Nero didn’t move. “Did you have tokens my lieutenants didn’t find?”
“No tags. I worked a full nine days, and they didn’t give me any tags. How am I supposed to work the next seven?” the older man retorted.
“If you don’t have three tokens, then you don’t have the right to look me in the eye and talk to me.”
“Then punish me, but I’m going to say what I want to say. You don’t deserve this. Being in charge. You’re causing more trouble than good. We were doing fine before you came. You’re a thug who got a lucky roll of the dice.”
Nero shifted position, leaning forward, setting one armored elbow onto the desk. The posture helped to show the golden dot-within-a-circle emblem on his upper arm. “You don’t know what powers take from you, old man. What they cost us, the wars we’ve been in, the people we’ve all lost. Hell, you don’t know what it takes to get ‘em. So when you find that out, when you get your own powers, enjoy them for a bit, then you can talk to me. If you don’t get that far, you’d better learn to bow and scrape. I’m better than most, believe me. I’m actually fair.”
“Your lieutenants demand two weeks of work for one week of sustenance. They demand sexual favors and help themselves to the things we managed to bring with us. Precious things. To me, that means you have to be a fucking idiot, running the day to day while they take advantage of you.”
Two teenagers in the group cast a worried glance in the man’s direction. Roughly the same age, seventeen or eighteen. Nero stared at them for long seconds as he considered the man’s words. He glanced at Lucan.
Lucan shrugged. When the gunman looked towards the line of prisoners, the red laser that extended from one eye moved to suggestive places. The prisoners shifted uncomfortably.
Hooligan, Nero’s self-imposed jester, entered the room with a canvas bag, open at the top and sides, wood scraps and sticks stacked within. He unloaded it in the brazier. Where snow lingered on the branches, the fire popped and steamed, adding to the heavy atmosphere in the room. He paused, glancing at the prisoners, then looked at Nero.
Nero raised a hand, gesturing for Hooligan to stop. “Stay, Hooligan”
He stood from his seat, crossing the room until he faced Lucan. He was three or four inches taller, which combined with his armor to make him rather intimidating.
“Sorry,” Lucan said, his voice a bit rough, “Man’s right. I’m milking you for everything you’re worth, Persecutor. Manipulating you left, right and center.”
“Tragic, a travesty,” Nero said. Then he allowed himself a chuckle, looking at the prisoners, “We’re old friends. Next time, don’t go thinking you can turn people against one another, if they’re close enough to have matching codenames. Want to try anything else, old man?”
The man didn’t show any disappointment. “Do your worst.”
“Ah, that’s not smart,” Nero said. He paused, as if suddenly restless. When he did finally speak, it was with a steadily rising volume. “Breaking my rules while living in my territory, you insult me to my face, and then you tell me to do my worst?”
The older man didn’t flinch.
“Those two,” Nero said, pointing at the two teenagers who had reacted earlier. Nero didn’t take his eyes off the man. “They were with him?”
“No,” the old man said.
“Yeah,” Lucan answered. “All squatting in one room.”
Nero nodded slowly. His fingertips drummed on the table. “Don’t touch the old man. Lock him up, but don’t touch him. His kids…”
“No,” the man said. “No!”
“They take it instead. Let’s leave no doubt they paid a price,” Nero said. “Shave their heads, then give them tattoos, nice and big, in a place where people can see.”
He raised his hand, cupping it. A device, slowly rotating in midair, began to appear, slivers flying out of nowhere to fit in together like pieces from a puzzle. A long needle, a site for the ink to be plugged in, a handle… it was soon orbited by three vials. Rather than slivers, the liquid came in as round droplets, seeping into the vials to fill them before the splinters sealed the exterior.
“Face? Neck?” Lucan asked.
“No!” the man’s scream was ragged.
Nero held out his hand, and Lucan took the device, holding out another hand to intercept the vials of colored ink as they completed one last rotation, slapping his palm.
Nero approached the youths, taking hold of one’s chin and the other’s neck. Slivers appeared, converging on a point inside them, but when he pulled away, there was nothing visible. “Face or neck will do. Both, maybe. Something like ‘property of Nero’, a drawing of my mask, or maybe a thank you to daddy, just to drive the point home,” Nero mused. “He did say I should do my worst, so be sure to give them a light beating, and… hm. We sell all the product already?”
“Still some left over,” Hooligan said. He was smiling, still holding the empty canvas bag. Enjoying the show.
“Then, as long as this merry band wants to take stuff for free, give this man’s son and daughter a share of the product.”
“No! No! Please!”
Nero stared at the screaming man. “By the time they go back to their daddy, I want them hooked enough they’ll beg to do my lieutenants favors or give my lieutenants anything of value they can think of.”
The older man crumpled, doubling over, falling as much as he could fall with the chain stretching between his shackles and those of the people on either side of him. The pair of teenagers were cowering as Hooligan and Lucan approached, but the chain limited their ability to move to mere feet.
The prisoners on either side stepped in, partially because of the pull on the chain, drawing them together, partially out of an instinctive need to provide some measure of protection to the vulnerable.
Hooligan hopped up, flipping around until he was walking on the ceiling, then hopped down, landing behind the teenagers. Keys twirled around one finger.
Hooligan began unshackling the pair. Lucan hit one of the people in the way with the butt of his shotgun, and the prisoners began backing away, stretching the chain taut once again.
“Uncle!” the teenaged boy screamed. Panic was taking over, but Hooligan was stronger than he looked.
“The rest each get a light beating,” Nero said, “Nothing severe enough to keep them from working. Believe it or not, uncle, I’m trying to run this area. I’m not especially cruel. Not in relative terms. There are much worse people out there.”
The man looked shell shocked, caught between staring at Nero and watching the struggles of his niece and nephew as they were dragged into a back room by Hooligan. Lucan tossed Hooligan the tattoo gun and ink.
“Uncle!” the boy screamed.
The door slammed, and the uncle looked like he’d been physically struck by the slab of wood.
“The rest of you, I know you don’t like me, and you won’t. But we’re going to make it through this winter, working hard even when it’s cold, we’re going to expand. If you don’t wind up leaving, I think you’ll see the fruits of what I’m doing here. We’ll be in better shape than other districts.”
They were listening, if only because it beat listening to the ongoing screaming in the other room.
“Those other districts? I can tell you now, they have crowds of people in big empty buildings, shoulder to shoulder around fires, taking turns going out to get firewood. Getting cabin fever, whiling away the days, rationing food, trying to ignore the fact that some toddler or old person shit in a dark corner or pissed in their beds because they couldn’t be bothered to go outside. We’re already better off, understand? We can work through the season because I’ve got the tools, the warm clothes and everything else we need, and it’s going to keep us sane. And when winter passes and spring starts, we’ll be a step ahead, and you’ll be living in proper apartments, head and shoulders above the new people who are clamoring to live here.”
He turned his head as he looked over the group of prisoners. “You�
�ll thank me. You won’t want to, won’t even want to think it, you won’t like me, but you’ll thank me for this, deep down inside, somewhere down the road.”
No response, nothing. He had intimidated them into submission.
“Take them, Lucan. Make it clear that their theft from this community won’t be tolerated, then get them settled in for the night. They start work tomorrow. We’ll talk about the product when you’ve got them settled.”
Lucan nodded. He gestured with the shotgun, and the line began moving, the empty shackles where the teenagers had been clattered. Some prisoners stepped forward to help get the older man to his feet.
The group filed out.
Nero waited until they were gone, then pulled his helmet off. He ran his hand through his hair, then scratched his beard.
He made his way back to his desk, then sat down.
The chair wasn’t in the position he’d expected it to be. He found himself falling.
A chain went taut around the bare skin of his neck. He jerked to a stop, his rear end on the tilted chair, feet off the ground, his neck held up by the chain.
When the momentary panic was gone, he reached for the edge of the desk. The chains of handcuffs clinked, pulling taut between his wrists and the armrests of the chair. The cuffs had been looped through a strap, rather than around the armor of his wrists. That didn’t make them much easier to remove.
He raised his legs, pushing against the underside of the desk to relieve the pressure. He was allowed that much. If he pushed further, rocked himself forward…
“Trust me on this, you want to stop struggling.”
He froze.
She sat on the desk, both hands on the other end of the chain. It looped up to the ceiling, through a hook, and down to his neck. She was the one holding him up.
She tilted her head a little. She wore a mask with a reptilian smile, teeth extending past the ‘lips’ at the corners, but the grin was barely visible with the heavy scarf that was piled around her shoulders. The mask had slanted eyes, black from corner to corner, and horns that curved over the top of her head. Her hair, in black cornrows, was free behind the mask. She wore a jacket and black cargo pants over a skintight outfit, all black.
“Look down,” Imp said.
He did, as much as he was able.
There was a board resting on the ground. Nails and knives had been stuck through it, jagged, irregular. It was positioned so that if he fell, it would impale the back of his head and neck in fifteen or twenty different ways.
He felt his blood run cold. If she found him too heavy, or if the chair legs slid…
How had she even done this?
“Now you’ve got the gist of it,” she said. “Now, unless you want to be a skewered little fishy, you should stay put. You and me are going to have a conversation.”
He took in a deep breath. “Okay. A conversation. I have money, though it isn’t worth much, I’ve got food stores enough to last a winter… we can stretch it thin if we have to. I’ve got territory. Good amount of product.”
“The product is our first topic of conversation.”
“You can take all of it.”
She sighed. “I don’t want to take it. For one thing, I know it’s bad stuff, people getting sick.”
“You heard?”
“I laced it,” she said.
“Oh.”
“And I heard. Thing is, I’m not interested in grabbing your stuff. Just the opposite.”
“You ruined my product so you could sell me yours.”
“Will you stop talking?” she asked. “Longer this conversation goes, the more tired my hands are going to get, you follow me?”
“I follow.”
She set the pointed toe of her boot on the front of the chair, between his knees, “Here’s the deal. You’re selling drugs. I kind of have a pet peeve on the subject, I’m sure you get my drift. Tattooing people and reigning through terror, they’re not so cool either, you know?”
“Ah. A vigilante.”
“No. Will you shut your goddamn mouth? You keep being wrong, and one of the reasons I’d make a pretty piss-poor vigilante is I’m the type of person who’d let go of this chain if you annoyed me enough.”
“I… Mm hmm,” he said.
“Plan was I’d traipse in here, fuck up your shit, leave a calling card, and then leave. Sort of a modus operandus, you know? I’m working on building a rep as a… not-assassin. A shit fucker-upper, if you will.”
“Modus operandi,” he replied, a reflexive response.
“Oops!” she said. He dropped, the chain rasping as it ran through the hook in the ceiling.
He stopped short, a half-second later. His yelp of a scream was belated, following the stopping rather than the fall.
“What was I saying? Right. Well. I happened to overhear your whole deal, and now I’ve got a problem. It sounds really, really familiar.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Supporting the territory, ruling with a measure of fear? I’ve seen people go this route. They did it more instinctively. This felt forced, right here.”
“This is how I operate,” Nero spoke.
“I don’t buy it. Look, there’s not that many major players out there. Fewer still who’ve got all the dirty details, and who’d be in a position to know certain things. Let’s stop pretending you have the memory of a goldfish. You got help. What you’re doing here, it took resources to establish.”
“My power, I can make things. Tools, raw materials, weapons. I have resources in abundance.”
“Giving you five seconds. Then I let go, and I interrogate Hooligan.”
“Hooligan?” his eyes moved in the direction of the room Hooligan had entered, but he couldn’t see around the side of the desk.
“A little tied up at the moment.”
“And Lucan?”
As if the question had prompted it, there was a knock at the door.
Imp’s eyes met Nero’s. For a long moment, the pair were very still.
“Come in!” Imp called out.
The door opened. Three youths entered. A young teenaged boy with wild blond curls, a ten year old with straight black hair, and another girl, one or two years younger with a manic grin and her dark hair cut in a pixie style. All wore black.
Nero relaxed his neck, letting his head dangle. A slight groan passed through his lips.
“Close the door?” Imp asked.
The blond boy did. Ahead of him, the grinning child ran across the room, hopping up onto the desk with enough force that she slid bodily into Imp.
Nero let out an involuntary noise of alarm, as if convinced Imp would let go.
“So, to get you brats caught up, Nero and I were talking, and I can’t help but feel like there’s something fishy with this whole business. Too familiar, really.”
“Familiar how?” the blond boy asked.
“Like he’s copying someone I knew. Except I know there was nobody like him in the area, watching and taking notes. Raises questions,” Imp said.
Nero piped up, his voice a little strangled, “There’s nothing like that, honest!”
“And he’s playing dumb, which is really piscine me off,” Imp said.
“That’s two fish lines, now,” the blond boy said. He had his hands jammed into his pockets. “Why?”
“Dudes,” Imp said, turning around to get a better look at him. “Did I finally just pull off a reference you ankle-biters didn’t get?”
The girl with straight hair crossed the room until she stood beside Nero. Her voice was a quiet deadpan as she stared down at him, “Nero, not Nemo.”
“What?” Imp asked. She turned around. “Wait, what? No! Really?”
The blond boy nodded as he smirked a little.
“No! Oh god, no! All this time spent on fucking setting up, hammering shit into the floor so the chair wouldn’t slide, getting that fucking hook in the ceiling, and I spoil it by getting the name wrong!? No!”
“Hey,�
� Nero piped up, “Don’t- don’t drop me. You can’t… don’t let kids this young see something that gruesome.”
The youngest girl hopped off of the desk. She laughed in Nero’s face, abrupt, a little too enthusiastically.
Imp extended one foot, catching the hood of the girl’s sweatshirt and using it to haul her back, before hooking her leg around the girl’s neck, pinning her. The girl didn’t resist.
“Really, Nero?” the blond boy asked. “I seem to recall a bit about beating and torturing that brother and sister pair in the other room.”
“You’re all parahumans,” Nero realized, out loud. It might have been the statement that clued him in, or it might have been the way that one of the kids moved, showing off the golden icon on their sleeves.
Imp was barely paying attention. “Damn it. But… who’s Nero, then?”
“Roman emperor,” the blond boy said. “Was supposedly a bad leader, which is ironic, given this guy’s choice of vocation, but that might have been historians being dicks to a guy who they didn’t agree with. Stories say he played his instrument while Rome burned.”
“Ughh,” Imp groaned. “There’s no fish in that story at all. Wait, was he the one that fucked his mom?”
“Killed his mom.”
“Definitely no fish then. Fuck!”
“No other choice,” the girl with straight hair said, her voice quiet. She pressed her thumb against Nero’s forehead. “Have to let him go.”
“No murdering, Juliette,” the boy said.
“No murdering,” Imp reiterated, as if reciting a phrase she’d said so many times it was routine. She looked down. “You going to sit still for once, Flor?”
The girl with the pixie cut nodded. Imp released her. “That’s better. Hands are getting tired enough without me sitting in a bad position too.”
“I can take over,” Juliette said, with no inflection to her voice.
“Yeah, no, not falling for that one again. So, Nero, Why don’t we get this dialogue moving, and you give me the answers I want, or you can get shivved from behind like your second favorite emperor.”
The blond boy made a ‘so-so’ gesture with his hand.
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