“You’re going to kick my parents again. You talk about the Russians real careful-like.”

He gave me another weird look as we started arriving in the valley suburbs to the north of the city. “They didn’t tell you about Russia? The Great Bear? What are they teaching for history in schools these days?”

I just rolled my eyes. “Home-schooled, duh.”

“That is the dumbest... the strongest country in the world, and they don’t even tell you about it, and why?” He threw up his massive hands. “I swear, if I wasn’t getting paid, I’d toss you out of this truck.”

“And that’s why I’m asking you and not going for the government line.”

His following pause was long and meaningful. “Well, you can look up their general history just about anywhere. So, I’ll just talk about the current stuff.

“Russia is the country that generates Shielders, the super-soldiers that help guard other countries around the world, exactly like The Patriot. Each country who pays for them gets exactly one Shielder a year, complete with Shield.

“The Tribes are no different. The Patriot heads up and trains the Shields over in the States. In Russia, they are the Winter Guard. In England, they are the Royal Shields, and so on and so forth.

“Russia’s Winter Guard is only deployed for defense or at home. Their external Powered forces fall under the Red Stars, who are some of the best-trained and toughest Powered in the whole world.

“Technology, psionics, magic, Powered, Coretech, Training... Russia basically leads the whole world. Nobody knows all the stuff The Great Bear is developing there or what is going on in the shadows, but a whole bunch of the world follows whatever he says and does.

“A lot of people only think the world is free to do as it does because he lets it. If he wanted to take over the planet, he could do so. When The Great Bear speaks, the world listens.”

He definitely sounded respectful of the name. Russia, of all places? I definitely needed to find a library and get some history lessons.

“I gather he’s got a rather extreme level of personal power to complement such authority?” I inquired blithely.

“He can out-arm wrestle Hercules. I saw the tape.” He shook his hand. “There’s a story where he and Primus had it out, and he hammered Primus so hard he was out of the solar system before he woke up. The Slavic god of thunder, Perrun, is his underling in charge of the Red Stars.”

“He just have a title, or an actual name?” I asked, trying to sound curious and not knowing.

“Briggs. Nobody uses his family name.”

Uh-huh. So Sama and Briggs have taken over the world, one way or another. Russia, though? I wondered what brought that on, but it wasn’t my decision.

It was also pretty plain those two didn’t need me here. Why was I even here? They were sitting at the top of the stack and it sounded like they could handle most problems, and if they couldn’t, those they could boss around could.

This was also a world where America was not the top super-power, which was also interesting, and Russia had a good, if feared, reputation.

“There’s one more group you may run into from Russia, and that’s the Black Widows.” I had to concentrate to not meep. I’d seen my Tat when I was changing clothes. The eight Red Eyes on it were exactly like what was popping up in my head. It wasn’t a Tat; it was a manifestation of Warlock Sign!

“They’re all women, all hard as stone, and die-hard loyalists to Russia. Their leader, Natasha, sits at the right hand of The Great Bear. They’re super-soldiers with all the Core training, and really good at wetwork. You see one, be really, really careful.”

He’d obviously run into them before.

“Got it. How about...” I paused, and then took out that business card. “You know this guy?” I had received a low-vibe red eyeball off him when he gave me the card.

He took it and glanced at it. “Low-end fence. Knows some bad people, moves stuff for them. How’d you find him?”

“Sold him the jewelry off the vampires,” I admitted. “He wants to set me up to deal cards. I’m pretty good with them.”

“He’s selling you, not the dealing,” The Mountain grunted. “Young Powered worth a lot of money in many ways, especially the girls.”

I reclaimed the card thoughtfully. “So, if something happened to said people, they had it coming, right?”

“More than likely,” he grumbled, turning into a run-down bar with a few worn-down cars and motorcycles waiting out front. “I’ve got someone to talk to inside. Wait here.”

“Yes, sir. Guarding the truck, sir!” I replied, snapping off a salute. I did get out of the truck, but that was just to swing over into the back of it, cross my arms, and look out over the area.

I wasn’t going to be sitting inside a deathtrap if something happened when my widow-eyes went off.

He just looked at me, grunted, and walked away and inside. Obviously, I wasn’t his responsibility, or he wouldn’t leave me here like this... or, he trusted me to take care of myself, it was up to onlookers to judge. Maybe both.

-------

Red Eyes flared and turned around sharply. My own popped open as I looked in that direction in some disbelief.

What was it about this place?

About a hundred yards over thataway, some guy was standing at the edge of a garage or something, having just stepped around the corner, and was aiming a long tube in this direction.

My direction. But not at me, I was just sort of in the way.

Sunuva...

I jumped off the truck and forwards at pretty much the same time the guy pulled the trigger.

Now, dodging this would have been eezy-peezy. But my backpack was sitting on the seat of the truck, and if it hit the truck, there went my money and my change of clothes. I couldn’t let that happen now, could I?

More to the point, the accuracy testing I’d done was still absolute shit, but it was a hunk of metal, my electricity had some range now, and them volatile explosive warheads were something.

I picked up speed with literally inhuman force. Those guys down there didn’t have much time to respond to me coming, especially since they were staring after their rocket and not prepping their guns.

The rocket and I crossed about thirty yards from the truck, it passing to my right and overhead. That gap was ten yards wide when my blast linked up through it from behind.

It blew twenty yards short of its target, a mostly-shaped charge designed to go through stuff, not cover massive areas. The armor on the truck took basically all of the shrapnel and flames loudly, and the side of the bar beyond it was peppered with the stuff... but it looked like it mostly held, although some holes got punched in it, and it lost its windows loudly.

Sixty yards, and I was picking up speed, but there was this big fireball behind me keeping attention off me, so even though I was closing quickly, it was hard to recognize the fact.

One of them was quick enough to see something was coming, and he didn’t have a launch tube in his hand, he had a submachine rifle.

I was twenty yards away when he snapped it up and held down the trigger, obviously not too concerned about collateral damage behind me.

I took a step, and Repulsed myself sideways from the air. Just like that, I was pushed five feet to my left, and the bullets flew on past. It was interesting to watch, as my reflexes had kicked into very high gear, and everything was in very slow motion comparatively. The bullets were spinning by at about the speed of smartly thrown baseballs. The eyes of the guy blinked in slow motion as I was abruptly out of his center of fire without actually having shifted my center of balance or legs or anything.

I was, however, slamming into the guy still holding the tube on his shoulder, and pushing that tube violently to my right as I did so.

Absolute friction on the ground with my last step, puuuuuuush...

Both men were slammed back off their feet. The gunner took the tube in the face with a crunch and flattening of his nose as he went flying; rocket-man took me to his chest, my elbows first, and a bunch of his ribs broke.

I looked sideways as we passed the corner in mid-air, and the driver of the van waiting there watched us go by in shock.

He had his window down, too.

I rolled into my speed bump as he hit the ground, over his face as he skidded on the pavement, very much out cold, and twisted in mid-roll to hit the ground, and lock on with friction with my legs spread as speed bump skidded between my feet.

I was nowhere near in the shape I should be, but that was still way beyond human performance norms. Which, you know, was kind of cool and convenient, and meant I didn’t have to Cast to stay alive.

I sprang at the door, but didn’t try opening it. I reached in through the window with one hand, slapped it on the guy’s face, put a foot on the door as voltage jerked through him, and heaved.

No seatbelt. He convulsed as I twisted him just right to avoid slamming into the van and maybe twisting my wrist, tearing him right out of his seat and out onto the cracked blacktop there.

Red Eyes looked to the back of the vehicle as I heard footsteps in slow motion pounding towards the doors there, and watched them start to open slowly with a bang from a kick.

I put my feet down, and did a combo Repulse-jump, right up the side and over the top of the van.

The man surging out of the back with another assault rifle in his hands had his head turned, preparing to come around the side of the van and start shooting. I planted my feet, gripped the metal of the van’s roof for a pivot point to whip my legs over, and let go. He sort of looked up in time to see my feet coming down on his head, crackling a bit as they did so, and then he got smashed into the ground to join his buddies.

I didn’t kill any of them, however. I was sure The Mountain was going to have some questions for them.

I hadn’t seen anyone between the van and the building, and a quick dropping flat to the ground revealed no other legs moving around. The four of them were it.