The Undoing of Sidekicks | ✓

twenty eight

twenty eight

TURNS OUT, Hyde was more than willing to send the entire map of the locations to Josh. As she already knew of his true identity, it was no issue to compile the necessary files into an email which she promptly fired off to Josh's address.

"Thank you, Cassie. Really — " Josh looked at her, sincerity glowing in his eyes, " — this is more than we could ask for."

I nodded at Josh's words, attempting a brief smile directed at Hyde. She toying with the edges of the clipboard resting on the desk before her, a sort of nervosity tinging her movements. I was still wary of her, unsure of whether or not she was aiming to still expose us, perhaps trap us.

To be fair, she'd helped us thus far, but people were ambiguous. They tended to change whenever it suited them, their wants and their needs. I had no way to tell if this was the case with Hyde, but one of us needed to be wary of her no matter what. Josh, it seemed, had tumbled into a blind trust when it came to the professor. I couldn't blame his boy scout manners, as they seemed to be engraved within his personality, but my existence was made significantly easier by at least maintaining a little distance.

"Yeah," I said at last, keeping my wary eyes on Hyde's shifting form, "Really grateful."

Crossing my arms above my chest, I kept my stare fixed and cool on the fidgeting professor. It seemed she wasn't about to lunge at any of us, equipped with whatever spooky lab-weapons she had in here, but you could never be too sure. I was only hoping we'd be able to get out of her lab, of the entire Fokine Research Center, without stumbling into some sort of SWAT-type team called down here to wrestle us into test tubes.

Not that they need you for that. They already have their supermax prison, where they did god knows what to Tetra and the likes of her.

Shrugging that thought off, I regarded Hyde and Josh as they once more ran through the numbers. With that, they'd finished.

"I can't help you any more? You're sure?"

"I'm really sure. You've been great, Dr.Hyde." Josh smiled again, the expression barely visible in the dim light of the lab.

"I just — " Hyde looked troubled, now, a frown stretched across her face, " — I wish I could do more."

"Short of tagging along in the fight, you've done all you can," Josh replied. He let his smile drop, a serious expression crossing his face, " — we can't ask more of you."

I mean, if the woman's offering to charge at Mistress in our place ... I suppressed a snicker at my own thoughts, then firmly reminded myself I'd declared my alliances to the 'good' side. Whatever that meant.

It means bashing Mistress' swaggering ego in with little to no finesse at all. An ideal situation, truly.

"Most of us want to do more, you know. The citizens. The people." Hyde looked up, smiling at Josh. To my surprise, she directed that smile my way, too. "We're tired of being the silent, passive ... sidekicks, I guess, to you guys. Doing the heavy lifting."

Now this conversation had piqued my interest. I could feel myself itching to get out of there, to get started on our attempt at properly thwarting the evil witch that was Mistress, but hearing her speak of silent sidekicks and the help of the citizens was interesting. I'd long regarded the whole vigilante business as sort of ... lonesome. You'd rarely partner up, and I knew from experience that my previous partnerships had been ... unsuccessful.

Hence you gunning for Mistress to get chucked into the slammer, but whatever.

Thinking of partners, though, my eyes shifted to Josh. He had his eyes trained on Hyde, who was busy composing herself, while I creepily stared at him from a few steps away. Whatever I had been thinking of next was drowned out by Dr.Hyde continuing her tirade: