Colin cruised up the ramp and onto the 4th floor of the multi-storey car park on his new bike and looked around. It had taken him just over 2 hours to get from Wessex to London proper, quite an achievement given the traffic in and out of the City on a Friday night. He was very pleased with his new toy, its manoeuvrability was excellent and it had managed a steady and effortless 60mph throughout most of the journey. He now found himself in the middle of the Shambles district in a rundown car park at nine o’clock at night.
He looked around the unnaturally dark landing for his objective. Too many lights had blown on this landing for it to be a natural phenomenon but it didn’t bother him as he had discovered en-route that his helmet must have been enhanced by one of Sir Bryan’s ‘friends’.
He switched off his fully provisioned HCP comms-unit and switched on the helmet’s enhanced vision and targeting systems – suddenly the whole parking area flared into life, revealing a figure standing over by the stairwell. He’d initially not been happy to discover that he’d had this facility added to his helmet as he feared it might result in him being blinded by a sudden light but he’d learned on the road here that it also had extremely fast anti-glare capability installed as well.
He pushed the bike onto its kickstand; set the bike security defences as he took off his helmet and walked across to the man he’d arranged to meet.
That man was the same height, weight and general build as himself, but there the similarity ended. The man in front of him was older and chewing obsessively on a toothpick; he was dressed in various shades of brown, hush puppy shoes contrasted with dark brown slacks and in a paler brown sports jacket over an open tan shirt with wing tip collar. His hair was unevenly cut and naturally spikey but it was the face that first caught your attention. A scar, ragged against his tanned face, ran across his left eye down to the corner of a mouth that seemed too wide for his face and made you aware of the lifetime of acne scars around his nose and mouth from too many years sniffing glue as a youth. It was a face even his own mother would struggle to love.
As Colin walked up to him, he held out his hand for Colin to shake. The darkness obviously didn’t affect Malone’s eyesight. His knuckles were covered in scars and calloused tissue from years spent punching out his victim’s teeth. Everything about this man screamed mindless thug, which happily disguised his actual intelligence and predatory insight.
“Malone”, Colin muttered as he got within range of the massive scarred hand and felt his own hand grabbed as he was pulled into a bone-breaking hug.
“Ya’r lookin’ good, bein’ away from Mam’s done you good.”
Malone had been one of his father’s enforcers at the Firm, so it was easy to underestimate him – he’d also been his Dad’s intelligence officer and was not to be under-estimated, except by the opposition. He’d discovered how intelligent when Malone had tried to stop him from becoming an assassin, trying to avenge his dad’s death. In fact, although Malone had never confirmed it, he was sure that it had been him that had got Sir Bryan involved in his life.
All this went through his head in seconds as he took in the distorted smile, courtesy of a smashed glass to the face as a teen and the ever-flicking toothpick swirling between his teeth.
Colin had, at times, even managed to impersonate Malone in order to get places his abilities couldn’t, though he had never told his old retainer that. Way too embarrassing.
“So what you got for me, old man?” Colin asked.
Despite refusing to assassinate those who’d killed his Dad or order the hit, he still wanted to dismantle their criminal empire and make them pay and Malone was always ‘helpful’ in tracking down Mystery’s latest criminal activities, even if he was supposedly retired.
He’d actually invested his blood money in stocks and shares and was now extremely rich. It had allowed him to retire from the ‘business’ before he was 40, though you’d never know his true financial value from his lifestyle or the way he dressed. He also shared Colin’s desire to stop Mystery from expanding her criminal empire, though he would only do so from the shadows.
His face took on a sad look as he sat on the bonnet of a nearby burnt-out Lamborghini, “Kid, Mystery’s opened a couple a’ undergroun’ fight clubs across the city. She’s usin’ street kids, kidnappin’ them and forcin’ them to fight for their lives and the punters pleasure. Bloody brutal affairs. Main event’s always a couple of metas, usually to the death. Clubs always on the move, but I know where their main recruitin’ groun’ is at.
She’s also traffickin’ metas to Third World countries, lookin’ to try and copy America’s trick of carryin’ out ‘extraordinary rendition’ to buil’ up their meta soldiers. Lots of shit last time when Pres’nt Bush kidnapped all those foreign meta’s, but this time we got The Caliphate and China buyin’ in powered’s. She uses the clubs to show a’ the merchandise to her buyers.”
Colin knew this was one job he would have to do alone; he couldn’t involve Chris or the kid in this, and the school would insist on passing the information on to the authorities and someone would blab before the raid. He needed to find conclusive proof and make sure it didn’t vanish before he involved the Police.
Time was not his friend. The longer he took to plan, the more chance that others would be kidnapped, injured or even die. Colin had some hard thinking to do, and he wanted to take advantage of Malone’s advice and wisdom while he had the chance.
He needed to gather intelligence which could then be passed on to the police for them to put the fight-clubs out of business, even though that would likely only be a temporary solution – unless Mystery herself was caught and imprisoned, which seemed optimistic in the extreme.
To damage her body-trade more permanently, it might help if the “customers” could be convinced that the fights were fixed, or the bodies being sold were somehow not worth it, over-priced. How to do either, though, was the question, and some answers might have to be improvised.
Colin reckoned he was too young to pose convincingly as one of the customers for kidnapped Metas and he hadn’t the time to age up a suitable disguise. He was probably unlikely to pass unnoticed as an ordinary member of the audience – as he reckoned that most folk turning up for such things would either be already known or arrive as part of a group. Perhaps he could be “recruited” as one of the fighters? He talked the various options over with Malone.
“The warm-up fights, what type are they recruiting?” Malone smiled, “street kids mostly, the fresher and fitter the better. The problem will not be gettin’ in, it’ll be the gettin’ out in one piece. Ya’s gotta plan, kid?”
He thought for a few minutes. “I need to create an emergency of some kind, probably a fire or explosion, to draw the attention of outside authorities, to distract the bad guys and allow the hostages to escape.” He seriously considered trying to sneak some of his smoke pellets in with him and possibly even his extendable staff, but what if they were discovered before he was ready? No, he couldn’t risk it, he would need to improvise.
He’d passed an old-fashioned – we sell everything type – shop as he’d driven in to the car park and that had been located next to several charity shops. It was the type of general store that was open 24/7 and ready to provide for any and all emergencies by selling a bit of everything.
He asked Malone if he had a flask with him, knowing he carried some quality single malt whiskey with him at all times. Malone duly produced a slim hip flask and handed it over, only to cry in dismay as Colin emptied the liquid remnants out. He followed Colin down to the shops, complaining all the way.
He proceeded to buy a half-bottle full of white spirit and some matches. Next, he decided he needed to dress the part and given the hour realised his best bet to get hold of some cheap clothing would be from outside one of the nearby charity shops. Even when closed, people still dumped shopping bags full of clothes at their door (he’d leave a donation with the stuff he left behind so the charity didn’t lose out).
He found what he was looking for. The flask, refilled with white spirit, he hid in his newly acquired baggy trouser pockets.
He then headed to an all-night pharmacy where he bought some cosmetics to give him a bit of a bruised look as well as some temporary “natural red” hair-dye. He went to a disabled toilet nearby, changed and proceeded to alter his hair and eyebrows as well as apply what looked like shadows under his eyes and a bruise to his cheek then dressed in the clothes he’d ‘liberated’ which he proceeded to scuff and ’smelly’ (and himself) up so that he can pass as a street-kid.
According to Malone, who watched this all with an equal mixture of concern and mild amusement, they generally held their fight clubs after the clubs closed which would be about three in the morning so he had a couple of hours to prepare or accept he’d need to wait until the following weekend.
Colin looked at himself in the mirror. The red hair would take several washes to get rid of and it was possible he’d still have it in his hair, assuming he made it back to school, come Monday morning. He’d be on the bill for a detention, for sure. Oh well. He began slicing up the jeans and applying mud to the knees and trouser legs in an attempt to give his clothes more of a superficial ‘lived in for a couple of months’ look.
It was his intention to be at the recruiting-grounds at the appropriate time, and to pass himself off as ‘Carrot’, a hungry runaway just arrived from Reading, knowing no one in London. His bike and normal clothes (and costume) and all ID he left with Malone for safekeeping.
He rigged his phone to record what happened to him and wondered if Malone had some way of monitoring it, possibly downloading the recording, and being alerted if Colin needed some outside help, but Malone persuaded him that his kidnappers would just steal any phone on him. Anyway, what was a street kid down on his luck doing with a new top-of-the-line phone? He’d have sold it for food or drugs, first chance he’d have got. No, in the end he decided to stick with using his school earpiece and have an open channel to his own phone, which he would leave with Malone so it recorded everything as well as traced his location.
A couple of hours later, ‘Carrot’ made his debut in an over-sized combat jacket and torn jeans. He checked his earpiece, which he’d stuffed into a tear in his waistband, was working and walked over to one of the oil drum fires that the other street people had gathered round.
He persuaded some of the younger homeless to allow him to stay the night by claiming he’d just arrived in town, that he knew no one, had nowhere else to go, was hungry, and would they let him share at least the warmth? It worked, where people have next to nothing they were more likely to share what little they had.
It was about 2am when he heard it, a van pull up at the end of the alley, the side door slam open, screams as someone was jumped and a fight begin.
In front of him were four large men in black, their faces covered, trying to drag a young male out of one of the makeshift tents. His girlfriend was screaming and they were beating on her as she tried to prevent the boy from being dragged off.
They appeared to be ignoring the others in the alley, including himself. It looked as though he needed to prove himself as a better choice to take and give the kid the opportunity to get away.
There were four of them; three of whom were armed with sticks and pickaxe handles, the other one has what looked like a Taser cattle prod, which he was using on the kid, causing him to wet himself. He quickly looked around to see if he could improvise something to act as a Bo-staff and saw a short length of scaffolding pipe. He grabbed it and waded in to the fray, using it in the first instance to pole-vault in so that he hit the cattle-prod wielder with both of his feet to the head. The guy collapsed unconscious.
‘Carrot’ immediately started yelling at them to “leave us alone” and “Get away from the girl.” He spun the improvised staff round and realised too late just how heavy and unbalanced it was. It rolled off and hit the ground, leaving him apparently defenceless as one of the stick-wielders got a blow into his chest, bruising him. Damn! He used his hands and feet to cartwheel over to the pole and grab it, landing in a three-point stance with the makeshift staff in his hand, ready.
Time to poke the bear. He thrust the pole forward, feinting a strike with the end of the pole to the face, only to suddenly stand upright and swing the other end between his opponent’s legs. It missed his manhood but still slammed into his thigh causing him to collapse to the ground as it took out his leg causing him to fall to his knee off balance.
That got the attention of the other two attackers, who momentarily forgot their original target and focused on him. Good, now he just had to make sure he was just good enough to survive. The fewer of them still conscious, the better. His aim was to damage the attackers enough that they were too weakened and disturbed to take anyone but himself prisoner, but to pull his punches as needed to ensure that he got captured at the end.
He charged in, signalling the girl to grab her boyfriend and run to safety. She responded fast, but not before mouthing a ‘thank you’ at him before shouldering the boy and hobbling away as fast as they could down a nearby alley.
‘Carrot’ swung the pole at knee-height at his nearest attacker. He apparently knew parkour as he leapt over the end of the pole, bounced off the alley wall and kicked Colin in the chin. He reached up and felt the blood. Okay, he was definitely better than he’d expected, he wouldn’t underestimate them again.
The cocky little swine thrust out his hand, smiled and gestured him to step forward. Colin obliged. He ran forward, dropping the pole to somersault passed him, then spun and kicked the rear of his head. That had to hurt! He was momentarily stunned but before Colin to follow through the other attacker was on him swinging his pickaxe handle wildly.
He backed up trying to figure out if he could risk whittling them down to last man standing which would be better for his long-term health but might force them to flee before they could take him prisoner or lose to the two of them and risk being punished for his ‘bravado’ before they took him away.
He spun round, attempting a roundhouse kick, but really assessing the mood of the remaining homeless people gathered behind him. His actions had emboldened those that hadn’t run away. Damn, looked like he’d need to take a couple (or several?) kicks for them. If he took out another of them, the civilians just might risk rushing his lone attacker and some of them might be hurt or, worse, he might run without taking Colin with him.
He made it look as though he was attempting a punch to the face and made sure he missed. Parkour boy grabbed his outstretched arm and twisted so the elbow locked. Worse scenario, he could risk dislocating the elbow himself to take out his grinning attacker. Parkour boy smashed him across the face with his fist, splitting his lip. The other kidnapper responded by kicking him in the gut. He braced for it and allowed himself to collapse to the ground. No fun in kicking someone half to death if they were already unconscious, he hoped.
The other guy responded with a couple more kicks to his stomach and one to his face anyway, Colin tried not to respond or give any indication that he was still conscious. His companion then pulled his arms behind his back, slapped on a pair of cuffs and pulled a canvas bag over his head.
He felt himself picked up then thrown roughly in the back of a van. Seconds later, he heard another body drop beside him and the rear doors slammed shut as threats were shouted by both the homeless and the remaining conscious kidnappers before they jumped in the front of the van and drove away.
He’d survived for now. Chancing it, he rolled to one side and hopped over the cuffs so they were now in front of him. He could always pick the cuffs, but for now, he needed to risk looking around. He pulled the hood up above his eyes and was glad to see the only other person in the back was the still unconscious attacker he’d taken out earlier. The other three must be upfront. Good, he reached into his waistband and switched on his earpiece before pulling the bag down and hopping back over the cuffs so they were behind him once again.
The comms unit was now relaying sound and GPS to his phone, which was with Malone. He relaxed and tried to ignore the bounces as the van went over potholes and put himself in a trance. If he appeared unconscious when they ‘unloaded’ him at their destination, it might make them less likely to punish him again for his assault on them.
He ‘awoke’, bruised, in a small storage container with battered, ill-fitting doors. There were two others present with him. His jacket, belt and boots had been removed while he pretended to be unconscious. He quickly patted his waistband and confirmed the earpiece was still in place. Thankfully, the cuffs and hood had been removed with his jacket. He checked the pocket of the trousers and confirmed he still had Malone’s pocket flask, though it was now dented from one of the kicks from his abductors.
He stood up, nodded to his fearful cellmates, and began to look around the urine-stenched container to see what he could find. There was nothing helpful so he began to tear strips off the cuffs of his trousers to improvise a wick into the flask and placed it near the main entrance. He did find some urine-soaked and excrement-covered papers in the corner, and almost gagging dragged them to the front doors. He’d considered placing his fire at the back of the container, but it would have to fill the whole unit with smoke before it reached the outside.
He turned to his two cellmates, “Look despite how this looks at the moment, I’m going to try and get you out of here but I’m going to need your help. It’s going to be rough, but will you trust me and do what I ask?”
He handed over the matches and told them to light the wick once he was taken away. They had to light it before they were dragged out to fight themselves and they had to raise a hell of a racket, shouting “Fire!” when there was enough smoke to justify the claim. He explained that this is their only hope for getting out of this alive, and they needed to be ready to make a run for it at the first reasonable opportunity.
He also suggested they use their clothing to waft the smoke out through gaps in the container doors before it filled up the container. Scared, they nodded their agreement anyway.
Through the gaps in the door, Colin could see that there was about forty or fifty people gathered round a fenced off area, the arena he assumed. Above it all was a seated area with a dozen people gathered, including a well-dressed Asian gentleman and an Arab-looking man sitting upfront. The buyers?
It looked as though the next fight was about to start, then the massive metal doors opened to reveal the warehouse and caged arena in front of him. Three of the masked figures, each armed with cattle prods, stepped inside and he marched forward, offering himself as the next sacrificial lamb. They immediately surrounded him and ‘urged’ him with electric shocks towards the arena.
He nodded to the two youth, hoping they’d carry out his instructions. He walked down, amidst cheering and jeers, towards a gate into the cage, which stood open. Inside he could see a massive bald headed man that they’d oiled up to make grabbing him difficult.
He stepped into the ring as he sized up his opponent. The fight would be a cage fight and he was about to be locked inside against’ Ivan the Terrible’ (or at least that’s how bad his breath smelt even from there). He looked as though he’s being paid to break bones and thoroughly enjoyed his work. That would be one person who wouldn’t need rescuing.
On the opposite side of the warehouse, he could see two more prisoners, though they had the look of breakthroughs, metas. One appeared to be almost normal until she explosively vomited what appeared to be acid towards their guards, who responded by poking her with their cattle prods. The other appeared to have hands that ended in metallic-looking claws.
Parkour guy approached the gate and shouted at Colin, “Hey if you somehow manage to take out this guy, look over there,” he pointed towards the two metas, “you’ll be paired against both of them, to the death. Have fun, karate kid, eh?”
Before he could respond, ‘Ivan’ rushed straight at him. Colin grabbed the cage and swung himself up and over his attacker, who slammed into the fencing. He landed and swept the legs and was rewarded when his opponent collapsed to his knees. He hoped he could end this quickly and went in close to punch him in the face even as he saw the first wisps of smoke emanate from the container in front of him. His lack of concentration, though, allowed ‘Ivan’ to block his blow and return the favour. Ivan’s fist seemed to be the size of his head as it slammed into his face, and he felt his nose break. Shit! As blood spurted from his nose, he somersaulted back and was rewarded as his feet connected with Ivan’s Jaw. That had to have hurt. The brute seemed to shake off the pain and rush at him. Colin leapt for the fence again and used it to swing over Ivan before landing and kicking out with a hook kick to the rear of his head. He could now hear his ‘cellmates’ shouting fire and smiled as one of the faceless guards ran over and set off the fire alarm. He was momentarily distracted again when he saw the scarred and heavily callused knuckles of the hooded guard. Ivan ignored the siren and the cries to run and slammed him into the ground. He felt his ribs compact, but thankfully not break. He responded by cupping his hands and slammed them over his opponent’s ears. This resulted in Ivan falling backwards. Colin flipped back onto his feet and again kicked his kneeling opponent under the chin, rendering him unconscious, as the siren and calls resulted in the audience starting to rush towards the exit.
Two of the guards tried to poke at him through the cage with their activated cattle prods. He didn’t have time for this, he jumped for the fencing above them then slid down so that his feet hit the top of the outstretched rods, breaking them both in half.
He landed on the ground even as Ivan started to come round. A roundhouse kick made sure that wouldn’t happen again for a couple of hours at least. At the same time, he grabbed the broken remnants of the cattle prods in his guards’ hands and pulled. Caught unprepared, they both slammed into the fencing only for the other guard, the one with the calloused and scarred knuckles, to grab them by the hair and slam their masked heads together before unbolting the cage gate and run towards the smoking container.
‘Carrot’ smiled at the glint in the eyes of that guard, noticing his left eye had a familiar scar despite his mask, as he turned and ran.
He opened the cage and was surprised to see a blur flash across the warehouse. That blur locked the doors of the warehouse and a second later arrived at the container opposite where he proceeded to liberate the two metas. That was a speedster but he wasn’t sure he knew of any active metas with that particular ability locally so who was it, an independent possibly? Then he looked up and saw the buyers platform and the buyers and their guards who appeared to be about to flee. He stepped out of the cage and grabbed hold of the cage fencing on the outside as he began to climb going round the side at the same time as he headed for the top.
Seconds later, he found himself facing the front of the platform. He smiled as something or someone locked the door leading to the platform. No blur this time, this dark figure appeared to spring from nowhere. At first, he assumed it was a teleporter, but realised that in the dim light they were a size changer of some sort. The figure had antennae on his costume. Why did that look vaguely familiar? The figure moved through the attacking guards, changing size as he did so. Whoever it was, was armed with Tasers or some sort of stun weapon.
That still left the two buyers. He leapt for the edge of the platform and caught the railing, only for the Asian-looking buyer to slam something down on his left hand, forcing him to let go and hang by his right. The middle-eastern man beside him smiled and pulled out a blade.
Colin had practised single hand pull-ups before. He did so now, using his bruised left hand to grab at the Asian man and slam his face into the safety rail, knocking the wind out of him. Below, the Blur had proceeded to disarm the remaining guards and was tying them up with a reel of cable.
Colin hadn’t time to waste, the other buyer was trying to reach over the winded Asian and stab at him. He needed to end this, and quickly. He pushed the Asian buyer away into the other, knocking them both off-balance as he managed to get his feet onto the edge of the platform and somersault over the safety rail. The size-altering hero(?) was busy knocking their guards unconscious. That just left him with the two buyers to deal with. The middle-eastern man rushed him, blade outstretched. Colin was bruised, battered and in a bad mood. Outside, he could hear the sound of Police and fire engines gathering.
He grabbed at the wrist, bent it back and kicked him in the face, breaking teeth with his bare feet as he did so. Before his opponent could respond, he slammed him into the Asian again. Both lay there, only semi-conscious. That lasted for about three seconds before Colin administered a palm strike to each of them, just behind the ear. The blows rendered them completely unconscious this time.
He looked over and realised that the size-changer and blur were gone, vanished back to wherever they had come from even as the doors opened and about twenty Police officers piled in, followed a second later by several firefighters who immediately headed over to the smoke-filled container. Over the cries from the gathered audience, he heard a Police Inspector shout, “OK, spread out. The call said there was an officer down. Find him and detain everyone we find. We can sort out the innocent later. Sergeant, that looks like this is some sort of arena – is this some sort of illegal fight?”
Colin smiled. He reached over and searched his two buyers and removed the Asian’s passport, no, he was Chinese and apparently had diplomatic immunity. OK, so let’s remove the evidence and delay his release. Given China’s hostility towards those who failed them, a return to China might not be good for his health anyway. The other buyer also had a passport, issued by the Caliphate, and they had no diplomatic treaties with the UK. Good.
His assistance seemed to have vanished, including, he assumed, Malone; time for him to disappear himself. Hopefully, the Police would either be able to get enough information to find the second fight club or this disaster would ensure Mystery closed it down at least temporarily and the arrest of the buyers even if they were later released would damage her reputation and her body-trade.
He’d ask Malone to keep an ear out for any rumours and if they resurfaced he would be ready. He just wished he knew who his support had been, not that Malone would tell him, assuming he actually knew himself.
He stood on the railings and leapt for the roof spars. Catching hold, he swung up and shattered the skylight before propelling himself through it. The sound of the shattered glass caught the Police’s attention, but by the time they realised what had actually happened, he’d be long gone.
So, ‘officer down’ eh? He needed to remember that. Wonder how Malone had made it seem real? Was there a Police officer somewhere just waking up from being unconscious with his radio switched off? They had to have checked before they pulled every officer in the district off the street and rushed to this location.
He was sure that if Malone had just called in his information, it would have been at least 24 hours before the police would have investigated. They will not pull together a full raid just on the strength of a possibly faked recording delivered anonymously (Malone would not go to the Police himself under any circumstances).
He stood on the roof of the warehouse, planning his route across the city. He was half-naked, barefooted, seriously bruised and with red hair, now he just had to navigate himself across the city like this; he certainly knew how to have a night on the town, eh?
He wondered if when finally he got back to the car park whether Malone would admit to being at the warehouse himself, never mind calling in help. Knowing his taciturn behaviour and reticence to admit anything, that would be yet another mystery for him to resolve.
He just wished he knew why that size-changing figure had looked so familiar?
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 