Chapter 171 Trap.

Chapter 171: 171 Trap.

I came to a dead halt, my armored boots touching down lightly on the heavy iron grating.

I cast my magnetic field outward, letting it ripple through the dark like an invisible sonar. Immediately, the pings came back.

Tiny, jagged pockets of cheap steel and iron moving toward me from multiple vectors.

A couple dropping from the upper drainage pipes. One or two flanking from the side spillways, and... ah, hello. A squad moving in from behind, sealing the exit.

But the main contingent was marching straight through the front door.

I crossed my arms over my chest and didn’t have to wait long. Out of the pitch-black tunnel ahead came the faint, predatory gleam of eyes, followed by the shambling, hunched silhouettes of the Dredges.

They were not pretty, that was for damn sure. But when your entire genetic lineage consists of literal lab rats mutated by unscrupulous corporate scientists and flushed down the toilet, you generally don’t come out looking like a cover model.

Most were draped in filthy, stitched-together rags, but a few sported scavenged cast-off jeans, faded t-shirts, and other cheap clothing that had washed down into the filtration grates.

Their weapons were equally crude, but entirely serviceable. Just like I’d sensed, pretty much all of them were packing heat, and despite the clearly abused, rusted nature of the firearms, I had little doubt those guns could still punch a hole through standard Kevlar.

Those who didn’t have firearms gripped heavy spears, serrated trench knives, or chunks of rebar wrapped in duct tape.

I locked onto their leader immediately. He was massive—easily two heads taller than the rest of the pack, his frame dense with thick, unnatural muscle.

He wore a rotting naval pea jacket, the front completely undone to reveal a torso covered in coarse gray fur.

A heavy industrial chain was wrapped tightly around one thick forearm, ending in a vicious steel meat hook. One of his mousy ears was heavily notched, and tarnished metal data-plugs from whatever black-site experiment he’d escaped from were still violently embedded in his skull.

His beady, glowing eyes held a razor-sharp, brutal intelligence. The kind of intelligence it was deeply unwise to fuck with.

"I Rattacan!" the massive rat-man growled, his guttural voice echoing off the damp walls. "What you want want here?"

I slowly raised my hands in a universal gesture of peace—but I simultaneously let my magnetic aura flare outward, invisibly wrapping around the firing pins, barrels, and blades clutched in the mutants’ hands.

"I’m not looking for any trouble," I said, letting my helmet’s external speakers amplify my voice into a calm, authoritative baritone. "You’ve got a guest trespassing in your territory. I have business with him."

Rattacan bared his yellowed fangs, snapping his jaws angrily.

"You speak speak of Mind! Yes. He here here. But none speak speak with him!"

"You’re protecting him," I noted, tilting my head. "Why?"

"He kill kill if we not!" Rattacan spat, gripping his chain tighter.

"Ah. Well, that makes things considerably easier," I said.

And I twitched my fingers.

Dozens of mutants yelped, hissed, and shrieked as their weapons were violently wrenched from their grips. Rifles, pistols, and rusted machetes tore out of their hands, flying up into the damp air.

I gave my wrist a casual, theatrical twirl. Every single weapon suddenly flipped mid-air, hovering perfectly still, the barrels and jagged points aimed directly back at the faces of their former owners.

Everything froze.

I waited a couple of heavy heartbeats for the absolute reality of the situation to sink in, then I let my powers slowly lift my boots off the grating.

I floated up into the exact center of the domed room, suspended in the mist, making it crystal clear to every mutant in the room that their lives were currently hanging by a magnetic thread.

It shouldn’t have felt quite so good. But it did. That sheer, overwhelming disparity of force was intoxicating. Was it any wonder so many people who got powers instantly went into the supervillain business?

"I don’t want any trouble with you all," I said, my voice echoing off the masonry as I looked down at the horrified mutants, completely transfixed by the floating arsenal poised inches from their snouts. "I only want to pass through. If you don’t get in my way, we won’t have a problem. But, if you try and stop me..."

I flexed my aura.

Clack-clack.

Dozens of rusted hammers cocked back in total unison, the metallic ratcheting sound echoing like a thunderclap in the stillness of the chamber.

The mutants remained utterly paralyzed, staring cross-eyed at the death hovering an inch from their skulls. None of them were stupid enough to try anything.

Every single one of them realized exactly how mathematically fucked they were if they so much as twitched. A brutal ecosystem like the sewers bred pragmatic survivors, not martyrs.

Good.

I floated slowly forward. The crowd of rat-creatures scrambled to part for me like the Red Sea, pressing themselves flat against the damp brick walls. As they shuffled frantically out of the way, I kept their own weapons meticulously tracked on their heads, rotating the floating guns to cover my blind spots as I moved.

The tunnel I needed yawned before me. I drifted through the entrance, casting one final, warning glance over my shoulder.

The Dredges were still plastered to the walls, staring at the barrels.

Alright. Message received.

I dropped my hands, completely releasing my magnetic hold.

The heavy, clattering rain of iron and steel echoed loudly up the tunnel behind me. I wasn’t worried about a reprisal. They’d probably scramble to retrieve their guns eventually, but I knew for a fact they wouldn’t dare follow me.

Still, I didn’t get this far in the underworld by assuming things, so I kept my passive sensors keyed all the way up, scanning my perimeter as I navigated toward the Mind’s coordinates. I wasn’t exactly enjoying the scenic route.

The walls down here were almost universally identical—decaying Victorian brickwork occasionally crossed with rusted municipal piping and territorial gang tags. I did my absolute damnedest not to look down at what was floating in the actual waterways.

Though I was largely moving through the massive storm drains, I was incredibly grateful my armor’s helmet was entirely airtight and featured an onboard scrubbing system. It was a mandatory feature when you dealt with heroes who weaponized pheromones or knockout gas, but it was practically a godsend for environments like this.

I was even happier when I finally reached the outskirts of the Mind’s actual lair.

I was in one of the deeper, bone-dry sewer systems. It looked like it had been permanently cut off from the primary grid decades ago. Not too surprising; when subterranean monsters emerge to attack Metropolis every other Thursday, underground infrastructure tends to get violently rerouted.

The current tunnel stretched straight ahead, a perfectly rounded passage that was probably once a massive aqueduct. It ended abruptly at the far end with a massive, heavily reinforced metal door.

Built like a pressure plug, it looked like a hybrid between a deep-sea submarine hatch and a bank vault door. It was pristine, gleaming steel—clearly a very recent addition, given the absolute decrepitude of the surrounding masonry.

The fact that the Mind wasn’t the kind of guy who welcomed unannounced guests was blatantly evident.

Mostly because I found myself looking at half a dozen corpses in various stages of gruesome decay, strewn carelessly across the flagstones leading up to the vault.

I stopped, subtly stretching out my magnetic senses, letting the field flow down the length of the passage and seep into the very brickwork.

Wow. The Mind really wasn’t taking any chances with his operational security.

I could feel literally dozens of mechanical traps embedded in the architecture. Spring-loaded steel spikes. A hydraulic pitfall trap. I’m pretty sure those were heavy rotary saw blades hidden behind the grating, and... oh, yep. The faint, humming capacitors of a high-yield laser grid.

You really had to respect a guy who went out of his way to booby-trap a municipal sewer line to slice intruders into perfectly symmetrical, bite-sized cubes.

And at the very back of the hall, coyly snuggled into the stonework on either side of the vault door, was a pair of automated, heavy-duty flamethrowers.

Ah.

It would almost be a shame not to run such a meticulously plotted, classic death trap.