The doors to the cell block elevator exploded outward in a cloud of steel shrapnel. More bodies hit the floor, but I can’t tell you if they were inmates or civilians. I can’t even tell you how many people died in that one instant.
I was too busy staring at the fragment of steel embedded in my chest.
•—•—•
It didn’t hit my heart.
You hear that sort of shit on vids sometimes, as if the heart is the only organ that matters in the body. But in the real world, when a twisted metal shard flies across the room and drives itself into your chest, it doesn’t matter if it hit your heart or not. Fact of the matter is, you’re still beyond screwed.
I watched blood well up around the steel shard, watched as it started to soak through the front of my one and only suit. I watched smoke drift from the arm and hip that hadn’t escaped Red’s initial blast, looked down at the hand I couldn’t feel, the hand that was practically welded to the table leg I’d hoped to use as a weapon.
Twenty seconds in, and I was already a wreck.
Jaws stepped through the remains of the elevator doors, back in human form, and calling out even as he came through the smoke. “What the hell’s going on, Firewall? The elevator locked down almost a hundred feet below. If we’d been any further down, the gas would have—” He stopped and looked around, mouth falling open. “What the fuck happened here?”
I couldn’t see Red from where I was slumped on the ground, but I could hear him well enough. “Had ourselves a couple of would-be heroes, Jaws. They took out Firewall, but I put them both down.”
“And now the entire facility knows what is going on.” There was no humanity in the whisper that slithered from the depths of the elevator.
“Not to worry,” said Red, his voice going wobbly. “We still got this—”
I barely saw the sliver of shadow that shot from the elevator like a spear, but I heard Red’s voice cut off, mid-sentence, followed by a body hitting the floor in several pieces.
“We’re going to have a fight on our hands, getting out of here.” Jaw’s voice was oddly diffident. “We could’ve used him.”
“Incompetence is a cancer,” answered the cold voice. “It must be excised lest the entire organism be compromised.” The speaker stepped from the darkness of the elevator’s interior, followed closely by two others.
I knew all three of them, even out of costume.
The owner of that terrifying voice, a whip-thin man with black hair to his waist, was Fallout, a Mid-Four Shadecaster who had assassinated one President, two senators, and more than a dozen Capes.
Behind him was Tremor—squat, hunchbacked and grotesquely muscular—a Low-Four Earthshaker and the villain who had sank Santa Barbara into the Pacific.
Last but not least was Maul, larger even than Nikolai, leathery brown skin so covered in tattoos that his features were almost impossible to discern. A High-Three Titan, he was infamous for eating the people he killed. His favorite entrée: elementary school children.
They were three of the four founding members of the Legion of Blood, three of the worst Black Hats taken alive in the past decade.
And they were all free.
•—•—•
Almost free.
A loud noise sounded from the elevator to the surface, and the light above its door—which had previously switched from green to red—went out entirely.
“Shit,” said Jaws. “They must have just collapsed the shaft.”
“And flooded it with gas,” agreed Tremor. “Nice fucking escape plan, Shifter.”
“It’s not my plan,” protested Jaws. “If you want to take it up with the big man, that’s your call.”
“I ain’t afraid of Carnage,” growled Maul.
“That’s because you’re an idiot, dear boy,” whispered Fallout. “Carnage would tear you into pieces the size of your shrunken testicles. Besides, as I have informed you on multiple occasions, our former leader no longer sits at the top of this villainous pyramid.” The Shadecaster turned back to Jaws. “There were three individuals of note specified in this allotment of civilians. Your oh-so-lovely wife—shockingly still with us, I see—Firewall’s brother, dearly departed, much like the Technomancer himself, and one other.”
“Yeah.” Jaws cleared his throat. “Looks like she died in the initial attack.”
“She?” Fallout hissed. “I don’t care about an unpowered gutter trash civilian. That’s one less fool we will have to reward or dispose of. I care only about her specific relation, the reason she was selected to be part of this group!”
“Oh. Right.” Jaws raised his voice. “You still with us, Pusher?”
“No thanks to that idiot Pyro.” The twitching inmate with the enormous nose staggered into view. “First I have to augment his power just so he can take care of one dumbass Stalwart… then he nearly kills me taking out a teenager.” He stopped and eyed Fallout. “As for my sister, I’m more than happy to accept the reward on her behalf. Cash is preferable.”
I didn’t have the oxygen to curse out loud, but I was doing plenty of it in my head right then.
Pusher wasn’t a Telekinetic like I’d assumed.
Pusher was a Switch.
Three insanely powerful Black Hats, and they had an Amplifier.
•—•—•
“You’ll have your reward, as well as your freedom,” said Fallout.
“In that case, what do you need me to do, boss?” asked Pusher, rubbing his still-dripping nose with the back of one hand.
“The warden has deprived us of one elevator,” said Fallout. “Tremor will provide us with another.” He scanned the room. “I’d say twenty or so feet in diameter should suffice.”
“You sure?” asked Tremor. The Earthshaker didn’t have much of a neck, but his head sort of wobbled. “Ceilings above us are titanium, Fallout. That’s gonna take a lot of power, even with Pusher here. Do we really need to bring so much shit up with us?”
“Six remaining civilians, not counting Mr. Jaws’ doe-eyed darling. That’s six hostages should we need them… and six distractions if we do not.”
“And the unaligned inmates?”
“They had their opportunity
