Seattle Vance

“That’s the last of it,” Dust said as he attached the final pack of explosives on the server farm. Klaxons blared in the background, but I barely heard them. I guess I was just thinking everything through. I had thought about bolting for the flash drive immediately, of course. As soon as Adam Mason began duking it out with the Alpha Trio. It probably would’ve been the smart play.

I could’ve easily forced Raven and August to go along with it and gotten out of there with everything I wanted. But then there’s that little voice in the back of my head. And sometimes, every once in a while, that little voice wins out.

I always finish the damn job.

That’s who Seattle Vance was. I squared my deal with Mr. Greene, and on top of that, I flipped Joker the proverbial middle finger. You wanted bombs in the ASA building? Well, now they’re here. You sent CitySec after my guys, had me damn near killed, and I still got the fucking job done. That’s the kind of guy you double-crossed, and don’t you ever forget it.

I suddenly shivered, glancing up, the cold finally setting in. Server room was freezing. Tall black boxes with buttons and wires and little lights surrounded us. I exhaled, watching the wisps of my breath disappear like smoke.

The job was finally done. What happened next was… personal.

“Raven.” I lifted the walkie talkie. “We got a clear path to the objective?”

The radio was silent for a second. “I think—I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?” I tilted my head, annoyed at the question.

“I’m looking over all the footage on the twenty-fifth floor. Ghost, it’s all looped. I’m not sure the cameras are tied into anything. I’m completely blind.”

Shit.

I glanced at Dust, who was clearly apprehensive. For him, he could technically walk out. There was nothing keeping the kid here anymore. Job done. He could go to Mr. Greene and get his payday.

But he knew he could get ten times that if he went with me, and he had a gambling spirit—I could tell. You didn’t work in this business if you didn’t dream of the big leagues. Hell, deep down, I think I still did too.

I winked at him and raised my M4. “Come on, kid. Let’s knock some heads.”

Dust nervously grinned back. It was one of those innocent smiles that just killed you on the inside because you couldn’t smile like that back. He kicked aside the empty duffle back and locked and loaded his pistol. Heading through the door, I followed him behind, but as we went down the hall, I raised my radio and spoke to Raven under my breath.

“Send August down, we’re going to need backup.”

…

We took a risk with the elevators. Despite the chaos outside, I didn’t want to waste time on the stairs. But I tell ya, every bump and loud noise in the elevator car made my heart skip in my chest. I won’t lie to you. I was cussing up and down in my head, thinking how much of stupid idiot I would be if the lift malfunctioned or lost power.

Seattle Vance, best damn merc in the Democratic Union… gets caught because he was too lazy to take the stairs. There was a joke that wrote itself if there ever was one.

But the elevator went up, and the doors opened. We stepped out into a dark office hallway, something I was quickly growing tired of. I raised my M4, and I cleared the hall. Everything was silent—and not in a good way. The klaxons weren’t blaring on this level. Could barely hear the patter of the rain too. Dust came up behind me with a pistol, watching my back.

There was another distant explosion from outside. I admit, part of me wanted to go to the windows and check on the fight between Adam Mason and the Alpha Trio. Nevermind the mission, hell, a part of me wanted to see superhobo beat down the Democratic Union’s costumed men in tights. But all I would be doing is wasting time on a ticking clock, and there was nothing that I could afford to get in my way now.

“We’re on the floor.” I radioed Raven.

“August needs another minute, wait just a—”

“No, if there’s a trap, it’s best we space it out. No need for us to get caught all at once.”

“But—”

“Shut up and listen to me. We’ll radio back every five minutes. If you don’t hear from us, assume the worst.” I clicked off my radio to keep it from making more noise. The plan was to have Raven guide us along the path, watching out for hazards and all that. But I didn’t need her. I had memorized the layout of the entire building. I knew this place better than the back of my own hand.

Keeping Dust behind me, we went down the hall. I quickly cleared rooms as we passed, making sure there weren’t any hidden surprises. Of course, if there were any of the super variety, we probably weren’t going to see them coming anyway. I suppose it was a kind of cope on my part. I wanted to feel like I was in control, like what I did mattered. But the fact was, the world wouldn’t give two shits about how careful I was. When it hit, it would hit hard, and everything would fall like a house of cards.

It always did.

My frustration grew with each passing room, each more annoyingly quiet than the last. This whole job—it was like the ASA had abandoned the building before we even got here. There should’ve been hundreds more people than we had seen.

So what was up?

It just smelled so wrong, and still, I kept walking. I cleared room after room, turning corner after corner, knowing that if I rushed now, I would just make a mistake I would regret. Even as I was cussing my head out, I kept my eyes down the sight of my gun, and Dust right behind me. I had seen so many friends who couldn’t take the stress of knowingly walking to your own death. As they were hunted by freaks with laser eyes and super speed, they panicked and yelled and rushed out into the open, only for the predictable to happen.

I suppose that was why I survived while they didn’t. It’s not that I was calm—I was practically shitting my pants. it was that I wanted the kill before they took me down with them. I wanted my life to mean something, even if it was one final fuck you. So the adrenaline and the spray and pray would have to wait.

And that gave me time to figure out precisely what felt wrong. As I rounded a corner, it clicked in my head. The layout of the twenty-fifth floor was not matching the blueprints I had been given by Joker. There were offices and conference rooms where there shouldn’t be, and where they should be, there weren’t. It wasn’t all off. It vaguely aligned with the map I memorized, but it was all just slightly… wrong. One hallway had four doors where there should’ve been six. I passed by a lounge that should’ve been a restroom.

It never looked too unfamiliar to lose my way, and yet, it made my gut churn. Back before the raid on my hideout, when we were still working together, had Joker given me bad schematics on accident? Had there been a renovation of the building that I was unaware of? Was this another mystery surprise on floor twenty-five? I shook my head at these possibilities. There was no way to tell, but after Joker succeed CitySec on me, something in my gut wanted to blame him.

So what the fuck was this? Before he betrayed me, he sent me bad schematics? Why?

I spotted the door. It was a normal looking closet in the middle of a hallway. Nothing looked suspicious about it all. We approached quietly, doing our best to keep our shoes from making clacking noises on the tile floor. I kept my gun trained on the ends of the corridor, swinging it from direction to direction while Dust took cover behind me.

“I’ve got the lock,” he said as he stuck his hand into the doorknob. His fingers phased through the metal, and he fumbled around, trying to feel the outline of the mechanism.

I barely heard him, still distracted by the layout of this place. Glancing down, I tried to get everything sorted straight in my head. We were at the left-hand side of a T-intersection. Along the wall should’ve been four offices and the door for the closet. I looked down the hallway and counted three. One that was supposed to be next to the closet was absent, an empty spot of wall where it was supposed to be.

I counted again. One. Two. Three. The numbers didn’t add up with the layout. There was space on the other side of that wall which was missing.

“Aha.” Dust grinned as he phased out a jumble of mechanical components. He eagerly reached to open the door, but my hand snapped on his arm, preventing him from doing so. He looked at me, concerned.

“Hold on for a minute,” I told him as I reached for the walkie talkie and clicked it on. “August, where are you?”

I heard his cocksure voice on the other end. “Just reached your floor. Layout is a bit weird. I’ll—”

“Stay right where you are. You hear gunfire, you come running. Understand?”

“Yeah.” The radio crackled.

“In the meantime, I want you to cover the stairs. I’m sure as shit not getting boxed in.” I clicked the radio off before he had a chance to reply.

Raising the M4, I double-checked to make sure the safety was off. “Dust, I want you to get on the other side of this door. You’re going to reach over and open it, and I’m going to clear whatever is on the other side of this thing. Got it?”

“What do you think is on the other side?” he asked, confused.

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“That’s the problem, kid. I have no fucking clue.”

Dust grimly nodded and took his position on the other side, holding his hand out on the doorknob. I took cover on the wall and nodded.

The young kid pulled the door open as hard as he could, and I sprung forward with my weapon pointed down into the closet.

I was right, and I hated that I was right. Instead of a small space like I was promised, there was a corridor lined with blacker than black material. I knew what it was immediately. Refined Zurchon. Fuck.

To make matters worse, I saw another door of reinforced glass leading into a small server room that presumably contained the flash drive. Dust wouldn’t be able to use his abilities, and I doubted my weapon had enough firepower to bust through. I walked down and banged my fist on the glass.

All right. So this was a setback. But it wasn’t the end. Not by a long shot. I needed to regroup with Raven and come up with a different strategy. This was workable. We just needed to put our heads together and—

“Uh… Ghost?” Dust spoke shakily.

I turned back to the boy only to discover a man holding him hostage, with a pistol aimed squarely at the boy’s head.

I blinked. How did that happen so fast? Well, as I saw the uniform, I got my answer.

He had a black and blue combat uniform, the kind they didn’t show you in movies. He wore a kevlar vest full of pouches with magazines, grenades, and everything else you could think of. I couldn’t see his face. He had a helmet with what looked like thermal goggles, to catch invisibles and the like.

Knight Squad. My former comrades in arms—not that I personally knew these particular guys.

“Why the fuck are you here? This wasn’t part of the job,” the soldier said.

Job? What job? I was so thrown off that it took me a second to realize I had raised my weapon. It took me another moment to come up with something to say.

This was weird, but honestly, it didn’t matter who they thought I was or what I was here to do. I was here to get the flash drive. Nothing else mattered.

“Let the kid go and back off.”

I grinned manically, trying to keep in control, but just as I did, the door to the server room opened behind me. Time slowed down, and I knew I would hear a pair of boots stepping out. I was outflanked and outgunned. And in that split second before I had a gun to my back, I had a choice to make.

I had two contingencies, technically three. I could shoot my gun and alert August to our situation. If I killed the guy holding Dust hostage, even better. I could turn around and fire on the other guy behind me. I had no idea how many soldiers were here, but if I holed up in the server room and waited for August… maybe it could work. But I didn’t have a clean shot, and I wasn’t about to risk missing. So… that meant Dust was now a liability.

Option two. I could wait it out and prayed Raven thought of something. She could contact August and do a plan or something. They’re probably going to want to take us prisoner, which means we have time. But time for them to do… what? Door number two relied on them not cutting and running, which are not odds I liked.

Downsides of working with strangers I suppose.

That left door number three and wait for the opportune moment to spring the trap I hid inside Dust. Not the worst plan, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough.

All these options and schemes flashed through my eyes at once. I knew I had to make a choice in an instant. One nanosecond later and then it would be made for me.

I blinked.

Heh. So that’s how it is… I raised my weapon, aiming directly for Dust’s chest. The bullet would pass right through and hit the guy behind him.

Sorry, kid. I truly am.

But as my finger pressed on the trigger, I saw Dust’s panicked face.

Bang!

…

I gasped as I spat out blood. Getting punched in the face wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time—least of all mine. The guy who had been holding Dust hostage had handcuffed me to a chair in one of the nearby offices where he could interrogate me. I knew evac would be on its way as soon as Mason was put down, and then I knew I would be shuffled off to some hellhole where interrogation could commence in earnest.

But until then, Knight Squads weren’t ones to waste time.

“Who are you really working for?” The man asked, cracking his knuckles. They were coated with a crystal substance which also streaked along with his neck and face. It was like the man could call upon his skin to harden. At least, that’s what I assumed it did. This wasn’t the first time I wished abnormals came with an instruction manual.

In a blurred haze, I sized him up. The soldier was in his forties. Bald and with a square-jawed face that was many times scarred over, he was a professional through and through. His hands looked like diamonds, and he made sure my face was intimate with them. I knew from the look in his eyes that he was merciless. The perfect soldier for the Knight Squads.

How many did I see out in the hallway? Nine? No, ten? It was so hard to concentrate, especially after the other guy had slammed his gun into the back of my head.

“Go fuck yourself.” I groaned, praying for August to make his appearance.

I had been counting the minutes. He should’ve shown up by now. That was the worrying thing. One squad was bad enough, but there were doubtlessly others. Did August get intercepted before he even had a chance to get up here? And even if he didn’t, would it matter? I had no idea what these guys’ superpowers were. They were class twos, surely. But that told me fuck all except they would have an easy time squaring up against the likes of us.

Did Raven and August cut and run?

“Who are you working for!?” The soldier punched me again so hard my chair nearly toppled over. I couldn’t be sure, but I think I lost a tooth.

My vision went swimming, and the next thing I saw, the soldier had raised a crystal talon that grew out of his finger. “I don’t have to deliver you in one piece. You know that, right? You have ten seconds, or I start cutting.”

“Who… told you about us?” I asked him, hoping to stall for time. “How did you know there was a job? Because… Because I’m starting to think whoever fucked with you might be the same person.” My head rolled as I tried to keep my thoughts straight.

The soldier looked at me quietly, and I knew he didn’t have an answer. I knew because I knew how the Knight Squads worked.

ASA was about as compartmentalized as the Index. Could you imagine if the faces and the names of the people who ran this hellhole were leaked to the public? Suddenly you have to worry about every abnormal who’s still out there and pissed off that you stole their children. So as it happened, much of the higher administration was incognito. Messages and orders were sent via encrypted channels, especially for a clandestine group like the Knight Squads. And here's a peculiar thought. How would you know if the guy you were talking to was really your boss? I've always wondered about that.

I think the soldier’s punches might’ve been helping a bit—getting blood flowing in my head again. Or maybe I was more fucked up than I realized. But I started putting a few pieces together, and something downright frustrating began to take shape in my head.

I spat out another glob of blood. “What were you told? An attack on the regional headquarters? A frame job? We planned to pin the blame on CitySec, but the thought occurs that you might want that too. CitySec, abnormal supremacists—any excuse to wage a private war on City 57. Is that the story you had? So you evacuated the building beforehand, secured the flash drive, and waited for us to wreck the building’s shit?”

From the expression on the soldier’s face, I knew I was dead on, and I knew there were only two people in the entire world who could’ve fed him that info. While I didn’t trust Mr. Greene as far as I could throw him, I knew for a fact that the Index didn’t have connections that went that far. So, that left only one individual who both knew of my plan and the resources to pull something like this off.

Joker. That motherfucker.

He was somehow behind this, manipulating everything. I didn't know for what purpose or plan, but I swore I was going to kill that man, and I don’t know whether or not I said that out loud. My head was still swimming.

The soldier got impatient and cocked his fist for another punch, but I cried out before he could strike. “Wait!”

He stopped. “Yeah?”

“We’ve both been sold up shit creek,” I said, still panting heavily. “I worked with this guy. Don’t know his name. Don’t know his face. Secretive, you know? Went by the alias of Joker. I can’t even tell you his real voice. All I know is that he works for the Checkered Hand.”

I could tell that name meant absolutely nothing to the man.

“And Daniel Peterson?” the soldier asked.

“What about Daniel Peterson?” I wanted to keep the conversation on things I knew about—mostly because I didn’t want to get punched again.

The guy looked at me as if I was stupid. “How did you manage to get Daniel Peterson to defect from The Urban Defenders? Where is he now!?”

I looked at him as if he suddenly lost twenty IQ points. “I have no fucking idea.”

The soldier punched me in the gut, and I doubled over in pain. It was really rich getting beat up for something I didn’t even do. Honestly, it was fucking frustrating trying to figure out what my interrogator thought was happening so I could properly answer his damn questions.

“Ask him… yourself,” I panted. “The plan was Mason, only he somehow convinced Peterson to go with him. It’s not my fault you can’t keep track of your guys.”

“You really expect me to believe that?”

I looked him in the eye. “You really think I would be sitting in this chair if I had a teleporter working for me?”

That managed to get soldier man to shut up for a bit.

Before he could ask any more questions, his radio clicked. “Alpha Trio is down. Lance Bain is dead. Squads two through four move to contingency plan.”

For the first time, I saw a look of visible concern cross the soldier’s face.

“Looks like my guy was tougher than yours,” I laughed—it hurt to laugh.

But seriously, I never really considered the possibility that Adam Mason would walk out of here. But hey, maybe he was just that absurdly strong. Maybe he could take all the punishment the Democratic Union could throw at him and then some. Maybe… just maybe… he was the ultra superhobo.

I spat out more blood as I laughed.

Before the soldier could hit me again, there was shouting and then screams from the hallway. I wish I could’ve jumped him while he was distracted, but my hands were zip-tied to the chair, and I was doing everything in my power to keep from drifting off to dreamland. The soldier opened the door and looked out. Quickly closing it behind him, I was left both figuratively and literally in the dark. All I could hear was a sudden rush of muffled noises outside.

“Contact! Contact!”

“Jansen and Reynolds are down!”

“—what the hell? —is this guy!?”

“Backup! We need— right now!”

I was sitting there absolutely confused. There was no way August was dishing out this punishment. Was he? Had I just underestimated him? I heard the sounds of men screaming and dying out there, and trapped within the room, I didn’t have the faintest clue what was going on outside.

Gritting my teeth, I struggled against the zip ties. All I knew was that I wanted to be free of this chair by the time whatever was chewing through those men were done. The gunfire was slowly losing its intensity. I didn’t know whether that meant the soldiers were winning or losing.

I heaved against the restraints, but all it did was topple me over onto the floor. I slammed face-first on the tile, and I looked up as I saw a bloodied Knight Squad soldier run into the room. He crouched and emptied his rifle out into the hallway before reloading.

I noticed blood was trickling from his ears and nose. He didn’t look to be well, and he looked disoriented. I don’t know. Maybe that was rich coming from me.

A bulking man in a black uniform stepped into the doorway. His clothes were tattered with burns and bullet holes and even frosted ice. I saw a lot of blood on him, but I couldn’t see any wounds. He wore a black helmet with a visor that completely obscured his face, and he carried a long rifle that made my heart freeze in my chest.

I mouthed the words. “Oh shi—”

Boom.

My world was suddenly sent spinning as I was caught on the edge of the blast. So much was a blur, but I saw the colors and shapes of what was going on. Where the soldier once stood, the floor and wall cracked and compressed like it was hit with an invisible shockwave. My ears were ringing just from being in the same room as the directed blast.

But where I was expecting the Knight Squad soldier to be exploded into blood, he was suddenly on the other side of the bulking man in black. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think he had moved really fast.

The soldier lunged at guy in the strange, black uniform. His arms were like lightning, hitting the newcomer’s torso and head at least a hundred times in a few seconds. As I regained my senses, I saw the soldier shove his arm into black uniform’s chest. With great difficulty, he pulled out something red and beating.

But the other guy didn’t die. The newcomer in the black uniform grabbed the soldier by the neck and placed the sonic cannon right under his head. I saw the ceiling was painted red, and the man in the black uniform dropped a headless body to the ground.

I groaned and tried to get up, but I couldn’t. I was helpless as this new guy slowly walked up to me and placed the same sonic cannon on my head.

“Joker sends his regards. Now where the fuck is Daniel Peterson?”