by Wyatt Kane
Despite the work he’d put in, Ty was nervous. He would very much have preferred to fly back to the boulder in the middle of the lake to facing the monstrous villain. In fact, he would have preferred to fly pretty much anywhere, and maybe just disappear for a while.
But that would have been no more than a delaying tactic. Sooner or later, if he wanted to keep his device, he would have to face Bain.
It was a grim reality that did nothing to make Ty feel less nervous.
As soon as he caught his balance, he straightened his shirt and looked at Tempest. “How do I look?” he asked.
“Like you’re about to attend your own funeral. Relax. Smile. Pretend everything is normal. If the club is being watched, we don’t want to tip anyone off that today is special in any way.”
Ty took a deep breath. She was right. He nodded and did his best to stand taller, with his chin up and his shoulders back. “Right. Here I go.”
With that, Ty marched toward the club with determination in his stride. But that wasn’t right either. Normally, he just sauntered to work, trudging through the New Lincoln gloom, driven by need more than desire. For him, while some aspects of his job were ok, because of Angie more than anything else, it mostly just sucked.
Appearing determined and strong would be just as wrong as being nervous and hesitant.
So Ty did what he could to put himself back in his usual mindset. He had to go to work so he could pay the bills, but he wasn’t looking forward to it at all. He jammed his hands into his pockets and slowed his pace while at the same time looking at the pavement in front of his feet.
Much better, he thought as he drifted along. He was now just an anonymous figure walking among others, most of them with similar dejected expressions.
As he walked, he checked that his device was out of sight. Zach’s sleeve was just long and wide enough that when the cuff button was done up, the device was hidden from view. Ty wanted to make sure it stayed that way.
He knew that somewhere behind him, Tempest was keeping watch, looking out to see if she could spot anyone waiting for him. If no one showed themselves, she would wait a few minutes, then enter the Club like anyone else. As unobtrusively as possible, she would try to keep Ty in sight.
Her hidden presence gave Ty comfort as he mounted the steps and entered the building.
At once, his senses were assaulted by the noise and stench of the place. It was overwhelming and faintly disgusting and yet familiar at the same time. It seemed unreal to be back there again. So much had happened since Ty had last stepped foot inside.
He was a different person than he had been before. Not just in terms of skills, but in terms of everything. Two days ago, he had been a working stiff doing the best he could to make his way in the world. Now he was a member of a superhero team, with a pair of spectacular women by his side, intent on tracking down a monstrous villain.
It was more than unreal. It was like a Salvador Dali painting where reality had slipped off the table and onto the floor.
As he did every day at the start of his shift, Ty’s first job was to seek out Angie. This was supposedly to give her the chance to tell him what he was doing for the day. In reality, it was more about control than assigning tasks. She was a walking time clock, and she expected everyone to punch in.
Ty didn’t need her to tell him what to do. He knew what he would be doing. He would fix any of the amusement machines that had broken, deal with the garbage, clean the bathrooms, and mop up any pools of vomit or spilled drinks on the floor.
Other than that, if he was lucky, he would get to collect empty glasses, but that was about it.
His normal, pathetic life was hardly a great alter ego for someone who was part of a superhero team.
Ty heaved a sigh and saw Badger, one of the bouncers, heading toward him through the early crowd. Badger was a big man, though not in Bain’s league, and was probably on his way to his station at the door. His modifications were limited to tribal facial tattoos that made him look tough. Yet his first instinct on seeing Ty was to give him a broad smile and head over.
“Ty, how are you doing? We missed yesterday. You all good?”
Ty nodded. “Yeah. Just had a case of the rumbles,” Ty lied. “I just needed to not come in for the day,” Ty said.
“I hear that,” Badger said, although he was among the least likely to take time off without due cause.
“You know where she is?” Ty asked, referring to Angie.
“I think she’s down in the office. There was a discrepancy or something in the take from last night. It’s got her raging, looking for someone to fire.” The big man grinned. “Probably a good thing you weren’t here.”
Ty groaned. Whenever anything like that happened, Angie made life a living hell for everyone. It could be days before she returned to her normal level of maliciousness.
“Thanks for the heads up,” he said. He couldn’t help but think how easily he’d slipped back into his old life, complete with his usual worries and issues.
Badger nodded amiably, but before Ty turned away, the bigger man gave him a puzzled expression. “Did you change something? Get a haircut or something?” Badger asked. “You look different.”
Ty grinned at him. “Yeah, I got these new shoes,” he said. “They make me look taller.”
Badger still looked puzzled, but he accepted Ty’s words. “Well, it looks good on you. Keep wearing them.”
“Thanks,” Ty said. With that, he left the bouncer alone and made his way through to the interior of the Club, which was already pulsing to the beat of strange music and strobe lights.
He found Angie where Badger had said, sitting at her desk in her office, going over the books. The green skinned, toad-like woman looked up at him with a glare that could have split rocks, and when she recognized who he was, her lips broke into a sneer.
“You!” she said.
On another day, the single word would have been enough to make Ty cower. Even now, the expression of hostility and rage made him want to be somewhere else. But now, instead of making him nervous, Angie’s attitude just annoyed him. He had bigger things to worry about.
“Yes, me. I’m here to start my shift. Is there anything in particular you want me to do?”
“Ty Wilcox, you are as useless as a week-old salad that’s been left in the sun. I swear, if we weren’t already shorthanded, I’d fire you on the spot. For all I know you are somehow responsible for this mess!” She gestured vaguely at the books in front of her.
Ty almost laughed. “Badger told me there was a discrepancy. If you remember, I wasn’t even here last night. The problem isn’t me.”
The grotesque woman blinked at him in surprise, as if shocked that he would even think to talk back. She stared at him as if uncertain that it was him after all. Maybe she noticed the same changes that Badger had commented on.
If she did, she didn’t mention it. Instead, her sneer hardened into a mask of anger.
“If you talk back to me again, I will fire you. You just see if I don’t.”
Ty bit back a retort. It was a near thing, but he decided that the woman wasn’t worth his energy. “Yes, ma’am. Is there anything you want me to look at in particular today?”
The woman continued to glare at him for some seconds. Then she gave a snort, and said, “That’s better. The dance simulator is acting up again. No doubt you didn’t fix it properly last time. See what you can do with it. Then you can return to your natural habitat. Clean the toilets.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ty said again, the perfect representation of a whipped employee who held no real hope for the future.
As he left the awful woman’s office, he wondered what might happen when Bain did show up. Personally, he wouldn’t care if the monstrous man destroyed the whole place, but the idea was for Tempest to take the villain elsewhere to limit collateral damage.
Ty himself had no plans of sticking around once that happened. He could cite fear as his excuse, but really, he couldn’t let Tempe
st face Bain all by herself. Maybe Angie would fire him anyway, although he judged it unlikely. She seemed to enjoy demeaning him too much.
With a heavy sigh, realizing that this part of his life hadn’t changed much after all and trying hard not to look for Tempest with every passing second, Ty got to work.
Fixing the dancing machine was simple. He could have done it with his eyes closed, one hand tied behind his back, and using nothing but a broken screwdriver. Yet he tinkered away with its workings for about as long as he normally would have taken and wondered what he could do to improve its overall performance.
Perhaps he could turn it into something more entertaining than a gaming machine focusing on dance. It was ancient technology, built around a CPU that had been obsolete for years, yet Ty still thought he could do interesting things with it.
Instead, he just shut the access panel and turned the machine back on.
Then there were no more excuses. He had to head to the bathrooms.
Almost, he wished that Bain would hurry up and make an appearance. It would get him out of this least favorite task. But so far, there had been no sign of him.
It was probably a little early, he thought, then made his way to the storage closet where the cleaning products were kept. Even if one of Bain’s men had already spotted him, there was no telling where the monster himself might be. It could take several hours for him to get there.
The thought might have been enough to make Ty despair, but he caught a glimpse of Tempest sitting at the bar, and that made him smile. She looked like the ultimate goddess with a drink in one hand, and she was surrounded by guys who were taking turns to try to chat her up.
Even though he knew that none of the guys stood a chance, Ty felt a twinge of jealousy that they were with her while he was not. He wanted to go over and talk with her, just to rub their noses in it, but everything had to appear to be normal.
Nevertheless, he caught her eye for a moment. She gave a silent small shake of her head and shrugged.
He understood. No sign of Bain or any of his henchmen.
Yet.
29: A Change Of Plans
The time passed very slowly for Ty. Normally, when working a shift, he would turn his brain off and just zombie through until he reached the end of the day. He would squeeze out whatever enjoyment he could from talking to the customers before Angie the Hutt inevitably found him something revolting to do.
This day was different. He couldn’t shut himself off. At any moment, he expected something to happen. Something to signify that Bain had arrived and that Tempest was dealing with it.
But there was nothing. It was like any other evening, the Club filling up with people looking to have a good time. With all the body modifications on display and the music thumping throughout, it looked and felt like a party of demons dancing and howling and drinking.
Ty found himself checking the time every five minutes until he accidentally bumped into one of the servers and knocked a tray full of drinks flying.
“Sorry,” he said. The server was a pretty girl whom he knew only vaguely. Angie had tainted Ty’s name so thoroughly that few wanted to spend time getting to know him. At first, the server rolled her eyes and made a noise of frustration, then she looked at him more closely.
Just like Angie, Badger, and even Brad had done, she frowned in confusion and reassessed.
“It’s okay,” she said.
But of course, it wasn’t. Angie the Hutt just happened to be near enough to see his clumsiness. She came over with all the grace of an angry hippo and roundly scolded him.
“That’s coming out of your wages!” she yelled. “You’re worse than useless! I don’t even know why you’re on the floor at all! What do you think this is, happy hour for losers? You should be cleaning the shit off the floor in the bathroom!”
Ty had made the mistake of talking back once already this evening. “Yes ma’am,” he said and turned away before she could say anything else.
The minutes ticked by with glacial sluggishness. Ty was starting to wonder if his shift would ever come to an end when all of sudden there was an alert on his device. He was in the smaller of the bathrooms, and a quick check was enough to tell him that the stalls were all empty.
He thumbed the controls and a holographic image immediately appeared.
It was Tempest. And Ty could see from her expression that all was not well. “Is he here?” Ty said.
Tempest shook her head. “No. He isn’t coming. There’s no time – meet me out front. Go now.” With that, the holographic display disappeared, leaving Ty confused and deeply concerned. Without a second thought, Ty left his mop and bucket where they were and hurried out of the bathroom.
Luck was with him. Angie was nowhere to be seen. Ty kept his head down as he moved swiftly through the club. He didn’t even stop when he passed Badger at the door, even though he sensed the bouncer wanted to say something.
“Gotta go!” he said quickly. “It’s an emergency! Tell Angie if you see her.”
With that, he was back outside on the street.
The Concubine Club was popular, and there was a line of people waiting to get in. That didn’t interest Ty in the slightest. All he cared about was finding Tempest.
At first, he couldn’t see her. He looked left and right. “Tempest?” he said, unsure whether he should be shouting or not. “Tempest?”
Then Ty was hit hard in the back. He grunted in surprise and would have fallen except that it was Tempest who hit him. Nor was it her intention to hurt. She was already in the air and had simply picked him up at speed.
“Bain isn’t here!” she shouted, and even though Ty couldn’t see her expression, he heard the worry in her voice. “Somehow he found out where we live. He’s got Dinah!” she said. “He’s taken her!”
Dinah. Beautiful, gentle Dinah, the calm to Tempest’s fire, the yin to her yang. One of the two most incredible women Ty had ever known.
For Ty, flying with Tempest had always been an amazing experience. But now, it felt as if his stomach had dropped. He had never even considered what might happen if Bain found the mansion. All he could do was hold on tight to Tempest’s arms around him.
“Go faster!” he shouted back. All thoughts of work and what Angie might do disappeared under an avalanche of fear for Dinah’s safety. This was worse than anything he could have imagined. He was prepared to face Bain himself, and Tempest could take care of herself.
But Dinah? The deerkin was the most fragile of them all.
Tempest didn’t need to be told more than once. Ty learned then that she had been holding back, perhaps in deference to his more delicate constitution. Now, the blonde superhero sped through the night as fast as she could.
It was all Ty could do to jam his eyes tightly shut and grit his teeth against the cold and the wind.
It was a crazy, mad trip through the darkened sky. But it was also mercifully brief. When they arrived at the penthouse, the landing was rough. Nor did Tempest make any allowances for Ty’s balance. She let him go so abruptly that he stumbled and might have fallen if he hadn’t almost been expecting it. Yet there was no pause in Tempest. She virtually flew to the doors, barely pausing to allow them to open.
“Dinah! Dinah! Where are you?”
Ty followed and joined in with the shouting. “Dinah!” But other than Gremlin appearing in the doorway, there was no response. Worse, the entranceway felt different. Ty couldn’t specify what that difference was, exactly, but he just knew there had been intruders.
With growing trepidation, Ty and Tempest headed deeper into the mansion. “Should we separate?” Ty asked. “Cover everything more quickly?”
“No!” Tempest replied. “I want you with me!” Ty knew that the woman’s answer wasn’t necessarily logical, but that didn’t matter. If Tempest wanted him by her side, that was where he would be. “Dinah!”
Seconds later, Tempest changed her mind. She took to the air and disappeared, perhaps realizing that she could search mo
re swiftly that way. Doggedly, Ty did his best to keep up, but it was a losing battle right from the start. All he could do was trail along in her wake, following the sound of her voice as she kept calling Dinah’s name.
Everywhere they went, there were signs that the place had been searched. The furniture had been shifted. Ornaments lay on their sides or in pieces. Even the paintings had been moved, some of them torn, and others just left dangling at angles.
The destruction wasn’t massive and could probably have been sorted out within a few days. Yet that the intruders would be so systematic with their destruction spoke of a malice that Ty could barely believe. He didn’t understand what had happened. All he could do was look around and call out Dinah’s name even though by then he was sure it would do no good.
Somehow, Dinah was gone. Somehow, when they thought the villain was after Ty, Bain had gone after her.
After several minutes had passed, Tempest found him again. Ty had made his way to the comfortable den where the three of them had spent the previous evening. Here too, everything had been disturbed. But not much was actually damaged, and Ty wasn’t familiar enough with the place to know if anything was missing.
Anything other than Dinah.
Tempest was no longer flying. She entered the den with her face smeared with tears. Yet she wasn’t grieving. She was angry. At him. She came at him in a rage, a perfect blonde bombshell who thought him a target. Not understanding, Ty instinctively brought up his hands and stepped backward.
Not quick enough. Tempest pushed him hard enough that he lost his balance and fell to the floor.
“Was it you?” Tempest demanded. “Did you do it?”
Ty stared up at her in confusion. He could have activated his mesh suit, to protect himself from her anger, but chose not to.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s happened to Dinah? What’s going on?”
“How did they find out where we are? The only thing different is you. Are you in league with Bain?