by Ben Bequer
“You fly smooth,” I said, after a long silence.
She looked at me suspiciously.
“Hey, I’m used to rocket boots, this is as good as it gets.”
“Try running across an ocean.”
“What’s the fastest you can run? I mean, have you ever been clocked?”
Madelyne looked down at the manacles on her arms. They were the same as mine. She received a lesser dose of whatever it was that turned me into a beacon of energy. “It’s different now,” she said. She was scared.
“I know,” I said.
“Even Jeff’s scared,” she said. “And if he can’t figure this out?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Could be worse.”
She looked over at me.
“Well, only one of us could have this thing,” I said, dragging a smile out of her.
“Could be worse,” she said, staring ahead.
“So let’s change the subject,” I said. “Tell me about this Graydon guy.”
A dozen nearly imperceptible ticks flashed across her face as she thought how to start. I knew it was complicated. “I’ve known him a long time, but like I said, he’s more a friend of Jeff’s. The guy’s deep into financing the Tower. It’s how Jeff got it started. I’d say…ten years back? They were friends long before Jeff put on the suit. Anyway, he was really close to Barry,” she said, pausing and casting a fast side-glance at me.
“He worked for the Senator,” she said, still showing more apprehension than I was comfortable with. “He was his chief of staff for, like, six years. Then he went off and joined a hedge fund and made himself rich.”
“So why should I trust this guy?”
Madelyne struggled with what to say for a few moments. “Well, I’m not telling you what to do, Dale. I just think it might be a good idea to talk to him. Jeff knows him well enough to know if there’s any bad blood there, and he says there’s not. So you have to ask yourself, do you trust Jeff?”
“It’s not that simple,” I said. “Guy can make a mistake, can’t he?”
“Well yeah but-”
“Superdynamic’s really good with tech, but he’s not the best with people.”
“And you are?” she chided, giggling.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll meet the guy, but I’m not promising anything.”
“Look, this has to be better than leaving all that work in the hands of a Romanian guy you barely even know.”
My least favorite thing about Apogee was how conspiratorial she was about my friends. If not Bubu, she’d be taking a shit on Moe, or Ricochet and Templar, who were fast becoming my favorite people to hang around with. But basically, anyone on the planet I could talk to or get guidance from was anathema. Well, except Jeff. Superdynamic was beyond reproach. And yeah, I really liked the guy, I mean, more than that, I wish I could get closer to the dude, become real friends, but no one’s perfect.
“Bubu’s doing good with the 3D printing business,” I said. “Listen, I admit I need help with what to do, business-wise and every other-wise, but this guy? I killed his friend.”
“We all know what you did,” she snapped, and it was my turn to hesitate. We didn’t talk about Barry Ashbourne often. His father, the senator, wanted my head on a spike, which surprised no one. That Apogee had come around to be involved with me stunned everyone, because once upon a time they had been engaged.
I saw the landmine and chose my words carefully. “I want this to work, but something is itching in my gut. It doesn’t feel right.”
Apogee kept her eyes on the windscreen ahead of her, but I could see she was wrestling with something. Her full lips were pressed into a thin white line, her eyes squeezed tight in consternation. “You have to move past that Dale. This is too important.”
“What the business stuff? Bubu and I have a plan. Chase and his connections would be a shot in the arm, for sure, but I want to share this tech with the world. The right way.”
“It’s not about the business or the money,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s optics, Dale. You have no idea how important optics are for you right now. Those little drones are amazing. I barely understand how they work, but seeing it first hand, I cannot stress to you how dangerous they are.”
“I don’t think…” I started, but she cut me off.
“Just listen for a change.”
I scowled but held my tongue. She waited until I gave her a nod before continuing. “Nobody thinks you’re a villain anymore, not really. But that tech sends all the wrong signals. It’s a marvel, and not just because of the construction possibilities. They can build robots, they can dig underground tunnels.”
“They can be weaponized,” I said hanging my head a little.
My interruption annoyed her, but she nodded. “The global players don’t know about it yet, but it won’t take long for them to catch wind of it.”
“So let them! I’ve been running around getting pounded into goo for the last few years because every time I turn around, there is some threat the rest of you can’t handle.”
“Which is why you aren’t in jail.”
“I know that, but how often do I have to almost die for them before they trust me?”
“Some people are never going to be convinced. A lot of them just don’t like you.”
“I saved the president from Lord Mighty. I saved all of you from Brutal.”
“You let Haha go.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“It’s an example of why people are wary of you.”
“You know why I let him go.”
“I do, and even though it still pisses me off, I get it, but Dale, don’t you see? The people who make the decisions? They don’t get it, and they don’t want to. They don’t care why. They see facts. And in the cold light of fact, you are a villain who set another villain free.”
“And you think Graydon Chase can get me out from under it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why bother?”
“Because I think this is your last chance, Dale. Jeff will try and protect you, but we can’t let him sacrifice the Tower to do it.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I said, laying a hand on top of hers. She took it and squeezed.
“I know you won’t, but I’m terrified.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not going to let them take you. If they try, they’re going to have to go through me.”
We sat in silence for a long time. I became very interested in the variety of screens and readouts as they tracked our progress. Jeff, Madelyne, both of them were ready to throw away everything they had worked for. I glanced sideways at her, careful to avoid her attention. Nothing I said was going to improve the situation.
The only thing I could think of was to do what was asked of me, for once. No attitude, no alterations to the plan, no drama. I would take the meeting, listen to what Graydon Chase had to say, eat some food, politely shake his hand, and walk away. I didn’t realize I was drowsing until Madelyne’s voice woke me.
“I’d get some sleep if I were you,” she said. “We’re two and half hours out from Teterboro. Once we’re in the city, we’ll only have time to stop by my place really fast and change, then go to lunch with Graydon and his wife.”
“I’m fine here,” I said.
“No, you’re not fine here. You’re going to fall asleep sitting there and start snoring so hard the windows will shatter.”
I laughed, standing, “Does this thing have autopilot?”
She gave me an interesting look, raising one eyebrow and widening her lips in a broad smile. “You had your chance last night, but you had to go off with your friend, didn’t you? And leave me all alone...”
“You know,” I said. “I have this special way to apologize…”
Madelyne’s eyes widened and she let out a slow breath. “You do, don’t you? I was thinking we’d have a few minutes during the stopover at my apartment.”
“I was thinking that, t
oo,” I said as her eyes settled my crotch. “But there’s no reason we can’t do both.”
She smiled, reaching over to engage the autopilot with the other, “And I suppose you have plans for us for tonight, too.”
I leaned down and kissed her on the lips, lifting her out of the seat and leading her back to the cabin. Two and a half hours to Teterboro, New Jersey was long enough for what I had planned.
CHAPTER TEN
A Little bit of Help
2 Park Place, The Woolworth Tower Residences was exactly as snobbish as it sounded. The tallest building in the world for the first seventeen years of its life, it held the distinct honor of being the most expensive piece of property in New York City. The penthouse sold a few years back for over a hundred million dollars to an unnamed client through an ambiguously named shell company. Though many suspected Saudi dollars, or Russian dollars, the real buyer was Graydon Chase.
In my villain brain, all the chicanery screamed secret lair in bright scarlet letters. Who needed a bunch of shell companies to buy an apartment, even an expensive one? I tried to conjure some kind of elaborate business explanation that made the move shrewd, but it seemed like the guy bought the most expensive apartment in the country in stuffy Tribeca, instead of one of those posh places across Central Park because he liked living a few blocks from his Wall Street office.
I didn’t like it.
Regardless of what Madelyne or Jeff thought, I didn’t need Graydon Chase’s help making money. Bubu had found new life running our fledgling company, a contracting firm like no other. He kept offices in London, but most of our the contracts were in Romania, where his contacts kept us flush with work. The typical conversation was something like:
“Hey, Bubu.”
“Hey, Bro.”
“How’re things?”
“Good, how’s Apogee?”
Yeah, he’d ask about her and that would turn into a good two or three minutes before:
“How’s business?”
“Better than ever, bro. You see the account info this week?”
“Yes,” I’d say. “How much are you stealing?”
“Not that much,” he’d answer, and the truth was, I didn’t care. The bottom line was good, and I was back to being a multi-millionaire. Sure, I couldn’t bring it to the U.S., but it was nice to know I had something to fall back on. It was my “run” money, my emergency money. Even now, I still had that instilled in my brain thanks to my old attorney, Sandy.
I was sure Graydon Chase would have ideas. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could take a look at my tech and have ideas. I’d bet even money that one of his ideas would involve selling him a percentage of the rights to the tech or otherwise weaseling his way into my creation. It was the only way these business types knew how to relate to technology.
I’d let Jeff and Ricochet look at the basic specs of my software a couple of months ago, shortly after I was back on my feet after Brutal nearly vaporized me. Neither of them was interested in robbing me. Jeff had complete access to every system in the Tower. And telepaths. He could have had it at any time, and Ricochet was damn near the best guy I knew. They were both on the verge of tears when they saw the underlying algorithms. They appreciated the beauty of what I had created. The craftsmanship that went into it. People like Graydon Chase didn’t get that. All they saw was a commodity to monetize.
What I really needed Graydon Chase for, at least as far as I was concerned, was someone to grease the political wheels so that, one day, maybe, possibly, I could have something close to a normal life. Madelyne was right. There were people out there who would only ever see me as a felon. I had been convicted of attempted genocide and crimes against humanity. I was basically a war criminal.
And while Germany trying to ban me from the EU was pretty damning, Japan had won a suit against me, claiming that I was responsible for the loss of Hashima island. It wasn’t really lost. It just hung in geosynchronous orbit somewhere in the lower atmosphere. That I didn’t have anything even close to that kind of power didn’t seem to bother anyone. Nostromo, one of the Original Seven, basically a god, tore it out of the ocean. I was there, but I didn’t know what was going on until it happened. Guilt by association at its finest. All of my accounts were instantly frozen. The ones they knew about, anyway. Graydon Chase wasn’t the only guy who knew a thing or two about the shell game.
Bringing money into the U.S. was difficult, and I knew I was gambling with the IRS every time I bought something with bitcoin or paid with a check from one of the offshore shell companies. Tax fraud was how they got Capone. That’s why I let Bubu run rampant and steal all he wanted. It was a necessary evil and besides, I don’t think he could have operated any other way. If I had given him a salary equal to all the money he was stealing, the guy wouldn’t have been able to reconcile. It was his way and I respected it.
Best case scenario, Chase looked at my tech and my record, the blemishes and the bright spots and nodded. The way I saw it, there were enough places on Earth that needed cheap, easy construction. I could trade on that and make the face turn that would launch me into respectability. Respectable enough to keep out of jail at any rate.
But if anyone tried to fuck with me, there was a command buried deep in the code, something not even Bubu knew about. It would frag the entire system, irretrievably. It was efficient and final. I created the technology, it belonged to me, and nobody was going to use it without my permission.
I was still cautious and worried as Apogee and I rode the limo from her apartment on 5th avenue – across from the park – to Chase's penthouse in Tribeca. Her mind was on her smartphone, her fingers a blur as she sent ten text messages a second and emails ten a minute. I’d specially modified the phone to work with her superspeed, and it was still overmatched. Once she got into a groove, even the enhanced battery couldn’t keep up with her.
As far as Chase, I’d done my research. I still had access to some of my old villain friends. Delphi and Serpentis and both told me the same thing: “Don’t trust the guy,” though they couldn’t exactly say why. Delphi’s opinions were what I expected; he didn’t like operating in the open, and Graydon Chase was as out in the open as you could get. Serpentis just had a bad feeling, and one thing I’d learned to trust from the short time I’d known her, was her feelings.
Still, how could it hurt?
Reality came down on me like a ton of lead as the driver pulled over to drop us off at the building. Someone had squealed, whether it was the dispatcher from the service or the driver, someone gave away that Apogee and I were coming, and somehow a gaggle of protesters had managed to beat us there.
I found the driver’s route kind of curious, coming down the east side highway when all he had to do was drive down Broadway. It was early, and the highway was probably backed up, I told myself, but now it was pretty clear the dude was buying time. Either he was an anti-super, or he was just getting a sweet tip for the gig.
“Great,” Apogee said. “Just walk past them and don’t say anything.”
“I know the drill,” I said as the driver stopped. The guy looked back at me through the rear mirror and I could see a little smile on his face. I felt like reaching through and breaking both of his arms, but instead, I played it coy as if I didn’t know. Fuck the guy, I didn’t want to give him the pleasure.
Apogee got out and was beset by people with signs almost immediately. She had zero tolerance for that shit. She thrust out a fist crackling with purple energy. “Anyone touches me gets fucked up.”
Now, one might think that this kind of behavior would play poorly for her, but her fans ate it up. She was a tough bitch, and no one fucked with her. While there may be a story or two using the footage from the guys that were filming her with cam phones, the fan clubs, blogs, Facebook and Twitter would be alive with her supporters – which numbered in the tens of millions – arguing on her behalf and screaming down the haters. Those that tried to troll her fan base ended up in worse shape than some of m
y enemies.
Between the flight and the car drive, I hadn’t been moving the bad leg around enough, and it was tight as I wrestled my way out of the car. I opened my cane with a snap, and the crowd grew into a crescendo, though no one dared inch closer to Apogee. She waited for me and opened a path through the fifty or so protesters. Some of the signs were particularly cruel. One guy had a “Baby Killer” sign – which was my favorite, as I’d never officially killed any babies. Another guy had a misspelled sign: “BLAKCJAK HAS TO PAY,” though how much he thought I owed him, the sign didn’t say.
One older guy in a wheelchair managed to get through the front of the crowd and wheeled himself in my direction as Apogee passed. She saw it and stopped, ready to stomp on the guy, but I waved her off. This guy wasn’t angry, or screaming, or holding a sign. His hands were reaching toward me, pleading.
“Please, Mr. McKeown,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”
I stopped to talk to him – he seemed reasonable, but pausing was a mistake. The mob pounced. Apogee used her body to shield me from the bunch, cold-cocking some guy who came from behind us, picket sign held overhead like a club.
The guy tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying over the shouting. I bent over to make it easier to hear. “I want to tell you about my family, Mr. McKeown,” he said, raising his voice. That’s when I saw him pull out a dog-eared picture of his family and hold it out. I knew what he was about – I’d killed someone he loved, either intentionally or more than likely, by accident. Like Japan and others, this guy was blaming me for some shit I hadn’t done.
“Come on, dude,” I said, standing and stepping away.
“I just want to talk,” the old guy went on, but I felt Apogee’s energy change.
“Okay, enough of this,” she said, pulling me away from the guy.
With one hand, she cleared the way, knocking back anyone who wouldn’t move and cutting through the sea of people like the bow of an icebreaker, dragging me by the lapel. A dozen hands grabbed and tugged at me, tearing at my clothes and hair. A moment later, we were inside the lobby, the doorman closing the door behind us.
