Part Thirteen

This section of the Pyrenees mountains was isolated and rarely visited. The moreso in the past few years, due to a certain element moving in.

Hanuman kept his distance as Strike! vented his grief and anger. He felt glad the area was mostly barren; the Emergent were the true inheritors of the Earth and should not waste any of its resources, including vegetation. In his tantrum, the other empowered man shattered boulders, started small avalanches and in general rearranged the mountain landscape for a surprising amount of time before his energy was spent. As a final act he struck a projection of rock, barely marring the surface. However, his emotion was still strong; he leaned against the rough surface, sobbing as he slid to the ground. His skin, of course, was unharmed by this abrasion.

"All that potential, gone..." he said, finally.

Now Hanuman moved in. He place a gentle, reassuring hand on Strike!'s shoulder

"Your friend will be avenged." He actually wasn't certain of that, but knew this was what Strike! needed to hear, just now. "We are already working on a plan to bring that murderer and traitor to justice. You will be involved, but later. For now, rest, recover, and train. Grow strong, to be better able to balance the scales."

* * *

The project to use the chemical repository as an empowered training center had been only moderately successful. That moderation was mostly due to suspicion; many empowered felt that there was something... wrong with a government black project facility which had been part of a plot against empowered being used for empowered training. Especially since the security - including machineguns in the guard towers - for the facility was being handled by non-empowered. That it was also hard to get to was only a deterrent for some empowered. The reluctance was slowly fading as word about what was actually happening there spread, but currently the training facility was underutilized. However, a few empowered did make use of both the training and the specialized equipment available in the former storage building set aside for the project.

"How do you like our exercise equipment, Mr. Schmierer?" said the trainer, as the workout session ended.

"It's pretty nice," the detective responded, breathing a bit hard. "I just wish that last machine you had me on had better padding."

"That 'padding,'" said the man, grinning, "is carved and sanded oak."

"Oh..."

He looked around the sparsely occupied room, feeling glad he had come. Not only was he making connections he would not otherwise have made, not only was he getting some important training, he was learning a lot about his own capabilities. He had repeatedly surprised himself.

Mike had been very pleased to learn that he was even stronger and more resistant to damage than he had thought. He was also faster and more agile, and some of the tests indicated he might have some sort of warning sense. That would explain the "hunches" and "corner of the eye warnings" he sometimes got. All this made him feel rather buffed. Though all this also made him feel a bit guilty. Had he been coasting? If so, for how long? Well, he was here for a week, with an option to return later and advice for training on his own. He was going to make use of the opportunity and stretch.

* * *

"I am doing this under protest," said John, as they walked into the huge store.

"You need new clothes," said Melody, tone insistent. "By which I mean more that just three costumes, and the t-shirts and jeans you wear under them. As well as just about everything else. You still haven't replaced what you lost when your apartment burned!"

"I agree. I just don't see the need for a special... day-long expedition to do all the shopping at once."

"Would you rather go on several trips over the next few days?"

"Good point," said John, with a sigh.

Despite his protests, the morning was a productive one. Melody even found some things she needed for her own apartment and wardrobe, all in the first store. They stopped at the store's delivery counter and arranged for their purchases to be sent to Melody's apartment. Then, off to another store.

On the way they walked past a bus stop nearly covered in advertising posters. They both stared with distaste at the image of a muscular empowered celebrity who had changed his "stage" name to Big Beef to become the spokesman for a roast beef sandwich franchise. With synchronized sighs, they continued on to their next destination.

This establishment was an old and famous department store which had recently come under new management. The current owners had remodeled the multifaceted business in a retro fashion as a publicity gimmick; even the employees were dressed in modern interpretations of historic store attendant uniforms. The old-style features included a full-service soda fountain, complete with sandwiches hot and cold. Melody was looking forward to an old-fashioned lunch of cheeseburger, French fries and chocolate milkshake. Even John seemed enthusiastic - well, he was showing as much enthusiasm as he ever demonstrated - about the situation.

"Just as long as they aren't also old-fashioned about who gets to sit at the counter," he muttered.

Before they could reach their next destination, however, John subtly changed course and increased speed.

"Message coming in?" said Melody, quietly, and a bit eagerly.

"Sorry. Private," was all John said, as he found an isolated spot where he could listen and talk without attracting attention.

Melody scowled in frustration. She didn't have one of those special, new communicators and resented that. Only members of Aaron's "group" got them. As best she had been able to find out, each was handmade by one or two empowered geniuses.

"Trouble in Central Park," said John. "Sorry."

"Now, just..." Melody began.

John, smiling mischievously, backed in between clothes racks, ducked into the shadows and vanished.

Melody immediately turned and headed outside, to the taxi stand. Lunch could wait! There was no way she was going to be left behind on something like this!

* * *

There was far more trouble in the world than what John had been called on to address. Even just counting the actions of the Emergent, there were multiple situations suddenly developing.

Chicago's city government was thrown into chaos as people in office after office in their main administration building suddenly were overcome by their greatest fears. Some hid. Some ran screaming. Some fought back, only there was no-one and nothing tangible to fight. There had already been several suicides. In Los Angeles a wedding reception dissolved into panic as small, flying devices at first mistaken for birds began stinging the attendees with electric shocks. In Denver clouds moved in against all forecasts and completely blocked the Sun. In Atlanta a "ghost" was spotted in several places around the capitol building... Only, this apparition was kidnapping people! At Greater Cincinnati Airport several airliner crashes were narrowly avoided when the computer system was taken over; subsequently, the entire airport was shut down. Then there was New York...

* * *

Sam knocked on the doorframe of his boss' office, then hurried in without waiting for the OK. He held a bundle of teletype paper in his left hand.

"Boss, the wire services have multiple reports of attacks by rogue empowered," he said, shoving the paper at Gadding. "What's weird is that most of the targets seem to be low level. A wedding party attacked, vandalism in Central Park, right here in New York..."

Gadding quickly glanced at the bulletin lines, then read a few of the details.

"Get Melody on this disturbance in Central Park, right away."

"Uhm, she took the day off to go shopping," said Sam, half smiling.

"When does she take time off for anything not life-threatening?" said Gadding, startled. "Much less shopping..."

"I think she's got a new guy."

"Ah. Argh. If only portable telephones weren't restricted. Okay, get Paul Corvey on it. Send the next staff photographer in rotation with him."

"Right, boss."

* * *

The cab stopped a couple of blocks away. Not because of the police cordon - visible further down the street - but due to a jam caused by people leaving Central Park in a hurry, who were running into people trying to see what was going on. Melody paid the cabby and exited.

She moved laterally to another, smaller and less crowded street and continued toward her goal. When she arrived at Central Park Melody still found herself fighting against a flood of people who had been forced from the park by police. No-one seemed to know why the evacuation had been ordered, including the cops. She deftly found a way past the cordon into the park and began searching. The place was huge, of course, but if there were some threat it should be obvious. Only it wasn't.

Not only did she not see a threat, neither could she find any sign of Blackpool. Even the police were absent. Had he lied to her about where the problem was?! Well, there was definitely something odd going on here. She found a pay phone kiosk, and fed coins to one phone to call her office and another to call Aaron's service, going back and forth between them and occasionally talking on both at once. The people at the paper knew little more than she did, but they confirmed some empowered person in a costume was making a very public affair of vandalizing features of the park. The service said Aaron was busy with another emergency. Melody left a message with the service saying the park had been evacuated and that she was trying to learn why. She let both phones time out and hung up.

Melody began an ordered exploration of Central Park. She kept to cover, but that was more because she was worried about the police making her leave than due to any menace. She simply didn't see anything which seemed dangerous. At least at first...

However, after several minutes of exploration Melody walked behind a statue, and saw to her astonishment that part of the rear of both the statue its pedestal were missing! The gap implied a perfect sphere of something had taken the material. The edges were flawlessly cut, as with some impossibly large and sharp curved knife. Only there was no sign of the removed material. Further along she saw where the shore end of the boat dock was gone. This was very recent; pond water was still filling the hole this had left.

Right, thought Melody. Something or someone - likely an empowered person - is removing semi-spherical chunks of stuff. Who, though, and why?

Resolving to be even more careful, she continued. Quietly.