Sixty
“What’s the plan?” Demi asked, as a police baton bounced painfully off her skin. “Tuck?” she glanced back, and realized Mikaela and Tucker were gone. “Mai?” she asked, turning back towards the fed line.
“The plan is crumbling,” Mayumi said, holding both hands over her eye, but she couldn’t hold it tight enough to keep blood from seeping out between her fingers.
“You can’t heal that?” Demi asked.
“No. Like before, as the school, when that militia took over. You can’t feel it?”
Demi held up her hand, and electricity arced between her fingers. “I didn’t feel it,” Demi said, “not then or now.”
“That’s curious,” Mayumi said, “but it’s also a mystery for another time. This is going badly. We’re being routed. Either we change the dynamics, or people are going to die.”
“I could change them,” Demi said. “I could electrocute them ten at a time, relatively safely- you know, as safely as you can electrocute someone.”
“I somehow think killing a few feds will make things worse.”
“You two look like you could use some help,” Laren said, touching Demi’s shoulder.
“See,” Drake said, “I told you it wasn’t just me. Everyone’s abilities are off again.”
“I know,” Iago said, “I’ve just been sitting on that erectile dysfunction joke since the last time it happened.”
“I think there’s a joke in there about you sitting on something erectile- but I’m too preoccupied to figure it out.”
“You guys,” Demi said, scooping Drake up.
“That your phone in your pocket, or you just happy to see me?” Drake asked.
“I’m too much of a classy lady to tell you to push my buttons and find out,” she said, putting him down.
“We figured you needed an army,” Laren said, motioning to a whole new group of protestors filing out of buses. “Turns out Drump’s been recruiting and radicalizing one for you for years.”
“So these were the refugees they broke out of Gitmo. I thought we just smuggled them out of his grasp…” Demi said.
“We needed to buy a little time. We got them student visas, and have them set up as official students at your newly expanded school; it’s going to function as an academy with on-site housing, and courses for students from kindergarten through whatever college courses it offers- with talks about expanding into doctorate programs.”
“That’s… that’s huge.”
“They’re the future. It’s our job- the closest we have to a sacred duty- to safeguard them. I’m just pissed off at how long it took for enough people to stand up to get it done. You three,” she pointed to Drake, Iago and Mayumi, “coordinate, we need to reinforce the line and push them back.” She held back while they walked towards the gathered refugees. “Saw your zapper’s still zapping,” Laren said discreetly to Demi. “I think we can use that. The feds are using earpieces. That means power supplies. If you can fry those remotely, they stop being a unified occupying force, and become a bunch of lonely fascists alone in a sea of people- fascists we can isolate and contain.”
“That’s… an idea,” Demi said. “Might result in some burns.”
“Anything this side of fatal seems more than warranted, under the circumstances.” A fed tried to hit Laren with a baton, and she rammed her shoulder into his chest, then rolled him over her back, stripping him of his radio and the baton at the same time. She handed the radio to Demi, who keyed the radio and raised it toward the sky. Lightning fell from the clouds, passing through the radio, and into her hand.
The sound and feedback traveled through the radios, causing officers to tear their earpieces out, some screaming. Several radios burst into flames and had to be removed.
“That’s our opening,” Laren yelled, shoving forward. She was immediately flanked by Iago, Drake and Mayumi, with a line of refugees stepping in front of the beaten protestors.
Stacey raised a sidearm at Laren. “Not one more goddamned step!” he yelled.
Demi grabbed his arm at the wrist, and pushed the gun into the air. “Drop it,” she said, “or I roast all the skin off that hand.”
“Bull-” she sent a jolt of electricity into his arm, and his finger squeezed around the trigger.