by Simon Archer
The more time I spent with Margo, the more I wanted to know her better. She was a fountain of information and odd quirks, and she was insanely adorable, despite her sometimes bossy demeanor. I would have to think more about it when I wasn’t sitting next to her, but I thought maybe I’d like to see her again outside of interviews and information grabbing. Maybe I’d bring the girls with me so they could feel her out, too.
Night had fallen over Alexandria a while ago, but my business with Margo was far from over. I had a lot of questions of my own that had yet to be answered. I caught a glance of her sipping her cold brew with extra foam and smiled at the way her lip curled as the bold taste hit her tongue. A part of me wished that this wasn’t a business transaction, but a hangout between friends. Maybe it was just that, and I was overthinking it, but I had to laugh at myself. Margo had called it a date, and I guess at the end of the day, it kind of was.
“I can see you squirming.” She giggled over the top of her cup. “A promise is a promise. I’ll tell you all I know about the bank incident and everything connected to it.”
I couldn’t help but grin at the delightful sound of her laugh. “I’d really appreciate it. I think it will help us figure out we should do about it from here.”
“I have to be honest with you, Nick.” Margo sighed a little as she put her cup down on the table. “I don’t know if the information that I have will really be of any use to you. Most of what I know is hearsay through my sources.”
I shrugged. “You trust those sources, right? As long as you aren’t feeding me a complete line of bullshit, then I think we can call this a successful evening.”
Margo nodded and tucked a strand of her brilliant blue hair behind her ear. “I told you already that I was kidnapped on purpose to get what I wanted from Diamond. I knew he was something of a joke, a super that heroes often laughed off because of his haughty, loud presence. When I’d heard that Diamond was involved with a bank robbery with some other run-of-the-mill thugs, I had a hunch that it wasn’t Diamond’s style to work with people he felt were beneath him. Turned out I was right.”
“What do you mean?” I asked curiously. “What makes you think that he has a problem working with others?”
“Not that he has a problem working with others, per se,” Margo corrected. “More like he’s the type of villain that’s a peon himself. Peons don’t normally have peons of their own.”
“So it’s true that he was leading the bank robbers,” I muttered to myself. “But what did he want out of it?”
“That’s what I wanted to find out, so when I saw the minions guarding the back door, I made my presence known so I’d be caught,” she explained. “I wanted to listen in on what they were saying.”
“You’re ballsy,” I commented. “You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t, thanks to you.” Margo smiled, and a blush crept up the back of my neck. “Anyway, they brought me in and handed me straight over to their boss, who took instructions from Diamond to tie me up and gag me. I complied, because what other choice did I have, and they left me on the ground in front of the teller counter while they talked about what they were going to do next.”
“How long had you been tied up for before we got there?” I asked with a frown as I looked at her wrists. They had mostly faded, but there were still some pink marks where the crudely tied rope had irritated her tanned skin.
“Long enough,” Margo drawled, and she squirmed a little in her chair. Her fingers drummed on the side of the cup, trying to fill the silence as she thought about how best to continue her story. “Diamond and the leader of the gang, I think he went by Gi, took turns going over what the plan was and made everyone in the building repeat it, so they knew without a shadow of a doubt what they were doing and where they were going.”
“So they had an elaborate plan after all?” I frowned and leaned back in the chair. “What was the plan? Gi wanted to kill Judgment, right? That’s what Diamond said that night on the roof.”
“You’re not wrong,” Margo went on, “but it was so much more than that. The thugs were really only interested in the money. Gi made that clear when he heard that you guys showed up. He started to get cold feet about making an attempt on Judgment’s life. It was really Diamond who had it out for him.”
“But why?” I shook my head and grimaced.
“From what I’ve deduced, he has some kind of resentment towards Judgment for arresting him. Some petty theft years ago.” Margo paused. “Doesn’t seem like something that’s cause for an elaborate plan like that, right?”
We were both silent for a moment, minds buzzing with information and how and where to put it. Margo closed her eyes and collected her thoughts while I tried to piece things together.
“Diamond’s not working alone,” I muttered. It was more to myself since I was unsure of what to make of that. “Those goons were just a cover for him. He’s a part of something bigger.”
Margo nodded and opened her eyes again, only this time she had a dark expression, vastly different from the one that she’d worn every other time I’d seen her. The grip on her cup tightened as she stared aimlessly at the table.
“Did you see the tattoo on his upper arm?” she asked. “It was sort of hidden by the diamond armor, but if you looked closely enough, you’d have been able to make it out.”
I hummed. “I do remember seeing something. It was the upside-down triangle with the fist going through it, right?”
“That’s right,” she repeated slowly. “It isn’t just a tattoo, Nick.”
I quirked my brown in question. “Then what is it?”
“A symbol, an initiation of sorts,” she replied readily. “I’ve seen that mark before, years ago.”
“Where?”
“On the man that murdered my parents.” Margo sighed quietly but heavily.
My heart sank, and my stomach dropped having heard that. So, this was a personal endeavor for Margo.
“I’m so sorry.” I scooted my chair closer and put my arm around her shoulders. Her head fell easily to mine as she leaned into me.
“Thirteen years ago, a man named Daniel Phillips, an associate under my parents’ company, came to visit them at the house under the guise that he had a proposition for them,” she began. “They chatted and talked for a long time, and they laughed and treated each other like old friends. But something went wrong. Suddenly the tension shifted so much that I was able to feel it upstairs in my room with my headphones on. When I took them off, the sound of my mother scream tore through the halls, followed by seventeen gunshots.”
“Holy shit,” I gasped and held Margo tighter. My heart ached for her and her loss. No amount of apologies or condolences would make something like that feel better.
“I was too terrified to come out of my room, even after the cops showed up. It was a while after they’d initially arrived that they found me standing in the middle of my room in shock. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t feel…” Margo stopped to center herself, and I rubbed her shoulder comfortingly.
“We can stop if you want to,” I told her, offering her the same courtesy that she had offered me at the beginning of this discussion.
“I’m okay,” she insisted. “It’s just been a long time since someone actually cared to listen to what I had to say.”
I frowned at that. “That’s not usually something a journalist would say.”
“I can get readers and spin a story,” she explained. “That isn’t the issue, but after the incident, no one wanted to talk to me, like I was tainted now that I had seen something so dark. They treated me with kid gloves or avoided me altogether. That’s why I do what I do now, so people are forced to look at me and listen to what I have to say.”
Margo took a deep breath before continuing. “Anyway, the whole point of this was to ultimately tell you that Daniel Phillips had a tattoo on the inside of his right wrist that is identical to the one that Diamond had on his arm. When we arrived at the scene of the robbery, I caught
a glimpse of it from the van. That was the real reason I’d gotten caught. I’d wanted to find out more about him and that tattoo.”
“Did you get what you wanted?” I asked cautiously. I didn’t want Margo to think that I didn’t care about her personal story, because I did. What happened to her was absolutely tragic. I wouldn’t wish that on even my worst enemies.
Margo paused. “Not exactly, but I did get a name: Rosie. Whoever she is, she’s working with Diamond. He kept going on about how he was finally going to one-up her and show their boss that he was better than her.”
“Sounds like we’re working with a group then,” I concluded.
“A crime syndicate is more like it,” Margo corrected. “Who knows how many of them there are?”
“Well, if I have anything to say about it, there will be no more of them when I’m through,” I assured her confidently, though I wasn’t entirely sure that I could uphold something that tall.
Regardless, Margo appreciated the gesture and smiled at me as she finally lifted her head from my shoulder. Immediately, I missed the weight of it being there.
“Thanks for hearing me out, Nick,” she said sheepishly. “I… haven’t ever told anyone. No one wanted to hear it.”
I reached out and tucked a stray strand of brilliant blue hair behind her studded ear. “Thank you for having the courage to tell me.”
Something hung between us then, a thread that was fraying and threatening to snap. She leaned in closer, and I felt myself instinctively doing the same.
It was at the same time I’d caught myself that police sirens caught my ears. My head zoomed towards the windows just in time to see a parade of cop cars fly past us. Before I could even ask, Margo had already dropped a wad of cash on the table as a tip and was racing by me to follow where they were going.
“Hey, wait for me!” I yelled as I took off after her, but not before waving to the employees that had treated us kindly and left us to our business for the hours we occupied in the corner of their establishment.
We left Java Junction and made a sharp left along the sidewalk. Blue and red lights blinded us as we followed the trail of police responders to their destination, and I could see my breath as I ran from the harsh chill in the air. Our journey wasn’t terribly long, as they all stopped only a few blocks up from where we had been. People had started to gather around the area to witness what was going on, but the policemen were already on top of keeping civilians away from whatever danger was taking place.
As Margo and I reached the corner where everyone had congregated, we immediately saw what the issue was. At first, I thought maybe there had been something in my coffee, a hallucinogen or alcohol perhaps. Halfway down the block, behind the police barricade, was a tall, unassuming tower. I hadn’t even given it a second thought when seeing it out of the corner of my eye as Margo and I sprinted to see what the commotion was, but seeing it up close there was most definitely something off, and it wasn’t just me.
The tower was covered in what looked like red rock candy. Sharp, jagged ridges protruded from the tower in an upward direction, and I was vaguely reminded of an old children’s movie about an ice queen who built her own kingdom of isolation. The difference was that this tower looked far more menacing, definitely the work of a villain and not an outcast heroine.
“Excuse me,” Margo huffed as she tried to catch her breath. She flashed her studio identification to one of the policemen and introduced herself. “Margo Wicker, ALX22. Can you tell me what’s going on here?”
My chest heaved as I halted behind her, and the policemen looked me up and down skeptically. Margo sense the hesitation and stepped in.
“He’s with me,” she explained. “Nick Gateon, star student at Valcav Academy.”
The police officer seemed to relax a little knowing the additional information, but he shook his head.
“Unfortunately, we know about as much as you can gather just by looking at it,” he stated grimly. “About fifteen minutes ago, we lost communication with this tower, so we sent I.T. to come to check it out. They called back totally freaked. Now we see why. We’ve got a few heroes coming to check it out, but I don’t know what they’ll be able to do, or even what it is.”
“Is the tower important?” I asked more curious than anything. I wasn’t going to pretend that I knew every little thing about Alexandria.
“Maybe not in the grand scheme of things,” the officer chuckled a bit, “but in the city, it controls the whole Citrine Sector. Traffic lights, cellular output, that sort of thing. Even if it’s out for five minutes, it’s enough to cause some serious chaos.”
I nodded and looked back to the tower in time to see that Triton had arrived on the scene. Despite the situation, a tiny smile pulled on the corners of my lips. If Triton was there, that meant Kara was there as well, seeing as she was on his ride-along team. It would also mean that Akemi was there too.
Sure enough, I saw both of them in uniform follow closely after Triton. They stopped at the foot of the tower and were briefed further by authorities, and Triton immediately set to work giving them instructions.
“What’s going on?” Margo asked as she balanced on her tiptoes to see what was happening beyond the crowd that collected more people. Being as tall as I was, I thought I might be of help so that she could get the best view she could.
“Brace yourself,” I warned before I dropped to my knee and stuck my head between her legs. Margo yelped, but I ignored it as I quickly situated her on my shoulders and stood again. She gripped my head as she reluctantly situated herself, and I wrapped my arms around her legs to keep her from falling off, not that I thought she would. It was just a precautionary measure.
“Next time, warn me,” she said with an incredulous bark of laughter.
“I did,” I replied with a smirk in my tone. “Are you really complaining about having the best seat in the house?”
“I suppose not.” Margo put her hands on top of my head and watched the scene unfold at the base of the tower.
We were silent for a moment, attentive to anything that might give us more of a hint about what was happening. I thought briefly about joining Triton, Kara, and Akemi, but I didn’t want to intrude on their ride-along. Tonight was their time to put their skills to the test, not mine. It was only fair that they were given a fair opportunity. Aside from that, it crossed my mind that there were people who still believed I would turn sides. I didn’t want to give anyone any ideas that because I was there that I had something to do with it.
Though I had scanned the area well, I hadn’t found any signs of a culprit which in of itself was odd. Villains, from my experience, were the types to gloat and taunt the heroes as they tried to figure out how best to handle the situation at hand. In this scenario, however, there was no one pressuring them, at least to my knowledge.
“Look,” Margo commanded quietly, and the tip of her finger appeared in my line of vision. I followed the trail, and it led me to the top of the tower.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking at initially, because I didn’t see anything other than red ice encasing a black communications tower. I narrowed my eyes and focused my vision. Sure enough, on the very top of the tower, there was a figure. I couldn’t make out what it was, but there was definitely something up there.
“Is it a person?” I asked. That seemed most likely. What else would be standing on top of a communications tower in the middle of Alexandria? Then again, I’d been presented a talking cat today, so I supposed anything was possible.
People around us had started to look up and catch on to the figure on top of the tower as well, and as their voices carried and their concerns grew, it caught Triton’s attention. He also followed the line of sight and saw the figure watching over the crowd. He muttered something to Akemi, though it was impossible to tell what he said, being so far away. Whatever it was, Akemi wasn’t happy with the order because she gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes. She touched his arm, and there was a brief flash.
“Nick?” Kara asked, perplexed when I arrived with Margo hanging onto me. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ll fill you in later,” I promised her, then turned to Triton. “Sir, let me help.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Gateon,” Triton exhaled patiently without looking away from Akemi. She hadn’t wasted a moment making her way up the tower, using Triton’s control over water in a brute force fashion to launch herself like a water rocket.
I patiently clenched my jaw and decided it was best not to argue. I instead put my focus on Akemi’s fight. All the while, Margo was still perched atop my shoulders like a child watching a parade.
“What do you think is going on?” She asked excitedly.
Margo had no idea the kind of power Akemi possessed, or how dangerous she had made the situation because she refused to follow orders that didn’t come from my father. Though Akemi was a sweet girl off the battlefield, when she wasn’t trying to show off to anyone, she was a monster in a fight, ruthless and cold. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to win, and that was absolutely frightening. Were all of the Brand kids like this? So reckless and uncaring of the safety of others? What the hell was my father teaching them at his Academy?
To be his kind of hero, the voice inside my head answered, which was pretty much a villain. I couldn’t help but think that was essentially correct, for before the treaty, why would he be raising our kind of hero on Inferno Island? He wanted his students to help him in succeeding in world domination.
“I’m not sure,” I finally answered Margo. It was a lame cop-out of an answer, but I didn’t feel like divulging any more to her tonight than I already had.
As Akemi flew up the height of the tower, the villain atop the tower unleashed a barrage of ice shards down at her. Akemi deftly avoided them, either with twisting dodges or unleashing a fist of scalding hot water that melted them on contact. Not bad at all, Akemi was already managing to figure out advanced techniques for using Triton’s power.