Summus Proelium

I was too dazed to put up much of a fight. And there were too many of them anyway. Before I really understood what was happening, my hands were tied behind my back with some kind of cord, and the men basically frog marched me out of the building and into the back of a car.

Double Down got into the back of the car beside me, with one of the other men driving in the front. We pulled away from the curb with a squeal of tires as the sound of police sirens in the distance got closer.

Wincing at the sound of the tires, Double Down leaned forward a bit, putting a hand on the back of the driver’s seat. “Come on, man. We’re trying not to attract attention now.”

With a sigh, he leaned back once more and looked to me. “Good help, am I right?”

For a moment, I just stared at him. My voice was dull. “I wouldn’t know.”

The man cracked his knuckles and glanced out the window as we drove for a few seconds while my mind raced. Then he turned back to me. “First of all, relax a little bit. You’re not being taken to be tortured or killed or anything like that. The boss doesn’t go in for that stuff, even if he is kinda pissed and desperate right now. Especially since you’re a kid. I mean, not a kid but…” He gestured vaguely at me. “You’re not an adult, okay?”

“Two more minutes,” I said flatly.

His head tilted a little curiously as the man watched me. “Two minutes?”

I nodded once. “Two minutes. If you people had held off for two minutes, I could have given you the stuff from the bank. I was right there with him. You coming in distracted me and he set off that… whatever it was.”

“Stun grenade,” Double Down informed me. “And how much do you know about what that guy stole?” He was watching me somewhat suspiciously. Maybe he was thinking that my knowing too much about it could imply that I was working with Ashton or something. After all, they didn’t know what I had been doing in there. And I couldn’t exactly explain that I’d overheard my supervillain parents talking about it.

Taking a quick second to decide how to answer, I settled on, “I met the guy’s brother when some thugs were trying to beat information out of him. I found out Ashton was the one who stole the thing from the bank. I’ve been tracking him down so his brother could be safe again. When we were in the apartment back there, he told me why he stole the vials and what they were for.”

The best part about that story was that it was all true, for the most part anyway. And it didn’t require the bit about my parents to work, which had to make it worth extra points in the keeping secrets Olympics.

Wait, did they have those? Because this was excellent training for future medalling efforts.

Double Down seemed to take it well enough. At the very least, he focused on a different part. “He told you why he stole it, how much he wanted?”

Hesitating slightly, I started carefully, “He’s says he’s going to ask for money.”

“Money is not exactly an object in this case,” the man replied. “So that’s kind of a relief. If he’s willing to sell it, then he can be reasoned w—”

I quickly interrupted. “I don’t think he’s going to give them back. I don’t think he’s ever planning to give them back no matter how much you pay him.”

Staring at me, his brief good cheer gone, the man asked, “Do you want to explain that?”

So, I did. Carefully and simply, I laid out what Ashton had said about his friend who was killed and how he wanted Blackjack to feel the same helplessness he had. I also mentioned how he had reacted when I had guessed that was his plan.

Once I had finished, Double Down turned away. He reached up to scratch the back of his neck while staring out the window. I heard him mutter a soft curse. Then he turned back to me and held out a bag. “Okay, I’m going to need you to put this on. Like I said, you don’t have to worry about any torture or anything like that. You’re going to come in with us once we get where we’re going and talk to the boss. That’s it. Don’t start any trouble in there and you’ll be fine. You’ll be back out playing hero or whatever you want to do in no time.”

Staring at the bag and then at him, I retorted, “I’m really supposed to believe you people are just going to let me go?”

His response first was a shrug. “Like I said, the boss has rules. Think of it as our Geneva Convention. We don’t torture. We don’t try to kill civilians. It’s not unheard of or anything, but we don’t make a point of it. If something happens to you in the middle of a fight, well, that’s one thing. But we’re not in combat now. Not unless you start one. You’re a prisoner. You do what you’re told and we’ll let you go. We see you later in the middle of a fight situation, and that’ll be a different story. But right now, all we want is to have a conversation. We can be civilized like that, don’t you think? Especially considering you already know the stakes we’re dealing with.”

It took me another second, but finally I sighed and nodded, waiting as he put the bag on for me. It was just big enough to fit over the helmet. Pulling it on, I turned my head his way. “How do you know I don’t have some kind of power to see through this? I mean, I don’t. But you kind of have to take my word for that, don’t you?”

“Nanocircuits sewn into the bag,” he replied. “They detect any kind of vision power or anything like that being used and the bag will incinerate the contents.”

He held that just long enough for my brain to seize up before snorting. “Dude, I’m just fucking with you. There’s no nanocircuits. After you put the bag on, I pointed a gun at your face. If you would have reacted, we would’ve known you could see through it.”

“And if I’d have reacted violently!?” I demanded in a voice that squeaked even more through with the voice changer than it really needed to, in my opinion.

There was a brief pause before the man admitted, “Yeah, that might’ve gotten bad. But hey, it’s all good. Now just sit back and relax for a minute. We’ll be there before you know it.”

*******

Apparently ‘before I knew it’ was about ten more minutes of driving. I didn’t know if they were deliberately going further than they needed to in order to throw me off or what. It wasn’t like I could keep track of the turns or anything. I tried, but it got confusing too quickly. That also might’ve been purposeful.

Either way, eventually we stopped in what sounded like an underground parking garage, going by the echoes. I was helped out of the car, then escorted to what was obviously an elevator with the bag still on my head. We rode the elevator up, and partway through, Double Down pulled the bag off and cut the cords binding my hands. He passed them off to the other guy in the elevator with us (I thought it was the driver, but all the minor guys were wearing simple black masks so it was hard to be sure) before looking to me as I glanced around the elevator. It looked like any other elevator in any office building anywhere except for the fact that there was no array of buttons. There was just a single slot for a key, which was filled right now.

“Like I said,” Double Down reminded me, “play nice, answer questions, and we’ll let you go.”

Rather than bother responding verbally, I just gave him a thumbs up. How sarcastic that gesture actually was… well, I’d leave that up to him to interpret. I was busy trying to think of exactly what to say to the La Casa leader.

Blackjack. Nobody was exactly sure what his power was, aside from the fact that he seemed to be very lucky and good at guessing secrets. Which was… worrying, considering my own secrets. They said he wasn’t actually telepathic or anything (though there were some arguments about that). What everyone basically agreed on was that the man could pull information out of seemingly nowhere, and he always seemed to be several steps ahead of everyone else in a fight.

He clearly wasn’t perfect, though. Or Ashton never would have been able to steal the medicine or whatever it was from him.

Shaking that thought off as the elevator came to a stop, I watched the door slide open, revealing what looked like… well, it looked like a nuclear bunker or something. The hall ahead of us was made of thick cement with some kind of metal plates over part of it, leading to a single vault-like door that was standing open. Through it, I could see two guards in their black masks waiting. The room behind them seemed even more secure. Going by the size of the vault door, the walls were at least three feet thick.

“You seriously want me to walk in there?” I demanded, looking to my escort.

“We’re careful,” he informed me in a flat voice. “And thorough. I told you you’d be fine if you just answer questions, and that hasn’t changed. You’ll meet the boss in our secure room, answer some questions and make sure he’s satisfied that you’re telling the truth, then we’ll escort you out. So let’s go. Don’t start something now.”

As unsettling as it might have been to walk into a place as apparently escape-proof as this seemed to be, I didn’t have much of a choice. I could try to fight, but I was pretty sure there were a lot more guards around than I could see. To say nothing of any automated defenses in this place. And I didn’t have the key to use the elevator, nor did I know any other way to get out. Or where to go. Yeah, all of that sounded bad.

My only choice was to keep playing nice and hope that they were telling the truth about letting me go. Or, failing that, watching for a chance to escape when they lowered their guards.

All of which meant walking into that vault room was my best chance. So I did. With a soft sigh, I walked forward, through the small antechamber/hallway, and into the vault. The two guards waiting stepped aside as I approached, allowing me to pass with Double Down and the other unnamed guard right behind me.

The place clearly wasn’t exactly designed with comfort in mind. It was a simple, square room about seventy five feet across. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all that same hard cement with uniform metal plates spaced a foot or so apart. In the middle of the room was a table with a few leather chairs spaced around it. One man sat in the single chair on the opposite side of the table, facing me.

Blackjack. It was him. The man stared as I entered, watching me through that gold face mask he wore. His expression was, obviously, impossible for me to see. But judging from his body language, he was… tense, to say the least.

Behind me, the vault door groaned a bit as it closed with a final, definitive thud. Then I heard half a dozen bolts loudly clang into place. Whatever was going to happen next, I wasn’t going back through that door until they opened it.

I really hoped Double Down was telling the truth about letting me go after I talked to Blackjack. Because otherwise, I had no idea what I was going to do.

I was starting to think I was in a little bit over my head here.

“Mr… Paintball, was it?” As he spoke, Blackjack gestured to the seat straight across from him. “Please, join me. I trust my associate ensured you that you are in no danger here as long as you cooperate?”

For a moment, I just stood there. Then I sighed under my breath before following his instructions, stepping over to sit down. “Call me crazy,” I started, “but I’m pretty sure you already know he did because you were listening in on that entire conversation from the car all the way up through the elevator. Hell, you might’ve been telling him what to say. Something tells me you’re just that kind of person.”

The man inclined his head a little, as if appraising me. Then he simply announced, “Using a voice synthesizer. I assume that means you interact with people in costume who might recognize your voice otherwise.”

Trying to keep the surprise out of my voice, I took a quick second to swallow back every initial reaction I had. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a couple seconds, I replied, “I said something I figured out about you, so you said something you figured out about me?”

Rather than respond to that directly, Blackjack watched me in somewhat unnerving silence for a moment before speaking carefully. “I know what you said. But I’d like you to tell me all of it again, now, in person. From start to finish, explain how you found Ashton Austin and what happened while you were in his apartment. Any detail at all might help locate him.”

Here went nothing. Taking a deep breath, I explained everything about how I’d rescued Josh the other night and found out about Ashton being his brother. Then I went on to say that I’d been looking for Ashton so that Josh wouldn’t be in danger, and gave my reasoning for the apartments I’d checked, finally leading me to the right place. Then I told him everything about the conversation I’d had with the guy, adding in a tiny detail about him being the one to tell me that it was medicine and who it was intended for.

“Well,” Blackjack informed me, “you are certainly a very resourceful young man, I’ll tell you that much. You believe he had the vials on him?”

My head shook. “I checked him and they weren’t there. But I think they were close. I figure he hid them somewhere safe enough to grab and run for it. I mean, he was smart enough to set up that stun grenade, and probably other traps.”

Pushing himself up from the table, the man turned away. He walked over to the nearby wall, resting his hands against it while leaning over, as though lost in thought. Seeing him, how tense he was despite an obvious attempt to project himself as calm and collected, I would’ve known this was life and death for him even if I wasn’t already aware.

“I know,” the man finally broke the silence, “that you are leaving certain details out or rearranging them. I’m not exactly sure why, but I do… believe that you are simply protecting yourself or avoiding giving away information.” He turned his head, looking to me. “I do not believe that you are hiding details that could help me. But if I am wrong…”

“I’m not,” I quickly put in. “If I knew how to find the medicine, I’d tell you. I mean… you’re a bad guy, but your daughter isn’t. She doesn’t deserve to… she doesn’t deserve to lose her medicine just because you’re a Fell-Touched. Letting her die isn’t just punishment for you being… what you are. I promise, if I could help, I… I would.”

Blackjack’s voice was dark, as he informed me, “I will find this man. And when I do, he should hope with all of his soul that I make him pay for simply endangering my child, and not for…” He didn’t say the rest of the sentence. He didn’t need to. The fear underlying every word was enough.

Looking toward Double Down then, the man nodded. “Give it to him.”

At those words, his subordinate stepped up to me, handing a cheap flip phone over. “There’s one number programmed into it,” he informed me. “You find this guy again, you call the number.”

My hand took the phone, but I shook my head very slightly. “I’m not going to sic your men on him. I’ll get the medicine and then call your people after the cops have him.”

“Young man,” Blackjack spoke in a tired voice, “you say that as though I could not have men take him from any jail the local authorities put him in. I could have him killed or released to be brought to me.” He stepped back over to the table, pushing his chair in with one hand while remaining standing beside it. “But whatever makes you happy, as they say. I want the vials that were stolen from the bank. That’s it. If you return those, the bounty is yours.”

“I don’t care about the bounty,” I informed him quickly. “I care about your daughter getting her medicine. That’s it.”

“All the same,” he replied, “I will owe you.” His head tilted a little, as though something had just occurred to him. “Though if you are… set for funds, I’m sure there will be other ways of paying that debt. Given how you tracked down Mr. Austin to begin with, you would fit in quite well among my people.”

“Sorry,” I replied as airily as I could, “Paintball doesn’t really fit the whole gambling theme. And I just don’t know what I’d change it to. Also, I don’t want to be a bad guy.”

Besides, I added silently, even if I did, I’ve already got what you’d call an ‘in’ with a different group of murderous psychopaths.

“As you wish,” Blackjack replied, sounding every bit the tired, stressed, horrified father rather than the supervillain he was supposed to be. “Mr… Paintball,” he started slowly then. “I believe you may be just the outsider who can track down this man again. You did it once. Should you do so again, I do not particularly care if you call us, or the authorities first. Secure the medicine and return it to me, and I will owe you a favor with the worth of my… my daughter’s life.”

Holding up the phone, I promised, “If I find him, if I get the vials, they’re yours.” I resisted the urge to point out again how close I’d been to getting the vials to begin with before his men had interrupted. The guy felt bad enough as it was, despite how much he was trying to portray himself as calm and collected.

“One week.” The man’s voice cracked very slightly before he controlled it, looking straight at me from behind that golden mask. “My daughter has one week. Find the vials, and do it within that time. If you do not, I…. I will have no reason to hold back any more. If my daughter dies, I promise you, it will not be one man who pays for her death.

“It will be this entire city.”