Chapter Fifty-Three
The next day…
Calgary was grinning so hard it almost hurt.
The grandstand was crammed with people, every seat filled and the standing room in front of the stage and the arena stuffed to capacity. Hundreds more were packed into the concession area, clustered in groups around every television, the excitement in the air almost tangible.
And Calgary loved it more than anything else in the world. The crowds. The excitement.
He lived for the Stampede. He lived to put on a show.
Everything was going to be perfect, he just knew it.
The lights turned on, bathing the grounds in harsh white light. As it stood, the light was barely a complement to the setting sun; but as it grew darker, the floodlights would prove integral to the success of the grand performance.
The rodeo arena had been modified specially for tonight's main event, a change that Calgary himself had proposed. Normally the rodeo arena was a roughly rectangular patch of dirt, and it still was; but in the centre of it there was the platform of a cherry picker resting atop what looked like a steel stump. The stump was in fact a telescoping pole that would put the occupant of the platform a good ten feet in the air, safely out of the way of anyone who might be thundering around down below.
He checked his gold wristwatch- it was almost time for the show to start. And of course, Alberta and Edmonton were nowhere to be fucking found.
They were needed onstage for the start of the show, and Alberta was- oh, she was just over there, staring vacantly into space.
So where the fuck was Edmonton, then?
Earlier…
"Ghost car up ahead. Might want to slow down." Shelly said, eyes flicking to look at the rising speedometer.
"Yeah. I might." Edmonton replied, eyes fixed on the road ahead of him. The truck's engine roared as he pushed the gas pedal down, blasting by the police officer and the speed trap camera at least fifty klicks over the posted limit.
The flashing blue and red lights in the rearview mirror brought a small smile to Edmonton's face, and he killed the engine, looking for someplace to pull over that would be reasonably well covered. There. The road they were on had a turn-off leading onto a gravel road that went up a hill- there was a huge park in the middle of Calgary, and this was one of the many parking lots servicing it. But this one had an advantage over the others- tree cover hiding them from prying eyes.
He put the truck in park and climbed out of the vehicle, musing on the fact that his rap sheet was about to get a lot longer. As the officer made his way over to speak with him, Edmonton noticed with delight that he was alone in his squad car.
This certainly had been a bit of an adventure in lawbreaking. He'd started his morning by knocking Keith and Walt unconscious with that bottle of ether that he still had in his hockey bag for some reason, so that was assault; then he'd helped Shelly cut off her ankle monitor and sped off before the police could converge on the scene.
So that was accessory to some sort of a felony. And he wasn't done yet, because as the officer came up to him with his clipboard in hand and a scowl on his face, Edmonton steeled himself to add an assault charge to his swelling record.
The officer opened his mouth to ask if he knew how fast he was going-
Edmonton moved so fast the man didn't have time to blink. He seized the front of the man's uniform and ripped him off-balance and straight into the city's waiting fist, pulverizing the man's nose and stunning him momentarily. Before the officer could draw his gun, Eddy pounced on him, slamming the human into the ground facefirst and pinning him there with his knee.
Edmonton distantly heard Shelly screaming at him in…rage? Yeah, that was anger, that wasn't terror. But he didn't give a single fuck. One human's nose was a worthy price to pay for saving Cal's mind from Corvus's claws.
Edmonton ripped the gun out of the officer's holster and shoved it in his hoodie pocket, deftly keeping the stunned human pinned facedown in the gravel with his knees. For some reason this guy was carrying two pairs of handcuffs, which was awfully nice of him, Edmonton thought. One for his wrists and a spare for his legs.
As soon as the human was immobilized, Edmonton took off his utility belt and set it aside. He found the prize he truly sought in the officer's pants pocket- his badge. Edmonton also stuffed that in his hoodie pocket, since it was rather critical to his plan.
He scooped up the struggling human with ease and threw him over his shoulder, about half of a fireman's carry that the officer's writhing did not make especially easy. Still, Edmonton had strength on his side, and was easily able to keep the man there as he bent down and grabbed the belt.
It was a bit of a juggle getting the door open, then the belt to Shelly, and finally the human offloaded and into the backseat. Edmonton threw him in rather unceremoniously, rummaging through his hockey bag and ignoring the man's pleading screams. He removed Saskatchewan's laptop and the few other things that were in there, stuffing them all under the back seat; then he reached out and grabbed the officer's leg, pulling him forwards with a jangling of handcuffs.
"Here's how this is gonna work," Edmonton said calmly, "I'm gonna put you in this bag. You're gonna stay in there for about four hours. Then I'm gonna let you out and you can arrest me. Do we have a deal?"
"LET ME GO, YOU FUCKING FREAK!"
"Wonderful." Edmonton quipped dryly, forcibly folding the human up, shoving him inside the large equipment back, and zipping it closed.
The present…
Calgary stomped his way over to the performer's exit, the show tunnel in the side of the grandstand where the human actors were waiting for the show to start. He'd been breaking the rules a little to go and take a peek at the crowds, but hey, he was the MC and organizer; he needed to know that shit.
The hallway was fairly crowded, people in costumes bustling back and forth along with humans wearing headsets and carrying clipboards and walkie-talkies. Technicians in coveralls and the pyrotechnic guys bustling back and forth with terrifying armfuls of fireworks and other explosives. And Edmonton was nowhere to be found among them.
Calgary ducked into a little side room which was being guarded by two very large soldiers in full combat gear, nodding politely at them. Gunnar's men, of course. Regular police wouldn't cut it for securing their star performer, after all.
It was just a quick glance, but nevertheless Calgary smirked hugely at what he saw. Canada himself, dressed in a fine suit and tie and being attended to by a doctor on one arm and a technician on the other. His eyes were hooded and glassy; the end result of a cocktail of drugs running through his system to ensure he'd stay docile and compliant. Not like he needed to talk or do anything; for this performance, all he needed to do was stand where he was told and wait for his big moment.
The technician finished wiring up whatever was under Canada's overcoat and buttoned it up smartly, nodding at Calgary as he turned to leave.
Of course, Canada would come back from the dead. But crucially, he'd come back nowhere near here. The end Calgary had planned for him would ensure that his body would be too shattered to repair itself. And in such cases, personifications would simply be born anew in their capital's seat of power. A messy and embarrassing process to be sure, but far better than trying to regrow an entire body from a severed arm like a starfish.
And once he was out of Alberta, there would be no way for him to get back in under peaceful pretenses. That was the true penalty for failure. Once he was dead, Canada would be completely unable to save Alberta from descending completely into madness, and dragging the rest of the west down with them. Once the nation's head went rolling, nothing more would stand in their way.
And it was going to be totally awesome.
His freaky purple eyes seemed to focus on Calgary's face for a brief moment, as though he was having a snatch of lucidity; but the doctor swiftly injected him in the neck with yet another load of the sedatives, and it was swiftly gone.
"Can he stand?" Calgary asked, checking his watch again. Yeah, he still had time to track down Eddy.
"Yes, he should be able to stand up and almost certainly walk around a bit."
"Awesome." Calgary was rubbing his hands together gleefully, eyeing up the extra-special jacket the technicians had fitted Canada with. He was going to be the climax of the show, the final act to round off the spectacle.
"Calgary?!"
He turned around, ears pricked up at the sound of his brother's voice. Edmonton shoved his way into the room, panting- it looked like he'd been sprinting flat-out to get there.
As his brother leaned against the doorframe and wheezed, Calgary snatched his walkie-talkie off his waist and pressed the button.
"Yeah, Charlene? My idiot brother finally showed up. Who you got on makeup that's really fucking fast? Jean? Good, I'll send him down."
He clipped the little device back on his belt and shoved Edmonton into the hallway towards the makeup department. Calgary's mouth was running a mile a minute, jabbering shit in his brother's distracted ears.
"-No idea where the fuck you've been, I mean I TOLD you that you needed to be here like HALF AN HOUR ago, and I TOLD you, Eddy, fuck's sake, why can't you just fucking listen to me-"
Edmonton nodded blithely in agreement, his heart constricting in fear. There was a good reason he was late, and that reason was sneaking her way towards the sound booth as they spoke.
God, I hope she's successful….
The hallway was gray cement all around her, the sound of her footsteps echoing onwards as Shelly stomped her way down it. She forced herself to walk with her head held high, sunglasses fixed firmly in place over her eyes. The only piece of her kit that the police hadn't taken from her was her plainclothes, and that was what Edmonton had insisted she wear. The stolen utility belt was the wrong size for her, and wasn't really designed to fit underneath plainclothes anyway; none of which was helping with Shelly's nerves.
She was a little bit lost in the massive structure, sweaty palms clutching a keycard that Edmonton had demanded off a guard, or so he claimed. Frankly, after his little display earlier, it wasn't unlikely that he'd just beaten a guard up for it and stuffed the man in a locked closet in his underwear. Honestly, she was planning on turning him in for assault herself. And while it was true that she did need a badge and a gun, there were laws against assaulting officers for a good reason. Those laws were there to protect her, she knew, and privately she felt a small kernel of fear for the city who had so casually beat the shit out of one of her fellow officers.
She kept wandering, not so lost in thought that she wasn't listening for footsteps or voices, neither of which were things that boded well. As much as she was uncomfortable with Edmonton and his actions, at this point she had no choice but to follow him along with his harebrained scheme. And as soon as he was done that little speech of his, she was going to march up to him and fucking arrest his ass on the spot.
That was a good plan.
Shelly's wandering eventually proved fruitful, and she found herself staring at a door with a little sign, indicating it to be the sound booth. And mercifully, there were no guards anywhere around; nothing that would indicate that there was any danger.
Shelly stopped by the door, considering her options. She needed to get the technicians in the sound booth to cooperate, and needed them to follow Edmonton's modified script to the letter. Furthermore, they couldn't radio Calgary, lest he pull the plug on his brother's speech altogether.
So that left her with a conundrum. What was she supposed to say…?
She glanced at her watch, and decided to just go for it.
Shelly flashed the probably-stolen keycard at the lock and pulled the door open, finding herself under the glare of at least ten technicians.
"The hell? What are you doing up here?! Who are you?"
"I've been instructed to come up here and supervise. There's been a modification to the script. Edmonton's orders." She said, forcing her voice to stay calm and authoritative. "There wasn't time to submit a revision through the proper channels."
"Aaaaand what authority do you have to barge in here like you own the place?"
Shelly pulled out her stolen badge and flashed it, feeling a pang of guilt in her heart. That should be her own badge. Her real badge.
The one Corvus had stolen from her.
"I'm undercover at the moment. Sorry about the subterfuge, but I've got my orders."
The technicians seemed slightly miffed but nonetheless accepted the explanation, one of them pulling out a spare chair for her to sit in and watch.
"Alright. What does he want done? I'd like to have a script…" one of them asked, hunching over his board and looking over the thousand-odd switches that only they knew how to operate.
"You've got a switch for, uh, Corvus's-?"
She let the question hang, praying to god the entire thing wasn't pre-scripted. Edmonton had handed her a USB stick with the frequency on it, just in case, but there was always a chance-
"You mean that one buzzing tone they ordered us to play? Yeah, we got a switch for it. Why?"
"That's the main change. I'm just here to supervise. All you'll be doing is turning it on at a slightly different time." She said, keeping her voice steady.
There was a hint of suspicion on the technician's face, but nonetheless he said nothing. Shelly sat down in the chair she'd provided, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to look bored.
If Edmonton's plan didn't work, she was going to find some way to personally shank him in the asscheek.
A/N:
Again I awaken from my catatonic slumber with yet more questionably written West Wind Howls. We're flying by a lot of stuff at a breakneck pace here, and hopefully you're all still in the loop.
We're gonna get through this, people.
Oh, and one more thing: I actually do have the next chapter all ready and written up. And I'm gonna post it on Halloween, because of reasons which will become evident later.
As always, if you liked it, let me know. Reviews are my lifeblood- seriously, someone left a comment last night and as a result of that I felt motivated enough to write two entire chapters.
So yeah. Let me know your thoughts.
