Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 162: Shades of Gray

Chapter 162: Shades of Gray

Props to their training:

The guy with the broken arm didn’t stumble backward, howling in pain. Instead, he tried to pin Perry with the busted arm while he reached for his sidearm with his good hand. Two of the men restraining Chase dropped their burden to do the same.

It was a cramped apartment complex hallway and the walls were paper-thin, so Perry did what he had to do to prevent them from firing randomly.

He kicked the nearest one in his good arm, shattering it and folding his entire body over Perry’s leg, before using him as a springboard to hop over and catch the other two drawing their guns with a kick to the face. The impact caused them to tumble backwards, bodies slack from unconsciousness.

“Shit,” The last g-man cursed, dropping Chase and reaching for his piece.

Perry stepped closer and caught the gun’s slide, pulling it back before twisting the gun violently, busting the android’s finger and trapping his right hand.

The android hissed in pain and tried to catch Perry in the side of his head with a left hook.

Perry leaned back and allowed the fist to whoosh past his face, grabbing the android’s left with his own, then tugging the arm out, forcing the android’s arms to cross over each other.

Then Perry head-butted him.

The android’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the ground.

He glanced at the folded over g-man, breathing with difficulty, weighing whether or not he should knock him out. Being unconscious with that much damage to his lungs might suffocate him, which wasn’t Perry’s first option.

We’ll just leave him here and relocate.

“P-“ Paradox held a finger to his lips, glaring at Chase before the Minder could say his name. The ones in charge would suspect it was him, but they wouldn’t know for sure. He hadn’t used any of his vaunted spells, and he looked completely different.

“Let’s find somewhere else to be,” Perry said, motioning for Chase to follow him, limping away.

“Damnit, my hip,” Perry groused quietly, limping away from the scene of carnage and massaging his trick hip as his femur rattled around in its socket. “Why do I feel the need to be authentic with these disguises? I could’ve just faked the limp.”

Perry took about a hundred pound off his legs with the Paradox spell wrapped around his torso, and walking became easier.

“This way,” Chase said, motioning to a nearby fire escape before shattering the fire alarm and yanking down on it, flooding the building with ear-piercing noise.

Obfuscation through chaos.

They raced down the fire escape into the street and limped away as quickly as they could before Chase dragged him into an alley, then used what was obviously a secret knock on a door at the bottom of a hidden staircase descending into a basement.

“Whaddya want?” a muffled voice emanated from the other side of the steel door. “It’s not a Saturday, so-“

“Shut the fuck up and open the door, Gary! Shit just got heavy!”

“Chase!?” the voice said as the door began to rattle. A moment later, the heavy door swung open, revealing a greasy-looking man in a stained wifebeater.

Behind him were a dozen or so gambling tables coated in felt, neatly packaged up and waiting for the weekend. On the walls were dozens of TVs and a couch with beer bottles strewn around it.

“I gotta use your phone,” Chase growled as he stalked into the room.

“Chase, you gotta see this!” Gary said, barely giving Perry a second glance before he slammed the heavy steel door shut behind them.

The greasy gambling den owner pointed urgently as Chase was partway through dialing a number on the bar-side phone, directing their attention to the wall of TVs.

A grainy cell phone video of one super beating the tar out of another and dragging her offscreen was shown on repeat with a rolling ticker underneath, reading: ‘Serenity attacks Spangle for unknown reasons. Status unknown.’

“FUCK!” the blond Minder shouted, throwing the receiver across the room, where it bungeed back and smashed into the bar, scattering shattered plastic across the floor.

“Nice place, come here often?” Perry asked, breathing in the scent of booze, B.O. and cigarette ash.

“You!” Chase said, rounding on Perry, jabbing a finger into his chest. “What the hell did you do!?”

“I’dunno,” Perry shrugged. “Not get kidnapped? That’s pretty much all I’ve done since I got here. Have you considered the possibility that this is somehow your fault?”

“Fuck you! You’re getting me wrapped up in your bullshit! Go get kidnapped and leave me out of it!”

Perry ignored him.

“I was wondering, since you’re a Minder and all, if you knew anything about why no less than six Minders seemed to be running errands for government black-ops teams?” Perry said, ignoring Chase’s furious expression.

The red-faced anger was replaced with pale fear.

“W-what…?”

“Tell me everything you know about the Minder situation in Washington and I’ll rescue your daughter.” Perry said, pointing at the TV. “Or I could break your legs and make you tell me anyway?”

The distinctive sound of a pump-action shotgun echoed from behind the bar, and Perry glanced curiously over to see the wifebeater brandishing a shotgun in Perry’s general direction.

“I don’t know who you are, but nobody threatens my friends,” He said.

“Got a lot of brand loyalty, that guy,” Perry said, directing his attention back to Chase. “So what’s it gonna be?”

“He’s a super, Gary. Put that down before he shoves it up your ass and just give us the space for half an hour, alright?” Chase said.

Gary gave a sullen growl and slung the gun over his shoulder.

“I’m gonna go eat a bunch of powdered donuts. When I wake up from the coma, you both better be elsewhere.” The owner of the gambling den marched into the backroom and slammed the door shut.

“Euphemism for drugs or diabetes?” Perry asked, frowning.

“Bit of both.” Chase said with a shrug.

Under Paradox’s direct attention, the Minder took a deep breath, gathering himself for the explanation.

“You know the saying, ‘The nail that stands up gets hammered down’?” Chase asked.

“Yeah?”

“Well, my dad was a fan of that saying when I was younger. I guess it stuck. When I got my Minder powers, I used them the same way most young male Minders do: money and girls.”

“Skeevy,” Perry interjected.

“I know that now, okay?” Chase said, scowling. “Anyway, unlike most others, I kept a pretty low profile, just one girlfriend at a time, skimming enough off the top to get by. I figured it was those Minders that go crazy and try and assemble vast harems of mind-controlled women and rob blue chip companies of millions of dollars that get caught. I was half right.

Because I didn’t do much, it was assumed I couldn’t do much, so when they sent those mindless robots after me, they rated me low priority and assigned me to work for the PD as a special-case detective under heavy surveillance. That was maybe…fifteen years ago.”

“What does this have to do with the other Minders?” Perry asked.

“I’ve gleaned information from my superiors at the Police department…without their knowledge. They’re vaguely aware of the black hole that the more powerful Minders fall into. I saw a memory of one of my captains, who watched a video of a young woman’s head exploding. If they think you’re strong enough to be a threat, they stick explosives in your brain and keep your family hostage.”

“That tracks with what I’ve heard,” Perry said, thinking back to the sickly Minder asking them to knock her out.

“Who’s in control of them?” Perry asked.

“As far as I know, they force them into teams who take their orders from the head of the Bureau of Investigation.” Chase said with a shrug. “Which does a hell of a lot more than just ‘investigating’, believe me. They have a tendency to use their captive Minders to ‘nudge’ politics in the direction they want them to go without any normies knowing better. At first it was a blank-minded android in a political position here and there, but over the last five years, it’s really ramped up. Now I can’t read the vast majority of policymakers. Hell, my old PD captain got replaced with one of those freaks a year ago.”

“Oh, great, secret police.” Perry muttered. Always a great sign.

“What do you think they’re planning on doing with the android civilians?” Perry asked.

“Fuck the android civilians,” Chase said with a scowl. “If I never see another one of those creepy pieces of shit again, I’ll die happy. It’s like talking to someone with no face.”

“Your opinion has been noted,” Perry muttered. He wasn’t going to get into a philosophical discussion with an admitted mind-rapist about the nature of personhood.

It’s a bit like rock, paper, scissors, Perry thought idly. The Minders could see through his disguise, and get enough of them together, they could beat him. On the other hand, androids were the natural enemy of a Minder because their robot body failed to generate the signals that a Minder could latch onto and modify. To a Minder, they looked about a sentient as a lamp, which understandably freaked them out.

And Perry could mow through androids all day if he needed to. They were, for all intents and purposes, baseline human.

Minder powers were the slipperiest slope imaginable, and the androids had proven themselves depressingly human once they had wrested control of those powers away from their former owners.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Minders were being abused by androids. Androids were not inherently evil, just the power-hungry ones that had wrestled away control over the city and currently ran it.

If Perry freed the Minders, they would likely retaliate violently against ALL androids – Chase being a case in point – regardless of their moral character, and in the process, possibly set up the same striated society as before, with themselves at the top instead of their former masters.

Well, isn’t this a fine mess, Perry thought with a scowl. It was so mixed up and complicated that it felt like there was no win-scenario where nobody got royally screwed.

If he purged the androids at the top and freed the Minder victims, they would turn around and victimize androids, including the civilians he was assigned to safeguard.

If he didn’t…

Perry still didn’t know what the government of Washington had in mind for the androids, and that was what Solaris wanted him to find out. He wasn’t contacting Solaris until he had actionable intel. ‘Everything is corrupt as shit’ wasn’t specific enough.

So far, everything is shady as hell, but I still don’t know the end goal…maybe I should go ask the head of the Bureau of Investigation…

Perry glanced back up at the news coverage of Serenity’s kidnapping of Chase’s daughter.

But first, I gotta hold up my end of the bargain. Besides, Serenity might know something. There’s no way her attack on Chase’s daughter is unrelated.

Serenity was a Sweeper-class Bruiser who’d moved over to Washington city a few years back because they paid better and were willing to tolerate her violent outbursts.

‘Serenity’ was an ironic nickname that stuck. The woman was anything but.

Strangely, watching the video of the Bruiser smashing Spangle into the pavement over and over again, Perry found himself smiling…

He hadn’t had a proper challenge in Washington yet.

“You gonna do something about that, or just smile at my daughter getting pummeled like a freakin’ creep?” Chase asked, motioning to the wall of TVs.

“The first one,” Perry said, heading for the door. “Turn off the TVs and don’t answer any communications. They can’t leverage your daughter against you if they can’t reach you.”

“Not my first rodeo, kid,” Chase said, grabbing the remote from behind the bar and turning them off.

“Before I go,” Perry said over his shoulder. “What do you do here?”

“I’m a ref for high stakes poker games between drug kingpins. I use my powers to make sure nobody’s cheating.”

“And you’re a detective?” Perry asked.

“I told you it wasn’t my choice.”

“So like…they did to you with your job, what you did to-“

“Again, I understand that now, so get the fuck outta here!” Chase bellowed.

***Joshua Cochran***

Josh was walking back to his house, money padding his pocket after a hard day’s work. Everything was going…well, not great, but better than he’d feared. They’d gotten some subsidized housing they didn’t have to move until six months, and on the job front, there was good news and bad news.

The good news: He’d found two jobs, a day job and night job, and they paid alright. They would have enough for an apartment by the time their housing assistance ran out.

The bad news: Josh was working two jobs, and he was starting to feel like a wrung-out dishrag.

He was on his way home from his day job at the packing plant, his hands tingling with phantom sensation from the repetitive motions.

Just stick it out another couple months, then we’ll be in a situation where I can find a better job. This is nowhere near as hard as hiking hundreds of miles across broken roads through monster-infested wilderness while carrying a baby.

The soft whine of jet engines above him caught Josh’s attention and he glanced up, spotting a jet-black suit of armor carrying what appeared to be…a naked woman slung over his shoulder. The armor darted through the lengthening evening shadows and disappeared into the third story of an abandoned half-destroyed building covered in graffiti.

Don’t get involved, don’t get involved, don’t get involved… Josh tried to reign in the impulse, but the next thing he knew, he was wrenching an iron pipe off the interior of the building.

The instant Paradox steps out of his suit to do…what I’m sure he’s planning on doing, I’m gonna bash his fucking brains out…then ask him what the hell happened to Chicago.

Josh was too heated to consider the likelihood of getting useful information from someone whose brains had been bashed in.