Heroes

Blinking away, I appeared in the Protectorate.

"Where are the Containment Foam canisters?" I asked, leaning close to him. I pretended to listen, even as I put a hand on his to do a deep dive into his mind.

"Thanks for the information," I said.

"I didn't say anything!" he protested.

He wasn't the guy who'd accused me of Van murder, so I said "Thinker powers…your eye twitched."

I blinked to the armory, and it was empty.

There weren't any PRT Vans in the parking area; I'd hoped to get one with a confoam sprayer.

"What the hell?" I asked, returning.

The receptionist was pale.

"There are attacks all over the city by mobs. They're looting and attacking people everywhere."

They were probably bringing more victims to Mama Mathers, where ever she was.

"Hey!" I shouted up at the cameras. "Can you guys confoam me? I need to deal with some looters without killing them."

They were obliging, and I immediately inventoried another room's worth of containment foam. I already had some, but it wouldn't be enough.

"Hey, there's about five hundred people who are being forced to commit suicide by Mama Mathers. They're next to the Target on 42nd​…the one Bakuda hit. Be ready to contain them when you get a chance. I think everyone who is attacking has been mastered."

There were probably a few people who were not, but were just taking advantage of the chaos to get what they could. However, the mobs were likely to attack them as easily as the PRT or the cops.

I blinked back, and I used my power to drop confoam on everyone. I had to be conservative with it; there was a limited amount. As I reached the end of the line, I had to inventory people and then release them from inventory in unused spots of the confoam.

Once everyone was foamed, I checked to see if anyone had brain damage. I healed everyone of their wounds.

Loki looked mildly impressed.

"One of your powers?" he asked. "I wouldn't think you'd bother with a power to make people naked; you seem a little young for that."

"Imagine what would happen if I used it on the bases of the buildings in Asgard," I said, smirking.

He thought about it for a moment, and winced.

"It's going to get stronger the more that I use it, and eventually I'll be able to reduce entire cities to ash, while leaving the inhabitants mostly ok."

"Mostly?"

"Well, people in high places will be dead," I said. "And so will people who have buildings fall on them before they disintegrate."

"So nobody will be ok?"

I thought about it.

"Yeah, probably not."

"For a moment I thought you actually had a fun side," he said.

"I do have a fun side!" I said. "Once, when I killed a whole bunch of Asian gang members, I turned them into a waterfall of corpses!"

"Right," he said. "What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to steal confoam from the PRT in Boston and get it here, where it's needed."

"The PRT?"

"The authorities," I said. "Or at least the branch that deals with parahumans."

"And you aren't worried about the authorities?"

"They've already got a kill order against me," I said. "That means that it's not a crime to kill me. It's the highest penalty the law can administer."

"Why?"

"Well, the Asian waterfall probably didn't help. They were unreasonably afraid that I might cause a zombie apocalypse."

"Didn't you say you caused a zombie apocalypse?"

"That wasn't my fault! Their containment procedures were flawed."

"Right. And since they've already given you their ultimate punishment, there's nothing else they can do."

"It's liberating, really. If I can kill everybody I want to, then maybe I can get a pardon for everything."

"So might as well make it worthwhile," Loki said. A slight smile appeared on his face.

I grabbed him and inventoried him, and a moment later we were inside the Boston PRT.

When I dropped Loki off beside me, I was surprised to see that he'd taken my form. He must have been in the process of changing when I was inventorying him.

"Where is your containment foam?" I asked the receptionist there.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I had it already, and so I re-inventoried Loki, and then I began inventorying containment foam trucks from the parking lots.

"How do I use these?" I asked a PRT agent who was pointing a gun at me.

I appeared beside him, pulling his hand down even as I inventoried his uniform.

I read his mind, and then I restored his uniform next to him.

A moment later, I was in the Dockworker's union. People were gathered together here with their families.

"You all know who I am," I said. Loki appeared beside me, back in his own form. "This is Loki. He's a new hero."

Loki glanced at me sharply.

"I need heroes," I said. "No parahumans, but real heroes."

"We need to protect our families," one of the dockworkers said.

"It won't be a problem," I said. "What is a problem is all of the people out there who are being mind controlled into hurting themselves or other people. The PRT is outnumbered and undergunned."

"We aren't cops," Arnold Jacobson said quietly.

"Who does this city belong to?" I asked. "The government? The PRT? They abandoned us a long time ago. The gangs are gone."

I wasn't winning them over.

Loki stepped forward.

"None of you know me," he began. "But I've been traveling with Miss Hebert for a while. She is a person of honor. If she says this city needs people to stand up in order for it to be saved, I believe her."

He was lying through his teeth.

Everyone was silent.

"You all knew her father," he said. "What kind of man was he?"

How had he picked up on that?

A quick glance in his mind showed that he'd pieced it together from clues and suppositions.

"He was the hardest working, most honest person I know," another man said, stepping forward. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have a job."

I heard other people agreeing with him.

"And everything that has happened to this city…the bombings, the zombies, years of being under the rule of ruthless gangs…does this even feel like your city anymore?" Loki asked. There was something about his voice; it wasn't a power. It was just charisma.

"No!" I heard voices calling out from the crowd.

"They consider you all to be ants," Loki said. "Insects to be crushed beneath their feet…not just the villains, but the heroes too. The government has abandoned this place as not worth their time."

He was pulling all of this from bits and pieces of what I had told him, and from the little he'd heard me say to others. Some of it was just uncannily accurate guesswork, based on his knowledge of humanoid nature.

Despite myself, I was a little bit impressed.

"The question is…are they right? Are you going to hide in your holes and wait while your city burns? Or are you going to prove to them that this is your city, a city of people and not worthless insects?"

He didn't believe any of it, but he knew I wanted it, and he thought it was wise to ingratiate himself with me.

"I'll do it," a large black man said.

"Me too," another said.

One after another stepped forward, until I had thirty volunteers.

"That's enough," I said. "I'm going to need teams of two; one driver and one person to run a containment foam sprayer. I'm going to give you powers."

Interest perked up at that.

"When we leave, I'm going to cover this entire building in a thick layer of ice," I said. "It'll be thick enough to stop bullets, and it'll keep everyone safe. The walls here are thick and well insulate, but I'd ask the women and children to stay in the center of the room because it might start getting chilly."

"What if you don't come back?" a little girl asked.

"The PRT will be here to release you," I said. "Or if the worst happens, and you don't get noticed, the forecast is for it to be unusually hot over the next few days. Your moms and dads have cell phones and there are landlines here."

If I'd had more time, I'd have taken them to Harvester Earth.

Instead, I was going to have to use this stopgap.

Taking the heroes out of the Dockworkers building, I made fifteen vans appear in the parking lot; all had keys in them. That part of the PRT parking garage was locked, and the thought was to have the vans ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

As I opened the door of the first van, I proceeded to demonstrate the use of the containment foam sprayer.

While I was doing that, I was using my water control power to pull water from the bay; I was then using my cold control power to create ice around all the entrances and windows.

The men noticed what I was doing, but they focused when I told them how important this was.

All of them were outwardly impassive but I could feel their fear. I was asking them to go out and face mobs of people who were little better than the zombies that had attacked the city only weeks before.

"There will be people attacking you," I said. "But I will be with you. I can grant you the ability a combat sense; it only works on one person at a time, but I can switch back and forth quickly."

"Imagine finally understanding everything," Loki said. His voice was deadly serious. How the entire world fits together, understanding exactly what will happen and how to make it happen. It must be what it is like to be Odin."

Loki was superhumanly fast; almost as fast as I was. His skin was bulletproof. He hadn't really needed any enhancement from me, but I'd given it to him, and he'd liked it.

Welcome to my world.

Power was intoxicating; being able to do new things was fun. Being able to actually do some good in the world was actually growing on me.

I blinked away, and a moment later I was back. I threw ski masks and gloves at each of the men.

"It's better if no one knows you were involved with me at all; for some reason villains keep thinking it's a good idea to attack people I care about."

There was a dark chuckle around the group. Kurt and Lacy's murder was still a sore spot with all of them.

"Choose your own teams," I said. "The better drivers should drive, and the people who are better shots should man the containment foam."

The black man handed me a walkie talkie. He must have been one of the newer recruits if I didn't recognize him.

Ah.

His name was Dennis Johnson, a former marine.

He'd known my dad, and he'd respected him. He was also brave, but had felt that marines were sidelined in a world of capes.

"I need you all to stay within range of this walkie talkie," I said. "I'll direct you through it. I'll use drivers' first initial when I'm calling you. So that would be B, C, D, E, H, I,L,M, O, P, Q, R, S, T and W."

Fortunately, there weren't any repeats, like there usually was.

"What I want us to do is to move forward in formation, hitting people with containment foam in multiple blocks at the same time. Mama Mathers can see through their eyes and hear through their ears. As soon as she sees what we're doing, she's going to escalate by having them attack us en masse. If that won't work, she'll start having people kill themselves."

They stared at me.

"I'm a thinker, among other things. I'm going to try to find out where Mama Mathers is, and if I can find her, I can kill her."

"And then it will be over?" Q asked. He sounded a little more anxious than the others. Quentin had surprised the others when he'd volunteered, but he had a sick mother in the city and he wanted to keep her safe.

I'd make a little visit to his mother when all of this was over.

After describing my plan to them, with a few astute additions by Loki and by Dennis, we started moving.

My telepathy didn't have the range to keep up with them; I could barely cover a city block with that. I had to use my arcane eyes, and I had to use them from a distance because I only had eight of them to fifteen of the PRT vans.

They could spread out four thousand feet, though, which gave me plenty of room as I was in the middle of a line of them.

I stayed a little ahead of them, keeping my eyes floating just high enough that they could see the driver's faces. It was hard to distinguish one face from another after a hundred and fifty feet. I had to keep the eyes low enough that I could see all of them, and yet high enough to see two city blocks.

I must have expressed my frustration, because Loki had a response.

"You should get some sort of superhuman vision," Loki said from where he was floating beside me. "I've heard that Heimdall has excellent vision, and he's someone who definitely needs a good beating."

"I'm sure," I said dryly. "I'm not sure that would endear me to your father."

"You worry entirely too much about the opinions of others," he said. "While not worrying at all about the law."

"I want to do what's right," I said.

"Like making a waterfall of Asians," he asked. "Are you racist? Aren't you supposed to murder a rainbow of humanity and make a waterfall out of that?"

"They'd killed two of my Dad's friends."

"All of them?"

I shrugged.

"If they'd quit the gang, they'd still be alive."

Before he could respond, I leaned forward.

We were about to encounter our first groups.

"D, P, M," I said. "We've got bogies straight ahead. Get ready."

Dennis was at a sprayer; most Brockton Bay PRT agents depended on hand sprayers, but these had domes on top where the men could water hose like sprayers. These vans were mostly filled with containment foam cannisters, and there was only room for three men.

There were people fighting in the streets; BBPD, citizens forced to defend themselves, and of course, the people Mama Mathers had controlled.

"Go," I said. "C, R, P, I need each of you to turn right at the next turnoff, and then attack the rioters from behind. We need to close them in."

They shouted agreement, and I could feel the excitement and fear in the men closest to me. I ignored it, concentrating on the people who were about to need my help.

Loki mimed eating popcorn, and I glared at him. He grinned at me.

The rioters were already disengaging from civilians and rushing toward the PRT vans on either side.

The spray began and it wasn't long before the containment foam formed a wall on each side, leaving the people inside trapped, but still able to hurt themselves.

"I'm starting with D," I said. "Belt yourself in."

As I dropped down, I kept an eye on the other vans who had stopped and were idling. There was no need in them getting ahead of the rest of us and getting in trouble.

I dropped beside Dennis's van and reaching down, I easily lifted it. I probably should have crunched it as the entire weight of the van was placed on the small area of my hands but the vans were reinforced, and powers were bullshit anyway.

I lifted the van, and held it at an angle.

Then as I moved slowly over the block, Dennis kept up the spraying.

We had to take the innocent with the guilty, but I figured most of them would rather be confined for a time than be stabbed or shot.

The men and women in the next block were already trying to kill themselves. I winced as I felt people began to die.

Several people shouted in unison, "If you do this, we will cause all the people in the city to kill themselves at once."

"Do that, and I won't just kill you," I said. "I will make what you show these people look like amateur hour."

"Turn yourself in. Join the family," another woman shouted just before the foam covered her.

I was scanning all of them, and most of them didn't even remember where they'd seen Mama Mathers. A few of them did, however, and the more of them I read, the more I could fill in a mental map of the part of the city where she'd been most active.

There.

One of them had been homeless, and he'd seen Mama Mathers going in and out of an apartment complex; she'd barely seemed to notice him until she'd sent out the general call.

Dropping the van gently outside the block, I said, "Good work boys."

I was close enough to feel a thrill of alarm as three of the vans closest to us had their windows broken.

I granted combat sense to the first driver, and he was able to put his foot on the gas and drive through the growing crowd in his street without hitting a single person.

I dropped Loki on a roof and I appeared next to the second van, and I inventoried it, even as I granted the combat sense to the man in the third van.

He suddenly began shooting containment foam in short spurts that managed to freeze people in place without using much foam; this left his driver able to move forward cautiously until he was able to get out of the block.

Dropping the van off back at the Dockworkers association, I scowled.

Returning, I spoke into the walkie talkie.

"Return to base," I said.

I picked up Loki and I made sure they returned to the Dockworkers building.

"Protect your families," I said. "If the containment foam runs out, there's weapons inside all the vans. If that doesn't work, call me."

I gave them one of my burner numbers, and then I threw the burner at Loki.

"You know how to work one of these, right?"

"I'm from a technologically advanced civilization!" he said. He stared down at the phone. "Now, how do you turn it on?"

He was over a thousand years old, and my grandpa knew more about phones.

He probably watched westerns, or maybe even silent films.

"Just hold it, and give it to me if it rings," I said.

Using my water and ice powers, I created a thick wall, four feet thick around the parking lot. It wasn't all that tall, just seven feet, but it had a step that the men could use to get into firing positions.

ICE MASTERY HAS RISEN TO LEVEL 5!

YOU CAN NOW CREATE 32 CUBIC METERS OF ICE AT A TIME!

WATER MASTERY HAS RISEN TO LEVEL 3!

YOU HAVE GAINED 2 LEVELS!

YOU CAN NOW CONTROL 4 CUBIC METERS OF WATER AT A TIME!

Well, my water mastery had been my biggest limit on all of this.

"Let's go," I said to Loki. "It's time to kill someone's Mama."

"Sounds like fun," Loki said.