When faced with people whose skin repels bullets or who shoot lasers out of their eyes, cops don’t have a lot of options. From what I understand, standard policy is to stall them until soone with a chance of dealing with them arrives.
Officer Van Kley was doing her best. I could hear her talking again. I wondered whether anyone would arrive before Man-machine got bored.
“I’m going in,” I said.
Haley said, “With .”
“Right,” I said. “Can you fight?”
From what I rembered, her grandfather, Night Wolf, had the ability to hide, could climb walls and had inhumanly good senses, but an enhanced sense of sll (no matter how good) seed pretty useless at the mont.
“Yes, I can fight,” she said.
I looked up the wall to find her glaring down at . Her eyes were slit like a cat’s and glowed slightly.
“Sorry,” I said.
From the parking lot, Man-machine’s voice said, “Ti’s up.”
A red beam hit the nearest police car, lting the right side window and starting the front seat on fire. The two policen crouched behind it ran to the next car.
“We better get in there,” I said and engaged the rockets, shooting across the parking lot toward him at full thrust.
I crossed the parking lot in seconds, readied myself to punch him, and missed. I’d misjudged how close I had to be and passed him about two feet to the left. I didn’t even try to blast him with the sonic weapons on my arms. I was too busy climbing to avoid the forr factory on the other side of the parking lot.
That factory used to make bikes. Now it’s a store called “Lavender West.” They sell clothes and hippie paraphernalia. There’s a skate park on the fourth floor.
I’m told (though I’ve never had any reason to check) that they also sell bongs.
If I’d turned a little slower, I could have smashed into the building and found out. As it was I missed the wall by inches, flying directly in front of a third and then a fourth floor window. I could have reached out and shaken the hands of the people crowding to see the fight.
Of course, moving at 286 mph, I would have ripped their hands right off.
Once above the building, I gave myself a little spin, rotating so that I was facing the parking lot, and dove. I had a plan this ti.
Grandpa used to tell a lot of stories about fighting Man-machine. Nearly half of them ended with Grandpa finding a way to smash the transparent faceplate. Sotis he’d punch Man-machine unconscious. Sotis he’d smash the glass without breaking it, leaving it in one piece but impossible to see through.
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I was going to fire the sonic weapons directly into the faceplate. All I had to do was get close enough.
Three-quarters of the way down, I realized that Man-machine had turned to face . Then I saw flash of red and felt heat on my chest.
Systems reported the damage as dium—suit integrity intact but heavy damage to that spot. I’d better not get hit there again.
The blast distracted from my intended approach. I leveled off fifteen feet above the ground and so twenty feet away from Man-machine, beginning a tight circle that I hoped would put on a near collision course with him.
It did.
He barely had chance to turn and had no chance to turn the cannon. I fired a sonic blast directly into the faceplate and then I was past him.
I managed to turn more quickly this ti, not even leaving the parking lot. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but I did want to see what damage I’d done.
Tactically that wasn’t such a great move and I probably would have gotten shot a second ti except that Haley chose that mont to enter the fight.
By “enter the fight” I an that she threw a Prius at him.
At least I assud it was Haley. I never saw her do it, but cars don’t generally launch themselves into the air.
It knocked him over, but not out. He pushed the car off with one hand and stood up, shouting into the darkness.
Disappointingly, the sonics didn’t appear to have hurt his faceplate at all.
“Why of all the cowardly things…” He began, but couldn’t seem to finish the thought.
Beginning again, he said, “It’ll take more than that—“
I didn’t allow him ti to finish. I gave the rockets fuel and flew toward him, arms outstretched. Once over his head, I dipped, pulling my forearms up in front of my helt and using them to smash into the side of the laser cannon.
It broke off from the mount point on his shoulder with a satisfying crack.
The montum took us both downward and I scraped across the parking lot, stopping a row of cars away from him.
I pulled myself up. He lay there, unmoving.
The Man-machine of my grandfather’s stories would have been on by now, trying to crush the life out of . His armor had always been stronger than Grandpa’s and in straight hand-to-hand combat, that’s what counts.
“Are you okay?” I edged a step closer to him. It could be a trick.
I could hear labored breathing over his speakers before he spoke.
“Damn…” He said. “Damn you.”
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