literature

A Brief Return to Omega City pt 1

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Literature Text

From their fifth floor hotel room, Roland and Snuggle Purr got a good view of the cityscape of Central Gardens.  They could see the tower of the Liberty Brigade to their left and a whole lot of featureless buildings all along the rest of their street.  There were a few new statues along Main Street, but otherwise it was the same concrete-and-glass urban backdrop they’d left two years ago.

Of course, the architecture of Omega City was never the main draw.  A pair of heroes in form-fitting armor and capes flew past, one primarily colored red, and the other primarily colored yellow.  Snuggle Purr plastered herself against the window to watch them go, he left hand pawing at the glass subconsciously.

“I keep forgetting people can do that,” she chirped when they were out of sight, “I wonder what they were doing.  Maybe they were Crimson Guardian and his new sidekick, the Golden Bolt!”

“Or some other trash,” Roland grumbled from his bed, “I’m not home enough, Snug.  I hope we can get done with this quickly.”

“But Roland!  Remember what Mister Bligh said?  I might be finding out who I am!  Who I really, REALLY am!  Maybe I have a family!  A really real family!”

“I’m happy for you, Snug, I really am,” her guardian said as he stood up and pulled her away from the window, “But I’ve read up on this Bligh.  He doesn’t come cheap.  He’s a corporate lawyer.  We stand every chance of this taking a hard left turn at any moment, especially if this really is your family.”

“Why?” the brown-furred catgirl asked as she curled up on her bed, “Wouldn’t they just be happy that they found me?  I know I’m happy they found me!”

“If they are your family, Snug, then money’s involved, and money always makes people act stupid.  I’m just saying you need to temper your enthusiasm.  Be excited, but be a little cautious, too.”

“I’m gonna think positive!” Snug’s green eyes twinkled with mirth as she looked up at Roland, “I’m gonna meet my family!”

There was a knock at the door and Roland raised a finger for her to be quiet.  Stepping quietly toward the door, he asked who it was.

“Room service, sir,” was the reply.

Snuggle Purr’s tail twitched around with excitement as she smiled to Roland.  Grey, on the other hand, sidled up to the door to unlatch the chain.  Before he did, however, he planted his foot on the floor a few inches in front of the corner.

As soon as the chain was unlatched, whoever was on the other side of the door tried to bust it open.  The door stopped at Roland’s foot, however, and the next instant was filled with the sound of a man’s head colliding with the door.

Grey moved quickly for a big man.  He grabbed the door, yanked it open and charged through the opening.  Outside were a pair of men in gray coveralls.  One was clutching at his face as blood ran from his nose.  The other, holding a pair of bolt cutters, tried to bring them up to hit Roland, but the big man was already moving to shoulder tackle him into the wall.

“Call Nine-One-One,” Roland shouted back to Snuggle, “God damn it.  This is why I don’t miss this fucking city…”

He kicked the man he shoulder tackled in the chest then turned to the one complaining about his broken nose.  Grabbing the man by his collar, Roland swung him up and around to slam him to the floor.

“My nose!” the man blubbered.

“Yeah, yeah,” Grey muttered as he bunched the man’s wrists together with one hand, “Just tell me who sent you and the cops will have a description.”

“And if we don’t?” the other man asked as he got to his feet.

“If you don’t, you’re gonna wind up lookin’ a lot like your buddy here and I’m gonna work your ribs until they’re nice and tender.”

In the end, they didn’t talk, but they did surrender.  A few minutes later, the police arrived and took the men away.  Snuggle pouted throughout the proceedings, only voicing her concern when the goons were gone.

“Do you think they sent them after me?”

“No,” Roland replied, “There are a lot of factions in Omega that have a lot of hate for Dad and Kip.  Any of them could have seen us coming in here.  Mister Bligh and whoever he’s working with…  If they wanted to hurt you, they’d have hit us back at my house, we never would have met Bligh.  Besides, I never told him where we were staying.”

“Oh,” the catgirl squeaked, “So…  Who do you think did this?”

“I don’t know,” Roland growled, “They were surprised they were getting in a fight, though.  The look in their eyes…  More annoyed than anything.  They gave up after a couple hits.  I don’t like it.  That was a test, but I don’t know who’s testing us.  Once again, this is why I don’t miss this city.”

“Think it’s General DeWinter?” Snuggle asked, worry creeping into her voice, “Oh, I wish we brought Belinda and Lug…”

“DeWinter’s dead, and it wasn’t anybody in Grey’s Army that did that.  Even if it was some of his army’s remnants, they wouldn’t give a crap about us.   No, I…  I don’t think this was about you, Snug.  I just think the quicker we get out of here, the better.”

“Wait…  How did you know they were here to attack us?”

Roland smirked, “Do you remember ordering room service?”

Snuggle Purr’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a circle as she realized what her guardian was saying.  She followed this up with a mischievous smirk and her tail twitched.

The rest of the evening was spent sightseeing and eating dinner in a restaurant.  It was surprising how little had changed since the police department had taken over virtually all law enforcement duties in the city.  Freelance heroes still patrolled the streets, even the Liberty Brigade’s foot soldiers, the Minutemen, were a prevalent presence.

Halfway through their dinner, they received a call from Jeffrey Bligh.  He explained to them over Roland’s smartphone that they would be meeting in his office at one in the afternoon.  When the call ended, Roland nodded to Snuggle.

“Tone in his voice?  He wasn’t surprised to be talkin’ to us.  So, whoever was behind that attack earlier?  It don’t have anything to do with him.  Whoever’s responsible might still be involved with why we’re here, but I doubt it.”

“Well, that’s good,” Snuggle said between bites of her fish dinner, “This is so crispy!”

The next day had them just a couple blocks away from the hotel.  The office of Harrison, Parker and Bligh was located on the third floor of a glass and steel skyscraper.  Despite the modern exterior, the law office was all wood panel walls and velvet carpeting.  Secretaries, paralegals, junior partners and interns milled about, fielding the paperwork for all manner of cases while Roland and Snug waited.

Purr was decidedly less patient than her guardian.  Her tail twitched this way and that as she looked with intense interest at all of the people who passed them by.  Roland placed one of his large hands on one of her tiny, dainty ones and caught her eye.

“Calm down, girl.”

“But I can’t!” she whined, “Anybody who walks through here could be my father or my brother or my mother or my sister or-!”

“I get it,” Grey said as he gripped her hand warmly, “But you need to relax.”

Snuggle didn’t know that her presence was causing a bit of a disturbance in the office.  The lawyers of Harrison, Parker and Bligh got all kinds of clients, many of whom were certainly attractive.  Few, however, showed up in the office wearing a plaid skirt and a tight, low-cut T-shirt to cover their hourglass figure.

Eventually, they spotted Jeffrey Bligh walking into the office with a man in a blue blazer and matching slacks.  The younger man looked to be a little older than Roland, his brown hair close-cut with a right-hand part.  His green eyes were narrowed, like he was trying to burn holes into everything he saw and when he locked eyes on Snuggle, he stopped in his tracks.

“This is her?” he said derisively.

“Ah, Mister Walters, please step into my office, I will bring the young lady and her-…”

“Guardian,” Roland reminded the lawyer.

“Guardian in shortly.”

The other man glared at Jeffrey, anger radiating from him.  Snuggle Purr’s excitement died quickly and she frowned as the man walked by and pointedly avoided her gaze.  She looked worriedly to Roland and he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Well, I suppose we may as well get started,” Jeffrey said exasperatedly, “This is the Junior Walters.  The Senior Walters was unable to attend due to…  Ailing health.”

“Oh no!” Snuggle squeaked.

“Well, don’t be too worried, ma’am…  His doctors expect they’ll be able to treat him, so he’ll see many more years.  It’s just that…  Right now, he’s bed ridden.”

“So instead we have to deal with his irritable son?” Roland asked.

“Ah…” Jeffrey winced, “Yes.  It seems Kevin Walters Junior has some apprehension regarding the possibility of Miss Purr being his sister.”

“He’s my brother?” Snuggle bounced out of her chair, her eyes lighting up with excitement, “My last name is Walters?”

“Well, the bloodwork you and Mister Grey, here, sent out match the documents we have regarding Kevin’s missing sister within a ninety-nine percent range, so we believe you may be-.”

Snuggle didn’t listen to the rest and instead bolted for the door that the man in the navy blue suit had walked through.  Slamming it open startled Kevin Walters, and when he turned to look at the source of the disturbance, the catgirl jumped up with a squeal of happiness and tackled him to the floor in a tight hug.

“Brother!” she shouted.

“What the-JEFFREY!” Kevin shouted through her wild mane of hair, “Get her-!  GET HER OFF!”

“I know that’s technically assault,” Roland muttered as he and the lawyer walked into the room, “But I don’t think any jury would convict her.”

“I know,” Jeffrey agreed exasperatedly as he closed the door behind them, “But still…  Could you?”

Roland pried Snuggle off of Kevin Walters and helped the suit-clad man up.  Once he was upright, Kevin shook off Roland’s hand and straightened his outfit.  Jeffrey gestured to the chairs and they took their seats, with Kevin taking the left chair, Roland taking the right and Snuggle taking the middle chair.  From her perch, the catgirl looked keenly into Kevin’s face.

“You have green eyes like me!” she said happily.

“My eyes don’t have slitted pupils like you,” Kevin grumbled, “Let’s get this over with, Jeffrey.”

“Yes…  Well…” Jeffrey took his seat and opened his briefcase to retrieve some folders, “Here we are.”

He laid out a story for Roland and Snuggle’s benefit.  Roughly six years prior, during the reconstruction after the First Xenog Invasion, Veronica Walters was subjected to a radical experiment to save her life.  She had been suffering from ALS and she was breathing her last breaths when her father, Kevin Walters Sr., approved the use of alien technology in a desperate gamble to save her.

The results were unpredictable.  When Bligh described the process, Roland and Snug looked to each other with concern.  It involved a modified mutagen that the aliens used to create shock troops out of the indigenous population.  It was the same process used to create the Gudari, just a different mixture.

The end result was unexpected to say the least.  Unfortunately, as the experiment was being conducted by MegaDynamics Incorporated, the Walters family didn’t get to learn the result.  Then there was an undisclosed “incident,” and the next the Walters family knew, their cherished daughter, whom they had invested roughly ten million dollars into her recovery, had simply vanished.

“I’d ask for the date this happened,” Roland grumbled, “but I don’t have the paperwork for when my friends found Snug by their apartment building.  What was Miss Walters’s name?”

“Veronica,” Jeffrey replied.

This drew a derisive snort from Kevin Walters Jr.  He was hoping they could hold off on naming his missing sister.  So far, Roland and Snuggle Purr were acting like they had no idea who the Walters family was, but he didn’t know if it was because they genuinely didn’t know who they were or if it was because they hadn’t properly researched their scam.  Now this bimbo catgirl could just start calling herself Veronica and hug everybody until they all believed she was his missing sister.  Meanwhile, his real sister could be out there, alone and destitute.

Roland vaguely recalled the story of a missing girl named Veronica Walters, but it was a half-remembered memory.  He thought it might have been playing on a television when he and his friends were investigating something, so he never really got the details.

Snuggle, however, was suddenly crushed.  She sank into her chair, her tail no longer swishing with excitement.  Her pupils narrowed significantly, then dilated suddenly.  Her pointed ears twitched back as she frowned and tried to push herself deeper into the leather chair.

“Snug?” Roland asked.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she whimpered.
Roland Grey and Snuggle Purr return to Omega City to talk with the lawyer that claimed to know Snuggle's real identity.  While there, they're reminded of the reasons why they left the city rather than keep on working as superheroes.  However, just getting attacked by some thugs may prove to be the least of their worries before this trip is through.
© 2015 - 2024 Levi-K-Whitney
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Knight3000's avatar
Good story Roland