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Chapter -6- ...And into the Fire

Wednesday, November 3 Chicago, Illinois ...

"First you're cussing at me, mate, and now you're working with me. I'm confused, you know?"

Evan tensed his forearm. Without so much as lifting his hand, Joe became encased within glass. Slats formed on the side, providing ventilation. "Fine. If you're not going to help, you'll be stuck in here."

"Oi, oi, c'mon now! No need to be a bloody cunt about it!"

Evan turned back to Joe Pendleton, the British distant relative to the Parker family. "Where are they?! Where are the bombs?!"

Joe folded his arms. "You don't have enough time to get out unless you free me. I'm encased in glass, mate. Hmm, I wonder if it'll hold when this building comes down on our heads? Oh, and Conner was right - you'll have killed my men, too."

Evan waved the glass prison to sand. He clenched Pendleton by his collar and punched the man in the face.

Joseph went to the ground, on all fours, spitting out glass bits that used to be his teeth. He spit repeatedly, feeling glass and sand pass over his tongue. He looked up with angry eyes. Joe spit another chunk of glass mixed with bloody saliva.

"Looks like that one was a molar," Evan said. "You going to help me disarm these or are we going to die together?"

"You won't kill yourself. Your team needs you to save the day and you know it. You're more valuable alive than dead. Your file says you're not that emotional. You can't play me, mate."

Evan drew his fist back and punched Pendleton in the side of his head.

Joe cried out and grasped at his ear. The tip of his earlobe bled from where it had turned to glass just before Evan hit him again. "Christ, you bloody bastard! Stop already!"

"I'm not your mate, I'm not your target. I'm the man who is going to pull you out of here, Pendleton. How much time do we have?"

Joseph looked at his smartwatch. "Forty seconds."

"You're not playing for the winning team. You're about to die, you idiot."

"You'll protect me. It's in your nature. You can't stand to see someone die, even your enemy."

"I might be able to create a sapphire vault, but if we're buried under all that rubble, we'll suffocate. Where's the bomb?!"

Joe sighed. He got to his feet and spit out another tooth. It affected the way he spoke. "I lied. There's no bomb. I knew I couldn't defeat Conner with you at his side. So I lied. There is, however, a hostage in one of these cars. That was our real escape plan."

"How do you figure?"

"If we're caught, we wait until we're free and clear and announce we have a hostage of clout. Once free, we tell them where the hostage is. He has asthma, so when he wakes up from the injection, he'll panic. It would only be a matter of time before asthma sets in."

"Where is he?"

Joe pointed to a blue sedan parked in the corner. "See for yourself."

Evan stormed across the garage and turned the trunk to glass. He peered through it, seeing a man inside. The hostage appeared unconscious.

Evan looked up. "It's about time you told the truth." He was alone.

Evan hurried to the door leading to the stairs and opened it, but there was no one in sight. He slammed the door open, up against the concrete wall, and groaned loud in anger. "You've got to be kidding me!"

He pulled out his cellphone, walking back down to the blue car with the glass trunk. He turned the lock to sand and lifted the glass trunk. The man inside didn't move.

Evan patted the man's face. "Sir. Sir, wake up. Sir!" He glanced down at his phone. No reception underground. "It's 2049. Why the heck don't we have reception beneath an underground government building?"

He put his hands on the man's neck and felt around, trying to find a pulse. "C'mon, they do it in the movies and find it on the first try."

He reached into the man's shirt to feel for a heartbeat. Instead, Evan felt something wet against his palm. He drew his hand back out and looked down at blood on his fingers. It was wet, but it wasn't runny.

Evan lifted his hand up, examining it in the light. The blood was starting to congeal. The wound was on the man's chest, right over where his heart would have been.

"God! No wonder he's Conner's nemesis!" Evan hurried back across the parking garage. He grasped the handle to the door and swung it open, causing it to slam into the concrete again.

He took the steps two at a time, headed upstairs. Just as he reached the ground floor, the building shook violently. He heard screaming from out in the lobby at the end of the hall.

Evan turned to face a large glass prison lying on its side, with the bottom section exposed. No one was in the area.

He sprinted down the hall towards the fire exit. Another explosion came from somewhere in the building. Thick smoke poured from the staircase down the hall. More smoke came from the elevator, venting around the metallic doors.

Evan swallowed. "I messed up." His phone rang. It was in his hand, he'd forgotten about it. The vibrating and the sound startled him. He answered it.

"Where are you?! The lobby just exploded!"

"He lied to me. Conner, I'm sorry. Did you get clear?"

Another muffled explosion came from somewhere in the building. The lights went out. Even stepped through the fire exit and peered up to check for falling debris.

"Where ARE you?! I got the file!"

"You're upstairs?" Evan exclaimed.

"No! I got the file and I got out! Sorry. I came back in. The fire exit didn't latch."

"Where are you?!"

"Calm down, Evan! I broke out a window and I dove to the rooftop of the next building over. Did you get free?"

Evan swallowed. "I'm trying." An enormous eruption came from a floor high up in the sky. Glass and debris fell from the sky, raining down on the alley between buildings. A burning body slammed into the pavement.

Evan felt his stomach drop. "I'm sorry, Conner. I didn't mean to treat you like that. If I die, I don't want that on my..."

"Make a run for it! We need you to stop Falcon! Quit whining and get out of there!"

Evan shoved the phone into his pocket with Conner still talking. He tensed his arms and created a thick glass hallway leading outside. He broke into a hard run.

A loud bang struck the top of the glass hall. He couldn't be sure if it was another body or a piece of debris. Evan ran as hard as his long lean legs could take him. A fiery office desk came crashing through the glass top, shattering a section.

Evan held his hands up over his face and hurdled the desk. He felt the heat but it seemed distant, as though in the back of his mind, or possibly a dream.

Evan felt himself thrown to the left. Everything was hazy and happened too fast. He quickly got to his feet, dazed and not sure which way to run.

"Evan!" Conner shoved him up against a wall of another building. "Hey! Hey! Snap out of it!"

Evan looked around. The building in the distance crumbled. An enormous white cloud rose up over them like a tidal wave. People screamed in the distance but it went unheard by the roar of the falling building.

Conner grabbed Evan by his shirt collar and shoved him into a convenience store on the corner of the next building over. They spilled to the floor, knocking over a rack of sunglasses. "Cover the windows!" Conner shouted.

Evan, as if by reflex, threw his hands up, bricking up the glass and door with sapphire panels. The store shook and the lights went out.

Junk food fell from shelves and people in the store ducked down as if it was an earthquake.

Evan sat up, covered in white plaster. He turned to Conner. The boy looked the same way.

The line between skin color and race was erased. They appeared exactly the same, covered in white and dapple grey soot and plaster.

Hyper-vigilant in his state of shock, Evan gazed down at his palms and back at Conner. Evan looked back up, taking in every little detail, from the color of snack packages, to the positioning of sunglasses spread out on the floor tiles.

Conner scrambled to his feet, moving away from the window but Evan just sat on the floor, looking around in a daze. "Dude, move!"

"It will hold," Evan replied, watching the enormous grey cloud outside through the tinted sapphire panel. He swallowed. His throat was dry. "He lied. He killed all those people, and rescued his men."

Conner brought a bottle of water and handed it to Evan. "Get the stuff out of your mouth. You need to rinse that out. Trust me, I know what it's like to have a building fall on you. You inhaled some of that mess. Wash your face."

"He lied. He took me downstairs, showed me a dead hostage, and took off."

Conner lifted his head up and poured water from a second bottle over his face. "Yeah. Joe Pendleton's mother should have swallowed him like a protein shake and saved the world some grief. Are you okay?"

Evan opened his bottle of water, still dazed from everything that happened. He poured it over his forehead. The dirt ran down his face. He used his hands and the water to work the caked white powder away from his eyes and mouth. "Did you say the explosion came from the lobby?"

"What?" Conner guzzled some of his water, swished it around and spit it out onto the tiled floor. "I'm going to end that guy. Did he really say he's working with the asshat that nuked my goddamn home?"

Evan looked up from where he sat on the floor. "Did you say the first blast came from the lobby? On the phone, you said that, right?"

"Yeah. I saw it from the roof of the adjacent building. It was a shaped charge. The blast threw body parts out through the glass wall. It was ... it was bad, Evan."

"How did you get down to me so quickly?" Evan stood up and stumbled back to the floor, on all fours. He put his hand on a nearby shelf with bags of chips. He pulled himself back to his feet.

"Dude, calm down. You're in shock. I jumped to an older building to the west of the second building. It was a historic building and it had a fire escape on the outside. I landed it, two stories down right on the escape. I, uh..." Conner held up his left hand. "I think I broke my pinky and ring finger. Maybe I just jammed them, I'm not sure yet."

"You came down the fire escape and shoved me over here. Right, I uh ... some sort of desk came through the glass ceiling I made. It was on fire. And then I felt you tackle me."

"Yeah, you were about to be flat as a crape." Conner went back for another bottle of water, helping himself to two more. He came back to Evan. "There was another explosion on that building. I think it was the third or fourth floor from the top. It looked like something out of one of those nine-eleven documentary videos. It was huge."

"It was a government building. There had to be over five thousand people that worked there. The car garage was _really _big." Evan stared off into space. "There were only ten elevators. I heard screaming coming from the lobby when the bomb went off."

"Evan ... you didn't see the explosion on the top of the building. It was really big, man. Like, it was as big as if an airplane hit it. But there were no planes."

Evan quirked his dirty grey brows. "How big are we talking?"

"Big enough to bring the building down!" Conner exclaimed. "Something that big and hot would soften the supports. It was at the top and the bottom at the same time. Whatever was left collapsed like an accordion. Pendleton is good, but he's not that good. They must have had inside help to rig the explosions weeks in advance."

"I ... I don't know about any of that. I can't think straight right now. All those people died in that building."

Conner sighed. The store was silent.

All at once an explosion shook the convenience store. The tinted sapphire panel cracked.

Conner handed the second water bottle to Evan. "I read that some of the buildings adjacent to the World Trade Center came down after those buildings fell. I don't want to stick around this close to a collapse and find out if this one will be next. We need to move."

Evan poured the last of the first bottle's contents over his face and threw the bottle to the floor. He looked around. The convenience store was empty. "Where'd everyone go?"

Conner frowned. "I don't know. Is there a way out back?" He hopped up onto the counter, stepped down, behind the register, and went through the back. A moment later, he shouted, "C'mere!"

Evan went around the counter, back up towards the register, and into the back. He passed various bits of stocking supplies. In the back, there was a door that led to an alley.

Conner pointed towards a cloud of debris. "The building is completely gone. It's just ... it's not there anymore."

"All those people."

"Evan, look up."

Evan leaned through the doorframe and stared up into the sky. "What creates a cloud like that? It's all ... black and hanging over the sky where the building used to be." He swallowed and his face changed as a dark thought dawned on him. "We need to get to a pharmacy."

"What? Why?"

"We need something to protect the thyroid from radiation. I have a feeling one of those MIRVS, something really small, maybe even, like, two tenths of a kiloton, could have been used to..."

"Evan, calm down."

"We need to take the pills just in case."

Conner pulled his phone out and showed Evan the screen. "See? There was no EMP. There was no nuke. Look, I know what you're talking about. ThroShield. It's an oral solution. Hell, it comes in black raspberry flavor. We kept it in my grandfather's bunker. It had a shelf life of, like, five years. But we don't need that sort of thing."

"You're a teen, how do you know what potassium iodide is, Conner?"

"Just calm down, Evan. You're in shock."

"Just ... how did you know?"

Conner sighed and decided to humor the man. "I had to order it last year for the bunker under my house in San Fran. It has a five year shelf life."

Evan looked back up at the space where the building once dominated the skyline. "You really think they didn't come after us with a small yield tactical...?"

"No, not at all," Conner cut in. "Look, I get it. You think a mini-nuke blew up the building and made it collapse. But calm down and think. Our phones still work."

Evan pulled his out and looked at the screen. It showed reception. He thumbed the screen and brought the phone to his ear.

A message played, announcing that the cellular service was unavailable due to being at capacity. Evan swallowed. He pushed his phone back into his pocket and uncapped the second water bottle. "It ... it said it wasn't available. But there were bars on the screen."

"Evan, you called something. Something else answered. So what? It was an automated message. The call didn't fail, it was probably just a response saying the servers are overloaded."

Evan sighed. "Yeah. Sorry, I've never been at ground zero for any kind of attack, especially not against the Government. But, how can they be overloaded? It's 2049, for crap sake."

Conner frowned. He felt bad, seeing Evan freaking out like this. "That's because everyone is calling someone right now. Think about it - we still have reception to the nearby tower, overloaded or not. Calm down."

Evan took a deep breath, drank from the water bottle, and sighed. "I'm sorry I cussed at you. I should have let you fight him."

"What? Why would you say that? Neither of us would have made it out of there if we stuck around and fought."

Evan nodded and took another drink. "Sorry, yeah. You're right. How can you be so calm right now?"

"I dive off of buildings. It's sort of my thing. I learned how to keep my wits about myself after an adrenaline spike. Also, I had a building fall on me and I survived. This time, I got out before it dropped."

"Either of us could have been crushed just like all those people I couldn't save." Evan pressed the cool bottle against his head. He felt overheated.

Conner dusted the man's shoulders off. "We made it out, we can tell the FBI what we know, or better yet, we'll tell Greg Watson."

"Yeah. Yeah, Conner, that's a good idea."

"I just ... I'm glad you're okay."

"I can't believe you got the file." Evan took another drink from the second water bottle. He leaned against the wall and laughed nervously. "You could have died."

"I could have. But the first explosion was on the ground level. You could have died. We both made it out alive, okay? Now we need to get further away. I saw bandanas out by the sunglasses on the floor. We should pour water on them and use them as face masks. We need to move."

"You're right. I'm glad you're keeping your head on straight, Conner. I think I'm going to throw up." Evan turned around and leaned over but nothing came out, not even the water he just drank. "Give me a sec. Go and get those bandanas and more water. I'll be right out."

"Okay." Conner headed back to the front of the store.

Evan collected himself and went back to join Conner. He came around to the front door and reached for the hand that Conner was favoring. "Let me see."

"What?"

"Conner, the fact you won't take care of your tooth is bad enough, okay? Now give me your hand."

"What for?" Conner gingerly offered his hand. "See? Two fingers either sprained or broken."

"Definitely broken." Evan carefully closed his grasp over Conner's hand.

Conner tensed up, expecting it to hurt but, instead, the pain faded. "Jesus Christ, what the hell did you just do? You can heal people, Evan?"

Balmoral shook his head. "Not the way you're thinking. I used base components that make up your body to create glass. I guess you could say I glass'ed the broken bones back into place."

"It doesn't hurt anymore!"

Evan smiled, but looked tired from his emotional ordeal over the last hour. "It will hold for a while, and you'll heal. It might be a little tender if you're rough with your hand. Don't do that. But it will hold."

"I uh ... thanks."

"Yeah. I'll fix that tooth for you when we get the heck out of here." Evan tilted his head a bit. "Did you know your father had control over nanobots? Why can't you do that?"

"Uh, what? Nanobots like those things they use for medical procedures? That's science fiction, man."

"Your father used them when we went to attack Falcon's city, twenty-five years ago. They're real. I'm not sure where they came from, but they're real."

Conner looked at Evan, as if suspiciously. "You're serious?"

"Yeah. Let's just get out of here. We'll figure that out later."

"Yeah, good idea. Let's get back to the safe house before something else goes wrong today."

X

---

X

Shortly...

Karla stirred the wooden ladle in the pot. She leaned forward and sniffed at it. Her hair was back in a ponytail. "Smells great, doesn't it?" She opened a cabinet and reached for herbs, spices and other additives. "And yes, this country is screwed up," she said, continuing a conversation she had been discussing with Reno for the past twenty minutes. "Don't ask why unless you want a long-winded explanation."

Reno Nevada stretched and put his feet up on an ottoman. "I don't understand - most people blame the Government. But you don't?"

"Nope. I blame the people. I blame We The People."

"How do you figure? And, if you could," Reno grinned, folded his hands, and said, "try and condense your recourse to under thirty seconds."

"Almost two hundred seventy-six years ago, Americans were ready to fight over a tiny little tax increase on a breakfast beverage, and it wasn't even coffee." She held her hands up, "Now they let this country walk all over them. I know, I know, it was primarily because George the Third wouldn't let Americans issue their own money. But a tax on tea was their way of adding an insult to the injury. Now look at Americans, Reno. Millions die and the only change that happened was on the District Coast."

"I ... didn't know you cared so much about politics. And, no, I didn't know anything about the real reason for - what? The Boston Tea Party or something?"

"Oh, hey, look at you, Top Cop - bringing Jeopardy back."

"That was a TV show, right? I've heard of it, but I never saw it."

"You said the answer in the form of a question, heh. Anyhow, I'm just saying the population of the Continental United States should be ashamed of itself. These morons are too complacent to help their own neighbors and one-time-countrymen, out on the District Coast. Hell, most of the people who survived on The DC were southerners and Amish people."

"All the hard working people survived, but they're also too conservative, and have little to offer. America had to cut its losses or go broke."

Karla scoffed. "That's no reason to ignore them. Despite all adversity, the survivors put together an amazing grassroots government. They're rebuilding. I'm half-tempted to move there."

"Except for the fact the whole place is a wreck, it can't be farmed anymore, and there's nearly zero internet."

Karla smirked. "I made due for four hundred years without it. Now what, Mr. Smarty Pants?"

Reno fidgeted. "So ... the food smells good. I like letting the boys work while we relax."

"You're just saying that because I'm cooking and you don't want me to stop. After forty-five decades, I should be the best chef on the planet, but I'm not."

Reno grinned at her. "You're the smartest babe to rock a kitchen."

"And you're the sweetest Homicide Inspector to ever throw a lightning bolt." She grinned back and started stirring the ladle again.

The door opened. Evan and Conner walked in. Both of them were covered in debris. Plaster and soot was caked to their sweaty skin.

Reno looked up. "You guys lucked out and missed the most boring conversation on ... Christ, what happened to you two?"

Karla looked up and tilted her head. "Time for a shower, guys. Don't take turns on my account. I'm down to watch you guys together."

"Karla, I'm not in the mood for jokes," Evan said.

Karla cut her eyes from left to right. "Well, now I know who is who; you look almost the same."

"The crap is caked on overtop of a clear facial spray designed to fool facial recognition," Conner said.

The charismatic succubus tapped her ladle on the side of the pot, and said, "I cooked. Conner, do you like capers?" She picked up a small container of food additives and gave it a shake. "Oh, wait, you're a master thief - of course you like capers." She turned around and poured them in the pot, amused by her joke.

Reno slid off the sofa and approached the two. "Conner, your sister is sleeping in the back room. She's flying back to New York shortly."

Conner wiped his face. "What?"

Karla cut back in. "She has surgery with Cybil and Steven to get that thing out of her head. Try not to wake her. She was restless all night and only just managed to fall asleep shortly after you two left earlier."

Evan turned to Conner. "Paper, Rock, Scissors for who gets a shower first."

"Age before beauty," Conner murmured. "I'll fill them in on what happened."

Karla frowned, hearing the tone of Conner's voice. "You guys got the file, right?"

"Yeah."

Karla pointed to Reno. "Stir the pot, babe. Please." She stepped away from the stove and let her hair down. "Everything okay?"

Evan feigned a weak smile. "Let him tell you. Yeah, we got the file, but I need to shower." He walked out of the small room and into a bathroom near the back of the small safe house.

Karla frowned. "It doesn't take being perceptive to see the elephant in the room. I was trying to avoid it when you guys came in, just in case it involved something embarrassing. But hearing Evan's voice ... he sounded like he was near tears. What happened?"

Conner looked from Karla to Reno and back to Karla. "Are you two fucking kidding?" The incredulous expression on his face caused the caked dirt to crack over his cheeks.

"Conner," Reno said in a firm tone, "don't talk to her like that."

Conner balled his hands into fists. "Fine. I almost died. It's on TV when you get a chance. Faster yet, if you glanced at your phones, you would see social media blowing up about what happened. The whole world is tuned in right now."

Awkward silence.

Conner added, "Hell, the media coverage will be much more personal than when San Fran was nuked."

Reno opened his mouth to chastise, but Karla stopped pending argument by placing her hand on Reno's shoulder.

Nevada went back to stirring the pot.

Karla approached Conner and guided him to the kitchen sink. She picked up a cloth rag, ran it under the sink and used it to clean off Parker's face. "This stuff is thoroughly caked to your forehead and cheeks. I take it you washed off the first layer of mess before getting your second coating?"

"Yeah, at a convenience store."

Karla nodded. "Why don't you start from the beginning, but keep it short and sweet so you don't get upset while telling me about it."

"Joe Pendleton managed to plant multiple explosives at the building where James' stepfather works. One was actually in Watson's office. Another bomb was near the top floor. To top it all off, there were shaped charges in the lobby, all designed to cause as much gore as possible."

Reno kept stirring but cut his eyes to the right, looking back at Conner in silence.

Karla pressed the rag gently over his forehead. When he closed his eyes, she dabbed at his eyelids, using warm water to cut through the grime. "That seems to be Pendleton's favorite play, huh? He has a thing for demolitions. Greg Watson's building is the tallest in the city."

"Yeah."

She frowned. A pang of empathy made her chest ache for him. "Take your time, hon. Start from the beginning."

"Evan and I split up. He threw me out of the building because he thought it was too dangerous. He forced Pendleton to take him to the bomb. Big surprise - Joe tricked him and took him away from the first bomb."

Reno grimaced. "Knowing Evan, he blames himself for whatever happened next."

"Yeah." Conner sighed. "Evan is taking it pretty hard. He told me this story about how he let himself get locked up as a prisoner on a cargo ship twenty-five years ago. All because he was upset with himself for failing to be a hero or whatever. And he was upset he moped when Falcon beat you guys the first time around. He went over all his failures the whole way back here."

Reno nodded. "He feels like his family's lives are on the line because they're down there, waiting to be rescued."

Karla continued to clean Conner's face off with the warm wet cloth. She ran it under the sink again, squeezed it in her fist and brought it back to his face. "So you were separated. What happened next?"

With a soft sigh, Conner continued. "I was thrown out through the exit door by Evan. He slammed the door and cussed in my face. First time I'd really heard him cuss, ever."

"What, he tell you to get the hell out?" she asked.

"No, he actually said 'fuck,' and then he went toe-to-toe with Joe. He told me he cussed at Pendleton, too. Evan was super-pissed."

"Jesus," Karla murmured. "I'm almost sorry I missed it. It would have been pretty epic. So what happened when you were outside?"

"I picked the lock to the fire exit door. I opened it and let myself back inside. I saw Evan forcing Joe downstairs. I darted across the hallway, took the stairs up, and ran faster than I had in my whole life. I took the stairs three at a time."

Karla ran the rag under the sink again and used it to clean his hands, one at a time while he spoke.

Conner continued. "I found Watson's office on thirteen. I ran into his office and saw the desk. I opened the drawers and rifled through them. A briefcase caught my eye, sitting under the desk."

"Was the file in it?"

"I thought it was weird," Conner said pointedly. "Watson is in a bunker in New York State. So why would his briefcase be under his desk without him there?"

Karla nodded. "True." She reached for his other hand and began rinsing the grime from his fingers. "Go on."

"So I open the briefcase, hoping the file would be there. Inside was an enormous amount of C4 charges."

"Jesus," Karla murmured.

"Yeah, exactly," he replied. "The case was absolutely loaded down with explosives. It had a panel with LED diodes. I touched the panel and was able to interface with it, but I didn't have enough time to figure out how to disarm it. All I could sense is that I had ninety seconds to spare."

"Jesus," Karla murmured. She brought the washcloth up and guided his chin upwards. She began working at the grime around his neck. "I would have been freaked out."

"Yeah, well, my adrenaline kicked in and everything was..." he trailed off, looking for a word to properly describe what he experienced.

"Panicked?"

Conner shook his head. "No, just the opposite. Everything was so ... clear and calm. It was weird. Anyhow, I opened all the drawers in the desk at once. I went through them, found the file, shoved the pages down into my boxer-briefs, and picked up the chair. I threw it against the window three times before it finally broke. The fire alarm went off."

"Yeah? Then what?" she asked in a gentle tone.

"I ran to the window. I grabbed the chair and put my feet on the big metal base with the rolling wheels. I lifted the chair out of the base, backed up and ran out the window."

"With the cushion part of the chair?" Karla asked. She deduced where he was going with his actions but wanted him to tell the story.

"Yeah, I held on to the armrests. The chair had a really thick cushion. When the back of the chair hit the rooftop of the building across the alley, it broke my fall. I felt like I'd just done a belly flop into a swimming pool, but it was better than landing a three-story drop and breaking everything else."

"That must have been either really scary or really exciting," she said, coddling him through the story with an empathetic tone.

"Yeah, I broke two fingers on my left hand during the landing. Evan later used glass to fix that - I'm not sure how."

"So you just jumped across the gap of an alley and landed on a rooftop three stories below, and broke two fingers..."

"Right," said Conner, continuing his story. "So I had the wind knocked out of me; I'm laying there, looking over the edge at the alley below. Boom. The bomb goes off in the lobby."

"Oh God..." Karla frowned.

"Yeah," Conner said with a sigh. "Shaped charges. People ... goddamn people are blown out through the corner windows, like, right into the street. It was a spray of red and body parts everywhere."

"Good heavens, sweetheart. What did you do?"

He shrugged with a distant look in his gaze.

Karla could tell, from his eyes, that the boy was still in shock over what he experienced. "Go on, sweetheart."

"I just ... laid there, out of breath, and unable to move. And then Watson's office explodes. Glass and bits of concrete pelt the hell out of me. I rolled over, forcing the broken chair to cover me."

"That was really smart, Conner," she told him in a gentle voice. "What next?"

"I started to breathe again. I got to my feet and hurried over to the other corner of the ten-story building - the one I used to escape, and all."

Karla nodded.

Conner rubbed his forehead. "I eyeballed a historic building across the way. It had an old fashion fire escape. The damn thing was probably over a hundred years old."

Karla eased the rag under the faucet again. She moved around behind Conner and used it like a sponge, trying to loosen the grime caked on the back of his neck.

"Anyhow," he tilted his head forward, "I looked up and the top of the government building blows its top like a volcano. I'd never seen an explosion like that one. The closest I could compare it to is those old Nine-Eleven videos from the internet. It was huge, like an airplane or missile hit the tower."

"Oh my God, Conner. What did you do?"

"I dove off the side of the second building with a piece of the chair. I hit the fire escape and lost the cushion. Next thing I know, I'm dangling from a railing. Glass and shit are raining down from above, pelting me on the back. I pull myself up to the edge of the railing but I couldn't hold on. I think I might have broken my second finger at that point. Either that or I finally realized my hand was hurting from earlier."

Karla soaked the rag again and started working on his hair. Grey rivulets ran down behind his ears, along the side of his neck.

"I swung my legs back, then forward, and dropped to the next landing down. I made my way down to the second story and I looked down. I saw Evan running out of the fire escape door I left open. Then he creates this ... this glass tunnel. A huge chunk of concrete hits the damn thing and cracks the glass. A body hit it next, and by then I can tell the whole thing is spider-webbed."

"Thank God he made the glass tunnel."

"Yeah." Conner sighed, relaxed from the hot water and Karla's gentle touch. "A burning desk hit the top and blasted right through the glass thing. At first, I thought it was Watson's desk but my mind was clear as a bell from the adrenaline. I realized it was impossible. The C4 in the briefcase would have turned his desk to splinters. Anyhow, I see Evan through the broken glass tunnel. He leaps over the desk. And then I see this ... shadow overtop of him."

"Shadow?" She perked, somewhat.

"Yeah." Conner frowned. "I look up and there's a chunk falling from the top of the building ... I jumped off the second story. I landed on the broken cushion from the chair that I dropped when I hit the fire escape, earlier. It was sitting cushion-side-up on the corner of this huge dumpster."

Reno and Karla remained silent.

Conner continued his story. "I leaned forward because I didn't want the plastic lid to collapse. I would have fallen in. Couldn't have that. So I leaned forward. I landed on this cushion, right on the corner of the lid, square on my ass. Talk about luck. I rolled forward, off of it, and plowed into Evan."

"Jesus, babe."

"I slam him up against the wall. Next thing I know, I'm flat on my face. This goddamn chunk of the building hits the ground right where Evan was standing. A body hits the ground nearby. It's all burned up and doesn't even look human. The clothes were cooked to its skin. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman."

"Conner, babe, I'm so sorry you saw all that. That was really amazing how you rescued Evan."

"I rushed him through the alley up to another building and we ducked into a 7-Eleven. We come through the door and slam right into a rack of sunglasses. They're all over the place, and Evan turns around and changes the glass panel into sapphire, just before the building, the Government one, comes to the ground."

"That was close."

"Yeah." Conner wiped some of the warm water from his forehead and eyes. "I, uh, I think I remember Evan talking to me on the phone when I was on the roof of that second building. Or maybe it was when I was dazed, recovering on the fire escape. Everything happened so fast."

"Evan called you? Or you called him?"

"Honestly I can't even remember right now." Conner frowned. "Maybe I wasn't as clear-minded as I thought."

"Conner, sweetie, you had a traumatic experience. Relax. The details will come back in due time."

Parker used the bottom of his right wrist to wipe his right eye. "I just know I heard Evan's voice on the phone at some point. I remember telling him something. He sounded so upset. And he was just ... standing in the fire escape door."

Karla and Reno exchanged glances, both silent.

Conner sighed. "By the time we made it into the corner store, Evan was in shock. He was a mess. Everyone handles stress differently. He felt responsible. All I could think of was how to survive. It's all part of my training. I started scouting ways to escape and avoid injury."

"You got the file with no time to spare, and you saved Evan and yourself." Karla smiled softly. "You did really good, babe. I'm proud of you."

"Evan was so upset because he couldn't warn people to escape. But he didn't see that blast hurl bodies out of the wrap-around window in the lobby." Conner sighed.

Silence.

Parker reached into the front of his pants, beneath the waistline of his boxer-briefs, and pulled printed files and a thin, wide external hard drive. "Sorry I sweat all over it. It was the most secure place I could stuff it in a hurry. I didn't want to chance it falling out of my pockets. I hate dress slacks."

"You needed to look proper when going there," Karla reminded him. "There was no way you could have known all that stuff was going to happen."

"I'm just glad I didn't lose this stuff." Conner looked at the flat hard drive. "I'm glad I didn't break this when I landed on my ass after scooting off the fire escape. Thank Christ I landed on that stupid chair cushion, or I'd have broken my tailbone."

"Just be glad you don't wear regular boxers, or it would have fallen down your pant-leg." Karla drew him into a hug. "You think you're up for a little more excitement?"

"When?"

"Soon. Tomorrow. The rest of the gang says they have more work for our outfit. But this time, there will be no more collapsing buildings. You've reached your lifetime quota."

"What about Carmen's surgery?"

"She'll be going by herself. James will be there."

"Just you and me?"

Reno chimed in, "I'll be going, too. We have to steal something, and you're the go-to guy, kiddo."

Conner sighed. "Can I take my cane to the next job?"

"Sure," Karla replied with a nod. "You can if you want. Basically, the three of us have to..."

"Wait," Conner held his hands up. "Don't tell me. I don't want my mind to race. I don't want to think about logistics. I don't want to plan anything. I just want to close my eyes and sleep. I want to shut down and forget about buildings shaking, and ceilings dropping around me. I want to forget the taste of plaster and concrete ... just for a little while."

"I understand." Karla kissed his forehead. "Are you going to be okay if I put on the news?"

"Yeah. It might upset Evan, though. So do it now before he gets out of the shower." Conner dropped into a chair at the nearby kitchen table. "Joe Pendleton said he's working for Loki. He said Loki had no problems detonating the nuke."

Karla pursed her lips in disgust. "Loki isn't the kind of deity to have any compunction about anything, Conner. He was cast as a villain and an asshole."

Conner nodded. "Did you catch the part where I said Loki was responsible for San Francisco? I'm not entirely sure Falcon had anything to do with it, though. But I aim to find out."

"We'll throttle that jackass." Karla handed him the moist rag. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Can you eat? I mean, you should eat, Conner. It will settle your stomach after all that stress."

"Actually, I'm starving. I'm pretty sure I'm negative calories. I know I need to eat." Conner laid his head down on the kitchen table and shut his eyes for a moment. "And a hot shower. I hope Evan doesn't use up all the hot water."

"The hot water here is great here, Conner." Karla took the wooden ladle from Reno and said, "Before cooking, I took a hot shower and I was in there for an hour. I think it's one of those systems that heats the water as it's being used."

"When do we leave for that job tomorrow?"

"There's no set time. We leave after you've rested," she said in a stern voice. "And not a moment sooner."

"What is it that we're doing?"

"Are you sure you want to know now?"

"I'd rather think about logistics than wonder about the next thing to come at me."

Karla nodded in understanding. "I don't know all the details. They mentioned something about surveillance files and information from the Alameda Navy base."

"There's something else, Karla. Since you haven't watched the news, I'm assuming you don't know about it. "

"What?"

"It was in the news today, and Pendleton even confirmed the whole thing - it turns out there's one more bomb out there. And we've got to find it."

Karla's mouth went dry. She swallowed and sighed through her nose. "Things always have to snowball, and it always seems to start with a bully trying to attack the masses."

"We were just talking about that before the boys came in," Reno said.

"Yeah," Karla murmured. "Now if we could just get the rest of the country to help us, instead of doing everything ourselves..."

"You want to take the fight to Loki?" asked Reno.

"Why the hell not? Maybe it will inspire the rest of the world to help," said Karla with a shrug. "First we throw tea in the Boston harbor, then we burn the HMS Peggy Stewart in Annapolis."

Conner stared at her with a blank gaze. "Yeah? Tea? Are you comparing war between two nations, fought with muskets, to a war fought against a hiding deity armed with nuclear bombs?"

She stuck her lower lip out and blew a few stray tresses from her face. The blond locks framed her face perfectly. "We're going to have to come at this differently."

Conner looked down again. "What do you have in mind?"

Karla smiled somewhat. "I'll talk to Tamamo and the others and we'll figure out a solid plan. But first, let me go check on Evan. Be right back."

"This sounds serious." Reno pulled his phone out with his left hand and thumbed the screen. "The one damn day I put my phone into 'Do Not Disturb' mode, I swear."

Karla reached over and turned the stovetop burner down. She handed the ladle back to Reno. "Just keep stirring a bit." She headed out of the room.

Reno stood there, phone in one hand, ladle in the other. He scrunched his nose a bit at Conner. "What's that face for, kiddo?"

"It smells like sex in here but you're not asleep."

"How can you smell anything after all that plaster went up your nose?"

"Adrenaline is thinning out. I can smell everything. It's overpowering, really. So why aren't you passed out?"

Reno grinned a bit. "I learned how to rapid re-charge my batteries, kid." Reno started stirring the pot. He lowered his eyes to the screen of his phone, reading the latest news headline. "Go change your clothes. You're covered in plaster, asbestos, and a bunch of other nasty cancer-causing shit. Go on, now."

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Next Chapter: https://www.sofurry.com/view/836072