Chapter Sixteen

The team made their preparations. Kensuke gave them their instructions and their targets. “One last thing, on this mission, I want Haruki to be in charge. Operative, Combat Queen, I want you to offer advice, but the boy has final say.”

Haruki expected the solemn man and the battle-ready woman to argue, but instead, they both simply nodded and gave assent. In the loading bay, the team loaded their packs into a storage container and took their positions. “Blade Extender.” The woman turned. “I need you to connect everyone together with a force field, and have a separate one connect the container to me so it doesn't look like I'm carrying something.”

“Will do,” she agreed.

“Push & Pull,” Haruki said. She acknowledged him. “Make sure you hold everyone steady so abrupt changes in acceleration don't jar anyone.”

“Understood,” Push & Pull agreed.

“Falling Star,” Haruki said. She nodded. “Can you make everything invisible with your light manipulation? I mean, not just visible light, but to thermal cameras as well?”

“I can,” Falling Star agreed. “Heat is a kind of light I can manipulate, after all.”

“Let's get ready to go,” Haruki said.

“May I offer some advice?” Operative said.

“Of course,” Haruki agreed.

“The first thing we should do,” Operative explained, “is find a base of operations that, preferably, has running water and power, but is far enough out of the way that we won't be bothered right away.”

Haruki considered. “I don't think it'll be too hard.” He remembered a news documentary he saw as part of his school's social studies curriculum. “After all, America never fully recovered from the Housing Crisis, so we should be able to find an abandoned house somewhere.”

“It'll be early morning in America right now,” Combat Queen said, “we should get moving to maximize daylight.”

“Right,” Haruki agreed. “Enough time wasted.”

The group took positions along the wall of the container to avoid impacts. Push & Pull steadied everyone with telekinesis, and Blade Extender wrapped everyone and the container in a force field. Haruki positioned himself a foot above and a force field wrapped around his body. When the entire object vanished from view, he took off, first at a gradual pace before accelerating. It took a little over an hour at the relatively safe speed Haruki took, but eventually, they arrived over the continental United States and touched down in an abandoned factory in a dilapidated part of Arizona.

Freed from the container, each person stretched their legs and shouldered their packs. Haruki turned. “Fast Mover, do us a favor and try to find an abandoned house somewhere, preferably within fifty miles of the target.”

“Yes sir,” Fast Mover declared, vanishing from view. As each hero sorted through their gear, made sure everything was in order, and got ready to move, the speedster returned. “It took me a few minutes, but I think I found just the place.”

Haruki nodded. “I'll follow you.” He turned to the group. “Connect everyone to me by force field and telekinesis, and make us invisible.” The heroes nodded and got to work. A second later, he took off with the rest of the team tethered to his back. He followed right behind Fast Mover and weaved through frozen traffic. Thirty seconds later, they found an entire subdivision abandoned in the process of construction way back in 2008. Three paved roads led off a main road into a hilly area. Three houses had been built to completion, and no fewer than twenty empty lots with for sale signs on grass marked the aftermath of the economic hurricane that was the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.

Entering through an unlocked attic window to avoid tripping a device attached to the front door, the team settled in the attic. Fast Mover did a sweep of the house and reported no motion sensors or listening devices. They set up in the furnished basement, as it had one entrance leading down from above and would be easiest to defend, and easiest to tell if someone was coming. Operative plugged in his laptop and connected to the satellite internet uplink.

“This is the area Kensuke's spies were able to map out,” Operative explained to Haruki, watching over his shoulder.

Haruki looked at the imagery. “So, their sensory supers are positioned to form an impenetrable wall of detection.”

“Almost impenetrable,” Combat Queen said. “If you look here, there's a gap just big enough to squeeze through.”

“Which is why,” Operative cut in, “they have speedsters patrolling that area most highly.”

“But,” Haruki said, “as the rescue mission proved, none of their speedsters are as fast as Fast Mover or I.”

“So,” Fast Mover thought out loud, “I'm going to be making a distraction.”

“Right,” Haruki agreed. “Operative, look up some American speedster who's a criminal he can imitate.”

“On it,” Operative said.

“Falling Star,” Haruki said, “when he brings up this image, study it so you can put an illusion over Fast Mover.” He considered. “Can you create an illusion that persists away from you?”

“I can,” Falling Star agreed. “You'll need one too.”

“Right,” Haruki said. “Fast Mover is going to create a distraction, and I'm going to get in. Operative, send the files from the laptop to the helmet since I won't be able to listen to you while I'm out.”

“Of course,” Operative said, setting up the transfer.

After a few moments, the maps and diagrams appeared in Haruki's side vision. They looked up a list of American criminals with speed powers and came across one for Fast Mover to use as a distraction. The team set up a secure data relay between Kensuke and them. Combat Queen set her weapons and tools out and examined each one for flaws and necessary maintenance. “How many supers do you think America actually has?”

Operative turned to her. “The U.S. and China are two of the biggest economies and both have enormous populations. It's almost certain that they have lots of supers they don't reveal.”

“They're smart to keep their biggest weapon under wraps,” Haruki commented. “I just wish they weren’t so greedy as to be working with Aeriesai.”

“That's what we have to find out,” Operative commented.

Haruki stood still as Falling Star placed a field that hid him electromagnetically. She wrapped him and said, “now, this will last for up to an hour and a half. You won't appear on camera, thermal scan, or E.M. scan. Just don't be out longer than that.” After a moment, the speedster approached and was draped in an illusion depicting him as a well-known American criminal. “You'll need to get the American speedsters and draw them away. Can you do that?”

“Shouldn't be too hard,” Fast Mover said.

“Be ready,” Haruki said, “in case something happens and we need you.”

Operative nodded. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Haruki replied.

Laser Hammer and Fast Mover took off. After a minute, they arrived just outside the outer perimeter of the base. At their distance, none of the sensory supers or speedsters knew of their position. The two Japanese heroes took note of the positions of all the surveillance equipment. “So, you know where the access hatch is?”

“I do,” Haruki said. “When I give the signal, get their attention so I can go in.” He turned his Spirit of Lightning on. Immediately, every sound for dozens of miles crashed into his ears and he levitated off the ground to avoid audible impacts to the ground. Each piece of surveillance equipment became known to him by the trail of electrical wires and electronic circuits the Spirit of Lightning illuminated in his mind. The pathway became visible and he saw the exact gap he had.

He had exactly two seconds. First, the speedsters had to be distracted. When they left the area, he had to pass through the security gap and open the hatch door, making sure to shut it again less than a full second later or the alarm would sound. The last thing he needed was more American supers interrupting him and causing an incident.

He steeled his will and raised his hand. He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out.

His hand fell.

Fast Mover disappeared, and, microseconds later, both American speedsters in pursuit. With Haruki shifted into super speed, he watched them vanish after his teammate. He took off with every ounce of speed, zipped through trees and the security gap, carefully pulled open the access hatch, slid in, and shut it.

He hovered inside, a ladder behind him and the floor several feet below him. Before he could even descend, however, he hit a major snag.

He silently swore. The walls and floors had complex electromagnetic paneling that meant he couldn't touch a single surface. Two workers passed the tunnel leading up, and he descended and hovered behind them. One of them took a side hallway down to a large open area, and the other pulled open the door labeled ‘Security Office’ in English.

“Hey,” a soldier in uniform said in English, “glad you're here. We had an incident in Quadrant 3.”

The worker Haruki followed sighed, and replied, “Great. Just great. Now we're going to have to scan and redo our entire security setup.”

“I'll get to copying the old hard drives so we can ship them off to be destroyed,” the soldier said.

Haruki knew at once he had to get those hard drives.

The soldiers retrieved a set of solid-state hard drives from the closet, unboxed them, and disposed of the packaging. After sticking each one in a slot, the system began backing them up. It took an agonizing forty-five minutes to finish the process. Once that was complete, the soldier began swapping drives out, and the old ones went on a cart.

He followed the officer as he walked the cart out the security office, down a hallway, and up a ramp out the main entrance. They went through a parking lot and down a dirt path to a shed guarded by ten soldiers with guns, but no supers. Haruki found it funny that the base was extremely paranoid about letting supers in, but had very little security for if a super was coming out. The whole time he expected a sensory super to notice him, and none did. He zipped at super speed to the nearest town with an electronics store, snatched a duffel bag and handfuls of hard drives.

Back at base, he snuck through a loose panel in the back of the roof and swapped out hard drives. Again he found it funny that the base had guards for outside the shed, but none for inside. He made the trade and, upon a gap opening in the patrol rotation, vanished from the shed.

Back at the hideout, Fast Mover arrived moments after Haruki. “Hey, sorry it took so long. Getting their attention was easy, losing them was hard.”

“No problem,” Haruki replied. He handed the duffel bag to Fast Mover. “Get this back to Kensuke. We're lucky that our infiltrating the base triggered a security event, otherwise, this would've been a serious bust.”

“What happened?” Operative asked.

“The whole place is bugged all to hell,” Haruki explained. “There's no just moving about. I think if we just tried to sneak around, we'd trigger something.”

“So,” Combat Queen said, “we wait here for further instruction.”

“Yes,” Haruki said. Fast Mover gave a salute and vanished. “He'll know what to do.”