Dial H for Heroics

Jack used Vision to find the person he was looking for in the closed Market. It was a different place without people, and the stalls closed for the night. He could have provided for Josie and her girls from what he could steal in the minutes he wandered in the dark.

“This is the place,” said Jack, reverting to normal.

“What’s here?” asked Elaine. She stood back in case there was trouble. Her new employer seemed much too impulsive.

“My friend, Ken,” said Jack. He knocked on the door of a small shack between the vendor and a building butting up on the Market as a boundary.

The door opened. Ken stood in the frame. His exposed skin had a flock of names covering it. He frowned at his visitors.

Jack punched him in the face. He followed through with a shoulder check that pushed the man inside his shack. He kicked the man after he went down to the floor.

“How’s it going, Kenny?,” said Jack. He looked around. “You are so lucky Josie is not here. She would be killing you like the rest.”

“I know him,” said Elaine. She stepped inside the shack and close the door. “He recommended the Bell Tower to me when I arrived in town. I was looking for work at the time.”

“No surprise there,” said Jack.

“Father?,” said a voice behind a curtain on the other side of the shack. “What’s going on?”

“Would you mind, Elaine?,” said Jack. “I want to talk to Ken here while I decide what I want to do.”

“I suppose that would be all right,” said Elaine. She walked behind the curtain.

“Let’s step outside, Ken,” said Jack. “Then you can explain what’s going on.”

He waved the other man out of the shack. He waited for the surprise swing and try at a reversal. Nothing came as the vendor just moved away from the tiny cabin and stood beside his closed stall.

“So you have been pointing women out to be sold,” said Jack. “You use your stall as a watch station. I got that much. Who’s the girl in the shack?”

“She’s my daughter,” said Ken. “She’s sick. Montrose supplies us with a potion to keep her healthy most days. Some days are better than others. I use their bounty system to pay for the potions.”

“You’re still dead if Josie figures out you’re a rat,” said Jack. “I doubt she’s going to let this slide when she has a quest to fill out. You’re going to have to get out of town.”

“I can’t leave the city,” said Ken. “My daughter won’t survive without her potions.”

“I’ll look at your daughter and do what I can,” said Jack. “If Josie starts hitting the alchemists, there won’t be any potions for your girl any way. You’re better off moving out of the city and starting over clean somewhere else. The problem is everyone will know you were involved with the Montrose. You can’t get out of that now.”

“I couldn’t let her die,” said Ken.

“There’s a chance that she will grow up without you if you stay,” said Jack. “Some of your victims like Elaine might remember you and decide it’s okay to take you out since you don’t have an army at your beck and call.”

“What will I tell my girl?,” said Ken.

“I would start with some version of the truth,” said Jack. “She’s going to find out, so you might as well break it to her now instead of waiting for someone else to spring it on her.”

“I don’t know where I could go,” said Ken.

“Pick a direction and go, but not North,” said Jack. “We’ll be operating up there. Don’t go there. Go somewhere else. Let me look at your girl and see if I can do something so she’ll be ready to go. Make a clean break with the Montrose, Ken. If I see you in the trade again, I’m going to be a lot angrier than what I am now.”

“Can you do something for her?,” said Ken. “The alchemist said she wouldn’t survive without her potion for more than a few days.”

“We’ll see if I can do better than that,” said Jack. He stepped inside the shack.

He walked behind the curtain, dialing one of the four guys he thought could help in this situation. Elaine looked up at him. She gave him a look that said she didn’t know what was going on with the girl.

“Ken says they have a bounty system,” said Jack. “I want you to get their names from him while I look at the girl. Josie is going to want something for the mercy I’m giving.”

“I understand,” said Elaine. “I’ve seen something like this on the streets. They call it moon fever.”

“Go ahead,” said Jack. “If I can’t fix this so they can travel, then I don’t think anyone could.”

“You’re very strange,” said Elaine.

“Don’t confuse mercy for kindness,” Jack said. “Hurting kids is just not my style.”

“I can see that,” said Elaine. She stepped from behind the curtain. She started talking to Ken about what he knew.

Jack didn’t listen to that. Instead he hit the marker for Doctor Strange. He frowned as he became something with too many tentacles and eyes. He put the little girl into a deep sleep with a touch. He flipped open dozens of screens in the air and went over what they told him.

The little girl wasn’t really sick. She was just drugged up. He went over the

components on the screens, creating an antidote in his internal organs. He checked his timer. The clock was on median time. He blinked three of his eyes as he continued to work.

He injected the antidote, and waited. He felt a surge of satisfaction as the chemicals fought and the potions lost to his concoction. He changed back when everything had stabilized.

All she had to do was sleep it off and avoid any more alchemy.

He wondered if Ken knew. He doubted it.

“Make sure to get Ken’s alchemist too,” Jack said. He waited for the girl to stop breathing, but the Doc had performed better than he had thought he would.

“How is she?,” Ken asked after several minutes. He poked his head around the curtain.

“The potions you were getting for her were bad for her,” said Jack. “She needs to sleep off the cure, and she’ll be ready to go in the morning. Did you tell Elaine who your alchemist was?”

“Yes,” said Ken. “Argraver’s on Durn Street.”

“Don’t go back there,” said Jack. “Get ready to leave. As soon as your little girl wakes up, leave the city. Avoid anybody you know is in Montrose. Try to keep your face covered. There will be plenty of people looking for you, so you’ll have to be careful from now on. Elaine?”

“Yes?,” said the woman.

“Can you find the people Ken named?,” Jack asked.

“Yes,” said Elaine. “I imagine that some of them are already dead since they

frequented the Tower.”

“All right,” said Jack. “We’ll give the list to Josie and let her go about her business. But we have some more things to do before we head back. Remember what I said, Ken. Maybe by the time she gets to you, Josie will be tired of killing.”

“But maybe she won’t,” said Ken.

“Maybe she won’t,” said Jack. He counted out fifty silver pieces. “Enjoy your

borrowed time.”

Jack walked to the door, hands in his pockets. He walked out. Elaine followed

silently, giving one look at Ken. She stepped out.

Ken started putting things in a battered travel bag. He needed to get out of the city before the sun came up.

“Hey,” Jack said from the door. He had his head in the opening. “You still got

vegetables in your stall?”

“Yes,” said Ken. “They won’t do me any good now except for road food. I suppose most of it will rot before we get to the next town to sell it.”

“I’m taking as much of it as I need,” said Jack. “I have people to feed now.”

“Go ahead,” said Ken. Giving up his merchandise before it rotted away was enough considering what he had been given.

“Remember what I said,” said Jack. “Stay away from any alchemist, the Montrose and the North. And don’t come back here for anything.”

“I understand,” said Ken. “Thank you for helping my girl.”

“Nobody likes losing a loved one,” said Jack. He withdrew from the shack.

“All right, Elaine,” Jack said as he rubbed his hands together. “The stall is ours for the taking. And I would like to visit Ken’s alchemist.”

“He poisoned the little girl?,” said Elaine.

“Looks like,” said Jack. “Maybe a bunch of others too.”

“Why?,” said Elaine.

“Don’t know,” said Jack. “Control maybe.”

Jack looked at the stall. How did he get the food from the Market to their quarters against the wall? Could he take the whole thing and put it outside until he could get to it?

What did he have that could do that?

He decided that Makkari could get the food to his place, and then he would have to open a door to get in to move the vegetables in. They didn’t have a kitchen yet, but maybe he could work on something just for storage.

Elaine had to meet Josie if he wanted to hire her for the job.

“This is the plan,” said Jack. “I’m going to take you to our headquarters and introduce you to Josie. Then I’ll come back for the vegetables and fruits. Then I need to talk to this alchemist before I need a nap.”

“You’re not letting that go?,” said Elaine.

“The alchemist?,” said Jack. “No. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be my problem, but there is something about this that demands I do something.”

“Something?,” said Elaine.

“Something,” said Jack. “You don’t have to thrown in with us. We can part ways right now if you want.”

“I think I will stay for a little while,” said Elaine. “I would need to find a place to

stay, or try to get enough supplies to leave the city and start over somewhere else if I didn’t take your offer.”

“All right,” said Jack. “Let’s head over to the hideout and see if I can find a place for you. We just took possession, so it’s not livable at the moment.”

“I’ve probably seen worse,” said Elaine.

“Okay,” said Jack. He called Makkari’s red and white armor. He picked Elaine up in his arms and took off. A second later he stood outside where the door he had hexed should have been. Josie had done a good job closing it off.

“This is your headquarters?,” asked Elaine. She looked up at the wall overhead.

“Yeah,” said Jack. He smiled. “I need to put another door in. I forgot that we had closed everything up. Hold on a second.”