Chapter Ten

I was doing so well with being polite. Then it just sort of... failed. Alas. Towards the end of the chapter is probably a bit stronger than a PG-13. 

Also - continuity! Characters from the first chapter (whom I'd forgotten about until I had to figure out how to stretch this chapter to the requisite word count)! Gangsters!


There was an awkward silence. Everyone sat and tried not to look at anyone else for a moment. Then Stranger, who really was uncharacteristically cheerful and optimistic this morning, said, "You did that on purpose, didn't you? You probably were planning the best way to get our attention, and a really bad innuendo was the only way you could guarantee everyone's."

"You are perceptive this morning," Jean told him. "Perhaps we should make sure you are rested and fed more often."

"It does wonders," Stranger affirmed.

"We do have other matters to attend to," Jean said. "Sir Dick is still out there, and we must find a way to deal with him permanently."

"I'm good with that," Stranger said. "Do you have any ideas?"

"That's the main issue here," Jean said. "I have no clue how to take him out. He's got fingers in every pie imaginable, and some that are still in the oven. He's got friends in high places, low places, and out-of-the-way places, all of which could cause us some trouble should we get rid of him."

"So don't get rid of him," MacAlleister said. "Just incapacitate him. Don't think physical, think financial or mental. Get the mind out of the way, or get rid of the money, and suddenly you've muzzled and declawed the tiger."

"But how do you financially incapacitate a near-billionaire without completely destroying economies?" Havisham asked. "Getting Sir Dick out of the way would be a world service, but if we destroy people's lives in the process, it's going to balance out against us."

George, hearing the words 'financial' and 'incapacitate' in the same sentence, looked up. "Jean, have you briefed them on exactly how I've made my money?"

Stranger watched a slow smile spread across Jean's face. "Not yet." He turned to Havisham and MacAlleister. "Do you remember the last recession? Not the one in 2008, but the one a decade or so later?"

"Yeah, what of it?" Havisham asked.

"George is the reason it was just a recession and not a Depression. If there's anyone who can make Sir Dick and his wallet cry tears of blood, it's George here."

"Sounds good," Havisham said.

"But Sir Dick can rebuild financially without a problem," Caroline said, putting down her utensils. "It will slow him down, yes, but he'll know who did it and come back a thousand-fold on us once he's built himself back up. We need a one-two punch - make him broke and broken-down at the same time. Ruin his credibility. Can we do that?"

Stranger looked at her. "I'm a horror writer," he said. "A studier of human character. I could probably be a best-seller if I got my act together long enough to write a novel. I can break a person completely within eight thousand words, and I'm in a place where I can, more or less, cause anything to happen. I can handle breaking his spirit."

She looked at him for a moment. "You know, that might work," she said thoughtfully. "Can you make it humiliating as well?"

Stranger felt the cold little ball of hate labelled 'Sir Dick' that rested in his gut shift, and he smiled evilly. "By the time I'm done, he won't ever want to show his face in polite society ever again."

Caroline gave a short, sharp nod. "Good." She looked around at the group. "Havisham, go sequester George somewhere with internet and a lot of computing power. Alice, go with them. MacAlleister, take Stranger somewhere where he can plot without interruptions. I need to go make some phone calls."

-----

Stranger ended up in a comfortable little room that looked more like it belonged to some comfortable little bungalow than wherever he was now. MacAlleister gave him everything they had on Sir Dick - his hobbies, likes, dislikes, schedule, biography, and most importantly - his /fears/, and left him to it. Writing the personal horror story of one Sir Richard Carlisle Stomcock was more difficult than with a protagonist that he had created, and therefore knew absolutely, but Stranger honestly hadn't had as much perverse enjoyment breaking a character as he did now, plotting the destruction of a man who'd sworn to destroy him and his friends. There was a sense of vicious satisfaction, as he wrote the last word, that would have alarmed him in other circumstances.

His story was based around several things: Sir Dick's obvious fear of social ostracism, a suspected fear of of being alone, and an observed extreme aversion to anything which would normally trigger uncanny valley effects.

He had a list of necessary materials written up.

Alice
Cameras
Instant uploading software
Missy
Dark, seal-able room (not airtight - should be able to survive)
Microphones with recording device (for monitoring pruposes)
Faux operation to apprehend Dick (obviously faux)
Means of allowing Alice to use Caroline's voice (vocal profile or just a straight audio patch, either works)
INSTANT LOCKING - CANNOT BE BROKEN FROM WITHIN
SOUND PROOFING

And that was it. He felt quite proud of it. It had only taken him six hours - a personal best for story-writing. He ignored the nagging feeling that was trying to make him feel guilty about all this. Guilt is relative, and his was nothing compared to what Sir Dick had done.

When Caroline looked the story over, she had given him a look of respect. "Remind me to never get on your bad side," she told him.

"Hey, all I do is write the thing," Stranger said. "You're the one carrying it out."

"Yes, but if you can write the demise of my enemy, there's nothing stopping my enemy to have you do the same for me."

"Aside from morals, loyalty, and little insignificant things like that," Stranger said.

She gave him a serious look. "In certain circumstances, things like that do look awfully insignificant."

He ignored her and wandered off in search of sustenance.

------

The plan was put into action that night. The necessary things had been gathered, the sound-proof autolocking room had been set up, and although it wasn't deemed feasible to bring in Missy, due to the possibility of damage, a suitably disturbing replica was acquired from god knows where. The trap was set.

At exactly 9:00 pm, the first team on the faux apprehension operation went into action. They went for the most secure place in the city, the place where models indicated Sir Dick had a 95% probability of being. Stranger, who was watching them, along with Caroline, Jean, and MacAlleister, via a set of cameras that they had with them, couldn't help but be impressed. These were people who'd obviously been trained very, very well in what they did. As far as Stranger could tell, they were acting entirely on telepathy, the whole strike team of six acting like a single unit. It almost looked more like a dance than an attack on a high-security urban compound.

The strike worked, as far as its objective was concerned. The security guards, assuming that this was the forefront of a much larger attack, went into defense mode. Through the slightly shaky view afforded by the camera, Stranger could all but see them hustling Sir Dick out of the building and towards somewhere safe. That was when stage two began and the strike team retreated.

Stage two was slightly more complex. The black-windowed car that pulled out of a garage nearby was spotted, and George - who was also watching - did some impressive hacking into Boston's traffic signals, and caused minor mayhem. The car was forced to detour through a less-than-pleasant neighborhood. That was where, at a stop light, an unassuming person, looking a little ragged around the edges, dropped a sign on the windshield. It said, /That was a distraction, obviously. Just needed to get you alone so we can talk properly, face to face. Come to the Museum - Elizabeth/

The sign worked, because the car headed towards the Museum posthaste. Caroline was at the Museum. So were the other three of their little group. However, they were sitting in a security room upstairs, having called in a favor that the curator owed George. The rest of the Museum was dark, though, closed off, except for a single conference room. There, a silhouette sat, backlit, with a flow of long dark hair, wearing a gorgeous dress. Alice had thought the whole thing highly amusing, even when he had to have his cortex placed temporarily inside a Realdoll.

When the car stopped outside the museum, a lone figure exited, followed by a single guard. He was cocky, but they'd relied on that. A cocky man would make mistakes someone else wouldn't, and Sir Dick thought himself to be on top of the world. He hadn't looked at some of his overseas bank accounts yet, obviously.

When he entered the building, they picked up over the internal security cameras, "Where now?" The voice sounded distorted, and to be honest, it had probably been the bodyguard who'd spoken. It was dark enough that the cameras were having trouble even picking up their figures.

Stranger nudged Caroline, and she made a face, but spoke into the microphone in an dangerously sweet tone, "To the conference rooms, love. Just follow the light." And a trail of lights turned on, leading him directly there.

Stranger was a little worried that they might be overdoing it. But Sir Dick liked drama. If he could cast himself as a Bond villain, then appealing to his sense of the dramatic would help, not hurt. He saw himself as the protagonist of a huge story, in which he became king of the world, got the girl, and all that jazz. He would consider this his due.

About ten minutes later, he made it to the conference room. But before he could enter, all the lights shut off, and Caroline said, "Only you go on, darling. Just you."

"Boss, don't," said the guard. "It's bad news." They didn't hear the response, but the night-vision camera they had set up showed the guard throw his hands up in the air and turn around, arms crossed. Then their quarry entered the room.

The door started slowly closing behind him, even as the backlight went back on behind Alice's current head. "Hello, love," Alice said, using Caroline's voice. "Thank you so much for coming to see me. I've missed you, you know. I was wrong, the last time we spoke. I called you unforgiveable names. But I've learned. You were right all along. I want to make a deal now, love, and we can surely do that, can't we?"

The door shut, and the seal activated, a short hiss. Alice continued. "Here's what's going to happen. We're going to stay here for the rest of our lives, just enjoying each other's company, and forget all that other stuff, the cares of the world, the pointless trivialties. Doesn't that sound lovely?"

That's when the back light shut off and the lights around Alice's chair went on, highlighting the exact unnaturalness of her body. Then Alice sent himself back to the cortex in his normal body, leaving only a rudimentary response algorithm in the doll, in which was programmed a set of responses that would terrify anyone.

MacAlleister shook her head. "I almost feel sorry for the guy," she said, and turned off the monitor. When Caroline and Stranger started to protest, she looked at them, hard. "We're already scaring the man out of his wits. It's necessary, I know. But let's at least not watch it like some kind of evil voyeurs."

After a moment, Stranger said, "Yeah, let's not. My soul feels grimy enough right now."

Caroline rolled her eyes at him. "Come one, let's at least go do something productive, if we aren't watching."

"Like what?"

"Like sleeping. Or making sure that everything is working. Or exploring the Museum after dark, I don't really care. But sitting here staring at a blank screen isn't it."

Stranger examined his options. "Can I go visit the ancient exhibits?"

"Yes, sure, go," Caroline said. Stranger went. So did Alice.

Stranger had done many things that the rest of the world might consider strange or creepy - the past week sprung to mind - but he'd never been really creeped out. He read horror novels as a study of human character, and wrote stories to examine it, rather than as a cheap adrenalin rush. Haunted houses were merely interactive performances, something to watch politely and perhaps judiciously borrow. He'd gotten the heeby-jeebies from Missy, and to a lesser extent from Alice, but nothing that he couldn't talk himself out of. He was not the kind of guy who scared easily, was the point. Which did nothing to console him, walking through a black and silent night, through the ancient exhibits of the Art of the Americas section, followed by the clicking and hissing of the world's presumed first true artificial intelligence. Walking along silently, Stranger felt a chill go down his back, followed by a dozen or so of its kith and kin. The sheer dichotomy between the art - thousands of years old, carved by hands long forgotten, dead and gone - and his companion - barely a day old, made by someone who'd be famous forevermore because of it - was screwing with him. He was hearing phantom noises, seeing sculptures move in the shadows cast by his flashlight. It didn't help that his own stories were coming back to haunt him, the research he'd done for a couple coming back to haunt him. He knew the stories behind some of the more famous acquisitions, the blood that had been shed for them, the immoral history surrounding their travels. At that moment, in the dark, surrounded by the last remnants of minds long turned to dust, it didn't seem so absurd that something of those minds might have stayed with their creations, animating them and perhaps making them jealous of those yet alive.

His state of mind was such that it was totally and completely comprehensible for him to be startled when he was, without warning, pounced upon by an unknown gentleman and his flashlight knocked from his hands. Should anyone ever state he screamed like a little girl, he would dispute this hotly and inform them that Alice is more than capable of lying if he thinks it will be funny. And besides, after he was through being startled, he quite held his own for a while. He managed to get in two solid blows and only received three himself - not bad for someone on the receiving end of an ambush - before Alice politely stepped in and used inhuman strength to separate them.

"Excuse me," Alice said, in his best Vader impression to date. "But I feel like this is an unproductive usage of time. And I find your lack of manners... disturbing."

"Where's my boss?" the interloper demanded.

"Your boss is currently negotiating with ours," Alice said. "And likely shall be until morning."

"No he ain't," said the interloper. "He's not the fella you're looking for."

"I highly doubt that." Alice looked at him with something akin to pity in his glowing eyes. "Don't worry, you shall not be punished for your failure to keep an eye on him."

"Fuck that!" the guard said. "Of course I'll be punished. I lost the Big Boss's son! I'm a dead man walking!"

Stranger felt the creeping dread of the Museum mutate into a much more immediate dread at the idea of Sir Dick breeding. "He has a son?" he asked.

"Of course he does," the guard said, giving Stranger an odd look. "College kid. Not the brightest, but he's the next in line. And I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on him, and you fuckers are keeping me from doing that."

Alice gave Stranger a significant look. "Perhaps we might be able to pause negotiations for a while," he said. "Come on."

They backtracked back up to the security room, where they found a game of what seemed to be highly complex poker going on. "I see your spy network and raise you two cyphers and a ham sandwich," George said, as they came in.

"You're bluffing," MacAlleister said, frowning. "I don't think you have a ham sandwich."

"To be paid in full later," George said.

"Excuse me," Alice said. "But we may have a minor issue with the negotiations." Everyone looked up at him.

"What kind of issue?" Caroline asked, guardedly.

"The kind of issue where the wrong man is negotiating," Stranger said, feeling a bit sick to his stomach.

She froze, and then muttered a blistering curse before jumping up and turning the monitor back on. Stranger watched her watch it for a moment. Then she made a face and turned it back off. "Yes, that's not Sir Dick," she said.

"Who's this Sir Dick?" the guard asked.

The group looked around at each other, horror slipping across their faces.

"Do you happen to work for a certain Sir Richard Stomcock?" MacAlleister asked him.

"Nope," the guard said, confused. "I work for Mr. Clark, and guard his son." Looking around, he saw Stranger. "Hey, you - you spend a lot of time with the brat. Are you trying to ransom him or something? Because that's not cool. Normally you're okay, you make my job easier, but man, his dad's going to fire me and then have me sent down the river and then tear down the Museum, and you'll never see a cent."

"I swear that we're not trying to ransom the kid, or harm a hair on his head. He just got tangled up in something completely beyond his ken," Stranger said. Then, "Seriously? You get paid to deal with Clark Jr.?"

"Look, I'm not proud of what I do," the guard said. "But it's easy cash. I mostly just let folks like you keep him from accidentally offing himself and I make sure that no one else does it on purpose. That's the hardest part, because sometimes he royally deserves it."

"You think I don't know," Stranger said. Then he noticed the rest all looking at him. "What?" he asked. "He's a trustie kid without the brains he was born with. Had to keep him from killing the neighborhood around Malcolm's."

"Do you have the slightest clue who Fitzgerald Clark Sr. is?" Caroline asked him.

"No, not really," Stranger said with a shrug. "Just some rich dude for whom George cooked the books a lot. Nothing unusual." George nodded.

"Your 'nothing unusual' is more or less the cause of every other instance of cooking the books you might think of," Caroline told him. "He's basically the head of Boston's Mafia. He's not so much a gangster himself as the cause of gangstering in others. He is nasty, he is conniving, he is unknowable -"

"His son is a douche," Stranger said. "Making Clark Sr. out to be some sort of mythical figure does not change this." Yet another horrible thought crossed his mind. "Ah, Caroline? When you checked the monitor, what was Clark Jr. doing?"

"Using the doll in the manner for which is was designed," Caroline said. "Vigorously."

Alice looked slightly put off. "And to think that was my body for a while," he said.

"Can I have the kid back?" the guard asked. "Please? It'll be my head if I don't bring him back soon."

"Yes, sure, take him," Caroline said. "But you're the one interrupting him."

"Yeah, yeah, nothing I ain't done before," the guard sighed. "Honestly, it's not really worth the money, but us Flannerys have been working for the Clarks for ages." He shook his head. "Not gonna break tradition now."

As he left the room, the air started gradually losing the tension that had so built up. Caroline looked at Stranger. "It was a good plan," she said consolingly. "It would have worked beautifully if we'd chosen the right place to raid."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Stranger told her.