Firedrake Chapter 31

Drake sat in silence for a moment, mind reeling as he tried to accept the words of the genebooster healer. His jaw worked a couple of times, but no sound came out. Then, suddenly, it all rushed out of him.

“What do you mean, you can’t heal her? What’s not to heal? I’ve seen you take worse.”

Splicer looked up at the immense form that towered above him. Tears ran freely down the man’s face. “I mean I can’t,” he said, voice cracking. “Something about her won’t let me, and it almost tore me apart when I tried.”

Miniscule scarlet droplets covered the thin material of the hospital blanket under which Skye Webb rested, silent reminders of the agonized cough that had followed Splicer’s attempt. Drake looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “You don’t look so good,” he admitted. He reached out to take the young man’s hand, but Splicer jerked away.

“Don’t touch me,” he warned. “I don’t know what’s going on, so just don’t.”

“Fair enough,” Drake said, raising his hands. He took a half-step backward. Any more would have left him hitting the wall behind him.

“What’s going on in here?” demanded one of the doctors, peeking in around the blocking frame of Drake’s left wing. His expression was dark.

“Give us a minute,” Drake ordered. The wing flexed, pushing the man from the doorway with seemingly no effort.

“I don’t…I don’t know what happened,” Splicer said. He started to stand, made a face, and sat back heavily onto the stool he had occupied. He swallowed hard once, then again. “I think I’m gonna be -” he managed before snatching at a nearby basin and vomiting noisily into it.

“Aww, man,” Drake muttered, half-turning his head. His lip curled upward. “That’s just… Aww, damn, man.”

“Sorry,” Splicer gasped after a moment. “Oh, God.”

The exclamation alarmed Drake and he turned to see the youth looking into the basin. A passing glance told Drake more than he ever wanted to know about the healer’s dietary habits, and also revealed a fair amount of blood in the bowl Splicer held in trembling hands. The man looked up from it, seeing that Drake had noticed the same thing he had.

“Let’s get you a doc,” Drake said. He stepped out of the cubicle and waved at the medical staff. “Prep the next room for Doctor Marks,” he shouted, his command echoing from the walls.

“It’s like ice water and broken glass,” Splicer groaned, clutching at his stomach. He slid free of the stool and dropped to his knees on the floor, managing to maintain his grasp on the basin by some miracle. A moment later and it was taken from his grip by one of the three nurse who rushed into the room. As a group, they lifted Splicer and walked him into a neighboring cubicle.

“I need to know exactly what went on in there,” demanded a balding doctor. He glared at Drake from behind wire-rimmed glasses that made his eyes look larger than normal.

“The kid’s a healer,” Drake explained. “We thought he could help Miss Webb and brought him in to try. He couldn’t, and whatever got her seems to have backlashed on him.”

“If your reckless behavior has endangered my patient -”

“Step off, slick,” Drake said, poking the man in the chest with a talon. It did not strike with enough force to penetrate, but the doctor took a hasty step away. “I gotta think.”

“A fairly new concept, I should imagine,” the man sneered before turning away and slipping into Skye’s cubicle. Drake barely noticed. He was busy rummaging in his pocket for his cell phone. Dialing quickly, he was connected in moments to Colleen Hart’s office. The line rang once before it was picked up.

“Direc-” was all the woman got out before Drake interrupted.

“It’s Drake. Get the tapes from when Patriot was hurt. I need to know if Splicer got sick when he tried to heal the Man.”

“I don’t need to check the tapes, Agent. I was there, remember. I saw the entire thing with my own eyes.”

“So did he get sick?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Damn it, Hart! Did the kid puke? More to the point, did he puke up blood?”

“As I recall, he became ill only momentarily, then spent the next day putting you back together after you tried to kill me.”

“Well, here’s the deal,” Drake said. “He tried to heal Skye Webb and next thing I know he’s yakking all over the room. There’s blood in it, and he says he can’t fix Skye. Now he’s sick, too.”

“It does bear a resemblance to what happened after he attempted to heal Patriot,” Hart said. Her voice seemed distant and Drake had no difficulty picturing her in her office, tapping a pencil against her chin as she thought.

“So she is still unable to provide us with an identification, yes?” she asked.

“Yeah, and she’s still laying in a hospital bed. Pretty much right next to the guy I figured was our best bet for fixing her. You might wanna try and keep that in mind.”

“I have not forgotten their condition, Agent. I simply discard it as meaningless to the larger issue at hand.”

“Which is?”

“The location and neutralization of Inquisitor and his band.”

“Yeah? Any luck with that?”

“The NSA advised us that they lost their satellite track on Thrash. She apparently has connections with someone who can manipulate video signals.”

“Someone who can what?”

“The NSA believes that someone in Inquisitor’s organization may have the ability to manipulate video signals and thereby shield her from surveillance.”

Drake snorted once, then burst into laughter. “That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard!” he cackled.

“Why? We don’t know every possible aberration that can arise from being boosted,” Hart said.

“First off, she’s got to know in advance that someone’s filming her,” Drake explained. “Then, they’ve got to intercept that vid-feed and modify it. One lonely little video pulse in a world where literally millions of transmissions are being bounced off a satellite - even the NSA sats. It’s like trying to find one raindrop in a monsoon when you don’t know it’s happening!”

“Your expert evaluation notwithstanding,” Hart responded dryly, “I think we have to go with their word for the moment.”

“Yeah, ‘cause nobody in the government would ever lie,” Drake muttered

“Just see to it that Miss Webb recovers enough to aid us in locating Inquisitor.”

“None of your wits from the church bothering to help?”

“Their descriptions vary greatly. Our biggest problem is that the subject has never shown up on any video surveillance, tape, or interview. He is a cipher.”

“Maybe next time he’ll pick one of those televised services,” snorted Drake.

“I would venture a guess that he will not strike in the same…” Hart began, but Drake let his arm drop from his ear, taking the phone with it. At his side, her voice still carried, but it was drowned by the sound of Drake slamming a palm into his own forehead again and again.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he grumbled. He whipped the phone back up, cutting off Hart’s definition of places of worship. “I gotta go,” he said abruptly. “Got calls to make. I’ve got a picture of him. Get me a helicopter out here; link a flight to Austin, Texas!” he ended, closing the connection before Hart could protest.

Drake pushed buttons in a panic on his cell, working through the list of numbers he had stored in the memory. As he did, he continued to mutter to himself. One of the nurses approached, reaching out to tap him on the edge of a wing before jumping back.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Sir, the doctor wanted me to come tell you…”

“Tell me what?”

“You’re causing a disturbance. The doctor wanted -”

“Tell that slick-skinned monkey I’m leaving,” Drake replied, waving the woman away. “I got more important things to do than argue with his ass.”

His claws clicked a rapid tattoo on the floor as he ran toward the doorway. The cell was dialing the number he selected as he left the main hospital area and bounded through the halls. Two security officers flattened themselves against the walls as his bulk rushed toward them, but he paid them no heed.

“Sangre! It’s Drake!” he fairly shouted into the cell. “Tell Soundstage I need to meet with her soonest. I need the vid she was running the day she helped me find the crystal. She’ll know what I mean. I need pictures of the idiots that we met on the road.”

Drake powered through the door that separated him from the outside, wondering how long he would have to wait for the helicopter he had requested even as Sangre agreed to carry his message to Soundstage. He did not wonder long.

Leaning against the frame of a linen delivery truck was a man in faded blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a green denim shirt. The sleeves had been ripped from the shirt, leaving ragged edges to the fabric. The shirt itself was unbuttoned, and hung open to the waist, where it almost-but-not-quite covered up the DOJ badge in a carrier on his hip. The man’s impressive musculature was concealed by multiple interlocking tattoos of various shades. A cigarette dangled from his lips, the tip wiggling as he spoke.

“Didn’t think you’d be so long getting here,” he said with a casual air. “Must be more to that building than meets the eye.”

“Naw. I stopped to take a leak on the way out. Francis Drake,” he said, extending a huge green hand. “You my pilot?”

“Y’could say that, Drake. Name’s Warp Runner. I’ll take you where you want to go or where you fear to tread. The choice is yours.”

Drake made a snorting noise and grinned. “Austin’ll work,” he said, remembering Warp Runner as the man who had transported Hart to his hospital room in that very city.

Warp runner nodded, pursing his lips. He spat the cigarette onto the ground and stepped on it. “Gimme a tick,” he said, placing his hands together before him as he concentrated. The air took on a subtle shift, feeling somehow thicker. A crackling, electrical-discharge sound spat and snarled as a circular area of blackness formed before the man. It was surrounded by what appeared to be swirling, interlaced bolts of lightning. They grew in size as the blackness did, and after a moment, the circle was big enough to swallow the truck beside which the pair stood. The entire area smelled faintly of cooking bacon.

“Good to go, pal,” Warp Runner said, gesturing to the center of the hole. “Nothin’ personal, but I gotta hold your hand for the trip.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Drake protested. Warp Runner laughed aloud.

“No, man, I mean I gotta hold your hand for the trip. Like, we have to be physically connected in order to go through at the same time. If we aren’t then you wind up somewhere else. Somewhere maybe not so pretty as Austin. Like, say, the interior of Jupiter or something.”

“Oh, yeah? That would suck. Hands it is,” Drake said. He flipped out his hand and gripped the flesh of the portal generator. It was colder than he had expected.

“I just wish I remembered where Austin was,” Warp Runner said, waggling his eyebrows as he dragged Drake forward and into the blackness.

“You mean you don’t -” Drake shouted. There was a rushing sound and swirls of multicolored light for the briefest of time and Drake felt concrete beneath his feet. The area surrounding them was completely different.

“—remember where…” his question trailed off as he looked around, They were in the eastern wing of the hospital where Drake had been treated in Austin. He recognized the metal morgue table on which he had reclined and the general disarray of the room.

“Same place I came to last time,” Warp Runner explained. “Makes it easier on me if I don’t have to plot out a new course every time.”

“Sweet. Thanks, slick. I can take it from here,” Drake told him, slapping at the man’s upraised palm but careful not to let his claws tear the skin.

“No trip to D.C.?”

“Nope. Got plans. Somebody to see.”

“Good luck, then,” Warp Runner said. “I’ll be vapor before you hit the door.”

“See ya around,” Drake said, turning to leave. He heard the electrical crackling sound again The room lit briefly, then fell into a comfortable dim condition.

“Why’s it gotta smell like bacon?” Drake wondered aloud as he left the hospital. Shaking his head at the question, he leapt into the air and pumped his wings, taking to the sky and quickly traversing the distance between the hospital and the house that served as a base for Soundstage and Sangre. He rapped on the door with his knuckles.

“Identify yourself,” demanded a mechanical voice.

“Francis Drake,” he said, looking up at the tiny camera located over the door and favoring it with a toothy grin. “Department of Justice, Metahuman Response. Open Sesame!”

“Open what?”

His head dropped as he recognized the inability of the booster called Sangre to understand humor.

“Could you let me in, Sangre?” he asked.

“You certainly got here quickly,” the black-clad woman said as she opened the front door. She gestured for him to come in and closed the door behind them.

“Hart sent some teleport guy to fetch me. I must be making points. She didn’t tell me to hitchhike.”

Bright green eyes tracked Drake from within her otherwise all-encompassing mask. “Make yourself comfortable. Soundstage will be returning shortly. I have passed on your request.”

Drake thanked her and took a stool beside the narrow bar separating the kitchen from the main living area. He tapped on his phone for a minute, sending a quick text message before putting it aside. He smiled at Sangre as the diminutive woman passed by him again. She placed a mug of coffee before him.

“I thought you could use this,” she said.

“You have no idea,” he said, bowing his head slightly. The fact that the woman had gone out of her way to deliver him a drink was not lost on Drake.

He nursed the coffee for a while, not simply throwing it back in a single swallow as was his usual pattern, content to relax in the house. Sangre had returned to her ‘office’, and Drake could hear her fingers moving across a computer keyboard at such a speed that it sounded almost a single continuous click of the keys.

When Soundstage arrived, Drake was leaned back in his chair, feet propped up on the Formica bar, with his arms folded behind his head.

“Get your feet off my bar, ya crazy critter!” she called, the amplifiers in her armor kicking in just enough to make him wince. The armored woman stepped forward, feet making clunking noises on the floor, and slapped a metal-gauntleted hand onto Drake’s shoulders as he sat up in his chair.

“Hear you need to see my footage,” she said.

“You may have the only video feed of someone who’s rapidly climbing the ranks of the Department’s Most Wanted.,” Drake answered, nodding his head.

“Really? There a reward for him?” As usual, the electronically-modulated voice made it difficult to tell if she was being serious, but Drake doubted it.

“I got twenty bucks and half a Snickers bar in my pocket,” he offered.

“It concerns me that the first thing you think of is what’s in your pocket,” she shot back.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause you ain’t got pockets in that tin box you’re wearing,” Drake replied.

“Yeah, but at least I’m shiny.”

“It’s kinda sad,” Drake continued. “Normally you can look at a person, kinda check ‘em out, and say something about them looking good, or losing weight. You? I gotta look at you and wonder if you added a new gun mount or something.”

“Yeah? Help me out, then. Does this armor plate make my butt look big?”

Drake laughed aloud and stood, locking grips with the woman in the extraordinary battlesuit in a show of camaraderie. “So when does the movie start?” he asked.

“Did you bring the popcorn?”

“No, but Sangre brought me coffee. I was touched.”

“Touched? By Sangre? That’s just odd.”

“Not like that, ya perv,” Drake chuckled. “Just never expected a lady like that to bring me coffee, that’s all.”

“You never called me a lady.”

“You never brought me coffee,” he told her, following the silver-framed booster as she entered the main room and gestured toward the couch. He settled on the edge of it, draping his tail over the armrest to drag on the floor. He flicked it up as she made a playful stomp toward the barbed tip. Following the gesture, Soundstage moved toward a large-screen television mounted on the wall. She opened a port on her left arm and gripped a pair of cables from inside it. There was a quiet whirring sound as she reeled them out to a couple of feet in length. She plugged them into the video and audio feeds of the television and then turned on the set, her polished fingertips failing to leave so much as a smudge on the switch.

“It'll take a sec,” she said, using her free hand to punch at some keys inside the left arm. She had her back to Drake, so he could not see exactly what she was doing. The armored booster seemed to know what to do, though, and he forced himself to relax, realizing that he was already leaning forward in his position in anticipation of the show to come.

After a brief pause, the images of a lonely stretch of road on the outskirts of Austin played across the screen. Crime Scene tape could be seen fluttering in the distance, and detour signs down the nearest road were visible for a second as he gaze flickered across them. Drake realized that the camera actually recorded the scene as Soundstage saw it. He heard himself speaking and made a face.

“I sound that stupid in real life?” he asked.

“Sorry, bro. Recorded in Hi-Def. Can't help you.”

“Great. Fast-forward to the part where the crazy monkeys showed up.”

The image blurred slightly as it went into a rapid-play mode. A few seconds later, Drake saw the glowing orb that had been given to him by Karma, held in the metal glove of the woman who was even now playing back the video. The image shifted and turned until Drake saw himself kneeling. Soundstage was running to his side with the orb. She was telling Drake where she had found the item when the voice interrupted them. Polished and smooth, it was the voice of a man used to public speaking.

“Here it comes,” Soundstage said in a voice more whisper than words.

The camera image whirled in place until it settled on a trio standing at the side of the road.

“Pause it,” Drake ordered. The image froze in crystalline clarity. Drake stepped free of the couch and approached the screen. “That's Thrash,” he said, jabbing a finger at the woman on the left side of the image. The booster was easy for him to recognize, clad as always in her chain mail and leather.

“Thrash?”

“Yeah. Old-school kick-artist from the Mob. Works with this asshole now,” he added, pointing at the man. “This'll be Inquisitor, or I'm a slick-skinned monkey. The Bible in his left hand is a dead giveaway.”

“And this one?” she asked, indicating the crouching figure on the right of the screen.

“Based on the description Skye Webb gave, I'd gather this was the one he called Witchfinder. We used to call him Mikey the Eye. He's a DNA scanner. Sees boosters.”

“And so he came to me,” Soundstage said.

“Yeah. Don't know if he was actually drawn to you or me, but wither way it was you they were interested in.”

“I had the press coverage at the time,” she suggested. “Maybe they knew me from that.”

“Could be,” Drake mused. “You probably got off easy. I went a few rounds with Thrash a while back and she ain't easy.”

“I ain't exactly a pushover,” Soundstage said. Despite the modulation, Drake made out the tones of someone whose ego had been bruised.

“Not what I'm saying. One on one, you could take her, I'm sure. Fact is, there were three of them, and I wasn't exactly in any shape to offer much assistance.”

“I know, I know,” she said, waving a hand. “I think I even said the same thing after they left. Anyway, what do we need to do with the picture?”

“Can you email it?”

She made a sound that could have been a snort. “Can you snarf up all my coffee before I get any?”

“I'll take that as a yes,” he said. “I've got a card in here somewhere.”

He dug out a black nylon wallet from within his pocket and flipped it open, fumbling around inside it with the ends of his claws. His hands were so large that the task proved challenging, but he kept at it until he found what he wanted. “Aha!” he exclaimed, holding out a business card with Colleen Hart's name on it. Her office number and email address were on it.

“Give me a minute here,” Soundstage said, humming quietly to herself as she worked. The tones resonated through her helmet speakers in a low frequency rumble that set Drake's teeth on edge, but he ignored it as best he could. He drew his cell phone with the other hand, intending to call Hart and give her the news. A flashing icon, though caused him to flick the device open and examine the screen.

“I knew it,” he crowed.

“Knew what?” Soundstage asked. The humming stopped.

“Somebody at the NSA is playing us!”

“What do you mean?”

“They were supposed to track Thrash for us. They gave Hart some bullshit story about losing her because - and you'll love this one - they said it was due to a booster that could scramble their satellite video feed. Anyway, the point is they said they couldn't keep track of her.”

“I assume that they did?”

“Yup. They tracked her ass to a cabin.”

He looked at Soundstage, eyes flashing dangerously in the reflection from the television.

“Feel like taking a trip to the woods?”