Waiting for a Miracle - Chapter 23

Yes, I should have seen that there were some holes in my plot, but this wasn’t something I could have predicted. I looked at Vicky, who shrugged as she offered us an apologetic pout.

Leona yelled to Wallace, “When she said we didn’t know who her father was, do you suppose the bitch could have let us in on the joke?”

Laughing weakly, I walked closer to the helicopter before I drew my shrink ray gun. The pilot saw it and tried to veer off, but it was too late. I shot the chopper and flew up toward the tiny speck, pinching its tail under my fingernail.

The President yelled over his bullhorn, “Damn you, let go of my huey! Don’t you know who I am?”

He sounded like a chipmunk sucking helium.

Landing on the roof, I pinched the rotors and broke them, and then I handed the disabled craft to Vicky.

“Your father’s life is in your hands now—” I stopped when she dropped the chopper to the ground and stomped it repeatedly.

Just to make sure he was dead, she ground her heel, twisting it back and forth.

Shaking my head, I remarked, “Huh, well that was...unexpected.”

“Boss?” Morgan said. “The military is pulling back. It looks like they’re retreating from the super villains, and I’m afraid I have some more bad news.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“I just got a visual on Tower and Colossus,” Morgan replied.

I whimpered and asked, “Which way should I look?”

“North, directly below the tower,” Morgan answered. “I think some of the villains are trying to talk them into leveling it.”

“Of course,” I groaned.

Tower and Colossus were shapeshifters who could increase their size. Normally they both hung out in Texas, but I guess they’d decided to be a part of our little rodeo.

At full size, either one could knock LeVeaux Tower off its foundations and then smash the building to pieces. If both of them got involved, let’s just say it would get butt-ugly fast.

“Leona, I’ll understand if you want to bow out now,” I said.

She shook her head, her face showing grim determination. “You were right, and I couldn’t leave this city to those bastards. This has to be done, for people like Becky and her grandmother, or Greg and Maggie. I won’t stop until they start running for their lives.”

I nodded and dropped off the building again. As soon as I hit the ground, I let my light blade grow to a ridiculous length and took a swinging chop. Thirty villains fell quickly, instantly dead as they were sliced in half. I doubt more than five knew what hit them.

Yet the damage did nothing to the frenzied criminals, who trampled the gore down in an attempt to get past me and into the tower. I had planned that, knowing that the criminals would focus on Vicky in order to hurt Miracle Man, but I still wasn’t prepared for the sheer numbers of villains filling the block.

Above the crowd, Colossus was rising, growing past the smaller structures. I heard a thump and felt the ground pulse. Turning around, I found that Tower was also bulking up. I took a swing at his shin, but he pulled it back, swinging it forward to kick me. I flew back and slammed into an office building between floors. Even with my force field, the impact dazed me.

I recovered and flew at Tower, taking a swing at his neck. Again he pulled away, and then drew back his fist for a punch. I had all the time in the world to phase, and so I passed through his hand.

The exception was again my blade, and Tower tried to pull his hand back, roaring in pain as a gruesome cut slashed between his knuckles and up his wrist. I flew up with his arm and spun, lopping off a large piece of his forearm. Tower’s cry almost deafened me, and he fell back, slamming into a high rise condominium.

I knew it had most likely been deserted by then, but I didn’t want to risk it. I phased Tower’s body, letting the building pass through him. Tossing him high into the air, I was relieved to see that the pain of Tower’s wound was forcing him to shrink. As he came down, I flew up to meet him and sliced his body to ribbons, watching the red mist fall onto the crowd.

I looked at Colossus, amazed to see that he was still growing. I flew toward him slowly and cautiously, beginning to plan how to attack him without damaging any of the buildings around him.

“Oh, shit,” Morgan said. The panic in his voice was impossible to ignore. “Boss, I know why the boys in green bailed out!”

“Now what?” I asked.

“I’ve got four tactical nukes on ICBM’s on my radar, and I’m estimating just under six minutes to target. Care to guess where ground zero will be?” Morgan snorted. “I’d like to say what a pleasure it’s been, working for you as an assistant and all, but—”

“Morgan, shut up,” I said. “Give me numbers on hostiles.”

“I’ve lost count, but as you can see, the streets are filled for four blocks. Oh yeah, and the West entrance to LeVeaux Tower is now on fire.”

“What?” I realized I was on the West side and looked down. “Good grief, when will they learn?” I grumbled, diving down.

The two responsible for the fire were locals, Pyro and Kai. Neither one had powers, just suits that allowed them to generate fire in different ways. Kai’s was more sophisticated, being able to produce a white hot stream of flame, while Pyro’s suit had a hose running down either arm for him to spray a stream of napalm.

Both men were working in shifts to burn through the metal doors that Burgess had dropped the moment he realized what was going to happen. As I said before, Burgess was paranoid, but it was paying off in spades for him.

I came up short as Leona beat me to the kill. I saw a flicker of her around Kai, and then he and Pyro both fell apart. Pyro’s napalm tank exploded, covering a dozen criminals in fire. The fire spread throughout the crowd, and the smell of cooking flesh became unbearable.

Behind me, I heard a loud grunt and turned to see Colossus clutching a hole in his chest. The building behind him had a huge blood splatter, and Leona stood atop the building, now completely naked and dripping blood from head to toe.

“Leona, please tell me your radio is still on,” I said.

“Of course it is. You had Morgan practically rivet it on,” she said, and even from where I was, I could see her smile.

“Go home and get dressed,” I said, smiling at the fact that I could see her mouth hanging open even from such a great distance. To me it meant she had...no, I’m not going there. She will most likely be reading this, and I don’t want to have a messy death.

Leona’s voice was incredulous as she said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“No, I’m not. You’re now naked on every channel in America. Just do it quickly. Come to think of it, go check to see if our ‘friend’ is still at home. If he is, do us all a favor and kick his ass.”

Leona bounded away without arguing. The blast of air from her sonic boom sent Colossus falling forward, and an instant later he disappeared in a red mist.

“Wallace?” I asked.

“What is it?” Wallace shouted.

“Was that you with Colossus?” I asked. Looking around, I found Wallace way down the street in the opposite direction.

“Nope,” he said, even though I didn’t need him to. I could see him punching his way down the street with a light blade on both of his arms, wading though a sea of gore as he advanced on the villains.

“Miracle Man isn’t home,” Leona said over the radio. “I’m on my way back now, but I can tell you this isn’t going to end any time soon. There are villains backed up almost to your lab. This is bordering on the ridiculous, Duggan.”

“Tell me about it,” Morgan said. “You guys now have two minutes to make plans for those nukes. Just FYI.”

“Pull back to the rooftop with Vicky and Burgess,” I said.

I took out a grenade, chucking it into the crowd. The blast rocked the tower, shaking it as I flew up its side. I’d guess it took out around a hundred villains, but the hole that the blast made was quickly covered by more frenzied criminals.

I reached for another grenade when a whole row of criminals burst into a red mist. I saw the criminals behind it blinking in shock, a silence quickly forming all along the block. I looked up at the tower, not quite sure what was happening.

“Leona, where are you?”

“On the roof, just like you told me. Wallace is here too, and he looks like crap.”

I flew up quickly, landing on the roof and looking around. Up in the sky, I saw four bright ‘stars’ with smoking tails behind them.

Pointing the nukes out to Leona and Wallace, I said, “Here they come.”

“Hey, was that blast really necessary?” Burgess fumed.

“Actually, yes it was.” I took out another grenade, setting a delay on the timer and chucking it over the side. Ten seconds later, the building shook under us.

“Damn it, my insurance won’t cover random acts of dickheads!” Burgess yelled.

“So this is it then, the end of City California,” Leona said. She glared at me with an ugly scowl etching deep lines in her face. “With your last plot, you got enough super villains in one place that the military decided it was in everyone’s best interest to nuke us all.”

I shrugged. “I can honestly say that this wasn’t part of my plan.”

“Small comfort,” Wallace commented. “No nukes, just thousands of super villains rioting in our city?”

“They were already coming, Wallace!” I shouted. “I just accelerated the flow and gave them a target.”

“Yeah, but your target is my home!” Burgess fumed.

“Before we continue this argument, I suppose we ought to toss those nukes at the sun,” Wallace said.

I looked up at the nukes, which were now much closer. “Yeah, let’s do the heroic thing, for once.”

Leaping up, I flew at one of the rockets and pivoted it around, flinging it into space as hard as I could. I knew Wallace and Leona had also grabbed a rocket, so I turned to find the fourth one, which was gone. I looked to Leona and Wallace to see that they were also searching the sky. I looked down at the streets next, and they were empty.

Well, that’s a bit of a lie. They weren’t truly empty. In fact, the streets looked like rivers of blood. But there was no criminal left to slosh through the flood.

“Where did it go?” Leona asked, still searching the sky. She laughed nervously and looked down at the street. Her tail went rigid while her head flicked back and forth. “What the hell? Where did the riot go?”

“Holy shit!” Morgan gasped. “They were right—wait, I’ve got them on the highway cameras, and they’re running away. Maybe the nukes—”

“Cut the cameras, Morgan.” I said.

Landing back on the roof of the tower, I took off my mask and smiled at a very mystified Vicky, then at Wallace and Leona as they landed. “The show is over.”

“You don’t suppose he’s here, do you?” Wallace asked.

I said, “If he isn’t, who took care of the fourth nuke and the riot?”

Wallace nodded and turning to search the skies. He slapped my arm a moment later. “He is here.”

I turned around and almost laughed.

Instead I grinned and gave a quick nod. “Okay, maybe it’s not the old tights, but that look works for me.” I admired the black slacks and hiking boots that Miracle Man wore, looking almost exactly like Wallace did in his costume.

His shirt was still the same tight white long sleeve top, and he crossed his arms, making those gorgeous M’s stretch in the way that always caused me to shudder. This time was no different, I assure you.

Miracle Man drifted down slowly, looking around at all of us with an expression bordering on amusement. Just before he landed, I held up a hand.

Chet froze, arching his brow at me while his expression became curious.

I smiled, running my hand through my damp hair. “Do you suppose you would mind hovering like that for a couple of seconds? I want to remember this moment forever.”

Chet smiled then, shaking his head.

“Well, this was a stupid plan,” he declared in a sarcastic voice.

Wallace slapped his hand over his mouth to cover his grin.

I nodded and said, “And that’s my cue to retire.”