Urban Renewal - 15 -   by Erin Halfelven

 
"No one knows exactly where he's heading but Bully Blueblazes is on the run!" The announcer on the local UHF-TV station in Bend, Oregon gave everything that little extra touch of excitement. Which meant that after listening to him for a while, everything sounded dull as ditch digging.

"The youngest member of the Oakland, California-based supergroup, The Ultimate Centurions, is racing up Interstate-5 going no one knows where because he isn't stopping to talk!" The newshead blinked his pretty blue eyes in bafflement.

"Blueblazes will be passing Bend in just a few minutes! Members of the Ultimate Centurions could not be reached for comment."

* * *

"I can't do it!" thought Billy, "I can't break the sound barrier. Every time I get close I feel my control going; I'll crash if I try!"

Still he ran.

"I don't know why I can't do it! When I bring a foot or hand forward to run, they've got to be moving at least twice the speed of sound. But they're inside my flames, so somehow, that doesn't count."

He ran on.

"Portland ten minutes away, one thing left to try, or I'll be too late," he decided. "That bastard Spartako is nothing but a hitman, he's going to kill someone in Marshalldale. I've got to stop him!"

And he kept running.

* * *

"Cellphone's out again," said Candace.

"They're no good in mountains."

"What are you going to do when you find this LeJeune?" she asked.

Todd didn't answer immediately. "I don't know. Depends on him, I guess." The rain in the pass seemed more like a geographical feature than an event. He couldn't remember ever driving I-90 along here without getting rained on.

"You...." Candace paused. "You going to kill him to find out what he knows?"

Todd took even longer to answer this time. "I don't know. Depends on him."

Candace looked at him. He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. They were more than an hour from Marshalldale now, traffic and weather slowing them down.

"If he won't talk?" she asked.

"I can be pretty convincing," he said.

* * *

Kendra's cellphone chirped Len Salvatore's identifier. Not Last Centurion's but the one for Len's civilian ID, probably to let her know that he knew he was calling Kendra and not Lady Karma. She answered, "Hey," meaning she wasn't alone. "Hi," would have meant no one but teammates around and "Lo," would have signaled that she had trouble.

"Billy is heading your way, do you have any idea why?" Len asked.

Tessie, Leo, Krystal and Kenny waited for Kay to get off the phone so they could determine who would stay behind while Leo went to the airport for whatever reason he wasn't saying.

Lady Karma thought about Billy. "Wasn't he kidnapped once when he was just a child?" she asked Len.

"Yeah, but he's always claimed he doesn't remember anything about it," said Len.

"Maybe he remembered something," she said. Or maybe he's been lying, she didn't say.

"Penny's going to launch the Knight," said Len. "Estimated transit time less than 45 minutes. Nate's already remote in Satellite 12; he says sensors recorded a cis-orbital lander near Spokane."

"Something wicked this way comes," said Kay.

"Wish I could get there more quickly, at least three hours for me. How's Urban?"

Kay glanced at Tessie who glared up at Leo.

"Cute, very cute," said Kay.

"I'm going," said Tessie.

"No, you're not," said Leo.

"And stubborn, very stubborn," Kay added.

Len chuckled. "Same old Urban."

{{Thanks to Heather Rose Brown for the lovely Tessie drawing! :) }}

* * *

Billy reached Portland and turned right on I-84, then veered off the Interstate toward the river. "Daedalos told me sound travels faster in humid air," Billy reminded himself. "I can run on water, like the kid in that movie. At the speeds I move, water is like concrete. Take roads to cut some of the kinks out of the river, it'll be shorter -- but those dams on the upper Columbia are going to be murder."

He ran.

"Maybe I can push the barrier instead of breaking it," he thought.

And he ran.