-Yeah, someone got to him. Might want to get Data on that, although doubtless they have their tracks well-covered,- Hawkeye /reported through the Mark inside his nasal cavity, taking his place across from the new Powered’s room patiently.

-Heat resistance and electrical powers is a very odd default combination,- came back the cool /reply from Fugit, his Coordinator. -Any other tidbits the doctor managed to hold back?-

-He considered it minor, but on very close examination, her hair was starting to go black at the roots.- Hawkeye /eyed the light brown hair of the girl’s photos with interest. Weird side-effects of becoming Powered were pretty common, and the color of one’s hair changing was among the mildest. He’d seen all shades and hues, and hair changed into vines, fleshy tendrils, snakes, flames, scaled frills, and horns, among other things.

Some were desirable, many were not. Hells, his brown eyes had gone all gold. Thankfully, there were ways to address many of the hostile mutations, even if meant giving up being Powered. At least you could keep your Core.

-No comments on that tattoo?- Fugit /asked him.

-None whatsoever. Just said all his observations were in the report. Not like that could be held back, right?- Hawkeye stared at the intensely dark representation of Arthropoda Arachnida Araneae Latrodectus Mactans staining her upper back.

It was one hell of an identifying mark, but obviously had been applied recently, as there had been no signs of dermal stretching or other dilution of the ink.

Likewise, the total lack of fingerprint or genetic ID, especially in a fairly young Caucasian female, was very unusual. Pretty much every hospital in the world took genetic markers for children and fingerprint ID’s at birth now, and had for at least a generation. The Russians maintained databases for identification purposes for almost every third-world country if they couldn’t do it themselves, as such nations were the most common locations for violent endings for young people.

She wasn’t in any such database. Hawkeye considered that problem as he reclined on the empty bed there, and turned his golden eyes to look out the window.

Out of sight, the holo-projector was slipped out of his belt and placed on the bed. A tap, and it recorded his image, overwriting his surroundings as he sat up instantly and propelled himself off the bed smoothly, activating his uniform’s heat-masking as he did so.

His Mark went quiet in the next second, and he narrowed his eyes at the sign of telepathic interference. Whoever was coming was very well-prepared.

Fugit wouldn’t notice anything was wrong until he didn’t respond to a direct query, and then would probably try to verify with a direct telepathic attempt, which would likewise fail, which would mean even more seconds of delays.

There was a puff and spray of particles of glass. The little computer displayer in the holopoint adjusted the image on the bed accordingly, spraying red images over the wall and bed next to it, completely disguising the hole the armor-piercing bullet had drilled into the bed and wall.

Well, it looked like the girl wasn’t going to get the time to adjust herself that he had hoped for.

He grabbed the chain around his neck and pulled it off with a yank. Back at HQ, Fugit would be spinning around as the matching Breakchain with his medallion on it broke, indicating a red alert, and things would kick into high gear.

The rooms to either side of this one were windowless, so this was the best entry point, directly across from the girl now that he was ‘dead’. Hawkeye drew his sidearm, checked that his own AP rounds were in place, and charged it up slowly and carefully, his Nimbus humming tightly around him and focusing down to the Grit in his hands.

He heard the hum of airjets before the window shattered and went spraying across the room, and a couple forms wearing anti-grav packs came surging through the window in tac-suits, kicking over the bed as they did so.

The hologram promptly flickered and went out as the projector went flying and fizzed out, its purpose done.

He noticed the configuration of the anti-grav generator and maneuvering jets as the second man turned his helmet, and his visored face centered nicely on Hawk’s Talon.

Someone else’s head painted the walls as he discharged his Nimbus and the flaring of the Sun Shot did its work. The first man tried to turn and get his stub-gun in line, only to run into Hawkeye’s other hand and narrowed eyes as he Refocused, his Nimbus came hard back online, definitely sharp enough for whatever psi-user they had around to feel this time, and he pulled the trigger again, not stopping his momentum towards the door now.

Charged with psionic energy, the Nimbus release powered the Sun Shot in a bright flash, and someone else’s brains painted the walls once more.

He dropped to nearly the floor, reaching up as he turned the handle of the door, and right as the door opened a sizzling shot punched through the outside wall, the door, and went right on across the corridor. If he’d been squared to go through the door, it would have taken him through center mass, and molweave uniform or no, he’d have a hole in himself.

He threw the door open and pushed out, grabbing the edge of the door and spinning with his momentum right around the side of it.

Another POK, and the floor of the hospital corridor where he should have been sliding got a nice AP hole in it from the anti-material gunner outside trying to predict where he was.

If they had a psi, they were probably trying to use Timesight, but he wasn’t an active psi-user, his brain was shielded by the magnapsium in his helmet, and his timeline was a chaotic mess impossible to discern. They’d feel his Nimbus come up and know he was alive, but right now they couldn’t see him.

They’d also expect him to go for the girl. A sucker’s play. They probably had her heat signature all zeroed and if she were occluded or moved, they could take a shot at her and him.

Would they snipe her? He sincerely hoped not. The Tribes would confiscate the body if the attackers couldn’t recover it, and any research value would be lost. At least if she lived they might get to study her genecode in more depth...

That looked like Askari tech, too, making him grimace.

He’d always hoped that the rumors that the organization of African ancestry was engaging in human experimentation were wrong, and specifically the ones that they were frequently engaging in white slavery to do so.

This was not a good sign. Would they commit to the raid now that they’d lost two men and the ability to snipe him?

His mind spun through the options, and he focused sideways down the hallway as a doorknob on the door on the end there began to turn.

They had a psi here. Telepaths who could control minds, and look out other people’s eyes...

----

The nurse on duty opened the door down there. She was a young bleach-blonde woman assigned to the night shift, her eyes a little glassy as she looked down the hallway, seeing nothing but the open doorway there, and the hole in the floor which didn’t belong there.

The eyes looking out hers were totally aware she was holding a weapon she would never have touched in her whole life as they put a kind and unknowing smile on her face, and sent her walking down that corridor.

There was only one door open for him to go into, after all. No other doors had opened or closed, or their sniper would have seen the movement of blocking materials removed. Even with a suit that could suppress his heat signature, his options were totally limited.

He could only be in the room.

The nurse paused at the holes in the floor and walls, noting that the lock of the room the girl was in was completely shot out by the AP round that had missed Hawkeye. Still, it had not opened, so it was immaterial-

The mind in control of the nurse blinked in shock when the door was pulled open, and the girl stepped out.

She looked like a total mess. Her hospital gown was burned and falling apart on her, revealing pale and atrophied legs and arms that shouldn’t have been able to keep her upright.

Her remarkably large and intense green eyes locked on the blue eyes of the nurse very intently, and narrowed instantly.

The psi immediately pivoted to threaten her with the gun. Their aim was to take her out of here, after all, so gaining control of the subject would definitely speed things up. Simply forcing her to the secondary access point would speed things up immensely-

Like a dance, the nurse pivoted right into a waiting hand. Stepping right into the move, the girl reached up with a hand flickering with green-white voltage, and slapped it onto her face, specifically with her thumb on one side, and little finger on the other.

There was a popping and flash, and the nurse quivered for a moment before collapsing like a puppet with her strings cut. Her unconscious body was lowered slowly to the ground by the girl, who looked at the holes in the wall, the door, and the floor, and stepped away from the opening.

The heat signature on the scope of the sniper watching all this only saw the puppet fall down for some reason, no source there at all.

---

Hawkeye didn’t waste the moment. The holocloak keeping him invisible as the nurse had walked right past him on the near side of the hallway was still covering him as he moved into the doorway, and he distinctly saw the girl’s green eyes tracking him as he moved over and past the fallen nurse.

He had vectors. He had intended to follow the nurse into the room, using her to block the sniper’s view, and take her down smoothly before moving to the window.

No need to do so now.

The sniper hadn’t shifted positions between his two shots, and probably saw no reason to do so. After all, they had anti-material rounds, and their psion would have verified Hawkeye was only carrying a Grit sidearm.

That sidearm was out as he spun into the window smoothly, leveled Hawk’s Talon, aimed, and pulled the trigger, all in under a second.

His Power was in his eyes. Five hundred meters away, on the tenth story of the Sheraton Hotel over there, the shooter with his long rifle was shifting his aim urgently, calculating for wind and distance and-

The interior of the barrel of Hawk’s Talon was actually two meters long, and it was a Named Weapon in his hands, with his favorite Enhancement on it being Cyclonic: For the first second after a bullet exited it, it was not subject to gravity, wind resistance, crosswinds, or similar alterations which could affect its flight path.

In short, all the things which might interfere with a perfect shot.

The flash of the Sun Shot flickered across that entire distance, straight as a laser beam, and blew through the support of the sniper’s scope and into his nose, exiting the back of his head in a tumbling spray of blood and brains.

The two men hovering in the air outside, ready to charge in through another room off to his right, started to spin towards him.

He Refocused as he leaned out, leveled Talon with one hand, and shot again.

The flash of gold blew off one of the maneuvering jets of his target, promptly sending him crashing into his companion. They both slammed into the hospital awkwardly, losing their firing arcs. The first one went spinning randomly off along the side of the building, totally out of control, while the second’s gyros worked madly to stabilize him.

Hawkeye calmly Refocused, and his Nimbus engaged again as the one with the intact hardsuit desperately tried to jet for some altitude and evade what was coming.

But he wasn’t called Hawkeye for nothing.