They’d stopped just past Seventh Street, six blocks from the border of the National Mall. Katie overlaid the map in Sean’s mind, the street grid lit up like on a holoscreen. His target glowed bright white in his mind, the quickest way to it straight through dozens of buildings rather than by the street.
On my way,Sean said.
He started running and didn’t stop.
With his phase power, it was a straight shot from their position to where the Sons of Adam guarded one of the anchor platforms keeping up the defensive energy shield. Sean passed through the ground floors of residential homes and towers, faces of frightened people sheltering in place flashing by as he kept running. His lungs felt a little tight by the time he ran through a home’s foundation and onto Fourth Street SE, skidding to a stop as he took in the situation on the ground.
The centuries-old, red-bricked church across the way was nothing but rubble, made that way by a bomb—air-dropped or RPG, Sean couldn’t tell the difference. The destruction was the same. Taking up the center of the intersection was a group of Sons of Adam, armed with assault rifles and a few RPG launchers. Standing at the forefront of that group was an angry-looking young man who wouldn’t be out of place on a college campus somewhere, one hand raised in the direction of the people holding the line.
The end of the street was blocked by police cars and a SWAT van, the crowd of police officers in firing position behind what cover they could find. In the midst of them, at the forefront, Sean could see the familiar uniforms worn by active MDF field agents.
Rapier and Blaze,Katie told him.
Miriam Keyes and Neal Lambert were two members of Beta Team, one a telekinetic and the other with the power to absorb kinetic energy and throw it back out in the form of energy blasts. Sean eyed their position, taking note of the damaged news van that had crashed into a parking paypoint kiosk. The reporter’s drone camera hovered in the air, broadcasting the standoff live, because the media would never walk away from a story like this.
Rapier is holding back their telekinetic. They know you’ve arrived.
Sean nodded, even though Katie couldn’t see him. She sounded distracted and he had no doubt her attention was probably split between too many different problems right now. Taking a couple of deep breaths to get his breathing under control, Sean started forward, phasing through low garden walls, vehicles, and people, who startled badly at his appearance.
“He’s on our side!” Neal shouted from up front.
Nobody shot at Sean, but the amount of double-takes he got wasn’t unusual. His passage through some of the people who didn’t get out of his way fast enough fried their bioware and comms, leaving them muttering in confusion at their suddenly dead electronics.
“Wraith,” Miriam ground out as he finally reached her and her partner’s side.
“Rapier.” Sean looked across the space between them and the enemy and the invisible telekinetic forces vying for control of the intersection. “Need a hand?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Keep your shields up and get ready to make some firing holes.”
Sean checked the amount of bullets left in his tactical pistol—seven, according to the tiny electronic screen on the slide—and walked forward through Miriam’s telekinetic shield.
He locked eyes with the enemy telekinetic, watching as the young man sneered at him for a couple of seconds before realizing that telekinesis couldn’t stop Sean. Those dark eyes went wide, mouth forming a surprised “O,” before he started yelling.
“Shoot him! Shoot him!” the guy shrieked, waving a frantic hand at the gunman to his left to obey his order.
Guns went off with a roar dulled by Sean’s hard helmet. The bullets passed harmlessly through his body, hitting and ricocheting against the telekinetic barrier behind him as Miriam and the enemy metahuman grappled for control.
Sean kept coming, and when the guy realized that nothing could stop him—not bullets, not telekinesis—he tried to run, but was hemmed in by his fellow fighters. Sean took advantage of his panic to get close and thrust his arm forward. Sean’s hand and gun phased through the guy’s arm, the gun sinking into his chest.
Sean pulled the trigger.
The guy’s body convulsed, ribcage expanding outward as if he’d taken a deep breath, when it was the bullet exploding through his body causing the motion. Sean kept the gun phased, but the moment the bullet left the chamber and his phase field it became solid, cutting through deep muscle and organ, fatally wounding the telekinetic from the inside out.
It exited with a bloody spray out the man’s back as he collapsed to his knees, blood oozing out of his mouth and nose, eyes unseeing. Sean didn’t stick around to watch Miriam and Neal take care of the remaining Sons of Adam fighters in the intersection. He had a job to do, and it waited for him down Independence Avenue SE.
Katie was right. That is like a damn battalion,Sean thought to himself as he started running again.
At the far end of the street where the perimeter of the National Mall began, the Sons of Adam had parked a driverless semi-truck across one of the streets feeding into the five-street intersection near the Library of Congress. It acted as a partial barricade, while armored SUVs and an MRAP ringed the anchor platform in a defensive position. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder two layers deep were Sons of Adam fighters interspersed with the heavier armed and outfitted ex-special forces operatives loyal to Declan.
With actual military-trained fighters giving out orders, the initial attack against Sean started with a neuro-jammer mounted on top of the MRAP in the form of a laser cannon.
Motherfucking shit!Sean yelled through the mental links tying him to the rest of the team.They have a fucking neuro-jammercannon!
The bolt of crackling energy cut through the air like a rocket, passing harmlessly through Sean’s body before slamming into the ground behind him. In his phased state, the neuro-jammer energy bolt couldn’t harm him, but it would incapacitate any other metahuman by disrupting their central nervous system.
Acknowledged. We need that energy shield down, Wraith,Jamie told him.
