Making Supers 1, page 15
“I’ll let you know,” Billy promised. “Also, you should know something.”
“Yeah?”
“If you so much as think about doing anything to Gwen, they won’t find your body,” he said, with the perfect certainty of a man who knew how to deliver threats. “I don’t care how good you are. I don’t care about the blonde. I’ll take you apart like a fucking jigsaw puzzle.”
I let the threat hang in the air for a long moment, and just looked at him.
“I don’t need your protection, Billy,” Gwen growled.
The lean, well-dressed merc stared me down without a hint of fear, and I couldn’t help but grin at him. Billy was a contentious prick, but he cared about his boss. That much was clear. And I found it hard to dislike the guy, despite his demeanor.
“Roger that,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back safe and sound.”
“You’d better,” Javier warned.
Gwen, Chuck, Giselle and I moved back to the roller door without any other parting death threats, left the hidden base, and I hit the blipper on Gwen’s key. A lean little hatchback flashed its lights at me, and I took a moment to appreciate the car.
It was one of those newer sports hatchbacks, electric and probably smarter than I was. Giselle and Chuck made a beeline for the ambulance. I tipped them both a salute as I opened the door for Gwen.
“Have a good night!” Giselle called out, with a little sing-song to her voice.
I rolled my eyes. “See you bright and early tomorrow.”
“Doubt it!” My partner laughed and jumped into the van-of-many-faces.
Gwen’s eyes flickered between me and the door I held open for her. “Do I look like the kind of prick who needs a door held open for her?”
“I find it best not to assume.” I chuckled. “After you, m’lady.”
“I’m kinda tempted to drive, just to spite you.”
“Seems childish, and beneath you.”
Gwen eyed me for a moment, huffed a sigh, and got into the shotgun seat without any other complaints.
I closed the door behind her, trekked around to the driver’s side, and opened up the wonder-mobile.
The interior was luxurious, to put it mildly. Black leather seats, all sleek panels with subtle lighting, and no dashboard.
The car lit up as I sat down in the driver seat, and a HUD with all of the dials appeared on the windscreen holographically. The pedals were still where they were supposed to be, and I was pretty sure that the steering wheel did what it was supposed to, so I pressed a button on a screen that said ‘start’, and a subtle hum spread through the car.
No growl of a gasoline engine, no ticking over of the engine. The car warmed itself up like a goddamn spaceship, and I eased it out of the parking lot. The hatchback lunged forward as I touched the gas, and I grinned at the sheer oomph of the acceleration.
“Nice ride,” I said finally.
“Gets me from A to B,” Gwen agreed.
I pulled us out of the storage yard, found the road for the Industrial District, and my brain went into autopilot. I’d driven countless cars before, and this one was no different. I kept my eyes on the road and tried not to watch Gwen out of the corner of my eye.
She didn’t have any such compunctions, and her gaze flickered over me as we slid past streetlights and industrial complexes. I could practically smell the tension as it radiated off her, but I did my best to ignore it, and act as naturally as possible.
“What are you doing here, Dean?” she finally asked.
“Driving you home,” I quipped.
She growled a curse. “I mean in Empyrion, smart-ass. I spent most of today looking into you, and Giselle. She wasn’t hard to find, really. SatSec corporate type, known for being aggressive in her negotiations and good with her team.” Gwen shook her head to yourself. “But you’re a ghost. Even that picture that Pinnacle put up of you is a guess, at best. You’re military, or something very close to it, but there’s no service record. You don’t travel under a normal passport, and the best I managed to scrounge up was that you were doing something with Thai gangs recently.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Thought I was being subtle.”
“You were, and that’s the frustrating part,” she muttered. “An international betting ring owned and operated by a bunch of Australian millionaires, that mysteriously shut down from a ‘lack of interest’ about six days ago. That’s the only thing I could find.”
“You’ve got a lot of reach, Gwen,” I observed.
“Wanna tell me what it was really about?”
“Human trafficking ring,” I said quietly. “Young girls.”
Gwen stared at me, speechless, and gestured for me to go on.
“It’s behind me now,” I said. “I took issue with their business practices, and they took issue with me. Couple of Thai boxers and some pretty enthusiastic prisoner types ambushed me in broad daylight.”
“And you’re still here?”
“Seems that way. I think once they lost their best gangbangers, and the authorities got involved, the foreign investors decided that they were going to tap out and fold up business in the area. I didn’t stop them, not by a long shot. But I did slow them down, at least.”
“I still don’t get it. You don’t have friends, or a team. You obviously know how to work in one, because if you didn’t, Chuck wouldn’t be half as friendly as he is to you. You expect me to believe that you just move from place to place as some kind of wetwork vigilante?”
“Sounds a lot more glamorous than it is.” I chuckled. “I go to places, get beaten up, learn some things, and move on. Nothing more exciting than that.”
“But this is different,” Gwen argued. “You made contact with us. Why?”
I briefly thought about lying to her, but it didn’t feel right. Gwen hadn’t been anything except helpful to Giselle and I, in the short time we’d known each other, and I didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship before it even got started.
“My dad,” I said. “Brandon Silver. He’s the one who pulls my strings.”
“The Silver?” Gwen asked, stunned. “SilverSky Industries’ Brandon Silver?”
“That’s him. He sets up my missions, and I follow them. He said to make contact with you, but, as usual, he didn’t mention that it more or less involved starting a war with Pinnacle.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, turned the car out of the Industrial District, and glanced back at Gwen. “Where are we headed?”
“Castillo,” she said. “I’ve got a penthouse there. I’ll give you directions once we’re closer. And don’t try to distract me. Brandon Silver is one of the founding members of the Basement.”
A huge surge of adrenaline almost threatened my position on the road. My knuckles whitened around the wheel, and I let a long, slow breath roll through my teeth in a hiss.
Of course he hadn’t mentioned it to me. That would have been too fucking easy.
I quashed my surge of irritation after a moment and ran through the implications.
My old man had never really mentioned anything about his work in Empyrion. All I knew was that his company had folded, and that Pinnacle had been involved. But I’d run into crates bearing his old company’s branding in the warehouse, in between dodging grenades from Scourge and crazed custom-built spark plugs.
“Dean?”
I snapped myself out of my reverie. “I didn’t know he was backing you guys. How’d you meet him? How did he set all of it up?”
“We were just a support group for supe casualties, initially,” Gwen said. “I started off in community support, trying to get compensation for the civs who got caught in the crossfire. But we couldn’t do anything. There wasn’t any company or government entity who was interested in stepping on Pinnacle’s toes.”
“Except SilverSky?”
“Right. I never met Brandon, but he funneled through enough funding to get us off the ground, and he had security hired for us. People like Chuck and Billy. They gave us the expertise we needed to keep ourselves protected. Because Pinnacle had an issue with us, once we started taking them on in the media.”
“And you got branded as domestic terrorists,” I said.
“Fits their worldview,” Gwen growled. “Simple. Good guys vs bad guys.”
“Can’t really imagine you as a support worker,” I observed. “You look like too much of a hard-case. Tattoos, knife, fuck-with-me-and-die attitude. Hard to picture it.”
“Sounds like a compliment, coming from you,” Gwen countered.
I grinned. “I’m nowhere near as scary as you are.”
She snorted. “Bitch, please.”
“So, you got the funding. Dear old dad made sure that you had the money you needed to take the fight to Pinnacle.” I frowned. “Did he say why? Was there an endgame?”
“Never mentioned it. The money appeared like magic, and he never said anything else to us about it. We still get the occasional gift basket, and we can’t trace where the money comes from.” Gwen gestured for me to turn left. “I figured you’d know more than me.”
“Dad likes to keep his cards close to his chest. Always has. I’m still shooting in the dark myself. But it can’t be a coincidence that he told me to find you, that I developed powers the way I did, and that we’re all tied up in the same fight.”
“Coincidence is for those who lack sufficient paranoia,” Gwen agreed.
“I’ve got enough as is—I don’t need you loading me up with your runoff.”
Gwen smiled, and lit up the whole car with it. “There’s enough paranoia running around here that we could open up a store, with different flavors.”
The car glided silently over the main arterial, and I pulled off into Castillo a few minutes later.
Gwen angled herself so she was facing me and tucked a foot under herself. She watched me as I guided the car toward her place. Her blue eyes didn’t budge from me for a second, and I couldn’t help but grin and open my mouth to break the subtle tension.
“I feel like you’re trying to kill me with your gaze,” I said.
“I get a feeling it’d take more than that,” Gwen replied. “You strike me as someone who’s pretty hard to kill. I mean, if three supes couldn’t get it done, what kind of chance do I have to make it happen?”
“Sounds like a compliment, coming from you,” I echoed.
“Might be,” she said. “Right turn up here. Pull into the underground.”
Callisto had opened up around us, and a massive residential high-rise sat on the right side. I found the ramp into the underground parking, pulled into it, and watched the door slide smoothly open as we approached. The parking lot wasn’t anything special, but it was clean, neat, and I noted the other expensive vehicles tucked into comfortable corners around us.
Gwen guided me to her own spot, and I switched the car off as I pulled it to a halt.
“Nice place,” I commented. “How do you afford it?”
“Right investments in the right places,” Gwen said with a wink.
“I call insider trading,” I said and opened the door.
“It’s amazing what you can pull off with Pinnacle’s stock when your entire job is to make them look bad.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait, you have shares in the company?”
Gwen grinned. “They’re the number one moneymaker in Empyrion.”
I locked the car behind us and tossed her the keys. We made our way through the echoing underground space toward an elevator. I tried to wrap my head around Gwen’s personal income, and couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer audacity of it.
“So you’re trying to tell me that you fund the Basement and live in a fucking penthouse by trading Pinnacle stocks? You’re fighting a war against them with their own money?”
“They’ve got plenty as is,” Gwen said dismissively. “They won’t miss it.”
She slapped the ‘call’ button on the elevator, leaned against the wall beside it, and ran her eyes over me again appreciatively. I barely restrained the urge to strike a pose, and instead returned her gaze with interest.
Gwen still had the crop-top, the tattered jeans, and the ornate tattoos that whirled over her skin. She was a walking piece of art, and I wondered silently just how extensive her tattoos were, and how far over her body they stretched.
The elevator doors opened. I ushered her in first, and then stepped in afterward. The leader of the Basement took up a position on the wall, away from any potential firing line when the doors reopened, and pushed the button for the top floor.
“Penthouse with a view?” I asked.
“If you’re going to live in luxury, might as well do it properly,” Gwen said.
“What about Billy and the others? They just live out of storage units?”
She snorted. “No, they’re pretty comfy. I’m sure you’ll see their places soon enough.” Gwen’s eyes combed over me again. “So, tell me how this transfer thing actually works.”
“If I knew, I’d tell you. First time around was an accident. I’m not sure what’ll happen if I try, or even if I can replicate it. Anything I attempt will be a science experiment.”
“Seems an awfully convoluted way to get me into bed,” Gwen said slyly.
I picked up on her tone, smirked, and leaned back against the opposite wall.
“Well, I’m happy to make coffee and talk about tactics if you are,” I said. “I can just try to hold your hand and see if it has the same effect. Hell, might even be a faster way of doing things.” A thought hit me, and I grimaced. “Although I usually have to be in some kind of dedicated ‘safe zone’.”
Gwen frowned. “Safe zone?”
“Yeah. Billy’s hideout was the first time I’ve seen it. Couldn’t do it anywhere else. Unless my own lock-ins for powers work differently from transferral.” I noted Gwen’s confused expression and shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
“My place is as safe as any,” Gwen assured me. “Used to belong to a celebrity.”
The doors slid open at the final floor, and Gwen led the way through an amazingly detailed hallway. Old mahogany furniture lined the walls. Deep red-and-black carpet silenced our footsteps. An honest-to-god chandelier hung over our heads to light up the space.
Gwen strolled past the luxury casually to a steel door at the other side of the hallway. It resembled more of a bank vault than an actual apartment door. She pressed her finger against a scanner, and a light flickered on above her head. Lasers danced over her tattooed form for a moment.
A smooth, whirring click echoed through the hallway. The steel door popped open.
Gwen pushed them open with visible effort and gestured for me to go in first.
“Mi casa es tu casa,” she said, and I stepped into her penthouse.
Chapter 20
Gwen had taste.
Her penthouse was the most baller thing I’d ever seen outside of movies or TV. A huge lounge stretched out before us, its far wall made completely of glass. The lights of Empyrion sparkled in the distance, around an excellent view of Pinnacle’s HQ building hovering in the sky.
An enormous sofa of black leather sprawled out in the center of the room, facing a TV screen that was bigger than some walls I’d seen. A set of hyper-modern stairs to my right snaked up to a bedroom and bathroom loft, and behind the enormous screen was a fully decked out kitchen.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Gwen had a robot chef in this place, it looked so expensive.
Tattoo-inspired artwork hung from the walls, and tasteful rugs carpeted the floor in all the right places to give the place color and life.
If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought that I’d stepped into a global CEO’s apartment, and not that of a woman who spent all of her time fighting Pinnacle with their own money.
Gwen flicked on the lights, and a soft, ambient glow filled the apartment from hidden light sources. It wasn’t bright, exactly, but it was definitely mood lighting, and a smirk crossed my face as Gwen padded past me. She bent over to take off her boots.
Gwen had a fantastic ass. I had to give her that. Thick, muscular, and incredibly appealing, with a strong pair of training-hardened thighs to match that her jeans did nothing but emphasize. She unlaced her boots, left them neatly on a low shelf beside the door, and I crouched down to do the same.
She strolled into the kitchen and out of sight. I took a quick moment to bring up my ability window, while she raided the fridge.
Safe Zone Found!
Power Selection Enabled
Active Powers
Barrier
Stored Powers
Shadow Stealth
Lock Breach
Resilience
Barrier
Speedburst
Stamina
Refill Container
Darkvision
Accuracy
So Gwen hadn’t been lying about the safety of her place. Between the elevated position, reinforced door that was probably tank-proof, and the thick glass that passed for a window, it was as safe as a penthouse can get. But I still had a gap in my knowledge about what constituted a safe zone for switching my powers around.
I tugged off one of my boots, swiped through to the power-transfer window, and changed Barrier around to Stamina.
The words rearrange themselves on the status screen, and I noted the gradual change to my energy levels. I’d been bruised and battered before, but the fatigue from the burst of exciting violence earlier in the day had left me tired and slow. Now, a subtle vigor welled up inside me. It chased away the tiredness and continued to build.
I kicked off my other shoe, left my boots comfortably nestled beside Gwen’s, and straightened up.
“You want another drink?” Gwen called from the kitchen.
“I’m good,” I replied. “Had plenty of Chuck’s homebrew.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, and appeared with a can of bourbon.
She sauntered over to the couch, with a little extra swing in her hips, and vaulted over the back of the couch. Gwen fell back into the comfortable black leather with a contented sigh, pulled her legs under her, and gestured for me to sit down.
