Infiltration by Kevin Hardman Read Free Book Online Page A

where it’s safe — while I check things out.”
    “But—”
    “No ‘buts,’” he said adamantly. “Look, I know that you’ve got an awesome power set and that you’ve been holding your own against formidable supers for years now, but I’m only just getting a chance to be a parent to you. A father. That means I’m probably more protective than I need to be, but I can’t help it. Even with you being part of the Alpha League’s teen affiliate, it’s going to take time for me to adjust to the thought of you willingly putting yourself in harm’s way.”
    My natural inclination was to continue protesting, but I could sense the sincerity of his emotions, which included a healthy dollop of anxiety with respect to me.
    “Alright,” I said. “I’ll just hang out here and watch the show from the cheap seats.”
    “Thank you,” he said in obvious relief. Then he flew towards the overpass while I climbed back into the SUV.
    Of course, I wasn’t happy with this turn of events. Being in danger was almost the last thing anyone had to worry about with me — especially with my abilities. But it wasn’t worth getting into an argument about, particularly when we’d been getting along so well thus far. Besides, with my vision telescoped, it would be like I was in the middle of everything anyway.
    I watched as Alpha Prime approached the highway. When he got close, he went from flying horizontally to a vertical position. Even then, however, his feet didn’t touch the ground, but that was normal for him. Rather than stride anywhere, my father had a tendency to float from place to place when he wasn’t in a rush — just another sign of his preeminence. More than one late-night talk show host had joked about his legs being stuck together, or atrophying from lack of use.
    Cape rippling slightly in the nighttime breeze, Alpha Prime drifted beneath the overpass. Head up, he scanned the underside of the roadway, apparently looking for the bomb. Presumably he found it, because after a few seconds he stopped gliding parallel to the ground and floated up, hand reaching for something. Unfortunately, whatever it was he was trying to grab, he never got a chance to touch it, because all of a sudden — with a thunderous roar — the overpass collapsed on top of him.
    My first thought was that he had inadvertently set off the bomb. However, although it was indeed loud (a normal person in close proximity would have certainly had their eardrums shattered), it hadn’t sounded quite like an explosion. Rather than the short, dull flat sound I would have expected based on my own experience, this was more like a giant hammer striking an equally gigantic nail, leaving a sharp pinging sound reverberating through the atmosphere.
    Beyond that, though, it bore just about all the earmarks of a traditional bomb. A monstrous cloud of dust billowed out from where the overpass had been, enveloping everything within five hundred feet. The ground shook maddeningly for a moment, like Mother Earth was a wild bronco trying to throw off a determined rider, and the SUV was actually tossed two feet into the air before slamming back down with a massive jolt as debris rained down around it.
    Two nearby buildings collapsed under the force of the tremors, and I could only imagine their owners thinking that Christmas had come early this year with what they’d save in demolition costs. A third building, a deserted tenement with excessive fire damage, began leaning dangerously to the side with an ominous creak of metal and stone, but somehow remained standing, looking like the Tower of Pisa’s crackhead brother.
    Still in the SUV, I scanned the area where the device had gone off, desperate for any sign of my father, my infrared vision allowing me to see through the dust. The overpass was gone, smashed down like a gargantuan foot stomping a bug. Shattered chunks of concrete in all shapes and sizes lay around, many with jagged pieces of rebar sticking out of