Free Mutation by Kevin Hardman Page B

four …
    The pipe passed harmlessly through her; she’d been phased.  I teleported–
    One thousand five …
    –and popped up by Blitz.  I shifted into super speed, swinging the pipe so fast that it made a humming noise in the air.  But Blitz was already zipping away, and was safely out of harm’s way by the time the pipe passed through where he had been.
    One thousand six…
    I teleported directly in front of Brick.  I swung hard, but only made a slight connection before my target disappeared – apparently teleported by Estrella.  With so little of the force of my swing transferring into the blow, he probably didn’t even feel it.
    One thousand seven…
    I teleported behind Spectre.  This was the moment of truth.  If I was right, then all my hopscotching around – teleporting from one of these guys to the next in quick succession and going on the offensive each time – should have been more than Rudi was able to get out in a verbally coherent fashion.  (I imagined her rattling off information in staccato bursts, like a machine gun unloading, as she tried to get everything out:  he’s-going-to-teleport-over-by-the-broken-pipe-and-now-he’s-going-by-Estrella…next-look-for-him-to-pop-up-next-to-Blitz-and-right-after-that-then-he’s-going-to…)
    I swung the pipe…and was rewarded with a sound like a firecracker as it connected with the back of Spectre’s skull.  He dropped like a sack of potatoes.
    Unexpectedly, there was a scream of anguish from nearby.  It was Estrella.  The way the sound came out of her, you’d have thought it was her that I’d hit.
    She raised a hand and fired a laser beam at me.  I shifted into super speed and stepped aside as it went past and struck a directional sign on a nearby wall.  The sign must have had some kind of reflective coating, because the beam dispersed, radiating out in the form of a score of smaller lights that formed a brilliant kaleidoscope.
    Estrella teleported next to Spectre.  She screamed again, this time more in fury than anything else.  Standing over him, she raised both hands and fired, like a gunfighter in the Old West trying to unload on an enemy.   Running at super speed, I was easily able to avoid her blasts.  Other parts of the garage weren’t so lucky, as lasers carved chunks out of nearby walls, sliced through columns, and even struck the gas tank of a station wagon, causing it to blow up.
    Not far away, I saw Blitz also zig and zag to avoid Estrella’s blasts.  I almost laughed as I realized what was happening.  At our speed, we were both nothing but blurs to her, so she was firing indiscriminately.  I then pulled one of my favorite stunts with speedsters – I telekinetically tripped him.
    Blitz went down flailing, bouncing along the ground until he slammed into a car.  Suddenly, I felt an emotional void – a vacuum where just a moment before there had been a fiery storm.  I looked around; Estrella had disappeared, as had Spectre.
    Something I did notice, however, were the downed security guards.  With me actually able to get into the mix now, this was the last place anyone needed to be lying around unconscious.  I teleported them all into one of the stores where I’d gone shopping just a short time earlier.  There was bound to be some panic at a bunch of coldcocked mall cops popping up out of nowhere, and for a second I wondered why Estrella hadn’t just teleported them somewhere out of the way rather than have her team take them on.
    I didn’t have time to dwell on it, however, as my peripheral vision picked up movement.  Turning in that direction, I saw Brick bearing down on me.  I went invisible, and when he slowed to check his charge, I walloped him with the pipe, which I had also made invisible and was still holding.  He swung in my direction, but I avoided him easily, then hit him again.
    And so we danced for a few seconds – him swinging and missing, me following up with a lick from the pipe.  I doubt that it