First Offer (Minimum Wage Sidekick Book 3)

by Lucas Flint

  Takeshi chuckled. “Most supervillains are not very good fighters, preferring to rely on their strange powers rather than skill. I, on the other hand, have been trained in martial arts since I was a very young child. I’ve crippled men twice my size and killed over ten men in a single fight before. I can handle one teenager.”

  “You mean you aren’t going to report me to Sasha?” I said in surprise. “Or call the security guards to come and arrest me?”

  “No,” said Takeshi, shaking his head. “Miss Munroe suspected that this meeting with Rubberman was a trap. When you didn’t return from the ‘bathroom’ quickly, I left the meeting on my own false pretext in order to find you.”

  “How did you know I was in the Data Room? I avoided all of the security cameras.”

  “Because I suspected that this was a data-gathering mission of some sort,” Takeshi replied, “and it appears that I was correct. You and Rubberman are attempting to steal company secrets. Miss Munroe always feared you would try this. She will be relieved to know that I foiled your little plan.”

  “We don’t care about your dumb company secrets,” I said. “We’re looking for proof that you guys are criminals. Your business practices are irrelevant.”

  Takeshi suddenly smiled, which looked weird on his face. “Do you really think we’d let you find anything that would connect us to any crime? Miss Munroe knows how to cover her tracks.”

  “So you guys are criminals,” I said. “I knew it.”

  “I have neither confirmed nor denied anything,” said Takeshi. “All I am saying is that you are the living example of the folly of youth if you think that you will have any luck in finding what you seek.”

  “Then what are you going to do to me?” I said. “Call security and have me hauled off? Maybe even have me arrested by the police?”

  “I originally planned to do something like that,” said Takeshi, “but now that I see that you have grown exponentially as a fighter, I think I will grant you the honor of losing to me in a fair fight. As a trained ninja, I believe in defeating enemies honorably and in a straight fight, rather than simply calling the police on them, as some people are wont to do.” His smile turned into a twisted grin. “But if I beat you, I will have the police come and drag you off to jail … assuming there will even be enough of you left over from my beating to be dragged to jail in the first place.”

  “All right,” I said. “If I beat you, then I can download all of those emails on your computer onto my flash drive.”

  Takeshi’s eyes widened. “All of them?”

  “All of them,” I said. “I don’t know which email has the information I’m looking for, so I’m going to take them all and sort through them later. You don’t look so confident anymore.”

  Takeshi shook his head. “No, I am confident I can beat you. I was just surprised at the audacity of your request. Nonetheless, I will agree to it, though only because I know I will beat you. Thus, there is no chance of any sensitive emails failing into your hands.”

  I took a fighting stance. “Let’s see if that confidence of yours is warranted or not.”

  “If you insist,” said Takeshi.

  Without warning, Takeshi leaped into the shadows between two servers and vanished.

  “Hey, where are you going?” I called. “Running away so soon?”

  No response, but that was fine, because I’d already expected that. Still, it was annoying to hear him brag about how awesome he was, only to run away as soon as the fight started. Maybe all that talk of ‘honor’ had been BS he came up with just to distract me long enough for security to arrive.

  Regardless, I needed to take him out fast, so I ran toward the servers, ready to chase him all over the Data Room if I had to.

  But I only got a few steps away from the computer when Takeshi leaped out of nowhere and kicked me in the gut. I staggered backwards, but Takeshi gave me no time to respond. He assaulted me with a flurry of punches and kicks which came so fast that I couldn’t even see them. I tried to block the blows, but they came so quickly that I couldn’t keep up. I’d never trained like this before, nor had I ever fought a villain or criminal like Takeshi. Each blow came as hard as a sledgehammer. If it wasn’t for my costume, every bone in my body would probably be paste.

  I tried to shoot my lasers at him, but he dodged them easily and hit me with an uppercut which knocked me backwards. I grabbed my chin, which felt broken, but another punch to the gut from Takeshi sent me staggering again. I futilely threw a punch at him, but Takeshi grabbed my outstretched arm and hurled me over my shoulder.

  I briefly flew through the air until I hit the floor hard. I tried to get up, but I was too weak. Every bone in my body was screaming in pain. I’d never been in so much pain in my life. Nonetheless, I somehow found the strength to stand up, though I had to lean against one of the servers for support.

  Breathing in and out hard, I looked at Takeshi. He had not moved from his position near my computer. Unlike me, he didn’t appear even remotely tired, which amazed me, given how hard and fast all of his attacks had come.

  “Ready to give up?” said Takeshi. “You can barely stand. It would be wiser for you to give up, unless you want to die, anyway.”

  I grunted, but said nothing in return. Takeshi hadn’t been joking when he bragged about his strength earlier. And what was worse was that he was clearly holding back in an attempt not to kill me. I shuddered to think about how I would fare against him in an all-out fight where we both went at our full strength. He’d probably kill me in one hit.

  I needed to end this fight quickly. My endurance was already running out. A few more blows from Takeshi—probably no more than three—and I would be out for the count. Yet Takeshi was so fast that he didn’t leave me even one opening. In comparison to him, my attacks were sluggish and awkward, especially now that I was so tired and in so much pain. I would need to take him out with one strong hit. A blast from my lasers should do it, but that would require getting the drop on him, which was impossible, because I was nowhere nearly as good as he was at sneaking around unnoticed.

  I raised my hand to rub my aching shoulder, but then I noticed my invisibility watch, which was still on my right hand. I had forgotten all about it until this moment. A new plan suddenly formed in my mind, as if my subconscious had already made it and had just been waiting to show it to me. It would be a risky move, as these kinds of plans always were, but Takeshi wouldn’t see it coming … literally.

  Gathering up my resolve, I rushed toward Takeshi, pulling my fist back like I was going to punch him. The bluff worked. Takeshi raised his hands to defend himself and probably counterattack me. He did not seem to suspect my actual plan.

  At the last second, just when I got within punching distance of Takeshi, I immediately pressed the button on my watch and turned invisible and moved out of the way. Takeshi’s own fist met empty air, causing him to lose his balance and stagger forward slightly from the momentum of his own blow. At the same time, I punched him directly in the side of the head with all of my strength. Because Takeshi did not see the punch coming, it connected right on, causing him to trip over his own feet and fall onto the floor.

  But Takeshi jumped to his feet and turned to face me, yet before he could do anything more, I fired a laser blast at his chest. The blast struck him in the chest and sent him flying. He crashed into one of the servers and fell to the floor, where he lay quite still. He appeared to be out for the count.

  Panting, I stepped backwards as the invisibility wore off. My body still felt like it had been hit by a truck, but as long as Takeshi was down, I had complete freedom to download the emails.

  I hurried back to the computer and, pulling out the USB drive, plugged it into the computer’s USB port. I began downloading the emails, but then static crackled in my ears and I heard Rubberman’s voice in my helmet, saying, “Beams, are you there?”

  “Yeah, boss,” I said, putting my hand on the side of my helmet. “What’s up? Still in your meeting with
Sasha?”

  “No, we’re just about finished,” said Rubberman. “Sasha went to the bathroom, but she’ll probably be back in a few minutes. I need to meet you back in the lobby in a few minutes.”

  “What?” I said. “But I’m still downloading the emails that might have the proof we need to—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Rubberman. “I’ve done everything I could to prolong the meeting, but Sasha is starting to realize I’m not interested in selling anything to her. Just take the flash drive and get out of there.”

  I bit my lower lip and looked at the flash drive. It had downloaded only a few hundred emails so far and I doubted that any of them contained any incriminating information. Nonetheless, I pulled the flash drive out of the computer, stuffed it into my costume’s pocket, and said, “All right, boss, I’ll see you in the lobby in a few minutes.”

  “Good,” said Rubberman. “I hear Sasha coming back to her office, so I need to stop talking to you for now. See you soon.”

  The click in my helmet indicated that Rubberman had shut off his communication radio. I rose from my chair and made my way to the Data Room door, but when I passed by Takeshi, I glanced down at him just to make sure he was unconscious and that he wouldn’t try to follow me or anything.

  That was when I noticed something sticking out of his right pants pocket. It was a flash drive, similar to my own, although black instead of white. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all if I hadn’t been looking, but I stopped when I saw it and, bending over, picked it up and turned it over in my hand. This could be the proof I needed; of course, it might not have anything incriminating on it, but if Takeshi was carrying this around in his pocket, it surely had to be something important, if not crucial, to Munroe Acquisitions. I would show it to Rubberman when we got back to the Elastic Cave.

  Pocketing the flash drive, I walked over to the exit, intending to get back down to the lobby as quickly as possible.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Half an hour later, Rubberman and I stepped out of the elevator onto Level One of the Elastic Cave. While Rubberman walked out without any issue, I practically had to drag myself out of the elevator. Even though I’d managed to get to the lobby of the Munroe Acquisitions building before Rubberman and Sasha, my body still hurt from the beating I’d taken from Takeshi. I had managed to hide it long enough for us to leave the building and get into the Rubbermobile, but now that we were away from Sasha’s watchful eyes, I didn’t feel the need to hide it.

  “Beams, are you sure you don’t need to go to the doctor?” asked Rubberman, looking at me as I limped out of the elevator. “You might have some broken bones or bruises that need to be looked at.”

  “I’ll be fine, boss,” I said, though I winced because speaking actually hurt me. “I’ve taken worse beatings before from school bullies. I just need to take a nap and I’ll be fine.”

  Rubberman looked at me skeptically, but thankfully he didn’t push the issue. “Well, all right, if you insist, but I still recommend that you take it easy for the rest of the day. And if you need to take a day off tomorrow to rest, I will completely understand.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “How did your meeting with Sasha go, by the way?”

  “Not very well, to put it bluntly,” said Rubberman with a shrug. “I didn’t expect it to, but that doesn’t change the fact that Sasha probably saw the whole thing as a gigantic waste of time. I don’t think she suspected why I was actually there, but—”

  “But she probably knows,” I interrupted. “Takeshi probably told her.”

  Rubberman tilted his head to the side. “How would her secretary know?”

  I explained to Rubberman what happened in the Data Room. On our way back to the Elastic Cave, I hadn’t explained much beyond that I’d fought someone, mostly because Rubberman wanted to make sure that we were in a place where no one could overhear our conversations. Now that we were here, I felt safe explaining my adventures in the Data Room to him.

  When I finished, Rubberman rubbed his chin, a disturbed look on his face. “That explains why Takeshi vanished. I thought he might have gone to do some chore for Sasha, but he obviously went after you instead. It’s a miracle you survived.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not that miraculous. Cyberkid’s invisibility watch gave me a distinct advantage over him.” I winced. “Besides, he got in plenty of good hits, hits I’m probably going to feel in the morning even more than I already am.”

  “Yes, probably,” said Rubberman. His shoulders slumped. “It looks like we’re back to where we started, it seems, perhaps even worse now that Takeshi knows what we were really there for. It would not surprise me if he’s already told Sasha about his fight with you in the Data Room.”

  “Do you think that will change anything?” I said. “Will Sasha press charges against us?”

  “I doubt it,” said Rubberman. “That would likely involve having to expose some of her own secrets to the court. If Sasha really is behind that bank robbery, as I still believe, there’s no way she would risk letting it be exposed like that. I imagine, however, that she’ll never invite you or me to her headquarters ever again.”

  “So she doesn’t want your business anymore?”

  “Oh, no,” said Rubberman, shaking his head. “Sasha still wants the Rubberman brand and business. I don’t think she’ll ever give up on it, no matter how much I reject her offers to buy it. She’ll probably change her tactics, however.”

  Then Rubberman sighed. “Not that it matters, because the fact is that our mission more or less failed. We didn’t get any proof that Sasha was behind the Three Fingers gang bank robbery. I didn’t even cut a business deal with her. It was a huge waste of time no matter how you look at it.”

  I almost nodded, but then I remembered something and stuck my hand into my pocket, searching for something I’d dropped in there earlier. “Actually, boss, I don’t think it was entirely a failure. Look.”

  I withdrew from my pocket a flash drive, the very same flash drive I’d taken from Takeshi’s pocket. Rubberman took the flash drive from my hand and looked it over with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “What is this?” said Rubberman as he turned the flash drive over in his hand.

  “A flash drive I found in Takeshi’s pocket,” I said. “I don’t know what is on it, but it’s possible there might be some incriminating evidence in its files. I didn’t have time to stick it into any of the Data Room’s computers and find out myself, though.”

  “Good work, Beams!” said Rubberman as he looked up at me with a smile. “I’ll be sure to have Adams look this over later. It might have just what we need.”

  “No problem, boss,” I said. “I bet that Sasha is probably really pissed off right now that Takeshi lost something so important, huh?”

  “Assuming it is important,” said Rubberman as he slipped the flash drive into the back pocket of his suit. “Considering how Takeshi was carrying it on his person, I imagine it must be at least somewhat important, but we won’t know until later, most likely tomorrow or so. I’ll have Adams spend some time looking through the files for anything that could help us prove Sasha’s involvement in the bank robbery.”

  “Cool,” I said. I winced and grabbed my shoulder, because it had started hurting. “Ow. My shoulder hurts.”

  Rubberman frowned. “Are you absolutely sure that you don’t need to see the doctor? Because I could easily call the hospital now and—”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said, waving off Rubberman’s concern. “But … can I go home early? I don’t think I’ll be able to do much more work today.”

  “All right,” said Rubberman. “You can go home early if you want. I think you earned it, given everything you did today. I’ll call you tomorrow if we find anything interesting.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good. Let me go take off my suit and put on my normal clothes and clock out.”

  With that, I turned away and walked toward the door to my room. Despite my pain
, I felt pretty good about myself. After all, I’d just taken down a strong ninja all by myself, as well as getting a hold of a flash drive which might help us put a powerful criminal behind bars. All in all, it was a pretty good day, especially when I considered how risky the entire plan had been.

  It was only a matter of time now, I knew, before we uncovered Sasha’s plans and exposed them to the whole world. And there was not a thing she could do about it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  My confidence, unfortunately, did very little to dull the pain in my body. I was forced to bike home much more slowly than I normally did, because if I pedaled too fast, my legs would scream in pain and I’d be forced to slow to a crawl or stop outright more than a few times. That was annoying, because I was looking forward to getting back home and going to sleep in my nice, soft, comfortable bed, but it sure seemed like I would not get back home until after dinner at this rate.

  I decided to take a shortcut through the back alleys and streets of Golden City. There was a particular shortcut I knew of which would cut the amount of time it would normally take me to get back home in half. If I took it, I would probably be back home in town for dinner, although I hurt so badly that I didn’t think I would be able to eat Mom’s home cooking tonight.

  So I biked slowly through the deserted back alleys and streets of Golden City, moving as quickly as I could without making every bone in my body protest in pain. It was times like this that I wondered whether Rubberman ever had to deal with this kind of pain whenever he fought supervillains or criminals. His rubber body probably helped him absorb punches and kicks like nothing. As a matter of fact, I wondered how Rubberman even got his powers in the first place. He had never told me his origin story, though it had to be interesting. I’d ask him about it tomorrow, if I remembered.

  I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice the string lying in the middle of the alley until it was suddenly pulled taut just as my bike was about to cross over it. Although I was biking at a leisurely pace, my bike still flipped over and I went sprawling across the street. It was not a very hard fall at all, but given how much pain I was in already, it still hurt like hell, especially when I hit my head against the pavement. Shaking my head, I sat upright, rubbing the back of my head, looking around until I realized that my glasses had fallen off my face, making everything look blurry to me.