“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Yes, actually, I would.”
“Why, you’re even more naïve than I thought!” He threw his head back and bellowed, but I noted the beads of perspiration on his now waxy and pale forehead. “Do you not realize the only career you’d be killing is your own? Do you think that I am the only talent with offshore tax shelters? Where do you think your precious Mals get their funding? If you report me to the IRS, you’re just putting them on the scent to flush out everyone else.”
“I’m naïve?” I barely got the words out before an almost embarrassing guffaw exploded from my face. “Oh, man!” I gasped between giggle fits. “Who said anything about the IRS? In fact…” I looked around, hoping my earlier email hadn’t gone unnoticed, and widened my grin as I saw a dark shadow coming up over the side of the building. “…I think there’s someone here who might be interested in personally auditing your financial gymnastics.”
I glanced over in time to see Nocturno stepping out of the shadows, clutching what I would easily bet was the bank records I’d emailed him earlier in the day.
“I think you got a bit of explaining to do, Maggie,” he said, tapping the sheet with one gloved finger. I tried to remain stone faced and serious, but Maggie was just too much. I let out a long, braying giggle-snort that I am not proud of.
“I… um… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Transferring operational investments from the Gang’s business account into your own personal bank account?”
“I…” Magnificent Man swallowed hard, averting his gaze from Nocturno’s. “If that’s true, I’m sure I had good reason. There’s probably a note…”
“Oh yeah?” Nocturno went on, clearly unimpressed. “Care to explain your good reason for exploiting a weakness in my corporation’s pay system to funnel funds that were meant to go to my workers into your offshore tax shelters?”
“I was, um… going to… you see, I was just trying to point out the vulnerability. I was doing you a favor.”
“You even stole the money we collected for the Maxima City children’s shelter? Come on, man!”
“I um, well, look at the time. Gotta go!”
Magnificent Man leapt into the air, obviously intending to escape by flying away, but before he could go anywhere, a portal opened and a large hand grabbed his ankle. The Matriarch stepped fully into our dimension just as the rest of the Liberty Gang emerged from the shadows and surrounded their crooked comrade.
“I’m gonna just assume you’ve got things under control here,” I said to no one in particular and backed toward the stairs.
“Not so fast, Snow Cone.”
Nocturno jogged up and held something out to me. A business card for the Liberty Gang. I wasn’t sure what confused me more, his intentions or the fact that they had business cards.
“That was a fine bit of detective work. Ever think of switching sides?”
“Um, actually, it hadn’t crossed my mind…”
“Well don’t think too hard. It just so happens we’ve got an immediate opening in the Liberty Gang line up, no lines, no waiting. How about it, Ice Climber?”
“No thanks,” I said, not even bothering to hide my shudder. After my ordeal with the Coalition, I didn’t even want to know what kind of insanity joining the LG would entail. Though I have to admit, I was morbidly curious to know how long it would take Nocturno to run out of wrong names for me.
“No need to make a hasty decision,” he said, nudging the card toward me, but I just shook my head.
“Sorry,” I said with an apologetic smile and headed down the stairs and out into the alley. “I just don’t think I’m cut out for the big time.”
Epilogue
The things people do with their work computers never ceases to amaze me. Really, by now, I should be jaded. I’ve seen enough otherwise intelligent folks fall for the sketchy pop up warnings that I sometimes questioned why I was still sitting in this cubicle, making my pittance of a salary, when I could be raking in the dough with nothing more than a simple phishing scam.
“Um, do I really need to be here for this?”
If logic and reason have taught me anything, it’s that there will always be a Brad in acquisitions. Not literally. The friend I’d recommended ended up getting the job. Unfortunately, I didn’t dig deep enough into why she had been jobless. First week on the job and already this was her fourth call to IT. Lucky for me, her vice was casual gaming. The worst I was going to find was cutesy cartoon characters and a boatload of ads for everything from natural enhancement to even cutesier games with even more spam advertisements.
“I need you to stay logged in, Jenna.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie.
“It’s just, my shift ended at five.”
“So did mine,” I muttered. “Lucky’s will still be open when I’m done.”
I sent my trusty crawlers over and muted the phone before I said something I might later regret. Or regret more than giving Jenna a reference. At least now maybe she won’t give me crap about always being late to happy hour. I heard heavy footsteps and looked up.
“Do you even still work here, grocery boy?”
Lane’s bulk threw a shadow across my desk as he leaned over the cube wall, paper cup of breakroom coffee in hand.
“Cute, sis. I just came down here to find out if the rumors are true.”
“Depends on what rumors those would be,” I said with an evasive smile.
“Oh, come on, Lisa.”
Of course, I knew what he was talking about. It was hard not to know what he was talking about, but it was my sworn duty as a sister to be a pain in Lane’s ass.
“If you must know, then yes, I stepped down.”
Walking into the Coalition meeting and giving my resignation was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but in the end, it was the right decision. I got what I was after. Magnificent Man, while completely unrepentant about what he did to my family, was now sitting in federal prison, awaiting a trial for tax evasion, corporate embezzlement, and a laundry list of other white collar crimes.
“I also heard you turned down an offer from the Liberty Gang.”
“And where exactly did you hear that?” I asked, eyeing my brother suspiciously. As far as I knew, none of the Mals had any idea that I was the one behind Magnificent Man’s downfall or that I had even been there.
“The warehouse, Lisa,” Lane reminded me. “Grey’s got just as many folks working for both sides of his operations as Winfield does.”
“Right. Yeah, I guess that one is true too,” I said, as I turned my attention back to the computer and noted that Jenna had hung up the phone. She was probably already halfway to Lucky’s.
“Have you considered going in for a psychiatric evaluation?”
“Punchline?” I asked with a slightly overdramatic sigh. Lane shrugged it off.
“Not a joke sis. You had a place at the big kids’ table and you just gave it away. I gotta wonder if you aren’t legit crazy.”
“You, half the Malevolents, and even a few of the ‘Figs,” I dismissed. “Trust me. I’m back where I should be.”
Lane raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Okay, I take back the crazy comment. Clearly, someone brainwashed you because if anyone ever told you this is where you should be, you’d give them a fatal case of brain freeze.”
“Exactly.” I smiled and shook my head at Lane’s growing confusion. “Lane, this has nothing to do with where on the food chain I am as much as who dictates that I’m there.”
A dawning realization widened his eyes. “So you’re saying you’re okay with grunt work as long as you chose the grunt work and it’s not dictated by someone else that you do it?”
I have to say, I was impressed that Lane caught on so quickly. Typically the only thing thicker than his neck was his skull.
“Trust me,” I assured him, taking a peek back at my screen to check the bots’ progress on Jenna’s computer. Honestly, how many spyware-infested, food-th
emed puzzle games were there, and how did she manage to download so many in her first week of work? “When you get your chance, you’ll see that it isn’t all plotting and scheming.”
“Maybe I will,” he said with a contemplative look.
Honestly, though, unless Lane suddenly developed a talent aside from human punching bag, that wasn’t likely to happen, but I wasn’t going to be the one to crush his dreams. Maybe one day he’ll make it to sidekick. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
“Have fun working on your evil laugh.”
“Have fun fixing computers after five,” he countered, giving me a pat on the shoulder before walking away.
“Low blow, bro, low blow.”
I sent off a text, letting my friends know I wasn’t going to make it to the bar and hit send before I added snarky commentary about why I was still at work. Besides, it wasn’t entirely fair to blame my absence on Jenna when I had already planned on bailing. I had a lot of work to do before I could officially debut my new personality.
What? You didn’t think I was actually going to go back to being a lowly henchperson, did you?
No, if my experience taught me anything, it was that Maxima City needed shaking up. It’s time for a new kind of talent. Someone who isn’t afraid to go off script. Someone who plays by their own rules. A truly independent operator. And I knew just the person to fill that role.
But first, I had to find a costume designer who wasn’t allergic to pockets.
Hmm… Lane seemed as if he was hiding something from his sister. Wanna know what he’s up to? Find out in:
An Honest Living (Maxima City Talent Volume 2)
Available now!
A Note from the Author
Thank you so much for reading A Shot at the Big Time. I do hope you enjoyed your time in Maxima City because I’m happy to announce that at long last, this book is finally growing into a full-fledged series with a little help from the authors whose humorous banter helped inspire the original story.
This year, C. B. Archer and Ben Mariner are each taking their turn within the humorous series. Up first is Ben’s An Honest Living, which mirrors the timeline of A Shot at the Big Time, but from Lisa’s brother Lane’s perspective. After that, CB takes us on an adventure into the world of super news reporting and shows us why staying neutral in a town full of talent might just be the most difficult task yet. For all this and more, I strongly suggest following both authors for updates. And of course, you can keep up with all of my shenanigans by checking out the shameless self-promotion below.
For a listing of all of my books, check out (and consider following) my author page on Amazon. For information on new releases, upcoming projects, or to read my sporadic musings on life, check out my website, Vampires and Robots. For less seriousness and more interaction, feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I can be found telling marginally funny jokes and sharing my doodles. Or if you’d simply like a weekly update on what I have (or have not) been up to, like my Facebook page and follow my Tiny Wednesday Updates.
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