The Lair Beneath
Gravel crunched under the wheels of my Civic as I rolled to a halt. Desolation was everywhere, and no surprise. Politicians loved to talk about how Metro City would never be crushed by the menaces of the world, but the truth was, when those aliens invaded a few years back, some parts of the city were still not rebuilt.
They’d give you plenty of reasons for it, and I’m sure some of them had merit. But really, once they’d hauled the wrecks of the crashed spaceships off, fixing what remained just wasn’t worth it. Maybe some day, but for now, the area would just have to look like Detroit.
I got out of my car, looking around the place. We were near an old industrial area. Ruined walls of blasted factories and hollowed out buildings surrounded us. Craters blistered the landscape along with old fences and the occasional shadow of a druggie or homeless person shuffling through the shadows. It was the sort of place you avoided during the day, and only the suicidal came to during the night.
Which, I suppose, made it the perfect hideout for Teklin.
Glacia got out of the other side of the car. She looked strange dressed in dark clothing, but her normal flawless white wasn’t really going to do it on a stealth mission. I’d left Psyren behind at the chalet. Steve had come by for some instrumental practice, and the two of them didn’t need to think about anything but the encounter with the Songbirds tomorrow.
As I stood there, looking around the scoured ruins of this corner of the city, I couldn’t help but notice the distant pillars of Metro City’s towering skyscrapers, their sides glowing up and down with lights. Ah well. What could you do? I shrugged my shoulders, and with a deep breath, deployed my armour.
With a snicking sound the interlocking plates slid over my arms, legs and torso. The helmet was last, sealing tight.
“Can you hear me?” I said.
“Loud and clear, boss,” Dolly’s voice said in my ear.
Good, my helmet’s receiver was working. “So this is the place?” I said.
“Sure is. The last signal Teklin sent on the holographic receiver came from around here.”
“Sounds good,” I said. I looked back at Glacia. “Watch the car and keep an eye out.”
“Sir,” she said. “I really think my skills would best be served-“
“If this is a trap, it won’t do me any good if you’re stuck in there with me,” I said, repeating an argument we’d had ever since Dolly burst into my bedroom declaring she’d finally locked on to Teklin’s signal. “If things go wrong, I’ll need you to bail me out. And I can only trust my second in command to do something like that.”
She didn’t look happy, but Glacia finally nodded. “I understand, sir,” she said. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know,” I said. I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss, then turned back to the ruins of the city and looked up. It was time to go. I put some lift to my suit, making me rise into the air.
The ruins looked even worse from above. A bird’s eye view of what happened when aliens decided probing the odd redneck wasn’t cutting it anymore and decided to go full on Independence Day. I felt my spine tingle with unease at being in the air. I doubted there was a hero around that could see me, especially after the Human Owl hit those powerlines two weeks ago, but you could never be sure. Fortunately, now that I knew I was in the right place, finding Teklin’s lab was going to be the easy part. I stretched out my powers, the feel of all the rusting metal in the dark landscape grating on my skin, like I was rubbing myself with sand.
But it wasn’t all rust and decay. I quickly picked out a mass of newer metal not far. Sleek, pristine iron and steel, along with copper wiring and circuitry.
Gotcha.
“Found it,” I said, floating down quickly. An old house stood alone, much of the structure rotting and slumped inward like an old man sagging into his easy chair. It had once been a home with a little minaret tower, but now the windows were boarded up, half the minaret had been ripped off, and overall, it gave a feeling of that chronic abandonment that infested the whole place.
But that was a decoy. I could detect the metallic fixtures of some cameras at strategic places about the building. Hmm. A bit tricky, but none on the second-floor. I floated near it and had my powers yank the nails out of the boards covering a window, easing them out of the way so I could slip inside.
I didn’t do stealth missions that often. The whole point of being a villain for hire was to get noticed, and being bombastic was what the people paid for. But sometimes, you had to be sneaky to make a really dramatic entrance. Getting into place could take some effort, and I’d gotten good at sneaking through oddly spacious air vents.
None of those inside the old house, though. The dust of years hung in the air and coated the floor. I didn’t disturb it, instead floating in, and if I had a bedsheet, I could have made the tackiest ghost you’d ever seen. A hole in the hallway allowed me to descend to the first floor, and I sensed a camera above the entrance to the basement. And luck was with me! I detected a bundle of circuits for the security system above it. Careful not to get into the camera’s line of sight, I slipped up to the box, and from a pocket I brought out one of Dolly’s transmitters. There was a snicking sound as I placed the transmitter, cables plunging from the transmitter into the security system.
“Dolly?” I said.
“I’m hooking into it, Victor. Give me a minute… and… got it! Alarms and cameras down.”
“Beautiful,” I said as I descended through the open doorway to find the bottom of the basement. A huge metal door awaited, along with a pair of snub-nosed autocannons poking from slots in the side. Dolly’s work was good, however, and they didn’t respond even as I used my powers to feel out the heavy door. Hmm. A couple deadbolt locks. Easy enough. My powers slid them back and I gave a push, the door creaking open and giving me access to the lower basement.
I was in.
I found myself in a narrow room of sleek, stainless black steel. Lamps glowed along the ceiling with a strange, green light that washed over the black metal that made up everything. I was in some kind of animal pen. Cells were built into the walls, the bars glistening in the poisonous glow of the lamps. I was thankful for my helmet. Some instinct told me the place probably reeked to high heaven. Recalling the creatures Teklin had sicked on me aboard the Nights ship, I had a feeling I knew what the cages once held. But there were so many of them here. More than I’d faced on the boat.
So where were the monsters?
“What do you have, Victor?” Dolly said.
“Empty cages so far,” I said. “Nothing else. Hold on.”
I scanned the interior, but there was nothing more for me here. I swept the underground chambers with my powers, but wasn’t getting much. Nothing moving at least. A lot of machinery in the back though. I floated down the room, my senses keyed up. Something was dripping somewhere, every splash making me tense. A corridor waited for me beyond the next door. The dull hum of machinery permeated the place, but that was the only sound. I poked my head in a few doors, but found no one. In one room, I spotted what had probably been a surgery, judging by the cold metal tables and the various sharp implements resting on metal trays near at hand. In another room, I saw banks of what had probably served as charging stations for some of the warbots that Teklin had tried to activate at the Night fight. In still another I found rows of massive glass tanks filled with horrific looking monsters suspended in the bubbling tubes.
But still no one.
I couldn’t sense anywhere the sort of cybernetics I’d seen on Teklin when he’d projected himself, but I kept moving forward. At last, I reached the entrance to the humming end of the hideout. A heavy door blocked the way, and I felt it out with my powers. No boobytraps. I turned the lock and opened the door, gliding in.
I was in the heart of the labs, that much was plain. It kind of reminded me of Dolly’s old setup under the paint factory, but this one was significantly more menacing. Everything was washed in darkness, barely illuminated by the ill green that veined the black metal. Smooth, the whole place had an alien, tomb-like feeling that raised the hairs on the back of my arms.
I moved slowly into the lab, tense, ready to rip apart anything that so much as flinched near me, but I was getting nothing. The glow of screens up ahead was like a beacon in the dark as I moved in. I came closer, making out what was playing. And…
What in the fuck?
I landed softly and walked forward, looking around at the monitors. They surrounded a chair, classic mission control style, and every screen was keyed to various pages on social media, showcasing the Songbirds. Magpie, Robin, and Goldfinch moving and singing without audio, the silence making my skin crawl. Seemed Teklin was a fan.
At least, I hoped that was all it was.
The man himself, however, was nowhere to be found.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Anything, Victor?” Dolly said.
“Teklin’s long gone,” I said, scanning the interior of the place. “Looks like he left a little while ago.”
“Any idea where?”
“None. But I don’t like it,” I said. “I got the computers here, though. Want me to check them?”
“Sure. Patch me. Maybe he left something.”
I turned back to the monitors and pulled out another transmitter, lodging it onto the control panel. Cables slid from Dolly’s device, punching into Teklin’s systems with a spark. I heard in my earpiece Dolly’s fingers clacking across the keys of her computers.
“Hmmm… Ah, Teklin, always the same. Alright, I’m bypassing the firewall and… aw, dammit.”
“What?” I said.
“Looks like he cleared out of here, Victor. Moved to some other lair for now. Last transmission was a few days ago.”
“Can you replay it?”
“I can, but we’ll only get one end of it. Teklin was always careful about that, and his clients tetchy. The holo discs are all one way. We can get his side of the conversation, but not the other.”
Damn. “Maybe there’s still something,” I said. “Bring it up.”
“Here we go… and… done.”
The ring in the middle of the monitors crackled to life, a projection forming. Ugh. Teklin again. Just the sight of the guy made me want to punch a screen. His hologram flickered, his smirk ingratiating and repulsive.
“Well,” Teklin said, drawing out the word in his lazy drawl. “So glad you responded. Have you considered my offer further?”
There was a pause as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the communicator.
“Naturally,” Teklin said, spreading his hands. “I’d never dream of forcing you to do anything more than that. And the money would be so worth it. Just a single life. Is that really such a big ask? Don’t you deserve all that I’m offering after everything you’ve been through? And it would make life so much easier for everyone.”
Teklin waited again, then laughed. “Ah yes. Not to worry. Thirty million will buy a lot of silence, and safety. I’ll even set you up with some clients of mine. I know many men who can help someone disappear, even from Razer’s eyes.”
Razer? Now that was interesting. I leaned in closer, tapping my fingers on the panel, the green glow making my eyes hurt, but I couldn’t look away.
“Yes, it may seem quite generous of me, I agree,” Teklin said with that smug air of his. “But I fear the man has become… something of a thorn in my side. So to speak. And it would be wonderfully beneficial to be rid of him. And money is, of course, no object. So really, who’d miss a mere punching bag of a villain, hm?”
Well, no question who he was talking about now. But thirty mil? Wow. I must have gotten more under his skin than I expected.
“Excellent,” Teklin said to an unseen answer. Interlacing his fingers, the green light spilling from his augmented jaw, he leaned forward, grinning viciously. “So glad we could have this talk. The funds will be deposited as soon as his death is confirmed. And rest assured, my friend, you have made the right decision. Goodbye.”
The holo died, fading with a low crackle. I leaned back, exhaling heavily.
“Damn,” I muttered.
“Yeah. But not a total loss, Victor,” Dolly’s voice said in my ear, sounding quite smug I noted.
“It’s not?” I said.
“Nope. Looks like old Teklin’s got a few boltholes around the city. And there’s some files in here on all of them. He’s bound to be in one of them.”
I grinned. “Dolly, I could kiss you.”
“I hope you’ll do more than that, boss,” she giggled, sounding more animated than I’d heard her be in some time. “But he put those files under some heavy encryption, of course. He was always super fucking paranoid. Did you know? He even had his own private bathroom in the lab. Insisted on it!”
“Why? Was he afraid someone would stick a poisonous snake in his toilet?”
Dolly cackled. “Oh you bet! And he was right to be. Everybody fucking hated him.”
“Sounds like they were pretty justified,” I noted. “You got everything you need?”
“Damn straight, Victor. Bring that puppy back, and I’ll track him down as soon as I can.”
“Love it,” I said, grabbing the transmitter. The cables slid back into the device like retracting claws and I pocketed the little thing, turning around and heading for the door.
Finally. Things were going my way.