Chapter Twenty-Four

Ludmilla took his hand and pulled herself up, leaping from the grave, dusting her suit off and looking down at it with a look of dismay. It was so wrinkled and dirty. There were rips in it from gun and knife wounds. There was a chainsaw mark down the side from right below her armpit almost all the way to her waist.

"We'll get you a new suit, Ludmilla. For now, are you able to help us dig up the other two graves?"

"Of course." Ludmilla said, taking her sunglasses out of her breast pocket, holding up the right glass, broken almost directly on the bridge. She sighed and threw the two pieces back into the grave, taking off her jacket and throwing it into the grave as well.

Her shirt was shredded in some places, but it would suitably cover her for now.

"Give me a damn shovel." She said, removing her gloves as well and throwing them in the grave as well. They had been torn in places, probably from blocking knife attacks and from clenching her hand, causing them to rip at the fingers and knuckles. She took the shovel and she, Alric and Astrid dug up one grave while Garda, Linus, Revy and Frederica dug up the other one.

"Where are Rock and the rest of Lagoon Company?"

"Rock is nursing a recently healed Tibia, Scapula and left Carpal and Metacarpal. He took more damage than we believed. He was limping a bit after the fight, but we assumed originally that he just twisted his knee or something relatively harmless, and frankly with the way Zane took a crowbar to his tibiae, he's lucky he didn't shatter both of his shins."

"Are you kidding? That pussy needs more injuries like that! It'll teach him to stop being such a wimp!" Revy snarled, striking the ground as hard as she could with the shovel and throwing the dirt in such a way as to get it in Frederica's shoes. She hadn't meant to… Frederica assumed, but it was irritating.

"You know, Miss Revy… There's nothing shameful about caring about your teammates." Linus said gently.

"Perhaps your relationship with Rock would be better if you would occasionally show that he mattered to you, yeah?" Linus finished. Revy's eyes opened wide at this.

"What did you say, fuckface!" Revy demanded. Linus laughed.

"You heard me, yeah? You're deliberately mean to Rock. I don't know if you're just jealous of his relationship, if you hate him or if you're just a mean person.

"But it's not conducive to a productive company."

"Screw you, asshole! You're looking for an extra asshole to shit out of!"

"And you're going to be the one who gives it to me? That would be interesting to see… If you think you're able, yeah?" Linus asked, his shovel clinking on the coffin.

He and Revy dragged the coffin out of the dirt and opened it.

"Zane… It's good to see you again, yeah?" Linus said, pulling Zane up. The young man leapt up, pulling himself out of the grave and stretching a bit.

"Ah! 'S'good to be out in the sun again! How long've we been underground?" Zane asked.

"About two and a half days." Revy said. Zane laughed.

"Hey, you're… Rebecca… Right?"

"Call me that again, we're gonna have a problem!" She demanded angrily. Zane sighed.

"What would you prefer I call you?" He asked.

"Her name is Revy…" Frederica said. Zane nodded.

"Revy, then… I saw ya fightin'. Ya really savage, girl… I can admire that. Y'all could use some more self-control in battle, though. Just a thought. Maybe I could help ya with that. You have a pretty voice, Frederica. You should use it more." Zane said to a blush from Frederica.

"I don't need help with my fighting skills!"

"Are you sure? Try shooting me. Go ahead." Zane said. Revy grinned wildly, pulling out one of her pistols and firing. Zane twisted, dodging the bullet, rolling over to Revy and standing up immediately, pointing his gun at the back of her head. Revy's eyes widened.

"Holy shit! Maybe I could learn a few things… I take it you can't make me like you? Ya know, superhuman?" Revy asked. Zane sighed, shaking his head.

"'Fraid not. Most subjects are either infants or unborn when they're enhanced. I heard that recently, two infants were accepted to the program. That they are testing the effects of genetic modification on babies, rather than only on fetuses. We hear that they were the result of a mother being killed and her children being given over to Genesis." Zane said. Revy actually laughed at this.

"Ahahahahaha! I knew those kids weren't going nowhere good! Maybe they'll actually grow up to be worth somethin', unlike their dyke mother!" Revy sneered. Zane raised an eyebrow.

"You knew the kids?" He asked, finding that hard to believe.

"Yeah. Two brats named Phoebe and Leopold… Their mother was some stupid bimbo who got in way over her head in Roanapur and ended up at the bottom of the ocean."

"Really? That's a shame. You seem tragically short on empathy for these people… Well… I can't fault you. My sense of empathy is limited as well. Intellectually, I can fake empathy. But I have difficulty actually showing human levels of identification with others' emotions."

"You talk funny! Whether yer doin' yer low-brow talk or yer high-brow talk, ya still talk weird."

"I'm not certain what to make of that comment… But funny talk aside, would you consider allowing me to take you to dinner?"

"As long as you're buyin', that's fine…" Revy said. Zane wasn't quite sure if she fully understood his intentions, but he had just gotten a date with her, so he wasn't going to complain if all that took was being willing to pay for a few drinks and some food.

After all, Ludmilla, Matthias and he were hardly short on money. They were almost always paid in cash, and were easily able to charge in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for their work. This past job had fallen through because they had identified with their targets and chose to turn on their employers rather than complete the job. But that didn't mean they were poor by any means.

"That sounds reasonable. Do you have any preferences in food or drink?"

"Not really. Whether I'm drinkin' swill-grade beer or 10,000 dollar liqueur, I'll still get just as buzzed." Revy said dismissively. Zane nodded. She was a heavy drinker, then. Alcohol tended to cost more than food. But he could bring some extra money to cover that aspect of their date.

"Well… We've been standing here for a while… Talking, and that's nice. But we need to get Matthias outta the ground, afore he suffocates down in that box. Didn't he have claustrophobia when he was a soldier for Genesis?" Zane asked. Garda's eyes widened. Zane was right. She grabbed her shovel and began digging quickly. Linus followed her, beginning to dig just as frantically, hoping that he hadn't used up all his oxygen already. They had only been down there for about 2.5 days.

If they had been conservative with their oxygen consumption, they could have lasted 5 days by going into an autohypnotic trance and effectively faked their death again while they waited. But if Matthias had been stressed, he may have had trouble affecting that state of being and he might have used up too much oxygen far too quickly. Zane and Ludmilla joined in, digging faster than they had been before.

They finally reached the box and Zane jammed the tip of his shovel blade into the box cover and jerked upwards, ripping the box up, displacing the nails and he and Garda grabbed it, their fingers flexing as they ripped the top up and they found Matthias with his eyes closed. Linus knelt down and felt his neck, searching for a pulse, finally finding one. It was going very slowly.

Linus checked the gauge on the oxygen tank and found that it was more than ¾ of the way to empty. He had used more than he should have needed. But he eventually went into a hibernative trance and was breathing slowly enough to suggest that he had been in there for at least a few hours.

"Alright. On three…" Linus said. "1… 2… 3… Lift." He said. Zane picked him up, hefting the young man over his shoulder and leaping out of the grave, walking away from the ledge.

Linus helped Garda up, then was pulled up by her. The two looked at each other with a strange mix of blunted attraction and uncertainty.

"Hey, Garda… Did you… Want to join Lagoon Company? I'm sure that Dutch would be happy to extend you an invitation, and with all of these superhumans in Roanapur, it's probably best if you guys aren't seen to be directly affiliated with one mob.

"It's not that having superhumans is a problem. It's the image of strength that each mob projects. Right now, they have a tenuous balance, a stalemate if you will. But if it becomes known that Hotel Moscow has superhuman agents, that balance starts to look like it's tipping in favor of Hotel Moscow, and the other mobs are likely to begin scrambling to get their hands on some of us as well.

"It's good to be seen to have polite and even friendly relations with all three main families in Roanapur. But it's not good to be seen to work directly for one of them." Linus said.

"I'm certain that if you guys wanted to, you could all become extremely successful mercenaries working out of Roanapur. Or you could work for a company or independently of each other even." Linus said. Garda nodded. She hadn't considered any of that. It was more political than she had anticipated.

"You're right… I'll speak with Miss Balalaika. I'm sure that we can work something out. After all, we defeated her agents singlehandedly. They don't pose a huge threat to us." Garda said, brushing her red hair back from her eyes. It was a breezy day and although it was hot out, it wasn't humid. The weather was very pleasant.

Zane called Linus and Garda over. The two ran over to the side of the grave, where Matthias was beginning to stir.

"Ah… I was afraid I was going to suffocate down there. You know how much I hate tight places. Shame on you."

"Would you rather we incinerate you to "prove your death?" Alric asked. Matthias laughed.

"No… Thank you for not killing us, Miss Sawyer, Miss Lee… You fought well, very fiercely. Your abilities were almost comparable to one of our trainees." Matthias said to the two women. Frederica smiled weakly, turning a faint pink.

"Thank you." She whispered.

She still could barely believe that she was talking again. She occasionally whispered "I can talk" to herself, just to confirm it. Just to make sure that it hadn't been a dream, that she hadn't just imagined it, or that it really was permanent.

"I can talk." She muttered. Linus smiled at her. "Thank you…" She said, hugging Linus tightly, tears flooding her eyes again.

"You never need to thank me, Miss Sawyer. It was my pleasure to help you." He said. Garda rolled her eyes. She could see that he was being genuine when he said that, but he loved the feeling that someone was actually grateful to him for something that he did. She understood that. So few of their allies ever experienced someone truly being grateful to them. It was mostly professional satisfaction for a job well done. And even that was fleeting. After all, who stood a chance against them? They were superhumans.

It wasn't like if someone was able to close with them and fight them in melee, they might have survived. They were superhumans and trained in almost every martial art known to man as well as at least two that had been created especially for those with superhuman abilities. Professional satisfaction was weak, fleeting. But now, he had done a good thing for someone and didn't expect anything in return.

"You helped her? What did you do? Give her some of Alric's weird inventions? Train her to use that chainsaw of hers better? Are you lovers now?"

Frederica blanched angrily at this last suggestion.

"No! He… He fixed my vocal chords… I can talk again… I've been mute for almost ten years. He fixed my vocal chords so that I could talk again." Frederica said.

"Ah… You used your regenerative serum on her. That shit is expensive. You shoulda' saved it for yourself or someone who really mattered to you… Ya know, like Garda?"

"I have a few more vials… I didn't have to use much. It was just repairing her vocal chords, yeah?" Linus said. Matthias nodded cautiously.

"But how would you go about getting more?"

"I'd ask Alric to help me redirect an order of the raw materials heading towards a Genesis Laboratory and mix the elements myself… I did get a PhD level education in chemistry, biochemistry, physics, biology and anatomy. It would hardly be a stretch to mix some chemicals, yeah?"

"I hadn't ever thought of that. Remember to keep the vials refrigerated. They need to stay at a constant temperature of no more than 1.7oC and no less than 0.6oC."

"Yes, yes. I remember Genesis's admonishments when we accidentally ruined some of the materials. Once they're mixed, they need to be kept airtight so that they don't spoil and shaken before they're administered. Remember? I was top of the class in that course, yeah?" Linus asked.

"Oh, yeah. Well… We better get going. These graves ain't getting any fuller." Matthias laughed, taking a shovel and filling one of the holes. Alric and Ludmilla worked on another one while Linus and Garda worked on the third.

"Ludmilla? May I borrow your ear for a moment?" Alric asked. Ludmilla smirked at this turn of phrase.

"Just make sure to return it when you're done with it. And keep it clean." She said.
"No, I mean… Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"I know what you meant. Just talk. You don't need permission…" She said, breathing as she shoveled dirt back into the hole.

"I wondered if you would go to dinner with me this weekend." Alric asked. Ludmilla blushed slightly, not wanting to show her emotions too much. She was flattered, though.

"Are you asking me on a date, Alric?" She asked. Alric actually laughed.

"I know… It was a stretch. Sorry I bothered you." Alric muttered. Ludmilla shook her head.

"No… I'm flattered… I just didn't know you felt that way.

"You and I agreed that we would be partners if Genesis insisted that we create a second generation of superhumans. But I assumed you believed it to be an alliance of convenience."

"Well… At first it was. You were the one who interested me the most of my allies. I suppose my feelings intensified after we left Genesis and separated. I worked with Garda and Astrid and my interactions with normal humans taught me to have near-human emotion…"

"You don't need to say anymore. Where were you planning to go?" Ludmilla asked. Alric shrugged.

"We could wander around until we find somewhere interesting. I'm not terribly familiar with this town." Alric suggested uncertainly. Ludmilla raised an eyebrow at him, but actually laughed.

"Sounds like a date. You know, I could get used to these emotions." Ludmilla said.

Linus smiled. It was nice to see his friends starting to seem so human.