They were like little kids. They wanted to know everything.
One of them was trying to hide from him. He could feel a resistance, like he was running into a transparent wall, whenever he tried to dig too deeply in that one’s mind. It was unsettling, doubly so because he couldn’t really tell them apart. He didn’t know most of them very well yet. Well, except for Tina and Kyrie’s other selves. He’d already spent more time with both of them.
Best not to think about that. He didn’t know if they could hear all of his thoughts or only the ones he chose to share. Just in case, he decided to keep their ears busy.
“So, it looks like about ten of these losers coming our way. Stay put for the moment.” He stood still as the soldiers headed for him. He could have attacked. He knew his limits and knew he could probably put a hurt on the men before it was too late. Could he take down ten men before they could put a bullet through an important part of his anatomy? He didn’t know. He wasn’t quite willing to find out, either.
“You need to stay where you are.” The command came from the man in front as he and his followers started spreading out. They kept their eyes on him. Of course they did. The others were hidden away, just like he told them to. Just like Not-Tina suggested.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He held his hands up over his head and kept eye contact with the man speaking to him. Slowly, meticulously, the men moved around, spreading out into a loose circle.
“The alarm went off a little while ago.” The man came closer. He looked Joe over from top to bottom, unimpressed with what he saw. Joe could have taken offense but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
They wouldn’t be alive long enough for him to be offended by their attitudes.
“What are you doing here?” The tone was harsh. It was supposed to be. The first job of any cop-private or on the streets-was to take control of a situation.
“Relaxing with a few friends, taking in a movie.” He smiled as he spoke. He was supposed to be intimidated by the uniforms and by the weapons, but he was not. There had been very few things in his life that had made him nervous.
“Yeah? So where are the rest of your friends?”
Joe let his grin bloom into a broad smile. “All around you.” He answered the man with his mouth and at the same time sent out the command with his mind. Now! Come and get them!
The others dropped from the ceiling, where they had been holding on to the pipes. Most of them dropped and landed on the ground, no longer needing to hide themselves, but one of the males-Cody, he thought-hung from a pipe in the ceiling, his feet locked around it, and reached for the guard closest to him without bothering to drop down and land. They’d hidden themselves away and waited for his signal and it worked perfectly. None of the men had been expecting them to drop from above. Tina won points for that.
While the uniforms were trying to look everywhere at once, Joe moved, lunging forward and snatching the weapon from the hands of the first officer. The man opened his mouth, either to scream or to bark out another order, but Joe was done with him. He used his free hand and drove the blade of his hand into the man’s throat. Something cracked in the man’s neck and he dropped like a sack of rocks.
“Ladies and gentlemen, feel free to join the fun!” He didn’t wait for an answer but took advantage of the chaos and aimed his newly acquired weapon. The next guard in line was just starting to aim, his movements so slow in comparison to Joe’s enhanced reflexes that he looked like he was fighting his way through molasses. The pistol in his hand kicked as he pulled the trigger and the slowpoke let out a soft grunt as his right shoulder exploded. “Bang!”
One of the men came toward him, weapon drawn and aimed already. “You need to stop right there!”
Joe had an agenda. He could have cared less about showing the guards what he was capable of, but he needed the Others to understand not just how fast they all were, but how dangerous he was.
All of them had enhanced reflexes, enhanced senses and strength. What they lacked, what he had that they did not, was four years of training. Part of his free time had been spent learning tae kwon do and the basics of weapons training. He had been taught by professionals. It was an edge and he needed to make sure the others knew he had an advantage over them. They were like children, really. They were young and impressionable and he intended to make an impression that would last.
Joe took a fast sliding step in the direction of the trigger-happy guard and slapped him across the face with a blow that fairly blurred. The man never had a chance to continue his sudden need to bark orders before Joe broke his jaw and his nose. Before he could recover, Joe was pushing past him and firing at the next in line.
“Reflexes, kids. This is what I’m talking about. Our reflexes are easily ten times the normal human average.” He kept his voice casual as the next man fell, the shot having taken him square in his chest.
The rest of the men took the hint and stayed quiet as they took aim. Get them! he called out silently, and the Others answered, attacking even as the guards were focusing on Joe. Not-Cody didn’t waste time with finesse. As big as he was, he was unsettlingly fast. In all of his existence, Joe had never seen one of his kind attack a human being before. He was impressed. Cody swung a thick arm around in a fast arc and the man he hit let out a short scream before he lifted off the ground and soared through the air. The odds were good he was already unconscious before he hit the wall ten feet away.
One of the girls-Tina, maybe?-was bleeding from a split in her lip. The guard had struck her, apparently, and the look on her face said she didn’t take kindly to being hit. Not-Tina let out a screech and grabbed the guard with both of her hands. She caught his neck with one hand and his gun hand with the other and while the man struggled and tried to break free, she brought her knee up and drove it hard into his crotch. He let out a muffled moan and turned deathly pale. A second later whatever pain he was feeling didn’t matter anymore because she’d knocked him unconscious.
Joe fired again and missed, his shot thrown off as another of the guards reached him. The combat was getting too close, too personal for weapons. That was all right, he preferred hand to hand. It was more fun.
He let out a growl and used the butt end of the pistol on the man’s face. The impact ran from his hand up to his elbow and he grinned as Mr. Grabby’s jaw took on a new shape.
Not-Gene caught the guard in front of him in a strangle-hold and lifted the man off the ground. He squeezed hard and let out a snarl of anger at the same time. The man shuddered in his grip and tried to break free. His hands beat at the Other frantically, but it was like watching a five-year-old trying to get away from a full-grown man.
Another one of the guards aimed at Not-Gene and without a word Joe warned him, sending the image directly into his mind. Not-Gene spun his new toy to the right and laughed as the bullet punched through the man he’d been strangling instead of him.
The joy coming from the Others was brutal and pure. They liked violence, liked breaking bones and crushing their enemies. Joe knew exactly how they felt.
Kyrie-no, he corrected himself, NOT-Kyrie-surprised him the most. She delivered a perfect side kick into the leg of her opponent and danced backward as the leg broke and the man screamed. Before he could fall to the ground, she hit him again, a second kick that nearly took his head off his shoulders.
Joe grinned. Each of the Others had taken out a single opponent. He had eliminated six.
That should get the point across, he thought. That should let them know who the head honcho around here is.
Not-Tina was looking at the man she’d taken down like he was her worst enemy and he just might get back up and try to hit her again.
He reached out with his mind and felt her emotions, picked at them and studied them. He couldn’t do that with most people, only with the others like him. If he tried hard enough, he could capture images from the minds of their weaker counterparts, like he had when he spoke to Cody on the phone, but it took effort. This sort of eavesdropping was easier.
Not-Tina was aching inside. Though she wasn’t sure why, exactly, she felt grief. He knew. He understood all too well. She was feeling her counterpart’s grief. All the sensations, none of the memories. She was experiencing a little bleed over. Not a lot, just enough to guarantee that she came awake in a piss-poor mood because Tina was in a bad state of mind. He might tell her eventually, but for now it was best to let her learn.
Not-Gene was a different story. He looked down at his enemy, thrilled at the damage he’d done. He was happy. He wanted to cut loose, to make up for the fact that Gene held everything inside. He wanted to be alive in ways his Other never was.
Not-Kyrie looked at the man she’d taken down with mild curiosity, but she also took the time to look at each and every one of the guards Joe had taken down. She got it. She understood his message. She took her time before
