Chapter 1-Fight then Flight
It had been a week since the Boss had saved Shaundi, Viola, Mayor Reynolds, and The Magarac essentially with his own two heavily tattooed hands in one fell swoop. Currently, he sat the back corner booth at Smiling Jack's with his usual afternoon Olde Steel beer, watching the dust motes dance in the slanted sunlight from the windows. It was crazy, Drake thought, that he had done all that he had done that day, and still he couldn't deny a gnawing sense of failure in his gut.
"I could've bloody caught the wanker, I just know it." He muttered into the nearly empty brown bottle.
But he had made another choice that day; one that saved his city, his Saints, even his blood-stained reputation. Becoming Steelport's new resident hero had come with a potential fall from grace in street cred, but doing do by gunning down Cyrus Temple's number two in broad daylight and then giving him a very public "I love you too, mate" for the cameras was all the streets needed to see and hear to know that despite Monica Hughes singing his praises on the nightly news, Drake Peppermill was still nobody you wanted to fuck with. He was a badass, a stone cold killer, but most of all he was a fuckin' Third Street Saint.
His revere was broken by a dubstep beat from his cell.
He checked the ID, "Only know one bloke wiv a cowboy hat," he smirked and answered. "'Ello, Mayor. How's the clean-up effort coming along?"
"Ha ha ha, not bad kid. By the way, I thought I told you to call me Burt." The legend chuckled with a voice that was equal parts bravado and grit.
Burt-Fucking-Reynolds wants to be on a first name basis with a tosser from Stillwater like me. Unreal.
"Whatever you say, Burt" The words tasted strange on his tongue. "What's new on the front?"
"Well kid, right after you freed us, I shut down Wesley Cutter and the ports, Hughes went and locked down Sierra Point too. So no one has left Steelport in the last week; thought you might like to know." The implication was palpable, only one man had been actively seeking to leave Steelport that day.
"Bloody brilliant Mayor—um—Burt! Right, well I got Kinzie tracking down what she can on the computer, but now that I know Steelport is on lockdown we can focus on finding out where Killbane got off to." Drake tried to remember what time it was when Angel called on his pursuit of The Walking Apocalypse.
"I thought you might say that." The Mayor chuckled something to someone on his end. "Yeah, well, here's Viola with more on that whole situation. Good luck, kid!"
Viola, right, I sent her off with the Mayor to do exactly what has been done. Wow, that bird is all business; hostage to personal assistant in a day. She's definitely a Saint now.
"Hey Boss." There was that unmistakable snarky drone of the infamous Morningstar-turned-Saint, Viola DeWynter. "Got some new intel I thought might you might like to hear."
"Shoot."
"So, as the Mayor already told you, immediately after you freed us he and Senator Hughes effectively shut down Steelport's Mass Transit. This happened as a result of a conversation we had shortly after that S.T.A.G. bitch abducted us from the Mayor's Office. We were discu-"
Drake had to interrupt. "Wait a tic, what were you doing at his office? I thought you were with Kinzie tracking the chaos me Pierce and Oleg were fightin' in?"
"Um, yeah, well see I thought the Mayor might've had some questions about our trip to Zombie Island so…" Viola's mask of composure was suddenly very thin, even just by her voice.
"And this has nothing to do wiv Burt being so powerful and statuesque, right? Don't think I forgot that comment you made before." Drake remembered how Viola reacted when he had Image As Designed fix him up to look and sound like Cyrus Temple so they could bust Shaundi out of S.T.A.G.'s Aircraft Carrier. The memory sparked a light he would deal with after this call.
"What? No, I mean he is but… Ugh, this is so not the point of this conversation." Viola cleared her throat. "Do you want me to continue or not?"
Drake seized the low hanging fruit. "Aw right, aw right, don't get your knickers in a twist…wait, you ARE wearing knickers right now, aren't you?"
"GAH!"
"Please, Viola, carry on." Drake knew he was one wise crack away from a dial tone, Boss or not.
"Thank you. As I was saying, with mass transit shut down, I sent a few Saints down to the airport to find and secure Killbane's private jet. The Mayor sent a S.W.A.T. team as well and between the two, it wasn't hard to find the hideous eyesore that was the jet."
All right, so that roided-out circus freak is somewhere in my city. Good. I should call Angel after this. He'll need to know vengeance is still out there.
Drake noticed the lack of excitement in her words, so the next set didn't surprise him.
"Unfortunately, the jet was totally empty. They tore the thing to pieces, but there was no sign of him. As a precaution, we left the two teams aboard the jet in case he's stupid enough to show up there later." Viola's own personal rage was now bleeding into the conversation.
It had been several weeks since Killbane snapped the neck of Viola's twin sister KiKi with a single twist of one giant hand, but Drake knew that every time Viola saw her reflection now, she saw her sister face.
"Don't worry Vi, we'll find this bastard and make him pay…for everything."
"I know."
"All right, well stay with the Mayor and make sure that fickle bitch Hughes continues to play in the pocket. She steps out of line, you have my order to see how long she lasts on Zombie Island." Drake knew the offering was of little relief to his grief-stricken friend, but it was something at least.
"Thanks Boss, I'll keep you posted." Drake thought he heard a sight lilt in her voice. Good thing she was with Burt, he thought.
"Thanks Viola, you do that."
"GODAMMIT!" a shrill voice cut deeply into Drake's ear.
Half the restaurant whipped their heads around to stare at the Boss' table.
"Wasn't me!" he was just as shocked as everyone else until he moved to turn around and accidently kicked Kinzie Kensington who he had completely forgotten was under the table hacking or power leveling, or whatever it is she does on that laptop of hers.
"Shit! Sorry Kinzie, I forgot you were under there." He spoke to the polished linoleum of the tabletop. His muscular bulk made it difficult to poke his head down there anyway.
"Yeah, some of us are actually doing work down here." Her pixie voice replied.
Drake smirked, "I can think of better things you could be doing down there…HEY!"
She slugged him in the shin. "There are way too many people in here for that."
"Is that all that's stopping you?" he teased. She didn't slug him again, but she didn't respond to the rib either. Drake pictured her blushing.
"So, what pissed you off a second ago anyway?"
"Oh, that, right. Well, of course you remember Cyrus Temple and his little S.T.A.G. army from before right?" Kinzie's cute little voice was equal parts tinny and flirty mixed with a heavy dose of brilliance. Drake couldn't always help himself but get a little lost in her verbose inquiries.
"Yeah, I WAS that slag tosser for a spell, don't you remember?"
She did. "Oh right, The Thermopylae."
"Right."
"Ok, so anyway, you know I kinda have a thing for technology right?" Kinzie offered guardedly.
Drake recalled hunting Luchadores leading up to Murderbrawl a while back, and an off color comment Kinzie made about her interest in hand-held electronics. "Um…you could say that, yes."
Kinzie blazed on, "Well, after you guys sunk the Thermopylae, I was able to hack its database and download some of S.T.A.G.s open R&D Projects from that female agent's files, one of which were action plans for a war machine called the Daedalus."
Drake hated when she went into her crazy tech-speak like this. Also, he secretly loved it.
"The whatellus?"
"Ugh, dumb it down, right, I forgot." She pined. "Project Daedalus is a flying war machine roughly the size and shape of a football field, designed by S.T.A.G. to overtake an entire city in a few short hours by pure brute force. It holds two dozen fightcrafts, tanks, and a plethora of troops, soldiers, and oh yeah BOMBS!"
"Queen's bloomers, Jesus that's a lot of hardware," Drake's violent side was giddy with prospective mayhem the Saints could wreak on Killbane, Temple, and anyone else who challenged the purple-hued posse. "Okay, but all that sounds like your kind of intel, so what's the problem exactly?"
Kinzie growled. Yes, growled. "Ergh, the PROBLEM is that S.T.A.G.s main site is still heavily encrypted and now they've hooked up with some chick from the CIA named Asha Odekar and my IP was pinged and booted! Can you believe it?!"
"Um, that's…terrible?" Drake was absolutely lost.
"Forget it, you don't speak geek. Do you want to know what everyone is doing right now?" Kinzie could shift mood on a dime. Most girls would still be heated about the misunderstanding and subsequent confusion Drake showed, Kinzie was just cool like, or so Drake liked to tell himself.
"Please do, Kinzie. Tell me Pierce and Oleg aren't playing fucking Chess again!"
She giggled. "No problem Boss, I put tracking chips in Pierce's chain and Oleg's cufflinks, as well as my own custom version of lo-jack in Oleg's Criminal truck and Pierce's Sovereign, just for good measure. I got you covered."
Drake smiled at the linoleum. "That'a girl Kinz. I know I ordered them on patrol for Killbane, but where are they right now actually?" He half expected her to tell him Pierce was playing Darts at the Broken Shillelagh and Oleg was at Burns Hill messing with the Reactors.
"Of course," her fingers danced over the keys with a clattering Drake knew looked like a blur were he to see it. "Okay, wow, they're both in Oleg's truck moving West in Port Pryor, about a block North from the 3 Count Casino."
Drake was pleased; surprised, but legitimately pleased. It had been an easy decision to forsake Killbane to save his people at the time, but the idea of Killbane escaping completely was more than he was willing to allow. He was glad his lieutenants were heeding his call. "Spot on. Now how about Angel and Zimos?"
The clattering hadn't stopped while they spoke; she was already ahead of him. "Angel is still at his gym, but he did spend few minutes at the Casino and Steelport Arena this morning, looks like he's back to the old recluse routine. Zimos hasn't left Safeword since you assigned him to it. I could access the cameras there if you want…"
Drake recalled what Zimos did the last time he was set free and gave Kinzie a brusque "Let's not." Kinzie exhaled audibly, she had made the mistake of snooping on him once before and she promptly disposed of her own Penetrator Bat as a result. She also had a sudden aversion to horses.
"I suppose then you'll want to know what Shaundi and your brother are up to?" Kinzie loaded the question heavily seeing as how she didn't really care for Jake or Shaudi, and certainly didn't approve of their…activities.
"Oh god, do I even want to know?" Drake found out about the pairing when he first left Steelport a few years ago searching for Dex after he fled Stillwater. He had left Jake in charge of running the gang and the city, but that hadn't ended well. Jake's relationship with the reformed pothead had clouded Jake's judgment and almost cost him Johnny Gat. When Drake brought the Saints to Steelport, he left his younger brother behind to "clean things up. Jake was only allowed up to Steelport when Shaundi was abducted by that bitch Kia from S.T.A.G. and he had already lost Gat to Philippe Loren.
"They apparently found their trackers and ditched them on Arapice Island. Not that it's a surprise for me, but I thought you might like to know. Anyway, I also bugged their phones and those are currently pinging back at Shaundi's Loft after brief stops at Fill-Her-Up Super Toy Shop and Red Onion Herb Dispensary, in that order."
"Ganja and sex; why am I not surprised? Toss it, I guess I'll have to go track down Cyrus Temple myself then." Drake moved to get up. "You want to come with me, Kinz?"
The proposition caught her off guard, or maybe it was just his word choice. "Oh, um, well I still haven't breached that S.T.A.G. site and.." The ever loquacious Kinzie Kensington was tongue tied.
Drake saw a golden opportunity to rescue this particular damsel in suave fashion. "You're right, that's more important. But do me a favor yeah?"
"Anything!" Kinzie took the life vest.
"Don't let me fall off your radar, love." Standing now, he squat down and fired a classic British grin at the demure former FBI agent.
"Never." She replied sheepishly.