Gabie
III
Half a mile away from the coordinates Tony slams the car to a stop and we hop out.
With perfect understanding of each other we run the rest of the way to the location.
It's a large Malibu mansion being patrolled by minimal guards few of which have dogs.
A medium sized wall surrounds everything but the front entrance.
"Can you jump it or do you need a boost?" I whisper with the tiniest amount of sass in my tone. Tony responds by running forward and quickly scaling the wall. I swallow a sardonic laugh and follow behind.
Clint's been training me in combat, gymnastics, and archery.
Tony and I crouch down on the grassy courtyard once on the other side and then creep up a small staircase.
A single guards stands atop the steps.
Tony pulls out his makeshift whip and twirls it once before lashing it at the guard. The rope wraps around his ankles and Tony yanks making the man fall face first on the stone, knocking him out cold.
"Nice," I praise and hop to my feet as three other guards run towards us. Tony shoots one in the neck with his makeshift dart gun and then runs up to knee him in the face.
From behind my back I pull out the crowbar that was hooked in my belt.
A guard lunges at me but I duck under his swing and smash him in the ribs with my weapon. He doubles over in pain and I give him a swift punch to the face, keeping him down.
Whopping around I find a poised guard behind my back. Before he swings and before I react Tony grabs his head with the taser glove and shocks him. I add the finishing touch of smacking him senseless with my crowbar.
The men stay down and I take a deep breath.
Tony and I nod to each other before crouching down again and moving forward.
Yards away two men stand beside a fountain oblivious to their downed coworkers.
Tony winks at me and rolls a blue Christmas ornament to their feet.
The one picks the all up with a confused look that shifts to shock when it explodes in his face.
The other guard pulls a gun but Tony shoots him fives times in the chest with his compressed air gun.
The man falls back into the fountain so I grab another Christmas ornament bomb and drop it in next to him.
With triumphant grins Tony and I stalk away from the scene, Tony tossing aside his empty gun as he goes.
"What is our weapon now?" I whisper.
"This glove has one more charge, but after that your and your crowbar are the weapon," he responds.
A smirk comes to my lips and I toss my hair and stalk forwards.
No one stands guard at the side door, in fact there doesn't seem to be a door.
Inside it reeks of dugs and alcohol.
A sleeping woman lays on a table on our right and on our left a woman dressed in a sparkly gown reclines on a couch in front of a guard.
"Why is it so hot in here? I told you to put it at sixty-eight," she moans to the guard. She's too high or drunk to notice us come up behind the guard and he's too absorbed in his cards.
"My fault again. Let me tell you something sweetheart, I am not your personal-"
Tony cutting the man off uses his homemade weapon to directly electrocute the guards head. He is immediately knocked out cold.
Tony grabs the guards gun and points it at the woman who could care less.
She makes a finger gun with her hand and pretends to be serious.
"She's not a threat," I mutter to Tony.
"Right," he agrees and turns to the woman. He puts a finger to his lips and makes a shushing sound to which she responds by play firing her finger guns.
I roll my eyes and pull Tony along further into the mansion.
We scour the bottom flour and find nothing conducive to the Mandarin or Allie.
On the second floor however we find the film set.
The chair, the dark back drop, the insignias, and the props.
It's all very creepy and a little unexpected.
Behind a set, in the next room there's a messy master bedroom. Beer cans, bags of drugs, expensive electronics, and junk food litter almost every surface.
Beneath the covers on the bed there's subtly movement. I pay Tony's arm and nod towards it.
We share a look before slinking up on either side, him with his gun raised. I hold up my fingers and countdown from three.
The second I hit zero we rip the covers away to reveal two scantily clad women. My eyebrows raise in surprise and I resist exclaiming "what the hell!"
Tony holds a finger to his lips and aims the gun at them. They remain quiet and stare at us in shock.
A toilet flushes and the bathroom door opens. Tony and I share a frantic look and then scramble to hide behind the bed frame.
Tony peeks out and I lean just enough to see the man exiting the bathroom.
It's the Mandarin.
"Well, I wouldn't go in there for twenty minutes!" he jokes and laughs while shaking his bathrobe.
The unbelievable situation stops me from gagging in disgust and rather gaping in surprise at the supposed Mandarin.
"Now, which one of you is Vanessa?"
"That's me," one of the girls says and he tosses her a fortune cookie.
"Ah, Nessie! Did you know that fortune cookies aren't even Chinese?"
Tony shoots me an incredulous expression and I shrug equally as confused.
"There's some guy over here..." the first girl murmurs but trails off pointlessly. She doesn't care enough to expose us.
"They're made by Americans, based on...based on the Japanese recipes."
"I can't take this anymore," I breathe into Tony's ear.
He responds by jumping up with his gun pointed directly at the Mandarin.
"Hey!"
"Hands up!" I chime in and hop out as well.
The Mandarin drops everything and puts his hands in the air.
"Bloody hell. Bloody hell," he swears.
"Don't move," Tony growls.
"I'm not moving. If you want something, take it, although the guns are all fake because those wankers wouldn't trust me with the real ones," he rambles and I frown.
This is not the Mandarin, this cannot be the Mandarin.
"What?" I splutter.
"Hey, do you fancy either of the birds?" he asks and gestures to the girls who frown.
"Heard enough. You're not him. The Mandarin, the real guy, where?! Where's the Mandarin?! Where is he?!" Tony shouts angrily.
"Better answer him!" I reinforce venomously. The man backs up nervously and we step forward for each step he takes back.
"Woh! Woh! He's here. He's here!" he exclaims and then sits down heavily onto a modern recliner.
"Where!" I demand.
"But he's not here. He's here, but he's not here," he continues and gestures to himself.
"What do you mean?" Tony and I spit out.
"It's complicated. Hey, it's complicated, alright?" the man defends hastily. "It's complicated."
"Uncomplicate it," I order darkly. My anger has started making my hands heat up and the air around is whip around.
"Ladies out. Get out of the bed, get in the bathroom," Tony barks and they immediately flee from the room.
As Tony watches them leave the Mandarin slides off the chair and try's to crawl away.
Tony shoots a hole in the ground before him and I a fireball.
The Mandarin squeals and returns to his char.
"Talk. Now," I state firmly.
"My name is Trevor, Trevor Slattery," he begins and I frown.
It's not a lie, this guy is Trevor Slattery. His head is full of images of naked woman, alcohol, cocaine, meth, weed, and paparazzi. This guy ain't the Mandarin.
"What are you? What're you a decoy? You're a double, right?" Tony concludes harshly.
"What? Like an understudy? No, absolutely not," Trevor scoffs and Tony jabs the gun in the direction of his face. Trevor recoils and covers his face. "Don't hurt the face! I'm an actor."
"You got a minute to live, fill it with words," Tony snaps.
"Important ones!" I clarify while sifting through his thoughts.
They're so scrambled and idiotic it's hard to find anything useful.
"Just a role. 'The Mandarin, see, it's not real," he explains.
"Then how did you get here, Trevor?" Tony counters and Trevor sighs. S leans back in his chair and pops open a beer can with half lidded eyes.
"Um...well, I um...I have a little problem with, um...substances, and I ended up, um...doing things, no two ways about it. In the street that a man shouldn't do," he stutters along Broken ly.
The pathetic state of the man diffuses my anger but only increases Tony's.
"Next!" I hiss before Tony gets angrier.
"And then, they approached me about the role and they knew about the drugs."
"What did they say they'd get you off 'em?" Tony questions and I scoff.
"Dies this guy look like he's off drugs?"
"Said they'd give me more!" Trevor chimes in to agree with me. "They gave me things, they gave me this palace. They gave me plastic surgery. They gave me things." His voice gets quiet and quieter until his eyes shut and re begins snoring.
"The hell?! Did he just fall asleep!?" I balk and Tony groans.
"Did you just nod off?" Tony asks and kicks his leg to make him wake. "Hey!"
"No! And a lovely speedboat!" he cheers, snapping awake as if there was no lapse in time. "And the thing was, he needed someone to take credit for some 'accidental explosions.'" Trevor makes sloppy air quotes and winks both eyes at us.
"He? Killian?"
"Killian," Trevor confirms but seems to be asking himself.
"He created you?"
"He created me," Trevor repeats.
"Custom-made terror threat," Tony and I mutter in unison.
It's perfect really, it's the terrorist the media always suspects.
Trevor gets up to find another drink and we let him. This actor is no threat to us.
"Yes! Yes! His think tank thinked it up, the pathology of the serial killer. The manipulation of Western iconography," Trevor elaborates and turns back to us.
"Jeez," I sigh.
"Ready for another lesson?" he croaks with the Mandarin's grating tone. "Blah, blah, blah. Of course, it was my performance that brought the Mandarin to life."
"Your performance? Where people die?" Tony concludes in an accusing tone.
I've decided to stop listening and start scanning Trevor's thoughts for anything useful.
"No, they didn't. Look around you, costumes, green screen. Oh, honestly, I wasn't on location for half this stuff. When I was, it was movie magic, love," Trevor rambles on.
In his mind his thoughts are scattered, dull, and practically pointless. His drug addled mind has almost no useful information.
"I'm sorry, but I got a best friend who's in a coma and he might not wake up. So you're gonna have to answer for that. You're still going down, pal. You under-Gabie-"
Theres the quiet bang followed by sharp pulsing pain in the center of my back. My muscles seize up and my mind is instantly closed off from Trevor's.
Tony turns to defend me but Savin is faster and he knocks Tony over the head with he butt of his gun. Tony falls to my knees and my eyes follow him.
"Okay, Trevor, what'd you tell him?" Savin questions and pushes me to my knees. I'm helpless to stop him, I'm almost immobile.
"I didn't tell him anything," Trevor lies.
"Nothing?"
"No."
"You should've pressed the panic button," Savin lectures.
"Well I panicked, but then I handled it."
I would snort if I could because he definitely did not handle it.