Unlikely

TEN

I finish taping a sign to my door (now closed tightly) and head down one level with my bundle. The room below my loft may have been a break room for the factory workers at one time. There are two tables still in one piece and some plastic chairs scattered about. I'd cleaned it up pretty well already, thinking, when I'd first moved in, that this would be my apartment. But, the windows are too high up on the wall for me to see out so ultimately I chose the upstairs. Of course, the upstairs is now inhabited by an unhappy saber-toothed panther of mixed parentage. Shivering still at my near-death experience, I lay down the carpet and place some candles around the room. Good thing I'd stocked my supply closet, I'd barely made it out of the loft with all my extremities. At least I'd managed to grab the phone. It would have been a sad party with no pizza.

Mike arrives first with a few more steaks and the low growling from above quiets. Mickey's new throaty growl is deep enough to shake the bones from your skin. Frank and Griz arrive a little bit later which surprises me. I had been under the impression that they never came above ground.

"I'd stopped by for a quick fix on my wheels." Griz nods at his skateboard propped up by the door. "Thought Frank here might have some insight." He shrugs and deposits a couple liters of warm soda on one of the tables.

"Eard things had gone all arseways on ya." Frank coughs and adjusts his belt. "Sorry, my inner Scottsmen comes out when I'm nervous." He looks around, produces a couple bags of lightly crushed potato chips and notes, "Frank always answers a call to arms, my boy. Always." He nods at me and wanders off.

Mike pops his head in long enough to tell me he's just going to get the beer from his car while Iz arrives with his computer whiz sidekick whose name I can never remember. Islo? Oslo? I think he's Swedish or something. The pizza arrives with Ted and we eat while it is still mostly hot.

"So," Griz says around a chunk of pepperoni, "What's the emergency?" There is a gleam to his eyes that makes me wonder if he just lives for drama. Of course, he is a prepper, hoarding vast stores of everything from candles and gas masks to moonshine and tin foil. Preparing for the end of the world seems overly dramatic to me, but then I probably shouldn't be throwing stones at other people's oddities.

I re-tell my story starting from the moment when the cats alerted me to Mickey's absence. I explain about the goo from the vats the missing pets had been suspended in, covering me and how my two forms had been battling for dominance. I told them about the King of Nothing, a cyborg that seemed to have suffered both a stroke and a severe case of megalomania.

"He says there is a power vacuum, that the President doesn't even live in the States anymore and as I was carried out he mentioned something about City Hall being even worse than he was." I finish and gaze around the room at my friend's faces.

"Weel, that's a right bust-up boy. You've got some issues for certain." Frank thoughtfully combs his fingers through his surprisingly pizza free beard. "Thing is, I've a customer comes by on occasion. Works for the Mayor, odd jobs and such. He came by a while back look'n for some pretty fancy equipment. I don't have gene splicers and what not. You'd think he'd know that just by look'n around. It's a junk yard for cheese's sake. Stuck in my head though. What does a gene splicer have to do with runnin' a city?"

"Good question. We've a bit of information to add, actually. A couple of days ago we were tracking bank transfers, large sums with transfer numbers all ending in 007. They attracted our attention because they were all getting deposited into a bank in New England, then turning right around, the same amount mind you, and coming right back here to the Bull." Iz nodded at his sidekick and got and agreeing nod back.

"The Bull?" I ask.

"Cracken Liv and Bull." Said Ted. "I know of them. They're a pit bank. Non-national in that they have declared their property a sovereign state. Dirty money rolls there."

I'd forgotten that Ted used to be a high roller, a trade broker. He would certainly know all about the in's and out's of the muddy money that flowed through City Hall.

"When did you say all this started?" Mike looked concerned.

"Well, we were working on a chart before coming over here but it looks like there was a previous spike about a year ago and now this new one." Iz sipped his wine.

"Maybe they built a lab too, Like your King of Nothing, Rince." Mike suggests. "Maybe now they are busy hiring and filling it out."

"You think City Hall is taking children to experiment on them? To what end?" Griz objects. "That's too crazy. Isn't it?"

"Man, you been under too long. Everyone knows who runs City Hall and it ain't the Mayor. He's just a figurehead." Only Gris and I are confused by this. Everyone else is nodding along.

"The Black Orchid." Says Frank in a Irish lilt.

"The B.O.?" Laughs Griz.

"Not to his face and never twice." Admonishes Mike. "Dude is head of the biggest cartel in the Americas. He's like eighth or ninth generation with a rep that is just plain spooky. You don't cross him and you don't call him BO."

"Why did you ask about the timing Mike?" Iz turns and squints as thought trying to decide something.

"Oh. Well, I didn't think much of it at the time but about a year ago or more I saw a work order for a warehouse over by the Split. It's all abandoned buildings over there and they're all owned by the City." Mike takes a small sip of beer as he sits back. "That alone was unusual. Why hook up a building out there?" He hesitated. "It was the amount of spool that really shocked me though. Eight tons."

Iz's silent friend whistles in appreciation.

"That's a lot of wire." Says Iz. He pours himself more wine. "Do you remember the address of the building?"

"No, but it'll be the only building in the Split with electricity. We could do a recon at night and find out." Mike puts down his beer and reaches for a bottled water. He unscrews the cap and takes a gulp, coughs and hands it to me while grabbing another. "Man!"

"Sorry." I drink. I'd meant to marker an 'S' on the bottle but with everything that had been going on I'd forgotten. Mike hates accidentally drinking my salted water.

I thought about what we were talking about here. The stealing of children so the Black Orchid could.... What? I had a suspicion that the King of Nothing hadn't come up with his twisted scheme on his own. He was crazy enough, cunning too, and I had no doubt his soul was black enough. But somehow I just didn't think the mutation lab was his idea. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd been set up as an experiment of sorts. A test to see if the process would work before the real lab got underway. The question was, why? Why mutate children with genes that added armor and claws?

A chill raced down my spine because then I knew the King of Nothing had been right. With the world in flux and power up for grabs, what was the next step? How to be more bad ass than your neighbor? Why, build an army of mutants, of course.