The Gathering Storm, Part 25

She’d known he was coming—she’d been alerted by phone.

But apparently he’d also been warned she was on edge.

All for the best, Zoe supposed, as she heard a twig snap in the distance and a youthful, jovial voice calling out amiably, “Fringe, not foe!” as Mad Dash came into sight. The mask he wore—revealing only his nose, cheeks, mouth and chin and sporting almost comically large dark yellow goggles—was only slightly less grin-inducing than the garish short-coat he wore over his gray-green unitard, which was a medley of different colors, types and shapes of fabric. A sturdy looking coat and well-constructed, but ridiculous as hell, she thought.

God can I use a laugh right now, even if it’s only a chuckle and gone almost as fast as it arrived, Zoe considered, flinging her spent cigarette into the road from the rock on which she sat near the tree line. Before she’d fully exhaled her last lungful of smoke from that butt she was already extracting another one to light.

“Those are terrible for you, you know,” Dash told her when he drew near, though to his credit, Zoe noted, he didn’t wrinkle his nose or wave at the air to disperse the fumes like so many people did when they said something like that. “Your lungfish are going to go belly up in the aquarium if you keep up that habit.”

He delivered the cautionary note so matter-of-factly, without any trace of judgment in his tone, that Zoe decided to forego the usual snide response. “They’re right; you do speak a little odd,” she said. Then she cocked her wrist so that the smoldering cigarette stuck straight up into the air and she pointed at it with the index finger of her other hand. “Bad for me though these may be, they’re the only thing making me feel a little human right now, a little sane right now and a little calm right now. Chain-smoking several butts is phase one. Phase two will be a very long, very hot shower and lots of scrubbing until my skin is raw and any blood I see I know is my own. Phase three would be getting piss-drunk, but I can’t even hardly get a buzz drinking, so I’ll settle for some herbal tea and a warm bed and not getting up for 12 to 15 hours.”

“I didn’t bring a shower. Or tea. Or a bed,” Mad Dash said, though he glanced quickly inside his backpack as if he might find one or all of them in there, while he awkwardly juggled a large and apparently mostly empty soft drink cup from Wendy’s in one hand. He rattled it a little, lifted the lid, and then downed the last swig and let the last few chunks of ice left slide into his mouth. “I have some water bottles left in my backpack and a few snickety-snackedy-munchies,” he mumbled as he crunched the ice. “If you like granola bars and Cliff Bars and stuff.”

“I think I can keep food down now, so a granola bar sounds great,” she responded with a smile. “I’ll make Query come up with the other things to make up for letting me get kidnapped.”

After he handed over the snack and a bottle of water, he paused and then said, “Oh, salmon! Your clothes look like they came from the fall war-refugee fashion line at Macy’s and I should get you a…whoa! I’m so sorry I’m looking at you I just saw a nipple sorry sorry sorry,” he stammered, wrenching off his coat and handing it to Zoe.

“I like you, Madster,” Zoe said as she put her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it up. “You’re weird, but I like you. Chivalry’s not dead, even though your fashion sense might be. Comfy coat, though.”

“Thanks. I make them myself,” Dash said, positively beaming.

“Well, don’t give up your day job, because I think there won’t be many customers for this kind of style. But you’re a Renaissance man, Mad Dash, and you’ll make a fine catch someday.”

“Oh, I’m already the lobster special of the day—got a girlfriend named Honey Badg…hello? Yeah? Querio? Where you at, man? I’m here with Chloe…”

“…Zoe,” she corrected him.

“Zoe,” Dash repeated, and then rattled off a series off a series of “yeah’s” and “uh-huh’s” as his part of the communication with Query.

At least I hope he’s really talking to Query via a Bluetooth or some hidden headset, because I don’t want to find out he has voices in his head, Zoe thought. I can’t deal with shit like that tonight.

Mad Dash paused, then turned to Zoe. “Query says we need to stay put, stay down and don’t get involved with what’s about to happen until he says so.”

“Huh? What?” Zoe sputtered. “No, no, no. Tell Query to call me on my cell phone right now.”

“Says he’s kinda busy setting stuff up.”

“Tell him to call me on my phone right the hell now,” she snarled and then, as if on cue, her phone rang. “Talk to me. What’s gonna happen?”

“Zoe, I need you to trust me right now. I’ve got stuff to do and probably not much time to do it and I just want you and Dash to stay out of the way for now,” Query said.

“Oh no no no no no,” Zoe said, dragging hard on her cigarette and then expelling smoke in a chaotic mass like some angry dragon. “Look, I’ve had a really shit goddamn day and I’m just barely holding it together and you failed to stop them from getting me and I want some damn answers.”

“I take all my jobs very seriously, Zoe, but you’re not being charged for this work,” Query said. “What do you want? A refund check for zero dollars? I’m trying to protect you.”

“And I just killed two guys and some of them is staining my clothes and that’s fucked up and I deserve some answers,” she retorted, her voice sounding angry and anxious all at once. “Plus, if shit is about to go down, I want to know what is going down. Tell me right now or I will walk out into that road and flag down the next car I see.”

“OK, fine. Zoe, they were taking you into the woods. Must mean they have a safe-house somewhere around here. If I were running this operation, I’d have at least a few people waiting there in case there was trouble getting you out of the car. I’ve made some best guesses based on the topography around here and I’ve got some ideas of the most likely places. Also, the guys you zeroed out aren’t able to check in or respond to any communications so chances are Janus and gang will know soon shit’s gone wrong, if they don’t already. I intend to ambush them when they come looking for their friends’ car.”

“How would they find it? You had me drive it off the road.”

“I already figured Janus would likely have all the cars fitted with locators,” Query said. “Pidwidgeon’s on-board sensors have confirmed transmissions from it—someone’s likely monitoring. So I’m going to wait for them to come. I promise I’ll get you out of here. Just sit tight.”

“It’s almost dark already,” she noted.

“I have night vision equipment.”

“We don’t.”

“Dash does. And if things get too hot, and I need you to pitch in, I’ll provide the party lights,” Query said. “I promise. Now find cover, keep quiet and let me do my job. Pretty please. With sugar on top.”

* * *

He was standing in the doorway to her office. Had he been anyone else, Underworld wouldn’t have cared. But she hated him right now, and she was trying not to think of murder right now so that she could get work done. It was way too soon to deal with him again.

Not to mention the fact he never visited other peoples’ office—he summoned them to his. That disturbed her even more.

“I thought we were done after we discussed Odium,” Underworld noted.

“I may have been too quick to praise you for your successful abduction plan,” Janus said, the sourness of his tone mixing in an interesting way with the slightly tinny echo produced by his two-faced helmet.

Underworld said nothing; simply arched one eyebrow.

“We’ve lost contact with the car carrying Zoe,” Janus clarified.

“Where?”

“It was last seen getting ready to get onto Grace Memorial Highway by Breathtaker and the two men in his car when they parted ways.”

“Then I still win,” Underworld said dryly, taking her eyes off him and returning them to the computer monitor.

“How do you figure that?”

“Because if my plan had been flawed, the car would have been stopped or commandeered or whatever long before it got to that point,” she said, still not looking at him. “And the other car, too, for that matter. I assume Breathtaker and the two guys with him are still in contact and running free.”

“Yes.”

“Then the problem isn’t that I had a bad plan or that I failed. The problem isn’t that my hand-picked team got sloppy. The problem is, I suspect, that you picked a fight with Query and he’s still got tricks up his sleeve for keeping tabs on Zoe because this shit is personal and not just business.”

A loud metallic sigh, and them a simple “Hmmmph” from Janus. “I hate it when you’re right,” he said as he walked away. “I think I’ll kill somebody after I finish handling this.”

* * *

A car finally arrived nearly 20 minutes after Query got off the phone with Zoe, stopping very near to where Zoe had driven her abductor’s car behind the tree line. Making some educated guesses about probable locations for any Janus-owned safe-houses out here, Query did some quick calculations about when the car with Zoe might have been expected to arrive at any of those areas, figured their comrades would wait until they were 10 or 15 minutes late to panic, factored in required travel times for those other bad guys to show up here from all the possible locations, and had the sites for Janus’ place in the woods narrowed down to three prime leads.

All while he used the scope on his rifle to size up the three men who were now getting out the car. One of them had a device in hand—probably some kind of receiver/locator—and was likely getting a read on just how far away their missing car was and in which direction it lay. All of them had flashlights; the two guys with Mr. Receiver—as Query had mentally designated the lead guy—had Uzis in hand as well.

If Mad Dash and Zoe were following instructions, they wouldn’t be anywhere near the car and its two corpses right now—wouldn’t be in any spot where the three new arrivals would be scanning the trees with their flashlights.

Hopefully, they’ll also be behind some cover, since Mr. Receiver has clearly figured out where the car is and is now pulling out night vision goggles to look for threats, Query thought. He probably doesn’t really expect any police presence here, or else the car they were seeking wouldn’t be out of sight. But he might be expecting a trap of some other sort. As well he should.

Mr. Receiver even took a long, slow look at the other side of the road, where Query had found a tiny hillock to give himself just a bit of high ground. Query didn’t flinch; the modified portable hunter’s blind he had set up in front of himself would block his heat signature and look like a rock or bush to the night-vision goggles. The barrel of his rifle like some branch.

The man was very thorough in taking stock of his surroundings; his companions were very vigilant in watching his back.

And Query’s trigger finger was feeling quite itchy.

But it was too soon. He trusted his instincts and waited for what he expected—for what he would have done in their place.

And so it was that a second new car arrived on the scene some five minutes after the first one, pulling off to the side a bit farther up the road. For a moment, Query considered waiting some more for a third car, but that was just getting paranoid. So he simply waited until the new quartet of men started walking toward the trio, pulling night vision goggles on as they did.

Odds are that the first team will be going down to check out the car and team two is here to give them some additional protection.

About 10 meters from the trio, the quartet’s tight formation began to fragment just the slightest amount as one man slowed a little, and Query knew that was the point one of them would stop, as the other three would continue on and each stop in turn so they could fan out for the best coverage and ability to kill anyone coming at them from the woods. The two armed men from the original trio were already keeping watch on the road from near the edge of the trees.

Since Query knew the most dangerous threats were getting into position, he decided there was no time like the present to prevent them from getting organized.

While the newest arrivals were still clustered relatively closely to one another, he said into his headset, very softly, “Dash, in 10 seconds the first three guys are yours—take them alive,” and then fired off five shots in rapid succession at the group of newcomers.

The first bullet entered the skull of the man who had just stopped walking. The second bullet went through the throat of the man nearest him, who likely would have been the next to stop in a few more meters. Figuring the time for piling up corpses had come to an end, the fourth and fifth bullets took the third man’s ability to shoot and to run with a bullet in his gun arm and another in one thigh.

Naturally, Query thought, the fourth guy would be alert enough and agile enough to take cover.

Query set down his rifle, picked up a grenade launcher not much larger than the Uzis that Janus’ men were carrying, and said into his headset, “Wait, Dash. Close your eyes until you hear two booms, then hit them.”

Query fired two flashbang grenades just past the roof of the original trio’s car, where his quarry had taken cover, one near the front of the car and the other near the trunk. A loud “whump” and another a second or two later accompanied two bursts of bright light and then Query was bounding down the hillock and toward the road.

He wasn’t trying to beat Dash—no sense in trying that anyway and there was a bit of cleanup work yet. Once he had sprinted across the road, he walked to the man he had shot in the arm and thigh and pepper-sprayed him in the eyes and mouth before quickly binding his hands to his ankles with nylon ties, then continued around the front of the trio’s car, confirmed that his target there was stunned insensate, and quickly bound him as well. He did his best to focus on the task at hand and not react to the sounds of shouting and running so close to him; did his best to be as quick as he could without rushing. Then when he was done, squatting behind his place of cover, he closed his eyes and let his ears sort thing out.

Feet running through the dirt, twigs and rocks—faster than a normal person’s. Mad Dash was still moving. Voices calling out to each other and swearing—only two, though, so Dash had likely taken one man out. Shots fired, but none of them in the direction where Query was huddled against the car, so the remaining pair was clearly too focused on Dash to think about or deal with their other threat: Query.

Query opened his eyes and stood, taking out a tangler. He was just in time to see Mad Dash do a furious high-speed zig-zag through the trees, sliding finally as if trying to beat a ball thrown to home plate and slamming into the legs of one of Janus’ men, who went down about as hard as one might expect when being hit at about 35 or 40 miles per hour.

I know Dash’s unitard is padded and/or lightly armored in places like the thighs and ass, but that costume’s likely going to be a goner and Dash is going to be sporting some rather bloody scrapes, Query thought.

The last man, seeing his comrade go down and realizing he was alone now, was already headed for the car and an attempted getaway, but came to a startled halt as he saw Query.

“Evenin’,” Query said, casually throwing the tangler at the man’s legs and smiling as the sticky tendrils burst out and then contracted back on themselves. The man wobbled for several seconds and finally fell over in a heap. Query tossed a small plastic bag of nylon ties to Mad Dash to restrain these last three men and added to the man on the ground at his feet: “You just relax while I make sure those two friends of yours are really dead and decide whether to make all of the rest of you the same way—only much slower.”

* * *

Underworld was finally in a decent frame of mind again—she’d done a quick set of breathing exercises and a few calming yoga poses and was finally able to get back to the work she needed to finish for phase one of her and Janus’ team expansion plans.

It was, therefore, very disheartening to her when a person burst through the door to her office, ran all the way to her desk and jumped over it, pushing by her legs and then crawling underneath it.

Underworld looked down to see a completely tattooed face staring up from between her legs, and resisted the urge to make any number of snide and risqué comments to the woman huddled underneath her large maple desk and only inches from her lap. She was less able, however, to control the flood of irrationally joyous feelings over the fact that Crazy Jane was near her, though she was pretty sure she managed to keep those feelings from showing on her face.

Crazy Jane’s eyes were wide and earnest as she looked up at Underworld. “If Janus comes looking for me, I’m not here. Please don’t tell him. Please say you don’t know where I am.”

Keeping her eyes fixed at a point she could see both her doorway and Jane in her peripheral vision, Underworld said quietly, “He’ll know if I’m lying. He always knows.”

“Not always,” Crazy Jane. “Not when he’s enraged. It doesn’t work when he’s really mad. That’s when he can’t do that and that’s also when he can do other things. That’s why I need to hide. He’s furious.”

“You do something naughty?”

“No, but Query did,” Crazy Jane answered. “At least I think it’s Query. We’ve lost contact with the team sent out to find out what happened to the car Zoe was in.”

“I don’t think you have to worry, Jane,” Underworld said soothingly. “If you got out of Janus’ way, he’ll likely find some staff member to take it out on. Pretty unlikely he’ll come to my floor looking for trouble, much less looking for you.”

“Thank you, Undie,” Crazy Jane said, and Underworld almost teared up at the sincerity in the younger woman’s voice. “Sometimes, we girls have to stick together, right?”

Underworld simply nodded.

“Can I stay here a while, just in case?”

Underworld nodded again.

“You know, while I’m down here I could give you a foot rub. I’m really goooooood.”

“Oh, what the hell,” Underworld said after a few moments of consideration. “Why not? Girls sticking together, right?”

This time is was Crazy Jane’s turn to nod. And to smile as well.

As Underworld settled in to get her admittedly aching feet pampered a little, she smiled, and not just at the wonderful feeling of having knots and kinks worked out of her toes and soles. She smiled as well as getting some unexpected intelligence about Janus.

I’ve long suspected his ability to tell when a person lies was gender-specific, since he only ever stresses to women that he can tell when they’re not speaking the truth, she thought, but I never realized it was tied to his mood, too. And Jane’s reference to “other things” makes me think perhaps Janus has two sets of powers: one for when he’s calm or relatively so, and one for when he’s not. Makes sense when you consider he named himself after a two-faced god.

Suddenly, being Crazy Jane’s friend, willingly or not, didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

* * *

Two corpses had been added to the pair already in the car with the ruined trunk. The five surviving members of Janus’ team were well past the tree line now and all of them bound and gagged. The two other cars were now parked near each other by the side of the road and a little closer to the tree line.

Query walked back toward Mad Dash and Zoe from those cars, after having left Mad Dash’s backpack on the trunk of one of them and a few scattered granola bars on the hood of the other, along with a jacket and a pair of shoes and socks from one of the dead men

“Why did you do that?” Zoe asked.

“To make it look like they pulled over to do a little wandering and hanging out, instead of looking like they need help. Less likely that a state trooper will check things out if a cruiser happens down the road, and regular drivers will be even less likely to stop and look at things,” Query answered, looking over each man in captivity as if assessing and comparing each one, and then setting down a small tool case he had brought back with him.

“What now?” Zoe asked, fiddling with her bright orange disposable lighter nervously.

“You and Dash will go to my van parked a couple hundred yards down the road and head to a safe-house I have near Fishmonger’s Wharf. Dash knows where it is. You can clean up and you should be able to find some clothes that’ll fit you, Zoe. Have a decent meal, too, if your stomach can handle it. Watch some DVDs or listen to some music. Get some sleep. Dash’ll keep you company there until I’m finished. If I’m not there by dawn, chances are I’m dead and Dash will know who to call to get your situation as sorted out as possible.”

“What about them?” Zoe asked, nodding toward the captive men.

“Don’t worry about them. I have that covered.”

Zoe looked at the case at his feet, and then stared down his concealed eyes behind the black mask for several seconds. She walked up to him, pointed to the red question mark on the mask over his mouth—her finger just inches from it—and said, “Your name is Query; I just asked a question.”

“I ask questions; I rarely like answering them,” Query said coldly.

“You’ll answer mine,” she said, nervous at his tone but reminding herself it was probably bluster to get her to leave—and reminding herself that even if she was wrong, she was hardly powerless. “What are you going to do with them?”

Query sighed behind his mask, and Zoe imagined that his eyes were probably rolling behind it as well. “Zoe, I’m going to ask these fine gentlemen where their little hideout in the woods is. If they don’t answer me, I’ve going to demonstrate how badly I can hurt them with easily accessible items here in nature, and then tell them about the tools in my case here that are more professional-grade. If they don’t answer me even then, I’ll begin using those tools on them.”

Zoe shuddered. “You’re going to torture them.”

“Only if they make me.”

“You mean only if it’s the most convenient route for you.”

“Zoe, I don’t want to debate situational ethics with you right now,” Query groused. “These men kidnapped you. They were willing to kill you.”

“Noooo,” Zoe said. “Two of the dead men in that car over there, and I guess some guys in another car from what Dash has told me, were the ones who kidnapped me, and only one of them maybe was trying to kill me. They’re dead. I fucking lost my composure and killed them. Two other men are dead at your hands. These men came to check on their buddies. I don’t know what they would have done if you hadn’t attacked them.”

“Surely you not suggesting I shouldn’t have…”

“Of course not. You shot first. Wise move. They work for Janus. They were armed. But goddamn it I’m not going to let you torture them just to find out where they came from or for anything someone else did to me. I mean, really, do you expect to find Janus at their hidey-hole? Do you expect him to come here to the woods and throw down with you? I’ve been dealing with Underworld all this time and nothing suggests to me that they’ve suddenly gone lax on their security. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts these guys probably don’t even know where Janus is or the other guys who tried to nab me before at graduation probably would have known.”

“I think we need to be sure, Zoe. And if I go to their place here in the woods, I can look for clues that will help me find Janus later,” Query said. “I need you to go now.”

“How would you even know if they were telling the truth if they did give up a location to you, huh?” she pressed. “People will say lots of things under torture or to buy time.”

“Because,” he responded, raising his voice for the benefit of his captives and turning his head slightly in their direction, “I’ve already figured out from their response time and what I know about this area where the three most likely locales are. If they give me any other location that isn’t in one of those areas, I’ll hurt them more.”

“No.”

“Zoe, this isn’t your operation. This isn’t about you.”

“Yes it goddamn is!” she shouted. “I was the one kidnapped. I’m the one who’s got bits of people all over her. People have been firing bullets all around me and one zipped right past the top of my head. You took on my case so I’m your fucking employer—kinda. It’s all about me and I say you aren’t going to do this.”

“It’s more about me than you know, Zoe. In any case, I need this info…”

“…fine!” she interrupted him, and stalked toward the bound men, morphing as she did to take on a slightly more attention-getting and menacing look—though Query noted her locs, while clearly hardened and sharp, were no longer animated as when she was panicked in the trunk. “Here’s how it’s gonna be, boys. One of you will tell me right now where your little place in the woods is. Then after you’re handed over the police or whatever—somebody less likely to torture you, in any case—you can go back to clamming up and not saying any damn thing about Janus and if he asks you can all tell him you don’t know how Query knew how to find your hideout. He can just assume Query found your place on his own with his super-intuition. Totally plausible, since he’s apparently already narrowed it down. But he’s really cranky, as you can see, and if you make him search too long, or waste too much time talking to you about it, he’s going to go all Spanish Inquisition on you. Whoever wants to tell me can just nod and I’ll pull off your gag.”

No one nodded.

“Unless Janus is there at your place in the woods, this is a win-win for everyone to tell me, guys,” Zoe said more firmly, flexing her fingers with their sharp, glistening burgundy nails. “You stay quiet about it, then Query is going to start thinking Janus is there, and if that happens I think you’re all going to be probed in a lot of places humans weren’t meant to be probed with things that weren’t meant to go there. Your choice.”

Ten minutes later, Zoe was in the passenger seat of Query’s van on her way to a date with a hot shower, with Mad Dash humming some tune wildly out-of-key on the driver’s side, while Query was taking a ride in one of Janus’ cars to a place in the woods.

Zoe closed her eyes and smiled a little.

I win.

[ - To view the next chapter, click here - ]

Stretching Out as Usual

My fiction has a tendency to expand beyond my original intentions, particularly when I do lengthy multi-part series. Inevitably, as I go along, I find the need to add characters and scenes that had not occurred to me early in the process.

Or I find that writing certain scenes out takes many more words than I expected.

That’s what’s happened as the defecation began hitting the rotary oscillator in “The Gathering Storm” in chapter 23. Now, there have been any manner of crises and conflicts throughout the series so far. Hell, the series started off very early with Janus sending more than a dozen professional killers to eliminate Query for as-yet-unknown reasons and the resulting carnage was dramatic. But a lot of the series has been introducing characters and defining their personalities. My readers thus far seem pleased with the pacing and the mix of dialogue, exposition, angst, humor and violence. But I’ve known there were certain key things that I’ve been working toward.

Chapter 23 was one of those key points, and it is a huge turning point in the series. Or catalyst. Or something. You’ll see later. Of course, I didn’t realize it would take so many chapters to get there, but we finally did.

Now, I figured that two chapters would be enough to cover the flurry of events that begin in chapter 23 so that I could move on to the further plot developments and such as we work toward the conclusion to the series (probably by chapter 30-something, I guess, though I won’t be surprised it it enters the 40s, I suppose). Early on in chapter 23 I realized this wouldn’t be possible, and that it would take three chapters. Then, after about 3,400 words of writing for chapter 25, I realized three wasn’t going to be enough, so the current events will continue through chapter 26.

Sure, I could pack everything into one chapter, but considering this is a blog you’re reading chapters on, I try not to exceed 5,000 words on major stories and series chapters, and try to keep my stand-alone stories under 3,000 words when I can.

In any case, what it means is that after chapter 25 gets posted either today or tomorrow, you’ll have one more chapter to look forward to that will prominently feature Query in ass-kicking mode and Janus losing his shit over it.

The Gathering Storm, Part 24

Stale stifling blackness. Spinning bouncing. Smells—Greasy sweaty green. Sensations—rough, warm, damp, gritty.

No room to move; can’t focus. What? Where? How?

Drifting. Panic. Sleepy. Weak. Angry. Terrified.

I will no go…I will not…gone…go…quietly.

* * *

“Dash! Please tell me you’re not in the middle of something you can’t get out of.”

“Query? Yeah, I’m cool. Just at my place deciding whether to patrol or watch a chickety-chick-rom-com-flick on streaming.”

“Zoe’s been nabbed,” Query said over the phone. “She’s on the move with her captors and I need an intercept while I’m driving like a bat out of hell to get there.”

“How do you know where she is if you’re not…”

“Quiet, Dash! Listen. Time’s short,” Query said, thinking about how the private investigator had needed to drop out of the pursuit of the kidnappers mere minutes ago when they pulled over in a dark area to put an apparently drugged and now also handcuffed Zoe into the trunk out of sight of any passing motorists or cops. The last thing the PI had seen in his rearview mirror were the cars getting back on the road, the one with Zoe still heading toward Grace Memorial Highway, apparently, while the other car headed back into the city proper.

“I had someone following her,” Query said. “He lost them but I reacquired her with one of my drones. Pidwidgeon is following now and keeping tabs. But they’re headed into the woods using Grace Memorial; I may lose them if they go anyplace thickly forested.”

“Grace?” Mad Dash said. “Q-man, I’ve got a few pre-packed school backpacks for emergency crapiolus like this but that’s a long way over a lot of different species of terrain. I’ll have to pack a hiker’s backpack with one or two extra pairs of boots and tons of snacks to refuel on the way.”

“No!” Query snapped. “No time for that, and a backpack that big’ll throw you off balance. Last thing I need is you breaking an ankle. Throw one extra pair of boots in a small pack and toss as many energy bars and water as you can in it. Do you have cash around? A decent amount?”

“Yeah, surely whirly I do. I guess maybe 60 or 70 bucks?”

“Fine. Grab it all. Take Parliament Avenue then hit Madsen and then Mozart. Cut straight through Whitley Park near where the bike trails start and then pick up Route 136 on the other side of the park and head toward Grace. That route will take you by plenty of fast-food joints. Hit the drive-through lanes as you need to fuel up; ignore the lure of Happy Meal toys. Make sure you have your headset on before you leave, set to our channel; remember to turn it on. I’ll keep in touch and guide you when you’re close enough. Got it?”

“Gotcha. Getcha. You betcha!”

“Go! Run like the fucking wind, Dash.”

* * *

A large hand engulfed Cole’s right shoulder, settling there with surprising gentleness. Then the couch squealed a bit in protest as PrinSass settled her bulk down next to Cole.

“What’s gotcha down, bruh?” she asked quietly, the softness of concern weaving oddly amidst her more gravelly bass tones. It always struck Cole as odd how unfeminine PinSass’ voice was aesthetically yet how obviously female it remained nonetheless.

“Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s ever gonna change, PrinSass,” Cole said. “I’ll be the outsider that the top guys can’t stand as long as I’m here, and these fucking migraines and clouded vision will just get worse from the stress probably and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore anyway.”

“Muddling through, Quantum,” she said to Cole. “Gettin’ by. Toughing it out. That’s what it’s about, bruh. Just cuz I weigh a few hundred pounds and can squash almost anyone by sittin’ on ‘em or punchin’ ‘em, it doesn’t make it easy. I’m still a bitch. Cunt. Twat. Chick. Girl. To Desperado and all them. Whatever. You ain’t noticed that yet?”

“Of course I have…sorry…I know it’s not easy for you ladies and for a lot of other folks in the Corps. I know I’m having a pity party,” Cole acknowledged, grimacing and now flushing with embarrassment. “But is it worth going through?”

PrinSass made a rumbling chuckle. “For me, for you or for everyone else?”

“I was thinking about me, but…whatever you can provide your wisdom on, oh mighty oracle,” Cole joked.

PrinSass smiled. “I like beating folks up and not having to feel bad about it, so…yeah, it works for me, Quantum. Fightin’ crime’s good for my complexion, too. Keeps me a cute big gal. Is it worth it for you? I dunno…is it?”

Cole hesitated, frowned and finally sighed. “Doing what I do is worth it. I’m just not sure it’s worth doing with Desperado calling my shots. But what else is there for a noob like me? I’ve got a name—Quantum. I almost have a costume. But that’s about all I have at the moment.”

“It’s a start,” PrinSass said, slapping him hard on the thigh and making him wince. “Now let’s go grab a couple cups of really bad coffee while everyone else cleans up this time and we wait for Sweet Talker.”

* * *

Query’s altered brain functions since he became transhuman were well-suited for multi-tasking; however, trying to make phone calls while driving fast and trying to avoid police cruisers that might pull him over—all while checking on the video and GPS info from his drone—was straining that ability.

Not to mention the fact that the drone was moving so much faster than it should be while on autopilot that he had to make sure to adjust its course now and again with the tablet computer in the passenger-side seat of his car, lest Pidwidgeon crash and make this entire exercise a moot point. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to reacquire Zoe with another drone in time if that happened, though he’d sent out a summons for Bubo, the nearest of the other four drones out tonight—to join Pidwidgeon in the pursuit—just in case.

No telling how much longer that will be, since I don’t have any more attention to spare to track Bubo.

At full tilt, even with a few stops for food, Mad Dash would almost certainly beat Query to Zoe, if he was able to get to her in time at all. Dash’s apartment was closer already and he had the advantage of being able to cut through alleys and across parks and such, unlike Query’s van.

Would have been better for speed of travel had I been driving the Mercedes or Porsche, but it’s a little hard to stash much in the way of costumes and gear in a four-door sedan, he mused bitterly, and damn near impossible in a sports car.

There was a tiny flash of movement on the display of the iPad Sextet in the passenger seat. Something narrow and long. If not for his enhanced senses, it might not have caught his attention at all. Then another. And another.

Trusting his instincts that he needed intelligence more than he needed to try to keep up with Mad Dash’s arrival time at the narrow old highway heading into the woods, Query pulled the van over to the side of the road suddenly and snatched up the tablet computer.

He saw the trunk bulge slightly in one place, the dent produced from inside. By Zoe, no doubt.

Then another long, thin something punching through the metal. Four holes now.

Those looked like damned red, black and yellow snakes, Query considered. Or eels or tentacles. Or…Zoe’s locs. Her hair.

Another dent, and now there was a trio of razor-sharp, frenzied locs punching through. Then a flurry of them. Holes and more holes, and some of them tearing the metal a little.

Despite all the ruckus, the driver and his partner in the car didn’t seem to notice anything over the noise of an already bumpy road and their conversation and whatever music might be playing on their radio or disc player.

I want to get to her; I want to be close, especially if it might lead me to Janus or end up with Janus arriving on scene—unlikely though that would be, Query thought as he watched the video feed from Pidwidgeon. But in all honesty, it looks like at this moment, there isn’t a thing I can do about whatever’s about to go down, except watch, analyze, let Dash know and then get there as soon as I can.

The trunk was quickly becoming a ruin of holes and rips, and then Query saw a hand punch through, one cuff of a pair of handcuffs attached to it, but only a few links of chain dangling there. Five nails of that hand dug into the exterior surface of the car in which Zoe was trapped. Then her other hand, just as lethally clawed and bearing the other half of the broken handcuffs, tore a huge gash through the top of the trunk.

Her movements angry and panicked, she started flailing, finally ripping a hole large enough to let her rise to a squatting position, her head now level with the top of the sedan that had so recently been her prison. Her body was criss-crossed with various cuts and scratches, Query could tell—Pidwidgeon and the other drones offered fantastic video resolution.

But she’s not nearly as hurt as she should be considering all the jagged edges of metal she just burst through, Query noted mentally.

Her head swiveled slowly, taking stock of things. She still seemed a little confused, but he swore he saw something like realization now, and cold fury along with it.

They probably drugged her, but she’s not very much out of it anymore; perhaps she’s a Regenerator on top of her Acro and Morph powers.

Her locs of varied colors were swirling and writhing like the serpents on Medusa’s scalp, and then she looked through the rear window, toward the driver and passenger.

Query couldn’t see Zoe’s face after she turned to behold her captors, but he could imagine any number of expressions that might be on it, and few of them struck him as something either man in the car would want to see.

But the passenger had clearly registered the flurry of motion and the bulk of a human body now half out of the trunk, and turned to get a better view of what his peripheral vision had picked up. He saw that look that Query couldn’t, and Query was pretty sure it scared him. The driver himself jerked, probably in response to a warning from his partner—though perhaps he’d seen something in the rearview mirror as well.

Too late. Way too late, Query realized.

The only question remaining unanswered for him right now was whether it was too late just for Janus’ minions or for Zoe as well.

She surged out of the trunk and onto the roof, her sharp and apparently very hardened nails giving her firm purchase, aided by the uncanny balance and agility afforded to her by her Acro powers. But the hair and nails weren’t the only change from her Morph powers—her skin was glossier now, and seemed smoother and tighter against her muscles. Perhaps a tad darker as well. Her clothes were shredded from the metal of the trunk ripping at them, but her skin was mostly unmarred.

She managed to get above the driver and passenger seats and ripped a good-sized hole above the driver’s side with one hand. But before she could make any more progress, the driver hit the brakes as hard as he could without swerving completely out of control.

Query’s belly cramped and twisted at the thought of Zoe’s fate now, as physics won out over her firm grip and sure reflexes, and she flew forward past the front windshield, taking a small piece of the roof of the car with her.

One of her feet managed to make contact with the hood—intentionally, it seemed—and her leg thrust her upward even as she flew forward. Then to Query’s amazement, she flipped once in the air, came down hard on the road on both feet, and then flipped several more times, including a one-handed flip that sent her nearly straight up into the air.

She was awkward and almost lost her balance several times. In competition, such sloppy form would have lost her plenty of points with the judges. But considering she’d just been flung from a rapidly braking car, the fact she hadn’t slid across the asphalt earning a body-wide case of road rash was amazing to Query.

When she competed in college gymnastics, she was hold back as least three-quarters of what she was capable of doing, he estimated.

When she came to a stop some dozen meters from the car, she was in a crouch. The driver of the car was disoriented at first and unsure what was going on, but as soon as he saw her, he put the car back in gear. By then, though, Zoe was already on the move. By the time he was accelerating at all, she was already on top of the car again, and yanking his head up toward the hole she had made in the roof. He was strong, but it was clear Zoe was at least a low-level Brute on top of everything else, and she wrestled his head through the hole. No longer able to press the accelerator or steer, the car slowed and drifted toward the shoulder, as the passenger yanked the emergency brake.

Looking into the driver’s eyes for a split-second, and then glancing down to see one hand reaching for something under his left armpit, Zoe started yanking his head back-and-forth, slashing his neck against the sharp edges of the hole in the roof of the car, even as the claws with which she gripped his scalp dug furrows into his skull.

Satisfied that he was no longer a threat, Zoe let him fall back into his seat and leapt back to the road as the passenger scrambled out of the car and pulled a gun.

Query’s renewed concern for Zoe was tempered slightly by the knowledge that if this man did kill her, Janus would do something far worse to him than simple death for cheating the crimelord of his prize.

Zoe hesitated only a moment, pulled between the desire to fight and the urge to flee to cover, and then she lunged. The man got off a shot, but it went wide.

Zoe’s attack did not, however.

She slashed him with one set of nails, and then began to circle him in something that seemed half a dance and half an acrobatic spectacle. She whipped her head back and forth as she spun and flipped around him and over him. Her locs, clearly razor-sharp and harder than they had any right to be since she had employed her Morph powers, laid into him like a scourge in the hands of a Roman centurion. In moments, half his face and one arm were thoroughly flayed, and the rest of his upper torso didn’t look much better.

His gun was on the ground now, and Zoe stopped her deadly dance.

She looked at her victim almost curiously, and Query thought he detected a hint of shock and queasiness in her eyes now, dulling the rage. He stood for several moments, though dead or nearly so, before gravity introduced his corpse to the ground.

Query made a call to Mad Dash, hoping the man had remembered to turn on his headset.

“Dash?”

“En route, toot-e-toot-toot, Query. Moving as fast as I can,” Dash said, sounding winded but chipper.

“It’s not that, Dash. I just want you to know this isn’t as much a rescue operation as I had expected. It looks like more of a clean-up.”

“Oh, no! She’s dead?”

“No. No, she isn’t. Dash, when you get close to her position—and believe me, I’ll give you plenty of warning—go in as calmly and as non-threatening as you can. If you go in hot and she thinks you’re an enemy, I might be burying you in the woods along with the two guys she just laid waste to.”

* * *

“Thank you for coming, Underworld, though I had told you to be here 20 minutes ago,” Janus groused. He was wearing a bulky metal helmet with two faces on it today, but more science fiction or fantasy-like, Underworld noted, compared to the one he often wore with the ancient Greek-style dual faces of the god Janus gazing into the future and the past. The mask he was wearing now suggested something more like paranoid conjoined twin warlords looking out for attacks. Also, it seemed familiar, as if she had seen it in some movie trailer or poster some years back.

It was a Vin Diesel movie, now that I think of it, she remembered. What I wouldn’t do to have a nice-looking piece of man like that right now here beating Janus’ face in while I watch.

“Janus, you don’t tell me to do anything,” she retorted sourly. “And you should feel lucky I only showed up late and not with an Uzi or a pair of Rottweilers trained to attack anything that smells like your cologne or your sweat.”

“Are you still on about the Crazy Jane situation?” he asked. “You needed a girlfriend to hang out with; you should be happy. I can’t believe you’re still imagining the most vile ways of killing me because you think I’m responsible.”

“My choice of examples should indicate I’ve downgraded from the ‘most vile’ notions,” she half-growled. “Some of my earlier ideas involved blowtorches, red ants, sulfuric acid and things along those lines. You’ve got too many fucking sins stacked up with me, starting with threatening my family so no, it’s not just about having a Crazy Jane addiction. That’s just the final straw.”

Janus leaned back, the oversized helmet somehow both completely out of sync with the lean and sleek silver-gray suit he was wearing today and yet somehow going so well with it. “You need to lighten up, Underworld. I treat you with far more kindness and respect than 90 percent of the people I deal with. Relax. Enjoy our promising life of crime together. Get to know Jane. Stop projecting your anger outward and redirect your energies.”

Those words from any other mouth might have been reasonable, thought Underworld, but she was certain she detected a taunting note in them. He doesn’t fuck me over as badly as most people, but he enjoys pulling my strings like a puppeteer far too much. It’s intolerable.

“What do you want, Janus? Why did you call me? If you want me to stop hating you so much, you need to let me have some space from you when we aren’t interviewing or orienting new recruits and prospects.”

“Amazingly enough, I actually did call you into my office because of staffing issues—as well as to kill time while I wait for word on Zoe’s delivery to our wooded enclave,” Janus said. “Excellent work, by the way, on the snatching of Zoe. Stealing her right out of a party and no one at it any the wiser. I’d almost think you were showing off.”

For once, Underworld noted, there was hardly a hint of jeering or needling in his words; instead, he seemed pleasantly amused and legitimately complimentary. That threw Underworld off her game a bit. She wanted—needed—to hold tight to her hatred and anger. This was not a man she could trust; she could not allow herself to think of him as anything more than an uneasy ally.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I knew Breathtaker would be perfect for that job.”

“I hope you’re not going to petition for him to be on our A-list. He did well, but I’m not sold on him.”

“Not a chance,” Underworld answered, putting the slightest hint of offense in her cadence. “He’s B-list. Second tier. I don’t think he’s discreet enough and I wouldn’t trust him to be any closer to the center of our circle than he absolutely needs to be. But he’s certainly not on the C-list like Hellfire and your other cannon-fodder recruits.”

“Agreed. But it’s not really Breathtaker I wanted to talk about. It’s Odium.”

Underworld winced and made a small groaning sound. “I don’t deny that his powers would be useful—and his non-transhuman skill sets,” she said, “but he disturbs me. There’s something terribly wrong with him.”

“There is something terribly wrong with most of us, my dear,” Janus pointed out. “You are regularly hanging out with a woman who is guilty of several very grisly and sadistic murders and who revels in using baseline humans as material in the pursuit of her creation of artistic works of insanity.”

“You’re responsible for making her that way, Janus…”

“…you’ve just made my point,” he cut in. “There’s something terribly wrong with me—by society’s standards, at least—and I’m the kingpin of all this and you’re my partner.”

“Point is,” Underworld said sternly to retrieve her line of argument, “that I was never comfortable with Crazy Jane being around, either—at least not out of that giant bird cage you had made for her—until you directed her to use her powers on me and I was biochemically coerced into being her friend.”

“You know, I’ve never admitted to doing that; it’s all speculation on your part,” Janus noted. “Did you ever consider that Jane just liked you? She has odd ways of showing affection at times.”

“Stop trying to deflect me and stop pretending you didn’t order or at least strongly suggest she ensnare me.”

“Ooooh, ‘ensnare.’ I do like that word choice. Has a very sensually kinky feel to it. You continue to prove day by day that you were a much better choice than my backup plan of Madamnation as a partner.”

“Would you please shut the fuck up!” she snapped. “Point is that we need to be careful about bringing people onto the A-list—or the B-list, for that matter—who might be a little too crazy. We already have you in one of the top two seats, we then we have Jane and Tooth Fairy. Too much crazy already for my tastes, no matter how obsessive and effective a control freak you are. Eventually, you will have a herd of insane, murderous cats you can’t herd anymore.”

“In fairness, Tooth Fairy is in the A-list in only a peripheral sense,” Janus countered. “She’s going to be a key player, but she’s not a team player. She’s primo hired help.”

“Odium isn’t exactly striking me as a team player either, Janus.”

“Not exactly, no. But he wants to be, and I can use that to rein him in,” Janus said.

Underworld paused and considered. She’d already picked up on Odium’s self-hatred, but she hadn’t considered the deeper source from which that might spring. “You think deep down he wants a family, don’t you? Someplace to belong.”

“Yes, I do,” Janus stated. “And I don’t think; I’m sure of it. And Crazy Jane might be just the sister-figure he needs, with Papa Janus and Mama Underworld.”

“God, Janus, don’t use Jane to snare everyone and have some hold on them,” Underworld warned. “The more people she juggles and who want her attention, the more you set up risks for conflict and competition. Also, it goes both ways. She gets attached, even if it often is a creepy kind of attachment. What if she has her hooks in Odium and you have to sacrifice him later?”

“Worry not, my dear,” Janus said. “I’ve considered that, too. He’s not someone I’d just toss away on a whim, and we won’t have to worry about romantic entanglements—Jane would be going for a sisterly approach as she sets her hooks. And Odium is the only person on whom I plan to have her use that particular power—and tell no one on any of our teams about that power, Underworld—at least the only person for a very long time.”

“Aside from myself,” Underworld noted with a sarcastic edge.

“I continue to tell you that I am not taking credit for Jane and you. Perhaps she has deeply buried bi-curious tendencies or simply feels isolated by her demeanor and needed a girlfriend to hang out with as much as you did, for different reasons,” he responded reasonably. Then his tone shifted suddenly to the taunting mode that so infuriated her as he said, “Now, go toddle off and do some girl things together while I wait for word on Zoe.”

A sharp, hot ribbon of rage flashed into Underworld’s brain, as if a rocket of hate had launched from the base of her spine.

After all that, trying to mollify me, and then at the end he throws it back in my face again to let me know he did it without openly admitting it. Oh, I’m back to wanting you dead, Janus. Thank you for that. I don’t know how to pull it off yet, but I’ve been involved in long cons before—this is just a more lethal variant of that. I’ll find a way to end you and still keep Jane to myself without her ever knowing it was me—alone with her to console her and move beyond you.

* * *

She’d just killed two men. And she’d thrown up. And she was half-naked, her clothes largely a mass of tatters on her now.

One of the last things Zoe Dawson really expected or wanted was a phone call.

As she heard her phone ring and felt it buzz in her pocket, she began to reach for it, and then realized her hand was covered in blood. She started to wipe in on her pants, then thought better of it—as well as almost being seized by a desire to retch at the idea—and then she wiped it off on the car’s interior upholstery. By that time, the ringer had stopped and voicemail had picked up. Then the phone rang again, and she yanked it out of her pocket.

“Hello?!” she blurted in a voice too loud and shrill with anxiety and panic for her own comfort.

“Thank God your phone’s still on you and not damaged. This is Query. I need you to toss those guys in the car and get that car off the road and mostly out of sight now.”

“How do you know…”

“Zoe, do it now. We do not want police entanglement or witnesses. I’ve made calls to slow any traffic heading up the road from the city, but someone might come the other way. Get those men in the car and drive it off the shoulder and just past the tree line. There’s a small rocky rise you should be able to use to keep anyone from seeing the car. Now, Zoe, before someone sees that carnage!”

To her credit, Query thought, she was good under pressure, and got one man into the car quickly. The other one, closer to the shoulder of the road, she simply rolled down toward a ditch-like depression, which would put him out of sight from the narrow highway. Then she started driving the car, realized the hand-brake was still on, disengaged it and got the car off the road.

Then she put the phone to her ear, and asked, firmly and quietly, “How do you know what’s going on?”

“I had someone watching you tonight,” Query answered. “He lost you after they nabbed you, but I have some Air Force-issue military drones in my possession and one of them, Pidwidgeon, has been watching you since shortly after that happened.”

“Pidwidgeon…” she said dubiously. “You read the Harry Potter books?”

“I have eclectic tastes and sometimes a lot of time on my hands,” he answered in a dead-pan. “How are you doing?”

She looked down at her bloody clothes and stained hands, and said, “I think I may throw up again soon, if that’s all right.”

“By all means, Zoe. By all means. Look, I don’t want to worry you, but this isn’t over yet. I need you to stay put and stay alert and stay calm,” Query told her. “I have a friend, Mad Dash—you may know about…”

“…runs really fast. Acts a little loopy. But pretty much a straight-ahead good guy,” she said.

“Yeah. He’s on his way. Please don’t confuse him for an enemy combatant when he arrives and kill him or anything. He’s one of the few real friends I have.”

“OK.”

“You’re doing fantastic, Zoe. Really.”

Then she doubled over, threw up violently, and when the dry heaves finally stopped, she placed the phone against her cheek again, a thin trail of tears on either side of her face. “How about now?” she said in a whimper.

“Still doing great. You’re tough as nails, Zoe. I know that. But killing someone isn’t pleasant. It messes with you. That’s natural. It means you’re a decent human. You’re doing great.”

“Thanks. I want to go home. Very badly,” she said in a quiet voice.

“I think we need to find someplace safer than home, Zoe, but I promise I’ll keep you safe. We’re almost done with the worst part of things,” Query said. “Just wait for Dash. Zoe?”

“Yeah.”

“You ever watch Pulp Fiction?”

“At least eight times in my life so far, I guess,” she said, perplexed but feeling a sense of calm return. Just small talk now. She’d killed two men, but now it was small talk. Normal life in the midst of madness.

“Well, Zoe, you and Dash sit tight,” he said. “I’m sending in The Wolf.”

“Shit, nigger, that’s all you had to say,” Zoe said, laughing and crying a little at the same time, delivering the movie line in a half-anxious, wavering manner, but not too far off Samuel L. Jackson’s original cadences. “Wait, though,” she said. “If Mad Dash isn’t The Wolf, who is?”

“That would be me, Zoe,” Query said. “Big Bad Wolf, in fact. I’m going to blow down someone’s house. At least one of them. It might only end up being the straw house, but I’m gonna fucking blow it down.”

[ - To view the next chapter, click here - ]

What Next?

So, partly just a random post to break things up between chapters (the next chapter of “The Gathering Storm” will likely be up before the weekend), but also because I’d like to find out if anyone has any desires/wishes/etc. in terms of any characters to tackle in one of my next stand-alone short stories.

Anyone big names so far you’d like to see get a tale woven around them? Any secondary characters? Hell, are there any whose names have been dropped and haven’t yet appeared in anything (Madamnation, Speed Demon, etc.) who you’re tired of only hearing other characters mention in passing?

If so, let me know in the comments…

The Gathering Storm, Part 23

Darkness is a comforting shroud. A sturdy cloak.

Those thoughts passed through the mind of Query, sitting in the semi-darkness of the club as Milo Phillips, while various pairs of rappers took their turns on stage to do a bit of freestyle vocal battling with one another. But not Milo tonight; he had to make sure he was on-call.

In so many aspects of his life, he preferred darkness. And many times, a mask as well to further obscure him and wall himself off from the world. He lacked the escape of dreams from reality, and sometimes, putting layers in between himself and others was all he had.

He reviewed his iPhone Sextet as a new message came in, disregarded it for now, and slipped it back into his belt holster. Then he pulled out his “real” smartphone—or at least the one he relied on as Query and when he was simply Alan Millos—his Android Hyyper. It was much easier to modify the Droid smartphone for his critical needs, but the iPhone was part of Milo’s identity and image.

Really need to make some time to buy the new Droid Nexusz soon, get it up to speed for my needs and transfer my data over, he considered. So hard to find time to do everything sometimes, even being awake 24 hours a day.

When he saw no messages there for Alan or Query, he slipped that phone back into its secret pocket and pulled his iPad Quinto out of his satchel to review some notes and files, as well as some pilfered video feeds from the police and FBI.

At least all my identities agree on the iPad as far as tablet computers go, he thought with mild amusement.

Reviewing his files, did nothing but dim his flash of good humor, though. It had been nearly two weeks now since Janus had attempted to abduct Zoe, and there had been no sign of him, his lackeys or any freelance hired help since then.

Local and federal cops had questioned the mercenary team that Query had brought down after Zoe’s graduation ceremony, but nothing had come of it. A couple members of the team had been willing to give evidence and testimony for lighter sentences, but had precious little to offer. They couldn’t even say for certain who had hired them. That was a sharp divergence from the team that had tried to kill Query three months earlier. The two mercs that Query had spirited away then to question personally, as well as the survivors the police had questioned, were clear and consistent as to who they had been paid by—Janus—even if they were far less willing to give much information about him.

Not that they knew much anyway, but Janus has never been known for his forgiving streak, so most of those he hires tend to be discreet when captured, to the point of often not even sharing information that seems innocuous, Query considered.

Still, there was plenty of evidence to point to the fact that this team had been hired from the same source as the mercenaries that tried to kill Query. That supplier of talent was pricey indeed, and for two teams from that source to show up in New Judah over a three-month period was unlikely to be coincidence.

Not that the police have put that together, Query noted mentally. The FBI has made note of the oddity, but they don’t seem to get the connection is to Janus yet. I do, though. So, the question is, since Janus could have hired talent from a different source for the Zoe job, is he becoming lazy and sloppy? Or did he hope I’d figure it out and know he was still fucking with my city—even though it’s unlikely he would have expected me to be protecting Zoe and find out from first-hand contact?

It also didn’t help his mood to be reminded he was using Zoe as bait even as he was protecting her, and that might come back to bite her in some unexpected ways. Because Janus’ hired kidnapping team had struck in such a public place and focused on one woman, some people were looking at Zoe now and wondering, “Why her?”

The mercs hadn’t admitted to trying to nab her—or anyone, really. They didn’t want to be implicated in any more crimes than necessary, and so far, the hard evidence that they planned to kidnap anyone or even kill anyone was slim. They’d clearly face any number of assault and weapons possession charges—maybe even some domestic terrorism charges—but they weren’t going to want to face charges of attempted murder or kidnapping as well.

At least one person at UConn’s New Judah campus was speculating quietly in the upper-level administrative offices that Zoe was the sole target, and perhaps it had something to do with her athletic prowess. So, now rumors were circulating that she might be transhuman and that might have made her a target. The admin who’d had that epiphany was even suggesting to the dean that they might need to sue Zoe to make her pay back the scholarship money since she hadn’t disclosed she was transhuman.

It likely won’t happen, he realized, if only because they don’t want the scandal of having an athlete in violation of NCAA anti-transhuman rules. It would be a black eye they’d want to avoid unless they needed to be pre-emptive—and so far, the NCAA didn’t even seem to be taking any notice of the attempted abduction, much less have any reason to be suspicious about Zoe’s abilities.

Still, he had played a part in bringing about just the kind of attention that Zoe had so assiduously tried to avoid, and it was messing with his conscience more than a little.

A voice and a bit of verse from the stage pulled him out of his Query mindset and back to the Milo Phillips role in which he currently was dressed.

“…Parlez-vous Français? Cuz all the Froggies say you’re gay. Comprende? Capiche? Cuz I’m deep old money, but you be nouveau riche.”

Milo groaned at that—both the rhymes and the awkward delivery. He hadn’t heard what verses had led up to that portion, but knowing the rapper who was delivering them, Milo knew all too well the prelude had probably sucked just as much and perhaps more. Killah-Be tended to get pretty far in these rap battles even though he was so terrible at hip-hop—Milo suspected the young man had some transhuman powers, though he might not be aware of them. People who went up against him on stage often got flustered, lost their concentration, and became nervous and hesitant—as a result, their flubbed verbal attacks ended up being worse that Killah-Be’s delivery.

He’s probably a Primal pumping out pheromones of some sort, or maybe an Interfacer who disrupts neural processing slightly, he considered. Might even be a Psionic projecting thoughts of inadequacy or worry.

Killah-Be’s opponent on stage, a 23-year-old indie rapper who went by the nom de rap of EZStreet, seemed utterly unfazed, however. Although Milo was certain Killah-Be was transhuman, he was uncertain if the young man’s powers were erratic or some people just resisted it better than others. In any case, with no muddling of his mind or confidence, EZStreet volleyed back verbally within seconds.

“That’s all you got, polyglot? I know what I am; know what you’re not. Not worth a second or a third thought. Be here long after your verses rot,” EZStreet snarled, then continued with: “You’re hip-hop-i-vomitous; I know that sounds ominous. But all it really means is you make me feel nauseous. My rhyme are plenteous; I’m rap-i-venomous. Toxic to fools like you who are the pettiest.”

Milo snickered to himself, happy to know that Killah-Be would be knocked out of the rap battle early for once, as he deserved. Then, once again, his brief bit of joy was snatched away as his Droid smartphone buzzed in its hidden pocket and as he realized it was a call from the private detective he had keeping an eye on Zoe tonight.

But whatever grim and dark thoughts that brought, as he wondered what mess was likely unfolding, it was quickly replaced by the hunger for the hunt.

I think Janus has finally made his second attempt, Query thought. I just hope there’s still time to keep Zoe from harm in all this.

* * *

Michele Cho opened the freezer door, pulled out the pack, shook it experimentally, frowned and then strode into the living room where her stepsister and roommate, Isabella Fuentes, lounged watching a DVD.

“Any idea where my cigarettes are?” Michele questioned Isabella with a snide edge.

“Oh, yeah, I’d hoped you’d see the empty pack and buy some more,” Isabella responded mildly, not even looking at Michele as she did. “You know, it’s really hard to enjoy smoking when you buy them so infrequently.”

“But your own, you cheap bitch,” Michele grumbled. “Or get a boyfriend to buy them.”

“Like you said, I’m cheap, and I don’t have a boyfriend just at this moment in time,” Isabella said, finally meeting Michele’s gaze and rolling her eyes as she said it.

“I’m going out to Club Darque, and now I gotta stop by a convenience store to buy something that I thought I already had because my stepsister has been bumming them all week. Really, Izzie, could you at least have told me you were stealing them?”

“You woulda just hid ‘em, Michele,” she answered. “Hard enough to just sneak a couple a day so you wouldn’t notice for a while. You hardly even smoke, so why stress yourself out by keeping a pack in the house that I’m just going to steal from anyway?”

“I like to smoke when I go out clubbing and drinking and dancing and maybe hooking up with someone, you twat. You know that, Izzie. Fuck! Fine, I’ll buy a pack for you, too, when I’m out. Find a boyfriend soon so you don’t dig into the one I put in the freezer for myself.”

“I’ll do my best,” Isabella said sweetly, if with an obvious and humorously disingenuous note.

“When you were stealing my cigarettes like you did from my dad and your mom when you were 13, did you remember to get that intel on the skeez lab?”

“Of-fuckin-course,” she answered. “It’s all on the dining table. Not like I want you getting killed during a drug lab raid, Sis.”

“Yeah, because who would buy your smokes then?” Michele asked.

They both broke out laughing.

“God, I hate you,” Isabella said.

“Love you, too, Izzie.”

“Seriously, though, why do you even buy cigarettes? I don’t get the social, once- or twice-a-week smoker thing. I started my off-and-on love affair with cancer sticks at 13; you didn’t start until 17, which as I recall is when you started piercing and tattooing and dressing in black a lot. Is smoking a required part of the official Goth uniform?”

Michele chuckled. “Kinda. Dunno. Gets me in the right mood when I’m out clubbing—feel more bad-ass and rebellious. Also, nice to have a cheap high that doesn’t inhibit my judgment, my ability to drive, or break the law. All right, so I’ll look over the stuff when I get back so I can start our little ‘catch Marty the Hun plan’ on Monday.”

“Yeah, because heaven forbid you should do the take-down and set-up this weekend and fuck up your chances of nailing some Goth chick or Emo dude that you hook up with tonight or tomorrow,” Isabella sneered good-naturedly.

“Girl’s gotta put herself first sometimes for the sake of mental health,” Michele said, then her equally good-natured tone suddenly turned serious. “Besides, Izzie, I’m more than a little nervous about this plan, and I’d like to have a good time before I possibly check out.”

* * *

Taking a life was a thrilling thing, Breathtaker thought, and something he didn’t get to do near enough of. Sadly, he wouldn’t be doing it tonight, either. However, making someone feel like they were dying and leaving them with their last conscious thoughts that they likely would end up a corpse was pretty satisfying, too.

The dreadlocked bitch that Underworld had set him to nab as his graduation test to join her and Janus’ operation had been easy pickings. She seemed largely withdrawn from the party she was in, which was attended mostly by current and recently graduated college students. She just stood there holding up a wall, a half-smoked cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other—either a cola or a mixed drink.

Stuck-up, much, Zoe? he had thought. Too good for everyone else? Shy? Psycho loner? Or do you just not feel like you fit in with all these fuckin’ norms?

He’d gone up to her, introduced himself and made small talk like he was trying to hit on her. After a minute or two she was clearly a bit short of breath and said she needed to get some air.

“Maybe you smoke too much,” Breathtaker had said. “Maybe that’s all it is. Then again, I make a lot of women breathless.”

The tone of his voice at that point—having taken on a more aggressively taunting tone then—had tipped her off that something might be wrong, and he had seen it in her eyes. But that had been what he’d wanted. Fear was good. Made things more fun.

He had grabbed one of her arms and then, with physical contact, could put his Interfacer powers fully to work, completely shutting down her ability to breathe. Her eyes had taken on a panicked look, and he noticed her appearance begin to change slightly. He had stepped back, knowing that he could keep her respiratory system in his mental grip for bit longer from a distance now that he’d made direct contact with her nervous system. She had swung haphazardly and slowly, her fear and inability to breathe throwing her off. Still, her nails grazed him, tearing open his leather jacket and shirt and one of them leaving a red line of blood. Janus had said she was a Morph, and he hadn’t been wrong about how sharp her fucking nails could be.

But then she was stumbling and beginning to lose her balance, and Breathtaker had rushed in to catch her. He had embraced her like they were making out, keeping her lungs from working until she passed out against him.

She had smelled good, he recalled. Really nice perfume or scented oil or something. He had taken a few moments to suck at the light brown skin of her neck, and cop a cheap feel for a couple minutes as he let her body begin to breathe again just enough to keep her from dying on him. She wasn’t his usual type—she was like some Rasta chick with those dreadlocks and about half of them colored red or bleached blonde. For Breathtaker, he liked his sisters to have long hair, but preferred it straight as hell and black as night.

Finally, he had spoken into the transmitter on his shirt collar, saying to the rest of the team, “One of y’all get the fuck in here and help me with this bitch.”

Now, she was in the car ahead of him, pumped full of sedative by now, and on her way to Janus.

Hello, opportunity, Breathtaker thought, smiling. I’m in the Big League now.

* * *

“Talk to me,” Query said into his phone as he exited the club and left the world of hip-hop behind him, striding with purpose toward his van. The private detective wouldn’t be calling for some routine check-in—something was almost certainly happening.

“You said this Zoe isn’t the getting-piss-drunk type, right? Or the recreational drug type, either, right?”

“Correct on both counts,” Query told the man. “Why?”

“She’s been at this party thing at a college friend’s house for a while. Two guys were just carrying her out like she was drunk and needed help walking. She looked pretty much totally passed out to me. Got her into a car and drove away. One of the guys carrying her got into another car that followed the one she’s in.”

“You are tailing them, right?” Query said with an edge in his voice.

“Of course. Discreetly as hell. But I think they’re headed toward Grace Memorial Highway. Think they’re headed for the woods. Fifty-fifty chance, anyway. If I’m right, I gotta break off soon. No offense, Query, but if you’re involved, at least one of those mo-fo’s is a transhuman and I don’t fuck with transhumans directly. I follow them too far on Grace and they’re gonna spot me and make me out for a tail.”

“I don’t want you getting spotted either,” Query said, “and it has nothing to do with you keeping your out-of-shape ass bruise-free and bullet-free. Give me an exact report on your position and their direction and give me updates every minute until I tell you otherwise or you have to break off the pursuit.”

* * *

The Guardian Corps headquarters had an odd vibe, Cole noted. It was hard to put his finger on what it was, but he felt out of place somehow. It almost seemed like a whole other organization tonight to which he was a complete alien.

He tried not to let it bother him as he hung out and waiting for some marching orders. Desperado or one of his lieutenants would assign Cole to a team—

…a team, Cole considered. Why don’t I see many of the usual…

“Fuck! Shitfirefuckgoddam!” someone shouted, and Cole’s wasn’t the only set of eyes to turn toward the voice, which belonged to Blockbuster, the one person in the Corps who seemed to dislike him more than even Desperado did. “Another fucking patrol just got hit! Desperado! We’ve been fucking hit again on the streets! Total ambush! The raid on the red crush lab! Two injuries but no one dead this time.”

Desperado burst from his office, eyes blazing with anger and seeming to Cole as if they were seeking something in particular. They landed on him within seconds, and there was a dark satisfaction in them as they did.

“Talk to me, Blockbuster,” Desperado said, dragging his eyes from Cole and toward his right-hand man. “Who the fuck is doing this? Was anyone on that team who didn’t fucking get hurt connected to any of the other teams that got hit? I want a fucking suspect already.”

While Blockbuster started pulling up files on the six-year-old PC, another voice rang out.

“I don’t think we need to look very far,” said Puma, one of Desperado’s chief lieutenants. He walked toward Cole, one finger pointed at him like a gun. “That motherfucker over there has been around your office a lot when we’ve been talking lately. Including when we were talking about tonight’s major motherfucking operation. And guess who was conveniently fucking off the night we fucking had a bloodbath in here?”

“Yeah, you’re on to something there, Puma,” Desperado said, and Cole felt his chest constrict and his vision began to swirl darkly at the edges.

Wait! What? Oh shit what the fuck’s going on what the hell am I gonna do, Cole thought, panicky and confused.

“You know I am, Desperado. That shit-fuck joined us just to give us up to the fucking enemy!” Puma shouted. “Let’s take this motherfucker…”

“…Let’s take him out for a motherfucking drink why don’t we, Puma,” Desperado snarled, and now it was Puma’s turn to join Cole in confusion.

“Huh? What the…”

“Let’s talk about who else was at every meeting about a patrol that got hit,” Desperado said. “Only one goddamned person besides me knew about all those missions that got ambushed. I should know. I set up half of them just to fucking flush out the traitor and if the leader of each team hadn’t known they were fucking bait from the get-go I’d’ve probably lost a hell of a lot more people. And I made motherfucking sure Cole was fucking around so you’d aim for any patrol he might have been around to hear about and then make him the scapegoat. Right on schedule, you traitor shithead! Actually, ahead of schedule. What are you gonna do now?”

Suddenly, Cole realized what was weird about the headquarters tonight. He was one of only a handful of relative newbies here. He doubted there were more than a few people among the couple dozen or so in attendance tonight who hadn’t been in the Corps for over a year.

It’s a fucking trap for Puma and shit is going to go…

“Cover me! Hit the fucking exits all y’all!” Puma shouted.

In a panicked rush, Cole’s head swiveled and jerked in a haphazard attempt to take stock of the whole area, and it seemed that at least three people were reacting to Puma’s words.

He’s got friends in here who are traitors, too, Cole realized, and they’ll be fighting their way out.

One of those men, standing several yards from Cole—who went by the codename Kobra—made a lunge for one of the Corps members from behind, his hands growing to the size of spades and the fingers becoming deadly claws. From seemingly out of nowhere, PrinSass barreled into him before he could strike. She wasn’t a Speedster—just a Tank—but still Cole was amazed she could move so fast given the size of her body. Her big fists were pounding at Kobra with blunt, determined blows that sent blood and teeth flying from the man’s nose and mouth. The blows made sounds like wet thumps and Cole was certain he heard them punctuated by the cracking of a cheekbone despite his distance from the fight. PrinSass made up for lack of finesse and agility with hits that were harder and faster than anything he’d ever seen, and Kobra was down without having been able to so much as scratch anyone.

A shot rang out, entering the back of the computer monitor where Blockbuster had been working, coming out through the screen and nearly clipping the man as he ducked for cover. Cole whipped around and saw the gunman, a guy who went by the name Breakout—clearly another of Puma’s friends and now taking aim at Desperado from behind. Marshalling his will, Cole began to twist space near Breakout but even as he did, someone shouted a warning and Desperado spun, both revolvers drawn with breathtaking speed and aimed with unwavering accuracy. Desperado only pulled the trigger of one gun, and took Breakout down with a single shot between his legs, shouting out gleefully, “Hah! Gelding!”

The gun in Desperado’s other hand moved in an arc to reacquire the target he had wanted to take down before Breakout had become a threat. But that intended target, Puma, was already on the move and Cole got an inkling of at least one reason for his name when he realized the man was a Speedster.

Desperado’s chances of hitting Puma as he headed for an exit were slim, as he couldn’t track the man quickly enough with the gun in his left hand…

…until Cole realized Desperado’s other gun hand was moving inward, and Puma was headed right for that arc. A pair of cracking sounds and two small explosions of blood and torn fabric from his shoulder and hip, and Puma tumbled to the ground, rolling and crashing against a wall. Several Corps members rushed him.

There had been noises all around him during those hectic moments, and now Cole tried to figure out where the other conflicts might be—there had to be at least one or two other threats…

…but there was suddenly silence.

Relative silence, anyway, and Cole realized that five men and one woman were down, and only one of those people seemed to be getting field care at the moment. So, Puma and four accomplices—and only one casualty among the loyal Guardian Corps members.

Cole was close enough to Blockbuster’s desk to overhear as Desperado approached him, and said quietly, “Yo, ‘buster. Isolate Nightstrike from those other motherfuckers. Puma brought him on a few weeks ago; he might not know about Sweet Talker. Lock him up and get her in here to pump him for information. If that doesn’t work, torture his ass. I wanna know if anyone else not here tonight is on Puma’s payroll.”

Blockbuster hurried off to carry out Desperado’s order, and the bronze- and brown-clad man holstered his guns, cocked his Western hat and stepped toward Cole.

“Exciting night, huh?” Desperado said blandly. “You get hit or anything?”

“No,” Cole said. “I don’t think…um, no.”

“You almost messed up my shot with that Warpsmith shit, Cole. Don’t mess with my fucking shots. That said, sorry for the rude surprise of all this. You were the perfect fall guy to make this plan work but obviously I couldn’t tell you what was happening. The fact you weren’t here the night they attacked us directly here was fucking gold—made things move quicker when Puma knew he could finger you perfectly. Probably why he had several guys here tonight, to make sure you didn’t live through the night to defend your case. You being off that night was spectacular for my plan.”

“I doubt the people who got killed or hurt that night feel spectacular about it,” Cole said darkly.

“What? Fuck you, Cole. Or fuck you, Quantum. Whichever you prefer. Don’t get high and fucking mighty with the moral high ground. I didn’t know they were gonna fucking attack us that night. You not being here was luck, man. I appreciate divine providence when it comes knocking. I wouldn’t put that many people ad our HQ at risk to flush out a traitor.”

“You put patrols at risk to flush him out. You said so,” Cole noted.

“Every damn time I send out patrols I put them at risk, motherfucker,” Desperado retorted.

“So, all this time you didn’t really hate me,” Cole said. “Ever since I came on, you’ve been eyeing me as the guy to use to figure out who the leak was.”

“No, I hated you from the start, Cole. Made it a whole lot easier to play you, in fact. I don’t hate you any more. I just really strongly dislike your smarter-than-thou ass,” Desperado said. “I’m still hoping you quit soon or wash out of here, because I don’t think you have the shit to make it on the streets.”

Desperado turned and strode away without another word.

I just helped save the Guardian Corps without even knowing it, Cole thought, and I’m still just as much a pariah as I was before.

[ - To view the next chapter, click here - ]

Love in the Air

Just a little bit of chatter about the writing process to fill a little space until the next chapter of “The Gathering Storm” arrives in a day or two.

Romance in the lives of superheroes isn’t anything new. The always sultry Scarlet Witch married Vision, an emotionless android. Cyclops and Marvel Girl/Phoenix were a longstanding item, with Wolverine stirring up the dynamics. There’s always been a little something going on under the surface of Batman’s interactions with Catwoman. For a long time, Peter Parker (Spider-Man) was involved with Mary Jane. Superman and Lois Lane always had a vibe, and eventually she fell in love with the hero’s secret identity, Clark Kent. The list goes on, of course.

It makes sense, of course, because you can’t have every panel of a comic book be about fighting bad guys. Eventually, you need to see the heroes in their more vulnerable moments and in their day-to-day lives dealing with the same crap that you and I do (though rarely do they ever deal with the big question of how heroes pay their bills. I mean, if you have to hold down a job and be patrolling the city so often, how…)

…but, as usual, I digress.

Of course romantic relationships were going to crop up around here. I make a point of spending a lot of time on transhumans as people with issues of one sort or another, just like the rest of humanity.

Given the amount of time that’s been spent on the unlikely match-up of Mad Dash and Ladykiller, naturally that plot development was part of my plans all along. Right?

…uh…well…actually, no.

Frankly, I never saw it coming. In fact, I’m as surprised as anyone that these two characters would hook up. Just another example of the story sometimes guiding me instead of the other way around.

Ladykiller was never even intended to be part of the series “The Gathering Storm.” I had a sense she might show up in passing, much like a multitude of other characters, but I didn’t see her as a key player. In fact, I’m amazed that after writing the origin story for her (“Prison of Wishes“) on Nov. 29, 2010, she showed up in “The Gathering Storm” in chapter 6 only 10 days later, on Dec. 9, when I posted that chapter here.

I mean, the story “Prison of Wishes” was itself a fluke. Listening to Kurt Elling’s rendition of the song “Nightmoves” in the car one day, a specific line from his lyrics really struck me: “Starring you and me | The hero is struggling to say, that his lady is far away | In her prison of wishes …”

The phrase “prison of wishes” lodged in my head, and I tried to imagine what such a thing might be. From that simple beginning formed the very grim story that is Sarah Gagnon and her imprisonment, ultimate escape from her captor, and perhaps another kind of self-imprisonment wrapped up with self-discovery and self-empowerment along with post-traumatic stress and a largely unfulfilled desire for vengeance and redemption. That story was only supposed to be about the reason why she went from a person with powers who wanted nothing to do with them to the violent vigilante known as Ladykiller; it wasn’t meant to be a prelude.

So, I had an origin story, with a character I didn’t have any particular plans to revisit any time soon. I felt the story was enough on its own, and if Ladykiller never actually showed up in a story, that was fine. “Prison of Wishes” was meant to show a struggle and a partial resolution, not to pave the way for something more.

And then, a week later, give or take, I’m writing a scene in which Mad Dash comes across Ladykiller in the midst of dealing out her version of justice.

A character with no specifically planned future thrusts herself into my larger ensemble story.

And then what does Mad Dash do after seeing she has disemboweled a rapist?

He asks her to join him for a meal. After all, he burns a lot of calories running. And who wants to eat alone all the time?

What I didn’t figure on…nor Mad Dash, I guess…is that his innocent invitation would lead to an odd-couple pairing of the romantic sort. Doubt Ladykiller saw it coming either. But that’s what she gets for being all assertive and jumping into my narrative.

And so, now, I find myself suddenly with a venue in which to explore a character I hadn’t expected to be so close to center stage, with all her conflicting insecurities, assertiveness, anger and affection. Not to mention exploring how a man so removed from normal perceptions of the world and friendly (if socially awkward) will grow along with such a woman.

Should be an interesting ride…

The Gathering Storm, Part 22

[ - To view a list of all current chapters, click here - ]

Cole looked out across the devastation of the main gathering area at the Guardian Corps’ central headquarters. In some senses, it didn’t look that much different than normal. It wasn’t as if the Corps had deep pockets. They survived mostly by donations and secondarily by whatever bits of money they might surreptitiously lift from some of the gang-bangers that tended to be their main prey as they patrolled the streets.

As such, their main headquarters was a smallish warehouse that a local company had found little interest in using to its full effectiveness and less interest in bringing up to code so that the city would let them, deciding that donating it to a crime-fighting cause was the easiest path. The furniture and computers were likewise donated—old and often not in the best condition. The members of the Corps themselves were often young men with at least a slight propensity for slovenly habits. As such, the place was usually a slightly dusty mess.

But this was something else entirely, and while it might not look tremendously more messy than usual, the substantive damage was more serious. Computers cracked open. Several chairs and one big table reduced to splinters. They were used to litter and clutter, but not from things that used to be useful and now were destroyed. Also, there were the numerous bullet holes in the drywall of haphazardly erected rooms that had been built to give certain members of the Corps a sense of having their own workspaces—something more than cubicles but less than offices. Now those walls were, in many cases, leaning and probably ready to fall over.

The various patches of blood on the concrete floor were also new. They’d been mostly mopped up, but while no longer thick, sticky and wet, they were still red stains that recalled the battle the night before.

Cole had been off-duty last night, so he’d missed that fight. That made him feel a strange combination of guilt and relief.

After weeks of having their patrols and raids sabotaged, some of their enemies had finally taken the fight directly to the Corps—to the main headquarters that it tried to keep as low-key as possible and a secret to their worst enemies, at least.

All in all, the string of ambushes and now an overt attack suggested that one or more people inside the Guardian Corps was a traitor who was feeding information to the highest bidder.

Or bidders.

The leaders of the Corps, including Desperado, were furiously directing people to clean up and pack things, as they also tried to secure a new location to which they could move soon and try to regain some sense of secrecy and security.

This place wasn’t much, but to Cole, it had become a kind of home. He wasn’t sure it was someplace he wanted to be involved with long-term, like Epitaph was, but it was home.

And now, he would have to move, and wonder if any place they might set down roots for the Corps now would ever be truly safe.

Cole saw Desperado in the distance, and met his eyes, which were hard and cold. The man said something to a few nearby lieutenants that Cole had no hope of hearing, and suddenly four sets of eyes were boring into him. Once again, among the most piercing stares was from one of Desperado’s top guys: Puma. A similar look as the man had used a couple other times recently when Cole was the object of attention and derision by Desperado and his inner circle.

But it was a look of deliberation and consideration, it seemed, and only tinged with hostility, while the other sets of eyes looked at Cole as if he were an unwelcome outsider.

Cole turned away, hung his head, and went to help Sweet Talker and PrinSass clean up some debris. At least the candy-themed, chewing-gum addicted woman and her burly, broad sister-in-crimefighting seemed to like him.

* * *

“So, how do you like the place?” Janus asked the man in front of him, who was clad all in black, from his shoes to his jeans to his shirt to his trench coat—all except for the full-head, red mask that revealed no part of the man’s face at all. “A little tender loving care from our new team, and it will be something to adore, don’t you think? A really sweet spot to enjoy life and have a few laughs.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” the man said grimly, not a trace of amusement in his tone.

“A joke? Why of course not…oh, all right, a little ribbing, I admit,” Janus said, stroking one side of his mask as if smoothing back some unruly locks of hair—it was some Central American themed thing that looked to Underworld like it was from a Day of the Dead celebration, with one side a smiling face and the other hinting at a skull. “I mean, you might actually end up working for me, after all. It would be nice to know if you appreciate my humor.”

“I’ll do my best to pretend I do,” the man said.

“Janus, his name is Odium,” Underworld noted. “I don’t expect much good humor from a man with that kind of name—and reputation.”

The red-masked head swiveled toward her. “Do you have something against what I do?” The voice was heavy with menace, but Underworld didn’t even flinch—only smiled disarmingly.

“While I know she’s more than capable of taking care of herself, I should point out, Odium, that if you use your powers against either one of us, this interview will be cut brutally short.”

“Oh, I’m well aware,” Odium answered. “So, what if I don’t want the job? Now that you’ve let me see where your headquarters is. Especially with the both of you being suspicious of my attitude.”

“Would that be a threat?” Underworld asked mildly.

“Observation,” Odium responded.

“Well, if you’re basing our worth as an organization with which to connect yourself on this location, you’d be underestimating us,” Janus broke in. “Underworld and I, along with core non-transhuman staff like my hackers and analysts, reside on several nicely appointed floors in a very reputable building.”

“And if I decide I want the job, I get to bunk down a lot with a handful of other folks here in Sparsity Land?”

“Janus and I value security, and whatever transhuman team we assemble will be more likely than us to draw tails and such,” Underworld said, “as well as being less able and sometimes less willing to follow strict security protocols. So, none of you will ever know about the central operations. Also, you won’t all be in the same place at the same time, unless for some seriously big shit. We have several small buildings like this one. You’ll get a small support staff and we will be doing substantial redecorating—fear not.”

“Although,” Janus interrupted, “you don’t seem the type who cares much about the finer things in life. Should we just put a cot and small table in your room at each location? Maybe a radio that only gets AM?”

“I find hate for hatred’s sake to be enough for personal satisfaction most days, but that doesn’t mean I want to hang out someplace with concrete floors and fold-out metal chairs and card tables,” Odium said. “I don’t hate myself.”

“Not entirely, anyway,” Underworld said.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You fixing to psychoanalyze me?”

“Making an observation,” she said, putting just enough emphasis on the last word to let him now she was sending his earlier retort right back at him. “This is a job interview. Make no mistake. For a potentially very lucrative line of work. With benefits. I’d be your boss…”

“One of your bosses,” Janus noted.

“Yes, one of your bosses. But since some people seem to have trouble focusing on administrative details with staffing, I’d be the one giving you most of your marching orders and doing regular performance reviews,” she told Odium, trying to get back to ignoring Janus as much as possible. It was the only way she figured she could avoid the temptation to murder him for the whole Crazy Jane situation.

A line of thought that only reminded her she missed Jane a bit and hadn’t seen her in more than a day.

Shit, she thought, feeling both an eagerness to get back to the main building and see her as well as revulsion at the low-level addiction she had to the other woman’s presence. Problem is that the eagerness and desire have steadily come to outweigh the fear, disgust and annoyance, meaning that I’ve all but stopped trying to find ways to slip the snare that is Crazy Jane. But on the bright side, ending my interest in escaping her small hold will give me more time to figure out how to kill Janus without upsetting her.

“Job reviews, too?” Odium sneered, pulling Underworld out of her private thoughts. “Ah, hell, just what I wanted. A 9-to-5 gig.”

“Hours will be longer than that sometimes, shorter at others,” Underworld noted. “But few jobs will offer such moral latitude, including giving you many chances to hurt people and sometimes kill them, will they? Unless you think your prospects are better as a mob enforcer.”

“Don’t knock it,” Odium said. “I’ve made some bucks that way.”

“Yes, and probably been looked at like a freak and treated with about as much affection as a guard dog by a bunch of norms who don’t understand a damn thing about you,” Underworld noted. “And all so that if there’s a family struggle or organizational squabble, you can possibly end up taking a bullet to the back of your skull during a dinner at an Italian or Russian restaurant as part of the staff reorganization plan.”

“I’ll think about it,” Odium said.

“You have the prospectus,” Underworld said. “And now you have four days to get back to us.”

“And every day you wait, our interest in you will wane accordingly,” Janus added.

* * *

The tiny fluttering sensation of his belly rising a hair and then gravity pulling it back down a fraction of a centimeter. A ding. The tiny rumble of a metal door sliding open.

And then he was looking at it.

Ladykiller’s home.

Well, a hallway, anyway, Mad Dash considered. Not all that great of a hallway, either. Wallpaper is kind of bleu cheesy. Table might be nice in a Greek food temple. Flowers in the vase look like they could use some Vaseline Intensive Care lotion.

“You can go in, Dash—I mean, Peter,” Ladykiller said. She was in civilian clothes, as he was, and clearly she was uncomfortable having to think in un-costumed norm terms, though he noted an almost giddy expectation in her eyes. Nervousness, excitement and a desire to please all rolled into one. “Welcome to my home.”

Of course, this is the most intimate thing she’d done with me, he considered of his girlfriend—Ladykiller or Honey Badger in costume and Sarah out of them; they hadn’t graduated to sharing each other’s surnames yet. Letting me into her home. Her secret lair. The most personal thing we’ve shared aside from making out—at least since that time a few weeks back when she showed up at my tussle with that other Speedster and let me see her real face.

Peter realized he was still just standing there, and then chuckled nervously and stepped into the hall and set down the duffle bag that held his costume and various miscellany. Sarah smiled back, a little less nervousness there, and took her finger off the “hold” button for the private elevator to this penthouse condominium, stepping into the hall herself and taking Peter’s left hand in her right. Her palm felt warm and clammy and her fingers were quivering just a little, he realized, and he gave it a small, encouraging squeeze.

“My home,” she repeated. “Let me show you around.”

She gave him the rounds in a haphazard way, sometimes leaving a room only to bring him back to it again within a minute or two to point out something else about it. She seemed most proud of the bathrooms and living room. The kitchen and small bedroom where she slept got the least attention.

Eight rooms in total, with the last one on the tour a combination of office and armory, where she kept her costumes, weapons, a couple computers, some files and other things related to her vigilante work. It was the biggest of all the rooms, and looked as if it had once been an office and a bedroom with the wall knocked down between them. The door to it was heavy and fitted with several locks, as well as an alarm system.

“Nicey icey place,” the man known in costume as Mad Dash said finally. “How do you pay for this, Sarah? I don’t get the depression you work for a living. Are you noodle riche or something?”

“Noodle…? Oh, Nouveau riche? I wish,” she said. “Oh, wait, I guess I kinda am now for the past couple years. This was his condo. The guy who kidnapped me and kept me here for nearly a year raping me when was home—thankfully, that wasn’t very often. No day job since he locked me up here, though; didn’t even go back to being an office hack after I killed him. I spent my days working out for him; now I spend them working out so I can be Ladykiller.”

“He left you alone all day long in here with that war-room back there? I’m guessing it was his at first. You know, before you sent him to sleep with the daisies.”

“See those white lines on the floor on front of the elevator, doors, and windows, Peter? Well, if I got too close to those lines, it triggered a taser locked around my neck. And that would alert him by pager or phone or something. It only took one time to get the message quick that I shouldn’t try to go where I wasn’t allowed.”

“Still…if I were that freakazoidal I think I’d be nervous you’d get my keys and get into that room with the guns and whatnot,” Peter noted.

“There was a key chain thingy his keys were attached to. He told me if I got near it that would set off my collar too. I didn’t have any reason to doubt that was true; never got a chance to test it. He’d drop them on the table there in the hall near the elevator when he got home and getting near that table would set off the collar too. See? White line all around it.”

“So…but…how? The money. I mean, I know you killed him but it’s not like he put you in his will? Did he?”

Sarah laughed harshly and briefly. “As if,” she huffed. “Dash, no one remembers their account numbers and passwords. He had them all written down in the locked office like anyone else. Took me a while to find them, but once I did, there was no problem doing electronic transfers and stuff. Security questions weren’t that hard either once I went through enough stuff to figure out his mother’s maiden name and his place of birth and shit. Hell, he waxed poetic about his childhood more than a few times while raping me. Paying attention to his diarrhetic spewing about his pets and his cars and crap was better than thinking about what he was doing to me.”

“Sounds like a nasty chunk of work,” Peter said, “but apparently a hard worker if he could afford this.”

“Yeah, I think he was in investments or something along those lines,” Sarah said. “Finance-related, anyway. Also got plenty of money and items to fence from his criminal activities as Mister Master.”

“That name popped up now and again starting a few years back,” Peter said, frowning, “but I didn’t know much about him. Query wasn’t really all that reactive back then, so he probably doesn’t know much either.”

“Guess he was better than the average crook then,” Sarah said. “Anyway, I set up automatic payments from his accounts for some things he didn’t already have set up that way. The mortgage and taxes for this place and the utilities and all that will be covered for at least the next three years. After that, I guess I’ll have to move out.”

“Nobody knows he’s dead?” Peter asked.

“Struck me as being the kind of guy nobody was sorry to see never come back to the office or the family reunions. He was creepy when I first met him.”

“How did you get his keys with the jolty bolty thing on your neck back then?” Peter asked.

“I stepped over some lines enough times to exhaust the battery in the collar,” Sarah answered matter-of-factly, squaring her shoulders a bit and taking a deep breath. “Gave myself a couple days off in between each jolt cuz I was afraid I might fry my brain. Took four times.”

“Cheezy Louise-y!” Peter said. “Honey, you’re one tough petunia.”

“Determined or desperate, more likely,” she countered. “But they look the same as toughness sometimes.”

There was a long pause, during which she silently slipped her right hand into his left again and they simply stood there. Peter tried to process it all through the chaotic filter of his mind and seized upon one thing above all others. Eight rooms she had shown him. But that wasn’t the entirety of the place. There was a ninth one that Sarah had rushed him past at least three times now.

“Would it be impolitic to ask what’s in there?”

“Impolite, you mean?” she asked, then seemed to change the subject as she blurted, “You wanna stay over tonight after we do a patrol as Mad Dash and Honey Badger?”

“Sure. Yeah,” Peter said. “Ummmm, is this the night…”

She busted out laughing. There was a sad look in the back of her eyes, but mostly amusement. “No, tonight won’t be the night I take your virginity and find out if I can even have sex anymore. Wouldn’t mind a cuddle, though. And someone to help keep the nightmares away.”

“Sure, Honey. No problem.”

He realized Sarah’s question and offer to stay over wasn’t a diversion when she sighed heavily and said, “Well, then, if you’ll be staying here in the place I creepily live in, since it’s stuffed full of memories of my abuse and psychological torture, you should know what’s in that room.” After a long pause, she stated, “He is.”

“Mister Master?” Peter gasped. “Right now?”

“Yep,” she responded.

“Isn’t that un-hyphenic and stuff? And stinkerific?”

“You know those big bags they sell for storing your sweaters and stuff in off-season? They’re like big Ziploc baggies?”

“Uh. Yeah. But…”

“…Once you’ve chopped up a body into about four equal portions, they slide in really nicely. I bought a bunch of them. Quadruple bagged each big hunk of that sadistic motherfucker and then stuck the bags in four plastic bins with lids. Then I quadruple-bagged the bloody mattress and bedding in mattress bags. I’m sure after a couple years he’s liquified by now and there’s a nice toxic soup in those bags that can send me straight to prison. Oh, well. You can understand why I don’t invite many people over. Like, ever. Never before now, in fact.”

“But even with all the bags and closed door and spiffy air fresheners, can’t you…”

“My super-powered nose can smell him a little. If I pay attention. I tune it out, mostly. When I notice, I figure it’s a good reminder of how I got where I am today and why I do what I do.”

“I guess I three-wish you hadn’t had to go through any of that but if you didn’t, I guess I wouldn’t have met you,” Peter said, shuffling a bit. His feet didn’t stop moving until her hand slipped into his once more.

“Yeah, life’s fucked up that way, ain’t it?” she said, and led him to the kitchen so they could eat before suiting up and going on patrol.

Several hours later, after they had returned from patrol, they slipped up to the condo that had once belonged to Mister Master, masks off and wearing long coats to conceal their costumes from prying eyes. Exhausted, Sarah pulled off her coat and tossed her mask to the ground, leading Peter to her small bedroom. She quickly slipped under the covers with the faux-fur-trimmed outfit still on—as she did, he barely heard her mumble, “Too soon to see; too soon to show him”—then she told Peter which drawer to open to find her workout clothes so that he wouldn’t have to sleep in his costume.

And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want me naked or in my underwear, or she’d probably be that way herself, he told himself. And she wouldn’t have told me where to find something to wear.

As Sarah drifted off to sleep, Peter remained awake for some time. He thought about the fact he was wearing a women’s pair of black yoga pants and a pink T-shirt with red lettering that read: Redheads Rock! He thought about how even with the air conditioning going, it was way too hot tonight to be spooning a woman wearing a partially furred costume. He considered the fact that just a few doors away, the putrefied remains of a rapist and murderer were locked behind a bedroom door.

Mad Dash buried his face in the auburn hair of the woman mostly dressed as Honey Badger right now, sniffed deeply of the shampoo and sweat there, and figured that despite all that, he was the luckiest man alive.

(Crimson mask image for Odium modified from an image of Black Panther; character copyright of Marvel Comics)

[ - To view the next chapter, click here - ]

Easier to Navigate

As I continue to write new Tales of the Whethermen stories, it becomes increasingly hard to remember how everything fits together, and increases the chances that I will write something that is totally out of sequence with everything else, thus messing up continuity.

So, I went through the effort over the past few days to sort out all the short stories and the chapters thus far of “The Gathering Storm” to figure out what happened when.

The result is a chronological list that I will update as I add new stories and new chapters. If ever you wanted to have a better sense of how things fit together…or if you’re new to visiting here and aren’t sure where to start, I hope this helps.

Of course, it didn’t stop there. I realized I should probably have a thematic page too (which doesn’t have all the stories and features no chapters from “The Gathering Storm”).

So, I reorganize the story list menu at the top of the blog so that it is now a portal page and there are drop-down menus for the various new menus, along with a new drop-down menu to represent what was originally on that Stories & Series List page (that new drop-down is called “All Stories” because it’s a list of all of the tales…just not terribly organized).

You’d thing I’d be done, then, right?

Hah!

You don’t know me well enough. One of the things I spent a shit-ton of time doing at my main erotica blog was to organize my stories by separate worlds so that I knew which ones were in the same setting/universe and so that readers could find things they liked better instead of flailing around. Yes, I’m not a type-A about much, but when it comes to organizing my stories…

So, I didn’t stop with a new menu portal for stories and three new menus for finding them…I also created an alphabetical listing of stories.

I think I’m done for now, but I’m sure I can find another menu or two at some point to add along with the others.

Casting Call!

Given how phenomenally big a critical and commercial hit “The Watchmen” was as a comic book mini-series and graphic novel…and how long it took to get to the big screen…I certainly think I can expect that my Whethermen characters should see motion picture adaptation treatment in, oh, about 80 years.

Probably in an alternate-reality version of our own Earth.

But hey, a guy can dream, right?

So, in a totally frivolous fill-in while you wait for the next chapter of “The Gathering Storm,” how about we fantasize about who should play the various characters in my tales on the big screen.

Query: Played by Laurence Fishburne, acting like a 50/50 combination of the “traditional” stylings of Samuel L. Jackson and Forest Whitaker. Alternately, could be played by a moderately slimmed-down Forest Whitaker instructed to act around 50 or 60 percent like he thinks Samuel L. Jackson would in the role.

Underworld: Salma Hayek, instructed to channel quite a bit of Angelina Jolie, or Gina Torres.

Mad Dash: John Cho, though some slight digital de-aging might be required, given Mad Dash’s relative youth.

Loc-Down (Zoe Dawson): I like the idea of Zoe Saldana or possibly Rosario Dawson, though both are technically too old to convincingly play a college student, so the character and plot may have to be tweaked to make her an older character. I’m not familiar enough with young Afro-Latina actors to be able to come up with someone who could play a woman in her early 20s. Vanessa Hudgens might be able to pull it off. In any case, whomever has the role wouldn’t even have to loc her hair, as digital effects would be needed for those anyway, and for non-action sequences I’m sure a convincing wig could be produced.

Solstice: Brenda Song could probably do it if she were able to Goth herself up a bit.

Of course, those are just a few characters, but it’s a start.

Agree? Disagree? Ideas for other characters?

Well, then…hit that speech bubble button at the top of the post and comment.

NOTE: I just realized Loc-Down’s civilian name is actually a mashup of the two actresses I picked to play her. Weird. I mean, I like Rosario Dawson, and that’s where I got that last name, but Zoe was picked because it was one of the names on the short list for my own daughter (though we didn’t choose that name, ultimately)

Curiosity Thrills the Cat

Damned hair, Alan Millos silently muttered, scratching at the tightly curled black toupee that currently adorned his scalp and then pushing the pair of thoroughly non-functional glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. I don’t know how Donald Trump does it every day, all day long with that monstrosity on his head.

One advantage of Alan’s hairpiece, of course, was that he took time to find someone who actually knew how to make a toupee that looked real—why Trump continued with one that looked so fake confused him to no end. Sometimes, he felt like a fool for wearing his own wig, though, along with the plain-lensed glasses he wore around the house. Almost never did anyone pay him a visit here at his small home near the edge of Lark County, and never without advance notice.

I’m always in a role, even as my original self, he noted ruefully. That dangerous-ass drug I helped develop gave me back the use of my legs and gave me transhuman powers, but it robbed me of sleep and the convenience of living just one life.

Since then, four identities and a 24/7 lifestyle of constant activity to keep himself sane. As much as he enjoyed being Milo Phillips in the world of underground rap and local hip-hop, jazz musician and composer Nigel Roy and costumed crime-fighter Query—each for differing reasons—it was nice to be the supposedly still-paraplegic reclusive genius Alan Millos. The man who had unwittingly forged a path toward a conscious decision to lead a four-personality lifestyle.

At times, it seemed frivolous to wear the toupee and glasses around this property—much less to move around in a wheelchair he no longer required. He preferred the bald head he had affected for his Milo Phillips identity, and the Sensor and Regenerator powers he had acquired made prescription glasses entirely unnecessary.

Still, somehow, it helped put him in mind of his previous life. He couldn’t practice the kind of science he once did thanks to changes that drug had made to his brain functions, but he could still keep up on reading the scientific journals to be aware of what was going on with the pharmaceutical and biotech R&D world, as well as peruse the financial news to see how his investments were doing.

Once he took off the glasses and toupee, he felt an urge to start working on rap lyrics or to don his Query costume and find trouble or delve back into an unsolved case. Urges to be Nigel Roy were more rare—he often did jazz composition work and practiced on his saxophone or guitar looking the same as he did in his Milo persona, but the pull of jazz wasn’t as strong as hip-hop.

Of course, another part of the reason Nigel Roy saw less play was the amount of time he had to spend on makeup and prosthetics to become Nigel, who was an olive-complexioned white man as opposed to Alan’s natural African-American nature, when he appeared in public in that role.

The bottom line, though, was that this modest home on a really big and expensive plot of largely wooded land was his one quiet refuge as Alan Millos. He rarely spent time here but it was the one place he could be where he wasn’t faced with people wanting his attention or plagued by crises and danger. In a life lived without sleep, it was the closest he came to remembering what slumber was like. Being here was almost meditative.

Refreshing.

Renewing.

So it was all the more disheartening to remind himself of this and then hear the quiet but persistent ping indicating that several proximity sensors on the edge of his property were registering an intruder.

* * *

My sanctuary has been violated. My peace has been broken.

Alan was furious. His instincts called out for him to get his costume and gear and become Query. His haven had been invaded, and that realization enraged him.

But I will not break my role. Query would not be here. Only a near-hermit wealthy genius in a wheelchair.

The cameras hadn’t picked up anything yet, but several more motion detectors had gone off, and they were carefully programmed to disregard local fauna. The computer algorithms gave it a 99 percent chance the intruder was human.

Or, more precisely and more likely, a transhuman Luminar—a person with the power to manipulate light; in this case, someone who could bend it around his or her body to become invisible.

No matter. Once the intruder is close enough, my enhanced hearing and scent will prevail, along with the .357 Magnum I’m holding in my lap right now.

If that wasn’t enough, a Walther P99 next to his left thigh and Desert Eagle next to his right thigh should keep things lively and in his favor.

Once the intruder had gotten to within about a hundred yards of the house, Alan’s security system stopped giving him any sense of the perpetrator’s whereabouts.

Either the person just discovered my inner-perimeter systems and is avoiding the sensors, or the person is a Cyber as well as a Luminar and is instructing my computers to ignore him or her, he surmised. It also suggests strongly that the person knew I had heavy security coverage all along and wanted me to be aware of the early approach, but ignorant of the entry point.

A game of cat-and-mouse, it seemed to Alan’s hyper-intuitive powers. That felt right.

And the analogy became even more apropos when he sniffed the air.

Smelled her.

Cheshire.

* * *

Alan heard her approach. He’d turned off every form of ambient noise in the house much earlier when his early-warning alarms had gone off—even the refrigerator—to ensure his enhanced aural capabilities would be in peak form.

The sound of her footfall, no matter how stealthy she was, came to him a split-second after her all-too-familiar scent. He had time to turn his wheelchair very leisurely, and have the Magnum raised and ready. Violence had never been necessary with Cheshire before; would it be now?

“I come in peace,” she said from the dining area that abutted his living room. His hearing pinpointed her as being just to one side of the open doorway that connected the two rooms.

I could easily put a bullet through the wall and into her skull, he thought, and the simmering rage that so often lay beneath the civilized surface of his sleep-starved brain whispered a quiet approval of that idea.

But they were, if not friends, allies of a sort. At least they had been for a long time. She was a mercenary and a spy-for-hire. He was an investigator, crime-fighter and vigilante. They both skirted the law frequently; they both crossed the line at times. But neither of them was a “bad guy.”

She wasn’t a killer. She was a data thief and spy, but good spies didn’t invade a home with a hyper-aware resident inside.

Then again, why would she know I have hyper-senses? This isn’t one of Query’s lairs, so it might all be a coincidence, with her ignorant that I’m Query as well as Alan. Alan Millos is supposedly a paraplegic and if she was hired to spy on that identity of mine, she could have underestimated the amount of security I would have. Also, her tripping of the sensors earlier and avoidance of them now might be to send me a message. Did someone have a beef against Alan Millos and wanted me intimidated?

“I have a gun,” Alan said with a modest volume but firm, slow intonation to make himself clear.

“Most people would call 911 and mention that, either before mentioning the gun or instead of it,” Cheshire noted, still to the side of the doorway.

“Response times to the outskirts of the county probably suck,” he responded, and cocked the hammer of the .357 loudly for effect, just to reinforce the point that he was armed.

“Hmmmm. No, actually they’re not that bad at all,” she said, an amused tone creeping into her voice. “This is a small county. New Judah takes up well over half the geography of Lark County and you live near a major highway. State troopers would be here in short order.”

“Maybe I like to explore my Second Amendment rights and prefer the idea of killing intruders first and asking for forgiveness later,” Alan responded.

Cheshire chuckled softly, honestly amused. “So, did Alan Millos always have the same dry sense of humor as Query, or did it develop after you started wearing a costume?”

“Huh?” he answered. “You’re off your rocker, lady. Or your meds. Whomever you are.”

“A-plus on your acting skills. You know who I am and, like I said, I come in peace. I’m going to step into view, and hopefully you’ll offer me a seat instead of shooting me. I like to think all our good times together should have earned me that much goodwill. Not to mention that you got me to owe you a favor recently, and if you want me to do that favor one day, it would be easier if I’m alive.”

“Don’t you have nine of them?” Alan asked. “Lives, I mean. You can spare one or two, I’m sure.”

“Not sure the Cheshire Cat had nine lives. I only know about the invisibility and mischievousness. Is my white flag accepted? Can we parley? Palaver? Whatever?”

Alan sighed heavily, more for effect than for any honest exasperation, and said, “Go plug my fridge back in so my shit doesn’t go bad, then come back and come in. I promise not to shoot you when you come in and sit down on the loveseat. I reserve the right to rescind that based on your subsequent actions.”

Her steps receded, he heard the compressor of his refrigerator kick in again shortly thereafter, and her footfall approached again. There was a hint of wariness in the sound of those steps, Alan noted—something no normal person could have noticed. Then she stepped into view. She was wearing one of her many different costumes—this time one he had never seen before. While the gray and black outfit itself was a simple unitard of some thin, sturdy, skin-hugging material, the feline mask was a more festive black and gold and left her hair, ears, mouth and jawline exposed. Her skin had a golden tone to it that suggested to him she was probably Asian. One more clue about her to file away in his brain, as she’d always worn full-head masks on their many previous encounters.

Of course, it’s also possible she has sufficient control over light to alter the spectrum I’m seeing, and her skin might be another color entirely, Alan considered.

“Nice threads,” he said as she strolled confidently to the small sofa and sat down, crossing one leg over the other and stretching her left arm out across the back of the loveseat. “Now, Cheshire, I would like you to explain yourself while I try to decide whether me keeping my secrets is worth more to me than your life.”

* * *

Instead of responding to his demand, Cheshire asked for a drink. Alan beckoned to a nearby wet bar. She poured herself a single-malt Scotch, sipped at it and sat back down. “I was thinking coffee or tea, but I guess convincing you to go to the kitchen and fix something is out.”

“Explain yourself,” Alan repeated sternly.

She was silent at first, simply waggling her right foot a bit in the air as her left one tapped slowly against the hardwood floor. She took another sip of Scotch, quietly regarded the lipstick stains she had left on the rim of the glass, and then rested the glass on her thigh. Finally, she said, “I don’t like open-ended questions, Query. They are meant to invite over-sharing of information.”

“First off, don’t call me ‘Query.’ Don’t even think of getting into that habit when you see me like this. Just in case we ever meet this way again.”

“Fair enough. Do you prefer ‘Dr. Millos’ or ‘Alan,’ then?”

“Alan is fine. Otherwise I might feel obliged to call you ‘Ms. Cheshire’ or something.”

“I’m open to questions, Alan. Specific ones.”

“How?”

“That’s not specific,” Cheshire chided playfully.

“How did you discover who I was and how did you track me? Tell me every goddamn relevant thing about that.”

“Trade secrets,” Cheshire said.

Alan patted the .357 Magnum in his lap. “Answer my questions, or my civility will wear thin. You have invaded my privacy. You have penetrated a level of secrecy I wanted to remain inviolate. If you think I won’t consider killing you to preserve it, you are an idiot and a fool.”

“I’m neither, Alan,” she responded. “But you’re right. I’ve taken liberties, and so I need to get over my usual reticence. I spent a great deal of my personal fortune—and considering the budgets some of my clients have had to work with, that’s sizable—making a special costume. Not the one I’m wearing now. The other one’s not nearly as flattering to my figure. I wanted to find out where you lived. I’d been able to track you from afar many times—well enough to know your most common routes, but always lost you eventually. So I had a suit made that blocked my odors and would emit scents appropriate for the environment. Pine needles, motor oil, water treatment fumes, et cetera.”

“So that you could follow more closely and thwart my sense of smell,” Alan said. “While invisible, of course.”

“Precisely.”

“Why? And don’t you dare tell me that’s too open-ended.”

“I’m curious. I didn’t get into the line of work I did simply because of my skills and my transhuman powers. I like finding things out. Much like I’m sure you like putting puzzles together and unraveling mysteries as Query. I wanted to know who you are and where you live.”

“No one hired you to find me?”

“No. This is strictly personal.”

“Are you hoping to blackmail me or have it hanging over my head that you might ‘let slip’ my secrets to the highest bidder or most interested parties—either for your own profit or to get out of that favor you owe me?”

“None of the above.”

“To have me owe you a favor?”

“You got me to owe my favor because I asked you to avoid doing something you felt duty-bound to do. That was a negotiation. A trade. A fair deal. If I got you to owe me a favor in this way, that would extortion.”

“We’ve both engaged in extortion, Cheshire,” Alan pointed out.

“True, but generally with unsavory types who deserve it. I wouldn’t extort peers unless there are pressing and extenuating circumstances. Also, if I got into a habit of using my skills like this, particularly against people I have professional relationships with, it could ruin the reputation I have that enables me to make so damn much money.”

“You’re hoping to seduce me, then?” Alan ventured, the tone in his voice suggesting he found that notion highly unlikely but was out of guesses. There were too few clues and too little in the way of contextual cues to give his intuitive powers a foothold, and that was irking him.

“No. Dear God, Alan, I don’t see you like that, and you don’t see me like that, no matter how nice my body is. I go that route, I might as well fuck one of my siblings next—hypothetical or actual ones; no reason to give you any more clues about me.”

“I don’t buy that it’s just curiosity,” Alan said.

“I like you, Alan” she said. “There will likely come a day we’ll be at cross purposes, but I doubt we’ll ever be enemies. Frankly, you’re the nearest thing I have to a friend in the transhuman community. I guess knowing where you live, should I need to contact you—or should I want to share some coffee with you in my civvies—is important to me. I also like the idea of figuring you out, even if I only figure out a small part of you.”

Alan sighed heavily, but this time it wasn’t simply for effect. “How much do you know, Cheshire?”

“In addition to all this?” she said, spreading out her arms to indicate his home and himself. “I don’t like rap all that much, but you do a good job of it.”

“Shit,” Alan hissed. “Anything else?”

“There’s more?” she asked. “More big secrets to uncover aside from this and your Milo Phillips thing? Yummy.”

“We’re back on friendly terms at the moment. Try to uncover any more of my secrets and we stop being so.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

He stared at her long and hard, for nearly 30 seconds.

“What?” she finally said.

“Of course it’s ‘fair enough,’ but I’m looking for something else,” he said.

She paused. “Oh…yeah. Fine, we’ll make it official. I promise not to dig into any of your secrets intentionally or even with indirect or sneaky intent. Unless I trip over something on accident, I’ll let the rest of your secrets be.”

“So, what’s your real name, Cheshire? Quid pro quo, and all that,” Alan said.

“No, no, no,” she responded, waggling a finger. “I owe you an as-yet-to-be-named big favor. I don’t feel like I owe you my secrets simply because I was the first person good enough to unearth yours. If I feel like I want you to know, like I said earlier, I’ll call you up for tea or coffee and come in civilian clothes. I won’t be back here in costume and I won’t come without warning and invite.”

“What if someone pays you to?”

“There are many jobs I wouldn’t take, both for honor’s sake and because I value my life,” she said.

Alan nodded.

“In any case,” Cheshire added, “I’ve overstayed my welcome and should let you get back to what you were doing now that I’ve totally upended your evening. But while I’m sad if I irked you, I like knowing that you can be outwitted. Boosts my confidence.”

“Sounds like I’ve been therapeutic. Expect a bill in the near future,” he said.

“Stay within accepted psychiatric rates. I don’t stand for highway robbery, over-billing or anything like that. Mind if I head out your side porch door over there?”

“Be my guest, Cheshire,” Alan said. He noted that she was carrying the glass of Scotch with her, probably acutely aware that her lipstick and DNA were on it. “I’m going to bill you for that glass, too. It’s crystal.”

“Fair enough,” she said, laughing a little.

As she slid the porch door open and prepared to step outside, he added: “Be aware that I haven’t promised not to try to dig up your secrets. I’m feeling at least a tiny bit vindictive.”

“Oh, I know,” she said as she vanished from sight, purposefully doing so slowly, starting from her head, hand and feet and slowly working toward her torso. “Should be interesting to see how far you get. If you get anywhere.”

As she vanished entirely, stepping outside and sliding the glass door shut, Alan muttered softly, “I have all the time in the world, Cheshire. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and I don’t take Christmas off, either.”