Well, I was right about one thing: this place was no deserted block of storage units. The units had obviously been removed years ago, walls knocked down to reveal a huge consult room. Our double doors had led to a small, railed balcony about five feet in diameter. It gave the perfect overview of the meeting, prime position to see any intruders on the bottom floor. At the far end of the hall was a large table that seated six guests. Three of these were dressed in scarlet and black robes, the shoulders of these sloped into a point – the Triad. There seconds in command sat next to them, to their right of course, their black robes and hoods cloaking their faces in shadow. That's what I really need… I thought sourly.
In front of the master table were three smaller yet longer tables where goons, henchmen and associates of each of the Triad sat. I could already see the uneasy glances pass between the tables. The Warlord's rarely got on, but civility amongst the henchmen? Unheard of. Fortunately their Lords would keep them in line, for now.
Matching the stances, strides and body language of Jay and the other real guards I began travelling around the balcony in an anti-clockwise direction, all the while listening in on anything below. I would have loved to have absorbed Jay's heightened hearing but I guessed that growing wings at that moment might break the whole undercover thing. Instead I sighed quietly and waited impatiently for the meeting to begin. After twenty-three minutes and six and a half laps of the consul room the crowds were finally shushed into silence. The Triad stood, and I held my breath, the silence so smothering it felt even a small inhalation of air would break it.
"Welcome," Natalia spoke first. Her striped black and pink Mohawk clashed harshly with her robes, the piercings in her eyebrows, lips, nose and cheek flashed in the light as she spoke. "Fellow villains of the north east. It's good to see all of your faces before me. Especially my dear associates from Central City." Natalia's crowd cheered but she silenced them quickly with a raised palm. "As most of you are aware Lord Slade from the Gotham and Bludhaven territory holds important information on a threat that may affect us all."
She turned to Slade, stocky and grey but I doubt anyone would be brave enough to admit he was old Slade stood a good foot taller than the petite Natalia. His hair shaved in a buzz cut hinting to his military allegiance long ago. The deep ridges of scars on the right side of his face hid mostly by a threatening eye-patch. Slade was terrifying – I'll give him that.
"Lord Natalia is right," he exclaimed in a deep voice that echoed through the hall. "What I'm about to share with you all is strictly confidential, I'm sure there will not be even a rumour that it has left this room." During his opening lines I was positive that everyone noticed his hand gripping the hilt of his blade tightly. He paused, making me stop and lean slightly against the rail. The suspense of his pause causing my heart to race in my chest. "There is a mutant that lived in my territory," he announced. "Who could absorb the powers of others, taking as many abilities as she wants for as long as she wants."
There was a mumble at the announcement, from the looks of some of Natalia's goons they didn't appear that impressed. But it was Captain Boomerang that answered him.
"Really, Slade," he sighed, the bored undertone radiating from his words. "This is the intel that you drag us all here for? We've seen mutant absorbers before! Parasite, Black Alice –"
Slade's next words were through his teeth. "Yes I know that Boomer. But there's something different about her I'm telling you."
"The Capt has a point," Natalia interjected. "What makes her different Slade?"
There was a short pause where Slade stared down at the table, finally he looked up, frustration strong in his features.
"I'm not sure yet…"
A chorus of arguments erupted at the tables. Henchmen stood up, screaming at the other tables calling Slade out on wasting their time and resources to set up this meeting. Slade's men racing to defend their master with such vigour that fists were drawn, I glanced at my fellow guards, wondering if it was our job to intercede. A few men raised their guns, ready to protect the Triad itself or perhaps break-up the fight if it prolonged the meeting, other than that though we were supposed to be unmoved.
"Enough!" The Capt. finally bellowed bringing the room back into order, everyone sat back down bar Slade. "I'm sure Slade did not drag us out here to waste our time, I was purely pointing our my suspicions, please continue Lord Slade." He nodded, turning his attention back on the crowds.
"The reasoning behind my assumptions is the fact that I was visited by an executive of the Department of Defence last week. He told me that they – the humans – are looking for the absorber too."
"Did the say why?" Capt's eyes narrowed at the sudden development.
"No. Just that they wanted her alive and put a price on her capture."
"Why the hell didn't you beat more information out of the executive?" Natalia demanded.
"Because…" he rounded on her, his voice crisp against the dead silence. There was a groan of metal hinges and two goons carried in a large bundle of white cloth. The tossed it on the table in front of the Triad. Slowly, Slade undid the fabric revealing a dead Henchman, dried blood stains emitted from his ears and eyes. "The executive spoke 'through' one of my men."
A series of gasping ensued and hushed whispers. Both Natalia and Captain Boomerang were dumbstruck.
The Captain was first to recover. "Impossible, humans cannot bend the will of others. If they had the ability to channel a mutant's mind control abilities –"
"I don't think they channelled it," Slade said and reached into his pocket. I narrowed my eyes to get a glimpse at what he withdrew. It appeared to be a tiny blue card.
"A microchip?" Natalie asked frowning.
"We found it on the inside of his temple," Slade informed. "It appears that the humans have created something that controls the electrical impulses and messages to and from the brain but luckily, the devices aren't stable."
"How is that?" Natalia asked.
"Before the executive could fully complete his message the host seemed to reject the device, leading to a stroke and death in about thirty seconds."
"Then it is obvious what we must do," Natalia's tone turned business-like. "We leave the absorber for now and focus our resources on destroying whatever lab is creating these devices."
I almost smiled. Maybe the Triad aren't so bad after all…
"No." Slade slammed his palm on the table. Well, there goes that hope. "We must find the girl!"
"But the humans – "
"Need her." He cut over her. "Before he died, my man came back to himself for those thirty seconds. He said one sentence over and over: the absorber's the key, they need her. They haven't got the chip functioning correctly yet. Now that we know about it we can be on our guard but for now we must find the girl before they do and use her for god knows what!"
Needless to say, that caused controversy. Everyone stood once more bickering, attempting to put forward their own opinions by trying to be the louder voice.
I was so involved in what was going on below I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking. So naturally, on the narrow ledge I soon stepped face first into wall of muscle, my cap pushed upwards on the impact and fell off.
"Hey watch where you're – " the guard started gruffly but did a double take. "Wait a minute… don't I know you?"
I locked our eye contact. "You don't recognise me, you've never seen me before, you're just going to ignore me now and go back to work, business as usual." I tried to keep my voice calm over the ringing in my ears from all this new information.
"Yeah… business as… usual…" he murmured and turned away from me. I sighed in relief and turned back to the chaos below only to catch a glimpse of Slade's second in command whispering in his ear. With a smirk and a nod he stood up, pulled a gun from his breast pocket and fired a shot into the air. The deafening bang silenced everyone once more. Thinking that he was to give more intel, it surprised not only me that he turned to Natalia with a conversational smile – well as conversational as you can get coming from a man with a scarred face and eye-patch.
"Natalia," he spoke good-naturally making her blink in confusion. "Have you met my new right-hand man Hart Druiter?"
"Um… no?" She answered uncertainly.
"Well Hart here has the ability to sense other mutants when they activate their powers within his range. It appears that he may have prevented us a lot of work."
Oh no.
"Thank-you Miss Fairburn, for making our job so much easier." He scanned the balcony before making direct eye contact, I hadn't even the chance to put my cap back on.
Oh dear.
"Shit!" "Get her!" Slade and I spoke over each other as I turned to run.
There were three guards between myself and the exit, easily dispensed over the rails and down into the crowd below. In the corner of my eye I saw Jackdaw getting rid of his obstacles too. I hauled open the steel doors and darted down the main corridor, him at my heels. He soon pushed past me however and grabbed my hand so to lead me out of the building. We'd thrown ourselves down two flights of stairs when a crash echoed, as if heavy doors were thrown open followed by a chorus of gunshots, bullet holes appearing directly in front of us. Great, automatics.
"This way," Jackdaw panted, spinning around and vaulting back up the steps. After sprinting back up another four flights he darted into a door on the left.
Slipping through a room that had us dodge a multitude of chairs to get out the opposite side. Ramming his weight against the locked exit forced it open with a crash. The second we stepped out, we froze.
"Or… perhaps not this way," Jackdaw muttered as we faced twenty of the Triads goons, guns pointed directly at our chest. I wanted to laugh at the irony. Usually the three groups couldn't agree on anything but the second they had a similar enemy; they were a ruthless team.
"Spilt!" I screamed and we leapt in opposite directions just as the shots rang out.
"Don't shoot the girl!" I could hear Slade's orders bellow over their comm. units. "She must be taken in alive!"
His orders distracted them for those precious seconds that we could bolt back out the way we came. I slammed the wrecked door behind us and Jay pushed a few dozen chairs to seal it. We could hear the banging and gunshots as they tried to get through to us. Luckily the doors were built with thick enough metal that the bullets couldn't penetrate. We did the same to the opposite door, though I could see our barricades already shuddering as the enemy attempted to force their way in.
"What – " I stammered, completely out of breath. " – now?"
"Only one way out it seems," Jay threw me a lob-sided grin and indicated upwards. I followed his eye line to a small sky light in the roof.
"Oh no," I said shaking my head. "It's too small a gap Jay!"
"You got any better ideas?"
I glared at our supposed only exit, hearing the creaking of protesting metal from both fronts, they were nearly through to us.
"Fine, give me a boost."
He didn't need to be told twice, the room was too small to spread his own wings to get to it. Coming towards me he crouched on one knee and laced his fingers together: the perfect footstep. Without any effort he hoisted me up to the roof window.
"I need something sharp or heavy!" I said after assessing the density of the glass. Reaching down, I felt Jay place the broken leg of a chair into my hand. Sharp it is then. Putting as much force as I could muster behind it I thrust the broken edge of metal upwards, creating a small spider-webbed crack. Hitting the same spot a further four times force my hand straight through the window, the edges slicing into my knuckles and wrist. I barely felt it though as I broke the rest of the glass to that I could pull myself through to the roof. Turning on my knees I reached my good arm down.
"Grab on!" I called down to Jackdaw. Standing on another chair he was just about able to hold my wrist. With a grunt I hauled him up enough for him to grab onto the edge himself. Just as he had got a firm grip there was a loud crash and more gunfire. Jay cried out and I threw my arms back down to help him out. He only just fit through with his wings. As we rolled out of the way of the ascending bullets I noticed one of them was bleeding.
"Crap," I launched myself over to him. He was lying on his back, the black feathers slightly extended. "You're hit."
"Ah," he said with a tight smile. "That's what the excruciating pain was."
I couldn't summon the strength to snap at him. "Are you able to fly?"
From below, I could hear more goons bursting through the doors on the ground level and begin firing in our general direction.
Jackdaw sighed and gingerly stood, blood glistened in the moonlight of his dark feathers. "I'm going to have to be," he said. He extended them and visibly flinched. "Not sure how long I can do it, though."
I nodded and stepped towards him. My arms stretched around his neck so that he wouldn't have to take my full weight on his arms. I felt the ground go from beneath my feet. Bangs echoed but fortunately no one reached us. We let the Triad shrink below us and I silently prayed we could get a few hundred miles between us before crash landing.