Urban Renewal

by Erin Halfelven

 
The man who had called himself The Urban Commando for nearly twenty years looked into the woman's eyes. She repeated herself. "You're dying."

"I heard you," he said.

The explosion had nearly ripped him in two, if not for his armor he would already be dead. "Got those people out?" he asked again.

She nodded. "Most of them."

Which meant not all. So Baron Stryker had won, innocents had died and Urban had failed. He already knew that Stryker had escaped, riding that doomsday device he had stolen from Hermetic Labs.

"'S'funny," he whispered. "All I wanted to do was stop the street crime, people getting shot. Who knew I'd end up fighting a fricking mad scientist for half my life?"

She didn't laugh, pushing her silvery hair away where it almost fell into his face. "I can save you," she said.

"Do it, Lady K," he said. "I still have to get that bastard Stryker."

She nodded. "You know you will die as Urban Commando? But you'll live on as someone else, someone who would have died without your life force?"

"Got it," he said. "Be quick."

Lady Karma put her hands on his face and everything went dark.

* * *

"She's a fighter," someone said.

Tessie heard them talking about her.

"Broken ribs, concussion, pneumonia, she could have died in the plane crash, let alone walking out of the Cascades with her injuries in the winter."

They probably didn't know she could hear them.

"Pretty remarkable for a little girl," one of the voices commented.

"I'm only eight now," thought Tessie. "I could use a long vacation but you've got less than a decade, Stryker. Then I'm coming for you." She snuggled with the enormous Raggedy Anne her new parents had bought for her and went back to sleep.

Don't blame me, someone asked if I could continue this...

More Urban Renewal

by Erin Halfelven

 
As soon as she knew she would be alone for a reasonable length of time, Tessie dialed the seventeen digit number that would connect her directly to Centurion headquarters. It took awhile to set this up because who leaves a wounded eight-year-old alone for very long?

But her new parents were sound asleep after a couple of drinks at dinner and what had sounded like marathon sex. And her new older brother slept like a lump of basalt at the bottom of the Atlantic trench. She ought to be safe from being interrupted for a while.

She spent only a moment wondering why Kenny took so much delight in annoying her. Maybe it was just what older brothers did. Silently she mouthed apologies to the younger sisters of Hank Herbert who was no more.

She negotiated Daedalos's security gadgets with passwords, a triple layer that depended on timing as well as exact words because her voice print wasn't on file. She tugged on her braids when the phone finally began to ring.

"Hello?" someone answered cautiously. Tessie could understand that, she'd used Urban Commando's private codes and that would show on the phone screen.

"It'th me," she said.

"Who'th me?" the voice on the other end lisped back.

She recognized the voice; Blueblazes must surely be someone's older brother. She sighed. "Jutht put one of the grownupth on will you, Billy?"

"Urban? Is that really you?"

"It'th Tethie now. Tess-ie," she said carefully. "I need to talk to Kay."

"It's three in the morning, honeybun. I'm on mids so...wait? Guess who just came in?"

"Oh, hurry, Billy! Put her on the phone," Tessie urged.

"What's the rush? Sounds like you've got some growing up to do. Tessie, did you say? Are you a girl now? A little girl?" Billy Blueblazes snickered.

Tessie danced with a new urgency. "Yeth! Okay? Now put the Lady on 'cauthe I've got a little girl bladder now, too, and I don't want to leave a puddle in the living room!"

Over Billy's laughter, Lady Karma's voice said, "I knew you might call tonight, Urban." The advantages of dealing with a psionic sorceress, Tessie reflected momentarily.

"Oh, Kay!" Tessie whimpered, looking around to see that she wasn't being watched or overheard. "I think my new daddy is a thupervillain!"

"F-for heaven's sake, honey! Who do you think he is?" Even Lady Karma could be surprised.

Tessie enunciated carefully. "Death Masque," she whispered.

I'm writing these as I post them, so don't expect too much. :)

Urban Renewal 3

by Erin Halfelven

 
"Why do you think your Daddy is Death Masque, sugar?" asked Lady Karma. She waved at Billy Blueblazes to stop laughing.

Tessie sighed. "Am I on thpeaker phone?" Her eight-year-old tongue persisted in giving her trouble with sibilants.

"Um, yes."

"Listen up, Billy, and quit laughing like a cartoon," said Tessie.

"Hey!" said Billy. But he sat down and started clicking at the keyboard of his terminal, pulling up a dossier.

Lady K smiled. "Go ahead, Tessie, we're both listening and I'm recording."

"Three things," said the child who had once been the Urban Commando. "One, I recognized him, we fought back in the seventies before Last Centurion formed our group. Remember, Masquerade was a bad guy group. Miss Glamour, Dr. Domino, Z9, that bunch."

"Losers," commented Billy. "Didn't he wear a mask?"

"Pretty much," Tessie agreed. "But just one of those Spirit-type masks. Not very good."

"That was before your time, Billy," said Lady K. Still in his early twenties, Billy Blueblazes ranked as the youngest of the active Centurions, not counting Tessie.

"And there's the other two thingth - things," Tessie paused. "Yesterday, when we were out on the deck, for jutht a second I could see the sun shining through him."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"It's in the dossier," said Lady K. "Death Masque absorbs the powers of anyone he kills. He killed all his partners in Maquerade; so he should have Miss Glamour's invisibility, which had the disadvantage that in a strong light you could sometimes see through her."

"I had a girlfriend like that," commented Billy.

"You had a girlfriend?" Tessie and Lady K said simultaneously. Tessie giggled but Kay only smiled.

"Hey!" said Billy. "So what's the third thing?"

* * *

After her report to Centurion HQ, and a quick trip to the bathroom, Tessie yawned like only a sleepy child can because an adult would dislocate something.

She tiptoed down the hall, to her own room, after glancing at her new parents' bedroom door. She left her own door open and crawled into bed, pulling her colorful dolly into a tight embrace. "Don't be afraid, Annie," she whispered. "I'll protect you."

Feeling only a little silly, she kissed the doll and went back to sleep.

Urban Renewal -4-

by Erin Halfelven

 
Billy Blueblazes closed the file on the supervillain group once known as Masquerade. Most of the members of that ill-fated group had died in the late seventies but one member, at least, had never been convincingly buried. "Do you think Urban, uh, Tessie, is right about her new daddy being Death Masque," Billy asked Lady Karma.

Kay pushed silver hair away from her face and looked thoughtful. "It's worth checking out."

"Yeah, but," Billy said, "Tessie's just eight years old now, maybe she imagined it."

"It's possible, but Urban fought crime and supervillains for twenty years; we've got to trust that his judgement is still worth something."

"Umph. How does that work, anyway? The kid is still the kid but she's also Urban? I couldn't believe it when she made the joke about my girlfriend, I don't remember Urban even having a sense of humor," said Billy.

"Tessie would have died after the kidnapper's plane crashed, Urban's lifeforce joined with hers enabled her to walk out of the mountains to where the Rangers could find her. She became, um, sort of a sideways reincarnation of our friend Hank Herbert, the Urban Commando, with her own and Hank's memories, sensibilities and personality. It'll be awhile before they completely meld into one person."

"Sounds uncomfortable," said Billy. "And unreliable. Middle-aged black crimefighter becomes cute little blond girl."

"If I ever have to reincarnate you, Billy, I'll try to arrange something more your speed, like a Labradoodle, a neutered Labradoodle," said Lady K.

"Oh, give me a break. Speed is my middle name, Kay."

"I thought 'Blue' was your middle name. Hey, Billy?" She pointed. "Your hair is on fire."

"What, like I haven't heard that one before?" He passed his hand through the cobalt flames that covered his shaved head, grinning at her.

"No, really," said Kay, sounding entirely serious.

* * *

Todd Munson eased down the hall in the early morning light with long practiced quiet. He checked first on his daughter, brave little Tessie, still recovering from her wounds, snuggled with her dolly. Those kidnappers were lucky they had died in the crash; if Todd had ever caught them.... Still invisible, he checked on Kenny, too. Both kids slept soundly, safe for now.

Candace joined him in the hall; groping a bit to find him, she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow and pressed herself against him. Visible again, he looked down into her face. "Any ideas yet?" she asked.

He shook his head. "As long as we don't know who called for the snatch, it could happen again."

They squeezed each other. "Do you think it's because someone knows who you are?" she asked.

"Must be," he said glumly. "We don't live rich enough to attract kidnappers otherwise. I need more information but I don't see how I dare leave you to go look for it. I'm going to call someone who might be willing to help."

Candace kissed him. "Do whatever you think is right, Todd. I'm on your side."

Todd sighed. "I've been straight so long, I'm not even sure I know how to go on the crook anymore. But considering everything, I sure can't go to the authorities. Blue Galaxy, the Protectors, the Centurions -- you know they'd all like to toss me in Tartaros."

Candace smiled up at him. "My hubbers, the big bad supervillain. You know it's Tuesday, did you put the cans on the curb last night?"

They both laughed softly, careful not to wake the kids.

Urban Renewal -5-

by Erin Halfelven

 
Daedalos listened to the log tape again. Lady K's magic had worked, Urban Commando had survived and now lived as the daughter of a man who might be a fugitive supervillain. Interesting. But there was something else on the tape that was even more intriguing. As Security Officer and Gadgetmaster of the Centurions, he'd have to bring this to the attention of the group. Carefully. Sooner or later.

And how would this little sidelight influence his own special plans for the future?

* * *

"You got any idea what time it is?" the voice on the phone growled.

"Three hours later than it is here, Pierce," said Todd Munson calmly. "I'm in a jam, I'm calling in a favor."

"All for the glory of Cell Block B, huh?" Pierce growled.

"Something like that."

"I thought you went legit?" Pierce asked.

"And you got a pardon from the president. Better off than I am. Blue Stars catch up with me and I'm for that little old retirement home down in the Superstitions." Todd meant the Federal Bureau of Corrections Apache Caverns Installation under Flatiron Mountain in Arizona, commonly called Tartaros, where federal prisoners considered too dangerous for ordinary lockups were kept. State prisoners could also be transferred there under the Overman Act.

"You still hiding out?"

"Uh huh? You available for some security work?"

"You paying? I've got a steady gig here in New York. Bodyguard for a supermodel, no less."

"You dog," said Todd, grinning. "I'm sorry -- you old tomcat."

"It's a living," said Pierce with a laugh.

"Yeah, I'm paying. $500 a day plus expenses. Be here soonest?"

"Okay, where's here?"

"I'll pick you up at Sea-Tac, call me back with your flight number."

"Yeah, oh, I'm using the name Leonard Paine these days."

"I'm Todd Munson," said Tessie's new father. "Leo, Todd, Todd, Leo." After he hungup he sat staring at the phone for a bit. The man he'd known as Tom Pierce would make a formidable bodyguard for his children while he tracked down the would-be kidnappers' boss. Pierce, or Paine as he called himself now, wouldn't hesitate to kill in defense of a client and that's exactly what Todd wanted.

He stood and went looking for his wife. "Candace, honey? I got us a babysitter."

* * *

Out over the Indian Ocean, a man in an enormous plane that never landed in daylight received a bit of intelligence from one of his agents. He didn't show much emotion as he read it on the screen built into his laptable but his grip tightened on the wrist of the boy sitting in the well-upholstered chair next to him. The boy moaned softly, and the man looked at him, his colorless eyes invisible behind mirror shades. "I'm sorry," he said, "did I hurt you?" He released the boy and patted him on the knee. "We'll be in Dubai soon, we can get out there and stretch our legs. Would you like that?"

The boy nodded.

"Maybe we'll see some camels," said the man, smiling. "That might be fun."

The boy nodded again.

"Go up forward, Johnny, and tell Captain Spartako that I'd like to speak with him. You can stay up front for a while, too. Use the computers if you like."

"Thank you, sir," said the boy before dashing off to the forward cabin of the plane.

* * *

Back in the Seattle suburb where she now lived, Tessie got up when her mother called her. She did her morning business then went out to the bright airy kitchen. Her broken ribs had hardly even twinged when she pulled on a fresh t-shirt, one decorated with sad-but-cute blue bunnies.

"Muffin or cereal?" Candace asked her.

"Muffin," said Tessie, sitting at the smaller white table under the window where her brother Kenny was already pushing Froot Loops into his face.

"Morning, Snotnose," said Kenny.

"Morning, Booger-breath," she replied.

"Knock it off," said Candace. "I'm making scrambled eggs for both of you, too, so no disgusting talk at the table. Sheesh!" She poured juice from a large decanter for them and set a blueberry muffin down in front of Tessie.

"He started it," said Tessie.

"Doesn't matter. Your dad's gone to the airport to pick up a friend and I don't want to have to get out the lion tamer chair to separate you." Candace sipped her coffee, wondering if she could talk Todd into letting her call her sister to take her place so she could join him in his -- hunt. Probably not. This Paine fellow sounded like someone who might eat Krystal up. Or vice versa, she reflected, knowing her sister's taste for dangerous men matched her own.

Kenny put Froot Loops into his nose, while Candace wasn't watching, in an effort to gross out his little sister.

Tessie giggled. "Now eat them," she told him.

Urban Renewal -6-

by Erin Halfelven

 
Oakland, California. The city across the bay from San Francisco, better weather, better food, better living to hear the locals tell it -- but a little more well-known for the higher crime rate, especially violent crimes. A working city where the ships dock and the trains stop. A city that always needed its heroes. Near the east edge of town, in a cemetery spread across the hills several people gathered to say goodbye to a friend.

The services for Henry J. Herbert's family had been earlier in the morning but near noon, some of the current and past members of the Centurions came to pay respects.

Kendra Worth followed the motorized wheelchair of Nathan Ryder through the paths between live oaks and hedges of huckleberry vines. Two towering sequoias marked the upper corners of Veterans Field near the middle of which Specialist Herbert's body lay under a fresh layer of green sod. Len Salvatore stood already by the grave and they were soon joined by Gilbert Bellows, Sylvia Glass, Ted Andropoulos, and Penelope Haeckel Ryder.

No one said anything for several moments then Len asked. "His family don't know, do they?"

Kendra shook her head, her silvery hair concealed beneath a lacy black cloche hat. "Only his sister Danetta. She's the only one that knew -- who he was."

"Hank's the lucky one," said Nate. "A hero's death and yet he lives on." He thumped the arm of his chair and looked across the grave toward his ex-wife. Penelope did not look up but she nodded, silently.

Gil rubbed his shaved head and said, "It's not the same. Urban is gone, unless someone wants to take up the identity?"

Len shook his head. "I'll wear his uniform for a few appearances, just to confuse things. And make Stryker worry. We going to go after that sumbitch?"

Everyone except Kendra nodded. "I'm going to go up to the Seattle area first, check on Tessie. See if she's right about her daddy."

Ted cleared his throat. Besides security and gadgets, he was the group's liaison with the Blue Galaxy, the federal super-troopers. "We might be able to wrangle a pardon, if this Death Masque hasn't committed any serious crimes since the seventies."

Kendra shrugged. "I'm not sure I'll get close enough to ask that sort of thing."

Sylvia squatted beside the grave, dropping a yellow rose onto the fresh turf. "Goodbye, my brother," she said. Len stepped close and offered her an arm; she accepted the half hug but stepped away to wipe her eyes. "We keep losing good ones," she murmured, remembering other deaths, other cities. She'd buried almost a whole team once, including her own twin sister. She added Hank's name to the roll call in her head.

"He's not exactly dead-dead," Gil pointed out to no one. Penelope bent over Nate's chair to kiss his cheek and then everyone left.

* * *

In the concourse at Sea-Tac, one tall man shook hands with an even taller one. "Leo," he said, "I'm Todd."

"You recognized me?" asked Leo. "I thought the dye job on my hair was pretty good."

"I can see about twice as many colors as most people," said Todd. "And I can smell you."

Leo nodded and they walked through the crowds toward the carpark. Outside, the famous Seattle rain fell on the righteous and the wicked, alike.

"Keep forgetting how wet this fricken city is," Leo muttered as they got into Todd's SUV.

"We'll have you home and dry soon enough, Catclaw," said Todd. "You can meet the family."

Leo grinned. "They all wear shrouds and carry scythes, Reaperman?"

"Not hardly," said Todd. "Let me tell you what's been going on."

* * *

Tessie shivered for no apparent reason. Hank Herbert's grandma, when she saw someone shiver like that, always said, "Someone's walking on your grave, child." Tessie suspected that in this case, Grandma would have been right.

Urban Renewal - 7

by Erin Halfelven

 
Tessie stared up and up at Mr. Paine. "You sure don't look much like a babysitter," she said.

Leo smiled and crouched down, though this still put his head nearly a foot above Tessie's. "Well, I'm a special sort of babysitter's assistant. Your aunt is coming over to do the babysitting and I'm here just to chase monsters away."

Tessie nodded thoughtfully. "Do I know you?"

He shook his head, "I don't think so, little lady. I'm sure I'd remember someone as cute as you." He winked.

Tessie blushed. Her brother Kenny crowed with laughter.

* * *

"I couldn't believe it when you said okay to me coming along," Candace told Todd. They were in the big SUV, headed up into the mountains where the kidnappers' plane had crashed.

Todd sighed. "I think the kids will be safe. Krystal is pretty level-headed and Paine is one deadly, fricken.... He's good."

"He's scary. Where do you know him from?"

"We used to be on the crook together.... Bad old days. Him, M'Caliber, Blooddraught, and me. Before Masquerade, they called me Reaperman. None of us had powers then...long story." He didn't say anymore for a bit and she stopped herself from asking for details.

They got off the Interstate and started up the narrower roads, heading high into the Cascades. Green trees, gray rocks, blue sky.

Finally he spoke. "Your job is going to be to keep me sane. Who else could I get to do that?"

* * *

Kendra took a cab from the airport. "Marshalldale? Lady, that's sixty miles away, you sure you want a cab? I'll have to charge you both ways, you could rent a car a whole heckuva lot cheaper."

"I don't drive," said Kendra. She didn't tell him that complicated machinery involving moving pieces of iron or steel tended to have some rather severe failure modes when under the control of a practitioner of psionic sorcery.

"You got an address?" he asked.

* * *

The jet carrying the world famous surgeon, philanthropist and composer, Dr. Hyman Meridien left Dubai airport two hours ahead of the sunrise, heading in a pole-crossing path directly for the same airport Lady Karma had just left.

It might have been fate but it wasn't.

In the "clinic" in the back of the plane, Spartako began the chemical and psychological process necessary for his new mission. It wasn't something he wanted to do but it felt like part of him, part of his destiny. But it wasn't.

In the wide, friendly lounge in the middle of the plane, the philanthropic doctor removed his mirror shades and looked deeply into the eyes of the boy, Johnny. Fascinated, Johnny couldn't look away. Dr. Meridien smiled.

Six miles below them lay the land where fortunate happenstance was called kismet. Dr. Meridien didn't believe in kismet, destiny, fate, fortune, luck or accident. Everything that happened in the world must have a purpose -- preferably Dr. Meridien's purpose.

Urban Renewal - 8

by Erin Halfelven

 
"We called ourselves The Carrion Crew, and our big idea was to take scores away from other crooks. Sort of a Robin Hood thing, except we kept the swag instead of giving it away."

Candace smiled. The SUV bucketed over the washboard of a fire trail, the crash site couldn't be much further, she hoped. Her backside, however well-padded, had taken a beating.

Todd's grin looked off-center. "M'Caliber was a genius with any kind of long range weapon and pretty good at figuring tactics and operational needs. A bit of a coward in a stand-up fight though, but Catclaw, Leo as he calls himself now, more than made-up for that. Anyone more ferocious in hand-to-hand wouldn't be human. Literally."

After a moment, he repeated it, "Wouldn't be human."

* * *

Krystal lay down her cards. "Knock," she said. Tessie and Leo moaned and began to count their penalties.

"You keep feeding her," Tessie complained. "Let's switch chairs."

Krystal ran the totals quickly. "I'm out, 300. We could play something else?" she suggested, glancing over at Kenny, still lying in the floor and watching The Incredible Hour on television.

"Nah," said Leo. "Cutthroat is my second favorite game." He gathered the cards in his big, scarred hands. "We'll just deal the other direction this game. That way I can feed you for awhile," he said to Tessie who promptly blushed.

"What's your favorite game?" she asked to cover her embarrassment.

Leo and Krystal exchanged glances.

"Oh," said Tessie. "Gross." Leo winked at her and she blushed again.

* * *

"Blooddraught was our intelligence, finding jobs and getting details. A punker chick who went deeply goth before goth was cool. She liked to think of herself as Mata Hari or something and almost no one caught wise that their new girlfriend had set them up."

"Men are stupid that way," agreed Candace, causing Todd to snort.

A pair of boulders, and the surrounding trees, effectively blocked the progress of the car so they got out. Rain hats and slickers kept off the worst of the high altitude drizzle, the day like so many on this side of the mountains had gone all gray and damp.

"Take this," said Todd.

Candace belted the holster on then checked the load and safety, using the open rear hatch for shelter. A simple 9mm holding 13 rounds, a lot like what most cops carried these days, she knew. Todd had two guns; another nine and a ten, a fully automatic machine pistol.

"What was your job in the group?" she asked.

Todd checked his load and safeties and passed her another gun, a one-shot flare she could clip to her belt.

"I had to convince people we would kill them if they didn't give it up," he said. He closed the hatch and they started up the hill.

* * *

The cabbie asked, "You sure this is the place."

"I'm certain," said Kendra, "but can you wait? I may not be here long."

"Sure, the meter's running, though, lady. And I need another hunnert before you get out of the cab."

She gave him the money and stepped out on the curb next to the Munson mailbox.

* * *

The family mutt had taken one look at Leo and hid himself in the back of Kenny's closet behind the toybox. Now he emerged and made his way to the family room. Whining, he placed his head in the boy's lap and cut his eyes toward the front rooms.

Kenny looked up and frowned. "Mr. Paine?" he called out. "Someone's outside, Beefus always knows."

Leo grunted, glaring at his hand. "He and I both knew that ten minutes ago, he's just getting around to telling you." He looked across at Krystal and Tessie. "Got any fours?" he asked.

Urban Renewal - 9

by Erin Halfelven

 
"Do you think we're going to find anyone up here?" Candace asked.

"Yes," said Todd, pulling a black and red ski mask over his face.

When she had her solid red mask in place, Candace asked, "Why?"

"Because the rangers told me on the phone that the police haven't gone over the site with their usual thoroughness. The kidnapping took place in Marshalldale, so yeah, maybe the suburban PD doesn't have the resources. But the Washington State Patrol could be called in and for a kidnap case, the FBI has jurisdiction.

"No cops means someone is blocking the investigation, which means there may be something at the site worth seeing. Someone may be coming back to destroy evidence because no amount of pressure can keep the cops off of working a homicide for long."

"Homicide?" said Candace.

"The kidnappers died, Tessie killed them."

"How? Didn't the plane just crash?"

"No, Tessie made it crash."

"How do you know that?" asked Candace, whispering.

"She told me."

* * *

When Kendra knocked on the door, a dog somewhere inside barked once. Less than a minute later, a very tall, lean man opened the door. "Well, hello," he said, leaning on the jamb and looking her over.

"You aren't Todd Munson," she said.

"Nope," he agreed. "I'm Leo. The Munsons aren't in. Can I help you?"

Kendra considered. The man did not act like an intruder but as if he had a perfect right to be there. "Actually, I'm here to see their daughter, Tessie?" She leaned closer to the tall man. "There are men sitting in a parked car down the street and more men hiding in the neighbors bushes."

Leo grinned. "I know. But I don't know if they're good guys or bad guys. Which are you?"

She smiled. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

He laughed and stood out of the way. "Come on in. Tessie's whomping my ass at cards, I could use a break." After Kendra passed him and said hello to Crystal inside, Leo stepped out on the lawn and waved at both sets of hidden watchers. "That oughtta put a knot in their knickers," he muttered before going over to tell the cabdriver to get lost.

* * *

Hyper-acute senses inherited from Dr. Domino warned Todd that, yes, someone smoking a cigarette and using a battery-powered drill was working at the crash site. Multiple someones.

He waved Candace to wait for him behind a screen of trees then used Miss Glamour's power to become invisible. He approached the scene slowly, stepping on needles to avoid footprints mysteriously appearing.

Three mountaineer motorbikes sat parked on a trail. One man stood guard with a peculiar-looking weapon while two worked with tools on the plane wreckage, apparently removing identifying marks.

Todd positioned himself carefully and fired three shots from the 9mm in his right hand. Z9 hadn't had M'Caliber's incredible long range accuracy but he could never miss such easy targets with his favorite gun.

Urban Renewal - 10

by Erin Halfelven

 
The motorcycles exploded in one very satisfying fireball; Dr. Domino's talent for biggest result with least effort had certainly helped that along. The guard with the strange looking weapon started toward the blast but stopped suddenly as Todd stepped out of concealment. The other two agents scrambled for their own weapons, more ordinary pistols, while at the same time taking cover inside the wreckage of the plane.

Still partly invisible, and apparently about four feet left of where he actually stood, Todd spoke in a huge voice that seemed to come from the sky.

"I am Death Masque, the Eater of Souls! Give up your secrets and live or I will drink them from your dead skulls!"

The guard brought the bell of his odd gun around and fired at the place where he saw Todd's simulacrum. The gun fired a sabot that disintegrated into hundreds of armor-piercing needles and dozens of scalloped, razor-edged darts -- specially designed to penetrate the armor of Star Troopers and butcher the man inside. In this case, however, the needles and darts destroyed only some bushes, the ten-foot wide steel cloud not quite wide enough to touch the real Todd.

A four-round burst from the 10mm full-auto in Todd's left hand nearly cut the guard in two. Not a technological marvel like the buzz gun but lethal nontheless.

The painful psychic impact of the guard's death hit Todd's mind and he screamed like Lucifer falling from Heaven.

* * *

Leo paused on the lawn after dismissing the cab Kendra had used. Grinning, he mimed the two groups of hidden watchers coming out of concealment and performing lewd acts on each other.

Inside the house, Tessie launched herself at the civilian-clad Lady Karma with a shout of "Auntie Kendra! You came!"

"You don't have an Aunt Kendra!" protested Krystal.

Tessie hugged Lady K with eight-year-old ferocity. "You wouldn't know her, Aunt Krystal. She's actually Daddy's aunt. And Kenny's named after her, so there!"

"Huh?" said Kenny.

Kay rolled her eyes, Tessie winked at her, and Leo came back in, just then, still grinning. "I think the guys in the car are state cops but the ones in the bushes may just be local perverts," he said. He looked at Kendra, "Now who in the name of Sam Spade are you?"

"She's my Auntie Kendra," announced Tessie, giving Kay another hug.

"Wait a minute!" Krystal began. A scream from outside interrupted her.

* * *

While Dr. Meridien and the boy, Johnny, enjoyed the hospitality of one of the local plutocrats, Spartako rode out to an auxiliary airport in the desert. The cis-orbital craft called the Screamer took a lot of room to land.

Spartako looked forward to piloting the hypersonic scramjet again. He'd be leaving Dubai in less than an hour and arriving in eastern Washington mid-afternoon, Pacific time. Then a more conventional two hour flight to some little town called Marshalldale.

Spartako buckled his monomer gloves on and snuggled down his annealed rare earth glass helmet. He really looked forward to piloting the Screamer again. Marshalldale just sounded like more boring work.

* * *

Todd's scream had words in it. Down the hill, a quarter mile away, Candace heard them clearly.

"Blood Masque! Second guard in the trees. Kill first, question later."

She cursed under her breath, muttering, "I think I'm supposed to be Blood Masque!"

Urban Renewal - 11

by Erin Halfelven

 
"Candace?" Todd called.

"Up here," she said.

He looked up. Candace crouched about fifteen feet up on the limb of an evergreen, she had the flare pistol in one hand with the other bracing her against the trunk. "What are you doing in a tree? I didn't know you could climb trees." He pulled his mask off and smoothed down his hair, grinning up at her.

"You said.... Where's the guard you warned me about?" She pulled off her own mask to look down at him.

"Still running, with the other two, I think. I had to kill one of them.... But I got the information I wanted, I know who hired them. I just don't know why."

He stepped forward to catch her as she dropped the last few feet and they hugged each other with relief. "I'm sorry you had to..." she murmured in his ear.

"Me, too." He kissed her. "You've got mask hair," he said.

"Oh!" She ran her fingers through her tangles for want of a comb. "Oh, that voice! How did you do that? Whose power was that?"

"That's actually my original power. Or non-power. Remember I said my job was to convince people?" He showed her the microphone in his mask and the tiny bud-like speaker cones he could scatter around an area while they walked back to the SUV. "It helped that in high school when everyone else wanted to play guitar in a rock band, I was building my own speakers and wiring sound boards. Actually worked as a roadie for a couple of groups."

Later, on the way back down the mountain, he told her, "His name was Paul. Paul Doncaster, they called him Donk." She understood him to mean the man he had killed. "And the guy that hired Donk was a crooked State Patrol lieutenant named Frank LeJeune."

She looked at him. They'd been married fourteen years, she knew he didn't want to tell her the rest. But he would.

Todd set his teeth in a grimace. "From the Marshalldale office. We'll call Leo as soon as we get down to where cell phones work again."

* * *

The screaming outside turned out to be from the state cops out of the parked car down the street trying to arrest the two FBI agents who had been hiding in the bushes. One of the federal agents was a small brunette woman with a penetrating howl.

Leo stood around enjoying kibitzing while the four law officers tried to settle their jurisdictional dispute before calling in any superiors.

Krystal, Kendra, Tessie and Kenny watched through the windows for a bit then Tessie drew Lady K away for a private talk in the kitchen.

"Urban?" said Kay. "Is that really you?" It seemed unlikely that the grizzled old street warrior had become this little pig-tailed blonde pixie.

Tessie wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, it's me. But I'm Tessie too. Do you really think you can help my daddy?"

Kendra nodded. "Yes," she said. "I really think I can."

Outside on the lawn, Leo made a suggestion. "Why don't you guys shoot each other? That would solve the whole thing."

Three of the law officers snapped at him, "Shut up!"

The fourth put one hand on one ear and held his cell phone to the other. "Yes, sir," he mumbled then closed the phone up, looking satisfied. "That was Lieutenant LeJeune, he's got a meeting at the airport then he's gonna come over here and sort out Fred and Wilma."

Meaning the FBI agents, all pairs of which were called Fred and Wilma, or Fred and Barney if more appropriate, or very occasionally, Wilma and Betty, by local cops all over the country. Any third agent was automatically Dino. Generally speaking, the Feds hated the nicknames.

Urban Renewal - 12

by Erin Halfelven

 
Billy Blueblazes liked to say that while he wasn't the fastest man on the planet, he was certainly the fastest man on Earth. Doc Spectral could fly at the speed of light, line of sight or fly by wire, and Dynamann could fly in space at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour using the solar wind like a one man space-going clipper ship. Billy's teammate, the Nuclear Knight, in a cis-orbital trajectory could peak at about Mach 9 but Nukes wasn't human.

Nobody could run faster than Billy.

And surrounded by his protective cold blue flames, Billy could run so fast that he could almost break the sound barrier. Almost. Every time he had gotten that close, he'd lost control -- crashed -- twice he'd almost died. Daedalos's new boron-nitride-fiber armor with the teflon and single molecule iridium layers might just keep him alive -- if he crashed again.

Because he just had to get to the Marshalldale airport in less than an hour, a distance of 737 miles. Just a hair faster than the speed of sound, maybe only a molecule faster but Billy couldn't even try to break the sound barrier near a city, that would be too dangerous. So he'd have to try to make up a bit of time on the long empty straightaways on the interstates.

And there were mountains to climb. And when he got close to Portland, he'd have to try to decide whether to try to reach Marshalldale through Yakima or Tacoma. Either way, the last thirty miles would be on narrow, twisting mountain roads where a trip or stumble could be disaster.

Because if Billy didn't make it, somebody might die. Somebody besides Billy. He just couldn't allow that. Not and keep calling himself a hero.

* * *

Spartako liked flying the jet-assist copter almost as much as the Screamer cis-orbital. Not nearly as fast as the big scramjet but you flew close enough to the ground to see the country. Well, what you could see traveling at nearly half the speed of sound. It wouldn't be a long trip, though. Less than an hour to Marshalldale, now.

Being a cyborg wasn't all bad when you had so many neat machines to plug into, thought Spartako. He tried not to think about what he had to do when he reached

* * *

"You're kidding?" said Leo. He'd stepped away from the squabbling state and federal agents to take the portable phone handed to him by Krystal.

"Donk remembered this guy LeJeune hiring him. A crooked state cop and he's right there in Marshalldale," Candace told him, repeating the story Todd had gotten from the memories of the dead thug. "We're just turning onto I-90 now, we're about an hour away. Reception has been crap." Cellphone frequencies don't like rain and the slopes of Mt. Rainier have plenty of it.

"Yeah, but -- LeJeune is the boss of these two state goons on your lawn. They say he's got an errand at the airport then he's coming here," said Leo. Before he said anything else, Leo turned around and saw Kenny, Tessie's brother, standing behind Krystal. "I'll take care of it," he said into the phone. "Call me back in a bit," and he hung up.

"Who's watching your sister," he asked Kenny who seemed fascinated by the argument between the plainclothes police officers.

"Aunt Kendra," said Kenny.

Leo rolled his eyes, already starting for the house while considering just what to do about a crooked and possibly homocidal cop.

In the house, Kay stared at little Tessie where she crouched halfway up the wall of the cathedral-ceilinged living room. "How are you doing that?" she asked.

"Friction, I think," said the pig-tailed little blonde who used to be Urban Commando. "I can increase it or make it almost disappear. It's how I made the kidnapper's plane crash." She scooched around on the wall so she could look at Kendra without craning her neck. "At first I was too scared to try it but I'm not really scared of anything much now."

Urban Renewal - 13

by Erin Halfelven

 
Kendra caught Tessie as she released her friction grip on the wall just as Leo came back into the house followed by Krystal and Kenny.

"Okay," said Leo. "Who are you?"

Kendra glanced at the civilians then at the front door.

"Krystal," said Leo. "Get us some sodas and snacks, Kenny help her." He pushed them toward the kitchen.

"What about Tessie?" asked Kenny.

Kendra balanced the eight-year-old on her hip and Tessie smiled at her brother. "I'm staying," she said.

* * *

"It's funny," said Todd. They were heading up I-90 toward the main pass into the inner valleys.

"Yeah?" said Candace. "I ain't laughing?" But she smiled.

"Donk," said Todd. Paul Doncaster, the man he'd killed to find out who had wanted to cover up evidence about the kidnappers. "He's a funny guy. A mercenary SOB who would just as soon shoot you if you might cause trouble -- but he must have known several thousand dirty jokes." The big SUV could easily pull 75 on the steep grade and Todd steered around the slower traffic. He didn't want to worry about what might be happening in Marshalldale, trying to pretend that Leo --Catclaw, another mercenary SOB-- had everything under control.

"What kind of dirty jokes?" asked Candace. She turned in her seat to face him better.

Anything for a distraction. "Some of them are really filthy," Todd warned.

"So tell one, see if I haven't heard it."

"Okay. Let me think of one that is just dirty enough to tell to my wife," said Todd. "Guy picks up a hooker down on Aurora..."

"Thbbbt!" said Candace. "I've heard it."

* * *

Ted Andropoulos, Daedalos, followed Billy Blueblazes progress on the monitors, the boy hadn't realized that GPS sensors had been installed in his new armor. Ted could even get direct readouts of his speed. But where was he going? Through the city traffic, he'd barely been able to hit bursts of 300 mph or so, it just wasn't possible to safely dodge heavy afternoon traffic while going much faster than 150 or so.

Ted followed Billy's trace north then east on the 80, then a burst of speed as Billy turned north on the 505. North? Was Billy heading toward Portland, Seattle, or maybe Marshalldale where Kendra said Urban had merged with some suburban cutie who was all of eight?

Why?

And how had Billie known the little girl's hair color before Lady Karma had found out her name when the child called Centurion HQ? Ted had checked some databases, school photos weren't great source material but little Tessie Munson was definitely blond.

And now Billy had run off without telling anyone where or why. Had he talked to someone else? Who?

* * *

They were back on the plane, leaving Dubai airport in the early morning before dawn, Johnny and the strange man called Dr. Meridien, who made Johnny feel weak and confused whenever they touched. They were going somewhere called Halifax this time. But Captain Spartako hadn't got on the plane with them.

Johnny had heard him say where he was going and the boy had had a very short time alone in the little lounge in Dubai. He'd dialed the 17-digit special number his big brother had given him. He'd had to tell someone, Captain Spartako was scary because he wasn't really human anymore, he was part machine. Or something?

Dr. Meridien had done things to Spartako, Johnny knew that. Dr. Meridien did things to people. He'd done something to Johnny's big brother a long time ago. Johnny was afraid that Dr. Meridien would do something to him soon.

Maybe Billy could save them both, save all of them. He was a superhero now, wasn't that what they did? Save people?

Johnny sure hoped so.

Urban Renewal

by Erin Halfelven

 
"I can't believe he's that bad at telling dirty jokes," Donk complained.

"Well, he is trying to tell them to his wife, can't be easy," said Z9.

"Not that you were ever married," said Miss Glamour.

"How do you know I've never been married?" asked Z9.

"Oh, please," Miss Glamour said. She would have rolled her eyes for emphasis but none of them had bodies any more. "One, a girl can tell and two, we've all got access to each other's memories in here."

"Damnit! He blew the punchline on that one, too!" Donk snarled. "It's not about the potato, it's about where you're putting it!"

"Shows how much attention you were paying. I married Lady Kremlin back in 1986."

"Uh huh, and a couple of renegade Polish double agents offed her on your honeymoon. Doesn't count, a honeymoon is nothing like being married."

"We're missing something," said Dr. Domino.

"He better let me tell the next joke or -- is there anything we can do to him in here?"

"What do you mean a honeymoon is not like being married? That doesn't even make sense."

"Not much. A few itches, a headache maybe," said Glamour.

"I spent a whole day once, mentally undressing every woman he met. He had a job interview to go to, made him sweat a bit." Z9 conveyed the essence of grinning to the others without access to any of the equipment.

"There's some fact we don't know, some trivial piece of information that's keeping us from understanding what is going on," said Domino. "Why did anyone want to kidnap Tessie? Maybe if we knew that...."

"No, you idiot! You have to growl that line, 'cause it's the bear that says it!" Donk demonstrated. "You don't come here for the hunting, do you?"

"I don't get that one," said Glamour.

"You wouldn't," said Z9.

"Are you implying I don't have a sense of humor?"

"It's mostly a guy thing," said Z9.

"It's mostly a prison thing," said Donk.

"Shut up!" said Domino. "I'm trying to help him think about this."

"So it's true, Tessie somehow wrecked the plane and made it crash?" asked Z9.

"It was like all the oil in the engine turned to sand," said Donk. "That's what the other guys told me."

"There's someone big behind all this. Some invisible mastermind co-ordinating everything. A global manipulator with a secret plan...."

"Is that a chicken joke? There are dirty chicken jokes? Oh, that's disgusting!"

"His wife doesn't think it's funny either."

"Women never laugh at that one," commented Donk.

"Because it isn't funny!"

"It's all in how you tell it, he doesn't tell it funny."

"So if you're so good, how come he doesn't have your ability to tell jokes?"

"He's got it, he just ain't using it. He's telling them bad on purpose. Hey, Munson! You stink!"

"He can't hear you unless he wants to."

"He's telling them badly because he's trying to make his wife laugh at how bad he is at telling dirty jokes," said Glamour.

"Yeah?" Donk sounded doubtful. "It ain't working. She ain't laughing, she's getting this look in her eye like she wants to jump his bones."

They all stayed quiet for a moment.

"Son of a gun," said Z9, "he's using my abilities to seduce his own wife."

Domino snorted. "Not your non-existent charms, you would be Lothario. He's using my ability to play to her weakness, endearing himself with a display of husbandly ineptitude at being disgusting."

"You know, that would probably work," agreed Glamour.

"Hey," said Donk. "If they pull off and do it in the back of the truck, do we get to watch?"

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.

Urban Renewal - 16 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
"It's always midnight," thought Johnny. He doodled with his finger on the glass of the jet window six miles above France. He hadn't seen the sun since Dr. Meridien had taken him captive two years before. "What would it be like to be the night?" he wondered. "Covering the Earth from horizon to horizon, seeing what everyone does when they think no one is watching."

He leaned his forehead against the glass so he could catch a glimpse of the land below. "Crazy idea," he thought.

Johnny sat in the smaller forward lounge of the plane, Dr. Meridien being busy with business in the larger "office" further back. With Spartako gone on a mission, the colorless man called Joshua None took over watching him when the famous doctor had other things to do. Spartako scared Johnny but the cyborg warrior told stories, laughed at silly stuff and seemed much more alive than his replacement, despite being only half-human.

As if cued by Johnny's thoughts, Joshua got up, opened a cabinet and brought the boy a small case. "Your flute," he said. "You looked bored."

Surprised, Johnny assembled the instrument, a pure silver gift from Dr. Meridien. "Do you like music?" he asked.

Joshua nodded, sitting back down by the door to the back of the plane.

"Do you play?"

Joshua nodded then shrugged. "Cello, violin," he said before Johnny could ask. "Anything with strings."

Johnny considered. "What do you want to hear?"

* * *

Leo strapped his fighting claws onto his wrists and ankles while Kendra tried to reason with Tessie. "We're doing all this to protect you. Someone tried to kidnap you, y'know."

"Yeah," said Tessie. "And I saved myself, didn't I?" She looked adorably smug.

Leo turned around to admire the little girl's spunk. "She's got you there." He grinned at them, liking Tessie at that moment more than he had ever liked anyone else's kid.

Kay frowned at Tessie. "You did have help."

"Just to get away; I took care of the kidnappers all by myself. Um," she looked momentarily confused. Referring to herself before Urban and after Urban in the same sentence rather shook the integration of her two personalities. "And--and now, I'm just me and twice as dangerouth. Dangerous." She used her tongue to feel the place where her new front tooth was coming in.

Leo didn't help Kay's attempts at persuasion much by laughing his ass off just then.

* * *

Yup, thought Billy. At better than 700 mph, water was just like concrete. Very, very slick concrete. Or better, ice. If he fell, he'd probably slide right into one of these damn flood control weirs still going about 400.

He ran up another of the convenient salmon ladders to get around a dam and back onto the river. The confluence with the Wenatchee couldn't be more than fifteen minutes away and the Marshalldale airport was just a mile or two this side of the branch.

He couldn't spare the attention to look at the sky to see if he could see Spartako's jetcopter. He probably couldn't anyway, not yet, and it took all his concentration to run at this speed without hitting anything. His flames took care of small objects like bugs but even something only as large as a remote-control airplane or an inconvenient mudhen could be a disaster.

He shortened one stride slightly to avoid tripping on the head of some swimming rodent; a beaver he supposed though it was actually a nutria. He hoped he'd jumped enough to not scorch the poor animal's ears. Oops, another bad landing like that and he might end up part of one of these damn dams or weird weirs.

He smiled. Stars and comets, he loved to run. The map in his head showed one long straightaway remaining, the top of a lake behind one of the dams. Maybe he'd try to break the sound barrier again, this time on the "ice" where conditions might be more favorable.

Urban Renewal - 17 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Penny, her body lying comfortably on the lounger in her garage, guided the Knight's cis-orbital flight with her mind. She planned to land on a rocky hillock just east of Wenatchee; a safety margin for anyone under her flight path to allow her plenty of time to change her jets from atomic to conventional. Or self-destruct if things went seriously bottle-shaped.

Nate, her ex-husband and the former mind-pilot of the Nuclear Knight, kept watch on the skies above central Washington by mind-control of Skytower, the robot orbital station built from pieces of old wrecked Knight bodies.

"Copter, jet-assisted, approaching Marshalldale airport from the east. Tapes show it came from near the landing spot of a cis-orbital packet originating in the Middle East. Interceptors scrambled from three air bases have been called back, no info on why or how. Be careful, Penny!" Nate's voice sounded in her mind.

"You know I'm fine, as long as the Outsider doesn't try to interfere with our control," Penny told him.

"No sign of that alien creep," said Nate. His injuries had been caused by neurological feedback from crashing a previous Knight to prevent an Outsider takeover of the robot. "Billy's on the river, running north. Karma and Catclaw are heading to the airport in a car and Munson and his wife are somewhere in the mountains west of town."

"Are we about to have an old home week?" Penny asked.

"Looks like it. Four arrivals within minutes of each other."

"Order?"

"Jetcopter, Billy, you, Kay and company then the Munsons sometime later and Centurion probably after that."

"Billy still not answering calls?"

"Nope. At speed his flames make radio reception difficult, you know that."

"That boy was born difficult."

Nate chuckled.

* * *

Spartako's sensor arrays kept him aware of aerial threats; he'd spotted the incoming Nuclear Knight before apogee. He knew he'd be at his destination with enough time to complete his mission before the big robot could safely land. The trick would be getting away after incinerating LeJeune.

* * *

On the lake bed, Billy tried something new -- concentrating on expanding his flames to their maximum before attempting to break the sound barrier. The energy cost might not leave him enough oomph to accelerate through the barrier and a fall in the trans-sonic turbulence might rip him apart.

"Tell me again how much I get paid for doing this?" he muttered.

But he'd heard Skytower's arrival predictions and knew he'd never beat Spartako to his target without a last minute boost. "Johnny," he whispered.

His flames grew as bright as they had ever been, extending around him for almost a yard. He kicked like a sprinter and the transonic forces reached through his fiery shield and plucked at his armor.

But he knew he'd broken the barrier. Accelerating up to Mach 2 with new energy he ran on, saving a celebration for later.

Urban Renewal - 18 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Lt. Frank LeJeune paced nervously beside his patrol car. When he'd first taken money from the mysterious man he knew as MacAllen, it had been for little things like unlicensed landings at the Marshalldale airport. Later, he'd bought into the redistribution of a plane load of hypradine. After that, MacAllen had owned him, of course.

Hypradine, known as Hype, Thug, Killer, Dyne or Jooce sold for as much as $10,000 a dose on the street; so a plastic bottle of it holding a mere 200 five milliliter doses wholesaled at point of entry for an incredible $100,000. A case of twelve bottles went for a cool million. Six months before, LeJeune had helped unload 44 cases of the stuff at the same Marshalldale airport where he waited, less than patiently, for a courier from MacAllen.

LeJeune suspected that the courier wanted to talk about what had gone wrong with the snatch of the little Munson girl last week. LeJeune had had minimal involvement with that and considered it none of his business why MacAllan wanted an eight-year-old spirited outof the country. Sure, through his connections with the West Coast gangs that distributed the Hype, he'd sent a cover-up gang to destroy any evidence remaining after the clumsy kidnappers had crashed their plane on the Olympic Peninsula.

But he wasn't really a kidnapper himself. Whatever kink MacAllen had was nothing to him. In fact, he'd leave the country, stopping only long enough to pick up the money he'd been depositing by wire transfer in the Banque du Miquelon et Saint Pierre before heading to Brazil or Lemuria, maybe.

From the upper end of the parking lot around the airport, LeJeune could see the panorama of the Marshalldale Valley stretching out. From the eastern edge, a cloud like the one that might be raised by a dust devil or low-flying helicopter approached. Above that and a little to the left, a second small sun seemed to be setting on the eastern ridge. And to his right, south of the city -- had the river caught fire?

Urban Renewal - 19 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 

Spartako came in low and fast, not so much riding the jetcopter as wearing it. His targeting software picked out the patrol car parked on the verge of the airport runway. The man standing beside the patrol car fit the profile for Frank LeJeune and wore Frank LeJeune's cellphone, which Spartako confirmed by ringing the cell. Still a half-mile away, the cyborg assassin twisted the tails of two incendiary rockets and sent them on their way.

Billy Blueblazes left the edge of the river just at that moment, racing up the sandy wall of the riverbed and the low hill between the water and the streets around the airport. Not even a mile away and slowing now from nearly fifteen hundred mph to about one thousand. The shockwave around him had some peculiar properties due to his flaming forcefield but there would be lots of broken windows in Marshalldale and Wenatchee today.

Spartako dived lower, under the curve of the hill, and changed heading to intercept just where Billy would reach the street. He armed his transonic missiles and prepped their target computers; for a cyborg, a matter of attention and thought. When Billy topped the rise, Spartako would release the transonic hunter-killer missiles.

East of the city and above it, Penny directed the Knight to switch from atomic jets to chemical, using the residual heat from the atomic fire to super-charge her directed flames. The golden alloys of the sixteen-foot tall Knight-body glowed with re-entry as well and internal heat pumps shed that energy into the jets, too. Lasers and masers from the robot's head beamed at the jetcopter, hoping to scramble the control signals from the cyborg to its missiles.

LeJeune dived behind his car and rolled under it, intending to come up behind the fire and rescue truck beside it.

In the Munson sedan, Tessie screeched at Leo from the backseat, "Turn here!" Leo cut the corner, almost hitting the curb, but controlling the turn onto a service road at the opposite end of the airport from everyone else.

On the runway to their left, a puddle-jumper commuter aircraft taxied toward the terminal building. Down at the end of the service road, two missiles arced out of nowhere at a parked fire truck.

Urban Renewal - 20 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
LeJeune's natural suspicions, cop reflexes and drug dealer paranoia kept him alive a little longer. He rolled out from under the fire truck and under another vehicle just as the first rocket exploded. The second, for some reason, turned upward and zoomed high above the airfield before bursting like a fireworks star shell. LeJeune climbed out from under the sedan and into an airport service vehicle that had keys conveniently dangling from the switch.

Billy followed the hill, curving west of the airport instead of topping the rise directly between him and Spartako. Two and a half years of tactical training by Last Centurion and Urban Commando had taught him a few things. When he did come over the hill, he immediately went back below the curve after seeing where his enemies' location.

Spartako launched the transonic missiles in Billy's direction then scanned for LeJeune's new location. The renegade cop still had the telltale phone in his pocket and the cyborg quickly located him. Turning to pursue his principal target, Spartako sent a lance of depleted uranium slugs from his electric Gatling guns after the fleeing LeJeune.

Penny changed the Knight's trajectory into a glide toward the airport, swinging north to pinch Spartako and LeJeune between Billy and her robot self. From her own launchers she sent out ECM anti-missile missiles, using data relayed from Skytower along with a message, "Centurion en route with three Blue Star super-troopers," Nate told her. "ETA seventeen minutes."

"Way too slow," Penny sent back. "This may all be over in seventeen seconds!"

"Out!" screamed Leo as he pulled the Munson sedan in front of LeJeune's getaway vehicle. Tessie and Lady Karma went out the right hand doors and Leo went out the left, the little girl still holding her Raggedy Anne dolly.

"Don't be thcared, Annie," Tessie shouted. "I've got you." She rolled across a narrow grass margin onto a sidewalk and Kendra pulled her, and the doll, close.

On the far side of Wenatchee, across two rivers, Donk, Z9 and Dr. Domino all agreed, LeJeune would try to use the city to lose pursuers, assuming he escaped the carnage at the airport. Accordingly, Todd turned south on the Route 285 business loop through the middle of Wenatchee.

"Why are we going this way?" Candace yelped as the big SUV dodged around a beer truck. "The airport is on the other side of the Columbia!"

"Trusting my luck," said Todd. "Put my mask on top of my head and get yours ready, too. We may want to use them."

Urban Renewal - 21 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
LeJeune backed away from the wreckage, pulling his state-issued nine-millimeter from his back holster. In the strange light of sun filtered through smoke, the tall man coming at him seemed to have stripes in his hair. He'd read the State's copy of Jane's Metahumans, Mutants and Overmen. One of the Tigermen? he wondered. The band of mercenaries who had hunted down Tiger-Man had all been tainted by David Hawkes's monster blood. Catclaw, M'Caliber, Ghost Tiger, Merc4Rent or maybe some wannabe? Sure wasn't Cat Ten Hawks, the monster's cousin, she was much more recognizable.

He put a bullet into the advancing figure just to see what would happen. The big man jerked from the impact but didn't slow down. M'Caliber only used long-range weapons; Ghost Tiger didn't like daylight; Merc would have weapons all over him; this one only had knife-like claws strapped to his hands -- Shit! It's Catclaw! How do you stop a guy who regenerates from wounds in just seconds?

LeJeune aimed at Leo's head.

* * *

Billy danced through the hail of spent uranium slugs, swatting them down or aside to plow furrows in pavement or make craters in concrete walls. His blazing forcefield protected and concealed him in the flaming wreckage as he approached the cyborg. He slowed down more, crossing the sound barrier going down, and the turbulence blew a wide hole in the smoke and debris.

The jetcopter hovered thirty feet above him, Billy leapt to the top of the terminal building then ran on the flying pieces of exploded firetruck scattered by his own shockwave. He shouted something no one could hear. "Wyatt! Wyatt Helmstrong! Captain Wyatt, it's me, Billy!"

* * *

The Knight's ECM-missiles buzzed in Spartako's senses, hunting his control frequencies; one otherworldly technology battling another. The cyborg set part of his mind to tracking the missiles and burning them out with phased maser pulses. He couldn't hear Billy's voice but he knew Billy knew him.

The Knight would be here in seconds, Billy and the girl were in the circle of destruction, time to do what he'd come to do.

* * *

"It's a suicide run!" Lady Karma shouted into her communicator. "He's not after LeJeune, he's here to kill Billy and Tess!"

In one of those transmission flukes that happen on the battlefield, Billy's voice came back loud and clear. "I know, but he's got to catch us first!"

And leaping down practically from the wing of the jetcopter, Billy landed beside Tess, snatched up the little girl, dollie and all, and headed east where the Knight could run interference for a precious few seconds.

"Hang on tight," he told Tessie.

"I can do better than that," she said, closing her eyes to concentrate.

Urban Renewal - 22 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 

Leo didn't make it easy for the renegade cop by standing still and the first two bullets missed widely. Then Leo's claw flicked the gun from LeJeune's hand against the concrete barrier marking the safe driving lane. A chemical spray hit Leo in the face but he ignored it; uncomfortable, even painful, but it hardly slowed him down. The canister hit the wall of the building and a third blow sent LeJeune's backup gun flying also.

"Next one's your head," said Leo.

* * *

Billy's time distorting force field, his flames, wrapped Tess in the same bubble of experience as the speedster. "Still seems fast," she gasped as the world flashed by.

"Yeah," said Billy. "Otherwise it would take me subjective weeks to run here from Oakland. I can adjust the distortion. What are you doing?" The question came as Billy noticed the change in his force field.

Tessie hadn't been sure she could effect something so insubstantial but the reverse proved true; it took lots less effort to make Billy's flames frictionless or nearly so. They were speeding past the edge of the airfield now, running by the shadow of The Knight flying in to recover their retreat.

Like a buttered knife slicing through hot bread, they slipped through the sound barrier into the transonic with hardly a quiver. The thunder of their passing rattled the vineyards and hop orchards of the east valley.

Billy looked down at the little girl in his arms. "Where you been all my lofe, darling?" he drawled.

Tessie giggled.

* * *

Lady Karma watched the burning line of Billy and Tess disappearing, and the Knight flying in from the little knob of Earth where Penny had landed the big robot. The jetcopter started after Billy, but pulled up, trying to gain altitude for the clash with The Knight.

Kay could sense emotions like other people see colors, smell odors or feel textures; Leo's bright savage pleasure in action, LeJeune's stink of fear, the hard-edge of Billy's determination and the granulated surface of Tessie's concentration. Behind and around her, the crowd made a background of confusion and terror. Mentally, she reached for the jetcopter's cyborg pilot, feeling there the glossy sheen of practiced action, the steel of imposed duty, a kernel of some dull hope and a shroud of despair covering everything else.

She probed, hoping to find some edge of purpose she could bend. Spartako's mind was strong but seemed oddly hollow, as if much of his own desires and emotions had been sucked out of him. A pattern of darkness attracted her and she winced, death and pain formed a cage around a hate so intense she felt almost blistered by it.

One thing seemed clear; Spartako was not a free agent but a mind enslaved to some hated otherness. Willing, even eager, to die to complete his mission, the cyborg had not given up yet.

* * *

"Take us back, Billy," said Tess. "I've got an idea."

Urban Renewal - 23 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Penny sent the Knight into combat with the jetcopter. When the crash had crippled Nate, and gave her shared mental control of the big alien robots, she hadn't felt certain of her ability to fight. She'd turned out to have a real talent at it; maybe more than Nate had ever had. And just like Nate, when she controlled the Knight, she was the Knight.

Acting quickly as thought, she sent another barrage of "nuisance" ECM missiles -- she only carried so many and she went ahead and used the last of them. She wanted to keep Spartako from tracking Billy. Then she pulled the big atomic jet over her shoulder so it sat on her chest. One short blast would reduce almost anything in front of her to radioactive slag; she just had to stay aware of what was behind her and remember to balance on her boot jets.

As a cannon, the atomic jet made a heck of a good bluff; Nate had never actually used it against a living enemy. So far, neither had Penny. But then, a cyborg wasn't exactly alive.

* * *

Lady Karma sent out a spell to trap the mind of everyone in range who feared for their lives, to get them to evacuate peacefully and without panic. Then she turned to consider Spartako approaching the Knight. Warrior minds resisted being affected in the middle of combat but she might manage a distraction at a critical moment. Or a psychic lance into Spartako's ego center.

Catclaw scooped the semi-conscious LeJeune off the ground and looked around for somewhere to stuff him where he couldn't get away. The crooked cop struggled weakly against Leo's grip.

"Lemme go," LeJeune whimpered.

"Yeah, right," said Leo. "I'm missing the big fight and you ain't going anywhere, mook." He looked at a piece of sheet steel from the fire truck, maybe he could wrap it around LeJeune like a tamale.

"No, no, lemme go! They're giving away those big candy apples at the Wenatchee Farmer's Market!"

"Say what?" Leo shook him.

"Ouch! The green ones with the caramel are my favorites! Please lemme go?"

* * *

"Let's loop around to the north, Billy. We'll come back in by that spur and old Nastyko won't see us until it's too late," said Tessie.

"You got it, insect," said Billy. He'd used the odd endearment with his baby brother, once upon a time.

"Insect?!!"

"Darlin' little bug face?"

Tessie considered. "Better, Mr. Propane-head, but don't push it."

Urban Renewal - 24 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
"What the heck is going on there?" Candace asked.

Todd carefully negotiated through the crowd that had spilled off the sidewalk and onto the street. "It's the Farmer's Market, looks like a riot. Maybe the vineyard owners and the hop growers came to blows?"

Candace laughed. The growth of vineyards east of Marshalldale since the 1970s had been bitterly resented by the local hop farmers. But both groups were still hugely outnumbered by the apple growers in the larger Wenatchee area. A local cartoonist had drawn a prizefight between boxers labeled "beer industry" and "wine industry" while a large audience drank from cups marked "cider".

A block later, Todd suddenly pulled to the curb. "Donk says that's him." He pointed at a man jogging across the street in front of him.

"The guy in the torn clothes who's bleeding from his hair?"

Todd got out, used Z9's covert ops moves to disable LeJeune and tossed him into the back of the SUV all without the surrounding crowd really getting an idea of what had happened. Candace got into the back to tie the crooked cop up while Todd drove on toward the bridge over the Columbia and Marshalldale.

* * *

From the roof of a hangar Catclaw missed a leap for the landing gear of the jetcopter. "Son of a Comet!" he cursed as he fell between a baggage tram and a tow truck. Picking himself up off the pavement and straightening his left wrist, he muttered, "Just because it heals doesn't mean it don't hurt."

Sensing that Leo had survived the forty-foot fall, Lady Karma continued to concentrate on weaving a net of worries and distraction out of the stray thoughts she could capture from Spartako. Little enough and probably useless, this just wasn't her sort of fight.

The cyborg seemed intent on escaping to the east, accelerating now toward the Knight whose voice boomed out. "This cannon can cut the blades off your vehicle in 1/20th of a second. Give up and land that thing."

Spartako replied on several radio frequencies at once. "I have my own thermonuclear device. Back-off, Space Junk!"

Sensing the approaching cusp, Kendra threw her net before the cyborg got out of range.

* * *

"He must be two hunnert feet in the air, Billy," said Tessie. "How close can you get me to him?" In the condensed temporal bubble of Blueblazes force field, they seemed to have plenty of time to discuss it.

Billy considered for some infinitesimal of real time. "At this speed, I can jump pretty high." He hadn't crossed the Mach 2 barrier with Tessie in his arms, fearing even greater turbulence than he'd faced at Mach 1. Mach 2 was the one that had killed a lot of good pilots, but Mach 1.95 was still more than the speed of a rifle bullet on target. "I can get you close enough to touch him, I think. But you're going to have to help me with the landing."

They said nothing about taking the risk. Neither of them had ever planned on dying any other way, and Urban had already died once. Tessie kissed her rag doll and whispered, "Let's do it."

Urban Renewal - 25 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Todd and Candace bypassed Airport Way, taking the road that led to the East Wenatchee Valley where the cyborg jetcopter and robot Knight faced off over a field of dairy cattle. Their black and red masks perched atop their heads, the Munsons looked very grim. Candace had the buzz gun they had salvaged from the mountain in her lap.

"Donk says just point and shoot?" she asked.

"Yeah. It's like a big shotgun, rocket-propelled sabot full of darts and needles. The sight reads the distance to the target and sets when to burst the shoe for maximum effect."

"Nasty."

"Yeah."

"Probably useless against that thing."

"Yeah."

"We going to be in time to do anything at all?"

Todd didn't answer for a moment. "Domino says that if we're lucky, I'll be there in time to see him die. They're preparing a welcome party."

Candace grinned. "Save some cake for me if I don't make it."

They reached across the seat with their free hands and touched fingers.

"Is Tessie safe?" Candace asked.

"I don't know," said Todd.

* * *

Spartako's targets were approaching again. And he'd maneuvered and managed the situation so that he had no reasonable hope of escape. His programming would now allow him to self-destruct to complete his mission. He'd tried this earlier but Blueblazes and the younger target had escaped. This time he would not fail.

* * *

Lady Karma summoned a wind to keep her close enough to the psychic net she had cast to keep it powered. At worst it might slowdown Spartako's reactions a fraction of a second, at best it might cause him to make the wrong decision at a critical moment.

Catclaw pursued her on foot, limping at first. "I didn't know she could fly!" he grumbled.

* * *

Penny powered up the Knight's atomic cannon. Maybe she really could slice the rotors of the jetcopter and force a crash. Maybe she could do this without having to kill anyone, even a half-mechanical cyborg assassin.

Nate's voice in her mind said, "Star Troopers, ETA twelve minutes, now. Centurion, Sky Bolt and two guys in powered armor."

"Too little, too late. I'm here now." She tightened a mental finger on the virtual trigger of the cannon, the boot jets already programmed to balance the thrust. Nothing behind her to be damaged. Draw down her aim on the point of rotation. Squeeze.

* * *

Candace fired from the window of the SUV, the sabot set for bursting at 330 yards. She aimed for the point behind the first window, where Dr. Domino had told her she would do the most damage.

* * *

Summoning all her remaining will, Kendra sent a psychic lance at the Cyborg. The turbulence of a sonic boom knocked her off the crest of the wind she'd been riding and she fell toward the ground, almost unconscious from her effort.

* * *

A burning lance of nuclear flame sliced the rotors from the jetcopter.

Needles and darts from a bursting sabot ripped a hole in the side of the cyborg vehicle, revealing the tanklike inner-capsule holding what remained of Spartako's body.

Now thought Spartako, sensing the approach of his window of opportunity. Now. Something glitched in his programming....

* * *

Billy and Tessie raced down the river, under the bridge, past the airport in less time than it takes to turn a page. Billy chose his path carefully, picking a ridge to run along to get him closer to Spartako. The jetcopter dropped a bit, it's rotors gone. A hole opened in the fuselage, still a hundred and fifty feet up.

"I'll jump, you do your thing," said Billy.

"Right," said Tess.

Billy leaped from the top of the ridge, a human-sized ballistic missile now. At the top of his arc the falling cyborg aircraft loomed over him. He extended his arms with Tessie between his hands, trying to get her as close to the rip in the plane as possible. Billy's forcefield kept time slowed to geological scale.

Tessie stretched out, her small hand reaching into the hole. She tapped on the metal of the case holding Spartako.

"Jinx!" she said. "You're it!"

Urban Renewal - 26 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
For Spartako, the world seemed to just go away.

Boosted in some mysterious way by Billy's forcefield and reinforced by Kendra's spell in some other way, Tessie's power seemed to extend into the atomic domain, increasing some quantum analog of friction -- entropy perhaps. In the capsule containing the remains of a man once called Wyatt Helmstrong; one arm, part of a spine, a neck and most of a skull containing a heavily wired brain; in that capsule, interactions of moving particles slowed to nothing -- and stopped.

For Spartako, the effect seemed no different than what he expected. Sudden darkness, silence, timelessness and unconsciousness look a lot like a point 0,0,0 nuclear explosion from the inside.

* * *

Billy's arc continued and he pulled Tess close to him as they fell away from the inert jetcopter. Both of their forcefields had been used up, time flowed normally now for them, decelerated only by adrenaline effects. Or for Billy, at least, the effort had left Tess too exhausted, mentally and physically, to do more than whimper.

One hundred fifty feet below them a vineyard waited, basically a rocky field covered at this time of year with sharp sticks pointing upward. Wrapping himself completely around Tess, Billy tried desperately to re-ignite his forcefield. He needed a spark of energy, electricity, flame, ionized plasma, something.

He thought of Hades in the Disney movie, checking to see if his hair had gone out and smiled grimly. Even with his forcefield on they would only make a big splash in the vines. Tess on the other hand....

"Tessie, honey, wake up," he murmured. "Urban? Hank? Therese Marie Munson! Wake up!"

"I'm awake," she whispered. The wind around them, the wind made by their fall, began to grab at their clothing and exposed flesh. "I don't know if I can..."

Still over a hundred feet up, their fall slowed, changed angle. They began to tumble, their clothing tearing.

Billy whispered something in Tess's ear. She nodded, her cheek moving against his chest.

* * *

Staggered by the sonic boom, Catclaw caught Lady Karma before stumbling and falling to his knees on the edge of the asphalt. "Craptastic!" he growled but the blood of monsters in his veins had already regrown the skin he'd just lost. "There's a reason I picked Paine for my new last name," he said.

"I know," said Kendra. He sat her own her feet and she looked up at the drama still unfolding. If the cyborg was already dead she could help him on his way. She opened her senses and reached out.

* * *

Seeing Billy and Tess appear out of the blazing blue arc from nowhere shocked Penny. Automatically, she dived forward to try to catch them before remembering that her descent from orbit and firing the atomic cannon would have heated her armor to red-hot if she'd been constructed of anything so mundane as steel. Even her recuperative magnetic cooling wouldn't lower her outer layers below three or four hundred degrees before she reached the falling heroes--if she could get there in time.

At least their momentum has carried them out from under the aircraft, it won't fall on them, she thought.

Nate's voice reached her from Skytower. "Laser the boy, re-ignite his forcefield."

She did that, aiming for what looked like in her sensors the hottest spot, shining a tiny focussed heat beam on Billy's shoulder armor. Then she redirected all cooling fluids to her arms and shed the outer, hottest layer of her own armor. "Talk about blowing hot and cold," she said to Skytower.

He chuckled. "Don't forget to stow the cannon before you try to catch them."

"Done." The big golden robot arced across the sky, still not certain she would be in time. Bright outer plates flaked off her, shedding heat as quickly as possible.

* * *

Todd turned the engine off and leaped from the still rolling SUV.

"Tess!" screamed Candace. She pulled the red mask from her face and threw down the buzz gun. "Tessie!"

Death Masque reached toward the cyborg with his power. Too far away, he thought. Almost a quarter mile. Oh, Tess, what's it going to be like to have you inside me? If I can reach you....

Urban Renewal - 27 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
"Ignition!" shouted Billy. Blue flames, the visible side-effect of his time-bending forcefield, burst out from his shoulder armor where Tess had concentrated her friction power and Penny had provided a laser spark. Tess switched her waning powers to simply thickening the air around them.

Their fall slowed. Billy had practiced falling from heights many times and with turbulent rapid scissor kicks managed to guide them toward the now-only-toasty warm outstretched palms of the giant robot.

"Got you," said Penny in the bass growl of the Nuclear Knight.

Tess's eight-year-old body, reserves all used-up, collapsed into unconsciousness at the announcement of their safety.

The hulk of the cyborg jetcopter crashed into the vineyard below them, wings tearing off, boom-like tail section breaking in half. The armor glass of the unused cockpit shattered and the heavy plastic fuel bladders in the tanks burst flooding the crash site with jet fuel that quickly caught fire from hot pieces of engine debris.

A column of greasy black smoke rose and was quickly blown into a ring by the first of several vapor explosions. For a moment it looked as if a nuclear explosion had occurred after all.

Penny opened the passenger shelf on the front of the Knight's body, letting Billy slip inside the narrow compartment, still holding Tess, who in turn still clasped her ever-more-raggedy dolly. The big robot then bent its path toward the airport where Lady Karma and other first aid could surely be found.

Smoke and flames rose behind them: Spartako's funeral pyre.

* * *

Seeing that the kids would be safe, Lady Karma reached out for the spirit of death and dying she sensed, a hungry spirit of longing and weariness. "You may go home," she told it. "Ride the wheel again or find your own peace. Goodbye, goodbye, I tell you three times, goodbye to this entangling life, you wounded souls."

Her eyes popped open. Souls?

"Man," said Leo beside her watching the burning wreckage, "What a candle!"

* * *

At the far edge of the airport, past some warehouses and untidy commercial buildings, near an empty SUV with both doors open, Candace Munson knelt on the ground holding her husband's head in her lap. "She's safe, Todd, she's safe! Wake up, honey!" She'd pulled off both their masks when she'd seen him collapse after watching Tess's rescue.

Todd's eyes fluttered, half-open. "They're gone," he whispered.

"No, no," said Candace. "The big mecha saved them! They're okay, Tess and the boy, they're okay."

He tried to sit up and she helped him. "I saw that," he said. "Then I reached for the mind still in the wreckage and something sucked all the others out of me." He looked at her, a small if worried smile playing with his expression. "They're gone, all the ghosts that haunted me are gone."

Urban Renewal - 28 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Z9 lead the way. "The sky is full of stars," he called back to the others.

"That's nuts. It's daylight," said Donk.

"The sky is the world, the stars are souls," said Miss Glamour. She followed Z9 out of the confined space somewhere below Todd Munson's consciousness.

"Our best choice for optimal results is to swim up to the sky and become a star," said Dr. Domino.

"After you, you freakin' poet-pansy," said Donk.

Dr. Domino also left.

"Well, I ain't stayin' here alone, wait up you guys," said Donk and he left, too.

A woman's voice called to them, "Goodbye, goodbye, I tell you three times, God-be-with-you, goodbye."

* * *

Z9 burst out of darkness into a room with maps and charts on the wall and a view out the window that he recognized as Torino, Italia. A handsome middle-aged woman wearing stylish but severe make-up smiled at him. "Zetanove! Alejandro, it's been years. How are you?"

The room looked as it had always looked, though its location had changed from time to time: Bristol, England; Quang-dong, China; Archangel, Russia; Montevideo, Uruguay, Tel Aviv, Israel. The view out the window might change but not the furnishings or the woman.

"I'm dead, I think," said Z9. "And you?"

"Benissimo. Well, your last assignment did not work out so well, did it? I'm sorry."

"No worries, camerata mia. But I hear the Cold War is over."

"Ah, well, yes. But the conflict between good and evil goes on and the world still needs warriors in that gray area between, unflinching humanites like yourself. Are you ready to accept a new assignment?"

"I believe so, though I may be a little rusty with some of my weapons and tactics."

She made a mark on a piece of paper. "Have you ever trained with a pom-pon?"

* * *

Miss Glamour walked until darkness became a corridor and a curtain. She pushed aside the night-colored cloth and found a dressing room. Several girls in different stages of undress busied themselves putting on various costumes.

"Sam!" one of them exclaimed. "Sam Terry, we're on in five minutes and you're dressed like that?"

Someone else threw her a costume and she began to get undressed, musing that it all seemed so strangely familiar, too uniquely mundane, such a common miracle. How odd that her costume appeared to be nudity. Naked as the day she was born, she left the dressing room and entered her new life, stage center.

* * *

Dr. Domino swam upward into the light.

"John," said the light.

"Yes," said John Domingues.

"Have you found out what you wanted to know?"

John thought about it. "Not everything."

The light danced a chuckling dance. "No one knows everything, John. Do you think you know enough?"

"I don't think there can be enough to know to satisfy me," he said.

"And that is the end of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom," said the light. "Come, you are done with learning, now you must teach."

And John Domingues entered into the light.

* * *

The darkness knew his name. "Donk," it said.

"That's me," said Paul Doncaster.

"You have lied, cheated, stolen and killed. What have you done to redeem yourself?" the darkness asked.

"Well, I felt bad about most of that," Donk said.

"That's true and it's worth something, but unshed tears cannot balance blood, deceit, violence and hate."

"Hey! I never hated anyone! Sometimes it was just business and sometimes I was just drunk. But I never hurt no one because of no hate I had on."

"And you never did." The darkness spoke as if it had found a diamond tiara in a sewage tank. "You were kind to the weak, brave when frightened, loyal according to your own codes, generous whether you had much or nothing. Your virtues cancel out your crimes in the eternal scale."

"Huh?"

"You could go either way, Donk." The darkness had become an even gray field under a featureless gray sky. "Into the light or back into the darkness, forever." The voice now came from an enormous silver-black figure standing on the horizon.

Paul would have licked his lips if he'd had any. "I get to choose?"

"No. You are here, in limbo, until someone comes to claim you. The deeds you have done in life will work out to their ends, and one day tip the balance."

"Oh, shit." He couldn't imagine anything he'd started in life having a good ending. "What can I do now?"

"I can spin the wheel for you," offered the Lord of Limbo.

"You do that," said Paul. "Can I double my bet?"

"You wish to learn more virtue through more opportunity to sin?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Very well, double or nothing, Paul-Doncaster-who-was."

The wheel spun, sucking Donk into a new life.

Urban Renewal - 29 - Epilog   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
The scene at the airport bustled with Centurion's duplicates, Blue Star Troops in armor, and various local, state and national authorities. Sky Bolt wanted to take LeJeune in as material witness in an overcrime case while the FBI and DEA held that they had prior jurisdiction in the venue of corruption, money laundering, kidnapping and drug smuggling.

"What drug?" said Sky Bolt. The fin on his tall blue helmet had seldom looked more shark-like as he grinned toothily down at the other federal agents.

"We haven't made that determination yet," said the DEA man.

"Oh bullshit, you know it was jooce, which makes it overcrime since metahuman blood is the only known source for hypradine."

* * *

The argument continued while The Last Centurion called a meeting of his partners. Nate as Skytower, coordinated the telepresence of absent members while Len made a few proposals.

"You know I've never liked having the group named after me, I'm proposing that we change our official designation to The Urban Commandos or maybe just The Commandos, in honor of Hank," he said.

Daedalos pointed out that "commando" is a collective noun, like battalion, and doesn't really need to be plural but the resolution passed unanimously anyway.

"Next item," said Len, "new members. Kendra has nominated Todd Munson for probationary status and Leonard Paine as associate member. Also, Tess Munson is to be re-enlisted as a reserve member. Any discussion?"

"Codenames?" asked Daedalos, who liked to keep all the records straight.

"Paine is using Catclaw, Munson probably won't want to use Death Masque if the feds let him switch sides and I'm not sure about Tessie," Len admitted.

"I've got an idea for Tessie," said Billy.

* * *

Don Turpen, Senior Star Trooper present, opened his faceplate to get a better look at the information panel the FBI forensic technician held up. "So Spartako isn't dead?" They both glanced at the still steaming hulk of the shattered jetcopter buried in the vineyard.

"Well he's not exactly alive either," Agent June McAtkins said. A lot of FBI agents hated the official federal superteam members but McAtkins thought Turpen more than a little cute -- and she'd seen him out of armor plenty of times.

Don waggled his Groucho-like moustache at her. "An undead cyborg monster assassin? Comets and catfish, but I hate it when one of those shows up."

FBI agents seldom giggle, McAtkins reminded herself.

* * *

Billy's residual blazing forcefield on the top of his head lit the darkened room with an eerie blue glow. Keeping a bit of his flame going made it easier to expand it during an emergency and looking like his hair was on fire had a certain coolness he liked. It beat carrying a Bic lighter in his pocket.

He sat on the edge of the kid-sized deskchair and looked at the sleeping little girl. Exhausted by her adventures, Tessie slept deeply, cuddling her ragged-and-stained dolly in her arms, two fingers of her right hand resting on her lower lip.

He sat quietly for some time just watching her; unusual behavior for the Man in Motion.

He thought about Hank Herbert, whom he'd known for years and whose spirit now inhabited the tiny sleeping warrior in front of him. He thought about Johnny Bellows, the brother he hadn't seen in six years who would now be ten years old -- and still a captive of Dr. Meridien. For Johnny's sake, he hadn't told anyone of the Man Who Would Not See the Sun Again and his strange penchant for kidnapping the children of metahumans--but that would change now.

Besides warning of Spartako's assasination and kidnap attempt, Johnny's brief call from the Dubai airport had included the news that he'd worked out his own escape plan. Win or lose, the boy would soon be free of Dr. Meridien leaving big brother Gilbert, alias Billy Blueblazes, free to pursue the man who would not see the sun.

"Maybe you can meet my brother someday, punkin," Billy whispered. "Good night, Jinx." He kissed a fingertip and placed it gently on the sleeping girl's forehead before leaving the room.