CHAPTER 38 - FISHER

It was past midnight. If there was one upside to losing his hands, it was that he no longer had any fingernails to gnaw on. If booze and cigarettes were his worst habits of late, Fisher liked to think that was where it had all started. He needed a drink or a smoke. He needed something to distract himself from the thought he was making a mistake.

Was he basing this all off an obsession with mysteries, his own conspiratorial thoughts, and some odd innuendo from one of the most infamous people in SOLAR? Even if Sabra kicked in the door and said that she was in, what, exactly, would their next step be?

Outside his hotel room window, the world continued much as it always had. Fisher couldn’t look past the fragility of such a state. Before Preceptor, before the Golden Age, the world had been staring down the barrel of a clathrate cannon. One apocalypse had replaced another. People talked about how IESA existed to prevent a second Collapse, to avert the end of the entire world. Try as he might, Fisher couldn’t put a thought from his mind: that the apocalypse wasn’t future possible, but present actual and it was just taking time for everyone to catch on.

Maybe that was why he was so set on chasing the Animals down. To do one last thing, to say he made a difference. For Mark and Katherine and everyone else. One last charge of the Millennium Brigade. An old man and his cat.

There was a knock at the door. Fisher yawned, crossed the room and opened it. “Sabra—”

It wasn’t Sabra. In the hall, in drab gray clothing, was a man and a woman. The man had fair skin and brown hair, boyish features. The woman was a touch paler, with dirty blonde hair that looked like it resented the very idea of being brushed. Fisher didn’t recognize either of them.

“This the secret meeting spot?” the woman asked. She had a voice that suggested she liked to gargle nails.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fisher replied.

“Yep, this is it.”

The woman stepped into the doorway, and Fisher shoved the door toward her. She stepped back, looking something between shocked and eager. “What,” she said, “You weren’t told we were coming?” Her expression said try that again, I dare you.

“Who are you?”

“This isn’t something we should talk about outside,” the man said. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“Heard you can get us a good price on a chimp skin rug,” the woman put in.

Did Sabra know these people? They didn’t seem like the type of people she’d associate with, and they seemed more than a few years older than her at that. But they had to be here for the Animal hunt.

“Come in,” Fisher said.

The pair followed him in. The man stepped over to the corner facing the door and crossed his arms. The woman settled on the couch like she owned the place. “Hey, look—mini bar.”

“Don’t touch it,” Fisher said. He was burning enough money on the room as it was. “Let’s talk introductions. Names.”

“You can call me Leopard,” the man said, “and this is Tiger.”

A buzz of a chill crept up Fisher’s spine. He’d invited a pair of murderers into his room. He doubted he could take one of them, much less two. More questions, fewer answers.

“You’re Animals,” Fisher replied. “The ones SOLAR caught. So, what’re you doing here?”

“We’ve got a mutual friend, I guess,” Leopard said.

“You guess. Did Blueshift bust you out and point you over here?”

Leopard shrugged. “We heard you were putting a team together—we want in.”

“He wants in,” Tiger clarified.

Fisher eyed Leopard. There was something off about the younger man, but Fisher couldn’t pin it down. His brown eyes were dead and his facial expressions were slight—if they were there at all. Not guarded, not trauma—something else. Fisher wasn’t sure what to call it. He didn’t get a sense of an ulterior motive, but he certainly didn’t get a sense of benevolence, either.

Tiger radiated something else entirely. If it came to a fight, he’d try to take her out first, and the thought was immediately countered by the part of him that was twenty years younger and hungry to be a hero: he wouldn’t get close.

And if it came to a fight, who’d take care of Octopus?

“Right,” Fisher said. “Well, I’m still waiting for some allies to turn up. Can I get you a drink or anything?”

“Water,” Leopard said and then, after a beat, an awkward, “Thanks.”

Fisher ducked into the kitchen. Found a glass, filled it, and tried to listen in on the Animals. They didn’t say a thing. The silence didn’t do anything for Fisher’s nerves. Someone knocked on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Tiger said. Footsteps, a door opening. “You here for the secret meeting?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sabra said. “Pretty sure.”

“Great.”

“Your voice is kinda familiar.”

“I get that a lot,” Tiger said. “So’s yours.”

For the first time in a very long time, Fisher was aware of every single palpitation in his chest. He began filling up a second glass, when Tiger said, “It might have something to do with the time I tried to stick you with a knife—no hard feelings, right?”

“You,” Sabra seethed. Then there was a thump and a crash of shattering wood, and Octopus came skittering into the kitchen. Fisher dropped the glass into the sink and raced into the living room, found Leopard on his back, the coffee table crushed under him, and Sabra on top of him, her right arm whirling like a furious windmill.

“Sabra!” Fisher shouted, grabbing for her. “Goddamnit, Sabra, I need him!”

She rose up to meet him and, for a single incandescent moment, Fisher thought she was going to hit him, too. Then, the fury cooled, fading from her face, and she stalked away, getting distance. Tiger was leaning over the open door of the mini bar fridge like she was watching a prize fight.

“I’m fine,” Sabra said. “I’m fine. Pavel, Christ and Allah, what the fuck!”

“I’ll explain!”

Leopard was on his back, blinking away the concussion. His tongue pushed against the inside of his mouth, and then he wiped at his cut lip. His right eye was already turning an ugly red. God, she’d really hit him.

“I’ll get you some ice,” Fisher said. “And if you’re going to fight, don’t do it in front of my goddamn cat.”

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Later, seated and holding an ice pack to his eyes, Leopard said, “I deserved that.”

“Yeah,” Tiger said, “you did.”

“I suggest you start talking,” Fisher said. His gaze flittered to Sabra, simmering over on the chair she’d dragged to the far side of the room. “Otherwise, she’ll start throwing punches, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to stop her this time.” He glanced to Tiger, noted Leopard doing the same.

“Hey,” she said, shrugging, “he’s not wrong.”

“I know that you two won’t believe me,” Leopard began, “but I want to help you. We can’t let Monkey get away like this. If we don’t stop him, I think a lot of people are going to die.”

“Since when have you cared about people dying?”

“I don’t know,” Leopard replied. “Maybe I haven’t. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I just want revenge. I haven’t been the best at making choices, but I’m trying to do the right thing right now.”

“Yeah,” Fisher said. “I don’t think you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Fine. He left me—us—for dead. I just want to look him in the eyes and return the favor.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No,” Leopard said. “But I’ve known him for a decade—I know how he thinks and what he’s looking for.”

“So, start talking,” Sabra said.

Leopard shook his head. “That’s my insurance policy. I don’t have many cards left, but they’re the most valuable ones in my hand. Not even SOLAR could pry them out of my grip.”

“So much for turning over a new leaf or whatever. Pavel, I’m out of here.”

“Sabra,” he said, “wait.”

She’d already opened the door, and then she stepped in her tracks.

A woman said, “Going somewhere, Kasembe?” Revenant.

“What’re you doing here?” Sabra asked.

“I just finished putting things in order for this plan of Pavel Fisher’s that you mentioned.”

“Okay. Well. Come on in?”

Sabra returned with Revenant just a pace behind, her golden eyes glimmering out from under her hood.

“The mutual friend?” Fisher asked Leopard.

“Yeah.”

Fisher looked at Revenant. She met his stare with a gaze that was colder than her contemptuous mask. “I’m not going to pretend I understand what’s going on here,” he said.

“It’s better if you don’t,” she replied, settling at-ease. “Now, where were you all.”

“Leopard was just about to put his cards on the table,” Fisher said.

“Like my dad always said,” Sabra said, pointedly, “start from the beginning and work forwards from there.”

“Fine,” Leopard replied. “Then here’s the beginning—we’re not named after animals, not really. Monkey took his name from this old story. Sun Wukong.”

“Who?”

“Journey to the West,” Revenant said. “It’s Chinese mythology. Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.”

“So what’s the big deal if he named himself after Chinese King Kong?”

Fisher saw it, the way empowered names always worked—titles given or titles claimed.

“If he took the name deliberately,” he said, “then it means he considers himself a bringer of chaos. Yeah, I’m familiar with the story—Wukong defied everyone in power, gods, demons, spirits, everyone. A real trickster character.”

“You’re saying he did all of this, killed these people, shot my father, as a prank?” The fire rose in Sabra’s voice. That was good, Fisher thought. She wouldn’t back out now.

“Our goal was revolution,” Leopard said. “But we needed weapons, resources. Most of the time, we stayed mobile and never worked for the same person twice. But when we hit the Adriatic, we were working for Gate.”

“Of the Syndicate,” Fisher said.

“Yeah.”

“The Syndicate put a hit out on my dad?” Sabra asked.

“No,” Leopard said tersely. “The Adriatic was carrying something. Something that, as far as I’m aware, the IESA hasn’t commented about losing. It was locked in the most secure case I’ve ever seen.”

“But that ship was carrying innocent people.”

“Yeah. Whatever it was, they didn’t want anyone to know about it.”

“So,” Fisher said, “what was it?”

“I don’t know,” Leopard replied.

“Guess.”

“Look, we were trying to get that cargo before it left Acajutla. We were operating in Guatemala when The Engineer and Surveyor had it out at Volcan Tajumulco. People pay good money for Transcendent artifacts. I think the IESA found one.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Then why ship it out on a refugee ship? Those things are dangerous.”

“I don’t know,” Leopard said. “They didn’t want anyone to know about it.”

“The confiscation and storage of dangerous empowered technologies and artifacts is an official part of the IESA’s duties,” Revenant said. “There would be no need to do it so covertly, much less where civilians could be exposed to it.”

“I’m just telling you what I saw,” Leopard replied. “Anyway, the important part is this—we gave that object to Gate, and Gate was the one who extracted Monkey. If Monkey wants a weapon, that’ll be the first one he can get his hands on.”

“Assuming Gate gives it up,” Fisher said.

“Which I doubt. That means Monkey will be looking for another. That’s the whole reason we hit the Citadel, to get access to the IESA’s database and a list of places we might hit to get ourselves a weapon.”

“Did you?”

“They did,” Revenant said.

Fisher shook his head. “There’s no goddamn way a bunch of idiots with guns could storm an IESA secure vault site.”

“They might not have to,” Revenant replied. “Fisher, I’m borrowing your monitor.” The screen on the wall lit up with a map of the world and a variety of glowing markers. Too many to count.

“What’s this?” Sabra asked.

“A map of all Transcended events, incidents, or attacks. If we remove the ones the IESA has secured—” Several icons vanished “—and all the ones that are incompatible with human life—” There were very few icons left now “—it leaves us with these locations. Leopard, which one is Monkey likely to hit?”

Leopard set his icepack down and walked over to the monitor. He leaned forward, staring at the map. He had said he knew how his boss thought and what he was looking for. This, Fisher thought, would put it to the test.

Leopard pointed to the western coast of Australia and the glowing blip there. “There,” he said.

“Why?” Fisher asked.

“Because that’s where Promethea is.”

Not a name Fisher had expected, or wanted, to hear.

There weren’t many empowered figures who sat outside the hero/villain divide, much less ones who operated outside any national or transnational superstructure. Powerful empowered had a way of getting themselves killed, or recruited—which could be argued as a different spin on the former. But Promethea, wandering the world followed by a gaggle of devoted drifters, had avoided both.

It was a short, exclusive list. And to remain on that list for as long as Promethea had—nine years, maybe ten, by Fisher’s reckoning—meant two things: that her designs didn’t align with any conventional state or organization, and that she was powerful enough to ensure that no one forced her to align.

Still, he had to be sure. Sometimes capes borrowed names.

“Promethea?” he asked. “As in, Promethean Cult Promethea?”

Leopard nodded. “As if there’s any other. About two years ago, we did a job for her group. We said we’d take the payment at a later date. If I was Monkey, I’d go to collect. If he’s not there, then we can collect it on his behalf.”

“How’s that going to help us?” Sabra asked.

“She’s an oracle, Sabra,” Fisher said. “A good one. Or a mad one, depending on who you ask. Remember that seven-nine discussion we had? She’s not part of the Seven, but she’s damn close.”

“Oh,” Sabra said. “Great.”

“This isn’t ideal, I know,” Leopard said. “But if he’s been there, we can track him down. And if he hasn’t, then she can tell us where we’ll find him.”

“And she’s there? Can we verify that? Revenant?”

“The last reported sighting of the Promethean Cult was within the Western Australian Null Zone in 2059.”

“Works for me,” Sabra said.

“I don’t like it,” Fisher said.

“Can she do it, Pavel? Can she really tell us where this Monkey guy is?”

Fisher closed his eyes. “Sabra,” he said, already aware he was lurching into an argument he couldn’t win.

“Pavel, could she do it?”

“Yes,” he said, opening them. “Almost certainly.”

“Then let’s do it.”

“We don’t even know if this information is good,” Fisher said. “I don’t like this.”

“This was your idea,” Sabra said, frowning.

“Gate’s a member of the Syndicate. We could—”

“They won’t give up their own,” Leopard said.

“Maybe. But it’d be easier to track down someone connected to that organization than seek an audience with someone who tore out her own eyes!”

Credit to Sabra, her expression barely wavered—just a brief flicker in the corner of her eyes. She glanced to Leopard.

“No Syndicate member would ever give up one of their pillars like that,” the mercenary said. “And every day you waste is one more day Monkey gets to find his weapon. I’m not a good person—I’m not saying I am. But I never signed on for whatever he’s planning. I can’t fix what I’ve done, but I can stop it from happening again.”

It was a hell of a claim. Leopard’s flatness made it easy to believe—but there was a waver there in his voice, his eyes. It was the most of an expression that Fisher had seen yet. He might talk a big game, Fisher knew, but whether he’d be able to go through with it was another question.

They’d need to keep an eye on him.

“If this Promethea knows something, then we have to go to her,” Sabra said. “Nothing else matters. You play to win, or you don’t play.”

“Not even the IESA goes anywhere near Promethea,” Fisher said, but it was a weak defense. Sabra shrugged it off.

“Yeah, and we’re here because they make good calls, right? Pavel, listen to me. Is there even a chance—like, a ten percent chance—that she can tell us what we need to know?”

Fisher closed his eyes, took a breath.

“Yes.”

Sabra’s smile looked like it’d split her face in half.

“If we can find Promethea,” he continued. “If she has the payment that Leopard says she does. If we don’t get arrested for aiding and abetting a pair of fugitives. If we can get them off the island, then yes, this might just work.”

“Oh,” Sabra said. “Yeah, that might be a problem. How’re we going to get to Australia?”

“I can take care of that,” Revenant said.

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Revenant and Sabra took the mercenaries to the Asclepion airport to enact whatever strategy she had come up with. Fisher wasn’t sure what the cyborg’s angle was—it didn’t seem like Sabra had expected her to show up. Another sign of her link to SOLAR. Another sign that something was going on.

Fisher stared down at the footlocker at the end of his hotel bed, the one he’d brought with him from Geneva. He hesitated at some invisible threshold and then opened it. He felt like he was shaking, but the tremor ended at his wrists—it didn’t transfer to his metal and plastic hands. If he was going to leave Asclepion, if there was a chance he wasn’t going to come back, then there was one thing he had to do.

Fisher pulled the lid up and back and gazed upon the mantle of Impel.

It was there, in its glaring neon tones of orange and purple, folded and pressed. Set atop it were the various awards, medals and commendations he had received in his time—he’d forgotten what most of them were for.

Tucked into the side, barely visible, was a set of photos. He knew what they would show him. But as far as he was going into his past, there was no way he’d look upon them.

Fisher considered the armorweave suit for a time. He had hoped that putting it away neatly would’ve given it an aura of finality, like a memorial. But things had changed, or perhaps, he had been lying to himself.

There was only one way to find out.

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“Impel?” The APD officer raised her eyebrows, looked at him, then back to her tablet. “It’s been a while.”

“It has,” Fisher said. His voice felt rusty; he hadn’t practiced his “hero cadence” in years, much less used it. “I have a particular history with a woman in one of your holding cells. I would like to speak with her.”

The officer glanced at her device. Fisher knew what she was checking: biometrics, voice recognition, fingerprints, and other things besides. All of them were correct, of course. He might’ve been old, and out of practice, he might’ve had a gut that wasn’t present in the file photos within the IESA database, but he was who he said he was.

As hard as that was to believe.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “This way, please.”

She led the way into the holding area, to the same cells that Fisher had seen from his time within custody.

“Cell 12,” the officer said, indicating the way.

Fisher nodded, stood by the section of the wall that could fade away to reveal the occupant of the cell. He took in a breath, let it out. He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but belief wasn’t required—he just had to do it.

“Show me,” he said.

The section of wall faded away. There, in the small bare room, with cuffs around her wrists and ankles and neck, Taurine loomed on the cot. A full nullifier setup. It didn’t seem like enough.

“I almost don’t believe it,” Fisher said.

“She’s extremely dangerous, sir. Both Star Patrol and SOLAR insisted on all available measures.”

“I know,” Fisher said. “I just... Seeing her in custody, after all this time...” Fisher nodded to the officer. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like some privacy for this conversation.”

“Of course,” the officer said, and departed down the corridor. At this hour, it was unlikely anyone would walk past. It wasn’t like he could let Taurine out anyway, even if he wanted to.

He toggled the intercom. “Taurine.”

She looked up, glared at him through the black tendrils of her hair.

“Impel.”

She rose from the cot, shuffled her way to the viewing panel. She stood there before him, separated only by inches of armorglass, the closest they had ever been, and Fisher had to fight down the thought that she’d punch her way through it, and then through him.

She looked him up and down, lips twisting into a fleeting sneer.

“You’ve put on weight,” she said. “How long has it been, I wonder? Ten years, by my count.”

“Ten years.”

Taurine nodded, slowly. “Have you come here to gloat?” she drawled.

Fisher shook his head. Why was he here? He wanted to think it was because of what Katherine said, to make amends with his old nemesis—but that wasn’t true. And it wouldn’t bring Mark back. Maybe he was only testing his fear of her.

It was still there, of course, but different, too. It was a slight chill on the back of his neck, a slight hitch in his breath. But she wasn’t strangling him, wasn’t driving reason from his mind.

“No,” he replied. “Just to talk.” It was as good an answer as any.

“I’m sure.”

Taurine crossed her arms as best she could.

“Beaten by a kid during her first serious fight,” Fisher said. “It seems hard to believe. But here you are.”

Taurine grunted. “Strong kid, good technique, and that suit sure didn’t hurt. Effective combination.”

“You wanna know how she did it?”

“I know how she did it. Hit me really, really hard and let gravity do the rest. Long drop with a sudden stop. By the time I could move half my body again, I was already in these.” She raised her wrists, showing the cuffs. “But they’ll have to write off one last squad car.”

“You got soft in your old age, I guess.”

“Soft? You’re carrying a pillow under that suit. She fought well, that’s all it is. Luck, skill, fate, whatever you want to call it. But it was not for lack of trying.”

“And so ends the legend of Taurine. If only my team could’ve been here to see it.”

“All legends end,” Taurine replied. “Look, we’ve lived longer than most in this line of work. You've won. Quit while you’re ahead. That’s my advice, Impel. I mean it.”

It was that kernel of recognition that allowed them to talk with some manner of decorum. They were both relics, both had that degree of sympathy for each other. Members of the old guard. On opposite sides of the lawful divide, to be sure, but members of the old guard all the same.

“I tried,” Fisher said, and found a hard edge under his words. “It didn’t take. You killed the man I had hoped to retire with.”

Taurine fixed him with a sardonic look. “One.”

“What?”

“One. You’re so wounded by that one loss. I had always thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

“He was my partner. I loved him.”

Taurine barked. “Hah! Your partner. One person, Impel! One! I lost a dozen brothers and sisters, saw them wiped out by a force that no training, no equipment could have ever hoped to stop! White-hot sand scourged the skin from their bones! You think you know pain? You think you know loss?”

“I’m sure you’ve got some wonderful advice for me, Sergeant.”

“Move on. Stop moping. You don’t need to remember the pain when you remember the man.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth! You took him from me, and now you’re giving me platitudes?”

Remarkably, Taurine did. After three breaths, she spoke again. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

Fisher looked away, shaking his head. When his eyes set on Taurine again, he was glaring. “For what? No, tell me. For what? What could you possibly be sorry for, Taurine? For ending up in this cell? Do you think I’m going to help you?”

“No,” she said. “I know you won’t. But I want to say it now, before I can’t.”

“Tell me where he is, Taurine. Tell me where you entombed him in that concrete sarcophagus. Tell me where you dumped him! Tell me something actually fucking helpful!”

Taurine didn’t seem to notice it. In the past, she would have gloated, taunted. Now, she just stood there. She shrugged her broad shoulders. “The ocean is a big place. The currents could have carried him anywhere over the past decade.”

“And that’s why I can’t accept your apology, because he’s still alive down there. Because I have to imagine that he’s dead to stop myself from going completely insane.”

Taurine’s face was unreadable.

“When they lock you away, Taurine,” he continued, “I’m going to toast it. I’m going to laugh. I’m not concerned at all about what you won’t be able to do.”

“Then you haven’t heard it. You haven’t seen it. Oh, Impel. I almost envy you.”

Fisher frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And if you think I’m going to forgive you because of some insanity routine, it won’t work.”

“I’m not insane. I see things far more clearly than you.”

“Just about every madman has said that. Madwomen, too, I suppose.”

“I thought you didn’t come here to gloat.”

“Look, if you think I’m going to forgive you because of some insane rambling...”

“No. Do you think you’re in control, Impel? These decisions you made to come here today, did you make them?”

“Never took you for a determinist.”

“Never took you for an idiot,” Taurine fired back. “I was never in control, Impel. Not as much as you and your people always thought. I was weak, and I hated it. And when the choir sang, it made me strong. When it sang...”

Fisher’s attention turned inward. He had little interest in her ramblings.

What had he hoped to find here? Fisher was not sure. An apology wasn’t it. And everything Taurine had said about the currents, that was true. Everyone had known that years ago, even him. But he had hoped that he, and everyone else, had been wrong.

He couldn’t forget, and he wasn’t sure if he could forgive.

But he wasn’t afraid, and he didn’t hate.

Maybe that was the revelation he had secretly wanted to find: the fact that there was nothing, no secret truth, no vendetta, no grim reminder.

The past was the past, and that was all it was.

That would have to be enough. Whatever was going to happen with the Animals and Sabra and Monkey, he’d be able to do it with the knowledge that he’d closed one chapter of his life. While Impel couldn’t exist in the same form he had years ago, maybe he could exist again. In a better form.

Fisher realized that Taurine had trailed off, gone silent. No, she hadn’t trailed off. She had broken down. Taurine was crying openly, her head turned downwards. The act of doing so had splashed tears on the armorglass. Her palm was pressed against the surface.

She looked up at him, sucked in a breath.

“Look at what it’s done to us, Impel,” Taurine said, raising trembling fingers to her face.

“Look at what it’s done to us all.”