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

Ty told me he got Sulu and Chekov from Star Trek and that seemed pretty big. The real ones, not the ones from that remake.”

Across from them, Billie put her pike between the legs of a one-armed ex and levered them apart. The dead thing staggered, spun, and fell on its side. She drove the weapon down through its ear and the steel point clunked against the pavement.

“I got a bunch,” continued Jarvis, “but no one really huge. Megan Fox. Chris Rock. Veronica Mars. Scott Bakula. The little blonde from Smallville. On the same day I got the bad guy from Heroes and the fat guy from Seinfeld. Oh, and that morning newswoman on Channel 11 who always shows too much cleavage. I’m pretty sure I saw Lindsay Lohan once, but we were driving and couldn’t stop to get her.”

“Too bad,” said Cerberus. She toggled lenses and peered along New Hampshire Avenue past Ty. Almost six blocks up the street, an ex with dark hair and white clothes stumbled toward them.

“You got any big names?”

“I don’t think so,” she said without looking at him. “I never kept track of actors.”

“How’d you live in LA and not keep track of actors?”

“I didn’t live in LA. I lived in Virginia.”

“So how do you visit LA and not look for celebrities? That’s all anyone does.”

She turned her head to the east and the armor focused its sensors down Melrose. “Most of the time I don’t know if no one tells me. They’re just exes.”

Ty spun and cracked an ex in the head with his spear, then reversed his spin to sweep its legs while it staggered. He made a show of twirling the pike and driving it through the ex’s mouth. A few teeth spun free when he yanked the weapon out.

“So, do you know anyone you got?”

Cerberus sighed. It was a raspy noise over her speakers. “A few television people,” she said. “I don’t remember any of their names. The lead actor from House. Apparently he was impressive. So was the woman from the assassins movie.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know. The one with the husband and wife. They’re both assassins but they don’t know it. The Smiths?”

“Mr. & Mrs. Smi—holy fuck! You got Angelina Jolie?!”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“No way!” He kicked the side of the truck. “No fucking way!”

“Hey!” Luke glared at him.

He threw a finger to the driver and glared up at the battlesuit. “How the fuck did you get Angelina Jolie?”

“I broke her neck. It was pretty straightforward.”

“I got to get out of the Mount more,” muttered Jarvis. “All y’all’s got better celebrities than me.”

Gorgon marched across the lot to the holding cells by the Lansing Theater. In earlier years the little rooms had held reels of archive film. Now the solid doors kept things in instead of out.

The hero was a few yards away when he saw the puddles. Notches had been cut out of the bottom of each door, just high enough to let in air, some light, or a tray of food. Now something like cheap wine was spilling out from two of the slots.

He yanked open the nearest cell. The Seventeen had slit her wrists. Classic side-to-side, none of that new-age, up-and-down-the-arm nonsense. The left gash was clean and deep, the right a bit ragged. The floor was wet and red, and the red seeped up into her shirt. A single-edged razor blade rested in her hand, the type grocery clerks used in box-cutters. The type that was supposedly hard to get after 9-11, because they were so easy to hide.

Gorgon slammed the door and opened the next cell. The kid, a teenager, had started to cut his throat and chickened out. The razor was on his cot and his hands were pressed tight over the slash in his neck. “I need a doctor,” he said as he squinted against the sunlight. “Please, I’m hurt bad.” The blood on his hands was thinned with tears.

“You’re not dead,” snapped the hero. “You’ll be fine for another half hour.” He reached forward and grabbed the blade.

“No, please! Please, I need a doctor. I think I’m gonna die!”

Gorgon locked the cell and moved to the next. The third had done both wrists, too, but he was still standing. No, Gorgon thought. Not still standing. He’s already back on his feet. Doc Connolly’s right about people carrying the virus.

The ex turned at the waist in a smooth arc, its feet shuffling to follow. Its limbs were still fresh and flexible. It stared at him with gray eyes and pulled its lips back from its teeth. One of the front incisors had a pentagram engraved on it.

Thirty seconds passed before Gorgon leaped from the cell and slammed the door. He double-checked to make sure the ex was locked in while keying his walkie. “Stealth, I know you’re always listening in,” he announced. “I need you down at the cells. Now.”

“Cerberus,” called Luke. “Another lift?”

She thudded over and gripped the lower edge of Big Red. Luke gave the steel fingers a few nudges and shot her a thumbs-up. The battlesuit’s exoskeleton hummed and lifted the passenger side of the truck a foot into the air. Two of the mechanics slid the heavy stands across the pavement, tapping them with mallets. Luke talked her down and Big Red settled back onto the steel jacks. “Thanks,” he said as the mechanics attacked the dually tires.

“Not a problem.”

“We should be ready to go in about half an hour.”

Cerberus nodded and looked over the truck. The ex in white was just over a block away, close enough to see without magnification. It was an Asian girl sporting a long braid and a bloodstained karate uniform with rainbow trim. “Ty,” Cerberus called, “heads up.”

“I see her,” he said. He saluted the titan, turned back to the street, and the ex was in front of him.

It lunged and he just got the pike up in time.

Andy dove in with the blunt end of his own spear,