I awoke only a few moments later. The security guard was in the process of elevating my legs while someone else was propping up my head.

“I’m alright,” I muttered while trying to sit up and found my body wasn’t responding properly.

“Hold on,” the guard said, backing up so I didn’t accidentally injure him. “Just lie still.”

I obeyed and relaxed back onto the ground while I waited for the world to stop spinning.

“You inhaled a lot of that gas,” the guard said. “Take a minute and rest.”

“I”m immune to the gas,” I told him.

“The gas might have displaced the oxygen, then,” he replied. “Either way, stay there for right now. We’re trying to find a healer.”

“They’re all dead,” I said, shaking my head. “Found them tied up inside. Acid all over them.”

“That’s not good,” someone outside my field of view said.

“Did you catch the supers?” I asked.

“Not yet,” the guard replied. “We lost contact with the checkpoints not too long ago. Protocol is that we check in at Cain Hall first before investigating the checkpoints. Once more security arrives we can go investigate.”

I shut my eyes for a minute while the others continued to talk around me. Some were arguing that they should go now while others were complaining about how ineffective the security had been so far. I was too out of it to really follow any of the conversations for very long and it seemed moot to be arguing about any of it right now.

Emil had struck at the perfect time. Everyone had lunch at the same time and in the same place and he gassed it thoroughly. I wondered how long he’d been planning the attack and who he was working with. I’d have to wait for the guards to interrogate Emil and the other super to find out any of those answers.

A gunshot rang out, distant but still loud, followed by a second crack of gun fire. My eyes shot back open as everyone around me took cover. The two guards had their rifles out, looking for any sign of the shooter but nothing else seemed to happen. After a while I heard one of the guards curse and then point over towards Emil and the other super I’d caught. Both were lying still on the ground where I’d left them. At first I didn’t see what the guard was pointing out about them until I sat up a bit and saw the blood. Each one had been shot. No one would be interrogating them now.

There was a heavy pause as everyone took in the situation.

“How many of you are bullet proof?” one of the guards asked in a low voice.

None of the supers answered.

“They don’t test us on things like that,” Hector finally said.

“They do, but apparently none of you have been run through those tests yet.” The guard cursed again and then waved for everyone to move back. “We can’t handle snipers so let’s all just get back behind Cain Hall.”

I pulled myself up to my feet and felt my head rush as I almost passed out again. No one dared help me, though, so I staggered on my own.

Another gunshot rang out and I felt something flick the back of my head. It took a moment to realize I’d just been shot. I ran my hand along the back of my head and to my relief there wasn’t any blood.

“Go! Run!” the guard shouted and everyone started to sprint.

The guards were easily outpaced by the strong supers. The sniper was somewhere behind us so I placed myself between them and the sniper as best I could, waving my arms to create as much of an obstacle as I could.

The sniper got a few more shots off before we could get behind Cain Hall but either none of them hit or the supers hit were bullet proof. The run got my head clear and I stepped out to see if I could find where the sniper was shooting from. Another bullet shattered on my cheek. I’d hoped to spot a muzzle flash or anything but didn’t see anything. Still, the sound was a good indicator of the direction.

“I’m going after them,” I said. “It sounds like the shots are coming from along the road going out of the valley.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the guard said.

“They can’t hurt me,” I pointed out, “and I don’t think they’re going to stop until they’ve got us.”

“I’ll come with you,” Hector volunteered. “We should at least be able to chase them off.”

“Me too,” said Cassie. “We’re the three strongest and toughest.”

Besides Hector I didn’t know how everyone stacked up but I took her word for it. Together, the three of us ignored the guard’s continued protests and stepped out and began making our way towards the direction of the sniper. We began to jog, then to run, building up speed until we were moving at an incredible pace. Again, none of us had speed powers but being so strong allowed us to push off the ground even harder which meant we could run incredibly fast.

A few more shots were fired off but all they did was help us pinpoint even better where they were being fired from. I worried we’d need to slow down once we reached the treeline that covered the walls of the valley but Hector and I could easily push right through them with Cassie following on behind us.

We reached the spot where we had heard the shots coming from but all we found were bullet casings on the side of the road. Now that we weren’t crashing through trees we could hear the roar of an engine and we took off along the road in hot pursuit. It wound along through the first checkpoint, abandoned of any guards, and up towards the second. It was hard to tell if we were gaining on them but the noise of the engine didn’t fade away.

We came up on a sharp turn in the road and had to slow our pace slightly. As we rounded the turn I caught a brief glimpse of a jeep further up the road before everything went white and a deafening explosion shocked my ears. I coughed and waved away the smoke, catching my balance while my right leg felt like it’d been kicked hard.

“I’m okay!” Hector shouted.

“So am I!” Cassie added.

“Keep going!” I shouted, needing a moment to catch my breath.

What had that been that hit me? The leg of my jumpsuit was ruined from the blast but my leg itself only looked mildly red. If whatever they’d hit me with had managed to affect me, then what would it do to Hector or Cassie? I began running again just as Hector and Cassie turned the next corner and went out of view.

Another explosion shook the ground as I caught up to the bend in the road. The jeep had stopped to let the person in the back get a better shot and I finally saw what it was they were shooting at us. Rockets.

The person in the back loaded another as Hector sped forward and fired. Hector was obscured in the flash and smoke of the explosion for a moment before he burst out with a shout and gripped the back of the jeep just as it began to rev its engine once again. It dragged him for a short distance before he got his feet under him and just lifted the back of the jeep off the ground. Hector didn’t stop there, however, and he proceeded to lift and flip the jeep over, tossing the two occupants out and wrecking the vehicle.

Only when I caught up to him did I see the ripped skin along the left side of his face where the rocket had hit him. A good portion of his hair along that side was missing as well. Hector ignored his injures for the moment and quickly grabbed the two dazed assailants before smacking them on the back of the head, knocking them out.

“Where’s Cassie?” he asked at once when he saw me.

“She was with you,” I replied.

“She got hit.”

We both turned and looked back down the road. Neither of us had seen her before, but now that we were looking we noticed the patch of bright red among the greenery. I was the first one to reach her, expecting the worst. She was lying on her back, cradling her stomach where the skin had been blown back by the explosion, exposing layers of fat and muscle. She was gingerly pushing her skin back into place, grimacing, while she breathed in quick, shallow breaths.

“D-did you g-get them?” she stuttered.

“Yeah, we did,” Hector said, tearing his already damaged jumpsuit into strips to help bind her injuries. “You keep going,” he said to me. “I’ll get her and those two back down to the others. I don’t think I want to take another rocket to the face.”

“But we got them,” I said.

“Didn’t you say something about there being a boat?”

That was right. Emil had mentioned a boat and these two in the jeep were definitely headed someplace to get away.

“Alright, see you in a bit.”

I took off once more along the road, remembering there was still one more checkpoint before I’d reach the airfield. Beyond that would be the docks.