The ability to fly lent itself to more than just defying gravity and soaring through the skies. It also created a possibility where a giant like Mason could sneak up on someone whose guard was all the way up.
Granted, this person was hard at work digging through rocks with his bare hands, so the chances he’d have noticed Mason walking up to him were already low to begin with.
With his flight pulling him upward enough that his footfalls barely made a sound, Mason’s approach to the frantic and last surviving sicario went undetected right up to the last second.
Rip had caused a cave-in at the mine’s secret entrance, or exit in this case since it was supposed to be an avenue of escape in case something like Mason’s intrusion happened.
Judging from how hard the sicario punched and pried away the hard earth yet seemed to only find more, Rip had executed his part of the plan flawlessly.
That left Mason, who stepped close enough to the oblivious cartel member, unintentionally letting the tiny light bulb overhead drape his shadow over the latter.
His stealth got broken immediately, judging from the sicario’s sudden jolt, but whatever plan or reaction the latter came up with, he was given no time to execute any of them.
Mason had entered killing distance long before they reached close proximity, so when the sicario only began to process the sudden darkness, a thick arm wound around his neck and curved him backward, bringing him so low his vision went from rocks to ceiling in an instant.
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second when the muscles tightened around his neck—
CRACK!
Mason let the body fall and gave it and the cave-in a final look before turning around. His finger went to his ear out of habit. “Rip. Kelsey. The hostiles are down. I’m performing a sweep to make sure I didn’t miss anything.“
Rip replied first. “Cartel domiciles are clear. All vials of Temp V are dust.”
“Good work.” Kelsey finally spoke up. “Nomad. Any sign of what we’re looking for?”
“Affirmative. There’s a small lab where a few of the sicarios were working. I’ll check it out soon. Gotta make sure I didn’t miss anyone or anything first.”
“Alright. Keep me posted. Rip, you’re with him once the mine is clear.”
“Roger that.”
Guided by his potent recollection and heat radar, Mason roamed the tunnels and facilities of the mine with the ease of someone who oversaw its construction.
Knowledge of the layout obviously came from his earlier jaunt but that was only a portion of it. The meat of it came from Carlos, his superiors sourcing the mine’s layout from its real owners.
By ousting them and taking over this silver mine, Las Sombras had pissed off some very rich and powerful people.
Because it turns out, just like hotels and night clubs, if you owned a single mine, chances are you owned a lot more, and that kind of money, reach, and connections gave you access to tidbits the general public weren’t privy to.
When the mine owners heard that they could have one of their income streams back up and running as it should in a short amount of time, they went above and beyond in the data they sent.
It was detailed to the extent that Mason easily located the recent additions made by the sicarios, probably on orders from their boss. Why else would a router be in the recesses of a mine? The lab’s presence was an even bigger culprit.
Sure, it looked like nothing you’d expect for a supe juice synthesizing operation, but there were enough computers, glassware, and a large tank with pipes leading away from it tucked in a corner to give the presence of the completed vials on some of the tables more credence.
“Rip.” Mason stopped before one of the computers and hit the keyboard. “It’s all clear. You can come in.”
“Roger that. On my way.”
The monitor lit up, but the device was locked, asking for a password. He immediately reached for his belt for a tool provided by Kelsey and contacted the woman herself. “Kelsey. I’m patching you in.”
“Ready and waiting Nomad.”
He stuck the thumb drive into one of the ports on the monitor and went about the room, gathering every finished vial of Temp V before smashing them against the concrete floor.
Exercising the “Innocent Perspective” as he dubbed it, he went about the lab, pulling drawers, checking coats and opening anything remotely openable or out of place. This netted him more and more vials, all of which he promptly smashed.
Once he cleared the room, he went to the pit he’d discovered earlier, stopping at the mouth and peering down. It was no descent into hell or anything of the sort. If anything, it was the true mine, or more accurately, it led to it.
After combing through every location both old and new, Mason had not discovered the rumored stocks of Temp. Or maybe they were never here. Either way, he had to go down there.
Before he did though—
“Nomad. The techs found something.”
“Hit me.”
“The computers were a bust, but we found where the camera feeds upload to. The location’s halfway across the country.”
He’d noticed the cameras in the lab but ignored them since his mask protected him on the identity front. There was also the fact that he’d killed everyone supposed to be watching the feeds. Turns out he was wrong.
“You want me to fly there?”
“Yes. There’s one more thing though. Another camera.”
That got him to stop looking down the hole. He raised his head and looked around, scanning the space around him. “Where is it?” He asked after finding nothing.
“In the mine.”
‘Of course it is.’ He peered down the hole again.
“The techs say we might lose contact with you down there, so wait for Rip—”
“He’s here.” Mason turned toward the doorway right as the war veteran stepped through with his gun at the ready, checking corners on instinct.
“Good. We can get this over with.” Kelsey sounded impatient.
“Nomad. Get down there and figure out what that camera’s recording. Rip, you’ll be the relay. If I lose contact with him, you’ll report back on his findings.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Rip and Mason shared a nod and the latter took a step forward, dropping into the hole. It wasn’t a long drop, but still long enough for him to arrest his momentum with his flight so he could land with no sound.
Like every other tunnel he’d encountered, there was a light bulb every meter or so, so his half crawl to the literal light at the end of the semi dark tunnel wasn’t impeded by low visibility.
Upon emerging in the brightly lit space and standing tall, he found boxes upon boxes, some with their flaps hanging open. There was a single camera overlooking the room, its presence, placement and the contents of the boxes painting a picture that grew clearer by the second.
Standing near one of the open boxes, Mason held one of those test tube holder things and shook it, rattling the blue liquid in the neatly capped vials sitting snugly in their home.
“Found it.” He stepped back after estimating how many vials were in the box he just stuck his hand in. “The Temp V. It’s all here.”
“Can you confirm that?” Rip didn’t sound skeptical. He was fishing for certainty.
“Yes.” Mason waved the batch in his hand toward the camera. “Kelsey’s guys should be picking it up.”
“They are.” Rip’s response came after a brief lag. “Are you able to estimate their number, Nomad?”
“Way ahead of you. Each box has two hundred vials at least, three at most, and I count, no less than seventy boxes.”
“Christ.”
“I know.” Mason understood Rip. This was way beyond the ten thousand estimate postulated by Kelsey. “What’s the word? Do I burn it all down?” He set the row of drugs back in an open box.
“Negative on that. Command cannot risk you. We’ll use explosives instead.”
Mason summoned a flame and shook his hand to make it wavy. “If it’s the smoke you’re worried about, tell Kelsey I can hold my breath for hours.”
Rip didn’t respond until a few seconds passed.
“Negative on that. She says it’s too risky.”
Mason shook his head and blasted the nearest stack of boxes, igniting it and knocking it back into the ones behind it.
“Tell her that explosives won’t be enough. The mine will eventually be dug up and there will be untouched vials. With my powers, I can make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Adding his second hand to the mix, he blasted twin streams of flame at the boxes, pushing them into each other. With a mix of explosive force and actual physical prodding with his hands and feet, he gathered everything into a pile wider and taller than he was.
Smoke billowed from the underground bonfire but not in obscene amounts. These weren’t tires he was burning, just cardboard boxes, glass and tiny, thousand bits of plastic.
He poured on the heat, enjoying the repeated shattering of glass and the continuous shrinking of the pile. Plastic and glass melted, boxes turned to ash, and the blue drug evaporated to nothing.
The little bit that managed to escape the onslaught and spill onto the ground got licked up by the stream of flames directed their way when he noticed.
By the time the pile had become a gum of superheated plastic, glass and ash on the concrete floor, enough smoke had been produced that he had trouble with visibility.
However, heat sense coupled with his lack of need for air let him go about the room and give it a few more once overs, confirming there was nothing sneaky going on.
He flew out promptly afterwards, emerging from the hole into the place where he found Rip waiting.
“Hey.”
Rip didn’t respond, but someone else did.
“Nomad. You went against direct orders.”
“I don’t work for you.”
Rayner had done a lot more than show him the people he’d be going after.
“I’m working with you. So I get to make calls that contribute to our overall goal. Don’t get worked up over nothing. The vials are done down to the last and I’m here, without a scratch or cough on me.”
“...You’re a pain in the ass.”
“The good kind. Now, where to next. Are we going after the destination of the feeds?”
“No. We had to make some snap decisions after the stunt you pulled. We killed the feed before you burned everything. The cartel thinks you’re stealing their livelihood so they’re mobilizing.”
“They’re coming here?”
“Yep. They gotta defend their rep and maintain their position somehow. Apart from a few pockets spread over the country, most of them are concentrated in this region. So expect a couple hundred of them to show up.”
“Let me guess, you want me to stay and make sure they never leave.”
“You read my mind.”
“What about the camera feed?”
“That’s Rip’s business. We’re tracking the sicario at the location. He hasn’t moved or ditched his phone yet so we still have time. What do you say, Nomad? Are you up for a little war?”
Was she calling him a one man army? Well, every supe worth their salt could be considered one… if their enemies were regular humans. Against hundreds of remorseless killers with Temp V in their bloodstreams?
“We’ll see.”
.
.
.
.
Before they started this operation, before Mason even stepped foot on Bolivian soil, the main branch of the C.I.A. had already started sniffing about the cartel situation in Bolivia.
Since their nose was already in the country’s business, like every other one they kept an eye for the sake of “national security,” they had already done a lot of work digging up information on Las Sombras.
Be it social media, texts, and phone calls, they’d flagged nearly every cartel member and person of importance connected to them in some way. This made picking up on chatter about the cartel’s upcoming targets and major plans not that difficult.
Of course, with Rey being Rey, he used his teleporter to maintain contact with his buchons, forgoing electronic and digital media entirely. The drug lord did not hold back at all on using his subordinate’s ability to the fullest.
Catching him was going to be a colossal pain. However said pain would be drastically reduced by what Mason was about to do.
The mine clearing mission started around midnight and took close to an hour, from terminating the sicarios all the way to burning the Temp V.
Despite the ungodly hour, the cartel members in the region swarmed the mine in droves upon being summoned.
High up in the sky, Mason watched a multitude of car headlights pierce through the darkness and converge on the stretch of land surrounding the mine from all directions.
All sorts of vehicles sped toward the location. There were saloon cars, trucks, some with mounted guns and some with empty beds, and even a few military style SUV’s, all of them leaving trails of dust in their wake.
Mason didn’t bother counting the cars. Instead he focused heat sense into his eyes and the world switched hues. The darkness and chill of the nighttime painted everything a bright blue, leaving his targets as unmistakable standouts of heat.
Glowing a bright orange as the engines of their vehicles, over a hundred warm silhouettes rallied and hoisted their weapons. More than a few shot up or drank some stuff before joining their comrades in advancing on the mine.
“Are there more of them?” Mason asked Kelsey, not wanting any of these guys to get away.
“Wait three minutes then go to town on these fuckers.”
Three minutes. The timer ticked down loudly yet slowly as Mason crossed his arms and waited. Little by little, the sicarios gained on the mine, the first few to reach it sending word back to their boss and waiting for orders.
While this happened, Mason flew to the rear of the line, putting the targets between himself and the mine. This way, once he started, he could focus on those already present.
After what had to be a century of waiting, he took his eyes off the sicario he’d identified as the leader and checked the nearby roads. Only a single car was making its way towards the party.
His watch buzzed when the timer reached zero and he uncrossed both arms, taking a deep breath and rousing his chi simultaneously.
He held out a hand and candle flame boasting the size of an actual candle manifested inches away from his open palm. He held it there and charged it for a few seconds, the flame growing denser and brighter as his hand trembled.
Positioned right above the rear line of cars and sicarios, he unleashed the pent up sea of blue flames when he reached his limit and the world burned.