128.

  I yelped and spun around, Grandad's bat’s raised and the Zap Knuck crackling, but there was no one there. I looked around again.

  "Boy, you sure are jumpy," the voice said.

  It was an electrically modulated voice. I couldn't tell whether I was talking to a man or a woman, young or old, or even how close they were to me. I looked at the computer, but it was still off.

  "Where are you?" I said, looking around again.

  "Right here, Mister Gutter Mage," the voice said, and then I heard the sound of wheels whirring behind me.

  I turned, not raising the bat the entire way but definitely keeping it ready, and some sort of droid rolled out from the shadows. I'd mistaken it for a coat stand, but really it was just one of those fancy hologram pads on wheels. It rolled out from the darkness and I saw a face… wait, no, it wasn't a face. It was one of those weird white featureless masks, staring back at me.

  "Are you the guy who’s been sending me those messages?" I said, straightening up from my defensive crouch.

  "Oh, you mean the one that saved your life on multiple occasions? Yes, that's me. No need to say thank you," the person on the other end said.

  "I don't know if I should be grateful yet,” I said.

  “Good, you’re not as dumb as you act,” the voice replied, and even through the thick layers of computer modulation I could hear the clipped sarcasm.

  "Why don't we start with why?" I said.

  “Why?” he repeated.

  "Yeah, why did you help me? And who the hell are you? How did you find out who I was… and where am I? What's going on?" The questions tumbled from me as I realised more and more how little I knew of this person or even what was going on around me. In my mad panic, I might have dropped myself out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  "Oh boy, that's a lot of questions," the voice replied sardonically. "I helped you because I think you'll be useful. Finding out who you were was surprisingly easy. I mean, ordering MMA gloves and weird bits of metal and stuff to your house in your own name probably wasn't the smartest idea. Of course, there's that picture of you that the police have, which I managed to scrape from their database. That helped narrow down your gender, age, height, race, etc...”

  "What?" I cut him off. "The police have a picture of me?”

  "Rude," the voice said. "Yes, they have a picture of you. It's not a very good picture, but like I said, it helped narrow you down a little bit. Then I had to do a little bit of guesswork, you know. I look for weirdos, really. Who else would dress up like that and fight crime at night? Nobody who’s well-adjusted would do that," the voice continued.

  That stung a little bit, but you couldn't say he was wrong.

  "But don't worry," the voice said. "As far as I can tell, the police don’t know who you are. Right now, the official policy is you don't exist. They've got some old detective, Woody something, on the case.”

  "DI Woodley?" I said.

  "Yes, that's the one," the voice replied. "Do you know him?”

  "Yeah," I said, thinking now that it made sense.

  DI Woodley was sniffing around, and he had a picture of me. Shit, I might need to be more worried about the police than I first thought. But on my list of priorities, being arrested wasn't as high as being killed, so I would have to worry about that later.

  "As for where you are," the voice said, "you're in one of my stash houses. It's a secret location, very well protected. Nobody will be able to trace you here, and any technology they would use to find you won't work, so you're relatively safe.”

  "And who are you?" I said.

  "Me? I'm a friend," the voice answered.

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  "Usually I know my friends' names," I said.

  "Oh, because you're an expert in friends, aren't you, Alex?" the voice shot back. That stung a bit more. "I've had a look through all your socials and your messages, and I've never come across a teenager who receives fewer messages than you. I mean, as far as I can tell, you have one friend, a lovely girl called Marilyn. She's pretty," the voice said.

  "Leave Marilyn out of this.”

  "Touchy," the voice replied.

  "So who are you?" I asked for the third time.

  "My name is..." The voice hesitated for a second. "Call me Hex."

  "Hex?" I said.

  "Yeah, and we are friends, Alex, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. You're currently at war with the Syndicate, are you not?”

  "Yeah," I replied.

  "Well, I've been battling the Syndicate and their bosses way before you decided to throw on a pair of combats and go beat up a bunch of nobodies. By the way, I do have to applaud you. I don't think anybody has kicked as much ass as you have in such a short amount of time. I mean, it's completely boneheaded, and you've achieved nothing in the grand scheme of things, but your dedication is applaudable," the voice said.

  "I got rid of Brick," I shot back.

  "Oh wow," Hex said sarcastically. "You got rid of a mid-level local drug dealer. They've already replaced him, after they killed him, of course," Hex said.

  "What?" I said.

  "You do know he's dead, right?" Hex asked.

  "Yeah, but I thought... I thought I killed Brick. I thought the beating I’d given him had caused his heart attack.” My voice came out strained and I had to look away from the hologram. "The Syndicate killed him?”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  "Well, yeah. Do you think they were going to leave a loose end like Brick in the system, facing life imprisonment? They don't like loose ends, and human life means nothing to them. The order went out to ice Brick the night that he got caught.”

  A strange weight lifted from my shoulders then. I had forced myself not to think about murdering Brick. Hell, I’d done a pretty good job of justifying to myself that I hadn't outrightly murdered Brick. But knowing that it was actually the Syndicate who killed him, well, it was a relief to know I wasn’t a killer.

  "How do you know that?" I said.

  "I know a great, great many things that you do not, Mr. Gutter Mage. By the way, weird name. Why would you want to name yourself after the gutters?" Hex asked.

  "I didn't name myself that," I said. "The people did.”

  "Oh, so you couldn't even be creative enough to come up with your own superhero name?" Hex said.

  "I'm not a superhero," I replied.

  "You're not?" Hex said.

  "No. I'm a vigilante, I guess," I said, not liking Hex's mocking tone.

  "Fair enough," Hex said.

  The drone rolled around me towards the computer station, and suddenly, the four monitors that had been dark when I entered the room came to life. A masked face appeared on the screen instead of the drone.

  "You see, while you've been fighting drug dealers with your fists, I've been taking on the Syndicate and their masters using my brain and technology. Because information is the real weapon, vigilante man," Hex said.

  "You keep saying the Syndicate's bosses. I thought the Syndicate was the, you know, big criminal organization," I said.

  Hex laughed at me.

  "You really think the Syndicate is the true enemy here? You really have no idea, do you?"

  "No idea about what?" I said.

  Hex sighed.

  "The Syndicate is merely the criminal arm on the streets of the organization that really is running things. You ever heard of Sable Systems?" Hex asked.

  "Sable Systems?" I repeated.

  Of course, I'd heard of Sable Systems. They were ubiquitous in New London and across the globe. Most modern products, technology, and pretty much everything anybody interacted with in daily life came from Sable Systems.

  "Well, Sable Systems, and this might shock you," Hex said, "is a massive fucking evil conglomerate that does really fucking evil shit all across the globe."

  I wasn’t surprised.

  "But why would Sable Systems need to sell drugs? They're like trillionaires, aren't they?" I said.

  "Because Sable Systems are in the business of power and control, not money," Hex said. "They control everything about everybody's life every day, and even that's not enough power for them. They track and they catalog, they push, they pull, and they dictate from the shadows. They own governments. Hell, they are this government and they own every resource that we need to survive, and that's how they control. But recently, they've been up to something else," Hex said.

  “They’re the government?” I asked incredulously.

  “Seriously?” Hex replied.

  “What?” I said. “I thought the Government was like… I dunno like politicians and stuff,” I said, suddenly realising I had no real clue who ran the country.

  Hex sighed and shook his head.

  “Sable Systems control the Government,” he said. “They bought and paid for it a long time ago. Why do you think the Core exists? Our entire economy is based on the stock price of Sable Systems and so is pretty much the entire job market.”

  “Really?”

  “How do you not know this?” Hex said, and now it was his turn to be incredulous. “I knew education in the Boroughs was bad but not this bad.”

  I shrugged. I couldn’t say anything I’d ever learned in school was ever useful.

  “Where do you think your social credits come from? Your Grandad’s army pension? The flat? All of it is technically dividends from Sable Systems. The UK government went broke during the last Great American Wars and Sable Systems swooped in and bought everything for pennies on the pound. We’re not a country with a conglomerate, we’re a conglomerate with a country.”

  "How do you know all this? And don't just say you're a hacker because Sable Systems is like the most advanced corporation in technology on the planet. You're not just hacking in there reading private emails and stuff, are you?" I said.

  "Something like that," Hex replied. "But I'm not going to go ahead and divulge my entire backstory to you right now. Just know that I was on the inside of the system, and now I'm trying to bring it down.”

  "So what do you need me for then?" I asked.

  "Well, every great genius needs a lackey, don't they? You know, someone strong and stupid that does stuff for them when they don't want to get their own hands dirty," Hex replied.

  "You want me to be your lackey?" I said.

  "I mean, if it makes you feel better, you could think of yourself as my sidekick in this battle of good versus evil," Hex replied.

  "And you're one of the good guys?" I asked.

  "Well, I'm fighting the bad guys, so I guess that makes me one of the good guys, doesn't it?" Hex said.

  "You, the creepy masked figure on the computer hacking into people's messages?" I said.

  "Yep," Hex replied.

  "Listen, I'm not anybody's sidekick or lackey, and I'll be doing just fine without some weirdo on a computer screen, alright? Thanks for the help but I’m not interested," I said, turning to leave.

  "So I guess you don't want to know about the people they've been trafficking for those weird sacrifice rituals they've been doing?" he said, and I froze, my blood running cold.

  I turned to look at the screen again, and I swear the mask was smiling at me.

  "You know about that?" I said.

  "Oh yeah," Hex replied. "Like I said, Sable Systems has been doing some very odd things recently. One of those has been human trafficking.”

  "Human trafficking?" I replied. "You mean they're shipping people here to sacrifice them?”

  "I’m not sure what they’re doing with all of them," Hex replied. "Like I said, there are some very strange things going on at the minute. But I do know you, being a vigilante and all, care about the people, right? And I'm betting you want to know how to stop them from hurting anybody else because those rituals haven't stopped and the people are still being trafficked in to be slaughtered like sheep," Hex said.

  I swallowed painfully, a lump forming in my throat as I pictured the bloody teddy bear in that cage.

  "Tell me where they are," I said, advancing on the screen.

  "Not just yet," Hex said. "Before I go giving you what you want so you can charge off into the night and get yourself killed, you need to do something for me."

  "People are dying," I snarled at the screen. "They're murdering them. I don’t have time to go and run errands for you. Tell me where they are!”

  “And what do you think going and busting open a shipment is gonna do? By my calculations, they've trafficked nearly 400 people in the last two months. None of them have resurfaced anywhere. If you really want to win this war and stop the Syndicate and Sable Systems, you need to stop thinking like a little kid beating up drug dealers on his crappy little estate," Hex said harshly. "This is bigger than that, way bigger. My little task will have more effect on bringing down these evil fuckers than you going and getting yourself killed trying to rescue a few dozen people.”

  My shoulders quaked in anger, but I knew he was right. I swore under my breath.

  "Fine," I said through gritted teeth. "I'll do whatever you want, and then you tell me where I can find these people.”

  "Deal," Hex said. "Well, come on then, Robin. You ready to go fight the bad guys?

  “Who does that make you, Batman?” I said petulantly.

  "Well, technically I'm more of an Oracle type," Hex said. "But either way, you best have your shoes tied.”

  "Don't worry about me," I said. "But since we're friends now, do you know anything about this guy that's hunting me?”

  "Oh, you mean the mercenary?" Hex said.

  "You know him?" I replied.

  "Not really," Hex replied. "I just read his name on a few emails. Sable has commissioned him to kill you, but I don't know much more than that.”

  "Can you find out?" I said.

  "You get me what I need, and I'll get you what you need," Hex replied.

  "Okay, so what is it we need to do?”

  "Have you ever done any corporate espionage?”