06 - Vengeful

by Robert J. Crane

  Maybe I could sympathize with his plight a little. Or something.

  “Well, my back got broken,” Augustus said, “I didn’t do the breaking myself, though.” He frowned. “How’d you even hear about that?”

  “Digital eyes everywhere, brother,” Jamal said, looking out the window. “Always watching.”

  “That’s a little creepy,” I said.

  “It’s a brave new world,” Jamal said, leaning forward. “You know what kind of people it has in it?”

  I squinted at him, trying to decipher his meaning. “All sorts. Which kind are you talking about?”

  He licked his lips. “The kind that you can’t get through the watertight wall into.”

  Augustus gave his brother a look. “Jamal, what are you doing here?”

  “Well, I was in town to check up on you, little brother,” he said. Jamal was probably a good five inches shorter than Augustus. “But I figured once I saw what was going on, I could lend a hand to someone who’s in a situation not unlike one I’m familiar with.”

  “You want to help her get revenge?” Augustus asked, disbelief written across his face. “Haven’t you done enough of that on your own?”

  “Wait,” I said, holding out a hand to get Augustus to stifle himself, “you want to help me?”

  “If your enemies are throwing darts at you,” Jamal said, pushing his lips together as he paused to let that thought sink in, “they’re hitting other places on the board now. This Anselmo guy that came at Augustus, he was straight out of their camp.”

  “What do you know about all this?” Augustus asked, looking at his brother with a dose of skepticism strong enough to stun a bull elephant. “How much have you been watching?”

  Jamal touched a finger to the door. A spark of electricity ran through, unlocking the doors with a sharp click that caused Augustus to jump. “I’m watching more than anyone else lately.”

  I pondered his offer, that cold fury that had been coursing through me only a few minutes earlier as I kicked down Charles O’Shea’s door metamorphosing into something different, something I still couldn’t describe, or maybe something I didn’t want to. The layers of the cake were getting even more muddled. “What do you need?” I asked, and the only thing I could really identify was … hunger. Desire to know.

  “Take us back to your headquarters,” Jamal said, nodding at the road ahead. “I need a computer and some time, and I’ll open your eyes.”

  “Whoa,” Augustus said, and he landed a hand on my arm. I eyed it and he pulled it back like he'd gotten burned. “You sure this is a good idea?”

  “He’s your brother,” I said, putting the car into gear. “It’d be rude not to at least listen.” And I pushed gently down on the accelerator pedal instead of slamming it to the floor like I wanted to, controlling my breath as I hurried to get us home, back to where I could finally get some answers.

  18.

  I stood watching Jamal do his thing from over J.J.’s shoulder, ignoring the workday noise of the agency’s fourth floor as I waited for the results. The whole place had a quiet, placid feel to it, like the people who worked here hadn’t quite recovered from the manhunt that had dragged so many extra hours of effort out of them. It was like someone had given them all a shot of sedation and they were just trying to keep from toppling over for a snooze right on the carpet between cubicles.

  “How in the hell are you doing this?” J.J. asked in awe, adjusting his glasses as Jamal’s fingers danced over the keys, presumably unlocking doors J.J. only wet-dreamed about.

  “My power is over electricity,” Jamal said, not stopping as he explained. “Most people who have that use it for bolts of lightning and such. I refined it over a couple years, figured out how to control 1’s and 0’s, even at a distance.”

  “Yeah,” Augustus said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, “you’re a real badass. You’re like a nerdy, black Cole McGrath.”

  Jamal paused to look up at his brother. “And you call me a nerd, throwing out the name Cole McGrath like people should know who that is.”

  I’ll admit it, I didn’t have a clue. “Who’s Cole McGrath?” I whispered to J.J., forgetting that the Colemans were both metas and could hear me.

  “I understood that reference,” J.J. said with pride, like a sunbeam was about to burst out of his chest. “These are my people.” He paused as Jamal and Augustus both looked at him cockeyed, and J.J. thrust his hands up. “No! Wait! Not like that! Not what I meant!”

  “I think I’m about to kill you all,” I said, letting a little frustration bubble out. “Can we get on with—”

  “Sienna!” Ariadne’s voice cracked across the floor.

  I controlled my spin, gracefully coming about with a faux smile on my face. “Yesssssss?”

  Ariadne came into the cubicle, looking at me like I was being weird. Which I was. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m about to bust this case wide open,” I said, glancing back at Augustus. He shook his head at me, clearly disapproving of me saying it like that. I toned it down and tried again. “Jamal was about to show us who’s responsible for all my problems.”

  “What do you mean, responsible for all your problems?” She put her hands on her hips. “You cause more than a few of them yourself, like hitting a reporter—”

  “Actually, this Brain sent those reporters to ambush Sienna,” Jamal said helpfully. I was suddenly much happier I’d let him get away with murder. Uhhh … it sounds bad when I say it like that, doesn’t it? “She’s also been feeding reporters all sorts of bad info, rumors and stuff—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” J.J. said, all enthusiastic, like a dog looking for a pat on the head. “I figured that out, too, by tracing some of the fake IP addresses for the Brain and back-checking the emails accessed from those—”

  “So the bottom line is that Sienna’s been the victim of a lovely public relations tar-and-feather campaign,” Augustus said, clearly losing patience with the geek speak.

  “So you really didn’t punch that reporter in the face?” Ariadne asked, not pulling her eyes off me.

  Stark silence fell in the cubicle. “Well, no, I did,” I said, “but there were extenuating circumstances! I was baited!”

  “When have you ever required bait to hit someone who was annoying you?” Ariadne asked, looking at me a little warily.

  “Hey,” I said. “Do you not get this? This whole campaign of misery where the press turned against me since the prison break in January, it was all orchestrated, like … like the Brain is a conductor,” I said, barely finishing the analogy.

  “Was Kat’s release of your conversation on television orchestrated?” she asked, still looking skeptical.

  I looked at Jamal, who shook his head silently. “No, that was just Kat being a—” I said.

  HEY! Gavrikov shouted before I could deliver my unvarnished opinion. That’s my sis—

  “Oh, shut it, Aleksandr,” I said, to the probable alarm of everyone around me. “Ariadne, don’t you get it? A lot of this shit that’s happened the last few months—it isn’t my fault.” I watched her for the light to go off.

  She didn’t exactly look bullet-hard, but she stared me down with a kind of sympathetic face. “And some of it is. I get that this lady has been shooting at your feet to make you dance, but … you got to choose how you reacted to the things she did. For example, punching the reporter in the face.”

  “I didn’t—what the hell? Let me shoot at your feet and see if you dance.” Now I was getting annoyed. “I didn’t choose to get hounded by them, I didn’t choose to get poisoned by them, and I damned sure didn’t ask for them to send the press up my ass for every little thing.”

  She looked a little wounded as she slinked back a step. “I’ve seen you like this before, you know.”

  I let out a hot breath of irritation. “No, you haven’t.”

  “Really?” Her glance was all accusation. “Pretty sure I have. All pissed off and sure you know where to direct it. I seem t
o recall waking up to you kicking down a door—”

  I blanched, and in my head Eve Kappler experienced a swell of self-righteous satisfaction. She’s right, you know. “I’m not—” I took a breath, getting myself under control. “I haven’t even killed anybody yet today,” and even to me it sounded like a plaintive whine.

  “I like how you throw in the ‘yet,’” Augustus said, “covering your bases and all.”

  “You’re too close to this one, Sienna,” Ariadne said quietly. “You should back off, let someone else—”

  “THERE IS NO ONE ELSE,” I said, and swung my hand back hard enough to hit the cubicle wall and crack it, knocking the whole cubicle farm back six inches. “Don’t you get it?” I stepped closer to her and she stepped back, eyes wide, stumbling slightly as she retreated. “I’m the only one who can do these things, can handle the threats. Who else are you going to send?” I whipped a finger at Augustus. “He’ll be great in a few months, but he’s just one guy, with one set of powers. What happens when you send him up against someone who can control water so well that they can knock his earth projections down into the mud? What then?” I shrugged my shoulders hard. “Reed? If he lives?” I spit it out caustic, like that chemical that Michael Shafer had thrown in my face last night. “Forgive me for not exactly being ‘blown away’ by his powers. He’s good, but I could break him like a twig in two seconds.” Ariadne was taller than me, but she was wilting under my verbal assault. “So who else you got? M-Squad’s gone, Ariadne—”

  “Because of you,” she whispered.

  “Because they crossed me,” I said, still furious. “I’m it. They may call this the Metahuman Policing and Threat Response What-the-hell-ever, but they ought to just call it what it is—Plan A: We send Sienna Nealon to beat your ass if you step out of line, metas.”

  “Holy shit,” J.J. stage whispered. “Cat fight.”

  I whirled on him. “Really? Really? Is it a cock fight when you argue with another guy? Or is it just arguing?” When he looked appropriately chastened, I threw the cherry on top. “Now stop being a little dick and let the women talk.”

  “Do you even see yourself right now?” Ariadne asked as I turned back to face her. Her cheeks were flushed, her neckline mottled red. “Can you hear what you’re saying? You’re not on an even keel.”

  “My boat’s been turned over,” I said. “By months and months of concerted effort on the part of the Brain to sink me.”

  “Not just her,” Jamal said, reminding me he was there. “She’s got accomplices.”

  I turned to look at his computer screen, which was basically just walls of text that I didn’t understand. “Eric Simmons, you mean?”

  “More than that,” Jamal said, and pointed to one section of the text. “Your Brain’s name is Cassidy Ellis. She’s a meta,” he pulled up a picture of a sullen girl in a mug shot, darker hair falling in wisps over her pale face. She looked like a teenager. “This is six years ago, last time she got arrested.”

  “What’s her power?” I leaned in, looking into the face of my enemy for the first time. She looked as pissed at the camera as I was at her.

  “She’s an actual brain,” Jamal said. “It’s not exactly recorded, but based on what I’ve seen of her school records, her patterns, what I can catch off her computer, she’s super-genius IQ.”

  “If she’s so damned smart, why does she keep failing so hard at killing Sienna?” Augustus asked. I tried not to be offended at his insinuation that I was no intellectual match for an evil super genius.

  “Girl could probably calculate pi to ten thousand spaces in her head—” Jamal started.

  “Like Edward Nygma!” J.J. squealed. He looked contrite a moment later. “Sorry. Sorry. But you do know who Edward Nygma is, right?”

  “Yeah, I got that one,” I said, and turned back to look at Jamal. “So she’s smart, but—”

  “Rocket scientist smart,” Zollers said, entering our discussion quietly, stepping past Ariadne, “but my guess is that someone with an IQ this high doesn’t have a clue about human emotion, how it affects the way we think, the way we act. She could put together a computer model that could predict the heat death of the universe down to the second, maybe even do it in her head, but she doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to know why you’d be mad at her for what she’s doing right now.” He shrugged. “She lacks empathy. Utterly. It’s all a computer game to her.”

  “Can you sense her?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “but when you’ve been in as many minds as I have, you get a feel for these things. Some people are very intellectually capable but fall apart when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Others are excellent with emotion and human nature but would struggle to solve for x on the simplest algebra equation.” He looked at me. “She’s Wile E. Coyote, and can’t figure out why the Roadrunner isn’t getting caught in her perfect traps.”

  “But she’s not alone,” Jamal said, drawing my attention back to him yet again. “This address, the one she’s staying at? It’s just outside Omaha, Nebraska. Property’s been registered to the same person for eighty years. Social security administration indicates that there are three people at this address, a mother and two dependents.”

  “Social security?” Augustus frowned. “So they’re old?”

  “The mother is,” Jamal said. “I found a birth record that says she came into the world in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1857. Amended later to reflect an ‘error’ in the original record and moving that date to 1957.”

  “She’s a meta,” I breathed, leaning in to see what I could from the wall of text.

  “Her dependents are in their twenties,” Jamal said. “They’re listed as her grandchildren, with a deceased father. That was the reason for the social security checks. Survivorship income.”

  “Doesn’t that cease at age eighteen?” Ariadne asked.

  Jamal shrugged. “Something funny there. But whatever the case, they survived the death of their father and they’re collecting his social security.” He leaned in, squinting through his glasses. “Their names are Claudette, Denise and Clyde Clary, Jr.” He turned his head to look at me, and I knew he knew.

  “You make your own problems,” Ariadne whispered behind me, and I didn’t dare look her in the eye, because I knew, in this case, that she was right.

  19.

  Ma

  It was a council of war they were having, but not the sort of council Ma wanted to have, and certainly not in her living room. At least Cassidy had dried herself off for this one first, and hallelujah for that. She sat her skinny ass on the couch, Eric Simmons cuddled in next to her, putting on a fine show. She didn’t care for him or his city-boy beanie cap that looked like it’d been crocheted by some damned hippy, nor did she much like his long hair beneath it. He had soft features, and he’d made a great girl for somebody in prison.

  “We need to regroup,” Cassidy said, sniffling. The windows were open, and Ma knew that the smell of the outside caused the girl’s allergies to flare up. It was a trick she’d used to her advantage wherever possible over the last few months, to keep the windows open as much as possible to force Cassidy to stay in the tank rather than annoy the holy hell out of her.

  “We’re pretty grouped right now, I’d say,” Junior snickered. He sat on a chair dragged in from the kitchen table, clearly not wanting to share the couch with the lovey-dovey couple. Even Denise had moved to the recliner to put a little distance between herself and those two.

  “Our plan failed,” Ma said, finally inserting herself into the meeting. Cassidy would want to run the discussion, and Ma was mostly fine with that, but she’d need to keep it on track, because Junior would devolve it into a discussion about body parts or farts or something of the sort given half a chance. “Time for a new one.” She didn’t even need to say that it was Cassidy’s plan that had failed. The girl flushed in embarrassment at the oblique criticism without her even putting the edge on it.

  “Those assassins you
hired got caught, too,” Denise said with a sour look. “What else we got?”

  “They came recommended,” Cassidy said with a hard breath. Her asthma would be acting up pretty quick. “I don’t know that we can get our hands on any mercenaries or anybody else like that in short order. They’re pretty in demand these days in Revelen for some reason—”

  “I don’t give a crap about that European bullshit,” Junior said. “I just want to kill this girl, and then I want to settle in for football season. Is that so hard? The Cowboys got a good schedule this year.” He had a resigned look about him, tired of the meeting already.

  “Junior,” Ma said gently, “you’re excused.”

  “I’m not leaving until we sort this out,” Junior said, giving her a little attitude. “This bitch was supposed to be dead already. How come lady genius can’t even figure out how to kill one damned person?” He pointed at Cassidy.

  Cassidy, predictably, flushed and answered with a sputter. “I couldn’t account for her taking a prescription drug that wasn’t in her medical records and that our man on the inside didn’t even know about—”

  “Why don’t we just have this inside man shoot her in the back of the head?” Denise asked. She mimed making a pistol with her index finger. “Boom, dead. Problem solved and we can all get on with our lives.”

  “She needed to suffer,” Cassidy said, still red, “for what she did to my baby in New York.” She cuddled up with Simmons, who made an awww noise and pulled her closer. As soon as her head was tucked under his, he went from looking like he was preciously amused to slightly disgusted.

  Denise didn’t even bother to hide it. She turned her pistol finger back toward her own temple and feigned pulling an invisible trigger, then gagging herself with it. “I’m ’bout to be sick,” she said, as though her action hadn’t already made it abundantly clear.