Seattle Vance
“Fly, Mason. Fly.” I raised a glass to Adam while I watched him zoom off on the TV.
If you asked me whether I felt guilty for what I did, that was a complicated question. Truth is, I’ve known a lot of guys over the years, and we all have our own ways of dealing with it. Some stew. Some let that guilt grow and grow until they’re crushed underneath it. Others like the killin. Not like psychopaths—those are too easy to understand. I’ve known men who need the blood and the dust and the smell of gunpowder. They need to struggle to feel alive. And it’s peace that breaks them.
Maybe I’ve been that guy on occasion. But at that moment, watching the tv and thinking of all the blood that was already on my hands, I was the guy who just kept counting the cost—and every time I realized I could live with it.
“I still can’t believe you gave the enzyme to a hobo.” I heard Joshua’s voice behind me.
My shoulders fell, and I groaned as I braced for another dressing down, but Joshua walked up to the tv and crossed his arms. He watched the news in silence for a while before turning to me. “I contacted the Index like you asked. You got what you wanted—again. They agreed to meet.” He threw me a flip-phone, and I caught it in both hands.
“What? You’re not going to lecture me on how I made the dumbest choice possible? Where’s the anger?” I glanced back at him.
“Oh no, you’re still a fucking moron, but this…” Joshua shook his head, for once unable to find words. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Seattle. You throw away every second chance in the trash. Do you even know how valuable that enzyme was? Thirty million credits, minimum. And for what? For super hobo?”
It was his quiet resignation that hurt more than tongue-lashing. He probably had a whole speech cooked up for if I had retrieved it, some appeal to the good life. Instead, he had to watch a homeless man do somersaults in front of news cameras. I had even asked him to scramble the city’s surveillance systems, throw CitySec off the trail. Don’t know if Joshua actually went through with it or not.
“Listen, by the time I’m through, we’ll both be made men. Adam Mason is just an investment.”
I don’t know why I suddenly tried to summon that Seattle. Something about those words felt nasty even as I said them. I shouldn’t have tried to put on the salesman face, not for Joshua.
Joshua snorted. “You think I care about the money? What you’re trying to steal from the ASA?” He tapped on the tv with his finger. “Even if you get what you want, it’s too hot to use it. You think I want top ASA secrets stashed here? Fat chance. If I had any working braincells, I should’ve left you out on your ass for CitySec.”
I was quiet for a long moment. “If it means anything, I’m glad you didn’t.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Just tell me, when does this end for you? When does this train wreck stop?”
“When I get my brother back.” I told him quite plainly.
“He’s dead, Seattle. You know it as well as I do.”
I glared past him at the tv. “He ain’t dead. Not yet. Not until I see his corpse in the ground.”
…
I dunno. I don’t like sharing details. When you let a guy know you, you’re just giving him leverage. But I suppose I have to lay my cards on the table sometime. So here’s the quick run down. I was thirteen. My brother was seventeen.
And I got him fucking caught.
Happy? My story is a whole basket case of tragedies, and that one wasn’t the last. But here’s where things get screwy in this fucked up life of mine. I’ve moved heaven and earth to try to find where he is. Years back, I had Joshua look into every database and server to find where Phoenix landed. The ASA may be evil sons of bitches, but damn if they don’t keep meticulous records.
But for my brother? Nothing. Nadda. Not even an entry that he was arrested. Once he was packed into that black van, it was like he disappeared off the face of the Earth. So after my stint in Cairo—which turned out to be a lot longer than I thought—I went back to the trail.
He had just class one transparency, so I figured maybe the ASA just tossed him into Gen Pop. I ran with the Coyotes for a long while, doing smuggling work at the camps. After two years and not finding a trace of him, I gave up and decided to check out the exclusion zones. It was possible they sold him off for enlistment, used as human fodder to explore the bio-contaminant areas.
Nothing.
I fuckin went all the way to Flesh National Park, that’s what we called the growth in District Nineteen. The ground bleeds when you walk on it, and I shoveled decomposing corpses for six months before that fell through. Still can’t be sure if Phoenix wasn’t under all that tissue and bone, but I wanted to think he was a survivor. Even if he was enlisted, he would’ve found his way back to me.
So that sent me back to square one.
Now I’m going to be honest. I worked for a lot of people and none of them were saints. Did a lotta stuff I’m not proud of. So let’s skip some of what happened next and get right to the chase.
The ASA manage abnormal collections for the Democratic Union and a whole lot of other countries. You might think of them as an international coalition, with most of the shots being called out of the bunker-complexes in Iceland.
Long story that, but nuclear war makes the rich panicky.
To get to the point, the ASA run the black sites. What are they? What do they do? Who fuckin knows, that’s why they’re called black sites. But I figure that’s one place to check if you’re searching for a vanished somebody. That’s why I wanted to get into the ASA Regional Headquarters here in City 57. In that building is a Skeleton List—a map of the secret supply chains and locations of prisoners spread throughout the Democratic Union. That’s what I wanted to steal. That’s what I’m after.
I stepped into the alleyway and went visible again. Flipping open the phone Joshua gave me, I peered at the address on the screen, double-checking the time and location. It was dusk, and traffic was sparse in this part of the city. The thing was, if I wanted to get into the ASA headquarters, and more importantly get out, I needed a new team.
You can think of the Index as the underground, a network of mercenaries with the kind of abnormal abilities needed for jobs like this. And it was high time I paid them a visit.
Walking out, I acted natural as I strolled down the sidewalk. The meet was happening in a nightclub called Euphoria. I wasn’t exactly keen on appearing in a public place, but the fixer was adamant about it. Luckily, this part of the city looked seedy enough that no one looked twice in your direction. But just to be safe, I shaved and cut my hair beforehand. Got a new change of clothes too. It would take someone with a good eye to pick me out as the Ghost. I walked down that street as if I was anyone else—and I found that was the best disguise of them all. Just a few minutes later, I was standing in front of my destination.
Euphoria was one of those dens that sprung up in the ruins of the old city, repurposing the decay for decadence. The building itself had formerly been a bank, its high architecture rising high above me in the darkening sky.
I walked into a front lobby and saw the faded logo of some corporation that no longer existed. It was a giant red circle with three dashes through it, emblazoned on a faded and crumbling wall. Maybe it had meant something once, but now it was target practice for drunks to throw their bottles at. My boots crunched on glass as I walked in. The dark space of the corporate lobby was mostly empty, with only a few circles of camping chairs huddled around fire pits. Only a few people were around, the types who lingered on the periphery and minded their own business. The afternoon light filtered in from busted ceiling windows, and no one turned to look at me as I entered.
Faintly from further inside, I heard the beat of loud music. It was that annoying synth stuff that never seemed to die out. I inwardly groaned as I walked down a long, fetid hallway and pushed open a set of double doors, only to have my eardrums blasted by the noise.
The room had once been your run-of-the-mill cubicle floor, but after decades of rot and negligence, the ceiling had collapsed. Looking up, I saw a big hole where a big part of the second and third floors used to be. The owner of the nightclub had cleared out the debris and turned the ground level into a dance floor. The upper floors had been reinforced with suspicious looking steel girders, but I didn’t want to think about that too much.
There wasn’t a DJ or anything like that. Instead, the sound was blasted from cobbled together speakers spread throughout the area. I wondered how often they went through that equipment, running them so loud. Laser pointers were held by guys on the second floor, waving the green lights like they choreographed it. There were the usual early birds to the party, dancing in the center, though I suspected at least half of them were already high. You didn’t come to a place like Euphoria to have fun. You came here to get wasted on something.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
I skirted the edges of the dance floor and wandered around. I made sure to keep in the dimly lit areas, never sticking in one place too long. My contact with the Index had been deliberately vague on the details. I didn’t even know what he looked like. Half the time, I kept glancing over my shoulder, waiting for someone to mysteriously appear behind me.
Instead, I felt my phone buzz.
Third floor. The text read.
I shrugged and started climbing the stairs. The third floor was filled with booths that were obviously scavenged from different parts of the city. All the furniture was mismatched and erratically placed, though it was infinitely more cozy than the floors below. There were working lightbulbs here too, the soft yellow lights strung precariously along the ceiling. Glancing around, I noticed a surprising number of the seats were filled.
“Mr. Vance,” a voice called out from one of the booths.
I looked over, and I saw an elderly man somewhere in his sixties. He was sitting comfortably, wearing a loose blazer and slacks. I thought he might’ve had a gun hidden away in there, but I couldn’t tell. Honestly, I was surprised, seeing someone so old here. I walked over and took a seat opposite of him.
“May I interest you in a scotch?” The old man brought out a bottle and two glasses.
“Helluva place you chose to meet,” I said. “You said to call you Mr. Greene, right? Aren’t you worried you’re going to catch some unwanted attention? You stick out like a sore thumb.”
The old man chuckled as he began pouring, anyway. “I happen to own this place. If anyone wants to mess with me, they gotta go through Grogo first.”
I was about to ask who Grogo was when I saw the giant of a man in the corner. I couldn’t believe I missed him earlier. He might’ve been the bouncer of all bouncers, standing at least six and a half feet tall and built like an ox. But just as quickly as I saw him, the lighting grew dimmer, and I lost track of him.
I took a seat opposite of him in the booth. “So are we going to talk business—”
Mr. Greene pushed one of the whiskey glasses to me, and I had a feeling I didn’t have a choice but to drink. “No need to get so formal,” he said. “We can talk business later. Tell me, how has your stay been in City 57? CitySec treating you right?” Mr. Greene sipped from his glass, eyeing me with a sudden hostility that caught me off guard.
I picked up my own glass, and I ran my hand along the smooth wood of the table. The little surface was a nice piece of furniture, made from a dark, varnished wood. It was carved by an expert craftsman, with nice flourishes of flowers and branches at the ends. The booths were equally high-class, padded with a green felt that felt far too rich for this place.
So he was one of those types—an aristocrat, lord of the scum of City 57.
I downed the whiskey in one gulp and slammed the glass back on the table. “C.H. Jackson, right? That’s a good bottle. I had a few back in my bootlegging days in City 12. Still not as good as the River Bourbon they’re aging in the Mississippi. It has a richer nose, and it goes down smoother. You should try it sometime.”
Mr. Greene chuckled, shaking his head and leaning back. “You’ve got a set of balls on you, coming here and asking for my help.”
I rested my arm on the table. “I’m sorry. I’ve pissed off a lot of people in my time, and my memory’s a bit fuzzy. The fuck I do to you?”
The old man snapped his fingers, and I heard two heavy footfalls behind me. I didn’t look back to see who it was.
“Seattle Vance, according to my sources, you’ve been in City 57 less than a week. In that time, you’ve singlehandedly caused more chaos in this city than anyone since the fucking nukes fell. You ask what you did? Let’s start with unleashing a rogue class fucking five on my city, that’s what. My people have CitySec all over their asses because they think we’re helping you. Doors are being kicked down all over the city. I’ve had eight separate raids on my businesses. My people are being put behind bars, and you come in here requesting my help?”
Mr. Greene pulled out a black revolver and set it on the table. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow your brains out and boot your headless corpse over to CitySec.”
It’s funny the kinds of things that don’t make you scared anymore. You face sudden death day after day, a gun to my head was the least dangerous thing I’ve had to deal with this week. I picked up my empty glass, running my fingers around the rim. The little motion helped clear my head, put me in the right frame.
“I’ll give you three,” I said after a second. “First is that we both know it’s not going to end with me. CitySec doesn’t keep its promises, and they don’t play fair—that doesn’t change no matter what city you’re in. Once they declare war, it’ll be till one of you are left standing. Giving me over will only encourage them.”
The old man picked up the revolver and pointed at my head. “You’ve explained why I shouldn’t hand you over. Not why I shouldn’t dump you in the river.”
“Second.” I raised my hand, motioning that I was going to pull something from my jacket. A large palm fell on my shoulder, but Mr. Greene nodded to Grogo to let me continue. I slowly pulled out a flash drive and placed it on the table. On it was a detailed map of the ASA regional headquarters as well as the infiltration route. I pushed it over to him. “This job I have is going to solve all your problems.”
“You told me about your planned assault on the ASA Regional Headquarters.” Mr. Greene cocked the hammer of the revolver. “How on earth is throwing dynamite on this clusterfuck going to help us?”
“My original employer wanted me to stage a false flag attack, blame it on the New American Extremists. I say why don’t we paint somebody else’s hands red? Why don’t we put the finger at CitySec? The ASA and the internal city force are already at each other’s throats over jurisdiction. All they need is a spark, and we’ll have a proper civil war over this city. Hell, you’ll have the run of the city once this is through.”
Mr. Greene laughed. “CitySec? They’re the ones who raided your hideout. How the fuck are you going to convince the ASA that CitySec was behind the Ghost?”
“We’ll start with the fact that one of CitySec’s own drones was reprogrammed to specifically find my hideout in the first place, that I managed to magically escape from an armored convoy with nothing but a pair of handcuffs, that after several days of combing the city, CitySec still can’t find their enemy number one. Now I show up knocking at their headquarters with some tastefully acquired gear—provided by the discrete support of yours truly—what does that look like to an ASA analyst?”
“You want the ASA to think CitySec set up the Ghost as a cover to knock out their headquarters? A pasty?”
“And for the muscle, I’ll page Adam Mason, a nobody who somehow acquired super powers. What? Are they really supposed to believe a class five enzyme coincidentally found its way to a hobo who just happened to take a shot at their building?”
I threw that last part in on a lark. I had no earthly idea if I could somehow wrangle Mason, but Mr. Greene didn’t need to know that.
I saw the old man weigh the idea in his head. Tell you the truth, I knew what I sold him wasn’t the brightest idea in the world, but it was the best I could come up with on short notice. Hey, I didn’t plan to be talking with a gun at my head.
But something in Mr. Greene’s calculations threw him my way, something that struck me as way too easy, but the old man finally set down the revolver. “You’re a big dreamer, Mr. Vance. I’ll give you that. But what’s in it for you? Why are you going through all this trouble?”
“I need the Skeleton List,” I told him quite plainly.
“Hmph!” Mr. Greene grunted out. “You really think something like that exists? And it’s in City 57—of all places? This run-down dump is where the ASA chooses to hide one of their most valuable secrets?”
“I’ve done my legwork.”
Mr. Greene raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you have. And I suppose that’s one part I don’t have to care about. Say we go along with this little plan of yours, I still want certain assurances. The Index’s part is going to be a quiet, yet intimate role in your operation. None of this traces back to us. No risks taken. That means I choose your team. I run your plan. And just so know, if any of this goes wrong—if so much as a hair is out of place—I know where you live. And I will rain hellfire on your friend too.” He let that threat hang in the air.
“You’re forgetting the third reason why you shouldn’t kill me.”
The old man rolled his eyes. “What?”
I grinned. “I’m the best damn merc in the city, and I always get the job done.”
…
We stood in front of a vault door in the sub-basement of the nightclub. It wasn’t part of the original architecture, instead being bolted onto the concrete shaft. Grogo turned the combination wheel. The steel groaned as his massive hands twisted the mechanism. I didn’t know whether he had super strength or he was just that freakishly strong. In any case, it seemed the vault was built in more than way to keep other people out.
Looking behind me, I saw two guards flanking the exit out into the stairs, both holding M4s. Mr. Greene smoked a cigar casually in the hazy yellow light. He tapped his foot patiently as he waited for Grogo to finish opening the door.
“You know I did some digging on your past—your real one,” Mr. Greene said.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Anything interesting?”
“Vance, your entire CV is filled with enough mental illness for a Dostoevsky novel. But since I’m helping you with your suicide mission, one thing stands out to me. Collection operations with the ASA?”
I raised an eyebrow, surprised how he dug that secret out. “Yeah, I ran with the Knight Squads for a while.”
Knight Squads. They’re the ASA’s off-the-books personnel. As much as they like the headlines about making the world safe for normals, about making everyone equal again, they sometimes need to use abnormals just like anyone else. And it turns out, invisibility is high in demand when your primary job is state-backed kidnapping.
That was one thing class twos were good for, all the dirty work in the Democratic Union. See class threes and above are difficult to get for the undercover ops. They’re too noticeable and there’s too few to go around. Class twos though, we’re a dime a dozen. We’re disposable.
“So what?” I asked. “You wanna psychoanalyze me? See if I’m a bad person or not? I can save you the trouble on that one.”
“If I cared about that, you wouldn’t be standing here. I just have one question. You’re a better expert than I. During this op, would it be possible to save anyone?”
I knew what he meant immediately, and for whatever reason, I wanted to tell him the truth. Guess I do have a soft spot from time to time.
“You want to know if you can save the kids?” I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, giving him a doubtful glance. “Those children are going to be behind several thick steel doors and several layers of concrete deep. They keep em in holes, penned in so they don’t have room to use super powers. It’s much cheaper than the tank. But you probably know all that already. Real trouble is the children. You gotta keep in mind that they’re still living weapons, and they tend to go feral.”
Mr. Greene nodded.
The vault door’s lock made a loud clunk. Grogo panted heavily as he heaved the steel entrance open, revealing a room filled with filing cabinets and safe boxes. There was a table in the center and two chairs. Besides the non-networked computer that looked a century old, I also noticed several rectangular shapes in the dark corners. They were plastic explosives.
“I worked with the Index before, but I’ve always been surprised how low tech you guys are,” I commented.
Looking inside, I knew this was a special vault. In here was all the personnel and contacts of the Index, kept as a proverbial ledger. Everything was in here, from equipment caches, to financial records, to emergency credit accounts for when you had to ditch town. It was the type of info one needed to run an underground mercenary ring of City 57’s unknown unknowns.
“The Index cannot afford the risk of a digital database,” Mr. Greene explained. A”ny leak would be disastrous to our operation and put our clients at grave risk. For their safety and for the safety of the organization, everything must be done as in-person as possible. A file cabinet cannot be hacked, nor can its contents be compromised without someone being there in person.” The old man then flashed his revolver. “Which means, you aren’t going to take one step inside while we hash out the details of my plan.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “So… where do you want to start?”