Hardman's Bar

By Hadrian Howell (Hardman)

Chapter 9

I sat in the corner of the Mech’s base later, like a piece of furniture, listening to the others talk back and forth and trade ideas about the recent crimes. So far, Needlegal and Magnetman hadn’t made it back, but they’d called and said they were following a strong lead. Gauntlet had yet to show up, either.

The sun had set a while ago, and I was getting a little anxious. Unless Needlegal and Magnetman turned up something convincing, my pointy teammate was still the top of my suspect list. Of course, she was my only suspect so far, but Gemini and Spark seemed to have their own list of possible criminals.

“It could have been Torchman,” Gemini said. “He’d love this kind of thing.”

“Couldn’t have been,” I grunted. “He was in th’ bar bemoaning a heist that went RIGHT the day o’ th’ first burnin’. I saw the cash m’self.”

“Wait, you mean he and his doofus squad did something right?” Sparkchan asked me.

I nodded, and Topman spoke up. “Then why didn’t we hear about this robbery?”

This made me stop and think. Surely, the rest of the Mechs would have at least HEARD about the robbery Torchman had spoke of. For that matter, why hadn’t we been called in to stop it? The ‘Sinister Six’ (who were really eight, but they weren’t the brightest eight) was one of OUR groups of bad guys to deal with. It hadn’t occurred to me that hadn’t matched up. Yet another wild factor to deal with.

“Maybe the Comrades or the Six took care of it?” Snake ventured.

“We still would have heard SOMETHING,” Top said, shaking his head. “This is starting to smell REALLY fishy to me.”

You aren’t the only one, I almost said aloud. Giving the others reason to think I might have been keeping something from them wouldn’t help at this point. It helped even less that I was.

“Okay, so not Torchman, then,” Gemini sighed. “Let’s solve one crime at a time here. Who else could have burned these three places down? There isn’t really anything that connects them…”

“Aside from the fact they were all inside jobs,” Snake said dejectedly. The others were getting tired of this and fast.

“What about Xelloss?” Spark asked the group in general.

“Not his style,” Gemini shook his head. “He’d be doing something focused, probably on us. If the bar had burned down, then the base, I’d suspect him, but…”

“Galvatron?” Top tried.

“Nobody’s seen ‘im around in a while,” I shrugged. “Possible, but just as likely as Xelloss, in my opinion.”

Snakeman put his head in his hands. “Why is this so confusing? Why do I get the feeling we’re missing something here?”

“It’s like trying to fit together a puzzle without the box and there’re no edge pieces,” said Sparkchan.

Unlike the others, though, I had SOMETHING that might have been an edge. Someone was trying to frame Needlegal. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it was something to go on. If Needlegal’s reputation was supposed to be called into question by these crimes so far, they hadn’t been obvious enough about their misdirection. Unless…

Had our culprit expected me to voice my concerns about Needlegal’s possible involvement? If I’d said anything by now to the rest of the team, her ‘strong lead’ excuse for not returning to base would’ve made the rest of the team much more alert. We might have all been lured into a trap by this point if I’d voiced my gut instinct.

Somebody must have been relying on me to be a much bigger idiot than I turned out to be…

I’d have to keep my mouth shut to keep my edge here. If Needlegal and Magnetman turned up missing in the next few hours, I’d know my gut feeling was right. If they fell into some kind of trap, it would be obvious at that point we were all meant to fall into it. But what if they came back safe and sound? Would it be because I’m just reading too much into this, or because our real enemy didn’t spring their trap because the catch was too small? Or, as laughable as it may seem, because Needlegal really IS the one who’s been burning places down and stealing the money?

Some days, I really hate having a vast amount of unpredictable opponents.

“Where’d Mags and Needles go chasing that lead?” I asked, interrupting the conversation the others had delved into listing off our rouges gallery.

“South side of the piers, I think,” Gemini said off handedly.

With that information, I tried sidling out of the room and getting away unnoticed, which is kind of hard to do when you’re 14 feet tall and 4 tons worth of robot master. In the end, I made the excuse I had to go meet with a contractor to get plans going to rebuild my bar. I only thank whatever higher power exists that it didn’t occur to them that most offices were closed by this time of the night.

I tried making my way quickly to the piers, which is also something that’s hard to do when you’re built like me. As I closed in on my destination about an hour later, my team comm.-link started to pick up noises.

Gauntlet knew what he was doing when he got these things for all the members of the Maniacs. Along with the external activation controls which were removable, there was an internal activation switch installed in our mouths, right behind the roof of the mouth. A quick prod with the tongue could activate the comm.-link if your hands were tied up or otherwise occupied.

I started catching snatches of what we’d come to call ‘battle-talk’. In the heat of a pitched fight, the noises of the explosions and collapsing objects and weapons fire tended to drown us out even if we started shouting, so we’d coordinate over the comm.-link. Little things like the words ‘left’ or ‘right’ would warn you about incoming foes or environmental hazards to watch out for, while more explicit things like naming off a foe coordinated an attack against him, making our team a more effective combat unit overall.

Needlegal’s voice was recognizable enough, but the more ragged and harried voice on the channel could only be Magnetman after you heard it a few times. The tone of his voice and gasps of breath I’d hear the start or end of told me he was hurt. I picked up my pace.

Rounding the warehouses and onto the main drag of the piers, which were normally reserved for excess cargo or loading equipment in different seasons but was now just a wide, bare stretch of concrete, I could barely make out flashes of energy and cries of battle in the foggy gloom that was rapidly descending. Fresh bursts of static over the comm.-link told me there was a low-level jammer in the area. Not enough to knock out immediate range communications, but certainly enough to stop anything from reaching the Mech’s base. Or any of the other bases, come to think of it.

I’ve mentioned that it is rather difficult to move at a high speed when you’re constructed like I am. One of the reasons that this is so difficult is that once you are in motion, it becomes very difficult to stop. I didn’t have to worry about that right now.

I thundered down the pier like an offended freight train, almost enjoying the felling of my feet sinking a little into the concrete as I powered forward. Doors and windows on massive warehouse buildings rattled as I charged past them. Whoever was fighting up there would be able to tell I was coming a little bit before I got there.

I hard him before I saw him. “It’s about time!” Magnetman shouted over the comm.-link. “Where the HELL have you guys been?”

“Sorry Mags,” I returned over the airwaves. “It’s just me! Who are we up against, and who should I be hitting?”