“Thirty seconds,” I warned as I overrode the final protocol. I now had complete control of the museum’s security system. Gina Vasquez unfolded herself from the impossible pretzel she’d been twisted in and perched on the side of an open maintenance hatch. I tried not to stare, but it was difficult. Gina had been a sideshow contortionist who earned the name AcroBot after a tragic accident left her more machine than human. She was perfect for jobs like this because she could twist and manipulate herself into pretty much any shape with a robot-like precision, but believe me when I say it’s a little unnerving to watch.
“We’ve got company.”
She gestured with a slight head tilt toward the horizon. I gave a disgusted grunt as a particularly tacky blaze of red hot flame shot towards us at breakneck speed. I keyed in the last few commands to override the security system and jammed the phone into an already overstuffed pouch on my utility belt.
“Never mind that, it’s go time,” I told her. “I’ll take care of amateur hour.”
“Shame I’m going to miss the show, but I forgot my popcorn anyway,” she teased, throwing me a wink as she slithered into the maintenance hatch. Not even a second later, her head popped back out. “Hey, ‘Byte? Do be mindful that this is the cultural district. Try to leave some of the buildings standing, ‘kay?” She gave me another exaggerated wink and disappeared. I would have laughed, but she had a point. Stealing art was one thing. Destroying it was unforgivable.
Which meant I was going to have to move this party or find a delicate way to dispatch the so-called good guys. Since my talent doesn’t involve flight, superhuman speed, or the ability to climb buildings, moving the fight out of the arts district was out of the question.
Which meant things were about to get messy.
I spied a puddle, a pathetic remnant of the previous night’s rain, and got an idea. Channeling my inner child, I jumped, stomping down with enough force to send water splashing in every direction, which I immediately froze into spiky darts that I flung at the oncoming threat.
As far as weapons go, the darts were hardly effective, but getting pelted in the face with shards of ice isn’t exactly pleasant and it had the desired effect. The pair of supposed heroes wobbled into an out of control spin before crashing into the roof. I stepped aside, but not before sending out a blast of ice, creating a slippery runway for the ‘Figs to land on. I could barely contain my laughter as the two bumbling idiots went sliding past me to crash into the parapet.
“Well look-ee there,” I said, affecting a tone of mock surprise. “If it isn’t Awkward Man and The Hot Mess.”
A blast of heat whizzed haphazardly past my ear.
“Screw you, Elsa.”
“Aw, is someone a little hot under the collar? Gotta let off some steam, Tabby cat?”
Okay, so cheap puns really weren’t my forte, but I was so over the Frozen jokes. Especially since I’ve heard them for years now. Not that I expected originality out of a fire talent who calls herself The Hotness, but come on.
Oh, yeah. The leather-skinned, bottle blonde, acrylic nailed, nipped, tucked, and augmented train wreck in bedazzled spandex actually has the audacity to call herself The Hotness. Even worse, she was my rival.
Sure, she literally has the ability to char broil her enemies, but there were at least ten other fire talents in town and all of them had normal if slightly corny names. I can’t think of another talent on either side whose name was remotely as narcissistic, which is saying something, because she sidekicks for a second string dud who calls himself Awesome Man. I’m just saying, if she had tried to join the team with that name, Hostile Takeover would have laughed her out of the audition and asked her to come back after she’d taken a few lessons on how not to be a walking punchline.
Sadly, it wasn’t always this way. Tabitha Burns—no really, that’s her real last name—and I were once the best of friends. From kindergarten up through the beginning of junior high, the two of us were inseparable. But then puberty happened. I don’t know if it was because I got boobies first or because the boy she was crushing on decided he was into me, though now that I think about it, he was probably into me because of the boobies. Regardless, that was the beginning of the end. One year later, our talents developed and sealed our fate. Fire and ice. Corny as hell, but such is the world we live in.
“Stealing art isn’t going to make you classy, nerd girl.”
Nerd Girl? Okay, yeah, I could totally own that name. I filed it away for later use despite the fact that it made for a sad burn.
Heh, burn. You’d think with fire talent Tabby would be better at them.
“Maybe you should go down to the Improv and steal some jokes that are funny,” I shot back. Oh man, that one was terrible, but it still gave me a giggle. I was going to have to remember it to tell Lane later.
“Um, maybe you should just let it go.”
We both turned around. I’d almost forgotten about Awesome Man. Even Tabby cringed at the bad joke with worse timing and she was paid to put up with him. There’s a reason even the ‘Figs called him Awkward Man. Dr. Edward Ackworth—I know, sometimes the jokes just write themselves—might have been a brilliant physicist, but like most science-minded types, he had zero imagination and zero-er social skills. His only talent was flight. Admittedly, flight can come in pretty handy, but flight alone? Well, he put on a good air show, but that’s about it. Certainly, he harbored no secret talent that warranted the self-bestowed name of Awesome Man.
Tabitha—I refuse to use the other name—opened her mouth to throw another pathetic barb my way, but I held up my hand to silence her before turning to Doc Awk, who was still struggling to stand upon the icy roof.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, the grown-ups are talking.”
Before he could fumble out a retort, I gave him a light shove, using the slickness of the ice to propel him up and over the edge of the building. Yes, I just threw the guy off the roof, but before you label me a violent psychopath, keep in mind that he could fly. I’m sure he only fell a few stories before he remembered that fact for himself.
“Okay, for real, why do you hang out with him?” I asked, turning back to Tabby.
“My lifestyle don’t pay for itself,” she answered with a disinterested shrug, examining her nails like she thought it made her look badass. It might have, back in the eighties. I swear, half the talent in this town was stuck in some sort of a coolness time warp.
“Yeah, I get that you’re klassy with a K, but c’mon.” I sighed inwardly. Tabitha was pretty materialistic, but even she had to see what a loser that guy was. “Look, even if you want to keep pretending you’re a hero, why don’t you go work for Lady Freedom or The Matriarch? At least they won’t exploit you.”
“Seriously? And always be second? No thanks.”
“Oh come on, really?”
Okay, I probably should have known Tabitha saw other women as a threat. I mean, middle school boobs equals sworn enemies for life, right? Whatever. It was her career to kill. At that moment, she had another female threat to deal with.
Me.
Well, sort of. You see, the annoying thing about having a rival with a complimentary talent is that while we could beat the snot out of each other and leave one hell of a path of destruction in our wake, we couldn’t actually do jack squat to damage each other, despite both of us having a fatal talent. Even in a world where people had abnormal and often inexplicable powers, Newton’s third law still applied. Go figure.
Under normal circumstances, I would have welcomed the chance to vent a week’s worth of day job frustrations on Tabby’s invincible booty-shorts clad ass, but ‘Bot’s warning echoed in my mind.
“Tab, you realize you’re too late, right? I’ve already done my part in this thing. You might as well go home and… comb your Chihuahua… or whatever it is you do.”
Okay, I admit, taunting a volatile fire talent probably wasn’t effective damage control, but I was kind of out of my element on that front.
“Are yo
u nuts? After the week I had? Man up, bitch.”
“The week you had?” I spluttered, trying not to laugh at the preposterousness. As far as I knew, she didn’t even have a job. “Don’t even act like you know what stress is. And for real, did you just call me a man and a bitch in the same sentence?”
The only reply I got was a ball of fire to the chest that I automatically countered with an icy blast to the head.
It was on.
All warnings to be mindful went straight out the window as I let go of sixty hours’ worth of cubicle rage on my opponent. I took aim at her feet, sending an icy gust and laughing as she went sliding backwards, arms flailing all over as she tried to keep her balance. She took a shot, but it went wild and ignited a row of banners that had been announcing the Wayne Grey “Shades of Me” exhibition. Well, at least we weren’t destroying anything of value yet, but watching the extremely combustible fabric go up in a matter of seconds at least made me come back to my senses.
“Hey!” I shouted, catching her next blast with one of my own and cringing at the resulting sonic boom. “We can’t destroy the arts district!”
Tabby spun and looked at me with her jaw dragging.
“Did you just insinuate that I would cause massive destruction? I’m the good guy, remember?”
“And, that matters because…?”
“Because I don’t destroy anything, duh!” She actually rolled her eyes at me. “I protect the city from losers like you.”
“Right, by throwing balls of fire around. Tabs, listen, if you’re going to keep protecting the city, you might wanna work on your aim.”
“Oh, I’ll show you…” she began, gearing up for a huge blast, but just as she reached her hands up over her head in a needlessly dramatic display, they were cinched together by a boleadora and she was yanked backwards. AcroBot stood over Tabby, shaking her head.
“Done?” I asked, which was dumb because obviously, she wouldn’t have been standing there if she hadn’t been done.
“Oh, it’s done,” she said with a wicked grin. She tossed her phone over and I flipped through the pictures she’d taken. I had to admit, it was kind of hilarious to see silly portraits of clowns hung in ornate frames, but still not hilarious enough to warrant wasting our time out here. Maybe it was because I never understood the popular fear of clowns, but in my opinion, the portraits were an improvement over Grey’s narcissistic scribbles.
“So what do you want me to do with this?” AcroBot asked, indicating Tabby, who was trying to burn her way through the boleadora. Knowing ‘Bot, that was likely in vain.
“Leave her. I’m sure her ride will be back to pick her up,” I shrugged, tossing back the cell phone. I was just ready to be out of there, but as I spied the empty framework of poles that had previously held the exhibition flags, I had another idea. “On second thought, let’s introduce Tabby here to the time honored tradition of pole sitting.”
‘Bot took a moment to check her phone, no doubt to Google pole sitting, but then broke into a wide smile and said, “I like the way you think, ‘Byte,” before hoisting Tabby over her shoulder and nimbly carrying her up to the highest cross beam. A litany of curses—mostly about what an ugly loser I am—echoed through the otherwise still evening air as I climbed down the fire escape and headed for home.
Despite the rather anticlimactic time waste of an event, at least I got to pull one over on Tabs, so the night wasn’t a total bust. Of course, I only got to enjoy my happy thought for about thirty seconds because as soon as I got to my car, I spied a bright yellow ticket slapped on the windshield, even though the meter had only expired five minutes earlier.
To make matters worse, when I got home, I found my window open, my bed empty and a note on the pillow.
Two can play at being hard to get, it read. On the other side was a post script. PS: I took a memento.
Typical.
Though I was completely baffled as to how Dee managed to get out of the cuffs. Even if he had the key, he sure as hell didn’t have it on him seeing as I left him buck naked. Unless he had it hidden…
Nope, not even gonna go there. Some things should just remain a mystery between even the most dysfunctional of couples. Instead, I just assumed he somehow managed to completely disassemble my headboard and then put it back together. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering exactly what Wildcard’s talent was.
It wasn’t until the next morning, after my shower, that I discovered the “memento” he’d taken was my underwear.
Every. Last. Pair.
Chapter 4
Why, in a city of millions, there was only one coffee joint to service the entire tech corridor, I’ll never know. Monday morning was bad enough without having to stand around like shiftless zombies while some kid meticulously counted and carefully ground every bean that went into the handcrafted cup of liquid art before inevitably calling out the wrong name. Sure, I could have saved myself thirty minutes by stopping at any one of several convenience stores I passed if I really needed caffeine in my system that badly, but I didn’t hate myself that much.
As I stood with the other zombies, I glanced down at a copy of the Daily Megaphone someone had left on the counter and let out a disgusted snort. The sabotage of the Grey exhibit made the front page. Not that I was surprised, since the newspaper was owned by Grey Media Corporation, but still, with all that was going on in the world, you would think there would be at least one editor with enough of a spine to report actual news.
I didn’t have time to give it much more thought than that because as I was trying to figure out if the large double mocha for Geesa was indeed my large double mocha, Monday decided to throw another curveball my way.
Where he found the vintage getup—in mid-July no less—was a mystery, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed with the attention to detail. Lane stood, blocking the doorway in a wool pea coat buttoned to the throat, knit cap gripping his blocky head like a bad bowl cut, and heavy, waterproof boots despite the temperature at seven thirty already nearing ninety. He caught sight of me and waved, which made several other patrons turn my way to see what kind of lunatic would openly admit to knowing this much crazy. Not for the first time in my life, I lamented not having an invisibility talent.
“So? Whaddaya think?” Lane held out his arms and did a little pirouette maneuver that surprisingly, only managed to knock over one table.
“I think there was definitely a mix up at the hospital when we were born,” I muttered. “Lane, seriously, what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m going incognito,” he answered, whipping out a pair of shades—yes, shades, because sunglasses was just too classy a word for the plastic framed throwbacks.
“Okay, bro, let’s just ignore the fact that incognito is a word that will never be used to describe you and focus on the rest of the absurdity.” I took a long draw from my coffee and thanked the heavens I’d had the forethought to order two extra shots of espresso. “First of all, it’s Monday morning. You’ve got a job to get to. I’m not sure how your clients are going to feel when Vinny the Wonder Thug shows up to sell them business services.”
“You know, I gotta wonder what Vinny ever did to become the butt of everyone’s thug jokes,” Lane mused.
“Pointing out uncomfortable stereotypes in an attempt to derail me won’t work, brother dear, so fess up. Halloween is months away.”
“If you must know, I’m not going to the office today. I’m on assignment.”
“On a Monday morning?” I asked with an air of skeptical disinterest, but inside I was panicking, trying to remember if I’d gotten any messages about anything being set in motion this morning. The idea that Take would plan something without me kind of hurt more than I would care to admit.
“Don’t worry, you haven’t been excluded,” Lane assured me with a smirk. It was kind of annoying how easily he could read my mind despite not having one of his own. “You might be on the A-team, but this is a job that takes a certain set of skil
ls.”
“Someone needs a human punching bag?” I quipped. Crash Test was what Lane called himself and there was a very good reason he was typically assigned to lookout and guard duty. His talent was literally the fact that he could take a beating. Sure, it saved on hospital bills, but beyond that, it didn’t have a whole lot of offensive uses.
“Don’t be getting uppity,” he shot back. “I’m just doing a little reconnaissance. Seems Wayne Grey is looking to open a chain of posh grocers.” He handed me a flyer advertising for temporary warehouse and construction workers. It looked legitimate enough. Grey was using a reputable labor agency to hire recruits. The name of the grocery store however, was a train wreck.
“Grey Market? Seriously? Doesn’t this guy pay people to keep him from making idiot mistakes or is his ego just that big?”
“Dunno,” Lane said with a shrug. “But between you and me, Take’s got suspicions it ain’t no accident, which is why I’m heading down to the labor agency.”
“Wait a minute.” Sure, it was Monday morning and I hadn’t even drained half my coffee yet, but I wasn’t so unaware as to miss the very off implications here. I turned around to look over my shoulder, peeked behind my brother, and even peered down into my coffee cup.
“Uh, Lisa? What are you doing?”
“Looking for the portal,” I muttered, poking at the swinging lid on the nearby trash receptacle. “It’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
“This is some sort of esoteric sarcasm, isn’t it?”
“What? No. I’m pretty sure I’ve just been transported to the alternate reality where everything is opposite. You using a word as big as esoteric correctly pretty much solidified my suspicions.”
“Okay, you’ve lost me,” Lane admitted. “Except for the insult. I got that part.”
“You’re trying to tell me that Hostile Takeover, AKA: the head of the Coalition of Evil, is sending you to spy on the inner workings of a company owned by Nocturno, AKA: the head of the Liberty Gang, on suspicions that his dealings might not be one hundred percent legal? Does this not seem ass backwards to you?”
A Shot at the Big Time Page 3