Stone Walls - Part One

Nothing about NOPD Detective Lou Sonesta's physical demeanor conveyed strength of any kind. The top of his head was bald, and the remaining hair clinging tenuously to his skull was wispy and ineffectually combed over the bald spot in feeble strands. His puffy eyes were set behind glasses with thick lenses obviously divided into bifocal prescriptions. His cheeks and jawline and double-chin were almost babylike in their meek softness. He was overweight, and the adipose rolls had plainly never been muscle, hanging loosely from small bones and encased in pasty skin. He dressed in ill-fitting clothes that showed advanced age by way of frayed stitching, faded colors, disconnection from current fashions, and ageless stains.

Detective Sonesta had not exactly cultivated his look of debility, but he had never made any effort to rid himself of any aspect of it. In fact, he had found that it aided him in his work more often than not. When he spoke to anyone in an official capacity, whether it was interviewing a witness on the streets or interrogating a suspect in a windowless precinct room, Sonesta found himself constantly underestimated, which actually made people more forthcoming. The most anti-authoritarian citizens could not detect an iota of authority in Sonesta's bearing, and were more cooperative as a result. Thugs and punks were downright boastful, believing they could gloat about their illicit activities and face no reprisals from the slow, doughy detective. They felt confident that, if need be, they could run, and he could never catch them. If need be, they could take a punch from Sonesta – assuming he even knew how to throw one – and they could probably knock him out with one punch of their own. All of which was true.

Detective Sonesta never reminded any of those bragging lowlifes and wiseguys that it took very little strength to pull the trigger of a gun. Or that no perp could outrun a bullet, even if a slow and doughy detective was the one shooting them in the back as they ran. Sonesta knew all of this was true from experience, but he kept it to himself. Some who tested him ended up learning it the hard way.

As Detective Sonesta sat across from the teenaged girl a couple of beat cops had picked up, sleeping in the backseat of a car that had been reported stolen, he suspected he wouldn't need the gun. She had floppy hair that was light brown at the roots but had been aggressively dyed to its ends; the color had probably started out as a deep blue but now was the color of the mold that would grow on a piece of bread that fell behind the fridge. Her ears, eyebrows, nose and lip were pierced multiple times, and she slouched in a black hoodie sweatshirt several sizes too big for her. She hadn't given her name, but Sonesta didn't need it. "Now, ma'am, if you'll just tell me anything you might remember about the driver of the car …" he simpered.

"I don't know nothin'," the girl scowled.

"I understand if you're reluctant to name names, but even a description would be appreciated," Sonesta continued. "And once you cooperate to that extent you'll be free to go."

"Don't. Know. Nothin," the girl insisted. She sniffed mucus loudly, then rubbed the bridge of her nose so hard she seemed to be trying to abrade it off her face.

"Ma'am, please …" Sonesta sighed.

"I don't know how that car got there," the girl snapped, "and I don't even know how I got th - -"

"Lie to me one more time and I'll tear your guts out with my teeth," Sonesta barked suddenly, the words tumbling from him in a savage and guttural voice that was utterly incompatible with his woeful appearance.

The girl sat up straight in her chair, leaning as far back from the table as possible, her eyes wide with fear. She blinked several times, trying to reconcile the sight of the police officer with the presence he was now radiating. "I … I … I don't know the guy real well but his name is Jody something and he lives over in the Iberville projects," she blurted.

Detective Sonesta nodded, not trusting himself to speak yet. Never in his life had he so much as raised his voice at another human being, let alone made a threat of violence. He had killed, of course, but always in a detached, dispassionate way, and with a certain regret. But at the moment, he relished the thought of rending flesh and feeling hot blood spurt against his skin. The feeling was almost overwhelming.

Sonesta took a few deep, quieting breaths and the bloodlust subsided. But even when he felt fully in control of himself once again, he was intensely aware of a small weight in his pants pocket, the weight of a small coin-like object that Detective Koelemay had given him the day before. Lou Sonesta was not a man of great imagination, but he began to wonder where Koelemay had obtained the unusual metal disc, and he began to suspect that in the darker reaches of the night, far more destructive elements than car thieves and drug addicts might be waiting to cross his path.

A dozen figures stood in a small clearing between cypress trees, ankle deep in moss-covered water. Half of them stood relatively close to one another, evincing a certain familiar camaraderie, while the remainders each kept a wary distance from one another and from the set of six.

Walter Reinhart, dressed in his navy blue and ice white Headhunter uniform with its hood tipped back onto his shoulders, stood at the center of the sextet of LocoForce members: Silencer clad in green and yellow and equipped with steel wrist magnums; Loki in lurid purple, his demented waning-moon head grinning nightmarishly; Genocide standing a head taller than any of his fellows, armored in chrome-like metal plate and cradling his crimson alien weapon; Bayonet bare-chested, wearing only blue jeans and cowboy boots as usual; and Protocol, sheathed in the azure, white and red of his heavily retooled Checkmate suit. "This is the last stop before we're in sight of Belle Reve," Headhunter announced, calmly lighting a cigarette. "Is everyone absolutely aware of what they're supposed to do once we get there?"

"Clear you a pathway in," one of the standoffish individuals answered; it was readily apparent that the question was not directed at the members of LocoForce, but at their mercenary reinforcements. The answerer was an assassin called Bolt, garbed in a tight black body suit with a pale blue skull in front of a jagged yellow lightning bolt on his chest, and masked with a yellow domino attached to a black cowl.

"What's less obvious is why exactly you want to get in there," another member of the group stated. He was codenamed Probe, outfitted entirely in bulky gray biomechanics except for his head, which was dominated by oversized circuit-etched goggles with bulbous purple lenses.

"Who cares, as long as we get paid what we're promised?" came a growled rebuttal from a mercenary called Deadline, dressed in what appeared to be black and gold riot gear, including a red-visored helmet with a red bar sinister in the middle of the forehead. His jaw was stubbled and he sneered as he spoke.

"Just seems odd, trying to get into a place that everyone inside of wants to get out of," agreed Hellhound, a man in a dog-headed cowl with steel fangs framing the lower half of his face, part of a blood-red costume overlaid with brown leathers.

"I wouldn't worry about what seems odd to you," Headhunter advised, exhaling a plume of cigarette smoke. "Clear a path, as Bolt put it, and leave the rest to me. If I give you additional orders once we meet resistance at Belle Reve, follow them without question and without hesitation. If you do, you will indeed be paid as per our arrangement. If not …" he shrugged. "I cannot be held responsible for what may befall you."

"Huh. I'd be up for this even without the money," the least human of the assembled villains boomed amidst a clatter of metal. The hitman known as Shrapnel was a humanoid pile of razor-edged shards of organic metal. His eyes gleamed cruelly under a leaden beetle brow. "I just wanna blow stuff up."

"Not all of us are so generous with our talents," another mercenary countered. His long dark hair fell around a devil's mask which covered nearly all of his face, crowned with curved ivory horns. He attired himself only in baggy pants, the same orange-red as his mask, but his hands crackled with a violent energy, the source of his moniker, Shatterfist.

"Everyone has their varied reasons," Headhunter nodded. He dropped his cigarette into the swampy groundwater, and it hissed as its burning tip was extinguished. "Now, gentlemen, let's be about our business."

"'Bout time," Bayonet grunted. "This swamp water's muckin' up my boots."

Belle Reve Penitentiary bore more than a little resemblance to a castle, given its squarish footprint, its foreboding exterior of concrete and reinforced steel, and especially the towers rising up at its four corners. Each tower was surmounted by an observation room with beveled Plexiglas walls seamed in black iron. Prison guards in full riot gear manned the observatories, their eyes hidden behind smoky polycarbonate visors but doubtless tracking the paths of searchlights sweeping the marshlands surrounding the penitentiary. And atop one of the towers, on the roof of its observation room, stood seven figures.

"I am going to be really put out if Headhunter no-shows," Ember said, swinging his arms in wide loops as if warming up for an athletic event. "I mean, I could have been in a corporate box at the Metropolis Arena for the Nanda Parbat MMA League championships. Now I can't even ask Clotty to record it for me."

"Yeah, sorry this Eisenhower-era robot chassis doesn't get satellite television feed for pay-per-views," the artificial intelligence program grumbled around a clenched pipe stem. "My heart really bleeds for you."

"He'll show," Hangfire put in, not looking at either Ember or Clotty. "We've got it from multiple sources. Not that I necessarily trust any one of them a hundred percent, but all together, it's close enough. He'll show."

"We wouldn't have shown up here uninvited if we weren't sure of that, at least," Valence added.

"Yes, well, I should hope so," agreed a bearded man whose rumpled khaki slacks and faded blue Belle Reve Staff polo shirt hung awkwardly on his portly, middle-aged frame. Warden John Economos adjusted his glasses. "It was a bit outside of our standard procedure to hear from you about a potential jailbreak in the first place."

"I'm sure you're more accustomed to dealing with the likes of the Justice League when there's a problem with an attempted escape," Karnival nodded, ghostly tongues of flame flickering from the crack in his demonic skull. "You're probably more comfortable with them, too. But while you can count on them to show up when a situation escalates, trust me, by the time any of them could get here once Headhunter attacked, he and Minotaur and all their buddies would be long gone. That's why we're here."

"Plus, it's a little bit personal," Sojourn added.

Economos shook his head. "Personal or not, I expect you to play this by my rules. I am responsible for every inmate in Belle Reve and I don't want any of them accidentally turned into collateral damage in the crossfire, understood?"

"If this plays out the way we think it will," Valence said, "there may not be much we can do about that. Headhunter's got no qualms about offing whoever's in his way, and I don't know how your inmates feel about playing by your rules normally, but if a full-scale riot breaks out …" He shrugged.

"We'll do the best we can," Karnival assured the warden.

"I suppose we will," Economos said resignedly. He lifted a hatch on the roof and lowered himself down a ladder into the observation room, leaving the members of Bad Blood to continue their vigil atop the tower.

As Economos stepped off the last rung of the ladder, the door to the stairwell opened. Amanda Waller stepped through, her crisp business attire and sheer girth instantly becoming a focus of attention, as usual. Waller eyed Economos, crossing her arms and drumming her nails against the sleeves of her India green blazer. "They still here?"

Economos nodded. "But I think we have an understanding."

"I still don't like it," Waller scowled. "Too unpredictable."

"Moreso than your Suicide Squad?" Economos asked, incredulous.

"Better the devil that you know," Waller replied.

"More like the devil you have clapped in an explosive bracelet," Economos countered.

Waller crossed the small room and approached one of the Plexiglas walls; the two guards standing watch against it made room for her. She looked down in the inner yard of Belle Reve, where the Suicide Squad was clustered near the center. Waller pulled a small handset from the inner pocket of her blazer and spoke into it. "How's it looking so far?"

"We're fine, Waller," the Bronze Tiger answered, speaking directly into the relay mic built into the muzzle of his namesake mask.

"Speak for yourself," the Crime Doctor sniffed. "I don't understand why I'm here. I do all my best work after the dust has settled and an altercation's losers have been strapped down, sedated, and scrubbed with antiseptic. How am I supposed to contribute to this … this imminent brawl?"

"Better figure out a way," Skorpio rejoined, flexing his blade-tipped fingers in anticipation. Beneath his skintight black-on-green bodysuit, his muscles twitched eagerly.

"Or find a place to hide," Siren suggested, smiling wickedly. Statuesque, with long blond hair, chartreuse skin and fish-scaled legs, she scanned the skies visible above the prison walls with an air of self-satisfied expectation.

The black-masked Electrocutioner held his hands apart in front of his face, as if playing a game of cats cradle. Crackling arcs sparked back and forth between his palms, casting sharp shadows against his deep red costume. "Don't worry, Doc. It'll all be over before you know it. It'll go by in a real fast blur. You won't even be able to keep track of it. No one will."

"You may be right, Buchinsky," Bronze Tiger said. "We could be headed for so much chaos that it will seem like the easiest thing in the world to slip away. But those bracelets on all of you don't have to keep track of anything except your position relative to the prison's perimeter. And I guarantee if you try to overload yours with electricity, that'll just set it off."

The arcs intensified between Electrocutioner's gloved hands for a moment, then disappeared. "I hear you," the Electrocutioner glowered.

"Why would any of us even want to slip away," Backlash asked, idly rubbing his freshly shaved head and causing the spikes on his leather jacket to jingle, "when all we have to do is stomp on whoever shows up? Sounds like a fun way to earn a pardon to me."

"Better safe than …" Bronze Tiger trailed off as an unnaturally cold wind blew through the Belle Reve yard. Heavy, bruise-colored clouds rolled in rapidly from all corners of the sky. The thunderheads collided directly above the prison, setting off a series of light detonations in their depths, culminating in a dazzling bolt of lightning which slashed downward and struck the transformer huddled against the north wall. The lightning strike was accompanied by a roaring boom of thunder and shriek of rending metal, and left the transformer a twisted, smoldering wreck. The searchlights along the walls and the lights within the observation rooms and small, grated cell windows fell dark. The thunderheads disgorged an icy rain, each drop like a stinging needle driven by the winds.

"Genocide's handiwork," Valence surmised.

"And here I thought somebody was trying to have a picnic, and it always rains on picnics," Ember scoffed.

In the darkness created by the storm, a huge pale shape could just barely be seen rising beyond the wall. An errant flash of lightning revealed it as a growing column of ice, gaining height and mass from the gelid streams whooshing from Headhunter's gauntlets. He and the rest of LocoForce and their mercenary allies stood atop the flat crown of the column, and when it had risen twenty feet higher than the prison wall, LocoForce attacked.

Bayonet, Deadline and Bolt took to the air, while Headhunter created an ice slide down into the yard for those who could not fly. Shrapnel and Genocide led the way down the frozen ramp, followed by Loki, Protocol, Hellhound, Silencer, Probe and Shatterfist. Headhunter remained on the ice column, surveying the battlefield below.

"Go time," Hangfire said, drawing a pair of compact grenade launchers from straps around his thighs. Clotty snapped his fedora tight over his eyes, put one arm around Hangfire's ribcage, another around Karnival's, and lifted off the roof of the tower. Sojourn faded to her gauzy spirit-walker form and stepped into mid-air; Ember ignited and Valence fluxed as the two soared into the heart of the prison.

Shrapnel charged across the prison yard, rectilinear limbs pumping, heading directly for the Suicide Squad. Skorpio and Backlash placed themselves in his path. Backlash's arms oozed apart into dark, amorphous tentacles which whipped out and snared Shrapnel's waist. Skorpio leapt fleetly over Shrapnel, raking his toxin-coated claws across Shrapnel's head.

Shrapnel ignored Skorpio, whose blades could do little to pierce his metallic hide. He wrapped a massive hand around Backlash's tentacles and yanked the neo-Nazi off his feet, then tossed him aside. Backlash cartwheeled through the rain, his tentacles flailing wildly. Shrapnel continued to run, heading for the opposite side of the prison yard.

The emergency underground generators for the prison finally powered up, and the lights in the yard returned. Glowing circles raced across the yard and picked out the invaders in high-contrast glare. In the observation rooms, iron bands retracted and Plexiglas walls parted in modern arrow slits, and the muzzles of M-32s emerged. The riot guns barked and bullets strafed the yard, spanging off Shrapnel's exterior and tearing into the dirt.

Genocide, Probe, Hellhound and Shatterfist continued to follow Shrapnel, but Silencer, Protocol, and Loki stood to return fire. Silencer's wrist magnums blazed and left pock marks running up the wall of the nearest tower, then found their mark and smashed the lens of one of the searchlights. Protocol's armor launched incendiary grenades at the opposite tower; the charges exploded against the Plexiglas and coated it with a sticky fire accelerant that burned blindingly hot. Loki created the illusion of a giant worm-like creature with a spiny head like a sea urchin attacking another one of the towers, temporarily distracting the prison guards within its observatory.

Ember and Valence swooped down into the fray. With two fists aflame, Ember hammered the back of Silencer's head and sent the assassin to the ground. Protocol turned and opened fire on Ember, but the incoming salvo was melted in the superhot aura of Ember's body as he intensified his own calefaction. Valence pursued Shrapnel, reaching out with his magnetism to halt the metal heap's progress. Shrapnel struggled against the magnetic field, slowed to a crawl but still inexorably inching forward.

Clotty landed in the yard with a final braking thrust of his heel jets, setting Karnival and Hangfire on the ground. Karnival quickly closed on Loki, surrounded by spectral images of hellish weaponry carved from bone and studded with thorns, an armory of swords and axes and morningstars and pikes whirling with life of their own. Loki's jagged grin widened as he brought forth a horde of horrific beasts, their bodies nothing more than taut, dark-veined membranes with clawed limbs waggling at the corners. The illusionists attacked each other with their phantasms, each one straining to find a mental weakness in the other to exploit and punish.

Hangfire drew a bead on Protocol and fired two concussion grenades at the Russian's feet. The charges blew and the force lifted Protocol off his feet, but he recovered quickly and landed in a braced crouch, weapons trained on Hangfire. Bronze Tiger vaulted at Protocol and adeptly kicked his wrists, sending the blasts off-target, well wide of Hangfire.

Deadline, standing on twin flying discs, hovered directly above Valence and aimed his plasma gun. Bayonet, gliding on his metal wings, and Bolt, held aloft on his tech-suit's underarm sails, traced a circular path around Deadline, similarly focused on Valence. The three villains attacked in unison, Bolt firing searing reddish-orange energy from his fingertips, Bayonet projecting pitch black blasts from his fists, Deadline shooting lurid pink plasma rounds. The barrage crashed against Valence's back and drove him deep into the muddy prison yard, leaving him well below ground level. The electromagnetic shackles fell away from Shrapnel, who resumed his laborious run.

Clotty was in the air immediately, his thin tie snapping over his shoulder in the wind. The robot barreled toward Deadline, who smirked at his approach. With the speed of a guided missile, Clotty passed completely through Deadline, who had activated his dispersal device and become completely intangible.

Ember rocketed toward Bolt, but the assassin teleported a short distance away, leaving Ember to swing his fists through empty air. Ember turned tightly and backtracked through the howling wind and freezing rain, but was still too slow, as Bolt teleported away again. "I can do this all night!" he crowed.

"That's what she said," Ember muttered.

Siren lifted her face up to the rainclouds and called out melodically, "Truce!" The single word was a sustained note that pierce the din of the battle in the prison yard and carried straight to Bayonet's ears. The Cajun descended rapidly and alit in front of Siren, lasciviously looking her curvaceous body up and down. She smiled back at him knowingly. "Surely there's enough people fighting on both sides that two of us can excuse ourselves, hmmm?" she asked.

"Might could be," Bayonet approved. "Gotta say you look like the kind who likes a good fight, though."

"Oh, I do," Siren admitted. "But it has to be against someone who can give me a real challenge." She imbued every word with resonantly seductive meaning.

"A real man, huh?" Bayonet said. He stepped closer, hooked his arm and flexed his biceps for Siren.

She laid her hands on his upper arm. "Nice," she purred.

"Glad you think so," he sneered, popping the steel blade out of his forearm and slashing out with it. Blood sprayed from Siren's bare green midriff as she staggered backwards. Bayonet laughed and flew away.

Shrapnel reached the prison wall and crouched against it. His entire body exploded, flechettes of metal spraying outward from a flash brighter than the lightning overhead and a cannonade harsher than the cracks of thunder rolling across the bayou. In the wake of Shrapnel's self-detonation, the wall was deeply scarred, with blocks of concrete awkwardly displaced and scorched rebar protruding like broken bones.

Instantly the invading villains focused all of their attention on the weakened wall. From above, Bayonet's darkforce, Bolt's energy lances and Deadline's plasma bursts rained down. Genocide's alien rifle added a hail of ionic fury, accompanied by Probe's lasers. Silencer, still lying on his belly, and Protocol, distractedly parrying strikes from Bronze Tiger, added their own firepower. Shatterfist approached the wall and pummeled it with his coruscating knuckles, with Hellhound watching his back and brandishing twin knives against the encroaching Skorpio.

The single-mindedness of LocoForce and their allies left them vulnerable to attack. The Electrocutioner grabbed Silencer's shoulders and sent a high-voltage current through the marksman, turning Silencer's limbs into useless, quivering jelly. A sniper's bullet fired from one of the tower observatories tore through Shatterfist's shoulder, spinning him violently. Ember was finally able to catch Bolt, who yowled at the searing pain of Ember's grasp but continued to lash the prison wall with energy blasts. Ember's flames burned brighter, until a chunk of ice smashed into his forehead and knocked him away from Bolt.

Headhunter was swiftly traversing the yard of Belle Reve, hurling frozen projectiles as he slid along a floe of ice. Ember's inherent defense against Headhunter's power had reduced a devastating attack to a mere distraction, but others were less fortunate. Bronze Tiger, Backlash and Hangfire found themselves encased in solid ice mounds from the neck down. Clotty was iced over and plummeted from the sky. Headhunter bypassed the maelstrom of madness that had engulfed Karnival and Loki, and arrived at the prison wall just as the final, ablative effects of the superpowered siege became manifest. A huge gash opened in the prison wall, choked at the bottom with smoking rubble. Headhunter never broke his stride, sliding up over the debris and into Belle Reve. Probe scrambled after him, and Bayonet dove through the gaping wound in the wall as well. The rest of the villains turned their backs on the improvised entryway and readied themselves to defend it.

Hangfire and Clotty were held fast in frost-edged coffins, and Valence was shakily pulling himself out of the small crater in the mud his impact had caused. Karnival remained locked in mental struggle with Loki. Ember looped evasively against the stormclouds, pursued by Deadline and Bolt. Sojourn, incorporeal, floated nearby and desperately tried to think of some spirit-oriented contribution she could make against the heavily armed mercenaries. Bronze Tiger and Backlash were also immobilized under ice; Siren clutched her bloody stomach as the Crime Doctor knelt over her and attempted to field dress the laceration; the Electrocutioner and Skorpio exchanged frustrated looks as they weighed their own hand-to-hand powers against the range of lethalities they faced. The Belle Reve guards provided the only constant rebuff of LocoForce in a hail of bullets.

Genocide hefted his scarlet weapon and sighted one of the tower observatories. A garish saber of power screamed through the storm and struck the Plexiglas shields. A moment later the top half of the tower blew apart with hurricane force, scattering guards in all directions like human-shaped confetti, and the sky reverberated like chaotic war drums of a primitive god.

When the braying of klaxons began to echo down the prison corridors, Minotaur set aside the book he had been reading and stood up from his cell's reinforced cot. He approached the door of his cell, a slab of promethium-vanadium alloy which generated its own power-dampening field. Minotaur could feel the strength fading from his musculature as he stood on the threshold of the cell. He backed away from the door, and his skin crawled with the sensation of his power returning.

Minotaur picked up his cot and methodically crumpled the metal frame into a rough sphere. He heaved the mass at the door, embedding the wad of steel in a puckered divot. He sunk his fingers into the steel basin attached to the cell wall and ripped it free, compressed it, and threw the mangled metal at the door, indenting the surface again. Finally he tore up the cell's steel toilet and flung it at the door, creating the biggest furrow in its surface yet.

Minotaur turned around, braced the sole of his right foot against the wall, and kicked out mightily, throwing himself across the cell. The weakened power-dampening field near the door sapped someof his strength, but none of the momentum of his body hurtling into the metal. With a contorted clang the cell door was sheared off its hinges, and Minotaur tumbled into the prison corridor.

He stood up and reflexively dusted off his orange jumpsuit, then heard the door of the next cell spring open and ring against the wall. "Not so fast, Minotaur."

"I bet you've been practicing that line for a while," Minotaur said, slowly turning around to face his neighbor, a recent transfer from the Slab and another powerhouse like himself. Every door in their wing of Belle Reve was of similar power-dampening construction, yet the abutting cell's door had opened as if unlocked, rather than needing to be bashed off its hinges. Minotaur could now see why. His fellow inmate still showed thick black-wax arms protruding from the jumpsuit sleeves, but had removed the chitinous mask, revealing a bald head, a blue domino mask and a brunet goatee.

More shook his head disapprovingly at Minotaur. "Parole board isn't going to look too kindly on destruction of prison property like that," Bad Blood's strongman sighed.

"Not my problem," Minotaur replied coolly. He showily cracked his knuckles. "Shouldn't be yours, either, but you just can't help yourself, can you?"

More's only response was to raise his fists and grin fiercely.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

Send e-mail correspondence to badblood51@hotmail.com

NEXT ISSUE: Stone Walls continues! Bad Blood and the Suicide Squad try to contain the damage at Belle Reve, and prevent a major escape of the prison population! And amidst the chaos comes the revelation of an even more sinister agenda!