don’t mean that stocking over your face.” She motioned to him. “I mean this. Taser. You haven’t shown me one ounce of who you really are.”
“You’re a hard nut to crack, doll.”
“You want easy, go for Jet. Oh wait. You already did.”
Taser flinched, and Iridium was gratified to see that bringing up her former friend seemed to shut the merc up. He was good in a fight, but he was obnoxious, arrogant, and a champion-caliber liar. The sort of person Lester would have strobed without a thought.
She wasn’t jealous that Bruce had chosen Joan to seduce instead of her. It meant she was smart and Jet was gullible. That was all.
Feeling inexplicable tension grow in her shoulders and neck, she turned away from him and tapped the Ops frequency. “Ops, Iridium.”
“Go,” Meteorite snapped. The washed-up hero still carried her grudge, which Iridium had to admire her for. The rest of the good-guy brigade had practically thrown her a parade. Even Hornblower, once he’d seen that Iridium was sticking around, had stopped looking like he wanted to twist her head off.
“Trouble’s over in Wreck City. Cops took the Dork Trio to lockup. Taser and I are headed back.”
“Confirmed,” Meteorite said. “I’ll tell Boxer and—”
An enormous crash, then a cascade of crumbling brick and rebar cut off Meteorite’s next words.
Iridium spun, choking on dust as the storefront at the street’s end shuddered and collapsed.
From the wreckage, a huge shadow emerged into the dust.
“What is that?” Taser shouted. “Bomb?”
“No …” Iridium could barely breathe, and she snatched a hazomask from her belt and slapped it over her nose and mouth. Her watering, stinging eyes she was just going to have to deal with. Maybe she should consider goggles, like Taser or Jet. “No, not a bomb.” Lester’s teaching, Lester’s voice feeding her information on urban bombing. “Too little debris.”
The thing in the shadow challenged them with a roar. Iridium was momentarily rooted to the spot.
The man—it had to be a man—was enormous, all vein and muscle, with a deformed face and hands the size of meat platters. He had jagged teeth and a mightily pissed-off expression in his eyes.
“I might be wrong,” Taser said quietly, “but I think that dude wants to kill us.”
“He came up out of the ground,” Iridium marveled, her voice steady even though inside she was screaming. “Tore that shop right off its foundations.”
“Callie.” Taser gripped her arm as the thing roared again. “Run.”
Iridium spun, only to see at least a dozen more enormous, bloated, twisted figures appearing out of the dust. They circled her and Taser. Some giggled, or smacked their lips.
“Either this is a bad trip from breathing in all of that asbestos,” Taser said, “or we’re in serious trouble.”
The lead creature roared, and the others returned it. Thirteen pairs of eyes focused on Iridium.
“We’re in trouble,” she decided.
CHAPTER 29
JET
Phase 1 of Project Sunstroke has begun. Thirteen volunteers eager to become as powerful as the Squadron. We’ll put the extrahumans down like the rabid dogs they are.
—From the journal of Martin Moore, entry #294
I’ll do a sweep over Grids 3 through 6,” Jet said as she strapped on her cloak. She kept the cowl off, though. Instead, she’d braided her long hair and wrapped it in a bun at the nape of her neck. Not too heavy, and the lack of cowl made it easier for her to turn her head.
Meteorite handed her another protein bar, which Jet took gratefully. “Curfew’s about to go into effect,” said the Ops controller, “so at least that’ll get most of the civvies out of harm’s way.”
“Small favors.” Jet tore open the wrapper and all but inhaled the pseudochocolate bar. It wasn’t grilled chicken, let alone a beef taco, but it would do. Chewing, she glanced at Meteorite’s list of Who’s Left To Capture. Out of the 412 active Squadron members who’d gone rogue or rabid across the Americas, 27 had been incarcerated, and almost 30 were being pursued—they hadn’t converted from rogue yet, but at least they’d stopped breaking things.
They were finally making a dent at home. Maybe in a few days, they could spread out, chase down rabids in other cities, and leave the normal criminals to the cops and the soldiers.
“I’ll check in with you every thirty,” Jet said, “unless something comes up. And you’ll keep me posted?”
“Of course.”
Jet summoned a Shadow floater, and was vaguely pleased at how the voices didn’t whisper—how the power didn’t try to either fight her or seduce her. While creating floaters had