Mom, I'm Bulletproof

Chapter 7.5: Still Got Some Fight

Amy ran at the man nearest to her and slammed into him elbow first, finding she still had some of her strength. He fell over, but only for a second, as Amy reached down, picked him up, and threw him at the nearest two other men.

Her pursuers raised their weapons again. Amy darted forward and pulled the gun from the nearest attacker and slapped his forehead, dazing him. She used his partially conscious body as a shield as the adhesive bullets hit him instead of her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Amy spotted an emergency fire exit. She lifted her human shield up and grabbed his ankles.

"What're you..." he began. Holding him by the ankles, Amy used the man's body as a crude club, knocking the other men out of her path as she ran for the exit. Those beyond her reach fired more ibuprofen at her, further staining her cape, and seeping through her uniform some more.

She threw her makeshift club aside and ran for the door. Amy shattered it open with a punch, and she jumped down the stairs and into the building. At the bottom of the stairs and in a maintenance hallway, Amy ducked around a corner and waited for her attackers to follow. When the lead jetpack man poked his head around the corner, Amy lashed out with her arm, striking his chin. Grasping for air, the man fell backward, slowing down the others behind him.

Amy heard the revving up of the jetpacks from higher up the stairs. She jumped up and punched, forcing her fist into the ceiling above her. She pulled downward as hard as she could, bringing several layers of the ceiling down with her, and blocking the opening to the stairwell.

Amy paused for a moment, breathing in the dust and wreckage of the now-destroyed hallway.

At first, she didn't understand what her own body was doing. Her chest rose up and down involuntarily. Her arms and legs felt numb. Amy almost panicked, but then remembered this is what it felt like to be out of breath.

She hurried down the hallway and into the building's top floor offices. From there, she jogged down another hallway, this one nicely carpeted with posh artwork on the walls, heading toward a large picture window at one end.

Amy ran toward the window, punching the glass and breaking it outward. From behind her, Amy saw more jetpack men, who had forced their way through the debris at the stairs and found their way to her.

They started firing, and as a few more silver blobs hit her, Amy knew what she had to do. She turned away from them and jumped out the window.

Outside, with the wind rushing once more against her face, Amy fell. She closed her eyes like before and concentrated on flying again. Instead of soaring through the air, it was all she could do to slow down her fall, stopping and hovering a few seconds here and there, until she finally slammed back-first into the sidewalk.

A small crowd of pedestrians gathered, as they tended to do whenever Amy came in for a landing, but this time it was different.

"Is that U.S. Amy?" she heard one say.

Amy rolled over onto her stomach and got onto all fours. Her normally bright uniform was darkened all over by silvery slime, which also covered her face and arms, and was tangled into her hair.

Gunshots rang out from high above her, and more sticky blobs splattered onto her and onto the ground all around her. The pedestrians smartened up and ran off.

Hovering above her, the men in jetpacks fired down on Amy, until her body collapsed.

The barrage of bullets stopped, and the men floated downward and landed, surrounding Amy, who was now completely covered in the stick, silvery ooze.

"We got her," one of them said.

A boot struck Amy's ribs, knocking her on her side. A couple of rock-hard objects thudded against the side of her body. She assumed the men were using their guns as clubs.

When they stopped, Amy opened one eye. A black boot stood right in front of her face. She reached forward, grabbed it, and pulled. The man fell onto his butt and the others stepped back.

"Easy does it," one said. "She's still got some fight in her."

Amy hoped to throw the man in front of her at the other men, but she no longer had the strength.

"No," another man said. "She's down."

Keeping hold of on the man's ankle, Amy willed herself to move. The man tried to get onto his feet, but Amy reached forward, grabbing his belt, and pulling him down to the ground again.

"Get her off of me," he said.

Two gloved hands fell onto Amy's shoulders, separating her from the man. Amy spotted some small buttons on the jetpack's shoulder strap. As she reached for them, the other man pulled her back, so they were just out of reach.

"Don't even think about it," the man behind her said.

Amy shut her eyes and clenched her teeth, reaching for those buttons that she knew were right in front of her.

Amy heard police sirens, followed by screeching tired, car doors opening, and guns clicking.

"Freeze!" a cop said.

Several of the men's jetpacks roared, sending them skyward. A few others trained their weapons on the police, but the cops were faster on the trigger, sending some of them off their feet as the bullets hit their body armor.

With a final push, Amy reached forward and pressed her fingers down onto the jetpack controls of the man nearest to her.

"Don't do that," he said. Amy started pressing buttons, and it did the trick. His pack hummed to life and shot him through the air, with her hanging onto him. At first, they flew down the sidewalk, speeding along a few feet above ground level. Not in control of his direction, the man's arms and legs dangled around as he smacked into car doors and windows the two of them zipped along. Amy's legs dangled behind her as well, with all of her focus on holding onto the man's jetpack. She pulled downward as hard as she could, bending his torso so it was perpendicular to the ground.

The jetpack shot them both straight up. The man clawed at the controls but couldn't pry Amy's fingers off of them.

"You're going to kill us both!" he screamed.

Amy could tell how high they were, based on her years of experience flying around Boston. She kept her fingers pressed down on the pack's accelerator.

Amy allowed herself a moment to welcome the familiar sight of the city's bird's eye view. The difference was that instead of her flying freely, she could feel gravity pulling on her as she grasped her enemy's jetpack. Her arms ached, but she wasn't about to let go. She couldn't feel anything below her waist.

Amy looked down and recognized the harbor at the southeast of the city. By giving her attacker a good, hard tug, she aimed them both in that direction.

"Stop it!" he cried. "Just let go."

Once over the lake, Amy gave him his wish and let go. Amy tried to think of falling like flying, giving herself over to gravity and just letting it guide her.

It must have worked, because she was soon surrounded by the cold, murky waters of the lake. Her limbs were still too weak for actual swimming, but childhood training kicked in, and she knew to float on the surface of the water. Amy felt the silvery slime break up and slide off her body.

She closed her eyes again and controlled her breathing, feeling herstrength return to her, bit by bit. She worried her pals with the jetpackswould come back for her, but they never showed. Amy hoped the cops would get atleast a couple of them.

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Next: Safehouse.