Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  "But you're telling me?"

  "Well, the people who came into town for the party had to get back to their home turfs. The base is still there, and it's as good a place as any to stash us until Dad gets back."

  "Where is Dad anyway?"

  Nora sighed. "No one will tell me."

  "Do you know what happened to Pam?"

  "I don't even know who Pam is."

  "She was with me and Cupric at Technomation. When I saw Cupric again, she wasn't with him. So now I'm wondering what happened."

  "Ask Jack or Cupric, I can't access mission reports."

  Fae stormed back into the room. "What the Hell was that?" she asked. "I had to pass through security all over again thanks to you. And what was with using an ability like that unmasked? I mean, have you--"

  "Moving that fast makes it awfully hard for people to see your face. I already heard your story from Jack, so don't try to lecture me on secret identities."

  "Please don't argue," I said.

  "You stay out of this," Nora said.

  "This is my hospital room. Typically people come here to see me. Or to patch me up."

  "Well, I'm here to see you," Fae said, taking it upon herself to adjust the pillow behind my back. It went from comfortable to less so thanks to her efforts. From her expression, she sincerely thought she was showing kindness. She kissed me on the forehead and took a step back again. Normally I'd take it as an encouraging sign, but it looked like she was just trying to irritate Nora.

  "These public conversations are obnoxious. I'm going to find a cafeteria. You know how I get if I don't eat regularly."

  "Have fun," Fae said. After Nora left, Fae turned back to me. "Why's she so cranky?"

  "I was unmasked. We have to move. It cost her a job she fought tooth and nail to land."

  "I see."

  "So. Yeah. She's mad at me. Only I'm not sure what I could have done to avoid it." Except maybe not to charge at the guy in black with unknown abilities. That was really when it fell apart. Trying to slip through the door when Masquerade was raving about Sharky not being Sharky wouldn't have avoided detection given what I know now about the layout of the room beyond the door. My hiding place was as good as it got in that part of the loading dock. Wasn't that the lesson Cupric was trying to teach Ben? Sometimes you stumble onto something and find yourself in over your head. It wasn't much of a consolation.

  Part 7

  A white panel van. The irony of being relocated in one wasn't lost on me. They were ubiquitous on the city streets. People fetching a few key things from our house did so in regular sedans, and then took precautions to avoid being followed to their ultimate destination. I was surprised to find that my new hideout was only three blocks upriver from the Technomation compound, being up on Twenty-First Street. It had an unfinished dock which connected to the garage and from there by ramp to the street. Above the garage was the workout room where I spent many an hour of physical therapy avoiding permanent repercussions from my injuries.

  Someone with more style than sense put glass walls on the workout area, the sparring ring, and the workshop. There were no tools in the workshop, but the space was there. Fortunately, this high-visibility aesthetic didn't extend to the small locker room and the showers. Down the hall was a single bed medical center which was my room for much of my early time here. It was part of the original design apparently. There was no staff here, so a nurse and the physical therapist got trucked in from the hospital in that same white panel van. It didn't have windows, so they wouldn't be able to pick out the route. Their gadgets were also left behind until they got done with me and headed back. There were spare rooms off the garage on the lower level. I guess they were meant for storage, but Nora made one into her room.

  The only bedroom built as such sat across from the medical center, and had my codename on the door. All that hung in its closet was my costume. I don't know who recovered it from Technomation, but they got back all my stuff except the mask. Masquerade still had that. I didn't bother to check out all the features they'd put into the place, but it looked like the community had put a lot of effort into making it useful.

  "You're sighing again," Nora said.

  "While people were putting this place together, I was actually trying to let my license lapse."

  "Seriously?" Nora asked. "You wouldn't know what to do with yourself if you left the life."

  "Don't be silly."

  "So what would you do?"

  "I..."

  "I thought so. You've been training since you could walk. This is the only life you know."

  "Ever think I might actually just want to be normal?"

  Nora laughed. "You? If you wanted to be normal, you'd have talked to the neighbors, enrolled in extracurriculars at school, or even gotten a job. I'm more normal than you are. Don't pretend you're running away from the life when your first idea for filling time is to go on patrol. Take a hint from Donny, he's embracing the life and loving every minute of it."

  I sighed again and poked a fork at the bowl of pasta in front of me.

  "You know I'm right," Nora said.

  "Maybe."

  "Not maybe. I am. What was your reaction when you found out the Fifth Street Gang was abducted?"

  "Get them back."

  "Get them back. Not call the cops, or call Jack, get them back yourself. You couldn't stop yourself if you tried. And don't tell me you've tried, because you haven't."

  "I don't think dictatorial therapy is going to catch on."

  "Fine, talk it out. What is it about this mess that's got you down the most?"

  I sat there for a good long time, staring at the tangle of starch before me as I went over recent events. "I failed to save them," I said, "and they died." I jabbed my fork into the bowl. "I've never saved anybody." Standing up, I walked away from the table. "Every time I try, either someone else does it better, or I fail miserably. That's why I want out. I'm useless." I expected Nora to try to stop me as I went upstairs, but she fell into a stunned silence. I went to the room that read "Shadowdemon" and stopped. Tearing the sign off, I tossed it in the wastebasket before dropping onto the bed.

  I didn't pay much attention to the passage of time, but eventually Nora wandered up to my room. She leaned against the doorjamb and shook her head. "How about we make a deal?"

  "What?"

  "How about you stay on until we nab Masquerade and Doctor Omicron, and then decide if you still feel useless."

  "Who is Doctor Omicron?"

  "Cupric called. He got a positive ID on your man in black. I could give you his life story, but if you don't want to be a hero anymore..."

  I sat up. "You're an evil sister."

  "All brothers say that."

  "Okay, who is Doctor Omicron?"

  "Do we have a deal? Are you in until they're caught?"

  "We have a deal."

  "Guess when he first showed up?"

  "This year?"

  "Nineteen twenty-one."

  "You're kidding me."

  "First turned up in what is now Croatia working with robotics, but he wasn't a local. He practically defined the term Multidisciplinary Scientist. Bounced around Eastern Europe until the Second World War. Nazis grabbed him and used him as a test subject for some of his own theories, and he vanished for a while. Most people wrote him off as dead. Then a spy behind the iron curtain took a photograph of a guy in some sort of life support suit working on a Soviet alternate-weapons program. Other spies went through the Soviet records and discovered that they found him in the ruins of Germany and stole him during the Allied plundering of German scientists after the war. That suit is counteracting the awful shit the Nazis did to him, but it seems to be prolonging his life significantly as well. He outlasted the Soviet Union and went into business for himself.
"

  "So where did he come from before Croatia?"

  "No idea."

  "And what's the extent of his powers?"

  "No idea."

  "Do we know what he is up to now?"

  "Final Star Network seems to be the key. It used to be a front company for a cult of dragon worshipers who originated... well guess."

  "Eastern Europe."

  "Romania, Poland and Slovakia. They claimed to predate the countries in question. They were thought to have been wiped out by the Soviets, but relocated to this side of the Atlantic. We thought the Canadians broke them up a few years ago, but now the community isn't so sure."

  "Dragon worshipers?"

  "Never underestimate the willingness of people to prostrate themselves before something powerful."

  "So do we think these cultists hired Doctor Omicron, or that he's part of the cult?"

  "Could be either."

  "I'm going to need a new mask."

  I'd forgotten how long it had been since I actually checked my Community Fund balance. I winced at the size of my insurance premium payment and the short string of medical co-pays that marked the most recent entries in the account. Without membership in the fund, which required sponsorship of existing members, you would have to be wealthy to operate as a licensed hero. Of course, everyone is expected to contribute something to the fund, even if it was just time and expertise. With the amount of money they'd expended on my behalf, the board would come calling sooner or later. I'm not sure what I had to offer them. Needless to say, there wasn't a whole lot left in my account. Community fund credits were expressed in dollar values for accounting purposes. I tried not to think about my taxes and the paperwork nightmare that April 15th represented.

  Most of the headgear on offer was out of my price range, but I did eventually settle on a pair of black goggles with blue lenses. They were the minimalist model with only a handful of vision modes. At the top end of the range there were models with AI-powered target tracking, threat analysis, or things like spectrographic analysis tools. Those were way above what I could afford. Sadly, there wasn't enough left to buy a line launcher, so it stayed on my wish list. It wasn't long after I sent out the order that Cupric's sky blue jalopy shambled into the hideout's garage. It took him two tries to get the car door to stay closed.

  "You look surprised to see me," Cupric said.

  "Did you tell us you were coming?"

  "I told Blue Streak."

  I rolled my eyes. I'd given up on reminding Nora that her codename sucked. Nora wore a purple costume and swore it turned blue when at speed due to the Doppler effect. Of course, she wasn't moving fast enough, and even if she were, from the opposite direction it would become even more purple. Reminding her that the other definition of "blue streak" involved profanity only made her laugh. After that conversation, she'd added a black "censor box" to the lower half of her cowl. I don't get her sense of humor.

  "She forgot to tell me."

  "I came to speak to both of you." A half-second later, an onrushing breeze announced Nora's arrival. At some point, she'd gotten into costume, not that that took her long.

  "Got something for us?" Nora asked.

  "The board has asked that you two not go after Doctor Omicron."

  "What?"

  "I've been named point on this. You're not off the case, but we need someone with more experience to take point on bringing him down." I did not bother to hide my scowl. "However, we do need people collecting evidence that might lead to his whereabouts. And help keep him locked away."

  "I take it you have something for us."

  "Technomation was in serious financial arrears, not enough real money to fund the black ops. They repeatedly sold a lot of new issue shares to Greeler Futures."

  "That name sounds familiar."

  "Sole shareholder of Greeler Futures is Jasmine Greeler. From her public transactions, she looked to be seriously desperate for cash infusions with which to buy these overpriced Technomation shares."

  "That might be what made her start conning street gangs."

  "No one with experience on the financial markets would touch her offerings with a ten-foot pole. So seeking out unorthodox investors might have been the next step."

  "What do you need?"

  "We need a proper peek at her private communications. They're either in her office, or her condo. If they don't lead to Doctor Omicron, they should at least lead us to the next link in the chain."

  "Why does that need both of us?" Nora asked. "Either one of us would do."

  "Two sites, hit them simultaneously, so that if the data's not at the first site, they don't have a chance to sanitize the second."

  "I have a question that doesn't have to do with the mission," I said.

  "What is it?"

  "What happened to Pam?"

  Cupric's expression grew unsettled. That meant bad news. "During the confusion after Masquerade started shooting, we got separated. Some of Omicron's robots nabbed her, and she ended up Test Subject Ten. Unlike you, she didn't get out of the tube before the mutagen was introduced. She was the one who survived, but they've only just now gotten her stable."

  Logic told me it was partly her fault for not waiting with the car. The rest of me told logic to shut up. Jack's comments about the debate concerning whether keeping her alive was actually the most merciful option slithered back to the fore of my mind. Another failure for my resume. I could have taken her phone and left her behind. A purple blur filled my vision as Nora waved her fingers in front of my face.

  "Hey, she's getting the best medical care money can't buy," Nora said. "And before you blame yourself, as I know your emo ass is about to do, blame Doctor Omicron. He put them in the tubes, and he dosed them."

  "Uh, right," I said, though I couldn't shed the guilt that easily. "Just before you pulled in, I put in an order for new headgear. Can we schedule our visit for the night after I get it?"

  "Or," Cupric said. "You can give me the order number, and I can flag it as mission critical. Since I doubt you can afford anything that has to be custom built, they'll have a speedster pick up the box and deliver it. I'll even bet you ten bucks they tag Blue Streak for being the closest."

  "All right, you're on," I said. I let Cupric use my laptop to put in the request for expedited service. "How long does this usually take?"

  "It pages someone at Paragon International Logistics, who checks the validity of the request, then they send a robot picker into the warehouse, and page someone to run the delivery."

  "And that means?"

  Nora's phone beeped and she checked the text message. "That means you lose, little brother. Now pay the man." She vanished in a rush of wind as I rooted through my pockets for a pair of fives. Running deliveries was a menial way to do one's community service, but sometimes the board needed your powers for their mundane utility. Of course, I was not eligible for that kind of service. They had regular employees for anything I could do. I should probably start looking for a source of income on the side in order to pay into the fund.

  "Just how fast is she?" Cupric asked.

  "She broke the sound barrier once, but it nearly killed her."

  "So it wouldn't be a stretch for her to do a hundred or two hundred miles an hour?"

  "Easily."

  "Then we're probably waiting on the picker robot more than on her."

  "Probably."

  "I call office!" Nora cried as she dropped a plain cardboard box on the table next to my laptop. "You get to break into the condo."

  With a windbreaker, my overalls resembled nothing more than a pair of baggy jeans. The shadow from a red ball cap didn't fully hide the fact that this delivery guy was wearing blue goggles, but helped against casual observation. An insulated carry bag and a cargo about the
size of a pizza box completed the illusion. I had to be in costume, but there was nothing against wearing a disguise over my costume when it would be easier. In fact, it was almost a time-honored tradition. The guard at the front desk didn't even look up as I backed my way through the front door and headed to the elevators. Pushing the call button, I casually scanned the tenant directory, finding "J & F Greeler" listed as 1701. The white-haired guard did glance up when the elevator dinged, but probably just in case someone important was making an exit. He paid me no heed and went back to whatever he was doing on his phone.