KILLJOY

Chapter 19: The Detective

Max stood in front of the lying body of the masked man, a small pool of blood around them from the stab wound in their chest. As he observed the fallen man, their mask seemed to crack and crumble, before fading away, in a similar way to how his weapons do. As it crackled into dust, he realized that these masks had to be doing something, since they definitely had something to do with a TICK, albeit it would be nearly impossible to figure out who had it from where he was right now. He stepped around the bleeding body he had finished with before continuing his way down the eerily empty hallway. They shouldn't have even gone to a shady place like this in the first place, but they decided to trust Liam, and now it got them in this mess. He didn't really want to think about how they were doing, or how his mother was feeling now that everyone had essentially disappeared.

He was starting to get pretty annoyed by the white and cream colored walls of the halls as he kept walking down them, the monotony only broken by the occasional turn. Eventually, he finally made it somewhere interesting. A fork in the road, one way continuing straight, the other turning right. He looked down the right hall first, and noticed a door at the end of it with a plaque above it titled.
'STAFF ROOM.'
Well, that seemed like something that would be useful. He slowly stalked into the right hall when he began hearing footsteps from the other hall, quickly bringing his back to the wall as he took glances down it to see who was coming.

He could see a middle aged man approaching, with an oddly similar revolver to the one of the man he faced previously. He was thankful that they weren't also wearing one of those masks, however he was still a bit confused from seeing that same gun in someone else's hands. His gaze seemed cold and distant as he slowly walked down, occasionally glancing at his gun as he eventually made it down the hall. Max turned around to head into the staff room before he felt something grab a hold of him by the back of his shirt collar. He looked back to see the man with the gun behind him, pointed at him as he stared daggers at him. He tried to pull out of his grip, but they strengthened it in response, so he just had to deal with whatever this guy's problem was for the time being as he turned to face him.
"What do you want?"
The man sighed, seeming almost confused from the question for a second before that disinterested look formed once again.
"I want you to explain why exactly you thought you could take my TICK and get away with it."

"Wait... what."
The man sighed as he seemed to get slightly more annoyed, pushing the gun against him slightly harder as he continued.
"You don't remember, wise guy? You beat the hell out of me after I tried to bust one of your shows last week and ya' shoved some weird ass mask on me! Real stupid of you to give it back to me!"
Max put his hands in the air, realizing that this was probably a misunderstanding. This was also helping him slowly understand more about this mysterious mask TICK.
"I just beat the hell out of some guy using the same gun that you got on you right now, another masked bloke. I can show you my own TICK if you want me to confirm I'm not that masked—"
"Fine. I'm gonna give you ten seconds to prove to me that you aren't that guy. Otherwise, I'll shoot."

He waved his hand as one of his daggers formed in midair, floating as its steel reflected the man's face at its sides. The man looked at him for a moment before letting him go, stepping back a couple paces before holstering his gun and speaking.
"So, what brings you here then?"
Max waved his hand as the silver dagger crumbled to gleaming powder, blowing away like dust in the wind before even that dissipated.
"Trying to find where some masked fucks took my coworkers."
The man reached into his pocket, causing Max to get defensive for a moment before he simply pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to reveal an ID.

"Name's Clint, independent detective. Got some word that there was some shady shit going on with these guys about a week back, got my TICK stolen, and I came back here to try and put an end to this mess."
Max simply blinked as he took in the information, before giving one last check to make sure he could trust him not to backstab him.
"Not with Vanguard, are you?"
Clint chuckled as he waved a hand casually.
"I don't get myself wrapped up with those gangs, far too risky business," he replied. "Besides, I'd rather not be stuck working for that stuck up government that runs the Strip."
"Then I'm sure you wouldn't mind working with me for a little while? Seems like we both got the same goal in mind..."
Clint just shrugged as he gave his reply.
"Sure. Don't see why not."