Chapter Twenty Three: Underground
The first thing Julien registered, in his bleary wake, was that he was very very cold. He shuddered, and then was it that he felt how stiff and uncomfortable his joints were, particularly his shoulder. Steadily, he opened his heavy aching eyelids and gazed around. At first, all was a blur, but slowly things came into contact. He was laying on a tiled floor in a room with bright, artificial lighting. He sat up, and immediately his head rushed in disagreement with the sudden movement. A sharp pain. He must have been drugged.
Suddenly, the memories flooded back to him. The Penguin Eyes' office firm and home, kissing Skipper, the sleeping gas… Skipper. He looked around frantically, but Skipper was no where in sight. In fact, Julien was completely alone.
The room he was in was rather small, too. Three metal walls surrounded him, and then there was a thick glass one with a couple holes in it, which separated him from a room of similar 'decor'. Julien's eyes narrowed when he noticed that he wasn't as alone as he thought. On the other side of the glass was Clemson, seated in a comfortable looking chair and casually crossing his legs as he read a newspaper.
"...Clemson?" He groaned quietly. "...My head…" He ran a hand over his throbbing forehead.
His abusive boyfriend of several years glanced up from the paper, and a smirk crawled across his lips that was so vile and devious that it made Julien want to throw up on the spot. "Oh, hello your highness. Have a nice nap?"
He laughed, and Julien batted his eyes with an innocent pout. "Where am I?"
"Oh, don't play coy with me," Clemson snapped, his grin completely gone and replaced with a snarl of detestation. "You really thought you could get away with outing my plans to those private investigators? How stupid do you think I am?"
Part of him wanted to answer Clemson's rhetorical question and tell him just how stupid Clemson genuinely was, but he knew that above all his priorities were getting answers.
Julien dropped the dainty act and settled on glaring. "Where am I?" He reiterated sternly.
"About sixty feet underground in Hoboken, New Jersey." Clemson jeered with scorn. "By the way, your boy-toy is still back in New York, probably still laying face-down in the sewers. You're completely alone."
There was that word again - alone. Clemson had always made a point to isolate Julien, to make him feel as though there was never a way out of his nefarious grasp. Now, it was more evident than ever that Clemson reeled in pleasure at the thought of Julien's helplessness. Never before was it as intimidating as it was now, especially the idea of Skipper being hurt. Julien's glare deepened.
"Oh yes, I know all about your little side dish. And I must say, I'm surprised you went for someone older than me! He's what, in his late thirties? That's gross." Clemson mocked. "I know plenty of younger women - or in your case, gentlemen, who would love to have a taste of Park Zoo's king of the lemurs. But I'm guessing you love the older men, don't you? Are those some daddy issues I see?"
Julien held his ground, though part of him wanted to laugh at Clemson for his cluelessness. If only Clemson knew that he'd been seeing Parker for months before they went through with this plan… Julien would have loved to see the look on his face.
Still, he only continued to scowl. "What do you plan on doing to me, all the way in the down here?"
A door that Julien couldn't see from his position on the floor opened and shut heavily. He heard the whirring of mechanical joints before Blowhole came into view, standing beside Clemson. He stared at Julien with mild disgust. His red, mechanical eye seemed to glare stronger when focused on the showboy.
"Good to see he's finally awake." Blowhole commented flippantly, before his eyes were on Clemson. "What have you told him so far?"
"Nothing much," Clemson replied simply, his glower still focused on his boyfriend. "You know, Julien, I just can't express how disappointed I am in you for betraying me like that. I thought you knew better, I really did."
"Yes," Dr. Blowhole mused. "Betrayal is a horrible thing."
He whipped a gun from his pocket and shot Clemson in the head.
It was such a fast, fluid moment that Julien didn't even scream, didn't even understand what was happening at first. Clemson didn't so much as have time to know what was about to happen before it did, and suddenly his blood and brains and fragments of his skull were splattered all over the wall and the far end of the floor. His body stayed upright for a moment, before it collapsed to the ground, rolling limply as if there had never been a soul within. Blood pooled around his open neck, catching on the edges of each tile. Clemson was dead.
Clemson was dead.
Clemson was dead.
Julien closed his gaping mouth and realized he was shaking. Clemson? Dead? How could it be? He hadn't loved the man, never so much as liked him and even considered his feelings for him to be hatred, but it was confounding. The man who he'd let control him for seven years was dead, lying just a few feet away from him, gone forever and never to touch Julien again, never to speak to him.
If Julien weren't so shocked, he might have smiled. If he weren't so disquieted by the sheer amount of blood coming out of Clemson's raw, wide neck, maybe he would have even thanked Dr. Blowhole for getting rid of Clemson Gidro. But he was too alarmed to do anything but stare in utter disbelief.
"Oh, don't be so surprised." Dr. Blowhole pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the small droplets of blood off of his hands, before polishing his gun and pocketing it once more. "I planned to have Savio kill both of you anyway, and he would've for a stack of hundred dollar bills and a release from prison… And then I'd have Parker kill him. The less people connected, the better. Besides, that man was a pain. You all are."
The glare returned to Julien's face. "So then, you will be killing me now too, if I am hearing you right?"
"Soon, soon." Blowhole assured him. "You still owe Parker a night, you know. I'm not sure how he got it into his head that he should be fooling around with other men, but he's done his job well for years so I don't really give a damn… I'll pay him what he wants, which in this case, is you."
Julien almost smiled. Almost. He was tempted to let Blowhole know that Parker had spent many nights with him, but seeing as that was what his life was hanging onto, he kept his mouth shut on the subject and moved onto a different question.
"Why have you been doing all this then, anyway? If not for Clemson, then…?" He trailed off expectantly.
Dr. Blowhole sent him a glance that translated into pity. "Oh Julien, you poor idiotic fool. You couldn't have really thought I was doing any of this for him, could you? No no, this was all a plot for revenge…"
Revenge. Of course, he should have seen that coming, especially from the vindictive type like Francis Blowhole.
"Our little friend, Skipper, has been an annoyance to me for years." Blowhole began to pace, no longer looking at Julien but instead scowling at the floor that was now painted with blood. "Always asking questions he shouldn't be asking, poking his nose where he shouldn't, never just disappearing… He's part of the reason why I lost all my power and merit in the CIA, you know. He didn't even have to say a word - the way he moped around and refused to go on missions anymore was enough for commander McSlade to point his finger at me and tell me that my privileges were revoked. Why? Because I made Hans disappear?"
"You? You… Made…?" Julien could hardly find his voice, and when it came out, it was in a broken whisper.
Blowhole didn't seem to hear him at all. He laughed, still ranting more to himself than to Julien by that point in time. "I got nervous - nervous that after all this time, maybe Skipper would start to think a bit too much… He was always a thinker, him and that damned Kowalski, trying to figure everything out. I thought that he might start to ask where Hans went, why no one ever really looked for him. Nigel's time in the CIA is running thin, so I thought, this would be the perfect time to act and get rid of both of them for good."
Julien was trembling violently. He thought he might vomit.
"So why not ruin Skipper's reputation, wipe him off the face of the planet like I did Hans? I didn't want him finding out that I kidnapped his partner. Didn't want him to know what I was doing, didn't want him to tell everyone and get me in more trouble… And with him and Nigel both mysteriously disappearing, I'd be fine to take up my old job again, wouldn't I?" Dr. Blowhole grinned in satisfaction with his own scheme.
"This… Hans you mentioned," Julien's voice shook. "Is he… Still alive?"
Blowhole turned to his captive as if just recalling that he was there, and smiled wickedly. "Of course he is. Anyway, Julien. Count on your death by tomorrow - I'll have Parker visit you tonight."
He turned on his heel and left, leaving a very unsettled Julien Hira alone.
It had taken a bit of searching, but eventually Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, Private and Maurice had found Blowhole's elusive hideout in the outskirts of Hoboken. There were two ways in - the front door, which was heavily guarded by red officers, or the backway, which was more of an old abandoned tunnel system that would lead them deep underground through a labyrinth of passages.
Though it wasn't ideal, they ended up choosing the back. Dr. Blowhole had weapons and hundreds of red officers at his disposal. Them? They had three admittedly washed out ex-CIA agents, one innocent man with the mindset of a child, a forty five year old financial adviser, and the element of surprise.
They crept in with subtlety, but honestly, they knew that no one but them would have ventured to the old, dirty tunnels that were once part of a mine. By the time they made it far enough that they no longer could see the opening, they knew that there was no turning back - not that any of them had really considered that an option beforehand.
"Kowalski, options." Skipper demanded when their passageway split into two different tunnels.
His scientific and self-proclaimed genius surrogate brother examined both areas critically, before turning back to Skipper. "Judging by the way the railroad tracks end a few feet in, I'm guessing that the one on the right is a dead-end. We should head left."
Skipper nodded and their group followed Kowalski's educated guess. They continued in silence for a handful of minutes before Private spoke up.
"I don't suppose we could just walk out with Julien," he murmured worriedly. "What do we do once we find him?"
"In and out, like we were never here." Skipper replied. "Only take out the enemy team members if we absolutely have to. Remember, we're completely outnumbered. Once we leave, we'll contact the North Wind and have them get rid of Dr. Blowhole and his whole base for good."
Maurice's eyes fell to the ground, before he looked at Skipper with a mixture of determination and what may very well have been sadness. "Skipper… There's something you have to know about Blowhole."
Skipper turned to face him, but before he could ask what Maurice wanted to tell him, there was a loud explosion and the dirt ceiling above began to collapse.
