Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) (30 page)

“From a cell phone?” I asked.

“Might work,” Jamal said. “Certainly easier than getting a warrant, because that’ll never happen.”

“Why not?” Augustus asked and then answered himself a moment later. “No ties to anything.”

“No probable cause to believe a crime occurred there,” I said. “No witnesses, no legally collected evidence … just shadows and speculation.”

“Man, for someone who championed the rule of law to me earlier,” Augustus said, “you sure don’t seem to believe it applies to you.”

“This is how it always happens,” I said. “I keep coming up against people with abilities, powers, or in this case—power, of the political and monetary variety—that insulate them from evidence. There’s always a threat, there’s always a killing, there’s always a breakdown in the system that circumvents everything. Before Sovereign, it was the fact that the world of metas existed outside human law. Now it’s the fact that human law and enforcement is still trying to catch up to metas in general. Cavanagh is doing something here that’s dirty, and he’s got enough money to spread around that when combined with Weldon, they’ve locked out anybody from even looking for the truth. Without a press that’s willing to kill its darlings—or at least look at them as something other than flawless saviors—this thing is never going to see the inside of a courtroom.”

I looked at Augustus, who had turned his gaze uncomfortably away from mine and was focused on Taneshia, who seemed to be healing, albeit slowly compared to me. “Once again,” I said, “I’m left with a choice. Follow the law to the letter and allow them to escape, or go skirting the edges and do what’s right. My agency wants me to just walk away. Should I do that?”

“No,” Augustus said, sullen.

“Hell no,” Jamal said.

“You almost seem gleeful about this,” Augustus said.

“Oh, I’m as pleased as punch,” I said. “As in, I’m as pleased as if I were punching someone I hate in the face, because it looks like I might be doing that soon. I talked to an old friend about this situation, someone who’s familiar with Weldon, and he jokingly suggested I knock him out and drop him in the middle of the North Atlantic, just let him die of the landing or hypothermia and wash up on someone else’s shores.” Augustus’s eyes widened. “I’m not going to do that, obviously.”

Augustus shook his head. “No. No. That was not an occasion for use of the word ‘obviously,’ because that would imply that no one would believe you’d do that.”

I sighed. “Yeah. Okay. Well …”

“How do you want to do this?” Augustus asked, and he sounded resigned. “You want to kill them all? I’m actually to the point of being so low I almost believe that’s the only way we’ll stop them.”

I lowered my head. “No. It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“I think it does,” Jamal said.

“No,” I said. “Listen. I want them alive. I want them to feel that sick sensation of weightlessness that comes just before the fall. Men like Cavanagh and Weldon deserve to be broken and humiliated for what they’ve done.”

“You honestly think they’ll see the inside of a cell?” Jamal asked.

“You’re damned right they will,” I said. “We’re going to hang what they’ve done around their necks like a sign. We’re going to find a way to get the press to turn on them like the sharks they are, chum the waters with enough truth that not even the most head-up-their-ass reporter will be able to ignore it—”

“They can ignore an awful lot,” Augustus said.

“Not this,” I said. “All their friends are going to abandon them.”
And I know what that feels like,
I didn’t say. I wanted Weldon and Cavanagh to feel it, too.

“Will that make you happy?” Augustus asked. He was watching me, looking for an answer that would satisfy.

“It won’t make me sad,” I said. I wanted to say something reassuring, something that would repair the damage of having seen two of his personal heroes fall in as many days. Maybe three, if you counted me. I didn’t count me as one of his heroes, though.

I did count me as fallen.

“These men are snakes,” I said. “And snakes don’t show themselves as snakes, or even necessarily believe they’re villains. When I first met Sovereign, he was in disguise as a teenage boy with a crush on me.”

Augustus’s eyes were glazed, wide, with his mouth slightly agape. “Whut?”

“That didn’t make the news,” Jamal said.

“There’s a lot that doesn’t,” I said softly. “So … the lab. If we’re lucky, maybe we can find something there to tie them to it, and if not, then at least we—”

A loud tone sounded in the room. Augustus fumbled and snatched up his phone, staring at the faceplate. He held up the screen and I saw the words, “Cavanagh Tech,” underneath the number. He answered and held it up to his ear. “Hello?” He paused, blinked, and then said, “Um … okay.”

“What is it?” Jamal asked, edging closer.

Augustus stared straight ahead. “They asked me to hold for Mr. Edward Cavanagh.”

I stared at him. “He’s making you wait on hold before your climactic conversation? What a dick.”

“The hold music is …” Augustus frowned. “I think it’s … ‘Black Horse and Cherry Tree.’ Damn! It is.”

“If this doesn’t prove he’s the villain, I don’t know what will,” I said, looking at Jamal. Jamal just nodded.

“Hold on,” Augustus said and pushed the speaker phone button, holding it out in the middle of all three of us. The song played, nearly causing me to grind my teeth.

“Hello, Augustus,” came a voice as the song blissfully clicked off. “It’s Edward Cavanagh.”

“Yeah, I … heard your secretary or whatever announce that,” Augustus said, meeting my eyes. “What can I do for you, sir?” I couldn’t tell if Augustus was just playing it cool or if he was really that polite.

“I feel like we need to have a face to face,” Cavanagh said. His voice sounded exactly like it did on TV—smooth, youthful, exuberant, with some real energy coming off it. It would have been infectious if I hadn’t known he was up to his neck in testing some nasty stuff on human beings and then disposing of their bodies.

“Uh … what for?” Augustus asked.

Cavanagh chuckled. It didn’t sound like an evil laugh, which meant he clearly needed to practice. “I think we can just leave that aside for now, can’t we?”

“Not sure what you mean,” Augustus said. He wasn’t a good actor.

Cavanagh sighed. “You’re a smart guy, Augustus. Do we really need to play games?”

“Maybe I’m just giving you a little room to deny,” Augustus said. “We are on an open line, after all.”

“We are indeed,” Cavanagh said. “But no one’s listening, and I doubt you’ve got a tape recorder handy, but … we should meet. You and me. Your friends, too, if they want to.”

I felt my eyes get wide, and watched Augustus’s do the same. “Uh huh,” he said. If my brother had been here, he would have been screaming, “It’s a traaaaaaaaaaaaaap!” I restrained myself from doing it, but only barely. “That doesn’t sound like something I should do if I want to live a long and healthy life.”

“You have no idea what I’ve done for you,” Cavanagh said, and there was a rustling on the other side of the phone. “How much I’ve tried to help you over the years. But there’s other things you don’t have, either. Like … any hope of escaping this state alive. The cops are after you, Augustus. They’re planning to shoot to kill after that thing at your house. They think you killed a lot of people, that you masterminded a metahuman terrorist attack.”

“I’m sure they came to that conclusion totally organically,” Augustus said with a fair helping of sarcasm.

“Doesn’t matter how it happened,” Cavanagh said. “What matters is how it’s going to finish. Personally, I’m hoping to see you walk out of this one. Look, I know you, man … you’re a hero. I want to see you become the hero Atlanta needs. We’re not anywhere near a point where that can’t happen. Nothing has occurred here that will keep you from being that guy, from having a long, exciting career doing what you want … getting what you want. I can help you clear your name. And I think you know I’ve got friends with pull, friends that can see this all cleared up. You can be the man, Augustus. Your friends can walk out of this—the cops can end up thinking you’re all heroes. This is not a problem. It’s an opportunity if you’re wise enough to come talk to me. We can come to an understanding.”

Augustus looked at me and mouthed the words, “You can’t be serious.” But he didn’t say that out loud. “That certainly seems like a better alternative than getting shot like a dog in the streets …”

“No one wants to see that happen,” Cavanagh said, and damn, he was smooth. “No one. Everyone I’ve talked to about you knows that you’re a bright young man who’ll make the right choice. Come talk to me. Let’s straighten this out.”

“Just me?” Augustus asked. “By myself?”

“Of course not,” Cavanagh said. “You can bring your friends, too. We should all talk.”

Augustus cringed. “Where were you thinking?” He kept the cringe out of his voice, though.

“I’ve got a facility,” Cavanagh said. “It’s not too far from you. I suspect you know where it is.” Augustus looked to Jamal, who nodded before Cavanagh continued. “Come on down, we’ll meet in person. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

“How can I be sure you’ll be there?” Augustus asked.

“I’ll be there,” Cavanagh said. “One hour. Look forward to seeing you.” He hung up without another word.

Augustus fiddled with the phone, making sure it was hung up before he spoke. “That dude is going to try and bushwhack the hell out of us, isn’t he?”

I thought about it for a minute. “It’s totally possible he’s decided he’d rather buy you off, at least for now. You did sort of go through his massive meta army, which—remind me to ask him how managed to get that many of them in one place. That’s pretty much unheard of these days.”

“So we’re going?” Augustus asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said.

“You realize he’s going to stack it all against us,” Augustus said.

“Damned right,” Jamal said. “He’s not going to be there, but what he’ll have waiting for us is going to come at us hard.”

Augustus looked pensive. “You think he was lying about the cops being after us?”

I pulled up my phone and loaded my news app. Right at the top of the page was a grainy picture of Augustus. “Nope,” I said, and showed him.

“How’d you get out without a mention?” he asked, frowning at my screen.

“Clean living, I guess,” I said then smirked. “They must not have seen me enter the fray through the smoke.”

“How are we going to do this?” Augustus asked.

“Like heroes,” I said, looking at Jamal, who did not meet my eyes. “You up for that?”

“I’ll do what I can,” Jamal said. “But no promises. Some fool comes at me hard, I’m not going to hold back the lightning.”

“No holding back,” Augustus agreed. “But that’s not what makes a hero. Not when you’re outgunned like this.”

“No,” I agreed. “But if we get Cavanagh or Weldon alone, we spare their lives and find a way to make them twist for this.”

“You can … count me in on this,” Taneshia said. I hadn’t even noticed her get to her feet. She had her back to us, and her wound was almost entirely gone.

“Damn!” Augustus said. “You—”

She came around and her eyes were dark with fury. “You better not even give me one second of that crap about keeping me safe, Augustus Coleman, or you’ll be trying to figure out how to unlock every muscle in your body from lightning-based convulsions. Jamal may not have figured out how to control his lightning … but I have.”

“Four against … I don’t know, an army?” I stared at each of them in turn. “How do you like those odds?”

“Who you calling odd?” Augustus said, and he had a faint smile.

“You,” Taneshia said, limping over to us. “Hell, this whole thing is odd. The three of us, and …” She looked at me, “her … together? On this? It’s all crazy. What would Momma say?”

Augustus’s face hardened, the slack lines gone in an instant. “She’d say if they’ve done wrong …” Any look of lightness in his eyes was now gone, long gone. “… we should go get ’em. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Getting to the lab was half the fun. Sienna flying with us in some sort of human chain was an interesting way to go about it. Taneshia was still hurting, and she was last on the chain. Holding her up wasn’t exactly taxing for me, and it didn’t seem to bother Jamal above me. We probably looked like the world’s weirdest bird if anyone saw us, crossing the moon in silhouette, stacked one holding on to another like we were ready to drop each other as bombs.

“It’s right there,” Jamal said as we overflew an industrial building that probably wasn’t a tenth the size of the Cavanagh factory where I worked. It looked old and worn, and it had a faint smell coming off of it like sulphur. A massive silo loomed on one side over a square, boxy main structure. We were flying slowly, a fractional amount of the speed Sienna had displayed in the time I’d flown with her before. We started to descend with a slight jerk, losing altitude quickly.

“Whoa!” I called in slight alarm.

“Sorry,” the answer came from above. She didn’t sound strained, exactly, but she didn’t sound calm, either. “I’m not used to flying with all this extra mass. Kinda unwieldy.” We steadied out, coming in for a landing just below a catwalk in a loading dock area. There was another, smaller silo off the main building, and I wondered what it contained. Maybe human beings for all I knew.

Taneshia dropped first, about ten feet off the ground. She rolled and cleared the landing area, and I followed right after. Jamal landed with a grunt five feet from me, and I heard Sienna’s feet come down just between me and the loading dock. The night air still had the day’s humidity, and even though it was a little cool now, I felt like I was still sweating, and not from carrying Taneshia, either.

“Here we are,” I said, trying to find a way to lighten the tension. Nobody seemed all that happy to be walking into this particular trap. We’d talked about a few different strategies, maybe leaving someone outside to listen in. But the truth was, anyone outside of a hardened building like this would have to take a few minutes to get in if we got in trouble, and that didn’t seem as smart as just matching our strength against theirs.