Robbery!
The Supers on their next adventure...
Last time - the team’s first mission as first responder augmentation was at an apartment fire. This time, I wanted to see how they’d fair against the good old bank robbery!
Here’s the refresher on our daring group of supers, last seen in Firefighters
(Check out all the Stories here)
Conduit - 29, male, established hero, energy absorption and reflection
Blink - 25, male, junior hero, teleporter
Awareness - 31, female, junior hero, telepath - able to sense and send images and feelings
Reset - 45, male, junior hero, able to send himself back in time and change his actions, healing ability
Portal - 54, male, trainee, suspected cause of Portals, Substacker
Conduit looked at his team as the incident commander continues his briefing. There was a very good chance they were about to head in to actual combat with armed individuals, and there was not a hint of hesitation or worry in their eyes. They were simply absorbing the information and checking their gear. Reset, Blink, and Awareness had come a long way in the short time since their powers had manifested.
“We believe there are at least seven armed individuals in the bank,” the captain was saying, “and at least twice that many civilians being held. They had some of the civilians lower the blinds and stand in front of the windows. We have not heard from the armed men in any way.”
Awareness calmy spoke up, “There is one armed man on the main floor, the rest have moved downstairs. At least three of the civilians went with them, but I can’t sense them anymore.”
The men’s eyes snapped to her and the captain hissed, “Have they killed hostages?”
“No,” Awareness said quickly, “it’s like they walked in to a bubble, and I can’t sense them or three of the robbers anymore.”
“They might have powers?”
The best Awareness could do is shrug. Conduit would have to assume they were facing at least one powered individual.
“Where is the man on the main floor,” he asked indicating the floorplans the captain had rolled out.
Awareness circled her finger close to the counter. “The civilians are all facing the windows, so I can only estimate what I’m seeing from the armed individual.”
With a nod Conduit points at a nearby space and looks to Blink to begin an order. Reset silently puts his finger to the left of the spot and Conduit suppresses a shudder. Reset would only correct him if he had just lived through something dire.
“Blink,” he says calmly, “take us to where Reset indicated.”
His team quickly snaps in to their formation, Conduit at the front, Reset’s hand on his shoulder, Blink grasping the shoulders of Reset and Awareness. The next breath, they are standing inside the darkened bank.
Conduit is looking directly down the barrel of a pistol held by a heavyset man in camouflage and a black mask. He feels Reset’s hand slide off his shoulder as the man steps back and starts squeezing the trigger. The two bullets come to a rest on Conduit’s forehead and cheek as he feels the kinetic energy rush into his body. Although he’s dazzled by the muzzle flash, he sees Blink appear behind the man an instant before the two disappear.
He hears a couple startled screams from the civilians as Awareness moves and starts making shushing sounds. Conduit quickly looks to Reset, who… is calmly opening an evidence bag he has pulled from his belt…
A heartbeat later, Blink is back, standing in front of Reset, looking at him bemusedly. Holding out the robber’s gun, Blink ejects the magazine, racks the slide to clear the chambered round, and drops the pistol into the waiting evidence bag.
“Holding cell?” Conduit asks quietly.
“Yes, he got off one more round, but we came in facing a wall, so everything is good there.”
“See to the hostages.”
A quick nod from Blink and within seconds the screams and other exclamations are migrating outside.
Suddenly, an armed man bursts through the door to the basement. As Conduit turns, the man’s eyes shoot wide open, he drops his weapon, falls to his knees, and begins crossing himself and wailing.
Conduit turns his astonished gaze to Awareness.
“He’s Catholic.” She states bluntly, “He’s seeing an angel with a flaming sword descending upon him.”
Conduit can only stare.
Pulling zip tie handcuffs from her belt she shrugs, “I spend most of my day with a writer, we’ve been workshopping ideas.”
It is really hard for Conduit not to shake his head. They have come a LONG way in the last few months.
“Two down.” Reset says bluntly as he lays the bagged gun on the floor.
“And two more that reeeallly need to go to the bathroom - that I am guiding out the back to the loving arms of the officers outside,” Awareness comments, “The other three and the hostages, I get the sense that they are in the vault, but I’m being blocked.”
And Conduit is shaking his head, but quickly states, “We don’t know what the suppression affects. Reset, Blink, with me. Awareness…”
“Calming the hostages. Calling in the officers to clear the first floor.”
Moving to the staircase, Conduit feels Reset’s hand grasp his right shoulder. Without a thought for Blink, he moves quickly down the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs, they are greeted by offices and a wide open vault door. The remaining hostages are standing in front of the vault with their arms linked. A shield for the heavily armed men behind them.
One of the masked men yells, “Don’t come any closer!”
Before Conduit can respond he hears Reset’s harsh whisper, “Teleport works.”
In an instant, the hostages are gone and Conduit is staring down three men with automatic weapons. He feels Reset crouch behind him.
And the robbers open fire.
Dozens of rounds rest against his body as the tiles crack beneath him. They were going to shoot through the hostages, he realizes. With years of restraint he wades forward, the floor crumbling with each step.
The robbers drop their guns, two in shock, one reaching for a pistol. Conduit sees the man level the pistol at one of the other masked men but before he can turn, Reset dives in and tackles the gun wielder. Reaching the remaining two, Conduit places a finger on each temple and renders them unconscious with the minimum required force.
“The bubble is gone.” Awareness reports through their comms.
Back at the Agency headquarters, the mood is grim. None of the masked men are Supers.
After listening in on their minds during the interrogation, Awareness informs Conduit, “These are not good people, but the bank robbery was not their idea. They don’t know who it was, and I can’t tell.”
“At the end?”
“He was being compelled to execute his team…”
The words hung in the air.
It seems Calgary has caught the attention of someone with powers.
On top of the desire to write a bank robbery, I felt I needed to clarify that Conduit’s power worked on kinetic energy as well. Not that there were people clamoring to know, of course, but it’s somewhat important! There have been numerous times I’ve mentioned that Conduit has stepped between the team and danger. This isn’t just him being protective, or a jerk… it’s what he does. He was not given the task of training supers because he inadvertently created them and feels responsible - he is also uniquely qualified for the job. Plus… it’s a cool power!
And, on the topic of craft, and the buzz that has been flying around Substack this past week… yes, I very obviously use AI for my diagrams. I’ve stated before, I would love to pay someone to do the art, but I won’t right now, and I want a good hook for the story. Also, for this particular story, while I have used guns in the past under the supervision of a close friend, I am not a gun-guy. So, in order to avoid losing the gun enthusiast readership, I used Claude to make sure I didn’t mess up on the clip/magazine reference. In fact, the actual line from Claude was “Blink ejected the magazine, racked the slide to clear the chambered round, and dropped the pistol into the waiting evidence bag.” which I still needed to edit to fit tense and the scene. I wanted to make it clear that the Super’s training has been intensive and thorough. I actually had to have Reset pull out the bag early, but… it’s Reset. Honestly, I could have totally re-written it, which I usually do, but kinda wanted to make the point as well. I have no intention of scanning this to prevent scanning. Those of you who want to… fill your boots. I genuinely hope you get the result that makes you the happiest either way. I don’t want to hear the results, I know what I did and I’m happy. ‘Nuff said.
Hope you enjoyed!
Dave
Wow! Reading that had me forgetting to breathe. Good thing the Supers are … super! What a team they are!