“I’m just full of surprises.”
He hit the man in the center of his broad muscle-bulging chest. The bastard was fast; he almost managed to turn away in time to slip the tank-armor-buckling punch. But not all the way. Tom’s fist grazed him and spun him through the air to slam into the slanted green crater wall.
Tom heard a sizzle, smelled burned hair. The golden man squalled like a cat and vanished.
A moment later he was right in Tom’s face and the sword came whistling down between Tom’s eyes. It passed harmlessly down his body.
“Can’t . . .hit me when you’re insubstantial,” the man grunted, whipping the sword around in a figure-eight through the center of Tom’s torso. “I’ll wager you can’t . . . shoot fire, either. . . .”
Tom hung in space. The sun’s heat scorched him; he felt the vacuum trying to suck the breath from his chest and tugging at the tender membranes and capillaries of his eyeballs.
Then he floated twenty feet above the golden man. He flung out a hand and sent down a sunbeam that filled the crater with brilliance.
It spattered gobbets of glowing-molten sand in all directions. Drake yelped and threw a hand up in front of his face.
Tom landed. He felt his legs buckle under him. He had to put a hand down to keep from planting his face in the little patch of sand.
He shook his head. “Whoa. Takes it out of you.”
“Over there!” Drake shouted, pointing off and up toward the crater rim. Glad to know he’s picked a side, Tom thought.
He wheeled quickly around and sent a fire blast toward the golden figure that stood against the bruised and roiling sky. It didn’t much surprise him when it vanished. Hope he didn’t notice that last shot was a bit feeble, he thought. I haven’t really recovered from letting it all hang out when I trashed the Nigerian Army.
He was already spinning in place, cocking his right arm. His straight right caught the teleport square on the bridge of his aristocratic golden nose as he materialized behind Tom, sent him staggering back three steps. Smoke curled from beneath his slippers as he blundered into the hot glass.
He doubled over, emitting a thin keening wail. He put hand to face, looked at it. Looking up at Tom in shocked outrage he said, “You broke it! Bloody hell.”
“That’s just the beginning of a world of hurt,” Tom said. He was righteously pissed. Stutter-stepping forward he side-kicked him. Not hard enough to break anything, or much. Just enough to launch him.
As the golden man reached the apex of his flight Tom raised a hand. But his sun-hot beam flashed through air and up into the dense clouds. They boiled away from its fury.
“Shit,” he said. He stood tensed, casting from side to side, awaiting the next attack.
After a minute he decided the glowing Limey had had enough. Too bad.
“Next time, motherfucker,” Tom said. “Next time.”
Elation hit him, like a jolt of all the drugs he so rigorously denied himself. We won! he thought. We won it all. We’ve joined the nuclear club, baby. Nobody can fuck with us now.
“Okay, buddy. Let’s get you out of here.” He went to Drake, pulled him up by the arm. The boy felt like a pillowcase full of wet cement. Dead weight. But Tom could clean and jerk a Vijayanta. Important thing was, the boy didn’t seem inclined to fight him.
The teenager slumped against him. Putting an arm around his fat bare back wasn’t Tom’s favorite thing to do. Compared to what else he’d done today, it wasn’t so bad. “Ever wanted to see Earth from outer space, kid?”
“Naked?”
“Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.”
They landed in the middle of a parking lot outside the palace. A pair of guards in crisp sky blue uniforms came trotting up.
They looked wild-eyed. Tom recognized them, so they must know him. His sudden appearance out of thin air couldn’t have rattled them that badly.
Drake sniffled. “Why are there sirens going off?”
Tom opened his mouth to explain an alert had been called after the armored column got nuked. Except why were they still going off?
Terrible certainty struck him like a blast wave. He thrust the plump, naked boy at the two guards. “Here. Take him to the president pronto. Don’t let anything stop you!”
He turned and ran for his rooms.
The wailing of Congolese caretakers confirmed his sickest fears when he was halfway down the corridor.
He blew in through the open door. Sun Hei-lian sat amid a gaggle of hysterical local women, stiffly upright and apparently emotionless. The shiny tear-track down either exquisite cheek gave that the lie.
The women stopped their lamentations to stare at Tom in horror. Presumably a good part of their distress arose from their fears of what he’d do to them.
“A golden guy—”
Hei-lian nodded. “He took her,” she said. “I ran up here as soon as the fight started. I realized, a teleport—no one was safe. Anywhere.”
He nodded briskly. “Smart. What happened?”
“When I got here he was just chasing off the caretakers. He grabbed Sprout and held a sword to her throat. He said that the Committee would be in touch, with instructions where and when to bring the boy if you want your daughter back.”
“The Committee,” Tom said. “Those cocksuckers.”
He noticed something on a table: a black handgun, a compact 9mm CZ-100. His eyes followed several frightened gazes and one as unnaturally calm as his own to a wall, where a divot had been knocked from faintly pinkish stucco. He frowned.
“You shot at him? When he was holding my daughter?”
She lifted her chin. “You know what I am, Tom. I’m counterterror-trained. Sprout was in no danger. I would have hit him”—she reached up to touch between her eyes—“here.”
“You missed.”
“I did not miss. He teleported.”
“Yeah.” He sighed and rubbed his hands together. “Bastard does that.”
“What will you do?”
“Give ’em the kid.”
She blinked and jerked back as if slapped. “What will Nshombo say?”
“Better be yes.” Tom said. “I’ll take them the kid. I’ll get my little girl back.
“And then I’ll kill every single motherfucking one of them.”
Double Helix
THEY HAVE SOWN THE WIND, AND
THEY SHALL REAP THE WHIRLWIND
Melinda M. Snodgrass
SPROUT WAS COMPLETELY AGREEABLE when I said I’d come to take her to her daddy. But now we are standing in Jackson Square and no daddy is in evidence. Her head is jerking from side to side like a hummingbird guarding its stash as she scans the crowds of emergency workers.
The sky looks like boiling soap scum and the hot wind, heavy with moisture, shakes blossoms off the azaleas. There is the roar of diesel engines as earth-moving equipment scoops up and deposits sandbags. I can see Ana standing on the top of the river walk frowning out across the river. I spot Bubbles walking swiftly beside a man in a suit. Something about him screams “politician.” She’s making good time because she’s surprisingly slim, a testament to how much energy she’s been expending.
Since she has met Drake and dealt with Drake it seems prudent to explain the situation to her. But I am currently Bahir and she knows Bahir from the battles in Egypt last year. She’s just as likely to flatten me with a bubble as listen to me. Which means—