Painkiller

by Robert J. Crane

  “Shit, Harry,” Phinneus said, frowning, “you didn’t have to get all sappy. I would have partnered up with you clowns just to save my own ass in this.”

  “Same,” Veronika said, sounding madly uncomfortable.

  Fannon grunted from the floor. “The old dinosaur … makes a good point, though.”

  “Like I was talking to you cynics,” Harry said, making a face at Phinneus and Veronika. “I was speaking to the younger and more idealistic crowd.”

  Fannon looked right at me, clutching at himself, skin wet with blood. “What do we do?”

  I hesitated, lulled by Harry’s speech, which had produced some very odd emotions in me. “Uhm …” I glanced at Harry.

  Harry gave me a nod. “They’re all in. I can read the probabilities. They’re not going to stab you in the back later. Gustafson’s the one paying them, and if he’s dead …” He waved his drink, careful not to spill.

  “Yeah, no contract,” Veronika said, thoroughly irritated. “I came to town on my own dime so that I can do charity work. Whoopee.”

  “All right,” I said, nodding. “We need to get to Gustafson and stop him before this clock ticks down.” I looked at J.J. “This is your moment, J.J.”

  He nodded solemnly, a serious look falling over his face at the grim moment we found ourselves in. He opened his mouth, licked his lips, and said, “Does this make us the slaughterhouse ten, now?”

  I just rolled my eyes and barely kept from slamming my head against the table. You can take the geek out of government service, but he’s still a geek.

  59.

  “The cops are coming,” Harry pronounced suddenly.

  “Yeah, I won’t be sticking around for that,” Phinneus said, throwing a furtive glance behind him at the large windows onto the street.

  “I’m … I’m just gonna get on a plane,” Veronika said, seeming to gather herself together at last. “You don’t need my help catching some pencilneck. Gustafson … he’s the kind that carries a slide rule in his pocket, not a gun.”

  “Hmm,” Harry said, staring at her carefully, “that doesn’t change anything for you, survival probability-wise. Either you’re already infected with whatever this is … or this thing’s going global.”

  “Fine,” Veronika said, looking rattled, “then I’m going to—”

  “Won’t help,” Harry cut her off with a shake of the head. “The only probability change I’m seeing right now is if we go the ‘fight’ route.” He downed the last of his drink. “I know. Wouldn’t be my first choice, either.”

  “What do we do?” Reed asked as the first sound of sirens echoed through the steakhouse. The sound of a shattering plate in the back kitchen was like a warning that things were about to break all over if we didn’t get moving.

  “J.J.?” I asked, but he was pecking away on his keyboard.

  “He won’t give you anything before the cops get here,” Harry said.

  “Also,” Reed said, under his breath, “Slaughterhouse Five was the name of the slaughterhouse, not a name for a group.” J.J. didn’t stir, but I saw Reed relax a hair, clearly relieved now that he’d corrected the incorrect geekery foisted upon those of us present, none of whom gave an actual damn.

  “Fannon,” I said, looking at the speedster still surrounded by Augustus’s prison of shards, glittering the steakhouse’s low light, “why don’t you go up to Northern Illinois Technical University and grab Gustafson?”

  “I’d love to,” he said, voice wrought with pain, “but I’m kinda gonna be pushing glass shards out of my internal organs for the next couple hours, and moving fast would be … really detrimental to my health during that time.” He glanced at Augustus. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

  “Hey, man, you were the one who took a contract to kill my friend offered by a genocidal mad scientist,” Augustus said.

  “Why not get your friends the cops after Gustafson?” Phinneus asked.

  “Not a terrible idea,” I said, looking back at the street.

  “Whoa, no, that’s a terrible idea,” Harry said, pretty definitively. “That one kills the small chance of survival we all had.”

  “Damn, this is grim,” Reed said, looking as grey as I’d ever seen him.

  “We gotta go now,” Harry said, standing up. “Otherwise, the cops are gonna try and detain us, and Phinneus and Veronika are going to kill eight of them.”

  “Yep,” Phinneus said with a nod when we all looked at him.

  “Fine, we leave,” I said, matching Harry and standing up.

  “Where do we go?” Reed asked. “Do we just … all pile in a bunch of cabs and head up to NITU to snag Gustafson?”

  Everybody sort of looked around uneasily except Harry, who chortled. “Like a convoy.” He seemed to sober up, his childish grin disappearing. “I guess I’m the only one who thought three cabs full of metahumans rolling through the streets of the Gold Coast was cause for amusement.” He pushed at Reed, who started to move. “All right, let’s go.”

  “I got a bike outside,” Phinneus said, as we started to move ourselves toward the door, kinda slowly for a bunch of people with metahuman speed. “One of you can ride with me.”

  “Oh, man, I want to ride on the bike,” J.J. said, looking up as he snapped his laptop shut just before he tripped over one of the stairs.

  Phinneus looked at him in askance. “Not quite what I was hoping for.” He looked straight at Kat, who was leading the way, her gun holstered beneath her aquamarine designer suit. “How about you, girl?”

  “She’s out of your league, Phinneus,” Veronika said, brushing through the door. She looked straight at me with a smirk. “How about Sienna? I’ve seen her naked. She’s your type.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked a little hotly.

  “I saw it, too,” Harry said, breezing out, a whole bottle of scotch now clutched in his hand. He smacked his lips together idly, like he was thirsty. “It’s good.”

  “I only saw it for a minute,” Fannon said, his voice still low and grunting as he hobbled out with Augustus walking warily at his back, “when she was turning into a dragon, but before she got all scaly, it was all right.”

  Phinneus paused at the curb, one foot off, the very image of a rugged frontiersman … dressed like an old biker. “What, did you take your clothes off for everyone but me? Did you do it after you blinded me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you’ve got me figured out. I’m leaving government service to become a stripper.”

  “Your ride is here,” Mr. Chang said, and a steel grey Hummer limo came pulling up in front of the steakhouse.

  “You know, I can get my bike later,” Phinneus said, clearly admiring my new conveyance.

  The sirens were drawing closer. “Okay, everyone in,” I said, and they started piling in like it was a clown car.

  “I haven’t seen her naked either, man,” J.J. said, putting a hand on Phinneus’s arm in sympathy. Phinneus gave him a look, and J.J. removed it and skittered into the limo.

  “This is where I leave you, Ms. Nealon,” Chang said, not exactly cool as a cucumber. He looked pretty relieved to get off the party bus. “I trust you’ll give me a call when you’ve decided whether to take my client’s employment offer?”

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said, giving him a nod as Reed shot me an evil look before he climbed in the limo.

  “I’ll be waiting,” Chang said and turned to stride off down the sidewalk. His hair was wet and streaked down the side, probably from getting caught in the most intense negotiation he’d ever been part of. He walked a little stiffly, but seemed to relax more with every step he took away from us.

  The sirens blared in my consciousness. “Now would be a good time to leave,” Reed called to me from the open door of the limo, throwing a little extra judgment into it.

  With that, I sighed and got in, and the limo sped off toward the college and hopefully Gustafson, where we could put an end to this thing for good.

  60.


  I found myself on a leather seat between Phinneus Chalke and my brother. Harry was stinking up the limo with the smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes that he dragged everywhere with him like a cloud. Somehow, probably because of the tight quarters, it made me make a face.

  “You know,” Phinneus said, showing me just a hint of a smirk, “that was a hell of a chance you pulled in that restaurant, trying to turn us all around on Gustafson. It might not have worked out for you. That took guts. You got a big ol’ brass pair.”

  Veronika sat up, and I could see that what Phinneus had said was chafing on her. “I told you I saw her naked, Chalke. The only thing she’s got a pair of is tits. Which explains why she can take a kick to the groin without falling apart, unlike the rest of you helpless dicks in this car.”

  “Oof,” Reed said next to me as all the guys in the limo but J.J. cringed at that. My brother looked at me. “So … now we’ve recruited assassins and a hard-drinking, gambling murderer to help save the world.” He looked at Harry, who was clutching his bottle of scotch in front of him like a shield as he frowned at Reed. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Harry said with a shrug.

  “I really just wanted to get them off my back,” I said. “I wasn’t … planning to recruit anybody. I’d just like to not have the metas of Chicago or the world die, though, and that’s something we can all agree on.”

  “Uh huh,” Reed said, jaded. “You know, when this over and we’re unemployed, you could just go work as an assassin like them.” He nodded toward Veronika. “I bet she’d give you some pointers.”

  Veronika turned her head toward us from where she sat next to Kat. “Being an assassin requires anonymity, lunkhead. Nealon fails on that basis alone. She couldn’t go anywhere in the world without someone recognizing that face.” She pointed right at me.

  “Not all of us have to show our face to get the job done,” Phinneus interjected with a smirk. He looked right at me. “I’ve seen you shoot on TV. Who taught you?”

  “An old friend,” I said, looking at Phinneus’s grey hair and beard. “Actually … you kinda remind me of him.”

  Phinneus’s eyes twinkled. “You learned from Glen Parks, didn’t you?”

  I stared back at him. “You knew Parks?”

  Phinneus cackled like it was some great joke. “I taught him and he went and taught you. Now that’s what I call training your own competition.” He quieted down and got serious, the wrinkles around his eyes subsiding. “He didn’t make it through the war with Century, did he?”

  “No,” I said, feeling a sudden lump in my throat. “He didn’t.” I didn’t bother to elaborate.

  The limo hit a bump, and I looked out to see we were on Lake Shore Drive heading north. Again. I turned my gaze to J.J. down the row. “You got anything?”

  He took a second to realize I was talking to him. “Uhmm … I’ve got … uh … yeah, no, I got nothing more right now. I can’t get through NITU’s firewall without brute forcing it, which is probably a good thing, since it’d be disappointing if a school that emphasized science and technology had servers as easy to break into as an elementary school.”

  “Then I guess we wait until we get there,” I said, and we settled back into an uneasy silence as the limo rolled on.

  61.

  When the limo pulled up to the Northern Illinois Technical University campus, the sun was already coming out from behind its clouds. Which was good, because I was starting to believe Illinois maybe didn’t have a sun. We headed across campus at a quick walk, the whole damned cluster of us: me, Reed, Augustus, Kat, J.J., Veronika, Phinneus, a still-limping Fannon, and Harry, who looked surprisingly steady for a guy who’d downed as much booze as he had.

  “Man, we got the full-on Justice League going here,” Augustus said as we made our way through the campus. People moved out of the way, probably because I was at the lead. I saw a few cell phone cameras, and saw Veronika wince at them, trying to keep herself from just going over and destroying them in peoples’ hands, probably.

  “Avengers,” my brother said, making that coughing noise under his breath.

  “These geeks,” J.J. said, elbowing me, like he wasn’t dying to just join in with them. His inside-baseball expression melted as he realized I wasn’t buying it.

  We stormed the stairs of the science building where Gustafson had his office, and I nearly shoulder checked President Breedlowe as she came out of the entrance. She looked dazed, but her eyes snapped into clarity when she saw me and my scary-looking entourage. “Oh,” she said, smoothing out the front of her suit as she came to an abrupt halt. “What are you doing here?”

  I decided to just hit her with the truth. “Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Gustafson were working on creating a biological weapon for use against metahumans with funding from Edward Cavanagh,” I said. “Tell me where he is.” At that point I dropped any pretense of being nice.

  She put up her shields, folding her arms, and her face darkened. “I’m—no, I’m not telling you that.”

  “Fine,” I said, “then I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice. I have a feeling Gustafson isn’t going to want to be taken alive, so the war crimes tribunal will just have to content itself with drawing and quartering you and your university.”

  “BOOM!” Augustus whispered, at meta-low volume, voice filled with quiet awe.

  Breedlowe fell apart in a second. “He just left, in a big truck, and I don’t know what he was doing because he was being really evasive and—”

  “What kind of truck?” J.J. asked, sneaking forward to insert himself into the conversation.

  “Big,” Breedlowe said, looking like she was about two seconds from breaking into a sweat even on this chilly day. “Transfer—err—tractor trailer? Whatever they call them. The big shipping trucks. He was driving it.”

  “Not every day you see a fancy doctor relegate himself to truck driver,” Veronika said from somewhere behind me. “Looks like Gustafson’s moving down in the world.”

  J.J. had his laptop open. “I need your WiFi password,” he said to Breedlowe, who looked like she was heading fast for catatonia. J.J. stared right at her. “Now, lady, before your employee of the month drops the bomb on Chicago and kills more people than you have enrolled in this dump!” My eyes widened a little as J.J. played his hand hard.

  “It’s, uh,” Breedlowe stammered, “… number one uni in I-L-L.” J.J. looked up at her. “It’s spelled like it sounds,” she said with a broken voice.

  “I’m in,” J.J. said, staring at his laptop, which was holding with one hand and pecking away at with the other. “Bypassing into the security … okay, I’ve got surveillance cameras … rolling back …” He looked at Breedlowe. “Where did you see him in this truck?”

  “Behind the building,” Breedlowe said, pointing to the science building behind her.

  “Got him and a timestamp,” J.J. said, staring at the screen. “Switching to CPD camera network …” He glanced at Breedlowe. “You should be proud of your IS department, I couldn’t breach them. City of Chicago, on the other hand …” He concentrated as we all held our breath. “Okay, got him. Let’s get to the limo and give chase.”

  Everyone kind of stood there, stock still for a minute, J.J.’s sudden bout of hard-charging intimidation turned leadership taking a moment to settled in on us all, even the newbies who had just met him.

  “You heard the man,” I said, putting emphasis on that last part and causing J.J. to inflate with pride. “Let’s go get Gustafson.”

  62.

  “Take a left,” J.J. told the driver, switching his attention between the computer sitting on his lap and the front windshield.

  “Don’t,” Harry said with a shake of his head. “If you go that way, we’ll never get him. Take Lake Shore south.”

  I blinked at Harry. “You can read that in the probabilities?”

  “Yeah,” Harry said, nodding. “Probably a wreck or something.” The driver took his course as Harry looked at me. He’d
finally put aside the bottle. “Our odds are improving somewhat.”

  “Good,” I said, as Harry eased closer to me by a couple inches in what could have been an innocent readjustment to the way he was seated but didn’t quite feel like it. “What?” he asked me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, eyeing him.

  “Sitting next to you,” he said, giving me a little bit of a smile. It was charming. “Is that a crime now?”

  “It probably takes a back seat to the two self-confessed murder counts I’ve got you on,” I said, as seriously as I could.

  “Ooh,” Harry said, making it seem like something uncomfortable. “You are the most serious young person I’ve met. What are you? Thirty? Forty already?”

  “I just turned twenty-four last month,” I said.

  His brows shifted up in surprise. “Oh my. You are young.”

  “And you’re hitting on me,” I said, feeling like I’d caught him in dirty old man mode.

  He shrugged it off without any guilt. “Look, when you get a couple centuries on you, it’s not exactly easy to date in your age bracket. So … what’s an older gent to do? Just give it up?” He chortled. “Not likely. I’ve still got the physiological needs of a thirtysomething.”

  Harry’s whole persona was so laid back that I didn’t feel uncomfortable with the way he was going about making his case to me. All the same, I wasn’t buying into it, either. “Kat,” I said, calling over Reed and Augustus, “I found you a new boyfriend.”

  Kat peered down at me, then at Harry, appraising. “Uck, not even.”

  “Thanks, Klementina,” Harry said with a tight smile. “You just keep pretending that winter in Smolensk never happened.”

  “Whut?” I asked, my jaw suddenly loose.

  “Huh?” Kat’s eyes were like hubcaps.

  “Did he just call her …?” Reed asked.

  WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SISTER?! Gavrikov shouted in my head, loud enough to make me blanch.