What happened next terrified her. She turned away from the scene of the murder and began to run. Where, she didn’t know. But she would run until she found a way out of there.
If this was what it meant to be a villain, she knew one thing; deep down below her skin, below her power, inside of her very core, she was not a villain.
She was the good twin.
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Too Close
by Jim Zoetewey
Jim Zoetewey writes the Legion of Nothing, a series of novels about the grandchildren of the biggest superhero group of the 1950’s, the Heroes League. The novels follow what happens when they reform the Heroes League, revive their grandparents’ costumed identities, and try to survive the consequences.
The first novel is on Amazon and Smashwords. Two more will be coming this year. The online serial that the novels are based on can be found at http://inmydaydreams.com.
* * *
Ben walked down the hall to the front lobby. It was his last day, and he wouldn’t miss the place. It felt too happy. He passed posters on leadership, inspiration, and teamwork before stepping into the room.
The receptionist, a woman with peroxide blond hair and blindingly white teeth gave him a smile as fake as the rest of her. “Leaving early for lunch, Mick?”
He offered her a fake smile of his own. “I’m meeting a vendor. We’re going to run some numbers on servers.”
He’d made that part of his character here. He was the guy who was always looking for deals on equipment, a bean counter of the first order.
“That’s you,” she said, “saving the world one dollar at a time.”
He smiled, pulled a silver pen out of his blue suit coat, and signed out for the last time. “Mick“ would never come back from lunch, and by the time they realized it, he’d be long gone.
As he turned around, he brushed the front pocket of his pants, reassuring himself that the thumb drive that contained the biggest score of his life (both financial and personal) had not been forgotten.
It hadn’t.
Without any further hesitation, he walked out of the lobby. No one waited in any of the chairs. Why would they? Certainly they had legitimate clients, but it was a front. The receptionist had to know it as well as he did.
He didn’t look back as he walked out the door and into winter, pulling his iPhone out of his pants pocket, and checking his email. Only his peripheral vision kept him aware of when he moved in front of the next building leaving Lister Data Management’s glass front behind him. He had a little more than a block to go before ducking into the hotel room he’d rented last night, and shaving his hair and mustache.
Walking down the sidewalk with hundreds of Chicago’s professionals, he tried to blend in while keeping enough space around himself that anyone who wanted to grab him would be obvious.
It wasn’t as if he had any reason to be afraid, but it had saved his life before—more than once. Better to be cautious than not. If the real owners of Lister Data Management found the real Mick Jones’ body, Ben would need all the help he could get.
He began to hurry a little. It wasn’t far, and hurrying wasn’t out of character. He’d be fine.
Between hurrying and stepping into deep slush, the kind that went over the sides of his shoes, he let someone enter his space.
As he looked up, he recognized the man—one of the techs from Lister. Round faced, and wearing a black trench coat, the man had multiple ear-piercings and hair that was short on one side and long on the other, covering a quarter of his face.
Ben remembered the tech’s name—Seth. The guy hated him—as Mick at least. They might have gotten along if weren’t in character.
Ben stepped out of the slush, wondering if Seth would say anything.
He didn’t, giving him a glance, but then turned toward the window of the nearest storefront. It advertised “Segway Tours of Chicago.”
Ben was suddenly relieved that he was already hurrying because something about Seth felt wrong. Seth would have said something even if it had been accompanied by a smirk.
Calming himself, Ben took a breath even if he didn’t slow down. He wasn’t being rational. That might have been Seth, but simply not in a mood to play games. Even if it wasn’t Seth and it was some kind of shapeshifter, illusion generator, or a hallucination, it might not be after him.
But it might.
He turned on his camera, switched the view so that saw himself, and angled it to get a good view of the crowd behind him.
Seth walked toward Lister. Whatever was going on, Ben was in the right place—outside the building.
He’d had to avoid using his powers for the last month—too easy to be identified. Now it was over, but he’d still have to be subtle. He reached out with his mind, feeling cellphone networks, business wifi, and mobile hotspots, followed by a connection to all the devices with a command line interface.
He ignored most of them, centering his attention on systems with security cameras pointing at the street. He gained control of the nearest in seconds, copying the stream of information, redirecting it to his own server and from there to the display inside his sunglasses.
Sending one command after another, he flipped between pictures of the street, still walking forward. No one was coming after him. The route between here and the hotel was clear.
Using a back door he’d put in place, he took over the hotel’s system, checking his room and the halls, finding no police or obvious hitmen.
Reminding himself that it wasn’t over until you’d gotten away and gotten the money, he ignored the relief he felt.
It wasn’t until he reached the front door of the hotel that he noticed the body. It lay in an alley between the hotel and Lister. It lay on its side, curled up as if sleeping, but he recognized the hair cut—Seth’s hair cut, the long side covering his face.
As his heart started beating faster, he pulled up recent pictures from in front of Lister. To judge from the time stamps, no one had left the building since he had.
He walked out of the lobby and up the stairs to his room, deciding to check Lister’s internal network. He’d left himself a back door in case he needed one.
He couldn’t connect. Nothing responded. He requested a picture from the security system of the building across the street. Lister had no lights on.
He considered abandoning his plan, running to his getaway car and leaving. Then he dismissed it.
Taking a breath, he pulled out the key card, and put it into the slot. The light turned green, and he walked in.
In the bathroom, he shaved his beard and his head. Taking off his suit, and put on jeans, an AC/DC t-shirt, and leather jacket.
Then he picked up the cowboy hat he’d planned to wear with it. Was it too much? It probably was, but it changed his profile, and he hated being outside with an entirely bald head in the winter.
Screw it, he told himself, and he put it on.
Then he packed up the suit in his luggage, and left, putting on a different pair of sunglasses before he walked out the door.
The new ones had small lenses and a metal frame.
He spent his walk to the car watching security cameras, barely noticing the hotel he’d stayed in with its red carpet and ornate gold colored decorations.
He found the car in the car garage under the hotel. Though he half expected an ambush to come from the other side of every car he passed, none did. He made it to his car without being attacked.
Throwing his suitcases into the back of his small Toyota, he took the car and drove toward the suburbs.
He listened to Chicago’s all news radio station on the way out. Their need to fill every second of the day with information had saved him more than once.
Chicago’s midday traffic wasn’t easy to deal with, but it could have been worse. He took regular streets instead of highways. That way if traffic slowed down, he could turn onto a side street in a block instead of being immobile on the Dan Ryan.
Overall, he
knew he’d be slower, but he liked his chances better.
The streets were mostly clear of snow at this point. It was late enough in the winter that not much new snow was falling, and if it did, it seemed to melt and turn into slush or ice. That was worse when you were walking than driving in his experience.
He checked the rear view and side mirrors to see if any vehicles were following him, made a few turns onto barely used side streets to see if anyone followed. No one did.
He didn’t see anyone pick up the tail when he came out the other side either. That meant that it was possible that no one was following him. He didn’t stop looking, but he did relax enough to actually listen to the radio.
Half an hour into his drive, and after the obligatory news about car crashes and politics, the announcer said, “Chicago police officers were called out to local business Lister Data Management where more than thirty people were found dead. The receptionist, Nancy Papadopoulos, called the police after finding the first body. When asked, she stated that she didn’t know there were more. She’d left the building, fearing that the murderer might still be on the premises. Police have not released any more details, but eyewitnesses claim that the bodies’ limbs had been severed and even decapitated. According to the police, there were no survivors of the attack. The police are following up on several leads they claim to have discovered.”
Ben nearly crashed into the back of a delivery truck.
This was bad. It wasn’t a question of if this would come to the attention of the police. It had. It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered the possibility, but he knew better. Lister had been owned by Syndicate L. Even though they had been a legitimate business, they’d mainly been a front for Syndicate L’s data center.
That’s why he’d been there. They knew the Rocket’s secret identity, and he knew what a superhero’s real name was worth to the right buyer.
He’d counted on having to hide from the mob. That didn’t bother him. He’d done it before and he had plans for that. The police would be a problem.
He hadn’t gotten new fingerprints. There were people out there who could have provided them, but the price was high, and he hadn’t thought he’d need it for this job.
Still waiting behind the delivery truck, he hit the steering wheel with one hand.
He’d never been caught, but every time he left a fingerprint at a crime scene, he gave away another clue to who he was. With all the impossibly brilliant intellects out there, the risk that one of them could connect all the places where the police had found his fingerprints was high—eventually. For now, the question was if any of them were in Chicago.
As the light turned green, and the truck ahead of him groaned into movement, he considered the local superhero scene.
The Midwest Defenders didn’t have an intellect at the moment, but they did have a telepath—Mindstryke. Fortunately they didn’t usually get involved in street level crime. Mindstryke had, though—before he’d joined the Defenders.
Fortunately Chicago Hawk, who had specialized in the streets, retired ten years ago. Dark Cloak had followed on in his tradition, but no one had seen him in the last couple years.
He’d heard stories about a girl and a big, black dog appearing around Chicago and the suburbs. What little he’d been able to unearth about her hinted at magic. That was no good. Magic didn’t play by any rules he understood.
That, combined with Mindstryke’s rumored ability to sense the immediate past, told him what he needed to do.
He gritted his teeth. This was going to suck.
* * *
He parked in front of the house. It looked like every other house on the block—two story with a three car garage, an inoffensive beige coat of paint, and a tall window above the front door that showed off the candelabra in the hall.
Built in the 90’s boom, it had been built with more attention to cost than architecture. Tiffany Sanchez, professional wizard, had bought it for a quarter of the original asking price during the bust.
Snow covered the lawn as well as the flowerbeds. As he walked up to the house, he wondered if she’d gotten around to planting bulbs this year. She’d been talking about it before she’d thrown him out.
The door opened before he had the chance to knock.
She looked like she had when he’d last seen her—light brown skin, black hair, and black business suit.
“Business or personal?” The tension in her jaw, along with the way she only held the door halfway open, made him wonder if she planned to shut the door whichever way he answered.
“Business.” With anyone else, he might have stuck his boot in the door, but here he knew better. What he didn’t know was exactly what would happen if he stuck his foot past the threshold without permission.
She nodded. “Okay, then come in. If it were personal, I’d have shut the door.”
She let him pass, and then, as he watched, made a few quick motions with her fingers.
Nothing changed that Ben could see, but it felt like a door had shut. That done, they both walked into the open room that combined kitchen, dining room, family room and living room. In short, except for a bedroom and the bathroom, practically the whole first floor was one room.
He’d been told that for certain rituals she needed the space.
All the curtains had been drawn. Candles lined the shelves on the far side of the room. Magical tools and symbols, the kind that could pass for decorations hung on the walls. She kept the ones that caused nightmares in the basement.
They sat down at the kitchen table.
“So,” she said, “what’s going on?”
“A big score,” he said. “The biggest I’ve ever been involved in, and it’s gone wrong. Badly wrong.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
“I got a call from Our Mutual Friend—”
“Stupidest codename ever, but never mind. Keep talking.”
“He said he had a job for me. He had a client who wanted to know the Rocket’s real name, and he knew who had the Rocket’s real name—”
“And you took the job?” Her hands shook, emphasizing every word. “Your sick obsessive mancrush on that hero could kill you for real this time. You don’t play in that league.”
She got overdramatic. He’d hated that about her. And why had she chosen now to care? It’s not as if it would affect her beyond increasing her bank account.
She took a deep breath. “I know that look. I’m stopping.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay. I knew it was a risk when I took the job, but I also knew I had the skills, and I did. I know the Rocket’s real name—both Rockets, the old one and the new one.”
Her voice lowered. “Wow. So that’s how much?”
He named the figure.
Her eyes widened.
“This is it,” he said. “When this is over, I’m out. I’ll live off it, or maybe I’ll go legit, and find security holes for a living. I don’t know. I only know I won’t have to think about the next job.”
“You’re getting out? For real?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Weren’t you listening to me? I’ve been talking about this for years. I’ve got a plan. The plan says I’ve got to raise a certain amount of money. In combination with what I’ve saved so far, I’ve got the money. That’s it, when I get the money I’m out.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry. Everyone says that, but no one ever does it. You’re really getting out when this is over.”
He grimaced. “Why is that so unbelievable? You know this is a hard life. Jail is the best case scenario. Death is more likely than anybody wants it to be, and if even if you don’t die you know that at any minute now some bastard with a hard-on for justice could blast through the door and beat you unconscious. Yeah, I want out.”
“It’s unbelievable because that’s all I ever saw of you was the job—the current job or the next job. No breaks. No vacations. When you were done with one, you planned the next.”
“Look, I told you what I wanted. Not my
fault if you didn’t believe me.”
She stood up, pushing her chair back so far it nearly fell over. “Well, fuck you then.”
He got up as she did, stepping out from behind the table to block her in case she stormed out. “Please don’t go. I know you’re angry at me. I know I deserve it, but I need you because I need someplace to hide, and not only someplace to hide. I need someone who has the skills to keep me alive.”
She looked up at him, mouth closed, jaw unmoving, but she was listening. He kept on talking. “I’ll pay you, and I’ll pay you a lot. Here’s why: Syndicate L had the information. I stole it from their data center. I covered my tracks there, but if they find out it was me, they’ll try to kill me. I don’t know what they’ve got on their side, but they’re organized crime. I can’t take them on alone.
“That’s not all either. Today a shapeshifter killed almost everyone in their data center after I walked out the door.”
Tiffany’s mouth twitched in what might almost have been a smile. “Problem solved,” she said. “Are you sure you need me?”
He glared at her, and she laughed. “You know better. The cops can’t ignore that many deaths at once. Neither can the local heroes. I’ll have all of them on my tail. Plus the guy who killed them all? I think I know who he is. I think he’s that guy from the Rocket’s team—Gunther—you know, ’Immortal’.”
“I’ve never heard of the guy, but expose him. He’s a hero, and he’s committing mass murder? Prove it and they’ll be too busy going after him.”
“That’s not the way it works. I can’t prove it because he took down the power and there are no pictures of what happened next. Even if there were, he looked like someone else while he did it. Besides, attention slides off him. The boards are divided as to whether that’s a magic thing or whether he’s just that good.”
He pulled out his phone. “Look at this.” He clicked a few times, and held it up to show a World War II era poster promoting war bonds. America’s “League of Heroes“ was composed of The Rocket in golden powered armor, a woman in ghostly white, and several men in army fatigues. One of the men in fatigues carried two short swords.
The Good Fight 2: Villains Page 18
