by Drew Hayes
“There are always a few who want to go back to the old ways. We have a system for code-breakers,” Ivan said. He didn’t enjoy the system or his occasional role in it, but that didn’t change the fact that it had to be there.
“But if enough like Balaam rise through the ranks, they can change the code. Rewrite it, strip it of meaning, and destroy the tenuous peace we’ve been able to create. I want more in our ranks like her: concerned with freedom over violence, someone who embraces this life because they refuse to bow down instead of wanting to cut others to their knees.”
“Save it for the poetry slam. I get your point.” Ivan looked at Tori once more, watching her tear through the last of the skeletons in the room. “You really think she can be someone we count on?”
“If she’s taught properly, I know it,” Wade said.
“Then I guess I should go meet her and see for myself. Tell Arcanicus to clear out. I’m administering her next test.”
“I suspect he’ll be overjoyed for the break,” Wade replied. “Dare I ask what this test will be?”
“I’m going to see if she’s got what it takes to learn under me,” Ivan said. He gently stretched his arms behind his back, noting the rogue popping sounds from various joints. “Fair warning, though: either she passes her entrance exam or it will probably kill her. That going to be an issue?”
“No problem at all.”
Chapter 3
The metal doors whispered open, but this time it wasn’t more pathetic skeletons tottering through. Doctor Mechaniacal walked in instead, side by side with some guy who looked closer to Tori’s age. She wondered if she’d have to fight this one too. She really hoped not: combat wasn’t why she’d agreed to this training, and besides, aside from being fit, the new guy didn’t seem exceptionally powerful. Not that looks meant much when dealing with meta-humans.
Ivan noticed the appraising look she gave him and kept his own expression neutral. From her body language, she’d drawn all the wrong conclusions about him. That didn’t particularly bother Ivan; in fact, he took it as a compliment. He worked very hard to maintain his mundane facade. Her inability to see through it was just a testament to how effective it was. Of course, that wouldn’t excuse the mistakes she was bound to make, but Ivan felt complimented all the same.
“Doctor,” she said, keeping her tone flat but respectful. “I hope you’re here to tell me I’m done fighting skeletons.”
“Learning to deal with multiple opponents is an important aspect of training,” Wade told her. “Though you could stand to work on your delicacy.”
“If I’m fighting a room full of people, delicacy is going to be the last thing on my mind.”
“That statement there sums up why you need to work on it,” Ivan said. Tori was a bit surprised at the authority in his voice. He spoke with the sort of confidence and power she associated with older, more established people. “When you’ve got a room full of people coming for you, that’s exactly when you should be delicate, not explosive.”
“Explosive seemed to work just fine.” Tori gestured to the fading bits of bone in the room. Most had already turned back into the mystic ether from which they were sculpted, but a few fragments were still dotting the floor.
“And if you’re in a room with allies?” Ivan asked, stepping over a fading chunk of skull. Arcanicus’s constructs tended to stain if one stepped on them while they dissolved, and these were new shoes.
“I’m sorry, aren’t you all a bunch of villains? I didn’t really think I’d need to learn about how to play on a team.”
“Then you’re even more foolish than I first suspected,” Ivan said. “Of course we work together. The very existence of this guild should demonstrate that concept to you quite thoroughly.” He turned to Wade, who was somehow managing to keep a cheerful grin fixed firmly in place. “You’re really sure about this woman?”
“She has potential,” Wade replied simply.
“She also has ears and doesn’t like being talked about as if she isn’t in the room.” Tori glared at both of them for a moment then directed the bulk of her ire to Ivan. “Doctor Mechaniacal gets a pass out of respect for what he’s accomplished, but I’ve got no inclination to take any shit off of you, Khakis.”
“Actually, I’m the most important person in the world, so far as you’re concerned,” Ivan said, “because I’m the one who decides if you live to see another sunrise or not. The guild is thinking about terminating your association with them, but Doctor Mechaniacal has persuaded them to let you stay on as an apprentice. Of course, any apprentice needs a teacher, and that’s what he’s trying to rope me into doing.”
“You’re full of it,” Tori snapped.
“No, everything he’s said is perfectly true.” Wade didn’t even bother to look ashamed. To him, the situation was a purely practical one; there was no need to get caught up in sentiment over it. “You must have realized your attitude and refusal to cooperate would have consequences. Many of my colleagues feel you can’t be made useful, and they advocate ending this experiment before you become too troublesome.”
“Too... troublesome?” For the first time since Ivan had laid eyes on her, uncertainty flickered across Tori’s face. Her eyes darted from him, to Wade, and back to him, repeating this cycle several times before she found her words. “Okay, maybe I haven’t been a perfect little student, but it’s not like I asked to join you guys in the first place.”
“What you asked for is irrelevant. You’re here, this is the situation. Standard training is clearly a lost cause. You’ll either leave this room as an apprentice, or not at all,” Wade said.
“Then be my teacher! You’re the one I want to learn from, anyway. Please, help me out here.”
“He’s already convinced people who aren’t easily swayed to give you another chance,” Ivan interrupted. “Doctor Mechaniacal is the reason you ever got this opportunity at all, so be grateful for what he’s done.”
“But—”
“There are no buts.” Ivan had crossed the room and was now close enough to feel the heat radiating off his prospective student. Either she was upset or just pissed; either way she was unconsciously cranking up the temperature. If he took her as a student, her first lessons would be on control. “I’ve been chosen to teach you. If I accept the job, then you get to prove Doctor Mechaniacal was right by not doing anything to make me have to kill you.”
Tori stared at him for a few moments, emotions flickering through her eyes as she tried to make sense of a suddenly life-threatening situation. For the briefest of seconds, Ivan thought she would settle on panic, or worse, fear, but she pulled herself together and her eyes grew hard. She was letting anger carry her through this. It wasn’t a bad call, provided she could keep it wrangled.
“Fine. So you’re here to decide if I’m teachable, is that it? Then what do I have to do to prove that I’m worth the effort? I can roast skeletons all day, if that’s your cup of tea.”
Ivan shook his head. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary. All I want you to do is survive a single punch from me. That’s your test.”
Tori tilted her head, ever so slightly. “Survive a punch? That’s it? I guess I have to stay in human-form then.”
“You can be fire if you want to,” Ivan said. “You can also try to dodge or avoid it. I’m only throwing the one punch, so if you succeed, you pass. I’ll even tell you where I’m hitting you: it’s going to be dead center in your torso, right through your sternum.”
“Is this for real?” Tori looked over at Wade, who gave her a small nod. “You know that when I’m in fire-form, physical attacks can’t hurt me.”
“I have things to do today. Let’s move this along.” Ivan took a few steps back and cocked his right fist back. “Take your time and get set. Let me know when you’re ready, and that’s when I’ll punch.”
Tori wasn’t sure what to make of this strange man with dark hair and seemingly unwarranted confidence, but she was smart enough to take an associa
te of Doctor Mechaniacal’s seriously. Her skin grew warm, then red, and then vanished completely as her entire form shifted to that of animated flame. She retained a humanoid shape for the moment; giving him a torso to aim at meant his moves would be easier to anticipate. Her fiery feet slid back along the floor as Tori braced herself, prepared to move in a heartbeat. After taking a few seconds to make sure there was nothing else she could do, Tori realized she was stalling. It was now or never.
“Ready.” Her voice sounded like a fireplace crackling with fresh logs, but the words were still enunciated perfectly. Her attention was on the curious man in the khakis; she was ready to react the instant he moved.
It was this concentration that saved her life. In the sliver of an instant between when Ivan closed the gap between them and slammed his fist into her torso, Tori sensed the slightest movement. Acting on instinct more than strategy, she shifted a few millimeters back, turning his strike into a glancing blow instead of a direct one. She expected something strange to happen, for his hand to hurt when it went through her or for him to display a burst of cold powers.
What she hadn’t counted on or imagined, not even for an instant, was that his fist would hit her as solidly as if she were still flesh and blood. She flew backward and crashed into the far wall; her form was undone as soon as she struck, leaving her little more than a flaming puddle smeared against the steel wall. She was in more pain than she’d ever experienced in this form, but Tori was still conscious. That meant she was alive.
“How... how...” Her voice crackled from the slowly reforming mass of fire; she was barely able to string words together.
Ivan, to his credit, kept his word and didn’t throw another attack. Instead he just stared, watched her carefully through eyes that no longer belonged to Ivan the manager. These eyes were almost entirely black, aside from a series of runes burning from the center of each eye. Though the eyes didn’t belong to Ivan the manager, they did belong to another identity of Ivan’s, one he hadn’t used for many years.
Tori finished pulling herself together and shifted back to her human-form. She was sweating and her chest hurt like hell, but she was alive. As she pulled her head up and looked at the man who had so easily bested her, she was treated to her first look at those impossible, unnerving eyes.
“Holy shit!” Tori yelped, terror momentarily forgotten in the rush of confusion and excitement. “You’re... you’re fucking Fornax! You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Fornax is dead.” He closed his lids for several seconds, and when he opened them up, his eyes were completely back to normal. “My name is Ivan, but you can feel free to call me Mr. Gerhardt, Teacher, or just plain Sir. You have good instincts; you avoided the hit even when logic told you it wouldn’t hurt. Let’s see if we can develop those instincts into actual skills.”
“Guess that means I passed.” Tori slowly pulled herself to her feet. Neither man moved to help her, nor would she have accepted if they had. “Lucky me.”
“That remains to be seen. There may come times when you curse yourself for moving, for not just dying when you had the chance.” Ivan treated her to his best consoling manager smile. “I look forward to working with you, Tori.”
He turned and left the room, Doctor Mechaniacal a few steps behind. Only when they were gone did Tori allow herself to fall against the nearest wall. She didn’t know how he’d managed to hit her like that, but it was hardly surprising he was capable of it. Fornax was one of the original villains; he’d been as infamous as Doctor Mechaniacal in his own day. The man was as notorious as he was powerful, and he was renowned for being damn near unstoppable.
All of which raised the pertinent question: how on earth had he managed to fake his own death and hide for so many years?
* * *
“She’s green, driven by emotions, and thinks she’s a lot stronger than she really is.” Ivan didn’t bother stopping as they stepped out of the car and entered the guild’s actual headquarters; he knew all too well how keen Wade’s senses were. Or, rather, how keen the nanites in his blood made his senses.
“So you’re saying she’s you, back when we were starting out.” Wade kept pace as they headed down the halls, already certain of the destination in Ivan’s mind.
“Cute. Look, I said I’d do the job, and I will. I’ll teach her to the best of my ability, but if she steps too far out of bounds…”
“The punishment for code-breakers is the same for every member of this guild,” Wade said, “from its most senior members to its newest apprentices. If she can’t work within our boundaries, then you’ll do what is necessary.”
“How is it you can say that with so much detachment, but you’re the beloved billionaire and I’m still looked at as a monster?” Ivan finally arrived at the door he was looking for and nearly barreled through it.
On the other side was a medium-sized room with tables, plastic chairs, and vending machines serving up soda and microwavable fare. Ivan walked right over to the soda machine and pressed his thumb against a small touchscreen on the side. A barely visible panel in the wall slid away, revealing a set of ascending stairs, and both men began to climb.
“It’s not like people know that Wade Wyatt is Doctor Mechaniacal. So far as the public is concerned, he’s ancient history, and I’m the man who lets them listen to music on devices the size of their fingernail.”
“Yeah, yeah, and Fornax has been dead since the Orion incident. I still feel like I get more hate than you do, and your persona isn’t even ‘confirmed’ to be dead.” Ivan emerged at the top of the stairs in a lush room with red carpet. There was an open bar, large tables with crisp white tablecloths, and an army of robot butlers ready to prepare any drink or delicacy one could imagine.
“You’re just complaining to change the subject,” Wade said. “I know you’re worried about having an apprentice.”
“Damn right, I’m worried,” Ivan snapped. He flopped onto a cushy sofa and motioned for one of the nearest robots to come attend to him. “How are we even going to work this? I can’t stay in guild quarters. My neighbors will notice if I suddenly stop coming home, to say nothing of my kids every other weekend.” The robot made its way over to Ivan, and he promptly ordered three BLTs and a glass of sweet tea.
“Yet you seem to have no qualms about using the senior staff facilities,” Wade noted.
“Hey, asshole, you’re the one who guilted me into taking a seat on the council. Executive break rooms are one of the fringe benefits, and I’m going to use it.”
“As well you should. I constructed them with you in mind, after all. From the grand dreams of our ideal lair we used to have, back when we were squatting in abandoned warehouses.”
“Don’t you dare try to invoke ‘the good old days’ with me.” Ivan rubbed his temples with his index finger and thumb, despite the fact that there was no physical pain in his head. It had been years since he’d gone up against anything strong enough to actually hurt him. “Let’s just talk logistics: how am I going to train that woman? I guess I could come in on afternoons and some weekends, if I move things around.”
“That would make you her coach, not her teacher,” Wade told him. “You know perfectly well the way these things are done. She’s going to move into your home, be under your tutelage and care for as many hours in the day as possible.”
“Hells bells, Wade. My neighbors are going to have a field day if I suddenly have a twenty-something-year-old female staying at my place. The Jensens alone would start putting me in the prayer requests at church, and lord only knows how that gets the gossip fountain flowing. I have to live in that suburb, you know.”
The two were interrupted as the robot returned with sandwiches and sweet tea in hand. Ivan accepted the plate, greedily digging into the first BLT as Wade addressed his concern.
“I’ve already been working on a cover story. She’s your cousin’s daughter, going through a bit of trouble at home and staying with you until things are sorted out.” Wade reached into his
back pocket and produced a small tablet. He set it in front of Ivan, who ignored it as he continued to eat, and gestured at the blank screen waiting to be unlocked. “In that is her cover, false history, and all pertinent information you might need. It’s all airtight; every internet search they try will show Tori’s history and bloodline to you. The movers currently setting up at your house are already chit-chatting with the neighbors and letting the pertinent details slip.”
Ivan finished chewing a bite and slowly lowered his sandwich, glaring at Wade as he did. “Setting up at my house?”
“You told me you accepted her apprenticeship; I took you at your word and assumed you understood the duties.”
“Where the hell is she supposed to sleep? I don’t have any free bedrooms.”
“The top of your garage is being retrofitted into an apartment. It won’t be fancy, but she is in her apprenticeship, after all. Frills come with accomplishments. Of course, Indigo Technologies will cover the alterations and increased bills.”
“You just think you’re so damn smart, don’t you?” Ivan drummed his fingers soundlessly on the squishy cushion of the couch. “There’s a pretty big issue you skipped over, though. What about my kids? I’ll do a lot for this council, for you, but there’s no way I’m letting some half-cocked rookie anywhere near Rick and Beth. That’s a deal breaker.”
“Tori will have tutoring here on the weekends,” Wade said. “Though her cover will be that she’s undergoing counseling at a special facility. You’ll be expected to train her when time allows, but I knew when I asked you to do this that there would have to be some exceptions.”
“Gee, you think?” Ivan gulped down a few mouthfuls of the tea and grimaced. No matter how many times he had Wade tweak their programming, the robots just couldn’t get sweet tea right. They made good sandwiches and coffee, though, so that was something. “I don’t suppose I can use her as an excuse to skip council meetings, can I?”