"You're sure about that?"
"It's what I'd do if I'd just been taken down and humiliated. Why let me take out an ally when she can take out an enemy just as quickly? She'll never recover while I'm still breathing, so you can be sure she's betting on Kilgore taking us out."
"If that's the case, why the hell are we heading right into a trap?"
Maxine screeched to a halt, sliding across the water-slicked street before stopping at a curb. I glanced at Poddar. "You're not. This is where you get out."
Turned out Kilgore's hideout was in a familiar neighborhood. I knew the Flats like I knew my own face because I lived there for my duration in New Haven. It was a maze of darkened streets, steel and brick buildings, tenements and industrial districts, latticework bridges and electromagnetic tram rails, heavy shadows and dim neon lights. Fog enshrouded the buildings, concealing the crumbling remains of what was once the heart of the city.
I knew Kilgore was too smart to fall for the autopilot trick. He'd have electric eyes: cameras, scanners, infrared — more than enough to confirm if I was actually in Maxine or not. I had to be there to draw him out, or he'd sniff out the trap and pull a no-show. I figured he'd try to snipe me from an alley or window of one of the towering, decrepit tenement buildings that loomed like dying giants over the gloomy streets.
Instead, he waited for me in the middle of the street. Barely visible in the shadows and pouring rain, unarmed with his fists clenched at his sides.
A grin spread across my face. "Wanna play chicken, pal? Suits me just fine."
I flipped the targeting switches, highlighting Kilgore with a glowing red target icon. Nothing to do but open fire after that, unloading with the newly installed gatlings from Maxine's headlamps. I felt the vibrations from my seat as bullets exploded from the muzzles at the rate of six thousand rounds per minute. Not that I had that much, but dammed if the raw power didn't make me feel like some primordial god of death.
I should have known Kilgore had a counterplan to being gunned down in the middle of the street from a hailstorm of bullets. A nearly invisible energy shield shimmered around him as the slugs harmlessly ricocheted off the surface, doing a helluva job of damaging the nearby buildings and vehicles. I didn’t have time to hope no one was in the line of fire because by then, Maxine was close enough to Kilgore that his animal grin was visible. I gritted my teeth and braced for impact.
The shield dropped at the last possible second, and Kilgore moved just as quickly: a blur that somehow whirled just out of the way as Maxine hurtled past. A quick thump against the passenger side of the vehicle and I was three hundred yards down the avenue, staring at Kilgore dwindling in the rearview.
"The hell was that sound, Maxine?"
I found out when the explosive detonated, shredding the side of the vehicle and slamming into me with the force of a runaway train. Maxine threw up a protective alloy plate from the center console at the last moment, somewhat blunting the concussive blast. The windshield shattered into glittering cubes, and my head rebounded against the side window, splintering it in spiderweb fashion in the time it took for Armor Foam impact gel to spill from the vents and fill the driver compartment. A few seconds of weightlessness was followed by disorienting flashes of street, buildings, air traffic, and neon flickers before Maxine skidded to a halt in a shower of sparks and the assaulting scent of scorched metal.
When I blinked my eyes open, the world was upside down. The Armor Foam did an excellent job of protecting against injury, but it had me encased up to the neck, trapping my arms after hardening to its insulated form.
I coughed until my lungs hurt before finally clearing my chest enough to gasp out a few words. "Damage report, Maxine."
“Motor damage irreparable. Rear and front axles irreparable. Control system irreparable. Tires—”
“Why don’t you skip to something that’s not irreparable?”
“Ejection seat is functioning.”
“Why the hell would I eject while upside down?”
“Incoming missile strike is imminent.”
Craning my neck, I saw what she was talking about. About a hundred yards or so, Kilgore strode down the empty street, a missile launcher casually propped on his shoulder. I had no idea where he got it from, but having already witnessed him summoning weapons from midair, I wasn’t exactly shocked.
“You had one job, Trudo,” he shouted while moving the launcher to fire position. “You couldn’t even get that right.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Trubble,” Maxine said.
The jets fired from the side of the seat, expelling me from the driver compartment in a blast of compressed air. The torpedo struck a millisecond later, destroying what was left of Maxine and nearly scorching me in the explosion. As the driver's seat skipped across the watery street, I could only watch as she disintegrated in a cloud of flame and smoke.
It was like seeing a dream die.
The damaged seat slammed into a building across the avenue, jarring hard enough to break the hardened foam apart. With my arms freed, I disengaged the seatbelt and fell face-first into water high enough to nearly submerge me. Sputtering, I raised my head.
Kilgore took his time walking across the street, a thermal semiautomatic in one hand. Pushing myself to my knees, I placed my sodden Bogart on my head, soaking it anew with streams of rainwater as my eyes scanned the upper portions of the building down the street, where Poddar was supposed to be, sniper rifle at the ready.
Where the hell are you, Poddar? The trap is set — take the shot!
Kilgore interrupted my thoughts by planting the muzzle of the handgun against my temple. I furiously glared upward, the only defiant act I had left in my arsenal.
Kilgore grinned. "Looks like I underestimated you, Mike. Good news, though: it won't ever happen again."
All I heard was thunder.
Chapter 8: No Pain, No Gain
The pulse-blast from my HFM fired point-blank into Kilgore's midsection. He grunted, stumbling backward a few paces. I flicked my wrist to charge again, seriously regretting not taking the tutorial to learn how to switch from stun to kill.
Kilgore took advantage of my confusion to pivot and kick me in the chest. Agony, weightlessness, and then I slammed back into the building wall. The bricks cracked from the impact, raising a cloud of dust that dotted my head and shoulders when I slumped into a puddle of muddy water. My vision blurred, creating hazy images of two Kilgores approaching to finish the job.
A bullet tore a hole through his shoulder, painting the surrounding rain crimson for a split second. Even as the impact spun him around, his other hand flashed electric-white, and out of the blue he held an automatic grenade launcher, somehow targeting and firing the weapon one-handed with uncanny precision while falling backward. The rounds thumped from the muzzle and exploded on impact, engulfing the opposite building's upper floors in flame and flying debris. Maybe Poddar was quick enough to avoid the blast, but I didn't see how that was possible. I stared in shock as fiery rubble hit the wet sidewalks and streets, creating clouds of hissing steam.
Kilgore didn't pay his injury any attention. Hitting the ground, he dropped the launcher, rolled, and seized me by the collar, hoisting me with one hand when he stood. Every bone in my body rattled when he slammed me into the graffiti-ridden building. As I futilely tried to break his grip, I realized that even my exodermis-enhanced strength was no match for his metahuman muscles. He smirked at my surprised expression.