Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
Mark Devlin looked out the airplane window at the snow-capped mountains. The trip had been long, but they were almost home. He glanced at the young Middle-Eastern man, Amal Nassar, who sat across from him gazing with interest at the mountains. Devlin didn't trust the motives of Nassar or his employer, but they were willing to pay a large sum of money for WarTech's work, which was all that mattered. Soon Devlin would use those funds to prop up WarTech's financial situation, and the shareholders would be none the wiser.
And the sale of Sapphire Angel increased the pot beyond his wildest dreams. The company's financial problems, known only to Devlin and a few others, would be a distant memory. It would have been nice to keep the superheroine for research, but he couldn't be sure his scientists would ever unlock her secrets.
Senator Socrates Chappelle reclined across the aisle, snoring. The seat was barely large enough to hold the large politician, whose head titled back over the headrest.
As Devlin glanced down at his watch, the satellite phone sitting next to him lit up with a call from WarTech's security chief, Steve Hains.
"Excuse me," Devlin said, taking the phone and walking to the rear of the plane.
"Yes?" he said, once far enough away from the other two men.
"Sir, I have some bad news," Hains began. "Sapphire Angel has escaped."
Tired from the long journey, it took Devlin a few moments to process the comment.
"Escaped?" he hissed, his chest tightening. "How?"
His security chief explained the details, from the heroine breaking free and sprinting naked through the halls of the facility, to fleeing with a man wearing a WarTech uniform.
"When was this?" Devlin asked, an edge to his voice.
The line remained silent for several moments before Hains replied.
"Last evening," the man said, his voice cracking.
"Last evening!" Devlin said, his voice rising for the first time. He glanced back at the other two men in the passenger section of the plane, but they didn't look his way. When they learned of this failure, it would reflect poorly on Devlin. His face turned red at memories of childhood humiliations, but he waited for his security chief to continue.
"Sir, we've been busy trying to find her, before she has a chance to recuperate and regain her strength. This is the first free moment I've had."
"You should have alerted me immediately! I am bringing someone with me right now who not only wants to buy our latest technology, but was going to pay a substantial fee for Sapphire Angel. Now I need to tell him he won't be buying her after all."
"I'm sorry, sir. Perhaps we will still find her."
"You said she ran away naked. So you still have her costume?"
Hains paused again.
"No sir," he said, his voice cracking again. "She did flee and was completely naked. But we just discovered that her items are missing. We don't know where they are."
"What the fuck!" Devlin exclaimed, squeezing the phone. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "There will be hell to pay for this later. At least make sure the presentation and items are ready over in Building C. Can you handle that?"
"I'll get right on it, sir."
Devlin hung up the phone and closed his eyes again. He would need to tell his guests of the news, and he could already imagine their disdain toward him.
In Building C, Sapphire Angel landed in the middle of the circle of guards.
"Shit!" a few of them exclaimed, as they jerked their heads back in surprise. The others seemed stunned and didn't react.
The blonde bombshell leapt into action, palming the sides of the helmets of the two closest guards. She smashed their helmeted heads together with such force the helmets cracked, before she pushed off from their shoulders to launch with a spread-leg kick into the chests of two other men. Just like that, four of the men crumbled to the floor, but Sapphire Angel breathed heavier than normal, still recovering from her ordeal while in the hands of Valik and his scientists.
Of the seven men still standing, only two had regained their wits, and they surged toward the heroine, one from in front of her, one from behind. She did a hop-kick, drilling the toe of her boot between the legs of the man in front, before she lashed an elbow to the abdomen of the man closing from behind. As he wheezed and grabbed at his stomach, she seized his arm and whirled him into two others, sending the three of them down in a tangle of limbs.
At full strength, Sapphire Angel could have spun and dealt with the three men still standing, faster than they could have reacted. But now the quickest of the three was on her. His beefy arms enveloped the smaller woman as he seized her from behind, lifting her from her feet in a crushing bearhug.
The costumed woman gasped in surprise and pain, and started to flex her arms to break his grasp. Again he was too fast, taking two long strides toward the wall and releasing her, slamming her between the wall and his body. Her head flew forward into the wall with a thud, and her legs started to give way.
The man took a step back as the two other men seized her biceps, spinning her around to face the man, and pinning her to the wall. The man in front lashed out with a punch to the side of her face, dazing her, before he drilled three rapid punches into her stomach. Sapphire Angel's body convulsed with each blow and she groaned, but the men holding her wouldn't let her drop. Her attacker grabbed her hair, lifting her head and peering into her eyes.
"Time to take you down, superheroine, and get a nice bonus from Mr. Devlin," the man taunted.
As he stepped back and cocked his arm for a massive punch, adrenaline flowed through the costumed woman. She tugged on her arms, pulling the men on both sides toward her. They were no match for her superhuman strength, and collided in front of her as the attacker's punch smacked into one man's helmet.
"Fuck!" he screamed, holding his fist as the other two men fell to the floor in a tangle. Sapphire Angel finished the men on the floor with crushing kicks to their ribs, before grabbing the injured man by the arms and flinging him across the room like he was a doll. He crashed into the far wall and fell to the floor, unmoving.
A few of the men on the ground had climbed to their feet, and one unslung a rifle with a panicked look in his eyes. One guard charged the blond bombshell.
"Hold your fire!" a man on the floor screamed, recognizing the danger of shooting in such close quarters. The gunman didn't listen and unleashed a burst of automatic fire.
Most of the shots pinged harmlessly away, stopping a millimeter from Sapphire Angel's body. A few more flew high and wide, clanging into the aluminum wall. But a few fired low or wide, hitting other guards, including the charging man. They cried out in pain and fell to the floor.
The costumed heroine didn't take time to access the carnage, instead darting to the shooter and grabbing the long barrel of his rifle with one hand. As she ripped it from his grasp, she lashed out with her other hand, sending a karate chop under the lip of his helmet and into his throat. He let out a wheezing gargle and and his knees folded beneath him.
Sensing men behind her, Sapphire Angel whirled with the weapon, still gripping its barrel. She swung the weapon in an arc, connecting with the helmet visor of an approaching man, cracking it and sending him to the ground.
Another man shot a jab toward the heroine's face, but as she tossed the weapon to the ground, her other hand flew up and intercepted the incoming punch. She stopped the man's fist an inch from her face and twisted it, driving him to his knees as he screamed in pain. Sapphire Angel grabbed him by the front of his shirt with her other hand, hoisted him into the air, and whipped him into the ground.
Four more men were rising to their feet, and the blonde beauty leapt between them, striking them with elbows, fists, and knees, disabling them. As they fell, two more rose, but suffered the same fate.
Sapphire Angel whirled, panting and looking for her next target, but all the men lay on the ground, unmoving either from her blows, or from friendly fire. She took a moment to catch her breath. In normal circumstances, her initial blows would have been enough to take men out of the fight, with no ability to rejoin it. This fight was harder, but she had won.
She moved among the guards, checking them for pulses. They were all alive and not seriously hurt, except for three men bleeding from gunshot wounds.
She paused and crouched over one man, surveying his wounds. The bottom of his neck was bleeding, so she removed his helmet. His face was twisted in pain, but he looked up at the angelic woman above him and a grin crossed his face.
"I saw you naked, superheroine," he jeered. "You weren't so tough. Hot body, though."
Sapphire Angel froze. He must be one of the guards who held her while Valik's scientists stripped her of her costume, or one of the guards who had chased her during her escape. Her face flushed and her heart hardened. He didn't deserve her help. She started to rise, but shook her head. No, she couldn't allow herself to succumb to such dark beliefs. That wasn't who she was, or who she wanted to be.
The heroine possessed no training to treat gunshot wounds, but she had to staunch the flow of blood from his neck or he might bleed out. She reached down to tear off part of his pants to use as a makeshift bandage, when she heard the squawking of a radio behind her. She spotted the radio on the floor, just a few feet away. A voice came over it.
"Squad Two, you missed your check-in. Come in."
Sapphire Angel stared at the radio, frozen.
"Sending a team to your last position," the voice said.
That answered it for her. Another squad of guards would be here soon — sooner than she might assist the man with her clumsy first-aid abilities. Perhaps this was a piece of needed training to add to her list.
She rose from her crouch and darted to the table. A green light illuminated from her cylinder, indicating the cloning of the laptop had finished. She grabbed the cylinder, ripped it from the laptop, and returned it to her boot.
Sapphire Angel sprinted to the warehouse door, opened it, and peered outside. There was no sign of the incoming team yet. She rushed from the building, hoping the cylinder held information to reveal WarTech's plans.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
......Most of me is celebrating the fact that Devlin’s plans have majorly been thrown off the rails, but knowing that he’s suffered humiliation after humiliation after humiliation since childhood actually makes a small part of me feel sorry for him; just a little bit. I know all too well what it’s like to be embarrassed and turned into the laughingstock of your supposed “friend group”.....people who seem to be on your side but just turn on you at the drop of a hat. Sure, he’s still doing bad things, but it can’t be good having to relive that trauma all over again.
Sapphire Angel in action once more, nice! Don’t get me wrong, she was doing an amazing job the whole way through, but after she took the rifle away from that one guard who initially had it, I would’ve just stopped fighting normally from that point forward and just started blasting everyone who came my way. Especially since Sapphire’s still tired from everything else that’s happened to her recently; a simple finger movement to pull a trigger would be a much easier move than constantly leaping, punching, and kicking all over the place. But she took care of herself well, so who am I to judge?
Neat touch with that one guard who taunted her about her nudity, but she still tried to help him with his gunshot wound nonetheless. In a way, his own squadron screwed him over.....she might’ve been able to help him if more people weren’t coming to her position.
Speaking of Sapphire Angel’s pacifism, I couldn’t help but notice that that’s another neat theme our respective superheroines have. I don’t know if you noticed this already, but you have an Angel, while I have a Viper. Yours strictly resists killing across the board, and even tries to help those who are injured no matter how evil they are; I’m reminded of her trying to stop Demarco Dominick from committing suicide in the first novel (Angel), while mine does inflict pain and use deadly force a little more often---and is more liberal with it---but only if she’s forced. Otherwise, she exercises at least some restraint (Viper). They also have completely opposing color schemes (Blue/White vs. Green/Black).
“Angel” and “Viper”, you know? “Complete Good” vs. “Not So Good”? I don’t know, I just thought that was a nice touch. I wonder if Sapphire’s ever going to go the Viper route and realize that there are people who are just beyond saving; there’s no doubt she (Sapphire) would’ve saved the guard if there weren’t more people on the way.
Time to learn about WarTech’s secrets! Besides Sapphire Angel’s intended sale, of course!