Centurion Six: Issue 1, Part 3

Our Story So Far:

Captains Blaine “Centurion Six” Winters and Jacob “Zulu” Mbeke have been called out by the NYPD to help investigate what appears to be a routine but grisly gang-related multiple homicide in the south Bronx.  Their expertise is needed because they are ultra-human members of the New York State National Guard’s Enhanced Forced Division (EFD), and the victims in the case were skrags, i.e. mundane humans attempting to gain ultra-human abilities through illegal drug and mutational gene therapies.  However, when they arrive, the find a scene of devastation.

And then a bomb goes off.

Meanwhile, ultra-human club girl Rebecca Rodriguez sneaks out of her father's apartment for an illicit night out on the town with her friends.  Nothing could go wrong with that, right?

* * *

Rebecca touched down at the southwest corner of the Park—on the inside, where the southern loop turns to parallel Central Park South.  It was a shame, she thought, to dress to impress but then hide one’s entrance from the crowds standing out by Columbus Circle, but a bioluminescent club girl floating down from on high was apt to draw all the wrong kinds of attention, even on the Upper West Side.  Even when said club girl looked like a goddess in spiked heels. 

Rebecca landed and looked around, but she didn’t immediately see her friends.  However when she listened with her mind, she felt Fiona’s impatience buzzing against her subconscious like an angry bee.  Peeved, Rebecca let herself drift upwards an inch or two, so that she could literally glide like a queen into the others’ presence.

“Are you ready ladies?”

Rebecca’s friends both turned.  Christina managed to play it cool, but Fiona gawked like a schoolgirl.

Rebecca almost smiled. 

She started walking before either girl could get a word in.  “Well.  Are you two coming, or what?”

Fiona started to say something, but Rebecca wasn’t listening.

The walk to Pacha was several blocks, and by the time they got there, Rebecca’s feet were killing her.  How that bitch Shelby managed these heels on a day to day basis, Rebecca couldn’t imagine.  She took solace in the fact that the others were in no better shape, though.  Through her Empathy, Rebecca could feel Fiona’s pain as the poor girl struggled in heels that were even more aggressive than the ones that Rebecca wore.  Christina, meanwhile, didn’t hurt, but then again, she’d worn flats.  And frankly, it was a pedestrian look, no matter how tight her jeans were.  Wearing flats to a club in Manhattan was like getting up to bat in Yankee Stadium and then bunting with no one on base.

At any rate, Pacha was suitably crowded.  There were a couple of bouncers in black tee shirts manning the door—one of whom was kind of cute, if you went for the bald head, big muscles look—along with a velvet rope strung across the entrance and then out a few feet and around the building.  A line of would-be club-goers stretched out and down the block from the rope.  Most of the guys were in button-down silk shirts, dark pants, and polished leather shoes.  A few broke the trend, wearing sparkling white tees or high-end sports shoes.  The girls were in a variety of looks—cocktail dresses, skirts, tight jeans, you name it.  All of them, guys and girls, looked old.  More like bankers trying to impress clients than college kids come out to get crazy. 

Rebecca didn’t see anyone who looked like she hadn’t worn a bra.

She put it out of her mind.  Instead, she walked straight up to the cute-looking bald bouncer and smiled her best charming smile.

“Hey bitch!  There’s a line!” someone called.

The bouncer ignored it, but the look he gave Rebecca was all business.  “Ladies.  You’ll have to wait in line like everybody else.  Or just go back home to your mommas.  We don’t need no fake IDs in here tonight.”

“Come on,” Rebecca replied, “you don’t have to be like that.”  She touched his arm by the biceps.  His skin was warm.

“Listen.  It ain’t nothin’ personal.  It’s just—“

But Rebecca could feel his mind.  And especially with skin contact, it was nothing to turn his thoughts, change what he was feeling. 

The bouncer blinked, and Rebecca smiled.  He pulled back the rope.  “Right this way, ladies.  You three enjoy yourselves.”

“Oh, we will,” Rebecca said.  She patted his arm.  “Come on, girls.  It’s time to party.”

* * *

The explosion threw Blaine across the room.  He slammed into the wall, and the whole building shook.  He still wasn’t sure what had happened.

WARNING.  EXPLOSIVE DISCHARGE DETECTED.  BALISTIC-REACTIVE FABRIC ACTIVATED.

Blaine called out, “You okay, Zee?”

“Yeah.  Looks like the cop sergeant is down, though.”

Blaine looked around, saw that Zulu was right.  The little drug lab had been wrecked; now it was a shambles.  Most of the furniture was atomized.  The glassware wasn’t just broken, it was pulped.  The cop, meanwhile, was flat on his back, looking bad.  Whatever had exploded, it had thrown fragments.  The cop’s vest had handled that okay, but his face and arms were another matter.  His uniform was in tatters, and his exposed skin looked like processed meat.  Blaine hoped the man would live, but it didn’t look good.

There was no sign of Zulu, but of course there wouldn’t be.

“Mainframe, Red Alert.  Scramble the rest of the team, and get their asses down here ASAP!”

ACKNOWLEDGED.

“Stay hidden, Zee, until we can figure out what the Hell—“

Whatever the Hell it was, it came straight at Blaine and attacked.  The thing was all fur and chrome and flashing knives, and it appeared like sudden moonlight.  A tiny flame erupted by what Blaine thought might be the thing’s head, and pain ripped across his chest.  It occurred to Blaine that he’d been shot, and then the thing was on him.  Blades came straight at his chest, and he twisted, hardening the muscles of his obliques by instinct.  The blades turned against Blaine’s physique, but they still sliced him skin deep.  That hurt like Hell, and Blaine struck without thinking, hammering his fist down into the thing and leaving a dent.  Then Zulu cut loose with his sidearm, and the thing leaped and disappeared.

“Damn.  That is some stealth system that thing’s got,” Zulu said.  “You okay, Blaine?”

Blaine stood up, realized that at some point the room had caught fire.  The place was rapidly filling with smoke, and with all the chemicals from the drug lab, they had maybe a minute before the whole place blew up.

Shelby’s voice, clearly just awakened, spoke from what was left of Blaine’s uniform tunic.  “Captain Winters, sir?  What’s going on?  Mainframe just said—“

“Shut it, lieutenant.  Just get your ass down here, time now.”

“But what’s--?”

“No time, Shelby.  Six out.”  Blaine still couldn’t see Zulu.  “You ready to move, Zee?”

Zulu’s voice came from the door.  “Already on the way out, boss.  You got the cop?”

Blaine grabbed the sergeant by the collar, trying to be gentle.  He realized as he did so that he himself had been cut up pretty bad, even through the ballistic-reactive fabric and his own native toughness.

WARNING.  BALISTIC-REACTIVE CHARGE FAILING.  EVASIVE ACTIONS RECOMMENDED.

As Mainframe said it, Blaine saw that his tunic was starting to flake.  Chunks of graphite and hardened carbon-fiber fell away even as he stood up and started back towards the door. 

Whatever happened next, it was going to be bad.

“Come on, let’s—“

But before he could finish the thought, small caliber machine-pistol fire ripped across the room, catching Blaine in the chest again.  He was vaguely aware of the muzzle flashes a few feet away, but mostly what Blaine noticed was that he was falling backwards.  Suddenly, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.