The shadowy figure shifted slightly as Mordecai strode resolutely towards it, seeming to be hiding in the elevator shaft jutting from the roof of the building almost directly across from the one they had made their stand on.
"I see losing your psionic senses hasn't dulled your vision any," a soft voice husked from the shadows. Mordecai smiled slightly.
"If anything, they're a bit sharper," he replied to the shadowy figure. "How are you doing, Raven?"
"Considering that the psionic world is going to hell without you around to keep it in line?" The shadowy form stepped out of the darkness to reveal the Native American hardwire, a slight smile of her own curving her full lips upward. Like Katengaur and Sonja, the beautiful lone gunman was dressed for battle in all black.
"I'm doing all right," she finished. Then, before Mordecai could react, she stepped close to hug him tightly, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before she stepped back. Frowning down at her, Mordecai could see that Raven was clearly emotional, her dark eyes filled with tears.
"What's this?" he demanded softly and Raven, wiping the tears from her eyes with a gloved finger, smiled shakily.
"Sorry, Mordecai. Just glad to see you, that's all. We were all scared that the final battle with Mindfire had left you dead."
The big man sighed softly as he shook his head slowly.
"I might as well be!" he hissed tightly, reaching up to tap himself on the temple with an index finger. "Ravage launched a psi-bomb directly into my psionic cortex just before I burnt him out." He grimaced. "From what I've learned from the Normals that have been taking care of me and whom I've allied with, the damage was fairly extensive. Enough to take all my abilities completely offline!"
"Not for long," Raven vowed, stepping in close to put a hand on the big man's forehead. An instant later he could feel a wave of warmth wash through him, most of it centering in his head.
But it didn't last long; with a frown, Raven stepped back.
"Hmmm," she softly said with a frown. "By my scan, somebody's been in there before me. The big stuff's already been repaired, either by that person or by your own regenerative systems. There was some residual fissuring which I repaired but, other than that, you're in one piece!"
Mordecai frowned himself.
"Then why won't my abilities come back online?" he asked more to himself than to Raven.
The Native American hardwire shrugged.
"As far as I can tell, there's some sort of block that's been slid into place, something to keep your abilities offline until the repairs are completed. Which, as I just told you, has happened. So, unless this block is keyed to be deactivated by some event or by this person, your abilities should be coming back online now."
"How deep is it?" Mordecai pressed, not able to sense the block himself.
"Deep." Raven grimaced. "We're talking on the neuronal level here. Either the healer was real good, or it was done on an instinctual level. Nobody else would be able to put it so deep!"
"Instinct, hey?" Mordecai grimaced. "Damn! That's all I need: offline until my mysterious healer decides to come forward and pull my ass out of this particular sling!"
Raven chuckled wryly.
"Looks like you've figured a way around that particular impediment, my friend," She pointed out with a glance over the building's roof edge at the intersection now completely filled with police cars and ambulances. "Whatever technology you've uncovered, it certainly made short work of those Brotherhood movers."
"I suppose." Mordecai frowned. "Although I got the distinct impression that we were just mopping after a Katengaur operation."
It was Raven's turn to grimace.
"Damn her," she hissed. "She and Sonja have been jumping all over the city, with you now out of the way, going about their little 'hunt'. It's stirring what's left of the independent nations into a frenzy and the Brotherhood into a frustrated and murderous rage." Her grimace tightened, frustration flirting around the edges of the hard look. "And that could mean the Brotherhood bringing in another one of its destroyer cadres in an attempt to secure the city, if not level it outright!"
"I think leveling Calgary will damage the initiation of their project," Mordecai quickly pointed out, a thoughtful expression on his handsome features. "So the worst they'll do is attempt to secure the city again, nation by nation." He looked over at Raven. "No success in persuading Coyote and Brillman to help you restrain our loose cannons then, I take."
Raven sighed softly as she shook her head in frustration.
"You'd be taking it right, my friend," she said. "Brillman is more than happy to sit in his hotel room and watch the node get bigger and bigger. And Coyote, if she isn't working hard to stay neutral, has actually joined Katengaur and Sonja on a couple of her hunts. Making my job of protecting Avalon that much harder!"
Mordecai's eyebrow rose slowly at that.
"You've hooked up with Avalon?" he asked softly and Raven nodded.
"I figured it was the least I could do, considering everything that's going on in the city. And the work that you had done with them earlier. Work that got you nearly burned out, you idiot!"
The big man grinned at Raven's teasing smile.
"Yeah, well." He chuckled softly. "I didn't take proper precautions and got burnt!"
"Speaking of getting burnt, a pyroken dragon?" Raven shook her head, almost laughing out loud in amazement. "That was a nice touch! Not to mention the giant made out of the cars."
"Ah, you heard about that, did you?" Mordecai's smile broadened slightly. "Don't let Avalon's council fill your head with stories of my exploits. They are greatly exaggerated!"
"I doubt that!" Raven grinned openly. "Don't forget, I've seen you at work, my friend. You are quite spectacular."
"Maybe." Mordecai laughed softly then sobered. "But enough of that. We have a nasty genocidal plot to stop before the Normals are completely wiped out." He reached into his pocket to draw out a flat record crystal. "Here, the complete Armageddon Project file, decrypted. You'll find all the details of the Brotherhood's plans in there."
Raven nodded as she took the crystal, a thoughtful expression replacing the smile on her face.
"I'll give it a good look over, as well as pass any relevant information on to the Avalon council." She looked up at him. "In the meantime, what do you want me to do?"
"Help secure the city," Mordecai replied with a nod. "My allies have actually devised a good plan in making sure we can strike at the Brotherhood before they can launch their project. But, to make it work, we have to make sure that Calgary is secured, its borders closed so that no additional Brotherhood troops can make it into the city, either by translocation or standard Normal transit."
"Between Avalon and me, we'll have this city sewn up tight!" Raven assured him then frowned. "These allies of yours: Normals, I take."
"Yes. And before you ask, they've been thoroughly briefed on the Shield. Contamination has been contained and their exposure is minimal." Mordecai glanced over his shoulder. "Speaking of which, I better get back to the scene. My allies have created an artificial persona for me, one of a police officer. I better go and play my part."
"Clever of them," Raven conceded with a smile. "And quite well suited to you, I might add."
"So it is," Mordecai agreed. "We may have been underestimating them this entire time! They might be the key to this whole thing!"
"Won't that be a change!" Raven grinned fiercely before stepping in to give Mordecai a final hug and a light kiss on the cheek farewell.
"Damn good to see you in one piece, Mordecai," she said softly, stepping back. "And this time I'll do my best to keep in touch. Avalon and I will close the city up tight so you and the Normals can do your thing. As for Katengaur and Sonja ..."
"Leave them to me," Mordecai growled tightly with a frown. "If our loose cannons don't settle down and let me work, I'll take them out. Permanently!"
"Careful," Raven said as a teleportal irised open behind her. "They just might come after you first, if they discover you're still alive."
"Don't worry." Mordecai grinned tightly. "They won't find me as easy to take out as they think! Take care, Raven and I'll talk to you soon!"
"Yes, you will. You take care too, Mordecai." And then she was gone, the teleportal close behind her.
With a look of determination on his face, Mordecai then turned to stride firmly back towards the fire escape he had come up on. There was a crime scene that he had to check out!
"Any survivors?" Dee looked up at the low rumble to see Mordecai pushing his way through paramedics and uniformed officers towards her as she bent over a still form on a stretcher. She had already seen the chopper pilot and his co-pilot into the back of the first ambulance to leave the scene, leaving the FD to hose the broken craft down in fire retardant foam.
"A couple," she replied, also keeping her voice low as she looked back down at the battered form of the woman on the stretcher in front of her. "Mostly from our attack. They'll need a little surgery to repair the damage we did, but they should be okay. Thinking of questioning them?"
"Not to elicit information we already know." Mordecai frowned as he came to a halt beside Dee and looked down at the obviously-dead psionic on the stretcher. "However, it'd go a ways in confirming our continuing roles in this charade."
"That, it would." Dee confirmed with a nod. "The big question is what do we do to make sure they don't cause trouble once they're conscious again? They don't have brain injuries to take their abilities offline like you did."
Mordecai smiled thinly at that, pausing long enough for a couple of paramedics to wheel the stretcher in front of them away before speaking.
"I have the solution to that," he said softly. "We'll just need to get to the hospital so I can administer it. In the meantime ..."
"In the meantime, let's do some police work, hey?" Dee smoothly continued for the big man, already knowing what he was going to say. "We can get to the hospital within the next 12 hours to do whatever you need to do."
Mordecai nodded.
"So we can. Lead on, detective!"
It didn't take them long to find Duffy, already well engrossed in the actual work of trying to determine what happened. In the face of their effective counterattack, the two high-powered psionics that had ambushed the Brotherhood heavies had fled the scene without bothering to cover up what they had done, unlike Mordecai's thorough ravaging of the last crime scene by fire. And so it was relatively easy to determine just what had taken place.
"Ah, Constable Kelly, Tragedy," Duffy acknowledged them as they stepped up beside him, keeping in character as a number of CSI constables swarmed all around them. He handed them each a pair of latex gloves.
"Good of you to decide to actually do some work on this one." At Dee's grimace, Duffy chuckled softly before turning to what the CSI investigators were doing. "It would appear that we have a virtually intact crime scene on this one. What appears to be some sort of gangland battle."
Knowing the old detective was obviously mugging for the CSI team, Dee nodded.
"Right. Triads you think, Duffy?"
"Maybe. Although it looks more like the Russian Mafia. We had reports they were moving this way." Duffy tugged on his lower lip as he leaned closer to one of the bodies the investigators were carefully examining. A more detailed examination would be carried out by the pathologists, including a post mortem autopsy, but they were gathering as much information as possible on how the woman fell, how she was displayed and what, if possible, brought her down.
"However, that's a most unusual weapon burn. Almost like a flame thrower or something had struck her. Highly focussed." His rheumy blue eyes came up to look at Dee. "Have you seen anything like it?"
"Nope," Dee frankly admitted.
"I have." Mordecai interjected quietly and several heads turned to look at him, including Dee and Duffy. "That looks like some of the burns on the bodies that the allied forces recovered during the first Gulf War. Some sort of napalm weapon; witnesses said that it literally hosed people down with ignited napalm." He knelt beside Duffy to let his fingers carefully explore around the wound.
"But the first burst, when it was only a focussed bolus of napalm, would produce burns like this." He looked up and Dee then over at Duffy. "That sort of weaponry could go a long way towards explaining the devastation caused by fire at the 16th Avenue site as well."
"Perhaps." Duffy nodded, his agreement causing a wave of interested murmuring amongst the CSI team grouped around them. "Does this liquid napalm evaporate quickly?"
"Almost instantly." Mordecai stood and dusted off his knees. "According to the RCMP briefs I read, it also burned with almost negligible residue. Something to do with high volatility. We could go to the FD pyro boys to find out if they know anything more about it."
"Right." Dee nodded, grinning tightly. "And follow up to find if it's a controlled substance or easily created from household chemicals, like the Oklahoma Federal Building bomb."
Mordecai nodded himself.
"I'll hit the FD to see what I can shake up there."
"Cool." Dee turned to Duffy. "Then you and me should hit Customs to see if we can download a list of controlled substances and see what we can dig up!" She smiled widely.
"Do we actually have a break in this case?"
"Heaven forbid." Duffy chuckled softly. "Well, me mates, let's go do some police work, hey?"
****