Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.70 - Icarus 1

Icarus flitted through cyberspace at a speed that few others could comprehend, let alone match. Except for TINA and Mod... Well, Icarus was definitely faster than Bastion. Maybe.

That wasn't entirely fair, was it? Going from being the first and fastest in cyberspace to the slowest... Icarus sighed. If the others were faster, it's because they stood on the shoulders of children. Something like that.

McGuire was rubbing off on him. Maybe they all were. Or maybe they'd just subtly given Icarus permission to be the carefree cyberspace pixie that he always had been. Gah—they had even given him a low-grade existential crisis when he was supposed to be focusing!

Icarus flew through cyberspace toward Belport. Clara's group was the first stop. Of all the fights going on across the world, the battle outside Belport felt the most hectic.

Icarus took in data as only a child-turned-AI could. He hoped that the team was actually doing better than they looked from afar, but that hope was quickly dashed. If anything, seeing things clearly only cemented his earlier assumptions. Hectic was the best way to describe the situation... definitely the only polite way to describe it.

The tiny digital pixie slipped into Clara's direct comm line.

"What can I do to help?"

Clara answered with a roar.

She tore into a heavy drone, ripping through its armor with molten hands. Her armor was going critical, which probably wasn't good because her armor was rated for a near-meltdown. Which meant that she was teetering right on the breaking point.

"Hey Clara, I can help, really—"

"Just get out of my ear and stay out of my way!"

Icarus flinched and recoiled back into cyberspace. Sheesh. Intellectually, Icarus knew it wasn't personal, but the child-like kernel deep down did not like seeing Clara like that.

He pushed the thought aside and slipped through cyberspace and into Belport. McGuire and Duplicity had just finished hacking Aquarius and were on the run. They were hoverboarding across rooftops, narrowly evading several supers and drones. For a brief window, they'd had some friendly drones as cover, but those had been destroyed.

Icarus then proceeded to borrow some of TINA's nearby swarm and slip into the pursuing Fast-Response drones. Hopefully TINA and Bastion were too preoccupied with their war to notice or to care.

~

In physical space, Icarus saw through the cameras and sensors of drones and the swarm. They raced over the rooftops, quickly catching up to McGuire and Duplicity. The pair were still on the back of McGuire's hoverboard and making pretty decent time.

The problem was, Duplicity was still firing that crazy automatic slingshot.

Icarus's swarm coalesced into a silvery pixie. Then Icarus waved his hands. "Stop shooting!"

Duplicity squinted. "Icarus? What are you doing here?!"

"Trying to help you!"

McGuire called back, "What's going on back there?"

"Nevermind," Duplicity shouted. "Dodge left!"

McGuire veered the hoverboard, taking both him and Duplicity over the edge of a four-story building. McGuire kicked for additional thrust, barely keeping control and barely getting them to the next rooftop. They hit the roof, the hoverboard scraping as it bottomed out.

"What was that for?" McGuire asked incredulously.

An explosion tore across the rooftop—exactly where they'd been a second ago. Both McGuire and Duplicity flinched as chunks of brick rained down on them. The two of them muttered back and forth while flying.