LiFS Chapter 42 - Green Contacts Sold Separately (Patreon)

The pole arm came down on me like a guillotine blade, a crisp vertical sweep with all the subtlety of a Colchis Bull and the force to match. I slipped out of the way in the nick of time and it missed me by a hair, blade hissing as it split the air just inches from my ear and continued down past my armored shoulder. 

My opponent adapted instantly, shifting his body to transition into a precise strike at my legs. His form was like something right out of a textbook (did they make halberd-fighting textbooks?), calculated to lose as little speed and power as possible from the initial blow with mathematical precision, but I was ready for it. Riptide was already there, clashing with the halberd’s blade as its wielder swiftly pulled it back to prevent me from slicing through the significantly thinner haft. Even still, I left a deep nick in the metal before he could fully withdraw it.

Despite failing two attacks in as many heartbeats, my foe was undeterred. He took a single step back as I moved into his reach, then turned on a dime and planted his back foot for a short lunging thrust that would have speared me through the ribs if I hadn’t rolled out of the way. When I tried to spring to my feet, the base of the halberd struck at my temple with pinpoint accuracy, the sort of blow that even a demigod struggled to walk away from.

It was a good move. Perhaps even the best move under the circumstances, the fastest attack he could make with the maximum chance of success and the best odds to drop me in a single hit. 

Armsmaster was a splendid fighter. His form was perfect, his technique neigh-flawless, and he transitioned from attack to block to dodge with no hesitation and no wasted movements. I’d trained against gods with worse technique. I doubted that even Chiron would see anything wrong with his fundamentals, and Chiron could always spot a problem in his students’ form. A few thousand years as a trainer of heroes would do that. 

But Armsmaster always made the best possible move and, paradoxically, that wasn’t always the best move. It was rather like fighting one of Hephaestus’s training automatons, the nice ones that he’d given Dad as a gift way back in the day. I’d struggled against those at first, but that had been months ago.

Always making the best possible move made him predictable, and there was nothing that killed more demigods than being predictable.

I caught his halberd, the fingers of my free hand closing around the metal shaft as it passed through the air exactly where I knew it would, and jerked hard enough that servos whined in protest and Armsmaster, clad in several hundred pounds of tinkertech power armor, stumbled a half-step towards me. He recovered in an instant, turning his momentary imbalance and my own strength against me with a sharp jab. Against a lesser opponent, even one stronger and faster than I, it might have worked, but I’d been fighting too long to fall for a trick like that. 

A moment was all I needed. 

I used Armsmaster’s training halberd like a pivot, twirling through the air and landing on my feet behind him. A flick of my wrist smacked aside his over the shoulder strike even as he started to turn to face me, and a moment later he froze as Riptide’s tip brushed the armored panel over his neck. 

For a few seconds we stood there in silence, motionless but for our breathing. Then I let my arm drop and Armsmaster relaxed as much as he ever seemed to. If he was upset by his loss—the fifth in a row—he didn’t show it, planting his halberd against the ground and turning fully to face me.

“Well fought,” Armsmaster told me solemnly, and I grinned back at him.

“Right back at you!” I twirled Riptide, the blade shining even in the pale, featureless light of the ceiling lights. “Another?”

Armsmaster paused for a moment, then shook his head. “I must get back to my lab.” His voice was flat, but I thought I could imagine a hint of reluctance. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking; this was the most fun I’d had in a while. 

I clicked my tongue, “Duty calls?” I asked.

He nodded severely. “Indeed. Thank you for your time, Riptide. Agent Johnson will see you out.” Then he whirled around and marched away, stopping only to collect a trio of badly damaged training halberds and his true weapon from its rack.

I watched him go regretfully; I was just getting warmed up! But I understood that he was a busy man, what with his patrols, his leadership position, his tinkering, and whatever else he got up too. Plus, we’d been going at it for nearly an hour and, as far as I knew, Armsmaster was just a tinker. Unlike someone like Vicky, his power did nothing for his body. Under all that armor he was only a mortal, if an extremely fit and capable one. He was probably exhausted!

Sighing, I capped Riptide and partially retracted my armor, leaving me in just the helmet, breastplate, grieves, and arm guards over my jeans and tee. I’d have retracted it all, but both Carol and a half-dozen people at the PRT had stressed that (at least until I officially joined New Wave) I should pay a modicum of regard to the whole secret identities thingy everyone cared so much about, and my armor didn’t have a mode where it was just the helmet. I still wasn’t fully sold on it all, especially since a whole bunch of people at the PRT had already seen me without any sort of mask, but I’d watched enough TV to know that you should always listen to your lawyer. 

Agent Johnson was a stocky, middle-aged man with dirty brown hair, hazel eyes, and a five o’clock shadow that somehow softened his square jaw. He wore the same uniform as every other PRT agent I’d ever seen, though without all the bells and whistles they added when deployed in the field. 

He looked vaguely familiar for some reason, but also about as forgettable as anyone I’d ever met. Even after several hours in his company as he escorted me around the building, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pick him out of a lineup. In a moment of paranoia I’d even focused on the Mist around him to check if maybe he was one of those sneaky parahuman (a stranger danger! I was getting the hang of this!), but no, just a normal, the opposite of eye-catching, face.

He stood up stiffly as I approached the bench he’d been using by the door, falling habitually into a practiced stance with his legs shoulder-width apart and arms folded behind his back. “Ready to go, Riptide?” he asked gruffly (or maybe he just always sounded like that). 

I paused, raising one finger and digging around in my pockets until I found the crumpled up receipt I’d prepared. I carefully smoothed it out, blinked at the upside-down logo of Uncle John’s Pizza, letters and numbers swimming across the white paper, then flipped it over and ran my thumb down the list I’d scrawled in ancient Greek.

Paperwork? Check. That had been the first thing Carol and I had taken care of when we arrived. Nazi supervillain update? Check. They were still in custody, awaiting transport out of the city. The Empire probably didn’t have the manpower to stage another breakout from the depths of the PRT headquarters, but just in case some of the more dangerous capes were being held on the Protectorate’s oil-rig base and they were hoping I could be on hand when they finally arranged to move them. 

What else? The PRT hadn’t had anything new to say about how I’d arrived in this world, but had tentatively scheduled a short jaunt out to where I’d surfaced for later in the week. My paperwork had gone through so I was officially a real person again, with a brand new ID and citizenship to boot. Carol had been surprised at the speed—apparently it usually took way longer to deal with Case 53s. It had been a lot easier to get someone to spar with me than I’d feared, which was great, and…that was everything! 

I stuffed the list back in my pocket. “Yup!”

“Very good.” He cleared his throat loudly, “If you’d follow me…” then without waiting for a response he led the way out of the training room, down a half-dozen hallways and flights of stairs, into the underground employee garage, and finally up a winding staircase where a nondescript door opened onto an empty alleyway. 

“The PRT thanks you for your time, Riptide.”

I committed the winding path we’d taken to memory—it wasn’t the same way we’d come in with Carol earlier in the day—and gave the agent a friendly wave. “You too!” Retracting the rest of my armor into its harness form, I stepped out into the alley, the door shutting with the heavy kahthunk of a serious lock behind me. 

I took a moment to stretch, enjoying the slight breeze ruffling my hair after too-many hours of having it pressed down inside my helmet. Hephaestus did good work—the helmet didn’t obstruct my vision or hearing at all, and I could barely feel that I was wearing it most of the time—but there was only so much you could do to make a big metal skull-box truly comfortable to wear for hours at a time. 

No one paid me any attention as I slipped out of the alley and out onto the street, blending easily enough into the small crowd of men, women, and teenagers making their way through Brockton’s quaint downtown. According to my phone it was just after four-thirty and the streets were as busy as I’d ever seen them. Most schools had let out not long ago and there were plenty of teenagers with backpacks about, as well as adults getting off work or running errands.

I didn’t head back to the apartment right away. I was meeting up with Crystal and Vicky for a patrol in a few hours, but now that I was no longer fighting, my stomach was eager to inform me of just how hungry I was. I had some leftovers in the fridge from when Crystal came over yesterday, but I wanted to save those for an after-patrol snack, and I didn’t feel like cooking right now anyway. Plus, by the time I got home, prepped everything, and cooked I’d be even hungrier. 

Instead, fifteen minutes later I was cheerfully digging into my hugest-plate with chow mein, a side of fried rice, and an egg roll. It wasn’t the best thing I’d ever eaten, but it was an impressive quantity of food for the price, and I was absolutely famished. I’d been thinking about the food court at Hillside Mall ever since I’d gone there with Crystal, and it did not disappoint. Even as I ate I was keeping half an eye on the glass case full of soft pretzels calling to me from the counter of Aunty Emma’s. I didn’t necessarily need a pretzel, but I definitely wanted one. 

The name had given me a bit of a fright at first, but it looked like they just sold food––soft pretzels, corn dogs, and deep-fried cookies––with the only statue in sight that of a giant plastic pretzel. And there were definitely no monsters (nor supervillains) working the counter––I’d checked. 

Just an unfortunate coincidence. It was a good thing I wasn’t quite as stab-first, ask questions later as I had been in the days and weeks following the Battle of Manhattan.

I was about half done with the main part of my meal when I reached into the plastic bag to grab my egg roll and realized that there was something else in there as well, a smooth, sharp-cornered imposter tucked in among the rumpled napkins at the very bottom of the bag. I froze for a moment, then very carefully picked the bag up by the corners and shook it out onto the table. 

First came the sauce packets, two each of soy sauce and duck sauce. Then my egg roll, golden and crisp, just peeking out of its translucent paper swaddle. And lastly, the napkins, brown and raggidy, and hidden among them a crisp white envelope.

I watched it warily for several long seconds, my food forgotten for the moment. It didn’t react, didn’t so much as twitch. 

I reached into my back pocket and withdrew Anaklusmos. Carefully, delicately, I used the tip of the pen to move the napkins and sauces to one side, leaving the envelope exposed at the center of the plastic table. It was unmarked but for a tiny grease stain in one corner.

I looked deeper. No Mist clung to the heavy paper, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. I couldn’t feel any water within the envelope, nor anything like water––poison, blood, salt, fire, mercury, that sort of thing. 

In one quick motion I slipped Riptide’s cap beneath the letter and flicked it onto its back. That too was unmarked. I watched it for a few more moments, silently eating a bite of noodles and apricot chicken. 

Then I picked up the letter, opened it, and removed the note inside. 

It wasn’t a very long note, covering less than a third of the sheet of paper it was printed on, but my gut told me this was going to turn into a whole thing. 

It read––

Percy Jackson

I’m sorry to reach out to you like this, but I don’t get the sense that you worry too much about keeping the helmet on. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but a girl’s gotta breathe! Sometimes it's not up to me. 

I need help, and I think you are the only one who can give it to me. 

If you’re willing to talk, we like the same bakery. I usually get my coffee about an hour after opening.

Lisa

I skimmed the note once, then set it down on the table and carefully went through it word by word. It made…more sense the second time around, what with all the letters not moving around quite as much and the words not crawling off the page, but was still exactly the kind of cryptic prophecy-ish nonsense I usually preferred to let other people try to interpret. 

I let my head thunk down onto the table and sighed heavily. Then I stood up, mournfully looked down at my rapidly cooling food, and headed back to the Speedy Snow Leopard counter, note in tow.

Thankfully there wasn’t much of a line, and the woman who’d packed my food and rung me up was still working the register. I showed her the envelope, “This was in my bag,” I told her conversationally. 

She blinked, then smiled tentatively. “It's for you. Percy, right? Your girlfriend dropped it off, oh, ten minutes before you came in? Said she was sorry she had to run the last time you met.” She sighed wistfully. “How romantic.”

My smile was slightly tighter than I meant it to be. “That’s me, year. Very romantic,” I agreed.

She brightened. “I hope things work out between you! She’s quite a looker! Such gorgeous blonde hair, and you’re not half bad yourself.” She winked, then fanned her face with her hand. “Is it just me or is it getting hot in here!”

It took a few more subtle questions, but eventually I left the counter with a rough description. Blonde hair, green eyes, young, pretty, tall. 

If this was Vicky or Crystal’s idea of a prank I was going to make them watch me eat all their pancakes the next time they came over for breakfast. See how they liked it…