The Deep End
A week scooted by without incident, and the four of us piled our way into the Kia Forte I’d managed to help Sileena steal a while back. Hyobin was very specific about driving and always had been, best reflexes and all, which left me riding shotgun and the other two filing into the backseat. With my power, a 2022 car was effectively a living breathing mount: so many sensors to feed me information about the vehicle, enough control via applications on deck to help in a pinch and quite a lot of quality of life controls that I could do hands free. The FORGE had, consistently in all fields of tech and engineering, accelerated the world significantly. War had always been a driving force behind advancement, and the secret corpo war between organizations like them and Haven had driven the world forward at a pace that oftentimes caused more harm than good.
There was still good, but not enough of it by a long shot, and most of it came with it’s own negatives. Medicine ramped forward, but so did the power of Big Pharma to squeeze communities for their very lives, figuratively and literally through human testing. The automotive industry made better, faster, stronger and more visually appealing cars but at the cost of environmental annihilation being accelerated.
The FORGE was a necessary evil, and a comfortable one, but I was aware my life had been irrevocably altered by the money and power that corps had to throw around, and that played deeply into why I did what I did. It was, in many ways, more personal than just, generally, trying to bring down a big bad corpo.
We argued over the radio, keeping my mind busy enough to stay out of my personal existentialism, until we arrived.
“Alright, listen up,” I cut in, turning off the radio and killing the lights as we stopped a few blocks away from the club. “Remember, once we’re in it’s going to take a lot of background processing in my mind just to keep them from being able to cut our communications outside according to all of what Shift managed to steal.” Thanks in no small part to a relatively hefty boom in hackers and technopaths of varying degrees of strength, the world had to evolve ways to fend them off.
One of many answers was simply flooding an area with a shit load of garbage signals. Everything in a given network, or in some cases a general area would be flooded with so much virtual noise that getting through it would be impossibly complex and require too much focus. Far more annoying to deal with than your average signal jammers because most modern versions operate on all frequencies at once, while creating sub-frequencies that allow for communications on your own network to be unabated as long as you are keyed in. Most of them wouldn’t work well on someone of my caliber, but I’d encountered, once or twice, the kind that would take up a lot of what I could do without sinking into my own conscious mind to do it. Here, that meant that I would have my Umbra signal going out, and a connection to Prodigy, Shift and Marauder via our earpieces with my own mind as the terminal.
“We won’t be far,” Prodigy said, keeping her eyes on the low rise buildings all around us. We were just outside New Detroit in what used to be Midtown. Not a whole lot of ways into that part of the city, but a lot of alleyways and scattered buildings of various heights. The Playground was a tall one by those standards, sure, but all around there was cover, the kind where our competition could have left their own backup. “Got a few marks already…” she grumbled.
“Yeah, lot of irrelevant radio chatter,” I agreed, activating my second sight and examining just how many people were well hidden… and well armed. Highlighted against the dark in bright reds, some connected by thin lines occasionally as they activated communications like walkie talkies or ear pieces. “Some of these dudes are armed to the teeth. Stay out of trouble…” I warned her pinging high end weapons on a lot of otherwise well hidden people.
“Yeah, we kitted this thing out to escape a lot but not to be missile proof. Or Prodigy and Shift get into a fight with ninjas and gangbangers with superpowers and magic proof,” Gabe warned. The car was a passion project of his, lots of work on the engine, bulletproof windows acquired over time and a whole lot of compartments for weapons should we need to turn it into a getaway vehicle. Which we had.
“I got it,” she grunted at him, and Shift offered only a chuckle like the goblin she was. I took it as my que and opened the door to get out.
We’d dressed up as the party was, in theory, black tie. I gave it my all with black slacks, and a vest under my black button down shirt. Over that, a gray cardigan that was much heavier than it looked, considering the loadout Marauder and I had hidden inside of it over the week.
As for him, he had no bones about showing off with the submachine gun on his hip, three silver balls hanging from his belt, his vest over the rather nice satin gray shirt and the thermo-sword on his back. For effect, black sunglasses for us both, aviators for him, Lennon frames for me.
We definitely looked exactly like the kind of dudes you’d be wary of and that was intentional. We had to look the part, more importantly than we needed to actually play it in some ways. Appearances meant a lot in this world if only because the older crowd was more likely to play ball with those who looked dangerous over those who didn’t. Even so, not concealing the heavy shit he was taking had been a point of contention.
“Let’s go, the second we stepped out the car at least three people radioed that we arrived,” I told him as we closed the door. Prodigy was still haughty that she wasn’t going in, but she sat back and nodded to me when I gestured to her.
The closer we got to the door of the club, the louder the music got. Marauder broke the spell of silence that had taken us, lightening the relatively heavy apprehension. “Man, this takes me back,” Marauder said as we approached the bouncer.
“Yeah, simpler times back in Venezuela,” I agreed. “At least back then the antagonism was out int he open.” He chuckled.
“Missing open war being your lullaby?” he asked me. The bouncer, huge and rippling muscles almost scarier than the rifle in the hands of the security flanking the door behind him, held out a hand.
“You two lost?” he asked lifting an eyebrow. Marauder laughed.
“You practice that line in front of the mirror?” he asked the man cocking his head to the side. “Needs more work, not sounding generic enough. Gotta add something about us being little or maybe some implicit threats.”
The man hardly reacted. I held up both hands and then slowly lowered my glasses. Without the contacts the black sclera of my right eye and bright green lines of code scrolling down and across my fake left one always gave me away clear as day. “Might wanna watch your boyfriend’s mouth, Upgrade. Won’t be enough to keep him alive if he mouths off to the wrong people tonight.” Marauder clicked his tongue. I almost stopped him but he was quick on the draw.
“Ah yes homophobia veiling your own insecurity. I love it I love it. Hey, when you figure out how to open that closet door, gimme a call big guy, I’ll show you a few things.”
The man unfolded his arms, and I could see him flexing his arms like he wanted to swing. He thought better of it when Marauder flexed his fingers and a flair of orange energy arced between them.
“Go directly to the kitchen and head straight to the next guard. Try anything and you won’t live to talk shit to anyone else.”
“Thanks Anthony,” I said walking past him as he let us through, tipping him off that I knew more about him than he would have probably imagined. Crazy what a few seconds of distraction netted me, crazier still that people would actively threaten people on a night where an armistice was the one thing keeping chaos from taking hold of the night. Still, we were past the open doors and in the thick of it in seconds and-
I almost staggered as we passed the threshold. Instantly my mind was flooded with static and it took all I had not to locate and shut down the source. My second sight was foggy, to boot.
The communications were first priority. Getting it up quickly would keep Prodigy from getting antsy, and I needed that more than to keep the noise level in the forefront of my mind quiet. A few seconds passed by and I had it relegated to my subconscious. A herculean effort for some, but much less for me. Still, I was effectively operating with a hand behind my back where raw mental firepower was concerned.
“All good,” I commented to both Marauder and Prodigy. “Comms won’t be going down again unless I’m in danger.”
“Alright. Good luck boss man,” Shift cheerily said before Proidgy started complaining about being out there.
Gabe and I gave the room a once over. Average restaurant, nothing too special besides, as Shift noted, the excess of guards posing as wait staff - effectively I might add.
“Straight. Back,” one of them commented walking past us in a huff with a bus tub in his hand. No further prompting needed after a shared look between us, and we pushed through the doors as they swung behind him.
We were met by three rifles powering up in our faces behind the next door. A woman stepped forward, face covered by a mask and holding a facial scanner in one hand with a pistol aimed at Marauder’s head in the other. Dickhead he was, he smiled at her as she scanned him, and then me.
She frowned, and I sighed. “It won’t give you anything,” I started to explain and she held one finger up on the scanner. I could see it, even with my second sight being flooded by a snowstorm of false signals and nonsense. A connection came to life and she heard someone speak. My eyes found a camera, and I smirked at it. “Yeah, it’s me. Call the hounds off!”
She froze in place, and the order came over her own head piece. “They’re clear. Head down the stairs and mingle, or whatever the fuck you all do till Halogen is ready for you all to come back. Keep your shit together Upgrade. Same threats Anthony gave you apply here. You two aren’t making any friends, you know.”
I scoffed, just a little incensed by that as I pushed past. “Sorry, can’t hear you past that FORGE voice modulator and the FORGE armor and weapons yall are holding so near and dear.”
“Maybe if you weren’t choking on all that FORGE dick we’d be worried about your threats,” Marauder said, opening the door for me and flipping them off. Sometimes having a fireball like him for a bodyguard was entertaining if it weren’t a little bit too much sometimes. Here, though? I could only give him a fistbump as we headed down the stairs.
“La musica is different down here,” he said, opening the next door. The Playground, in truth, was a hidden nightclub under the restaurant upstairs and spanned a far larger space than you’d think having seen the upper floor. We’d been prepped for this when we went over the floor plans with them. They weren’t complete, as this fortress was immense beyond just where we would be congregating. All the scum of the city and then some, by a lot, had gathered tonight. “Much less uppity restaurant and more our speed.”
“Yeah, stay sharp,” I said as we ventured towards the bar. No sooner did we get halfway there did I see her, leaning with her back to the bar, one long red braid coming down the front of her body over her own black corset and pants. Somehow she looked equal parts witch and hitwoman, and she had her eyes set on me with the kind of smile that was more mean than it was inviting and yet still, I knew better than to run from this conflict.
“Oh hey Millie,” Marauder cheerfully commented as soon as we were in earshot, which was rather close given the volume. She offered him a hug, and it took a lot for me not to stare at everything that was different about her from the last time I’d seen her face.
“Well well well, the madman lives afterall,” she said cheerily, voice still somewhere caught between rasp and velvet.
“Yeah, well, not for lack of trying on everyone’s part. Wait, did you see me dying?”
“I see everyone die at least twice a year. You, at least seven times.”
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“Badass.”
She turned her head to me, and my heart skipped.
New piercing in her eyebrow, added on the list with her septum, her tongue and her dimples, each a black crystal.
Her hair was a lot longer.
Her eyes were still so soft even though she had enough power to level a house in one arm.
I didn’t linger long but she noticed the second before I spoke up and it caught me off guard when she positioned herself so I could get a better look. Taunting me as always.
“Hey Millie,” I parroted Marauder for lack of knowing what to say.
“Oh, no I’m not mad at you for abandoning me, it’s fine. I also don’t mind that you didn’t call,” she responded. “I already processed it.” Lie.
Miles saved me, walking up and patting my shoulder. Somehow the man looked like a warlock met a businessman, charms in his braided hair and his own long jacket opened up to a vest, tie and shirt that were clearly cannibalized from a three piece suit. Adorning his person was several more charms hanging from all manner of jewelry and accessories.
Good, so he was prepared.
“She’s been waiting for that one,” he admitted handing me and Marauder drinks. “Broski’s in the booth,” he said, sounding sleepy, which was normal for him. Where Millie was a limitless battery, he seemed perpetually out of it until he was called upon to do something miraculous and mystic.
The twins Miles and Millie were often called the Twin Terrors in the greater underground communities, known to be nightmarish if they had time to prepare for war, and even worse if caught off guard. They were vicious, they were rude, and once upon a time the two of them and I had been thick as thieves. Miles approved of my… proclivities and inclinations where the FORGE was concerned, and Millie…
Well. The reason I was beating around the bush calling Jehricho was because when I left them all behind to start… whatever we are now, I didn’t say goodbye to anyone face to face. I paid back a debt and left. Millie had meant a lot to me. Been the first person I’d ever really bonded with on a level beyond mutual hatred for the FORGE outside of a select few.
Seeing her now brought up a lot of bad feelings about leaving things how I did, but I couldn’t stay with them anymore.
More importantly I had learned a lesson I wouldn’t forget, and that was to tie off my loose ends better.
She gestured to where he was, and touched the opposite shoulder Miles had patted. Miles, while I was mystified, busied himself catching up with Marauder. “Talk later?” I tried.
“Yeah. As long as you don’t wait five years. Or until you need something.”
Ouch, but he was right. I walked to the booth, far off in it’s own corner, with the Last Word cocktail he’d sent Miles to me with. “Damn, you got old,” I opened sitting down across from Jehrico, who was sitting alone, eyes shining a bit in the darkness in that cobalt hue that clued any and everyone in to his own unnatural powers.
He pierced me with that stare, but I held fast. This man respected only those who deserved it, and I’d never shied away from him before. “Yeah, and you got fat.”
He offered a hand, which I took and shook, palms clapping together and sliding skin on skin until the finger knuckles met and locked together. “I did not, you can’t even see me well enough in this light.”
He smirked, best I’d get out of him.
“Upgrade, you’re a fucking irritating little asshole. The second you get your nose in shit it always starts going left.”
“Gonna hold you to that when alls said and done.”
“Live through the week first, then make comments like that little boy.”
“I’m a grown man, Jericho. Don’t call me that again or we’re gonna have issues.” He measured me with that gaze, and pursed his lips.
“Shit you got a spine since you’ve been off my radar. The fuck happened to you?”
I took off my glasses and stared him dead on, fake eye rolling almost a full 360 for effect before it centered and I spoke. “I lived through the FORGE trying to get rid of me directly, which put me on everyone’s map after I set one of their heaviest hitters free, and then I rescued a metahuman with the kind of power you can’t afford to ignore lightly and talked her into joining up. I’m not the little fish in the big pond anymore, Jericho.”
“You got a few good things going, I won’t lie. Marauder was a known quantity before he got linked onto you, but he’s linked into your sphere now. Prodigy’s someone everyone’s worried about, not the least of which is one of the sharks in the water. San ain’t too happy about you and her being in together. He’s asking questions. As for Shift… yeah. No one knows enough about her besides that she’s a FORGE prison escapee. Word on the street is they’ll pay stupid amounts of money to get that girl back. And then there’s you,” he pointed. I sipped at my drink as he continued. “The world's best technopath, and the thorn in everyone’s side. After the shit we pulled together back in the day? Crashing those data centers and ambushing that convoy? You’re almost as dangerous as you think you are boy. I’ve never met someone with your caliber of precision and mean streak.”
“I sense a but,” I told him. “Why the grandstanding. I know all of his. They’re my team.”
“Because, nigga you ain’t the only fish with your weight that’s trying to punch up. You see the girl with the bright tattoos and the fucking minigun on her back?” I turned and glanced. Sure enough, she was leaning back in a chair with a pair of equally well armed chicks on either side, each similarly armed. “One example of people with your level of influence and relative power. Just one. They’ve arguably done more, come to think of it. You aint the only hungry fish here. Hell some of these people still think you’re under me.”
I frowned. “And you called me over here, separate from my own bodyguard so that you could foster that image and position yourself that much better, didn’t you?”
“I wanted to see my old follower, where he ended up after he left me,” he admitted. “Against all reasoning, I’ve agreed to this gamble, and against all emotion I’ve forgiven you. But don’t think for a second I’ve forgotten that you left us without a word. You were family.”
“I had to.”
“Yeah, so you say.”
“We wan’t different things, Jericho. I respect you, I always did. Fuck, I admired the vision. The hunger and ambition you have? The need to break their hold on Detroit. But,” he cut in before I could finish.
“But you got bigger dreams than helping us.”
“No, fuck man that’s not it Jericho…” I trailed off. “I have the kind of personal vendetta that might end up crashing and burning around me one of these days, and I’m taking them down with me if that happens; The FORGE and probably everyone around at the time too. My team knows and made their peace with it. I don’t want that for y’all.”
“Yeah? For all of us?”
“For Millie most of all, yeah, and Miles too. But she meant a lot to me. More than revenge.”
She looked at us over her shoulder, and then back to Marauder, who was tossing that damn silver ball in his hand up and down again.
“She cried a few times. Miles shut down for about a week. You hurt them already,” Jericho said without an ounce of kindness.
“I know.”
I never had to confront it till now but I knew.
“And?”
I met his eyes again, raised my chin. “Better hurt now than dead later.”
“You know what I learned the fastest coming up? How I got here mostly intact?”
“Cunning and wit?”
“Yeah smartass, and by learning that you can’t decide FOR people. That’s what THEY do, kid. And you’re gonna learn that lesson fast, or burn more people trying not to burn them.”
“Alright, dad, enough with the lecture,” I said, fighting against the tide of emotion he was trying to punish me with. I waved Marauder over.
“Hatchet buried?” Marauder asked.
“Yeah, hombre, with me and him. But I’m pissed at you too,” he told Marauder.
“Hey hey hey, you knew damn well me and him are a package deal. Still, lo siento former Jefe,” he commented offering his hand. “This scheme he hatched, though? We’re going places with this one man.”
“Yeah, let’s hope,” Miles commented. “Future’s all kinds of muddy with this one. Foresight rituals have oddities and mysteries, and a lot of that comes from the Uncertainty Principle.”
“No one has all the facts, so all estimations are likely to be heavily biased, even when you have a solid base from which to start guessing,” Millie cut in pushing me into the booth to sit by me and easing into the seat comfortably. She saw me go almost still and chuckled. “I said I was over it, Upgrade, relax. Besides seeing you squirm is more than worth a bit of embarrassment on my part. Anyway, that’s the reason i see you die all the time Marauder.”
“You still think I’m suicidal?”
“No, but that ‘blaze of glory’ mentality is the same thing,” Miles said sitting beside Jehrico and twisting a ring around his middle finger with the opposite thumb and ring finger. His eyes fogged over briefly, literally, and he smirked when it faded. “Oh yeah, worth burning a preset spell to see that shit.”
“See what?” Marauder asked.
“Even odds you blow yourself up with that grenade and that you blow up the bouncer,” he smiled.
“What when!?” He asked. Miles smiled.
“In the future.”
I cleared my throat, brute forcing my way in. Marauder, standing beside the booth next to Millie put away the grenade, and I spoke. “I saw San on the opposite side of the room,” I commented leaning closer to the wall, hand resting precariously close to Millies and motioning with a nod to the table with the absurdly huge Korean man, hidden well in the direct opposite corner. “No love lost between him and the FORGE still I see. They don’t even have water at the table.”
“Can’t be too safe. We checked for poisons and hallucinogenics and… well… everything else too,” Jericho said. San turned to face us just after a man in all black, including a cloth scarf wrapped around his lower face, adorned only with a white spider leaned to whisper in his ear. Jericho nodded to him, curt and sharp. I only watched as he got up and even though the music didn’t quiet, the room seemed to acknowledge him.
“Lets go Upgrade,” Jericho commented as the twins let us out.
A few others got up too, people I didn’t quite recognize from the Dossiers but no less important if they were going to meet in the center of a criminally underused dancefloor. Each of us came alone, but our seconds followed close enough to be a standing threat. Marauder, taking no chances, had his weapon in hand.
All of the others had followed suit or preceded him in one way or another.
“San the Mountain,” Jericho spoke and San flared his nostrils.
“You should know better, boy,” he chided with a thick accent, and I saw Jericho understand exactly why I hated that shit and decidedly let go of my plan to fuck with him for calling me boy again as he bristled. “Simply call me San.”
“Pleasure to see you again as well,” he grumbled. “I think introductions are in order?”
“Why is he here?” San asked, pointing at me. “Is he not one of yours?”
“I don’t belong to anyone, San. I’m representing myself,” I answered indignantly.
“And yet, unlike the others here, you are the only one in question. Still cowering in the shadow of your betters, of those who are above you head and shoulder. You come when he calls, you sit at his table. You are nothing worth a second glance.”
I grit my teeth, and without looking I could feel everyone had turned their eyes to me.
I removed my glasses once again, and hung them from my shirt.
“And you’re a relic of an era long gone, one who failed in his ambitions and takes second seat at best to your most hated enemy. You sure are quick to point a finger at me for breaking bread with a friend while you cower at the heel and come to sit at the feet of a FORGE bigwig when she calls. You’re nothing but a gangster who failed at becoming a Corpo rat-king and settled for organized crime far away from the reach of YOUR betters. Don’t presume to dictate to me who I am or what I’m worth.”
In the silence that followed, I could almost feel blades being drawn, but then San smiled and the world kept spinning.
“Shit, I like this one,” one of the 6 who wasn’t me, Jericho or San gathered here commented. There were some nods, some looked almost astonished. Most of all, it seemed like I’d made it over the first huddle. “Fucker’s mouth is worse than the stories said. Maybe all the psionic shielding we picked up was worthwhile after all.”
A glance his way, lazy and put upon to look as unimpressed as possible, was enough to let me know that it wasn’t. Amateur grade stuff. I could see through him and everyone else just fine.
“Welcome to the deep end of the pool, lil nigga,” Jericho commented to me so only I would hear, distancing himself a bit as the preliminary conversations got started in earnest.
Appearances, after all, mattered more to some of these old heads than how dangerous you were, and if you appeared weak or like someone might step on you? Everyone would try.
Jericho never quite stopped looking out for me, and that was why I came to him with my plan to get one over on everyone present.