Meetings
The next day I drove out to Razer’s building once more.
I suppose they were expecting me because no sooner had I hit Carter’s floor than Julia rose and admitted me inside the office.
The place was almost unchanged, aside from the loss of the exercise bike and the sudden addition of a punching bag, which a sports bra clad Carter was enthusiastically pummeling. The meaty smacks of her padded fists off the thing echoed in the otherwise utterly professional office. She was working up a sweat, that much was for sure, and I realized I had instinctively started to mobilize my armour. I quickly pulled it back before she could notice, though not all the way.
You never know.
“Victor!” she said between thudding blows. “Just the man… I wanted to see!”
“Yeah, good,” I said. “So, about the job-“
“Shitshow!” she said with another thud on the bag for emphasis. “Absolute mess. But you and Glacia managed to pull out of there alright. Mysteria though didn’t get… a chance… to shine!”
“Right,” I said. “I was thinking about that, and-“
“Stop.”
“What?”
“Thinking about it. Ha!” She delivered another crushing blow to the punching back, the chain ringing as the sack swayed back and forth. Carter straightened with a heavy exhale, swiping her sweat-matted hair back and planting her hands on her hips.
“There we go. Now, the job.”
“Right,” I said warily. Something was up here… “Well, obviously it didn’t go as planned. But I had a few ideas for how we might set up a follow up encounter to get Glacia and Mysteria against one another.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Her abrupt words stunned me like one of the Masked Marauder’s flash grenades. “It won’t?”
“No,” she said, striding across her office. She slipped in behind the desk, planting her hands before her in the classic schemer’s peak, her mirrored glasses gazing intently at me over her fingers. “It won’t be. We’ve decided on an alternative model going forward.”
“Alternative model?”
“Yes. Musical Magical Girls. We’ve been working through our stable and have found several who would make a perfect accompaniment to Mysteria. Colour coordinated outfits, musical scenes, dances, big production values. Mysteria is a little annoyed, of course, as she will now be an ensemble rather than on her own, but the sexual tension we can milk from this alone will more than cover our losses. Perhaps in a few years we’ll revisit a solo, based on audience metrics, and we might have a chance to spin her off.”
“Right, okay,” I said. “And where does Glacia fit into this?”
“She doesn’t. We’ve let her go. Now-“
I slammed my hand down on the desk, the bang echoing in the empty office. Silence filled the void. I’d startled even myself with that, but as Carter slowly lifted her head towards me, her expression unreadable, I knew I couldn’t just let it go.
“Why?” I demanded. “Glacia has some real chops here. Her powerset is potent, she’s got the skills, the talent, and the voice to be a damn good villainess. Did you hear her speech before shit went down in that museum? Our girl could give a Disney villain a run for their money on sheer excess dramaticism alone! Why drop her?”
Carter stared at me. “Take your hands. Off my desk.”
I held her gaze for a long moment, but finally did so. Like someone had opened the door to a burning building I felt the tension and heat rush out of the room. But it wasn’t gone, and was probably going to burn some poor sod that crossed Carter in the next few hours. I’d hate to be the intern bringing her coffee today.
But for now, Carter simply leaned back in her chair, her fingers steepling again in that contemplative way of hers. “I’m afraid that is out of our hands. Naturally, we regret having wasted your time with Glacia, and I want to assure you that though the contract is broken, Razer will, naturally, follow through on our end of the agreement and transfer the money to your account. As agreed. And,” she added with a benign smile, “should you, of course, be interested in another contract, we’d be more than happy to explore the potential. Perhaps even a relationship with some of our new group? Such drama would be well worth the price.”
She was trying to throw me off. Enticing me with a bigger paycheck to not only get her hooks deeper in me, but also to get me away from Glacia. What was her end game? I eyed Carter, but trying to glean information from her was like trying to crack open a safe with a q-tip.
“And what about Glacia?” I said.
“As I said,” Carter said. “She is no longer associated with Razer. What she does is not my concern.”
And that was the end of it. Carter wouldn’t give up any other information, I knew that, and annoying her wouldn’t be productive. “I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Excellent. Looking forward to working with you again,” Carter said, ever radiating the smiling neutrality of the professional businesswoman.
I left her, forcing myself not to seethe, and only somewhat succeeding. I had to take the stairs down to the ground floor as all the metal around me was vibrating so hard with my anger I’d probably crash the elevator. Sure, I didn’t owe Glacia anything. I had no real reason to keep at this and potentially put myself in danger, but it didn’t sit right with me. Abandoning her like this stuck in my craw. After all the work we’d put into getting her ready, she was just dropped by Carter?
No. Something wasn’t adding up. I got back into my car and grabbed up my phone. The screen jigged from the magnetism I was radiating, but once I had it under control and the screen cleared up my thumb stabbed in a text to Glacia.
Want to talk about what comes next. When can we meet?
I tossed the phone aside and started the car, heading home. Hopefully she’d get my message soon. It wasn’t fair to kick her out after what happened at the museum. It was Carter’s job to have kept those streeters out of the place, and even then we managed to handle them effectively. That Mysteria didn’t manage to rise to the occasion wasn’t our fault. Sure, I got paid, but Glacia would make a fine villain, and instead she had her chance stolen from her.
I didn’t like it, and I still didn’t like it even after I drove back to my building and got up to my place. But what to do. What to do…
Someone was inside my apartment.
I knew this the second the tip of my key touched the lock. There weren’t any specific signs. The piece of tape on the doorframe was still there, the lock didn’t look like it had been forced, but that didn’t mean much. With powers knocking around, there was no way of securing every entrance and exit to your home, short of turning the whole building into a fortress, so I didn’t have some high-tech security system installed. But when you were in the business as long as I was, the senses were honed to a razor’s edge. And every one of them was screaming there was something dangerous beyond the door.
I stretched out my powers into the room, trying to feel out what the intruder was. The metal inside was familiar. Nothing obviously out of place, and no foreign pieces around. Which meant that whoever was in there either wasn’t wearing any metal or, more likely, had intentionally taken it off before going in. Not a robbery, then. An assassin? Seemed likely.
I sighed. This would hardly be my first rodeo with hired killers. Some heroes didn’t take the ass kicking I gave them well, and other villains occasionally decided they’d do much better with me out of the way. It was partly why I rented. No sense investing in a property when you need to change addresses often. Girlfriends too. Bad enough just getting into bed with a girl, only for the window to blow open and a cackling jackass on a flier starts chucking grenades into the bedroom. Or worse yet, the girl you’d just fucked revealing a knife or a katana and then tried to stab you.
Shitty way to spend a Valentine’s Day either way.
I considered leaving, but that wouldn’t do any good. They’d just track me down again, and I had some things I’d like to take with me in that apartment. Besides, I wanted to know who was fucking around with me. I didn’t take assassins lightly, and likewise, the people who sent them to mess up my life.
I sensed the doorknob, but the metal hadn’t been tampered with. With a push of my magnetic powers I spread my armour across my body, the helmet closing around my head securely, world tinting in the visor’s glass. I pushed the key in and turned it, opening the door.
My apartment seemed the same as ever. Some abandoned beer cans. A couple forgotten pizza boxes and dishes waiting to be done. Maybe hiding in the bedroom?
My hair tingled, and hurling a magnetic pulse against the studs in the wall I flung myself bodily into the living room. No sooner did I do so than an oily black mass dropped from the ceiling, splattering across the floor where I’d been standing seconds ago. I swung myself back to my feet and whipped around to see the oozing mass rise, forming the odious figure of Mortrim Lathe.
He was a slimer. I knew it. Oily gelatin drooled off where he’d stuck himself to the ceiling, dripping down onto him, his suit and loose coat reforming out of his body, his thin face smiling unpleasantly at me.
“Not bad,” he said. “How did you know I was there?”
“You’re a walking, talking horror cliché,” I said, stretching out my magnetic powers towards the knife rack in the kitchen behind him, the blades vibrating as they rose out of the wooden block. “It was either that, or you’d be hiding under my bed.”
His smile became sharper, his eyes gleaming like tailing fires. “Clever. But not-“
I slammed the knives into his back, every one thudding home into his body. He jerked with each impact, but he merely glanced back like someone had pelted him with snowballs.
“…but not good enough,” he finished, looking back to me.
Oh, that wasn’t good. There was a range of slimers out there. Most were low viscosity, and were just covered in slime or exuded it. But Mortrim was all ooze wrapped around an ego. The most dangerous and deadly kind. Little wonder he was high ranked in the Guild.
Mortrim sucked in a breath, and from his stomach emerged the tips of the kitchen knives. Oh shit! He tensed, and like a hail of arrows they burst from him right at me. I swept my hand, magnetically redirecting the blades, sending them thudding into the walls, only for Mortrim to rush me like a wave. I pushed off the metal nails under the floorboards, sending me into the air, my back slamming on the ceiling. Shit! Close combats in a small space with a slimer was the worst possible matchup.
Mortrim demonstrated this by coalescing on the floor and swiping an arm at me, enlarging it even as it came close. I evaded it, barely, my armour scraping across the ceiling as I hit the far wall, only for Motrim to follow me, surging in a gooey mass.
I dropped out of the air, hitting the floor. My magnetism reached for the couch, grabbed it and flung it at him. The sofa took him right in the side, throwing him across the room to splatter against the far wall. I pushed on the couch, trying to trap him under it, but he just oozed out from around it, rushing across the floor like a living oil spill.
I tried to move back, looking for my next weapon, but there wasn’t time! Reforming in front of me, a pillar of black slime slammed into my chest. If not for my armour, I probably would have broken a rib. As it was, he hit me like a firehose, sending me into the far wall hard. I banged the back of my head, stars dancing before my eyes.
Mortrim reformed in front of me, the ooze of his arm continuing to press me into the wall, more pushing in, covering my arms, pinning them. His face took shape, his triumphant grin so smug I wanted to rip it right off his face.
“You should have taken my master’s offer,” Mortrim purred as he moved slowly towards me, more of his oily darkness spreading over me and my armour.
“What… what do you mean by that?” I gasped, stretching out my magnetic powers, trying to find something I could use. The metal in the room vibrated, but wouldn’t be much good against a thing like Mortrim. Unless…
I felt the subtle threading of copper running through the walls. It was a long shot, but it might work. I just had to keep him talking for a little longer. And men like Mortrtim loved to talk.
True to form, he tittered, moving in closer. “Did you really think the Princess would be allowed to become a pathetic street thug like you? No no! She is meant for greater things than the punching bag of pathetic heroes. But you,” he said, my armour creaking as his oily ooze tried to crush me, find its way between the gaps in the plating. “You are meant to die!”
“You first,” I wheezed, and pulled.
Wiring ripped out of the wall, tearing a line through the plaster like a zigzag of cuneiform. Mortrim’s head whipped around, and I jammed the electrical cable right into his open mouth.
“GyaaaaAAAAaaaaAAAAA!” Mortrtim screamed, body squirming with the sudden surge of electricity being fed into his disgusting form. The lights around the room blinked as his body boiled and crackled, losing its cohesion. Every electronic suddenly went out, the breakers finally switching.
For a moment Mortrim’s mass remained standing, subtly jiggling and rippling with electric aftershocks. Then, with a bubbling sound, he melted into a puddle on the floor.
I gasped as his ooze finally released me, dripping down to join the rest of him. I slumped against the wall, looking down at the black mess on the floor, Motrim’s face stretched out across it like a warped photograph. I took a weary look about the apartment, the walls cratered, wiring ripped out, and everywhere stained with Mortrim’s ooze.
Well, so much for the damage deposit.