Free Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect by Michael Bailey

opposite
direction, or they whip out their cell phones and start taking video. This
shop’s clientele is an intelligent bunch; they choose to make themselves
scarce. June, with admirable aplomb, shoos everyone out through a rear exit.
    “You call the police,” I
tell her, “I’ll run up to the compound and see if I can get hold of the
Quantums.”
    “Right,” she says. I let
June guide me outside, and then Farley and I get the hell out of Dodge —
rather, we run far enough up the hill to make a good show of it.
    “Farley, you listen to me,”
I say. “You run home and lock yourself in. Let me take care of this, all
right?”
    “Okay,” Farley says. He’s young,
but growing up in a super-hero family means he knows exactly what’s going on,
so I don’t have to worry about him staying out of the way.
    I slip on my headset, power
up, and shoot into the sky. I swoop around, and my heart leaps into my throat when
I see a monstrous mech rising from the wreckage of several cars. At first
glance it looks like a Thrasher, but once I get a better look, I realize it’s
not a Thrasher but some second-rate, low-budget cousin. It looks like it’s been
cobbled together from scavenged parts; I swear its chest plate is the hood from
a school bus. There are exposed hydraulics, crude welds and, no lie,
pump-action shotguns bolted to its arms. It’s a Transformer filtered through
Larry the Cable Guy. I’d laugh if it hadn’t just caused several thousand
dollars in damage simply by landing.
    The mech sways on wobbly
legs, its hydraulics hissing like an old radiator. The man inside, his head
encased in a football helmet and surrounded by a dented roll cage of thick
steel pipes, swears under his breath.
    “Excuse me! You, in the
suit!” I shout. The pilot’s eyes pop when he sees me. “Hi. Could you do me a
favor and deactivate your, uh...this thing, before you cause any more damage?”
    “I didn’t do anything
wrong!” the man says. “And you’re not a cop, so you can’t arrest me!”
    What the huh? Okay, the guy
is on-edge, but I suppose that’s understandable, what with the crash landing
and all.
    “I didn’t plan to arrest
you, sir,” I say in my most soothing tone. This is what police call
de-escalation, an effort to put a jittery suspect at ease so he doesn’t do
something stupid and potentially harmful, to himself or others. “I do want you
to power down your suit, though. I don’t want anyone getting hurt here.”
    He eyes me, more than a
little suspiciously. “I don’t want to go to jail,” he says. Nervous sweat rolls
out from beneath his helmet.
    “Then I think you should
deactivate your suit and come on out. I’m thinking this was some sort of
accident, yeah?”
    “Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t — the
fuel mixture in the rockets — I didn’t think...”
    Oh, no kidding. “It’s all
right. No one got hurt, and that’s the important thing, right?”
    He nods. Okay, Carrie, he’s
calming down. Seal the deal; get him out of the suit before —
    A trio of police cruisers
screams into the parking lot. The cars skid to a halt, the drivers jump out.
Please, please do not pull your guns and scream at the guy.
    “DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW!”
    Well, crap.
    Whatever Zen we’d
established goes right out the window. Mech-man swings his suit around to
unload his shotguns on the cruisers. The cops dive for cover. Windshields
shatter. Tires blow out.
    A headshot would take him
out fast, but that would require a degree of control over my powers I don’t have
yet; I’m more likely to blast his head clean off his neck, and one thing I am
not is a killer. I go for the legs instead, hoping to take out a knee joint.
    Have I mentioned that my aim
is not spectacular?
    My blast goes a little high,
connecting with the mech’s thigh. It reels from the impact. Some kind of
reddish fluid spurts from the limb but it doesn’t go down. Worse, it reminds
the pilot I’m still here; the mech pivots to face me again.
    When