Part 7 (1/2)
I thought about it, then shrugged. ”Maybe. The guys Andi and I were listening to, they seemed to know about the attack on Carter. They also said something about this new drug that our mysterious Mr. Clean is bringing in, making you feel like Superman. Perhaps the Eighty-Eights know some more? I can go out and ring some bells if you want.”
Dad shook his head. ”Not until we know more about what the h.e.l.l this is. Riley . . . ” Dad said before falling silent. He came over and hugged me, and I knew what he wanted to say without him needing the words. Former hitman, vigilante, and all-around-bada.s.s, he was still a concerned husband and father. He patted me on the back and cleared his throat. ”All right, let's go make sure your sister is okay.”
We found Andi still in the remnants of her costume, sitting next to Carter in the medical bay bed. Mom had completed her scans, and was preparing an injection. ”How's he looking?”
Mom looked up, while Andi seemed to not hear. She was holding Carter's left hand, her eyes filled with concern. ”He's busted up pretty bad, but the suit took most of the pounding,” Mom said, pointing to the pile on the floor. ”I'm glad that the video recording system is stored in the cowl and not in the main suit itself. The suit's trash now.”
I whistled between my teeth. With a price tag of nearly a hundred thousand dollars each, our base suits were adapted from plans that had been an experimental design for the Navy SEALs, then customized for us. We had backups, but only one each. ”d.a.m.n. And Carter?”
”The shoulder will heal up easily enough, but those ribs are going to put him out of action for a month at least,” Mom said. ”Tabby's going to have the video feed in a few minutes. Mark, will you and Riley take care of that?”
I understood what she wanted, to spare Andi the pain of watching from Carter's beating from his own perspective. But eventually Andi would have to see, in order to understand. ”All right, I'll handle it,” I said. ”But Andi, you need to see it when you can.”
Andi finally looked up at me from her seat and nodded absently. ”Right . . . ”
Carter stirred on the table, blinking. ”Hey,” he said, giving Andi's hand a squeeze. ”There you are.”
I hadn't realized until then that Andi hadn't said anything since coming in the medical bay. She stood up, her eyes filled with concern. ”Carter.”
”Hey Big Bro,” I said, coming over. ”How're you doing?”
”Meh, Mark's kicked my a.s.s worse than that,” he said in a soft voice. ”Hey Mark.”
Dad chuckled and put his hands on Andi's shoulders. ”I don't think I've hit you that hard before.”
”Andi's. .h.i.t me harder than this when she's been p.i.s.sed off at me,” Carter said with a laugh. He grimaced and shook his head. ”No jokes for a while though.”
”Well, I'll take advantage of that,” I joked, causing Andi to glare at me while Carter smiled. ”Come on, you know I'm just kidding.”
”It's okay Andi,” Carter said, seeing her face. ”He's allowed to get a few of those in while he can.”
”I'm just getting the last of those in before you legally become family,” I said. Carter shook his head, and I looked at him. ”What?”
”Wedding's delayed,” Carter said, looking at Andi and then the rest of us. ”Think the church will be p.i.s.sed off?”
”Delayed? Why?” Andi asked. ”Carter, you need to heal, you don't need to be out there fighting.”
”Come on bro, I can handle it,” I said. ”You know that.”
Carter shook his head. ”You'll need backup. That means Andi or Mark. And, not to put too blunt a point on it, with these ribs, there's a few things that I want to do during my honeymoon that I can't anyway. So until I can, we should delay things. Mark, you think Dad can get Vanessa to handle the press on that? Say I had a bike accident or something.”
Dad nodded, then laughed. ”Considering what Sophie and I did during our quick honeymoon, I guess a delay is warranted. But you're not going out on the streets before you get married.”
”We'll see,” Carter replied. He looked at Andi, squeezing her hand. ”You okay with that, babe?”
Andi nodded. ”Okay. I'd hate to hurt you on our wedding night, and I know how we can get.”
”Well, you both can hold off on that for at least four weeks,” Mom said. ”Now Carter, you need to get sleep, and the rest of you need to get changed and debriefed. So shoo, all of you. I'll keep watch over Carter, he's staying here tonight.”
”Yes Mom.”
”G.o.d d.a.m.n those guys are fast,” I said the next day, watching the video for the third time, this time in slow motion. Even with that, the two men who attacked Carter were hard to track. Tabby had enhanced the image to account for the low light, and I'd spent the past thirty minutes reviewing it with Dad and Patrick. He'd just gotten home from the press conference announcing the delay to the wedding. The official story was that Carter had hurt his leg falling down the stairs. We didn't want our enemies to know who Carter was, after all.
Now, the three of us were breaking down the film nearly frame by frame. I had a date with Janet, but I wanted to get this done first. ”What in the h.e.l.l causes this sort of power and speed?”
”Angel dust?” Patrick asked. ”Dust heads have been known to exhibit great strength and damage resistance.”
Dad shook his head. ”No, PCP freaks usually display erratic behavior. These two were controlled, even if they were attacking. They were lucid. This is, this is something new.”
”s.h.i.+t,” I muttered under my breath. ”I hate new. First reports of those military rifles on the streets just before you took office and I come back into town, now this stuff. I hate new problems.”
We heard a door close behind us, and the unmistakeable sound of high heels approaching. ”Come on Riley, if you don't have new problems, what fun is life?”
I whipped my head around, surprised and pleased at the same time. Patrick spoke my exact thoughts as he got up and held his arms open for his daughter. ”Barbara! I didn't think you were getting in until later.”
Barb shrugged. She came over and gave Patrick a hug, then one for Mark. ”Hi Dad, hi Uncle Mark. Riley, you've filled out some. Looking good.”
”Not so bad yourself,” I said, not lying in the least. Barbara was easily one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, and considering my reputation, I'd seen a lot. Exactly one inch taller than her mother, Barb was built like a man's wet dream come to life. With rich auburn hair that reached all the way to her waist and a figure that put lingerie models to shame, she practically oozed s.e.xuality. And she'd used it, too. However, with me it was always a sort of friendly rivalry. It was like we both knew the other was s.e.xually attractive, but at the same time didn't feel attracted to each other. We were more like best friends than anything else. ”So did you have a good flight?”
”Do you really want me to answer that?” she asked with a smirk. I rolled my eyes, and patted the couch next to me. ”By the way, Andi said in her last e-mail to me that you've got yourself a girlfriend. Anyone I know?”
”No, and while I'll introduce you, you better be on your best behavior,” I replied. ”Janet's not a short term thing I think.”
Barb looked at me quizzically, then nodded. We'd talk about that later. ”Okay. So I just got in from the infirmary, Carter and Sophie filled me in on what happened to him. Where's Andi and Mom?”
”They're out handling the delay in the wedding,” Patrick said, ”they should be back soon. It's good to see you baby.”
”So this is the fight video, huh?” Barb asked, sitting down next to me. ”Well, let me get eyes on the thing. Carter said the whole fight was less than a minute.”
We restarted the video, Barb sitting forward with her elbows on her knees. Her face went somewhat slack as she watched the video once, then again. I'd seen her do this before, it was one of the ways she made connections.
You see, Barbara's not built quite like the rest of us. While Carter, Andi and I are nowhere near dumb, Barb's got a freaky sense of intelligence. If you underestimate her based off her looks or her upfront s.e.xuality, you'll get burned. Barbara is a sort of polymath, one of those people who picks up stuff quickly but gets bored almost as quickly as she picks it up. It's my secret opinion that it was one of the reasons she was so interested in s.e.x and seduction, it's one of the few subjects that doesn't bore her. She doesn't have Carter's eidetic memory, but she can notice details that would slip by others.
So when Barb's eyes went wide and her face slack, I knew she was seeing something we'd missed. After the second go-around she sat back, crossing her arms over her chest and sighing. ”s.h.i.+t.”
”What is it, honey?” Patrick asked. He knew his daughter, and knew her tone of voice. She'd seen something.