Toxicon leaped from car roof to car roof, careful to balance himself on cars that moved closer and faster to the city. As he gained ground, people were out of their cars, milling about them helplessly as their cars kept moving on their own accord, foot by foot into the city center.
The smaller cars were already crushed . Some were bent in half. All of them kept moving, and as he got closer to the city center, they moved faster. The air was filled with the sounds of crunching and squealing metal.
A semi was on its side, sliding along the highway to a bridged. He jumped onto it, trying to look beyond.
A sea of crushed and masses of cars greeted him, but there seemed to be a wall of them, just ahead. Again, people were gathered around, moving out of the way of flying cars that popped out of the crush and headed airborne to the wall of cars he could see. Some people refused to get out of their cars. Some were crushed inside and people were trying to get them out. He thought about stopping for them, but he knew he had to get to the center of the mess first. He dodged a flying car, the upper half off of it. He got to the wall, at least three cars thick.
It wasn’t just a wall – it was a dome. He heard cars slamming into it, packing it thickly. He followed the edge of the wall to a building. He ducked through the small archway of cars to come out at a small park at the center of the city. In the middle was a patch of grass, about half a block thick, and at the center of that was a fountain.
At the center of that was a little girl. No one else was around. He felt something tug at his pants, pulling him inexorably toward the girl. He suddenly realized what was happening – and he needed to stop it.
“Hey,” he called to the little girl.
The girl looked up and then back at the fountain. “Mommy said I don’t talk to strangers.”
He fought the pull on his jeans. He could take the metal off, but then he’d be only in his boxers. He walked – stumbled, really – toward her. “It’s okay. I’m a hero.”
“You don’t have a cape or a mask.”
“I left them at home.”
The little girl snorted.
“How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“Where’s your mommy?”
“I don’t know. She told me to wait here for a minute.”
He looked at the dome that was precariously around him. No people, not even cops. But then, they were probably stuck to the wall –
He then realized that if the wall was three cars thick, then the middle layer could be…
“Honey, you need to stop.”
“Stop what?”
He motioned around him. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”
She looked around and up. “I did that?”
“I think you did, and you need to stop it.”
“I – I didn’t – I don’t.”
Shit, Toxicon thought. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
“You’re magnetic, a very powerful magnet – ”
“Where’s my mommy?” The dome shuddered as more cars slammed into it. Toxicon now saw the broken windows of the building in front of him. Did people fly out those windows?
“What did you do with my mommy!” She glared at Toxicon, and he was picked up by his belt and tossed upward into the air, spiraling toward the top of the dome. Toxicon struggled to get out of the belt, ending up eating a section away with his power – that and the button and fly on his jeans. He started falling down, landing hard in the fountain, sending up a great splash. His body was tougher than that, and he had certainly lost his pants.
The girl was dangerous. She knew what she was doing, but couldn’t control it. The dome started squealing, getting even more cars. He rose from the fountain, and the girl was looking around, calling for her mommy.
God help me, he said to himself, as he came out of the fountain, sans pants and dripping wet. He launched himself from the fountain and tackled the girl from behind.
The girl screamed, getting thrown to the ground, and the dome shuddered again. He grabbed her, holding her by her throat, and let his power sink into her. He didn’t see her eyes. He didn’t want to.
The dome groaned, and Toxicon looked up to see it shaking. He took up the lifeless girl and ran into one of the buildings with the broken glass, just seconds before the entire dome came crashing down in a mighty roar of metal and glass.
He lay the girl with her face up, her eyes open and unseeing, her throat looking like it had been torn out. Toxicon knelt by the girl, the water from the fountain dripping on her, as he closed her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, but…” He looked out at the crush of cars, and thought he could see limbs in between. “Dear God.”
“Hold it right there!” yelled someone, who came running toward him from a stairwell. He had a gun trained on him. Toxicon looked up, brought his hands up slowly.
The cop – actually, an armed security guard, slowly advanced. Some people were behind him, looking disheveled and confused.
“Oh, my God!” a woman screamed, seeing Toxicon kneeling over the girl. “You killed that little girl.”
“I had to,” he said. The security guard went to the phone, still with his gun on Toxicon. “Everyone stay right where they are, I’m calling the police.”
Toxicon sighed. “I have a PRIMUS ID.”
“DON’T MOVE!”
He waited. The man obviously had an itchy trigger finger, so he didn’t want to push that.
The security guard picked up the phone and hung it up. “Phone’s dead.”
“I’ll call them,” said a man in the back, whipping out his cell.
Meanwhile, everyone else, including the security guard, looked out the windows at the carnage and mess of cars and bodies in the courtyard. Toxicon put his hands down, thinking he looked pretty stupid. He looked damn stupid in his boxers and a wet t-shirt that was falling apart as he knelt there.
Finally, the cops arrived, on foot. “It’s like 9/11 all over again,” said one guy, and the cops turned to look at Toxicon.
“Do I look like a terrorist to you? I have a PRIMUS and UNITY ID.” Toxicon got up, his legs having gone numb. He held out his hands for the handcuffs, not that they would hold him for long.
The cops looked at each other. One finally stepped up and put the cuffs on him. Another put a jacket over the little girl.
“You get one phone call,” said the cop with the cuffs. “I don’t care how many fucking ID’s you got.”
Toxicon knew this was going to be a long day.