Every road out of Chicago was packed. Bumper to bumper, cars and trucks and buses as far as the eye could see – half trying to push past the others, half abandoned, their occupants running through the gridlock on foot. Horns blaring, shouts and sirens – from the air, this far up, it was almost melodic. A writhing symphony of chaos.

But it wasn’t only the roads out of Chicago that seethed.

Into the city, along every highway and overpass, rolled the military. Tanks, mounted artillery, long-range missile launchers and even a few the Black Death had to admit he didn’t recognise. All alongside the jogging troops and trucks, the commanders and carriers, the pomp and panoply of war. Khaki green, pumping in through the city’s veins.

There was a distant bang and the bullet of a far-off sniper stopped dead in the air two feet from the Black Death’s face. Three more cracks immediately sounded and three more bullets as thick as a thumb froze in mid-air the same distance away, floating at different heights and angles.

“Fools,” he hissed. He twitched his fingers and the magnetic field around his body pushed out another ten yards, the caught bullets dropping harmlessly into open air. Far below, a shout went out amongst the soldiers – and in a matter of seconds, a thick, unnatural fog rolled over the city, low and grey, obscuring the Black Death’s vision of Chicago’s streets and the soldiers moving through them. Below, there came the sound of gears whirring, barrels moving, weapons adjusting – the creaks and calls of an army taking aim, rendered invisible and almost inaudible by the thickening cloud.

It was an admirable strategy, he thought – shield their positions from view while they could see him clearly through infra-red, radar or thermal imaging. A clever fusion of weaponry and power. But as with all things American, it was ignorant and arrogant. Even if he too couldn’t control the weather, even if he couldn’t have blown the fog away with a single thought, even if his eyes couldn’t change to see outside the visible spectrum, even if his superhuman senses didn’t let him hear the creak of every bolt – even then he could still feel them, scurrying around, little bumps in his magnetism. Metal men with metal guns driving metal machines. Preparing, as he floated, as he waited, to launch metal artillery.

He could have destroyed them. All of them, in an instant. Blasted them from on high, collapsed buildings upon them, crushed them with their own crumpled steel weapons. But instead, he did nothing. He’d let them expend their effort. Let them try. After all, this was going out live. He was putting on a show.

And there was nothing more demoralising than watching your best plans fail.

A thousand hissing, echoing booms exploded out from Chicago’s streets and through the cover of cloud shot the offerings of an arsenal – screaming, hurtling towards him in the blink of an eye, too fast for any human to see or dodge. But the Black Death didn’t move, didn’t disappear. He merely held out his hands – and as if time had frozen, hundreds of shells and missiles, bullets and bombs all thudded to a halt in a wall of explosive steel, twenty feet away. Floating, as he floated – some stopped, some sizzling, some spinning. All held in place before his outstretched hand, balancing in limbo.

A small smirk twitched over the Black Death’s lips. Pre-Aurora weaponry. Really. What did they expect? His right hand gave a lazy twitch and as one, the military’s gifts flew back to their masters in a repurposed, deadly rain. He cracked his knuckles, stretching the bones in his fingers as a wail of screams and explosions echoed up from the street below. Before whoever he’d hit had time to die more shots were being fired, more missiles launched, any semblance of unified assault forgotten as every man down there retaliated as fast as he could, sending a constant stream of fire screeching up through the clouds. The Black Death did not waver. Every piece of munitions that flew too close he threw straight back, not caring where it fell, raining indiscriminately on the soldiers. Many exploded before they reached him, showering the sky with shockwaves of fire and shrapnel, but the Black Death’s left hand stayed steady, projecting a forcefield around him which no chemical explosion would ever penetrate. Then, his ears twitched, hearing something new moving below. Suddenly out through the clouds a tremendous, invisible force screamed up at him, a pummelling torrent of shuddering sound. The Black Death laughed as a blast of deafening noise slammed harmlessly into his forcefields. Sonics. They had a machine that shot sound. He shook his head and unleashed a barrage of energy from his eyes, incinerating the mounted device and silencing its infernal wailing.

“Enough of this,” he laughed. His magnetic fields closed around a few dozen shells and missiles hurtling towards him. Without a backwards glance he started climbing, flying straight up into open sky, the shards of deadly metal trailing obediently in his wake.

*****

“Sir.”

The President’s head turned, as did the eyes of every man in the stuffy, dim-lit room.

“Sir,” the advisor repeated, “He’s heading into orbit.”

They could all see it. On every screen in front of them, the black spec of a man, rising higher and higher against the darkening blue. Some of the camera feeds followed him but many backed off.

“He’s running,” someone whispered, their voice rising with strangled hope. But nobody else seemed to hear them.

“Status report.”

“Heavy casualties sir. Divisions three through five reporting loss of at least sixty percent of their armour.”

“And Heydrich?”

“Multiple shots on target sir. No confirmed damage. Sir,” the analyst paused, turning around to the Commander in Chief, sweat beading on his glasses, “I think he let us hit him. I think he’s sending us a message. Showing off.”

Someone swore. The president’s knuckles tightened around the back of the metal chair.

“Sir,” muttered General Armstrong, leaning in, unblinking, “This is our best chance. We have to do it now.”

“Christ Bradley,” Clarke whispered. He ran a hand through thinning hair, his face gaunt. “We’ve got soldiers in there. It’s right over a civilian population!”

“That high up,” agreed Ramez, “The radiation could spread to-”

“We don’t know what will happen-”

“Sir,” implored Armstrong, blocking out the dissenting voices, “If we act now, some people may die. If we do nothing, we all will.”

The room fell silent. All eyes fell to the President, who pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing unsteadily through his hand.

“God help us.”