Angie slipped along the tracks of the abandoned subway tunnel, her feet inches above the ground. Her new armor kept her from touching the rails. Even when she nudged the third one now and then, sending a soft ringing echoing through the darkness, her armor soaked up the electricity and didn’t complain.

  “This must be what flying feels like!” she whispered. It hardly echoed at all, but Flex still nagged her.

  “Keep it down, Widget,” she snapped from the knapsack on Angie’s back. “We’re supposed to be sneaky, remember?”

  “Okay. Sneaky as a mouse.” She raised one finger to her lips, invisible in the pitch black of the darkened tunnel. Her armor showed her the floor, walls, and ceiling, just like a video game, but she didn’t see herself, because it made her invisible. It also had arrows pointing over her shoulders to each of her friends creeping along the darkened subway tunnel behind her.

  “I still wish I could fly,” she muttered.

  “This unit is capable of sustained flight but maintaining flight with cargo while in stealth mode will rapidly drain this unit’s power.”

  “Cool!”

  “Keep it down!” Flex shushed her again.

  “I wanna fly!” she whispered to her armor.

  “Flight in confined spaces is discommended. Are you certain?”

  “Yes!”

  “No!”

  Flex’s strangled shriek came too late. Widget rocketed headfirst down the middle of the tunnel, hands spread to the sides, feet extended behind her. She drew in a breath to shout, but caught herself before Flex could chide her.

  “Woo hoo,” she whispered, the sound barely echoing at all. Up ahead dim lights glowed on the left side of the tunnel. She edged to the right to get a better look.

  Her hand barely brushed the side, but it sent her into a spin. The world tumbled around her, sparks flying whenever her armor hit concrete. She tried to catch a glimpse of the lights, but nothing made sense. She cartwheeled into an open space lit by dim fires. Her leg struck something yielding, which spun her chest into something else. Metal scattered across the floor, and wood snapped.

  “Flight mode disengaged. Power low; please refrain from sidearm use.”

  The world spinning around her, Angie pushed herself to her hands and knees, breaking more wood beneath her doing so. While she closed her eyes and waited for them to adjust to the flickering light, the grumpy old lady spoke in her head.

  There are injured people here. May I?

  Angie decided it was a good time to lie down and take a nap.

  ***

  Widget stood over the crumpled forms of the militiamen she’d crashed into. She’d sedated both of them after ascertaining they wouldn’t die any time soon. Looking around, she realized why they’d been stationed at the exit to the tunnel. Refugees crowded the subway station, huddled around cell phones, glow sticks, or whatever meager light they could cobble together. The largest group stood near the dim glow from the stairs to the street above, but they shied away as the sound of boots echoed down the stairwell.

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  “What was that noise?”

  Another voice answered from the far end of the tunnel. “Not sure. I saw some sparks down near Phil and Gary. Guys?”

  Widget didn’t wait for the two at the far end of the subway station to grow impatient. She took careful aim with her dart gun, noting the old-fashioned light enhancing goggles strapped to each militiaman’s head as she did so, and then squeezed the trigger. The single dart flew, tumbled, and ricocheted off the wall behind the pair.

  “To hell with it.” She hosed the pair down, using up the last of her injector darts in the process. They slumped to the ground, guns clattering when they hit the floor.

  Gunfire erupted into the crowd from the top of the steps. Screaming people scattered into the darkness. Widget flipped her armor’s sidearm out with a gesture she remembered Angie making. Her eyepiece lit with a targeting reticule, familiar alien characters dancing around the bullseye.

  “Warning; sidearm use discommended.”

  “Does this thing have any area suppression settings?”

  The reticule changed, showing a meters wide swath, dark red in the middle shading out to a dull orange-yellow at the edges. “Warning; area fire option will fully deplete armor energy stores.”

  “Let’s hope this takes them out, then.” She squeezed the trigger, and a pair of tumbling thumps echoed down the stairs. Wall tiles cracked, and every poster within the target area pulled itself from the walls, fluttering to the floor a moment later.

  Two shadowy figures lay tangled at the bottom of the steps, but as Widget watched they shoved each other upright, untangling their guns as they did. Barely able to see them in the suddenly renewed darkness, she took a step toward them and stumbled. With its power drained, her armor weighed more than she did. Only its even distribution let her stay upright, still stumbling awkwardly and loudly toward the pair at the base of the stairs.

  They leveled their guns at her. She tried desperately to lurch to the side, as much to keep any civilians out of the line of fire as to dodge. Thunder echoed, sparks flew, and something punched her square in the gut. Somehow, she stayed on her feet. She prayed for the curtain of blessed gray dust, but nothing happened. Angie was out of action for the duration. Soon another bullet would find her, or she would just bleed out on the subway floor.

  A wall of shadow swept over her attackers, smashing them to the floor. The thunder of guns muffled as Jesse engulfed them. A few seconds later the pair flew away, and Jesse reformed, a submachine gun in each hand.

  “Are you hit?”

  “Yeah,” Angela wheezed, “gut shot. Not sure how bad.” She twitched her legs, and they responded. “At least my spine’s okay.”

  Widget brushed a hand across her belly, trying to assess how much damage the bullet had done. She jerked her hand away, swearing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Burned my hand. The bullet is smeared across my belly armor.” She shoved herself to her feet, wincing as her bruised abs brushed against the cool, hard inside of the mesh across her belly.

  “Do we go up or do we wait for the others?”

  “Just a second.” She muttered a command under her breath, and a faint image appeared in front of her left eye. “I’ll have enough power to keep my armor active by the time they get here, I think.”

  “By the time who gets here?”

  Widget jumped, her armor brushing against her bruised stomach once again. “Grace! How did you get here so fast?”

  In the dim light of the tunnel, Grace nodded to the ice coating the floor beneath her. “I seem to have a knack for ice skating.”

  Midnight slid to a stop, hopping from Grace’s ice to the cement floor smoothly. “Attention! Everyone begin moving down the tunnel as quickly as you can. Be careful of the ice.”

  The crowd milled toward the edge of the platform, two falling before they managed to get down to the tracks. Someone shrieked when the crackling ice touched the rails and exploded in a shower of sparks.

  “Shh! What is that?”

  “What’s what, Midnight?”

  “I hear it too,” whispered Grace, “a diesel engine. Heavy machinery, moving around at the top of the steps.”

  “They’re going to close off the street access! Blue Bloods, let’s go!”

  Midnight charged up the steps, Jesse close behind. Grace and Widget looked at each other, shrugged, and ran up the steps behind them. They caught up as the forward pair hit the closed gate at the top of the steps. Jesse shouldered it aside, and the four of them charged out.

  Widget noticed the incoming rocket too late to even scream a warning.

  entirely new chapter of Blue Bloods I've written in over a decade.