Red Fox Action Log 43 Cont:

  “What do you mean, ‘hey, man?!’” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, a little taken aback.

  “Why did they send you?”

  “Because I’m the best damn agent on the payroll,” she said, looking a little cross. She had the unfortunate blessing of a cherubic face made round by her Catalan-Japanese heritage, and so when she looked furious, it just ended up making her look kinda like a pissed off puppy.

  She was right though. She had the Fox Serum, increasing her strength, speed, agility. I could also see the laser pistol in the holster at her waist. She’d probably gotten extra equipment and training on top of what she’d had in the Fox Manuals.

  If she said she was the best they had, I believed her.

  My blood ran cold. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.

  “Do you know her?” Levitron asked, still behind the gate. “Why are you being weird?”

  “That’s — I guess she’s my ex,” I stammered.

  Bunny folded her arms. Jill put her hands on her hips, and raised an eyebrow.

  “Just give me a second,” I said, turning my back on her, and tried not to double over.

  I tried to breathe. Last time I’d seen her she’d been all smiles, ‘love-you-forevers.’ Then she left a note in the Fox Lair, and I hadn’t seen her in darn near a year.

  She’d ripped my heart out.

  I finally got a deep breath in, righted myself then turned to look at her. I saw finally, that the man in the guard box had been tied to his chair with zip ties, knocked unconscious. So we probably had plenty of time.

  “You okay?” she asked, concern softening her sternness, and her hands tightening her high ponytail reflexively.

  “Just got shot at,” I explained.

  “Yeah that tracks. Need a couple more seconds?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Because we have work to do.”

  “Why didn’t they send Carla Quick?” I asked.

  “She’s still mopping up the remnants of the Steel Invasion from last month.”

  “The robots?”

  “Yeah. She’s really overworked.”

  “I thought that they were stopped in August.”

  “We’ve been keeping it on the down-low. Finally took out their mainframe, so there are just a couple little pockets of resistance — it’s not a big deal really — but it’s immediate.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Why’d you leave?” I asked without preamble.

  It was all that was on my mind in the quiet moments. Had I not been good enough? Had she felt smothered? Was the sex bad? Had I hurt her? Did she not see a future with me?

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “Now?”

  “When else? You just screwed off into nowhere.”

  “Well, I, I don’t know.”

  “You were never going to talk to me about it, were you?”

  “Do I need to?”

  “Yes!”

  “Fine!” she said through a strangled whisper.

  I waited, heart hammering in my chest. Barry, and Bunny ducked under the wooden car barrier, and walked around searching for danger. Levitron floated into the air to get a bird’s eye view.

  I reminded myself that I was 23 years old and a gosh darn adult.

  “I thought the note explained everything,” she said finally.

  “It said, you just ‘imagined a day not having to talk to me,’ and it made you ‘feel lighter.’ What was that supposed to mean?”

  “Yeah. But that’s not all I said. It was a long letter.”

  “Like, I was some kind of burden.”

  “I mean, you sort of were.”

  “My best friend died!”

  “He was my friend, too!”

  I tore my mask off, and gripped it tightly with one hand while I squeezed my eyes shut and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to calm down. Jill grit her teeth, and worked her jaw.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t seem to take it like I did,” I said.

  “Come on,” she said, eyes tinged with pity, “we all couldn’t just sit around in the lair all day getting blasted on cheap whiskey and pissing ourselves.”

  “I didn’t piss myself,” I said, indignantly.

  “Okay,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  I sighed, wiped my forehead, and put my mask back on. I was, afterall, the Red Fox. I didn’t have time for all this.

  “It was me and you against the world,” I said, finally.

  “No, it was you against the world, dude.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You kept going out there like you needed to hurt someone. I didn’t want that. I didn’t need that. And frankly, what I did need was more money. The Foundation didn’t cover much outside the hero work. With QRT, I get a salary. A good one.”

  “You could have told me all this.”

  “There’s no telling some of this, man. You just have to deal with it. Like a grown up.”

  Levitron descended.

  “I think I found a way in,” he said. “The longer we wait, well, we need the cover of the roofs and hallways. We’re exposed out here.”

  “Can you just do your job?” I asked her.

  “I don’t see any other professionals here — no offense Levitron.”

  “None taken,” he said. “And It’s not like you broke my heart.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  She raised her eyebrows in genuine surprise, then shrugged.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Before we’d even arrived, Jill hacked the guard’s computer, uploaded a virus that took out the cameras, and downloaded a map of the complex.

  Half a dozen mooks with assault rifles guarded the first floor, but we’d been able to take them by surprise. Bunny, Jill, and I had the requisite stealth and takedown training, and were able to neutralize them without a single shot. In minutes, we had the bunch of them zip tied on the floor.

  Watching Jill move, catching glances of her body twisting and spinning as she kicked, grappled, and ran, sent images flashing in my mind unbidden. First, of seeing her run next to me, across rooftops, to danger, then of her body twisted amongst the sheets of my bed. Her sweat-dappled skin under the fluorescent bulbs of the lamps, eating peanut butter and graham crackers because it was all we could afford. Grappling with her in costume and out.

  I shook my head, and tried to focus on the mission.

  “You good?” Bunny asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  Past the first floor of the warehouse, mostly gutted but for stacks of large wooden boxes, lay the second floor, a maze of glass display shelving and aging machines covered in tarps like cheap halloween costumes. Me and Bunny took point, while the others briefly checked under the tarps for anything surprising that could be of use.

  “Nobody down that hall, yeah?”

  “I’m still not sure about you,” Bunny said. “Yeah, hall is clear, sure. You seem disturbed.”

  My breath hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Just trying to focus on the present.”

  “Ah. The ex bringing back unwelcome memories. Tell you what, we make it out of this alive, and I guarantee you won’t be thinking about her anymore.”

  “You are relentless,” I laughed.

  “What can I say? I don’t like mystery.”

  “I’m sure you’re great and all —”

  “With my powers,” she said interrupting. “I can see exactly how far to go to make a man —” she stopped her sentence short, and stood up very straight, as if surprised. “3 seconds. Flashbang. Four shooters around that corner,” she said, pointing right.

  “Jill, Barry!” I yelled. “As soon as you hear the bang — that corner!”

  Two flashbangs landed on the ground in front of White Rabbit. Levitron sent one down the hallway in the other direction. The second Bunny kicked, pinging it off the wall, and back the way it came. The flashbangs popped. I tossed a couple smoke bombs.

  Barry ran into the hall, finger guns akimbo, and started blasting, shooting blind through the smoke. Gunfire answered. Bunny slid on her knees in front of him and repositioned his hands. Barry fired again. She repositioned them again. Another volley of red hot lasers.

  The gunfire stopped.

  Barry held his arm. I approached quickly.

  “Good job,” I said, “let me look at it.”

  It was a superficial graze. He’d need stitches, but it hadn’t hit anything vital. I wrapped his arm in some gauze, and we were on our way.

  “I haven’t seen you use your over heat,” I said creeping down the hall. “Would’ve made that last fight more safe for you.”

  He shrugged.

  “I can only do it a couple times a day. Something tells me I’ll need it later.”

  “Good idea.”

  After some more creeping, Jill tapped Bunny on the shoulder.

  “We took the first guys out without a peep,” she said. “How did that last group know we were here?”

  “Redundancy plan?” White Rabbit answered. “Maybe they’re supposed to check out the second floor if they don’t get a call from the gate regularly. Or maybe cameras on a different grid than the others, who knows?”

  Jill nodded. Behind it I sensed concern. What had Bunny said that concerned her?

  We turned the corner. The end of the hall revealed the cart depot, full of golf carts. On a pedestal was the Boltmobile, presumably nonfunctional but a cool exhibit nonetheless. Past all that was the long hall to the old zeppelin bay, and whatever it was that Lady Lovely was building.

  We took two carts. Me, Jill, and Bunny all crammed into one, and Barry the other. Levitron flew above. I drove. Bunny sat between us, but Jill was still closer to me than she has been in a long time. Bunny put her arm around me.

  “This is nice,” she said. “So what is in this last area, you think?”

  “Looks kind of like a silo,” Jill said, glancing at the small black and white map displayed on the screen of her flip phone. “Maybe it’s a bunker. Maybe it’s a lab. Who knows.”

  Bunny put her arm around Jill, catching a side eye for it, but Jill didn’t seem to mind. White Rabbit’s powers of persuasion knew no bounds. I’d not known Jill to be the touchy type.

  We ditched the carts a ways from the exit, and crept to the door.

  Past it lay the silo. Above, a massive set of steel doors big enough to cover a stadium. Past that, millions of gallons of water. If those doors opened, supposedly an anti-gravity field kept it out, but who knows if that still worked?

  Straight ahead, a circular steel walkway. Past that the nose of a rocket.

  The rocket’s nose soared above us, damn near a hundred feet tall. The whole thing must be three times that. Maybe more.

  Levitron cursed.

  “That could be big enough to escape low earth orbit,” he said.

  “Or hit something on the other side of the world,” said Jill.

  “What is she doing with this?” I asked.

  The sound of something moving in the darkness, first one thump, then another, echoed from up the silo. The Fox Instincts kicked in hard.

  I quickly shut the door.

  “What was that?” Levitron asked.

  “Something dangerous,” I said.

  The sound of an industrial elevator rumbled.

  “I think we should rush to the box overlooking the silo,” Jill said, unholstering her pistol.

  “Levitron,” I turned to the cloaked figure. “Now's a good time to show what you can do.”

  A dozen double sided throwing knives floated from two pouches on his belt.

  “What is this?” he asked. “You both look spooked.”

  White Rabbit closed her eyes. I counted 6 seconds pass.

  “Out that door are shadowbats, maybe a hundred of them. Each of them are twice the size of a small dog and want to eat us.”

  “How did she get shadowbats?” Jill asked.

  Shadowbats were a known sorcerous construct, like a supercharged familiar.

  “Does that matter?” Bunny shot back.

  “Barry?” I asked. “Think it’s time to overheat?”

  He nodded. A thin layer of translucent pink phosphorescent-like energy surrounded him from head to toe. His hair danced as if tossed by an unseen wind.

  “You look good,” Jill said.

  “I know,” Barry replied.

  “Him, really?” I asked.

  Jill gave me a pitying look. I brushed it off.

  My hands pulled the respirator from my bag, and I tossed it to Jill. She caught it, and slipped it over her face without question. I put on my backups.

  “If we see someone that matches Lady Lovely’s description, y’all fall back and let me and Jill handle it.”

  “Affirmative,” Levitron said.

  “Good luck,” Barry said.

  The Fox instinct pulled tighter than it had in a long time. Not since, well, the night that I lost my friend. I engaged my retractable baton, then pushed the door open.

  Immediately, half a dozen winged creatures, black and slightly furry, descended from the ceiling. I drew and threw a knife that lodged into one, which crashed with a loud clang in front of me. It tried to leapt back into the air, but I brought an axe kick down on its face that crunched it into the metal walkway.

  The corpse exploded into dark mist. As soon as the others saw that they were formed of something other than flesh, hell unleashed.

  Barry sent huge three foot wide beams of white-hot energy that sent shadowbats popping three to four at a time. Small blue streaks of light came from what I knew to be Jill, sniping any creatures that got past Barry.

  I charged forward, leaping in time to the Fox Badge’s battle cadence, crushing the bats under foot or the head of the baton. Knives flew past me, four to six at a time, piercing the creatures, then reversing, flying back to hover around Levitron. Bunny held up the rear, dodging, kicking in a flurry.

  In moments, we’d made it to the end of the circular walkway, to the box overlooking the silo. I tried the door, but nothing.

  “Keypad next to the door!” I yelled.

  Jill tossed me her gun. I caught it, then aimed it at an approaching bat. The laser pistol felt cool in my hands, despite the sweat from its previous user. It fit solidly in my hand. I didn’t like it. The Fox didn’t use guns. I fought to get a bead, then squeezed the trigger. A bolt of energy flew past it. I’d missed.

  Barry frantically pulled a beam of heat into the bat before it could reach me.

  “You gotta keep them off me!” she yelled back.

  “I got it! Just get us in that door!”

  The next two bats I hit square. The mist they exploded into smelled of ozone and sulfur, unpleasant. Good thing Sleuth stayed behind.

  “I got it!”

  Bunny dove past us.

  I stumbled through the open door, pulling Jill with me. Barry slapped his hands together and then spread them apart as a wave of heat dissipated a swath of the monsters.

  I grabbed Levitron by his belt and pulled him in with us.

  I slammed the door, and the pneumatics hissed as the locks engaged.

  Jill sat on the floor next to Bunny, who laughed. Jill picked it up too, muffled by the respirator.

  I fought to get my breath. The shadowbats threw themselves against the large observation window, to little avail. Levitron floated on his back as if atop a tranquil river raft, seemingly exhausted.

  Barry dimmed, and sat on the floor too.

  “We did it,” I said.

  Nobody replied. We sort of just stared at each other for a moment.

  The door opposite the room hissed, and in walked Lady Lovely, and the largest man I had ever seen — again.