Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  “So who is he?” I whispered.

  “Pran Kulkarni used to call himself Doctor Rudra,” Dad said in the same tone. “Your mother sent him away before any of you were born. His sentence was only ten years, so he could have easily finished it by now.”

  “Then let’s just leave him be,” Donny said. Dad gave a nod.

  “So why Florida?” I asked, my tone returning to a normal conversational level.

  “Maitland Fenn University has a well-respected school of finance,” Nora said.

  “And is directly across the street from a beach,” Dad added. Nora’s scowl only made me laugh. Dad cut off my laughter with a glance. “You didn’t think I was going to not look into the school you picked, did you?”

  “Its location is only a secondary benefit,” Nora said, taking up an aloof tone that pretended to be hurt. “I’m not going to sabotage my education to lay on the sand.”

  “You’d better remember that after we’ve driven off,” Dad said.

  It was midnight when we crossed the state line into the Florida panhandle. By the wee hours of the morning, the GPS announced that we had reached our destination. That destination turned out to be an aluminum-sided, two-story building wedged between the edge of the Maitland Fenn campus and a hotel parking garage. The small windows had cowlings above them that looked to house metal hurricane shutters. A plain, metal-clad door marked the only visible entrance. The sudden silence from my turning off the engine woke Dad. His eyes simply opened and darted about to assess the situation. Realizing there was nothing terribly urgent, he sat up. I’d been driving due to my inability to fall asleep, and I’d been the only one awake since we’d reached Florida.

  “Is this it?” Dad asked.

  “It’s the address Nora provided,” I said.

  Dad reached over the back of his seat and shook Nora’s shoulder. “Wake up, baby girl. Are we here yet?”

  Nora grumbled and looked out the window. “Yeah, that’s it. It’s a lovely little dump we’re renting from the Community Fund, isn’t it?”

  “Why does the Community Fund own a building on the edge of Maitland Fenn?” I asked.

  “It used to be a team base,” Nora said. “But BHA regs got longer, and it no longer qualified. The Fund never sells any real estate, you should know that.” She hadn’t actually answered my question about the location, but I let it drop. She fished her phone out of her pocket and dialed. After a moment, she said, “It’s late, or early. Either way, Amy, sorry I woke you, but we just arrived outside. Could you let us in?”

  I’d met too many Amys of late. One was a murderer, one was a sidekick, and this one was going to be Nora’s roommate. This Amy turned out to be a blond girl of Nora’s age with a fit build that made me wonder if she had a hero license. In the circles we ran in, the chances were she did. Especially if she was rooming in a Fund-owned property. She had on pajamas and slippers decorated in cartoon zombies. Her dark blue eyes were bleary from having just been roused from sleep. We followed her inside, Dad muttering something about unloading the car in the morning.

  “Amy, this is Dad, Donny, and Travis. Travis is a dumbass, don’t talk to him.”

  I scowled, but Nora ignored me. Amy turned to Dad.

  “Nice to meet you, Mister Colfax.”

  “It’s Lenny,” Dad said.

  The interior of the building had that musty, dust-laden aroma of a building that had gone unused just a tad too long. Plain tan carpets lined the floor, and the walls were painted a pale cream. Amy pointed to a big red button inside a clear plastic molly guard. “That closes all of the hurricane shutters at once. Don’t push it unless you mean it. There’s another one just like it on the second floor.” Amy sighed. “Most of the furniture was here before I was, so don’t blame me for the decor. I’m going back to bed.”

  The furniture scattered about the place had the look of low-end stock from some decade I’d personally never lived through. The fact that it was still intact was marvel enough, though I feared the springs would rip their way out of the coarse fabric upholstery the moment weight was applied. This did not happen, and we found places to rest away the remainder of the night. I might not be able to sleep, but I still needed physical rest. So, I lay upon a brown couch and waited for morning.

  The dull hours ticked by until morning arrived. Grumpy and grumbling, Donny was up first. He was not his usual annoyingly cheerful self. I guessed it had to do with sleeping half the night sitting in the back seat of the SUV, and trying to finish up in whatever spot he could wrangle. The forecast for the day was manual labor, schlepping Nora’s crap from the car to the upstairs. Oh. That’s why we’d been dragged along.

  “I am so glad this place has central air,” Donny said, shoving my feet aside to sit at the end of the couch I’d been laying on.

  “Good morning to you too,” I said, sitting up. I smoothed out my rumpled shirt.

  “It’s not as if you were asleep.”

  “You’re sounding like Nora.”

  “Now you just wound me,” Donny said. He held a hand to his chest in a gesture of mock pain. Noting that he was wearing a black waistcoat over a white polo shirt, I raised an eye brow.

  “You wouldn’t be so warm if you dressed sensibly.”

  “Oh come on, you don’t think this style is going to catch on?”

  “Not particularly, and not in hot, humid locales where you’re courting heatstroke.”

  “It’s supposed to rain today,” Donny said.

  “So? How does that invalidate anything I said?”

  “It should be cooler than yesterday.”

  “Speaking of,” Dad said from the doorway, “We should unload the car before it gets too warm.”

  “I’m going to go get changed then,” I said. I fetched my overnight bag, found an unoccupied bathroom, and went through an abbreviated morning routine. By the time I got out, Donny had unbuttoned his vest for ventilation. We unloaded Nora’s crap as quickly as we could. The overcast sky backed up Donny’s claim that it was supposed to rain.

  “Have you guys ever thought about starting a moving company?” Amy said as she prepared a pot of coffee.

  “I have a day job,” Dad said, leaving it at that. Compliance Officer and Regional Coordinator for the Community Fund was more than just a ‘day job’, especially in the demands it made. Just wrangling the time off for this trip probably took some finagling.

  “I’m not fond of manual labor,” Donny said. It was, however, the closest thing to a complaint he’d uttered while dragging boxes around.

  “So what’s on your schedule for the day?” Amy asked, glaring at the coffee pot for not being done yet.

  “Our schedule is flexible,” Dad said. “We made good time on the way down.” If by ‘good time’ he meant taking five hours longer than a straight shot, then maybe. Dad scowled as his phone rang. He pulled it out, and his scowl deepened. He found a quiet corner to answer it. His severe tone didn’t carry too far, as he was trying to avoid being overheard. His exclamation of, “That’s all you called about?” did reach my ears, however. “Don’t call me unless something actually goes wrong.” Dad returned and put on a pleasant facade, though I knew him well enough to see the traces of annoyance lingering under the surface. “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” Amy said, pouring herself a cup of coffee with a look of avarice not normally associated with beverages.

  Nora was evidently of the opinion that we should piss off as soon as possible, no matter how much Dad wanted to prolong our departure. That uncomfortable tension had us set off north around noon. Of course, the only way we’d make it all the way to New Port Arthur in a single shot is if I ended up driving the later half. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Dad’s intention. As such, I found the most comfortable angle for the seat back I could and vegetated.
Donny was putzing around on a netbook. Since they’d been superseded in the market by tablets, it was cheap and, quite possibly, secondhand.

  “Oh, hey, Hero Watchers fixed my popularity rating,” Donny said. “They culled the votes from anyone who’d voted within a week of registering.”

  “Are you web surfing on a cell signal?” I asked.

  “I still have half my data plan left this month.”

  “You mean your share of the team’s data plan,” I said.

  “Same difference. It’s already been paid for, and we lose it if it’s not used.”

  “Why are you looking yourself up online, anyway?” Dad asked.

  “He yearns for the adoration of people who’ve never met him,” I said.

  Donny was distracted from my comment by something on the screen. “Some asshole claims I’m-”

  “Donald,” Dad said in the parental ‘you’re in trouble’ tone. “Language.”

  “Sorry.”

  “People online are going to say all sorts of stuff, most of it lies and fabrication,” I said.

  A ring of the phone had Dad grumbling under his breath, and we pulled off the highway. His mood soured even more when he looked at the caller ID.

  “Hello,” a pause, “Identify Razordemon.” My eyebrow went up. Dad’s secret identity was no secret to anyone in the car, but the security procedure meant it was an official call routed through the Community Fund. “What town was that?” Dad said. “Understood. Will investigate. Out.” He hung up and growled again.

  “What’s wrong?” Donny asked.

  “A Paragon Logistics truck carrying dangerous cargo went offline not far from where we are.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Fifteen miles past Fort Adder,” Dad said. I sat up and saw nothing but trees and farm fields on either side of the highway. “The town we need to check out is Pigeonpot.”

  “Lovely sounding place,” I said.

  “We stopped there yesterday,” Dad said. Making sure no one was coming, he pulled back onto the highway. “We need to find a good place to get changed and swap out the plates on this vehicle.”

  “Did anyone bring our costumes?” Donny asked.

  “They’re in the emergency kit under the back seat,” Dad said. “But not your walking stick.”

  “Figures.”

  Dad scanned the side of the road as we went along, trying to find an appropriate location to get changed. Thankfully, this was not a limited access highway, and potential places were more common. He pulled off down the gravel drive of an abandoned farmhouse. The overgrown lot and crumbling structure were sure signs no one was around, but Dad double-checked the building. No one was squatting on the site, and we were able to pull around to the lee of a shed that had become home to a copse of saplings. With the toggle of a couple of switches under the dash, the window tint darkened to almost opaque, and the paint went from bright blue to almost black.

  “Where did you get this car?” I asked.

  “Where would I borrow a car from?” Dad asked.

  We changed one at a time in the back of the SUV, with the other two making a point of facing the other way. It was still uncomfortable, but at least I’d made it a habit to only use the underwear designed to protect your modesty in a hero suit. Since the Scyan fabric clung to any curves of the underlying skin larger than a goosebump, that was fairly important. As I traded my street clothes for a charcoal and black hero suit, I swapped my eyepatch for an oversized domino mask. From a distance, it looked like I had different colored irises, one brown, the other steel blue. Though up close, the artificial nature of my right eye became apparent. Since I was decent, I brought my gadgets out to finish fitting them while someone else changed.

  On my right arm, I fitted an ‘infiltrator gauntlet’. It was a fancy name for a line launcher and fiber optic probe fitted to the same forearm assembly. A fingerless glove helped it not slip from my arm when in use. After having broken two Series Sevens, I was surprised that the Fund had let me try the Series Eight. It was an experiment in a dual line system which should add safer lateral mobility. I hadn’t had much time to play with it since I’d gotten my hands on it. On my left went my force gauntlet and wrist computer, neither of which I’d had the misfortune of breaking. In fact, I didn’t want to think about the possibility. Replacing the force gauntlet would be close to impossible. I keep calling it a gauntlet, it was more of a glove now that we’d changed out the leather insulation for a clear polymer film. The red and black circuit patterns covered my hand and ran under the computer strapped to my forearm.

  Dad hopped out, his red and gold Razordemon outfit covering him completely, save for the colored eyepieces of his mask. Tipping his thumb over his shoulder, he sent Donny in to change.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “It could just be a technical issue,” Dad said. “But with the sort of hazardous materials we get called in to transport...”

  “I see,” I said.

  “We can’t be too careful.”

  We stood silently until Donny came back out. His normal Baron Mortis outfit had a tuxedo jacket and trousers over a black and white hero suit. His hero suit was white from the waist up and black below. Instead of the potentially sweltering tuxedo jacket, he’d put back on the waistcoat he’d been wearing before. He did wear the breakaway pre-tied bow tie and his thick white plastic skull mask. “All right, let’s go,” Donny said.

  Part 2

  “Pigeonpot, population twelve hundred,” I read from the sign as we turned off the highway. The town looked it, with maybe a half-dozen streets each way. The houses were all well-spaced and one or two-story buildings in a variety of subdued styles. The four block cluster that was ‘downtown’ included the barbecue place we’d stopped last night, and a Smiley and Sons gas station. Dad pulled into the lot of the gas station. A simple building with white sides and red trim, it had typically large windows showing a variety of unhealthy snacking options on its shelves inside. There were four pumps for gas and a secondary plaza with two pumps for diesel. The secondary plaza looked built to accommodate big rigs.

  Pran Kulkarni was washing down the front windows with a dual-headed scrubber-squeegee combo on the end of a broomstick. A bucket of water and window cleaner mix sat on the pavement nearby. He spotted us and let out a drawn-out sigh. Turning back to his task, he made a point of not paying attention to us. Now that he was standing up, I could tell he was easily over six foot six. That had to be an outlier in any population.

  “Excuse me,” Dad said.

  “What do you want?” Kulkarni asked. His voice was rich and deep, somewhere among the lowest registers humanly possible. It was clear, resonant, and unaccented. It did not hide his irritation.

  “I’m looking for a Paragon Logistics truck.”

  “And you’re bugging me because?”

  “I was wondering if you saw one recently. It’s white, with orange and blue lettering across the side.”

  “Why should I have?”

  “Well, the driver did use his gas card to fill up with diesel here.”

  “It’s not uncommon for truckers to fill up here. I don’t pay a lot of attention to them.”

  “This one was being driven by a licensed hero,” Dad said. “We tend to stand out.”

  “Black guy; tenor; green, gray, and white outfit; made an unfunny comment about pockets,” Kulkarni said. “I saw him, didn’t see his truck.” Kulkarni sloshed more cleaner on the window and spread it around.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Just before the chanting scared every right-minded fool in this town out of their wits.”

  “What chanting?”

  Kulkarni cleared his throat and began to sing a tight string of harsh, latinate phrases. The unnatural words and his basso profondo voice made m
y skin crawl. Donny literally shivered at the sound. Dad waved it off, motioning for him to stop.

  “Only, I can’t do it justice,” Kulkarni said. “They had a hundred voice choir at least.”

  “Which direction was that?”

  “Probably the engineering depot. Acoustics in this town are not that great.”

  “You have an excellent memory.”

  “Perfect recall, Razordemon, especially for those who’ve wronged me.” With a stroke of the squeegee, he removed a swath of cleaner from the top of the window. Dad motioned for us to return to the car. We wasted no time in climbing inside.

  “What am I missing?” I asked.

  “Doctor Rudra was an opera singer. He had a casting dispute with the management of his company. His own penchant for overly complicated plans foiled his attempt to kill the company manager, and would later lead to his capture.”

  “He mushed the words,” Donny said, “But that was the Litany of Despair.”

  Dad started the engine. “As he said, the acoustics in this town are not that great. He probably didn’t hear it clearly.”

  “Wait, how do you know that song?” I asked.

  “Hello? Trying to study magic? Seriously, you think I can’t learn anything.”

  Dad pulled out of the gas station and turned north. “Either of you notice something off about this town?” I looked around.

  “The streets are empty. Kulkarni is the only person in sight.”

  “If they got a hundred voice choir of the Litany of Despair, they’re probably cowering under their beds,” Donny said. “But I don’t know how you’d protect the choir from each others’ voices.”

  “We’ll have to find out,” Dad said. He pointed to a sign that read, ‘US Army Corps of Engineers, Pigeonpot Depot’. It hung from a chain-link fence whose gate would have barred the road we were on. That gate, however, was bent and twisted, looking like it had been rammed open by a wide vehicle. Dad slowed down as he passed the threshold. There was no guard shack, or any sign of staff. This was probably a storage depot for flood control work, or something to that effect. A wide, paved slab sported several concrete buildings that might have dated to the Korean war. A concrete hill face dropped away to what was either a flood channel or a disused canal. I didn’t pay it much mind as my attention snapped to the mangled truck off to my right.