by Ben Mariner
The vault door was wide open and I could see a foot sticking out. I rushed over to find DiggerNought in all his earthen lameness unconscious. It was hard to say because I wasn’t the bank manager, but the vault looked completely untouched. There wasn’t a bill out of place, or a safety deposit box opened. None of this made any sense. Then it hit me. This was part of the test. The Liberty Gang was messing with me. Dr. Cannibal was probably never even supposed to be here. This was the test. They didn’t want to see how I did in a fight. They knew that. They wanted to see how well I dealt with the unexpected.
Almost as if on cue, my mind registered a ticking sound. At first I thought maybe it was from a clock somewhere in the bank, but then I realized it was coming from inside the vault and my heart leapt into my chest. I began frantically searching, knocking over stacks of cash, rifling through big sacks of money, flipping over tables. My heart was racing. I wouldn’t die from a bomb blast, though I’m sure it wouldn’t feel good. I was more worried about the others lying unconscious on the floor.
Finally, tucked behind a stack of freshly packaged hundred dollar bills, I found a crude, almost comic book-like bomb, complete with one of those old timey alarm clocks with the two bells on top wired into some dynamite. Oh great. I didn’t have a single clue in the world how to disarm a bomb. I’d only seen it in movies. They always cut the blue wire. But there was no blue wire. They were all green. Literally all of them. Who does that? Who only uses one color of wire to build a bomb? That’s not fair!
I didn’t have long. Or maybe I had plenty of time. It was hard to tell with this thing. The clock read ten after two. Did I have five minutes or fifty? Probably safe to assume it was five. Didn’t really matter if I had twenty-four hours. I still didn’t know how to defuse the damn thing. I wasn’t on the bomb squad. I’m not Keanu Reeves. But I didn’t have a choice.
I took a deep breath and looked back at DiggerNought’s lifeless body.
“Here goes nothing,” I said to him, and closed my eyes.
I reached out and grabbed the first wire I felt under my fingertips and yanked it loose. I’m sure you can imagine how surprised I was when I wasn’t met with a massive explosion. The clock had stopped ticking. I had done it. By pure, stupid, unbelievable luck, I had defused a bomb. I wanted to high five someone so bad.
“That good enough for ya?” I asked to no one, knowing full well The Liberty Gang could hear me.
I set the bomb down and started cleaning up the mess I had made. It definitely wasn’t going to look as good as when I had entered, but I’m sure the bank employees would appreciate the effort. And maybe it would score me some extra points with The Gang as well. Couldn’t hurt anything, that’s for sure. I had just finished stuffing the last bits of cash into a couple bags and was returning them to the shelf when something I certainly didn’t expect happened.
“Freeze,” that familiar robotic voice said. The telltale sign of a hand cannon charging up filled the vault. On instinct, I shot my hands - still holding the bags of cash - into the air and turned around.
Grace was standing in the doorway with one hand raised at me, ready to blast me apparently.
“Whoa, Grace, relax,” I said, adrenaline pumping. “It’s me.”
She did not relax.
“I know it’s you, Lane,” she replied. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I was just…” I looked around the room, and saw things from her perspective. “Well, this probably looks really bad, but-”
“I convince my father to give you a chance,” she cut me off, emotion clear in her voice, “And you rob a bank?”
I dropped the bags.
“No, that’s not what’s going on,” I tried to explain.
She looked past me to the defused bomb. “And you’re going to blow it up?”
“Oh god, no, just listen,” I pled. “This was part of the assignment your dad-”
“You were supposed to be across town fighting Oddball!”
“Wait...what?” Who was lying to who now? “No, the info I got-”
“Enough!” she growled and a pair of shoulder rockets emerged from her suit. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted a Mal. They all said you didn’t deserve this and you’d betray me, but I fought for you. And this is how you repay me? You leave me no choice, Lane. I have to take you in.”
This went south so fast. It was all coming clear though. It was a setup. The whole thing. This was exactly what was supposed to happen. Why? Who the hell knew. I was going to find out though. But I couldn’t do that from jail, and I wasn’t Hostile Takeover who could buy her way out or claim mistaken identity. If Grace brought me in, I was doing time. Plain and simple. I couldn’t let that happen.
“We both know you can’t hurt me,” I said, weighing my options. “In more ways than one. Look in your heart, Grace. You know me. You know I wouldn’t do this. It was just a test. I swear it.”
“Yeah, it was a test,” she said, hurt in her voice, “and you failed.”
What happened next was pure instinct and more of that insane luck that helped with the bomb that made it succeed. I reached for my wrist and cranked gravity up to at least a six just as the shoulder rockets launched from their perch. I figured it would just help me stand my ground, but the added weight caused the floor to crumble and sent me crashing into one of the subway tunnels. The vault above me lit up as the rockets detonated, igniting the dynamite. I had just enough of my wits about me to reset gravity as I burst through the top of a moving subway car. In one more brilliant stroke of serendipity, I landed in the last car and watched out the back window as the tunnel caved in from the blast.
Grace would be fine in her armor. Maybe a little banged up. I did worry about DiggerNought though. That probably wasn’t great for him.
The train car was empty so I deactivated my suit and plopped down in one of the seats. That went just about as bad as it could possibly go. Not only did I definitely lose my shot at getting into The Liberty Gang, but Grace thought I betrayed her, then I almost killed her on accident, and to top it all off, the whole thing was a setup.
That’s what was really eating at me. The other stuff was bad, no doubt, but the idea that anyone would take the time to set me up out of all people just didn’t make sense. Something hadn’t felt right about this whole thing, but I figured it was just the fact that I truly didn‘t deserve to be there. Now I know why it was all too good to be true.
I leaned my head back against the wall and let out a long sigh. I had to lay low so I could figure this all out. I couldn’t go home, Grace would look for me there. Couldn’t go into work either. I looked up at the subway map. I was on the H line heading east. Next stop was Mariposa. I could go three more stops and get off. There was an option for me there. But should I? Grace definitely wouldn’t think to look for me there. Not many people would.
It was my best course of action.
I just had to hope Jane didn’t hate me too much.
TWENTY-ONE
Jane lived in a overly spacious, ridiculously priced loft apartment in a building that was a magnet for hipsters, bohemians, and people who just think they’re way cooler than they really are. I never really understood why Jane liked living there so much because she was nothing like those people and hated them to the very core of her being, but any time I asked, she’d just shrug and say she liked how the toilet was in the middle of the room.
Luckily no one was up and about so late - or early, depending on how you look at it - so I was able to get inside the building without being seen. I’d already deactivated the suit and it was back inside the bracelet which made me less conspicuous. Not that it mattered much since I was the size of a small car, but still, it was good to play it safe. Jane’s building was a walk-up because of course it was, and she was on the fifth floor. There was an elevator, but it was one of those super big ones that had a wooden door that slid up and down, basically an antique. It had been disabled and was just there for ironic decoration.
I knocked on
the industrial looking door to Jane’s apartment. The metal shuddered but there was no answer. I knew she was awake. She was a night owl. I knocked again.
“Open up, Jane,” I called out to her when there was still no answer at the door. “It’s your...ex-boyfriend, I guess.”
There was a long moment of silence. I almost knocked again, but just before I raised my hand I heard the bolt being thrown. The door slid open to reveal a very surly looking Jane in her Roller Blaze tank and a pair of underwear. Her hair was swooped up in a ridiculous arc on one side and her eyes were just slits to block out the light. Maybe she had been asleep.
“What the hell are you doing here, Lane?” she grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of one eye.
“Look, I know you’re pissed at me,” I began, “but I need your help with something.”
“Can’t you ask one of your ‘Fig friends to help?” Now that she was waking up more, her attitude was turning icy.
I shrugged. “That’s...kind of the problem. I need a place to crash.”
She gave a single cold, humorless laugh. “You must have pissed someone off big time if you’re coming to me for a hiding place. You barely slept over here even when we were dating.”
“Well, I still don’t completely agree that we were ever officially dating,” I reasoned with her, “but, you’re right. And that’s why I’m here. Not many people would think to look here.”
Jane rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “It really isn’t the best time for this, Lane.”
“I know it’s late.”
“Are you coming back to bed? Who’s out there?”
The voice came from further inside the loft and it was definitely female.
“Oh, god,” I said, face reddening. “You’re not alone. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Jane answered, waving me off. “You couldn’t have known.”
An awkward silence fell between us.
“So…” I said finally, “Can I come in or what?”
Jane gave me an impatient look. “You know I have someone in here with me and you still want to come in?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care who you spend time with. I just need a place to lay low.”
She shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
Jane shut the door and threw the lock, the echo of the whole affair lingering in the hallway a moment longer than it needed to.
“Do you want me to come back in the morning?” I yelled through the door. When no answer came, I added quietly, “I guess not.”
Well that was just great. If you can’t go to your maybe ex-girlfriend for help when you’re in a pinch, then who can you go to? My phone vibrated in my pocket and I fished it out. Lisa was calling. Not wholly unusual except for the time. I answered.
“Yo, sis,” I greeted her cheerfully. “What’s up?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Lane,” she said sternly. “Why is your name popping up all over the Liberty Gang’s system?”
“I thought you weren’t working for them?”
“I’m not,” she replied, adding, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not still hacked into their network. What did you do?”
I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” she told me. “I’m coming over.”
“I’m not at home,” I answered. “I’m at Blaze’s.”
There was a beat of silence.
“You mean to tell me that you piss off the Liberty Gang and you go to your ex-girlfriend’s instead of your sister’s?”
“Well, I...wait...you knew we were dating?”
Lisa sighed. “Of course I knew. How the hell could you not?”
I took a deep breath to stop myself from really getting into it. “I can’t do this with you right now. Moral of the story, I was looking for someplace that no one would think to find me. My place and yours seemed the least likely first choice.”
“Don’t be an idiot, bro,” she chided me. “No Liberty Gang stooge could find me even if I gave them the address. Get your ass over here.”
“Fine,” I said, ending the call. She’d be pissed I didn’t say bye, but I didn’t care.
Lisa only lived a few blocks from Jane’s building so I decided to hoof it. It would take longer to get a ride at this time of night and I didn’t want that trail hanging around anyway. The door to Lisa’s apartment was ajar when I finally got to her floor. Nothing out of the ordinary. She always popped it when she knew I was coming. Not like she had to be worried about intruders. If someone broke in, they’d get a lot more than they bargained for.
I found her sitting at her laptop when I walked in.
“This is not good,” she said to me without taking her eyes off the screen. Her fingers were a flurry of movement.
“You’re telling me,” I agreed, flopping on the couch.
“No, you don’t understand, Lane,” she said, finally turning away. “They’re riled up. I didn’t even get this kind of chatter when I ousted Magnificent Man for the criminal he was. You messed up big time. What happened?”
“Can’t you get that from your computer?”
Lisa got up from her chair and came to sit next to me.
“I got the facts, sure,” she said, “but I want to hear it from you.”
I took a deep breath and launched into the story. I could have just told her about this test gone bad, but I felt like it really required a lot of backstory for her to understand, so I started with meeting Grace and how things developed between us before going into the whole Liberty Gang tryout and whatnot.
“So I busted through the floor,” I finished. “Ended up on a subway train and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.”
Lisa looked contemplative for a long time.
“So you think you were set up?”
I nodded. “Had to be. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. I don’t think Grace was in on it though. She seemed genuinely shocked and hurt when she thought I had betrayed her. Whoever is behind this kept her out of the loop.”
“Well, I’ll be honest,” said Lisa with a shrug. “Nothing on the LG’s network would seem to suggest that they had anything to do with it either. But I was just looking at the surface. I’m not ruling one or more of them out yet, but maybe the Coalition has their hands in this. Seems like some shady stuff they’d do. Either way, you’re safe here for now, so just chill and let your sister do some good old fashioned hacking.”
“Thanks, sis,” I said, giving her an appreciative hug. “I could use some shut eye.”
“Well, goodnight then,” she smiled and hopped off the couch, returning to her computer.
“Goodnight, Lisa,” I replied.
I slowly drifted off to sleep to the click-clacking of a keyboard.
TWENTY-TWO
In other news, the villain known as Wrecking Ball is still at large, Susanna Squalls reported from the television. The Liberty Gang has expanded their search and Maxima City Police have doubled their efforts to find the Malevolent who is responsible for the attack on Maxima City Bank and Trust last week. As a reminder to our viewers, if you have any information as to the whereabouts of Wrecking Ball, please call the number listed at the bottom of your screen.
Grainy security footage of Grace and I facing off in the bank vault appeared on the screen with a phone number superimposed over it. The screen switched back to the news and Susanna Squalls right after I burst through the floor and Graces rockets collided with the dynamite, setting it off. They’d been showing that footage on just about every news related channel for the last week.
“You’re watching it again?” Lisa groaned when she entered the room.
I shrugged. “Can’t stop. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess.”
She plopped down at her computer chair and lifted the lid of her laptop.
“You need to stop,” Lisa told me as she booted up her computer. “It’s not good for you. Go outside and get some fresh air. You’ve been inside for a week.”
I pick
ed up the remote, but didn’t turn the channel.
“I’m on the lam, sis. I can’t go outside. Someone will spot me.”
Lisa sighed. “Like I’ve told you a hundred times already, no one knows what you look like outside that suit. The footage doesn’t even show your front side. You could tap dance on the hood of a police car and they wouldn’t know who you are.”
“But how many people in this city look like me?” I countered also for the hundredth time. “Not many. It’s a red flag for anyone paying even a little attention.”
“I get where you’re coming from,” said Lisa with finality, “and you can stay here as long as you like, but only if you go home and pack up some fresh clothes. You might be showering, but your clothes smell like you just pulled them out of a dumpster. Go home and come right back. It’ll take ten minutes. You’ll be fine.”
I sniffed at my shirt. She wasn’t wrong. I could definitely use a fresh set of clothes. Especially if I was going to be staying a while.
“Fine,” I conceded, tossing the remote aside. “I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll be here,” she said off-handedly.
I really had to hand it to her. Lisa had been working pretty much nonstop to find out what was really going on with my situation. She was a freaking dynamo of hacking. Yet, she’d found nothing. The Liberty Gang was still acting as if it was some kind of monumental double cross, and the Coalition was refusing to take credit for anything. Essentially, to either side, I had gone rogue.
There was nothing more dangerous to either side as someone who has no perceived allegiance. When there’s a piece on the board that acts unpredictably, the most important thing is getting it out of play. The only exception to that rule was Wildcard, who had somehow managed to turn his lack of allegiance into a positive thing. It was no wonder they were so keen on finding me. Problem is, that’s not my situation at all. I hadn’t gone rogue. I was trying to fall in line. I wanted to be on the good side. Seemed like a lot of fun. Someone had just gone to some lengths to make it seem like I was a loose cannon and that was a lot more concerning. For me at least.