Tcr 33) Three options

He pressed his fist against his eyes. “Fuck!”

I gave him a moment, before clearing my throat. “She’s waiting.”

Setting his hands on his thighs he began to talk. "I didn't mean to hurt her, not her. I was just so angry and she kept getting in front of me when I tried to get around her. To get at Strelli. That's who I wanted to kill."

He looked at me with his white glowing eyes. “That guy deserved it. Not some girl. Tell her I’m sorry, so, so, very sorry. I’m never going to forgive myself for doing the same thing as him, for making myself just as bad as him.”

I heard Shimmer’s voice on the com. “Ask him about Strelli, they didn’t let him say much in court.”

I nodded and winced at myself since she couldn’t see me nodding. “Tell me about the day Mr. Roth. I’ll listen.”

He slowly nodded. “That Core guy, he bleeds off the pressure from Yellowstone with controlled eruptions, the geology guy called them Plumes. Then he tears out anything useful from them in big deposits and lets what's left cool down. Until he needs to make a new one."

"Strelli, he figured that there was a lot of smaller veins of stuff left behind, and it wasn’t like anyone was guarding it. There was just a big wall around the place. Stone.”

“He said it wouldn’t be a crime to go in there and take what we wanted. Because Core didn’t own the land, it was federal parkland and he had no legal claim to anything in it.”

“So he hired a bunch of guys like me, desperate men with experience with mines. We went in, following a guy called Dowser. He claimed he could find things.”

Coaltrain slumped over. “He could, he really could. We found silver, but he could only find what he was looking for, not anything else that might be there.”

“Something broke when we started blasting, we opened us a seam of volcanic smoke and poisonous gases that were hot enough to cook seventeen men.” He looked at his ash gray hands. “And turn me into this.”

He dropped both of his hands down on the bed. "I nearly died and heard the other guys as their lungs filled with burning hot poisonous gases. Triggered, and no one cared. I killed Shimmer and they nailed me to the wall. I tried to talk about Strelli in court, but they just dismissed it as not pertinent to my crimes.”

Pressing his hands against his face again, he sighed. “But it don’t matter, does it? I lost it and went on a rampage and killed a teenage girl who was trying to be a hero. I deserve this. I’m damned. But when the door to my cell opened and I was asked if I wanted to be free…”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He looked up at me. “Of course I said yes! Even if I did deserve to go to jail, I still didn’t want to get locked up. But I don’t want to hurt anyone again either, not just to be like this… hiding. Forever”

Holding his hands out to me, he asked. “You got any way out of this. Because I got nothing.”

I stood up and looked down at him. "This is a corpse. We filled the chest cavity with a shaped explosive charge that I could set off after getting my hands on you. It was supposed to be enough to launch you through the outside wall of this room where Shimmer could take you down without anyone else getting involved.”

His eyes went wide.

Tapping the glued together damaged chest plate of Number Two, I continued. “I didn’t think it was enough. I added some broken bits and pieces of Genius tech super dense metals and ceramics. Ones with lots of sharp points. They would be more than hard enough to rip you to pieces when mounted on top of a shaped charge. I would have gotten kicked off the team, of course, maybe even arrested, but I thought it would be better than risking Shimmer having to face herself if she decided to not hold back. Better than letting you turn her into a murderer.”

I could hear my boss swearing on the com.

“So there you go, another way out. No jail. No hurting others. Just an end to it all.” I held my arms out to him as if beckoning him in for a hug.

He stared at me, then began shaking his head. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

I stepped up close to him as I crouched down to look him in the eye. “I know what it feels like to die, helpless, too weak to save yourself. I know how it feels to suffer that way, knowing it’s the end. I know what it felt like for the girl you murdered.”

“I want you, I really want you, to feel the same thing.”

Stepping back I looked down at the horrified man. “Or, you could just give up. Try for an appeal. Bring a lawsuit against Strelli. Maybe get some money for the families of the other people that died in the Plume.”

He sat there breathing hard for a moment, then stood up. “I give up. Just, please. Don’t make me face her.”

The camera on my helmet was enough for Manifest to open a portal right in the room. The other side opened up at a defunct rest stop off of a road in New Mexico where a prison transfer team from the Federal Marshals was waiting.

I waved him through the portal and followed him through. I watched him get handcuffed and loaded up into the back of a Super grade prisoner transport.

Another portal opened up on the roadside leading to the base where I unloaded my gear and walked Number Two into the freezer.

When I opened my own eyes. Shimmer was standing in front of me with her arms crossed and a pissed off look on her face. “You turned the bomb into an IED?”

I gave her an offended look. “No. Of course not.”

She narrowed her eyes at me.

I raised my hands. "No really. I didn't. Me and Mani talked about it, but we didn’t do it. I was bluffing. I…” I pressed my fingertips to my chest. “Have no problems with lying. And it worked. No Super fight in a hotel. No casualties, civilian or otherwise. And you didn't have to resist crossing a line you drew for yourself.”

Giving her a curious look, I tilted my head to the side. “Or are you upset because you wanted to hit him a few times?”

She glared, turned around, and stomped off with a huff.

Manifest opened a portal for her, then walked over to me. “Should we tell her about Number Seven?”

I shook my head. “I would rather keep it a secret, but that’s a form of lying and she said she didn’t want us to ever lie to her. And besides, she needs to know it's available if it's ever needed. But let's wait until she cools down."

He nodded. "That's why I sent her off into the middle of Yellowstone. Oh hey, she’s calling me. Hi Boss, stop yelling..."

When I got home, Scorn was nowhere to be seen, and the Mice had sent me a message.

They had found Gains, and he was back in a cell.

At a monastery.

...Well. I still wanted to confront him. But I was going to have to rethink my approach.

Or at least use that as an excuse to put this off for a while.

Right now I might cross a line part of me still really, really, wanted to cross.