The Measure of a Man [The Exceptionals Book 1] Read online

  It was the usual late night crowd, and that included most of The Bodyguard.

  Skorpion, a stunningly voluptuous red-haired woman in her thirties, crossed the room from the bar to a table. She was dressed all in shades of red, from the deep maroon of the symbol incised leather bodice to the bright scarlet of her wide belt. The belt had an embossed figure of a scorpion across the broad front of it. Even without the belt it was obvious that she could not be codenamed anything else for her face was decorated with a scorpion tattoo on its left side, its stinger curling above her left brow and its head by her jaw. She was wearing a dark leather sleeveless floor length vest over her battledress uniform, and her fiery hair was hanging down over one eye to marginally hide the tattoo. She carried two mugs of beer over to a table occupied by a tall man.

  He was Conner Le'Schott, now known to the world as Lastshot. His lined face had been reconstructed so he no longer looked like his younger self and his hair was salt and pepper, worn long in a retro mullet, but his eyes were still the same. A New Yorker would call them ‘cop eyes'; they missed nothing. The hazel orbs, at the moment, though, focused on some distant image unavailable for anyone else in the room to see.

  A few tables away, two college coeds looked over and giggled.

  "Doesn't any of our work mean anything?” Skorpion said, sitting down. “You can't chuck it all because of one lousy letter.” In her pre-Exceptional life she was Revette Skarlett and was something of a mystery as she usually stopped all inquiry at the name alone.

  Le'Schott drained half of the drink she brought him before he spoke. “It's not just one letter; it's the whole ‘hero’ thing.” He finished the rest of his beer in one swig and signaled the regular waitress to bring another mug to the table.

  "When I opted into this Exceptional thing thinking I'd make a difference, I was foolin’ myself. I thought, hey, a way to use Uncle Sam's training to help people, really be what Eddie Winter used to call ‘a hero.’ Maybe make up for what I've done..."

  He leaned back and ran a calloused hand through his hair. Small flesh-colored metal discs on either side of his temples were clearly visible. They served as contact points for the neural-glasses he often wore to interface with the bionics implanted in his body. He wore a trench coat over his battle leathers, but a man his size and with his presence would have to do a great deal more to truly be ‘incognito.'

  "As I recall,” he said, “it was you who convinced me to get back into the government angle!"

  Skorpion looked like she was about to smash her mug over Le'Schott's head, but instead just said, “Hold up, Connor; we had a few jobs that crossed and I suggested you might want to get back into government work—of the ‘in the light’ ops variety."

  She didn't go into detail that the ‘jobs’ that crossed were assassinations of convicted and escaped drug lords she and he were in the midst of performing for the United States Government. Le'Schott and Skarlett teamed for a couple of them. Then both entered the same Exceptional tournament to qualify for the government program each under their current alias. “No one twisted your arm on that, Conner!"

  "Not many people could twist that big thing."

  The new speaker was Jason Stryker, who operated in the team as Firststrike. He was dressed in black jeans and a turtleneck. He slid into a chair next to Le'Schott with the grace of a large cat. He was tall and slim, moved like a ballet dancer and wore a Fu Manchu style mustache that matched his brown hair. His disarming smile softened the sinister suggestion of the black eye patch that covered his left eye. Le'Schott glared at him.

  "You took lead position of The Bodyguard because I didn't want it,” Jason said, “and we didn't dare let Matthew have it."

  "Let me have what?” All three looked up to see Matthew Stryker, Jason's twin brother, walking by the table with his arm around the waist of a gorgeous redhead who had a centerfold body.

  "A one-way ticket to hell,” Jason said in a deadpan voice.

  Matthew made a show of looking the redhead up and down. “Oh, I think I've found that.” Goldstrike was his public name and, as usual, since he had ‘come out’ and told the world that he and Goldstrike were one and the same, his civilian attire evidenced it. He wore a gold lame windbreaker over a cream colored shirt and slacks. Matthew turned his redhead to steer her out of the pub. “See you all back at the ranch, gang!"

  "Ranch?” the Redhead said. “You told me you lived in a loft!"

  Jason turned back to Le'Schott. “And that as leader of any team is a very bad idea."

  "It is amazing that one of our own team hasn't shot Jason ‘by mistake’ on a mission,” Skorpion said. “Especially Zori."

  "By the way,” Le'Schott asked, “where's Zori and Caesar?"

  "Zori is back at the HQ,” Jason said. “She's finishing up the SatLink conference with UniPol about some drug interdiction mission that is scheduled next week. Caesar's at his place, it's his ‘home’ rotation. But don't change the subject; you had the skill set and agreed to lead the team!"

  "All right, so I did it to myself. But I really think I agreed to lead the Guard because I started to believe my own press. I mean, Geez, Lastshot comics, Lastshot dolls, the video game ... no wonder I feel like Mickey Mouse!"

  Skorpion put her hand on Le'Schott's. “Connor, that merchandising money has funded two children's hospitals and dozens of charities."

  "Who cares when I can't save one stinkin’ kid!"

  "Conner, he had inoperable cancer,” Jason said. “There wasn't—

  "He had a Lastshot doll ... he had the ‘Rescue Kit'! He said ‘I—’”

  "'—know you can help me, Mr. Lastshot,'” Jason said. “I know, Conner, we all read the letter. Dr. Quest himself said nothing could be done."

  "You're only human, Connor,” Skorpion added. “After all, ultimately we all are."

  "You're the one expecting too much.” Jason did his best to draw Lastshot's focus out of himself, but the team leader's attention had already been diverted outward.

  Lastshot looked past his friends to two big thugs, a flat nosed heavyweight, and a stocky blond with barn door shoulders. The men were escorting the terrified waitress, Trudy, towards a side door, where a third thug was waiting.

  Le'Schott could hear Skorpion and Jason talking, but let them fade to the background. The three roughnecks pushed the waitress out the door at the back of the Trench. Lastshot suddenly stood up to his full six foot six, shedding his trench coat to reveal his red and midnight blue leather battledress uniform. He pulled his neural glasses from a pocket and snapped them on. Immediately, he got scrolled readouts on his left lens and mentally commanded his right lens to go infrared so he could follow the outlines of the four bodies on the other side of the pub wall in the alley.

  "Trouble, Red,” he said.

  Skorpion heard the change of tone in his voice and stood, drawing her Glock 19 sidearm. Jason Stryker, stayed seated and watched Lastshot with an icy calm and a total focus.

  "Firststrike, looks like three targets and a collateral,” Lastshot said. “Head out the front, and circle around to the back."

  Firststrike slid from his chair and was out the door like a breath of wind.

  "Red, watch my back."

  She instinctively reversed her outer robe to reveal incised Egyptian symbols that covered the garment. “You okay for this?” She gestured to the empty beer mugs.

  "That's what the implants are for,” he said with a grim smile. Gritting his teeth, he accessed one of his numerous bio-implants. He sped his metabolism up to almost ten times his normal rate for just under two seconds. To an outsider, it looked like he had a hard shiver. After a moment, he breathed easier.

  "There; alcohol burned, cold sober."

  He unnecessarily adjusted his neural-linked sunglasses, and headed for the doorway.

  One of the thugs, a branded neo-punker with ring piercings in his ears, nose, eyebrows and lips, blocked his way.

  "None of your business, Mr. Motorcycle."

  "Th
e waitress, Trudy, forgot her tip.” The Exceptional loomed over the punk, outweighing him by thirty pounds of muscle, but the thug's posture proclaimed he was the toughest thing that had ever walked the Earth.

  Punker brandished a switchblade in his right hand, and lunged at Lastshot. The Exceptional sidestepped, blocked the thrust, kicked the punk in the ribs, and then calmly dislocated the kid's right shoulder.

  Lastshot was through the door as the thug hit the floor, screaming.

  The flatnosed thug, alerted by his partner's screams, turned to meet Lastshot. The thug attacked, throwing well-trained jabs and hooks in combination. Lastshot blocked, dodged and ducked. He dropped down and grabbed the thug's ankles. Lastshot yanked hard and pulled the punk to the ground, so that he landed painfully on his back. The tall Exceptional knocked him out with a two-fingered strike to the nerve center at the base of the man's neck.

  When he straightened up Lastshot was face to face, some ten feet away, with the last of the thugs. The man was a thin collegiate type who was holding the girl by a wrist.

  "That's two strikes, kid,” Lastshot said. “If you don't want to lose the whole ball game, let the girl go."

  The boy drew his sidearm, a deadly 41mm Tokkaido Swift semi automatic. It fired a dumdum round and even with Lastshot's ballistic weave body armor vest it would jelly the Exceptional's insides if a round hit him. The thug took careful aim at the Exceptional's head.

  "No one's faster than a man with his gun drawn,” the boy said and sneered.

  "Except me,” Lastshot said.

  In an eye blink, Lastshot's bio-linked smart gun was in his hand. He thought it to a small caliber round and a shot rang out. The thug's gun flew out of his hand.

  Before either of them could do more, the boy's arm was smashed down by a lightning swift knife-hand strike, and a foot slammed into the back of his head, flattening him. Firststrike stood there with a gentle smile on his face.

  "I simply won't let you have all the fun, Lastshot."

  A commotion in the doorway drew the Exceptionals’ attention. They turned to see several wide-eyed college coeds standing there.

  "You are Lastshot!” the taller of the two girls said. She was barely out of her teens and covered with enough makeup to paint a mural. Her littler, plumper friend giggled.

  "Could we have your autograph?"

  Lastshot looked at Firststrike and almost said something he would regret, but checked himself and just sighed, then said, “Bad time, right now, girls.” He grabbed the waitress to talk to her and walked off.

  This left Firststrike to ‘clean up’ with the ‘public.'

  Neither man had a chance to do much, though, because at that moment they both got the unmistakable ‘buzz’ in the back of their skulls that meant they were on call.

  Skorpion pushed past the teenagers. “Let's go boys. Mephisto got caught doing a bank in Hoboken and shot it out with the fed boys—we're up next."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 2

  The spring night air in the meadowlands of New Jersey was not like a jungle night in Cambodia at all. The distant sounds across the industrial parks and marshy wetlands were the hum of trucks on the interstate and the over fly of jets, not bird calls and the howls of monkeys. Natural sounds seldom intruded at all.

  Yet, Lastshot found himself thinking of the jungles again, as he often did in the moments before he was going into action. He was seated in a federal police van that had been waiting when the team had helioed in from Manhattan.

  In the distance, the skyline of New York loomed like Mordor or Oz, the Freedom Tower monument clearly visible at the southern end of the island. Nearer, in the middle distance of the night diorama, the Steinbrenner Obelisk was dominant, bathed in light from spotlights. It had been erected to commemorate the horror of the Stadium Massacre in 2015.

  Large storage tanks dominated a huge refinery and tank farm in the near sky. The ‘farm’ was bordered by a wire fence at the end of a spur of tarmac that seemed to head off into nowhere, surrounded by the marsh.

  A roar cut through the muffled silence of the night; a tortured diesel engine pushed almost past its tolerance. It belonged to a late model yellow school bus that was racing down the road.

  The bus swerved gently as it raced along the two-lane road and was followed by a single motorcycle and the late model federal police Hummer Van.

  There were two figures on top of the bus. One was a petite woman dressed in a tight fitting color-shifting combat uniform with what looked like multi-colored tattoos on her face that distorted her beautiful Asian-American features. Alongside her was Jason Stryker, aka Firststrike. He had traded his black eye patch for a silver one. He wore a sleek bodysuit with snakeskin patterned torso armor. Both were holding onto the top of the bus with claw-like hooks as the behemoth tried to shake them off like a horse would shake off flies.

  From the interior of the bus itself, gunmen were firing automatic weapons at the police van and the gold and black bodysuit-clad man on the motorcycle that were giving chase.

  On the motorcycle, the rider was wearing a clear acrylic helmet. It was Matthew Stryker, Goldstrike. He carried twin guns in hip holsters, a revolver strapped to his chest and automatics holstered on each of his thigh high black boots. He was laughing with delight as he wove back and forth, avoiding the fire from the bus.

  Inside the bus, were twenty grammar school children who were screaming at the top of their lungs since the adults had been thrown off the bus when it was stolen. Nine masked men, all dressed as comic opera pirates had boarded the bus at the Liberty Science Center. They all had very modern guns and very ancient buccaneer attitudes.

  The land pirates were led by a strange bald man with an elaborate moustache and a bionic right arm that ended in a nozzle instead of a hand. He pointed the arm at the children frequently. “Do as we say and you will live—disobey me and you die,” the man announced. “So says Captain Mephisto!"

  Captain Mephisto was very upset at the whole being chased thing. “Shut up!” he tried to yell over the children. “Shut up that screaming!” The children screamed louder.

  "And you,” he yelled at his men, “get those damned Exceptionals off the roof!"

  One of Mephisto's raiders fired his automatic weapon up into the bus ceiling.

  Up on the roof, the woman, known by the code-name Temper, and Firststrike dodged from side to side, like fish on a line, to avoid the bullets. Temper lost her grip on one of the claw grips, almost falling to her death, but Firststrike was able to kick a leg over for her to grab. She shimmied back to her position with a silent nod to her teammate.

  On his chase cycle, Goldstrike saw the thugs on the bus open up on his teammates and gunned the engine. He moved up alongside the bus.

  At the same time, two of the Raiders leaned out the windows to get better shots at the two on the roof.

  Goldstrike saw them pop their heads out and took both hands off the handlebars, drew both his holstered guns and shot the guns out of the hands of the two Raiders, causing them to dodge back into the bus windows in terror.

  All the while, Goldstrike was racing at near a hundred miles an hour. It was not near the trick it looked as the bike was gyro-stabilized and was a ‘smart’ cycle, responding in limited ways to his thoughts.

  In the Hummer, Skorpion was behind the wheel. She wore her maroon leather bustier and doublet, but had left off her long over robe. She seemed completely unconcerned by the speed or violence of the chase and was whistling “Pop Goes The Weasel."

  Behind her was a handsome African-American man in his late twenties. He wore a light green military style tunic and a translucent helmet that had a molded face shield that made him un-imagable by any electronic means. He was Caesar Brassfield, codenamed Echo. He was holding onto her seatback with a vice grip of fear.

  "Air sick bag?” he asked.

  "Under your seat,” she said without missing a beat whistling. He ducked down and retrieved it like it was the antidote to
snakebite.

  In the passenger seat beside Skorpion was Lastshot. He wore his neural glasses, which had a wire mike com-unit that folded down near his mouth. On the screens in his glasses he was watching the vital signs of all five of his team members on a real time feed. At the same time, he was intently watching the bus and cycle ahead of him with steady hazel eyes. His mouth was set in a calm but firm line.

  He spoke quietly into the mike. “Punjar, are you reading me, over?"

  Back at the headquarters, the team med tech, Punjar Kumar, was on the monitor screens in the main computer room. “I am reading you, team leader, over."

  "Are you getting the spike in Goldstrike's respiration, over?"

  "It's in normal range for Matthew, Lastshot,” she said in a calm voice, “this is Matthew we are talking about."

  "Roger that, Punjar; Lastshot out. Goldstrike? This is your leader, please respond."

  "What?” Goldstrike yelled. He was standing on the seat of the cycle, now aiming at the windows of the bus to keep the gunmen pinned inside. “I'm busy!"

  "I realize that,” Lastshot said quietly. “I know you ain't never missed before, but...” He paused, as if to find the exact right words. “There is a first time for everything; so, if you don't mind, please don't discharge your high powered weapons at the busload of defenseless children anymore."

  Goldstrike crouched on the seat as if considering Lastshot's request then re-holstered his guns. ‘Roger that, big daddy."

  Lastshot smiled. He re-keyed his com-unit. “Temper? Firststrike? How's your night going?"