by Mathy, Scott
Bernard glared at Dwight’s much shorter size for a moment. Finally, he grinned, “S’alright, mate. Good to see ya looking right. What’s the fun?” In an instant, the giant’s demeanor brightened.
“How does breaking into StarPoint and throwing Wulf out a window sound?” Dwight asked, turning back to the ledge.
An expression of pure joy crossed Bernard’s face, “Is it me birthday? ‘ow we getting in, D?
There was some comfort in being called that. Dwight sized up the gap, wondering about his chances. “Next block over is a van we need to borrow. I imagine there are some Associates that we could use your help with.”
“Hold on,” Glitch insisted, looking over the ledge. “Goliath, how far can you jump? Can you make that?”
In response, Bernard crouched briefly before rocketing upward and sailing over the gap in a single bound. He proudly crossed his arms over his enormous chest. “Can’t fly anymore, but I still got that!” he shouted back.
Glitch took a step behind Dwight. He felt her grab on to the material of his jacket in her small hands. “Then catch!” she yelled to Bernard.
She spun in place, swinging Dwight around with her. His feet slipped out from under him and a moment later he was airborne, flung over the alley below. He screamed briefly before colliding with Bernard’s waiting arms. The vigilante held him aloft for several seconds, both men stunned at what had just transpired. Glitch took a running leap, clearing the gap easily before landing with a double somersault and a twist.
Dwight watched her gymnastic feats as Bernard set him down, “Never knew cyborgs for being so graceful,” the hitman remarked.
She opened her glowing eyes, “What can I say? My man has magical code. I didn’t feel this good when I was organic.”
The three continued over two more rooftops, once again pitching Dwight between them. By the end of the trip, the hitman deeply missed the freedom provided by the serum; the exhilaration of defying gravity was more potent than any other part of his stolen powers. As they reached the end of the block, they spotted the van parked outside of the cleaner’s.
“We’ll need a way down,” Dwight commented, looking for a fire escape.
Bernard and Glitch looked at each other, then at the street below. Grabbing Dwight by the collar, the giant leapt off the roof, falling the two stories to the ground before landing hard on the sidewalk. The sudden drop left Dwight shaking in terror. Glitch landed next to them, leaving a web of cracks in the concrete. The small crowd of pedestrians a few feet away barely reacted to their arrival, superhumans dropping from the sky being an all-too-common occurrence in New Haven.
Dwight regained his footing, “Please warn me when you’re going to do something like that. Normals aren’t built for this kind of shock.”
“And what would be the fun in that?” Bernard snorted.
Glitch giggled, “I like this guy. Why didn’t you introduce us earlier?”
“Because he was locked up in an extra-dimensional prison,” Dwight brushed off his jacket, “for trying to take over the city.”
The cyborg briefly tried to remember the incident before giving up, “Yeah, okay. That makes sense.”
Across the street, two Associates were carrying armfuls of thick bags into the back of the van. “Come on ‘en.” Bernard interrupted, “We can ‘ave a good long talk about who tried to do what later. Now though, it’s punchy time.”
The smaller two followed behind, watching as Bernard crossed the street with his trademark wicked smile. Upon reaching the rear of the van, they saw the two Associates, their blue suits and sunglasses marking them as Wulf’s muscle, piling mountains of dry-cleaned outfits onto of the floor. Bernard caught both men by surprise.
Grabbing each from behind, it was short work for the giant to palm their skulls and ram them into the steel frame of the vehicle. The two fell limply to the concrete while Bernard picked pieces of their sunglasses from the regenerating flesh of his hand. As Dwight inspected his ex-partner’s work, a third Associate, this one a woman of comparable size to Glitch stepped out of the building’s side entrance, another heap of suits in her arms.
Glitch smiled, “Just my size.” She took off running at the Associate, catching the brunette with a flying kick to the nose. Wulf’s employee crumbled, spilling the suits over the alley. Glitch threw a thumbs-up back at the men standing near the van.
Bernard winced, “Jeez mate, ‘ats what you replaced me wiv?” He watched as the cyborg began pulling at the unconscious woman’s clothing.
“You know we’ve got a whole pile of unused ones here,” Dwight shouted over.
“Sure, but I can see this one already fits.” She removed her track suit’s top, quickly replacing it with the woman’s white undershirt.
Both men looked away, setting about the task of finding their own disguises. Once mostly changed, they joined Glitch in the alley, dragging the unconscious male Associates with them. Glitch was finishing as they tossed the two against the brick wall with their colleague. They threw the scattered dry cleaning over the Associates. Bernard was having a particularly difficult time getting even the largest suit over his enormous frame.
Dwight thought of Rampage, “I guess I killed the only employee Wulf had that was even close to your size.”
Bernard flipped him off, unintentionally tearing the back of his suit as he slipped it over his shoulders. “Right, least I don’t look like some clone wank’eh. Rather jus’ go in as me’self anyways.”
Dwight checked his own disguise. It fit perfectly; once the glasses were on, he didn’t even feel like himself. He had never imagined himself as an Associate. The prospect of becoming one of Wulf’s nameless army terrified him. He’d heard a few names in his years of working for the tyrant, but each of them was just a cog in the machine of StarPoint, as disposable as the first man he’d watched die.
They returned to the van, throwing the remaining suits haphazardly into the back. Dwight walked around to the driver’s side door. Bernard and Glitch both stepped around the passenger side.
Glitch stopped him as he opened the door. “Oh no, big guy. You’re riding in the back. If anyone sees you in the front, they’ll lock down.” She jumped up into the chair as Bernard turned to Dwight for assistance.
“She’s right,” he agreed, “but look on the bright side: you can change back.”
“Fuck that,” Bernard snorted, “If you two get matching costumes, I’m not being the odd one out.”
He stomped off to the back of the van, closing the double doors behind him as he climbed in. He began building himself a seat from the mountain of loose suits heaved into the rear cabin.
Up front, Dwight pulled a stack of plastic cards from his regular jacket pocket. Glitch looked over at the multitude of badges as he shuffled through them. “What are those?” she asked.
“StarPoint employee IDs. I’ve made a game out of stealing them for years; never thought they’d come in handy for anything, but here we are.” He passed a woman’s ID vaguely resembling the cyborg to Glitch.
She looked at the picture on the badge before pinning it to her navy suit, “You’re a weird guy, Knolls.”
He started the van, “Weird is useful. I’d rather be weird than predictable.”
“You’re still predictable,” Bernard called from his makeshift seat, “I’d been tailing you ever since you stopped at that grease-hole, jus’ like I knew you would.”
As they drove, Dwight couldn’t help but notice the increased patrols around the city. The teams of Guild and Alpha Guard members mostly kept their distance, only occasionally interacting at the site of traffic accidents or during arrests. Occasionally, he would spot one or two familiar blue suits and sunglasses among them. The line between the crime fighters and the regime were beginning to blur.
The van hit a massive pothole as they turned onto one of the major thoroughfares toward StarPoint’s ominous tower. In the back, Bernard struggled to maintain his balance, throwing a hand down through the mass of blue
suits to stabilize himself. His face immediately took on a quizzical expression. Removing it from the clothes, deep lines of blood ran through his fingers. Digging through the pile, he uncovered a pale man’s face, a single hole drilled through his forehead under the man’s trimmed black hair.
“D, stop the car,” he ordered as he began uncovering more bodies buried underneath the heaps of dry cleaning.
Dwight pulled the van over, looking back to see what the commotion was. He climbed in the back, examining the first corpse as Bernard located two more. The dead man’s uniform belonged to an Alpha Guard trainee, the unmistakable logo of Adams Industries affixed to his chest. The bullet hole through the man’s head was from a small sidearm, matching the other two bodies.
“Corporate sabotage?” Glitch asked from the front.
Dwight inspected the bodies for other injuries, “No, if Wulf wanted to send a message, they’d be strung up somewhere. He’s hiding these; it’s something else. They were executed.”
Thinking of the only Alpha connection he had, he removed the cell phone from his pocket, dialing his ex-wife from memory. A moment later, Linda picked up, “Hello?” she asked, her voice apprehensive.
“Linda, it’s Dwi-”
She cut him off, “You piece of shit!” she shouted into the phone.
He grimaced at the device, “Yeah, okay. We can do this later. I need a favor.”
“What else is new?! You can’t just disappear for half a year without telling anyone where you’re going. If I had to talk to that robot one more time, I was going to lose my fucking mind.”
“Fine, just look up if any Alpha patrols went missing in the last twelve hours. Failure to report in, extended missions – anything.
There was silence on the other end, leaving Dwight unsure of whether she was doing the task or giving him the silent treatment. Finally, he heard typing through the phone, “I don’t know what I’m looking for. Alright, here: three-man team. Quark, Freeze, and Iso all failed to check in yesterday.”
Dwight looked at the dead men, trying to guess their call-signs. “I may have them here, but bad news; it looks like they had a run-in with some Associates.”
“They were just kids…” Linda said quietly, her voice shaking.
“Yeah, well, Wulf wanted them for something.”
“I’ll report it,” she offered solemnly.
“No, don’t,” Dwight insisted quickly. “We can’t let them know that we’re on to them. Wulf is up to something, I just need time to figure out what.”
She went quiet again, then finally, “I’ll give you a day, Dwight. Then I need to let someone know. We need to do something about this.”
“I am,” he promised, “Just give me some time to sort all this out. You’ll know when I know.”
“Fine. Just be safe. Do whatever it is you do, just…come back this time.” She hung up.
He put the phone away. The three rode in silence to the gates of StarPoint. The guard station was unmanned, the only checkpoint a lone card reader sitting in front of the empty booth. Dwight swiped his stolen ID through the machine and prayed. The small green light on its face blinked on, the gate before them rising as the spiked strip lowered. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Step one: complete,” he announced to his partners.
Glitch surveyed the grounds surrounding StarPoint through the van’s windshield, observing the hurried activities of the Associates. Even Dwight noted the urgency in Wulf’s servants. “I’ve never seen this many Associates at once. Good cover, I suppose.”
“Yeah, but how are we going to get the big guy up?” Glitch asked, gesturing at Bernard. The giant wiped his bloodstained hand over his ill-fitting white undershirt.
Dwight thought on that as they rounded the lawn to the front steps of the building. He continued past, heading for the ramp leading down into the underground parking deck beneath the tower. They descended into the darkness below, the gate rising and falling, cutting off the sunlight of the chilly afternoon.
As they reached the lowest floor of the garage, he had an idea, “Alright, new plan: Bernard, you’re on distraction.”
“I’m what, mate? I came ‘ere on the explicit promise that I would get to chuck our old boss through a fucking window! If you lied to me, little man, it’ll be your ass I pitch instead.”
Dwight hurried to clarify, “When you get to the top, I promise that’ll be my highest priority, but for now, I need you creating the biggest commotion you can while we sneak up. I need Wulf distracted while we look around. If he’s worried about a vigilante tearing the lower levels apart, we should have a few hassle-free minutes upstairs.”
The giant scowled from his throne of suits, “You owe me, Knolls. One way or another, someone is goin’ through those windows.”
His old partner’s determination was inspiring, in its own twisted way. It was surprising enough that the oaf knew the word “explicit,” but his agreement to another one of Dwight’s plans was miraculous.
Dwight parked the van between two other matching vehicles, “Alright, give us ten minutes to blend into the clone army, then I want you to head for the lobby and do your thing.”
“Right. Smash up his shiny little collection, then anyone who gets between me and those elevators. What’re we doin’ wiv this lot?” he pointed at the three bodies spread out on the van’s floor.
Dwight shook his head, “We leave them. Until I know what he’s got planned for them, I don’t want to risk giving him more tools to use against this city.” He opened the door and stepped out, briefly considering his instructions. “You have a watch?” he asked, leaning back into the van.
Bernard looked around silently, gently tapping his huge fingers against the side panel.
“Count to six hundred, then,” Dwight suggested as he slammed the door, leaving the giant to what would no doubt be a daunting challenge.
The pair walked through the darkened garage, searching for a way up into building proper. “We’ve only got about five minutes before he starts his rampage,” Dwight said as they followed the signs leading to the elevator bank.
Glitch pressed the button and waited, “I thought you told him to count to six hundred?”
Dwight shrugged, “He’s going to get bored and probably skip a few. Just saying, we need to hurry.”
The elevator arrived. They stepped in, examining the rows of floors. Glitch prepared to swipe her badge over the reader, “These don’t go straight to the top; we’ll need to find another set.”
“We need the ones in the lobby,” Dwight replied, suddenly apprehensive at the thought of stepping right back into the Wulf’s lair on his second day back in New Haven. The last time Dwight visited his office, he’d left him humiliated and injured, if only temporarily. This time, Wulf would be merciless, out to prove why he was the Tyrant of New Haven.
“Let’s head to ground level and wait for Bernard. We can slip in as soon as the fighting starts."
She tapped the button, “You’re awfully confident in what he can do. All the rumors say he’s not half of what he used to be.”
“The half we’ve got is more than enough to piss off Wulf,” he commented as the doors slammed shut.
The elevator arrived and opened to an unmarked hallway. They stepped out, trying to ascertain their location in the building. The few doors they came across were unlabeled, just blank surfaces with security readers. Dwight began trying his ID in each of the locks. The first few came back without results. Finally, near the end of the plain white hallway, one of the locks turned green at his credentials.
They cautiously opened the door, checking the room for movement before entering. The dark chamber was illuminated with the faint glow of row after row of tanks. Streams of bubbles occasionally disrupted the lights, distorting their vision as they crept between them. Dwight stopped at one of the tanks, trying to peer through the haze. As he focused intensely on the contents, a human limb pierced the veil, kicking hard against the glass.
Dwight
fell backward, startled by the floating body in the tank. Glitch steadied him, helping him to his knees. They looked up at the hanging form: an adult male, awake yet unaware of the intruders, with a visor fixed over his eyes. Through the translucent lenses, they could see a stream of information playing too fast for either of them to make sense of. Dwight searched the tank for an access terminal. His fingers found a touchscreen; it displayed an ID tag and series of options.
He read the name aloud, “Miller 281, variation 55.” Closely examining the face of the man in the tank, it hit him. “I knew it!” he whispered excitedly, “They are all goddamned clones!”
Glitch stared at row after row of the gestation and programming tanks, “That’s how he gets his army.”
“I’ve met this one before, but he had brown hair.” Dwight pointed at the black hair swaying in the liquid, gently blown by the stream of bubbles, “They’re working in little changes so it’s not obvious, but I’m sure of it. I watched this guy shoot himself in the head two years ago.”
Glitch inspected the display, “But what’s the mask for? What are they doing to them?”
He clicked through the menus, “Programming them, I’d bet. I doubt Wulf wants to run a school for clones if he can put basic skills into them while they grow.”
“Gross,” Glitch replied disgustedly, “It’s so wrong. Like they’re not real.” The sentiment was odd, coming from the cyborg.
They headed on through the seemingly endless rows of clones, eventually finding their way to a metal staircase leading up to a catwalk. At the center of the far side of the room, an illuminated exit sign marked their destination. Just as they reached the doors, a thin light cut into the dark hall. It rose slowly, rolling up as the garage door slid open. A forklift escorted by two Associates drove through the opening. Stretched between the forks of the machine were six long plastic bags.
Dwight paused, looking down at the commotion, “We need follow them,” he whispered.
Glitch glanced back at the exit sign, then at the forklift and its entourage, “What? Why? I thought we were looking for the lobby elevators.”