"You two go and do that," Omegaburn said. "I can handle this part myself."
"All right," Photovolt said. "Little lady, care to join me at a shapeshifter reveal?" He offered up the crook of his elbow.
"I'd be delighted to," Ersatz said, mimicking his archaic tone and taking hold of his arm.
"And that's probably the least strange thing I'll see today," I said.
"Were you serious about that whole dying and reviving thing?" Omegaburn asked.
"I'm not sure," I said. "This isn't the first time I survived something I shouldn't have."
"When you were impaled, I was pretty sure you were dead," Omegaburn said.
"Yeah, things like that just seem to keep happening. It's getting hard to rationalize away. Especially-" I looked down at the block of ice my body was still encased in. "Especially when it's something like this."
Outside, there was an outraged cry and a meaty thump.
"I think they figured out which was Shatterbrain," Omegaburn said.
Part 28
Ixa was still missing.
Word had it Shatterbrain talked her interrogators in circles, frustrating any effort to get a straight answer. According to Donny, the girl was book smart and learned facts quickly, but was not terribly wise. The wise move would have been to cooperate with the Fund, since she had not yet been declared rogue. Instead, she frustrated efforts to find Ixa. I did not want to leave Ixa at the mercy of Cold Case. I'd seen the look he'd given Pam, and if even half the rumors of what he'd done were true, we could not let him have his way with her.
Of course, I raged at the world from a Vanguard hospital room. They were treating my hypothermia and trying to keep frostbite from costing me a lot of beloved body parts. But that didn't subdue my rage at my inability to take action. To top it all off, my nose wouldn't stop running. Jack shooed off a rather persistent candy striper and sat down by my bedside.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
I gave him a dirty look. He didn't deserve it, so I shook my head and apologized.
"That good, huh?"
"My team is in disarray. There are bad guys roaming the city who pretended to be heroes for years. I'm still on limited duty. And, I was frozen today."
"I... I don't really have anything to say to that," Jack said. "I'm just here for moral support."
"I'd have thought they'd be keeping you busy in the current crisis."
"Quite the opposite, I'm in reserve until they find a target."
"Speaking of targets, why would the rogue Elementals target Ixa? I can't figure that out."
"I don't think she was the intended target," Jack said. "They went after her to bait their real trap - for you and Donny. They just hadn't counted on you having picked up people outside your team."
"Why do you say that?"
"Lenny's leading the search for them," Jack said.
A painful echo sprang through my mind. I tried to push it away, but the back of my mind was too cluttered for any more facts I didn't want to face. I wondered for a moment if they'd planned their strike to parallel Michelangelo's attack. The possibility that it was a coincidence tried to make itself heard within my head. A knock on the door preceded Pam's entrance. Jack stood and slipped out as Pam took his seat.
"News?" I asked.
"Not really," Pam said. "But from what I saw earlier, I'm going to call bullshit on you not having any powers. You turned into the shadow again when you clobbered the creep in the blue coat. And you admitted to not be carrying Omicron's remote."
"Pam - when that happened, I was still as paralyzed as you were. I was not in control of myself when that happened."
"Really?" she asked, dripping sarcasm. "So who was?"
I frowned at her.
"That's not an answer."
"You'd say the same thing to 'I don't know'."
Pam tapped my forehead. "Unless you've got other people in there, some part of you was in control."
Come to think of it, there were what seemed like an inordinate number of voices in my head. Though I can't say it wasn't like that for other people too.
"We can debate that point, but I can't direct it, nor has it ever been voluntary. So, for all intents and purposes, it's not me acting."
"Bah," Pam said. She shook her head. "We've got more problems than your multiple personalities. Aside from the trainees, the only team member not out of commission in some way is your sister. She's not exactly a people-person."
"On the upside, none of the trainees have been hurt."
Pam rolled her eyes. "Stop changing the topic. We need a plan of action, and the board doesn't seem interested in keeping us in the loop."
"Now is probably the worst time to go off the straight and narrow," I said. "The powers that be are going to be less inclined to be lenient."
"Oh really? You say that after having attacked most of your own teammates?"
"I-"
"Don't bother." Pam stood and walked out.
I was in the middle of another brusk staring contest in my own head against Mini-Uth-sk. He won. He always won. Ygnaza don't have eyelids, so he can't blink. So again I was wide awake and dead tired. My mind went back to Omicron's remote and the shadow. If it wasn't the remote, but my sleep that triggered it, did that mean the remote was safe? No, not really, it meant that sleeping was dangerous. Amidst the growing rage, a ringing phone jolted me out of my introspection.
It was the room phone. It was also the dead of night. Reaching over, I answered it.
"Hello?"
"Am I correct in assuming this is Shadowdemon's room?" Cold Case asked.
"Where's Ixa?"
"Calm down. We're getting to that part."
"You are the last person I expected to call me."
"My new friend would have made the call, but her ability to speak is impaired."
"What do you want?"
"I want to get out of town, start up a new life in a non-extradition country, lay low for a while. Oh, I know, Sanalta is a non-extradition country. And their Ambassador happens to be rather unhappy with a certain organization."
"Are you calling me to gloat?"
"No, nothing like that. The only asset I have to trade for my transit and visa is my hostage. But she's of no real value to those I'm dealing with. She is, however, of value to you. So I want to propose a trade."
"What kind of trade?"
"For whatever reason, you are of value to them, or at least of interest. Don't ask me, I don't want to know the details. But if you follow a few simple rules and turn yourself over, I'll cut her loose. Rules like, leave the rest of the community out of it. Don't bring in the cops or that glory hound Overton. No tracking devices, etcetera."
"And if I don't follow them?"
"My friends make a corpse out of your friend."
"You're being awfully direct," I said.
"It turns out, after people start treating you like a villain, it becomes a lot easier to act like one. Being declared rogue was just the culmination of a long downhill slide."
"I see." Though I wondered why he was telling me all of this.
"Lindsey knew of course. She held it over me like the sword of Damocles. Made me do all of her dirty jobs like some groveling servant. Now that my secret's out, the sanctimonious hypocritical bitch has got no hold over me anymore. You want a real villain, take a long, hard look at her. Oh, I'm being told I'm rambling. Briar Park, one in the morning. Assuming you want to make a trade." Cold Case hung up. I'd never heard of Briar Park. Though I'm sure the internet could tell me where it was, assuming I managed to even get out of Vanguard.
Looking down at the handset, I debated calling for help. The first image brought to mind was Ixa frozen into a block of ice. I hung up the handset and began hunting for cl
othes. The outfit I'd been brought in wearing was in the closet, but none of my gadgets were with it save my mask. I dressed as quickly and quietly as I could and peered into the hallway. Orderlies and night nurses roamed the building. The halls were brightly lit. The only option looked to be bluffing - walking out as if I was supposed to be leaving and not under doctor's orders to rest. To that end, I stood up straight, opened the door and strolled towards the exit.
If this hadn't been Vanguard, a man in a hero suit and domino mask would have garnered a lot more attention than I got. If I tried to get my stuff back, they'd see that I wasn't supposed to be out of my room. I stepped out into the muggy night air and swatted away a swarm of gnats hanging out under the awning lights. Marching out into the parking lot, my mind went to the problem of how to get to Briar Park, or even how to find it. An idea hit me as I spotted a row of parked ambulances waiting for calls to come in.
"Excuse me," I said approaching an EMT. "Can you tell me where Briar Park is."
"It's on the thirteen hundred block of thirty-fifth street," he said. When he glanced up, a quizzical look crossed his face.
"Thank you," I said, and walked off. It was on the other side of the damn city. Vanguard was on first street, and several parallel roads as well. My cash, keys and cards were all with my personal effects inside, and there wasn't a whole lot of choice left. My only option left was to run. Thirty forth street was maybe a few miles away. According to my eye, I had an hour. I could make it. I fought the urge to sprint. If I did, I'd burn out long before I got there. I couldn't dally, but I needed to pace myself to avoid wrecking my 'battered body and simply collapsing on the street.
The traffic didn't make it any easier. More than one horn blared at me as I came too close to getting splattered on their radiator. Charcoal and black were not the best colors to wear when bolting over cross streets. I couldn't stop though, the hour was ticking by too fast. Startled pedestrians taking a late night stroll shot me angry looks as a narrowly dodged them. Inebriated bar-hoppers spewed curses in my direction. I didn't care. So long as my feet chewed up the blocks, all was good.
When I finally spotted the sign for thirty-fourth street, I was elated, and seriously winded. My heart pounded against the walls of my chest, and my lungs burned with each new breath. I was on the fifteen hundred block. Just two long blocks to go. I turned and set a more measured pace westward. I didn't want to slow, but my frostbitten limbs couldn't keep up. This was definitely not what the doctor meant by rest.
Briar Park was a patch of grass in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Only a small sign by the gap in the chain link fence announced that it was, in fact, a city park. There were no briars to be found. The park had no lamp posts, but my eye compensated for the gloom. I walked out onto the grass, looking for any sign of the people I was supposed to meet. A cell phone in the grass lit up and started buzzing. The device was set to vibrate. Cautiously, I picked it up. The caller was listed as 'New Friend'. I answered it.
"Hello?"
"According to Hero Watchers, you just did something very stupid," Cold Case said. "Risking going splat to get here on foot. What good are you in trade if you're a bloody smear?"
"I presume this is where you verify I'm alone?"
"Duh. I'll call you right back."
I fought to properly catch my breath as I waited. Normally, a few miles was no big deal, but hopping right out of a hospital bed wasn't normal. Okay, even under the best circumstances, I would be winded after running a few miles. 'New Friend' called back.
"So far, so good," Cold Case said. "There's a black minivan parked outside the south gate to the park. Some of your old friends are waiting inside. They have some bracelets for you. Then they'll take you for a ride."
"When are you letting Ixa go?"
"Once we have you," he said. "I don't really need the girl, and she's too young. Just because I'm embracing my dark side doesn't mean I've abandoned my standards." He hung up. I turned south and walked to the gap in the fence. The door of a nearby minivan slid open. The full face mask nightvision gear with ordinary street clothes told me the three men were Morlocks. How they got mixed up with Cold Case and Bussard was a mystery to me.
"Hands behind your back," one of them said, holding up a pair of handcuffs. Every fiber of my being fought against the idea of putting my wrists together for them, save one. That fiber summoned the mental image of Ixa with a slit throat. I put my hands behind my back and tried not to flinch as the cold steel wrapped around my wrists.
"I know you," another one said. "Just try kicking me in the gut now that you're the one in cuffs," he said. I complied, knocking him against the passenger door of the van. The other two hustled me inside the vehicle and bound my ankles with shock cord. "What did you do that for?"
"You literally asked for it," I said. From the voice and the context, I knew he was one of the Morlocks from 722 Walker. They piled in and pulled the door closed.
The one I'd kicked grabbed my jaw. "I've had it with you tights thinking you can kick the little people around." I would have pointed out he was working for one of us, but his grip had my cheeks pushed in and was giving me fish-face. The minivan pulled away from the curb and started down the road. "You go around abusing power you shouldn't have. And you do it hiding behind masks..." I didn't like the way he trailed off. My dread was confirmed when he pried my mask off my face.
He let go of me in surprise. "Holy shit - I know this kid." He paused. "Hey! You kicked me in the head when we met that time too!"
"You were the speechifying asshole, weren't you?" I asked. "I lost an eye thanks to you!" I slammed my forehead into his mask, knocking it loose in a spray of nasal blood. He stumbled back against the side door. I tried to leap on him, hit him with a knee, an elbow or a shoulder, but his buddies hauled me back and pinned me to the seat.
"You want your teammate back or not?" one of those two asked. "Sit down, shut up and stop hitting Bryce."
Bryce held his bleeding nose. He had an unremarkable face, short brown hair and patchy stubble. He looked like the sort of guy who'd tell you all about his three college degrees while you waited for him to finish making your coffee so you could get to work.
"I can't believe we're fighting children," Bryce said.
"And you're losing," I said.
"Shut up," the Morlock who'd warned me before said. I didn't have a name for him.
Brazenly, they drove into the Barons. Of course, Bussard still enjoyed his status as a diplomat, but there were crimes where even diplomatic immunity wasn't going to cut it. The house whose serpentine drive we entered was the same one where I'd met Jester of Anubis. Though this time, the armed guards were wide awake.
"I thought you guys had standards," I said. "But you're working with a son of a bitch rich enough to live here?" Bryce shot me an awkward glance. He'd noticed the hypocrisy and looked to be embarrassed by it. "How long have you known?"
"Not until after Victor pulled that stunt that got him caught," Bryce said. "It's a temporary alliance."
"Really? Or have you just become hired thugs?"
"Enough of that," the unnamed Morlock said, pushing me towards the door. Bryce opened it and stepped out. I made a show of falling to the floor of the van.
"My ankles are still tied you know," I said.
"You see all those guys with guns out there? You start kicking and they're going to start shooting. And then we're all going to have a bad night."
"Can I at least get my mask back?"
"No," Bryce said, pulling me out of the van. I kept my face down and hidden as much as I could on our way into the building. Temporary doors had been put up, and the damage to the decor was still visible in the atrium. I was led to the back of the house, to a staircase down. Rough stones formed the walls, and slightly less rough stones formed the floor. I guessed it came from the original s
tructure of the house. During whatever remodeling had taken place upstairs, the basement had been neglected. In a vaulted chamber floored in less than perfectly level flagstones, Bussard had two hospital beds. The ring of small pedestals around them did not fill me with confidence. Nor did the markings painted on the flagstones.
The cell phone buzzed again. Bryce flipped it open. 'New Friend' had sent a video message. He hit play. On the tiny screen was Ixa in the jade mask. It pulled back as Cold Case walked away from the bench where she was seated.
"See? MacAdams Park," Cold Case said. "The crime rate is really down these days, so she should be fine for the ten or fifteen minutes it takes for the paralysis to wear off. I've done my part. I'm gone." The video ended.
Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus) Page 91
