“Okay class, today we’re about to get a bit radical. That’s right, we’re going to be diving a bit deeper into division and learn how to deal with those pesky remainders.”
Class always seemed boring compared to the vigilante life, but that is exactly the way Valor preferred things stayed. Even though he often found it fun and exciting to help people and ward off danger, he does it for the sake of those weaker than him. If having to sit in class as plain old Tommy and wait for everyone else to catch up learning on concepts that came more naturally to him meant that people were already safe that day then so be it. Besides, division isn’t so bad, right? What would be truly awful would if…
“Frick,” Valor muttered under his breath.
“Is there a problem?” asked his close friend Aaron.
“Yeah, downtown. A fire in the industrial area. I’d get there about the same time the firemen, but it didn’t feel like a blast from a normal accident.”
“Mack?” asked his other friend Rhys.
“No, no. It is definitely natural, but it was caused by something weird. I better check it out.”
Valor sat still and focused really hard on what he wanted to happen. Within moments blood dripped slowly from his nostrils and he raised his hand. His teacher noticed him and sighed.
“Another nosebleed Tommy?”
“I’m sorry. It’s not like I want this to happen,” he said believably. Valor was a really good actor when he needed to get out of class.
“Okay, it looks like a bad one. Go to the nurse’s office and have them call your mom to come to get you. Even if it stops you’ll need a clean shirt.”
Luckily for him, the fourth-grade classes took place in a portable classroom set up just outside the main elementary school. He used this excuse so often that Ms. P didn’t even follow up with the nurse anymore to see if he went home or not since he always did, which just made it easier for Valor to start his run for the inner city. In a flash, his clothes shifted to his heroics attire and he was off. Meanwhile, things in Dallas were already heating up.
“Target is evading pursuit!”
“At what speed?”
“Well over five hundred miles per hour, sir.”
“Continue pursuit. Keep the choppers high and don’t lose sight of him.”
Black helicopters flooded the sky like a murder of crows swarming around. These weren’t the sort Valor was used to the local law enforcement using. These had to be issued by the federal government and that worried him. He was still too far off the scene to focus on what they were vulturing for. All he could make out was a slender figure in black dive out of one of the warbirds.
“Sir, I can’t keep track of where he is moving. This is like trying to read the sponsors on a Nascar as it drives by,” calmly stated what a young woman in a skin-tight, black jumpsuit. For some reason, she had black arm and leg warmers over the suit even though they would serve no purpose. She had a decent build to her at around five foot nine and had to be about a hundred percent lean muscle.
“I didn’t know you fancied the races, Carol,” spoke a man of her age over her earpiece.
“It’s Agent Rivers on the job, sir… and yes, a girl can have hobbies can’t she?”
“Of course she can. You know Texas Motor Speedway is just a bit away. Since we’ll be stationed here for a while you and I could…”
“Sir, I’d rather not discuss these matters at work,” she explained as she pulls her shoot and drifted to street level.
“Fair enough. Can you give me a report on his actions? Is he dangerous?”
“More like perverse.”
“What?”
“I still can’t make anything out due to his velocity, but it appears that he is just running around flipping up women’s skirts to grab a quick peek at their undergarments.”
“Really? Shame we didn’t send you in your street clothes. Might have caught this guy easy that way.”
“Ha ha, funny sir,” she said sarcastically as she landed on the sidewalk and her voluptuous, dark blonde hair settled back into place like in an old 80’s action flick. “I’m going to attempt to lead him to the extraction point. Have the team ready, I’ll turn the feed back on when I get there.”
Agent Rivers took the earpiece out and funneled the wire back into the collar of her jumpsuit. Sprawling back like an Olympic athlete before the dash, she took off as quick as a cheetah while following the trail of screaming ladies.
“I don’t know what’s going,” Valor thought to himself, “but Mack and I aren’t the only superhumans in the metroplex anymore.” The fire department could handle the burning building, but this conflict was likely the reason he felt so uneasy. So instead of heading into the more industrialized area out of town, he shifted direction to follow the blonde G.I. into the uptown district. For the lad wanted to find out exactly what he was getting into, he slowed down to the pace of the cars on the road and kept out of sight of the one he tailed. He could very easily follow the trail of this other guy since the way he was traveling at such high speeds was distorting the flow of energy around his path, but it was not only because he was moving faster than Valor or anything he’s ever seen. At this point Valor was sure who was a bigger threat to the people around him: the ultra-fast prankster pervertedly flipping up skirts or the highly trained government agent who was only running faster than any normal human but also armed up to the nines.
Just as those thoughts ran through Valor’s mind, he noticed that Rivers knocked a man off his motorcycle and commandeered it to gain more ground. That despicable act would be a waste if it weren’t for the fact that the target covered little ground despite his overall speed. It doesn’t matter how fast you are going if you keep zig-zagging around for free peep shows. Caroline drove up and pulled an automatic pistol out from a holster strapped to her leg. Valor had never even seen a pistol that could fire automatically before. Even most militarized criminals and terrorists always carried automatic rifles and such. She unloaded an entire clip into the air to scare off civilians and to alert her target of her presence. After reloading she began firing at the ground where the quickster was running, but it was a wasted effort. As soon as the first bullet hit the pavement he took off faster than her shots could even travel. Caroline was knocked off her stolen vehicle by the sonic boom left behind. Hitting the pavement rolling, she swiftly returned to her feet and set her communication link back in her ear.
“Sir, I think we have a problem.”
“What is it? Did you read a local report canceling the upcoming races, cause I can find us something else to do?”
“Sir, this is serious. He outran my gunfire.”
“You are using the pistols we made you right?”
“Yes, sir, the ones from the lab.”
“Shit! Okay, how fast do you think he is going?”
“It’s hard to tell since my eyes had trouble tracking him, but I’d estimate at least thirty-five hundred.”
“That’s troubling. I’m not sure we have anything that can catch that. I’ll phone in the local law enforcement to get everyone off the streets so we can use the choppers to lead him from all possible angles. Just meet at the rendezvous point.”
“What if we can’t contain him there?”
“It’s fine, Plan B shows up shortly after you do.”
“Roger, sir!”
Agent Rivers sprinted toward the West End and Valor continued to tail behind her. Regardless of how she received her physical enhancements, Valor was still perplexed by how she could run seventy-five miles per hour in manmade high heels. He could probably do it and even faster, but he and his clothes aren’t exactly bound to the same stipulations. Even from the great distance, he slacked behind to keep cover, he could see her sweating and hear her heartbeat. She was definitely faster and stronger than any normal human, but if he had to guess she was at just about her physical limits already. Agent Rivers really had no business running alongside this other guy. Frankly, Valor wasn’t really sure he did either.
They were coming to an underpass, a long tunnel that let the highway cross beneath many local roads. On the other end, the near hypersonic man entered to escape the barrage of bullets hailing down from the helicopters above. Valor could empathize with the man since not too long ago he was in a similar predicament. Then, as Caroline ran in, two humongous setal grates were flipped up to seal the entrances to the tunnels. They must have been flown in via helicopter amongst the chaos since even Valor didn’t notice them being set up. He didn’t want to compromise their trap, so Valor split to go locate a different way in.
“You’re trapped in here now. Nowhere to go so you might as well come in peacefully. We don’t need to make this rough,” Agent Rivers coldly stated pulling a single-edged short sword from behind her back with each hand.
“Woo, this is a pretty tight spot,” he said nervously. “Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Let’s take a few thousand steps back and start over. Hi, I’m Robert. And you are…”
He disappeared from sight and became visible again as he knocked out one of the many government agents trapped in the tunnel with him.
“Oh, that’s right, Unconscious. Such a bizarre name, I can’t believe I forgot it.”
“That’s it. Terminate him!”
Every agent reached for their guns, but Robert whizzed around incapacitating everyone except for Miss Rivers. Next to the unconscious agents also sat their guns, the magazines from said guns, and each bullet placed side by side pointing to the sky. The man just stood there and gave Caroline an expression that read “What’re you gonna to do?” Rivers was not the type to give up on a mission, so she rushed him with her swords in hand. Of course, as she approached he just moved to the side and tripped her at a speed even couldn’t react. She slid for a bit before coming to an abrupt stop at a wall.
“You know, I don’t think I could take any of you trained soldiers in a hand to hand fight otherwise, but lucky for me you’re too slow,” he exclaimed while strolling over to her.
Agent Rivers didn’t like his taunt and attempted to slice his leg off, but he merely leaped over her sword and landed square on her chest. With all the wind pumped out of her, Caroline passed out. Just as the conflict subsided, a heavy plasma blast drilled a hole straight down into the tunnel from the upper level. Robert vanished from sight as Valor plopped down the hole. He saw Rivers on the ground and rushed over to revive her.
“Hey lady, get up!”
“Hmm… oh hey, you’re that boy that’s been following me around all day. You go by Valor, right?”
“You knew I was behind you this whole time and didn’t try to take me out?”
“We were told you weren’t a threat, you’ve got quite the reputation around here. In fact, my superior has been watching you. Him being stationed is the only reason we were on the scene so fast after the incident.”
“I’m… flattered?”
“Well, don’t get too worked up about it. You were our backup plan, but we really should have let you handle it from the start. We let him get away and likely set you back a bit. I don’t get how he broke out of here before you came in.”
“What do you mean, he is sitting right over there?”
“Great, this kid’s a wacko.”
“Hey, I might be crazy, but I’ve got perfect eyesight and a better grasp on reality than any human. You’re just blind because he is in the street right across from us.”
“Wait, you can see me? Remarkable.”
“Wait, I could hear that! Is he moving too fast to see or something?”
“Not even close. He is perfectly still. I can explain it though.”
“Oh please, share with the class, it’ll save me some breath.”
“You see, the reason he can move so fast is the same reason he is able to cloak himself from your vision. He has the ability to distort energy up to an inch around the surface of his body, so even if you had heat vision tech you’d still miss him. Of course, if he did get away it wouldn’t be hard for me to follow with the trail he leaves behind.”
“You hit it right on the mark, but why is it that you can still see me? Can you run in the same way? This was an experiment gone awry, but I’d love to study someone born like this.”
“Trust me, my powers are a bit more complicated than that. For example, my vision is not limited to just the spectrum of matter and energy.”
“Fascinating! Then I have a proposal for you, young man.”
“Hmm?”
“Tag, you’re it!”
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