CHAPTER 12 - LEOPARD

Gate let them go. He let them resupply, then kicked them through one of his translocative doorways with their new gear and a set of coordinates. A meeting point, Monkey explained, for whomever their new working associates were going to be. It put Leopard on edge. The only reassurance he had was that, if Gate intended to betray them, it would’ve been simpler to do it within the depths of his lair.

The way Monkey told it, Gate had an arrangement with an up-and-coming gang leader in Asclepion—a woman who called herself Taurine. She hadn’t held up some part of their arrangement and, as Shadow had put it, no one could cross the Syndicate and live. So, with their new gear and identities, the Animals would kill Taurine and exfiltrate out and their debt of apparent treachery would be paid, and they could go off and become legends.

That was the plan, at least.

The morning sun glinted off their chrome helmets as they walked the streets of Asclepion. Leopard figured people wouldn’t look too closely at the five of them, but he still found himself checking sightlines and casing shapes in his peripherals. The streets might’ve been quiet, but cities had a way of making him uncomfortable.

It was an issue of awareness. Too many sightlines, too many people, too many empowered. Ever since the Golden Age, humanity’s new demigods had fluttered around cities like moths to flames. If the people of any given city were lucky, the inevitable self-immolation—as dramatic as it was stupid—wouldn’t take them all with it.

Stakes like that, and yet everyone thought it was a game. If you looked past the names and costumes and the unwritten rules, it was just Russian roulette for the whole world. Even the IESA was happy to buy-in, providing they got to sit at the head of the table and take their cut. The truth of the world was outside the cities, in the desolate wastelands and twisted, transcendental wildernesses. No games, only survival. Only animals.

“We’ve got a tail,” Tiger said, voice buzzing in Leopard’s helmet. So much clearer than his old earpiece. “Three contacts. Not police, but definitely armed.”

“Eyes forward,” Monkey replied. “Let them think we don’t know they’re there. Spots, you see anything?”

A shape flitted across the rooftops.

“Yeah,” he said. “Someone up high. Three o’clock, roof level, moving fast. Welcoming party?”

“I’d say so.”

“Taurine’s people?”

“Don’t know. Wait for me to give the order.”

The four figures shadowed them all the way to their destination. An old construction site, steel girders looming like the ribs of some enormous beast, a behemoth that hadn’t quite been born. The banners advertising the future of the site, whatever it was, had long since faded.

A tall man in scavenged APD gear met them at the main gate, a rifle slung under his arm. One pauldron was painted with the skull of a bull, horns and all, and his motorcycle helmet was done up with what Leopard took to be the mouth of a shark. Monkey didn’t give the order.

“You lost?” Sharkmouth asked.

“No,” Monkey said. “Gate sent us.”

Sharkmouth called it in, voice muffled by his helmet. “Right,” he said. “Sergeant said she’s expecting you.” He gestured with his head, backwards, further into the site. “This way. A word of warning: if you try anything, you will be shot and killed.” Monkey still didn’t give the order.

Monkey led the way into the site. Leopard cased the area with his eyes. Here and there, armed shapes. Sharkmouth’s people had to outnumber them ten-to-one at the very least. Even their cutting-edge armorweave would fail under such fire. He glanced to Monkey and triggered their private line, made sure the external feed was cut.

“What’re we doing, man?”

“Wait and see, buddy—trust me on this, okay?”

Sharkmouth led them through the site, towards a concrete stairwell. Evidently, the underground levels had been completed before construction stalled out. Whatever the building was going to be, it was a hideout now. Halogen work lights illuminated armed figures, vehicles, crates and equipment. Thick electrical cables snaked here and there across the floor like slumbering pythons.

“Seems pretty well-equipped for a gang leader, empowered or not,” Leopard said.

“Gate said Sentinel’s whole operation got removed a few weeks back,” Monkey replied. “Welcome to the end result of IESA interference.”

“Not seeing any generators,” Snake said. “Must be siphoning power from the city’s infrastructure. People on the inside?”

“Seeing lots of police gear,” Rooster added. “Gangs are pretty well equipped here, looks like.”

Something about that thought nagged at Leopard’s brain, the part of him that never stopped whispering tactics: head on a swivel, never sit with your back to an entrance, doors and corners...

Sharkmouth led them to a heavy metal door. A pair of guards stood there, also armed.

“Wait here,” Sharkmouth said, opened the door, and stepped through.

No one said anything. Not the two guards, not Monkey or anyone else. Leopard found himself counting. Ten seconds, then twenty. Then a minute. He toggled the secure band and said, “Something’s up.”

“It’s fine, Spots,” Monkey replied. “Play it cool.”

Leopard wanted to say it obviously wasn’t fine. That everything had gone wrong since the Adriatic and stayed wrong. That if everything was on the level, they’d be dead at Shadow’s hand, and they wouldn’t be waiting so long to meet someone Gate had sent them to kill. He wanted to say that something was wrong, he just didn’t know what yet.

He bit down on his cheek.

And so they waited. Finally, Sharkmouth returned, the thick metal door hissing shut behind him.

“Meeting’s off,” he said.

“What?” Monkey asked.

“The Bull will not meet with you,” he said, as if Monkey hadn’t said anything. “Given your allegiance, she has reconsidered the value of granting you an audience. She has, however, advised that you may leave without hindrance.”

“Our allegiance?” Monkey said.

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“I told you,” Leopard said, on the private channel. “Let’s get out of here and regroup.”

Monkey didn’t respond. At least, not to Leopard. He leveled a finger at Sharkmouth and spoke with a low fire. “I’m not here to speak with her lackey. I represent no one but myself. Do you want to be the one to tell her that you’ve cost her the opportunity of a lifetime?”

Still nothing.

“This isn’t worth it, Monkey,” Leopard said, setting his hand on Monkey’s shoulder. “Let’s just go.”

Monkey pulled away, stepping forward, going helmet to helmet with Sharkmouth. “Fuck that. You can shoot me or get the fuck out of my way. Your choice.”

Sharkmouth remained impassive and then, very slowly, stepped back and out of the way.

Monkey continued forward, and Leopard followed, like he was caught in his wake. To the others, Monkey said: “Stay here and watch our backs.”

The doors led to a vast open space with a poured concrete floor. Surrounded by so many people with weapons, all of them pointed in his direction, Leopard forced himself not to speculate on what it might’ve been. What it was now was like some great meeting hall. Like some bizarre version of a medieval court.

On the far side of the hall, on the other side of a holotank and a map of Asclepion, someone had dragged and warped the concrete floor into a jagged, imposing throne. A woman loomed there, with olive skin and black hair that’d been yanked to the back of her head. Her eyes were on the two of them, hand raised.

She lowered her hand, slowly. With it, every gun barrel dropped towards the floor, but the room didn’t feel any less threatening.

“So,” she rumbled. “Oddly persistent, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Monkey said, “I don’t think your idiot of a door guard got the message. Gate sends his regards. He said you needed some backup but, looking around me, I’m not sure that’s true.”

What the hell was Monkey doing?

Taurine leaned forward, elbows on her thighs. She had chevrons emblazoned on her biceps. Her expression darkened subtly, around her eyes. Leopard was sure it was the expression she made when she needed to wipe something off her boots.

“Gate?” Taurine asked. “Never heard of him.”

“Even better,” Monkey said, calmer, like he’d expected it. “So, let’s talk. I think you’ll find that we can come to an agreement that’ll work for the both of us. I gather you have no love for the Syndicate—neither do we.”

Taurine’s silence was deafening. She was a statue on a stone throne, impassive and unimpressed. Leopard could see that Monkey was aware of it, too. His voice, usually so pleasant and charismatic, was beginning to sound unsure and halting.

“Gate sent us here to assist him by assisting you, so to speak. I say we cut out the middleman. We’re not interested in preventing you from taking the lion’s share of the glory. I’d like to establish a working relationship where we both benefit. Name your price, and we’ll pay it.”

Taurine tilted her head back and up, her dark eyes gazing off to some far horizon that only she could see.

“No,” she said.

Monkey was silent for just long enough that Leopard realized he hadn’t expected that answer. “If you look at our equipment, our skills—”

Taurine didn’t lean closer. Instead, she leaned back and away, elbows on her armrests. “You have nothing.”

“We have enough for Gate to send us to you. Better to deal with us than whatever other group of enforcers Gate sends to bring you to heel.”

“Another?” Taurine asked. “Hah! Thank you for being so stupidly open.” Then, an order to her horde: “Check their weapons.”

Taurine’s people closed on them as one. It took all of Leopard’s composure to not take aim and start shooting. Because once her people popped the magazines, they’d find the breaker rounds, and they’d know they were here to kill their leader and the two of them would be without the bullets they needed to stop her.

“Let them take your rifle, Spots,” Monkey said, like it made any sense at all.

One of Taurine’s people snatched it from him and ejected the magazine, inspected it.

“Clear,” he said, and handed rifle and magazine back to Leopard. Leopard glanced at it himself—inside was only the regular brass and silver of standard-issue ammo. Had Monkey seen it coming and then ditched the breaker rounds?

“We’re on the same side here, Taurine,” Monkey said, although Leopard wasn’t sure that was the case. “Gate just tried screwing us, like he’s trying to screw you. The enemy of my enemy is—”

“Just another target,” Taurine said. “Here’s a saying for you: love the treachery, and hate the traitor.”

“The way I see it, you’ve got no shortage of enemies. How long until Star Patrol comes down on you?”

She snorted air out through her nose, choked off a laugh. “I assume Star Patrol knows I’m here. I also assume they’re not stupid enough to risk a confrontation with the Savior of San Diego.”

“And your people?”

“I protect them,” she said, voice terse.

“You can’t be everywhere at once.”

“You’ve come here to meet with me, and you insult me? You actually admit that you were sent to bring me to heel?” Still, she remained disengaged, slouched in her throne like a barbarian-monarch.

“We made your sentries well before we got here,” Monkey replied smoothly. “If we wanted to kill you, we would’ve cut a bloody swath to your throne. We’re laying our cards on the table, Taurine. We can do good work together.”

“Hah!” Taurine brayed. “The only things that are good are the things that I can see, the things that I can touch, and the things that I can kill. And you are all three.”

She pushed herself to rising, an Empress stepping off her throne to mingle among her court. “You came here thinking we could cut a deal. The last in a long line of people who think I can be bought, who think I can be controlled, who think my ideals are simply material. I see you with your guns and your helmets and your black uniforms. I see right past them.”

“We’re not interested in controlling you,” Monkey said. “Whatever you want, we’re happy to provide. Providing we can count on your assistance when the time is right.”

Assistance, Leopard thought. Assistance for what?

“You don’t get it,” Taurine said, stalking forward with measured steps. She had the gait of a soldier and the bearing of a warrior. “You have nothing I want because you have nothing I can’t take. You walked into the lion’s den thinking it would choose to listen to you. That it would respect you because you want to turn on someone who hides in the shadows.” She turned to entertain her followers. “All balls, no brains.”

Beside him, Leopard could feel Monkey simmering.

Taurine turned back to look at them. “I’ve heard about you and your little unit, Monkey. You’re not threats, not even targets. And that means you’re not worth the effort it’d take me to beat you to death with your own helmets.”

No one answered. Leopard desperately wanted Monkey to say something. Something like ‘Aha, but Taurine, I have just the thing that will please a warrior such as yourself.’ Whatever master plan he was working up, he surely had to have something in his back pocket. He wouldn’t have come this far, burning his bridges behind him, with only a promise of firepower.

Monkey stayed silent.

“But,” Taurine said. “But. Given that you aren’t a threat, there’s a part of me that wishes to know whether this swaggering self-assurance is warranted. Perhaps you can be useful. Perhaps. But if you give me a reason, I’ll kill you all where you stand.”

“I’m glad that you see reason,” Monkey said, teeth grit.

Taurine grunted.

“Thunderhog!” she called, and Sharkmouth stepped through the door behind them. “Take Ajax’s team off the next job. I want to see how far this chimp will go for his banana. And you,” she added, looking at Leopard. “Cat got your tongue? Hah!”

Laughter rippled through the hall as Thunderhog turned on his heel and departed. “Come,” Taurine said, marching towards the holotank. “It’s time for your briefing, Animals.”

They followed her over towards the holographic map of the city, important locations marked and highlighted. A particular building glimmered deep towards the center of the cityscape, practically in the shadow of the monolithic Citadel.

“Recon-in-force,” Taurine said. “Ever wanted to rob a bank before?”

And, just like that, the final piece fell into place. Leopard’s mind, whispering for him to shut up and taken notice, saw the full picture. The weapons, the followers, the equipment, the discipline. Whatever Gate had sent Taurine here to do, she had thrown off their yoke. Now, Syndicate influence or not, it was no mere criminal enterprise. She and her followers didn’t have a hideout, but a fortress. It was no gang war by proxy, not anymore.

It was an insurrection.