by Joe Ducie
The bastard took Irene and killed me. He shook with anger. At least they’ll think I’m dead now.
‘No. No, they won’t.’ Drake slammed his crystal hand into the mirror. The glass shattered, as did the wooden frame and a good chunk of brick behind it. They won’t think I’m dead after the light show down Fifth Avenue.
‘Irene will think I’m dead. I should be dead.’ Drake didn’t know how he felt about that just yet, so he decided not to dwell on it. I wish I’d never been sent to the Rig. ‘Time for … peanut butter candy.’
Time to roll the dice, follow the web and hope this pays off.
Drake let himself out of the washroom and traipsed down the hallway to the kitchen. He tore open a bag of peanut butter candy bits and tossed a handful into his mouth. Takeo and Noemi were deep in quiet conversation out on the balcony. She shook her head as he cut his hand down through the air. Arguing, then.
Tristan’s bank of computer terminals were still humming away along the far wall. Drake felt ill; his body shook with stress or fatigue, or the clawing fingers of madness, he didn’t know. He threw the bag of candy aside. Down the hallway, a heavy knock came from the apartment door. Someone was out in the corridor.
The balcony door slid open, letting in a cool breeze and the sounds of far-below traffic, and Noemi and Takeo let themselves back in to the apartment.
Noemi’s eyes flicked from Drake to the scattered peanut butter candy, and back to Drake. ‘What is going on here?’
Drake leant against the countertop and shook his head. ‘Tristan … Michael sold us out to the Alliance.’
‘Why would he do this?’ Noemi’s hand rested on the hilt of her sword.
There was another knock at the door, a touch more insistent than before.
‘I’ll see to that,’ Takeo grumbled. ‘You,’ – he pointed at Drake – ‘do not move.’
‘I do not understand,’ Noemi said as Takeo disappeared down the hallway.
Drake could only shake his head. So much was on the line now. So much that could go devastatingly wrong.
Takeo returned a minute later, carrying a large white box wrapped in thin strips of sheer purple lace. He put it down on the island in the kitchen. A card on the box, in fancy cursive script, read:
William Drake
‘That was an Alliance courier at the door,’ Takeo said. ‘I made him open the box to ensure it wasn’t an explosive. The contents appear to be for you, Mr. Drake.’
Drake gave him a glance and picked up the card. On the reverse side, he found an invitation for an Alliance-funded event in the city that evening.
Dear Mr. William Drake and Miss Irene Finlay,
You are cordially invited to attend the presentation of the Whitmore Meteorite to the American Museum of Natural History.
The Alliance Relief Fund will be gladly accepting donations for the Peruvian earthquake disaster.
Time: 7:30PM
Attire: Black Tie
With kind regards,
Lucien Whitmore & family
Drake read the card again, just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He placed it on the counter and opened the box. Inside he found a black suit that, even to his untrained eye, looked worth more than his home back in London.
What game are you playing, Whitmore? He met Noemi’s gaze. She’s not going to like this.
‘It’s an invite to some presentation tonight at the … Museum of Natural History.’ Drake paused. ‘Lucien Whitmore is hosting, and I think Irene is going to be there. I think he took Irene to make sure I would be there.’
‘You are not seriously going,’ Noemi said, as Drake shrugged out of his shirt in his bedroom. She sounded uncertain, incredulous. Young. He didn’t doubt the fancy tuxedo would fit him just fine. ‘William Drake, Haven has arranged transport out of this city and across to Europe, but we must leave now. The Alliance knows us, knows we are here. The net is closing, and we are no longer protected by Haven’s negotiations. The Alliance want you dead far more than we thought. So I say again – you are not going to meet Lucien Whitmore.’
Drake grinned. She was giving him an order? ‘Can you stop me?’ he asked, as politely as he could. ‘Your skills and sword against my raw power? Who’d win that fight, you think, when I can Spider-Man my way through this town?’ He loosened the tie and slipped it over his head, against his collar, and tightened it back up. ‘I’m glad this came already knotted. Never had much need to wear one before.’
‘Lucien Whitmore is baiting you. He’s spent considerable effort and resources to recapture you these last few weeks, and now that he knows you’re here, under his thumb, he’s set the trap with honey.’
Drake chuckled. ‘Irene is as sweet as honey, yeah. Damn it all, but she is.’
‘You think she’ll be at this party?’ Noemi threw up her hands. ‘She’ll have already disappeared into one of the pits the Alliance call prisons.’
‘Then I’ll find that pit and break her out. Kind of my thing. But, yes, I think she’ll be there. And I’ve got something Whitmore wants, I guess.’ Drake stared at his hands. ‘I’ve absorbed way more of his Crystal-X than anyone, and I’m still kind of normal. Don’t you see what he’s doing? He can’t capture me with force, so he’s tempting me with something I want. I don’t think he wants me dead, not really.’
‘Tempting you with Irene Finlay?’ Noemi threw up her hands in frustration.
Drake held up the invitation. ‘This was addressed to both of us. “Mr. William Drake and Miss Irene Finlay”. Whitmore’s taunting me. She’ll be my date for the evening, I guess. But do you see what I’m doing, Noemi?’ Drake scoffed – at himself and the absurdity of the situation. ‘I’m choosing Irene over getting home. I’ve been working towards getting back to London for so long … since long before the Rig. And now this is more important. Just for tonight, perhaps, until Irene is safe, but I’m choosing not to leave her behind.’ He fought a snarl. ‘And back on that train in Canada, Whitmore as much as said he’s dangling a sword above my mother’s head … time we spoke face to face, me and him, and cleared the air, because this can’t go on.’
‘William Drake,’ Noemi said. ‘I must advise against this. What you are, what you could be in the war to come –’
‘If you’re about to say my life is more important than Irene’s because I drank a whole bottle of the crystal Kool-Aid you lot set so much stock by – then stop.’ Drake straightened his bow tie in the mirror and, reluctantly, removed his woolly hat. ‘I like you, Noemi, you’re cool, so don’t make me hate you.’
‘Once they have you, they won’t let you go.’
He snorted a rough chuckle. ‘They haven’t been able to hold me so far, and that was before I had flamethrowers for arms.’ Drake sighed. ‘I know they won’t let me go, but I’ve been thinking about the balance. You’ve been trying to make me understand it since we met, not that long ago. Basically what the balance boils down to is perception, yeah? Perception. How I see myself in the world, what I’m willing to do, and what I know, deep down inside, is the right thing. The balance isn’t good or evil. You tried to tell me that back on the plane. It’s just what I can live with. What I can accept as … acceptable. That’s what stops the Crystal-X from driving me mad. Doing the right thing as I believe – heh, and perceive – it to be right. So long as I’m fighting for something worth fighting for, then I’ve got a balance – a reason not to be selfish. It comes down to this: I couldn’t live with myself if I abandoned Irene. It would drive me mad as sure as if I killed her myself.’
Noemi opened and closed her mouth a few times and then settled on a sad smile. ‘Thank you for reminding me of the balance,’ she said. ‘My instructors in Haven would have me whipped bloody, if they heard me arguing against your Path just now. You are right, of course, but that doesn’t mean you have to go alone. I can follow you under a veil, completely unseen, and watch your back.’
Drake considered that and then shook his head. ‘No, no tricks tonight. Thank you for the offer, but no
.’
‘You shouldn’t go alone –’
‘This one’s on me, Noemi. You want me to come to Japan, then you give me your word you won’t follow me.’ And ruin the plan. ‘You can be nearby, if you want, but not in that museum.’
Noemi glared and, after a long moment, gave a curt nod.
Takeo let himself into Drake’s room. ‘Michael Tristan did not leave any surveillance equipment,’ he said with a rough grunt. ‘He took nothing but his few belongings and that drone.’
Drake nodded. Best of luck, you little idiot. ‘You know, it was never going to be the Alliance or the crystal powers that came between us. It was always going to be her. Should have seen it coming.’
He pulled out his phone – the phone that Tristan had given him – and dialled his mother.
Lucien Whitmore picked up on the first ring.
‘You owe me two helicopters, Mr. Drake,’ the King of the Alliance said. ‘And an oil rig. I’m willing to let the absurd amount of Crystal-X you absorbed slide – a drink on the house, so to speak – but I can’t abide you on the loose with such stolen power. Once a thief, yes?’
‘You owe me one Canadian girl, red hair, cute as a button,’ Drake replied, a dangerous edge to his voice. ‘And, what, were you just sitting by the phone, waiting for me to call?’
Whitmore chuckled. ‘Any and all calls originating from the continent of North America to your home in London, or to the families of Miss Finlay and Mr. Tristan, are redirected to my personal cell.’
‘Well, Mikey Tristan sold us down the river, so you can strike him from my close friends list.’
‘How far gone are you, Mr. Drake? Would you kill Mr. Tristan, if given the chance?’ Whitmore chuckled. ‘I offered Mr. Tristan sanctuary in exchange for his assistance. And I didn’t want to have to take Miss Finlay, you understand. Indeed, I consider that a debt to be repaid. But please know she is unharmed – well, save a broken jaw upon her arrival, courtesy of Marcus Brand, but she has healed that with her remarkable talent.’
Drake almost crushed the phone in his grip. ‘He broke her jaw?’
‘She was hysterical. Screaming that you were dead. Brand shot you in the head, or so I’m told.’
‘He did. I got over it.’
Whitmore grunted. ‘I dislike using what Brand has become, but I believe he is the only creature on this good earth capable of getting results when it comes to you.’
Noemi stood at Drake’s shoulder. She moved to meet his gaze and looked worried.
He gave her a wink. ‘Kind of my fault, really,’ he said to Whitmore. ‘I let him burn on that tanker full of Crystal-X.’
‘William, I don’t want to imprison you. I don’t even want to stop you. There’s a greater threat, isn’t there? I want you to join me. We must discuss a matter of importance.’
Drake let that hang in the air for a moment. He licked his lips. ‘Will there be blackberry jam at this function of yours tonight?’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Drake. Face to face.’
Drake hung up on Lucien Whitmore and tossed his phone onto the bed. ‘Don’t know what you got against that guy,’ he said to Noemi and Takeo, as he removed his tie and undid the top button on his fine collared shirt. His woolly tassel hat, speckled with only a bit of blood, fit far better than the tie anyway. ‘I’m going to a party in half a suit and this hat. Here’s what I want you two to do.’
Chapter Eighteen
Mini Cheeseburgers and Sniper Rifles
Irene picked at imaginary strands on the flawless cerulean blue dress Whitmore had arranged for the evening. The dress was strapless, and a personal stylist had spent an hour on her hair and makeup. The white heels on her feet were expensive and added two inches to her height. Irene had protested all of it, but she hadn’t been alone in the room when the dress and stylist had arrived. She had made a very unlikely friend. As they travelled uptown in a luxurious limousine, Irene sat with her ankles crossed and body turned away from the president of the Alliance, who wore an immaculate tuxedo, on the opposite side of the car. An escort of half a dozen other vehicles and NYPD cars cleared traffic and blocked side streets, and the limousine seemed to get all the green lights without fail.
‘Where are we going?’ Irene asked. She didn’t turn her head to direct her question towards Whitmore, across the aisle. Even if she had, she would have only seen her own reflection in his sunglasses – which he even wore at night, it seemed.
‘To see the dinosaurs!’ squeaked an excitable young girl on Whitmore’s left.
While the Alliance had prepared Irene for the evening, she’d had company – Amy Whitmore, the daughter of the man who had imprisoned her, hunted her and had her kidnapped by a monster. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old, and had spent the whole evening bubbling with excitement about the party.
But she kept remembering Will’s voice on the phone. He’s alive. Somehow, he’s alive. Unless this is all a trick. Given what had happened on the Rig, she would put nothing past Lucien Whitmore.
Whitmore grinned at his daughter and patted her shoulder. He held a tablet computer on his knee, through which he seemed to be commanding the entire Alliance Systems network. Or playing Scrabble. Irene wasn’t sure which, and she didn’t care.
‘We’re going to the Natural History Museum,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t mention that earlier. I’m hosting a charity ball this evening for the victims of that earthquake in Peru a few weeks ago. A tragedy, as you know.’
‘Actually I was locked up on the Rig a few weeks ago, worried the warden or his goons were going to kill me and my friends, so no, no I don’t bloody know.’
‘Please, Irene, choose your words more carefully with my daughter in the car.’
Irene pursed her lips, glanced at the little girl, and her resolve wavered. She nodded and turned back to the window, watching the bustling streets of New York pass her by. ‘You’re only being nice to me for Will,’ she said. ‘I’m … bait.’
‘Yes, you are, but believe me when I say I can help Mr. Drake far more than those fools at Haven. My resources are unlimited. The best medical and scientific minds in the world are at my disposal. On the run, he will burn out and die – and perhaps hurt a lot of people doing so. Back under our care, Mr. Drake has a chance to harness his impressive talents for the greater good. And we are much in need of that greater good this evening.’
‘What greater good? The Alliance’s?’
Whitmore straightened his bow tie and then stroked his daughter’s blonde hair, which was tied in loose knots with colourful ribbons. ‘There’s a war coming, Irene. And we must be ready.’
‘You won’t be able to make him fight for you. He hates the Alliance.’
‘When he sees what I have to offer, he’ll make the only reasonable choice available to him.’
Irene shook her head. ‘You don’t understand him at all, Mr. Whitmore. You’ve threatened his friends and, worse, his mother. He loves his mother.’
‘I’ve ensured Ms. Drake has received nothing but the best medical care –’
‘You’re holding a knife to her throat, and Will knows it.’ Irene fought a desperate chuckle and failed. Could he really still be alive? She decided that to hope was better than to give in to the crushing despair. ‘Whatever you think is going to happen tonight, I guarantee you that Drake is going to find a way to escape.’
Whitmore grinned. ‘I sincerely doubt that.’
The cool New York air tasted nothing like the wet, ancient air of London against Drake’s lips, but dangerous and charged – as if anything could and would happen. A dark, moonless night had settled over the city, the stars obscured behind grey clouds. He tried to feel at ease, but the Alliance would already be watching him, dozens of cameras zoomed in on his position. Takeo and Noemi had dropped him off in the silver sedan in front of the Natural History Museum and had circled around the block, close but not too close, just a phone call away.
A day ago I was
on the run, and just two weeks before that on the Rig … now it’s fancy parties. The sidewalk and steps in front of the museum were abuzz with people dressed in expensive suits and evening dresses. Laughter, polite conversation, and a table with champagne set against the old pillars of the museum made the night seem wholesome.
Drake felt out of place even with his suit jacket shrugged over his shirt and a slim glove to conceal his crystal hand. The tasselled hat, at least, set him apart from the crowd. He didn’t want to be here – didn’t belong here. He was just a kid from London, liked to play a bit of football, liked to steal kisses with Mary Mallory behind the bike sheds after school, maybe take her to the chippy for a student special with mushy peas and curry if he had a few spare quid.
With a weary sense of trepidation he climbed the steps, presented his invitation to a stern-looking man in a tuxedo who frowned at his hat, and entered the impressive foyer of the Natural History Museum. A heavy fatigue had settled in Drake’s bones. In the past few hours, the lack of sleep and collection of injuries garnered over the days on the run had straddled his shoulders like a death shroud. He caught himself almost wanting to curl up on his bunk, back on the Rig. At least there he had been left well enough alone – crawling through waste pipes and playing some mean rigball during the day, but alone at night.
I died today, he thought, as he marvelled at the wide open space of the museum foyer. Skeletons of long-dead dinosaurs drew the eye to the centre of the room. The neck of one of the creatures ended in a screaming jaw, high above the marble floors. Tables of finger food and sparkling glasses had been set up between the displays of fossilised bones. A jazz quartet performed some light background music as people, dressed in their best, mingled and laughed.
William Drake stared at the crowds of the rich and the beautiful, the young and the old, and wondered if anyone would recognise him from the nightly news.
‘Mr. Drake? William Drake?’ A woman in a sparkling emerald green evening gown approached him. She wore her dark brown hair tied loosely at the back and two curled strands framed her face. She stared at Drake from behind a pair of wire-framed glasses, her eyes like grey stone. ‘I’m Danielle DeMarco. Personal assistant to Mr. Whitmore. He asked me to welcome you to the museum. He’d like to see you shortly. Is there anything I can do for you until then?’