Greenmatter: Revenge of the Maeville Ghost

by Daniel North

  I had sent Michell with Hood, alone. If I had gone with her and Hood, maybe I could have saved her.

  Tears welled in my eyes, then fell over my mask and down my face.

  I let out a shuddering breath, “This is my fault.”

  Hood grabbed my shoulder and looked at me, “It’s not your fault. I fell for Craft’s trap. I rushed in without help to free my dad. I got the girl and me captured. This is my doing, not yours,” Hood said.

  A horn honked from somewhere outside.

  “That’s Barker, he went to grab the van. If Craft thinks this is over, then he’s in for a surprise. We’re going after that truck. We’ll bring the fight to whatever hole Craft tries to hide in,” Hood said with steel in his voice.

  My breath hitched as I attempted to prevent myself from sobbing in front of Hood. He wanted to keep fighting after everything that had happened, after nearly getting killed several times over.

  I didn’t even know if I could keep fighting tonight. I was tired, sore, and I was starting to get a migraine from over taxing my ability.

  Manipulation of matter was supposed to be elegant, refined, patient; How I used it in a fight was the exact opposite and it took a toll on me.

  I leaned my head against Hood’s chest. All I wanted was for him to hold me and say that it was over, that everything would be okay.

  Hood hugged me, it felt amazing. He was warm and strong.

  “We can avenge her if we leave now. Craft won’t get away with this, but we have to leave now Greenmatter, or we’ll lose him,” Hood said with a gentle squeeze of the hug, before putting his hands on my shoulders and pushing me to stand in front of him. He looked into my eyes and said, “You saved my life and took on all those men with little help from anyone. If anyone deserves to quit, it’s you. But No-one can do what you do. If we’re going to get Craft and rescue my father, we’ll need a superhero, we’ll need Greenmatter. We could end this tonight. The crime, the violence, it could be over. We could win.”

  I laugh-cried, “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you.” I sniffed and wiped the tears out of my eyes and said, “Let’s finish this.” I focused on my makeup, repairing any of the damage my crying has caused, then turned to leave with the others.

  We walked out of the building, to where Barker was waiting with the van.

  Hood opened the side door for me, and I sat inside. He got in and sat on the bench beside me, then slid the door shut.

  Barker hit the accelerator, squealing the tires of the van as he raced out of the parking lot. He grabbed a radio that was mounted on the dash and brought it to his mouth. “This is Detective Barker; I need an immediate APB on Ethan Craft. Last seen heading from the Maeville Baseball Stadium in an armoured black vehicle,” Barker yelled into the radio.

  A moment later, a woman’s voice came from the radio, “All units be on the look out for a black armoured vehicle heading from the Maeville baseball stadium.”

  “Fuck, he could have gone anywhere,” Parson said from the passenger seat.

  I watched out the window as we rapidly passed buildings. The image of Harvie shooting Michell in front of me replayed in my mind. I don’t know if I imagined it, but I could have sworn Harvie had a self-satisfied smile on his face as he shot her. He could have killed me. He could have pointed that gun at me instead of Michell and I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself. He could have killed us both and still walked away. Why would he let me live? So, I could see that he was evil, that he hated me? I don’t care what Harvie wanted me to see. The fact is, now I hated him. He didn’t deserve to walk the streets as a thief, but now I didn’t think he deserved to walk at all.

  We continued to drive for what seemed like a few blocks before the woman’s voice sounded from the radio again and said, “Detective Barker, confirmed sighting of a vehicle matching your description heading west down Friarsfield Avenue. Patrol car in pursuit.”

  I braced my arm against Hood and the van’s wall as Barker suddenly slammed on the breaks and spun the van 180 degrees.

  “Got you now, you cop killer,” Barker said fiercely.

  We sped through traffic, weaving back and forth between different lanes to maintain our speed.

  An Oldsmobile, pulled into the lane in front of us, making Barker hit the breaks and slam on the horn. The Oldsmobile swerved in surprise at the sound, then quickly went back into the other lane, allowing us to pass.

  We turned hard onto Friarsfield Avenue, then raced in the direction the woman on the radio had indicated.

  This was mid-town, where the tallest buildings of the city were located. From my angle, I couldn’t even see the tops of the buildings from inside the car.

  As we passed a cross street, I saw out my window the red and blue flashing lights of a patrol car, reflecting up the glass skyscrapers.

  “There,” I said pointing down the street. “They must have changed roads,”

  “God damn it,” Barker swore and slammed on the breaks. He looked over his shoulder to the back of the van then set the vehicle in reverse.

  The transmission whined as we gained speed going backwards.

  Barker slammed on the breaks again, then turned down the road and chased after the flashing lights. He snarled, “Why didn’t the patrol car announce a course change?”

  “I could guess, but I don’t want to be right,” Parson said.

  Ahead of us, the flashing lights of the patrol car went out.

  “I was right…” Parson sighed. “Dirty fucking bastards. If they’d just start paying us more, maybe all the street cops wouldn’t be working for Craft,” he said.

  We continued to weave through the traffic. The headlight of the van struck a shiny sports car and snapped off its mirror. The sports car’s horn blared angrily.

  “I can see Craft’s truck up ahead; the patrol car is breaking off. If you see that car, get its unit number. I want to have words with whoever’s driving it when this is over,” Barker said.

  We flew past the parked patrol car.

  “Shit. Couldn’t catch it. Went by too fast. Think I got a look at the officer’s face though, might have been Houghs,” Parson said.

  “She just started last month!” Barker exclaimed. “How could she already be taking dirty money?” he asked. “I didn’t get approached until my second year,” Barker added.

  Parson laughed, “Guess your not pretty enough.”

  “They’re turning,” Hood said, leaning towards me to watch the road.

  “I see them,” Barker said.

  We slowed down to keep distance, then turned after them.

  The armoured truck continued down the road until we were out of the mid-town. It approached two big glass buildings, with three skywalks connecting them. Between two glass office buildings, the truck turned into an alley.

  “That one of Craft’s buildings?” asked Barker.

  Parson leaned against the dash to look up at the tall buildings. “Probably. He owns a third of the buildings in the city,” he said.

  Barker stopped the van next to the sidewalk before the alley. “We’ll get out here. No point letting them know we’re coming,” he said.

  I got out of the van behind Hood and looked up at the glass buildings.

  The two buildings were about forty stories tall and had massive concrete foundations. The concrete was about three stories tall, before the glass windows even started. A long flight of stairs went up the build’s entrance at the top of the foundation, beside us. The truck had turned further down the street from us, between the two buildings, where the skywalks connected them.

  Barker went to the back of the van and opened the rear door.

  I walked around with Hood to see what he was doing.

  Inside the van, were big plastic cases.

  Barker started opening the cases, to reveal their contents. Each case has an assortment of either, assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, or flashbang grenades.

  “Take your pick. We’re still outnumbered, so we might as well even
the odds,” said Barker as he reached into the van and selected a shotgun.

  Parson looked to barker with displeasure and said, “This isn’t a police vehicle, you shouldn’t have these in the back of your van.”

  Barker smiled, “Your right, but I bet your glad that I have them now.”

  Parson frowned but took up a rifle and a couple of flashbangs. “After this, we need to talk,” he said to Barker.

  Hood reached into the car and took a couple pistols.

  “Hood’s not complaining,” said Barker. He then looked to me and asked, “Anything for the lady?”

  I crossed me arms watching the men and said, “I don’t do guns.”

  Barker shrugged, then closed the van’s rear door. “Suit yourself. I know you don’t need them, but I thought I’d still give you the option,” he said.

  “Let’s move. We’ve already given them too much time to settle in,” said Hood, who started walking towards the alley.

  We followed in behind him and quietly looked around the corner down the alley.

  There was no sign of the truck in the alley, but it wasn’t too hard to guess where it went. Each building had a garage door for underground parking.

  “Shit, which one did they take?” Parson asked in a whisper.

  We walked into the alley looking around. There was no way of knowing which building the Truck went into.

  “Wait here,” Barker said, before running back to the van.

  “Where are you… going?” I started to ask before dropping the question when Barker turned the corner.

  “These doors require a keycard,” said Hood examining the black panel on an arm extending from the ground. He looked to me and asked, “Could you open these?”

  “Technically, with enough time I could make one, but I couldn’t program it. Although, breaking in is totally within my range,” I said.

  “What about alarms?” Hood asked.

  “If we come in from the wall, nothing involving the door should go off,” I replied.

  “Should go off?” Hood inquired.

  “I can’t be certain without being able to look at it from the other side,” I said.

  Barker came back around the corner carrying what looked like two orange bricks. As he got closer, I could see that they were radios.

  “We break into two teams,” Barker said, then continued as he got his breathing under control, “When one of us spots Craft, let us know through the radio, then the other group can double back to our building to support.”

  “What about noise?” Hood asked.

  Barker reached into his pocket and produced a rat’s nest of wires. “Right, I grabbed them,” he said unknotting the wires. “Here, this is an earbud that plugs into the radio. That way we can hear each other without making too much noise,” he said, while passing a radio and an earbud to Hood.

  “If we’re doing teams, I want Greenmatter. I think each of us should get a superhero to cover us,” Parson said as he stepped beside me.

  I pang of disappointment went through my chest at the thought of not getting some alone time with Hood.

  Barker scoffed then said, “So you’re taking the one with actual superpowers.”

  Parson shrugged and said, “Early bird gets the worm.”

  Barker looked to hood. “You’re not going to get caught again, right?” he asked, then quickly added, “Sorry I shouldn’t joke about that.”

  Hood pursed his lips but didn’t say anything.

  I broke the awkward silence and said, “I’ll get started on the doors.” I put my hand on the wall beside the first door focused on the shape I wanted it to form, then pushed my fingers into it as if it were soft dough. I used my free hand to cut a line down the now soft wall, then pulled the wall over like I was bending a mattress.

  “Don’t see that every day,” Hood said from behind me.

  A broom handle fell out of the door I carved out of the wall.

  I looked inside to find a dark room with shelves of cleaning products, a small desk, and a chair. Above the desk was a pinup calendar for some alcohol brand with a busty girl in a nurse’s outfit.

  Barker looked inside then said, “Hey, I have the same calendar.”

  I arched my eyebrow and Barker.

  Barker saw my expression and cleared his throat. “It came with the beer. Would have been wasteful to throw it out,” he said defensively.

  I rolled my eyes, then walked to the other building, and made another door on the opposite side. The effort made my head spin and I had to brace myself against the wall for a moment.

  Hood put a hand on my back and asked, “You alright?”

  “Yea, it’s been a long night. Let’s finish this,” I said. I then pushed myself from the wall.

  Hood took my hand turned me to face him. He looked into my eyes and said, “Be careful.” His thumb brushed over my cheek then his hand slid behind my head.

  I looked to Hood’s full lips, then back to his eyes. He leaned in and kissed me deeply. A moan escaped my mouth as I opened it. Our tongues brushed over one another. I teased his lower lip by sucking on it, then released it, while he did the same to my upper lip. His hands moved to my lower back and pulled my hips to his. I felt his erection pressing against his pants and into my crotch. I gasped and nipped his lip as arousal made blood rush between my thighs.

  Hood broke the kiss, looked into my eyes, then said, “When this is over.”

  I swallowed, nodded, and said, “I’d like that.”

  I looked to Parson, who was waiting for me by the door. He smiled with an eyebrow raised.

  “I think I’ll start wearing a costume too, if it means my wife would start kissing me like that,” Parson said playfully.

  I blushed and headed into the building, taking a last glance over my shoulder at Hood before stepping inside. That man did things to my body. I could feel moisture gather from my pussy at the thought of his strong body against me. When this was over.

  Chapter 9

  Parson open the door in the janitor’s closet, revealing a ramp down to a carpark on the other side of the garage door. We walked through it and headed down the ramp.

  I kept my eyes open for any sign of the armoured truck Craft and Harvie left in as we passed the cars.

  Another garage door was at the end of the parking lot, with a security booth beside it. The booth was empty and dark, but it looked like there was a door to the next garage inside it.

  We walked up to the booth and Parson tried the door. “locked,” he said quietly.

  “I got this,” I whispered back then willed the mechanism in the lock to click open as I opened the door.

  I didn’t need to see what the locked looked like inside to know how to open it. Once you’ve taken a few locks apart, knowing which pieces to move to get them to work is nearly the same in every doorknob.

  We walked into the security booth and I unlocked the next door, same as the last.

  I slowly opened the door.

  Inside, was what looked like a lab. There was odd shaped equipment at different workstations throughout the room. There were also giant stainless-steel vats with pipes connecting one to another. Above us, was a second level of glass offices overlooking our level, with a catwalk surrounding the perimeter. It smelled of alcohol and chemicals.

  We walked into the room and Parson let out a low whistle.

  “What the hell are they making here?” Parson said, while walking over to a journal on one of the desks. He started flipping through it, looking at the pictures of molecules.

  I walked beside him and looked at them. At a glance, I recognized chained carbon rings, and some of the more basic chemicals, such as the alcohols, acids, bases. As I looked closer, I could see that the compounds being researched, were drugs.

  Back in my dimension, everyone had a pretty good understanding of chemistry. It was second nature for us to manipulate matter, so it was part of our basic education to have a thorough understanding of chemicals, elements, and physics.


  “They’re pharmaceuticals,” I said over Parson’s shoulder. “This is a research lab. Pretty basic stuff, but some of it is addictive and potent. Seems their making mostly narcotics, stimulants, aphrodisiacs, and growth hormones. My best guess, we walked into a black-market supplier, or this is where the new stuff is made. Some of the drugs in that journal don’t even exist on your streets yet,” I continued.

  I reached over Parson to point at one of the compounds. “That right there. That’s a recipe for making synthetic cocaine,” I said.

  Parson eyes went wide as he looked around at all the equipment. “Word on the street was that Craft’s drugs were the purest thing on the market, but I hadn’t realized that they just made everything from scratch. I just thought they had a good supplier. Wait till Barker hears about this,” Parson said. He brought the radio to his mouth, but before he hit the button, I could hear a voice come through his earpiece. He listened intently, then looked to me and mouthed, “They found the truck.”

  The voice stopped and Parson brought the radio to his mouth to reply.

  A burst of gunfire came from above us.

  Parson’s radio exploded in bits of orange plastic and circuit board. He fell to the ground howling in pain. Blood started to darken his clothing over his thigh and upper arm. Grabbing his wrist, I saw that the hand Parson was holding the radio with, was miss two fingers.

  “Parson!” I yelled in surprise. I crouched down behind a machine with him and prepared to throw up a wall to cover us.

  Parson whimpered in pain holding the wrist of his bloody hand.

  “I’ve got you,” I said. I started to focus on his clothes, willing his shirt and pants to bandage his wounds.

  A familiar voice said from above, “I was just grabbing something from the office before I headed home. You’re the last person I expected to find down here.”

  Anger welled inside me at the sound of Harvie’s voice.

  “Where’s the rest of your little gang? Just you and the cop?” Harvie asked.

  I tightened my fist. I wanted to hit Harvie with something heavy. The image of him smiling while shooting Michell in the head played in my mind. I wanted to wipe that look off his face and have him beg me to throw him in a jail cell, pleading for mercy and swearing he’d never hurt anyone again.