෴Midnight෴
෴WD40෴
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Settle Up
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
A black classic Corvette silently pulled up under the small parking structure outside the modern steel and glass facade of the WD40 offices. A young man in a shimmery straw colored sport jacket and slacks got out of the car and went around to the trunk. He reached into the trunk and fiddled with something there. A keen observer might have noticed the way the car slightly raised on its suspension as the man’s suit became more shiny and lustrous. A few minutes later he moved to the other side of the trunk and the series of events was repeated. Once complete, he nodded to himself and proceeded to the front doors.
Inside, Raven had taken note of the car the moment it turned onto the private drive leading up to the building. She’d sounded the alert when the car and driver were unknown. Everyone onsite had sprung into action. Wraith and Raven did the majority of the work, engaging systems that engaged building defenses, hid some doors and revealed others. Being among the walking wounded, Ringo was pressed into playing the receptionist role. He hobbled up to the normally unused desk just in time to watch the man stand at his trunk for several seconds before heading toward the front door.
“Anyone recognize this guy?” Ringo spoke into the front desk intercom.
Wraith had been watching through zoomed in cameras. “No, but damn that is some bling threads. Someone should tell him the 80s are calling, and Hammer wants his jacket back.” He switched to a view looking over Ringo’s shoulder from the lobby. Wraith quickly zoomed the camera in past Ringo’s carefully sculpted afro flattop to focus on the man approaching the door.
Wilson cut into the comms “Cut the chatter. I don’t like the looks of this guy. Something about him rubs me wrong. Ringo, see if you can just get rid of him. Everyone else, standby in case we’ve got a problem.”
The young man in gold and tan came inside and sighed. “Ahh, air conditioning. No matter how well I can handle the heat, there is just something nice and refreshing about stepping into an office with good AC.”
Raven took note of the pressure sensors reading in the front hall. “Something else off about this guy. He’s reading too heavy for how he looks.”
Ringo shifted his forearm in the cast uncomfortably. “Good afternoon sir. Sorry we’re closed today.”
The young man smiled. “Of course you are. You’re Ringo right? Friction control if I recall. Badass ability chain if you get good with it. How’s your arm healing up? Did you need any help with it?”
Elsewhere in the building, big things started happening as WD40 went to all hands on deck. Wilson barked out orders to Chrome before remembering he wouldn’t be there.
Ringo swallowed and his suddenly paler face looked wan in the fluorescents. “Do I know you?”
The young man tilted his head slightly and rubbed his chin. “You know, I’m not sure we’ve officially met. I recall your name from a mission brief. I’m here to see Wilson.”
“Wilson? I don’t think we have a Wilson here. Sorry I can’t help you.”
The man in the gold business suit rolled his eyes. “Really? We’re going to do this? I don’t have time for this kind of theater.”
He took a breath and steadied himself with a visible effort. “Fine.”
He continued through gritted teeth. “I’m here to see Wilson Meyers. He’s about 6 foot even, keeps his head shaved, black, a bit darker than you Ringo, horizontal scar on his cheek from almost catching a bullet back in the service, and oh yeah. He’s your boss! You know. That Wilson.”
Ringo raised an eyebrow. “Uh, I—I’ll check, but as I said, we’re closed today.”
Ringo picked up the phone and spoke into the intercom. “He says he’s here to see Wilson. Please check if he’s in right now.”
The young man’s brow furrowed. His jaw tightened along with his eyes. “What is wrong with you people? Why are we putting on this song and dance? I know he’s here, just get Wilson down here and I can settle things and be on my way. I have way too much on my plate to be wasting time here.”
Ringo looked at the man’s hands, then at his smooth youthful face. Something about the man’s overall look rubbed him the wrong way. Incongruities he couldn't articulate in the man’s overall appearance nagged at him. He casually reached over and pressed a button on the desk. “What should I tell him you’re here for?”
“What do you think I’m here for?” The man with old hands looked around the room, and then at something beyond the walls. “Really? You guys are going to gear up for a fight?” He glanced behind him. “With me?”
As he looked at his car outside, he glanced past the smoked plate glass door beside Ringo and caught a glimpse of his reflection. “Oh. I see the problem, my mistake.”
He ran his hand over his face. In an instant, his features morphed from the young man into the much older face of Doktor Midnight. “Sorry about that. Facial recognition is getting way too pervasive to ignore.”
Ringo hit a button on the desk as he scrambled backwards shouting into his comms, “Shapeshifter!!”
Midnight chuckled. “I would hardly say I rate the term. I can disguise myself a little, given time and a mirror.”
Slots opened up in the walls. Flamethrowers with lit nozzles poked into the room. “Show us your real face! If you move we’ll burn you!” a voice shouted out above the rest.
Midnight frowned. “This feels like an overreaction. I didn’t arrive in the best of moods, and I don’t have time to be jerked around. This is about to get ugly.”
“Face down! On the ground now!” the same voice called out.
Ringo hobbled for the door as fast as he could manage on the walking cast.
Midnight snorted. “Fine. You want to do it this way, I’m not responsible for damages done.” His clothing briefly flowed like water. In an instant the straw colored metal and shiny yellow metal flowed into a series of distinct layers that surrounded him in a close fitting metallic suit. “You should know, the second you even start pulling those triggers I’m going to bend those barrels around back at you and seal your little murder holes closed. Flamethrowers are just rude.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Wilson’s drowned out attempts at calling a stand down order finally managed to be heard over the chaos on the comms. A moment later the small doors closed when the flamethrowers were pulled back in.
Several tense moments later Wilson made his way into the room on crutches. He was a mess. His nose looked freshly broken and one of his legs was in a cast. When he spoke, Midnight realized his jaw was partially wired shut.
He spoke slowly, and if not quite clearly, at least clear enough that Midnight could understand him with some effort. “What do you want?”
Midnight looked at him with a confused expression. His brow furrowed as he took in the new presence of metal pins in Wilson’s body. “What happened to you? Did you get in a car wreck? I can stop by with a healer when I get a chance if you’d like.”
Wilson shook his head. “No. Just a training accident. An internal affair.” The expression on his face as he answered spoke of pain and anger.
Midnight suppressed a smile. “Ok, gotcha, ‘training accident’. Sorry to hear about your bad case of ‘none of my business.’ Forget I asked. As for what I want, I’m here for the bill.”
Wilson shifted in place and then sat heavily into the chair vacated by Ringo. “We sent it.” he grunted in discomfort after speaking.
Midnight shrugged. His clothing began to slowly return to its original appearance. “Well, I don’t have it. I assume it’s not too much trouble to print me a fresh copy. Do you want me to pay you or what?”
“Payment due at the end of the job.” Wilson gritted out.
“What’s your point? I’m here to get the bill and settle it.”
Something in Wilson seemed to break, or deflate. He nodded in acquiescence.
Midnight arched one brow at him. “You sure there isn’t something I can help with? I'm a little short on time right now, but I can get someone here for injuries, and help anyone with an ability related issue myself.”
Wilson tried to grit his teeth and grunted in pain. “Lotta death benefits.”
Midnight nodded somberly. “I know. I’m sorry for your losses.”
Wilson picked up the desk handset. “Wraith or Raven, can you get a hard copy of the invoice down here.”
The two men passed the time in silence until the printer at the desk hummed to life.
Midnight picked up the printout and read it over. “Ouch. I didn’t realize you’d had so many casualties.”
Wilson looked away. “It was bad.”
“What about this Johanssen? Why is there a star next to this name?”
“That’s Chris. You might know him as ‘metal guy’ when you met him and threw him across a parking lot.”
Midnight looked shocked. “That’s—Chrome, right? Oh no. Did I hurt him? When I gave him a quick scan he looked highly durable. He should have been totally fine from that.”
Wilson shook his head. “Yeah, no. You’re fine there. From what Dar—” he paused and drew a shaky breath. “From what I heard, you helped them out a lot there.”
Midnight nodded. “No problem, I said I’d come when you called for this mission, and your people called.”
Wilson looked like he wanted to be angry, but didn’t have a good focus for it. “Yeah. You did. Anyway, Chris got in trouble with his ability. Pushed himself too hard.”
“Did he have a breakthrough in the field?”
“Not exactly. More like he ran out of steam before he could get all the way back to normal.”
Midnight’s eyes widened and he let out a low whistle. “Ouch. That’s bad. Did he survive?”
Wilson nodded. “Yeah, but his hands are… Well, beyond messed up.”
“Are they still in metal form?”
“No. Flesh, but he’d significantly altered the shape and structure of his hands.”
“So he must be getting close to a breakthrough. That’s actually kind of good news. But also bad. He needs help sooner rather than later. The longer he’s stuck like that, the more damaged he’ll be.”
Wilson didn’t reply. He stared off into space nodding until Midnight spoke again.
“I’d like to settle the bill. Afterwards I’ll see if I can help him as soon as I can get to him with a healer, sounds like he’ll need that even if I get him sorted otherwise.”
Midnight’s gold colored outfit slimmed down and returned to the dull straw colored look as a pair of thick, shiny gold cylinders formed in each of his hands.
“This is more than the bill. Take the extra and make sure everyone gets any treatment they need.”
Wilson looked at the metal forming into the lustrous rods. “It’s just that easy for you isn’t it?”
“Well, it wasn’t that easy. I had to do a fair bit of benthic prospecting to gather it all. Not a fun job, and that kind of work is dangerous even for me.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Wilson said flatly.
Midnight looked confused. “Well, what do you mean?”
“You just pay us to go out there and do your dirty work, fight and die for you.”
Midnight seemed puzzled and a little upset at this. “Well, yes. I hire you like your other clients do. Except I pay more, and give you more support in the field. So what’s your point?”
Wilson ran his hand over his smooth brown scalp. “Nothing. I don’t know. Having a bad week.” He looked at the gold shafts with a wry frown. “I always hoped you’d never use that clause in the contract.”
“As it happens, it’s been a rough week for me too. But, I didn’t think you’d want to wait till my financial issues get worked out for your payment.”
Wilson grunted. “Yeah. Don’t wanna wait. Moving gold is still waiting.”
Midnight shrugged. “I don’t know why you care so much. It’s easy to sell, and it means you get quite a bit of extra money at the end of the day.”
“Sure, but moving precious metals is a pain in the ass.”
Midnight shrugged again. “Sorry. It’s well over five million in gold, for your bill of less than half that. No other company seemed to mind getting extra money. Free tip though, if you can’t sit on it for a while, don’t move it locally.”
Wilson looked at the bars of gold with distaste. “Moving big honking rods of gold is going to be a pain no matter where I do it.”
Midnight looked at the shafts of gold for a few seconds then twitched. Slim golden coins fell from the rods one after another, quickly forming an overflowing pile of coins on the countertop. “Ok, now they’re split into 2800 coins, each with the markings for ‘1 oz, 24K’. That marking is accurate to 2 decimal places. So there you go. One ounce coins are about as easy a way to move large amounts of gold as exists. You’re welcome.” his tone betrayed a growing impatience with the interaction.
Wilson looked at the coins, and then at the other man, then back at the coins before nodding slowly. “Fine. We’re square.”
Midnight turned to leave and then paused. “Oh, but there is still the matter of any prisoners you took. As per our standard agreement, I’ll be needing you to hand them over to my custody.”
Wilson looked bewildered. “What prisoners? We didn’t have a chance to take any.”
Midnight clenched his fists and then made himself relax. “I know you took a prisoner. I saw her in the restraints. Female with a speed ability and some strength and durability.”
Wilson’s face tightened as he pursed his lips. “Oh yeah, that prisoner. Yeah, about that. She turned out to be much harder to hold than we expected. She got away.”
Midnight looked at him with a neutral expression. “Really. Is that a fact? She got away did she? That is very unfortunate. It makes me wonder if I should be asking more questions about that training accident you had.”
Wilson said nothing, looking at Midnight with a sullen gaze.
At the door, Midnight stopped and looked back. “I’m going to be a bit harder to reach for a while. Don’t bother trying to call my people, just use the mechanism for sending me a direct message I gave to your techs. Send me the location for your man with an ability related problem, I’ll get him fixed up as soon as I can.”
He didn’t wait for a response before heading out.
Wilson watched him walk out to his car and look up at the now cloudy skies and then at the car under the parking shade. The man nodded to himself as he reached the vehicle. It unfolded, revealing for an instant that it was car shaped, but not actually a car inside. The car shaped structure opened up wide and devoured the man.
The metal folded and flowed, quickly assuming the shape of the iconic Doktor Midnight armor. The armor shifted once more, assuming a rounded aerodynamic rocket profile with a sharp nose before he leaped into the air so fast it appeared that he’d vanished.