Chapter 154 Either Way.

Chapter 154: 154 Either Way.

"Alright," I said, checking my watch. "Then I’m heading over there. Someone get my suit."

"Oh! Oh, oh, oh! Can I come?" Psyren said, immediately perking up and dropping her phone. "I want to have some fun!"

I hesitated. Tactically speaking, it was usually a massive operational failure to bring the exact VIP asset a rogue faction was trying to kidnap directly into their heavily fortified base.

If this devolved into a super-brawl—which, realistically, it absolutely was going to—having her there was a liability.

But on the other hand, if I could just get her in the same room as Doctor Green, she could scramble his frontal lobe and end the conflict without me having to fire a single kinetic blast.

"Alright," I finally said. "You can come. But you stay glued to Glacia. Glacia?"

"Sir?" the aristocratic cryo-villainess said, turning swiftly from the window.

"You’re on VIP detail. You are strictly in charge of watching out for Psyren. Anyone you don’t recognize comes within ten feet of either of you, you popsicle them. No warnings. No banter."

"Of course, sir," Glacia said smoothly. Then she frowned, a delicate little crease forming on her brow. "But do you really expect this botanist to be a genuine threat? From your associate’s intelligence, he sounds like a complete idiot."

I slammed my open palm flat onto the metal worktable. The sharp crack echoed through the ballroom, making all three of them physically jump.

"Never," I said, my voice dropping to a dead, gravelly absolute. "Never underestimate an idiot in this industry."

"Sir?" Glacia said, her eyes widening slightly.

"That goes for all of you," I said emphatically, locking eyes with each of the startled women in turn. "Never, ever assume that just because someone acts like a moron, they’ll go down easy. The craziest, most unhinged fuckers in this business are the most tenacious threats you will ever face. Just because a guy wears a wacky hat, or paints his face like a clown, or has a deeply unhealthy obsession with manatees, never assume he isn’t carrying a weaponized pathogen that will melt your lungs. Crazy does not mean harmless. Crazy means unpredictable. Are we entirely clear?"

"Uh. Crystal, boss," Psyren said, holding her hands up defensively.

"Yes, sir," Glacia said, stiffening her spine and giving me a sharp, acknowledging nod.

I returned the gesture. Good. Sounded like the lesson actually landed.

"Alright. Psyren and Glacia are on assault with me. Rhea?"

"Let me guess. Mission control as usual?" she asked.

"Do you want to come with?" I offered.

"Pfft!" she snorted, waving a dismissive hand. "Please, Miles! Why would I go mucking around in some dirty, humid, abandoned factory when I could snuggle up in my ergonomic chair, grab a bowl of popcorn, hack into the local security feeds, and watch you cave some guy’s skull in in glorious 4K? It’s the best show in town! Plus, it really gets me in the mood, if you catch my drift. Besides, I love getting to direct you guys over the comms like the nefarious genius I am. Dance, my violent puppets. Dance!" she cackled, wiggling her fingers menacingly at the monitors.

"That works," I said, turning for the door. "Alright, ladies. Let’s go."

Of course, the whole dramatic, imposing villain departure was somewhat undercut by the fact that the three of us piled into my severely unremarkable Toyota Crown. I could feel the heavy, judgmental silence radiating from the passenger seats.

"You really need to get a different car, boss," Psyren finally noted, tapping the cheap plastic of the dashboard.

"What’s exactly wrong with the Crown? It’s reliable, it gets great mileage, and it doesn’t draw attention," I said, definitely sounding too defensive.

"Nothing, of course, sir," Glacia said politely from the back seat. "But for an individual of your standing, a more... emphatic vehicle would surely not be remiss. You are no longer a simple street-level operative. You are the leader of an organization of great evil. You should travel like one."

It was a somewhat uncomfortable reminder. I didn’t mind admitting it to myself—I wasn’t the same guy who used to scrape by with a battered costume, a leaky apartment, and a perpetually near-empty bank account.

I had a crew of highly lethal operatives. I had a fortified mountain chalet complete with a dormant doomsday mech, a towering ice monument to my own ego, and a demonic fashion mogul currently redecorating my guest wing. But maybe that was exactly why I was so reluctant to let go of the Crown.

It was my anchor to the lone-wolf life. A wistful, four-door relic of the days when my biggest problems were cheap takeout and low-stakes brawls with mid-tier corporate heroes.

But they had a point. It didn’t fit my new operational standards. What self-respecting syndicate boss didn’t have a matte-black armored SUV, or deployable Gatling guns hidden behind the headlights?

I hadn’t had much money in my past life, so I appreciated the things I managed to buy for myself, but an upgrade in variety was probably overdue.

"Alright," I sighed, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. "After we take care of the rogue botanist trying to use Psyren to conquer the globe, I’ll look into securing a new vehicle."

"Ooh! Let us come shopping!" Psyren cried, bouncing in her seat. "I can haggle us an amazing deal!"

"You are not going to mind-control a dealership owner into giving us a car," I said instantly, knowing exactly how fast that could backfire with the authorities. "And we’re not stealing one, either."

"Aw. Way to take all the fun out of grand theft auto," Psyren huffed, crossing her arms.

"Still, sir, I am sure we can find a most excellent vehicle to do your reputation justice," Glacia offered.

"And I can totes weaponize the fuck out of it!" Rhea’s voice suddenly chimed loudly out of the car’s radio speakers.

"Gah!" I gasped, my hands jerking on the wheel and nearly swerving the Crown into the oncoming lane. "Rhea?!"

She giggled, her voice crackling gleefully through the stereo. "You think this is fun? Just wait until I show you the schematics for what I can cram into a heavy-duty chassis. I’m gonna put some real, high-explosive junk in that trunk, Miles."

I just groaned, rubbing my temples as I focused on the road.

Well, car shopping was going to be an absolute nightmare, that was for sure.

We made quick progress through Metropolis, leaving the towering glass-and-steel corporate skyscrapers of the financial district behind.

The skyline gradually flattened out as we hit the outer business strips, eventually exiting the main freeways and plunging into the old industrial sector.

Here, the neon gave way to rust. Graffiti clung thick to crumbling red brickwork, and massive, blackened smokestacks stood against the sky like rotting tombstones. Deindustrialization had hit this quadrant of the city hard decades ago, and the municipal government had basically given up on figuring out what to do with it.

In the meantime, it had become a fertile breeding ground for the scene’s worst elements, and not just because of the poorly contained chemical runoff.

Civilians didn’t come out this way, so heavy-hitter street gangs like the Neons and the Ironknuckles had claimed the rotting factories as their own.

I had zero intention of dealing with them today. The gangs were usually satisfied slaughtering each other over turf, or violently clashing with the low-tier vigilantes who patrolled the slums looking for easy rep. I wouldn’t put it past them to take a shot at my crew, though.

Corporate pro-heroes rarely bothered clearing out the gangs. There was no PR value in slum raids, and definitely no merchandising rights.

As long as the Ironknuckles kept their violence contained to the tax-bracket the city didn’t care about, the monopolies looked the other way.

My only real operational concern was if Doctor Green had brokered a deal with one of them. I usually stayed strictly out of gang politics.

They were vicious in a raw, uncalculated way that even most career villains avoided. Worse, the bigger gangs tended to keep pet mad scientists on retainer to cook up combat stimulants and cybernetics for their muscle.

That Doctor Green might be under the protection of the Ironknuckles was a very real, very annoying possibility.

I could only hope he was just quietly squatting in an abandoned greenhouse, or bribing the locals with tech to look the other way.

Either way, I was kicking his door down.