Worm's Finest: Darkness Rising
Shade 2.6

It had been a long night, but even after evading the PRT, I still wasn't done. Medhall was somehow linked to the Empire, and I had to track down those other cold grenades. And I had to do it fast; someone with the resources of a company the size of Medhall could cover their tracks very quickly and very thoroughly.

Which was why I was already in Medhall Tower, up near the executive suite, when the silent alarm went off. When the computers went lockdown, I thought I'd messed up with the cryptographic sequencer, but no, the data was downloading. The floor security guard had raced to the elevator instead of the office I had coopted, pounding on the elevator doors that had closed less than a minute ago.

I quickly moved up and knocked him out, then moved to check his security desk. The CCTV monitors were top-quality but still black and white and awfully small to fit into the desk. Except for one, all the camera views were on this floor only, with the exception being the elevator camera.

I watched as Anders rode the elevator down, but as the door opened, a pale blast of something lanced out, nearly taking the CEO's ear off... and freezing the back wall of the elevator.

"Oh, Fries..."

Given how high up I was, getting to the ground floor would be a task in and of itself. The stairs would take too long - if Fries blamed Anders, I doubted it would be long before he killed him - and the elevators were frozen.

So I went up instead.

Emerging through the roof access, I ran for the edge and jumped, snapping my cape out. As always, it went rigid, catching the air as I glided in a spiral around the building toward the street below, letting my darkness trail behind me to hide me from the morning sun.

Looping around, I smashed through a second-floor window - I've been doing that a lot tonight - at the rear of the building with a muffled crash, rolling to a halt in an office, body tense, listening for any reaction.

"D-don't move!"

I looked over. Medhall security, holding a Glock on me.

I slowly rose from my crouch, turning to face him fully. "You've got guts, kid," I said, feeling fairly ridiculous; he was probably ten years older than me, "but a Tinker with a grudge is holding your boss hostage downstairs."

He paused, then lowered the gun. "Right," he said. "You're, uh, you're that bat cape, aren't you?"

"Batman," I confirmed as I moved toward the stairs. "Stay here. You're not equipped to face a cape." That said, I headed down to the first floor.

"Victor!" I said as I stepped out into the lobby, cloaked in my darkness. I could see seven hostages, including Anders. A security guard had his hand - and the gun held in it - frozen to the wall.

"Do not interfere, Batman," Fries said, keeping the cold gun leveled at Anders. "Mister Anders was just about to tell me where I can find Kaiser. And the remaining cryogenic inducers."

"This isn't the way, Victor," I said, stepping forward and shedding enough of my darkness to show my hands empty. "Put the cold gun down. We can talk to the police and the PRT. With your testimony, we can put him away, clean up Medhall."

"I don't want Anders," Fries retorted. "I want Kaiser." I stopped walking. "Yes, Anders duped me into making weapons for the Empire, but it's Kaiser who sent Hookwolf, who killed my wife."

"Victor," I said, "you told me yourself she's in deep stasis. She's not dead. There's still hope."

"Freeze!"

Fries turned, snapped the cold gun around, and fired. God damn it. It was that idiot security guard from the second floor. The cold beam froze him almost completely, only leaving his head exposed.

"That's Mister Freeze to you," Fries said, turning his attention back to me. "Was that the plan, Batman? Distract me while he gets the drop on me? Because that was a mistake."

"I swear, Victor, I didn't-"

He didn't let me finish. I dropped into a crouch, holding my cape around me, but what had worked against the "one and done" of a cold grenade that wasn't intended as a weapon wasn't enough for a continuous beam that clearly was intended as a weapon. I could feel the cold leeching through my cape, so I lurched up and dove behind a wall.

"Damn it, Fries," I muttered as I released my darkness. I was out of suitable combat gadgets, thanks to my fight with Hookwolf. I was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way...

...which was going to be difficult, seeing as how there was now a wall of ice between us, sealing me out of the lobby. I pulled a small cutting torch out of my utility belt but paused before trying to melt the ice.

There was nothing stopping him from refreezing it as I melted it. And where did the moisture come from anyway? Tinkers were bullshit.

Instead, I worked my way around, consulting the data I had on the building and looking for an alternate entry point. Soon, I was up on the third floor. The lobby was actually a three-level atrium, and a room that big needed lots of ventilation.

It didn't take long to find and pry open a maintenance hatch. It took a fair bit longer to shimmy into the ventilation shaft; they weren't designed to fit people my size.

I peered through the ventilation grate. The room was still cloaked in my darkness, but I had to move quick. After loosening the bolts, I pulled my darkness in slightly and kicked the ventilation grate loose, sending flying overhead to crash on the floor noisily. Fries reacted predictably, sending a freezing blast in that direction even as I dropped down, landing on the front information desk with my knees bent so I didn't break my legs.

He spun, whipping his head back and forth, trying in vain to see through the darkness. I rushed him, striking the cold gun from his hands.

"I'm sorry, Victor," I murmured as I drew my darkness back in. "It didn't have to be this way."

I zip-tied Fries and led him out the front doors. By now, the PRT was out in force, Armsmaster with them. I paused.

"Armsmaster."

"Batman."

"Are we going to have a problem here?"

"No," he answered. "The... situation we wished to discuss with you has been... resolved."

I wondered what he meant by that. I didn't ask. Instead, I just nodded and said, "Good."

I turned Fries over to a pair of PRT officers. He didn't resist. A team in hazmat suits moved into the building, presumably to secure the tinkertech.

"His wife," I said, "she was in stasis at the research facility..."

"I'll make sure she gets the best of care," Armsmaster assured me with a curt nod.

"You may also find this interesting," I added, handing him a flash drive. It was the data I'd managed to download from Medhall's computers before I had to leave. I didn't get enough to pin anything on anyone specifically, but it was enough to raise suspicions.

And it gave the Protectorate a reason for me to have been there. It would have been nice to have gotten something to nail Medhall to the wall, but the listening devices I planted should help with that in the long run.