Chapter Three: Stone Blind
Miranda Jameson frowned. Mysteries upon mysteries, mysteries written in strange files encoded on her computer, though they barely needed more than what they had. What connection between Kori and Nightwing, and why? She lifted the tea to her lips and frowned as she set it down. "Egh," she said in irritation.
"Not very good?" Nightwing asked, standing in the doorway.
Miranda was practiced. "No," she said distastefully. "I'm so used to good American coffee, and when I come back to London--" she made a face, then smiled at her visitor. "What about you? Missing America?"
"Not yet," he said, taking a seat. "There's a lot to do over here."
Good, Miranda thought, but only nodded. "Will the President keep you here for the entire conference?"
Nightwing shrugged. "Who knows? Probably. He wants me to keep an eye on some of the local troublemakers, especially."
"Local troublemakers?" Miranda asked, pouring some tea. "I used to live here and I've never heard of them. Like who?"
Nightwing waved them off. "The one that's the most dangerous right now is Slade Wilson, most likely. But there's a good chance he'll hire some of the locals--he works with underlings a lot. One's an insubstantial called, uncreatively, Shadow."
"An insubstantial--walks through walls?" Miranda guessed.
"Yeah. But the most dangerous is the Spidren. A sort of mutated human, I think--someone tried to cross-breed her with a spider and it failed miserably."
Outwardly, Miranda looked a little repulsed, a little fascinated. "Disgusting," she said. "So, what else will you be doing while you're here...?"
-
Gregory Shaw cleared his throat. The dry erase marker slipped in his sweaty palm; they hadn't even give him the electronic board. And they were staring at him. A worm squirmed agonizingly in his stomach, and he tried to pull his thoughts together. It was so hard to concentrate--they were staring at him... "So, you see, if you dampen the nerves with the...the chemical, then they...reactions tend to be more...nerves work better...not as likely to m-mutate unfavorably..." He swallowed. Dr. Briman yawned, and Gregory panicked. "This can s-stop the negative side effects," he said quickly, but Dr. Ceres stood up.
"Thank you, Dr. Shaw, but we already have some research like this going on."
"N-no, wait, this chemical..."
"I'm sorry, Dr. Shaw, but we have patients back at the facility. Gentlemen, let's go."
Gregory's heart sunk as the men got up to leave. He curled his fists helplessly as the classroom door slammed behind the five doctors. He had blown it.
Anger rose inside of him, and his face darkened. Darkened into black, then faded into gray--the marker fell through his fingers. He's show them, he'd show them all...
-
The door slammed shut, and Kori lifted her head from the pillow sleepily. Slade had already left. Her brain, fogged by sleep, forced her to react. "Hello?" she called. It couldn't be her cat. "Slade?" she called, but there was no answer. Yawning, she sat up, pulling her pyjamas from where they were twisted around her body, pushing her straight hair out of her face.
She stepped out of bed, treading on the edge of her long pyjama pants as she opened the small bedroom door. The small hallway was empty--she walked it and turned the corner to the main room. "Hello? Slade?" she called.
"Not quite, sweetie," a woman's voice said, hard and flat with sarcasm. Kori turned curiously, face calm, but the tip of her finger glowed green. Sitting on her couch was a woman with unnaturally blond hair that gleamed painfully in the sunlight, almost like gold. Gold gleamed on her gloved hands and arms, the shirt tight on her figure, the same unnatural shade as her hair. Her pants were baggy and black as she crossed her legs gracefully, her arms outspread on the back of the couch. Her face was haughty but beautiful--her eyeshadow was flecked with gold glitter, making her eyes look long and larger than they were.
"And you are?" Kori asked, ignoring her after the initial calculating glance, beginning to move into the kitchen. The woman laughed.
"I am Aphrodite by the educated, Goldilocks by the children, and Blondie by the coarse, Miss--Anderson? Adrene? Anders? whatever name suits your fancy. I'm in the gold business."
"I don't wear much jewelry," Kori said dryly, pouring Lucky Charms into a bowl. Blondie laughed.
"No, I'm not surprised. The famous Kori Anderson--not quite normal enough to be human, not quite strange enough to be alien, with the long red hair and the strange powers, correct? A runaway, an assassin's--girlfriend? daughter? niece? acquaintance?--no one knows. A former good-girl turned bad--or if not bad, at least much more self-centered." Her smile widened. "You amaze me, Kori, amuse and amaze me."
"I feel honored," she said wryly. "Do you want my autograph or is there another reason for this visit?"
Blondie smiled, more a flash of her teeth than a true smile. "I'm Goldilocks, Miss Anderson. I was walking through the woods and found your house, but no porridge is set out for me. Aphrodite was roaming the earth searching for her shrines--what more do you want from me? I'm here to do my service."
Kori pulled open the refrigerator door and pulled out a gallon of milk, pouring it on her cereal. "I love cereal," she said, talking at Blondie rather than to her. "It's such a novel concept. So much work, all put into this little box. Barely four ounces, in American measures. Not very much at all." She sat down with a spoon and lifted a bite to her mouth, chewing contentedly. "It's lovely, Blondie. Can I call you Blondie? Aphrodite or Goldilocks is quite a mouthful."
Blondie smiled, and this time there was condescending amusement in the smile. "Whatever you wish."
"You know what amuses me?" Kori said, ignoring Blondie and intent on her cereal. "You. I trust you as much as I trust my sisters--I'll trust you with my life but tell you not one of my secrets. It's my ability to keep secrets that makes me so valuable. Are you a bounty hunter, Blondie? Unless my mark is wrong, Midas is your last name. I've heard of you before. You don't want money and I don't know how many secrets I'm willing to share. What do you want from me?"
Blondie smiled widely. "Can I be honest with you, Kori?"
"I'll be as honest with you as you are with me."
"I was paid, frankly, to bring back a body." She eyed Kori warily.
Kori snorted incredulously. "Debrah Kellington?" she said disbelievingly.
"I'm not going to reveal that," Blondie said coolly. "But more to the point, two bodies." She watched Kori closely. "Know a Miss Fantine?"
Kori was still, apparently playing with a marshmallow in the bottom of her bowl. Blondie smiled triumphantly. "You don't want me dead, Kori."
"Don't I?" Kori said smoothly. Her eyes gleamed dangerously. "Maybe I do, Blondie. Maybe you think that I'm more soft-hearted than I look."
"But not likely," Blondie said. "You are getting the Teen Titans out of the way. You are getting Debrah Kellington out of the way. You are getting ready to attack something--what is it, Kori?"
Kori smiled. "So," she said pleasantly, softly. "Dear old Deb wants to know what I'm up to, does she."
"The likelihood of Debrah Kellington hiring an assassin to take you out is unlikely," Blondie said cooly.
"What is it she wants? If it's even her. She wants a gold statue of me, I presume." Kori smiled at Blondie, and it was not a nice smile. "By you."
Blondie smiled. "This is polite society, Miss Anderson. We smile and make inconsequential small talk until one of us dies."
"Fair enough," Kori said, and Blondie jumped a second before the flat was illuminated in a blast of green light.
-
Slade faced the Ambassador at his desk. The Ambassador was not a man he liked even by the slightest of standards--his pompousness and arrogance did not lend itself to Slade's company, and the only reason he had taken the job had nothing to do with the six-figure-sum he'd been offered.
"I do not want anyone intruding on this meeting, Dr. Wilson," the Ambassador said sternly. "No one should ever know about this except me and you. As far as everyone else knows, I am golfing on my private estates. And you must keep this in total secrecy."
Slade's voice was icy--bland with a barely detectable undercurrent of contempt. "Of course."
The Ambassador nodded. "You will follow me in your car, at a distance that could be termed coincidence. Take the overpass at Magnolia Drive and arrive approximately five minutes before me. Set up guard and do not let anyone enter the thirteenth floor. You know what to do."
"Of course," Slade said again, the contempt a hair stronger, but still nothing the Ambassador could reasonably take offense at. "You hired me to do the job. Let me do it without your instructions hindering me. If left up to you, you will do much worse of a job than I could."
Of course. Feed the man's paranoia. Keep his questions away from Slade. The Ambassador was fairly certain in his own mind that he would have a shot at Presidency, a delusion that Slade had found most handy. For not the first time, he envied Kori, stuck at this desk job as he was while she got free rein. But it was essential.
Slade was at his car before he realized it, opening the doors automatically. Stationed inside, he kept his eyes on the rearview mirror as he turned on the radio unthinkingly. Background noise, appear normal and above suspicion--not worthy of it. The Ambassador came into view, opening the doors of his silver SUV.
I fought the law and the law won
Slade realized what the words were saying, and his lips curled in disgust and amusement, though he did not change the station. The law, he had found, was a very changeable thing, given the right amount of cash and persuasion. The Ambassador pulled out of his parking space, beginning to circle the parking garage, and Slade allowed him two floors before he pulled out and followed him.
He wasn't stupid. It was crucial at this step that he lose his trademarks. Drones were gone, the HIVE was gone, all connections to the HAYEP and the Titans as gone as money could make them. Only Wintergreen remained, and he was guarding the most precious treasure. For just a moment, Slade's eyes became steely. So close.
And the Ambassador thought he had plans. Well, Slade was almost past caring about the things of Earth. Normally, an Ambassador meeting with members of Parliment in secret would have been watched carefully by him, listening devices carefully implanted, everything recorded and filed, plans and secrets easily shattered, but he was allowing this to continue.
He followed the car easily even in London traffic, looping around on the side-street to arrive at the building and pulling into the parking lot. The building he was looking for had only twelve stories, and at that Slade smiled with grim satisfaction.
The car locked behind him automatically as he pushed the button, slamming the door shut, the dark tint hiding anything from view. Inside, the receptionist stared at him until her gaze was dropped to something interesting on her computer screen--namely the money Slade dropped there absently, totally ignoring him as he went back into the halls. Some people in suits gave him strange looks, but he ignored them. It was amazing what you could get if you looked like you knew what you were doing and you had something better to do than answer questions about where you were going. And he had every reason to be here.
The Ambassador's fee was paid up front, of course. And the trouble with hiring an assassin to protect you from assassins, Slade thought as he opened the door to the roof, was that you couldn't really trust the person you hired. It was a pity, he thought as he opened the panel on the bottom of the plane, that something regrettable should happen to the Ambassador. But after all, he was a major political figure, and assassination in high society was rarely called such. A plane accident was a sad occurrence, but not an uncommon one. Especially when some careless engineer hadn't attached crucial wires near the control panel.
The bomb Slade strapped above the landing gear would never be discovered. After all, the control failure would come first.
He was gone when the Ambassador and on the plane, followed by the pilots and stewardesses. Yes, a personal plane was a fine thing, and the death of them all was regrettable, but engineers could be so careless. His eyes were unreadable as the plane started up and rose into the air. Quite an expensive toy, too--vertical liftoff, beautiful silver body, turned on a dime, could fly below radar, faster than sound. It would have made a lesser man murder for the sheer envy, but Slade merely watched impassively.
The plane was quite high when the small explosion from the back happened, a mere flare of light and smoke from this distance. Slade raised the binoculars to his eyes and watched the plane start to spiral downwards. Hmm. It was supposed to have been over water by then, but one could only hope. Regrettable, certainly.
But toys did have a tendency to break.
-
Nightwing paced his room. Miranda was generous to her guests, and his room was big and airy, with two large bay windows overlooking her backyard garden. A closet opposite the door was built out of the wall, covered with a thin curtain that was doubtless elegant and more. The bed was in the center of the room, the dresser and vanity beside it. If Nightwing had been as suspicious as Slade Wilson, he would have recognized immediately that there was nowhere in this room to hide, and that anyone from the door could have shot anyone within unless they hid behind the bed--not adequate cover in any case.
But Nightwing didn't notice such things. He trusted his hostess and had more pressing matters at hand. A last phone call, a last request, the last he had heard from her had been eight years ago. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, anymore, and if he had been as brutally honest with himself as Slade Wilson was, he would have given up long ago. He was chasing a memory of a woman--no, a girl--who was probably dead. He knew that Kori Anderson was it, but at the same time, she was not what he was looking for. Nightwing didn't know why he followed Kori Anderson and Slade Wilson, but something inside him told him to. Slade Wilson himself would have long ago examined such emotions and realized that there was nothing sensible about chasing an girl he had barely known.
But the apprentice had never been as skillful as his master.
-
The doors to the classroom banged open, the hall light casting a long shadow down to the stage, where Gregory Shaw was still sitting, face twisted and fists clenched. He looked up into the light, startled, his face losing its strain of anger and smoothing, squinting slightly in the light. He got to his feet unsteadily. His eyes, accustomed to the dark, made out the shape of someone standing in the doorway, but that was all.
"What do you want?" he snarled. Anger had taken away his nervousness and made his voice arrogant, hateful. The figure stepped inside, flicked on a light, and kicked the door shut behind her. It clanged in the empty classroom.
"Hello, Dr. Shaw," she said, smiling pleasantly. "I hear that you have some...special abilities that I'd like to use."
Gregory listened with rising interest as dollar figures were mentioned, but his face remained impassive. "You want them killed," he said flatly.
The woman shrugged and raised one eyebrow, her luscious lips curving upward into a smile. "You know what I want, Dr. Shaw. And in return..." she paused. "I can certainly offer you some interesting information on the Hospital Board, of course. They didn't fund your research this term, I hear," she added, and saw his fists clench momentarily. She smiled at this. "I'm sure you would make use of the information."
Dr. Shaw was silent for a number of minutes. "Do you want a body?" he asked finally. "Or just small pieces?"