Heroic Measures (continued)

Both men stood silently, traveling along the pathways of their own thoughts.

I’ll do what I can for the boys, Abby, Walter promised her. I wish you were still here.

The overheard speaker crackled, distracting him before he would fall deeper into melancholy.

“This is it,” Westin’s voice called out, sounding hollow and distant. “Everyone head to your posts.”

He had volunteered to remain at the institute, choosing to coordinate the information flow from there, leaving Harrison to lead the forces from the street. Walter could not decide just how brave he was, staying in a location clear of the main fight, yet remaining somewhere that was just as likely to be blasted into piles of rubble at some early point in the conflict.

“You have your assignment?”

Walter turned at the sound of Red’s voice. He nodded.

“Grid Twenty-Three Gamma.”

Red’s head nodded slowly. “Eighteen Beta.”

Walter tried to remember the marking on the tactical map they had all studied during the countless briefings.

About three and half blocks apart.

Red’s position, he also knew, was also far closer to the expected front line of the attack. No one really expected there to be a single front for long, once the assault began, but in all6 likelihood Red would see action before he did.

Red held out his yellow-gloved hand. “Good luck, Walt.”

Walter took it had gripped it firmly, probably clinging to it longer than was necessary. Red probably noticed, but let it last as long as Walter needed it to.

“You too, Red.”

Red flashed him a bright, almost jaunty smile before pulling his hood on tight over his head. He snapped his visor into place, motioned to Walter with a quick two-fingered wave, and then turned away, heading for the south exit.

Walter checked the gauges of each of the two small power packs: both read at full charge. He snapped each into its slot along the inner edge of each boot, just above the ankle. They would power the small jets embedded in the heels of each boot. He would not be soaring across the skies, as some heroes were able to do, but they would allow him to reach and cross rooftops with relative ease.

Pulling his own hood into place, he left his protective goggles tucked into their pouch on his equipment belt. He would put them one once he was in position. For now, he wanted nothing that might obscure his vision.

As the crowd inside the gymnasium cleared out, he could more clearly hear the sound of the helicopters waiting outside to take him, and other less air-mobile heroes, to their assigned positions throughout the city. He hoped for a glimpse of Vivian or Isabel as he crossed the asphalt courts but, although he saw many female heroes sprinting for their respective forms of transportation, spied neither of them.

That actually makes sense for Isabel, he realized. She’s probably been assigned to a medical team. She’ll go where and when she’s needed.

He silently prayed that her presence would not be required much.

The growing wind gusted against him as he ran toward the waiting aircraft. It was augmented by the draft created by the helicopter blades. He hunched down, leaning into it, feeling all the while like an ill-prepared extra on a movie set.

Climbing into the cabin, he took a seat on the padded bench just inside it, adjacent to the door. Except for the instrument lights of the cockpit, the interior was unlit. The other heroes seated with him were shadows; not even the reflected lights from outside was enough to reveal their identities to him. A few of the heads might have turned in his direction, but he was not certain. None of them appeared to say anything to him. He doubted that he could have heard them if they had.

He heard shouts, barely recognizable over the clattering whirr of the rotor blades. The helicopter tilted slightly and then began to rise. Walter swallowed hard against the solid lump in his throat as they moved off into the night