No wonder Rey de Azul didn’t bother expanding. Temp V was a golden goose and superweapon all on its own. Still, if they had enough to be selling…
“They have their own stocks.” Mason said out of nowhere.
“Pay the man.” Kelsey confirmed. “With how much time they’d had under the radar, we suspect nothing less than ten thousand vials of the stuff. Enough for them—
Rip interjected. “To take over the country in one night.”
“And they don’t even need that many men.” Kelsey changed the image to a heavily scarred sicario in a purple shirt. “A hundred well trained killers with this stuff in their veins? It’s not just taking over the country, they’ll be able to keep it.”
“Ground forces will be a joke. We’ll need jets and artillery.”
“Stopping things from reaching that point is why you’re here.” Kelsey focused on Mason. “I know you must be confused about what exactly you’re doing here, so I’ll spell it out for you. One, the location and termination of every enemy supe. Las Sombras has a teleporter.”
Mason almost rolled his eyes. Of course they did.
“Luckily for us, he or she seems to have appeared around the same time as the supes of the other organizations. That’s why we're talking about preventing the country’s take over and not how to get it back. The teleporter is the delivery guy for the Temp V to Rey’s customers worldwide and his buchons. They’re also the one person who knows where Rey is hiding.”
“He should be way out of the country by now.” Rip chimed in. “No way we get to him.”
“True. But once his personal taxi is out of the picture, the world will become a lot smaller. It’ll only be a matter of time before we get our hands on him.” Kelsey looked back at Mason. “The second thing you’re here to do is to help us locate and destroy the production facilities and the cartel’s stocks of the drug.”
“Are they here? In the country?”
“We’ve narrowed down a few locations. If Rey’s intelligence isn’t just a phase, these places will be heavily guarded. There’s also the teleporter. If there’s even a chance we can capture the bastard, then we should take it. However, if that is not possible and you can kill him, do not hesitate. Better a dead teleporter than a living one.”
“What’s the last thing?” Mason asked. At this point, everything he’d heard made him worried, and the only way he knew how to counteract was to act.
“The last thing is the total destruction of Las Sombras. By the time all this blows over, the only remains of the cartel should be the whispers on people’s lips. Are you up for that, Nomad?”
Mason broke away from the intense stare and looked about the room, meeting Rip’s eyes for a brief second before shifting to a nervous looking Carlos. It was strange being the one who the hopes of people were pinned on.
Not bad and not good, more like ‘can I actually do the things these people expect me to do?’ He couldn’t answer that confidently, not in here. Out there though, when he got down in the dirt? That was easy.
“I’m here to give it everything I've got.”
“Glad to hear that.” Kelsey seemed pleased with that answer. “Let’s get started.”
.
.
.
.
Temp V wasn’t addictive.
Unlike cocaine, heroin and the like, its effects weren’t directly psychoactive. Its influence on the brain did not go past increasing its resilience along with the rest of a user’s body.
Mason considered this a good thing, because power by itself was addictive all on its own. He had powers so this wasn’t mere speculation. After continuously testing his own abilities, he’d discovered how to turn them off.
They weren’t passive like he assumed. At any point in time, he could turn them off and sleep, eat, and use the bathroom like a normal person. The problem was, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
His whole life had been one continuous sleep session. Deadened emotions, deadened drive, practically no hopes and dreams. His rebirth here hadn’t suddenly given him these things back-not all of them at least-but it was helluva lot different.
He was awake for the first time in ages. He could breathe freely and finally see and feel for himself what this life most seemed to enjoy was about.
Why the hell would he give that up? His powers kept him in tip top shape every single minute of every day, making him practically ready for anything at any time.
His mind was always clear and his body? Always full of energy. Using night and day to explain the difference between his life back then vs right now would be inadequate. Even saying reborn fell short.
Remade from scratch and elevated to a new plane of existence felt more appropriate. All because of some shenanigans from his sister and a strange blue drug.
The one running in his veins, even that of the sicarios he was about to confront—they had no chemical dependencies attached to their already potent effects. However on the psychological front—that was a whole different story.
These sicarios more than likely considered themselves gods, a sentiment not far removed from Mason’s dependence on his own powers. Just like him, these maniacs saw Temp V as lifelines they had to cling to maintain their ascension.
Crouched atop the mess of outward-jutting rocky hills overlooking his current target, Mason surveyed the compound surrounding the mine entrance, his focus split between the objective and his inner turmoil.
He prided himself on always operating from an open-minded position; you know, reminding himself he was inherently evil and then striving to not be that.
However, finding out he had something in common with these daughter raping, child murdering scum of the earth rankled him. The sheer distaste led him to make a decision then and there.
As soon as he got back home, he’d turn off his powers and live like a normal person.
The end of that sentence struck him like an open handed slap.
Like a normal person. A normal person.
Something he’d been trying to understand ever since he came into contact with the repulsive melting pot known as supe culture suddenly unveiled itself to him. Just like that. place.
Too bad duty called.
“Charges are set.” The comm device in his ear lit up with Ripcord’s voice. “You ready Nomad?”
Mason stood up and clenched both fists, the all black tactical suit obscuring him from to toe snug against his herculean frame.
“A-firm.”
“You are a go.”
“Roger.” Mason took a step forward into open air and fell straight down, his cranked up weight dropping him like an anvil from the sky.
BOOM!
He landed first, digging a deep crater in the packed earth and spreading winding cracks at the outer edges. There was no reaction to his meteoric landing. No sudden shots, no piercing blare of alarms or the sudden staccato of gunfire.
For the sentries posted outside, their broken necks were the reason.
For those deeper in the mine, that was exactly it. They were too far away to hear and feel his descent. No matter. A flex of intent returned his weight to normal and he took his first step—
BOOM!
Another explosion. This one more distant yet more impactful, considering his feet picked up tiny tremors where he stood.
“Jammer’s online. Go crazy.”
That was Rip’s signal, so he took off at full speed and blurred into the recesses of the mine, putting eyes to the first group of sicarios in mere seconds.
There were no words that needed to be said.
This was an extermination and fact finding mission. The cartel produced the Temp V here. Sharon had confirmed as much, citing satellite tracking of the chemicals needed to make the drug.
With the way Rey de Azul had been liberal with its distribution, it hadn’t been difficult for Langley to obtain a sample. From there it became the job of lab techs and scientists to determine everything they could about the drug, leading to the present.
For the first and nearest sicario, Mason ran into him at full speed, leading with his fist. The sentries he’d killed outside confirmed the him and his team’s suspicions. Every sicario onsite had Temp V in their veins.
Dozens of trained killers were premier, cream of the crop security. Dozens of trained killers with the ability to shrug off bullets and punch through concrete were otherworldly.
That’s why Mason didn’t hold back on his punch and even amped his weight at the last second, hitting the sicario with the equivalent force of a tank moving at sports car speeds.
Instead of the usual, dull, rebounding sensation of hitting something firm, Mason experienced something unique as his fist tore through enhanced muscle and crumpled toughened bone.
The lower part of the sicario’s face and a portion of his lower neck came apart in a sudden spray of gore, painting the ground in the mess.
The atmosphere stilled as dozens of things took place. Nearby sicarios registered not only their comrade’s sudden gruesome change but Mason’s sudden presence.
It didn’t take them long to come to the right conclusions. They opened fire and Mason vanished again, leaving behind the jawless sicario to fall on his knees and then on his face into a puddle of his own blood and flesh.
Right beside a screaming sicario wielding a screeching minigun, Mason reappeared with his arm held close to his chest, fist reeling downward before shooting upward as though released from a spring.
It connected to the too-slow-to-react mingun's wielder’s chin and launched him into the rocky ceiling, the collision producing a loud crack and leaving a generous blood stain.
While the unfortunate sicario dropped in a heap, Mason’s arm lashed out like a snake and the cartel member dashing at him from behind found himself caught in the jaws that was his hand.
Without even looking, Mason flexed every bit of his strength and squeezed the life out of his third—no, fifth target of the night and flung him aside.
“How far along are you?” Rip made contact while he relieved the minigun guy of the weapon so he could store it.
“Just made contact with three tangoes. Heading deeper now.”
After settling the matter of his new toy, he broke into another sprint only to slow down once again. His first obstacle had appeared. He expected many things to make this mission difficult, however not once did he consider the mining passages.
Still, the job was the job. ‘Here goes nothing.’
He crouched and entered the first passage he found, knees almost touching the ground. Enduring the discomfort, he inched forward bit by bit, rousing his chi to face the two heat signatures on a collision course with him.
He heard them before he saw them, so their reaction to his attack was non-existent.
The moment the two sicarios, engaged in deep conversation and walking leisurely, emerged into the passageway, two balls of blue flame came out of nowhere and sent them flying with explosive force.
It only launched them back and dropped them, but as for disabling them? Mason knew better than that. That’s why his fists never stopped moving, shooting forward one after the other and blasting fireball after fireball.
The sicarios had no way to counteract this and nowhere to hide. They had no choice but to endure fiery explosion after fiery explosion launching them backward again and again.
Much to their delight, their suffering came to an end when they finally flew out of the passage. Mason, who saw this light at the end of the tunnel, kept his discomfort in check and proceeded forward at the same pace.
There were a dozen heat signatures on the other end, but they were why he was here, so he pressed on, his whole body and chi primed and ready to go.
Urgent speech and the shuffle of movement bloomed in his ears.
He clenched his fists harder, steadied his breathing and drew closer to the end. A few steps away from the inevitable brawl, a whirring sound he knew all too well cut through the tension and picked up in intensity.
With nowhere else to go but forward, he braved the oncoming attack and pressed on. He took one foot outside the tunnel, straightened to his full height and saw the bright muzzle flash of a minigun a split second before hundreds of glowing impacts hit him dead center.
He strode forward without fail, trusting his durability and that of the suit’s as he carved a path through the devastation like it was empty air.
Every sicario present watched him walk up to the rotary gun and grab the red hot muzzle spitting lead inches away from his chest, stopping the rotation cold.
As for the guy with his finger on the trigger, he panicked and stepped back when Mason made eye contact through the gap in the shield he formerly felt safe behind.
For some reason, everyone, even he included, interpreted the sudden stop of gunfire as “Fight, Begin.”
The nearby sicarios, about a dozen of them, reacted appropriately to his presence this deep in their hidden base. The braver ones charged him, shirtless and holding machetes while the rest stayed back and opened fire.
Bullets impacted Mason again yet he paid them no heed and instead slapped an open palm against the rotary gun’s muzzle.
His strength carried over and tore it off whatever support was keeping it in place and launched it into the sicario behind it, smacking him into the wall at his rear, producing crunches and cracks that were a mix of bone and concrete.
Aware of the murder hobos gaining on him, Mason bent down, grabbed a hold of one of the concrete walls surrounding the shooter’s nest before tearing it off the ground like a piece of bread.
He adjusted his position for more space, held it with both hands and did a full 360, spinning it like a piece of plywood and putting his back in it at the last moment when he let it fly.
There was a whump of violently displaced air as two of the charging sicarios flew into the air, the spinning hunk of rock having swept their feet out from under them.
A third bore the largest brunt of the unconventional attack, the block slamming into him crotch-first, and as though that wasn’t enough, lifted him off the ground and carried him into a wall, the collision culminating in a sickening crunch that chilled spines and shriveled manhoods.
In the midst of the chaos, Mason flashed to the fourth sicario, planting his fist deep into the tattoo aficionado’s gut, doubling him over before cracking his skull with a downward left hook that saw him go to the ground head first, his body flopping like a fish as his feet soared into the air.
For the two that got swept up into the air, he stomped on the neck of one, breaking it and kicked in the head of the other, the sharp crack confirming his approaching mortality.
When he turned around to find out why the shooting had stopped, he saw one of the six shooters disappear into a doorway.
‘Uh uh. Can’t have that.’
He breezed past the two nearest cartel members and reappeared in the doorway, his arm coming down in a sideways, downward chop on the gunman’s lower spine.
CRACK
His hand came down like a guillotine, the heightened weight right before contact allowing the strike to break and bend the unlucky man’s spine and body inward, or outward, depending on where you stood.
A cry the likes of which he’d never heard tore itself out of the sicario before the latter fell on his face like a puppet that had lost its strings.
Leaving the man to die, Mason strode back into the room and cracked his fingers at the remaining guys. He wasn’t going to enjoy killing them, but the sweat beading down their foreheads, necks and bare skins, and the bobbing of their Adam apples felt oddly appropriate.
Fitting.