Hidden Potential: Nibiru Rising: Book 1 Read online

  “Cutter…”

  Rick stood on the edge of the roof, waiting for the other man to respond. After a tense minute of staring each other down, the other man broke out in a grin.

  “Hiya Newton, glad you decided to stop by…”

  §§§§§§§§§§§§

  Kaitlyn heard her earpiece crackle to life.

  “Where the hell are you HellKat!”

  “We’re still five minutes out sir!”

  Kaitlyn heard the Colonel swear under his breath slightly before he spoke again.

  “We’re sending another response team to back you up. They should arrive on scene about the same time as you.”

  “Understood sir.”

  How had the situation degraded so quickly? According to the feed she’d been watching, they still had a couple minutes left based off what Cutter had been yelling. Instead, he’d dropped her after almost being hit by what appeared to be some type of metal ball. That left a big question mark in her mind. Who had tried shooting him? A sniper? Vigilante? She shook her head.

  Need to worry about that later.

  “How the other team arriving?”

  She heard the earpiece click before a technician responded.

  “The other team is approaching from the south via three armored carriers.”

  She heard the Colonel start talking again after the technician finished.

  “HellKat, we need to do damage control at this point. You’re free to engage upon arrival. Lethal force authorized to neutralize the threat. Be advised we’re also sending in a team from CK-Ultima to help people forget what they saw. Hopefully, we might be able to get to enough bystanders to muddy the waters before this event becomes national news.”

  “Roger that sir.”

  She heard him start talking to someone else over the open mic.

  “Do those UAVs have any weapons onboard?”

  “No sir, they’re strictly for obser—”

  “Who the hell is that?”

  Kaitlyn immediately snapped her attention back to the screen. Someone else was on the rooftop. She rewound the feed before playing it forward again, trying to understand what she was seeing. One moment the cyborg had been alone except for the other hostages he’d taken and secured to an antenna, the next moment there was someone standing on the edge of the roof, his back to the cameras.

  Kaitlyn heard a bunch of yelling coming over the open mic.

  “Where’d he come from? Did he teleport in?”

  “Get that second UAV to the other side of the building. See if we can catch a shot of the new guy’s face. Run it through recognition and see if we can figure out who he is. Run thermographic analysis, see if we can figure out what he’s packing!”

  “Turn up the audio, see if we can make out what they’re saying!”

  The last bit of audio seemed to echo slightly due to the delay from her earpiece and the display in front of her.

  “—o Newton, glad you decided to stop by…”

  §§§§§§§§§§§§

  Rick stepped off the ledge of the roof, slowly walking toward Cutter. Holding his hand out, the metal ball he’d launched up here sprung from the ground and flew rapidly through the air before coming to rest on his palm. The wind this high up caused his duster to billow out behind him before he smoothed it down with his power.

  “Cutter… Do you remember what I told you last time I saw you? Give me one good reason not to turn you into a satellite?”

  Rick watched warily as the other man held up his robotic hands in a placating gesture. The slight scent of oil and ozone drifted past him as the wind shifted direction.

  “Newton, Newton, Newton…,” he said, shaking his head while making calming motions with his hands in front of him. “I’m not here to try and bring you back to the home team if that’s what you’re thinking. Oh, and the name’s Reaper now, not Cutter.”

  As he talked, Reaper slowly started to back away.

  “Then what are you here for exactly? And why did you drop the woman off the roof?”

  “Well, I knew that you wouldn’t come if I’d just asked nicely. Besides, I knew she’d be fine if you were down there. Am I right?”

  “My patience is running thin. Start talking or you’ll start dying, or what passes for you dying at this point.”

  Reaper dropped his hands down to his sides for a moment before deciding to clasp them in front of his stomach instead. He turned slightly sideways as he appeared to think about what he was going to say next.

  “Okay, okay. I thought we could do some catching up first, but if you’re in such a hurry, we can get down to why I wanted you here.”

  As he was talking, Rick thought he could hear a high pitched whine over the wind and other noises, but he couldn’t determine where it was coming from. Glancing around quickly, he wondered if there was a threat he’d missed. Extending his senses, he felt something big approaching in the distance, but he wasn’t sure what it was exactly. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the source of the sound. Looking back at Reaper, he noticed the man smiling again.

  “The reason I wanted you here wasn’t to trying and talk you into coming back.”

  As he said it, Rick noticed the cyborg move slightly. He realized that the other man’s hand was starting to shimmer rapidly. He also realized it was also the source of the whine he’d heard.

  “I convinced the people I work for that you could threaten our plans, but I just wanted to prove I’m better than you.”

  Chapter 3

  He reacted instantly, extending his senses in order to deflect whatever Reaper was trying to fire at him. Dodging to the right, the sudden burning pain in his left shoulder caught him by surprise. He hadn’t felt anything coming toward him before the pain had blossomed. He body react instantly, redirecting energy to start healing his injury.

  Since his powers manifested so long ago, pain had become an unexpected experience, preventing him from consciously absorbing all the kinetic energy generated when he hit the ground behind the nearby A/C unit. It was something that used to happen automatically, but now that he’d allowed himself to become so weakened and out of practice, it took a conscious effort. Something he wasn’t used to.

  It probably also had something to do with knowing, at least at some level, that it wasn’t a dangerous fall. Still, it managed to blast all the wind out of his lungs, leaving him gasping for breath. It’d been so long since he’d had the wind knocked out of him that it was all he could do to try crawling further away from Reaper while he struggled to get his lungs working again.

  “How’d that feel Newton? Betcha you weren’t expecting that, were ya? A state-of-the-art IR laser. Nothing for you to absorb, reflect, or redirect!”

  Rick sensed Reaper slowly walking toward him, almost casually. If he didn’t do something quickly, his opponent would clear the edge of the A/C he was hiding behind, giving him another clean shot at him. The only thing that had kept him alive up to this point was his reflexes and Reaper’s tendency to play with his targets before he killed them.

  Absently, he realized he still held the metal ball he’d retrieved when he’d landed on the roof. A idea occurred to him as he struggled to regain control of his breathing. Holding his hand out, he waited until the last second before launching it with the kinetic force of a rail gun.

  “Quite the difference since the last time, isn’t it,” he said, approaching the edge of Rick’s hiding spot. “There yo—”

  The ball-bearing hit the other man high in the chest with a muted krump. The impact flung the cyborg backward, sailing through the air for several feet before hitting the gravel-covered surface and sliding almost twenty feet before violently coming to a stop at the raised roof ledge. Rick noticed the lip had buckled outward several inches at the point of the cyborg’s impact, but Reaper had managed to keep from traveling through the wall by throwing his arms wide at the last instant. Shaking his head, it took Reaper several attempts before he was able to extricate himself from the broken ledge and climb
to his feet. Rick felt his mouth open in disbelief when the cyborg peeled the flattened projectile off of his chest plating, examining it before throwing it over the edge of the roof.

  “Damn son! I’d forgotten how hard you can hit with those things.”

  The other man pounded on his chest with his metallic hand as he continued.

  “It’s a damn good thing they upgraded my chassis with an inertial dampener field generator or that bad boy would have shot clean through me.”

  Rick struggled to his feet as he studied the man in front of him, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side. Still struggling to get his stunned diaphragm to work, he knew he wouldn’t be able to survive a direct blast of the laser. As the man raised his hand toward him, Rick tried to reach out with his power to force the cyborg’s arm back down, but he felt his energy slide across the arm ineffectively. The only way he could describe it was like trying to grab something that was greasy. His powers couldn’t find anything to gain purchase on. Surprised, it took him too long to realize his mistake. Switching focus, he desperately looked for a place to take cover. Making matters worse, in spite of only minor use of his powers, Rick could feel the pressure starting to grow behind his eyes, making it even more difficult to concentrate. Being out of breath and dazed didn’t help matters, either.

  “Goodbye, Newton!”

  As the cyborg thrust his hand forward, Rick winced before he realized he didn’t hear the whine of the weapon. At the same time, he noticed the look of surprise on the other man’s face.

  “Aw crap!”

  “What’s wrong Reaper… having some performance anxiety?” he managed to gasp out.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Using his powers, he forced his lungs to expand, allowing him to suck down a large lungful of air. Finally regaining some control of his breathing, his mind became clearer and the pressure in his head receded slightly. Reaching behind him with his good arm, he opened a small tube that was strapped diagonally across his back under his jacket. As the half dozen golf-ball sized steel balls poured out of the tube, he caught them in his kinetic aura, causing them to start whirling rapidly around him in a tight, random orbit.

  “I don’t know what you were thinking,” he said, wincing in pain as he slid his wounded arm into the front of his jacket, “but you missed your chance. Now it’s my turn.”

  §§§§§§§§§§§§

  Rick extended his right hand to the side, launching one of his spheres toward the hostages. Several of them let out screams moments before the projectile sheared through the metal bars they were bound to. As the metal ball returned to its orbit around him, Rick cast a glance at them before turning back to Reaper. It was surprising how hard it was to multi-task compared to what he used to be able to do. If it wasn’t for the regular practice he had with his custom projectiles, he seriously doubted he’d be able to beat his opponent at this point.

  Taking a step forward, several of the balls left orbit, streaking through the air before ripping the rooftop door off its hinges. Startled yelps of surprise echoed from the doorway as he redirected the balls away from the tactical team he’d sensed hiding in the stairwell behind the door. He took another step toward Reaper while speaking to the hostages over his shoulder.

  “The officers behind that door will take you to safety.”

  When he didn’t sense any movement, he paused, then turned toward the hostages.

  “Go. Now. You don’t want to stick around for this.”

  Suddenly, he sensed movement coming from Reaper. Spinning back, he readied himself to absorb whatever Reaper was attempting to do. In surprise, he watched Reaper launch several mini-missiles toward the hostages.

  “Let’s see how you deal with distractions!”

  Rick flung out tendrils of his aura, arresting the momentum of all but one of the missiles. He started to break out in a sweat from the strain of holding them motionless over such a range in his weakened condition. At the same time, he could feel his aura slowly starting to charge up from the kinetic energy he was absorbing from them.

  Lashing out, he sent one of his spheres after the final missile, deflecting it away from the hostages while using the remaining balls to destroy the ones he was holding motionless. Hearing a high-pitched whine, he mentally swung one of the remaining bearings at Reaper, blocking the barrel with one of the highly polished projectiles.

  “Not so fast!”

  As the laser discharged, it reflected off the globe. The beam refracted into a halo, part of which deflected downward into the roof, burning a line across it which traveled in both directions for several yards. The remainder of the beam reflected back toward its point of origin, causing Reaper’s hand to explode from the feedback.

  Rick glanced back at the hostages still frozen with fear.

  “Do you need a written invitation? RUN!”

  This time, he punctuated his words by slamming several of his spheres into the roof next to them. The sudden spray of gravel and roofing material broke their paralysis. They sprinted toward the doorway just as the tactical team peered cautiously from the damaged opening.

  Nodding to himself as he sensed everyone making their way down the stairwell, he turned back toward Reaper. Cautiously approaching, he noted the smoking stump of the other man’s hand.

  “So… because of our relationship, I’ll give you a choice. Would you prefer a geosynchronous or polar orbit?”

  He sensed the other man launch another salvo of mini-missiles, this time toward him. Rather than trying to stop them, he allowed them to impact his aura, boosting the strength of his field. What he couldn’t absorb discharged behind him, blasting the A/C unit he’d previously been hiding behind several yards across the rooftop.

  “Really? Trying to use kinetic-based weapons to stop me? I’m beginning to think that bearing I hit you with must have scrambled your brains more than I thought. Because of those missiles, I can now give you the additional option of being in high earth orbit as well.”

  Rick watched the other man raised his injured arm. A small chain-gun popping up from the undamaged portion of his forearm, locking in place with a dull click. Rick shook his head sadly as the gun spun up, launching hundreds of projectiles toward him. He was slightly surprised when the bullets turned out to be made of something approaching the density of depleted uranium. It was similar to the core material of spheres currently orbiting him. As a wall of spent rounds started to form a metallic cloud in front of him, he sighed.

  “Ok, now I’m getting annoyed.”

  Mentally grabbing ahold of all the spent bullets, he whipped them around in a stream before launching them toward Reaper. As the rounds hit, Rick noticed with mild curiosity the first dozen rounds flattened against the other man’s chassis before the rest started chipping away at Reaper’s armor.

  “This is taking too long.”

  Dropping his mental grip on the remaining rounds, he launched several of his spheres at Reaper. Rick watched in satisfaction as they impacted in several places, ripping one arm off at the elbow joint, a leg off at the hip, and finally the other leg off several inches below the knee joint. Recalling the spheres, he examined the resulting damage.

  Hydraulic fluid and other unidentifiable liquids slowly drain out of the other man’s cybernetic body, collecting in a puddle underneath the cyborg. Crouching down, he grabbed Reaper by the chest plate. Rick watched in satisfaction as his fingers sank into the armor plating covering Reaper’s metal chassis. He’d actually managed to absorb enough energy to be able to leave furrows in hardened metal.

  “So tell me Reaper…,” he said, pausing for a moment before speaking more softly.

  “Hal… What’d you really hope to accomplish? You’d still be able to pass for being alive tomorrow if you hadn’t called me out.”

  He watched the light in one of Reaper’s cybernetic eyes flicker before the other man responded.

  “Distraction…,” he said, coughing out as a spray of viscous fluid before a smile started sprea
ding across his face again. Staring Rick directly in the eye, a liquid gurgle that sounded like a laugh came from his throat before he spoke again.

  “And my name’s not Hal anymore. It’s Reaper!”

  “Whatever… Enjoy the trip.”

  Rick started focusing his energy when a blast of heat rushed toward him, forcing him to redirect what he couldn’t absorb upward. Looking to his right, he saw several people in tactical gear. The one that caught his attention was a woman with flames enveloping her hands.

  “Drop the cyborg and get on the ground, face down! This is your only warning!”

  Chapter 4

  Rick glanced at Reaper, annoyance creeping into his voice.

  “More of your friends from Maelstrom? Really?”

  Completely ignoring the question, Reaper started his gurgling laugh again.

  “You know what the best part of being a cyborg is? They can build and grow you a new body and copy you over whenever your current chassis is a loss. Goodbye Newton.”

  As the words left his mouth, the light behind his eyes went out. A telltale whine of something charging up suddenly cut through the air.

  Instinctively, Rick started to throw the inert body skyward but another blast of heat followed by incoming gunfire distracted him. Without thinking, he turning toward the group and tried to raise his injured arm in a placating gesture, but the pain caused him to stagger forward.

  “Wait!”

  Ignoring him, the woman point her outstretched hands toward him. Two plumes of fire erupted from her palms, the heat sucking in all the oxygen while the flames rushed toward him. The flames wrapped around him, harmlessly deflected by his aura. He absorbed as much of the energy as he could, trying to redirect it into healing his shoulder, but he was so out of practice, a large percentage of the energy just leaked away uselessly.