The Unstoppable (Chapter Seven)

The Unstoppable

Chapter Seven: The Vault and the Vagabond

The new gun I'd been issued weighed heavy against my chest as I ran. My team moved across a gravelly rooftop slick with cold, drizzling rain. I wasn't sure I liked the feel of the weapon at all. The leather holster strapped to my torso never seemed to lay right, feeling like a physical metaphor for my uneasy feelings about carrying the tiny instrument of destruction. Two months of training hadn't scrubbed the old me away just yet; I still felt more computer programmer than secret agent.

Tony, Sabrina and I were in the heart of suburbia, in a city just outside of Chicago called Naperville. I was following close behind Tony as we made towards our goal, a bank with a secret vault. Sabrina was a few steps behind me, bundled up against the cold in a thick sweatshirt with a furry hood.

I served as the glue for our merry band. Couldn't lag behind or I'd lose Tony, couldn't go too fast or Sabrina would be left behind. The buildings here were all close together, huddled as if hunched against the frosty afternoon air. It was the perfect way to surreptitiously get the drop on our target.

The mission, so far as I'd been told, was a robbery. The robbery of a certain very important artifact. We were to retrieve it before the bad guys could. The bad guys, in this case, was a terrorist group that called itself the Seed. Apparently they were a group of superpowered thugs who often made trouble for the Agency.

Tony came to a stop over an antique store. The roof here was smooth concrete, broken only by a satellite dish and one of those weird ventilation fans that's always spinning for no good reason. A wrought iron sign swayed in the breeze, hanging down below. Across the street our destination awaited. The bank looked friendly enough. Even the name sounded cheery. The Sunny Days Bank of Naperville.

I continued fiddling with my leather holster. "Nervous, newbie?" Tony asked me.

"I'm not entirely comfortable with this gun..." I replied.

"Oh man up, girlfriend." Sabrina muttered, pushing past me.

"Are you ready, Officer Rathbone?" Tony asked, all business. The girl nodded and began to remove her hoodie. I was surprised to learn then that she was in disguise, dressed in a gray skirt suit complete with a skinny black tie and a little golden nametag. The tag read "Aileen Carlson" and had a very cheerful looking sun with a smiling face in one corner.

Add to that mental picture a dark brown wig. That was the strangest part of the whole thing for me, because it made her look even more like Kate. Normally Sabrina had a short red pixie cut. Her disguise made her look more and less like the woman I'd been engaged to.

"I just hope everything is laid out the way it's supposed to be. I don't like following blueprints. Hate it, in fact." She sighed and slipped off a pair of ratty sneakers, swapping them for a pair of tall black heels. It was an odd sight for me, as Kate had hated dressing up and avoided it whenever she could. Sabrina sighed again, seeming uncomfortable in her dressy outfit. Maybe they weren't as different in personality as they seemed.

"You know the timetable we're working under," Tony replied distractedly. He hadn't taken his eyes off the bank or the surrounding streets below once since we'd arrived. "Now get going. It's already oh four hundred hours, we need to be in and out."

"Oh you got it sugar," the girl said in a pitch perfect southern drawl. "Aileen" nodded again and closed her eyes, taking a slow, deep breath. After a moment, she vanished from sight. Sabrina's power, I'd learned, was teleportation. Even though I hadn't been briefed very thoroughly on the mission, I should have guessed she would be helping us infiltrate using her abilities. It certainly explained why she was dressed as a teller.

What little I did understand, was that terrorists were seeking out a high-tech object called an Oracle Sphere. Apparently it was a little device that could pinpoint the locations of neophytes, people with superpowers. In short, a recruitment tool without peer. Incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands.

I began to pace impatiently, fiddling with my gun holster. Finally Tony ordered me to sit down. "You're going to call attention to us," he muttered. "Relax, buddy."

"Is there a point where I'm going to be filled in on the plan?" I whispered back. I wasn't sure why I was whispering now. There had been no precedent.

"Sure thing, newbie." Tony replied at a normal volume. "Sabrina is doing most of the work on this one. We're just here for backup, in case things get rough. We're expecting the Seed to try something. They've been after the Oracle Sphere for years. Eight hours ago we learned its location had been leaked, so we're going to retrieve it and move it."

"Why all the secrecy?" I asked. "Why not just go in and get it?" We had a veritable army of agents that could show up to help us out.

Tony hesitated. "Remember when I mentioned we were kind of robbing the bank? The uhh, Oracle Sphere, it... yeah it definitely doesn't belong to us." The older man pulled out a tiny handheld radio. "Alright Rathbone... you in position?"

I could barely hear Sabrina's whispered reply. "On my way. Give me a minute."

We waited on pins and needles for the next word from the agent. There was a long, tense moment of silence. Suddenly, I heard gunfire. Two shots. Tony jumped to his feet and ran to the far edge of the building, opposite the way we'd come. A fire escape ran down to the ground.

"Sabrina, what's going on!" He practically yelled into the radio. We pounded our way down the rattling iron stairs, throwing stealth out the window. I sprinted after him across the street, straining my ears to hear her reply, if there was going to be one at all.

Finally as we reached the glass doors that lead within she spoke. "I'm ok," She said breathlessly, sounding a little rattled. Two men are robbing the bank right now. This can't be a coincidence."

Tony looked at me, seeming to be formulating a plan. "She's right. This can't be a simple bank robbery. These guys might be Seed. They probably have powers, so stay sharp. We're going to go in, do our best to incapacitate them, but if they open fire, we shoot to kill, comprende?" I nodded. The gun still made me uncomfortable, but I didn't say anything.

Tony drew his gun and threw the door open. Both of us moved in slowly. Tony projected an image of two little old ladies wandering cluelessly into the bank. It wouldn't last long but it would give us a moment or two to take stock of the situation.

There wasn't much to tell. The little bank was littered with patrons on their hands and knees. Two masked men stood before the counter, screaming demands at a flustered teller whilst waving handguns around. There was no sign of Sabrina.

One of the men turned to regard us as the glass doors slid shut. The door wasn't terribly loud, but the scraping as it closed was the only sound to be heard in the room beyond the robbers own yelling. "Beat it, Grandma, bank's closed for the day."

The crook, face obscured by a black ski mask, stared for a moment, no doubt sensing something was off to what he was looking at. I had often noticed that there was an odd shimmering quality to the edges of one of Tony's illusions, like it didn't quite blend with its surroundings. The more people he had to fool, the more strained his powers became, making it harder and harder to keep the deception going.

His comrade threw his gun away and fired a bolt of electricity at me. I barely had time to throw myself to the ground as the long, arcing blast of lightning hit the panes of glass in the entry behind me. I rolled on the ground and brought myself up into a firing position as the sound of shattering filled my ears. I quickly funneled all my adrenaline into my own lighting strike.

The only difference was... I didn't miss.

The robber was hurled head over heels right over the counter. Despite all his talk of merely taking our foes out of commission, Tony shot the other one in the head. The bullet simply bounced off, however, pinging away into some far off corner. I leapt to my feet and fired off more lightning, hitting my adversary squarely in the chest. He didn't flinch.

I was running forward at this point, igniting my hands in flames that licked all the way up to my elbows. I punched the robber in the jaw, but it was like hitting granite. Zero give. It was lucky for me that when I used fire I gained a bit of invulnerability, otherwise I would have broken every bone in my hand for certain.

The thief took his own opportunity to drive one of his fists home, but it had little more effect that my attack. I staggered back a little bit under the force of the blow, but I felt no pain. With a low gutteral scream Tony suddenly threw himself at the thief and wrapped his arms around his neck, snapping it with a sudden twist.

"Looks like his neck is still breakable," Tony declared. I could only stare dumbfounded as Tony let the body drop to the ground. It fell in an awkward heap while the agent hopped the counter and handcuffed the one I'd taken out. My second big battle, over. It didn't seem like my heart was ever going to stop pounding.

Sabrina popped her head up as things began to settle down. She'd been hiding underneath a desk nearby, it seemed. "Cut that one a little close, didn't we? What were you two doing up there? Holding hands?"

"Simmer down, Rathbone. We came as soon as we could." Tony replied in an urgent whisper. "Now let's get a move on. This mission is still a go. Did you get the keys?" Sabrina jangled a set of small keys on a ring in response.

To my surprise, we attempted no cover-up whatsoever with the hostages. We simply left them, even as they began to stir, realizing they were safe now. Guess we were going to let them think what they wanted.

We moved around the corner, following Sabrina through a sterile white corridor into a room filled with dozens upon dozens of tiny brass safes. Safety deposit boxes, I guessed. I kept expecting Sabrina to stop at the one we were here for, but instead, she kept going. The room quickly came to an end and we wound up facing a metal door with chipped green paint. Sabrina pulled out her keychain and began systematically trying each key. Outside I could hear sirens wailing away. The police would be here any second now.

Finally the teleporter found a key that worked and all three of us slipped inside. This next room was empty save for one wall that was occupied by a massive, circular vault door that seemed to made of steel and brass interlaced together. The imposing thing stood like a monument to unflagging permanence. It looked as though it had always been here, merely allowing the bank to be built around it as a matter of its own convenience.

"How are we going to get past that thing?" I asked.

Tony chuckled. "We're not." It was then that I noticed Sabrina wasn't standing with us anymore. After a moment, she reappeared again. Only this time she much more to my right than before, practically up against the wall.

With a loud click, something inside the door to the vault shifted. The silver colored parts of the door withdrew, and the gleaming monstrosity rolled aside. Within, we found a treasury of odd artifacts and strange, unidentifiable machines. I couldn't help gaping a bit, trying to take in all that I was seeing in the little room we now stood in.

Tony was entirely nonplussed, walking over to a little silver and blue orb. He inspected it closely before sliding the object into his pocket. "Mission accomplished. Let's get out of here." He waved for us to follow him. We trailed behind the senior agent as he led us through another dull white corridor into a room filled with cubicles.

An emergency exit beckoned not far off. It had been propped open, allowing bright gray light and the scent of rain to enter the room. I was confused at the time, but I later learned that Tony had bribed someone to leave us an escape route here. As we left the building I could hear commotion in the distance, both behind us inside the bank and around the corner near its front entrance. We were leaving not a moment to soon.

A homeless man leaned against the wall of the opposite building, half hidden in shadow. I could just make out the filthy, ragged clothing, and a wild, unkempt beard. I was afraid we were being watched, but the vagrant didn't seem to be paying any attention to us.

I looked to Tony for direction, a plan, whatever happened next. He was studying the little ball in his hands, a look of disappointment plain to see. This puzzled me, because I couldn't figure out why he should be disappointed.

All had gone as planned... hadn't it?

At that moment two cops raced around the corner, guns drawn. There were no words of warning, no preamble to violence, they just opened fire. Tony immediately ducked behind a nearby barrel, drawing his own weapon. Sabrina just teleported away.

Me? I took a bullet to the chest. Gasping with pain, I tried to use my telekinesis to fling both of the men away. I still could not control my abilities however, and one was sent flying towards the street while the other didn't even get his freaking hair ruffled.

I staggered behind a dumpster, holding a palm to the wound in my ribcage now gushing blood. A sudden ping sounded as a bullet hit the asphalt at my feet. I felt at the little opening in my chest and found that it had healed itself, my body spitting out the lead projectile like it was nothing. Despite the hole in a shirt now stained red, I felt perfectly fine.

I peeked around the corner where I was hiding to see that Tony and the cop were still exchanging fire. I glanced about, wary that another adversary might show up. After all, the door leading into the bank was still gaping wide open.

The homeless man wasn't leaning disinterestedly against the wall anymore. He was staring intently at the fight, occasionally seeming to mumble and wiggle his fingers in an odd way. It took me a moment to realize that his right hand, the way it jerked, it was mimicking the way someone would fire a gun, despite being aimed at the ground. And totally empty.

Leaving the cop to Tony, I moved in to investigate. "Hey!" I called out. "Get out of here! Official government business." I'd been taught never to give away who I worked for. To say that it was official and government related was usually enough. Only higher ups in the government and actual members of the Agency knew of the department's existence, and that was the way it needed to stay.

The man ignored me, continuing in his odd contortions. I was beginning to suspect that he was controlling the policemen somehow, like a sinister puppeteer. I didn't want either them or Tony to be hurt, so I decided it was time to try driving the unsettling old man away.

Was I angry or afraid?

The moment I raised a hand to attack, anger won out. I was irritated at this interruption when we'd been so close to completing our goal and returning to safety. A fireball appeared in the center of my palm, then grew to engulf my entire hand. I was ready to hurl it at the vagrant when he booked it. Behind me, I heard a clattering as the cop dropped to the ground like an abandoned rag doll.

I gave chase, wanting to apprehend the man. Further into the dank corridor of the alley I ran. "Great!" I mumbled to myself. "Of all the vells in the world I could run into, I get Super Hobo." I followed as he rounded a corner, but the moment I came around, he'd vanished. There was nothing to see but another backstreet, this one looking even more dirty and disregarded than the last.

That, and a baseball bat being swung at my face.

I had no time to react before it battered my forehead, knocking me unconscious instantly. The last thing I saw was the face of the old man grinning wickedly.

---

I woke up sputtering in a pool of my own blood. I cautiously raised myself to a sitting position and felt at my scalp. There was a little blood, but no wound. According to my watch, I hadn't been out for long. A little less than a minute.

I doubled back to where I'd left Tony. I found him still crouched behind the barrel, clutching at a wound in his abdomen. Though the police officer still lay where he'd been dropped, somehow Tony had been shot. As I neared, he grabbed me by the arm. "He's got it... that old man. He took control of me, forced me to hand it over. You have to find him! I'll be all right!"

I nodded, feeling a little overwhelmed. "Which way did he go?"

Tony shook his head. "No clue... Find Sabrina. No doubt she teleported herself up to a rooftop somewhere nearby. She might have seen what happened."

I stepped back out toward the busy street waiting not far away. The bank was a hive of buzzing activity, policemen and former hostages interacting in the wake of the robbery. Robberies.

I turned the other way, not wanting to get caught up in the crowd and risk being recognized. But where was Sabrina? I looked at the rooftops looming above me. Rain fell towards my eyes. It was picking up, turning into a full fledged downpour.

As I looked upward feeling lost, Sabrina appeared next to me without warning. She grabbed me by the arm. "He went this way. I couldn't take watching you gape like a dumbfounded cod for one more second."

"I... I got knocked unconscious," I said defensively as we hurried down the street.

"Thank God! Hopefully it knocked something back in the right place!"

I couldn’t help wandering what people were thinking as we raced down the street, moving at a speed perhaps best described as breakneck. Sabrina had such a vice grip on my forearm I would have been tempted to think she had powers of super strength had I not known better. We ran through ever busier sections of the city, slowly moving from suburb to metropolis.

Suddenly Sabrina steered me away from the busy streets to an open field apparently occupied by a sprawling colony of prairie dogs, judging from the number of holes that dotted the ground. It was one of those uncultivated plots you can always find in a midwestern suburb, a teeny patch of leftover wilderness yet unclaimed by concrete and steel.

And on the distant side of the field, a figure fleeing as fast as his ancient legs could carry him.

The vagrant.

“We have to be careful now,” Sabrina murmured. “If he uses his puppet powers he could kill us both.” Leaping over the little burrows that seemed to be everywhere, we quickly began to gain ground. Intent on getting away, the supposedly homeless vell hadn’t noticed us yet.

“Alright,” my fellow agent whispered furiously. “Use your flamey powers! Take him out!” We were quickly running out of field, with thirty yards still between us. Beyond, I could see a train station on a raised track emerging from the mist. People milled about everywhere, in the train, on the platform. Dozens of people, just waiting for our adversary to take control of.

Not good.

Very very not good.

I tried to pick up the pace, wanting to move a little faster. Someone else had different ideas however. Before I could reach the sidewalk, before I could use my “flamey powers” an explosion knocked me off my feet and sent me flying. I would have been flipped sideways right into agent Sabrina Rathbone but she’d vanished on me again.

Half my body was burned, my right leg mangled up from the knee down. I’d been struck without any sort of warning, given no chance to defend myself. It didn’t take my body long to regenerate, but it was certainly giving the homeless man a hefty head start. Luckily the blast had been a near miss rather than a direct hit, otherwise I wasn’t sure I would be on my feet thirty seconds later. I wasn’t sure if dying was something my body could regenerate back from, and I hoped I never had to find out.

For a moment I lay there, too stunned to move. Get back on your feet, I told myself. I got up slowly, wary for another attack. I didn’t think Super Hobo could create explosions, so he had to have some sort of accomplice. But where was he? There were storefronts on two sides, but to my right, where the blast had seemed to originate, there was a line of scraggly trees whose shadows could probably hide a vell with a deathwish.

I decided the best thing to do was to wait, let my adversary make his move. I crouched low, wondering what would happen next. I didn’t have to be patient for long. Seconds after the first blow, I saw a small dark shape moving through the rain. It seemed like a long thin stub, like a stick of dynamite with no fuse.

I pushed with my telekinetic abilities and sent it hurling back from whence it came. Another explosion ripped across the field halfway between my attacker and me. Not waiting any longer, I closed what little of the field was between as fast as my legs would carry me, wanted to get in quick.

My hope was that my attacker wouldn't be able to use his powers if I was too close. And if they weren't even a vell, then so much the better. You think twice about blowing someone to kingdom come if you can't do it without giving yourself a one way ticket to the same place.

I charged up close to the stunted little trees and found the dim shape of a man hiding in the shadows. He pulled his gun, but I threw myself into the brush to the right. The explosive thunderclap narrowly missed me as it tore through the misty afternoon air. Before he could fire again, I followed my training and slipped behind him, disabling him as best as I could, twisting his gun hand behind his back.

Then I juiced him up with enough electricity to drop him to the ground, letting my adrenaline rush fly from my fingertips. Once convinced the stunned vell was down for the count, I stepped back out into the empty lot, ready to renew the chase. I could only hope Sabrina had been able to keep an eye on our target.

To my horror it wasn't the intelligence officer waiting for me out there but a massive crowd surging forward silently. Every last one of them was targeting me as intently as cruise missiles. Further back, I could see the train just beginning to leave the station.

I froze, uncertain as to what my next move should be. I was fairly certain they were all innocent bystanders somehow under the influence of the human puppeteer, so I didn't want to hurt them. Before I could make up my mind to flee, Sabrina appeared suddenly right in front of me. The crowd was so close then I could barely focus on her face.

The agent lunged forward and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me uncomfortable close. "Dear God... please work," she breathed, closing her eyes tight. Before I ask her what that meant, or even get the chance to register alarm, we were quite suddenly on the train. We collapsed in a heap on the floor. As we sorted ourselves out and stood, it rumbled quietly beneath our feet. But even then it was still louder than the eerily quiet mob that had been about to converge upon me.

We were in a passenger car, surrounded by red velvet. Every seat was padded with soft crimson cushions. I couldn't help staring longingly at the comfortable looking benches as I examined my new surroundings, but I knew there was no time to rest now. We had to come up with a plan, and quickly.

I looked at Sabrina, hoping she would have some idea of what to do next. She let her eyes drop to my chest, where my holster was still uncomfortably wrapped around my shirt. The weapon hadn't gotten any lighter.

Sabrina said only one thing, which didn't give me much hope at all.

"Please tell me you've still got that gun."