In the instant that the exoskeleton belt clasp clicked shut, the electrical field from the device did indeed conduct through his body as he had feared it might. The shock was relatively small; as voltages are measured, it was nowhere near a lethal current. That was little comfort to Dodge though; the spasms that seized every muscle and nerve in his body were worse even than his splashdown a few minutes earlier. Seized by the involuntary muscle contractions of an electrocution, there was little he could do to avoid what happened next.
The clock made its final tick and the catch holding back the spring-loaded clapper was released. As soon as it made contact with the bell, a circuit formed by an attached dry cell battery and the dynamite distributed throughout the barge was closed. In an immeasurable fraction of a second, an electrical charge detonated the blasting caps, which in turn caused the stabilized nitroglycerin in the dynamite sticks to explode.
The four simultaneous blasts pulverized the flat cargo boat, leaving only unrecognizable fragments scattered across the water, and sent a shockwave rolling across the surface of the river that shattered windows miles away. Standing at the heart of the blast, Dodge ought to have been crushed by the converging walls of force, or shredded by the shards of wood and metal turned into ballistic projectiles by the explosion, or incinerated in the ensuing conflagration, but none of these calamitous eventualities claimed him.
The shock wave created by the detonation was really nothing more than a wall of air pushed out at such an incredible rate of speed that it achieves the hardness of steel. When those particles of super-accelerated atmosphere converged on Dodge’s force field, it had the effect of pushing him out of the way, and there was only one direction he could go. The colliding waves squirted him skyward like a bean escaping its husk.
The force of the explosion propelled him high above the broken barge, but once he reached the zenith of his arc, gravity immediately snatched at him. Although blue sparks continued to dance painfully between his still damp form and the invisible cocoon that enveloped him, he retained the wherewithal to perform the sequence of leg movements that activated the exoskeleton’s flight mode. With his fall arrested, he pulled up into a hover and took stock of his situation.
The amphibious plane was a dark spot on an otherwise blue sky, too far distant for him to even consider pursuit. The President was beyond his reach; the bad guys had won. “This never happens to Captain Falcon,” he said with a defeated sigh.
His only consolation was that two of the villains wouldn’t be returning to their hidden base of operation. Moreover, he had captured one of their flying rigs. Perhaps an analysis of the device would put the authorities on the scent of the perpetrators. The electric shocks gradually abated as he made his way back up the watercourse, allowing him to think more clearly. Only now did the enormity of what he had done finally settle into his gut. As the adrenaline drained from his veins, he felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
I almost died. Is this what it feels like to be a hero? To be Captain Falcon?
He pondered this for a few minutes, floating between hysteria and elation. Indeed, he had almost died, but in extremis had found the means to save himself. It was a singular experience, something that could not be taught in a school or captured in the pages of a book. His misadventure was like the fire of a forge, refining and tempering his steel, making him stronger.
Is this how it feels to be a hero like Captain Falcon? he thought. If so, then I kind of like it.
With such weighty musings to accompany him, the return voyage flashed by beneath his feet. Soon, the monuments of America’s seat of power hove into view and he corralled his stray thoughts in order to concentrate on the matter at hand. It occurred to him that he had not yet successfully landed the exoskeleton, and he was pondering the best strategy for doing so when the Hawk made its first run.
He had only a few seconds warning; scant moments in which his already overtaxed brain tried to make sense of the high pitched whine that seemed to be coming from above. After realizing that it was an airplane engine, he craned his head around to locate the source, and found himself staring at the nose of the fighter.
He reacted instinctively, curling his body into a dive at the same instant the pilot of the P-36 pulled up. The monoplane was unquestionably a military aircraft, and Dodge correctly reasoned that, in the panic following the abduction of the President, he had accidentally been identified as one of the enemy. With no way to communicate his intentions to the aircraft, he continued toward his rendezvous at the White House, where he knew that Hurley at least would be able to vouch for him.
With a wary eye on the warplane, Dodge speared onward. He could tell the fighter was going to dive bomb him again, for what purpose he couldn’t imagine, and knew his only salvation lay in reaching his goal. The White House — symbol of a nation unknowingly bereft of its leader — loomed directly ahead. He divided his attention between the green expanse below and the roaring phantom above. It was going to be close.
The Hawk bore down on Dodge and there was only one place for him to go: down. He was no more than a hundred feet above the Rose Garden when the swooping cross shape abruptly veered back into the sky. Breathless with relief, Dodge turned his gaze toward the figures assembled on the lawn below.
Suddenly a frothing white geyser filled his gaze and he understood the game the fighter plane had been playing. The pilot had skillfully maneuvered him into a trap. Dodge had survived his enemies, only to be checkmated by his allies. There was no time to react, not even a second in which to unclasp the belt and risk another fall. He could only watch the gush of water from the fire hose as it cut across his path.
Abruptly the torrent receded before him; the vertical sea parted miraculously to let him pass. Stunned at the last instant reprieve, Dodge glanced down at the four men in overcoats and galoshes who still held their high-pressure weapon aimed skyward, but were like him gazing in consternation as the flow from its nozzle slowed to a trickle. Their stares followed down the length of sheathed rubber and found the cause of the interruption. Dodge shared their sense of utter disbelief, not so much at who had saved him, as at how that feat had been accomplished.
Hurricane had recognized that Dodge was operating the flying device, but his shouted exhortations had gone unheard. A man of action, he knew that every second lost trying to explain himself was a second his friend spent imperiled, so he eschewed discussion in favor of a more direct approach. Single-handedly snatching hold of the hose, he did what would have been impossible for almost any other man on the planet: he put a kink in the hose.
The hydrodynamic pressure of the fire hose was such that it required no less than three men to hold and operate; a single man trying to control the nozzle would find himself whipped about like the prey in the mouth of an angered python. The volume of water in the hose was not only incredibly heavy, but under such pressure that the hose seemed as inflexible as a piece of structural steel. Nevertheless, Hurricane Hurley had lifted it in his massive hands and bent it double, stemming the deluge that poured skyward in the nick of time.
The strain was evident on his face. His jaws bulged as he gritted his teeth with exertion. The arms of his specially tailored formal dinner jacket had burst at the seams as his biceps expanded beyond the wildest dreams of any garment designer. For a moment, everyone stared in disbelief, both at Hurley’s amazing strength and at the madness that had prompted him to thwart a plan of his own devising in order to spare the enemy.
Dodge too was gripped with such incredulity that he had no conscious memory of easing to the ground, landing as gently as if he was simply stepping down from a train. He was immediately surrounded by Secret Service agents brandishing Thompson sub-machine guns, and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, though he maintained the force field just in case one of the G-men developed a case of itchy trigger finger.