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“Embezzlin’?” came the voice over the radio.
“Nah.” The cop shook his head. Nadia felt a breeze from the movement. “Breakin’ NDA in the worst way. All of ’em, blasting client information out to the world for anyone to grab. Security tried to stop one of ’em, another one would step in. Got pretty violent. Can’t imagine why.”
“Don’t try to understand finance guys,” the radio cracked.
“Ten-four,” the cop snorted. “I’m goin’ back in.”
Nadia narrowed her eyes. Mass data breach? Not what she had been expecting at all.
“That’s not what they’re telling the press.” Tai’s voice reappeared in Nadia’s headset. “Carbon monoxide leak. Don’t know why they’d be arresting anyone over that, so it’s a pretty garbage cover story, but still.”
“So definitely something sinister,” confirmed Nadia. “Priya, what’s your location?”
“Just heading into the subway,” Priya responded, short of breath. “Might not make it.”
Nadia sucked in her bottom lip. She didn’t know if she had time to wait. And where were Shay and Ying? If they’d all been together at the lab…or if they’d all come to HoffTech with her…or if any of them besides Tai even knew about HoffTech…
Nadia let out a frustrated sigh. “Keep your ears open, Tai. Priya, let me know when you’re here. And if either of you hear from Shay and Ying, let me know.”
Feeling a little more energized than she had been a moment ago, Nadia pressed her hands into the fabric under her and launched herself from the cop’s shoulder. She zoomed toward the line of button-downs on the sidewalk. They were all struggling to escape the zip ties around their hands and ankles—unsuccessfully. Financial-office paraphernalia littered the sidewalk, things they must have wielded to use as weapons before they were subdued: pencils (sharp, good for stabbing), ledgers (large, good for bludgeoning), even a few VERAs (small but heavy; good for throwing).
She stopped just short of one of their faces. Nadia tilted her head as he fought against his zip ties. What would possess them all to do this? Poor working conditions? Not enough foosball tables in the office? Bad returns on their retirement plans? Finally learning the definition of “work-life balance”?
Suddenly, the man looked up, directly at Nadia. And there was something wrong with his eyes. His pupils—the black part in the middle—took up almost his entire iris. She could barely make out a rim of the blue that his eyes would have been normally; the black had expanded so far that it eclipsed everything else. A strong tide over the ocean. A pull that didn’t make sense.
NADIA’S NEAT SCIENCE FACTS!!!
Human eyes are disgusting, which also makes them excellent. There’s the white bit; that is the sclera. It is mostly collagen. Then there’s the color bit, the iris; and inside that, the black bit, the pupil. The iris is designed to grow or contract depending on how big the pupil needs to be at any given moment, like the aperture on a camera. The bigger the iris, the more light reaches your retina, which creates a two-dimensional picture of the world that your brain receives. When you’re in very bright light, your iris contracts and your pupil is teeny-tiny; that protects your retina from being like oh my gosh no stop it’s too much light I can’t see!!! But when you’re in darkness, your iris opens and your pupil gets huge (or “dilates”) so that you can take in as much light as possible to not bump into your desk next to your bed when you get up to go to the bathroom in the night.
Or, at least, that’s how things mostly work. Other things can cause a “mydriatic,” or unusually dilated, pupil. Your optometrist might put drops in your eyes that retract your iris, so that she can take a better look at the health of your retina. If you’re concentrating really hard on something, your pupil might expand. But the iris dilator can also be contracted by stimulation of your adrenergic receptors—basically, if your adrenaline is going, so are your pupils. So a blown pupil could mean that you are excited, or scared…or it could mean that you’re on amphetamines, cocaine, or any number of other drugs that you should not be messing with.
So, these guys. Scared out of their minds? Excited to be here? Or just really, really high?
“Get down!” There was a commotion behind Nadia, pulling her away from the man’s dark stare. She turned her head—three of the men coming out of the building had overpowered their guards and were charging them. The cops already had their weapons drawn. S.H.I.E.L.D. was nowhere to be found.
Nadia guessed she had only seconds before the police started firing. She didn’t have time to wait for Priya; she still didn’t know if she was going to hear from Shay or Ying at all; and there was only so much Tai could do from the lab. Nadia didn’t want anyone to get killed on the street today, not before she could find out exactly what these men were on or who was causing them to act like this. Blown-out pupils were a sure sign of adrenaline overload, for one reason or another. She would have to be careful in how she approached, but she would have to act quickly. She was running out of time—and she was on her own.
As usual, lately.
Because of her size, she moved faster than the men did, at least. Nadia did a backflip and sped toward the three men rushing the cops. She would have to be surgical in her precision if she wanted to bring the three of them down as quickly and painlessly as possible.
First, a foot to the trachea. Nadia laid herself out vertically and blasted directly into the first man’s throat. She didn’t have the time to watch, but she knew he would collapse to the ground in an attempt to catch his breath.
Fixable. Effective.
She kept her momentum going with a steep dive. She watched as the second man whipped a pair of standard office-supply scissors out like a throwing knife. She used her current force to twirl herself upward, aiming straight for the makeshift weapon. Nadia watched the scissors spin end-over-end in slow motion as she sped toward them. She would have to time this just right.
The scissor blades arced up and toward Nadia and she alighted onto them, running up the narrow edge toward the handle. Launching herself into the air, Nadia kicked down as hard as she could, changing the scissors’ trajectory and minimizing the potential threat. The kick served to fling her forward, and Nadia stretched her hands out in front of her, aiming directly for the second man’s solar plexus. Her palms connected and she felt the wind knock out of him with just a single blow. Nadia slipped to one side as the man doubled over and sped around him. She kicked off his back to launch herself forward again. The speed and pressure from her kickoff tipped the man forward, sending him to the ground next to his friend.
One left. Nadia zoomed upward, planning on attacking his trachea in the same way—but she wasn’t anticipating his fall. He tripped over the two men in front of him, sending him careening directly toward Nadia. At her current velocity she couldn’t make the proper adjustment and instead she went flying directly into the open V of his button-down as he fell forward.
So here she was. Down some drugged-up finance boy’s shirt, accosted by what was probably “Preposterone”-scented antiperspirant, trying to quickly come up with a way to stop this man from getting back up again and probably getting himself shot in the process.
Nadia recognized that this was her own fault. She could have just gone straight home. Just gotten right on the bus to the E and then another bus and she would have been home. She could have finished an episode of a podcast. Maybe two episodes!
But instead, she was staring at a guy’s gigantic hairy nipple.
Moderate-to-medium on the death ray scale. For sure.
