On the Night of Long Knives, I woke up. They killed the heroes, the ones who tried to reintroduce us to magic, hope, independence – to Justice. I saw it on the news and I KNEW. Someone had to show them that it takes more than gunfire to kill an idea. I’ve allowed my hate to grow in me and bloom. I have no life, no home, no ties and no love. Its time to show them all that a man with nothing – is a Man Without Fear.
I am
DAREDEVIL.
***
{DAREDAREVIL 2099 - EYES WIDE OPEN, part 3: Inside Man}
{written by Bowie Sessions ([email protected])}
***
“If you tremble indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”
-Che Gueverra
[Alchemax HQ, eighty-second floor, Human Resources dept.]
With a swipe of a keycard, the office door opens long after-hours. A young black man in an Alchemax Security Uniform walks in, shining his flashlight through the room in a slow and steady motion. The muscularly built young security guard steps forward, walking around the main desk to face the computer screen and its keyboard. Tacking at the keys, a window appears, requesting a password. Quickly, the security guard appears to type it in.
--Davers, we have you on the eighty-second floor,-- buzzes his radio affixed to his shoulder.
Davers, the security guard, ignores it and watches the screen as it loads the Welcome screen. He immediately begins to scan through the processes in the system, bringing up administrative files. Names begin to scroll past the screen as he searches for a very specific thing.
--Davers, you’re outside your sector. Renton, are you in the vicinity? Davers, come in.--
“Shock,” Davers whispers to himself. NO MATCHES FOUND, the screen reads. Desperately, Davers begins to type again. Once more names spindle in search before him, as he stares at the door. Pulling out a memory stick, he slides the nail-sized thing into the side of the computer, readying it.
--Renton here, I’m approaching Davers’ location.--
--This is Sierra Base, good copy, Renton. Davers, come in, over!--
ONE MATCH FOUND. Clicking, Davers brings up the profile of Alec de Luca and downloads it quickly onto the nail-sized drive. His eyes are on the door as footsteps come down the hallway. Whispering to the computer to hurry up, he sweats every moment.
SAVE COMPLETE. Removing the drive, the door opens.
“Alan?” Renton asks as he enters. Davers is lying on the leather couch by the door, eyes closed, splayed out.
Renton kicks his leg. “Alan, wake up. You’re busted.”
Alan seems shaken awake by this, head snapped about to clear the fictional cobwebs. Gaining awareness, he looks up to his fellow guard and answers. “Awman, I just – I was trying to just get a little wink, you know?”
“In my sector?”
“HR has the best couch,” Alan says as he sits up and dusts himself off to free himself of wrinkles. Renton looks at the couch and gives an acquiescent shrug.
”Better report in. Sierra Base is less than lightspeed on your little nap.”
“They need to relax. It’s nothing to lose sleep over,” Alan offers back with a smirk, to which they both grin and laugh lightly.
***
[apartment high-rise, Tormen Towers, eighty-fourth floor]
A dark figure stands in all black, arms crossed and eyes glowing their bright red. “I don’t give a damn about your leads on this case, Arcadia. Well, I do, but I’m more interested in where I’m taking these leads. What do you need me to do when I find out who tried to kidnap her?”
The black woman with shock-white hair identified as Arcadia looks more than a little cross. “You just stop them, and find out what they wanted from her! She’s in danger, and we’re trying to save her. Shutting down a group like that wouldn’t be terrible either, you know, ‘Daredevil’.”
“You know what I’m asking, Arc. Do you want this information to help her – or to unravel whatever she’s holding from you? This is NOT about altruism with you—“ Daredevil, however, does not manage to finish his accusations as the door opens wide. Daredevil spins away behind a wall, obscured from sight to the new entry. Instincts lead him into his hiding place.
“Arcadia! I got a good lead,” the security guard named Alan offers as he shucks his security guard jacket, tossing it into the corner of the room without concern. “There was no result for this ‘Jeffrey Herrera’ guy, I tried to spell it ten different ways, but first time with this Alec de Luca guy—“
Arcadia seems pleased, but she turns her gaze directly to the masked man out of sight. Daredevil, at this telling stare, walks out from the wall and nods to the younger, bigger guard facing him. “Alan,” Daredevil offers pleasantly.
“Most positive to see you, Hornhead!” Alan greets with utmost enthusiasm, moving quickly to DD to impose a handshake and then the gratuitous backslap quasi-hug maneuver. Relaxing from the motion, Alan still has a big grin on his face before DD withdraws.
“What do you have?” Arcadia insists.
Alan gathers himself together, and produces a datapad and his nail-drive that he places into the machine. “This right here. Alec de Luca was fired from Alchemax five years ago, where he worked in R&D with some of the biggest geniuses they had. His specialty was bio-medical, which was enough to make Alchemax keep tabs on him to this day.”
Daredevil and Arcadia exchange looks before Daredevil decides to speak. “So we know where he is?” His teeth tighten, as does his fist, remembering the weasely scientist from the attempted corporate take-over of JR Biotech.
“Sure do. But, DD, I know you’re going in. Only way is, I’m coming with.”
Arcadia begins to protest, but Daredevil gives her a rather vicious look. “Your brother’s a grown man, Arcadia. He just wants to get to know me. After-all. Who in your family doesn’t.” She senses a smirk on his face, as his head snaps back to stare into Alan’s eyes.
“Good, then,” Alan begins. “He’s got a place at Astron Apartments…”
***
[Quentino Towers, basement engineering facility.]
The thin, angular face of Alec de la Luca is difficult to recognize amidst his bloodied nose, missing front teeth and his extensive body cast. Recovering from being shot, burnt and then his ribs broken in by his boss Jeffrey Herrera’s boot, Alec looks to be about as good as anyone can expect him to be.
Within this room are hundreds, perhaps thousands of tools and pieces for mechanical use; this is the unsung R&D lab which has been claimed by the crippled man now resting in its center. Walking with a cane, he steadies himself as he moves to a wall covered with locked panels. His hand raises and begins to type at the code on the door, before his hand presses to it firmly, giving the data imprint necessary for the door to make a soft ‘Ksshttt’ of its depressurization.
Swept by the soft gasp of air, Alec opens the door in front of him to pull out a small vial filled with what looks like liquid silver. Stumbling as carefully as he can back to the desk in the center of this labyrinth of machinery and engineering, Alec takes an uncomfortable seat behind the computer array spread out before him.
Alec whispers quietly to himself as he spills the contents of the vial into a small tube, “They think I’m weak, that I can just be pushed around…” He interestingly enough then connects the tube to the computer by a cable port connection at its peak.
“Just laughing, laughing. Like I embarrassed him. Like I’m nothing. I MADE him! I made him and now he kicks me to the catacombs, I … I’ll show him my worth, show him just how smart the ‘brain’ of this organization is…” Fervently he talks to himself to calm himself, to steady his hand as he begins rapidly typing into the computer, loading up processes and programs at a speed too quick for anyone else to follow.
It is with a decisive strike that he hits the ‘Enter’ key, a large message pops onto the screen reading simply ‘COMPILING PROGRAMMING DATA… 33% complete’, the percentage increasing rapidly.
As Alec begins to smile wider and wider, he is so close, about to finally--
--MR. DE LUCA, Incoming Transmission.--
“Receive transmission,” he speaks aloud, with a heavy-hearted sigh.
“Mr. De Luca,” the scrambled-image on the other side discreetly transmits, “the Trap is Sprung.”
--Transmission Terminated, MR. DE LUCA.--.the computer helpfully notes.
Smiling, Alec looks to the screen, which now reads PROGRAMMING DATA SUCCESSFULLY COMPILED. He disconnects the tube and affixes to it a sharp needle at the very end the cable had just articulated.
“Well, bottoms up,” he tells himself and slams it into his thigh. His eyes widen as his gasp echoes through the lab.
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments #3905]
It had been something of a nuisance to duck and weave past security, staff and residents in the full black costume, but manageable. Alan, on the other hand, just walked as if he belonged. They traveled to the 39th floor, Alan by elevator and Daredevil quicker … by the balconies in the center of the facility.
Daredevil is waiting flush against a doorway when Alan steps up, and Daredevil is clearly staring. “This is the place?” Daredevil asks impatiently.
“I’m sure,” Alan reassures him. “We’re lightspeed, Daredevil. Don’t worry, I’m with you 100%.” Alan pats at his side, where he had hid his side-arm. Alan knocks twice on the door, and smiles as he stands outside the peephole.
“Who’s there!” the voice cries from the other side.
“A courier for Mr. de la Luca,” Alan informs them calmly. There is a long silence before the door suddenly opens, a stranger standing there to stare at Alan questionably. The man fails to look to his left, where Daredevil stands; he simply snaps his arm up at the elbow to slam his fist into the stranger’s nose.
With the victim stumbling inside, Daredevil spins around the doorway after him and grabs him by the shoulder before he can run. Daredevil does not ask any questions before he simply starts slamming his fist into the man’s face. Once more, twice more, thrice more, four more times. The man falls limp as Daredevil releases him.
Then, rather than compliance, the injured stranger just starts laughing.
Laughing a lot.
They hear it at that very moment. Footsteps rushing from a dozen directions inbound in the hallway behind them and a dozen feet shatter the windows of this lofty apartment as they repel inside, a large force of what quickly becomes obvious to Daredevil are a slew of Public Eyes.
“It’s a TRAP!” Alan screams at Daredevil as he gets dog-piled.
Daredevil hurls his baton into the back of the skull of Alan’s first aggressor, allowing Alan the ability to fire off a volley of shots into the rest who approach him. He rushes for the door to hold back the throng of those coming from the hallway, and quickly begins disabling them one by one. “Really? You think so?” DD asks mockingly, voice calm and regulated.
While throwing a punch for the first man through the door’s face, Daredevil’s other hand grasping the incoming officer’s weapon. With the officer off-balance and hurt from the punch, DD finds little problem in tearing it free from his hands, spinning it and using the butt of the energy rifle to crack his jaw in an uppercut. The officer goes flying back, in time for two more to manage through the doorway.
Daredevil leaps skyward, slamming a boot into each of the new threats’ heads, backflipping to land with his rifle-gripping hand pressing to the ground. Pushing off from that reversal, he comes up to a stance and hurls the rifle behind him, “CATCH!” yelled out. With a flick of his fingers, a massive staff forms of crackling crimson energy from Daredevil’s palm.
Alan looks up and drops his pistol, catching the rifle clumsily. “Thanks, Hornhead!” Like his pistol, he quickly puts it onto the Stun mode; it would appear Alan does not like the idea of killing cops. When he opens fire with the rifle, however, laying waste to every one of them that nears him, it might just seem otherwise. Especially as one shoots him in the leg from behind, forcing Alan to spin around and slam the butt of the rifle into his neck. The Public Eye stumbles back, gasping, gripping his neck as he struggles to breathe.
***
[Quentino Towers, basement engineering facility]
Alec de la Luca does not look the best he has in his life. He screams angrily, uncontrollably, as he convulses on the floor of the basement. His hand drags across the tables as he feels his skin shudder and start to ripple as if a wave rolls beneath the layers.
His screams are beyond intelligible noises now, now just the primal agony of the injured. Collapsing to the floor below, he starts to shake and cry, tears streaking down his cheeks as his skin seems to begin to melt… his fingers lengthening, his teeth growing rapidly as if ready to break through his skull. A silvery sheen runs down his face where his tears had flown.
There is a sudden buzz on the intercom system. --de Luca, your plans are not going well. You know who this is. Upstairs. Now.--
A hand launches up from the ground to snag the side of the nearest table. The long fingers slowly pull inward, returning to something resembling their former state. Nails retract from claws into short nail beds and knuckles seem to wind the rest of the half-foot long digits into them.
A gasping, desperate Alec de la Luca manages to speak while hanging limply from the desk. --I.. will try to, sir…--
--It’s your funeral, de Luca. I do not enjoy your disappointments,-- the voice offers with very little in the way of leniency.
“Pull yourself together … ha ha … HA Ha…” Alec whispers deliriously from the floor.
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments #3905]
Meanwhile, Daredevil is not letting up. Bodies rendered unconscious with much more intimate care, the twirling staff formed of light connecting with ankles, necks and foreheads. One after another finds themselves flung into the doorway, their spines cracking with impact on the rail outside, with their heads slamming into the floor or the wall… Daredevil wades into the halls through which the swarms of dirty cops pour.
Every blast they fire simply absorbs into Daredevil’s staff. Behind him, Alan can only watch in amazement; he is keeping people from repelling in through the window. That is long since stopped. Now he is just cleaning up the people that Daredevil throws inside and staring in awe at his abilities. “How do you do that?” Alan whispers, in amazement.
The flow of dirty cops eventually ends. Long minutes dry up, leaving the two heavily breathing Re-Activ-8 employees standing shoulder to shoulder and looking over their victims. Daredevil kneels down and slaps one of them who is groaning, forcing him to wake up.
His staff turns into a blade, and Daredevil shoves it against the victim’s upper thigh, and starts shoving it in, inch by inch. “You’re going to tell me who sent you,” Daredevil whispers, his voice filled with uncontainable fury.
The man finds the answer quickly. “They’re – they’re from Quentino Towers!”
It does not save him, however, or stop him from screaming when Daredevil shoves the blade up all the way, careful to avoid arteries. Alan looks away.
He just keeps screaming.
***
[a roof, nearby]
A black-clad and hooded Japanese man stands with a watchful eye below, kneeling down and without even looking unrolls a small bundle which reveals inside of a long barrel, a silencer, a butt-stock, a handle with a trigger well, a chamber, and a suspicious lack of any kind of magnification scope. As if he planned to use the iron-sights on the rifle itself.
“In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit,” he speaks to himself as he kneels, slowly assembling the weapon with his bare hands. His eyes never even look to his hands, as he surveys the sight below, watching and waiting for the movement he knows is going to come.
It is with a bright smile on his face that he continues to speak in his deep accent, apparently extremely willing to assemble what appears to be an old-fashioned slug-throwing sniper rifle. “These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as Soldiers of Fortune.”
His lightning-quick hand motions come to a sudden stop as he slides the bolt into the now fully constructed chamber, leaving a gleaming steel masterpiece of engineering which could nearly be considered from the 19th century. A massive smile plays over his face as he finishes his words, polishing the weapon for just a moment with a small rag.
His eyes trail the lobby of the building below, focusing tightly. He raises his wrist to his lips. “Project: Eagle in place. Movement below. Preparing to engage target.”
--Proceed, Eagle.--
He cancels transmission, and slowly, methodically, places a bullet in the chamber. Just one, and kneels at the edge of the roof, raising the rifle into his arms and chambering the round. “If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them … maybe you can hire… The A-Team.”
Eagle has such a very happy smile.
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments lobby]
The elevator doors open in the lobby of the Astron Apartments to find a security guard knocked unconscious already, presumably the dirty doings of the Public Eye. It allows Daredevil and Alan to walk across the ground of the massive buildings’ luxurious lobby most casually.
Daredevil takes up a stance, snagging the rifle from Alan. “Call your sister,” he orders, viciously, eyes panning the entranceways for security.
“What am I asking—“
“Where the hell Quentino Towers is! We’re ending this. Now.” Alan seems shaken, but nods his head in understanding and moves to duck behind a table, dialing his sister up quickly on his hand-held.
Her face appears in his hand, speaking clearly. “What’s going on over there?” She asks, concern in her voice. Alan looks down into her face, and begins to explain to her the events.
“It was a trap, sis. We’re preparing to leave, but we need to know our next stop: Quentino Towers, that’s who set this trap. Please get us some bit-stream so we can move out.” His voice is pleading, but sincere. Daredevil watches quietly, a sadness somewhere in him evident. Allowed only for a moment, his muscles relaxing and eyes following the younger man… before he steels himself, once more stiffening and presenting a watchful guard.
”Quentino Towers… I’m downloading that data now, and patching it through your data-feed in your hand-held. The hand-held now has its coordinates, but I’m pulling up system specs, security data, possible targets…”
There is a long silence as both Daredevil and Alan impatiently feel the minutes counting down until reinforcements arrive. “Got it. Weirdest thing – the CEO of Quentino Towers is named Darien Salazar, but he looks just like that profile of Alec de la Luca… I’m thinking that’s how he got off-grid. A new identity.”
Daredevil looks back to Alan. “Great. Close off comm. We use the hand-held to get across town to Quentino Towers. We’re moving. Follow me.”
Then, Daredevil and Alan Davers just walk right for the front doors.
***
[Quentino Towers, office of Alec de Luca]
There are two knocks before a voice issues out, “Come in.”
A short, muscular Italian man with a badly receding hairline presents himself before his superior with a respectful nod. “Sir, the system says that your profile has just been hacked and there’s signs of cross-referencing to ‘Alec de la Luca’.”
The man addressed, Alec de la Luca – alias Darien Salazar – sneers at this news. He stands tall, healthy, not a mark on him. An apparent miracle recovery from the horror that wracked him just minutes ago, as if he were a completely new man. “Thank you,” he states, coldly, and the Italian assistant quickly takes his cue to leave, closing the doors after him.
The chair behind Alec turns slowly to reveal Jeffrey Herrera before him, with a dark expression on his face seeming most disapproving. “Graveyard failed. This ruse failed. You have failed. I do not enjoy failure … but it seems neither does our enemy. Because he knows of us now. He comes for us even now, you realize, Alec.”
Alec’s eyes cannot meet Mr. Herrera’s, but they do turn from the ground to the ceiling so that he can scream with all of his barely contained rage. “Why won’t he just DIE?!”
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments terrace]
The air welcomes them, and they both breathe as the sunlight hits them. It is still broad daylight – after-all, Alan only returns home after the graveyard shift.
“We’ll get them, Daredevil. Trust me, Hornhead, this guy’s number is coming up short,” Alan offers, closing the door behind Daredevil and following him towards where the Maglev car was parked.
“They won’t see this coming,” Daredevil whispers darkly. There is a soft ‘thppt’ behind him, and Daredevil doesn’t have time to wonder to himself what that sound was before he feels something covering him, a warm splash of bone and blood. He turns quickly and sees Alan’s headless body collapse against the concrete.
His head snaps upward to see where it came from, and he sees a dark figure a hundred stories up, waving. His eyes focus in, tighter and tighter, the suit magnifying the figure… only soon enough to see the small silhouette of a car pull up next to the figure above and pick him up.
Daredevil does not pause or hesitate, his blood running cold and heart pounding so fast he cannot hear his own footsteps as he races into the opposite building where the shooter came from. He brazenly rushes past a crowd of screaming people, as he runs into the elevator covered in blood. He strikes the highest button and waits for it to rise.
The elevator slowly eases skyward, and Daredevil pounds against the doors. He kneels down and starts slamming his fists harder and harder against the conveyer. “MOVE! FASTER!” he screams, futilely, desperately, knowing it is hopeless. A soft muzak plays behind him as tears flow beneath his mask, and he screams in a hot fury.
It seems like hours pass as Daredevil tries to reach the top, running up the final set of stairs to the roof entrance. The door is nearly launched off its hinges as Daredevil runs out to see a vehicle sailing into the distance miles away already.
Daredevil stares to the ground below him, and breathes, slowly. His knuckles tighten and breathing catches. “You’re right,” he speaks aloud.
“But that doesn’t mean I care. I’m still doing it.” He is silent for several seconds, staring to the left.
“I’m not listening to you anymore. I have a life now. Why don’t you go play in traffic.”
Daredevil walks to the edge of the roof and sees the vague ant-sized mark on the ground that must be Alan. His muscles tighten, and fists clench harder than ever. Daredevil leaps off the roof, arms splayed wide.
…
Eagle wipes his rifle clean of prints and throws it off the Maglev car as they drive. “I love it when a plan comes together.”
[END]
I am
DAREDEVIL.
***
{DAREDAREVIL 2099 - EYES WIDE OPEN, part 3: Inside Man}
{written by Bowie Sessions ([email protected])}
***
“If you tremble indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”
-Che Gueverra
[Alchemax HQ, eighty-second floor, Human Resources dept.]
With a swipe of a keycard, the office door opens long after-hours. A young black man in an Alchemax Security Uniform walks in, shining his flashlight through the room in a slow and steady motion. The muscularly built young security guard steps forward, walking around the main desk to face the computer screen and its keyboard. Tacking at the keys, a window appears, requesting a password. Quickly, the security guard appears to type it in.
--Davers, we have you on the eighty-second floor,-- buzzes his radio affixed to his shoulder.
Davers, the security guard, ignores it and watches the screen as it loads the Welcome screen. He immediately begins to scan through the processes in the system, bringing up administrative files. Names begin to scroll past the screen as he searches for a very specific thing.
--Davers, you’re outside your sector. Renton, are you in the vicinity? Davers, come in.--
“Shock,” Davers whispers to himself. NO MATCHES FOUND, the screen reads. Desperately, Davers begins to type again. Once more names spindle in search before him, as he stares at the door. Pulling out a memory stick, he slides the nail-sized thing into the side of the computer, readying it.
--Renton here, I’m approaching Davers’ location.--
--This is Sierra Base, good copy, Renton. Davers, come in, over!--
ONE MATCH FOUND. Clicking, Davers brings up the profile of Alec de Luca and downloads it quickly onto the nail-sized drive. His eyes are on the door as footsteps come down the hallway. Whispering to the computer to hurry up, he sweats every moment.
SAVE COMPLETE. Removing the drive, the door opens.
“Alan?” Renton asks as he enters. Davers is lying on the leather couch by the door, eyes closed, splayed out.
Renton kicks his leg. “Alan, wake up. You’re busted.”
Alan seems shaken awake by this, head snapped about to clear the fictional cobwebs. Gaining awareness, he looks up to his fellow guard and answers. “Awman, I just – I was trying to just get a little wink, you know?”
“In my sector?”
“HR has the best couch,” Alan says as he sits up and dusts himself off to free himself of wrinkles. Renton looks at the couch and gives an acquiescent shrug.
”Better report in. Sierra Base is less than lightspeed on your little nap.”
“They need to relax. It’s nothing to lose sleep over,” Alan offers back with a smirk, to which they both grin and laugh lightly.
***
[apartment high-rise, Tormen Towers, eighty-fourth floor]
A dark figure stands in all black, arms crossed and eyes glowing their bright red. “I don’t give a damn about your leads on this case, Arcadia. Well, I do, but I’m more interested in where I’m taking these leads. What do you need me to do when I find out who tried to kidnap her?”
The black woman with shock-white hair identified as Arcadia looks more than a little cross. “You just stop them, and find out what they wanted from her! She’s in danger, and we’re trying to save her. Shutting down a group like that wouldn’t be terrible either, you know, ‘Daredevil’.”
“You know what I’m asking, Arc. Do you want this information to help her – or to unravel whatever she’s holding from you? This is NOT about altruism with you—“ Daredevil, however, does not manage to finish his accusations as the door opens wide. Daredevil spins away behind a wall, obscured from sight to the new entry. Instincts lead him into his hiding place.
“Arcadia! I got a good lead,” the security guard named Alan offers as he shucks his security guard jacket, tossing it into the corner of the room without concern. “There was no result for this ‘Jeffrey Herrera’ guy, I tried to spell it ten different ways, but first time with this Alec de Luca guy—“
Arcadia seems pleased, but she turns her gaze directly to the masked man out of sight. Daredevil, at this telling stare, walks out from the wall and nods to the younger, bigger guard facing him. “Alan,” Daredevil offers pleasantly.
“Most positive to see you, Hornhead!” Alan greets with utmost enthusiasm, moving quickly to DD to impose a handshake and then the gratuitous backslap quasi-hug maneuver. Relaxing from the motion, Alan still has a big grin on his face before DD withdraws.
“What do you have?” Arcadia insists.
Alan gathers himself together, and produces a datapad and his nail-drive that he places into the machine. “This right here. Alec de Luca was fired from Alchemax five years ago, where he worked in R&D with some of the biggest geniuses they had. His specialty was bio-medical, which was enough to make Alchemax keep tabs on him to this day.”
Daredevil and Arcadia exchange looks before Daredevil decides to speak. “So we know where he is?” His teeth tighten, as does his fist, remembering the weasely scientist from the attempted corporate take-over of JR Biotech.
“Sure do. But, DD, I know you’re going in. Only way is, I’m coming with.”
Arcadia begins to protest, but Daredevil gives her a rather vicious look. “Your brother’s a grown man, Arcadia. He just wants to get to know me. After-all. Who in your family doesn’t.” She senses a smirk on his face, as his head snaps back to stare into Alan’s eyes.
“Good, then,” Alan begins. “He’s got a place at Astron Apartments…”
***
[Quentino Towers, basement engineering facility.]
The thin, angular face of Alec de la Luca is difficult to recognize amidst his bloodied nose, missing front teeth and his extensive body cast. Recovering from being shot, burnt and then his ribs broken in by his boss Jeffrey Herrera’s boot, Alec looks to be about as good as anyone can expect him to be.
Within this room are hundreds, perhaps thousands of tools and pieces for mechanical use; this is the unsung R&D lab which has been claimed by the crippled man now resting in its center. Walking with a cane, he steadies himself as he moves to a wall covered with locked panels. His hand raises and begins to type at the code on the door, before his hand presses to it firmly, giving the data imprint necessary for the door to make a soft ‘Ksshttt’ of its depressurization.
Swept by the soft gasp of air, Alec opens the door in front of him to pull out a small vial filled with what looks like liquid silver. Stumbling as carefully as he can back to the desk in the center of this labyrinth of machinery and engineering, Alec takes an uncomfortable seat behind the computer array spread out before him.
Alec whispers quietly to himself as he spills the contents of the vial into a small tube, “They think I’m weak, that I can just be pushed around…” He interestingly enough then connects the tube to the computer by a cable port connection at its peak.
“Just laughing, laughing. Like I embarrassed him. Like I’m nothing. I MADE him! I made him and now he kicks me to the catacombs, I … I’ll show him my worth, show him just how smart the ‘brain’ of this organization is…” Fervently he talks to himself to calm himself, to steady his hand as he begins rapidly typing into the computer, loading up processes and programs at a speed too quick for anyone else to follow.
It is with a decisive strike that he hits the ‘Enter’ key, a large message pops onto the screen reading simply ‘COMPILING PROGRAMMING DATA… 33% complete’, the percentage increasing rapidly.
As Alec begins to smile wider and wider, he is so close, about to finally--
--MR. DE LUCA, Incoming Transmission.--
“Receive transmission,” he speaks aloud, with a heavy-hearted sigh.
“Mr. De Luca,” the scrambled-image on the other side discreetly transmits, “the Trap is Sprung.”
--Transmission Terminated, MR. DE LUCA.--.the computer helpfully notes.
Smiling, Alec looks to the screen, which now reads PROGRAMMING DATA SUCCESSFULLY COMPILED. He disconnects the tube and affixes to it a sharp needle at the very end the cable had just articulated.
“Well, bottoms up,” he tells himself and slams it into his thigh. His eyes widen as his gasp echoes through the lab.
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments #3905]
It had been something of a nuisance to duck and weave past security, staff and residents in the full black costume, but manageable. Alan, on the other hand, just walked as if he belonged. They traveled to the 39th floor, Alan by elevator and Daredevil quicker … by the balconies in the center of the facility.
Daredevil is waiting flush against a doorway when Alan steps up, and Daredevil is clearly staring. “This is the place?” Daredevil asks impatiently.
“I’m sure,” Alan reassures him. “We’re lightspeed, Daredevil. Don’t worry, I’m with you 100%.” Alan pats at his side, where he had hid his side-arm. Alan knocks twice on the door, and smiles as he stands outside the peephole.
“Who’s there!” the voice cries from the other side.
“A courier for Mr. de la Luca,” Alan informs them calmly. There is a long silence before the door suddenly opens, a stranger standing there to stare at Alan questionably. The man fails to look to his left, where Daredevil stands; he simply snaps his arm up at the elbow to slam his fist into the stranger’s nose.
With the victim stumbling inside, Daredevil spins around the doorway after him and grabs him by the shoulder before he can run. Daredevil does not ask any questions before he simply starts slamming his fist into the man’s face. Once more, twice more, thrice more, four more times. The man falls limp as Daredevil releases him.
Then, rather than compliance, the injured stranger just starts laughing.
Laughing a lot.
They hear it at that very moment. Footsteps rushing from a dozen directions inbound in the hallway behind them and a dozen feet shatter the windows of this lofty apartment as they repel inside, a large force of what quickly becomes obvious to Daredevil are a slew of Public Eyes.
“It’s a TRAP!” Alan screams at Daredevil as he gets dog-piled.
Daredevil hurls his baton into the back of the skull of Alan’s first aggressor, allowing Alan the ability to fire off a volley of shots into the rest who approach him. He rushes for the door to hold back the throng of those coming from the hallway, and quickly begins disabling them one by one. “Really? You think so?” DD asks mockingly, voice calm and regulated.
While throwing a punch for the first man through the door’s face, Daredevil’s other hand grasping the incoming officer’s weapon. With the officer off-balance and hurt from the punch, DD finds little problem in tearing it free from his hands, spinning it and using the butt of the energy rifle to crack his jaw in an uppercut. The officer goes flying back, in time for two more to manage through the doorway.
Daredevil leaps skyward, slamming a boot into each of the new threats’ heads, backflipping to land with his rifle-gripping hand pressing to the ground. Pushing off from that reversal, he comes up to a stance and hurls the rifle behind him, “CATCH!” yelled out. With a flick of his fingers, a massive staff forms of crackling crimson energy from Daredevil’s palm.
Alan looks up and drops his pistol, catching the rifle clumsily. “Thanks, Hornhead!” Like his pistol, he quickly puts it onto the Stun mode; it would appear Alan does not like the idea of killing cops. When he opens fire with the rifle, however, laying waste to every one of them that nears him, it might just seem otherwise. Especially as one shoots him in the leg from behind, forcing Alan to spin around and slam the butt of the rifle into his neck. The Public Eye stumbles back, gasping, gripping his neck as he struggles to breathe.
***
[Quentino Towers, basement engineering facility]
Alec de la Luca does not look the best he has in his life. He screams angrily, uncontrollably, as he convulses on the floor of the basement. His hand drags across the tables as he feels his skin shudder and start to ripple as if a wave rolls beneath the layers.
His screams are beyond intelligible noises now, now just the primal agony of the injured. Collapsing to the floor below, he starts to shake and cry, tears streaking down his cheeks as his skin seems to begin to melt… his fingers lengthening, his teeth growing rapidly as if ready to break through his skull. A silvery sheen runs down his face where his tears had flown.
There is a sudden buzz on the intercom system. --de Luca, your plans are not going well. You know who this is. Upstairs. Now.--
A hand launches up from the ground to snag the side of the nearest table. The long fingers slowly pull inward, returning to something resembling their former state. Nails retract from claws into short nail beds and knuckles seem to wind the rest of the half-foot long digits into them.
A gasping, desperate Alec de la Luca manages to speak while hanging limply from the desk. --I.. will try to, sir…--
--It’s your funeral, de Luca. I do not enjoy your disappointments,-- the voice offers with very little in the way of leniency.
“Pull yourself together … ha ha … HA Ha…” Alec whispers deliriously from the floor.
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments #3905]
Meanwhile, Daredevil is not letting up. Bodies rendered unconscious with much more intimate care, the twirling staff formed of light connecting with ankles, necks and foreheads. One after another finds themselves flung into the doorway, their spines cracking with impact on the rail outside, with their heads slamming into the floor or the wall… Daredevil wades into the halls through which the swarms of dirty cops pour.
Every blast they fire simply absorbs into Daredevil’s staff. Behind him, Alan can only watch in amazement; he is keeping people from repelling in through the window. That is long since stopped. Now he is just cleaning up the people that Daredevil throws inside and staring in awe at his abilities. “How do you do that?” Alan whispers, in amazement.
The flow of dirty cops eventually ends. Long minutes dry up, leaving the two heavily breathing Re-Activ-8 employees standing shoulder to shoulder and looking over their victims. Daredevil kneels down and slaps one of them who is groaning, forcing him to wake up.
His staff turns into a blade, and Daredevil shoves it against the victim’s upper thigh, and starts shoving it in, inch by inch. “You’re going to tell me who sent you,” Daredevil whispers, his voice filled with uncontainable fury.
The man finds the answer quickly. “They’re – they’re from Quentino Towers!”
It does not save him, however, or stop him from screaming when Daredevil shoves the blade up all the way, careful to avoid arteries. Alan looks away.
He just keeps screaming.
***
[a roof, nearby]
A black-clad and hooded Japanese man stands with a watchful eye below, kneeling down and without even looking unrolls a small bundle which reveals inside of a long barrel, a silencer, a butt-stock, a handle with a trigger well, a chamber, and a suspicious lack of any kind of magnification scope. As if he planned to use the iron-sights on the rifle itself.
“In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit,” he speaks to himself as he kneels, slowly assembling the weapon with his bare hands. His eyes never even look to his hands, as he surveys the sight below, watching and waiting for the movement he knows is going to come.
It is with a bright smile on his face that he continues to speak in his deep accent, apparently extremely willing to assemble what appears to be an old-fashioned slug-throwing sniper rifle. “These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as Soldiers of Fortune.”
His lightning-quick hand motions come to a sudden stop as he slides the bolt into the now fully constructed chamber, leaving a gleaming steel masterpiece of engineering which could nearly be considered from the 19th century. A massive smile plays over his face as he finishes his words, polishing the weapon for just a moment with a small rag.
His eyes trail the lobby of the building below, focusing tightly. He raises his wrist to his lips. “Project: Eagle in place. Movement below. Preparing to engage target.”
--Proceed, Eagle.--
He cancels transmission, and slowly, methodically, places a bullet in the chamber. Just one, and kneels at the edge of the roof, raising the rifle into his arms and chambering the round. “If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them … maybe you can hire… The A-Team.”
Eagle has such a very happy smile.
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments lobby]
The elevator doors open in the lobby of the Astron Apartments to find a security guard knocked unconscious already, presumably the dirty doings of the Public Eye. It allows Daredevil and Alan to walk across the ground of the massive buildings’ luxurious lobby most casually.
Daredevil takes up a stance, snagging the rifle from Alan. “Call your sister,” he orders, viciously, eyes panning the entranceways for security.
“What am I asking—“
“Where the hell Quentino Towers is! We’re ending this. Now.” Alan seems shaken, but nods his head in understanding and moves to duck behind a table, dialing his sister up quickly on his hand-held.
Her face appears in his hand, speaking clearly. “What’s going on over there?” She asks, concern in her voice. Alan looks down into her face, and begins to explain to her the events.
“It was a trap, sis. We’re preparing to leave, but we need to know our next stop: Quentino Towers, that’s who set this trap. Please get us some bit-stream so we can move out.” His voice is pleading, but sincere. Daredevil watches quietly, a sadness somewhere in him evident. Allowed only for a moment, his muscles relaxing and eyes following the younger man… before he steels himself, once more stiffening and presenting a watchful guard.
”Quentino Towers… I’m downloading that data now, and patching it through your data-feed in your hand-held. The hand-held now has its coordinates, but I’m pulling up system specs, security data, possible targets…”
There is a long silence as both Daredevil and Alan impatiently feel the minutes counting down until reinforcements arrive. “Got it. Weirdest thing – the CEO of Quentino Towers is named Darien Salazar, but he looks just like that profile of Alec de la Luca… I’m thinking that’s how he got off-grid. A new identity.”
Daredevil looks back to Alan. “Great. Close off comm. We use the hand-held to get across town to Quentino Towers. We’re moving. Follow me.”
Then, Daredevil and Alan Davers just walk right for the front doors.
***
[Quentino Towers, office of Alec de Luca]
There are two knocks before a voice issues out, “Come in.”
A short, muscular Italian man with a badly receding hairline presents himself before his superior with a respectful nod. “Sir, the system says that your profile has just been hacked and there’s signs of cross-referencing to ‘Alec de la Luca’.”
The man addressed, Alec de la Luca – alias Darien Salazar – sneers at this news. He stands tall, healthy, not a mark on him. An apparent miracle recovery from the horror that wracked him just minutes ago, as if he were a completely new man. “Thank you,” he states, coldly, and the Italian assistant quickly takes his cue to leave, closing the doors after him.
The chair behind Alec turns slowly to reveal Jeffrey Herrera before him, with a dark expression on his face seeming most disapproving. “Graveyard failed. This ruse failed. You have failed. I do not enjoy failure … but it seems neither does our enemy. Because he knows of us now. He comes for us even now, you realize, Alec.”
Alec’s eyes cannot meet Mr. Herrera’s, but they do turn from the ground to the ceiling so that he can scream with all of his barely contained rage. “Why won’t he just DIE?!”
***
[uptown high-rise, Astron Apartments terrace]
The air welcomes them, and they both breathe as the sunlight hits them. It is still broad daylight – after-all, Alan only returns home after the graveyard shift.
“We’ll get them, Daredevil. Trust me, Hornhead, this guy’s number is coming up short,” Alan offers, closing the door behind Daredevil and following him towards where the Maglev car was parked.
“They won’t see this coming,” Daredevil whispers darkly. There is a soft ‘thppt’ behind him, and Daredevil doesn’t have time to wonder to himself what that sound was before he feels something covering him, a warm splash of bone and blood. He turns quickly and sees Alan’s headless body collapse against the concrete.
His head snaps upward to see where it came from, and he sees a dark figure a hundred stories up, waving. His eyes focus in, tighter and tighter, the suit magnifying the figure… only soon enough to see the small silhouette of a car pull up next to the figure above and pick him up.
Daredevil does not pause or hesitate, his blood running cold and heart pounding so fast he cannot hear his own footsteps as he races into the opposite building where the shooter came from. He brazenly rushes past a crowd of screaming people, as he runs into the elevator covered in blood. He strikes the highest button and waits for it to rise.
The elevator slowly eases skyward, and Daredevil pounds against the doors. He kneels down and starts slamming his fists harder and harder against the conveyer. “MOVE! FASTER!” he screams, futilely, desperately, knowing it is hopeless. A soft muzak plays behind him as tears flow beneath his mask, and he screams in a hot fury.
It seems like hours pass as Daredevil tries to reach the top, running up the final set of stairs to the roof entrance. The door is nearly launched off its hinges as Daredevil runs out to see a vehicle sailing into the distance miles away already.
Daredevil stares to the ground below him, and breathes, slowly. His knuckles tighten and breathing catches. “You’re right,” he speaks aloud.
“But that doesn’t mean I care. I’m still doing it.” He is silent for several seconds, staring to the left.
“I’m not listening to you anymore. I have a life now. Why don’t you go play in traffic.”
Daredevil walks to the edge of the roof and sees the vague ant-sized mark on the ground that must be Alan. His muscles tighten, and fists clench harder than ever. Daredevil leaps off the roof, arms splayed wide.
…
Eagle wipes his rifle clean of prints and throws it off the Maglev car as they drive. “I love it when a plan comes together.”
[END]