Broker

Chapter 15

Amos’s eyes went wide, what does she mean by reward? He watched her slip on the glove and his eyes flicked up to her face. She rounded on him and cracked one of those a-bit-too-wide smiles she had. He never saw them when she made her public appearances, never when she was talking as Sonya. He hadn’t had a word for the face he’d seen when she’d brought him into the fold initially. He hadn’t had a name for the person who stood before him right now. Now he did, though, this wasn’t Sonya stalking towards him. This is Ishtar.

Her eyes glowed brighter, he could hear the ticking, faintly, like it was just at the back of his mind.

Tick tick tick tick tick.

He felt a chill run up his spine, “Reward?” He chuckled nervously, “L-look, boss, I think I’m plenty young enough, yeah? I think I’m good on the whole age thing,” He said as her hand stretched out to him. He looked down at her hand, in those leather gloves that creaked slightly as her fingers curled. “Besides, you pay me, right? I’m just doing my job.”

She squinted at him, tilting her head as if she didn’t quite understand what he was saying. She stood up a bit straighter and regarded him, “Do I scare you, Amos?” She asked, looking a little disappointed. 

“Uh, isn’t that the whole point of being a villain?” He asked, not even bothering to hide his discomfort as he took another step back. 

She hesitated and looked down at her fingers, stretching and flexing them in the gloves. She pursed her lips and regarded him for a moment. “I see,” She said stiffly, “Guess I got a little too into character after admiring your work,” She said and let out a breath, reaching up and playing with her hair for a moment. She turned and looked at the equipment in the room as if searching for something.

Her back to him, she spoke again, “Amos, how do your powers feel? Can you tell the difference between how you were before and how you are now?”

He blinked, surprised by the question, “Uh…” He looked down at his hands for a moment and thought, it was odd, to be sure. It felt like his brain was always overclocked, like could feel the heat inside his head on occasion when he was really focused on his work. That was really the only difference, most ideas came so naturally he barely noticed he even had been touched by the light of Pandora’s Box. Even so, there was one thing he tried not to think too hard about. He turned and placed his hand on the computer screen next to him. He took a deep breath, she was obviously trying not to intimidate him, so he’d give her the benefit of the doubt.

“Have you ever felt like… you know someone intimately, but they won’t talk to you?” He asked, “Like they’re giving you the cold shoulder and you just don’t know why?”

She glanced back at him, her glowing eyes boring into his. “Yes, I have. Why?”

He looked up at her and then back at the computer, breaking eye contact, “It’s crazy, but I feel like I should… know my equipment. Like. Hear it. But I can’t.” He tried to articulate the words. He was a genius, but only as far as his work went. He’d already figured out that the power amplified only things that were natural talents of the holder. He hadn’t gotten any better at painting no matter how hard he tried. “I feel incomplete.”

She turned to face him, “I figured.”

He frowned, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I told you that I can see what powers someone has when we shake hands,” I said, “All of them, awakened or not.”

His eyes narrowed, “All?

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“Yes,” Sonya said and looked down at her gloved hand, she flicked her eyes up at him.

He felt a thrill rise up his spine that sank into a lead nugget in his gut, “You… you knew! You knew and weren’t going to tell me until I, what, earned it?” He demanded, “You know my powers are incomplete?” He asked, bewildered. “Are you serious?”

She frowned, “And how was I supposed to broach the topic? Ask you like I did just now? Before we got comfortable with one another? Would you honestly have believed a word I had to say?” She snorted and shook her head, “My power works with deals, Amos. It’s a give and take, I’ve never tried to give something away for nothing. Who knows what could happen?”

“So what, you waited until you had a reason to reward me? Just to be safe? I’m supposed to believe that?” He barked, “How do I know you’re not lying right now?”

She hesitated and then let out a sigh, there was a sudden weariness that came over her that startled him. She walked over to the table where the equipment he’d slaved over for her lay. She rest her hands on it and hung her head, “I can’t,” She said quietly.

He blinked, “What do you mean you can’t? Can’t what? Lie?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, “Every power has rules, limits,” She said quietly, “I choke on them. Lies.”

It made sense, in a twisted way, she was a dealmaker. Every detail of the deal had to be agreed upon, she couldn’t lie about the facts of the deal otherwise it wouldn’t be an even exchange. Still, it beggared disbelief, how did he know she wasn’t lying about it? How could he test it. He needed evidence, something he could see, verify. She turned to face him with a weary, almost vulnerable look on her face. His gut twisted, but he didn’t hold back.

“Say you’re a dinosaur,” He said.

She frowned at him, but sighed and opened her mouth. He watched her carefully, there, tension in her throat. She could have forced it, though, “Say your name is John Smith,” He insisted, again, that tension. He pressed again, and again, and again, she tried and tried to open her mouth to speak. He was so furious that for a moment he didn’t notice, her skin was already so pale, when she started to stumble a little. She was literally choking! “Damn it, Sonya!” He gasped, horrified, running to her side. He caught her as she fell to a knee, something red streaming down her cheek.

He dropped to a knee and held her head upright, “Breathe slow-” He flinched, blood was leaking from the spot where the metal of her prosthetic eyes met her eye socket. “Holy shit, are you, I mean, fuck!” He looked her over, “Why did you let me do that to you?” He demanded, “Are you crazy? You could have died right there!”

She forced a smile, “You needed empirical evidence, right?” She wheezed, “Data.”

His heart sank, “Damn it,” He sat back from her and shook his head, “You’re crazy.”

He hung his head, he’d been so upset, so blinded by his anger at her for hiding that truth that he hadn’t considered he might actually press her into killing herself. She had really tried to play his game, tried to say everything he told her to say, and she’d- she’d been telling the truth. If she couldn’t lie, then at worst her words were half truths, but flat statements couldn’t be lies. She could misdirect and mislead, but she couldn’t bend the truth at all. “And you want to live a double life, you’re out of your damn mind, Sonya,” He muttered.

She chuckled, “It’s the only way to save the world from itself,” She said weakly, resting her head against the table behind her.

He looked up at her, “That’s what you want to do? That’s the big plan? Save the world by being a villain?”

“Yes,” Sonya said with a shrug.

“You know more than you’re telling me,” He said.

“Yes.” She said again.

“And you can’t tell me because it’s dangerous information or something I couldn’t possibly accept,” He concluded, his mind beginning to heat up, trying to figure it all out.

“Yes.”

He looked down at his hands again, “What am I to you, Sonya? Am I just a tool in this bigger scheme? Just a henchman like that bastard Shark?”

“I want you to be my ally, my friend if possible, if you can bring yourself to trust someone willing to kill a few to save many,” Sonya said bluntly, drawing her knees up to her chest, she rest her arms on them and looked at him from behind her arms. So even Ishtar could be fragile. “I want your powers to complete, I want to see what you’re capable of,” She whispered, “But you weren’t ready.”

He let out a breath and hung his head, “You took me in, gave me a place to work, let me do my own projects, and I repaid you like this. I’m sorry, Sonya,” He said, guilt eating at his chest. He wanted to go hide in a box, disappear, something. He’d forced his benefactor to do such a thing, someone who could say things like that even when an otherworldly force would strangle her if she uttered a lie. His shoulders fell, “I’m ashamed.”

“You had every right to be angry, Amos,” Sonya said and extended a hand to him, “That’s why I’m making it up to you now.”

Tears welled in his eyes, “I will never, ever let you down, Boss,” He croaked and took her hand.

She smiled, “It’s a deal, Amos.”

Light flooded from her hand and he felt it wash over him, that strange oddly pale light that he’d seen on that fateful day. Pandora’s Light. His breath caught as a warmth rushed up his arm and through his body, spreading and then rising up, up, and up until he felt it settle inside of his brain. He felt the warmth spread out, clinging to every nerve ending and sense, he felt his world expand. His vision was clear. He felt… whole. More than that, he felt…

He glanced at the terminal he’d been lingering next to and it turned on with a thought. His eyes widened and he looked back at her.

“Your hidden ability was Technopathy,” Sonya said with that lackadaisical grin of hers.

He got to his feet and stepped back into the center of the room, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting instinct guide him. New instincts burned into his very genetic code rose to the surface as if they’d always been there, waiting for him to draw them out. He could feel every computer in the room, no, the whole building. He could feel every piece of equipment with a circuit, every cellphone, every camera. It was like his body had grown to the size of a castle. He could see in a hundred different directions at once.

How is my brain handling all of this infor- oh. Of course! My main ability. They’re a pair!

His minds eye swept over the entire building, he saw every door, every lab, every employee that he’d hired to support his projects. He could see the data they were entering into the computers as it happened, he understood it, it was exhilarating and terrifying. A painful thought struck him in the gut and he pulled all his senses back to his body, looking down at Sonya as she sat there against the display table.

“I wasn’t ready,” He breathed, “No way could I have handled this as messed up as I was when we first met, as desperate as I was. It would have driven me crazy.”

She just nodded.

She saw right through me, right from the start.

“Do you think this will help you?” Sonya asked after a long silence, “With your projects?”

He looked up at her and felt like a bad son who had told off his mother only to be forgiven as a matter of course. He wanted her to be mad at him, to shout at him, to give him a look of disappointment. As she got to her feet he felt smaller than he ever had in his entire life, tiny, like a mote in front of a mountain. Yet all she did was give him a look that screamed of high expectations, and a smile that made him want to weep.

I’ll make you rule the damn world, boss. He swore and nodded, forcing himself to grin at her, “Our timetables just moved way, way up.”