Chapter 151 No.

Chapter 151: 151 No.

Steve’s face split into a massive, relieved grin. "Eyyyy!" he said, easing back in the booth and spreading his hands out toward me. "My man! My friend. I knew I could count on you. This, Miles? This right here is why I knew she’d be safe with you. You don’t know what this means to me, man."

"It’s the least I can do," I assured him, tucking the dossiers and the USB drive into my jacket pocket. "I’ll have Rhea start tracking down the digital footprints for these two bozos immediately. Once we have a location, I’ll drop in and give them a stern talking-to. And if words fail, I’m sure extreme kinetic violence will be the answer."

Steve shook his head, looking genuinely misty-eyed. "I love you, man," he sniffed. "Couldn’t have found a better boss to take my sister under his wing. You know what? Next job you need me for? Pro bono, man. On the house."

Awww. Would’ve actually taken the deal if Steve wasn’t somehow always flat broke and living in the back of his van.

"Appreciated, but you don’t need to do that." I told him, enforcing a little professional boundary. "I’ll look after Psyren regardless, Steve. Just keep your ears open and let me know if your clones dig up anything else."

"Of course, man. Of course. Don’t even need to ask," Steve said, pushing himself out of his seat. He leaned over, grabbing my hand and shaking it vigorously between both of his. "And thanks again. I knew I could count on you."

"Heading out?" I asked.

"Gotta, man. Gotta. Still got some jobs going on and need to see if I can dig any more info up on the Brain Trust. But I know where ta find ya, man. Don’t worry. I hear about anything else, you’ll be the first to know."

"Cheers," I said, raising my beer in a parting salute.

Steve waved and slumped his way out of the bar. I took another pull of my brew, but it tasted like ash now.

I sighed, setting the bottle down and tossing a few crumpled bills onto the sticky table.

Fuck. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. No sooner do I get the goddamn corporate heroes off my back, a couple of rogue mad scientists decide to stir up trouble.

The sooner I tracked these bastards down and dismantled them, the sooner I could get back to running my actual business.

Dealing with other people’s megalomania was taking up way too much operational bandwidth. I barely had time to scheme up any proper evil plots of my own lately.

And that alone was costing me more money that I liked, one of the reasons a villain organisation tasted good was the prospects of others doing the job too.

Not blaming Glacia, Psyren and Rhea. But between the three of them I’d gone head to head with a Guild villain, mobstars, idiot Streeters, crazy scientists and now another crazy pair of crazy scientists.

Shoving my hands deep into my pockets, I took the back exit out of the bar, through the tunnels and stepping into the damp chill of the alleyway.

I needed to head back to the chalet, sort my thoughts out, and brief the girls on this latest complication. Especially Psyren. She was going to have to stay strictly on lockdown until I handled this.

Don’t know if she’d listen or not but she had to at this point. At least till idiots understood she was behind me and that’s all that matters.

Either these guys were getting truly desperate for living batteries, or someone in the industry had leaked the true ceiling of her power level.

Either way, I was probably going to have to make a very messy, very public example out of Doctor Green to ensure nobody else got any bright ideas.

I reached the Crown and fished my keys out of my pocket. As the metal jingled, a flicker of movement caught the corner of my eye.

I turned my head slowly, my hand instinctively hovering near my metal bracers.

A... figure was shambling down the alleyway. And ’shambling’ was being extremely generous.

They moved like a drunk who’d had all the bones magically sucked out of their body, weaving violently from side to side, limbs flopping with zero structural integrity. It was deeply unnerving to watch.

The guy was draped in layers of mismatched, oversized clothes, looking like a walking pile of thrift-store rags.

A ratty fedora was pulled low, and a thick scarf was pulled up tight, leaving nothing visible except a narrow slit of shadow containing two glowing, jaundiced-yellow eyes.

I slowly slipped my keys back into my pocket as the figure swayed wildly toward my car. They bumped hard into the hood, nearly toppling right over it, before splaying a heavily gloved hand against the metal to steady themselves.

"Hey, man!" I stepped up, not caring whatever was going on with him, as long as my crown wouldn’t take the hit. "Could you please step away from the car?"

The figure lifted its other hand to its face, as if thoughtfully stroking its chin.

"Well hello-o-o-o there," he—I assumed it was a he—said. His voice vibrated aggressively, humming like he was sitting on top of an unbalanced industrial washing machine. "Fancy m-m-m-m-meeting you here."

"How so?" I asked, stepping back and keeping my distance. "But the comment still stands, hands off my car."

He swayed away lightly but I could see the balance stutter on his legs unnaturally. "You are-are-are Pola-a-a-aris, yes? We... I... wou-ou-ould like to expe-e-el words with you-ou-ou."

Uuuugh. I could already feel a migraine building right behind my eyes. I really, really did not have the patience to deal with whatever this was tonight.

"Uh huh," I said flatly. "Listen, pal, I was just about to head home. Can we take a raincheck on... whatever this is?"

"Why wait for-or-or rain when we can discuss-uss-uss it now?" the vibrating rag-pile replied. "I assure you, you will not miss-iss-iss out on this."