Chapter 2-Legends

Trolley Park, Palm City, June 29th

Vince Faraday awoke to someone rattling on his door. He climbed groggily down to the door. Vince opened the door and a streak of brown hair whizzed past him.

"So last night" Orwell said as if entering in the middle of the sentence. "I was monitoring the ARK channels and found reports of a gunfight at the docks. I hack into the security cams and find this". She lay her laptop down and a video popped up.

"It's just a gunfight, I was a cop that's not uncommon" Vince said rubbing his eyes. "Especially in this city".

"Until I saw this" Orwell said. A kid, a few years older than his son Tripp was walking through the warehouse complex, rifle in hand killing the smugglers. Orwell flipped to another camera view and saw a man with a rifle heading for the same warehouse as the kid. Orwell changed the screen to show both. The kid and the man both disappeared into the same warehouse.

"Hey wait a second" Vince said pointing to the screen. "I've seen that guy, yeah that's Francis O'Reilly. He's been suspected to be one of the Lee Zhu Hon's enforcers for years now but we never had any concrete evidence". The screens changed to show the kid emerge from the warehouse with a metal case.

"Where's O'Reilly?" Vince said confused.

"That's what I'm wondering" Orwell said. "So I got in contact with a friend in that area that does a lot of freelance work for the local gangsters. He checked it out and said he saw the Lich leaving the scene. The words stung her tongue, the name of her former kidnapper and forced husband.

"The Lich?" Vince exclaimed. He nearly brainwashed the entire city with a hallucinogen, they were dealing with a terrorist.

"But I don't think he's the one behind all of this" Orwell said. "I'm going to investigate this further".

"No you don't have to do that" Vince said putting his hand on her arm. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. "I know how you feel about the Lich, I know it was traumatic for you". She was silent.

"I'm fine" she said still looking at their two hands.

"I'll look into it" Vince said.

"I have contacts, I can get more answers than you" Orwell pressed.

"But I'm used to these kind of people" Vince said. "And the Cape can get more answers than Vince Faraday".

The kid, otherwise known as the infamous assassin for hire, Living Legend aka Adrian Sinner exited the shower in his expensive penthouse apartment in Olympus Park, one of Palm City's more opulent districts. The house was well furnished with modern appliances. The Channel Eight News blared on about continued gang warfare. Adrian's personnel cell phone rang. Something that rarely happened seeing as how the phone was under the name of a kid who died in 1957.

"I saw your handy work on the security feed" Orwell's voice said. Adrian smiled.

"Sis, it's good to hear your voice" Adrian said. "I trusted my little information on your friend The Lich helped".

"I'm not your sister" she spat. "And yes it did, I passed it off to my friend".

"You know maybe I should call him my brother in law instead of the Lich?" Adrian pressed with a sick smile on his face.

"Shut up".

"Just playing with you O, so how's your quest to bring justice to Palm City?" Adrian said flopping down on his couch. "When does your friend want to meet me?"

"Stop it Adrian" she said raising her voice. "What was in that box?"

"That's not of your concern" Adrian said turning off the television. "That's between me and my employers".

"I know you Adrian, you looked inside it" Orwell pressed. "Tell me what was in there". Adrian was quiet for a moment.

"Hey how's mom?" he said dryly. It was Orwell's turn to go silent. She looked about her room apprehensively like a scared child.

"Fine, you don't want to talk about what was in there" Orwell said angrily. "Then don't, but sooner or later my friend is going to track this to you".

"Just know this O" he said. "I wasn't working for Lee Zhu". With that Adrian hung up the phone. Adrian went to his kitchen where the briefcase full of a good two thousand untraceable hundred dollar bills. Adrian picked up the briefcase and brought it over to a grandfather clock, a little out of place within his penthouse. He turned the hands to 10:47 and the grandfather clock opened outward a little to Adrian's wall safe. He stuck the briefcase into the safe and closed the clock.

Lee Zhu Hon leaned back in his padded chair and swallowed two white aspirin tablets. He rubbed his temples and turned back to the hooded figure standing before him.

"So you're saying that you fought your way through a horde of smugglers and all you bring back is this card?" Lee yelled.

"You forget that Francis is dead" the Lich said. "Don't you care about that?"

"A necessary loss" Lee murmured thinking back to their time in Owl Island.

"The man who killed Dog, he dialed a number after exiting the warehouse with a metal case" the Lich said. "We might be able to learn of who he was working for".

"What if he was freelance?" Lich growled.

"I've been in the business long enough to know a mercenary's prospect" Lee said taking a sip of ginger ale. "This was practically a set up from the start".

Vince and Orwell sat hunched over at a diner in Calvert Park.

"I have something to tell you" Orwell said pulling a piece of paper out of her blouse. "My informant, he wasn't freelance muscle. He's my….my brother".

"What!" Vince said spitting out his cola.

"Not really, it's a long story" Orwell said looking away.

"Is there a short version?" Vince asked.

"Not really".

"So how does your possible brother know about this?" Vince asked.

"He was the kid in the video" Orwell said after a waitress brought their check over.

"What!" Vince exclaimed. "When were you planning on telling me this?"

"He's one of the top hired muscles in the city" Orwell said feeling more ashamed of herself and her past.

"His name?"

"Well his business name is Living Legend" Orwell said leaning back and pulling a wad of cash from her jeans. Vince nodded slowly.

"You've heard of him?" Orwell asked.

"Four months ago I was tacked on to the Palm City PD Organized Crime Unit" Vince said staring intently at the table. "We raided a penthouse in Paris Beach and found everyone inside dead. We learned later that it was a meeting of some of the top drug lords on the American West Coast. We found a dying man who had written the words Living Legend across the wall but he died before we could get anything out of him".

"That sounds like his work" Orwell said.