by Justin Coke
Far more distraught and disturbed than he probably should have been, since he had escaped seeing most of the horror, he hunted for Tick Tock amongst the rattle of many many-sided die.
He didn’t see her, and he realized his bladder was full, so he tracked down the bathrooms. He was just about to enter when the door to the women’s bathroom opened, and a short, stacked blond woman came out with Tick Tock, limp as a dead fish, over her shoulder.
The woman looked right at Hayes, and he could see the recognition in her eyes.
“Fuck,” she said, and Hayes started screaming for help.
It came, but they came to help her. Two men came around the corner, and somehow he knew they weren’t there to rescue Tick Tock. He leapt towards the woman and ripped Tick Tock off her shoulder. She fell to the floor as he pushed the blond woman away, and then they were on him.
He tried to fight back, but the blows rained down and if he was landing anything he couldn’t tell. After the first punch nothing even really hurt, and while it seemed like he was punching back it was really just one big adrenaline rush. The blond woman tried to drag Tick Tock away, but Hayes hooked a leg around Tick Tock’s shoulder, keeping her close.
The lights kept going out, and the last thing Hayes remembered was a giant Klingon shouting something[157] and swinging a bright metal thing at one of the guys punching him.That was it for Hayes, but Kid Twist went crazy. While his bat’leth wasn’t sharp, it was still a piece of machined aluminum, and Kid Twist did all kinds of kettle bell exercises, so he got a really solid Stanton-esque swing on that thing, good enough to break skin and really rattle skulls. The interlopers, seeing the approaching security as well as the circling normal nerds (who had pieced together that the suspiciously fit guys in regular civilian clothes had been trying to do something bad to the unconscious nerds and decided to film it with their phones) meant the interlopers figured it was time to make a retreat. They fled, bruised and battered,[158] down the stairwell Hayes had just come up.Kid Twist knelt on the floor, suddenly faint, and used his bloodied bat’leth to balance himself as he caught his breath.
“Tlhlngan maH! Tlhlngan maH!”[159] three members of the local Klingon Warrior Society, psyched out of their minds to see three people get their ass kicked with a bat’leth, began to chant.Kid Twist tried to join in, but couldn’t find the words and he could barely find the coordination to crawl to the bloody Hayes and feel his pulse.
The paramedics arrived soon after, and the three of them were at the ER within the hour.[160]The convention, bowing to popular demand, didn’t collect on Kid Twist’s peace bond, citing exigent circumstances and the Klingon warrior’s duty to defend his friends.
Chapter Forty-Four
Mad Hatter threw money at the cabbie and tried to run into the house. He was rudely stopped by a man with a very large gun who spent a lot of time lifting things and was either fantastically gifted, genetically, or on every performance enhancing drug he could find.[161] He wore a bulletproof vest with the letters NPC emblazoned on it. “Who are you?” The man asked.
“Mad ... Daniel Zambrowski.”
“We got a Mad Daniel Zambrowski here,” the man said to himself, then cocked his head for a response.
“You’re good,” the man said, and opened the door.
“Who are you?” Mad Hatter asked.
“I’m Terry, I’m with National Protection Corporation. I understand that Mr. Angel had a security incident earlier today, so we stepped in to ensure he was protected.”
“What happened?”
“You can ask him,” Terry said and waved him through the door.
He found them in the kitchen, Hayes lying on the island, head basically encased in ice. Tick Tock sat in the corner, looking miserable, and Kid Twist was still in his mask.
“What happened?”
“Teabagz’s people,” Kid Twist said. Hayes moaned affirmation. “They waited until Tick Tock was alone in the bathroom and knocked her out. They were trying to haul her off when Hayes just happened by.”
“Oh God.”
“Hayes fought them off for a while. If I hadn’t gotten knocked out by that guy with the blue-black deck ... but I was up there to see if I could get in on a Pathfinder game or something when I heard the fight break out.”
“And?”
“I took the bat’leth to them, banged them up pretty good I think, and then they fled. Tick Tock isn’t concussed, but she has a hell of a headache. Hayes got fifteen stitches and has a mild concussion. I’m okay, actually, but I bent my bat’leth.”
Mad Hatter sat on the floor; his bluster about real risk and real death seemed very childish then, seeing his friends like that. Determination blossomed in him.
“We have to end it,” Mad Hatter said.
“How?” Kid Twist said, staring at his shoes. “We know nothing about them.”
“We know where the shit games, and we know what his voice sounds like,” Mad Hatter said. “That’s more than enough. Once we find him, sic that Terry guy on him, take him out in the Everglades and put alligator clamps on his nips till he tells us everything.”
“I, uh,” Terry said, from the hallway outside, “NPC doesn’t do that kind of thing. For that you’d be wanting our sister company, Universiti.”[162] “Look,” Hayes said as he moved the cold compress away from his mouth. “The secret to all this is in his Mundis account. We just need to get to that.”
“How? I’m sure the little fucker has an authenticator.”
“We know where he games. We get the password, then we steal the authenticator. Before he can stop it, we clean his account out, figure out what the hell he’s been doing, and then call the cops,” Hayes said.
“He’ll recognize us.”
“You say that like you don’t have an amazing makeup guy,” Tick Tock said.
Kid Twist arched his eyebrow in a “you have a point” way.
“I’m up for anything,” Tick Tock said, bursting into tears. “Anything to keep that from happening again.”
Mad Hatter moved to her and put an arm around her, feeling a terrible sympathy for her —how awful it must be to know that someone wanted to do that to you.[163] He’d started this as a joke, a way to pass the time, but this wasn’t a joke anymore, and it wasn’t a game. There were real bad men doing bad things, and he was going to stop it. The feeling inside him would never go away until he did; you didn’t make a person, you didn’t make Tick Tock, feel this way and get to have your way. He was all in on the Teabagz quest. “How’d they find us?” Mad Hatter said, suddenly realizing he hadn’t asked the question.
“I feel stupid,” Kid Twist said. “I should have known.”
“How?” Tick Tock said.
“That friend of yours took that picture, put it on Facebook, probably tagged you. They cracked your account. Might as well have PM’d Teabagz directly.”
“Jesus,” Hayes said. “I feel so stupid.”
“Yeah,” Tick Tock said, “I guess so. But ... I mean, I kinda still thought this was all Mundis horse shit. You know, it feels like the biggest thing ever, but it’s really nothing; I mean, what does that whiny little shit have thugs for? I didn’t really think it was real, not really.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go on the run?”
“I’ve been wanting to go on the run for eight years,” she said, starting to sob. “Didn’t need a lot of excuse. I think I didn’t really think it was real, not until I woke up to see Hayes covered in blood ... ”
Kid Twist looked at Mad Hatter with a strange look, clear eyed and angry, as if they, as the uninjured ones, had something to prove, some extra revenge to extract. Mad Hatter knew then that Kid Twist was feeling the same thing he was; there would not be second thoughts. Calling Universiti was an option that would not be taken off the table. The only reason they didn’t do it was because they wanted the satisfaction of beating Teabagz themselves. Subcontracting revenge just wasn’t as satisfying. That would be the last resort.
Chapter Forty-Fiv
e
They stayed put for two more weeks, nursing Hayes back to health. The black eyes and stitching took that long to come out, and even at the end of two weeks it was still pretty obvious he’d gotten his ass kicked recently if you looked close.
Four different cuts, fifteen stitches. The numbing agent, Hayes claimed, was injected around the wound and hurt as bad as the stitches themselves.
“Though,” Hayes said, “they did hurt just as bad before the numbing, so I guess, like, they objectively contained less pain, but it felt about the same to me.”
In Mad Hatter’s opinion, Tick Tock had taken her crush on Kid Twist and transferred it to Hayes; she was certainly getting all Florence Nightingale on Hayes, sensually rubbing Neosporin into his cuts and changing his bandages a bit more often than recommended.
It was ... a jangly time. That was the only word Mad Hatter could think of to describe it. Just ... jangly. He was on edge the whole time, peeking out windows for attackers, feeling guilty for not being there to help, feeling guilty for not being the one to get hurt, feeling guilty for egging the whole situation on even though he never imagined it would come to this, feeling annoyed at Hayes for slowing him down, feeling annoyed with Tick Tock for being so caring it was getting suspicious, feeling guilty for being annoyed at Hayes and Tick Tock.
He was even kind of annoyed with Kid Twist and Terry for being in such good shape. Kid Twist had a very serious personal gym (of course he did, he had a very serious personal everything, Mad Hatter thought, annoyed at Kid Twist for being basically infinitely better than him at everything), and Mad Hatter had gone down there to lift, thinking it would be a good way to blow off steam and that it would help with the ass kicking he was planning on laying down on Teabagz just as soon as he could.
God, that had been embarrassing. He barely been able to bench the naked bar; he could see it in Kid Twist’s eyes, even though he’d never, ever say a discouraging word. He was weak. His elbow jutted out from his arms like he was a concentration camp victim or something. How had he gotten this frail?
Seeing Kid Twist pop off 225 lb benches like they were nothing was humiliating, but that was okay, Mad Hatter thought. He deserved to be embarrassed. He’d never been an athletic kid, but years of a shit diet and being a keyboard jockey had destroyed his already humble physique. Kid Twist could do that because he’d put effort into being able to do that. How on God’s green earth he found the time to put that effort in, between his music and playing Mundis as much as he did, Mad Hatter couldn’t really understand,[164] but somehow he found the time.A few months ago that anger would have made Mad Hatter quit lifting forever and spend a couple of weeks making snide comments about how impressive it was that Kid Twist could lift things and then put them down again. And some part of him wanted to do that. It was safe and easy and, he was starting to realize, comforting. Comforting just from the familiarity of it. He’d been turning away from failure his whole life and telling himself that trying was for assholes. But he hated that weakness, he’d always hated it, but before it had been so easy to let the weakness win. He’d never had someone else to worry about before, somebody even weaker than him who needed him to be strong and protect them. Now he found himself lifting until Kid Twist made him stop, lifting the disappointment, the shame, the failure away.
He found himself crying during sets, not from the pain, but for some reason he couldn’t quite articulate, even to himself, but he felt like it was a healthy thing, and that he would come to understand it later, if he allowed it to blossom.
It was hard to do that sometimes. It hurt to admit that he was weak. It was easy to stay on the couch. But so far he hadn’t done that.
Two weeks wasn’t that much time, but noob gains are noob gains, and by the time Hayes was ready to travel he’d put a decent amount of weight onto all his lifts and lost a few pounds.[165]It was just after a deadlift session, his glutes on fire, that Kid Twist had let him know it was time.
“Pack up, we’re heading to Orlando at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
“Hayes is as good as he’s going to get, and it’s time. Past time. I want to put this behind us.”
“Yeah,” Mad Hatter said. “I do too. I really do. I dunno, it just seems sudden.”
“When’s going to be a better time?”
“No, you’re right,” Mad Hatter said.
And that was how they ended up on the private jet, straight flight from Denver to Florida.
Tick Tock looked right at him, halfway through the flight, as the stewardess put a Bloody Mary in her hand.
“We’re never going to be able to tell anyone about any of this,” she said.
“Why not?” Mad Hatter said.
“Would you believe me if you didn’t know it was true? They’ll think we’re pathological liars, like that kid at every school who claims they work for the CIA and the Crips and the Bloods and they parasail out the back of planes and their girlfriend lives three towns over and you know how it goes. This shit is just too ludicrous. I mean, I’m on Jason Angel’s private jet, on my way to beat up some kid whose gang is using the dorkiest game on the planet to launder money or something.”
“Guys,” Terry said, “as a personal favor, please don’t say stuff in front of me that may or may not put me in an awkward position under oath. It complicates my employment.”
“How would that put you in an awkward position? They’re the ones doing criminal shit.”
“Did the defendant say anything about why they wanted to beat the ass of the victim?” Terry said, in his lawyer voice. “Well, the defendants believed that the victim’s gang had attacked them because they found out about his money laundering scheme. Or, if you watch your mouth, I can be all like ‘they never talked about any Teabagger dude, I was just there as the basic security due to a celebrity.’ I mean, I will take the 5thth at the drop of a hat, I’m not worried for me, but it’s just better I don’t know anything I don’t need to know. Prosecutors can smell lying, and I’m here for my military experience, not my acting. If I don’t have to lie to lie, all the better for everyone, you know?”
Chapter Forty-Six
Their hotel in Orlando would have been the finest room Mad Hatter had ever been in if he hadn’t just come from Kid Twist’s mansion.
“What,” he said, “you don’t have a mansion in Orlando?”
Kid Twist looked at him strangely and Mad Hatter regretted the jibe.
They settled in, Terry sweeping the place for bugs.
“That really necessary?” Tick Tock said.
“As I understand the situation, these guys hid a sophisticated malware package on a Darknet file sharing system and used that to steal your identities and then send operatives to kidnap you,” Terry said.
“Yuh ... yes,” Tick Tock said.
“You really want me taking any chances?”
“When you put in that way,” Tick Tock said.
“So,” Hayes said, “what do you think they’re up to?”
“Well, honestly, and don’t quote me here, but as I understand the whole Darknet thing there’s really two options: drugs and kiddy porn.”
“Ewww,” Tick Tock said.
“I don’t think it’s a drug cartel, but I could be wrong,” Terry said.
“Why not?”
“If a cartel was behind this they would have just slit your throat in the bathroom and used your blood to write something scary on the mirror,” Terry said in the tone one would use to suggest Pizza Hut sold pizza.
“Jesus,” Mad Hatter said, shooting a concerned look at a suddenly pale Tick Tock.
“I mean, that’s my gut. It could be anything, really, so don’t take anything off the table. But, you know, with drugs the part you worry about is that the money is so good that everyone is tempted to betray everyone. Or somebody gets busted and when they’re staring at thirty years in jail, all of a sudden their tongue loosens. At some point someone has to deliver the drugs to someone else, and they’re vulnera
ble in that moment. Their fears are about the police flipping people or getting betrayed by the people they’re working with. They want to slit your throat as a warning to everybody else because they want to be safe. Kiddy porn people worry about people snooping through their information. They don’t want you to be afraid of them, they want you to not even know they’re there. Drug guys think like soldiers. These guys think like NSA spooks. Your guys are occultists.”
“You mean like Satanists?” Hayes said.
“No, I mean, like occult. Hidden knowledge, that’s all that means. A drug guy thinks someone is sniffing around, they just fuck off somewhere else, same way that if a deer catches wind of a hunter, the deer just leaves and finds somewhere else to eat leaves. Or maybe they hang your corpse off a bridge as a warning, which is where the deer metaphor breaks down. But the point is, whatever they do, it’s with a mind towards their fear of being betrayed. An occultist is scared you’ll take their secret knowledge, and so they try to take your secrets because that’s what they value. So that’s my take on things.”
“I ... how did you come up with that?”
“I get to people watch a lot of powerful people who often do things they’d rather not have be public knowledge. I also have to protect them against lots of scary psychopaths. You develop an intuition on how the various kinds of scum thinks. Your enemy is American NeoNazis, you have to worry someone is going to show up with an AR-15 because they get off on guns. Islamic terrorists, they get off on suicide bombing. Russians love to drop polonium in your tea because they get off on their enemies being terrified paranoiacs. Cartel guys want a chance to torture you a bit because they want to send a message to the survivors. Your scum likes to eavesdrop, they want to sit back and watch your Facebook feed, they wanted to talk to Tick Tock even though they already knew she didn’t know anything she could take to the cops. They get off on knowing of secret things. Occultists. They’re coming after you because you saw them in their shadows, and they take that as an affront.”