Part 1 (2/2)

”All right. Standard suit. Verify, muscular enhancers active, light armor,” I said, reading the small display on the inside of my left wrist. How Mom, Dad and Uncle Patrick ever did what they did without the aids of technology that I had amazed me. Talk about guts. ”Night vision in my cowl is good. Coms is good. Everything's good, so let's get this done and you can give me a total physical examination when I get home.”

”Don't tempt me. Now stay safe out there.”

I grinned, it wasn't often that I was able to get one over on Carter. Attaching my gear to the hard points on my suit, I headed up to the roof of the base.

I was near the Playground, Uncle Pat's old neighborhood. I'd seen pictures of what the Playground looked like before, and it was nothing like what I saw below me. Sure, the Playground was still one of the poorest sections of the city, but as I looked down from the rooftop, I saw people out on the streets, and none of them looked like prost.i.tutes or drug dealers.

Hopping rooftop to rooftop, I made my way east, where there had actually been some gang activity in the past few months. Despite twenty-five years of effort, Dad and Uncle Patrick hadn't been able to completely eliminate street crime in the city, either through their night-time or Patrick's day-time political activities.

I landed on top of an apartment building, noting that it was one of the new line of public housing units that MJT financed for the city. I looked down into the alley that ran behind. There were five men down there, all but one of them looking under the age of eighteen. I turned on my mike, catching one of them finis.h.i.+ng up a comment to the others.

”So what did you do?”

”What could I do?” the eldest looking of them said. ”Her stepmom had just walked in, I had my d.i.c.k in her, there was no way in h.e.l.l I was stopping. I just looked over at stepmom, she had a pretty tight body for thirty-seven, and asked if she wanted to join in. How the f.u.c.k was I supposed to know that she was down with that sort of freaky s.h.i.+t?”

I shook my head, thinking this was a conversation that Barbara should listen to. She was the total freak in our generation, and probably would have enjoyed it. As for me, I just accepted that my soon-to-be sister-in-law had a much more voracious s.e.xual appet.i.te than I did. I just let the conversation continue, keeping my attention on them at least long enough to get past the stories of s.e.xual conquest. Soon enough, one of them said something that caught my attention.

”Yo man, Mr. Clean really wants us to hit up the pharmacy?”

”Yeah,” the eldest replied. ”He says to me that our job is to hit every pharmacy we can in the Playground. He says other crews will be taking care of the rest of the city.”

”Why, man? My Grandma gets her pills from the place down the street.”

The eldest shrugged. ”Mr. Clean ain't telling me, but from what I'm hearing from others, there's a new player coming into town. They've got a new product that is supposed to really turn things on their head.”

”No s.h.i.+t?” one of the young ones asked. ”And this new dude, they're ready for Crimson Justice?”

I had a small smile, imagining Carter's glower at the mention of his street name. He loved his reputation, and for him to not be the one to bust up this little group probably was driving him nuts.

”That's what I'm thinking, but I think the one to watch for is Blizzard,” the eldest said. ”Not that it matters. You know who I'm ready for? Ice Princess. My body's more than ready for that honey.”

There was a chorus of hoots and hollers, with one of the youngsters doing the cla.s.sic hourgla.s.s silhouette routine with his hands. I don't wear the skin-tight suit because I'm trying to show off my body. I'm just the product of Mom's curvy nature and Dad's height, so I get to carry big b.o.o.bs on my tall frame. It was the constant working out and physical activity that kept my waist slim. The skin-tight suit was there because that was what was needed for the muscular enhancements and body armor to work. As for if it distracted the bad guys, well, I'd use every advantage I could get.

”Sounds like maybe you should make an appearance,” Carter said in my ear, eagerness in his voice. ”You think you can take them?”

”Five unarmed guys? Come on, that's barely a warm-up,” I replied. ”But just to be sure, I'll have the pistol ready when I hit. Okay, honey?”

”Fine,” Carter said. ”Go have all the fun.”

I hopped off the lip of the building, just far enough that I could make sure I was going to miss anything sticking out going down. My boots are armored like the rest of my body, so I wasn't worried about someone's clothesline or something stupid like that, but hitting an air conditioner unit would totally suck. I hit lightly, my pistol already trained on the oldest of the boys. ”Someone said they were ready for me?”

”Speak of an angel, and she shall appear,” one of the boys said. Up close, I could see they were young, younger than I thought. ”d.a.m.n.”

”The four of you who are probably still in junior high school, I'm giving you a chance to go home. If I see you again, I'm not going to be so lenient.”

”What about me?” the oldest said, getting to his feet. I had to give him credit for guts. While I hadn't had to kill anyone, that didn't mean my family hadn't. ”What's your plan on that?”

”That depends on you,” I said softly. ”I'd prefer to let you walk into the police station by yourself after you tell me what you know.”

”Or?”

”Or you get arrested in the hospital,” I said simply. ”Your choice.”

I was happy that three of the boys immediately took off running down the alley away from me. Hopefully I'd scared them enough to stay away from the life of crime. Still, one of them stuck with his mentor. From appearance, he could be a younger brother, and he stepped away from the building toward me. I leveled my pistol at him. ”Don't do it, kid.”

”Why not? Everyone knows you're the nice one. Worst you're going to do to me is shoot me in the leg,” the kid replied. He dropped his hands and charged, still fifteen feet away. For most people with a gun, that would have been close enough to not get a shot off. For me however, it was easy. My first shot caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around while not piercing the skin. My second shot caught him right where I wanted in the lower back. To him, he'd swear I'd just broken his back, when in reality I'd merely paralyzed him for the next five minutes with my special ammo.

His older brother used the chance to close with me, his right fist catching me in the jaw at the same instant my eyes went back to him. My cowl is armored, but the protection around that area is minimal. I can't turn my head or talk otherwise. So yeah, it hurt.

But hurt was all it did. Bringing my hands up, I caught his next punch, a looping overhand left and spun, sending him into the building back first. He hit hard, driving the wind out of him and dropping him to his hands and knees. I walked over and stepped on his outstretched fingers, not grinding too hard. Not yet.

”Now tell me about this Mr. Clean.”

Chapter Two.

Carter

”We've been hearing that name too much recently, Mr. Clean,” I said, sitting in the entertainment room. It was the de facto meeting room as well for our family, as it was the only room in the house that was big enough for everyone involved to sit down comfortably while also having the ability to display the information we needed. ”But even with Andi's information from last night, we don't know anything useful.”

I looked over at my Uncle Mark. A man of enough aliases to confuse even the CIA, the entire family had gotten used over the years that I'd been alive to just calling him Mark. It was easier than remembering that his birth name was Riley, he had been Mark Snow, then Marcus Smiley, then Mathew Mark Bylur. To Andi of course, he was just Dad. No matter what name he went by, on the streets he was the Snowman. When Andi and I had first started, they were still telling stories about him, even though he'd been semi-retired for nearly a decade.

Mark looked up at the video replay of Andi's interrogation of the street thug she'd put down the night before. He was chewing his breakfast slowly, thinking while trying to jam this quick thought-sharing session in before going down to City Hall for a ten o'clock meeting with my Dad on the city's new waste management system. ”And you said that Riley heard something similar when he went out last week?”

I nodded. ”This is hardly the time for this to be happening, either. I mean, Andi and I are getting married in two weeks.”

”There never is a proper time for this sort of stuff,” Mark said. He pushed his fork through another waffle, and chewed it while he thought of his next words. ”What's your plan?”

”Well, Riley is going to be in town more often on the weekends now I think,” I said. ”He's cruising at Harvard, it's summer vacation, and that new girl. She's really got his attention.”

”You think?” Mark said with a laugh. ”What's your impression of her?”

”I've only met her once,” I said, ”the night of Dad's victory party. She seemed nice enough. Reminds me of Aunt Sophie, at least in the one or two old pictures I've seen of her. Riley sure has taken a s.h.i.+ne to her though.”

”Stop trying to copy my Southern, Carter,” Mark mock-growled, then nodded. ”Does Riley have the focus to help out sometimes?”

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