Author: Douglas A. Taylor
Category: Suspense
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Shelley was in and out all that day and the next; she rejoined us full-time a couple of days after the funeral, and I think everyone was glad to have her back. I know I was. Being a Prime can be a chaotic business even in the best of times, and losing Prime Commander's steadying influence had been a major blow. I didn't see how we go for long without Shelley as well.
We didn't see much of her even when she did come back, though. She spent a good deal of time in her father's old office; I assume she was doing a lot of the work that Commander Windham used to do. I know she began running all our debriefings, and she spent a few long afternoons closeted in the office with Mike, doing who knew what.
One afternoon about a week after she came back, the monster alarm started ringing. "Lily's back, kids," Wizzit called out, "and she's taking New York by storm. She has a . . . let's see . . . some sort of ape monster with her, and loads of Zoinks. Better bring plenty big weapons, and that means you, Indigo!"
I was in my room at the time, so I quickly put on my battle vest and ran to the weapons room to give Padma a hand gathering up our gear. I grabbed Shelley's sword, Mike's club, and my Escrima stick, while Padma picked up her and Nicolai's axes and Toby's hammer. Trina, of course, would have her triple blaster with her already.
Wizzit teleported us into a deserted alleyway near the commotion. He always does that; it tends to cause less of a problem than if we suddenly appear in the middle of a monster attack. We ran out onto the main thoroughfare, which appeared to be somewhere in the theater district. Now, at HQ Wizzit keeps us on Greenwich Mean Time, so afternoon for us equals morning in New York, and the streets were full of both cars and pedestrians.
Lily had positioned herself in the middle of the intersection of West Forty-Second Street and Seventh Avenue, to judge by the street signs. True to form, she had sent her Zoinks out to harass the local population, which meant that we needed to join in the battle pronto.
What are Zoinks, I hear you ask? Mindless, vaguely human-shaped critters. I'm not sure they're even alive in any meaningful sense of the term. Enclave calls them drones, and they send them out with their monsters to attack civilians, get in our way, and generally make it more difficult for us Primes to do our jobs. Lily was getting to be more of an expert in commanding them every time she went out.
"I'll find the main monster," Shelley said grimly. "Green, come with me. Everyone else, get those Zoinks under control! And take out Lily if you get a chance."
"Check the Empire State Building, Red," Mike quipped. "It's be just like Enclave to send a King Kong lookalike." Shelley barked a short laugh.
I looked down the street at Lily. A little over six years ago, she had been a beautiful, sweet-natured, fifteen-year-old girl from eastern China named Li Lin-fa. Then she had been kidnapped by Enclave and turned into something sinister, something her handler JB Swift called "the attack doll", with more personalities than I had thumbs.
She was definitely in what I had learned to call "commander mode", scanning the crowds and ordering her Zoinks to go wherever they could do the most damage. Regardless of whatever this ape monster turned out to be, Lily was going to be a major thorn in our side. I decided that I was going to make my own chance to take her out.
She looked surprised when she saw me running straight for her. I don't think any of us had actually gone after her directly before. One of Wizzit's strictest rules is that we can't attack anyone from Enclave, not until they have proved they're dangerous, and by the time Lily physically attacked anyone, she usually wasn't in commander mode any more. After she killed Prime Commander, though, Wizzit had put her on a permanent takedown list. She had proven herself hostile and was fair game at any time.
Lily ducked behind the nearest Zoink as I rushed her. That slowed me down only a little; a single Zoink is no match for a fully-powered Prime. It did buy her enough time, though, to find a double-handful of Zoinks to act as her bodyguards. She fled with them through the crowds, eventually finding her way beneath the glittering marquee of a super-sized fast food place.
The flow of pedestrians up and down the street and in and out of the food place hindered her then as much as it did me. The difference, of course, was that she didn't care about the pedestrians and had no compunctions about having her Zoinks attack anyone nearby.
Being the nearest good guy, I did my best to see that no one got hurt. The most effective technique, I soon discovered, was to grab a Zoink, pound it a few times to take the starch out of it, and heave it out into the middle of the street, away from the crowds. I'm afraid I put a few dents into a few cars that way, but to my way of thinking, it's better to have dents in cars than in people.
After a few minutes and a lot of heaving, I had Lily isolated, the two of us in the center of a ring of onlookers. These New Yorkers seemed to have no fear of anything, didn't have the sense to run away from an Enclave battle. They seemed to be treating all this as some sort of street theater.
There wasn't anything I could do about it, though; I decided to concentrate on Lily. She was defiant, her fists balled in front of her as if she were ready to fight, but she also looked very young and very scared, the same way she had when Shelley and I first encountered her.
"I don't want to hurt you, Lily," I said, my voice low and steady, "but I can't let you hurt anyone else, either." On an impulse, I switched to Cantonese. As far as I knew, Lily didn't speak Cantonese; it was the language spoken by Li Lin-fa, whose personality Enclave had almost completely submerged. "I want to help you," I said. "I want to be your friend."
She looked as though I had just slapped her. She blinked and shook herself, and her hands slowly dropped to her sides. Before I could grab her wrists and slip a pair of my disposable handcuffs on her, though, I saw something I had hoped not to see. Lily's face suddenly lost all expression.
I said a very bad word, although in deference to my audience of onlookers, I said it in Korean. (Oddly enough, an Asian-looking man standing somewhere behind Lily looked startled for a moment, and then he grinned lopsidedly at me and gave me a thumbs-up. Go figure.) Somewhere, I knew, JB Swift had just pointed his remote-control at Lily and pressed a button. As a result, she had shifted from commander mode to attacker mode. Or, to use my own pet term, she had just turned into Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick.
I started to back away. "It's time to scatter, folks," I said to the crowd at large, my voice tense, "because she's about to get violent." I barely had time to get the words out before Lily threw herself at me.
I'll say this for the Zombie Chick, she never attacks civilians. Only Primes -- or Prime Commanders, I guess. She was on me almost before I was ready for her. I staggered backward under her assault and bumped into a car. Grabbing Lily, I heaved her up, and the two of us rolled onto the hood with me on top. (Yay!)
I aimed a punch straight to her jaw, but she managed to block it and then came back for an eye gouge. My force shield prevented her from blinding me, but it was a near thing. She had a lot of strength for someone who couldn't have weighed much over a hundred pounds. I brought my forearm down across her throat and leaned on it, not hard enough to kill her, but with enough pressure to cut off her air supply.
Lily struggled like a wildcat, thrashing about so hard that she knocked me off her. I tumbled off the front of the car and quickly righted myself, waiting for her next attack. It was not long in coming. Lily kipped up to her feet and did that "look right, look left, look up" thing that I've seen her do before to orient herself. Then she dove straight at me, her face still carrying that same lack of expression, her hands extended like claws.
I have fought CKFZC a time or two, and I have watched vids of her taking on the other Primes, primarily Shelly, and I have noticed that she tends to attack head-first like that. It's a strange technique for a trained fighter to use -- a little unsettling if you've never seen it before -- but if you know what you're doing, it's not that hard to defend against. I all
owed myself to fall back onto my side. Lily sailed over top of me, and I aimed a sidekick straight upward, directly into her midriff.
She folded up with an "oof!", but managed to hit the ground rolling. By the time I got vertical again, she was facing me in a sort of crouching version of the standard riding-horse stance with her rear arm held tight against her stomach. That was when the real fight began.
Now, I'm a fourth Dan -- a fourth-degree black belt -- in Tae Kwon Do. I have studied martial arts for years and years, and I have been in literally hundreds of fights, everything from friendly sparring matches to real knock-down, drag-outs against Zoinks and Enclave monsters. I have gone up against other TKD-ers, kung fu experts, karate guys, someone who knew enough savate to be plenty dangerous (yes, Tobias Sykes, I'm looking at you here), and one really cute girl who was into judo, and let me tell you, Lily's style was unique. I don't know how or where she learned her stuff, but I have seen nothing like it before or since, and it was effective as hell.
The two of us fought up and down Forty-Second Street. She was all offense -- a real blur of kicks and hand attacks -- and I spent a lot of my time blocking and circling around her, biding my time. I figured she wouldn't be able to keep it up for long; I mean, even the most highly-conditioned runner can't sprint forever, right? Which was pretty much what she was doing.
Unfortunately for me, we ran into a gaggle of Zoinks before Lily began to slow down. She did not, as one might expect, order them to attack me. As far as I know, Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick cannot speak. She simply kept laying into me, while I had to dodge not only her attacks, but those of the swarming Zoinks as well.
I managed to get a Zoink between us, turning it around so that it faced her, and that seemed to confuse her for a time. She tried kicking around it, high roundhouse kicks aimed at the side of my head, but those were easy to avoid. I shoved it forward into her arms, then turned my attention to the other Zoinks surrounding me.
It was then that I heard the most gosh-awful roar I had ever heard in my life. In spite of myself, I turned to see where it was coming from. Down the street a ways, standing on top of a taxi, was what had to be the ape-monster. It was small for an Enclave beastie, probably only seven feet tall, but man, did that thing look scary! It had the appearance of a classic Hollywood killer ape -- super-long canines, beady little red eyes, muscles bulging everywhere. As I watched, it rose to its full height and began beating its chest, giving voice to that awful, full-throated roar again. The hairs on the back on my neck began to stand up.
I saw a red figure leap onto the hood of the cab, ready to do battle. Shelley was on the job; that lady has absolutely no fear. I didn't get to see her actually close with the monster, though. I was suddenly distracted by the application of Lily's foot to the back of my skull. In spite of my force shield, she had been able to roundhouse-kick me hard enough that I saw stars. Ain't too many unaltered, unshielded humans in the world that can do that, let me tell you.
I stumbled forward dizzily into the waiting arms of a Zoink. It snaked its arms around my neck in a headlock. And, you know, that was just fine with me, because I wasn't too worried about the Zoink. What worried me was what Lily would do next. I pushed my way forward, allowing the Zoink to haul me around in a half-circle. I felt a jolt, and then the Zoink's grip loosened. Uh huh, Lily had dived forward after me, just like I thought she would, and she had hit the Zoink instead.
I bent down, grabbed the Zoink around the legs, and picked it up so that it was hanging over my shoulder in sort of a fireman's carry. Right away it started clawing at my back, so I quick slammed it back down again as hard as I could. Lily's mis-timed leap had left her sprawled on the ground at my feet, and the Zoink struck her smack across the back.
Despite her Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick-ness, Lily was only human. The impact of a hundred fifty pound-plus Zoink driven down with all my Prime-enhanced strength would knock the wind out of anyone. Before she could recover, I whipped out a pair of my disposable handcuffs and grabbed her wrists. She started struggling, but I was having none of it. I cuffed her across one side of the head with an open palm, then backhanded her across the other side. By the time she recovered from that bit of abuse, I had bound her wrists securely behind her back.
It still didn't stop her from trying to get away. She kicked, she bit, she tore at the cuffs until her wrists were bleeding. I drove a hard elbow into the back of her head, bouncing her face against the asphalt. That didn't take all the fight out of her, so I did it again. Then, while she was still stunned, I snaked my arm around her neck and began pulling back hard against her windpipe. Her struggles grew fainter and eventually stopped altogether.
I cautiously slackened my pressure on her throat. Lily had gone completely limp. I rolled her over so that she was lying on her back with her head lolling to one side. Her eyes were closed, and her lower lip was bleeding from where one of my blows had split it. Parts of her face were starting to bruise, and her forehead looked a mess from where it had struck the surface of the street. I guess I had beaten her up pretty badly. For a moment I was afraid I had killed her. I hastily felt at her throat; her pulse was strong and steady. She might have been playing possum, but after the pounding I had just given her, I sincerely doubted it.
I looked down at her bruised, battered face, uncertain of what to do next. There was a time, shortly after Prime Commander's death, when I would have happily cut off her air supply until that black, black heart of hers stopped beating forever. Not very gentlemanly, I know, but after she killed one of the wisest, kindest, most trustworthy men I ever knew, I didn't feel much like a gentleman.
But Lily's heart wasn't really black; I knew that. It was all those damned things that Enclave had done to her -- that JB Swift had done to her -- that made her an emotionless killing machine. The real woman beneath it all, the woman whose hand I had once held, whom I had once gathered in my arms and kissed so tenderly, the woman I knew as Li Lin-fa, was as warm and sweet as Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick was cold and heartless.
Well, whatever I decided to do, it would have to be done soon; Lily would not stay unconscious for long. I thought of Li Lin-fa. What would she want me to do? After I had told her of her alternate Lily Lee personality, she had asked me whether Lily had ever killed anyone. I said no, she hadn't, and then Li Lin-fa had asked me to strangle her, right then and there. She told me she would rather die than be responsible for Lily causing anyone's death. I had refused to kill her then. Now, I decided, I would not.
Looking around, I saw that most of my fellow Primes were busy beating up Zoinks. Trina and Shelley were battling the ape-monster. Trina was shooting her triple-blaster left-handed for some reason, cradling her right arm against her chest. I winced as I saw Shelley take a blow that knocked her halfway across the street. There were sirens in the distance, but at the moment, no one was paying any attention to me. Almost tenderly, I placed my forearm across Lily's throat and began to press down.
Pain exploded in my head as some hard object struck it with incredible force. My force shield kept me from blacking out, but I slumped down on top of Lily. I felt thick, clumsy hands grabbing at me, pulling me off of her. Zoink hands. They hauled me upright and held me fast as I struggled futilely against them.
I looked up to see a two-foot, skeletally-thin scarlet hedgehog standing beside Lily. JB Swift, Lily's handler. In one paw he held a metal pipe, undoubtedly the thing that he had used to bash my head. "You were going to kill my attack doll," he snarled accusingly. "And in cold blood." He glared at me with cold fury in his eyes. "I should have you destroyed for that."
The world was spinning around me, but I managed to lock my eyes on his. "She killed Red's father, damn you," I told him through clenched teeth. "Broke his neck just to get her hands on his cellphone so she could escape, and the only thing he had ever done to her was to give her a bowl of food. Your attack doll deserves to die,
you little red bastard!"
The fury in his eyes might have abated just a bit, and he might have looked a little taken aback by my accusation. Or maybe it was just my imagination; I don't always think too clearly after having been blasted in the head by an iron pipe. I do know that he took Lily's limp hand in his two little paws and murmured quietly, "I've got her. Take us out of here." The Zoinks holding me threw me to the ground, and within seconds, JB Swift, Lily, and every single Zoink in the area had teleported out.
"Red," I heard Mike's voice crack out, "the Zoinks have all gone. We're ready to help you with Kong over there!"
It was Trina who replied. "Better get here soonest, Orange." She sounded distressed. "He is giving us problems. He has Red, and I can't get clear shot at him."
I shook my head, which helped to clear away the dizziness. Shelley and Kong were battling it out just down the street from me, in the middle of the intersection of Seventh and Forty-Second. Kong had Shelley wrapped in a bearhug and was lifting her high; Shelley was beating her sword two-handed against his back, over and over. Sparks were flying everywhere, but he wasn't releasing his grip on her.
"Go for his eyes, Red," I heard Mike advise her.
Shelley's voice was faint. "Roger that, Orange." As I watched, she shifted to a one-handed grip and jammed a thumb into one of Kong's beady little eyes. The effect was immediate. Kong dropped Shelley and let out that horrible roar of his. As she fell to the ground, I saw Toby run forward, scoop her up in his arms, and run back behind the line of the other Primes.
"We'd like to request the pleasure of your company, Indigo," I heard Mike say. He ran forward to intercept Kong, who had started shambling in the direction Toby had gone. "Whenever you'd like to join us." He swung his club two-handed at Kong's chest. Sparks flew.
"On my way." I jogged toward the rest of my group. Movement helped; I could feel my adrenaline rising, clearing away the rest of the pounding in my head. "Sorry, Lily was giving me a hard time."
"Did you capture her?"
"No. JB Swift blasted me in the head with a pipe and teleported out with her and the Zoinks."
"Oh, so you're the one who got rid of them? Good work, but don't rest on your laurels. Looks like we've got plenty more work to do."
"Understood."
"Red has taken quite a beating," Toby announced from where he was kneeling beside Shelley. He's the one of us with the most medical training. "Broken ribs, possibly a concussion, I can't tell what all else. Wizzit, prepare to teleport Red back to HQ for a healing coma."
"No. Countermand that, Wizzit." Shelley sounded stronger than she had. "This monster is plenty tough. We're going to need all of us to take him down."
"You sure, Red?" Toby sounded doubtful.
I saw Shelley use her sword to push herself painfully to her feet. "Yeah. I'm sure. Let's go."
Nicolai and Padma were attacking Kong now with that you-go-high, I'll-go-low maneuver that they've been working on. They're starting to get pretty good at it, I have to admit. I drew my blaster, waited until they were clear, and snapped off a shot at it. My aim has definitely been improving since I took Trina's advice and began taking a hundred shots a day on our practice range.
Trina evidently had the same idea. Her triple-blaster shot struck the monster at pretty much the same time as the one from my regular blaster. Obviously, hers did more damage, but I like to think that every little bit helps.
Toby and Shelley went next. Toby's hammer smacked the thing square across his flat nose, causing him to roar once more, while Shelley's backhanded swing struck him behind the knees, knocking him flat on his back. The two of them decided to stick around for another shot. Shelley hacked at his legs; Toby raised his hammer high and swung it down hard onto his belly, looking for all the world as though he was trying to ring the bell at the county fair.
One of Kong's apishly-long arms swung out and swept Shelley's feet out from under her. I heard her involuntary cry of pain as she landed on her back, undoubtedly further punishing her broken ribs. Normally, she would kip up to her feet and continue fighting; this time, though, she simply rolled away.
I have to say, Kong was pretty fast and agile for an Enclave monster. He was up and attacking Shelley as she was struggling to her feet. Toby ran up and started pounding either side of the monster's head with his hammer, but Kong refused to let loose of her.
I saw Shelley reach down for her blaster. She fired a shot directly into his open mouth, which was maybe six inches away from her face, then followed that up with a blaster shot into each eye and one up his nose. Kong howled and swung his fists, bashing Shelley on either side of the head. She collapsed in a heap. Kong turned away, pawing wildly at his face, while Toby kept up his own barrage of hammer blows.
I had reached the scene now, and I decided to try a little trick that had worked well once before. Pulling my Escrima stick from my belt, I ran up to Kong's back and leaped up high. Planting my knees firmly against his massive, sloping shoulders, I drew my stick over his head and, with a convulsive jerk, I forced it into his open mouth like a bridle.
Have you ever had someone bet you that you can't fit a billiard ball in your mouth? If anyone ever does, don't take it. It's a sucker's bet. Toby explained it to me once. See, the problem is not so much getting the ball into your mouth; it's getting it back out again. Can't be done, not unless you get some special equipment that can saw the ball into pieces without damaging your tongue or teeth.
Kong was now having much the same problem. My Escrima stick was a little under an inch in diameter, which was slender enough that I could fit it in between his massive canines, but thick enough that he was going to have trouble getting it out again. And because my stick contained our anti-monster tech, it was causing mucho sparking, burning his lips and tongue.
The good news was that he immediately stopped attacking Shelley and went for me instead. The bad news was that he immediately stopped attacking Shelley and went for me instead. The last monster I had done this to had not been terribly mobile. He would probably have had a hard time reaching up to scratch his nose. Kong, though, had these super-long ape arms and had no trouble reaching back to swat at me.
I held on as best I could, leaning way back and pulling back on the stick with all my weight. Nicolai and Pamda had joined Toby now, and the three of them were whaling away on the monster just as hard as they could while he flailed away, buffeting me with those big hands of his.
"Coming up behind you, Indigo," I heard Orange say. "Watch out for me."
"Will do, Orange," I gasped. "How are we doing, Wizzit?"
"He is weakening," Wizzit replied. "Hang on there, li'l buckaroo!"
"Coming to join you," I heard Shelley say.
"Yellow and Violet, open up a little more in front," Trina said. "I can't get clear shot."
I dug my knees against Kong's back and held on for dear life. I ducked my head, trying to avoid the worst of Kong's slaps. Then I heard a sharp crack! and suddenly I was tumbling to the ground. "Wha-what just happened?" I cried.
Mike danced around, neatly avoiding me. It's nice to have friends with fast reflexes. "Damn!" he exclaimed. "I think Kong just bit through your stick, Indigo!"
He was right. In my hands, I held the two pieces of my Escrima stick, the ends now sparking uselessly. Suddenly I heard Trina scream, "Look out, Indigo!"
I looked up. Kong had swung around and now stood looming over me with murder in his little red eyes. I quick double-kicked him in the belly, pushing myself out of his reach just as his hands were reaching down to grab me. "Got a broken weapon here, Wizzit!" I called out. "I'm going to discard it. Switching to my sap gloves instead."
"Got it, Indigo," he replied. I tossed the broken pieces of the Escrima stick aside, and a moment later I heard two minor explosions as Wizzit destroyed them. Can't leave any of our tech lying around for non-Primes to pic
k up.
I reached into a pocket of my battle vest and dug out my sap gloves. They were mostly regular fighting gloves, with protective steel shot sewn into pouches across all the striking surfaces. The difference was that Padma had embedded our tech into the fabric so that they were nearly as effective against Enclave monsters as our regular weapons.
"Uh, you might want to move it, Indigo," Mike told me. I looked up from donning my gloves to see Kong bearing down on me. Mike bashed him across the face with his club while I scooted backwards on my butt. When I was a safe distance away, I rolled to my feet, hands up ready to start punching.
"Hold your fire, Green," Shelley commanded. "I'm going to take Indigo's spot."
"Red, don't!" Mike warned her. "You're injured."
Shelley barked a short, painful laugh. "That makes me the best one for the job, Orange. Right now, hanging on is about all I'm good for."
I saw her jump astride Kong and slip the blade of her sword into its mouth. His reaction was immediate and violent; he spun around, trying to see who was tormenting him this time, and then he began swatting at Shelley just as he had been swatting at me earlier.
"Everyone close in!" Wizzit suddenly told us. "Red, hang on for another minute or two, and then you should have him!"
Everyone rushed Kong then. Even Trina ran forward and jammed the muzzle of her triple-blaster against Kong's hairy hide, firing continuously. True to his word, Wizzit tuned our weapons as we fought, and sixty seconds later, Kong vaporized in a shower of sparks.
I caught Shelley as she staggered backward from the monster's explosion and eased her down to the ground. Everyone else clustered around us. I was fervently hoping that there were no news reporters around. If there were, then Shelley, as our spokesman, would feel it her duty to go out and give them at least a brief interview. Of course she would be her usual patient, quietly charming self, but she seemed in pretty bad shape right now and needed a healing coma as soon as possible. This had been the worst attack we had faced in quite a while.
Just as I was thinking this, I heard an amplified voice boom out, "You! In the center! Stand up and put your hands on your heads!"
I looked around and saw that we were surrounded by what appeared to be SWAT troops. "Dammit!" Mike exclaimed. "Why now?"
"Help me up," Shelley said quietly. Nicolai and I put our arms around her back and raised her to her feet. We looked around. There were probably fifty police officers in full riot gear surrounding the area we had been battling in, trying to push the crowds back. Lights were flashing everywhere; I could see a couple of black SWAT vans, each with a handful of snipers on top pointing rifles at us. A police helicopter hovered overhead, whipping dust into our faces.
A tall man wearing a long, black coat, black gloves, and dark sunglasses stood holding a bullhorn. He brought it up to his mouth. "Repeat, put your hands on your heads. Drop your weapons. You are being detained for interrogation by federal authorities."
Shelley took another slow look around and sighed, a world of weariness in the sound. "All right, Orange, this is we've been talking about." She carefully handed Mike her broadsword and blaster. "It's time to implement Protocol Black."
"Red, no," Mike protested as she shrugged out of her battle vest and gave that to Nicolai. "Look, we can talk our way out of this. We can --"
"We've already discussed this, Orange. Protocol Black. That's an order."
"What is Protocol Black?" Trina said. "I have never heard of it."
Orange shook his head. "All right, Red. I hate to do this, but I suppose it's your call." He laid a hand on her shoulder. "We'll wait for your signal."
"What is Protocol Black?" Trina demanded as Shelley began walking slowly and painfully toward the man with the bullhorn.
"Listen up," Mike said tensely. "Red is going to buy us some time to get away. As soon as Red begins talking, it's camouflage mode and scatter. Prepare for teleportation right away."
"What, are we just going to leave Red here?" Toby demanded.
"Not exactly," Mike said. "Wizzit, do you have locations pre-selected?"
"Got 'em," Wizzit replied.
"Good. Wherever Wizzit puts you, stay there. Don't move and don't make a sound. Your job is just to observe. Got it?"
"But what about --?"
"I don't know!" Mike snapped. "This is something that Red and Wizzit cooked up. I don't know what's going to happen with Red. They didn't tell me a whole lot about it."
There was silence for a moment. Most of the snipers, I noticed, appeared to have their rifles trained on Shelley. Only one or two were aiming in our direction. "All right," Trina finally said, reluctance obvious in her voice. The rest of us quickly agreed.
Shelley was now standing perhaps ten feet in front of the man with the bullhorn, her arms raised in the classic surrender position. She stopped, slowly looking left and then right. From somewhere in the crowd of spectators, someone started clapping. It spread quickly; in seconds, everyone was applauding, whistling, cheering, all for Shelley. I heard shouts of "All right, Red!", "You rock, Eric!", and "Eric the Red for President!" I smiled, hearing Shelley's unofficial nickname yelled out so enthusiastically.
When the applause had begun to die down, Shelley turned to the man with the bullhorn. "I am Prime Red," she announced. "Am I under arrest?"
That was our cue. I quickly turned on camouflage mode. A second later, I found myself on top of a marquee overlooking the intersection I had just been standing in, with a perfect view of the situation. "Don't move or say a word," I heard Wizzit whisper. "Just watch and listen." I wasn't about to move; it was a precarious perch.
I could see that some of the police officers were beginning to notice that, except for Shelley, all the Primes had just disappeared. The man with the bullhorn wasn't aware of it yet. He was saying, "You and the other Primes are being detained for interrogation by federal authorities." His voice was flat and brittle, I noticed, the same voice I had heard coming out of that walkie-talkie in Texas. "Put your --"
One of the uniformed men ran up to him and began talking into his ear. He jerked his head around, obviously looking for us. He raised the bullhorn to his mouth and said sharply, "Where are the rest of the Primes? Where have they gone?"
"I'm sure I don't know." Somehow, Shelley managed to sound completely unconcerned. "I repeat, am I under arrest?"
The man with the bullhorn made an impatient gesture, and suddenly Shelley was ringed about with police officers, every one of whom was pointing a gun or rifle straight at her. "Put your hands on your head slowly and remove that . . . that disguise you have on."
Shelley cautiously placed both of her hands on the top of her head, and then she did the absolute last thing I ever expected her to do. In a clear, firm, loud voice, she said, "Prime Red, deactivate!" And Shelley Windham, the longest-serving Prime in our history and the last of the seven original Primes, showed her face to the world for the first time.
I heard a collective gasp from the crowds present as the red mist dissolved. Someone cried out, "Eric the Red is a girl?" Over our Prime-to-Prime connection, Padma breathed, "No!", and somehow the sense of horror and dismay conveyed in that one word expressed my feelings perfectly.
"Don't move," Wizzit repeated quietly, "or say a word. Just watch and listen."
To be completely honest, Shelley looked terrible. Her ponytail was askew, and her dark blonde hair half-covered her face. There was blood on her tee-shirt in places, and her face, arms, and legs, what we could see of them, were already starting to show bruises. One of her eyes was starting to swell shut. She looked as though she could barely stand up.
At a signal, one of the uniformed officers surrounding her dragged her arms behind her back and applied handcuffs. Someone yelled, "Look out! She's got a weapon!" and then someone else raised a rifle butt and smashed it against the back of her head. She dropped like
a stone. Another officer leaned down and began shouting into her ear, "Stay down! Stay down! Stay down! Stay down! Stay down!" But Shelley wasn't moving; my force shield automatically zoomed in on the image, and I could see blood welling up across the back of her head where she had been struck.
Watching this, I felt sick. Somewhere I could hear Trina softly crying. I could understand the feeling. I wanted to cry myself, or hit someone. The man with the bullhorn gave some sort of order that I couldn't hear, and the other police officers began moving through the crowd. I could see that a number of people had cellphones out and were recording what was going on. These were quickly confiscated or smashed on the ground, and the police began dispersing the crowd none too gently.
"All right, I'm bringing you home now, kids," Wizzit said somberly, once Shelley's inert body had been loaded into a police van.
Chapter 5