by P. S. Power
When Liam moved back over to the others, he shrugged. After all, even if Carlisle wanted to keep secrets from his own people, Liam hadn’t been told about it. He also wasn’t invested in anything that included Richard Simpson.
“I have a meeting with Simpson at seven in the morning. Behind the Piggly Wiggly. I was going to take Agent Sanchez.”
Agent Brenner snorted then.
“Which won’t work, if you need to be there that early. Not at this short of notice. I guess I could go, except that I’m already set to meet with some of the SAU. None of them were on the list, but we need to see who we can clear, if any of them.”
She spoke the words as if he might not understand the idea. Which was silly of her. It was incredibly clear to him that finding out who wasn’t part of the plan going on was incredibly important.
So he shook his head.
“I’ll go alone. That might be the point. Why he’d want to see me there, I don’t know. If he’s planning to kill me, he’ll need a big explosion. In that case we shouldn’t do this next to regular people. Stores are were people get their food.” He probably didn’t sound clever, knowing that kind of thing.
It really was though. He’d never been to a thing like that before. The closest he’d been was to a butcher’s shop. A very nice one that stayed open twenty-four hours a day. They’d gotten a pig, for Oaks. A thing that he’d eaten, it seemed. Which wasn’t pleasant, if you were a person like Liam was.
In fact, it was incredibly painful, sending a feeling like fire through the entire body as it did. The nice dark color it left behind was useful, certainly. That didn't mean earning that kind of thing was fun, or even just mildly annoying. It was far worse than that.
Brenner shook her head.
“You can’t go in without backup. There are rules to things like this. I… Really, we should cancel and pick a different location. That one isn’t inspired.”
Liam nodded, even though he couldn’t see what she was getting at. It was probably a trap of some sort, but anyplace he went would be. Going into the center of town meant that the other man wouldn’t be trying to do that in silence or very easily. It would make too much noise. Especially if he tried to blow him up.
Instead of just giving in, he tilted his head to the side and smiled a bit.
“I’ll go. Alone. I need to work out how to do that. Sneaking. I haven’t covered that one yet.” It wasn’t totally unknown, since he’d seen a movie with that kind of thing in it once. That didn't mean he was some kind of expert in the process. For one thing it had been a comedy and Brenner had told him openly that everything in it was supposed to be funny. It wasn’t serious or how anyone in the real world would live or do anything in particular.
The words got a snort from Brenner, with Mitchel smiling a bit.
“They grow up so fast.” Then he pretended to sniffle, as if it were part of a comedy routine, giving the lie to things from such movies not showing up in the real world. He got that it was supposed to reduce tension though, not an actual statement of fact.
The red headed woman laughed a bit at it anyway. Then she shrugged.
“Fine, I’ll get with Sanchez or… you know, why don’t you do it? I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear from you at four-thirty in the morning like this. Let me get you the number.” She spoke the words as if it were a threat of some kind, asking him to be responsible for getting the other man around.
Liam shrugged.
“I’m not certain he can hear me on the phone well. Other than that, I can do it. I have the number.” He did, after all, unless it had been changed in the last weeks.
Brenner scowled at him, and pulled her own phone. She dialed and spoke faster than Liam would have thought possible.
“Brenner here. We need you for backup at seven. Get to Warner’s in… Can you be here by six? Liam is going in for a meet with Simpson. Off the books. Rich, not Kim. If it was Kim, I wouldn’t be bothering you at this time of day. She’s actually sane that way. Freaking mornings.”
After a moment there was a tired sounding response, which got a sour look from Brenner.
“Liam did mention going in alone. You might want to stay back, given everything. We found out some new information last night. I’ll fill you in when you get here.”
Then she hung up, which had to be abrupt on the other end of the thing. There was no goodbye or indication that they were finished, other than her last words, which didn't meet the right level of ending for a conversation at all. A bit angrily, she turned on him then.
“There. Now, all you have to do is get out of this with everyone alive. I can’t think of any reason for him to meet with you at all. If he wanted to apologize he’d just call.”
Mitchel made a face then.
“If he wanted to kill Liam, there would just be shooting. Head shots from a sniper rifle, right?” He looked from one to the other, with Tiffany shaking her head slightly.
“I… No. Not really. There isn’t going to be anything that someone like Simpson could bring against a promethean that would do more than piss them off. There’s a reason we were tasked with bringing Liam in so fast. No one wanted to risk having him under the control of people we don’t have any influence over. As it is, we need to find some way to bribe him. What do you want, Liam? Money? I can get you some of that.”
He nodded, though smiled when he spoke.
“I’ll need equipment for dentistry. You could help with that? More materials to make shoes, as well.”
The woman actually laughed then.
“Only you, Liam. Only you… Still, we can actually do that. Now, we should get inside. I need to get some sleep if I can. I have to be up in a few hours. A little sleep is better than none, even if it’s going to leave me feeling half dead all day.”
That got a nod from the elemental next to them.
“I need to do the same, if I can. Wake me if you need me for anything?”
He nodded, knowing that Brenner had promised to update her partner, instead of sleeping. Rather than make a big deal of it, figuring she had some other way of getting that done, he moved with the others inside, only to be abandoned almost instantly. That left him with several hours in which to work and study. Instead of doing that, he went onto the message boards and caught up first. The only new thing was that some of the other groups were talking about the special late-night meeting. Including who’d been there.
He left a few messages, not claiming to be himself, then got to work learning how to care for human teeth. Animal as well, though that was all he had time for before he heard a car turn into the drive. That was just after six, which had him floating outside, rather than waiting for knocking. Agent Sanchez looked at him, his eyes tired seeming. There was a grin though.
When he got to the blue and silver car, Liam simply climbed into the passenger’s seat.
“We need to hurry. I want to get to a different point, without being seen doing it. You should stay back, I think. I can tell you about what was said, if you want, after?”
The man shook his head, then, in silence drove away. Heading in the correct direction without being told were the meeting was. Then there were only two possible choices from where they’d left from. After a moment, the tired man, looking puffy from sleep still, tried to stifle a yawn. It didn’t work.
“Where am I headed?”
“The meeting is set to be behind the Piggly Wiggly in town here. I don’t know if it will be an attack or not. It’s Richard Simpson, so…”
That got a nod.
“I get that one then. He went for you solidly, the last time you two met. Then… You kind of dominated him. Even while being shot. He has an ego, though it shouldn’t be the stupid kind. He can’t really take you, physically. Smart money says that he isn’t going to be dumb enough to challenge you that way again. Then, I can’t see him doing it the first time. We were all briefed on you and what to expect on the first mission. So… I don’t know. We can park a few blocks away. Are you good for going in
on foot? I can go with you, if you want.” The words sounded like he though Liam might be afraid, for some reason.
He probably should have been. The truth was he wasn’t, even if fear was possible for him. He’d felt it on three separate occasions, so far in his life.
“Let’s do that. I’ll go in early and see if it’s a trap. If it is, I’ll run back. You’ll probably hear the explosions, if that’s taking place. Though…” He shrugged then. “If I were going to try and force me to do something, I’d kidnap Mary and set her up at a remote location, then show me video of it. You know, kill her if I don’t do what he wants.”
Sanchez winced, but nodded.
“Which means you’d have to let her die. No one that evil can be allowed to have control over a force like yourself.”
He agreed, but smiled.
“Brenner mentioned that idea to me the other day, if I left. Then I got some I.D. It’s real, more or less. I’m twenty now. On paper. I can leave. Killing Mary would be a mistake.” He wasn’t dangerous, day to day. The thing was, Liam knew he could be, if it became needed.
Agent Sanchez sort of rocked in place, several times, as he drove.
“That was mentioned, at work, several times. It wasn’t lost on AIC Ridley that it wouldn’t work, long term. We decided against using that. Really, Brenner shouldn’t have mentioned anything like that to you at all. What if you took it the wrong way? Then we’d have to try and fix it. Things have been stressed though, lately. We lost a lot of friends the other day.”
He nodded.
“Right. Mitchel, Abbie the ghost, Brenner and myself went to your office last night and got names for the killers. All of them are on the Special Action Unit. Then Simpson wanted to see me. Technically he told Kim that first, before Ridley gave us that information.”
The man responded by pounding on the steering wheel.
“Fucking hell! I can’t believe that. How good is the data? Just from Warner? I… He wouldn’t lie to us. Could he be tricked, though? Lied to by some kind of spirit? Demons, maybe.”
Liam could see that.
“I saw and heard it at the same time. It could be a trick, I suppose. If so… Then I don’t know what to do about it. If that’s the case they tricked Abbie as well, which is probably difficult to do, when it comes to pretending to be a ghost.” That was the kind of thing he needed to ask about, but hadn’t thought of before that moment. How hard it might be to fool them that way.
The very idea that someone would be attempting that kind of thing, or could, left him cold inside. That would make it a lot harder to learn about the world, if basic information had to be suspected all the time. The source of it at least.
Sanchez shook his head in frustration, several times.
“Well, we need to run with that for now then. No jumping to conclusions though. I know these men and women. None of them are disloyal enough to murder their own. Not even to try and take down the vampires or someone like you.” He pulled over then, and pointed ahead and to the right, between two buildings.
“Back there. About three hundred meters that way. Go carefully. I don’t see anything out of place yet. Then, I might not.”
Liam understood what wasn’t being said. Sanchez wasn’t telling him that he was easily fooled. No, the words were a warning that he might not be able to trust everyone now. Not that he’d done that before. Especially not Simpson. The leader of the bad men.
Getting out, he patted the car gently, on the top.
“I’ll be back as soon as possible. Are you staying here?” He could run back, after, if it was needed. The location was closer than the park, even, after all.
“Yeah. I’ll hang here. Out of sight though, let me… As soon as you’re out of the lot here. Then I’ll hide and try to get a visual lock on you. Stay in the open, if at all possible.”
He nodded, then, rather carefully, walked along the side of the left-hand building, not seeing anything, even as he got into place. Then, it wasn’t time yet. He was nearly half an hour early, after all. That meant waiting. At what he thought would be seven after seven, a large truck pulled into place, along side of him. There were a few cars parked in the back, but no one was there to watch what was going on.
Instead of opening fire from the vehicle, the man climbed out. Smiling. His short hair was well cared for and his face seemed tired, as if he’d been up all night.
“Liam!” The words were too happy by far, given their history. He waited for a gun to come out, or something like a missile to hit him in the back. That didn't happen at all. For some reason.
Finally, he waved back, not doing his own smiling.
“Agent Simpson. You wanted to see me for some reason? Is there something I can help you with?”
The words got a pleasant looking expression to cross the taller man’s face.
“You actually can, I think. I need to kill you. Can we set that up, for, oh… Four this afternoon?”
Then, as if it made any sense, the fellow laughed.
Chapter twelve
Having been practicing, at least to the point that Liam had looked at a lot of instructional videos and also real life fights, to find out what would work best, he held his hands up. His fists were tight, since he, unlike a regular human, wasn’t going to take damage from striking things. He didn't have bones to break. His structure was almost consistently hard all the way through, which was different. For one thing it meant that he wasn’t just going to strike with greater power than the other man could bring to the fight, he was also going to hit with a denser fist.
As he started to move in, to fight to the death of the other man, instead of dying himself finally, Simpson’s hands went up into the air.
“Whoa there. That wasn’t a threat…”
Which was true enough. The man had suggested he kill him, later, so it only made sense to prevent that from happening then and there, when, possibly, he didn't have the needed explosions set up. Still, not wanting to be a bad person, Liam stopped, not relaxing his stance.
“You kidnapped my mother, under false pretenses just to harass her, using the power of the state. Then you attacked me without reason, even though I posed no threat. I was shot. Worse, others could have been hurt. What if that bullet had missed me? One of them did and only luck had it hitting pavement and not a person. Shooting like that is dangerous to some people. Now you want to kill me… Which, granted, doesn’t make sense to ask about. Still, why should I not end this now? It’s sensible, isn’t it?”
The man made a face and sighed.
“Fuck. Okay, I didn’t kidnap your mother. She was under arrest, and we had reason to believe that you might respond violently to us taking her in.”
That was what he’d been told, at the time. More or less.
“Which doesn’t excuse you claiming you were going to kill me at the time. Don’t move or I will fucking kill you. That’s a death threat and given I wasn’t under arrest, illegal for you to make while brandishing a weapon. The court won’t do anything about it. Which means I have to.” He started to move in again, fluidly, ready to hit the man until he wasn’t a problem any longer.
That got the man to seem scared, suddenly. He hadn’t seemed that way before, at any point. Not even while attacking him for no reason.
“Wait… I always say that. It wasn’t personal. I did kind of ham things up. I was making a point of showing how hard I was on freaks, that was all. There was a reason for it.”
It wasn’t hard to work out, of course. Liam didn’t drop his hands, though he did speak, his voice barely audible.
“So you were trying to get in with those in the SAU who were going rogue? Then you attacked me to solidify that you hate people for being different? That…” He wanted to accuse the man of lying, though the idea that he was playing that kind of game was possible. No one had told him that Simpson was particularly bigoted at any point before several months before.
The only people that had acted like he might be that kind of person were Sanche
z and Brenner. At least at the scene and later. Oaks had said the man seemed bigoted, though in a way that had seemed forced. Which could mean they were simply in on the whole thing. Kim had seemed a bit upset and shocked that her ex had acted that way. She didn't truly try to protect him or claim his innocence, but she had mentioned it not seeming normal for him.
Liam nodded.
“There is no way to prove that’s true, of course.” Putting his hands down, since he was still, more or less, safe, unless there was a massive bomb in the car, he moved back a step. Out of easy striking range of the other man.
“Setting myself up for death at the hands of an insane bigot doesn’t sound wise to me. It probably wouldn’t work, unless the explosion was big enough.”
The words got a strange expression in return. It was more relaxed and a bit sly, suddenly.
“Sure, if I was going after Frankenstein’s monster. We got a memo that said you were possibly tough and strong. The team wasn’t told that you’re pretty much impossible to kill. Most of them wouldn’t go in if we let them know things like that. I knew, so did a few of the others. The field Agents. Ridley. You heard she was killed? I think it might have been some of the SAU.” Instead of saying the letters like Liam had been doing, he pronounced the word saw.
Looking at the man, he nodded.
“George Abercrombie, Marcus Kinney, Daniel Offed and Ginger House? Then you and the others were at Brenner’s. You shot at me there, right? The human standing in the back of the truck?” He didn't know that, but the shape in front of him was similar enough to make that very likely, seeing him standing there now.
Simpson seemed concerned.
“Fuck again, then. Yeah. That’s exactly what went on. We don’t have enough proof though. I have some recordings of people talking, which are somewhat damning, if they were played in court. I could probably also testify that I shot at you, if you want. That won’t get the actual bad guys. I nearly didn’t recognize you there, by the way. The whole African American thing you’re doing works pretty well. Better than being yellow. Skin dye?”
