by Drew Hayes
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.
“What are you doing?” Chloe’s voice drew everyone’s attention. The bodies in the room noticeably stiffened as they realized Donald had slipped his laptop out of its bag and was rapidly typing away on the keyboard. Barb whimpered under her breath, huddling closer to one of the Stans—the one with the bushy mustache.
“The wireless is down, but I saved a few local copies, just in case.” Donald glanced up from his screen and nodded at the door. “Can... can someone tell me when he’s coming back? I think I have enough time, but I need to be sure.”
“Enough time for what?” Tori’s question was barely out before Stan started coughing into his hand. Without pause, Donald slapped the laptop shut and slid it back into his case. By the time the hulking figure appeared in the door again, it was like the device had never been removed.
“All of you, come with me,” demanded their captor. His voice was different than before, more tense. Something had gone off-plan, and Tori needed exactly one guess to know what. Or rather, who.
Everyone in the room stood and filed out. The Stans went first, the clean-shaven one slightly ahead of his mustached counterpart who was trying to comfort Barb; then, of course, went Barb herself. Rene and Carol, two of the programmers in Ivan’s department, went next. Tori tried to angle herself so she could bring up the rear, making her the muscle-man’s first target if things went bad, but Donald slipped behind her as Chloe moved forward, leaving himself in last place. That idiot. What was he thinking? This was not the time to pretend to be a hero.
Thankfully, no one was assaulted as they were marched into the cublicle area. That was a lucky break, as they’d all have been caught off guard, so absorbed were they with the sight that met their eyes.
Ivan was lying on the ground, a small pool of blood leaking from a gunshot wound in his side. His chest was still moving, so they weren’t supposed to take him for dead, but he did look paler than Tori recalled. When this was over, she’d have to ask him how he faked an injury with so little time.
Next to Ivan, limbs splayed akimbo, was the very evident corpse of the man who’d been leading the criminals. His helmet had been removed by the shorter goon, and they could see his face. It wasn’t one that would stick in any of their heads, partially because it was nondescript, but mostly because the jagged angle of his neck made it hard to stare at.
Shocking as both bodies were, it was the scene next to them that really drew one’s attention. Burned into the cheap office carpet were three words, small tendrils of smoke still curling up from the edges:
You Missed One
“Do any of you know about this?” The big man was behind them, waiting for someone to show a single sign of recognition. He was angry, that was easy to tell, but he was also scared. This was a strange scene to walk in on, one that hinted strongly at exactly one possible solution: there was an uncaptured meta loose in the building.
“All I know is Mr. Gerhardt’s bleeding out pretty quickly. If we don’t stabilize the wound, he might die.” Tori slid her foot slightly forward without taking the actual step. Showing intention was probably acceptable, but they might try to shoot her if she acted without permission. In a crowd this tight, even if it went through her fire-form, it would still end up hitting someone.
“Why do I give a shit about that?” The rumble of his voice was directly behind her, and Tori had a feeling that if he didn’t like the answer, a gun wouldn’t come into the equation. She could take this chucklefuck, but not without giving away what she really was. And letting that secret slip might actually get her killed.
“Because whatever did this, Mr. Gerhardt might have seen it,” Tori shot back. “If we can get him stabilized and wake him up, then he can tell you what happened. Or do you prefer going up against something that can do... that—” Tori gestured to the corpse on the ground “—with no knowledge about it whatsoever?”
“Or maybe he’s the one who did it,” the smaller one piped up, turning its gun toward Ivan. “Maybe he’s a meta, and we should just gun him down right now.”
“Whoever heard of a meta that can snap bones but gets put down by a handgun?” Donald asked, piping up just when Tori didn’t want him to. “We’ve all worked with Mr. Gerhardt for years, he’s never done anything remotely unnatural. Plus he’s literally bleeding out on the ground! Do you think he managed to carve an ominous message in the carpet while he was shot?”
The crowd muttered in agreement, and Tori could feel both of their captors grow tense. Taking hostages was one thing, killing them was another. Once death was on the table, being good little boys and girls didn’t seem like quite as smart of a play. With the possibility of a pissed-off meta in the building, the last thing they needed was an unruly crowd to deal with. Killing them all was an option, but one that removed any leverage they might have if the threat did turn out to be real. The wheels in their heads were almost audible as they spun, until at last the small robber moved his gun away from Ivan.
“Where’s the first aid kit?”
“Break room,” Tori replied quickly.
“Take him back in there then, get him patched. I want to know the minute he’s conscious. Everyone else is going with my big friend there. He’s going to put you in an office so we can make sure all of us stay safe. While they’re in there, I want someone combing through the HR records of every person who works here; see if any of them are self-outed as meta.”
“But that’s confidential,” Barb protested, earning her a sight down the barrel of the small one’s gun. To his credit, Stan pulled her closer, doing as best he could to put himself between her and the bullet.
“Looks like we know who’ll do the searching. Take them to the office next to the one I’m using. I’ll make sure the girl and the boss man are properly restrained.” He waved at the hallway, and the large man started herding the group back toward the offices.
“I’m going to need some help,” Tori protested. “I can’t just drag him across the floor. He needs to be lifted and carried carefully if you want him to live long enough to talk. I can manage with two others, unless you feel like helping out.”
“Fine,” snapped the shorter one. “You, coffee girl, you come help. And ginger-boy, you too.”
Chloe and Donald broke off from the pack and went with Tori to stand over Ivan. He was still breathing, though the motions of his chest seemed to be getting more shallow. Somehow she doubted Ivan intended to fake his own death, so it probably wouldn’t get much bleaker looking than this. Not unless the situation demanded it.
“Donald, you’re on legs. Chloe, take his left arm; I’ll get the right,” Tori ordered. Together, they lifted Ivan off the ground and delicately hauled him to the break room under the watchful gun of the littlest hostage-taker.
As soon as they’d set him on the clean linoleum floor, the robber went to work. He pulled zip ties from his pockets, cuffing Donald’s hands to the fridge and Chloe’s to the front latch of the soda machine. Tori he left free as she went to the clearly marked area on the wall and pulled out the first aid kit. Only after she’d set it down next to Ivan did he take one of her hands as well, tethering her to the nearby cabinets.
“You’ll need one free to work with,” he explained, rooting though her supplies to make sure there was nothing sharp. “But try anything stupid and a bullet is going in each of your heads. I don’t know what’s going on. I just know that if something wants me dead, then I’d rather take people out with me. Clear?”
“Completely,” Tori said. Chloe and Donald both nodded from their spots in the corner.
With order firmly establi
shed, the small man left, presumably to check on his accomplice. This left Tori with the task of trying to figure out how to give first aid to a man who was faking injury.
The only silver lining she could see was that, even as badly as the day had gone so far, it was still marginally better than doing more quarterly reviews.
* * *
“Doctor Mechaniacal, sir?” Isotrix stuck his head tentatively through the office door where Wade was working. One of the upsides to being an eccentric genius inventor and head of a company was that no one at Indigo Technologies ever questioned his need for a private, off-site work area. Granted, they didn’t know its location was actually smack dab in the middle of a guild full of former or potential villains that he’d helped found, but the only person he technically had to divulge that to was the IRS, and even then only if he wanted to take a deduction.
“What can I do for you?” Wade didn’t bother to look up from the device on his work table; there was nothing that could be said which would require enough attention to draw his focus. Besides, he wanted to get this doodad knocked out early. After it was done, he’d have to find enough ways to dumb it down so that Indigo could replicate and manufacture it, which took far longer than the actual inventing, and then have it properly tested and marketed by the time Christmas rolled around.
“We got a ping on the security network, one of the high priority ones. Assistance teams are already mobilized, but this was on the list of networks you wanted to be personally notified about.” Isotrix shuffled from foot to foot; even after spending four years as Wade’s assistant, he still felt awkward interrupting the man’s work.
“Wait, don’t tell me. It’s the one tied to Pseudonym.” Wade let out a sound that was a strange combination of chuckle and exasperated sigh as he shook his head.
“That’s correct, sir. Did someone already tell you?”
“No, just a hunch. When you’ve been at this for as long as I have, you learn to play the odds. And the odds always say that if there’s trouble, he’ll be a part of it.” Wade set down his tools and turned to Isotrix, an act that only made the younger man grow somehow more tense. “Tell the teams that he’s more likely to need cover-ups and explanations than extractions. First priority is containment of his and his apprentice’s identities. Have them tweak personnel as necessary to make that happen.”
“Right away, sir.” Isotrix nodded so quickly that he inadvertently gave himself a headache. “Should they begin breaching immediately?”
“Oh, I’d give it a few minutes. Something tells me that by the time they make it, there won’t be much of a threat left.” Wade picked his tools back up and returned to his invention, a sly smirk on his face.
“After all, you can’t take the Fornax out of the Ivan.”
* * *
It was almost impossibly frustrating to work on Ivan, keep pressure on the wound, wrap it in gauze, and pretend to be concerned all while knowing he was perfectly fine. This was what it meant to protect one’s identity, though, and now that she’d managed to get a small slice of life for herself, she could see why Ivan didn’t want to give his up. Nonetheless, it was annoying, and when the other two were looking away, she made a point of being as ungentle as possible.
“Damn it.” Donald’s curse was whispered and fierce as he tried in vain to pull apart the zip tie that bound his hands to the fridge. “If I could just get to my laptop—”
“Then what, you’d send out a call for help?” Tori snapped. “They barred the doors on a Friday morning and shot off a gun. People know shit is up, and by now, someone has already called the cops. My guess is that they already accounted for that.”
“No, I wasn’t trying to call anyone. I was... look, this is really easier if I just show you than tell you,” Donald replied.
“Yeah, well, unless you’re going to get a whole lot stronger in the next five minutes, good luck with that.” Tori could all but taste Donald’s frustration, but that was for the best. Whatever half-cooked idea he had was only going to get him and probably others hurt. She needed to think of a plan, and the first step was finding an explanation for why her zip tie had suddenly melted into plastic goo.
“Do you really have a way to help us?” Chloe’s voice sounded almost alien. She’d gone silent since the criminals had burst through the front door. Something in her had changed, evidently, because now she was staring at Donald with an intensity Tori had only ever seen the woman use when working an espresso machine.
“I do. At least, I think I do. I’ve never tried this in real life before. Just lots of training.”
“You think you do.” Chloe took a long breath then glanced at Tori and Ivan’s supposedly severely injured form. “I guess that’s better than nothing. I don’t want to die here. Not this young, not so randomly, and for damn sure not in my barista apron.” She turned to Donald, resolve set in her face. “What was your name?”
“Donald. Donald Moss.”
“Well, Donald, things are going to be really weird for the next minute or so. You just need to roll with it and not make any noise if at all possible.” Chloe didn’t bother waiting for a reply; she closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was the same, yet worlds different. There was a vibration to them, something that rippled through the air. Later, when she had the chance to think about it, Tori would realize the feeling reminded her of when Beverly had used the scroll.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Chloe’s eyes snapped open as she spoke, and for a moment, her strange words hung heavy in the air like they were taking up a space of their own. It was an oddly tense moment that seemed to stretch on endlessly.
Then Chloe reached her leg out and kicked Donald squarely in the ass, which sort of broke the spell. It was only thanks to her warning that Donald stifled a yelp, and Tori heard a nervous giggle that she realized had made it past her own lips.
“What the hell?” Donald hissed, staring at her from his confined spot at the fridge.
“Are you dead?” Chloe shot back.
“No!”
“Then suck it up.” She kicked him again, and again, smacking the rear of his khakis with the toe of her shoe over and over. Finally, after around ten kicks, she pulled her leg back and nodded. “Okay, try it now.”
“Try what now?”
“The zip tie, dipshit.” Chloe rolled her eyes, and Tori found herself wondering if they could hire the blonde barista on as permanent staff.
Donald, suspicion evident on his face, tried to pull apart his zip ties again. This time, they started to give as soon as he began. With one burst of effort, they tore off with a slight pop. He stared at the broken binding device on the floor, then looked at Chloe, then back to the zip tie.
“What the hell...” he muttered softly.
“I don’t totally understand it myself, but when I use really old, cliché advice or sayings, they sort of... come true. My kicking you in the ass didn’t kill you, so you got stronger. Speaking of, ‘A penny saved is a penny earned.’ There, now you should be normal again. Didn’t want you to break your laptop by accident.”
“So, you can only do one at a time?” Tori asked as Donald quickly and quietly dug into his laptop bag.
“Yup. Soon as I use a new one, the old one cancels out. Took me a while to figure that out, or that I had powers at all. That weird lightning storm a couple of weeks ago was the cause, I guess. Now you both know my dirtiest secret: I’m a meta.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Donald said, his face half-lit by the glowing screen of his computer. “Though I do appreciate you revealing your secret just to help us out. Turning into a meta is a scary experience, but sooner or later, they all have to share the truth with someone.”
Donald pounded on the keys for a few seconds more, then turned to look at Chloe and Tori, his eyes half-watered up with excitement and fear.
“I guess it’s my turn.”
Chapter 33
No one aside from Donald w
as quite sure what he was doing as he reached toward the computer screen, especially when sparks and flashes of light started to erupt near his hand. The confusion only got worse when the light show stopped, because that was when Donald lifted up something that definitely hadn’t been there before. To Tori it looked like an idiot had tried to build a gun—the thing was large, clunky, and had various flashing lights that would do nothing but give away one’s position.
Chloe, on the hand, had a different reaction.
“Is that... is that the gun from King Commander Cold?”
“Good eye, and yes, it is,” Donald confirmed. “I was affected by the storm too, only I got the power to pull digital stuff into the real world.”
“Holy fuck,” Tori said, her eyes going involuntarily wide. “You can bring out dragons and monsters and shit?”
“Well, no. It’s only items. I can’t bring out anything with an AI,” Donald admitted. “But the things I bring out function just like they do in the games, which means I now have a way to harmlessly freeze these guys in place.”
“Unless they shoot you in the head,” Chloe pointed out.
“I do have more than one game on here.” Donald tapped a few more keys. This time, he pulled out a buckler made of metal and glowing green light. “The Endless Shield from Knights of the Cyber Hell. It can handle any projectile they send my way.”
“Awesome. Got anything in there to get us free?” Tori asked. While she had to admit that Donald’s power did seem pretty impressive, it didn’t change the fact that at least one of their captors was smart, or that the other seemed to be a meta himself. If Donald went out there alone with a freeze ray and fancy shield, he was probably going to end up smeared against the wall.
“Ummmm, all the swords would be too big. Oh, I know.”
Donald calmly stood and walked over to Chloe, made a few adjustments on his weird gun, and fired at her hands. She let out a small squeak, but when the blue ray vanished, not one bit of her flesh had been frozen. The same could not be said for the zip tie or the hunk of soda machine it was tied to. With a single twist, Chloe snapped the frozen zip tie into pieces, angling her legs so they hit her pants rather than the floor.