“There’s nothing in there, really,” the one in front, possibly Paul, said. “Just a bunch of old trinkets and junk.” He turned around and smiled at her approach.
Talia shot him a look. “What?”
The one on the left shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. It’s just a bunch of useless crap.”
Talia felt her heart sink as she reached the bottom. She was sure they had been leading her to Catalina’s illegal stockpile and possibly where Arthur had hidden himself. Instead, she was being guided to the equivalent of a prepubescent clubhouse. Inhaling in preparation to excuse herself, she turned to Mat as he stepped off the stairwell. “It’s been fun, boys, but I have to…”
“That’s not right,” Herbert, or at least the one she thought was Herbert, interjected. She turned to him as he moved toward the wall now to her right. He continued, brushing by his brothers.
Mat laughed a little. “Herb, you alright buddy?”
“There’s light,” Herbert responded, pointing to the floor. One of the ceiling-height wooden panels had a ghost of light where it should have met the ground. Herbert reached the wall and pushed against it, the surface barely moving.
One of them gave a whoop. “A mystery is afoot, gang!”
“Shut up, Paul,” Steven hissed. Talia looked in his direction, meeting his eyes for a moment before he looked away. He didn’t appear too confident around his brothers.
Herbert suddenly yanked his hand back and took a step away from the wall. He shook his head. “I hear voices.” He turned to the others. “We should tell Catalina.”
“Why do you always have to be such a shriveled nutsack, Herb?” Mat said with a shake of his head. He marched past the others, but Talia leapt forward and brushed beyond him. She had her suspicions that needed to be confirmed.
After rapping her knuckles on the panel, she waited for a response. She repeated it, this time with an accompanying shout, “Arthur, if you’re in there, I need to talk to you.” Talia waited, sighing. Maybe there was no one back there.
“Guys, we should go,” Herbert said, nervously shifting his weight.
Apparently, the nervousness was infectious. “I have to agree with spineless for once,” a clone said, the edgy tone creeping into his voice.
“Fine,” Mat said, walking forward and leaning on the wall beside Talia. “Go get Catalina. Tell her there’s a brigade of super heroes drilling their way in here.” He made a derisive ‘shoo’ motion with his hand.
“Arthur, for villains’ sake…” Talia shouted, rapping on the panel again.
“We’ll be back,” Herbert said. With a shuffling of feet, two of the brothers retreated up the stairs.
“Couple of damn wimps,” the remaining brother behind Talia muttered. He took a position beside Talia, leaning on the wall just like Mat.
“I know, right?” Mat said with a laugh.
Frustrated, Talia kicked the panel. “Useless.” She shook her head and backed away. Then, almost like it was answering an unspoken question, the panel shifted, then slid to the side behind another one. In the doorway, Arthur stood at the entrance of a huge white room beyond. Mat and his brother flanked Talia, exchanging looks as they did so.
“Talia, just who I wanted to see!” he said. He practically leapt from the doorway and latched onto her arm. In a moment, he was dragging her through the door and into the white room beyond.
“What is this place?” she asked as her eyes adjusted to the light, revealing walls adorned with high powered assault weaponry and stacks of metal briefcases. The room was gigantic and pristine, an amazing achievement for the fact that every scrap of space not taken up by a gun rack was white enough to show a speck of dirt a mile away. The ceiling was gunmetal grey, a fact that had gone unnoticed due to the luster of everything else. From what Talia could tell, there were offshoots and rooms connected to this spot, as well as a conference table at the very end. A huge monitor dominated the back wall, presiding over Stair tinkering with something on the table. She looked up and smiled politely as Talia and Arthur approached.
“It’s the actual vault,” Arthur explained. “Recently designed to be a combination bunker and storage facility.” The rapid-fire explanation was stated almost as a formality, as though he didn’t care one bit for the necessity of it. Finally, he reached the conference table and let her go. He wheeled in front of her and gestured to a mess of computer circuitry and cables. “I needed a place to work in peace, and it was here.”
“How did you find it?” Talia asked, still marveling at the sterile beauty. Even though a good chunk of the room possessed instruments of destruction, there was a serenity to it, almost like an untouched work of art.
Arthur nodded to something behind her. Talia looked over her shoulder to where Allison sat in a chair, reading a magazine. She looked up and smiled as Arthur explained, “I knew that if I told her that I had a plan to break into the Fortress, she’d back me up.”
Returning to her magazine, Allison smiled even more broadly. “It promises to be a lot more fun than shooting garbage all day.”
“Hi, Talia,” Stair said quietly. Talia smiled and waved at her.
“She’s building something which I think you’ll find very interesting,” Arthur said.
Stair’s face grew red from the attention. “It’s nothing too special. I’m barely qualified…”
“No, no. You’re really good.” Arthur moved and spoke with such energy that Talia hardly recognized the man. He moved over to Stair and leaned over her shoulder. “And this… what you’re doing here, this is the how we’re going to save everyone.”
Stair smiled and grew even redder. “Cool,” was the only thing she was able to say.
Mat was now circling the table on the other end, eyes flitting over the circuit boards and cables. “Hey, Steven,” he said, gesturing to the table. “It looks like Holly threw up.”
His brother snorted. “Good one.”
Talia looked at the siblings, then back at Arthur. “Holly?”
“Red Dwarf’s computer. IQ six thousand,” Arthur explained, his eyes not leaving the table. “Mollie, how are we doing down there?”
“Almost finished, Arthur,” came the tinny voice of Mollie. Mat leapt at the sound of her answer as Talia looked at the mishmash of computer components nearest to the startled Bennetts brother. Sure enough, buried underneath a couple of wires, the computer Mollie called home sat amidst the wreckage, like the sole survivor of a horrific crime against technology.
“I still don’t understand.” Talia walked toward Arthur, who responded by standing upright and watching her approach. “You haven’t said anything about how this is going to help us.”
“Right,” Arthur said. He gestured to his computer. “I asked Mollie if any of the corrupted files had similar data to my files regarding the digital systems of the Fortress.”
Talia looked at him, expecting more. “And?”
“And,” he said, walking around the table toward Mollie, “there was. They didn’t change the system at all.” He smiled, clearly proud.
Talia shook her head. “But you said that we couldn’t get in.”
“That’s what I thought. I mean, the system has been programmed to be impregnable from the moment it’s activated.” He moved toward her. “And there are tons of safeguards to prevent anyone from cracking the system.”
She gave him a steely look. “You’re not instilling a whole lot of hope here, Arthur.”
He waved his hand, attempting to physically remove her doubt. “But there’s something I never counted on.”
Talia was sick of this game. But before she could deride him, Stair quietly said, “You.”
“What?” She was fairly sure that the girl either misspoke or she had imagined it.
Arthur nodded. “With the Entropy Principle, we can roll back the system to its startup point.”
“But wouldn’t the system know something’s wrong?” Mat asked.
Arthur threw him a nasty look. “Who are yo
u?”
“He’s got a point, Art,” Talia said.
Mat smiled. “Thank you.”
“Shut up,” Talia snapped. She turned to Arthur.
Arthur nodded. “In normal circumstances, yes. The second you were to remove yourself from the system, it would begin to age again… that is, if you were lucky.” Arthur leaned on the table. “Roll it back too much, and you might trigger the tertiary system defense modules.”
“The what?” Steven asked.
Arthur rolled his eyes and looked at Talia. She nodded. He continued, “The way the Fortress is set up, each sector has its own security system. If one is shut down, the others trigger a massive electrical discharge in the location of the offender.”
Talia nodded. “So, you’re trying to kill me.”
“No!” Arthur ran around the table. “No, you see, we have something that my father never counted on.”
“Hello!” Mollie squeaked. “Once you reach the crux of activation, I can safely enter the system and become recognized as a vital component.”
“And from there, she lobotomizes it.” He made his finger leap from one point on the table to another. “You work on the next system, Mollie jumps from the slave system to the one you’re de-aging and does it again.” He did the same action four more times. “Once all the secondary systems are ours, the central system is ripe for the taking.” Arthur smiled as he pushed off the table and grabbed onto Talia’s shoulders. “It’s that easy.”
Talia shook out of his grasp. “There’s nothing easy about it.” She brought her fingers to her temples. “I have no way of…”
“Beat you to it!” Arthur interrupted. He ran back to Stair, prompting the girl to resume blushing. “Stair and I have recreated pretty much everything you’ll need to know about the system.”
Despite the annoyance of it all, Talia felt her heart skip a beat. She looked at the table. The wires, the circuit boards, the multiple hard drives… everything she would need. “You’re sure that it’s the same system?” she asked.
The pause that followed made Talia suspicious that he may not be completely sure of his plan. “As close as we can get it, yes.”
She silently processed the situation. “I’m going to warn you… I’m not great with electronics.” Talia worked her jaw, contemplatively. “It’s easier to format something or turn it to dust. Unless I know exactly what I’m getting into, I’m more likely to destroy what I’m manipulating than save it.” She looked into Arthur’s eyes. “Which is why I didn’t try to fix that flash drive.”
Arthur swallowed. “I understand.” He wetted his lips, thinking. “The data Mollie pulled leads us to think that there is no difference in the system. And they’d be stupid to change it.”
“Why?” Mat asked.
“Because it’s perfect,” Stair answered, firmly. Her sudden volume attracted everyone’s attention. “What I mean… it’s just…” She shrank in her chair. “Arthur’s system is programmed almost flawlessly as it is.”
“Almost is an understatement,” Mollie interjected.
“I’m just saying,” Stair said a little too defensively, “that anything they change just makes it easier to crack.” She resumed trying to melt into the chair.
“Thank you, Stair,” Arthur said, his eyes flashing from the girl to Talia. “Long story short, the only way this system could be cracked is if I had you and Mollie.” He smiled. “They weren’t counting on that.”
“And your huge, super awesome, no-girls-but-mom-allowed fortress…” Mat started, clearly amused by himself. “… There’s no closed-circuit cameras or guards?”
Arthur shut his eyes. “CCTVs are only as good as the people watching them, and yes, they’re in the Fortress. But from all indications, it’s a jail more than anything else… no one but a skeleton crew is there. ‘Fewer guards’ means ‘fewer eyes watching tons of cameras’.” He nodded toward Talia. “The way Mollie and I have it planned is that the heroes will still have access until I say they don’t… and since we can mess with the camera feeds, they won’t even know there’s a problem until we’re already inside.”
Steven smiled broadly, chuckling. “Damn.”
Talia nodded, taking it all in. “I need to familiarize myself with it… everything. From the uncorrupted plans to the working system itself.” She pulled out a chair and sat down, spreading her arms out wide.
Arthur clapped his hands. “How long will you need?”
Talia scanned the components on the table. “As long as I need…” She shook her head. “Maybe thirty-six hours.” Her eyes went to Arthur, her face serious. “Maybe.”
Arthur smiled at the still-reading and passionately unengaged Allison. He clapped his hands together. “Perfect. That will be enough time to convince Catalina…”
“Convince Catalina of what?” came the harsh question from behind him. Everyone wheeled toward the voice, discovering an incredibly angry looking Catalina at the entrance to the vault. At her sides, the sheepish-looking Paul and Herbert stood.
Arthur looked at Steven, then Mat. “How many of you are there?”
“Shut up,” Catalina ordered as she strode forward. She pointed at Arthur. “You.” She motioned him over. “Now.”
Catalina stood in her office, hands clasped behind her, as she stared at the metal security shutter between her and the street. Arthur sat behind her, watching her nervously. She terrified him to his very core, from her sharp movements to the way her eyes bored into him when he explained his plan to her. She was a predator, practically bursting with suppressed energy.
“I have a quandary, Arthur,” she said, breaking the silence and jostling him out of his stupor. She turned to him, leaning against the shutters. “In about forty,” she checked her watch, “six hours, a cargo tanker is going to be leaving the harbor bound for a pickup in Boston.” Scratching her head, Catalina looked off toward the door before her cold eyes settled on him. “It took me forever to broker a deal whereby all one hundred and sixteen people here could escape.” She blinked, slowly. “One, one, six, Arthur.” Pushing herself off the wall, Catalina took a step toward him. “That’s a lot of people.”
The air was thick with tension, making Arthur shift wormily in his seat. “So’s one hundred and fifty thousand… ma’am.” She arched her eyebrows and nodded.
“That’s the rub, isn’t it?” she muttered to herself. “If we do what you’re suggesting, that could mean the end of it.” She walked toward her desk. “We don’t know what’s going on in there. This kind of action could make the heroes retaliate.”
“And rounding up everyone to throw in a jail isn’t already retaliation?” Arthur asked. Catalina reached her desk and leaned against it. He continued, “Tell me, why is it alright that they’re doing this to us, but if the situation were reversed, we’d be irredeemable?”
Catalina stared at him, coolly. “Because we’re villains.”
He leaned back in his chair. “You sound like one of them.”
Those cold blue eyes drilled into him, sending a chill up his spine. “Arthur, the only reason we’re still here is because we broke the law,” she explained as though he was a child. “We are what we are.”
Arthur rubbed his face, then leaned forward. “We have to fight.” He looked up at her. “The heroes are breaking fundamental codes by imprisoning villains without cause. Our social contract dictates that we have a right to respond with equal force.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she hissed. “We only have that right if they’re willing to cede it to us.” She laughed contemptuously. “Why are you so stubborn? You have nothing to gain by doing this and everything to lose.” Arthur said nothing, but looked her right in the eyes. It was monumental effort to maintain the contact, but he tried. She continued, “Do you even comprehend that, even if Zombress was innocent, what she did that morning…” She shook. “She was prepared to kill everyone in that room.”
Arthur squinted at her. “You know what happened?”
Catalina broke ey
e contact and looked at the floor, jamming her tongue between her canines and inner lip. She inhaled. “Zombress has many names. And the Queen of the Dead is also…” her voice broke. “The Queen of Fear.” She looked up at him.
He looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“Those who survive wish they hadn’t, Arthur. She… does something… to people.” She tapped her head with her middle and index finger. “Makes them snap. Anyone who can handle it…” Her eyes unfocused, and she looked beyond him. It was the most vulnerable he had ever seen her. To be honest, he had thought her to be completely unfazeable.
“How do you know this?” Her mouth was working, as though puzzling through an unheard question. “Catalina?”
Her eyes snapped upward, regaining their fierceness. He shrank in his seat. She must have realized that he was responding to her, and, to put him at ease, hunched a little. “Years ago, when Allison and I were growing up, we were playing in Central Park. There was… an accident.” She straightened, undid the top button on her shirt, and revealed a ragged scar on her neck, the sight of which made Arthur’s stomach tighten. “Our father saved Allison, but I was as good as dead. Until Zombress was… persuaded… to rescue me.” Lost in the memory for a moment, she shook herself out of it and looked at him. “She heals people by essentially merging with them, willing their body to restore itself. It’s painful and invasive… and in that moment, you are a gestalt entity. And you see…” Catalina was shaking again, her lip curling in anger. “Everything. Everything she’s done, everything she thinks, and this undying… hate… for humanity.” Arthur nodded, and she resumed her less rigid pose. “Arbiter had a right… an obligation to kill her at that point.” A flash of anger welled up in him at the comment. “I can’t even blame the heroes for doing what they’re doing,” she said defeatedly.
“It’s a good thing no one asked the self-hating villain,” he muttered, regretting it the moment he said it. It was his turn to look away. He inhaled, slowly, as though doing so any faster would incur a counter-argument. “Look, Zombress didn’t kill anyone they say she did.” Swallowing, he carefully thought out his next sentence, if only to make sure it was released in one piece. “And I’m not even sure she was going to hurt anyone else the morning Arbiter was elected.” He looked up at Catalina, watching as she studied him. “The only way any of this will end well for us – any of us – is if we bring the Fortress down.”
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