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An old radio sat on top of a hard plastic container, its cassette window hung open, the joint broken and unable to shut. It could still pick any station around, though, so the sound its speaker blasted off of the warehouse’s tall brick walls. The festivities of commercials competed with the clatter and boom of construction for audio dominance across the building’s main floor.
The main room’s concrete base had been drilled away for supports. The construction was overseen by Paul Windsley, a 193cm mountain of a man. He stood off a corner on the floor and through thick goggles, watched his men tear up the ground. Although his business was as legit as any other in the eyes of the city’s record keepers, Windsley thrived in the underbelly of society; taking jobs where the full nature of the construction wouldn’t be revealed. He had a lot of clientele like that, so it was no problem to him if he was unsure what exactly he was making. It was ritual for him to work with incomplete information.
However, he had heard that Dead Head’s gang was full of creeps. In terms of Dead Head’s gang, Windsley only really talked with the leader himself or “Shimmer”– was that a name?– and they seemed like normal people although the former dressed like he wanted to show off his Hallowe’en costume early. Were the creeps hiding?
The less presentable parts of society had a way of uncovering the various mutants that lived across the city, and perhaps the world, but it was only a month ago Windsley started hearing about them. Frankly, it was about time he saw one of them. Windsley looked across the warehouse floor. The only men that were not part of his construction crew were two normal-looking guys prepping plastic crates in the corner.
Maybe the creeps had Friday off.
Dead Head walked out of his office, a paled hardhat on his head. The machines quieted down for a minute so Windsley walked over past the base of construction towards Dead Head. When Dead Head saw Windsley coming over, he backed up towards the door of his office to find a quiet(er) corner to discuss things.
“The base is looking solid,” said Paul, “so we won’t have to replace the whole floor.”
Dead Head nodded. “Good.”
Windsley looked around the warehouse. The building was old but it was in pretty good condition. The only problems with it were superficial like the dents on the side of the wall that looked like someone tossed a sledgehammer against it.
“Where did you pick this place up?” asked Windsley.
Dead Head didn’t know. Shimmer was responsible for the purchase. “I don’t have that information. I’d have to talk to my assistant for that.”
Windsley only had the floor update for Dead Head and he only desired the tidbit on where Dead Head picked up the place. Done with that, he went back to monitor his men. Dead Head looked over the construction and calculated in his head how long it would take before new concrete was poured, when the frame would be finished, and then when the portal would be functional. He gave himself the reputation of being a calm and in-control leader but his patience got sensitive whenever he thought about the end of this project and what it would give him.
He went back inside the office and sat down at his desk, looking over his budget book. He was still doing monthly payments for the warehouse, and he had the money to pay off the entire thing, but if he slammed down the money to pay the cost entirely, it would have looked suspicious. No, he drip-fed money to the bank and carried on with his economical theatre.
The vent in the corner rumbled. Dead Head looked over to see Haze seeping through, the cloud boy needing to turn into a featureless mist to pass through barred surface. Once the majority of his foggy mass was through, the cloud boy reformed into his humanoid shape, complete with shirt and pants. He popped down on the floor.
“Get down!” hissed Dead Head, eyeing through the office window at the crew managing the main floor. “What if they see you?”
Haze scowled and got down on the floor. “Why do I gotta hide myself from those construction guys? I don’t have to with the rest of the crew.”
“Because they are not in our organization,” said Dead Head. “They are outsiders and– since it isn’t easy to come across a construction company that will work with this gang without reporting us to authorities on suspicion of terrorism–” He took in a breath after that long rhetorical detour– “I’d like to keep these men as comfortable as possible and not flaunt my more eccentric members of the gang, like you and Petrov.” He also didn’t want Thrash coming around the warehouse but there was another reason why he didn’t want a curvy woman in a catsuit around a crew of hardworking men.
Haze slumped in the corner, unsure what to do with himself now. He hung his arms over his knees and rested his face in his wrists.
Dead Head peered at Haze lazing about. “How are you liking that room Shimmer set you up with?”
“It’s okay,” said Haze, not lifting his head to avoid talking into his hands.
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Haze was young but he needed a proper residence if he was going to function in Dead Head’s gang. Shimmer set the living cloud up with a room in an apartment on the south side of Greenwood, some place that Haze’s misty form could slip in and out of without being noticed. All Haze knew about it was that Shimmer took care of the bills.
Dead Head wasn’t good at small talk, but he’d accept his minion taking his new place without any complaints. Dead Head said, “We’ll be heading to the lab later. Will you be ready?”
“Yeah, yeah...” said Haze, defensively.
A second big batch. Dead Head wasn’t sure who he was going to sell it to, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He’d need more money to keep the place running until the portal was finished.
He watched the workers cut up a chunk of the floor and lift the concrete out.
Soon, he thought to himself, soon.
Later came quickly for Haze.
Dead Head got a phone call saying Seven was already at the lab, so when the sun went down and the Windsley’s men went home, Dead Head met with Haze and Thrash in the parking lot. Thrash had to give Dead Head guff about her being barred from the warehouse during construction hours because she knew it was less about her strange complexion and more about her being an attractive woman that would pull eyes towards her. Dead Head denied it, though.
It was Dead Head’s Cadillac DeVille that would be the ride over but Thrash was the one driving. The vehicle was still rolling strong after five years in Dead Head’s possession. Dead Head got in the back with Haze. Sure, Haze could have flew to the lab much quicker than driving through Toronto traffic, but Dead Head insisted on his escort.
After Dead Head locked the warehouse up tight, they all got in the vehicle. Haze thought it was pointless for him, a person made of cloud, to buckle up, but it felt strange not to. Thrash pulled out from the warehouse and they hit the road towards Oakridge.
The windows on the vehicle were tinted, so even if Haze looked outward at the sights of the city, nobody around could look in. It was a Friday night, so the streets were loud. Teens were out making noise and getting started on their weekends like a few kids walking the sidewalk with one girl tugging on a guy’s coat, everyone laughing with each other.
The front windows weren’t tinted but even if people looked in and saw Thrash’s face, the darkness of the night would have shrouded the odd, blue pigment of skin and hair. As far as most people around were concerned, Dead Head’s transport was nothing but a nice-looking car rolling through the neighbourhood.
In the silence of the car ride, curiosity came over Haze so he turned over to Dead Head and asked, “So, uh, what’s that portal going to be for anyway?”
Thrash flipped on her ears. She was curious herself.
Dead Head knew these questions would come. He had worked with Shimmer to come up with a list of excuses, a cover story to conceal a would-be unpopular truth about what the portal’s true purpose was. Dead Head kept his tone disinterested. “It’s going to be for teleporting places.”
“Like where?” asked Haze, with all the blatant curiosity of a child.
Dead Head was not used to dealing with someone so young. He choked a groan back. “Banks. Maybe if we are feeling more disruptive we could steal something important, like the Declaration of Independence.”
“The Declaration of Independence?” asked Thrash. “Why would you steal that?”
Dead Head smirked. “Just to see how the American government would react.”
Seen by none, Thrash grimaced. She didn’t read the news often but knew that America typically responded with events of that magnitude with warfare.
Part of selling the lie, as Dead Head and Shimmer brainstormed weeks ago, was to leave some believable ambiguity to what the portal was capable of. Said Dead Head, “Stealing from a vault– a big vault– is something I had in mind. We could always use more money.”
“Can’t you do that anyway?” asked Haze. “With your powers?”
“Not from a big bank,” said Dead Head. “Even if I got to the vault, I wouldn’t be able to get out there with much. I could disable every camera in the place but enough people would see me that I’d leave a clear trail.” He tapped the edge of the window. “That’s why I stuck to robbing smaller places for years. It’s a lot easier to use my nullifying abilities on smaller systems.”
Thrash eyed Dead Head in the rear-view mirror. “Like that loan agency that got two of your men in jail. You could have done that yourself.”
Dead Head let out a disgruntled sigh. “Yes, Thrash. I know.”
“So it can teleport people through?” asked Haze.
“Yes,” said Dead Head, spouting a practised lie. “We’re not sure how easy it is, so we need to get it built, then test it, to figure out what it’s capable of. Then, we will make substantial plans and use the portal to its fullest.”
Haze wasn’t excited about the idea of a portal but he had no further questions. The three of them continued to the lab quietly.
The “lab” was actually the basement to and old house in a neighbourhood of old houses. Few of them looked anything but decrepit. The lab house had its lot occupied by Seven’s vehicle so Thrash parked on the side of the street. When the Dead Head’s crew got out of the car, everyone got a smell of the manufacturing plant nearby, some kind of “chemical” smell to quote Lombardi when he to drive Haze there a week ago. It wasn’t terrible– actually, it was pretty faint– but it caught everywhere when the factory got going.
There was no one around to spot the cloud boy coming out of the Cadillac but it wasn’t a time to stick around outside. As Haze walked up to the porch, a door opened. On the other side was Seven.
Haze, Dead Head, and Thrash walked inside. The house’s interior wasn’t any better than the outside. Although tidy in the sense that all the dishes were put away and the floor was mopped, several spots on the walls had holes in them. There were cupboard doors missing. A board in the plank floor was turned up. Thrash could sense the mice running through the walls.
But they were not there to hang out. Haze knew the drill. He went to the back of the hall where there was a doorway leading into the basement. Other smells, more powerful than the one outside, heaved up the staircase like the sulphurs of the underworld. Haze could smell them (how a cloud could smell, he didn’t actually know), but he could stomach it.
Seven walked up to a vent riding up the hallway’s wall. He patted it, a deep rumble clattering out. “Rerouted the vent to the basement. Helps with the smell.” He pointed at Dead Head’s coat. “Basement doesn’t have heat, though.”
Last time they cooked a batch, there was a noticeable smell around the house afterwards. Even timing out cooking to the functions of the plant down the road, the plant’s own stench didn’t overpower the one they made whenever they got together to bake. Still, reducing the smell of synthesizing drugs was important in case neighbours started asking around.
Thrash put on a polypropylene mask and after removing his hood, Dead Head did the same. Seven walked them to the end of the hall and all three of them went downstairs to join Haze in producing the gang’s next big batch of product to sell.