Even odds, Matt determines — but whose side is time on? Five minutes. Mackie said backup was five minutes out. How long ago was that?
Chainsaw Charlie comes in, saws roaring. Matt ducks under a wild sweep and responds with a snap punch to his opponent’s groin, one of the few vulnerable spots available, then shoves him away. Driller Killer takes the opening, intending to drive his remaining weapon through Matt’s body and pin him to the street. He dives clear. The drill strikes nothing but unyielding asphalt.
Matt rolls back to his feet, spins around. A familiar low thump accompanies an invisible fist that drives the air from his lungs. Adrenaline mutes the pain but does nothing to diffuse the impact.
“I like this thing,” the Riveter says, pausing to admire the thunder gun before firing again. The blast splinters Matt’s visor, smashes his mask into his face.
He never sees Hammerman’s gut punch coming. Agony somehow sharp and dull at the same time explodes across his midsection and radiates down his legs. His lungs, impoverished for oxygen as it is, empty completely. A gray fog consumes his vision.
Somewhere above him, far above him, somewhere in the fog, a man speaks. The words are a buzz, incomprehensible static. Hands grab him. For a moment he feels weightless. He falls — not far, but the landing is abrupt, the surface unforgiving.
Gray becomes black.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Matt awakens with a cry, his face burning and freezing simultaneously. A violent shudder ripples down his body.
“There we go,” Delroy says, tossing aside the empty bucket.
Matt blinks freezing water out of his eyes and looks around, his surroundings coming into focus slowly. A plate steel floor beneath him. Railings on all sides. A table cobbled together out of a door and some sawhorses. A high ceiling of corrugated steel panels, set at a slight angle, leading to walls of grimy cinder blocks. An old warehouse?
“Should’ve just killed him and left him,” Jonas says.
Delroy mumbles something unintelligible through a sandwich bag of ice cubes pressed to his mouth.
“Jeez, Jonas, he’s a kid,” Mick says. “Looks the same age as my daughter.”
Delroy removes the ice bag to reveal lips swollen to twice their normal size. “He’s a kid who gave us a good run,” he says with a lisp. He grins, flashing a fresh, wide gap three teeth used to occupy, and gives Matt a hard slap across the face. “But you ain’t so bad now, are you, boy?”
On impulse, Matt clenches his fists but finds he cannot raise them. Coarse rope chafes his wrists and binds his ankles to the legs of a wooden chair. He flexes his fingers experimentally and swallows a sigh of relief. They didn’t take his gloves.
“Let me loose and I’ll show you how bad I am, Hammertime,” Matt says.
“It’s Hammerman, punk.”
“Yeah, that’s way cooler. Great, so you got me. Now what’re you going to do with me?” Silence. The men exchange looks, as if each expects the other to respond. “Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?”
“Well? It was your idea to take him,” Jonas says to Mick.
A razor blade? No, too small, too easy to fumble. Matt takes a breath and closes his eyes to better visualize what he needs.
“Okay. Um. Okay, he’s tight with the Protectorate, right?” Mick says. “That means he’s tight with Concorde and he’s some super-rich guy in real life, right? I bet he’d pay some good money to get the kid back alive.”
“You want to ransom me?” Matt says. “Ha! And how would that work, exactly?”
“We call Concorde up, tell him we have you, tell him to give us...I don’t know. Four million?”
“Four million?” Jonas says.
“That’s a million each. We could practically retire on that.”
“And how would he get the money to you?” Matt inquires. “You think he’ll drop off a box full of cash with traceable serial numbers at your front door? Transfer it electronically into a bank account with your names on it? Maybe mail you a reloadable cash card that’ll set off a red flag the minute you use it in an ATM?”
“How about it, genius? How’s this work?” Delroy asks.
“I don’t know,” Mick says. “I’m spitballing here.”
“Okay, screw the ransom idea. Maybe we could hold onto him, use him as a bargaining chip. You know, keep him somewhere safe and tell the cops to leave us alone or we kill him.”
“Yeah, like the Protectorate won’t tear this town apart looking for him,” Jonas says.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“I had a better idea, which was to kill him, but noooo, we can’t kill a kid.”
“Oh, right, like the Protectorate wouldn’t hunt our asses down for killing one of their own. We might as well turn ourselves in right now.”
“Finally, one of you is talking sense,” Matt says. Halfway there. Be patient. Don’t rush. “Man, you morons did not think this through, did you?”
“No, they did not.”
Matt freezes. He knows that voice, characterless and oddly muffled as it is. He hasn’t heard it in a long time, more than a year, but he remembers that voice...
The Foreman climbs the final steps leading to the mezzanine. “If they were the kind of men who thought things through, they might have considered the possibility someone would notice if Mr. Nemo suddenly went missing,” he says, his heat rising. “They might have considered the possibility that Mr. Nemo was a diligent man who always filed meticulous itineraries logging his every meeting and destination, including his ill-advised attempt to reclaim our tech from a bunch of idiots who never should have had it in the first place. They might have considered the possibility that both Mr. Nemo’s phone and his car had GPS trackers. If they had considered all these things, they might have seriously reconsidered killing him and dumping his body, car and all, into a quarry!”
“Pal, you’ve got five seconds to —”
The Foreman silences Delroy with a gesture.
“Mr. Nemo and I did not always see eye-to-eye, and I certainly didn’t like him personally, but I recognized his value to our organization. He was a truly unique, utterly irreplaceable operative. For that reason, I am deeply upset over his loss, which is why I’m here to address this matter personally — and as my young friend back there will testify,” the Foreman says, nodding toward Matt, “I am the last person you want to piss off. Now, if you want to stay on my good side, I suggest someone tells me which of you knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing imbeciles murdered John Nemo.”
His demand is met with defiant silence. He spreads his hands: Anyone? Anyone at all?
“I see,” he says. “It’s to be honor among thieves, is it?”
“Damn right,” Delroy says.
The Foreman sighs. “I find your sense of loyalty admirable. I do,” he says. “A shame it’s so misplaced.”
The first tight, controlled burst of gunfire finds a home in Delroy’s chest after passing effortlessly through his body armor. He sinks to his knees, only vaguely aware of what’s happened to him. Matt screams, a frantic, incoherent warning to his captors — a warning that is drown out by the din of gunfire echoing off the concrete walls. Not one bullet goes to waste.
Since his first day as a super-hero, Matt has rarely experienced fear. Exhilaration — the unique, heady, addictive thrill only danger delivers — yes, but rarely true fear, and never for himself. He once asked Natalie if there was something wrong with him. It didn’t seem right, this total disregard for his own safety.
Of course there’s something wrong with you...super-heroes are not sane people, she said, laughing. Embrace the madness, kiddo. You’ll be better off for it.
What a terrible time to be sane.
The Foreman ejects the magazine from his gun, checks it, and slaps it back into place. “Hello, Matt. Been a while,” he says, sauntering over. “You, young man, are an enormous headache.”
“Yeah,” Matt says, his heart pounding furiously, sweat pouring from his hairline. “I get that a lot.”
/> “You see, you present me with quite the dilemma. On the one hand, you’ve seen and heard a little too much for my own good. I should shoot you dead here and now, but that would create a whole new set of problems.”
“Like?” Please keep talking. He tightens his grip on the straight razor and resumes sawing at the rope. Please, God, keep talking.
“Mr. Nolte said it himself: if I kill you, the Protectorate, the Hero Squad, and the Quantum Quintet would dedicate all their time and their every resource to hunting me down. That’s attention I do not need.” He pauses, steps back, looks around. “Although...”
“Let me guess: make it look like Damage Inc. and I took each other out?”
“It’s not perfect,” the Foreman concedes, “but it could throw your friends off my scent well enough. Hm. Yes, it could work. What do you think?”
“I think I’d rather live, thanks. I have a lot of things I want to do with my life. Attend Comic-Con. Meet Steven Spielberg. Shoot you in the face.”
The thunder gun roars like cannon fire, like a thunderclap in the confines of the warehouse. The Foreman reels. Matt pumps the trigger, driving the Foreman back a step at a time. He stumbles. A final shot to the face knocks him down. His machine pistol clatters to the floor, but he makes no effort to retrieve it. He doesn’t move at all. He lies there, perfectly still.
Sure, just like every killer in every cheap slasher movie in existence is still, right until the final jump-scare.
Matt slices through the ropes binding his legs. He rises, pausing to stomp the feeling back into his feet before advancing on the Foreman, thunder gun at the ready. He forces himself not to look down, forces himself to ignore the bodies and the blood.
Something crunches underfoot. It’s a mask, very much like a gas mask but more stylized, sleek, modern.
Matt rushes forward. He has to know.
The Foreman rolls onto his back with a groan. The sight of his face, his true face, causes Matt’s breath to catch in his throat. His grip on the thunder gun loosens as a wave of fresh shock washes away his resolve.
He knows this man.
The Foreman lashes out with a kick, knocking the thunder gun from Matt’s hand. A follow-up kick goes low, missing Matt’s knee by inches. He limps back, his shin burning.
The Foreman grabs for his own gun. Matt dives to the side as the Foreman pivots up onto a knee. A wild burst misses Matt and punches through a high window caked with grime. Fingers of fading afternoon sun slip through the holes. Matt rolls to his feet. As he comes up, the Foreman squeezes the trigger.
Click.
Matt charges. The Foreman meets the attack head-on and drives a shoulder into Matt’s midsection. Fresh agony rips through his guts. The Foreman drops a clubbing forearm onto the back of Matt’s head. He responds with an uppercut to the floating ribs. Another. Another. The Foreman pushes away, opening himself up to a right hook that instantly swells his eye shut.
Fists punish flesh. Elbows and knees batter muscle and crack bone.
Wheezing, gasping, the Foreman hurls a high, sloppy punch at Matt’s head. He bobs and weaves, dodging the blow, then throws his weight behind a desperate shove. The Foreman collides with the steel railing, a lightning bolt of pain searing its way up his spine. With a final bellow, a war cry that exhausts the last of his energy, Matt delivers a jackhammer lunging side kick. The Foreman takes the strike high in the chest and flips over the low railing, vanishing from sight.
Matt crumples, his head swimming, his body trembling. There’s no pain, strangely, only a sensation like a smothering weight, like he’s under a quilt lined with lead. He throbs all over, his limbs refuse to work, and God it’s so hard to breathe — but nothing hurts.
Backup. Need to call. Help. Someone.
He closes his eyes and envisions his mask. He feels the weight settle into his hand. He fumbles the mask onto his face.
“Concorde,” he pants. “Call.”
The comm system responds. “Trencher?” Concorde says. He sounds upset, Matt thinks. He’s mad at me. I screwed something up. “Where are you? What’s going on?”
“I need...uh...”
What did I need? It was important. Ehh. I’ll think of it.
Darkness descends.
***
I get the call from Edison as I’m leaving the LGBTQ group meeting. Bo and Ty give me a ride to the hospital. They offer to stay and provide moral support, but I turn it down. No need for them to hang around a hospital waiting room stressing out on my behalf.
Edison’s already there — or should I call him Concorde? He’s in his suit, but his helmet’s off. This is confusing. “Sara,” he says, gripping my shoulder.
“Come on, boss, I’m an old hand at this by now. Give it to me straight.”
He gives me the short form, mainly because there’s a big chunk of the story that, for now, is a total mystery. A few hours ago, Damage Inc. hit the courthouse to break out their buddy Van-slash-the Riveter; Matt intervened; something something something; and then Concorde gets a brief, incoherent call from Matt. Concorde traced the signal to an abandoned warehouse in town, where he found Matt unconscious among the bodies of Damage Inc.
“Bodies?” I say. “As in —?”
“Dead. All of them. Shot multiple times.”
“By who? You don’t think Matt —?”
“No.” Concorde pauses. “I believe the Foreman was there.”
My mouth falls open. “What?”
“I found his mask at the scene.”
“Why would the Foreman have been there?”
“Matt’s going to have to fill in that blank when he wakes up, which may be a while.”
I’m about to ask if anyone’s called Matt’s parents when Mr. Steiger blows past me and shoves Concorde into the nurse’s station.
“You son of a bitch!” Mr. Steiger shouts.
“What happened to Matt?” Mrs. Steiger says in a half sob. “Where is he?”
“He’s undergoing some tests right now,” Concorde says, perfectly calm. “He’s suffered some rather serious injuries but the doctors believe he’ll recover in time.”
“Recover from what? What happened to him?”
Concorde repeats the story for the Steigers. I stand ready to lend a telekinetic hand in case Mr. Steiger decides to throw a punch, which is a distinct possibility; the rage radiating off him is so powerful it’s like I’m standing two feet away from a roaring bonfire.
“This is your fault,” Mr. Steiger snarls, jabbing a finger at Concorde. “This is your fault! You put this stupid idea in Matt’s head!”
“No, he didn’t,” I say. “It was Matt’s idea to become a super-hero. It was always his idea. I know because I was there. Concorde never encouraged us.”
“He didn’t do anything to stop them, either.”
“I did, actually. I tried to stop them many times,” Concorde says, “but I doubt I have to tell you how stubborn your son can be.”
“This is all Matt’s fault? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Mr. Steiger, stop,” I say. “Blaming Concorde — blaming anyone isn’t going to help Matt.”
“I promise you, Mr. Steiger, I’ll make sure Matt gets the very best care possible,” Concorde says.
“I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you. I want you out of my son’s life, you hear me? I don’t want you anywhere near Matt ever again.”
Concorde backs away. “Sara. If you’ll escort me outside?”
“Don’t go with him,” Mr. Steiger says.
“I can make my own decisions,” I say.
We step into the elevator and head for the ground floor. “I need to make some calls,” Concorde says, “let everyone know what happened.”
“No. What you need to do is get back to the investigation. Figure out what happened and find the Foreman. I’ll take care of spreading the word.”
“Sara —”
“I said I’ll deal with it.”
He sighs. “You kids have
been dealing with a lot lately. Maybe too much.”
The elevator eases to a stop. We step out.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I say.
“Do you?”
“Not like that, but yeah. Matt took a severe beating and it’s hitting a little too close to home,” I say, stopping short of invoking his son’s name. Nick Bose died trying to emulate his dad. From what I understand, Nick and Matt shared more than a few passing similarities, which is why Concorde rode us so hard in the beginning. He wanted to derail the Hero Squad before we really got rolling; he was terrified of history repeating itself.
Concorde makes a point of not looking at me. I’ll take that as confirmation of my theory. Hypothesis. Whatever.
“This isn’t the first time one of us has been injured and it won’t be the last,” I say. “Like I said, I can make my own decisions — and so can Matt. He chose this life. He knew what he was getting into, so don’t go beating yourself up because Matt...well, got himself beaten up.”
He nods. “I’ll leave you to it.”
I take a seat in the main lobby so I can start making my calls. It isn’t easy; my hands won’t stop shaking.
Take a breath. Relax. Take comfort in the certainty that yeah, Matt got wailed on, but knowing him, someone else got wailed on even worse.
***
Dr. Geist stiffens as if standing at attention, like a good soldier — a good soldier who knows his general is not in the mood to tolerate the tiniest display of disrespect or incompetence. She never is, but she usually administers discipline from afar, through one of her lieutenants — never directly, never in person.
Action Figures - Issue Six: Power Play Page 22