by Captain Sammitch
Phil Smith had been lucky enough to be positioned near one of the few small openings of the caverns that hadn't been blocked off by Henry Towles' handiwork. It made it easier to get back in with Leslie Kline and the unconscious M'xy in tow, for what that was worth.
The scene in the caverns had deteriorated into chaos. People were fighting one another for no apparent reason, with Tayden trying desperately to restore order among the brawling factions. Battered, bleeding, and unconscious civilians were everywhere. Phil was secretly glad he'd hidden the Jeep full of weapons so well.
"What the hell is going on?" Leslie asked.
Phil shook his head. "I wish I knew." He set M'xy's limp body on the cave floor. The three of them were perched on a sort of balcony overlooking a massive open space bigger than a Gothic cathedral, with stalactites serving as flying buttresses high above. The cavern was lit from within by banks of flood-lamps, almost like some weird sort of arena. Phil had no idea how those lights were powered or why they were even there, but he made a mental note of them anyway.
Below him, a man who seemed to be one of the ringleaders was quietly giving orders to a band of men who had formed a semicircle around him. His voice was subdued even in the large cavern, so Phil had a hard time making out his words. He decided to spy on the little meeting the best way he knew how. He closed his eyes and listened.
"It's like this, men," Henry Towles said. "Those metahumans may mean well, but they're standing in our way. This is just one example of many. Didn't we have shelters and secure places ready in the event of a storm?" The men nodded. Phil was disgusted; he'd seen many of those so-called shelters topple like a house of cards with his own eyes. But he sensed a threat here and continued listening.
"We have been forced time and time again," Towles went on, "to entrust our safety and the safety of our homes and families to a ragtag band of freaks we don't even know. Most of us have earned our own lifestyles on this island, with our own hard-earned money. Why should we continue to be dependent on the metahumans to control every aspect of our lives?"
"What other choice do we have?" a short, balding, older man asked.
"This cave," Towles explained, "is rumored to be the secret headquarters of some sort of clandestine military force. Look around you. Quite obviously it's deserted, and has been for some time. There are hundreds of passages and smaller caverns within this network, and several of them are certain to contain weapons stockpiles of some sort. We have in this very cavern the means to protect ourselves and defend our families and property, without these meddling metas imposing their comic-book morality on us."
"So what are you suggesting we do?" a thirty-something executive in an Armani suit asked.
"I'm suggesting we fight these metahumans off, find those cached weapons, and take charge of things here." Towles looked around. "Any takers?"
Phil tensed. Somebody had to do something, and Tayden was too busy trying to maintain order among the less-organized of the factions. Towles had to be stopped. But there was a big crowd with him, and there might not be any way to stop them without hurting or even killing some. Did Phil really want to kill anyone? It had been a long time.
To his right, Leslie watched the scene playing out below, oblivious to the imminent danger. She was primarily concerned with finding Sigma and getting the hell back to Evgeni and whoever else was waiting. She'd take her chances with the Russian sailors rather than mess with this hurricane any longer.
And besides, wasn't it Sigma who was lying unconscious next to her? The guy who had brought her down here might be a meta, but he didn't fit the profile at all. Sigma was a dangerous killer, a telekinetic/telepath who knew his way around the spy game like nobody else, at least according to her files. Sigma was, after all, wanted for questioning by the FBI concerning a rash of murders in New York. Nobody knew anything about him other than that, except, apparently, the Russians, and they wouldn't tell her much of anything.
The point was, the man she was standing next to was too open, too vulnerable, too human to be Sigma. The kid with wings? Same story. Her best bet was probably the odd-looking unconscious man lying on the ground next to her. But she couldn't be sure.
She tapped Phil on the shoulder.
Phil turned. "Yeah?"
"What are they doing?" Leslie asked.
"You don't wanna know," Phil answered. "But I'm going down there."
"Are you nuts?" Leslie said. "There's twenty or thirty of them and only one of you!"
"What's your point?" Phil asked as an uncharacteristically chilling grin spread across his face. Leslie looked again and noticed the shoulder holster beneath the man's open leather jacket. She also noticed the H&K .44 semiauto in that shoulder holster. Maybe Leslie was wrong about the guy on the floor.
"Watch him," Phil ordered. He found some hand-holds in the rock and clambered down to the cavern floor thirty feet below.
Some of Towles' disciples were having second thoughts. "Are you sure we can do that?" the balding man asked.
"Who will help us rebuild the island when the storm is over?" the Armani guy wondered aloud.
Towles held up a hand. "I know many of you are unsure of yourselves. But trust me, I won't let you down. If we start this thing, it'll get finished, I guarantee it."
"Finished by whom?"
All the men spun around to see Phil walking toward them. "Who the hell are you?" Towles demanded.
Phil walked up to him and punched him in the face. "I'm asking the questions here, dip shit," he said as the other men stepped back. Towles staggered to his feet and glared at him.
"You're makin' a big mistake, kid," Towles growled.
Phil smiled. "I don't think so," he replied.
"I'm warning you..."
Phil laughed at him. "Look, moron, I've been knocked around by giant waves, chased by psychotic natives, attacked by vampires, and smacked around by a beast from the pits of Hell, all in less than twenty-four hours. If you really think you and your dime-store coup can throw that kind of heat, bring it."
The line was drawn. And it didn't look like Henry Towles' disciples wanted to cross it.
Except for one. He strode toward Phil, seething his rage. "You gotta learn, meta," he growled.
He had taken maybe two steps before he toppled to the ground, knocked out cold by a swift kick to the back of the head, delivered by a black, high-heeled shoe.
"Anyone else feeling lucky?" Leslie asked.
The other men didn't know how to react to this. Phil was among them. "I asked you to stay up there with M'xy," Phil reminded her.
"I don't take orders too well, sweetheart," Leslie replied as she inspected the damage she'd inflicted.
"What's this?" Towles chuckled. "The boyfriend-girlfriend tag team of meta-freaks?"
"She's not my girlfriend," Phil muttered.
Armani guy was definitely getting sucked in by Leslie's charm power, and he tried to turn on a little charm of his own. "Now, you might want to settle down, ma'am," he said. "Tell you what. I've got a yacht out in the harbor that you might like to see." He put an arm around Leslie's waist. "Why don't we all just forget all this, and when the storm's over, you and I can make some memories."
Leslie beamed at him. "That'd be great," she cooed. Then she busted his nose. "Men really are pigs," Leslie mused as the well-dressed man sank to his knees.
A big man started toward her. "You little bitch--"
Phil telekinetically launched him into the cave wall. Just when it looked like the fight was on, he drew the .44 and cocked it loudly. "Anyone else touches the girl, I'll kill them," he said quietly. They backed off.
Phil turned to Henry Towles. "This concludes group activity time for today. You can go back and join the others and maybe see your family again, or you can keep playing soldier with your drinking buddies here and face the consequences." He looked around. "Don't you guys still wanna fight?"
There were no takers.