Illegal King

by Mason Dakota

  A look of hurt on her face, Evelyn leaned back into the booth and asked, “Are you so damaged that you can’t accept that maybe someone cares about your well-being?”

  I didn’t answer. We both knew I didn’t have to. I had promised her a long time ago I wouldn’t lie to her. But her question crushed me.

  I knew this was a mistake coming here.

  She looked out the window and took a deep breath, closing her eyes to fight back the tears and cracks in her armor. She turned her moist eyes back on me, and said, “It’s a miracle you weren’t killed. But maybe that was because nobody was actively trying to kill you. You weren’t Ziavir’s target. Chicago was.”

  “If this is your way of getting me to quit that life, then ask yourself how many lives were saved because of my choices.”

  “Griffon, how many lives were lost because you decided to pursue a child’s dream?” She asked.

  I bit my tongue after that comment, though no amount of physical pain could compare to the hurt her comment caused me. She was hurt too. She couldn’t hide that from me, but it didn’t stop her from gaining more ground.

  She whispered so as not to attract too many unwanted listeners, “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe that secret life of yours made things worse? What if it was the distraction that monster, Ziavir, needed in order to do what he needed to do?”

  “Didn’t matter. Those who were sworn to do the right thing would not have when the time came.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do. This is my city, Eve. I know that even if the police wanted to help, they didn’t have the power to. But the problem is that none of them wanted to because they were a part of the problem.”

  “And you parading around as a vigilante was part of the solution?” She asked the question with a glance around the diner and out the window at a city still recovering from the crisis I failed to prevent. I had accomplished nothing. I contributed to the premature end of many lives.

  She leaned in closer and whispered, “You survived because you weren’t important to him. You were a gnat to him—something that got in his way. The bad guys had no interest in taking you out, but now things have changed. Now people want that ‘friend’ of yours dead. They want him to pay the price for all the hurt, fatalities, and destruction. Before you could play offense, but now you must play defense, and if I am honest, I’m terrified for you.”

  “You have no reason to be terrified for me. I can take care of myself and so can my friend,” I said.

  “But I do worry, because,” she paused, holding in what we both suspected to be a truth we denied, “because some powerful individuals want your friend out of the picture. Top of the world powerful. That’s why I am here to stall them and to plead with you to leave your friend behind. Beating down a few thugs every night is not worth the enormous danger that’s coming your way. You can’t beat them.”

  For all her begging and pleading, she received a silent shake of my head. Too much remained at stake for me to walk away. I failed Chicago once. Staying to fight might jeopardize my city again, but it also might mean my redemption. Walking away only sealed my failure.

  Evelyn sensed this and pressed this new angle by once more placing her hand on my own and whispering, “You can’t keep blaming yourself for what has happened. You did the best you could, but getting yourself killed now won’t change the past.”

  Would she still plead for this if she knew the danger lurking out there?

  I remained silent. There was nothing for me to say. Tears watered her eyes and she whispered one last plea, “What if this path you’ve chosen leads to the death of those closest to you? Why aren’t you willing to let that mask go for them? Would you let it go if it was my life at stake?”

  Her question and the look in her eyes pierced my soul and forced me to look away and out into the dirty streets of Chicago. It was her question and my weakness to answer it that saved lives. For standing across the street, maybe a block away, was Sabol gang leader Rigs with a shotgun in his hands and two pistol-toting gang bangers at his side.

  And they were heading straight for the diner.

  They were coming to kill me.

  Nineteen

  Not long ago, the Sabols released a statement claiming everyone on Mayor Kraine’s staff prior to the crisis would be held responsible for Chicago’s condition. They drafted and published a list of names, passed judgment on each individual, and planned their idea of justice. Many viewed it as simply bad press; the people wanted someone to blame and Kraine wasn’t enough. First they added Shaman and then eventually everyone once connected to Kraine.

  Nobody really took it seriously until the first victim off the list showed up dead and the Sabols took credit for the kill. Since then the Sabols had been coming for every member on the list, not to question or assault, but simply to kill with zeal. Alexandra responded by having the NPFC come after every member of the Sabols, but her efforts only validated the emotions the people already felt. So when the attacks increased, Alexandra began leasing out the NPFC as bodyguards to watch over every member on the list.

  My name was on that list.

  I never got assigned a bodyguard. Alexandra blamed “limited resources available” that really amounted to Chicago government not wanting Nobles publicly protecting an Outcast.

  And now Rigs himself was coming to exploit that injustice.

  And all I had to defend myself was my wits and any utensil I could grab. Sadly, forks don’t do much against shotguns in crowded places.

  I had just seconds to decide what to do. Running might save my life. Surely Evelyn and I could outrun Rigs and the other two gang members. But I knew what sort of man Rigs was. If he got a bead on me he would fire, regardless of collateral damage among citizens. He would cut down anyone between us.

  That meant my only choice was to stay and fight. He had numbers, weapons, and brutality on his side. I had only my wits to save us all. I had to think fast.

  Rigs and the Sabols weren’t a trained force. They weren’t educated on infiltration. If they were they wouldn’t have exposed themselves so soon and they would have split up their team to cover every exit. Instead, they charged in together with guns ready to blaze and careless if they harmed innocents. Men like that think with guns and brute strength, not their heads. It made them extremely dangerous and volatile.

  It also made them predictable.

  “Get everyone out through the back door,” I hissed.

  “What? What are you talking about?” Evelyn asked. I tried not to get frustrated. Anyone else would have been able to tell by the tone of my voice how serious I was. Evelyn always needed an explanation. It’s what made her a good bounty hunter and investigator, but slow in a crisis. I ignored her as I slipped out of the booth.

  When Evelyn saw me moving toward the vestibule, and saw the approaching gang, she dropped into a crouch by her seat. She rushed from table to table politely and calmly asking the diner’s patrons to leave through the back door. The manager came out and snapped at her, “Lady! What do you think you are doing? You can’t be telling my customers to leave!”

  I snatched up a fire extinguisher by the vestibule entrance and slipped into a spot where I wouldn’t be seen from outside. I shouted, “Hey! Meatface! Why don’t you look out the window and listen to her? Get everyone out of here!”

  The manager turned on me and shouted, “Listen Outcast, you can’t speak to me like that! I’ll—” He stopped when he spotted Rigs and his gang headed his way.

  “EVERYONE OUT!” screamed the manager in sudden terror. Customers rushed to their feet, trampling over each other as they pushed and shoved their ways to the back door behind the counter.

  “Someone get the NPFC here!” I shouted. I didn’t think anyone heard me. Everyone fled in a mad rush out the back door and away from the front entrance, which probably saved their lives.

  I think Rigs spotted the panic by the way he and his gang sped up their pace to the front door. A few c
ustomers remained in the diner and Evelyn was too far away to help when Rigs entered and aimed his shotgun toward the crowd and Evelyn.

  I stepped out from around the corner, thrusting my fire extinguisher like a battering ram into Rigs’ gut, and squeezing the nozzle to unleash the nitrogen based foam into the vestibule, completely filling up the tiny space. The shotgun roared and glass shattered around us.

  Fire extinguishers are great for controlling a hostile situation. Their spray is meant to neutralize oxygen particles, therefore extinguishing a fire by taking away the oxygen (energy) factor. When that target becomes a human being, the spray acts as a suffocating agent, preventing for a brief moment the victim’s capability to breathe and see. Then when the can runs empty, it works wonderfully as a bludgeoning tool.

  I struck each gangster once over the head with the butt of the can to knock them out, giving Rigs two hits. I figured his head was so thick he needed two blows. He’s special like that.

  I turned away from my work to see a few stragglers hiding behind Evelyn. She stepped forward, scooping up weapons and said, “You’d better leave now before the NPFC show up.”

  She was right. It didn’t matter that Rigs and his gang had just tried to kill me and potentially everyone else in the diner. I was an Outcast and he was a Noble, and in front of a bunch of witnesses, I had attacked Rigs. He might never have seen me, but everyone else had which meant they were threats. Regardless of my political status, I could be arrested and hanged for attacking a Noble. I had to get out of there before Rigs woke up or the NPFC arrived.

  “You can’t stay here either,” I whispered. Some of the customers were beginning to poke their heads back inside. If we were going to flee, that was the time to do it. I might have just saved some Nobles, but I did it by harming another Noble. With the threat gone, they wouldn’t remain grateful for long.

  Thankfully the manager caught on to this and approached Evelyn and me and said quietly, “Flee. I’ll take the blame for this.” It would be the closest thing we would get to a thank you from him. Accepting his deal, we slipped out the back and disappeared long before the NPFC showed up to ask questions.

  Twenty

  I didn’t go straight back to the office. That soul-sucking work would have to wait another day. I simply needed a break and to clear my head from the day’s mess.

  After a few shared words, Evelyn and I separated to protect both of us. If anyone in that diner gave us up we would be easier to spot on the street together, so we ditched our coats, bought new ones from a street vendor, and separated. I was relieved I no longer had to listen to her beg me to give up the mask. We left each other at the first fork we met, Evelyn saying she would see me again if I put on that mask, me curtly commenting I would do what I must. The hunt would soon begin.

  The day’s events left me worn and furious. The Sabols were proving to be more dangerous than I originally assessed, coming after me in broad daylight as well as at night. If they ever discovered where I lived, I was a dead man. If I didn’t figure out how to stop them, or at least stall them long enough for me to solve the bigger problem, a lot of people would be hurt in the crossfire.

  The city was on the verge of collapse, and it didn’t even know it. The visit to the hospital broke my spirit, presenting me with a task I feared far too big for me to handle, yet the risk proved so great I could not step aside and do nothing. Thousands, maybe millions, of lives were on the line. If the truth of this got out…it could cause more than panic and chaos and bloodshed in the streets.

  It could spark a genocidal war.

  Is that what this killer wants?

  The blackout limited the city’s warning time. Our response would come too slowly. Help would not arrive soon enough. Those of us who were informed were alone in the struggle to prevent impending doom.

  On top of that, by order of the Emperor himself, Evelyn was hunting down my alter ego. Evelyn always won. Whether it was looking for stolen artifacts and treasures, tracking down criminals, or winning an argument, she always won. It wasn’t a question of if she could catch me in time. The question was how long it would take her. As long as I didn’t put on that mask I was safe, but we both knew I would, and that meant she would show up every night to block my way. Her own life depended upon it.

  She’s risking her own life to protect mine.

  And then there was the surprise of Emperor Adam Rythe wanting to meet me, Griffon, personally. Just another wrench thrown into my plans—another surprise threatening to undo me.

  Too much! It’s all too much to handle by myself!

  I reached my destination, an abandoned building down in the Stinks.

  They call it the Stinks because the air was penetrated by a foul odor, a side effect of the radiation from the wastelands outside the city. Back during the Abandoned War, when Nobles were first created, the country once known as the United States was ravaged by nuclear weapons, decay and death from the radiation that followed. Chicago had been one of the few places that had remained relatively unscathed by the war.

  Chicago changed in the years that followed the war. A giant wall surrounded the entire city, like a castle or a fortress, and entrance into the city came by two routes, either by the single road leading out of Chicago into the wasteland or by water, crossing Lake Michigan to get to the Northern Territories. There were rumors of smuggling tunnels beneath the city, and while that was probably true, I never investigated. Chicago held the only safe route into the Northern Territories, making it a crucial economic city for the Empire for trade with the country north of us.

  The reason why this district was called the Stinks though was because it laid on the side of the city closest to the radiation zone. It was safe…enough…to live there, but one had to get used to the awful stench…or the fear of cancer. Only the desperate and rejected lived out in the Stinks. Crooks, thieves, and individuals willing to do whatever it took to survive filled the burrow. A pedestrian would willingly gut you with a broken bottle for the coat on your back. This was a place where the poor and desolate lived, where the mob dumped bodies, and where no lawmen cared to go.

  Might, not caste, determined status here.

  I approached a completely run down brick building left in shambles. It stood at one and a half stories. Shattered windows flanked doors that hung for life from rusted hinges. The entire roof had caved. The vegetation around the place had become overgrown and then died, leaving behind a series of dark gray husks. This was the sort of area avoided on a dark and stormy night.

  So I walked right on in.

  Before the war, it was some kind of corporate office. Old yellow pages with faded lettering in an unrecognizable language cluttered the floor and tiny cubicles were spaced all throughout. A few broken and rotted desks and chairs lay scattered. A large ceiling fan dangled on a single wire, swinging back and forth with the wind coming through a gaping hole in the wall. The remnant of a staircase on the far side of the room led to what was once a second floor. Light streaked in from the sky above the ripped roofing.

  Each step in the room sent a cloud of dust into the air on my way into a cubicle in the back. At first glance nothing seemed special about it, but upon closer inspection I spotted a large square formation cut into the carpet.

  I lifted the flap of carpet to reveal a staircase leading down. I took matches and keys from my pocket. I lit the candle stand on the wall leading down into the dark below. At the very bottom was a solid reinforced steel door. I climbed down the stairs and fiddled with the key until I found the right one. I unlocked the door and stepped into a secret room.

  I knew every inch of that room. It was a two room space, one large area with one bathroom, much like my apartment. A large table surrounded by chairs sat in the center of the room with a map of the entire city on its surface. Along the wall, by the table, a row of metal shelves held all sorts of tools and equipment for my nightly adventures. Cold concrete covered the floor and walls, and a mixture of candles and kerosene lamps lit the room. />
  Farther behind the table, near the back of the room, stood an ice box and a sink, though the plumbing didn’t always work despite Chamberlain’s constant efforts. A standing curtain was positioned in the back right corner. There, a coat hanger held my duster. Immediately to the left of the entrance sat a large queen sized bed and a small dresser. Nobody lived here anymore. Chamberlain did before I bought him his house, but now the bed and dresser served for emergencies.

  Yes, I knew every inch of the place. The only ones who knew of this place besides me were my closest friends, but none of them had been down there in several months—even Thomas. After the crisis we abandoned the hideout, each of us a bit lost after our failures to stop what happened to Chicago, so I was shocked to see the lamps already lit and a man standing in the middle of the room.

  He had his back to me and appeared unaware of my presence. I spotted the ends of reading glasses tucked behind salt and pepper hair as he leaned against the table reading a book. He features could blend in to just about any nationality and setting even between Nobles and Outcasts—handsome enough to pass an an ugly Noble or a beautiful Outcast. He appeared homeless, with dirty clothes that didn’t seem to fit his posture or feeling I got from looking at him. I didn’t need to see his arm to know he was an Outcast, and I didn’t need to see his face to know who he was.

  He turned around and the corners of his mouth tilted. He set the book and his glasses down on the table as he spoke clearly with the confidence of one highly educated.

  “Well hello, Griffon. I had hoped to run into you here.”

  “Hello Gabriel,” I said, “It’s been a while.”

  Twenty-One

  Six months before, Nebula brought Chicago to its knees in terror by threatening an apocalypse. With a few sparks and an invisible wave of energy, every source of power in Chicago crumbled and died in an instant.