Perfect Victims (Formerly Kidnapped: Stolen in the Night)

Chapter 6

General Hattarach sat at his desk studying the surveillance video from the bank.   He had been there half the night watching it and news footage coming from Phoenix.  

In the bank footage, he could see clearly that it was a girl with long brown hair.  She was wearing some kind of pink two tone outfit with some kind of belt.  A heart could be seen on both the left breast of her outfit and the buckle of her belt.  Judging from her size and build, she couldn't have been older than her very early teens.

Her face however, was concealed by thousands of flickering black and gray dots.  It reminded him of the "snow" from an old television set.  At first he thought the security company had somehow censored the footage, but they denied doing so.

She had appeared in the blink of an eye behind one of the robbers.  The man was clearly startled as he turned.  There was no audio, but he could see the flash of the gun as two shots were reportedly fired.  As close as he was to the girl there was no way he could miss her.  Police had recovered two rounds of armor piercing bullets that were completely flattened.  Similar bullets had been used to kill to police officers in Nevada, penetrating their bulletproof vests.  These seemed to be stopped by the spandex-like outfit the girl wore.

Without audio he couldn't tell what transpired between the girl and the three murderous men.  Suddenly they seemed to turn docile and dropped their guns and walked to the door.  Officers on the scene said the men were almost ridiculously apologetic as they surrendered.  Whatever the girl did, it didn't wear off until after the three killers were handcuffed and secured in the back of patrol cars.  At that point they seemed to be confused about what happened and became violent once again.

Inside the bank the girl could be seen kneeling down next to the injured security guard and apparently saying something to him.  She then reportedly addressed the bank patrons before touching her belt buckle and vanishing as suddenly as she appeared.  Witnesses in the bank who saw her couldn't identify her.  They said she was very pretty, but her features kept changing also with her racial origin.  One minute she was Caucasian with blue eyes, the next Hispanic or African-American with green or brown eyes and completely different facial features.  Only her basic hair style and color remained similar.  No doubt the ability was to conceal her true identity.

News footage of the car chase as well as footage from the fire had the identities of the two kid's involved concealed by the same statically snow.  Again witnesses claimed their appearance constantly changed so they couldn't describe either youth.  They did estimate him to be in his early to preteen years.

The report of the girl catching the construction worker offered little information.  The cellphone video that someone recorded was shaky and for the most part out of focus.  She was described as being blond and maybe younger than the other three.  The colors of her hair and costume identified her as yet a third girl.

Four kids with incredible abilities.  Super powers.  He wondered if there were more kids lurking around with similar abilities.  More importantly, could they be of use to the government.

The loss of Odin's Shield had been a crippling loss for the efforts of nuclear deterrence.  With the growing number of problems with the antiquated hardware on Odin's Lightning, Odin's Shield was the best hope to avert a nuclear war.

The abilities the kid's seemed to possess would be just enough to tip the scales.  Tanks covered with the cloth from their costumes would make them impervious to enemy fire.  The armor the boy wore would make planes invincible.  The lightning from the boy's hands could disrupt enemy weapons systems.  What if the girl did whatever she did in the bank to the enemy commanders?   What about the possibilities of the girl that put out the raging wild fire?