Angela poured out the details of imperiled airliner’s situation as Scion initiated the remote start-up of the Interceptor. Quanta began downloading the technical specs of the Boeing 747-400 involved, sending the information to everyone’s screens. They all studied the layout as their dispatcher filled in the details. It was 12:28 on a Friday afternoon.
“Two minutes ago a distress call was received by SeaTac Air Traffic Control from Virgin Atlantic Flight 815, a direct flight from Shanghai to Seattle. It was approximately 100 miles off the coast, almost due west of Astoria and just inside SeaTac’s outer control area. The message was brief, and cut off abruptly.”
There was a click as Angela played the recording. “Mayday! Mayday! This is Virgin Atlantic Flight 815, we have been boarded by hosti–” a burst of harsh static obliterated the voice then faded, leaving only the faint hiss of dead air.
“A few minutes after that transmission,” Angela’s voice continued, “the GPS transponder signal from 815 indicated that the plane had veered off course – it now appears to be headed towards Astoria. All attempts to communicate with the plane have failed, and Tomlinson Airbase is preparing to launch fighter jets to intercept.”
This news caused the tension level in the Assembly Room to ratchet up significantly. Most of the heroes understood that it was government policy in the case of hijacked planes to shoot down any such aircraft before it could be used in a terrorist-style attack. The general public may not remember much about the failed Saudi plot back in 2001, but the military certainly did.
“How long do we have before the Air Force’s go/no-go point?” Scion asked gravely. Former Air Force himself, he’d been lucky enough never to have been in a situation like this personally, but he knew friends who had; he had no illusions about what the pilots would do if they had to.
“Not much more than 20 minutes, sir,” Angela replied. “But there’s an added complication… amongst the 332 passengers (and 17 crew) on board 815 is a contingnet of 38 Chinse scientists, engineers and government officials. They’re part of an official trade delegation that is traveling to an international trade show in Seattle. The international incident their deaths would cause in shooting down the plane is… worrisome.”
“Damn!” said Artemis. “We have to at least get that plane onto another heading, buy ourselves more time to resolve the situation.”
“Yes,” agreed Scion. “The Interceptor is just finishing it’s warm-up cycle… at top speed we can reach the plane in eight minutes, which leaves us about 12 minutes to at least get it turned away from Astoria, if not retaken. Quanta, can you open a portal to the hanger–”
He was cut off mid-query as another Alert signal suddenly blared from the speakers. Artemis noted that Angela’s voice this time had faint hints of stressors in it, unusual for the professional emergency dispatcher. It was now 12:31.
“Vanguard, we are getting a second Code Red Emergency! Repeat, a second Code Red!” Everyone stopped in their tracks, staring at one another in consternation.
“The main branch of the Atlas Community Credit Union, at 1st and Bell, has reported an invasion by a group of at least a dozen armed men and women. Hostiles are armed with energy weapons and at least six high-explosive bomb vests. They have taken at least 30 people hostage, perhaps as many as 45, and are threatening to blow the entire building if anyone attempts to interfere. At least one security guard is down, condition unknown.
“The APD is responding, setting up barricades and diverting traffic from the area, but they are urgently requesting Vanguard assistance, highest priority.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Phantom Ace groaned. “I hate splitting up the party!”
“Nonetheless, it would seem we have no choice,”Artemis said as she pulled up the floor plans for the Atlas CCU building. “I would be most useful at the credit union, as would Prometheus, Blue Flame and Quanta. This puts Scion, Totem, Phantom Ace and Chilz on the airliner problem – an equitable distribution of our resources and abilities.”
“I agree,” said Scion. “Quanta, if you could get us to the–” He was once agin interrupted before he could finish his request, this time by the Blue Flame.
“I think I’d be more useful on the airplane,” he said, glancing nervously at Artemis. “I can fly, after all, and having my plasma around a bunch of high-explosives just seems–”
“We do not have time to argue about this,” Artemis cut him off. “Your recorded top speed so far is slightly over 250 miles per hour, approximately half the likely airspeed of the jet. But if you feel strongly about this, go with Scion’s team. Prometheus, Quanta and I should have little trouble handling the situation at Atlas.”
“OK, if that’s settled,” Scion said, with some exasperation, “Quanta, a portal to the hanger deck if you please.”
Quanta just nodded and gestured with both hands at different sides of the room. Two portals opened up almost simultaneously, one showing the Vanguard’s hanger deck and the waiting Interceptor, the other looking onto an open street behind police barricades and cars.
“Something I’ve been working on for awhile,” he said, flashing a momentary grin. It faded as his teammates stepped through the first shimmering circle. “Good luck!”
“You too,” Scion said, the last to step through. “We’ll try to stay in touch via the comm-links, assuming whatever cut off 815’s distress call doesn’t block us, too.”
A moment later the remaining Vanguard stepped through the other portal to the police command post which had been set up outside the Atlas CCU building. It was 12:33.
♦♦♦
The police seemed relieved to see the heroes arrive, if somewhat confused that there were only three of them. A SWAT lieutenant named Alvin Tama stepped forward and introduced himself, shaking hands with Artemis, Quanta and, after a wide-eyed track up his seven-foot form, Prometheus.
“I’m in charge,” the Native American officer said, quickly regaining control of his features. “At least until they send a captain from 500 Police Plaza. Listen, I’m glad to see you guys, but – not to seem ungrateful – but where’s the rest of your team?”
“A hijacked plane, headed for the city, Lieutenant,” Artemis said shortly. “We’ve divided our resources accordingly. Now, what can you tell us about the situation inside?”
To his credit, Lieutenant Tama didn’t pursue the matter, turning instead to study the smoked glass and white stone face of the 2-story Atlas Credit Union across the street.
“We’ve only had one communication with the the terrorists inside,” he said. ” One of them came out onto the balcony over the main entrance to shout down their demands. We didn’t have snipers in place yet, but even if we had – he was one of the ones wearing a bomb vest.”
“You called them terrorists,” Quanta interjected. “I thought this was a bank robbery.”
“It may be that too, sir, but given what that dude told us… first, he claimed that they have enough C-4 packed into their vests to bring down this entire block, and that the vests are on deadman switches with continuous flow circuits – he said they are fully ready to die for their cause. I served in the army, and I got a good look at the vest he was wearing – if that isn’t real C-4, then it’s the best fake I’ve ever seen.”
“Damn,” said Quanta, and Artemis looked more grim than usual. “That’s not street-level tech, to be sure.” He glanced up at Prometheus to explain what a deadman switch was and that any attempt to kill the electronics in the bombs, such as with an EMP, would detonate them instantly instead.
“You mentioned a “cause” Lieutenant?” Artemis encouraged.
“Yes ma’am… it seems that they want a big hunk of the land hereabouts returned to the full soverign control of our local First Peoples tribes… which is just crazy! I mean, they must know the government would never — could never —agree to it.
“But that guy seemed really, really convinced that it was both reasonable and possible. He seemed like a true fanatic to me, and I’ve known a few. But my spotters say that only about half the invaders seem to actually be Natives, the rest are Anglos, which makes even less sense.”
After he filled the heroes in on a few other tactical details, including the distribution of his forces and the on-going effort to evacuate the surrounding buildings, Artemis decided she would shadow-step into the building to scout out the second floor for herself, it being the least visible from outside and therefore the area they had the least intel on. It was 12:35 as she stepped across the street and into the shadows of a narrow alley…
…and appeared in the stairwell near the center of the building. As she reached for the door she heard the sounds of several footsteps nearby and pulled back into the shadows. Four frightened looking civilians, almost certainly bank executives, passed by the narrow window of the stairwell door, flanked by a pair of armed invaders.
She watched as the group turned south and the terrorists herded their hostages into what Artemis knew, from her study of the floor plans, was a combination office and open-walled conference area. The latter overlooked and was open to the main lobby, and she was confident that this is where the invaders were keeping all the employees from this floor. So, two concentrated groups of hostages, both within sight of one another – not as ideal as a single group, but still relatively easy to protect if things went sideways. She quietly passed the information on to Quanta and Prometheus.
Once she was sure the way was clear, Artemis slipped silently out of the stairwell and turned right. She quickly checked the four offices on the west side of the building to make sure no one was still in hiding, then made her way back towards the atrium. In passing she poked her head into the vestibule to the upstairs vault/safety deposit box area and was surprised to see the main vault door ajar.
She silently made her way to the heavy steel door and carefully peered through the narrow opening… at the far side of the long vault was a young woman in a skin-tight costume of dark blue with electric blue highlights. She was hunched intently over the control panel to one of the two ultra-secure safe deposit rooms at the back of the main vault, blue light swirling around her hands and flowing into the electronic lock.
Stepping away from the vault door Artemis spoke quietly into her comm-unit. “Quanta, I have the Changling criminal Electron attempting to break into a vault. Given the nature of her powers and all the high-explosives in this scenario, I think we need to take her out now, while she is isolated and alone. Bring Prometheus with you to the vault antechamber.”
It was 12:39 as Quanta’s portal shimmered into existence behind her and Artemis eased silently into the vault, pulling her shadow whip from her belt…
♦♦♦
At that moment the Interceptor was just coming into visual range of Flight 815, now less than 50 miles from Astoria. Their stealth tech would keep the hijackers from detecting their approach, but nonetheless Scion brought them in from behind and above the aircraft, into one of the visual blind spots he knew existed. Whatever had cut off the plane’s mayday call was apparently not a jamming device, as their own comms continued to function, keeping them appraised of what the other team was doing back in the city.
On the short flight out the group had discussed the best strategy for taking back the plane without causing a disaster, the first part of which was for Scion to see if he could remotely access the plane’s electronics. The codes and schematics had been quickly forthcoming from the FAA and the airline, and in less than two minutes he had the telemetry from 815 running on his internal screens, including both the plane’s internal and external cameras. He began recording the external cameras to provide a loop that would keep the hijackers from seeing them even if their stealth tech failed.
The internal cameras he sent to his teammate’s screens in the main cabin of the Interceptor, and they all focused on the images intently. As they cycled through the cameras they were able see every area of the plane, including the cargo holds and mechanical spaces. The only exception was the cockpit itself.
“As I feared, I can’t control the plane remotely,” Scion sighed as they noted the numbers and positions of the hijackers – and that half of them had bomb vests on. “But even if I could, I wouldn’t dare do so now that we know they have bombs… apparently with deadman switches.”
“Does anyone else find it highly suspicious that both of our Code Red emergencies involve large groups of people with high-tech bomb vests?” Phantom Ace asked, frowning at the image on his screen. “Do you think they have the same continuous-flow-thingy that the bank gang has?”
“I’m not willing to bet on it,” Scion replied. “Even if I was sure they didn’t, I couldn’t risk an EMP to take them out – I’d also take out the onboard avionics. That’d be trading one disaster for another. And yes, this is definitely looking like a diversionary set-up…”
“I count nine hijackers,” Totem said. “I assume there is at least one more in the cockpit, yes?”
“At least,” agreed Scion. “But probably just the one, given the type of operation this appears to be. It’s hard to tell on these cameras, but do these guys all look sort of Native American?”
“No,” sighed Totem, restraining an eye-roll. “They actually appear to be Tibetan. Given that this flight originated in China, and carries a significant number of Chinese government officials as well as the trade delegation, I would assume that they are part of the Free Tibet Movement or other such organization. But if so, it worries me that they’ve made no demands yet…”
“Well, whoever they are, we’re running out of time,” Phantom Ace interjected. “I can teleport us over there, but how are five of us going to take down the five explody ones at the same time? It looks to me like they all they have line-of-sight to at least one other hijacker.”
“I think what we need to do–” Scion began, only to break off as the proximity alert went off. To everyone’s surprise a very high-tech aircraft suddenly wavered into existence below the 747, apparently dropping a very good cloaking device. Hovering in the air next to it was an armored figure carrying a very big energy rifle.
“Well I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Scion. “I think I know that guy!”
♦♦♦
It was 12:44 and at that moment, back at the Atlas Credit Union, Quanta had just delivered a blast of quantum matter that finally took Electron out of the fight. The combat had been fairly quiet, the young villainess seemingly as reluctant to attract the attention of the terrorists as were the heroes… plus, Prometheus had pulled the vault door closed just as Artemis had launched her attack.
Knowing the electrical-based powers of the Incident-created villain made her immune to her shock sticks, the hero had aimed for a strangling hit to the neck. But Electron’s reflexes were incredibly amped-up, and despite being surprised she had her arms up to block even as she turned. The inky black thong wrapped around her obviously reinforced forearm with a “thwap.”
Electron had then attempted to grab the thong and send a bolt of electricity back up it, but the shadow material simply turned to smoke and vanished. This left the thief off balance and surprised, and she took one of Artemis‘ thrown shadow sticks to the head.
Dazed, she had been unable to dodge the roundhouse blow that Prometheus aimed at her. Blood gushing from her nose she’d staggered up against a wall of safe deposit boxes, and been dismayed to see that her natural electrical field, which generally gave a devastating shock to anyone who touched her, seemed to have had no effect on the pale giant.
Trying desperately to clear her head, she had barely dodged his second blow, ducking under his arm and hurling a concentrated blast of electricity at Artemis. The hero dodged the attack easily and launched two more shadow sticks at Electron’s head.
Electron managed to deflect both with her reinforced forearms, but it left her completely open to Quanta’s attack, and she went down hard, slammed by the stream of silvery spheres into the wall of boxes once again. As the darkness overwhelmed her all she’d been able to do was curse her luck… the damn heroes should have been busy with those idiot robbers… and those two creeps…
After securing Electron and teleporting her out to a waiting police van, Artemis had quickly returned to the darkened vault antechamber and her teammates. It still seemed odd to her at times to think that she had teammates again… she’d worked alone for a very long time… but she was coming to remember how… nice… it could be.
Quanta had made sure no one had heard their brief fight with Electron, and now he quickly outlined the idea he’d had for taking out all the bombers simultaneously.
“I’ll need to get to a spot where I can see all five of the bombers at the same time, Artemis, while you and Prometheus…”
♦♦♦
“You know this guy?” Chilz asked in surprise. “Is this another hero? Maybe a team?”
“Hardly that,” Scion snorted. “But I didn’t think he was the kind of guy who’d go in for terrorism and bombs… The plane is The Winged Corsair, a stolen experimental craft built by Jordan Aviation about four years ago. It was stolen by the guy in the armor, who goes by the name of Skyjacker these days, and it’s crewed by his gang of aerial thieves. They go by the, hopefully ironic, name Sky Pirates.
“They mostly operate in and around the Caribbean, preying on flights carrying valuable cargo or ransom-worthy passengers. They seem to gravitate towards advanced technology cargos, I’ve read, which may be how they seem to keep ahead of the curve technologically. They’ve avoided capture by any government all this time, and haven’t been murdered by the numerous criminal groups they’ve double-crossed or otherwise made enemies of.”
“How do you know these guys?” asked Phantom Ace, eying the armored figure in question warily. It seemed to be moving slowly closer, and if it was possible to decipher body language under these conditions, he seemed very surprised to see the Interceptor…
“Well, I don’t know the Sky Pirates, except by reputation, but the Skyjacker… he used to be a friend of mine back in my Air Force days. His real name is Mike Rannells, and he was a test pilot, like me. He was a great athlete, an amazing marksman, and an utterly fearless test pilot… I learned a lot from him, to be honest. He was always charismatic, and well-respected as a leader… but he was also perpetually wired… energetic but restless, forceful, direct, and… really reckless.
“I was disappointed but not terribly surprised when, a year after he mustered out, Mike took an assignment from Jordan Aircraft to test pilot an experimental solar-powered plane – and then absconded with both the plane and its creator. Six months later he reappeared with this flying armor and a crew, and began his criminal career. The man I knew was never malicious, and as far as I’ve heard even now he never employs excessive force in his crimes, and has never killed anyone…”
Scion toggled on his radio and sent out a call on a band that he was sure the 747 couldn’t overhear. “Mike, is that you? This is John Astor. Please respond.”
There was a moment of silence, and he was just about to repeat the call when a familiar voice came over the speakers. “JJ, is that really you? I heard you were doin’ the whole superhero thing these days. Good for you, man, I always knew you were too good for the military. But I gotta say, I’m surprised to see you out here. How did you trip to our little caper today? Hell, we didn’t even know about it until yesterday.”
“Mike, you know we can’t let you kill all these people – you must know this could start a war between the US and China. I can’t believe you’ve turned against your country, even if you have turned to crime.”
“Whoa man!” Skyjacker sounded surprised. “What the hell you talkin’ about? We’ve never killed anyone and I don’t plan on starting now. We’re just here for that juicy tech the Chinese are bringing over to show off… and I don’t think a little petty larceny – well, OK, grand larceny – is going to start a war!”
“Are you telling me you have nothing to do with the terrorists who’ve hijacked this plane and have enough C-4 on them to turn it into shrapnel?” Scion asked suspiciously.
“What? No, we – wait a minute! Are you trying to bluff me, old buddy? You always were a good poker player, despite there being no cards in Atlantis, or so you said. Sorry pal, but you’re not getting rid of us that easy,” Skyjacker laughed. “Now why don’t you and your buddies just back off and let us get on with our job? I don’t wanna burn you all out of the sky, but if I gotta… well, I figure you hero types always survive these things, right?”
“Damnit Mike, this no bluff!” Scion began, but stopped when Raven put a hand on his shoulder. He hadn’t even noticed Totem changing… which was fine with him, he always found his transformation into one of the avatars… unsettling. At least Raven looked human…
“Mr. Rannells, this is Raven, of the Vanguard,” his teammate said, picking up a mic. His voice was very smooth, and very soothing. “Your friend here is telling you the truth. There are 10 Tibetan men aboard that airplane, armed with non-ballistic energy weapons, and five bomb vests. They appear to be intent on crashing the plane into Astoria – if I had to guess, I’d say into our own headquarters, it’s the most high-profile target – and killing the Chinese delegation.”
Raven poured all of his psychic power into being convincing… he could sense that Scion had almost had the man, but the pirate’s own arrogance and innate distrust… just another push…
“Surely you’ve noticed the plane’s course change, yes?”
A slight hesitation. “Yes, it took us a few minutes to find the damn thing when it wasn’t where we expected it to be. We assumed maybe a medical emergency had forced a diversion… although McCall International isn’t that much closer than SeaTac, come to think on it…”
At that point Raven suggested that Scion send the feed from the internal cameras to the pirate aircraft. After another minute Skyjacker was back on the line, sounding more formal and business-like.
“Scion, we will stand down. You’re right, the tech isn’t worth risking so many lives. Or an international incident, I suppose. But more than that, we are willing to help in any way we can.”
“Skyjacker, we appreciate your standing down, and your offer of help,” Scion replied, relieved. The last thing they needed was a two-front fight with potentially suicidal bombers in the mix. Nonetheless, he didn’t fully trust his former friend. “Please standby, and we will let you know if your assistance is required. Scion out.”
“OK,” he said, turning to his teammates. “this is what we’re going to do. Ace, I want you to teleport me and Tot- er, Raven, into the cockpit…”
♦♦♦
At 12:49, as Scion and the others were preparing to board Flight 815, Quanta was in position on the balcony overlooking the atrium – the one spot where he could see all five of the bomb-vest-wearing terrorists at once… at least when the one pacing around the upstairs conference area was in the right spot. Which was…
“Now!” he barked. The police cut power to the building, which didn’t bring real darkness given the mid-day sun, but at least created more shadows inside. As Artemis stepped from one of those shadows in the upstairs conference area, and Prometheus leaped from the balcony into the midst of the hostages, Quanta focused his mind – and quantum foam bubbled up out nothingness to encase five hands holding deadman switches. The shimmering material hardened instantly, leaving the would-be suicide bombers unable to release their triggers.
With the immediate threat neutralized, it took the three heroes less than a minute to incapacitate and disarm all of the hostiles in the atrium and the upstairs conference area, with only a few stray blaster shots scorching walls and pillars. Fortunately, the hostages, who had been sitting cross-legged on the floor, had had the sense to hurl themselves flat once Prometheus had appeared and started throwing bad guys around like rag dolls.
“But what about the other two guys?” the disheveled and frightened office manager asked Artemis as the hero zip-tied the last of the unconscious blaster-wielding men. “The ones in costumes? They took some of their men and headed for the vaults. We heard explosions –”
“Quanta, Prometheus,” Artemis spoke quietly onto her comms while ushering the distraught woman and the last of the other hostages out the front doors and into the arms of the waiting police. “We have two more possible metas somewhere in the building, most likely at the main vault and the safe deposit vault, both on this floor.”
“I’m on it,” Quanta responded, leaping the teller counter on the south side of the lobby. As he rounded the corner toward the vault area he almost ran into the three men stuffing money into large, almost full backpacks. Two were clearly garden-variety street thugs, but the third was a thug of a higher caliber – Cannon, the metahuman mercenary and sometimes E.V.A.L. operative the Vanguard had crossed paths with on more than one occasion in the last several months.
Quanta didn’t waste any time on the banter that many of his teammates seemed to enjoy, sending a blast of quantum matter at the villain. The stream hit Cannon in the chest and instantly spread around his torso, pinning his arms as well as encasing the pack he’d slung over one shoulder. His two henchmen began firing their blasters, but the energy simply rippled off the hero’s silvery shell.
Prometheus was close behind his teammate and came around the corner just in time to see Cannon release a burst of his concussive energy from his entire body, shattering his bonds and sending shards of silvery matter in every direction – along with a blizzard of paper money from his also-obliterated pack. The quantum matter dissolved almost instantly, luckily for the villain’s men – they’d been so close that they would have been shredded by shrapnel from any more conventional material. As it was, the blast knocked them to their knees, stunning them both.
Cannon immediately followed up with a direct blast straight at Prometheus‘ head, a blow that would’ve decapitated any normal person. The hero staggered back, monetarily dazed, as Quanta rolled forward past him and fired his own blast at their foe. Grinning, Cannon dodged the attack and stooped to scoop up the two packs of money dropped by his men.
“Well, looks like it’s time for me to be jetting,” he laughed as he hefted the packs, framed in the doorway to the vault. Before the heroes could react, a second costumed figure slid around the corner from the opposite corridor, grinning himself and breathing hard. As he skidded to a stop a thick fog began to rise all around the group.
“That spooky fuckin’ bitch is right behind me,” Washout yelled, raising a hand to create a sudden ball of water that deflected the two escrima sticks that flew towards his head from the shadowy hallway behind him. “Time to bug out, dude!”
As the Incident-empowered villain moved toward his partner and his fog thickened, the two dazed henchmen staggered to their feet and again started firing off blaster shots at the heroes. Prometheus dodged and fired a kinetic blast that narrowly missed Washout but slammed full into Cannon’s chest, sending the criminal flying backward into the darkness of the vault.
At the same time Quanta brought a sinuously shaped slab of quantum matter into existence over the heads of Washout and the two henchmen. The meta instinctively tried to use his powers to deflect the mass, but his water blast slowed the falling block… not at all. “Oh sh-” was all he had time for before unconsciousness took him.
Prometheus was looking down at the senseless meta as Artemis appeared out of the quickly dissipating fog, whip in hand.
“So this is Washout, yes?” he queried. “I was reading about him just yesterday, in your files. Heh, I guess you could say… Washout is all washed up.”
Quanta and Artemis exchanged a glance. Maybe letting Gideon, Chuck and Jonny teach their newest, time-displaced member about modern culture had been a tactical error… all those comic books…
But the thought was quickly pushed aside as Quanta stepped into the vault to secure Cannon – only to find the villain gone. Obviously though the massive hole he’d blasted through the floor and into the sewers below.
“I shall pursue him,” Artemis began, but before she could slip through the shadows a sharp beep from their comm units brought her up short.
“Vanguard, this is Lt. Tama. I’m with the bomb squad in the lobby and we have a problem. A big one!” It was 12:55.
♦♦♦
Aboard Flight 815 the other team was mopping up. Scion was on the radio with the lead fighter jet, assuring them that the Vanguard was in control of the plane and the hijackers disabled and in custody. The pilot acknowledged the change in status, and the two planes fell in above and to either side of the 747 to escort it to a landing at Tom McCall International Airport.
The taking of the plane had gone about as smoothly as the heroes could’ve wished. Phantom Ace had been the linchpin, teleporting Scion and Raven into the cockpit, where the two had mentally subdued the hijacker-pilot. Then he had teleported the lone suicide bomber on the upper deck outside the plane, his hand gripped tightly around the man’s trigger hand.
As the man screamed in panic at finding himself 10,000 feet above the ocean and falling, the Ace had focused intently on a technique he’d been practicing in the Box – making sure he wasn’t touching any part of the bomb-vest he teleported just the man and himself back into the plane, leaving the explosive device to detonate all by itself.
The precision technique actually worked even better than he’d hoped – not only had he left the bomb behind, but all the man’s clothes as well. He quickly zip-tied the whimpering, naked man as he huddled on the floor while wide-eyed but silent First Class passengers stared in amazement.
In his brief absence Totem-Raven had psychically subdued the gun-wielding hijacker, and the upper deck was theirs. As soon as Scion exited the cockpit, having set the autopilot, he began trying to revive the pilot and co-pilot, while Phantom Ace teleported over the rest of the team from the Interceptor.
Totem-Raven invoked psychic invisiblity and made his way down the stairs to the lower deck and all the way to the suicide-bomber at the back of the plane. Once he was in place Phantom Ace had teleported Scion into the forward cabin behind the suicide-bomber there, before appearing himself in front of the one mid-plane. Chilz prepared to take out the bomber near the foot of the stairs.
Totem-Raven mind-controlled his bomber, Scion slapped an armored fist over his bomber’s trigger hand and gave him a “mental tickle,” causing the man’s body to spasm uncontrollably before passing out, and Chilz encased his target’s trigger hand in a block of solid ice before punching him out. Phantom Ace repeated his trick of precision teleportation, again returning with a trembling, naked hijacker. Blue Flame, who didn’t dare switch to his plasma form inside the plane, stood by to back up Chilz… just in case, because you just never knew…
Subduing the remaining hijackers was but the work of a moment, and as most of the team were securing their prisoners and Scion was finishing up with the task of convincing the Air Force not to fire on the aircraft, Artemis‘ voice came over their comms. It was 12:57.
“Do not attempt to disarm the bomb vests on the hijackers,” she said, her voice clipped and urgent. “If they are like the ones here, they have a timer in them, set to go off regardless of the wishes of the wearers– the ones here were set to detonate at 13:00. Scion is opening a portal 16 miles straight up and Prometheus will throw them through momentarily.
“There’s no time for the Bomb Squad tech here to talk you through the procedure of determining if your bombs have a timer – we must assume they do. Can you safely dispose of them in the next two minutes?”
Scion turned to look at the Phantom Ace. “Can you –”
“Sure, boss, no problem,” Gideon replied with a grin and an airy wave of the hand. The grin faltered as he turned to the clump of unconscious hijackers, however… the fact was, he was already fairly tired from so many ‘ports, so close together, and carrying multiple people. But there was no choice, and he’d be damned if he’d let his friends down. But he might not have six more ‘ports in him, especially these new precision jumps… but maybe…
He leaned down to pull two of the bombers together back-to-back, getting a firm grip on the back of both vests with his left hand, then grabbing the remaining man’s vest with his right. He took a deep breath, focused, and…
…popped back into existence half a mile below the plane. He instantly let the empty vests go and turned himself insubstantial – only just in the nick of time! The triple explosion was tremendous, but the heat, energy and concussive force passed through him harmlessly. As he fell through the ball of fire he twisted around, looking upward… the smoke and flame made it hard to see… no, there it was, the 747. With a tired grin he teleported back to his friends.
♦♦♦
Unfortunately the Vanguard had little time to enjoy their dual victories – within a minute of Phantom Ace’s return and Prometheus hurling the five credit union bombs into the upper atmosphere, a new alert signal buzzed on their comm-units.
“Vanguard, this is Dispatch,” Angela’s calm, professional voice came over the line. “We have reports of an attack on a prisoner transfer helicopter near the City Jail. All communication with the facility is being blocked, but civilian reports from the surrounding area indicate a possible SAM attack taking out the chopper less than two blocks from the jail. Multiple fatalities are reported… as is the escape of the Iron Oyabun.”
The pieces suddenly fell into place and the team instantly understood what the day’s twin crisis’ had really been about – a diversion to get the Vanguard out of the way while the Yakuza rescued their leader. And the bastards had gotten away with it…
Phantom Ace was too exhausted to risk teleporting back to the city, especially carrying anyone, and Scion was busy piloting both the airliner and, remotely, the Interceptor. That left it to Quanta to get his team to the sight of the attack, but it was, of course, too late. Only the smoking remains of the SHADE UH-60 Blackhawk were to be seen — by the skill and sacrifice of its pilot, in the middle of the intersection of Greer Avenue and Murphy Street rather than embedded in any of the nearby apartment buildings.
Ambulances were just arriving as Quanta, Artemis and Prometheus stepped through the quantum tunnel. The emergency personnel pulled seven bodies from the wreckage, including FBI Special Agent Johnson, who had only that morning been chastising the Vanguard for the Trump video leak. Fortunately no one on the ground had suffered more than minor injuries.
It took several hours to pull together all the information, from the various prisoners and hostages at the credit union and Flight 815, from the jail and the surrounding blocks, and especially from the various government agencies involved. In the end it wasn’t a pretty picture…
Scion’s first angry response had been to demand to know why the APD hadn’t informed the Vanguard about the plan to move the Iron Oyabun to the just-completed Meta Detention Unit of SHADE‘s new (and still-under-construction) regional HQ at the Bunker. It turned out that they had wanted to, indeed had wanted a Vanguard presence during the actual transfer, but FBI Agent Johnson had pulled rank and insisted that the heroes be kept in the dark, citing concerns about “leaks” in Vanguard security. As the transfer had been a very tightly held secret, none of the team’s contacts in the department, who might have “informally” warned them, had known of it.
The Yakuza leader had said not a single word in the days since his capture, not to his public defender nor to demand his own lawyer. He also hadn’t reverted to the human form that the authorities believe he almost certainly possessed. The APD interrogation getting nowhere, and there being an extradition request for him from Japan, it was thought that Federal custody was the best place for the crime lord… or at least SHADE did.
Totem’s psychic probing of the minds of both the hijackers and the bank terrorists revealed the mental “fingerprints” of Cerebral… he’d clearly taken people with strong existing beliefs in a cause and “nudged” them into fanaticism, implanting key suggestions and providing material support. Including the bomb-vests.
Washout admitted that Cannon had brought him in as a partner, and that he’d hired the regular street thugs for the credit union robbery. Cannon had also provided the “Indian nut-jobs,” but hadn’t said where he’d found them. The thugs had been potential sacrifices in their get-away, and had believed the bombs were fakes, just a ploy to keep the cops and heroes at bay. He hadn’t known about the hidden timers, however.
And the presence of Electron at the credit union, as with the Sky Pirates intercepting Flight 815, really hadn’t been connected to the E.V.A.L./Yakuza plot. She had learned of the job through Cannon’s use of the underworld grapevine, and had decided to piggy-back her own heist, of an advanced electronic prototype being kept in a safe deposit box, onto his. She’d known nothing of the E.V.A.L. connection, or the bombs.
The witnesses aboard the hijacked plane had said there was a “pink glow” just before the hijackers had appeared, and a few even claimed to have seen them step through a “shimmering pink circle of light,” which had then vanished behind them.
A similar story was told by witnesses to the missile attack on the transport helicopter. Just seconds after it had taken off from the roof of the City Jail a SAM was fired from a nearby rooftop, just outside the facility’s usual security perimeter, bringing the craft down in a fiery crash. The Iron Oyabun was seen crawling out of the wreckage, seemingly not even dazed – in fact, there were two smartphone videos of the event. In them, a circle of shimmering pink light could be seen suddenly appearing a few yards away from the villain, who had strode through it as though he’d been expecting it.
“We’ve seen that pink teleport technology before,” Artemis pointed out at the Vanguards official post mortem meeting early the next day, “when we broke up the Cabal. It seems that E.V.A.L. now controls the tech – and that the Yakuza are not above hiring their former partners when they’re desperate enough, whatever bad blood exists between them now.”
“Well, you’ve gotta give them points for style,” sighed the Blue Flame…