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PART II

MONKEY

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CHAPTER 31 - LEOPARD

White-hot fire ripped through Leopard’s veins, and consciousness was a frantic second behind. He rose, spluttering, gasping, and unable to scream. The fire spread from his veins to his muscles, every single part of him compelled to act, twitching and spasming. He wanted to scream, but only heard himself choke and gag.

“There you are, Doctor,” a man said, somewhere nearby. “Marvel at the wonders of modern medicine.”

“What did you do?” hissed someone else.

“My job or, perhaps yours. Next time, show some gratitude.”

Finally, Leopard felt his body slam down against a surface, and the flurry of activity subside to tingling under his skin. His heart thumped erratically, fluttered with palpitations. Every skipped beat felt like it was his last.

“Whatever else this man might be,” the second voice said, “he is my patient first. You have no right! And my oath says—”

“My oath supersedes your own, Doctor,” the first man replied, voice like a knife. “You have other patients to attend to—I suggest you do so.”

The lights were bright and stark. Leopard turned his head left and right, despite the stiffness in his neck. Rows of beds and men and women in scrubs. A hospital ward. Empty save for a tall black woman he didn’t recognize and beyond her, on the other side of the ward, Tiger.

At the foot of his bed stood the cape who had captured them—Blueshift.

“Rise and shine,” he said. “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”

The man was a monster. Leopard knew just by looking at him. The way he stood there with one hand in his hip pocket, the way his smirk was just subtle enough to make his contempt deniable. Two predators catching their eyes across the jungle underbrush, like recognizing like.

“Stand,” Blueshift said, “or you will be made to stand. Whatever you decide, I am going to make one thing clear: if you give me any reason to hurt you, I will do so.”

It was so obvious. IESA’s chief enforcers weren’t superheroes—they were super soldiers. Traded their masks for helmets and their bodysuits for battle armor. They were thugs as much as he was, but he was honest.

“Walk under your own power,” he continued, “or I can bring you with me. But there are no other options for you to consider.”

That was a lie. There were other options. Leopard considered some of them, if only to see if this Blueshift could peek into his thoughts. He considered launching himself out of the bed, or slipping out of it with malice at the front of his mind. He considered placing all of his strength into a blow at the neck, abdomen, groin, ears, eyes. He visualized his strikes, and the cape falling back...

Nothing. The cape stood there, arms by his sides, looking almost like a gunslinger from an old film. So, he couldn’t read his mind. Or he could, and was pretending he couldn’t. Any good cape kept their cards close to their chest. Not that it mattered—the telekinetic could sweep his arm to put him down before he took two paces.

Leopard slipped off the bed, slowly. His feet felt like they belonged to someone else. He steadied himself against the mattress and took one step, then another. “I’ll walk,” he said. His voice was a rasp of a croak. He wet his lips, swallowed to drive saliva down his throat.

“I’ll walk.”

“Smart choice,” Blueshift said. “Let it be the first of many smart decisions you make today.”

It wasn’t fear that dried out his throat, Leopard thought. It was the drugs, or the recycled air. Not fear. Animals didn’t know fear. He ran his tongue over his teeth—first lower, then upper. Found them all still there.

For now, that was positive enough.

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Outside, Blueshift led the way through the halls. Two APD officers in full combat gear, rifles held at the ready, fell in behind Leopard. Blueshift set a quick pace, and the officers made clear that Leopard was to keep it.

Could he take them out? Leopard kept his gaze on the back of Blueshift’s head as he marched down the halls. One cop, definitely—two, maybe. Those were good enough odds, if not for the SOLAR agent. For now, patience.

He had to bide his time. Monkey had left him behind, after all. It was Leopard’s duty to escape, he knew that—but not at the cost of his life. If the IESA wanted to talk, then he’d talk. He’d sit, stay, and speak. He’d do everything he could to throw them off Monkey’s scent.

He hadn’t been out long. Everywhere he looked, Leopard could see the aftermath of their strike on the Citadel. Bullet holes here and there, shell casings littering the ground. Rooms coated in fire suppressant, walls broken and ceilings sundered. Men and women in the uniforms of emergency workers. Service robots cleaning up pools of blood.

Everyone gave him a wide berth. Leopard held his head high, fierce and aloof. But he caught their eyes and didn’t see fear or grim respect or anything he had expected, if not wanted. The only thing he saw was hatred, disgust, anger.

If they were afraid of anyone, if they were keeping their distance from anyone, if they had respect for anyone, it was Blueshift. A walking symbol of the corrupt system that the Animals existed to destroy. That was what Monkey always said.

Monkey always said a lot of things.

Even now, Monkey needed him. Needed someone to confuse the SOLAR capes, to throw them off the trail, to make them think they’d come back for their lost member. Because Monkey would never bet-

No, he couldn’t think that. SOLAR would do everything they could to break him, but Leopard would bend like a tree in the wind. There was nothing they could do to hurt him. There was nothing but Leopard. His flesh was nothing but a shell. Let them cut him, let them torture him. All he had to do to survive was keep saying no one more time than they tried to make him say yes.

Blueshift led the way to one of the elevators, herded the group inside, and then took them up thirty floors. That was a surprise—Leopard had expected they’d take him downstairs, into the secure basement levels. Why would they be taking him upward?

It didn’t matter. It changed nothing.

When the doors opened, Blueshift led them out. With the officers still at his back, Leopard followed Blueshift down a series of corridors. He committed each turn to memory, just in case. Then they stopped in front of a door. Blueshift pressed his hand against the biometric panel.

“Inside,” Blueshift said to him. Then, to the officers: “We’ll take it from here.”

Leopard did so. He heard Blueshift step in after him, and the door hiss closed.

Inside, the room was blandly hospitable. Soft grey carpet and cream walls. A view panel that Leopard almost confused for a window—but windows at this height were a security risk. In front of the display was a desk he could only call non-descript, a chair on either side. The only thing on the desk was one of those lucky golden cats, paw waving eternally.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

On the far side of the desk, looming with a steaming mug in her hand, out of her armor but in a deep blue uniform, was Aegis. She gestured to the chair in front of him.

“Sit,” she said, her tone just warm enough to not be considered utterly frozen.

No.

Leopard remained standing.

“I said sit.”

Leopard’s stomach lurched as the room swept around him, his inner ear screaming a protest, whiplash snapping against his aching neck. Something slammed him into the chair, hard enough to jar his tailbone. Pain flared.

He fought it down, didn’t let it show.

Where was Blueshift? He tried to look behind himself but, no matter how much he felt himself activate the muscles in his neck and shoulders, and then his waist and hips, he couldn’t turn. Something was holding him fast, pressing him down into the chair.

Aegis set the mug down, exhaled like she was preparing herself for something horrible, then popped some pills into her hand, swallowed them. “Starting this off by getting on my personal bad side to match my occupational one. Points for consistency but not a good move, Jack.”

Leopard stiffened. He felt his eyes widen before he was aware enough to stop it. It betrayed his surprise and shock. Aegis noted it, and she smiled thinly.

“Harper,” she said. “Jack Harper.” Her voice was wickedly arch. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

Leopard swallowed. He kept his voice flat. It wasn’t his name. He’d left that name in the streets, hungry and alone. Jack Harper was a specter, a ghost. Because he had killed him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leopard said.

“You’re a very bad liar,” Aegis said. “What’s more, you’re a very bad liar with very few rights. Here’s your first piece of advice: don’t fuck with me and I won’t burn you to the ground. Am I absolutely clear?”

He’d gotten to her already. Leopard smirked. “Utterly see-through.”

“You’re rather amusing for an idiot,” she said. “Whatever cards you’re holding, they’re probably nothing but jokers. So, let’s cut to the chase. Three questions. You and your friend, why are you still here? Your other friends, where have they gone? And finally, who the fuck’s backing you?”

The smirk crept up the other side of his face. This was the IESA’s best? All the might of SOLAR, all the resources of the Functioning World, and they didn’t know the answer to those three questions?

It was tempting to give up Gate. But Monkey had used him to escape and, as such, giving up Gate could lead them back to Monkey. And she thought his cards were worthless.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Leopard said. “That’s my answer to all three. I’ll never betray my people. Death first.”

“Ah,” Aegis said, quirking a single eyebrow. “A zealot. Unfortunate about your loyalty, though. Doesn’t seem like your buddies reciprocate it. You’ll never betray them? We'll see. Because it seems like they betrayed you.”

Monkey would never-

“Why?” Aegis asked. “What’d you do to them? You’re already getting on my nerves—maybe that was it.”

That familiar anger flared, that touch of hated humiliation. He suppressed it, locked it far away. Even the smallest microcosm of any response could give him away. There were empowered who always knew just the right thing to say. And, if that wasn’t her power, then there were always interrogation drugs. What had she taken?

“Perhaps they left me here as a diversion,” Leopard said.

“Mm,” Aegis said, giving it obvious faux-consideration. “I don’t think so. Doesn’t make good common sense. It’s only a matter of time before I get tired of you and bring in a telepath. Fact of the matter is, Jack, we’ll catch up to them eventually. Even if you refuse to play ball, the list of people with such teleportation capability is very short.”

“Then I don’t think we have anything to say to each other, do we?”

“We do. For example, one of your people remains in a critical condition. I’m aware that they are trying to save her life. That,” Aegis said, “could change.”

She might as well have slapped a pistol down on the desk between them.

“You wouldn’t,” Leopard said, with the awareness of stepping into a trap.

“How quickly your bravado fades,” Aegis replied. “Very few people survive a direct hit from a phasic weapon. Frankly, it’s a waste of resources, time and manpower when there’re so many other people—good people—who were injured in the line of duty.”

“You won’t. You have principles, rules. IESA regulations forbid the waste of human life.”

“Certainly. But under SOLAR operating parameters, I have considerable operational freedom to define what is and isn’t waste. If she dies, and you talk... Well, that’s hardly waste now, is it?”

The trap tightened around him. He had to find some way to outmaneuver Aegis, but it was impossible. The only thing to do was resist. To do his duty.

“Then who cares?”

“I’m talking with you,” Aegis said. “I do.”

“Yeah. I’m sure you care, with your henchman behind me. You think I don’t know what the IESA does? I’ve seen pictures of the camps. I know you brainwash children into becoming people like him. You’ve got your boot on the throat of the world, and people thank you for it.”

Aegis shook her head, slowly.

“So, do it. Fucking do it. Let her die. Throw me in a camp and mind-fuck me. Turn me into an experiment. But I’ll die before I give you anything.”

Aegis looked at him oddly, as if she’d seen him grow a second head then and there.

“There are no camps,” she said, enunciating in that strangely terse way she had, as if she had decided she was speaking to someone who wasn’t all there. “My God, he has twisted you around his finger, hasn’t he?”

The soft, near-wondrous tone that Aegis had shifted into was more alarming than her rough terseness. The memory of Monkey kicking him down, leaving him in the hall to be captured, sprung unbidden to him. It made his chest ache, tighten.

Why?

“You have no idea what loyalty is,” Leopard said. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aegis snapped. “Look around. You’re not in a camp, you’re not in a cell, you’re in my office. I’m here to talk to you. Loyalty? Hah. Your misplaced loyalty to the man who left you to die was amusing, at first, but now I’m tired of it. Shift.”

It sounded like a command, but Leopard’s realization of the fact that it wasn’t meant for him came at the moment his face slammed into the desk.

“I want to talk,” Aegis replied, while Leopard tasted blood. He gingerly probed his teeth with his tongue, found them all still there. Always a positive. He had all the cards. She wouldn’t be leaning on him so much if she didn’t need to know what he knew. Every second he held his resolve was one more second Monkey had to get away, to come up with a plan.

To come back for him.

“Funny way of showing it,” Leopard said, spitting blood atop her desk.

“I have little patience for cowards and murderers—and you are both. That hurt, didn’t it? Those words. I see it all over your face. One last chance, Jack. Why are you here, where are your friends, and what was your objective?”

“Fuck,” he replied, “you.”

Aegis sighed.

“Big mistake,” she said. “Very big mistake. But if you want to play stupid games, then you’ll win stupid prizes. You and your friends, that monkey man. You have no idea of the shitstorm I can unleash.”

“Then do it, prove me right.”

“We’ll see,” Aegis replied. “But this will do for now. I’ve cracked your mental armor. Now, time will split you open for me. We’ll see how talkative you are in a week. Blueshift, get him out of my sight.”

Once again, the room lurched around him. Leopard stumbled, found his footing and his equilibrium. Blueshift cuffed him, and frogmarched him to the door. Aegis spoke up, as if she was remembering something.

“Oh, one more thing. Blueshift, I know you like your experiments. Jack here made me think of one. Remind me, how long can a human go without food?”

“One month,” he replied smoothly. “Maybe two. Why?”

“Starve this one,” Aegis said. “Leave him with nothing to chew on but his thoughts, as thin and over-indulgent as they are. I’ll see you in a week, Harper. Until then, I suggest you spend some time understanding that you've brought this on yourself.”

He pretended not to hear her. Blueshift pushed him out of the room and back towards the elevators. There was no fear now. He’d survived hunger before, and he could do so again. But there was something else, an insistent thought. One that had bubbled at the edge of his awareness ever since he’d seen that bootprint on his chest.

Monkey, why did you betray me?