Summus Proelium

Honestly, we needed to make a decision quickly. The Ministry wasn't going to wait forever for a response. They knew this was a big moment, of course. That was why they were giving us the chance to talk it through before pushing the subject. But there was only so far they would allow that to go. They were going to start pushing the issue before too much longer. Especially considering how important this was to them. They would keep the carrot held aloft for a bit longer, but I was pretty sure that any real delay on our part would result in the stick being pulled out from behind their backs. They were only so patient.

Each second that passed made that ticking clock sound in the back of my mind seem even louder. We had to do a lot of very important math in a short amount of time. Before we learned what those vials were for, I'd had trouble articulating even to myself why I felt hesitant to hand Pittman over to them. But now that we knew what they might be able to use him for, that hesitation finally had some reasoning behind it. Seriously, could we live with ourselves if we handed the Ministry that kind of power? How could I trust my parents to have the ability to make it so someone wasn't Touched anymore? Especially after they had done things like remove my memories. Yes, they had thought they were doing the right thing, but that just proved the point, didn't it? What if they did something else awful just because they thought that was the right thing? They obviously knew how to justify stuff to themselves. Could they really be trusted with something like this?

Issues with my own doubts about my family aside, that wasn't even the whole question. It was only part of the math problem. Because we had to factor in what would happen if we refused. If we didn't hand him over, our relationship with the Ministry would change immediately and drastically. Thus far, even if we weren't exactly friends, we had something of a working relationship. There was some bit of tension there, of course. But if we told them no right now, that tension would turn into something much more dangerous.

So that was the deciding factor, really. We absolutely weren't ready to have a full-on conflict with the Ministry. They were too strong, too resourceful, and had too many of the cards. Besides, after everything we had been through lately and all the balls we had in the air, adding a spiked and superheated cannonball like conflict with the Ministry to our juggling act would have resulted in… well, it definitely wouldn't be pretty.

Getting to keep things calm(ish) with my family’s people was tempting on its own. But there was also another reason to accept this deal. Namely, Breakwater. They weren't going to back off from their idea about kidnapping Wren. Not that easily, certainly. We had gotten lucky with the whole Cuddles thing. But if they came after us again, none of us wanted to have Pittman around. If he was, they would absolutely figure out we were the ones who took him, which would mean we’d have even more trouble. Or, even worse, their attempts to break in could somehow set him free. Especially if they sent another mercenary team.

On top of that, the fact was, he was just a distraction from everything else we had to deal with. Not to mention the slight problem that I couldn't keep sleeping over at the shop forever. Simon was distracted, but not that distracted. Besides, with any luck, my parents would be cured soon, and then I really wouldn't be able to stay. We needed to do something with him. And since I wasn't willing to go with the plan to just kill him, that meant either giving him to Breakwater, to the authorities here in the city, or to the Ministry. There were pros and cons to each of those choices, but the Ministry were the only ones who currently knew we had him. And they were the ones who were the most immediate threat.

Intense rounds of sometimes heated discussion kept going around and around through the shop, but we finally settled on the only answer we could possibly come to. We had to pretend we didn't know anything about the power removal stuff. We had to hand him over. We could find another way to sabotage their efforts if it came down to that, find the labs they used and destroy that research, or whatever. The point was, we could find another way to prevent this from happening if we needed to. At least, that was what we told ourselves. Maybe it was just a way of lying amongst one another so we could avoid really accepting what we were about to do and what sort of power we could be handing to them, but there really was no other choice.

No other good choice, anyway. Sierra did try to push for the ‘kill him and say he died during an escape attempt so whoops, sorry about that’ option. And, to be honest, there was a part of me that considered that. Was I an evil person for even entertaining the possibility? He was a prisoner, a helpless, contained prisoner. How could I even, in any way, even possibly think about letting him be executed just because it would be easier and more convenient? Seriously, what the hell was wrong with me? Was something that was in my parents that allowed them to make these kinds of decisions part of my actual DNA somehow?

Genetics probably didn’t work like that, of course. But the fact that I'd even considered the execution idea, briefly as it might've been, convinced me to accept that we had to let him go. We had to hand him over. I promised the others, as well as myself, that we would work to find a way to deal with the situation later. We still had our alter-egos. Or rather, our alter-alter-egos. We had the thieves who had broken into that base under the mall. If we could figure out where they would take him and have him working, we could break in there and… and do something about the situation. I just had no idea what.

That whole thing was clearly just what we said to make ourselves feel better about what we had to do. But it also wasn’t wrong. We were going to do everything we could to make sure that handing him over now wouldn't actually end up giving my parents and their people that sort of weapon. We just weren't in the position to actually start a real fight with them right now.

Only after we had all finally agreed did I use my phone to call Price back. My hand was shaking a little, as the anxiety over what we were potentially doing made my stomach hurt. This could backfire so easily. In a month, would we be frantically trying to fix the damage we'd done in this moment? Would that version of me look back at this one and curse myself for this decision, for not just refusing?

Damn it, I had no idea. I couldn't see the future. All I could do was work with the information and choices I had in front of me. And right now, this was the only choice that wouldn't result in some or even all of my friends getting hurt or killed by my family’s people.

It didn't take long for Price to answer, unsurprisingly. He spoke calmly, his words a simple, “Where do we make the exchange then?” That was it. He didn't even have to ask what our decision was. Was that more because he knew we didn't have a choice, simple confidence, or maybe the timing of our call? They could have worked out various time frames for how long it might take us to come to various decisions. Obviously, if we were going to tell them no, we would probably take longer. However, for all we knew, they had people watching the roads just outside of Wren’s security measures to see if we decided to leave. There were any number of reasons for them to guess what our answer was. In the end it didn't matter.

Examining the note on the phone that Paige immediately held up for me to see, I replied, “The parking garage across the street from the Heartridge hotel.” I was speaking as calmly as I could under the circumstances. “Bring the truck to the top level, the roof area. We'll meet you there. Can you make it with everything you promised in an hour?”

Readily assuring me that that wouldn't be a problem, Price thanked me for the prompt cooperation before disconnecting. Letting out a long breath, I put my phone away and looked back to the others. They were all staring at me anxiously. Even the full Cuddle Corps had gathered for that. I honestly wasn't sure why everyone wanted to watch me say a few words on the phone. Maybe it was supposed to give me moral support or something. In the end, it left us staring at each other, no one knowing quite what to say. I was pretty sure we all still felt like this decision was going to backfire dramatically at some point.

It was Sierra who found her voice first. She brushed her hands off pointedly before announcing, “Well, we made our choice. My vote is still to just be done with him for good, but this is me being a nice team player. So let's get it over with already.” She was trying to sound slightly annoyed and mostly resigned, but I knew her too well. Or maybe I just knew my own voice and face. She was afraid. She was scared of what would happen if Pittman got away somehow and managed to put them under his control again. And why wouldn't she be? The violation I felt over my memory being erased probably paled next to knowing someone could completely take over and manipulate your every action. Hell, Paige had been under his thumb for years, had been forced to treat me like dirt. She had been forced to literally kill me, when I was her only surviving friend from… from before. Yes, she had come up with a plan to undo that, which I was still incredibly grateful for. But the fact remained that she had been forced to kill me. No wonder the two of them wanted him dead before he could do anything else like that. He was a piece of shit and in many ways we would be glad to get him out of here.

Granted, we weren't all going. The Cuddles would be staying here with Fred, Qwerty, Roald, and Murphy. To be completely honest, I kind of thought Paige and Sierra should stay at the shop themselves, just to erase any chance there could possibly be of Pittman getting last second control over them somehow. But there was absolutely no way they would agree to let us hand him over to the Ministry without being there themselves. This was already a tense enough situation as it was.

Helpless as Pittman might have been right now, moving him could’ve been a different story. Fortunately, Wren had come up with two things to help. The first one was a portable version of those things we were using to transport his voice elsewhere whenever he tried to talk, as well as anything else that came off his body. Peyton had the thing held in one of her marbles, shaped like a hand to aim it at him at all times. There was another attached to his belt and pointed up at him while his hands were cuffed behind his back and his ankles shackled. Oh, and he was gagged, of course. Gagged and blindfolded. We weren't taking any chances. Or at least, as few chances as possible.

The other thing Wren had included to help with this situation was also about keeping him from taking control of those two. In this case, it was an emergency teleportation evac system for them. Essentially, they were each wearing backpacks that picked up audio. If the sensors in the packs heard his voice at all, they would trigger and immediately launch one of those teleportation target marker badge things as far as they could, like shooting the targeting thing out of a gun. As soon as it was far enough away the transportation would activate and transport the two of them there.

It might have been the right move, but neither of them liked the idea of being teleported away the second things started to go wrong. It was, however, one thing the rest of us put our feet down about. They were only allowed to go if we could have this system so that if they even started to hear his voice, they would be teleported far out of range before he could finish talking.

Not that any of this completely erased any fear I had, of course. If anything, it just made my brain even more creative when it came to thinking up ways this whole thing could blow up in our faces. But at least we had an assortment of countermeasures ready in case things went wrong.

Then there was Pittman himself, who seemed fairly calm about the whole thing. When we informed him that he was going to be handed over to the Ministry, I kind of expected more of a reaction. After all, considering how much he hated my family, being handed to them seemed like it would basically be his worst nightmare. So either he was very good at maintaining a poker face, or he had a plan for getting out of this. To be on the safe side, I was going to assume both and warn those guys, when we handed him over, to keep their eyes open.

Honestly, the bad part about all this was that I couldn't even say that once we handed him to them he wasn't our problem anymore. Until he was finally dealt with one way or another, he would always be our problem. No matter who had actual custody of the bastard.

In the end, all we could do was deal with the situation in front of us. So, we walked him out of the shop and into the van. He was secured in the back as thoroughly as we could manage, not just handcuffed, shackled, gagged, and blindfolded, but we also wrapped a couple chains around his body and secured them to hooks welded inside the van itself. They were actually meant to hold sensitive equipment steady during transport, but they would definitely stop him from moving.

Sierra didn’t drive straight to the parking garage either. First, we took a roundabout way, with all of us keeping our eyes open to watch for anyone who might be following us. After all, there were still those people who had been watching the shop and our friends before pulling out once everything went down at the school. They might try to hit us again. And, well, I didn't exactly completely trust the Ministry either. Which was fair, because they probably didn't perfectly trust us with this whole thing.

Checking around us through several minutes of driving didn’t turn up anything. So we drove to another parking garage a few blocks away from the actual meeting point and took Pittman out of the back of the van. First, Alloy encased him in a shell made from three of her marbles, just to be on the safe side. Then we unhooked the chains before she floated him up and out. She rode on top of the marble shell while it extended a couple smaller wing-like platforms for Style and Poise to stand on. All while another marble kept that device pointed at him. Trevithick stayed nearby, hovering with her flightpack thing.

He was as secure as he could be right now, so we moved out like that. The others started floating over the rooftops toward the real meeting place while I scouted ahead. Jumping from roof to roof, I made it close enough to see where we were going. Sure enough, it was obvious that the Ministry had beaten us there. They had the promised moving truck parked out in the open where we could see it, as well as no less than three snipers on a couple other buildings by my count. Which probably meant there were more and they were being a mix of nice and intimidating by allowing me to see those three.

And they weren't dumb enough to have a bunch of guys standing around in dark suits with visible earpieces and weapons. Instead, there were a couple city utility vehicles along with a group of guys in uniforms pretending to work on whatever up there. Which, I was going to guess, they had also used as an excuse to close down at least the top couple levels of the garage, if not the whole thing. I might’ve even almost thought they were real workers if I hadn’t caught a glimpse of a small, furry figure in a suit in the front seat of one of those trucks.

Pausing long enough to make sure it looked clear, I gave the others the go-ahead signal before jumping down there. Using orange paint to protect myself from the landing, I dropped right between several of the ‘utility workers.’

Turning to one of those guys, I asked conversationally, “So who do I talk to around here about that one traffic light on Glenfield that’s always blinking? My mom got stuck there the other day for like five minutes just because no one respects the ‘treat it like a stop sign’ rule.” There, if they were trying to figure out who I was, let them chew on that nonsense for awhile.

Except apparently those guys weren’t cleared to talk to me, because none of them responded. Which wasn’t fun at all. Instead, the truck door opened and Price hopped out. He adjusted his suit, then spoke up. “You wanna go look through the toys we’ve got for your Techy?”

Right, like I was going to take my eyes off Pittman at any point in this exchange. “That’s okay,” I replied, “she can do it.” The timing of which turned out to be fantastic, because the moment I said that, the others descended. It looked perfectly planned, and I had to fight to keep from giggling.

Nodding absently, Price took a step toward the bound, gagged, and blindfolded Pittman, but I held up a hand, my voice casual. “Let’s just hold off till Trev says you upheld your part, huh? Then you can play dress-up and tea party with the dude for all we care.” God, just let us get through this without any complications.

Of course, before that thought had even finished working its way through my mind, another familiar figure stepped out the truck Price had been sitting in and walked around to join us. Or rather, limped around. It was Bobby, using a cane. He was out of that hospital place, and back in the city… somehow. As I was reacting to that, he gave me a nod. “Nice to see you, Paintball.”

Which was the moment he pulled out a pistol and shot Pittman in the head.