Ex-Heroes, Peter Clines [reading like a writer txt] 📗

people in the Mount thought it was a status thing. St. George knew it was because it was central, had the best sight lines, and was already wired for mass communication. She wasn’t the type who cared about status.

He rapped on a polished door and walked in. There was a large table people once sat at and discussed syndicated television shows and DVD box sets. Now all the chairs were gone and it was covered with maps and reports from across the lot. She’d moved over two dozen screens into the room, showing every street and every entrance into the Mount. She kept the curtains pulled, and the lights were dim if they were ever on.

Somewhere up here, past the low-profile door at the far end of the room, was a small suite where she lived. Or at least, where she slept, ate, and showered. The office of some high-end producer who just wanted his own full, private bathroom and a place to take a nap. St. George had never seen it, and only knew it was there because she’d let it slip once seven months ago. He knew it pissed her off to think she’d admitted to any sort of need or weakness.

“You smell horrible.”

Stealth stood in the shadow of the open door behind him. As always, she wore her full uniform, even the mask. Her face was a tight, black surface of vague features, hidden even further by the shapeless charcoal hood shrouding her head. As far as St. George knew, no one had ever seen her face.

“You told Gorgon you wanted to see me first thing,” he said. “So I’m here wearing four or five liquefied exes.”

“You could have showered.”

“That’s not how they heard it.”

She stood an inch or two shorter than him, but her cloak and hood made it hard to be sure how much. They wrapped her like a flimsy toga, barely disguising her figure. Her charcoal and gray uniform could’ve been body paint. “Would you prefer to clean up and speak later?”

“Are you actually offering me a choice?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “No,” she said, “but I know you like to feel you have one.”

He smirked. “What happened with the Seventeens?”

“You first, please. Mark Larsen. How was he attacked?”

“Just bad luck. An ex stuck in a shower. They didn’t see it or hear it until it was on top of a rookie.”

“Lynne Vines?”

“Yeah. Mark tried to pull it off her. It broke its own neck to bite him.”

“Nothing they could have done differently?”

“Not as I understand it.”

“Is he going to live?”

St. George looked at his boots. “I wouldn’t put money on it, but anything’s possible.”

She nodded. “Now, the trap.”

“Not much to tell. They knew we’d be heading back that way. They dropped a jammer and a spiked chain across the road.” He described every detail he could remember about the road, the time, even the chain itself. She prodded him now and then. He talked about waiting for the ride and killing the exes.

“So you were protecting yourselves for twenty-five minutes and then your team fired several bursts on full auto to save you.”

“I didn’t need saving.”

“They thought you did and acted accordingly, that is what matters. How much ammunition?”

“All together?” He ran some numbers through his head. “Three-fifty, maybe four hundred rounds.”

“The truck?”

“It’s a landmark right now. Needs all-new tires, possibly new wheels. If we can get a crew there in the morning before the Seventeens strip it, it should be salvageable.”

Beneath the mask her face shifted. She pushed back the hood a few inches and pressed slim fingers against her temples, turning her eyes up to the ceiling and pushing her chest out ever so slightly. After a year and a half, St. George could talk to her without his eyes straying when she struck a pose. When they strayed now, it was a deliberate choice.

“Tell me it was worth it.”

He leaned against the table. “We got around four hundred pounds of food. A third of that’s a big bin of wheat flour. Some basic medicine and first-aid stuff. Lee and Andy found a shotgun with about thirty shells and a bunch of 30.08.” His fingers did a quick drum roll on the table. “We only had two-thirds of our usual time.”

“I understand.”

“So what happened here?”

“They attempted to rush the gate. I counted twenty-three of them.”

“Gorgon said fifty.”

“Gorgon enjoys a degree of exaggeration where his own exploits are concerned.”

St. George almost made the laugh sound like a cough. “What gave it away? That we were a decoy?”

“Your situation made no tactical sense,” she said. She tapped her maps, running a finger down the same stretch of Vermont he’d been on earlier. “If they knew what was or was not in your truck, they either would have attacked when you were farther away from the Mount or not at all. If they did not know, it was foolish to set a trap at all since they know you go out with almost every mission, often with another hero. Since theft was not the motive, the next would have been just what they accomplished—leaving you, Cerberus, and Zzzap stranded.”

“Getting us out of the way for an attack,” he mused. “You are amazing, my dear Holmes.”

Stealth pointed to a section of the map south of Century City, making a slow circle with her finger where she had marked several streets and blocks with green ink. “They are becoming more aggressive and frequent in their attacks. We may need to take offensive measures.”

“You mean, go after them?”

“I mean locating and eliminating them.”

He furrowed his brow. “In what sense?”

“In the sense of eliminating them.”

“We’re not killers,” he said. “We sure as hell can’t be saving mankind if we go out and murder a couple hundred of them.”

“By my estimates the Seventeens have grown well into the thousands,” she said. “And unlike our group, they are mostly fighters.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It will.”

He slammed his hand down on the map and felt the table crack. “We aren’t