Ch21 Leftovers

 

“I can’t believe you ate the entire chunk.”

“If you wanted some you should have grabbed it before we left.”

“No I did not want your disgusting floor sushi!”

 

Buzzer seemed to have a real problem with me eating the tentacle piece. I was a bit worried about it at first, but Pebbles just laughed when he found out, and Ifrit didn’t have any real reaction that I could detect. She was silent as usual and with her facial features hidden by the mask it was rather difficult to tell what she might be thinking.

 

I wish humans used pheromones, it would simplify things. Sure they produced smells, but only two or three seemed to mean anything, and they tended to be redundant. Like broadcasting fear while they died. Of course dying is scary, what was the point of broadcasting it to the organism killing you? It would kind of make sense if other humans could pick up the scent and avoid the area afterwards, but so far the only human with the proper equipment had been the tracker human. So odd.

 

Either way, eating the tentacle had been worth Buzzer’s complaints. Both the design and codes were unique in comparison to other organisms I had eaten, and I already had several ideas on how to utilize what I learned from it. Shame I couldn’t eat the entire corpse, but as far as I could discern the creature’s size was due to a trigger event, not a random product of mutavus, and I should be able to acquire fresh samples of the original organism later.

 

Gregor and Olson met up with us, and Pebbles led us back to the van. Apparently Buzzer’s contact had given him the location of an Espada safehouse, and Pebbles wanted to “scope the place out.” We piled in the van and headed out.

 

Pebbles drove a few blocks south of Ashwood St, and then west again, into what my map said was E12.

 

“Just so you guys know, if you get lost your masks won’t be able to help you here,” said Pebbles. “They only have map functions in E13. You’ll have to get at least within three blocks of the border.”

“I was under the impression we would not be seeking trouble,” replied Gregor.

“Course not, but you never know right? We’re just gonna take a looksie, and if we see anything juicy we’ll call in a cowl,” Pebbles replied.

 

“Um, I thought the map function had to be approved by a lieutenant?” I interjected.

“Eh? What gave you that idea?”

“Imp said so. He had to give me the directions to the safehouse on the last job.”

“Kid, that’s just for sending important info over the network, you never know when a technopath is listening in,” said Buzzer. “If you want to use the map function just give your mask the address and it’ll lead you there.”

 

…I wish I’d known that sooner.

 

“So, it uses GPS?”

“God no!” cried Buzzer. “The map’s inbuilt to the mask. Uses GPS! Can you imagine? Might as well paint a target on your back and shoot off flares for any passing hero to follow.”

 

I clicked the GPS feature on my phone off.

 

“Ah don’t mind him Tofu, we haven’t had a technopath in this sector in years, Buzzer’s just paranoid,” said Pebbles.

“It’s my job to be paranoid! We’ll see how you feel when the heroes show up on your doorstep!” grumbled Buzzer.

 

We didn’t go very far into E12. Buzzer directed Pebbles for a few blocks, and then Pebbles pulled into an alley about a block from our destination; a seven story apartment building. Buzzer rolled down a window before saying, “Alright chumps, quiet down for a bit,” and he stuck his hand out the window.

 

We waited in silence for a few minutes, until Pebbles asked, “Anything?”

“I’m hearing fifteen or so distinct heartbeats in the building,” answered Buzzer, “Most are concentrated on the third floor, talking about random crap, kinda odd for a workday but… ah! One of them cocked a gun, seems we’re on the money.”

 

This was interesting, Buzzer could hear all that from a block away?

 

“Alright. I’ll send in confirmation and see how the brass wanna handle this,” said Pebbles.

 

Pebbles used his mask to send a message, then after a minute turned to us and said, “Okay, seems most of our cowls are tied up right now, so we gotta wait and watch till one can come round.”

“Wonderful, just how I wanted to spend my day,” said Buzzer.

“Ah, stuff a sock in it and keep your ears open.”

 

To pass the time I decided to try playing Gribblin Tamer on my phone with the sound off. I fiddled with the opening options and managed to get my Gribblin to level two before I was interrupted.

 

“Ah shit,” said Buzzer suddenly.

“What is it?” asked Pebbles.

“Car just pulled up outside the apartment and I recognize the voices, one of em is Frankie, and it looks like they’ve got Jasper in the car.”

“What?! Are you sure?”

“Yeah, heartbeat is a mutant, and I can hear Jasper’s stupid fake accent even through whatever’s gagging him.”

“Well shit, that’s not good. Let me send a message to base.”

 

“What’s not good? Mind filling us in?” asked Gregor.

“It’s Jasper, an information broker who works in E13,” answered Buzzer. “He works with us all the time, helped set up the barbeque on Sunday in fact. I don’t know how the Espada caught him, but they hate his guts. They’ll make him talk and then they’ll kill him regardless of what he says.”

 

No, I couldn’t have that. Jasper’s information was too valuable, and he was my back-up plan in case I ever needed to disappear and get a new job.

 

“Then we should go help him,” I said.

“Easier said than done,” said Buzzer, “Pebbles did they reply yet?”

“Yeah, seems the closest cowl is about an hour out.”

 

A whole hour? From what I remembered of Jasper’s previous encounter with Frankie, I wasn’t sure he’d last the whole hour in the condition I wanted him in. Frankie hadn’t seemed like the patient type.

 

“I don’t think Jasper will last a whole hour.”

“…yeah, probably not,” said Pebbles, and he started to drum his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Pebbles… you aren’t actually thinking of going in without a cowl are you?” asked Buzzer.

“Welllll, the way I see it we’re up against twenty or so goons and Frankie. Any two of us could handle most of the goons, the only problem is Frankie.”

“What’s Frankie’s power?” asked Gregor.

I answered, “He makes blades appear over his forearms, they can cut through metal easily.”

“Oh? You’ve seen him before?” asked Pebbles.

“And fought him, I helped Jasper on the subway when Frankie found him. He won’t be a problem for me.”

“HA! You sure get around Tofu. Alright, that means between Tofu and Olson we got two people who can take him without losing an arm.”

Buzzer spoke, “Pebbles, even if we can storm the place they’ll just slit Jasper’s throat to spite us the moment we show our faces. Unless we can get to Jasper quietly there’s no point to this.”

 

The van fell into silence at that. Apparently none of them were good at stealth?

 

“I think I can get to him. I’m a shapeshifter.”

 

Five minion masks turned to me. Ugh, I really didn’t like when groups looked at me all at once like that.

 

“What’s your plan?”

“I jump to the roof from the next door apartment, and come in from the top. If Buzzer can guide me I’m reasonably sure I can get to Jasper.”

“Wellll, that might work, but if I send you in alone Sandra will tear me a new one.”

“I could bring someone? It’s not a hard jump.”

 

There was silence for a moment as they considered my plan. Then Olson spoke up, “I can go with him Pebbles. If shit hits the fan it’s not like I’ll die.”

“Ha. Alright then, how about this: Tofu and Olson come in from the top, grab Jasper, and we’ll make a ruckus to cover their escape?”

 

“What if they have any hidden supers, or if the heroes show up?” asked Gregor.

“And the civilians in the building…” said Ifrit, almost whispering.

“Those would all be problems even with a cowl. Right now the biggest problem is how long Jasper can last with Frankie and a bunch of pissed off gangers,” replied Pebbles.

 

Gregor and Ifrit took a moment to consider, then Gregor shrugged.

 

“As long as Frankie gets handled, getting paid to beat up a bunch of mutant haters is fine with me.”

“Ditto,” said Ifrit simply.

“HA! One of the perks of the job for sure. Alright, looks like we are a go.”

Buzzer sighed before saying, “Make sure your masks are set to channel three,” and went back to sticking his hand out the window.

 

Olson and I exited the van, and walked further down the alley until we reached the “fire escape.” I reached up and pulled down the ladder for Olson, then we made our way up to the roof. We moved to the edge carefully, trying to stay out of line-of-sight of the windows in the apartment across from us.

 

“You sure you can jump us to the other side?” asked Olson.

“Yes, I’ve done this before. No worries, I won’t drop you.”

“Not me I’m worried about. If we plummet to the street I somehow doubt we’ll get a second chance.”

 

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I went about locking my legs into the jumping position, then I had him climb onto my back and hold on. Once he was settled, I took a few running steps and launched us across the alley to the neighboring roof.

 

I landed easily, my practice the night before paying off. I let Olson down, snapped my legs back to normal, and we walked over to the maintenance door that would lead us down.

 

“Can you two hear me?” came Buzzer’s voice suddenly. This must be the shortwave?

“Yeah we can hear you Buzzer,” said Olson.

“Good, there’s no one on the top floor near as I can tell. There’s a couple people in apartments, but I think most of the Espada are on the third floor, that’s where they took Jasper.”

 

The roof door was locked, but it was flimsy, and it was easy to carve around the door handle.

 

“Neat trick,” mentioned Olson.

 

It was, but it would be better if I could pick the locks without damaging them, another reason I would like Jasper undamaged. Maybe if we saved him he would teach me how he did it.

 

“Say, how thick of a wall could you carve through?”

“Um, I haven’t really tested it. Why?”

“Heh, if you can get through at least a foot or so I might have an idea.”

 

We made our way down a few flights of stairs, slowly and quietly, but stopped when we got to the fourth floor. Then Olson ‘radioed’ Buzzer again, and asked him to lead us to a spot above the room where they were keeping Jasper. Down a few halls we came to the apartment Buzzer specified, a room 4F. Buzzer confirmed that it was empty and I opened the door by carving around the lock again.

 

Inside was a lot like what I had seen the time I busted through apartments trying to get away from Magenta, filled with furniture and other various knick-knacks that humans collected, although this one was better organized than the examples I had seen thus far. Olson led us to a room where one piece of furniture dominated the space, a rectangular contraption holding an equally large rectangular cushion and covered in rectangular sheets, with a rectangular pillow near the wall. From the indent in the cushion it was obvious that the owner of the apartment spent a lot of time here, probably sleeping during its rest cycle.

 

Seriously now, I know humans like rectangles, but this was just taking it too far.

 

“We above Jasper, Buzzer?” asked Olson.

“Yeah, just about. There’s two people in the room with him, Frankie’s outside the room bitching and moaning right now.”

Olson turned to me, “Well Tofu? Think you can carve through the floor in here?”

 

I bent down and placed my hand on the floor, and set my micro units towards burrowing a test run. The floor was covered in carpet, and below that it was made of the same concrete that made up most of the city, along with a few miscellaneous support materials. The spike of micro units I sent into the floor descended steadily, until it broke into the room below, I was careful to not let any dust fall from the small hole I made. I couldn’t make a true eye since I didn’t want them to notice, but a simple light detector was easy enough, and I used it to get a general layout of the room. Sure enough, I made out the shape of a green humanoid in a chair that must be Jasper, and two other humanoid shapes that must be the gangers Buzzer mentioned.

 

“It looks like I can tunnel through the floor just fine. Is there a spot you want me to open the hole?” I asked Olson.

“Close to the door so we can try to block it. Bonus points if you can nail one of the guards with the rubble.”

 

I plugged the tiny hole I bored, and had Olson help me move the ‘bed’ quietly away from the wall since it was in the way. Then I went about carving the hole, it was slower going than the glass wall had been back at the test chamber. The materials of the floor weren’t uniform, and concrete itself was a blend of different materials, which forced me to use a variety of different micro unit structures to deal with it. Not to mention I had to maintain structural integrity while I did this, it would be disastrous if the section of floor fell before it was big enough to let us through. Deconstructing inorganic materials was simple enough, but reconstructing them? Painfully difficult. The micro units attached to anything I tried to make and if I didn’t keep them connected to my core they would self-destruct. I wound up just brute forcing it by holding parts of the section together with temporary fleshy constructs.

 

Despite the difficulties I was making decent time. Right up until-

 

zap

 

I cut through a metal piece that was apparently a wire charged with electricity! The electric current carried along a large section of micro units and fried them, the ones that weren’t destroyed instantly self-destructed a second later. I rushed to repair the damage before anything fell.

 

“Uh, guys?” came Buzzer’s voice over the radio. “Something just happened, the Espada in Jasper’s room are complaining that their lights went out? Did something happen?”

“I hit a wire,” I replied.