nodded in agreement, “Any questions or new observations before we call it a day and get some food?”

  No one had anything, maybe the boys were as hungry as I was.

  Leanne nodded, and we headed out and toward the elevators, to get some dinner.

  What I didn’t know in that moment was that my assumptions about the next attack being tomorrow were about to get me in deep trouble again. I’d assumed he’d set another ambush, and he had, but I’d also assumed it would take place at one of the cities on our arrival the next day. Never in a million years would I expect it to happen at the FBI building complex, it was far too secure for that, after all. Except, not. Not for a telepath that could control and program other minds from half a mile away, just like I could. I really should have considered it and seen it coming, but I’d been too busy patting myself on the back for my cleverness.

  He had as I’d assumed done damage control, but he’d also been here setting things up, while we were still going from city to city. So I couldn’t detect his mind in range when we returned, he was already gone.

  I kept underestimating my enemy, and I really needed to stop doing that. In my defense, no one else on my team saw it coming either, but that was hardly a good excuse. They weren’t one of the most powerful telepaths in the world, able to effortlessly juggle around twenty thought streams at the same time, after all. No, that was me.

  No, I wasn’t a god, or perfect, and everyone made mistakes. But I really needed to do better, and to stop making excuses for my failures of imagination.

  It would also be the night where everything changed.

  It all happened so fast. The four of us had barely entered the restaurant and my mouth was salivating for a bacon cheeseburger. A lot of people in the room looked our way as we entered, and I didn’t think much of it until about three quarters of the room stood. The real tipoff were the energy agents, which started to glow with various colors, but only about half a second before we were rushed by about sixty grim faced agents.

  There’d been no strange thoughts before that moment, just normal stuff. Like this tastes fantastic, this could be better, or I really needed to ask out Cheryl in HR. Things like that. But the moment they saw us they all went into cold and kill mode, with us as the target.

  “Shields, now!”

  I wasn’t sure if it was my order, or just Mark shaking off his shocked surprise in the same moment, but a bright white shield surrounded the four of us just in time. Harold knocked two back, but the rest beat on the shields. Then strikes of lightning, blasts of fire, raw white energy, blue energy, and things I couldn’t even tell what they’d do to us hit the shield.

  Mark grunted, but he held. For that first second anyway. He may have been super powerful, but there was no way in hell he was going to be able to hold off over a hundred agents. As of yet the other twenty five percent of the agents just looked confused, and they hadn’t reacted yet.

  Leanne yelled, “Emergency transport, now!”

  The shields wouldn’t prevent it, since we were all wearing our watches. The room disappeared with a flash, and we were standing in what looked like a bunker. I did a little mental reconnaissance.

  “They think we’re known terrorists, ones considered extremely dangerous and under a kill on sight order. I’m guessing Robert Branson stopped by and subverted every agent in the building not on missions, and not a telepath. Probably a trigger, but I can’t tell without a memory dive. Point being, he’s not in range right now, so he’s not here.”

  A remote memory dive was something I was capable of, but I was resistant to doing in the moment. It was illegal for one, and if I did it at a distance, then I’d be outing myself. Even then though, I wondered if I’d be given a choice. The situation was bad, and I was about to find out it was even worse than I thought.

  Hoover appeared and looked panicked. If an A.I. could looked panicked, I was looking at it.

  The A.I. said, “The director has been compromised as has the command center staff. They’re initiating an emergency measure to open all the cells in the prison. As far as I can tell there are about three hundred agents compromised in the complex, and they’re all headed this way since the director knows where you are, command center monitoring,” she added that last for my benefit, no doubt, “They’re also trying to override the system to shut me down. I don’t know how long I…” she blinked out.

  “That’s… bad.”

  What? I totally have a talent for understatement.

  Leanne snorted, “Freeing all the prisoners, three hundred agents compromised including the director of the FBI, and all of them coming to kill us. I’d say bad doesn’t cover it. On the good side, we must’ve really annoyed Branson.”

  Mark snorted.

  I shook my head, “The minds are getting closer, taking the stairs down to whatever sublevel we’re on.”

  I took a peek. It was only the third time I’d used my power illegally, though I thought I’d get a pass on the first time, since it’d been during my quickening day and had been an accident more than anything. Still, how much easier would it be to do the fourth time? The fifth? If I was on a slippery slope, clearly I wasn’t fighting hard enough not to slip. But… the situation was dire.

  It was also the first time I felt the laws were… stupid. Wrong even, for some reason, though the reason and logic behind that feeling wasn’t fully defined in my mind yet. It was also something I didn’t have time to think about in the moment, so I pushed it away to analyze later.

  It didn’t take me long to figure things out. I wasn’t a memory expert, but the work done this time was extremely small, targeted and crude by comparison to the court officers. Likely because he’d wanted to get as many agents to kill me and the team as possible, which meant only spending a few moments on each one. The director’s triggers were a little more complicated, to add in the confusion and horror of letting a whole bunch of felons out at the same time, as well as shutting down Hoover. Still, I was fairly sure I could reverse it, easily even.

  Except if I did, I’d probably go to jail for saving our lives. There was just no way our team could take down three hundred powerful FBI agents, the odds were just too large. I suspected I could project peace at up to ten, maybe. Anything more than that and my powers would become too diffuse, and not focused enough to truly work on the agents. Leanne could get one or two more that way. That still left two hundred and eighty-eight agents for Mark and Harold to deal with. Which was ridiculous.

  There’d be no way for us to cuff those we forced a peaceful sensation on, so redirecting our power to another threat just meant those eleven or twelve would be up and trying to kill us again. There’d be no point in doing so.

  Point being, I was in a no-win situation. I could stop them by deprogramming them, and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed. But at least it was chance. Any other way… simply wouldn’t work. But I’d be arrested for saving my life and the lives of my team, not to mention saving their lives and freeing them from being mind controlled.

  But I’d go to jail for my efforts. There were no provisions for using my power morally to save lives, for someone like me. No justification or exception built into the laws. They were absolute in nature.

  Ironically, there was a third possibility, but it was one I also had to reject. I could mind blast ten at a time. Take them down and out, but it’d probably kill some of them while doing so. Ironic, because killing in self-defense was allowed under the law. If I did that, I might live, but I’d have to live with the guilt of killing people that weren’t really guilty, even if they were a danger to my life.

  Beyond that in a practical way, it would also be less likely to work than using my tier three abilities. The ones I freed from control would then immediately be on our side, and they’d start to try to defend us and stop the runaway agents under triggered mind control. If I focused on the shielding talents first, then they could each hold back one or two people while I got the rest.

  Which meant I’d only have to deprogram one third to a half of them before they could break through the steel door, and then get the others where we’d have a chance to live through it, where with legal projective attacks I’d have to get them all before our shelter was compromised. And again, it was possible I’d accidentally kill one of them.

  I’d realized that fact the night I’d taken down the supervillain targeted to kill me. My pure power mental attack, striking out… well there was a fine line between overloading a brain to shut it down in self-preservation, and just having it shut down period. It wasn’t really a gamble I wanted to take. Even if it worked out for me ninety five percent of the time, which was a rather optimistic statement, that meant fifteen agents would have to die to save me and the three others on my team.

  I couldn’t do that, not when I could save everyone, and we might not even have time for that plan to work either. But it was all I had.

  Leanne wasn’t wrong earlier, we must’ve really angered the man, that my father was capable of this kind of thing was horrifying to me. But I’d already known he was the devil.

  Mark said, “It won’t take them long to break in here, and with Hoover down so is the teleport system.”

  “Well, damnit.”

  I closed my eyes and reached out for one of them. It took me a few seconds to break the simple trigger, and I felt the mind clear and grow confused as he looked around. That few seconds was mostly me figuring out how to do it for the first time. It’d take me a split second now that I knew what I was doing, and that it’d work.

  So I hit five more in a second, then ten in a second, then I really got to work. It wasn’t even hard, because Branson wasn’t there to fight me for control or interfere with my work. I’d gotten about fifty of them when an incredibly loud banging sound hit the door. I didn’t open my eyes, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t see it in the super’s thoughts. The door was already dented, and the seal had been broken.

  Still, now that I was moving it was almost too easy. I hit twenty at a time, moving back from the doorway. Twenty a second went fast, just five seconds later I had half of them deprogrammed. There were a few more attacks on the door, but I also knew Mark had projected a shield into the doorway, so it was holding.

  Ten second later, I had the last of them clear.

  Then I sent in a wide way, to all minds within range, so they would all hear me, “Director needs assistance in the command center, Hoover needs rebooting, and most of you need to head for the prison level before all the bad guys get away.”

  Leanne looked at me at shock, with narrowed eyes.

  “What happened?” she asked, while suspicion filled Harold’s mind and he wondered if he should knock me out with a measured blow to the back of my head. Of course they knew, they’d already known, they just hadn’t been a hundred percent sure and I’d been behaving myself.

  Of course, that’s when I took the fifth option. The one I didn’t consider at all, because that option meant saving myself only, and leaving the team to die, not to mention complete chaos in the FBI building. Because only my watch phone was connected to the Excelsior city’s A.I. She couldn’t have teleported the others out.

  “Harmony, teleport me home, now!”

  She likely wouldn’t have if she’d had any clue what I’d just done. Instead, she’d have probably assisted the FBI in taking me into custody. Never mind that I’d just saved their collective backsides. But she had no idea what I’d just done, and likely hadn’t even been monitoring me until I’d tapped the emergency button on my watch phone. I sure as heck wasn’t going to admit it, and the FBI wouldn’t have proof of what I’d done until one of their own had their mind examined, either voluntarily or through court order.

  In short, I had a short window to escape, after throwing out my future to save all their lives.

  I disappeared in a flash, and I found myself in my room. I wasn’t sure how long I had before they came for me, so I ripped off the watch so harmony couldn’t teleport me into a prison once the order was given. I also pulled off the super-suit fast, which both had a tracker and would be connected to Hoover when she got back online.

  I shook my head, what the hell had I just done? I was basically running for it, a fugitive from the law even before that boom would’ve come down. I needed to think, and I needed a real plan. I needed to figure things out.

  I needed… advice, and I knew just where to get it. If I could escape superhero headquarters before Hoover came back online and sent out an order to capture me, that is.

  I pulled on a pair of jeans and a pink t-shirt, then grabbed a gray sweatshirt with a hood and headed for the door. It was still cool enough in New York that it wouldn’t stand out, and no one would notice I didn’t have a watch computer on with the long sleeves. I let out a sigh of relief, since my mom wasn’t there. Her and Flashpoint must’ve been on patrol that night.