6.
Sienna
“Son of a …” I muttered, covered from head to toe in pink paint from the damned grenade that had gone off not three feet in front of me.
“I think that might have killed even you, if it had been a real one,” my opponent said, similarly covered, his grin barely visible beneath his plastic facemask, letting his HK paintball-converted gun sag in its sling. He didn’t let his hand wander too far from a weapon, though, either the HK strapped across his chest or the big pistol on his hip. “You didn’t see a suicide attack coming?”
I pulled off my goggles, which were smeared from my attempt to wipe off the blotches of hot pink that had coated them. The paint smelled a little funny. “I don’t typically get suicide attacked a lot, no. Mostly I have mercenaries and metas come after me, and they’re … you know, not motivated to fight all the way to the death, I guess, at least not as a first move.”
“Well, it wasn’t my first move,” Jeremy Hampton said, pulling back his mask so I could see his handsome face. “It was my last.” He had an easy grin, and brown hair mussed by the tight-fitting mask he’d been wearing. Lines from where it had been suctioned traced around his cheekbones.
Hampton had been the sole survivor of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team when their helicopter had crashed following an attempted prison break from the Cube—the metahuman facility beneath the old agency where I’d worked. I’d been on board with him, and he’d struck me then as a pretty cool character. When the backer of my new organization had suggested hiring some former law enforcement types to help us with training and also as a security team for deployment in case of emergency, Jeremy Hampton’s name had been right at the top of the list.
Lucky me.
“Those paintballs hurrrrrt,” Kat moaned as she moped her way into the house. She was splattered with red and yellow all across her black tactical Kevlar vest, her goggles hanging in her hand. Her blonde hair was all mussed up and her lips were pouty as ever. “Like a tit punch.”
“Stay classy, Kat,” I said as Reed stood up from behind the island where he’d gone down, rolling his neck like he’d cricked it. “You okay?” I asked him.
“I tried to fall where I got shot,” Reed said, frowning. “I guess I should have just stayed still or gradually worked my way down.”
“That’s what the guys in the front hall were doing,” I said, looking at Hampton with an accusatory look. “I would have had you on the breach and clear if not for some of your boys failing to take a knee when I shot them fair and square.”
“You should know,” Hampton said, grin broadening, “there’s no fair and square in a firefight.”
I did know that, actually, and from anyone else, I might have taken umbrage and come back with ire. I let it pass this time, though, and put my finger to my ear instead as Augustus sauntered into the room, his goggles spotted with green right in the middle where he’d plainly taken a paintball headshot. “HQ,” I said, “what was the time on that?”
“From infiltration to the grenade going off, I have ten minutes, fifty-seven seconds,” J.J. said into my earpiece. He sounded distracted, like his mind was on something else. “This little faux episode of Community is over, and just in time, too.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, frowning.
“There’s something going on in New York,” J.J. said. “Hostage situation on Wall Street. Looks kinda bad.”
I caught Reed’s eye on that one and he frowned. “Doesn’t New York have its own superheroes now?” I said, a little mockingly. I’d seen them on the news, and my clearly professional organization of ass-kickers had done our own little MST3K mocking of the costumes and hero names they’d chosen. Captain Frost had struck me as about two steps away from the sort of third-rate losers I used to bust for using their powers to rob a convenience store when things went sour in life. Instead, this guy—this douchebag—had set up a Patreon and Kickstartered his way to a full-time career as a New York superhero with … I dunno, Twitter or something. Kat had described it as “platform building” in glowing terms, but I’d tuned her out after about ten seconds. I tended to do that with Kat.
New York’s other hero, though … In spite of the lame name and lamer costume, I had to give her some respect. She sorta seemed like the real deal.
“Captain Frost is on scene,” J.J. said. “He’s pretty much sidelining himself, says the, uhmm … well … basically that the victim has it coming.”
That caused me to raise an eyebrow while I did a double take toward Reed, who had a pretty eyebrows-toward-the-clouds reaction of his own. “What the hell?” I asked, seeking some clarity.
“The hostage is Nadine Griffin,” J.J. said. “I guess Captain Frost did a poll and found that people didn’t really want him to save her—”
“That’s some genuine heroing right there,” Reed said in disgust. “Stick your finger up and see which way the wind is blowing.”
“Even I can see the flaw in that one,” I said, causing Augustus to look away abruptly. “Not a great sign for the righteousness of his actions.”
“Well, he seems to be gaining more followers and backers, so I’m not sure it’s the wrong call for him, at least …” J.J. said.
“Brilliant,” Kat whispered.
“I would have gone with unjust, dickish, morally reprehensible—” Reed said.
“Of course you would, sweetie,” Kat said, reaching up to pat him on the head with what to her probably seemed like affection and to the rest of us seemed like complete condescension, “which is why you have a following of zero.”
“I—do not—I have fans,” Reed said, sputtering through his outrage.
“Given the weather, I would have sprung for an air conditioner, personally,” I tossed at him, drawing his annoyance like lightning to the tallest tree. As his little sister and boss, I felt this was my job. “I mean, it’s Minnesota, but it still gets hot here for like two months.” I paused. “Maybe we should get in position to go in case we get the call.”
“Not a bad idea,” Reed said, and everyone started to spring into motion. We had done a decent amount of freelance work for New York State and the city itself in the last few months since we’d gone off on our own. Our little venture had actually been in the black for the last two months, thanks mostly to California, Texas, and New York calling us in to consult on a few things.
“Uh oh,” J.J. said, and all motion in the room stopped. I turned around to look at Jeremy Hampton, who was listening along without saying anything. “Looks like—something’s happening on the scene right now … Sienna, your old pal Lieutenant Welch is the man in charge, and he’s—uh oh … I think this thing is about to go sideways.”
I looked over at Reed, and I suspected his look mirrored my own. Helpless, that’s what we were—helpless to prevent a killing halfway across the country.