“You know I really don’t like these guys,” Nadir said as we waited down a filthy, dark alleyway in the Docks. “Anytime we meet it feels like I’m being watched.”
“You are,” I said simply. “They have an invisible member that provides security at their base, at least that’s what I remember.”
“You know that’s really bad right?” she said. “Like, we can deal with the Number Man, sure; how are we supposed to fight something we can’t see?”
“We’re not, we’re supposed to cooperate.” I sighed and opened my eyes, staring out at the quiet street. “If they attack us, we’re screwed, and I try to go back and stop us from coming here.” For what little good that would do when they knew where I lived. Though being fair, I’d slept at six houses over the last week; I wasn’t living anywhere but whatever place was closest to the latest raid.
“I don’t like that one bit,” Nadir said bitterly. “You’ve been treating you dying like...like…”
“Like it isn’t real?” I shrugged. “That’s because it’s not. For all intents and purposes, it never happened, and if I’m smart it never will again.” Didn’t stop it from giving me nightmares, but that was the cost of not being good enough.
“And what’s that doing to your head?” I hated how she cut to the point so easily. “You think I forgot about seeing you jumping at shadows, or talking to people that aren’t there? Or how about the other day, what happened with the mirror—”
“An accident, I told you,” I snapped. “I’ve told you before, I’ll rest when this is over.”
“And how about a psychiatrist?”
“Fuck off,” I muttered. “Sleep deprivation, that’s all it is. It’ll fix itself. Now shut up, we have company.”
At least she followed my orders, as a glowing portal opened in the middle of the alley. As usual, we stepped through with a hint of nausea and it closed behind us. Number Man wasn’t alone, joined this time by Contessa. I ignored the spider dangling from her hat and paused a few feet away, like usual.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Thought this was just an intel drop.”
“It is,” Number man replied flatly. “The last one.” I narrowed my eyes.
“Excuse me?” I demanded. “I must have misheard you, because there’s still a massive contingent of Nazis in Brockton Bay, and our deal was you’d help me get rid of them.”
“We expected you would be able to root them out quickly with our assistance,” he said. “That has not proven to be the case. Werwolf isn’t the only gang we have been keeping tabs on, we’re well aware that you are capable of fully destroying them any time you decide.”
“Not without serious casualties,” I retorted.
“That is your issue to resolve,” Contessa said, uncaring. “You promised us a favour, and we need you free to collect it. That means, in this case, eradicating Werwolf. If you choose to continue delaying, I will offer further encouragement.” The way she said that sent a chill up my spine.
“Well we did just get more guys, we can speed up a little,” I hedged. “The problem is, the Protectorate is going to be trying to enforce a ceasefire.”
“Then move quickly,” she replied. “We can work to slow any major response against your teams, we have enough pull for that at least. You have a week.”
“What?” Were they fucking insane? “I have a hundred troops, not a fucking army. You’re insane.”
“This dossier contains the addresses of all Werwolf parahumans,” Number Man said, holding out a thick folder. “Along with that, every major weapons depot, remaining drug labs, and several safehouses. This will be everything you need to do what you want.”
“Got to be kidding me,” I muttered, snatching the folder and beginning to flick through it. He wasn’t… “And why the delay?”
“Intelligence gathering takes time,” he said simply. “I would recommend attacking the arms depots first, ensure you have and maintain a firepower advantage.”
“Easy for you to say, you don’t have to kick the door in,” Nadir said, glancing over my shoulder. “That’s a hell of a lot of stuff for us to try and do in a week.”
“We’d need everyone,” I said, mostly to myself. “Running ops day and night. It’d be constant.”
“We need more time,” Nadir said, shaking her head. “There’s no way—”
“We have given you as much time as we are willing,” Contessa cut her off. “Make do.” I grit my teeth until they creaked.
“Let’s go,” I growled. “We’ve clearly got our work cut out for us.”
A glow from behind me told me they’d opened a portal, and I turned around and led us back through it. Nadir didn’t say anything as we returned to the car, nor as we began to drive. That was worse than her yelling at me, frankly. I knew she thought we were going too fast already, and now we had go even faster.
Could we? As I began to consider it more seriously I realized we could, just barely. We had a lot of experienced troops, if I started delegating things further we could expand just a bit more; and hopefully make our squads more effective. It would take a hell of a lot of organizing, but we just may have the means to do it.
God, what would the cost be? How many times would I have to reset, just to minimize how many of my men died? It was impossible to say without seeing it through. That scared the hell out of me, but I was just in way too deep. I couldn’t just go back and not agree to work with Cauldron, and even if I went back before the last raid this would still be where they were at.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“So, a week,” Nadir said at last. “You’re not seriously considering it are you?”
“You heard them,” I said. “This is it. If we don’t stick to our timeline…I have a feeling they’re going to hurt people I care about.”
“Not you?”
“No.” I shook my head sadly. “After all, death doesn’t stick to me.” I frowned, pursing my lips as I stared out the window. “Joy...if you want out, just say so. I’ll give you your cut from the last raid and you can go wherever you want.”
“What?” She sounded shocked.
“I’ve been pushing everyone too hard,” I continued. “You most of all, since day one. Zeke backed out, he’s the smart one. Before we do this, before we…” I swallowed hard. “You deserve to have the option.”
We fell silent again. I hated to do this, but I had to. She was my second in command, and my closest friend. I wasn’t sure I could do this without her, but I would if she didn’t want a part in it. Things would have to be reconfigured, I’d need a new second. Whatchamacalit might work, she wasn’t much of a fighter but she was smart as hell and spoke plainly. That was what I needed around me.
“Not happening,” Nadir said at last, tugging down her mask and shooting me a look. “I told you, I have your back. I’ll see this through to the end I just...I do want to see the end of it.”
“You’re sure?” I asked, hardly believing it. “I don’t know how bad this is going to get, seriously. I can’t promise we won’t come out of this with anything but arrest warrants. You’ve got a lot you can do though, being a nurse and stuff. So...don’t sacrifice it just because of me.”
“It’s not just you Lia,” she said. “We need to do this and...and I have to be part of it. Even if I left now, I’d still get blamed; and honestly, I don’t know if I can just go back to school after all this. I hope I figure something out but…” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving you.”
“Okay,” I said quietly, turning to look out the window.
The silence that followed was tense but I didn’t dare break it. I’d gotten the answer I wanted, so I just tried to ignore the pit in my stomach that told me I’d ruined her life.
I rubbed the internals of my pistol with an oily rag, making sure every nook and cranny was clean and lubricated. I sat at the head of a table, Nadir sat to my right. Fidel and Richard were on the opposite side, chatting in voices too low to hear. Sheepdog, leader of the Three Arrows, lounged in his seat, broad arms crossed over his chest and eyes shut.
I’d canceled tonight’s raid, there was no way we could go ahead as planned. It would just be a waste of resources, and that wasn’t something we could afford with everything coming. With only a week, we’d have to focus everything on whatever plan we came up with.
There was no way I’d be able to figure it all out on my own, so I’d summoned the leaders of all the groups that had joined us. It really put in perspective how far this had come since my illicit patrols under the nose of the PRT. Did Taylor ever feel like this when she was running the Boardwalk? Maybe, but she’d never gone quite this far. Now I had to go further…
“Hey boss, sorry I’m late,” Misha said as he hurried into the room, trailed by another person I didn’t recognize. He gestured to the other man; shorter, broader, and older. “This is Gregori, former GRU operative, now captain of Kransnyy Spetsnaz.”
“Misha was my protégé,” Gregori explained in a rattling voice. “Until he decided to run off on his own. I’ve heard interesting things about you, Amaranth.”
“Mm, that so?” I mused, reassembling my pistol. “I take it you’re here to join our operations?”
“I am,” he replied. “My team is small, six in all, but highly trained. They have been excited by the promise of antifascist action.”
“Great,” I said with a nod, gesturing to the remaining chairs. “Sit down and let’s get started.”
“So no fight tonight,” Sheepdog said, sounding unhappy. Understandable, his guys had been fired up for it. “What’s going on?”
“A...problem,” I said, sighing. “We have a deadline to finish off Werwolf. One week from today, Brockton Bay has to be a Nazi-free zone.” That got more than a few surprised looks.
“What’s the hurry?” Richard asked cautiously. “As I recall, we agreed to a slow and sure strategy of whittling them down.”
“Circumstances have changed,” I said. “I made a deal with some nasty people to get the information we’ve been working with. They want this done and dusted, and unfortunately I have to oblige.”
“What are you talking about?” Fidel said, narrowing his eyes. “Who have you dealt with?”
“Can’t say, but unfortunately now it might endanger you guys.” I took a deep breath and lowered my gaze. “I’m sorry, but there’s no going back now.”
“We can handle whatever ‘problems’ they’ll cause,” Sheepdog said.
“Trust me, we can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “They have parahumans that just win, no questions asked, no second chances.” There was a collective sharp gasp at that. “So a week. It should be possible. They gave us all the information we could possibly need. Weapons depots, safehouses, even their homes. We can crush them, but it’s going to be ugly. Operations would be running twenty-four hours a day, there’s a good chance people are going to get hurt, or killed. We may have opposition from the police or PRT.
“Despite all that,” I continued, keeping my voice level. “I’m committed to this. I’m going to go down as one of the worst villains this city has ever produced, but it will be worth it if we drive the Nazi rats out of our fucking home. I’m not doing it for money, or glory, I’m doing it because it needs to be done; and no one else is willing to get their hands dirty.
“This isn’t something we can vote on, we can only figure out how we can do it together. The Rubicon is a long, long way behind us. One week. I can’t do this without you all, but if I have to...I’ll try.” I knew there wasn’t another option.
“Wish you’d told us you were dealing with devils earlier,” Fidel sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “This is a hell of a thing to surprise us with.”
“I don’t like the idea of being manipulated by some shadowy Illuminati bastards,” Misha grumbled.
“Well they’re not manipulating us, they’re setting a deadline,” I countered. “The intel they’ve given me is good, we’ve been proving that for weeks now. If I’d known I had a date to finish all this, I’d have been planning from the beginning. I wish things were different but...here we are. All I can do is give you the whole picture.”
“And not even that,” Gregori said with a ghost of a smile. “No matter, I would not out my handler either. Settle down Misha.”
“That’s a hell of a timeline,” Sheepdog said, thumbing through a copy of the info I’d left out for them to read. “And a lot to do, but…well, it may be viable. With the casualties Werwolf has been taking, we could have the upper hand in experienced people, if not total numbers. Plus with your Tinker friend, we can appear when they least expect it.” He nodded slowly. “I think we can figure this out.”
“The Red Banners will fight,” Misha said quickly. “I don’t like this but...it is an opportunity that is hard to turn down.”
“Alright.” I glanced over to the others. “Fidel, Richard?”
“We’ll stay,” Richard replied. “We intended to anyways. Perhaps the experience of urban warfare will prove useful.”
“I suppose we’re in as well,” Fidel sighed. “Though I can’t promise the same of all my people, they must make their own choices.”
“Well, that’s fine,” I said, a note of hope resonating in my chest. “Thank you all. I can’t promise a reward, I’ll be spending every last cent I have getting us ready for this. Just...I owe you all.”
“You owe us nothing,” Richard said, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “As you said, this is work that needs doing. Perhaps, if we’re lucky, Werwolf will offer some compensation.”
“We’ll have to take it.” I took a deep breath and opened my own folder, flipping to the section on arms depots. “And I know just where we can start...”
