by Megan Derr
"Subtle, I appreciate the presence of a clean and easy escape route," Dixie replied sourly.
"It'll be fine," Greg said, and he smiled so sweetly, Dixie almost believed him. "Park in the private garage, use this."
He held out a card, and Dixie took it as he pulled off the highway and stopped at a red light. "What is this and do I want to know how you came by it?"
Greg shrugged. "Minder's never said, but I'm pretty sure he works in the Robin building. No clue what his day job is, but it's enough to get me a parking pass and a few other bells and whistles. Did you bring a nanomask?"
Dixie heaved a sigh. "Yeah." Several minutes later they pulled into a massive parking garage, and he was at least grateful to find a spot on the lowest level and close to the exit. Pulling out his mask, he pulled it on and hooked it to his systems, once more using his own face as a base and altering from there.
He followed Greg away from the car and up a couple flights of stairs to the skywalk. Inside the main building, Greg cut down a small side hallway to a door marked MAINTENANCE. Pulling out another keycard, he swiped it and punched in a five-digit code. The door chimed and turned green, and with a mischievous little grin, Greg led the way up musty smelling stairs all the way to the roof, where a tall, still man was standing close to the edge, looking at the streets below.
Dixie wasn't sure what he'd expected of the biggest mystery in the super world. One of the biggest mysteries in the world, period. Nobody knew anything about Minder, save he had telekinetic abilities and kept to fighting smalltime criminals. A lot of people sneeringly called him The Babysitter, thinking he wasn't capable of doing more than petty little crimes. Dixie couldn't stand folk like that. They were the safe, secure, spoiled ones who could make the cops do what they wanted, were friends with the mayor, had never known what fear tasted like at the backs of their throats as they watched a bunch of cold men come for their father. Didn't know what it was like to see their father shot point blank in the face. Had never heard their mother scream.
Didn't know what it was like to be barcoded and owned. Fuck people like that. Dixie agreed with everybody who wasn't a fucking asshole: so far as real heroes went, Minder was the very definition.
He stared as Minder turned. He was handsome in an easy, relaxed way, the kind of person everyone felt comfortable around. Minder had yellow-toned light brown skin, hair cut close to his scalp, long lashes framing gray eyes. Well-toned biceps peeking out of a dark teal polo with a logo Dixie didn't recognize. He also wore dark gray slacks and black work boots, a little odd when the rest of his outfit was Average Office Worker.
Greg immediately removed his mask and drew close enough to hug Minder tightly. "Hey."
"You didn't come alone," Minder said, mouth pinched as he stared at Dixie.
"They wouldn't let me, and come on, you had to know that was a possibility given everything that's happened."
Minder's frown didn't ease. "I suppose. Who are you?"
After a bit, Dixie grimaced and ditched his own mask, carefully tucking it away in his pocket. "Dixie."
"You're Turncoat," Minder said quietly. "Is it true you can use the chip and get into G.O.D. systems?"
Dixie nodded. "Yeah, but this ain't the place to talk about it. We're all a little too hot to be on these streets for long. Why the fuck are we on top of a building in the middle of the damned city?"
"Because I'm hoping they won't think to look for me here right away," Minder said. "I still can't believe the man I accidentally took down is my damned boss." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I couldn't see him clearly in the dark, and his accent was heavier than usual. He was messing with those women, I took him down—then saw his face and freaked out. I thought he was one more drunk asshole, albeit one with an Irish accent where you don't normally hear those around here. I thought I'd gotten away, especially since they didn't plaster my face all over the news, but when I got to work the security guard was acting funny. I said I forgot something in my car and came up here, called in favors to leave breadcrumbs for Greg. I don't know why they suspect I'm Minder after all this time, but clearly I said or did something that tipped my boss." He scrubbed a hand over his head, his face. Dropping it, he heaved a sigh then held his hand out to Dixie. "Anyway, my name is Leland Deveraux."
"Pleasure," Dixie said, shaking his hand. "Let's get out of here."
"Brought you a mask," Greg said, sounding so cheerful it was like they were going to the park, not sneaking out of a building.
Leland frowned but went along with it as Greg pulled the mask over his face and activated it. When all three masks were back in place, Dixie led the way back to the parking garage. Though he knew damned good and well how little attention people actually paid, that nobody had noticed them, he didn't breathe easy until they were well on their way out of the city.
He relaxed only after they were in the elevator headed up to Byron's place. "You're gonna have to wait in the hall until Byron codes you into the system," Dixie said as they reached the main door. "Hang on, I'll rustle up a special pass and he can do the rest later."
Though he didn't look terribly happy, probably about the idea of being coded into anything, Leland nodded. Leaving Greg to wait with him, Dixie slipped into the apartment and found Byron bent over his plans in the dining room. "I need guest access for Minder."
Byron looked up, surprise on his face. "Seriously? I thought it would take more time and work than that."
Dixie shrugged. "I think he's spooked bad and we're the lesser of two evils."
"Hang on," Byron said and slipped out of the kitchen. Dixie could hear it as he opened a special, hidden and heavily locked door, then pounded down a set of stairs to the master computer that ran the whole building. A few minutes later, he returned with a slender, silver bracelet with a small square of green light. "Guest pass. Do you think he'll let me code him into the system?"
"I'm sure between Greg's sad kitten eyes and your dark faerie wiles you'll have no trouble convincing him to officially join our merry band of anti-heroes," Dixie replied. "Wait here, I don't want you running him off before he gets inside."
"Who owns this place?" Byron groused.
Dixie laughed on his way out.
In the hallway, he handed the bracelet to Leland. "Put this on, and whatever you do, don't take it off. Byron has this place rigged to deal with uninvited guests, and it'll deal with you hard and fast and mean."
The barest little smirk danced across Leland's mouth as he accepted the bracelet and slid it on his wrist. It shimmered, chimed, and the green light turned blue.
Opening the door, he motioned for Leland to enter. "After you."
He motioned Greg ahead of him too, then followed them in and closed the door, removing his hat and hanging it up before turning to Byron.
Who was currently staring at Leland like he was a bank with zero security and free cupcakes. Byron's face was cherry red, mouth slightly agape. Before Dixie could figure out what to say, Byron turned and fled. "What in the hell was that all about? Byron ain't usually that weird."
"I think Byron's got a crush," Greg said, shooting Leland a mischievous little grin. "I've never seen him do that. Never seen him interested in anyone, as a matter of fact."
Dixie snorted. "I seriously doubt that's how Byron acts when he's attracted to someone. He don't strike me as someone so new to the game he acts like a twelve-year-old with their first crush."
"It's Byron, there is literally no telling," Greg countered.
Dixie opened his mouth, then gave a huff of laughter. "Fair enough."
"What's going on?" Leland asked, mouth pinching. "You brought me here—now what?"
"Now you can sit down and tell us why you need a Mason Chip," Dixie said. "I'm keen to hurt the G.O.D. but not so eager I'd hand those chips over to just anyone—even if I do trust your cat."
Greg shot him a look.
Leland's mouth went from pinched to flat, but he sat down. "I'm not out to hurt anyone—quite the opposite."
>
Dixie sat down across from him, folded his arms on the table. "Then why the hell did you rope Greg into a half-cocked scheme to get something you don't know shit about? You damn near got him killed, and me alongside him in the fallout."
"I'm sorry," Leland said, shoulders slumping as his anger bled away. "I thought I did know all I needed to; I was so careful to learn everything I could." He rubbed his fingers across the table, thumbing over a groove where Byron had once dropped a heavy metal box. "It's easy to miss that part of your knowledge includes stupid assumptions you didn't know you were making—like microchips are in computers. Truly, I'm sorry." He looked at Greg, then Dixie.
"I'm an adult, I agreed to help," Greg said. "And I'm still alive."
"Yeah, but how many of your nine lives you got left?" Dixie asked, grinning when Greg glared and swatted at him.
"Your stupid cat jokes still aren't funny."
Dixie's grin widened. "I'm laughing."
"Whatever, spaghetti western. Whatever."
Leland cast Greg a faintly amused look. "I've never seen you flirt before. Why am I not surprised you're the flirt-by-bickering type?"
"I am not, shut up," Greg muttered, sitting down at the table as far away from both of them as he could get. "Seriously, where is Byron?"
Dixie shrugged. "He'll come back when he comes back." He glanced at the monitor on the wall. "News. Search for mentions of: Minder and Leland Devereux." There was a soft chime as the orders were acknowledged. Dixie watched the news, which rambled on about Kevin Barlow being attacked in an alleyway by the notorious Minder, believed now to be Leland Devereux, who was being sought for questioning. Barlow was currently under arrest on charges of assault. It moved into stocks then, and how Barlow Industries was currently tanking, and there were already murmurings of the board moving to fire Barlow. "When you start a mess, you start a mess."
"I didn't mean to," Leland said with a sigh. "I still would have stopped him, of course, but I wish I'd done it differently. I liked what I did, and now I can't be Minder or Leland. This really, really sucks."
"You were already having trouble," Greg said. "Come on, you know supers don't stay out of the limelight forever. You've always drawn notice for going after the 'little guys' instead of being flashy like the rest of those assholes."
Leland's mouth pinched, and he scowled at the groove he was still stroking with his thumb. "I wanted to stay quieter than this until I got that chip. The more the G.O.D. notices me, the more likely they are to do stuff to work against me—or worse, capture me."
Making a face, Dixie said, "I hate to agree, but you ain't wrong. G.O.D. would love to get their hands on a telekinetic. I ain't never heard of one, not in this century anyway. Nothing past the localized sort that lets some of them fly and shit. A true, full spectrum telekinetic? Even one of low-level abilities would be worth a large country to them. It'd be the definition of suicide for you to go anywhere near them."
"I know, but I don't care," Leland said. He stared hard at the table, hand curling into a fist. "They have my friend and I'm going to get her back no matter what the cost. I'm already terrified about what they've probably done to her, what they'll do with their new knowledge." He closed his eyes, withdrew his hand, but Dixie would bet every penny he had that both of Leland's hands were curled into fists in his lap.
"What new knowledge?"
Leland shook his head. "It's not my business to discuss."
"It damn well—" Dixie broke off as Byron strode back in. "Where the hell did you run off to?"
"Nowhere," Byron said. "Sorry." He didn't look at any of them, though, just strode into the kitchen and started fussing with things, slowly pulling out ingredients and tools to make god knew what.
Dixie frowned, shared a look with Greg, who shrugged and spread his hands in a got me gesture. Standing, Dixie went over to the kitchen island. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Byron said, but his eyes skittered to Leland, facing away and oblivious. His cheeks turned pink and he turned sharply away.
"Byron—" Dixie cut around the island and reached out to grab his arm, but Byron jerked away and scurried over to the far counter where he started to chop onions in a way that was asking for trouble. "Darling, you might want to—"
"Leave me—damn it!" Byron snarled, dropping the knife and holding his hand against his chest.
Dixie's frown cut deeper into his face. He strode across the kitchen and tried once more to get hold of Byron, who turned and gave him a hard shove. "Leave me alone!" He grabbed the knife and threw it in the sink, where it splashed in soapy water. Then he grabbed up the cutting board and the onion he'd been chopping, all with one hand, and threw it in the trash before storming from the room again.
"What in the ever living goddamn hell was that all about?" Dixie asked. "Byron ain't usually the crazy one around here." He ran a hand over his head, stared at the bits of onion that had been left on the counter and fallen on the floor.
And the weird smears of something purple. It looked like blood, except, well, it was purple. "What the hell was he chopping that comes out purple?"
"Huh?" Greg asked.
Leland rose and turned sharply, a look on his face that was sharp as a laser and twice as intense as a pissed off G.O.D. with a victim in their sights. "Purple? Let me see." He joined Dixie at the kitchen counter, dabbed his fingers in the small purple smear. "This is blood."
"Maybe I missed something somewhere, but I'm pretty sure blood is red."
"Human blood, yeah," Leland said, "but this isn't from a human. Byron's like Beatrice."
Dixie closed his eyes, counted to ten, and replayed Leland's words. Nope. Wasn't working. He still could not make any sense of the words being said to him. "What in the hell do you mean isn't from a human?"
"Beatrice isn't human, and she bleeds purple, like this. She said she crash-landed here centuries ago, when the meteor damaged her ship. Said she was the only one left, that the only other one to survive the crash died years ago. She never said his name…" He rubbed his fingers together, staring at the blood. "She was captured by the G.O.D. seven and a half months ago, along with some supers she'd been hiding so the G.O.D. wouldn't get them. A group of five seven-level kids, the oldest not more than twelve. She did that a lot—kept registered supers from winding up in the clutches of the Dogs. I was supposed to be with them that night, but the police scanner went off, an ugly robbery…"
"I remember it," Greg said quietly. "I was out scouting a building, and there was such a clusterfuck about that robbery that the cops weren't around anywhere else. I hit the building right then because I was never going to get another chance like that. Walked away with ten million dollars in diamonds." He frowned, rubbed a thumbnail across his lower lip. "I didn't know you did all that rescue stuff. I didn't even know there was a rescue cluster here."
"It's not here anymore, and I'm not part of it," Leland said. "The fucking G.O.D. almost got me that night. They had Night Terror at that damn 'robbery' and the whole thing was a sting. I managed to escape, barely, but by the time I got home, it was too late for Beatrice and the others. Now they're all with the G.O.D., and I could have stopped it if I hadn't been so stupid."
Dixie shook his head. "Darling, it ain't stupid to try and do the right thing, and it sure as hell ain't stupid to get your ass whooped by the G.O.D. I know better than most how ruthless and mean they can be. I wasn't but a kid when they shot my daddy point blank right in front of me. You're damned lucky they didn't get you, too, because none of us would have ever known. I sure as hell ain't heard about the G.O.D. having an alien. Hang on, I'm gonna go talk to Byron. Outer space, what the hell is next?"
After several long minutes of hunting, he finally found Byron hiding out in his workshop, fussing with bits and pieces that had probably come from the deaths of several high-end electronics obtained from the back of a truck. "So basically you are a dark faerie, just from Planet Faeries instead of Land of Faeries."
Byron looked up, and Dixie drew up
short to see Byron was crying. "How—?"
"You left blood on the counter. I told you to be careful with that knife, you dumbass," Dixie replied. He slowly crossed the room. When Byron didn't flee or push him away, Dixie rested a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, why are you hiding in here? I'm half-computer and have to be defragged periodically. You think I wouldn't jump at the chance to add alien jokes to the things I can harass you about?"
Byron let out a cracked, broken laugh, then buried his face in his hands and started sobbing.
"Ah, hell, why does anyone let me talk?" Dixie muttered. "Ain't it obvious I grew up with just computer parts for friends?" But what he lacked in words, he tried to make up in deeds. It wasn't hard to get Byron on his feet and into a hug. "It's okay, Byron. I'm sorry we done scared you."
Several minutes later, Byron finally drew away. "Sorry."
"Shut the hell up. You ain't the one should be apologizing. Are you okay? Is there something we can do?" For the first time he noticed Byron's hand: the two bandaged fingers stained with purple blood. "You didn't cut yourself too bad, did you?"
"Bad enough," Byron said, sadness threading his voice. He slowly dragged his eyes up, peered at Dixie, looking more like a scared child than the easy, stoic man he knew. "You're not going to freak out or something? Try to kill me? Report me?"
Dixie shook his head. "Nah. More fun to rib you, and who would keep this place in shape for all of us to use if we went panicked villager on you? Anyway, idiot, you keep on forgetting that I'm half-computer. We'd make a fine crime-fighting pair if we weren't already the criminals."
Byron gave a tentative smile, a sliver of his usual self. "Greg and Leland won't freak out on me, will they?"
"Greg is gonna pester you to death with questions and you know it," Dixie replied. "As to Leland… he was the one who already knew about you. Well, about aliens, I mean. It's why he needs the Mason Chip, apparently. Wants to rescue another one of you."