A/N: Hey, I'm back! Sorry about last week. I got lazy and didn't have this chapter ready to post. But now its here and ready to be read! Its also one of the longest, if not the longest, chapters yet. By the way, I apologize to anyone who noticed this chapter being put up and then taken right back down over the last couple days. I tried to post it but it didn't work quite right. So I posted a note explaining what was going on. Now I'm trying the chapter again. I don't know if this is going to work this time or not. We'll see. If you're reading this, and the chapter below doesn't look like one gigantic paragraph, then you'll know its working fine. If it does look like one paragraph, then what you're currently reading will be deleted soon because I'm not willing to post a chapter if it doesn't look just right.
I also want to apologize if this chapter ever seems rushed. I was really tired when I wrote a good portion of this and I'm sure that affected the story some. Again, sorry if it did.
Finally, I want to encourage each and every one of you to check out the Lunaverse! What is the Lunaverse? It's an online forum that I frequent. We're talking about Evo, Harry Potter, TV, movies, music, anime, manga, books, Buffy, Angel, Lost, fanfic, and more. Come join us! I think you'll all like it.
From his perch atop the Peabody Hotel, Oculus watched over the downtown district carefully. It was a warm June night and the mosquitoes that bred in the flooded rice fields across the river were just beginning to hit the city in full force. Oculus had finally learned that the only way to escape their attack was to stay as high as possible unless he had to move down to the street level to stop a criminal.
The city was much safer than it had ever been before. Word about Oculus had spread quickly around the streets and now all the would-be criminals of Memphis were terrified to step out of line at all. As a result, the city's citizens adored Oculus. His brand of brutal vigilante justice was finally cleaning up the city and they all felt safe knowing he was around. Nate had begged Scott again and again to lighten up in his attacks, but Oculus knew that any sign of lenience would only result in a decrease in his intimidation factor. He simply couldn't afford for people to think he was going soft. Besides, Oculus knew that the biggest fish in Memphis was still out there waiting to make his next move. He had to be ready when it came.
After nearly four months of searching for Sonance, Scott hadn't won any new ground. The man was a complete mystery. His operation was a secret. No one knew where to find him or even what he looked like! It was beginning to drive Scott crazy. He was starting to see that he would have to wait for Sonance to make a move and give him somewhere to start from before he could begin to learn anything about him.
Suddenly, a movement caught the corner of Oculus' eye. He darted his head to the side silently just in time to see two shadows pry open an air conditioning vent on the roof next door and jump inside.
Oculus sighed. "Idiots. Some guys never learn."
==========
"A crowbar?! You hit him in the head with a crowbar?! Where'd you even get it in the first place?"
Nate was berating Scott again about the beating he had given the two shadows the night before.
"The other guy dropped it. Look, he had a gun! I'm not gonna stand there and let him shoot me!" These constant arguments with Nate were starting to gnaw at Scott's patience. They seemed to come at least twice a week now! This time, Scott was lying on his couch while Nate paced across the room like it was the first time they'd had the discussion. "You cracked his skull! Do you understand that?!""And he," retorted Scott, "was attempting to rob a bank! Would you prefer if I had opened the vault for him?"
"I'd prefer," shouted Nate angrily. He cleared his throat and readjusted his volume so the other tenants in the building couldn't hear him. "I'd prefer if you hadn't put him in a coma!"
Scott shrugged. "You said yourself it won't last a week."
"That doesn't make it right. You're gonna kill someone if you keep this up. It's only a matter of time."
Scott sat up on the couch and looked over his shoulder at Nate.
"I don't kill."
"Right, you don't kill for now. But accidents happen, Scott. Maybe you won't mean to kill the guy, but one of these days Oculus is gonna have blood on his hands. And just for the record, don't come to me to help you clean things up. As soon as you kill a guy, this little alliance, or whatever it is we've got, is over."
"I'm not gonna kill anyone," said Scott again adamantly.
"You don't even understand the game you're playing, do you?" said Nate rhetorically. "It won't be your choice whether you kill him or not. It'll probably be an accident when it happens."
Scott stood up and grabbed his keys off the table. "Whatever. I've gotta get to work which means you need to go home. I'll see you later."
Nate sighed and began moving for the door. "This discussion isn't over."
Scott turned out the lights and followed him out. "It never is," he mumbled.
==========
Scott's daily job was delivering important court papers to and from the Courthouse, police station, and various law offices. Today, his rounds found him in the office of District Attorney Robert Wicks to drop off some papers for a rapist he'd been trying, a man who, incidentally, had been caught by Oculus six weeks before. Scott approached Wicks' secretary with the plain manila envelope.
"Got some papers for Mr. Wicks," he said.
"Thanks Scott," said the secretary, a 50-something woman named Doris. She smiled at Scott as she took the envelope. Scott came by this office at least once a day so he and Doris were pretty friendly with each other.
As Scott left the office, he passed two lawyers in the hallway who seemed caught up in a hushed discussion. Scott listened to their whispers as he walked by.
"So your new client…"
"Works for Sonance, yeah! He told me this morning. What do I do?"
"Nothing, man! It's client confidentiality. You can't do anything."
"But he might be able to help put that nut behind bars!"
"Maybe you could get him to talk to…"
Scott moved far enough away from the two men that he couldn't hear them anymore. But the conversation had certainly piqued his interest. It might be his first lead to finding Sonance! He kept walking and happened to run into another secretary who worked in a nearby office named Angela. He knew her the same way as he knew Doris so they both smiled and politely said "hello" as they passed by each other. Angela stopped at the office door Scott had just passed and grabbed the doorknob. Just before she turned it, Scott turned around to face her again.
"Angela, I have a question for you."
The secretary looked up at him with the same polite smile as before. "Sure. What is it?"
Scott pointed at the two lawyers down the hallway. "The guy in the gray suit, what's his name?"
"That's Thomas Grimes. He's a defense attorney from one of the firms downtown. I think he just finished a meeting with Mr. Wicks. Why?"
Scott nodded. "Just curious. He looked familiar. Thanks."
Angela nodded as she opened the door. "No problem. See ya around!"
"Yeah, see ya."
==========
Scott typed "Grimes, Thomas" into the search bar of the computer in the Public Records section of the Library. Soon a list of names appeared, each one a client of Thomas Grimes. They were in chronological order according to when Grimes had taken their case. The person on the top of the list was Samantha Gills. Grimes had specifically said the client in question was a he, so Gills was clearly not who Scott was looking for. The next name was Perry Huber. Huber was accused of assault with a deadly weapon and robbery. Grimes had taken the case only a week before. Scott scribbled Huber's name followed by his current location, the Shelby County Holding Center, onto a scrap of paper and stuffed the paper into his pocket before closing down the computer and leaving.
==========
Perry Huber lay on his cot and tried to get to sleep. He'd been in the holding facility for nearly a week now and would remain there until his day in court. But it wasn't the pending trial that kept him awake tonight. He had told his lawyer just this morning that he had done some work for Sonance before. Immediately, he'd known he should have kept his mouth shut. If any of Sonance's other people found out about the conversation, he knew it'd only be a matter of hours before his death. Sonance was perfectly capable of striking a man down anywhere, even if that man was completely surrounded by concrete, metal, and guards.
"Perry Huber?"
The voice startled the man. He nearly fell out of his cot when he heard it! He rolled over and looked up at the person standing on the other side of the bars to his cell. He couldn't really see the person except for his legs, which were lit by moonlight streaming through a window somewhere. He could also see a thin stripe of crimson glowing in the darkness where the man's head should be.
"Who are you?" he asked in a terrified voice.
"Not important. I need you to answer a couple questions for me."
"D-did Sonance send you?" stammered Huber.
There was a short pause before the voice responded. "No. Do you know Sonance?"
"No! Of course not!" Huber lied. "What would make you think that?"
"Maybe it's the fact that you told your lawyer you worked for him."
Huber gulped. Whoever this guy was, he knew more than Huber was comfortable with.
"I've never met Sonance." His voice was cracking from fear.
"Have you worked for him?"
There was another pause in the conversation, this time caused by Huber. "Yeah, a couple times."
"Did you kill someone for him?"
"Yeah."
"Who?"
Huber darted his eyes down to the cement floor of his cell. The questions were coming so fast that he didn't have time to really think after each answer he gave. "I don't know. They gave me his picture and told me where I'd find him. I didn't ask questions."
"How did Sonance contact you?"
"The same way he contacts all his workers."
"How?" The voice turned to a low growl. Huber hesitated for a second before answering.
"He implants these tiny pieces of metal in your inner ear. Then, when he needs ya, he sends out a high frequency sound wave that makes the little piece vibrate just enough that you can feel it. That's your call to go to the warehouse."
"Which warehouse?"
Huber looked up at the crimson stripe that seemed to hang in midair above him. It suddenly struck him that this must be Oculus standing outside his cell!
"Who'd you say you are?" he asked.
The man's feet took a step closer to Huber's cell and he could hear the man place his hands on the bars.
"Unless you tell me everything I wanna know, I'm your worst nightmare. Now talk! Which warehouse?"
Huber smacked his dry lips lightly. He sensed that he was glad to have the bars separating himself from the man on the other side of them.
"It's on the corner of Union and Cypress Hill."
"Does Sonance meet you there?"
"I told ya, I never met Sonance. He's got two mutants named Lout and Prism that work for him. They're the only guys who ever meet Sonance face to face. He sends all his orders through them."
"How do I find them?"
"They always contacted me. I don't have a way of finding them."
A hand slipped through the bars of the cell and grabbed Huber's collar. Before he knew what was happening, the man had jerked him off his feet and pulled him up to the bars so that the side of his face was meshed against the metal grid.
"That's not good enough!" the man hissed into Huber's ear. He could feel the warm breath on his cheek.
"I'm sorry! It's the truth though! I don't…" Huber trailed off as he suddenly felt the familiar tingle inside his ear. He could almost hear the sliver of metal ringing from inside his head like a built in phone.
"Answer me, Perry, or life will get a lot harder for you in here! Rumors can spread. Life is bad enough in jail, Perry, but I can make it so much worse."
"Go to the warehouse right now and you'll find 'em!" said Huber quickly. "They just sent out the call for us to go there. Everyone will be there in ten minutes."
The hand finally let go of Huber's shirt and slid down to the ground on his knees.
"Who's everyone?"
"Sonance's workers. Everyone who ever ran an errand for Sonance."
"They're all going to the warehouse right now?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Sonance must have decided on his next target."
Huber sat on the ground in silence for a moment, waiting for the man's next question. As the silence lingered on, he looked back up at the bars. The man was gone.
==========
It didn't take long for Oculus to get across town to the spot Huber had told him about. He slipped through a small window near the top of the warehouse and hid in the shadows of the rafters as dozens of thugs filtered into the huge room below. He was about 40 feet above the floor of the warehouse and well-hidden behind some support beams. He was confident no one would ever notice him.
Finally, two men, who Oculus assumed to be Lout and Prism, emerged from the far corner of the room. One was a huge brute of a man with a shaved head and a goatee. He wore a thin muscle shirt and was a little intimidating even to Scott. The other man, though, Scott could barely take his eyes off of. His body seemed to be made entirely of glass! You could literally see straight through him, but he wasn't invisible. His features were actually very well defined. He didn't blend in to his surroundings by any means. He just looked like he was made of fairly cloudy glass. Scott had never seen anyone remotely like him before. He was wearing jeans, probably a T-shirt, and a jacket despite the warm night. He also had a skullcap on his head. He was clearly uncomfortable about his appearance.
As the brute, who Scott guessed to be Lout, began speaking, the crowd of thugs grew instantly silent. Lout had a low, gravelly voice that just seemed fitting to his rough exterior. He also kept it short and to the point.
"Listen up boys! We've got two murders on the agenda and one needs to happen tonight! We'll need five of you for that one. The other should only take three guys. It needs to happen sometime in the next two days. We're paying five thousand a piece. Who's interested?"
Every hand in the room immediately rose into the air. Oculus watched as Lout and Prism walked through the crowd of eager thugs and began picking their teams one man at a time as if it was some sort of playground game of kickball. Once eight men were selected, the others were dismissed. Scott couldn't help but noticed the dejected looks on their faces as they left. Prism pulled eight manila envelopes out of his jacket now and began handing them out to the lucky eight that were selected. Oculus noticed for the first time now that one of the men looked familiar. He studied the man's face for a moment before he finally recognized him. It was the pimp that had stabbed him a few months before!
"These are your assignments," said Prism in a surprisingly smooth voice. This guy could easily make it on radio. "In the envelopes you'll find information on your target, the target's location, the best time to kill them, as well as your instructions on the task that you will personally carry out to ensure there are no mistakes. And we're serious about that last part. No mistakes. Also, I'll ask you to keep in mind that if you ever tell a soul about any of this, we will kill you. I guarantee it."
The men took their assignments, then were quickly dismissed. They scattered and each left the warehouse by himself. Oculus waited and watched as Lout and Prism loaded themselves into a black car parked between the warehouse and the river. With any luck, they would lead him straight to Sonance! He tried to follow them, but they evaded him quickly. It was almost as if they had known he was there.
==========
Scott woke up to the noise of someone pounding on his door. He dragged himself out of bed slowly and moved through the apartment to the door. When he finally opened it, he found Nate on the other side.
"Hey, you seen the paper yet?"
Scott stepped to the side to let Nate in. "It was a late night and you just woke me up. What do you want?"
Nate closed the door behind himself, then tossed the newspaper onto Scott's table. "Sonance is back!"
Scott sat at the table and lifted the paper up. The headline read, "Man Murdered in Shelby County Jail." Next to the article were Perry Huber's mug shots. Scott sighed and dropped the paper back to the table.
"Well that's just great!" he mumbled to himself. "I knew I should have gone after the thugs instead of the ringleaders."
"Huh?" asked Nate. "Did you know something about this?"
"Sorta," said Scott as he stood up to pour himself some coffee. He took a sip from the mug and closed his eyes. "I talked to that Huber guy last night just a couple hours before he died. I should have known they were going after him!"
"So what do you do now?" asked Nate.
Scott thought for a moment. "Unless I figure out who the target is, there'll be another murder in the next few days. But I just don't have any information to go on! I have no idea who they're going to try to take down next. Unless…"
"Unless what?"
Scott took another drink of coffee. "There was a guy there that I knew, a pimp I took down a few months ago. I don't know who he is, but if I can find him, I'll at least have somewhere to start."
"Yeah, but how do you find him?"
"By making a new friend."
==========
Despite the wealth in his family, Robert Wicks was a self-made man. His great-grandfather, William Wicks, had made millions of dollars as a war profiteer in the early 1900's. Though young, he was already an incredibly rich man by 1915. Then World War I started and his fortune doubled. Not long after the stock market crash, William joined the Nazi party and moved his family to Germany where Hitler allowed them to enter into whatever business agreement they wanted with anyone. When World War II ended, William had tripled his fortune from where it had been a decade before. After the Nazis fell, he moved the family back to Mississippi. In the 50's, William paid off Joseph McCarthy to avoid being dragged in front of the powerful senator's committee investigating communists in America. William's sons were no better, each finding his own way to perform equally atrocious deeds. Needless to say, it was a despicable and morally bankrupt family, but out of that lineage rose Robert Wicks. At the age of 17, he became fed up with his family of liars and cheaters and set out on his own without any family money whatsoever. He had been determined to set right the crimes his father and grandfathers had committed by simply living a good life and helping the people he came in contact with. It had been a bold move that would shape the rest of his life.
Robert eventually found his way to law school. He paid his way through by working as many part-time jobs as he could. After years of this life, he graduated 3rd in his class and found a job at a small firm in Little Rock. He worked there about six years, building his trial skills and establishing a healthy buzz as an excited young lawyer with all the right ideals. He moved to Memphis at the age of 37 to join the city's District Attorney office. After five years in the department, he found himself in a position to become the head of the DA's office. The man who had been the top DA was exposed by the police as a corrupt lawyer who graciously accepted and offered countless bribes on over 70% of the cases he had tried as a DA. To replace him, the city needed someone they could count on to take his place. They needed an honest man who had proven his skills as a lawyer and whose morals could not be doubted. Wicks and another lawyer in the office were both up for the spot. The other man, Alfred Loeb, hired a private investigator to find some dirt on Wicks. It wasn't long before Robert's entire family history was paraded before all of Memphis. Wicks responded by explaining his contempt for his family and how he had turned his back on their values and money, even refusing to accept the inheritance when his father died and left him the only heir to the Wicks fortune. Instead, Wicks had immediately donated the money to various charities to help the people who really needed it. With this new information, Robert Wicks was the obvious choice for the job. He was asked to fill the position and gladly accepted. Now he had been the head of the DA's office for eleven years.
Oculus smiled to himself as he watched Wicks from a ledge outside the man's office. This was definitely someone who would gladly help him take down Sonance.
Wicks was sitting at his desk studying the evidence for his afternoon trial when he was distracted by a knock on his window. He turned around and nearly fell out of his seat when he saw Oculus standing there. Oculus knocked again and motioned for him to unlock the window. Robert reluctantly did so and slid the pane of glass up high enough for Oculus to crawl through.
"Are you who I think you are?" asked Wicks as he shut the window back.
"Yeah, I'm Oculus. I need your help." Scott seemed to brush the introductions off. They weren't very important to him after all. He already knew who Wicks was.
"My help? With what?" asked Wicks, still very much confused.
"A few months ago your assistant was killed by Sonance. You immediately retaliated in the press by basically calling Sonance out. Am I right about all that?"
Wicks nodded slowly.
"Then its safe to assume you're an enemy of Sonance?"
Again, Wicks just nodded.
"Then I need your help. Last February you tried a young pimp, Billy something?"
"Yeah," said Wicks as he thought back to the trial, "Billy Bines. He got off on a plea bargain. It turned out he had information on some drug traffickers that we'd been investigating for months. He got a fine and some community service, but ultimately nothing more than a slap on the wrists."
Scott sighed inwardly. It was just another sign of how the system could actually work in favor of the criminals! "You know where he lives?"
"I can find out. I'll have my secretary look it up."
"Do it," said Oculus, pointing to the intercom on Wicks' desk.
Wicks leaned over and pressed the button to speak into the intercom. "Doris, look up the address for Billy Bines. He's the pimp from this winter."
"Yes, sir," came the reply.
It was only two to three minutes before Doris rang back with the address.
"Sir, its 267 Brentview Street, apt. B."
"Thanks Doris." Wicks looked up to Oculus. "There you are. 267 Brentview."
"Thanks," said Oculus, one foot already out the window again.
"Hey wait," said Wicks with one hand raised towards Scott. "If you need any help catching Sonance, let me know. I hired a private investigator not long after he killed Nelson. I don't have many facts, but I do have some educated guesses and opinions."
"Like what?" asked Oculus, intrigued by the man's desire to bring Sonance down.
"Well, so far everyone he's killed, except this last guy in the prison, has been an assistant to someone very high up in the city government. Also, I've noticed that each murder has come at a time when one particular man was having some problems with boss of each of the slain. For example, the week before Nelson was killed, I had gotten into a very heated discussion with this particular guy."
"Who?" asked Oculus simply.
"Ron Driscoll, the police commissioner."
"Driscoll? You really think he could be Sonance?"
"Either that or there are some crazy coincidences going on. Either way, I firmly believe Sonance is a city official of some kind."
Oculus began crawling back through the window again. "Thanks for the help, Mr. Wicks. Keep your window unlocked. I'll be back to talk to you again."
"Will do. And let me know how it goes with Billy."
Oculus was already gone by the time the words escaped Wicks' lips.
==========
Blood dripped from the corners of Billy Bines' mouth. His hands were tied behind his back and he could sense that all his weight rested on his wrists and the rope around them. As he slowly slipped back into consciousness, he realized he couldn't see anything.
"It's been a long time, Billy."
That voice! He had heard that voice somewhere before, though Billy just couldn't place it right now.
"The last time we met you stabbed me in the leg. I doubt you'll be so lucky this time."
Now he remembered! The voice belonged to that guy who had found him when he was choking Vicki!
Oculus let his fingers finally slip away from Billy's face, allowing him to see again. Billy immediately screamed and began jerking around. He was looking straight down the side of the tallest building in Memphis, his feet planted against the outer wall.
"I need you to answer some questions for me now," said Oculus.
"What is this?!" screamed Billy. "You can't kill me!"
"I know you're working for Sonance," Scott was ignoring the man's pleas. "Who's your target?"
Billy was silent for a moment as he jerked against the rope that held him to the side of the building. "I don't know what you're talkin' about!"
Oculus slapped the taut rope with his hand, causing it to shake and giving Billy the distinct feeling that he was about to fall to his death.
"Don't lie to me. I know you're working for him. Now tell me who you're supposed to kill!"
Billy sighed. "I can't!"
"Look down, Billy. That's a long way to fall. I don't think your bones would even survive the impact. You'd probably be completely squashed when you slammed into the pavement. So why don't you rethink that last statement and try again."
Billy sat still for a moment, obviously weighing out his situation in his mind.
"The target's a cop. Jim Flass."
"Why Flass?"
"Don't know. They didn't tell us."
"When and where, Billy?"
"Tomorrow at seven AM, his house."
"How?"
"Car bomb under his car."
"Anything else I should know?"
Billy thought for a second. "No, that's it."
"Good. You've been a great help, Billy."
With that, Oculus landed a nerve strike on the back of Billy's neck and knocked him completely out cold.
==========
"Is there any trouble within the MPD right now?" asked Oculus. He was back in Wick's office. Wicks was spending the night at work to prepare for a big trial the next day.
"Only one thing I know of," said Wicks. "Driscoll's got some problems with a few of his lieutenants."
"Which ones?"
"Rieger. Howell. Flass. He's mad at those three especially."
Oculus glanced up at the name Flass. "Why?"
A smile crossed Wicks' face. "'Cause they can't catch you! You may not know it, but Driscoll is obsessed with finding you, dead or alive. It doesn't matter to him as long as you're off the streets."
Oculus smiled faintly as well. "So I've heard. You think he's angry enough to kill one of his lieutenants though?"
"Maybe. What'd you hear?"
"That Flass is the target. Supposedly they're gonna try a car bomb in the morning."
"I'd check up on it. It could very well be true. At this point, I don't trust Driscoll any farther than I can throw him."
==========
Oculus waited the next morning outside the Flass home. When Lt. Flass came out to go to work, Oculus swooped down to stand between him and the car.
"Might wanna take a cab today, Lieutenant."
Flass dropped his briefcase and stared at Oculus. "You! What are you doing here?!"
"Trying to help you. Sonance planted a bomb on your car during the night."
Flass eyed him suspiciously. "Why?"
"Don't know," said Scott. "But I suggest laying low for a while." He walked over to the car, stooped down, and reached under the front bumper. Flass watched as Oculus stood back up with a small brown box and a few loose wires in his hands.
"Might wanna watch your back pretty closely for a few weeks. As of right now, you're a walking bullseye."
Oculus dropped the bomb and used his grappling hook to take off into the air, leaving the dumbfounded Flass standing in his own yard in shock.