I Will Regret This In About Ten Minutes
I've been negligent toward LJ.
Time to overcorrect.
Here's the deal. I've managed to average a novel a year for the last, oh, fifteen years. I like being able to look at each one and say, "So that's what I did in 20XX." Problem: this year I spent all my time on short stories, so I don't have a novel for 2009.
Solution: I have the sequel to Hench sitting around mostly-finished.
Problem: I am so, so lazy. Also, it's already December.
Solution: I am such a sucker for attention.
SO. In order to make myself finish Hench 2 by the end of 2009--and to make myself care about it--I'm declaring today Day One of the HENCH THE HALLS ADVENT CALENDAR. One chapter a day until Christmas. (And I've only got it written through the winter solstice, so that'll be fun right at the end there.) Surely that's enough to light a fire under me--right?
Plus it will get me back in the habit of posting. Sorry about that. :/
DON'T PANIC. I won't be cluttering up your flist unless you actually want me to: after today the story will be filtered. If you're already on the Hench filter, you'll see it; if not, you won't; if you want to be on it but aren't, just say "Yo." If you're on the filter but want out, say something crueler, and I'll get the hint.
By declaring my intent I am dooming myself to a kind of second NaNo. IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME.
Ready?
Awesome.
*
Chapter One
Lady Justice was dead, and the patrons of Lamprey's bar were gearing up for a world-class celebration.
I'd rarely seen the place so packed. Usually when that many minions, henchmen, and mercenaries cram together in one place, it means that some ludicrous robot-army, death-ray, laser-beams-on-sharks plot is about to go down. Today it meant that one of our most annoying enemies was out of the picture. Time to break out the bubbly.
At the bar, Tina Lamprey dashed around filling and re-filling drinks; her mechanical eye whizzed back and forth across the rows of bottles, giving her the cockeyed look of a chameleon. Despite that, she was grinning. Part of that was her generally sunny nature. The rest must have been the knowledge that she was going to make a ton of money by serving Lady Justice an impromptu, if mean-spirited, wake.
I sat at a booth with Lamprey's girlfriend Cassandra, the goateed tech-wizard Quentin Meeks, and a geneticist called Linda Uluru who had a six-inch-long winged dragon snoozing in her cornrows. It yawned and a burst of smoke drifted up from Linda's hair. Feeding the thing beer had seemed funny at the time but now the reality of a drunken fire-breather was making me nervous.
Linda, about a sheet-and-a-half to the wind herself, wagged her most recently empty martini glass. "That sister killed my homunculion. Eight hundred pounds of the smartest, most gorgeous animal--do you know how long it took me to grow that thing? One of a kind. Boy, was Savannah pissed. Lady Justice had it coming." She tapped the glass to her lips thoughtfully. "You think Savannah took out the vidge?"
I shrugged.
Cassandra swirled her brandy, looking, as usual, absolutely stunning despite the perpetually sour expression. "Could be. Could be anyone. Where's Tectronic these days?"
"Lockup," I said, but Linda interrupted me:
"No, he's out on a technicality. Your girl Gloria got him probation."
I should have known that. "She's not my girl," I said, irritated at myself. "I haven't seen her since--since the thing."
Linda raised her eyebrows. Her dragon rolled over in its sleep. "The 'thing'."
"Hench is referring to last fall when he was mistaken for the Magnate," Quentin said, pushing up his Lennon glasses. Despite the fact that he was talking about the second-worst week of my life, he sounded pretty zen about it. His clear-blue eyes drifted to me. "And you cut off ties with your lawyer? That seems uncharacteristic."
I shrugged again. I wasn't prepared to tell the world that Attorney Gloria Garcia had once betrayed me to a serial killer, but I didn't have to pretend to like her.
The truth was, it had been eight months since all that. Eight months since the media latched onto me and decided I was more than just a professional henchman. Eight months since my last job, developing a memory database for VanderCorp, went irrevocably bad. Eight months since I had struck a devil's bargain with everyone's favorite vigilante, the Watchman, which resulted in my going nominally free but essentially shackled in the confines of--
"So Hench," said Cassandra, with a wicked glint in her eye, "tell us some exciting stories about government work."
I gave her the dirtiest of looks. True friends rarely need words.
Linda shook her head. Her dragon woke up, sneezed, and resettled. One of her braids began to smoke. "Government work? Don't tell me you went straight."
I licked my fingers and reached across the table to pinch out the smoldering end of her braid. "Don't worry about me. I'm just working in city finance. It's a good way to keep the Watchman off my back."
"Sure," said Cassandra. "It's a pretty good way for him to keep an eye on you, too."
I'd have been offended if she wasn't completely right. Instead I tossed the grenade back at her. "Sure is. Hey, where are you working these days?"
Her face clouded. "Shut up."
Linda looked from me to Cassandra and back, open-mouthed. "You both got out of the business? What kind of bizarro world did I fall into?"
Cassandra scowled. "I told Tina I wouldn't do any more killing. Unfortunately," she said, frowning into her brandy, "that makes the job hunt a little tricky."
It was only to be expected. No one needed a pacifistic minion, especially no ILSCI (individual of large-scale criminal intent; a real piece of media newspeak). And killing people was Cassandra's only real skill set.
Quentin cleared his throat. "Lady Justice."
I leapt on his interruption. "Lady Justice," I repeated, raising my beer bottle. "May she never resurrect, and may Lord Justice fail to live up to his name."
We clinked glasses.
"You know," said Quentin, "they say she was shot five times."
Linda put her hands on her head. "That's it? She can be killed by bullets? I wish I'd known that about three years ago."
Tina Lamprey appeared beside our table, bearing another round. When she'd set up everyone with their continued buzz, she crooked her finger at me and nodded her head in the direction of the bar. Giving Cassandra an apologetic shrug, I got up and followed Lamprey over to the relative quiet of the doorway.
I stuck my hands in my pockets. "What's up?"
She folded her arms over her apron. "First of all, don't blame me. Second, I don't want you making a scene and driving off business."
I spread my arms. "Who's making a scene?"
"Nobody, that's who." She softened. "Sorry to have to tell you this. I saw her come in and I knew you'd want to know."
My stomach sank. "Who?"
She pointed across the bar to a booth where a pair of heavily-pierced kids held hands across the table and chatted over a couple of rum-and-cokes.
I don't usually have nightmares. When you've been at the center of as many doomsday plots as I have, most nighttime spooks lose their edge. But the one that still gets me is where my little sister shows up in a dangerous place that she's not supposed to be. Volcanoes. Control centers. Rooftops.
Underworld hangouts.
It's not a pleasant feeling to see your nightmares happening in real life.
I groaned. Lamprey patted my arm. I started toward them, but she caught my elbow.
"I'm serious, Hench," she said, looking up at me. "No scenes."
"Fine."
"If you have to punch him, do it outside."
I grinned. "Does that mean I can throw him in the recycling bin if I knock him out?"
"Absolutely not. The pickup guy would kill me."
I gave her a chummy little pat on the back and threaded my way through the bar.
I slid into the booth beside my little sister. "Weren't you gonna come over and say hi?"
Kenzie let go of Kyle's hands so that she could fold her arms and glare at me. "I knew you'd be here."
One sentence, and already I could feel my temper rising. "I'm always here. How did you even find this place?"
"Kyle brought me."
Kyle gave me a lazy tip of his chin. "Heya, Harry."
"Mr. Wiliiams, if you don't mind," I said, although he'd never listened to me on that point before. "Shouldn't you be stoned somewhere?"
His grin widened. "I am stoned somewhere."
I buried my face in my hand. "Kenz, just please tell me you took the bus."
"Of course we took the bus," she snapped. Then, the voice in my head, as if from the dark seat behind me in a movie theater: I'm not stupid.
"Then how come you let this joker bring you here--of all the bars in this town--"
Who's a joker? said Kyle, also in my head.
"You come here," said Kenzie.
"I do business here. At least, I used to. Look, I've told you a hundred times I don't want you anywhere near this place, so just grab your--Kyle there--and go to one of your telepath clubs or something."
Her eyes flashed. "Are you segregating us?"
That ain't cool, man, said Kyle.
"Shut up." I got close to her ear. "If you stick around here there's just gonna be trouble. Someone will realize you two aren't with the ILSCIs and then--"
Who says we're not?
I whipped toward Kyle. "What did you say?"
He shrugged. The hazy grin on his face took on the hint of a smirk.
For the first time, Kenzie had the decency to look slightly ashamed. It did nothing to reassure me. I let out my breath. "Kenz, can I see you alone for a minute?"
A brown haze in my brain jagged itself into anger: Kyle, I guessed. Kenzie shot him a reproachful look. "Fine."
I slid out of the bench and headed for the coat rack by the doorway, where we could have some peace. She followed, looking very put out. When she stopped rolling her eyes long enough for me to meet them, I said, "What is going on?"
"What do you care?"
"I'm serious, Kenz. Spill."
She sighed. "Kyle got a job with this ILSCI chick. She's hiring a ton of us and I kind of want to sign up too. I just want to hear about it, get a feel for the scene, you know?"
"You have a job."
"Yeah, because working the register at Boots 'N Bonnets is such a stellar career."
I shook my head. "No. I don't want you getting into this business."
She stared at me. "God, you are such a hypocrite."
"Fine, maybe I am. It's dangerous, you don't know your way around. You can't do it."
She tapped her foot. "Hate to tell you, but that argument stopped working when I turned twenty-one."
I gripped my forehead. Sometimes I suspect she makes bad choices just to shake up my blood pressure. "At least tell me who's hiring all the telepaths."
She crossed her arms. "Sara Shasthri."
I dropped my hand, honestly surprised. "Sara Shasthri? The Southern Belle?"
She shrugged. "I guess."
"She's ILSCI now?"
"Why not?"
"Her sister's a vidge. They used to be a team. Remember Double Vision?"
"No," she said, like I was crazy to suggest that she might be that old.
"It was her and Nora. The Northern something--Northern Light, that's it. Showboaters. Geez, Nora collared some rogue neurologist just last week. I can't believe they split."
She shrugged again. "Maybe Nora tried to nose in on her career choices."
I wasn't getting through to her. "Do not do this. I'm begging you."
When she answered, there was disdain in her voice. "Oh, come on, Harry! Who else is going to hire me?"
"There are plenty of--"
"The government? Oh wait, it's against policy. Law enforcement? Whoops, it's illegal! Finance--security risk. Administration--security risk. I can't even sell anything more expensive than shoes unless I want someone hollering that I'm 'controlling their brains'! Harry, nobody else is going to give me a chance. If Sara Shasthri is willing to pay us for what we do best, then I gotta at least see what she has to say."
I shoved my hands into my pockets, out of arguments. "I can't believe you're going to get into ILSCI work and you didn't tell me."
She switched to telepathy. Just look how you reacted.
"Well, I--I know what you're getting into. It's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of danger. Look, one of my best friends was killed last year. Jeremy Groban. Just a grunt trying to make ends meet, and he got in the way of the wrong people. I mean--you should see his twin brother Shawn these days. It just wrecked him."
Shawn strolled by our table and clinked an exuberant toast with Linda. I tried to redirect Kenzie's attention before she caught on.
"And you remember what happened when the police got wind of me."
I'm not going to get in anyone's way.
I slogged on. "Henchmen get kidnapped. They get shot at. They get arrested. They get abused--have you ever seen the gills they sewed on me? You know how much that hurt? Just--don't do anything without telling me, okay? I know a lot of people. I can help you out."
You can't even keep the Watchman off your back. How are you going to help me?
She turned and left me by the coat rack, mouth agape, as she returned to her booth and her stupid boyfriend.
I faked a nonchalant stroll back to my table and slid in beside Cassandra. Linda looked me over. "Everything okay?"
"Just had to take care of some business," I said. "Did you guys know Sara Shasthri went bad?"
"Sure," said Cassandra. "She's only taking telepaths though."
"Shame, too," Linda added. "Pay's good."
"You hadn't heard?" said Quentin.
Instead of replying, I got busy with my beer. It was already warm.
A year ago I'd known the whereabouts and activities of every ILSCI in the city, who hired who, what their goals were, and I had a pretty good handle on their nemeses too. I was the go-to guy. Out of all the henchmen in the city, I was the one who earned the nickname. Now I'd been shoved out of the loop.
I stared into my beer and wished ferociously that someone would do a Lady Justice on the Watchman, and shoot bullets into the source of all my problems until he was good and dead.
*
**FYI: I was calling Shawn Groban "Mark" in the last book. Thinking of changing it to "Eddie". Poor guy can't hang on to a tag for more than six months....
Time to overcorrect.
Here's the deal. I've managed to average a novel a year for the last, oh, fifteen years. I like being able to look at each one and say, "So that's what I did in 20XX." Problem: this year I spent all my time on short stories, so I don't have a novel for 2009.
Solution: I have the sequel to Hench sitting around mostly-finished.
Problem: I am so, so lazy. Also, it's already December.
Solution: I am such a sucker for attention.
SO. In order to make myself finish Hench 2 by the end of 2009--and to make myself care about it--I'm declaring today Day One of the HENCH THE HALLS ADVENT CALENDAR. One chapter a day until Christmas. (And I've only got it written through the winter solstice, so that'll be fun right at the end there.) Surely that's enough to light a fire under me--right?
Plus it will get me back in the habit of posting. Sorry about that. :/
DON'T PANIC. I won't be cluttering up your flist unless you actually want me to: after today the story will be filtered. If you're already on the Hench filter, you'll see it; if not, you won't; if you want to be on it but aren't, just say "Yo." If you're on the filter but want out, say something crueler, and I'll get the hint.
By declaring my intent I am dooming myself to a kind of second NaNo. IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME.
Ready?
Awesome.
*
Chapter One
Lady Justice was dead, and the patrons of Lamprey's bar were gearing up for a world-class celebration.
I'd rarely seen the place so packed. Usually when that many minions, henchmen, and mercenaries cram together in one place, it means that some ludicrous robot-army, death-ray, laser-beams-on-sharks plot is about to go down. Today it meant that one of our most annoying enemies was out of the picture. Time to break out the bubbly.
At the bar, Tina Lamprey dashed around filling and re-filling drinks; her mechanical eye whizzed back and forth across the rows of bottles, giving her the cockeyed look of a chameleon. Despite that, she was grinning. Part of that was her generally sunny nature. The rest must have been the knowledge that she was going to make a ton of money by serving Lady Justice an impromptu, if mean-spirited, wake.
I sat at a booth with Lamprey's girlfriend Cassandra, the goateed tech-wizard Quentin Meeks, and a geneticist called Linda Uluru who had a six-inch-long winged dragon snoozing in her cornrows. It yawned and a burst of smoke drifted up from Linda's hair. Feeding the thing beer had seemed funny at the time but now the reality of a drunken fire-breather was making me nervous.
Linda, about a sheet-and-a-half to the wind herself, wagged her most recently empty martini glass. "That sister killed my homunculion. Eight hundred pounds of the smartest, most gorgeous animal--do you know how long it took me to grow that thing? One of a kind. Boy, was Savannah pissed. Lady Justice had it coming." She tapped the glass to her lips thoughtfully. "You think Savannah took out the vidge?"
I shrugged.
Cassandra swirled her brandy, looking, as usual, absolutely stunning despite the perpetually sour expression. "Could be. Could be anyone. Where's Tectronic these days?"
"Lockup," I said, but Linda interrupted me:
"No, he's out on a technicality. Your girl Gloria got him probation."
I should have known that. "She's not my girl," I said, irritated at myself. "I haven't seen her since--since the thing."
Linda raised her eyebrows. Her dragon rolled over in its sleep. "The 'thing'."
"Hench is referring to last fall when he was mistaken for the Magnate," Quentin said, pushing up his Lennon glasses. Despite the fact that he was talking about the second-worst week of my life, he sounded pretty zen about it. His clear-blue eyes drifted to me. "And you cut off ties with your lawyer? That seems uncharacteristic."
I shrugged again. I wasn't prepared to tell the world that Attorney Gloria Garcia had once betrayed me to a serial killer, but I didn't have to pretend to like her.
The truth was, it had been eight months since all that. Eight months since the media latched onto me and decided I was more than just a professional henchman. Eight months since my last job, developing a memory database for VanderCorp, went irrevocably bad. Eight months since I had struck a devil's bargain with everyone's favorite vigilante, the Watchman, which resulted in my going nominally free but essentially shackled in the confines of--
"So Hench," said Cassandra, with a wicked glint in her eye, "tell us some exciting stories about government work."
I gave her the dirtiest of looks. True friends rarely need words.
Linda shook her head. Her dragon woke up, sneezed, and resettled. One of her braids began to smoke. "Government work? Don't tell me you went straight."
I licked my fingers and reached across the table to pinch out the smoldering end of her braid. "Don't worry about me. I'm just working in city finance. It's a good way to keep the Watchman off my back."
"Sure," said Cassandra. "It's a pretty good way for him to keep an eye on you, too."
I'd have been offended if she wasn't completely right. Instead I tossed the grenade back at her. "Sure is. Hey, where are you working these days?"
Her face clouded. "Shut up."
Linda looked from me to Cassandra and back, open-mouthed. "You both got out of the business? What kind of bizarro world did I fall into?"
Cassandra scowled. "I told Tina I wouldn't do any more killing. Unfortunately," she said, frowning into her brandy, "that makes the job hunt a little tricky."
It was only to be expected. No one needed a pacifistic minion, especially no ILSCI (individual of large-scale criminal intent; a real piece of media newspeak). And killing people was Cassandra's only real skill set.
Quentin cleared his throat. "Lady Justice."
I leapt on his interruption. "Lady Justice," I repeated, raising my beer bottle. "May she never resurrect, and may Lord Justice fail to live up to his name."
We clinked glasses.
"You know," said Quentin, "they say she was shot five times."
Linda put her hands on her head. "That's it? She can be killed by bullets? I wish I'd known that about three years ago."
Tina Lamprey appeared beside our table, bearing another round. When she'd set up everyone with their continued buzz, she crooked her finger at me and nodded her head in the direction of the bar. Giving Cassandra an apologetic shrug, I got up and followed Lamprey over to the relative quiet of the doorway.
I stuck my hands in my pockets. "What's up?"
She folded her arms over her apron. "First of all, don't blame me. Second, I don't want you making a scene and driving off business."
I spread my arms. "Who's making a scene?"
"Nobody, that's who." She softened. "Sorry to have to tell you this. I saw her come in and I knew you'd want to know."
My stomach sank. "Who?"
She pointed across the bar to a booth where a pair of heavily-pierced kids held hands across the table and chatted over a couple of rum-and-cokes.
I don't usually have nightmares. When you've been at the center of as many doomsday plots as I have, most nighttime spooks lose their edge. But the one that still gets me is where my little sister shows up in a dangerous place that she's not supposed to be. Volcanoes. Control centers. Rooftops.
Underworld hangouts.
It's not a pleasant feeling to see your nightmares happening in real life.
I groaned. Lamprey patted my arm. I started toward them, but she caught my elbow.
"I'm serious, Hench," she said, looking up at me. "No scenes."
"Fine."
"If you have to punch him, do it outside."
I grinned. "Does that mean I can throw him in the recycling bin if I knock him out?"
"Absolutely not. The pickup guy would kill me."
I gave her a chummy little pat on the back and threaded my way through the bar.
I slid into the booth beside my little sister. "Weren't you gonna come over and say hi?"
Kenzie let go of Kyle's hands so that she could fold her arms and glare at me. "I knew you'd be here."
One sentence, and already I could feel my temper rising. "I'm always here. How did you even find this place?"
"Kyle brought me."
Kyle gave me a lazy tip of his chin. "Heya, Harry."
"Mr. Wiliiams, if you don't mind," I said, although he'd never listened to me on that point before. "Shouldn't you be stoned somewhere?"
His grin widened. "I am stoned somewhere."
I buried my face in my hand. "Kenz, just please tell me you took the bus."
"Of course we took the bus," she snapped. Then, the voice in my head, as if from the dark seat behind me in a movie theater: I'm not stupid.
"Then how come you let this joker bring you here--of all the bars in this town--"
Who's a joker? said Kyle, also in my head.
"You come here," said Kenzie.
"I do business here. At least, I used to. Look, I've told you a hundred times I don't want you anywhere near this place, so just grab your--Kyle there--and go to one of your telepath clubs or something."
Her eyes flashed. "Are you segregating us?"
That ain't cool, man, said Kyle.
"Shut up." I got close to her ear. "If you stick around here there's just gonna be trouble. Someone will realize you two aren't with the ILSCIs and then--"
Who says we're not?
I whipped toward Kyle. "What did you say?"
He shrugged. The hazy grin on his face took on the hint of a smirk.
For the first time, Kenzie had the decency to look slightly ashamed. It did nothing to reassure me. I let out my breath. "Kenz, can I see you alone for a minute?"
A brown haze in my brain jagged itself into anger: Kyle, I guessed. Kenzie shot him a reproachful look. "Fine."
I slid out of the bench and headed for the coat rack by the doorway, where we could have some peace. She followed, looking very put out. When she stopped rolling her eyes long enough for me to meet them, I said, "What is going on?"
"What do you care?"
"I'm serious, Kenz. Spill."
She sighed. "Kyle got a job with this ILSCI chick. She's hiring a ton of us and I kind of want to sign up too. I just want to hear about it, get a feel for the scene, you know?"
"You have a job."
"Yeah, because working the register at Boots 'N Bonnets is such a stellar career."
I shook my head. "No. I don't want you getting into this business."
She stared at me. "God, you are such a hypocrite."
"Fine, maybe I am. It's dangerous, you don't know your way around. You can't do it."
She tapped her foot. "Hate to tell you, but that argument stopped working when I turned twenty-one."
I gripped my forehead. Sometimes I suspect she makes bad choices just to shake up my blood pressure. "At least tell me who's hiring all the telepaths."
She crossed her arms. "Sara Shasthri."
I dropped my hand, honestly surprised. "Sara Shasthri? The Southern Belle?"
She shrugged. "I guess."
"She's ILSCI now?"
"Why not?"
"Her sister's a vidge. They used to be a team. Remember Double Vision?"
"No," she said, like I was crazy to suggest that she might be that old.
"It was her and Nora. The Northern something--Northern Light, that's it. Showboaters. Geez, Nora collared some rogue neurologist just last week. I can't believe they split."
She shrugged again. "Maybe Nora tried to nose in on her career choices."
I wasn't getting through to her. "Do not do this. I'm begging you."
When she answered, there was disdain in her voice. "Oh, come on, Harry! Who else is going to hire me?"
"There are plenty of--"
"The government? Oh wait, it's against policy. Law enforcement? Whoops, it's illegal! Finance--security risk. Administration--security risk. I can't even sell anything more expensive than shoes unless I want someone hollering that I'm 'controlling their brains'! Harry, nobody else is going to give me a chance. If Sara Shasthri is willing to pay us for what we do best, then I gotta at least see what she has to say."
I shoved my hands into my pockets, out of arguments. "I can't believe you're going to get into ILSCI work and you didn't tell me."
She switched to telepathy. Just look how you reacted.
"Well, I--I know what you're getting into. It's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of danger. Look, one of my best friends was killed last year. Jeremy Groban. Just a grunt trying to make ends meet, and he got in the way of the wrong people. I mean--you should see his twin brother Shawn these days. It just wrecked him."
Shawn strolled by our table and clinked an exuberant toast with Linda. I tried to redirect Kenzie's attention before she caught on.
"And you remember what happened when the police got wind of me."
I'm not going to get in anyone's way.
I slogged on. "Henchmen get kidnapped. They get shot at. They get arrested. They get abused--have you ever seen the gills they sewed on me? You know how much that hurt? Just--don't do anything without telling me, okay? I know a lot of people. I can help you out."
You can't even keep the Watchman off your back. How are you going to help me?
She turned and left me by the coat rack, mouth agape, as she returned to her booth and her stupid boyfriend.
I faked a nonchalant stroll back to my table and slid in beside Cassandra. Linda looked me over. "Everything okay?"
"Just had to take care of some business," I said. "Did you guys know Sara Shasthri went bad?"
"Sure," said Cassandra. "She's only taking telepaths though."
"Shame, too," Linda added. "Pay's good."
"You hadn't heard?" said Quentin.
Instead of replying, I got busy with my beer. It was already warm.
A year ago I'd known the whereabouts and activities of every ILSCI in the city, who hired who, what their goals were, and I had a pretty good handle on their nemeses too. I was the go-to guy. Out of all the henchmen in the city, I was the one who earned the nickname. Now I'd been shoved out of the loop.
I stared into my beer and wished ferociously that someone would do a Lady Justice on the Watchman, and shoot bullets into the source of all my problems until he was good and dead.
*
**FYI: I was calling Shawn Groban "Mark" in the last book. Thinking of changing it to "Eddie". Poor guy can't hang on to a tag for more than six months....