Punk isn’t dead-Just Sleeping
So on other websites I upload writing that’s like Superheroes and stuff. It’s kinda my practice run, since then I’ve taken some of that stuff and refined it into a similar setting with some stuff turned upside down. THIS is that story- it’s also being uploaded on the other place but I want to put it here as well as it’s something I feel a little more proud of. So this is the intro something like 12,500 words, sorry if it’s a bit long but it is what it is. Written with my long time buddy and much more talented writer SheetcakeGhost who has several writing projects under her belt that you should look into- yeah advertising my pals. Without further ado here is that story- like it, reblog it, message me comments that say you hate it or love it. OR do none of those things. Upload more next week, I guess
It wouldn't have been so bad if that they let the boy dream but they left him in the dark. He grew used to it, chemicals dragging through his veins and making him slow. Making him heavier, making him far less than he could have been. In the dark he heard them talk amidst the sepulchral chimes of the machines they had him bolted into.
He heard them say things, their voices slow and quiet. His ears were closed up tight with cotton and his mind gummed up with something else. But the boy had grown used to the dark and it's cycles. He would wake up maybe six or seven times in a year if he was lucky. They would insure he had no sign of infection, they would insure he was healthy and then they would drop him back into the dark.
He was used to this system. It had been persistent for maybe five years, four maybe. The sudden disruption caused by the colour of the world, while not unwelcomed. Told him that today was going to be a less than typical day.
"Name."
A voice called from the radio by his bed. He wasn't used to this. They knew who he was, they had put him in this room and so they knew who he was. But, as ever, resisting these people was a stupid idea.
His words tumbled out at first, throat was raw from disuse. Then it was perfect because he needed it to be perfect for it to work as intended. "Grant. Ellis." He enunciated in a voice that doesn't come from quite anywhere but still sounds like a voice you've heard from afar.
"Acknowledged." The tinny voice on the radio said in a flat voice. "You are being collected for sterilization. Seven task for members of T.H.E.M.s security will be with you in a moment. Do not resist."
He wouldn't. He was awake and when he was awake all he did was stare and drink in the world. He'd never blink when he woke up, he might miss something. There was also the fear that he had of if he went back into the black he'd never get back out. A stupid fear, he said to himself as often as he could. But fear doesn't have to make sense to be effective.
His cell was a cube with no windows and no doors. Just blindingly bright white panels and tiles that wrapped around the room in a single unbroken pattern. Every time he'd ever seen someone come into the room they entered through a different wall each time. The roof once and the floor twice. He did not ask questions.
Grant Ellis was awake and the low hum of regulated air sounded like music to his ears. The gentle caress of the AC was more perfect than any other embrace he'd felt. If only they'd leave him this room, it was better than the dark. Everything was better than the dark.
The wall ahead of his bed folded open, he remembers those little fortune folded things from school. It stabs into the room before all peeling apart from each other to reveal seven figures wearing something like a space suit complete with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs.
Grant stirs.
"Do not move and do not be alarmed. The room has been filled with a chemical nerve agent, your body has adjusted to the toxin already. We have dialled back the regulator for this purpose. The suits are for their protection." The voice over the radio said calmly. "Remain in bed. You will be wheeled to another area, shortly. There you will undergo sanitizing before meeting with a representative from The Sentinel. Do you understand?"
"Yes." Grant said but he didn't. He had no idea what The Sentinel was, he'd never had this done before. He'd never left this room before. New things were happening in his world. Strange and wonderful things.
Sanitation was a lonely affair. No voice over the radio, men in suits that didn’t speak and for all Grant knew didn’t have faces. He didn’t really notice at first, or rather, he did but it was hardly important. Nothing felt particularly real until the hoses slammed into him. Cold water gushed along his body and he was sharply and painfully alert. More so than he even knew how to handle. He might have screamed, he may have even sworn. No one was reacting but him, and because he was alarmed and uncomfortable the water stopped feeling cold. If they’d warmed it or his powers had he couldn’t say. Blasts of heat hit him to dry, soft clothes were peeled onto his body, and as the malicious buzz of alertness began to fade into something he could process he’d been pushed into a small white room. There was a thick pane of glass in the middle of it and a door on the other side of the glass. He had a chair to sit on, another white number made of plastic, hardly comfortable. Right now, however, it felt like the best thing in the world. Sitting on anything that wasn’t his bed was refreshing. In fact, he felt just overall refreshed. Like he’d just woken from a nice nap in the sun. The drugs were still in his system, so they might have been warming his mood, but he at least felt awake.
This felt, not familiar. This felt like something he’d seen before. Never experienced but certainly seen before. The pane of glass and the seat, he had seen this somewhere before but memories were addled by a great yawning abyss. He rubbed at his skull only to be met with a wall of hair. That’s right he had a lot of hair, always thick. It took him until now to notice that he had a curtain of the stuff that hung over the back of his chair. It was stupidly long, he laughed as he pawed at it for a moment. Thick, drenched, brown strands stuck to his fingers. Hair, too much hair, but it was nice to know he had it. Part of his mind wondered why they had never just cut it while he slept. Didn’t care. Was the obvious answer really. Some was getting in the way of his eyes so he dragged a hand through it, flatly using the side of his hand. A decent enough wad of it fell away from his eyes and onto the floor allowing him to see better. He wondered if he’d get in trouble for making a mess.
He hoped not. Today had been good so far, he’d hate to have ruined it by cutting his hair. He’d go back to bed and lose the uncomf but new chair. He’d still yet to blink, today had given him a feast of visual and sensory information he hoped not to forget in a hurry.
Grant waited there a while. There was a chair behind the glass across from him so he knew someone was coming. He worried he might not be able to hear them through the glass, but then maybe they weren’t there to talk. Maybe they were coming to gawk. Maybe they intended on just stringing in a line of people to come in and see him. See the boy that fucked up. The one with amazing ability to do anything but used it to … it was hazy. He’d done something. It was bad. They put him to sleep because they couldn’t kill him.
He didn’t know how he did everything, he was sure he used to know but...black. Everything was gummy and black. He couldn’t remember much, he had powers that much he knew because the man had said over the tannoy. And, well, he was just certain that was something powerful about him. Since nothing was happening he toyed with his hair slightly more, he twisted to see it fall to the ground below the chair and pool around it’s twiggy legs. It was a mess so he removed some. Cut it again with the flat of his hand, make it fall to his shoulders rather than the floor. If they were going to be angry about the mess they could be, he didn’t want to go back to sleep with this much hair. It was too much. He liked long hair but there was a limit.
He was in the process of tucking some parts behind his ears when he thought he heard the door click. He snapped to attention but the door hadn’t moved. He was jumpy. Waiting for this to all be some horrid joke. For the diving suit people and faceless people to throw him back to the dark and the sleep. He heard a click again and looked to the door, again nothing. But he noticed all the hair was gone from the floor. Little tiles juddered slightly back into position. He supposed they liked a clean house. He felt he should say sorry, but he didn’t. Part of him knew they wouldn’t care if he was. You don’t do what they did to him if you cared about people.
He licked at his lips. Aware of thirst now before it went away like most things that bothered him. Drugs or powers? He wasn’t sure it mattered at this point. This time the door did open and he was ready for whoever came through it. He was thankful, however, that it wasn’t a parade of people with cameras. Just one person with one camera. A gawker was better than gawkers, he supposed.
The gawker ignored him at first. Grant thought it was a woman. She had a female figure, long hair, wore a dress. That meant woman, didn’t it? He hadn’t seen one in a while so he wasn’t sure. Eventually she had the camera on some sticks. A tripod. That was what it was called. Grant knew about cameras. He used to really like them. Cameras and guitars. Leather jackets.
He didn’t want to say anything, let her set up her camera. It was a tiny camera, about as thick as a finger and it socketed into a thin little recess on the tripod where all the legs converged. She twisted something with a quick frenzied motion of her fingers and still she said nothing. He wouldn’t say anything, she might work for the people who put him here and this would all be a test. He didn’t think them that cruel but truthfully he didn’t know them. He took a moment to look at what he was wearing, a part of his brain reminded him that ladies look at men and it helps to look nice.
He was dressed in plain scrubs, not much to work with really. He wanted a leather jacket, his mind said leather jacket. He knew what one looked like, totally, he was unsure of a lot of things except for the weight and look and even smell of a fine leather jacket. Oh wow he wished he knew why he loved leather jackets so much but really he could ignore the mystery and cling to the mental image of black leather. Creaking like a ship’s sail with every movement. He smiled to himself.
This must have got the woman’s attention as she sat down in her chair, folded one leg over the other and looked at him. Rather sneering was her face as she asked him, with no real malice but more a sort of teasing tone. “Were you looking at my arse?”
“No.” He told her, and this was true. Her “arse” held little appeal to him. He wasn’t sure why. He was certain he used to like arse. It was probably the drugs coursing through him making him not care.
“Really?” She didn’t believe him, but he nodded anyway. “Why not?”
“I … don’t know? I wasn’t thinking about it.” He replied, and decided he was just going to be honest. If the test was to see if he’d lie he was going to prove to them he wouldn’t.
“What were you thinking about then?” She asked, and Grant started to notice how she spoke different from him. She said her words differently, and he wasn’t sure if that meant he was saying his wrong, so he started to emulate how she spoke and, of course, he did it flawlessly.
“Mostly leather jackets. Black. A little shiny. That make that soothing creaking sound and smell good.”
She didn’t say anything to that but instead pulled a little thing from her pocket, a thing slab of plastic with a screen and touched the glass with one finger. She did something on the surface he couldn’t see, prodding at alternate parts with her thumbs while they sat in silence. Save a little digital click the slab of plastic made. He noticed a logo on the back of her slab and on a little plastic card around her neck.
Backstage pass!? He thought suddenly, the object stirring up something as solid as leather jackets in his mid. It was like a backstage pass that you wore to concerts, it was a pass or something. It had her face on it with a name in bold font but he couldn’t quite make out what it said. Until, suddenly, he could. It read in thick black script Felicity Deluca. That was her name, he supposed. You sometimes had names on passes.
But he was more interested in the logo on it and the phone. It was a silhouette of some barrel chested figure, male, with their hands on their hips. Behind the figure was a giant circle. He wasn’t sure what it meant but it was on her phone and her pass so it meant something to someone, obviously.
“I’m going to record us, do you mind?” The lady asked pressing the button before he had a chance to answer.
“No.” He told her, but he wasn’t sure what she’d want to record him for. He didn’t know anything she would find interesting, at least he didn’t think that he did. This woman, Felicity Deluca, clearly knew more than him. He wasn’t even sure what the piece of plastic was for and why she was touching it. “I don’t mind, Ms. Deluca.”
She had a flash of confusion on her face before touching the pass on her neck. She laughed once though her nose, something like a gunshot. “Forgot I wore this today,” she said, “I’m used to not needing it.”
“Oh.” Grant said not sure if he could add to that or even if he should have to. It was nice to talk though, he hadn’t done it in years he was sure. So even exchanging words like this was nice. He smiled at the woman through the glass, happy to have someone to talk to. She looked at him up and down once. He felt like he could have done more to dress up and would have were the resources available. But they weren’t. He was used to nothing and his current desire for things told him how little he really had back in his room.
“So,” she began dragging him out his thoughts, “Grant isn’t it?”
“It is.” He replied with a nod.
“Have you heard of The Silent Sentinel?” She asked leaning forward in her chair slightly.
“No.” He told her, then looked at the symbol on her pass and phone. “Is that what the man means?”
“The what?” Felicity flipped her phone over. “Oh, yeah. You’re pretty quick to be loaded with drugs. They told me you’d be super fucking sedated and I wouldn’t get any sense out of you.”
“Oh, I suppose I must be adapting to them,” Grant said with a shrug, “I think I do that a lot. But I’m not sure, the now is becoming very clear but the past and...other things are black spots.” He looked up at the woman and wondered why he was telling her this, just to communicate he supposed.
“Well you’re bloody fast for someone getting off whatever drugs they’ve had bumbling around in your body.”
“I did just realise your big piece of plastic was a phone despite not seeing a phone in…” his mouth hung slack for a moment and then he looked at her, he must have looked off because she looked slightly aghast for a moment. “W...what year is it?” Grant asked aware all at once that time did pass while he slept. Four years...he thought, at least four years.
“You got locked up four years ago, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Felicity said and tapped on the phone. She turned it around so that the plastic faced him and he could see a little calendar on the screen with the date once she pressed it to the glass. “I did my research on you before I got here, so you don’t gotta remember shite about yourself. I just need you to answer some questions about a superhero.”
“It’s good because I don’t remember...shite…” the word didn’t sound like one of his words but it feel good to say, “about myself.” He took a quick breath through his nose. It had been four years he had to be about sixteen at this point, seventeen in four months if the date on her phone was right. Why it’d be wrong he had no idea but a sudden wave of sickness hit him, a thick clump of ice in his gut. It’s one thing to think you’ve been asleep for four years. It’s quite another to discover it’s the reality of the situation.
He wanted to be sick, he wanted to cry. He clung to his ribs for a moment, suddenly aware of how sharp they stood out against his ribs. When had he last ate? Four years ago. Questions he always wondered about had answers now and that answer was four years ago. The feeling threatened to break out of him in a scream before it stopped bothering him. Like most things. It stopped mattering when he dwelled on it for too long.
“Superhero?” He said sounding flat. Felicity looked slightly confused, looking him up and down once again. Sudden mood change and posture switch must have displaced her perception of him, he thought. Ignore it. “I’m not sure how I can...help you with one of them. I know they exist and stuff but I’ve been,” he looked around the room and let that be the end of his statement.
“You grew up with one.” Felicity told him. “He wasn’t when you knew him, but he’s started up recently, and he’s pretty popular. I’m supposed to do a story on him, but I can’t get the bastard to talk to me. So, like the good reporter I am, I moved on to the person who’d know him best. His childhood friend. That’s you, Grisly Adams.”
“I thought you read my file, my name is Grant Ellis.” Grant supplied and she gave him a withering look. “Oh. It’s a joke, isn’t it?” He asked and she nodded at him with a big toothy grin. “Sorry I’m...behind on pop culture. But my….friend? Friend who became a superhero.” He sighed and rubbed at the side of his head. There was a smattering of faces and sounds but it was all blackness and missing spaces.
“Yes one of your oldest friends,” Felicity supplied, “I’d show you a photo but the little snots an expert at hiding his vizzog. So I’ve nothing much I can show you, I only know about you because you were in an old class photo with him in a primary school. I’d show you that but I’ve only a physical copy of that and the pricks at the front desk said I couldn’t bring it with me.” She finished, her words clipped and posture quite agitated. Legs crossed, back straight, but fingers wringing.
“I see.” Grant said still trying to remember what school was like, let alone people he was there with. Physical darkness was too thick to get through. Maybe seeing the face would jog his memory. “I’d...love to help you, I really, would love to help you. But I can’t remember anything. I’m really sorry.” He sank into himself a little, heels of his feet skidding on the floor.
“Sleeping Beauty act is really messing you up, huh? Sorry to hear that. I’d hate to be locked up in a joint like this. Give me a good old fashioned prison, or hell, even an asylum is nicer than this place.” Felicity noted and took something bright and colorful from her pocket before stuffing it into her mouth and moving it around. Was it candy? She could bring in candy but not a picture? Grant almost salivated as he watched her crunch into it. A pang of hunger hit him before it went away. She must have noticed this shift too because she took another piece from her pocket. “Want some?” She offered. “You can do that thing, right? Where shit you want just comes to you? Or something like that. Your file has a fuckload of black bars in it.”
“Is that what I can do?” He asked sounding genuinely confused. If he got what he wanted he’d never be back in the dark ever again, so that couldn’t be what he did. If he could do that then he’d never have been in here. “My file?” Of course they had a file on him he thought a second later, he was apparently dangerous enough to do something like this to. “Maybe it’s something like that but...I don’t think it’s working quite right now.” He held out his hand and considered candy, nothing. He considered how much he’d love some. It didn’t come to him. He just shook his head and smiled at the blonde woman across from him. “I apparently can’t get what I want.” He said lamely.
He heard the sweet crunch in her mouth as she stared at his hand. She sighed once though her nose and chewed on whatever she had. “Maybe it is. What do you want most right now?”
To leave. “To leave.” He didn’t feel bad saying it. He didn’t remember what he did or why he was here. He just knew he was here for a reason. The woman beamed at him through the glass.
“Well I have a bit of an offer for you, hear it out and we might be able to leave together.” Felicity said while chewing. “I want to get this hero for an interview, he won’t talk to me but he might talk to you. Sign on as my,” she bobbed her head from side to side causing her thick blond hair to flop like a curtain, “assistant, that sounds like a good word for it. If you agree to work for me, and I work for The Sentinel, then we can get you out. How does that sound to you?”
“What?”
“Come on, you figured out my company logo I know you processed all that.”
“But. How?”
She grumbled and slumped back in the chair. “We’re a news group, we report on strange things that happen, focusing primarily on super humans and extra-normal circumstances. Super humans and their culture basically. We are run by, possibly, one of the wealthiest people alive or at least funded by them. We have enough money and,” she spoke softly, “information. To be able to pull some strings. I’ve been a nice girl and saved up a lot of favours. I can, I mean this,” she placed a hand flat against the glass and leaned toward him, “I can and will get you out of here. But I need to know you can help me and that you want to help me. I’ve got most of the paperwork done but I had to check you out for myself. I had to see the man with a darker file than most super villains, the boy who’s only sixteen but who T.H.E.M. consider more dangerous than The Legion of Destruction.”
She looked him dead in the eye and nodded toward her hand. “If you trust me and promise me that you’re not the thing your file makes you out to be then I can, will, get you out of here Grant.” He swallowed when his throat went dry and a noise threatened to creep out of his throat. He didn’t even notice when his hand slapped against the glass in front of the palm of hers. The emotion he felt was palpable and desperate, and his powers couldn’t do much to make it go away. Probably because it was excitement, and that wasn’t an obstacle.
That was what his powers did. They made obstacles go away.
It came out trembling. “Please. Please.” He stammered. “I’ll do anything, everything, please just help me.” She looked at him and nodded once. Touched the top of her camera and stood up. She considered the glass window between them, looked like she was thinking of something only to reconsider.
“Two minutes. Two minutes and we’ll be outside lad,” she said with a grin, “but don’t you forget what you just said. Being my assistant will not be an easy job. But it will be better than this shithole.”
“It will be better than this shithole.” He agreed. He was going to be free, he hoped this wasn’t a joke. Not a cruel trick that he’d invented in the dark to keep himself going. It’d never happened before. It was never a thing he had to worry about. The woman turned and went to the door, his eyes never left her as she knocked on the door and walked through it vanishing into the next corridor.
Then, again, stretching on to forever was silence.
Grant was convinced she wasn’t coming back after the first minute. He’d made her up in his mind, she wasn’t real, he was dreaming. He was still in the dark and he would never get out. Panic started to settle in as he stared at the glass. Just one pane between him and a door. A door that lead out. He could make the glass go away. It was an obstacle. His powers took care of those. The glass started to crack as he stared at it, and he smiled. Then his vision dimmed. There was a hissing sound and a strange smell that filled the room. He did scream this time, in anger, in fear, it was turbulent. But his body grew weak and he was back in the darkness again just as he made the glass shatter.
All he heard forever was the sound of his screaming. It was worse than the dark, it was a dark he’d made this time. He knew that somehow, it was his fault he was back here. Kept company only by the wailing and the sound of glass hitting the ground in slow motion. He was so stupid, he was so stupid. He was back here again and he would be forever. It wasn’t a dream, the woman wasn’t a dream. He was impatient, again. Again he hadn’t thought things through and again he burned it all to black.
He never thought things through, he never waited. He was too impati-
A sudden and immediate pain in his cheek shredded apart the dark. He heard someone talking but his vision was blurred.
“-kers! Fuckers knew he’d do this you shower of twats! He’s gone and broke himself before we even got him out of the building, I swear to fuck I will remember your names and The Sentinel will bury you in shit.” It was the voice of Felicity, so very loud that it got rid of any other sound he could hear. Oh god the colour was back, the dark was gone. The world again!
“Ms. Deluca?” He rasped. The woman turned sharply to look at him. He wasn’t in the same place. This room wasn’t white. It was metal. Chrome, shiny, full of lamps and things for … surgery? He was in a bed, and the woman, Felicity, wasn’t in the same clothes as before. His head hurt. There was a strange pressure in it.
“You up with us, Snow White?” She asked and glared at a man in the doorway who tucked something white into his mouth. A cigarette.
“Yes?”
“Good. You’re a fuckin’ idiot. I was gonna get you out, but now they’ve gone and put shite in your skull. I said two fucking minutes.”
“In my skull,” he repeated touching a freshly stitched part of his head, “what’s in my skull!?” He squeaked, desperation rising in his voice before a great calm descended once again. “You’re right,” he said solemnly, “I am an idiot. Never been patient.” He said though he wasn’t aware why he said them. It felt more like powers than drugs really.
“Glad you agree,” she snapped shaking her head. “I don’t know some wanker shoved something in your head while I had to beat their storm troopers aside to get to you.” She regarded the figure in the doorway. “This is fucked, fucked to a level that’s not even right. Putting the kid in a fucking coma and now what you’ve shoved something his head?” The figure in the doorway traipsed in and looked down at Grant.
“Yeah.” He said. “You think we’re letting this thing back out in public without security measures then you’re stupider than your file lets on.”
“He’s not a thing, he’s a kid. A terrified fucking kid you put to sleep when he was twelve. Fuck sakes he didn’t even get through puberty yet. Nobody makes good fucking decisions until they’re past that shite.”
“You’re right, Mr. Deluca. They don’t. And they also don’t have powers strong enough to obliterate someone’s mind. But I’m sure Ellis here will tell you all about that when he remembers. If he wants to remember.”
He didn’t remember it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to remember it, was that why he was here? It’d have to be unless he did something worse. The idea of something worse than that was hard to come up with something worse than obliterating someone’s mind. Felicity, screwed up her face, and grabbed Grant by the hand rather quickly.
He was aware he hadn’t held a girl’s hand before, or if he had he couldn’t remember it. He was sure this was equal parts cool and embarrassing but the latter of those feelings went away a moment later. She had a strong grip and he welcomed it, he hadn’t held someone's hand….in...time.
“What did you put in his head?” She snarled at the man with the cigarette. The man just tipped some ash onto the floor and maintained a cool expression.
“A multi use device, tracking system, power observer. It has a third purpose as well the true origin of which has been faxed to your Sentinel office. I’ve much more important things to do, I’m simply here to see Ellis off.” He looked to Grant with disgust, lips peeling back over teeth. “And to wish him a speedy return to our capable facility. This stunt won’t last.” He turned and left, barking some orders at someone Grant couldn’t see.
“Cunt.” Felicity said simply. “Fucking lot of them.”
“Yeah.” Grant agreed, the strange way the woman said her words now clicked into his brain as an accent. British. He’d been speaking with a British accent too, but hearing the other man corrected him. He wasn’t British, his accent was something else. Northwestern maybe? Something with a lot of slang.
She tugged him from the table and he landed on wobbly legs. “Come on,” she said quickly, “let's get you out of this place. Gives me the bloody shivers.” She walked off and he walked with her, hand still enclosed rather tightly in hers. He was walking just behind her as she tore through the place, not quite running but coming close to dragging him behind her as she made way to the exit.
They passed small groupings of people with charts and boards. In a spare room a group of bemasked individuals were washing their hands in a sink together, yammering about something he couldn’t make out. He stood on something that clattered and noticed a spent bullet casing roll away from his foot, that was slightly alarming.
They took a bend and there was a fair few individuals in masks littering the floor, one was embedded solidly into a wall, groaning in pain. The sound seemed to amuse Felicity as she just gave that quick snort laugh of hers as they passed them. He looked up to her and she must have felt his eyes on her.
“They got in the way of me getting to you,” she said by way of answer, “don’t like folk getting in my bloody way.” She said proudly.
“You did this? But you can’t do that here. They’ll take you and-”
“Do fuck all, Grant. Your head really is fucking jelly.”
“But they-”
“Yeah but we’re not the same. They can’t do that shit to me because I work for The Sentinel and I will make them fucking suffer if they even try it. But look forget it, we can explain it later. I think you’re gonna like this next part.” She stated and before he could interrupt her he was hit by a sudden blast of light.
They’d come to the foyer. The outside was just ahead of them, a long road leading to a metropolis in the distance. He wasn’t sure what to do, his legs suddenly felt very, very weak. That was a place that wasn’t here, a place filled with things that weren’t dark. Oh to be there, he could be there.
“You ready lad?” She let go of his hand and stood to one side, arms folded over her chest. She nodded to the door and Grant took a few steps toward it, slowly at first and then he decided he wouldn’t do slow right now. He broke into a sprint and ran for the automatic door which slid open at his approach.
The sounds of the city hit him first, then the smells, the sunlight on his face, the thick air in his lungs, next thing he knew he was spinning in place and laughing. It was like that musical. He only barely recalled it, but someone he cared about liked it and had him watch it a lot. It needed to be raining though.
But rain would ruin the sun, he was sure rain was great and was perfect for that one musical but he’d rather not have it right now. He just stood there in the street, arms out stretched, laughing at the very top of his lungs. It was warm, it was loud, it smelled….no that describes it quite well. It smelled of a lot of things and it was all just so fantastic and so much not dark that it hurt his head...until it stopped hurting his head.
---
“First things first,” the boss declared as Grant shadowed her heels, “we’re going to get you introduced to the boss, he’ll sign you up and then you get two minutes on the phone with Odin.” She spoke quickly and walked far faster, Grant was certain her momentum in heels was unnatural to say the least. Though he was keeping up easily, as soon as it became detrimental for him to be slower he just seemed to catch up. He wouldn’t normally be slower than her but this building and everything in it were so very distracting. It was her office, the logo was currently under foot. Some vague male silhouette, barrel chested with their hands on their hips standing in front of the globe. It was heroic in some sort of way and Grant was certain it would have had much more of an impact on him were he not barefoot and distracted by the chill of the floor. Until he wasn’t, at that exact moment. He was attracting a lot of stares from people. He imagined that this was to be expected; he was a sixteen year old being dragged around in hospital scrubs and barefoot. It was likely a strange sight. His boss didn’t seem to mind so he followed her example of just keeping up. She seemed in a hurry. She stood in front of an elevator, arms crossed over her chest. There was a thin crowd around the elevator, all of them looked busy in their own way. One of the people was carrying a box full of tiny furred people. All of them seemed to be chirping into miniature phones and speaking in words that were unclear to Grant and then made total sense, languages were easy after a couple of seconds. Most of them were chirping about things like low toner on floor seven, the ghosts on the tenth floor have caused electrical wires in the ninth and eleventh floor to start shorting and they’re working on getting it back up. He assumed they must be some kind of maintenance crew, albeit very small and cuddly looking they seemed to be using the right language. Talk of Earth wires and parallel circuits dribbled from their chattering mouths at a blinding speed. Grant just decided to stop staring at them, it was rude after all. There was someone who seemed to be encased in glass, wheeled around by a roustabout looking sort. The person in glass seemed aware of everything, their big yellow eyes roving over the tops of people’s heads slowly and deliberately lingering on a few folk. Its lips peeled back slowly over too yellow teeth and lost chewing gum coloured gums. It winked at him and Grant just waved back. It seemed nice. Just funny looking. “Deluca,” a newcomer voiced. The young sort had a bike helmet on their head in a noxious blue colour, adorned with the paper’s logo and in one hand he held a package. He was about to talk again when he took notice of Grant, he looked from Grant to his boss with a slow swivel of his neck. “This is your hot ticket to an interview?” “He is,” Felicity replied tightly. She knitted her brows and looked at the digital elevator display it ticked down excruciatingly. The biker looked at Grant again and then back to his boss. “I like the pieces of metal in your face,” Grant said and the assembled group turned to look at him. “Christ that’s a voice.” The bike messenger said with a laugh. “Lord alive kid you ever had a drink in your life?” “Yes but I’ve been in a coma for a while so I haven’t drank anything recently.” Grant replied warmly, he assumed it was warm but everyone still leaned back suddenly. Eyes went from him, his clothes and his bare feet to the biker. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry kid, geez.” “It's fine you didn’t put me in a coma.” Grant said again and then his boss barked out with a thick machine gun laugh. The doors opened as she snorted out another laugh. Everyone looked on shocked as his boss wrapped an arm around his shoulders and dragged him into the elevator. “Sorry, everyone, heading to the boss. Need a private car.” She thumbed the door closed button savagely leaving everyone stuck there to wait. The doors glided shut and with a jerk the elevator began to crawl up the building. “Where can I get those face things?” Grant asked his boss who looked down at him and pursed her lips. “Lots of places, malls do them cheap. You’re of age so pretty much once you get the cash anywhere.” She stopped and squinted at Grant. “You’ve got a cute little face why do you want to shove it full of metal?” She inquired and Grant stood there and said quite confidently, though he had no idea where the confidence came from; “Because it belongs there. Feels right, would be familiar.” He said it with such assuredness that Felicity just nodded and leaned against the elevator walls. She rubbed at her temples for a moment. “Sure kid, whatever you want.” She sighed. “Now the boss is a bit strange, he might yell at you for no reason but that’s only because he’s a fairly old clone. They tend to lose mental inhibitions as they get older and he’s positively geriatric for a vat grown clone. Just…do what you’ve been doing with me and he’ll probably love you.” “Why, do you love me because of what I’ve been doing?” Grant asked and she just snorted once and bumped his side with her hip. He was suddenly aware of how wobbly he was on his feet when that quick bump had him shoot over to the other side of the elevator with a thud. It didn’t hurt but he was now pretty certain he’d have to remember to make more efforts to stand solidly on his feet. She put an arm around his shoulder and dragged him back against her side. She snorted and rubbed at his thick black hair. “Oh shut up,” she chuckled, “god you’re not allowed to be like this all the time. Ruin my street cred.” Grant would have loved to apologise for ruining her street cred, he very honestly felt bad about it. But then the door opened and he met the logo of The Silent Sentinel in person. Only it was a very broad back silhouetted against the setting sun standing in that room. The figure turned to look at them in profile, his face every bit as solid as granite. “Oh,” he said in a thick voice, “it’s you. Come to face organ grinder?” He turned to face them and he was shirtless to the waist and the trousers he wore were shredded at the thigh. He didn’t look quite right considering the rest of the room was rather neat and professional looking. It also looked too small for the big guy at the window. His boss went to speak but the large man just held up a hand the size of Grant’s face and said. “Did you bring a child to bargain with me? Did you think that those goddamned rumours were true, it was slander! Cloned from a Greek general and every-” “No, boss I didn’t the kid for that,” she looked at Grant, “fuck’s sake do you think I’m Hitler or something?” “I imagine Hitler was more punctual with his paperwork but no, get your wide rear in here and speak to me before I decide letting you talk is too damned dangerous.” He gestured to a pair of little chairs in front of his small desk. He stood behind it not bothering to sit in the too small chair behind the desk. Everything in this office looked too small. “This is Grant-“she began and the man leaned over his desk to shake Grant’s hand in his giant sand papery mitt. “Pleasure boy, tyrants put you in a fucking coma. That’s some bullshit and its front page tomorrow,” he spoke through a thick stogie clamped between massive teeth that Grant imagined bit through bone with alarming ease. He wasn’t sure why he thought that but looking at this man it was hard to see him doing anything but hurting people in alarming ways. He was so massive! “Thank you sir.” Grant said as his arm was jerked up and down with such force that he left the ground a couple of times. His boss grabbed a hold of him and planted him firmly back into his chair. She went to talk again but again the hulking mass spoke quicker.
“Call me Alex or Atlas if you read the funny pages,” he rolled the cigar around in his mouth until it aimed like a rifle at Felicity, “as for you there’s fuck all funny about how late this article is getting! You promised me an interview with an anti-hero, promised me woman! I have yet to see it, it’s due in,” he turned and stared directly at the setting sun, “five hours exactly. If I don’t get it you’re out.”
"Hey, I snagged a kid that can warp reality to get your that article. It's coming, don't worry." Felicity said snidely as Grant tried to get into the other chair, only to have it change into one even bigger and more comfortable than the one his boss stole. She eyed it, so Grant just got up and they traded seats.
Alex grunted and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two giant fingers. “I don’t even wanna know why he can make my furniture better.”
“Reality changing stuff,” Felicity said helpfully, “also don’t be upset because he got rid of your weird torture chairs.” She practically sank into the rich leather of the new chair. The large man turned back to looking out the window, hands clenched into fists in the small of his back.
“I have no idea what you mean” He said.
“Oh please they’re uncomfortable plastic masses. Sitting on one for more than ten minutes would turn a normal person’s arse to mush, there’s nothing comfy about them. You bought them purposefully to make people all uncomfortable in your presence. I sat in one once and it took me the better part of the day to get my arse to wake up.” She ground herself into the new much comfier seat and looked to Grant. “Once all this is done I’m taking you home and you’re touching everything I own.”
“Okay!” Grant said happily and then the big man hit the desk and bent in the middle, sagging sadly and groaning. Two of the feet were now stuck off the ground. Grant would have been terrified, should have been but once again emotions drained away into a stone faced placidity. his boss appeared equally unruffled but he noticed her fingers had stabbed into the material of the couch.
“Just get the article.” He said not sounding very angry despite the display. “People are talking, a lot of them about the two of you. Attacks on a T.H.E.M. facility,” he held up a hand to stall the oncoming explanation, “I don’t care why. All I know is they’ve got spin doctors on it already, saying the kid influenced you to help him escape. Saying this is you acting outwith the paper to take a step into villainy, you hang out with enough to spin that. A lot of people are saying a lot of things Deluca and I can’t catch all of them.”
“Well if that’s the nature of the game,” she sounded tense, “what do we have to do avoid this crap?”
“Get the article in. Do your job. I’ll talk to Odin about containment, just keep things quiet. We’re on damage control. No breaking things, no more hitting people. Basically do your job and we can make this all go away. Show them this isn’t a scheme of some sort,” he looks at her with those hard eyes, “it isn’t, is it?”
“No, I’ve never been one for planning.” Felicity admits with a shrug. “Easier to break down walls than scheme for a year. But it’ll get done boss, article will be here pretty soon. Appreciate the warning, should I expect physical interference?” She sat up straight and looked to Grant who was content to keep quiet for the most part. He didn’t understand what they were saying….then he did.
That was getting to be quite useful.
He’d been pulled out of a T.H.E.M. facility and whoever they were, information about them was not forthcoming for whatever reason. These people were clearly important and clearly him being removed from their control had upset them and now a great deal of pressure was being put on his boss to possibly wrestle him away from her and indeed have him put back in the coma. He did not want to go back to the coma, the dark. All at once this became a very awful situation.
“As for you,” came the voice of the big man, pulling Grant from his thoughts, “you’re fine to work for the she-devil sitting next to you?”
“Yes. She saved me, I owe her. I will work for her until I feel that I’ve repaid that debt.”Grant said surely. The big man smiled, hands the size of hams placed on his hips. He turned to his boss and just whistled.
“That’s some kid,” he said, “loyals good in journalists.” He fished under the desk and pulled out a thick wrapped up parcel and threw it to Grant. “Normally we’d sign you up, get you a photo ID and all that. But we’re a bit short on time with folk breathing down our necks. You’ll have to settle for wearing the colours.”
Grant looked to the big man and then his boss who just pointed at her wrist a few times, stressing their lack of time. Grant shredded the package open and he was hit with a wave of something familiar.
He remembers a room in a house. He remembers a lanky man standing in front of a mirror, thick arms and sharp chin. He remembers this exact smell, tight and hot and musty in the back of his nose and rolling down his throat. “Dig that, eh bud?” The voice in his memories said. “Girls go crazy for a sharp dressed man, a wise brother once said that.” The figure held out a hand and beckoned Grant to hand him what he held. Grant looked down at the large leather jacket in his hands then and he he looks down at one now.
“She said you liked them, we had a couple of the kids in branding put one together with a logo on the back of it.”
Grant was on his feet and unfurling the thing as the man spoke. It was crisp, fresh, warm somehow and the logo of The Sentinel was outlined in orange on the back. Black leather just like the one he remembered from somewhen and with someone. “Thank you,” his voice came out croaky and wobbled as much as a newborn, “thank you so much.” He was so happy to be out of the dark. In the dark nobody gave him things, in the dark he’d forgot how leather felt and how it smelled. “Bathroom, is there a?”
“Down the hall and to the left, first door you can’t miss it.” No sooner had he finished than the boy took off sprinting. As soon as he was gone Alex turned to Felicity and spoke as quietly as he could, which to be frank was still quite loud. “I hope you know what you did to get that boy has very likely ruined the rest of your life.”
“Worth it.” Felicity said a second later. “Fuck T.H.E.M. if they think they can do what they did to a child, you see the look on his face? That’s what he is, went in at twelve. Twelve for god’s sake. They’ve had him sleeping for four years. If they want to take a swing at my reputation, they want to come for me at my job. Let them, I’ll smear them off my boots gladly.” She crossed one leg over the other. “There a problem with that, Alexander?”
“Not a one missy, not a bloody one. I approved getting that kid out, didn’t I? But this means no more slip ups, no more late articles, nothing. They will do everything they can to paint you as the devil and drag you down to get at that kid. I wanted to make sure you knew that doing one article won't make them go away.” Alexander pulled the stogie from his lips and stubbed it out on the back of his hand, not acknowledging the burn he felt. “The Sentinel has your back, Odin has your back but we can’t keep them away all the time.”
“Changes nothing. Did you see the look on that kid’s face? That’s the happiest I’ve ever seen anyone. If I wind up penniless for giving him that feeling for one second more than he’d get it while asleep. Worth. It.”
“Thought you were supposed to be villainous Ms. Deluca.” Alex said with a thick laugh. The woman just snorted and rested her chin on her palm.
“Villain’s aren’t always pure evil, Alex. We’re people the same as you.” She said solemnly. The door opened and someone came in with a fax. They laid it down on the table before either Alex or Felicity could bark at them for interrupting a meeting.
“It’s from T.H.E.M. It’s something about a boy.”
---
No matter how hard Grant looked at himself in the mirror he didn’t look right, the hair was all wrong. It had been made since those people had shaved part of it off and stitched something into his head. He could feel a minute pressure against his skull and it would not let up. It was the hair, the hair, there was too much of it. He tore it out, it didn’t hurt, it didn’t feel like anything but pressure letting up just a little. It’s not right yet, not correct yet, still too much.
The jacket didn’t look right with all this hair. The jacket didn’t look right on him at all. He wasn’t the kind of person that could wear it. He placed his hands on the side of his head and spread out his fingers and moved them around to the back of his head, hair fell like rain to the tiles. Stripes, stripes! He knew something about stripes looked good. Fingers were imprecise tools however and he’d wound up buzzing away a lot of the hair that framed his face but left a crooked spine of hair up the back of his skull to the top of his head. It was fatter in certain areas and skewed in others but that was fine! It was supposed to look like that! What else!?
The top of his head! It didn’t look right, too flat, not enough….oomph! He needed that, he wanted that. He ran his fingers into the tangles of his hair and lifted up and sculpted forward, sharp! He wanted sharp! He Flicked it forward with both hands all over the top of his head, dragging it, twisting it and forcing it forward like the tip of a spear. He should have the kind of hair that’d strike you from across the room even if he didn’t point it at you, SHARP! Sandpaper sideburns and a fin of hair on the top, that was looking right. SHARP. He needed to be sharp, girls go crazy for sharp dressed men!
That’s what the memory had said. That’s what he took to be fact in that little bathroom. He had to be a spear head, he had to be prickly. He looked at his ears,smooth things. He wanted stuff like that guy downstairs in the elevator. He saw the sink ahead of him and saw the taps. It would do, he reaches out and the steel flowed like liquid into his hands, it should be red hot a part of his mind said as it was shushed up by the sound of bells and the need for spikes. There was a something building in his ears, some sound only he could hear but everyone else would feel.
It was bassy, deep, it shook the bones of the whole world with it’s melody. A song not heard since years long past, a deep thud at the heart of the world. Some noticed it, some were immediately aware and alarmed but most simply registered it as something that had always happened. They were used to it, the silent hum of the galaxy had always existed and was ever present in the static on TV and the sound of dead space. This was just a burst of that primal energy, that cosmic din, it said one word and creation knew it was so.
SHARP.
He ran the steel over his ears, it should be boiling hot that part of his mind screamed again only to be told to shut up by the monster thoughts and the the divine purpose. He shaped the liquid over the curve of his ears with his fingers, twisting it this way and pulling up making tiny thorns across the length of steel. He saw himself reflected then, he smiled at what he saw. Sharper now. Curved sickles clung to his ears twisted into great thorny waves. It was perfect. Now he could wear the jacket, he was sharp. He pulled it from the top of one of the stalls he’d left it to hang on. He slid his arms into the sleeves but it didn’t look quite right until he grabbed his lapels and with sharp tug he changed the world.
Everyone in the Sentinel office felt it. A nervous sort of buzz coming from the bathroom on the top floor, those down in the basement felt it. A silent tremor rocked the building, all the wood and steel creaked as though a great weight was suddenly theirs to bare and they’d been found lacking. Nobody could explain it, the whole office just felt heavier and hotter all at once. There was a new tension, a new power in the air. They could feel it move through the building and not a one of them knew what they were feeling. None could tell you if it was dread or excitement that started then. But was something old, something kept hidden for a long time and it was shaking off the warmth of sleep.
The sound of giants. The twisting of great beasts long thought gone from the world. A lurching thing of myth and world’s unlike our own raised it’s head and was suddenly among us once again.
Grant Ellis radiated something as he walked into the office of Alexander, a huge smile on his face and something in his step. The large man looked at him, balked for a second and snorted a hearty laugh through giant fingers. His boss turned to look at him and had a similar reaction.
“Alert the people down in records,” Alex managed between room shaking belts of laughter, “we found punk! It never died it just went to sleep.” He slapped his thigh and it sounded like a gun went off. Grant wasn’t sure how to feel.
“Do you not like it?” He was certain people were supposed to like sharp dressed men. That’s what he remembered. Had he got it wrong?
“No you look the fucking business,” Felicity said with a big toothy grin, “ Right fucking proper. Where did you get the leather pants though?” She asked eyes lingering on them for a few moments, she considered that she’d have to get a pair like that.
“No idea.” Grant said warmly. Felicity just turned to Alexander who nodded to the suddenly comfy chairs in his room, suppose that’s the solution there. “Just had them. Completes the look of the jacket. I have a new shirt too,” he said as an afterthought. He looked at the shirt, a thin white vest with something written on it in marker. “Who are Mucus Membrane?”
“I have no idea,” Felicity said airily, dragging herself out of her chair with a load groan. “That’s the comfiest thing in the world, boss I’m going to steal this chair from here later.”
“You touch my comfy chairs and I will kick your ass so hard people will think Doc Martin’s started making hats, love.” Alexander said in the kind of voice teachers reserve for repeat offenders in school. “Remember what we said,” his eyes flicked to Grant, “about everything.”
She walked out the office waving with one hand, collecting Grant on the way out as she dragged him behind her. The two made their way toward the elevators at the back of the hall, Grant stuffed his hands into his pockets and stuck close.
“I like the hair,” Felicity said as they got in the elevator, “what made you want a faux hawk?”
“Is that what it’s called?” Grant asked looking at himself in the mirror on the back wall of the elevator. “It just...feels right, I suppose. I don’t really know, sorry. I think my hair needs to be like this or was like this.” He noticed she wasn’t really paying attention just looking at him, a spot on his skull in particular. He wondered what for, the silence was pervasive though so he spoke.
“What’s the first thing we do boss?”
“We’re on a time limit which means we have to get this done soon. You don’t remember much about this kid despite seeing his photo, which is a bit of a pain.” Felicity leaned back against the mirror and folded her arms across her chest.
“I’m sorry boss.”
“No problem. Drugs are turning your brain to trifle. It’s not worth worrying about, you might remember later. Time’s of the essence so we can’t afford to wait. I’ve tried catching the kid but they’re super fast or something, they keep getting away. Our one chance is to beat him somewhere and confront him there.” She flopped forward, bouncing her back against the mirror and springing back to standing. “Catch him in the act and pounce once he’s done. He’s not a registered hero or villain so we can’t track them at all, it’s our one option. Which means we have to figure out where our boy is gonna be.”
The elevator doors opened and the crowd parted for Felicity and Grant to pass, they drew stares. Mostly Grant, Felicity was a well known and experienced sight but the spiky teen at her side was a new one. The logo was stuck on the back of his jacket so clearly he worked here.
“Can we do that?” Grant asked as they ventured out in front of the building, street choked with people in brightly coloured outfits and figures too large to be believed. His boss pressed a button on a remote and the car doors slid upward and Grant was certain that was the coolest thing he’d see today.
“We can,” she said as she folded herself into the low down car, leaning back in the seat causing it to recline, “we’ve just got to go talk to a certain breed of scumbag.” Grant almost fell into the seats of her car. It was something sporty and low to the ground and he’d...apparently grown platform shoes. He thought things weren’t as tall as they were a moment ago. He didn’t quite like the shoes though, so they changed to normal beat up sneakers.
“Okay. Sounds like a plan, boss.” He pulled the door closed and buckled into the chair. Felicity likewise did the same and the car shot off into the city, likely breaking a few speed limits in the process. The city bled into glass and colours as the car cut through the streets. Grant looked at the people and saw something a bit strange. There was groups of heroes everywhere, clothes that look unmistakably like the clingy space age fabric most heroes trucked around in. Capes everywhere, robotic limbs on a few dozen people. Cars that flew through the air alongside people in capes. People were parking robotic suits of armour in the car parks. Heroes were a fashion trend.
“How did this happen?” Grant asked refusing to look away from the ocean of faces and take in the world he’d missed these past four years. “When did all of this...happen?”
“Oh the heroes thing? We used to be a big secret, all of us did. Big governments were designed to keep us all hidden and away from public eye but something happened they’d never see coming.” She cut someone off and swore loudly at them, horns blared.
“What was that?”
“The Mayan Apocalypse.” Felicity said casually. “Skies rained blood, giant snakes, armies of zombies. Every hero and villain kinda turned to beat up evil at the same time. They couldn’t hide that...so for the past three years heroes have been everywhere. They’re an accepted part of life. Kinda the new level of celebrity after film star are superheroes. It’s pretty liberating honestly, no more secret double lives and all that bollocks.”
Grant just watched out the window as a man walked across the billboards while words floated around him advertising Maximilian robot cleaning utensils. Great for robots, surrogate limbs, mech suits and skin bonded exo-bytes. To show off how great it was the handsome man held up his own arm which was encased in a great glistening robotic limb, parts twisting and refitting to follow his movements. He ran the nozzle of a spray can over it and the thing shone brighter, somehow.
“So who is this guy we’re going to meet?”
“He’s not a very nice person, Grant, let’s leave it at that.”
---
“I refuse to believe it’s a forgery,” the man balked at the painting, “it’s legitimately impossible that this is a forgery. Mister Maximillian this isn’t a forgery, this is the genuine article.” The bookish imp of a man was pushed aside by Midas Maximilian a man so rich he could have a name like that and not be laughed at. If there was a tall, dark and handsome monthly magazine he would likely be on the cover of it. He waved away his helper.
“You’re selling the legitimate Sunflowers by Van Gogh?”
“Poppies, sir,” said a fellow who was almost certainly a butler. Midas turned to look at the butler, then at the painting, then back to the salesman and nodded.
“Poppies then,” Midas agreed that they were probably not sunflowers but looked entirely the wrong colour to be poppies, “for this price.” The salesman exhaled through his nose slowly and stood beside the painting, forcing a smile into place.
“No this is Hermes Grotto gentlemen. We only sell forgeries here. We have very few original pieces here that are not a part of the owner's personal collection. This is, again I must stress this, a forgery made by a retired art forger. We here at Hermes Grotto like to allow them a chance to continue practicing their craft for a wage without having to return to a life of crime. This is simply a forgery of one of the most famous stolen paintings of all time,” he said smiling in a way that was slightly unsettling. “Why we’d have to return Poppy Flowers if this was the original or we’d be thieves. And we’re not thieves if we sell forgeries, which these are by the way. These are forgeries, fakes, not real.” The man frayed slightly at the edges as he spoke.
Midas Maximilian paused for a moment and reflected on what he’d heard. His hand stroked a thin soul patch below his pouty lips and he did nothing but look at the painting. His glasses ran a covert identification sweep on the painting, the benefits of owning a multi-billion dollar techno company and being one of the technocratic elite allowed him certain benefits. The glasses scanned the surface layer of the painting and worked at identifying the inks used, composite things filled with saturants and chemicals. It was a forgery, no doubt, the paint was too new to be the missing original.
But if it was enough to fool this old coot he’d hired before coming here it could fool those idiot savants who loved to get drunk in his hotel rooms. He smiled, for this price the painting really was a steal. “I’ll take it, and the other two we saw earlier of the lady with earring thing and the melty clocks, I love those melty clocks like that one Daffy Duck show.”
The salesman was fairly sure he bit through his tongue trying not to scream at mister Maximilian. But a sale was a sale. He congratulated the man on his fine choice and took him to be ringed up. Grant walked past them as they wandered through the vast space of Hermes Grotto. It was a warehouse on the far side of town but it had been prettied up with a red carpet outside and the inside was cosily furnished.
Stone had been covered in thick wooden slats which filtered through artificial heat to keep the place nice and even as far as temperature went. There were wings all across the places of paintings, sculptures, blueprints and more elaborate pieces. Felicity tapped a heeled foot on the wooden floor making it clack out a brief morse nothing.
“Split up,” she said to Grant, “look for a guy in a very expensive suit with ugly cufflinks that look like rocks. You can’t miss him, we don’t have much time to waste here.” With that she sped off rather impressive considering her foot ware. Grant toddled by comparison, everyone here wore a fancy expensive suit. Also everything here was so fun to look at! He could look at it all night long! There were these nice paintings and pretty people and the floor was nice and warm.
He wandered around without much direction, sidestepping salesmen who wore thick golden laurels and humiliating sandals. It was a rough life in retail, Grant remembered hearing that somewhere.
“Careful bud,” came a voice from just below Grant and he stepped back, there was a man laying on the floor in the middle of the gallery, “you almost blocked the bigger picture.” He gestured lazily up at something and Grant turned to look at it. He didn’t see anything but a strange assemblage of lights and wires in the roof. He turned to look at the man who just patted the floor next to him.
Grant lay down beside the man and looked up. “Gotta have the right perspective.” The man said warmly as Grant saw what was up there and balked. The wires, dozens of them, a nest of lines some as thin as hair and others thicker than a man’s arm wound about in the ceiling and blocked the lights out. Laying down he saw the figure in the wires, a strange muscular sort of beast with an ugly face and thick stubby horns on it’s head.
“Japanese guy does these,” the man next to him said, blonde hair framing a sharp face, “he installs them covertly over weeks. Breaks into famous places and starts hanging wires and stuff around to create what he calls ‘people stoppers’. Designed so that you can walk past it a dozen times and never see the picture. But it takes one askance glance and you can find the image. It’s great stuff. I commissioned him to do one for me. I love these things, lord knows I gotta ask people to do art I can’t do it myself.” He turned onto his side and looked at Grant with eyes more vibrant than emeralds.
“You’re a new face, walk in off the street looking for a job kid?” The man held out a hand. “I’m Lewis Nickels and I own this place. How can I help you?” Grant looked at the man, he was angular in the face and had hair swept back neatly. He smiled in the way that tells you he knows how much your worth and doesn’t much care.
“No I got a job earlier today, but I’m looking for you.” Grant replied sitting up to shake the man’s hand. All Lewis could do was grin and get to his feet. He was dressed in a hoodie and a pair of running pants and had no big ugly cufflinks that he could see. “My boss needs to talk to you.”
“Your boss?” He asked sounding confused but a faint clicking sound had him look past Grant at Felicity. The man’s face lit up very slightly. “Oh I like her.” He said genuinely with a grin that Grant considered genuine. “You work for The Sentinel, they certainly have interesting employees all of a sudden.” He walked past Grant toward Felicity who spotted him and made a move toward him.
The two met and Felicity flung her arms around his shoulder and the two embraced warmly, spinning gently on the spot. “Oh lord woman it’s been awhile.” Lewis said with a laugh. “How have you been?”
“Been better, listen Lewis I need a favour, it’s about drugs.” The warm atmosphere shattered as he pushed her off him. He stared at her for a second, hard.
“Back door.” He said grimly before turning around. “You don’t bring that into the gallery Felicity, that’s my one rule. This is hero town you don’t do this in public.”
“I’m in a rus-”
“No you don’t do this here. You will leave. Drive around the block twice and then go in the back door. You will do this because if you bring up my side businesses again I will, and hear this, despite our friendship have you killed in the street. I will sleep soundly because I have had lots of people shot in the street and will have many more people shot in the street before my life is over. You will, if you don’t want to die, get outside. Drive around the block twice and come in the back. This warning is reserved for close personal friends. Others don’t get this.” He turned around and walked off into the bowels of the building while Grant looked to Felicity. She gestured for him to follow her.
Waiting by the door was a large hulking fellow in a golden Laurel. Only he wouldn’t pass for Hermes, this was Hercules in the flesh. He pulled open the door with one thick, gnarled finger, tipped with a thick claw. “Pleasure seeing you again, miss.” He said.
“Shut up Nathan.” Felicity snarled as she stomped past him. The big man just winked at Grant.
The duo got into her car and drove around the block twice in total silence. Then they left the car and walked into a small Chinese restaurant. They were led, in silence, through the bustling establishment to a back room where Lewis Nickels sat with a big smile on his face in front of a table loaded with steaming food. The big man from the front door stood beside him and a woman stood at the opposite side of the table her arms hanging at her sides just shy of a pair of guns hanging from holsters. Intent was made clear.
“Sorry about all that love,” he said once again warm and chummy, “but if the heroes find out about my side job I’d be more fucked than I care to admit. Welcome to Hermes Grotto, how can I help you break the law today?”