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  I decided to ignore the dig, even if I wasn’t entirely sure of its implications. Getting angry back at him wouldn’t help. “No, that’s not why I’m here.” I took a deep breath. “I came here because I need your help. No, scratch that, the city needs your help.”

  The ex-Marine snorted, breaking down into a derisive chuckle. “The city needs my help? God, you sound like one of those preening capes on the news. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  “Okay, then let’s take it to the next level.” I stood up, palms on the table, keeping my shiver of anger mostly inside my head. “Hardware is out of prison.”

  That sparked some anger inside him. “That’s impossible. The bastard got fifty years in the Panopticon.”

  “That’s what I thought, but my sources tell me that he cut a deal with the government or someone in it.” I walked over to John, leaning on the counter next to him. “There’s only one reason that anyone outside of the villain circles would care about an arms dealer like him.”

  He didn’t look over at me, his troubled eyes focused on the cheap linoleum floor. “The Omniarmor.”

  “Which means —”

  “He either knows where it is or knows how to duplicate it.” It was like a haze was lifting off of him, showing signs of the honorable man I had known years ago. That bitterness still lingered in his throat and anger was still at the forefront of his mind, but I’d take this as a start. “There’s no way that he knows how it works, though. He provided help on the project, sure, insights from his super-genius, but Omnitech did most of the work.”

  “Then it has to be the first,” I nodded. Tentatively, I reached up and put my hand on John’s broad shoulder. “You’re the only man on the planet who might know where the armor disappeared to. Please, you have to help us find it …”

  That spark I felt when I had touched the old man outside came back far stronger, pulling up from my core, through my spine, and out of my fingertips. For that split-second, there was a bridge between our hearts, something like the connection I had with Paragon but weaker, shallower, but two-way. My respect for John, my wish to help him, and my honest desire to protect the innocent from Hardware’s plans carried through to him, while I got a full-on blast of his turmoil, his unfulfilled anger, and his disgust at the system that had condemned him.

  I recoiled back in shock as John pulled away with a jolt, eyes narrowing as he stepped away from the counter. “What the hell did you just do?” Suspicion, confusion, and doubt filled him as he tried to process what had happened.

  He wasn’t alone because I was trying to do the same thing. I had no idea where this new twist on my empathic powers had come from. My eyes were wide as my voice stumbled over itself to get anything out. After a few moments, I had collected myself enough to make real, honest-to-God words. “It’s … I’m not one-hundred percent sure myself but it doesn’t change a thing. You can see, feel that I’m not trying to set you up or pull one over on you, John. You know —”

  John’s fists clenched, and I didn’t need my empathic sense to see anger warring with his better side. Glaring at me, he tried to get himself under control, to speak coherently. “Yeah, yeah, I got a brain full of all that, Chris. So, I guess you’re a mask now, huh?” He shook his head. “Explains why you went from hot to walking perfection, I guess.”

  There was no point in denying it. I pushed off the counter, trying to keep from staring at my hands again. “Yeah, something … happened to me just a few days ago.” I let out a slow breath and tried to center myself, glad I didn’t set the communicator in my ear to an open mic. Robert was a good man, but I didn’t need him deciding to white knight in on this situation right then. “Which means, John, that with your help, I can really do something to stop Hardware once and for all. He ruined your life, and it would be poetic justice if you were a vital part in ruining his plans in the end, wouldn’t it?”

  John looked away as if trying to deny the truth I was laying down for him. “Maybe, but that’s assuming I can even help you at all … or that I would want anyone to get a hold of the secret I’m hiding.” He turned entirely towards the grimy window, his back to me. “Your five minutes are up, by the way.”

  I closed my eyes. This was my last shot to sway John, and I knew now, both from his heart and his words, that he could help us if he let himself. As I opened them, I said softly, “I know you’re lost and angry. Everyone you counted on failed you, even me, but you didn’t fail them. You didn’t fail me. Give me the chance to make the past up to you, to give you a way back into the light from out of the darkness.”

  I was sincere as I finished my little speech. “I trust you, John. You’re one of the best men I have ever known, and I know you’ll do the right thing now.”

  His shoulders sagged, but he didn’t move or say a word. His heart was still a whirling storm. Letting out a soft sigh of defeat, I turned towards the door. Maybe I was wrong, or perhaps it would take some time for this to fully sink in. It was crazy of me to think I could turn John away from years of his personal darkness in just five minutes.

  “I’ll go now, John,” I whispered, still loud enough to be heard over the silence in the room. “My time’s up like you said.” I began to walk across the main room, headed for the door. “If you change your mind, well, I still work at the Sentinel. You can —”

  His gruff voice, thick with conflicting emotion, cut through mine as he called from across the shoebox apartment. “Wait.” Clearing his throat, he repeated himself. “Wait, Chris.”

  I stopped, hope springing back into my heart as I looked back to him. John had turned as well, and our eyes met. I could feel a twinge of that spark that had passed between us, and I knew then that the faith I had placed in him wasn't misplaced.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I can help … and maybe I need to help.” John’s eyes drifted to the floor again, his fists clenching and relaxing over and over. “I wanted to disappear, to be forgotten and forget at the same time, but I can’t. Maybe … maybe I hoped that if no one remembered John Munroe, they’d forget the Omniarmor too. It could stay forgotten and never used to hurt people. I can’t allow Hardware to find it.”

  John let out a dark laugh. “That’d just be one more kick in the ribs, huh? For the weapon I helped create, that I couldn’t keep from enemy hands, be used to hurt innocent people?”

  “It won’t be,” I said with complete resolution. “With your help, we can keep it out of Hardware’s hands and either keep it safe or make sure it will never harm anyone ever. We —”

  It seemed the world was dead-set against me finishing what I was saying, as a loud, methodical knocking on John’s door cut me off. Surprising me, John reacted instead with suspicion as he moved quickly across the room, one hand going deep into his jacket pocket. As he walked past me to look through the peephole, I realized exactly why I was so surprised.

  I couldn’t feel a single emotion in the hallway beyond and at that very moment, the constant buzz in my earpiece, the carrier signal that reminded me the communicator was working, cut out.

  John knew something was wrong too. I could feel it in his heart, but he wouldn’t be fast enough to do anything about the mechanical whir I could hear spinning up through the thin door. My instincts took over as my superhuman reflexes fired. Grabbing John about the waist, I pulled him back as I turned, shielding him as best I could with my own body.

  Just in time, as the door exploded into splinters behind me.

  17

  Oddly, the first thought I had beyond my concern for John’s safety was how angry I was that the shrapnel from the door had ruined the nice clothes that Robert had given me. Though the force that blew out the front door and the wall around it slid us forward and rattled my bones, it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I would have expected. Other than scrapes and scratches where I had bare skin under my clothes instead of a Duraplex costume, I came through it mostly unscathed.

  A monotone voice cut through the settling dust. “Give John M
unroe to me if you want to live.”

  Spinning on my heel to face the voice, I spread my arms out to keep John behind me. Not that I expected that he would, though. The bulging form that came into view could have easily passed off as a normal man if ‘normal’ was seven feet of thick-browed bodybuilder dressed in motorcycle leathers. The giant’s uniformly smooth skin had an odd sheen to it, and his black eyes were lifeless, matching the void of emotion I felt from him. If he was a known supervillain, he was so minor, he didn’t make a blip on my fangirl databanks.

  “John’s not going anywhere with you,” I shot back as I cast a glance behind me. “Stay behind me and —”

  The ex-Marine was already slipping to my right, even as the shaved ape launched forward at me, rearing back his fists over his head to squash me flat. How typical that the men weren’t listening and just wanted to fight.

  Trusting John knew what he was doing, I planted my feet and raised my own arms just as the big thug swung downward. The guy was fast, I granted him that, but I was faster. Not only faster than him but faster than I felt the night before fighting the bio-beasts. Catching his bowling-ball sized fists in my open palms, the air cracked as the two superhuman forces collided. The impact ran down my arms and spine, the floor splintering under my feet, but I held firm.

  Muscles quivering as I grit my teeth, I pushed back, throwing the giant’s arms upward and sending the big man off balance. “I said … He’s not going anywhere with you!”

  Speaking of John, he managed to clamp down his surprise at what he just saw under the controlled reserve of a combat veteran. There was barely a pause as he pulled his hand free from his jacket pocket, an automatic pistol of some kind gripped tightly in it. I’m no gun expert, but I knew the U.S. military had mostly moved to energy weapons, and this was an old, ugly slugthrower of some kind.

  “John, wait …!” was all I got out of my mouth before he pulled the weapon up into a perfect shooter’s stance and fired off two clean shots right at the reeling grunt’s polished head.

  I couldn’t blame John for wanting to defend himself, but he was going straight for lethal shots. I wasn’t okay with killing someone unless there was no other choice, and beyond that, pragmatically, you can’t question a dead man.

  I shouldn’t have been worried though. Though dead on target, the two bullets only slammed into the thug’s temple and flattened, causing his head to recoil slightly to the right. For a split-second, I thought the shots hadn’t even marred the skin, but as the big guy reoriented on John, I could see that his temple looked … cracked? Like something had hit a porcelain sink instead of shooting flesh. There was no blood, just flaking bits.

  No time to waste in consideration. The goon pivoted to follow his gaze and lunged towards John, his long arms reaching out to snatch him up. Though the earbud was fried or jammed, I could still feel Paragon up above, as his concern grew from mild to overwhelming. He’d come looking soon, so at worst, all I needed to do was stall the gorilla here.

  John dropped back, trying to stay out of reach as he fired off another ineffectual double-tap into the guy, as I reached out myself. Not for John, but for Ugly’s waistband. Still faster than our attacker, I got a good handful of leather pants, unable to ignore the fact that this guy both had no underwear and skin the texture of John’s table. I pulled as I threw all my weight backward.

  The plan had been to throw this guy clear out of the room, back through the hole he had made, but I was amazed at how heavy he was. Mr. Ugly wasn’t just the size of a barn, he weighed as much as one too. That wasn’t so much a problem for my super strength, which began to haul him up and back by the waist, but it was a problem for his pants.

  Leather just isn’t made to take that magnitude of stress. As he started to go overhead, the waistband of his pants along with most of the front seams tore loose to reveal the anatomy of a Ken doll. It also made a mess of the trajectory of my throw. Ken Doll took a nosedive into a small table right by the remains of the front door, while the remains of his pants fluttered in sad trails off into the hallway.

  John growled. “I paid five bucks for that table.” His eyes snapped towards me for a moment. “And stop playing around, Chris. This is one of Hardware’s androids, can’t you tell?”

  Well, that did explain a lot, from the emotional void to the lack of a penis. It also explained why John was so flippant about unloading on it.

  “Right,” I called back as I stepped forward to meet the android head on as he righted himself. “I’ll take off the kid gloves.”

  As he rose up from his knees, the big lug was wide open for me to kick his head clean off, so I went for that, rearing back for a huge punt. I didn’t catch the sudden movement of his arm as my foot rocketed in until it was too late. One of the thing’s massive meathooks blurred out, clamping around my ankle with bone-crushing force.

  I bit back a yelp as my world spun, Ken Doll yanking me through the air by my right leg. My hip screamed in agony along with my ankle, only to be joined a moment later by my entire back as the android slammed me down into the apartment floor, shredding the stained carpet, the rest of my clothes that weren’t Duraplex, and most of the floorboards. Only by the barest bits of superstructure did I not get deposited on the floor below.

  A gasp of pain escaped my lips along with the oxygen in my lungs as the grip on my ankle released. To my shock, while I felt like I was a full-body bruise, nothing felt broken, and I knew I could still move and fight … once I caught my breath.

  “Chris!” came John’s shout, concern and rage racing to the top of his heart as he unloaded everything left in his magazine at the android.

  The mechanical menace was content in leaving me cratered, refocusing on his prime target. Ken’s immense shadow passed over me as he strode over my stunned form, giving me an unnecessary view of his seamlessly smooth undercarriage. There was nothing John could do to stop the robot, while up above, I could sense Robert’s growing anger as something impeded his approach. That meant I needed to get up and finish off the robot myself.

  Sucking in one deep breath, I planted my hands flat on the weakened floor and shoved hard, splintering the wood under my bare palms as I thrust myself out of my crater. My push was hard enough to throw me up into the air and the weird sense of weightlessness I felt when I leaped around town took over. Defying physics, I twisted myself upright in mid-air, back to facing the android as he swatted the pistol out of John’s hands. As I landed with nary a sound into a three-point stance, John fired off a last act of defiance, punching Ken right in the jaw.

  To the ex-Marine’s credit, he didn’t even grunt when he broke his knuckles.

  “You will cease your struggling and come with me, John Munroe,” Ken said in his robotic monotone as he hoisted John up by the scruff of his jacket. “The creator requires your unique knowledge.”

  “You tell your creator to shove it up his ass,” John growled. I could see his eyes flick toward me as I gathered myself. Looking back at the android as he was hoisted higher, he spat full on the thing’s electronic eyes. “Take a good look at that, Hardware!”

  I smiled. John was keeping the single-minded thing distracted, and that extra moment was all I needed. Just slugging it out with the robot was stupid, because it wouldn’t tire and wouldn’t feel pain. No, I would have to be smarter, which meant making the most of the seconds John had just given me.

  Ken had apparently been programmed with enough human instincts, maybe to blend in on a mission, to wipe the spittle from his eyes. That was the opening I took advantage of, launching myself forward in one powerful jump, taking out the badly-damaged floor behind me. The android only managed to turn a fraction of an inch before I was on him.

  Instead of crudely plowing into the thing, probably to little effect with his massive size, I managed to tackle Ken, my arms going around his neck. Though the actual impact only rocked the android slightly, it threw him off enough for me to also wrap my bare legs around his midsection. Now stuck to him from behind
like an octopus, I grit my teeth, squeezing with my legs while gripping his thick jaw.

  Ken dropped John roughly to the floor as things inside the android’s artificial skin started to give way under the pressure of my clamping legs. One of Ken’s big hands tried to get a good grip on one of my legs, while the other tried to slip my hands off his face, even as I started to pull back on it with all my strength.

  I was going to rip this thing’s head clean off, at least that was the plan. While I had managed to break that bio-beast’s jaw, it had been covered in far squishier cloned dinosaur flesh. Ken Doll here was pure super-robot, from bullet-proof skin to whatever super-alloy his bones and muscles were made out of. As strong as I was now, I shouldn’t have been able to do what I wanted to, but with John’s life on the line, I didn’t think about what my limits might be.

  I only thought of what I had to do to save his life.

  I ignored the flare of pain as Ken managed to clamp down on my right thigh, his huge fingers squeezing into the muscle and just pulled harder. The tingle of my powers running up and down my spine grew into a sparking current that flooded my body as I threw my head back, letting out a low growl of effort through clenched teeth. Back arched, I thought for a second that nothing was happening, despite my best shot, but then a resounding crack echoed through the room as Ken’s head yanked back at an unnatural angle, and his waist seemed to cave in under my thighs.

  The screech of tortured metal and sizzle of sparks followed. Awe mixed with John’s anger and concern as I cracked open my eyes, staring at the ceiling as Ken’s neck gave way from my constant pull. With one final cry of effort, I yanked hard on the robot’s chin.

  His entire head tore free amid a shower of sparks. Like a puppet with its strings cut, Ken’s grip on my leg went limp as he fell to his knees, sitting on his calves. Letting go of my own grip, I fell to the ground, sliding down his back roughly on my ass, panting heavily.