Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 33:Lockdown

There are about 800 million insects for every human on the planet. They each have a chance to Trigger.

Even if only one in a million trigger, and one in a thousand of those are viable…we are still vastly outnumbered.

The most common Trigger for insects is gigantism, a way to bypass the square-cube law without sacrificing any of their relative strength and speed. When a queen from the order Hymenopterans Triggers, she will pass this trait down to her progeny.

This can quickly become a problem.

Mostly annoying before High Tide, once humans became a tasty snack rather than unconquerable giants, ants began encroaching on human cities in inexhaustible waves.

If there could be said to be a benefit of Professor Replica’s campaign against humanity, it would be the fact that ants and replicators keep each other somewhat in check as they fight for territory beyond the confines of our walls.

Hymenopterans are still a problem, though.

***2 weeks ago***

The wasp queen had little in the way of consciousness. Every move it made was a reflexive response to stimuli, both internal and external. It was currently regurgitating mulched up bark and patting it into the appropriate shape to lay eggs in, when a bird swooped down and snatched the queen up.

The wasp struggled mightily, but it was no match for the giant monster’s jaws, gulping it down whole. Just as its tiny spark of awareness began to fade, something took hold inside it.

The poor songbird exploded, and from the cloud of feathers emerged a wasp queen the size of a horse.

It’s antennae tasted the air, and it looked for the ideal place to start it’s nest, reverting to its previous behavior now that the threat was gone…except that nice place to start a nest it had just been no longer existed. It was now surrounded by tiny shoots incapable of holding its nest. There were no big wood hollows to place its eggs in.

The queen took to the air, scanning the surroundings, before it noticed a giant abandoned beehive in the distance, with massive grey walls made of some stonelike substance.

As the queen approached, her antennae began to pick up the scent of prey…

***Jetset***

“Nothing beats flight.” Hurricane said, pantomiming swimming past where Jetset was hovering, his turbulence pushing Jetset around in the air. despite his namesake, Jetset didn’t fly via lift, he flew innately, simply willing himself through the air. Jetset hadn’t gotten a Nexus scientist interested in studying how it worked yet, but one day…

The problem with Jetset’s perfect flight was that it didn’t come with any perks, like Hurricane’s ability to control wind.

So while Jetset was one of the better fliers, he was basically a normal guy aside from that. Not much offensive ability to speak of, so having Hurricane hanging out with him filled him with unspeakable jealousy.

He was fairly sure Hurricane knew that, too.

The dude could rub air currents against each other to hit enemies with literal lightning, like he was wearing fuzzy socks and the sky was his shag carpet.

Hurricane could summon actual hurricanes and blast people with air, too. jetset had a rubber-band gun on loan from a kooky teen tinker.

“So what do you do? On your team, I mean?” Hurricane asked, backstroking through the air.

“Comms and recon, mostly.” Jetset said with a shrug.

“That’s not bad. You could buy a performance enhancer from Dr. Flex and add Beater to the list.” Hurricane said.

“Those are hella expensive,” Jetset said back. “And we already have a bruiser.”

“There’s no such thing as too much muscle in this biz, kid,” Hurricane said, flexing his high-definition muscles that popped out under his grey suit.

“Is that what you did?” Jetset asked.

“Indeed. I’m not so much a pure flier as an Energy type that uses it to fly. Physically human baseline. I figured upping my physique was a good way of hedging against getting ganked. It’s saved my ass a couple times.”

“What kind of gains are we talking here?” Jetset asked, getting engaged in the conversation.

“Well, Dr. Flex has packages that range from a 15% improvement for twenty grand, all the way up to 45% for five mil.”

“That’s barely getting into superhuman territory and he’s asking for five mil?” Jetset scoffed.

“You’re seriously gonna complain about getting another superpower?”

“A weak one.”

“See this?” Hurricane said, pointing at a scar on his cheek.

“Yeah?”

“Bullet bounced off my cheekbone.”

“Oh.” Jetset said.

“Yeah. 45% is nothing to scoff at.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“By the way, because of legal reasons, I have to inform you that I get a kickback from Dr. Flex every time I refer someone.”

“Are…are you serious?” Jetset asked, frowning.

Hurricane was about to respond when sirens filled the air, along with massive walls surrounding block SE-15. The two fliers hung there in midair, gawking at the monolithic walls jutting out of streets and alleys that had simply opened up to allow the massive concrete slabs through.

“Hey, what’s our altitude?” Hurricane asked.

Jetset glanced at the altimeter strapped to his wrist and his eyes widened in alarm.

“It needs to be lower!” He shouted, diving, with Hurricane following suit.

A crackling burst of energy snapped into place above them, creating a powerful concussive blast above and below the forcefield.

Jetset felt a pulse of energy, then blacked out.

***Paradox***

“That’s the lockdown siren,” Titan said, the smile vanishing from his face.

Perry pulled out his phone as the ground beneath them began to shake, making the surrounding skyscrapers wiggle alarmingly.

Massive tinker-built concrete barriers rose in the distance, isolating the block they were in from the rest of the city. On top of the walls were flashing strobe lights, in yellow and red.

Yellow and Red: Invasive species. Perry’s phone gave him the type of threat they’d been quarantined for. At least it wasn’t a disease or curse. Diseased had green, while curses had purple.

“Invasive species,” Perry said, looking back up to Heather.

“Does it say what kind?”

“No-“

Perry was interrupted at a crackling energy burst upward from the superstructures, forming a hexagonal force field around the block.

“Why can’t they just do that all the time?” Manic asked, pointing at the convenient forcefield.

“Too expensive,” Perry and Hardcase answered simultaneously.

Force fields were tough to make and devilishly expensive to power in the best of times, and one that could cover the entire city wasn’t worth the effort. Not when there were ways to get around or disable them. They were best used as a temporary quarantine to keep the problem from spreading while supers dealt with it.

“Who’s available in SE-15?” Warcry asked.

“Us.” Manic said.

“Us.” Perry said with a shrug.

“Us,” Echoed Wraith and Hardcase.

“Jetset, tell me you’re alive,” Titan said, holding his fingertips to his earpiece. “Jetset? Jetset, come in.”

“What do you think it is?” Warcry asked.

“Ticks, maybe?” Perry asked. Ticks referred to a mutated sea louse that could hitch a ride on a prawn and slip through the wall’s defenses. They were crablike with flat heads and round, cutting jaws. They carried their babies around on their back and squishing one was often a recipe for unleashing a swarm of pale, flesh-eating grubs that had the strength to burrow their way into a human’s skin and hollow them out.

That would set off an Invasive Species alarm for sure.

Titan cursed, glancing up at the pale blue forcefield high above our heads.

“Jetset’s out of contact. Best case scenario the shield cut off communications.”

“What’s the worst-case scenario?” Warcry asked.

“The forcefield cut him off.” Titan said, his expression grim as he pulled out a tablet.

“Oh.” Warcry paled.

“It’s not likely. They have regulation flying altitudes for a reason,” Titan said, his massive ham-fingers poking the tablet.

“He’s still in the block, but his signal is bouncing around a lot,” Titan said, peering up. “I think he was under the forcefield when it went off. No sign of him up there now.”

“Damn, I wish we had a sensor,” Titan said, shaking his head. Supers with super-senses didn’t fight crime as often due to a lack of offensive power, but their services were still in high demand.

“It looks like Jetset’s somewhere in the southwest side of the block. Priority one is find Jetset, then we can worry about the invasive species.”

Titan glanced over at Perry. “You guys wanna come?”

Perry glanced at Heather. “Of course. I’ll take Jetset’s job and watch from the air for him and whatever this ‘invasive species’ is. My channel is 52.”

Titan nodded, flipping through channels on his earpiece.

Perry climbed into his armor and sealed the chestpiece down around himself.

He pointed at Jason.

“Dazzle, your job is to make sure the police officers arresting you and the guy you tried to kill survive the lockdown. By the way your super name is Dazzle now.”

Dazzle cocked his head. “Are you serious?”

“Have a spare domino mask,” Perry said, pulling one out of his storage container in the front of his suit.

“Your identity is your most valuable possession,” Perry said with solemn conviction as he offered it to Dazzle.

“Literally everyone here has seen my face,” Dazzle said.

“Yeah, but it’s the spirit of the thing.” Paradox responded.

“Gotta wear the mask,” Titan said, nodding.

“Get with the program, man, jeez!” Manic said.

“Not cool, man.” Wraith said.

“Guys in masks are hot,” Warcry said, nodding.

“I-it’d be a good idea,” Hardcase said, hesitantly joining the dogpile.

“Just wear the mask, kid,” The cop with Jason’s hands behind his back said, letting go of one of his arms.

Dazzle gave into peer pressure and donned the domino mask with a sigh, to general applause from the onlookers, with the possible exception of the doomed lawyer, who was conveying about as much hysterical confusion as a human-sized bean-bag could.

“Alright, let’s go,” Titan said, nodding.

Perry activated the jets in his suit and took off, Wraith following behind on foot, her legs lengthening to catch up.

A moment later, Heather arrived right beside Perry, gliding along on stretched out arms nearly fifteen feet long on a side, gradually descending before bouncing up again to match his thirty-foot altitude.

“That’s cool, where’d you get that one?” Perry asked Heather, who was shaped something like a giant manta-ray beside him.

“I figured if I can shapeshift I should-“

Her voice cut out as she sank back down to the ground before leaping up again

“Be able to fly, but I don’t”

She descended and hopped back up again.

“Have the hang of it yet.“

“You’re getting there. Have you tried increasing your buoyancy by creating vacuum pockets inside of yourself? Could make yourself into a sky-whale.”

“Oh yeah, that was-“

“The first thing I tried,” Manta-Wraith said beside him rolling her eyes sarcastically.

“Learn you about some avionics and buoyancy. I got some books in my room you should read.”

“Who ever had to study to be able to fly?” she asked.

“Everyone?” Perry said, cocking a brow.

“I know I’m not your leader,” Titan said over the channel, “but if you two could quit chatting and separate, that would be appreciated.”

“Got it,” Paradox said, drifting further from Wraith, taking a position on the right wing of their search formation and slightly ahead so he could see if anything was gonna jump out at them.

That’s why Perry saw the fires first.

It seemed like the southwest portion of the city had been engulfed in flames wherever possible. Anything made of wood, park benches, stands, posters, all that had been burned away. The only thing that remained was scorch marks, the occasional reddened patch of concrete, and dead wasps.

Really BIG dead wasps.

“Titan, we’re headed straight into the invasive species’ territory. It’s wasps.” Perry said into his comms.

“Shit,” Titan cursed, glancing down at his datapad. “Are they concentrated over there?” he asked pointing ahead and slightly to the left.

Perry gained a bit of altitude and crept forward, peering over the edge of one of the three-story buildings.

Growing out of the side of the building to engulf an entire back street was something that looked almost beautiful in it’s alien architecture, with swooping shelves that seamlessly morphed into each other almost like roofing tiles designed to let water slough off, and air come in.

Lying next to it was some of Jetset’s comms equipment.

“We’ve got a giant wasp nest made of concrete, and-SHIT!

ZZZZZZZ

An ear-gouging buzzing assaulted Perry’s ears as a wasp the size of a pFoodle, and as friendly as a doberman sideswiped him in midair.

Perry got a good look at the creature’s faceted, soulless eyes as it’s stinger peeled up curls of aluminum off the armor plating covering his chest.

That stinger is harder than steel, Perry thought idly as he struggled to shove the monster off of him. Unfortunately it was six arms to his two, and every shove could only dislodge one or two at a time, while the rest hung on.

I wonder if I can make a defense focused not around being harder, but simply being more durable? Of course both would be good, but I f I had to choose, which would be more valuable to have in the long run?

Harder is better for burst damage, while durability is good for things like damage over time.

I wonder if the stinger will retain its hardness after the creature dies? Could make for a good tinker-weapon with a – is it getting hotter in here?

A second Wasp had latched onto Perry’s back and was having similar luck with it’s own mandibles and stinger, but somehow that wasn’t the end of it: Perry’s armor was starting to turn cherry red in places.

Blades.EXE

BFS.EXE

Perry didn’t know the exact point that aluminum began to lose hardness, and he didn’t want to find out by being skewered by a stinger that was literally the size of his forearm.

Perry turned his shoulder jets in opposing directions and began to spin as he hacked at the bugs with his floating armaments.

The big friendly swords slapped the creatures like flyswatters, and the finger-length blades were able to penetrate the creature’s eyeballs and mouth-holes.

Need to check if they can puncture the abdomen, Perry thought, panting as the two insects tumbled away from him. He could already make out the motion of more flying towards him in his peripherals.

“I think they got Jetset,” Perry said, flying back down to the ground to put his back closer to the rest of his allies.

Flying around up there alone was looking like a losing proposition.

“Shit, move!” Titan said, charging forward.

***Jetset***

Scrape.

Scrape.

Scrape.

Jetset peeled his eyes open, his head pounding like he’d been slamming his dad’s scotch all night. He could hear a faint scraping noise, but couldn’t see anything.

He couldn’t see.

Did I break my optic nerves or something? He thought, panic rising. Brain damage from getting hit with tinker-tech and falling from tremendous heights was well-studied.

Skin cold, Jetset fumbled for his altimeter, clicking it on.

A gentle blue light reflected back into his eyes, and Jetset heaved a quiet sigh of relief.

Until he saw what was making the scraping noise.

A wasp the size of a large dog was scraping flesh away from a nearby arm covered in grey hyperweave, maybe four feet away from his face.

Jetset choked back a scream.