Blackjack Wayward

Chapter Thirty-Five

After the showdown, after he got his licks in, Superdynamic figured the next conversation was best in private. He led me up to his penthouse chambers, a circular room with a one-piece window that covered the walls and roof like a dome. From that vantage point, I figure he must have felt like the king of the world, or of Africa at least. The suite was divided by light walls, holo-emitted pretend walls that gave the place definition while allowing Superdynamic the freedom of redecorating at will. There was some real furniture as well, all futuristic and modern, intended more for show. The couches were blocky and hard, and the chairs flimsy and fragile.

I stood a few feet from the central lift, watching him run through specific programming that turned the penthouse into something personal and cozy. There was a woman up here with us, an attractive girl in her mid-twenties, who despite acting as his assistant and getting us drinks shared a few longing looks with him that led me to believe she was more than just hired help.

“This is Rebecca,” he said, noticing my interest, and she nodded curtly at me.

She was a slender woman, mostly legs like a fashion model. Rebecca’s face was out of the cover of a magazine, with alluring blue eyes so light in color they were almost grey, full lips and high cheek bones, and long, straight, blonde hair. She moved through the room like she was comfortable there, denoting ownership of not just the location, but also the man.

The room morphed and a table came out of floor, but I had not seen a verbal or visual command from Superdynamic or Rebecca. The lighting changed – the outer areas of the large suite darkened, an overhead light illuminating us from above, making the whole thing rather cozy. The stars shone above, and an inky blackness surrounded us, making it seem like we floated high above the clouds. Three chairs came up as well, and moments later another person joined us, a tall fellow dressed like a chef.

“Good evening, Alain,” Superdynamic said. “We have a guest tonight.”

He looked at me and snapped his feet, bowing ever so slightly, “Ah, it will be my pleasure.”

“Have a seat, Blackjack,” Rebecca said, indicating that I should sit across from Superdynamic as he took his place at the head. The table was big enough for six, though there were only three settings, and she took a spot next to him.

“We have a navy bean and escarole soup with andouille sausage,” Alain began. “Followed by a tropical mango salad. Then some rock shrimp risotto with asparagus tips finished with lemon, and finally Caribbean seared ahi tuna marinated in sesame oil, with wasabi mashed potatoes and a tropical papaya salsa.”

“If it’s going to be he condemned man’s final meal,” I said, “then hook me up with five or six steaks with some of those wasabi potatoes.”

Alain regarded me like an infidel, as if I had just walked into his kitchen and rearranged everything. If he had been holding a gun at that very moment, I would be riddled with bullets.

“It’s ok, Alain,” Superdynamic. “He’ll have what we’re having.”

Nodding, the chef returned to the lift, flashing me a contemptuous glare as he dropped into the ground.

“I could eat half a cow,” I shrugged.

Rebecca stood and served us wine, watching me curiously the whole time.

“No wonder you’re so big, Blackjack,” Superdynamic said, making her giggle.

“Thanks,” I said as she finally poured me and set the bottle in the middle of the table before sitting down.

“He’s very handsome,” she told him, as if I wasn’t in the room. “I can see what she sees in him.”

I raised an eyebrow and acted sheepish.

“But he looks like a homeless person.”

I wondered if I had made any major mistakes as I ran my fingers through my newly cut hair.

“You act different around women,” Superdynamic said.

I looked over at Rebecca, who was studying me as if for her final exam.

“He’s more charming, less defensive,” she said and reached over to take his hand, “Take off the silly costume, darling.”

He took another drag on his wine and stood, walking to a far corner of the room that was morphing into another one of those showerhead thingies with an energy curtain. Stepping in, the armor peeled off his skin and just floated in the air, ready to come back on at a moment’s notice. The whole process took less than five seconds. He came back to the table wearing a suit more like mine, his face free of any protection.

“This wine is pretty tasty,” I said.

“Organic, made right here. Everything you’re going to eat is either grown or cultivated at the Tower, Mr. Blackjack,” she said, beaming with pride as Dr. de la Rocha had.

“It’s okay, I’m flexible. This organic/vegetarian stuff can’t be too bad, right? Oh, and by the way, call me Dale.”

She smiled.

“So, what?” I continued. “We eat, then go to D.C.?”

Talk of business immediately soured Rebecca’s expression, and I knew right there she was more than just a casual acquaintance. Superdynamic looked at her, his face still stern.

“I’m sorry,” she said, noticing how downcast she had been. “I don’t mean to ruin the evening.”

“It’s okay, baby,” he said, looking back at me. “But yeah, Dale’s right. After this we’ll have to go. The only question is whether he’s coming or not.”

Before I could say anything, the lift came up with Alain and two of his staff in tow. They carried several trays, going around the table and serving piping hot bowls of soup.

Rebecca thanked them, and after telling us “Bon appetite,” Alain and his crew were gone.

I dug in, and I can’t say I enjoyed the soup much. The white beans were a little tasteless, and the sausage was too spicy, but I guess that’s what the dish was going for: the dichotomy of the two flavors. I did notice that Rebecca just toyed with her dish, taking only a few spoonfulls, and Superdynamic’s attention was mostly on her.

“I’m coming,” I announced, figuring a strong stance would be a better bargaining point.

Superdynamic smiled. “And how are you going to get there?”

“I still have my boots,” I said. “I left them in my room ‘cause I didn’t want to ruin your fancy dinner.”

He motioned toward one of the walls and something floated toward him from the dark reaches of the room. It was a small hover platform, atop which sat my boots.

“You mean these?” he mocked, taking one and looking it over. It was a pathetic thing, my old, beat-up leather boot with the metal and wire frame that held the Odyssey’s rocket packs. In comparison to all his great designs and achievements, it looked like something a child had come up with.

“Laugh all you want,” I said, soothing my own bruised ego. “But I built that in the desert out of junk parts and no tools. Hell, I was peeling wires with my teeth.”

He gave it another glance and shrugged, as if he could do better with the working parts of a leaf blower.

“I’m not sure this will work further. The throttle assemblies are shot, and one of the carburetors looks stuck, maybe melted closed.”

“I’ll fix it.”

“With what tools? With what spare parts?”

I stood suddenly, enraged. He was holding the boots as if he meant to keep them from me, to destroy them, perhaps.

“We gonna do it that way?” I said, and Superdynamic came to his feet, his jaw muscles clenched tight. As if realizing the escalation of the situation, Rebecca also stood, looking back at Superdynamic’s costume, too far away to help him now.

“Please, Dale,” she said.

“No,” I said, noticing how tightly I was clenching my fists, how heavy my breathing was. “You’re not keeping me back here just because you don’t like me. There’s too much at stake.”

Alain popped up again, with his servants in tow. His crew either didn’t notice the tension or merely ignored it and started clearing the table of the soup and serving the salad. Alain himself saw us facing each other off, and very quietly helped his crew and returned to the lift.

“Dale,” Rebecca said. “I’m sure Jeffrey’s just worried about your safety.”

He snapped a look at her, angry that she had used his real name.

“Oh, I knew your name was Jeff,” I said. “Or did you forget that Apogee used it back on Hashima?”

Superdynamic looked down at the salad for almost ten seconds before sitting down.

“I can’t trust you,” he said, finally.

I looked over at Rebecca, who was motioning for me to sit, pouring more wine, and I took my chair.

“I can’t say I blame you,” I admitted.

Jeff toyed with his salad a moment before releasing his fork in disgust.

“You see, I saw you, back at Hashima, back in New York. I saw how dangerous you are.”

“I know, but I–”

“Let me finish,” he interrupted. “I need to say this.”

He paused, cleaning his hands with the napkin.

“I was there, Blackjack. You forget, but I was there. The world was in danger and you stood on the wrong side of things.”

“Things ended up all right,” I said.

“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “And according to Madelyne, you saved the day. You turned the machine off when Retcon went crazy...and you saved her life. But that’s just luck, don’t you see? If you had let us do our job, we would have done it just the same. I know you think supers are sloppy, and I know...well...I know that sometimes our methods are questionable.”

“She told me.”

He looked straight at me.

“Madelyne told me that you guys were hired killers.”

Shrugging, he went on, “Well, what do you expect? It gets to a point where you’re a threat to humanity. You’re like Ebola, or Malaria. You think I would have hesitated to take you out? Even if it meant saving just one life.” He snapped his fingers. “In a second. Like that, gone forever and I would have slept like a baby that night, you understand? I know Maddie was conflicted over that, after the fact. But at the moment? You were a threat, Blackjack. You were a danger to every person on earth, and if it makes you squeamish that we might bring overwhelming force on you, and that, yes, you might end up dead...well, you’re in the wrong line of business.”

“I’m learning that the hard way.”

He took a bite from his salad.

“Doesn’t it matter that he has changed his ways?” Rebecca chimed in.

“Has he? Have you? Two hours on this station and you start playing games with a young innocent girl that doesn’t know better–”

“I’m sorry about that, dammit,” I said.

“You forget, I saw that crazy look in your eyes when you pulled that stunt on Epic.”

Superdynamic took a drag from his wine, waving Rebecca off when she went to refill it. “I’m okay, baby.”

“Yeah,” he continued. “He wanted to solo Epic. What kind of crazy bullshit is that? I’ve never seen it in my life. And of course, Epic, being the imbecile he was, takes you up on it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The world hanging in the balance and you two dunces were playing games! I was there, Blackjack. I saw.”

“But Apogee said he was good,” Rebecca pleaded, trying to find a friendlier way to end the discussion.

“Look, I’ve known Apogee for...fifteen years?” he said after giving it some thought. “I was around when she first came up, when she joined the first Revolution. She’s not just a friend, Dale. She’s like family, like the sister I never had. Me and Mirage, and....” he trailed off, obviously wanting to refer to Pulsewave.

“We’ve been with her, through all the shit. You have to understand how hard it is for a woman, in her position. I mean, she’s the biggest female super in the world. Who’s more famous, better known? Bamma? Maybe recently. Ms. Starbright, Persephone? I bet more people know who Apogee is than George Washington, or Ronald McDonald. Anyway, that doesn’t matter.”

He paused, frustrated that he’d gone off on a tangent.

“She means everything to me, Jeff,” I said, using his real name on purpose.

“She means everything to all of us, to Mirage in particular.”

“That why he’s so cold with me?”

Superdynamic laughed.

“He’s like that with everyone, but yeah; don’t look to Chen for friendship. Nothing you say or do will change that. He saw what happened to her after Hashima, what you did to her.”

I almost dropped my fork, “I didn’t do anything to her.”

He shook his head.

“I was a f*cking gentleman– sorry, I–” I stammered suddenly embarrassed with my language.

“It’s okay, say ‘f*ck’ if you want,” she said. “This is good, you guys are sharing.”

“This isn’t about us,” he began. “This is–”

“No, wait a minute,” I said. “I want to know what Mirage thinks I did to her.”

He took a big bite of the mango salad and washed it down.

“I’m not sure you want to hear this,” he said.

“I do.”

Jeff shrugged and poured himself more wine.

“After Hashima, Apogee quit.”

“I know,” I said, though I had just heard her say that moments before the fight began, I had seen that weary look in her eyes, that frustration she carried from being on the wrong side. Whatever she actually did after Hashima, I don’t know about; I was in Utopia’s Lalaland.

“You say that like its cool. Like, ‘good, glad she quit.’ Well, you don’t understand what she meant to people, what she meant to us,” he paused, drinking wine to avoid getting emotional, something that Rebecca saw and understood, squeezing his hand.

“Well, you’re making it sound like I made her quit, like I put a gun to her head, and that wasn’t the case. Did she tell you the story? The full story?”

I found myself getting angry again, and just then I inadvertently squeezed the wine glass too hard and it exploded in my hand.

“Goddammit!” I said.

Rebecca stood, wiping my arm with her napkin as Alain came in again. His boys picked up the salad, mine mostly intact, and replaced our dishes with the risotto.

“We had an accident?” he wondered aloud.

“I’ve got it Alain, no worries,” Rebecca said, finishing with me.

“No problem, then? Not to worry, I bring you another glass.”

And he disappeared.

“It’s okay,” I told her as she folded the stained napkin.

“I know what she means to you, Blackjack,” Jeff said, trying to strike a reconciliatory tone.

“No you don’t,” I said. “You have no idea.”

I paused, looking at Superdynamic’s girlfriend standing right in front of him, and after seeing the love they shared, I felt the emotion begin to well. Seeing the memories of my childhood flashing past, mixing with those of my failed adulthood wasn’t a pretty sight. My life was a waking nightmare more akin to a train wreck, where somehow I had managed to stay alive, just barely.

“I’ve never had anything...to care for. Anyone to....”

I looked down, too ashamed to continue, to face these people who were her dearest friends.

“Apogee is the only thing...the only thing that’s ever been honest, in my life. The only person that I’ve ever connected with, that I’ve ever...see, I don’t have many friends,” I chuckled. “But then you’d know that.”

Rebecca smiled, happy I was ‘sharing,’ opening up about myself. In her heart of hearts, I could see she hoped this meeting to end with Jeff and me as newfound friends. But I knew better; his contemptuous glare told me everything I needed to know.

“And don’t think I don’t know what I am,” I went on, not caring what he thought of me any more. “I know what everyone thinks of me. I know. But...oh, God how do I say this?”

She took my hand, turning me to face them.

“You just say it,” she said.

I nodded, wiping away a tear.

“I know I’m a...a monster. I know I don’t belong....” I waved my hand outward, motioning to everything. “I know what a piece of shit I am. You don’t have to remind me.”

She handed me a napkin to wipe my tears, but I was content with letting them fall.

“But Apogee changed everything. She was the first person who ever saw something in me that wasn’t all bad, that wasn’t all rotten.”

Tears traced down Rebecca’s cheeks as she looked up at me.

“And that made me feel good.”

I lost it, and she hugged me. As we cried together, Superdynamic stood but stayed across the table.

“Dale, there’s good in everyone,” she said.

“I didn’t even know how hopeless I was until I met her.”

She separated from me and handed me the wine glass, which I drained.

“She saved me, Jeff. She saved me.”

“I know,” he said.

“And now I’m going to save her back.”

He shook his head, “I gotta be honest, I plain don’t know what to do here. Things are more complicated now. Lord Mighty is unstoppable. Even if we had Epic–”

“Throw me at him,” I said, moving around the table to him, almost wanting to fall to my knees and beg. “I’ll hold him off long enough for you guys to get to the White House and make sure she’s fine.”

“It’s the President we’re after,” he complained.

“Whatever, just find the President and Apogee and evacuate them both. I’ll be the punching bag.”

“Mighty will crush you in one second,” he said.

“One second more you’ll have.”

“No,” Rebecca said. “I don’t like this.”

“Its fine,” I said, holding her arm. “I don’t care.”

Superdynamic was giving the thing some consideration. I could see him running through all the calculations, gauging my strength and toughness based on the Hashima fight with Epic, and all that followed, measured against the man-god that was Lord Mighty.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “We fight as a team.”

“Okay, so what’s your plan when Lord Mighty comes at you guys? Moe? Come on.”

“You don’t understand, Blackjack. This isn’t some duel at fifty paces. The guy will kill you.”

I nodded. “Don’t pretend like you care.”

“No,” Rebecca protested. “Please don’t say that.”

She looked over at Superdynamic, but he seemed to be giving the proposal serious thought. Then she turned those beautiful blue/gray eyes to me.

“We don’t feel that way, Dale. Right, Jeff? We don’t see you that way.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, but she ran right over me.

“Of course it matters,” she said.

I smiled, not wanting to get into a semantic discussion comparing my good qualities versus all the evil shit I had done and evil shit I had yet to pay for. In fact, getting pummeled to oblivion by Lord Mighty would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people.

“Jeffrey! You can’t possibly be entertaining the idea.”

“He has to,” I said. “It’s go time, Rebecca. We eat this meal and then you have to go. Am I right?” I motioned to Superdynamic, who nodded.

“Moe made contact with the forces trying to enter D.C. about fifteen minutes ago,” he said and Rebecca audibly gasped, covering her mouth.

“The plan is to fly to a rally point in the Cicada and get choppered in at low altitude to the outskirts of D.C. Then we slug our way to the White House.”

“Right,” I said, continuing his train of thought. “And someone has to keep the big guy busy.” I turned to Rebecca, who unlike her boyfriend was still not warming up to the idea. “Zundergrub has a ton of villains with him, but none of them matter. Not when compared to Mighty. He’s worth the lot.”

Her bottom lip quivered as she looked from me to her man, starting to realize I wasn’t the only one that was going to be in danger.

“You think you can hold him off?” Superdynamic asked, starting to buy into the crazy plan.

I looked over at Rebecca and back to him, “I can do it.”

“Okay,” Superdynamic said, nodding severely. “Then you’re part of the team.”

Rebecca moved over to Superdynamic, who was moving in the direction of the light emitter that held his armor. He paused and took her in his arms, wiping the tears from her face.

“Please be careful,” she said. “Both of you.”

He kissed her and entered the beam of light, the armor segments slapping onto his body, encasing him save for the bottom part of his face.

I walked around the table, intent on taking the same lift as Superdynamic, but Rebecca interrupted me.

“I want you to know something,” she said, taking my face like one would a small, petulant child. She was so tall it wasn’t much of a reach for her.

“People care about you. We care about you.” She moved in and kissed me softly on the lips. “And she cares about you. More than you realize.”

Rebecca released me and reached for Jeff’s hand, holding it tight until we entered the elevator and the door began to slide closed, unspoken anguish burning like fire in her eyes.

“I know,” I said once we had been in the elevator for a few moments.

He looked at me, a bit confused at first, then smiled when he understood what I was saying; he was in charge, I was going to follow his lead, etc.

“You’re a very lucky man.”

Superdynamic nodded. “So are you.”