෴Raz෴

෴Hex෴

෴Midnight෴

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

Let’s Talk

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

Eavesdropping was a mistake. I should have just gone out there and gotten involved in the conversation. It’s not like I’m not going to be able to avoid him forever. Should have predicted it would end abruptly. It always does with him.

Raz looked at the door. “Wait, he is coming back right?”

Sia shrugged. “Probably, maybe. Now that I got into a new dress he might show up to ruin that one. Why?”

“I was hoping to talk to him before he jetted off again.”

She glanced at the wall clock with a frown. “He could be back in a few minutes, or not for days. How long are you willing to wait?”

[A high power signature has entered passive detection range.]

Go active scan. How far? Where? Does it match him?

[Linear distance, 42 meters.]

[Coordinates match parking structure lower entrance, orthogonal plotting shows a movement speed of 1.5 meters per second.]

[Active scan confirms it is opponent designate: Midnight]

Raz started edging toward the front door.

“Well, we’ve got some dancing to do tonight, so not long, but if he came right back, I want a chance to get some answers out of him.”

He reached the door and looked out into the hallway.

She snorted. “Yeah. Maybe. He’s pretty crap about giving answers. Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna try and catch him before he leaves again!” he called out over his shoulder as he ran down the stairs.

Along the way, Bee filled him in on Midnight’s relative position. Raz almost panicked when Midnight started moving away from him until he realized it was at the same walking pace.

That means he’s on the second level. Building equipment is on the third level. Sia, why did you have to live on the top floor?! Must. Go. Faster.

Raz started leaping down the flights of stairs, using the slow time for a fraction of a second at the bottom of each staircase to stick the landing. On the seventh floor, he jumped just as the door at the bottom of the stairway opened. An elderly lady carrying a trash bag stepped into the path of his ballistic fall path.

Raz pushed deep into the slow time, grabbing the inside handrail and twisting his body in the air against the direction of his fall. Timing his grips and hand positions as best he could, he swung on an arc, short cutting the landing below to continue on to the next landing. His hands were barely able to grip the rails hard enough to twist his flight path around so he was now falling down the second flight of stairs feet first.

“Earl, did you see that?” the old lady exclaimed as the wind from his boots ruffled her hair.

That landing is going to hurt.

It hurt. Despite his best efforts to right himself in the air, the landing wasn’t good. He hit hard on his left leg. Without any space to tuck and roll at the bottom, he dropped into a three point crouch on the unforgiving steel floor. He felt something pop and give way in his ankle. As he tried to stand up something twinged in his back.

Self target Somatic Restoration, full power.

He tried to stand up again and nearly fell down again as his left leg and lower back flared into agony.

His energy dropped fast, leaving him below half by the time he’d gotten stabilized on his feet.

The pain faded, leaving him with a lingering, aching stiffness.

[Don’t run on it for a few more seconds.]

[Give your tissue a moment to stabilize.]

“I don’t have time!” he gasped, pulling himself to his feet by the steel handrail.

[Target is stationary.]

Shit, that means I’m out of time!

He limped down the stairs as fast as his leg would allow. By the time he was on the fourth floor, he was running again.

He hit the door to the top level of the parking garage at a dead run, straight arming it open with a loud bang. He rushed around the corner to where he could see Midnight.

The man was leaning against a concrete pillar, apparently just relaxing there. His hair looked longer and more windblown and disheveled than the last time Raz had seen him.

Raz approached, gasping for breath. With his target in sight, words seemed to have abandoned him.

“Mid—” he cut himself off when he noticed the couple that lived across the landing from Sia were sitting on the pile of concrete parking bumpers while they smoked.

He looked from the pair to Midnight, back to the pair. Finally he waved a greeting at the neighbors and looked at Midnight. “Midtown traffic, what a pain in the ass, am I right or am I right?”

Midnight looked from them to him. “Yes, traffic is terrible around here. My new friends were just telling me about how bad the commute is some days.”

“So hey—”

Come on, think of a name!

“—dude,I wanted to talk to you before you head out.”

Really brain? Dude? That's the best you had?

Midnight nodded. “Sure thing. I was just chatting with my new friends. We’ve met in passing once or twice, but we’ve never really had a chance to talk.”

He waved at the couple sitting on the concrete bumpers.

[No deception detected.]

Raz nodded to them, “Hey Bill, Jenny, how have you been? What’s it been, three weeks?”

“Oh hey Rod, what's happening?” Bill replied. Jenny elbowed Bill. “Raz, it’s good to see you. More like four weeks I think, it was at the last cookout. Speaking of, are you and Sia coming to the rooftop party tomorrow night?”

Raz stumbled to a halt. “Oh wow, I totally forgot about that. I was out of town for a week, but man, I feel like I’ve been gone for months. Yeah. I think we’ll be there.”

Bill nodded enthusiastically. “Nice! Alright Rod, make sure you bring extra beer. Never enough brews at those things.”

Jenny nodded an emphatic no behind Bills back, “It's potluck honey, I’m sure they’ll bring something good.”

Midnight watched the interplay saying nothing, a small smile playing over his face.

Bill mumbled something and tossed his butt into a nearby ashcan. ”I’m just sayin, never any shortage of food, be great if we didn't run out of beer right away for once.”

The two walked away toward the stairs. As they entered the stairwell, Raz could just make out Jenny speaking up. “I’m telling you, that's the guy who's always showing up at her place at odd hours, and only when Raz isn't there. I know what’s going on!”

Raz looked back to where they had been sitting and spotted the bumper with the color and texture that was just slightly wrong. He hurried over and had a seat where they had been. “So, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. You had some issue with me, I thought you killed my father, mistakes were made.”

An unreadable expression crossed Midnight’s face as Raz addressed him. He didn’t respond, just stood there leaning on the pillar, regarding Raz with a resigned, weary expression. “I don’t know what you see when you look at me, but I’m doing my best to let you make the most of your life without getting involved in all the problems I have.”

Raz shook his head and forged ahead. “I get it. You have big, bad, fly around, save the world stuff on your plate. The thing is, I’m involved now. You yourself told me I can’t go back to my old life. So like it or not, I’m all in on a new life. I have a feeling we might never really get along, but you’re in her life, so you’re in my life.”

Midnight choked and coughed before continuing. “Kid, I just got nearly everyone I know killed. I couldn’t even find all the bodies. I couldn’t even give them a funeral without getting involved in even more shit.”

He threw his hands up. “I got problems you wouldn't believe. You shouldn’t want any part of me right now. I’m trying to keep my fingers in a dike with more holes than a round of swiss.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and then massaged his temples with his left hand. “I just lost the one person who always keeps me sane, and more people think I’m a terrorist today than yesterday. I’m not exactly winning at life right now.”

He looked Raz in the eye, his gaze filled with such a weight of loss and pain Raz couldn’t stand the eye contact and looked away first.

“Kid—Sorry, Raz, what you should be hearing is, ‘you don’t wanna be involved’. Yeah, I get that you think you do. Maybe you’re already involved, maybe you’re not. You’re still much better off walking away from all this and never looking back.” his voice reminded Raz of the way his father had sounded whenever he had bad news.

Raz saw an opening and went for it. “Well, it sounds like what you need is some help. Maybe you should be letting me help, instead of telling me to stay away.”

Midnight sighed. “What did I just say about everyone working with me?” His tone changed, as though he were talking to himself, “I am speaking English right?” he muttered nearly inaudibly.

“Look, you don’t want any part of me. Do you know what I’ve been doing when I’m not putting out fires? Trying to recruit people. I’m trying to get people to join me and my cause, knowing they’re probably going to die. Do you know how fucked up that is? Asking people to join you, knowing they’ll die because of it?”

Great. That makes it feel less likely that he’ll help.

The older man shook his head as though it was too heavy for his neck. “You aren’t in a position to help, you'd just get killed. Allow me this small selfish action. Just stay out of it.”

Raz didn’t really know what to say to all that. “Look, you need to realize that leaving me with questions is literally the worst way to keep me out of something. I think you can help. I get that you’re busy with whatever you’re doing out there, but if you can give me the courtesy of a couple of minutes to talk, maybe I could get out of your hair and on with my life.”

Midnight looked dubious, so Raz played his trump card. “I was hoping to be somewhere more private to say this, but there’s something really wrong with Hex. She needs your help.” he said, praying he wouldn't regret that reveal.

Midnight regarded him for a moment then nodded. “Hex is quite resourceful and resilient. Not a lot can affect her for long. I’ll need to know more to take that as true.”

A car door slammed shut somewhere else on the parking structure level.

Midnight glanced in the direction of the noise. “You’re right though. Perhaps we’d be better served by taking this discussion somewhere more private.”

He glanced at the pile of parking bumpers and sighed, before striding toward the stairs. “As for a few minutes to answer your questions, sure. You make a fair point, and your request to talk isn’t unreasonable. So after you tell me what’s going on with her, we might as well clear the air while we can.”

“I could use a break myself.” he whispered to himself so quietly Raz barely caught it.