by J Bennett
“Shine isn’t here,” I say as the truth downloads. “He’s going to Iconic Square.”
Lysee nods, the gun waving with the motion of her head. “Which means I’ll get the mayor, all by m’self.”
Leo meets my eyes. He nods softly toward Lysee. Her attention is off him, and he’s taken slow, careful steps behind her. I shake my head just a little and he remains still.
“Wow, I’m so glad that worked out for you,” I tell my roommate.
“I’m gonna really embarrass you, here” she crows. The gun tilts in her hand. Even if she pulled the trigger, the shot wouldn’t come anywhere close to hitting me. “I’m getting the mayor, and all you get is Leo. Though he’s nice… not glam… but whatsa’ word for it? One of ‘em old words. Handsome. He’s veeeery had’som. I can see why… why you’ve got a thing for him. But now I hafta… hafta stun you both. Shine said that… would be best.” The gun droops in her hand.
“Mr. Mayor,” Lysee says, “you can come over here now. You’re rescued. Res-cused.” She takes staggering steps toward him. “Mr. Mayor?”
I step out of the way. Lysee reaches up to put a hand on Ash Anders’s shoulder, and her fingers slide through the hologram. She really should have read The Henchman’s Survival Guide like I recommended when we were both trying out for The Professor’s show. Then she would know that you always double-check that the hostage you’re rescuing isn’t a robo or hologram before making the exchange. It’s a classic henchman mistake.
“What?” Lysee whimpers. “Mr. Mayor?” She turns to me, her purple-tinted eyes glazed and uncertain. “What’sa wrong with him?” She wobbles. The gun clatters to the ground. She tilts sideways, her ankles and knees buckling. I’m ready to catch her.
“Tired,” she murmurs.
“I’m sorry,” I say to her.
“Me too,” she whispers as her eyes flutter shut. Carefully I lower her to the floor.
“It was the necklace, wasn’t it?” Leo says behind me.
The butterfly charm lays across Lysee’s chest, the Sweet Dreams patch attached to its back seeping powerful barbiturates into her bloodstream. I’m thankful again that my own henchman costume includes a fully buttoned lab coat.
“She might not have noticed you were wearing her necklace,” Leo says.
“Of course she would,” I answer him.
“She might not have put it on.”
I hold Lysee’s hand in mine. “That’s why I had to break her heart,” I whisper.
“You being roommates will make for a nice B storyline. Is it true or did you work out that little gimmick with her beforehand?”
“Does it matter?”
Leo studies me with his amber eyes, and he nods to himself. “She was the one who came into the lobby when you captured Shine. You are roommates.” He awkwardly kneels down, takes Lysee’s hand from mine and presses her finger against the biometric lock on his wrist cuffs. They bleep and release. “I don’t suppose she’ll forgive you anytime soon,” he says, repeating the procedure with his ankle cuffs.
I look down at my peacefully sleeping roommate.
“I don’t suppose she will,” I agree, and suddenly my heart seems as heavy and cold as an anvil in my chest.
“It’s a good vendetta story,” Leo says. If he notices my drift into a bottomless pit of self-disgust, he doesn’t show it. “You must have had a plan for Shine,” he adds.
Right on cue, Sequoia speaks in my ear. “We have company.”
I shoot to my feet. “Shine?” He must have been monitoring the cams during our prisoner exchange nearby. I tense and look toward the elevator door.
“Not exactly,” Sequoia says.
Chapter 25
I’m sad to say Iron's got a serious flaw though—a good heart. Nitrogen too. But not to worry, I’ll get them into shape. We can’t have softies on this team, though it does make them easy to walk over. I wouldn’t do that, of course, but Arsenic. She’s fierce. Those two better watch out for her. The Professor, too. ~ Gold, Interview with J Bennett
~
When Sequoia explains who’s coming to pay us a visit, I consider it for a moment then say, “Leave him to me.”
I turn to Leo. “The Professor meets with Beacon in Iconic Square at noon. We have most of your gear there but pick up anything else you need.”
He studies me carefully. “What are you going to do to our visitor?”
“Teach him a lesson.”
Leo nods. “I don’t have my Goggs. I won’t be able to put a cam on you.”
“It’s not worth it, anyway,” I tell him truthfully. I doubt our next ep will have room for this confrontation with everything else that’s going on. I look up to the cam drone hovering over my shoulder, controlled by Sequoia.
“I don’t want you recording this,” I tell him. Sequoia doesn’t respond over the com, but the drone floats to his lab table and sets down.
Leo stands and gives his cuffs a little kick. He looks at me, and I remember how Lysee blurted out my secret crush on him. Well, she and I won’t be having any late-night confessionals over glasses of cheap, synth-wine anymore.
I look away and Leo turns, taking purposeful strides to his office. I glance down at Lysee again. Her closed eyelids shimmer with purple sparkles. The plan had seemed so solid in my head last night, but now it only feels wrong.
I crouch down, touch my fingers to my lips and transfer a sad kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, knowing those words aren’t enough.
After a min of consideration, I decide to leave Lysee where she is. Some producer or freelancer is operating her cams. They’ll send someone, possibly Shine to retrieve her quickly enough.
“Nitrogen, keep on the lookout for anyone else,” I tell my friend as I move to the elevator.
I make it to the lobby and just barely manage to push the bookshelf back into place when the front door to The Professor’s mansion swings open. The skinny freeter slinks in, his cape almost catching in the door. My gaze sweeps across his poorly printed costume, those silly white diamonds marching down his black sleeves and pants.
He sees me and stumbles to a halt. Behind the black mask, his eyes widen, but then he proudly poses.
“I command you to cease whatever evil plan you are implementing,” he says. “Diamond Shield is here to stop you.”
I sigh as it all clicks into place. It’s not the sound of his voice—the freeter has gotten his hands on a basic voice modulator—but the words themselves that give his identity away. I’d assumed that Ollie or his dad contacted the freeter after we’d left the pharmacy, or maybe it’d been that drooling lady with her robo pet. But who would tip off this freeter? He has no name recognition. No sponsors. No money to pay out to a tipster.
Now I understand.
I pull the unmarked box of Sweet Dreams from the pocket of my lab coat and turn it over. I don’t see anything on the outside of the box. That’d be too obvi. I pop open the lid, and then I notice the faint outline of a clear film stuck to an inside wall. A few tiny wires wiggle through the microfilm like veins, sending out our location.
A tracker.
I look from the box to him. His eyes meet mine and dance away. Blue familiar eyes. Ollie’s eyes. His words. His unrelenting quest for a phantom justice.
I realize what I have to do. My cracked heart rebels. Then again, what’s one more fracture to that battered organ after what I’ve already done to Matthew and Lysee?
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, keeping my voice low.
“Then give yourself up to the authorities.”
I sigh. “This isn’t real. You know that, right? I’m just playing a part in a story.”
“You kidnapped the Mayor of Chicago. That was real,” the freeter points out.
I wish I could take Ollie aside, explain how the mayor let us escape the city, how he carefully edited his own hostage vid, but Ollie wouldn’t listen. Not unless I unmasked myself, and I can’t take that risk. Ollie wouldn’t understand that either
.
I carefully unhook the lasso from my belt. “Please, just walk away,” I whisper. Because if he doesn’t, I’ll have to teach him a lesson. Ollie isn’t trained. He isn’t sponsored. He doesn’t even wear basic protective armor. He’s a danger to others and especially to himself. And now that we’re living in a post-Castillo v PAGS world, the risks are even higher.
“A true hero can never turn away from the face of evil.” He pulls a baton from his own belt.
If Ollie keeps trying to fight crime on his own he could get hurt. Or killed.
Unless I stop him.
I swing my lasso a few times and then toss it at him. It’s only a feint. I’m not nearly good enough to snag a moving target. Ollie dives dramatically out of the way, and I rush toward him.
As he rolls back to his feet, I’m ready. I grab his shoulders and slam my knee into his abdomen, then strike him across the face with my forearm. He stumbles and falls, dazed. This is the beauty of Krav Maga. It’s fast, vicious, and designed to immediately take the fight out of your enemy.
Ollie struggles to sit up, but I take one step forward and press my heel into his chest, forcing him back to the ground. I kneel on him, my kneecap pressed into his neck.
I lean in close and hold the box of Sweet Dreams in front of his face. “Clever, Ollie,” I hiss at him, “but not clever enough.”
His eyes widen when I use his name.
“It was so nice of your pops to suggest two patches instead of one,” I tease him as I pull the second patch out of the box.
“No,” Ollie cries. He bucks beneath me, but I grind my knee deeper into his neck, and he gags. I peel the backing off the patch, lift my knee just a little, and slap the patch on Ollie’s exposed neck. His fingers dig into my thigh, but I hardly feel it.
I press my knee back down across his neck to keep him still.
I lean close again, putting my lips right to his ear. “You’re weak, pathetic,” I hiss at him. “You can’t even beat a lowly henchman. You’re no hero.”
My heart twists as tears prickle in his eyes, but I have to do this. I have to shatter his drooling dream. It’s the only way to protect him.
“I could unmask you right now and broadcast your face to the world,” I say. That would be the ultimate humiliation. A total defeat. “But the truth is, I don’t think anybody would care.”
His eyes are slipping closed, his fingers relaxing on my thigh, but he murmurs, “I won’t… won’t give…” The last words die on his lips. I feel his body go slack beneath me. His hands fall away from my leg, but I hold my position just a little longer, just in case. Ollie’s not a big person, so the patch should work pretty quickly, but you never know.
After about 20 secs, I press my fingers to his pulse and feel it slowing down. He can’t fake that, so I ease off him and stand up.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I know I hurt him, far more seriously than a few bruises to his face and chest. But I had to. Funny, that’s the same excuse I used to defend what I did to Lysee.
You don’t have to kidnap a mayor to be a villain.
Matthew’s words echo in my mind. I shake my head as if I could ever dislodge them or the memory of my best friend’s accusing stare. How have I managed to betray three of my closest friends in less than an hour?
My eyes burn with tears, and I angrily scrub them away. A throat clears delicately behind me. I turn around and see Leo standing just in front of the elevator He carries a bag on his shoulder bulging with equipment.
He glances at the freeter. “That seemed personal,” he observes.
“Did it?” I ask, trying for non-committal.
Leo’s eyes drill into me asking questions I’m not about to answer.
“We have to go,” I tell him. We’ve got less than an hour before The Professor’s showdown with Beacon.
“One more thing,” Leo says and walks up the stairs. He returns in two mins, and I’m grateful for the short reprieve to pull myself together. Leo must have grabbed something from his apartment, but he doesn’t carry any extra bags filled with clothes or personal possessions.
When Leo and I leave the mansion, Sequoia waits for us outside. The ladder is gone, politely returned to the storage shed. The cam drone, which followed us out of the house, drops into Sequoia’s arms and he pulls off his Goggs. He looks down at his boots and won’t meet my eyes. No one speaks of the freeter.
My heart is filled with shards of pain and guilt. My soul feels threadbare. But the day is not over yet. Beacon awaits, and despite her promise of a peaceful prisoner exchange, I know she won’t hand herself over willingly. It’ll be a fight.
I swallow, pushing all my emotions deep, deep down inside of me and look at my two companions.
“Iconic Square,” I say to them.
Chapter 26
Take the beating. That's your job. ~ Tickles the Elf, The Henchman’s Survival Guide
~
The drive to Iconic Square features pleasant, sun-soaked views of the town and loads of tension. My whole body feels raw and empty from all the betrayal I dished out back at the mansion. Sequoia won’t look at me. In a monotone voice, I explain The Professor’s plan to Leo, trying to pretend I can’t feel his body next to mine or that Lysee didn’t blurt out my secret, pointless crush.
“So that’s the general idea,” I finish. “It’s loose. We’ll need to adapt as the thing plays out.”
“And Beacon will certainly have her own plan,” Leo says, but he’s nodding. “Not bad. If The Professor plays it right, it could be big, very big.”
“As long as Beacon doesn’t outsmart us,” I say.
Leo’s mouth quirks in half a smile. “Setbacks are all part of the story. Sometimes the hero has to struggle so they can show what they’re made of.”
“But we’re not the heroes,” Sequoia mutters.
“A villain is the hero of their own story,” Leo replies softly. The convo sinks into a weary death and we’re silent the rest of the way to Iconic Square.
Plastic barricades line the Square and Big Little City police officers stand in front of them. In a stoic vid posted to her Stream this morning, Beacon asked the City Council and Big Little City Police Department to allow the exchange to take place without any interference.
Surprise, surprise, the City Council was all too happy to comply and let this fireworks show play out.
Our car approaches the barricades. The officers try to hold grim expressions, but I can see the twitch of excitement on their faces. Crowds huddle behind the barriers, taking selfies, peering out into the square, and gabbing with friends through their Bands. Overhead, the air hums with the whir of cam drones.
Our car drives right up to the barriers and Leo instructs the car to roll down its windows. I suck in a heavy breath as a cop peers inside at us, taking in our lab coats, goggles, and bowties. The officer is young and handsome, all dashing blue eyes and an overly enhanced chin. His navy-colored uniform with all its brass buttons seems a size too small and struggles to stretch over his muscled frame.
“You’re The Professor’s henchmen,” he says and shakes his head. “You make me sick!” He slams a fist disgustedly on the hood of our car. I have to force myself not to roll my eyes behind my goggles. What a lens stealing little striver. Nice try, lens grabber, but there’s no way this measly interaction is making our ep, not after my prisoner exchange with Lysee and our upcoming battle with Beacon.
“You gonna let us in or what?” I growl at him and throw in a taunting smirk for good measure. Might as well play along or he’ll stand here preening all day.
“I outta arrest you right now,” he snarls.
“Do it or let us in,” I say right back. “We’re on a tight clock.”
He grimaces for three long seconds, then angrily shoves the barricades aside. “You’re going down,” he spits out as our car rolls past. “Beacon won’t let you get away with this.”
“Get better lines,” I call through the window and blow him a kiss as our car moves forward
.
Leo dutifully records it all using Sequoia’s Goggs and our lone cam drone. “Your cam presence has improved since I’ve been away,” he notes.
I fall back against my seat. “Thanks,” I mutter, but I hardly consider it a compliment.
Iconic Square is eerily empty. The tourist trolleys sit quietly on the side of the road, no speakers blaring or Bands pointing out the windows. “Closed” signs glow brightly in every storefront window.
Our car pulls over. I check my Band again. “Ten mins.” We’ve cut it close. Leo pushes the Goggs onto his forehead and opens the car door.
“I’ll set up over there,” he says, pointing to Culprits Coffee Shop, which includes an outdoor patio filled with tables and wide umbrellas. “I’m close enough that I can re-establish my connection with any of my cam drones already out here. Wish I had my Goggs, though.”
“Gold’s probs using them,” I say. I glance at Culprits Coffee and remember all the happy, bear-claw-donut-filled times I’ve had there. That feels like another life. Another person. I force my thoughts back to the present. Culprits has seen some serious damage in past fights, just like most buildings in the square.
“If something goes wrong, get out fast,” I tell Leo.
He gives me a tight smile. “I know how to handle trouble.” He puts his hands on his hips and pins me with one of those deep looks that could mean anything. “You’ll need to react fast out there.”
“I know.” I’ve been trying not to think about what comes next. Soon enough, we’ll face Beacon, who’s beat every villain our town has ever spawned.
“You have good instincts, Iron. Use them.” His voice softens. “And you both be careful.”
“I can take care of myself,” Sequoia snaps as he steps out of the car and immediately begins walking toward the center of the square. I linger back, suddenly overwhelmed with the fear of what we could face. Beacon won’t really give herself up. She’s got a plan, just like we’ve got a plan, and surely someone’s going to get hurt, or worse.
