Interlude - Gary Biaggi

He really was a villain. A real one, at that. Not one of the costumed nuts who threatened to blow something up if they didn't get paid.

Amateurs.

You blow something up first, then threaten to do it again if you don't get paid. Do it backwards and people think they can stop you. Wonder if you're serious. Never announce your plans before doing them.

It's just dumb.

Gary could go for blowing something up about now, especially after that whole Behemoth thing ended up being such a nothing burger. Seoul burned to the ground. Yangban supposedly dealt significant losses. Not particularly interesting in the end.

Yeah. Blowing something up sounded really nice.

"She's such an ungrateful slut," Brent slurred. "I gave that whore everything. No one thought a cape with a fucking master power could be a legal act but I found all the loopholes that let her perform live and sell her shitty pop albums."

What a fucking loser. "Sounds pretty bad."

He drew the blinds as he spoke, peering down the street toward the city center. He'd been all over the world, and in Gary's opinion American cities were profoundly dull. Not much variety really. See one city and you've seen them all in America. New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles he figured had some flavor, but other than that? Dime a dozen.

"You should really assert yourself a bit better Brent," he continued. "I mean, so you're not entitled to a relationship just because you put so much work into her. She could at least let you down easy."

"Yeah," the man grumbled. "I-I deserved better than a fucking text message telling me how inappropriate it was to be dating her manager. I get it. She's young. I'm not. She's got these great ti—"

"Now Brent, don't beat yourself up so much. Life is life, right? Focus on the now."

Of all the contracts he'd ever taken, this was easily the one that most resembled an American city. Dull. Get this loser drunk enough and he'll listen to anything.

Gary set up the stand by the window and leveled it. A tedious process, but precision cannot be rushed. He almost forgot about the drunk deadbeat on the phone.

"Where is Paige now?" he asked, glancing back toward the desk.

"On her way to Boston."

The man hiccuped and he wondered why his woman dumped him.

"Well," Gary suggested, "why not book a flight?"

Shifting toward the bed, Gary popped open the gun case and grinned.

"Never let a woman ruin the rest of your life."

He started inspecting the weapon, and oh could Gary relate. Damn. They were all women, weren't they? Well wasn't that just the butt end of some joke somewhere.

"It's the last show you booked for her, right?"

The one in the nice dress.

"You should go too."

The one in the war reenactment getup.

"Old times' sake."

The little precog with the mouth.

"You've earned that much."

The greenhorn of course.

"Bury the hatchet while you're there.

And Hana.

At this rate someone might accuse him of sexism, but it's not like he asked for everyone he'd really like to kill to be female. It just worked out that way.

"Shouldn't let these sorts of things fester," Gary finished. Gary lifted the rifle and set it onto the tripod. "They'll just make everything much less enjoyable."

Soon. A contract is a contract and patience is a virtue everyone believed in.

"Yeah," Brent grumbled. "Yeah I should. She can't just toss me out without… Without."

"You should sleep this off, buddy. Book that flight in the morning."

Reaching back, Gary pressed 'end' and sighed in relief.

God. Weeks of that man's blabbering. Gary wanted to start dating him just to dump him too.

Well, done now. Finally.

Yes, some jobs just sucked. But, sometimes the shitty jobs lead to something infinitely more interesting.

Gary checked the time and sat back for a moment.

He wondered if Americans in their dull cities knew how good they had it. It amazed him in some ways. The local heroes didn't exactly announce their patrol routes and times. Of course they didn't. They were lazy, not stupid. They could hide their information decently enough but without variation, the routes and times still became fairly predictable.

He only needed to wait a few minutes.

Taking hold of the rifle again, Gary pressed the butt to his shoulder and looked down the scope.

There was something familiar about it. Good old days, before capes were all over the place making things more interesting. More boring times to be sure, but simpler, and there's always a nostalgia for simpler times. Used to be a few good men with a handful of guns could get things done.

Now people shooting laser beams and flying around were as ubiquitous as corner coffee shops. The world really had gone mad. In that respect, Gary appreciated a return to basic simplicity.

One man with a job and a gun to complete it with. No need to spend months sucking up to some fat bastard with a doomed to fail relationship. Gary might be a villain, but he wasn't a pig. He had some standards.

Taking aim down the road, he looked ahead about five blocks.

There they were.

Keeping his weapon trained, he reached over and opened the window using the lever on the side. He did have to admire their punctuality. Just such a damn shame in Gary's mind.

Lining up the crosshairs, Gary exhaled.

He squeezed the trigger.

The weapon kicked in his hands, butt pressing into his shoulder. The shell clattered over the floor, coming to a stop when it hit the gasoline tanks stacked against the wall.

The first kid's head popped like a melon. Surprisingly apt metaphor with a large enough round.

As the body fell to the street, the second moved slowly. Shit training. Someone seriously failed before this point in time. She turned to watch the body fall, standing in place as Gary brought the reticule over her.

Then she started to move.

Objectively speaking, maybe she wasn't that slow. Fraction of a second made all the difference in the world really. With a semi-automatic, the only real delay between shots was steadying his aim. A small window where a target could take cover.

She didn't take it.

His first shot blew out her knee. Sent her toppling to the ground.

The second went through her throat as she tried to crawl to cover.

She kept moving after that.

A fighter. Reminded him of Hana. She never did know when to quit. Part of him almost rewarded that kind of tenacity. Maybe she deserved a long shot in hell of surviving.

Professionalism overruled.

Gary put his fourth shot through her head.

He'd call it mercy. Chances of surviving with her throat blown out were basically nil. No need to let a child suffer.

"Dress a bunch of brats up to fight and leave them out to hang." He pulled away from the scope and started to rise. "Damn shame."

Really, it wasn't their fault.

They were just kids playing soldier. Kids playing soldier under the mistaken notion that they weren't soldiers. Soldiers sent into the field inadequately trained, prepared, or equipped. The capes back in the Middle East would never wear something so form-fitting or poorly-armored. The padding Gary saw covering the vitals was good enough for some pea shooter a two-bit criminal might use, but not much else.

Well.

Time to go.

Gary Biaggi's work was done.

Ali Al-Saachez pulled the wig from his head. Black was not his color. He threw it back into the room, along with a match. Exiting the building through the security room, he offered a hand in mock salute while Barry the security guard burned all the video footage of the night.

Fanatics never changed.

They'd do the stupidest things if someone convinced them it would make a difference. Things like burning video footage that'll inevitably be traced back to them, or sitting in a cell because you happen to look like a guy. That last one really took the cake in Ali's opinion.

Of all the ways he'd slipped out of a prison, that one was the least interesting and the dumbest.

But he was out.

Meandering through a few back alleys, Ali Al-Saachez exited onto a street and joined a curious flow of people. Another weird thing about Americans. When someone got gunned down in his country, most people had the sense to run. Couple decades of unending war will teach common sense that way.

These people moved toward the bullets like tourists.

Ali went with the flow, quietly walking along until he reached the corner.

Another cape was already at the scene, hovering in the air. Eidolon, the petite and pretty one. She looked down at the bodies with a pale face visible under her mask, cape billowing dramatically behind her.

The street hung with a silence, long and ominous. Suppose Americans weren't so different. It was a familiar silence to him. The calm before the storm. The shock that ran through people as they realized something was about to change.

A window blowing out down the street seemed to work, followed by a secondary explosion as the C4 blew out the building's side and set it tumbling to the street below. Finally, something exploded.

Screams and shouts of shock filled the air. Eidolon raised her head and bolted in a streak of light. She wouldn't find anything, unfortunately. Ali loaded the room up with enough gasoline to burn the whole building down.

It wouldn't of course because the hero was there, but it would make a suitably impressive spectacle.

His own personal touch.

Ali stepped back and out from the crowd. Hailing a cab, he told the driver to take him to the airport. Rescheduling a missed flight was a hassle.

Picking out his remaining phone, Ali dialed his contact.

As soon as it picked up, he said, "Sorry about the delay. Some commotion down the road. Thought I'd hop in a cab and steer clear."

"It's already hitting the internet," Azrael noted. "I didn't think it would be that fast."

"Well you know kids these days," Ali replied. "Especially around here. Everyone has a cell phone. Always someone around to film a train burning down."

"We're moving on to phase two. You know where to be."

"And you know I don't work for free. Gotta have some professionalism in this line of work."

"Of course. Your fee for Houston is already deposited. As soon as Boston works out, we'll be paying that fee as well. Keep up the good work."

"Yeah, yeah."

Ali would toss the phone at the airport. Some thinker or another might manage to track it down, but by then he'd be long gone.

He poked at his smooth jawline. Maybe it was time to start growing his beard back?

The money would be useful. Some new toys were in order. He liked a good fight as much as the next villain, but going up against capes with just wits and a decent rifle really didn't cut it. Fortunately, there were plenty of capes who didn't care what anyone did with their shit. He'd just find a couple.

Things were about to get more his speed.