by J Bennett
The pharmacist, meanwhile, carefully unlocks a cabinet and rifles through a bin. All the psychoactives are behind the counter. It would be easy enough to build a protective window in front of the counter that could resist laz shots and blunt force, but the City Council would never approve that remodel request. Capes are supposed to foil robberies, not commonsense security precautions.
“Ah, here we go,” the pharmacist says. “I am reaching into my supply bin and lifting out two patches,” he says. It seems that Ollie’s father has developed his own defenses made of smiles, soft words, and slow movements he clearly narrates.
As his father fulfills our prescription order, Ollie leans over the counter. Polka dots cluster his shirt. According to Lysee, the polka dot trend has been dead as steering wheels for weeks.
“Is this part of your plan to defeat Beacon this afternoon?” he asks.
Sequoia swallows. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Your martial arts skills were highly impressive during The Professor’s tryouts. I believe you must be at least a black belt in judo. Is that accurate?”
“Actually, second level black belt,” Sequoia clarifies. “I’ve also trained in muay tai for several years.”
Ollie nods. “That is exactly as I thought. Several others in my fellowship suggested your background might include aikido”
Sequoia is already shaking his head. “A lot of people get judo and aikido confused. They’re both based in grappling, but…”
I clear my throat loudly.
“I mean, that’s hardly relevant right now,” Sequoia manages. He shifts his weight. I can see sweat prickling on the back of his neck. “What do you mean ‘fellowship’?”
Ollie taps his fingers on the counter. “I am part of a fellowship of observers who manage and continually update a wiki of all hero and villain activity in Big Little City.”
“Yes, Ollie is fascinated with our town’s Personas,” his father says, turning back around to the counter and placing our order in the box. “It gives him something to do, and I suppose it’s social interaction of a kind.”
“It is social interaction,” Ollie confirms. “I have many discussions with the fellowship. For example, we are currently debating whether or not Lobo has a new sidekick. A little-known criminal stickup man has recently been seen assisting him on missions, but it seems that Lobo does not appreciate his presence.”
I wonder if the stickup man in question happens to have a glowing star on his t-shirt. Three weeks ago I ran into my old coworker, DeAngelo. Well, technically, he tried to rob me, but once I got that all sorted out with a sharp throat punch, he explained his grand scheme to turn his little stickup gig into a sidekick position with Lobo. Maybe he’s managed to pull off his drooling plan for fame after all.
Abruptly someone pounds on the door behind us. Sequoia flinches. Thankfully he still has the safety clicked on his pistol, or I’m pretty sure he would have dropped the pharmacist like a ton of bricks.
“Godwin,” a plaintive female voice calls through the door. “My Throttle is out.”
“Why hello, Ms. Banner, or ta as the kids say,” Ollie’s dad calls loudly. “We have some unexpected visitors at the moment. If you don’t mind waiting outside for a bit, I promise I’ll be with you soon.”
Silence on the other side of the door.
Is it a trap? Did Ollie’s dad somehow manage to tip off the authorities before he came out from the back room, or did Ollie hit a panic switch under the counter?
“Alright but tell them to hurry up!” the voice outside squawks.
“Will do!” Ollie’s dad says. He looks at us apologetically. “Ms. Banner really shouldn’t be taking so much Throttle, not with her blood pressure, but the poor dear can’t get enough of it. Who am I to judge?”
Though Throttle isn’t usually his crutch of choice, Matthew assures me that it offers a reliable buzz that keeps your energy up all day if you don’t mind your heart pounding in your ears or seeing weird sparkles in certain surfaces. Course, if you take too much, you end up running half-naked down the street convinced your shadow has come alive and is trying to eat you. A vil named Wizard Blue got heavy into Throttle a few years back. It made him an interesting Persona to follow for a while until he started inexplicably smashing robo pets with his Celtic staff. His show got swiped after he took a swing at a real cat that belonged to a City Council member.
“Hurry up,” I bark, keeping my voice low. “This is a robbery, not a tea party.”
“Yes, yes, I understand your impatience,” Ollie’s dad says. He closes the lid of the unmarked box and pushes it across the counter. I try to bring the cam drone close to get a view of the box, but it hits the edge of the counter and spirals to the ground.
“Oh my,” says Ollie’s father.
“Their producer was recently kidnapped by Shine,” Ollie says.
“Yes, I see. What a shame,” the pharmacist murmurs. As the cam drone wobbles back up, the pharmacist explains how to use our new medication.
“Normally, I would request a prescription for a dosage this high,” he continues, “but I have decided to waive that requirement in this situation.” He gives us both a pleased smile.
“Fine,” Sequoia says. I dart from behind him and snatch the box, keeping my face turned away from Ollie.
Ollie’s dad continues. “As a pharmacist, I must say that it is against the law to administer any psychotropic drugs to another individual without their permission. The subject will start to feel the effects within one to five minutes, depending on their size, metabolic rate, and application site. Its effects are quite strong and will last for up to six hours.”
“Thanks for your help,” Sequoia says politely. I hide my groan. Henchmen are most certainly not supposed to thank their robbery victims.
Sequoia must realize his slip-up, because he barks out, “If this turns out to be some sort of trick…”
“Oh no. Tricking villains is not a good long-term business strategy,” the pharmacist says. “Shining luck with your mission.”
“I shall not wish you shining luck,” Ollie says. “In fact, I hope you fail and that justice will prevail.”
“Well, that’s uh, that’s your right, I guess,” Sequoia says.
I unlock the door and it swishes open.
“It’s about time!” an older woman squawks. Her hair shines metallic green and she holds a small creature in her arms. Luminescent eyes stare out from a mass of poofy pink fur. It must be one of those make-your-own robo pets. At least I hope so. Some of the genetically spliced animals they’re making these days are majorly creepy.
“Which one are you?” she asks me.
“Outta the way,” I snap tucking my face into my arm. I shove her aside with my elbow.
Sequoia is behind me now and we quickly throw ourselves into our rental car. I bark the GPS coordinates. The car hums to life and starts moving away from Iconic Square while seatbelts slide across our bodies and click into place. I lean back against the seat and sigh.
“What an interesting experience,” Sequoia muses beside me. “Not at all the way I imagined robbing a store would be, but it went well, wouldn’t you say?”
I decide to be kind and not inform him that he is probs the least intimidating henchman on the planet. I don’t think he could scare a baby rabbit.
“We got what we came for,” I say instead, holding the box in my lap. That’s all that really matters. I smile wryly to myself. “Time to head home.”
Chapter 23
Plan for everything, including betrayal. Especially betrayal. ~ Tickles the Elf, The Henchman’s Survival Guide
~
The car drops us off a kilometer from The Professor’s mansion. After I contacted Adan through his personal Stream last night, I thought it odd that he chose the site of his captivity for our prisoner exchange. But, after pondering a bit, I realize the cleverness of it.
If all goes according to his plan, he’ll walk out of The Professor’s lair with Ash Anders in tow. It’ll be a
n epic ego smack for The Professor and a delight to Shine’s viewers. Course, no matter what happens today, Shine won’t be strutting away with Ash Anders.
As Sequoia and I walk to the mansion, the sun beats down on us. The air is warming fast. It’s one of those freak spring days that feels like summer. I glance at my Band. The drug store robbery took longer than anticipated, but we’ve still got two hours until the scheduled prisoner swap and three hours until Beacon will give herself up in Iconic Square.
Sequoia and I move into the woods surrounding The Professor’s mansion. He wears the Goggs now, and the cam drone flies beside us, moving more or less in a straight line as it records our trek. I touch my tinted goggles and set my face into a grim look of determination.
From here on out, I play a battle of wits against Adan.
What will he do? I ask myself for the millionth time. Will he actually believe I somehow managed to sneak Ash Anders away from the rest of my team as I told him in my message? That I truly intend to make the trade for Leo as promised?
No, he’s too canny for that.
Adan may look like just another glam, empty-headed striver, but he hasn’t survived for over three years as Shine by being a drooling lobotomy. When he was named at Beacon’s latest sidekick it was big enough news that even I paid attention. I remember watching those tryout eps just before I moved to Biggie LC. Adan faked a romance with a hulking nonbinary during the tryouts, and the two of them teamed up to survive several of Beacon’s tests. The last tryout was particularly brutal, a free-for-all fight in the Villain Spawning Grounds with various blunt weapons allowed. Adan was already positioned as one of the top contenders, so it was no surprise that three other competitors teamed up to take him out. He managed to beat them back—showing off his impressive fighting skills in the process—but he came away with a shattered nose, several broken ribs, and probs a concussion for good measure. I remember thinking he was done as I watched him stagger into an alley, blood pouring from his nose. It was only a matter of time until someone else found him and finished the job.
Fortunately for Adan, the one who did find him was his love-struck nonbinary. Ze protected him for much of the rest of the fighting. When the competition was almost over, Adan and the non were walking through a dimly lit building. Something hit the cam following them—there’s endless speculation about what it was. When the next cam found them, the non was unconscious and so was the last remaining competitor, a female with raven hair. Adan alone stood victorious, clutching a rusted, blood-splattered chain. To this day, he claims the raven-haired girl knocked out his friend, but she had been slight and swift, choosing to hide for most of the competition. It’s possible she waited until the end to launch her attack, but somehow I doubt it.
BGR. Betrayal Gets Ratings.
“What do you think so far?” Sequoia whispers, pulling me back into the present.
I look around, straining my ears to listen. “No danger yet.”
“No, not about this mission, about, well, about being a henchman. What do you think?”
I turn and raise an eyebrow at the question.
He shrugs. “Tickles the Elf says too much silence smothers ratings. Whenever there’s a lull in the action, fill it with meaningful conversation, particularly if you can add in some non-identifying personal backstory.”
“You’ve been reading The Henchman’s Survival Guide,” I say and nod my approval. I think about his question. I know what I should say—that this job is thrills; that I couldn’t be happier working for The Professor. But Tickles also says being authentic is one of the best ways to grab fans and hearts.
“I hate it,” I admit.
“All of it?” Sequoia sounds surprised.
I nod. “In the past week my shoulder’s been dislocated, I’ve risked my life and my freedom, Gold could have gotten killed, and we lost our lair. So, not exactly a playground.”
“Hmmm.” Sequoia’s brow furrows.
“What?”
“It’s just that… well, you seem good at it.”
I make a noise in the back of my throat. “Gold is good at this. Arsenic is great at this. The Professor is the best in the biz. I’m just trying not to drown.” I glance at him. “What about you?”
He smiles. “It’s been amaze. The adventure. The fear. The risk. And…” He glances away, as if pretending to monitor our surroundings. “… I like being part of a team.”
“Your other team members would stab you in the back if it would help them get an extra min of lens time,” I inform him.
“I know you don’t trust them, but we’ve been through the fire together,” he says. “That has to count for something.”
I almost laugh. The poor kid is serious. “You’re too trusting,” I tell him. “You’ll be disappointed.”
“I trust you and I haven’t been disappointed yet.”
“That’s because I’m soft,” I mutter.
“I think being trustworthy is a strength, not a weakness.”
I don’t say anything to that. I’ve tried to toughen up Sequoia, but he’ll eventually have to learn the hard way. I just hope it won’t cost him, or me too dear when he does.
“The mansion is just up ahead. No more character building,” I whisper as I move around a tree covered with budding green leaves.
Is Shine already here? I wonder. Whoever takes the field first can lay the trap. I wish we’d gotten here a little earlier, but we’re still an hour and a half ahead of the exchange time. Even so, just to be safe, we approach the house from the back.
A little shed sits on the edge of the property. Its lock is biometrically programmed, but it has a code backup. I type in the digits The Professor gave me—Matthew’s birthday—the same code to his lair. Sentimental but sloppy. Carefully, Sequoia and I pull out the ladder and I lean it up against the house.
“Be on the lookout for cam drones,” I hiss at Sequoia. That will be a telltale sign of Shine’s presence. He nods and starts up the ladder. I know he’s trying to be quiet, but the ladder groans under his big body. I’m up next. I do my best to look fierce as I climb. Using a trick that Tickles suggests on his blog, I imagine what the edited video of this scene will look like when it airs. In my mind, powerful music swells. The screen shows a closeup of my hand grasping the side of the ladder, my boot pressing against a rung, and the sun washing across my face.
Sequoia holds out a hand to help me transition from the ladder to the roof. It’ll make me look weak to accept his help, but I don’t want to hurt my friend’s feelings, so I take his hand. He pulls me up easily, as if I weighed nothing. We pull the ladder onto the roof.
My skin is damp with sweat and beads of moisture shine on Sequoia’s freckled skin. I pull an earbud from my pocket and fit the comm into my ear. Sequoia does the same.
“Let me know the moment you see anyone approaching the house,” I tell him.
“They could already be inside,” Sequoia replies, his voice echoing through the comm.
I nod. This is the risk I’m going to have to take.
“Wait for my word before coming down,” I say. “No matter what you see on the cam.” I’m going to have to play this so carefully. Adan thinks I’m coming alone, and we can’t tip him off, not until the very last moment. Surprise is our only weapon against him, our only chance.
Sequoia raises his eyes and our gazes lock. He still hasn’t learned to mind his face and his nerves are plain to see. I hold out my hand. Here we go again into the fire, but knowing Sequoia has my back makes me feel safe. Perhaps he’s right. Maybe trusting someone isn’t a weakness after all, as long as you trust the right person.
Instead of taking my hand, Sequoia pulls me into a warm, sweaty embrace.
“Be careful,” he whispers in my ear.
“They won’t kill me,” I say back.
“But with Castillo v PAGS…”
“I’m more valuable alive than dead,” I assure him. At least I think I am. He lets me go and I walk over to the broken skylight. Shin
e crashed his way through this light and into the penthouse three weeks ago. Now a thin translucent film covers the gaping hole. Guess the landlord hasn’t had time to repair the damage, I think ruefully. I kick through the film with my boot, giving myself an opening.
I unwind the lasso at my hip, swing it, and playfully toss the loop over Sequoia. “Got me,” he says with a little smile as he adjusts the rope around his waist.
“Just as long as you have me,” I banter back. His smile grows wider and I realize we’re having two different convos. You’re too good for me, I think to him and wonder why he hasn’t figured that out yet. No time to poke at that particular landmine, so I ignore his hopeful smile and toss the rest of the rope through the window. No jumping straight through the skylight this time around. My poor ankles still haven’t entirely forgiven me for that lobotomy move three weeks ago. Instead, I grab onto the rope and lower myself down. The lasso doesn’t reach all the way to the floor of Matthew’s penthouse, but it goes far enough that I can drop down without splintering my shins. As I glance around Matthew’s living room, the lasso drops down. I catch it and quickly wind it back up and attach it to my belt.
Sequoia’s head appears over the entrance of the skylight.
“Shining luck,” he whispers. I nod.
From here I go alone.
The cam drone buzzes after me as I move through Matthew’s living room. Even though sunlight streams through the windows, the place feels cold and empty. My gaze stumbles on a human figure looming in the corner, and I almost cry out in alarm.
The figure is grotesque. One arm is gone. Fins jut out from its head. It wears a torn, black shirt, and its eyes stare sightlessly at me.
Snake eyes.
Betty!
I struggle to recognize Matthew’s companion robo. She looks so different from the last time I saw her just a few days ago. Those jutting fins have replaced her hair, and the tattoos stitched across her skin are now more extensive. The patterns are erratic, flowers blooming into skulls and fractions. I even see chemistry equations scrolling down her neck and shoulder, right to the empty socket where her left arm should be.