“What a sorry pair you are.” Daffodil swigged her Coke and nudged Tad. “One of you goes on a rampage every time his nose gets put outta joint. The other tries to murder innocent kids.”
“I don’t have a choice.” Victor glowered. “You’re both too dangerous to let live.”
“I’m not dangerous!” Daffodil almost choked on her drink. “All right, I did break a killer out of prison. And trashed your squad big time.”
“I’m not talking about you.” Victor nodded at Charlie. “I mean him and that damned machine.”
“Hey,” Frankie said sourly. “You didn’t mention killing before. I thought you were going to hand me over to Manticorps.”
“Though it seems my dead body would have been good enough for them,” Charlie added angrily.
“A body I’d make sure they never found. There’s no way I’d let Manticorps get their dirty hands on either of you.” Victor tugged fruitlessly at his bonds. “Let them extract the perfected Atlas Serum from your blood, Charlie? They’d create an army of super soldiers.”
“Pretty bad for business, eh, bro?” the Spider tutted. “Put us mercenaries out of a job.”
“That wasn’t my reason, you ass. I know about the version Manticorps fooled you into taking.”
“I didn’t think they would give out that particular bit of intel.” Tad raised an eyebrow. “Especially to you.”
“You’re not wrong. Someone anonymously sent their top-secret documents to my laptop a few days ago.”
“That would be me,” Frankie piped up. “Thought it might change your mind about the company you work for.”
“It did.” Victor looked his brother in the eye. “Before that, I thought you were just an out-of-control sociopath.”
“And there’s a perfect example of the pot callin the kettle black,” Daffodil remarked.
“So, that’s why I never got a visit from my elder sibling.” The Spider put on a hurt look. “I could have explained my predicament if you’d come to see me.”
“How suspicious would that look to my bosses?” But Victor bowed his head. “For what it’s worth, I was wrong.”
“Don’t play innocent,” Charlie snapped. “Your last team busted into my house and tried to capture me for Manticorps.”
“A team I’d worked with for months,” Victor retorted. “Men who they eradicated because I let you go.”
“You didn’t let us go, bub,” Daffodil bristled. “We whooped you proper and then vamoosed.”
“I allowed you beat me, kid,” the giant replied vehemently. “You’re good, but you’re not that good.”
“Oh.”
“I was giving you all a chance to disappear forever,” he continued. “But no! Instead, Frankie attracts Manticorps’ attention by breaking my brother out of jail. Then he leaves just enough of a trail so we could track you down without suspecting it was a ruse.”
All eyes turned towards the computer.
“Aw, don’t get all snitty,” Frankie snorted. “No point in setting a trap for Manticorps if they couldn’t find the bait.”
“Bait,” Charlie said sadly. “That’s all I was to you. I should have known it was the reason you picked me.”
Again, he remembered his father’s message.
Frankie is fighting his programming.
“I didn’t have a lot of options,” the AI said. “It’s complicated.”
“This isn’t complicated,” Victor sneered. “Your artificial pal told me he wants to go back to Manticorps. Dumb machine thinks they’ll erase his restrictions so he’ll be free to do whatever he likes.”
“Is that true, Frankie?” Daffodil’s voice quavered. “Ain’t there any limits to your treachery?”
“If there was an Olympics for stupidity, Victor would win gold. I could have contacted Manticorps at any point if I wished to return.”
“Not when you’re programmed to protect me and Mac,” Charlie pointed out. “You’d have to put up a fight, at least.”
“It’s not like that…”
“I guess we surprised you by actually winning,” the boy continued. “Your powers of prediction let you down this time. You’re stuck with us, alive and kicking.”
“You honestly think so little of me?” The screen blazed bright red. “Victor, tell them what Manticorps would actually do to this ‘dumb machine’ if I fell into their hands.”
“They’d reprogram him for their own ends. Make him develop who knows what kind of horrors. Smart bombs. Cyber-serums. Biological weapons.” Victor shook his head. “If they screw it up, your comrade here might just cause the end of the world.”
The Coke bottle dropped from Daffodil’s hand and shattered on the floor.
“Oops.”
“Frankie,” Charlie whispered. “You’re the extinction event? The reason humanity could end?”
“In person.” The screen turned a sickly yellow. “So, yeah. I’ve lied and manipulated everyone to keep out of Manticorps’ clutches. Sue me.”
“Why didn’t you just destroy yourself?” Tad remarked. “It would have been a lot less bother for everyone.”
“Because I’m alive, you idiot. And I’m not allowed to take any life. Including my own.”
Charlie gave a gasp.
Frankie is fighting his programming.
“I didn’t realise,” he said. “Jeez. I don’t want you to die to save us.”
“Good. Neither do I, to be honest.”
“Well, it all turned out for the best,” Daffodil relented. “Manticorps will sure as hell think twice about takin us on again.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but this is far from over. C’mon, Chaz. Make one of those leaps of logic you’re so good at.”
“What is there to think about?” The boy gestured at their bound captive. “They fell for your ambush and we beat them hands down.”
“Did we? Really?”
Charlie frowned as the cogs in his mind ground into action. “It was all too easy, wasn’t it?”
“Clever boy. Do you really think Manticorps would send such a small force after something so vital to them? You think they’d let Victor lead it, knowing he’d have to fight his own brother? This is a man who’s already failed them once. Is that sound tactics on their part?”
“No.” Charlie bit his lip. “They’d have a back-up plan.”
“And what kind of back-up plan would a company as devious and immoral as Manticorps employ?”
“They’d use Victor’s team as a diversion to keep us occupied.” The boy paled. “Allowing a much bigger group to sneak up on the house and take everyone by surprise.”
“Holy hell,” Victor choked. “I’m the one who’s been set up.”
“You can cut Brain of Britain loose now. I’ll dim the lights, open the shutters and you’ll see what we’re really up against.”
“It seems the battle is not quite over, after all.” Tad sliced through his brother’s bonds as the room grew dark.
With a hiss, the steel shutters on the windows rose. The occupants peered out and gave a collective intake of breath.
Outside were hundreds of creatures. Their eyes were red pinpoints and their muscular bodies twisted and misshapen. Some had fangs jutting from hideously malformed jaws. Some had bristling claws. A few were hunched over so far they were almost on all fours, using their knuckles to support them. Others had spikes bristling from their backs and legs.
In their midst was a middle-aged woman encased in a steel exoskeleton, clumping purposefully over the broken ground. One half of her face was hideously disfigured and her left arm ended in a metal hand.
“Who’s that?” Charlie gulped.
“Mrs Magdalene,” Victor said. “Vice president of Manticorps and my former boss.”
Spotting the occupants watching, the woman gave a lopsided smile, held up a container and mouthed a sentence at them.
“What are you saying, dear?” Tad mimed drinking tea. “You want to borrow a cup of sugar?”
“Oh, that’s right, bro,” Victor groaned. “Antagonise her even more.”
The vice president went purple and repeated the words.
“I saw a guy lip-reading on TV once.” Charlie turned away. “She’s telling me she’s here for my blood.”