Breed Book 3, Part 56

Tucker’s phone rang, and he answered it. “So I have bad news,” Ryan said.

“Let me have it.”

“Agent Louie commandeered the bus. Put a gun to our driver, Miri’s, head, and is forcing her to drive him to campus. Apparently he did not notice the high end cameras we installed. On the plus side, we’ve captured the audio from a half-dozen of their phones, and we’re already uploading it to every news outlet in the hemisphere. The bad is that they’re about only a couple minutes out, and they plan to set off a riot. They say they have an ‘anonymous’ tip of an illegal in one of the dorms, so they’re going to go in and arrest anyone and everyone they ‘suspect’ of being here illegally. The other half of them are going to the records room, to burn every printed record, and destroy anything digital, too. It’s probably not enough to do what they want it to, but if we let them terrorize us here-”

“Then no Breed is going to feel safe anywhere.” Tucker hung up his phone. “Drake?” Tucker asked him.

“Yeah?” he thought back.

“You catch all that?”

“Of course.”

“How long would it take to transport all of us to campus?”

“I think I have a better idea. Where’s Iago?” Tucker reached out telepathically, and shared an image. “Follow me. I’ll need to know where the bus is, next.” Drake disappeared, and an instant later he was in their living room, where Iago was watching the news.

“They just played the audio,” Iago said. “What do you need me to do?”

Drake grabbed him, and they both teleported to the bottom of the hill leading to the school. “We need ice,” Drake said. “As much ice as you can put on that road.”

“Then you need to coordinate with Tucker so some student doesn’t try driving down the hill. Might even want a magnetokinetic, if he can find one.”

“Karl,” Tucker said in his mind. “He’s here, yellow dog shirt.”

Drake was gone in an instant, back with Tucker. “Karl!” they barked in unison, and a tall, wiry kid who couldn’t have been more than 17 stumbled out of the crowd. “You’re with me,” Drake said, and took his wrist, and they were gone.

Iago had already iced over several feet of the road. “Not sure why you started us on the corner,” Iago said. “That seems extra precarious.”

“That was the idea.”

“What’s the plan?” Karl asked.

“You’re playing catcher. Any cars hit this ice, I need you to set them as gently as you can in the ditch.”

“It really doesn’t work that way,” Karl said nervously.

“However it works, make it work,” Drake said. “We’re out of time and we’re out of options.”

“We’re stopping traffic at the top of the hill,” Drake heard Tucker in his head again. “And I warned the driver. She can heal herself- just don’t let anyone die. Oh, and she’s going to be there in about thirty seconds.”

“All right, we’re out of time,” Drake said out loud. “We need to make space. When the bus hits that ice it’s not going to be pretty.” Drake waved them towards the line of trees a few feet from the sidewalk.

“You know, I’ve always secretly wanted to do this,” Iago said. “I’m glad I finally get the chance- and that we’re doing it to such a deserving group of assholes.”

“Well don’t celebrate just yet. If we accidentally kill one of them, we’re going to enter an even bigger world of crap.”

Crap?” Iago asked, frowning.

“Paradoxically, I swear less when I’m tense. Shit.”

The bus came roaring up the hill, and when it hit the ice careened towards the sidewalk opposite them. It jumped the curb like it wasn’t there, narrowly avoiding an apartment building and heading for an overgrown blackberry bush. “Uh,” Karl said, realizing that there was nothing behind the bush but a steep incline towards the grocery store a quarter mile down. He reached out his hand as the bus tilted from its wheels, its momentum keeping it sliding even as it fell, trailing a shower of sparks. “Uh,” Karl said, as he started to slide along with the bus.

“Anchor him,” Drake said, grabbing onto Karl’s arm to try and slow him. Iago froze his feet to the ground, and kept going until he was encased in a layer of ice several inches thick up to his neck. “Not, uh, entirely what I meant, but it worked.” The bus tried to roll one last time, which might have been enough to crest the hill, but Karl pulled his fingers back towards himself, and the bus settled back harmlessly into the parking lot.

“Uh, can you get me out?” Karl asked, his teeth chattering.

“Think so,” Drake said. “And you both need to get gone.” He grabbed Iago’s shoulder and the back of Karl’s head, and transported them both into their living room just up the hill. “Get him some hot chocolate or something,” he said, and disappeared.

Drake arrived just in time to see the bus doors open up. The driver, her face slicked with blood, climbed out. Iago teleported back to the apartment, stumbled into Karl who was in the process of stripping out of his shirt, and grabbed a roll of paper towels before returning. He handed the roll to the driver, who wiped her face. A single small cut was all that remained, and closed up an instant later. “That sucked,” she said. “Though it beat the alternative. Not sure they’re down for the count, though. We might not want to stick around.” “No, probably not,” Drake said. “But my roommate’s making hot cocoa.” Drake took her hand, and they both disappeared.

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