Chapter 20: chapter twenty

Fox moved rapidly through the night, holding on to her invisibility. It wouldn't do good against anyone with vision augmentation, but it should keep her safe from ordinary people. She would like it a lot better if it was real invisibility against anything looking at her, but she couldn't have it all.

She circled around the area of carnage Luna had caused. Jumbo had did a number on the cars he had jumped on. The people were still trying to get themselves together to run, but the authority had the streets blocked. If they tried to run now, they would be shot while resisting arrest.

On one hand, it seemed excessive. On the other, there were a number of enhanced mercenaries in the city that needed to be stopped with overwhelming force. Taking it easy on a suspect that suddenly had a machine gun in its hand could get you killed.

Fox found her two survivors after a few minutes of searching. They had discarded their weapons and were headed toward a subway leading deeper in the sprawl.

Did she want to follow them back to where they lived? She expected one of them would see her and they would lead her into a trap. She still had to know what they knew.

Expedience won out. She might as well talk to them before they got on the subway. Once they did that, anyone who got on with them would be at a disadvantage.

She let go of her invisibility and walked with them, hands in her sleeves.

“Tough day, right?,” she said. Her white robes shimmered as she moved.

“Run,” said the senior gangster. He broke from the direction of the subway, toward an alley that might take him anywhere.

Fox grabbed the other one before he could run away from her. She put him to sleep with one of her potions. She let the body drop.

She had a prisoner, but no way to transport him, and a fugitive with no way to chase him without his partner.

She decided that she needed help to catch the remaining runner.

She called Vizor and Ultraman and told them the direction where her intended victim had fled. They called back with an acknowledgment.

Fox bound her sleeping victim and hid him in an abandoned car in an alley close by. Someone had stripped the wheels, doors, windows, and most anything else they could take. That wouldn't matter to her sleeping target.

She circled around the maze of buildings, looking for the other man. He had to be around. She doubted he was faster than her fox speed.

“I got him,” reported Ultraman from high above. “He's at your two o'clock, Vizor. He keeps looking behind him for Fox, so he hasn't noticed you're coming down the street toward him.”

Fox hurtled toward the sound of a motorcycle roaring down the street. If the gangster doubled back, she wanted to be in his way and ready to put him to sleep too.

Vizor crashed his bike into the pedestrian. He jumped on the man and punched him in the face before he could recover and fight off his opponent. Handcuffs went around the man's wrists.

“That went easier than I thought it would,” Vizor said.

Ultraman dropped out of the sky. He nodded at Vizor and Fox.

“I dropped the other one back where I made contact,” said Fox. She indicated the direction. “I put him in a stripped car.”

“So what are we doing with these goofs?,” asked Vizor.

“We're keeping them out of trouble while the police try to get their ducks in a row with the ones Luna stopped with Jumbo,” said Ultraman. “I think the four of us should get together with our captives and see if we can get something useful out of them.”

“We should get off the street,” said Fox. “The police will be looking for troublemakers like us.”

“Meeting at the Tower?,” asked Vizor.

“I don't see why not,” said Ultraman. “Sana is already there trying to recover from the points he spent on stopping the hurricane.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You taking the prisoners?,” asked Vizor.

“Yeah,” said Ultraman. “I'll meet you there.”

“Can I ride with you, Vizor?,” asked Fox.

“Yes,” said Vizor. He righted his cycle and mounted it. Fox jumped on the saddle behind him. They roared away into the night.

(“How do you guys want to do whatever you plan to do?,” asked Gen.

“Luna,” said Cyrus.

“The great and mighty Luna,” interrupted Rabbit.

“The great and mighty Luna has her one Python we need to squeeze about Buckshot and his automated car,” said Cyrus. “We have two Skulljacks that we can question about the counter hit and tell what's going on behind the scenes.”

“We also have an idea that some of this will be on the net,” said Itchy. “I can watch that for traces and see if we can find the contract guy. Once we know who he is, maybe we can link him to a group in the city.”

“If we knew where he met Buckshot, we could check on cameras and see if we can get a picture to identify our man,” said Kay.

“I don't know if Vizor would know that,” said Itchy. “But I doubt he would go to a bar outside the Python's controlled area.”

“Same with the automated car, unless the object was to circle through the city as quietly as possible,” said Rabbit. “Unless that's what's he doing.”

“What are you thinking, Rabbit?,” asked Ken.

“He could be driving around the territory, or he could be driving along the highway and avoiding attention,” said Rabbit. “It would be like a mobile office.”

“I see what you're saying,” said Cyrus. “He could just use the highway to circle around and take phone calls all day, and only stop when he has a meeting.”

“We can still find him,” said Itchy.

“How?,” asked Kay.

“He has to have ownership of his car under his name, or under the name of an associate,” said Itchy. “We just need to break into the DMV and ask for a plate to match whatever car is under his name.”

“We don't need to break in,” said Ken. He looked at Rabbit.

“I guess I could use a slime to do the actual work,” said Rabbit. “I think Jeeves is the only one that smart, but I know he can get through mundane locks like that.”

“So the plan is to use Jeeves to undo the alarms and open the system so you can find Buckshot's car?,” asked Gen.

“It's better than that,” said Cyrus. “We use the traffic cams on the highway to find him and follow him as he's cruising around before we drop on him.”

“We could arrange an ambush at any exit if he is on the highway,” said Itchy.

“I think it's a good plan,” said Gen.

“But we need to find out what his car looks like before we do anything,” said Kay.

“Good point,” said Cyrus. “Forgot all about that.”

“How much game time can we spend on this?,” asked Ken.

“What do you mean?,” asked Gen.

“When Sana comes back to full power, I can use Truth on our guys,” said Ken. “They tell us everything they know, and we don't have to beat them like drums to get the information.”

“Then we can go right to the plan,” said Itchy.

“How long will it take for Sana to reload?,” asked Kay.”

“A few more hours,” said Ken.

“That will give Vizor time to check out the DMV for traps to make our break-in easier, and for Fox and Ultraman to decide what they want to do with the skulljacks we captured,” said Rabbit. “And Jeeves and I can practice good cop and bad cop.”

“Do we have to ask which one of you is the good cop?,” asked Itchy.

“I am,” said Rabbit. “Jeeves is the one step away from losing his badge while doing what's necessary like every maverick cop since Dirty Harry.”

“I would love to see that in action,” said Itchy. “You know I can't hold back this slime forever. You better tell me something or something might get excited inside of you.”

“Yuck,” said Kay.

“A little too far, Itch,” said Cyrus.

“But it is a threat that the great and mighty Luna likes,” said Rabbit. She pushed back stray strands of hair over her face.

“I think we need to make sure we're all on the same page,” said Gen. “You guys want to hold the Python until Sana is at full power, tell the skull jacks that someone took a contract out on the guy that got shot at the club before releasing them, question the Python about what he knows about Buckshot, break into the DMV to get his plates, and then try to find him on the highway. Is that a concise overview of the plan as we all understand it.”

“We also need to come up with a way to find the contractor if we can't get anything out of Buckshot,” said Cyrus. “He might not be able to give us anything but a disguise that can be changed after the meeting in seconds flat.”

“If we knew where they had met, we could check to see if there are cameras,” said Itchy. “That would allow us to get a picture we could load into the system and see what popped out.”

“Maybe our captive knows where Buckshot likes to drink,” said Cyrus. “That gives us another place to look for him other than the road.”

“We need to know how many others they hit,” said Ken. “There might be more people out there working on this than us and the Jacks.”

“There might be more hitters,” said Cyrus. “We might be breaking up more fights as we go along.”

“Let's get some basic information from the Jacks and cut them loose,” said Kay. “Then we can concentrate on the rest of this.”

“Are we giving them back their weapons?,” asked Itchy.

“No,” said Cyrus. “They can walk that off.”

“So we're kind of ready for the rest of this?,” said Gen.

“I think we should go ahead and improvise when the plan goes off the rails,” said Kay.

“Let's blow this up,” said Rabbit.)