Dodge realized two things in that instant: First, that the blinding discharge could only be lightning — artificial lightning from a cathode in the attacker’s heavy gauntlets; and second, that the man wearing the strange exoskeleton seemed to be impervious to bullets.
One by one, the Secret Servicemen were scattered like so much chaff by the unknown enemies’ lightning bolts. There were at least half a dozen of the intruders, all wearing the metal gloves that shot electricity and all apparently invulnerable to any sort of counterattack.
Suddenly a new combatant appeared on the field of battle; a giant warrior who eschewed firearms and weapons in favor of the equipment Mother Nature had bestowed. Hurricane Hurley, roaring like an enraged grizzly bear, waded into the fray swinging his fists like war hammers. One of the intruders bounced away from a blow as if imprisoned in a giant beach ball. Two more were slapped aside as indifferently as buzzing flies; evidently the invisible armor that deflected bullets was no match for the human touch.
As the tide began to turn, it occurred to Dodge that he had not moved since the attackers’ untimely arrival. When he tried to rise however, he again felt the insistent pressure at his back, like an enormous rubber balloon filled with water. As he pushed harder, the opposing force grew, then just as abruptly vanished. He craned his head around to get a look at the cause of his temporary immobilization.
He digested what he saw in large chunks of incredulity. The first thing he noticed was an expanse of dull silvery metal looming overhead and eclipsing the sky; it could only be the airship he had glimpsed from afar. The craft was almost close enough to touch, at least fifty feet in diameter, and its surface was impossibly smooth, without and seams or rivets. Yet all of those observations paled when held against the next thing Dodge ascertained about the invaders’ aircraft: it was floating.
Except floating wasn’t exactly the right word. It didn’t bob or waver like a moored dirigible or hovering gyrocopter; rather it was absolutely motionless, as though the whole thing were the roof of a building supported on invisible columns. Momentarily overcome by journalistic curiosity, he reached up to touch the smooth underbelly of the craft, but the artificial thunder of the invaders’ weapons snapped him back into the moment.
Hurricane stood transfixed in the path of a sizzling lightning bolt. Astonishingly, the giant was not blasted aside as the President’s guards had been. His normally curly black hair stood straight up and his jaws were clenched, teeth bared in a rictus of pain, but he did not budge; he was as immovable as the airship. The tendril of electricity continued to lick at his torso a moment longer, then winked out. Dodge surmised that the weapon employed some sort of capacitor and that it had entirely expended its stored charge. Hurley shook his head, shrugging off the assault like a prizefighter, and charged at the now impotent attacker.
Lightning flared again, not from the man on the ground, but from the floating disc. Hurricane staggered back as the discharge struck him in the chest, but he recovered in an instant and renewed his advance. Another blast, this time a sustained tongue of sizzling blue fire, and then a second. To Dodge’s utter amazement, four more intruders, all wearing metal exoskeletons, descended from the airship on a ramp that had deployed unnoticed from its underbelly. The reinforcements concentrated their electrical weapons on that lone target, and even the prodigious Hurricane Hurley could not endure such a withering assault. As the juggernaut went down, the clamor of combat immediately ceased. A few Secret Servicemen remained upright, but had discarded their useless weapons in order to create a defensive ring around the man they were sworn to protect. It was a futile gesture. The intruders, ten altogether, advanced menacingly and peeled the bodyguards away to reveal the object of their quest: the President of the United States.
The Chief Executive sat motionless at his table, his gaze locked warily on the man directly before him. His lips were pursed tight; if he said anything in defiance of the assault, or heaven forbid, begged for mercy, it was spoken too softly to be heard by anyone but those who now held his fate in their hands. Two of the men seized hold of his arms and bodily lifted him away from the table. The President was again lost from view as the remaining attackers formed a perimeter around their prize and commenced escorting him to the idle airship.
Dodge remained where he was, paralyzed with fear and disbelief as the Commander in Chief was taken up the ramp into the hovering craft. It was simply too much to absorb; anonymous commandos equipped with exoskeletons that imbued their wearers with the powers of flight and invincibility, shooting bolts of lightning and kidnapping the President. It was like….
“Like something from a Falcon story,” he whispered. But Falcon wouldn’t be frozen in place, petrified with fright as the foes absconded victorious. Falcon would take action! He would….
What would Falcon do?
Four of the invaders, along with their captive, entered the disc after which the ramp vanished back into the craft. The silvery metal skin sealed over the opening so that it was impossible to tell where the entryway had been. Then, without any sort of preamble, the airship leaped into the sky. Dodge felt a push, similar to what one might experience when a descending elevator car halted abruptly, but that was all. Whatever force motivated the craft, it seemed to operate in defiance of Newton’s Laws.
The six remaining raiders formed a circle on the lawn, their steel gauntlets extended toward the defenseless guests that huddled for cover throughout the garden. One of them stood only a few paces from Dodge, so close that he could see the man’s dark brown eyes and the rivulets of sweat that beaded on his forehead and trickled along a furrowed scar that ran the length of his jaw. The hard man locked eyes with Dodge and flashed a menacing grin. The meaning was explicit: stay back or get fried.
“Move out!” shouted another of the invaders, and then acting on his own admonition, he flexed his knees as if preparing to jump and was whisked into the sky. Another followed on his heels, zooming into the air as if there were rockets on his back. There were no rockets, only a metal lump, of the same dull color as the airship, which extended from the rigid belt of the exoskeleton up across the man’s back. The scarred man threw Dodge a smug nod, then bent his knees in preparation to take flight.
Something broke inside Dodge. A sound, intimately familiar, but at the same time completely foreign, broke the ominous quiet. It was his own voice, and his words, while simple and ambiguous, felt like a declaration of war. He looked the man in the eye and in a grinding whisper said: “I don’t think so.”
Dodge had only one thought: seize the man to prevent him from escaping. Beyond that, he had only the vaguest idea of what might occur. Perhaps the police would be able to identify the culprit and compel him to betray his confederates… perhaps he could be used as a bargaining piece against the President’s safety. He didn’t explore all the possibilities; his attention was focused on the sole objective of restraining the man. In the instant before the man burst into flight, Dodge hurled himself forward and wrapped both arms around the intruder’s waist. His momentum should have taken both of them down in a typical flying tackle, but what happened next was anything but typical.