“I know who you are,” said Radar, looking over the big man in electric blue.
“Do you?” he said, his voice rugged and deep. The man chuckled. “Then tell me who I am.”
“Cybermancer. CEO of Texitron. And mortal enemy of my boss.”
“How do you know all this?”
Radar shrugged. He’d seen the man in Fold’s uppermost thoughts, thoughts that he picked up innocently. He also tried to push his way into this man’s mind, but there was literally nothing but static.
“What if I told you, I know who you are, too?”
Radar folded his arms. They stood outside of the Vehicles building, waiting to hear of an alert to come across the comm. How, Radar didn’t know, but he had fought beside this man for three alerts already, and the city kept pairing them up. What if he had wormed his way into Socrates like the rumors said? “I don’t care. You don’t have anything I want.”
“How about peace and quiet?”
“I can get that myself.”
“With effort. Constant effort on your part.”
“It’s a habit by now,” said Radar, checking his comm. Nope, nothing yet. “We have nothing to say to each other.”
Cybermancer looked at Radar’s comm and it lit up. An alert, in Vibora Bay. “Time’s a-wasting,” said Cybermancer, as he headed to the plane.
“I’m not going with you,” said Radar, and hit a button, denying the alert.
Cybermancer stopped in his tracks, turned around. “Some hero you are.”
“I’m not going to help a man who tried to kill my boss.”
“Is that what you really think? You don’t think that the dimensional switching that Fold performed might have done something to the spell on the guns? We never tested pistols for interdimensional travel, and, to be honest, never saw the need to do so.”
“You’re out to get him.”
Cybermancer walked back over to Radar. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Help?”
Cybermancer tucked a hand in an inside pocket of his suit and took out a silver thumb drive. He held it between thumb and forefinger, holding it up to catch the light. It was like a prism, reflecting the sunlight and casting a rainbow on Radar’s chest. “This has what your boss has done. How many people he’s killed, how many lives he destroyed. How he nearly destroyed my brother’s life with his jealousy and pettiness. How many people he used and manipulated. How he’s using you.”
“I know he’s no angel,” said Radar, looking at the thumb drive.
Cybermancer tossed it to Radar, who instinctively caught it. “He’s a sociopath. Have him explain the Rogue Isles. Raina and Jack, how he got them divorced. Jade Serpent, and how he crushed his heart. The answers are in there.”
Radar looked at the thumb drive. It was translucent, silver instead of gold connections, pretty to look at.
When he looked up, Cybermancer was gone, and Radar was still holding the thumb drive. He didn’t know what to do – but his comm went off with an alert at city hall. He pocketed the drive and ran north.