dropped from the rafters, ball and chain swinging. One of the thieves threw a last crate into the truck and pulled the door down, slapping it and shouting, "Go! Go! Go!"
The truck squealed out of the warehouse, two of the thieves clinging to handles on the back and standing on the rear bumper. Another tried to slide underneath the still open door on the back of the truck, but slipped right back out and rolled across the warehouse floor as his partners got away.
Fletcher took a half-hearted swing at the truck, hitting the rear passenger side wheel and bending the axle. The truck lurched and continued on its way, though much slower.
Fletcher knew he'd have no trouble finding the truck, so instead turned his attention to the remaining thief on the floor. "You are having a really bad day," he informed the face down thief. "You think getting left behind by your friends sucks, but it's so much worse. Do you have any idea who you're stealing from?"
The thief didn't say anything.
"This is Technein's warehouse. You think you can steal from the man who runs this town and get away with it?"
He grabbed the thief by the shoulder of his jacket and spun him around.
It was hard to tell at that point who was more surprised, Miguel to see Fletcher or Fletcher to see Miguel.
"What the--? Miguel, what are you doing here?"
"Supporting the Revolution. What are you doing here?"
Fletcher's face involuntarily snarled at the mention of the Revolution. "Bunch of do-gooder idiots. What were you stealing--" He looked at the crates. "Computer processors? You think you're going to overthrow Technein with computer processors? He's Technein, you dummy!"
"We sell them. We sell them and we use the money to help bring about change."
"What kind of change are you going to bring about? Do you know how good we've got it here? Other cities are wastelands, Miguel! Up north, in the territory Domynus took over, everything is on fire. Every day. You can't even go near Kansas without a radiation suit anymore."
"Just because other places are worse, doesn't make what's going on here good," Miguel spat back.
"No? Well, I can guarantee that all you're going to do is make it worse," Fletcher barked back. "You think you're helping, but all this is going to do is give Technein an excuse to make things harder on everyone." He dropped Fletcher to the floor. "I've had enough of you and your stupid Revolution. You jerks are going to get people killed."
Fletcher thrust both arms skyward and blasted through the warehouse's roof. It took less than a minute to find the limping moving van once he reached a high enough altitude. He wanted to drop from the sky with all the weight of a fifty foot tall giant and crush their puny van between his toes, but instead he waited. He floated above them like a helium balloon tied to their antenna by a two thousand foot long ribbon.
Soon, the crippled truck pulled into a garage a few miles away from Technein's warehouse. Fletcher didn't know if it was the new Revolution headquarters or just a waypoint. But he did know there were Revolution members inside who were about to quit the group. He wasn't going to have any idiots ruining things for him and his brother.
Fletcher didn't shout any warnings. He didn't try to scare anyone. He just struck.
If any of the few people who dared to venture outside at night ever bothered to look at the heavens, one might have thought they were seeing a shooting star. In fact, it was Fletcher, streaking downward toward the garage at supersonic speed. The roof of the garage offered no resistance. He tore through it like it was wet toilet paper and continued on through the moving van and then the concrete floor.
What Fletcher didn't know until that point was that while Korgus and Liberty Torch were tough, they weren't invulnerable. When bullets bounced off him and knife blades snapped against his skin, he'd wondered what it would take to hurt him, and now he had the answer. A supersonic impact with a
Jack Norris, Virginia Messina