Villains Inc_ - By Marion G. Harmon Page 0,1

heat pollution from the nuclear plant.”

“You think?” No cars moved in the streets as I looked down—engines killed by the EM pulse.

“Every other cape in town is on their way. The police are responding with their EMP-hardened unit, but it’s going to take time to get it together and out to the pier.”

“They should have invested in some airlift!” I looped around and came in low, mindful of its primary reported weapon: a jet of high-temperature hydrogen plasma.

“Leaping lizards,” Shelly whispered.

The monster heaved itself onto Lakeview Terrace at the end of the pier. It looked like someone had asked the wizards of Hollywood to make a “thunder lizard,” and they’d delivered by slapping a T-Rex and an alligator together and inflating it to impossible size. Scales colored shades of green, it looked really striking. If you got past its teeth. Its big, big teeth.

I shook it off. I didn’t have to worry about getting crunched—chomping on me would be asking for extreme dental surgery. Its super-heated plasma attack was my problem; I could take a hit from a tank shell, but the godzilla’s breath could melt steel. Fortunately, the bad experiences of others also told us it started on big stuff first; anything smaller than a bus wasn’t likely to attract its attention and rage. Unless that small something attacked, of course.

As I dropped down it opened its mouth and bathed the Grand Ballroom in a jet of laser-intensity flame. The building exploded into burning wreckage, and I felt the wash of heat.

My earbug buzzed and popped as I flew closer, looking for stragglers. “Astra, have you made contact yet?” Lei Zi called through the interference.

“I’m there,” I said, voice thankfully steady. “And it’s ugly.”

She laughed dryly. “Your first priority is civilian extraction. Let it burn the pier to the waterline if it wants—look for anybody unable to get out on their own.”

“On it, chief.” With Atlas gone, Blackstone had recruited Lei Zi to be our new field leader. Ex-army, she made a good replacement for Atlas but for this I didn’t need her reminder. “Rush?” I called. “What’s the sitch?”

“TheGrandBallroomiscompletelyclear,” he returned, talking so fast his words ran together like machine gun bursts. “Theyweregettingreadyforaneveningevent. Workingonthe FestivalHallnow.”

His super-speed evac left me free to take care of the outside, and I forced my eyes away from the godzilla. Looking down, I scanned the pier-side boats: tour boats, floating restaurants, and a couple of tall ships with furled sails—most full of weekenders trying to escape. It didn’t look...

I saw the first splash and others followed, pushed right through the gangplank ropes by the panicked crush trying to get off the boats. Finding the little boy in the water, I fished him out and handed him off to his hysterically grateful mother. Dropping back down for more swimmers flailing about in Chicago Harbor’s chilling water, I retrieved all but one—an athletic guy who waved me away and struck out for the lakefront on his own.

Overhead, the rest of the city’s flying capes began arriving. Thank God.

With a bone-shaking roar, the godzilla started on the Festival Hall. A couple of jets of flaming breath had it burning nicely. I hesitated.

“Rush, are you clear?”

“It’semptynow. Acoupleofinjuries Ihadtohelpalong butwe’reahead ofthemonster.”

He was right; most of the weekend crowd had cleared the pier, fleeing through the parks. But behind us the streets were full of dead cars. Out of sight the city was full of people trapped in dead elevators, high-rise residents trying to get down to the streets and out, hospitals full of people going nowhere fast. Most Chicagoans could get out of the way, but not all of them.

We couldn’t let the critter off Navy Pier. I wished Atlas was here.

“We’re arriving now,” Lei Zi informed us. Sighing my relief, I spotted them. An A-class electrokinetic, Lei Zi flew herself as well as Quin, Seven, and Galatea by electrostatic levitation. Riptide’s flying waterspout came right behind them. Dropping down to meet them, I couldn’t help laughing as Lei Zi landed the beat-up truck she’d commandeered and they all piled out; somewhere a groundkeeping crew was missing its wheels.

Lei Zi saw my grin and ignored it.

“Dispatch says we’ve got eighteen fliers on the scene,” she said. “Another fifty or so Crisis Aid and Intervention heroes with good support powers coming in. Only half a dozen are even close to this creature’s weight—all the rest can do is help evacuate.”

Listening to the godzilla’s scream as it flailed away at the burning hall, I couldn’t help but agree. Quin and

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