Chapter 17: The denouement, part 2

"No, no!" In desperation, Erikson yanked the levers on his now useless toy. "What are you doing, you fucking freaks?!" He grabbed the smallest of the children by the collar of their clothes. "I made you, you ungrateful bastards, I am your master, I order you: kill them!"

He pointed his finger at me, naively. "Six" was quick to explain to his former boss just how deep his delusions were. He shouldn't have grabbed with his bare hands something that could turn his body into a weapon.

At first the little guy was smoking acrid acid smoke, burning the skin and flesh on the arm that held him, and when Erikson unclenched his palm, he gave the former boss a swinging kick in the designated target area with an uproarious yell of "Eggs."

Creepy, scary kids! Especially considering that the leg was several times the size and steel-crusted at the moment of impact.

I looked around: the kids and Whirlwind were finishing soldiers, Erikson was whimpering, clutching his burned arm over his bruised wrist, Eve and the dock were safe; my help was no longer needed on the ground, only the deserters in the sky remained to be dealt with.

It took me a few seconds to catch up with the machine that had already begun to rise. And I came face to face with another, judging by the robe and the cybernetic implants in his head, a scientist who was just trying to close the side door. When he saw me, he recoiled frightened and reached for the cabinet with a variety of futuristic weapons built into the wall of the helicopter.

"Bad idea," I grinned, and he, even surprisingly, listened to me and yanked his hands away from the gleaming chrome pistol with a huge electronic telescopic sight.

"Just a reflex!" The scientist raised his palms up. "I surrender."

"Did you hear him surrender?" - I squeezed through to the pilot. "Sit in the courtyard and no tricks."

Then I grabbed the scientist by the scruff of the neck and walked back with him, just in time to witness another clichéd line from the villain of the day.

"My name's Stephen Erickson," hissed the negro, in pain, at the Red Rush who had just driven the Six away from him. "And I am..."

"You work for the government, I get it," Oleg interrupted him. "I don't care, let your court, military or otherwise, deal with you."

"I am the government!" Erikson roared so violently that the splinters of broken teeth flew out of his mouth along with the saliva. - "I..."

But without finishing the threat, he suddenly blacked out - I saw only a blurred movement of the Russian speedster's hand, but the others didn't see that either. However, no one here cared about Erickson's physical well-being - I would have killed him on the spot, but it would have complicated the upcoming contact with the agency.

"Have fun," I tossed the bored kids another toy in the form of their former torturer and, presumably, creator, and flew myself to Red Rush.

"I knew you were fast," I said to Oleg. "But I didn't think you were that fast. I'm not even a minute away, damn it!"

"I was just here, in Canada," yeah, I was close by, a few thousand kilometers away! "When I got your message. By the way, you could have written it more clearly."

"I had to type blindly," I shrugged.

"Maybe you can tell me what's going on here." He looked around at the scene of the massacre. "This guy sounded like a typical psychopathic supervillain, but his soldiers really are in U.S. uniforms, what have you gotten me into?"

"It's a long story...yeah, I'm just passing through here myself, to be honest. In a nutshell: these freaks tried to kidnap and use that girl as a weapon, and before that they did a series of inhumane experiments on her mother, in an attempt to recreate her powers - these kids, the result of those experiments... but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There he is." I pointed my finger at Brandiwort. "He can tell you all about it firsthand. But first, I think we should get someone from the Global Defense Agency... someone from the top, preferably, because that's where this guy is, too."

"Oh, I don't usually get involved in this sort of thing, that's what Darkwing and War Woman do..." Oleg complained, but took out his futuristic-looking communicator and began to quickly go through the contacts on its display. "Here - it seems that after Radcliffe this guy is in charge, let's hope they are not in cahoots."

I caught a glimpse of a familiar name on the display. That's good. You can count on Stadman. He's got his own sins, of course, but Cecil keeps his personal and his work separate, not power-hungry like that jerk Erickson.

After dumping the issue of government relations on the official big-league hero, I walked over to the atomic family just in time to hear the end of the conversation.

"What..." Two" asked, hiding his uncertainty behind his long bangs, "what do we do now?"

His eyes flickered between Doc and Eve. Yeah, it's a tricky question, isn't it? The children have nowhere to go, half an hour ago they were preparing for a glorious death, and now they have to think about finding a place under the sun. And Samantha's not much help in that - she's just a child herself, living in the Wilkins' care; that leaves Doc, but he's been homeless ever since he went on the run, as far as I could tell. He doesn't need to hide anymore, though... and if the kids, like Sam, can make gold out of shit, then the money problem goes away. Although, if they were capable of that, they wouldn't be so carelessly dismissed, would they?

"Congratulations, Daddy," I clapped Brandiwort on the shoulder, for he was the only one who could take responsibility for the kids. "You have a Sextuplets."

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"Me?" said the old man.

"Well, who else is there?" I countered.

"Doc, tell me..." Eve suddenly perked up. "Are... are you my real father?"

"Eve... I am," he hesitated for a second, but still gathered his courage to confess, "yes, it's true, your mother and I fell in love, but I..." he looked at the other children, who were listening to his words with mixed feelings. "About them... I... I don't even know who their father is... I thought your Sarah was dead... My God, what have they done to her?"

My attempts at ridiculous jokes to defuse the situation didn't help, Elias's eyes were wet. It was better not to even think about what he was going through. To know that your beloved was kept for fifteen years as a half-dead corpse, giving birth to crippled children of no one knows who... the fate that fell to this woman, no one would wish, better death than this.

"You won't like it," said Two grimly. "They've got her in a tube, just like they've got us. Hooked her up with a bunch of stuff and... but at least she never regains consciousness."

"I've got to do something," Brandyworth clenched his fists.

"That shouldn't be a problem," I interjected again. "Just tell Stadman, and I don't think he'll stop you from taking your wife and children... he might even help you get settled, after all, the Government owes your family a lot. But be prepared for them to try to put you in business..."

With knowledge like Elias's, you really can't have a quiet life. He is too valuable - not many people have managed not only to successfully create a superhuman, but to do it without significant side effects and not even to die in the process. I... I don't remember it at all; almost always the artificial emergence of a superhuman is accompanied by the death of the one who made it possible. And I suspect that's how it was in the past world. Otherwise, I would have heard at least once that Eve had a sibling father and a whole bunch of siblings.

"There's no way I'm going to do that again." Elias stated decisively. "That's not why I've been hiding for sixteen years."

"Are you suggesting we surrender to the government?" A bristling Two echoed him. "After what they've done to us!"

Pfft... like you have options?

"Now that it's all out in the open, they won't dare act the way they did before." I didn't even try to explain to him that the current head of the agency, unknown to both of us, had different methods, especially since Cecil couldn't have been unaware of what Erickson was doing. "Besides, there's a representative of the Guaardians of the Gloobe here, boy, and he's definitely on your side."

"What about you?"

"Isn't it obvious? Or don't you remember the hour I spent trying to keep your family from killing themselves? You're welcome, by the way."

Our conversation was interrupted again by the flapping of the blades. I looked up and saw two aircraft approaching. Another government helicopter and a predatory-looking single-seat jet, the design of which reminded me vividly of a man who likes to dress up in a bat costume unknown in this world.

"Calm down," I whispered to the boy, noticing how his palms began to tremble, whether from fear or from rage.

The Darkwing's plane didn't land - instead, the hero jumped out of it in a pompous fashion - and some familiar faces landed from the helicopter in the courtyard. Cecil Stamen and Donald Ferguson. Oleg immediately went out to meet his teammates and the common cause, to outline the situation in a nutshell.

"Well... I've done my job" I shouldn't get to mett Cecil yet, God forbid he should recognize me as the son of Omniman.

"Wait," Eve suddenly grabbed me by the sleeve. "Are you leaving already? I don't even know your name or your nickname. Why did you help me? How do I get in touch with you?"

Oh, so many questions. So the first impression was a success after all! We need to consolidate the result!

"Oh, don't worry about it, you can thank me another time." I winked at her, and leaning over to her ear, I added. "See you at school..."

"What?" Now she was really confused. "You're the m..."

"Shh!" I shushed. "It's a secret. Oh, by the way, happy birthday to you."

And with a sense of accomplishment flew out from under the nose of the government agent who was headed in our direction.

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