Forging Hephaestus

by Drew Hayes

  “Dude, are you fucking trying to sink us?” Xelas appeared outside the break room, glaring at Lance while her bird-like character swept down from the trees and rained fire on the screen.

  “No! That little shit keeps getting the drop on me.”

  “Then start looking around a little instead of running blindly through the jungle. Whoever wins this match has a chance to get the Vorpal Wings, and I will be downright incensed if you keep me from flying around and cutting people’s heads off. Pull it together. We like you, but it’s not too late to dump you in a river.” Xelas pointed at her glowing eyes, then at Lance, then back at her eyes. Beverly was reasonably sure that this was the metallic woman’s way of saying she was watching him.

  Lance, for his part, took a deep breath, along with a drink from his root beer, as he tried to calm down and focus. Beverly found it strangely amusing that in this hive of scum and villainy, the biggest issue of the night was getting beaten in a video game. The longer she hung around this lot, the more she was starting to see the people underneath the reputation. Slowly she was coming to realize that the guild might be more than just a way to get her powers under control.

  That was a thought for the future, however. For now, Beverly focused on eating her sandwich and watched Lance desperately try to stay alive.

  Chapter 31

  Chloe moved quickly but carefully as she set up the cups, real sugars, fake sugars (pink, blue, and yellow), straws, creamer, and, of course, cardboard sleeves to keep people from burning themselves. Her large cart, formerly burdened with all of those necessities, still held the equipment for making the actual coffee, but that would come in a moment. People liked their java hot, and Ridge City Grinders made a point of delivering that.

  Mr. Gerhardt, Tori’s oddly serious boss, had explained that people tended to filter in depending on their personal responsibilities in the morning, so the bulk of the office would arrive a bit later than he and Tori. In Mr. Gerhardt’s estimation, she’d only need one carafe of coffee to start, but once the others started rolling in she’d need to get brewing as fast as she could. Chloe had, of course, happily agreed. Rebuilding the coffee shop hadn’t been cheap, and her boss had made it clear that scoring more catering gigs like this one would help bring in a lot more cash. He’d probably have done the job himself just to make sure it went well if not for the fact that Chloe had struck up something of a friendship with Tori, who’d brought them the work in the first place.

  “Yo, how’s it coming?” Tori poked her head around the edge of the break room, a wide grin on her face. As they’d let Chloe into the building and helped her up the elevator, Tori had explained that this was the final day of a very shitty week, so the overall mood in the office was likely to be ridiculously cheery. It seemed that even extended to her, as her often-somber veneer had been replaced by one verging on bubbly.

  “Should have the first batch up and ready to go in five minutes,” Chloe explained. “Is anyone going to mind if I move your usual equipment?” Chloe nodded to the drip-coffee maker on the counter where a half-full pot of unpalatable room temperature liquid sat undrunk from the previous day.

  “I personally wouldn’t care if you threw the fuuuuu—er, freaking thing out the window. But better go check with the big man first, just to make sure. This place has some ridiculous rules about safety, I don’t want to get you in trouble.” Tori checked over her shoulder to make sure no one had caught her nearly cursing and then headed down the hallway toward Ivan’s office.

  She passed by Donald as he unpacked his laptop when three people in motorcycle helmets burst out of the elevator, quickly targeting the employees with the weapons in their hands.

  “Everyone stay calm and put your hands on your heads! If no one does anything stupid, you’re all going to get out of here just fine. If you get any ideas about being heroic...” The speaker, his sex betrayed by his voice, lifted his gun overhead and fired a single shot into the ceiling. While he spoke, his shorter companion ran through the cubes, forcing those few people at their desks to stand. The biggest of the lot lumbered his way down to the offices.

  Tori forced herself to stay calm. She was so close to Donald that there was no way he wouldn’t notice a spike in heat. Instead of being angry, she focused on thinking the situation through. The group was wearing masks and thus hiding their identities, so there was at least a chance they meant what they said about letting everyone go. The rest of their bodies were covered in leather with oddly-shaped bumps inside: most likely some kind of body armor. At the moment, they were herding everyone together, and the main guy’s warning shot had been into the ceiling, not a human being. While she could probably tear all three of them apart without so much as a scratch, the same couldn’t be said for her coworkers. Everything pointed toward playing along, at least until she had a better understanding of the situation or found an opportunity to strike.

  Moments later, she got confirmation that her thoughts were at least somewhat on point. Ivan calmly walked down the hall in front of the big one, hands on his head, his expression so calm that it was like this was just another day of performance reviews.

  “This is the only one in the offices,” said the big one in a clearly-male voice. Tori would lay odds that the third was male as well, but it was impossible to tell under all the padding.

  “Guess that makes you the man in charge,” said the middle-sized one, who Tori suspected to be the leader.

  “Normally, no; I’m merely middle management.” If Ivan was at all nervous, he hid it well. She noticed his eyes quickly scan the room, making sure everyone was unharmed—at least so far. “However, given that you are the one with the gun, I would say that for today, you’re the man in charge.”

  “That is exactly right. You seem like a pretty smart guy. Just keep acting smart and we can all get out of here safe and sound. Do what we say, keep it simple, and don’t try to be a hero.”

  Tori felt fairly certain she was the only one in the room who noticed the slight tug at the corner of Ivan’s mouth before he responded. “I can assure you that is the last thing I ever intend to be.”

  “See, what’d I say? Smart guy. Now, tell all your people to gather up in the break room. They’ll be watched over by one of my guys while you come along and give us a hand. Your cell phones are jammed, landline is cut, and the exits are sealed, so it’s just us here today.” The man motioned to his smaller accomplice, who slowly and firmly herded people back toward the break room.

  “May I ask what it is you’re after?” Ivan was still calm, but his attention was split as he watched his employees being corralled. Barb, the pleasant woman from HR whom Tori had learned was obsessed with her pugs, was taking a little long, resulting in the small criminal jabbing her in the ribs with their gun. Barb let out a small yelp of pain and hurried along.

  The blow was largely for show, even if Barb would no doubt have a bruise later on, but Tori felt her inner fire try to rise up all the same. That was expected, though; that was who she was. What took her by surprise was, for a fleeting moment, the twitch of an expression on Ivan’s face that she’d almost never seen before. As Barb yelped and everyone half-glanced at her, Ivan’s mask slipped ever so slightly. What lay beneath it was nothing but naked fury. He was beyond livid at what these people were doing.

  In that moment, Tori knew with unequivocal certainty that no matter what these three thought, this day would end in blood. And some of it, if not all, would be theirs.

  “Now why would I go and bother telling you a thing like that?” The group’s leader had obviously missed what Tori had caught, otherwise he’d have either emptied his clip in Ivan’s skull or started running as fast as he could. Neither would have saved him.

  “This floor of our company deals in software, so if you’re here to steal something related to that, I’d need to talk to one of our programmers,” Ivan explained, his veneer of calm fixed firmly in place once more. “Depending on the extent of what you’re trying to take, I might need to bring
one along. As I said, I am only middle management, so I have my technical limits. I’d hate for this to come up later on and you take me as being uncooperative.”

  “Don’t you worry about that. We know exactly what we’re here for. You just do as you’re told and everything will be fine.” The leader swung his head around slightly and nodded at the big thug behind Ivan. “Go help round everyone up, then keep an eye on the lot while we handle everything else. If they’re good, then be nice. If not... well, we warned them.”

  A light tug on Tori’s wrist pulled her attention from the conversation. Donald, laptop bag still slung over his shoulder, was trying to head toward the break room and he’d grabbed the cuff of her jacket to pull her along. Much as she loathed to leave the scene before her, Tori let herself be led away. Ivan would be fine with two wannabe criminal masterminds. Hell, Ivan could probably take on half the AHC and be okay. The others, however, weren’t legendary villains hiding in plain sight. They might need looking after. And with the man formerly known as Fornax otherwise occupied, it fell to his apprentice to handle that job.

  The big guy followed them into the break room and positioned himself in front of the entrance. There was no door to lock—something to do with fire safety—but with his wide shoulders, he easily filled the role. If not for Thuggernaut and some of the others in the guild, Tori would have thought him huge. As it was, she still wondered if he was a meta. It might change how she acted when things went bad, but at the moment, it had no impact. She was just going to be good and sit between a pale Donald and a clearly nervous Chloe.

  Tori would wait. Like a jungle cat crouched in the grass, she would wait.

  * * *

  Ivan was sorely tempted to kill both his captors the minute his colleagues were out of sight. None of these idiots were with the guild; Vendallia was a well-hidden subsidy of Indigo Technologies, and as such would never be approved for a job. It would be akin to robbing one’s own piggy bank. The only thing that stopped him from tearing the taller one’s arm out of its socket and beating the other to death with it was the simple fact that he was here as Ivan Gerhardt. Not Pseudonym, and certainly not Fornax. If he ripped these two into shreds there would be a lot of questions and attention on him. His best bet was to wait it out and see if he could find a way to handle them in a way an office drone in his forties could easily do. Ideally, he’d be able to pin the glory on someone else, but the odds for that were shrinking by the moment.

  “Everyone else is in the break room,” said the smaller one, a high, somewhat nasal voice emanating from under the helmet. Ivan imagined it was a struggle for him to move under all that padding and leather. Slow reaction times, then… something to keep in mind.

  “And now we get to see just how smart you really are. You’re going to take us to your office and log on to the protected system, the one where Vendallia can access every fancy design or piece of code that’s ever been put together.” The leader motioned with his gun back down the office hallway and Ivan complied, even as everything fell into place.

  Vendallia did work across a dozen industries, but with the effort these three were going through, they either had to be after data for banks or national security. A bank was far more likely, as they seemed at least smart enough to avoid pissing off the entire government. So they were likely bank robbers after the security protocols to bypass a bank’s electronic deterrents. If Ivan were a betting man, he’d have guessed that they were killing two birds with one stone and using this as a trial run of their robbery.

  The walk to his office was a short one. Without prompting, Ivan sat at his desk and reached for the computer. A click hit the air just before his fingers made contact. Ivan glanced up to see the taller one had pulled the hammer back on his gun. Given that he was holding an automatic, it was a pointless gesture done purely for the drama, but Ivan lifted his hands skyward all the same.

  “I’m sorry, I thought you wanted me to log in?”

  “We do, but that’s all we want you to do. No trying to send out a call for help.”

  The smaller man reached over and quickly typed on Ivan’s computer. He had to give them credit; they’d certainly done their homework. It took no time until the secure server’s log-in screen flickered up, at which point the short criminal pulled back and offered Ivan the keyboard.

  “Now it’s your turn,” said the leader, waving his gun at the keyboard.

  Ivan tried to pretend he wasn’t insulted by the implied need for direction; instead, he simply went to work. The server they were after was tied to one of Indigo’s, which meant it had been built by Wade. As a criminal himself, no one was more safety-conscious than Wade Wyatt. As such, every member of the guild who worked a mundane job was given two access codes for secure systems: one to actually access them and one to log in to a dummy screen designed to stall anyone who went hunting for data while simultaneously alerting the guild.

  If he really wanted to get out of this unscathed, accessing the true system was the right call. These men clearly hadn’t come with the intent of killing, and whatever they took could be documented and dealt with. It was the safer choice.

  Without hesitation, Ivan entered the second password. These three idiots had stepped into his office and pointed guns at his employees. They’d unknowingly walked into the territory of monsters far beyond their comprehension. A debt had been incurred, and Ivan would see it paid in blood before the day was done. He might be nothing more than a lowly dog of the guild, but he was at least a guard dog.

  “You’re in,” Ivan lied, pulling his hands away from the keyboard.

  “Nicely done,” the leader told him. “We’ll leave my friend here to work while you go join your colleagues. Just a little while until we get what we want, then you’re all free to start an early weekend.”

  Moving slowly, hands still visible, Ivan stepped out of his chair and yielded it to the smaller robber, who hopped in and began typing without so much as a pause. The guy was obviously good. In other circumstances, Ivan might have offered him a job. Sadly, with a few notable meta exceptions, dead men didn’t code very well.

  The leader walked Ivan into the hallway, away from the offices and toward the cube farms. His gun was still there, always close enough to Ivan not to miss but far enough away that it couldn’t be taken. Certainly not an amateur, Ivan had to give him that. Yet to make such a stupid mistake as to come in here... it seemed fate had decided this man’s time was up. And really, no time like the present. They were apart from his friends and Ivan’s colleagues with no witnesses to what would occur. Taking down two armed men? Impossible. Getting a lucky shot off? Unlikely, but a lot more believable, especially now that Wade was aware of the situation and would doctor all records as needed.

  “May I ask you a question?” Ivan’s tone was as peaceful as ever, and he kept moving with the same slow, plodding pace.

  “You just did,” replied the hostage-taker.

  “Then another one. Did you know, when you came in here? I’m honestly curious. Did you have any idea just whose property you were stepping onto? I dearly want to believe you’re just unlucky, but part of me wonders if you really are just that stupid.”

  “You think I’m scared of some big corporation? Money won’t stop bullets.”

  “There are worse things than bullets.” Ivan stopped walking and turned slowly around. He couldn’t see the man’s face through the helmet but he could hear his heartbeat quicken. Fear was spilling off him as he came to realize the situation was not as in control as he’d thought. Deep within Ivan, in a part he’d worked so very hard to seal away, something rattled against its cage, and the echoes resounded all the way to Ivan’s brain.

  “What do—” Those were the only words the robber got out before Ivan’s hand wrapped itself around his neck like a vice. The power was bubbling up, and he knew that the last thing this man would see were his eyes, pitch black save for the glowing red runes.

  “Sshhh.” His voice was like a whisper from the shadows of an aba
ndoned cemetery. “Time to suff—”

  The crack of the gunshot cut him off. Ivan turned his altered eyes downward in disbelief. Somehow, through all the terror and asphyxiation, the son of a bitch had kept his head and squeezed off a shot. Of course, the bullet had bounced harmlessly off Ivan’s skin, but he could already hear the people in the break room stirring. There were only seconds to work with… otherwise his entire life outside the guild would be nothing more than ash.

  “Fucking hell.” In one motion, Ivan snapped the man’s neck and dropped him to the floor. An instant later, he fell down as well, casting a minor illusion as he went. By the time he landed, it appeared to anyone looking that he’d been shot through the side of his stomach and was slowly bleeding onto the carpet. His hand snagged the dented bullet; in seconds it was burned away to vapor.

  Thinking quickly, he also scorched a few words into the carpet. If luck was on his side, it would fluster the robbers enough that they wouldn’t see the real threat. Plus, it would be interesting to see how his apprentice handled herself. Training opportunities like this were few and far between.

  Chapter 32

  Everyone in the room started at the sound of the gunshot, even the large man blocking their way. He started to lunge from the doorway, clearly intent on racing out, but stopped long enough to turn back in their direction.

  “Nobody move, nobody try anything.” He punctuated this point by slapping his palm on one of the break room tables, shattering it to splinters. Admittedly, they weren’t exactly made from the finest of materials or the highest construction standards; however, it still got the message across. He was strong, and he could do the same to their bodies just as easily.

  For Tori, she actually found some comfort in seeing him use his power. Like any good scientist, the more information she had, the more she could do with it. Knowing the big guy was a brute meant he’d be tough to bring down through physical means, but what he could manage was limited. She’d already hit on an idea to incapacitate him, assuming she could get the opportunity. By her estimations, Ivan had gotten a similar chance and taken it.