Ruthless (Out of the Box Book 3)

by Robert J. Crane

  I snorted. “You’re gonna have a hell of a time running a metahuman policing program without any metahumans to help you.”

  He didn’t even blink. “Not really.” He stood, arms still folded. “We’ll have to make some changes, though. The capture rate is going to plunge, for sure. We won’t be able to guarantee the security of the prison, either, so,” he waved a hand at something on the desk and I realized it was a report on the security measures, “at the first sign of an escape attempt we’ll flood all the cells to the top. After that, we’ll just fill it up with concrete and make sure it stays buried until after November. It’ll be easier to explain in a second term.”

  I felt my mouth fall slightly agape. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Do you think most people care what happens to those with powers that they don’t understand?” He stared at me evenly, apparently unconcerned that he’d just outlined a plan for murder that was predicated on political inconvenience. “Let me help you—they don’t. They don’t mind people like you that they perceive as helpful, but other than a certain vocal segment of the population, the civil rights of your people aren’t even in the top ten answers when they commission a poll on ‘the single biggest issue facing America today.’” His eyes honed in on mine. “But one meta issue makes the top ten. Care to guess which?”

  I felt my eyes fall. I’d heard these poll answers before. “The one where they view us as a threat to ordinary society.”

  He navigated his way around my—his—desk. “I’m not gonna pretend that killing everyone in the lower levels and giving up on the more humane capture method is our preferred option. But I think you know the president is in for a political fight.” He arched an eyebrow. “Against an old friend of yours, probably, if the current polls hold through the primaries. This department is going to stop being the loose cannon on this deck, right now.” He looked me in the eye, and I knew he was not bluffing. “You can either be a part of that … or not. Your choice.” He settled back on his heels. “What’s your answer?”

  I blinked, looking at the floor, and then my eyes came up to find his. “Go fuck yourself,” I said. I grabbed my box and headed out the door.

  15.

  I was halfway across the snowy field to the dormitory when Andrew Phillips caught up to me. “Really?” he asked, and he wasn’t all that much more expressive than he’d been in his office. It was cold; I was shivering as I walked. I could have flown, but I think it would have made it worse. He could run, though, give him credit for that. His complexion looked like he was gonna burn up in the sun, though, like a natural-born Minnesotan. I sympathized.

  “Really,” I said. “In case you didn’t read my personnel file, I don’t respond well to threats, intimidation, coercion or people who attempt to lean on me.”

  “I didn’t threaten you,” he said, his stride keeping up with mine. The bastard wasn’t even wearing a coat, and his breath puffed in the air on the sunlight, freezing-ass day. “I didn’t try and intimidate you; I can’t recall any sort of carrot that would be coercion—”

  “You leaned on me,” I said.

  “I told you how it’s going to be,” he said. “If you want to take that as leaning, that’s on you. Maybe it escaped your notice, but you’re twenty-two years old and you’ve been running this department into the ground for three years without interference—”

  I spun on him. “‘Running it into the ground’? I haven’t even a pulled a ‘Man of Steel’ and trashed the whole city of Minneapolis yet.” I looked skyward. “Though I suppose the day is young. I’ve minimized casualties where possible—”

  “You nuked a resort town in Northern Minnesota,” he said, looking at me slightly warily.

  “And no civilians died,” I said. “I got the job done, against a world-ending group of nutballs who had me grossly outnumbered. What more do you want from me?”

  “The job done quietly,” he said. “The job done out of the headlines. No high profile failures like this morning, no botched , graceless, disastrous interviews with the press, no ambassadors howling at the president because an agency head assaulted them.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “In other words, smooth sailing.”

  “I can …” I cut myself off, “… be smooth,” I finished lamely. No, I probably couldn’t.

  “No, you can’t,” he said, not breaking off eye contact. “Not in charge, anyway. You’re ruled by your own will to action, by your own sense of … whatever. Justice, lack of impulse control, something.”

  Kill him, Wolfe suggested. Wear his skin and keep doing the job.

  Not. Helpful. Also, eww.

  “So why not just fire me and be done with it?” I asked. “Why are you chasing me across the lawn?” I was ready to drop my box of stuff in the snow and fly off.

  “Because it’s not politically expedient to drop you like you’ve got the plague,” he said. “If it were, I would have advised it by now.” There was zero remorse in this statement, which I found not at all reassuring. “You’re a hero. You’re unspent political capital. Sure, the electorate mostly won’t care if you resign and walk away, but some will. The question might be raised about our safety, and how the president is conducting metahuman affairs, at least until we get a few high-profile incidents under the new department’s belt.”

  “A few high-profile kills, you mean.”

  He shrugged almost imperceptibly. “We’ll do what we have to in order to deliver the necessary results for—”

  “—the election,” I finished for him. “You’re a one-note singer. It’s all about the politics for you; politics and perception.”

  “That’s all there is in the world,” he said. “Perception. See, one of the planks of our platform is trying to reinvigorate that sense of community that people have lost. It’s not about actually making things that way again; it’s about doing the things that people perceive as pushing us in that direction. And part of that is that they need to feel safe.”

  “Your opinions are utter bullshit,” I said, shaking my head. I focused in on him with fiery eyes. “If I’m gonna have to deal with the misery of listening to them, I feel like I should at least get the joy of extracting them from you with a thousand fearful screams at the end of a chainsaw.”

  “You can’t threaten me,” he said, and I could tell he was unmoved.

  “I’ve done worse than threaten to worse people than you,” I said, not backing off.

  “If you assault me you’ll be fired,” he said simply, “for cause.”

  “I just quit, in case you missed it.”

  “And your file will be leaked to the public,” he went on, like it was nothing. “Everything.” He leaned toward me. “You have done worse things to worse people than me. What was his name? Rick?” He looked like he was trying to remember. “Beat him to death with his own chair?” He never let up that gaze. “Did that make you feel superior? Did you feel like you showed him the error of his ways?”

  I could feel my teeth rattle, whether from cold or anger I couldn’t tell. “He was a real bastard. But you should know he leaned on me, too.”

  “You threatened me, I threatened you,” Andrew Phillips said. “Proportional response.” He took a small step back. “I won’t stop you if you’re going to leave. I’ve got preparations to make if you’re truly done, though. Prisoners to … make ready.” There was no joy in the way he said it. No emotion at all, really. “I read the report on every one of them. The only one that seems like he’s not a waste of oxygen is Timothy Logan.”

  My head snapped around. Phillips was still looking at me coolly, utterly unflappable. “Now you’re threatening him,” I said.

  “I’m not threatening him,” Phillips said simply. “I told you ten minutes ago what the consequences would be if you decided to resign. I’m just reminding you about all the …” he started to turn, “… aspects of your decision that you might not have considered.”

  He strolled off across the snowfield, like he wasn’t cold, like he had not a care in the world. I
watched him go, wondering all the while what the hell I should do.

  16.

  I started back toward the dormitory building, regretting not taking the underground tunnel. I was usually smarter than this, but apparently in all the fuss surrounding me quitting my job in a fury, I forgot that it was winter and cold, with snow past my ankles. I trudged along, feeling my lips freezing from the chill, my eyes blurring (I wasn’t crying, the wind was just hard, dammit), and the tears getting crusty around the corners.

  I had the sense I was being followed, and turned to face my pursuer. I nearly did a double take.

  It was a dog. I don’t know breeds, but it was kinda tan colored, with fur going in a lot of different directions. Not big, and kinda skinny.

  I stared at him, he stared at me, his head cocked to the side like he was asking me a question. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, like he might answer me. We had a perimeter fence, after all. I blinked, and my freeze-crusted eyes flaked a little ice-dust. “Never mind.” I stopped talking right then, because I was pretty out of my mind to be talking to a dog, I thought. I started back toward the dormitory.

  I made it about another fifteen feet when I heard a little whimper. I looked back and saw the poor guy shivering. He was up to mid-leg in the hard, crunching snow, and he didn’t have anything but that thin coat of fur to protect him. I cursed his master, whoever they were, for letting him out in this, and felt an internal tugging that I didn’t care for. “I can’t help you,” I said lamely. “I’m not a pet person.” I thought about it. “I’m actually not a people person, either, so don’t think I’m discriminating against you.”

  I turned to leave, and another whimper froze me in my tracks. I turned to see him trotting over to me, the single most pitiful look in his eyes that I have ever seen. “I can’t help you,” I said, readjusting my box of possessions. My bonsai tree was probably frozen to death already. “Look, I can barely take care of myself. If they didn’t feed me in the cafeteria, I would have died of ramen poisoning years ago.”

  I tried to pull away from those dark eyes, that cute little face, but it was like a black hole that dragged me closer. In fact, I was standing still and he slowly edged toward me, head down, eyes just barely looking up. Like he was … begging. Like some poor, piteous soul looking for a pat on the head.

  I adjusted my box of stuff and granted him the pat on the head. He was just sitting there, waiting for it. He rubbed against my hand, and then against my leg. He was panting, and I had a sudden fear his tongue was going to freeze while we were standing there.

  “Oh, all right,” I said, giving in on that internal tug of war. “Come with me. I’ll get you something to eat. But you’re going to the Humane Society first thing.” He followed me back to the dormitory building walking at my side, the only friend I felt like I had right then.

  17.

  “What’s up with Benji?” Reed asked as he stepped into my quarters. He caught sight of the dog curled up in the corner immediately, of course. I’d given the poor guy a bath, which he seemed okay with, and got him toweled off. He’d chosen a spot on the living room’s heating vent for a nap after devouring some bacon I’d had left in the refrigerator and cooked up for him. It was pretty much all I had.

  “He was wandering the campus, looking pitiful,” I said as I shut the door behind my brother.

  “You’re taking in strays now?” Reed asked, one eyebrow higher than the other. “For real? You?”

  “I have a heart, you know,” I said, brushing past him. “It may be buried under a layer of permafrost, but it’s there.”

  “Well, okay then,” Reed said, working his way over to my living room to sit on the couch. “What’s up with the new boss?”

  “You heard about that?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. Reed was better connected around here than I was.

  “Be hard to miss,” he said, glancing at the dog, which was now up and trotting over to him. He stood next to Reed while my brother stroked his head gently, like a natural. “The whole place is in rumorous upheaval.” He seemed to reconsider that phrasing for a few seconds, then shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “What’s the pulse?”

  Reed’s face went guarded. “Depends on the branch. Security and Ops are not happy, because they like you and your rampant badassery. Makes them feel safe.” He frowned. “Which is surprising, given their casualty numbers. Admin’s divided, because Ariadne was tough on them, but she delivered results. Also, they were apparently afraid of you.”

  I frowned. “What the hell, did you commission a poll? How do you know this?”

  “I talk to people,” he said with a shrug, still petting the dog. “I’m connected to others.”

  “You’re connected at the crotch to a certain il dottore,” I said, glaring at him.

  “Aghhh,” he said, drawing it out. “When will you let it go already?”

  “Half a dozen more ill-timed cracks, and I promise I will.”

  He gave it a moment’s consideration. “I can live with that.”

  I headed to the fridge and opened it to find it rather spare. Still. “I’d offer you something to drink, but you already know where to find the tap.” I swung the door wide so he could see. “Would you care to partake of our fine selection of ketchup and mustard?”

  “What are you gonna do?” Reed asked, changing the subject.

  I shut the fridge door with a little more gusto than it needed. “I don’t know. This new boss—Andrew Phillips—he’s a tough cookie. Like a steel dough with diamond chips—”

  “What did he do?” Reed asked, cutting to the quick.

  “He says the government is going to shut down the prison if I leave,” I said, folding my arms in front of me. “That they’ll dispense with the inmates at the first sign of trouble because they can’t provide proper security without meta assistance—my assistance.”

  “Ouch,” Reed said, his jaw slightly open. “You believe him?”

  “I don’t know him well enough to call a bluff yet.”

  Reed stared at me shrewdly. “Would it bother you if he wasn’t bluffing?”

  I let that thought bounce around in my head for a little bit before answering. “It would bother me in Timothy Logan’s case. Most of the others … less so. Though I’m not exactly a huge fan of the idea of executing helpless prisoners. Seems …” I searched for a word, but “gauche” seemed wrong.

  “Cruel?” Reed asked, still studying my reaction. “Vicious? Over-the-top?”

  “All the above and more, probably,” I said. “Which is kinda sad for me to admit since I know most of these people would gladly go out into the world and wreak more havoc, kill more people.” I shook my head. “I mean, I would have to say that at least seventy percent of them view other human beings as objects at best, with little to no empathy for them as people.”

  “Which makes them dangerous,” Reed said. “Definitely worthy of at least some incarceration.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Anyway, I don’t know—”

  A hard knocking interrupted me, rattling my door. “Who is it?” I called even as I got up.

  “Ariadne,” she said, and I hurried to let her in. She was standing there, looking more than a little irritable, and she barged right in without so much as an invite. “Can you believe this?”

  “Uh … no?” I watched her come in at a full head of steam, looking significantly more upset than when she’d delivered the news to me only an hour earlier.

  “We run the ship all through the war,” she said, apparently taking no notice of Reed or my new dog as she paced in, heading straight for the kitchen, “and for over three years after, not a peep from Washington as they kept their distance, but now—one giant screwup later,” I blanched at her assessment of my morning, “and this happens.” She wheeled on me. “Can you believe it?”

  “I can believe it,” Reed said, and she snapped her head around in surprise to finally take notice of him. “You’re
only as good as your last success—or screwup—after all.”

  “Ohh,” she said, making a kind of cooing noise, “your dog is very cute, Reed.”

  “That’s my dog,” I said, suddenly irritated. She turned to look at me blankly, like she couldn’t understand what I was saying. “And it’s a stray that’s going to the pound,” I finished, feeling my irritation fade with the calm reality that I was not keeping the animal. Back to being predictable me, I guess.

  “I’m not sure I want to stick around for this insult,” Ariadne said, resuming her pacing in my kitchen. “I mean—it really does feel like an insult, doesn’t it?” She swooped past the fridge again and paused, opening it up like she owned the place. She was silent for a moment as she looked into its depths. “How the hell do you not weigh like ninety-eight pounds?”

  “We have a cafeteria,” I said crossly, “in the freaking building. Also, my figure is naturally like this, okay? I’m stout, my ribcage is a little broader than average—”

  “Whoa, sis,” Reed said, and I followed his gaze to see my hand was engulfed in flames. “Need me to get a fire extinguisher?”

  “Gavrikov!” I snapped, and the fire went out. Sometimes when my emotions got high, the souls I had stored in my brain took the opportunity to bubble to the surface and assert a certain amount of control.

  I heard chortling in my head, mostly Eve Kappler and Bjorn. Shut it, I told them. My fingers still smoked, but I could still feel Gavrikov’s rich satisfaction at the gag. He didn’t have much in his non-life, I figured, so I let it go.

  I took a breath and counted to five, then shifted my attention to Ariadne. “So, what are you going to do?”

  She shut the door to my fridge, but gently, managing to pull off what I apparently couldn’t. “I don’t know. Probably keep working here, but gripe under my breath the whole time.” She shook her head. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go, and the cause is still just, even if management isn’t.”