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Asylum 14:
The Enemy of my Enemy

5:30 PM, Chicago.

She'd seen it all, more or less, although details were uncertain, as if she'd woken from a particularly vivid dream. Some things were clear: talking to Dead Boy, who sat atop his giant alligator steed with the self-assurance of a child dangling his feet from a treehouse, heedless of the armed and armored PRIMUS and SWAT goons. Then Stranger, huge, hulking, out of nowhere, making his presence known, and she wanted to tell herself that he couldn't possibly have been that big, that nobody could be that brain-scramblingly massive, but she couldn't be sure.

Things started to get hazy after that. There was the panic of feeling herself collapsing, somehow tired in the middle of all this, while a camera recorded everything and Stranger suggested a cultural exchange. The goons must've opened fire then, because there was a sound like a burning gas station being dropped on a fireworks factory. As exhausted as she was, she didn't actually lose consciousness, but standing or even crawling were out of the question. Her brain sent the signals, but her muscles were out to lunch. She called for help, but all that came out was a wordless groan drowned out by the gunfire and the backfiring car of keystone cops.

The bobble-headed giant alligator was still there. It had cucumber slices over its eyes. No, it didn't… she tried to shake her head to clear it, but in her state it was impossible to say what was real. There was a row of houses built along a cliffside over a beach, and their backyards were full of Roman ruins. The alligator roared, beating out the gunfire, and Stranger flew past, a cue ball hitting the 8 into the corner pocket. There was sewer water in her mouth, and her attempts to spit it out only resulted in drooling. Somewhere in her mind she thought about dry cleaning and how she'd lost her ticket and wouldn't be able to get her costume back within eight hours. The guy at the dry cleaner's was Elvis, and he was singing "Love Me Tender."

Stranger had long blond hair, like Maggie's. An electric blue knocked him flat, and a second later the electric blue was thrown backwards, and there was no more blond hair to obscure the pink baby flesh bulging out from Stranger's mask. Most of the lights around her had been destroyed in the melee, but Violet was able to make out that much. Somewhere in the tunnel, Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still opened his mouth, and all she could hear was a strange ululation, nothing else… the only way she knew a few PRIMUS goons were firing at Stranger was from the muzzle flashes of their guns.

Some degree of strength had returned, and she lifted herself gingerly onto her elbows and spat, finally. Her vision and reality began to shift into focus. The ululating ceased abruptly, and Stranger bellowed, "COD!" Then "You!" Far down the tunnel, she could make out a shaft of light— light!— and the silhouette of a man in a trenchcoat— JusticeMaker? Violet mused that it seemed like the sort of place he'd hang out. Stranger charged at him with frightening speed, a runaway freight train, only worse, and JusticeMaker escaped up into the light with such agility and alacrity that it convinced her of two things. One, he'd dealt with Stranger before, and two, not all freaks in trenchcoats were JusticeMaker.

For whatever reason, the madman let him go— maybe he couldn't fit through the manhole. He turned back to the alligator, and like a redneck with a pitbull said, "Rover, hold still, boy, and don't bite me." Rover did as he was told, and Stranger ripped the biostrands from the beast's snout. That was sobering to see. Violet didn't know everything about Maggie's techno toys, but she knew enough to get a sinking feeling from Stranger treating the netting like cheap masking tape.

Dead Boy was still on top of Rover, stuck there by more biostrands, but he wasn't moving. Stranger shook the boy gently, which was almost surprising to see after so much violence, but there was no response.

"Fuck!" he shouted, then ran down the tunnel, away from her, the alligator close behind, blocking what little view was available of him in the dim light. She didn't care to see much anyway, as long as they were leaving. A few of the conscious PRIMUS agents were getting to their feet, unaffected by whatever had sapped her strength.

"Well," she began, and it was harder to speak than she thought it'd be, "that—"

"NO!" Far down the tunnel, amplified and echoing, Stranger's cry was pure anguish. She imagined him in a cop movie, standing over the fresh corpse of his partner, rain pouring down, shaking his fists at the sky and the crane-mounted camera pulling away into the heavens. Violet couldn't imagine the source of this outburst, but finding out was pretty low on the list at the moment. Though still tired, her fatigue had faded from a crushing weight to sitting on the edge of her bed at 6:30 in the morning after three hours of sleep.

"Ma'am?" A PRIMUS agent, soiled by sewage, stood before her. "You alright?"

Violet nodded towards the open manhole. "Help me over there."

He was strong and smelled like shit, which was good since she was still too weak to walk and probably smelled almost as bad. She looked over her shoulder, towards the post office, and saw Maggie for the first time— second time, she realized, as she remembered Stranger's blond hair, and it struck her how close Maggie'd come to being dragged off by him, caveman-style. Beyond her was Bolt, also unmoving. If she was lucky, they were only knocked out. The thought of having to face Stranger without Maggie frightened Violet to the core.

"Magnitude… she…" she began, but another PRIMUS agent was already kneeling beside her. Two others ran west after the alligator, weapons drawn, scouting the area. And that was it, she noticed, for ambulatory PRIMUS agents.

The bright circle of light under the open manhole was just a few feet away now.

The agent supporting her looked up at the ladder and frowned. "Do you want me to give you a boost up, Ma'am?" he said.

She shook her head no, and moved out of his arms. Her legs felt like noodles. The agent stood next to her, hands out, clearly expecting her to fall over any second.

Then she stepped into the circle.

The photons hit like a mountain waterfall. The light drenched her, and soaked down into her cells. She sighed, and leaned back against the wall.

The PRIMUS agent smiled despite himself. "Better?"

Violet smiled broadly at the agent and radiated a warm golden glow to match. She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a sound from about 40 or 50 feet away. The sound was reminiscent of someone getting up after an all-night bender. This particular someone was wearing electric blue spandex.

"—esus Christ. Last time I play chicken with a subway train…"

The sparkling dialog was accompanied by the sight of Bolt slowly regaining his feet. In the dim light, she could see an occasional spark travel from his outstretched hand to the wall as he steadied himself. Once on his feet, he stopped short and looked around, his head virtually blurring with the motion.

"Shit." To no one in particular he added, "Where's Magni— Oh." He moved over to where the PRIMUS agent knelt over Magnitude, still lying in the muck. Ultraviolet noticed with a small degree of satisfaction that Bolt wasn't moving quite as fast as he had before.

Bolt extended a hand to help her up.

Maggie opened her eyes; they were full of pain, as if she'd suddenly awakened to find herself inhabiting a huge bruise. Then fury chased it away. "Crisse de Tabarnak d'ostie de calisse de saint-ciboire—" She took Bolt's arm, and let the man help her up. "This is starting to look like a habit. No more Ms. Nice Gal, from now on we're operating in extreme prejudice mo—"

Maggie was interrupted by a tremendous bang like an artillery round going off. The sound echoed up and down the tunnel. Violet was sure that the scouts had encountered Stranger again, but then she realized that it had come from the east end of the tunnel, back toward the post office.

Maggie looked in that direction, frowned, and looked at Bolt and UV. "You're not going into the dark again", she told Ultraviolet, "and I can't go rooting in the dark without my optics and my helmet, so you go and see, Bolt. If you see Stranger I suggest you stay put."

"Stranger?" Bolt asked. "Oh, you mean the cross between King Kong and the freak from Friday the 13th? Sorry, but staying put is what got me knocked on my ass—not an experience I want to repeat."

She looked around the sewer and swore: "Tabarnak, WHERE is my helmet?"

"Back that way," Bolt said, indicating the direction with a quick gesture. "Middle of the tunnel." Bolt zipped to where he saw the helmet, grabbed it from a shallow pool of stagnant water, and returned. "Passed it on the way in. Be back in a moment."

Before anyone could say a word, he was gone in a spray of sparks.

Matthew Bolt reached the T-section an instant later and nearly collided with a PRIMUS agent rounding the corner. Bolt cut around him, throwing up a rooster-tail of water. Twenty feet down the tunnel, coming out of the shadows, was another man, running after the agent. He was no PRIMUS agent or SWAT officer: the dark-bearded man wore a long leather duster over blue jeans and a black turtle neck. There was something metal glinting on one leg under that coat—an exoskeleton, maybe? But the most interesting fashion accessory in the man's ensemble was the bow in his left hand, and the arrow in his right.

Bolt came to an abrupt stop in the path of the rapidly approaching man. Hmmm, chasing down one of the good guys with a bow. Not exactly a civic-minded action.

Small tendrils of electricity snaked randomly across his body as he spoke.

"Great. The Man in the Iron Mask, Zombie Alligators, and now Robin Hood. Your boss must've been watching a B-movie marathon when he decided to start recruiting."

Bolt dashed toward the approaching archer, sparks arcing between his fingers as he reached out…

…and passed through empty air. The man had side-stepped inches outside his reach, the movement a study in economy. Bolt swept past, and the electrical charge he'd built up boomed harmlessly into the tunnel wall. He halted a dozen feet away.

Now there's something that doesn't happen too often, he thought.

He started to turn back, then noticed another figure in the tunnel. About twenty feet before the open manhole that Bolt had come down from the post office, there was another PRIMUS agent, standing in the shadows and looking stupidly at his rifle. Somehow the archer had gotten past the man. Bolt turned back to face the bowman, moving so fast his features blurred.

"My boss?" the bearded man said. "You mean Stranger?" A chuckle reverberated in the air. "Wrong. I'm a good guy, just like you. Here's how you tell them apart without a scorecard." His tone was cynical. "Keep your eyes open for tells. Like how you came after me, but left the PRIMUS agent alone. And like how I stepped aside, rather than turning you into a human pin cushion."

"Or like how I nearly ran over a PRIMUS agent running like a bat out of hell. Nothing else down this way to run from but another agent. So, let's try it a—"

Behind the archer's back, a bright glow was building. Something was coming down the main tunnel toward the T-section, roaring like a miniature jet engine.

"Alright, now what?"

The PRIMUS agent glanced down that way, then turned and dropped to his stomach, rifle aimed at the archer's back. Bolt motioned to the PRIMUS agent to hold his fire, at least until Bolt knew what was coming.

He got his answer a moment later. Ultraviolet's glowing figure rounded the corner, followed half a second later by Magnitude, her belt jets roaring like— well, exactly like miniature jet engines. Bolt was happy to see that she'd gotten her helmet back on—she may need it.

Ultraviolet was surrounded by the nimbus of her forcefield, and she left a trail of light in the air. She didn't look like a woman who'd been almost unconscious a minute before.

The PRIMUS agent, still prone in the muck and aiming at the archer, said something to Ultraviolet that Bolt didn't catch.

Bolt watched the archer turn towards the sound. He still hadn't made any suspicious moves yet, but 'yet' was the key word. He heard the man swear under his breath and slowly spread his arms out to his side. He hadn't let go of either his bow or the arrow, just made sure they weren't anywhere near each other.

"Nah," Ultraviolet said to the PRIMUS agent, then glided forward a few feet. "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello! What's all this, then?"

Maggie landed as soon as she was within distance and approached on foot. She was smiling wolfishly as she approached the archer. "So you're Crossfire, huh?" she said. "One weird thing about this business is that you'll trust the guy in the mask is always the same, but if he changes his clothes and suddenly you aren't sure anymore." She looked over the man, her gaze detailing the bow before going up to meet his eyes.

Ultraviolet looked surprised and pointed at the archer. "This? You're telling me this is Crossfire? No— Crossfire dresses in red spandex. Wears a little eyepiece. Carries a bow. This guy is one for three."

Bolt kept his eye on the archer. One second he was holding his bow and an arrow; the next they were empty. Bolt saw the hand flick the arrow into the quiver sewn into the back of the man's leather duster—but the bow had somehow disappeared under the coat. "Traded them in for contacts and pockets," he said. "It's hell being a hero when you don't even have a quarter to make a phone call."

"So," Maggie said, "got any way to prove who you are? It's not like we were going to have big security protocols on this deal, but y'know. PRIMUS is bound to get antsy after this, and it'd help."

"Like what, driver's license? What would you to hear, Magnitude? About how we almost fell over in shock when Argo first walked up to us at Thorin Labs and said 'Hey?' There's only one way for me to really prove who I am, and at the rate I'm being asked, I'll run out of arrows."

The archer nodded past the women. "Speaking of which, there are a couple of my arrows around the corner that I'd like to retrieve. I knocked out some kid on an alligator earlier, as well as somebody else further down the tunnel. I dropped somebody named 'Cod.' Pissed Stranger off something serious."

"That's real nice and all," Ultraviolet answered, "but judging by how Stranger was when he wasn't pissed off, I'm not sure I want to see what he's like now. Anyway, they're gone, and I think we'd better leave them be for now. Or let them leave us be— either way. Clearly, going after them one at a time will get us nowhere. Let's get back up into the daylight, get cleaned up, and start planning."

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