Castling (3 page)

A witty retort not forthcoming, Rook opted instead to let her stew until he reached work. Pocketing his mobile, he passed the half finished tub to
Alison.

“Finish it. The sugar wi
ll help with the shock. Also” he added, stealing a final spoonful, “you know, it’s delicious.”

He turned
to leave then, before the authorities, human or otherwise, demonstrated their appreciation for his civic charity by wrapping steel poles around his face.

Alison stopped him,
slinging both hands about his arm, her clawing grip urgent.

“Wait. You’re a
, you like some kind of.... You’re a hero.”

Rook stole a final g
lance at his three victims. One pale from blood loss, another slumbered through a bruised windpipe. Finally he stared down at the mass of torn flesh, dislocated joints and poisoning chemicals. The juicer about clung to life, body slowly choking itself from within.

“Actually Alison, I think I’m the other thing.”

*

Leaning
on the doorframe, arms crossed, lips drawn thin, Molly waited.

And a
s a rule, waiting
was not
her thing.

A half hour had elapsed s
ince she messaged the team’s newest addition. She had yet to be graced with his reply and didn’t exactly welcome the role reversal. Then she discovered, third hand, how he was actually on his way in, a significant lead in tow. The Boss had charged her with seeing this evidence processed and ushering him down to the briefing room.

This
stoked no small rage in Molly. She certainly didn’t mind playing messenger. It was a small team. Everyone pulled their weight. But she resented being the last to know.

And as a rule, knowing
was
her thing.

Behind Molly
rose a fairly innocuous two story semi-detached house. Roof tiled, walls painted white, front door thick, oak and a vibrant red. The gated garden rustled with life, bordered with hedges, lined with daffodils.

Housed within,
a trio of sub-basements, several million Euros worth of hardware and ten of the most impressive Meta-Humans in the northern hemisphere.

An
uncontrollable grin dimpling her round face, Molly made eleven.

Eye
s welted, lips caked black with dried blood and a veritable sack of sugary delights in his arms, the hunched figure limping up the garden path rounded out an even dozen.

Rook stopped
at the doorstep, sallow eyes level with Molly. Deadpan, he drew a rough hand down across his bloodied mouth.

“I clearly meant
drool.
”

Molly cursed herself for being so easily cheered up.

“Morning
Handsome
. So, this is what you get up to on your days off?”

“Aye” Rook confirmed, returning
the bag’s weight to both hands, “It’s been a slow day.”

“
That’s allowed. You’re getting on in years.”

“You might be right there. I think
some of my floating ribs are actually floating.”

“J
ust as well the Boss hired you for more than simple grunt-work. You have something for me, I believe.”

“
Oh what gave it away, Mol? Right what flavour you fancy....”

“How very
drool.
Where are the samples?”

“
Oh right, yeah,” Rook shook his head, genuinely mistaken, “In my pocket.”

Molly cocked an eyebrow.

“Back pocket.”

Molly cocked another eyebrow.

Sighing, Rook shifted his weight, forced to extract the plastic wrapped blade himself. He handed it over, hilt first.

“
Aww, Rookie! You really shouldn’t have. Really. This is yuck.”

Rook shrugged, sheepishly, “I’m a romantic. So
what? You sendin’ that down to the lab boys?”

Molly giggled, laying a playful punch into his shoulder,

“Ha! You think we actually have lab boys?!

I’ll run these down to
Ron
and ask him nicely to have a look see. I’m assuming you had the common sense to upload the captures from your phone? Or did that bruiser knock it all out of you?”

“I managed
to scrape some off the ceiling, yes. He should already have them.”

“You’re getting the hang of this,” Molly teased, leading him inside, “Now if we can just get Hatch to teach you to keep that guard up...”

Inside the
house was similarly pedestrian.

The l
iving room had previously been converted into an extended kitchen. Travel guides, trashy novels and classified documents littered the study. A tiered staircase led to bedrooms above.

And a host of illegal fixtures below.

Rook veered left into the kitchen and hoisted the freezer’s lid. A frosty haze wafted upward.

“See you down there?” He asked
, unceremoniously dumping the contents of his paper bag.

“Oh yes. I’m to grab Ron and lock us down.
Big Family meeting!”

“
I hardly think what happened in Tesco qualifies as-“ Rook started.

“Oh, oh I’m sorry. I c
ouldn’t quite hear you over the sound of your
massive ego
!” she gesticulated, cupping a hand to her ear. She continued, “Something else came up. Something
actually
important. Um, did no-one tell you?” Molly smirked, gleaning more than a little satisfaction from his ignorance.

“Evidently not.”
Rook supposed, as he moved to the sink. He splashed his face with warm water, adding in a resigned tone, “Ah well, it’s not like today was my day off or anything...”

“Chin up now, punching bag
” she consoled, slapping him on a still spasming back, “It’s not like you had anything planned.”

He turned
on her then, soap suds cascading off his brow, his nose. He held her gaze for a long moment, before marching over to the long freezer. He yanked it open, pointed inside and hissed,

“How can you look at that and tell me I didn’t have plans!”

Jaws clenched, lips thin, they locked eyes for an instant, wills clashing.

Rook cracked first, his cheek
creasing slightly. Victorious, Molly let out another musical laugh. Gripping the doorframe, she swung out of the room and marched upstairs.

*

Cranking its handle, Rook shouldered the conference room door. Darkness greeted him. The four walls were relatively bare, the room’s sole dissecting feature, a long chrome table. A cyan dome was moulded into the metal’s centre and this
obscenely
expensive holographic projector proved the only source of illumination.

“
Chilly out” he grunted at the nine souls within. A tremor of subdued acknowledgement responded. Meetings tended to instil this effect.

Only eleven chairs bordered the lengthy
fixture: One tall, wide and dark, a throne at the head with five smaller, less elaborate seats on either side.

Rook didn’t get a chair.

This wasn’t mere hazing nor was it symbolic of any inexperience. He had experience dripping out his ears.
And washing-up liquid, probably...
But unlike everything else in their surreptitious crew, chairs at the conference table did not need to be earned.

Rook
’s posterior was denied respite because he stood apart from the basic command chain. He worked with the Boss and with her alone. Aide, consultant, sounding board... Pit-bull: His was simultaneously the most coveted and unenviable station on the squad.

Reputation aside, Rook was a stranger to her. He could be relied upon to drop truths, however brutal, without heed for their kinship.
And quite unlike those seated, some looking through him with thinly veiled disapproval, it was precisely this unfamiliarity that had secured him the position.

That and his knack for taking a beating,
Rook imagined.

Passing wea
pons racks and blinking doodads, he marched the table’s length to take his place at the Boss’ side. Once there, Rook sunk his shoulder into the far wall, body tilted, arms crossed.

“This whole ‘low profile’ lark
might take some getting used to,” Rook hissed to his employer, who had shot his blood stained attire a questioning glance, “But I gotcha present to make up for it.”

The Boss
turned, inclined her head. Cropped auburn locks scraped back, features severe, the ice of her green eyes never thawed. Her beauty had been meticulously crafted to impose, to intimidate; the kind honed, not diminished, by a relentless singularity of purpose.

A
curt nod to Rook, both greeting and approval. The upturned corner of her mouth hinted at her mood.

“I gather you went easy on them.” She stated
, eyes pinned on his lacerated face, which knit closed before her. Her voice, rolling with the faintest Scottish twang, always seemed gentler than expected for a woman of such obvious martial stature,

Rook shrugged, “It’s my day off.”

“It was.” She corrected, turning back to the table.

The seats to her immediate left and r
ight
should
have been empty. Rook could hear their occupants marching down the stairs. Second lieutenant, Ron sat on the left, directing the investigative, analytical members of ‘Team Look’.

And
defying a mess of curly brown locks and charming disposition, Molly had earned her stripes. The Boss’ second in command, she controlled ‘Team Leap’. Mostly.

Bu
t their seats already had asses in them.

To the left Gil reclined, a
mountain of sculpted, coffee flesh. More than six feet high and almost that again across, his colossal shoulders and hulking arms almost bowed the table they rested on. The most physically potent being in their little family (if not Europe as a whole) the legendary Lebanese tank sat, a true giant.
Just not an intellectual one...
Gil seemed oblivious to the irony of seating himself at the fore of ‘Team Look’.

And t
o the Boss’ right sat Breaker.

God knows how she convinced this pair to join her little crusade. But they sure as shit don’t
appreciate being outranked by a pale ginger computer programmer and a hundred and sixty pound girl!

As if on cue,
the door swung open. Ron and Molly entered the darkened chambers through a shaft of light, blinding the half dozen at the table’s far end. Secondary lieutenant, primary thinker, Ron silently took his seat beside the Middle-Eastern colossus. Wholly indifferent to the slight, he locked eyes with his leader and waited.

Conversely
, Molly strode up to her occupied chair, dark eyes burning holes in the back of the intruder’s shaved scalp. An awkward moment crawled by, punctuated by the rhythmic smack of Breaker chewing on...
something
.

In a pinch
, Rook would have put money on rusty nails over tobacco.

“Looks like a comfortable seat, old man.” She snapped, hands bracing her hips, staring down at a goateed face that might have been anywhere between mid thirties and late fifties.

F
eatures hale yet weathered, Breaker turned to his ‘superior’, his chillingly quiet voice scarcely audible over the glowing table’s whir.

“Precisely
why I sat in it.”

Giving up, Molly
angrily slumped into a seat beside the wizened killer. She cast Rook a sidelong glance. He motioned to his wrist, a finger tapping the empty space where his watch wasn’t. Her tongue snaked out.

Then the Boss stood.

Nodding at her pale lieutenant, Ron’s digits traced a series of sharp geometries on the chrome table.

The conference room burst into lig
ht, holography shaping the bust of a gaunt, well groomed man.

“
I know the bulk of you don’t actually watch the news, so allow me to introduce ‘Lancet.’

Ye might s
nigger, but with a C.V. like this, his chosen alias is a pretty good fit. He’s something of a penchant for cutting people. Delightful. And not only has this skinny bugger out-thought and out-fought some of the world’s finest, most expensive bruisers, he’s just broken free of Tartarus for a third time.

And t
he charmer butchered eight prison guards doing so.”

A hiss of disapproval swept the conference room
. Beside Molly, TG’s hair rose with her hackles, static jolts dancing across blonde locks. Next to her Hatchet’s bearded throat released a low guttural sound.

How the Boss had convinced
such a disparate group of talented, strong-willed individuals to unite suddenly became clear.