Blackjack Wayward

Chapter Thirty

Moe didn’t let go of me, leaving his arm draped over my shoulder as we walked through the innards of the Tower. He clenched his biceps with every wild gesticulation, whipping his free hand around as if physically punctuating the conversation.

“This over here’s the gun range,” he said as we passed by an innocent-enough-looking doorway. “Some fun shit in there. I bet what’s eating you up is you wanna just blow some shit up, right? I get that itch, too, and an hour or two here puts me right. You know what I mean?”

Inside was a secretary’s desk where a young man stood, cleaning the weirdest-looking pistol I had ever seen and talking on the phone at the same time. When he saw Moe, he casually tossed his chin outward, his hands-free version of “hello.”

“Sup, Bry,” Moe said to the receptionist. “So what do you say, man? Let’s blow some holes in something.”

“Not my cup of tea, Moe.”

“You f*cking kidding me? It’s, like, a primal thing or some shit. Oh wait. You were an arrow chucker, right? That’s no prob to Bry here, man. You ask him nice and he’ll pull a f*cking RPG out the safe, man. I’m not kidding at all.”

“Moe, I don’t ever want to see a bow again,” I said, fighting his efforts to herd me inside the gun range.

Through the plexiglass window behind Bry, I could see a dozen lit gun lanes, only a couple of them in use. Despite the visible reports of fire, I couldn’t hear even a hint of sound from the firing range.

“Okay, okay. I’m just balling here, you know? Tell me what you wanna do and we’ll check it out.”

I shrugged, “I know you’re on ‘Blackjack Duty’ but you don’t have to entertain me.”

Moe regarded me, licking his lips. “Let me put this in a way you can understand, okay? You’re not leaving my sight. Doctor’s orders.”

“You mean, Superdynamic’s orders,” I said.

He scratched one of his sideburns, looking back at Bry, who had finished his call and waited for us.

“Same thing, from where I stand.”

“You know what’s bothering me? How f*cking nonchalant you people are. I thought the world was coming to an end, Washington D.C. is under siege and whatever....”

“And?”

“You’re a tour guide for me? Shouldn’t you be flying out there and, I don’t know, taking care of business?”

Moe laughed.

“Like...Blackjack, you’re f*cking hilarious.”

“I’m glad you find this funny.”

He slapped my shoulder, hard.

“You don’t know how the big guy operates.”

“No, I don’t. How about you explain, huh?”

Looking back at Bry, he waved him off and grabbed my left elbow, leading me away.

“Come on, I got an idea.”

I let him drive me off, but stared at him, hoping he’d understand I wasn’t going to let the conversation die.

“See, SuperD is like fine wine, he don’t piss until it’s time.”

“So what? He’s content with letting the world fall to pieces?”

He laughed. “Like you give a shit about all that. A second ago all you wanted was to hit some p-ssy.”

“I care,” I said, though not with the conviction I wanted to convey.

“Yeah, sure. Hey, I’d be all over Apogee if she gave me just a peek, you know? Shit.”

We walked to an elevator, which he evacuated before we entered. He didn’t want me around a lot of other people, I guess.

“Anyway,” he went on, when the doors slid closed. “The big guy doesn’t do nothing until he does the intel thing, you know? He’s careful about everything. Moreso these days. I mean, these are hard times, man. Back at Hashima, a bunch of guys got put down, bunch of others said ‘f*ck it’ and up and quit.”

“I was there, you know.”

He shot me a curious look. “I do. Shit’s cause of you more’n most.”

Moe let that linger as the lift opened and he led me down more hallways.

“Then that shit in Utopia – and, yeah, you was there too. Like a thousand bad f*ckers got out right there.”

So the heroes were outnumbered and probably outgunned, since Epic had hung up his boots.

“What about the Sentinels, or the Rough Boys? What about Rising Force? Hell, there’s a shitload of supers.”

He stopped, lowered his shades, “Who you think’s working this shit right now? We’re the backup team. I mean, we’re not even ‘A’ team. That kid Templar’s pretty badass, but he’s just a kid. He ain’t seen shit, you know what I’m saying? Ricochet can’t barely control his powers, man. Super’s been working on making a suit so he can manage the whole kinetic bouncing shit he has, but it’s like turtles f*cking. He’s probably more a liability than anything if shit gets heavy. Who else? Ruby? She’s a sexy girl, for sure, but she manipulates ambient sounds and shit. I mean, badass if things work out right, but come on. What the f*ck is she gonna do against bullets and shit? Focus is hardcore, but she’s also a kid. You know how it is. You don’t know how you’ll respond when the shit starts flying. So SuperD’s got me and Chen. That’s it. Wouldn’t you be careful as f*ck?”

“He’s got me, too,” I said.

“Yeah, psycho boy. You’re not even worth the billion,” he said as we reached another chamber near the central core of the floor. Going inside revealed it to be like a circular classroom, with stadium seating in the form of work stations. In each ‘slot’ was a lab table, a bare aluminum slab six feet long with a simple chair. The only thing on the table was a metal dish about a foot in diameter that was built into the right side. What was curious was the strange contraption that dominated the central pit, hanging from the roof. It was like a mechanical octopus, but with a hundred tentacles, and though made of metal and plastic, it had an organic feel, with no rough edges or joints. The tentacles travelled around the room after picking up items that dropped from a ventral maw, depositing the items in the metal dish of some person’s lab table.

About half of the fifty or so lab slots were taken by folks wearing lab coats, and in some places two or three of them worked together on projects that varied from lifelike robots to some sort of fusion reactor being worked on by a young fellow across the room.

The central device provided tools, raw supplies, and pre-built materials to the scientists, so all they had to do was envision it, and the machine made their wildest dreams possible.

“Amazing,” I said.

Moe, unimpressed with the place as if he had seen it a million times, shook his head. “I figured. And we could’ve been blowing up some shit.”

I stepped forward to one of the lab slots and looked around for controls.

“Well, this sucks,” I said, not seeing any computer terminal.

“You use your brain, big guy.”

I just blinked, not sure what he was talking about.

“Shit, if it was for you, we’d be flying into D.C. already, knocking heads and shit, right?”

He waited for an answer, but I just looked away.

“That’s right. Be glad the boss is careful. Whatever’s going down is some bad end-of-the-world kinda shit”

I nodded.

“So be chill and let the adults figure things out. In the meantime, have fun with....” he motioned to the lab. “And remember to use your brain,” he chuckled, leaving me alone in the lab.

I studied what the others were doing, trying to glean a clue to how the whole thing worked, but the hard-working scientists and technicians didn’t give me a clue. They made no specific hand motions, nor did they use any spoken commands that I could tell. In fact, they barely spoke, instead focusing on their projects. The central tentacle machine dropped tools or parts in their hands as if on command, yet they were as nonchalant as a doctor mid-surgery aided by a capable nurse who knew what implement he or she would need next. On cue, the machine tentacle would drop the required item into the person’s outstretched hand or place it in the metal bin if it was too heavy just as the scientist was reaching over for it.

One of the fellows noticed me looking and gave me a pleasant smile. I averted my gaze in fear he would know I had no idea what I was doing. I gave the metal table and tray a close look for any recessed keys, read-outs or command pads, but the thing was smooth aluminum, devoid of any hint.

“Damn,” I muttered, growing more frustrated by the minute. Not only did Superdynamic have me on a short leash in a cage I had willingly walked into, now he was f*cking with me. I bet his whole crew were having a huge laugh at my expense. Yeah, let’s all laugh at the bad guy.

I was about to punch the table, to see if that might make it work, when the doors opened behind me. I turned, half-expecting Moe, Superdynamic, and the others to come in, tearing in laughter, hoping I’d find their “hidden camera” humor to my liking. Instead, it was just one guy, Ricochet.

Out of costume he looked even thinner, less impressive. Ricochet was a young Asian kid, not even twenty, with crazy, spiked hair, pockmarked cheeks and a sloped, “I don’t care” attitude that was evident from his slow, meandering walk.

He carried his super suit draped over his left arm as he walked in the entrance, and when he saw me in the nearest booth he stopped in his tracks.

Ricochet said nothing at first, moving past me with a nonchalant nod, but he paused just a few steps away. “Hey, are you sure you’re supposed to be here?”

“Blame Moe,” I said.

He smiled and said, “Ah, cool,” standing there as if he wanted to go on but unsure of what to say.

“Guess he figured he’d let me out of my cage,” I said, trying to joke, but Ricochet didn’t register it.

“What’re you working on?” he said after running out of things on the floor to study.

“Nothing yet,” I said, hoping he’d move off and leave me to my embarrassment, but he didn’t. “Well, I could give these a fix.” I took off one of my boots and tossed it on the metal table.

“Oh, rocket boots. Cool.”

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re kind of jury-rigged at the moment. I’d like to build something a little more substantial.”

Ricochet nodded, “You made these by hand?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“Doubt you find something that size off the rack,” he looked at the flimsy metal framing I had built around the leather boot. “This thing works?”

I nodded.

“Must be nice to be invulnerable.”

Rubbing my right hand, I thought to tell him how I wasn’t, but he went on, suddenly emboldened that I was giving him an audience. He spoke so fast, undoubtedly as a nervous tick, that I had trouble keeping up with him.

“You’re like smart with this stuff, huh?” he asked, gesturing to the machine behind me.

“Not really,” I said, chuckling to myself. “I can’t even figure out how to turn it on.”

He exploded into action, thankful to be helpful, making me step aside as he commandeered the slot. Blue LED lights flashed to life at the edges of the metal slab, lighting my work slot in a way I hadn’t noticed was missing. A few of the tentacle arms came in our direction at Ricochet’s command, one dropping a cigarette in his outstretched hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna smoke it,” he said as he flipped it behind his right ear. “Helps me think, no matter what Superdynamic says it does to my lungs.”

“You a smoker?” he asked, then went on when I shook my head. “Didn’t think so. I bet you’re all into healthy eating and whatever. What do you pop, like fifty thousand grams of amino acids a day?” Ricochet eyed my brawny arms. “Not like it matters, you’re probably pissing half of it out anyway.”

“I’m not–”

“Oh, I don’t care, man. Do what makes you happy, is my motto. Okay, so what do you wanna do here, anyway? Let me guess, a skeleton key for handcuffs.” He paused, waiting for me to catch up, then laughed, “I’m kidding, man. I’d be all f*cked up if I had a billion dollar bounty on my head, too. Besides, like they even make handcuffs that fit your wrists. Or that could hold you if you got pissed enough. Anyways, I just wanted to adjust my suit. I mean, if we’re going into the unknown and get killed and whatnot, I might as well tweak the suit that keeps me from bouncing all around the world uncontrollably.”

I was still processing the handcuffs comment, but he went on.

“That’s how my power works, you know? The name Ricochet is apropos; I bounce all over the goddamned place without control. Superdynamic whipped this thing up to allow me a measure of control. It’s pretty cool. I hear you’re supposed to know a little about this stuff. You mind working on it for me?”

He waited three seconds, not long enough for me to catch up, before he kept going.

“If you don’t want to, I don’t mind, I can figure most of this stuff out.”

“No, I don’t mind–”

“I mean, Superdynamic showed me the way it works but some of this stuff...I have a cheat sheet,” he said, pulling a 3x5 notecard out of a pocket.

“I can help you,” I said, trying to sneak a word in edgewise. “If you can explain this thing to me,” I motioned to the table and the central tentacle thing.

Stupefied, he just stared at me, for the first time speechless.

“I can’t figure the f*cking thing out.”

Ricochet chortled, his laughter a weird gagging cough that threatened to spill out of his nose.

“Laugh all you want,” I said. “Without me, you’re stuck with the notecard.”

But for some reason, he ignored the threat and just kept laughing, “I like the way your sick mind works.”

So we worked together, though after he explained how the mental link worked, his effort in the cause was just keeping his mouth going. The central control was simple: the system just read your brain impulses, and after it learned the specific patterns, it knew where you were at all times in the Tower, knowing your needs before you even did. If you were hungry and headed to the mess, the system read your biometrics, studied your previous menu to know what you liked, and prepared a nutritionally balanced meal to match your caloric needs. If you needed a doctor’s visit, the system uploaded any problems you had so the doctor was prepared for your needs before you even made the trip. And it could interface with your immediate needs, like having the central telescoping tentacle thing hand you a soldering iron, the flux, or even the raw materials to repair a suit.

Ricochet’s suit was a simple magnetometer, designed to allow him control of his unlimited kinetic energy projection to counteract the impact of his collisions as he “ricocheted” around. It created a negative kinetic projection angled to Ricochet’s unconscious needs, letting him manipulate the angle of rebound as he sprung off his target. The system allowed him to bounce at odd angles, even back on himself, and to slow and increase speeds (which, according to the database, were in excess of 700 miles per hour). It also spared his body and his target the rigors of impact, by “bouncing” him off before actual contact.

The ancillary benefit of the neural net system that Superdynamic had installed in the Tower were return pathways, so you could access information from databases at the speed of thought, set up the most complicated calculations and receive a viable solution instantly. Ricochet was only able to give me guest access, so my speeds were reduced and the availability of information heavily regulated, but I could only imagine the possibilities of such a system, and I was hoping to get full access after a while. It was an impressive achievement by Superdynamic, and the more time passed, the more I was linked into the network, the more impressed I grew with the man.

Fixing Ricochet’s suit was more a function of replacing damaged wiring than anything else. When travelling at near the speed of sound, while at the same time bouncing off walls and objects, the wear and tear on the reflective suit was substantial. Besides, and I didn’t want to make a big stink about it, the way the pathways were configured was quite inefficient, almost redundant, as if Superdynamic were building a dual system of controls, which only made energy routing that much more of a problem. Even though the signals travelled through the suit at the speed of light, doubling the pathways meant a longer travel time, even if it was in micro-seconds, which combined with the reaction time of the user, would mean increased chances of impact, and more damage to the suit.

“So, dude,” he said as I was nearing completion of my work on his suit. “That whole thing in Australia?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, whether he meant Claire, or the walk through the desert, or–

“You really kill all those people?”

So they knew. I guess it must have gotten out faster than I was able to fly out of the country. Superdynamic knew and hadn’t said anything.

I shrugged, hoping he’d get the hint.

“So, you busted up Nevsky and Fenris and all those bad guys?”

“Look, I’d rather not–”

“Hey, it’s cool. Some bads get what’s coming,” he said, then thought about it a moment, realizing how I factored into that and avoided my glare. “You know what I mean. The real bads, right?”

“I was scared, and I lost control,” I said, admitting the truth, spilling it in part to make him uncomfortable, to get him to change the subject, but owning up to it, with such brutal efficiency, gave me pause.

For the first time, he was speechless.

He had finally gathered himself when Ruby came into the lab, through the entrance across the way, stopping at a booth with several scientists and chatting with some of her friends.

She was an attractive woman, but I wouldn’t have noticed her arrival if not for Ricochet’s reaction. His eyes flashed in her direction every few seconds, and instead of talking to me as he had been, he stood silent.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Huh? Sorry,” he said, shifting his feet. He was holding a framing bracket for me, but as his attention to the task at hand waned, so did his hold. I couldn’t do the final soldering with him fidgeting.

“Here,” I said, taking the bracket. “I can do this part alone.”

Ricochet barely noticed what I had said, and, looking up, I noticed why. Ruby had seen him and was waving. He averted his gaze nervously, so I waved for both of us.

Ruby said goodbye to her friends and walked around the lab in our direction. She seemed to know everyone in the tower, saying hello to all the scientists and techs she passed on her way to us.

“Hey, Rico. I didn’t know you were with our new friend,” she said being as delicate with me as she could manage.

“Yeah,” Ricochet managed, unable to make eye contact with her.

“Moe sent me to make sure you didn’t break the whole tower down,” she said. “But I would much rather be working in Central Command.”

“Any word from D.C.?” I said.

She shook her head, “I can’t say much.”

“This is getting kinda stupid,” I protested. “I came here to help.”

“Until you get on Superdynamic’s good side, the only help you can give us is by sitting still and letting us do our job.”

“Fine,” I said. “Then show me the f*cking way out if all you’re going to do is piss away my time.”

She cocked her hips and slammed the balls of her fists against her belt. “You have a potty mouth, don’t you?”

“I’m not kidding. If whatever’s happening in D.C. is so important, what are we waiting for?”

I looked over at Ricochet, but he didn’t help me at all, instead trying his hardest to keep from openly ogling Ruby.

“If you guys want to just sit here, that’s fine – I don’t care – but you’re not keeping me in a cage, you understand? You’re gonna need more guys.”

Ruby smiled. “Does that work?”

“What?”

“The whole yelling, threatening to break stuff thing that you do. Does it work?”

“What do you mean?”

She looked over at Ricochet, flashing a smile at him, “He’s not that smart, is he?”

He shrugged, unsteady under her gaze.

“I’m serious, Ruby.”

“Then take it up with the big guy. I’m not management, I just work here. You boys have fun,” she said and waved us off, before leaving the lab.

I watched her walk out, as entranced with her posterior as Ricochet was next to me. Ruby shot a glance back at us, knowing that she had us under her spell. She winked as the doors slid closed.

Returning to my work, I noticed that Ricochet was still enraptured, staring at the closed door as if hoping that she’d come back.

“F*ck,” he said finally.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he waved me off, holding the bracket for me again, this time with more efficiency than when Ruby had been across the room. “I’m hopeless.”

I smiled. “I kind of know what that’s like.”

He regarded me for a second, trying to figure out whether I was being honest or not.

“I’m serious,” I said.

“Whatever. From what I heard, you had Influx and Apogee fighting over you.”

I found it funny that it didn’t make sense to him that I would have trouble with women, as if it was some sort of trick I had mastered.

“Whoever told you that is full of it,” I said. “Anyway, Ruby seems to like you. You should just talk to her.”

Ricochet laughed, as if what I was suggesting was madness.

“She’s got plenty of guy friends,” he said, a bit wounded. “I doubt she has time for a guy like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? ‘A guy like you?’ You want to know what your problem is? You’re making it so it’s something almost impossible to achieve. But she’s just a girl, man. And you want to know what? I think she likes you.”

He didn’t say anything, caught in between the anger of knowing I was wrong and the hope of wishing I was right. Instead, he just helped me finish his suit, thanked me, and left me to work on my boots.