by Megan Derr
"Leave it," Dixie said. "You've got enough knowledge on your own to take care of Whisker. We can always strengthen one of his IDs and take him to a hospital. Why the hell didn't he phase out of there?"
Byron shook his head. "They probably jumped him, hurt him badly fast, and once he's too severely injured, he can't do his little phase trick."
"I hadn't realized he had that much kick to him." It wasn't unusual for some powers to sort of shut down when the body was in bad shape. Many posed that was how Scones was able to take down all the powerful supers he had: he wore them down to the point they were more or less normal, then killed them.
But that usually only applied to high level powers, six-levels and up. He hadn't thought Greg was more than a four, which was the high end of the average for most abilities. Only G.O.D. types were at the unusually high end of the power spectrum.
"He's never gotten formal testing, but my informal testing? Puts him at a 6-level. Barely, mind you, but enough to count. It never matters because his thieving hardly taxes the ability. But I'm pretty sure he could phase a protection field if he really wanted. I already know he can go through lasers, electric fields, all that fun stuff. I've been curious to see if he can go through, say, ten feet of concrete, but we've never gotten around to testing it."
Dixie grimaced. "You couldn't pay me to find out if I could phase through ten inches of concrete. Just thinking about how wrong that could go makes my skin crawl." He shuddered. "So who was the other guy, the one that called you? You didn't leave him alone with Whisker, did you?"
"He wasn't there," Byron said quietly, but didn't say anything more as he pulled into the parking garage. Once the car was parked, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, face pulled into a pensive frown. "Greg was alone when I got there, but I think the guy was hovering nearby somewhere. Pretty sure the news got it right about it being Minder. That would fit his MO and everything else I was theorizing about him being Whisker's mysterious friend…"
"What's got you so troubled?"
Byron shrugged, gave him a crooked smile. "I don't like mysteries, or people jumpier than me."
Dixie grunted and climbed out of the car.
"Cops are fucking pissed with you," Byron said idly as he trailed after Dixie to the elevators.
"They don't want me fucking with their systems, they should step up their security," Dixie said as he leaned against the back of the elevator, pulling off his hat and glasses, smirking. "Ain't my problem their baby systems are no match for me."
Byron shared his smirk, but it faded as they stepped into his apartment and he immediately headed upstairs to tend Greg.
Dixie wanted to follow, but he had other matters to attend first. Going into the living room, he activated the main screen with a thought. He could do everything mentally, but sometimes even the sound of his own voice was better than none, and he liked using verbal commands where he could. "Activate security level three. Sweep police scanners for: Dixie Mountebank, Byron Valentine, Gregory Raines, aliases Turncoat, Fortune, and Whisker."
The screen chimed and flashed, and a few seconds later pulled up reports on Whisker and the name Henry Porter. "Who is Henry Porter?" But even as he asked, Greg's picture came up on a newsfeed, along with a crummy but still usable picture taken of him by a security camera hidden in the house he'd tried to break into.
"Alias for Gregory Raines," the computer replied.
"Track Alias – Henry Porter. Notify when alias is safe for deletion." The computer chimed verification of the order, and Dixie went to the storeroom to change back into his civvies.
Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, he hauled upstairs, where Byron was still looking after Whisker in the far back corner of the room. Dixie winced as he drew close and got a good look. "Poor bastard." Byron didn't reply, but the tight set of his mouth was answer enough. "What's the damage?"
"Other than the obvious?" Byron asked. "Couple of broken ribs, sprained wrist, enough bruising to cover an entire football team, fractured ankle, and several cuts, four of which needed stitches. He's not going anywhere for at least a few weeks, though we'll probably have to tie him down to ensure it. He stays still about as well as you."
Dixie didn't reply, too distracted by Greg's battered face, the swollen eyes, two cuts on one cheek, another on his forehead. His nose had definitely been broken, and both lips had split pretty badly. It looked like someone had kicked him in the face after throwing a rather nasty punch. "Any clue as to what the hell happened?"
"Not yet," Byron replied, "but now he's as good as he's going to get, I can start piecing it all together. Stay here and watch him, though? He should be fine, but I worry anyway. I'll ping you when I have an idea of what went down."
"Sure." Dixie looked around, pulled over a stool from a nearby table, and sat down. "Got your ass kicked good, pintsize." No reply came, of course. Dixie sighed. "Music, relaxation mix." He looked around the room for something to do since he had no idea how to play nurse.
His gaze landed on Greg's phone. It was a newer model smart phone, but had taken quite the beating already. Why wasn't he surprised that Greg was hard on his electronics? Picking it up, Dixie rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Connect to smart phone, crack securities." The phone flared to life as his systems accessed it, which went rather quickly since Byron had clearly done the security and they recognized Dixie. Going silent, Dixie went through the phone to see what it had and could do, remembering how enamored Greg had seemed of Dixie's.
Modifying it wouldn't be hard. As tricked out as it already was, he wouldn't even have to add hardware, just software. Silently pulling what he needed from his archives, Dixie set to work.
A soft groan some time later nearly made him drop the phone. He set it on the table again, shunted all his downloading and tweaking to the background, and focused on Greg. Pale brown, gold-rimmed eyes stared fuzzily at him, a slight frown overtaking Greg's mouth. "What…"
"You're back at Byron's, pintsize," Dixie said. "Trouble likes to shadow you, no mistake. How ya feeling?"
"Like three guys beat the shit out of me." Greg winced, cautiously shifted his head around. "Whatever Byron gave me is wearing off, can I have more?"
Dixie silently texted the question to Byron, who promptly sent back an affirmative and what exactly to give him. "Good news: you get more drugs."
"Oh, thank god," Greg said with a whimper.
Chuckling, Dixie stood and went to the little table on the other side of the bed to pick up the bottle Byron had mentioned, measured out the dosage, and held out the cup. Greg lifted a hand to take it, but it was trembling so bad that Dixie shook his head. Setting the medicine aside, he gingerly helped Greg sit up, then retrieved the medicine and held it to his lips. "Careful now. Wouldn't this be easier via injection?"
"No needles!" Greg gasped out, then licked away blood as the split in his bottom lip reopened.
"Okay, okay, simmer down." Dixie got the medicine in him then gently set him down again and pulled the blanket back up. "No fan of needles, huh?"
Greg shuddered, closed his eyes. "No. I got sick once, meteor lung. They didn't stop stabbing me for what felt like days."
"I've heard about that, was fortunate enough to ever see or suffer it." Thanks to life as a slave to G.O.D., there wasn't much in the way of disease that could touch him, not even meteor lung, which was one more nasty legacy of the damned crash. "Don't worry. If we have to use needles, we'll make sure you're asleep first. Go back to sleep, pintsize."
"I'm not pin…" Greg slumped as sleep got the better of him, lips still parted on the unfinished protest. Dixie got out a tissue and dabbed away the blood on his lips, lingered a moment staring, feeling the slightly too warm skin.
Shaking himself, he pulled away and discarded the bloodied tissue, then scooped up Greg's phone to finish mucking with it.
Byron pinged him a short time later, and Dixie set the phone aside again. He looked at Greg, checked him over, weirdly reluctant to leave. Guilt,
likely: he still hadn't managed to apologize. He reached out—then snatched his hand back, realizing he was going to do something as fucking stupid as brush away a stray lock of hair. Honestly.
He needed a damned vacation before he lost his fool mind. Not that people like him ever really got vacations. Skimming over the monitors watching Greg, Dixie spun away and headed downstairs.
Byron was at the kitchen table, along with platters loaded with burgers and fries. Dixie's stomach rumbled. He grabbed a plate from the cabinet, sat down and filled it with food. He picked up one of the burgers and took a bite, not quite moaning at the taste of beef, cheese, and bacon. "I always forget how damned well you can cook when you can be bothered to do it."
"Cooking isn't hard. You build cars; you could throw together a burger if you really wanted."
"Why do it when you will eventually?" Dixie asked with a grin.
Byron rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I think I've pieced together what happened to Greg, though it took some rooting around." He took a bite of burger, then some fries, and Dixie was about ready to kill him when Byron finally said, "Going through deleted messages, he was hired by a local piece of shit known as Rat."
"Charming."
"Rat hired him to steal a painting, but when Whisker showed up, three guys were waiting to jump him. Near as I can tell, they were waiting for Rat."
"I see," Dixie said. "That's a shitty fucking thing to do to a person. We going rat hunting? 'Cause I wouldn't object."
Byron's mouth curved in his dark faerie prince smile that seemed to say humans are my favorite toy. "No need for hunting. I pointed the cops straight to him. That was part of the reason I took so long putting the story together. Distracted by a side quest, as it were. Anyway, he's in custody right now. If you insist on more than that, shining knight, do it on your own time."
"If this ain't my own time, you better start paying me," Dixie said and wolfed down a few fries, chased them with the beer at his elbow. "So I guess our plans to steal a Mason Chip got set back a few weeks."
Byron shrugged. "The way my plans are going, it wasn't going to happen for a few months anyway. I have a short list of options, and I'm liking number three the best. Tell me what you think." He turned to the monitor on the far wall. "Bring up List – Mason Chips."
Dixie stole another burger from the platter in the middle of the table as he glanced at the list. There were actually eleven names on the list, but eight of them had been grayed out, only the top three still bright and clear. Amy Rutherford, Jenkins Small, and Robert House. "You wanna go after Robert House?"
Robert House was a G.O.D. scientist, one of those who specialized in a long, complicated-sounding string of words that amounted to 'super gene studies'. Not a department Dixie had interacted with much, though he'd collided with the general head of biological research. That had been where he'd crossed paths with Matt, stuck in a cell or strapped to creepy looking machines while they forced his body to be capable of turning invisible.
House was also head of his department, which meant high up the food chain and likely to draw a lot of notice. "The other two are much easier hits, why him?"
"Because they live in the middle of cities that are known to be unmarked G.O.D. hubs. Our new friend House lives in a fancy little mansion in the middle of fuck nowhere. Can only be reached by helicopter, and during the winter months, it's snow, snow, and more snow."
"That ain't convincing me you ain't insane," Dixie replied. "You do realize that is going to be way more dangerous and complicated than a simple city heist. You forgetting I just helped a fresh from the box and still shiny 'villain' shut down Sunrise? We bring Countdown to the party, we might could do this easy as pie. Actually, scratch that. I don't want to know what the two of you could do together."
Byron smirked. "I would like to meet Countdown. Anyway, I think House is the most viable option because, if we do it right, those same complications mean it will be hours upon hours before anyone even notices his chip is gone. We take the chip, we put him down for several hours, and then destroy all his communications… Dixie, it could be days before he's able to tell anyone his chip is gone. Do you know what kind of window that would give us for raising hell?"
Dixie nodded, and if the matter wasn't so grim he might have smiled. "Darling, if we pull this off, it'll be the best Christmas ever." Minus a very important, depressing detail, but Dixie wasn't going to think about it. Not much point. He'd made his choice the day he'd decided to escape.
"I thought you'd say something like that," Byron replied with a laugh. "I'm still working it out, but in a few weeks, I should have it all done. Hell, I thought whittling down the names would take longer, but House did me a favor by living on an empty mountain miles away from everyone. It's like Christmas and my birthday all in one."
Dixie grunted in agreement around his second burger. When that too was demolished, he finished off the fries and beer, then carried all the dishes to the kitchen. "Been quiet around here. You mentioned Oberon was overseas, but where's the rest of your usual posse?"
"Hellion and Dual Scream are on the west coast, snooping around for me. I don't think they'll be back anytime soon; it's long game kind of snooping. Moonglow is still playing at retirement, but I don't think they'll keep it up much longer."
"We'll see I guess," Dixie said. "I'm going to bed, unless you need anything."
"Nope. I'm going to clean up around here, shower, and hit the sack myself."
Dixie lifted a hand to say goodnight and headed off.
How the hell he wound up back in the medical ward, he didn't know.
Greg still looked small and bedraggled. Dixie gently rested his hand to Greg's forehead, which still felt a little too warm. But the monitors said everything was within acceptable limits, basically nothing that time wouldn't fix.
He startled slightly when Greg's eyes popped open, expression fuzzy but more alert than Dixie would have anticipated. "Food?"
"How do you expect to eat when you can't even move, pintsize?"
"That's not my name," Greg said, clearly going for mad but only coming out pouting. "And I'm hungry, don't I get something? Even in the crappiest hospitals you still get funky-smelling jello."
"I ain't sure why you think that's a good thing, unless you ate the funky smelling jello. That would explain a lot actually."
Greg gave him an unimpressed look. "Come oooon, I got my ass kicked, I deserve chocolate pudding."
"Stop trying to get Dixie to smuggle contraband up here," Byron said, making Greg startle slightly. Byron stepped up to the other side of the beds. "Help me get him sitting up." Dixie obeyed, and after Greg was settled, Byron retrieved the tray he'd set aside and placed it on Greg's lap. Piled on a plate was the blandest damn food Dixie had seen since he'd been stuck in Byron's medical ward.
Casting Byron a look, he said, "We ain't in a hospital; you can do better than hospital food."
"Shut up," Byron said. "Everything on there is carefully selected for optimal healing. I've studied it extensively and unlike bank robbing, I do have traditional, perfectly legal and sanctioned training in nutrition. I know you're defiant by nature, but don't encourage the other patients."
"I ain't a patient," Dixie said.
Byron smiled sweetly. "Really? Because you're a constant headache."
Dixie lifted his eyes to the ceiling while Greg giggled, the sound as sweet and earnest as he normally only heard from kids. The sudden urge to kiss him, split lips and all, was so strong that Dixie damn near backed away from the bed to avoid doing it. "Go the hell away, dark faerie. You've caused enough mischief today."
"I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who caused all the trouble today, or committed several felonies by way of distraction," Byron said. "I just drove the car."
"Typical dark faerie prince, right in the thick of it but not a speck of mud on you. Go away."
Byron sniffed. "Fine. I know when I'm not appreciated." He spun on his heel and strode off.
Dixie brushed his nose, g
lanced down at Greg. "I'll smuggle you up some real food when he gets lost in his papers again."
"Thanks," Greg said, then looked down at his food, poking at it.
Dixie couldn't sort if it was 'please go away' poking or 'I don't know what to say next' poking. He rubbed the back of his head, then sucked it up and said, "Look, I'm sorry about before. I didn't mean to hurt ya. I really was just teasing. You weren't bothering me none."
Greg looked up warily, meeting his eyes, intense as anything. Dixie was used to folks finding him lacking for one reason or another, but he'd never been afraid of that before. He didn't realize till Greg gave him the sweetest little smile that he'd been holding his breath. "Still, I shouldn't have climbed into your lap like that. You're weirdly easy to relax around, dunno why."
"That ain't usually how folks regard me," Dixie said, and after a moment of hesitation, pulled the stool from earlier close again.
"Your eye keeps doing funny stuff," Greg said, peering at him like a kid at a Christmas tree. "Is it part of your, um, modifications?"
Dixie lightly touched the edge of his left eye. "Yeah, though I normally keep the whole thing in sleep mode. Exhausting to keep it running, and I'm more likely to draw attention. But I'm keeping an eye on stuff right now, so it's got to keep going." He'd probably have to eat a whole 'nother meal before he went to bed at this rate, to tide him over while he slept. "Speaking of modifications, I've been mucking with your phone. It'll need your voice prints once you're on your feet again, or at least less drugged, but I've added a bunch of little things it seemed you'd like."
Greg's face lit up like nothing Dixie had ever seen, taking the phone as Dixie held it out like it was made of gold and diamonds. "You modified my phone? So it's all cool like yours?"
"I don't know cool is the word, but I'm glad you like it. I'll lay it all out for you tomorrow. For now, you need to eat and get more sleep. How are you even still awake?"
Greg scoffed. "What, you mean because of Byron's drugs? Takes more than his knockout juice to keep me down."