Zoey flinched at the sound of the shots, but absolutely no one else in the room did. They just seemed annoyed at the breach of protocol, turning on the door with the disapproval of a theater audience looking to see whose phone had gone off.
The door was kicked in and Zoey was looking at a red-spiked Mohawk behind a cartoonishly huge gun that she doubted she could even lift—it had at least three barrels, and a chainsaw attached to the bottom. The leader of the League of Badass led his team into the room.
“Everyone down!”
No one got down.
The guy was wearing a camouflage outfit with knee pads, elbow pads, and bafflingly oversized shoulder pads. The rest was a crisscross pattern of straps and bandoliers full of bullets. Everything else was pouches. So many pouches. His boots had pouches on them. Next to him was a pair of fake boobs trying to escape a crimson one-piece bathing suit made of leather, with thigh-high leather boots of the same color. The woman’s boots had holsters that presumably had held the giant handguns she was now brandishing in each fist. If she ran out of bullets, she could resort to the four—no, five—thin daggers that were strapped to various parts of her body. The other four men seemed to be in competition to see who could fit the most pads, blades, and bullets onto their bodies while still remaining ambulatory. Yet none of them had helmets or any other kind of head or eye protection. Zoey figured it wasn’t worth protecting your face if it meant hiding it from the camera.
The four hustled past the Mohawk and made a beeline for the Suits. A few seconds later, and for the first time in her life, Zoey had a gun pressed to her skull. So did Andre, Will, and Wu. Will sighed.
The Mohawk said, “Everyone be cool, everything is fine out there. We just had to let ourselves in, that’s all—guess our invitation got lost in the mail. I’m sure you’re all familiar with my team. This here is Vixxxen, behind you are Bonefire, Bloodstick, Stormshaft, and Crankwolf. And they’ve all got itchy trigger fingers.”
Zoey said, “I guess it’s no surprise they chose this profession, with names like that.”
Blake, who was still seated and was now in the process of adding sugar to a mug of coffee, said, “Lee, what in the possible hell do you think you’re doing?”
Andre said, “I think I know what this is about. You guys probably saw the truck out back. I assure you we don’t have any cheese.”
The Mohawk guy, Lee, said, “We’re saving the city.” He pointed his enormous gunsaw at Blake and the other security execs in the room and said, “Out. All of you.”
Blake deferred to Will. “That the end of the meeting?”
“Just remember what I said. Around five AM tomorrow. Don’t move before then.”
Zoey tried to think of how they would put together a raid on Molech HQ with less than twelve hours to prepare, but she was having trouble focusing due to the gun that was being pressed so hard into her temple that it was making a dent in her thoughts. She wondered if somebody fired a shot into the ceiling if the hot tub up there would burst and drench everyone.
Blake sipped his coffee and sat down the mug. “I’ll talk to my people.”
He nodded to everyone in the room, including the gun-wielding members of the League of Badass, and calmly walked out. The rest of the armed security tycoons followed, leaving the hostage situation behind them like a boring sporting event they’d decided to bail on early so they could beat the traffic. On the way out, the muscle guy paused to glance up at a pair of brown, naked legs floating overhead, and Zoey wondered if he wouldn’t just go directly upstairs after this.
Once the Suits and the League of Badass were alone in the lounge, Lee said, “We’re going after Molech.”
Zoey said, “Great, go do it. You didn’t have to ask our permission.”
“You’re coming with us. See, whatever plan those other guys got for getting in the door of Molech’s lair, I’m guessing they didn’t figure out that all they need is something Molech wants. Which is you. We roll up, offering you three on a silver platter, Molech shows his face, we pop him in the head.”
Andre said, “Where are you going to find a silver platter that big?”
Will said, “I think there are some important news stories you’ve missed from this afternoon. Popping Molech is a little harder than what you’re picturing in your mind.”
Lee said, “That’s why you’re going to give us his enhancements. We saw what Armando was doing before he went down.”
Zoey said, “Wait, aren’t you guy’s on Molech’s side? You turds are the first ones who came after me the day I came into town.”
“We don’t work for Molech. We work for the people in this city who can’t afford those guys who just left the room. That first night, we didn’t try for that contract because of Molech, we just—”
“Wanted the publicity?” finished Zoey.
“Got caught up in the chase. And we didn’t know what kind of man Molech was. But it was never personal.”
“It’s actually never personal, for the real monsters.”
“Shut up. You guys cooperate, there’s no reason you can’t live through this. Just play the role of the hostages, we’ll demand to see Molech face to face before we make the exchange, we pop him, roll credits.”
Wu said, “I assure you that we will be doing you a great favor by not allowing you to go through with that plan.”
Lee spun on him and said, “Shut up. You’re not in a position to allow anything.”
Andre said to Lee, “Let me ask you, what was your job before you got into … whatever you call this?”
“Me? I served in the Marine Corps for four years. After that, five years as the best goddamned bounty hunter in Nevada.”
Will interjected, “And what are the requirements for becoming a bounty hunter in Nevada?”
Lee said, “Superior instincts, proficiency in hand-to-hand—”
“It requires a two-hundred-fifty-dollar application fee and five weekends of classes at a community college.”
“Yet that was good enough to get the jump on you.”
Will turned to Zoey and said, “This is good on-the-job training. Tell me, what’s the thing in Lee’s hands there?”
“It’s uh, a gun? I don’t know the brand or—”
“And why is a gun better than a knife?”
Lee said, “Shut up. We’re going out to our van, you’re leading the way.” Will didn’t move.
Zoey said, “It lets you kill people from a long way away?”
“Correct. Now look at the men standing next to each of us, and ask yourself why would you ever take such a weapon and press it against a person’s skull, putting it within easy reach of their hands?”
There was a tussle and a grunt nearby. Zoey spun toward it and found that the man who had been holding Andre at gunpoint was now on his knees, his arm twisted behind his back, his gun in Andre’s hand.
Lee pointed his gun at him and screamed for him to freeze. But instantly there was another scuffle from Wu’s direction, and by the time Zoey turned her head, Wu was disassembling a pistol he’d yanked away from his captor, letting bullets tumble to the carpet from his fingers. The gunman was unconscious on the floor.
Will’s captor quickly backed off, getting his gun out of grabbing range but keeping it trained on the back of Will’s skull.
The man said, “Don’t even think about it,” but sounded like he had never been less confident in a situation in his life.
Will glanced back at him and said, “You’re Terry Rizzo, right? Put down that gun, go to your apartment on Lake Street, get Sheldon and Jeremiah, and get out of town. Don’t ever come back. You have five seconds.”
The man looked nervously at Will, then at Lee.
Will said, “My men are watching this on Blink. You’d never beat them there. Three. Two…”
The man hurried out of the room, apologizing to Lee as he went.
Lee said, “You like to threaten people? Well you can’t threaten me. Molech is about to rain fire on you, and I’m your only—”
Zoey said, “Shut your idiocy vent. If you want to talk, tell this last guy to stop pointing a gun at my head. I don’t know how to get it away from him, and I don’t want to have to do some big macho thing where Wu comes over here and steals it using his karate powers. Just tell him to put it away, then we’ll converse. I mean, do I have to say out loud what’s already obvious? That shooting me is the same as shooting yourself? I’m getting seriously fed up with all this.”
Lee studied her for a moment, then gave the slightest nod to her captor. The guy backed off, then joined Lee and Vixxxen on the other side of the room.
Zoey said, “Okay, two things. First, I think that giving people the ability to punch over buildings is trusting them with quite a bit of power, and in the course of the day today I’ve kind of decided that the whole thing where we grant power based on who wants it most, is probably what has ruined society up to this point. Second, we can’t actually give you what you’re asking. It’s a long story, but we can’t do the limb enhancements, we’re not set up for it.”
Andre said, “You know she’s tellin’ the truth, too, because otherwise my dong would still be in bandages.”
“But,” Zoey said, “I can offer you work. The kind of money you probably don’t make in a whole year of bounty hunting. You can buy a new van and Vixxxen here will be able to afford the rest of her costume.”
Will looked dubious. He muttered, “Zoey…”
Lee said, “I’m listening.”
“Squatterville. You’re familiar with it? The unfinished condos the poor people have moved into, a couple of blocks down from where Livingston Tower, uh, was?”
“Yeah.”
“They need protection. If Molech goes on his rampage, I need someone to get those people out of there, and to a safe place. Even if the chaos doesn’t come to their block, you can help make sure the food and diapers and all that arrives safely.”
“Miss Ashe, this entire city is a target. Molech could go after the hospital, the art galleries, even the nuke plant. We’re not going to sit back and let him do it.”
“Right, but those targets all have security because the people who own them have money. There’s nobody left to protect Squatterville. You do that, without accidentally murdering everyone there, you get five hundred grand. Then after that, maybe we’ll talk.”
“But if we take out Molech, then those people will be safe.”
“People like that are never safe. Take it or leave it, but here’s where you get to decide if your fantasy is to actually be a hero, or to just murder people you don’t like. Because in my mind, if you were true heroes, you’d already be down there, making sure all those poor kids don’t have to go to bed scared every night.”
Lee clearly hated this plan, but not as much as he hated having to openly say no.
“I … need to discuss it with my team.”
“Zoey,” said Will. “Tell him the truth.”
“What?”
Will said to Lee, “Molech will almost certainly go to Squatterville. And we need it protected. But not because of the people there. We need it because of the coins.”
Zoey thought, “The what?” at the exact same time Lee spoke it out loud.
“Two hundred million dollars in rare gold and silver coins, recovered from a Spanish galleon off the coast of Florida about fifteen years ago. They were buried there by Molech’s father, when it was still a vacant lot. Now they’re under the concrete of the lobby—you can actually see cracks in the floor over the burial site, on account of the loose soil underneath. It’s the real reason the building was never finished. Molech found out about it, and I have a feeling that’s going to be his first stop. You keep Molech away, you get half.”
Lee gave no answer, but his gaze had kind of disconnected, focusing into the middle distance where a fantasy of unspeakable riches was playing out before him.
Will straightened his tie and said, “Now, if you don’t mind, we have a lot of work to do.”
Will headed for the door, and no one stopped him.