CHAPTER 37 - LEOPARD
He had to give it to Aegis. She’d gotten under his skin, threaded him with compassionate hooks and played him like a puppet. But it was merely a magic trick, this Leopard knew now—hunger had worn him down, made him susceptible to such things. But he could see her tactics for what they were now, and how close she’d drawn him to the edge. So close. She’d almost got him to believe that Monkey had abandoned him, had betrayed him. But, like Monkey had always said, the first trick to getting out of a trap was realizing you were in it.
Monkey hadn’t abandoned him. Monkey hadn’t betrayed him. Monkey always had a plan, and this part of the plan involved Leopard giving the authorities false leads and bad intel. The little performance he’d put on would buy him however much time it took for them to figure out he’d fed them bogus data. Then, they’d probably kill him—that’d be fine, too.
He’d given them the Syndicate, but not Gate. Let the IESA roll a grenade into each Syndicate front, hideout and fortress. He still didn’t have a clue what they’d taken from the Adriatic, but that’d been another thing to lay at the door of the Syndicate. The gear, too. Gate had hired them. Gate was responsible. Not Monkey.
Sure he ain’t, kid, Tiger said.
Either way, his jailers were bringing him food and drink now. They might as well have been slipping him a knife. He felt good. He felt strong. He was still stuck in a cell, but now he realized it, and he’d chew off whatever limb he had to in order to escape. All he needed was the right opportunity.
Then you’ll be, what, stuck on an island where everyone hates you? Tiger again. It wasn’t an intrusive thought or a hallucination, but a tool to help him maintain perspective. Asclepion was a death trap, yes, so he'd remain compliant. For now. If SOLAR took him back to Geneva, then he could escape east, find somewhere to go to ground in the warlord territories, perhaps even make it to the Khanate...
An alert sounded. Someone was about to enter his cell. Leopard rose from his little table and walked to the far wall, placed his hands against it. Behind him the door opened, someone stumbled inside, and the door closed.
“Come on, guys,” Tiger said, and it took Leopard a moment to realize he hadn’t imagined it. “I think I preferred my old digs, if it’s all the same.”
Leopard turned, and there she was. Tiger wore the same clothes in nondescript grey and white that he did, but otherwise looked none the worse for wear. Her mane of dirty blonde hair hung wildly around her face and shoulders.
“Tiger?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Nah,” Tiger said, poking her tongue against her cheek, thinking. “Well, I flat-lined on the table, sure, but it’s easier to come back from the dead when you’ve done it three or four times before. Saint Peter and I are on a first-name basis—pretty sure he’s putting in a good word for me with the big guy.”
Some part of him felt he should hug her or shake her hand or smile or something, but it just didn’t happen.
He asked, “But what’re you doing here?”
“Yeah, it’s good to see you, too, kid.” Tiger shrugged. “Guards brought me here, that’s about it. Don’t know why. Don’t really care.”
The worst thing you could do as a captor would be to put your prisoners together, Leopard knew. It allowed them to plan and helped them maintain their resolve. Leopard ran his tongue around against his teeth. SOLAR didn’t make mistakes like that.
“SOLAR expects us to talk things over, give things away,” Leopard said, casing the lines of the room for sensors he couldn’t see and wouldn’t find. “Can’t give them anything.”
Tiger rasped something like a laugh. “I’ve been singing like a canary since I woke up, kid.”
“What?”
“I woke up in the med bay,” Tiger said. “That guy, Blueshift, sat down next to me, slapped my service record down on the table, and made it quite clear what my options were.”
“And you just told them?” The shadow of relief had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “You spoke to them?”
“Yeah, and I learned that they don’t know shit. Wouldn’t keep us alive otherwise. Interrogation’s a two-way street, trust me.”
Leopard turned away from her, rubbing at his temples, dragging his fingers through his hair. What had she said? What had she given them—information that might prove he had been flippant with the truth? He should’ve killed her. He should’ve fucking killed her.
He turned back to face her. “What did you tell them?”
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“I told them exactly what I knew. In case you’ve forgotten, you and our glorious leader kinda had a habit of informing us on a need-to-know basis—that’s to say, fuck all. And luckily for us, I didn’t want to know shit. Do you think SOLAR would be talking to us if they knew where your friend is? That’s useful. You might’ve learned something useful, too,” Tiger said. “You know, if you weren’t being such a fucking asshole, kid.”
“You cooperated with them!”
“And you didn’t?” Tiger plucked the sandwich up from his table and took a big bite, made a show of chewing it. “Mm! Tastes salty. What, did you cry into it?”
Leopard felt his fists clench and his fingers begin to buzz. Tiger noticed, her stance shifting, and that scrappy smirk slid across her face. “Come on, Jack, throw the first punch,” she said, a taunt in her eyes. “Just tell me the safe word.”
Leopard inhaled and rolled his wrists about, exhaling and relaxing his hands. “It’s the duty of a soldier to not cooperate with their captors,” he said, “and to escape.”
“Excusing the fact that you’re not a soldier for a moment, there’s an article before that one which says you shouldn’t surrender freely—but, hey, who’s counting sins at this point?”
She had a point.
“Fine,” Leopard said.
Tiger nodded. She pointed to the sandwich. “Anyway, you gonna finish this?”
“No.”
She devoured it and said, around her mouthfuls, “If you give ‘em something to think about, it means they won’t think they need to crack your head open and feast on the goo inside.”
“I know that.”
“Just making sure—for next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“That’s what I like about you,” Tiger replied, “you’re an optimist.” She finished the rest of his coffee while she was there. Something occurred to Leopard then, an old lesson, and he frowned.
“How do I know that you’re really you?”
Tiger glanced left and right. “You, uh, being serious now, kid?”
“Always. You could be a telepath or a shapeshifter, making me think you’re her, that we’re talking right now.”
“Could be," she replied. "In which case, you’re really fucked.”
It was true. If SOLAR had access to everything Tiger had done before she’d joined the Animals, then they knew more about her than he did. There’d be no way for him to see through it. It was a stupid thought, anyway, a paranoid thought. Tiger was Tiger, or he was, as she put it, really fucked. But her being with him, here and in the flesh, just didn't make sense.
“So,” Leopard said. “What happens now?”
“Depends on how long until the capes run down our leads, or if they figure we’re holding out on them. But I’d say this is the last chance for us to play ball before they ship us off to some black site.”
“And then?”
“Die, probably.”
Leopard sat on his bunk. Tiger kicked her legs up onto the table. He’d have more chance of escaping with Tiger at his back than he would without her, but there was a part of him—the part that had spoken in Tiger’s voice—that wondered if two people would really have a better chance than one against the empowered might of SOLAR.
The lights flickered.
“Huh,” Tiger said, and the lights went out.
“Listen to me very carefully,” a voice said from somewhere in the dark. Even, modulated—maybe female, if Leopard had to guess. “For the next five minutes, the guards assigned outside your cell have been reassigned, pending an emergency on the opposite side of the Citadel. Soon, they will determine the emergency to be the result of an inexplicable glitch and return to their post. Before they return, you have an opportunity to leave your cell—now.”
Nothing happened. Leopard wasn’t sure what he had expected. The doors to open, the lights to turn back on. Something. He could just pick out Tiger in the dark, making a show of stretching her arms above her head.
“Can you hear us?” Leopard asked.
“Yes.”
“How do I know this isn’t a trick?”
“You don’t.”
“There are other guards watching the cell, a watchdog AI, surely, too.”
“The artificial intelligence system has been fed fraudulent data, as have the monitoring systems. This subterfuge will not be uncovered until SOLAR comes for you in the morning. No one will see you leave, and no one can hear you respond to me.”
“You’re not one of the SOLAR capes,” Leopard said. “Who are you?”
“Same group,” the voice replied, “different department. Beyond that, my identity is not your concern. Three minutes and fifty seconds remain.”
Leopard glanced to Tiger. She nodded.
“Fine,” he said. “And if we fight?”
“You’ll lose.”
“And if we run?”
“You’ll die.”
“Well,” Tiger said, hopping to her feet, “that’s good enough for me.”
“Sounds too good to be true,” Leopard replied.
“Most people will happily take a lie over the truth, kid, and I’m no exception.” She was halfway to the door. “Besides, I’ve heard Geneva is terrible at this time of year, anyway. You coming?”
It wasn't like staying was a realistic option.
The door opened into the glare of a Citadel hallway. Their savior, their liberator from the clutches of the IESA, stood sentry outside. Hands clasped behind her back, armored feet shoulder-width. Silver visage scrutinizing them from under a black hood.
“You,” Leopard said. What was her name? “Supernova.”
“Supernova was my mother’s name,” the cape replied. “You may call me Revenant.”